FEATURE: Celebrating an Underrated Christmas Classic: Kate Bush’s December Will Be Magic Again at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Celebrating an Underrated Christmas Classic

 

Kate Bush’s December Will Be Magic Again at Forty-Five

__________

EVEN though there was no music video…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for her 1979 Christmas Special, Kate/PHOTO CREDIT: TV Times

for this track, I think that December Will Be Magic Again is one of Kate Bush’s best singles. One of the best Christmas tracks. It was originally recorded in 1979 and premiered during the Christmas Snowtime Special, which was broadcast on 22nd December, 1979 in the U.K., though it was not officially released until 17th November 1980. Its B-side is the brilliant Warm and Soothing. That song was the first thing she ever recorded at Abbey Road Studios. December Will Be Magic Again was issued as the follow-up to Army Dreamers (from 1980’s Never for Ever). Quite a shift in terms of themes, many were not expecting a Christmas single from Kate Bush after something like Army Dreamers! However, this is not her only Christmas song. Home for Christmas was released in 1992. It originally appeared in the BBC television The Comic Strip Presents film, Wild Turkey, screened on 24th December, 1992. It was then included as the B-side on the U.K. release of Moments of Pleasure (a single from 1993’s The Red Shoes). However, December Will Be Magic Again is the superior track. Marking forty-five years of a classic, I want to get to some December Will Be Magic Again background. I am going to repeat some details I put into previous features, as I write about this song every year. As she (sadly) had become used to at this point, Bush was subjected to sexism and criticism from some of the ‘cooler’ music papers. Those who felt she was too twee or a novelty. This is some of the criticism that December Will Be Magic Again received:

“Looks like we’ll have to endure that fairy Kate Bush… over the cash-register season… Kate is “cute”… and no doubt you’ll be force fed, as you will with turkey.

Andy Gill, NME, 29 November 1980

Sounding like she’s just been rutted from the rear with a particularly rampant reindeer, Kate reminds us of the joys of the season at considerable length and expense. Lush, sentimental, extravagantly produced… destined to become a Christmas irritation; and airwave itch you won’t be able to scratch.

Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 6 December 1980”.

It must have been upsetting for Bush to see such words printed! However, whilst these press idiots are wrong and didn’t recognise a great Christmas song when they heard it, luckily, fans have embraced it! Played around this time each year, you do hear it on stations like BBC Radio 2. It is one of those songs I always gravitate towards. Even if there are some conventional and traditional Christmas images, Kate Bush laces in images that are distinctly from her: “Light the candle-lights/To conjure Mr. Wilde/Into the Silent Night/Ooh, it’s quiet inside/Here in Oscar’s mind”. Reaching number twenty-nine in the U.K., I think that December Will Be Magic Again should be reissued as a single. It would do well today. With a fairly simple and effective composition, it is a magical song that stays in the heart. The chorus is quite dizzying: “Like the snow/Come to cover the lovers/(Cover the lovers,/But don’t you wake them up)/Come to sparkle the dark up/(Sparkle the dark up/With just a touch of make-up)/Come to cover the muck up/(Cover the muck up/Ooh, with a little luck)/December will be magic again”. I think my favourite live version of the song was for the Christmas Special, Kate, which was broadcast on 28th December, 1979, and features Bush on piano and Kevin McAlea on keyboards and electric piano. In 2020, Abbey Road Studios celebrated forty years of the single. That is the studio where the song was recorded. They shared the recording times and when the final mix happened. A great artefact! Tune Tempest heralded a Christmas classic for this amazing feature:

“December Will Be Magic Again” was released as a standalone single in November 1980, during a pivotal period in Kate Bush’s career. Having already solidified her reputation as a visionary artist with three successful studio albums (The Kick Inside, Lionheart, and Never for Ever), Bush was exploring new creative directions. The song arrived as a festive offering to her growing fanbase, showcasing her ability to weave seasonal charm into her distinctive sound.

While the track wasn’t tied to a specific album, it reflected her flair for theatrical storytelling and vivid imagery. Its origins were likely influenced by Bush’s deep appreciation for nostalgia and fantasy, themes that permeate much of her work. The lyrics reference classic holiday traditions and figures like Bing Crosby, suggesting an homage to the golden age of Christmas music. Bush’s jazzy, playful arrangement nods to the genre’s rich history while remaining unmistakably her own.

Musical Composition

“December Will Be Magic Again” showcases Kate Bush’s signature knack for blending unconventional musical elements into a cohesive and enchanting sound. The song’s instrumentation is lush and dynamic, opening with a twinkling piano melody that evokes the warmth and wonder of the holiday season. Layered with orchestral flourishes, jazzy rhythms, and playful percussion, the arrangement feels both whimsical and sophisticated, capturing the festive spirit in a way that’s uniquely Kate Bush.

Bush’s ethereal vocals are the centerpiece, effortlessly shifting between soft, intimate tones and soaring, exuberant heights. Her voice dances around the melody with an almost childlike sense of joy, yet retains the depth and artistry that define her music. Notably, the song incorporates an unconventional rhythm, with a swing-like quality that gives it a lively, jazzy feel—setting it apart from the solemn ballads or cheerful jingles typical of Christmas music.

Key features that make the song stand out include the vivid use of dynamics and Bush’s intricate vocal phrasing, which imbue the track with an air of theatricality. The production captures a sense of wonder, as if inviting listeners to step into a holiday dreamscape, making it a standout among seasonal offerings.

Cultural Impact

Upon its release in November 1980, “December Will Be Magic Again” was met with a warm, albeit modest, reception. While it did not achieve the commercial heights of other holiday staples, the song was appreciated by fans and critics for its originality and Kate Bush’s unmistakable artistry. Its whimsical charm stood apart from the predictable fare of Christmas music, making it a cult favorite among her loyal following.

The song was notably performed during Bush’s appearance on the 1979 BBC television special, Kate, where she delivered an enchanting rendition that highlighted her theatrical flair. In this performance, Bush’s expressive movements and ethereal stage presence brought the festive imagery of the song to life, solidifying it as a visual and auditory holiday treat. This version is often remembered as one of the definitive interpretations of the track.

Why It’s Unique Among Christmas Songs

“December Will Be Magic Again” stands out among Christmas songs for its ability to capture the holiday spirit without relying on the standard tropes of the genre. While many festive tracks lean heavily on predictable jingles, choral refrains, and overt cheer, Kate Bush takes a more nuanced and artistic approach, blending her signature ethereal style with an imaginative celebration of the season.

The song’s tone is whimsical and dreamlike rather than overtly celebratory. Bush paints vivid, poetic images—snowflakes falling, reindeer riding across her room—that evoke a sense of wonder and magic unique to her perspective. Her jazzy arrangement and unconventional rhythms diverge from the traditional march of sleigh bells and carols, offering a fresh sonic palette that feels more like an intimate, theatrical performance than a festive sing-along.

Rather than focusing solely on overt joy, Bush’s lyrics embrace the reflective and nostalgic aspects of the season. References to Bing Crosby and the golden age of Christmas music ground the song in tradition, but she reimagines these elements through her singular lens, avoiding cliché. Her use of metaphors, such as falling snow symbolizing beauty and transience, adds a layer of depth that transforms the song into an evocative piece of storytelling”.

There are articles like this that tell the story of December Will Be Magic Again. Also, Dreams of Orgonon wrote about this Christmas gem in 2019. Even if they feel it does not have too much meat on the bones, it was Kate Bush’s first Christmas track, and one that I feel is worthy of a lot more praise and investigation:

“Bush doesn’t completely break from this pattern, as “December” is straightforwardly nostalgic. From the longing for the past implied by its title to its dwelling on childhood images, the song spends it runtime on a reconstruction of Christmas childhood memories. Bush settles into the falsetto end of her vocal range, singing lots of high notes with a wonder usually only prepubescents can manage. Bush has exactly the sort of voice which makes lyrics like “take a husky to the ice/while Bing Crosby sings “White Christmas”/he makes you feel nice” sound cutely intuitive in a way we’re not prone to seeing in things like “Wonderful Christmastime.”

Yet for its exercise in nostalgia, it separates itself from the mainstream of Christmas music by being a little too eccentric to be quite marketable (the song did pretty well in the charts, but was far from one of Bush’s bestselling singles). Bush’s own East Wickham childhood makes its way into the song. She has a refreshing tendency to lean on her own interests in her songwriting, which liberates “December” from feeling too commercial. There are the obvious references to staples of Christmastime like “old Saint Nicholas) (who is grossly maligned by the entire UK as “Father Christmas”) and romantic traditions (“kiss under mistletoe”), but they’re balanced by images of Oscar Wilde showing up: “light the candle lights/to conjure Mr. Wilde/ooh, it’s quiet inside/here in Oscar’s mind.”

The song expresses this in an offbeat way in how it splits the focus between Christmassy bits and more generic moments about December’s atmosphere and snow “com[ing] to cover the dark up,” but it’s still just a reasonably fun Christmas song. Bush seems to think more of it, however, as she recorded a number of different versions of the song. “December” made its debut in, of course, a 1979 BBC program embarrassingly called The Christmas Snowtime Special, featuring performances from ABBA, Boney M, and Bonnie Tyler. This version of the song proves counterintuitive, as in addition to its standard Christmas bells it has drummer Preston Heyman playing bongos. It’s a conga-inflected recording like “Room for the Life,” which is… not what you’d expect a song boasting lyrics about Bing Crosby and Oscar Wilde. Even stranger is the song’s accompanying video, with an obviously stoned Bush wearing red pajamas whirling around in a red armchair and relishing whatever strain Santa has brought for her. By far the most extravagant video of the song, it’s an underrated classic of Bush’s videography that should be taught in every film studies class.

The next TV performance of the song appeared in the “Kate” special, and is by far its more minimalist production. There’s a simple setup of Bush at the piano with Kevin McAlea playing keyboards behind her, while Preston Heyman rings small bells during the chorus. Stripped of its artifice, “December” is a pleasantly quiet little tune, placing Bush’s vocals and melody at its center. Admittedly this was the “December Will Be Magic Again” I knew before writing this blog post, and its unobtrusiveness makes it the preferable recording for me. Bush’s strengths often lie in maximalism (wait until we get to “Breathing” or “Waking the Witch”), but working as an acoustic artist lets her shine as a singer-pianist as well.

Finally there’s the single version of the song that made it to #29 in the UK (it fared better in Ireland, a consistent supporter of Bush, where it reached #13) and it gets the final say on how this song gets read. Released two months after Never for Ever, it’s a standalone single that clearly wants to fill the “Wuthering Heights” and “Wow” archetype. Never for Ever is decidedly less a pop record than its predecessors, and pointedly lacks a sweeping dramatic single about the power of youthful precocity. Releasing a nostalgic paean like “December Will Be Magic Again” in its wake is an odd move, one that feels like Bush is pushing against the current trajectory of her songwriting in order to revive a song that debuted before “Babooshka.” That’s understandable — serious artists get to do silly holiday anthems as well. The problem with the single recording of “December Will Be Magic Again” is that it’s convinced the song merits the same seriousness as “Wuthering Heights” and “Wow.” It’s overproduced to hell, sounding more like a Phil Collins track than a Christmas ballad with its slow, powerful drumming, soaring guitar solos, and agonizingly overstated backing vocals from Bush. It’s hard to figure out why Bush recorded this song so many times — perhaps her perfectionism took over for a while. Whatever the case, it’s much easier to imagine this song working as a quiet piano-driven B-side for, say, “Army Dreamers,” which already had “Passing Through Air” for backmatter. The single is mistimed, needing to be set back a year or so for it to work.

Yet with “December Will Be Magic Again,” we see the end of a certain kind of Bush song. It’s her last track that can be feasibly reimagined as hailing from her pre-Kick Inside years, with its relish for childhood delights and simple attributes of a domestic environment. That approach has reached a breaking point. From now on her quiet songs will be more adult and introspective. She’s going to do silly songs in the future, of course — but even the silly stuff often carries plenty of weight. Bush’s earlier work is an ambitious testament to what youthful artistry can accomplish. Few songwriters are particularly mature early in their career. With Bush, a lot of her recurring themes from across her career are already in place on her first couple albums. For all its shortcomings, “December Will Be Magic Again” signals the end of Bush as prodigy as she moves into the era of the Fairlight, global conflict, and becoming a masterful singer to rival Peter Gabriel. Farewell, last of the Phoenix tradition. You’ve carried us far.

Recorded at London AIR Studios in 1979. Performed on 22 December for BBC Snowtime Special and 28 December for “Kate” special. Single version recorded in November 1980. Released as a single on 17 November 1980”.

Turning forty-five on 17th November, the beautiful and underrated December Will Be Magic Again is a jewel that I love hearing every year. It is not really Christmas until we hear this song! I have highlighted some negative reviews. In 1990, Stuart Maconie declared December Will Be Magic Again as "one of the neatest Christmas tunes since Spector" in his This Woman's Work box-set review. Ronnie Gurr of Smash Hits described it thus: "novel with her optimistic December operetta”. So not everyone was trashing it! On its forty-fifth anniversary, I hope that this majestic song gets the…

LOVE it deserves.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Panic Shack

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

PHOTO CREDIT: Taiye Omokore for KLAT

 

Panic Shack

__________

I went and saw…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ren Faulkner

the mighty Panic Shack in Manchester back on 16th October at Academy 2. The band have some amazing European dates coming up, and they play here again in December. The Welsh quartet are made up on Sarah Harvey, Meg Fretwell, Romi Lawrence, Em Smith - and Nick Doherty-Williams (who plays drums for them but is not in publicity photos). Their album, Panic Shack, was released in July. I shall come to a review of that. I spotlighted Panic Shack in 2022. A lot has happened in the past few years. They were extraordinary when I saw them play in Manchester. Such a powerful, playful and astonishing live act, I definitely want to see them again! I will come to some interviews with them. I want to start back in 2023. Panic Shack spoke with The Skinny about the Middle-classification of music. A band that were labelled as nepo-babies and industry plants, they called out the industry and told it like it was:

“With a name like Megan Fretwell, it should have been a giveaway that she might make a perfect punk guitarist. Despite racking up slots at Primavera and Glastonbury this summer though, Fretwell and her punk peers that make up Welsh DIY fem group Panic Shack only began playing together a few years ago. She dials into our call with a brew alongside fellow bandmates Romi Lawrence and Em Smith (the latter is considered the group’s 'real' musician having played bass in bands since she was 18). The trio are lined up on Smith’s leather couch like the opening credits of Friends.

Completed by Sarah Harvey on vocals and David Bassey on drums, the band deserves a bit of a sit down after a whirlwind ride since forming at the tail end of 2018. The last few years have seen them appear on the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds, supporting Northern lot Yard Act and earlier this year they sold out their own string of headline dates across the UK. But it was Worthy Farm that made the biggest impression so far. “We felt lucky to be able to go to Glastonbury and then the fact that people turned up!” jokes Fretwell. “We weren't mentally prepared. We went on for soundcheck and they were like, 'Okay, just start!'” jokes Lawrence, clearly flummoxed.

It was in a different verdant setting that the catalyst for the group sparked after years of feeling frustrated watching their male peers perform. “It was the first time that the four of us had gone to Green Man Festival together,” explains Smith. “When we got back, we had a buzz going on [our] group chat. We were like 'Shall we do it?'” Like the 70s spirit of punk, Panic Shack channel that do-it-yourself resourcefulness in spades. Even if Lawrence was tentative about fully embracing the role. “I used to get shy and nervous, especially about playing guitar. But then I thought, 'There's no way I can watch my best friends be in a band and not be in it!'”

Getting to grips with bar chords, the foursome quickly began songwriting together. Early single Jiu Jits You was a BBC 6Music mainstay with its Kill Bill cool wandering basslines and scrappy guitars. Alongside their kung fu capers, Panic Shack’s Baby Shack EP sketches relatable stories of young adults scrimping and saving, even if it’s dressed up with a hefty dose of satire. Who’s Got My Lighter? conjures up balmy evenings passing the Amber Leaf pouch around the pub garden. While the touring band service station staple gets a nod in Meal Deal, as Harvey exclaims: 'I’m going out for a meal deal because my flat is fucking freezing / I can’t stand it any longer / Can just about afford my heating'.

Even with the band’s obvious hard graft and modest incomes, their working-class credentials have been criticised in the past. “We had this thing on TikTok, where people were saying that we were private school girlies [and] that we were cosplaying the working class,” says Smith. “You can call me an ugly slag and I'll be fine. Yeah, whatever. If you call me posh, I'm like ‘No.’” The Britpop era of the 90s boomed with working-class heroes like the Gallagher brothers and Madchester kingpins Happy Mondays. In the noughties though, certain pop artists (looking at you, Jamie T and Lily Allen) were called out for their hammed-up cockney characters only to confess they’d both attended private schools. So where are we with the middle-classification of music in 2023?

“Now more than ever, the playing field is off balance. Everyone gets a leg up,” believes Smith. But the tension is being magnified as rising artists are facing a whole new level of background checks, not unlike the towering touring policies for bands in a post-Brexit EU. “The discourse has changed now where people have to prove that they're not posh. Like with the whole nepotism discussions, it's starting to become a little bit nasty.” (See the recent comments on Picture Parlour’s NME cover or the now-notorious 'industry plants', The Last Dinner Party).

There’s nothing more telling of the band’s current situation though than their output so far. There’s a reason why they’ve spent close to the last 52 weeks on the road. “Class is a much harder barrier to get into music,” reflects Lawrence. “It's why we've still not released an album yet,” interjects Fretwell. “Everyone's like, 'Where's the album?' Do you know how much it costs to put an album out? We've got rent to pay!” So much so that when Panic Shack packed down the rigs from their heroic set in the Shangri-La fields this summer, they headed home to Wales the next day and back to work. “You need a lot of money to be able to do this and we don't have anything we can fall back on,” says Fretwell. “We've got to work our arses off to do this [but] we're at this tipping point where we can't stop now. And I don’t want to”.

I am going to move to an interview from July from Rolling Stone UK in promotion of Panic Shack’s astonishing self-titled debut album. On their acclaimed album, these hugely close friends “self-mythologise while having a right laugh along the way”. If you have not heard Panic Shack, then go and listen to it now:

“‘Girl Band Starter Pack’, the first song from the debut album by Cardiff quartet Panic Shack, was also the first song they ever wrote. The ludicrously fun punk rager serves as a perfect introduction to the group, as well as somewhat of a theme song for the band.

In their own words on the track’s bridge, they sing: “We get loose, we get lairy, we get wild, we get crazy / We get naughty, we get silly, we get loud, we get freaky.” In its chorus, things are simpler but no less impactful: “Woooo! Shack shack!”

In the seven years since they formed, Panic Shack have evolved and bolstered their sound, arriving at album time with a greater musicality, a prioritisation of fun and directness in their lyrics, and the same inseparable bond that has existed since the start.

The debut album – out this month via Brace Yourself Records – begins with voice recordings from the smoking area of an Amyl and the Sniffers gig, and the whole album vibrates with this sense of buzz and excitement.

Ahead of the album’s release, we speak to the band’s Sarah Harvey (vocals) and Em Smith (bass/backing vocals) about their evolution, the album as an introduction to Panic Shack, and why their reasons for forming the band are more valid than ever today.

Read our Play Next interview with Panic Shack and listen to them on our Play Next playlist on Spotify below.

When you formed the band, you did so as a reaction to exclusionary, male-heavy spaces in rock and punk music – do you still see those existing today?

Sarah: We did it because we thought, ‘Hey, if they can do it, we can do it! Let’s just have a go.’ We always get lumped together as “female-fronted”, and there are so many more people doing it now.

Tell us about ‘Girl Band Starter Pack’, the song that began it all…

Em: It’s had so many versions. We started writing it with our first drummer, and that was three drummers ago! It’s our anthem, innit? It sums us up as friends and a girl group, taking things too far…

Sarah: A simple coffee can turn into 3am.

With this album being an introduction to the world of Panic Shack, what’s your elevator pitch for the band?

Em: It’s a spirit and a friendship. It’s our humour.

Sarah: We like not taking ourselves too seriously, mixing the light and the dark is. You can have some dark concepts, but we always try and keep it quite light. That’s really Panic Shack, lways bringing the fun to every sad occasion. Get us at your funerals”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ren Faulkner

I am going to move to Kerrang! There is so much wit and bite to Panic Shack’s debut album. I can attest that they are a sensational and unforgettable live act. Kerrang! caught them in July, where they discussed, among other things, “bin men, body image and why their bond is “unbreakable” after seven years”:

“Happy-go-lucky closer Thelma & Louise is a love letter to their friendships, while Girl Band Starter Pack and Pockets (‘Making jeans without them remains a mystery / And tonight I kinda wanted to be hands-free’) transport us live and direct to one of their (many) wild nights out. Four drag queens play Panic Shack in the music video for the former, maybe giving us an insight into what the inevitable biopic could look like.

“We want a documentary one day, there’s so much footage over the years!” confirms Meg.

Things only get more obscene. Personal Best recounts the moment Emily decided to take magic mushrooms, four miles into running a marathon around the streets of Cardiff. “Performance-enhancing drugs!” quips Sarah. Unhinged, meanwhile, reels off all the Hinge prompts that make us shudder on a daily basis.

Then there’s SMELLARAT, which tears down predatory male behaviour, using one of many words that Panic Shack have invented. “We were walking through Newport, really pissed, and we started spitting bars about the bin men,” recounts Emily.

“Romi is terrified of rats, and one ran past us,” adds Meg. “It fit this ratty, horrible person that lives in Cardiff.” Sarah joins the dots together. “We had this song about ‘rat boy’, and the song about bin men – let’s combine them. Poof, magic!”

The album took shape with Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, The Mysterines) across nine “exciting-slash-overwhelming” days in Bristol – which included a brief trip to see Amyl And The Sniffers. Such financial and time constraints made sure that their collective “stream of consciousness” took centre stage, when it came to moulding the album into shape. Gok Wan, for example, was brought to fruition within a “cathartic” two hours, calling out the toxic standards that women’s bodies are constantly subjected to in the media.

“I was reading a magazine the other day, and one of the headlines was, ‘Men ageing like fine wine,’” says Emily. “Then you’ve got, ‘Look at this fat bitch’ – men get away with so much.” Inspired by gossip magazines and episodes of Trinny & Susannah – “to get us in the mood” – it’s a song that remains alarmingly poignant.

“It references TV shows from the ’00s, but it is still relevant today, [because of] the beauty standards that women are having to contend with, and the fact that they are constantly changing,” says Romi.

When we ask how many more thoughts they’re dying to express in musical form, all four vivaciously nod their heads in unison. While the core punk sensibilities and hyper-specific lyrical style have put them on the map, this album’s brief electronic and art-rock escapades prove that Panic Shack have a million tricks up their sleeve, whenever the world is ready for them. But crucially, it all stems from that killer instinct”.

There are a couple of other interviews I am keen to cover off before wrapping up with a review. DIY caught up with them in August. Noticing how Panic Shack might have started wit bonding sessions down the pub and some in-jokes, they are a “ridiculously fun breath of fresh air”. A band that have plenty of fun but are also putting plenty of thought-provoking words into their interviews and music. Challenging sexism, misogyny and sh*t in the world. Inspiring to see:

“For the band, the songwriting - and storytelling - always stems from “a bit of a joke” or “a common, shared lived experience” that will just “snowball” from there, Meg explains. This element of the everyday is vital to Panic Shack’s work, she continues, as such mundane yet important moments - from bitching sessions in the women’s toilets on nights out, to the excitement of being with your friends, or even talking about creepy men they face - are “not really reflected in music”.

The band want their songs to be realistic; they want the audience to feel as if they’re living through the experience in question. The aim, Sarah notes, is to make people “really put [themselves] in someone’s shoes - and that’s quite powerful as well, because it’s women’s shoes.”

