FEATURE: Spotlight: Chubby and the Gang

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

Chubby and the Gang

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IT is high time that…

I put Chubby and the Gang in my Spotlight feature. The West London band are formed of Charlie ‘Chubby Charles’ Manning-Walker, guitarists Ethan Stahl and Tom ‘Razor’ Hardwick, bassist Maegan Brooks Mills and drummer Joe McMahon. Their album, Speed Kills, was released year; it ranks alongside the very best from 2020. It is a great debut album that you should own. Though, in a somewhat Spinal Tap manner, Chubby and the Gang have been dubbed one of the loudest bands around, that is not to say they lack hooks, a sense of emotional and sonic balance and nuance. Their lyrics are full of compelling lines and stories. The compositions are rich enough so that one explores songs multiple times to get to the bottom of that. However, they are a direct band that are punchy and physical. I am going to end with a review for Speed Kills. Before I get there, it is worth quoting a few interviews. It allows for a better sense of who the band are and where they are going. The West London-formed crew are heading for bigger things. Charlie Manning/Manning-Walker tends to do the interview talking, so we will be hearing from him. Last year, NME highlighted one of Britain’s most promising young bands. Manning explains how, even though Chubby and the Gang are quite intense, they are accessible and musical:

“The nickname ‘Chubby’ was initially thrust upon Charlie Manning by others, but by the time of recording his new band’s first single in 2019 he had learned to embrace it. The newly christened Chubby and The Gang went on to record their debut album over a manic two-day stretch last autumn, having barely mustered 10 rehearsals together as a band.

Not that you would know it, though. ‘Speed Kills’, originally released in January and now set for a remastered re-release on their new label Partisan [IDLES, Fontaines DC], is a thrilling white-knuckle ride through multiple flavours of hardcore punk. For Manning, it marks the culmination of well over a decade of putting in the hard yards in London’s tight-knit punk scene, although he also considers it something of a departure from the music that he has loved for so long.

I’m 30 now, and I’ve been in hardcore bands since I was 15,” he says. “I’m not bored of hardcore, but sometimes you just need to do something else that isn’t just angsty, you know what I mean? I wanted to do something musical: I wanted to have a record that had handclaps, organ and harmonica on it. I wanted it to be a more accessible record.”

The sonic diversity he describes is indeed on display on ‘Speed Kills’, although the pacing of the record, which crams 13 tracks into just 28 pummelling minutes, is practically breakneck. It’s a discipline that Manning honed during his time in bands such as Arms Race and Violent Reaction, members of the New Wave of British hardcore that emerged in the early 2010s. It was on that circuit that he got to know the other members of Chubby and The Gang, who themselves had been members of such Brighton hardcore bands as Vile Spirit.

Manning describes writing as a “constant nervous twitch” and he believes in the power of direct storytelling. “I think music now is steeped in metaphor, and that’s fine — but it’s not how my brain works,” he says. “I’d rather tell a story about a really specific event that happened rather than make a vague thing that anyone can interpret in their own different way. I’d rather just be like: ‘Look, I was here at this time in this place, and then this thing happened and it ended up like this’.”

“‘Speed Kills’ was done in two days, but this one was done in 10 days. Man, 10 days felt like two years to me: at the end of it I was really losing my fucking marbles,” Manning admits. “The usual recording process in the community of bands that I play in is to get in there, get it all out and that’s it. [On this album] I was overthinking everything, thinking: ‘Is this shit or is it good?’ But I’m proud of it, man. I think it’s a step up, definitely”.

Last year was not ideal for a band who wanted to come out of the traps with Speed Kills and tour it as widely as possible. I know that Chubby and the Gang have some gigs lined up soon. It is a welcome relief after quite a tough 2020. CLASH chatted with Charlie Manning late last year as he reflected on 2020:

“How has 2020 been for you so far? Have you held up alright?

We’ve recorded our second album during this pandemic so we’ve been busy as a band. We were a bit back and forth during the first lockdown, but then once that passed, we went up to Leeds and recorded the whole second thing and it’s getting mixed as we speak.

This year’s been a bit weird for us as a band because a lot of things have happened for us, but also fuck all has happened, you know what I mean? We signed a new deal, got all this press stuff, then the flipside is that we’re stuck in our rooms just staring at the walls.

Personally though, nothing much has changed. I’m still working doing my electrician stuff. I can’t complain really; I’ve not been ill, I’m eating healthier, exercising more, doing all that good shit.

I think there’s been a real shift in people as well. Especially in London where you’re working all the time, all the time, all the time, I think people have took the time to stop and think about it and realise how absurd the situation is, you know. Working forty, fifty hours a week or whatever non-stop, you realise this is a bit insane. You also have more time to lament on how shit the government is.

Has music always played an important part in your life?

Yeah, definitely. I know a lot of people come away with soft shit when they talk about ‘discovering’ music, but I do think that without music I would be in a much darker place. When I was a kid, I was a reckless little shit, and I think getting into punk music at an early age levelled me out a little bit.

Has London’s hardcore scene managed to stay connected without live performances this year?

I think the internet helps. People get to chat to each other over the internet and make shows, plan for shows when they come back and all that. There’s a big UK hardcore festival called ‘UK Hardcore Returns’ which is gonna happen as soon as they lift the lockdown basically which should be fun.

I tend not to be on the internet that much anyway but I think people using the internet to talk about what’s gonna happen when we all get back and stuff is a good thing. But, it’s difficult, man. I think when you’re involved in an underground scene, you’re doing what you’re doing for the love of it anyway. So, when you can’t do it, you’re not gonna go anywhere; you’re still gonna be there because you love it, you know what I mean?

How do you feel now that you’ve signed to Partisan Records?

Yeah man, big time. They approached us in March time, something like that, then we had a few zoom meetings and signed literally as lockdown was coming in. But they’ve been really sweet to us. We’ve recorded the new LP for them and they’ve been good at every turn really”.

Just before coming to a review for Speed Kills, Rolling Stone recently featured Chubby and the Gang. The band are making their music known in America. In the interview, we also hear from the producer of Speed Kills (and the band’s forthcoming album, The Mutt’s Nuts), Jonah Falco:

“Direct, demonstrative, restless, reckless, and wry — that’s what Manning Walker is, and that’s the kind of music Chubby and the Gang make. Speed Kills melded his deep punk and hardcore roots with a love of early rock & roll. The guitars grooved like buzzsaw teeth, the drums beat down in swinging blows, and Manning Walker roared tales of street brawls, speed binges, crooked cops, and systemic rot. The songs on the band’s second album, The Mutt’s Nuts, out August 27th, hit just as hard, but with a far more expansive sound that bolsters Manning Walker’s dispatches on work, heartbreak, racism, inequality, and the grace and grit of London.

“Speed Kills was like 2,000 mile-per-hour rock & roll, one ballad, one acoustic song,” says Jonah Falco, the drummer for Toronto hardcore heroes Fucked Up, who now lives in London and produced both Chubby albums. “The Mutt’s Nuts, there’s four or five stations of total musical relief. It’s like these rolling hills of taste, and it’s really great to see that flow going through.”

Though Chubby and the Gang demoed, developed, and fine-tuned The Mutt’s Nuts over several months, the songs still feel tied to Manning Walker’s flat. There’s a pervasive sense of being trapped — trapped in dead-end jobs, in an unfair criminal justice system, by longing, depression, and expectation, the illusion of meritocracy, and circumstances beyond one’s control that those in power have determined will seal your fate anyway.

On early single “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice,” Manning Walker fumes at the inequality of opportunity, capturing the way so many are screwed no matter what they do by mixing his metaphors:  “They say lightning don’t strike twice/But these still feel like loaded dice.” “Coming Up Tough” takes aim at the carceral state’s lack of interest in rehabilitation, inspired by a family member who, at a young age, got into a fight that went wrong, then spent 20 years in prison and re-entered a world that wanted nothing to do with him: “How can you prove them wrong/If no one even gives you a chance?” On “It’s Me Who’ll Pay,” one of a couple of anthems for this era of stagnant wages and crushing productivity demands, Manning Walker bellows what could be a Chubby and the Gang thesis statement: “Sell my soul to the fucking job? No way/If time is money then it’s me who’ll pay/And all the coppers and politicians keep it all in place.”

“Maybe I felt like the world was closing in,” Manning Walker says. “We’d just had Brexit — can’t leave an island now. Can’t leave my room because there’s Covid. It just felt like the world’s shrinking and I got a lot of time to reflect on things I don’t like, so I expressed my dismay by writing songs about that”.

There are a couple of other interviews that I want to feature. PASTE had their say about the remarkable Speed Kills:

“Lead singer Charlie Manning-Walker (who apparently goes by Chubby Charles) has spent years in British straight-edge punk, so he’s got receipts, but there’s something especially snappy and satisfying about this project. What separates the Gang from their other bands is their discarding of discordant hardcore leanings for melodic fiery rock ‘n’ roll ones and occasional blues and surf undertones. “Trouble (You Were Always On My Mind)” incorporates ’60s doo-wop and surf-pop melodies while “Moscow” explodes into pit of flaming rhythm and blues. Much of the record is rooted in textbook riffs churned out at such a pace that they appear new and invigorated. It’s a reminder of why you fell in love with rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

Their barrelling energy is the core of their appeal, and trying to nod along to their brisk rhythms for any period of time will probably give you neck pain. Luckily, the album clocks in at 25 minutes, so if you do have the courage, blood alcohol level or amphetamine buzz (the last of which is referenced in the album title) to move along to this album in its entirety, you won’t be in super rough shape the next day. Take album highlight “Pariah Radio” for example: Try listening to that blistering song without feeling a nagging urge to pogo or envisioning yourself accidentally pinching a nerve.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ellie Chaplin 

While cutting riffs and breakneck rhythms are their bread and butter, their lyrics are far from filler. They’ve got their eyes on the prize at all times—the preservation and well-being of the gang and its ethos—but it comes off as more lion-hearted devotion than a preachy stump speech. There’s hatred directed at “the boys in blue” for sure, but they don’t have a stick up their behind about it—there’s a jollyness to their music too. They couldn’t pull off lines like “I won’t be told what to do / Especially from the likes of you” unless it was barked with convincing viciousness and personality.

They also manage to rail against staunch, briefcase-equipped conservatism without sounding corny. Track one begins with retro, anti-juvenile delinquency spoken-word, which features a man talking about the evils of rock ‘n’ roll. The main source of such heresy according to this man is “the beat,” which couldn’t be more fitting given that the beat is what fuels Chubby and The Gang: Later on the album, they emphatically yell, “Can you feel the beat / It never went away / It’s always been out on the street!”

Speed Kills spray paints the spit, blood, sweat and tears of their working-class, misfit gang onto a wall of concrete. Its plain-spoken nature and ravishing charm is the perfect accompaniment to their absolute instrumental onslaught. Chubby and The Gang may be the first independent British hardcore punk band in a while to get this much attention, but as Speed Kills tries to hammer home: There’s an entire fringe scene back home that’s part of the gang and that helped shape Chubby’s ascent. It’s one for all, all for one”.

This is quite timely, I guess, as The Mutt’s Nuts is out on 27th August. The highly-anticipated follow-up to Speed Kills, go and pre-order the album. This is what Rough Trade had to write about the London band’s second studio album in as many years:

“West London five-piece Chubby and the Gang are balanced by two energies on The Mutt's Nuts 'a casual 'fuckit' on one side, an active 'fuck off' on the other. For every moment of punk imperfection, there's an intricate flurry of detail. For every enraged statement about modern life as war, there's a lyric like 'Hello heartbreak, my old friend' that catches you off guard. Made up of musicians from across the consistently thriving and criminally overlooked UK hardcore scene (ft. The Chisel, Big Cheese and more), Chubby and the Gang marinate its characteristic speed and sick-of-it-all energy in a mixture of 50s pop sounds. The result is a prickly take on the older, more melodic genres that punk derives from, chewing them up and spitting them out into something mangled but revitalized”.

After their second album comes out, there will be more dates and attention. Chubby and the Gang are one of the most important bands we have right now. I can notice small changes between albums; improvements and little tweaks that means they are growing and evolving – never keen to repeat themselves and cover the same ground. If you have not discovered the band then go and follow them on social media (as far as I can see, they do not have a Twitter account). They are a terrific band that produces…

A wonderful sound.

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Follow Chubby and the Gang

PHOTO CREDIT: Ellie Chaplin 

Official:

https://www.chubbyandthegang.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/chubbyandthegang/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Chubbyandthegang/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXyGNsx8ABfZmz43QnWcqbA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/54owRfib7AwmLx1OEM1Apd

FEATURE: Inspired By... Part Twenty-Four: Ms. Lauryn Hill

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By...

Part Twenty-Four: Ms. Lauryn Hill

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SOME may question…

whether an artist who has released one solo album has a big legacy and influence. Ms. Lauryn Hill put out The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. She released two albums as part of the Fugees. Their second album, 1996’s The Score, is one of the greatest ever. That said, so is Ms. Lauryn Hill’s solo album! She is an incredible songwriter and artist who has compelled so many others. Before I come to a playlist with a selection of songs from artists who are inspired by Hill or have definitely been affected by her in some way, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“Lauryn Hill broke through with multi-platinum-selling, Grammy-winning group the Fugees, but with her 1998 solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the singer, songwriter, rapper, and producer established herself as a creative force on her own. She successfully integrated rap, soul, and reggae into a singular sound. Eclectic, uplifting, and empowering, the album was often cited by younger artists as a touchstone. Following its success, Hill was something of an enigma, her recorded output limited to a live set, scattered compilation appearances, and a handful of collaborations. Disenchantment with the entertainment industry, along with legal issues and erratic performances, did not lessen the impact of her '90s work.

Raised in South Orange, New Jersey, Hill spent her youth listening her parents' multi-genre, multi-generational record collection. She began singing at an early age and snagged minor roles on television (As the World Turns) and in film (Sister Act II: Back in the Habit). Her on-again/off-again membership in the Fugees began at the age of 13, but was often interrupted by both the acting gigs and her enrollment at Columbia University. After developing a following in the tri-state area, the group's first release -- the much-hyped but uneven 1994 album Blunted on Reality -- bombed, and almost caused a breakup. But with the multi-platinum 1996 release The Score, the Fugees became one of the most prominent rap acts on the strength of hit singles "Killing Me Softly," "Ready or Not," and "No Woman, No Cry."

Hill followed it in August 1998 with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, her first solo release. Apart from a cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," popularized by Frankie Valli, each song was either written or co-written by Hill. She was also credited with the arrangement and production of the whole album, which was steeped in her old-school background, both musically (the Motown-esque singalong of "Doo Wop [That Thing]") and lyrically (the nostalgic "Every Ghetto, Every City"). As Miseducation began a long reign on the charts through most of the fall and winter of 1998, Hill became a national media icon, as magazines ranging from Time to Esquire to Teen People vied to put her on the cover. By the end of the year, as the album topped best-of lists, she was being credited for her part in assimilating hip-hop into the mainstream. The momentum culminated at the February 1999 Grammy Awards, during which Hill took home five trophies from her 11 nominations, including Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Album -- the most ever for a woman. Shortly after, she launched a highly praised national tour with Atlanta rappers OutKast.

Hill continued shaping her solo career, though it hit some significant snags. She faced a lawsuit from musicians who claimed they were denied full credit for their work on Miseducation -- a matter that was eventually settled out of court. After some film projects fell through, she retreated from the music scene as she raised her family and partially attributed her hiatus to feeling too compromised. The double-disc MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 appeared in May 2002 and documented a raw, deeply personal performance. It debuted at number three but quickly slid off the Billboard 200. During the next several years, her recordings and performances were infrequent and erratic, highlighted by a Fugees reunion for Dave Chappelle's Block Party. In 2013, she spent almost three months in prison for tax evasion but was more active after her release. The following year, the English-language version of the Swedish documentary Concerning Violence was released with Hill as its narrator. She executive produced and recorded six songs for the 2015 release Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone, including interpretations of "Feeling Good" and "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair”.

To celebrate the iconic Ms. Lauryn Hill, this ending playlist is an assortment of artists who owe something to her. As you will tell – like so many artists I include in this feature –, there is a broad range of songs and artists on display! There has been talk for years as to whether Ms. Lauryn Hill will release a second solo album. For the sake of the music world, let’s hope…

THAT she does.

FEATURE: Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me: Madonna – Ray of Light

FEATURE:

 

 

Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me

Madonna – Ray of Light

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AS Madonna…

celebrates her birthday on Monday (16th), the final feature I am writing about her to mark that concerns an album of hers that impacted me during childhood. This was a late-childhood love; an album that was released on 22nd February, 1998 – I was fourteen on that day. Ray of Light is Madonna’s seventh studio album. I think her work in the 1990s is up there with what she put out in the 1980s. Erotica of 1992 and 1994’s Bedtime Stories are two very different albums. Both are terrific and contain some of her best songs. Maybe Bedtime Stories was not the critical success she had hoped. Coming back four years later with this reinvention was a big surprise. I guess having producers like William Orbit on board helped take her music to new places. Mixing Electronic, Dance and Hip-Hop, this is a Madonna album like no other! Unusually, the first single from the album was Frozen. I really love the track and was hooked by this track that was dark yet hypnotic. Written with her old writing partner, Patrick Leonard (with production by Madonna, Leonard and William Orbit), it is the ninth track on the album. Many might have assumed the more upbeat and energetic title track would have been the lead single. Frozen got to number-one in the U.K. after its release on 23rd February (I am going by Wikipedia’s dates, so am not sure whether the first single came out a day after the album). I bought the single first and, I think, got the album the following weekend.

This was a period where I was going into my local town to buy albums and singles. I was a big Madonna fan then (and still am), so I was eager to check out this new single. After being hooked and loving it, I got the album. Still at high school, this was an album many people were talking about. Instantly, songs like Ray of Light, Nothing Really Matters, The Power of Good-Bye and Drowned World / Substitute for Love got under my skin. This is an album where you can go from the hyperspeed sway of Ray of Light, have something more introspective and emotional as The Power of Good-Bye and the beautiful Mer Girl. Shanti / Ashtangi is a step into Indian music and mantra. It is a direction that Madonna didn’t exploit and explore too much after that. Although she did get some stick for her supposed bond with Eastern music and Kabbalah, this was her embracing different styles and cultures. There are so many different sounds and genes fused on Ray of Light. It is an album that has so much going on! Sky Fits Heaven is one of my favourite songs. It has a Club beat, and manages to be quite sparse and minimal but really powerful and packed. To me, the defining song of the album might well be the title track. It was the first real burst of light and colour on the album (as the third track). Written by Madonna and William Orbit, the album has been credited for bringing Electronica music into global pop culture.

I loved Ray of Light when I heard it in 1998. It opened my ears to new sounds and possibilities. I thought I knew Madonna and what she was about then. Although one can hear some sharper, darker and more Electronic elements on Erotica and Bedtime Stories, Ray of Light was much more realised and adventurous. It sounds so complete and authentic! This is not a Pop artist dabbling in something to get commercial appeal. Here was an artist doing what she always did: evolving between albums and curious to see where she could head. Because of that, albums like Ray of Light sound so fresh and original. Today, you can pop on the record and get so much from it. I can tell, when Ray of Light arrived, that critics loved it. Many view Ray of Light as Madonna’s defining album. It is an album very special to me, as Madonna was one of the first artist I really bonded with. I am going to finish with a review for the album. This is Entertainment Weekly’s take on Ray of Light:

“Is Care Of The Soul sharing space with baby-care manuals on Madonna’s bookshelf? Ray of Light (Warner Bros.), Ms. Ciccone’s first pop album in nearly four years, is rife with references to the earth and ”the stars in the sky,” angels and heaven, not to mention unexpectedly respectful references to God and ”the Gospel.” In one song, she’s ”waiting for the time when earth shall be as one”; in another, enunciating in a voice made firm and clear by those Evita lessons, she gamely attempts to make a pop hook out of a yoga chant.

If these nods to spiritual reawakening seem suspiciously chic, you haven’t heard the other half of it. Working with British producer William Orbit, Madonna has dipped her latest collection of songs in a light batter of electronica. Throughout Ray of Light, the hissy, staccato pulsations of ambient techno and drum-and-bass flit in and around her like celestial seasonings. Computers burp and bray in the background, or imitate streaking asteroids or submerging submarines.

The blending of these philosophical and musical kernels would be unbearably trend conscious (even by Madonna’s own standards) if it weren’t for a simple fact: Ray of Light is some of the most alluring and captivating music she’s ever crafted. Should comparisons be made, they’re neither to straight techno discs by the Chemical Brothers or Underworld, nor to stilted attempts at the music by U2 or David Bowie, but to Paul Simon’s Graceland. On that milestone, Simon let South African pop buoy and revitalize his music. In much the same way, Madonna looks for — and finds — a middle ground between her now-old-school approach and the new club music. She dresses her music up with her electronic love.

Strictly speaking, Ray of Light isn’t 100 percent pure techno. After all, it features traditionally structured pop melodies, and the music reflects Orbit’s less-than-edgy background in ambient-based mood music. Only once, on the sirenlike techno-glitter-ball of the title track, does the album kick into beats-per-minute frenzy. Instead, what Madonna and Orbit have done — and brilliantly at that — is to use electronica components as sonic window dressing. Hard-step beats and synth washes make the romantic-physical yearnings (and hooks) of ”Skin” and ”Nothing Really Matters” even tauter; the juxtaposition of fuzzy beats and soundtrack-score strings lends ”’Drowned World’ aka ‘My Substitute for Love”’ and ”Frozen” a wuthering-beats melodrama that’s often breathtaking. Throbbing yet meditative, Ray of Light is an adult’s version of dance music, with the dark timbres of Madonna’s nearing-40 voice its resolute center”.

Over twenty-three years after its release, I am still discovering new things from Ray of Light. An album that would be in my top-ten, I was blown away when it came out. It was a real revelation for a fourteen-year-old. Although Madonna has released sensational albums since 1998 (Confessions on a Dance Floor of 2005 might be the best album since then), I don’t think she has reached the peaks of Ray of Light. It is a sensational work. It is a childhood album that impacted me hard. Ray of Light is an album that…

WILL always mean so much.

FEATURE: A Buyer's Guide: Part Sixty-Seven: Prefab Sprout

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer's Guide

Part Sixty-Seven: Prefab Sprout

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I have not yet included…

Prefab Sprout in A Buyer’s Guide. They are one of my favourite bands and, with Paddy McAloon at the front and writing such beautiful and timeless songs, their work will be remembered and shared for years to come. The band are still together – although it is pretty much McAloon on his own now. I am going to recommend the essential work of Prefab Sprout. Before then, here is some biography about the legendary band from AllMusic:

“One of the most acclaimed British pop bands of the '80s and '90s, Prefab Sprout was the creative vehicle of vocalist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Paddy McAloon, who has been regularly hailed as one of the greatest songwriters of his era. McAloon has often been compared favorably to Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, and even Cole Porter, not just because of his lyrical and instrumental gifts but for the ambitious creative vision of his catalog. A notorious perfectionist who is also known for his shyness and his struggles with health problems, McAloon's body of work is relatively small (ten albums in three decades), but Prefab Sprout's music is beloved in the U.K., and they have a smaller but passionately loyal audience in the United States. Moving from the smart, beautifully crafted pop of 1984's Swoon and 1985's Steve McQueen (titled Two Wheels Good in the U.S.), Prefab Sprout would explore the influences of American music on 1988's From Langley Park to Memphis, embrace the sound and style of stage musicals on 1990's Jordan: The Comeback, use the Old West as a metaphor on the 2001 concept album The Gunman and Other Stories, and celebrated the power and energy of music on 2009's Let's Change the World with Music and 2013's Crimson/Red.

Prefab Sprout were formed in Newcastle, England, in 1977 by Paddy McAloon, who sings and plays guitar and piano, and his bass-playing younger brother, Martin. In the group's early days, McAloon spun several fanciful tales about the origin of their odd name (one favorite was that the young McAloon had misheard the line "hotter than a pepper sprout" in Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood's "Jackson"), but the truth is that an adolescent McAloon had devised the meaningless name in homage to the long-winded and equally silly band names of his late-'60s/early-'70s youth. With an early fan, Wendy Smith, drafted into the lineup to sing helium-register backing vocals, the trio released its first single, "Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)," on its own Candle label in July 1982. Written for a girlfriend who had left Newcastle to study in Limoges, France (check the acronym of the title), the song was exceedingly clever but obviously heartfelt. The single's warm reception, including many plays on John Peel's radio show, led to the Sprout's signing to CBS subsidiary Kitchenware Records, which reissued the single in April 1983. Another single, "The Devil Has All the Best Tunes," followed later that year.

