FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Thirty-Four: Zara Larsson

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

Part Thirty-Four: Zara Larsson

___________

FOR this part of Modern Heroines…

I am taking some time to spotlight a major Pop artist who I feel will continue to rise. Zara Larsson achieved national fame in Sweden for winning the 2008 season of the talent show, Talang (the Swedish version of the Got Talent format). In 2012, Larsson signed with the record label TEN Music Group and subsequently released her debut compilation recording, the extended play, Introducing, in January 2013. I am going to talk about her upcoming album, Poster Girl, and bring in a couple of fairly recent interviews. Out on 5th March, Poster Girl is going to be one of the biggest Pop albums of this year. NME provide more details:

“The record, which follows the Swedish pop star’s 2017 album ‘So Good’, is set to land on March 5 via Black Butter.

The new album follows Larsson’s recent single ‘Talk About Love’, a collaboration with Young Thug.

“‘Talk About Love’ is about that phase before two people work out what they are to one another,” Larsson explained of the new track.

“That specific window is so beautiful and fragile, as soon as you start asking ‘are we doing this?’ or ‘how do *you* feel?’, for some people that ruins the magic. ‘Talk About Love’ is savouring that moment before you have to decide”.

If you are not a big fan of mainstream Pop, I would say to give Zara Larsson a chance. She is far stronger than many of her peers; her music is not reserved for a narrow market – one does not feel like she is marketing for streaming hits and popularity.

So Good was an album that won praise with many critics. Released in 2017, it was the sophomore album from Larsson. This is what AllMusic wrote when they assessed the album:

“Living up to its title, So Good -- the sophomore set from Swedish singer Zara Larsson -- arrived after a two-year promotional rollout that followed the release of her debut, 2014's 1. Her slow climb toward the upper pop strata occupied by Rihanna, Sia, and Tove Lo -- the artists whose vocals Larsson most closely echoes -- began in 2015 with the quadruple-platinum number one single "Lush Life," an effective dose of tropical pop that rides the surf with a playful whistle and undeniable bounce. Quickly following with the skittering staccato of MNEK duet "Never Forget You," Larsson scored another hit. Two subsequent album highlights -- the bass-blasted "Ain't My Fault" and "I Would Like" -- provided additional examples of her strong voice and confident attitude. By the time fifth single -- the Ty Dolla $ign-featuring, Charlie Puth-penned title track -- arrived in 2017, a third of So Good had been unveiled. Despite the significant time gap, So Good remains a tight vision full of romantic drama, youthful abandon, and a strong sense of female empowerment. "TG4M" ("too good for me") basks in the sun with a piña colada in hand, part of a Girl's Only weekend with Daya and Hailee Steinfeld, while the WizKid-featuring, Stargate-produced "Sundown" invites Sia to the moonlight island party.

When the party ends, the uplifting "What They Say" provides a comforting shoulder to lean on. Amongst the feel-good party jams, heartfelt surprises provide more emotional sustenance. "Make That Money Girl" is a slow-builder that turns the bad gal toughness of Rihanna into a girl power anthem with a message that demands self-reliance and vision, going so far as reminding listeners that "you can be the next female president." When Larsson delves even deeper, the results are refreshing. Album closer "I Can't Fall in Love Without You" is a beautiful sendoff. Set to Jesper Nordenström's piano accompaniment, the track is a sweeping and heartfelt expression, the most vulnerable and pure on So Good. Fun and engaging, Larsson made one of the better pop albums of 2017. Like contemporaries Daya, Steinfeld, Bebe Rexha, and Dua Lipa, Larsson delivers polished R&B-influenced pop gems that shine bright like diamonds while maintaining a too-cool-for-school factor that helps to distinguish her from the bubblegum”.

I want to bring in a few interviews, as it provides some detail and background on Zara Larsson. I think she is one of the most interesting and original artists in the mainstream right now. From what we have heard from Poster Girl, the album is shaping up to be pretty strong and broad.

I want to quote from TIME and an interview they conducted in 2019. They highlight the fact that Larsson is more than a Pop star. She is a role model:

“But as she’s grown up at the center of attention, Larsson, 21, has made one thing clear: she’s about much more than just dance music. She’s an outspoken feminist who promotes sexual health without compromising her fun-loving image. She started out by speaking candidly in blog posts and on social media when she was younger. Last fall, she signed on as a face of Durex for an AIDS prevention campaign.

“I would definitely like to think of myself as a role model,” Larsson says. “Again, I’m a person; I’m not perfect, but I don’t think anyone expects me to be,” she adds, recognizing that existing in such a public space means making mistakes. “Ruin My Life” received some criticism upon its release from fans who didn’t think the message tallied with Larsson’s progressive image. But Larsson sees it differently. “I don’t want to encourage people to stay in a relationship… that isn’t good for you, but I think we’ve all been there at least once,” she reflects. It wasn’t her first experience with negativity on social media, either, as she has been subject to online abuse in response to expressions of her feminism”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Henriksson

I would advise everyone to check out Poster Girl when it arrives. As we learn from HELLO, there is quite a variation and sonic/emotional spread on the album:

"I feel that this album has a lot of everything in there. Some beautiful ballads, some sassy songs: the vibe is very fun and dance-friendly. It’s a bit more grown-up, naturally, as my last album was when I was a teenager and now, I’m a young woman. So, it’s me writing about life, and life is high and low, a lot of emotions are there. I think my focus, in general, is probably love. I like to write about that, but in a sexy way."

Zara first discovered music at the age of five, when her mum gave her one of Carola Häggkvist’s albums, she is a huge musician in Sweden. "She is a-ma-zing, my first biggest idol. She sings in Swedish, too, so I could understand what she was saying, rather than Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Beyoncé – and all of the others I also listened to."

Zara’s first break came when, aged ten, she won Talang (2008), the Swedish version of Britain’s Got Talent. "I was so nervous, but also excited, as it was my first time being on a big stage. It went by very quickly, unfortunately, because it’s not like The X Factor, where you are on there every week. It was the audition, the semi-final and the final."

Her life pretty much went back to normal after the competition, until she released Uncover in 2013. "It became really successful. I think some people thought, 'Wait, that’s the girl from the talent show?'. So I think it did help me, because it’s a fun story and connects me to something, but it was also the first time I felt that I had really done something, and it wasn’t just a show”.

I am going to wrap things up soon. First, I want to source from an in-depth interview NME published recently. It is likely that Zara Larsson would have been introduced to new listeners. I have been listening to her music a lot more. I think that she has a long and very successful career ahead of her. Poster Girl is shaping up to be an intriguing album:

“If you didn’t already think that Larsson is head over heels in love – she recently said “it’s just not legal to feel this good” – ‘Poster Girl’, her third album, would seem to make it pretty plain. The record begins with the blissful shimmer of her 2020 single ‘Love Me Land’, on which she sings: “Never thought I would love again / Here I am, lost in Love Me Land.” Other highlights include the soulful bop ‘I Need Love’ – “like an addict needs a drug,” she purrs – and ‘Need Someone’, which features the wonderfully self-assured couplet: “I’m happy I don’t need someone / I’m happy, but I want you.” The penultimate track ‘FFF’ turns out to be shorthand for “falling for a friend”.

Still, Larsson politely deflects my suggestion that ‘Poster Girl’ is a kind of concept album about entering into a joyous new relationship after a break-up. Back in August 2019, amid internet rumours that she’d split from her boyfriend, the model Brian Whittaker, Larsson shared an Instagram meme that read: “When you get your heartbroken but it’s OK because the street’s been waiting for you to be single again.” Later that month, she confirmed to People magazine that she was indeed “single right now”.

It has been a pretty busy and illuminating past five years for the modern Pop icon. That said, there have been peaks and troughs regarding success and chart positions:

It didn’t take long for international success to follow. Appearing on the cover of NME in late 2016, she told us in no uncertain terms: “I want as many people as possible to go to my concert.” In 2015 and 2016 she sent no fewer than six singles into the UK Top 20, including the skittering ‘Never Forget You’, a duet with London singer MNEK; the club-ready Tinie Tempah collaboration ‘Girls Like’; and the utterly irresistible ‘Lush Life’, one of the best pop songs of the decade. Then, in 2017, she partnered with Clean Bandit for the chart-topping dance banger ‘Symphony’. It still ranks among both acts’ career highlights, Larsson’s emotional vocals adding some red-blooded grit to Clean Bandit’s precision-tooled beats.

Since then, Larsson’s chart positions outside of Sweden haven’t been as sky-high – her last four singles didn’t crack the UK top 10 – but her pop star stock remains premium. “And at this point I just want people to hear my new music and I want to stop being so scared of how it’s going to go,” she says. “Because honestly, what could go wrong? That I sell one album. If that happens, I’ll make another one – that’s how I see it now. And that’s how I’ve been seeing it the whole time I was growing up in this industry.

“But because my first [global] album was ‘So Good’ – literally! – I felt pressured, I really did. And then eventually, I was like, ‘Nah, you can’t keep going on like this because the longer you wait to release this album, the less people are gonna care anyways. So just fucking release it because it’s great, it’s fun and it’s my form of escapism.”

Larsson spoke about writing and working alongside women; how there is this sexism and there is a division in perception when it comes to multitalented men and women:

Larsson co-wrote songs for ‘Poster Girl’ with singer-songwriters Julia Michaels (who’s American) and Kamille (British), and says that she never wants to be the only woman in a songwriting session. But to this day she’s never worked with a female producer – something she finds “so sad”. Part of the problem, she says, is the way the music industry legitimises a certain brand of male bravado. “I’ve met guys who are like: ‘I’m a producer, I’m a photographer, I’m a stylist, I’m an investor, I’m a director, I’m a lighting guy’,” she says. “And everyone’s like: ‘Yeah man, yeah you are!’ And it’s like, how can you really be all that? But when a girl says she’s a producer or good at making beats, people won’t even believe her.”

Larsson says she’s in a fortunate position compared to many female artists, because her international label, Epic Records, is headed up by a woman, Chair and CEO Sylvia Rhone. “I fucking love Sylvia and I feel like she understands me,” Larsson says. “But it’s very rare to have a woman, especially a woman of colour, sitting in a boss’s chair. And the difference is, from my perspective, that she’s just less like a baby.”

Her disarming frankness makes me laugh. “No, honestly! I’ve dealt with so many men in this industry – executives – that you just need to baby a lot,” Larsson continues. “But when a man says ‘I don’t want that to happen’ and walks out of the meeting, people don’t call him a baby. They call him ‘passionate’. Eugh”.

I shall tie things up now but, ahead of the release of her third studio album, Poster Girl, I wanted to promulgate the music of Zara Larsson, as she is going to keep gaining traction and produce great music. Whilst there are a lot of generic and rather manufactured Pop artists around right now, Zara Larsson is a fascinating artist…

DOING things her own way.

FEATURE: Music Technology Breakthroughs: Part Eleven: Digital Music Streaming

FEATURE:

 

 

Music Technology Breakthroughs

PHOTO CREDIT: @wesleyphotography/Unsplash

Part Eleven: Digital Music Streaming

___________

THIS is more of a software/digital breakthrough…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @zarakvg/Unsplash

and one that might divide people. In previous features, I have talked about streaming sites and how there needs to be an overhaul of how they pay artists and how they run. I am not going to concentrate on one streaming site. Instead, I wanted to highlight the evolution of music streaming and how it has changed the industry. I am going to end with some positives, as there are a lot of problems and issues with streaming. We still buy physical music, but I think streaming and digital music offered people a world of sounds they might have not otherwise have experienced. There are issues regarding payment and how artists are compensated but, for me and so many other people, one can access so much music! It has made my listening tastes broader and more adventurous. Whilst I have an issue with how artists are paid, it would be hard to have a modern climate where there was not streaming. It seems romantic having to buy every album we want to listen to and paying for every single. I think that many people would listen to music less and discover far fewer artists if they had to pay quite a lot for every album and release. Whilst not a perfect system, streaming was a logical and necessary evolution. I want to bring in an article that charts the early days of file-sharing and music streaming:

“Before the invention of the iPod, there was the late 1980s creation of the MP3 -- “a means of compressing a sound sequence into a very small file, to enable digital storage and transmission.” And although it’s far from the only audio file format available today, its introduction prompted a larger conversation about the digital transfer and consumption of music.

That was seen as an opportunity by Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker -- the people who invented Napster: “a simple, free peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service,” and perhaps the first of its kind to have a household name, which rose to multi-million usership by 2001, the same year the iPod was unveiled. Dann Albright of MakeUseOf hypothesizes that its alignment with the market penetration of MP3 players could be a major factor contributing to Napster’s rise to fame. Plus, it was free. Apple didn’t unveil the iTunes Store until 2003, and even then, each song cost $0.99. Sure, it came with a price tag -- but it was legal”.

I want to go into more depth regarding the history and development of digital music by sourcing from MIXDOWN. Whilst the earliest streaming and file-sharing days were exciting and a real breakthrough, there were legal issues:

“Way back in 1999 when the Y2K bug had everyone gripped in a vice of fear, a peer-to-peer music sharing website by the name of Napster started gaining traction amongst American college students, who used the online service to share MP3 files of songs amongst one another for free. One of the most notable features of Napster was that it provided a platform for music lovers to not only download albums for free, but also gain access to rare live versions, alternate cuts, and demo versions of their favourite artists. While this was celebrated amongst impoverished music lovers and students alike, institutions began to take note and started blocking Napster from their online networks; however, many students found a way around this, with a reported 61% of online traffic from college servers coming directly from MP3 file sharing.

After the demise of Napster, it was evident that while free peer-to-peer music sharing was an extremely contentious practice within the music industry, online music sharing was certainly a direction worth exploring. In 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Store, an online music library to be used in conjunction with their flagship MP3 player, the futuristic (albeit antiquated by today’s standards) iPod. Users were able to download a full catalogue of music for the mere price of $0.99 per song, proving iTunes to be a viable business model and somewhat of a step forward from Napster. While online piracy services such as Frostwire and Limewire were still available to the public, you practically had to give your computer a terminal illness from all the malware and viruses on the services just to download a single Radiohead song, which led to more and more people flocking to Apple’s iTunes service.

In 2005, music streaming services were again flung to the forefront of public attention with Pandora. By fusing the streamlined interface of iTunes with related musical characteristics, Pandora created an online service which recommended new music based on a user’s listening history, allowing users to bookmark artists and discover new acts. While it certainly took a while to gain traction, Pandora influenced several modern streaming services including Spotify, and by 2013, the website had over 200 million users, demonstrating its influence to the modern world of streaming.

The mid-to-late 2000’s also saw the rapid rise and fall of MySpace, a social network which provided indie musicians with a platform to stream their music to interested users for free. While the company would soon fade to obscurity in 2009 with the rising dominance of Facebook, MySpace played a huge role in launching the careers of several UK indie acts, including Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys. These days, MySpace has rebranded itself solely as a music streaming service, though it is somewhat overshadowed by more prominent music streaming sites. These prominent streaming services are almost impossible to avoid given their dedication to advertising, another facet of the industry that contributes to the increasing popularity of such sites”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @fixelgraphy/Unsplash

Spotify is probably the most-modern and used streaming platform we have today. Launched on 23rd April, 2006, one feels that the next few years will see a new site that irons out the problems regarding payment; focuses on compensating artists and songwriters and creating this fairer platform. Whether you are pro or against streaming, as this feature explains, it offers us so much choice – that can have its negatives in addition to positives:

“Most streaming platforms offer up an astonishing library of songs, albums and playlists. All of these songs can theoretically be played by every user at one time over the internet, no matter where they are, and no matter what device they are using. From a technical standpoint, streaming works by sending (or, well, streaming) information from a server to an individual player. The actual song exists on the server as a raw file. Raw files are huge and detailed, so they have to be compressed in order to travel over the internet instantaneously. When the stream reaches your device, it will decode the compressed information using an app or plugin.

Because the raw files are compressed for transmission, some argue that music streaming is lower quality than other formats like CDs, vinyl records, or even digital downloads. This is broadly true. Spotify’s default streaming quality is 160 kbps. A regular MP3 file is normally 320 kbps (the same as Spotify’s optional “high quality streaming” setting). CDs are usually 1,411 kbps.

The success of music streaming has proven that listeners do not necessarily prize quality over quantity and convenience. The sheer number of songs available, and the ease of finding and listening to them is the real appeal. And it’s become so popular, that the whole industry has had to reorganise around it: in 2019, streaming numbers topped a trillion for the first time in history, and in March, it was estimated that 80% of revenue from recorded music was generated by streaming”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @justdushawn/Unsplash

One can look online and discover articles that discuss the drawbacks of streaming and how it is not a perfect system. I am going to end with some positive notes. Though I understand that streaming and music-sharing is a breakthrough and huge shift from listening to music purely through physical devices, we are a few years off of seeing a balanced and ethical market. NPR highlighted issues with streaming sites in a feature from 2019:

“It's tough to recall a time when listening to music — and making it — wasn't completely synonymous with streaming. The idea of filling an iPod up with carefully selected digital files almost feels like a distant memory, though it wasn't that long ago that these kinds of players, and the digital library of songs you built through them, embodied the future of music. (For what it's worth, Apple still sells one.) These days, streaming services offer music fans a tantalizing premise: Instant, limitless access to music from all over the world and across history, for a small monthly fee. Or for free, as long as you're cool with advertisements cutting into the experience.

But beyond these contractual idiosyncrasies, the bedrock structure for streaming services' royalty payouts tilts the entire system towards those who, in some ways, need it least. Spotify and Apple Music's model for determining who gets what from their services is known as "pro rata," which means that rights-holders are paid according to market share; how their streams stack up against the most popular songs in a given time period. The people who hold the rights to the most listened-to tracks, then, stand to make the most. "The 'pro rata' model is perceived as being inherently objective and fair, however, it doesn't take into account different user behaviors," says Will Page, Spotify's Chief Economist. "Arguably, it does produce an efficient outcome in that every stream is worth the same and it is relatively cost-efficient to manage."

PHOTO CREDIT: @briant_raw/Unsplash 

As a consequence, streaming isn't just changing consumption habits, but how people write music altogether — with songs becoming shorter and shorter, for instance. The independent distributor CD Baby's DIY Musician blog suggests that if musicians want to optimize their music for the streaming age, they might want to explore changing the structure of their song to have the chorus hit listener's ears first, in the vein of Post Malone's "Better Now."

Advocates also point to Bandcamp as an alternative model that's beloved by the people who use it. On it, artists and their labels can directly upload their songs, and fans directly support artists they love, follow their work, and post gushing odes about their favorite tracks. Unlike Spotify and Apple Music, the service not only enables listeners to stream songs, but also allows both artists to set the price for their work and listeners to name a price to own the songs. It has an editorial arm, Bandcamp Daily, where music fanatics dish about under-the-radar artists and scenes (on Bandcamp) flourishing around the world, and newsletters that keep you abreast about what your favorite label's just released, and digital tracks and vinyl records that your friends have been into lately.

IMAGE CREDIT: Bandcamp

Compared to a behemoth like Spotify, Bandcamp is not unlike a city's independent record store compared to a Best Buy (at least, back when it even stocked music) — a place that attracts a more engaged listener. "I think if you're a fan, knowing that your money is going directly to the artist and supporting them, there's something really awesome about that, and that's probably what inspires people to pay more for something online," says Garcia. But realistically, Bandcamp doesn't do the numbers that Spotify does, in both subscribers and revenue. "Bandcamp, you can see each and every single penny where it came from and where it went," Krukowski says. "So financially there's absolutely no mystery at all. Of course, the numbers are radically different. Spotify at this point is an important part of our music income, and Bandcamp is not yet”.