However, to simply call a female artist or a band of women ‘feminist’ and move on is a disservice. That label doesn’t tell you what they sound like; it doesn’t encapsulate their high-energy, free-spirited punk sound, or the fun of their surf-rock and indie-pop sensibilities, and lumping all female-fronted bands together reduces their work to gender alone. Sarah just shrugs at that kind of ignorance. “We’re four friends, having a laugh and whatever happens, happens… Even though we take it very seriously, it’s not too serious.”

“I do also feel that, being a woman, you feel like you’ve got something to prove [at first], so you kind of put on a bit more of a front… [Now], I don’t give a fuck,” Em nonchalantly smiles. This attitude helps when the band are sometimes grouped with the same group of artists - acts as sonically varied as Lambrini Girls, Wet Leg, or Pale Waves - all because of their gender. It’s a point met with a collective, exasperated sigh. “We love them all, but there are so many other bands that you could compare us to,” Sarah all but rolls her eyes. “Why are you comparing us [to them] just because we’re female-fronted? [Do] men get compared to the [same] three bands in every interview?”

Despite the bullshit, Panic Shack are more than comfortable in their own skin, and those rehearsals-turned-nights out are still a pillar of their four-way friendship. Their carefree, fun-chasing spirits haven’t dwindled throughout the process; rather, they’ve become stronger. “It doesn’t really matter what day of the week it is to me still,” laughs Meg. Nearly ten years into being a band, they’re fundamentally no different: piecing together a collage of influences that scream with pop sensibilities in a post-punk setting, they’re just four mates, having a laugh, and making ferociously bold art in the process”.

Meg Fretwell and Romi Lawrence spoke with The Line of Best Fit about their debut album. Keen to emphasise the fact that they have not come out of nowhere and their debut has been seven years in the making, I know that next year is going to be a really busy and exciting one for the quartet. Make sure they are on your radar:

“Despite being mislabelled as disingenuous industry plants, it’s been a long, arduous journey to get to where they are. But the best part? They’ve had the time of their lives: “We were always the ones to start the party; we were getting people to dance and bringing the vibes.”

“We’d get trolleyed after every rehearsal and do really silly stuff. It’s a crazy busy world and it’s full of lots of leopard print and vodka soda limes and cherry ice vapes,” Fretwell says of the early days of the band. It’s from touring with acts such as Soft Play, however, that they learned to turn the party down every once in a while: “We’ve learned from some of the other bands not to cane it too hard on the booze – the big bands don’t necessarily drink as much as we do,” she continues. “We’ve learned to pick and choose when we have that extra vodka.”

With comparisons to the leaders of the Riot Grrrl movement, Meg Fretwell notes Kathleen Hanna as a heavy inspiration: “I really loved a documentary called The Punk Singer – it’s about Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill. It was very inspiring to my graphic design work, which I was studying, but I never thought I was going to be in a band.” Asked how Panic Shack align with the Riot Grrrl ethos, they offer: “I think it’s doing DIY from the very start. We’re authentic and we’re also women, and I’m glad that maybe we’re inspiring people in some way.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Ren Faulkner

On their debut record, Panic Shack, this authenticity shines through. “It’s almost like a stream of consciousness of our lived and joint experiences… that we have as a friendship group,” Fretwell shares. “It’s also a wider commentary on being women – but the point was to introduce the world to us, and how it feels to be us.”

Although its predecessor is titled Baby Shack, this new release is by no means Adult Shack: “It’s a step-up but it’s not full-on adult yet, maybe teenage,” Fretwell explains. “Even on Baby Shack we touch on important things, and there’s serious undertones on the album, but we’ve approached it in our own silly way.”

The album closer, “Thelma & Louise”, perfectly demonstrates the love they have for each other, not just as a band, but as a chosen family. Even on tour, when most artists might want a break and a breather, Panic Shack choose to share rooms. “We still want to spend all of our time together, which maybe for other people is crazy, but we never get bored of each other,” Lawrence says. For this reason, “Thelma & Louise”, a tender yet punchy cut, was always destined to take its place on the tracklist, with them “not seeing it any other way.”

“We wrote all the songs alongside each other, so it just felt like the most natural place for it. It’s a bit more of a ballad if we were ever to have one. We discussed how we were going to order the album and it just had to be that one – it just made sense.”

With their debut album release fast approaching, and Glastonbury, SXSW, and huge support slots under their belt, Panic Shack have two main goals yet to hit: touring the world, and making their music a full time job. “It’s a humble goal, but I feel like it’s hard for working class musicians to achieve that – I think we’re close, we just need to keep pushing,” Lawrence concludes”.

I am ending with a positive review for Panic Shack. An album that was shown so much love, it is important to see what critics thought of. Panic Shack were recently on Later… with Jools Holland and have these great European gigs ahead. An authentic and hugely fun debut album, Panic Shack is one of this year’s very best. This is what CLASH noted about Panic Shack:

“Within about 10 seconds of Panic Shack’s debut album erupting in your ear lobes you know this band are The Real Deal. Unbelievably entertaining guitar pop that fuses Ramones style chug with clipped Buzzcocks guitar lines, the Cardiff band blend this with lyrics that are thought-provoking and side-splittingly funny in equal measure.

A debut album that is extremely difficult to fault, Panic Shack aim for all-killer and no-filler. ‘Girl Band Starter Pack’ is a breathless opener, ‘Gok Wan’ is a Runaways-style middle finger to toxic tabloid culture, and ‘Tit School’ is an Amyl and the Sniffers adjacent celebration of working class women (and Double Ds).

A record so evocatively laden with peaks that it makes the Alps look like as a flat as a plastic football pitch, ‘Panic Shack’ is basically the most fun you’ll have with a British debut this year. How could you fail to love an album with a track called ‘We Need To Talk About Dennis’, for example? And if ‘Unhinged’ doesn’t move you, well it’s time for a hip replacement.

A girl gang unafraid to race close to the edge – why else did they write a song called ‘Thelma & Louise’ – Panic Shack are bound by a cause. There’s no lack of conscious punk doing the rounds right now, but where the Cardiff band do it differently is by remembering that this is supposed to be fun. Favouring gig venues over lecture halls, Panic Shack have crafted a riveting debut album, one that leaves you grinning like an idiot while they take down all the sh*t this world can throw at them. An absolute gem, crafted by four absolute gems.

8/10”.

One of my favourite bands, it has been a pleasure including them in Spotlight: Revisited. Such an amazing and tight-knit force, Sarah Harvey, Meg Fretwell, Romi Lawrence and Em Smith are simply amazing. One of the most important bands out there, it will be exciting seeing what 2026 holds in store. Even though they have been together a while and working hard to get where they are, I feel their very best days…

LIE ahead.

_______________

Follow Panic Shack

FEATURE: Spotlight: Ellur

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Oglesby 

 

Ellur

__________

I thought that I had…

already spotlighted the brilliant Ellur. Real name Ella McNamara (Ellur is named after the Yorkshire pronunciation of her name), she is an artist I have admired for a long time now, so I shamefully assumed I had included her on my blog and would revisit her at a later date. However, checking at past articles, it doesn’t look like I have! So, overdue, I am exploring this remarkable young artist. This stunning and enormously talented songwriter was born in Halifax (Yorkshire) and has been on the scene a little while now. I think I first heard her back in 2020 and singles like Reflection and I Don’t Know What We Are, caught my ear. Even though she has that half-decade of exposure and great music, I would consider her an artist in the ascendancy still. Not known to all, this is an opportunity to highlight this phenomenal talent. There are not that many recent interviews, so I have dipping into some slightly older chats. One of my favourite singles of the year is Missing Kid. The Line of Best Fit were among those who reacted to the single release. From her new E.P., The World Is Not An Oyster, it is a track that is embedded in my mind. Let’s go back to 2020 for the first interview. When I Make It To LA! had probably never spoken to an artist from Halifax! However, it was a chance for American readers to discover this new artist. Speaking around the release of Alive, we do get some useful background and insight into Ellur:

“How did you start making music?

So I started making and writing  music when I was around 10 or 11, I think I wrote a song on the piano, using the same chords as Adele’s “Someone Like You”, which would probably explain why a lot of the songs I write tend to be in a pop ballad style! (I’m yet to release any of those though haha). I think, growing up around music and bands and gigs and festivals, it’s meant that I just live for music now. Going to gigs is a great place for inspiration and, despite the current circumstances, I just want to be performing!

Which artist has had the biggest influence on your style?

It’s hard to choose just one artist as I immerse myself in so many different genres and types of artists. I think it would only be fair, though, to say my Dad as if I hadn’t grown up surrounded by music and hadn’t met so many bands and been to so many live shows I may have never chosen a career in music. I’ve also grown up listening to him write songs all the time and so I take a lot from his writing processes. It’s so great now that I get a chance to work collaboratively with him as we work really well together and it’s so easy because the studio’s in house too haha! He really is my musical idol though, his songwriting is truly phenomenal”.

In Your Ears Music interviewed Ellur in January 2024. About to embark on a busy year, one could say this year has been even more packed for her. Wonderful that so many people are reacting to her music. An artist I have left off of this blog for no good reason! I hope this provides an overdue apology and some form of recompense:

“First off you’re from Halifax, a place that has so many wonderful places close by like Hebden Bridge. Is there anywhere you like to go when you write your music?

I tend to write from the comfort of my bedroom. Writing, for me, requires a really safe and intimate environment. For me that’s my room. It’s somewhere I can look inwardly without judging myself, which is something I find really important when it comes to writing.

The music you write is about the challenges and thrills of modern day romance and break-ups with compelling originality. Can you explain why?

It’s (unfortunately) something I know a lot about and I choose to write about it because I think it’s something we can all relate to. Heartbreak is a fact of life but having music and art to turn to during times of need is a really special thing. I’m very grateful and very lucky I get to do what I do.

You have supported some incredible female artists recently like Brooke Coombe and Rianne Downey, How was that? Who would be the one artist you would love to support?

BILLIE. EILISH. Dream support slot. She’s the future of music.

Your latest track Satellites is a brilliant song about the disintegration of relationships you have witnessed from a young age, Can you tell us more about the track?

It’s probably the saddest song I’ve released to date (but I secretly think the saddest songs are the best ones). I wrote it with a brilliant writer named Dan Bryer. When I entered his studio back in summer I told him I wanted to write a song that felt timeless. One that I could still sing in my sixties and it still hold a lot of truth. One of my favourite songs is Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell and it was the main reference track when writing and recording the song. The orchestral performance she did in 2000 is my favourite live performance of all time. What a woman”.

I am going to come to some more recent interviews. Let’s now head to Formidable Beats and their interview from June 2024. We discover new things about Ellur. Even though I have heard some of her songs on the radio, I don’t think she is as shared and played as widely as she should be. She is genuinely one of our finest young artists. Someone who deserves to play some huge stages:

“Could you walk us through your songwriting process? Where do you draw inspiration from, and how do you translate that into your music?

The writing process is really changing for me at the moment. I’m in the territory of writing my first album and my main inspiration for that is self-awareness and honesty. I want it to feel like a documentation of everything so far.  When I sit down to write it’s usually after I’ve reflected upon feelings and experiences and then I try to make a song that sounds like how I feel. I used to just sit down and write about romance and other people or write about myself and disguise it as a ‘love song’ or a ‘break up song’ because I was scared of being vulnerable. A lot of my writing recently has been an admission of how I feel and how I am. These days, if it feels vulnerable then I like to think I’m probably doing something right.

Live performance is an important aspect of being a musician. What do you enjoy most about performing live, and do you have any memorable onstage moments you’d like to share?

Live performance is me truly expressing myself and letting go in the moment. I suffer with anxiety and the stage is the only place where I really allow myself to be me. That has always been the most exciting thing. I love connecting with people on stage, making eye contact, singing with people, allowing people to let go and move with me. I’ve just done my first headline tour and to play to hundreds of people who knew my music and joined me in the moment was amazing. I want to share my music and connect with more and more people. It’s a really unbelievable feeling.

Looking ahead, what are your goals or aspirations as a musician? Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations you’re excited about?

My dream has always been to to be the next Chris Martin or the next Sam Fender or Kate Bush or Madonna… but I think now that I’m older and understand myself and what I actually want a little bit more, I think my first priority, to be pretty frank, is to be able to make a stable income from being a musician. I’m living with my mum and working as a cleaner to make ends meet. To build a home from the art I’ve created is the new dream I think. In terms of upcoming projects, I’m writing and recording my debut album which includes many songs that I’ve written with lots of talented writers. I’m playing my dream festival, Reading and Leeds this year. I’ve got more announcements coming including lots of new music. Things are looking up”.

You can read reviews like this and this for her recent E.P., God Help Me Now. That gem was released in January. I cannot find reviews for The World Is Not an Oyster, though I would imagine new interviews will be published soon or early next year. I will get to some 2025 interviews now. In January, DORK spent time with Ellur. An artist who has always had music in her blood and bones, God Help Me Now is overflowing with ambition and self-discovery. They heralded to a brilliant and beautiful musical voice who is transforming “personal revelations into soaring indie gold”:

“The upcoming EP’s title might suggest someone in need of divine intervention, but Ellur is quick to clarify: “Despite the defeated tone of the title, the four songs on this EP are a celebration of me finding myself. I’ve found out who I am by writing songs and I am so grateful for that.” She’s refreshingly candid about the journey there: “In truth, until I wrote this EP, I was feeling incredibly dejected and fed up with myself. I would always find myself looking up into the ether and asking for a sign that I was doing the right thing, asking who I was and what I should do.”

Working with co-writer Benjamin Francis Leftwich has helped her tap into an even deeper well of honesty. “It has been an honour and a privilege to write with Ben,” she says. “He has such a strong sense of melody and what an artist needs to write about. I wanted this EP and my first album to be really raw and vulnerable, and writing with him and Jack Leonard was really the start of me understanding how to tap into that honesty within myself.”

 

When she talks about her influences, it’s clear Ellur has her sights set on creating music that connects on the largest possible scale. “Their honesty and their ability to turn the innermost parts of themselves, all the tiny details of their lives, into such expansive tracks that connect with so many people,” she says. “That’s all I want to do with my music. Connect people and connect with people through storytelling. Big stage, big drums, big laughs and tears.”

2025 is already shaping up to be a landmark year, with SXSW on the horizon and an album in the works. “Among releasing my EP, finishing the recording of my album and then starting the campaign for it, I’m planning headline shows, and I’ve been booked for a few festivals in summer,” she enthuses. “We’re going to Texas in March, too, which is absolutely insane. I’m living the dream. A year of recording, releasing and playing as many live shows as I physically can?! I think I’ve ‘made it’!”

Between all this, you might find her immersed in Skyrim or working with her 70s knitting machine – “I live a fairly boring life outside of my career, and that’s just how I like it,” she admits. But there’s nothing boring about where her music is taking her. “I’m just really grateful for the places this EP has taken me so far. I feel I’m finally reaching my audience,” she reflects. “I’m grateful to everyone who’s backed me since the start; I just can’t wait to see where I am in another year’s time.”

With ambitions to support the likes of Sam Fender, The 1975, and even Coldplay (“God, I absolutely love Coldplay”), it’s clear Ellur’s trajectory is pointing firmly upward. That four-year-old putting on shows in her living room would surely be proud”.

Before getting to a recent bit of news, the final interview I am including is from this September. Published in promotion of her then-new single, Missing Kid, Atwood Magazine spoke with the Yorkshire musician about the track and what being a missing kid means to her. Everything Ellur releases is golden. Such a hugely awe-inspiring artist, this is someone I need to see live but have not yet. Hopefully, I can rectify that next year. Someone that everyone needs to know about:

“Atwood Magazine: Ellur, what's the story behind your song “Missing Kid”?

Ellur: I wrote it when rehearsing for a support tour I did last November when I was feeling a bit self-critical and low. I felt like I’d spent my life copying everyone else and looking to other people for guidance on how I should be living my life. I needed a song that would pick me up.

You’ve spoken previously about how this is how you observe the people in your life… What’s this song about, for you?

Ellur: Adulthood feels like it hits you in the face. I find life throws me situations sometimes and I’m left feeling like a kid who’s lost their Mum in a supermarket. I suppose that’s what this song is about for me at the moment. It’s also about wanting to move and getting other people moving when we play it live. I love playing it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Oglesby

How does this track fit into the overall narrative of who Ellur is in 2025?

Ellur: It’s the start of a series of songs that represent me at my best and worst. It’s me writing alone in my bedroom at night when I’m at my lowest points and then later recording and performing it when I’m at my best, in the state of creative flow. The drums and guitars and sparkles and frills make my diary entry songs feel like healed wounds when I come to perform them. Music is so important to me.

What does it mean to be the “missing kid,” to you?

Ellur: I suppose, bearing that earlier supermarket metaphor in mind, it’s also an allusion to me trying to find and heal my inner child. A lot of the creative process for me recently has been about weaving in ideas and creating things that she would love. It’s all about finding her and listening to her. Videos, instrumentation, outfit and style choices, performances. I’m living out her dream and so I do it all for her.

For those who are just discovering you today through this writeup, what do you want them to know about you and your music?

Ellur: Music is as much of a home for me as the place I sleep and the people I love. I create music that feels vulnerable and honest whilst wanting people to feel comforted and related to. I love guitars, folk rock, indie, pop and alternative music. I take inspiration these days from Jeff Buckley, The War on Drugs, Sam Fender, The 1975 and Dora Jar.

I also like reading, Yorkshire Tea, and spending too much time on my phone”.

I am ending with some news from CLASH. Again, they were among a growing list of music sites that use the word ‘return’ and apply it to an artist who has gone nowhere. Ellur released a fuck*ng E.P. earlier in the year and is said to ‘return’. It is such an idiotic word that is applied to artist and shows what a short attention span there is out there! I will not rant again, suffice to say Ellur has not returned from anywhere and has been putting out incredible music since 2020. The amazing single, The World Is Not An Oyster, is the pearl title track of her latest E.P. One that you need to hear now:

“Halifax indie force Ellur has shared new single ‘The World Is Not An Oyster’.

The precocious songwriter completed a short UK run a few weeks back, playing six sold out shows in London, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and Bristol. Airing old favourites and a smidgeon of something new, Ellur is now ready to take a step forwards.

‘The World Is Not An Oyster’ is self-consciously big, with the sonic opulence framed by her early Noughties CD collection – think Coldplay, think Radiohead, think Embrace.

Alongside this, Ellur spins a tale of a teenage girl attempting to piece her life together. A child of divorce herself, the Halifax talent knows the sting of adolescent self-doubt, and – together with the aid of Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Jack Leonard (UNKLE) – she brings these feelings to the forefront on her new single.

Ellur comments…

This is the story of a teenage girl who is trying to figure out why love just doesn’t seem to come easy in her life. When I was 15 my parents split up and my whole world fell apart and I got into a terrible relationship as a result of trying to understand it. Recording this song was a healing process after years of hurting from two of the most painful experiences in my life.

Inspired by ‘A Rush of Blood to The Head’, ‘The Bends’, Embrace and the sounds of the early 2000’s that soundtracked my childhood. To me this song sounds like home and is such a true representation of my spirit and soul. If I were to dedicate it, I’d dedicate it to my Mum and Dad and the infinite love I have for them”.

I really love Ellur, and I hope she gets to fulfil her dreams and play with artists like Coldplay! I do think she will get a load of summer festival bookings. In terms of the rest of the year, she plays at The Underground in Bradford on 28th November as part of BBC Introducing at the Underground. Before that, she plays Manchester’s Band on the Wall on 19th November. I know that next year will be really exciting and filled with opportunities! You can see the gigs she already has in the diary for next year here. This fascinating and enormously impressive person, Ellur is…

SUCH a very special artist.

_______________

Follow Elllur

FEATURE: Mother’s Heroes: Celebrating Generation Z and Their Love of Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

 

Mother’s Heroes

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005 for a publicity photo in promotion of Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

 

Celebrating Generation Z and Their Love of Kate Bush

__________

THERE is a line…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 1980’s Army Dreamers (her second most-streamed song and one of her most popular singles, it features on her third studio album, Never for Ever)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

in the Kate Bush song, Army Dreamers, that goes: “But he never even made it to his twenties”. Included on her 1980 album, Never for Ever, it was also released as a single. I was trying to modify that line to form the title of this feature. If that lyric refers to young men being led to war and dying tragically young, in this sense, I am thinking about people in their twenties discovering Kate Bush. That wonder. We think about Kate Bush as someone whose fans are older, maybe. Perhaps in their thirties, forties and older. If they are from Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2012 -, then it is off the back of Stranger Things’ use of Hounds of Love’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in 2022. However, and tying into a feature I posted on Saturday (15th November), I was at Avalon Cafe in Bermondsey on the eve (6th November) of the twentieth anniversary of Kate Bush’s divine and wondrous eighth studio album, Aerial. We were marking twenty years. I was one of the guests (alongside Leah Kardos) who were discussing the album. When I agreed to do the event, I was expecting those in attendance to be around my sort of age. I am forty-two. However, the audience there were mostly in their twenties. Maybe a couple of teens. It was a very young crowd for an album not discussed enough. It was a listening party and conversation. However, there was also a Kate Bush disco at the end. A selection of Kate Bush tracks, it was joyous and inspiring seeing these young Kate Bush fans dancing to her music. It was also impressive that they managed to dance to songs that you were think were un-danceable. Inventing choreography for Suspended in Gaffa (from 1982’s The Dreaming) and reinterpreting the moves to 1978’s Wuthering Heights (from The Kick Inside), it provided new hope and perspective!

Whilst a small and specific sample of Kate Bush fanbase, I know those who were at Avalon recently are perhaps not replicated throughout the world. However, I have been sceptical about the demographic of Kate Bush fandom. How so many people I know in their twenties and thirties do not know who Kate Bush is. Or they might know one song or album (normally Hounds of Love), and they are sort of uninterested in her. That, or they feel she is past or someone who is a bit kooky and weird. These cliché perceptions that are enforced and augmented by the media. The way Kate Bush is lazily, insultingly and misogynistic called a witch, recluse or oddball. Defining her by one or two songs. It was massively encouraging not only seeing this impassioned collection of young Kate Bush fans celebrate Aerial. They were engaged with the songs at the disco. From the Hounds of Love classics to some rarer or lesser-known cuts such Lily, they were dancing, moving and singing. I like to think that, from Berlin to New York to Melbourne, there are these pubs, clubs and spaces that have these Kate Bush discos, where these young and relatively fresh fans show their love. Avalon Cafe is this amazing L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+/queer-friendly space. Maybe it would be inaccurate to say that the youngest Kate Bush fans are queer/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ However, I do think that there is something about her music and influence that is touching and speaking to young L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fans. However, there is this widespread young fanbase for Kate Bush across all genders and corners of society (and the world).

There are articles and features from the past few years that shine new light on the fact Gen Z are discovering Kate Bush. That there is much more to her than Stranger Things/Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That song will feature during Stranger Things’ fifth season, so it may well engage with some who missed it in 2022. It will put the masterpiece back in the spotlight. This feature from Evening Standard observes how a TikTok trend and spark has led Gen Z Kate Bush fans to explore her catalogue. In a year (2022) when there was this resurgence and fresh discovery:

“She has no social media presence. Her last album was released in 2011. While her breakthrough single – sung from the perspective of a ghost haunting an English moor – is even older – having been released in 1978.

Yet despite this, ethereal ‘80s pop star Kate Bush is primed for a generational rediscovery. Following her single Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) being featured in the latest season of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, a new legion of Gen Z listeners are unearthing her catalogue of otherworldly music.

On TikTok a thirty-second version of the Stranger Things clip has gained millions of views in just over a week, while Kate Bush’s original song has been used in over 750,000 short videos. A running theme throughout these videos are teens expressing their disbelief that they hadn’t heard of Bush before, or parents excitedly showcasing their Kate Bush vinyl collections to their newly captivated children.

