FEATURE: Bye Bye Baby: From Like a Prayer to Erotica: Looking at One of Madonna’s Biggest Reinventions

FEATURE:

 

 

Bye Bye Baby

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1990/PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Demarchelier 

From Like a Prayer to Erotica: Looking at Madonna’s Biggest Reinventions

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ONE of the biggest album anniversaries…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1992 for the Deeper and Deeper video

this year occurs on 20th October. This will mark thirty years of Madonna’s fifth studio album, Erotica. The album was released simultaneously with her first book publication Sex: a coffee table book containing explicit photographs featuring the singer, and marked her first release under Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company. I wonder whether there will be a thirtieth anniversary release of that album. The photo I have included at the top of this feature was taken in 1990. I think that year marked a real transition for Madonna. 1989’s Like a Prayer saw her grow in confidence and talent as an artist. Whereas 1986’s True Blue was a reinvention and slightly more mature and bolder album compared to 1984’s Like a Virgin, she took another big step three years after True Blue. In terms of her lyrics and music videos, everything got bigger and deeper! More introspective than anything she had released to that point, Like a Prayer spawned six incredible singles – including Cherish and Like a Prayer – and saw Madonna named as the artist of the decade by many publications. There was this huge commercial and critical backing behind her. I am going to come to details and writing about Erotica soon. Close to the anniversary, I am going to go into more depth about the album. It was maligned by a lot of people in 1992, and it remains one of Madonna’s albums that remains underrated. Seen as a bit hit-less and too explicit by some, it definitely departed from her earlier sound. To me, it was an always-inventive artist trying something new and pushing boundaries.

Erotica is an album that lives up to its name. A Pop superstar that wanted to express herself and be true, there was a lot of pushback from those who felt she had gone too far or was being provocative. One cannot blame Madonna for having the desire to do what she did. In 1990 alone, she embarked on the smash that was The Blond Ambition World Tour. The fifty-seven-date world tour supported Like a Prayer, and the soundtrack album to the 1990 film Dick Tracy, I'm Breathless. Eight years after her debut single, Madonna had risen from this curious young artist to a global superstar who was ruling the music world. In her early-thirties when the tour started, obviously Madonna was going to be change things up. If her first few albums had a sweetness and sense of naivety here and there, Like a Prayer and The Blond Ambition World Tour confirmed that she was this bold and accomplished woman who was pushing Pop to new heights. A huge tour that took in cabaret, theatre and different elements to create this extravaganza! Obviously, by the end of 1990, Sire and Warner Bros. knew that a first greatest hits collection was overdue. Having achieved so much and scored so many big hits to that point, The Immaculate Collection was a massive release. It remains one of the most famous and loved greatest hits collections ever.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1990

Throw in the huge success Vogue had in 1990 and the rising profile Madonna had an actor to that point, she was entering the decade as this polymath and pioneer whose music was so much different to everything out there. Whereas a lot of her contemporaries were producing sugary and unsophisticated Pop that was throwaway, Madonna was growing as an artist. Producing and writing alongside Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray on Like a Prayer, she was also this burgeoning and hugely talented songwriter and producer who was commanding so much respect. Despite her success and the fact she was influencing so many around her, Madonna had to face a lot of judgment, misogyny and sexism. From the media and magazines slating her to some of her male peers being sexist and degrading, it seemed that there were a lot of people who were waiting for Madonna to fail! To this day, Madonna gets a lot of negativity and cruelty aimed her way. At the peak of her success, that sense of fame and hype meant there was a lot of vitriol and puritanism alongside the kudos. Although there were some boundary-pushing elements to The Blond Ambitions World Tour in terms of sex and the explicit, there was nothing any more rawer than what a lot of Rock acts and her male peers were doing!

In years since, many female Pop artists produced quite raunchy tours. To be fair, The Blond Ambition World Tour is this theatrical experience that was meant to be fit for an artist who was seen as a true queen and icon. I love the series of photos Patrick Demarchelier took of Madonna in 1990. The fact Madonna resembles Marilyn Monroe in some of the shoots is fascinating. Whether she saw herself as a doomed icon or this Hollywood sex symbol, I am not sure. Even though Madonna had the fame of Monroe and was equally glamorous and loved, there was this fear that Madonna might succumb to the pressures of fame or go off the rails. There is something of the Hollywood siren and this very powerful figure about Madonna in 1990. After a multi-million-dollar tour and a greatest hits album, it seemed that she was untouchable! If Like a Prayer ruffled a few feathers (the title track’s video courted controversy because of an interracial kiss and burning crucifixes; some feeling Madonna should be a better role model), Erotica would do more than that! It fascinates me what Madonna did in 1991. After such a busy past couple of years, Madonna started creating something that would divide people. Recorded between October 1991 and June 1992 at Soundworks Studio, Mastermix, there was a notable shift. Able to exert more creative and promotional control as her Maverick enterprise and label was launched, she collaborated with Shep Pettibone (who co-wrote Vogue).

During the recording session of Erotica, Madonna and Pettibone wrote This Used to Be My Playground, the soundtrack single of the 1992 film, A League of Their Own. The non-album single from The Immaculate Collection, Justify My Love, would nod to the sound and look of Erotica. From the cropped hair and leather jacket look of Papa Don’t Preach (from True Blue) to the long brown hair and religious artefacts and jewellery of Like a Prayer’s title track, this was a marked leap. Both of those songs are gritty and sexy. Justify My Love is sweaty, sensual and challenging. It was almost a shot to those who doubted her or criticised her for being too sexual. To me, it was this peerless Pop superstar unleashed and her most erotica. Written by Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez, Justify My Love is a terrific song that got to number one in the U.S. If some quarters were raising eyebrows and thought Madonna was taking things too far, the public definitely had an appetite for her music and videos! As I said, I will discuss Erotica solely in a series of features this summer. Its arrival – alongside the Sex book - stunned the world. Even though there was some finger-wagging and criticism levied at Madonna, there was also praise. Many noted how the more cold and detached sound worked. Other commended the amount of single-worthy tracks Erotica boasted. Others were impressed with this reinvention and the new persona, Mistress Dita. Charles Aaron of Spin observed the album was a brave comment on the tragic detachment of sex under AIDS.

With songs like Rain, Erotica, Bye Bye Baby and Bad Girl all successful and showing different sides to Madonna, Erotica is an album that deserves reinspection. Madonna, ironically, seemed untouchable as an artist through an album that is as physical and sensual as anything she had ever released! At the forefront of the sexual revolution, it is a funny, varied and hugely inspired album that is not seen as one of her very best albums – though it definitely should be. A blueprint for future artists like Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lady Gaga, and Nicki Minaj, Erotica is fascinating and seminal. It was a case of Erotica and the Sex book arriving at the same time that did provoke some judgment. Maybe an overload. The next album, 1994’s Bedtime Stories, almost seems like the opposite. The title alone is almost child-like or apologetic. Even though the album itself is not toned-down or tame at all, it was a lot less sexual than Erotica. By 1998’s Ray of Light, Madonna had embraced spiritualism and a new direction once more. I find Erotica to be an album that set a blueprint and precedence. Maybe Pop as we know now would not exist. Certainly, it had a profound impact on Pop of the late-1990s and early-2000s. Before rounding off, this Wikipedia article reveals the influence and reputation of 1992’s Erotica:

“The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame considered Erotica one of the most revolutionary albums of all time, declaring that "...few women artists, before or since Erotica, have been so outspoken about their fantasies and desires. Madonna made it clear that shame and sexuality are mutually exclusive... In the end, Erotica embraced and espoused pleasure, and kept Madonna at the forefront of pop's sexual revolution." Slant Magazine listed Erotica at number 24 on "The 100 Best Albums of the 1990s", calling it a "dark masterpiece". Miles Raymer of Entertainment Weekly said that "in retrospect it's her strongest album — produced at the peak of her power and provocativeness... and helped elevate her from mere pop star to an era-defining icon.” Bianca Gracie from Fuse TV channel called Erotica "the album that changed the pop music world forever... one of the most controversial and genre-defining albums in pop history."

J. Randy Taraborrelli documented at the time of Erotica's release, "much of society seemed to reexamining its sexuality. Gay rights issues were at the forefront of social discussions globally, as was an ever-increasing awareness of AIDS." Barry Walters from Rolling Stone noted that the album's greatest contribution is "[its] embrace of the other, which in this case means queerness, blackness, third-wave feminism, exhibitionism and kink. Madonna took what was marginalized at the worst of the AIDS epidemic, placed it in an emancipated context, and shoved it into the mainstream for all to see and hear." Brian McNair, the author of Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratization of Desire, stated that upon the album's release "academic books began to appear about the 'Madonna phenomenon', while pro- and anti-porn feminists made of her a symbol of all that was good or bad (depending on their viewpoint) about contemporary sexual culture." Daryl Deino from The Inquisitr dubbed the album as "a groundbreaking moment for feminism."

Erotica remains the most rampantly misrepresented Madonna album with the biggest backlash of her career. Taraborrelli commented that it is unfortunate that Erotica has to be historically linked to other less memorable ventures in Madonna's career at this time. However, he quipped that the album should be considered on its own merits, not only as one linked to the other two adult-oriented projects, because it has true value.

