FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Eighty-Two: WILLOW

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

 Part Eighty-Two: WILLOW

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I am always keen to…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Dana Trippe

promote and spotlight the strongest and most amazing women in music. In this feature, I nod to those who I feel are going to be icons of the future. In this part, I wanted to spend some time highlighting the amazing WILLOW (Willow Smith). I am going to come to some interviews that Smith has conducted. I think that her latest album, lately I feel EVERYTHING, is stunning. The twenty-one-year-old is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith – though she has forged her own career and not had to rely om her famous parents. WILLOW’s latest album, one of the year’s best, sported notable appearances from Travis Barker, Avril Lavigne, Tierra Whack, Cherry Glazerr, and Ayla Tesler-Mabe. In their review, AllMusic had the following to say:

“Brushing genre boundaries aside once again, multi-hyphenate Willow Smith makes another stylistic pivot on her fourth studio album Lately I Feel Everything. Having excelled on her R&B, pop, and alternative singer/songwriter forays, Willow straps on a guitar for this potent rock blast that bridges pop-punk and '90s alt-rock with an unpolished messiness that is unapologetic, youthful, and a pure thrill. Initially thought to be a purely pop-punk exercise, Lately reveals itself as something more moody and angsty, the cathartic outburst of a young artist letting off some steam in a crazy world where she has to navigate regular human emotions and relationship woes against a backdrop of fame and privilege. Those darker moments -- "Don't Save Me," "Naive," and "Lipstick" being the best of the bunch -- are a time warp to the '90s, when distorted guitars, crunchy riffs, and atmospheric swirls dredged up plenty of anxiety, pain, and confusion. The lush rocker "4ever" links Willow's eras, sounding like an introspective outtake from The 1st backed by a studio band. In addition to guests Ayla Tesler-Mabe, Tierra Whack, and Cherry Glazerr, Willow recruits a pair of famous genre predecessors to inject some cred to this project with their high-profile co-signs. As the go-to drummer for the 2020s crop of pop-punk revivalists (see Yungblud, MGK, and KennyHoopla), Travis Barker lends his trademark delivery on a trio of tracks, including the hit single "Transparent Soul" and album standout "Grow," a bright romp that features pop-punk big sister Avril Lavigne on vocals. That latter track is worth the price of admission alone, but the rest of this brief set is such an unexpected surprise that it's worth the nearly half-hour investment. There seems to be nothing that Willow can't do as she adds rock to her résumé with ease”.

If you have not heard WILLOW’s lately I feel EVERYTHING, I would definitely recommend it. An album with plenty of energy and attitude. There is a great mix of sounds, though the overall tone is anthemic. This is what The Line of Best Fit offered in their assessment:

“An obvious and instinctive departure from the sound on her debut album Ardipithecus (2015), this new offering sees the 20 year old musician collaborate with some of the scene’s biggest stars as she ricochets between apathy and euphoria via raucous guitar riffs and yearning vocals.

Born from a desire to make a record that would allow her to “have fun, be young and not be so existential and worrying all the time,” WILLOW is embracing her enduring love for My Chemical Romance, Paramore and Avril Lavigne and channelling their collective energy. This isn’t an ambiguous, introspective collection of songs that beg for intense analysis. Lately I feel EVERYTHING is a healthy rush of adrenaline designed to blitz away alienation and existential dread - like all quality pop punk albums should.

It helps that WILLOW has collaborated with two of the scene’s biggest stars on this record to achieve this. It's Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker who features heaviest: on introductory emo banger “T r a n s p a r e n t S o u l”, the brief but explosive “Gaslight”, and “Grow” - along with iconic touchstone Avril Lavigne. “Grow” in particular feels like a “full circle” moment for pop punk, three generations of the genre colliding to create a buoyant new anthem for the outcasts.

Like many of her contemporaries, WILLOW isn’t afraid to mix things up within the genre too - doing so alongside the likes of Canadian songwriter Ayla Tesler-Mabe and American rapper Tierra Whack. Ayla’s softer vocals compliment the heavy riffs and yearning lyrics on “Come Home” whilst Tierra’s slick rap verse on “Xtra” give the record a stylish shake up. When pairing with rockers Cherry Glazerr on “Breakout”, WILLOW opts for a more abrasive, garage-punk style - the same going for her solo efforts “Lipstick” and the angsty mini skit “F__k You”.

As carefree as it is frustrated, as playful as it is temperamental, WILLOW’s lately I feel EVERYTHING is a straight up lively hit of jaded emo bangers that will have a new generation of listeners whipping their hair back and forth”.

A strong and inspiring artist, I am utterly compelled by WILLOW and her path. I feel that it is relevant sourcing interviews with her. Before arriving at a recent NME feature, there is an interview with THE FACE, where we learn more about lately I feel EVERYTHING and WILLOW’s (Willow Smith) musical background:

“Lately I Feel EVERYTHING is therefore Willow plunging straight into her mind’s deep sea. “[The album is] a direct response in a way of like, ​‘Damn, I don’t want to look at this in a negative way’,” she says. Recording started just after she’d voluntarily locked herself in the box, while involuntarily locked up at home during lockdown. ​“A lot was happening and I was just,” as per the album’s title, ​“feeling everything that you could possibly imagine.”

On t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l, ​“everything that you could possibly imagine” manifests itself as two minutes and 48 seconds of headbanging angst, as she directs cutting digs to the target of her lyrics over emotive pop-punk power chords and Barker’s typically furious drums. On her latest single, Lipstick, her own emotions pull focus over grungier, more metal production, as she looks ​“at pain like my old close friend.” And on the much-teased, hotly-anticipated Avril Lavigne collab Grow, Willow and the OG sk8er girl deliver the kind of optimistic, upbeat pop-punk that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Bring It On montage scene.

“Travis and Avril know pop-punk more than anyone,” says Willow of the album’s most high-profile features. ​“To see them be so proficient in their art was just so inspiring. Travis listened to [t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l] one time and played it perfectly. Like, that’s crazy!” She’s in full gush mode now. ​“The fact that Avril can just do one idea and there’s no questions, that’s what we’re going to do, that’s the most fire… They’re just so in tune and they know it’s going to be great.”

As a teen, Willow soaked in the likes of Paramore, My Chemical Romance and, of course, Avril Lavigne, soundtracking her adolescent angst with the thrashing melodrama of emo. And as a child, she could be found headbanging on the shoulders of security guards at Wicked Wisdom gigs, the 2000s metal band that her mum, Pinkett Smith, founded and fronted.

“They would take me to the back of the venue and I would just put my little horns up,” says Willow, looking back wistfully. Lapping it up in clubs that wouldn’t typically let a 16-year-old in, let alone a small child aged seven, these were the experiences that birthed her inner rockstar. ​“There were specific moments when I felt like she was just performing to me. It felt so beautiful and so inspiring. I knew that that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”

Yet while her mother’s band has had an undeniable impact on Willow’s musical trajectory, she’s not ready to take on Wicked Wisdom’s genre just yet. She dipped her toes through a touching performance with the band for a Mother’s Day episode of Red Table Talk, the online talk show helmed by the Smith women. Looking as though she’d been plucked straight out of 2004 in a Mastodon raglan top and baggy jeans, Willow performed Wicked Wisdom’s Bleed All Over Me in her garden, as Pinkett Smith watched on, beaming and gently headbanging with pride. But Willow’s official metal era is still waiting in the wings. The stage lights will go up when she’s ready to fully embrace womanhood.

 “[Pop-punk and metal] are like sisters. Metal is the mature musician sister and pop-punk is, like, that little sister who was really inspired by their big sister and started playing the guitar but doesn’t spend as much time on it,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. ​“I definitely felt like pop-punk spoke to my youthful soul and metal kind of spoke to the woman within me. I’m planning on doing a metal album in the future, but I need to hit that pop-punk steez first.”

“Black people created rock music. But we have been so indoctrinated to believe that we only thrive in certain categ

If Willow’s punk-pop revolution is driven primarily by a genuine love for the music, coming in a close second is her determination to break stereotypes within the industry. You don’t need to be an expert to notice that mainstream rock music has been historically dominated by white men. And you only need to read testimonies from Black women in the industry to understand how hard it was for anyone who looks different to not only break in, but also to persevere and thrive. Jada Pinkett-Smith received death threats while touring with Wicked Wisdom. Alexis Brown, singer of the metalcore band Straight Line Stitch, was heckled by Neo-Nazis. For a long time, rock was a space that some white men felt they owned – and they didn’t like it when their dominance felt threatened.

“I think that a lot has changed and, honestly, even if it hasn’t, I’m just going to continue doing the work,” says Willow of current attitudes. ​“That’s what I’m here for.” She nonchalantly dismisses the opinions of older rock fans who have directed negativity her way, particularly comments under a video of her playing a System of a Down riff, which the band’s bassist, Shavo Odadjian, reposted on Instagram. ​“I wish I could understand [them], but because I’m not in their mindset, it’s kind of hard. There’s a reason that me doing this must cause them pain, so I have compassion for that, but I’m not gonna change what I’m doing.”

For Willow, it’s about striking a balance between being defiant in the face of racism while keeping it at a distance. She’s making a statement, not retaliating. ​“I try not to look too deep into it because I don’t want to get attached to those negative emotions. There’s no reason for me to get attached to them. But I still don’t want to shy away from it.”

The idea that white men ever ​“owned” rock music is inherently false regardless. As Willow notes, ​“Sister Rosetta Tharpe was shredding on the electric guitar in the ​’40s!”. Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley pioneered the rock ​’n’ roll phenomenon of the 1950s (itself deeply rooted in blues music), although they never got quite as much airplay or mainstream acclaim as Elvis Presley.

“Black people created rock music,” says Willow. ​“But we have been so indoctrinated, so conditioned to believe that we only thrive in certain categories of creativity and entertainment. And that’s just not OK”.

I want to end with an illustrative and fantastic interview that NME conducted recently. One of the most intriguing artists in the world at the moment, WILLOW is someone whose music will continue to evolve and strengthen:

“The artist knows a thing or two about speaking to a global audience. Famous since before she could walk, she soon appeared alongside her dad, rap and big screen megastar Will Smith in Hollywood blockbusters I Am Legend (2007) and Madagascar 2: Escape To Africa (2008) before she released 2010’s global pop-rap hit ‘Whip My Hair’ at the age of nine. The attitude-ridden track was a phenomenon, establishing Willow as a star in her own right – if a little too soon.

Now 11 years later, just like her brother the rapper, actor and viral sensation Jaden Smith, Willow stands fearlessly in the spotlight. As well as boasting a back catalogue of raw, confessional music that dabbles in everything from glitzy art-pop to socially-conscious R&B, she also co-hosts the Red Table Talk – a show that sees her sit down and discuss everything from sexuality and mental health to her own childhood with her mother, the actor and former rockstar Jada Pinkett Smith, and her grandmother Adrienne Banfield-Norris.

Given how comfortable she is speaking on behalf of herself and her generation on the “many historical shifts in the perception of humanity and the zeitgeist”, it’s little wonder Willow has become a Gen Z icon. She even wrote the perfect soundtrack to her status with 2021’s ‘Lately I Feel Everything’, a swaggering alt-rock album that she’s currently bringing to enraptured audiences – next week, she’ll play a one-off show at London’s Electric Ballroom.

Willow admits that it is tough to be vulnerable when she is so exposed. Her battles with self-harm, her run-ins with cyber stalkers and even trivial matters like changes in hairstyle are broadcast online for the whole world to see and judge her by. However, she knows you can’t be a role model if you aren’t seen as human.

“You need to show that life is hard for everyone,” she explains today from a restaurant in Los Angeles. “We’re all going through our own struggles. We’re all trying to figure out the most healthy ways to cope with the parts of ourselves that don’t make us the most comfortable or that are that are scary to us.”

The young star, now 21, knows that other people in her privileged position might shy away from being so open, but as she explains: “Sharing the human experience is what makes life worth it.” Speaking of the media’s constant glare, she admits: “It’s an insane world out there, but you can’t focus on that.”

The record pays homage to ’00s guitar music, but she isn’t afraid to take the genre to new places to speak to where she and the world are at right now. ‘Grow’, her easycore anthem of self-acceptance, features scene legend Avril Lavigne and sees Willow sing: “No one ever truly knows just who they are / And I feel closer knowing I don’t have to hide my scars.” Meanwhile, the slow-burning ‘Naïve’ finds her wide-eyed in the face of political turmoil: “We got shot by rubber bullets at a protest in the Bronx / And I never notice when the night goes sour.” On tracks the thundering ‘Lipstick’ and the dreamy ‘Xtra’, she’s frank about her struggles with mental health.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dana Trippe 

Some may have been shocked by former child star Willow Smith returning with a rousing rock album, but she’s always dabbled with heavier music – and teamed up with producer Tyler Cole in 2020 to create side-project The Anxiety. Their self-titled record was a 10-track indie collection that came alongside a 24-hour art installation which saw Willow and Cole lock themselves in a glass box and work through the stages of anxiety: paranoia, rage, sadness, numbness, euphoria, strong interest, compassion and acceptance. Earlier in her career, there was the bass-driven ‘RandomSong’ on ‘Ardipithecus’ while ‘The 1st’ featured ‘Human Leech’, a snarling grunge track.

In fact, Willow’s been a fan of heavy music since childhood. She’d regularly sit side-of-stage, watching her mum Jada front heavy-metal group Wicked Wisdom. This introduced her to that world, but also to seeing her mother subjected to racist, sexist abuse when she took to the stage. In the ’00s, metal was very much a white, male space.

Willow says of her mother’s influence: “She showed me what being a woman is really all about. There are literally no words to describe having to get up in front of people who literally hated her, every night. She did it with such grace and power. And at every single show, she won them over. By the end of the show, the people who were calling her racial slurs and throwing things at her were like, ‘Actually, they kinda went off’. That made it really worth it.”

 Earlier this year, after appearing on Red Table Talk, she made headlines when she revealed she was polyamorous (engaging in multiple romantic and sexual relationships at once). “With polyamory, I think the main foundation is the freedom to be able to create a relationship style that works for you and not just stepping into monogamy because that’s what everyone around you says is the right thing to do,” she explained to her mother and grandmother while the whole world was listening.

Today, Willow tells us how she’s open about her sexuality in the hopes of normalising it: “So many people live [in] so many different kinds of ways. The one thing that humans have never been good at is accepting that people are different. It’s about time we started getting good at that, though. As long as people are being honest and compassionate, how they live has nothing to do with you.”

Likewise, she sings in-depth about her struggles with mental health and anxiety. “At first it was to get my emotions out, because otherwise I might explode and have a panic attack,” she explains, “but the after-effect of that is that it can help others, which I’m so glad about”.

An artist that is already inspiring so many others, I would encourage everyone to listen to WILLOW’s music. I have put a playlist at the bottom with some of her very best tracks to date. A remarkable and fascinating talent, we are going to hear a lot more…

FROM the amazing WILLOW.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: The Best of Big Mama Thornton

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

The Best of Big Mama Thornton

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I have not featured the legendary…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archive

Blues artist Big Mama Thornton on my site before. She is one of the more underrated (yet important) artists from the genre, as she did not have a lot of hits – just the one in fact! As she would have turned ninety-five today (11th December), I wanted to recognise her legacy and the great music that she left behind. Prior to that, AllMusic’s biography gives us more detail about a remarkable artist:

“Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton only notched one national hit in her lifetime, but it was a true monster. "Hound Dog" held down the top slot on Billboard's R&B charts for seven long weeks in 1953. Alas, Elvis Presley's rocking 1956 cover was even bigger, effectively obscuring Thornton's chief claim to immortality.

That's a damned shame, because Thornton's menacing growl was indeed something special. The hefty belter first opened her pipes in church but soon embraced the blues. She toured with Sammy Green's Hot Harlem Revue during the 1940s. Thornton was ensconced on the Houston circuit when Peacock Records boss Don Robey signed her in 1951. She debuted on Peacock with "Partnership Blues" that year, backed by trumpeter Joe Scott's band.

But it was her third Peacock date with Johnny Otis' band that proved the winner. With Pete Lewis laying down some truly nasty guitar behind her, Big Mama shouted "Hound Dog," a tune whose authorship remains a bone of contention to this day (both Otis and the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller claim responsibility), and soon hit the road a star.

But it was an isolated incident. Though Thornton cut some fine Peacock follow-ups -- "I Smell a Rat," "Stop Hoppin' on Me," "The Fish," "Just like a Dog" -- through 1957, she never again reached the hit parade. Even Elvis was apparently unaware of her; he was handed "Hound Dog" by Freddie Bell, a Vegas lounge rocker. Early-'60s 45s for Irma, Bay-Tone, Kent, and Sotoplay did little to revive her sagging fortunes, but a series of dates for Arhoolie that included her first vinyl rendition of "Ball and Chain" in 1968 and two albums for Mercury in 1969-1970 put her back in circulation (Janis Joplin's overwrought but well-intentioned cover of "Ball and Chain" didn't hurt either). Along with her imposing vocals, Thornton began to emphasize her harmonica skills during the 1960s.

Thornton was a tough cookie. She dressed like a man and took no guff from anyone, even as the pounds fell off her once-ample frame and she became downright scrawny during the last years of her life. Medical personnel found her lifeless body in an L.A. rooming house in 1984”.

To mark the ninety-fifth birthday of a terrific artist whose music never quite got the acclaim it deserved. Even though she did not trouble the hit parade much, that is not to say her impact and influence is small. Quite the opposite. I have selected a few of her tracks to show what a force she was! It leaves me to wish the late legend Big Mama Thornton…

A happy ninety-fifth birthday.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: David Bowie – Hunky Dory

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

David Bowie – Hunky Dory

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NOT that a reason is needed…

to include David Bowie in any feature but, on 17th December, Hunky Dory turns fifty. One of Bowie’s most important albums, it is one that is well worth getting on vinyl. It is an album that contains some of his best songs. It features Changes, Life on Mars?, and Kooks. There are few artists who could complete with Bowie in the 1970s. The incredible run of albums he released in the decade showed he was one of the most innovative and original artists ever! Whereas 1970’s The Man  Who Sold the World is a harder and grittier album, Hunky Dory is softer, more melodic and a different direction – Bowie choosing to write on the piano more compared with the guitar for the previous album. I know that there will be a lot of celebration and remembrance of Hunky Dory on its anniversary. It is over five years since we lost David Bowie. He left us with so many genius albums. Hunky Dory ranks alongside his very best. I will source a review of the album – I am yet to find one that is not overwhelmingly positive – that shows what a pioneer Bowie was. Before that, on its forty-ninth anniversary, LOUDER produced a lengthy and detailed feature about how Hunky Dory was made and why it was such an important release for Bowie. I have selected a few sections that interested me. Bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Mick Woodmansey (and others) provided their recollections and memories:

“Sessions began at Trident Studios in London’s Soho in early June 1971. In the world outside, US president nixon ended a 21-year-old trade embargo on China; Russia launched the Soyuz 11 craft for the first-ever rendezvous with a space station; Frank Sinatra announced his retirement; and topping the pop chart in Britain was Tony Orlando & Dawn’s Knock Three Times.

Inside Trident, however, none of that registered. Working from 2pm to midnight, Monday to Saturday, with quick breaks for tea, sandwiches and the occasional bottle of wine, the band were swept up in a colourful world of bipperty-bopperty hats, Garbo’s eyes and homo superiors (the album’s recurring theme of children ch-ch-changing into enlightened beings was influenced by Bowie’s love of the occult writings of Aleister Crowley, and sci-fi novels by Arthur C Clarke).

Bolder recalls the excitement: “Hunky Dory was the first recording session I ever did in my life, and just to be in a studio was amazing. Our approach was very off-the-top-of-our-heads. We’d go in, David would play us a song – often one we hadn’t heard – we’d run through it once and then take it. no time to think about what you’re going to play, you’d have to do it there and then. In some respects it’s nerve-racking, but it gives a certain feel. If you play a song too many times in the studio it can become stale, and I think David wanted to capture the energy of it being on the edge.”

Woodmansey agrees: “There was incredible pressure in getting a track recorded right. Many times, we’d go in with a track to record, and at the last minute David would change his mind and we’d do one we hadn’t rehearsed! We would be panicking, as he didn’t like doing more than three takes to get it. nearly every track I recorded with David was first, second or third take, usually second. he knew when a take was right.”

This was a change from the sessions for the previous album, where Bowie was reportedly distracted and undisciplined. Tony Visconti later complained that during the recording of The Man Who Sold The World David had spent more time in the lobby cuddling with Angie than worrying about finishing the tracks. But the Bowie on Hunky Dory was a man with a mission

Ken Scott: “With David, unlike the Beatles sessions, it was very much him knowing what he wanted right from the get-go. I think he knew all along what was going to happen, but he didn’t always tell you. you had to be ready. and with David almost all of the lead vocals are one take.”

A late addition to the team was keyboard virtuoso Rick Wakeman, who had played Mellotron on Space Oddity and was now drafted in to dress up Bowie’s piano parts. “he told me to make as many notes as I wanted,” Wakeman once said. “The songs were unbelievable – Changes, Life On Mars?, one after another. he said he wanted to come at the album from a different angle, that he wanted them to be based around the piano. So he told me to play them as I would a piano piece, and that he’d then adapt everything else around that.”

If Wakeman was a featured performer so too was the 100-year old Beckstein piano he played. Scott: “It was the same piano used on Hey Jude, the early Elton John albums, Nilsson, Genesis and Supertramp, among many others. That was one of Trident’s claims to fame – the piano sound. It was an amazing instrument.”

Nowhere was that piano better featured than on the kitchen-sink ballad Life on Mars? The song has often compared to Sinatra’s My Way (the album liner notes even say: “Inspired by Frankie”), and for good reason. In 1968 Bowie was asked by a publisher to submit English lyrics to a popular French chanson, Comme D’Habitude. his version, titled Even A Fool Learns To Love, was rejected in favour of another by former teen idol Paul Anka.

Bowie: “There was a sense of revenge in that, because I was so angry that Paul Anka had done My Way. I thought I’d do my own version. There are clutches of melody in that [Life On Mars?] that were definite parodies.”

A week before the sessions began, on May 30, Duncan Haywood ‘Zowie’ Jones was born, cracking his mother’s pelvis in the delivery. Bowie greeted his boy with Kooks, a charming ditty meant as both a paternal tribute and a warning. In the 1971 press release for Hunky Dory, he explained: “The baby looked like me and it looked like Angie and the song came out like, ‘If you’re gonna stay with us you’re gonna grow up bananas.’”

Actually, Zowie (now known as Duncan Jonesand an acclaimed film director) turned out fine, despite a mostly absentee father and being raised by a revolving cast of nannies and grandparents. Bowie confesses: “I might have written a song for my son, but I certainly wasn’t there that much for him. I was ambitious, I wanted to be a real kind of presence. and I had Joe very early. and with that state of affairs, had I known, it would’ve all happened a bit later. Fortunately everything with us is tremendous. But I would give my eye teeth to have that time back again, to have shared it with him as a child.”

Drawing on the “collision of musical styles” idea, Hunky Dory ricochets playfully through its 11 songs. From the lounge-meets-boogaloo gear shifts of Changes and the glam-ragtime stride of Oh, You Pretty Things, through the Tony newley-does- the-blues of Eight Line Poem to psyche-Dylan swirl of The Bewlay Brothers, it’s a thrilling hybrid.

“It was like, ‘Wow, this is no longer rock’n’roll. This is an art form. This is something really exciting!’” says Bowie. “I think we were all very aware of George Steiner and the idea of pluralism, and this thing called post-modernism which had just cropped up in the early 70s. We kind of thought, cool, that’s where we want to be at. Fuck rock’n’roll! It’s not about rock’n’roll any more, it’s about how do you distance yourself from the thing that you’re within? We got off on that. I think certain things had been done that were not dissimilar, but I don’t think with the sensibility that I had.”

That sensibility was abetted by the album’s secret weapon: guitarist and creative foil Mick Ronson. “What I’m good at is putting riffs to things, and hook-lines, making things up so songs sound more memorable,” the guitarist (who died in 1993) once said. and the proof abounds: his spare, searing licks on Eight Line Poem; the explosive acoustic on Andy Warhol; the nasally distorted power blast on Queen Bitch. all electrifying moments.

“I would put him up there with the best I’ve ever worked with,” said Ken Scott. “I think Ronno was better than any of The Beatles as a guitarist. his playing was much more from a feel point or melodic point of view.”

Woodmansey: “Mick didn’t really know how good he was. he would do a solo, first take, never played it before, and it would blow us away. David would always get Ken to push the record button without Mick knowing. he would do another six solos, but it was always the first or second one that we kept.”

