TRACK REVIEW: Blossoms - If You Think This Is Real Life

TRACK REVIEW:

Blossoms

PHOTO CREDIT: Ewan Ogden

If You Think This Is Real Life

9.6/10

The track, If You Think This Is Real Life, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqFPVCDfkN8

GENRE:

Indie Pop

ORIGIN:

Stockport, U.K.

The album, Foolish Loving Spaces, is available via:

https://store.blossomsband.co.uk/

RELEASE DATE:

31st January, 2020

LABEL:

Universal Music Operations Ltd.

PRODUCERS:

James Skelly and Rich Turvey

__________

I was originally going to…

feature Gorillaz in the review section this week but, with a new album out, I am keen to spotlight Blossoms. I have a lot to unpack and discuss when it comes to the band. If you are new to them, Blossoms consists Tom Ogden – lead vocals, rhythm guitars, piano, songwriter; Charlie Salt – bass, acoustic guitar, backing vocals; Josh Dewhurst – lead guitars, percussion; Joe Donovan – drums, and Myles Kellock – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, backing vocals. They have just released their third album, Foolish Loving Spaces, and I understand the guys are already looking ahead to a fourth album. If you want to catch them on tour, check out where they are heading, and go and get your ticket. The guys are in inspired mood right now because, with a successful, brilliant and much-praised third album out in the world, they are already thinking about their fourth album. This NME article goes into more detail:

“Blossoms say they’ve written “most” of their next album, despite their third LP only being released yesterday (January 31).

The Stockport band’s new album ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ came out this week, and frontman Tom Ogden has revealed in a new interview that they’re already well on the way to sharing what’s next.

Talking to the Daily Star, Ogden said: “We’ve got most of the next record written, but I won’t say too much about it as we’re ­really excited about the album that’s just coming out too!”

He added that “the first single from our fourth ­album is pretty much done,” admitting that the band “don’t want to wait too long before putting out ­something brand new.”

The frontman went on to say that he’s also thought about writing songs for pop stars, believing that some of his tracks would be perfect for Dua Lipa.

“I recently found a load of songs on my computer that Blossoms haven’t released and, when I listened to them, I thought: ‘Wow, this could be great for Dua Lipa’,” he said.

“Writing songs is when I feel most comfortable and if the right offer came about to write for someone, I would definitely do it”.

I am looking out at the Pop scene, and there are very few artists that are bringing in a sense of the optimistic, hopeful and bright. Maybe Pop music has changed so that now artists are putting the narcissistic and personal over the euphoric and universal. I am not suggesting Pop is dead and it has no validity, but I wonder the bad mood will abate and we can regain that high. Blossoms are one of these bands who, since the start of their career, have been all about the giddiness Pop can provide. Sure, there are more emotive and reflective songs in their catalogue, but they are synonymous with an energy and sunshine that you do not hear too often. I understand the guys have spoken about the possibility of writing for an artist like Dua Lipa. I think collaboration between the two camps would be great. Dua Lipa is preparing to bring out her album, Future Nostalgia, and her music dips into the 1980s. Maybe it is not quite as catchy as Blossoms’ sound, but she is someone who is looking more in the direction of the uplifting and neon. I am looking forward to seeing what she produces with that album and, as Blossoms seem keen to pair with her, I think they could create something pretty special. Away from Dua Lipa and Blossoms, how many other artists do you hear trying to give Pop its pop back? I could count the artists on two hands and I’d probably have a couple of fingers left! Maybe 2020 is a year when things will change and artists will try and rekindle the sound we experienced in the 1980s and 1990s. Blossoms are great because they are not just about aimless choruses and cheeriness. They write songs that stay in the head, but their music has depth and they are a relatable band.

I want to quote from an interview they provided when they were discussing their eponymous album of 2016. They were asked about 1990s’ nostalgia and what they wanted from their debut:

 “We wanted it to be an album of relentless pop songs, which is what we’re into. We used to rehearse in a scaffolding yard (in Stockport) and we’d try songs out there, whereas with the second half of the album we haven’t had time to do that as we’ve been touring, so we just built it in the studio from scratch. Half of it is singles we’ve already released and then the second half is brand new songs that were crafted in the studio.

To me the album says, 'Here are five lads who’ve crated something that will stand up there with great albums that have gone before it.' We’re an all-out guitar/synth pop band and we want to be around for a long time, we think it’s a timeless album.

On 90s nostalgia…

I don’t think we have a problem with nostalgia. We’ve seen bands like Oasis in huge arenas because they mean that much to you, they’re more than just a band. It sets them apart from the many other bands who don’t resonate in the same way. You can’t fault someone for becoming that popular, that’s what we aspire to – to mean that much to people.

On not just writing pop songs…

The best bands evolve. We don’t want to put out the same album – we don’t want to go heavy metal on the next one, but we just want to progress like the Arctic Monkeys did. For us it could be a breakthrough in a keyboard sound or something completely new; that freedom is what makes being in a band exciting”.

In terms of how they have evolved since 2016, one can see their music heading in a slightly different direction. The eponymous debut was lauded because it sounded fresh and the songs resonated and connected. This was Pop music one could sing along to and it remained in the head long after listening – that is a rare thing in these times. The Stockport band released Foolish Loving Spaces on a U.S. label; they have been nominated for the Mercury Prize and have had exposure in the U.S. – having played Coachella and played a successful tour there. The band recorded their first two albums in Liverpool but, as their stock has risen, it is inevitable that Blossoms would head closer to America. In this recent interview, the Stockport band discussed their third album and mixing big choruses with slightly more emotional moments:

“Known for their big singalong synth-pop choruses and earworm melodies on favorites such as “Charlemagne,” “Honey Sweet” and “There’s A Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls),”  the band are equally loved for their Northern charm and humor. Get a healthy dose of this with their Blossoms podcast or what they’ve lovingly-termed pubcast—as it’s recorded in the local watering-hole where the band got their name. On it, they poke fun at themselves with segments like “Favorite Youtube Negative Comments” where frontman, Tom Ogden will read then deconstruct biting comments, prompting fits of laughter from the others in the band. While most artists might ignore or get upset at these comments, Blossoms magnanimously give these haters kudos for well-crafted criticisms.

The front half of the album is filled with these big choruses that you guys do so well and then about 2/3rd s into it, after “Oh No I Think I’m In Love”— which is like a Kylie Minogue-Stock Aitken Waterman song circa 1988 — it suddenly takes on a different mood with “Romance Eh.” The closing track “Like Gravity” is almost downbeat. Was that intentional?

I think “Oh No I Think I’m In Love” is the most pop sound on the album. We demoed 25 songs and were originally going to do 3 small albums because the songs were all different kinds of moods. Then we decided to just do 1 album so we had to pick from the 25 which ones fitted together as an album; so that’s why there’s like you said 2 halves in there. But we also didn’t want them all to have the same mood. When we lined the songs up we just picked it in a way that it flowed right—so that was our thinking behind it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ewan Ogden

So this is your third album working with producer James Skelly and Rich Turvey at Parr Street Studios. Did you consider working with any other producer and now that you’ve done this Blossoms trilogy would you consider it in the near future?

We were always open on this album to working with other producers. James Skelly said to us, he thought we should go work with someone else. We almost went to Nashville, but then we weren’t sure who we were working with, and the time schedule was quite tight and it would have cost a lot of money. Then we also got a single out last Summer – we were always going to work on another single with James and Rich, and we did “Your Girlfriend” and it went so well and sounded so different. And we thought we don’t really need to go to Nashville to find this new sound anyway…”

I love the fact they worked with James Skelly because, as the Coral lead singer has recorded and produced some pretty incredible records himself, he has brought something new to the Blossoms camp. I am intriguing to see where they head with their fourth album and whether it was a Radiohead Kid A/Amnesiac situation: recording the two albums during the same session/time and releasing them a year apart. Blossoms could have recorded Foolish Loving Spaces in America and worked with a big producer like Rick Rubin or Mark Ronson. Rather than going for glitzy studios and adding lots of unnecessary new angles and sounds to the pot, they have not strayed that far from their first couple of albums. I think it is the relatability and grounded nature of Blossoms that makes them so popular. It all goes back to that aim Blossoms have: to concoct big choruses and get people singing along. Maybe it is uncool what they are putting out into the world now but, compared with the super-cool Pop that lacks heart and warmth, I know what I prefer!

I am going back and forth with the chronology here, but I want to bring in an article from 2017 where Blossoms sort of highlighted their grounded nature and how they were just ordinary chaps from the North:

 “There are more people who sit in economy class than business. We appeal to economy,” is how Donovan puts it. He’s on a mission to find the best spaghetti Bolognese in every town Blossoms play. He’s not so interested in trying new things. If you want to be an otherworldly rock freak, you don’t name your band after your local pub.

We talk about the handful of other groups who are really succeeding right now, Macclesfield’s The 1975 being the obvious frontrunners. Their singer Matt Healy: now there’s a rock star. “He’d probably be like that if he were working at the Co-op. You need people like that. Whereas I like baked beans on toast,” says Ogden. “I just write good tunes. I just happen to be in this situation but I’m not going to be something that I’m not. Come back in a year and I might be wearing make-up, but I don’t think I will”.

I may circle back to this subject a bit later, but there are not that many big bands at the moment from the Greater Manchester area. Sure, there are a lot of talented new acts, but I still think the media is obsessed with what is coming from London. Maybe they assume London music is edgier, more important and popular, but listen to what The 1975 are producing and how incredible Blossoms’ music is. I hope things change this year, and more eyes and ears head up to the North! I might tip back to this subject later but, before then, I want to cover the aspect of longevity and consistency when one thinks of Blossoms – and, of course, I need to review a track from their new album! In 2018, the band was featured in the Yorkshire Evening Post, and they discussed how they want to remain and be around for a very long time. I do think Pop has become more about saturating sounds and something edgier, darker and more repetitive. Artists are pushing further away from something commercial or old-school. Instead, there is a wave of Pop around that talk about subjects like mental-health and anxiety; songs that are noted more for their rawness than anything upbeat. I have nothing against that; it’s just that there is not a lot to balance this against. I think Blossoms are a band who keep true to their sound and are unashamed about providing music that makes you feel better – even if their subject matter is not quite as deep as some of their peers:

“Full credit then to the Greater Manchester five-piece, for remaining one of the genre’s leading commercial lights in a time of trap and tropical-pop saturation – though frontman Tom Ogden is wary to say that they’re in the big time yet.

“I think we see our success in longevity more than anything else,” he notes on a wintery April afternoon, languid in his phrasing.

“We want to be around for a long, long time, to still evolve as a band, to stay important to people.”

He mulls it over. “We’re still early on in our career, in terms of where we want to go; to be able to keep doing what we get to do will be a marker of having ‘made it’ as such.”

There’s no tension in our camp, really,” he responds. “We very rarely argue; we’re nearly always on the same page, we don’t pull off in wildly disparate directions. Harmony is the way to go for us; it works so well!”

I said this would be a bit random regarding chronology, but I think there is a connection between the more upbeat and spirited Pop sound and a North-South divide. I am hearing a lot of great and classic Pop coming from the North, whereas there are comparatively few bands like Blossoms in the South.  

I do want more people to look to Manchester and the North, as there is too much reliance and proliferation of London acts. Blossoms know their roots, and the band would have grown up listening to some Manchester legends, never dreaming they would join them one day. This 2018 article from Dork shows how much it means to Blossoms to be associated with the Manchester greats:

“While Tom and the band spent their childhoods admiring Manchester's heroes from afar, little did they realise that they'd be welcomed into the ranks themselves one day. Contemplating what it means to be a part of Manchester's music scene, Ogden explains: "It's like a close-knit family, they look after one and other. We played first with the Courteeners; then we supported The Stone Roses. So yeah, I think it's just like, Manchester as a city - it kind of takes to its bands, it really loves them. They just support the bands like they might a football team. It's crazy, but we're fortunate that we come from this neck of the woods, we seem to get a lot of support because of that".

I shall leave thing here regarding background and biography, as I am keen to reviewing Blossoms’ single, If You Think This Is Real Life. It is the opening song from Foolish Loving Spaces and a perfect way to kick the album off! The album has gained some great reviews, and it will be exciting for fans to hear these new tracks at gigs. I shall get down to reviewing a great song from Blossoms…

The band wastes no time in getting down to business when it comes to If You Think This Is Real Life. I think people say listeners tend to skip tracks – if they are streaming songs – after about twenty seconds or so if they are not hooked – it might be less than that. Attention spans are so short that people require something that hooks them right away. Bands like Blossoms are worth investigation no matter when the kick comes in, but their latest single starts straight with the chorus. There is a nice blend of something tropical, 1980s; a bit of Take That’s Relight My Fire (in terms of the vibe and beats), and some of the Britpop bands of the 1990s. One is hooked right in, and you get this delightful sunniness that warms the blood. I love how addictive and catchy the sound is, and one goes back to the song again and again because it begins with such a rush! The lyrics sort of balance out the cheer and warmth of the composition with something a little more heartbroken. Even when Blossoms are talking about regrets and deceit, they manage to make it sound okay, like everything will be alright. Our hero sings about a promise he made to a girl before taking it back. “I made a mess of your heart/I think we’re falling apart” is honest and revealing. The hero left his girl out in the rain; there is accusation and a sense that her man has caused damage and is repeating bad patterns. Maybe there is too much blame on one side, but Blossoms’ Tom Ogden seems to dismiss her words. Perhaps he is getting blamed unnecessarily, or this conflict is exaggerated. The chorus is the real heart and diamond of the song. There is a little bit of Kid Creole and The Coconuts; the Stockport band incorporating something Caribbean and sun-drenched into their palette.

I love the swagger and swing of the chorus! It is one that will get you swinging along and stay in the head for ages! When the chorus comes in, I start to wonder whether we are hearing about romantic disentanglement or something to do with friendship. The words “If you think this is real life/Look and you may find/Run son it’s your sunlight/Don’t act so uptight” would suggest friends clashing and falling out, so maybe the song is not so easy to predict and straightforward. It is the bracing honesty and lack of concern that makes the song so interesting to unpick. The second verse talks about the two – the lovers or estranged mates – being at the point of no return. The more the words unfurl, the more indiscretion and romantic strife seems the likely inspiration. The girl says they need to get help and, when the two are bickering, the hero sleeps with one of her friends. It is, as the hero says, the end and something unacceptable. I wonder whether the hero is destroying the relationship to get a rise or whether it is the girl that is cheating. When he says about sleeping with one of your friend, it is not 100% whether that is the woman saying that or him; I go back to the song and my mind changes each time. The verses are backed by this cheerier mood and sense of building carnival. One might think the merry backing would jar against lyrics that are quite tense and combative but, actually, it is a perfect blend. So many other Pop acts would pen a composition that is all angered, full of machine beats and distorted – think of someone like Grimes. Our hero says that he would travel the world, but he stays in watching the news. The song comes back to this idea that the other party is uptight and has caused this division. Blossoms are keen to get back to the chorus – and why wouldn’t you?! -, and it sort of adds extra weight and meaning to the verses. One is helpless to resist the alluring and colourful cocktail of the chorus; it is one of the biggest of the year so far and one that will be hard to beat! If You Think This Is Real Life is a fantastic opener to Foolish Loving Spaces and, if you think this is the only spirit-lifting gem from the album, then you need to investigate the whole album! I chose If You Think This Is Real Life because it is a single and, to me, the best song Blossoms have released so far.

It has been a busy and eventful last three-and-a-bit years since Blossoms released their debut album. So many artists take a long time to produce albums and progress, but Blossoms have come a long way in a short time. Their debut was well-received and, from there, the band has amassed a clan of fans and are getting bigger and better. They will not have too much time to relax this year as there is a big demand and, with fans across the world, their name is getting bigger and bigger! I am not surprised that uncomplicated and positive Pop is providing popular. Many people mourn the loss of that optimism and kick – I am one of them. The boys are pretty determined to get their fourth album out there, and it seems like there is a lot of inspiration and gold running through their veins right now. If You Think This Is Real Life was a great track to review, and you can spin it again and again without becoming bored; you pick up new things every time it comes around. 2020 is going to be an exciting year for Blossoms, and I could well see them playing quite a lot of festivals in the summer. One would not bet against them getting a Glastonbury spot, and I am excited to see where they head. It is a changing time for Pop music, and there are few artists concerned with big choruses and catchiness. Aside from Blossoms, Dua Lipa and Róisín Murphy, there are not too many others crafting these extraordinary, body-moving jams. I shall wrap things up in a second but, before I go, have a listen to Blossoms and follow them if you can – the social media links are at the bottom of this review. The Stockport band has come a long way since their debut but, in a great way, they actually have not moved that far at all. They have not changed their sound for the worse and tried to fit in with what is trending and ‘popular’, nor have they relocated and gone all American. I like that about Blossoms. They are ordinary guys who are making great music and they are not being lured by money, fancy studios and something shiny – let’s hope they stay that way for as long as possible! Foolish Loving Spaces is a great album, and I think it is the best of their career so far. There is no stopping this band and, with a lauded album under their belts, they are looking to the road and bringing their top tunes to the masses. Go see them if you can because, when it comes to their sound and charm, there is no band…

WHO does it quite like Blossoms.

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Follow Blossoms

Official:

https://www.blossomsband.co.uk/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BlossomsBand

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/blossomsband/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/blossomsband/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/22RISwgVJyZu9lpqAcv1F5?si=vk7XCt3uSVKQU6UJDa-lkw

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSp1dH5bOA9crqqE54S8e6w

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Blossoms

FEATURE: Modern Life Is Rubbish: Can Pop Regain Its Euphoria?

FEATURE: 

Modern Life Is Rubbish

PHOTO CREDIT: @alexb/Unsplash

Can Pop Regain Its Euphoria?

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I am writing a separate feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: @belart84/Unsplash

later this weekend that reacts to Billie Eilish scoring big at the Grammys (26th January). There is no doubting she is an immense talent and an artist who has a long future ahead of her. Whilst I love her style of music and think that it is original and memorable, she is considered one of the biggest Pop artists of the moment; someone who is at the very top of the industry right now. Look around the Pop landscape right now, and one can see a pattern emerging in terms of sound. Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Drake are the biggest Pop artists in the world. One can put in names such as ROSALÍA, Halsey and The 1975 but, in general, one can make links and definitions. Whether you consider all of these artists purely ‘Pop’ – in terms of a sound rather than what is seen as popular – that is up to you. They are artists who are enormous and command huge popularity. Whilst the likes of Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift are idols and are creating great music, I do wonder whether Pop has turned a corner and will never get back on its former track. What I mean is that, by and large, the Pop staple of today is something darker and more introspective. I know artists like Lizzo and Christine and the Queens write more spirited music but, even then, there is a lack of euphoria and the upbeat. I have respect for artists that write from the heart and are unafraid to bring in big subjects.

Music is a platform for raising awareness and talking about important issues, but we are living through some rough times right now. I know I have concentrated on this subject numerous times and, as we move through 2020, I do wonder whether Pop will change its course. How influential is social media when it comes to the course of modern Pop? Look at your Twitter and Facebook feeds and there is so much introspection, unhappiness and narcissism. It is unavoidable when you consider anyone can post anything and, at a period in history where so many people are afraid and unsure, it does create this very negative and anxious feel. Music is a perfect way to unleash those negative feelings and find connection. If you are feeling anxious, upset or heartbroken, music seems like a safer space than social media. Fans can relate to what you are saying, and you are speaking to people who are going through the same thing. What else is to be done? If you are feeling overwhelmed or your contemporaries are writing in a certain way, you sort of have to do the same thing and fit into the scene. Naturally, there are artists who can write happier songs and big choruses but, as I will look at later, there are few that stick in the head and stand out. If anyone knows how to write big Pop hits that make you feel better, then it is the Pet Shop Boys.

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have been writing classics for decades and their latest album, Hotspot, is out now. They recently spoke with The Guardian about their latest album and music in general. The duo, quite rightly, joked (or were serious) that the acoustic guitar should be banned – we do not have the likes of Joni Mitchell making music right now so, really, what point does it serve!? Pop today is authentic and real, but is this obsession with the pure, personal and sorrowful the new normal?

“They do feel a little out of place in the current pop climate’s obsession with authenticity and ordinariness (“authenticity is a style,” notes Tennant, “and it’s always the same style”), its lyrical penchant for what they waspishly term “narcissistic misery”.

“We’re always looking for euphoria and excitement in music,” he says, “that sort of feeling we got the first time we heard Bobby O’s records, or Helter Skelter by the Beatles, or even She Loves You, going right back to being a child. That euphoric thing came back in with the rave scene in the 80s, but it isn’t really at the core of pop music now. Its context is social media; social media has actually created and defined the form of popular music and I think, unfortunately, that takes it down the narcissistic misery route. It doesn’t have the importance it once had, and that’s been the case for quite a while. It’s become a facet of social media. You know, everything we do, there’s people working out how to edit it down to 10 seconds, literally everything. I wonder what would happen now if you released Bohemian Rhapsody”.