​​"I did not know Kate Bush beforehand, but then I immediately skimmed through her work," said Sadie Sink, the actress in Stranger Things whose character Max was hooked on the track, “and then became increasingly more obsessed, and then I was listening to her all the time.” She continued, echoing the millions of viewers who have been on a similar journey of discovery.

Because of all this, earlier this week the song chopped the UK chart –  37 years after it was first released as the lead track on Bush’s album Hounds of Love. While across 34 separate countries, including the United States (where the song originally peaked at number 30), Britain, Belgium, Latvia, Ireland and New Zealand, Running Up That Hill has entered the top 10 list of most streamed songs.

She seldom gives interviews but on Tuesday, Kate sat down with Women’s Hour presenter Emma Barnett to weigh in on the “extraordinary” cultural moment. “I mean it’s such a great series, I thought that the track would get some attention,” Kate explained when discussing the show’s use of her smash-hit single. “But I just never imagined that it would be anything like this. It’s so exciting. But it’s quite shocking really, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world’s gone mad.”

She added: "What’s really wonderful, I think, is this is a whole new audience who, in a lot of cases, they’ve never heard of me and I love that. The thought of all these really young people hearing the song for the first time and discovering it is, well, I think it’s very special".

Sticking in 2022, British Vogue explored How Gen Z are discovering Kate Bush. Liam Hess shared his devotion to Kate Bush and remarked on this Stranger Things-propelled rediscovery and reactivation. How a new generation were finding her music. However, as I shall end, I feel like there was discovery prior to 2022. A younger fanbase picking up on her music before that Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) success:

“I would go on to discover the entirety of Bush’s eclectic catalog, from the lyrically complex vignettes of her early albums Lionheart and Never for Ever, to what is arguably her masterpiece, the thrillingly experimental 1982 record The Dreaming. When Bush would deliver one of her rare missives, or announce a new release, I’d scour online message boards to join the conversation and share my excitement. One of my greatest regrets in life – no exaggeration here – was missing the Before the Dawn concert residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2014, her first live performances since 1979, and very possibly her last.

All of this is to say, I’d probably be a prime candidate to turn my nose up at the fact that Gen Z has discovered the music of one of my heroes through a teen drama – but on the contrary, I’m delighted. We all have to make those discoveries sometime and somewhere, even if that is through a show on Netflix, and gatekeeping our favourite artists serves nothing but our own egos. Plus, where better to start than with one of her greatest songs (and videos) of all, “Running Up That Hill”?

Part of the wonder of discovering Bush is the sense that her various oddities validate your own experiences as an outsider. Given the feelings of recognition I’ve found in Bush’s music over the years – from her tribute to the love of the gay couple living in secret in her apartment building that is 1978’s “Kashka From Baghdad”; to the sheer euphoric rush I feel listening to 1989’s “The Sensual World,” an ode to sybaritic pleasure inspired by Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in James Joyce’s Ulysses; to the dulcet vocals of “This Woman’s Work,” which never fail to bring a tear to my eye – why would I want to deny that to others?

As a teenager who always felt a little different (although, then again, what teenager doesn’t), I found a sense of refuge in Bush’s music; a reminder not just that it was okay not to conform, but that nonconformity is something that could be celebrated, or elevated to the highest levels of art. Even if I loathe the phrase entirely, Bush really did make me feel seen.

So, I’m happy for the Gen Z-ers discovering Bush for the first time. I’m excited for them to dive into all of the richly realised worlds she’s crafted over the years, across 10 records, dozens of music videos, a film, and songs that tell stories of accidentally dancing with Hitler, having sex with snowmen, or pay homage to her washing machine. And may it inspire them too: Lord knows we could use a little more of Bush’s strain of weird and wonderful creative magic in the world right now”.

There has not been anything recent regarding Gen Z and Kate Bush. I think a lot of it is tied to 2022. However, TikTok and social media has also played its part. How Army Dreamers gained new popularity recently because of videos on TikTok. The audience I was with recently, I feel, were Kate Bush fans for different reasons. It was not through exposure to a famed Hounds of Love song. Some connected with one of her albums a few months ago and then dug deeper. Others discovered her music when they were younger and then explored her cannon. One can see how there would have been a connect between Stranger Things and Aerial. One discovery led to another. However, I feel there are a variety of stories and personal experiences. Whether through their parents’ love of Kate Bush or hearing her music elsewhere, it is evident that there is a healthy Gen Z appreciation. Maybe not as small as I envisaged, I want to explore this theory further. Think about why these younger fans found her music and why they love her. If it has been fuelled by T.V. or social media or something else. Harking back to that night at Avalon on 6th November, a whole range of Kate Bush songs connected with those fans. Making me think that there is not this narrow focus on Hounds of Love or a viral moment. There is a deeper love and understanding. Gateway songs leading to wider investigation. An artist who is speaking to a new generation for a number of reasons. Whether it is a young L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fanbase that finds solidarity and inspiration, or it is about the invention, fearlessness and originality of Bush’s music against mainstream Pop familiarity and something depressingly commercial, I am not sure – maybe a combination of all of those factors. The Gen Z devotion and affection for Kate Bush inspired my mind and…

WARMS my heart.

FEATURE: The Dreaming Into a Reality… Why There Needs to Be Regular Kate Bush Listening Parties

FEATURE:

 

 

The Dreaming Into a Reality…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Abbey Road’s Studio 2 on 10th May, 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport 

 

Why There Needs to Be Regular Kate Bush Listening Parties

__________

I am not sure how many…

there have been held this year because, of course, it is impossible to know. I am referring to Kate Bush listening parties. Specifically, ones that are playbacks of her albums. In September, I was in central London to hear Hounds of Love played in full for its fortieth anniversary. There, Leah Kardos – who has written a 33 1/3 book for Hounds of Love – discussed the masterpiece album, and her love of Kate Bush. On 6th November, I was lucky enough to take to the stage with Kardos at Avalon Cafe to discuss Aerial. That was the night before its twentieth anniversary. On both occasions, I was moved and had such a great time. It was better second time around, as I got to talk about Aerial and ask questions and pose them to Leah Kardos! Organised by Ethan, Avalon brought together a small-but-passionate group of Kate Bush fans to hear the second disc of Aerial, A Sky of Honey. A couple of things struck me before I had even stepped onto the stage. For one, the average age of the audience was, I’d say somewhere in the mid-twenties. Maybe even younger that this. Seeing as Aerial came out when they were all small children – and some of them might not have even been born! -, this was really humbling and truly inspiring! I will follow up on this in a companion piece I am publishing next week. However, Ethan was in his early-twenties, too. A relative newcomer to the wonders of Kate Bush, I was also amazed at why there are so few listening parties for Kate Bush! At Avalon Cafe, we got to talk about (and listen to) this late-career masterpiece. For the night, the space was decked out with Kate Bush pictures. It was like this cool hub/shrine. We all got to drink, chat and revel in the mastery and genius of Kate Bush!

It was a magical and hugely fun night! More than anything, it allowed us to listen to half of a remarkable double album. It does happen that often. I like to think I have my eyes and ears on most of the Kate Bush happenings. I have not heard about listening parties being held. It made the Avalon event rare. It made me wonder why we need to wait for anniversaries. The Aerial one was perfect because it had to happen this month. Marking twenty years of this album, it is only right to show it some love. However, think about the next big anniversaries coming. Aside from 50 Words for Snow turning fifteen next year – fifteen is such a non-event anniverssary, and maybe not the Kate Bush album people would want a listening party for -, we have to wait until 2028 for the fiftieth anniversary of her debut, The Kick Inside. The Sensual World turns forty in 2029. In 2030, that is when Never for Ever turns fifty. Those would be perfect moments to celebrate those albums. However, that does leave a couple of fallow years! Why not reconvene to spotlight The Dreaming next year instead of waiting until 2027 to mark forty-five years? I think that a listening party for The Dreaming next year would be perfect. Then Lionheart or The Red Shoes in 2027, The Kick Inside in 2028, The Sensual World in 2029, Never for Ever in 2030, then 50 Words for Snow in 2031. You could celebrate The Dreaming on its fiftieth in 2032, but that is an eternity away! We do wait for anniversaries, but after the wonderful Aerial listening party, it really stoked something in me. I am thinking of marking The Kick Inside’s fiftieth with something special, though I am desperate to get involved with a listening party next year. Putting the needle down on The Dreaming and discuss that album. I am not sure who could speak, though there are Kate Bush writers and fans who could.

Perhaps it would seem random and odd not to tie it with an anniversary, though one of the major takeaways from that Aerial at 20 event at Avalon Cafe was that there is an appetite. People do want to sit and listen to the albums and then learn more about them. There are podcast episodes where you can hear about her albums, though that in-person incentive is key. Getting together, and the physicality of her music. Discussing it and hearing it in a space. I was surprised that Aerial’s listening party attracted such a young audience, as Hounds of Love’s was an older audience. I guess, as the albums were released twenty years apart, you would expect the fans of Hounds of Love (1985) to be older. However, Aerial was twenty years ago and it is far less well-known that Hounds of Love. It is one that hardly gets played or talked about. Whereas Hounds of Love had a fair few anniversary features in September – though not as many as it deserved! -, Aerial got a poultry one: a great retrospective admiration from The Quietus. I was perhaps the only other person who wrote about Aerial on its twentieth anniversary. Kate Bush News ran a week of features that took us inside the album too. It is a travesty and a shame that so little was written about! King of the Mountain, the only single from the album, is played now and then on radio, though there is no reason why more of the songs could not be. Such a remarkable, varied and beautiful album, kudos to Ethan and Avalon Cafe for showing some much-deserved love for the 2005-released Kate Bush album! I am thinking The Dreaming should be next. Maybe next year? It turns forty-four in September, so a good excuse to get us all together. But a summer listen would be better, I feel. The album ends with the sensational Get Out of My House. Hearing that blare out and feeling people’s reaction to that in the room would be…

A real sight to behold!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Westside Cowboy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Westside Cowboy

__________

THIS wonderful…

Manchester band formed in 2023 and, since then, have seen their music reach a wide and adoring fanbase. Reuben Haycocks, James Bradbury, Aoife Anson O'Connell and Paddy Murphy are Westside Cowboy. I think each year sees a lot of solo artists highlighted for greatness. I guess the majority of the best or best-reviewed albums are from them. However, the band market right now is really fertile and productive! Especially in the U.K. and Ireland. Many more great examples than here than in the U.S. even. Westside Cowboy release their sophomore E.P., So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, on 16th January. The band have some U.K. dates ahead, but they also have a couple of gigs in the U.S. I love how the band have a date in New York and one In L.A. Five days apart, it seems like a long way to go for two gigs! However, it is amazing that Westside Cowboy have demand there and, after these gigs, there will be more demand and opportunities next year. Back in June, The Line of Best Fit spoke with the Manchester quartet. Everyone needs to hear their music, as we are going to be talking about them for a very long time to come:

“Before coming together as Westside Cowboy, Haycocks, Murphy, O’Connell, and Bradbury were orbiting one another in various groups – with The University Of Manchester acting as the barycentre. Haycocks, Murphy, and O’Connell met during freshers week and quickly hit it off. Within two days, Haycocks and Murphy started a band called DieKaiDai. “It was very different, it was noisy. We tried to make it poppy, but ultimately it sounded very confused and very young,” Haycocks tells me. “We made all the mistakes that were possible to make being in a small band.”

Meanwhile, Murphy and Bradbury were in a band called Katz, which Bradbury describes as “a three-piece surf-punk band that played so fast it ceased to exist.” Mid-sentence, the band’s attention diverts to a car driving past. They fill me in on their observation, explaining that someone had gone the wrong way down the one-way system, which feels oddly symbolic of the difficulty that they ran into with their earlier projects. “We got sick of those bands,” Murphy says. “We were sick of slamming our heads against the wall and feeling like things weren’t natural to do.”

When walking the dichotomous line of surf-punk and noise-rock-pop started to feel like a dead end, it was an encounter in Johnny Roadhouse – the renowned music shop where Bradbury worked at the time – that led them to change course. The conversation was simple.

“James was like, ‘Do you want to start a band called Westside Cowboy?’” Murphy recounts. “And we were like, ‘Yeah.’” O’Connell – a cellist who had never picked up a guitar – joined on bass and took to it naturally. With Haycocks on vocals and guitar, Murphy on drums, and Bradbury on guitar, they ditched experimental music and stripped the music back to its simplest form. “We just wanted to play a fucking song again,” Murphy says, referring to the less complicated structure of traditional pop music that they grew up with.

For the most part, tradition exists as the foundation for Westside Cowboy. However, this is not to suggest that their sound is dated. The word that they use to describe it is “Britainicana.” It’s their own coinage to describe American roots music reinterpreted through a very English lens, and it’s not static. The band tells me what represents “Britainicana”: The La’s, Johnny Roadhouse, Violent Femmes, Chappell Roan, and Back to the Future. It feels limitless. “We grew up smothered by American media – films, TV, all of it,” Murphy explains. “Like with everything, when you’re a kid, you seek to emulate it. But you live in rural north-west England. You’re not on the Sunset Strip, or Manhattan,” he continues, earning chuckles in agreement.

Rather than reject those borrowed influences, they transmute them by reimagining Americana through the British DIY tradition that they know while embracing the contradiction that comes with it”.

Creators of an intriguing sound and music that is deigned for everyone, Westside Cowboys are proving that bands, those who produce this amazing utilitarian and hard-to-ignore music, are so vital. They offer something that solo acts cannot. In April, DORK spotlighted a band who were self-proclaimed “Britainicana pioneers”. I do think that next year is going to be a massive one for them. After a string of gigs in some really cool venues, they will pick up these new skills. That experience on stage is not new to them. However, the more they play, the more we will talk about them. It means they will catch the eyes of festival organisers. Expect to see them bossing it next summer:

“The band’s approach to songwriting reveals a sophisticated understanding of pop’s emotional power. As Haycocks explains, “I think there are always themes that songwriters are drawn to, and I think that they are generally similar across most styles of writing. I am drawn to the idea of a love song as a way of hyperbolising your experience. Unfortunately, we don’t all live in our favourite songs, but a good love song is close enough to our own experience to connect to us on an emotional level but lofty enough to give us an escape and seemingly lift us out of our own unremarkable experiences.”

This philosophy – finding the extraordinary within the ordinary – permeates everything Westside Cowboy do. The response is refreshingly unpretentious when asked about the message they want listeners to take away from their music: “Not too sure, we haven’t really thought about it before. At the end of the day, we’re just four mates who love to play music, pop music. more than anything else. I guess it would be, ‘Don’t think, just enjoy it’. It’s music for everyone, we hope.”

The band’s trajectory continues to accelerate. They’re currently finishing their first EP, scheduled for release in the summer, and their live calendar is filling up with a number of events. “We have some really cool festival slots coming up that we’re excited for: Green Man, End of the Road… we’re incredibly lucky and feel very grateful for all of it.”

Their ambitions, while substantial, remain grounded in authenticity and community. “We make a bucket list every year,” they share. “The one last year we said that we wanted to play the Ritz (we’d played two gigs at cafes at the time), and it somehow happened!” But beyond the venue wish list, their goals reflect a deeper purpose: “I suppose our main goal at the moment is just to have our music connect with as many people as it can. Whilst we’re doing this, though, we’d also like to be able to lift up the people and causes we love, too. Getting to do this is such an insane luxury that we want to use our music as a vehicle for giving as much as we possibly can.”

This commitment to community extends to their festival appearances, where they’re as excited to watch other acts as they are to perform. They enthusiastically name-check fellow Manchester band Holly Head, who they’re keen to see when they play Dot To Dot, describing them as having “the best grooves and live show going. A generational rhythm section on show there.” Their festival experience varies – while Reuben has been attending Green Man “every year since like 2013 or something stupid”, guitarist Jimmy has never attended a festival before. “I guess he’ll be having a trial by fire,” the band quip.

As our conversation winds down, they share two pieces of information – one whimsical, one significant. “Babies are born without kneecaps,” they insist, before adding, “We’re also in the final for Glasto emerging talent” – which they’ve since won, ‘FYI’ – “that’s maybe just exciting for us, though.” Their final message combines both playful persistence and social consciousness: “We’re not joking. Babies are seriously born without kneecaps. Donate to Medical Aid For Palestinians if you can!”.

NME spoke to Westside Cowboy ahead of their appearance at Glastonbury this summer on the Woodsies stage. They won the Emerging Talent Competition. I may be a bit late to them. Getting huge focus earlier in the year, I think they will make their way back onto the radar. One of those bands who will be dubbed the ‘Sound of 2026’. Or those to watch. As they put out the So Much Country ‘Till We Get There E.P. in January, there will be new interviews and focus:

“There’s a lot of different American influences in the sound of the band…

Bradbury: “Yeah. Hank Williams and Bob Dylan were important early on.”

Murphy: “Reuben and I were coming out of a band that was way more experimental and noisy, and we’d kind of burnt ourselves out with that – we wanted to reconnect with more traditional styles of music. Reuben was raised on folk music, and Jimmy’s a massive Elvis nut, really into his early rock’n’roll.

“So, it just felt easy compared to what we’d been doing previously, where everything was overcomplicated and maybe even a little bit pretentious. It seemed like way more fun to just have a laugh playing skiffle covers or country songs, really simple and timeless stuff with just three or four chords.”

You’ve described your sound as ‘Britainicana’. Was there a blueprint for that style?

Anson-O’Connell: “I think there’s many different blueprints for Britainicana. We’ve just given a very old thing a new name. Folk is in the mix, too; we have some amazing friends in a Manchester folk band called Brown Wimpenny, and although they make such different music to us, they are Westside Cowboy in ethos. Or maybe we’re Brown Wimpenny in ethos.

“We all grew up with folk music and religious music, and the first song I ever wrote was inspired by a Lankum gig. I think not being able to play the guitar very well lends itself to writing in that style, actually.”

How important has Manchester been for you as a base? What’s it like to be a young band starting out here now?

Bradbury: “COVID felt like a bit of a reset for Manchester. It seems much easier to get people out to shows now than it used to be.”

Anson-O’Connell: “At the minute, I don’t know if there’s anywhere more exciting for music. We’ve had a few conversations about that with friends recently; just talking about how lucky we feel to be here.”

Murphy: “It’s nice how small and tight-knit the community feels. You’re bumping into friends who are in bands on the street all the time. And everything feels new. There’s great bands coming up, like Martial Arts, Shaking Hand, Dove Ellis and Holly Head, and none of them sound like Joy Division. None of them sound like Oasis or The Smiths”.

Such a tremendous young band with this sound that sticks in your heart and head, I am excited by what their new E.P. has to offer. They released the This Better Be Something Great E.P. in August, it is a pretty quick follow-up! You wonder if an album will arrive next year. Until then, go and show your love for..

THE wonderous band that is Westside Cowboy.

____________

Follow Westside Cowboy

FEATURE: Spotlight: Cliffords

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Cliffords

__________

HAVING just completed…

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

some amazing tour dates, it did get me thinking about Cliffords. They consist of Iona Lynch, Gavin Dawkins, Harry Menton, Daniel Ryan and Locon O'Toole. I have not seen them live but I will make sure I do when they next come to London. Their Salt of the Lee (Acoustic) album was released last month. It mixes the songs with their The Salt of the Lee E.P. and acoustic versions. I shall bring in some interviews with the band, in case you have not heard of them or do not know too much. I am starting out with Rolling Stone UK, who interviewed the Cork-based back earlier in the year. They are a terrific Irish guitar band. A nation that is producing so many at the moment, Cliffords are proof that some of the most important and distinct music is coming from the country:

“What’s the story behind how Cliffords came to be?

We were a secondary school band, basically. We formed in a place called Ballincollig and we were just playing in a garage for years. That was with me and Gavin who’s in the band now, but we had other previous members too. After a few years we did a battle of the bands at UCC (University College Cork) and we were so bad, like truly terrible. But we ended up winning and we met Harry our guitar player and we met Locon who is our keys player. That was two years ago and we’re here now!

Is there any artists that are particularly big influences on our sound? I can hear shades of Wolf Alice in there, if we’re going for contemporary ones

It’s cool because we all have different tastes, but I know the lads would definitely say Radiohead is their biggest influence and for us as well Wolf Alice is a huge one. I’m a really big boygenius fan and Phoebe Bridgers is a huge inspiration for me. Then there’s the Smashing Pumpkins too.

I can hear shades of The Cranberrries too, but I appreciate that might be a lazy comparison…

Nah you can’t go wrong with The Cranberries and I do get that a lot! I think it’s a similar voice type thing and look, I was watching one of their music videos the other day and realised I had the same haircut as Dolores O’Riordan. And as for lyrics, Joni Mitchell is my all time favorite. So we’ve got a good mix and we also do an album of the week club, where each person chooses an album each week and everyone has to listen to it.

It’s been really cool to expand our tastes. Like this week it was Tom Waits, and for years I had asserted that I hated Tom Waits. I really hated him and called him the scary man. Every time I got in the car with Harry, who loves Tom Waits, I’d just say turn off the scary man! But I listened again this week and I was like God, I’m wrong, he’s class!

You mentioned growing up in Cork, does that sense of place become a central character in your music?

Yeah and people make fun of me because I overuse it! I was out last night and someone said to me ‘It wouldn’t be like you to mention Cork in a lyric, Iona’. It is pretty true that almost every song has a street or even like some kind of imagery or iconography.

There’s this red cross on the top of a church around Cork, it’s up on a hill so you can always kind of see it and it’s like always looming and I don’t know why, it’s just so like attractive or something, but like loads of bands write about it as well from Cork, so I bring it up loads in our next recordings. It’s personified, but it’s nice”.

In May, they released the Salt of the Lee E.P. For NME. Iona Lynch and Locon O'Toole spoke with them about their rise. “The streets and sights of Ireland’s second-largest city loom large in the rising four-piece’s sonorous indie, woven into the tales of their young lives”. As NME write, this amazing band’s incredible stories are taking them beyond Cork and to bigger things. In a year that has seen some hugely promising bands come through, Cliffords are among the very best:

“As today’s designated interviewees Lynch and O’Toole talk, they often focus on the idea of bettering themselves. Cliffords have an album of the week club; recent selections include Divorce, Ethel Cain and Tom Waits. The club helps make a “massive difference” to their songwriting, the keyboardist says, “because there’s so much music out there and it helps you understand [it better]”. Their first experiences recording helped boost their abilities as musicians who could “think about [our music] on the next level”. Ask what their ambitions are, and after joking about mansions in Miami, they keep things simple. “I want to get better and play shows,” Lynch shares. “I want to make a really good album and I don’t care how long it takes for us to do it.” Across from her, O’Toole nods: “We love the process, that’s the thing.”

Given how much new music is being put out these days, the band are well aware of the need to make themselves stand out – but you get the impression they’re not willing to compromise on their art to do so. Dawkins’ arresting trumpet lines add an unusual, emotional extra layer to songs like ‘My Favourite Monster’, but the band aren’t going all-in and making it their gimmick. “Every song, he’ll go, ‘I hear a trumpet line’,” Lynch says, jokingly rolling her eyes. “We’re like, ‘Not in every song! You have to play the bass sometimes.’”

Right now, it feels easier than ever for Irish bands to get a look-in where they may previously have been overlooked, thanks to the country’s culture having something of a capital-letter Moment. For Cliffords, the opportunity is a double-edged sword – something they’re grateful for, even as it points to a prior ignorance and narrow-mindedness. “Everyone in the industry keeps asking this question of what’s happening in Ireland right now, but it’s always been happening – it’s just that you’re looking now,” Lynch says. “There’s almost a fetishisation [of being Irish], it’s kind of othering. You wouldn’t really say that about bands from England. I do find that frustrating, but I also get it because I don’t know about lots of places in the UK.”