Ronson’s gifts extended beyond his guitar playing. In the months prior to the sessions, he had been studying music theory and arranging with a teacher back in Hull. That bit of knowledge, combined with his innate musicality, made for the stunning string arrangements on songs like Life On Mars? and Quicksand.

“Ronno was great the way he’d go down to just one or two violins, then have the others come slowly but surely,” says Scott. “he didn’t quite know what he was supposed to do, so he was much freer. Much like The Beatles. he would do things other arrangers would never do.”

Angie Bowie says of the communication between her ex-husband and Ronson: “They were two Yorkshireman chatting away. Very full of respect for each other. They were young and very sweet, well-mannered, trying to be as professional as they could. I know that sounds boring, but it’s the truth. There were no drugs. They were just doing this wonderful album and everyone was thrilled at having a chance to participate instead of having to work horrible jobs.”

Side Two of the album featured a trio of “hero songs” inspired by Bowie’s visit to America. Queen Bitch was an exhilarating nod to the Velvet underground (Lou reed later said he “dug it”). Bowie says he had been fixated on the Velvets since the first time he heard their single Waiting For The Man. “It was like, ‘This the future of music! This is the new Beatles!’ I was in awe. For me it was a whole new ball game. It was serious and dangerous and I loved it”.

If Hunky Dory was David Bowie’s first masterpiece, it definitely wasn’t his last! It is an album that gave him a wider audience and seemed to open his horizons. Bowie recalled how people came up to him after the album came out and provided compliments (the first real time that has happened to him). If you do not own Hunky Dory on vinyl, then now is a perfect time to get it. In their review, this is what AllMusic observed:

“After the freakish hard rock of The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie returned to singer/songwriter territory on Hunky Dory. Not only did the album boast more folky songs ("Song for Bob Dylan," "The Bewlay Brothers"), but he again flirted with Anthony Newley-esque dancehall music ("Kooks," "Fill Your Heart"), seemingly leaving heavy metal behind. As a result, Hunky Dory is a kaleidoscopic array of pop styles, tied together only by Bowie's sense of vision: a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class. Mick Ronson's guitar is pushed to the back, leaving Rick Wakeman's cabaret piano to dominate the sound of the album. The subdued support accentuates the depth of Bowie's material, whether it's the revamped Tin Pan Alley of "Changes," the Neil Young homage "Quicksand," the soaring "Life on Mars?," the rolling, vaguely homosexual anthem "Oh! You Pretty Things," or the dark acoustic rocker "Andy Warhol." On the surface, such a wide range of styles and sounds would make an album incoherent, but Bowie's improved songwriting and determined sense of style instead made Hunky Dory a touchstone for reinterpreting pop's traditions into fresh, postmodern pop music”.

Fifty years after its release, Hunky Dory is still being played and studied. Such a wonderful album with huge hits such as Changes sitting alongside deep cuts like Fill Your Heart. It is a truly visionary and remarkable work from a legend we all miss very much. Produced by Ken Scott and David Bowie and released on 17th December, 1971, David Bowie’s Hunky Dory is…

AN unquestionable masterpiece.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Forty: Fiona Apple

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Hayes

Part Forty: Fiona Apple

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I have featured Fiona Apple in various features…

and compiled a playlist of her best tracks. In this feature, I get to turn things around and look at artists influenced by an icon. Fiona Apple is someone who has her own style and is hard to compare with anyone, though she has influenced so many other artists. Before ending with a playlist of songs from artists who either cite Apple as an influence or are similar to her, I want to bring in some biography. AllMusic provide some background and great information about a truly spectacular artist:

“Fiona Apple never quite belonged to a specific scene. The closest she came was at the dawn of her career, when her debut album Tidal arrived as the alternative rock wave reached its crest in 1996. Apple spent her time in MTV's Buzzbin and on tour with Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair revue, earning a hit single ("Criminal") and platinum certification along the way, but she wasn't a folkie or a punk rocker. Her roots lay in jazz, show tunes, and classic '70s singer/songwriters, an idiosyncratic blend that came into sharper focus on her second album, When the Pawn. Upon its release in 1999, When the Pawn drew attention for its emotional intensity, unconventional arrangements, and eccentric flair, elements that were central to her appeal in the next decades when she worked steadily and rigorously. As her output slowed -- it took her six years to deliver her third album, Extraordinary Machine, and another seven for its sequel, The Idler Wheel, to appear -- her reputation as a daring artist grew. The Idler Wheel and its 2020 successor Fetch the Bolt Cutters confirmed Apple took aural risks without abandoning her strengths as a singer/songwriter, a combination that helped her maintain a devoted cult following.

Born to singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart in 1977, Fiona Apple started playing and writing songs at the age of 12 in an effort to work out a traumatic childhood that included rape at the age of 11. Apple continued to write, leaving high school for Los Angeles at the age of 16. She cut a demo tape that eventually earned her a contract with Sony Music in 1995. Teamed with producer Andrew Slater, she cut her debut, Tidal, releasing the album in the summer of 1996.

Tidal was a slow build, earning critical acclaim and a cult that exploded when the controversial video for "Criminal" turned the single and album into a hit. Mark Romanek's seedy, suggestive clip was overtly sexual -- a path Apple notably avoided afterward -- but it did the trick, helping the album reach the Top Ten and earning Apple a Grammy. Despite this titillation, Tidal appealed to middle of the road listeners, a path Apple definitively rejected with her next album, 1999's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King.... The entire title was a 90-word poem, a fair indication of the artistic ambition that lay within. Produced by Jon Brion, the album was dense, literate, and melodic, not matching the commercial success of the debut but deepening her cult. Despite a romance with director Paul Thomas Anderson -- she contributed to the soundtrack of his 1999 magnum opus Magnolia -- Apple retreated from the spotlight, fostering an element of mystery that only grew when her next album experienced a series of delays.

By 2003, the lack of a sequel became a sensation among some music message boards, where rumors swirled that Sony rejected her newest music for being uncommercial. Within the next year, unfinished mixes leaked onto the Internet and the saga of the album spilled over into the mainstream, earning ink in The New York Times. All this helped usher the album to completion in the fall of 2005, when the original Brion productions were tweaked and expanded with producer Mike Elizondo, who helped Extraordinary Machine reach its final shape. The album was greeted by generally positive reviews -- some compared it not entirely favorably to the leaked album -- and the record received healthy sales. In its wake, Apple maintained a moderate presence, touring with Nickel Creek in 2007 and appearing with the Watkins Family at times during their residency at the Largo in Los Angeles. In 2012, Apple previewed three songs from her fourth studio album (which boasted a typically enigmatic title in The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do) to a wildly enthusiastic audience at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. Produced by Apple with her touring drummer, Charley Drayton, the album earned excellent reviews upon release in June 2012.

Apple spent the next few years contributing songs to movies and television shows, including writing "Container," which was the theme to the Showtime series The Affair. In 2015, she contributed to Watkins Family Hour, the first album by Sean and Sara Watkins' Los Angeles-based collective, and the following year she appeared on Andrew Bird's Are You Serious album. Apple released her fifth solo album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, in April 2020”.

To recognise and celebrate an artist who is among the very best, the playlist at the end is tracks from artists who definitely allude to Apple or have some of her sound and personality in their own work. Like other artists in this feature, you can see how wide her influence has stretched. I love Fiona Apple’s music, as it leaves a lasting impression. Her brilliant albums…

ALWAYS offer some extraordinary.

FEATURE: How Amazing, This Woman’s Work! Kate Bush: The Five Best Award Wins

FEATURE:

 

 

How Amazing, This Woman’s Work!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush being presented with a South Bank Sky Arts Award for 50 Words for Snow by Tom Jones in 2012/PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Young/Rex Features

Kate Bush: The Five Best Award Wins

___________

EVEN though I have dedicated a feature…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the Capital Radio Awards. During the ceremony on 6th March, 1979 (at the Grosvenor Hotel in London), she won two awards: for Best British Female Singer and Best British Newcomer

to Kate Bush and her award wins, I wanted to narrow it down to the best five awards. I was watching a video of Bush collecting an award in 1978. Bush has won multiple awards through her career, though there are a few that are especially meaningful; ceremonies that were more interesting then others. The first award that I want to mention is the Edison Award. This was the one that Bush won in 1978 – the video that I was mentioning earlier. I am going to lean on the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia when it comes to providing information about these awards. I incorrectly said, in the previous award feature, that she won the Edison Award in 1979. It was actually November 1978. This article gives us some context:

“On 15 August 1978 a jury consisting of Meta de Vries, Jim van Alphen, Henk van Gelder, Ruud Kuyper and Jan Maarten de Winter announced the winners of Edison awards for that year. Kate won the award for 'best international single' for Wuthering Heights. The awards were presented to Dutch artists on 28 September 1978 in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. International artists weren't present on that day. Kate was presented with her award in early November, during a party at castle Ammersoyen during which her second album Lionheart was presented”.

One reason why I love this is because it came so early in her career. Wuthering Heights was honoured and Bush, when you see her collect the award, looks genuinely chuffed and humbled! Up until that point, her music had not been widely garlanded. It must have been quite a daunting and hectic year in 1978. As she was promoting her second album that year, the sense of confusion and fatigue would have been evident. That makes the Edison win especially gratifying and deserved.

One of my favourite Kate Bush award-winning moments was when she won The South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2012 for 50 Words for Snow (2011). Even though this was late in her career, Bush was still nervous and was grateful. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides more details:

“The South Bank Sky Arts Award (originally The South Bank Show Award) is an accolade recognizing British achievements in the arts. The awards have been given annually since 1996. They originated with the long-running British arts programme The South Bank Show. The last South Bank Show Awards ceremony to be broadcast by ITV was in January 2010. After the network had announced that The South Bank Show would be cancelled at the end of the 2009 season, the award ceremony continued to be broadcast by Sky Arts and was eventually renamed the South Bank Sky Arts Award. Sky Arts revived The South Bank Show itself in 2012.

There are awards in the following categories: Literature, Theatre, Visual Art, Film, Opera, Classical music, Pop Music, Dance, Comedy, TV Drama, Times Breakthrough Award, Outstanding Achievement in the Arts.

In 2012, Kate Bush won the award in the Pop Music category for her album 50 Words For Snow”.

I felt 50 Words for Snow deserved more awards and acclaim. I am glad that Bush made that public appearance, as she could easily have sent someone else to collect it. Like in 1978, she was bowled over and really pleased to get an award. Those in attendance gave her great warmth and applause. I am sure that we will see more awards coming the way of Kate Bush.

The third award that, I feel, is among the most important, is the 2001 Q win. One would think the magazine would have put more awards her way! As the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia outlines, Bush should have won another award in 2014:

“The Q Awards were first organized in 1990. Since then, the Q Awards have become one of Britain's biggest and best publicised music awards. During her career, Kate has received one Q Award for 'Classic Songwriter' in 2001. She attended the ceremony, too, receiving the award from Midge Ure. After her Before the Dawn shows in 2014, she controversially didn't win a Q Award, becoming runner up behind the band Kasabian instead”.

I love how Bush approached her acceptance speech. She was cheeky and wonderfully surprised. It is only right that she should have won an award for songwriting. One of the best songwriters in musical history, it was another year (2001) where Bush was not making too many public appearances. Bush was also photographed with John Lydon at the ceremony. They have this friendship and connection. It sounds like it was a good night in 2001! Lydon actually talked about his respect for Kate Bush in an interview with Q . One can see the awards Bush has won through the year. I feel getting a nod from Q must rank alongside the very best. I think it is in her top five for sure!

The penultimate award I want to spotlight is the Best Female Singer win at the BPI Awards in 1980. That was the second year in a row Bush had won. The fact that her album, Lionheart (1978), did not get overly-great press was rectified by awards like this. Bush did take The Tour of Life through Europe and the U.K. in 1979. The popularity she had acquired and the sort of acclaim bodies like the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) shows that she was one of our best stars. I like the acceptance speech again, as Bush did not take it lightly. She was thanking people and wanted to make sure that she mentioned everyone! After her win in 1979, she cemented her position as one of the U.K.’s biggest female artists. 1980 saw the release of Never for Ever – with Bush taking her music and voice to new places. I am going to finish with one last award in a minute. Some of the videos of her collecting awards through the years have been removed from YouTube. I am glad that so many have survived, where we get this documentation of Bush winning prizes and showing her appreciation. Of course, she would say the work is the most important thing to her, though she never looked down her nose at awards (some of her peers certainly would have).

The final selection when it comes to the finest and most impressive awards Bush has won, it takes me to 1987 and a BRIT for Best British Female. Formerly the BPI awards, the BRIT win was a good one. It is remarkable, because this was her first win at the BRITs! In 1986, she was nominated three times (including Best British Album for Hounds of Love). After that, she was nominated a further seven times. She was nominated for Best British Female in 2012 but lost out. Ray Davies presented her with the 1987 award for Best British Female. At the ceremony, Bush got to present Peter Gabriel with the Best British Male Award. He released the incredible So in 1986. The two performed on that album’s duet, Don’t Give Up, and they were great friends. Bush provided vocals for several Gabriel songs for his third eponymous album in 1980. It was great that she got to receive an award and also give one to someone who helped change her music. Gabriel introduced Bush to the Fairlight CMI and opened her eyes to new worlds; ones that she would explore on albums like Hounds of Love. I look back at photos and videos of Bush collecting awards in 1978 and forward that to 1987. Whilst she has changed in terms of her appearance and voice, the pleasure (and shock) that she shows is so charming and wonderful! As I say, we have not seen the last of Bush winning awards. Let’s hope that, with new music possible in the future, it gets plaudit. I wanted to highlight five award-winning occasions that marked particular highs in Kate Bush’s career.  On these occasions, and all the rest, she emphatically proved that she…

DESERVED every one of them.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighty-Four: Duran Duran

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

PHOTO CREDIT: John Swannell

Part Eighty-Four: Duran Duran

___________

I have not included these legends yet…

so I thought it was about time that I included Duran Duran in this A Buyer’s Guide. Before recommending the four essential albums from the band, the underrated gem, the latest album and a selected book, it is worth bringing in some biography about one of the most iconic and legendary bands ever:

“Duran Duran epitomized the sleek, fashionable side of new wave, specializing in danceable, synthesized pop delivered with visual flair -- a talent crystallized in a series of groundbreaking music videos from the early 1980s. The group had the good fortune to deliver their debut album in 1981, the same year MTV began broadcasting, and their success was intertwined: Duran Duran gave the network clever, cinematic clips for "Rio" and "Hungry Like the Wolf," which MTV played ceaselessly, helping to turn the Birmingham, England-based band into global superstars. Between 1982 and 1985, the band were fixtures on the British and American charts, with "Is There Something I Should Know?," "Union of the Snake," "The Wild Boys" and the James Bond theme "A View to A Kill" reaching the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic. Unlike many of their new wave peers, Duran Duran managed to sustain a career that lasted for decades, withstanding a shifting lineup -- the duo of keyboardist Nick Rhodes and vocalist Simon Le Bon were the only two members to stay with the group throughout the years -- and changes in musical fashion. The group forged an alliance with Chic's Nile Rodgers for 1986's funky Notorious, then refashioned themselves as mature balladeers in 1993 and landed one of their biggest hits with "Ordinary World." The original lineup from the New Romantic era reunited for 2004's Astronaut, a move that helped revive the band's profile. Over the next decade, they collaborated with a number of prominent modern hitmakers, including Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Mark Ronson, and Blur's Graham Coxon, who featured prominently on their 2021 album Future Past.

Inspired by David Bowie and Roxy Music, as well as post-punk and disco, schoolmates Nick Rhodes (keyboards) and John Taylor (guitar) formed Duran Duran in 1978 with their friends Simon Colley (bass, clarinet) and Stephen Duffy (vocals). Taking their name from a character in Roger Vadim's psychedelic sci-fi film Barbarella, the group began playing gigs in the Birmingham club Barbarella, supported by a drum machine. Within a year, Duffy and Colley both left the group -- Duffy would later form the Lilac Time -- and were replaced by former TV Eye vocalist Andy Wickett and drummer Roger Taylor. After recording a demo, John Taylor switched to bass and guitarist Alan Curtis joined the band, only to leave within a matter of months. The group placed an ad in Melody Maker, which drew the attention of Andy Taylor, who became their guitarist. However, Duran Duran were still having trouble finding a vocalist. Following Wickett's departure in 1979, a pair of singers passed through the group before Simon LeBon, a former member of the punk band Dog Days and a drama student at Birmingham University, joined in early 1980.

By the end of 1980, Duran Duran had become popular within the burgeoning new romantic circuit in England and had secured a record contract with EMI. "Planet Earth," the band's first single, quickly rose to number 12 upon its spring 1981 release. Immediately, Duran Duran became the leaders of the new romantic movement, and media sensations in the British music and mainstream press. The group's popularity increased through its cutting-edge music videos, especially the bizarre, racy clip for "Girls on Film." Although the BBC banned the Godley & Creme-directed video, the single became the group's first Top Ten hit, setting the stage for the fall release of its eponymous debut album. Duran Duran reached number three upon its release and stayed in the charts for 118 weeks. The band quickly followed the album with Rio in the spring of 1982. Rio entered the charts at number two, and its singles -- "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Save a Prayer" -- became Top Ten hits. By the November release of the remix EP Carnival, the bandmembers were superstars in Europe, but only just beginning to make headway in America. Their exposure in the U.S. was helped greatly by the emergence of MTV, which put the group's stylish videos into heavy rotation. MTV's constant playing of the videos paid off, and "Hungry Like the Wolf" became a Top Ten hit early in 1983. Rio followed that single into the Top Ten, eventually selling over two million copies.

Duran Duran mania was in full swing across America, with "Is There Something I Should Know" reaching the Top Ten -- it became the group's first English number one that summer -- and the group's first album climbing its way to number ten. Duran Duran capitalized on their popularity by releasing Seven and the Ragged Tiger in time for 1983's holiday season. The record hit number one in the U.K. and number eight in the U.S., spawning the hit singles "Union of the Snake" and "The Reflex," their first number one U.S. hit and their second British chart-topper. The band took an extended break after completing its year-and-a-half-long international tour in the spring of 1984. In November, the group released the non-LP single "Wild Boys," which reached number two in the U.K. and the U.S., where it was added to the live album Arena.

By 1985, Duran Duran fever was beginning to cool off, and after completing the title track for the James Bond film A View to a Kill, the group went on hiatus. Andy and John Taylor formed the supergroup the Power Station with vocalist Robert Palmer and former Chic drummer Tony Thompson in January, releasing their eponymous debut album in the spring; it spawned the Top Ten singles "Some Like It Hot" and "Get It On (Bang a Gong)." The remaining members of Duran Duran -- Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, and Roger Taylor -- responded with their own side project, Arcadia, releasing an album called So Red the Rose in the fall of 1985; the album launched the Top Ten hit "Election Day." Early in 1986, Roger Taylor announced he was taking a yearlong sabbatical from the group; he never returned. Several months later, Andy Taylor also left, reducing Duran Duran to a trio. Late in 1986, the band released Notorious, its first album in nearly three years. While it was relatively successful, going platinum in the U.S. and generating a Top Ten hit with the title track, it was noticeably less popular than their earlier records. For the remainder of the decade, Duran Duran's popularity continued to decline, with 1988's Big Thing producing "I Don't Want Your Love," their last Top Ten single for five years.

The greatest-hits album Decade was released late in 1989, followed several months later by Liberty, the first Duran Duran album to fail to go gold. By that point, former Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cuccurullo had become a permanent member of the group. In 1993, the band returned from a prolonged hiatus with Duran Duran [The Wedding Album], a mature, layered record of lite funk and soulful adult contemporary pop that became a surprise hit. "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" became Top Ten hits in America and the U.K. as well; the album itself climbed into the Top Ten on both continents and went platinum in America. Not only did the record restore their commercial status, but it earned them some of their best reviews of their career. The group followed the album with one of its poorest-received efforts, 1995's all-covers Thank You, which managed to go gold in America despite negative reviews. While Duran Duran were recording the follow-up to Thank You in 1996, John Taylor left the band to pursue a solo career, leaving the group a trio of LeBon, Rhodes, and Cuccurullo. That follow-up, Medazzaland, was released in 1997 but failed to produce any major hits. Released in 2000, Pop Trash suffered a similar fate.

In March 2001, the three Taylors -- Andy, John, and Roger -- met up in Wales and worked with each other for three weeks. Around this time, rumors of a five-member reunion began to circulate. Two months after Rhodes and LeBon denied the rumors, the reunion was confirmed. Duran Duran recorded on and off for a new album over the next three years and also toured sporadically. After signing with Epic, they released Astronaut in October 2004. Red Carpet Massacre, produced by Timbaland and without Andy Taylor, followed in 2007. In 2011, Duran Duran delivered their 13th studio album, the Mark Ronson-produced All You Need Is Now; it was greeted with positive reviews and debuted at 11 on the U.K. charts and 29 in the U.S.

Duran Duran began recording for their 14th album in 2013 and worked on it over the next two years. When it finally materialized in September 2015, Paper Gods bore tracks produced by both Mark Ronson and Nile Rodgers, alongside additional contributions in this area from Mr. Hudson and the band's engineer of choice, Josh Blair. The album also included vocals from Janelle Monáe, Kiesza, and Mew's Jonas Bjerre, as well as guitar from former Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante. The record was their first to be issued through Warner Bros. and its release date coincided with a headline slot at Rob da Bank's Bestival event on the Isle of Wight.

Duran Duran supported Paper Gods with an extensive tour, then turned their attention to recording its sequel in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the release of the ensuing Future Past until October 2021. Largely produced by DJ Erol Alkan and featuring Blur's Graham Coxon on guitar, Future Past was their first record for BMG”.

To honour Duran Duran’s continued popularity and influence, I will recommend the four albums that I think are must-own, the latest studio effort from them, in addition to one that is lesser-celebrated. I have also chosen a book that is worth getting. If you need a guide regarding the legendary Duran Duran, then I hope that my guide is…

OF some use.

_________________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Duran Duran

Release Date: 15th June, 1981

Label: EMI

Producer: Colin Thurston

Standout Tracks: Planet Earth/Careless Memories/Sound of Thunder

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=79018&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2Tc7ILGF89w1PWOhzuZlqB?si=imiUK9-aTB2wy7sbeCDt5A

Review:

“Duran Duran's eponymous debut artfully coalesced the sonic and stylistic elements of the burgeoning new romantic movement they were soon to spearhead: pumping synths, glossy production, and seemingly impossible haircuts. Ultra-smart singles like "Girls on Film" and "Planet Earth" became instant smash hits both in the U.K. and America, and other fine pop gems such as "Anyone Out There" and "Careless Memories" rounded out the album's stellar first side. Side two was a far more experimental and revealing affair, with primary songwriter Nick Rhodes leading the band through atmospheric mood-pieces like "Night Boat," "Sound of Thunder," and the instrumental "Tel Aviv," all of which are particularly reminiscent of mid-era Roxy Music (clearly one of Duran's biggest influences). The band's groundbreaking music videos would do the rest, securing them a unique standing as forerunners of the first MTV generation and cementing their status as one of the decade's most successful pop music icons. [The band's first U.K. number one, the non-album single "Is There Something I Should Know?," was added to the 1983 U.S. reissue of Duran Duran, which also featured different artwork.]” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Girls on Film

Rio

Release Date: 10th May, 1982

Label: EMI

Producer: Colin Thurston

Standout Tracks: My Own Way/Hungry Like the Wolf/Save a Prayer

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=79632&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/02tfQwJSOLP77oCd9U8bqm?si=0A3YAkykRTaqOVAWwHr5tg

Review:

“The album opens with the fourth and final single Rio. Opening with that familiar bassline. Simon Le Bon jumps in with the verse but it’s not really until the chorus that the song really gets going. 80s Obligatory Saxophone joins them for a mid-section instrumental before the track continues to climb up with the chorus, synths, and guitars. The track reached #9 in the UK singles chart, and it’s a belter, that surprisingly didn’t get higher.

This is followed by lead single My Own Way, which swaggers in with a funky bass and some growling guitars. This gave the band a #14 hit single, and it’s definitely a more muted track in comparison to Rio. It’s perhaps a bit catchier though in beats and bass, but lyrically less so.

Lonely In Your Nightmare follows this, easing gently in with synth and twanging guitars. Le Bon’s distinct vocal style soon comes in, and he’s complimented with some lovely vocal harmonies for the chorus. The drums sit back, and we’re treated to a lighter track, allowing those vocals space to shine. This is a much more mellow track.