One cannot blindly say all Pop music is dour and lacking in warmth, but it is clear the mainstream is defined by something edgy, colder and unhappy. Even when artists try warmth and lift, it seems rather empty and weak. I have been thinking and musing as to when I last heard a good-old Pop banger. Lizzo has created big songs like Juice, but I find I cannot sing along to that song and it is not as universal as the best Pop music. There are smaller artists who write nice Pop songs with a bit of kick, but they are buried and not as regarded as the bigger artists. My point is that, even when the world is shaking and on fire, that does not preclude musicians from writing great and happy Pop. I have said it many times before: the world was not in this perfect state back in the 1980s and 1990s. We have always struggled and, actually, faced bigger dilemmas and struggles than what we are going through now. Is it the case artists feel silly writing euphoric Pop? Do they lack the talent to pen big hooks and choruses, or do they feel that sort of sound has no place? It is clear the biggest and best Pop artists command attention now, but how many of their songs will be played and remembered decades from now? The best Pop music is not remembered fondly because it was a better time then or we want to be nostalgic. These songs endure because there is an optimism and something in them that speaks to everyone and transcends time and place.

I have just written a feature about Róisín Murphy and the fact that she is releasing these Disco bangers. There are, I know, sadder elements to the lyrics, but you listen to songs like Incapable, and there is this optimism; a beat and strut that makes you feel better. Pop artists like Dua Lipa are trying to bring something more impassioned to Pop but, even then, one feels like third gear is being used a lot – can artists truly get into fifth gear and provide the world something that is genuinely euphoric, without dampening it down? Artists like Murphy are, sadly, in the minority right now. All is not lost in this world; it is never going to be lost and, in our ordinary lives, most of us have a lot to be thankful for and are not living under a cloud of misery. Why, then, does Pop music (and many other genres) feel the need to keep the mood low and edgy? There are articles that posit a link between social media and music, and other articles underline the fact there are so many distractions these days. Perhaps it is impossible to go back and recapture that spirit. Solo artists like Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi are defining modern music with music that is very personal, pained and plain boring. I can appreciate how difficult it is to summon up something original and euphoric that sounds fresh and is not a repeat of an older sound.

I will round things up but, as we all need to be roused and made positive, music is not really delivering. One cannot solely blame Pop but, as it garners the most focus, one has to put some of the blame at its feet. I do really respect big artists like Billie Eilish but, alongside her and her peers, where is the euphoria and the alternative wave? Pop now is so skewed to the darker or experimental, there is desperately little in the way of anthems, happiness and the sort of track that nestles in the brain and releases endorphins. We have not got to the point where the darkness has descended and there is no ray of hope, but one wouldn’t know that listening to modern Pop. It might be tricky to find that energy and inspiration, but we all need music that joins us together and puts us in a better mood. Narcissism and experimentation has become too much a staple. Even when artists are trying to write something upbeat, I find there is something lacking – almost hitting fifth gear, but still stuck in third. I tend to find I listen more to older music now and, as I need something happier, there are few acts from today that I go back to time and time again. Maybe that is me being picky and elitist, but it is hard to find a lot of joy and euphoria in modern music. It is not only Pop that is culpable of putting the personal above the unifying and uplifting. I am not one who thinks Pop music is lost and can never regain its spark. Although euphoric explosion in Pop seems a long way away, I think the revival…    

PHOTO CREDIT: @danimota/Unsplash

CAN still happen.

FEATURE: Play Devil’s Advocate: Sam Fender and the Realities of Touring

FEATURE:

 

Play Devil’s Advocate

Sam Fender and the Realities of Touring

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WHEN it comes to artists who do not have…

much luck with their voice, Sam Fender must be near the top of the list. It seems he has been struck down with a chest infection, so he has had to reschedule a load of gigs here. I guess artists cannot avoid it because, like all humans, these things do happen. This NME article reveals more:

“Sam Fender has been forced to reschedule shows on his UK tour for the second time, after suffering from continued ill health.

The ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ was set to begin a run of postponed shows in Birmingham, Bristol and Newcastle tonight – which were originally shelved when he suffered a respiratory tract infection in December 2019. 

In a message to fans this afternoon (January 30), Fender has confirmed that the shows will be rescheduled once more after he experienced continued health issues and a family bereavement.

“I’m gutted to have to do this again.. I’ve had an absolute shocker with my health,” Fender told fans.

“It’s been a series of unfortunate events this last month with chest infections, laryngitis and a family bereavement, and now I’ve come down again with tonsillitis. I’m raging, all I want to do is get back out and sing, but I just can’t.

“We’re going to reschedule these shows, and will let you know on the new dates as soon as possible. I know this is massively inconvenient, I can’t apologise enough, I’m so sorry.

“My immune system is totally shit at the moment, I’m doing everything I can to combat that. The only thing I can do is tear the fucking roof off when we reschedule again”.

Fender, it seems, has not been fortunate when it comes to illness and gig timing. I will source from this Guardian interview of August 2019 later, but Fender talked about his voice and problems with it:

“This is, to be fair, possibly the worst time Fender could be doing an interview. Tomorrow’s show is the first since his voice went on strike a month ago. The following day he is due to support Neil Young and Bob Dylan in Hyde Park. Last month, his voice problems meant he had to cancel his scheduled Glastonbury appearance; until yesterday, he didn’t know whether he’d be able to sing this week at all, let alone do a press interview. “I did too much and haemorrhaged my vocal cord on the right side,” he says. “I’ve not stopped touring for two years, and then I crashed and burned. I realised that you can’t maintain that high. And now I’ve got myself back on my feet and I’m naturally a bit scared. Because this thing, it can destroy you, it really can”.

One can appreciate fans have been waiting to see him play and, with the release his debut album, Hypersonic Missiles last year, the demand and buzz has increased. I do wonder whether there is too much pressure on artists to perform, and whether we take into consideration the effort and resilience needed. There was a social media backlash against Fender. Many were wondering how he could be blighted by vocal issues yet again. Again, musicians are human beings, and one would not slag off their local mechanic if they took some time off now and then to recover – or maybe they would.

Things are worse for musicians, as they are naturally in contact with a lot of people; they also use tour buses, so are in close confines. Avoiding illness and issues is, sadly, part of music. In Fender’s case, maybe there is a deeper issue that needs addressing. One cannot speculate as to his overall health and prognosis, but he must be feeling stressed and gutted having to reschedule. The sort of opprobrium aimed the way of Fender has been galling. Fans do pay a lot for tickets; they have to book time off and look forward, but most will not lose money, and it is a necessary move from Fender. I have written a feature about Madonna, who has had to cancel a few of her gigs lately because of pain and ill health. Regardless of age of how many dates you play, there is that risk of injury or illness. Fans are entitled to feel annoyed, but I find little use blaming an artist or wondering how they could get ill. Artists like Sam Fender do not do it on purpose and, added with the pressure of gigs and the long hours on the road, I am surprised that tour cancellations are so uncommon. I will end by stating why we need to have more compassion for artists but, before, I want to return to that interview from The Guardian. As a working-class artist from the North, Fender has had some years of struggle, but the tag of a ‘poor’ or ‘struggling‘ artist is not something Fender associates with himself:    

“Fender has the guitar, but also the cheekbones of a supermodel and songs about male suicide, the spice epidemic and fear of nuclear disaster. The only songs in his repertoire that are in any way romantic are about drunken casual sex. His foamier lager anthems recall Liam Gallagher, if Liam was in any way woke. But Fender really can write songs. His singles, such as Hypersonic Missiles (also the name of his forthcoming debut album), are lethally catchy – like a more brooding Killers coupled with a boyish, brass-loving Bruce Springsteen, albeit more Newcastle than New Jersey. And his voice is nothing like the pigeon-warble of his peers, often high-vaulting to Jeff Buckley levels of vulnerability. Elton John is a fan. So is Stormzy, who recently left him a nine-minute voice message about how much he loved his song Dead Boys, a title that leaves little to the imagination.

Fender says he feels uncomfortable being lumped in with the Toms, Jameses and Georges of guitar pop. “I don’t see myself as part of that, because I’m from Shields, and up here is a very different world,” he says. It exasperates him a little that most people “can’t see that – they probably assume that I’m privately educated”. Or, worse, manufactured. 

He stops himself. “[I sound like] I’m playing the whole ‘poor northerner boy’ sympathy card. I hate that. You don’t want to cling on to the whole ‘I’m a class hero’ thing, because it can seem not genuine at all, like. Technically, I started off quite comfortable. I lived in a council estate for half of my life, but not the beginning of it. Before my parents split up, we lived in one of them terraced houses, which was quite nice. And my dad was working, and my mum was a nurse. But if I’m honest about it, the past 10 years of my life were tough. It wasn’t easy”.

Sam Fender is an artist worth supporting, and someone who will enjoy a very long career. Over the past few years, we have heard of artists living with depression and mental-health problems. It is tough being in the limelight and not letting fans down. So many artists have to put on a façade, and a lot people do not appreciate the hours an artist has to put in. Fender will make it up to the fans who were due to see him on tour very soon. It must be difficult playing so many gigs when you have a voice that has faced problems in the past. Some people are vilifying Fender, whilst the man himself has apologised and feels bad about the situation. It is annoying for fans when a tour is cancelled, but the artists cannot help it so, in the case of Sam Fender and other artists who are afflicted by illness, let us…

PLAY Devil’s advocate.

FEATURE: Still the Queen of Pop: Madonna and the Madame X Revolution

FEATURE: 

Still the Queen of Pop

Madonna and the Madame X Revolution

___________

THERE are other artists I love more…

than Madonna, but there are few I have greater respect for. Interestingly, I am writing two pieces this weekend that relate to illness/injury and the demands of the stage; both artists involved (the other is Sam Fender) have been met with a lot of press coverage and some criticism. In the case of Madonna, she has been battling through a lot of pain lately. Back in November, she announced some cancellations:

“Madonna has cancelled three dates of her Madame X tour dates in Boston, saying she was experiencing "overwhelming" pain.

"Please forgive this unexpected turn of events," she told fans on Facebook.

"Doing my show every night brings me so much joy and to cancel is a kind of punishment... But the pain I'm in right now is overwhelming, and I must rest and follow doctor's orders."

The star did not specify the cause of her injury.

However, earlier this month, she told fans in San Francisco she was suffering from a "torn ligament" and "a bad knee".

After her most recent tour date in Los Angeles, an Instagram video showed her taking "my usual ice bath for multiple injuries". In an earlier video, she displayed a painful bruise on her right thigh.

The reason I did not want to put her and Sam Fender together is that I want to talk more about Madonna and her latest incarnation, Madame X. Madonna is no stranger to adopting different looks but, not since Erotica in 1992 has Madonna taken on this new guise and character.

Madonna is currently in London, and the demand has been huge. She did have to pull her first night at The London Palladium earlier in the week due to ill health/injury, but there is this sort of defiance and strength you get from Madonna that means she cannot be put down too long. She is also cancelling two future shows, but is defying doctors’ orders whilst doing so! I think there is this assumption that, when an artist gets to a certain age, they need to scale down live performance and are unable to cut it with younger artists. The fact of the matter is that touring is grueling, and an artist like Madonna puts on a huge show! Even though she is playing in a smaller venue than she is used to at the moment, it seems like she is packing an enormous show in. The Guardian caught her in London and had this to say:

“Madonna plays up her proximity to the audience: usually seated in a different postal district to the stage, today they are within touching distance. She talks about the venue’s wonderful intimacy – a speech she delivers, oddly, while hidden behind a black wooden screen with only her feet visible, which feels a little like talking about a breathtaking view when you’ve got a paper bag over your head. She gamely interacts with the audience, up to and including stealing first a punter’s seat, then his beer, occasionally scuppered by the fact that the people she interacts with are too overawed by her regal presence to make any kind of sense.

Otherwise, the performance doesn’t really do low key: it feels like an arena show crammed into a smaller space, with suitably eye-popping results. There are a series of tableaux that suggest Madonna is an ungovernable force of insurrection oppressed by shadowy forces – soldiers, trench-coated private eyes and indeed actual shadows. There is an appearance by Cape Verde’s Orquestra Batukadeiras, whose performance is so gleeful you scarcely notice Madonna herself, respectfully seated at the side of the stage. There is a fake riot, a moment where Madonna unexpectedly starts playing the bongos, a moment where Madonna is bundled across the stage shouting “fuck the patriarchy!” and a flatly brilliant staging of Frozen, accompanied by a sensuously choreographed video that initially appears to feature Madonna, but turns out to be her daughter Lourdes.

There are also points where the show feels slightly scrappy and disjointed, and points where it sags – you really do get an awful lot of Portuguese fado for your buck – but it’s hard to feel short-changed. There’s such a lot going on over the course of two hours and it’s hard to imagine another star of her stature even thinking about trying anything as clearly experimental as this. The gammy hip that’s dominated headlines in recent weeks doesn’t seem to have much impact on her dancing, and she’s genuinely funny about both the price of tickets for the show and the bizarre moment in the early 00s when, living in Britain, she suddenly developed an English accent: “Why did you let me do that? I’m from Michigan.” Whether it’s really giving you a more intimate glimpse of Madonna is a moot point – physically closer to her fans or not, it’s still a show, not an evening of unvarnished soul-baring. But the racket they make when she finally leaves the stage suggests that, quite understandably, none of them care”.

Madonna is still thrilling her fans, and it is great to see her produce such a big and varied show (Will Gompertz reviewed Madonna at the Palladium). Sure, the routines and energy is not the same as her Blond Ambition World Tour of 1990, but that was three decades ago now. On 13th April, it will be thirty years since that tour began. On 27th March, it is thirty years since Vogue was released. One looks back of the Madonna of 1990 – having released the acclaimed Like a Prayer the year before - and matches her with the Madonna of now. She still has the same verve and passion for performance and holds her fans in high regard. Madame X is her latest album – released last year –, and I think it is quite underrated. It is an inventive record, and I actually like the heroine; this idea that Madonna is a spy-cum-teacher-cum-everything. Some turned their noses up at the idea, but who wants an artist who writes the same albums and never pushes themselves!? Apart from the fact Madonna has to wear an eyepatch for live shows and shoots – which must be a pain in the arse! -, she has crafted this really interesting figures. I did not get a ticket for her London shows, but it seems her wit is sharper than ever. Whether joking about curfews, or blaming Guy Ritchie for her English accent, there are few performers like her! There are some great Pop artists now, but few that can ever compete with Madonna. It is important to look at the present and her Madame X revolution, but there are reasons to look back and respect the durability and continued popularity of an artist who has moved with the times yet retained her independence and own sound.

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1998

I grew up listening to Pop music in the 1980s and 1990s, and Madonna was a big part of that. I caught the video for Material Girl when I was seven or eight, I think, and I followed her career. I think my favourite album of hers is 1998’s Ray of Light - but I do love her latest album. It is the way she manages to stay with the times and adapt that is amazing. Although, as we see in this interview from last year, the modern landscape is something that she is not a huge fan of:

“Sometimes when she talks, she unmistakably sounds like a pop star forged in a different era. She is “dizzy” at the sheer turnover of pop in the digital age – “There are so many distractions, so much noise, so many people coming and going so quickly, it takes away the artist’s ability to grow” – and says the modern way of writing pop songs, where artists are thrown together with a rotating cast of random star producers and writers at songwriting camps, didn’t suit her at all. “Oh, I tried that on MDNA and Rebel Heart. I worked with a lot of talented people, but it’s too hard to have a vision when you work with so many people: there’s so much input. I didn’t enjoy the process at all. Sometimes it was great, but it’s very weird to sit in a room with strangers and go: ‘OK, on your marks, set, write a song together!’ You have to reveal yourself, you have to be vulnerable, and it’s hard to do that right away.”

Nevertheless, uniquely among her peers, she is still resolutely a pop artist, still making music informed by what is happening in the charts and the clubs. These days, she sometimes learns about it via her 13-year-old daughter, Mercy, an “urban queen” whose taste in hip-hop apparently sits badly with her Elton John-loving brother, David: “He says the lyrics degrade women, and he’s right.”

“There’s nothing forced about it,” she says of her continuing quest to personify pop. “This is the music that I listen to in my house, this is the music that inspires me. Oh, you’re not allowed to make youthful, fun, sexy music if you’re a certain age? That’s a load of” – she dips into an English accent – “bollocks, to speak your language”.

Madonna will have a fair few tour dates this year, and I hope she does not have to miss too many dates through injury and illness. Whether it is through her humour, performances or albums, Madonna is still leading the way for Pop; so many artists have her to thank and, let’s hope, there are going to many more years of new Madonna music. It is great seeing such an icon still going strong and, as I will discuss later in the Sam Fender piece, artists are not immune from illness and touring is a strain – it is a shame gigs get cancelled, but these things can’t be helped! Writing about Madonna now, it has made me a bit nostalgic, so I am going to listen to her classics, alongside Madame X. Regardless of setbacks with health, Madonna is still proving why she is the Queen of Pop (Kate Bush, let’s establish, is Queen of all Music). Nearly thirty-eight years after she released her debut single – Everybody was released in 1982 -, she is definitely still…

LEADING the way.

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Winter-Ready Playlist (Vol. IV)

FEATURE:

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Hazel English 

An All-Female, Winter-Ready Playlist (Vol. IV)

__________

LOOKING out at the weather…

IN THIS PHOTO: Lilla Vargen

today, and it seems like the weather is getting warmer! It is getting lighter earlier, and we have not experienced the worst the winter has to offer – not in the South at least! That is good, but I am sure the winter has not left us yet. There have been a lot of great tracks released this week, and so many of them are by the terrific women of music. In this playlist will be artists you know, and some new ones that you may not. Have a listen to this mighty playlist and it will give you the kick and energy you need…

IN THIS PHOTO: Amber Mark

TO banish the winter blues.  

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Artists

__________

PHOTO CREDIT: Ashton Fernihough

Julia Bardo - I Wanna Feel Love

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

Hayley Williams – Leave It Alone

Lissy Taylor - Mayday

TORRES – A Few Blue Flowers

PHOTO CREDIT: Ariana Molly

Braids – Young Buck

Mathilda Homer – Too Much

Demi Lovato – Anyone

PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

KAHLLA – Sense of Self

Madison Beer – Good in Goodbye

H.E.R. – Sometimes

Hannah Jane Lewis – Lemonade 

Lilla Vargen – Cold

Hannah Grace – Blue

Saint Agnes – And They All Fall Down

Taylor Swift – Only the Young

Margaret Glaspy – Killing What Keeps Us Alive

Malena Zavala – I’m Leaving Home

PHOTO CREDIT: Billy Holmes

Lindsay Munroe – Mirrors

Hazel English – Off My Mind

Dawn Richard – Die Without You

Amber Mark – Generous

Eve Owen – So Still for You

Jaguar Jonze – Rabbit Hole

JFDR – Shimmer

Josie Dunne – Back to It

Allie X – Devil I Know

Dua Lipa - Physical

Kesha – Honey

FEATURE: The February Playlist: Vol. 1: A Concrete Pony and Some Momentary Bliss

FEATURE:

 

The February Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Ghostpoet 

Vol. 1: A Concrete Pony and Some Momentary Bliss

__________

THIS is a packed week…

where some seriously amazing songs are out! There are new tracks from Dua Lipa, Ghostpoet and Gorillaz (featuring slowthai and Slaves). Also in the pack are Tame Impala, Liam Gallagher, and Taylor Swift; mix in some Hot Chip, Caribou and Squarepusher and we have a mighty and eclectic week! If you do need a boost to get you in the mood and get the weekend swinging, make sure you check the playlist. It is a busy week, and the quality is sky-high! This year has kicked off with a bang and I am looking forward to seeing what else is coming up. In the meantime, have a listen to the epic tunes below and…

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa

GET the weekend off to a great start.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

_________

Ghostpoet – Concrete Pony

Dua Lipa – Physical

Gorillaz (ft. slowthai and Slaves) - Momentary Bliss

Squarepusher – Terminal Slam

Hayley Williams - Leave It Alone

Liam Gallagher – Once

PHOTO CREDIT: Raffaele Cariou

James Righton – Edie

Tame Impala - Lost in Yesterday

Taylor Swift - Only the Young

PHOTO CREDIT: Ewan Ogden

Blossoms - If You Think This Is Real Life

Hot Chip – Positive

Margaret Glaspy - Killing What Keeps Us Alive

Kesha – Tonight

H.E.R. – Sometimes

Morrissey - Love Is On Its Way Out

PHOTO CREDIT: Harley Weir

These New Puritans – The Mirage

Caribou - Never Come Back

Amber Mark – Generous

Demi Lovato – Anyone

Declan McKenna – Beautiful Faces

Allie X – Devil I Know

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Blue Moon Rising

PHOTO CREDIT: Ashton Fernihough

Julia Bardo - I Wanna Feel Love

IN THIS PHOTO: Saweetie

Saweetie & GALXARA - Sway with Me (from Birds of Prey: The Album)

Little Dragon – Hold On

Alex Ebert - Fluid

Cat Burns – Fool in Love

Austra – Risk It

FEATURE: At This Rate… Music Venues’ Prosperity in 2020

FEATURE:

 

At This Rate…

PHOTO CREDIT: @johnmarkarnold/Unsplash

Music Venues’ Prosperity in 2020

___________

SOME good news broke this week…

PHOTO CREDIT: @single_lens_reflex/Unsplash

that is cause for celebration in the music industry. I have talked a lot about small venues but, as the Government announced it is cutting business rates for small and medium-sized venues, it means their survival and prosperity is much more likely. I want to look at how governments can help venues further and, when we look at changing eating and drinking habits, whether some venues could adapt to draw more people in. Before then, here is that report:

“The government has committed to reducing business rates for small and medium-sized music venues in England and Wales for the first time. The 50% reduction available to smaller retailers will be extended to 230 small and medium-sized music venues with a rateable value below £51,000. Independent cinemas will also benefit from the reduction.

