FEATURE: Love Wears No Disguise: Madonna’s Into the Groove at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

Love Wears No Disguise

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in a promotional image for Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)/PHOTO CREDIT: Rex Features

Madonna’s Into the Groove at Thirty-Five

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IT is not often I focus on a single…

and celebrates its anniversary – normally, I will tackle a whole album instead. One reason for marking Madonna’s Into the Groove as it approaches thirty-five is that it remains one of her most underrated tracks and is one of the best tracks from 1985. On 15th July, Into the Groove turns thirty-five, and I think it still sounds pretty fresh today. There are reports out that says Pop has got faster and happier this year and, whilst it might not reach the same levels as Madonna’s best, artists like Jessie Ware are definitely being inspired by the sort of Pop and Dance sounds Madonna was putting out in the mid-’80s. Originally intended for the soundtrack of the 1985 film, Desperately Seeking Susan (where Madonna’s role was praised by many), it made its way onto the reissue of Like a Virgin (1984) outside of America. One does not really hear of it too much these days, but big stars like Madonna was recording songs for film soundtracks and there were these great non-studio album cuts flying around! She did it a lot through her career, and I wonder what an album such as Like a Virgin would have sounded like with Into the Groove in the mix to bolster it! Put out as the fourth single from Like a Virgin (released as a single outside of the U.S.), I think Madonna’s sound would take a real turn and leap by the time True Blue arrived in 1986 – not that she had abandoned frivolous and fun; there was definitely more depth in her music, which was no bad thing!

I do think that a lot of modern Pop stars are updating songs like Into the Groove for 2020. Written and produced by Madonna and her then-boyfriend Stephen Bray (a frequent collaborator), there was a bit of friction between Madonna and her friend Mark Kamins, who the song was written for. Madonna did not inform him that Into the Groove was intended for the Desperately Seeking Susan soundtrack and, whilst it did not appear there, it showed that Madonna was pretty tough and was going to do things her way! Into the Groove is one of her tracks, like Cherish (that appears on Like a Prayer), where Madonna sort of dismissed it as a bit lame or dorky. She wrote Into the Groove about a Puerto Rican man who was suiting across the way from her on a fourth-floor walk-up on Avenue B (in Manhattan). Although the two got together and the relationship did not last long, Into the Groove is more a call to the dancefloor: somewhere Madonna felt at her most liberated and happiest. Just the fact that there was this simple story behind the song is great; a sort of lust that turned into a date but, more than that, she produced a song that ranks alongside her very best works! Madonna would release more iconic songs – including Like a Prayer, and Vogue -, but it showed that she was capable of penning these infectious hits that got people dancing.

As a songwriter, I feel Madonna was a lot stronger and more individual than many of her peers – who had teams writing tracks for them – and, by 1985, her voice was growing a lot stronger and more expressive. Though Into the Groove can be seen as quite a light confection, it has an evocative nature that provokes images of New York chic and effortless cool. Into the Groove was assessed by some as Madonna’s first great single – though I have a fondness for Material Girl (the second single from Like a Virgin) -and others have called it one of the 1980s’ greatest Pop anthems. Into the Groove originally was B-side for Like a Virgin’s third single, but it was released as a single by Sire Records in the U.K. on 15th July, 1985 (though some say the release date was 23rd July in the U.K., Discogs lists it as 15th July) – such was the impact of the song, it topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain; it became her first number-one song in the United Kingdom (it initially entered at four on the chart dated 27th July, 1985, becoming the highest-debuting single for any female artist in the history of the chart at that time). Rather than Into the Groove competing against Angel in the U.S., the fact it was a B-side meant that it was not eligible for the Billboard Hot 100. No matter. Into the Groove has taken on a life of its own, and Madonna herself has performed the song on tours. It appeared on the setlist to The Virgin Tour in 1985, and it  was added to the setlist of the 2008–2009 Sticky & Sweet Tour.

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna captured in 1985 by Herb Ritts

It goes to show that, despite the fact she wasn’t completely in love with the song back in 1985, she values it a lot and knows how much it means to fans. To mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Into the Groove being released in the U.K. (and countries outside of the U.S.), I wanted to give a nod to an awesome track – it’s B-side, Shoo-Bee-Doo, isn’t too bad either! Although my favourite Madonna song is Take a Bow – from 1994’s Bedtime Stories -, I think Into the Groove is one of her classics, and definitely one of the most fun tracks she ever released! Ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary, I have been listening to the song and not only realising how impactful and important it was in Madonna’s career: Into the Groove has endured through the decades and it is inspiring songwriters and Pop sounds today! Even if you are not a fan of Madonna’s work as a whole, one cannot deny the lure, energy, and passion of…  

THE incredible Into the Groove.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Mercury Prize Nominees and Winners

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Nadine Shah is surely guaranteed to be in the shortlist of this year’s Mercury Prize nominees after her recent album, Kitchen Sink, received hugely positive reviews - Shah was previously nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2018 for her album, Holiday Destination

Mercury Prize Nominees and Winners

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IT is that time of the year…

PHOTO CREDIT: @leecampbell/Unsplash

when we look forward to the Mercury Prize nominations. This year is a little different to previous ones, but there is every hope that the ceremony will take place, in some form, later in the year. The official Mercury Prize website provides more details:

“We, along with BBC Music, the Prize’s broadcast partner, believe that it is important in the current crisis to continue to showcase and celebrate the achievements of British & Irish artists and musicians.

The Shortlist of 12 Hyundai Mercury Prize Albums of the Year will be revealed on Thursday 23 July.

The overall winner of the 2020 Hyundai Mercury Prize will be announced on Thursday 10 September at the Awards Show, which is being held at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith. The event will celebrate the twelve shortlisted artists and their albums, with BBC Music providing live television and radio coverage of the event.

Hyundai Motor, the Mercury Prize’s title partner, will be celebrating the shortlisted artists and continuing to support innovations in British & Irish music”.

The first ceremony was held in 1992, and Primal Scream’s Screamadelica won that year. There have been some shocks and upsets through the years, and some titanic albums have walked away with the prize. In anticipation of 2020’s Mercury shortlist, here is a playlist that combines many of the Mercury Prize winners and nominees…

PHOTO CREDIT: @chrisyangchrisfilm/Unsplash

SINCE its start in 1992.

TRACK REVIEW: Rufus Wainwright - Only the People That Love

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Rufus Wainwright

PHOTO CREDIT: Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Only the People That Love

9.5/10

The track, Only The People That Love, is available from:

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

GENRE:

Singer-Songwriter

ORIGIN:

New York, U.S.A.

The album, Unfollow the Rules, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/rufus-wainwright/unfollow-the-rules

RELEASE DATE:

10th July, 2020

LABEL:

BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

PRODUCER:

Mitchell Froom

TRACKLIST:

Trouble in Paradise

Damsel in Distress

Unfollow the Rules

You Ain't Big

Romantical Man

Peaceful Afternoon

Only the People That Love

This One's for the Ladies (That Lunge!)

My Little You

Early Morning Madness

Hatred

Alone Time

__________

FOR this review…

PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

I wanted to write about Rufus Wainwright, because he is an artist I have liked for a long time. This year has been a brilliant one for music and, with a new album out, Rufus Wainwright has just added to that bounty. Unfollow the Rules is out, and it is one of the best albums from Wainwright’s career so far. I have a few things to cover off before I get to a song from the album, as there are quite a lot of different angles one can approach Wainwright from. As we are still locked down, gigs have not really been able to happen, and many artists have adapted by providing live music from their homes - I have seen photos on Facebook of Wainwright performing gigs. This article from GQ from earlier in the year talked about Wainwright’s intimate home gigs:

“With a career spanning more than two decades, eight albums, opera, Shakespeare and more epic covers than we care to count (remember his rendition of “Hallelujah”?), Rufus Wainwright has been a mainstay of the music scene since releasing his eponymous debut in 1998. He’s had his personal struggles – Elton John, who once called him “the greatest songwriter on the planet”, helped him get to rehab in 2004 – but now, aged 46, Wainwright says he’s never been better.

The son of folk icons Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, the singer-songwriter has been playing the piano since before he can remember and is famed for his legendary live shows. Now, Wainwright is bringing some of that same magic into the homes of fans across the world, performing a song a day on IGTV for the duration of coronavirus self-isolation”.

I think you can still see those gigs online, but Wainwright has been coping well under lockdown. I guess one does not have too much choice, but it has been an especially tough time for artists – who are used to being in front of crowds and are usually very busy at this time of year. It is a challenging time, and there are a few approaches artists can take. Many are avoiding the subject of COVID-19 when it comes to their own music; others are tackling it and mixing it right in there. Rufus Wainwright is someone, as it told Riff Magazine, who feels one to confront the subject:

“He feels strongly that artists need to be writing about what’s going on rather than avoiding it, even if it’s challenging.

“I think any creative person who doesn’t use this time to work and to kind of try to process what’s happening is not really an artist, to be honest,” he said. “The world needs to understand what’s happening. People, I think, are craving a kind of release, but also sort of a sort of poetic frame to view this in. When I say poetic, I don’t mean like fuzzy and nice. I mean something that they can meditate on”.

Of course, with lockdown, there have been stresses that every artist has felt. Many had been planning on putting an album out, but they have had to hold it back. Others have released albums early to give fans something to feel positive about, but Wainwrights was intending to release Unfollow the Rules earlier this year. I guess there is not a lot one can do about it, but he must have been disappointed having to hold back the album. When he spoke with The Current back in May, he reacted to the fact that his album would have to be delayed:

“So, Rufus, we've been phoning up various musicians to check in during this crisis. So off the bat, I'll say, how are you doing?

I'm very grateful for everything that I have. I mean, on the negative side, I've had to push the release of my album, Unfollow The Rules, to July 10. It was originally going to be out last week. But, we kept putting out tracks every day on Instagram and I'm working on other projects so there's a lot I can do in the meantime....and also in preparation. I also have a very nice home in the Hollywood Hills and I'm with my wonderful husband and beautiful daughter and, and our health is very good. We've known people who have been, you know, badly affected by this disease. A couple of friends have died and so we're familiar with where it can go. But all in all, I think I'm just incredibly grateful for all that I have and, and I also feel very remorseful for how it's gonna pan out for really the majority of the population because most people are going to lose their jobs or serious setbacks in their prospects. And so it's gonna be a rough, rough road but I think I'm gonna be okay.

And it's good to hear that and it's very heartening to hear the story of the balanced, mixed emotions that we all have. And I'm like this so I get that too. Before we chat about the new record and all of the complications they're in with pushing it back. I'm curious, does your daughter...if she's like my kids right now, is she playing a lot of video games?

It's funny because she's nine years old and there was a debate at one point when she got a computer and I always leaned on sort of the 12-year-old mark, which I know is probably a little later than most parents, but I was really kind of gunning for that. But you know, as soon as this occurred, this whole pandemic, you know, all of that went out the window. She has two computers now. One for school and one for us. And also we share custody with her mother. So, she goes back and forth. So, anyway, she has two computers and you know, she's communicating with her friends. She's not into video games, so much so. So we're kind of spared that. But yes, technology is definitely full-fledged into our child's life, which is a necessity”.

I wanted to include that question about Wainwright’s daughter, as that is something I will return to a bit later. I think, in spite of everything, Wainwright is doing okay right now. Lockdown has not been ideal or easy for anyone, but Wainwright has made it work. I have read a few interviews with Wainwright, and he has been very positive and looking forward. I want to sprinkle in interviews ahead of the review I am going to do, as I feel it is important to get a fuller picture of the artist. Just before lockdown happened, Rufus Wainwright spoke with The Independent, and he reflected on his situation in life and a new sense of domestic bliss:

“But look at him now. At 46, with a career spanning eight studio albums and two operas, Wainwright – now based in LA with his husband, German art director Jörn Weisbrodt – has a full head of dark, glossy hair and a carefully groomed beard the colour of burnished silver. I struggle to find anything but the faintest of laughter lines around the corners of his eyes, which are grey-green and set beneath expressive, copper-coloured eyebrows. I’m actually annoyed at how clear his skin is.

He’s feeling great, too. “What I’m realising right now is that in your forties, there’s this wonderful movement if you’ve taken care of yourself, which I have,” he says, sprawled on a sofa at his publicist’s office in St John’s Wood, London. “I’ve worked on that – I got off the highway and here I am, in this very sweet spot. You know death is coming, you can sense it. But you’re in good health, you’re still vaguely attractive, one of your parents is alive, people buy tickets to your shows, and your husband’s still gorgeous.” The forties are where it’s at, apparently, I say. He chuckles: “That’s because I’m here”.

There is a lot of positivity surrounding Rufus Wainwright, even if his album has been delayed but, now that it is out, he has been conducting interviews, and you can tell that he is relieved people get to hear Unfollow the Rules in full. Whilst Wainwright is satisfied about his life in general, I think there is this fear he has about America and where it is headed. You can hear that in some songs on the album; the sense that things are heading in the wrong direction and, under Donald Trump, America is becoming corrupted and poisoned. In terms of his attitudes towards Trump, Rufus Wainwright made it pretty clear in a recent interview with NME:

“Can you see America going down another path?

“You know, it’s funny. I was at a socially-distanced Fourth Of July thing the other day and speaking to an older French gentleman and lives in California. I asked him if he’d move back to Europe if Trump wins and the pandemic gets worse, and he said, ‘No, I love America. This is where my life is’. I was reminded of the fact that this is a great country and there are so many things about this place that are still very unique and special. Being that this is an election year and we need to go out and fight for this democracy, I feel that there’s something to fight for”.

With lockdown mentality and the Black Lives Matter protests, would you say there’s been a spike iempathy in America?

“There has, but I must say that it’s impossible to minimise the ineptitude and pure evil of this administration – in terms of just not caring about anybody’s lives. At first they said it was only the old, the sick and the dying who were at risk. Now they’re saying, ‘Well, if young people get it then they won’t die’. These kids are going to have scarred lungs. The amount of what I can’t describe as anything other than evil in our government is pretty breathtaking.”

The track ‘Hatred’ from your new album is pretty on-the-nose about dethroning Trump. Will you be playing that with a renewed passion when you tour again?

“Yes. There will be a residual trauma from this. However I’m in good health, everyone I know is, I live in sunny California, I have an album coming out, people interested in my work, there are projects on the horizon, so I feel very fortunate”.

Later this year, Americans will be able to vote and, hopefully, elect a new President. It is a hard time for everyone, and I think that Trump has made things a lot worse. The public can make a difference and, when they take to the ballot, make a change in America. It is no surprise that Wainwright and so many of his peers are so fired up regarding Trump and his ineptitude. In an interview with The Independent, he talked about making a change through voting and turning the tide:

“At the end of Unfollow the Rules, there’s a wildcard of a track called “Hatred”. It throws you out of the groove of the previous songs, gathering speed as the piano and violin race one another before colliding into a dystopian space-opera. All as Wainwright sings in that rare tenor, with its strange tipsy beauty, as though he’s only just mustering the strength to sound the words.

“I want people to listen to that song, then go and vote,” he says, referring to the forthcoming 2020 presidential race. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections, then Hillary Clinton. “I think it’s going to get really wild.”

He feels there’s a sense of discouragement around this election, which is “troubling”. Hope scares him. “Someone once told me, on a Greek island in the middle of the night, that hope is the same thing as fear,” he says. “They are synonymous. I stay away from hope, for now, but I am emboldened nonetheless to fight”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

I want to veer in a slightly different direction, as Wainwright has been tackling other musical avenues over the past few years, particularly Opera. When I listen to Rufus Wainwright’s albums, I always get this sense of the operatic and dramatic. Wainwright’s voice is tremendous, and he can make even the most tender songs seem absolutely beautiful and sweeping. Unfollow the Rules is Wainwright’s first ‘Pop’ album in a long time. Although the worlds of Opera and Classical have been in his life for a while, as he explained to Riff Magazine, they can be very tough indeed:

“Wainwright has spent much of the past decade away from the pop music world, concentrating on his first love—opera. He composed his first opera, “Prima Donna,” in 2009 and it was performed in London, New York, Paris, Buenos Aires and Hong Kong. His second, “Hadrian,” based on the relationship between Hadrian and a lover, premiered in 2018 in Toronto.

In 2016, he released an album of nine Shakespearean sonnets set to music. Although he wouldn’t share specifics, he said he’s also now working on a ballet project: “Rufus is going to the ballet very soon.”

He said he left the pop world behind because he had grown bored of it and the industry, which consisted of repetitive album cycles. But eventually, he was ready to return to his bread and butter.

“Having been away and also worked in the classical music world, which is incredibly brutal and very, very demanding and kind of poisonous at times, it gave me a new appreciation of the pop world and really made me kind of fall back in love with where I came from, which was the songwriting realm,” he said. “I think that this album kind of has … a freshness to it that I think rubs off”.

In order to get a fuller sense of Rufus Wainwright as an artist and human, I think one has to mention family – which is very important to him. The more I have read about Rufus Wainwright this week – when researching his new album – the more I have learned about his family.

I wanted to bring in a section from a review with The Independent, because we learn more about his daughter, Viva, and how his mother, Kate McGarrigle encouraged him to have a child – and how his daughter inspired the title of the album:

“The new album title suits Wainwright perfectly, but it was actually his nine-year-old daughter, Viva, who came up with it. (“She just walked into the living room and stated to everyone she would like to unfollow the rules, and then promptly marched out. I immediately took my quill and scribbled it down.”) She was conceived during a tumultuous time in Wainwright’s life, when his mother was dying of cancer. Viva’s mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen, meaning she is heir to a rather extraordinary musical dynasty (Weisbrodt is “deputy dad”).