Hungry Like The Wolf bursts in next, and this track is a perfect gem. The bleeping synth sounds, the growling guitars, the rockier drums, and the harder vocals all combined to give them their #5 hit UK single. This is the best track here so far.

Chugging guitars lead into Hold Back The Rain. Again, it’s an upbeat track with plenty of nice harmonies and backing vocals, giving Le Bon plenty of opportunity to show off his vocal power and range. The track races off at quite a pace, pulsating to the end of Side One.

Side Two opens gently amidst a swirl of synths of New Religion. This is a gentler start to this second side, and unfortunately not particularly a strong track.

Last Chance On The Stairway is next, and this track has the same energy as Hungry Like The Wolf, along with some wonderfully swirling synth-scapes in the background. The result is a great sound, that probably could have made it as a better single than On My Way.

A delicious synth sound brings in the beautifully sounding Save A Prayer which gave them a #2 hit in the summer of 1982, and was their biggest hit so far by that point. The wandering bass, the drifting slower tempo, Simon’s vocals, the gentle percussion, and the choice of synths makes this track a sheer delight to hear. Perfect.

The album closes with The Chauffeur, a song written back in 1978. Again, synths usher this one, and it’s joined by bass and piano in quite a quirky sound. Le Bon’s vocals dominate this slightly weird sounding song, and he really shows off his vocal range here. It’s hypnotically good” – Pop Rescue

Choice Cut: Rio

Duran Duran

Release Date: 11th February, 1993

Label: Parlophone

Producers: Duran Duran/John Jones

Standout Tracks: Too Much Information/Come Undone/Femme Fatale

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=79090&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0PqCkTvKFJxzr9uujq7a3T?si=4Zyh340bTd2DD187S1K_gQ

Review:

“Duran Duran came back out of nowhere in early 1993 with a new album and a huge hit, "Ordinary World." The group sounds more relaxed and mature than it did during their glory days, but not all that much has changed; instead of personifying the days of early-'80s synthesized dance-pop, the music is smooth dance pop for the '90s. Taken on its own terms, Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) works every bit as well as Duran Duran, Rio, or Seven and the Ragged Tiger. "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" are wonderful pop singles that sit between some passable album tracks and the occasional embarrassment, namely the wretched cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale." In other words, Duran Duran are back and as good as they ever were” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Ordinary World

All You Need Is Now

Release Date: 21st December, 2010

Label: Tape Modern

Producers: Mark Ronson/Duran Duran

Standout Tracks: All You Need Is Now/Leave a Light On/Other People's Lives

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=295391&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4wZK4hmMRl3GmGOWu24meb?si=IMJ7zOX6Sm648eaYj2mQPw

Review:

“Following massive early success, ego-fuelled side projects, line-up changes and yachting accidents, Duran Duran completed the full rock career trajectory in 1993 with a triumphant comeback. The Ordinary World single and its parent album rekindled public affection and critical acclaim for a band most had consigned to nostalgia shows. Since then the group’s creative flame has flickered fitfully, though 2004’s Astronaut and the Timbaland-assisted follow-up Red Carpet Massacre demonstrated that all was not lost.

For All You Need Is Now, Duran Duran have enlisted another celebrity producer, but this time one who understands them as a fan. Mark Ronson has never been shy about his love for the band, and here he brings out the best in Simon Le Bon’s voice. This is particularly clear on the restrained Leave a Light On; lyrics such as "You ease the lost cause out of me" even brushing the heights of their sublime Come Undone.

They have thankfully stopped seeking credibility, and it suits them. Their calling card here is the garage rock of the title-track (if you can imagine a garage band playing alongside Bentleys), which morphs into a soaring chorus reminiscent of Rio. Scissor Sister Ana Matronic slots perfectly into the disco-flecked Safe, an unashamed return to their original sound. They sound similarly well preserved on the slinky Being Followed, and Girl Panic! also mines their new wave roots.

Unsurprisingly for a band renowned for singles over albums, the 14 tracks include some misfires. Le Bon’s complaint about "glossy lifestyles staring out of magazines," on the plodding Other People’s Lives, particularly riles. Runaway Runaway is throwaway, while the perfunctory funk of Blame the Machines is a heartless grind until its middle eight, reminiscent of Ronson’s recent Record Collection, finds newsreader Nina Hossain telling the listener, "You’re not required to think".

Their Smash Hits days may be as over as Smash Hits itself, and further crossover appeal has probably passed, but their admirable persistence in recording new material has paid off. This album, Mark Ronson’s "imaginary follow up to Rio that never was", is their best for 18 years” – BBC

Choice Cut: Girl Panic!

The Underrated Gem

 

Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Release Date: 21st November, 1983

Label: EMI

Producers: Alex Sadkin/Ian Little/Duran Duran

Standout Tracks: New Moon on Monday/I Take the Dice/Union of the Snake

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=87609&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0jBIq5EY9zRBZJuCE9iuM1?si=XVVOPErSSEqhGIwW2QTM4w

Review:

“Seven and the Ragged Tiger went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and went to number one in several countries including their native England, which was the first and only time the band accomplished this on the album charts.

Simon, Nick, John, Andy and Roger really had something special and, for a two album stretch, they touched something magical that so many bands fail to ever reach.

The sound was helped along by producers Alex Sadkin and Ian Little.  Contributing musicians such as sax player Andy Hamilton, percussionists Raphael DeJesus and Mark Kennedy helped the bands sound evolve.  Another aspect to this album’s sound are back-up singers BJ Nelson and Michelle Cobbs.  Mixed all together, it produced a warm, full sound.

In November of this year, the album turned 35 years old.  While I’ve made new memories with the songs on this album, I will never forget the energy and excitement I felt listening to it back in 1984.  Life is better in so many ways today but there was something simpler back then.  Simpler in that I didn’t feel the need to be connected all of the time or distracted by technology.  Just a pair of hand-me-down headphones and a beat up old record player that had a needle so worn I had to put a stack of quarters on the arm just to make sure the record didn’t skip.

In my world of top tens, Seven and the Ragged Tiger will always have a place on my personal list of all-time favorite albums” – Sound Vapors

Choice Cut: The Reflex

The Latest Album

 

FUTURE PAST

Release Date: 22nd October, 2021

Labels: BMG/Tape Modern

Producers: Erol Alkan/Joshua Blair/Duran Duran/Kaz Haga/Peter Karlsson/Hannie Knox/Mathieu Kranich/Giorgio Moroder

Standout Tracks: GIVE IT ALL UP (ft. Tove Lo)/ANNIVERSARY/FUTURE PAST

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=2347705&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7GyGHJ1jv0v2Sa0pcgs4fD?si=KN--v4AiS-ehGMZqQnZMKQ

Review:

“Duran Duran were a burst of colour amid the cavalcade of negative headlines in the early 80s. The unemployment soaring and inner city riots, their care-free songwriting provided an outlet for escapism, and playful adventure. ‘Future Past’ – their first album in six years – follows in this tradition, reflecting some of the intensity of its surroundings while also offering some of the band’s most direct, and downright catchy songwriting in decades.

Perhaps it helps that ‘Future Past’ is such an outward-looking, communal experience. The production is beefed out by Mark Ronson and Erol Alkan, while hugely experienced disco icon Giorgio Moroder was also brought on board. The guests, too, present a remarkably varied palette – Blur’s Graham Coxon assists on guitar, while vocalists range from pop queen Tove Lo to incendiary rapper Ivorian Doll via Japanese garage-pop outfit CHAI.

The highs are effervescent. The funky opening spell that dominates ‘All Of You’ segues into the delirious disco that drives The Tove Lo enhanced ‘Give It All Up’. ‘Beautiful Lies’ is an unashamed piece of retro dancefloor flair, and CHAI amplify the ecstatic exuberance of ‘MORE JOY!’ to overwhelming levels.

Yet it’s not all incandescent pop bullseye moments. In truth, ‘Tonight United’ is quite cheesy, and the Bond theme ambiance of ‘Wing’ plods along without ever really raising the pulse – granted, it does shows off Simon le Bon’s still impressive chops.

The band’s first album since ‘Paper Gods’ in 2015, ‘Future Past’ is the work of a group resurgent. While many of their peers have opted for merch-stalling fillers as they grind out another Greatest Hits tour, Duran Duran have opted to challenge themselves. Frothy, neon-soaked entertainment, ‘Future Past’ – when it works – is a blast of ridiculous 80s themed fun” – CLASH

Choice Cut: INVISIBLE

The Duran Duran Book

 

Duran Duran's Rio (33 1/3): 156

Author: Annie Zaleski

Publication Date: 1st July, 2021

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Synopsis:

“In the '80s, the Birmingham, England, band Duran Duran became closely associated with new wave, an idiosyncratic genre that dominated the decade's music and culture. No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track. However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist” – Waterstones.co.uk

Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/duran-durans-rio/annie-zaleski/9781501355189

FEATURE: Spotlight: Iraina Mancini

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Iraina Mancini

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ONE of my favourite tracks of this year…

came from the wonderful Iraina Mancini. She released the awesome Do It (You Stole the Rhythm). I have followed her music for a while, and she is someone who is going to go on to be very big. A D.J., model and broadcaster. Mancini was born into a musical family. Her father, Warren Peace, was David Bowie's childhood friend; he went on to tour providing backing vocals and writing with Bowie from Aladdin Sane through to Station to Station. It is no wonder that Mancini developed a love of music. She taps into classic Soul and Pop. Her blend is quite retro and super-cool, though there is modern edge, passion and something distinctly hers. Gifted with a wonderful voice and the ability to pen great hooks, she is someone who I always keep an ear out for. I wonder whether there will be an album in 2022. Taking influence from everything from ‘60s French cinema and Psychedelia, here is someone who one suspects spends a lot of her alone time listening to older music. Even though, as a D.J. and broadcaster, she features and interviews new acts, one can feel the music of her childhood more evident in her own songs. I am going to come to a few reviews in. Before then, and borrowing from her website, here is some detail about the incredible multi-talent that is Iraina Mancini:

“Iraina Mancini has been writing her own songs and gigging from a young age, fronting bands such as electro pop band ‘Mancini’ and then later with Liverpool’s ‘The Venus Fury’ (ex The Zuton’s and Dead 60s members).

Whilst on the road with these bands, Iraina began digging into the vaults of Northern Soul, Funk, Rhythm and Blues, 60’s Garage and Disco’s rich musical history. Inspired by and building on her father’s 45’s that she had enthused over as a child, she began her passion to DJ and bring back the spirit of these often forgotten but golden musical era’s to dance floors across the globe.

PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Towning 

Iraina has travelled the world DJ’ing and hosting at major film and fashion events such as Cannes Lion, NME Awards, Toronto Film Festival, and key music festivals; Glastonbury, Wilderness, Secret Garden Party, Bestival and for iconic brands such as GQ, Swarovski, Temperley, Film4 and Pretty Green.

Iraina also presents her own popular cult radio show every Tuesday on the legendary Soho Radio in London, where she teases a taster of her live DJ sets, interviews her favourite bands and serves up a music history lesson and homage to her love of Northern Soul, Funk, vintage R&B, Ska and Garage Rock. Recent guests on the show have included Ecca Vandall, Mike Chapman (Blondie, The Knack), Lee Fields, YAK, PP Arnold, Garret Shider (Parliament, Funkadelic), Babyshambles and Daddy Long Legs.

Inspired by the music she collects and DJ’s, a new solo project has started to form. Collaborating and writing with legendary producer Jagz Kooner (Primal Scream/Oasis) and featuring a stable of the UK’s most talented musicians, Iraina has now put together her live band and is hitting the road in 2020. Her sound is heavily influenced by her favourite music from the 60’s and 70s, French Pop, Psychedelia, Soul and classic artist’s such as the Ye-Ye Girls, Serge Gainsbourg and vintage cinema.

Muse to influential fashion designers, brands and artists due to her striking vintage style and inspired by Francoise Hardy, Bridgette Bardot and Jane Birkin, Iraina is the contemporary reflection of an iconic retro era that can be re-discovered and celebrated through her style and music”.

As a busy and popular D.J. with an incredible taste in music, I think that she brings her musical discoveries and the tracks she spins into her work. There is a connection between her crate-digging and D.J. work and the wonderful music she creates. The first interview that I want to bring in is from this year. Mancini spoke with NINU NINA and, among other topics, was asked about her music influences:

“your greatest inspirations or influences?

The records I have collected from my travels always inspire me, I love finding old rare Soul that no one has ever heard before. I get a kick out of introducing old undiscovered artists in my DJ sets or on my radio show. My own music I write is greatly inspired by french YeYe artists of the 60s like Jacquelin Taib, France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg, as well as psychedelia and retro film soundtracks, I love bringing the drama and cinema to my sound.

Tell us a bit about your creative process? How do you describe your music?

My creative process is sampling old records I have found with my producer Jagz Kooner, we find bits we love, cool grooves , guitar riffs and instrumentation and build up vibes/tracks. Then I take them away and write a load of melodies and lyrics on top to create the song, I find it a brilliant way to write and gets me in that cinematic 60s mood. Jagz and I then remove the samples and re-build the music around the new melody I have written with my band of talented musicians. It's such a cool way to work and has been a really fun process.

How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?

Like everyone, I have lost a lot since Covid hit, but for me the one amazing thing to come out of it is my creativity. I have been overflowing with ideas and had the time to really focus on my music. I think I have processed a lot mentally and had some huge struggles and music has been an amazing release for me. I hope moving forward we all appreciate the world we live in more and the people around us , seeing beauty in the simple things in life. Slowing down made me release the speed in which I was surviving wasn't healthy and I always felt burnt out”.

Iraina Mancini, apart from being an awesome songwriter, is also a bit of a style icon. She is this complete artist who I hope we hear a lot more from next year. I want to zoom back to a 2019 interview from Blow Out Magazine. The first question I have quoted provoked an interesting artist:

“Where are you in 10 years?

I would like to be still making my own music and singing gigs to crowds all over the world. I'd hope I was still spinning records, making people dance and presenting my radio shows. I've always had a secret dream of designing my own vintage inspired clothes line as well..shhh don't tell anyone! I'd like to be in love and have a load of gorgeous crazy kids.

Biggest regret in life?

I know people say you shouldn’t have regrets but there is definitely a couple of things I wish I’d done a little different… Lousy ex boyfriends, that time I decided to cut my own fringe with kitchen scissors ..But the main thing I regret is not having more faith in my abilities and listening too much to what other people said. I would say to anyone young- be fearless and don’t let insecurities hold you back.

What would your 16 say to yourself now?

She would say "wow, what fun you’ve had!"

Best bit of advice you have been given?

I love Eckhart Tolle and all his books..His whole idea of living in the now and not carrying the burden of the past or future was a powerful lesson for me. I certainly did that for a long time and it's a waste of energy, let it go and live in the moment.

What makes you happy?

So many things make me happy! Discovering a new rare soul record I’ve never heard, writing songs and hearing them come alive in the studio”.

There is a final interview that I am keen to include. Last year, in this interview, Mancini was asked about the changing industry. As someone whose father was a pretty big part of David Bowie’s life., she would have heard stories from him about his experiences. As a relatively new artist, she can compare those recollections with her experiences:

“How have you seen the music industry evolve since you started out, and where do you see it going?

The music industry has changed so much, I can barely keep up! Its amazing how easily you can push your art out into the world with Spotify, Youtube and all the social media platforms available anyone in the world can listen to your music .. Gone is the time of ‘waiting’ for a record deal, you can have complete control of what you put out. You can make music videos on iPhones, film live sets and stream online and interact instantly with your fans. Its a lot more work but ultimately more satisfying and authentic.

Which three records are you unable to live without?

That is such a difficult question! But if I had to pick 3 records that I never get bored of they would be.

1.       Barrett Strong – Money (thats what I want)

2.       Space Oddity – David Bowie

3.       Bonnie and Clyde – Serge Gainsboug

What do you consider to be music’s golden age?

Im totally stuck in the past. For me the golden age was late sixties early seventies.

Who are your biggest artistic influences?

At the moment i am really influenced by 60s/70s Cinema, French Yeye Girls and Psychedelia. Like most musicians i’m obsessed with Serge Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson. The music I DJ influences me massively 60s Rhythm and Blues and Northern Soul, I wanted to write music I could incorporate into my DJ sets.

PHOTO CREDIT: Caroline Towning

And your greatest style icons?

Bridgette Bardot , Jane Birkin and Anita Pallenberg have always been favourites of mine. I love the sex kitten look..Big hair and big lashes. I go through different phases with fashion, at the moment I’m wearing a lot of 70s stuff, tailored flares, loose shirts, vintage suits and platforms.

Favourite place you have DJ’d at?

I love DJing music festivals the energy is so unique, everyone is there with exactly the same mission.. to have as much fun as possible and escape their daily lives. Also, visually festivals always look like a fantasy world, especially Glastonbury.. when its not raining! My favourite place to DJ is actually a really small festival called Red Rooster, its in the most beautiful setting and has the best music. Im djing there this summer, Im really looking forward to it”.

With new music out this year and her busy with D.J. work, plus the broadcasting on Soho Radio, I think that we will hear a lot more from Iraina Mancini in 2022. One of the brightest and most interesting young artists in the country, I have always loved her work. I am excited to see what comes next and whether we get more music very soon – let us hope so! In Iraina Mancini, the music world has a varied, evolving and…

INCREDIBLE talent.

_____________

Follow Iraina Mancini

PHOTO CREDIT: Erica Bergsmeds 

Official:

https://www.irainamancini.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/IrainaMancini

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Irainamancinimusic/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/irainamancini/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7zkKFe3ZgQzTnlj5XwYi1U?si=0TDeo7xxTbqU2F6_pStU_g

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/irainamancinimusic

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: The Very Best of Taylor Swift

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

 The Very Best of Taylor Swift

___________

ON 13th December…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated Press

Taylor Swift turns thirty-two. Perhaps the biggest artist in the world, fans around the world will celebrate her birthday. I am going to end with a playlist containing her very best tracks. I want to start with a biography from AllMusic that I have used before.

“Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream. Others have performed similar moves -- notably, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson both became enduring pop-culture icons based on their '70s work -- but Swift shed her country roots like they were a second skin; it was a necessary molting to reveal she was perhaps the sharpest, savviest populist singer/songwriter of her generation, one who could harness the zeitgeist, make it personal and, just as impressively, perform the reverse. These skills were evident on her earliest hits, especially the neo-tribute "Tim McGraw," but her second album, 2008's Fearless, showcased a songwriter discovering who she was and, in the process, finding a mass audience. Fearless wound up having considerable legs not only in the U.S., where it racked up six platinum singles on the strength of the Top Ten hits "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me," but throughout the world, performing particularly well in the U.K., Canada, and Australia. Speak Now, delivered almost two years later, consolidated that success and moved Swift into the stratosphere of superstardom. Her popularity only increased over her next three albums -- Red (2012), 1989 (2014), Reputation (2017) -- and found her moving assuredly into a pop realm where she already belonged. Even when she scaled back her approach with stripped-down sibling releases folklore and Evermore, she maintained her position atop the pop world while delivering the best-selling album of 2020.

This sense of confidence had been apparent in Taylor Swift since the beginning. The daughter of two bankers -- her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, worked at Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea, spent time as a mutual fund marketing executive -- Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and raised in suburban Wyomissing. She began to show interest in music at the age of nine, and Shania Twain wound up as her biggest formative influence. Swift started to work regularly at local talent contests, eventually winning a chance to open for Charlie Daniels. Soon, she learned how to play guitar and began writing songs, signing a music management deal with Dan Dymtrow; her family relocated to Nashville with the intent of furthering her music career. She was just 14 years old but on the radar of the music industry, signing a development deal with RCA Records in 2004. Swift sharpened her skills with a variety of professional songwriters, forming the strongest connections with Liz Rose. Taylor's original songs earned her a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but not long after that 2004 deal she parted ways with Dymtrow and RCA, all with the intent of launching her recording career now, not later.

Things started moving swiftly once Swift came to the attention of Scott Borchetta, a former DreamWorks Records exec about to launch Big Machine Records. Borchetta saw Swift perform at a songwriters showcase at the Bluebird Cafe and he signed her to Big Machine in 2005; shortly afterward, she started work on her debut with producer Nathan Chapman, who'd previously helmed demos for Taylor. Boasting original song credits on every one of the record's 11 songs (she penned three on her own), Taylor Swift appeared in October 2006 to strong reviews and Swift made sure to work the album hard, appearing at every radio or television event offered and marshaling a burgeoning fan base through the use of MySpace. "Tim McGraw," the first song from the album, did well, but "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "Our Song" did better on both the pop and country charts, where she racked up five consecutive Top Ten singles. Other successes followed in the wake of the debut -- a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist (she lost to Amy Winehouse), stopgap EPs of Christmas songs -- but Swift concentrated on delivering her sophomore set, Fearless.

Appearing in November 2008, Fearless was certified gold by the RIAA in its first week of release, and the record gained momentum throughout 2009, earning several platinum certifications as "Love Story," "White Horse," "You Belong with Me," "Fifteen," and "Fearless" all scaled the upper reaches of the country charts while "You Belong with Me" nearly topped Billboard's Hot 100. Along with the success came some headlines, first in the form of an infamous appearance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards where her acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye West, who burst on-stage to declare that Swift's rival Beyoncé deserved the award more, but her romances also started gaining attention, notably a liaison with Twilight star Taylor Lautner, who appeared with the singer in the 2009 film Valentine's Day.

Her flirtation with the silver screen proved brief, as she then poured herself into her third album, Speak Now. Released in October 2010, Speak Now was another massive first-week smash that refused to lose momentum. Hit singles like "Mine" and "Mean," which won two Grammy Awards, played a big factor in its success not just on the country charts but on pop radio as well. Following a 2011 live album called World Tour Live: Speak Now, Swift turned toward following a pop path on her fourth album, hiring such mainstream musicians as Dan Wilson, Butch Walker, and Britney Spears producer Max Martin. This mainstream pulse was evident on "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," the first single from Red. Upon its October 2012 release, Red shattered expectations by selling over a million copies in its first week, a notable achievement that was doubly impressive in an era of declining sales. Once again, Swift's album had legs: it was certified platinum four times in the U.S. and its international sales outstripped those of Speak Now. She supported Red with an international tour in 2013 and more hits came, including "I Knew You Were Trouble" and "22."

As Swift geared up for the release of her fifth album in 2014, she made it clear that 1989 was designed as her first "documented, official" pop album and that there would be no country marketing push for the record. "Shake It Off," an ebullient dance-pop throwback, hit number one upon its August 2014 release. When 1989 appeared in late October 2014, it once again shot to number one and became her third straight album to sell one million copies in its first week (a new record for any artist).

Swift gathered many awards during the subsequent year, including Billboard's Woman of the Year, the Award for Excellence at the American Music Awards, and a special 50th Anniversary Milestone Award from the CMAs. Her 1989 World Tour crossed Asia, North America, and Europe during the last half of 2015, and she won three Grammy Awards at the 2016 ceremonies, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video for "Bad Blood." At the end of 2016, she released "I Don't Wanna Live Forever," a duet with ZAYN from the soundtrack for Fifty Shades Darker. The single reached the Top Five across the world. Swift returned with her sixth album, Reputation, in November 2017. Preceded by the number one hit single "Look What You Made Me Do," Reputation debuted at number one, and while it didn't replicate the success of 1989, the album did help underscore her popularity while also pushing her toward mature musicality.

Reputation was Swift's final record for Big Machine. In November 2018, she signed with Universal Music Group, which distributed her new albums under its Republic Records banner. The first album in this contract was Lover. Released in August 2019, Lover was preceded by two singles, "Me!" and "You Need to Calm Down," which both reached number two on the Hot 100 and helped push the album to number one. The acclaimed LP and two of its singles received a total of three nominations at the 62nd Grammy Awards.

Swift's plans to support Lover with a tour in 2020 were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With some unexpected time on her hands, she wrote and recorded a new set of songs, many in collaboration with Aaron Dessner of the National; Bon Iver and longtime Swift associate Jack Antonoff also contributed. The resulting album, folklore, was released on July 24, 2020, and went straight to the top of the Billboard 200. Less than five months later, Swift released a companion album to folklore called Evermore. Featuring many of the same collaborators as its predecessor, the Grammy-nominated Evermore debuted at number one upon its December 11, 2020 release. Altogether, the sibling LPs planted Swift atop the U.S. charts for a combined 11 weeks, and folklore became the best-selling album of 2020.