The Music Venue Trust estimates that the move will save each site an average of £7,500 a year, and release more than £1.7m back into the grassroots live music sector. Music Venue Trust strategic director Beverley Whitrick said it was a “much needed and long overdue boost”.

Nathan Clark of the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds said he was overjoyed by the news. “This reduction of business rates supports an ability to reinvest, helping new and emerging artists, create accessible events, and further support a vibrant, but financially strained environment for the wider community.”

The last decade has seen 35% of grassroots music venues across England and Wales close. The UK’s first live music census, published in February 2018, found that a third of British venues outside London were fighting to survive in the face of high business rates and noise restrictions.

Of almost 200 small music venues (with a capacity of up to 350 people) surveyed, 33% reported that increases in business rates had an “extreme, strong or moderate” impact on their existence in the past 12 months. One medium-sized venue (351–650 capacity) reported their rateable value quadrupling from £17,500 to £72,000.

PHOTO CREDIT: @johnmarkarnold/Unsplash

Business rates are by no means the only challenge facing the UK’s music venues. In March 2019, the British music industry body that collects royalty payments for musicians said it planned to more than double the rates paid by pubs, bars and nightclubs to play recorded music. Changing drinking habits have also been blamed for the closure of small venues”.

It is good that so many venues will benefit from these measures. I wonder, as we are just finishing Independent Venue Week (it ends on 2nd February), whether more money can be earmarked for venues. There is that issue of noise pollution and, whilst I have mentioned this in a feature before, I do think venues that are especially afflicted by noise concerns – and receive complains – could benefit from capital. I know there is not an endless kitty for music but, when we consider the money injected into film, theatre and other areas of the arts, I think music is equally valuable. Any support that can be provided to venues is great and, with the reduction of business rates, a lot of money will go to grassroots venues. Past this, what about prevention, growth, and the existence of new sites? I think noise complaints are important to consider and, whilst people who move near venues should know better, venues threatened with penalties because of noise pollution could benefit from funding. Similarly, so many of us are not eating and drinking out, but I wonder how venues (that are not making a lot from food and drink) could benefit from extra money available.

PHOTO CREDIT: @jmuniz/Unsplash

I guess it is hard to reverse current trends but, as a lot of venues are struggling to make profits, the £1.7m being poured back into small and medium-sized venues could help out. I think more awareness and promotion of the great venues around the U.K. could bring more people in. Independent Venue Week is a great way to shine a spotlight on venues, but government campaigns and more spending promoting venues through the media would be a big help. It might be a stretch to think new venues could form but, as we are hearing positive news, who would bet against it? There has been much celebration on social media; people relieved that so many venues will benefit and, with a lot of new money going into the industry, how it will benefit the industry as a whole – and all the great artists who rely on venues. I am still worried many close and rent prices are so steep – especially if you are in a major city like London. Of course, the fact fewer people are going out contributes, but preservation of existing venues and making people conscious of the fantastic music available near them could well help. Those who argue that venues are less relevant in an age of social media need to realise that, without venues, artists struggle to perform, hone their craft, and have the confidence to release music. The experience of watching an artist play and being in that space is electric. This BBC article is interesting to read:

“It was at Barfly where Bombay Bicycle Club met producer Jim Abbiss, who worked with them on their debut album and throughout their career.

Jack says the venues provide a lifeline.

"Playing live has kind of become the main source of sustenance for bands... bands aren't going to be able to rely on income from royalties. 

PHOTO CREDIT: @ben_neale/Unsplash

"I know there's lots of smaller venues struggling but we all need to try our hardest to keep them open."

"There's so many people in and around the venues in their local communities who are willing to come down, paint walls, make repairs, give their time for free - because they're so appreciative of having these spaces," Chloe Ward, director of UK for Independent Venue Week, tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"They open their doors to audiences to come in and be inspired to become managers or artists themselves or to get into the music industry."

Chloe says current "astronomical business rates" are the "main struggle" for lots of the small venues who take part in their event.

"You recognise how passionate and innovative the owners are. They are nurturing talent who goodness knows where they're going to be in five years - they could be headlining Glastonbury or arenas.

"They'll probably start out on the bottom of the bill playing to 10 of their mates... it's where they get noticed".

It is great that there is positive news coming out, just as we throw love towards out vital venues. With so many great artists entering the industry, all hungry to perform and get their music heard, I think our Government should think more about allotting money to music’s live scene so, in generations to come, we have a healthy and diverse live scene. That, obviously, is for the good…

PHOTO CREDIT: @kylewongs/Unsplash

OF all music fans.

FEATURE: Master Hunter: The Magnificent Laura Marling: The Playlist

FEATURE:

Master Hunter

The Magnificent Laura Marling: The Playlist

___________

I do quite a few playlists and, whilst I did…

not want to put it in large print at the top of this article, I am marking Laura Marling’s thirtieth birthday (she turns thirty on 1st February). I feel more comfortable mentioning men’s ages, but I wasn’t sure if it was that tactful, despite the fact she is still in her twenties! I wanted to put a playlist together, as Marling is an artist who has not put a foot wrong! I mentioned on Twitter how, in spite of the fact she has a few albums under her solo belt (and one as part of LUMP), Laura Marling has not received a bad review. That is a feat for any artists but, look at each of her albums, and there is so much imagination, poetic brilliance and emotion throughout. Listening to a Laura Marling album is almost like reading a novel or watching a film, so immersive and stunning is the music. Her sixth studio album, Semper Femina, was released in 2017 – to, of course, critical acclaim! -, and she released the eponymous LUMP album with Mike Lindsay in 2018. I wonder whether there are any plans for this year and whether we might see a seventh solo album. Although Marling has been on this unbroken streak of excellence, there is no pressure on her shoulders to keep up this quality because, unless she goes completely off-tangent or changes musical direction, she will continue to produce the same startling and memorable music she has since Alas, I Cannot Swim in 2008 – she was barely eighteen (her birthday was a few days before) when that debut came into the world. Rather than share my opinions on Laura Marling, I felt it best to put together a selection of her very best songs to mark her thirtieth birthday. Here is an artist who has not put a creative foot wrong and, to be I honest, I don’t think…

SHE ever will.

FEATURE: Tomorrow Never Knows: Can Festival Line-Ups Display Greater Gender Parity This Year?

FEATURE:

 

Tomorrow Never Knows

 PHOTO CREDIT: @michaelbenz/Unsplash

Can Festival Line-Ups Display Greater Gender Parity This Year?

___________

IT is not that I am going after one festival…

 IMAGE CREDIT: @ThisIsNCL

above all of the rest but, yesterday, This Is Tomorrow announced their line-up. It is a great festival in the North East but, as you can see from the names announced, there are very few women! Even though it is a festival for new artists, Brighton’s The Great Escape is a demonstration in how you can have a balanced line-up that includes a lot of sensational female artists. I have already talked about The Great Escape, and produced a playlist featuring some of the artists announced. It is an exciting festival that gives you a window into the artists who are going to rise through the ranks. I think bigger festivals who house established artists are in no different situation to a festival like The Great Escape. This Is Tomorrow is not a massive festival, so there is no reason why it had to go male-heavy and ignore the plethora of great women who could easily boss a spot. In terms of the new and bigger acts, there are plenty of women available who would not be too expensive and, actually, afford a festival like This Is Tomorrow greater diversity. One assumes the notoriously male-heavy Reading and Leeds Festivals are going to refer to type, and they will not push any closer to having a fifty-fifty split in terms of gender. Anyone who argues festivals are reacting to commercial demand and there are fewer women to fill slots need to look around them!

IMAGE CREDIT: @Primavera_Sound

Yes, there are fewer women in music than men and fewer women being signed to labels. That is not the same as saying there are not enough women to fill slots. Glastonbury was close to a fifty-fifty balance last year; Primavera Sound know how to throw a party and make sure there is a deserved and pleasing balance of male and female artists across multiple genres. Look at their line-up, and so many women on the bill could have featured on the bill for This Is Tomorrow. We will have to wait to see how some of the major festivals in the U.K. – including Glastonbury and the Isle of Wight Festival – adapt and reveal themselves this year. If a couple of big festivals can strike gender equality (or get very close) there are no excuses for others that have a similarly wide approach when it comes to genres. It seems like the same problems are cropping up time and time again. Parklife 2020 have announced their line-up and, despite it being a small festival, it is close to a fifty-fifty split. Whilst I predict Glastonbury will have a fifty-fifty gender balance, the fact they booked a female headliner (Taylor Swift) when there have been drastically few since its inception (it is the festival’s fiftieth anniversary this year), shows there is a problem right across the board. I thought this year would be a big step up for festivals but, with a few smaller festivals revealing line-ups that are decidedly male-focused, it does worry me.

It seems festivals like The Great Escape are an exception and, whilst I appreciate there are small festivals who have female headliners and a lot more progressive than most other festivals, there are far too many festivals not doing enough. 2019 was a fantastic year for music which saw the release of terrific albums by everyone from FKA twigs, Lana Del Rey and Sharon Van Etten. Angel Olsen and Lizzo can be thrown into the mix and, whilst I’d lose my breath naming all the women who made 2019 so good, it seems odd that this very obvious fact is not translating to better representation at festivals. One can dispel the notion there are few women worthy to headline festivals; that there are not enough to lay down a great show and, most definitely, there are few to put the bill at fifty-fifty. It is not just festivals that are dragging their heels; award shows are just as culpable. The BRIT Awards is, again, short of female nominees when there are some very obvious names that should have been selected. I read a lot of music blogs and websites, and there are so many female artists highlighted. Although radio playlists are still too male-heavy, there are ample female solo artists, duos and bands (or female-led bands) that would give any festival options a-plenty!

IMAGE CREDIT: @thegreatescape

I am not going to literally name every woman who should be booked for any festival but, off the top of my head, I could name around fifty who would be inexpensive, awesome and as popular/strong as any male act – and yet they are not being booked. There are two main reasons why a lack of female inclusion is tragic. At a time when so much of the best music is being made by women, young artists coming through are not seeing that on the big stages; they are missing out and, in years to come, will women avoid getting into the industry because festivals are skewed to the men? I know festivals are not the main benefit of being a musician, but they are important and greater gender quality means variation and a wider palette. I look at festival line-ups and there is very little in the way of surprise or the eclectic. Maybe there is the problem with festivals being run by men who book men. There is a lack of protest from a lot of festival goers which, to be fair, is their choice, but I worry whether many festivals will adopt a fifty-fifty gender balance by 2022 – forty-five festivals pledged to have a fifty-fifty split by 2022 but, as we are two years off, I wonder whether they can realistically achieve that. Just like award line-ups and a lack of female inclusion, artists need to speak up and use their platform to call out those who continue to deny women slots at festivals. A lot of the protest and awareness is coming from women in music and the media: men need to do more and not just let things remain as they are.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Watts

There are articles that claim that, if we ask for gender balance, that means quotas are being filled. There is no denying things are better now than they were in the past regarding gender, but my argument is that quotas are not being filled. There are plenty of female artists who deserve festival shots, and it is not a case of throwing them a treat or making them feel included! Those who warn against quota-filling feel that women would feel patronised or though they are being booked to create equality, rather than reflect their talent. I can never understand this argument, as it implies there are not enough women out there now to make gender parity a reality at festivals. Glastonbury will achieve it this year; Primavera Sound can do it easily, so what do they have to say to that?! I agree there are festivals that deal with particular genres where there are so many more men than women in that field – Electronic and Rap are examples. Whilst it may be harder to get a fifty-fifty balance there quickly, these festivals are still excluding women who are more than worthy, thus exacerbating the problem of inclusion and gender imbalance in these genres. Most festivals do not have a strict remit when it comes to sound/genre, so it is not the case the talent pool is not that deep, seeing as women are visible and strong across multiple genres. This Is Tomorrow have announced their line-up, and several other festivals will do the same before the spring – The Great Escape have laid out their stable, and it looks pretty good! Against all those who claim a fifty-fifty split at festivals represents society being too P.C. and putting gender over quality, they need to listen to music properly and realise there are scores of women who could be added to any festival line-up right now. Many hoped we would see great progress than we have so far but, sadly, festival organisers are just not…

IMAGE CREDIT: @OfficialRandL

DOING enough.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Glossii

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

 Glossii

___________

ALTHOUGH NME have also highlighted…

a couple of recent artists I have put into my Spotlight feature, I have been aware of Glossii for a little while now. Like all great bands, they are hard to pin down or define. Glossii have been compared with Wolf Alice but, when you listen to their music, they are very much on their own plain. The band put out some music last year and, after being included in NME’s list of the one-hundred artists to watch this year, they must be thrilled! In terms of biography, here is some information from Camden Rocks Festival:

 “Glossii is a four-piece post-punk band created around South London in early 2017 by Charlie Lock and Guitarist Lewis Smith, along with vocalist Sofia Zanghirella and latest joining member, drummer Reuben Rost.

Glossii’s hard-hitting riffs and bursts of aggression create the ubiquitous back-beat for Sofia’s femme-fatale lyrical insight- reminiscent of other bands such as Wolf Alice and Garbage with a detection and a nod to the original allure of Blondie.

2018 has been an impressive debut year for the band, performing at Camden Rocks Festival on the Doc Martens stage, supporting HMLTD in Guildford and releasing their debut single: Headache, which has received significant support from Diva Magazine &  Amazing Radio.

Headache and Runaway Rockaway was produced, engineered and mixed at Eastcote Studios by the renowned George Murphy”.

I wonder what the band have planned for 2020. It is obvious there is momentum behind them and, as you can hear from the songs incorporated into this feature, they create a sound that is hard to forget – and it is original, despite comparisons to other acts.

There is something really down to Earth and relatable about Glossii; a band you could hang down the pub with and chill. There are not a lot of interviews and features out there about them but, when looking online, I did find a feature from NME from August:

 “It’s a drizzly Tuesday night at the Shacklewell Arms and Glossii vocalist Sofia Zanghirella is delivering a menacing history lesson from the stage. “Divorced, beheaded, died!” she chants, making wild chopping motions. “Divorced, beheaded, survived!” Anyone getting hazy flashbacks to sitting on a tiny chair in a dingy classroom and learning about the Tudor period of British history? You’re not alone.

“Learned it in Year 2, and still doing it now,” smiles bassist Charlie Lock ahead of Glossii’s set at NME’s gig night Girls To The Front. He’s attempting to explain how on earth a children’s memory rhyme — which charts the gruesome fates of King Henry VIII’s six wives — found its way into a punk-rock band’s repertoire. “Henry VIII was her first crush,” he says of Sofia, who appears delighted. “Big boy, let me love you!” she declares, quoting a lyric from ‘Cut’. “I love Henry VIII. We like to take the piss out of how people love the monarchy so much. It’s a bit silly. It’s like a soap opera nowadays. Look in any magazine: The Queen does this, the queen does that. Ridiculous.”

It’s an apt introduction to Glossii’s kingdom, which started out not-too-seriously around two-and-a-half years ago — they’ve only been gigging for about 12 months. Charlie and guitarist Lewis Smith originally formed the band as an excuse to get glammed up. “I FaceTimed Lewis and asked him if he wanted to start a band where we would go in drag on stage,” Charlie recalls. Accidentally, their playful project turned into the real deal after a succession of increasingly bigger slots evolved into a kind of unofficial residency at The Boileroom in Guildford. Gradually, they found themselves sharing bills with like-minded bands HMLTD and Sorry. “Bands that we never thought we would be able to do things with,” admits Charlie. “I thought someone had made a mistake!”

A scrappy new band springs up out of south London’s incendiary music scene every week, it seems. Though Glossii are focused on “doing our own thing,” they reckon that for bands south of the river “there’s a community feel [as we] play in most of the same venues,” says Charlie. “We’ve made a lot of friends along the way”.

I think it is harder now to make an impression than ever; artists have to hustle and work all hours. Whilst I have seen many artists who were tipped a couple of years ago fade away, I think Glossii can build a big fanbase and play huge venues. The desire for an album is there as, inevitably, when an artists shows glimmers of promise and brilliance, there is that pressure.

I will wrap things up but, on the subject of features and interviews, I want to source from one more. Glossii spoke with Get in Her Ears last year and, in addition to talking about their formation, they also talked about the industry now and how it is set up for band:

 “Hi Glossii, welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about the band? How did you initially all get together and start creating music?

We all used to play in different bands on a Saturday music club. Our bassist Charlie Face-timed Lewis asking to be in a band where they would go on stage in drag. It developed into the androgynous style we have today.

Your new single ‘Watching Me’ is out now – can you tell us what it’s all about?

‘Watching Me’ is about growing up and going against your parents’ rules.

You’ve been compared to the likes of Wolf Alice and Garbage, but who would you say are your main musical influences?

We each all have different influences, and that is what creates our sound. Between all of us our main influences are Wolf Alice, Slaves, Idles, Marmozets and Haze to name a few.

And how do you feel the music industry is for new bands at the moment – would you say it’s difficult to get noticed?

The music industry is hard for new bands to understand and it does take a huge amount of determination and perseverance to get noticed. Your music is not always going to be liked by everyone, even if it’s well produced or written, but your can’t take that to heart. Just move on and do what you like the sound of”.

Things are hotting up in the Glossii camp and, with the year ahead of them, many people are looking their way. It is quite right they are being tipped for success, so make sure you connect with them on social media and check out their music. The South London are primed to…

GO a very long way.

________________

Follow Glossii 

Official:

https://www.glossii.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/glossiiofficial

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/glossiiofficial

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/glossiiofficial/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6i44PQmMX9HCzyTC3t342J

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvoSDrrJnH-_QZ4XaKIBHmw

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Radiohead – Kid A

FEATURE:

Vinyl Corner

Radiohead – Kid A

___________

I am not sure whether I have…

covered this album before for Vinyl Corner (I cannot see any repetition) but, if I have, I think this warrants a rare double inclusion! There are a few reasons why I am including Radiohead’s Kid A in Vinyl Corner - I was going to feature Queen Latifah’s All Hail the Queen, but I will include that next week. For one, this masterful album turns twenty on 2nd October. It is hard to believe that Kid A is almost twenty; it still sounds ahead of its time, and I swear I first heard it only a few years ago! Another reason I want to feature Radiohead’s gem is because the band have made the music news recently. It must have taken a biblical effort, but the band have put together all their music and information onto a website. The Radiohead Public Library has been launched. Here is what Pitchfork reported last week:

“Radiohead.com is now home to the Radiohead Public Library. Today (January 20), the band has launched the comprehensive archive of all things Radiohead in a corrective to the disorder of the online space. To commemorate the launch, the band has released a handful of rarities to streaming services: Below, check out their debut EP, 1992’s Drill; the loosie “I Want None of This” from the 2005 charity compilation Help!: A Day in the Life; and the 2011 remix EP TKOL RMX 8.

The archive groups the miscellanea by era, with thumbnails linking to ad-free videos and galleries. After creating their own library card, fans can explore the band’s catalog, visuals, and various artifacts in a “highly curated and organized archive,” a press release notes. That includes detailed artwork, music videos, HD live and TV performances, B-sides and rarities, previously out-of-print merchandise, and the playlists band members shared around their latter-period recording sessions”.

I have not dipped in yet, but I am going to set aside some serious time to investigate this great archive. Yet another reason why I want to put Kid A under the spotlight is, back in 2000, there were some harsh and mediocre reviews aimed the way of this album. It seems baffling now, but maybe critics were reacting to the shift from the more accessible OK Computer of 1997 – such a left-turn and reinvention displeased some who wanted a more conventional Rock album. It is understandable critics were a bit miffed considering, to that point, Radiohead hadn’t dabbled too much with Electronic-influenced songs and been quite as experimental. Of course, things were rectified down the line when critics had time to digest the album and appreciate the fact it was part of an evolution. The band continued to shift and mutate after Kid A, so people have reacted in hindsight with more awareness and positivity. The fourth album from Radiohead, here was a band who were on a fine run!

They released OK Computer in 1997 and, two years after The Bends, so many people were tuning into this remarkable group. Led by the sensational Thom Yorke, I remember hearing Kid A for the first time. It took me a fair while to get my mind around an album that I was not expecting – I was not anticipating drum machines and synthesisers. I gave it a few spins and, before long, its magic and brilliance got into my heart! Recorded with producer Nigel Godrich, I think Kid A is one of the best albums of the past twenty-five years – it kicked off the twenty-first century in style! I am going to bring in a couple of features later in this feature, but it is clear Radiohead had grown tired of the mainstream Rock scene or doing things like they had before. There were no singles from Kid A, and the band did few promotional bits. They were one of the first bands to use the Internet as a promotional tool – I remember how comparatively fresh and primitive the Internet was back in 2000! Thom York especially suffered burn-out after the success of OK Computer; the band toured extensively, and everyone wanted a piece of them. Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway were also feeling the strain; like the band were a bit one trick pony-like and that they needed to do something new. Yorke did not want snappy Rock songs: he want melody and something more immersive and long-lasting.