Compared to the other musical breakthroughs I have covered, there are more problems and arguments associated with streaming. Starting off with relatively simple file-sharing way back, we now have sites like TIDAL and Spotify that offers anyone a huge library of music. I think that the format will improve through the years and problems that exist now will be addressed asnd rectified – including charging everyone who wants to stream music; ensuring that more money is given to artists and songwriters. The reason I wanted to highlight music streaming is because I have not only discovered many new artists through this method, but I have also connected with a lot of older music. I do like buying physical music but, as that can be expensive if you are a major music fan, streaming allows us all to expand our horizons. It is very convenient and accessible. Whilst it will never replace physical music completely, it is clear there is a demand for digital platforms and digesting music this way. Whether you love it or hate it, streaming and digital music has transformed the industry and out listening habits. If the platform bosses can act regarding their payment structures and address concerns that have been raging for years, then I think there will be less scrutiny and criticism around. For the sake of artists, songwriters and music lovers everyone, let us hope that they...

GET there sooner rather than later!

TRACK REVIEW: Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Wolf Alice

The Last Man on Earth

10/10

The track, The Last Man on Earth, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzH6toY_EPw

GENRES:

Alternative Rock/Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

RELEASE DATE:

24th February, 2021

PRODUCER:

Markus Dravs

The album, Blue Weekend, is available to pre-order via:

https://wolfalice.co.uk/#blue-weekend

RELEASE DATE:

11th June, 2021

LABELS:

Dirty Hit/RCA

TRACKLIST:

The Beach

Delicious Things

Lipstick on the Glass

Smile

Safe from Heartbreak (if you never fall in love)

How Can Make It OK?

Play the Greatest Hits

Feeling Myself

The Last Man on Earth

No Hard Feelings

The Beach II

__________

EVEN though the song has been out…

for four days now, I was very keen to review Wolf Alice and their new single, The Last Man on Earth. It seems to be the way with artists that, if they release a track after a while, then it is a ‘return’ – even if they have been around and not really gone anywhere! In any case, it is good to have new material from Wolf Alice. They will bring out their third studio album, Blue Weekend, on 11th June. I am going to work my way to their new single, as it is quite different to anything they have put out before. Just before I get to my first point, here is some background information about one of the country’s finest bands:

“Wolf Alice are a British alternative rock band from London. Formed in 2010 as an acoustic duo comprising singer Ellie Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie, since 2012 Wolf Alice have also featured bassist Theo Ellis and drummer Joel Amey.

Wolf Alice released their debut single "Fluffy" in February 2013, and followed it with "Bros" in May. They released their debut EP Blush in October, and its follow-up Creature Songs in May 2014. In February 2015 the band released the lead single "Giant Peach" from their debut album My Love Is Cool, which was released in June 2015. It includes their 2014 single "Moaning Lisa Smile", which peaked at number nine on US Billboard's Alternative Songs chart in August 2015, and was nominated for the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance.

The band released their second studio album Visions of a Life in September 2017. It debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, and received universal acclaim from music critics. Ranked as one of the best albums of the year by multiple publications, the album won the 2018 Mercury Prize”.

Even though people are very interested in the here and now and what is coming up for Wolf Alice, I thought it would be interesting discovering where the band came from and how they started out. I did not realise that Wolf Alice have gone through some changes before the line-up they have today. I loved their debut, My Love Is Cool (2015), so I wanted to know more about those earlier years. In an interview with Stereogum, we discover a bit more about the line-up changes and how they created quite a buzz early on:

“Over the last five years, the British quartet Wolf Alice have built up the kind of career arc that feels like the beginnings of a storied career. After a couple initial iterations, the group cohered into a lineup consisting of frontwoman Ellie Rowsell, guitarist Joff Oddie, bassist Theo Ellis, and drummer Joel Amey before launching properly with a duo of EPs and a 2015 debut that created a wildfire of buzz around the band in their native UK. That debut, My Love Is Cool, delivered on the hype: Nominated for prestigious awards like the Mercury and Ivor Novello and earning glowing reviews, Wolf Alice beat the capricious cycle common in the internet era (and infamously somewhat more common with British outlets). Sometimes an artist is built up to be torn down soon after. But Wolf Alice convinced a whole lot of people that they were the real deal, and their ascent thus far has been unwavering”.

I think there will be a documentary or a book about Wolf Alice in the future and, as a fan, I like to know how they started and why they decided to get into music. In another interview with The Guardian, we find out about those very early days and how Wolf Alice evolved from the very beginning to the excitement their singles and debut album caused:

“In fact, the band’s reach goes beyond the headbanging teenagers of the front five rows. Over the past few years, Wolf Alice have established a sizeable fanbase thanks to a near-constant stream of singles and EP releases, in which softly-spoken melodies erupt into a clamour of hammering percussion, crashing guitars and siren-like riffs. Their loud/quiet tendencies have earned them a reputation as grunge revivalists, but a truer explanation of their sound is provided by the band’s video for early single Fluffy. In it, Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie play a naive folky duo, who upload a breathy acoustic number dedicated to their cat on to the internet. It’s witnessed by soon-to-be bandmates Amey and Ellis, who are doing rebellious things like lighting matches and drinking milk straight from the bottle. The four join forces, everyone goes electric, and it all ends with Rowsell ceremonially smashing up a computer with a hammer.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenn Five 

And that is kind of what happened in reality. Rowsell and Oddie met in 2010, when she “wanted to try playing live but I didn’t really have the confidence to do it on my own”. She continues: “I didn’t have any friends who were in bands or even many who were into indie music.” (“Her group of friends all just went to [London dub club night] Reggae Roast,” adds Ellis, pointedly.) So Rowsell and her dad, eager to help out, started scouring internet forums where musicians showcase their skills to potential bandmates. There they found a video of Oddie playing guitar. He was at teacher-training college in south-west London, and apparently just as far from the nearest likeminded person. He admits he used to be embarrassed to have met Rowsell via the musical equivalent of a lonely hearts ad, “but so many bands back in the day put an advert in the NME,” he says.

There’s a sense of progression, which is odd for a debut album, but Wolf Alice have done their growing up in public. Not for them the snapping up and cloistering away by a record company before establishing their sound: they’ve been plugging away on the live circuit and releasing singles independently for about as long as you can get away with these days if you’re as talented as they are.

In fact, it was only last year, when the group signed an actual record deal, that things picked up enough for them to give up their day jobs. Oddie had been working as a supply teacher, Rowsell in a denim repair shop, while Ellis spent what sounds like a very confused stint working as a “mannequin”, which I eventually establish means he worked as an in-house model for a designer. “But obviously no one’s taking pictures of my face because I’m not good-looking enough,” he sighs. “It’s like modelling for the radio. It was mad demoralising.” “Secret modelling!” pile in his bandmates. “You can’t go outside!”

My Love Is Cool was a remarkable debut album. I think that Wolf Alice made leaps when it came to 2017’s follow-up, Visions of a Life. I want to source from an interview from The Independent from 2016. It is intriguing, because we get to know more about the band’s attitude to attention - Ellie Rowsell especially -, and how they reacted to losing out on the Mercury Prize for their debut album (that would be rectified soon enough when Vision of a Life won in 2018):

“Ellie Rowsell is in an interesting position right now, one common to any singer in a band in which the spotlight falls almost exclusively on the person upfront. Wolf Alice are a quartet – Joff Oddie on guitar, Theo Ellis on bass, Joel Amey on drums - but it is singer/guitarist Rowsell that receives the lion’s share of attention. Consequently, it is only she who turns up for our interview today in a deserted North London pub. She is willowy and waif-like, dressed in a pair of bright blue Levi’s and tiny white T-shirt, her eyes a luminous shade of brown Farrow & Ball would likely call honeycomb. She is sufficiently shy that eye contact is indulged in only when it cannot be avoided, and she spends most of the hour we are together working new grooves into the pub table with her thumbnail. Whenever she becomes particularly uncomfortable, she pulls at the gold necklace around her neck until it leaves red marks on her skin.

Two years ago, she was still holding down a day job in a denim repair shop, music something she played cautiously on the side. The band formed at the end of 2012, and quickly amassed a growing - and largely teenage - fanbase long before any record company was smart enough to sign them. Their album came out last summer, and entered the charts at number two. It was later nominated for a Mercury Prize. They didn’t win, but that’s okay, Rowsell insists. Like much else in her world right now, things like award nominations only make her feel awkward”.

I am curious to see how the band have shifted since Vision of a Life and what they will offer up for Blue Weekend. Even if you are successful and lauded, all artists change and undergo some form of progression. Wolf Alice will not rest of their laurels and repeat what they did on Visions of a Life. It is true that they changed their sound between My Love Is Cool in 2015 and Vision of a Life a couple of years later. We discover more about this transformation in a 2017 interview from FADER:

“In the time between albums, the band have not only become bolder as musicians, but actively used their platforms as public figures to highlight causes they care about. Together with bassist Theo Ellis, Rowsell arranged Bands 4 Refugees, a charity gig in 2016 featuring British indie bands including Swim Deep and Spector covering pop songs. This year, she also recorded a promotional video for the Labour Party, encouraging young people to register to vote in the U.K.’s snap general election, and performed at a protest against the current government on July 1. While having a breather and a beer upstairs at east London’s Fortress Studios, where the band were rehearsing their new material on a sweltering day in June, Rowsell spoke to The FADER about how she’s gradually grown into the roles of both rockstar and activist”.

I think that Wolf Alice’s success can be attributed to the fact that they are very close and are very much on the same page. I also think that having Ellie Rowsell at the front is a big factor! Not to put too much emphasis on her (at the detriment of the rest of the band), but I feel she is a phenomenal lead. I want to bring in another part of that interview from The Independent, as they spend some time providing background about Rowsell and how, even in 2016, her gender was being focused on too heavily:

“She was born and bred in north London, and attended the Camden School for Girls where, she says, “I felt guilty for not liking subjects like science.” Her parents - father a painter and decorator, mother an assistant nurse at a sexual health clinic – encouraged her to join after-school clubs in the hope that something might pique her interest. “I liked the music one,” she says. Then, at the age of 14, a friend introduced her to alternative rock. It was at this point she started to write her own songs, which tended towards the plaintive and acoustic, but by the time she discovered Nirvana and The Pixies, her songwriting had become distinctly more gutsy”.

It is perhaps symptomatic of the world in which we live that Rowsell’s gender is so often the focus in interviews with her, that by being a woman in rock – even in 2016 – she remains something of an anomaly. But the fact is, she is. At Glastonbury this weekend, appearing alongside Adele and Ellie Goulding, her only true female peer will be PJ Harvey.

“I often wonder why girls who do get into music tend to be just singers, or else play the piano,” she says. “And if they do pull on a guitar, why is it more likely to be the bass? Why not lead?”.

Not to do a complete history of Wolf Alice from start to now, but I need to spend some time with Visions of a Life before I come to their latest track. That album was rightfully celebrated; a stunning release from a band who kept on growing stronger and stronger. In the Stereogum interview, Ellie Rowsell and Joel Amey discussed sonic and emotional changes between My Love Is Cool and Visions of a Life.

“STEREOGUM: When Visions Of A Life was coming out, there was some talk of it being a darker album, whether it was getting older and running into some heavy topics, or being on the road and kind of coming in and out of people’s lives, that weird isolation that can also come with being on tour. So now that you took all those experiences and compressed it into an album, then put it out into the world to good reception, are those anxieties and existential questions resolved at all? Or is it weird to revisit it on tour once more, singing the songs every night?

ROWSELL: I do believe I have a better understanding of those anxieties for sure. I guess they haven’t gone away.

AMEY: I always live through Ellie’s lyrics onstage as well. There’s an element of every performance you do, you go into the zone of that song. Maybe it has been resolved in the outside world. But onstage that’s the moment, that’s the thing you’re in, and you have to get back into that zone”.

STEREOGUM: There’s a lot of small stylistic modulation across Visions Of A Life, little touches of heavier, grungier things and then almost dream-pop. Does that come from individual members writing to their own interests? Or all of you experimenting together?

AMEY: I guess a bit of both. We do all come from very different backgrounds and tastes. There are certain things maybe two of us appreciate and two of us can’t stand. After this bit of touring I’m excited to go back into music and ingest as much as I can. Pop or metal, whatever … from that you do take on these little touch points and when you’re playing with a guitar or keyboard, then you pull it all together and those things come together as one. You see the different bits that compliment each other.

PHOTO CREDIT: Helen Boast 

I want to take things away from albums as a whole and home in on Wolf Alice and their attachment to politics. It can be risky for some artists to discuss politics, as they feel it would divide fans and cause upset. For Wolf Alice, it is very important to explore politics and address injustices. Going back to that interview with FADER from 2017…they were asked about how they found America and coped with the unrest there:

“You recorded Visions of a Life in America. What was it like living there and seeing the political situation?

It was really weird. We were there for such a long time. Los Angeles is very different to the rest of America. It’s liberal there, and all the people I met hate Trump, so it’s not like being in the middle of America. But it was kind of inspiring: the day we got there was the day of the massive Women’s March, and then the following [week] was the big [Muslim ban] protest outside LAX, when people were being kept in detention in the airports. It was horrible, but it was a good atmosphere in the sense that [it] felt like people wanted change there. It wasn’t like we succumbed to this shit deal that we’d all got. We came home [to the U.K.] and it was kind of the same feeling. So, we’re not alone: we’ve got some shit deals, but I don’t think people are standing for it.

The U.K election recently showed a surge in support for Labour. Lots of young people voted, inspired by musicians like you rallying around Jeremy Corbyn. Do you think it’s important for artists to be political today?

Yeah, I really do. I always have thought this, but I didn’t think it was necessary; I thought it was really cool if you did. You do have to have a certain level of confidence that you know what you’re talking about. But you’re never going to know everything. I don’t know the ins and outs of economics, but I’m pretty sure I know it’s clear that [the choice between Conservatives and Labour] is between justice and injustice in some cases. If you’re embarrassed about what you don’t know — it’s too urgent at the moment to stay embarrassed.

With distrust of the media, which is absolutely valid, it’s more important than ever [to speak up]...I look towards Akala and Lily Allen, that’s what my media source is now. When something happens, I go and see what Akala says about it. If anyone else does that, and you are that person’s Akala, then you should absolutely be clued up on what’s going on as much as you can be. Just start now. It’s better late than never”.

To stay on the political theme, I think we may see a lot of political commentary on the forthcoming Blue Weekend – what with everything that has happened in the world lately, it would be hard to avoid it. I admire the fact Wolf Alice tackle politics through their music and interviews. When they spoke with NME, we discover why Wolf Alice are not only interested in political developments in this country:

“In the last couple of years, Wolf Alice have become increasingly vocal about their political beliefs. Before last year’s general election, Ellie appeared in a video encouraging people to vote for Labour, while the band have appeared at rallies for the party and performed at a march protesting the Tories alignment with the DUP. Despite the context of the latter, their involvement has always felt quite hopeful, if urgent. Now, with Britain’s impending exit from the EU looming and the whole thing a mess, that optimism has waned.

“I think it’s an impossible position for literally everyone,” says Joff, stirring from the corner of the room where he’s stayed mostly quiet until now. “Labour need to be so careful cos if they come out and go, ‘No, we need a second referendum’, they’re gonna lose all the traditional Labour seats – a lot of their seats are in largely regional areas where a lot of the voters were leavers. So you’re telling those people they were wrong and that’s like a betrayal of them. I don’t think there’s a best case scenario.”

The band might have publicly supported Jeremy Corbyn in the past but they don’t want to be mistaken for fanatical champions of his. “I’m behind the Labour Party,” Joff says, making the distinction between leader and the collective he represents. “I don’t believe in everything Corbyn does. They’ve got a great manifesto. We responded to that. If we focus too much on political leaders we’re gonna get Boris Johnson in.”

The band aren’t just interested in political situations close to home. They had already decided a few years ago to not play in Israel while the conflict between it and Palestine was ongoing but had never spoken about it outside of the group before. Then, scores of people were killed in one day. “It felt like it was becoming so hopeless and so ridiculous,” explains Joff. “People in the media weren’t talking about it – not that we made a huge dent but if 100 people or 50 people looked at the Facebook post and it made them have a look [into the situation] then that was the right thing to do.”

The group have faced some backlash for being vocal about the conflict, but have found a section of people wanting to engage in debate rather than just bash them for not staying in their lane. It’s something they’ve welcomed, as Theo explains: “To say you’re completely rounded and know everything about a subject isn’t right so it’s always interesting to have your mind broadened by interesting countering opinions. That’s a good aspect of social media – maybe you’ll go back and think about it and consider things you hadn’t thought of before”.

There are a few things I want to tick off before reviewing The Last Man on Earth. I have quoted from an interview where Wolf Alice seemed a bit uneasy about award recognition and being thrust into the spotlight. That was unavoidable in 2018 when they won the Mercury Prize. I will mention that in a bit but, also in 2018, they were nominated at the BRIT Awards. Ellie Rowsell spoke with The Standard and observed how it was strange that the band were being seen as older/established after such a short time:

“That step-up in their UK fortunes is one reason Wolf Alice are this year nominated in the Brits’ British Group category. They’re duking it out with Gorillaz, London Grammar, Royal Blood and The xx. It’s an all-London bout, if we claim Royal Blood’s Brighton base as the capital-on-sea and ignore for a second what Ellis describes as Gorillaz’s “700 members” and focus on east London-born, Notting Hill-domiciled leader Damon Albarn.

“I find this year’s Brits weirder than the first time round,” admits Rowsell. A commanding, whirling, vocally stunning presence onstage, she’s nervy off it (in interviews, at least). So much so that she occasionally stutters between syllables. “When it was about being that breakthrough act and finding your feet and the buzz about you as a new band…” she tails off.

“To think we’re now in a position where we’re perceived as one of the older, established bands,” chips in Ellis, who’s accompanying her on interview duties (guitarist Joff Oddie and drummer Joel Amey are hiding in their dressing room). “I mean, Gorillaz! I bought their first album and wrote the lyrics out”.

I have two more points to address before the song review itself. Some artists fade after a Mercury Prize win, whereas others gain strength and focus. It can be quite daunting. Now Wolf Alice Are not underground and have a certain amount of expectation on their shoulders, it will be interesting seeing what they produce on Blue Weekend – will they get three Mercury Prize nominations in a row?! Circling back to the NME interview, and Wolf Alice reflected on their Mercury Prize win:

“Have you noticed any impact on the band or anything changing since you won the Mercury?

Theo: “The immediate sensation on social media and the fact you’re on the actual news the next day is quite overwhelming. Obviously, it was so unbelievable for starters cos it was so bonkers and surreal. Then there’s the next day when you’re a bit like, ‘Oh my god’ and we also had to fly to Australia. In terms of effects on our career, it came late to us with this album. We’ll probably notice it more [on the next album]. I had a lot of texts from people I didn’t expect.”
Ellie: “That was the most texts I’ve ever gotten.”
Theo: “Yeah, same. So it’s worth it to get the most texts you’ve ever gotten. I just felt really popular.”

What was the moment when your name was announced like?

Ellie: “When things that are unbelievable happen to you, it’s almost like it doesn’t count cos it doesn’t feel real.”

Theo: “I’d just drunk so much by the time it happened. That annoyed me. I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m not digesting this properly!’ But when something’s so intense emotionally you go into auto-pilot, don’t you? Just chat shit. That’s what I did”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Maybe a little off-topic, but I want to end this section by mentioning a band who are important To Wolf Alice. Not only do they cite Muse as an influence, but the U.S. giants, Queens of the Stone Age, are big to them. Once more to the NME interview, where we learn why Queens of the Stone Age are a key influence:

“QOTSA were an important band for all four members of Wolf Alice, but especially for Theo, who has the two-pronged fork from the cover of ‘Songs For The Deaf’ inked on his arm. While on tour with his heroes, he spoke to Josh about the tattoo, who “said something really cool” that Theo can no longer remember because he was “fucked off my face”, presumably on that aforementioned tequila. One thing he can remember – letting off “a sword-based firework in the presence of Josh Homme,” which means the bassist “could die now.” “It was called Excalibur and it was sick,” he informs us.