In 2021, she began the process of re-recording her back catalog after her Big Machine masters were sold off in 2019, starting with 2008's Fearless. The first of these tracks -- "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" -- arrived that February, with Fearless (Taylor's Version) arriving in April. The new version of Fearless contained cameos from Colbie Caillat, Keith Urban, and Maren Morris, along with several previously unheard tunes originally written during the same time period; it debuted at number one on Billboard upon its release. Swift next revisited Red, releasing Red [Taylor's Version] in November 2021. This revamp of the 2012 album featured new duets with Phoebe Bridgers, Chris Stapleton, and Ed Sheeran, along with a ten-minute version of the ballad "All Too Well”.

Ahead of Taylor Swift’s birthday, the playlist below is a collection of her best songs. She is a phenomenal artist who has been making some wonderful Pop music for years now. I know that this will continue for a long time to come. The amazing Taylor Swift is…

A modern icon.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots: The Tour of Life ‘Curtain Call’, 1979 (Max Browne)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and band during the finale of a Hammersmith date from 1979’s The Tour of Life/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne 

The Tour of Life ‘Curtain Call’, 1979 (Max Browne)

___________

I am going back to the late-1970s…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979

for inspiration when it comes to this Kate Bush series. I am interested in spending more time with iconic and mesmeric photos of her through the years. I am going to go into more detail regarding The Tour of Life in 1979. One would think that, as there is so much action and motion, it would be difficult to capture a single shot that is among the very best. Max Browne has released a book of photos he took of Kate Bush and her band when she performed The Tour of Life in Hammersmith over three nights. There are a few shots that he took that I could well of highlighted as especially superb. The one that I have always loved and captures Kate Bush in a special moment is a finale/curtain call from one of her Hammersmith nights. She is taking a bow and looking exhausted, yet happy. That adulation she is receiving as her band are in line behind her looking on. It is a great composition taken only a year after Bush released her debut album, The Kick Inside. It is rare even now for an artist to command such a huge live audience and so much press attention only a year in. Of course, Bush had been recording and known to people prior to 1978, though the leap that was taken by 1979 is amazing!

I will end with my thoughts regarding a remarkable and timeless shot from English photographer Max Browne. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia have some details regarding Bush’s one and only tour:

“The Tour of Life, also known as the Lionheart Tour or even the Kate Bush Tour, was Kate Bush's first, and until recently only, series of live concerts. The name, 'Tour of Life', was not coined until after its completion, with all promotional material referring to it simply as the Kate Bush Tour.

Consisting of 24 performances from Bush's first two studio albums The Kick Inside and Lionheart, it was acclaimed for its incorporation of mime, magic, and readings during costume changes. The simple staging also involved rear-screen projection and the accompaniment of two male dancers. The tour was a critical and commercial success, with most dates selling out and additional shows being added due to high demand. Members of the Kate Bush Club were provided with a guaranteed ticket.

Rehearsals

The tour was to become not only a concert, but also incorporating dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre. The dance element was co-ordinated by Bush in conjunction with Anthony Van Laast – who later choreographed the Mamma Mia! movie and several West End smashes – and two young dancers, Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. They held morning rehearsals for the tour at The Place in Euston, after which Bush spent afternoons in Greenwich drilling her band. Off stage, she was calling the shots on everything from the set design to the programme art.

Band

The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of Preston Heyman (drums), Paddy Bush (mandolin. various strange instruments and vocal harmonies), Del Palmer (bass), Brian Bath (electric guitar, acoustic mandolin and vocal harmonies), Kevin McAlea (piano, keyboards, saxophone, 12 string guitar), Ben Barson (synthesizer and acoustic guitar), Al Murphy (electric guitar and whistles) and backing vocalists Liz Pearson and Glenys Groves.

Critical reception

As the tour rolled out around the UK the reviews were euphoric: Melody Maker called the Birmingham show "the most magnificent spectacle ever encountered in the world of rock. (...) I hadn't expected to be impressed by her as a singer, both she and the band were nothing short of immaculate". According to Sounds, the show was "so finely realised that it's beyond criticism”.

Consisting of songs from her first two albums – The Kick Inside and Lionheart -, together with some new material, it seems like, to be in that audience, it would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience! The critical reviews and huge acclaim Bush received was sort of at odds with how some viewed her in 1978. Gaining respect from corners who were dubious, cruel and dismissive, the fact she got to breathe new life into these songs and perform them in such a direct and immediate way meant that you get a completely different experience live than listening to the record. That sense of awakening and transformation. I think it was the terrific sets and costumes that meant audiences and critics got to see Bush in her element. I love a load of the photos Max Browne took in 1979 for The Tour of Life. Of course, you can get a better quality of the photo I have selected if you buy his book. I have chosen the one I have because it marks the end of a show. You cannot see the audience, though one suspects there is frenzy and rapturous applause. Kate Bush looks tired and sweaty, yet there is that look of appreciation from her. There were similar shots taken in 2014 when she returned to Hammersmith for Before the Dawn. That was a massive moment for her, though I feel her performing in London – she took the tour around Europe and the U.K. – for her first tour and huge live commitment is even more special. To have been a photographer there and trying to get those special shots. There is something unforgettable and iconic about the photo Max Browne took. This is what Max Browne said about that particular shot:

“Photographer Max Browne recalls: "I have never photographed a more enchanting show or multi-talented performer than Kate Bush at Hammersmith om 1979 - pure magic and such incredible stamina. Almost every number required a costume change, intricate dance choreography whilst singing, and 'The Tour of Life' show lasted over two hours in total. The bar was set so high that she never toured again but what an achievement. Thank goodness the show was recorded for T.V. The shot was taken the night of the recording after the 'Wuthering Heights' finale when Kate's relief and exuberance are palpable. A personal favorite, the focus is spot on too!”.

It is hard to argue with Browne regarding why that particular photo is so wonderful. That relief and happiness you see from Bush’s face is matched by the respect her band have for her. It is definitely one of my favourite Kate Bush photos. This series looks to explore the finest Kate Bush photos. Having worked with a number of great photographer during a career, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to sensational photos…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the Tour of Life in Hammersmith in May 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne

THROUGH the years

FEATURE: My Five Favourite Tracks of 2021: Wolf Alice – The Last Man on Earth

FEATURE:

 

 

My Five Favourite Tracks of 2021

PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Hemingway

Wolf Alice – The Last Man on Earth

___________

THIS is the only instance…

where an album of the year and track of the year from my selected five intersects. I have already named Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend as one of my favourite albums of this year. One track from it, The Last Man on Earth, is one of the best tracks I have reviewed in a very long time. I reviewed the song back on 28th February. I am going to come back to some reviews for Blue Weekend in a bit – as the album is one of this year’s best and warrants more spotlighting -, but I want to spend a bit of time with The Last Man on Earth. The lead single from their third studio album, there was a lot of excitement when the song was announced. As we can tell from this Wikipedia article, The Last Man on Earth has its roots in some rathe deep literature:

"The Last Man on Earth" was the band's first single in almost 3 years, following an extensive tour through 2018 and early 2019 for their second album, Visions of a Life. Frontwoman Ellie Rowsell said this about the lyrics of the song:

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

I will come to the album reviews in a second. The Mancunion were excited when the exceptional and epic The Last Man on Earth was announced earlier in the year:

“After a four-year long hiatus and a multitude of tantalising teasers dotted around social media, Wolf Alice are finally making their highly anticipated return to the world of indie music with their latest offering ‘The Last Man On Earth’. Following on from their previous album, ‘Visions Of A Life’, will be no easy feat; but if anyone can do it, I would place my life in the hands of the dazzling Ellie Rowsell. Emailing their fans, the band offered up a quick peak into what the last almost-half-a-decade has entailed

The eerie monochrome visuals, directed by Jordan Hemingway, are the perfect accompaniment. Ellie’s striking, angelic vocals cut through the smoke screen of mystery to introduce a new era of Wolf Alice.

Nothing short of straight out of a indie-teen movie, the flickering screens, kaleidoscopic imagery, and fire-torn backdrop almost signal the end of Wolf Alice as we know them – in fact, we’re worlds away. This new venture is as much a short cinematic feat, as it is a powerful ballad.

Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s novel ‘Cat’s cradle’, Ellie carefully plucked the lyrics from a fictitious tale, and added deeper meaning to the words “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God”.

Emotive lyrics and soaring vocals build up to make an escapist’s dream. The delicately layered piano and strings bring a heavenly, divine feel to the track; the orchestral bliss is emphasised by the lyrics “light shining down”.

Pegged by Ellie as the “Musical form of her own existential crisis,” and serving as a majestic dive into the mind of the powerful front woman, the glistening self-confession proves her prowess and demonstrates her evolution as a delightful songwriter.

Talking on the new album with Annie Mac on BBC Radio One: after a post-tour burnout, the band spent a few months apart and re-kindled their love for music in an Air BnB in Somerset, where they began writing their new tracks. Ellie explained that the album title was inspired by a taxi ride of perfectly blue skies. This new, grander, grandeur version of Wolf Alice are the most sonically mature the band has ever been, and I can’t wait for more newness”.

There are many great songs on Blue Weekend. I especially love The Last Man on Earth, as it was the first thing that I heard, and it sort of blew me away! It is a track that provide such an emotional hit. The critical reviews for Blue Weekend have been exceptional. This is what NME said:

“There are lines on this record that have the power to transport you to very specific places or feel like Rowsell has extracted your soul from your body, put it under a microscope, then handed you a report on her findings. They are particular in the stories they lay out but, within the details, offer places to find yourself and the tales you could tell. It’s a phenomenon that the singer and guitarist references on the piano-led, emotional epic ‘The Last Man On Earth’: “Every book you take that you dust off from the shelf/Has lines between lines between lines that you read about yourself.” Simultaneously, she analyses a compulsion of the human race and offers another opportunity to indulge in it yourself.

The increased openness in the front woman’s words is perhaps no surprise, given the six years Wolf Alice have had since releasing their debut album ‘My Love Is Cool’. In that time, they’ve grown from buzzy newcomers to a bonafide Big Deal, via milestones of success you can’t help but absorb confidence from: breathless praise for second album ‘Visions Of A Life’, a Mercury Prize win for that record in 2018, selling out their biggest headline show to date at London’s Alexandra Palace. Now, they’re making the step up to riotous festival headliners, leapfrogging from topping the bill at the likes of Truck to taking pole position at this year’s Latitude.

In broad strokes, ‘Blue Weekend’ is a study on relationships – yes, with romantic partners, but also with friends, with yourself and with the world at large. The sparse and minimal heartbreaker ‘No Hard Feelings’ contains evocative scenes within its exploration of a separation. “It’s not hard to remember when it was tough to hear your name,” Rowsell sighs. “Crying in the bathtub to ‘Love Is A Losing Game’.” The song referenced might change for different people, but the feeling that sucker-punches you from within is universal.

If that track takes you into the depths of lovelorn grief, sunkissed album closer ‘The Beach II’ whisks us off to somewhere much calmer. Here, Rowsell is by the shore, drinking lukewarm “liquid rose” with her mates, but in her narration positions herself as an observer looking on fondly. “The tide comes in as it must go out, consistent like the laughter/Of the girls on the beach, my girls on the beach, happy ever after,” she sings softly. Combined with the gently surging guitars and buzzing synths beneath her, the song captures a moment of magic that makes you feel like you’re hovering above your own memories of the tableau it depicts”.

Actually, rather than pull in another review for Blue Weekend, I will end with NME’s reaction to one of Wolf Alice’s best songs. The band could have selected other tracks as lead-off for Blue Weekend, though they clearly felt that The Last Man on Earth would resonate:

“Relatability is big currency in pop culture these days and it’s a common phenomenon for us to interpret songs, books, movies and more based on our own experiences. We inject importance into their storylines and lyrics based on how they make us feel about our lives, the lines between whether a piece of art is actually good or just makes us feel seen increasingly blurred. It’s an event that doesn’t escape Rowsell’s of our self-important society: “Every book you take and you dust off from the shelf/ Has lines between lines between lines that you read about yourself,” she observes. “Does a light shine on you?”

It’s sharp, smart songwriting that provides both a critical assessment of humanity’s egotistical impulses and allows us to do the very thing it warns of – finding ourselves in the lyrics and moulding them to fit our worlds. Wolf Alice have long proven themselves to be one of the best and brightest bands in Britain, but here they give us yet more evidence that they’re still setting the standard for UK music and beyond.

Usually, the start of a new era for the four-piece is signalled by a storming, moshpit-inciting banger. Their 2015 debut album ‘My Love Is Cool’ had the sludgy swagger of ‘Giant Peach’ and ‘Yuk Foo’ – the first track from their phenomenal 2017 album ‘Visions Of A Life’ – set fire to everything that had come before in a blaze of urgent rock riffs and guttural screams from Rowsell. Even EPs ‘Blush’ (2013) and ‘Creature Songs’ (2014) introduced themselves with tracks that made you want to throw yourself headfirst into a sweaty mass of strangers.

‘The Last Man On Earth’, though, changes tack. It’s not until midway through the song that we get much more than Rowsell’s vocals and a simple piano line. It’s a different pace for the band – one that puts their singer at the forefront and lets her emotive voice do the work until we enter a grand, powerful second half. As she delivers one of the song’s most cutting lines (“Who are you to ask for anything more/ The only thing you should be asking for is help”), drummer Joel Amey, bassist Theo Ellis and guitarist Joff Oddie enter the stage and gradually lift the track to epic new heights that dip between vintage psych riffs and majestic walls of sound built to fill arenas”.

One of my top five choices for the best track of the year, Wolf Alice’s beautiful masterpiece that is The Last Man on Earth is one everyone needs to hear. There are a lot of other songs vying for a top five place (including Billie Marten’s Human Replacement), though I could not omit this song. It is one that stunned me back in February. It seems Wolf Alice can get even better and bigger. Given the strength and brilliance of Blue Weekend, that is…

QUITE a scary thought!

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Eighty-One: Bree Runway

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

 PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Cunningham 

Part Eighty-One: Bree Runway

___________

AS one of the three nominees…

for this year’s Rising Star prize at the BRITs (the winner will be announced on 10th December), I wanted to shine a light on Bree Runway. Although she is a relatively new artist on the block. I feel she is a future icon and someone who is going to have an incredible future. I will come to a few interviews in a minute, so that we can find out more about her intentions, background and power. The 2000and4Eva mixtape was released last year. I believe Bree Runway is planning an album next year, though she has released/appeared on songs since her mixtape came out. I want to illustrate a positive review of Bree Runway’s incredible mixtape. This is what The Forty-Five had to say about a fantastic release:

“Bree Runway’s YouTube channel description reads: ‘it’s like Lady Gaga and Lil Kim had a love child”. Writing about Bree already feels like writing about a star like Gaga, and that’s not just because she recently covered ‘Paparazzi’, though her performance cements what we already knew: the pop kingdom is Bree’s for the taking.

‘2000And4Eva’ is more than a love letter to the year 2000 – the record illuminates a path between eighties/nineties pop and female pop artistry of today. The nine tracks flaunt Bree’s hard graft in mixing genres and generations to invent something fresh, a mission the self-defined ‘alternative black girl’ first embarked on with a self-released debut EP in 2015. Back then, her DIY creative spirit and visual edginess shone out from her Hackney bedroom. By 2017 she was dancing on stage with Years & Years’ Olly Alexander. By 2018, she’d signed to EMI.

A dedicated scholar of MTV, Bree is steeped in the aura of past decades. The theatrics of Madonna and Kiss, the gated reverb of Phil Collins, a Grace Jones flamboyance, sitcom scenes, chunky pink phones, leather jackets and leg-warmers: eighties cues sit alongside rap and r’n’b wisdom from artists like Missy Elliott and Timbaland.

Yet Bree’s songs are never trapped by nostalgia. Watch the ‘Damn Daniel’ music video and you start to believe she actually invented the eighties. The best song on the mixtape, it’s also a strong contender for best pop song of 2020, so dangerously catchy you’ll find yourself singing “if you fuck with him, he’ll fuck all your friends” aloud in the supermarket. The final minute of ‘Damn Daniel’ is possibly the most glorious minute of pop this year. ‘4 Nicole Thea & Baby Reign’ is a brief but emotional tribute to a lost friend, while ‘Little Nokia’ bleeds together rap and crunchy guitar, Claire’s Accessories in grown-up song form, chains, spikes and all. Elsewhere, her lines range from the funny – “Snatchin’ everybody wigs, now they look like thumbs” – to the all-out flex: “He only hit me with a tеxt when he want that goddess-level sex”. Bree doesn’t take herself seriously – and she takes herself as seriously as death.

‘Apeshit’, the single that snared praise from Missy Elliott, finds nice significance in sharing mixtape space with ‘ATM’, which Missy actually guests on, but it’s testament to Bree’s artistic strength that this isn’t even the most important moment on the record. On ‘Rolls Royce’ she draws out the n-word just long enough to remind you of that black square you posted on Instagram in June. This year, while everyone was busy pledging ‘to understand’, Bree got on with squaring up to the obstacles in her way through sheer talent and determination.

‘2000and4Eva’ is not very long, and we already know four of its tracks. We want an album! But Bree Runway already carries herself like a star: she doesn’t need to rush. She’s busy blasting aside the expectations of her race and gender, seeing how many boxes she can rip open before deciding what to do with their contents. Watch out, Gagas and Dua Lipas of the world: Bree Runway is on her way. Actually, she’s already here”.

The first interview takes us back to late last year. DIY inducted Bree Runway into their Class of 2021. Among other things, Bree Runway talked about putting her mixtape together. There is a real sense of confidence and excitement that comes through when she speaks:

“And it shows. For ‘2000AND4EVA’, Bree amassed a small crew of exciting female artists to jump on her songs (Rico Nasty and Maliibu Miitch, alongside Tate and Missy) - women who celebrate their differences and won’t be defined by industry standards.

“When you’re stepping out into music, you can think, ‘I better do what people would like and I better do what’s popular’,” she says of her earlier, R&B-focused sound. “But again, the choice thing: if it doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t feel completely natural to you, then don’t do it. I’m so much more than what I was doing when I first started. The amount of people that listen to me, the different countries, the amount of fan accounts... The conversations are different, the opportunities are different, everything is different. That saying is true: when you work hard for a year, things can really really change.”

Being a pop star in 2021 is harder than it was twenty years ago. In the early noughties, Lady Gaga could control the image she projected to the world, not setting foot outside without an encasing of bubble wrap, a dress made of flesh or, at the very least, a really, really uncomfortable pair of shoes. It all helped build the cult of Gaga. But in an always-on social media age where everyone, famous or not, is expected to share constantly, is that level of stardom still achievable?

PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah Diamond

“There’s a Bree Runway gloss, and I love my stuff looking star-studded, but sometimes I don’t mind breaking out of character and showing people how silly I am or how funny in a very non-corny way, because I actually am really funny, aren’t I?”

Oh. We’re supposed to answer. “Yes, yes. You’re really funny, yes.” It’s the only hint we’ve had all day that Bree needs any kind of validation. We’re kind of flattered.

Watching her glide through today’s photoshoot, directing the photographer, stylist and make-up artist, it’s obvious we’re seeing a real visionary at work - someone whose career is going to twist and turn in lots of exciting, unforeseen ways. With artists like Rihanna and Madonna building business empires alongside their musical output, is Runway Enterprises something we can expect in future?

“Oh definitely,” she confirms. “Just like I said about me being more than one genre, there’s definitely more to me as a woman as a whole. I’m into fashion, I’m into tech, I’m into cars. There’s so much more that lies ahead. I’d love to do a collaboration with Lamborghini - that would be sick.

“A pop star needs to be a chameleon,” she continues. “Your ability to switch and adapt needs to be on 10. A pop star needs to be a fashion icon. And a pop star needs to be any genre they want to be at any time.”

With so much achieved in this, the most unconventional of times, it’s undeniable that 2021 is going to be a behemoth of a year for Bree. She’s keeping tight-lipped about what’s next, although we’re sure it’s already mapped out on a vision board somewhere.

“What’s coming is that Bree Runway is going to change the game,” she says, with a glint in her eye”.

Actually, there is another 2020 interview that is worth sourcing. It seems, reading this interview from DORK that the lure of MTV and the power of music videos helped captivate Bree Runway at a young age:

“Pledging no allegiances to any genre, always expect the unexpected with Bree. She’s got big dreams and a 20/20 vision that’d have you thinking she’s been doing this for decades.

In a way, she has. Born in Hackney, Bree grew up glued to the telly, watching music videos on MTV which influenced her own artistry later on (the ‘APESHIT’ video is so Missy Elliot, it got co-signed by the legend herself). A born performer, she’d put on shows for her family as a kid, organising the whole thing herself.

“My mum used to go to work, and me and my cousin would be left at home, and we would always watch MTV. That inspired me to start hosting mini-concerts to my family members,” she says over the phone from London, where she’s performing the decidedly less glam task of combing banana from a hair mask out of her hair.

“So I’d organise the line-up, and I would decide which cousin would be singing and which cousin would dance and which cousin would rap, and then I’d tell the adults that we’re gonna come down by eight o’clock, I need everyone’s sat down and then we’d perform for them. Then that carried through to primary school and stuff. I would do performances, and my mum was almost like our own Tina Knowles because she’d make our costumes for us. And she’s still very involved in my costume stuff today.”

 When it comes to inspiration, she’s got no end of it. From actual Michelle Obama coming to Bree’s school (yes, really), watching her sing and encouraging her to pursue music (“She had a lot of time for me that day, and she gave me some very inspirational words, I have to thank her for that”), to the icons she grew up watching, she’s constantly motivated to create bold and distinctive art.

The confidence she exudes today, however, has taken a long time to build up. She mentions she was wary about the idea of becoming an artist due to how she was bullied over her dark skin as a child.

“I was never fully confident enough to go for music completely, though, so I would start and stop a lot. I was just aware of how much more you’re seen when you’re an artist, you’re more open to the public, and because of how much I was bullied growing up, I didn’t want to put myself in that position. But with age and just being exposed to more artists, like Lady Gaga, Grace Jones, because I saw pieces of myself in them, they kind of inspired me to just go for it no matter what people think about you. Some people think they’re crazy, some people think they’re amazing, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, because they’re still icons.”

But learning to love herself was crucial to who she is as an artist today. Click on any of her music videos or check the replies to her tweets and you’ll find many young Black girls telling Bree what an inspiration she is and how she’s everything they wanted to see in a pop star growing up. The video for ‘Big Racks’ kicks off with statistics about racism in the workplace, and throughout she’s shown experiencing various microaggressions, and eventually covering her face in white plasters to assimilate”.

Last year was definitely a big one for Bree Runway. Even though it was strange for all artists, she did enjoy some real success and recognition. Vogue profiled her earlier in the year, where we get a sense of how things have exploded this past year:

“It’s been a rollercoaster year for everyone, but yours also took you to record highs in your career. How have you been finding it?

I split up with management at the top of the year, so I’ve been working solo, and still having to produce music videos and stuff. There’s the help of the team, of course, but I have just jumped over every single hurdle this year. The rewards have been rude. Getting 4Music “Artist of the month.” Cardi B found me; Saweetie; Doja can’t stop singing my praises. It’s really like, “What? What the hell?!” Fans always say, “You should be on like a gazillion eyes” – but it’s just not about the superficial stuff for me, it’s about the eyes that are watching you. That is so important. The impact you’re leaving on other Black girls to get more creative or think without limit.

Usually you build local buzz, then national, then international, but with you, it feels like it’s been everything at once.

You can’t make it up. I’m so happy that the biggest stars in the world recognise me and rate what I’m doing. It’s so crazy how the love changes when it crosses over to a global thing. In the UK, everyone’s quite conservative. No-one wants to look like a fan. Then your music gets passed over to people who are not afraid to make you feel like you’re the hottest thing on the planet. We really got to loosen up here, seriously.

 What’s your biggest artistic inspiration?

Everyday life. I can make music out of anything. Even that phone ringing, I could sample that. I grew up listening to Missy, Britney, Kelis, Lil Kim, Grace Jones, all the eccentric, out-there women. And men like Freddie Mercury, David Bowie. Those are my peopledem. I’m currently listening to old Latin music from like the 1970s, old Daddy Yankee, and also Kate Bush. I don’t want to sound shady but music was just more experimental before. I feel like people experimented with sounds and crossed genres. It just gives me assurance in myself that what I’m doing isn’t so strange or left. It’s been done in different ways. You just need to focus on nourishing your way. I’m from here, but I don't make Afropop or Afroswing or whatever. My genre is very much a fluid thing. You close your eyes for a minute… She’s a country singer. Oh, she’s a rock star. This is my comfort, this quirky eccentric world.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m going to start working on the debut album. I already have a concept for it. I want it to be a true embodiment of everything I am, which is everything. I haven’t really started singing on music yet, but I can sing. That’s the rebel in me being like, just because I have a nice voice doesn’t mean I have to be a singer. But, I’m gonna sing more on the album.