After 1997, so many bands were following Radiohead, so a repeat of that album would have been unwise and samey. There was a lot of guitar music so, looking to the fringes and acts like Aphex Twin, Radiohead stepped into new territory. Yorke felt Rock was reaching a dead-end and there was not a lot of fresh inspiration out there. Maybe he was on to something: it wasn’t until acts like The White Stripes and Queens of the Stone Age came about at the end of the 1990s/start of the next decade that there was a glimmer of promise. The likes of Aphex Twin excited a downbeat and exhausted Thom Yorke; a new dimension that he could venture into. On Kid A, Radiohead took inspiration from a number of sources. There is a bit of Can here and there and Jazz artists like Charles Mingus; some Hip-Hop and Björk’s Homogenic in other areas. I think Underworld’s music provided guidance and impetus; the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki was the inspiration behind the strings on How to Disappear Completely – a song that seems to soundtrack Thom Yorke’s emotional state after the whirlwind of OK Computer and its aftermath.

I am not going to quote any of the unfair reviews from 2000 because, nearly twenty years after its release, I think the album sounds stronger than ever! Get it on vinyl if you can, as it sounds incredible when you drop the needle! Kid A is one of several masterpieces from Radiohead, and I am excited to see what the band have planned to mark its twentieth (I understand there will be something released). This is what AllMusic offered when they reviewed Kid A:

“In the wake of OK Computer, it became taken for granted among serious rock fans of all ages that Radiohead not only saved rock from itself, but paved the way toward the future. High praise, but given the static nature of rock in the last half of the '90s, it was easy to see why fans and critics eagerly harnessed their hopes to the one great rock band that wanted to push the limits of its creativity, without grandstanding or pandering. Daunting expectations for anyone, even for a band eager to meet them, so it's little wonder that Kid A was so difficult to complete. Radiohead’s creative breakthrough arrived when the band embraced electronica -- which was nearly a cliché by the end of the '90s, when everyone from U2 to Rickie Lee Jones dabbled in trip-hop or techno.

IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead around the release of OK Computer in 1997/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The difference is that the wholehearted conversion on Kid A fits, since OK Computer had already flirted with electronica and its chilly feel. Plus, instead of simply adding club beats or sonic collage techniques, Radiohead strove for the unsettling "intelligent techno" sound of Autechre and Aphex Twin, with skittering beats and stylishly dark sonic surfaces. To their immense credit, Radiohead don't sound like carpetbaggers, because they share the same post-post-modern vantage point as their inspirations. As perhaps befitting an album that’s coolly, self-consciously alienating, Kid A takes time to unfold; multiple plays are necessary just to discern the music's form, to get a handle on quiet, drifting, minimally arranged songs with no hooks. This emphasis on texture, this reliance on elliptical songs, means that Kid A is easily the most successful electronica album from a rock band: it doesn't even sound like the work of a rock band, even if it does sound like Radiohead”.

If you have not heard Kid A before, go and grab a copy and experience something monumental. I don’t think you need to know a lot about Radiohead or the artists they are inspired by to understand Kid A. There is so much variety on the album, you cannot fail to find something that peaks your interest! Many refute the claim that Kid A is a work of genius and hugely influential. I know some find Kid A boring and overrated, but I think it is an album that still sounds utterly amazing! In their assessment, Pitchfork provided some keen observations:

“There's no storyline to pick out from Yorke's lyrics, but a unified thread moves through the album nonetheless: Basically, Kid A is scary as hell. It might be the paranoid, nearly subliminal, unbroken undercurrent of haunted drone, courtesy of a Rhodes or a tape loop or Jonny Greenwood's Ondes-Martenot, a instrument for nightmares if there ever was one. Or it might be Yorke's terrifying one-line, Chicken Soup for the Agoraphobic Soul mantras that alternate between honeyed violence ("cut the kids in half") and clichés and hum-drum observations twisted into panic attacks ("where'd you park the car?").

(A brief intermission to talk about the bonus tracks included with this reissue. Capitol's in a tough spot with finding Kid A outtakes, because they already released such a thing-- it's called Amnesiac...rimshot. So instead the bonus-disc padding is all live tracks, culled from British and French radio or TV shows. In keeping with the album's isolation fixation, the empty studio of the four-track BBC session is the most fitting environment for the band's performance, the vocal manipulations of "Everything in Its Right Place" ricocheting off egg-crate walls. Contrast that with the clap-along crowd on an "Idioteque" from France, which neuters the song's sinister undercurrent and turns it into an inappropriate party jam.)

Every great album needs a great resolution, and Kid A has two: the angelic choir and harps of "Motion Picture Soundtrack" which serve as a much-needed (if fragile and a bit suspicious) uplift needed after such unrelenting bleakness, and a brief ambient coda that justifies the hidden-track gimmick. The silence that surrounds that final flash of hazy analog hiss is almost as rich, conferring a eerie feeling of weightlessness upon anyone who's completed the journey with a proper headphones listen”.

If Radiohead had remained on their OK Computer path, I think they would have retreated or retired for a while. Even if that sound is what fans and critics were hoping for, the band could not keep going that way and knew they could take their music to new places.

There have been a lot of positive articles written since 2000 that highlight the legacy and importance of Kid A. I have been sifting through a few articles, but I came across this from Rolling Stone:

“Man, was this music fun to argue about. Whether you loved or hated Kid A, it gave undeniable entertainment value. All through the miserable fall of 2000, the debates raged on. Is it a masterpiece? A hype? A compendium of clichés? Will it stand the test of time? Why aren’t “Knives Out” or “You and What Army” on this album? Where’d you park the car? Is Al Gore blowing it on purpose? Why didn’t the umpires toss Clemens after he threw the bat? Where’s “Pyramid Song”? Who let the dogs out? When is the second half of this album coming out — you know, the half with the actual Radiohead songs? How did they get away with that in Florida? Is this really happening?

The argument is over, obviously; there’s no controversy over Kid A anymore, and something’s been lost there. The original concept of the album requires an antagonist — the whole “dammit, an artist’s gotta do what an artist’s gotta do” narrative, which requires somebody to do the actual hating. But anybody vaguely interested in Radiohead loves this album; it’s much more fun to argue about In Rainbows or Hail to the Thief. Nobody admits now they hated Kid A at the time, the same way folkies never admit they booed Dylan for going electric. Nobody wants to be the clod who didn’t get it.

I love this album so much now, it’s difficult to find any failed moments on it. Not impossible, though. The horn section in “The National Anthem” was a cornier-than-usual art-rock cliché, trying way too hard for a way-too-obvious gimmick. Sorry, but the “bad horn section as symbol of alienation” thing had been done a time or two before. The premise was Pink Floyd’s “Jugband Blues,” but instead it evoked nightmarish flashbacks of Pete Townshend’s huge 1985 hit “Face the Face” — an acclaimed artistic statement at the time, a forgotten novelty a few months later, a fate that seemed easy to imagine for Kid A. (“Face to Face” sounds a bit like “Idioteque,” too.) All over the album, these guys were trying too hard. The synths had the same painfully gauche effect as Conor Oberst’s voice, so forlorn and hammy, straining for sensitivity until it sounded vaguely humiliating. Yet I ended up loving Kid A, and loving Conor Oberst too. Gauche is beautiful, in a world of dime-a-dozen cool”.

I shall wrap things up in a minute but, looking back to that period between 1998 and 2000, it was such a brave move for Radiohead to jettison that traditional Rock vibe and embrace something (at that point) so unexpected and unusual. The final article I want to bring in is from Classic Albums Sundays, who talk about Radiohead’s progression after OK Computer:

“Yorke had become disenchanted with the rock clichés of machismo, indulgent guitar solos and verse chorus, verse chorus, bridge verse chorus structures. As he told The Guardian, ‘I just wasn’t interested in guitar anymore’ and to Rolling Stone he proclaimed, ” I find it difficult to think of the path we’ve chosen as ‘rock music’. Kid A is like getting a massive eraser out and starting again.” He even said he found melody ‘an embarrassment’.

Rather than repeat the musical blueprint that had jettisoned them into international stardom, the band members maneuvered yet another musical turn this time going even deeper. For inspiration, they turned to the Krautrock of Can and Neu, the forward-thinking jazz of Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and Alice Coltrane, the experimental pop of Bjork and the Talking Heads, the pulsating beats of DJ Shadow and DJ Krush, and the edgy electronica of Aphex Twin and Autechre.

They were so inspired with their new way of working that they recorded enough material for two albums. This conundrum resulted in another inter-band argument as to whether the new album should be a double, but it was agreed to release them as two separate albums.

‘Kid A’ was released in October of 2000 and it showed a band that had not only re-defined their own sound but had also re-defined rock music itself. Its new sound divided fans with some yearning for another ‘Bends’ or ‘OK Computer’ and others hailing it as a ‘post-rock’ masterpiece”.

Almost two decades after it came into the world, the sensational and unique Kid A keeps revealing layers and nuances. It is a staggering album, and one that you need to listen to! I shall end things here, but I wonder whether the critics who slated Kid A back in 2000 feel differently now. Retrospective acclaim has definitely put the album in a new light, and it shows those who underestimated Kid A all these years ago just…

HOW wrong they were.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential February Releases

FEATURE:

One for the Record Collection!

Essential February Releases

___________

IT is always the way…

IN THIS PHOTO: Green Day

albums drop out of nowhere so, the albums I mention below might not be all we receive next month. Regardless, I am looking ahead to the standout releases from February; the ones you will want to put your pennies towards! 7th February is a Friday you will want to block out, as there are a few terrific albums due. Green Day’s much-anticipated Father of All… is arriving and, released through Reprise Records, it is an album I am looking forward to. Although the U.S. band are not as incendiary and thrilling as they were back at their peak, they have not lost all of their spark and innovation.

“In Kerrang!’s new world-exclusive interview with Green Day, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool unpack their new era, and how their mindset coming out of 2016’s Revolution Radio affected the sound of Father Of All…

“Do you want to go back and do the same old thing?” Tré muses. “We don’t want to do what everyone would expect us to do, so it was just kinda mischief and making it fun. That was the bottom line of it.”

“There’s a very fine line threading the needle for us, because we do want to try new things, but we always want to make sure it’s absolute Green Day, you know?” says Billie Joe. “It’s a very fine line – clever and stupid (laughs). But Green Day’s credo is mischief, no matter what. We’re always down for mischief and we want to fuck with people… to the point of it being abusive!” he jokes”.

It will be good to see what Green Day come up with and, as Donald Trump is still President, I am sure they will have a lot to say! Make sure you also investigate La Roux’s Supervision. It has been nearly six years since her second studio album, Trouble in Paradise, and many have been waiting a long time for one of music’s best artists to come back with an album. The album is available on a variety of formats, so make sure you get your copy! It is an album that will definitely be among the most-anticipated of this year:

“Grammy-winning and Brit and Mercury-Prize-nominated artist La Roux re­turns with her first new album since 2014’s Trouble In Paradise. From the cover to the contents, this is unequivocally the album Elly Jackson always wanted to make. A claim that with some artists might ring alarm bells, but in this instance simply means that Supervision sounds precisely, unmistakably, gloriously like La Roux. She has collaborated with the likes of Tyler The Creator, Skream, Kanye West, and Major Lazer”.

IN THIS PHOTO: La Roux

When speaking with The Evening Standard last year, she was asked about her time away. Elly Jackson (La Roux) has been working through some things: 

“Elly Jackson has a lot to say. The musician, who trades as La Roux, talks for half an hour longer than our intended interview slot, then carries on for another 20 minutes after I’ve turned off the dictaphone. When we finally wrap up, she looks out of the window of her publicist’s Brixton office to see that she’s been up here for so long that she’s been given a parking ticket.

Well, she has a lot to get through. It’s been over five years since her last album — the tellingly titled Trouble in Paradise — four years since she last toured, and a full decade since she was the hottest thing in pop, hitting number one with her invincible single Bulletproof and making her self-titled debut album a platinum seller. Now 31, she’s back with a new single — the empowering disco strut International Woman of Leisure — has an even better one, Gullible Fool, coming next week, and her third album will arrive in February. It’s very much a fresh start.

“I was really ready for the last 10 years to just DIE,” she says with huge emphasis. “Please say I had a smile on my face when I said that. It’s not in an angry or bitter way, but that cycle has ended and it was a very welcome ending. I did a lot of things wrong. You have to practise to be good at something, and I don’t just mean being good at going on stage or writing songs. I mean good at being a human being”.

One album I advise you get on 7th February is All or Nothing by Shopping. You can pre-order here, and it is an album you will want. The London band are one of these acts that will rise through the ranks and headline festivals before long. Check out their music on Spotify and, if you need to know a little more about their forthcoming release, they had a chat with Aquarium Drunkard earlier this month:

 “Taut, tense, and exhilarating, Shopping emerged from an East London DIY scene in the early teens, bringing together guitarist Rachel Aggs, bassist Billy Easter and drummer Andrew Milk together in jittery, angular conjunction, not unison. That is to say, their parts careened off one another in pinballing trajectories creating intricate, geometrical patterns of rhythm, riff, and melody. Since forming Shopping, the three have made four albums together, moved to different cities but stayed connected, while all the while juggling a mini-festival’s worth of other bands, Aggs in Trash Kit and Sacred Paws, Easter in Wet Dog, and Milk in Current Affairs.

For their latest, All Or Nothing, they worked with Godmode producer Nick Sylvester to amp up the hedonism and beef up Shopping’s often skeletal songs. In this interview with all three members, we talked about the band’s new sleeker, synth-augmented sound, the balance of individual autonomy and group voice and why nobody in Shopping wants to be compared to your standard “starter-pack” of post-punk bands.  / j kelly

AD: So, you say that song sounds the most like you. Were you trying to do something different with this album? Can you articulate what that was?

Rachel Aggs: We wanted it to sound more poppy, I think. We’re not sure if it sounds poppy or if it’s ever going to sound poppy. We also wanted to make the songs sound good and not be too attached to our own individual parts and the way we wrote it, not being too precious about that. In the past, we were very faithful to the way things were written when we went to the studio. They didn’t change at all from when we wrote them to when we played them live. This time, we were just trying to experiment and be a bit freer with things.

Andrew Milk: I think it helped working with Nick, because he’s such an amazing producer. We had spent some time with him before and felt quite at ease working with him. He helped us feel a bit more free to experiment, just because we had spent some time with him just kind of jamming with him for a different project we were working on together. So, when we came in to work with him, we were totally at ease with his suggestions.

He’s the guy that did the Shamir record that was amazing. I love that record and the sound of it. It’s super pop. So, for us, it’s a really poppy sound. It still sounds like a Shopping record, but it’s got this really nice dance pop layer to it that Nick brought it.

Billy Easter: Because dancing has always been important in terms of our music. It’s really dance-y. And people in the press always describe this as a dance band, and I’m always a little bit confused. I find it too minimal for that. I think we did want to have a more expansive sound, I guess, to enhance that danceability”.

Moving onto Valentine’s Day and, if you want to buy something for the music-loving other in your life, there are some cracking albums around. There are two particular (very different) albums that I urge people to buy on 14th February. One is Cindy Lee’s What's Tonight to Eternity. You can pre-order the album here, and it is, as described on Cindy Lee’s Bandcamp page, as follows:

“For Patrick Flegel, Cindy Lee is more than just a recording music project. It is the culmination of a lifelong exploration of art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. "Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life," explains Flegel, "and also provided the soundtrack to the best times."

Following the dissolution of Canadian experimental indie band Women, Flegel would delve deeper into songwriting that bends further toward high atmospherics and bracing melodies – a unique space where splendor naturally collides with experimentation. Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder.

What's Tonight To Eternity, Cindy Lee's fifth long-form offering, showcases the project's most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs. Recorded at Flegel's Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide.

Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer / drummer's early recordings as well as her look and style. "I found a deep interest and comfort in Karen's story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age and being a misfit looking for connection. The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her has to do with what is hidden, what is unknown."

What's Tonight To Eternity remains a mix of pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs. Closing with the song "Heavy Metal" (dedicated to the memory of former Women bandmate Chris Reimer) and adorned by Andrea Lukic's Journal of Smack artwork, the album continues the bold and rewarding path on which Cindy Lee has embarked”.

Another great Valentine’s Day gift is The Slow Rush from Tame Impala. The Australian artist is one of the most amazing and consistent around, and it is the fourth studio album from Kevin Parker. Get your copy set:

“The Slow Rush was recorded between Los Angeles and Parker’s studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia. The twelve tracks were recorded, produced and mixed by Parker. The Slow Rush is Parker’s deep dive into the oceans of time, conjuring the feeling of a lifetime in a lightning bolt, of major milestones whizzing by while you’re looking at your phone, it’s a paean to creation and destruction and the unending cycle of life. The album cover was created in collaboration with photographer Neil Krug and features a symbol of humanity all but swallowed whole by the surrounding environment, as though in the blink of an eye”.

Following on from the magnificent Currents in 2015, there are lots of eyes and ears trained the way of Tame Impala. Parker is not one to give too much away about new albums, and there has been a distinct lack of conversation about The Slow Rush; he likes to release albums and let music do the talking. It is a little frustrating not knowing too much about the songs on the record, but we will have to get involved and see what The Slow Rush is all about. Tame Impala always bring the heat, so you just know it will be another remarkable album!

Stepping into 21st February, and there are a few albums worth investigation. Best Coast’s Always Tomorrow is upcoming, so do make sure you pre-order it. It seems like we are in for a treat:

“Always Tomorrow is the culmination of the last ten years of Best Coast front person Bethany Cosentino's life, seeing her stand back from the past decade of the band's existence and taking stock in where she's been and who she has become. It's an album full of intense personal discovery amidst a whirlwind backdrop of global tours, heartbreak, newfound sobriety, dark thoughts, immense joy, giving a f, not giving too many fs, substances, boredom, public personas, and gratitude”.

Again, there aren’t too many recent interviews with Best Coast, and very little to suggest what we will get from Always Tomorrow. Following from 2018’s Best Kids, I am intrigued to see what the Los Angeles duo come up with. The biggest album of February arrives from Grimes: Miss_Anthrop0cene is going to be hugely reviewed and exposed. It is her fifth album and one you can pre-order here. Grimes is sensational, and you just know her latest album will be masterful. In terms of themes and subjects explored, she is leaving some of her cards close to the chest. I want to bring in a piece from Interview Magazine where, interestingly, Lana Del Rey interviewed her about Miss_Anthrop0cene and her process:

“DEL REY: Yes, in the abstract. I was thinking about your new album. I don’t know if I’m saying it right—is it Miss_Anthropocene?

GRIMES: Yeah.

DEL REY: Do you feel like the songs are more personal, or do they have the overculture weighing on them?

GRIMES: A bit of both. I’m really obsessed with polytheism. I love how the ancient Greeks or the ancient Egyptians lived in this weird anime world where there were just tons of gods that could be anything. It’s like every form of suffering had a representation. I wonder if it almost has a positive psychological effect. If your kid dies in a war, you can literally go speak to War and be like, “Why did you do this?” Or, “I hope you did this for a reason.” There’s a weird philosophical justification for all pain, and there’s an anthropomorphization of every form of pain. In our current society, we don’t even know how to talk about things. So my album’s about a modern demonology or a modern pantheon where every song is about a different way to suffer or a different way to die. If you think about it, god-making or god-designing just seems so fun. The idea of making the Goddess of Plastic seems so fun to me.

DEL REY: It’s a very creative infrastructure to work within.

GRIMES: Yeah. Religion is like the best science fiction. I know a lot of people who are atheist or agnostic, and they just hate religion and can’t see anything good in it. Even if you don’t believe in god or anything, this is incredible art. It’s incredible storytelling, incredible character design, incredible visual art. I know we both love reverb. Imagine going into a church in medieval Europe, and you had only ever heard music as someone playing a lute. You enter a cathedral for the first time, and you hear someone singing through a super long reverb. What a mystical experience that would be.

DEL REY: What is mysticism to you, and is it important in your art?

GRIMES: Mysticism is an evolutionary byproduct. I think we’re inherently religious, even if we’re not explicitly religious. We get emotional about things that feel religious. Even the way people feel about you, it’s a form of idol worship. I don’t know what else you would call it. If there’s an artist I love, I see them live and I cry, and I’m like, “Man, I’m acting like some 14th-century farmer right now.” I feel like some pilgrim seeing a holy relic or something”.

The next album you need to get on 21st February is Lanterns on the Lake’s Spook the Herd. The Newcastle five-piece are a terrific band and, if you are searching for a great album in February, I can recommend Spook the Herd. Here is some information from Bella Union:

“Lanterns On The Lake have announced news of their new studio album, Spook The Herd, released 21st February via Bella Union and available to preorder here. Additionally, the band have announced an extensive UK tour including a headline show at London’s EartH, the dates of which are below, and shared a striking b/w video for lead track “Every Atom”. Of the track Lantern’s vocalist Hazel Wilde says: “This is a song about grief and how your subconscious takes a long time to accept when someone is dead and gone forever, even when the rational side of you understands it. I put that idea into a story where the narrator is my subconscious searching for someone in this dream-like fictional world. I go to the extremes to search for even just a trace of them… through all of space and time, splitting every atom, ‘until Andromeda and the Milky Way collide’. I won’t give up. I can’t let go.”