When asked to name her biggest professional disappointment, Madonna answered, "The fact that my Erotica album was overlooked because of the whole thing with the Sex book. It just got lost in all that. I think there's some brilliant songs on it and people didn't give it a chance." Brian McNair observed that Madonna took a financial risk with the album and it was not until Ray of Light (1998) that her record sales recovered to pre-Erotica levels. He further asserted that "what she lost in royalty payments, however, Madonna more than made up for in iconic status and cultural influence”.

That period between 1989 and 1992 is fascinating! I often chart the years and albums in terms of Madonna’s fashion and looks. Like a Prayer was playful in parts and edgier in others. Madonna definitely transitioning and blossoming in terms of her sound and look. The 1990 photo I have at the top of this feature is her almost as an iconic film star and idol. Someone beginning this real peak and explosion. The Blond Ambition World Tour took that to new levels. By 1992’s Erotica, a very different Madonna had arrived. It was a remarkable few years! I love the fact that she was always changing and was growing stronger as a performer and writer. I will explore Erotica more in the months to come, but I wanted to start that thread with a general look at how her career transformed and changed in the years before. It was most definitely an incredible…

PERIOD in music history.

FEATURE: How They Underestimated Her! Was the Music World Ready for Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside in 1978?

FEATURE:

 

 

How They Underestimated Her!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Was the Music World Ready for Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside in 1978?

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I have touched on this before…

when it comes to thinking about Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside. Having watched the three-part documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, it makes me wonder what it would be like if there was that sort of intimate and revelatory footage of Kate Bush recording an album. Many fans would have their own opinion as to which album/period would be best served in a similar way. Many would say Bush recording Hounds of Love (1985) would provide the biggest thrills and pleasure. I actually think the excitement and intrigue of her debut album would be best. I feel there is misconception from some that her 1978 debut is this young and naïve artist taking tiny steps and feeling her way into music. Released on 17th February, this was the arrival of an artist who was not only fully-formed and realised. The complexity of some of the vocal arrangements, the depth and accomplished lyrics were definitely ahead of their time. Whilst she was a teenager when The Kick Inside was released, the songs suggested an artist who was far older and had been in the industry a lot longer. There was this sense of sneering from some critics. Other slagged off the high-pitched and gymnastic vocals. Others were condescending when it came to Bush writing about sex and love in a somewhat literary, classic and, at times, a bit embarrassing, way. For anyone who wants to know about The Kick Inside and its making, I would recommend this book from last year.

Ahead of its forty-fourth anniversary next month, I wanted to explore and dissect The Kick Inside through a variety of features. Whilst albums like Hounds of Love gained a lot of praise (in the U.K. rather than the U.S.), The Kick Inside is an album that has not won over everyone. I keep looking back at the reviews and press in 1978. Although there was a lot of love for Bush and her originality, there was a section that was more hostile, dubious and patronising. Writing her off as being eccentric, slight or a novelty. As I have said before, songs like Wuthering Heights gave a false impression of who Bush was as an artist. Many simply defined her based on that track. I wonder how many reviewers in 1978 really took time to take apart The Kick Inside, study the lyrics, and appreciate the vocal layers and the incredible musicianship? As a middle-class artist from a slightly well-off background, was Bush troubled enough? Was her music invalid unless she was struggling or from a less-well-of background? The Kick Inside is not an album from someone trying to make a lot of money or waste their time. It is a stunning and startling album that is as raw, fascinating and beautiful as anything released in 1978. This interesting article from 2018 argues how Bush was underestimated from the start:

 “Growing up in Bexleyheath, Kent, in the southeast of England, Bush began writing songs when she was 11 years old, the most prodigious talent in an intensely musical family. Her mother specialized in traditional Irish dance, and her brothers were active in the Kent folk scene; in fact, brother Paddy plays mandolin on The Kick Inside. Her family produced a tape of 50 demos of her original songs and shopped it around to record labels, with very little luck. Eventually the tapes—which have since been widely bootlegged—found their way to David Gilmour, guitarist for Pink Floyd, who helped secured a contract with EMI. The label placed the teenager on retainer until they felt she was old enough to release an album and handle her success.

Perhaps they underestimated her. Bush emerges as a headstrong and even visionary artist almost from the start, with very rigid ideas of how she wants to present herself and her music. EMI originally wanted to release “James and the Cold Gun,” a rock-inflected tune that suggests a more aggro Carole King, as the first single previewing The Kick Inside. Bush not only objected but managed to convince them to release “Wuthering Heights” instead. It was a risk: The song is based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, sung from the point of view of a ghost haunting the moors and pining for living lover. It was hardly a formula for chart success, especially when Bush postponed the single by a month when she was unhappy with the artwork EMI provided. When it was finally released in January 1978, Bush was vindicated. By February “Wuthering Heights” was the number one song in England, and she made history by becoming the first woman to top the UK charts with a self-penned song.

Released in March 1978, The Kick Inside reveals a young artist positioning herself strategically between the ancient and the modern, between folklore and pop music. Sounding very much of its moment, it is nevertheless an album populated by ghosts and spirits. Not goth but certainly gothic, it is an album of hauntings. Some are literal: That’s Catherine Earnshaw’s spirit tapping at the window in “Wuthering Heights.” Other are figurative: The spellbinding music she describes in “The Saxophone Song” seems to have supernatural origins and powers, and the mysterious lover in “The Man with the Child in His Eyes” only appears “when I turn off the light.” Remarkably these ghosts are not diminished by the modern sound of The Kick Inside. Rather, they thrive in that friction between the old and the new”.

Not only was there some criticism and narrow-mindedness towards Bush in 1978. All these years later, there are a lot of people who consider The Kick Inside to be a minor album. Bush as this artist still trying to find her feet. I want to end with an article from Stereogum. They marked The Kick Inside’s fortieth anniversary in 2018 by talking about why Hounds of Love gained Bush the recognition and appreciated she deserved all along. They also state that, whilst underestimated and under-appreciated, albums like The Kick Inside have inspired so many other artists:

“Of course, first we need to address what will make most people either adore or despise TKI: That Voice. As the album begins, a wailing, impossibly-high-pitched voice grabs (or repels) the listener as it sings that opening line “mooooooviiiiiing straaaangeeeer.” Deborah Withers, author of Adventures In Kate Bush And Theory, wrote that the pitch of her voice is “an assault on the normal parameters of vocal modulation.” I feel it is no coincidence that, within a music criticism field dominated by straight white men, her most acclaimed album is 1985’s Hounds Of Love, on which her voice deepened enough for them to be able to handle it. Dismissive and condescending quotes from male critics about Bush’s early work, both from the ‘70s and now, are too numerous to collect here, but Suede frontman Brett Anderson’s assertion in the BBC’s The Kate Bush Story that in her early work she was “finding her way … she hadn’t quite found herself and all that early stuff of her dancing around in leotards is a little bit am-dram” (is he forgetting how he dressed in the early ‘90s?) and that Hounds Of Love is “the zenith” of her artistry, typifies the traditional critical approach to Bush’s work.

 Kate Bush wasn’t fumbling or “finding her voice” — TKI establishes her voice as not just a voice but also as an instrument. Throughout her entire career Bush almost never used backup singers, and instead created her own backing vocals herself by singing in different pitches, in discordant and revelatory ways. This is displayed to great effect on almost every TKI song: turn the volume way up and marvel in how the backing vocals on each song swoop upwards and swoon downwards to create a landscape seemingly independent from the main vocals, especially in “L’Amour Looks Something Like You,” “Moving,” and “Kite.” Bush uses her four-octave range as an instrument most famously and strikingly in “Wuthering Heights,” in which she sings in an almost dog-whistle-like pitch to embody the character of Catherine Earnshaw’s ghost in Emily Brontë’s novel. For most musicians, the voice is what they use to express words; for Bush, it is a remarkable tool that helps contribute to unique soundscapes.

TKI is also revolutionary because it establishes Bush’s narrative style as fluid and multiple; her songs are short stories each written from a different narrator’s perspective rather than from her own point of view. This writing style stands in stark contrast to the traditionally personal style of music focusing on love and heartbreak that continues to dominate the charts. “I often find myself inspired by unusual, distorted, weird subjects, as opposed to things that are straightforward. It’s a reflection of me, my liking for weirdness,” she said in 1980. Unlike the majority of pop/rock artists, The “I” in Bush’s music is rarely Bush. Her songs are not confessional, but are rather short stories told from the points of views of a diverse range of narrators. From Bush’s songs, we can know about themes that interest her, but Kate Bush herself rarely speaks in her work; her narrators, who occupy multiple genders, races, and historical times, do instead. This is a deeply radical break from traditional “confessional “ songwriting, especially for women up to that point. Consider that the most acclaimed female musician of the time, and probably of all time, Joni Mitchell, is most-lauded for her confessional album, Blue.