‘Salt Of The Lee’, though, is strong enough a record that it could grab the attention it deserves, whether the world was focusing on Ireland or not. Its closing track ‘Dungarvan Bay’, a moving exploration of grief that was started one week after the death of a close friend, is some of Lynch’s best songwriting yet. She returned to it a year later with a new perspective on loss.

“I don’t think you move on from grief, it just becomes a part of you,” she begins. “I’m devastated he passed away, and I think of him every day, but you can’t change those things in your life, and you do have an option of what you do about it. I didn’t want this song to be that version of grief that’s super devastating and all-consuming. There were parts of it that were really beautiful – as friends, we went camping in Dungarvan for a week, and we had some really great nights out. I wanted it to reflect this growth of it still being there, but changed”.

 

I will move to DIY and their interview from June. Cliffords say how they always get labelled as a ‘great Irish band’, and there has to be this distinction or restriction. They want to be known as a great band, period. Also, it is interesting how they note people maybe only connected or knew about them through fellow Irish groups like Fontaines D.C. However, Cliffords have been working hard to get their music out there, so it is high time people paid attention – and paid them their dues:

“Theirs wasn’t a path that included any secret shortcut to stardom, though. The band spent 18 months playing around Cork before breaking their way out of the city walls and into the wider Irish - and now also British - music scene. “I think I sent an email to different UK and US college radio stations every day trying to get them to play our music,” chuckles Locon, “and then we eventually got onto a Spotify playlist, and spent pretty much every day last summer meeting with industry people, which just felt like all the work had been worth it.”

Obviously, none of this would be possible if the tunes themselves weren’t truly brilliant. Debut EP ‘Strawberry Scented’ unveiled Cliffords’ ability to mix catchy arena-rock choruses (‘Sleeping With Ghosts’) with softly sung yet powerfully heartbreaking lyricism (‘Shattered Glass’) - a formula Iona first landed on as a way to untangle her thoughts.

“I wrote my first lyrics when I was about six in my bedroom,” she remembers, “but the only music I listened to was Taio Cruz on ‘Now 77’, so all the lyrics were like ‘we’re going out tonight girls’ or ‘we’re in the club’. But then, as a teenager, I loved dodie, and now my icons are Adrianne Lenker and CMAT – they’re just the most amazing storytellers – so I guess I try to write like them, but in my own voice.”

 

Now, sitting on this bustling Brighton street and drinking coffee to heal their sore heads, the band are gearing up to release their second EP, ‘Salt of the Lee’ - a collection of four songs designed to, in Locon’s words, “really announce ourselves.”

“We were consciously writing an EP this time,” he continues, “it’s got a bit more grit, it’s dirtier, it’s more focused on the band we want to be.” Iona nods: “I was less particular about lyrics this time, too. I want people to make up their own minds on the stories instead of me spelling out exactly what’s going on.”

Side by side, these two EPs - though separated by only 13 months - evidence enormous growth. Anthemic lead single ‘Bittersweet’, replete with grungy guitar lines and soaring trumpet details, contrasts beautifully with lyrical folk ballad ‘Dungarvan Bay’. Elsewhere, ‘My Favourite Monster’ tells the tale of a local villain through social analysis and boisterous choruses, while Iona’s self-proclaimed favourite ‘R&H Hall’ opens with an emotional piano line before exploding open into a folk-rock ode to their beloved Ireland.

Indeed, their Irishness is at the very heart of the band, musically and spiritually, and Iona beams with pride when talking about growing up in Cork: “Irish culture is all around you, it’s in your DNA. We learn the language in school; the music and literature and history is everywhere; even when you grow up, you see trad music sessions in pubs that anyone can join in with. You’re taught to be proud of your culture, and it’s only now we’re starting to appreciate it.”

“British people are only paying attention now because of bands like Fontaines DC, but it’s always been happening,” Locon adds. “Our government encourages music, they let people have fun in small rooms whether they’re good or not. In Britain, people don’t have the chance to be bad because there are no small rooms left to play, so [music] is only available to people who have had lessons in school or whatever; it’s just for upper-class kids”.

 

I am finishing out with an interview from CLASH. Many people assume they are just starting out and they have exploded out of nowhere. Even though they are getting big attention and this year has been their busiest, the group has been gigging and getting their name out there a long time. It is worth re-emphasising. That said, I think that next year is going to be their busiest and best so far, in terms of the gigs they play and what they accomplished:

“The group spent years playing every gig they could physically get to, and building a solid local following.

“We were the band who’d play every support slot in Cork! You could text us half an hour before the show and we’d show up and play there,” says Lynch. “We played three shows a week in one venue once.”

“We used to play at this bar called Fred’s every week, and pretty much every [time] we’d write a new song and just play it,” Lynch adds.

With plenty of familiar faces in the crowds, this was the perfect time in the band’s career to get instant feedback on their newer songs. But things have inevitably changed.

“Since you’ve released music and people outside of your immediate local scene are hearing it, you don’t have that same liberty,” says Lynch.

Wider fame has also led the band to seek more structure and discipline. Iona explains how the band have spent time in London for a focused writing week not long after the release of ‘Salt of the Lee’ (and just ahead of their debut Glastonbury appearance). This is the first time Cliffords have written in this way, although they’ve always co-written their songs, Iona says. Those songs are strikingly personal; it’s what makes Cliffords such a compelling act. But how can writing collectively produce this genuinely heartfelt emotion? Lynch puts it down to the band’s friendship and shared history.

“We all at this point live together and know the ins and outs of each other as people,” Lynch says. “We’ve all grown up in the same city; we kind of have a similar outlook or experience – my story is as much as Gav’s as it is Harry’s… we’re all living the same thing, through a different perspective but I think I know them well enough to see something that they would see.”

 

As Lynch explains, “There has to be individuality in the songs and you have to be telling your own story, but through a wider lens maybe.”

Writing prolifically while growing up together means the band have found themselves charting their own personal development.

“It’s like writing your own autobiography as you go along,” Lynch says, then describing her philosphy on the art (or science?) of songwriting.

“Really great songwriters practise, they write songs every day, they do lots of things in their life to get to know their inner voice and get to the point where their true self is really distilled,” she says. “I used to think it was this thing I was just good at, and I could write whenever, while now I’m much more about structure and practising — trying to write a song every day and consuming things like art and other music that will inform my writing.”

“And it becomes easier when you’re treating it more like work rather than this mad experiment that sometimes goes right! We’re seeing ourselves as musicians rather than just as a band who are having fun,” Lynch says. “We released the first EP because that was the thing to do. We didn’t really get that people would listen to it! The second EP felt more like a project.”

With their fanbase and live audiences growing, there are now higher expectations put on Cliffords. Lynch explains how she and her bandmates are trying to block out some of that pressure in order to keep true to themselves.

“Otherwise you’re trying to write songs for other people… I don’t think people actually want what they think they want,” she muses. “You should write the songs you’re going to write and they’ll enjoy them if they truly enjoy your music”.

Cliffords want to be known as a great band. The fact that they are Irish should not the focus in that sense. There have always been great bands out of Ireland. However, it is important to recognise the country and the sheer wave of talent coming from there. The Cork heroes have had a triumphant year and played incredible gigs, been award-nominated and released some terrific music. Looking ahead, and I do feel like they are going to get to some huge festivals and maybe there will be another E.P. I am excited for this band and I feel they are going to be around for many years. Anyone new to Cliffords needs to get involved…

RIGHT now.

____________

Follow Cliffords

FEATURE: Spotlight: Getdown Services

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Getdown Services

__________

AS we look towards…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Miles

next year, a lot of websites will share their tips of the artists we need to follow. You know that Getdown Services will feature highly. I discovered the duo recently and know that they are ready for massive things. A Bristol-based duo consisting of Josh Law and Ben Sadler, Getdown Services make craft incredible, satirical music about modern British life. They released their debut album, Crisps, in 2023. They were recently nominated for the Play Next award by Rolling Stone UK, alongside other amazing rising artists like Jacob Alon and Rianne Downey. Quite a few of the interviews with Getdown Services are from earlier in the year. However, I think that it is relevant and will give us a good idea of who they are and why you need to follow them. Let’s begin with an introduction from last year:

“The pair originally started the group as an attempt to escape the drudgery of their everyday circumstances, but with a burgeoning cult fandom behind them, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they land in the big time.

What is it about a Getdown Services show that people have really taken to?

Ben: Well, do you remember when you were younger and you were watching Dick & Dom in da Bungalow? I will make this comparison. You see blokes who seem to have absolutely no dignity or self worth at all, chucking mushy peas at a load of kids? I think we touch a similar sort of thing.

 

I think you’ve just given me the headline there, lads…

Josh: It’s true! We do get it a lot and I think that gigs can actually be quite awkward environments. They’re quite tense and it’s an unnatural way of interacting with people. There’s someone there, you’re just kinda watching them and the way we enjoy it is to let loose and try to make each other laugh. That’s a big thing because that can give permission to other people to let loose a little bit. I’m not putting ourselves down here, I think that’s what people like sometimes more than the music itself. I think it’s just a bit of an excuse to be completely stupid for about half an hour and people who are quite tense will continue to be like that if the band’s nervous too.

Ben: I think you’re right. It’s an unnatural way to enjoy it too. A play is one long story not to be interrupted, but with people you should let people do their thing. What’s really nice for me is looking out and most of the time people are grinning. They’re having a nice time in those 45 minutes and they come away thinking, well, something happened!

Josh: When we started playing live early on it became quite obvious that this was a thing about us trying to make each other laugh, really. And that’s how the recording started and the whole thing felt ridiculous. It started to feel like, well, if other people can get something out of it then everyone’s a winner. We can have a good time and so can they. Even if people don’t enjoy it, I think they secretly do a bit!

And does all this fit into the mantra of your Instagram bio, which simply reads Britain’s Best Band…

Josh: Haha, well I was thinking about that the other day. We should probably change that, because when we made the page we just thought we’d put it because it was funny and nobody was paying attention. We weren’t even really paying attention to what we were doing and it’s just stayed there since day one. We’re obviously not Britain’s best band, but also we kind of are?

Ben: If you make yourself invincible and untouchable, then you know, then no one can take you down a peg or two!

You’ve spoken before about the thread of escapism within your music too – what is the importance of that for you?

Josh: Yeah, especially with our last album Crisps, which reflected a sense of drudgery, boredom and dissatisfaction.

Ben: But with our latest EP we’ve been on the road and it was written a lot while we were away, so everyday life isn’t the same as it was. We’re playing shows and getting to do this amazing thing. It sort of rubs off on you a little bit, feeling quite lucky”.

Even though they got a lot of focus earlier in the year and were being tipped for success as a new act, I think they will also get a lot of new attention. A duo that can also define 2026. As their sound has changed and they have developed as a duo, that will attract and intrigue a lot of new websites. DIY inducted Getdown Services into their Class of 2025:

“It feels like with the music, we can get our creative stuff out, and then with the lyrics it’s getting our mental health problems out. They’re completely disjointed; they’re not the same thing,” he continues. “We’re genuinely out of our depth when it comes to vocals so we’re trying to keep it as honest as we can. If you don’t know what you’re doing it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is good, but you do know if you’ve been honest or not. So that’s a good test: I don’t know if it was good but I know it was honest and that’s all I can do.”

It’s this lack of formality or box-ticking that’s perhaps the duo’s best quality. Though there have been no lack of young alternative groups railing at the state of things in recent years, Getdown Services operate somewhere between the surreal observations of Dry Cleaning, the sweary annoyance of Sleaford Mods, and two blokes in a pub putting the world to rights. Some of their songs talk about landlords and gentrification, but they also talk about telly and snacks and poo. “I don’t think anything political in our music is trying to achieve anything beyond vocalising how we feel,” shrugs Josh. “Anything political is political by chance because it comes under the umbrella of things that bother us.”

As the momentum around the band has increased, however, so has an inclination to somewhat level up – albeit in their own way. Though the beauty of a Getdown Services live show is in its chaos, the two friends want it to be chaos of the good kind. “We want to respect the people giving us their time and money so we’re taking it more seriously, whereas before we were a bit more throwaway and didn’t really give a fuck about any of it,” says Josh. “There are people that like what we do, so let’s try and make it good. That’s how much the ambition has grown: let’s try and be a good band.”

They suggest that their new material – the next steps on after both ‘Crisps’ and this winter’s ‘Your Medal’s In The Post’ EP – is taking the band down a route that’s “a bit more personal, maybe less humour”. “But there is a song where Josh shouts a quote from Planet of the Apes…” Ben caveats. “Yeah it does feel a bit ridiculous to say that this new stuff’s all serious and then the first song is us shouting like monkeys, but it’s definitely changed!” his bandmate says.

Yet whether lyrically serious or silly (and given their subsequently-dropped festive single ‘Dr. Christmas’, we’d gauge they haven’t entirely moved over to the former camp), you sense that Getdown Services will always be in it for the right reasons. “People can make their own minds up, but for us it’s just a way to enjoy something we like doing together anyway: taking the piss, making each other laugh, and doing music,” says Ben. “So we’re just doing that, but putting it on a stage”.

I want to take a slight detour and include a fairly recent interview from Guitar for Idiots. They spoke with Getdown Services’ Josh Dunn about the duo’s kit. How important the guitar is in terms of their sound and live performances. If you have not investigated this wonderful two-piece, then do make sure you do some investigation:

“Matt Dunn: The first one is about the role of guitar in Getdown Services, who I think of as a genre-bending band. Where is the guitar in your creative process?

Josh Law: When the band started, we started this band just about 4 years ago. Guitar has been my main instrument my whole life, but when we started the band I was kind of sick of guitar. The band started as a way to try and do something different. I was always into garage rock bands, I liked the White Stripes and stuff like that. But I was just sick of the whole guitar world for a little bit. So for a lot of the stuff the guitar was just kind of begrudgingly in there. I don’t really know how to play any other instruments, we do all the recording ourselves, so we have a go at everything. But I have to get the guitar in because it’s the only one I know how to play.

But just over a year and a half ago something happened. I started playing guitar live, the guitar came out and I was like I really like this. There’s something about the context of this band that made me feel more free. I didn’t feel so constrained by blues rock. It’s kind of become the main instrument now. When we write new music now, the guitar’s the main one. The thinking with the guitar playing now is a bit more, how can we take this recognizable form of guitar playing, and how we can we put that in a context where it doesn’t feel so familiar.

MD: I had noticed that you were playing pretty affordable guitars, but in the gear world right now there’s real romanticism around using cheap gear again and trashy gear again, like the new JHS pedal based on the Tascam. But you seem to live in this reality, do you use a laptop? An amp? Pedals?

JL: Recently I downloaded my first amp simulator. I use Ableton, I was always kind of against using it, this is a free one, I think called “Build Your Own Distortion” but occasionally I’ve got a Roland JC, the most clean amp ever, as everyone knows. I record out of that sometimes, I record a lot of bass out of that.

One of the reasons I don’t use equipment was because when the band started I had fallen out of love with the guitar. I’d had quite a big pedal collection, I was playing psychedelic rock, like everyone did in the mid 2010s. I’d realized when I’m watching bands and the guy’s just fiddling with pedals, it’s the most frustrating thing to see. I sold everything, all my amps, everything, with no intention of starting a band. Then this band started happening and I’ve got to figure out a way to record guitars somehow”.

I am wrapping up with PRS for Music and their interview with Getdown Services. Conducted back in the summer, it was festival season. The duo talking about touring and the importance of getting their music out to fans. A tremendous group/duo live, if you get the chance to see them play then do:

“We try to focus on making sure we’re in the right headspace to give it the beans every time we play live. It can be tricky to balance all your needs while you’re on tour: often you don’t sleep enough and spend a lot more time being social than you might usually. Because of this, we like to shoehorn in alone time and make an effort to be nice to each other and everyone we meet. Red Bull, eating vegetables, not drinking too much, crying in the car and remembering the sheer power of rocking out all helps when you’re on the road.

‘We go into gigs with an attitude of wanting to engage everyone in the room, whether or not they like us — our music is almost secondary. We’re letting off steam and, in doing so, hopefully giving people permission to switch off and do the same. We’re forcing the audience to pay attention for their own good during our live shows. Even if they hate the entire performance, we’d bet money they feel better than if they’d spent that same time just scrolling on their phone.

‘Smaller towns that don’t get as many touring bands coming through always have a different vibe to somewhere like London, where the audience are spoiled for choice. Playing in bigger cities can sometimes feel like you’re performing at a networking event for industry people as much as you are playing an actual gig. Showcase events themselves can feel like a bit of a drag, but whenever we play them we try to focus on getting the people there to stop chatting and let loose a bit, like we do with all our shows. We’re aware that there’s something really funny about the arrogance of us playing at a showcase event and belittling industry people while we’re playing. Having said that, they do serve a purpose that isn’t solely cynical, and we’ve met some really nice people at those kinds of events.

'It’s always exciting playing in new places, especially if it’s somewhere we don’t necessarily feel like we’re an obvious fit. I think being in situations like that gives us extra energy which hopefully makes the performance more engaging. It’s all in the name of fun!

‘We go into gigs with an attitude of wanting to engage everyone in the room, whether or not they like us — our music is almost secondary.'

‘Playing live is definitely the pinnacle of being a musician in terms of sharing your music with other people. Social media engagement and streams don’t make a dent on the feeling you get from playing a gig. When it comes to songwriting, we occasionally factor in how something will work live more than we used to because we play live so much. Lyrically, though, it’s often detached from the world of touring”.

The duo are currently touring the U.K. and Europe, and most of the shows seem to be sold out. They are back in the U.K. at the very end of the year and have dates in the diary for next year. Crumbs 2 is their latest E.P., and it that was released on 5th November. Maybe their finest release yet, I am excited to see what comes next! Make sure Getdown Services are on your radar, as Josh Law and Ben Sadler are a duo…

YOU need to know.

____________

Follow Getdown Services

FEATURE: Spotlight: Girl Group

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Girl Group

__________

THIS amazing group…

are currently touring the U.K. and released their new single, She Goes, earlier this month. Girl Group might make them a hard name to Google and locate for obvious reasons, though it does also not rigidly define them in terms of their sound. You might imagine they would be making music like girl groups/bands of today/old. However, they are very different to what you may imagine! They are Katya Birkeland, Lily Christlow, Thea Gundersen, Mia Halvorsen and Maria Tollisen. Girl Group are a five-piece band based in Liverpool who formed after meeting at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2023. Their debut E.P., Think They’re Looking. Let’s Perform, was released earlier in the year. It is an amazing release. I am going to move to a few interviews with Girl Group. I am going to start out with music is to blame. and their chat with them from this year:

“Girl Group — the real one — is a messy, magical, feminist force rewriting what it means to take up space in the music world. Born out of friendship, frustration, and a lot of glitter, the five-piece met at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and decided to do things their way: fully DIY, fully woman-led, and fully chaotic in the best way.

Music Is To Blame caught up with them just before their explosive opening set for Olivia Dean in Paris, where they left a crowd of new fans screaming. With their debut EP ‘Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform’ just released on June 20th, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. In this Seven Questions series, we talk about community, being fangirls, filming music videos with no budget and big dreams, and the power of building something that feels like home.

Introduce yourselves and where you're from.

Mia: We are four Norwegian girls: me, Thea, Maria, Katya are from Norway, and Lil is from Yorkshire!

Lil: We’re all from all over, but we met in Liverpool at Uni.

Mia: So, the band started in Liverpool!

What do our readers need to know about Girl Group?

Mia: Our main goal with Girl Group is to try and challenge the boys club in the music industry. One of the most important things for us is to bring women together and get each other and ourselves to believe more in ourselves and each other. Also, show that a woman's way of doing things could be just as good or even better. We want to champion all the genders – especially in the time we live in, I think it’s very important to include as many people as you can. For us, it’s been important to prioritise women and non binary people, especially in a system constantly trying to put them down. This is our main point – while trying to have fun!

Thea: We also want to create a comfortable place for us. In the music industry, there’s a lot of misogyny. Having a safe space where women can bring ideas and not feel stupid, underappreciated, or not good enough, is our goal.

Mia: The safety of making mistakes as well. When you grow up, you’re being told that you don’t belong somewhere or that you have to be perfect to belong there. But you will never be perfect if you can’t make mistakes!

What are your three “desert island” albums?

Mia: As a group, Wet Leg’s debut album is kinda what brought us together. We are obsessed with Addison Raye’s style. We’ve also been heavily inspired by Brat [ed. Charli XCX’s album]! It just makes sense – we are so different as well, it’s the girly pops that are bringing us together. It’s cool, strong women, that are being very unapologetic and out there.

Lil: It’s been very cool to see pop women being more and more experimental – like Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter or Lily Allen.

Mia: I think the EP coming out on the 20th is heavily inspired by Brat since we finished it that Brat summer!”.

I will come to Bricks Magazine. Published in July, this was a talk with a five-piece who encapsulate and define Zen G girlhood. They discussed “Spice Girls, Y2K nostalgia, and their DIY ethos inspired their debut EP”. This is a group that we will be talking about for years to come:

“While the sound of the EP jumps between dance, drum ’n‘ bass, and crunchy indie, one band unified them early on. “Wet Leg’s album was the first piece of music that we all just absolutely loved and couldn’t stop listening to together,” says Maria.

That feminist legacy runs deep. “From the very first session we ever did, that was what we were writing about: our experience being in Liverpool and being a woman in Liverpool,” explains Katya. The band doesn’t just sing together – they write every lyric in full collaboration. “We don’t have a main couple writers,” Maria emphasises. “Having those conversations beforehand, that’s been important to us.”

Mia adds: “I think we all have this hunger to write about things we’re really engaged in – like feminism – but also focusing on the fun sides of being a woman, and the painful sides, but sometimes in a playful way.”

“It’s a process of sitting down and seeing what happens, but also planning a bit: like, what do we want to make a song about today, while still keeping to the themes of what we stand for and who we are as people?” Thea explains of the group’s writing set-up. “I don’t think it was planned too much in terms of one song sounding a certain way. We wanted to be genre-fluid so we didn’t want to confine ourselves to one style. There’s a rockier song, a DnB track, and more of a party anthem. Altogether, it creates a full body of work.”

Girlhood & nostalgia

For Girl Group, girlhood isn’t a phase to outgrow – it’s a lens through which to create. Rather than sanitising or mocking it, the band taps into its weirdness, intensity, and emotional excess. Their lyrics bounce between bratty and vulnerable, but always orbit the kinds of feelings you might scribble into a childhood diary: jealousy, fantasy, unfiltered rage.

That rawness is part of what makes the EP hit so hard. There’s yearning underneath the pop shine, and a kind of emotional maximalism that feels distinctly teenage in the best way.  “Some of the things that we’ve bonded over and that we love to talk about as inspiration are the kinds of things that we [all grew up with] in our early girlhood,” says Maria.

More than just a nostalgic moodboard, Girl Group’s take on girlhood is about reclaiming softness and silliness on their own terms. “When I was a teenager, I suddenly realised, ‘oh, it’s not cool to like girly things’,” reflects Mia. “Then you grow up and you realise – you should [take] joy in those things.”

While the group is based in Liverpool, their origins stretch across borders – four of the five members are Norwegian, and the contrast between cultures is something they feel deeply. “Stylistically, I feel really influenced by where I’ve lived in my life,” Katya says. “I grew up in Oslo, then moved to Liverpool, and seeing how people dress – it’s very defined, and in a very different way.”

“In Norway, you’re not really supposed to make much out of yourself,” adds Mia. “You’re not supposed to stand out. Coming to Liverpool, you were supposed to take up that space – we would never make this music if we’d stayed in Norway.”

Still, Oslo lingers in their creative process. “There’s so much space there, literally,” Lil says, recounting a recent trip to Norway that the group took together. “It’s slower, too. That’s been a really nice part of working over there, it does feel very rooted in a specific time”.