It’s strange – not to mention fundamentally disconcerting – to live through turbulent times. Yet as many feel like the world is slipping out of control, artists are enlivened as they seek to make sense of the shifting sands. Hazel Wilde of Lanterns on the Lake is now a songwriter necessarily emboldened. On Spook the Herd, the band’s fourth record, her voice and preoccupations rise to the fore like never before. In tandem, the band break new ground on a set of songs that are direct and crucial.

Wilde does nothing less than dive headlong into the existential crises of our times. Beginning with the record’s title – a pointed comment at the dangerously manipulative tactics of ideologues – its nine songs turn the microscope to issues including our hopelessly polarized politics, social media, addiction, grief and the climate crisis.

The world is brought into focus, but Wilde’s style is not declarative. She also proves herself a songwriter possessed of a rare talent for finding the personal contours to contemporary issues, fully inhabiting them to make them real. Recorded as live where possible, the band’s natural touchstones of gauzy dream-pop and monumental post rock still float in the air, but listening to Lanterns on the Lake now feels like actually sitting in the corner of the room as they play. As guitarist and producer Paul Gregory says of approaching their fourth album, “There was a sense of release in terms of what kind of music we felt we could make. The idea of what kind of band you’re supposed to be really disappeared. It was great; you felt you could do whatever you like.”

Musically, this is a leaner Lanterns on the Lake – at times unusually stark. Their sound has been beautifully winnowed into something more pared back, urgent and direct – in keeping with Wilde’s messages – on an album loaded with songs marked by an arresting intimacy. “Swimming Lessons”, first teased as an in-progress idea on Instagram, is writhing and supple as Gregory’s arpeggiated guitar dovetails with Ol Ketteringham’s pulsating drumming and Wilde’s keening vocal. “Every Atom” rides on insistent beats which lay a bed for a warped and playfully robotic guitar line, while “Secrets and Medicine” weaves and lopes achingly, weaving its atmosphere from Spartan means: piano, celestial guitars and diminished brass”.

As I say, there might be other albums coming in February that have not been announced – you never know with music! There are three albums from 28th February that I would recommend you check out. Real Estate’s The Main Thing is one of the trio. Released through Domino Recording Company, I think this is another album that will score big love:

“Over the last decade, Real Estate have crafted warm yet meticulous pop-minded music, specialising in soaring melodies that are sentimentally evocative and unmistakably their own. The Main Thing dives even further into the musical dichotomies they’re known for—lilting, bright guitar lines set against emotionally nuanced lyrics, complex arrangements conveyed breezily— and what emerges is a superlative collection of interrogative songs as full of depth, strangeness and contradictions as they are lifting hooks”.

Go and pre-order a copy, because this album is going to be a sizzler! Real Estate are another band who have not done many interviews lately, so one cannot really gauge what their album concerns and what inspired it. Like Tame Impala and other elusive artists, one needs to get the album and decide for themselves!

Soccer Mommy’s Color Theory is an album that I have been looking forward to for a long time, as I am a fan of her work. Here are some more details:

“Entitled color theory, the announcement comes with a video for the lead single circle the drain. Produced by Atiba Jefferson, the four-minute visual was shot in Palm Springs and features pro-skateboarders Sean Malto, Jake Anderson, Curren Caples, and Nicole Hause.

The LP will serve as the follow-up to her 2018 debut Clean. According to the press release, color theory sees Allison confront ongoing mental health and familial challenges she has faced since childhood. The album explores three central, interlinking themes: blue – a representation of sadness and depression; yellow, which symbolises physical and emotional illness; and the colour grey for darkness, depression and loss.

On the album, Allison said, “I wanted the experience of listening to color theory to feel like finding a dusty old cassette tape that has become messed up over time, because that’s what this album is: an expression of all the things that have slowly degraded me personally.”

“The production warps, the guitar solos occasionally glitch, the melodies can be poppy and deceptively cheerful. To me, it sounds like the music of my childhood distressed and, in some instances, decaying”.

I think there is one more album that you need to reserve some money for in February: The Orielles’ Disco Volador. Go pre-order the upcoming album from the Halifax band. It is going to be a smash:

“Defiant in the face of existential dread, The Orielles were always going to approach their second album with nothing but stellar levels of intent. Disco Volador sees the 4-piece push their sonic horizon to its outer limits as astral travellers, hitching a ride on the melodic skyway to evade the space-time continuum through a sharp collection of progressive strato-pop symphonies.

Voyaging through cinematic samba, 70s disco, deep funk boogies, danceable grooves and even tripping on 90s acid house, Disco Volador propels The Orielles spinning into a higher zero-gravity orbit. Written and recorded in just 12 months, it captures the warp-speed momentum of their post-Silver Dollar Moment debut album success; an unforgettable summer touring, playing festivals like Green Man and bluedot, and deepening their bond whilst witnessing the sets of their heroes Stereolab, Mogwai, and Four Tet. Disco Volador’s library catalogue vibes stem from a band lapping up and widening their pool of musical discovery whether nodding to Italian film score maestros Sandro Brugnolini and Piero Umiliani, or the Middle Eastern tones of Khruangbin and Altin Gün.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Orielles

Built from instrumentals around the concept of “boogie to space, space to boogie,” Disco Volador’s energy comes from the melodic fission of tension and release. Recurring motifs explore space, not only of earth’s celestial atmosphere, but also what happens within the gaps and how sound manipulation has the power to carry, or displace, its listener.

At times haunting and unsettling, Disco Volador’s film-like structure flows from fact to fiction. Its tales are culled from waking life as easily as they become a soundtrack for lucid dream sequences. Whilst the future of the world and its current cosmic wasteland might be up in the air, The Orielles’ new album has its feet beating out a much-needed four to the dancefloor. Welcome to Disco Volador; time really does fly when you’re having this much fun”.

It is a busy month ahead, and I have selected the albums I feel are worthy of purchase. You can see which other albums are out. I feel this year is going to be very strong and interesting. As the weather warms up, so too do the albums but, that said, there are some phenomenal albums due next month. All I know is that there is plenty to keep you occupied and amused so, if you need some guidance, I hope my recommendations above have helped. All you need to do now is wait for the albums to arrive and make sure to…

SET some money aside.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Seventeen: Róisín Murphy

FEATURE:

 

Modern Heroines

Part Seventeen: Róisín Murphy

___________

THERE is a fair bit of ground to cover…

and I will be bringing in quite a few interviews and reviews to illustrate and illuminate the extraordinary, fiery and wonderfully-talented Róisín Murphy. When it comes to Murphy, there is an embarrassment of riches! I am not going to cover her work with Moloko because, in this feature, I am investigating Murphy as a solo artist. I love Moloko and bought their albums; they were a wonderful act, but I thought it was best to separate Murphy from her former life – even though I adore Moloko and everything they put out. Murphy is one of these people who speaks the truth and does not beat around the bush! She is full of charm, cheekiness and humour and, when it comes to the Arklow-born songwriter, she is hugely inspiring and refreshing. Not only do we get a unique and eye-catching wardrobe when you see Murphy perform live, her songs are among the most interesting and original around. I will end this feature by talking about her single releases through 2018 and 2019 and, as we are in a new year, there is going to be huge demand for a new album. To me, a new Róisín Murphy album is just what the world needs right now – it is top of my list when it comes to albums that will make 2020 pop! Before I get to all of that, it is worth talking about a new development in the Murphy camp.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fraser Taylor 

I was listening to Murphy on BBC Radio 6 Music yesterday (21st January), as she has been announced as one of the acts for the 6 Music Festival in Camden. Lauren Laverne and Mary Anne Hobbs co-hosted a show and announced all the names – Murphy was in the studio to give her reaction. Here is some more information about the festival:

“The event will host stages at some of Camden's most popular venues, including Roundhouse (main space and Sackler space), FEST Camden, Dingwalls and Electric Ballroom, between March 6 and 8. Details were revealed on air by Lauren Laverne this morning.

The festival will be split into By Night and By Day offerings. The opening night will feature Black Midi, Brittany Howard, Michael Kiwanuka, Black Country, New Road, Sports Team, Norman Jay MBE, DJ Yoda, Nemone, Kelly Lee Owens, Greentea Peng, GAIKA, Mary Anne Hobbs DJ set, and Mike Skinner DJ set.

Saturday night, meanwhile, has confirmed performances by the Orielles, the Big Moon, the Selecter, Kojey Radical, EOB (Ed O’Brien), Róisín Murphy, Planningtorock, Tom Ravenscroft, Jamz Supernova and ELKKA.

Sunday night will feature an International Women’s Day celebration at the Roundhouse main space with Nadine Shah, Jehnny Beth, Anna Meredith, Kim Gordon and Kate Tempest, as well as sets from Warmduscher, Squid, Bombay Bicycle Club, Melt Yourself Down, and KOKOROKO elsewhere.

The By Day portion of the festival will take place at Dingwalls and Fest on March 7 and 8 between 12pm – 6pm. Jordan Rakei, Sudan Archives, Robert Glasper have been confirmed for the Saturday, and the Staves, Ghostpoet, and Hot 8 Brass Band for the Sunday, with more acts still be announced”.

What makes Róisín Murphy a leader of today? I think she is someone we will consider an idol in years to come, simply because she is consistently brilliant and does things her own way. In a music scene that is producing little joy and foot-stomping classics, Murphy has a knack of smashing out these wonderfully bright and energetic tunes; the sort that can fill dancefloors around the world! I discovered Murphy when she was part of Moloko, and I was pleased that she released solo material after Moloko called time. Ruby Blue arrived in 2005, and it was recorded alongside producer Matthew Herbert. Rather than leap straight from Moloko to solo territory, Murphy released the album’s songs through three E.P.s and then brought them into her first studio album. Maybe Moloko’s best moments occurred between, say, 1998 and 2000, but there was still plenty of inspiration in Murphy’s heart that translated brilliantly to her debut solo outing. As one would expect from a stunning songwriter, the Ruby Blue album contains sounds made by everyday objects – including cosmetics, ornaments and brass mice! Mixing together the Electronic sound of Moloko with new shades of Pop and Jazz, Ruby Blue is not shy of brilliant moments. Songs like Night of the Dancing Flame and Sow into You are among some of Murphy’s best compositions, and the album barely has a weak moment. Rather than Ruby Blue being similar to anything Moloko recorded, this album was about Murphy’s voice and using objects that were around her. I think Ruby Blue is more cohesive and nuanced than any Moloko record, and it is great to hear Murphy step out alone – again, no disrespect to the brilliance of her work with Mark Brydon in Moloko!

Some critics were a little unsure of what to make of the newly-solo Murphy and how her first solo outing would compare with Moloko’s Statues of 2003. Ruby Blue is its own beast; a strong artist not abandoning her previous sound, but embracing new elements and direction, incorporating them together and coming up with something sensational. In their review, AllMusic had this to offer:

“As brilliant as Moloko could be -- on both their most eccentric and most conventionally pop moments -- their albums never quite jelled into something as uniformly great as Roisin Murphy's solo debut, Ruby Blue. By teaming up with producer Matthew Herbert, who remixed Moloko's "Sing It Back" back in the I Am Not a Doctor days, Murphy keeps the alluring sensuality and unpredictable quirks that made Moloko unique, without sounding like she's rehashing where she's already been. Both Murphy and Herbert are artists who are equally at home with the wildest and most accessible sounds (and especially when they bring those extremes together), so their reunion on Ruby Blue feels very natural, and gives the album a smoother, more organic sound than might be expected from a debut. Herbert's concept was to build the album around Murphy -- not just her gorgeous voice, but her life as well, and Ruby Blue reflects this with his skillful, witty use of environmental sounds throughout the album. Coughing, rustling, and other studio noise become a rhythm that in turn unfolds the gorgeously summery keyboards of "Through Time," while the more literal-minded "Dear Diary" surrounds Murphy with everyday noises like ringing telephones, buzzing doorbells, and what sounds like a ball bouncing on pavement.

As quirky as the album might be -- and it doesn't get much quirkier than the spring-loaded, tribal rhythms of "Rama Lama" -- Ruby Blue never feels off-putting, because its flights of fancy are in service of the songs instead of distracting from them. The mix of '20s-style hot jazz and cool synths on the surreally sexy "Night of the Dancing Flame," the title track's elegant mischief, and "Sow Into You"'s crisp layers of vocals and brass are all mini-masterpieces of avant electronic pop. Indeed, the first two-thirds of Ruby Blue are almost too smooth, too perfectly realized to be the work of someone involved with a group as eccentric as Moloko was, so more experimental, unruly tracks like "Off on It" and "Prelude to Love in the Making" almost come as a relief (and act as a palate cleanser before Ruby Blue's striking piano ballad finale, "Closing of Doors"). As Murphy herself sings on "Through Time," "Could there be such a thing as beautifully flawed?" Ruby Blue flirts with perfection and settles for being the perfect start to the next phase of Roisin Murphy's career instead”.

There are artists who come from duos/bands and record a solo album. They struggle to adapt or succeed in their new environment, and it can take a while for them to stand alone and win critics over. In Murphy’s case, she proved herself fully able to flourish as a solo artist. Ruby Blue gained some great critical praise, and that must have given her motivation and confidence to keep recording and push herself.

Indeed, 2007’s Overpowered sort of occurred at a time when she was balancing new material with retrospection. In 2006, whilst she was promoting Moloko’s greatest hits album, Catalogue, it was announced that Murphy was working on fresh solo material. Murphy signed to EMI in 2006, and she wanted to make her music bigger and brighter than it was when recording for Echo Records – a larger budget meant she could bring in more Disco and big Pop into an album that was, perhaps, truer to herself. Recording with different producers and writers in Miami, London and Barcelona, Overpowered is a big step up from her experiences in Moloko and her first solo album. Ruby Blue was Murphy and Matthew Herbert in this tight team, whereas Overpowered sees Murphy working with various writers and producers. I think it was important for Murphy to have things fairly small-scale and personal on her first solo album, so soon after Moloko ended. If she had raced in with loads of writers and producers, I think her first solo album would not have been as successful as Ruby Blue. She had this new impetus and acclaim; maybe she was more trusting of people and wanted to see what others could bring to her music. The gamble (if that is the correct word?) paid off: Overpowered was better-reviewed than Ruby Blue, and I think the songs are stronger. One only need look at the cover of Overpowered – take a look to see what I mean! – to realise this was going to be a strange, beautiful and uniquely Róisín Murphy experience!

The opening (genius) one-two of Overpowered and You Know Me Better is perfect – both songs were released as singles and Murphy ensured this new album got off to the strongest possible start! I love the fact that Murphy sounds completely her own boss, despite the fact there a few names in the pot. I am not sure what other albums were out in 2007, but none could have contained the same colours and components as Overpowered. Reviews were positive, with people keen to praise an artist growing ever stronger. I will bring in another AllMusic review, as they hold a lot of love for Muprhy and can articulate her brilliance like no one else:

“Arty, cerebral, and sometimes downright kooky, Róisín Murphy zigs where other British pop singers zag. She's been one of pop's best-kept secrets since Moloko disbanded, edging her way toward a sound that isn't exactly mainstream but will give her the more widespread acclaim she deserves. For her first solo album, Ruby Blue, she collaborated with producer Matthew Herbert, who streamlined her sound into something creative but not gratingly quirky; even though "Rama Lama" ended up on So You Think You Can Dance, of all places, Ruby Blue wasn't quite a smash success. This time, Murphy teamed with Bugz in the Attic's Seiji, Groove Armada's Andy Cato, All Seeing I's Parrott & Dean, and Jimmy Douglass -- all forward-thinking producers, but with more conventionally pop sounds than Herbert's approach. Of course, by the late 2000s, even the most mainstream singles had at least a few unique production flourishes, so while Overpowered is without a doubt Murphy's most straightforward music yet, she hasn't sacrificed much to make it that way.

With its sleek beats, bubbling synths, and nagging chorus, "Overpowered" closely resembles a state-of-the-art pop single, but the way Murphy sings of science and oxytocin over a heart-fluttering harp is unmistakably her. The rest of Overpowered follows suit, giving familiar sounds clever twists that will please longtime Murphy fans and win new ones. The effortless "You Know Me Better," "Let Me Know," and "Checkin' on Me" are chilly yet soulful, touching on disco, house, and '80s pop; "Movie Star" is Murphy's spin on Goldfrapp's glossy glam pop (and the only time she seems in danger of being overpowered by someone else's sound on the album). Even though these songs are immaculately crafted, there's plenty of life -- and Murphy's personality -- in them. "Primitive"'s synths and strings flit around like mosquitoes in a swamp as she wails "I need to let you out of your cage," while "Dear Miami"'s deadpan delivery and spare beats make it possibly the frostiest song ever written about global warming. Overpowered often feels less intimate than Ruby Blue, but that's a minor quibble, especially when "Scarlet Ribbons" shows off Murphy's tender side and the outstandingly crisp, bouncy, and sassy "Footprints" and "Body Language" rank with her best songs. Aptly enough for such a pop-focused album, nearly every song on Overpowered sounds like a potential smash hit. Even if this album is a bid for the big time, it's done with such flair that it just underscores what a confident and unique artist Murphy really is”.

If you have not checked out Overpowered, have a listen – alongside her other solo albums – as it is packed with sensational moments and easy highlights. By 2007 (quite rightly!), some were viewing Murphy as a national treasure! She is definitely that, and I might be a bit short-sighted when I say she is an idol of the future: she may well be one now! Her sheer consistency and ability to exceed expectation is what makes hearts skip. She is a truly magnificent talent, and one who stands aside from her peers. I wanted to bring in The Guardian’s take on Overpowered before I move on:

 “But Roisin was always far closer in spirit to Bjork than Kylie. After a personal and professional split with Brydon, she chose to work with visionary art-jazz producer Matthew Herbert for her first solo album, 2005's Ruby Blue, on the kind of ambitious avant-pop hybrid that gets Bjork rapturous acclaim, but only got Murphy... well, a deal with EMI, at least, who thankfully recognised a genuine maverick when they heard one.

Inspired by the Eighties proto-house of D Train, Mantronix and Gwen Guthrie, but often sounding a dead-ringer for Yazoo, early Eurythmics and rave-era dance-popsters Electribe 101, Overpowered's bubbling, sensual, and soulful glitterball gems effortlessly tap into the perennial glory of feeling lost and lonely at the disco at the end of the world. If it feels like Murphy is singing about, and to, Mark Brydon on the likes of 'You Know Me Better' and 'Movie Star', then the deep beats, lush synths and subtle horns and strings provided by male producers/co-writers including Jimmy Douglass, Groove Armada's Andy Cato and Richard X work overtime to establish Murphy as sole captain of her own swish and swoony destiny.

PHOTO CREDIT: Anthony Woods

As closing ballad 'Scarlet Ribbons' wends its gently reggae-fied way to the sweetest of endings, you realise that you've just been dreamily immersed in the best grown-up dance-pop album since Madonna's Ray of Light. Yep - that good. I hope Ireland doesn't get too offended if Britain comes to its senses and recognises Roisin Murphy as a National Treasure”.

Róisín Murphy has provided more interviews over the past couple of years than she did at the start of her solo career. In fact, I was looking for interviews around the time of Ruby Blue and Overpowered, and there wasn’t a lot to select from. The reason for this (looking for interviews) is to add texture and background to the albums; to get a sense of how Murphy was feeling and what she had coming up. I did find an interview from The Guardian from 2008, where Murphy answered a few questions – maybe providing some revelations many people were not aware of:

“What advice would you give a young singer?

If you really want to do it, you can - especially today. Records are cheaper to make; you can even put out your own.

What work of art would you most like to own?

When I was 16 and on a tour of Europe, I fell in love with Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut chapel in Ronchamp, France. I'd quite like to live in it.

Complete this sentence. At heart I'm just a frustrated ...

Sexual maniac. I'm brave and fearless when I'm performing, but in real life I'm actually quite prudish.

What cultural tip would you give to a tourist about Britain's arts scene?

It's not as good as you think. In eastern Europe, you can feel the politics in the air. People ask me why London is so cool and I say it's not - look at Warsaw.

What's the biggest myth about being a pop star?

I wouldn't know, because I'm not one.

What's the greatest threat to music today?

There isn't one. Music will go on regardless. What people are actually concerned about is the threat to music revenues. But I'm sure they'll figure out how to make more money; they always have in the past”.

Whilst there was only a two-year wait between Murphy’s first and second solo albums, there was eight years before Hairless Toys arrived in 2015. She did release the Mi Senti E.P. in 2014, but I think Murphy needed to recharge after a busy few years. Rather than rush out with another album that was similar to Overpowered, Hairless Toys was more refined. This time around, the music is barer and the compositions, perhaps, not quite as packed as previously – although Murphy said she wanted to take Pop in new directions (with Hairless Toys) and put together live instrumentation and multi-layered sounds. In many ways, Hairless Toys is like nothing Murphy ever produced. It is a reinvention and, again, another step up from her – an artist who seems to get better with every album! There are delicious grooves and snatches of Italian House and Disco that captivate and stun. Consider the panache of Exploitation put next to the more subdued Exile – Murphy going all over the place and sounding exceptional in every guise. Although my favourite Murphy solo album is her most-recent effort, Take Her Up to Monto, Hairless Toys is a joy to behold! Reviews were typically positive and, like me, many people considered Hairless Toys a triumphant work. This is Drowned in Sound’s take:

 “And that darkness is also really highlighted on ‘Exploitation’. A nine-minute-journey through what it feels like to cede control and give power to another. You can apply that to both a relationship or whatever you might do for your career. A sparse but effective beat whispers behind the track and gives the impression that the song is being delivered from a happy place. To achieve all of that within one (admittedly lengthy) track is a tribute to how well Murphy has honed her craft.