McGarrigle had actively encouraged Wainwright to have a child, having apparently “caught wind” of his growing broodiness – “I think she knew she was on her way out and she wanted me to have someone,” he says with a smile. “The other thing was the thought of having a Wainwright-Cohen union was kind of formidable.” It was Lorca’s idea to have a child together, he says. “She was the driving force behind it, and I thank her every day for that. I’m really, really indebted to her.”

Since Viva was born, Wainwright’s relationship with his own father, songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, has shifted dramatically. “We had periods where we almost killed each other,” he says. “I wish I was speaking figuratively but it was pretty hairy at times.” He says they’ve had therapy together, but also thinks Viva has given him a new perspective of “what it’s like when your kid refutes you, or doesn’t want to give you a hug, or is lost in their own world”.

“It’s frightening as a parent,” he says. “[My father and I] were hanging out not too long ago, just a couple of years ago, we went for this walk and then at the end of the walk I said: ‘You know dad, being a dad now myself, I’m aware of how wonderful it is when a child voluntarily hugs their parent. Yeah, so I’m going to do that to you now.’ And I gave him a big hug and a kiss, and I think it was a good move”.

I can only imagine what it was like for Rufus Wainwright when it came to his relationship with his dad. Those years when they were not getting along sound pretty brutal. I just want to end this pre-review section with a section I found in an interview from inews, where Wainwright talked about his experiences of coming out and how, as a parent, some of his dad’s DNA has rubbed off on him:

“The musician, who came out to his parents at 18, has also inherited some of his father’s piercing honesty and doesn’t hold back on how much luckier (but also, in certain respects, less lucky) people coming out today are.

“I think coming out these days is a double-edged sword in the sense that it’s easier – which is essentially a good thing – and young people very much benefit from the information that’s out there and the community that’s ready to embrace them,” he says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

The opening to Only the People That Love is an acoustic guitar strum that moves into a drum crackle. There is that blend of grace and passion, that then leads to one of Rufus Wainwright’s most tender-yet-stately vocals. Every song Wainwright sings is gorgeous and affecting, but I wanted to focus on this track as I really love the vocal performance! “Only the people that love, may dream/In the world of the silent scream/Only the people that love/Mean gotta love mean” is the opening, and one is affected and stopped in their tracks by Wainwright. Backed by the beat of the drum – which is like a heartbeat and is more punctuating than it is accelerated – and acoustic strum, the vocal is sublime. The richness of his voice and the emotion pouring out is truly stunning. In terms of the song’s meaning, I am not sure whether it is motivated by a desire in his life, or whether it is a message to the people. The chorus arrives, and our hero sings about “Go on and do it/Love mean go ahead and do it/Love means go on and say it/Love means go ahead and say it”. The words to the chorus are delivered at a faster pace than the verse, but when he gets to the line “Love means go ahead and say it/Everything”, he holds that final word, and trembles under its weight. It is a powerful moment, and I love how Wainwright elongates various words and the affinity he has for language! One could read his lyrics and deliver them in a way that would not affect people as much as they should but, in Wainwright’s hands, every line is given importance and power. Maybe Wainwright has been reacting to the state of the world and how, in America, there seems to be more division than ever.

One cannot help but be impacted by how things are right now and, as well as campaigning for change, a sense of unity and tolerance is needed. Even though Unfollow the Rules is not a Classical or Opera album, you can definitely feel something operatic in the music! It is hard to explain, but Wainwright goes beyond the realms of Pop and Rock – or whatever genres you would class his music as -, and provides something that is almost like a work of art. “Only the people that love may cry/In the world of eternal goodbye/Everyone else oughta just die/Gotta love die, 'cause” is an intriguing passage, and one that got me thinking as to its origins. I have listened to Only the People That Love a few times, and I just drift away when hearing the track. Maybe it is the simplicity and power of Wainwright’s words and the possibilities they hold; perhaps it is that voice and the feelings it stirs inside someone! “Love dies, go on and do it/Love dies, go ahead and do it/Love dies, go on and say it/Love dies, go ahead and say it with your eyes/Go on and do it/Go ahead and do it/Go on and say it/Go ahead and say it/Don't be shy” is a verse one cannot help be moved by, not just because of the current situation and the extra strain on us all, but how meaningfully the words are sung. Wainwright’s voice is this extraordinary instrument that reaches deep into he heart and really makes an impact! In the chorus, where he says that only people who love will fly, I think that is a message that we can all get behind now! Only the People is a song that you will want to hear a few times round, as it is very moving and contains one of Rufus Wainwright’s standout vocals. It is a tremendous song from a truly incredible album.

In some ways, live music is starting to come back. There are socially-distanced gigs, and there is this transition period where we are getting a sense of normality back. It will be a while until venues can open and festivals start back up, but it is good that gigs can restart in some form. When Wainwright spoke to The Current, he was asked about the prospect of returning to the road and the type of show he might deliver:

“So as we're looking ahead to, at some point, when all of this subsides, you'll get back out on the road again. What sort of show do you have put together? Have you assembled exactly what you want the speed show to look like? What can we expect when you get back out?

I mean, I have an incredible band, who I feel terrible about having to let go for the meantime. We had a whole bunch of shows set up all over the world and those are not looking like they're going to happen but I will subsequently, you know, get them back when I can. I really felt for this album, Unfollow the Rules, that essentially, because it's a return to California and a return to my roots, musically, you know, from in terms of when I started my career 20 years ago. I was really focused on the songwriting and really focused on the kind of musicianship of all involved. I really wanted this tour to be somewhat streamed, slimmed down in the sense [that] it's really about the music and about me as an artist and kind of devoid of some of the more, you know, theatrical shenanigans, which I adore, and which will return. But for this project, I wanted it to be very, very kind of, you know, basic, essentially just about the songs”.

I urge people to and get Unfollow the Rules, as it is one of the best of Wainwright’s career. Whilst lockdown is not ideal, I think he has taken to it okay, and he has definitely kept himself busy! Going forward, I wonder whether Wainwright will return to Opera in some form, or whether he has another album similar to Unfollow the Rules in him. It will be exciting to see, as I think Rufus Wainwright is one of the most astonishing songwriter around. I shall leave things here, only to say go and get the new album and support a musician who…

HAS given so much to us all.

___________

Follow Rufus Wainwright

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

Official:

https://rufuswainwright.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/rufuswainwright

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/rufuswainwrightofficial/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/rufuswainwright/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2PfBzriIMRsCXPDtSy9vg8

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzV2sYMCYqhCEPGDtVj7dIA

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Rufus Wainwright

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Ten: Sheryl Crow

FEATURE:

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Ten: Sheryl Crow

___________

WHEN I was considering who should be…

in this week’s A Buyer’s Guide, I was listening to Sheryl Crow and noticing how great her albums are! I love her brilliant albums from the 1990s (and those afterwards for that matter!), and so many of the songs from them soundtracked my school days. Her last album, Threads, from last year may well be her very last. It is a shame but, since her debut in 1993, Crow has given the word some truly magnificent music. I really dig her lyrics and storytelling; her voice carries so many emotions and is instantly recognisable, and she can pen an epic chorus when she needs to! To honour one of the greatest artists of her generation, I have put together the Sheryl Crow albums that you need to own, the one that, to me, is underrated, and her latest record – in addition to a useful book that one should get a hold of. This is a tip of a cap to an artist who has given me…

SO much pleasure through the years.

_______________

The Four Essential Albums

Tuesday Night Music Club

Release Date: 3rd August, 1993

Label: A&M

Producer: Bill Bottrell

Standout Tracks: Run Baby Run/Leaving Las Vegas/What I Can Do for You

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Tuesday-Night-Music-Club/master/90311

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dC6axVAeBDpRMmNtRbpwU

Review:

“Sheryl Crow earned her recording contract through hard work, gigging as a backing vocalist for everyone from Don Henley to Michael Jackson before entering the studio with Hugh Padgham to record her debut album. As it turned out, things didn't go entirely as planned. Instead of adhering to her rock & roll roots, the record was a slick set of contemporary pop, relying heavily on ballads. Upon hearing the completed album, Crow convinced A&M not to release the album, choosing to cut a new record with producer Bill Bottrell. Along with several Los Angeles-based songwriters and producers, including David Baerwald, David Ricketts, and Brian McLeod, Bottrell was part of a collective dubbed "the Tuesday Night Music Club." Every Tuesday, the group would get together, drink beer, jam, and write songs. Crow became part of the Club and, within a few months, she decided to craft her debut album around the songs and spirit of the collective. It was, for the most part, an inspired idea, since Tuesday Night Music Club has a loose, ramshackle charm that her unreleased debut lacked. At its best -- the opening quartet of "Run, Baby, Run," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Strong Enough," and "Can't Cry Anymore," plus the deceptively infectious "All I Wanna Do" -- are remarkable testaments to their collaboration, proving that roots rock can sound contemporary and have humor. That same spirit, however, also resulted in some half-finished songs, and the preponderance of those tracks make Tuesday Night Music Club better in memory than it is in practice. Still, even with the weaker moments, Crow manages to create an identity for herself -- a classic rocker at heart but with enough smarts to stay contemporary. And that's the lasting impression Tuesday Night Music Club leaves” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: All I Wanna Do

Sheryl Crow

Release Date: 24th September, 1996

Label: A&M

Producer: Sheryl Crow

Standout Tracks: A Change Would Do You Good/Home/If It Makes You Happy

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Sheryl-Crow/release/442516

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/49fcfLcicBYSqitKzXDJpN

Review:

“Crow’s voice sounds more assured when she’s sober. The critically-hailed singer took full-reign of the production duties, partially in response to suggestions that she was a mere puppet to her all-male Tuesday Night Music Club. As such, there’s a palpable, fear-driven ambition to the album. Her drive paid off and not only did Crow avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, but Sheryl Crow is easily her greatest achievement. The album’s lead single, the crunchy rocker “If It Makes You Happy,” was both a retort to the criticism she received as well as a fatigued reflection on two years of fame and touring (which included a stint at Woodstock ‘94, specifically referenced here). While the structure of the single is fairly straightforward, other tracks are filled with quirky, stream-of-conscious lyrics (pop-culture references abound: to Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Ouija boards, etc.) and a collage of drum loops, organs, and layered voices. Songs like “Ordinary Morning,” with its lazy piano figures and raw blues vibe, are cushioned comfortably next to loopy tracks like “Maybe Angels” and understated folk ballads like “Home,” in which Crow recounts the emotional strains of a deteriorating marriage.

As always, Crow’s lyrics take a decidedly moralistic stance but never sound preachy. “Hard to Make a Stand” touches on abortion clinic terrorism while “Love Is a Good Thing” sees the solution to the world’s problems in the same four-letter word so many other rockers have enthusiastically endorsed over the years. Crow makes subtle references to the Beatles’ “Love Is All You Need,” but not before giving us a dose of modern reality: “Watch our children while they kill each other/With a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores.” This is certainly not the same hippie mentality of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and one can’t help but think that Crow is a tad less confident with her miracle product than, say, Lennon ever was. “These are the days when anything goes,” she sings on the buoyant “Everyday Is a Winding Road,” and the sentiment speaks for both the song’s playful optimism and the album’s sonic adventurousness. Crow has had some other great moments (“Leaving Las Vegas,” “My Favorite Mistake”), but none of her other full-length albums have been as consistent, immaculately produced or distinctly modern” – SLANT

Choice Cut: Everyday Is a Winding Road

The Globe Sessions

Release Date: 21st September, 1998

Label: A&M

Producer: Sheryl Crow

Standout Tracks: There Goes the Neighborhood/The Difficult Kind/Mississippi

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-The-Globe-Sessions/master/130301

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/08enrSAkHTYkQwhRlKXQgB

Review:

“Since her dense, varied, postmodernist eponymous second album illustrated that Sheryl Crow was no one-album wonder, she wasn't left with as much to prove the third time around. Having created an original variation on roots rock with Sheryl Crow, she was left with the dilemma of how to remain loyal to that sound without repeating herself on her third album, The Globe Sessions. To her credit, she never plays lazy, not when she's turning out Stonesy rockers ("There Goes the Neighborhood") or when she's covering Dylan (the remarkable "Mississippi," an outtake from Time Out of Mind). However, she has decided to abandon the layered, yard-sale production and pop culture fixations that made Sheryl Crow a defining album of the mid-'90s. The Globe Sessions, instead, is the work of a craftswoman, one who knows how to balance introspective songs with pop/rockers, one who knows how to exploit her signature sound while becoming slightly more eclectic. In that sense, the album is a lot like a latter-day album from her idols, the Stones -- it finds pleasures within the craft and the signature sounds themselves. That means that there are no surprises (apart from the synthesized handclaps, of course). The Celtic homage "Riverwide" may be new, but it's not unexpected, much like how the whiplash transition in "Am I Getting Through" isn't entirely out of the blue. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, since The Globe Sessions has a strong set of songs. Since it lacks the varied sonics, humor, and flat-out weirdness of Sheryl Crow, it's never quite as compelling a listen as its predecessor, yet it is a strong record, again confirming Crow's position as one of the best roots rockers of the '90s” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: My Favorite Mistake

Feels like Home 

Release Date: 10th September, 2013

Labels: Old Green Barn/Sea Gayle Music/Warner Bros. Nashville

Producers: Sheryl Crow/Justin Niebank

Standout Tracks: Shotgun/Callin’ Me When I’m Only/Homecoming Queen

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Feels-Like-Home/master/600820

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LYNsXNQUGSZlHnjw7K01s

Review:

“Sheryl Crow is nothing if not versatile: A former Michael Jackson backup singer who mixes pop, country, R&B and classic rock, she’s built a career as an outspoken singer-songwriter and a Grammy-friendly go-to collaborator. Her eighth LP digs deeper into country tradition than she’s ever gone before. The results are uneven, but never feel forced or faked. The ultimate stylistic diplomat, Crow makes every twang her own. It helps to have major Nashville songwriting firepower: Luke Laird, Brad Paisley, Shane McAnally and Chris DuBois help Crow serve a half-century’s worth of styles without sounding like a history teacher. The lushly orchestrated, tear-jerking Paisley-co-write “Waterproof Mascara” and the Loretta Lynn/Bobbie Gentry-style “Drinking” (about getting “shitfaced” on a Wednesday night, instead of rolling “a big fat one and watchin’ Nashville alone”) update vintage countrypolitan and honky-tonk sounds. “Shotgun” and “Easy” are smart, airbrushed ’00s mainstream contenders in the spirit of Miranda Lambert and country’s tough new radio sweethearts. Crow still sounds most at home on the rockers – especially the steel-laced “Callin’ Me When I’m Lonely” and the Bad Company bow “Nobody’s Business.” But this set suggests the Opry crowd might want to keep her on speed dial” – Rolling Stone

Choice Cut: Easy

The Underrated Gem

Wildflower  

Release Date: 27th September, 2005

Label: A&M

Producers: Sheryl Crow/Jeff Trott/John Shanks

Standout Tracks: Good Is Good/Lifetimes/Always on Your Side

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Wildflower/master/130310

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1MhK8H2ZRTgCIljAz2EzFM

Review:

“Whether she’s pondering the afterlife in ”Letter to God” or blandly wondering ”Where Has All the Love Gone,” Sheryl Crow clearly wants Wildflower to be a bit more somber and reflective than her recent, interchangeable albums. But while there’s no denying the craft in the yearning ”I Don’t Wanna Know” or the sternly devotional ”Lifetimes,” her fondness for overblown L.A.-rock clichés undercuts the intimacy she’s after; the music sounds homogenized. Crow has become like my General Electric oven: dependable, reliable, and not very exciting” – Entertainment Weekly

Choice Cut: Perfect Lie

The Latest/Final Album

Threads 

Release Date: 30th August, 2019

Label: Big Machine

Producers: Steve Jordan/Sheryl Crow/Jeff Trott

Standout Tracks: Prove You Wrong/Redemption Day/Border Lord

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Threads/master/1598632

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1pJGYnd7uAJe5Behy75EK1

Review:

“Someone who definitely is not shunted into a secondary role is Johnny Cash, who sings a “duet” with Crow on “Redemption Day,” a song she wrote and recorded for her second album and which he covered as part of his latter-day run with Rick Rubin. Her remake of the song is so startlingly good and haunting — with not much more than a piano backing and some striking chordal changes that render it even more melancholy — that it almost seems like gilding, or interrupting, the lily to suddenly have Cash’s voice come in from the afterworld. But his autumnally vulnerable and sweet voice and her unshakable one sound so good ‘n’ sad together that you may override any biases you harbor about grave-spanning collaborations and embrace this one as the spooky triumph it is.

No doubt Crow means it when she says this is it for her as an album artist — she’s been saying it for the couple of years that she’s been promising “Threads.” But will she stick with it, or is declaring that you’re abandoning making music in the supposedly passe album form the modern-day equivalent of going on your first “farewell” tour? “Threads” is strong enough that we should probably all agree now not to shame her if she goes back on her word” – Variety

Choice Cut: Everything Is Broken

The Sheryl Crow Book

The Words and Music of Sheryl Crow (Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection)

Author: Christopher Gable

Publication Date: 6th September, 2016

Publisher: Praeger

Synopsis:

“Offering commentary, musical analysis, and detailed interpretation of her songs' lyrics, this book examines the qualities of Sheryl Crow's music that have served to establish the artist's success and popularity. * Presents an in-depth and complete listening guide to all of Crow's songs, including B-sides and rarities * Features insightful commentary with song analysis * Includes a glossary of musical and technical terms for the non-specialist” - Abe Books

Buy: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781440831287/Words-Music-Sheryl-Crow-Praeger-1440831289/plp

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Pub/Drink-Related Tracks

FEATURE:

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @andrew_wong

Pub/Drink-Related Tracks

___________

IN the next Lockdown Playlist…

PHOTO CREDIT: @gitfo/Unsplash

I am reacting to the fact pubs are open again. Whilst we all have to be responsible and keep our distance, it is good that some sense of normality is creeping back in. I have not been out to the pub yet, but I will do in the next couple of months. In honour of the re-openings, I have put together a selection of pub/drink-related songs that are either anthemic in their nature or mention an alcoholic beverage. It may be a bit tenuous but, as the weather is warming and it is still summer, I think it fits just nicely! If you require some kick to get you through the weekend, then I think I have a set of songs that should…

PHOTO CREDIT: @fwed/Unsplash

WORK their magic!