I will finish with a new interview from CLASH that caught my eye. I am quite new to Girl Group, but they make an instant impression, and you know that they are going to dominate the scene. Inspiring so many women and girls. They are not only making music that feels true to them and is authentic. They are also creating music that speaks to other women and is for them:

“I think we all came to university thinking, ‘wow, we’re gonna be pop stars’, just to realise the sexism we experienced in the outside world still exists here. We weren’t respected or included, which is a common experience for women in any field,” explains Maria. “I read The Second Sex and it explained a phenomenon which really resonated with me,” Mia chimes in. “It talks of the heteronormative society we’re in and how we’re forced to love our oppressor and hate ourselves, or see other women as competition. When really, the only way to change the system is to bring ourselves together. As soon as you recognise that, everything shifts. You can focus on the incredible sides of being a girl, as well as the issues we still face.”

It’s this statement that seems to encapsulate the heart of Girl Group’s music. Beyond their playfulness and synergy, perhaps the most profound part of their music comes from the subject matter: the everyday, often mundane, experiences of womanhood. Detailing everything from messy girls nights out, to the quiet comfort of a friend’s bedroom, Girl Group snapshot the very best and worst that femininity has to offer, celebrating it all with fierce joy. “Every song has contributions from all five of us,” Katya explains. “We want to depict exactly what happens to us and how our life is right now. The way that we wrote a lot of our lyrics was writing down conversations we would have. We felt like we captured these moments of our friend group.”

 

Nothing captures this unabashed revelry more than their latest single, ‘She Goes’, a track that blends confessional lyrics about female admiration with a pulsating backing that’s reminiscent of a racing motor. It’s a song that places you in the very centre of an experience that sits in the memory of every woman who listens, and yet feels refreshing to hear, like something unlocked and unburdened.

“To exist as a woman is political,” Mia continues. “We use our music to touch on gender oppression, but also to revel in the fun moments that are so true to us. Through being authentic and expressing our experiences as women, we are being political.”

With an outlook and sense of artistry that is strikingly authentic, it’s no surprise the group have found themselves on tastemakers lists. Yet, despite their organic rise, they seem to talk about the future with a sense of determination that never flinches. “Our next project is a lot more conceptual,” Maria explains. “Each song is about a lot of ideas that we’ve kind of always talked about, but really wanted to narrow down.” The sense of closeness and comfort that exudes as they converse amongst themselves feels as rare as the band’s clear, keen vision.

Through being true to themselves, Girl Group have crafted more than a collection of tracks, but a space where every woman, no matter who they are, can find something to resonate with”.

If you have not followed Girl Group yet then go and check them out. I am sure there will be another E.P. or album soon. This quintet are primed for global success. They have such a large fanbase so far but, as we look towards 2026, you know that they are going to be collection legions of new fans. Such incredible music and this close connection between the members, there is no stopping this…

MIGHTY force.

____________

Follow Girl Group

FEATURE: Another Kylie Christmas: Why New Festive Music from the Pop Icon Is Such a Gift

FEATURE:

 

 

Another Kylie Christmas

  

Why New Festive Music from the Pop Icon Is Such a Gift

__________

THIS year has and will see…

modern artists release Christmas music. It is a bit of a risk in terms of commercial success. It is a seasonal thing and many people do not like Christmas music. It can be hard to compete the classics and, with so narrow a focus and potential in terms of themes and lyrics, it can be a challenge. I raised this in another feature. One artist who has put out a fair deal of Christmas material is Kylie Minogue. In 2010, Let It Snow and Santa Baby came out. Kylie Christmas arrived in 2015. The following year, it was reissued as the Snow Queen Edition. Minogue co-wrote a few of the tracks, including Cried Out Christmas and Christmas Isn't Christmas 'Til You Get Here. Even though that album received some mixed reviews, I love what Kylie Minogue did with originals and some well-known Christmas songs. Her take on Winter Wonderland and Santa Baby are especially standout. I think people will always be a bit down on artists doing Christmas albums. As we have heard these standards and classics reworked time and time again. Kylie Minogue will also appear at the Capital FM’s Jingle Bell Ball 2025 on 6th and 7th December. Oddly, I do think there is something quintessentially Christmas about Kylie Minogue. Something in her voice that she can breath new life into older Christmas songs. It has been a bit of a gap since she has graced us with Christmas music. What she delivered in 2015 and 2016 was a real gift for fans - I shall keep thew Christmas puns and wordplay to a minimum! –, and I feel like Kylie Christmas should have got warmer reviews and something less Scrooge-like from critics! Maybe that sense of familiarity with the songs. However, as mentioned, some of the original works are really interesting - and they reignite that discussion about modern Christmas.

This takes us a recent development. An Amazon Music exclusive came out in the form of XMAS. “The track will be available digitally exclusively from Amazon Music as well as on CD, 7 inch gold vinyl, and 12 inch zoetrope vinyl – available to pre-order at Amazon and via Kylie’s official store“. It is the lead single from the Fully Wrapped reissue of Kylie Christmas. Marking a decade of that incredible album, we get this best of with some new tracks. You can tell how much Minogue genuinely loves Christmas! As I said, there is something Christmas-like about Kylie Minogue. She is bringing us some modern-day Xmas cheer. Official Charts reveal how Kylie Minogue is going to be entering the race for Christmas number one this year:

“Kylie Minogue enters the race for 2025's Official Christmas Number 1 single with brand-new tune XMAS, an Amazon Music Original.

The track (pronounced X-M-A-S, btw) is available to stream now exclusively on Amazon Music, and is also available to pre-order on CD, 7-inch gold vinyl and 12-inch zoetrope vinyl via Amazon and Kylie's official online store.

Kylie joins the likes of Ellie Goulding, Katy Perry, Sam Ryder and Tom Grennan as the latest artist to lend their voice to Amazon Music's festive Originals series, which have proven a force to be reckoned with in the iconic Christmas Number 1 race in recent years.

In 2023, Sam Ryder's Amazon Music Original You're Christmas To Me was just pipped to the post in a festive chart battle against WHAM!'s Last Christmas, landing at Number 2. Last year, Tom Grennan threw his hat in the ring with It Can't Be Christmas, which made Number 4 on the Official Christmas Singles Chart, before peaking at Number 3 a week later.

Could Kylie take XMAS all the way this year?

This comes alongside the announcement of a 'Fully Wrapped' reissue of Kylie's Kylie Christmas album, 10 years after its original 2015 release.

The record includes four brand-new tracks - Hot In December, This Time Of Year, Office Party and XMAS - and will be released on December 5.

Kylie posted: "I can’t wait to share this album with you, featuring four new songs and a little extra sparkle”.

Fully Wrapped is going to be really interesting. I think that it is not only reserved for Minogue fans. Her Lovers. This will follow from last year’s TENSION II. Minogue in a period of retrospection and reimagining. TENSION II, a companion piece to 2023’s incredible TENSION. Now, with Fully Wrapped, we get this companion piece or revisit to Kylie Christmas. It makes me think Minogue is clearing the way for new music. How she might grace us with another album maybe next year or in 2027. The Australian icon has definitely been busy the past couple of years. I hope that she gets top rest at home in Australia and there is time for some decompression and getting together with family. XMAS is a nice stocking filler. Actually, it is more than that! We have this amazing new song that will join new songs for the Fully Wrapped release. I am especially intrigued to hear what Hot In December is about. Maybe a racy and saucy Christmas song, we will get these contemporary Christmas takes alongside some classics. It is hard to get the balance right. If you attempt a new Christmas song, people will sniff at it and say it cannot compete with the greats. If you try and cover the classics, then people say that it is not a patch on the original. You can’t win, really! I said in a recent feature whether there is much purpose to releasing Christmas music now. It is reserved for a certain time of year and new Christmas songs now might not be played next year. There is a shorter shelf life compared to album tracks. I think Kylie Minogue is one of those exceptions. Artists that you associate with Christmas and always seem to bring something distinct. Even when she is adding her own stamp to some festive gems of the past. XMAS is a tantalising insight into the forthcoming reissue of Kylie Christmas. A present that fans around the world are…

KEEN to unwrap.

FEATURE: The Best Albums of 2025: Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp

FEATURE:

 

 

The Best Albums of 2025

 

Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp

__________

I am running…

a series of features trat explores the very best albums of the year. It is a subjective measure of course, though there are clear standouts from the year that need to be discussed. I am continuing this run by looking at a year-defining album that arrived on 24th October. I am going to get to reviews for The Boy Who Played the Harp, as it is a work of true vision and genius from the British rapper. The album acted as a follow-up to We're All Alone in This Together (2021), Dave’s second studio album, and Split Decision (2023), Dave's collaborative E.P. with Central Cee. The Boy Who Played the Harp features guest appearances from James Blake, Jim Legxacy, Kano, Tems, and Nicole Blakk. In terms of the title and its derivation, it is a reference to the Book of Samuel (1 Samuel 16:14–23), where Saul summoned a young, brave shepherd, David, to play the harp to soothe him as he was being troubled by evil spirits. Whereas other albums in this run will include words from the artists who made them, I have not seen any published interviews with Dave. It does make it harder to get some personal interpretation and perspective. However, there are features and reviews around the album that I will spotlight. I want to start with a review from NPR and their opinion on The Boy Who Played the Harp:

“Of all the epic heroes to be namechecked in hip-hop lyrics, few are invoked more often than the shepherd David. The appeal of the Old Testament figure who conquered Jerusalem and felled Goliath could scarcely be more obvious: Rappers love warriors and kings, and he is both. He rose from the runt of the litter, faced long odds, silenced his haters and toppled a behemoth, literally becoming the stuff of legend. "If David could go against Goliath with a stone / I could go at Nas and Jigga both for the throne," 50 Cent once rapped. David is not just an underdog for the ages — perhaps the underdog — but a symbol of faith moving the immovable object out of one's path. And yet, there is much more to the Bethlemite's character than giant-killing.

The set-dressing around the big showdown in 1 Samuel is less fit for the rap theme of overcoming struggle to become a champion, but it is the primary fixation of the exceptional British rapper born David Orobosa Michael Omoregie. Dave, as he is known mononymously, is more concerned with what happened before David faced Goliath: As the story goes, the king Saul disobeyed God, and the prophet Samuel anointed David to rule in his stead. In the wake of his defiance, Saul was plagued by evil spirits, and a servant suggested he call David in to play the harp for him as a means of relief; David did so, and the spirits vanished. These are the Biblical verses that shape the rap verses on The Boy Who Played the Harp, Dave's third album, the first in four years — and his esteemed discography's crown jewel.

Since 2018, Dave has been the U.K.'s most decorated lyricist, scoring an Ivor Novello Award, a Mercury Prize and an album of the year win at the Brit Awards. But trophies pale in comparison to a higher calling, and on his latest work the rapper embraces not just his scriptural namesake but 1 Samuel's 16th chapter, in which David is anointed and plays his harp to pacify the phantoms. It could be said that London's top boy has spent the better part of an illustrious career soothing evil spirits, ancestral meditations girding his songs about being a traumatized Black yute in Streatham who grew into a generational voice. But the load of that responsibility is clearly weighing on him. He has ascended to a position of meaningful power; how best to use it?

Now 27, the rapper narrates the new album as though stricken by the contradictions of his chosen profession and sucked into the bog of its self-sustaining stress cycle: His artistic self-immolations have brought him popularity, which leads to class insulation, which in turn induces the shame and survivor's guilt that lead to further immolation. "How can I explain that I don't want to heal 'cause my identity is pain?" he pleads on "My 27th Birthday," before adding, "I wanna be a good man, but I wanna be myself too / And I don't think that I can do both." The personal reflections from inside his quarter-life crisis lead him not only to a philosophical breakthrough but to his sharpest music, expanding the theater of his solemn, elegant sound into a baroque cathedral. The Boy Who Played the Harp is as majestic as it is sturdily built. Across its 10 songs, Dave reevaluates what he owes his listeners, his forebears (in both rap and activism), his protégés (in the game and the streets), his community (at local, cultural and racial levels) and himself. "Ten years I been in the game and I won't lie, it's gettin' difficult," he raps. "This s*** used to be spiritual." The album is breathtaking in both its clarity of thought and purpose, as it walks all who bear witness through a career reckoning turned spirit awakening”.

Never has this knack been put to greater use than on "Fairchild," a gripping six-minute opus that details the sexual assault of a fictional 24-year-old woman named Tamah. Men in hip-hop have yet to meaningfully engage with rape culture, or acknowledge the ways rap culture has fed it, but Dave (who has never shied aways from stories of abuse) takes this moment of messy self-examination to consider his involvement — as party thrower and bystander — and to amplify the accounts of survivors. As he raps, he shifts in and out of phase with the artist Nicole Blakk, warping the perspectives of narrator and listener. Their voices echo out over each other until he finally slingshots into the foreground with a call to action, a muffled synth blaring like a siren in the distance. It is a powerful, determined bit of portraiture that reveals just how elaborate his orchestration has become”.

I will move to a take from Atwood Magazine. For anyone who does not own Dave’s The Boy Who Played the Harp, I would urge you to go and get it. It is one of many masterpieces from this year. It is one of the most affecting listening experiences of the year. I think the last time I sat down with a Dave album was 2019’s PYSCHODRAMA. I think that this is the best thing that he has ever released:

“It’s hard to conceptualize The Boy Who Played the Harp without discussing “Fairchild.” Akin to Adolescence, Dave brings light one of the most harrowing aspects of our modern times, how individually easy it is for men to cause extreme societal damage. The prior 30 minutes has Dave on his hands and knees, pleading for guidance or a relief of our societal pressures. Underneath all the weight, the album’s penultimate tune has a two-minute delivery from Nicole Blakk outlining an assault, the cultural behaviors that empower men to sexually harass women, and the self-preservations women go through to simply exist. It’s a haunting listen. The song is five minutes long. It feels like forever, it will never end. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours. By the time you’re welcomed to the conclusion, Dave bravely asks,

“Am I one of them?”

It’s intrinsic, it’s the work thousands of young boys are demanded of themselves. To close out the emotional climax, Dave issues his ultimatum:

“Can’t sit on the fence,
that’s hardly an option.
You either part of the solution
or part of the problem.”

Change is possible, it can happen, and it’s demanded the individual starts it.

The title track ends the record. It’s a barrage of political and cultural grievances past and present. Words fail to summarize the topics succinctly: [military drafts, survival instincts, societal martyrs, white adoption of black music, the occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian Genocide, artistic risk to discuss topical issues, illegal occupation of stolen land, the rape and pillage of Africa, failure of African leaders to share wealth, continued generational protests for civil rights, affluent partying while the poor struggle, and biblical expectations of the name David] are packed into the 4:37 long conclusion. Somehow landing optimistic, the grand struggles we all face will one day be stories of progress. Change never starts on the grandest scale, progress is always painfully incremental, yet a new world is continually and optimistically possible. Dave ends the album with:

“My ancestors, my ancestors
told me that my life is prophecy
And it’s not just me,
it’s a whole generation of people
gradually makin’ change
There ain’t a greater task
Shift that, make a name, make a start”

It’s exceptionally heavy. Reading the lyrics or discussing them is difficult. You’re challenging yourself, your own comforts, and your own patterns. For many, it won’t be a pleasant listen. For some, the presentation and packaging of The Boy Who Played the Harp will be one of the most memorable listening experiences of the year.

Underneath the depth and topical lyrics, the production is sublime. It’s mostly self-produced by Dave himself, leveraging watery chords and numerous vocal chops. It never feels claustrophobic despite the content. It’s contrived innit, welcoming instrumentals allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough for the lyrical themes. James Blake is featured twice, on the opener and on the aforementioned “Selfish.” A few tunes were written to be more welcoming, “175 Months” or “No Weapons,” yet even those demand the listener to confront racism-infused violence, and the biblical path of life.

The Boy Who Played the Harp is a monumental release, and shows the progress of Dave as a rapper, artist, and producer.

In a post-Blonde, To Pimp a Butterfly, and Sometimes I Might Be Introvert world, Dave’s introduced the newest culturally charged opus that demands listener growth. We’re forced to hear the cultural atrocities we accept and also understand the societal expectations we place on ourselves and others. Can you accept yourself for your shortcomings? Can you forgive your neighbor for the crimes in their name? Do you strive for a better self? For a better other? If you can’t answer those questions, that’s fine. It’s a perfunctory question from Dave, rather than confessing your own answers. You’re the only on that can confront those answers, when you’re ready”.

There are a couple of other reviews that I want to bring in. Stereogum took us deep inside one of 2025’s best albums. I do love this album and it has really stayed with me. I am thinking of personal highlights. I think Fairchild or maybe History. You revisit the album and something hits you the next time you pass through:

“He turns that self-analysis outward with tracks like “Fairchild” and “Marvellous,” mildly didactic but necessary tales of a world filled with creepy men and toxic masculinity. For the former, Dave provides a real-time accounting of a woman’s sexual assault, sifting through uncomfortable mundanities that preceded the attack. He ends by examining his own complicity in a sexist world, resulting in a track that’s emotionally immediate enough to cancel out its heavy handedness.

The album is a serious one, but not everything here is so dire. The Kano-featuring “Chapter 16” is a chill bro reunion that’s touching, thoughtful, and realistic; the details and conversational ease of it all make you feel like you’re sitting at OXO Tower as the two catch up on the things that changed and the things that can’t. When Dave decides to get romantic as he does on the TEMS-assisted “Raindance,” he grafts a mellow afrobeat with convincing sincerity Drake misplaced sometime around 2015: “We can get into it or we can get intimate/ The shower when you sing in it/ Better than Beyoncé, I like the sound of fiancée/ You know, it’s got a little ring to it.” The shift between charm and searing introspection helps keep the album from total monotony. Unfortunately, the hooks themselves do not. She can sing her ass off, but the “Raindance” hook has all the creativity of ChatGPT prompt for “How to make the most forgettable love song you’ve ever heard”: “It’s the way my mind fallin’ away/ In my heart, I know/ You feel the same when you’re with me/ You know I’m all you need/ You’re where I wanna be/ My darling, can’t you see?”

A similar lack of distinction impacts the album’s production. Dave’s raps remain sharp, and his self-perception is commendable, but competent as they are, the beats feel flavorless. The tepid strings and piano keys are great soundtracks for contemplation. But swirled with Dave’s less-than-aerodynamic vocals, they envelop you in a monotonous fog; I needed to jump to NBA Youngboy in between a few tracks. The hooks themselves don’t do much to elevate Dave, either. Parts of the James Blake and TEMS collabs are fun, but I barely remember a word either of them sing. Their placements here aim for prestige, but the choruses feel like placeholders.

The potency of Dave’s message is generally enough to make you appreciate the Good Word. Part confession, part sermon, he takes you to church. But unlike the most dynamic preachers, he doesn’t always make you forget you’re stuck there”.

I am going to finish off with The Guardian and their five-star assessment of Dave’s The Boy Who Played the Harp. Saluting what a skilled rapper he is, this is going to be included in a lot of year-end lists. The best of 2025. One of our greatest artists, do go and listen to Dave’s latest album. I am curious where he heads next and what his next chapter will be. Seemingly growing in stature and brilliance with each album, what does the future hold? Before he considers his next musical step, he has a string of tour dates next year:

“The Boy Who Played the Harp is a very muted-sounding album indeed, big on sparse arrangements, gentle piano figures and subtle pleasures: the unsettled, skittering beats and helium vocal samples that open 175 Months, the quietly eerie harmony vocals that appear midway through My 27th Birthday. Several of its tracks run over the six minute mark, while even its poppiest moments – No Weapons, which reunites him with Sprinter producer Jim Legxacy, and Raindance, a collaboration with Nigerian singer Tems – feel understated. And once the opening verses of History are out of the way, it’s an album noticeably light on self-aggrandising swagger: to judge by the rest of the lyrics, Dave has spent a significant proportion of the last couple of years consumed by a series of existential crises. “Why don’t you post pictures, or why don’t you drop music?” he admonishes himself at one point. “Or why not do something but sitting and stressing yourself?”

Some of his issues are universal, the kind of thoughts that tend to plague people in their late 20s, that weird period in life where you realise that you’re incontrovertibly an adult, whether you feel like one or not. He spends a lot of The Boy Who Played the Harp thrashing over the pros and cons of settling down, unable to work out whether it’s something he is emotionally capable of or not: “You should have had kids … don’t you feel like you’re behind?” he frets on the crestfallen Selfish. The brilliant Chapter 16 is styled as a lengthy dialogue between Dave and Kano, the latter now a patriarchal figure in UK rap, whose career began when Dave was at primary school. It shifts suddenly from discussing the music industry and the impact of sudden fame on your friends to Dave petitioning Kano, a contented family man, for relationship advice: the latter hymns the pleasure of swapping “a silver Porsche” for “leather Max-Cosi baby seats in the SUV”.

But he also seems conflicted about his career, worrying aloud about whether his lyrics are sufficiently socially aware, and whether they have any impact even if they are, working himself up into such a state on My 27th Birthday that he ends up questioning whether the world actually needs to hear anyone rapping at all: “We don’t need no commentators, we can leave that to the sports / Just listen to the music, why’d you need somebody’s thoughts?”

The irony is that he has already answered that question. An album full of self-examination by a rich and successful pop star might seem like a schlep on paper, but Dave is a fantastically smart, sharp lyricist, more than capable of making it work – The Boy With the Harp feels fascinating, rather than self-indulgent – just as he’s technically skilled enough to make the album’s muted sound a bonus: it focuses attention on his voice and exemplary flow.

It’s a point underlined when he finally shifts his gaze outwards on Marvellous and Fairchild, two tracks that emphasise his brilliance as a storyteller: the former tracks a 17-year-old’s progress from drugs to violence to jail, while the latter slowly details a sexual assault, shifting from Dave’s voice to that of female rapper Nicole Blakk, before exploding into a burst of rage that variously takes in “incels”, the murder of Sarah Everard, and hip-hop’s objectification of women: “I’m complicit, no better than you”. It’s harrowing, gripping and powerful: all the evidence you need that Dave’s doubts about himself are unfounded”.

A truly wonderful album that will leave impression on everyone who listens to it, it is no surprise that it has garnered such incredible praise. It is a shame there are no interviews where Dave speaks about The Boy Who Played the Harp. Maybe that means we are not guided and can interpret songs as we feel fit. Dave has given so much of himself with the album, anyway. It is wonderful and awe-inspiring to hear…

A master at the top of his game.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards Nominees 202

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IMAGE CREDITS: Rolling Stone UK 

 

The ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards Nominees 2025

__________

THERE are a fair few…

music award ceremonies each year. The GRAMMY Awards in the U.S. is perhaps the biggest of the calendar. In the U.K., we have the BRIT Awards. I think that the most credible and coolest are NME’s award ceremony and Rolling Stone UK’s. Official the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards, I wanted to compile a mixtape of the nominees that have been announced. I am featuring a few of the categories from Rolling Stone UK. I am including nominees in The Song Award, The Album Award, The Play Next Award. There is also The Live Award , The Artist Award, and The Breakthrough Award. Let’s not forget The Group Awards. There is that mix of contemporary legends and stars of tomorrow. Blending together in a playlist. The Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025 will be held on Thursday, 20th November at the Roundhouse in London. It is going to be an amazing evening. Never gaining the same plaudits and attention at the BRITs, I do hope there is coverage for this great award ceremony. You may know some of these artists in the mix below, though there are going to be others that are new. I am excited to see who walks about with awards in two weeks. It will be an amazing event, so do make sure you follow it and check the social media feed of Rolling Stone UK. Hosted by Danny Dyer, it is going to be epic! Take a listen to the prestigious and awesome nominees who are going to make the Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025…

ONE of the very best.