Wolf Alice might have a reputation for being able to party but they pale in comparison to veterans like Queens. They first met Josh at the first tour date in Austin, where he greeted them with shots. The band would party inside Wolf Al’s dressing room often, “inside their own party world.” “They can drink more tequila than anyone ever, I reckon,” Theo assesses as the rest of the band marvel at their ability to then go and outplay everyone too.

“They’re superhuman,” Joel notes. Ellie, curled up across the room, has another view: “Or we’re just massive pussies…”.

Before The Last Man on Earth dropped to the ground this week, the band’s last single was 2018’s Space & Time (that was the final release from Visions of a Life). We know what the tracklist is for Blue Weekend. It makes for interesting reading. It is hard to glean what the songs will focus on and whether there is a more political or personal bent. The arrival of a new track is very exciting indeed! Pitchfork were among many who delivered the news this week:

“Wolf Alice have announced a new album, sharing a single along with it. “Last Man on Earth” is the first offering from the band’s next record, Blue Weekend, which arrives on June 11 (via Dirty Hit/RCA). Watch a video for “Last Man on Earth” directed by Jordan Hemingway below.

Lead singer Ellie Rowsell shared a brief statement about “Last Man on Earth”:

It’s about the arrogance of humans. I’d just read Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and I had written the line “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god” in my notes. But then I thought: “Uh, your peculiar travel suggestion isn’t a dancing lesson from god, it’s just a travel suggestion! Why does everything need to mean something more?”.

Compared to some of the harder and fiercer sounds we heard on Visions of a Life, The Last Man on Earth begins as a very soft and beautiful track. It opens with tender piano notes. I think Ellie Rowsell has a remarkably dexterous voice and she can convey so many different emotions! On the delicate and breathy The Last Man on Earth, she provides one of her most affecting and impressive performances. The first verse definitely got me thinking: “Who were you to ask for anything more?/Do you wait for your dancing lessons to be sent from God?/You'd like his light to shine on you/You've really missed a trick when it comes to love/Always seeking what you don't have, like what you do ain't enough/You'd like a light to shine on you”. We get some lighter, trickling piano notes that entwine around the darker and heavier tones. I love how Rowsell whispers “You'd like his light to shine on you”. The lyrics are phenomenal. One cannot help but to be struck by the vocal and picture what is being sung. Like I say with many songs, I am not sure whether this is based on a real relationship and something that is happening in Rowsell’s life. The imagery is beautiful and fascinating; the vocal is arresting and gorgeous.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Theo Ellis

There is a change in vocal tone in the chorus. Whereas the first verse was breathy - and we could hear Rowsell’s smokier side -, there is a sweeter and bigger vocal for the chorus. It is like a shift in temperature and weather to something lighter and brighter. I do like how there is the evolution between lines - and it provides The Last Man on Earth with so much nuance and appeal. The chorus is another beautiful example of Wolf Alice’s writing: “And every book you take/And you dust off from the shelf/Has lines between lines between lines/That you read about yourself/But does a light shine on you?/And when your friends are talking/You hardly hear a word/You were the first person herе/And the last man on the Earth/But does a light shinе on you?”. Rowsell’s voice is tracked so that we get this choral effect and ethereal aspect. It is a shivering and spine-tingling sound that sweeps you up. In the chorus, we get some philosophy and theology in addition to obliqueness and images of dusty books being plucked from shelves. If one was looking for something raw and direct on this ‘return’ from Wolf Alice then they might be disappointed at this juncture. You only need to listen to the song for a few seconds to hear how stunning it is and, like we have already seen from Wolf Alice, this is just another evolution. There is a nice quiet-loud dynamic in the verse which sees Rowsell raise her voice for “And when your friends are talking/You hardly hear a word”; she then whispers the next couple of lines. The comparative lack of the remainder of the band on this song does not signal how the rest of Blue Weekend will sound – sort of like Paul McCartney being the only Beatle on Yesterday! It is a beautiful song that puts Rowsell at the front without too much musical intrusion. The piano is the perfect accompaniment. I think that any other layers up to this moment would taint the impact and grace of the words. It is amazing thinking how many sides and tones Rowsell can produce! I think she provides one of the finest vocal performances of the band’s career on The Last Man on Earth.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Hemingway

Rowsell asks for humility and reason when she delivers these lines: “Who are you to ask for anything else?/The thing you should be asking is for help/You'd like a light to shine on you”. I sort of mislead people when I inferred that The Last Man on Earth is just Rowsell in the mix. Just when you think you have the song figured, we get this immediate and passionate change from the line, “The thing you should be asking is for help”. There is a nice echoing vocal and percussion which gives the track additional weight, heat and passion! The band are fully in the mix and, with the vocals chorusing and providing this heavenly sound and huge sense of wonder, you are caught off guard and moved! It is an unexpected moment and one that is absolutely staggering. The bridge of “Let it shine on you/Let it shine on you” is almost gospel-like in its power and meaning! I was wondering about the religious imagery and mentions through the songs. Maybe this person feels they are God-like or beyond reproach. I got the impression that, early on, Rowsell was judging someone or taking them to task. Now, it is almost like she is offering a prayer or summoning light from the heavens. I have gone back through the song a few times and I love how it changes in such a big way! After the rapturous and almost biblical parting of the waves, the song changes course once more. There is a liquid and funkier passage before the final verse. From the opening phases which then lead to this gospel sound, we get a transition of Funk that then leads to something more in the way of an Alternative Rock flavour to the end.

The band keep things quite intense and emotive to the end. Once more, the lyrics are amazing: “A penny for your truth/But I hedge my bets on wealth/'Cause it's lies after lies after lies/But do you even fool yourself/And then the light shines on you/And when your friends are talking/You hardly hear a word/You were the first person here/And the last man on the Earth/But the light”. After the rush of the storm and the wild wind, The Last Man on Earth finishes with that memorable and beautiful piano. I have not even mentioned the video for the track. It is a black-and-white video where we see Ellie Rowsell in this gothic setting. We get fast cuts and flashes (close-ups on her eyes) together with images of her layered on top of one another. It is dreamy and filmic, but there is also a slightly trippy element. I have not seen another Wolf Alice video like it! When we hear the crescendo, Roswell is backed by candles and fire raging in the background. Directed by Jordan Hemingway, it is a credit that the video is almost as memorable and phenomenal as the song. If Blue Weekend contains songs even half as good as The Last Man on Earth, then it is going to be another sensational, award-winning release from Wolf Alice! Even though it is still February, I think that The Last Man on Earth is my favourite track of the year – one that is not going to be beaten anytime soon!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Giles Smith

I will wrap things up soon. First, I want to nod back to the 2018 Stereogum interview from earlier. The band were asked about a third album and expectations. Now that a third album has been announced, it makes for fascinating reading;

“STEREOGUM: I don’t want to give you too much anxiety by bringing up the third album, but now having gotten past this stereotypical sophomore narrative thing, beating the potentially destructive hype cycles, do you have a sense of where you want to take Wolf Alice next? Are you having ideas on the road the same as you did before?

ROWSELL: I’m always torn, because I like performing and touring heavy guitar-based music. And yet I find myself at home often just listening to pop music. Which is probably why we’re too pop for rock and too rock for pop. I never know which one’s going to pull me farthest in one direction”.

I am sure that we will see at least another couple of singles from Blue Weekend before the album comes out on 11th June. There has been so much positive reception to The Last Man on Earth. Although the song is not a radical departure from the London band, it is quite different from anything on Visions of a Life. I wouldn’t bank against Blue Weekend earning Wolf Alice their third Mercury Prize nomination in as many albums. That might not be the most important thing to them, though it goes to show the quality that has been there from the very start! The Last Man of Earth is a stunning first single release; a great example of what we might get from Blue Weekend. One of our very finest bands continue to blow people away and produce music of the highest order! I feel they will be able to deliver some tour dates later in the year and showcase new material. It will give them a chance to air their album on the stage and prove why they are one of the best live bands around. Before that comes the hotly-anticipated Blue Weekend. It is an album that I…

 CAN’T wait to hear it!

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Follow Wolf Alice

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Allard-Fleischl 

Official:

https://wolfalice.co.uk/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/wolfalicemusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/wolfalicemusic

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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3btzEQD6sugImIHPMRgkwV?si=vEZm48xdRhqyLXy0zUns6Q

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Wolf Alice

FEATURE: When I Was Older: Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry and the Music Documentary

FEATURE:

 

 

When I Was Older

IMAGE CREDIT: Apple TV + 

Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry and the Music Documentary

___________

THERE has been a lot of activity…

 IMAGE CREDIT: Hulu

over the past year regarding music documentaries and biopics. Andra Day stars in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, whilst there are plans for an Amy Winehouse biopic. I think there are others in the pipeline – including Madonna’s biopic, which she will direct -, and it will be interesting to see how the biopics fare with critics. It can be hard capturing the artist’s truth and making the film accessible and popular. If one were to be too graphic or open, then that means it could be censored or some audiences would balk. I do think that some biopics hold back because the artist’s life is pretty unconventional or, to some, controversial. When a music biopic is done right it is naked with the facts but it does not sensationalise or needlessly push itself in a provocative manner. Music documentaries are not immune from getting the balance wrong when it comes to honesty vs. commercial appeal. A great music documentary stays in the mind and teaches us more about an artist. I was moved by the reaction to the Framing Britney Spears documentary. I have been a fan of hers since the start, and the news developments regarding guardianship and how her finances are being handled is heartrbreaking. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for the new documentary, Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry. Huge stars from Taylor Swift (Miss Americana) to Lady Gaga (Five Foot Two) have had documentaries about them produced. The tabloids and social media can misrepresent an artist or, often, that artist does not feel comfortable being so open with the media and fans online.

What has come from the Britney Spears documentary and subsequent reaction is how she was mistreated and the sort of sexism she had to endure. Arguably, Billie Eilish is one of the biggest artists in the world. A Pop innovator and inspirational figure, the nineteen-year-old from Los Angeles has a massive future ahead. Whilst it is not as shocking or revealing as the Britney Spears documentary, it is a balanced and honest look at one of the most original and interesting artists of our age. I want to bring in bits of a review from The Guardian regarding Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry:

“These are not myths; as captured in RJ Cutler’s mesmerizing and generous Apple TV+ documentary The World’s a Little Blurry, Eilish did, indeed, spend these supersonic teenage years at her family’s modest house in Los Angeles; she and Finneas do compose their music in his bedroom with such organic sibling telepathy it seems almost too casual to be the omnipresent dark-pop hits Bad Guy or Bury a Friend. But over the course of nearly two and a half hours, The World’s a Little Blurry offers a fascinating rejoinder to any cynicism that this could be image maintenance for a teenage superstar. The verité-style documentary, filmed from late 2018 through Eilish’s Grammys sweep in 2020 (11 awards, including album of the year), observes an enviably talented and more enviably self-possessed young woman handling the twin rocketships of superstardom and adolescence with astounding awareness, if not always control.

The trust afforded to Cutler (The War Room, The September Issue) by Eilish’s family – mom Maggie Baird and father Patrick O’Connell, both near-constant presences – is evident. The camera roves through the family home, dropping in on family arguments (Maggie and Finneas, and then Eilish, arguing over the latter’s reluctance to make an “accessible” hit) and Eilish’s bedroom the morning of her Grammy nominations. The film glides on the always-magnetic juxtaposition of superstardom weirdness with relatability – Eilish DM-ing her idol, Justin Bieber, posting to her millions of Instagram followers, selecting her signature baggy couture outfits for tour; Eilish studying for her driver’s permit, complaining about her family’s lame cars, or groaning when her father compares new music to a Duncan Sheik song.

It also includes all the promises of authenticity we’ve come to expect from modern music documentaries: quiet moments, the stress of touring, the vertigo of rapid-onset fame, work process competency porn. But whereas Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana, released last year on Netflix, often felt like a meticulous, if entertaining, propaganda project, The World’s a Little Blurry portrays an artist for whom the idea of “authenticity” is both artistically important and for filming, passé.

Its strongest element, aside from Eilish herself, is the generosity and empathy afforded to the experience of fandom. Eilish, so devoted to Bieber as a 12-year-old that Baird considered putting her in therapy, speaks fluently of the hyper-intense adoration lobbed at her by millions, predominantly teenage girls. When she breaks down for a full 30 seconds upon meeting him, in one of The World’s a Little Blurry’s best scenes, it may as well be any one of the crying, alight faces in her crowds. The chasmic emotion, the consuming devotion for your artistic heroes, the way it makes even the darkest recesses of your brain feel temporarily OK – that, for Eilish, her fans, and viewers, is strikingly real”.

In another review, this is what Will Gompertz observed and noted for the BBC:

“There is archive talent show footage, in which we see a very young Billie singing, Finneas providing harmony, her mum playing the guitar, and her dad on the keyboard. Maybe it is with the benefit of hindsight, but brand Billie appears to have been something Maggie and Patrick had envisaged from day one: a star not so much born as conceived by her parents.

Both children were home-schooled and shown how to write and produce songs. They encouraged them to make music together, which they duly did, with Finneas's bedroom acting as their HQ.

"My family is the reason I'm the way I am" Billie says, over a clip showing her at around two years old sitting on a piano stool next to Finneas as their mother excitedly announces off-camera "your first duet!"

Everything seems pretty laid back and really tense at the same time. The dream has become reality. Billie's career is taking off, record execs are sitting on Finneas's bed as he plays them a backing track while his little sister, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed, sings while looking at the lyrics on her smartphone.

Nobody says much, but everything you need to know about the music business is captured in that one scene.

PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV + 

Billie comes across as a lovely, caring person, with her own physical and psychological challenges to overcome. She has the courage to share some of her darkest thoughts and fears in her songs, she is an artist wearing her heart and soul on the sleeve of her record.

There is a foreboding sense in this film of we've seen all this before, it is Act One of a three-act story.

You can't help but think of the recently released Britney Spears documentary, she was a talented teenager who had a lot of parental input but whose life and mental health suffered under the pressure of fame and expectation.

Turning a person into a product works for just about everybody except for the artist. It is the epitome of a Faustian pact, with an important exception: it is rarely the teenage prodigy who does the deal.

Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry is a refreshingly candid, intelligent documentary, if a little a long, which leaves you wondering if a life of relentless celebrity and trying to please everybody but yourself is actually a good plan.

You wonder exactly whose dream is coming true?

I found it sad rather than uplifting, but the music is exceptional and so is the woman making it”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Apple TV + 

The documentary comes ahead of an autobiography in May that is going to make for fascinating reading. Eilish also has some songs ready for a new album. Following from the remarkable 2019 debut, WHEN WEALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, I think that we will get other compelling music documentaries through this year. It can be difficult putting out a documentary as it can be quite exposing or create some negative reaction. Music and interviews can only tell so much, so documentaries like Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry are informative and have an element of objectivity – in the sense the artist can have control and rewrite some misperceptions. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next and whether we will get other big artists putting out their stories in the form of documentaries. I feel this year is going to be one of the biggest for Billie Eilish. With a documentary, autobiography and possible second album due, she will go from a superstar to a global megastar! Where biopics can be disjointed and false and some documentaries can be a little self-serving, redacted or empty, with Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry, Eilish and RJ Cutller…

GOT the balance right.

FEATURE: Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure: The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

FEATURE:

 

 

Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure

The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

___________

I need to start every one of these features…

by saying that I do not buy into the notion that there are ‘guilty pleasure’ songs. The reason I started this feature is to defend songs that have been labelled as guilty pleasures. I think that everything is valid - and one should not feel embarrassed about anything. One song that I have seen appear on lists of guilty pleasure songs is The Offspring’s Pretty Fly (For a White Guy). It definitely divided people at my school when the song arrived in 1998. I think there was this rise in Pop-Punk bands that were not quite serious; whose songs were not as gritty and real as Grunge and Alternative acts that recently ruled. Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)  is the fourth track from the Californian band’s fifth studio album, Americana (1998). It was the first single from the album. It The song peaked at number fifty-three on the US Billboard Hot 100; number-five on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number-three on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song also reached number-one in ten countries. I will bring in an article that takes a closer look at the music video for the song – one that seemed fine back in 1998 but, in 2021, it might be problematic if a band put out something similar! I am not a huge fan of The Offspring, though I fondly remember the Americana album. In frontman Dexter Holland, they had a charismatic frontman who could write interesting songs. I like The Kids Aren't Alright, and Why Don’t You Get a Job? To me,  Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)  is the band’s best track.

It is a shame the Americana album did not get better reviews. I think it is an album that has some really strong singles, but the rest of the album is a bit patchy. This is what AllMusic wrote when they reviewed the album:

“With integrity intact and a hearty combination of poppy punk and wit throughout, the Offspring's fifth album is a raucous ride through America as seen through the eyes of a weary, but still optimistic, young kid. Riffs on political correctness, '70s radio fodder, and suburban disquiet are spread thick on Americana. If the band's targets seem a bit simple and predictable, its music rarely is. The SoCal roots aren't played to a fault, the blend of salsa and alterna-rock sounds natural, and the Offspring pretty much laugh at their culture, as well as themselves, the entire time. Best track is "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)," which manages to bridge Def Leppard and Latin hip-hop (and the musical timeline they represent) and, in the process, disrobes Middle America's average white teen's quick fascination with and instant disposability of a once-regional heritage. With Americana, the Offspring are merely contributing their part”.

If you have dismissed Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) or thought it was a bit of a joke song, I would recommend you listen again! It does have humour, but I also think that it is a strong song that does not sound too dated.

I think a lot of my old school friends who disliked Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) back in 1998 have softened to the song now. If one takes it as a bit of a novelty song or something not taking itself too seriously, I think you can enjoy The Offspring’s smash. The band were not really trying to be hardcore or as reputable as a lot of other Rock and Punk bands. I want to source from a Kerrang! article that provides us with some facts and figures regarding The Offspring and their best-known song:

“0.09

The video’s White Guy is portrayed by actor Guy Cohen, who ended up being chosen for the role after Offspring frontman Dexter Holland’s first choice, Seth Green, was unavailable. Green had played a similar role in the teen comedy Can’t Hardly Wait that summer. Cohen ended up going out on tour with the band and coming out during that song, doing silly dances to rapturous response. ​“I do The Running Man, I do the Roger Rabbit, I get down on the floor and freak the ground – oh man, people just explode!” he told Spin. Check out this live performance from 1999 featuring Cohen really going for it, as well as a lot of focus on Higgins X‑13, the band’s touring backup singer and percussionist and unofficial fifth member.

0.49

While Dexter, Noodles and guitarist Greg K have been with the band consistently for three and a half decades, they’ve been through a few drummers. Original drummer James Lilja left in 1987 to become an oncologist. Last year he was on trial for malpractice, when a juror had a heart attack, and Lilja saved his life. This led to a mistrial ruling, as the jurors would find it hard not to be biased. This is Ron Welty, the Offspring’s second sticksman, who joined at just 16 years old and spent another 16 with the band before leaving in 2003 to start his own band, Steady Ground. Atom Willard of Rocket From The Crypt, Angels And Airwaves and Against Me!-fame joined for four years, and in 2007 current drummer Pete Parada, formerly of Face To Face and Saves The Day, took over.

1.17
The ​‘Give it to me, baby’ vocals are performed by Nika Futterman and Heidi Villagran. Futterman is now a successful voice actress who has worked on pretty much every big deal animated show out there, including voicing Asajj Ventress in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

1.30
The target of the song, as Dexter told Spin, is young men who ​“are from, like, Omaha, Nebraska – regular white-bread boys, but who act like they’re from Compton. It’s so fake and obvious that they’re trying to have an identity. I wanted to write a song where people in high school would go, ​‘I know exactly who this guy’s talking about: so-and-so in third period.’ And he’ll like it too. That’s kind of the beauty: making fun of people who don’t know they’re being made fun of.”