Perhaps most importantly, beginning with The Kick Inside she has inspired a wide array of artists to “let the weirdness in.” Lady Gaga covered Bush’s duet with Peter Gabriel, “Don’t Give Up,” because she wanted to “make something that young people would hear and learn something about Kate Bush”, and her theatricality has its roots in Bush’s so-bizarre-they’re-brilliant live performances. Björk frequently cites Bush as a pivotal influence on her musical “form”, saying “I remember being underneath my duvet at the age of 12, fantasising about Kate Bush,” and even sent Bush of a demo of herself covering Bush’s “Moving” in 1989. Lorde played “Running Up That Hill” before the shows on her Melodrama tour, and Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan said of Bush, “As an artist myself, [she’s] helped me to not be frightened to put my vulnerability as a woman [in my work] and in that, be powerful.” Bush’s influence is also felt in hip-hop, especially due to her early use of sampling, best seen in her sampling of the Gregorian chanting from Werner Herzog’s film Nosfertu The Vampyre in Hounds Of Love’s “Hello Earth.” One of her biggest champions is OutKast’s Big Boi, who has repeatedly called her “my favorite artist of all time,” and Tricky from Massive Attack said of Bush’s song “Breathing,” which features the line “breathing my mother in,”: “I’m a kid from a council flat, I’m a mixed-raced guy…totally different life to Kate Bush, but that lyric, ‘breathing my mother in,’ my whole career’s based on that.” Even Chris Martin “admitted” that Coldplay’s “Speed Of Sound” “was developed after the band had listened to Kate Bush”.

Forty-four years later, and I have to ask whether perception has shifted that much. The Kick Inside has definitely improved in terms of critical respect, although there are plenty of people who overlook it and see it as this album with a few promising songs – and the rest of it is quite forgettable. As a singer, writer and complete artists, Bush’s magnificent 1978 debut was like nothing else. Those who gave it short shrift did not appreciate or understand a complex and original artist who was offering the world something fresh and different. Not just white male critics, there were more than a few who were unkind towards Kate Bush. All these years later, I maintain The Kick Inside is a misunderstood masterpiece that will only be fully understood and loved years from now. It’s forty-fourth anniversary is on 17th February. I hope that, on that day, there are plenty of writers and fans who show The Kick Inside…

A lot of love.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Forty-Six: Janet Jackson

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Forty-Six: Janet Jackson

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THERE is a sense of synchronicity to this…

as there is a new two-part documentary, JANET, that is being shown on 28th and 29th of this month. It is Janet Jackson in her own words, but it will also feature some of those she has worked with. One of the greatest and most inspiring artists ever, I am going to get to some biography in a minute. Prior to that, here is some more information about the much-discussed and hotly-anticipated JANET:

 “Janet Jackson is ready to speak her truth.

The iconic performer released the first teaser trailer for her upcoming two-part documentary, JANET, which is set to air simultaneously on Lifetime and A&E in January 2022. The new clip features a number of high-profile cameos from former collaborators and fellow creatives within Jackson's close-knit circle, including Paula Abdul, Missy Elliott, and Mariah Carey reminiscing on Jackson's impact as an artist and one of the most influential women in music history.

The upcoming documentary will also feature behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson in recent years as she looks back at her defining career moments and family upbringing. According to People, the documentary was more than "five years in the making" and began filming around the time of the death of the singer's father, Joe Jackson, in 2018. Janet will reportedly speak out on some of her most defining personal and professional moments, including her controversial 2004 Super Bowl performance with Justin Timberlake, her brother Michael Jackson's death, and becoming a mother.

"This is my story, told by me. Not through someone else's eyes," the "Miss You Much" singer says over nostalgic clips of her performing throughout the '80s and '90s, as well as growing up alongside her famous brothers as part of the Jackson 5. "This is the truth. Take it or leave it. Love it or hate it. This is me."

Here's everything we know about this highly-anticipated documentary special.

The documentary airs on January 28 and 29.

Lifetime dropped the first full trailer for the two-part documentary this weekend, seen above, along with its premiere date, which honors the 40th anniversary of her debut album. The 3-minute clip gives an overview of Jackson's life and defining career moments, with the singer narrating her own life story, saying that the doc is, "It's just something that needs to be done."

The clip also reveals several more cameos from members of Jackson's family and inner circle, including her mother Katherine, her siblings Rebbie and Tito, her ex-husband James DeBarge, and her past boyfriends Q-Tip and Jermaine Dupri. Several of her celeb peers and admirers will also feature, including Ciara, Janelle Monae, Teyana Taylor, Regina King, Samuel L. Jackson, and Whoopi Goldberg.

The full trailer shows Jackson addressing the Super Bowl controversy.

One tense moment of the trailer shows Jackson directly addressing her controversial halftime performance with Justin Timberlake, and her subsequent banning from that year's Grammy Awards. "They build you up and then once you get there, they're so quick to tear you down," the "Control" singer narrates.

After showing a newspaper headline reading, "Jackson Banned From Grammys after Super Bowl Stunt," a clip shows a member of Jackson's team telling her that Timberlake reached out, suggesting that he invited her to join his 2018 Super Bowl performance. Jackson's reaction to the news is unreadable, so we'll have to tune in to the doc to see the full story.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano”.

This year also sees a big anniversary for two of her albums. The Janet Jackson album is forty on 21st September. One of her most celebrated albums, The Velvet Rope, is twenty-five on 7th October. Her most recent studio album, Unbreakable, came out in 2015. Let’s hope we get some more music from Jackson soon enough! Before ending with a playlist that collates artists who have been influence by her, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“Janet Jackson didn't merely emerge from the shadows of her famous brothers to become a superstar in her own right. Starting with her breakout 1986 album Control, she became one of the biggest pop stars of the '80s. Through the early 2000s, she was able to maintain her stature with impeccable quality control and stylistic evolution. Her singles, expertly crafted with indelible pop hooks and state-of-the-art production, consistently set or kept up with trends in contemporary R&B, demonstrated by an exceptional run of Top 20 R&B singles that spans over 30 years. From platinum album to platinum album, Jackson's image smoothly shifted as it projected power and independence. In turn, she inspired the likes of TLC, Aaliyah, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Rihanna, all of whom learned a few things from her recordings, videos, and performances.

Janet Damita Jo Jackson was born May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. She was the youngest of nine children in the Jackson family, and her older brothers had already begun performing together as the Jackson 5 by the time she was born. Bitten by the performing bug, she first appeared on-stage with the Jackson 5 at age seven, and began a sitcom acting career at the age of ten in 1977, when producer Norman Lear selected her to join the cast of Good Times. She remained there until 1979, and subsequently appeared on Diff'rent Strokes and A New Kind of Family. In 1982, pushed by her father into trying a singing career, Jackson released her self-titled first album on A&M. "Young Love," written and produced by René & Angela and Rufus' Bobby Watson, reached number six on Billboard's R&B chart, but the album didn't cross into the pop market. She was cast in the musical series Fame in 1983. The following year, she issued her second album, Dream Street, which didn't sell as well as its predecessor. Upon turning 18, Jackson rebelled against her parents' close supervision and eloped with a member of another musical family, singer James DeBarge. However, the relationship quickly hit the rocks and Jackson moved back into her parents' home and had the marriage annulled.

Jackson took some time to rethink her musical career, and her father hired her a new manager, John McClain, who isolated his young charge to train her as a dancer (and make her lose weight). McClain hooked Jackson up with producers/writers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, whom she'd seen perform as members of the Minneapolis funk outfit the Time. Jackson collaborated with Jam and Lewis on most of the tracks for her next album, Control, which presented her as a confident and tough-minded artist (with a soft side and a sense of humor) taking charge of her life for the first time. In support of Jackson's new persona, Jam and Lewis crafted a set of polished, computerized backing tracks with slamming beats that owed more to hard, hip-hop-tinged funk and urban R&B than Janet's older brother Michael's music. Control became an out-of-the-box hit, and eventually spun off six singles, the first five of which -- "What Have You Done for Me Lately," the catch phrase-inspiring "Nasty," the number one "When I Think of You," the title track, and the ballad "Let's Wait Awhile" -- hit the Top Five on the Billboard Hot 100. Jackson was hailed as a role model and Control eventually sold over five million copies, establishing her as a pop star. It also made Jam and Lewis, whose considerable accomplishments were previously limited to the R&B world, a monstrously in-demand pop production team.

For the hotly anticipated follow-up, McClain wanted to push Jackson toward more overtly sexual territory, to which she objected strenuously. Instead, she began collaborating with Jam and Lewis on more socially conscious material, which formed the backbone of 1989's Rhythm Nation 1814 (the "1814" purportedly stood for either the letters "R" and "N" or the year "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written). Actually, save for the title track, most of the album's singles were bright and romantically themed. Four of them -- "Miss You Much," "Escapade," "Black Cat," and "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" -- hit number one, and three more -- "Rhythm Nation," "Alright," and "Come Back to Me" -- reached the Top Five, making Jackson the first artist ever to produce seven Top Five hits off one album (something not even her brother Michael had accomplished). Aside from a greater use of samples, Rhythm Nation's sound largely resembled that of Control, but was just as well-crafted, and listeners embraced it enthusiastically, buying over five million copies in the U.S. alone. Jackson undertook her first real tour (she'd appeared at high schools around the country in 1982) in support of the album and it was predictably a smashing success. In 1991, Jackson capitalized by jumping from A&M to Virgin for a reported $32 million, and also secretly married choreographer and longtime boyfriend René Elizondo.