FEATURE: Where Love Lives: In Reaction to This Year’s John Lewis Christmas Advert

FEATURE:

 

 

Where Love Lives

IN THIS PHOTO: Alison Limerick holds a vinyl copy of her iconic 1990 single, Where Love lives, which is the central focus of this year’s acclaimed John Lewis Christmas advert (and has been reworked by artist/producer, Labrinth). Limerick said (of the honour): “I squealed when I heard that Where Loves Lives would be in the advert – literally squealed like an excited child”)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

 

In Reaction to This Year’s John Lewis Christmas Advert

__________

IT is a bit of an event each year…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock/The Independent

when we start seeing the Christmas adverts on T.V. Starting about now, all the major supermarkets put theirs out. Although not as utilitarian or ‘grounded’ as other chains, John Lewis are more upmarket. However, that is not to dimmish the importance of their Christmas adverts. There have been some great ones through the years. I am not sure whether it brings more people into one of their stores. However, it always provokes reaction and conversation. You can see every John Lewis Christmas advert aired. You can find a rankings list here. I am going to start out with some critical reaction to this year’s advert. One that I think is their very best in years. I am not really a fan of Christmas adverts and rarely succumb to the tear-jerking charm and allure. However, this year’s offering not only hits all the right emotional buttons. It shows positive masculinity between a father and son. It also, importantly, gets the music choice just right. One of the downsides of John Lewis Christmas adverts is how there are often syrupy and quite characterless cover version of well-known songs. If the foreground and film itself is superb, I feel like the musical choice is often a little drippy and a bit too sickly-sweet. That cliché of Pop versions of classics washes out the colour and purpose of the original. However, this year brings Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives into focus. John Lewis members can actually buy a limit edition version of the single on vinyl. All profits generated from its sale will support the John Lewis Partnership’s Building Happier Futures programme, which aids individuals who have grown up in care. That is something you want to support! The moment that the dad received a vinyl copy of this song – clearly one that means a lot to him – is simple but effective. You can see the advert below.

The reaction to the advert has, for the most part, being positive. For someone like me – who grew up listening to amazing music like Where Love Lives and it is my sort of era (well, I was a child when it came out but it was a song I played a lot and love to this day) -, I can connect with the song and its meaning. It is that thoughtful gift and moment. Good Housekeeping noted in their review:

“Well, you can get the baubles out because the ad has landed and it's a celebration of music – namely, the 1990s club ‘banger’, Where Love Lives by Alison Limerick, which provides the soundtrack, and transforms into a new, slowed-down version by Labrinth.

It's also a tribute to father/son relationships.

Whereas last year's ad focused on two sisters, the stars of the John Lewis Christmas ad 2025 are a father and his teenage son. At the start, you see the dad tidying up under the tree and discovering a present that was missed in all the Christmas chaos.

His son watches anxiously as he unwraps his gift – a vinyl record – which immediately transports the dad back to his clubbing days. We then see snippets of his relationship with his son over the years (the shots of the boy as a baby and toddler running to his dad are real tearjerkers, as is the hug at the end).

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock

The story of a son looking forward to his dad's reaction to his gift also feels like a bit of a throwback to many people's favourite John Lewis ad ever, The Long Wait – the one with the little boy who just can't wait to give his present on Christmas Day.

The message? If you can't quite find the words, choosing just the right gift will say it for you. The theme was inspired by research that found we struggle as a nation to say what we really mean, but Christmas is a time when we try to reconnect.

This year's ad also reflects the the fact that 1990s and 2000s children have grown up and now have families of their own, so we're now seeing the Millennial Christmas, with all the traditions and tunes that come with that.

This one goes out to the 90s club kids”.

Even though I bemoaned the slowed-down version of classics before, usually a piano version that is quite a lot to take in, we do get that happening in this year’s advert. Actually, last year’s advert featured Richard Ashcroft’s Sonnet. Look at the songs used in all of their adverts, and there have been a lot of more ‘saccharine’ (others might find a more appropriate word) versions of well-known songs. A hallmark for John Lewis, I guess they have to keep with traditional and speak to their customers. The Guardian were a bit more cynical with their opinion of John Lewis’s new Christmas advert. One that came out early than last year’s:

“Meanwhile, the advert perfectly captures a very common moment of fatherhood. I’m talking, of course, about the time you decide to go clubbing, only to realise that since having a child you’ve become horrifically old and decrepit and that, to all the young people around you, you now basically represent the creeping spectre of death, and you’re suddenly hit by the realisation of how ancient you are, and you go home depressed and never attempt anything fun or exciting again until you die.

And then anyone under the age of 20 will take something else from the advert. That is: what the hell does any of this mean? It’s a film about someone buying a vinyl record from a bricks and mortar shop, that’s being shown on linear broadcast television? Why? Why go to all this bother? Why doesn’t the son just play him the song on Spotify? Why doesn’t he type ‘Where Love Lives’ into TikTok and give his dad the gift of an algorithmically generated feed of some Russian children lip-syncing to it? Wouldn’t that be easier?

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock

Honestly, to Gen Z or younger, this whole thing must be like watching a highly commended entry from an obsolete technology competition. You know what? Next year, why not go even further? Why not release the John Lewis advert as a phénakisticope about a farmer trading a goat for a sack of stubble turnips? It couldn’t possibly be any more of an anachronism than this.

But maybe I’m being cynical. There’s still a romance to clinging on to traditions that are no longer useful. A tangible record will always be more special than an online stream. Visiting a shop will always be more special than clicking an object on a website. There’s something reassuring in the way that we’re still discussing a television commercial. And we’re doing it via the medium of print journalism, the most obsolescent technology of them all. Merry Christmas everyone!”.

The version of Where Love Lives is reimagined by Labrinth this year. It will give attention to that version but, more than anything, it will draw a different and younger generation to the original. Missing out on the song the first time around – it was released in 1990 -, it will compel parents to discuss the song with their children. The Independent shared the products featured in the John Lewis advert and lauded its sentiment. At its best this year, I have seen so much positive reaction:

“The UK’s equivalent to Hallmark movies, the John Lewis Christmas TV advert has finally arrived – officially marking the start of the festive period. After last year’s lukewarm reception, the stalwart is back to form with a tearjerking tale of a father and son bond, set to a nostalgic soundtrack.

The advert has introduced us to plenty of memorable characters over the years (including Buster the bouncing dog and Edgar the excitable dragon), but the 2025 addition has a more grown-up feel. On Christmas Day, a dad walk sadly past his son who has headphones in. While cleaning up the discarded wrapping under the tree, he discovers a gift from his son addressed to him.

Inside, it’s a vinyl of a nineties dance track that floods him with memories of his youth spent clubbing. Across the dance floor, he spots his son who transforms into a toddler, then a newborn baby in his arms. Marking the passing of time and the power of music, the heartwarming ending sees father and son embracing by the Christmas tree.

The songs in John Lewis’ Christmas advert always make the music charts (see Lily Allen cover Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know and Elton John singing Your Song). This year, the 1990s dance icon Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives is reimagined by Labrinth”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Labrinth remarked how being involved in the John Lewis Christmas advert is a ‘big deal’/PHOTO CREDIT: Ian West/PA Media Assignments/PA Wire

Alison Limerick revealed that her iconic song was never intended for release. Even though I am not completely taken by Labrinth’s cover version of the song, it is not used in a lot of the album and is actually one of the best (or least forgettable and annoying) cover versions in recent years. I have hears cover version of Where Love Lives, and it is good to slow the song down and reveal more emotional layers. However, maybe the fade from the hypotonic and dancefloor-uniting smash into the ballad-y and Folk-Pop (if that is the right genre-melt?) is quite abrupt and does not quite hit the landing! However, it is amazing that John Lewis have featured this thirty-five-year-old smash that is still widely played to this day but might not be known to children and teens. The advert is shot brilliantly, and I love the cut between the dad unwrapping the gift and then being transported into the club as his older self and dancing alongside younger club-goers. Words do not have to be spoken between the father and son. It is a tender moment that says enough on its own. Many have noted how it promotes positive masculinity. In a landscape where toxic masculinity and male violence dominates, it is a much-needed dose of positivity. Some might say it not so huge, given John Lewis adds are often very sensitive, family-based and have that warmth. Something feels more urgent and different this year. The advert sees the dad holding his son as a baby and toddler, and then we see him (the son) coming down the stairs, and the two sharing a look before embracing.

It is an intriguing advert! At the very start, the son has headphones on and looks quite nervous, as the dad finds the present (as the rest have been opened and cleared up) and the sister looks on. I wonder how the son knew about that track and why it means a lot to his dad. Many have noted how hard it is to get a copy of Where Love Lives on vinyl! Maybe there was this evening where the father was discussing his younger days when he was in clubs in the early-1990s and fell for this song. Perhaps not always an open and easy relationship between the two; the music itself and the memories it holds (for the dad) broke a barrier and evoked a happier time. Content with his family, it was a blast of nostalgia that will resonate with people like me. That idea of the power of music from our childhood and youth and how it not only remains in our hearts but never ages. I want to finish with an interview with Alison Limerick from almost exactly a decade ago. Limerick was asked about her relationship with a song that, at this point was a quarter-century old:

“Latti Kronlund wrote ‘Where Love Lives’ and famously picked you to record it – why you?

At the time I was involved with this glorified fashion show at the ICA in London which involved singers, jugglers and other performers rather than models. I sang ‘God Bless The Child’ [Billie Holiday’s 1941 classic] and Latti was in the audience. He apparently told people afterwards that he absolutely had to work with me but it took him six months to connect because the ICA, being security-minded, wouldn’t give him my number. We worked on three or four songs which, to be honest, were really odd and abstract, and then he disappeared off to Sweden for ages. Latti eventually returned with another five songs, one of which was ‘Where Love Lives’. He told me that that was my song to sing because it required someone with a big two-octave range, and I had it.

Do you keep in touch with Latti?

I do and we have something really special planned for [21] January. He’ll be playing Ronnie Scott’s in London with his ‘big band’ Brooklyn Funk Essentials, and he’s asked me to join him for a one-off twist on ‘Where Love Lives’. It’ll be the first time we’ve ever performed the track live together, and after all these years. It’s a fantastic song…such an amazing shock to see what it has become.

It’s become your life in so many respects – truly, what’s your relationship with it like these days?

There was one point a few years ago where I was upset about it; upset that it would define me regardless of whatever else I did. But ‘Where Love Lives’ turned me into a focused artist after years spent as a jobbing singer, dancer and actress. And when I see people reacting to it that’s always genuinely amazing. More so now, when those people are not just of the older club generations but the new ones too…the twenty-somethings. When you’re live they are always new ways to sing a classic song like that and keep it fresh. A few years ago I was probably playing around with it too much and taking it too far away from what the fans recognised. So now I keep it a little more controlled and enjoy the atmosphere I’m creating. I hear a few DJs have been playing it at Glitterbox to some great reactions this summer. I’m really looking forward to performing the classic version there in person soon. Can’t wait!”.

If some have been bah humbug or ho-hum about this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, most have been very positive. Often seen as the best Christmas adverts on T.V., there is this high standard to uphold. However, Jonh Lewis have hit all the right notes and made a step forward. I think the slightly less overt stripping back of a slowed-down and syrupy cover is a necessary move. That choice of story and central song is inspired, timely and not obvious. They could have gone with an Oasis song or cashed in and played it safe. However, by going slightly more underground – or at least embraced a genre they have not before -, it has captured attention and greater discussion. Great music, memories, father-son bond and positivity to the fore. Something as primitive and simple as a musical memory, it incredibly powerful and resonates with everyone. The Guardian asked their readers what Dance track they would gift to their teenager. We can identify with that advert in some form and all have songs and time periods we flash back to and cherish. It will bring attention to Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives, but also record players and headphones. Basically, as there are music items involved, I was keen to cover the advert for that reason alone. If some feel the new advert is a bit corny, I think John Lewis have achieved a…

PERFECT blend and balance.

FEATURE: More Than a ‘Muse’ The Unheralded and Underexplored Women on Classic Album Covers

FEATURE:

 

 

More Than a ‘Muse’

 

The Unheralded and Underexplored Women on Classic Album Covers

__________

I have been thinking about…

some of the classic albums that feature women on the cover. Not famous and well-known faces. Many bands and artists did it as a way of either keeping themselves off of the cover or creating some sort of allure or sexiness. Whether designed to provoke some sort of reaction or a stylistic choice, we do not really know about these women. Of course, in some cases, the women used on the covers are not consulted with and then take the artist/band to task. One such example is the cover star of Vampire Weekend’s Contra. The press always refer to women on covers as ‘muses’. It seems like such an insulting and dehumanising word. These women help the artist to sell records and make the cover what it is. As Vanity Fair wrote about the woman on the cover of Contra: “Ever since she was 23, people have been using Ann Kirsten Kennis’s image to sell their products. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, she appeared in magazine advertisements, catalogue pages, and television commercials for a long list of recognizable brands, among them L’Oréal, Revlon, Fabergé, Parliament, Cuervo, Jordache, and Vaseline. She did looker ads and lingerie ads and bathing-suit ads too”. In 2011, The Guardian reported how Vampire Weekend settled with Kristen Kennis: “Vampire Weekend have settled their legal dispute with Ann Kirsten Kennis, the model who discovered her photo on the cover of the band's album Contra. Kennis won an undisclosed settlement from the band and their label, XL Records, while her photographer remains locked in ongoing litigation. Contra was already on sale when Kennis's teenage daughter spotted her mum's face on the cover. "I was like, 'Yeah, that's strange. That's me, many years ago,'" Kennis told Vanity Fair in 2010. The Polaroid was almost 30 years old, and Kennis didn't remember posing for it. Although a photographer called Tod Brody claimed she signed a release form in 2009, Kennis, now in her early 50s, denied this. She took them all to court, seeking $2m (£1.3m) in damages. Vampire Weekend and XL always claimed they followed proper steps to license the photograph, blaming Brody for any wrongdoing. Yet even if the photographer misled them, the court could still have found that they did not exercise sufficient due diligence, paying Brody $5,000 but not researching the photo's provenance. By settling with Kennis, the case against Vampire Weekend has been dismissed, Photo District News reports”.

It is a shame that the first example resulted in an unfortunate lawsuit. However, there is no denying that this photo helps make Contra’s cover one of the greatest of that generation. It is striking. It also afford us an opportunity to pay credit to the woman whose image was used. Not a muse. She is, instead, this incredible talent and amazing human whose story and work has been acknowledged and explored more – even if it was as a result of a lawsuit and backlash. Not only making such all legalities are followed, I do think artists should acknowledge this iconic and incredible women on covers. In terms of featuring women on album covers, Roxy Music are notable. Not in an exploitative way. Eight studio albums feature women. A decision the band made, it was almost like selling a work of art or a beauty magazine. Engaging listeners with this beautiful or sexy image. An idea of perhaps what the album would sound like. This article explores the women featured on Roxy Music album covers. I am going to include four examples. If their earlier albums featured unknown women on their covers (including fans), they had grown by the time 1975’s Siren arrived. Whether a famous supermodel or not, these women are part of music history. Part of some of the most iconic album covers ever:

“Roxy Music (1972)

Cornwall-born Kari-Ann Muller was a former Bond girl (she appeared in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) paid a scant £20 to appear on the cover of Roxy Music – a steal for the then-unknown band, whose debut album would go on to define 70s art-rock. Evoking classic glamour shots of the 40s and 50s, the Roxy Music artwork set the template for all future Roxy Music album covers, though Muller would retire from modeling in order to become a yoga teacher. She retains ties to the rock world, however, as she married Chris Jagger, whose brother has fronted a popular beat combo since the 60s.

Siren (1975)

A sign of how Roxy Music’s status had grown in just three years, they were able to encourage globally recognized supermodel Jerry Hall to pose as a mermaid for the cover of their fifth studio album. Ever the charmer, Bryan Ferry is said to have held an umbrella over Hall during the shoot, to ensure that her blue body paint did not wash off. Smitten, Hall was engaged to Ferry by early 1976, though she would leave him the following year for Mick Jagger, subsequently inspiring the Stones’ song, “Miss You,” and becoming the third Roxy Music album covers model to connect the band to Jagger and co.

Manifesto (1979)

Perhaps finding it hard to top Jerry Hall, when Roxy Music returned after a four-year hiatus they threw a fake party with a collection of mannequins – some apparently designed with the original Roxy Music cover star, Kari-Ann Muller, in mind. Look carefully in the background and you can see two human models: a pair of twins who were long-term fans of the band.

Flesh + Blood (1980)

Roxy Music went for gold with Flesh + Blood, which hit the top spot in the UK charts in June 1980. The models, staged to look like high-school athletes competing in a sports day javelin contest, were picked and photographed by Peter Saville, best known for his design for work for Factory Records”.

In some cases there is a bit of, well, controversy to the cover star. When it came to blink-182’s cover for Enema of the State (1999) and the nurse, they photographed Janine Lindemulder. An adult film actress, often credited mononymously as Janine. She is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame. In that case, it was very much the band trying to be proactive and perhaps aim squarely at their target audience (teenage boys and those in their early-twenties). Even so, that is not me throwing shade. It is a phenomenal album cover and, rather than it being this mysterious image where the woman is uncredited, shining a light on Lindemulder means she joins the cannon of women who help define incredible album covers. Giving them a story and props. This interesting article introduced us to amazing women on phenomenal covers. Two all-time classic albums are defined by the women on them. Whether accompanying the greatest lyricist ever or a front and centre on a landmark 1990s album, it is their presence, image and gravitas that not only makes the cover timeless. We also get to discover more about them:

“Then there’s Suze Rotolo, immortalized on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), walking arm-in-arm with the Bard of 4th Street down a snowy Greenwich Village avenue. Unlike our other cover stars, Rotolo wasn’t a model but Dylan’s girlfriend and, more importantly, his cultural compass.

This daughter of Communist Party members introduced the Minnesota boy to modern art, poetry, and civil rights politics. She inspired the acerbic classic balled “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and showed Dylan there was more to life than scratchy old Woody Guthrie records. The cover shot, by Don Hunstein, captured young love in its natural habitat – though if you look closely, you can tell they’re freezing their artistic asses off.

The relationship between Dylan and Rotolo was more than just another swinging sixties fling. She opened his eyes to a world beyond folk music, taking him to see Picasso’s “Guernica” and French New Wave films. After hearing her talk about the murder of Emmett Till, Dylan wrote one of his first protest songs. Their love story ended after three years, but Rotolo’s influence on Dylan’s artistry was permanent. She kept quiet about their relationship for decades, finally breaking her silence for Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary, No Direction Home, followed by her own memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time. Suze passed away in 2011 from lung cancer.

Fast forward to 1994, and we meet Leilani Bishop on Hole’s Live Through This. Photographer Ellen von Unwerth recalls Courtney Love calling her with a vision: recreate the prom queen scene from the horror movie Carrie. The 17-year-old Bishop nailed the beauty-queen-gone-wrong look, complete with smeared mascara and that slightly unhinged smile. Apparently, the iconic pig blood was out of stock at the prop store.

The timing proved eerily prophetic – the album was released just seven days after Kurt Cobain’s death, with Bishop’s emotional expression capturing the turmoil surrounding the band and its frontwoman.

Von Unwerth and Love clicked immediately, bonding over drinks the night before the shoot while Love wore her signature schoolgirl dress. Though the photographer hadn’t heard the album yet (it was still being recorded), she trusted that “Kurt’s girls would produce something equally cool [as anything by Nirvana].” The shoot proved to be perfectly timed lightning in a bottle – and Billboard later ranked it #12 on their “50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.” Bishop is now a podcaster and conservationist”.

I have been thinking that there should be a collection or exhibition of album covers with these amazing and diverse women. There are so many I will forget. Modern examples that have nothing written about them. However, this article lists a few I have already covered. However, they also let us know about the woman featured on the phenomenal cover for Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain:

“Along with George Clinton’s other band The Parliaments – who would later go on to become the fully-fledged Parliament – Funkadelic helped to pioneer the iconic funk sound of the American 70s. Their third album, Maggot Brain, was the last in a run of albums, before the group expanded into a funk collective, that were also heavily influenced by psychedelia. Its cover was the perfect blend of the two genres, showing a woman’s head screaming (in either pleasure or pain) sticking out of bare earth covered in roots. All very trippy. The woman in question, though, was the African-American model Barbara Cheeseborough, known for her Afrocentric image – and a symbol of the black culture that is inextricable from funk and soul music”.

Actor Tamarah Park was the model for REO Speedwagon's best-selling 1980 album, Hi Infidelity. Nataliya Medvedeva: A model, singer, and writer featured on the cover of The Cars' 1978 album, The Cars. Also, and an album cover I remember well, was Maroon 5’s Hands All Over. That featured Rosie Hardy: as a 19-year-old photographer, she took the photo of herself.

I guess there was a traditional for Glam Rock and Hard Rock bands to feature women on the covers. In many cases, we will never know who they are. I guess the motivation was, again, to create sex appeal or sell records that way. It does make me wish we knew more about these women. How many of them were ever named or given their dues? In some cases, a provocative or sexy image can be very artistic and classy. The woman on Pixies' Surfer Rosa album cover is not a single person, but the name Rosa comes from a lyric and the cover's concept was a flamenco dancer posing as a surfer girl. The image was created by photographer Simon Larbalestier and his friend, Rosa, who was the girlfriend of a friend of the band. At a time when so many album covers are bland and forgettable, it did turn my mind to the anonymous or under-discussed women who we know by looks but not by name. Learning more about them, I feel, gives extra depth to albums. Many people will have examples of their own. It would be good to know. From Roxy Music to Bob Dylan through to The Cars, Vampire Weekend and Hole, some of the all-time best albums have these incredible women on the covers. More than mere muses or cover stars, they are part of music history and tapestry. I still think there should be a documentary, exhibition or something that explores these women. It would be wonderful to…

KNOW more about them.

FEATURE: How to Be Human: Why Next Year Needs to Be One Where the Industry Prioritises the Mental Health of Its Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

How to Be Human

 

Why Next Year Needs to Be One Where the Industry Prioritises the Mental Health of Its Artists

__________

MAYBE there is something appropriate…

when we consider the title of Cat Burns’s latest album, How to Be Human. One of our finest artists, the album received some wonderful reviews. I will come to one of them soon enough. Burns was due to tour the album soon. However, due to an intense build-up and promotional period, coupled with how much of herself Cat Burns gave to the album, she has had to make the decision to step back for now and reschedule the tour dates. NME explain more in their recent article:

“The singer, who has also found a new wave of fans by starring on the latest season of Celebrity Traitors, shared on social media that she made the difficult decision to postpone her upcoming ‘How To Be Human’ tour dates following an “intense” period.

The dates were set to kick off on November 10 at the O2 Academy in Glasgow, and continue with shows in Manchester, Brighton, Wolverhampton, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Bristol throughout the month, before ending with a slot at the Brixton O2 Academy in London on November 30. They all come in support of her new album of the same name.

Beginning her update, Burns said: “This album and tour mean the world to me. It’s been a massive journey getting ready to share ‘How To Be Human’ with you. I can’t believe it’s nearly here!! But unfortunately the build-up has been a lot more intense than any of us expected, so myself and my team have made the difficult decision to move the How To Be Human Tour to April 2026.”

The singer added that all tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled dates in April, but added that Wolverhampton has been unable to be rebooked, so a new gig in Birmingham will be taking its place.

“Touring is incredibly demanding mentally and physically, and I want to make sure I’m taking care of my wellbeing so I’m in the right headspace to give you the show you deserve. When I step on stage, I really want to feel my best and give you a night that feels worth every moment of waiting,” she added.

Also on Instagram Stories, Cat confirmed that the scheduled shows at record stores will be going ahead as planned, and thanked fans for their “patience, kindness, and understanding through this”.

“These decisions are never easy and I don’t take your support for granted,” she concluded. “I can’t wait to see you soon and make these shows everything they should be.”