FEATURE: Change of the Guard: A New Chapter for BBC Radio 6 Music

FEATURE:

 

Change of the Guard

IN THIS PHOTO: BBC Radio 6 Music’s new Head, Samantha Moy/PHOTO CREDIT: International Radio Faces

A New Chapter for BBC Radio 6 Music

___________

THIS will be a brief article…

IMAGE CREDIT: BBC

but, as I am a huge BBC Radio 6 Music fan, I wanted to talk about a big change that has happened. When we listen to a radio station, we think about the broadcasters and the artists played, but how often do we think about those behind the scenes?! I think the success of stations like BBC Radio 6 Music relies as much on those away from the microphone as it does the on-air talent. The brilliant Paul Rodgers is the Senior Head of Commissioning at BBC Radio 6 Music, and he has helped take the station to new heights. I will talk about the importance of BBC Radio 6 Music in a bit but, this week, Samantha Moy was appointed Head at the station. This Music Week article explains more:

“Samantha Moy has been named as the new head of station for BBC Radio 6 Music.

Moy has been 6 Music’s head of content commissioning since 2018, having previously worked as the station’s network editor.

Paul Rodgers, currently senior head of commissioning for 6 Music, is leaving the BBC this summer.

Lorna Clarke, BBC controller of pop, said: “Using her wide range of experience in broadcast production, Sam will continue to evolve this exciting radio station that means so much to music lovers. ”

Moy said: “I’m privileged and honoured to be appointed to lead BBC Radio 6 Music – a radio station made for and made by music lovers. The relationship with our audience has gone from strength to strength, as our brilliant presenters, supported by our talented production teams, have provided the perfect combination of music, conversation and connection during these challenging times. I’m proud to lead this fantastically creative and inspiring team, who I know feel as passionately about 6 Music as I do.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Laverne/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

Moy started her career in radio at Kiss in London, joining independent production company Somethin’ Else to produce programmes for Radio 1, Radio 2 and the BBC World Service. She joined BBC Radio 1 in 2002 where she produced the Evening Session, Jo Whiley and the Live Lounge, The Chris Moyles Show, Greg James and Annie Mac amongst others. Moy was also an event producer at the BBC Electric Proms in 2008-9, broadcast on BBC TV and radio.

She joined 6 Music and latterly Radio 2 as executive producer, overseeing shows like Steve Lamacq, Steve Wright in the Afternoon and projects including The Peel Lecture with Charlotte Church and the Sound of Style season in collaboration with BBC 4.

In her current role, Moy’s commissions have included Stay Home Rave Safe Saturday series, The Wu-Tang Clan Radio Show, the Rose D’or and New York Festival Radio award winning Amazing Grace and the Independent Venue Week Tour. She also leads on the annual 6 Music Festival, which was held in Camden earlier this year.

Moy is a mentor for the Sandy Chalmers Women in Radio scheme and has taken part in the Women in Music series at the Southbank Centre and at the BPI.

6 Music currently has a record 2.56m weekly listeners on air.

Moy will start her new role on August 17. The 6 Music position is one of five new head of station roles responsible for the BBC’s pop music networks”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Huey Morgan/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

I think Moy’s appointment/promotion is a great move, and she will bring a lot of new impetus and strength to a station that continues to grow and inspire. I am excited to see how BBC Radio 6 Music evolves and moves as we head through 2020 and beyond. It is a challenging time to come into a new role, and I think Moy will have to make a lot of important decisions as we slowly ease out of lockdown and think about returning to near-normal. I think Moy will ensure that BBC Radio 6 Music continues its incredible trajectory regarding new listeners, and I will be interested to see whether new blood is brought into the station. Regardless of any speculation regarding alterations, I know Moy will do a phenomenal job and help bring BBC Radio 6 Music to new ears. The station has been a beacon for many of us as we continue with lockdown and cannot enjoy life as we once did. I have listened to the station more than ever during the past few months, and I have discovered strength and solace listening to an always-reliable fountain of uplift. I listen to Chris Hawkins from about 6 a.m., and I keep it tuned to Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbs/Shaun Keaveny, and Steve Lamacq; I tune in at the weekend and make sure I catch Radcliffe and Maconie in the mornings.

IN THIS PHOTO: Mark Radcliffe (front) and Stuart Maconie/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

As BBC Radio 6 Music continues to accumulate listeners and expand, many wonder whether it is an alternative station that strays away from the predictable mainstream. I think, even though BBC Radio 6 Music has built and grown in popularity, it maintains its blend of originality and the rare; in that the music played is different to other stations, and the broadcasters have kept their individual shows constant. I think a radio station can be underground and alternative and have an army of listeners. I know Samantha Moy will help get the listener figures to (new) record highs, whilst bringing in some great ideas – in addition to incredible strong leadership. It is an exciting time for BBC Radio 6 Music because I feel this pandemic has brought a lot of new listeners their way. It is hard to say what the secret ingredient is, but the musical depth and versatility is incredible – the station was accused of being too guitar-based in the early years. From presenters like Tom Robinson backing the best new artists around, to Craig Charles providing an enormously energised and brilliant show, there is so much to enjoy. All the broadcasters at the station put their everything into the shows, and the dedication and passion is addictive. I have loved listening to BBC Radio 6 Music and hearing listener emails and correspondences read out; seeing how vital the station is and what it means to them. With rising listening figures, a new Head, and a loyal family of listeners, BBC Radio 6 Music keeps getting…

IN THIS PHOTO: Mary Ann Hobbs/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

BETTER and better.

FEATURE: Definitely NOT a Hammer Horror! In Defence of Kate Bush’s Lionheart

FEATURE:

 

Definitely NOT a Hammer Horror!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Lionheart photo session/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz/PHOTO CONCEPT: John Carder Bush

In Defence of Kate Bush’s Lionheart

___________

SO many times…

I have extolled the virtues of Kate Bush’s 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside, and how it is my favourite album ever. There are a number of reasons why the album remains so captivating. Songs like Wuthering Heights, and The Man with the Child in His Eyes are classics; Bush had time and freedom to write the songs and bring everything together and, whilst the album was recorded fairly quickly, there was no sense anything was rushed – in fact, Bush wrote The Man with the Child in His Eyes in the early-Seventies! One can sympathise with Kate Bush in the wake of The Kick Inside’s release. The album was put out in February of 1978, and its first single, Wuthering Heights, was official released the month before. Because of the success of Wuthering Heights and the growing attention that came her way, Bush’s promotional schedule was insane! She was traveling all over the world; she visited Japan and Europe, and demands were coming her way – she was offered the support slot in Fleetwood Mac’s massive Rumours tour! Not only was Bush promoting her album/music on T.V., but she was speaking with the press and barely had a moment to rest. Whereas Bush’s debut album was the result of a lot of preparation and material that had been written before she entered the studio, Lionheart was a rushed album that reacted to the success of The Kick Inside. Bush had loose plans for a U.K. tour, but they were held back because of her schedule and everything else happening.

Whilst The Kick Inside was recorded in the reputable (if not glamorous) AIR Studios, London, Lionheart was recorded at Super Bear Studios, Berre-les-Alpes, France. No doubt, the mountain views and swimming pool by the studio would have made for a relaxing and inspiring setting…but recording for Lionheart ran from July to September 1978 – with gaps in that period -; The Kick Inside was released seven months before Lionheart was complete! At times, Bush was promoting The Kick Inside whilst working on material for her follow-up. The fact that both albums overlapped was always going to be a problem. Because EMI wanted a quick follow-up to The Kick Inside, the majority of the songs for Lionheart were from Bush’s pre-debut days – the only newly-written songs were Symphony in Blue, Full House, and Coffee Homeground. Most of the musicians who appeared on The Kick Inside were used for Lionheart – though Bush wanted to her own band to play on the album -, and Del Palmer featured for the first time – he played bass, and would appear on Bush’s albums from then on (and would go on to engineer her albums). As I have said before, Lionheart is a classic ‘difficult second album’, in the sense it follows a massively important debut, and Bush was faced with the unenviable task of completing an album very quickly, with the shadow of her debut very much in her sights.

There were obvious problems that mean Lionheart was never going to ignite the same way as The Kick Inside. Many of the songs on the album were similar-sounding to her work on The Kick Inside, whereas a lot of critics bemoaned the lack of evolution and change. If you release two albums in the same year, there is unlikely to be radical progress between the two. I am not sure what people were expecting, but there are impressive steps forward, even though Bush was demoing songs for Lionheart whilst she was recovering from the promotion of The Kick Inside! Symphony in Blue is one of the most mature and beautiful songs she ever recorded, whereas Wow makes for a wonderful single. I will come to the songs themselves soon but, in terms of the recording experience, she was fighting against different voices. Though Bush was not experienced enough to produce solo, she did assist Andrew Powell – who produced The Kick Inside -, but one suspects that she would have liked more control and the ability to craft the album in her own vision. EMI wanted an album that was similar to The Kick Inside, but Bush wanted one that reacted against that album. As it turned out, neither really got their way. The mix of few new songs and older ones worked up quickly resulted in quite an inorganic and incomplete experience. The luxury of the studio setting and the heat of the setting would have provided positivity, but I think the struggle regarding Bush wanting her own band and Powell/EMI preferring the same band from The Kick Inside would have affected Bush.

Her band lacked necessary studio experience, so I think the right call was made. The final overdubs and bits were added to Lionheart in September 1978, but it was clear that Bush would change the way she worked (and who she worked with) going forward. Bush was a very diplomatic and nurturing artist who gave her musicians room to interpret and experiment a bit but, whilst not a perfectionist, Bush would do multiple takes for various songs – never quite happy with what she was doing. That sort of self-criticism and demand would have been hard enough if she had sufficient time to germinate and mother song but, when faced with a tight deadline, there were clear worries. When Lionheart arrived in November 1978, there was a feeling that a lot of the songs were half-cooked or lacking the depth and fascination of The Kick Inside’s gems. Having read biographies, reviews and articles that mention Lionheart, and few have anything truly encouraging to say about the album! Indeed, Kate Bush herself has sort of dismissed the album – she sort of views The Kick Inside-The Dreaming (1982) as a time when she was still trying to find her peak; Hounds of Love was the breakthrough and truest representation of her sound and brilliance.

In their review, this is what AllMusic wrote:

“Proving that the English admired Kate Bush's work, 1978's Lionheart album managed to reach the number six spot in her homeland while failing to make a substantial impact in North America. The single "Hammer Horror" went to number 44 on the U.K. singles chart, but the remaining tracks from the album spin, leap, and pirouette with Bush's vocal dramatics, most of them dissipating into a mist rather than hovering around long enough to be memorable. Her fairytale essence wraps itself around tracks like "In Search of Peter Pan," "Kashka From Baghdad," and "Oh England My Lionheart," but unravels before any substance can be heard. "Wow" does the best job at expressing her voice as it waves and flutters through the chorus, with a melody that shimmers in a peculiar but compatible manner. Some of the tracks, such as "Coffee Homeground" or "In the Warm Room," bask in their own subtle obscurity, a trait that Bush improved upon later in her career but couldn't secure on this album. Lionheart acts as a gauge more than a complete album, as Bush is trying to see how many different ways she can sound vocally colorful, even enigmatic, rather than focus on her material's content and fluidity. Hearing Lionheart after listening to Never for Ever or The Dreaming album, it's apparent how quickly Bush had progressed both vocally and in her writing in such a short time”.

If Lionheart underperformed from a critical standpoint, one can argue that it was a success commercial. It peaked at number six in the album chart in the U.K., and it reached the top five in several nations. Wow went to fourteen in the U.K. singles chart, and Hammer Horror reached the top forty in various countries – though it only hit forty-four here. Although the public were eager to buy Lionheart and its singles, it must have been an odd experience for many, who were still hearing about The Kick Inside and were possibly not expecting a new album from Bush so soon! Despite some flaws and overly-strict expectations from EMI, I think there are positives that can be found on Lionheart. The cover photo is, in my view, one of her very best. I never really liked the cover for The Kick Inside, as Bush is sort of buried in the design; the Oriental motif seems a bit puzzling, and I thought that the intended single cover for Wuthering Heights from Gered Mankowitz – which was not used because you could see Bush’s nipples in one photo, and that image was plastered around when it shouldn’t have been and was not seen as appropriate – would have made a better album cover – one can see that image (with cropped nipples!) on the Japanese release of The Kick Inside. Gered Mankowitz did get to shoot the cover for Lionheart (from a concept by Bush’s brother, John), and I really love it!

Shot to look like a bit of a dusty-yet-magical attic, Bush is seen on a wooden toybox dressed in a lion’s costume (apart from the head). It is a wonderful shot, and it projects a sense of the mysterious, child-like and beautiful! Whereas one can link the cover of The Kick Inside to songs like Kite (the cover does feature Bush mounted on a kite), I feel one can link many of Lionheart’s songs to its cover – including In Search of Peter Pan, Wow, Oh England My Lionheart, and In the Warm Room. Some have suggested that Lionheart is the sort of out-takes album, as many of the songs included on the album were not considered/used on The Kick Inside. I think it was the case that Bush had so many songs for her debut, that she had to draw a line. Whilst Wow would have made a better lead single for Lionheart than Hammer Horror, I actually really like Hammer Horror. Of course, Bush would take to the stage in 1979 for her Tour of Life, and all the songs from Lionheart were reimagined in the most stunning manner! It might have been the case that the Tour of Life was when Lionheart’s tracks really purred and roared, but I listen to the album now and I can see many positives. Like The Kick Inside, the tracklisting is flawless. We start with the gorgeous Symphony in Blue. The Kick Inside could have led with Kite, or James and the Cold Gun, but it opened with Moving and worked up to its more electric tracks.

Symphony in Blue is one of those ‘new’ songs for Lionheart that is as sumptuous, elegant and arresting as anything on her debut. In fact, I think Symphony in Blue is a track that would have been a successful single in the U.K. – it was released in Japan and Canada -, and it is a stunning opener! In Search of Peter Pan follows, and it is a hugely underrated track. It has the same beauty as Symphony in Blue, but it takes us into a different headspace. This is how Bush described the track:

“There's a song on [Lionheart] called 'In Search Of Peter Pan' and it's sorta about childhood. And the book itself is an absolutely amazing observation on paternal attitudes and the relationships between the parents - how it's reflected on the children. And I think it's a really heavy subject, you know, how a young innocence mind can be just controlled, manipulated, and they don't necessarily want it to happen that way. And it's really just a song about that. (Lionheart promo cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)”.

Wow is perfectly placed as the third track, and it gives the album its first real energy boost. Replete with a hooky and whirling chorus, Wow is one of Bush’s most-loved tracks. Its video is cheeky and beguiling, and we are only three tracks in yet have witnessed so much diversity and quality. As much as I love The Kick Inside, I think Lionheart is more ambitious, lyrically broader and sonically diverse. I think Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake is a more successful rocker than James and the Cold Gun, and it is another track that could have made for a good single – Bush performed a brilliant routine for it for her Tour of Life.

Combining descriptions of heartache and motoring imagery, I think the song is really clever and gutsy, where Bush lets her voice fly. I can see why it would not have been suitable for an album like The Kick Inside, which is more elegiac and already had two faster, harder-flying tracks in Kite, and James and the Cold Gun. Finishing the first side on a similar sonic and soft note as the opening, we get the divisive Oh England My Lionheart. Kate Bush lauded the track when Lionheart came out, but she has, in years since, brushed the track off as being naff and embarrassing. I think the production on the track is not brilliant, and it would have been good to hear Bush’s piano higher in the mix and heard more often. This is what Bush said about the song back in 1978:

“It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away, you know, "ah, the wonderful England'' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like "I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just a exploration of that. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)”.

I really love Oh England My Lionheart and, whilst I am not a big fan of the recorder, we get a sound of classic England and history on this track. It is a beautiful way to end Lionheart’s first side – with a sort of title track! This fascinating article goes into more depth about Oh England My Lionheart and its context:

“The title track “Oh England My Lionheart” engages with this British tradition. It is a classical song in a fair few regards. Unlike most of Bush’s music, the song is played features acoustic instruments exclusively, including Richard Harvey’s recorder and Francis Monkman’s harpsichord. If reading that you thought “huh, this sounds like a Renaissance song,” you would be correct. Bush described the song as being done “madrigally.” It’s not difficult to imagine “Oh England My Lionheart” being used in a classicist production of Twelfth Night. “Lionheart” sounds like a folk song, with its fixed structure of repeated chords, its descending melody, and its lengthy descriptions of scenery. This isn’t the first time Bush has interacted with folk music, of course. Bush often imbues antiquated styles with her own vision of strange things. With “Oh England My Lionheart” she takes the folk ballad and takes it on a tour through England, from the Thames to London Bridge to Kensington Park. Yet for its breadth, “Oh England My Lionheart” is dreary, positively crawling through its three minutes and twelve seconds. Bush is outright crooning in this song, doing little heavy lifting on lyrics like “give me one wish/and I’d be wassailing.” It’s an uncharacteristically mellow performance with an iffy production. Few songs could get over these hurdles, and “Oh England My Lionheart” is put to the test by them.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush poses in her home in September 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

The production does the song a disservice, as it makes “Oh England My Lionheart” sound more conservative than it actually is. It’s easy to read the song as a nationalist ballad, but “Lionheart” is more nuanced than that. The song narrowly treads a line with its war-inflected imagery, but let’s look at exactly what Bush explores here. She’s living in a postwar England where “the air raid shelters are blooming clover.” “Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge,” Bush sings as if the country is going to land on her. Pastoral England is growing over wartime England. The country is a romantic lead here, giving solitude to those in it. “Oh England My Lionheart” is a return to Bush songs about spying on an inaccessible love. Bush cries “I don’t want to go” in the outro, desperate for her country to stay with her. Without England, there is no Kate Bush, and she knows it”.