Prefab Sprout's first album, Swoon, was released in March 1984. Shortly after Swoon's release, drummer Neil Conti joined the group, and Thomas Dolby was tapped to produce the second Prefab Sprout album, 1985's Steve McQueen (retitled Two Wheels Good in the U.S. due to litigation from the late actor's estate). Dolby smoothed out the kinks a bit, and his keyboards helped enrich the album's sound. Prefab Sprout returned to the studio without Dolby in the summer of 1985 and quickly recorded an album's worth of material that was initially meant to be released in a limited edition as a tour souvenir. However, several months after Steve McQueen was released, its song "When Love Breaks Down" (which had been released as a single four different times in the U.K. without chart success) finally became a hit, and CBS feared a new album would hurt its predecessor's sales, so the project was shelved.

The "proper" follow-up to Steve McQueen was 1988's From Langley Park to Memphis. It became their biggest hit, thanks to the massive U.K. chart success of "The King of Rock and Roll" (about a one-hit wonder stuck performing his silly novelty song on the nostalgia circuit; ironically, it was Prefab Sprout's sole U.K. Top Ten hit and remains their best-known song) and the U.S. college radio success of the genial Bruce Springsteen parody "Cars and Girls." Following that chart action, CBS dusted off the shelved acoustic project from 1985 and released it (in the U.K. only) under the title Protest Songs in June 1989. Issued in 1990, Jordan: The Comeback, which McAloon describes as a concept album about Jesse James and Elvis Presley, was released to enormous critical acclaim in late 1990, but unfortunately, its ornate, lush production and suite-like structure doomed it to commercial failure in the U.S., though it was another big hit in the U.K. A fine but unimaginative best-of, A Life of Surprises, met similar respective fates in the summer of 1992.

Many thought Prefab Sprout disbanded at that point, and indeed, Conti did leave the band at some point in the '90s. However, McAloon had written (and in some cases, recorded) several albums' worth of material during the first half of the decade, abandoning them all before finally releasing the crystalline Andromeda Heights in 1997. The album wasn't even released in the U.S., but it was another deserved U.K. hit. An album of subtle beauty, Andromeda Heights showed how far McAloon had come as a songwriter and singer since Swoon.

A much-improved two-disc anthology, The 38 Carat Collection, was released by CBS in 1999 as the group was leaving the label. (Unexpectedly, the group’s U.S. label, Epic, belatedly reissued this set as The Collection in early 2001.) Wendy Smith left the group during this period, after the birth of her first child. Prefab Sprout, by this point consisting solely of the McAloon brothers, signed to EMI in late 2000 and delivered their Western-themed concept album, The Gunman and Other Stories, in early 2001. Unfortunately, the album’s release was delayed several months when Paddy McAloon was diagnosed with a medical disorder rendering him partially blind. As McAloon was homebound due to his health problems between 1999 and 2002, he wrote an album of music inspired by true life stories he recorded from radio broadcasts. Combining the radio recordings with orchestral arrangements of McAloon’s melodies, the mostly instrumental I Trawl the Megahertz became his first solo album when it was released in 2003.

After a six-year layoff, McAloon returned to recording as Prefab Sprout and released the self-produced, performed, and recorded Let’s Change the World with Music in 2009. This set’s songs and concept date to 1992 and were originally to be recorded as the follow-up album to Jordan: The Comeback; for various reasons, those sessions never happened. It was initially issued by Ministry of Sound and later in the year licensed by Sony/BMG in the U.K. In 2010, the independent Tompkins Square imprint issued the album in the United States. Both the album Crimson/Red and its lead single, “The Best Jewel Thief in the World,” were issued by the Icebreaker label in 2013. In March 2017, a video posted on the Internet featured a homemade solo acoustic clip of McAloon performing an original song, “America,” a protest against U.S. immigration policies under Donald Trump. In 2019, Sony reissued McAloon’s I Trawl the Megahertz under the Prefab Sprout banner”.

If you need some guidance about Prefab Sprout and which albums to get, I have suggested the four essential albums, the underrated gem in the pack and the latest album. I could not find a book about the band that is in print – for next week’s subject(s), I will make sure there is a book available. Here is my guide to the work of…

THE amazing Prefab Sprout.

____________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Steve McQueen

Release Date: 22nd June, 1985

Labels: Kitchenware/CBS

Producers: Thomas Dolby (except for track four, which was produced by Phil Thornalley)

Standout Tracks: Faron Young/Appetite/Desire As

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prefab-sprout/steve-mcqueen

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/07CZepJZT17AllXPFRvogL?si=ukyZYqIDRACCtZFdPXMIZw&dl_branch=1

Review:

“Smart, sophisticated and timelessly stylish, Two Wheels Good (titled Steve McQueen throughout the rest of the world) is a minor classic, a shimmering jazz-pop masterpiece sparked by Paddy McAloon's witty and inventive songwriting. McAloon is a wickedly cavalier composer, his songs exploring human weaknesses like regret ("Bonny"), lust ("Appetite") and infidelity ("Horsin' Around") with cynical insight and sarcastic flair; he's also remarkably adaptable, easily switching gears from the faux-country of "Faron" to the stately pop grace of "Moving the River." At times, perhaps, his pretensions get the better of him (as on "Desire As"), while at other times his lyrics are perhaps too trenchant for their own good; at those moments, however, what keeps Two Wheels Good afloat is Thomas Dolby's lush production, which makes even the loftiest and most biting moments as easily palatable as the airiest adult-contemporary confection” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: When Love Breaks Down

From Langley Park to Memphis

Release Date: 14th March, 1988

Label: Kitchenware

Producers: Thomas Dolby/Jon Kelly/Paddy McAloon/Andy Richards

Standout Tracks: Cars and Girls/Hey Manhattan!/The Venus of the Soup Kitchen

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prefab-sprout/from-langley-park-to-memphis/lp

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2gYTh5OCAI8leP681bfpUH?si=GqeYCKeETmWGBQ6MqfJwvQ&dl_branch=1

Review:

“Prefab Sprout arrived in 1988 with two highly acclaimed albums already behind them. With their latest release, 'From Langley Park to Memphis' set to release in March, the band was anxious and in high hopes that the new record could fulfill the sonic aftermath left by the magnificent sophisti-pop odyssey that is 'Steve McQueen'. Thankfully, in my eyes and in the eyes of many others, it succeeded in this feat and then some.

It is perhaps best not to compare 'From Langley Park to Memphis' to 'Steve McQueen', because even though they both have a sound that is unmistakably Prefab Sprout hard at work crafting dreamscapes, they both differ quite a bit stylistically. Instead of creating a second 'Steve McQueen', Prefab Sprout focus on making a cinematic pop experience with production that is grandiose and sweeping. While the first track, "King of Rock and Roll" gives us a funky and wonky synthpop anthem, the rest of the album takes a much more laid back and refined approach, utilizing synths and strings to create dazzling environments.

Whether its the song "I Remember That" or "Nightingales" (which features amazing harmonica from Stevie Wonder), the entire album brings forth a gorgeous pop sound that seems to reside in a far off dream or memory. Although not dreampop as one would traditionally think of it, that may be the most appropriate description for the music on here. With both Paddy McAloon and Thomas Dolby producing these tracks, they simply exude perfect mixing techniques. This is definitively one of the best produced albums out there. "Hey Manhatten" is another classic track that really exemplifies the artistic standard this album sets for pop music: impossibly high.

The album ends with "The Venus of the Soup Kitchen", a song that almost sounds straight out of End of Evangelion and one that hit me right away with its strange and mesmerizing beauty that sounded all too familiar upon when I had first heard it. It crescendoes into a spiraling, angelic melody packed with rich lyricism and poetic contrast that highlights how one views life. Whether you're in Langley Park or in Memphis, you're always going to feel this need to be in the place that you are not; to go on an adventure. Only to find that home is always the place one wishes to return to time and time again” – Sputnikmusic

Choice Cut: The King of Rock 'N' Roll

Jordan: The Comeback

Release Date: 7th September, 1990

Label: Kitchenware

Producer: Thomas Dolby

Standout Tracks: Wild Horses/We Let the Stars Go/All the World Loves Lovers

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prefab-sprout/jordan-the-comeback

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3em3CQi7ZdbyJ6GDvwJwp6

Review:

“With few exceptions, highbrow pop music-making is a commercially treacherous occupation. Nonetheless, Newcastle’s Prefab Sprout — something of a British answer to Steely Dan — has done quite nicely, purveying evanescent music and frequently loopy subject matter. With Jordan: The Comeback, the quartet is poised to reach a wide American audience as well.

Produced with gentle grandeur by musician Thomas Dolby, the album offers a catalog of understated pop styles, all framed by the softly enunciated vocals of Wendy Smith and songwriter-guitarist Paddy McAloon. Occasionally couched in orchestral cotton wool, the 19 songs deftly incorporate such ingredients as salsa (”Carnival 2000”), wah-wah guitar (”Machine Gun Ibiza”), dance-rock (”Ice Maiden”), and streetcorner soul (”Doowop in Harlem”) without ever relinquishing the band’s lushly consistent character.

For all their fascinating intelligence, McAloon’s ironic lyrics can be difficult to pin down. Following the whimsical conception of ”Looking for Atlantis,” the arch iconography of ”Jesse James Symphony,” and the Presleyesque content of the beautiful title song (and others: Elvis is one of the album’s thematic threads), it’s hard to resist searching the sincere sentiments of ”All the World Loves Love” for a subtext that isn’t there. And just how seriously are we meant to take the voice of God in ”One of the Broken”? Those accustomed to musical junk food may find Jordan: The Comeback too subtle and complex at first, but this airy delicacy is a taste worth acquiring. B+” – Entertainment Weekly

Choice Cut: Looking for Atlantis

Let's Change the World with Music

Release Date: 7th September, 2009

Label: Kitchenware

Producer: Paddy McAloon

Standout Tracks: I Love Music/Last of the Great Romantics/Sweet Gospel Music

Buy: https://thesoundofvinyl.com/*/Pre-Order-Vinyl/Let-s-Change-The-World-With-Music-2019-Remastered-Edition/6A3B0JXN000

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0qWrBOrtAWsw2yPNl4TaBz?si=-kGBDyihRn28a5mxSfQsxQ&dl_branch=1

Review:

“For an album that was intended to be recorded over the summer of 1993, this has been a long time coming, so perhaps it’s best not to take the title seriously. Few artists talk up unreleased albums as prolifically as McAloon, which is arguably easy to do, but he probably underestimates his unheard oeuvre.

Here, his cynicism filter remains firmly switched off, with the album opening gleefully: the title track alone takes in early house, scratchy funk and gospel, and the hymn-like Ride celebrates returning to better days. Both capture that early 90s positivity, which is surely due for a revival after today’s 80s synthesisers have been powered down.

His thwarted vision, often blamed for not releasing material, is evident here. Never shy of understatement, Earth, The Story So Far (an unreleased concept album in its own right) is an example of Paddy falling short without his band, particularly backing singer Wendy Smith and producer Thomas Dolby, who defined their sound; its elegance never develops beyond a demo. He also sometimes alienates the listener with overly clever arrangements, such as on I Love Music, but with couplets such as “someone from heaven / put you through hell”, his lyrical skills remain as sharp as ever.

In common with other virtuoso songwriters, the songs and themes of this album unfurl with repeated hearing, although overuse of muted trumpet occasionally grates. If the closing song, a piano-led paen to death, is the last we hear from McAloon, then a more romantic last bow is hard to imagine.

Like motorway service stations halving the value of money, long-awaited albums often disappoint and this too feels like a slightly missed opportunity. Importantly however, you can’t imagine anyone else singing it. It’s good to have him back, no matter how temporarily” – BBC

Choice Cut: Let There Be Music

The Underrated Gem

 

Swoon

Release Date: March 1984

Label: Kitchenware

Producers: David Brewis/Prefab Sprout

Standout Tracks: Don't Sing/Here on the Eerie/Elegance

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prefab-sprout/swoon

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6gsBvvfX2yItSa23rEblyF?si=AHF1_tCQTa2olwU94WlL2g&dl_branch=1

Review:

“At first, Paddy McAloon thought he had to invent his own chords to write songs. As a result, the earliest music by his band Prefab Sprout can sound comical and haywire, like a jazz band entertaining themselves at a cocktail party before the guests arrive. As McAloon continued refining his voice, he earned comparisons to Elvis Costello and Steely Dan, but his heroes were people like Michael Jackson and Prince, Stephen Sondheim and George Gershwin. He dreamed of writing songs that the whole world could sing along to—but he wanted to do it his own way.

Four new vinyl reissues offer a thrilling survey of his journey as a pop songwriter. The series comprises the band’s 1984 debut Swoon, 1988’s commercial peak From Langley Park to Memphis, 1990’s double album Jordan: The Comeback, and 1992’s The Best of Prefab Sprout: A Life of Surprises. These reissues—which feature subtly improved artwork and sharp remasters from McAloon and his brother Martin—leave out but orbit around Steve McQueen, their 1985 masterpiece that remains the ideal entry point to their catalog. It was a breakthrough for the band members, marking their first collaboration with producer Thomas Dolby, whose playful, surreal touch helped define their characteristic sound. Dolby even helped curate that album’s tracklist, choosing songs from a stockpile that McAloon had amassed since forming the band with Martin in County Durham, England in the late ’70s.

Several of those songs predated Swoon, their scrappy debut, whose post-punk edge would be abandoned for a smoother, more sophisticated sound. While Swoon was unrepresentative of the band that Prefab Sprout would become, it set the template for how they’d navigate the pop world. The brothers were joined by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Wendy Smith, who accompanied McAloon for wordless refrains and non-sequitur exclamations that took pleasure in twisting expectations. McAloon was beginning to write eloquently about heartbreak and adulthood (“Cruel,” “Elegance”) but he was also having a blast addressing questions that most songwriters might find trivial: What is the life of a celebrity chessmaster? When was the last time you played basketball?” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: Cruel

The Latest Album

 

I Trawl the Megahertz (Released as a Paddy McAloon solo album in 2003; reissued under the Prefab Sprout name in 2019)

Release Date: 2019 (originally 27th May, 2003)

Label: Liberty Records

Producers: Paddy McAloon/Calum Malcolm

Standout Tracks: Fall from Grace/I'm 49/Sleeping Rough

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prefab-sprout/i-trawl-the-megahertz

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3JtTs7tzD7uj6hpPb1apkT?si=C7-FYjMlSAilH1hjsicxcw&dl_branch=1

Review:

“I Trawl the Megahertz, Paddy McAloon's first solo album, is as likely to perplex and infuriate as it is likely to stun and spellbind. Grand, heavily orchestrated, predominantly instrumental, and not the type of thing you put on prior to going out or when you're in the mood for cleaning the house, the record is incredibly powerful -- almost too powerful -- even when held up against everything from Prefab Sprout's past. The most significant song is the opener; 22 minutes in length, it's nearly elegiac in it its mournful tones played out by a swaying string arrangement and a weeping trumpet. Throughout its duration, Yvonne Connors speaks matter-of-factly -- yet dramatically enough to be poignant -- as she rifles through fragments of her memory, the most disarming of which reads like this: "I said, 'Your daddy loves you very much; he just doesn't want to live with us anymore.'" Of the eight remaining songs, McAloon's voice is present on just one, which doesn't come along until near the end. This song, the particularly autumnal "Sleeping Rough," is almost as emblematic of the album as the opener, expressing a somewhat sorrowful but content coming to grips with the passage of time ("I'll grow a long and silver beard and let it reach my knees"). The album was conceived during and in the wake of McAloon's bout with an illness that temporarily took away his eyesight, but it's plain to hear that his vision remains” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: I Trawl the Megahertz

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: 2005: Iain Shedden (Weekend Australian)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an alternate publicity shot for 2005’s Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton 

2005: Iain Shedden (Weekend Australian)

___________

ONE of the most fascinating albums…

from Kate Bush arrived in the form of 2005’s Aerial. This was her first album since 1993’s The Red Shoes. There was this long speculation when she would release another album and whether would ever see material again from her. Gifting the world with the double album in 2005, there was, naturally, an explosion of press interviews! There are some print examples that are really interesting. The one I want to feature today is Iain Shedden’s with the Weekend Australian. I assume the interview was done by phone. Bush spent a bit of time in Australia early in her life. She has a lot of love for the country. There has always been this firm fanbase in Australia (and New Zealand). I am not going to source everything from the Weekend Australian interview. It is great hearing Bush speak about an album that meant an awful lot to her. A fairly new mother (her song, Albert, was born in 1998), one can feel this sense of new beginnings and an artist reborn. A much different artist to the one we hear on The Red Shoes, Aerial is one of Kate Bush’s masterpieces. Iain Shedden was keen to find out more about a beloved artist who returned to the spotlight after twelve years:  

“What we have is a 47-year-old singer and writer content with her lot, eager to discuss every aspect of her complex life and brimming with joy at the success of her renaissance album, Aerial, which has had critics -- some of whom were not born when she first took the world by surprise with Wuthering Heights 27 years ago -- gushing about her timeless art.

"Yes, I am happy," she says from her home outside London, where she lives with her partner, guitarist Danny McIntosh, and their son Bertie, 7.

Her tone is light-hearted, salt-of-the-earth friendly, occasionally mischievous and peppered with self-deprecating humour. If this is the Greta Garbo of pop, she has had a crash course in gregariousness.

"I'm in a privileged position to say that I'm very happy," she goes on. "I'm very lucky. I'm even happier now that the album has been received with such ..." She searches for the right phrase. "I have never been so surprised. It's extraordinary. I was really worried that people were going to forget me."

Well, they could hardly have been blamed for that, could they? Taking a 12-year break between albums is unusual. The fickle world of pop demands that you ride the wave of success until it dumps you unceremoniously on your backside.

Bush, on the other hand, decided after her 1993 album The Red Shoes that the music business could take a running jump. Enough with fame; she was going to have a life.

"I was working very hard trying to be an artist," she recalls of her heyday. "Somehow I just wasn't being seen as who I was. I was being mistranslated. It was very frustrating."

So, after 15 years, a handful of albums and with a string of hit singles including Them Heavy People, Sat in Your Lap and Breathing behind her, Bush said goodbye to the charts, the recording studio and the spotlight to devote herself to things that she believed were more real, such as cleaning the house and, eventually, having a child.

Both these subjects are addressed on Aerial. Bertie gets a few mentions and did the artwork that appears on Bush's recent single, King of the Mountain, while domesticity in the shape of a washing machine gets a full cycle on Mrs Bartolozzi.

It's no accident that these and other quality-of-life issues dominate the two CDs that make up Aerial. Bush wrote some of the material for it in the years immediately following her retirement, when she was looking for something more than artistic fulfillment.

It wasn't the writing that took so long, she explains, more the recording.

"I think a lot of people think I spend years writing stuff," she says. "I don't. It's shockingly quick."

WHAT took her so long to make a comeback was combining her home life with the recording process. She tackled the latter in her spare moments, which became less frequent after the birth of Bertie.

"A lot of my friends couldn't carry on working when they had a child," she says. "They either had to get child care or they had to stop working. I feel very privileged that I was able to do both [working and parenting], but I was also very tired.

"It's difficult to do both. I made a conscious decision early on that my son would come first."

Her record company, EMI, fretted as another year went by and Aerial remained a work in progress. Company executives went to visit, hoping to hear it at last, or at least some part of it. Most often they left, disappointed, after an earful of tea and cakes.

Early this year, however, their patience was rewarded. The headline on Kitty Empire's review in British newspaper The Observer was: "Admit it, guys, she's a genius". For Bush the album's release and the positive reaction to it have been a validation of her methods, but the proof came only after months of worrying about how the public would react.

"When I was most anxious was when there was this huge amount of anticipation starting to build about the record and I hadn't actually finished it," she says, laughing. "It's hard enough trying to keep that creative focus without feeling that everybody's banging on the door going, `Where is it?' Mind you, I've got good soundproofing." Now that it's done, she says, the relief is palpable. Hardly surprisingly, after that period of gestation she hasn't been able to listen to Aerial.

"I always put myself under a lot of pressure. It is not an enjoyable process spending 12 years making a record. Lots of it was fun but it wasn't something I intended to take 12 years to make.

"I'm so fed up listening to it, I can't tell you. The sense of relief at actually having it finished ... that was one of the greatest senses of elation, after all that time. There were so many points where I felt, almost in a religious sense, that I wasn't going to have the strength to carry on."

There is a hint of melodrama in her voice as she says this, but she calms herself when I suggest that she should be grateful for the freedom she has to work at her own pace.

"I have a lot of freedom, but I guess what gives me that freedom, what drives me, is to try and make something interesting musically. If I was driven by the desire to be famous and make lots of money, I would try and bring a record out every year."

BY the age of 16, Bush had written enough material to produce albums every year until she was in her 30s. Growing up in a musical family south of London, she devoted herself to music and in particular to composition. She taught herself piano, wrote 200 songs, then waited.

"I just love sitting at the piano," she says. "Just as some people sit with a piece of paper and doodle, I guess I was doing that at the piano. I used to write one song a day, sometimes two.

"But of course it's so much easier at that age. You have a lot less to do."

She jokes that she was so prolific in her teens because she knew she was going to slow down as she got older. In truth, she couldn't help herself. It was something she was born to do.

"Right from when I was quite little ... the first thing I really wanted to do was make a record. I'm quite lucky that that was my heart's desire. There is a reasonable amount of value in that."

An introduction to Pink Floyd's guitarist Dave Gilmour was the breakthrough. He played her songs to EMI and they signed her while she was still at school. She studied dancing and mime, building and cross-pollinating the skills that became apparent so quickly after the release of Wuthering Heights (and its landmark video) in 1978.

Her debut album, The Kick Inside, confirmed that her originality and talent were not confined to screaming "Heathcliff" in the middle of a field, and that underneath the quirky image lay a complex songwriter and performer for whom sex and sensuality were essential components. Girls wanted to be her. Boys wanted to be her really special friend.

She can look back on that pivotal moment of Wuthering Heights with some amusement, but she also recognizes that the song, so different from anything that was happening at the time, at the tail end of the British punk phase, opened the door to a lengthy career.

"It was something I was carried along by," she says. "Like a big wave picked me up."

Bush released an anthology and two more albums after Hounds of Love, but The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993) were relatively unsuccessful commercially. The latter dealt with issues such as the death of her mother, Hannah, and the break-up with her long-term partner, guitarist Del Palmer.

She revisits her mother's death on Aerial in the song A Coral Room, a piano ballad that seeps emotion from every pore.

"It wasn't difficult to write," she says of the piece. "The bit that was difficult was that I did consider not putting it on the record. I wasn't sure how I would feel having it on there."

Now that the album is out and in the charts, there will be some expectation, from her record company as well as her fans, of another one appearing before her 60th birthday. So will she make one?

"I hope so," she says. "It's not meant to be my last work. Of course I'd really like to make another one."

Nor is she ruling out performing again. She has even returned to dancing after a long break.

"This is the first time in years I've had time to do other things, so I've just started again recently. It's something I've always enjoyed, but it doesn't hold the same importance to me any more. That's the thing about dance, it's such a discipline. You can't have too many airs and graces because it's all about the fragility of the body. It's really hard work. Being a dancer for a living ... I've got so much respect for people like that, being so strong."

Bush has other strengths, however. She has withstood the pressures the music industry can impose on artists to do things their way and has made herself happy in the process.

"There were quite a few times where I found the way I was living my life was more ... I thought it had more value than someone who was living the life of a celebrity," she says”.