What’s your biggest dream?

I have so many. One is to be a leading example of the fact that a Black girl can do anything, and Black girls are everything. I want to be a huge advocate for that. What you expect from us all — oop, there’s more, much, much more to what you expect, and what you think we should be doing. I want to be a huge example of that — global. Like, “If Bree did it, I can do it.”

You once said you were scared of fame; how are you feeling now?

I feel good. I was only afraid of being more famous because I was afraid of being seen. I thought people were gonna say the things about me they said in school. It’s definitely about silencing the inner child that has been hurt and bullied and just assuring her that we’re all good – like, it’s not the same anymore, babe. We got this. And it’s been great. People receive it. They love it. They actually love me for me. So it’s just like, what were them hoes talking about again?”.

Before closing up, there is another interview I want to source. Bree Runway is a star who is definitely primed for amazing success and a huge legacy. THE FACE chatted with her back in May. The broad and unconventional source of inspiration means her music and sound is different to anything else. She is definitely changing the shape of Pop and Rap:

“You’ve got to fake it ​‘till you make it,” she says of her evolution from a performance-shy child to a fearless pop innovator. ​“I’m a very outlandish person in how I dress.” (Think Lil’ Kim meets Lizzie McGuire, styled in Jean Paul Gaultier.) ​“I just had to own the fact that I was going to get stared at. Then I realised that a lot of the same people who were staring started looking like me or doing what I do. It’s only weird because you’re the only one doing it. When they see how much it works for you, they all want a piece of it.”

Disrupting pop’s status quo with an ever-evolving, shape-shifting sound, Runway’s lane is as wide as it is long, switching gears between genres on each and every track. Released last November, debut mixtape 2000and4Eva is a case in point. Throwback hip-hop and electro? Check. Futuristic reggae? Check. Hard-hitting punk rap? Check. Club-ready bangers? Duh.

When you look back at the biggest pop stars of the past few decades – Madonna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé – the one quality they all share is the ability to reinvent themselves. Typically, this sound and image revamp is ushered in with a new album cycle, presenting fans with a fresh ​“era” to mark the occasion. But Bree Runway is yet to release her debut album and we’ve already seen her take on more genres than most artists will cover throughout their entire careers, packaged with jaw-dropping aesthetics each time.

She’s straddled a giant, Y2K mobile phone in the music video for Little Nokia, channelled Shania Twain’s That Don’t Impress Me Much leopard print ensemble for Damn Daniel, and in What Do I Tell My Friends? twerked over her murder victim’s bloodied body. For Runway, it’s less of a reinvention and more a showcase of her versatility. We’re not witnessing her first era; we’re being invited into her universe, one that’s only set to expand as her star continues to rise.

“Going to the studio and making a fresh sound every single day? That’s as easy as breathing to me,” says Runway, matter-of-factly. ​“It would be more pressure to look at Spotify statistics, see what the most popular songs are and try to replicate them.”

A lot of her influences are a far cry from the sounds currently in the charts. She listens to Ghanaian highlife artists such as Daddy Lumba to soak up the genre’s unique percussion. She delves into the catalogues of late-Seventies/early-Eighties American funk pioneers Zapp to analyse their use of vocoders. She plays soca, calypso music that originated in Trinidad, because, well, she just likes it.

But it all started with Britney – the video for her 2001 classic I’m A Slave 4 U, to be specific. She first saw it at a sleepover with her cousin. MTV was on in the background, as young Brenda lay on the floor pretending to be asleep. ​“I turned around and saw Britney Spears’ belly out on the TV and she was doing her sweaty choreo. I had to wake my cousin up!” She spent the next day gripped to the screen, waiting to see the music video again. ​“Britney Spears did pop in such a cutting-edge way and her collaborating with Pharrell, that whole era, was just great. She was a pure example of what a pop star is.”

It’s fitting, then, that Runway’s first single of 2021, Hot Hot, upholds I’m A Slave 4 U’s raunchy, sweaty legacy. Titillating viewers as she flips her hair and washes a car in the music video, the track is a summer scorcher, reminding us all that ​“You can never ever do it like a Brenda”.

Now, Runway is preparing to reach her next career milestone: the debut album. At first, this felt like a daunting task, the pressure to ​“strike while the iron is hot” being at odds with her instinct to wait until she was in the ​“perfect place to write an album”. But the week after we speak, she’s clearly found her groove, teasing her Instagram followers with a photo in the studio.

“It’s going to be an extension of my work, but on the highest level,” she promises confidently. ​“You’re going to be getting variety. I’m going to try some things that I haven’t tried before. I’m going to be singing way more. It’s going to be sick.”

Runway’s journey isn’t only about her own success, though. There are personal goals she’d like to achieve (there’s a big one she’s about to tick off – a feature on a Lady Gaga record). But above all, she wants to inspire others.

“I would love to continue to impact the lives of Black women around the world,” she says, acknowledging the positive effect seeing someone like her on TV might have had when she was younger. ​“And I would love to birth a generation of stand-out kids, who were the underdogs growing up but have something unique in them and, because of me, they don’t feel like they have to play it down.” Bree Runway pauses briefly, searching for the right words to prophesise her own impact. ​“I want to see artists that are just on some other shit”.

Whether she is named as the BRITs’ Rising Star or not, Bree Runway is already a star and is someone in a league of her own! I will end with a playlist of the best tracks from Bree Runway to date. She is a sensational and inspiring artist who has…

A whole lot more to say.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Lola Young

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Alice Foster

Lola Young

___________

I wanted to put…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Alice Foster

Lola Young in my Spotlight feature as, on 10th December, we will find out whether she is the BRITs Rising Star (she is up against Holly Humberstone and Bree Runway). Young is also on the shortlist for BBC’s Sound of 2022. She is an amazing young talent who is only just in her twenties. I want to come to some interviews where we can find out more about her and the amazing work she has released already. I wonder if she has plans for another album (following her 2019 debut, Intro. Before getting to any interviews, here is some background and biography about one of the U.K.’s brightest young artists:

“Fiercely independent and possessing a true artistic vision, 20-year-old Lola Young has all the potential, spirit and individuality to become the UK’s next biggest talent.

Growing up in south London and with an inherent sense of direction and personal drive, Lola immersed herself in music. “It’s been a part of my life since I had my first memory,” she says. “And I’ve been singing since I could talk. Not that I was a good singer then. I really had to learn, practice, get lessons and teach myself. Hard work was involved when it came to me learning how to sing. People might say, ‘It sounds like you were born with that voice.’ It was not the case at all.”

Hard work could be her motto. Despite her age, Lola has been living and breathing music for nearly half her life. She started writing songs aged 11, and by the time she reached 13, she had already competed in (and won) a national open mic competition and appeared on a television show that gave young teens a sense of what life working in the music industry was like. “I was still young,” she recalls, “and while I had managers and labels interested then, which was cool, I didn’t really give it a legitimate thought.”

Securing herself a place at the prestigious BRIT school (Amy Winehouse, Rex Orange County, Loyle Carner), Lola says she spent her time at the school “finding myself creatively and stylistically”. Still, something wasn’t quite right. “School is a difficult thing because it's about conforming and authority,” she says of her time spent in education. “And those are two things that I've never really loved.”

Once she graduated from the BRIT school, she began gigging non-stop around London and focusing on fine tuning her abilities as a live performer. “When people talk to me about performing live,” the 18-year-old says, “I say that I’ve always worked so hard in that area. I’ve done so many shitty open mic pub gigs where I’ve rocked up and played to three old men drinking beer and talking through my performance. But I had to do that.”

At the heart of Lola’s live set was the music she had written. While most artists might distance themselves from the songs they wrote when they were young, Lola embraces the emotional and musical journey she’s been on. One specific song, “I Learned From You”, was written five years ago when she was just 13, and is a highlight of her live set. In fact, despite its age, the track still manages to leave Lola in her feelings. Recalling one particularly emotional performance that left her tearful, Lola says: “That song was written about a close family member and after I performed it at that show, someone came to me and said that it made them think about this figure in their life. And it was like, ‘Wow! That is exactly what I wrote it about.’ They had attributed it to their own life. That blew my mind.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Bailey 

Lola soon found herself being managed by industry figureheads Nick Shymansky and Nick Hugget and signed a deal with Island Records, the label that she says felt most homely. It’s all been a crash course in resilience. “And when I say resilience,” she continues, “I mean you have to be able to know what you want. And you have to know what you are. Actually, no one knows who they are,” she laughs, “but you can know what you're trying to be. I always had a rough idea of what I was trying to be.”

That vision manifests itself in the music she writes. “My music is all the different parts of me and how I work,” she explains. In this way, it defies categorisation, while every beat and melody has meaning and intention. As a lyricist, Lola draws you in to her world, creating evocative scenes with all the tenderness and sensitivity of a folk artist, while maintaining the sharpness, wit and attitude of a rapper.

This is exemplified on debut single “Six Feet Under”, a haunting, subtle but hook-laden song that feels sketched out of Lola’s very being. Co-produced by Al Shux (Kendrick Lemar, Jay Z), the song was written by Lola on the piano before being worked into an atmospheric, celestial, ambient and lightly electronic missive with an unconventional beat and Lola’s heart wrenching vocals singing about the battle to pull yourself out of depression. “It’s about that mental feeling of being stuck in a time and place while the world continues to turn,” Lola says of the song. “Life goes one, regardless of the way you feel about it.”

Elsewhere, “The Man” plays with intimate balladry and electronic minimalism, while songs like “3rd Jan” and “Blind Love” cover different sides of her boundless sonic universe. The latter especially is so tender and barefaced, Lola’s voice pulled back to a whisper, that it feels inevitable that it will become emblematic of thousands of people’s relationships, the soundtrack to love itself.

“As a songwriter I like that I can listen to an album and I can feel inspired to write a song,” Lola says of her inspirations. “But usually I’d say that I write when I’m really in touch with my feelings. I use it as my therapy.” Raised on a diet of Joni Mitchell and Prince, Lola, as a standout lyricist, says that she feels particularly inspired by artists who she considers poets first. “A lot of people say that they don’t hear Joni or these artists in my music, but they’re there. I have always been interested in words and how they fit together.”

The battling spirit that saw Lola pushing against the authoritative restraints at school applies to her approach to her career. “I think it’s interesting because people always try to box you,” she explains. “But what I always say is that you should just make the box really big. Because at the end of the day, when people say they want to box you or pigeonhole you, it means that they want to restrict you. Without sounding narcissistic, I'm not really one thing. I'm quite a few things and my music is quite a few things. And I think that’s important to remember: you're not just one thing.”

Such self-assurance is essential in the music industry but Lola admits she still feels overwhelmed when hearing how her music resonates with people. “It’s intense,” she explains. “I struggle with personal issues myself and even though it’s really overwhelming and beautiful when people come up to me and tell me these things, I will only hear the negative. I feel like a lot of musicians are like that. They’ll come off stage and they’ll focus on what went wrong.” She is learning, though: “It’s important to forgive yourself for those things.”

Exceptionally talented with an undeniable creative focus, she is a musical force. A thrilling and uncompromising live performer with an astute and unique gift for writing songs that encapsulate and explore the human condition, Lola Young can’t be boxed or categorised. And because of that she is one of the most exciting new British artists ready to be discovered”.

Before coming to interviews from this year, I want to head back to last year. Atwood Magazine spoke with Lola Young about her incredible track, Woman. It followed up a terrific E.P. in the form of Renaissance:

“British singer/songwriter Lola Young opens her most empowering release to date with a raw foreword of sorts; an author’s note introducing the subject matter at hand, establishing both the context for the art we are about to experience and why we are experiencing it. Vulnerable, heartfelt, and polished, “Woman” features Lola Young in her finest hour with a stirring ode to and embrace of womxnhood. Unapologetic and fierce, it’s a seismic emotional outpouring and a stunning expression of love and respect not just for herself, but for all the womxn in her life.

Many great songs have been named “Woman,” and few have come as close to capturing the essence of womxnhood as Lola Young’s “Woman.” Released July 27, the artist’s follow-up to her April EP Renaissance is an effortless, intimately charged upheaval in the very best of ways. The 19-year-old pours herself out in an achingly honest dedication. “‘Woman’ is a song about female empowerment,” Young shared upon the track’s release. “It’s a song about how I feel towards the patriarchy, but also an introspective piece that looks at the gender roles and how these can be broken down. This song means a lot to me because it’s something I had never previously written about and it has an honest vulnerability to it that I hope makes people feel an understanding towards us women.”

I wanted to write an ode to women because I felt it was important, where we are socially, to use my voice to empower women and their bodies in particular.

Young’s lyrics bounce between empowerment, common critiques and double-standards for womxn, and pure assertions of strength, inner and outer beauty. She sugarcoats nothing, painting a vivid portrait of her female experience in a patriarchal society. As a song, “Woman” balances this structural imbalance with a feverish dedication to overcome, persevere, and embody the artist’s womxnhood. This vision comes to life in Young’s Olivia Rose-directed music video. “I wanted to make this video because I believe women are all undeniably strong, sexy, free, brave, vulnerable, raw and powerful, and that we do not have to hide away,” Young explains. “We do not have to remain unseen, our bodies should never be sexualised or a taboo conversation, or only seen through the male gaze. We have the ability to normalise our bodies being on show, and accept them for their differences, as It’s important to remember those differences are currently often shamed. I came up with the idea of the women in the video being fully nude. The energy on set was insane, I have never felt more empowered in my life. Nipples, bums, rolls, stretch marks, cellulite, all of these things are beautiful along with the ‘perfect’ body.”

This is my personal experience of being a woman; hopefully other women will have their own take on what it means to them.

 Lola Young’s “Woman” is uncompromisingly soulful, impassioned, and utterly electrifying. Co-produced with Wolf Tone founder and producer Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence and the Machine, Rihanna), it is without a doubt the most mature offering we have yet heard from the emerging artist – a vivid immersion of intoxicating, deep grooves and heated vocals with a clear, strong vision”.

WHAT ATTRACTS YOU TO THE SUBJECTS OF BOTH FEMALE EMPOWERMENT AND STRIFE?

Lola Young: I don’t really know what attracts me to it; I guess I just feel things like most people do and because of this I want other people to feel things when listening to my music. This is quite a political song and I have always been attracted and interested in social politics so the fact that women’s bodies are definitely over sexualised is something I thought would be interesting to write about, as I haven’t heard many other songs speak about this.

YOU REPEAT THE WORD “WOMAN” AGAIN AND AGAIN, REALLY EMPHASIZING THE IDENTITY BOTH ASSOCIATED WITH AND TAKEN FROM THE WORD. WHAT DOES THAT WORD, “WOMAN,” MEAN TO YOU?

Lola Young: The word “woman” means very different things depending on how I’m feeling. However, in general I’d say the word woman means the ability to be strong whilst being emotional. The ability to be many things at once. To me it means being free whilst at some points being quite the opposite, but it also is about how we change that little by little and how a woman is of course different from a man, but nevertheless just as powerful.

YOUR SINGING IS TRULY RAW AND FEARLESS IN THIS SONG. HOW DID THE RECORDING PROCESS FOR CAPTURING SOME OF THESE INTIMATE LINES SHAKE OUT? WHAT WAS THAT PERFORMANCE LIKE, FOR YOU?

Lola Young: It was hard work recording the vocal for this song, but I really made sure I put myself in the place when singing that meant I could really feel the lyrics and the melody. It was tough and it took a while but I loved recording it over and over because it meant I could really try and capture the right emotive take”.

I am interested knowing when Lola Young got bitten by the musical bug and how it all started for her. A great interview with The Forty-Five from earlier in the year sees them ask her that, in addition to (among other subjects) when she started working on her stunning voice; also what the future holds for her:

“You got started in music incredibly young. Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

Yeah, I was around 11 when I wrote my first song and it probably wasn’t any good. I can remember writing one, a Christmas song on the piano, and it was terrible! I just remember something about Santa and all this rubbish. It wasn’t great but it was the start of my development. I have material from when I was 13/14 that I still use today. Women mature a lot quicker, so I don’t think I’ve changed that much between 13, 14, and 20. Obviously, I’ve changed, but in terms of my songwriting style and everything, I don’t think that’s changed too much. There’s a song called ‘I Learned From You’, which is coming out in the near future and I wrote that when I was very young. I just wanted to be a songwriter at first.

When did you start to work on your voice?

Some artists, they’re born with an incredible voice. A lot of the best are gospel singers who go and sing in Church growing up. They just have it in them and for me, I couldn’t really do that. I had to go to vocal coaching and singing lessons to train my voice to ensure that it wasn’t weak.

I’m quite content with the way things are going but I did have a cyst on my vocal cords chopped off last year. It was horrible. My voice is much deeper and a bit breathier now and I couldn’t sigh high at all. I went to my GP and they said: “You either live with this and it’s fine. It won’t do any harm, but you live with it. Or we have to do surgery.” And I was like, “I’m doing surgery.”

After surgery, I had three days of no talking. I had to write everything down on a piece of paper. Obviously, they just didn’t like me talking – rude, right? So then after that, it was honestly pretty traumatic. The whole process of recovery, which is really hard because it’s not only that you need to relearn how to sing. It’s that you need to relearn how to talk.

Finally, what can we look forward to seeing from you in the future? Is there anything that you can tease?

So I’ve got a project coming out, which I’m very, very excited about. I’m not gonna give away too much, but it’s an EP called ‘After Midnight’ that’s very raw and not really like anything that I’ve done before. If I’m going to be honest, all the music I’ve made so far I’m happy and content with, but I also do feel like there’s more to me. Without sounding like Kanye! But I do think there’s more to me and I’m just excited for the next few projects. One day, I’d love to drop a trap album honestly, like straight trap songs, or some pure folk. So we’ll see!”.

NOTION spoke to Lola Young back in August about her new E.P., After Midnight. They asked whether, having released her debut as a teenager, the music industry treated her differently (compared with how they would deal with a slightly older artist):

“Firstly, mental health is such an important topic of conversation, so how are you doin

I’m alright you know; I think I’m good. I have a mental health condition, so I know and understand the struggle of someone who goes through it day-to-day. Luckily mine is very much sporadic, my episodes kind of come at different points in my life. So, right now I think I’m good, I mean it is what it is. I also just want to say thank you for asking this question because I think it is so important for it to become normality to ask people how they actually are. I’m someone who usually does ask that question, I think it’s really important to check up on the people around you, or even those that aren’t. I met a girl recently on a video that I was at, and I could tell that they seemed quite down, so you’ve always got to check. Sometimes you can sense it just by a person’s energy.

What inspired you to become an artist? Had you always known you wanted to do music?

Yeah, I’ve always known I wanted to do music since I was very young and it was just one of those things where there was never another option for me. It was only this. I was never really good at anything else when I was at school. Like I was good at school, but I wasn’t amazing, you know? And I feel like there are two types of people in this world, there are the people that are sick at school and academics and then there are the people that just aren’t very good. And with the education system, there seems to be this thing where there’s just no middle ground. I mean there are people who get B’s and C’s, but they just classify that as being ‘not good’. There are a lot of creative people in this world, and I think a lot of them have a tendency to be a bit contained or reserved when this shouldn’t be the case.

I read that you released your debut album at only age 18; have you felt people treat you differently in the industry due to your age [Lola is now 20]?

Yes and no. Growing up I was always – I don’t want to say mature, because I definitely haven’t always been mature, haha. But in the sense of that, I’m able to just talk to people and to communicate what I want. So, I don’t feel like that’s ever really been an issue because I always know what I want in regard to my music. Also, that first release, I see it more as just a little project that I dropped, and yeah, I guess you could call it an album, but it was more just me experimenting. Basically, I feel like people will only treat you differently if you feel differently yourself. Now that’s obviously not the same in every scenario, but I feel like people will only treat you differently if you allow them to.

Did the Covid-19 lockdown affect you as an artist or was it a blessing in disguise?

I’d say a blessing in disguise in some sense where I could really focus on myself and my music. But also, the complete opposite at times. It was very hard for a lot of people, especially us creatives because it messed up a lot of things. It messed up a lot of my plans and other artists’ plans. So definitely a blessing and a curse at the same time for sure.

How do you go about setting yourself goals? Do you tend to set massive ones or like month by month?

I think I try to set small ones but sometimes they just end up really big and too far for me to reach. I think it’s important to set yourself small goals. Even just when we spoke about mental health, setting small goals like I’m going to wake at this time tomorrow and make my bed. In reality, that is such a small goal but if you do it then it can help set off a chain of events. So yeah, in terms of my music I definitely try to set up a group of smaller goals rather than a few big ones”.

Not only is Lola Young the singer behind this year’s John Lewis advert. She could also be named as the BRITs’ rising star. Even if she is not, the fact that she has been nominated demonstrates how important and promising a talent she is! An artist with a long and successful career ahead of her, go and follow her and check out the music. London-based Lola Young is a remarkable songwriter and singer possessed of…

SUCH enormous promise.

_______________

Follow Lola Young

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/lolayounggg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lolayoungmusic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/lolayounggg/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCytDCxKs_rP8sBXjLmEs8jA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/67FB4n52MgexGQIG8s0yUH

FEATURE: Spotlight: Cassandra Jenkins

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Cassandra Jenkins

___________

ON this occasion…

I am spotlighting an artist I only turned onto relatively recently. The amazing Cassandra Jenkins is someone who has released one of the best albums of the year with An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. Her second studio album, it is a sublime Alternative Folk album that is dreamy and impressionistic. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for the album in a bit. Before that, it is worth sourcing a couple of interviews with the Brooklyn-born artist. In a detailed and brilliant interview with Pitchfork, we discover more about Jenkins’ path into music. She also talks about what it was like working with the late musician David Berman:

“As we lay in the snow, arms outstretched as if we got tired in the middle of making snow angels, Jenkins tells me about the author and filmmaker Miranda July’s idea of “everyday acting,” how you can make scenes out of ordinary moments if the people around you are willing to “go there” with you. For Jenkins, 36, this means adopting a persona when talking to a stranger in the grocery store, sporting binoculars around birders to signal that she’s one of them—or plopping in the snow in the middle of a crowded park. She gets a lot of joy from these performances because they allow her to step outside herself and dissolve into another space with a stranger.

The idea of decentering the self comes up again and again as a guiding principle behind Jenkins’ new psych-folk album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. On it, she acts as an ethnographer archiving quotidian sounds and conversations as much as a songwriter telling her own story. Album closer “The Ramble” transforms birdsong and footsteps recorded in the woodsy park sanctuary into a droning meditation. “Hailey” is a straightforward document of a friend’s Instagram post made tender by Jenkins’ cautious vocal delivery and the finger-plucked guitar and banjo notes. And centerpiece “Hard Drive” is a spoken word mantra that references people Jenkins interacted with in her day-to-day life: a security guard, bookkeeper, psychic, and driving instructor. Their idiosyncrasies, like the security guard’s feminism and the psychic’s reassurance, come together to form one consciousness—all the little pieces of herself that Jenkins finds in others.

Jenkins’ relationship with music has always been inextricably linked to her family. Her parents played cruise ships as part of a lounge act in the 1980s before raising Jenkins in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When Jenkins was a child, her dad bought a bus so their family band could drive around the country and perform at obscure folk festivals together. Up until the pandemic hit last year, her family regularly hosted touring musicians and held concerts in that same Manhattan home. It was at these shows that Jenkins played some of the songs on her new album for the first time.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2006, she bounced between day jobs and said yes to playing in every group she could including, but by no means limited to, a honky tonk bar band, a surf band, an emo band, and a synth-pop band. She went on her first tour in 2010 with an all-female bluegrass outfit called Uncle Earl and has since played with indie rock vets like Craig Finn and Eleanor Friedberger. “She has this calmness about her where you notice immediately that she’s really listening to you,” Friedberger says of Jenkins. “A lot of times in New York when you meet other musicians they’re always thinking of the next thing to say to impress you, but she’s just not like that at all.”

In the summer of 2019, Jenkins was preparing for a three-month tour as part of celebrated songwriter David Berman’s new band, Purple Mountains. But right before the trek was set to start, Berman took his own life. “We weren’t close friends, and I only knew him for four days, but I still had this incredibly unique experience of him,” Jenkins says, adding that she was profoundly impacted by his death. Though she was initially nervous to write about Berman, his spirit permeates Phenomenal Nature. On “Ambiguous Norway,” his memory surrounds her like fog, and on “New Bikini” she ruminates on the advice her friends gave her—“Baby, go jump in the ocean”—to cope with the loss.