If there’s a criticism to be made of the album, and there aren’t many as long as you give it your love and attention, it’s that there isn’t enough deviation from her previous records Ruby Blue and Overpowered. At this stage of her career, with her art so finely honed and creative, does she need to deviate significantly? There’s also a temptation to write that there aren’t enough key moments on the record but this is meant to be understated and subtle. That’s something that has intentionally been done. And no doubt, the longer you spend with an album like this, the clearer those moments become.

And there are times where she strays from her own path on the album. While the vibe and tempo of the record remain mostly consistent, the country-jazz of ‘Exile’ and there is a dip in tempo for both closing tracks in ‘Hairless Toys’ and ‘Unputdownable’. It’s subtle but when you really envelop yourself within the record it’s something that you’re going to pick up on.

So eight years is a long time to wait for a record but Hairless Toys shows Murphy remains expertly consistent in her craft. She has created an album here that is not for the social pre-drinkers but for the listener that wants to absorb alone. A bottle of red wine and a full listen of the album is when you’re really going to uncover the caveats and subtleties of the record. Anything else and you’re just wasting a wonderfully dark and seething record”.

There is a lot to explore in Hairless Toys. The songs hit you when you first hear them, but you keep coming back and detect new details and stuff that evaded the senses before. Indeed, it is an album that I listen to now, and I am still amazed by its quality and ability to surprise. It seems like the gap between Overpowered and Hairless Toys was a wise one! I will move on soon but, just now, I wanted to bring in another review for Hairless Toys. This is what The Guardian wrote:

“Where there’s disco, there’s an intoxicating darkness. Róisín Murphy’s first album in eight years embraces that dichotomy on intimate late-night tales, both personal and in an imagined voice of the 1980s LGBT community of New York’s ball scene. A regal glamour illuminated previous albums Ruby Blue and Overpowered , but the former Moloko star’s third is her most exquisitely produced yet: inside is a hedonistic haven. It’s an album that distracts from the tyranny of the norm – the rent-paying rigmarole and relentlessness of everyday life – with Murphy cooing as if lounging in a giant champagne glass. Never is it gaudy, however. From the glasslike Gone Fishing to its Italo-disco and house mutations and unusual country diversions, it draws from the past but adds a crisp, modern polish; and unlike other revivalists, there’s a depth to Murphy’s vocals, as if she has experienced the freaks and fantasy of Studio 54 firsthand. Hairless Toys is pure, evocative elegance, her performance as flamboyant and fragile as the subculture she celebrates”.

One of the things that seems obvious with Murphy’s music is how she is making it for herself! Rather than create music for others – and to please them -, she is writing songs that feel good to her. I think this comes through in her music and, when you listen to the singles she has put out over the past couple of years, one senses this in spades. I am keen to explore Murphy’s Take Her Up to Monto shortly, but I did find an interview from 2015, where Murphy discussed her music and we learn more about her path prior to Moloko forming:

 “Being 'normal' in Murphy's case means the birth of her two children. Her life up until that point however had been pretty extraordinary by anyone's standards. Born in County Wicklow in Ireland, her family moved to Manchester when she was 12, only to return to Ireland four years later, leaving Murphy behind to fend for herself at her own insistence. It was at a party in Sheffield a few years later that she introduced herself to soon-to-be boyfriend and musical collaborator Mark Brydon with the chat-up line, “Do you like my tight sweater?” A year later, it would become the name of their first album as Moloko.

It was their third album, Things to Make and Do, in 2000 that catapulted the band into the public consciousness thanks to their break out hits 'Sing It Back' and 'The Time is Now'. One more album followed, Statues in 2003, after which Murphy and Brydon ended their musical and romantic relationship. It paved the way for a solo career that has gone from strength to strength, starting with the Matthew Hubert produced Ruby Blue in 2005 and the aforementioned Overpowered in 2007.

Murphy has arguably taken more creative control on Hairless Toys than any of her previous projects, most notably directing her first music video for 'Exploitation'. She attributes this to the confidence she has gained over the years. “Milestones you pass on your career, every time they give you that extra little confidence. Creative confidence. I would still say today I still suffer from not being confident in knowing that I will definitely have a place in the world or that I will be appreciated. I'm much more confident about that than I ever was but its still a thing that drives me.” Nearly 20 years since Moloko's debut, did she ever imagine she would come this far?

“No. Well I did, that's a lie. Certainly once I started to do good shows [I did]. For a long time it was awkward if I'm fair and honest about it. We were a studio act so to try and transcend that and transpose it into a live show was very difficult in the beginning. But once that stopped being awkward, which I suppose was maybe the third album or something, then if anything I expected to be more famous! And more loved! And more revered than I was than anything else (laughs). Before that it was an absolute blag”.

There was to be no big pause between Hairless Toys and Take Her Up to Monto. In fact, Take Her Up to Monto was recorded during the sessions for Hairless Toys. Before the album came out, Mastermind and Ten Miles High were released as single – the latter’s video was directed by Murphy. Every album from Murphy has a new skin and direction. Take Her Up to Monto is about the London in which she lives; it’s about the future and the present. If that all sounds a bit glum and tense, Take Her Up to Monto is designed to make you feel glad to be alive – which I think is the major selling-point of all of her music! I actually reviewed the album when it came out and I awarded it four stars. Murphy herself actually tweeted, sort of wondering why it was not a five-star review – as my words suggested it should be! I was asked by the editor of the website I was writing for to only give five-star reviews to the really, really great albums – giving too many five-star reviews was not a great look. To be fair, I would give the album five stars today, as it is a fantastic album! Although the ace Take Her Up to Monto only has nine tracks, we see longer songs like Mastermind and Nervous Sleep sit alongside shorter cuts such as Whatever. I think Murphy’s great strength is allowing a track to unfurl and grow, rather than being confined to three and four-minute songs – her latest singles definitely prove that point!

Maybe the critical reception was not quite as hot for Take Her Up to Monto as it was for Hairless Toys, but there was still a lot of praise and love. It was clear that Róisín Murphy was no longer dealing with rigid song structures and conventional tones. This was a welcome thing in a musical landscape that, even in 2016, was lacking in real spark and originality. Take Her Up to Monto is an amazing album that CLASH were keen to have an opinion on:

“Structurally, these tracks have given the verse-chorus-verse format a P45. They inhabit an electronic, melodic world that’s as loose, creative and nuanced as their lyrics. Speaking to Clash, Róisín played this down somewhat: “It might be that I just don’t know what I’m doing,” she said (lies, obviously) before confiding that “from the beginning it’s been my collaborators that have had the most input/influence as I react very intensely and even intimately with the music. I go where it takes me.”

In ‘Take Her Up To Monto’, Róisín’s collaboration with Eddie Stevens has taken her into moments that recall the filmic soundscapes of classic-era Trevor Horn, the spontaneous flow of Arthur Russell, or even recent Scott Walker. If 2015’s Mercury prize-nominated ‘Hairless Toys’ was made out of cut glass, ‘Take Her Up…’ is a more sensual affair. It carries itself like curious piece of colourful matter, hovering and changing shape, at times shimmering, or just shifting colour. But the thing is, first you need to commit to buying the ticket”.

It was good to see Murphy back in the swing of recording and releasing albums, following the gap between Overpowered and Hairless Toys. I am not sure why Take Her Up to Monto strikes me as hard as it does, but I remember being transported into the album when I was reviewing, and I returned to the album time and time again. I have always loved Murphy’s voice, but I think it incorporates new emotions and nuances on Take Her Up to Monto. I wanted to source another review from AllMusic and their impressions of Róisín Murphy’s fourth solo album:

“Róisín Murphy kept fans waiting nearly a decade for new music when Hairless Toys arrived in 2015, which made the release of Take Her Up to Monto just over a year later all the more surprising. While many artists might coast for a while after releasing a comeback album, this is the kind of unexpected move that's quintessentially Murphy. Recorded during the same five-week sessions that resulted in Hairless Toys, Take Her Up to Monto often feels like that album's counterpart. "Mastermind," a disco epic that feels as vast as a galaxy, evokes Toys' massive, shape-shifting songs (as well as Murphy's 2012 marathon single "Simulation") in its sheer scope. And while "Whatever" may be the shortest song here, it shares the intimacy that made her previous album so striking. But where Hairless Toys was a seamless journey, this is a wilder ride.  

Murphy takes her listeners in different directions with little warning; "Thoughts Wasted," which morphs from sleek to lush to lamenting, feels like a microcosm of the album. Fortunately, Take Her Up to Monto is always engaging, even as she takes her signature sounds to extremes. The teasing, flamboyant sensuality of "Pretty Gardens" and whimsical electro-bossa nova of "Lip Service" hark back to her playful Moloko and Ruby Blue days, though her more understated vocals strike a different balance with the theatrical music than they did back in the day. She contrasts Monto's brassier moments with the much quieter but just as expressive "Nervous Sleep," a dreamy yet unsettled track that captures middle-of-the-night anxiety perfectly, and "Sitting and Counting," a meditation on love so whispery, it sounds like Murphy is singing it to herself. Even on more dynamic songs like "Ten Miles High," Take Her Up to Monto continues the more personal feel of her post-Mi Senti music (the album title even references the Dubliners hit that her father used to sing to her). As pop has become more eclectic, so has Murphy; even if it takes a little more effort to follow her on Monto, the results are worth it”.

It has been a few years since her last album, but Murphy has been busy over the past couple of years. I wonder whether she will bring an album out this year, as many people would love to see that! I think she is actually in the form of her life right now, so I would be fascinated seeing what she comes up with next! I am going to bring us up to the present day in a second, but I wanted to source from an interview Murphy conducted with London in Stereo from last year:

 “This time last year, Roisin was in the midst of releasing her collection of floor-filling funk and house tracks with Baltimore music polymath Maurice Fulton, having just directed and released the gorgeous video for ‘All My Dreams’. Naturally, we had to start by asking how she felt knowing the project had been completed and was now out in the world. “That was actually a relief. I thought that was going to be easier than it turned out to be,” She laughs, admitting, “I just had to slow the whole thing down a little because it was taking a toll to be honest.”

This artistic freedom and sheer drive that Roisin exudes is something that’s helped her stay on top form throughout the years. “I don’t think there’s a secret to longevity, but I think my secret is just the people I work with, the fact that I can just change everything on every project by changing who I collaborate with.” She says, “The music is always the beginning of everything, while I’m a very visual artist and I make the videos and concept the art, deep, deep, deep, the music remains the very centre of it all. It’s the seed of everything”.

It has been an exciting last year for Murphy, and it has been interesting hearing her singles. Rather than produce shorter songs that can slot onto an album, tracks like Incapable have been longer and developed. It does make me think that, if there is an album, we might see maybe eight or nine longer songs that, say, twelve or thirteen shorter ones. 2020 is wide open, and I am sure Murphy has ideas and plans afoot. She spoke with Another Mag last year when promoting Incapable: 

 “NL: Is there any kind of artistic tension between making new music, which you obviously love, and working on legacy stuff like album reissues?

RM: It’s all just a massive positive to be honest. I’m in probably the most creative time of my life – I’m creative-directing everything I do, I’m directing videos for other people, I’m pumping out new music and working with all sorts of exciting people who want to work with me. And then in between, I can re-release these records that I’m really proud of. The next thing’s going to be re-releasing all the Moloko albums on vinyl, one by one. So there’s no kind of difficult tension there. I mean, I would say that the idea of doing a Moloko reunion tour or anything like that is totally off the table. Because I just don’t need to do that, and I don’t want to become some kind of heritage act all of a sudden. I feel like, even though I’m a woman of a certain age, my work’s relevant and has traction in the modern world. So what more can I ask for, really?

NL: When I interviewed you last summer, you said that in terms of running your career, you’d “really had a wobble”. It’s obvious now that you’re fully energised again – how have you turned things around?

RM: The right people weren’t around me before; it’s really as simple as that. Now a very close friend of mine has come in to manage me, so I feel like the very first point of contact is someone who cares about me. That’s made me feel a lot more sane. And I’m starting to gather other people around me who appreciate what I do and want to help me. And that just makes life so much.

NL: What do you want people to think when they hear the name Róisín Murphy?

RM: Well, sometimes someone at school will have said to my children: “Your mum sang that song Sing It Back.” So they’ll come back home and say, “Mum, are you famous?” And I’ll look them straight in the eye and say: “I swear I’m not famous – you know I’m not famous, because when we’re walking down the road, no one comes up to me screaming and shouting. But I am very well thought of.” And to be able to say that to my children, as the God’s honest truth, that’s really a pleasure for me”.

Slightly newer tracks like Jacuzzi Rollercoaster and Narcissus point at a tantalising future: these great Disco sounds that mix the glory of the 1970s but, as you’d expect from Róisín Murphy, her D.N.A. is all over it! You can check out her official website and get all her social media links. She is an artist worth following, and someone who is among the best artists in the world right now. There are a few dates confirmed for this year, and I am sure there will be more when festivals announce their line-ups. The world of Róisín Murphy is a wonderful place, and one that keeps changing and evolving. I have been mesmerised by her singles over the past couple of years, and it is stunning how she continues to push on and move in new directions. I will try and catch her at the 6 Music Festival in Camden, because I have never seen her live – an experience that, once encountered, is never forgotten. When she played at the Boiler Shop last year, Adam Kennedy provided plenty of praise in his review:

“This evening’s setlist is packed full of back to back bangers. From the top of the show, there is just no slowing Roisin Murphy down as she belts through the likes of “Innocence”, “Plaything” and “Forever More”. Each song brought to life by Murphy and her uber talented and somewhat versatile ensemble, who each, in turn, grapple with a whole raft of instruments throughout.

One thing that sets Róisín Murphy apart from the rest is her theatrical onstage antics and passion for fashion that would even give Lady Gaga a run for her money. Throughout Róisín Murphy’s live performance she brings to life and plays out on stage each of the incredible songs that she has created. This evening’s show is as captivating visually as it is musically.

A huge screen at the rear of the stage is filled with projections that accompany the electronic sounds produced by the band throughout. Furthermore, with almost every song in the set, Murphy undertakes a costume change or draws from her arsenal of accessories including a multitude of hats and sunglasses which are housed centre stage which further adds to the spectacle of the show.

The crowd never knows what is about to come next and subsequently, they can’t take their eyes off Róisín for one minute. Murphy’s relentless energy, limitless creativity and engaging persona spur on the crowd throughout. Tonight the musical and somewhat theatrical fashionista proves that her talent and creativity knows no bounds”.

We are all primed to see where Róisín Murphy heads and what scintillating tracks are coming over 2019. Her music provokes so many interesting and memorable images, one is helpless but to resist her power and abilities. I have been revisiting Jacuzzi Rollercoaster a bit recently and, whilst, on paper, it does not sound like a particularly comfortable or inviting place, it is actually…

JUST the sort of place you’d want to be!

FEATURE: Brighton Rocks: The Great Escape Festival 2020 Playlist (So Far)

FEATURE: 

Brighton Rocks

IMAGE CREDIT: @thegreatescape

The Great Escape Festival 2020 Playlist (So Far)

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ALTHOUGH there are going to be more names…

PHOTO CREDIT: @bjhguerin/Unsplash

announced down the line, Brighton’s Great Escape Festival has put out some brilliant names. It runs between 13th and 16th May and, if you are in the market for the best new music around, this is the only festival you’ll need! If you do not know about The Great Escape Festival, here is some information from the official website:

 “The Great Escape is the festival for new music, showcasing 500 emerging artists from all over the world in 30+ walkable venues across the city and a pop-up festival site on Brighton Beach. It’s the first place to discover your new favourite artist and see them in an intimate setting before they go on to headline major festival stages.

TGE is also attended by the music industry who are on the hunt for the next big thing. We run a conference alongside the gigs featuring insightful panels, topical debates, keynote speeches and networking opportunities in abundance.

The Alternative Escape, our Spotlight Shows, secret gigs, club nights and spontaneous collaborations all add to the festivities and make this weekend in Brighton one not to miss.

You can grab your tickets and get to see some of the finest and most original new artists do their thing. If anything, Brighton is a haven for exploration and relaxation. It is great heading down there and getting lost, as there is so much to see and discover. The Great Escape Festival is an event that every much lover should get involved with.

IN THIS PHOTO: Phoebe Green is one of the names announced who will play The Great Escape Festival this year/PHOTO CREDIT: @ph0ebegreen

In terms of the press acclaim/coverage, The Great Escape Festival has received its fair share of plaudits and kudos:

“If anyone had any doubts that The Great Escape is the most important UK music festival for new bands, new trends and making new friends then they most certainly got knocked out of the water this year. 10 years in, and TGE went harder than ever before.”

Crack

“Although similar to the new-music mecca SXSW in Texas, in many ways Britain’s equivalent event is better: more manageable, less brand-led and with just as many emerging talents, who play in tiny venues across Brighton.”

The Times

‘The festival sits in a space all of its own. Billing a very international line-up in a very British city, it can rival any of the international competitors and tops the pile in the UK for value and variety alone.’

Virtual Festivals

‘The Great Escape has established itself as the best place in Europe to discover new bands’

The Times

‘The Cannes of the music world’

Steve Lamacq, BBC Radio 6 Music

“As one the biggest music showcases here in Europe, The Great Escape in Brighton was a fantastic kick off to the UK festival season. Transforming the bustling seaside town into a mecca for music lovers and performing musicians alike … The Great Escape  has proved to be once again a monumental success.”

1883 Magazine

“Increasingly exciting, taste-making festival … [A] wild set in a tiny, sweltering club on Friday night is the kind of “Were you there?” moment that makes the Great Escape, well, Great”

Will Hodgkinson, Chief Pop & Rock Critic, The Times

As so many great names have been announced for this year’s Great Escape Festival, I have compiled them into a handy playlist that shows you just what talent…

IN THIS PHOTO: Lunch Money Life are on The Great Escape Festival’s bill

IS on display.

FEATURE: The Boxer’s Last Stand: Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

The Boxer’s Last Stand

Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water at Fifty

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THIS month has already seen a…

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1968

couple of big albums celebrating anniversaries and, tomorrow, Simon & Garfunkel’s final album together is fifty. Bridge Over Troubled Water is a masterpiece that connected the glory and promise of the 1960s with the new decade. The album draws from a wide range of influences; from Roots Rock and Gospel through to Soul and Jazz, it is a phenomenal swansong. The album indicated two artists moving in different directions; two who would be parted and embark on solo careers. Bridge Over Troubled Water went to the number-one spot and was 1970’s best-selling album. It took home six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Engineered Recording; the title track won Song of the Year, and the album has sold over twenty-five million copies. The song, Bridge Over Troubled Water, has been covered dozens of times and has seen some enormous artists take it on – including Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin. To mark fifty years of one of the greatest albums ever, a new E.P. has arrived. This article explains more:

“January 26 marks the 50th Anniversary of Simon & Garfunkel’s iconic masterpiece, Bridge Over Troubled Water. Legacy Recordings celebrates with Simon & Garfunkel – Live At Carnegie Hall 1969 — an EP of Four Early Live Versions from the Duo’s Then-Upcoming Fifth Studio Album, Available Exclusively for Streaming Now.

Recorded in November 1969 during a sold-out two-night run at New York’s Carnegie Hall, this new four-song EP captures S&G’s live magic at the height of the folk-rock duo’s massive popular success. Simon & Garfunkel – Live At Carnegie Hall 1969 includes previously-unreleased early live versions of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright,” “The Boxer” and “Song For The Asking.” The recordings from Carnegie Hall capture early performances of songs that Simon & Garfunkel were introducing in concert to their fans, two months before the release of their fifth and final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water (originally released January 26, 1970)”.

Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth and final album, there is something bittersweet about Bridge Over Troubled Water. Garfunkel took on an acting role in Catch-22 following the duo’s soundtrack of The Graduate; Paul Simon spent time writing songs for the album – everything expect Felice and Boudleaux Bryant's Bye Bye Love. In terms of tones and sounds, Bridge Over Troubled Water is similar to Bookends – an album that is almost as sensational as its follow-up. Although there are similarities between their final two Simon & Garfunkel albums, Bridge Over Troubled Water brings in more Rock, Gospel and World sounds; a broader palette and lyrics that endure for longer and dig deeper. The duo would part after the album (although they performed together on a few occasions afterwards) but, in sheer terms of ambition, Bridge Over Troubled Water is an amazing achievement. Simon & Garfunkel split later in 1970: Garfunkel worked in film whilst Simon released a series of world-class and hugely memorable albums (including 1986’s Graceland).