I really like the interview from the Weekend Australian. We all know that Kate Bush did return to performing. It would take until 2014 for her to come back to the stage for Before the Dawn. As it has almost been ten years since her last album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, there will be similar press fascination and questioning when she does release her eleventh studio album. I love all of Kate Bush’s work, though Aerial stands out as…

SUCH a magical album.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Dire Straits – Communiqué

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Dire Straits – Communiqué

___________

I have included Dire Straits…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Dire Straits in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Barry Schultz

a few times on my blog. I think a lot of the concentration has been on their fifth studio album: 1985’s Brothers in Arms. That is one of the more celebrated release from them. In terms of critical acclaim, perhaps 1980’s Making Movies is their highpoint. I am looking at the underrated second album, Communiqué. Their eponymous debut of 1978 is seen as a classic. It does contain the massive hit, Sultans of Swing. A year later, they followed it up with an album that was not as celebrated and successful. I feel that it is an album that has not received its dues. It is a really good listen. Lady Writer is the most well-known song from Communiqué, though the title track and Portobello Belle are excellent. With all songs written by their lead, Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits produced a really solid and enjoyable album with Communiqué. I feel that people need to give the album another spin. I am going to bring in a review for Communiqué that is a little mixed. Before then, in June, udiscovermusic. looked back on the album:

“All of the early groundwork that Dire Straits had put into cultivating their audience with tireless live work and a strong first album brought them a new reward in the summer of 1979. Their second LP Communiqué reached a second-week peak of No.5 in the UK and, at the same time, became the third-highest new entry on Billboard’s Top LPs and Tape chart.

It had been only in April that the previous year’s self-titled debut album, fuelled by the success of the reissued “Sultans Of Swing” single, rebounded in the UK and hit a new peak of No.5. When the sophomore release came along, again entirely written by Mark Knopfler, the first set sold alongside it and stayed on the chart clean through into October. The sophomore release was produced by esteemed record executive Jerry Wexler with Barry Beckett in the conducive surroundings of Muscle Shoals Sound in Sheffield, Alabama.

Communiqué had wasted no such time in reaching the band’s new fan base, with a UK peak at No.6. As it climbed one place the following week, Dire Straits was still selling well at No.21; its successor would spend nine weeks in the Top 20.

Knopfler and bandmate Pick Withers had spent May that year recording with Bob Dylan in Muscle Shoals, in sessions for his Slow Train Coming album. Then there was a UK tour for Dire Straits that ended with two nights at Hammersmith Odeon in London, and as Communique hit the record racks, another sellout set of British and European dates.

The album, released on June 15, made its first appearance on the US chart at No.53, a healthy debut third only to Wings’ Back To The Egg and the Cars’ Candy-O. Communiqué reached No.11 in the States in early August, as the band prepared for their second tour there in September.

Talking to Melody Maker as the album came out, Knopfler acknowledged that Communiqué was something of a reflection of how his, and the band’s, life had changed with the success of the first album. “Your lifestyle changes so dramatically that it’s bound to affect what you do. But the change in lifestyle hasn’t affected a change in sense of self at all,” he said.

“I seem to remember people saying things about the first record…they’re saying things about this record which are complimentary compared to what some of the people were saying about the first record when it came out. And I think that maybe a bit of time will change some of those people’s ideas about what they think they hear”.

I really like Communiqué, and I don’t feel that there are too many weak spots. Whilst nothing as immense as Sultans of Swing can be found, there is more than enough to enjoy! Few have rated the album too highly. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:

“Rushed out less than nine months after the surprise success of Dire Straits' self-titled debut album, the group's sophomore effort, Communiqué, seemed little more than a carbon copy of its predecessor with less compelling material. Mark Knopfler and co. had established a sound (derived largely from J.J. Cale) of laid-back shuffles and intricate, bluesy guitar playing, and Communiqué provided more examples of it. But there was no track as focused as "Sultans of Swing," even if "Lady Writer" (a lesser singles chart entry on both sides of the Atlantic) nearly duplicated its sound. As a result, Communiqué sold immediately to Dire Straits' established audience, but no more, and it did not fare as well critically as its predecessor or its follow-up”.

It is a shame that so few have given Communiqué much of a positive approach. Even if you are not a fan of Dire Straits, I think that you will like the album. I don’t think the songs sound like they were rejected from Dire Straits and added onto a rushed album.

I want to end with this interesting article from 2015. In it, Tom Johnson sort of gives this defence to overlooked and worthy-of-investigation Communiqué:

“There’s something too iconic about the Brothers in Arms material, specifically the way overplayed “Money for Nothing,” complete with its “I want my MTV” tag — two elements that instantly drive me away from albums, if not bands. Overexposure is my enemy, having destroyed relationships with music I have loved but with which I shared a more fragile connection. There aren’t many songs that will survive this unfortunate side effect of a band achieving sudden, widespread fame, but once in a while I manage to not let it get to me.

The Shins, for example, may never be overexposed for me. I love their music and while Garden State threatened to topple the beautiful friendship we’d forged, what with the whole “they’ll change your life!” BS, I managed to ignore it. I simply put their two (at the time) albums away for a while and let it blow over.

It’s harder, however, to encounter something that had long ago reached icon status, such as Dire Strait’s aforementioned “Money for Nothing,” and not instantly stamp the entire band’s output with the feelings associated with that one song. It became a kind of soundtrack for exactly the opposite kind of crowd than the song was written for — the story of an “everyday joe” type dreaming of achieving fame and success — when the yuppie-types in the 1980s latched onto the song, if not the band, as somehow representative of themselves, and completely ignored the message behind the song.

So, when I crumbled to Mark Knopfler’s charms, it was via his then-new solo releases, not Dire Straits, whose music I continued to resist. It was stumbling upon “Sultans of Swing” that did it, however.

That familiar Knopfler twang rings out throughout the song and carries us through to one of the finest guitar solos I have ever heard — a real “goosebumps because it’s so powerful and emotional” kind of moment. Live at the BBC found its way into my collection, followed quickly by the self-titled first album, much of which is found on BBC. And then it was Making Movies, and then Communiqué, released on June 15, 1979.

Even so, Communiqué had to remain on the shelf for a little while, not because of a fear that the overexposed Dire Straits I used to fear would rear its head, but simply because music like this takes the right circumstances to come to life for a listener like me. Many albums I can hear and appreciate, but it takes that special moment, and a certain spontaneity, for some things to really click. Finally, that day arrived for Communiqué, a moment where I was able to hear it without the fog of expectation hanging over me, and it was able to reveal itself as an album full of the delicate subtleties that make Mark Knopfler shimmer — that deep tobacco-soaked voice, the quick, fluid guitar, and the wit behind many of his lyrics.

Knopfler possesses the too-often-ignored ability to understate just the right elements and come out with something that knocks attentive listeners on their asses. It’s a gift that has never been overly abundant in popular music, but when it’s discovered, it’s a rich, abundant source of beauty. Dire Straits’ Communiqué is precisely that kind of album. It has the reputation of being one of the lesser Dire Straits offerings, and yet, it seems, for the right listeners, this album ascends to status of “favorite.” I may start considering myself one of those listeners”.

I shall leave things there. Whilst not in my top-three Dire Straits albums, I have a lot of time and respect for Communiqué. Lady Writer is among the best songs the band recorded. The whole album is one that you can sit with and remember long after it has ended. With only a couple of weaker tracks and plenty of good moments throughout, Communiqué possesses more than enough to…

KEEP you invested.

FEATURE: The August Playlist: Vol. 2: Can’t Let Go of the Rumors

FEATURE:

 

 

The August Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Lizzo 

Vol. 2: Can’t Let Go of the Rumors

__________

THIS weekly Playlist…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Big Thief/PHOTO CREDIT: Josh Goleman

contains great new tracks from Lizzo (ft. Cardi B), Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Big Thief, Jungle, Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Barnett, Nao, The Cribs, The Lathums, and Alessia Cara. Also in the mix are tunes from Cherry Glazerr, Katy B, Kara Marni, Ladyhawke, Jade Bird, and Bessie Turner. It is a busy week so, if you need a boost to get you into the weekend, then check out this selection. It is a varied and interesting assortment that should get you going. The standard this week is pretty high. From the big-hitting artists through to slightly smaller acts, there is something in there for everyone. As the weekend is almost here, play these songs and they will give you…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Phoebe Bridgers/PHOTO CREDIT: Alexander Cody Nguyen

THE kick you need.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

__________

Lizzo (ft. Cardi B) – Rumors

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Can't Let Go

Big Thief - Little Things

Jungle – All of the Time

Phoebe Bridgers – Nothing Else Matters

Julia Shapiro – Come with Me

PHOTO CREDIT: Mia Mala McDonald

Courtney Barnett - Before You Gotta Go

Nao – Wait

The Cribs - Swinging at Shadows

The Lathums – I’ll Get By

Alessia Cara – The Use in Trying

Stefflon Don, Ms Banks – Dip

Cherry Glazerr – Soft Drink

Katy B – Under My Skin

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniele Fummo

Art School Girlfriend - Is It Light Where You Are

Kara Marni – 2nd Nature

Liz Lawrence – Drive

Jade Bird – Candidate

Maisie Peters – You Signed Up for This

Bessie Turner - Rushing

Charlotte OC – Centre of the Universe

second thoughts - nicotine stains

Mathilda Homer - Something Sentimental

Blithe – Love Language

MarthaGunn – Minute of My Time

PHOTO CREDIT: Jade Sadler

spill tab (ft. Tommy Genesis) – Indecisive

Maude Latour – Clean

PHOTO CREDIT: Alexa Viscius

Tasha - Lake Superior

Chelsea Cutler – You Can Have It

Molly Payton – You Cut Me So Much Slack

Anna B Savage - Since We Broke Up

Before Breakfast – Wreck

Polly Money – Water

Leadley – Sinner

Billie Flynn - Someone's Daughter

Harrison Whitford – Salvation Army

Ladyhawke - Think About You

Dotter - Jealous

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Sixty-Two: TORRES

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Lavine c/o Pitch Perfect

Part Sixty-Two: TORRES

___________

APOLOGIES if I jump back and forth a bit…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Bella Newman

but, as I am including TORRES (Mackenzie Ruth Scott) in this Modern Heroines feature, there is a lot to cover. The Florida-born artist is one of my favourites of the moment and, in my view, she is going to go on to inspire so many others. I will bring things up to date with her new album, Thirstier (released on 30th July). I am going to source a review of that album. Before then, there are some interviews that are worth quoting. Her previous album, last year’s Silver Tongue, is where I discovered TORRES. It was the first album after a rather unfortunate and disappointing split with the 4AD label (she released Silver Tongue through Merge). In this interview with FADER, the move to a new label is mentioned. Whilst the label split was quite depressing, Silver Tongue is a warm and redemptive album:

“Silver Tongue, Scott’s fourth album, due out on January 31, is her first for the legendary North Carolina-based label Merge and first since a disappointing split from 4AD in the wake of Three Futures, the latter of which had her seriously contemplating a life away from music. “I wondered if I was just fooling myself about being able to actually have a career in this terrible industry,” she says. “My initial reaction was shock, fear of the unknown. Rejection is hard for anyone.”

When Scott did start writing again, she didn’t write about the depression and anxiety she felt in those first few weeks after the split, living alone in Manhattan with only her cat for company. Instead, Silver Tongue is a collection of love songs — still pockmarked by anger and jealousy at points and coiled around the wide-eyed mysticism she explored last time out, but easily her most welcoming album yet.

Scott is in love with her girlfriend, the artist Jenna Gribbon; she painted the cover of Silver Tongue, a radiant portrait of Scott with her hand inviting the listener in. And she’s now comfortable singing about being in love with a woman. From the start, Scott was saddled with the “confessional” tag that most young women with guitars have to lug around forever, but she was hardly an open book on her self-titled debut from 2013, instead tip-toeing around romantic attraction. Scott claims she doesn’t listen to any of her albums after they’re released, but she remembers the ash-light “Don’t Run Away, Emilie” — in which she sang, “I need you 'cause you see me / Somehow” — as a moment in which she walked right up to her point without fully expressing it.

“I thought that I was being really revealing, [but it] could be about anything now as far as I'm concerned,” she says. “I'm sure that it doesn’t sound like a love song to anyone, but it was about someone that I was in love with, and at the time that I wrote that my family didn't even know that I loved women. It was about protecting my family and maybe protecting myself from the world, too[...] There was fear involved — of not wanting to reveal exactly who I was, because I wanted to be accepted”.

I love Thirstier and feel that is might be her strongest album. Silver Tongue could have been a bit of a mess and an album that brimmed with anger and dissociation. Whilst there is some anger and anxiety, one gets so much warmth and passion from the album. In this MTV interview, TORRES discusses the transition from 2017’s Three Futures and (a then-new) Silver Tongue:

“These songs are very much me rather than the sort of characters I was playing on [Three Futures]," she says. She occupies herself, not fictionalized stand-ins, such as the "ass man" narrating "Righteous Woman" and the seemingly murderous titular character of the ferocious, demonic "Helen in the Woods." As such, she drifts toward contentment instead of melodrama — even though her current partner isn't the only person under the lens.

"The record is about two different people, one of them being [Jenna]," she begins before succinctly concluding, "and then one other person." In neither naming this person nor saying more about them, she hurls shade at a former lover without identifying how that relationship fell apart. She likewise keeps this figure at a distance throughout Silver Tongue, forgoing the rage she's long conjured in her music. Scott's calmer, more level-headed approach can be chalked up to a new lyrical approach: processing events as they happened rather than after.

 "When something has already happened, you have the luxury of saying whatever you want about it," Scott says. "We manipulate the narrative of things from the past to make them be what we wish they were. You can't do that with a relationship that you're in the middle of. You can't trick yourself."

Scott's unflinching honesty with herself dominates the back-to-back Silver Tongue highlights "Records of Your Tenderness" and "Two of Everything." The former depicts Scott first falling for Gribbon: "I can't get one word in front of the other... I can't believe you're coming over," she beckons over alien synth transmissions and heartbeat kicks. Her surprise is reasonable, as she wrote penultimate track "Gracious Day" to win Gribbon back after they nearly broke up.

Likewise, on "Two of Everything," a song about that unspoken other, when Scott sings, "What was it that made her think / She could have two of everything? / One of you and one of me?" over astral guitars and sauntering snares, she's not angry that she's caught in an open relationship, and she's not scorning her ex. She's digging through the wreckage without squinting, trying to discern why this person wanted to forgo monogamy.

"That song was almost called 'Polyagony,'" she quips. "It was really hard for me to write, but it needed to be written." The mental clarity she achieved while writing it empowered her, just as the song's lyrics might embolden listeners: "I decided to write exactly how I wanted to without [changing] things to be more universal," she says, noting that this method "is something I haven't done in the past."

Scott candidly centered her own artistic desires rather than those of others — made-up characters, fans, and music-industry pressures, the last of which dissipated after the 4AD controversy. "I think that that's best left where it sits," she says. Still, this twist of fate manifested in another crucial way: Silver Tongue is the first self-produced Torres record. With nobody standing between her ideas and her instruments, Scott had no trouble putting together her most unfiltered art to date.

"I wanted to do things exactly in the order I wanted and try all my weird ideas without having to bounce them off somebody else. ... I had the language and technical capabilities, and I felt confident," she says. That she self-produced her most lyrically sincere record is no coincidence: "I'm really able to own the way that I feel and where I am in my life." In other words, hiring a producer as "translator," as she says, isn't necessary for someone who's finally achieved an ongoing, unsparingly upfront internal dialogue with herself”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Shawn Brackbill

I am going to wrap up my Silver Tongue bits in a second.  Am focusing on this album as a lot of the most-recent press and interviews is from this year. Go and get TORRES’ music on vinyl and appreciate a truly magnificent artist. I’ll bring in one more interview, together with a review for Silver Tongue. Consequence chatted with TORRES last year. There was a definite sense of defeatism and struggle in TORRES’ heart prior to making Silver Tongue:

“Speaking over the phone, she isn’t talking about writing her forthcoming fourth record, Silver Tongue. Nor producing on her own for the first time. Nor even the label drama that happened between 2017’s Three Futures and this latest effort. No, Scott is talking about having to take a bartending job after sustaining herself with her music career ever since releasing her self-titled debut seven years ago.

A number of factors forced her back into the grind in order to “pay rent.” Sure, losing her label after just one record was discouraging, but so were the slowing ticket sales to her concerts and the general hardships of earning a living as a musician in the Streaming Era. There was a time when it was enough to make her consider, at least for a short while, leaving music permanently. It’s something many — even most — artists surely confront at some point. Thankfully, for Scott, it passed “really quickly.”

“I realized I just can’t really do anything else as well,” she explains. Still, the struggle remains real. “I don’t really know that it’s sustainable at this point to make a living playing music and just that. I’ve got to have more hands in more cookie jars. Ideally that would be within the umbrella that we consider music or entertainment and writing, performing. Music doesn’t really pay so much right now.”

Regardless of your opinion on the scene in general or Torres’ music in particular, that sort of grit is commendable. Knowing that things could go belly up at any moment only to go ahead as an artist anyway takes rare determination. Or as Scott herself puts it, perhaps it’s just being “dense and unrealistic.” Still, there’s nothing wrong with a little self-motivating naivete, and her faith in Torres is what has kept her producing such captivating art from the very start.

It takes more than sheer force of will to keep a career like this going, though it certainly doesn’t help when the industry seems to keep hitting the reset button on your trajectory. Scott has an equable conviction in her own work, and even a first listen to Silver Tongue will assure it’s not a meritless belief. She calls the LP “the most Torres-sounding record” she’s made yet, confident enough in the results that she quit her service job just a few weeks ago. Should she one day have to head back behind the bar, at least she’ll be comfortable in the knowledge that she’s delivered the finest collection of songs in her career. That in and of itself is significant and a validation of her unrelenting trust in her art”.

I am coming to Thirstier soon. Before that, PASTE wrote a really great and detailed review for Silver Tongue. It is worth sourcing and showing off:

“The album chronicles the narrative arc of a relationship, from the thrill and terror of chasing a suddenly obtainable crush (“Good Scare,” “Last Forest”), to the ensuing entanglement (“Records of Your Tenderness”), jealousy (“Two of Everything”) and post-breakup spiraling (“Good Grief”). In this regard, Silver Tongue is like a synth-pop cousin of Liz Phair’s similarly sequenced Whip-Smart, except that TORRES’ romantic vignettes are unmistakably queer. On “Two of Everything,” with its M83-worthy layers of overcast synths, an embittered Scott questions her ex-girlfriend’s new lover: “To the one sharing my lover’s bed / Do you hold her when she sleeps? / Does she also call you Baby?”

It’s a stark emotional centerpiece for the record, in part because Scott’s approach is imbued with far more empathy than, say, CeeLo Green’s “Fuck You.” (“I’m going to be the biggest thorn in your side,” she warns the object of her envy, yet she has the decency to feel bad about it in the next line.) The female pronouns make clear that she is not longing for a man. As the artist told an NPR interviewer, “I want people to understand that women can burn for each other.”

TORRES’ previous albums have addressed relationships plenty, but here she probes the subject—and her own anxieties—with surgical precision. Silver Tongue is full of keen one-liners and strange little insights into the darker side of desire and insecurity. “Good Scare,” which uses a flood of thumping ’80s drums to inject cinematic drama into Scott’s desires, captures the disorienting fluctuations in confidence that accompany a love interest’s possible reciprocation: “When you said you couldn’t swing it / You gave me a good scare for a minute there.” And “Dressing America” offers this poetic illustration of infatuation, set to an uneasy melding of synth sheen and pedal steel: “I tend to sleep with my boots on / Should I need to gallop over dark water to you.”

Musically, Silver Tongue feels far removed from TORRES’s early albums, yet its best track, “Good Grief,” offers a sleek update on the indie-rock crunch of 2015’s Sprinter. The song finds Scott brooding after the break-up, alone at the bar where she met her ex. The song’s chorus satirizes cultural fetishization of depression (“Good grief, baby / There’s no such thing”), while its climax deploys fuzzy power chords and a mangled guitar hook in the album’s one real rock-out moment.

That climax makes the spare vulnerability of “A Few Blue Flowers” and “Gracious Day” all the more striking. The latter hints at a reconciliation, with acoustic arpeggios undergirding a promise to “write you only love songs.” In appropriately meta fashion, this is one of TORRES’s purest love songs, and Silver Tongue’s biggest misstep is not letting such a strong closer end the album. “Silver Tongue,” the actual closer, feels tacked on: It’s the rare moment when the artist’s synth-pop production feels overly busy, overpowering the song and muffling the impact”.

Go and pre-order this cool vinyl of Thirstier. It is an album that, I think, ranks alongside the finest of the year so far. Here is what Rough Trade say about an exceptional work:

“Torres’ fifth album Thirstier pumps the miraculous into the mundane. It is in open revolt against the gray drag of time, a searing and life-affirming eruption of an album that wonders what could happen if we found a way to make our fantasies inexhaustible. What if we got whatever we wanted and still wanted it, endlessly, with no threat of boredom and no danger of depletion? What could we become if we let ourselves grow incandescent with eternally renewing desire?

Recorded in the fall of 2020 at Middle Farm Studios in Devon, UK, Thirstier marks a turn towards a bigger, more bombastic sound for Torres. The anxious hush that fell over much of Scott’s previous music gets turned inside-out in songs tailored for post-plague celebration. Scott co-produced the album with Rob Ellis and Peter Miles, drawing on her experience self-producing the acclaimed 2020 LP Silver Tongue to push her music onto an even broader scale. Guitar-driven walls of sound, reminiscent of producer Butch Vig’s work with Garbage and Nirvana, surge and dissipate like surf in high winds, carrying Scott’s commanding voice to the fore.

From the sparkling country romp of “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head” to the sour grunge bite of “Keep the Devil Out” and the unabashed, overflowing devotion of the album’s title track, Thirstier clasps together love songs from all angles. Romantic love, platonic love, familial love, self-love, and freeing spiritual love all commingle, all feeding one another and vaulting toward the horizon”.

The reviews for Thirstier have been largely positive. In their review, this is what NME had to say about one of TORRES’ most remarkable releases:

“Blending woozy waves of electronic with powerful, theatrical vocals, ‘Don’t Go Puttin’ Wishes In My Head’ combines ‘Silver Tongue’s thoughtful lyrical content (“If we’re calling off the funеral, then I’m calling for a hitching,” she booms over squalling guitars) with weightier sonics. Channeling the rawness of garage rock, ‘Hug From A Dinosaur’ is a pleasingly surreal song about the day-to-day joy of bringing her girlfriend lunch so that she can keep painting without taking a break.

Psychedelic imagery abounds, too: ‘Constant Tomorrowland’ is all twangling Dirty Projectors-style chamber pop, flowing rivers and magical forests, and is dedicated to the astrological “age of Aquarius” and its expansion of consciousness. Taking cues from dance music, ‘Kiss the Corners’ is hypnotically dreamy. But elsewhere, Torres crashes back down to earth again with a meaningful thud. “I am diabolically truthful,” she sings on ‘Big Leap’, “And I live beyond illusion”.

Torres has previously explored love in a cinematic fashion, but ‘Thirstier’ finds her more concerned with the everyday magic that comes afterwards, when the everyday rituals and shared memories set in. It’s admittedly not the most cohesive album, infatuated with various experimental threads, but it’s also hard to fault this restlessness album, which is punchy and gutsy enough to hold up Torres’ constantly intriguing ideas”.

I shall leave it there. I am a big fan of TORRES. Since her debut album of 2013 (TORRES), she has delivered such incredible music. Go and dig out her stuff if you like what you hear and read in this feature (I have put together a playlist of her tracks at the very end). The remarkable, original and amazing TORRES is definitely someone…

TO look up to.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Fugazi - Repeater

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Fugazi - Repeater

___________

I am not sure whether…

I have included Fugazi in any of my features before. They are a band I am aware of but have never spent a lot of time with. Because I have been listening to Repeater, I wanted to recommend it for this Vinyl Corner. The first full-length album from the Washington D.C. band, it was released in April 1990 (in May 1990, it was released on C.D., bundled with the 3 Songs E.P. as Repeater + 3 Songs). The album marked a shift for the band. By 1989, Fugazi were writing more as a unit (before, the tracks were written by lead/guitarist Ian MacKaye); they came back from touring and started to refine and work on songs for Repeater. Going from a band who were jamming tracks and performing live, they were in the studio from July-September 1989 working on their debut. You can get a vinyl copy of Repeater here (if there are stock shortages, it is worth checking it out on Discogs). I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for Repeater soon. Before that, this is what Rough Trade say about a classic debut:

“With its righteous disdain for capitalism and the almighty dollar, Repeater sounds like an angrier American update of Gang of Four's Solid Gold, which had been made ten years earlier. Lines/slogans like "When I need something/I reach out and grab it," "You are not what you own," "I was caught with my hand in the till," and "Everything is greed" bear this out. Though not lacking any sense of conviction, Repeater honestly gets a little stifling. It's not too difficult to see why the band was allegedly lacking a sense of humor at this stage. They could have been yelling about filing their taxes; the yelling begins to fade into a din after a while.