Once on Virgin, Jackson set about revamping her sound and image. Her 1992 duet with Luther Vandross from the Mo' Money soundtrack, "The Best Things in Life Are Free," was another major R&B hit and reached the pop Top Ten. The following year, she also resumed her acting career, co-starring in acclaimed director (and former junior high classmate) John Singleton's Poetic Justice, along with rapper Tupac Shakur. Neither really hinted at the seductive, fully adult persona she unveiled with 1993's janet., her Virgin debut. Jackson trumpeted her new image with a striking Rolling Stone cover photo -- an uncropped version of the cover of janet. -- in which her topless form was covered by a pair of hands belonging to Elizondo. Musically, Jam and Lewis set aside the synthesized funk of their first two albums with Jackson in favor of warm, inviting, gently undulating grooves. Jackson took credit for all the lyrics. The album's lead single, the slinky "That's the Way Love Goes," became Jackson's biggest hit ever, spending eight weeks at number one. It was followed by a predictably long parade of Top Ten hits -- "If," the number one ballad "Again," "Because of You," "Any Time, Any Place," and "You Want This." janet.'s debut showing at number one made it her third straight chart-topping album, and it went on to sell nearly seven million copies in the U.S.

In 1995, Janet and Michael teamed up for the single "Scream," which was supported by an elaborate, award-winning, space-age video that, upon completion, ranked as the most expensive music video ever made. The single debuted at number five on the Hot 100. In 1996, A&M issued a retrospective of her years at the label, Design of a Decade 1986-1996; it featured the Virgin hit "That's the Way Love Goes" and a few new tracks, one of which, "Runaway," became a Top Five hit. Jackson also signed a new contract with Virgin for a reported $80 million. Yet while working on her next album, Jackson reportedly suffered an emotional breakdown, or at least a severe bout with depression. She later raised eyebrows when she talked in interviews about the cleansing value of coffee enemas as part of her treatment. Her next album, The Velvet Rope, appeared in 1997 and was touted as her most personal and intimate work to date. The Velvet Rope sought to combine the sensuality of janet. with the more socially conscious parts of Rhythm Nation, mixing songs about issues like domestic abuse, AIDS, and homophobia with her most sexually explicit songs ever. Critical opinion on the album was divided; some applauded her ambition, while others found the record too bloated. The lead American single "Together Again," an elegy for AIDS victims, was a number one hit. Also popular on the radio was "Got 'Til It's Gone," which featured rapper Q-Tip and a sample of Joni Mitchell over a reggae beat. "I Get Lonely," featuring Blackstreet, was another big hit, but on the whole, The Velvet Rope didn't prove to be the blockbuster singles bonanza that its predecessors were, which was probably why its sales stalled at around three million copies.

Jackson toured the world again, and stayed on the charts in 1999 with the Top Five Busta Rhymes duet "What's It Gonna Be?!"; her appearance in the video remade her as a glitzy, artificially costumed, single-name diva. In 2000, she appeared in the Eddie Murphy comedy Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, and her soundtrack contribution, "Doesn't Really Matter," became a number one single. Unfortunately, Jackson's marriage to Elizondo had become strained and the couple divorced in 2000, sparking a court battle over her musical income. Jackson returned with a new album, All for You, in 2001, which largely continued the sensual tone of janet. and The Velvet Rope. It debuted at number one, selling over 600,000 copies in its first week alone. The title track was issued as the album's first single and quickly topped the charts, followed by another sizable hit in "Someone to Call My Lover."

While Jackson spent much of 2001 and 2002 on the road supporting All for You, she also found time for some guest appearances, most notably with Beenie Man on his Tropical Storm LP and Justin Timberlake on Justified. By 2003 she was back in the studio, working once again with Jam and Lewis on tracks for a new album. Additional producers included Dallas Austin and Kanye West. The following year began with an Internet leak of the upbeat Austin production "Just a Little While." The singer's camp rolled with the punches, offering the track to radio as an authorized digital download, but the buzz this business caused was minuscule in comparison to the nightmare union of free exposure and bad publicity that Jackson's next adventure caused. Appearing during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, Jackson performed "All for You" and "Rhythm Nation" before bringing out surprise guest Timberlake for a duet on his hit "Rock Your Body." But the real surprise came at song's end, when a gesture from Timberlake caused Jackson's costume to tear, exposing her right, pierced breast on live television to hundreds of millions of viewers.

The incident caused furious backpedaling and apologizing from Timberlake, Jackson, the NFL, CBS, and MTV, which swore no previous knowledge of the so-called "wardrobe malfunction," and led to speculation over how Damita Jo -- Jackson's upcoming album and her first in three years -- would be received. But while the controversy gave Jackson both grief and a bit of free advertising, it was also the impetus for a national debate on public indecency. A federal commission was set up to investigate prurience, the FCC enacted tougher crackdowns on TV and radio programs broadcasting questionable content, and suddenly everyone from pundits to politicians to the man in the street had an opinion about it. Later that March, the singer quietly started making the talk show rounds. She was still apologizing for the incident -- while Timberlake escaped unscathed -- but she was also promoting Damita Jo, which Virgin issued at the end of the month. Largely considered a disappointment, the album nonetheless sold over two million copies worldwide and earned three Grammy nominations. 20 Y.O. followed two years later, and though it was reviewed more favorably than Damita Jo, it was off the Billboard 200 album chart after 15 weeks. Jermaine Dupri, Jackson's love interest and the executive producer of the album, was so upset over Virgin's lack of support that he left his post as president of Virgin's urban division. Dupri moved to Island, and so did Jackson. In 2008, Jackson released her tenth studio album, Discipline, which became her sixth release to top the Billboard 200, despite another tumultuous artist-label relationship.

Although Jackson didn't release another album for seven years, the longest gap in her discography was filled with professional activity and major life changes. During the filming of Why Did I Get Married Too?, she learned of her brother Michael's death. Soon after, she and Dupri split, and she toured in support of Number Ones, a double-disc anthology promoted with the number one club hit "Make Me." She took the lead role in the big-screen adaptation of For Colored Girls, published a book, and remained deeply connected to various causes as a philanthropist. In 2015, she returned on her own Rhythm Nation label with "No Sleeep," a slow-jam Jam and Lewis collaboration that hit the R&B Top 20. It primed her audience for a tour, as well as her 11th studio album, Unbreakable -- another number one hit. Plans for the tour were postponed so Jackson could focus on family; she wouldn't return to the road until 2017.

In 2018, she issued the Top 40 hit single "Made for Now," featuring Daddy Yankee”.

To tie in with the JANET documentary, I wanted to put out an Inspired By… containing songs from artists who have been influenced by Janet Jackson in some way. She is an icon and peerless artists who has released some of the finest albums ever. As you can tell from the playlist below, Jackson’s mesmeric influence and legacy has hit…

SO many artists.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Violet Skies

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Violet Skies

___________

AN artist I have featured before…

I wanted to spotlight Violet Skies. At the moment, there are not that many recent (in the last couple of years) interviews with her. The Welsh musician is turning thirty on Valentine’s Day. Rather than depress her – thirty is baby age! -, I wanted to show how much she has achieved with her music so far! I think that Violet Skies (real name Hannah Berney) is going to be developing as an artist and will be around for so many years. I have been listening to Violet Skies’ music for years. Whilst some might say she is an established musician who is not rising, the point of this feature is to spotlight someone who deserves to be better know; an artist that is not yet in the mainstream, but will be one day. An artist of the highest calibre, she put out the single, The Internet, a couple of weeks back. I really love the video for that song. I interviewed Violet Skies for my blog back in 2017. I will crib from a couple of interviews from the past couple of years, and source one that is a bit older. Before coming to some interviews, it is worth bringing in a bit of background regarding a mesmeric and hugely talented artist:

“You’ll be familiar with Violet Skies without realising it.  Having spent the last few years writing for other artists around the world, as well as founding sheWrites, a global series of female-only writing camps, Violet Skies is setting up her stall alongside her artist peers; a Welsh singer-songwriter with ambition as big as her voice.

Growing up in a village in Wales, UK, she’s a self-confessed nerd, perfectionist and has known since the age of 4 that music was her future. Violet Skies, (adopting her grandmother’s name) writes “pop with teeth” and co-produces all her music; a combination of searingly emotional vocals, uncomfortably honest lyrics about her relationships, and infectious melodies.

The resulting output walks a fine line between making you cry about an ex you thought you were over – and laugh about the one you’re glad got away.

Prior to flipping to interviews from 2020, I want to go back to 2016. At this point, Violet Skies was a relatively new act. When she spoke with What Olivia Did back in 2016, she was about to head off to SXSX in the U.S. This was a year when a lot of people were discovering Violet Skies for the first time. The South Wales-born musician was asked about some of her musical inspirations:

“So, have you always had an interest in music? Did you grow up in a musical household- what was your earliest musical memory?