2.21
The sun-soaked technicolour look of the whole video was at the time something of a trademark of director McG, best known for making the two Charlie’s Angels films. McG was also briefly the frontman of Sugar Ray, a band he went on to direct videos for, as well as Sugar Ray and Korn. He made Terminator: Salvation, This Means War and The Babysitter, and executive-produced The OC (the first season of which is untouchably good).

2.35
Barely shown at any point in this video is bassist Greg K, who formed the band with Dexter in the early ​’80s after the two of them met doing cross-country together in school. Greg does very few interviews and is the most reclusive member of the band, which may explain the lack of close-ups”.

There are a lot of people who dislike Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) and feel the song is a guilty pleasure – if they decide to listen to it at all! I think it is a track that is funny, catchy and has a great chorus. The video might appear a bit too raunchy or un-P.C. now, but I feel it is the perfect visual for a goofy song that documents a bit of a hopeless loser. Rather than pick away at Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) and be too harsh, put the song up and…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Columbia

PUMP it up loud.

FEATURE: Live and Kicking: The Continuing Excellence and Importance of Later... with Jools Holland

FEATURE:

 

 

Live and Kicking

The Continuing Excellence and Importance of Later... with Jools Holland

___________

I have said before how it is a shame…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jools Holland with Arlo Parks

there are not many music television shows around! Once was the time when there was quite a selection for the music fan. I guess, with streaming and the fact we can see music videos online, there is less necessity. I think that it is a relief that we have one long-standing music show in the form of Later... with Jools Holland. The fact that it has been running since 1992 shows that there is an appetite for a good and broad music show! During lockdown, it has been a portal for those who want to experience live music. Even though the format of the show has had to adapt for the pandemic, as Music Week write, the series has been a real lifeline:

“Fifty-seven series in, and Later… With Jools Holland has become more important than ever.

The show returns on BBC Two at 10pm on Friday (February 19) with Arlo Parks as the main guest picking favourite moments from the archive, along with performances by Kings Of Leon and Sleaford Mods.

“It's always been a very popular show with our audience, and actually even more popular this past year,” Jan Younghusband, BBC Music TV head of commissioning, told Music Week. “It's one of those situations where, by not being able to do it as normal, it has been really entertaining and interesting having guests using the archive, alongside live performance and introducing new talent.

“It still has the same DNA, but the ability to add these archive choices has been very profound. We've been able to seek out some great performances that haven't been seen for a long time – quite extraordinary things. It's added a whole new layer to the programme. One day, we'll all be back in the studio, but I'm sure we will keep that element going, bringing deep archive to the audience.”

These six episodes are a bonus run for Later…, which will then return for another series in May.

The main guests for this latest series include Arlo Parks and Moses Boyd (who appeared together on Music Week’s cover last year), along with Tom Jones, Laura Mvula, Years & Years’ Olly Alexander and, for an edition tied in with Comic Relief, Lenny Henry. Other artists set to perform include Music Week cover star Rag’N’Bone Man, Peggy Seeger, Pa Salieu, Wolf Alice and Dry Cleaning.

“There are some very exciting young stars coming through,” said Younghusband. “In the tradition of Later…, there's always been the pop star at one end of the room and the brand new person you've never heard of at the other end of the room.

“Rag’N’Bone Man started off with us, now he’s a big star. The BBC likes to feel that, by nurturing talent, they come up through radio and television. Later… With Jools Holland has had an enormous role in the debuts of so many of the great talents that we have.”

Last year’s guests on the show included Christine And The Queens, Dizzee Rascal, Ellie Goulding, Gregory Porter, Guy Garvey, Michael Kiwanuka, Robert Plant, Sam Smith and Celeste, alongside performances from Laura Marling, Fontaines DC, Declan McKenna, Koffee, The Lathums and Joesef.

While it obviously helps that people are stuck at home, ratings have been strong for Later… in the past year, including a record result of 4.56 million viewers for Jools’ Annual Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve. The programme featured new and archive performances from artists including Celeste, Roisin Murphy and Ella Eyre.

This current bonus series shows the BBC’s commitment to live music, according to Younghusband.

“It has never been a more challenging and catastrophic time for our industry,” she told Music Week. “We felt that what we should try and do is make more live music happen. So we added this February run of six episodes, and then there will be a further run of six in May.

“Right now, we're in a very serious time and our audience is locked down at home. We want to make sure that we're doing our job by bringing them great music, young talent and the stars of the moment, which is what the show does”.

As Jools Holland’s music series turns thirty next year, I hope there will be other shows commissioned. I think there is a great demand for live performance and spotlighting of great new artists. Watching Later... with Jools Holland and you get an experience and buzz that you cannot get from YouTube or streamed gigs. I look forward to a new series in May and I know that so many people have been lifted by Later... with Jools Holland. It is great that the success and popularity of Later... with Jools Holland continues, but it makes me wonder why there are not calls for alternative music shows – given the fact that there is clear demand for the format. Maybe this is something that will be rectified post-pandemic. Ever since the ‘90s, I have been watching the series and discovering so many great artists. I think I found The White Stripes through Later... with Jools Holland – or was alerted to the fact they were seriously good live performers at least! Now that we do not have Top of the Pops or Saturday morning music shows on television, Later... with Jools Holland remains a survivor and treasured show. Let’s hope that there is many more years left in Later... with Jools Holland. It is now, as it always was, a wonderful…

TELEVISION institute!

INTERVIEW: The Anchoress

INTERVIEW:

PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Warring Bush 

The Anchoress

___________

FOR my first interview of 2021…

I have been discovering more about one of the most remarkable artists in modern music. The Anchoress is the stage name of the Welsh-born multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and author, Catherine Anne Davies. I have been following her music since The Anchoress’ debut album, Confessions of a Romance Novelist, was released in 2016. As she prepares to release her second album, The Art of Losing on 12th March, I was keen to discover more about the album and an incredible and original songwriter…

______________

Hi Catherine. How has lockdown been for you? Has it been a period or greater creativity and production. Or has it been quite stifling in that sense?

“I’m still not quite sure what effect it’s had on me in terms of creativity, because a huge part of the time has been devoted to getting two albums released that had already been made prior to lockdown. My collaborative album with Bernard Butler that came out in summer 2020 and the new Anchoress album that is coming out in March. I am very lucky to have my own studio space at home and I had already been used to the rhythm of working from home making this last album. This meant I was able to get back to recording a series of covers/reworkings for Bandcamp once it was clear that touring wasn’t going to be happening for a while. That’s been joyous really to be able to make that monthly connection with fans without the usual delays put in by labels”.

Your new studio album, The Art of Losing, is out on 12th March. How excited are you to get it out there?!

“It will be such a relief to finally have it out there! I am so proud of this record and there is really not one thing I would change, which is really rare for a perfectionist like me. So many people have had their albums delayed due to COVID, so I’m sure I am not alone in having sat on an album way longer than is usual. It makes you feel a little creatively stuck when you are still waiting for that natural process to occur of moving on from one project to another. That’s been completely disrupted by world events. As well as the unusual situation of releasing an album with no live shows or touring”.

I recently reviewed the stunning single, The Art of Losing, and I was hugely struck by it! You have said how the song is an interrogation of what we learn when we lose. How much of your own experiences and loss went into the song?

“Thank you. I started out with the idea of the song needing to have different stories of different individuals in each verse. I was really obsessed with ‘Blasphemous Rumours’ by Depeche Mode at the time, and I love how the lyric draws you in to a life story. So, I guess you could say it’s a melding of both my own experiences and other people’s. Like my debut album, I’m always interested in blurring the line between confession and fiction; and I guess I’ve continued that in the title track for album two”.

I love your music videos, as I feel they are very striking and original. Do you want to direct more, or do you feel you might direct videos for other artists some day? How important are music videos in terms of your own songs?

“It’s been quite an interesting learning curve for me having to get involved in producing my own video because of the restrictions during lockdown. I was very lucky to work with JJ Eringa last year - an immensely talented young filmmaker. We had already shot one video for ‘Show Your Face’ before the pandemic happened and had taken some footage for The Exchange too, luckily. I am always hugely involved in the visual aspects of my projects and have art-directed both album packages. I don’t think it would be a huge leap to experiment more in the visual realm but for the moment I’m starting to think about album three”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Roberto Foddai

You produced, wrote and played almost everything on The Art of Losing. Is it important to have this sort of self-dependence and control when it comes to realising your vision?

“I can’t underplay its importance to how happy I feel with the final album, even a year on from finishing it. It’s important to say that I had some wonderful musicians playing bass and drums on the album too! Although I did play some drums and programming, I am not a drummer in any physical sense.

I’ve always been someone who tends to work best when I have complete control. I don’t find it easy to be subject to other people’s work rhythms, and I had a few not-so-nice experiences in the past where work that I’d done was held back from me or used for leverage.

Since I’ve been slowly building my studio over the past few years, I’ve hugely enjoyed the sense of freedom I get from not having to wait for an engineer or someone else to be awake/in the mood to get on and work when I feel I need to. I love it. I’d highly recommend it. It feels like returning to the methods I began with when it was just me in my bedroom with a multitrack recorder, laying down all the parts”.

Like me, I know you are as huge fan of Kate Bush. In the way you write and produce your music and push boundaries, there are clear similarities. How important has her music been to you through the years?

“I didn’t properly get into Kate Bush until I was university - although I vaguely knew ‘Wuthering Heights’, as most people do. As I delved into her catalogue, the thing that struck me the most was how uncredited she has gone as a really experimental and innovative producer. She’s hugely important to me for that alone, as the example of an artist in control of her vision”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jodie Cartman

Going back to the album, and a certain James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers appears on The Art of Losing’s The Exchange. Have you worked with him before?

“Yes. I worked with the Manics on their last album, ‘Resistance Is Futile’. I duetted on ‘Dylan & Caitlin’ as well as singing backing vocals on another track. Obviously, I’ve supported the band a few times as well as being a bit of a regular guest at their shows; coming on to perform a few duets during both their arena tour and some festival shows. Cardiff Castle was actually the last gig I did before COVID changed everything. I’ve been a huge Manics fan since I was a kid, so it’s a huge thrill to get to work with them, get to know them and discover their wonderful work ethic and the bunch of lovely people they have around them”.

Speaking of Welsh artists, you were born in Wales. It seems like Welsh music is at its richest right now. Do you think the country gets overlooked compared to England and America? Which other Welsh artists should we keep an ear out for?

“I’m currently working with Tali (formerly of Welsh band Estrons) on her solo material. She’s really talented. Her lyrics are so clever and raw, and she’s got a wicked sense of humour. I’m really excited to get working with her again as soon as we can physically get in a room together again. So, you should keep an ear out for that! I always listen in to Adam Walton’s BBC Wales show most Saturday evenings. I never fail to discover something amazing. Adam has an incredible ear for talent, and there’s just such a lot of it coming out of Wales”.

One of my favourite tracks on The Art of Losing, Paris, is mostly instrumental - it is like an interstitial or break between chapters. To me, you write in a very literary and filmic manner, whereby you are always thinking about flow and story rather than putting together tracks (and hoping they coalesce and resonate). Would that be a fair assumption? Have you always approached songwriting like that?

“Absolutely. There are lines in there that echo back from the start of the album as well as the threads of the narrative that has run so far. I wanted it to feel a little bit like a dreamscape and be a container for all the whispered voices. There’s even a reference back to my debut album on there. The voices were a few of my close friends that I really wanted to be a part of the record. It felt appropriate that it would fragment at this point to not just be spoken by myself. I always think of albums as whole pieces of work, a bit like novels. I want to take the listener on a journey from start to finish. Perhaps that is the literary student in me!”.

I love your 2016 album, Confessions of a Romance Novelist. How do you feel your music has evolved and changed in the ensuing years?

“Thank you. That’s a hard one to listen to for me now as I don’t like to look back too much. I want to keep pushing forwards with all the new things I want to do. I think there’s still some common threads there, especially from songs like ‘Bury Me’, ‘Doesn’t Kill You’, ‘Intermission’.

But I think I am much less concerned with writing something commercial by design now. I have a much clearer sense of who I am as a producer, writer and artist now. I am much more comfortable diving into autobiographical content too. I think the new album is just a much purer representation of what I’m into musically - and I’ve not shied away from exploring a darker sonic palette.

On the first album, I was probably just a little too malleable and listening to the opinions of people around me, rather than trusting my own instinct”.

At the moment, we are hearing how venues are being threatened and artists are earning very little from streaming. How does it affect you personally? Do you think we will see positive change and parity this year?

“It’s been a really difficult year. I am very lucky that I can work from my studio at home and keep creating. Bandcamp has been tremendously helpful in keeping things a little less tight in the face of no live income. But I do worry about what happens for the rest of the year. Touring is always financially tricky anyway as a solo artist, but I don’t feel very optimistic about European shows in the face of Brexit now. The additional costs of visas and the difficulty with importing merch may make it just too financially risky”.

It is hard to know when live music can return (although festivals have been announced for the summer). Do you have any plans for 2021 in terms of gigs or promotion for The Art of Losing?

“We are doing an online album launch event with Rough Trade on 12th March. I would usually do a special launch and listening event, but of course that’s just not possible this time around. I will be having an in-depth dive into the album with the wonderful Pete Paphides online, though. Anyone can buy a ticket to come and join us. The Queen Elizabeth Show is currently on sale for July 2021…but I have a feeling that we may see that rescheduled shortly for a later date”.

I know a lot of artists will look up to you and want to follow in your footsteps. What advice would you offer them regarding getting started and navigating the music industry?

“I really do feel that self-sufficiency is the key. It’s not enough just to write great songs or have a great voice anymore. You need to know and understand the business. You need to be able to record yourself, even if it’s just to demo quality. You need to understand how to reach an audience online. It’s running a small business. Certainly not for the faint-hearted”.

A lot of people are being asked what they will do first post-pandemic/when social distancing is dissolved. What is top of your list?

“I’m looking forward to an actual real-life trip to the supermarket. As I’m shielding, I’ve not been since last March and I’ve been relying on online shopping. I’m going to get all glammed up and  you’ll find me in the tinned soup aisle. Baxters Superfood Root Vegetables and Turmeric for everyone...”.

____________

Follow The Anchoress

PHOTO CREDIT: Isabella Charlesworth 

Official:

http://theanchoress.co.uk/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/The_Anchoress

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theanchoressofficial/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/theanchoress

Bandcamp:

https://iamtheanchoress.bandcamp.com/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Z4qmyxotDkAbZ0TpXyZyw

YouTube:

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

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Thirty-Five Years of the Manic Street Preachers

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore 

Thirty-Five Years of the Manic Street Preachers

___________

WHILST I have been doing a lot of…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Manic Street Preachers in 1993 (with Richey Edwards, bottom left)./PHOTO CREDIT: David Tonge/Getty Images

birthday Lockdown Playlists, this one is more to do with an anniversary. As the incredible Manic Street Preachers formed in 1986, I thought I would celebrate thirty-five years of the Welsh legends with a career-spanning playlist. Before then, I want to bring in a Wikipedia article regarding the band and their success:

“Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes), plus Nicky Wire (bass guitar, lyrics). They are often colloquially known as "the Manics". They form a key part of the 1990s Welsh Cool Cymru cultural movement.

Following the release of their debut single "Suicide Alley", the band was joined by Richey Edwards as co-lyricist and rhythm guitarist. The band's early albums were in a punk vein, eventually broadening to a greater alternative rock sound, whilst retaining a leftist political outlook. Their early combination of androgynous glam imagery and lyrics about "culture, alienation, boredom and despair" has gained them a loyal following and cult status.

With their debut album, Generation Terrorists, the Manic Street Preachers proclaimed it would be the "greatest rock album ever", as well as hoping to sell "sixteen million copies" around the world, after which they would split up. Despite (or due to) the album's failure to meet this level of success, the band carried on with their career. The group became a trio again after Richey Edwards disappeared in February 1995. The band went on to gain critical and commercial success despite his absence. Edwards was legally "presumed dead" in 2008.

Throughout their career, the Manics have headlined several festivals including Glastonbury, T in the Park, V Festival and Reading, won eleven NME Awards, eight Q Awards and four BRIT Awards.They have been nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1996 and 1999, and have had one nomination for the MTV Europe Music Awards. The group has reached number 1 in the UK charts three times: in 1998, with the album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and the single "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", and again in 2000 with the single "The Masses Against the Classes". They have sold more than ten million albums worldwide”.

Because one of the world’s great bands are marking thirty-five years together this year, this Lockdown Playlist is a selection of their best songs. If you need a reminder of how great the Manic Street Preachers are, then I know the tracks below will…

REFRESH the memory.

FEATURE: The Whole Story: That Difficult Second Novel: Reimagining a Kate Bush Greatest Hits Collection

FEATURE:

 

 

The Whole Story: That Difficult Second Novel

Reimagining a Kate Bush Greatest Hits Collection

___________

THIS is a feature that sort of comes…

hot on the heels of other ones I have written regarding Kate Bush and greatest hits collections. Later this year, The Whole Story celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary. That was the first collection of her best songs and it followed the success of 1985’s Hounds of Love. I have argued before that radio stations tend only to play Bush’s singles and the bigger hits. We occasionally hear some lesser-played songs but that tends to be very rare. I am looking forward to The Whole Story’s anniversary, as it will be good to highlight an album that I would urge people to buy. So many terrific songs are on that album, and I wonder whether there will be a revision or reissue closer to the anniversary in November. Rather than a simple reissue of that album with no additions, it would be great to see a collection of Kate Bush’s songs that do not get a lot of airing. Rather than it being a selection of deeper cuts, combining some of those rare tracks with some better-known ones would be perfect. I am not sure whether it would see like a follow-up to The Whole Story or an entirely new album, but I think there should be a reimagining where we get a twelve-track album or songs that are brilliant but get less exposure. Kate Bush did put out an album of rarer tracks in 2018, but these were mostly B-sides and covers. There are so many album tracks that I would like to see on an album. It would not technically be a ‘greatest hits’ collection; maybe a reversion of the remastered albums in 2018, where we got to hear these songs that are beautiful but very people know about. I am going to present my idea of a new The Whole Story; perhaps a ‘difficult second novel’ or a cult classic..

Feel It

Album: The Kick Inside

Release Date: 17th February, 1978

Producer: Andrew Powell

Label: EMI

The Wedding List

Album: Never for Ever

Release Date: 8th September, 1980

Producers: Kate Bush/Jon Kelly

Label: EMI

And Dream of Sheep

Album: Hounds of Love

Release Date: 16th September, 1985

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Reaching Out

Album: The Sensual World

Release Date: 16th October, 1989

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Watching You Without Me

Album: Hounds of Love

Release Date: 16th September, 1985

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

The Kick Inside

Album: The Kick Inside

Release Date: 17th February, 1978

Producer: Andrew Powell

Label: EMI

Symphony in Blue

Album: Lionheart

Release Date: 12th November, 1978

Producer: Andrew Powell

Label: EMI

Among Angels

Album: 50 Words for Snow

Release Date: 21st November, 2011

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: Fish People

Pull Out the Pin

Album: The Dreaming

Release Date: 13th September, 1982

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

Rubberband Girl

Album: The Red Shoes

Release Date: 1st November, 1993

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

How to Be Invisible

Album: Aerial

Release Date: 7th November, 2005

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI  

Houdini

Album: The Dreaming

Release Date: 13th September, 1982

Producer: Kate Bush

Label: EMI

FEATURE: Groovelines: Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

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I want to bring in a few articles…

regarding this song, as I can not do it true justice on my own. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a glorious by Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. A re-recorded version, with a full band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron's first single, Home Is Where the Hatred Is (from his album Pieces of a Man (1971). As the album turns fifty very soon, I wanted to spotlight a truly incredible piece of music.  The song's title was originally a popular slogan among the 1960s’ Black Power movements in the United States. The song was inducted to the National Recording Registry in 2005. I am going to source from a few articles that tell us the story of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and why it remains so important and powerful. If you have not heard the Pieces of a Man album, I would advise you to seek it out. This is what AllMusic said when they tackled it:

“Gil Scott-Heron's 1971 album Pieces of a Man set a standard for vocal artistry and political awareness that few musicians will ever match. His unique proto-rap vocal style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists, and nowhere is his style more powerful than on the classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Even though the media -- the very entity attacked in this song -- has used, reused, and recontextualized the song and its title so many times, the message is so strong that it has become almost impossible to co-opt. Musically, the track created a formula that modern hip-hop would follow for years to come: bare-bones arrangements featuring pounding basslines and stripped-down drumbeats. Although the song features plenty of outdated references to everything from Spiro Agnew and Jim Webb to The Beverly Hillbillies, the force of Scott-Heron's well-directed anger makes the song timeless. More than just a spoken word poet, Scott-Heron was also a uniquely gifted vocalist. On tracks like the reflective "I Think I'll Call It Morning" and the title track, Scott-Heron's voice is complemented perfectly by the soulful keyboards of Brian Jackson. On "Lady Day and John Coltrane," he not only celebrates jazz legends of the past in his words but in his vocal performance, one that is filled with enough soul and innovation to make Coltrane and Billie Holiday nod their heads in approval. More than three decades after its release, Pieces of a Man is just as -- if not more -- powerful and influential today as it was the day it was released”.