The title makes sense, if only by mistake. But -- and that's a big but -- Repeater nearly matches the Fugazi and Margin Walker EPs with its musical invention and skill, spewing out another group of completely invigorating songs, which makes the subject matter and finger-pointing a little easier to swallow. Few rhythm sections of the time had the great interplay of Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. Likewise, the guitar playing and interaction of Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto almost always get overlooked, thanks to all the other subjects brought up when the band is talked about. A guitar magazine even rated Repeater as one of the best guitar records of the '90s, and rightfully so. Anemic revs spiked by pig squeals (or is it a screeching train?) highlight the title track, one of the band's finest moments. (Don't miss MacKaye's vicious double-tracked vocals, either.) As always, MacKaye and Picciotto's noise-terrorism-as-guitar-joust avoids flashiness, used as much as rhythm as punctuation device. Sharp, angular, jagged, and precise. Other gnarling highlights include the preachy "Styrofoam," the late-breaking "Sieve-Fisted Find," and the somewhat ironic "Merchandise," which skewers Mr. Business Owner by asking, "What could a businessman ever want more/Than to have us sucking in his store?".

If you are not overly-aware of Fugazi or you think the music is not really your thing, Repeater is a good introduction. It is an album that most people can get something from. Whilst some prefer their second album, Steady Diet of Nothing, or 2001’s The Argument, I really like their incredible debut. Fugazi are a band who have hardly put a foot wrong in their career!

The first review I want to source is from Consequence. They looked at the album on its thirtieth anniversary last year. Despite the fact the album sort of bypassed the charts, it has sold massive amounts:  

“Yes, Repeater is officially Fugazi’s debut LP, but they already had a tough act to follow. The band’s aforementioned EPs were combined into 13 Songs on CD and released in late 1989 — in many ways forming an unofficial debut album. The cumulative tracklist of 13 Songs boasted such powerful tunes as “Waiting Room”, “Bad Mouth”, “Suggestion”, “Margin Walker”, “And the Same”, and more.

However, there was no outside forces breathing down Fugazi’s neck as they hit the studio to begin work on Repeater. The band released music through MacKaye’s own Dischord Records label, and were able to do what they wanted when they wanted. (Just a few years later, Fugazi would reject a multimillion dollar offer from Ahmet Ertegun to join Atlantic Records’ roster, instead remaining on Dischord throughout their career.)

On April 19th, 1990, Fugazi released Repeater, a post-hardcore tour de force from the get-go. The guitar riff on opening track “Turnover” is as anthemic as anything Fugazi ever laid to tape — a powerhouse song highlighted by Picciotto’s urgent wails. There’s no pause as “Turnover” moves right into the title track, with MacKaye handling lead vocals on top of dissonant guitar progressions that surely influenced a young Rage Against the Machine, who would release their debut two years later.

Further into the album, “Blueprint” serves as the centerpiece of Repeater. Musically, it’s driven by Canty’s thunderous drumming and a heavy guitar riff, but it’s the Picciotti-sung chorus (“Never mind what’s been selling / It’s what you’re buying”) that remains one of Fugazi’s most notable lyrics. The line serves as an anti-corporate call to arms, echoing Fugazi’s independent and DIY ethos.

Lally shines on the next track, “Sieve-Fisted Find”, providing a rolling bass line that powers the song under Piccioto’s punk vocals. Moving ahead, “Greed” brings in some gang hardcore vocals, and “Reprovisional” is another scorcher with its ringing guitars.

The album closes out with the experimental “Shut the Door”, foreshadowing some quieter melodic sounds that Fugazi would explore on later albums, while also bringing the heavy. MacKaye’s screams are powerful both in volume and in content, yelling, “She’s not breathing/ She’s not moving/ She’s not coming back, back, back”, as the famously straight-edge singer eerily documents the loss of a young woman by drug overdose.

The CD version of Repeater added Fugazi’s previously released 3 Songs EP to the tracklist for a total of 14 songs. Despite never appearing on the Billboard 200 chart, it is believed that Repeater has gone on to sell between 1 and 2 million copies worldwide”.

I am going to finish with a review from AllMusic. To me, Repeater is one of the standout albums from the early-1990s. For many, it introduced this incredible Post-Hardcore band who would go on to release a phenomenal body of work. This is what AllMusic note in their review:

“With its righteous disdain for capitalism and the almighty dollar, Repeater sounds like an angrier American update of Gang of Four's Solid Gold, which had been made ten years earlier. Lines/slogans like "When I need something/I reach out and grab it," "You are not what you own," "I was caught with my hand in the till," and "Everything is greed" bear this out. Though not lacking any sense of conviction, Repeater honestly gets a little stifling. It's not too difficult to see why the band was allegedly lacking a sense of humor at this stage. They could have been yelling about filing their taxes; the yelling begins to fade into a din after a while. The title makes sense, if only by mistake. But -- and that's a big but -- Repeater nearly matches the Fugazi and Margin Walker EPs with its musical invention and skill, spewing out another group of completely invigorating songs, which makes the subject matter and finger-pointing a little easier to swallow. Few rhythm sections of the time had the great interplay of Joe Lally and Brendan Canty. Likewise, the guitar playing and interaction of Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto almost always get overlooked, thanks to all the other subjects brought up when the band is talked about. A guitar magazine even rated Repeater as one of the best guitar records of the '90s, and rightfully so. Anemic revs spiked by pig squeals (or is it a screeching train?) highlight the title track, one of the band's finest moments. (Don't miss MacKaye's vicious double-tracked vocals, either.) As always, MacKaye and Picciotto's noise-terrorism-as-guitar-joust avoids flashiness, used as much as rhythm as punctuation device. Sharp, angular, jagged, and precise. Other gnarling highlights include the preachy "Styrofoam," the late-breaking "Sieve-Fisted Find," and the somewhat ironic "Merchandise," which skewers Mr. Business Owner by asking, "What could a businessman ever want more/Than to have us sucking in his store?" Plenty of fans had to suck in someone's store to get this record, after all. [The CD version of Repeater added the 3 Songs 7" as a bonus, titled as Repeater + 3 Songs.]”.

Go and check out Fugazi’s Repeater on vinyl if you can! It is a phenomenal album that I have been spending more time with lately. I have always known about it, yet I had not sat down and given it a good listen. It is, without any doubt, one hell…

OF an album!

 

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: The Legendary David Crosby at Eighty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

The Legendary David Crosby at Eighty

___________

ONE of the greatest artists…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Bernstein/Sony Pictures Classics

who has ever lived turns eighty on 14th August. David Crosby is a songwriter whose genius has touched and enriched so many lives. He is a hugely important and influential musician. I am going to end with a playlist containing some of David Crosby’s best songs – both solo and with or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Byrds, and Crosby & Nash. Before getting to that, AllMusic wrote a detailed and enlightening biography about the iconic Crosby:

“Few figures in 20th Century American music had the pervasive influence as David Crosby. As a founding member of the Byrds, he shaped the ringing sound of 1960s folk-rock and pioneered trippy psychedelia yet his greatest fame came as part of Crosby, Stills & Nash, a supergroup he formed with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash that helped usher in the mature, reflective 1970s. Sometimes joined by Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash were wildly successful but volatile, so the members cycled through solo projects and other permutations of their lineup during their salad days of the 1970s. Crosby released only one album during this period, the bruised 1971 LP If I Could Remember My Name, then paired with Nash for a few records while CSN were on hiatus. Personal problems plagued Crosby through the 1980s, an era that culminated in a sentence in a Texas prison in 1985, but he rebounded with Oh Yes I Can, the solo album he released 18 years after his solo debut. It took him another 20 years after the release of 1993's Thousand Roads before he started his solo career in earnest with 2014's Croz. Over the next decade, he worked steadily--between 2016 and 2018 he released an album every year--as he explored an elegant, jazzy folk-rock inspired by Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and Snarky Puppy, a combination showcased on the smooth 2021 set For Free.

Crosby was born in Los Angeles on August 14, 1941; the son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, he dropped out of drama school to pursue a career in music, touring the folk club circuit and recording as a member of the Les Baxter Balladeers. Under the auspices of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby cut his first solo session in late 1963; early the following year he formed the Jet Set with Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark, and with the additions of bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke, the group was rechristened the Byrds. Although McGuinn chiefly pioneered the Byrds' trademark 12-string guitar sound, Crosby was the architect of their shimmering harmonies; his interest in jazz and Indian music also influenced their subsequent excursions into psychedelia. However, creative differences plagued the group throughout its career, and in 1967 Crosby -- reportedly rankled by his bandmates' refusal to release his ménage à trois opus "Triad" -- left the Byrds in the wake of their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival.

After producing Joni Mitchell's 1968 debut LP, Crosby cut a handful of solo recordings and began jamming with ex-Buffalo Springfield singer/guitarist Stephen Stills. In time, the duo was joined by ex-Hollies member Graham Nash; with its exquisitely beautiful three-part harmonies, strong individual songwriting contributions, and graceful folk-rock sound, Crosby, Stills & Nash's 1969 debut LP proved a pop landmark, launching all three members to greater fame than they'd experienced in any of their previous projects. The addition of Stills' former Buffalo Springfield bandmate Neil Young expanded the group to a four-piece, and in August of 1969 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) made just their second live appearance to date at the Woodstock Festival; 1970's Déjà Vu arrived in stores with advance orders numbering over two million, and through the thought-provoking social and political messages of songs like "Woodstock" and "Ohio," they emerged as generational torch bearers of enormous musical and cultural influence.

Following a sold-out CSNY tour, the group went on hiatus, and Crosby resumed work on his long-delayed solo debut, releasing If I Could Only Remember My Name in 1971; the following year, he and Nash issued the first of several duo efforts, and he also took part in a short-lived Byrds reunion. Despite continued creative differences, CSNY re-formed for a 1974 tour; Crosby and Nash issued Wind on the Water a year later, and in 1977 Stills returned to the fold for the multi-platinum CSN. However, as Crosby's longstanding drug problem continued to worsen, he eventually fell out with both Stills and Nash, and a planned second solo album, Might as Well Have a Good Time, was rejected by Capitol in 1980. A series of arrests for cocaine possession and illegal weapons charges hampered him throughout the years to follow, even as he reunited with Stills and Nash in 1982 for the Top Ten hit Daylight Again. After completing the follow-up, 1983's Allies, the trio did not record together for another seven years.

In late 1985 Crosby was sentenced to prison after fleeing the drug rehabilitation clinic he'd entered in lieu of serving out a previous jail term; upon his release the following August, he'd finally conquered his demons, later chronicling the ugly details of his addiction in the fine autobiography Long Time Gone. In 1988 -- a full 18 years after the release of Déjà Vu -- Crosby reunited with Stills, Nash, and also Young for American Dream; his second solo effort, Oh Yes I Can, finally appeared the following year as well. After the 1990 release of CSN's Live It Up, Crosby continued to suffer personal misfortunes -- first he was severely injured in a motorcycle accident, and then in 1994 he lost his L.A. home as a result of massive earthquake damage. Months later, he returned to the headlines when it was announced he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and dying of liver failure, undergoing a successful organ transplant in 1995.

During the recovery period that followed, Crosby met James Raymond, the son he'd given up for adoption over three decades earlier and a professional musician as well; the two soon began writing songs together, and with guitarist Jeff Pevar they formed CPR, releasing a series of albums and touring regularly. In early 1997, Crosby, Stills & Nash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; six years earlier, Crosby had first entered the Hall of Fame as a member of the Byrds. Young returned to the fold for 1999's Looking Forward, with the resulting millennial tour -- dubbed "CSNY2K" -- heralding the foursome's first joint road venture in a quarter century. Crosby was again the subject of tabloid headlines when in early 2000 it was revealed that he fathered the children of singer Melissa Etheridge and her partner Julie Cypher; that same year, he also published a second book, Stand and Be Counted, which assembled interviews with actors and musicians to explore the intersection of celebrity and social activism.

From 2001 onward, a Crosby, Stills & Nash tour became a regular and annual event, with Crosby finding safe haven and camaraderie on-stage alongside his musical compatriots of over four decades. In both 2002 and 2006, Neil Young completed the CSNY lineup for their live dates, and although the politically motivated 2006 Freedom of Speech tour was very much driven by Young's muse, Crosby's "Déjà Vu" was a cornerstone of the set and served as the title for the both the 2008 live album and film that documented the tour. Also in 2006, Crosby, along with Nash, accompanied Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on sessions for his solo album, On an Island, and the pair went on to help him promote the record on tour.

The expansive, lavishly packaged three-disc retrospective Voyage was issued in 2007. Produced by Nash and archivist Joel Bernstein, the collection married two discs of classic material with a disc of unreleased recordings and set the template for both Nash's 2009 Reflections and Stills' 2013 Carry On. In summer 2013, Crosby began to talk about the sessions for his fourth solo album, his first in over 20 years. Produced in conjunction with his son Raymond and featuring contributions from Wynton Marsalis and Mark Knopfler, Croz appeared in late January 2014.

The singer/songwriter next collaborated with Snarky Puppy's Michael League. The pair wrote some songs together, and then debated how long it would take to record an album. League wanted two weeks; Crosby wanted a month. Working at Jackson Browne's Groove Master studios, it was completed in 12 days. The first single, "Things We Do for Love," was released in July of 2016; the full-length Lighthouse followed in October. Continuing this prolific late-career run, Crosby released another full-length record the following year. Released in September 2017, Sky Trails was again produced by Raymond, and included a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Amelia," from her 1976 album Hejira. He announced a coinciding fall tour of the U.S. to support the album. Crosby quickly followed Sky Trails in October 2018 with Here If You Listen, which once again featured the Michael League-anchored band that supported the singer/songwriter on Lighthouse.

Cameron Crowe produced the A.J. Eaton-directed documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Named after a Joni Mitchell song, Crosby's eighth solo album For Free appeared in July 2021; the record featured a cameo by Michael McDonald and a song by Donald Fagen”.

To mark the upcoming eightieth birthday of the peerless David Crosby, below are songs that demonstrate his incredible songwriting and talent. If you are not overly-aware of David Crosby’s music, then I hope the playlist below provides some guidance. A very happy birthday to…

A titan of music.

FEATURE: Thank You for the Music… Why Shaun Keaveny’s Final Broadcast on BBC Radio 6 Music Will Be Especially Sad

FEATURE:

 

 

Thank You for the Music…

ALL PHOTOS: BBC

Why Shaun Keaveny’s Final Broadcast on BBC Radio 6 Music Will Be Especially Sad

___________

THAT title refers…

to a famous ABBA song. Taken from their 1977 album, ABBA: The Album, I also think the song will be played at some point on Shaun Keaveny’s final show on BBC Radio 6 Music on 10th September. On his afternoon show at the moment, he is running a feature called Shaun’s Show Stopper. A listener calls up each day and asks a question. The idea is to guess which song will be the final one played on that last show. It will be interesting seeing what Keaveny chooses – he has said it is difficult and not an obvious track. Perhaps it will not be the well-known ABBA hit! Not to be too saccharine, but it is worth thanking Shaun Keaveny for the music! He has been with BBC Radio 6 Music for more than fourteen years. That is incredible service and dedication! BBC Radio 6 Music is one of those studios where broadcasters do not really leave. I don’t think anyone as long-serving and popular as Keaveny has departed the station since its inception in 2002. Craig Charles is taking over Keaveny’s show next month. He is an excellent broadcaster and much-loved figure at the station who will do an excellent job. Even though the afternoon show is in very safe hands, it will be very hard saying goodbye to a man who has been in our radio lives for a very long time. He has cultivated a family and loving clan of fans.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Craig Charles will take over Shaun Keaveny’s slot on BBC Radio 6 Music from September

There is so much appreciation and respect for him out there! That final week is quite a stressful and busy one for me. I am moving to a new place in London after quite an unhappy time where I currently live. I will not catch all of the final week of Keaveny’s show. I will be in the office and listening in (in Fitzrovia) on that Friday, though. The Leigh-born broadcaster is going to have an emotional final show! I think that it will be one that also has cheer. I am sure there will be gifts; people popping by and a cake ready for him. No doubt there will be people outside the studio as he leaves on that final day to wish him well – though he may want to get home or grab a drink on his own. Working so close to the BBC Radio 6 Music studios, I will walk by and pay my respects on 10th September. Offering a salute or a wave! I know that, whether Keaveny goes to another station or takes a different route, those who love and listen to his show will follow him. It is interesting to see what he does next. Transition from over a decade on the breakfast show to afternoons, he has been an essential anchor and point of safety for so many listeners. For me and so many other listeners, there are particular reasons for loving Shaun Keaveny and his show.

He is someone who is very funny and has a lot of warmth. He is self-deprecating and gives us a bit of dead air from time to time! Hearing him get wound up or doing an impression of Paul McCartney, you get a definite brand and style with Keaveny. That skillset and routine is one that will be sorely missed. I hope that he gets a great send-off from his colleagues on his final day. The pandemic has made people rely on radio and the friendly and reliable voices for a very long time. It is credit to broadcasters like Shaun Keaveny that they have come in and produced their shows without disruption. As so many have been home-working and had their normality flipped, radio has been a source of sanctuary and strength. It is a loss for Keaveny as much as it is for the listener. I know that he will have been given great comfort from knowing that his listeners were so thankful for him. Not only is it the routine that we will miss. It is hard when we listen to a show for years and then things change. Now more than ever, we want things to stay the same on the radio; to know that those people that have helped us through a particularly tough time are still there. That sadness and sense of loss is going to take a while to get over. Rather than it being too depressing and bleak, it is nice to know that our favourite afternoon host will get some breathing room, time to reflect and moments with his family. Keaveny can choose what he does next and, I am sure, there will be no shortage of offers! I always wondered whether he would go to BBC Radio 2 – although that would see him staying in the same building but working on a different floor!

We have a month to go until there is this very emotional broadcast. It will be a moment where we can all listen in and give our thanks to a BBC Radio 6 Music legend. From his first broadcast all those years ago, to being on air when the news of David Bowie’s death broke in 2016, to the start of the pandemic, it has been quite a ride! There will be many colleagues particular upset to see Keaveny leave. From his long-time friend Lauren Laverne (who presents weekday breakfasts) to Mary Anne Hobbs, there will be some tears. In fact, Mary Anne Hobbs does a handover on her show, as she broadcasts just before Keaveny’s show. That last chat will be very charged and bittersweet. The person on the station that we associate with Shaun Keaveny is Matt Everitt. As he has presented the music news on Keaveny’s shows since the start, the two are almost like brothers. I am not sure whether Everitt is continuing and doing the music news on Craig Charles’ show – I have heard no news that he is moving on going elsewhere. The two have such a bond. Everitt does not usually present the music news on a Friday but, as the last show falls on that day, of course he will be there – maybe live in the studio to wish his friend all the best. The two will stay close and see each other a lot, though the chemistry they have forged through the years has been a source of joy!

Maybe some will say that it is a bit over the top calling a radio station a family; treating the broadcasters like they are family members. Consider how much time some of us listen to the radio and the fact that, actually, we hear the broadcasters’ voices more than anyone else’s during the day! They are the ones who are there to ease us into the day; taking us to the night and helping us to switch off. As so many have been working from home, radio has become so much more than music and some chat. Stations like BBC Radio 6 Music have been taken to heart by so many people. I, alongside all of his listeners, will be tuning in on 10th September at 1 p.m. to hear a beloved broadcaster sign off from a station that has been very lucky to have him! There is no doubting that Shaun Keaveny has brought so, so many people to BBC Radio 6 Music. I’d like to think there will be a row of listeners and BBC colleagues applauding as Keaveny leaves Wogan House for the final time (maybe for now). That said, it might be pissing it down with rain…so it might be a more ‘indoors’ farewell! For now, as the final broadcast is a few weeks off, let’s just enjoy this run of shows (Keaveny is off for a couple of weeks now but will be back for his last two weeks). It is almost like leaving high school and saying goodbye to your best friend or favourite teacher – knowing that you have to leave but being sad that you might not see them again. It is that loss of routine that will be very strange. I will end it on a positive note. We are getting Craig Charles in the afternoon slot. He is incredible! Shaun Keaveny, still in his forties, has years and years more in radio! He might put out a podcast or do a T.V. documentary. He has time to weight his options up. Whether he goes to another station or not, one can still find him on Twitter. He is still around, and we will see him again very soon! If you have not heard Shaun Keaveny’s show or have tuned out for a bit, then make sure that you are…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt with Shaun Keaveny

WITH him on 10th September.

FEATURE: Sat (Quite Uncomfortably) in Your Lap: Is It the Time for an Ultimate Kate Bush Compendium?

FEATURE:

 

 

Sat (Quite Uncomfortably) in Your Lap

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Is It the Time for an Ultimate Kate Bush Compendium?

___________

AS I have said many times…

the past year has been a bumper one for Kate Bush literature! There have been album-specific books regarding her albums, The Kick Inside and The Dreaming, a couple of song-by-song guides and, later this year, there is an illustrated guide/book – I am looking forward to Finding Kate. I have written about this subject before, though I have not really covered the magnitude of Bush’s work and just what a literary volume can be dedicated to her career! I am a massive fan of The Beatles. A historian and expert on the band, Mark Lewisohn, has published Tune In - which is the first volume in his historical trilogy, The Beatles: All These Years. These books are massive and in-depth looks at The Beatles and the minutia of their career. It is a fascinating read. Whilst Kate Bush has not had quite the seismic and globe-straddling impact as The Beatles, her work is hugely important. One can trace her earliest recordings to the very early-1970s. Today, in 2021, she still holds so much intrigue. Granted that there is this potential fifty-year arc, there is enough ammunition and scope for a compendium. The books that are out and incoming are brilliant. Whether it is John Carder Bush’s KATE: Inside the Rainbow – her brother’s beautiful book is a selection of photos that he took from her early childhood to 2011 – or the essential biography by Graeme Thomson, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, there is a great selection out there. For any fan, I would encourage you to check them out. In my recent essay I wrote for Kate Bush’s birthday, I did go into depth about the books out there about her.

I think it would be a challenge to release three Kate Bush books that rival what Mark Lewisohn is attempting - and, as it takes him so many years to write one, any historian or fan willing to undergo the challenge has to dedicate a substantial chunk of their life to it! There are things from all of the books out in the market that compels me; that could be reworked into this incredible volume. I think a very detailed history and biography would be the narrative approach. It would expand on what Graeme Thomson has written and give us a glimpse into the early life, rise and legacy of one of music’s true originals. Alongside this would be a selection of photos. These would include ones from her brother, other photographers and the press. Of course, as it would be a hardback book, it would be quite a big and sturdy edition! This tome would not be published merely to capitalise on the continuing popularity of Kate Bush. With the biography, there could be these illustrations and pictures. Finding Kate will provide this illustrated look at Bush’s world and work. I also love the idea, as I have said before, of there being graphs and tables. Putting her chart positions and lyrics into illustrations and exploring her albums in colour. Of course, the detail and depth are important in terms of the words. Going deep into the life and work of Kate Bush. To accompany this, photos, graphs and incredible visuals would be welcomed. There are so many print interviews Bush has been involved in through the years.

Not that there would be separate chapters for her albums but, when we got to that point in the book – for instance, 1982 is when The Dreaming was released -, there could be this deep investigation into the production and songs. Maybe not as detailed as we see in Laura Shenton’s books about The Kick Inside and The Dreaming, there could be personnel listings, details about the songs and photos. Given everything that can be included in a book, there would be enough material for something that maybe rivalled Tune In. One can buy the books that are out there, yet I feel there is an opportunity for an authoritative and complete guide to the magnificent Bush. When, if such a thing were to exist, would it come out?! Bush turns sixty-five on 30th July, 2023. Maybe that would not allow enough time for the book to come out. Realistically, 2025 seems likes a ‘doable’ year for competition. By then, Hounds of Love would be forty; it would be fifty years since Bush recorded The Man with the Child in His Eyes (The Kick Inside). In that time, other books would come out. I feel there would be plenty of demand for a huge book that took us from Bush’s childhood to now. Maybe someone has started work on this! The volume of books and magazine articles about Bush these past couple of years provides there is this huge demand for her music and admiration for her legacy. As she is not yet done with her career – let us hope! -, there is going to be more chapters to write. Having this incredible book to hand would provide any Kate Bush fan with the best photos, the most detailed information, a complete and thorough look at her interviews, an expansive biography and so many extra details. Given everything that Kate Bush has given to the world (and continues to do so), a career-spanning compendium – not sure what the title would be -, is no less…

THAN she deserves.