I concede the fact that Lionheart’s second side is a little weaker that the first, as it does not contain a song as big as Wow. After the madrigal tones of Oh England My Lionheart, the vinyl flips and we get something that heralds a new direction for Kate Bush. Full House is another underrated jewel, and it is a song that sort of takes us into the mind of Kate Bush and how she was feeling at the time. As Full House was one of three new songs for Lionheart, it is a diary of a woman who was under a lot of strain and pressure.

The pre-chorus – though Bush might claim it is not autobiographical -, is quite haunting: “Imagination sets in/Then all the voices begin/Telling you things that aren't happening/But they nig and they nag/'til they're under your skin”. Bush’s voice swoons and soars, and I think Full House shows the leaps Bush made as a writer in such a short space; never willing to repeat herself and stay in the same lyrical and thematic wheelhouse. In the Warm Room has been simultaneously singled out as a highlight and miss by various sources. I agree that it is very similar to songs from The Kick Inside such as Feel It, and L'Amour Looks Something Like You, it is no way inferior. Lionheart has a nice blend of where Bush would head with Never for Ever (her third album, released in 1980) and where she came from. It might not be one of the best five tracks from Lionheart, but I adore the chorus and the sheer crystal-clear quality of Bush’s singing. Bush was asked onto the children's T.V. programme Ask Aspel, where she wanted to present In the Warm Room, but the BBC felt this song was too explicitly sexual, so she opted for Kashka from Baghdad – a song about two homosexual lovers! I do love how Bush was raising eyebrows! This is what Kate Bush remarked about In the Warm Room in an interview from 1979:

“I'm always getting accused of being a feminist. Really I do write a lot of my songs for men, actually. In fact, 'In The Warm Room' is written for men because there are so many songs for women about wonderful men that come up and chat you up when you're in the disco and I thought it would be nice to write a song for men about this amazing female. And I think that I am probably female-oriented with my songs because I'm a female and have very female emotions but I do try to aim a lot of the psychology, if you like, at men. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”.

The Kick Inside sported thirteen tracks, whereas Lionheart only has ten. I that concision works in its favour, as Bush might have felt pressured to rush a few new tracks or put some songs on the album that are more B-side material. I have heard some demos from pre-1978, and there are some interesting songs that would have fitted on Lionheart – including Humming (recorded in 1973, in 2018, the track was finally released as part of the Remastered box set, on the album The Other Side 2), and Scares Me Silly (recorded as a demo, presumably in 1977). Kashka from Baghdad is a great track that includes some joanna strumentum and strumento de porco (psaltery), mandocello and pan flute. It is one of her most instrumentally adventurous and exotic tracks, and I do love the subject matter. To add some depth, I want to bring in Kate again and her interpretation (these quotes and recollections are taken from the excellent Kate Bus Encyclopaedia):

“That actually came from a very strange American Detective series that I caught a couple of years ago, and there was a musical theme that they kept putting in. And they had an old house, in this particular thing, and it was just a very moody, pretty awful serious thing. And it just inspired the idea of this old house somewhere in Canada or America with two people in it that no-one knew anything about. And being a sorta small town, everybody wanted to know what everybody what else was up to. And these particular people in this house had a very private thing happening. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”.

Two of the most original and unusual tracks are reserved until the end. Coffee Homeground inspired a years-running Kate Bush fanzine, HomeGround, and it includes some wonderful synthesizer from Duncan Mackay. Bush was inspired by a taxi driver she encountered – who she described as a bit nutty -, and the song concerns someone who thinks there is belladonna in their tea and that whenever they offer them something to eat, it's got poison in it. One can look at Coffee Homeground as a companion to Full House, in the sense both songs drip with paranoia – can Coffee Homeground be seen as more personal? Bush worried about her decisions and how her career was being directed? The track is one of the weaker offerings, but I love the fact it is humorous and original; not just another love song with a simple vocal. Bush’s voice is characterful and incredible, and I think many people overlook the song unfairly. Taking us into land is the first single from the album, Hammer Horror. I think the chorus for Hammer Horror is deceptively catchy, and, again, it is a track rich with wild and strange images. As I said, it is amazing that Bush was writing such eclectic songs! I don’t think Hammer Horror would have worked on The Kick Inside, but it was another track that signalled she was always looking to venture into new territory, and we would see more experimental and less conventional songs appear on Never for Ever, and The Dreaming (1982).

IN THIS PHOTO: One of the film siren portraits made for general promotional purposes of Hammer Horror in March 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

The story of the song concerns an actor who gets thrust into the lead role of The Hunchback of Notre Dame after the original actor dies in an accident on the film set. He is guilt-ridden ends up being haunted by the ghost of the jealous original actor, who was a former friend. Borrowing from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, here is critical reaction concerning Hammer Horror, and some words from Kate Bush:

“On Radio 1's Round Table on October 27, 1978 the single was reviewed by DJ's John Peel ("I didn't like the album at all and I'm not too enthused with this either") and Paul Gambaccini ("It doesn't grab me immediately as The Man With The Child In His Eyes"). Record Mirror's Ronnie Gurr opined: "Kate keeps up the formula and doesn't upset the fans... sounds like Joni Mitchell popping tabs with the LSO." In NME, Tony Parsons wrote: "Ominous post ELO orchestration with the unrequited lust of a broken affair viewed as living dead love-bites-back as in classic 50's British celluloid, a real nail biter, hypnotic and disconcerting."

“The song is not about, as many think, Hammer Horror films. It is about an actor and his friend. His friend is playing the lead in a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a part he's been reading all his life, waiting for the chance to play it. He's finally got the big break he's always wanted, and he is the star. After many rehearsals he dies accidentally, and the friend is asked to take the role over, which, because his own career is at stake, he does. The dead man comes back to haunt him because he doesn't want him to have the part, believing he's taken away the only chance he ever wanted in life. And the actor is saying, "Leave me alone, because it wasn't my fault - I have to take this part, but I'm wondering if it's the right thing to do because the ghost is not going to leave me alone and is really freaking me out. Every time I look round a corner he's there, he never disappears."

The song was inspired by seeing James Cagney playing the part of Lon Chaney playing the hunchback - he was an actor in an actor in an actor, rather like Chinese boxes, and that's what I was trying to create. (Kate Bush Club Newsletter, November 1979)”.

It is a shame that, in 1978 and now, Lionheart has not been given too much love. This review from 2013 sort of underlines how many feel about The Kick Inside’s follow-up:

“Overall, the album has its faults - a lot of them, and it's probably Kate Bush's worst album although it brings some musical highlights. It's not an annoying listen, it just fails to live up to the standard we would expect from the prodigy and sometime-genius Kate Bush is. Bush herself, too, has expressed that she felt this album was rushed through and consequently, she took over more and more of the production of her albums, marking longer gaps in between and leading up to masterpieces 'The Dreaming' and 'Hounds of Love'.

Maybe my disappointment stems from the knowledge that she would go on to do only better and better things and this is the least essential entry in her discography. Maybe, though, it also stems from the fact that there is less congruence between music and lyrics, and that most of the music is only conceived on quite an average level, except for 'Wow', 'Fullhouse' and 'Hammer Horror', two of which are on the compilation The Whole Story which is a more rewarding summary than this is an album”.

From NME in 2019, BBC America in 2014, through to this blog, to Stereogum, Lionheart is either seen as her worst album or it is in the bottom two or three. I think Lionheart is stronger than both Director’s Cut (2011), and maybe even The Red Shoes (1993); it is not far behind The Sensual World (1989) too in terms of the albums I revisit and love!

It is a pity Lionheart is viewed as the runt of the Bush litter or an album that is a disappointing follow-up to The Kick Inside. Maybe Bush herself feels Lionheart was bad and she would have preferred more time to record, but it is what it is. EMI did not help by expecting such a fast turnaround after The Kick Inside, and one wonders what Bush could have released if things worked out differently. I will admit there are weaknesses on Lionheart – two slightly weak tracks, Full House, and Coffee Homeground, is perhaps too many on a ten-track record; the production does not seem as strong as it did on The Kick Inside; Bush wasn’t given adequate time to complete an album that countered and evolved from The Kick Inside -, but there are numerous strengths: brilliant sequencing (in terms of mood, tone, and placing the slightly weaker tracks further down the order), fantastic performances from Bush and her band; a sonic and lyrical palette that is wide, colourful and rich, and several songs that rank alongside Bush’s very best – including Symphony in Blue, Wow, Oh England My Lionheart, In the Warm Room, and Kashka from Baghdad. I do think the public got a chance to see Lionheart’s tracks revealed in a stronger light for the Tour of Life, but as a studio album, Lionheart is definitely not a failure! There are prophetic and oblique lyrics that point more towards Bush’s feelings at the time (Apart from Full House, In Search of Peter Pan’s lyrics (even though they were written years before Lionheart came out) could be about her situation and struggle in 1978 – “So much crying/I no longer see a future/I've been told when I get older/That I'll understand it all/But I'm not sure if I want to”). Lionheart warrants re-evaluation because it is definitely more of a wow than it is…

A Hammer Horror!

FEATURE: The July Playlist: Vol. 2: Hetty O’Hara and a Confidential Smile

FEATURE:

 

The July Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Alanis Morissette/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Mara for Interview Magazine

Vol. 2: Hetty O’Hara and a Confidential Smile

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THIS is a big week for music…

IN THIS PHOTO: Elvis Costello

where there are singles from some of the biggest names around. Not only is there new music from Elvis Costello, but there are tracks from Rufus Wainwright, Margo Price, Katy Perry, James Blake, The Streets, and Doves. Throw into the mix Summer Walker, Wyvern Lingo, Declan McKenna, The Flaming Lips, and The Lemon Twigs, and it is one of the most eclectic weeks of 2020 so far! It is an amazing week so, if you require some energy and motivation, then you will not go far wrong with the playlist. Settle back and let the brilliant tracks of the week…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rufus Wainwright/PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

GET you moving!

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Elvis Costello - Hetty O’Hara Confidential

Alanis Morissette – Reckoning

Katy Perry – Smile

Rufus Wainwright – This One’s for the Ladies (THAT LUNGE!)

James Blake - Are You Even Real?

Bill Callahan - Another Song

PHOTO CREDIT: Jennifer Medina

Julianna Barwick – Safe

PHOTO CREDIT: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

The Streets (ft. IDLES) – None of Us Are Getting Out of This Alive

Summer Walker (ft. PARTYNEXTDOOR) – My Affection

Kacy Hill – Much Higher

The Flaming Lips - Dinosaurs on The Mountain

Wyvern Lingo - Don't Say It

Doves – Prisoners

PHOTO CREDIT: George Chinsee/WWD

H.E.R. – Do to Me

The Lemon Twigs – Live in Favor of Tomorrow

NZCA Lines – Opening Night

PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Hahn for The Times

Declan McKenna - Daniel, You’re Still a Child

Future Islands - For Sure

PHOTO CREDIT: Jillian Sollazzo/WWD

Snoh Aalegra - DYING 4 YOUR LOVE

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Roensch

Kate Bollinger - Grey Skies

Easy Life – Pop Tarts

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Rudd Photo

Abbie Ozard - TV Kween

PHOTO CREDIT: Max Knight

Dan Croll - Hit Your Limit

RAYE - Natalie Don't

Barns Courtney – Hard to Be Alone

Zara Larsson – Love Me Land

Mabes – Too Young to Love

Connie Constance - James

Nia Archives – Don’t Kid Urself

Eaves Wilder – Won’t You Be Happy

Boniface - Happy Birthday

FEATURE: Second Spin: The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan

FEATURE:

 

Second Spin

The White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan

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NEXT week…

IN THIS PHOTO: The White Stripes in 2005

I am going to assess a truly underrated album: Nelly Furtado’s Whoa, Nelly! This week, I am looking at an album from a brilliant duo that did not get the same focus as albums like White Blood Cells, and Elephant. It was The White Stripes’ Jack White’s forty-fifth birthday earlier this week, and I put together a playlist that brought in his solo work, stuff with The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. He is a genius and one of the hardest-working artists of this generation. Normally in this feature, I will write about an album that was given short shrift by critics or did not get the respect it deserved when it was released. Although 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan gained some big reviews and was applauded, not many people speak about the album when they think of The White Stripes! The duo never released a bad album in their career, and Jack White’s songwriting was sharp and agile through Get Behind Me Satan. I did hear a few people grumble in 2005, as 2003’s Elephant is seen as the band’s crowning achievement. Recorded in England, the album is guitar-heavy and features some of The White Stripes’ best material. Get Behind Me Satan retains a lot of the guitar leaning, but it sounds very different! One cannot compare a track like Ball and Biscuit, and Black Math with, say, Red Rain, or Instinct Blues. The biggest difference between Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan is that the crunch and dominance of guitar has been replaced, in some part, with piano and a lighter mood.

Songs such as My Doorbell, and The Denial Twist are stompers that are more Pop in tone compared with Elephant’s Rock and Blues. I think some fans wanted the directness and anthems of Elephant and, when people asses The White Stripes’ cannon today, they sort of see Get Behind Me Satan as great, but inferior to albums such as Elephant, De Stijl, and White Blood Cells – brilliant, but nothing as memorable as Fell in Love with a Girl, Seven Nation Army, or Hotel Yorba! There are numerous reasons why I think Get Behind Me Satan is as strong as Elephant. The White Stripes always came in hard with album openers, and Blue Orchid is a mesh of ragged, tussling guitar strings and Jack White unleashing his brilliant falsetto. It is a great introduction that leads into the strange The Nurse. I love Get Behind Me Satan as it is the band’s broadest album, and I love Elephant, but I think it was a bit too simple in terms of sounds and genres. From the Garage and Rock that dominated The White Stripes’ work pre-2003, here we get marimba on The Nurse, a jaunty piano on My Doorbell, and Country sounds on Little Ghost, and White Moon. If that wasn’t enough, there is Jack White investigating a red-haired star (possibly Rita Hayworth) being hassled by an over-eager fan on Take Take Take; White exasperated at a lover who is not being more ‘willing’ – unlike every animal out there – on Instinct Blues; a rare Meg White vocal in the all-too-brief Passive Manipulation, and we get the beautiful ending of the funny-yet-touching I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet).

Get Behind Me Satan is a wonderfully varied album with no weak spots and so many different ideas working alongside one another! There are some great riffs on Get Behind Me Satan, but they don’t always come from the guitar! Rather than trade on shorter songs that pack a punch, The White Stripes’ fifth studio album, I feel, is underrated. In some ways, the duo would return (to an extent) to Elephant and earlier albums on their final record, Icky Thump, though there are elements of Get Behind Me Satan on Icky Thump. I love the fact that Get Behind Me Satan stands on its own and doesn’t really sound like any other White Stripes album. It is sad that some people ignore it, and not that many people rank it alongside the White Stripes’ best. I think Get Behind Me Satan is one of the most nuanced and rewarding albums from the duo, and one that I keep returning to. I have always loved Jack White as a songwriter, but I think he hits new heights on Get Behind Me Satan. To go from Elephant and create what he did on Get Behind Me Satan is a brave move! Jack White could have repeated that genius album, but he was more curious and ambitious than that. I think Meg White’s percussion is as brilliant as ever, and it is a shame she did not get the same vocal opportunities she did on songs (from Elephant) like In the Cold, Cold Night, and Well It's True That We Love One Another – that would be rectified, slightly, by the time Icky Thump arrived. 

The reviews for Get Behind Me Satan are largely positive. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:

“But despite Get Behind Me Satan's hairpin turns, its inspired imagery and complicated feelings about love hold it together. Though "the ideal of truth" sounds cut-and-dried, the album is filled with ambiguities; even its title, which shortens the biblical phrase "get thee behind me Satan," has a murky meaning -- is it support, or deliverance, from Lucifer that the Stripes are asking for? There are pleading rockers, like the alternately begging and accusatory "Red Rain," and defiant ballads, like "I'm Lonely (But I'm Not That Lonely Yet)," which has a stubborn undercurrent despite its archetypal, tear-in-my-beer country melody. Even Get Behind Me Satan's happiest-sounding song, the joyfully backwoods "Little Ghost," is haunted by loving someone who might not have been there in the first place. The ghostly presence of Rita Hayworth also plays a significant part on the album, on "White Moon" and the excellent "Take, Take, Take," a sharply drawn vignette about greed and celebrity: over the course of the song, the main character goes from just being happy to hanging out with his friends in a seedy bar to demanding a lock of hair from the screen siren. As eclectic as Get Behind Me Satan is, it isn't perfect: the energy dips a little in the middle, and it's notable that "Instinct Blues," one of the more traditionally Stripes-sounding songs, is also one of the least engaging.

Though Jack and Meg still find fresh, arty reinterpretations of their classic inspirations, this time the results are exciting in a different way than their usual fare; and while the album was made in just two weeks, it takes awhile to unravel and appreciate. Get Behind Me Satan may confuse and even push away some White Stripes fans, but the more the band pushes itself, the better”.