Not to mangle a great piece of writing, but Medium documented the origins of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and the events leading up to its creation. The beginnings occurred at a time of racial struggle and injustice in the United States:

“When Gil returned to campus in September of 1969, the school was on the verge of revolt. As a rural school, too far away from urban unrest, Lincoln University didn’t experience the explosive rage blowing up on other black campuses such as Howard University or Morgan State. But there was plenty of anger directed at the conservative school administration, which looked down on political demonstrations and some of the free-form creativity taking place on campus. The school had started admitting female students only the year before, and some of the older students and faculty were still resentful at the changes taking place on campus. But Gil and his friends kept pushing for even more change.

Among them was Carl Cornwell, a student who occasionally jammed with the Black and Blues, a band fronted by Gil. He was also a member of a jazz quintet that played a lot of contemporary music by Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner. Called the Harrison Cornwell Limited after Cornwell and trumpeter Joe Harrison, the group had originally included Brian Jackson, until Gil snatched him away to play with the Black and Blues. Cornwell, whose father taught at Lincoln, grew up in town and was imbued with the school’s pride and heritage. But once he became a student, he saw firsthand that the college was lacking essential services and wasn’t responsive enough to the needs of students.

At midnight one Friday in November 1969, at the end of a rehearsal, Cornwell’s group was packing up their instruments when drummer Ron Colbert started having an asthma attack and his inhaler wasn’t helping him catch a breath. The group walked to the school infirmary but it was closed. So they took Ron back to his room. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late. “He died in my arms,” remembers Cornwell. “I’ll never forget it.”

The tragedy could have been avoided if the infirmary had been staffed and open around the clock. Colbert’s death brought to a head some issues that had been simmering for years: Gil’s neighbor in his freshman dorm had died of an aneurism that had gone untreated after being detected, and several students had had their medical problems misdiagnosed by the campus doctor.

When Gil returned on Sunday night from a weekend in New York City, he quickly found out about Ron’s death and decided to take action, demanding adequate medical facilities. The student body united around the demands, especially after the administration started to claim that Colbert may have been getting high, though there was no evidence that the young man used drugs.

I would advise people to check out the full article. I wonder whether there will ever be a T.V. series or short around The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; one that uses the song as a central focus and features events in politics and society from late-1960s America. Perhaps there has been something produced; I think the political events of the late-1960s and how they resonated with people like Scott-Heron is fascinating.

“By 1970, Gil had written a few dozen poems that worked as song lyrics, most of them political and social commentary such as “Brother,” “Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?” and one song that will define him forever. That spring, he and Brian and some friends were sitting around watching TV one night in one of the dorms when a news report came on about a demonstration. The newscasters started talking about how many people were taking part. “We said, ‘People ought to get out there and do something; the revolution won’t be televised,” Gil later recounted. “A cat said, ‘You ought to write that down.”

Over the next few weeks, Gil started writing down lyrics in his notebook, and he and Brian started paying more attention to what was actually being shown on television. They noticed the commercials, and the friends commented to each other on the insidiously persuasive power of ads for everything from toilet cleaner to breakfast cereal. The contrast between the commercials and the demonstrations in the streets could not have been more glaring: one was on TV, and the other was live. When he was finished writing, he titled the poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.

Whether you consider The Revolution Will Not Be Televised to be an epic performance poem or a song, I feel it is one of the most potent and fascinating recordings in history.

I want to source from an article from Open Culture. We get a n interview exert from Gil Scott-Heron where he discussed The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:

“One might think Scott-Heron’s classic spoken-word testament “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” speaks for itself by now, but it still creates confusion in part because people still misconstrue the nature of the medium. Why can’t you sit at home and watch journalists cover protests and revolts on TV? If you think you’re seeing “the Revolution” instead of curated, maybe spurious, content designed to tell a story and gin up views, you’re fooling yourself.

But Scott-Heron also had something else in mind—you can’t see the revolution on TV because you can’t see it at all. As he says above in a 1990s interview:

The first change that takes place is in your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. The thing that’s going to change people is something that nobody will ever be able to capture on film. It’s just something that you see and you’ll think, “Oh I’m on the wrong page,” or “I’m on I’m on the right page but the wrong note. And I’ve got to get in sync with everyone else to find out what’s happening in this country.”

If we realize we’re out of sync with what’s really happening, we cannot find out more on television. The information is where the battles are being fought, at street level, and in the mechanisms of the legal process. “I think that the Black Americans are the only real die-hard Americans here,” Scott-Heron goes on, “because we’re the only ones who’ve carried the process through the process…. We’re the ones who marched… we’re the ones who tried to go through the courts. Being born American didn’t seem to matter.” It still doesn’t, as we see in the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many before them, and in the grievous injuries and deaths from unconstitutional, military-grade police escalations nationwide since”.

I am going to wrap up soon but, just before, I wanted to highlight an essay by Marcus Baram. It helps answer misconceptions about the song and why The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is such a timeless poetic work – a mandate that could be applied to society today and how there is still huge inequality:

“In the song, Gil recites advertising slogans for some of America’s most famous brands-- Coca-Cola, Listerine, Hertz, Dove, Exxon--totems of the consumer culture of the 1950s and 1960s which had inculcated themselves into the country’s mythology and folklore. And he name-checks popular TV shows and movie stars—“Green Acres,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” Natalie Wood, Steve McQueen--the demigods of America’s popular culture. His voice dripping with sarcasm, Gil mocks their triviality and insignificance because when the revolution comes, “black people will be in the street looking for a better day,” because “there will be no highlights on the 11 o’clock news.” He continues: The revolution will not go better with Coke The revolution will not fight the germs that cause bad breath The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat The revolution will not be televised WILL not be televised, WILL NOT BE TELEVISED The revolution will be no re-run brothers The revolution will be live Long before he stepped into a recording studio, Gil already saw the poem as a song, a classic 12-bar blues track. And the next year, when he worked on his first album, “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox,” he recorded the lyrics to the poem, accompanied by congas and bongo drums, in front of a small group of friends sitting on folding chairs in a studio in midtown Manhattan.

 It was later re-recorded with a full band, including his pal Brian Jackson on flute, as the B-side to his 1971 single, “Home Is Where The Hatred Is” for an album produced by Bob Thiele, who had also worked with John Coltrane and poets like Jack Kerouac. The song and the album were an early example of a creative work going viral, decades before the launch of Twitter and Facebook. It didn’t get much airplay on radio, due to its incendiary lyrics, but it spread by word of mouth in black neighborhoods around the country, in campus coffee shops and nightclubs in West Philadelphia, Harlem, Watts, Chicago’s South Side, and Atlanta. Poet Nikki Giovanni remembers seeing Gil perform the song at a store in Harlem and feeling encouraged that his voice--strong, black, political, poetic--was out there, shaping the minds of his generation. The song became an anthem for a revolutionary era, honored as one of the top 20 political songs in history, and compared to Allan Ginsberg’s “Howl” and Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Later, it became recontextualized and distorted into a message that became the medium again as a slogan on T-shirts and endless headlines that misunderstood the original meaning of the song. In a bitter irony, Gil himself allowed the song to be coopted and used in a TV ad for Nike back in 1994, a decision he always regretted. At the time he was battling a drug addiction and desperate for money, so he accepted director Spike Lee’s request to let rapper KRS-One transform the lyrics into an ode to basketball to help sell the sneaker giant’s new Air Jordans. Until his death in 2011, Scott-Heron was alternately proud of the song’s power and resonance but also frustrated by the way its meaning had been consistently misunderstood by many listeners who took the song’s title literally, that the revolution won’t be aired live on television. But what Gil meant in the song, and it’s obvious from hearing the lyrics, is that you have to be active, you can’t be a passive participant in the revolution. When the revolution happens, you’re going to have to be in the streets. If you want to make change in society, you have to get off your ass and take action. You just can’t sit on your couch and watch it on TV”.

Just ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of Gil Scott-Heron’s Pieces of a Man album (it was recorded in April and released later in the year), I wanted to dissect an incredible musical work. It is sad that, in some ways, society and relations have not progressed since the late-1960s; how there is still  such injustice. Of course, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is not only inspired by racial injustice but, as we are still living in a time where there is such horror and a lack of progression, one cannot help but extrapolate various words and lines from the track and apply them to the here and now. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a remarkable work that, over fifty years since its introduction…

MOVES and inspires all the senses.

FEATURE: The February Playlist: Vol. 4: The Last Man on Earth Standing on Shattered Ground

FEATURE:

 

 

The February Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Wolf Alice 

Vol. 4: The Last Man on Earth Standing on Shattered Ground

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THE final weekend in February…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

has gifted treats in the form of some seriously big songs. Not only are there new tracks from Wolf Alice, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, The Horrors, Greentea Peng, Wyvern Lingo, Green Day, The Offspring, Chloe x Halle, Leon Bridges/Keite Young, Zara Larsson, Julien Baker, Noname, Marianne Faithfull (with Warren Ellis), Maxïmo Park, Alice Cooper, Novelist, and NewDad. We also have songs from Sarah Close, Pop Smoke, Jade Bird, Ben Howard, Nils Frahm, Becca Mancari, Cosmia, and Baby Queen. It is a busy and exciting week for new music. If you require some kick and energy to get you into the weekend, then I think this week delivers the goods…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Horrors

IN spades.

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Hemingway

Wolf Alice - The Last Man on Earth

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Shattered Ground

The Horrors - Lout

Greentea Peng - Nah It Ain’t the Same

Green Day - Here Comes the Shock

Cautious Clay – Roots

Leon Bridges, Keite Young - Like a Ship

Kero Kero Bonito - The Princess and the Clock

Chloe x Halle - 80/20

Zara Larsson - Look What You've Done

Coach Party - Everybody Hates Me

The Offspring - Let the Bad Times Roll

PHOTO CREDIT: Alysse Gafkjen

Julien Baker – Heatwave

Maxïmo Park – The Acid Remark

Alice Cooper – Hail Mary

Novelist – Wagwan

Wyvern Lingo – There’s a Place

Pop Smoke – AP

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikey Massey/Hyperbeast

Cosima – BACKSEAT DRIVERS

Baby Queen – These Drugs

PHOTO CREDIT: Ali Cherkis

Half Waif - Party’s Over

Sinead Harnett - Last Love

Millie Turner - Concrete Tragedy

PHOTO CREDIT: Laurie Barraclough

Wyldest – Wilting

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Moore

NewDad – Slowly

Cariss Auburn – Daydream

Sarah Close – Forgive or Forget

Jade Bird - Open up the heavens

PHOTO CREDIT: Jake Michaels

Real Estate - Half a Human

Dropkick Murphys - Middle Finger

Lindsay Munroe - Need a Ride

Maisie Peters – John Hughes Movie

PHOTO CREDIT: Graham Tolbert

Flock of Dimes - Price of Blue

Bobbi Arlo – FEEL IT

Madison Beer – Blue

Ben Howard – Far Out

Tiana Blake – Interruption

Issey Cross - Boys Make Promises

Josie Man – Cuts & Bruises

Architects, Mike Kerr – Little Wonder

Charlotte Sands – Special

Aleyna Tilki - Retrograde

Noname - Rainforest

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Matheson

Marianne Faithfull (with Warren Ellis) - She Walks in Beauty

Bizzare x Giggs - BADMAN

PHOTO CREDIT: Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times

Nils Frahm - O I End

Becca Mancari - Annie

PHOTO CREDIT: Brantley Gutierrez

Dinosaur Jr. - I Ran Away

Lydia Luce - Never Been Good

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Nigel Godrich at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

Nigel Godrich at Fifty

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I like doing birthday Lockdown Playlists…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nigel Godrich with Ultraista (with Joey Waronker and Laura Bettinson)

as it allows me to focus on the work of a particular artist and open my eyes to their brilliance. Today, I am celebrating one of the greatest producers in the world. Nigel Godrich is fifty on 28th February, so I wanted to salute a producer who I first discovered from listening to Radiohead’s OK Computer back in 1997. I am going to end with a playlist of songs that Godrich has either produced, assisted, mixed, engineered, performed or worked on. Before then, I want to bring in some Wikipedia information about the great man:

“Nigel Godrich was born in Westminster, London, the son of Victor Godrich, a BBC sound supervisor, and Brenda Godrich. He was educated at William Ellis School in North London, where he shared classes with his friend and future Zero 7 member Henry Binns. Godrich began playing guitar, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. He became interested in sound engineering and studied at the School of Audio Engineering. After graduating, Godrich became a junior staff member at the Audio One studio complex, working primarily as a tea boy.

After the closure of Audio One, Godrich became the house engineer at RAK Studios, where he became a tape operator for producer John Leckie, with whom he worked on albums by Ride and Denim. In 1995, Godrich left RAK to work with Binns on electronic dance music at their collective Shabang studio.

 Godrich first worked with Radiohead when Leckie hired him to engineer two songs for their 1994 EP My Iron Lung. The band nicknamed him "Nihilist", approving of his efforts to take their sound in new directions. He went on to engineer Radiohead's second album The Bends (1995), working under Leckie as producer. When Leckie left the studio to attend a social engagement, Radiohead and Godrich stayed to record B-sides; one of the songs intended for a B-side, "Black Star", was instead included on the album. In 1995, Godrich produced Radiohead's charity single "Lucky", plus the B-sides "Bishop's Robes" and "Talk Show Host", released on the "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" single.

Radiohead invited Godrich to produce their third album, OK Computer (1997). Working in improvised studios without supervision, he and the band learned as they went, and credited the open process with the record's success. In 2013, Godrich told the Guardian: "OK Computer was such a big thing for me because I was given power for the first time. Some of these incredibly intelligent and insightful people said 'do what you want' to me so I worked my arse off for them and together we did something that represents where we all were at the time. And it stuck for some reason. People got it, so that changed my life.”

Godrich has produced every Radiohead studio album since, and won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album for Hail to the Thief (2003). Godrich's father died during the recording of Radiohead's ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016); Godrich wrote: "Making this album was a very intense experience for me. I lost my dad in the process. Hence a large piece of my soul lives here in a good way”.

To nod to a legendary producer on his fiftieth birthday, here are some remarkable songs that Nigel Godrich has played a part in. As an innovator, mixer, engineer., musician and producer, I think that he is one…

OF the finest of his generation.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Mariah Carey - Butterfly

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Mariah Carey - Butterfly

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I wanted to feature…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Micelotta/Hulton Archive

Mariah Carey’s sixth studio album, Butterfly, here because it still gets a lot of stick from some quarters. The follow-up to the phenomenal Daydream of 1995, Butterfly is a terrific release. I don’t think one needs to be a Mariah Carey fan to appreciate the songs and the variety throughout the album. Released on 16th September, 1997, Butterfly contained Hip-Hop and Urban Adult Contemporary sounds plus  some softer and more contemporary melodies. Mariah Carey worked with many fantastic Hip-Hop producers and rappers such as Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott and the Trackmasters. With the latter acts producing most of the album, Butterfly deviated from the contemporary sound of Carey's older work. I like how Butterfly is sort of symbolic in its title: the artist coming out of her cocoon and turning into this bright and liberated wonder. Pushing away from the Pop sound of her earliest albums, Carey was utilising R&B and Hip-Hop more – to great and hugely memorable effect right through the album. During her marriage to Tommy Mottola, Carey had little control over the creative and artistic steps she took on her albums. After their divorce midway through the album's conception, she was able to reflect her creative maturity and evolution in the album's writing and recording. With terrific singles like Honey, and Butterfly, I think Carey’s sixth studio album is one that deserves more attention now. It got some great reviews in 1997, but there are some sources that have been unkind towards it.

I want to bring in a feature from Essence from 2017. They marked twenty years of Butterfly in 2017. We hear from collaborators Da Brat, Stevie J, Krayzie Bone and Mariah Carey herself. I want to bring in some sections that caught my eye:

“Of course she’s technically “pop,” in the purest sense of the word. With ten platinum studio albums, 34 Grammy Nominations, countless Billboard hits and a slew of other record-breaking achievements, she is undoubtedly one of the most popular and prolific artists of all time.

But she didn’t choose that. It was kind of inevitable, right? Her voice alone —its palpability, its singularity— primed her for a career of singing chart-topping hits. She couldn’t help it.

It’s the other connotation of “pop” that doesn’t quite fit and feels more determined —the one that makes you think of bubblegum— light, generic, lacking substance or burden. The kind of label we give to artists who can create anthems, but rarely get intimate. That’s where Mariah gets off the train.

To not define (or to not at least offer a careful disclaimer) when calling Mariah “pop” is to ignore her legacy of delivering masterfully written music that’s personal, profound and soulful —the antithesis of the typical pop music formula. While songs like “Love Takes Time” and “One Sweet Day” from her earlier albums hinted at Carey’s desire to go deeper, it was 1997’s Butterfly that solidified the rhythm and blues quotient in her music and presented her as a vulnerable and self-reflective artist ready to break free.

With Butterfly, she created a classic. More than a branding tool, the butterfly became synonymous with Carey, and for a good reason. The imagery of a vibrant, spirited thing with incomparable beauty and an unpredictable wingspan, was the perfect mascot for Carey’s unprecedented range as a musician and an artist —her dynamic voice, so striking and distinct, it could only be something crafted by the Divine. Not to mention the butterfly’s process of becoming —its life cycle, its transition while cocooning, the stages of egg, caterpillar and then butterfly— served as an idyllic symbol for a woman on the brink of emerging.

Stevie J: “She was just being herself [when we worked together]. She was married at a young age, so you know she had really began to find herself and the woman she wanted to be. It’s a great thing for a woman when she gains her independence, so I didn’t really see anything other than just her being a happy, spirited person. We would have our Cristal and our wine and just be writing smashes.”

Da Brat: “Once she broke away from the cocoon, she spread her wings and flew on her own. She was ready to handle her own life. The ‘Honey’ video showed her escaping from an island. ‘Butterfly’ (the song) is self-explanatory. She came into herself. The album was soulful because that’s who she was. Behind all the glam, she was hood, still a kid, knew all of the lyrics to all rap songs… and just wanted to express herself in her own way. Her words are her truth. ‘Breakdown,’ just listen to the words. She joined forces with her favorite hip-hop homies who she knew she had great creative chemistry with and soared even higher.”

With the exception of “The Beautiful Ones,” a remake of Prince’s song, Mariah wrote or co-wrote each track on Butterfly. Carey’s former manager and American Idol judge, Randy Jackson reportedly stated that out of the “Big 3” (Whitney, Celine and Mariah) Mariah is the only one who also writes her own music. And according to her collaborators she really, really writes.