FEATURE: Beyoncé at Forty: Formation: Ranking Her Solo Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

Beyoncé at Forty

Formation: Ranking Her Solo Albums

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THERE are going to be a few features going out…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

that mark the upcoming fortieth birthday of a modern music legend. Beyoncé’s birthday is on 4th September. Ahead of that, I am doing a series of features that explores her work. As I often do with birthday features, I am starting off with a general overview. In future features, I will focus on various elements of her career – her business acumen, fashion, iconic videos and why she is so respected -, but I want to go a bit broad and rank her incredible solo albums. I will also include a feature about her time with Destiny’s Child (and something about her project with JAY-Z, The Carters). Before moving on, here is some Beyoncé biography:

“Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her first solo album, Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".

Following the 2006 disbandment of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained hit singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", and "Halo".

After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.

Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 118 million records worldwide. She is the first artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 with their first six solo studio albums. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the RIAA's Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard's Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Time's list of 100 women who defined the last century”.

To celebrate an icon and look ahead to her fortieth birthday, below is my ordering of Beyoncé’s six studio albums. All of them are great, yet there are those that stand out from the pack. To salute the great Beyoncé, these are the albums that outline…

WHY she is so acclaimed and accomplished.

_______________

6. I Am... Sasha Fierce

Release Date: 12th November, 2008

Labels: Columbia/Music World

Producers: Bama Boyz/Bangladesh/D-Town/Darkchild/Ian Dench/Blac Elvis/Toby Gad/Sean Garrett/Amanda Ghost/Andrew Hey/Jim Jonsin/Beyoncé Knowles/Harold Lilly/Dave McCracken/Rico Love/Ramon ‘REO’ Owen/Stargate/Tricky Stewart/Ryan Tedder/The-Dream/Wayne Wilkins

Five-Song Mix: If I Were as Boy/Halo/Satellites/Diva/Video Phone

Choice Cut: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=41680&ev=mb

Review:

“The strength of I Am…Sasha Fierce, then, is its individual songs—not good enough to make for an album that’s greater than the sum of its parts, but a testament to Beyoncé as one of today’s most reliable singles artists. A savvy lead single in that it doesn’t attempt to clobber you over the head and drag you off to a cave like most Beyoncé hits, “If I Were a Boy” is one part “Irreplaceable,” one part “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (it was co-written and produced by that song’s Toby Gad), and one part Ciara’s “Like a Boy.” It’s definitely a grower but, like “Irreplaceable,” the kind that will no doubt circle back around to revulsion after hearing it on the radio for the nth time this holiday season. The album’s ballads are some of the strongest Beyoncé has recorded, and “Disappear” and “Satellites” are both surprisingly understated, but most of them are also shockingly conventional, no doubt influenced by the success of Leona Lewis (“Halo” was co-penned by “Bleeding Love” scribe Ryan Tedder).

I Am…Sasha Fierce is an admirable vie for artistic credibility (and for a last-ditch revival of the long-player format) but one that is muddled by the fact that the album is being offered in two configurations, a 16-track “deluxe” edition and an abbreviated “standard” edition, which reaches its vocal (if not emotional) climax within the first minute of its opening track and ends abruptly with a song about cellphone porn. The deluxe version makes for a more complete-sounding album (albeit with more filler), but there’s absolutely no reason why all of the songs couldn’t have been sequenced as one disc. And that’s the most dubious aspect of the double-album structure here: Beyoncé’s alter ego isn’t really any different from the artist we’ve come to know via songs like “Bootylicious,” “Crazy In Love” and “Irreplaceable”; the real disparity is her inability to reconcile the adult-contemporary schmaltz of I Am with the more modern, edgy sounds of Sasha Fierce.

Things we learn about Sasha: she’s a diva, she likes making kinky videos on her phone, and she’s in love with her stereo. The bouncy, school-yard chant-y and materialistically contradictory “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” sounds like a B’Day leftover, but the deluxe version of the album allows Sasha to show her softer side: Like Beyoncé, she doesn’t want to be a broken-hearted girl (“Scared of Lonely,” impeccably produced by Rodney Jerkins), and more importantly, she’s got a penchant for Motown (“Ego”), a sound the rather vanilla first half of the album could have benefited from. The high point of both the standard and deluxe editions, however, is the frenetic “Radio”; with lyrics like “You’re the only one that Papa allowed in my room with the door closed/We’d be alone/And Mama never freaked out when she heard it go boom/’Cause she knew we were in the zone,” it’s the most convincing love song on the entire album” – SLANT

5. 4

Release Date: 24th June, 2011

Labels: Parkwood/Columbia

Producers: Beyoncé Knowles/Antonio Dixon/Babyface/Brent Kutzle/Jeff Bhasker/Diplo/Kuk Harrell/Kanye West/Kaskade/Luke Steele/Los Da Mystro/Ryan Tedder/Shea Taylor/Skyz Muzik/Switch/Symbolyc One/The-Dream/Tricky Stewart

Five-Song Mix: I Care/Best Thing I Never Had/Party (ft. André 3000)/Countdown/Run the World (Girls)

Choice Cut: Love on Top

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=347012&ev=mb

Review:

“Nearly 15 years into a career with all the indicators of a future lifetime-achievement award, Beyoncé is so sure of her place in pop’s ruling class that she waits until the final track of her new studio album to present “Run the World (Girls).” “My persuasion can build a nation,” she declares, relegating to postscript status a message most artists would position front and center. Then again, maybe Beyoncé relegated “Run the World” to last because it’s the worst song here, a lumpy redo of Major Lazer’s “Pon De Floor” that somehow manages to make the singer sound less powerful than she has in years. Beyoncé can do hectic just fine — see the appealingly overstuffed “Independent Women Part II,” from Destiny’s Child’s Survivor. But “Run the World” doesn’t marshal its electro-dancehall intensity in the service of anything. It’s all sound and no fury.

Happily, Sasha Fierce takes five elsewhere on this often-gorgeous collection of ballads and mid-tempo cuts rich with echoes of late-’70s/early-’80s pop-soul. (With its creamy keys and skyscraping vocals, “Love on Top” imagines a perfect genetic splice of Whitney Houston’s debut album and Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall.) The lack of in-your-face future-funk arrangements isn’t a sign that Beyoncé has lost her appetite for domination; indeed, as a singer’s showcase, 4 will probably end up bested this year only by Adele’s 21.

But in slow-to-bloom songs that are as preoccupied by love’s pleasure (“1+1,” “Rather Die Young”) as by its pain (“I Care,” “Best Thing I Never Had”), this one-time single lady seems hungry for a satisfaction deeper than conquest. That she finds it before stooping to the hollow provocations of “Run the World” should warm the heart of anyone who still believes in putting a ring on it” – SPIN

4. Dangerously in Love

Release Date: 17th June, 2003

Labels: Columbia/Music World

Producers: Beyoncé Knowles/Rich Harrison/Scott Storch/Bryce Wilson/Focus.../Missy Elliott/Andreao ‘Fanatic’ Heard/Sherrod Barnes/D-Roy/Mr. B/Nat Adderley, Jr./Errol ‘Poppi’ McCalla, Jr./Mark Batson

Five-Song Mix: Naughty Girl/Baby Boy (ft. Sean Paul)/Me, Myself and I/Speechless/The Closer I Get to You (with Luther Vandross)

Choice Cut: Crazy in Love (ft. JAY-Z)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=41127&ev=mb

Review:

“See, Beyoncé’s not really thinking ’bout those other honeys. Whether or not she got the credit, the slick-tongue style she per-fected on ”Say My Name” was a minirevolution in R&B. And Dangerously in Love, her solo debut, confirms her taste for innovation. ”Dangerously,” which the singer coproduced and almost entirely cowrote, is more about moving on from Destiny’s Child’s frothy aesthetic than competing with the current crop of singing sensations. Eschewing high-profile hitmakers like the Matrix and the Neptunes, Beyoncé collaborates with under-the-radar minds like Rich Harrison and Dr. Dre’s secret weapon, Scott Storch, exploring, albeit hesitantly, new directions in contemporary black music.

The results are not half bad — certainly not the first half. The disc opens with ”Crazy in Love,” coproduced by Harrison, who gave Mary J. Blige-ish upstart Amerie a hit single last year. Then Storch flirts with the increasingly familiar mingling of Eastern sounds and dancehall reggae, as Beyoncé portrays, not quite convincingly, a ”Naughty Girl.” The next cut, ”Baby Boy,” goes full-tilt Bollywood ‘n da hood, with Sean Paul ripping a pulsing tabla raga. Here, when Beyoncé coos, ”In our own little world, the music is the sun/The dance floor becomes the sea,” you kinda wish she’d launch into her old acrobatic scat tactics to challenge Sean Paul’s rude-boy chat. But this isn’t THAT Beyoncé.

This Beyoncé flexes a different kind of muscle on ”Hip Hop Star,” a distorted guitar-screeching foray into the rock-meets-funk-eats-hip-hop genre that’s more Neptunes than the Neptunes. Her racy, raspy ”undress me” refrain — a bit Kelis, a bit Marilyn Monroe — is shocking but not unwelcome. Guest Big Boi of OutKast sums it up nicely: ”Never can tell these days, everybody’s got a little Rick James in they veins.”

”Be With You” is a ballad with deliciously big drums that recalls Faith Evans’ ’95 single ”You Used to Love Me” and rips off a few other R&B classics you used to love. ”Me, Myself, and I” rides Storch’s signature gangsta guitar, mellowed for Beyoncé’s lovesick lament — a warm-up for the CD’s sweet spot: ”Yes,” a damn-near-Björk-like bit of trip-hop, that could, if we’re lucky, set off a new age of snap-crackle pop. The song’s staticky situation — Beyoncé defending her chastity ‘gainst some greedy boy — resembles ”Say My Name” in its specificity and earnestness.

Most of the disc’s missteps follow. The gimmicky, Missy Elliot-produced ”Signs” is soggy, synth-drenched cosmic slop. ”That’s How I Like It,” also featuring Jay-Z, is ”Jumpin’ Jumpin”’-era jive that only reminds you how fresh ”Crazy in Love” is. A remake of ”The Closer I Get to You” with Luther Vandross also sounds, sadly, a little dated. But for the most part, Ms. Knowles does more reinventing than revisiting — a dangerous prospect, but hey, that’s love” – Entertainment Weekly

3. B’Day

Release Date: 1st September, 2006

Labels: Columbia/Music World/Sony Urban

Producers: Beyoncé Knowles/Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins/Sean Garrett/Rich Harrison/Walter Millsap III/Candice Nelson/The Neptunes/Rudy Pérez/Shaffer ‘Ne-Yo’ Smith/Stargate/Kasseem ‘Swizz Beatz’ Dean/Shea Taylor/The Underdogs/Cameron Wallace

Five-Song Mix: Déjà Vu (ft. JAY-Z)/Get Me Bodied/Kitty Kat/Green Light/Irreplaceable

Choice Cut: Ring the Alarm

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=41244&ev=mb

Review:

“At least one tactic or event preceding the release of Beyoncé's second solo album inspired a bemused three-syllable exclamation from anyone who was paying attention. The lead single, the late-'70s-funk-inspired "Deja Vu," had the audacity to not be as monstrous as "Crazy in Love" -- its stay at the top of the charts was relatively brief, so clearly there was evidence of some drop-off there. This was quickly followed by "Ring the Alarm," an angered, atonal, and out-of-character song with an accompanying video that invited all kinds of perplexed analysis, along with debate on whether Beyoncé was being autobiographical or, as the singer claimed, channeling her Dreamgirls character. All of this gave the haters plenty of ammo when anything less than 100 percent polite, ladylike, and expected was bound to do the trick. Add to this an album title that can be pronounced just like "bidet," along with the advertisement that the album's ten songs were whipped up in two weeks, and you have yourself a career-killing train wreck. B'day isn't even close to that. While Beyoncé does sound like she's in a bit of a hurry throughout the album, and there are no songs with the smooth elegance of "Me, Myself and I" or "Be with You," it is lean in a beneficial way, propelled by just as many highlights as the overlong Dangerously in Love. Two collaborations with Rich Harrison swagger and preen: "Been locked up in the house way too long/It's time to get it, 'cause once again he's out doing wrong" (the blaring/marching "Freakum Dress"); "Don't give me no lip, let mama do it all" (the spectacularly layered "Suga Mama"). The Neptunes assist on "Green Light," an ambitious, fleet-footed number that continually switches tempos and sounds, as well as "Kitty Kat," a deceptively sweet, rainbow-colored track -- where what sounds like purrs are more like claws-out dismissals -- that could've been pulled from one of the first three Kelis albums. And even with an entirely bonkers line like "I can do for you what Martin did for the people," "Upgrade U" is the most potent track on the album, a low-slung Cameron Wallace production where Beyoncé wears and buys the pants while making her proposition sound more like empowerment than emasculation. If the circus surrounding this whole thing -- which could take up to ten pages to document -- was an elaborate ploy to transform Beyoncé into an underdog, there really is some kind of genius at play, but it's extremely unlikely that anyone in her camp could've predicted that the expectations and reactions would be less rational than any of Beyoncé's decisions and actions. There is nothing desperate or weak about this album” – AllMusic

2. Beyoncé

Release Date: 13th December, 2013

Labels: Parkwood/Columbia

Producers: 40/Ammo/Beyoncé/Boots/Detail/Jerome Harmon/Caroline Polachek/Ryan Tedder/The-Dream/The Order/Timbaland/Justin Timberlake/Key Wane/Pharrell Williams

Five-Song Mix: Pretty Hurts/No Angel/Partition (contains hidden track, Yoncé)/Jealous/XO

Choice Cut: Drunk in Love (ft. JAY-Z)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=631282&ev=mb

Review:

“Beyoncé’s best songs often reject traditional pop structures in favor of atmosphere—she may have taken some cues from her sister Solange, who now leads a particular wave of collaborative, left-field R&B. The record, her darkest and lushest yet, has a tendency to echo, stop abruptly, or place two separate songs in the space of one. Its most bracing moments are also its toughest and weirdest, like "***Flawless", a two-part growler that makes feminist TED Talk fodder sound legitimately menacing. Timbaland and Justin Timberlake join The-Dream on "Partition" in service of the mean-mugging Yoncé, who snarls and bares her teeth as though the most revered rapper of all time is nobody but her little husband. At the center lies Beyoncé’s practically unfair abilities as a performer—you get the sense that Lady Gaga or Ciara could no sooner pull off the scale or quality of Beyoncé than you or I could pull off a suitable rendition of any of its songs in a karaoke bar.

Beyoncé has loosened up her delivery, too, in a way that highlights her elasticity and shows her pop-cultural antennae tuned to the right channels. Who could’ve predicted that some of the most infectious snippets of pop music in 2013 would not arrive by way of anthemic chorus or assembly-line arrangement, but in Beyoncé’s ad-libbing? You already know the ones: Surfbort, she grunts on “Drunk in Love”, slinging a hashtag like it’s the name of a line of Ikea chairs, the single word serving as both shorthand for woman-on-top and a neat summation of an entire era of trends in rap cadence. You’d also be hard-pressed to find an internet-savvy person in America who hasn’t been possessed by the idea that he or she woke up like this, brain emblazoned with Beyoncé’s half-second I’m so flawless I gave myself a seizure dance. She's achieved the rare feat of validating meme culture by capturing its sneaky potency and delight rather than falling into its cheap, dehumanizing traps. This is a “visual album,” sure, but it’s also a package of modern codes and discreet campaigns, a field of meaningful virtual dioramas. In this sense Beyoncé has a newfound spiritual ally in Drake (Worst! YOLO!),—he shows up on Beyoncé on the bruised "Mine"— her only peer to successfully streamline an internet-rooted mindset into a large-scale pop arena and seek profundity in the process.

Which is all to say that Beyoncé has delivered on the promise she inadvertently made by dropping an album and its expansive visual counterpart late on a Thursday night in December on iTunes, free of traditional fanfare. Call it a coup or just another victory for her mammoth PR apparatus, but consider the alternatives: The strategy probably would have failed if the quality wasn't there, and the album could not have achieved such an impact without its rogue—in spirit, at least—method of distribution. Beyoncé was unleashed upon the world in a way that could only succeed right now, with an aim to make the audience consume it the way it would have long ago. It’s a line that could be ripped straight from the mouth of an investment-drunk tech startup founder, but it’s true: Beyoncé seized the powers of a medium characterized by its short attention span to force the world to pay attention. Leave it to the posterchild of convention to brush convention aside and leave both sides feeling victorious” – Pitchfork

1. Lemonade

Release Date: 23rd April, 2016

Labels: Parkwood/Columbia

Producers: Beyoncé/Diplo/Kevin Garrett/Jeremy McDonald/Ezra Koenig/Jack White/MeLo-X/Diana Gordon/Boots/DannyBoyStyles/Ben Billions/Mike Dean/Vincent Berry II/James Blake/Jonathan Coffer/Just Blaze/Mike Will Made It

Five-Song Mix: Hold Up/Don’t Hurt Yourself (ft. Jack White)/Daddy Lessons/All Night/Formation

Choice Cut: Freedom (ft. Kendrick Lamar)

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/beyonce/lemonade-5a2dfde2-bb82-4d5b-8afc-d849e09d90e1/lp-x2

Review:

“Beyoncé's sixth album loomed once "Formation" and its video were issued ahead of the superstar's Super Bowl 50 half-time performance. Two months and a couple weeks later, it appeared as a culturally seismic visual album. Loaded with layers of meaning and references, and experienced en masse through its televised premiere, Lemonade honored black sisterhood with the presence of Warsan Shire, Serena Williams, and the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. Subsequently given audio-only release, its title comes from a popular proverb given extra personal relevance by Beyoncé's grandmother-in-law, whose citation is heard here during a crucial moment in the sequence. Mrs. Knowles-Carter indeed turns her own lemons into Lemonade. She uses the platform to demand contrition from her adulterous partner, assert her excellence, reflect upon the bonds with the men in her life, and their relationships with other women, and wonders if her trust can be earned back. The cathartic and wounded moments here resonate in a manner matched by few, if any, of Beyoncé's contemporaries. She sometimes eclipses herself in terms of raw emotion, as on the throttling Jack White encounter "Don't Hurt Yourself." At the low-volume end, there's more power in the few seconds she chokes back tears while singing "Come back" -- timed with the backing vocal in Isaac Hayes' version of "Walk on By" -- than there is in most contemporary ballads. Romantic conflict is nothing new for her, but there is a degree of concentration and specificity, and an apparent disregard for appealing to commercial radio that makes Lemonade a distinct addition to her catalog. (Another distinguishing factor is the length of credits which, due to a vast assortment of collaborators and samples, exceeds that of the self-titled album.) Lemonade can also be heard as the dark flipside of Beyoncé. When "Dishes smashed on the counter" is bleakly observed, just before "Pictures snatched out the frame/Bitch, I scratched out your name and face" is delivered with seething wrath, it's hard to not flash back to "Drunk in Love," in which the presumably same couple were revelrous in the same room. After the first three-quarters play out in compelling if somewhat erratic fashion, Lemonade closes with a torrid stretch. "Freedom" is a marching anthem of resilience and preservation, produced by Just Blaze with a glowing guest verse from Kendrick Lamar. The loved-up "All Night" is a tangle of emotions and hints at reconciliation, facilitated by the horns from OutKast's "SpottieOttieDopaliscious." And then, at last, there's the strutting "Formation," simultaneously a tack-on and an ideal finale, where Beyoncé delights in her blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay” – AllMusic

FEATURE: Spotlight: Tierra Whack

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 PHOTO CREDIT: Justin Bettman

Tierra Whack

___________

I could easily have…

included Tierra Whack in my Modern Heroines feature. She has been on the scene for years and, to me, is an inspiration for so many people. Born in Philadelphia, she put out her debut album, Whack World, in 2018. It might seem like a strange time to spotlight her, as she has rumoured to be quitting music. That said, she put out a new song last week. One cannot really tell whether Tierra Whack is still coming back or whether she is thinking of leaving. I want to put her in this Spotlight feature as she is an incredible artist that many people will want to see a second album from. I will bring in a few interviews, as we get to discover more about Tierra Whack and where she is from. If you have not checked out her debut, Whack World, then do so. It is a collection of one-minute songs that are really fascinating. It is like a collage that is over in fifteen minutes. The audio-visual album is a unique treat that everyone needs to experience! This is what Pitchfork wrote in their review:

“Whack World puts forth a portrait of the good and the bad, the weird and the unremarkable, while plowing through insecurities. She uses vanity mirrors to magnify her features on a song titled “Pretty Ugly” and bursts out of a house several sizes too small on “Dr. Seuss,” as if to reflect that feeling of having outgrown your surroundings or other people’s expectations. With the walls closing in, she throws down a bit of wordplay in a helium-infused voice—“Look but don’t touch/I should just be celibate/You the type to sell out/Me? I’m trying to sell a bit”—before pitching into a warped slo-mo like she’s being smothered.

The triumph of Whack World feels that much more important given the music industry’s stubborn refusal to champion diverse portrayals of women in rap outside of hypersexualized stereotypes. There is freedom in the margins, and Whack has crafted a work that beautifully manifests her own vision on her own terms. The result is brilliant—from the length of the songs down to the exaggerated imagery. Though she springs from a rich stylistic lineage, her 60-second confections have few modern precedents. Short songs, while in vogue, serve a different purpose here: Where others stretch small ideas and repetition, thinning them out for easy absorption, Whack uses the time constraint to make her big ideas seem larger than the space they’re allotted. Like an evolution in real time, she gives just enough to complete the thought before she morphs and catapults you to the next one.

Whack World morphs into a clever exercise in economy and using only what you need. It’s a visual album prepackaged for optimum social media consumption; every tiny piece stands on its own without losing sight of the larger picture. At its core, though, Whack’s sense of humor—her captivating depiction of a black woman’s imagination—is an opportunity to celebrate an aspect of art that often goes uncelebrated, an opportunity for Whack to celebrate herself”.

I do hope that we get another release from Tierra Whack. She is such a compelling artist that, just now, is getting to the wider world. I feel Whack World put her on the map…though many people are discovering her as she has recently released Walk the Beast. She has put out a series of singles between the release of Whack World and now – including the excellent Unemployed (2019). These, like Walk the Beast, are three or four minutes in length. If there is another album, it might be more conventional and longer.

I am going to start with an interview from 2018. The Guardian chatted with Tierra Whack as there was a lot of hype and excitement around the release of Whack World:

“Whack – who says that’s her real name from birth – has been gaining buzz with Whack World, her newly released debut album that includes 15 songs with 15 accompanying videos, and each is exactly one minute long. It has drawn rave reviews and praise from some big names. Solange Knowles named her as a musician that excites her now – “She sent me a shirt that says, ‘Tierra Whack is my mom,’ and I wear it proudly,” Knowles told Billboard in March. Flying Lotus posted praise about her last fall and asked her to open one of his shows. And Whack will be opening for Lauryn Hill at the Philadelphia stop of Hill’s 20th anniversary tour for her masterpiece album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. (Whack says she loved “every single song” on the album. “That’s my idol. She’s the reason I do it.”)

Her success comes amid an unusual boom period for female rappers. Cardi B has been breaking chart records and currently has three songs on Billboard’s Hot 100, two of which are in the top 10 amid a sea of Drake tracks. (She’s also managed to give birth to a baby daughter in the same week.) Nicki Minaj has also seen continued chart success ahead of the release of her fourth album, Queen. And Pitchfork’s best new music label is increasingly being applied to smaller, up-and-coming artists such as Lizzo and CupcakKe. “I want more females to join in and get the shine, and I hope to be part of the reason,” Whack told the New York Times in June.

Though she recognizes the importance of women in rap at this moment, Whack doesn’t identify solely as a rapper. She’s constantly shapeshifting, both onstage and on her album. During Whack’s short set at Warm Up, she was wide-eyed and bouncing back and forth across a small stage beneath clumps of inflated animals suspended in the air, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt dress with a giant pink “W”, commissioned and designed by her friend Tatyanna Nance. Whack alternated between rapid-fire raps and heartfelt sung lines such as “I miss my dog”, with one hand extended forward to punctuate her words, and asking people’s names and demanding dancing or group shouts between songs.