Burns’ new album ‘How To Be Human’ arrived today (Friday October 31), and marked the follow-up to her 2024 Mercury Prize shortlisted record ‘Early Twenties’.

Sharing another post celebrating the release, Burns said: “I left a very big piece of me on this project, going through grief and heartbreak at the same time really re wired my brain chemistry, and I noticed when people try and give uplifting messages about getting through the hard times they never really go into detail about how they got to the end of the tunnel or even what the tunnel looked like, so I REALLY wanted to do that with this album and document the trenches of processing your emotions.”

She continued: “It’s very honest and it’s very vulnerable (perhaps too vulnerable with the voice memos of me crying) but I truly believe art should cost us something so the fact that I’m so nervous putting this out means it’s gonna hopefully resonate with you all.

“I could only have written such a personal project with my nearest and dearest writers who just always make our sessions such a safe space, it’s literally like therapy for me and I’m so grateful to you all for helping me bring this album to life”.

A few things struck me when reading that article. I think many artists want to make albums as personal as possible. So that they are honest and stand out. So it is distinct and feels real. This year has seen so many artists put everything they have inside them into albums. That in itself much be extremely demanding. It is incredible that they have the strength and courage to do this. They then share this with the public. After an album like that has been written and is ready to be released, there is that demand from the industry to promote and make sure people know about it. There is still this emphasis on content and remaining engaged. A promotional build-up that is so intense. Given how hard it is for artists to stand out and to make a career at a time when there are so many other artists and they can only make money from touring and merchandise, there is this emphasis on getting an album out and as many people as possible knowing about it. Having to be across multiple social media platforms and posting teasers videos, photos, reels, stories and so much to ensure that fans are engaged and there is this constant impression and interaction, artists also have to engage in interviews and do live dates even before they announce big tours. That alone can be enough to drain an artist. Venues have limited availability and I think there is this desire for artists to tour new albums as soon as they can. Not leave too much of a gap unless any momentum drops. It may not be true for all artists, though one feels that there cannot be too long a wait between album release and touring. Between the release of an album and that first date, there are interviews that are still being conducted. There is promotion of the tour – right after the album promotion – and artists having to prepare themselves to go on the road.

If artists have to tour internationally, then it adds a whole new layer of pressure. However, even if someone like Cat Burns is touring the U.K., there is the drain of travel together with the gig itself. Moving between towns and cities and having to reveal so much of herself every night, you do wonder how any artists can manage to do it! Burns still is doing record store dates and these smaller gigs. The task of having to step from that promotional treadmill after being lost in an album from so long and then holding crowds in huge venues in your hand, together with all the social media engagement, it is a challenging balancing act. Artists want to give everything to albums and their fans. This often means that they do not have enough left to give to themselves. So much of their emotional and physical goes into the recording that it can be overwhelming. Cat Burns’s decision to take care of her wellbeing is commendable. She could have toured now and burned out, which would have damaged her career and it would have been a big physical and psychological sacrifice. Of course, we do not know the exact circumstances of why Cat Burns needs to reschedule dates, though it is a familiar story. So many artists making the same decision. It makes me wonder about the industry and whether too much is expected. Mental health care is available for artists but, as so many artists are treating songwriting like therapy and being so naked, there does need to be intervention and checks at the writing and recording stage.

There is this wonderful book that “is written directly for the music industry and aims to help musicians and those working in live music to identify, process and manage the physical and psychological difficulties that can occur on the road or as a result of touring. Inside, you’ll find guidance on mental and physical health issues, relationship challenges, preparing for performance, media training and much more”. It is important that artists on the road are taken care of. That demand for them to perform is something that is natural, though few can realise the effort and reality of being on the road and everything that is required to perform a string of gigs and be on top form every date. Do we look before that and how artists are treated before touring? They can change tour dates, though it is a last resort for most. We do not really talk enough about the demands on artists when it comes to promoting albums. How writing an album can be as straining and demanding as touring. I think next year should be one where mental health is one of the top priorities for the music industry. They are already doing a lot in terms of providing support and addressing the issues, though you feel there is still too much demand on artists. What they have to do to stand out, or promote and album and then take it all tour. Put all of this together and it can be devastating and take its toll. Cat Burns will be back fully on the road soon enough but, with a terrific album out there, I wanted to finish with a review of it:

“Cat Burns’ storytelling lyricism is at the forefront of her latest album, ‘How To Be Human’, a tale of loss, heartbreak and love. Despite showing incredible prowess in deceit on BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors, her sophomore album is a truthful insight into recent moments of pain and healing since her ‘Early Twenties’.

In this vulnerable outpouring, Cat shared wanting to “document the trenches of processing your emotions” in this album. The opening track, ‘Come Home’, is introduced by a voicenote from her grandad; “thank you, Catrina, god bless you, love you lots”. Accompanied by melodic piano and strings, her grandad’s passing in 2024 serves as the topic of the ballads. One of the few tracks that balances her first-hand account with another voice, an imagined call “from God”. Setting the tone for the album, there is a pride in which Burns writes about his life; “To hold a family together / You braved the British weather / worked mornings, nights, wherever”. ‘Come Home’ introduces us to an artist who is simultaneously grieving, healing, and coming to peace.

‘Can Time Move Faster’ investigates the popular idiom of “time is a great healer”- an unglamourised reality check of post-breakup healing. The voice of Cat, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this”, is answered in the later track ‘Today’, where we meet someone able to absorb the joy surrounding them; “I’m not the same / thank god I’ve changed”.

‘I Hope It’s Me’ is a duality between wanting the best for someone, “There’s a whole world for you to see”, and hoping they come back to you; “In the end / When you love again / I hope it’s me”. Burns’ balladic writing is at her very best; this song yearns for a lifetime’s love, even if paths change along the journey, a theme returned to in ‘I Love You, But’.

A carefully sculpted tracklist meets a turning point in track five, but by ‘Gemini’, the mood is lifted and the possibilities are endless. Flirtatious ‘GIRLS!’ follows, released back in January, a sapphic anthem that gives way to ‘There’s Just Something About Her’. Talking to girls becomes having a crush on one, by ‘Lavender’, previously heartbroken Cat Burns is firmly in love, skipping through lavender fields in the visualiser.

The final single to be released from the album, ‘Please Don’t Hate Me’, provides closure to the story told throughout ‘How To Be Human’. No longer lonely, Burns is joined by a choir of harmonious voices, as, instead of waiting for the ex in ‘I Hope It’s Me’, she is loving “somebody new”. ‘I Wish You Well’ has a beat impossible not to dance along with, a final gesture to previous lovers before giving way to the penultimate ballad from the album, ‘When I’m With You’. A giddy love song about a newfound, post-healing connection: “I think I’m worrying less / I’m getting close to my best”.

Moving away from romance and grief, the title and final track, ‘How To Be Human’, sheds light on Cat Burns’ experience with neurodivergence. Often speaking out about the impact of her autism and ADHD, most recently on national television, the track unpacks the reality of learning to mask and survive in a world tailored to neurotypical people, “Am I hiding it well / I wonder if they can tell / that I’m not like them”.

Sophomore album, ‘How To Be Human’ opens Cat Burns’ diary to her ever-growing audience, with a lightly acoustic sonic atmosphere which leaves no space to hide for her introspective lyricism. Cat offers listeners sixteen tracks of catharsis for anyone who has experienced loss, and proof that it really does get better”.

It is a shame Cat Burns has had to move tour dates back, though she needs to take care of her wellbeing and ensure that she is able to fulfil the dates and be at her best. It made me think, not only about what artists are expected to do when it comes to promoting an album, but how much writing and recording such a personal and revealing album can be. And the way artists then have to tour it and how much extra weight and fatigue that adds. How the mental health and wellbeing of artists is a paramount priority. Organisations like Music Minds Matter support the mental health of everyone working in music. Their incredible work and similar bodies needs to be highlighted. I do worry about artists and how hard it is for them. In terms of support and focusing on their collective wellbeing, we all hope that this is a major focus…

IN 2026.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Áine Rose Daly

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Áine Rose Daly

__________

THIS is a bit of a strange one for me…

PHOTO CREDIT: Fay Summerfield Photography

as I usually highlight artists in Spotlight who have new music coming out or have recently put something out. Most of the artists are rising and coming through, though there are some that are established but maybe not known by all. I always look for fairly recent interviews. Hopefully no longer than a year old, I sling everything together to give you an idea of what the artist is about and why you need to follow them. There have been occasions when I have featured actors that are also musicians. Apart from posting to Instagram why Florence Pugh should record some music and put it out, I have never written a feature in the hope that someone will see it and put more music out. Áine Rose Daly is a wonderful actor you may recognise from BBC’s Boiling Point. However, she is also a wonderful artist. Her most recent single, Reprise, was released last year. The music video came out at the start of this year. I am checking out her Instagram, and I have not seen any announcement that Áine Rose Daly is releasing a new track before the end of the year. Maybe a Christmas cover or plans for an E.P. or album. Of course, by the time this feature is actually shared, she may well have announced that we are going to get a new song very soon – or at the start of 2026. The reason I am jumping the gun in a way is making people aware of the music that she has already put out. I tend to find a lot of actors coming into music had music as their first love. It is a natural move for them. You can feel music runs through Áine Rose Daly’s blood. Something that resonated and connected with her as a child, you can feel the passion and love in her songs. So many new artists tend to sound like existing artists. Daly is definitely distinct and you can hear her own voice. The Jersey-born actor was raised by Irish parents. It is intriguing, as I have not heard of another artist with this mix of heritage/background.

Turning twenty-three on 11th December, Áine Rose Daly turns twenty-three. She is still incredible young, so there is no rush getting new music from her. However, I really love Reprise. I am also a fan of The One and her live cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Otherside. Her videos are amazing too. As an actor, she brings so much of those dynamics into music. I have said this repeatedly. Actors bring a certain conviction and physically into their music. It means also that they really shine in music videos. It is hard going from acting to music or balancing the two. I am not sure if Florence Pugh will get round to putting out some music, but like her, Áine Rose Daly is pretty busy. However, you know there is a song or two in her head – and maybe on paper! I get the feeling we may see something from her next year. However, go and check out what she has done already, as she has a wonderful voice and her music really stays with you. She definitely stands out from so many new artists. Would you class her as Pop? Maybe that is at the foundation, yet there is something deeper, more soulful and interesting in the mix. A wonderful range of colours and levels in her voice. This emotional range that means she is such a versatile songwriter and singer. I normally do not feature artists where there are very few interviews out there, as you do not get to know much about them. However, I am going to being one in that I discovered, before ending with a personal pitch and plea to Áine Rose Daly.

I know 2020’s Miles was her debut single. However, 2021’s Places was the first single that really caught the eyes and ears of journalists and fans. I know she has a tribe of music fans that want new music from her. Like Swiftries, does Áine Rose Daly have a term for her followers? Anyway, 2021 was a scary year. Lockdown and COVID-19, it was a strange time. Artists releasing music because there was nothing else to do, but knowing they could not promote it a lot or perform it. However, it must have been challenging trying to find energy and motivation to make music. Places really resonates. Its video is tremendous too. Urbanista spoke with Áine Rose Daly in 2021 about her powerful new release. A song personal to her would have given such strength to others. It is a song I can identify with:

“Speaking about the new release, she said, “I wrote this song a long time ago about my struggles with my mental health and how, at the time, I felt like it was holding me back from doing what I wanted to do with my life.”

Áine Daly is a London-based actor/singer/songwriter. Born and raised in Jersey, Channel Islands to Irish parents and coming from a long lineage of musicians and creatives, Áine has always been surrounded by music and arts.

The last few years have seen Áine’s acting career flourish, having been cast in multiple feature length films and most notably playing a series regular in Amazon Prime’s “HANNA”. Outside of her acting career however, Aine has always maintained her love for songwriting and considers it a major creative outlet for herself.

Having had some space to write more frequently during lockdown and whilst filming for another series of Hanna, Áine has put together a handful of beautifully crafted alternative pop songs and is ready to bring them out of the living room studio they were recorded in and into the world. Aine’s next release will see her join her older brother, singer/songwriter, Tadhg Daly in the list of Jersey born artists stamping their name on the London music scene”.

I am going to come to another 2021 interview in a minute. I want to go off on a bit of a tangent. I adore Áine Rose Daly’s acting work. She is one of these actors who deserves a massive film role. She is so talented and you are drawn to her in a way you are not with other actors. My favourite film ever is Frances Ha. Widely released in 2013, I love that film as Greta Gerwig, as the title character, is so compelling. Someone you feel sympathy and affection for, in spite of her flaws and child-like demeanour. That film hit me hard! I feel like Áine Rose Daly is an actor who could be in a film like this and have a similar impact. That may sound strange, but she is someone you fall in love with but also are awed by. A definite rising star, I hope that film and T.V. directors are knocking down her doors. Not only someone with great dramatic skill and that ability to make you shed tears, I also see this comedic side. I hope one that is exploited more. There is plenty of time ahead, though I feel Daly is going to blow up and appear in huge U.S. T.V. series and a range of films; from big-budget thrillers to more quirky or independent films. I can see her in a music biopic too, but I won’t say which artist I think she reminds me of, as it is sort of trying to manifest something or play this virtual agent. My point is that she has this incredible potential. Also a musical voice that extends beyond Alternative Pop. I sort of feel she has the dexterity to explore other genres. Songs more stripped down and jazzy. Allowing something more emphatic and soulful to come out. Maybe a direction she may consider in years to come. But this is me highlighting the great work Áine Rose Daly has already done. This takes me to another interview worth highlighting.

It is another one back in 2021. There were a few interviews around Places, though I am going to bring stuff more up to date. Noctis chatted with an amazing artist just starting out. During the pandemic, we were all looking around to music to provide comfort and direction. I know many people would have gained strength and solace from Áine Rose Daly. Places is a magnificent song that must have been challenging to write. However, I listen to the song now and it really does move you. The effect it has on listeners is amazing:

“In recent years you’ve built a rather successful acting career, most recently as Sandy Phillips in HANNA. How do the aspects of acting and music compare in your life?

For me, acting and music feel very far apart from each other. I have a lot more confidence when it comes to acting. Maybe that’s just due to having more experience in that area but it definitely comes easier than the music stuff. I’ve had to work a lot on building my confidence up surrounding my own music. It’s always been a massive part of my life but for some reason it feels harder to share that. It’s so personal and makes you feel on display in a way that I never experience with acting. It’s always been a toss up for me on whether I wanted to pursue acting or music but every time I would focus too much on one, I would miss the other. I feel like I need them both in the forefront of my life as that’s when I’m happiest, so here I am, trying to do both and I don’t see myself ever stopping either.

The release also tells the story of a difficult moment in your life where your mental health was becoming a monumental challenge. How natural did it feel to tell the world such a personal story?

It felt pretty natural to tell this particular story to the world really. For the past few years now I’ve become very open about a lot of my mental health struggles and it feels so good to share all this stuff. It’s sounds so lame and cliché, but it really is a case of wanting to talk about all the things I wish I had heard people talking about when I was growing up. Sometimes I think back and feel like maybe it would have made a difference and maybe I wouldn’t have had such a hard time with it all if people talked more about mental health issues and all that encompasses when I was younger. So if I can be a person that makes someone else feel a bit better about what they are going through, or be someone that they can relate to, I’ll absolutely take that role on.

You’re just one of many artists from Jersey stamping your name into London’s music scene. Why do you think the area creates so many talented artists?

I think growing up on an island as small as Jersey is a very strange thing to experience. I see this especially since moving to London and seeing how different it is here. I think this definitely gives people a unique creative perspective which can help the birth of amazing art. I would say a big thing is also the scenery in Jersey. It’s an extremely beautiful place and therefore very inspiring.

Your brother Tadhg Daly is also a music artist, do you think a collaboration would be on the cards at any point in the future?

I would absolutely LOVE to collaborate with Tadhg. It’s definitely inevitable. He is one of my best friends and we spend a lot of time together and run in the same creative circle but an official collab is definitely on the cards, it’s just a case of picking the right moment!

What can we expect to come next from you?

Expect more acting and more music! I’ve still got a lot going on with season 3 of Hanna as well as the release of the film Boiling Point coming very soon so hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot of me! I’m working towards an EP at the moment which means a lot more music coming from me too! I’m so excited about everything that’s going on, it’s all very cool stuff!”.

It is great when we get to look at artists who are from outside of London. Parts of the country not usually discussed. The Isle of Wight has been in focus the past few years due to bands like Wet Leg and Coach Party coming from there and succeeding. Jersey has given us Nerina Pallot, though I think there are other artists from the island that are waiting to come through. Now Áine Rose Daly would put fresh eyes on Jersey. A place I visited as a child and really love. As part of the filmmaking duo, Syvret Rose, alongside Jordan Cox, Áine Rose Daly released the short crime thriller, More Than It Hurts You. The film “tackles complex and often misunderstood experience of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), drawing deeply from personal experience, particularly Áine’s, who has lived with the condition since childhood”. Maybe she is geared towards filmmaking and acting at the moment. As I said before, she is this remarkable actor and one with a massive and busy future ahead. Genuine success in the U.S. and so many great roles you can see her slaying. A life as a director and someone who I feel is going to have such a multi-disciplined career. I cannot find any newer interviews where Áine Rose Daly discusses new music. I hope it is on her mind for 2026. I am aware she probably will not see this feature either, so it may all be moot! However, I did want to put her name out there in the context of her extraordinary music (and for anyone looking to make a new/alternative to Frances Ha, cast her as she would be bloody brilliant!). Reprise is the most recent chapter from one of our best young artists. Four or five songs under her belt, she could put out an E.P., or record some new tracks and release an album; infuse the older with the new. It would be amazing to hear some new music from Áine Rose Daly. It may be at the back of her mind right now, though I – and many others too – do live in hope that it…

COMES to fruition.

________________

Follow Áine Rose Daly

FEATURE: Silent Night: The Difficulty of Releasing New Christmas Songs and Rivalling Nostalgic Classics

FEATURE:

 

 

Silent Night

PHOTO CREDIT: RDNE Stock project/Pexels

 

The Difficulty of Releasing New Christmas Songs and Rivalling Nostalgic Classics

__________

I guess overexposure…

PHOTO CREDIT: George Dolgikh/Pexels

gives us a bit of an antipathy to Christmas songs. I have not heard many played at the time of writing this feature (2nd November), though by the time we get to late-November, shops are playing all the classics. I am forty-two, and a lot of the Christmas classics that are played at this time of the year were ones I grew up on. You can look back at those from the likes of Slade, Mud and Wham! Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody was released in 1973. Wizard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday was also released that year. Wham! released Last Christmas in 1984. Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You came out in 1994. So I got some Christmas songs that were released a decade before I was born. That Wham! classic came out when I was one. Mariah Carey’s when I was ten. So, when I was ten, I pretty much had heard all of the best and most-played Christmas songs. Of course, every year brings us new Christmas songs. We will soon see this year’s come through. Of course, I think Christmas songs are a generational thing. In terms of people of my age grew up listening to the very best. Songs older than that, from the 1950s and 1960s, are ones my parents heard but are not played as much. I think there is a sweet spot in terms of time period. Maybe from the 1970s to the 1990s. Of course, you do hear shops play Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (1958), White Christmas by Bing Crosby (1942) and, ah yes, I forgot to mention 1987’s Fairytale of New York by The Pogues (feat. Kirsty MacColl).

Whilst some of the much older Christmas songs will remain, I think we are starting to see them fade out. Last year, I did not hear them played as much as I did years previous. There is a reliance on that time period I mentioned. I do think that, in a few years’ time, those classics of the 1950s and 1960s might die altogether. It also is bad news for new Christmas songs. I would advise people to buy Annie Zaleski’s wonderful This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits, as it takes you inside some of the most cherished Christmas songs. I have written before how it is hard to release a new Christmas song. Not only are these tracks seasonal. They are unlikely to get much airplay at all. Maybe some shops will play them, though most will go with the reliable classics. Familiarity means that people will stay shopping and in the shop. However, there is also that risk every year that, as we hear the same songs over and over, it just drives people nuts. In general, it is a risk releasing music in December. It is a quiet period for albums, as people are geared for Christmas and the music press slows. Of course, there is that chance to exploit the Christmas window, though artists tend to get their albums release before December. In terms of Christmas music, physical singles aren’t a thing anymore and the likelihood of most artists getting good streaming numbers for a Christmas song is low. Unless you a major artist like Taylor Swift who has released a Christmas song – 2019’s Christmas Tree Farm -, then it might be waste of time. However, it is interesting hearing new releases.

What angle they take and whether they go for the more traditional route in terms of themes and imagery or go a bit off piste. I do like something more alternative, as it is rarer and you can get bored of artists saying the same thing. It is important that we have new Christmas songs so that they can sit with the tried and tested. However, it is such a gamble for artists. Also, a lot of the best Christmas songs have been around so long that they have worn into our brains. It is harder to make that same impact now. I also feel like Christmas songs lack a certain purpose. Sure, they do remind us of the big day is coming. Beyond that and their use at parties and on T.V., do most of us sit around listening to Christmas songs in December? They seem more for background and when you are shopping. I am always less inclined to make Christmas playlists, though I am pleased when I hear my favourite Christmas song, Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody – which I have heard hundreds of time and do tire of! I do sympathise with artists who put out a Christmas track now, knowing it will be popular (or not) for such a brief time and is a bit of a gamble. Artists releasing albums of Christmas covers. You hear interesting interpretations through, as I say, most of us come back to the songs we heard as children. Even for children now, I feel like they will be more exposed to the songs I heard and, when they are my age, these tracks will still be in their mind. It is interesting to think it Christmas songs will even be played in a few decades. I can imagine that they will be less rare, as more people will shop online.

Rather than Being down on Christmas music, I wanted to examine it in the modern day. The psychology behind the Christmas songs we gravitate towards. If there is a formula that exists. I would say that the songs need a big chorus and a feelgood vibe. That sounds obvious, but some of the more mournful or slower Christmas songs are becoming less popular. Shops playing them earlier and earlier each year is meant to compel us to shop for Christmas goods, but it can be irksome. A challenge for artists wanting to release their own Christmas song. At best, artists can release them for fun and add their name to the list if Christmas tracks. They have to know that there is limited upside in terms of exposure, airplay and financial reward. I think that generational thing is true. Christmas songs from the past couple of decades rarely played. Those from the 1960s and before will start to fade and become less demanded, aside from the odd few which you do need. That will leave a smaller number of seasonable regulars that you are likely to hear now if you go out. The joy of Christmas music is nostalgia. The fact Wham! were the Christmas number one last year emphasises that. This feature explores why Christmas music isn’t timeless anymore. How artists have a very high bar to reach to when it comes to releasing their own songs. Some of the obstacles they face:

“The Challenge of Modern Holiday Music

Artists still put out new Christmas songs every year, but they often struggle to find the right balance between tradition and innovation. A classic Christmas song doesn’t just reflect the musical style of the time—it embodies the mood and sentiment of the holiday itself. Modern Christmas music tends to lean heavily on reinterpreting existing Christmas standards, with a few new additions each year. Artists like Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, and Michael Bublé are more likely to release albums full of covers and reimagined classics rather than trying to craft something brand-new that could join the ranks of “Jingle Bells” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

And while there’s nothing wrong with a great cover—Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” is a holiday bop that has definitely earned its place on holiday playlists—there’s something about a fresh, original holiday tune that carries a lot of weight when it becomes part of our tradition. But writing a song that has the ability to capture that elusive sense of holiday magic? Now that’s the tricky part.

It’s All About Timing and Luck

You also can’t underestimate how much luck and timing play a role in a song becoming a classic. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” wasn’t a chart-topper the moment it was released in 1994. It took several years for the song to gain the cultural traction it needed, but now it’s arguably the most enduring modern Christmas song of all time. The timing was right, the song captured the magic of Christmas in a fresh way, and it resonated with millions of listeners—eventually becoming a holiday anthem.