Stevie J: “When you have someone with that type of writing ability… Her pen game is lethal.”

Da Brat: “When MC works, she likes to write together with the producer or artist she’s collaborating with. She starts humming melodies, we throw ideas in the pot, different scenarios, rhymes, ad-libs, harmonies and then a masterpiece is crafted.”

Mariah: “I love writing, sometimes more than singing. There’s something about it. I love poetry.  I love writing melodies. I love collaborating with other writers. When I’m not doing it, I don’t feel like myself.”

Even though it received mostly positive reviews upon its release, there were some more mixed and negative ones. This is what NME wrote in their review:

“Or maybe not. Still, we're not a million miles away from that sort of downward-spiralling, because Mariah's seventh album is a bruising diary of personal despair. Like Spiritualized's 'Ladies And Gentlemen...', it's a graphic depiction of a collapsing relationship.

You see, Mariah may have sold enough records to buy a lifetime's supply of platinum-coated elephants, but in the past year she has suffered a much-publicised divorce, as well as being the focus of some intense speculation regarding the nature of her relationship with 'pop genius' Sean 'Puffy' Combs. Needless to say, as a result 'Butterfly' is 65 minutes of gruelling angst.

Still, for an album that will doubtless propel Mariah ever nearer to that magic 100 million mark, it contains some truly great scenes. During 'Babydoll', we find Mariah alone and paranoid in her hotel suite in the early hours of the morning ("I'll have a little more wine/And I'll try to drink you/Out of my head"), while minutes later she's forgetting all about her marriage and getting frisky with a stranger on, er, 'The Roof' ("I couldn't bear to let you go yet/So I threw caution to the wind").

By this point, we're naturally reeling under the sheer weight of it all, and counting our blessings that the soundtrack to this emotional extremity is so reassuringly bland. Let's face it, in Jason Pierce's hands this would have been the most traumatic record of all time. Luckily, with the aid of Puffy and the odd Prince cover, most of Mariah's traumas are washed away in a stream of anaemic synthesisers and medium-paced ballads.

Which is why this album will sell approximately 1,000 times more copies than 'Ladies And Gentlemen...'. And why it's not that bad being Mariah Carey - even if your life is falling apart”.

I think I must have heard Butterfly when it came out in 1997. I liked Daydream in 1995, and I was hooked on singles like Fantasy. I was not a huge Mariah Carey fan prior to that, but I had new respect for her when her sound developed and shifted. I think Butterfly is a great album that deserves a lot of praise.

In a more positive review, this is how AllMusic reflected on an album that is seen as an R&B classic:

“Upon its release, Butterfly was interpreted as Mariah Carey's declaration of independence from her ex-husband (and label president) Tommy Mottola, and to a certain extent, that's true. Butterfly is peppered with allusions to her troubled marriage and her newfound freedom, and the music is supposed to be in tune with contemporary urban sounds instead of adult contemporary radio. Nevertheless, it feels like a Mariah Carey album, which means that it's a collection of hit singles surrounded by classy filler. What is surprising about Butterfly is the lack of up-tempo dance-pop. Apart from the Puffy Combs-produced "Honey," Butterfly is devoted to ballads, and while they are all well-crafted, many of them blend together upon initial listening. Subsequent plays reveal that Carey's vocals are sultrier and more controlled than ever, and that helps "Butterfly," "Break Down," "Babydoll," and the Prince cover, "The Beautiful Ones," rank among her best; also, the ballads do have a stronger urban feel than before. Even though Butterfly doesn't have as many strong singles as Daydream, it's one of her best records, illustrating that Carey is continuing to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers”.

Butterfly debuted at number-one at the US Billboard 200 selling 236,000 copies in the first week after its release. It maintained that position for one week and remained in the top-twenty for twenty-one weeks; it stayed in the chart for fifty-five weeks. Butterfly was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of five-million copies. It is one of the most successful albums of the 1990s so, if you ignored it when it came out or were not really aware of it, then check out Butterfly. Breakdown (ft. Krayzie Bone and Wish Bone) is my highlight, perhaps, but I love Honey, My All, and Babydoll. Spend some time and spin an album that is considered…

A classic from the 1990s.

 

FEATURE: The Dreaded C-Word: Has the Idea of the Concept Album Died Out?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Dreaded C-Word

 Has the Idea of the Concept Album Died Out?

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WHILST there have been some terrific albums…

released through the years, there have been some changes and declines that are worrying. Not to say that the concept album has been a big thing through the ages and has really slumped. I do feel that we saw more concept albums in the 1970s and years gone by. In 2004, The Streets released the majestic A Grand Don't Come for Free. is a Rap opera and concept album that follows the story of its protagonist's relationship with a girl named Simone, alongside the mysterious loss of £1,000 from his home (the eponymous ‘grand’). I think the concept had a bad reputation when it was done a lot by Prog-Rock acts as they went on for ages and were quite pretentious. I think there have been some concept albums over the last few years, but it is quite rare to hear them that often. When done right, a concept album can provide so much drama, cinema and wonderful moments. Rather than put together a selection of songs without a unifying theme, it is interesting when there is this story and overarching thread. Not that it is a pure concept album, but I was interested to hear news about Kacey Musgraves’ upcoming album. Rather than it being a straight or commercial album, as we can see from this article in The Line of Best Fit, Musgraves has combined modern politics with ancient tragedies:

“Kacey Musgraves, who won four Grammys in 2019, two of which were album awards for Golden Hour, hasn't released new music since featuring on Troye Sivan's updated version of "Easy" in December last year, but in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Musgraves reveals some information about her new album set for release later this year.

PHOTO CREDIT: Eric T. White 

Musgraves has been working with producer Daniel Tashian, and revealed to Rolling Stone that she was inspired by tragedies after listening to Bach’s "Komm, süßer Tod, komm selge Ruh", which led her to think about Greek tragedies, Romeo and Juliet and the classic three-act narrative.

She said, "This last chapter of my life and this whole last year and chapter for our country - at its most simple form, it’s a tragedy. And then I started looking into why portraying a tragedy is actually therapeutic and why it is a form of art that has lasted for centuries. It’s because you set the scene, the audience rises to the climax of the problem with you, and then there’s resolve. There’s a feeling of resolution at the end. I was inspired by that."

Having been inspired by that structure, Musgraves started to group her 39 songs written over the past few years into acts, which allowed the album to take shape. She told Rolling Stone, "It’s crazy because you have to just wait on it. You can’t ask for it."

After grouping the songs, she realised she needed another song to represent the "crescendo of the climax".

Musgraves added of the track styles, "I mean, looking at the list of songs, we have some that venture into, like, a Bill Withers land. We’ve got that synth stuff that we always loved. And we’ve got some Eagles or America territory. There’s a little bit of a dance vibe."

The singer/songwriter and Tashian went back and forth in the interview on ideas for a song called "Star-Crossed". Tashian said he was looking for an "epic kind of feeling", while Musgraves threw out words including "Anthemic", "ballad", and "uptempo, sad dance song". Later in the piece, it's revealed that Musgraves is considering getting Carlos Santana to play on the song”.

I am a fan of Kacey Musgraves’ work, so I will be interested to see what comes out. I am not sure whether we will see great concept albums coming in the future or whether the format will cease to exist. The BBC wrote about concept albums to check out that are not mad and pretentious. There are some classics that refute the notion that the concept album is ridiculous and overblown. I think a concept album can be loose and does not have to be very prescriptive and precise. Listen to The Wall by Pink Floyd or The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, and they are very different. Whether it is an album with a general concept that allows for a larger subject to be explored or we have an album that tells a story with chapters and distinct beats, I think that there is definite scope and promise. I am not sure what Kacey Musgraves will do in terms of her concept and how the album unfolds, but it should give inspiration and ideas to other artists. In any case, I feel that a lot of artists and albums are pretty unambitious and do not really grab you. Despite the fact that the concept album gets a bad rap, if it is done right and has an interesting angle, then I feel it can rank alongside any other album. Even though the phenomenon is not as widespread as it was decades ago, I feel there is…

STILL life left in the concept album.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Thirty-Three: Jorja Smith

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Lee

Part Thirty-Three: Jorja Smith

___________

EVEN though she has released…

PHOTO CREDIT: Bolade Banjo for THE FACE

one studio album so far, I think that Jorja Smith is going to be an icon of the future. She is definitely equipped to fulfil such lofty predictions. It seems that music is her main passion; she has this drive and dedication that is wonderful to see. Born on 11th June, 1997 in Walsall, West Midlands, Smith is a stunning artist who has won huge acclaim. Her debut album, Lost & Found, was released in 2018 to massive applause. Smith won the BRITs Critics' Choice Award. In 2019, she was named Best British Female Artist at the 2019 BRIT Awards; she was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Lost & Found was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2018. I will end by sourcing from an interview where Smith discusses new music/future plans. I first heard about Jorja Smith when she put out her Project 11 E.P. back in 2016. I will draw in some songs from Lost & Found through this feature but, as it is important to learn more about Smith, I want to quote from some interviews – I will also source a couple of positive reviews for Lost & Found. I have been a massive fan of Smith’s music for a long time now and I think she has one of the most expressive and beautiful voices in the world. She is influenced by artists like Amy Winehouse, Sade, and Nina Simone – she cites Winehouse’s 2003 debut, Frank, as a hugely influential album. Despite these influences, Smith is very much her own artist!

I want to borrow from an interview Smith conducted with GQ back in 2018. We discover more about her beginnings and why, with such talent and promise, she is pushing away the temptation to sign with a major label:

“Within a week of uploading her debut single to SoundCloud, Jorja Smith went viral. It was January 2016. She was 18, unsigned and had been working in Starbucks since moving to London from Walsall, in the West Midlands, six months before. There was no big label push, no video, no PR campaign. But still, “Blue Lights” blew up, with shoutouts from Skrillex and Stormzy catapulting Smith towards half a million streams and into the sights of every A&R in the country.

Smith’s mellifluous voice marked her out as a rare talent, but even more exemplary was the songwriting. Sampling Dizzee Rascal’s “Sirens”, Smith was inspired to write the song while working on an A-level essay: “Is Postcolonialism Still Present In Grime Music?” The result is a scathing study of the police prejudice she’d seen her young black male friends face, with Smith repeatedly reassuring the listener that “There’s no need to run if you’ve done nothing wrong.” Her timing was bang on. Six months later the track would be played at a Black Lives Matter rally in Birmingham after the movement picked up wind in Britain.

The 21-year-old’s big break came, however, when Drake played “Blue Lights” on his OVO Sound Radio. Now on the rapper’s radar, Smith received a message from Drake in the summer of 2016 requesting a collaboration: a dream for any emerging artist. She said no. “It was a really sick song,” she says now, “but I wasn’t feeling it.” Almost a year later, after a breakup made her see the song anew, she changed her mind. Despite being “a bit offended by it at first, because he thought, ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to work with me,’” Drake gave Smith not one, but two features on his multi-record-setting 2017 mixtape More Life.

Smith is still purposefully unsigned. “I don’t know any different,” she says, “and it’s been going very well.” Would she take a major deal? “Not right now,” she says. “I like having as much control as I can. It’s my life, so I need to be doing what I want and making what I love without someone else dictating to me.”

This desire to do things her own way is tempered by a cautiousness rarely seen in today’s young female stars. The pouting selfies Smith shares to her 1.3 million Instagram followers might suggest that she’s brimming with stage-school bravado, but in person Smith is softly spoken and shy. While she loves performing, she hates “people hearing my talking voice”. And despite levels of hype that would be enough to inflate even the most modest of egos, for Smith, this year has been something of a pleasant surprise: “I didn’t have any expectations for the album, because I didn’t want to be disappointed.”

When asked what has been her made-it moment of 2018 – this glorious, golden year in her career – Smith replies, “I don’t think I’ve had it yet, no. I’ve still got a lot of work to do”.

I am really interested learning about Jorja Smith’s start and how she got into music. It is evident that her music has progressed since her debut single and earliest days. What strikes me about Smith is how assured she sounds in everything she has put out!

Drawing from an interview from The Guardian, we learn more about her teenage years and why fame does not appeal to Smith:

“Her teenage years brought insecurity, about her looks and, at times, about being mixed race. “All my friends were white, they were all slim and had long hair,” says Smith. “I didn’t want to have big lips or a bum. In school you’re so confined to a small space and the boys like the blonde girls and they didn’t like me. But it’s all right, I got over it.”

Music became more serious when, at the age of 15, she was bought a MacBook. On the program GarageBand, Smith would record covers and upload videos to YouTube; one of these, her take on Alex Clare’s Too Close, found her a manager. After school, she left Walsall for south London, where she lived with relatives and took a job in Starbucks. All the while, Smith was writing, putting out tracks on Soundcloud, and it was one of these – Where Did I Go? – that found its way to Drake. He made contact on Instagram, said the song had kept him sane on a long flight, and asked her to do a duet on a song called Get It Together. Smith, scarcely believably, said no, because in her words: “I didn’t write it, I didn’t know what I was talking about.” But she changed her mind a year later and the track appeared on his ubiquitous 2017 mixtape More Life.

 Smith’s success is all the more astonishing for the detail that she isn’t backed by a major label. There’s a simple reason for that: she doesn’t much like being told what to do. That clear-headedness could be seen at the Observer’s photo shoot. “If I don’t like something, I won’t wear it,” says Smith, who has now changed into her travelling outfit of a Mondrian-ish Nike tracksuit, with her hair scraped back into a tight bun. She giggles: “I have a lot of control, yeah.

That’s fame, I suggest. “Don’t want to be famous,” Smith shoots back. “I’m not famous. People” – she pauses, picks her words – “know about me. No, do you know what? I don’t have goals or bucket lists because I don’t like being disappointed. But famous? Famous is like Rihanna. I’m not Rihanna. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’d like to be successful. That’s what I’d like. And happy.”

As for what’s next, Smith just wants to get back to writing. “Or else I’ll never put out another album. And this year I will write more stuff”.

Since that interview, there has definitely been movement in Smith’s camp. I will bring in a more recent interview but, just before that, there is one more interview that caught my eye.

Smith spoke with SSENSE back in October and was asked some interesting questions (which provoked some pretty intriguing answers):

“On a day-to-day basis, what kind of scenarios make your blood boil?

Anything. You could look at me funny and I would get pissed off at you.

What fills you with joy, brings you to tears, gives you goosebumps?

I cry at any film, when someone’s dying or if there is an empowering moment. I watched The Florida Project recently and that last scene, I was in tears.

Do you believe in fate?

No.

Do you have any regrets?

No.

Have you ever had your heart broken?

No.

When did you last break someone else’s heart?

I can’t remember when, and I don’t really care. I’m the kind of person that will take a lot of shit from somebody, but once I end it, it’s done.

Do you ever feel lonely?

I like being on my own.

What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

A strong one. I want people to remember me for my music. Hopefully I won't do anything crazy that they’ll remember me for.

What are the biggest distractions in your life?

My phone. To be honest, I’m easily distracted. I find it hard to focus. Even on stage, I’m constantly thinking about other stuff. It could be something that I last said to someone and I’ll keep recalling it in my head. I’m trying to deal with it, I’m trying to learn how to be calmer and not let my mind wander so much but I find it difficult. I think it’s related to my obsessive streak, getting too fixated on things.

What would be your perfect day?

The perfect day would start with me waking up and understanding that Joel might sleep in. I’m horrible, usually if I’m awake that means he has to be awake. I’ll make myself a cup of tea, let him sleep and not freak out and think he’s dead—that’s happened before. Once he’s up, we’ll make some music together and then go for a long walk. I like walking, if it’s the perfect day then nobody will stop us for a photo because he always has to take it and I feel bad. I’m really conscious of time, so I would try my best to be patient and go with the flow, but I would know exactly what time we’d be going for food. I’d get dressed up and we’d go out for lots of food, with all the courses and more. I love sushi and he likes lobster. Then we’d go for a night walk and run around central London. That’s what we do sometimes, or he runs off”.

Just before I round off and highlight why Lost & Found is such a remarkable album, I have discovered a recent interview from The Face. We learn what Smith has been doing since lockdown - and whether we will get a follow-up to 2018’s Lost & Found:

“She’s been busy during lockdown, too. In June, Smith released a cover of St. Germain’s Rose Rouge as part of legendary jazz label Blue Note Records’ Re:imagined project. She followed it the next month with By Any Means, a Roc Nation-released charity single inspired by her attendance at a Black Lives Matter protest. The video, shot in Smith’s hometown of Walsall in the West Midlands, featured Black-led radio station No Signal, on which she appeared during a Wray & Nephew-indebted clash with Burna Boy in September (the pair going up against each other to select their favourite songs).

In early October, she rounded off the end of summer by ­dropping the visuals for her brilliant, carnival-ready single Come Over, featuring Popcaan. Inspired by a guy who was longing her off, the video sees the singer situated in her own anime-inspired comic book world, soaring through the streets on a motorbike as she sings about waiting for that call, both she and the guy unsure as to what the other is really feeling. The track spent almost the entirety of October in the UK charts and the video had racked up almost four million views by the end of the month. It’s one of the pieces of work that she views as signalling the growth of Jorja Smith.

“I feel like from Rose Rouge, to By Any Means, to Come Over, that I’m on a shift,” she says. ​“A real shift.”

That shift will be there for all to hear on her second album – and, before that, an EP, due for release early next year. My portion of doubles demolished, Smith says she’ll treat me to a sneak preview. There are limited drinks in the fridge so she grabs a bottle of flat Champagne, mixes it with apple juice (sounds weird, actually alright), hands me a glass and presses play on her phone.

“The EP’s changed so many times, but now I’ve finally got it,” she says as the never-before-heard-by-outsiders music fills her flat. Whatever the changes behind the scenes, you can tell that she’s feeling it: singing along, flitting between tracks, turning up the volume, struggling to tell me which she loves the most.

From the tracks I hear, it’s clear that Smith’s next project is an amalgamation of the people and topics she really cares about. Each song sounds entirely different: there’s a house‑y tune in there, a little jazz, a little of the slower-paced sound for which she was, before Be Honest, best known. One that particularly stands out is a remix of Peng Black Girls by south-east London rapper ENNY, which is essentially a love letter to Black women. Another was inspired by one of Smith’s younger fans, whose mum passed out at one of her shows.

I get the impression that Smith is not naturally at ease in the spotlight.

“I don’t like anything outside my house,” she agrees. ​“I like being on stage but that’s all I like. I don’t like anything else. I love everyone, but I just like being by myself. That’s why I used to go home quickly after school.” She even considered whether it was wise for her stage and real names to be the same. ​“I thought, why the fuck didn’t I change my name? Why did I give myself my actual government name?” she asks herself now. Because that means ​“I can’t switch off. There’s nothing to differentiate. But I don’t know what the difference would be? Maybe I wouldn’t be Jorja Smith?”

She tells me about a farm she recently bought near Walsall, ​“a massive field, with horses, where I’m going to build a studio. Because I’m not going to be there all the time, I’ll invite loads of kids – kids I used to babysit, and these twins I went to school with that sing, and be like: ​‘Look, on a Thursday you can go here.’” She plans to enlist her dad as studio manager.

“In this whole lockdown, I realised who I was and who I am,” she states firmly, interview and Trinidadian meal over. ​“I feel like you’re going to see growth, a lot of growth,” she concludes, beaming. ​“The evolution of Jorja Smith”.