I couldn’t not like music because my parents played more music than anything else. We never had a quiet house, and music was often at the centre of our experiences. They first took us to Glastonbury when we were about 10. One of my earliest musical memories though, is singing in a school play as Puss in Boots. Rock and roll!

You’re about to release your second E.P, following the release of your amazing track One Day, Thee Autumns- and of course your Dragons E.P- how does it feel the second time around?

Equally as scary as the first time, like letting a little baby out into the wild! I’m just happy to be sharing music again and finding out what people feel when they hear the music.

Where do you seek inspiration for song writing? Is everything based on experience, or is there a particular place or time you like to get writing?

I write lyrics a lot when I’m travelling or in the shower, and mostly they’re about one particular person and sometimes my other personal experiences, as well as sometimes other people’s stories. Writing’s a bit like a muscle though, so the more you do it the more you’re able to write at any place or time.

PHOTO CREDIT: What Olivia Did 

Musically, who or what inspires you? Are there any other artists you look up to, or admire?

Here’s a mini playlist that should give you an idea…

Joni Mitchell – A Case of You

Stevie Wonder – All In Love is Fair

Spice Girls – Every Damn Song

Alison Krauss – Baby Now That I’ve Found You

Kwabs (prod by Sohn) – Last Stand

James Blake – Retrograde

Massive Attack – Teardrop

Kevin Garrett – Refuse

Nao – Bad Blood

Rae Morris – Don’t Go

Lana Del Ray – Born to Die

Ben Khan – Eden

Jack Garrett – I Couldn’t Want You Anyway

Billy Joel – Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)

Paul Simon – Homeless

Last year you were so busy with festivals and gigs (which is hugely exciting)- which was your favourite, and which the most nerve wracking?

Ooh my fave was probably the headline london show I just did in December, I didn’t expect anyone to turn up so it was a big surprise walking out and being genuinely shocked that people were all there filling the venue – we had a really fun show.

You’ve also got an amazing look, style and incredible stage presence- what inspires your outfits on stage and your personal style? I wish I could pull off the bleached look so well!

Aha thanks! No-one’s said that before! My style comes from growing up with my Mam to be honest – she has a jewellery and shoe wardrobe (the dream) and just always wears what she wants. I gradually found my own style which came from needing something simple to wear, so I’m not stressing before I go on stage. Essentially clean long lines, various black textures and maybe some white if I feel like it.

Do you have any tips for young girls trying to make it into the music industry? What has been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Someone well-known and very lovely told me that she didn’t have the best voice and she knew it (I disagree), but she worked so much harder than her peers that eventually it had to happen. I always think if you’re not doing it – someone else will. Also – girls – play instruments and produce, and learn to engineer your own sessions. Life will be infinitely more creative! Also – take advice but don’t ever let anyone tell you what’s right for you – it’s easier to live with your own decisions than someone else’s”.

I want to come more up to date. I am not sure whether there is an album planned for Violet Skies. She has put together so many great singles and E.P.s through the years (2020’s E.P., Lonely, in my view, was her best work to that point). I do think that 2022 is a breakthrough year where she will collaborate with mainstream artists; her music will get to a much larger audience. In this interview from 2020, Violet Skies was asked about her unique moniker; in addition to writing for big artists:

“Firstly, for those who are new to you, how would you describe the music you typically create?

Honest — always — perhaps a little too honest. I’m drawn to ballads and story telling, and often my songs are sad. But no apologies there, I like sad songs.

This is probably something that you’re very frequently asked, but how did you come to choose the stage name Violet Skies?

Haha always. Violet is my great grandmother’s name. And Skies was my Mam’s idea, I think? It just felt like me.

You’ve written a lot of music for other artists like Mabel and have co-written with big singer-songwriters like Finneas, but when did you first start writing music?

When I was 13 or so, and then really understood songs and finished them when I was about 16/17.

Where do you get your inspiration from when writing new music? Do you have a process or is it just a sort of natural flow of things?

My process is always different (always!!) but I will more often than not, start with chords and melodies often follow. I tend to have an idea or concept in mind when I start singing and that guides the mood. When I write for artists though, I let them lead or prompt them, it’s their vision and I’m there to facilitate that”.

In the coming weeks, I am highlighting artists who I feel will make their presence truly dwelt this year. Violet Skies is someone who I have a lot of respect for. A tremendous artist with so much ahead of her. Before the pandemic started, Violet Skies relocated to L.A. (I think for a brief spell, rather than a permanent move). LDN brought up her amazing project, sheWrites:

“How are you finding LA compared to Wales?

LA is a lot less green, a lot busier, but still full of lovely people (despite the stereotype of Hollywood).

For those that aren’t familiar to your music, please could you introduce yourself and the kind of music you make.

All the things you wished you could have said to an ex, or even current lover, with a lot of
piano.

Who did you grow up listening to? And your inspirations now?

Joni Mitchell, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Carol King. Now I listen to everything, pretty recently obsessed with Kevin Garrett, MUNA, Orla Gartland and Phoebe Bridgers.

Is there anyone you would like to work with?

Joni Mitchell. Julia Michaels. David Gray. Rihanna. I’ve got very mixed tastes.

You co-founded sheWrites, an amazing series of female-only writing camps – tell us about that.

Thank you! I co-founded it with Charlie McClean and we run camps/curated sessions all over the world with the intention of giving the best of the best space to make friends, make all-female-created songs and make an impact on the charts and the award shows. We’re out here trying to change the industry and we’re not quiet about it.

Do you have any tips for songwriters?

Write every day. Be disciplined about setting aside time to write. Play music to your friends and watch them whilst they’re listening. Learn to produce.

How do you go about writing a song? Do you have a specific setup? Do you do lyrics first, then melody, etc.?

It changes every single day. I don’t often write alone so I’m usually in other people’s studios working. I like to start with chords and have a rough idea of where the concept is heading, but often I’ve walked into the room and sung something acapella and started like that. It’s not the same for me any single time!”.

Go and follow Violet Skies on social media. I would urge you to check out all of her songs. For this feature, I am dropping in her more recent tracks. Always improving as an artist, I wanted to salute someone who is going to be a major artist very soon. She has put so much work in since 2015/2016 - and, in those years, established a dedicated and passionate fanbase. If you have not discovered the joys of Violet Skies’ music, then go and check her out…

RIGHT now.

_____________

Follow Violet Skies

Official:

http://www.iamvioletskies.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/iamvioletskies/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/IAmVioletSkies

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/56w356OnIbrmFsOFcx3NQN?si=yDfkT3_IQtyxBzvtNE4SOw&nd=1

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuDmc1XB_wz3ZAr7qrs6eDA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/iamvioletskies

TRACK REVIEW: Pillow Queens - Be By Your Side

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Pillow Queens

Be By Your Side

9.6/10

The track, Be By Your Side, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vnnhGmvXf4

RELEASE DATE:

19th January, 2022

ORIGIN:

Dublin, EIRE

GENRE:

Indie Rock

The album, Leave the Light On, is available from 1st April, 2022

LABEL:

Royal Mountain Records

PRODUCER:

Tommy McLaughlin

__________

I previously reviewed Pillow Queens…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ciara McMullan

back in 2020. With a new track, Be By Your Side, out, I wanted to return to the Dublin group. I shall try not to bring too much of the same information/interviews to this review as I did for their excellent track, Child of Prague. I am eager to return to the music of Sarah Corcoran, Rachel Lyons, Cathy McGuinness and Pamela Connolly. The last time I reviewed them, it was around their debut album, In Waiting. Now, with the announcement of their second studio album, I am coming back to the brilliance of the EIRE band. Before I get to the current cut from the album, there are a few things to cover. First, the group offer some biography on their official website:

“Pillow Queens formed in Winter 2016 with the immediate release of their demo EP Calm Girls, which sparked a successful string of UK & Irish dates & festival appearances.

Their second EP State of the State made its way onto BBC 6 Music’s playlists, with Steve Lamacq calling them “deceptively infectious, with sharp hooks and sharp nails”. The lead single Favourite picked up lots of great support on the UK’s national airwaves, including plays on BBC RADIO 1, BBC Introducing, RADIO X & Amazing Radio.

After two more UK tours, and two sellout hometown gigs, the band soon found themselves more and more comfortable on bigger stages, opening for the likes of American Football and Pussy Riot, capping off Summer 2018 with a stadium performance opening for Idles & Future Islands.

This quick momentum led to the band working with Mercury Prize nominated producer Tommy McLaughlin for their next single Gay Girls – which received a nomination for the RTE Choice Music Prize song of the year, as well as International airplay on NPR’s World Cafe & KEXP. 2019 saw Pillow Queens venture into mainland Europe, with an appearance at this year’s Eurosonic Festival, followed by an impressive string of European tour dates supporting Soak.

Pillow Queens' debut album 'In Waiting' is out now.

They continued to earn enthusiastic support  at home and In the UK before they independently released their 2020 LP In Waiting. The album was a major breakthrough for the band, earning them praise from outlets like The Guardian, who called them “2020’s most exciting indie rockers,” NPR, NME, DIY, and The Line of Best Fit, a Band To Watch feature from Stereogum, an Irish Album of The Year nomination, and most remarkably of all a US national television appearance on the Late Late Show w/ James Corden.