Berman’s songs were full of darkness and vulnerability, lit up by wry observations about suburban kids, airport bars, and country clubs. He and Jenkins share a propensity to watch the world and insist on wonder as a guiding principle. Despite the loneliness and disappointment in their work, there’s a hopeful understanding that, as Berman sang on his 1998 song “People,” “Moments can be monuments to you/If your life is interesting and true.”

Soon after Berman died, Jenkins realized she had forgotten to cancel a flight to Norway that she had planned before agreeing to go on tour. When she noticed it was set to depart at the exact time her first Purple Mountains show was meant to start, she took it as a sign and went on the trip. While there, she met a Danish chef who told her that in Norway, clouds serve as proxies for mountains. The mountain reference, coupled with the fact that Berman’s middle name was Cloud, felt like an eerie coincidence, one that made her question the nature of existence itself. “I felt like all the borders of my experiences were just collapsing—it was this wink, and I was like, ‘Are you seeing this?’” she says, gesturing to a higher power above her head. “I was seeing connections like that everywhere in this really psychedelic way.”

Jenkins describes having “traveller eyes” after her trip to Norway. She obsessively recorded people and places for months, not knowing what she would do with the audio. She had written a whole set of songs, but found that they no longer felt resonant after a period of such meaningful change. She struggled the few times she tried to play them, recounting with a laugh one particularly jarring instance when she was opening for her friend Lola Kirke, the musician and actress known for role in Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America. “I ended up doing this workout routine and telling jokes about my dad,” Jenkins recalls. “At one point I remember getting off the stage and doing a conga line with the audience. Lola was in the line behind me and she asked, ‘What are you doing?’ I was like, ‘I’m having a crisis!’”

In October 2019, she booked time in the studio with producer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Josh Kaufman, whose resume includes work with the Hold Steady and the National, as well as with Taylor Swift on her two recent folk-leaning albums. Jenkins showed up with voice memos, iPhone notes, and lyrics over the course of a week, and the pair pieced together six of the album’s seven tracks. “She ended up with something totally different than she had gone in looking for,” Kaufman says. “It takes a certain kind of person to not feel the obligation of their previous impulse.” Compared to the more structured and academic approach she took to making her debut album, 2017’s Play Till You Win, the process of putting Phenomenal Nature together was purposefully loose. She wanted to write songs with two or three chords that she could easily play with strangers or her family members.

Your album is named after an exhibition of Indian visual artist Mrinalini Mukherjee’s fantastical sculptures. How did her work influence the music?

In many ways the security guard that I talked to at the exhibition is my mascot of the record. I was struck by the fact that this woman had stopped me and said, “Let me give you an overview of this thing” when in fact it was a completely subjective monologue. I loved the gall of that lady to do that. I think a lot of times when someone is offering an overview of something, it is infused with their personality. Or when someone’s asking you a question, they’re revealing something about themselves.

You held day jobs digitally restoring gems at the Natural History Museum, working at a farmer’s market, and as a photographer. How have all these different gigs shaped how you approach being a musician?

I’ve never been a careerist, especially in music. It’s always been something I live and breathe with my family. Maybe it’s also a combination of a fear of failure, or not wanting to commit myself fully because I don’t want to ruin the thing that I enjoy most in life. It’s part of my mental health practice to make sure I’m always learning about other things and not getting absorbed in the narcissistic act of putting out my own music. This record is a great example. I really didn’t think anyone was gonna hear it. But I loved making it, and it really carried me through a difficult period in my life. Music hasn’t done that for me before in this way.

What was it like playing with David Berman?

My experience of him was really informed by the days in the wake of his passing, when I met so many people that played or corresponded with him. People have so many stories of him. I was so devastated that I didn’t get to know him better.

It’s intimidating to write about someone who is such a legend to so many people. When I joined [Purple Mountains] I was nervous because I was like, “Why am I here? There are so many people that can play this guitar part, why me?” But then, when I was standing next to him, I immediately was like, “Oh I get it, I know why I’m here.” He was so funny and open, and definitely struggling. I just was so excited to love this person. I knew that immediately. I could feel how deeply he felt the songs. He had a hard time getting through the [Silver Jews] song “The Wild Kindness,” but by the time we were done rehearsing, he had gotten through it without crying.

“The Ramble” is wordless and meditative, and a slightly different tone than the rest of the album. Why did you want to end the record with that song?

It was the last song to come into place. I wrote it in May 2020, a few months after the rest of the record, because I was spending a lot of time there. I actually wrote a guitar part and an audio guide to “The Ramble” but ended up taking out both because it felt too much like a directive. I wanted it to be a walk through the park with me but I wasn’t telling you where to go. You can just choose your own adventure.

When I wrote the song, I was feeling very mournful but also watching nature creep up everywhere. I wanted it to have that energy of the dandelion that pops up between the cracks of the sidewalk. That quality of moving forward. Through a lot of tragedy, nature has its way”.

I am eager to come to the way some critics assessed An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. I have listened to Jenkins’ debut album, Play Till You Win. Her follow-up is on another level. It is definitely one of the most beautiful records of 2021. Although it may not appear high in a lot of critics’ end-of-year polls, it is an album from a magnificent songwriter. In this interview with Under the Radar Mag, we find how An Overview on Phenomenal Nature deals quite openly and starkly with grief and loss:

“Cassandra Jenkins speaks about her latest album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, while packing up her car in Upstate New York. After our conversation, she will drive back to the city to get her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. On the album’s masterful track “Hard Drive,” listeners sit in the backseat of a car while Jenkins receives driving lessons from her instructor Darryl: “Speeding up the west side, changing lanes, he reminds me to leave room for grace,” Jenkins softly says in the track.

The making of An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, not unlike learning to drive, was an exercise in letting go and vulnerability. “If you ask Darryl, driving is basically relevant to everything. That’s our spoken metaphor,” Jenkins says. The album was recorded in six days with multi-instrumentalist and producer Josh Kaufman (of Bonny Light Horseman and Muzz) at his studio. She entered the studio with some words, ideas, and loose melodies with the goal of having rough demos by the end of her stay. Instead, Jenkins says that an album steadily started to shape like “molding things out of clay.”

“My last two releases [2017’s Play Till You Win and 2013’s EP] were songs that were finished and arranged and I had lots of goals for how they would sound,” Jenkins explains. “This record was the complete opposite. I had such a hectic schedule at the time and Josh is always busy, so the time limitation really forced me to get out of my head and not overthink things. A little bit would come along and then I’d look back at a song that night and I’d start to see it forming or we’d start to see it forming in the studio.”

For the majority of An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, its ambient and folk instrumentation drifts gently, which allows Jenkins’ lyrics to be the primary focus. Across the album, she sings about grief and falling apart. In 2019, Jenkins was preparing to go on tour with David Berman’s project Purple Mountains when Berman took his own life. “I have to tell you, I was really going through a crisis and capturing that on tape,” Jenkins admits. “That’s what I feel like this record is.”

But there are also moments of profound peace and songs that feel suffused by the light of her friendships. On “New Bikini,” Jenkins’ friends, and mother, encourage her to tap into water’s restorative powers. The sentiment echoes what Bonnie Tsui writes in her book Why We Swim: “We dare to jump so we can see something new. And sometimes we do it to recover a sense of what we once had.”

“I got cracked open by some of the hard stuff that I’ve experienced over the last few years,” Jenkins says. “It left no room for the gymnastics that we can do in our minds to not admit to certain behaviors that we aren’t proud of or to quiet the voices that really need to be heard because we don’t want to face them”.

The reviews for An Overview on Phenomenal Nature have been hugely positive. I feel that more people need to listen to Cassandra Jenkins’ latest album. This is what AllMusic noted about it in their review:  

“Five years after her debut album, Cassandra Jenkins returns with Overview on Phenomenal Nature, a stunning work of impressionistic connections, contradictions, and observations all stitched together into a web of graceful dream folk. A native New Yorker with years of collaboration under her belt, Jenkins grew up within the East Coast folk community, singing and playing guitar in her family's string band before beginning a solo career in the mid-2010s. Along the way, she also cut her teeth as a session player, touring with Eleanor Friedberger, Lola Kirke, and Craig Finn. She also joined David Berman's Purple Mountains project and began rehearsing with them for a tour that was ultimately canceled after the singer's tragic death in 2019. Themes of loss and healing reverberate throughout the album, especially on the hushed "Ambiguous Norway" and the gorgeous standout "New Bikini," a pair of tracks in which Berman plays a significant role. The latter song's gentle sway and nods to the restorative power of water make it feel more palliative than mournful, a trait that could be applied to the album as a whole. From the outset, Jenkins conveys a soothing sense of intimacy that draws listeners into her small odysseys where museum guards wax philosophical on humanity's connection to nature ("Hard Drive") and the letting go can be found in the arms of a stranger ("Michelangelo"). Yet in spite of its intimacy, there's an expansive, wide-open quality to producer Josh Kaufman's arrangements which ripple with ambient synths, strings, and some stellar sax and flute work from ubiquitous local hero Stuart Bogie. With her tranquil voice and astute poetic sense, Jenkins flirts with melancholy, joy, sorrow, and wonder in a way that is both cerebral and touching. Her songwriting talent and willingness to experiment was already evident on 2017's Play 'til You Win, but the perfect balance of exploration and poignancy on Overview make it a significant step forward for her”.

To end up, there is another review that I want to mention. Pitchfork made some interesting observations when they sat down with An Overview on Phenomenal Nature:

“With the exception of “Michaelangelo,” a thematic overture that summons the understated wisdom of Aimee Mann, Jenkins composed the entire album in Kaufman’s studio over the span of a week. Plainspoken and intuitive, her writing zooms into a specific period in her life. In summer 2019, she was prepared to join David Berman on his comeback tour as Purple Mountains when, just before opening night, she received news that he had died by suicide. Throughout these songs, she guides us through the immediate aftermath—grief, helplessness, canceled flights—along with a more imagistic fog of loneliness and confusion.

While Jenkins’ early work offered a cozy spin on glammy Americana, here she and Kaufman carve a new atmosphere that feels particularly suited to this material. “Empty space is my escape,” she sings in “Crosshairs,” and her collaborators take these words as a kind of prescription, letting their melodies and rhythm materialize around her like constellations. Often, the cadence of her storytelling informs the sound of the band: Her search for enlightenment amid the depressive limbo of “New Bikini” casts them as a kind of ambient lounge act, while the solitary ghost story of “Ambiguous Norway” emits a heavenly campfire glow, like the ballads from Bon Iver rendered as sci-fi.

Jenkins’ goal as a writer is to remain present, receptive to the poetry of daily life. But anyone who has dabbled in meditation knows the other side of that pursuit: the anger of feeling stuck in your own head, the frustration at your own frustration, the fear that maybe you’ve veered too far off course to ever get centered again. Despite the lapping calm of “New Bikini,” with its luxurious saxophone accompaniment from Stuart Bogie, there is a storm brewing below the surface. In each chorus, Jenkins recalls a friend’s advice—“Baby, go get in the ocean/The water, it cures everything”—and reconsiders it with optimism, skepticism, or sarcasm. Over the course of the song, you can hear her outlook dissolve from peaceful, cosmic nothingness into the more void-like, everyday kind.

Despite the trauma in her subject matter, Jenkins’ writing summons a graceful, almost aspirational quality of lightness. She draws on the language of self-help—the mind-body connection, chakras, carving yourself from marble—but she also leaves room for pain to exist unresolved, unprocessed. She fills her music with community and friends, but she also understands that no one has it all figured out—least of all the people who claim to. This is why a song like “Crosshairs,” with its heartsick plea to “fall apart in the arms of someone entirely strange to me,” does not come across like rock bottom desperation: From Jenkins, this is a prayer, her belief that shared vulnerability can lead to its own kind of strength.

The album’s gravitational center, and her peak as a songwriter, is “Hard Drive.” Over a steady, slow-building arrangement, Jenkins recites each verse in her speaking voice, undistracted, letting us into four distinct scenes: an art exhibit, a bookshop, a driving lesson, and a friend’s birthday party. Here, Jenkins meets a psychic who offers a few words of hope and guides her through a breathing exercise. Somewhere along the way in Jenkins’ retelling, a transformation takes place. Singing in the second person, she becomes the psychic. The drums cycle uphill and the band crescendos toward a psychedelic sunrise of pedal steel and ringing, open, major chords: “We’re gonna put your heart back together,” she promises. “Are you ready?” Her voice glimmers with the confidence of someone who already knows the answer”.

Cassandra Jenkins is an artist that everyone should follow. Her songwriting digs deep and she has this voice and emotional pull that takes you directly into her music. I am going to follow her career and what comes next. It will be really interesting to see what arrives from Cassandras Jenkins…

IN 2022.

_____________

Follow Cassandra Jenkins

Official:

https://cassandrajenkins.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/CassFreshUSA

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/cassandrajenkins/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1WVGbBnzZ5WLZ2PfesIHik

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CassandraJenkinsOfficial/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRBDb1hJYCeBPeMH6KuyGg

FEATURE: A Perennial Favourite: The Legacy and Wonder of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You

FEATURE:

 

 

A Perennial Favourite

 The Legacy and Wonder of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You

___________

AT this time of year…

the Christmas classics are being played. There are new Christmas tracks every year but, to me, they are nothing compared to the greats. From the start of December (or earlier) shops and cafes are blasting out some of our absolute favourites. One of my all-time favourite Christmas tunes is Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You. She co-wrote and co-produced it with Walter Afanasieff for her fourth studio album and first holiday album, Merry Christmas (1994). The song was released as the lead single from the album on 29th October, 1994. It has Christmas ingredients like bells, a choral feel, an uplifting sound and positive message. Whereas other Christmas songs are about materialism or being with family, Carey just wants to be with a special someone. Favouring this man above lots of presents and the excesses of the season, it is a song that has a singalong chorus and a powerhouse vocal from Carey. I am going to come to an article about All I Want for Christmas Is You soon. Prior to that, there are some articles that point to its critical reception and its record sales. This Wikipedia article collates the feedback and reviews of, to me, the best Christmas track of the 1990s:

“All I Want for Christmas Is You" received critical acclaim. Roch Parisien from AllMusic called the song "a year-long banger", complimenting its instrumentation and melody. Steve Morse, editor of The Boston Globe, wrote that Carey sang with a lot of soul. In his review for Carey's Merry Christmas II You, Thomas Connor from the Chicago Sun-Times called the song "a simple, well-crafted chestnut and one of the last great additions to the Christmas pop canon".

Shona Craven of Scotland's The Herald, said, "[it's] a song of optimism and joy that maybe, just maybe, hints at the real meaning of Christmas." Additionally, she felt the main reason it was so successful is the subject "you" in the lyrics, explaining, "Perhaps what makes the song such a huge hit is the fact that it's for absolutely everyone." Craven opened her review with a bold statement: "Bing Crosby may well be turning in his grave, but no child of the 1980s will be surprised to see Mariah Carey's sublime All I Want For Christmas Is You bounding up the charts after being named the nation's top festive song." While reviewing the 2009 remix version, Becky Bain from Idolator called the song a "timeless classic" and wrote, "We love the original song to pieces—we blast it while decorating our Christmas tree and lighting our Menorah."

Kyle Anderson from MTV labeled the track "a majestic anthem full of chimes, sleigh bells, doo-wop flourishes, sweeping strings and one of the most dynamic and clean vocal performances of Carey's career". Music & Media commented, "Phil Spector's Christmas album has been the main inspiration for this carol in a "Darlene Love against the wall of sound" tradition." Music Week wrote, "Mariah meets Phil Spector, some chimes and the inevitable sleigh-bells; this is everything you would expect from a Mariah Carey record." In a 2006 retrospective look at Carey's career, Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker said, the "charming" song was one of Carey's biggest accomplishments, calling it "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon". Dan Hancox, editor of The National, quoted and agreed with Jones' statement, calling the song "perfection". According to Barry Schwartz from Stylus Magazine, "to say this song is an instant classic somehow doesn't capture its amazingicity; it's a modern standard: joyous, exhilarating, loud, with even a hint of longing." Schwartz praised the song's lyrics as well, describing them as "beautifully phrased," and calling Carey's voice "gorgeous" and "sincere”.

All I Want for Christmas Is You ranks alongside the best songs for this time of year. Many will argue as to whether it is the very best, but so many people buy it and demand it be played because it is so effusive, catchy and warm. There is a bit of treacle, though the power of Mariah Carey’s voice and conviction, combined with Christmas sounds and images, makes it a gem that has been embraced by multiple generations. It is not a Christmas song that peaked in the ‘90s and then declined. If anything. All I Want for Christmas Is You has grown even bigger and more influential. On 4th December, this article spotlighted a unique honour for a holiday song:

“Mariah Carey’s Christmas anthem, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” became the first and only holiday single to take home the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) Diamond Award in recognition of 10 million sales and streaming units in the United States.

“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” Carey said. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”

As of Friday, the song also returned to Billboard Hot 100 and clinched the #1 Spot on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs”.

Even if you are not a fan of Mariah Carey and her studio albums, it is hard to resist the festive classic that is All I Want for Christmas Is You. I am a fan of Carey and I feel this song stands alongside her very best. In 2021, All I Want for Christmas Is You is still celebrated and beloved. It is a song that will never go out of fashion or not be on Christmas wish lists. In 2019, TIME penned a piece about the continuing legacy and importance of the 1994 diamond:

“The temperatures are dipping and twinkling lights are being hung, but nothing confirms that the holiday season is in full swing as cogently as Mariah Carey’s now-iconic holiday classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

The festive track, a veritable pop masterpiece written and performed by Carey (with a co-writing assist from her longtime collaborator at the time, Walter Afanasieff) has consistently dominated not only the holiday music charts, but the zeitgeist since it made its joyous debut in 1994. Perhaps even more impressive is the Christmas song’s ability to be beloved throughout this time period, somehow capable of charming listeners in spite of its ubiquity every holiday season. Now, 25 years and endless screenings of Love, Actually later, the song has become on of the ultimate modern Christmas anthems, unrivaled by any of its contemporary peers and more than able to hold its own with longtime favorites of the holiday canon.

 The popularity of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is noteworthy, not merely in its staying power (although a quarter of a century at the forefront of the holiday genre is a flex, if there ever was one) or its momentum in gaining ubiquity year after year, but in its ability to command the category over a period in which her industry and the culture has evolved significantly. The Internet, streaming services and multiple waves of new artists have gained considerable traction in the past three decades, but when it comes to the holiday song, Carey and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” have reigned triumphant, over (not in spite of) multiple platforms.

Case in point? According to a 2016 Nielsen report, “All I Want for Christmas” was the only song to make the top 5 holiday songs for radio airplay, streaming services and song purchases, helping to demonstrate the track’s appeal across generations and platforms. Last year, Nielsen found that total digital streaming of audio and video for the song clocked in at just under 229 million, while digital sales of the song were 100k and radio airplay checked in at over 42,000. The multi-platinum song consistently tops the Billboard Holiday Hot 100 and made history in early 2019 when it hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first holiday song in 60 years to break the top 5 and the second-ever holiday song to chart that high.

There are multiple factors to the song’s popularity, the most obvious of which are the powerhouse vocals of the beloved elusive chanteuse. But the savvy songwriting and themes of the song have played an integral role in the success of the track as well. The track and the album it appeared on, Merry Christmas, were inspired by the upbeat sounds of Phil Spector, who made the hit 1963 Christmas album, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.

In an interview with Business Insider in 2013, co-writer Afanasieff noted that he was fairly surprised that the track was as commercially successful as it was because it didn’t adhere to conventional holiday music or the sounds of the time.

“My first reaction was, ‘That sounds like someone doing voice scales,’” Afanasieff said. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

As is her wont, Carey knew exactly what she wanted and kept the melody true to her vision, resulting in a song that Afanasieff says has stayed on top due to precisely that — its uptempo sound, a near rarity in the offerings of American Christmas songs. That’s not to say that the song is simple in any way, however.

“The melody of ‘All I Want For Christmas’ is astoundingly complicated considering how simple it seems,” songwriter and And the Writer Is… podcast host Ross Golan tells TIME. “The brain latches on songs after the listener invests significant time to learn them. That song in particular is now neurologically built into the zeitgeist.”

This, of course, attests to Carey’s skills as a songwriter, a factor that’s often overshadowed by her outstanding talent and larger-than-life persona. Lest listeners forget while listening to her hit the whistle register, Carey wrote 17 of her 18 #1 hits, a feat that astounds on multiple levels.

“This song is a testament to something that Mariah Carey is still undervalued for: Her songwriting,” beauty writer and self-professed lifelong Lamb (for the uninitiated, Lambs or the “Lambily” are the devoted fans of Carey) Tynan Sinks tells TIME. “Mariah Carey wrote this song, dude. Isn’t that crazy? It’s such a classic that people think it’s a cover of something else, but it’s a Mariah Carey original, baby. She just sat down one day and literally invented Christmas.”

In 2015, Slate reported that the song’s seemingly magic ability to put you in a festive holiday mood is actually because of its dulcet harmony, which contains at least 13 distinct chords, including a specific minor subdominant chord, which they dub “the most Christmassy chord of all” and is found in songs like Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas.”

In a deep dive into the song’s structure at Quartz, musicologist and Switched on Pop podcast host Nate Sloan also revealed that since Carey was inspired by old school holiday music, she used an AABA song structure that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s and that was used for songs like “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which can do plenty for holiday nostalgia for the good ‘ol days.

Unlike “Rudolph” and “Frosty,” however, Carey’s track provides a more adult take on a Christmas song, which also proved to be a boon. By eschewing children-centric holiday iconography like Santa and Rudolph for Carey’s trademark musical subject, love and romance, she reached a whole new — and very large — demographic with a theme that everyone could identify with.

“It’s not a religious song,” Andrew Mall, assistant professor of music at Northeastern Univeristy tells TIME. “She talks about Christmas, but no religious beliefs. It’s actually a love song. Anyone can inhabit those lyrics; the lover is not named, the lover is not gendered, so anyone can put themselves in that position as needing someone to love at the holidays. It’s a secular love song and not a religious Christmas carol.” Mall also attributes the song’s popularity to nostalgia of another kind: for the ’90s as a whole, especially the music of the time.

Not only is All I Want for Christmas Is You one of the best Christmas/holiday songs ever. I think it is a song that sits alongside the best in any genre. Its positivity and sense of joy is never cloying or old-fashioned. Other Christmas songs are played less than when they were released, though Mariah Carey’s seems to get more airplay each year! It is testament to a song that is instantly recognisable and as must-listen at this time of year. All I Want for Christmas Is You is a song that we will be enjoyed…

FOR decades to come.

FEATURE: No One Compares 2 U: The Magnificent Sinéad O'Connor at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

No One Compares 2 U

PHOTO CREDIT: Terry O'Neill/Hulton/Getty

 The Magnificent Sinéad O'Connor at Fifty-Five

___________

ON 8th December…

the magnificent Sinéad O'Connor (Shuhada Sadaqat) turns fifty-five. As she is such an important artist, I wanted to put a playlist together celebrating an icon. I will get to that soon. Before doing so, it is worth learning more about O’Connor and her career. This AllMusic biography tells us more about a remarkable artist:

“Sinéad O'Connor ranked among the most distinctive and controversial pop music stars of the alternative era, the first and in many ways, the most influential of the numerous female performers whose music dominated airwaves throughout the last decade of the 20th century. Brash and outspoken -- her shaved head, angry visage, and shapeless wardrobe a direct challenge to popular culture's long-prevailing notions of femininity and sexuality -- O'Connor irrevocably altered the image of women in rock. Railing against long-standing stereotypes simply by asserting herself not as a sex object but as a serious artist, she kick-started a revolt that led the way for performers ranging from Liz Phair to Courtney Love to Alanis Morissette.

O'Connor was born in Dublin, Ireland, on December 8, 1966. Her childhood was often traumatic: her parents divorced when she was eight, and she later claimed that her mother, who was killed in a 1985 automobile accident, frequently abused her. After being expelled from Catholic school, O'Connor was arrested for shoplifting and was shuttled off to a reformatory; at the age of 15, while singing a cover of Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen" at a wedding, she was spotted by Paul Byrne, the drummer for the Irish band In Tua Nua (best known as protégés of U2). After co-writing the first In Tua Nua single, "Take My Hand," O'Connor left boarding school in order to focus on a career in music, and began performing in area coffeehouses. She later studied voice and piano at the Dublin College of Music, and supported herself delivering singing telegrams.