I am keen to wrap things up but, when I said that Jorja Smith is going to be an icon of the future, I meant it! A lot of that comes from the beauty and quality that we heard on her debut album. It is such a realised and fascinating album that, almost three years since its release, is moving me hugely. It is a wonderful record that is worth buying. In their review, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“Within two-and-a-half years of uploading "Blue Lights," Jorja Smith crashed the Top 40 in her native U.K., recorded with and opened for Drake, racked up a bunch of Top Ten U.K. indie singles, appeared on the Black Panther soundtrack, and won the Brit Critics' Choice Award. She also received additional acknowledgments via the MOBO Awards and BBC Music Sound of 2017. These and other developments and accolades increased anticipation for Smith's debut album. With one-third of the independently released Lost & Found previously issued, its arrival is somewhat anticlimactic on first contact, but the known and new material coalesce into an assured and complete debut. Had Smith arrived in the post-new jack swing '90s, her work would have been classified as hip-hop soul, what with the streetwise, wise-beyond-her-years perspective, captivatingly raw emotional content -- with an aching, slightly coarse voice to match -- and favoring of breakbeats and mellow, slightly rugged grooves. Standout "Blue Lights" inevitably reappears with its mournful rumination about the terror of racial (racist) profiling.

Other than that cut and "Lifeboats (Freestyle)," on which Smith raps metaphorically about inequality and turning a blind eye to those in need, Lost & Found focuses on romantic pitfalls and impasses. In multiple instances -- the opening title track and following "Teenage Fantasy," two highlights -- she frets about lovers who don't want what she wants, and otherwise regrets wasted time, miscommunication, and dead ends, only rarely looking back with a low degree of fondness. A powerful tool for repairing a broken heart and indicative of an even brighter future, Lost & Found is satisfying and promising at once”.

There is so much to discover in Lost & Found. It is an album that demands repeated listens. I would also advise people to listen and read interviews Smith has conducted, as her past is really interesting. I believe she has the desire and ability to go incredibly far and influence a lot of other artists.

I will finish off by quoting from Pitchfork’s review of Lost & Found. They make some really interesting observations:

“But Smith’s wanderings extend far beyond the personal, and it’s this insight and curiosity that elevate her work. “Blue Lights,” her 2016 debut single, resurfaces here; its heartbreaking and transporting take on police brutality and racial profiling remains a remarkable feat of storytelling. This time, Smith’s questions are posed rhetorically, to illuminate injustice: “What have you done?/There’s no need to run/If you’ve done nothing wrong/Blue lights should just pass you by.” “Lifeboats (Freestyle)” is a spoken-word take on privilege, income disparity, and the failures of the welfare state. “So why are all the richies staying afloat?/See all my brothers drowning even though they’re in the boat/Mothership ain’t helpin’ anyone,” she raps with the swagger of a young Lauryn Hill, indicting her government for its treatment of marginalized citizens and mishandling of the refugee crisis.

It’s not surprising that Smith resents comparisons to other artists, but her link to Hill is clear. Another wildly talented, young, black woman looking for clarity in a world built for everyone but her, Hill used her music to transform her pain into salvation. Just three years younger now than Hill was when The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was released, Smith shares her predecessor’s wounded takes on the world’s injustices and compulsion to search for deep truths.

On Miseducation’s luminous title track, Hill sings what could be Smith’s battle cry: “Deep in my heart, the answer, it was in me/And I made up my mind to define my own destiny.” On Lost & Found, Smith is defining her own destiny. In the process, she confirms that she is special and rare, an asker of impossible but necessary questions”.

Even though she has not been  on the scene for a very long time, I feel that Jorja Smith is going to be a huge star. Smith recently launched Tearjerker: She presents a series of healing, emotional music. Immerse yourself in a world of soothing orchestral music, piano, strings and soundtracks to bring you comfort and escape. Go and listen to that, as we learn more about artists that influence Smith. I expect that we will hear developments in the coming weeks regarding a new E.P. and, maybe later this year, we will get a long-awaited and anticipated second album. With such a stunning voice, beautiful soul and incredible talent, Jorja Smith is…

ONE of Britain’s finest and most-promising artists.

FEATURE: The Fifth Wave: Will Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn Live Album Ever Come to Spotify and Other Streaming Sites?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Fifth Wave

Will Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn Live Album Ever Come to Spotify and Other Streaming Sites?

___________

ON 25th November, 2016…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during her Before The Dawn residency at The Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on 26th Aug, 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX 

the live album of Kate Bush’s 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, turns five. It is an album that I own on vinyl, and I feel like it was deliberately excluded from streaming sites so that one gets the vinyl and gets a more physical feel; like they are at the gig themselves. I am not one of the fortunate ones who attended any of the twenty-two nights Bush performed in Hammersmith. The reception was vastly positive and wild. It was her return to the stage since 1979. She had performed live between 1979 and 2014, but Before the Dawn was her first large-scale and hugely conceptual show since The Tour of Life in 1979. If you are not familiar with Before the Dawn, here is some background:

“Announced on 21 March 2014, Before The Dawn was the first set of live dates by Kate Bush since the Tour Of Life in 1979. Originally, 15 live dates were announced. A pre-sale ticket allocation took place on 26 March for fans who had signed up to her website in previous months (and years). After this pre-sale, a further seven dates were added due to the high demand. Tickets went on sale to the general public on 28 March and most of them were sold out within 15 minutes. All dates took place at the Eventim Apollo in London (UK). The tour was a critical and commercial success, with all shows sold out.

Before The Dawn was a multi-media performance involving standard rock music performance, dancers, puppets, shadows, maskwork, conceptual staging, 3D animation and an illusionist. Bush spent three days in a flotation tank for filmed scenes that were played during the performance and featured dialogue written by novelist David Mitchell. Also involved with the production were Adrian Noble, former artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company, lighting designer Mark Henderson and Italian Shadows Theatre company Controluce Teatro d'Ombre. The illusionist was Paul Kieve, the puppeteer Basil Twist, the movement director Sian Williams and the designer Dick Bird. The video and projection design was by Jon Driscoll”.

“The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of David Rhodes (guitar), Friðrik Karlsson (guitar, bouzouki, charango), John Giblin (bass guitar, double bass), Jon Carin (keyboards, guitar, vocals, programming), Kevin McAlea (keyboards, accordion, uilleann pipes). Omar Hakim (drums), Mino Cinélu (percussion). Backing vocalists were Sandra Marvin, Jacqui DuBois, Jo Servi, Bob Harms and Albert McIntosh. Some actors were involved as well: Ben Thompson played Lord of the Waves, Stuart Angell played Lord of the Waves and the painter's apprentice, Christian Jenner played the blackbird's spirit, Jo Servi played witchfinder and Albert McIntosh appeared as painter. Supporting actors were Sean Myatt, Richard Booth, Emily Cooper, Lane Paul Stewart and Charlotte Williams”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX 

Whereas other albums have been released on vinyl and they are also available on streaming sites, the thing with Before the Dawn is that it is not on streaming sites. The best thing one can do is buy the vinyl/C.D. and experience something exhilarating and hugely important:

“In March 2014 Kate Bush announced plans to perform 15 shows in London in August and September that year, her first live shows since 1979. The shows sold out so quickly that a further 7 were immediately added, with all shows selling out in 15 minutes. Kate’s own website crashed with the demand. The first night of the shows prompted a complete media frenzy with the Evening Standard declaring that the show was “an extraordinary mix of magical ideas, stunning visuals, attention to detail and remarkable music – she was so obviously, so unambiguously brilliant, it made last night something to tell the grandchildren about.” Later that year the show won the special Editor’s award at the highly prestigious London Theatre Awards, the only contemporary music show to do so. Before The Dawn is released on CD and vinyl – 3 CDs and 4 vinyl. The conceptual heart of the show is reflected in the CD format, which is split over 3 discs centred around the two integral pieces – The Ninth Wave and A Sky Of Honey. CD1 ends with the pivotal track King Of The Mountain which bridges into The Ninth Wave suite of songs on CD2. The album was produced by Kate Bush. Nothing on the record was re-recorded or overdubbed”.

I do feel that it is a little strange that we do not really have any Kate Bush live performances on streaming sites. All of her studio albums are there. I guess, as she had her Fish People label set up by 2016, she got more say where Before the Dawn was released and what form it would take. Coming up to its fifth anniversary, it would be great not only to have a reissue of the live album with some extras – maybe in the form of photos and extras -, but having it on streaming sites would provide access to more people. There is also nothing from Bush’s The Tour of Life too - I do think that her live performances are among her most sensational and memorable. I will talk more about Before the Dawn as an album and why one should buy it soon. Whilst one cannot get the same sort of connection hearing the album as being at the show, you can get a semblance of the scale and size of the residency. Pitchfork gave Before the Dawn a positive assessment when they reviewed the live album:

“Live albums are meant to capture performers at their rawest and least inhibited, which doesn’t really apply to Before the Dawn. Bush is a noted perfectionist best known for her synthesizer experiments and love of obscure Bulgarian choirs, but her recent work has skewed towards traditional setups that reunite her with the prog community that fostered her early career. With marks to hit and tableaux to paint, the 2014 shows were more War of the Worlds (or an extension of 2011’s Director’s Cut) than Live at Leeds. But never mind balls-out revamps of Bush’s best known songs; with the exception of tracks from Hounds of Love, none of the rest of the setlist had ever been done live—not even on TV, which became Bush’s primary stage after she initially retired from touring. These songs weren’t written to be performed, but internalized. Occupying Bush’s imagination for an hour, and letting it fuse with your own, formed the entirety of the experience. Hearing this aspic-preserved material come to life feels like going to sleep and waking up decades later to see how the world has changed.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/REX  

“Jig of Life” is the midpoint of Before the Dawn, and its crux. It forms the part in “The Ninth Wave” where Bush’s character is exhausted of fighting against drowning, and decides to succumb to death. A vision of her future self appears, and convinces her to stay alive. “Now is the place where the crossroads meet,” she chants, just as her (then) 56-year-old voice channels her 27-year-old one. Despite her alleged taste for burning one, Bush’s voice has gained in power rather than faded with age. It’s deeper now, and some of the songs’ keys shift to match, but it’s alive and incalculably moving, still capable of agile whoops and tender eroticism, and possesses a newfound authority. When she roars lustily through opener “Lily” and its declaration that “life has blown a great big hole through me,” she sets up the stakes of Before the Dawn’s quest for peace. In Act One, she’s running from the prospect of love on “Hounds of Love” and “Never Be Mine,” and from fame on “King of the Mountain,” where she searches for Elvis with sensual anticipation. She asks for Joan of Arc’s protection on “Joanni,” matching the French visionary’s fearlessness with her own funky diva roar, and sounds as if she could raze the world as she looks down from “Top of the City.”

Rather than deliver a copper-bottomed greatest hits set, Bush reckons with her legacy through what might initially seem like an obscure choice of material. Both Acts Two and Three take place in transcendent thresholds: “The Ninth Wave”’s drowning woman is beset by anxiety and untold pressures, with no idea of where to turn, mirroring the limbo that Bush experienced after 1982’s The Dreaming. That suite’s last song, the cheery “The Morning Fog,” transitions into Aerial’s “Prelude,” all beatific bird call and dawn-light piano. The euphoric, tender “A Sky of Honey” is meant to represent a perfect day from start to finish, filled with family and beautiful imperfections. “Somewhere in Between” finds them atop “the highest hill,” looking out onto a stilling view, and Bush’s eerie jazz ensemble anticipates the liminal peace of Bowie’s Blackstar. “Not one of us would dare to break the silence,” she sings. “Oh how we have longed for something that would make us feel so… somewhere in between”.

I cannot embed any of the songs from Before the Dawn, as there are not even good recordings on YouTube. I admire Bush wants to keep the recordings on vinyl/C.D. She does not really want the experience to be diluted through digital channels. That approach was wise back in 2016, but I know that having Before the Dawn on streaming platforms would also encourage people to buy the vinyl – as they can have a taste and, upon hearing the great production and performances, will want to own it in physical form. It is strange to think that it is coming up for five years since Kate Bush put out that amazing live album. I have my vinyl copy, though I hanker for quick access to the amazing tracks. One can download the album through Apple, so there is that digital form (I think you have to pay for the whole album; not sure if you can buy individual tracks); one cannot get the album through Spotify or other platforms. I would be happy to buy the album on Spotify, though maybe there is the fear people will get it for free or just play various tracks – rather than experience Before the Dawn as a single, cohesive listen. We shall see what transpires this year. No matter what form you listen to Before the Dawn on, it only takes a few minutes to realise that it is…

ONE hell of a listening event!

FEATURE: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic: How Likely Is the Return of the Summer Festival in 2021?

FEATURE:

 

 

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

IMAGE CREDIT: @OfficialRandL 

How Likely Is the Return of the Summer Festival in 2021?

___________

ALTHOUGH it seems quite ambitious…

Reading and Leeds 2021 📣 Following the government's recent announcement, we can't wait to get back to the fields this summer 🎉 LET'S GO 🍻 #RandL21https://t.co/se3B02oFyj pic.twitter.com/EzBLKr3S9T

— Reading & Leeds Fest (@OfficialRandL) February 24, 2021

news broke today that the Reading and Leeds Festival will go ahead in August. After the Government have given us good news regarding lockdown lifting – all social restrictions may go on 21st June -, there is a hurry to plan gigs and festivals safely. NME provide details of the return of one of the country’s most-popular festivals:

“Reading and Leeds Festival has confirmed that it will be going ahead this summer, after the government outlined plans for England to gradually exit lockdown by the end of June.

Posting on social media, festival organisers told fans they “can’t wait to get back in the fields”, alongside a clip which shared footage of classic performances from past years.

“Reading and Leeds 2021. Following the government’s recent announcement, we can’t wait to get back to the fields this summer. LET’S GO,” they wrote in a tweet.

The festival is set to take place in its traditional August Bank Holiday weekend slot, which this year falls between 27 and 29 August. Headline performances will come from the likes of Liam Gallagher, Stormzy, Post Malone, Catfish & The Bottlemen and Queens of The Stone Age.

It comes after the government confirmed that they will “aim to remove all legal limits on social contact” by June 21. Before that, outdoor hospitality, such as pubs and outdoor dining, could reopen on April 12, with indoor hospitality following on May 17.

The latter date is also the first point where live events could return, however, limited capacities and social distancing may still be required. After June 21, all other restrictions should be removed – however, the roadmap is contingent on vaccinations going to plan, COVID-19 variants not causing new problems, and the infection rate lowering”.

READING n LEEDS c’mon you fuckers LG x

— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) February 24, 2021

Whilst infection rates are going down and deaths are falling, that is not to say that we will all be able to get together on 21st June. Things can change between now and then; the situation can get worse and we might all have to go back into lockdown. I hope that things will be okay, and it is a shame that festivals like Glastonbury have already announced they will not happen this year. I guess, if there is testing and vaccination passports provided, then people can go to the Reading and Leeds festival. It sounds like the organisers want to get full capacity happening and have everyone together. It seems like a gamble to greenlight the festival when things could scupper optimism in the next few months. I do hope that the festival goes ahead, though it is a bit risky committing when there are no guarantees. Many people will want to get back into a field and enjoy live music once more. If we all behave and infection rates decline every week, then there is no reason why Reading and Leeds cannot happen. I guess it is a combination of doing the sums, reading the news and hoping that we will be in a much better situation by June. With an August date set, many people are gearing up for the first real live music of 2021. If it can happen – even in some reduced form – then it will salvage this year for many people. I just fear that there may be a spike in infections between now and June – that would mean the roadmap is revised and it will be tight regarding festivals. If it things can go ahead regarding Reading and Leeds, then it is going to be…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @aranxa_esteve/Unsplash

A massive relief.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Erykah Badu at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Anthony Barboza/Getty 

Erykah Badu at Fifty

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FOR this birthday Lockdown Playlist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Maxwell

I am featuring an artist who I love a lot. Erykah Badu is a tremendous artist and her debut album, Baduizm, is one of my favourites. That was released in 1997. Her fifth studio album, New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh), was released in 2010. I hope we have not heard the last of the extraordinary Badu. I want to bring in some Wikipedia information that provides details about a musical titan:

“Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), known professionally as Erykah Badu (/ˈɛrɪkə bɑːˈduː/), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Influenced by R&B, 1970s soul, and 1980s hip hop, Badu became associated with the neo soul subgenre in the 1990s and 2000s along with artists like D'Angelo. She has been called the Queen of Neo soul. Badu's career began after she opened a show for D'Angelo in 1994 in Fort Worth; record label executive Kedar Massenburg was highly impressed with her performance and signed her to Kedar Entertainment. Her first album, Baduizm, was released in February 1997. It spawned four singles: "On & On", "Appletree", "Next Lifetime" and "Otherside of the Game". The album was certified triple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her first live album, Live, was released in November 1997 and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.

Her second studio album, Mama's Gun, was released in 2000. It spawned three singles: "Bag Lady", which became her first top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #6, "Didn't Cha Know?" and "Cleva". The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA. Badu's third album, Worldwide Underground, was released in 2003. It generated three singles: "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)", "Danger" and "Back in the Day (Puff)" with 'Love' becoming her second song to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA. Badu's fourth album, New Amerykah Part One, was released in 2008. It spawned two singles: "Honey" and "Soldier". New Amerykah Part Two was released in 2010 and fared well both critically and commercially. It contained the album's lead single "Window Seat", which led to controversy”.

I will bring in the playlist itself soon. Before then, I came across an interesting article from The New Yorker of 2016. They highlighted the Godmother of Soul. A few interesting sections stood out to me:

“More often, though, Badu’s love life has inspired curiosity, along with jokes about her supposedly mystical power over men. During an interview on BET, she acknowledged the chatter: “There’s an urban legend that says, If you get involved with Erykah Badu, you’ll change gods, wear crocheted pants, and all this other stuff.” (“Crocheted pants” was a reference to the rapper Common, whose music and outfits grew notably more outré when he dated Badu, in the early aughts. He has admitted that she did buy him a pair of knitted trousers, but insists that the ill-fated decision to wear them for a photo shoot was his alone.) Badu once wrote a song called “Fall in Love (Your Funeral),” in which she uses the rumors to create a negative-psychology pickup line. “See, you don’t wanna fall in love with me,” she coos, while sending precisely the opposite message: of course you do.

Badu is that rare veteran musician who claims to harbor no ill feelings toward the music industry. But she concedes that she has sometimes been disappointed by the reaction to her later albums, none of which have had as big an impact as her début. “I thought ‘Mama’s Gun’ was my apex,” she said. “Nobody else thought so.” In fact, critics loved it, but it sold about half as many copies as “Baduizm.” With “Worldwide Underground,” her funky and digressive 2003 album, sales dropped by half again.

In musical terms, though, “Worldwide Underground” was a new beginning: Badu, once known for her meticulous recordings, was adopting a looser, more spontaneous approach. Her songs typically start as grooves, which inspire her to hum along, and then mumble along; she fits words to the melody by transcribing her own mumbles, using a method that she can’t quite explain. James Poyser, a producer and a keyboardist who is one of Badu’s closest collaborators, describes her as a canny and sometimes mysterious editor. As they record, she might discard a promising session without explanation, or suddenly get excited about an old musical sketch that Poyser doesn’t even remember. He has learned that her judgments tend to be correct. During the sessions for “Worldwide,” Badu often recorded him when he was just fooling around. When he hears his parts of the album now, he wants to fix them. “Part of me cringes,” he says. “But it’s just raw, and it works.”

Her evolving recordings doubtless reflect her evolving live show, which has grown markedly less solemn in the years since she first brought her incense sticks to Nickelodeon. On her 1997 live album, she paused to explain one of her oversized rings to the crowd. “This is an ankh—an ankh is an ancient Kemetic symbol,” she said. “The word ‘Kemet’ is the original name for Egypt.” Nowadays, she wears her esoteric knowledge more lightly, and often she prefers teasing to teaching. She might interrupt her own songs with electronic noises, or stop and start her musicians over and over, mimicking an old-school bandleader. (“One time!”) Years ago, during a show at the Apollo Theatre, she tarried so long at a theremin that the crowd grew puzzled, then amused, then annoyed, and then finally resigned—willing to wait for as long as it took for Badu to do whatever she was doing. In 2014, she opened for the comedian Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall—or, rather, closed for him, since her performance didn’t start until half an hour after his gig was finished. Just about everyone stayed, including Chappelle, who watched from the wings for an hour as she and her band stitched together earthy funk and otherworldly pop”.