The band are returning to announce their sophomore LP Leave The Light On, which is due out April 1st on Royal Mountain Records”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Faolán Carey

One of the defining aspects of Pillow Queens’ music is their lyrics. I noticed through In Waiting that the songs’ lyrics really stood out. Always so memorable and quotable, Stereogum discussed the lyrical brilliance in an article from January last year:

“Something else that makes Pillow Queens sound like no other band is Connolly’s literary melodrama as a songwriter, which clashes wonderfully with their DIY spirit. Hearing Connolly wail, “You’ll have my head/ You’ll have my head on a silver plate!” over a wall of distortion on “Liffey” feels like an inverse of ethereal folk acts who sing about therapy and scrolling Instagram. (She has modern moments too, regretting “belly achin’ ’bout a fire sign” on “Gay Girls”). It might just sound folkloric to Americans, but the drama is heightened by Connolly’s studies of Ireland; she describes Dublin as a “sore sad city” on “Handsome Wife” and reaches for comfort in the “embrace of the northern bay” on “Donagmede.” On that track, in the indie rock tradition of romanticizing towns like Stockton, California or Omaha, Nebraska, Connolly begs a lover to “Stay for a week/ In sunny Donaghmede,” her suburban hometown, best known for its shopping malls. “We were very into the Bloomington, Indiana scene when we were like 16 or 17,” explains Corcoran. “Songs always mention Bloomington; we were like, ‘One day, it’ll be Donaghmede and Finglas.'”

The grandeur of her lyrics, Connolly says, is a result of imagery sponged up during her Catholic childhood. “It’s almost just cultural here, biblical language. References to god are just woven into language — I mean look at Hozier’s music” she says, referencing the singer whose sex ballad “Take Me To Church” became a global hit in 2014. The effect is particularly delicious on “Handsome Wife,” a queer fantasy of a marital bliss, when Connolly paints scenes like, “Me and all your fathers’ daughters/ Lay beside the tide to take us/ Kissed the bride and fought you favors/ I may not be the wife you want but I’m pregnant with the virgin tongue”.

I have been a fan of Pillow Queens for years now. It was exciting seeing how they had grown and evolved since their first single or two. Such a phenomenal debut album, it took a lot of hard work and effort to get to where they did. Seeing as my first experience with Pillow Queens was them playing live in London, I got the feeling that they wrote their songs with the live crowd in mind. NME talked about their great progress (in an interview when their debut was released), and how Pillow Queens consider themselves more of a live band:

“All of the four-piece’s tireless work over the last four years has seen them grow into a force to be reckoned with, gradually progressing from the promise of early EPs ‘Calm Girls’ (2016) and ‘State Of The State’ (2018). ‘In Waiting’ bears all the hallmarks the band showed on those first releases – surging, infectious indie melodies, big gang vocals and, yes, that current of positivity – but feels more fully realised and accomplished than ever.

When they were making the album, the group’s focus was on how the songs would translate live. “We were definitely thinking about playing bigger stages, bigger audiences, new audiences, new countries,” says Corcoran. The pandemic, though, has forced them to look at the record from a new angle and, subsequently, consider themselves as more than a live band”.

I will come to their new album very soon. When exploring Pillow Queens, one needs to go back and look at their debut. It must have been quite momentum-sapping putting a debut album during the pandemic. In September 2020, as the pandemic was severe and gigs were not happening, they launched a much-anticipated release. This time around, they get to release an album when they can tour. CLASH spoke with the band about the timing of releasing an album during a pandemic. The group managed to make it work:

“Among all the chaos of COVID-19, it was never going to be easy to release an album - and a debut one at that - but they found a way to make it work for them. Pamela describes her experience. “I think it’s been different for a lot of people. I think it’s hard to complain too much because I’m healthy and all the girls in the band are healthy.”

We spent it separately so it was hard to keep up the creative aspect of the band. Had we at least been within 2km of each other, we could have potentially still worked on [creative] stuff but, in saying that, I think we may have benefited in regards to releasing the album, because there was a lot of admin stuff to do, there were a lot of contingency plans in terms of how we could get enough money to release the album and, during lockdown, that’s when we all did that. I think if the lockdown didn’t happen, that would have been a lot harder to figure out”.

‘In Waiting’ is actually being released independently by the band. Speaking of the debut album, Pamela is “super excited” to be sharing ‘In Waiting’ with their fans. She describes creating the album as “awesome” and a way for the band to really develop their sound. “It was a labour of love”, she jokes. “I think it’s a weird time to be releasing an album but I think it’s the right time for us”.

Pamela explains that the band did consider pushing the release date back but decided against it. “What’s the point when you’re super excited? We are still excited regardless of things not being normal per se. We’re still super excited for people to hear what we have. We’re super excited for people to receive the vinyls that they’ve ordered. I just want people to listen to it and, if they enjoy it, that’s amazing”.

One of the most important aspects of their music is how Dublin feeds through it. The city is deeply important when it comes to the music scene and the D.N.A. in the country. Over the past few years, there has been a wave of great bands from the EIRE capital. Even though a lot of the groups are male, Pillow Queens are offering a stunning alternative and strength that will inspire other groups led by womxn. In this interview with YUCK, the subject of Dublin cropped up:

“It would be silly not to mention Dublin. The Irish music scene, obviously you’re a big part of it. How does the city and the scene influence you as a band?

A huge amount, I think. It influences music lyrically, and Dublin and Ireland in general has a very specific sound, the rock music that is coming out of Ireland right now is probably bigger than it ever has been in the past ten to twenty years, and, it’s not just what it always had been. You know it’s rock music, pop music, R&B, wrap and it’s so much more of a variety, there's a resurgence of an appreciation in music, and because we are a small country the scene is quite small, so you also have relationships with these big names and smaller names. It’s a nice community and there’s obviously a lot of things that go against being from a small country, but I think that community is probably one of the biggest positives.

Going back to Dublin again, I feel like there are a lot of male bands coming out of the city at the minute. That’s obviously not endemic of the scene, why do you think this is?

Well at the moment there is actually a bit of a thing happening, because some data was released with regard to Irish female musicians and the radio play they get against the Irish male musicians and consistently see 2%, 5% airplay from radio stations across Ireland. I personally listen to a lot of Irish male bands, but predominantly I listen to a lot of non-male fronted bands, so I know they’re there, and I know the quality is huge. So, there is a bit of struggle at the moment because we see these male acts, and it’s not necessarily the rock bands that are getting the air play. It’s the Gavin James’ and the Dermot Kennedy’s, that are the huge names that are getting that push forward, and obviously for a rock band we don’t expect to get that kind of push”.

Maybe we do not give Irish music as much credit as it deserves. We still talk heavily about the impact of London, though Ireland is definitely taking a stand and showcasing its very best talent! If we have overlooked Ireland in the past, the country is definitely back at the fore. Coming back to the YUCK interview, we learn about the quality coming out of the country:

“Pillow Queens have cemented themselves at the forefront of a continued resurgence for Irish music; the last five years have seen the emergence of the likes of Fontaines D.C., SOAK, Silverbacks and The Murder Capital, but there’s something a little unique about the noise that Dublin’s latest export are creating. The all-female four piece, made up of vocalist/guitarist Sarah Corcoran, vocalist, guitarist and bassist Pamela Connolly, guitarist Cathy McGuinness, and drummer Rachel Lyons, have seen their stature sky-rocket in the short space of time they’ve been together. As they prepare to self-release their debut album, we caught up with Pam to chat about all things PQ.

You’ve smashed on to the scene this year, creating a fanbase almost without playing any live shows; what’s that been like for you as a band?

So, I think it was the initial over saturation of ourselves as much as possible that kind of allowed us to develop a fan base. Our fan base is quite non-male, although males as well and queer so I guess maybe some of it as well is seeing something different on a stage. Something that they can relate to. But I’m not entirely sure. We could probably do the same thing again and get different results. I think it was just a time. I’m not entirely sure myself why that worked cause we went against the grain, you know we did that thing where you release music right before Christmas, which is the one thing people tell you; if you’re gonna release music, don’t do it at the end of the year. We were like ‘fuck it we have nothing to lose.’ We don’t like waiting around, so I think that was mostly it, really [laughs]”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Vanessa Ifediora

A lot of British acts sing in a forced American accent. I think staying true to where you are from is key. I love when Scottish artists sing in their native accents. It gives the music authenticity and truth. Pillow Queens have never been a band who wanted to mimic American artists or dumb things down. They have kept their accents. Ourculture spoke with them last year. The group revealed why they sing in their accents:

“It seems ridiculous that this even needs to be commented upon, but singing in your accents… it’s something that’s remarkably lacking in the mainstream music industry, particularly in the UK and Ireland. Was this something that was ever discussed amongst yourselves or was it just a given that you would sing in your accent?