Whack is undeniably a skilled rapper, but she doesn’t define herself as singularly a musician of that genre – or even a musician at all. She prefers to be called an artist and an entertainer. And that may be a reaction to the confines she felt as a developing musician. “Growing up people would tell me: ‘Yo, you only can do one thing. If you’re going to rap, just rap. If you’re going to sing, just sing.’ It boxed me in. But I just figured out a way to show everything. It’s like if you have a job interview, you want to present as many skills as you have. Your résumé.”

Even in interviews, Whack edges toward pushing the limits of her presented identity and which details matter – though she’s been quoted in other publications as saying she’s 22, she told the Guardian she’s 36. (A YouTube video of Whack rapping impressively on the streets of Philadelphia at age 15 in 2011 suggests 22 is her real age.)

Whack’s résumé as an artist began with a school assignment – she had to write and present a poem to her class, which was a big deal since she was so shy at the time. She wrote and memorized a freestyle poem. “I went up there and just presented it crazy. I was just talking about the weirdest things, just rhyming any kind of word,” Whack says. She felt it was the first time her friends and family really saw who she was. She immediately asked her mom to buy her some notebooks, “and I just started writing and writing”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Allen

Like so many artists, Tierra Whack has a really fascinating background and upbringing. It seems that a lot of violence and upheaval that she saw in a harsh Philadelphia neighbourhood turned her towards something creative and more spiritual. NME interviewed the rapper in 2019. We learned more about her childhood:

“The eldest of three siblings, Tierra Helena Whack was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a hard neighbourhood. “I grew up in the projects, 11th and Norris,” she says. “[It was] every man for himself. I remember seeing the guys on the corner, hearing gunshots. I guess a lot of people would say it was rough.”

In her childhood, Tierra had an obsessive inclination towards poetry and performance, turning her rhymes into raps under the moniker Dizzle Dizz. In high school, she and her crew petitioned their strict principal to allow them to perform a couple of songs from Sister Act 2 at a talent show. Tierra performed the famous “Joyful, “Joyful” rap verse, naturally – and they won.

When she was 15, Tierra and her mother were out driving and spotted the underground Philly music collective We Run The Streets. Whack’s mother encouraged her daughter to get out of the car and freestyle. Showcasing fierce talent, multi-syllabic flow and whimsical punchlines like, “I stretch my bills / yes my money exercise”, it was abundantly clear that Tierra was already a gifted MC – and one with killer bars like “used to be poverty / now I’m taking all your moneys like robberies”.

Tierra, though, seems to have little to no interest in fame when so many artists fish for clout as a means to survive. Her humility is sincere as she still grapples with her newfound stardom. “Who would have ever thought I’d be in London?” she screams. “Growing up, we only saw these places in movies. Like, you know that it’s real, but it doesn’t really hit you that you can go there, you can get a passport, you can go see these places in these movies, in these TV shows, you know what I mean?”

With no confirmation on a future album, audiences eager for a follow-up to ‘Whack World’ have, instead, been snacking on videos like ‘Unemployed’. In it, Tierra is a chef preparing a feast for her boss. The video takes a typically bizarre turn when Tierra’s main ingredients – potatoes – appear to be alive. Preparing a buffet of potato dishes – fried, mashed, baked – Tierra recognises that the potatoes are alive and seems to derive some form of pleasure in chopping them for her employers, who, themselves, are giant potatoes. This unusual cannibalistic video is made even more engaging by the haunting beats layered underneath her vicious bars.

With a staggering amount of self-confidence – “maybe it’s just because I’m a Leo,” she says wryly” – Tierra wants to reiterate that it wasn’t an easy path to get to where she is now, and that it took a whole lot of self-belief and discipline. Her rules for life? “Don’t step outside until you believe in yourself. Don’t get dressed in public. Get your shit together before you go outside.” It’s this incredible faith in herself that has also made Tierra start thinking about delving into other art forms. Inspired by Jordan Peele, in particular, and his most recent horror hit US, she wouldn’t mind making a movie: “He [Peele] is the perfect balance which I find myself to be: crazy, creepy and funny. That’s what I like. All horror movies, I laugh my ass off. I don’t think they’re scary.”

In a short time, Tierra Whack has received an incredible amount of praise from fans and critics alike. Anderson .Paak even compared her iconic artist Missy Elliot: someone Tierra thinks of as a role model. She accepts the term graciously, but concedes, “That’s a huge compliment, but I just want to be me. She’s one of my idols, but I’m just focused on being me. I appreciate all the compliments, but I’m working hard to really become a household name to change the world. I want to be Tierra Whack”.

I am going to wrap it up soon. There are two other interviews I feel warrant further exploration and exposure. It seems that everyone who interviews Tierra Whack gets a different experience. She definitely exudes loads of energy! DAZED got to witness her in good form when they spoke to her in 2019:  

“I begin to ask about her reemergence onto the Philly scene, when Whack jumps in to ask if I’m using the pen I’ve been idly rolling between my fingers above an empty page. “Can I use it?” she asks, and I hand it over. She briefly accepts some paper, before deciding against it. “It's fine – that’s your notebook, and a napkin is cooler anyways,” she says, starting to doodle on the dark green tissue. I worry that she’s tired of my questions, but actually she begins to relax and open up (perhaps finally able to extract herself from a sense of ‘interrogation’ by retreating a little into the familiar torrent of her own imagination). Tierra Whack seemed to arrive fully-formed when Whack World catapulted her to a global stage, but she admits to feeling frustrated when people assume that her success came in an instant, erasing the struggle that came before.

What does she wish people knew about her life, pre-fame? “That I was homeless for three months when I came back (to Philly),” she says. “I lived out of storage, and from friends’ and family’s houses, because nobody really let me stay with them. It was rough.” She could have gone back to her mum in Atlanta, but she was desperately trying to make her music known, and Philadelphia was where she needed to be. How did she get through it, and come out the other side? “Music. Really just music,” she says. Coming from another artist, the answer could easily seem trite, but Whack is deadly serious. “I was doing really bad, but I just stuck with music and kept my job (washing dishes) the whole time,” she says.

From empathising with the existential dread of a potato in “Unemployed”, to deciphering the emotions behind the gleaming rictus grins in “Mumbo Jumbo”, it’s clear that Tierra Whack’s art works on levels beyond the zany, cartoonish surface. Though she describes the process of songwriting and generating music video concepts as if it were simply a case of plucking ideas from her brain like low hanging fruit, it is uncanny how Whack’s work seems able to tap into universal emotions, inviting a multiplicity of interpretations. I don’t mean to suggest that Whack is some kind of idiot-savant; but considering her inspiration mostly comes from the hyper-specific and apparently quotidian, she does have a mercurial talent for channeling the changing winds of contemporary culture through her free-associated streams of consciousness.

Whack has an energy that radiates like an aura. Not one of effervescent good luck, or head-in-sand enthusiasm, but a determination and humble belief in her ability to work hard and be great. “If I can make it through homelessness, I can make it through anything,” she says. As the accolades and industry cosigns pile up – from Missy Elliott, Solange, Vince Staples, Janelle Monaé, and more – Tierra Whack is determined not to lose herself in the shark-infested waters of fame. She remembers her Grammy nomination mostly when journalists bring it up, and has a healthy scepticism of shiny institutional trinkets. “If I get an award, that's cool. If I get nominated, that’s really cool. But I’m focused on creating art, having fun and enjoying life,” she says, handing me the doodled napkin as a parting gift. “I’m on my journey”.

To end up, there is a great interview from last year that is among the most current. I am not sure what Tierra Whack has planned for the next year or so and whether any quit rumours are substantial and will lead to her departing – let us hope not! This gal-dem interview shows that the sort of energy, playfulness and personality we hear through Whack World is embodied in its creator:

“Tierra’s presence also makes it clear that the brilliant, chaotic energy of Whack World is just who she is. In conversation, she leaps from topic to topic; presents long analogies; goes quiet, suddenly, disappearing into her own head; even provides deep narratives on things she spots on the street outside.

At one point, for example, we see a child helping her dad unload his lorry of Italian food, and Tierra is off: “Wow, she’s opening that big truck! You think she drove the truck too? Is she about to get in the back of the truck?? That box says, ‘Good pizza!’ – it’s probably bad. I kind of just want the box, not what’s inside. What do you think the next box says? A blank box? You don’t know what’s gonna be in there! Man, this little girl is really helping. I want to be her when I grow up. Wow. This is the best thing ever, this should be a movie. I hate olives so bad! I don’t like people named Oliver – it makes me really angry and I want to pull my hair out. She’s making a beat with the box, did you see her, did you see her? Watch out!”

Tierra is innately entertaining, from the way she tells ridiculous, exuberant stories to the way she poses for the camera. “I always wanted to be inside the TV,” she says when I ask about her childhood dreams, “I loved the TV so much, I used to sit in front of it like this,” – she mimes having her nose pressed up to the glass – “watching music videos and cartoons. I always wanted to be an entertainer.” But her desire to keep people smiling also feels conscientious.  At one point I’m stumbling over my questions, apologetic, and she immediately points to a sign across the road: “‘You’re Beautiful’. Look, that’s a sign! I’m so happy to be here. You’re beautiful.”

Tierra talks a lot about “leading with positivity” – and at times it can feel a little starry-eyed and childlike. But, for all her references to not wanting to grow up, it’s not that she’s oblivious to the ugliness of the real world. Her songs delve into strange places of darkness, and in conversation she mentions moving from a project neighbourhood in South Philadelphia to a more affluent area with more white people: “I made white friends, and then their parents would be racist. I could just tell they hated my guts – you can feel when somebody is evil, and I think that is evil. I think everybody should love everybody”.

Let’s leave it here. Go and follow Tierra Whack and listen to Whack World if you have a spare fifteen minutes. Check out her singles and other work too. She is a mighty talent who I hope will continue and put out more music. Having released singles since 2018, I think that she has enough material for a full-length album. Both popular and underrated, I do feel there are a load of people who do not know about her. Maybe the brief and unconventional nature of the album did not draw in as many people as would like. Go and spin it. I will keep an eye out to see where…

THE amazing Tierra Whack heads next.

_____________

Follow Tierra Whack

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tierrawhack/  

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4lPl9gqgox3JDiaJ1yklKh

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TierraWhack

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/TierraWhackMusic

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7v_YlS5RVfKPe8sWfN406A

FEATURE: The Power of Reimagination: Will Paul McCartney and Brittany Howard’s Studio Album Reworkings Become More Widespread?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Power of Reimagination

Will Paul McCartney and Brittany Howard’s Studio Album Reworkings Become More Widespread?

___________

NOT that it has become a full-blown thing…

but, as two massive artists have either released or announced a reimagined/imagined version of a recent studio album, I wonder whether it will become more of a thing. I shall come to Brittany Howard’s forthcoming release. We all know that Paul McCartney released McCartney III last year. It was the long-awaited conclusion to the eponymous trilogy. Few would have expected any action after that in terms of new releases. McCartney III Imagined was released in April. This is the eleven tracks from the original album with ‘new’ versions. A series of great artists have provided their take on the songs. The track order is different on Imagined than it is the original release. My favourite track from McCartney III, Slidin’, has an EOB remix. Phoebe Bridgers features on Seize the Day; Find My Way has Beck on it, whilst St. Vincent remixes Women and Wives. It is a mixture of remixes and the original songs sort of turned into collaborations. Whilst this sort of things has been done before (there were a load of remix albums in the ‘90s!), the fact someone as high-profile as Paul McCartney has done it is really interesting. Not intended to make money or capitalise on the original album, I think it was more of a chance for newer artists to give their take on these songs. There was quite a lot of praise for the McCartney III Imagined project. Whilst not as acclaimed as the original album, many were impressed by the unexpectedness of the album, in addition to the well-chosen collaborators. I think each artist brings something unique and fresh to the songs, meaning you essentially get a new album, yet you already know the songs and their background.

The reviews for McCartney III Imagined were largely positive. The album could have been a bit of a mess; McCartney clearly spent a lot of time and energy ensuring he has the right people on the album. This is what CLASH wrote in their review:

“Paul McCartney’s ongoing creative luminescence is truly exceptional. Whereas peers such as Eric Clapton and Van Morrison find themselves at loggerheads with the world, Macca’s joi de vivre and thumbs up positivity has become the perfect lockdown antidote.

Last year’s home-recorded ‘McCartney III’ was a wonderful DIY song cycle, slowing an ad hoc triptych that spans 1970’s ‘McCartney’ and 1980’s ‘McCartney III’. Fun and full of vim, ‘McCartney III’ proved that his undoubted gift with melody – not for nothing does the phrase ‘McCartney-esque’ stand as such high praise – remained undaunted, matched with a passion for experimental whimsy.

‘McCartney III Reimagined’ features a hand-picked cast giving the songs on the home studio album a once over. Pleasingly diverse, it finds Sir Paul hanging over the tapes to some truly incredible artists – indeed, it’s probably time to chalk ‘curatorial abilities’ on the lengthy list of things the Beatles icon excels at.

Beck’s bubbling, immediate, and really-rather-funky take on ‘Find My Way’ opens the set, before pop auteur Dominic Fike has his wicked way with ‘The Kiss Of Venus’. Both are rather faithful interpretations, but often it’s when guest depart from the core text that ‘McCartney III Reimagined’ becomes truly enlightening.

Take the gloriously chilled out funk of Khruangbin, who are left free to tease ‘Pretty Boys’ out to such dynamic lengths. EOB – in reality Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien – delivers a full throttle nu metal nuclear explosion with his take on ‘Slidin’ while Massive Attack producer 3D explodes ‘Deep Deep Feeling’ on the 10 minute finale.

Implausibly diverse, ‘McCartney III Reimagined’ is able to move from Josh Homme’s bluesy strut ‘Lavatory Lil’ to a pleasingly sweet, entirely heartfelt Anderson .Paak take on ‘When Winter Comes’. The peaks, however, arguably come from the hands of two female artists: St. Vincent’s gloriously luxurious ‘Women And Wives’ preens its way to a spasmodic guitar solo, while Phoebe Bridgers tantalising take on ‘Seize The Day’ proves that her golden run is showing no signs of slowing down.

Remix albums are often – truth be told – an absolute chore, a hangover from the 90s era of 17 quid compact discs. This reiminaging, however, serves of noble dual task – it illustrates Paul McCartney’s continued creative relevance to artists a third of his age, while also underlining the craftmanship that went into last year’s ‘McCartney III’. Not an essential listen, perhaps, but one that will fascinate and intrigue fans”.

If every artist was to do this, it might lose its appeal and special edge. That said, I wonder whether we will see more artists – those who are big-name and can do this sort of thing – follow an album with a sort of ‘reimagined’ version. Possibly motivated by Paul McCartney’s release, Brittany Howard is doing something similar with her Jaime album. Pitchfork explains more:

“Brittany Howard has announced Jaime Reimagined, a record featuring new versions of songs from her solo debut Jaime. The album includes previously shared remixes from Bon Iver, Michael Kiwanuka, Fred again..,and EarthGang. Reimagined also features Childish Gambino’s interpretation of “Stay High,” as well as new guest contributions from Common, Emily King, and the Internet’s Syd. Below, hear Little Dragon’s remix of “Presence” and BadBadNotGood’s remix of “Tomorrow.”

“Making Jaime was so much fun for me because I was able to explore so many different genres of music,” Brittany Howard said in a statement. “There were no rules. This reimagination project has been no different. I have been honored to have so many incredible artists from all musical worlds interpret my songs in such interesting and different ways.”

Jaime Reimagined is out digitally on July 23 via ATO; a vinyl edition will follow on September 24”.

As it is out digitally, one can hear songs from that album. It is quite similar to McCartney III Imagined, in the sense that there are remixes and new versions. You can pre-order a physical copy of JaimeReimagined now. I do wonder whether other artists are thinking along the same lines. I guess the albums that are being reworked and reimagined would need to be fairly current – the past couple of years, say. I feel that everyone from Taylor Swift (folklore), Phoebe Bridgers (Punisher) and Dua Lipa (Future Nostalgia) could benefit from something like that. I would be curious to see how those original albums are reimagined.

In fact, Dua Lipa sort of got there ‘first’ with Club Future Nostalgia from August last year. This was the album remixed by a series of musical guests. Considering Future Nostalgia was so popular and made a big impression, I can see why this new version was launched. Although, perhaps, not quiet as impactful and interesting as McCartney III Imagined, it was a chance to hear these very personal songs given a tweak and new life. This is what AllMusic wrote in their review:

“When her sophomore album, Future Nostalgia, was greeted with overwhelming acclaim at the start of 2020, English pop diva Dua Lipa decided to gift fans with a bonus remix LP, Club Future Nostalgia. With American electronic artist the Blessed Madonna at the helm, the disco-kissed pop perfection of the original receives a sweaty, thumping update in the form of an extended DJ mix. Seamlessly throbbing from track to track, the set revisits each of the impeccably produced songs from Future Nostalgia, sometimes improving them ("Boys Will Be Boys") and other times not quite hitting the highs that the crew targeted, like on the Madonna and Missy Elliot update of "Levitating." The Blessed Madonna goes deep on "Hallucinate" with Mr. Fingers and Paul Woolford and on "Pretty Please" with Midland and Masters at Work, which offer the most interesting takes on the album. Unreleased session cuts "Love Is Religion" and "That Kind of Woman" make their official debuts here, both highlights in their own right. The former, a joyous romp that soars during the choir-backed chorus, could have been a single, while the latter gets Stuart Price's Jacques Lu Cont treatment as a pulsing gem that's woven with Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back." Additional surprises pop up elsewhere in the mix, bringing samples by Jamiroquai ("Canned Heat") and Neneh Cherry ("Buffalo Stance") to the party alongside guest vocalists Gwen Stefani and Blackpink and producers Yaeji and Mark Ronson. Like the original, this is a nonstop party. However, without the boundaries of an official studio release, Club Future Nostalgia transforms Dua's party for one into a full-on collaborative celebration. While first-timers to this era would be best served listening to the parent album first, existing fans who can't get enough of that LP will find Club Future Nostalgia to be an absolute blast”.

I am stuck on the idea of  this becoming a more regular thing. I am not sure that ‘smaller’ artists can attract the same sort of focus and collaborators if they wanted to go down this road - though there is nothing to stop them. For me, the appeal comes from a huge artist putting out a great new album and then revisiting it fairly soon after. I love what Brittany Howard, Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa have done. Maybe it will not become a huge thing and we will see a load of reimagined and imagined-type albums. I do think that more will crop up. The interesting question is whether releasing a remix/re-versioned edition takes something away from the original. I personally prefer McCartney III to its Imagined cousin – although it is great hearing what the likes of Khruangbin and Damon Albarn have done with tracks from a true master. Let us see what happens in the coming months. Hearing the same album slightly differently is a phenomenon that could catch on. Of course, remixes have existed for decades, though very few artists have put an album back out entirely with remixes and/or collaborations similar to what McCartney, Howard and Lipa have done. It has happened a few times in the past, yet we might see it become more frequent in the coming years. If the remix albums of the 1990s were seen as a bit naff or forgettable, this newer and more diverse album where we get a roster of eclectic artists putting their stamp on songs seems a lot more beneficial and rewarding. Many people will be keeping their eyes peeled to see how far this reimagining reaches. As we heard on McCartney III Imagined, the results are…

OFTEN spectacular.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: 1993: Nick Coleman (Time Out)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993 

1993: Nick Coleman (Time Out)

___________

I have selected this interview…

to talk about, as there is a focus on the film director Michael Powell and his influence on Kate Bush; evident in the title track of her 1993 album, The Red Shoes. There are some great print interviews I have not yet covered. Nick Coleman from Time Out spoke with Bush in 1993. It is quite a deep and interesting interview that veers off at times – near the end, he is admonished for straying into Bush’s personal life and crossing boundaries. For the most part, the interview is compelling and throws up some great answers. Thanks to this great website for providing the interview transcript. Many people overlook The Red Shoes as an album and the film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. I have selected various sections of the interview between Coleman and Bush:

“Yet Bush has maintained a buffering distance between herself and the knowing methodology of traditional pop-craft, preferring to define herself as an expressive vessel of subtle emotion, for whom creativity is both a burden and a joy, from whom music just comes out, like blood. She says ideas come to her at the piano, from doodles, which evolve rapidly into visual images, which are then nurtured and enlarged upon through various stages until they are given final, incorruptible shape in the recording studio. Over recent albums, the studio itself has become a musical instrument, which she has learned to play with some accomplishment. The talk is always of art, creativity and reaching inside; never of craft, commerce and giving people what they want. This is English, suburban, middle-class sexiness with a high mind.

Is she disingenuous? Almost certainly not. But then one of the privileges of eccentricity is perceived innocence. Bush doesn't have to be disingenuous, because no one would believe it of her, not even if she went on telly and announced formally to a choking Michael Aspel that really she never meant a word of it; and isn't it great, pop, the way you can do anything you like so long as there's demand! After all -- perhaps above all -- she embodies the homely Noel Streatfeild ideal of creativity as a distinguishing mark, as a personal brand, fizzing, black and indelible. In a world overstocked with Gemmas and Paddies and Susies and Kates, who you are is what you're good at. That's how the grown-ups tell you apart.

She pours tea and places herself on the edge of her chair. She is small, not minute, and erect. One booted leg crosses the other and bumps gently up and down. She cocks her head and waits. She is courteous, cool and suspicious.

My friend Catherine has never opened any post addressed to Kate Bush. There was, however, a letter that came addressed merely to 'Catherine '. So Catherine opened it. Inside was a lot of stream-of-consciousness stuff about dreams, and about how the writer was watching Catherine. So Catherine snorted, noted the postmark and forgot about it. Then another letter arrived, identically addressed, from the same postal region; then another, and another, each of them increasingly weird and disturbing. Sometimes three would arrive in a day. And it so happened that on the day that Catherine decided to go to the police, a letter arrived that included a reference to Catherine's poetry and music, neither of which are big with Catherine. Also, the letter included the appellation Kate.'

'It's so nice to talk about my work for once,' she says. By this she means she's glad we've started by talking about the great film director Michael Powell and his influence on her, which is signally manifest in the title track of her new album 'The Red Shoes'.

'The Red Shoes' is a ballet film made by Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948, telling the story of a dancer who is torn between the demands of a great impresario, who can help her to become an artist of destiny, and those of her composer/husband, who can bring her happiness. The story elides an old fairy tale and a take on the power struggle that raged between the dancer Nijinsky and Diaghilev, first director of the Ballet Russe. Bush says the song evolved out of a feeling she had one day at the piano of music running away with itself. The image in her mind 'was like horses galloping and running away, with the horses turned into running feet, and then shoes galloping away with themselves'. Which corresponded, conveniently enough, with the key fairy-tale element in the Powell film: the red pumps worn by the tragic ballerina, which are imbued with a magic that carries their wearer off in a terrible outpouring of expressiveness.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari 

Bush contacted Powell shortly before he died, 'to see whether he'd be interested in working with me. He was the most charming man, so charming. He wanted to hear my music, so I sent him some cassettes and we exchanged letters occasionally, and I got a chance to meet him not so long before he died. He left a really strong impression on me, as much as a person as for his work. He was just one of those very special spirits, almost magical in a way. Left me with a big influence.'

Which makes some kind of sense. Powell's super-rich three-strip Technicolor, his English-ness, his 'expressiveness', his interest in the shadows cast by daylight; even, you could argue, his thematic preoccupation with islands, solitary souls and the unconfined spirit; these are some of Bush's favourite things.

'His work is just so... so beautiful,' says Kate, in her tiniest voice.

Meaning what, exactly?

'Well, there's such heart in his films. The way he portrayed women... that was particularly good and very interesting. His women are strong and they're treated as people...'

That's one kind of beauty.

'The heart, I think, is the main beauty. This human quality he has. Although there's clever shots in his films, they're not really used for effect, to be clever. They're used for an emotional effect. I'd call that a human quality. Like vulnerability. Also, I like the emotional qualities of the characters. I suppose in one way they're very English ...'

To combine her interest in Powell with her lust for new directions, and perhaps to solve one or two promotional problems, Bush has directed a 40-minute film interpreting six songs from the excellent 'Red Shoes' album. It will be premiered at the London Film Festival.