Just over fifteen years after its release, Get Behind Me Satan sounds as fascinating and important as ever! If you have not heard the album, go stream it when you can, as The White Stripes sound completely committed and wonderful throughout. One could argue they created better albums than Get Behind Me Satan, but I do not think they ever released anything as eclectic, interesting and intoxicating! From the unusual pull of The Nurse, through to the emotional As Ugly as I Seem, The White Stripes run a gamut of situations and sounds in the pursuit of excellence. Whilst not particularly underrated or under-assessed, Get Behind Me Satan does not get talked about as fervently as other White Stripes albums, and I barely hear any of the songs from the album on the radio – occasionally Blue Orchid or My Doorbell will be spun! I think every song is a treat, and everyone needs to investigate…

AN utterly sensational album.

FEATURE: Forever in Our Lives: Prince’s Sign o’ the Times Reissue, and a Golden Vault That Keeps on Giving

FEATURE:

 

Forever in Our Lives

Prince’s Sign o’ the Times Reissue, and a Golden Vault That Keeps on Giving

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THIS might seem a bit niche…

IN THIS PHOTO: Prince in 1987/PHOTO CREDIT: REX

but I am doing a few features this week that involves smaller releases and stuff away from the bigger news. A little while ago, an announcement was made regarding Prince’s Sign o' the Times being re-released in a number of formats. This is exciting for Prince and non-fans alike, as the legend died in 2016, but we are still seeing so much ace material emerging from his vaults. Sign o' the Times was the ninth studio album by Prince. It was first released as a double album on 30th March, 1987. The album was the follow-up to Parade, and it was Prince's first album following his disbanding of The Revolution. In terms of which Prince album is the best, people can argue about this, because there are quite a few contenders! Whether you prefer Purple Rain, or fancy The Black Album, it is hard to say which album best defines the genius that is Prince. I think Sign o' the Times is a classic and very much part of a purple patch – if you’ll excuse the pun (Prince was, after all, The Purple One!). Before I go on, here are some details regarding the upcoming Sign o' the Times packages:

“Prince‘s 1987 album Sign O’ The Times will be reissued by Warner Records in September and amongst the formats are two enormous CD and vinyl super deluxe editions that offer a massive 63 previously unreleased tracks, including 45 studio ‘vault’ tracks. Read on for all the details…

Getting straight down to it, the super deluxe edition box sets comprise the following:

CD1 or LP 1- Sign O’ The Times (Remastered)

CD2 or LP 2 – Sign O’ The Times (Remastered)

CD3 or LP 3 & 4 – Singles Mixes / Edits / B-Sides (Remastered)

CD4 or LP 5 & 6 – Vault Tracks (Unreleased)

CD5 or LP 7 & 8 – Vault Tracks (Unreleased)

CD6 or LP 9 & 10 – Vault Tracks (Unreleased)

CD8 or 9 / LPs 11-13 – Live In Utrecht June 20th 1987 (Unreleased)

DVD – Live at Paisley Park December 31st 1987 (Unreleased Sign O’ The Times show ft Miles Davis)

The 45 vault tracks are full of unreleased gems including a 1979 version of ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man‘, two unreleased versions of ‘Strange Relationship‘ (including a Shep Pettibone club remix!), alternate versions of ‘The Ballad of Dorothy Parker‘ and ‘Forever in My Life‘ and a fantastic amount of songs that Prince simply never issued, many of which were destined for three aborted albums conceived in 1986:  The Dream Factory, Camille and Crystal Ball. These songs include ‘Rebirth of the Flesh‘, two completely different versions of ‘Witness 4 the Prosecution‘ and ‘Wonderful Day‘ (again two versions, one of which is a 12-inch remix).

It’s an embarrassment of riches and of course as well as all this unreleased material, the super deluxe editions contain a CD (or two LPs) of all the commercially released seven-inch edits, 12-inch remixes, B-sides, dub mixes and more. Like the album itself these have all been remastered by Bernie Grundman.

The box sets also deliver an entire previously unreleased audio recording of Prince’s Sign O’ The Times tour performance in Utrecht from 20 June 1987 and a DVD (NTSC, region free) with a complete previously unreleased recording of Prince’s benefit performance at Paisley Park, 31 December 1987 (featuring Prince’s only on-stage collaboration with Miles Davis).

Both vinyl and CD boxes are presented in a 12″ x 12″ sets and come with a 120-page hardcover book featuring brand new liner notes from various parties including Lenny Kravitz (who provides a foreword), audio engineer Susan Rogers, Dave Chappelle and Minneapolis music scene commentator Andrea Swensson. There are also detailed notes on the vault tracks by Prince scholar Duane Tudahl and the book also includes previously unseen photos and Prince’s handwritten lyrics.

As well as the two big boxes, 3CD and 4LP packages offer remastered album alongside the single mixes, edits and B-sides while the album-only editions come on limited 2LP peach-coloured vinyl and 2CD. All formats except 2CD and 2LP are ONE TIME ONLY pressings. Once the initial run sells out that’s it! Once the 2LP peach vinyl is gone, it will be replaced with a black vinyl version. Fans will be well aware that the 1999 super deluxe editions are now out of print less than a year after release. The vinyl sets will come with a download code!

Additionally, a special seven-inch singles box set on peach vinyl, with some vault tracks included, is limited to 1987 units and is exclusive to the Prince store and Third Man Records.

SDE has had an exclusive preview of some of the vault tracks and discussed this reissue with vault archivist Michael Howe. Stay tuned for more coverage!

Sign O’ The Times is reissued on 25 September 2020 by Warner Music”.

That is a lot of information in there and, to be honest, I think it is a lot to take in! I am keen to get hold of one of the vinyl packages, but one reason I wanted to write this feature is to express my admiration for the vault that Prince left us.

Most artists, when they die, might see a posthumous album or two. There is always this cash-in from estates, that involves putting out older material or anything that will keep the memory alive. With Prince, I don’t think he was ever thinking about the end of his career or life. He was just so prolific and hard-working; he was recording albums but had so many other songs recorded that have never made it to the public. I am not sure how much more music is in the vault, but I can imagine there are decades more left to reveal! Some might say that it is hard to quality-control now that Prince is no longer with us. He might not have wanted the songs to be out there, but it would be a huge tragedy if all this incredible music was to be left in the vault forever. You can get some more information regarding his vault and everything that has come out in the last few years. I am always staggered when I hear music come from that vault, as it sounds like it should have been on an album! With the upcoming Sign o’ the Times releases, we will get to hear a load of new tracks that have yet to see the light of the day. It is amazing to think that the coming years will reveal regarding these rare Prince tracks! Even if you are not going to get one of the remastered editions of Sign o’ the Times, then I am sure the unreleased tracks will be available via streaming platforms; a chance for us to hear gems from the vaults from an artist who continues to amaze and stagger…

OVER four years since he left us.

FEATURE: The Beat Goes On: The Return of The Go-Go’s

FEATURE:

 

The Beat Goes On

IN THIS PHOTO: From left: Gina Schock, Jane Wiedlin, Kathy Valentine, Charlotte Caffey, and Belinda Carlisle photographed in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Mario E. Ruiz/ZUMAPRESS.com

The Return of The Go-Go’s

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WHEN this year started…

PHOTO CREDIT: Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images

I was not expecting that The Go-Go’s would be announcing a return! They are a band that I became aware of in the 1990s, and I was really hooked on their music. Their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, of 1981 remains a classic and their last studio album, God Bless the Go-Go's, was put out in 2001. Led by Belinda Carlisle, the incredible group - Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock, and Kathy Valentine – made a big impression on my childhood. I think that The Go-Go’s have inspired so many bands since their formation, and I did wonder whether they would put another album into the world after God Bless the Go-Go's. This article from Pitchfork provides more details:

“On July 31, the Go-Go’s will release “Club Zero,” the L.A. band’s first new song since their 2001 album God Bless the Go-Go’s. According to a press release, the self-produced song was “created via email exchanges amongst bandmembers.”

The following day, on August 1, a new documentary directed by Alison Ellwood (Laurel Canyon, History of the Eagles) will air on Showtime. The Go-Go’s, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, will provide insight into “the group’s place in music history as it focuses on their roots as a formidable contender in L.A.’s late ’70s punk scene, detailing their rise to the top as they become one of the decade’s most beloved acts as well as an unstoppable force”.

I am sometimes sceptical when it comes to band reunions or acts returning with new material after such a time out, but I think the comeback (if that is the right word?) will hit the right note. I love The Go-Go’s, and I think their energy and sound is just what we need! Not only will the single, hopefully, lead to a new album, but the documentary will provide a fascinating into the Punk scene of the late-1970s - the documentary had its world premiere on 26th January at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, but it airs on Showtime on 1st August (so some people have already seen it). I often wonder about that time period, and how bands like The Go-Go’s would have been received. It was quite a male-dominated time, and I know The Go-Go’s and Blondie would have had to fight harder than their male/male-led peers. It is testament to The Go-Go’s’ brilliant music and defiance that they were celebrated and taken to heart. I am interested seeing the documentary, as it would be interesting to hear how they started out and what sort of reaction they faced when they became popular. I also think that The Go-Go’s will be a documentary that spurs bands to get into music, and it will also show just how far and wide the influence of The Go-Go’s stretches. This udiscovermusic article explains more:

“With full access to The Go-Go’s, both past and present, this candid archive-rich documentary assesses the group’s place in music history as it focuses on their roots as a formidable contender in L.A.’s late ‘70s punk scene, detailing their rise to the top as they become one of the decade’s most beloved acts as well as an unstoppable force. It also examines the personalities and dynamics behind their rise, fall and numerous reincarnations. Until this film, there has never been a serious appraisal of and showcase for The Go-Go’s’ talents or achievements – as musicians, ground-breakers, but even more so, as survivors.

To date, The Go-Go’s have the notable distinction of being the only all-female band to write their own songs and play their own instruments on a #1 album. Formed in 1978, they were a vital part of the early Los Angeles punk scene. Following the release of their debut album in 1981, the landmark multi-platinum Beauty And The Beat, they topped the Billboard 200 chart for six consecutive weeks and received a nomination for Best New Artist at The 24th Annual Grammy Awards”.

I will keep this brief, but I just wanted to make people aware of a brilliant band (if they have not heard of them) and keep their ears and eyes open for some big releases. It is a huge welcome back to a super group that remain…

SO hugely important.

FEATURE: The Same Boy You've Always Known: Jack White at Forty-Five: The Essential Playlist

FEATURE:

 

The Same Boy You've Always Known

Jack White at Forty-Five: The Essential Playlist

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I have done a few playlists lately…

IN THIS PHOTO: Jack and Meg White

but there are some big birthdays this week. We saw Ringo Starr turn eighty and Beck turn fifty earlier this week, and another musical giant, Jack White, is forty-five today (9th July). I have loved The White Stripes since I was in university, and I was sad that they broke up after Icky Thump in 2011. It is amazing to think that, in spite of Jack and Meg White releasing just six albums – which is quite a lot -, the impact they made with them is immense. The White Stripes’ eponymous debut is one of my favourite albums, and I just love how multi-talented and varied Jack White is. Since The White Stripes called time, White has played with bands The Raconteurs (who he is still with), and The Dead Weather (I am not sure what their future holds). He has also put out three excellent solo records…and let us not forget a certain record label! Third Man Records is an independent record label founded by White in Detroit, Michigan, in 2001. Third Man established its first physical location - a combination record store, performance venue, and headquarters for the label - in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2009. White has also produced for other artists (including Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose), and I hope we see many more albums and projects from the brilliant Jack White! To mark his forty-fifth birthday, I wanted to put together a playlist that unites his solo work, and the brilliant material he helped produce for The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. Here is a salute to a musical genius and…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Dead Weather

A true innovator.

FEATURE: Single File, Double Digits: Charting the Singles of Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

Single File, Double Digits

Charting the Singles of Kate Bush

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ONE thing that I have always found…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980

a bit odd is why Kate Bush’s singles did not chart higher than they did! One can say that she is a unique artist whose sound was not overly-commercial but, when you consider the fact Wuthering Heights hit number one in 1978, no other single flew as high as her debut! I have mused aloud in previous features about her tracks and why they did not sell more. It is definitely nothing to do with Kate as an artist  and innovator. I realise there was a moment in her career where she did not promote as heavily but, from 1978-1985, there was a pretty stead and committed promotional cycle for her albums and tracks. Wuthering Heights definitely set a precedence, and one can argue Wuthering Heights is one of Bush’s least orthodox and strange creations. The Man with the Child in His Eyes was the second single from The Kick Inside, and it achieved the highest chart position in the U.K. – it reached number-six. I think one of the big mysteries is why America did not take her to heart! When you consider that artists similar to Kate Bush have managed to do well in America since Bush came through, it is weird that the ‘original’ was not a commercial success. This NPR article from 2011 provides some (rather faulty) explanation:

“She's too weird. During the time that Bush was putting out her best work, we made Cyndi Lauper a feminist icon and transformed Peter Gabriel from a peculiar art-rocker into a superstar with an album that featured cerebral oddball Laurie Anderson, Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour and Bush herself. There may been a limited number of "weirdo" slots available, but we certainly weren't instinctively turning them away at the door.

She’s too reclusive. That she is. After the aforementioned 1979 tour, she retired from live performance (save for the occasional one-off like the 1987 Secret Policeman’s Ball). She also started taking longer and longer between albums, until the amount of time Bush spent gestating Aerial (her last album of all-new material) was only seven years less than the amount of time she spent gestating her entire career. (She was 19 when “Wuthering Heights” came out.) But while those certainly had their impact, it again doesn’t explain why she was successful in her home country, where Aerial hit #3 and its lone single, “King Of The Mountain,” reached #4. Reclusive though she may be, it didn’t hurt her in England”.

It does take a while for a great artists to make an impact, so I could appreciate how it might have taken a while for a nation like America to latch onto Kate Bush – it took until 1985 before she got proper chart respect! Whilst The Man with the Child in His Eyes did well in the U.K., it only made the top thirty in many European nations, and less of an impact elsewhere – given the fact Wuthering Heights hit number one and was a big success in many territories, I thought the follow-up single would be as successful. If The Kick Inside’s singles were not as celebrated in Europe as they were in the U.K., Lionheart’s singles seemed to do better away from the U.K.

I think Hammer Horror – the first single from the album - is a really underrated track, and Bush definitely winning a big fanbase. Her name was all over the media and, if Lionheart was not as acclaimed and solid as The Kick Inside, I think Hammer Horror’s number forty-four chart position in the U.K. did not do the song justice! Hammer Horror did break the top thirty in Australia and Ireland, but I wonder why U.K. audiences did not give it huge support in 1978. Maybe people were expecting something like Wuthering Heights, but I think Hammer Horror is a more conventional single that would/should have resonated with the masses. Maybe changing musical tastes explain why Bush’s singles were not hitting the top-five. Wow was released in March of 1979, and it was competing against songs like The Real Thing’s Can You Feel the Force?, and Painter Man by Boney M. Wow, to me, is one of the best singles Kate Bush released, because it has all the ingredients you’d want: a catchy and memorable chorus, a brilliant central performance, and something that strays away from the bland of the mainstream. It is another case of her singles not being given the full credit they deserve. From 1978, Bush was releasing singles for specific nations, most notably Japan. Moving reached number one, and Them Heavy People hit number-three, so it seems that the Japanese were ahead of the rest of the world concerning the importance and esteem of Bush’s work!

Perhaps genres like Disco and Punk were affecting Bush’s chart prospects in 1978 and 1979 but, as she headed into the 1980s, the public were not necessarily making up for lost time. Breathing, from 1980’s Never for Ever, was another evolution that concerned nuclear war scare and a post-apocalyptic birth. Again, subject matter-wise, it was not the most commercial, but the sheer size and impressiveness of the song should have, one thought, have put it into the top ten in the U.K. – Breathing only hit sixteen here! Breathing did remain in the U.K. charts for seven weeks but, considering the likes of Madness and UB40 were in the upper echelons of the charts in April 1980, why was Bush confined to the lower rungs of the top-twenty?! Maybe a relatively lack of promotional oomph from Bush can account for lower chart positions, but there are plenty of interviews from her in 1980. In 1979, she completed a massively successful Tour of Life, so that should have added momentum in terms of exposure and wider recognition. By the time Babooshka arrived in June 1980, there was a bit of a correction. It reached the top five in the U.K. and many European nations; it got to number two in Australia. Perhaps it was a magical touch of Fairlight CMI or a time when the competition was weak, but I think singles prior to Babooshka were just as strong, so why was Babooshka one of the few tracks that reached the respectable chart position it deserved?!

It only took until September of 1980 until Bush’s music was being comparatively overlooked when Army Dreamers hit sixteen – maybe the fact it was less bracing than Babooshka or more political meant that it was not as lauded?! I know Bush’s albums were selling well, and there would not have been much concern from EMI and Bush at the time if a single did not make the top ten. I think it is a travesty some of her big songs did not reach the top spot, and it is inexplicable that many other singles languished behind some much weaker tracks (from other artists)! The Dreaming is an album that arrived in a year when bands like Roxy Music and Duran Duran were doing big business. I do not concede that Bush was away from the mainstream and her songs were on the fringes. Every year, less conventional singles climb the charts, but it was only Sat in Your Lap (the first single from The Dreaming, released in 1981) that managed to get inside the top twenty – it got as high as number-eleven. The Dreaming did not make the top forty; There Goes a Tenner, released in November 1982, was Bush's first single to miss the top seventy-five in the U.K., peaking at ninety-three. Whereas There Goes a Tenner was released in the U.K. and Ireland only, the stronger Suspended in Gaffa was put out in Europe, but the single barely troubled the top forty. The Dreaming’s Night of the Swallow was released in 1983 in Ireland only, but it failed to chart.