It’s certainly something we’re conscious of. Growing up listening to a lot of music from outside Ireland you tend to just end up singing in a fairly neutral accent. We want people to have an instant recognition of where we’re from when they listen to our music as we think it gives a little more context to who we are. We love the way we sing, and we like that people enjoy it but it’s just our preference. If when you sing your accent doesn’t come out, more power to you. Music is escapism and the way someone chooses to express their art is completely up to them”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Miguel Ruiz

I am going to keep on this theme for a little bit. Metro also touched on this in their interview. What defines Irish music is how artists bring so much passion, authenticity and personality to their music by keeping it in their own voice. It is a beautiful and distinct sound:

“Serious lo-fi in the style of The Cranberries or not, there’s no doubt that Pillow Queens’ music is distinctly them. Songs like Favourite, Gay Girls, Ragin’ and Rats mix grungy, gritty guitars with insanely catchy hooks, all sung in thick Irish accents and peppered with Dublin slang.

‘I’ve certainly made music where I didn’t sing in my accent, and that didn’t necessarily get me anywhere,’ Pamela said. ‘It’s something people remember you for. Eventually, I hope it goes over their heads and they think “well that’s just what Pillow Queens sound like”. And that’s just what Irish bands sound like, we’re not the only ones who sing in our accents. I certainly remembered a lot of bands when I was younger because of their accents – like Catatonia, that was gorgeous hearing that thick Welsh accent.

‘It might grate on some people, which is inevitable, but feck them. It is what it is. Even if we didn’t use our accents, we’d still annoy someone.’

In fact, it’s that uniquely Irish perspective that has given rise to some of Pillow Queens’ best songs – and there’s no better example than Gay Girls. Their breakthrough hit, an infectious indie track with a killer chorus, was accompanied by a video showing Irish schoolgirls running riot in their Communion dresses which brought the song to a whole new audience and gained critical acclaim”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Faolán Carey

Politics and the changes in Ireland definitely relate to the band. They cover social and political concerns in their music. Coming back to the interview from Stereogum, and it seems that, in some ways, the group are a product and result of the political movements in their country:

“Corcoran says Pillow Queens is a product of Ireland’s political moment in a few ways. “We grew up and went to school pre-recession, at the height of the Celtic Tiger era when Ireland was very rich. We had it drilled into us that you’ve got to have a career, earn big, own property,” she explains. “When it hit and there were no jobs, we were like, ‘What are we supposed to do now?’ I think a lot of creative people said, ‘Fuck it, who cares if music’s not a practical career?'” Her theory is that this period — when there was little else to do besides start a band — is behind the much-discussed boom in Ireland’s music scene, best known by its artsy post-punks like Girl Band and Fontaines D.C., who were recently nominated for a Grammy. Connolly is cautious about romanticizing the recession — “It’s not like as soon as you get on the dole people just feel creative” — but agrees that something was gestating in Ireland that’s recently been set free. On coming up as a part of the Irish rock renaissance: “It’s more exciting than anything. It shows us what’s possible,” Connolly says, “Hey, we don’t sound like Fontaines, but maybe people will get used to that twang. Maybe they’ll be like, ‘Ooh, I want to hear more of that weird Irish singing.'”

For Connolly, the era didn’t translate into freedom. It took many evenings of Corcoran banging on her door before she relented to try writing a song together. One of their first attempts became “Rats,” off the band’s 2016 EP Calm Girls. The first thing you’ll notice about Pillow Queens is that they’re astonishingly catchy. “If I’m not a rat/ You’re not a rat/ I won’t say nothin’ if you touch me like that,” Connolly mischievously calls (pronounced “rah” and “nuttin” in her thick accent) over thick blasts of guitar and kickdrum on the singalong-ready chorus, a key feature of many Pillow Queens songs. No one in the band will tell me what the vermin-themed line means. (I assumed it was about a secret hook-up, though the music video portrays a mock children’s TV show where hosts share lessons on ACAB and not being a scab). But with their boundless enthusiasm and hooky emo-inspired riffs, Pillow Queens could get a packed bar to scream just about anything back at them”.

One cannot talk about Pillow Queens without discussing queerness. As a Queer band, they are inspiring so many others. There are more Queer artists on the scene compared to a few years back, though I think there is still not as much acceptance and as many open doors as there should be. Attitudes are changing, yet things are not perfect. In their interview with The Line of Best Fit, the group talked about queerness being at the heart of their core. It must have been tough to live in a Catholic country as Queer women:

“It was also the intention that the band would consist of four queer women. Queerness is in the very DNA of Pillow Queens; their foundation built on being visible as queer artists, with In Waiting featuring song titles such as “Gay Girls” and “Handsome Wife”. “That was something that was important to us,” says Corcoran. “I’ve been in bands before where we were approached by a queer publication, and the other members of the band were like: ‘We don’t want it to be a gimmick, we don’t want to make that a thing’. And it’s like, okay, it’s not gimmicky, it’s just a big part of my identity that I don’t wanna be hiding. I don’t wanna feel like we wouldn’t do any queer press. With Pillow Queens it’s the total opposite to that.”

“[We would] welcome it. We don’t get enough,” Connolly laughs, before quipping, “I don’t think people know that we’re gay.”

“This is our coming out article,” Corcoran replies, tongue in cheek.

Following two previous EPs, In Waiting was born from a more collaborative writing process than ever before. “Everybody feels like their stamp is on the album,” Corcoran notes, and it’s as sure-footed as the band has ever been. Lyrically, much of the album deals with watching their beloved Dublin fall victim to gentrification, and concerns around financial and living circumstances grow ever more pressing.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vanessa Ifediora 

Yet Ireland’s influence on the album spreads its roots deeper even than that. Catholic imagery crops up throughout; something they found almost worked its way into to their lyricism unnoticed, merely a language picked up after growing up in a country where it’s so unavoidable.

“None of us really grew up in a strictly religious household,” Connolly says. “But we got a hangover of a very strictly religious country. And we had to grow up as four queer women in a country that didn’t necessarily see us as whole people.”

The conflation of religious language with perspectives that are intrinsically and uniquely queer results in a viewpoint that almost feels like a reclamation; a way of facing and re-sculpting this element of spirituality from which both Connolly and Corcoran felt ripped away. “When I was quite young, I was incredibly spiritual,” says Corcoran, “and there were a lot of incidents—including me coming to terms with my sexuality and realising that that wasn’t accepted—that were really disappointing. I was like, okay, I can’t coexist harmoniously”

As if in answer to those years of grief and shame, In Waiting feels like a celebration of queerness; of queer love, queer joy and queer identity. “Handsome Wife” is a beaming reflection on the glee of being in love (‘The silence is so soft / I’m gonna be free’), while "A Dog’s Life" sees them take pride in identity and community despite the coldness and inequity of the society around them; all of this viewed through a prism of queerness that is recognisable almost innately to those who share in it.

“There’s so much emphasis on negatives, and homophobia and hate, and that’s not what being queer is. There’s so much joy in it,” Corcoran says. “I found myself through queer art and queer performance, and finding that community”.

There is a little bit more I want to explore before coming to the song review. I am using the Stereogum interview again. The group’s blend of religious imagery as Queer artists is not a common clash. Because of that, they are often misunderstood as social warriors or being overly-political:

“I guess it’s a bit of ‘Hey, we’re four queer women using religious references to write songs about fancying girls,'” Connolly says, explaining the band is often interpreted to be making confrontational statements they don’t intend. “But some of it is just quite beautiful. We’re not only referencing religion to reject it. Catholicism was something that certainly affected myself, Sarah, and Cathy a lot when it came to accepting our queerness. It’s nice to be able not to look back so disdainfully and say, ‘I’m going to look back without angst and use these metaphors.”

Pillow Queens are easily misread as social justice punks because all the members are queer and happy to talk about it, as opposed to artists who set firm boundaries to avoid having their identities treated as a trend. Make no mistake, the band’s name is queer slang for someone who likes to get more than they give in bed. They mention the Irish anti-immigrant policy “Direct Provision” in every interview, and little girls don dirty communion dresses in their music videos. But when it comes to the music, they aren’t slogan-shouters, even to the extent of something like Camp Cope’s “The Opener” or Diet Cig’s “Tummy Ache.” Their song “Gay Girls” has been dubbed a “celebration of queer identity” as a result of the title and a few words in the chorus. But “Gay Girls” is really just about “a normal person having anxiety about someone they’re interested in,” Connolly says. The band gets closest to riot grrl rock when Corcoran’s writes, like on “HowDoILook,” a sardonic body-angst manifesto, and “A Dog’s Life,” which is about Dublin’s housing crisis. Part of the fun of Pillow Queens is hearing the band scream-chant, “I! Won’t! Worry! Bout! The! Gay! Girls!” But those moments feel richer and more authentic for all the subtle ones, like on “Holy Show,” when Connolly sings, “I’ve got your eyes and cheeks in front of me/ Filling the space between my thighs.” “We love watching what people like girl in red are doing, because it’s just a different world. We grew up on the edge, where it was still a political statement to sing about ‘she’ and ‘her,'” Corcoran says. “Artists like her don’t even think about whether or not to do it”.

I have touched on how a lot of EIRE’s new wave of music is led by men. I wonder whether if there is a culture in the Irish media of promoting male artists ahead of womxn and other genders. Despite the fact there are not too many (in comparison) womxn in bands from Dublin, Pillow Queens have not faced a lot of sexism. In that interview with YUCK, they said they have witnessed a few digs – though not as bad as many other womxn in the industry:

“What is it like being a woman/womxn in such a male-dominated space?