'I'll be very interested to see what people make of it. To see whether they regard it as a long promo video or as a short film,' she says.

Where do your stories come from?

'Oh, all kinds of sources but generally they come down to people. People's ideas or works. Films, books, they all lead back to someone else's ideas, which in turn lead back to someone's else's ideas...'

You're 35 and you've been doing this since you were a teenager. How have you changed?

'I think I've changed quite a lot. Essentially I'm still the same person but I suppose I've grown up a lot, and learned a lot.'

What's made you grow up the most?

'You get lots of disappointments. I'm not sure that they make you grow up but they make you question intentions.' She pauses. 'But life is what makes you grow up.'

That's a fantastically evasive answer.

'It is quite evasive but I think it's true.' Still no dimple. 'It's hard to say... when I was young I was very idealistic, and I don't really think I am any more. I think I'm more... realistic. I think it's good to change. I think I'd be unhappy if I didn't change. It would mean I hadn't learnt anything.'

Do you ever think you're mad?

'Yes.' This is a slow answer, not without humour. 'Yes, I do. But it could be worse ... I think everyone is mad in their own way. I mean, what is normal? I do think I have quite a lot of fun with my madness, though. It's nice that I can channel it into my work.'

Does work ever feel like it's not quite enough?

'Oh, now! She glares. My blood vessels turn into zip-fasteners. Now I've done it. 'Those last two questions seem like they're coming in on an angle ...'

The lecture follows about how she makes it quite clear that questions about her private life are out of bounds. I protest that I'm not trying to get her to betray facts about her private life but to talk about how she sees herself, and the world outside. After all, I bluster, there is a connection between her feelings and her work, is there not? She pours tea, clanking the lid of the teapot, doing stuff with her hands.

It used to be said of Olivier that when he wasn't acting there didn't seem to be much of him left.

'Well, I'm only five foot three, so there's not so much of me here anywhere. I have so much time for actors. I mean, that really is putting yourself on the line. And acting is being so many different things, isn't it? I wonder how easy it is for very famous actors to hold on to a sense of who they are.'

Quite.

'But Olivier was awfully good at what he did, wasn't he? So if there wasn't much of him left, who cares, really? What he did was great’”.

In a lot of interviews, Kate Bush has had to deal with some tough questions or those who are asking inappropriate things! She always deals with them so well and calmly! As you can see from the interview above, it is respectful for the most part – those the personal questions are a little galling and intrusive. I like the Time Out interview, as Bush got to talk about film, The Red Shoes, in addition to Michael Powell and her friendship with him. The years 1993 and 1994 are not really exposed and explored regarding Bush and her career. I really like the fact that she put out The Line, the Cross and the Curve; The Red Shoes is an album with several strong highlights. She would wind down her career quite a bit after 1993…engaging less frequently with the media and not releasing her next studio album, Aerial, until 2005. The Time Out interview got me invested and imagining – what it must have been like for Nick Coleman being in the room with her. By all accounts, it sounds like…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993 

QUITE an encounter!

FEATURE: Groovelines: Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World

___________

THIS is a song that I have been meaning…

to put into this feature for a long time. Tears for Fears’ 1985 single, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, is one of my favourite songs ever! It was my first memory of life. I might have heard in 1985 when I was two – it was very close to that time anyway. There are some articles that I want to bring in, so one can get a history of the track and why it was written. Released in March 1985 – it was taken from the English band’s Songs from the Big Chair (1985) album – and written by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley, and Chris Hughes, it is a song that reached the top spot in the U.S. and number two here (I wonder why it was slightly more popular there?!). Written at a time when there was the threat of nuclear annihilation during The Cold War and many felt very tense, the song had real gravitas and relevance. This Wikipedi article gives us a little background to Everybody Wants to Rule the World:

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was written by Roland Orzabal, Ian Stanley and Chris Hughes, and produced by Hughes. The song was a "last-minute" addition during recording sessions of Songs from the Big Chair (1985). The decision to include the song in the album came after Orzabal played two chords on his acoustic guitar for Hughes. It was recorded in two weeks and added as the final track on the album. According to Orzabal, the final line in the song's chorus, originally written as "Everybody wants to go to war", contributed to his indifference towards the track.

In an interview with Mix magazine, Hughes said that "as a piece of recording history, [the song is] bland as hell." Orzabal's unimpressed reaction to the track during their songwriting sessions prompted Hughes to convince him to record it, in a calculated effort to garner American chart success. After completing their sessions at 6PM, they would spend an hour reviewing each recording many times; this helped Orzabal to create the song's guitar figure and change its title. Orzabal acknowledged that the shuffle beat used in the song was "alien" to their way of writing music, stating it was "jolly rather than square and rigid in the manner of 'Shout', but it continued the process of becoming more extrovert." Curt Smith, the song's lead singer, said the themes were "quite serious – it's about everybody wanting power, about warfare and the misery it causes”.

It is interesting to think about the song now and whether it has the same meaning as it did in the 1980s. There were some who were dismissive when Everybody Wants to Rule the World was released; feeling that it did not convey punch and any real political message – a song that was not as potent as it should have been. To me, it is a really strong anthem where the slightly upbeat composition and vocals are juxtaposed with the starker messages. Auralcrave wrote about Tears for Fears’ smash last year:

“Reliable voice of the aesthetics of their time, Tears For Fears propose themselves as ideal companions on a journey between light and shadow. Yet, among their songs there are some that seem to embody the spirit of every era, and Everybody Wants To Rule The World is one of these always valid posters. If every generation has its nightmares, this song, which under the reassuring sound of the New Wave hides an intertwining of cynicism, desire for supremacy and mirages of a distant freedom, is an anti-hymn to the visions that torment the imagination of us all . Regardless of the time we live in.

Track from the album Song from the Big Chair (one of the group’s greatest hits) dating back to 1985, Everybody Wants To Rule The World, included in the project at the last moment, is a reference to the Cold War still in progress. Roland Orzabal initially plans to name it Everybody Wants To Go To War, realizing afterwards that it didn’t sound right.

 The words of the young singer are dictated by the collective suspicion of a possible nuclear war, as well as by the fear of the unknown that lies in the total uncertainty of the future to come. Assumptions that allow the lyrics to emerge from the war situation and become more generally valid, an incredibly catchy rant against the thirst for power of those “personal dictators” – such as an authoritarian parent or an overbearing superior at work – who would always like to order us what to do, guiding every action of our existence.

The opening lines, made of an almost frightening inevitability, lead us to a sort of Orwellian world, a system based on constant and oppressive surveillance:

Welcome to your life

There’s no turning back

Even while we sleep

We will find you

Acting on your best behaviour

Turn your back on mother nature

Everybody wants to rule the world

Once you become aware of being alive, you also acquire the awareness of being continually observed and judged, rewarded or punished by a power claimed and “justified” by the mere fact of being up there. A control, that of those who impose themselves, which cannot be escaped and which can only make us think of the grip in which the digital revolutions of the new millennium have tightened reality, now reduced and regulated by the anxious principle of acceptance and beauty. There is no escape from tyrants as there is no escape from the big eye of public opinion, hungry for errors to be condemned and ridiculed”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Putland/Getty Images

I will come to an article that talks about cover versions of the song. Whilst I am not a fan of any of the cover versions – it is a song that is perfect as it is and sounds a lot weaker when others tackle it -, it does show that it has resonated through the years. As this article explains, there was a British Invasion in the U.S. in 1985 – over twenty years after The Beatles were at the centre of one in the 1960s:

“The duo of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith were a huge part of that second British invasion. When TFF entered the Hot 100 in March that year with “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” all of their initial UK success to that point had yielded just one US singles chart appearance, and that at a No.73 peak, with “Change” in 1983. The album The Hurting reached the exact same position.

On June 8, 1985, the Tears For Fears  single took over from Wham!’s “Everything She Wants” to begin a two-week reign on the Hot 100. Wham!’s single had itself replaced Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” at the top, as British acts held sway for a five-week stretch. Just five weeks later, Songs From The Big Chair was topping the album chart, for the first of five non-consecutive weeks”.

I really love the sounds of the mid-’80s and what was being produced in the U.K. Such amazing songs that have stood the test of time! To me, Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World is among the very best.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Noble/Redferns

Stereogum looked back at the song when they put it under the spotlight last year. Although they were not entirely convinced by the authenticity, status and authority in the song, there were some interesting observations:

“The UK duo Tears For Fears spoke that language, too. By 1985, the Second British Invasion — the cascade of twitchy synthpop kids who blew up on MTV — had started to fade. The sound of an arch art-school voice declaiming cryptic nothings over beeping keyboards no longer seemed like the future. When they debuted, Tears For Fears got lost in that moment; they made big hits at home but struggled to connect in America. On their second album, though, Tears For Fears tapped right into the sonic maximalism of their era, and they made a blockbuster. With “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” the duo set out explicitly to conquer America. For a little while, that’s exactly what they did.

The video is a smart and well-realized vision, too. Director Nigel Dick, who had already directed the “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” video and whose work will appear in this column a great many times, filmed Smith driving a beautiful old convertible around Southern California and Nevada. There’s no central narrative; it’s just an Englishman adrift in an American landscape. We get some gorgeous shots of Smith standing in the golden-hour desert light while dirtbikes vroom all around him, and we also get some racially weird moments where two Black men in tuxedos do some kind of vaudeville dance routine at a gas station. I don’t know what the fuck is going on with that, but it’s a hazy, pretty, inviting video, and I can see why it would’ve pulled in the kids who caught it in MTV.

Still, it’s a little surprising to learn just how big Tears For Fears were that summer. “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” was only the second Tears For Fears single to hit the American charts, and it made Tears For Fears into something huge. Songs From The Big Chair sold five million copies in America, and the album spent five weeks atop the Billboard album charts. Tears For Fears will soon be back in this column”.

I want to finish with the Financial Times’ study of the song. They cast a light on Lorde’s cover. I am not keen on it. That said, her lowering the vocal does draw something new from the lyrics:

“Tears for Fears’ 1985 hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was a breakthrough for the English band, a worldwide success that topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and spent six weeks in the UK’s top five. Taken from their 1985 album Songs from the Big Chair, it epitomised the maturation of founding members Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith from relative low-liers in the mod revival band Graduate, to a globe-conquering synth-pop outfit. Thanks to a bigger, reverb-heavy sound which resonated worldwide, Songs from the Big Chair sold five million copies in the US alone.

They also became part of the “second British invasion” of the US — a new wave of acts who, thanks largely to MTV coverage, found favour among American audiences with their synth-based sounds and glossy videos. The invasion was spearheaded in 1981 by The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”, with bands such as Duran Duran following in their wake and Tears for Fears joining the party in the mid-1980s.

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” emerged when singer and songwriter Roland Orzabal was in the studio sessions towards the end of recording Songs from the Big Chair and came up with a two-chord riff; the rest of the song, he later said, was “effortless”, though it did undergo some changes. Its lyrics were about the thirst for power and its consequences, with intimations of what was seen by many at the time as the imminent threat of global nuclear war. In an early iteration, the chorus ended with: “Everybody wants to go to war”, but the band were uncomfortable with this, preferring the less didactic version that made the final cut.

Given its commercial impact and its melodic strengths, it’s no surprise that the song has had an afterlife stretching to the present day. It was treated with relative conservatism by Gloria Gaynor (1986) and Patti Smith (2007), who both retained the original’s pacing and synth progression. In 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, rapper Nas sampled the synth riff and the chorus on his single “Rule”, a plea for racial tolerance and peace in a troubled world.

With its blend of thematic gravity and musical vibrancy, it became a natural fit for film and TV soundtracks; it was used most recently in Steven Spielberg’s 2018 sci-fi adventure Ready Player One, as well as being a regular fixture in scenes of histrionic high drama in the BBC soap EastEnders.

In the meantime, another, radical re-reading of the song was gaining traction. Lorde, the then-17-year-old New Zealand singer, covered it for the soundtrack to the 2013 film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Hers was a treatment that looked at the song anew, sedating the original’s insistent drumline and dispensing with its synth progression.

Lorde’s decision to lower the tempo of the track so drastically drew attention to the lyrics, as they oscillate between rhetorical pleas and declarative prophecies, acting both as social commentary and holistic musing: “Help me make the most/ Of freedom and of pleasure/ Nothing ever lasts forever/ Everybody wants to rule the world.” Lorde’s version also made its way on to trailers for blockbuster video games such as Assassin’s Creed Unity.

Two recent versions have returned to Tears for Fears’ original blueprint. Veteran producer Trevor Horn passes the microphone to Robbie Williams for an orchestral arrangement on his … Reimagines the Eighties album, while American rock outfit Weezer include a forgettable attempt on their collection of 1980s covers, The Teal Album. Introducing Tears for Fears’ original to young blood is left to DJs such as CC: DISCO! and Berlin-based Brits Objekt and Call Super, who situate the track among New Order and Depeche Mode as part of dance music’s wider new wave nostalgia.

Tears for Fears themselves, however, have given the ultimate accolade to Lorde’s radical re-reading: the band are still touring, and on stage, before they perform “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Lorde’s version is played over the PA”.

I am going to leave it there. I still get tingles when I hear Everybody Wants to Rule the World! It is a song that stuck with me in 1985, and it is firmly lodged in my brain! Now, I can listen to it and get something new from it! Whether you prefer the original or like the cover versions more, Tears for Fears’ masterful 1985 track is an absolute classic. If you have not heard the song in a while, then do…

CHECK it out now.

FEATURE: Some Boys Romance, Some Boys Slow Dance… Madonna’s Material Girl

FEATURE:

 

 

Some Boys Romance, Some Boys Slow Dance…

Madonna’s Material Girl

___________

I have a couple of reasons…

for focusing in on Madonna’s Material Girl. The song is her most-streamed song on Spotify. Its amazing popularity after all of these years is impressive! One might assume that Like a Prayer, Ray of Light or Vogue would be at the top. There is something about Material Girl that has resonated with the most people. Material Girl was the first Madonna song I heard and loved. I think it was the video that struck me. Seeing the Queen of Pop looking so glamorous in a video that sort of harked back to icons of Hollywood. Its lush and filmic visuals definitely captured my imagination. The song is also incredibly catchy and boasts one of Madonna’s finest choruses. As it is her sixty-third birthday on 16th August, I am putting out a few features about her. I might do an album or singles ranking list before then. I wanted to go deep with Material Girl, as its huge popularity comes as a bit of a surprise. Some would say Madonna hit her peak and was at her best on albums like 1998’s Ray of Light or 1989’s Like a Prayer. Material Girl is from her second studio album: the magnificent and underrated Like a Virgin from 1984. Released on 30th November, 1984, it was the second single from that album. Although Madonna co-wrote a few songs from Like a Virgin, she didn’t have a hand in any of the singles – such as Like a Virgin and Angel.

Material Girl was written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans. Madonna would work more prolifically with writers such as Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard. Even though that creative partnership (with Madonna) yielded superb results from 1986’s True Blue, it is credit to Brown and Rans that they crafted this instant Pop classic. Nile Rodgers produced Like a Virgin. One can hear his expertise and golden touch through the album. Even though I really love Madonna’s eponymous 1983 debut, her follow-up seems more sophisticated, deeper and more varied. The production sounds is definitely a real shift - John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez, Mark Kamins and Reggie Lucas produced Madonna. I am backtracking, but Madonna solo-wrote five of the eight tracks on her debut. I think new writers helped expand her work and provide it with new angles. That said, I think she would hit a real stride and high on True Blue. Like a Virgin was her still finding her groove and voice. Material Girl, even though it is not her most accomplished sophisticated track, is one of her most fun and addictive. I can understand why it remains so adored. One can put the song on and feel better right away! The lyrics are ones that have been interpreted and pulled apart through the years. On the surface, it seems to be this rising Pop artist making wiser choices. Although there is some naivety and shallowness, this is the heroine looking for riches (whether it is literal or emotional): “Some boys kiss me/Some boys hug me/I think they're ok/If they don't give me proper credit/I just walk away/They can beg and they can plead/But they can't see the light (that's right)/'Cause the boy with the cold hard cash/Is always Mister Right”.

Some might see the lyrics as Madonna being obsessed with materialism and guys with money – pushing away anyone who was less well-off or grounded. Even though Madonna did not write the song, perhaps the label were trying to project in a particular way; this Pop princess who was going from rags to riches and destined for huge things no matter what. It is worth investigating the lyrics. Last year, this excellent blog re-approached the track. Is the track about Madonna seeking a rich guy – or is it her looking at society in a wider sense?

“Following the commercial success of her self-titled debut, Madonna, the artist kept the momentum going by pushing the limits of her public image. Flaunting skimpy fishnet stockings and brazenly donning the crucifix, Madonna was an icon that struck fear into the heart of parents whose children came to idolise the emerging Queen of Pop. Material Girl plays on this perception of her attention-seeking, rebellious, commodified idol image.

On the surface, the song means what it says; Madonna is a “material girl”. She isn’t just attracted to wealthy men, she manipulates them to her own materialistic gain. But Madonna isn’t bothered by this, she’s self-aware of the character that she’s playing. She understands that her worldview is detached from humanity. After all, boys with “cold hard cash” are always “Mister Right”.

But on that note, is it really a detached view of society? In the chorus, she points out that the world is in fact, materialistic; all she’s doing is conforming to the unspoken rules of society instead of denying it. She is – borrowing the commercial rhetoric of the song – a product of her society. This message seems to be directed at the skeptical listener who is quick to judge her as a cold materialistic woman in the second line of the chorus, “You know that we are living in a material world”. The song addresses an interesting double bind that plagues the modern world. One has to appear immaterialistic in a world that demands a hyperawareness of money.

But Madonna’s song is more complex than that, it seems to critique our hasty assumptions of her being materialistic. It feeds the idea of a shallow pop star whose only concern is fame and money, only to subvert our hasty assumptions of the pop star in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Let’s look at some of the puns and wordplay of the song. The speaker demands that boys “give [her] proper credit”, a pun on financial credit and respect towards her identity. Credit in the financial sense fits in with the overall rhetoric of the song that plays with this idea of transactions and commerce. Another similar pun appears when she demands her suitors to “raise [her] interest”. Yet to demand that her suitors – and in a meta-lyrical way, her listeners – give her proper credit suggests that we’re creating a false materialistic image of her true character. She wants us to give her “proper credit” by going past her outer self and looking at her character from within.

We see this tongue-in-cheek message play out in the music video itself. The director thinks that the key to her heart is a gaudy gift – an assumption he makes from her commercial lifestyle and, perhaps, his distorted view of women. It is only when he truly understands her, giving her “proper credit”, and swaps his expensive gift for a hand-cut unruly bouquet of flowers that she accepts him.

Madonna confirms the satirical nature of Material Girl and Like a Virgin in a Rolling Stones interview:

I liked them both because they were ironic and provocative at the same time but also unlike me. I am not a materialistic person, and I certainly wasn’t a virgin

Material Girl shows how seemingly shallow pop songs can be taken seriously by couching its lyrics in ambiguity. Importantly, I don’t think we can’t really say for sure which way of reading the song is more correct. You have a persona that sees the world as it is, and instead of playing into the double bind, demands what she can get. Yet, we see a star that’s agonised by how people can’t seem to separate her true character from the materialistic persona she plays. It is this ambiguity, however, that makes me believe that this provocative, rebellious song deserves proper credit”.

Material Girl just missed out on a number one place in the U.S. and U.K. It reached two in America and three here. There is something bittersweet about the song. It definitely helped make her more of a household name and announced her as a Pop artist who was about to rule the world. The media attached the ‘material girl’ label to her for years. This is something that followed Madonna and put her in a pigeonhole. The spirituality we can hear on albums like Ray of Light might be Madonna trying to fully distance herself and show that she was more concerned with things beyond wealth and mere materialism. She has performed it live through the years. It was included in the final section of the Rebel Heart Tour (2015–16). I think, as early as 1985, Madonna was performing the song in a self-parodying way. A feeling that she was singing a track that was not indicative of her. Maybe the song’s video – with her as a Marilyn Monroe-type heroine courting the attention of various suitors – was more responsible for a negative image and perception compared to the lyrics. Even so, it is a hugely popular song and a really important moment of her career. The track has received different reactions from various critics. This Wikipedia article explains more:

“Following the song's release on November 30, 1984, as the second single from Like a Virgin, "Material Girl" received mixed reviews from music critics. Author Rikky Rooksby, in his book The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, compared the song with those of Cyndi Lauper because of Madonna's shrill voice in the song. He added that the song was a "pungent satire on the Reagan/Thatcher young-guns-go-for-it era. Which just goes to show that pop music and irony don't mix." Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic said that "Material Girl" was one of the songs that made Madonna an icon, the other being "Like a Virgin" from the same album, both remaining as a definitive statement.

 He added that both tunes overshadow the rest of the record, "because they are a perfect match of theme and sound." Debby Miller from Rolling Stone, felt that the song portrayed Madonna as a more practical girl than previous female singers. Dave Karger from Entertainment Weekly, while reviewing the album in 1995, felt that the song came off a bit repetitious and immature when compared to the present context. Jim Farber from Entertainment Weekly felt that the song provided then critics a way to criticize Madonna's work. Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine commented that Madonna had "defined a generation with hits like 'Material Girl'." Alfred Soto from Stylus Magazine compared the song with "Everything She Wants" by Wham!. Michael Paoletta from Billboard commented that the song sustained a "fevered dance-rock momentum." Nancy Erlick from Billboard said that "singer and team conquer once more with their irresistible assembly of new and used pop hooks." In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their Top 20 Madonna singles of all time for a special issue of Q magazine dedicated to Madonna. "Material Girl" was allocated the 15th spot on the list”.

Ahead of Madonna’s birthday on 16th August, I am writing a few features exploring various aspects of her career. I wanted to spend time with Material Girl, as it was the first Madonna song I discovered. In spite of its huge popularity today, it is a song that Madonna has had a complex relationship with. If it did result in the press latching onto it and labelling her as wealth-chasing, the song is definitely one of the classics from her back catalogue. Madonna has come a long way since Like a Virgin in 1984. Her career has undergone all these transformations and reinventions. To me, one cannot overlook some of the early singles like Material Girl. It is a song that has a very special place…

IN many people’s hearts.

FEATURE With My Silver Buddha: Kate Bush’s Pull Out the Pin

FEATURE:

 

 

With My Silver Buddha

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982 

Kate Bush’s Pull Out the Pin

___________

I am thinking ahead…

to the fortieth anniversary of Kate Bush’s The Dreaming next year. Her fourth studio album, it was released in September 1982. It is an album that I really love and have featured quite a bit. I have not done a song-specific feature regarding Pull Out the Pin. The lyrics are so extraordinarily vivid and awash with bold and incredible visions. One of my favourite passages is this: “With my silver Buddha/And my silver bullet/(I pull the pin)/You learn to ride the Earth/When you're living on your belly and the enemy are city-births/Who need radar? We use scent/They stink of the west, stink of sweat/Stink of cologne and baccy, and all their Yankee hash”. The third song on The Dreaming, it follows the opener, Sat in Your Lap, which is punchy and frantic; There Goes a Tenner is jauntier and has a bit of a groove to it. I feel Pull Out the Pin was the first track on The Dreaming that demonstrated Bush’s more experimental and weirder sound. It has voices, effects and elements that are unlike anything she had ever done. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia collects some interview quotes where Bush explained the meaning and story behind Pull Out the Pin:

“We sat in front of the speakers trying to focus on the picture - a green forest, humid and pulsating with life. We are looking at the Americans from the Vietnamese point of view and, almost like a camera, we start in wide shot. Right in the distance you can see the trees moving, smoke and sounds drifting our way... sounds like a radio. Closer in with the camera, and you can catch glimpses of their pink skin. We can smell them for miles with their sickly cologne, American tobacco and stale sweat. Take the camera in even closer, and we find a solitary soldier, perhaps the one I have singled out. Sometimes a Vietnamese would track a soldier for days and follow him, until he eventually took him. This soldier is under a tree, dozing with a faint smile and a radio by his side. It's a small transistor radio out of which cries an electric guitar. I'd swear it was being played by Brian Bath, but how could that be, way out here on our stereo screen. I pop the silver Buddha that I wear around my neck into my mouth, securing my lips around his little metal body. I move towards the sleeping man. A helicopter soars overhead, he wakes up, and as he looks me in the eyes I relate to him as I would to a helpless stranger. Has he a family and a lady waiting for him at home, somewhere beyond the Chinese drums and the double bass that stalks like a wild cat through bamboo? The moving pictures freeze-frame and fade - someone stopped the multi-track, there's more overdubs to do. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)

I saw this incredible documentary by this Australian cameraman who went on the front line in Vietnam, filming from the Vietnamese point of view, so it was very biased against the Americans. He said it really changed him, because until you live on their level like that, when it's complete survival, you don't know what it's about. He's never been the same since, because it's so devastating, people dying all the time.