Upon signing a contract with Ensign Records in 1985, O'Connor relocated to London; the following year, she made her recorded debut on the soundtrack to the film Captive, appearing with U2 guitarist the Edge. After scrapping the initial tapes for her debut LP on the grounds that the production was too Celtic, she took the producer's seat herself and began re-recording the album, dubbed The Lion and the Cobra in reference to Psalm 91. The result was one of the most acclaimed debut records of 1987, with a pair of alternative radio hits in the singles "Mandinka" and "Troy." Almost from the outset of her career, however, O'Connor was a controversial media figure. In interviews following the LP's release, she defended the actions of the IRA, resulting in widespread criticism from many corners, and even burned bridges by attacking longtime supporters U2, whose music she declared "bombastic."

Nonetheless, O'Connor remained a cult figure prior to the release of 1990's chart-topping I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, a harrowing masterpiece sparked by the recent dissolution of her marriage to drummer John Reynolds. Boosted by the single and video "Nothing Compares 2 U," originally penned by Prince, the album established her as a major star, but again controversy followed as tabloids took aim at her romance with Black singer Hugh Harris while continuing to attack her outspoken politics. On American shores, O'Connor also became the target of derision for refusing to perform in New Jersey if "The Star Spangled Banner" was played prior to her appearance, a move that brought public criticism from no less than Frank Sinatra, who threatened to "kick her ass." She also made headlines for pulling out of an appearance on the NBC program Saturday Night Live in response to the misogynist persona of guest host Andrew Dice Clay, and even withdrew her name from competition in the annual Grammy Awards despite four nominations.

O'Connor also continued to confound expectations with her third album, 1992's Am I Not Your Girl?, a collection of pop standards and torch songs that failed to live up to either the commercial or critical success of I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. However, any discussion of the record's creative merits quickly became moot in the wake of her most controversial and damaging action yet: after finally appearing on Saturday Night Live, O'Connor ended her performance by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II, resulting in a wave of condemnation unlike any she'd previously encountered. Two weeks after the SNL performance, she appeared at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, and was promptly booed off the stage.

By then a virtual pariah, O'Connor's retirement from the music business was subsequently reported, although it was later claimed that she had merely returned to Dublin with the intent of studying opera. She kept a low profile for the next several years, starring as Ophelia in a theatrical production of Hamlet and later touring with Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival. She also reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown and even made a half-hearted attempt at suicide. In 1994, however, O'Connor returned to pop music with the LP Universal Mother, which, despite good reviews, failed to relaunch her to superstar status. The following year, she announced that she would no longer speak to the press. The Gospel Oak EP appeared in 1997, and in mid-2000 O'Connor issued Faith and Courage, her first full-length effort in six years. Sean-Nós Nua followed two years later, and was widely hailed for its return to the Irish folk tradition as its inspiration.

O'Connor used the press exposure from the album to further assert her pending retirement from music. In September 2003, the two-disc She Who Dwells... appeared through Vanguard. It collected rare and previously unreleased studio tracks, as well as live material culled from a late-2002 date in Dublin. The album was positioned as O'Connor's swan song, though official word was not forthcoming. Collaborations followed in 2005, a compilation of appearances on other artists' records throughout her long career. Later that year, she released Throw Down Your Arms, a collection of reggae classics from the likes of Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley that managed to reach the number four spot on Billboard's Top Reggae Albums chart. O'Connor returned to the studio the following year to begin work on her first album of all-new material since Faith and Courage. The resulting Theology, inspired by the complexities of the world post-9/11, was released in 2007 through Koch Records on the artist's own imprint, That's Why There's Chocolate & Vanilla.

O'Connor's ninth studio album, 2012's How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, tackled familiar subjects like sexuality, religion, hope, and despair, all of which were topics that dominated her post-Theology personal and public life. After a relatively quiet period, O'Connor found herself once again embroiled in controversy in 2013 after a personal dispute with singer Miley Cyrus, whom O'Connor wrote an open letter to warning her of exploitation and the dangers of the music industry. Cyrus also responded with an open letter, which seemed to mock the Irish singer's documented mental health issues. O'Connor's tenth album, I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss appeared in August 2014. Inspired by Lean In's female empowerment campaign "Ban Bossy," the set was a rock-oriented and melodious affair as heard on the lead single "Take Me to the Church”.

To mark the upcoming fifty-fifth birthday of Sinéad O'Connor, I have assembled a playlist with some of her very best tracks. There are rumour of a new album, No Veteran Dies Alone, coming along soon. Her last album, I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss, was released in 2014. As you can tell from this career-spanning playlist, there is no one in the music world…

LIKE the magnificent Sinéad O'Connor.

FEATURE: If the Queen of Music Were to Return… Speculation and Possibility Around a New Kate Bush Album

FEATURE:

 

 

If the Queen of Music Were to Return…

Speculation and Possibility Around a New Kate Bush Album

___________

I am returning to this subject…

so soon, as there is a sense of anticipation in the air regarding Kate Bush music. It has been confirmed that Big Boi has recorded a song with her. We are not sure the form Bush’s vocal will take, though one gets the feeling the song will be out by the end of the year. The Kate Bush News Facebook page asked, a week or two ago, what people would expect or want were a new Kate Bush album to be announced. This is something I have thought about frequently. To be fair, no announcement has been made at all. One feels that it cannot be too long until something arrives in the world. It has been ten years since 50 Words for Snow was released. Although, technically, Bush released the live album, Before the Dawn, in 2016, that does not count as a studio album – even though they are new vocals from her. I have said before, when a new album does arrive, it is unlikely to veer too far from 50 Words for Snow. It is not as thought she will come back to her earlier sound or something like The Dreaming. Some said – on the Facebook post Kate Bush News sent out - how they would like to hear something like Director’s Cut. That album was also released in 2011, and it saw Bush recording new versions of songs that originally appeared on the albums The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993).

 Whether she would ever go back to albums like Never for Ever (1980) or Lionheart (1978) and think about re-examining them at all. She is not averse to retrospection, if it was called for or something that she needed to do. It is more likely an original album will come. Whereas before I have said that an eleventh studio album will mix 2005’s Aerial and 50 Words for Snow in terms of its sound and style, I have had a bit of a rethink. One might observe that, as Bush is an artist who never repeats herself and keeps on venturing into new sonic space, it is likely that she will add new layers to her music. The point of these features is not to pressure Bush into making music (not that she will ever see anything I write). It is more an excitement of wondering whether 2022 will be a year when we get an album from her. A lot of people who have been discussing Kate Bush and a possible album have said that she might go more into Jazz territory. We get some of that on 50 Words for Snow. Maybe an album that is even more experimental and instrumental. That might be something that would catch people off guard. I have been listening back to 1989’s The Sensual World. This is an album that was acclaimed when it came out, yet it remains underrated and under-played in my view. I love the percussion through that album and the overall sound. I predict that, were Bush to put out music in the future, she may well nod to this album.

Naturally, nobody anywhere can say exactly what Kate Bush’s next album will sound like. Maybe she will look to release an album in a different, less conventional way. I can imagine the pandemic has been as tough for her as anyone. Perhaps, whilst recording might have been gradual or slow, there was plenty of time for reflection and writing. Working with Big Boi might have instilled some Hip-Hop sensibilities or inspired her to go a little left-field and serve up an album that is like The Dreaming, in terms of the clash of sounds and something a little odder. Even as I am typing, I am contradicting myself and wondering if, actually, Bush could surprise everyone! One thing that is certain is that, whenever (and if) she does choose to release an album, the last twenty months or so would have affected her. Bush has never been overly-personal with her albums, though she has addressed tough subjects previously. Whereas Aerial and 50 Words for Snow were a little more conceptual and there was this feeling of weather and the elements playing a part, I think something darker and more urgent might make its way into Bush’s writing. Whether that reflects the growing climate crisis or the sense of separation we have felt, I wonder if she will explore a concept or suite of songs like she did on Hounds of Love (with The Ninth Wave) and Aerial (with A Sky of Honey).

Bush has collaborated with other artists through her career. Her albums have always consisted or a variety of musicians. That is not going to change. One would ask, on another album, would she include as many musicians as she has on Aerial and Hounds of Love, or would it be more scaled-back? There are still logistical challenges at the moment, but I reckon, when she is in a position to record, that there will be quite a few musicians and players in the mix. Maybe not as many vocal collaborations as on 50 Words for Snow (including Elton John on Snowed in at Wheeler Street), but there will be that desire in her to join with other musicians. This is the last feature (promise) that I write that asks about a new album and what it might sound like. I guess the next big Kate Bush news we will get is when the song with Big Boi is released, whether that is next month or early next year. After that, there will be various anniversaries to mark. Every week, I see so many fans write about her music or songs that have impacted them. Bush is someone who can affect so many people and remain right at the forefront without releasing new music. Such is the strength and importance of what she has already released! A lot of people are looking ahead to a more positive and optimistic next year. In terms of music release, it is hard t say which artists will bring out an album. There are millions of people around the world who hope that Kate Bush…

IS among them.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Some (Early) Christmas Presents: A Festive Mix

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Isaac Martin 

Some (Early) Christmas Presents: A Festive Mix

___________

MAYBE it is a tad early…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Laura Beth Snipes

to be going in with the Christmas tunes, but they are being played a lot at the moment. At around this time every year, I put out a selection of Christmas tracks. Because there is a bit of uncertainty around restrictions this Christmas – whether rising cases and a new variant will mean we are locked down or there are travel curbs -, I think we all need a bit of cheer. This Lockdown Playlist is a selection of classic and more modern Christmas cuts. From well-known standards through to some that are fresh this year, it is a sacksful of early Christmas presents that should provide some energy at the very least! I think that any day in December is okay when it comes to getting the Christmas songs out! Here are some of my favourite new and older songs that really set the tone. If you are in need of a Christmas mix, then the songs below…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Szabo Viktor

GIVE food for thought.

FEATURE: Hella Good: No Doubt’s Rock Steady at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Hella Good

 No Doubt’s Rock Steady at Twenty

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NOT many albums…

are celebrating anniversaries at this time of year. No Doubt’s fifth studio album, Rock Steady, was released on 11th December, 2001. The band began writing the album with initial recording sessions in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They travelled to London and Jamaica to work with various performers, songwriters, and producers. I think that it is a very different-sounding album compared to their 1990s output. Many reviewers gave it a low score or were not that hot on it. I feel it is an album with some sensational moments – such as Hella Good and Hey Baby! -, capped by performances from a band at the top of their game. Gwen Stefani’s vocals are especially addictive and strong! I feel one problem some had with Rock Steady is that there is less of the guitar, bass and drum sound of their other albums. There are more electronic sounds from keyboards. In 2001, there were quite a lot of artists nodding back to the 1980s and that sound. Stefani, to me, is the star of Rock Steady in terms of her vocal range and the emotional impact she provides. I wonder whether, on its twentieth anniversary, there will be any reissues of the album. It is one of my favourite No Doubt albums. My favourite song of theirs, Hey Baby, is a classic from 2001. Rock Steady is a terrific album that should be played a lot more.

I want to source a couple of positive reviews for Rock Steady. In their assessment of a hugely underrated album, SLANT had this to say:

“With Rock Steady, released in December of 2001, No Doubt completed their transmogrification into life-sized cartoons and unwittingly supplied the world with its gooiest post-9/11 balm. “It’s icky, it’s sticky, ooh!” Gwen coos on the propulsive “Waiting Room,” a collaboration with the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince that was originally meant for Saturn. Prince helped the multihued frontwoman of the world’s biggest ska-pop outfit further explore her inner-kitsch and the finished product fits snugly alongside the electro-pop, dancehall, and new wave of Rock Steady than it ever would have on No Doubt’s previous effort. While slower tracks like “Running” and “Underneath It All,” co-written by The Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, sound like super-polished Saturn leftovers, the album offers up more of the new wave deliciousness that was promised with 1999’s “New,” the band’s collaboration with Talking Head Jerry Harrison—“Don’t Let Me Down” and “Platinum Blonde Life,” produced by The Cars’ Ric Ocasek, both deliver a head-rush circa 1981.

Not since Blondie—an earlier example of a band eclipsed, perhaps, by its frontwoman—has a rock act so effortlessly, irreverently, and fashionably skidded across so many different genre boundaries at one time. The retro “Hella Good” previewed Gwen’s dance-pop ‘80s fetish, which came to a head on last month’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

But Rock Steady never abandons No Doubt’s more obvious roots; the dancehall rocker “Hey Baby” and the feel-good dub of “Start the Fire” find the band sunnier (and tighter) than ever. Even beneath the sheen of “Underneath It All” you can hear Tom Dumont’s signature guitar riffs. And Gwen’s lyrics are still personal, only the focus is no longer bassist Tony Kanal, but future husband Gavin Rossdale. Impatience is a central theme, whether it’s long distance lust on the William Orbit-produced “Making Out” (“The flowers arrive to my surprise/But that just ain’t good enough”), patience on “Waiting Room” (“What a price this traveling love”), and trust and suspicion on “In My Head” (witnessing her own band’s backstage antics surely didn’t help—see “Hey Baby”).

Rock Steady’s title track is the centerpiece of the album, a dub lullaby that seems to tie the whole record together thematically (“Love is like a punishment/Homegirl here to represent,” Gwen sings) and musically (not that it needed tying together, despite its seven different production teams). Rock Steady is rife with the kind of songs that conjure vivid images in the listener’s mind, and that’s a testament to both the band’s music and Gwen’s lyrics. When first hearing “Detective,” you can almost see the film noirish video that could have been. The track is home to a tarty hip-hop melody that was probably picked up somewhere between Gwen’s duet with Eve and the band’s studio dabblings with Dr. Dre and the Neptunes (only one of those collaborations, “Hella Good,” made it onto the final record). But personality crises aside, Rock Steady is as consistent an album (and as enjoyable a listen) as one can expect from a band that refuses to stand still.

I am going to end with a review from AllMusic. They started the review by stating that Rock Steady is an album from a band getting back into the swing of things having left fairly big gaps between previous releases:   

“Five years separated Tragic Kingdom and its 2000 follow-up, Return of Saturn. About 15 months separated Saturn and its sequel, Rock Steady -- a clear sign that No Doubt was getting back to business, but it's really a more accurate reflection of Gwen Stefani's stature in 2001. Once Saturn started slipping down the charts -- apparently, the kids weren't ready to hear a post-new wave album about facing your thirties with your biological clock ticking -- Stefani started popping up all over the place, appearing on Moby's remix of "South Side" and duetting with Eve on "Let Me Blow Your Mind." These were major, major hits, restoring luster to Gwen Stefani, and therefore, No Doubt, while giving them some hip-hop/dance credibility (albeit rather small cred), so it was time to turn out another record to capitalize on this re-opened window. Smartly, they followed a Madonna blueprint by working with several producers -- Nellee Hooper, Sly & Robbie, Ric Ocasek, Prince, Steely & Clevie -- and running it through Mark "Spike" Stent for mixing and additional production, thereby giving it a unified sound while covering all the bases.

And they certainly cover all their bases, retaining their footing in new wave and ska revival while ratcheting up their fondness for reggae (specifically, dancehall and ragga, unfortunately; the guest toasters are the only real misstep here) and their newly acquired taste for dance and hip-hop. It's a testament to No Doubt's abilities as a band (not to mention their sheer likeability; they're just so good-hearted and unpretentious, it's hard to imagine getting angered about this band) that it neither sounds like pandering to the charts or the opening salvo in Stefani's solo career -- it simply sounds like a good, hooky, stylish mainstream pop record, something that's rather rare in 2001”.

I really love Rock Steady, and I feel that it is an album that did not get as much credit as it deserved when it came out. With some truly terrific songs throughout, go and listen to it ahead of its anniversary of 11th December. I have been dipping in and out of the album since 2001 and am still not bored of it! Twenty years after its release, Rock Steady still sounds…

AS fresh as ever.

TRACK REVIEW: Wet Leg - Too Late Now

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Wet Leg

PHOTO CREDIT: Hollie Fernando

Too Late Now

9.5/10

The track, Too Late Now, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB3PJwPMHzQ

RELEASE DATE:

29th November, 2021

ORIGIN:

Isle of Wight, U.K.

GENRE:

Indie Rock

 The album, Wet Leg, is available from 8th April, 2022 and can be pre-ordered here:

https://wetleg.tmstor.es/

LABEL:

Domino

__________

EVEN though their latest tracks…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Frances Beach

was released earlier in the week, I wanted to review Wet Leg. Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers have had quite an eventful and successful 2021! Many people did not know about them at the start of the year. With their debut, Chaise Longue, doing wonderfully well and making them a duo to watch, they have followed it up with several other great tracks. I am going to come to Too Late Now soon. Prior to evaluating that song, there are various aspects that I need to cover off. Many people might be curious to know how Wet Leg started life. In an NME interview from September, we discovered how Wet Leg began life:

“It all started with a pact. Following almost a decade of friendship (Teasdale and Chambers met at college, and played in various bands and as fledgling solo musicians on their native Isle Of Wight), the pair took a spontaneous, mildly drunk ferris wheel trip at 2019’s End Of The Road festival. It is here where they found the embryonic elements of Wet Leg after seeing IDLES storm the main stage that evening – and they decided to start something of their own, on the basis that they “wanted to have more fun than every other single band”.

“We agreed on the premise of our band there and then: as long as you’re having fun, then everything will be alright,” says singer Teasdale. “And we’ve told ourselves that we’ll stick to that, always.” It set them unwaveringly on a path towards experimenting with different styles – including percussive elements and big pop choruses – before they finally nailed the Wet Leg sound while stuck together in quarantine, as Teasdale learned to play guitar in between songwriting sessions and hours of longboard dancing – an intricate subset of skateboarding that the pair say taught them how to be more patient with each other”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Hollie Fernando

I am struck by how Teasdale and Chambers came together and started to plan their musical careers. It is that possibility of fun that pushed them forward. As we can see from an interview with The Line of Best Fit, bands such as IDLES were a source of inspiration and impetus:

“So where did the dream really start for Wet Leg? Teasdale elaborates on the band’s musical origins: both she and Chambers have been writing since they were approximately 17 years old. “A few years ago, we were going around festivals together with a different project, which was more folky - I was playing piano and she was playing guitar. We just spent the summer playing at a few little festivals and seeing music together.

“We'd seen Big Thief and Idles, and we saw that they were having so much fun when they were playing live, we realised we wanted to do that too. We wanted to start a band like Wet Leg, be more punky and fun, so that [we] could play guitar quite loud.” The pair were also inspired by the sounds of Aussie punks The Chats, who Teasdale cites as “a good example” of something that inspired the duo to write songs that “don't take themselves too seriously.”

“Before COVID, I had actually stopped doing music altogether,” Teasdale reveals. “Hester was also really busy making jewellery for the family business and I was in London working crazy, crazy hours doing wardrobe assistant stuff. So, Wet Leg was just a kind of 'as and when' thing. But when the pandemic happened, I came back to the Isle of Wight for it and I stayed in a house on my own and just wrote loads, and that's when we made the video for 'Chaise Longue”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whitaker

Not to stick too much on this theme but, to give context and background to Wet Leg’s beginning, I will bring in an interview from The Current. The Isle of Wight-formed duo were asked about the reality of going from visualising and suggesting a group to actually making it happen:

“Chaise Longue" has been such a catchy song ever since we've been playing it last summer, we've been wanting to know more about you. So let's start from the beginning, and I know that the beginning is not that long ago with the two of you being in a band. Take me back to how the two of you know each other, and how you decided to start a band.

HESTER CHAMBERS: You go first, I think you're faster.

RHIAN TEASDALE: Ok I'll go fast, and then if I forget anything, you have to butt in and let me know. So we've known each other since college. But we've been in and out of bands on the Isle of Wight, never quite seeming to come together. Then I was doing like a solo thing, and I was sick of it, and sick of doing everything by myself. It was really boring, and I got the courage together to ask Hester if she'd play the last few run of shows with me, before I stopped doing it. Then we just ended up having a really fun summer of just like going to festivals and seeing loads of music and getting inspired. That's where we came up with the idea to start our own band, start something fresh. Start something where we're both playing guitars. For the past projects I was playing keys and sat down, and it was quite folky and a bit subdued and all the lyrics were like, really introspective and sad. So rolling around festivals together in the summer, I think that really influenced our band and what we wanted it to be about.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jono White 

I don't know a ton about where you live--the Isle of Wight, I connect that to a pretty major music festival. Is that something that the two of you have attended together and you felt some inspiration like, "Hey, we want to do that." I mean, it's one thing to say, "Hey, let's start a band!" But then to actually do it is another thing. Hester, I just want to ask you, when the concept of the band came up, how do you decide like, "Okay, well, this is the kind of music we like," or, "This is the kind of music we want to play," because you guys make some really fun songs from what I've heard so far.

HESTER CHAMBERS: Early on, we were just getting to grips with playing guitars in a different way. Well, for me in a different way to what I had done before, and for Rhian to even really pick one up. So it was having the courage, and we started off kind of trashy, like we just wanted to make the sounds and have loads of fun doing it.

So how long between the time that you know, "Okay, we're going to start a band. Here we're going to test out some sounds. We know that we want to play guitars. We know we want to have fun." How long between that and playing your first show together?

RHIAN TEASDALE: Not long. We didn't even have a full set of songs.

When you were going to play your first show together, what did you do? You're like, "Okay, we have to fill a set time." So for that first show what did you guys decide to do? How did you fill the time?

HESTER CHAMBERS: Oh, what was our first one? It was--

RHIAN TEASDALE: It was Isle of Wight Festival.

HESTER CHAMBERS: Yeah, a locals tent, like really great. It was our favorite place to be when we go to the festival. I think we probably had about half an hour, but we definitely didn't hit that. I think one of the songs we did was a cover of a friend's song”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whitaker

One of the most distinct aspects of Wet Leg is their name. Whilst not one that ranks alongside the best and most memorable, it at least does stem from the duo’s desire not to be taken too seriously – or at least not have people analyse their name too much for hidden meanings. In an interview from The Forty-Five, the duo talked about naming one of their singles Wet Dream. Maybe fearing that some would find the song too raunchy, they explained why they kept the title:

“There was a bit of a discussion about whether [‘Wet Dream’] was a bit raunchy, a bit racy. Oooooh,” says Rhian, mockingly. “Our radio plugger was like, ‘It is a bop, but… is it OK to talk about being in someone’s wet dream?’

“I feel like if it was a guy that segued it in there, nobody would bat an eyelid,” she posits “But it’s because we’re sweet little girls, it’s a problem.”

They’ve not been deterred though, sex is a running theme in Wet Leg songs but the stories are told through a slightly Vic and Bob lens. Does Rhian have to channel her Sasha Fierce alter ego when writing about doin’ the do?

“Yeah, I can’t just be full-on Sexy Goddess. I have to be Sexy Goddess with lobster claws. Lobster Goddess”

Maybe that will come down the line? For album two, you can lose the claws?

“I don’t know. I have to take those claws into the bedroom, otherwise I can’t be that version of myself. My boyfriend is like ‘Please, just for once! Not the claws!” and I’m like “No! I’m a sexual being. They’re staying”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Hollie Fernando

I am not aware of too many other artists based on the Isle of Wight. There is Lauran Hibberd and a few others, yet I am informed that there is a burgeoning scene and a lot of promising artists here. Among the rising artists from the Isle of Wight, Wet Leg are definitely putting the area on the map (though both of them are not based here anymore). Coming back to the interview with The Forty-Five, it seemed that the Isle of Wight was a great area for Teasdale and Chambers to grow up in:

“Growing up on the Isle of Wight, though remote, was a good base for the band. Their youth was spent getting sloshed on the beach and dabbling in music. And though bands typically missed The Isle off their touring route, there was a burgeoning music scene that required its participants to think a little deeper. “The only gigs that happen [on the Isle of Wight] are pretty DIY, which is quite nice” Rhian explains. “You have to get quite creative with it. There’s a festival called Ventnor Fringe Festival. I played one of my first ever [solo] gigs there and back in the day, there would just be pop-up venues. One was a house that was still being built. The floor was all rubble and they put tea lights in the walls. It was a show to only about 20 people but it was great. So while it’s a shame you can’t easily go and see touring bands because it’s so expensive to get over, it’s kind of nice because you have this small DIY scene. People make their own fun, I guess.”

In music terms, The Isle of Wight is famed for its annual festival which ran from 1968-1970 before being revived in the early noughties. For Wet Leg, it marked the start of the summer. “I know a lot of people who failed their GCSEs because they were the same week as Isle of Wight Festival,” says Rhian. “My housemate is 32, and even now is just like: ‘Why did I not go to my Maths GCSE?’ But the festivals were really good. Really inspiring”.