I can appreciate how The Dreaming pushed boundaries and had mixed success in terms of the charts, but the album did reach number-three in the U.K., so why did the singles falter?! The Dreaming is an album that needs time to bed in, but I would have thought Bush would enjoy greater chart recognition. Whereas albums previous to The Dreaming had some good singles released, maybe The Dreaming’s choice of singles was not quite right. The Kick Inside’s Wuthering Heights, and The Man with the Child in His Eyes were fantastic choices, and Bush battled against EMI who favoured James and the Cold Gun, and Them Heavy People. I do think that a fourth single could have come from Never for Ever, in the form of the excellent The Wedding List – which I feel would have hit the top ten! Look back to Lionheart, and I feel Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake would have been a success if it were a single, as it has a rocking vibe and chart appeal. Bush might have been thinking about the less obvious songs as singles but, again, Wuthering Heights reached the top of the singles charts – maybe a song that was impossible to ignore and just HAD to be a number one! The Dreaming was a case where stronger singles were pushed aside as singles. Sat in Your Lap was a great introduction, but the final three tracks on the album, All the Love, Houdini, and Get Out of My House, I feel, would have charted much higher than The Dreaming, and There Goes a Tenner.  

One of the main reasons for writing this was to sort of prepare for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Hounds of Love. I have just written about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and asked why it only reached number-three. Hounds of Love was Bush’s biggest-selling album and her second to hit the top spot (Never for Ever was thew first). One would have thought that, perhaps, the album’s biggest track would have reached number-one in a few nations. It hit three here, and it was a top thirty in the U.S. – seven years after Bush released her debut single, finally, she was getting some credit in the U.S. If the U.S.’s bonding with Bush marked a moment when she combined the commercial with the unique, then that should have translated to better single sales?! In each case, it is impossible to understand why the public were not more generous, but perhaps it was the popularity of Madonna’s Into the Groove that kept Bush’s majestic track off the top spot – one can understand why Into the Groove was a chart-topping single! The formidable Cloudbusting came out in October 1985, and some areas of the press were a little sniffy towards the song. With a big video that saw Donald Sutherland star, it is baffling Cloudbusting only got to twenty in the U.K.

Hounds of Love was already out at this point, so many might have preferred to hear the song on the album and did not want to buy it as a single. Hounds of Love’s title cut was released in 1986, and it barely scarped into the top twenty! It seemed that there was no pleasing the public in 1986, as the unstoppable The Big Sky did not make it into the top ten! Was it the case that, as the album was out, the song was over-familiar?! Everything considered – from accessibility, to originality and scope -, The Big Sky should have at least made it inside the top five! I think it is the best song on Hounds of Love, and the wave of affection that greeted Hounds of Love should have infused the singles and lead to some higher chart positions. Even though Bush’s singles enjoyed mixed success prior to 1986, a greatest hits package, The Whole Story was released that year. One can line up the track on that album and see a progression, but also so much variety and depth. It is angering that only Wuthering Heights made the top spot (and no other single ever would), and some tracks were denied much higher chart positions. Hounds of Love was Bush’s biggest album, and from 1989’s The Sensual World on, Bush would not see many tracks make the top ten. The Sensual World reached twelve in the U.K., whereas This Woman’s Work reached twenty-five here – it made a small dent in the U.K. These are truly excellent songs, and both were worthy of much higher chart positions! The Sensual World was another case of an album selling well and the singles not doing quite as well.

The album peaked at number-two and sold really well, so was it another incident of the wrong songs being selected? I do not think so. I think Deeper Understanding might have been a stronger single than Love and Anger (the third single reached thirty-eight in the U.K.), but the contrast between the album hitting number two and the singles not firing high confuses me! The Red Shoes is seen by many as the weakest album Bush has released and, in 1993, there had been some changes in regard production techniques and the move towards the compact disc. Bush released four singles from the album – five if you include Eat the Music, released in the U.S. only -, but none of them fared as well as they should, again considering the album itself reached number two in the U.K., reaching the top thirty in multiple nations, including the U.S. It was obvious that Bush had cachet in the 1990s, and many people connected with The Red Shoes, despite the fact that it was not as consistent an album as her earlier work. Rubberband Girl is a huge Pop song, and it boasts one of Bush’s best choruses! It only got to twelve in the U.K., and I wonder why the public did not snap it up. I guess Brtitpop was almost here, and artists like PJ Harvey and Björk were putting out these albums that differed hugely to what Kate Bush weas producing.

Even so, Moments of Pleasure is a sumptuous track that deserved better than number twenty-six here; the title song only got to twenty-one, whereas And So Is Love got to twenty-six! I guess the fact Bush appeared on Top of the Pops for the first time in eight years to promote And So Is Love might have explained why singles between then and Hounds of Love were not massive chart successes. Bush was conducting interviews and the albums were selling, but maybe a more intense promotional campaign could have set her singles higher?! King of the Mountain was a strange case of Kate Bush recouping some of the chart swing she had at the peak of her career. Given she had been away since 1993’s The Red Shoes in terms of albums, Aerial’s arrival in 2005 was a delight and surprise! The sole single from that album, King of the Mountain, reached four here, but it did not climb quite as high in other European nations. A top twenty in many nations can be judged as a success, seeing as singles are less important then (2005) than they were in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Aerial is a brilliant album, but there are few songs that stand out as natural singles. I do feel that Bush could have released Mrs. Bartolozzi, as many reviewers highlighted it as a standout on Aerial, and I think it would have charted well.

Kate Bush has always been an albums artist, so one can say that singles are a way of selling albums, so chart positions are not that important. I am pleased her albums have sold so well, and she remains one of the most revered and treasured artists ever. There has not been a greatest hits collection since The Whole Story in 1986, which might signal a reluctance from Bush to look back, or the feeling that her albums are more important and relevant than individual singles. What bugs me is the fact that, at the time, Kate Bush wanted her singles to do well, and the majority of them deserved to do better in the charts than they did. 2011’s Director’s Cut spawned a reworking of Deeper Understanding from The Sensual World, but it only got to eighty-seven in the U.K. 50 Words for Snow, also released in 2011, had one single taken from it: the excellent and underrated Wild Man was released as a download and only got to seventy-three! That was the second album released solely on Bush’s own Fish People label - and the album got to number five here. Looking back, and Kate Bush’s singles range from the otherworldly (Wuthering Heights), to the propulsive (Sat in Your Lap), to the heavens-reaching (Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), to the sensual (The Sensual World). She is an artist who provides something for everyone, and one can not accuse of being either too weird for the mainstream or lacking in commercial potential! Even her more out-there singles – such as The Dreaming – should have got higher in the charts than they did. I am not sure why her singles did not get higher, but I would urge people to listen to each of them and realise how incredible they are. I kind of hope there is a career-spanning greatest hits album put out in the next few years, as it puts fresh spotlight on her amazing singles; cuts that are much more original and stronger…

THAN what most artists can produce!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Crack Cloud

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Crack Cloud

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THIS is a bit of a strange one…

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

for my Spotlight feature, as I am not aware of Crack Cloud having a Facebook or Twitter account. I normally avoid acts that do not have that social media coverage because, at this hard time, you wonder why anyone would overlook the reach you get on these platforms. I am sure there is a particular reason why they have swerved Twitter and Facebook – or maybe I have not looked hard enough to find their accounts! I have been hearing them on the radio a lot lately, as their album, PAIN OLYMPICS, is out on 17th July. I really love their sound and, unlike so many bands, Crack Cloud have so much personality and intrigue. I will get to their upcoming album soon but, before then, I wanted to look at a couple of interviews they provided in 2018. I know Crack Cloud have been on the scene for a while but, as a lot of people have not heard of them – and the social media output is pretty slim -, I thought I would include them now. The first interview that I want to bring in is from The Guardian. In every sense, back in 2018, the band were unlike anything out there:

“Wedged on the tiny stage of Manchester venue Peer Hat, Canadian seven-piece Crack Cloud make an arresting spectacle. As well as playing conventionally, the four guitarists strum their guitars’ headstock, creating a high-pitched “ching” sound. Their furiously intense post-punk also takes in two keyboardists – one of whom is a tall, Canadian-Pakistani man with a beard, dyed blond hair and gold nail varnish who also plays a penny whistle.

Stage-front, founding member Zach Choy is their hypnotic, shirtless drummer. He has “laughing at the system” tattooed over his bellybutton and plays left-handed on a drum kit set up for a right-handed person. Why doesn’t he swap the kit around? “I have a hard time following the rules,” he says the next day, to much laughter, as the band mill around the house where they stayed after the gig, drinking coffee and dyeing their hair.

Crack Cloud are certainly unconventional: a multimedia collective of musicians, film-makers, artists and designers, made up of recovering addicts and people who work with mental health patients and people with addiction. Their influences stretch from Gang of Four and Talking Heads to Fela Kuti, Malcolm X and hip-hop. Thus far, the band have recorded two excellent EPs (on Coventry indie Tin Angel, after the label owner, Richard Guy, flew to Canada to meet them) and are recording an album that will be more informed by hip-hop, with “less post-punk tropes and more storytelling,” says Choy”.

It is clear that this is no ordinary band. Crack Cloud are more an artistic movement that happens put out music. I love the fact that they are not conventional and linear but, at the same time, they produce songs that anyone can appreciate. A lot of bands that are unique can be a little on the fringes and they do not appeal to everyone. I am hearing from so many people who love Crack Cloud and what they have been putting out the past couple of years.

I was looking back at the interview archives and following this band who have grown in confidence and ability since 2018. I think Crack Cloud have a huge future ahead of them, and they are one of these bands who will do things their own way and not conform to the mainstream. I was struck by an interview from The Quietus published last year, where drummer Zach Choy, again, spoke and showed why Crack Cloud are such an interesting and different force for music:

 “What’s most obvious about Crack Cloud, from listening to their music and from speaking to them in person, is that they are an extremely intelligent band, and one who are always looking forwards. That is not to say that they want to simply ‘move on’ from their past, but rather they feel far more comfortable expressing what they want to say about it through their art, rather than interviews. Where their terse and tight first two EPs, collected as a 2018 self-titled album, drew immediate (and to the band, tiresome) comparisons to Gang Of Four, the material that follows is a distinctly more open-hearted affair. They are currently working on an ongoing series called ‘Pain Olympics’, the first part of which was shared earlier this year in the shape of ‘The Next Fix’, followed by 'Crackin Up' two months later. 'The Next Fix' is remarkably moving and expansive, opening up the band’s sound into a gorgeous sprawl with a video that celebrates strength through community. Themes of addiction and recovery are more prevalent on the song than they ever were before, but they are very much in the hands of the band.

“The reason why we make art is that it allows us to communicate philosophically on a more profound level,” says Choy. “I’m ambivalent about the purpose of interviews like this. It’s one thing to have these to have these conversations and talk candidly, as support workers within our own community there’s a lot of candid conversation and that’s how you cope and debrief. It’s important to talk about these things, but when it’s being publicised as a means of tokenising…”

The guys are preparing to release a long-awaiting L.P., and I think they will win a lot of new fans. I was not aware of their work pre-2020, so I have been going back and seeing how they sort of started out. Looking at this 2018 interview from Loud and Quiet, and I learned that the band’s debut album was a combination of their first couple of E.P.s:

“And Crack Cloud should have their sights set high. Their self-titled debut LP is a reissue of their two bedroom EPs, ‘Crack Cloud’ and ‘Anchoring Point’, but carries the self-assuredness of a band much further down the line. True to its name, ‘Anchoring Point’ in particular is the band finding their centre; a many layered art project that sees Zach hit his mark in danceable post-punk akin to Gang of Four and early Talking Heads.

“The first EP was a bit more organic, more live off of the floor – we built it from rhythm sections and then added guitars and structured it,” Zach says. “It’s always been a studio project. It’s been a collage of sorts. ‘Anchoring Point’ was when we really started experimenting with layering and with fleshing everything out piece by piece, one at a time.”

The two EPs were never meant to be a package deal but they were both born out of an emotionally tumultuous time for the band, and together they close the door on an era that Zach and the others are happy to have relegated to the past.

“They definitely represent a chapter in our life that now we can all let go of,” says Zach.

Guitarist Jon Varley, who up until this point has been quietly rolling a cigarette and nodding along, leans around him into the conversation. “It’s definitely a jumping off point stylistically too,” he points out”.

I have listened to the music from those E.P.s, and what they are putting out now. You can hear the little improvements and changes since 2016 (when their eponymous E.P. was released) – I think that rate of progression will continue to occur. I am really excited by the prospect of PAIN OLYMPICS, as it is primed to be one of the best albums of the year. I have loved the single, Ouster Stew, and it seems like the remainder of PAIN OLYMPICS is going to be just as strong. You can pre-order the album here, but, if you need a few more details, here is some information from DIY:

“Vancouver collective Crack Cloud have finally announced that their debut album is on the way!

Following 2018’s EPs ‘Crack Cloud’ and ‘Anchoring Point’, the group’s first full length ‘PAIN OLYMPICS’ is set to land on 17th July, and to celebrate their sharing the video for punk-funk lead single ‘Ouster Stew’ as well.

 ‘PAIN OLYMPICS’ Tracklisting:

1. Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)

2. Bastard Basket

3. Something’s Gotta Give

4. The Next Fix (A Safe Space)

5. Favour Your Fortune

6. Ouster Stew

7. Tunnel Vision

8. Angel Dust (Eternal Peace)”.

Even they are a little lacking in social media platforms, their music has got out there, and it is connecting with so many people. This year has been a busy and incredible one for albums, and I feel Crack Cloud are going to add to that with something sensational. I love what they do; Crack Cloud are such…

A tremendous band.

________________

Follow Crack Cloud

 PHOTO CREDIT: Bibiana Reis

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/crack.cloud/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXKjxFM5p_JlNvEEgMOUlnA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/10butpS2A0V5nRIu2YDrKI

Bandcamp:

https://crackcloud.bandcamp.com/album/pain-olympics

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

FEATURE:

 

Vinyl Corner

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

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WHEN I do this feature…

I do not normally feature an album that is so recent. The reason I want to include Michael Kiwanuka’s KIWANUKA is because the Mercury Prize nominations are coming later this month – and Kiwanuka’s semi-eponymous third studio album must be one of the frontrunners! Released in November last year, I would urge people to buy KIWANUKA on vinyl, as it sounds incredible! I also think KIWANUKA is one of the best albums of recent times, and it is his finest work. I loved his debut, Home Again, and he took another big leap on his sophomore album of 2016, Love & Hate. Whilst the transition from the debut to second album was more to do with confidence and a shift from ‘70s Soul to a more original and personal sound, I am not sure what it is that makes KIWANUKA so good. I think Michael Kiwanuka took another massive step, and the songwriting is phenomenal. Kiwanuka manages to mix bigger sounds with more intimate moments, and everything on KIWANUKA is so powerful and urgent. Michael Kiwanuka is only thirty-three, but he seems to emanate the wisdom and experience of someone much older. Truly, on his third album, he has hit a peak that many of his peers can only dream of! At fourteen tracks and a running time of just under an hour, there is that mixture of a great selection of songs, but the album does not last too long, so you are both satisfied and left wanting more.

In terms of the best tracks, it is hard to pick just one! I love You Ain't the Problem, and Piano Joint (This Kind of Love), but there are so many great selections! It is an album where a promising artist rises to the status of legend. I think KIWANUKA is an album that a lot of upcoming artists will look at and want to emulate. I want to bring in a few sections of an interview Kiwanuka gave to NME last year where, among other things, he discussed a growth in confidence, and defying stereotypes imposed on black artists:

 “It’s no accident that Michael Kiwanuka’s most assured album is self-titled, he explains: “A lot of this record is about how you get to an age where you feel confident in yourself and comfortable in your own skin. You’re not trying as hard to be accepted. The songs were feeling a bit more boisterous than the ones on my previous albums. I thought, ‘What’s a bold way to describe this album?’”

With ‘KIWANUKA’, though, “the penny dropped… With ‘Love & Hate’ and ‘Home Again’ [his second album, released in 2016], I always had that imposter syndrome that someone was gonna figure me out. In the process of making this album, I got so tired of that way of thinking. I thought: ‘I’ve really got to nip that in the bud.’ You miss the best thing ever because you’re not present – you’re over-thinking.”

“I’m a black man and the music I make isn’t necessarily specific to who I could be typecast as,” he says. “I was into guitar and rock’n’roll music, as well as soul, jazz and ‘70s music. People were like, ‘Your music taste is crazy!’ People thought I was this crazy weird black guy from Muswell Hill that plays guitar. They assumed I was this rich kid and that I didn’t understand anything. I was always desperate to be a bit bland. I don’t know why you would want that… Maybe you just think you’re gonna have an easier life and no-one’s gonna mention things”.

It will be exciting to see where Michael Kiwanuka heads next, as his KIWANUKA album really hit critics hard! I would be shocked if it missed out on a Mercury nomination, as it is a work of brilliance. Before wrapping things up, I will bring in a couple of huge reviews that show how critics reacted to KIWANUKA when it arrived last November. This is what AllMusic wrote when they sat down to the listen to the album:

“Born to Ugandan parents who fled during Idi Amin's reign of terror and settled in Muswell Hill, Kiwanuka has had to fight to keep his identity at the forefront of the culture; numerous record execs tried to get him to dump his birth name for one easier to market, resulting in such a crisis of self-confidence that he shelved an earlier album called Night Songs, recorded as the initial follow-up to Home Again, so he could decide if he even wanted to continue pursuing a musical vocation. This third album wears its self-titling as a badge of honor, a statement of who Michael Kiwanuka as artist and individual is. Once more produced by Danger Mouse and Inflo, this 13-song set is a brave, colorful collection that provides an exceptionally well-rounded aural portrait of Kiwanuka's massive and diverse talent.