To mark the fiftieth birthday (on 26th February) of the legendary Erykah Badu, I wanted to compile her greatest recordings together. If you are new to her music, have a listen to the tracks and I am sure they will make an impact. I think that her songs are…

SO strong, soulful and wonderful.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Molly Payton

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Molly Payton

___________

I am jealous of Molly Payton…

as she, I believe, is back in her native New Zealand and is going to do some tour dates this month. Keep abreast of her social media channels (the links are at the bottom). I am not sure when she will be playing in London and the U.K. – she moved to London as a teenager -, but it is heartening to feel that she may be able to perform live very soon! I want to bring in some interviews, as it provides a greater examination of a brilliant musical talent. Payton’s recent E.P., Porcupine, gained some great reviews (I will quote from one later); it signals an artist who is primed for big things. Even if this year looks brighter for her in terms of gigs and exposure, last year was quite disruptive. In this interview with F word. Magazine, Molly Payton spoke with Rachel Edwards about her year - and whether she was yearning to get back on stage:

“Whilst 2020 has most of the world desperately holding onto their last few marbles, 19 year old singer songwriter Molly Payton has kept her head firmly screwed on. It’s already October but for Molly the year is nowhere near over as the indie sensation prepares to release her latest EP ‘Porcupine’.

The singer, who draws inspiration from rock and roll bands of the '60s and '70s, quite literally flew onto the London music scene three years ago when she moved from her hometown in New Zealand with just her mum and a dream of making it as a musician. Two years later and she had her first EP under her belt and had begun to establish a place for herself on the indie scene by supporting alt-rock bands like ‘Palace’.

Her deep, rich tones mean that you’d be forgiven for assuming you’re listening to the voice of someone twice her age but pay attention to the lyrics and you’ll soon be drawn into the world of teenage angst, friendship, love and heartbreak typical of girls her age. In essence, she writes as a type of cathartic release as she navigates the precarious space between adolescence and adulthood.

R.E: I love your raw honesty, it’s refreshing. How did you deal with feeling lonely during lockdown?

M.P: (Laughs) Well I can’t obviously sleep around anymore. That was definitely just a time in my life when I was feeling a bit mad and going out a lot. I now approach everything in a very different way - I’ve calmed down a lot in the last six or seven months. I’ve got really great friends so I spend time with them when I can.

R.E: Did you find that during the intense lockdown period you were still able to be creative?

M.P: God no! I had writers block for the first time in my life. Before lockdown I was writing two or three songs a week and then during lockdown I think I wrote two songs over three months. I was sitting on my second EP and I had six or seven songs from the States so I felt no pressure at the time to be creating a lot and I just let myself sit in my lack of creativity for a while. And now I’m back to it and it feels great...

R.E: Do you miss playing live right now?

M.P: I miss it a lot! I got to the point where I was comfortable with gigging and I was really enjoying it because for a while at the beginning it was the most terrifying thing in the world. But I’d finally started to enjoy it and then of course lockdown started. I just miss that feeling when you finish a set and put your guitar down and everyone’s going crazy...then you walk backstage and it’s quiet and you still have all of the adrenaline.

R.E: Do you have any rituals before you go on stage?

M.P: I usually have exactly two pints and a shot of tequila before I go on stage and I don’t eat dairy. I think I quite like the feeling that every gig’s different. If I had too many rituals it would start to feel like a job.

R.E: I feel like a lot of your songs epitomise different stages of love and heartbreak. What is some advice you give someone who's going through heartbreak?

M.P: Just give it time. There is no cure for heartbreak - I think the only thing you can do is just give things time and try not to drink or smoke too much and look out for yourself. And remember, the best best revenge is being happy - that's the only thing you can do.

R.E: It's so true. The more you focus on yourself the better, after something goes badly wrong.

M.P: The best advice I can give is that when you're with someone, make sure you don't make them your whole life. I'm really lucky. Music makes me so happy. So now when I'm with someone and something goes wrong it’s okay because I'm going to the studio. So it’s finding things that make you feel like you have a purpose when you're separate of someone, you know?

R.E: Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And do you have any big dreams or goals for the future?

M.P: Just to keep doing music. Everything’s a bit uncertain at the moment because I'm kind of in the process of thinking about moving out and trying to find somewhere to live. I've been lucky that I've been able to stay with my mum for so long. She's the most supportive parent ever. I love her very much. I guess my goal is just to earn enough from music to make it my only job, you know, so it can just be all I do. And then there’s the whole I'd love to be famous and go on tour. But bare minimum, you know?”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Hayleigh Longman for NOTION

It must have been quite a shift and change of pace for Payton to move from New Zealand to London! I am not sure whether the two compare – I have never been to New Zealand -, but that sort of change must have been quite a shock to the system. Payton was asked about that move when she was interviewed by Ones to Watch last year:

“The New Zealand-born artist moved to London with her mum when she was sixteen. The plan was to stay for only a short stint, but when Molly's music started taking off that turned into two years (and counting). While Molly had been writing songs and singing for a while at that stage, she hadn't yet considered making it a career. "In New Zealand I just never really thought of it as a possibility," she explains. Back then, the main Kiwi artists she knew that had made it big were a couple of bands her parents liked, and Lorde. And while she notes that's changing, it wasn't until she'd trekked halfway across the world that pursuing music felt like a tangible possibility. "Moving to London," she explains, "I was meeting people who it just happened to."

Those people were the likes of bedroom pop turned breakout rock star beabadoobee, and Oscar Lang, who's signed with The 1975's label Dirty Hit. Alongside Molly, they're part of a crew of talented young London creatives, the kind that make you feel very old and uncool. "They were a really influential group," Molly says. "I definitely wouldn’t have done anything if I hadn’t met them. Just being around young people like that who’ve made what they want to happen was really good for me, to see that it’s possible."

While Molly's mates may have helped nudge her in the right direction, she's clearly got the talent to make on her own strength, as evidenced on her debut EP Mess. Released earlier this year and produced by Oscar, it's a collection of fuzzy acoustic-leaning tracks, inspired by the likes of Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen. They're like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket of nostalgia and show off a voice that could melt steel.

Now Molly's just released her second EP, Porcupine. This time round she's taking notes from the 90s bands she has on repeat, including Nirvana and Pavement. It's aided by the fact after an extensive two-year search, she's finally got a band of her own to flank her on stage and in the studio. The result is a slick collection of fuller, grungier tracks, the kind you can imagine swaying to in a dingy underground club with sweat lining the walls.

PHOTO CREDIT: Zachary Sunman 

Did moving to London change how you wrote at all?

To be honest I was 16 when I moved here, and in [home country] New Zealand I was quite a shy kid. I hadn’t experienced much, then was suddenly thrust into this crazy world. Because the school I went to here, and the people I was mixing with, were so far away from any kind of world I’d experienced before. It was very different, very intense. Going out all the time, having freedom for the first time in my life - and very suddenly - was a bit scary. I don’t know if it changed my style of writing, I think that happened more through writing heaps and getting better. But my sound would’ve changed if I'd stayed in NZ. I met different people, and that would’ve changed the subject matter. It’s hard to say. I don’t even know if I'd be writing if I’d stayed in NZ. It’s a bit nuts to think about, y'know.

Do you miss New Zealand?

So much. I miss my family, and how fucking pretty it is. London’s beautiful but it’s beautiful in a sad way. Everything about London makes me feel melancholy.

I lived in London for six years, so know what you mean.

Maybe it’s because I've watched too many films. I always feel like I’m in a movie here, whereas in New Zealand I feel like a human being. It’s also that weird feeling of separation here where no one knew me before. When I moved here, I had this freedom to be who I wanted to be, which was really fun for a while. I was like, 'I’m gonna be confident, that’s my thing now.' Which was great, and it’s nice to have that thing of, 'No one knows that embarrassing thing I did when I was a kid.' But after a while you miss having that. I’ve got four siblings, and I’m the baby. So just missed getting teased. And Christmas. I had Christmas on my own. In London. It was so sad. My mum was back in New Zealand”.

I am going to finish up soon but, before I get to a review, I just want to source from an interesting interview I came across. Still Listening went deep with Molly Payton, where we learned about the sonic shift on Porcupine from her first E.P., Mess:

“Eliot Odgers: First I just wanted to say that I really love your new EP. It sounds really good. This new EP seems a bit heavier than your last one. What inspired that change?

Molly Payton: Well, I've always listened to more bands than singer-songwriters. I think when I first moved here I didn't really have access to a band so I wrote songs that I could play live which, at the time, was on my own. So once I met my band, which was when I recorded the second EP, I realised I could transfer myself into a heavier sound.

Eliot Odgers: So do you feel like you're going to stay in this kind of sound or do you think you would change to something else? Say — electronic music?

Molly Payton: I think my sound will probably continue to develop. I mean, every time I think I've got a solid taste in music or figured myself out, I end up changing my entire personality and look and sound. So, yeah, I'm sure it will develop into something new.

Eliot Odgers: So with this new EP, and I think your first EP, you worked with Oli Barton-Wood?

Molly Payton: Yeah, just the second EP. The first one I did with Oscar Lang.

PHOTO CREDIT: Zachary Sunman

Eliot Odgers: Speaking of the new EP, what’s the origin behind the name?

Molly Payton: Porcupine! So we've got like two stories for this. The official one that I was saying earlier on was that it's about like defence mechanisms and stuff. When you've been hurt so many times that you start to keep people at arm's length.

Eliot Odgers: Yeah.

Molly Payton: But the other one, which is where I first had the idea, is at the time I was writing the EP so by last summer when I just kind of left high school, I had bleached my hair for probably two years to the point where it was falling out and then I dyed it black and it all broke off — like the top part of it all broke off. So I had a ring of spikes around the back of my head. For a good like six months of my life, everybody used to say I look like a hedgehog. So yeah porcupine!

Eliot Odgers: Nice! Well, yeah, I think they might be doing gigs out that way. Or I might be wrong.

Molly Payton: They already are. They’re already open!

Eliot Odgers: Oh really? That's great.

Molly Payton: Yeah, finally! I miss gigging so much. What was that politician recently who was saying “Oh you're having a hard time? Just get a real job”?

Eliot Odgers: Nice! So do you have plans to release something next year potentially, like a debut?

Molly Payton: Absolutely I am! I think we've built a good amount of momentum from these EPs and I want to move on pretty quickly. I mean, I know why I write constantly.

Eliot Odgers: Are there any plans to release your EPs on vinyl? Do you collect records?

Molly Payton: That's the dream! But financing it doesn't seem justifiable just yet.

Eliot Odgers: Of course. I think one day you could definitely put them both out on like a double EP type thing.

Molly Payton: Yeah, that would be great”.

I will wrap things up soon but, just before, it is worth bringing in a review for the magnificent Porcupine. Check the E.P. out if you have not done so already. When they reviewed the E.P., this is what When the Horn Blows remarked:

“Molly Payton’s second EP ‘Porcupine’ goes bigger and louder, while still retaining some of her previous acoustic flare.

It may be the presence of Francobollo, her new live band, which has added a little more bite at times. Those anthems combine nicely with the acoustic sound of debut EP ‘Mess’, which reappears here, reflecting the different sides Molly offers.

Opener ‘Warm Body’ introduces us to the larger sound this time. “He’s got a problem so he’s just my type,” she sings, turning the tables on the way some men write about women. While this pre-release single may cite ‘shitty poetry’ and ‘a thing for wasting my time’, its anything but.

The 90s influences take a back seat for the Joy Division sound on ‘How To Have Fun’, where Molly criticises ‘cool’ with soaring vocals and a catchy chorus aimed at big venues. It may not be cool to impress others, but this track is definitely exciting.

‘I’m Too Smart’ is a change in pace, an acoustic flavour more like the sound of ‘Mess’. The 19-year-old uses the uncertainty of being a teenager as a recurring theme, like when Molly sings “life’s so good when you know what you want” in ‘Planet Holiday’.

Another great anthem emerges in ‘Going Heavy’, with its moody bedroom-pop sound perfect for beabadoobee fans. Molly sings “everybody wants to be somebody” - on this evidence, she could.

Softer ‘Rodeo’ closes the EP, adding a little more space to the timeless conflict of being a teenager, unsure where life goes, and musing “I know I shouldn’t feel this, but I do”. While Molly might question “Am I wasting my time?”, you won’t be wasting yours hearing what she has to say.

While the title is about the battle to keep people away, ‘Porcupine’ will pull in an audience who acknowledge you sometimes need to ride the bad to get to the good. This EP is an image of where Molly Payton is now, and its somewhere cool – and that’s not a bad thing, this time”.

I am excited to see Molly Payton progress and growth as an artist! She is a really fascinating talent, so do check her out and support her music. I think we will see an album this year but, with two E.P.s under her belt in fairly quick succession – both came out last year -, one can forgive her for taking a bit of time out and resting! If you are in New Zealand, you may be fortunate enough to catch her perform live soon. Molly Payton has achieved so much already, but I think 2021 will be…

A pretty good year.

_____________

Follow Molly Payton

PHOTO CREDIT: Zachary Sunman 

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/MollyPaytonMusic/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/molpayton

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/molpayton/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6mbzLeDgokrXD05pj6kf0N

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfSPNxyX8JMQ02qzth8Xi3g

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Rush - Moving Pictures

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Rush - Moving Pictures

___________

BECAUSE the Canadian band Rush…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Rush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith

released their eighth studio album, Moving Pictures, on 12th February, 1981, I wanted to mark forty years of a classic. After touring to support their previous album, Permanent Waves (1980), the band began writing and recording new material in August 1980 with co-producer Terry Brown. They continued to write songs with a more radio-friendly format, featuring tighter song structures and songs of shorter length compared to their early albums. I wanted to bring in a few reviews and an interesting article about Moving Pictures. This is another case where the vinyl edition of Moving Pictures is a little dear. I would urge people to buy it, as it is an impressively memorable and wonderful album from Rush! In their review, this is what AllMusic wrote:

“Not only is 1981's Moving Pictures Rush's best album, it is undeniably one of the greatest hard rock albums of all time. The new wave meets hard rock approach of Permanent Waves is honed to perfection -- all seven of the tracks are classics (four are still featured regularly in concert and on classic rock radio). While other hard rock bands at the time experimented unsuccessfully with other musical styles, Rush were one of the few to successfully cross over. The whole entire first side is perfect -- their most renowned song, "Tom Sawyer," kicks things off, and is soon followed by the racing "Red Barchetta," the instrumental "YYZ," and a song that examines the pros and cons of stardom, "Limelight." And while the second side isn't as instantly striking as the first, it is ultimately rewarding. The long and winding "The Camera Eye" begins with a synth-driven piece before transforming into one of the band's more straight-ahead epics, while "Witch Hunt" and "Vital Signs" remain two of the trio's more underrated rock compositions. Rush proved with Moving Pictures that there was still uncharted territory to explore within the hard rock format, and were rewarded with their most enduring and popular album”.

I am relatively uninitiated when it comes to Rush, but I do really love Moving Pictures. It is an album that I have been listening to for a bit recently. I really enjoy the songs. I think that Red Barchetta is my favourite – though each of the seven tracks is excellent! This is what Classic Rock noted when they reviewed Moving Pictures:

“The best known song on the album, and probably the band’s most popular song ever, is “Tom Sawyer”. The song was co-written by Canadian lyricist Pye Dubois, who gave a poem to the band entitled “Louis the Lawyer” and asked if the band would be interested in putting it to music. Peart then added “the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be”, by using the American literary metaphor. Musically, this steady but complex song incorporates a heavy use of synths, differing time signatures and accessible melodies. “Limelight” was another hit off the album, which portrays Peart’s uneasiness with fame. It contains one of rock music’s most famous riffs, delivered by Lifeson in a perfectly cultivated crunch of distorted guitar that sounds as good as any sound he had ever cultivated. Peart’s lyrics speak of his slight disillusionment with fame and the growing intrusions into his personal life, complete with Shakespearian references.

The tour-de-force of the album is the fantastic “Red Barchetta”, a vivid action story about a joyride in a car taken during a dystopian future where such actions are unlawful. The song was inspired by the futuristic short story “A Nice Morning Drive,” by Richard Foster, published in 1973, which Peart adapted with his own love of classic automobiles. A true classic jam, this complex song was recorded in one take and contains some of the best bass playing by Lee, who really shines on this track.

Moving Pictures was the first Rush album to top the Canadian album charts and nearly did the same in the US and the UK, reaching the Top 3 in both those countries. The album went on to reach quadruple platinum status world wide and it still sounds as fresh and relevant, multiple decades after its release. During Rush’s 2010–11 Time Machine Tour, the album was played live in its entirety for the first and only time”.

Just before rounding things off, I want to source from an interesting article that looked back on a magnificent album. Some wonderful albums turn forty this year; I think that Rush’s Moving Pictures is among the best:

“As had always been the case where rock was concerned, function and form were of inarguable importance in 1981. If you’re predisposed to like certain kinds of music, and certain bands who exemplify certain kinds of music, it’s perfectly reasonable to seek signifiers so you can align yourself with your chosen tribe. Prog rock had represented a deeply engraved line in the sand – more of a fissure – even in its grandiloquent heyday, and it is generally accepted that punk ushered it smartly off the premises (though nothing is ever quite so cut-and-dried).

Certainly, by 1981, it didn’t seem at all unreasonable to conclude that the hirsute “dinosaur” rock bands who had tottered at inordinate length across prop-littered stages were laughably antithetical to the antsy, sharply-etched, pop-conscious combos who succeeded them. Concision was a key differentiator, whether this applied to song duration, hairstyle or hem width. But it would be wrong to assume that all old prog hounds were grimly set in their ways by the tail end of the 70s, deaf to the alarms raised by the changing guard, heedlessly blundering towards an unlamented demise behind the Diminishing Returns store. Rush, for one, had been listening very carefully indeed.

‘Red Barchetta’, meanwhile, is an open-road parable inspired by Richard Foster’s 1973 short story A Nice Morning Drive, and set in a future which now doesn’t seem too far away, in which cars powered by fossil fuels become outlawed relics. It is clearly written from a health-and-safety-gone-mad perspective (“A brilliant red Barchetta from a better, vanished time”), and the dichotomy it now presents, pitting aesthetics and visceral thrills against the custodianship of the planet, may be a discussion for another day. As an overall composition, however, it’s a Rush cornerstone, with guitarist Alex Lifeson supplying a pointillist constellation of glittering harmonics.

‘YYZ’, named for the identification code of Toronto Pearson International Airport, is another Rush lynchpin: a jackhammer, bravura instrumental with a tritone interval straight from the King Crimson playbook. To these ears, it contains Lifeson’s finest recorded solo, an ecstatic, middle-Eastern ululation of whammy-bar-assisted dips and swoops.

Best of all, ‘Limelight’ rides in on such an appealing, immediate and compact riff that it can only be classed as pop music… albeit pop music with a characteristically insular lyrical agenda (“One must put up barriers to keep oneself intact… I can’t pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend”), and, as it’s Rush, bars of 7/8. In many ways, it’s a song that defines them: decent, diffident men, permanently enshrined in memory on the world’s stages but bemused by the devil’s bargain that this always entailed”.

Go and get Moving Pictures on vinyl if you can. Stream the album if not, as it is a really fantastic listen. Rush has been awarded fourteen Platinum and three multi-Platinum albums in the U.S., plus seventeen Platinum albums in their native Canada. They have been nominated for seven Grammy Awards. The band was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Take some time out to listen to Moving Pictures and immerse yourself in…

ONE of Rush’s finest albums.