This is why it’s so hard to predict what will become the next big Christmas hit. It requires more than just a catchy melody—it requires something that connects with the spirit of the season in a way that feels both new and timeless at the same time. And while a few artists may create songs that could become future classics, there’s no guaranteed formula for success.

In the end, the reason we don’t see new Christmas classics every year is because it’s hard to capture lightning in a bottle. We may get a few newer songs that rise to prominence (and some even become holiday favorites), but truly joining the ranks of the all-time greats? That’s a much rarer feat. Christmas classics are built over time, through cultural moments, memories, and a kind of magic that’s difficult to predict. And for now, the old standards are likely to continue reigning supreme”.

Have we reached a point where we genuinely do not need new Christmas songs? If the same ones are played every year, artists face releasing their music into the void. The pull of nostalgia is one that applies to people of my age and those who grew up listening to the all-time best. I don’t think it will apply to younger generations. Their nostalgia is going to be the same as mine, which is quite weird! Although, if it is hard to write a Christmas original that stands the test of time, there are artists who put their stamp on existing Christmas songs that provide a pleasing alternative. This article goes into more detail:

“According to Berklee College of Music’s forensic musicologist Joe Bennett, it’s all about the nostalgia. In 2017, he analyzed the elements of holiday music that bring in the most monetary and commercial success, including Spotify-charting hits during the week of Dec. 25. From a lyrical standpoint, they all had an element related to “the home, being in love, lost love, parties, Santa or reindeers, snow or coldness, religion, and peace on Earth.”

It is clear most people desire songs that are comforting, transporting listeners to an idealized version of Christmas past with universal themes of joy and warmth. New releases are not meeting this mark and cannot deliver the kind of warm nostalgia that a Bing Crosby tune executes so well.

In his iconic song “White Christmas,” Crosby longs to return to a simpler, more idyllic time: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas / Just like the ones I used to know / Where the treetops glisten and children listen / To hear sleigh bells in the snow.” With its fluttering flute and gentle piano, the song evokes a warm fireplace and fall of snow.

However, one artist who I think does not fall into this category of failed contemporary Christmas is Laufey, an Icelandic jazz singer. She delivers covers of classics with beautiful accuracy of the original songs while bringing a fresh new production. Having been classically trained in violin and piano, she has a deeper understanding and implementation of the older sound we have grown to love. Her background in jazz and Norah Jones-inspired style distinguishes her from the many pop singers attempting to stake their claim in the niche of holiday music.

Ultimately, we do not need more Christmas tunes from today’s musicians. The nostalgic charm and fond memories tied to the past bring an unmatched element of ambience to these songs that new releases lack. For those who want to enjoy such classic Christmas music, I would suggest turning to the greats of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald. For a taste of the holiday spirit with a modern twist, I would recommend Laufey’s newest EP, “A Very Laufey Holiday”.

It is a tricky thing! I would love to discover a modern-day Christmas song that rivals the best, though I think we are predisposed to the ones we already know and are a bit blinkered. I would say to people to check out new Christmas songs, even if you are only adding them to a playlist. It adds variety and freshens things up. However, it is difficult to penetrate the market and rial the best with such a narrow lyrical framework. All the traditional and clinches imagery has been mined and taken. Artists need to look beyond that, which can alienate people who prefer their Christmas songs more traditional. That may, in turn, put artists off releasing Christmas songs at all. Which would be a shame. It just goes to show that those Christmas gems we have heard for decades and listen to every year…

ARE impossible to rival.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Moments of Pleasure at Thirty-Two: A Song Underrated and Overlooked in Spite of Its Beauty

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Moments of Pleasure at Thirty-Two

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993

 

A Song Underrated and Overlooked in Spite of Its Beauty

__________

I have written…

about Moments of Pleasure a few times. It was released as a single on 15th November, 1993. The third single from Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes (the second in the U.K.), it reached twenty-six in the U.K. I love that the single had some really interesting B-sides. This is what Kate Bush Encyclopedia say: “The 7″ single and the cassette single featured the instrumental version of ‘Moments Of Pleasure’ on the B-side. The 12″ single added the track Home For Christmas. The CD-singles were different entirely and added, besides the title track, the tracks December Will Be Magic Again and Experiment IV. The non-limited version also had the track Show A Little Devotion. Finally, there was also a Dutch 2 track CD-single, featuring Home For Christmas as the second track”. In addition to marking its thirty-second anniversary, I wanted to react to some critical assessment. Before I get there, it is worth bringing in some background from Kate Bush. What this incredibly moving song was about and how it came to her:

“I think the problem is that during [the recording of] that album there were a lot of unhappy things going on in my life, but when the songs were written none of that had really happened yet. I think a lot of people presume that particularly that song was written after my mother had died for instance, which wasn’t so at all. There’s a line in there that mentions a phrase that she used to say, ‘every old sock meets an old shoe’, and when I recorded it and played it to her she just thought it was hilarious! She couldn’t stop laughing, she just thought it was so funny that I’d put it into this song. So I don’t see it as a sad song. I think there’s a sort of reflective quality, but I guess I think of it more as a celebration of life.

Interview with Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2, 9 May 2011”.

Whereas it might not be an ignored song, I feel like some of the critical reaction in 1993 was a bit harsh and wholly unjustified. I wrote about this song earlier in the year. Rather than repeat what I published then, I wanted to approach the song from a different angle. Although there was a little positive reaction to Moments of Pleasure, there was one comment in a review that caught my eye. Let’s take a look at some of the reactions. Music & Media noted this: "For most singers a ballad is just a slow song, but for Bush it seems like it has to be an emotional confrontation which classic composers would like to be credited for". Terry Staunton from NME commented, "Her personal exorcisms reach new heights on 'Moments of Pleasure', a deceptively simple ballad with a swooping chorus and a coda where she namechecks the people who've been important to her over years. It's a song that may baffle the world at large, but it wasn't written for us; Kate's just decided to share it”. It is that final line about Moments of Pleasure and it not being written for us. Whilst many applauded the beauty and swell of the song, there was also a whiff of sexism or condescension. I know NME were probably not attuned to more emotional and personally revealing music in 1993, yet you get the sense that there was this dismissal of women who put out heartfelt or personal songs. True, there are personal elements. Kate Bush name-checking friends lost. She sings about her mother (who died in February 1992 and was ill at the time the song was recorded). There is a lot of loss. Raw and evocative, there is also hope and strength. It is a song that swells and builds like this choral piece. Bush never saw it a sad song, thought that reflective quality gives it some sadder undertones.

Reapproaching it for 2011’s Director’s Cut, I do love both versions. I feel there was some sense of dismissal. Even if Moments of Pleasure meant something to Kate Bush, it was very much for everyone. I don’t think a whiff of sexism was reserved to magazines like NME. It is great that Moments of Pleasure was appreciated by others. Even so, I do feel like it remains underrated. Streamed over four million times on Spotify, it has done well but not nearly as good as other Kate Bush singles. She never really ever got the approval of all critics. Melody Maker wrote how “Moments of Pleasure' is The Big Literary Effort, Kate at her very tremble-inducing, vocal-range-like-the-Pyrenees best”. The Independent only had this to say: “A smile and a tear from the Welling siren”. Music Week, in spite of its positive take wrote of the “off-her-trolley lyrics”. That insulting and dismissive attitude! Was it just Kate Bush that was receiving this kind of sexism in 1993? Not by a long way! One could say, at a time when British music was embracing the early signs of Britpop and Moments of Pleasure was detached from that, I feel like successful and original women were viewed with cynicism and misogyny. Moments of Pleasure is an extraordinary and arresting song that is filled with stunning imagery and soul-baring sentiments. Especially touching is where Bush names people at the end of the song. Bill Duffield, a lighting technician who tragically died after the warm-up show for Bush’s The Tour of Life in 1979, still very much in her heart!

A song that should have got this rapture and genuine praise seems to have been laced with something sour and sniffy. Maybe if Bush had produced a stonking Rock song or uplifting Pop number then she would have been given an easier ride. However, in 1993, we were eight years past Hounds of Love. The scene had shifted and maybe it was felt that she was out of step with modern music. Not forward-thinking and as innovative as before. This is unfair. The Red Shoes is a fantastic album with some of Kate Bush’s best music in it. I love Moments of Pleasure and wanted to mark its thirty-second anniversary (15th November). However, some of the critical reception baffled and annoyed me. Some of Kate Bush’s most striking and affecting lyrics. “Just let us try/To give these moments back/To those we love/To those who will survive” is an example. If men of the music press were not particularly fond or sold by Moments of Pleasure, I do think that others have taken it to heart. That says, it is still an underrated song. The Red Shoes is an album not as streamed and discussed as others. Go and hear this magnificent song. Thirty-two years after its release and it still has lost none of its wonder. I heard it many years ago and was transfixed then. I play it now and feel the same. A track that deserved more genuine love than it got, Moments of Pleasure is a gem that everyone should listen to. One of the standout songs from…

KATE Bush’s seventh studio album.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work at Thirty-Six: How Come It Has Not Enjoyed the Same Resurgence as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work at Thirty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

 

How Come It Has Not Enjoyed the Same Resurgence as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)?

__________

PERHAPS most new Kate Bush fans…

discovered her through Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and its use in Stranger Things back in 2022. I have talked about this endlessly, so I am not going to go into it too much more. However, that song really exploded and experienced this resurgence. Partly because the track is a classic and has this warm and propulsive sound. Maybe because how it was used in Stranger Things. Scoring especially powerful images, a lot of fans connected with it. Since then, the track topped the charts and is Kate Bush’s most-streamed song. That is not the only song of hers that has experienced some recent popularity. If the Hounds of Love cut is her biggest success, Never for Ever’s Army Dreamers is not too bad in comparison. Rather than it being used in a film or T.V. show, it did get this focus on TikTok. Lots of videos had that song playing in the background. Because of the atrocities and violence we are seeing in countries like Ukraine, a new significance to a track that calls outs the futility of warfare and how it sacrifices young men. You can easily see why these two tracks are especially potent and popular. I have no doubt that we will get another Kate Bush moment. Where a track of hers gains the same sort of success as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did a few years ago. Maybe Army Dreamers is going to be that song. It seems like it could be used to devastating effect. There is one song that has been used a few times in film but has not really gained the life that Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did.

This Woman’s Work was the second single from 1989’s The Sensual Word. It turns thirty-six on 20th November. It is unique in the sense that it started life in a film. In 1988, it was used in John Hughes’s She’s Having a Baby. It was then included on The Sensual World. One could say it already received its flowers back in 1988. However, what I am talking about is that modern-day revival. Bringing a song back into consciousness. I am going to get to some background to the track. But I wanted to ask why, in spite of the fact this song has appeared in films in recent years, it has not ignited in a big way. Many feeling it has been overused. First, this is what Kate Bush said when it came to the inspiration for This Woman’s Work:

“There’s a film called ‘She’s Having A Baby’. And John Hughes, the director, rung up and said that he had a sequence in the film that he really wanted a song written to be with. And I’d only worked the once before on the ‘Castaway’ film – where I’d really enjoyed that – so I was extremely tempted by the offer. And when he sent the piece of film that the song was going to be part of, I just thought it was wonderful, it was so moving, a very moving piece of film. And in a way, there was a sense that the whole film built up to this moment. And it was a very easy song to write. It was very quick. And just kind of came, like a lot of songs do. Even if you struggle for months, in the end, they just kind of go – BLAH! – You know. [Laughs]. So that was the first song that I wrote for ‘The Sensual World’ album. In fact at the time we weren’t even sure whether to put it on the album or not. And I must say that Del was very instrumental in saying that I should put it on the album, and I’m very glad I did. Because I had the most fantastic response – in some ways, maybe the greatest response – to this song. And I was really – I was absolutely thrilled, that you felt that way about it.

Kate Bush Con, 1990”.

Thirty-six years after its release as a single, I do wonder if the song has been overused. I say ‘overused’, though it has been used in  The Mother (2023) and M3GAN 2.0 (2025). The former, you feel, was misplaced. A song about motherhood perhaps, but more to do with this expectant father having to step up. Perhaps not the most appropriate song for the Jennifer Lopez film. In the latter, it was used more to comedic effect. Perhaps it is about the context. I would love to see This Woman’s Work used in a film but in this really cool scene. As it has been used in a film already, you could not repeat that. However, so many people do not know about this track. It is the sixth-most streamed song of hers on Spotify. Though popular, there has not been a lot of conversation around it. Is the fact Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has this energy and sense of energy mean it is a more natural success than a song that is more emotive and downbeat? In a modern age, where most of the more popular Pop music does have this fizz and dynamic, can a song that is slower and sadder succeed? It opens up discussions around tastes and whether we are naturally drawn to songs that provoke physical reaction and happiness rather than contemplation or tears. This article from 2023 explains how This Woman’s Work has been used beyond film. It has appeared in T.V. series. If some feel the song is an emotional shortcut or a lazy and cliched way of trying to evoke emotional responses, I feel like it has been misused and not given its dues. It is not going to get the same sort of explosion and life as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Though it seems odd that, given the song has been used quite a bit in film and T.V., that it has not gained a bigger life. This Woman’s Work is a classic, yet it might be a song more cherished and memorable in private moments, rather than being seen as this big screen triumph. Something that has touched a new generation of fans. Regardless, I do feel it is an important song. As 20th November marks thirty-six years since it was released as a single, I did want to revisit one of Kate Bush’s greatest works. Whether it will be used again in film and T.V. remains to be seen. There is no getting around the fact that the song means a lot to people. I think it has this reputation as being used lazily as a go-to when we want to summon up an emotional response. However, it used in a different or new way, I see no reason why This Woman’s Work couldn’t reach new fans and finds its way…

BACK on the charts.

FEATURE: Bringing Opera and Classical to the Mainstream: Why ROSALÍA’s Berghain Is Such a Revelation

FEATURE:

 

 

Bringing Opera and Classical to the Mainstream

PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Maggio

 

Why ROSALÍA’s Berghain Is Such a Revelation

__________

THERE is no doubting the fact…

ROSALÍA’s Berghain is one of this year’s best singles. It is also one of the most revelatory and different. One of the greatest artists in the world, maybe you define her music as Experimental Pop or Alternative Reggaeton. Her third album, Motomami, was released in 2022. Her upcoming fourth studio album comes out on Friday. LUX is going to be among this year’s best albums. Its lead single features Björk and Yves Tumor. I am picking up on something The Guardian posted. Whether Berghain is Opera. It is this dramatic, bombastic, string-filled and mesmeric song that features a series of German verses "Seine Angst ist meine Angst, Seine Wut ist meine Wut, Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe, Sein Blut ist mein Blut". In English: 'His fear is my fear, His anger is my anger, His love is my love, His blood is my blood”. The fact that the song brings together a Spanish superstar, an Icelandic icon and a wonderful American artist (you can guess who is who!), coupled with the German lyrics, makes this a song that is so different to what is in the Pop mainstream. There are few artists singing in different languages. You do get some artists singing in Spanish. Maybe there are additions of other languages as an effect or a gimmick almost. Artists like Gwenno singing in Cornish or Welsh is more natural and authentic. However, what ROSALÍA has done with Berghain is unique:

“Since her breakout album El Mal Querer in 2018, the 33-year-old musician and producer born Rosalía Vila Tobella has made her name on visionary avant garde mutations of the flamenco she studied at a prestigious music school. She has also attracted praise and controversy for exploring Caribbean and Latin sounds on her 2022 album Motomami.

Her new record centres her classical training: the LSO is featured throughout – directed by Daníel Bjarnason – alongside fado and flamenco singers. “It is thrilling to watch this woman grow,” Björk wrote in an approving tweet. “Congratulations to her with this incredible album, switching genre kung-fu style. This concept is fierce!”

With its thunderous strings and Wagnerian vocals, the lead track is in parts more Radio 3 than Spotify hit, but pop fans seem delighted by the star’s return. As one posted on TikTok of the evident heartbreak on Berghain: “I love whatever is wrong with Rosalía, this song is actually INSANE.”

Perhaps predictably, it’s classical music fans who seem more divided. It piqued the attention of Classic FM, which asked on its website: “Why does Rosalía’s song Berghain feature a symphony orchestra and German opera?”

On TikTok, the classical music influencer Daria Challah called it “probably the most important thing that’s happened to classical music this year … Finally an artist has delivered something that will really change the way people see this tradition of music.”

Classical critic Hugh Morris disagreed, calling it “new musical kitsch”. He accused Rosalía of perpetuating the “genrefication” of classical music and using “pre-digested musical gestures as a shortcut to depth or emotional power”. Others have pointed out that despite her technical prowess as a singer, the amplification and effects mean the song cannot be considered opera.

New York City-based opera singer Sarah Khan, who went viral for her traditional operatic rendition of Berghain on TikTok, praised Rosalía’s genre-crossing.

“I immediately heard opera, but she also trained in the vocal art of cante flamenco, and you can tell she’s done a lot of study to perfect this song,” Khan said. She also praised Rosalía for singing in another language.

“German is difficult to sing if it’s not your first language,” she said. “Part of classical opera training is learning how to manoeuvre your resonance and your tone through languages that you’re not familiar with. She did it really beautifully.”

Khan, 26, also said she connected with the rare, distinctly feminine perspective of the song – about being overwhelmed by a male partner’s fear and anger, and dissolving like “a sugar cube” – in comparison with the male perspective of most operas.

In most male-written librettos, she said, “there’s a hero, a direct peak and climax. But in this storyline, you can tell she’s wrestling with her broken heart as the music gets louder and softer. It’s not like she breaks through and then doesn’t have a broken heart any more; she’s going in and out of it. That pulls the storyline to a very feminine, human place.”

For Khan, whether or not Berghain technically constitutes opera is immaterial. “The way that opera connects with a person is very subjective, which I think is beautiful,” she said. “Having opera come to the mainstream inspires more people to sing it, maybe to learn it and appreciate it and to want to go and see an opera”.

It is no surprise that the song has confounded some people. I have recently written how there is this melding of modern Pop and Classical. How artists are performing with orchestras. St. Vincent, Little Simz and Dua Lipa are examples of artists whose music has been elevated and transformed by partnering with orchestras or string quartets. Maybe there is still snobbery from purists. Orchestras and Classical being seen as pure and maybe adding something as commercial as Pop weakens or waters it down. However, the clash leads to spectacular results! ROSALÍA is a hugely innovative artist who has created this operatic song. From a feminine viewpoint, this is something new in Opera. By bringing a song like Berghain more into the mainstream, it will help bring more attention to Opera. A style and art that some turn their noses up to. See as inaccessible or overwrought. ROSALÍA is one of the most extraordinary vocalists in the world. How she can naturally inhabit the spirit of an acclaimed and professional Opera singer. It is a wonderful song! I do feel like a lot of Pop music is quite stale and unnatural in terms of sound. Maybe you would not define ROSALÍA as ‘Pop’. Though she is a commercial artist, yet she is making music that differs from a lot of the more bland Pop being offered. Vigorous, thrilling, dramatic and evocative, Berghain is this revelation. We can argue whether it is Opera or not. Classical music has remained somewhat distant from Pop and the mainstream. Even if artists do collaborate with orchestras, there is rarely any real integration. I still think there is dubiousness and elitism when it comes to Classical music. How some have asked why ROSALÍA would step into this world.

There have been reviews of Berghain. This is what Pitchfork wrote: “Berghain” feels as ambitious as Lux’s supposed four-movement structure, cantering from violin fireworks à la Vivaldi’s “Winter” to a pummeling Rite of Spring grand finale. Yves Tumor is here—to usher us into the final act—as is Björk, whose own gale force presence threatens to knock the song on its side like a two-dimensional façade. Then there’s the matter of the titular Berlin nightclub. Last year, French Lebanese DJ Arabian Panther accused Berghain of cancelling a scheduled performance due to his pro-Palestine views. Controversy is built in with Rosalía—a Catalonian who sang in an Andalusian accent on 2018’s El Mal Querer and became a superstar making reggaeton—but “Berghain” never quite earns its provocation”. The Face were more positive: “Rosalía’s first single off her hotly-anticipated album, Lux is nothing short of epic. Accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish artist takes on opera, merging German, Spanish and English in a devotional love song that borders on dangerous obsession. Singing in German, a choir emphasises in the chorus: ​“His fear is my fear/​His anger is my anger/​His love is my love/​His blood is my blood,” before Rosalía joins them in a towering falsetto. Björk, who last collaborated with Rosalía on the 2023 one-off single Oral, belts out a chorus and Yves Tumor barks ​“I’ll fuck you till you love me” through a wall of distortion. This truly theatrical comeback is blowing up the internet, in part thanks to the strange and absorbing music video that feels like the trailer to a Lanthimos film. It’s safe to say I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of Lux. TL”.

Even though the article does not criticise ROSALÍA, the fact Classic FM wrote about Berghain means there is a certain amount of judgment. Their headline is “Why does Rosalía’s song ‘Berghain’ feature a symphony orchestra and German opera?”. That seems to suggest judgement. Why are we still at the point when artists who try something different is questioned. Especially if you are a woman. If fans of other genres are more accepting and less questioning, there does still seem to be a degree or elitism. Speaking with Linton Stephens, host of the Southbank Centre’s new podcast, So, Hear Me Out, CRACK asked for a breakdown of ROSALÍA’s incredible new track. The fact that it draws from Classical pieces means that it not only brings a new urgency and gravitas to Pop and the mainstream. It will hopefully draw those not overly-familiar of Classical to the genre:

“Which era of classical music do you think Rosalía’s Berghain draws from most strongly?

It instantly transported me to the sound world of Vivaldi’s concerti or the orchestral music of Rameau. The vibrant textures and rhythmic vitality are characteristic of the Italian Baroque.

Are there any particular classical works that Berghain reminds you of?

The arpeggiated opening reminds me of Vivaldi’s most famous Bassoon Concerto in E Minor, but when the choir enters, it also evokes the grandeur and richness found in Bach’s sacred works – or even Handel’s oratorios, as well as more modern choral music.

For listeners drawn to the classical elements in Berghain, what pieces or composers should they explore next?

Definitely seek out the instrumental works (especially concerti) of Vivaldi. If it’s the choral elements, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana has moments that offer that same kind of compelling raw emotion of massed voices.

How do you see Rosalía’s formal classical training background shaping her approach to composition and vocal performance on the track?

You can hear that the foundation of this work is rooted in classical traditions and built up from that. What’s unique is how Rosalía then brings in her own style and influence. She drops down the octave, and the genres begin to morph from traditional to modern. That’s what innovation is all about.

Do you think we’re entering a moment where more pop artists are engaging seriously with classical music? In your opinion, what might be driving that trend?

Not necessarily classical music, but live, instrumental and orchestral music, yes. I think it’s a way of adding some robustness and gravitas to live performances and recordings of genres that are generally more pared back. Also, I think with the introduction of AI, instrumental collaboration from the orchestral world reminds us that it’s authentically human-made”.

It is important that music, Pop or otherwise, evolves and keeps fresh. If ROSALÍA had released a single that sounded like her last, then there would be no bother. However, it does seem like there is still this risk of criticism or judgement if you step into Classical or Opera. Maybe it is not as accomplished as professional Opera. However, it is this remarkable modern-day operetta. This wonderful and sense-altering explosion that brings together the London Symphony Orchestra, Björk and Yves Tumor. I hope it is a sign of things to come from LUX. The innovative, sensational and hugely consistent ROSALÍA has released a single that has divided some. However, it has raised a larger conversation about marrying Opera, Classical and genres of music seen as more conventional and popular. How Berghain will open conversations around Pop artists working more with Classic artists and orchestras. If some have raised questions about why ROSALÍA would sing in German, create something operatic and step into the Classical world, the thrilling and monumental Berghain is nothing but…

A positive thing.