If one had to choose a genre umbrella for this release, the term "21st century psychedelic soul" would fit better than anything else. The opening tune here, "You Ain't the Problem," carries the inspiration of Curtis Mayfield in its rave-up chorus, while "Rolling" melds sweeping soul and the reverbed guitar psychedelia of Arthur Lee and Love. "Hero," at least initially, is a haunted, acoustically driven folk ballad: "I won't change my name/No matter what they call me." It transforms from a first-person manifesto into a trippy yet direct folk-rock homage to Fred Hampton, late president of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, who was gunned down by city police as he slept. "This Kind of Love" is perhaps the first tune to ever meld Bill Withers' folksy, funky soul to Terry Callier's singular, jazzed-up take on the genre. "Hard to Say Goodbye" is a weave of exotica-tinged, pillowy strings; Pink Floyd-esque guitar and effects atmospherics; and the sophisticated soul of Stevie Wonder circa Talking Book. Lyrically, the album reveals Kiwanuka at his most vulnerable and strident (no mean feat). The dramatic nature of his songwriting is gifted to listeners in catchy earworms, adventurous textural interludes, provocative lyrics, and through an ambitious melodic palette. As fine as Love & Hate was -- worthy of all its accolades -- Kiwanuka stands head and shoulders above it as a complex, communicative, poetic, and somet”.

To me, KIWANUKA is an album one absorbs themselves in, like the young artist wants people to return to past times when albums were enjoyed in a single sitting – hence why I wanted to put KIWANUKA into Vinyl Corner! Indeed, one gets a very different experience listening to the album in full, rather than picking a few tracks or skipping through the album. This is something The Guardian commented on in their review of KIWANUKA:

“Unusually, in these streaming-led times, Kiwanuka is a contemplative song cycle intended to be listened to in one extended sitting, which he says is “a reaction against this fast-paced, throwaway, machine-led world”. It sounds timeless and contemporary; the instrumental interludes and the stylistic and tempo shifts all hang together because of his warm, sincere vocals and fantastic songwriting. At the core is Kiwanuka’s inner battle between anxiety, self-doubt, spirituality and wisdom, which is then set against racism and rueful glances at the state of the world. Thus, killer opener You Ain’t the Problem is both an encouraging nudge to himself and a sharp put-down of attitudes towards immigration: “If you don’t belong, you’re not the problem.”

Hero compares the murder of 60s activist Fred Hampton with recent US police shootings (“on the news again, I guess they killed another”), also referenced in the insistent Rolling (“No tears for the young, a bullet if you’re wrong”). Piano Joint (This Kind of Love) and Hard to Say Goodbye are beautifully pensive and Final Days ponders nuclear apocalypse. But for all its melancholy, Kiwanuka is never downbeat. There are moments – such as the “Time is the healer” gospel choir in I’ve Been Dazed, or hopeful closer Light – when positivity bursts through with such dazzling effect you want to cheer. Kiwanuka is a bold, expansive, heartfelt, sublime album. He’s snuck in at the final whistle, but surely this is among the decade’s best”.

If you can grab a copy of KIWANUKA on vinyl then do so - or go and stream the album and spend some time listening to it. It is a sensational record, and one that I have been returning to and being uplifted by. Not only is KIWANUKA a big leap and evolution in terms of Michael Kiwanuka’s career…I think it is also…

ONE of the best of the 2010s.

FEATURE: Guess I’m Doing Fine: The Incredible Beck at Fifty: An Essential Playlist

FEATURE:

 

Guess I’m Doing Fine

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachael Wright

The Incredible Beck at Fifty: An Essential Playlist

___________

THERE are a couple of big musical birthdays…

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Kovac/Getty Images

happening next week. Ringo Starr is eighty on Tuesday (7th July), whereas Beck turns fifty the following day. I think it is impossible to distil the essence of Beck so simply, but I wanted to put out a playlist of his best songs. In terms of albums, my favourite is 2005’s Guero, but most people would either go for Odelay (1996), or Sea Change (2002). His latest album, Hyperspace, was released last year and was his fourteenth studio album. I do not think there is another artist around who has the same innovative streak as Beck. He can go from this freewheelin’ artist who splices sounds together around these fast-flowing songs, and then he can create an album that is a lot more personal and emotional. At either end of the spectrum, he sounds incredible and completely original. I hope we see many more years of Beck’s music because, as he enters his sixth decade of life, I am sure he will be flowing with inspiration. To celebrate the extraordinary Bek David Campbell turning fifty, I have compiled a playlist of tracks from one of…

THE world’s most innovative and incredible artists.

FEATURE: Present, Future, Nostalgia: What Might a Dua Lipa and Madonna Collaboration Sound Like?

FEATURE:

 

Present, Future, Nostalgia

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa/PHOTO CREDIT: Zoey Grossman for Elle

What Might a Dua Lipa and Madonna Collaboration Sound Like?

___________

AS a bit of a distraction…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna

from a lot of heavy stuff going on in music right now, I wanted to expand on a piece of news that broke last week. It has been a pretty intense week, and venues are closer to the precipice of extinction than ever; nobody knowing whether the Government will bail them out and do what is required! Inside all of this uncertainty and anger, there was a story – or rumour – that Dua Lipa and Madonna might work together. This article explains more:

“Dua Lipa is reaching out to Madonna about a future collaboration, according to the singer's manager.

Ben Mawson of Tap Music spoke to Music Week about how Dua's latest album Future Nostalgia was heavily influenced by Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor, both of which featured songs produced by Stuart Price.

When asked by the magazine if Dua Lipa could be the next Madonna, Mawson responded: "Well it depends what you mean. She's definitely going to have a long career. She's definitely the complete pop star and obviously the album was heavily influenced by Madonna. In fact, we're about to try and get Madonna on a record. I'm going to write the email and see if she's up for a track."

Mawson continued: "Dua told me she aspired to be Madonna when I met her, when she was 17, and there was something about the way she said it that made me believe her! It was about her personality, her charisma, her competitiveness and her drive and that came across. Dua's got it all, so she's got unlimited potential."

Both Dua's Future Nostalgia and Madonna's Confessions eras were hugely successful. Confessions spawned Madonna's first UK Number 1 single for five years - and longest-reigning for 15 years - in Hung Up and produced four Top 10 singles. For Dua, Future Nostalgia topped the Official Albums Chart, generated the longest-reigning Top 10 single ever by a female artist Don't Start Now, and saw Dua become the first British female to score three Top 10 singles concurrently since 1955”.

It is interesting to consider the artists who could collaborate and what could occur! As we are still in lockdown, musicians are not really thinking much about creative hook-ups, but the potential of one of modern Pop’s biggest stars joining forces with the Queen of Pop is exciting. Madonna’s last album, Madame X, was released last year and is one of the best-reviewed or her later career. She has been popping up on Instagram and making the news for various different reasons – mainly people sticking their noses in or judging Madonna for everything she says or does. I think Dua Lipa’s new album, Future Nostalgia, is one of the year’s best, and one can hear elements of Madonna’s early career – from her debut album to True Blue in 1986. Dua Lipa recently spoke with Elle, and she talked about her album and gender equality – and the subject of where she heads next:

“Talking about the meaning behind Boys Will Be Boys, the album’s most serious track, Lipa says: ‘I often will speak up about female equality, especially in the workplace, but this song is talking about the personal experiences and growing pains of what it’s like to be a woman. I’ve spoken to my friends, and they’ve all done the same things, whether it’s holding keys between your knuckles or pretending you’re on the phone while walking alone at night.

PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Madigan Heck for GQ

We’ve all tried to avoid confrontation, or worn something we didn’t really want to wear in order to protect ourselves. We’ve all been like, Oh, I can’t bear the idea of wearing this short dress and then hopping on public transport to get to the party.’ Lipa is hopeful that she can contribute to important conversations about what kind of behaviour society is willing to accept and why. She also finds hope in the fact that some men are finally suffering the consequences of their actions. ‘It’s a massive wake-up call to people all around the world that no one is invincible and no one is untouchable,’ she says.

On the work front, she’s already starting to think about her next album – although don’t expect it to reflect too much on what’s taken place this year: ‘Hopefully we’ll be trying to resume life as normal,’ she says. ‘Once we’ve decided to move on, I don’t think we will want to be reminded too much of this time. Of course, this is a major moment in history that we will never forget, but I don’t know whether that’s going to influence where my music is going to go next. I think I’m probably just going to carry on and try to take my mind off things’”.

I am not sure whether Madonna and Dua Lipa have spoken, and how concrete the plans are. I think it opens up the possibility of a big track! Consider the impact Madonna has made in her career and what she did on Madame X. Whereas artists like Dua Lipa are inspired by Madonna’s early sound, Madonna herself is moving forward and sounding more similar to modern chart Pop and Dance.

In terms of what a song would sound like – if they did get together -, I think there will be a clash of Future Nostalgia-Dua Lipa and modern-Madonna, rather than either artist changing their course or reverting to the past. Many might want Madonna to throw back to her younger sound, but I love what she did on Madame X. I feel a duo between the two artists would provide easy and intriguing chemistry. There would be Disco beats and, maybe, a little suggestion of Madonna’s 2005 album, Confessions on a Dance Floor. Lyrically, I feel a Madonna-Dua Lipa blend would be less about love and lust; there would be something more serious and heavier at work. Maybe an empowering anthem asking for change and equality? Perhaps we would hear against political ineptitude, or something that aims its anger at the governments in the U.K. and U.S. Given the talent on offer, the possibilities are endless! I do think that this possibility should become a reality, as Madonna has worked with artists over her last few albums, but none that have the same sort of quality and appeal as Dua Lipa – one has to go back to Like a Prayer in 1989 when Madonna worked with Prince to get that same sort of excitement level. If anything is to be realised, I assume it will happen when they can get into the studio together, as I am not sure a song that features them recording vocals separately would be as natural and good. Dua Lipa is moving forward and busy, and one suspects Madonna is putting together some music. Whether they would release a song as a standalone single or include it on one of their albums, I am not certain. What I do know is that two of the modern world’s biggest Pop artists unifying would create…

QUITE an explosion.

TRACK REVIEW: Paul Weller - On Sunset

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Paul Weller

On Sunset

9.4/10

The track, On Sunset, is available from:

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

GENRES:

Singer-Songwriter/New Wave

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The album, On Sunset, is available here:

https://paulweller.lnk.to/onsunset

RELEASE DATE:

3rd July, 2020

LABEL:

Polydor Records

TRACKLIST:

Mirror Ball

Baptiste

Old Father Thyme

Village

More

On Sunset

Equanimity

Walkin’

Earth Beat

Rockets

__________

ON this outing…

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

I wanted to review a music icon who seems to get cooler and better with age! Although The Modfather, Paul Weller, has changed his music through the years and is, perhaps, not as political as he once was, that does not indicate a lack of importance or urgency. In fact, his current album, On Sunset, is one of his finest latter-days recordings, and it has been celebrated by critics across the board! Before assessing the title track from the new album, I wanted to explore a few sides to Weller; bringing in a few interviews along the way, I feel it is important to get a better view of the artist and how he has changed; a little bit about him now and what defines On Sunset. One of the more noticeable aspects of Weller is his reinvention and, as I said, how he has differed from the early days. I first caught onto Weller’s music in the 1990s, when he was shaping bands like Oasis and really making an impact on the modern scene. Track back to the 1970s, and The Jam were one of the most preeminent bands of their time; writing songs that spoke to a generation and, with it, firing up fellow musicians with the power of the music. Look through the catalogue of Weller, and you can see that he never sits still. It is his passion for all kinds of music that means he can not rest and settle for one sound. Weller spoke with Pop Matters recently, and he was asked about that sense of evolution and restlessness:

“Over the next 30 years, Paul Weller established himself as one of the preeminent singers, songwriters, and performers in British rock history. Never one to follow a trend, Weller was usually leading the next sound. Following the success of his 1995 classic Stanley Road, Weller found himself as a lead influence on a whole new generation of bands led by Oasis and Blur.

When asked about the various changes in his career, from punk to soul, acoustic to guitar fuzz, Weller admits it comes from a selfish place, telling PopMatters that "I don't want to repeat myself, which is inevitable at times if you've done this for a long time. But as much as possible, I try not to repeat what I've just done. I try to move on, take it someplace different. I really do it for myself, to be honest with you, and I just have to hope other people like it and come with it." That quest for reinvention was the fuel behind his latest release, On Sunset”

“Weller credits his intense love of music as the driving force to keep experimenting with new sounds and moving forward. On his relationship with music now, Weller says, "I probably have a greater appreciation of it now than when I was a kid. But nevertheless, the inspiration from it, from the time I can remember to now is immense. That alone makes me still want to make music. I want to see if I can be as good as some of the people that influenced me”.

I could not mention Paul Weller and ignore politics. I think about the music he was creating with The Jam in the 1970s and I wonder whether the political landscape and malaise was worse than it is now. It is shocking to think that we might have a more contemptuous cabinet now than nearly forty-five years ago! If Weller was someone who put politics into the mix as a younger writer, it seems that, now, he is less keen to get involved with the charade and disaster that is British politics! That said, he is still pretty fired up and distressed by the lunacy that is unfurling in this country. I want to quote from an interview Weller gave to NME not long after the furore and controversy surrounding Dominic Cummings and his lockdown-breaking trip up the country:

“Weller’s fresh disdain for the political pantomime extends to the Dominic Cummings saga – “there’s one law for one and one for the other; when’s that been any different? Who’s had the 24-hour fucking bar forever; the only place you can still smoke indoors?” – and Boris Johnson handling the pandemic crisis like a clown juggling burning balls.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns/Getty Images

“I’m no fan of any Tory quite honestly,” he says, down the phone from his Surrey lockdown, “but I don’t understand this thing where we’re waiting on the Prime Minister to tell us what’s going on because he’s not a fucking scientist or a doctor – how would he know? He only tells us what he’s been told by his medical boffins, so it’s a bit stupid to think he’s got all the answers; he’s a politician. It is what it is, and where it’s come from and where it’s gonna go to no-one knows, evidently. We’ve just gotta wait it out and try to carry on as best we can”.

“Weller had been one of Jeremy Corbyn’s more vocal supporters in the music world, playing the first Concert For Corbyn in 2016 as the Labour party leader’s groundswell of support grew. Has a recent leaked Labour report – alleging that members of the party conspired to undermine Corbyn amid the 2017 election and beyond – convinced him Labour isn’t just a non-socialist party but actively anti-socialist?

“It’s a complete shit-show,” Paul sighs. “A similar thing has gone on now with the whole ‘Protect our NHS’ thing, which they’ve been trying to sell off for the last 40 years. The NHS was built on very, very decent socialist principles after the War, along with education, the welfare society and a lot of things. They were all based on decent socialist principles and people would be well-advised to remember that.”

Paul Weller is sixty-two now and, whereas other artists of that age might be content with settling back and not trying to shape the scene, for Weller, he is always striving to make a change and leave his mark! It is testament to an artist who is in his sixth decade as a recording artist and, in my view, is one of the most consistent and important artists of all time. What I love about On Sunset – among other things – is that it is an album that wants to affect the listener and has passion at its heart, even though the sounds and songs are very different in tone compared to the work of The Jam and The Style Council.

If Weller’s fifteenth studio album can be encapsulated into a few words, I would say that it is a huge influencer burning bright and proving that he is among the most creative artists out there. I think artists are responsible for helping shape the way we think and having a real role on the listener. It is almost like the influence of a teacher or parent in terms of informing us and shaping our perception of the world. I have listened to the On Sunset album a few times, and I definitely came away feeling very different to how I felt before hearing it – it was a stunning listening experience. Weller was asked (in the NME interview I have just sourced from) about his age and whether it was his role to challenge people and change music:

“Yes I do,” Weller says, “and I think that’s the role of any artist in whatever form. I always thought that is one of the beautiful sides of it all. So I would like to think that I can still do that but I also do it from the point of view that I really want people to come with it – as opposed to The Style Council when I was just putting everyone’s back up and enjoying it, which is a bit weird. I don’t do it from that standpoint anymore, but I always still follow my own instincts and hope people will like it and come with it”.

In terms of sounds and sonic colours on his latest album, I can definitely hear shades of The Beatles. That is no surprise, as Weller has always been inspired by the band, and you can hear elements and splashes of The Beatles on The Jam’s music. Whilst the music of On Sunset might be mellower than his past work, I think it is a beautiful album filled with richness – some of his best modern tracks can be found here. I am fascinated by The Beatles’ continued role in Weller’s life and music, and how it presents itself on his latest studio album. I feel, as I said, quoting from the man himself is relevant in the sense that we get a better impression of On Sunset, and what was in Weller’s palette.

As he told GQ, The Beatles are present and correct on his new record:

“You only had to listen to the opening bars of “Start!”, the post-punk mod masterpiece The Jam released in 1980, to realise Paul Weller had no qualms about wearing his heart on his sleeve. So what if he borrowed the riff from The Beatles’ “Taxman”. What were you going to do about it?

Weller’s obsession with the Fabs can be heard all over his new album, his 15th, On Sunset, a record that seems to push into the future while darting back into the past with wild exactitude. You can hear the strains of another George Harrison song, “My Sweet Lord”, in title track “On Sunset” and delight in the vampy Abbey Road piano on “Equanimity” and “Walkin’”. Not that this is in any way a criticism, as the defining characteristic of this new record is melody, something Weller still finds easy to capture after 40 years in the game.