The way he portrayed the Vietnamese was as this really crafted, beautiful race. The Americans were these big, fat, pink, smelly things who the Vietnamese could smell coming for miles because of the tobacco and cologne. It was devastating, because you got the impression that the Americans were so heavy and awkward, and the Vietnamese were so beautiful and all getting wiped out. They wore a little silver Buddha on a chain around their neck and when they went into action they'd pop it into their mouth, so if they died they'd have Buddha on their lips. I wanted to write a song that could somehow convey the whole thing, so we set it in the jungle and had helicopters, crickets and little Balinese frogs. (Kris Needs, 'Dream Time In The Bush'. Zigzag (UK), November 1982)”.

It is unsurprising that Bush was drawing from history and subjects as unusual and stirring as war for The Dreaming. She has never been someone who dips into the same fountain of inspiration as her peers and ever repeated herself.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982 promoting The Dreaming

Pull Out the Pin is one of the undoubted highlights from The Dreaming. Fusing Bush’s phenomenal lyrics, her expanding sound palette – where the Fairlight CMI plays a much bigger role – and her accomplished and wonderful production, one must marvel at song like this! Nearly forty years after The Dreaming came out, one has heard nothing quite like it. I don’t think I have ever heard Pull Out the Pin played on the radio. If you have not listened to the song before, then go and check it out. It is one of Bush’s finest efforts. It is strange that The Dreaming is still underrated and under-appreciated by some. Maybe they find it too dense and edgy in some places. There is so much variation and breadth in her first album where she was solely in the producer’s chair. I am going to wrap up now. I wanted to come back to a song that not that many people know about. One can lose themselves in the chaos and anxiety of the track. Bush is wonderful throughout. An amazing gem played by a stellar crew of musicians - drums: Preston Heyman; string bass: Danny Thompson; piano: Kate Bush; electric Guitar: Brian Bath and backing vocals: Dave Gilmour -, we get the echoed lines at the end: “Just one thing in it: Me or him/And I love life!”. Those are lines that will definitely stay in your head – given the way Bush delivers them with such passion and intensity! The divine and frightening Pull Out the Pin is…

A drama or huge proportions.

TRACK REVIEW: IDER - embarrassed

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

IDER

PHOTO CREDIT: @danikm

embarrassed

9.4/10

The track, embarrassed, is available from:

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

GENRES:

Indie Rock/Electropop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The album, shame, Is available here:

https://weareider.bandcamp.com/album/shame

  LABEL:

IDER

TRACKLISTING:

Cross Yourself

cbb to b sad

Knocked Up

obsessed

BORED

waiting 17 03

embarrassed

Midland’s Guilt

__________

THIS time around…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Daniela K Monteiro

I am spending some reviewing time with a duo that I have been supporting for a little while now. London’s IDER consist of Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville. They have just put out their acclaimed second album, shame. I will come to that soon enough and a track from the album that I wish to explore more. Before then, I want to take things back and look at how IDER got started. There is great chemistry and connection between Markwick and Somerville. As this Gig Goer interview from earlier this year explains, the stage is a very important arena for IDER:

“Somerville and Markwick began their musical relationship during university, songwriting and playing acoustic gigs under the name Lily & Meg. Despite the shutdown of the touring industry in 2020, they still consider performance one of the sustaining pillars in their creative process.

“The stuff that we talk about in our songs… I feel it’s important for us to share that with people and understand other people’s experiences. A massive part of feeling connected to [our] music is living it through other people,” Somerville says.

There’s a fine-tuned synchronicity to the way Somerville and Markwick interact on stage, weaving energy out of thin air and taking strength from the other’s presence. Their songs contain mesmerizing harmonies that provide a guiding heartbeat throughout their catalog. Here are two individuals, immensely talented in their own right, coming together to form the cohesive listening experience that is IDER. This utterly breathtaking dynamic extends into a visual space, powerfully showcased in their music video for Mirror, linked below”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

It is great to see how successful IDER are now and the sort of fanbase they have! There is no doubting the fact they are one of the country’s best groups. A phenomenal duo whose music has a unique edge, I think we are going to hear a lot more from IDER in the future. When The Independent spoke with them to promote their debut album, Emotional Education, in 2019, we learn more about Markwick and Somerville’s meeting. There is a closeness and sisterly bond between them that comes through when you hear their music:

“While still students, the pair became regulars on the Cornwall gig circuit. But by the time they graduated, choices had to be made. At the urging of a manager they had met locally, the pair moved to Markwick’s native London (Somerville is from the Midlands), where they began working with producers and were eventually signed.

The two now share a two-bedroom flat they describe as “glorious chaos”, one that is overflowing in creativity, improvisation and ideas. It sounds a bit like something out of Homeland, with bits of paper taped haphazardly across every surface, only instead of elaborate conspiracies scrawled over them, they’re lyrics about absent fathers, childhood nostalgia and good sex. “One room is stuffed with all of our clothes and the other with all our instruments and is our studio,” Markwick explains. “It’s just a lot of sh*t everywhere, but it’s great. And we wrote the whole album in there!”

Both women wrote the entirety of Emotional Education themselves, and they’ve developed a fruitful back-and-forth. Many tracks begin as solo endeavours, inspired by personal experiences and feelings, before the pair come together at a certain point in a song’s development to help edit and shape.

“Part of the collaboration is knowing when to step back and let the other person run with something,” says Somerville. “We write a lot separately,” adds Markwick, “but we’ll also act as editors for one another, and ask the right questions to push each other further. We understand each other’s language in a way”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Bridgland

Not to labour too heavily on the subject of the connection and harmony between Markwick and Somerville. I feel it is a key dynamic. Before I move on to a new topic, there is another interview that I want to drop in. Back in 2018, the duo spoke with NME about how their friendship is essential to their music. It is central to what makes them gel and bond so closely. As they explain, not only is the chemistry central to everything they do; the importance of harmonisation extends to every live performance:

“How important is your personal chemistry when you’re writing and performing?

Lily: I think that chemistry is everything. I would say it’s the most important thing. It’s at the centre and the heart of what we do. The strength of that is what creates everything that we create. When that is at its strongest is when we create the best stuff and perform the best.

And how does it feel to share that in a live context?

Megan: It feels great, but we’ll often perform imagining the audience isn’t there. That sounds like such a cliche, but it’s so important. The audience could be there or not, but we’d still be vibing off each other and focusing on each other to make the harmony as strong as possible. As an audience member that’s what I’d want to see. I’d want to imagine that if I wasn’t there, that would still be happening”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Rory James

I said I would move on to a new topic, though this one is fairly similar in nature. I feel some bands and duos sound a little flat because there isn’t a great connection or sense of trust. One feels that they are on different pages and, perhaps, are lacking a degree of trust. There is an innate and strong understanding between Markwick and Somerville that is hard to ignore. In this interview from last year, the duo explain how they built a sense of trust:

“You’re connected with each other when it comes to music. In what other ways are you connected with each other?

Megan: We’re very good friends and have the same sense of humor. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind and is probably the most important one. When you have a long working relationship, you have to be able to laugh with one another. We can also finish each others sentences and pick up vibes. We’re a little bit witchy.

How did you build that trust in one another when it comes to performing?

Megan: We practiced with that trust challenge where you have to catch each other when falling backwards and then she dropped me. No, for real. What do we do?

Lily: There was definitely a natural chemistry when we first met and sang together. Performing is something we both loved doing individually, and when we met we really had that strong connection, so it was natural taking it into our performance space. The more our friendship and work accumulation had developed, the more our songwriting and performance became better. That all goes hand in hand. When you write, there’s an element of trust and understanding the movement or dynamic between each of us. There’s a lot of looking in the eyes, which comes from singing and writing together”.

I am keen to progress to IDER’s debut album and talk about that a little before coming onto their new work. Before I move along, there is an interview from The Line of Best Fit that provides something interesting. Markwick and Somerville discuss how lockdown has inspired some of their music. We also learn of the new ‘IDER 2.0’ phase and evolution:

“The secret to this friendship is trust and communication,” says Markwick. “Who we are in our music is based around our friendship and the fact we can be so honest with each other. So, when we’re making music, we bring out the best in each other.”

Somerville and Markwick are speaking to Best Fit via Zoom from their shared London flat. It’s a setting that will, of course, be familiar if you’ve seen the enchanting video for the duo’s comeback single “Saturday”, released back in October. Directed by their longtime friend and collaborator Lewis Knaggs, the video, filmed in their basement, was a haunting, claustrophobic affair, perfectly capturing the song’s themes of lockdown-induced anxiety.

As well as being 2020’s finest lockdown-inspired song, “Saturday” also marked the arrival of what the duo describes as “IDER 2.0”. “It’s still us,” says Markwick. “We’re not starting from scratch. This is the next chapter for us. We feel like we have a real ownership over what we’re doing, more than ever. We co-produced and mixed everything, we’re releasing the new record independently. It’s a really exciting time.”

What’s remarkable is how “IDER 2.0” actually began in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Back in February 2020, Somerville and Markwick, having finally completed the lengthy touring commitments for their debut Emotional Education, had no immediate plans beyond letting their collective hair down. They booked flights to their favourite hedonist capital, Berlin, and arranged to stay at a friend’s flat. For three weeks, at least, the duo had, they fondly recall, “an amazing time. We went out every night. Met so many people. We wrote loads of new music. It was really inspiring”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

Following their 2017 E.P., Gut Me Like an Animal, came the 2019 debut album, Emotional Education. Although IDER are keen to explain how they have moved on from that album in a sense, it is an important one. Emotional Education was one of my favourite albums of 2019. It was when I first discovered IDER. Coming back to that interview from The Independent, one discovers how the themes and lyrics on the album spoke to the realities of being twentysomethings:

“Both acknowledge the industry’s compulsion to conceal the less glamorous aspects of emerging stardom, but to not talk about their day jobs would clash with their very identities as artists. Emotional Education, the pair’s debut LP, is a gorgeous, lived-in ode to twenty-something ennui, built on the remnants of bad relationships, toxic parental figures and very millennial feelings of angst, restlessness and dissatisfaction.

Lyrically personal yet universal in its emotional reach, the record puts into words a generation’s worth of self-doubt and uncertainty. Standout tracks like “Mirror” and “Clinging to the Weekend” explore the highs and lows of becoming lost in a relationship, while “Saddest Generation” and “You’ve Got Your Whole Life Ahead of You, Baby” attempt to reckon with mental health, depression and perpetual unease in a world full of older people insisting we ought to get over it. “It’s a coming of age record,” Markwick explains. “It’s our early adulthood in one album”.

I think that last line is relevant: the debut from this promising duo was about their early adulthood experience and exploration. It is a brilliant debut that garnered a lot of positive reviews. It definitely brought more attention to their music. Since then, a lot has happened in terms of their sound and lyrical approach.

I will come on to shame when I can. I am sticking with Emotional Education for a bit longer. IDER spoke with Bristol in Stereo in 2019. Whilst, as the article states, Emotional Education did not provide big answers or truths to life’s upheavals, it was very truthful in terms of the friendship between Markwick and Somerville:

“The self-professed “sisters”, who met while studying Popular Music at Falmouth University in 2012, have long reckoned with the idea that songwriting is about more than just making music. The themes explored in Emotional Education have been natural reactions to, or the retellings of, their own life stories.

“There was never any set intention of what the album would be about,” Somerville continues. “I think, in the sense that the music that we write is based so much on our friendship – and how we are able to be so honest with each other – this is how we’re also able to be so honest in our music. That’s essential. So [the album] was always going to be real and honest and raw. We really pushed for that.”

If Somerville and Markwick’s songs on Emotional Education don’t provide solutions to life’s upheavals, such as the repercussions of having an absent father on ‘Busy Being a Rockstar’ or helping a friend who’s struggling with their mental health on ‘Clinging to the Weekend’ – not that it’s incumbent on them to do so anyway – then it’s at least a companion for turbulent times. It’s especially so in the context of young adulthood. Are the anxieties of the so-called ‘quarter-life crisis’, something they’ve discussed much among themselves and their friends?

“Yes, and the question I often ask is: is [this anxiety] particular to our generation?” Somerville says. “Or does it just appear to be because it seems like the last generation have all got it sorted? I don’t know. But I do think that we’re at a point now in Western culture where we just have so much choice and so much opportunity and it’s crippling. Particularly with social media. There are so many options, there’s so much freedom, but also so much pressure to be something and achieve something and be a certain way,” she says. “I do think it’s like quite a difficult time to be young and figure out who you are in that kind of setting. It’s not just about survival anymore. It’s about, like, ‘who are you?’ and ‘what are you going to do for the world?’”

Much of this examination of identity rears its head in IDER’s single, ‘Mirror’, which was released last October and features on the album. Born of a relationship breakdown, the chorus lyrics read: “I keep looking in the mirror, ’til I see myself, I see myself […] I wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t like the stranger in the bathroom light”.

I feel lockdown has been different for every artist. Some have found it beneficial in terms of how they write and what they have got from it. Others have found it very hard. All can agree that it has been very disruptive and turbulent. DORK caught up with IDER in April 2020 to see how the (at that point early) lockdown was affecting them and their music:

“Have you had a chance to think about new music at all? It must be easier now we’re all on lockdown.

Lockdown has actually been pretty mental – we were staying at a friend’s place in Berlin after tour, and both caught coronavirus so had to quarantine out there. It was intense! We’re back in London now and yeah singing together, as always, is keeping us sane.

Are you able to write and record songs while at home? What’s your set up like?

We have a cute set up in our bedroom which we’ve had for a while, where we can rehearse, write and demo.

How has self-isolating impacted you guys so far? Have you had to cancel much?

It’s definitely been tough; we’ve both experienced our mental health taking a knock. We have not become bakers, fitness fanatics, fine artists and have avoided IG Live like the plague, so we’re battling with daily feelings of guilt. But feel very grateful to have each other and discovered a new level of compatibility. We were due to support Tegan and Sara across NA this summer and unfortunately that has been cancelled”.

Coming back to that earlier Gig Goer interview, IDER discussed how their music had changed since Emotional Education. Perhaps the fact the duo co-produced shame accounts for that shift:

“The shift to a more internal music-making process is a fascinating development. “Our way of working has evolved in favor of this situation,” Somerville points out. 2019’s Emotional Education is an absolutely gorgeous debut album, playing into the duo’s strengths of vocal harmonies, pulsing beats and dreamy soundscapes. shame differs by playing into the strengths of a more self-sufficient version of IDER. “The biggest difference is that we’ve co-produced [shame]. It just feels and sounds—even more than our first record—like us. It has a really strong sense of IDER and what that sounds like. I think that’s probably quite natural, you grow into your own sound,” Markwick says.

“We’ve really enjoyed that process and creatively we’ve felt very free in saying what we want to say, in things sounding how we want them to sound.”

Somerville and Markwick are unapologetic, blunt and confident. It is apparent in their presence on stage and off, and there’s a beautiful assurance to their shared experiences and working relationship. It comes to the surface through deeply personal lyrics, yet another key difference from their earlier days as Lily & Meg. “We’d often dodge the actual point… because maybe we weren’t as confident in what we want[ed] to say,” Markwick adds.

“With [Emotional Education] we were quite obsessed with the ‘right’ way of doing things. It also came from a fear of ‘this is the first album we’ve ever made.’ This time around it definitely feels much more like: ‘fuck it, this is how we want it; this is how we want it to sound and it sounds good to us.’ It definitely feels like the most IDER yet.”

Finally, IDER 2.0 is upon us. We were treated to a stripped down performance of Cross Yourself, lead single off of shame, at this year’s virtual SXSW music festival. With additional production by Salka Valsdóttir (Daughters of Reykjavík, CYBER), the single’s strongest feature is the gorgeous juxtaposition of flowing harmonies alongside punchy lyrical and percussive elements. “Cross Yourself is a reflection on how we search for purpose,” IDER shares, “how we often attach meaning to things or like the idea of something external to believe in, in exchange for believing in ourselves.”

IDER are owning their art and taking responsibility for their message. shame will be their second album, but it will also be their first free from the industry-imposed limitations that can come from working with a major label. With any creative endeavor there is risk. It is this risk—along with IDER’s self-assuredness, vulnerability and openness—that has us grasping for more, unable to let go”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins

I am getting closer to the actual review itself. I feel it is important to give some background and lead-up to where a particular artist is now. It provides context and greater depth that allows us better understanding. Coming back to that interview from The Line of Best Fit, and there is a section that relates to social media. The duo discuss why they cut back their social media interaction during lockdown:

“The subject of shame pops up again, inevitably, as the duo discuss their relationship with social media. Ambivalent about social media at the best of times (they’ve spoken candidly about its impact upon their mental health), Somerville and Markwick, over the past year of lockdown, had firmly cut back on their online activity.

“During the lockdown, we tried our best to cut down on social media,” says Somerville. “You poke your head in for a few minutes and it’s just incredibly overwhelming. I read something Matt Haig said about this, about how this constant bombardment of information is so unhealthy. It’s like there’s this enormous event in the media every day, ten times a day. He was asking how are we supposed to initiate change when we’re constantly being hit by new information, new traumas, 24 hours a day? I agree. It’s like we’re all in this constant state of adrenaline, and not in a real state, as humans, to create change. Last summer, when all the protests and online campaigns happened around Black Lives Matter, it did feel like a real change, like a genuine shift. But the fear is that something new can quite quickly take its space. How much long-term change can we make when the nature of social media is so fast, so based around our short attention spans?”

All this talk about the online world leads, inevitably, to IDER’s craving for the real world. It’s been well over a year since the duo played their last official live show, wrapping up their Emotional Education tour in Dublin. For all their reputation as a great recording outfit, a band that treat the studio as their musical playground, IDER have always been a most formidable live proposition. During the writing and recording of shame, it was the prospect of playing those songs live, when normality resumed, that really motivated the duo”.

It is noticeable how there is a new direction with shame. I feel it natural that every artist changes between their first and second albums. It is a sense of curiosity I suppose; not wanting to stand still and repeat what you did first off. Perhaps lockdown and the pandemic accelerated IDER’s sense of autonomy and independence. Once more coming to that interview from The Line of Best Fit, Markwick explains how IDER have shifted and grown since their debut:

“As Markwick alluded to earlier, it’s a collection of songs marked by a newfound sense of autonomy and ownership. Both in a business sense (it’s being released independently, with distribution from Believe) and, of course, from a musical perspective. All written, recorded and co-produced by the duo (with additional production from Salka Valsdóttir), shame builds upon their debut’s sleek synth-pop blueprint whilst adding layers of thunderclap percussion, tropical pop exuberance and dense, quixotic soundscapes.

“We felt we could be more experimental this time, especially with the production,” says Markwick. “I think that’s only natural, for a band to gradually grow into their sound and become more sure of their identity. When you’re making your debut, you can become focused on doing things the right way. This time, though, we felt free to go wherever we wanted. If something sounded right to us, we just went with it.”

IDER have been very much vindicated in trusting their own instincts. Much like their debut, it’s a record that rewards with repeated listens – especially in the lyrical department. At once intimate and expansive, these songs will resonate with anyone who’s ever felt cripplingly insecure in the first flushes of love (“Embarrassed”), is searching for purpose (new single “Cross Yourself”), or who’s struggled to reconcile with their youthful idealism (“Knocked Up”)”.

Even though it is not the song I am reviewing from shame, I feel BORED is a very important one. As we discover in this article from Beats Per Minute, the track arose from a sense of frustration with the music industry:  

“‘BORED’ was written in a stream of consciousness when we were feeling particularly pissed off with the music industry; all of the lip service and the many cooks in the kitchen having an opinion for the sake of it. But on a more general level, the song addresses areas of corporate power, false advertising and the wider issue of ‘perfection’ and control. The chorus acts as a relief with the line “won’t you fail with me” – our mantra to embrace failure in order to succeed.”

Underscored by a rattling and rolling drum line, Megan Markwick and Lily Somerville take the opportunity to reel off all the things that’ve been pissing them off, a bit like Bob Dylan in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or R.E.M. in “It’s The End of the World…”, but with a contemporary pop flair. From the personal (“I’m bored of my phone and the way I use it”), to the political (“I’m bored of the way we think we’re saving the planet”) to the trivial (“I’m bored of the coffee I buy at the station”), and many clearly aimed at music industry professionals they’ve experienced, too (“I’m bored of the wages you stuff up your nose”), they present a breathless list of modern pressure points. Despite the audible sneer in their delivery, they never raise their voices above ice cool, generating more power and presence with each new item. This tension breaks in the free-fall chorus, where they step back for a moment, collect themselves, and simply sing “won’t you fail with me?” Given all the stresses they’ve just laid out, it’s a mightily alluring proposition”.

I am going to move it on and review embarrassed. It is my favourite song from shame. I think it is one of the most honest and striking tracks from the album. One can clearly envisage the scenes being sung on embarrassed. I really like the introduction to the song. There is an electronic pulse that sort of sounds like a guitar mixed with a sitar. It is an unexpected flavour that hooks you in. I was not expecting that sort of start! With a great percussive beat underneath, there is such richness and layers to the introduction. That sound continues as the first verse comes in. The words come out as a flow; almost stream of consciousness. The delivery is quite breathy and sensual, yet there is a sense of anxiety lingering underneath: “How much of my clothes can I take off?/How much of my body can I show you?/I don't wanna waste this moment in case you like me/But I'm scared I'll make you go and/You're looking amazing in your Friday night best/And I'm thinking 'bout dropping the cards from my chest/When they call last orders and it's time to go home”. After that verse has been delivered, a trippy and almost Trip-Hop beat emerges. The line “Don’t leave me alone” is sung twice…though there is a gap between each line. Following the first verse – where there were no big gaps and it had its own tone -, that line is punctuated and seems to be of the utmost importance. Not being left alone. Seizing this moment and not wanting things to go wrong. One can feel a real sense of emotion and need in that single line! By singing it twice, it is reinforced. The second time it is performed, one feels even more of a punch and sense of gravitas.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Rory James

I am not sure who this person is that the heroine meets. Is this a friend or someone that means a lot, or is it a first-time encounter with someone who is quite intoxicating? The second verse provides some clarity. It does appear that this person has been in the frame for a little while now. The combination of intimacy, fear, desire and hesitation creates this incredible mood and sense of tension: “How much of the truth can I tell you?/How much of the mystery is part of the game?/You've been the top of my favourite for so long now/But suddenly I feel like I don't know your name and/I wanna slip these words right out of my lips/How I'm thinkin' 'bout droppin' the pants from my hips/I can't count the timеs I've imagined this”. It seems like there is this transitional need. Someone who has been a friend for a while is now being seen in a different light. The vocal gets a little lighter and hotter as this declaration is delivered: “I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor/I don't wanna feel embarrassed/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”. Quite a lot of story and background is packed in. We get a real sense of this complicated situation. Two people in different places. You are hoping that there is some sort of breakthrough.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Turner

One definitely get a sense of history between the two: “I'm so shy at saying goodbye when I really care, I think I'd rather die/And I never knew what baggage was until I said it was over before I tried/I'm so annoyed I'm shouting about this, why can't I put my heart where my mouth is?/I see your face in the crowd you look so embarrassed/Fuck is this the first time you're hearing about it?/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed/I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”. The vocals for the aforementioned section, again, have a different sound. I like how we get these different passages. Rather than repeat the vocal sound and feel, each verse has its own feel. Darker and more sensual than anything that came before, one can feel this real sense of movement and emotion. After delivering the lines “I don't wanna be your friend no more, I don't wanna know you like this/I just wanna kiss you on your floor, I don't wanna feel embarrassed”, there is another change. Those lines have processed vocals and repeated like a mantra. As the chorus, we get the sense that things as they are stressful and not working. This palpable need to find satisfaction and end the tension. One is gripped until the end. I wonder how things worked out and whether they got together? I really like embarrassed. It is a brilliant song from IDER’s…

FANTASTIC new album.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins 

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