It is understandable why Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel could not carry on but, when you consider the genius of the album and how important it is, one wonders what could have happened if they kept playing. Some argue both artists were strongest as a duo and never matched the same levels and heights they achieved on their final album. Certain critics, looking back, feel Bridge Over Troubled Water is a little overwrought, overrated and underwritten; most agree that the album is one of the very best the duo created and a very fitting and stunning goodbye. Songs like Cecilia, The Boxer and the title track are classics; So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, The Only Living Boy in New York and Why Don’t You Write Me are classic Paul Simon numbers. Even though the songwriting duo was heading in different directions, they sound united and harmonious throughout. Bridge Over Troubled Water is a song that perfectly frames Art Garfunkel’s voice, whilst it is impossible to listen to The Boxer without being moved. I want to bring in a couple of retrospective reviews before I move on. Here is how Pitchfork judged the album:

“This diverse album contains the roots of Paul Simon's subsequent incorporation of African and South American rhythms into astute pop songs, especially "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)". The tune is hundreds of years old, but Simon came to it via a contemporary Peruvian group called Los Incas. He wrote new English lyrics about the rural versus the urban, and he and Garfunkel sang them over the original instrumental track. Especially coming after the grandiose gospel of the title track, the song sounds both exotic and humble. Later, "Keep the Customer Satisfied" swells with gargantuan blasts of brass, "Baby Driver" revs up some R&B sax, and "Cecilia" sounds impossibly infectious with its pennywhistle solo and handclap/thighslap percussion. Despite the breadth of sound-- and despite the splintering of their relationship-- Bridge sounds like a unified statement enlivened by styles and rhythms not often heard on pop radio at the juncture of those two decades.

The album cuts on Bridge hold up arguably better than the singles-- or maybe it's just that we've all heard the title track and side-two opener "The Boxer" so many times, while songs like "Keep the Customer Satisfied" and "Baby Driver" still sound less familiar, and therefore full of surprises. Especially on this subtle remastering, Bridge reveals a surfeit of strange, exciting sonic details, as Simon, Garfunkel, and co-producer Roy Halee insert small flourishes of sound, such as the disruptive skiffle beat on "Why Don't You Write Me" or the audience rhythm section on the live version of "Bye Bye Love". The title track derives its outsize drama not only from Garfunkel's intense, measured vocals but also from the resonating percussion, which mimics the echoing crack of sound against a cathedral wall. Thanks to the echo-chambered vocals, disembodied organ, and Joe Osborn's melodically prominent bass, "The Only Living Boy in New York" sounds practically weightless, as if Manhattan were as lonely and desolate as the moon”.

The remarkable Bridge Over Troubled Water sprouted the roots of Paul Simon’s love of African and South American rhythms. Listen to the big brass Keep the Customer Satisfied and one can see new worlds opening up for Simon; elements that would feed into his solo work. In their review of Simon & Garfunkel’s final album, AllMusic had this to say:

 “Bridge Over Troubled Water was one of the biggest-selling albums of its decade, and it hasn't fallen too far down on the list in years since. Apart from the gospel-flavored title track, which took some evolution to get to what it finally became, however, much of Bridge Over Troubled Water also constitutes a stepping back from the music that Simon & Garfunkel had made on Bookends -- this was mostly because the creative partnership that had formed the body and the motivation for the duo's four prior albums literally consumed itself in the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

The overall effect was perhaps the most delicately textured album to close out the 1960s from any major rock act. Bridge Over Troubled Water, at its most ambitious and bold, on its title track, was a quietly reassuring album; at other times, it was personal yet soothing; and at other times, it was just plain fun. The public in 1970 -- a very unsettled time politically, socially, and culturally -- embraced it; and whatever mood they captured, the songs matched the standard of craftsmanship that had been established on the duo's two prior albums. Between the record's overall quality and its four hits, the album held the number one position for two and a half months and spent years on the charts, racking up sales in excess of five million copies. The irony was that for all of the record's and the music's appeal, the duo's partnership ended in the course of creating and completing the album”.

As a standalone, Bridge Over Troubled Water is a sensational album crammed with brilliance. If you figure it into the history and story of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, the album is so much bigger and more important. One can read subtext in certain songs but, to me, this is two musicians providing the world with something timeless and majestic, knowing they would not record another album again. On its fiftieth anniversary tomorrow (26th January), lots of fans will mark an incredible album; musicians have been inspired by it since its release and, even though Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are not together (and not speaking) and their friendship was strained in 1970, it is obvious their final album together will endure and influence…

FOR another fifty years.

FEATURE: Sisters in Arms: An All-Female, Winter-Ready Playlist (Vol. III)

FEATURE:

 

Sisters in Arms

IN THIS PHOTO: Dana Gavanski/PHOTO CREDIT: Tess Roby

An All-Female, Winter-Ready Playlist (Vol. III)

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THIS weekend has started off…

IN THIS PHOTO: Poppy Ajudha

with some cloud and cold…so we all need some music and light to get us lifted and out of the door. There have been so many great tracks released this week but, as you’d expect, a lot of the very best cuts have been from women. From various corners of the sonic map, have a listen to the winter-ready playlist from some of the best women in music right now. The quality is astounding and, as you listen to these tracks, I know you will feel warmer and more energised. Without further ado, here are songs to…

IN THIS PHOTO: L Devine

MAKE your weekend shine.

ALL PHOTOS (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Poppy Ajudha, Mahalia - Low Ride

Katie Gately – Waltz

April Ivy - Can’t Fight This Feeling

Planet 1999 – Party

Lola Coca – All That She Wants

Sharna Bass - Nobody

Eliza Shaddad – One Last Embrace

L Devine – Boring People

PHOTO CREDIT: Romaine Dixon

Romaine Dixon, D’wante Navire – Vibe

PHOTO CREDIT: Justin Cook

Cuffed Up – French Exit

Kiana Ledé – Mad At Me.

Kelsea Ballerini – la

Violet Skies – Half My Life

Sarah Close – Cool

VUKOVI – Aura

Tate McRae – that way

Dad – Fresher

Mae Muller – Therapist

Eve Belle – Smithereens

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

Hayley Williams – Simmer

Jessie Reyez - LOVE IN THE DARK

ROSALÍA – Juro Que

Brooke Bentham – Control

PHOTO CREDIT: Vedrana Vukojevic

Dana Gavanski – Good Instead of Bad

Waxahatchee – Fire

La Roux - Automatic Driver

Siv Jakobsen – Fear the Fear

Hilary Woods – Tongues of Wild Boar

IMAGE CREDIT: Malky Currie

Vanessa Forero – Light Your Fires

FEATURE: The January Playlist: Vol. 4: Cops Cars and a Certain Simmer

FEATURE:

 

The January Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Mitski/PHOTO CREDIT: Bao Ngo

Vol. 4: Cops Cars and a Certain Simmer

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THIS is a packed week for music…

IN THIS PHOTO: Pet Shop Boys

and one where a lot of big artists are shining! This week sees new music released from Mitski, Pet Shop Boys and Hayley Williams; Radiohead, Pearl Jam and ROSALÍA gift us with tunes. Look at the playlist below and you will hear so much quality and diversity. It is an exciting week where we have so much gold to choose from. If you need a kick and spark this weekend, these tracks are sure to do the job! I am really looking forward to seeing what else comes this year and, with a week of January left, it is pretty impressive what has been released so far. Have a listen at the best of the week and I know you will find something in here that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Hayley Williams/PHOTO CREDIT: Invision/Rex/Shutterstock

SPIKES your imagination.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Mitski – Cop Car

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsey Byrnes

Hayley Williams – Simmer

Radiohead – I Want None of This

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

Pearl Jam – Dance of the Clairvoyants

Billie Eilish - everything i wanted

IN THIS PHOTO: J Hus

J Hus (ft. Koffee) - Repeat 

ROSALÍA - Juro Que

Pet Shop Boys – i don’t wanna

The Lathums – Fight On

PHOTO CREDIT: Max Knight

Dan Croll – Yesterday

PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whitaker Photography

Happyness – Vegetable

La Roux - Automatic Driver

Inhaler – We Have to Move On

IN THIS PHOTO: Brian Eno

Roger Eno & Brian Eno - Celeste

Twin Atlantic – Oh! Euphoria!

Patrick Watson - Look At You

Four Tet – Baby

The Coronas – Haunted

Jessie Reyez – LOVE IN THE DARK

Doja Cat - Boss B*tch (from Birds of Prey: The Album)

Ricky Martin – Tiburones

Chromatics – TOY

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Cummings

The Snuts – Fatboy Slim

Kelsea Ballerini – la

PHOTO CREDIT: Melanie Tjoeng

Eliza Shaddad – One Last Embrace

IN THIS PHOTO: Poppy Ajudha

Poppy Ajudha (ft. Mahalia) - Low Ride

Badly Drawn Boy – Is This a Dream?

JP Cooper – In These Arms

Tom Grennan – This Is the Place

Andy Shauf – Neon Skyline

TRACK REVIEW: Pearl Jam - Dance of the Clairvoyants

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Pearl Jam

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

Dance of the Clairvoyants

9.4/10

The track, Dance of the Clairvoyants, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6mIGfyvXM

GENRE:

Alternative Rock

ORIGIN:

Seattle, U.S.A

RELEASE DATE:

22nd January, 2020

LABEL:

Monkeywrench Inc.

The album, Gigaton, is available from 27th March, 2020. Pre-order here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigaton-Pearl-Jam/dp/B083T61W5J

__________

I have quite a bit to…

get through in this review but, before carrying on, it is evident there are not too many current images of Pearl Jam, so I may have to sprinkle in some classic shots so that I can avoid any gaps. Some people on my blog have complained about the length of my reviews and the fact they are very positive so, if a thoughtful and positive review does not appeal, probably best to look at every other site out there! With that being said, I couldn’t avoid Pearl Jam because, like so many people out there, they are part of my childhood. There are a few subjects that I want to cover that relate to Pearl Jam, and I will get to the review itself a bit later. First of all, there is this age-old, old-age debate as to whether acts like Pearl Jam – who started life over thirty years ago – should still be playing. After such titanic albums (including their 1991 debut, Ten), what more can they offer? The Seattle-formed band’s last album, 2013’s Lightning Bolt, was well-received, and they have recently announced a new album will be out this year called Gigaton. One can argue the likes of Pearl Jam are in it for the money; that they have a commercial ear and fans are going to keep buying their albums regardless. Look at The Rolling Stones and bands who have been around even longer than Pearl Jam. They do not need to be in the business, and they have recorded music that will be loved and assessed for generations to come. Pearl Jam were a vital force in the 1990s and, at a time when Nirvana were defining Grunge, Pearl Jam arrived (their debut came out the same year as Nirvana’s Nevermind) provided an Alternative Rock sound that incorporated elements of Grunge but was unique to them. So many people of my age (and older) heard something in Pearl Jam that was new and excited. Led by the powerhouse that is Eddie Vedder, the band have soundtracked the lives of so many people. I have seen a few articles online that ask whether Pearl Jam are cashing in and whether they are a legacy act, or whether they can truly cut it.   

I think Pearl Jam are not just about legacy and revisiting the past. They have an impressive body of work, and their upcoming album has got many people excited! Although the band might not be as raucous and anthemic as they once were, their music still digs deep and sounds exceptional. I will end the review by talking about the band’s touring and plans for 2020, because things are going to be pretty hectic for Pearl Jam. I want to bring in an article, where the author talks about the meaning of Pearl Jam and why, I feel, they are massively relevant in 2020:

“All their songs have a deep, meaningful story to tell. Their music has definitely touched peoples lives, including my own. These guys just have something special to them. They write real music, with lyrics that can relate to many of us listeners. They have been making hits ever since they began. Hell, they broke through mainstream with their first debut album Ten, which came out in 1991. Pearl Jam is nothing short of remarkable, and nothing but pure, great rock and roll music. I’d have to say my favorite songs by them are “Better Man”, “Alive”, “The Fixer”, and “Sirens”. Even picking those as my favorites was hard because so many of their songs are so good. I am pretty sure everyone can relate to at least one of their songs. It doesn’t matter what you have been through, listening to their music will always give you an uplifting boost to your spirit. When you think of iconic rock bands that ruled the 90’s, Pearl Jam is definitely one of the bands that will cross your mind. Pearl Jam are legends, and we should all be grateful to be living in a time where we can rock out and headbang to their music”.

There are the classic hits we can all reference but, if you look at the last couple of albums Pearl Jam have put out, the band are evolving and remain essential. Although they are, of course, going to play the big numbers at gigs, they are not a band who rely on the past and are making music now for the money. There is a unity and strength that remains vibrant; when so many of their peers from back in the day have called time, Pearl Jam remain popular because they are original, yet they can fit into the times and mix it with the very best out there.

I have written quite a few reviews where I have discussed Rock and whether it is still valid. I mentioned 1991 and a year when Pearl Jam and Nirvana put out these huge, legendary albums. Rock music still exists in the world, but there are fewer standout albums and bands compared to what there was. Apart from the odd band here and there, I think Rock music has changed in the sense it brings in other genres and is wider-ranging than it was decades ago. It is hard to write these classic Rock anthems and ready riffs. Instead, bands are bringing in Pop, Electronic and other genres. I will mention how Pearl Jam fit into this debate, but there are two schools of thought. On the one side, there are people who claim Rock is dead and music has no scenes or movements. Most of us can name a few decent Rock bands, but that doesn’t mean we can remember the songs or reasonably claim they sound as good as the classic acts from the 1960s-1990s. I think the legends of Rock, Alternative Rock and Grunge existed and thrived because they had competition and there was a demand from fans. Maybe they were capturing a vibe in the air or felt there was a gap missing. Now, at a time when there are no scenes and music is so broad and disconnected, can even the best Rock acts stand out?! Also, as we are in modern times, if artists replicate acts like Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin, will they be accused of being derivative and copycat? There is another camp that says Rock is very much alive, but one cannot live in the past. Whilst there are few classic riffs, big choruses and old-school bands, does that mean Rock is redundant? Instead, we have artists like YUNGBLUD and Sharon Van Etten who are producing more emotive, personal and nuanced albums. I always associate classic Rock with, yes, legendary sounds and memorable hooks, but there was this reliance on the sexual, the less-important and commercial.

IN THIS PHOTO: Pearl Jam circa 1991

Some artists were opening their minds and hearts, but so many bands were writing songs that lacked real depth. Many can argue Rock now is more important and substantial because we have artists penning tracks that take in politics, depression and environmental concerns. So many artists today as using music to speak about deep issues and important subjects, Rock has followed that course; the lyrics are more personal, and the sonic palette is a little wider. I sort of fall between the two camps. I feel Rock could do with some proper rebels and songs that are stuffed with twang and energy. That said, Rock needs to keep moving and no genre is defined by its past. Pearl Jam are ensuring they progress and move with the times, but their upcoming album is going to have some classic sounds. They are not going to betray their roots, as they know Rock music demands simplicity and songs that remain in the head. Gigaton seems like it will be an album that will delight those who love their Rock pure, and those who feel the current sound is where the genre is best:

 “Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard explained how the group’s upcoming album, Gigaton, captures “the spirit of the band” in a new interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 radio.

The first single from Gigaton, “Dance of the Clairvoyants,” found the band exploring funkier and more experimental sonic territories, with Gossard saying the track exemplifies “the outer edge of something that we haven’t tried before, a new way of configuring our sort of collaborative talents.” But he went on to note that “Dance of the Clairvoyants” is just one of several flavors on the record.

“There’s definitely some really straight-ahead rock songs,” he said. “There’s some very spare and very simple ballads. It’s got it all, I think. And it’s really us. We really did it by ourselves. [Eddie Vedder] did a great job. There was a pile of songs, and he sort of took and really, really, in the last two months, mixed and sort of selected the tracks that really were going to be special. And he did such a great job of bringing everybody’s personalities out. It was probably different than any of us would’ve made individually, but it really captures, I think, the spirit of the band.”

Gossard also touched on Vedder’s lyrics, which he called “stunning” and said grapple with the weight of the world in clever and abstract ways. “He’s not going to come out and say exactly in sort of very plain language maybe what you might think after reading the newspaper,” Gossard said. “But I think that his mysticism and his way of using words and art and music is a powerful sort of tonic. I think that underlying it all is going to continue to be a hopeful and beautiful but at times tragic message”.

Pearl Jam are legends of music. I want to talk about longevity and why bands like Pearl Jam deserve maximum respect. Whilst the early-‘90s was a fertile period with so much great music, there was no guarantee you would survive and keep playing years later. Most of the best bands from that time are not playing together, and others have found it hard to adapt and remain relevant. It must be daunting enough for new bands to be seen and heard, and iconic bands like Pearl Jam are not immune. They have a legacy and some mighty albums under their belt, but they also cannot rely on that alone. Pearl Jam have to put out strong material, otherwise critics and fans will look elsewhere. I think Pearl Jam have produced the odd mediocre album, but they have been pretty consistent and have not lost their power to move people. I will talk about a departed friend of the band soon but, as you can see from the article above, Eddie Vedder is writing music that reacts to the world around him in a very direct way. Anyone who claims Pearl Jam are releasing material because their name sells needs to listen to the music and realise its importance. Bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam resonated back in the 1990s because the music wasn’t insanely commercial and they were speaking to their fans; whether they were disaffected or isolated, the music was a lifeline and friend. That is still true today when, more than ever, we need music to balm our souls and give us guidance. I’d like to think we can put to bed the assertion that Pearl Jam were importance once, but now they are merely around to cash in. The new Pearl Jam album is going to tackle a few different subjects, but the late Chris Cornell will loom large. He was a great friend of Vedder and the band, and his death on 18th May, 2017 rocked the world. I remember being at work when I heard the news and taking a half-day so that I could rush home and write an article in tribute to the Soundgarden lead.

PHOTO CREDIT: Samir Hussein/WireImage via Getty Images

Vedder and Cornell performed together as part of the group, Temple of the Dog, and the two were like brothers. I will quote from a couple of features, as the loss of Cornell is still raw. This article from 2018 relates to a Pearl Jam show in London, and what Eddie Vedder had to say about his departed friend:

“These things take time and I just want to send this out to everyone who was affected by it and they all back home and here appreciate it so deeply the support and the good thoughts of a man who was a ... you know he wasn't just a friend he was someone I looked up to like my older brother.

About two days after the news, I think it was the second night we were sleeping in this little cabin near the water, a place he would've loved. And all these memories started coming in about 1:30am like woke me up. Like big memories, memories I would think about all the time. Like the memories were big muscles. And then I couldn't stop the memories. And trying to sleep it was like if the neighbours had the music playing and you couldn't stop it.

But then it was fine because then it got into little memories. It just kept going and going and going. And I realised how lucky I was to have hours worth of...you know if each of these memories was quick and I had hours of them. How fortunate was I?! And I didn't want to be sad, wanted to be grateful not sad”.

It is not even three years since Cornell died, and bands like Pearl Jam know what he gave to music and what his loss means. I am not sure how Cornell features into Pearl Jam’s Gigaton but, in this Rolling Stone feature from January 2019, Cornell’s name came up:

“It’s been six years since Pearl Jam released Lightning Bolt, and they’re feeling the need to write new music again. It’s just been slow going. “It’d be fun to record or even just write a song together,” bassist Jeff Ament says. “I think when Chris [Cornell] passed, that’s really been a tough one to wrap our heads around, and then there’s just life stuff.”

Cornell was an important figure in Pearl Jam’s history. Drummer Matt Cameron played in Soundgarden, and all of the band members were in Temple of the Dog with the singer before forming Pearl Jam. Ament, Cameron and guitarist Stone Gossard recently paid tribute to him a Los Angeles concert dubbed “I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell,” which also included performances by Cornell’s former bandmates in Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Audioslave, as well as sets by Foo Fighters, Metallica, Melvins and Miley Cyrus’ stunning “Say Hello 2 Heaven.”

Ament also recently paid homage to Cornell by serving as creative director for the Chris Cornell box set, for which he spent five or six days screen-printing vibrant, watercolor images of the late Soundgarden frontman with his brother, Barry Ament. “That was hard,” he says. “[Chris’ widow] Vicky [Cornell] had asked me to get involved with it, and over the course of the years, Chris would often reach out. I remember with the Audioslave record and a couple of his solo records, he would send me the artwork. Even the last solo record, I mocked up some ideas. I think he appreciated my sensibilities when it came to that stuff. So it was pretty hard to go down that path, creating that stuff and listening to the music. It’s just another reminder that he’s not here, and that just sucks. It really sucks”.

I guess this sort of circles back to what I mentioned earlier: bands like Pearl Jam surviving and continuing to make music. I adored Soundgarden, and I think it so sad that Chris Cornell is not with us anymore. Soundgarden were another band who, now and then, would have people asking whether they could still cut it and were relevant. They toured a lot, and I wonder whether the pressure to keep going and remain in focus contributed to Cornell’s physiological state. One needs to respect bands like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, because they are pounding hard and trying to delight older fans and bring in new listeners. With that said, I should get down to reviewing Pearl Jam’s new single, Dance of the Clairvoyants.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch/Courtesy of the artist

Rather than go in with meaty riffs and chug, there is a pleasing groove from the bass, some electronics and something spacey that opens Dance of the Clairvoyants. I like the blend of the more mystical and the funkiness that breaks out. Whilst you are immersed in the catchiness and movement of the introduction, your mind wanders, and you sort of transport yourself somewhere marvellous. Vedder’s voice arrives and, like you’d expect, makes an impact right from the start: “Confusion is to commotion/what love is to devotion” is a superb opening line, and, whilst talking about love and the vastness of the ocean, images race through the mind. I think the lyrics are more powerful and deep because the composition is quite experimental and groovy, rather than drowning all sentiment out with roared vocals and intense guitars. Vedder’s voice is quite operatic and emotional. I love how it has matured through the years, and it still holds so much weight and gravitas. “So save your predications/and burn your assumptions” is delivered with much more growl and grit. If the opening lines suggested love was a pure and cherished thing, when Vedder sings “Love is friction/ripe for comfort”, your mind is taken in a different direction. The song changes pace and tone, so we go from that alien-like kick to more traditional Pearl Jam territory. Not only do the band summon one of their most interesting compositions for a long while, the lyrics are among the most clever and intriguing. There are, as we hear “endless equations” and “tugging persuasions”, which makes one wonder whether Vedder is referencing a romantic love or something wider, I am not so sure. The doors are very much for open for interpretation so, as a listener, you go back and concentrate on the early lines to see if we are in the midst of a confusing relationship or the political state of affairs. The chorus sees Vedder a little resigned in his words. He states how we are ignoring a lot if we want perfection; how the past is the present and “the future’s no more”.