“Everybody likes a good tune, regardless how it’s dressed up,” he says. “Luckily, melody comes relatively easy to me – it’s a very natural part of the writing process. You’re often trying to find new ways of saying the same thing, but I can always rely on melody to see me through”.

On Sunset is an album that looks forward and has a very different feel to anything he has recorded before, but there are myriad musical influences that give proceedings a very diverse feel. The range of musical textures and sounds that run through the album is stunning. I did say that On Sunset is a modern and ‘now’ album, but there are also nods to the past, for sure. In the same GQ interview, the range of influences was noticed:     

“You can hear Weller’s past all over On Sunset, as well as the past of others: Bobby Womack, Pharrell Williams, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Roy Ayers’ “We Live In Brooklyn”, Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece, even a violin solo in the style of Slade’s “Coz I Luv You”. There is a lot of reflection, not least on the title track, which he wrote when visiting his eldest son in LA last year. “I stayed at this funny little hotel just off the Strip and while I’ve been to LA a lot, I hadn’t spent any time on the Strip for years and so it all came rushing back – the Sunset Marquis, the Rainbow... I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had gone. I love the West Coast: not the psychedelic Grateful Dead but The Beach Boys, especially the later period. Be warned, though, this isn’t my West Coast record”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

I listen to On Sunset, and it sounds like Weller had a great time recording it! That might sound axiomatic because, let us be honest, he would not release it if the experience was hell! More, I mean you can hear Weller enjoying every song and really getting something nurturing and fulfilling from it. Not to suggest that Weller’s early output was a more difficult process, but one can feel an ease and naturalness to On Sunset that resonates and connects. When Weller spoke with Surrey Life to discuss his album, he talked about the recording process:

“I wouldn’t say making music has got any harder. I think I’m actually enjoying the process and the writing a lot more now than I ever did before in terms of recording” he says.

“I have a great respect and appreciation for it and seeing how the finished songs are,” says Weller, who co-produced the new album with long-term collaborator Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert, whose long list of credits include working with the likes of Oasis, The Verve and Massive Attack.

“I wanted to do an album that was soulful and also had an electronic edge to it. Most of the songs on it are quite uplifting, and to me it’s a sunshine record,” he says”.

Whilst I have looked at the man himself and how his 2020 shifts slightly from his earliest material, I think it is important to look at lyrical themes and how his inspiration has shifted a bit – which I sort of alluded to when mentioning how he is less political now. Though Weller is by no means standing by the graveyard waiting to be buried – I could have phrased that better! -, it is inevitable that mortality and ageing would be on his mind, as it is with any artist who enters a certain stage of life. I think mortality is something each of us considers at some point or other and, whilst some artists would be reticent to talk about life’s progress and getting older in their material, I think that it is honest and healthy.

When Paul Weller was interviewed by The Times in July, the topic of age did come up:

“These days Weller is more comfortable addressing bigger issues — such as death. A song from the new album called Old Father Tyme is about, in his words, “Mortality, and acceptance that you are part of a cycle and not being afraid of that. The older I get, the more I try to stay in the now. We live, we move on, that’s just the way it is, man. Energy never dies, but if at the end of it we just go back into the cosmos, that’s fine with me. I’ll be happy to be a little atom, floating about.”

What about Heaven? “It doesn’t have to be the Pearly Gates. We’ve been given Heaven, which is Earth. If we choose to f*** it up and make it Hell, that’s our doing”.

One of the best things about an artist like Paul Weller is his prolific nature! His previous album, True Meanings, arrived in 2018, and Weller has released six albums since 2010! One cannot accuse Weller of being idle, and it is amazing to consider his stamina and never-ending influence! On Sunset is not an album made by a man who merely wants to put out another album and remain in the spotlight: his fifteenth studio (solo) album is a fresh chapter and stunning album from someone who has put his heart and soul into every track. I wonder why Weller gets more prolific as time goes on. Not that I am complaining, but it is amazing to think that a man who has been in the industry for so long still has so much to say! Not only is Weller’s putting out great music on a regular basis; every album is different, and one gets a new experience every time. A few years ago, Weller was interviewed by Gothamist, where he was asked about his prolific nature:

“You've always been pretty consistent in releasing new music throughout your career, but it seems like in the last decade, you've gotten even more prolific and experimental. Is there something that's different about your songwriting now? Do you feel like you've found another gear?

Mainly it's just the feeling of mortality. I don't know, maybe the older you get you think, "Fuck." You know, you look around and someone says, "25 years ago this record was out" or, "It's 40 years you've been making records." And you're just like, wow, it goes by so quickly. So I think there's an element of that: I've just got to do as much as I can. Time's running out. And time goes so quickly. I've got to keep writing and keep trying to produce work. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

But then I think also in lots of ways the pressure is kind off really. I mean, apart from my own self-competitiveness, I'm not trying to compete with a market, you know. I'm not in competition with other artists. I suppose, because I've been doing it for such a long time, you kind of feel comfortable, this is what I do. And people either dig it, or not dig it. And that's fine. I think there's a pressure that gets taken off”.

I have talked about Weller being more prolific and inspired than ever; how he has changed styles and continues to put out brilliant material. I think a lot of that focus and energy has come from the fact that he stopped drinking, and he was helped and supported by his wife, Hannah. It sort of ties back to how prolific Weller has been over the past decade: he has been sober and, as a result, channelled a lot of himself in the music. When he spoke with The Times last year, he was asked about his sobriety and how that changed him:

“It was an ultimatum from Hannah, his (second) wife, 27 years his junior, that made him stop drinking. He had quite the industry reputation as a soak. In the mid-Noughties I used to see him in the basement bar of his record label, where, as a staff perk, every Friday from 5pm the booze was on the house for an hour. He’d arrive at lunchtime: “I’m here for the free bar.”

How has giving up changed him? “I’m just much clearer-headed and much more appreciative of what’s around me. Because with booze and drugs you get numb to a lot of things if you do it too much.”

Has it made him more creative? Some of his best albums have been made in this past decade. “I’m not convinced by that, I think you’re either creative or you’re not. I’ve never not done it [made music] because I’ve been drunk or on gear or anything. I’ve always had to work anyway, even just financially to

keep going, pay for everything”.

I think that it is time to get down to reviewing the title track from On Sunset. It is a song that I really love, and it is a shining jewel from an album that is spilling over with gold.

PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Crofts

I love Weller’s voice on the track, On Sunset. Before we hear him sing, there is some gorgeous acoustic guitar and beats that mixes with some woozy and ghost-like electronics that creates this heady mood. I was thinking about Weller cruising the streets down a Los Angeles strip; the wind blowing through his ample hair and thought heavy on his mind. The lyrics definitely enforce that impression, as the hero says: “I was gonna say hi/But no one there/There’s me forgetting/Just how long it’s been”. I am not sure whether it is an old friend on his mind, but the palm trees are swaying, and the breeze is blowing warmly. It seems like Weller wants to reconnect with someone, but maybe there is a bit of a past and a lot of history that needs to be tackled. Weller’s voice is rough and powerful as the song grooves and rolls on. I love the composition and vocal blend, and you get a real sense of location. The video is brilliant, and we see Weller driving in a convertible, as he muses and thinks things over. I imagine, when he sings of being on Sunset, he is referring to Sunset Boulevard, and that feeling of being around palm trees and a really evocative landscape. In the video, we see Weller checking his mirrors as, behind him, there is a boy riding a skateboard. It makes me think that he is contemplating getting older and addressing his past, or maybe he is reflecting on the past and how things have changed. In some ways, I can hear a bit of The Beatles’ In My Life (from Rubber Soul) in On Sunset. “And the world I knew/Has all gone by/All the places we used to go/Belong to a time/Someone else’s life/Another time” are interesting lyrics, and it is curious to speculate what has compelled Weller to think like this and think about the past.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

It is invariable that all songwriters will look at the world as it was and who they used to be, but there is such emotion and gravitas in Weller’s voice, it is hard not to be moved by it. Rather than the song being quite heavy and foreboding, there is an effortless cool in Weller’s delivery that makes On Sunset a song that offers as much hope and sunshine as it does deeper feeling. “No long goodbyes/I have no point to prove” our hero sings, and he takes a drink of whiskey and carries on. Even though Weller is in a reflective and contemplative state, he is being carried along by the sun and the breeze that continues to blow. I do love the composition as much as anything. We get that start of acoustic guitar and electronics, but then there are horns that come through and strings. It is like we are moving through different phases and scenes and, with it, there is a new soundtrack for each. The composition adds a lot of emotion and story to the song, and at the centre is Weller’s incredible voice! I think his voice sounds more impressive and impactful than it has ever done. Is On Sunset Weller driving in America and thinking about age and how life has changed, or is there something else at play? I have listened to the song a few times, and I sort of change my mind each time. I can sense a man that is surrendering to the beauty of the vista and weather, but it is clear that our hero has some things that he is questioning and pondering. Maybe mistakes have been made in the past. Perhaps Weller is noticing how the passing of time is not always a good thing. It might just be a single moment in time where the hero is letting his mind wander but, really, there is nothing to worry about. Whatever impression one gets, On Sunset is a moving and wonderful song from the album of the same name. It also goes to show that there is nobody in music quite like the iconic Paul Weller!

PHOTO CREDIT: Kmeron

I am not sure, as I say with every artist I am reviewing at this time, when Paul Weller can get on the road and bring the music to the people, but he has dates planned for next year, so go to his official website and you can find all the details. It is a pity that such a brilliant album like On Sunset will not get an airing on the stage before 2021. I actually wanted to take a slight detour before wrapping up, as Weller spoke with The Times last year about the changing role of men, his role as a father, and the #MeToo movement. It was interesting hearing Weller talk about masculinity and how things have changed since he was young:

“It’s a funny old time to be a fella, isn’t it, I begin.

“I think it’s good,” he counters. “It’s a transitional period. For a lot of men — any men that are vaguely conscious at all — they’ve had to reappraise themselves and masculinity. The gaps between men and women have got to be closer, in terms of pay and job opportunities. Everyone has to be on an equal footing. I think in the next five or 10 years, men will grow up differently. I hope so, anyway. That’s how the world gets better, how we evolve.”

His own upbringing, he says, was “a very macho sort of thing, but we live in a different time now. My own kids are very much more sussed. Our family is so mixed as well, we’re like a proper rainbow nation, so it might be different for us,” he adds, referring to the mixed heritage of his eldest two children and his eldest son, who is gay”.

That is a bit of an excursion, but I felt it important to bring it in, just to highlight another side to a brilliant artist. Make sure you listen to On Sunset – and buy it if you can -, as it is a remarkable album, and one of Weller best from the past decade. There is no stopping the man, and one can perfectly imagine another album arriving in the next year or two. He is definitely on form right now, and it is so wonderful to see! I shall leave things there but, having grown up listening to The Jam and Paul Weller, I am stunned that he is still putting out so original and interesting music. It is testament to a man who has a lot to say and is in a very good place right now. Long may that continue as, with Paul Weller in the world, we all feel…

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

MUCH richer.

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Follow Paul Weller

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

Official:

https://www.paulweller.com/

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ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Paul Weller

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Best Album Openers

FEATURE:

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @rocinante_11/Unsplash

Best Album Openers

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IN this edition of The Lockdown Playlist…

PHOTO CREDIT: @jamakassi/Unsplash

I am interested in these great album openers. I think opening an album with a real sense of purpose and immediacy is difficult and important, and if you can hook the listener with the first song, then you have done pretty good! Everyone has their own views as to which songs are the best album openers, but there are some that are undeniably classic! I cannot name all the albums that are included in the playlist, but you can do some digging and find out if you are curious. I hope that you enjoy the selection of album-opening gems, and that they give you a bit of a spark. Maybe I shall do a playlist regarding album closers but, for now, here are a group of songs that got albums off…

PHOTO CREDIT: @davidhofmann/Unsplash

TO a real flyer!

FEATURE: Don’t Pass Me By: Ringo Starr at Eighty: Saluting a Drumming Icon

FEATURE:

 

Don’t Pass Me By

IN THIS PHOTO: Ringo Starr in 1967/PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Avedon

Ringo Starr at Eighty: Saluting a Drumming Icon

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WHEN a musician I love celebrates…

a big birthday, I am keen to throw a lot of passion their way. I have already penned a couple of Ringo Starr features, where I saluted his drumming genius and picked his ten best performances. I think there are some quarters who, rather unoriginally, think he was not even the best drummer in The Beatles, or that his work deserves to be mocked! I hope that notion has been dispelled because, not only has Starr been behind some of the finest drumming ever, but he is one of those human beings that inspires you. The fact that he is on Twitter, and sends out these messages of peace and love is infectious and, frankly, what we all need right now! Starr ()Richard Starkey) turns eighty on 7th July, and he continues to put out brilliant music – his last album, What’s My Name, was released last year. I have already published some general pieces regarding Starr’s best work, so I will not cover the same ground. I wanted to write a feature that showed what Ringo Starr means to me on a personal level. There is no doubt that Starr has influenced so many drummers, and there are so many musicians who owe him a lot. My first experience of The Beatles was listening to albums like Rubber Soul, and Revolver. Of course, I loved the music because it was The Beatles and I was struck by their incredible power and talent!

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles at Twickenham Film Studios on 9th April, 1969/PHOTO CREDIT: Bruce McBroom/Apple Corps Ltd

I had always heard about John Lennon and Paul McCartney being these songwriting titans who were responsible for some of the best music that has ever been made. I think I almost take Ringo Starr for granted when I heard those records; assuming he was not as important as John Lennon and Paul McCartney (or George Harrison). At a certain age, I really started listening out for Ringo Starr’s drums and realised just how essential they were in regards The Beatles’ brilliance. From Rain, and In My Life through to Strawberry Fields Forever, and Here Comes the Sun, it was obvious just how unbelievable his work was. I listen now and am blown away by Starr’s originality and talent. He provides these fills and beats that no other drummer would attempt. He hooks up amazingly with Paul McCartney’s bass and gives the songs of The Beatles such power and personality. The Beatles’ promotional clips are infectious, and I remember as a child seeing them and always drawing my eye to Starr, as he seemed like the coolest and funniest! There is so much to idolise when we think of Starr, but the sheer weight and brilliance of his drumming cannot be understated. I am listening to Rain whilst typing this and, to me, this is his greatest performance. I am not a musician or know the technical details, but I listen to that song and I cannot for the life of me understand how he manages to make the sounds he does – it is no wonderer Starr ranks Rain as his finest Beatles moment!

Now more than ever, I am listening to Beatles classics and I am appreciating the drumming in new ways. As a child, I was not quite aware of just how instrumental Starr’s role was and how much he contributed to each song. I also love Ringo Starr as a singer, and I think he gives so much heart to songs like Don’t Pass Me By, Boys, Yellow Submarine, and With A Little Help from My Friends. In The Beatles’ films, I think Starr provides the best acting performances (though some would say George Harrison was the best actor), and I loved his turn in A Hard Day’s Night. In short, Ringo Starr is this amazing all-rounder that, for so long, has to fight off idiots who questioned his drumming ability! There is no questioning the importance and genius of Starr, and he means a lot to me and so many music lovers. I think he warrants a lot of love and tribute as he turns eighty, and fresh appreciation. I think Starr’s drumming is so amazing, that one can debate as to which album truly defines him. I would say Rubber Soul, and Abbey Road are the best albums that showcase Starr’s range, but there are others who say Revolver is king.

I want to source from a fabulous article from Modern Drummer, where they look at Starr’s work on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Magical Mystery Tour in 1967; how he really added something to The Beatles and changed the way they sounded for the better:

“There was no doubt that Ringo was listening to his influences, and that’s what came out in his playing. And this is when they, as a complete group, started changing the landscape of recording. The songs they were writing really dictated his new style of playing and what the drums did. It wasn’t solely based on the Mersey beat anymore, with that open hi-hat and driving beat, which had been the hallmark of their sound. That was the major change in Ringo’s drumming. And then you add the sonic experimentation with the drums, which was also pioneering. In the recording process they now used compression, limiting, phasing, and backward recording. And then there was the use of the tea towels on his drums. So you combine those elements and you have sounds and playing that no one had ever heard before. All of this was brand new.

For anyone who’d ever questioned Ringo’s playing before, this [period] really highlighted his or her ignorance about the value of his playing and what his contribution was to the greatest band of all time. The drums are so prominent on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour—very dominant. It was clear to me, and I believe everyone else, that it was absurd to not understand his importance.

On 1967’s “Strawberry Fields Forever”/“Penny Lane” single and the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour albums, the Beatles were doing more complicated and orchestrated music, as well as experimenting more with sound. To fit in, Ringo’s drums became part of the orchestra. The miking of his drums was different, and he started placing tea towels on his drums for a flatter sound. Not only was he keeping time, he was now creating different parts for the intro, verse, chorus, and bridge of the song—his parts changed with the mood changes in the song. On “A Day in the Life” and “Strawberry Fields,” his drums were the instrument that answered the vocals, whereas before the release of Sgt. Pepper, it was normal to hear guitar or keys doing the answering. This took the mind of a thinking drummer. When the melody changed, so did Ringo’s drum part. To change a Ringo drum part in a Beatles arrangement would be like changing the chords to the song”.

 I will wrap things up, but I think Ringo Starr turning eighty is a great excuse, not only to listen to The Beatles and his solo work, but really appreciate what an inspirational musician he is - Starr is also streaming a birthday celebration, and Paul McCartney is one of the artists who will help mark Starr’s eightieth. One does not have to listen too hard to modern music to realise that countless drummers cite Starr as pivotal; how he has managed to help transform the music scene. For the last time before his birthday, I want to tip my cap and sing the praises of one of music’s…

UNTOUCHABLE geniuses.