I cannot talk about Wet Leg’s new single without nodding back to Chaise Longue. So many people’s favourite track of the year, it definitely announced an original and promising new musical force. Humorous and catchy, it is no surprise the song has captured such a wave of appreciation and love. When they spoke with Under the Radar Mag earlier in the year, the duo reacted to the reception of their debut single:

“Wet Leg’s tongue in cheek humor abounds on their hypnotic debut single, “Chaise Longue.” Fittingly the track was inspired by Chambers’ grandfather’s chaise longue. “I kind of inherited it,” she explains, “and it now lives in my flat. When Rhian stays over it’s also where she sleeps. She actually wrote all the lyrics to ‘Chaise Longue’ whilst sitting on the chaise longue (all day long).”

It only took a few demos to convince Domino Records to sign Wet Leg. “Given we’d formed pretty much at the start of the pandemic and Domino hadn’t really seen us live,” reveals Chambers. “It’s so great that they have put their faith in us.”

Chambers is also delighted, albeit somewhat taken aback, about how “Chaise Longue” has resonated with people. At the time of this writing its video has over 800,000 views on YouTube, with comments such as “This has got to be the greatest debut single in years,” “Finally something fucking different, that does something new,” and “This is going to skyrocket, and if it doesn’t, it’ll be one of the coolest gems in music history.”

“It’s been a lovely surprise,” she says, “we wrote it in one an evening, just writing for fun and being silly and we had no clue at the time that it would connect with so many people”.

They were perhaps not expecting such popularity and focus after their first single. Being tipped as a band/duo to watch, Wet Leg have followed Chaise Longue with other songs that show they have range and a great sonic locker of new sounds and lyrical wonder. Circling back to the interview from The Line of Best Fit, the duo discuss what happened after the success of Chaise Longue:

“The pair have managed to create equally distinctive visuals which complement their eccentric lyrics and melodies. I ask where her ideas for the visuals come from, as they look deceptively simple. “You're right, they are quite simple. Particularly 'Chaise Longue' where there's just three set-ups that it chops between: it's just vibe - there's no narrative. It's just this little world with us two as these cottage-core characters.

“It was all kind of accidental,” Teasdale recalls. “I ordered loads of clothes from the internet, and we tried on some different looks and outfits. We went for the big hats, flaming sunglasses and pretty dresses just because we thought it was a funny look. We had loads of other setups planned for that video, but after the first evening of taking a camera out and playing around, when we got back and I downloaded the free trial of Final Cut Pro and I dragged it into the computer and put the song to it, it seemed like it was kind of already done.”

After the success of “Chaise Longue” the duo received support from their label for a new video, so were able to take things up a notch with the visuals for “Wet Dream,” which include a food fight and some hand-made lobster claws. “It was weird going from making music videos with just Hester, to having to explain your ideas to proper people when this is their job.” Teasdale explains. “That was a funny transition, but it was really nice to have people on board that knew what they were doing. The ideas we have for videos always seem to come from the outfits we’re wearing. I think it stems from the characters that we create and the world that we build around that”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whitaker

Since a lot of interviews from earlier in the year, Wet Leg have made announcements (such as the fact their eponymous album is out in the spring) and made strides. Looking at an interview with DORK from September, Wet Leg explained what they did when they learned that word of Chaise Longue reached New York:

“Despite the modesty on their part, there’s no question in our eyes that Wet Leg are soon going to be a Very Big Deal Indeed. We know, don’t count your chickens before they hatch and all that, but with a debut single as cracking as theirs, it really does feel nailed on. It seems we’re not the only ones getting excited, with Chaise Longue getting regular radio airplay and blanket coverage which even reached publications in New York. In true rock’n’roll style, this unexpected success was celebrated with… a beach barbecue.

“It was an eventful barbecue, though!” says Rhian. “After it was done, we wanted to make a little campfire, and I decided to tip out the hot coals onto this pile of wood we’d made, to really get it going. So I pick up the barbecue, and I’m all full of myself like ‘this is a pretty cool idea’. I charge over to the wood holding the barbecue and just put my foot in the sand where the barbecue has been for several hours, and when I turn round to see why my foot is so hot, I realise I’m just in this glowing red sand! So yeah, we had a pre-recorded Radio 1 interview, and I listened to it with my foot in the sink for about four hours, hoping I hadn’t permanently crippled myself.”

“It was so gnarly!” says Hester. “Rhian was so cool about it, real rockstar stuff.”

“I’ve actually got fresh skin coming through now, which looks more beautiful than my skin has in years,” says Rhian. “So if the band doesn’t work out, I’m going to become a beauty therapist and get people to walk on burning hot sand. No pain, no gain”.

The more that you read and learn about Wet Leg, the more that you realise that they are very cool and laidback. Teasdale and Chambers spoke with Stereogum when their second single, Wet Dream, came out. An American publication, they were clearly impressed with what Wet Leg had to offer:

“It’s true: Wet Leg are cool. They might hail from the southern coast of England, but their sound is pure West Coast charm and perverse Midwestern nonchalance — which is to say their closest musical relatives are perhaps the shambling slacker rock of Pavement or the Breeders at their goofiest and most carefree. Debut single “Chaise Longue” is a smart, charmingly nonsensical bop, which blends flipped Mean Girls references (“Is your mother worried? Would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother?”) and bawdy puns (“I went to school and I got the big D”) with an infectious chorus.

In a similar vein, second single “Wet Dream” is an entertaining rebuke to a booty-calling ex, in which lead vocalist Rhian Teasdale’s sultry come-ons (“Baby, do you want to come home with me?”) are entertainingly deflated by her dubious boast “I’ve got Buffalo 66 on DVD.” Their flair for the sardonic and slightly surreal carries over to more vulnerable material like “Too Late Now,” billed as a song about “sleepwalking into adulthood.” Even their band name — which doesn’t mean anything at all, according Teasdale — summons up a tangle of gross, sexy insinuations. Wet Leg are a fizzing tonic for the UK’s indie rock scene, a genre well known for its tendency to take itself a little too seriously”.

Although it would have been harder for Wet Leg to get traction last year, 2021 has not exactly been ideal! As gigs have only come back relatively recently, there are still restrictions and drawbacks. In the Stereogum interview, Wet Leg revealed how they had time to figure out a plan and work on music when lockdown was implemented last year. They have also wasted little time in catching up:

“When the pandemic ground normal life to a halt, Teasdale suddenly had a lot more time on her hands: “Suddenly me and [Chambers] actually had the time to focus on making music. Wet Leg began as just us pursuing our hobbies, because it was a good way to fill our time, but we ended up finding a manager in lockdown, signing to Domino [Records] in lockdown, hitting all of these career milestones in lockdown…” One of the next milestones on tap: the release of their self-titled debut album in April.

Like TV Priest or Dry Cleaning, Wet Leg have firmly joined the ranks of the bands who have had to negotiate the majority of their careers while the world was shut down. Before lockdown, they’d only ever played four gigs, with three of them “on the Isle of Wight, for [their] parents.” By contrast, their fifth-ever gig in a packed-out tent at Latitude Festival, as part of the UK government’s pilot scheme testing out the viability of live events after the pandemic. Wet Leg are wasting no time catching up, though — they’ve just come off a stint supporting Declan McKenna and Inhaler, with the latter celebrating their last set by delivering a real-life chaise longue mid-set, for the band to recline on while playing its namesake. As we speak, they’re gearing up for a UK headline tour — one which quickly sold out, prompting them to dryly tweet, “Big thank you to everyone that’s bought a ticket after having only heard two songs haha.”

While Teasdale described life as a solo touring artist as a bit of a drag (“lots of driving places by yourself, and soundchecking on your own, having all of this lonely weird limbo time”), her experience touring as part of a band has been a very different experience: “It’s been fun, really fun, we’re part of a lovely bunch.” And if it stops being fun, Teasdale makes it clear she won’t be sticking around — this time, she’s adamant that “we’re not trying to achieve anything… we’re just in a band for the fun of it”.

I will end this review by sourcing a review of one of their live shows. It is evident that there are big gigs looming and the duo are going to busy in 2022 (they have announced extensive tour dates on their social media channels and website). Coming back to the NME interview from the start, Wet Leg explained some of the challenges of playing bigger stages; they also want to be recognised as guitar heroes:

“Playing their first real performances to bulging festival tents this summer – including a legend-making Latitude set and more recently, a homecoming show at Isle of Wight Festival – the pair proved that they have enough material to keep the band moving forward beyond being the flavour of the month. With its hollered vocals and squally riffs, they say that second single ‘Wet Dream’ – a punk-leaning number that is equally cheeky as its predecessor – was received ecstatically. But these shows (which included support slots with Declan McKenna) also proved that the band is still in its infancy – despite the fact that they’ve already achieved what so many of their peers could dream of.

“We’ve been playing big stages that we haven’t properly grown into yet,” Chambers explains. “Even on a practical level it’s been a challenge; I’ve struggled with asking for what I want in my monitors and coping with the size of the crowds that have come to see us.” She pauses. “But that’s OK. We’re always learning.”

Wet Leg have come to realise that bearing up to their new everyday reality is an extraordinary experience for any band to process, let alone one that had only played four gigs – “including three on the Isle Of Wight to our family,” says Chambers, giggling – prior to lockdown. When asked if they think that the hype around them is overblown, they agree immediately, and posit that the feverish online chatter and mega-exciting cosigns (from Hayley Williams and Iggy Pop, no less) have burdened them with stratospheric expectations from the off.

“We want to be recognised as guitar heroes, as it doesn’t hurt to win sometimes,” Teasdale says, hesitantly, as though she is analysing her own answer word-by-word in real-time. “But also, you just have no control over these things as music is so subjective, and we’re not ultra competitive people…”

NME interjects: But surely there is no harm in being competitive, though, when the bar has already been set so high by yourselves?

“It’s absolutely nuts – and right now, we can’t even”.

Revealed with another new song, Oh No, the duo announced their eponymous debut album for the spring. Many will look back on the songs Wet Leg have put out this year and explain which is the best. Although Chaise Longue set them on a new path of success, subsequent songs have built their sound and almost improved on that track. Too Late Now is a song that Teasdale and Chambers have said is about sleepwalking into adulthood – something that many of us can identify with! The video for the track is typically memorable and fun. There is a dreaminess to the introduction. With some groove, bounce and pulsating drums, I get touches of 1990s’ music. Elements of bands like The Sundays, perhaps. In the video, we see the duo and others dressed in bath robes and towels. It is like they have just woken up. Walking the streets, it signals this humorous nature of the duo! They are definitely not taking themselves too seriously! That said, the video (directed by Fred Rowson) is beautifully shot and it looks great. The first verse, with lyrics delineated and punctuated precisely and slowly, sticks in the memory: “If I thought that you were cool/We would have hung out more in school/But now that we have all grown up/Well, all my friends have given up”. I wonder if that verse is about Wet Leg aiming words at someone else or something that someone has said to them. As the song is this sleepwalk into adulthood, maybe it attests to the fact that, perhaps, they were not too cool for school and have only recently obtained a level of coolness and credibility – long after many of their friends and peers might have. In the video, the duo move to a supermarket (still dressed in robes and towels) and are piling things from a shelf (in what looks like a chemist) into a trolley. The vocal pace and feel stays the same until the pre-chorus. It seems that, for all the reflection and recognition of life not being quite as bodacious as it could be, there is a certain level of acceptance too: “No, there's nothing left to say/I just get up and walk away/If it ain’t broke, don't try to fix/Well, life's supposed to be this shit”.

The pre-chorus sees the vocal change from this slowly-delivered thing to a faster, talk-sung section. Whilst many bands employ talk singing (including the almost oppositely-named Dry Cleaning (who are quite dull with it), Wet Leg are quite compelling when they are more conversational. It is at this point in the video where we see Rhian Teasdale  peeling what looks like a cucumber (though it could be a courgette!). The pre-chorus mentions a soul-lifting bubble bath, a sort-of nod to Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing, in addition to asking whether the song they are singing is, well…a song: “Now everything is going wrong/I think I changed my mind again/I’m not sure if this is a song/I don't even know what I'm saying/Everything is going wrong/I think I changed my mind again/I'm not sure if this is the kinda life that I saw myself living/I don't need no dating app to tell me if I look like crap/To tell me if I'm thin or fat, to tell me should I shave my rat/I don't need no radio, no MTV, no BBC/I just need a bubble bath to set me on a higher path”. I love Teasdale’s vocals in this part. There is a sense of weariness, yet I can also detect so many other elements and emotions (she would sound great narrating documentaries or voicing audiobooks!). The video remains fun and striking as one member of the cast wanders the streets, cucumbers on eyes (that solves the cucumber vs. courgette debate!) looking zombified. Rather than, like Chaise Longue, there is a more typical structure where the chorus is repeated and is the dominant focus…Too Late Now brings us two verses, a pre-chorus, the chorus and then the outro. The chorus, to me is the best Wet Leg have written. It is quite angry, explicit, defeated and a little harrowing.

I was wondering, reading the lyrics, whether we might have seen the duo in a car like Thelma and Louise, heading for a tragic death. Maybe budgetary constraints put pave to anything like that! Chambers is seen flagging a lift, mind: “I'm gonna drive my car into the sea/I’m gonna drive downtown while looking pretty ordinary/Too late now, lost track somehow/I’m like, oh my god, this world is pretty harrowing/Down we go while holding hands/If I fuck this up, I'm taking you down with me/Too late now, lost track somehow/Well, if I fuck this up, I’m taking you down with me/I'm gonna drive my car into the sea/I'm gonna drive downtown while looking pretty ordinary/Too late now, lost track somehow/I'm like, oh my god, this world is pretty harrowing”. I think Too Late Now is one of the most fun and well-developed songs from Wet Leg. It has a lot of fizz and bounce, whilst the composition is rich and raw at the same time. The outro does sort of return to the pre-chorus where the bubble bath is mentioned; a remedy and way to obtain truth and order. A great song that will appear on the Wet Leg in April, this might be the best offering from the duo so far. Seemingly getting stronger with every release, it means their album is going to be pretty fantastic!

With a series of gigs and a debut album out next year, 2022 is going to be the most successful one for Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. The Guardian caught Wet Leg playing Omera in London in October. It is clear that they are a stunning live proposition:

“Happily, there were more ear worms where Chaise Longue came from: Wet Leg’s second single, Wet Dream, found lead singer Teasdale wringing humour from an ex’s sexual fantasy. Its oh-so-catchy chorus and disco handclaps prove irresistible tonight.

If Wet Leg’s signature move is a kind of sarcastic innuendo (“I’ve got Buffalo 66 on DVD” is one of Teasdale’s come hithers), they perform it while looking thoroughly wholesome. The band’s videos featured the pair dressed as folksy “cottage-core” milkmaids – homespun frauleins who nonetheless sometimes sport lobster claws. They might look like First Aid Kit, but live Wet Leg’s sound recalls bands such as Elastica and the Breeders or a slew of more recent acts Wet Leg have talked up in interviews, Australian punks the Chats, for one.

Tonight, no one is actually wearing a wimple, although the guitarist has a chintzy curtain tassel dangling from his guitar neck. And although it is still very early days – an album is mooted for some time next year – the band Wet Leg probably most resemble tonight is Pavement, a mainstay of the Domino label in the 90s. It’s in the offhand way Teasdale delivers non-sequiturs and the stop-start pacing and fuzzy crescendos of their songs.

‘It’s a miracle no one gets brained by a stray tuning key’: Wet Leg at Omeara. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Some songs punch out from the default indie rock of this short set. I Don’t Want to Go Out drips with trademark Teasdale snark, accessorised here and there by a spacey, theremin-like keyboard line. A song called Supermarket confirms their skewwhiff indie-rock orientation. Later, Teasdale sings about checking her phone on another off-kilter track that has an unexpectedly heavy, near-psychedelic payoff.

In between are songs that depart from the template in their quietude or straightforwardness. In interviews, Wet Leg have alluded to previous outfitsthat didn’t bear fruit. Some basic internet research reveals Teasdale’s very respectable past as a piano-playing folk singer, Rhain, in the mould of Joanna Newsom – a far cry from the arch, cod-Amish badass she has become.

The “fun” plan seems to be working, though. “We’re going to play the last song now,” says Teasdale pointedly. And the band blast through a joyous rendition of Chaise Longue, the two friends yelling the lyrics at each other, grinning all the while”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Hall/The Observer

Although Wet Leg are a band on stage, it is obviously very much about the lead duo of Teasdale and Chambers. I have been referring to them as a duo because, in all the interviews and promotional photos, that is who were are presented. On stage, there are other members to flesh out their sound. In a DIY from September, Wet Leg talked about their stage ethos. It was clear that, even then, they had much more material than Chaise Longue in their arsenal:

“As those recent shows have attested, however, Wet Leg have more than enough material up their sleeves to keep a crowd on side. More exciting than the initial thrill of their first offering is that ‘Chaise Longue’ isn’t even their best track. Buoyed by the endearing dynamic between their leaders - friends for a decade since college - Wet Leg’s songs are full of playful quirks and giddy kicks; for all that they describe themselves as “painfully polite” people in real life, musically there are moments during their live set that align them more with a British take on Yeah Yeah Yeahs, packed with exuberance and screams.

“Pretty early on we came up with the ethos of, ‘Feel the fear, and do it anyway’. Be scared, that’s fine, you’re always gonna be scared, but don’t let it get on top of you,” says Rhian of their mindset. “And also we shout at each other: ‘THIS IS A SAFE SPACE!!’”

“When we started the band we were listening to The Garden, Big Thief and IDLES,” continues Hester. “Things where there’s something fun in the music and there are no rules, and it’s free.” Even their name, explains Rhian, acts as “a good reminder to not take yourself too seriously”. “And also,” she caveats, “I think it came round because I saw Squid had a little squid emoji and I was so jealous, so we smashed at our phones to see what combinations came up. There were some ridiculous ones but to be safe we went with Wet Leg”.

I will review Wet Leg again when their eponymous album arrives in April. It is already one of the most highly-anticipated albums of next year. Even though the year is not yet done, Wet Leg are going to want to rest and recharge over Christmas. 2022 will be exciting and successful for Wet Leg. It is a year where we will…

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Baker/Getty

SEE them go very far.

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FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots: The ‘Classic in Black’ Shot, 2005 (Trevor Leighton)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots

PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton 

The ‘Classic in Black’ Shot, 2005 (Trevor Leighton)

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THERE are not that many interviews…

from 2005 with Kate Bush. I wanted to use one, just so that I can give some context to a classic photo of hers. I have used a couple in my interview series I ran a bit back. I am going to return to an interview I have used before so that I can give background to the great shot at the top of this feature. I often associate the best Kate Bush photos with the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Whilst there are fewer images of her available since then, the release of Aerial in 2005 meant that we got a few new photos – 2011’s 50 Words for Snow provided even more. I wonder how many people thought that an album like Aerial would arrive when it did. Or at all. It is a terrific double album (her first) that announced a sort of return to the spotlight. For other albums, Bush has been photographed by John carder Bush (her brother), Guido Harari or another photographer. Even though there were not many images taken of her in 2005, one by Trevor Leighton stands out. Bush looks classic in black. It is a mix between a painted portrait and something candid. Bush, who would have been forty-seven, still looks so young! She looks dignified and strong, yet there is something quite alluring and mysterious about her look. Whilst not as enigmatic and fascinating as Gered Mankowitz’s shot of her in a pink leotard from 1978, this is the (slightly) older artist as radiant and engaging as ever! It is a beautiful photo that did have an outtake or two. The photo that we see was given to the National Portrait Gallery by Leighton.

Small wonder something that is like a work of art should make its way into this feature. Trevor Leighton has taken a few photos of Kate Bush. I am going to return to photographers like Guido Harari and John Carder Bush in future instalments of this series. In the 2005 photo by Treavor Leighton, Bush does look content and relaxed. As a new-ish mother (her son, Bertie, was born in 1998), and with a new album out after twelve years, I guess that there would have been this relief and degree of triumph and accomplishment. You can tell by listening to Aerial that Bush was re-inspired and had rekindled a certain desire and genius. 1993’s The Red Shoes, whilst a great album, does show some fatigue or weaker moments. Perhaps Bush was in need of some rest and time away. Aerial is her at her very best. Related to that incredible shot by Trevor Leighton, there is an interview that Bush conducted with The Guardian that provides some background to Aerial. Bush herself shared a certain public curiosity as to whether she would finish and release a new album:

“This is how 12 years disappear if you're Kate Bush. You release The Red Shoes in 1993, your seventh album in a 15-year career characterised by increasingly ambitious records, ever-lengthening recording schedules and compulsive attention to detail. You are emotionally drained after the death of your mother Hannah but, against the advice of some of your friends, you throw yourself into The Line, the Cross & the Curve, a 45-minute video album released the following year that - despite its merits - you now consider to be "a load of bollocks". You take two years off to recharge your batteries, because you can. In 1996, you write a song called King of the Mountain. You have a bit of a think and take some more time off, similarly, because you can.

 Two years later, while pregnant, you write a song about artistic endeavour called An Architect's Dream. You give birth to a boy, Albert, in 1998 and you and your guitarist partner Danny McIntosh find yourselves "completely shattered for a couple of years". You move house and spend months doing it up. You convert the garage into a studio, but being a full-time mother who chooses not to employ a nanny or housekeeper, it's hard to find time to actually work in there. Bit by bit, the ideas come and a notion forms in your mind to make a double album, though you have to adjust to a new working regime of stolen moments as opposed to the 14-hour days of old. Your son begins school and suddenly time opens up and though progress doesn't exactly accelerate ("That's a bit too strong a word"), two years of more concentrated effort later, the album is complete. You look up from the mixing desk and it is 2005.

If the outside world was wondering whether Kate Bush would ever finish her long-awaited album, then it was a feeling shared by its creator. "Oh yeah," she sighs. "I mean, there were so many times I thought, I'll have the album finished this year, definitely, we'll get it out this year. Then there were a couple of years where I thought, I'm never gonna do this. If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time ... evaporates."

 There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: "Here's what I've been working on," and then produced some cakes from your oven. True? "No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?"

Even if apocryphal, it's a nugget that reveals something about Bush's relationship with a record label she signed to 30 years ago. For a long time now, she hasn't taken a penny in advances and refuses to play them a note of her works-in-progress. In the latter stages of Aerial's creation, EMI chairman Tony Wadsworth would come down to visit Bush and leave having heard nothing. "We'd just chat and then he'd go away again," Bush says. "We ended up just laughing about it, really."

If the completion of Aerial put paid to one set of anxieties for Bush, then its impending release has brought another - not least, a brace of newspaper stories keen to push the "rock's mystery recluse" angle. It seems the more she craves privacy, the more it is threatened. "For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life," she explains. "It's so a part of who I am. It's so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don't know how dishwashers work. For me, that's frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you've got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody's been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?"

A clock somewhere strikes two and the chipper, ever attentive McIntosh arrives with tea, pizza, avocado with balsamic vinegar and cream cake for afters, only to be playfully admonished by his partner, who protests: "I can't eat all this shit!"

 If there is perhaps less mystery to Kate Bush than we might have expected, her music remains reassuringly the same ecstatic alchemy of the humdrum and otherworldly. Recalling the hello-clouds wonder of The Big Sky from 1985's Hounds of Love or the frank paean to menstruation that is Strange Phenomena from her debut, The Kick Inside, Aerial finds Bush marvelling in the magic of the everyday: the wind animating a skirt hanging on a clothes line, the trace of footprints leading into the sea, the indecipherable codes of birdsong.

But the one track on Aerial that best bridges the divide between Bush's domestic and creative existences is the haunting piano ballad Mrs Bartolozzi, in which a housewife character drifts off into a nostalgic reverie while watching clothes entwining in her washer-dryer. It's also the one track set to polarise opinion among listeners, with its eerie, unhinged chorus of "washing machine ... washing machine". Bush acknowledges as much.

"A couple of people who heard it early on," she says, dipping a spoon into her avocado, "they either really liked it or they found it very uncomfortable. I liked the idea of it being a very small subject. Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is. Y'know, skin cells, the smell. Somebody thought that maybe there'd been this murder going on, I thought that was great. I love the ambiguity".

One of the best photographs taken of Kate Bush, Trevor Leighton’s 2005 portrait is one that draws the eye and provokes a range of responses. As I said, Bush doesn’t seemed to have aged since her earliest career days. They say that a picture paints a thousand words. Trevor Leighton’s mesmeric photo says…

 EVEN more than that.