Every tomorrow is the same as ever (claims Vedder) so, maybe, this track is about the lack of action from political figures regarding problems in the world. I am split between a dissatisfied and confused relationship that is going through the gears, and a man who is looking around him and wondering why action is not being taken. Vedder’s delivery is almost sermon-like; there is a sense of meaning and drive that you feel. He needs to get his messages out, but there is a scent of defeat lingering underneath. “The looser things get/the tighter you become”, could be construed a couple of different ways. Maybe there are sexual connotations but, listening to the song again, I am still interested in a political possibility. The wordplay is intelligent and witty throughout. Vedder is soulful but never too forceful with his words. I prefer his voice in this mode, as I think it carries greater heft and nuance. Maybe that is just me, but he switches between the more restrained to fierce and delivers some thought-provoking messages along the way. When he states that “No one man/can be greater than the sum”, and he is a positive person (despite the fact he falls down), the words are almost rifled and stuttered. The way the vocal twists and adapts is magnificent. This person (whoever they are) has cut the hero down rather than helping them up. The third verse references windows being closed and us all being stuck in boxes. The lyrics have that openness, so one is never quite certain what is being referenced – each time I come back to the song, I pick up new things. The song’s title is alluded to when Vedder delivers one of the song’s funniest/corniest thoughts: “I'm in love with clairvoyants/'Cause they're out of this world”. That idea of people being out of this world might suggest Vedder is not happy in this one; like he needs an escape from what is happening. The band continue to drive the song forward and provide so much colour and texture. Vedder sings of girls wanting to fall away and “the boys wanna grow/their dicks and fix things”.  When Vedder lets his voice weave and float this., combined with the solid beat, puts me in mind of some of Pearl Jam’s earlier work – and, oddly, I am reminder of Peter Gabriel too.  Dance of the Clairvoyants is a terrific and compelling song that bodes well for the Gigaton album.

I will finish up by looking at where Pearl Jam are headed and what the rest of this year has in store. I have been writing this, and I came across an article from 2018, where Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins spoke with Liam Gallagher. The question regarding the relevance of established bands like Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam came up:

“In a new Alt 98.7 interview, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins said he believes Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and other rock acts are still the most relevant when it comes to live performances, especially compared to pop and hip hop. Dave Grohl joined him for the interview.

Hawkins said, “I think that the exchange between an audience and people on a stage with guitars and drums without a net, that hasn’t really gone away per say. I think rock bands like us, Pearl Jam, the Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, those are probably still the biggest shows. I still think that it translates better with instruments, I just do, than one dude walking around with a microphone”.

Pearl Jam are playing British Summer Time 2020, and they are performing through North America through the spring. I have put Pearl Jam’s social media links at the bottom of this review, so make sure you follow them and, if you can, go and see them live. Their latest cut shows they are still hugely important and, actually, one of the most important bands around. I will wrap it up in a second but, for those who wonder whether Pearl Jam are still worthy and vital, I want to bring in a piece from Louder Sound in 2018, who were in attendance when the band played the O2:

“If this is classic rock – and it is, duh – then it’s refracted through the times we’ve lived through. At times they could remind you of The Band – but only if The Band had also been massively into punk, metal, goth, indie, shoegaze, new wave, etc etc.

This is 21st century classic rock: visceral and exciting, but also warm, engaging, natural. We've had enough of charismatic leaders who turn out to be charlatans. Vedder breaks down the relationship between the "stars" and the crowd and it leaves you asking: Have Pearl Jam quietly become one of rock’s best, most beloved and even important bands in the world right now?

Being called "sell-outs" has been a criticism that's unfairly dogged Pearl Jam since their beginnings. Being successful from a then small, alternative scene in the Pacific Northwest does not a sell-out make. It was bullshit thirty years ago, and it’s bullshit now.

Looking out over their audience you get a sense that they don't see a bunch of fans to fleece, they see a load of people they want to move.

Perhaps more so now than ever. While the band have never shied away from their full-throated support for human rights and political issues, the month’s delay between London shows afforded the band the luxury of inviting a guest along: hot on the heels of his scene-stealing appearance at the London anti-Trump march, Pearl Jam got the Trump Baby blimp down to the O2 where the orange buffoon (sorry, balloon) provided many a gig-goer with a brilliant photo-opp.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Bennett/Getty Images

Vedder found a moment throughout the show to voice his displeasure at the current US President - the day after the latter’s astonishingly disturbing summit with Putin - by reading out some of the best British protest signs ("God save The Queen from the facist tangerine" and "We'd call Trump a cunt, but he isn't deep or warm" go down particularly well). He talks about the ridiculous travel advisory recently given to US tourists in Europe, and before a heartfelt Daughter he name-checks Jim O'Rourke's Women Of The World, Take Over. Preaching to the converted? Of course. That's literally how this works. It's his show.

Singer/two-guitar/bass/drums/organ line-up. Crazy good songs that everyone knows the words to and isn’t afraid to sing along to? Check. Massive guitar solos? Check. Epic jams? Check. Blistering covers? Of course. And of classic rock stalwarts. Tonight we’re treated to Tom Petty, The Who, Victoria Williams and and Bob Dylan (by way of Jimi Hendrix).

Do they follow a by-rote setlist night after night? Hell no, you never know what you’re gonna get from Pearl Jam. Spontaneity is still a thing.

They mix up their own songs too, which means people react with frequently unfettered delight when deep cuts and fan favourites are aired. All night, Eddie doesn't have to introduce a single song, but the opening notes of each are greeted like World Cup Final goals.

Now, as much as any time, we need Pearl Jam in the world. A scintillating live force, their studio material is amazing, and I think Gigaton will be a finer and deeper album than Lightning Bolt. In any case, get involved with the band and grab the album when it arrives on 27th March. It is very obvious that these legends…

PHOTO CREDIT: Gie naeps/Getty Images

STILL rock hard!

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Follow Pearl Jam

Official:

https://pearljam.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/PearlJam

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/PearlJam/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pearljam/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1w5Kfo2jwwIPruYS2UWh56

YouTube:

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Pearl Jam

FEATURE: After the Writer’s Block… D’Angelo’s Voodoo at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

After the Writer’s Block…

D’Angelo’s Voodoo at Twenty

___________

AS we are in a new decade…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Mannion

we are, inevitably, looking back to see how other decades started. I have done some playlists of the best music from 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010. I think 2000 was a phenomenal year for music, and we saw some terrific albums arrive. On 25th January, D’Angelo brought out his second album, Voodoo. Released by Virgin Records, D’Angelo recorded the album during 1998 and 1999 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. D’Angelo produced most of the album himself and worked with musicians of the Soulquarians collective. I will talk more about the album’s legacy later on but, compared with Brown Sugar in 1995, Voodoo is a looser album that is not as conventional as his debut. The album investigates fatherhood and spirituality in addition to love and maturation. Voodoo was a huge success and, following huge promotion, it debuted at number-one on the U.S. Billboard 200. Singles such as Untitled (How Does It Feel) were met with huge praise – although its video did garner some controversy! When you release a debut as successful as Brown Sugar, there is that pressure regarding a follow-up. That album was toured for over two years and, when the dust had settled, D’Angelo found himself unable to conjure new ideas. I am not sure what caused this block, but it is something every songwriter faces in their career. New material was a struggle, so D’Angelo put out some cover versions and remarks; flexing his creative muscles and trying to get the juice flowing.

D’Angelo eventually rediscovered his mojo and began work on his second album. Whilst his debut album is a remarkable thing, Voodoo throws together everything from Jazz, Funk and Hip-Hop. It is the way the contrasts work together that makes Voodoo so arresting. You get vintage sounds and influences stacked alongside fresh sounds and layers. D’Angelo is a lot more improvisational on Voodoo; I think these changes and evolutions make a big different. Whether you feel it is solely a D’Angelo record or more of a Soulquarians production, one cannot refute the genius throughout. A lot of Voodoo was recorded straight in one take, and one can imagine the musicians jamming in the studio and the vibe at the time. I am not sure what compelled this breakthrough and resurrection from D’Angelo, but he took his music to a new plain on Voodoo. There are Jazz elements and that sort of vibe, but one can nod to pioneers like Jimi Hendrix and many of D’Angelo’s heroes. There is a lot to unpack when it comes to D’Angelo’s staggering sophomore release. It could have gone wrong or not happened at all: instead, what we get is an album that is like nothing out there. You would struggle to find a review that is anything less than gushing and mind-blown. In this Pitchfork review, we learn more about a stunning album:

“But Voodoo is more than a fetish object for analog geeks and old-soul collectors. It's peppered with hip-hop inflections largely informed by the singular work of J Dilla, the record's biggest modern influence. D'Angelo probably had Dilla's beats in mind when he wanted ?uestlove to dirty his impeccable timing to drum like he had just "drank some moonshine behind a chuckwagon," as ?uest once put it. In GQ, D cited the Detroit producer's 2006 death as the moment he decided to wake up from his booze-and-cocaine fueled lost years. "I felt like I was going to be next," he said. And when he played this year's Made in America festival in Philadelphia, he stepped out to the strains of obscure Canadian band Motherlode's "When I Die", which Dilla flipped on the finale of his last true album, Donuts.

The song's hook: "When I die, I hope to be a better man than you thought I'd be." Voodoo's element of sampling is crucial and varied as well, whether through flawless interpolations (as on "Send It On", which borrows its horn-laden lilt from Kool and the Gang's "Sea of Tranquility"), or sly cut-ups (like when DJ Premier drops in a line of Fat Joe's materialistic "Success" into the anti-materialism screed "Devil's Pie"), or well-chosen covers (the slowed-down brilliance of "Feel Like Makin' Love", a #1 for Roberta Flack in 1974)”.

Voodoo, like other albums from 2000, does not feel dated or of its time. Because there are so many classic elements to the production and sound, there is something instantly vintage; the modernity and urgency of the music means Voodoo sounds remarkable twenty years down the tracks. It is an album without a conventional structure, and there is so much nuance and depth. In this Entertainment Weekly review, they talk about D’Angelo’s growth between albums:

“On his long-anticipated follow-up, Voodoo, we find D’Angelo growing as an artist, as well as The Artist. His Purple Majesty’s influence looms over Voodoo even more than Gaye’s. (Not Prince the hitmaker but Prince the bandleader of endless late-night funk workouts.) Voodoo is less like an album and more like an intimate jam session, each song bleeding into another. Cut almost entirely live, nearly every track is over five minutes, and all ride the same mid-tempo groove. Piled high with squelchy, sinuous keyboards, syncopated rhythm guitar, horny horns, and harmonies that overlap gloriously like they came from a vintage Parliament-Funkadelic album, D’Angelo creates a (Sly) stoned soul picnic bar none.

Such advances don’t negate the romance stance that made him a star — his falsetto just may serve as women’s answer to Viagra. ”Send It On” is a stately soul ballad like they just don’t make anymore, while his cover of Roberta Flack’s ”Feel Like Makin’ Love” remains a sweet, sticky delight. Only a crudely misogynistic rap from guests Method Man and Redman on ”Left & Right” upsets the organically sensual vibe. Still, what’s most thrilling about Voodoo is that D’Angelo is unafraid to tamper with his successful formula: This is elastic, impressionistic music that doesn’t cater to radio formats. If you’re looking for an antidote to the processed-cheese disease that’s infected today’s pop, a little bit o’ Voodoo is just what the witch doctor ordered”.

There will be some big album anniversaries this year, but I think Voodoo is one that deserves a lot of focus. D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s Black Messiah came out in 2014, and I wonder whether we will get another album from him – the man does take his time but, on all occasions, the results are spellbinding! Maybe we will see a new D’Angelo album this year – there are rumblings -, but it is amazing to listen to Voodoo twenty years after it came into the world. If you have not heard the album, check it out on Spotify, and prepare to have your senses altered.

It still, as I said, sounds brilliant today, and it makes me hungry for another D’Angelo record. I will wrap things up but, before that, I want to bring in a feature from early last year that looked back on a remarkable work:

“Once hailed as the next Marvin Gaye, D’Angelo become the harbinger of hip-hop soul with his first release Brown Sugar in 1995. At the ripe young age of 21, he was  responsible for rethinking an entire genre and had laid the path for Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (‘96), Erykah Badu’s Baduizm (’97), The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (‘98) and the neo-soul movement. But on the dawn of Y2K, contemporary R&B had morphed into a slick, club-friendly state. Voodoo emerged as a response to this, bringing back earthy 70s production powered by experimental, hip-hop-influenced rhythms.

After its release, Voodoo topped the Billboard albums chart just two weeks later, won two Grammy’s, achieved platinum status and produced a hit that would turn D’Angelo into a pin-up for ages. The album made an arresting statement, not just musically but visually. With its cover and provocative video for ‘Untitled (How Does it Feel)’, D’Angelo bared more than his soul. What perhaps meant to be a vulnerable statement looked more like an illicit invitation.

Sampling takes on an important role throughout the album, a practice that had been honed over the past decade, but D’Angelo does so with care, whether it’s Kool & the Gang‘s ‘Sea of Tranquility’ on ‘Send it On’ or the drums from Prince’s ‘I Wonder U’ on ‘Africa’. Every track serves a purpose, there is no filler here. His cover of Roberta Flack’s ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ is turned into a breezy song of seduction, while the Latin jazz infused ‘Spanish Joint’ hints at the heat to come. 

But none of these songs fully prepare you for the ultimate slow-burn ballad that is ‘Untitled (How Does it Feel)’. Co-written by Raphael Saadiq, it shall gown down in the annals of makeout music history and even cuts off in the middle, leaving you wanting more. Whether consciously or subconsciously inspired by the “Purple One’, it was ironic that Prince seemed be inspired as well, after releasing ‘Call My Name’ just a few years later”.

There are other great articles that are worth checking out. Voodoo is an amazing album, and its twentieth anniversary, I would have thought, should have been met with a reissue or special edition – again, I can find now word of that. No matter, as the original is out in the world and it demands your attention. I hope Voodoo gets a lot of coverage today (on its twentieth), as it a classic album that will still be talked about decades from now. Spend some time today so you can…

SPIN this masterpiece.

FEATURE: Rinse and Repeat: Are Radio Playlists the Best Way to Market a New Song?

FEATURE:

Rinse and Repeat

PHOTO CREDIT: Freepik

Are Radio Playlists the Best Way to Market a New Song?

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ALTHOUGH it has been the way to promote songs…

IMAGE CREDIT: Freepik

for decades now, I wonder whether radio playlists are the best way to bring new music to people. Obviously, new cuts need to be featured on the radio, but I listen to stations like BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 6 Music and you tend to find the playlists are quite repetitive. I understand that a song needs to get out to as many people as possible but, if you are a loyal listener, you might hear the same songs dozens and dozens of times before the playlist is updated. Unless the song is pure genius – very few are -, it gets to the point where you get so weary and lose that initial spark of interest. Stations have an A, B and C-list where those in the ‘A’ playlist are the more popular and played; ‘C’ is the less-played/popular tracks. Maybe, in a streaming age, the best way to get people to take note of songs is through bombardment, but I am finding myself liking a new song at first and, within a matter of a few days, it has been played to death. Playlists cannot accommodate every new track that week/month, but I do wonder whether playlists focus on a few songs too much and over-play them. I tend to find that, as a regular listener to stations like BBC Radio 6 Music, I get turned off when some new tracks are played endlessly. In many cases, one song is played a lot after it comes off the playlist, so you hear it even more than you did when it was being spotlighted. In some cases, that artist has released an album and you tend to hear few songs from that album but nothing else.

PHOTO CREDIT: @gonarnaizpazos/Unsplash

I appreciate a single needs to get some decent airtime, but it is the relentless spinning of individual tracks that causes boredom and means, more often than not, a song loses its flavour – maybe that is the best tactic to get as many people listening, but there are great new songs that are played seldom or not at all. Not that this is a slight against any artist at all. They are trying their best and releasing great music, but even the biggest fan is not going to listen to the same song several times a day for weeks and weeks – maybe they will, but I find myself far less invested as time goes on. Many big radio stations do not have bespoke playlist of new songs they have featured. That way, people would be able to hear the songs and access them at their leisure, without hearing them multiple times a day when they are listening to the station. So many stations, too, do not have an archive of playlists, and I wonder why. When I was growing up, we did have stations spinning singles a bit, but it was not as intensive as it is now – not with so many different tracks, anyway. Also, in an age of social media and streaming, we all have greater access to songs through various platforms, so I wonder whether stations need to be quite so full-on with singles and their playlists. At a time when people are less interested in albums, maybe stations playing more album tracks (in addition to the single) would be better.

IMAGE CREDIT: BBC

Radio is still the best way to promote music and there are countless examples where I have heard a great new act because of various stations. If I was to miss a gem then I would be annoyed but, as I say, I think a weekly/monthly playlist link would avoid that possibility. Some stations have something fairly similar, but most do not. If you are a committed listener to a station, it can be irksome hearing a song rinsed whereas other tracks are either ignored or only played a couple of times. Even if we were back in the 1980s or 1990s, I would not want to hear the latest singles so regularly. There is also a problem where artists are releasing singles so close together so, not only do radio stations have to promote one track for a long time; they then need to accommodate another track soon after. This is more common in the Pop market. Rolling Stone investigated further in an article from last year:

“But for years, radio was focused on amplifying one single by an artist for weeks on end, extending the life of an album like Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream track by track for more than 18 months. Now program directors are scrambling to support multiple singles simultaneously. “The challenge is not whether to play a record that’s really popular that the listeners want,” explains Mark McCray, the VP of programming and operations for KBFB and KZMJ in Dallas. “The challenge is making sure those records are separated the best they possibly can be so the radio station doesn’t sound like ‘97.9, Cardi B radio.'”

 PHOTO CREDIT: @willfrancis/Unsplash

The urban and rhythmic radio formats — rhythmic encompasses hip-hop, R&B, pop, an occasional dance hit and some Latin music — have already been trying to master this balancing act. “In the 2010s, a few times we’ve had several songs by popular artists all being in rotation at once,” explains McCray. (One of his charges, KBFB, is a rhythmic station.) “This has happened with Rihanna, with Drake several times, with Beyonce.”

But now pop radio, which reaches the most listeners of any format, is being forced to handle similarly fast release schedules. That’s because artists like Drake and Post Malone, who would be considered urban radio fare five years ago, have become so big that pop programmers have to at least try to play them. Not only that, rappers have been so successful with never-ending-waterfall release strategies that pop stars, including Grande, are trying to do the same thing.

“It’s a fairly new problem for us,” Graham acknowledges. “You used to have a single go for three months, then the next one. Now it’s a drop every other Thursday. [Grande]’s revolutionizing that for pop radio.”

What’s the big deal? Well, radio playlists are tighter than they once were — fewer songs are in rotation, so each spot is more heavily contested. And pop programmers center their attention on a tiny handful of songs. “A Top 40 radio station is playing five songs 120 times a week every week,” one longtime radio promotions veteran told Rolling Stone last year. Those spots traditionally go to a Swift or a Grande or an Ed Sheeran”.

It is good that, playlisted artists are not seen as disposable and, as the article explains, an album can have its life extended for months – though I contend featuring just one or two tracks from it is not the best way of getting people invested in that album.

PHOTO CREDIT: @vidarnm/Unsplash

There is that conflict between supporting the bigger artists, or those who have the best songs out and being varied. Pop stations have to prioritise the most popular artists and stations with a wider remit are limited regarding the artists they feature. It is just that sensation of hearing a ‘new’ track being played for the nth time and, ironically, the same artist has brought out another single since then – it all seems like overkill. I am not sure whether a solution can be put in place where songs are given enough oxygen and time without suffocating the listener. With stations having social media accounts and access to Spotify, surely reducing storing songs there and having links on their social media means they could expand playlists; feature the same songs for two weeks and, afterwards file them in a library and then feature a rotation of fresh songs. This would mean artists on the original playlist are still available and visible, but it would be more varied and less overly-familiar for listeners. I am not the only one who gets a bit annoyed when the same tunes are hammered week after week to the point where you can’t stand the sound. Most people would say the solution to that is obvious: turn the radio off or change stations! The point is not my personal irritations and preferences; it is the way singles are marketed at a time when the charts are changing radically, and we can stream these tracks on platforms like Spotify or Tidal. Maybe focusing on a few songs and playing them a lot – rather than more tracks less frequently played – is best for artists, listeners and record labels, but it sort of puts me off as a fan of new music. Even though I like a lot of new songs, it can be a bit much hearing the same track cycled so much. I feel stations could change and artists would not suffer but, maybe, this is just…

IMAGE CREDIT: Andy Hook

THE way things have to be.