It’s one of those things where we do get asked that question a lot, or we certainly did when we were starting out, ‘Oh have you experienced any sexism in the music scene?’ and we were very lucky to be like, ‘you know what, we really haven’t’ and I think that’s because when people are asking about sexism you immediately think someone’s saying something to you. We did get that like ‘oh I’m surprised that those are girls and you sound so big and stuff like that’. But as we went on and we got deeper into the structural element of being a musician and getting marginally more successful, it’s not the little quips that you hear on a venue, it’s actually the structural stuff that you only notice once you’ve gotten to that point”.

Before interpreting Be By Your Side, CLASH produced an article announcing the date of their upcoming album. Pillow Queens talked about the inspiration behind Be By Your Side:

“Pillow Queens will release new album 'Leave The Light On' later this year.

The new album will be released on April 1st, and it will be accompanied by a full-on SXSW assault and their biggest ever UK tour.

The Dublin band share the news alongside a fresh single, with 'Be By Your Side' online now.

The cute video features Pillow Queens playing at a party, while love and friendship are enacted on the dancefloor.

Musically one of their most direct moments, Pillow Queens use the lyrics as a means to explore vulnerability.

"This song is about the mechanisms that are used to hide your vulnerabilities and carry on," explains singer / bassist Pamela Connolly. "But also, the feeling of being about to burst and how cathartic it could be to allow yourself to let your emotions out and feel the world around you. This was one of the first songs we finished on the album as it was the quickest to become fully realised by all of us”.

The video is one of Pillow Queens’ best. Directed by Kate Dolan, and featuring Pillow Queens, Jeanne Nicole Ni Ainle, Jordanne Jones, Ben Hackett, Evanne Kilgallon, Molly Cantwell, James Stewart, Nelle Russell, Donna McElligott, James Shannon, Georgia Coulter and Alessandra Diaz, it is a wonderful clip!

Starting with the band playing on a stage and the actresses featuring in the video brushing their teeth and applying make-up, the colours and tone of the video instantly grabs you. The vocal is deeper and focused. Conveying passion with a more composed nature, the lyrics truly rise to the top and get under the skin: “Be by your side, I want to be/Although the times I lied, I cannot read/There's nothing left to show you now to my heart/When everyone around me grows, I just fall apart/Be by your side, I want to be/Haven't got the time to cry though I'm so free/It takes a little time to find when it's so dark/Another little gun to blow, life's supposed to start”. Brooding, cool, sensual and teasing, the band keep things quite light and melodic to start. You do anticipate there will be an explosion or rush, though there is an intensity in the vocal that is there under the surface. I have talked about Pillow Queens keeping their accent in the music. This is true of Be By Your Side. There is a buzz and rumble in the chorus. I love the opening lines of it: “Yeah, I wanna feel/Blood rushing straight to my head/And I wanna feel/Like a dog with no bone to be lead”. I love the actresses and extras in the video. In terms of tone, I get a slight suggestion of the Netflix series, Sex Education. It seems like it is quite modern but, as the series does, the fashion and a lot of the visual aspects are set in the 1970s and 1980s. It looks like it was a blast filming the video! The band are always so tight and connected. I love the composition and how it is both busy and sparse. The sound does not feel too crowded or layered, and yet there are so many elements working together. With a terrific lead vocal and bass, guitar and percussion entwined and driving the song forward, the band are at their finest here!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Dolan

Although the song is five minutes, Be By Your Side sounds like this proper epic. It will stay with you long after you have heard it. In the pre-chorus, the band combine and blend their vocals beautifully. Moving through stages like chapters in a book, the video remains spellbinding! The actresses appear to be tripping as they are sat down eating. Although the images do not necessarily sync with what one would imagine the song is about, this is part of the beauty. Every listener will have their own video concept in their head. I love the direction Kate Dolan took. The second verse inspires images and stirring scenes: “Be by your side, I want to be/Watching another night of flying away from me/We laugh about the ups and downs like they don't hurt/Softenin' the edge so I slip right through the dirt/Be by your side, I want to be/Haven't got the heart to keep up with the beat/Rush to start, I was mistaken/Fool me into thinking I had the chance to run”. Contrasting the impassioned and stirring vocals with the humours and trippy video, you get so many emotions and feelings bubbling to the surface. The incredible lead vocal meshes with the soothing harmonies. I think that the pre-chorus, “All of the time, all of the time, all of the time”, is one of the most purely simple and beautiful sounds and parts of the song. Be By Your Side is a tantalising glimpse of Leave the Light On. It is going to be a stunning follow-up to In Waiting. A terrific band who always produce sensational music, make sure that you keep a watch of the brilliant Pillow Queens!

If you can catch Pillow Queens live, then make sure you do! It has been years since I saw them in London, so I am eager to do it again. There is a lot of excitement around the upcoming second album, Leave the Light On:

“All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.” – Maggie Nelson, Bluets

When Pillow Queens set about recording their second album, before, after and during, great spaces were opening. The pauses in living and connection were profound. And so, they went two places: within, and towards each other.

Leave the Light On is an exploration of the uncertainty of emotions as they are in process, and an intuitive outpouring of ideas as they form. It’s about being intimately honest with yourself, and as a band. It’s about trusting that this state of vulnerability can be held as it emerges, by you, by us.

What do queer dream blues sound like? More importantly, what do they feel like? Leaving home at night, driving through the black back roads until the tungsten light starts to glow. “Uaigneas an chaldaigh”, the Irish sense of loneliness experienced on the shore. The confusion and discombobulation of waking and feeling unfamiliar. The liminal space between dreaming and being conscious. The unmooring that happens when a sense of self is being explored and sometimes slipping away.

But gravitating towards the unknown and the ambiguous can often yield the kinds of sounds and feelings that provide creative certainty, where the art is coming to you, as much as you going to it. Leave the Light On fills vast new sonic plains for Pillow Queens. It’s an album that encourages duality; to be soft and hard, delicate, and muscular, intimate and anthemic, alone and together. Collaborating on lyrics, a shared emotional experience fills these songs of hope and home, insecurity and estrangement, songs that track time passing and a sense of reflection grows deeper every day.

When real movement is stillness, when to be stationary feels transitionary, and when the most vital journey in life is to go within, then it’s time to leave the light on, and open up”.

One of the best bands in the world right now, Pillow Queens are going to get better and better. I am looking forward to seeing what they offer on their second studio album. Now that things are opening up, they will get to showcase their album live this time around. That will be a relief! Such an incredible group, I think they will be legends and icons…

IN years to come.

 ___________

Follow Pillow Queens

Official:

https://pillowqueens.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/PillowQueens

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pillowqueens/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7BDvurihyagH0uSPNDJX7d

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pillowqueensband/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbsEGI3QVqif8YCHIdsj1w

Bandcamp:

https://pillowqueens.bandcamp.com/

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Pillow Queens

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighty-Nine: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Eighty-Nine: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD)

___________

FOR this outing…

of my A Buyer’s Guide feature, I am looking at the essential work of the legendary Merseyside band, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). I have been a fan of their since childhood - so it is good to get to highlight their albums that you need to get. The band consists of co-founders Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass guitar) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals), along with Martin Cooper (various instruments) and Stuart Kershaw (drums); McCluskey has been the only constant member. Before getting to the albums of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (I shall refer to them as such going forward) that are worth buying, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are one of the earliest, most commercially successful, and enduring synth pop groups. Inspired most by the advancements of Kraftwerk and striving at one point "to be ABBA and Stockhausen," they've continually drawn from early electronic music as they've alternately disregarded, mutated, or embraced the conventions of the three-minute pop song. Outside their native England, OMD are known primarily for "Maid of Orleans" and the Pretty in Pink soundtrack smash "If You Leave," yet they scored 18 additional charting U.K. singles in the '80s alone. These hits supported inventive albums such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980), Architecture & Morality (1981), and commercial suicide-turned-cult classic Dazzle Ships (1983). After roughly a decade of silence, OMD returned in the mid-2000s to add to their legacy as much as tend to it. Their lengthy second life has been highlighted by a sixth U.K. Top Ten album, The Punishment of Luxury (2017), and a box set, Souvenir (2019), coinciding with their 40th anniversary.

Acquaintances since they were students at primary school on the Wirral peninsula, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys -- the core members of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark -- played separately and together in a few short-lived bands starting in the mid-'70s. In 1977, they formed the ID, a group that gigged in North West England and contributed a song to Street to Street: A Liverpool Album (a compilation most notable for an early Echo & the Bunnymen appearance). By the time the LP was racked, the ID were no more and McCluskey had joined and left Dalek I Love You. Moreover, McCluskey (primarily bass and vocals) and Humphreys (primarily synthesizers) had experimented as a duo and were well underway as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, effectively named as such to further distinguish their endeavor from punk. Not only had the two musicians played their first official gigs -- starting at Eric's in their home base of Liverpool and the Factory club in Manchester, supporting Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire at the latter -- but they had also made their recorded debut with a demo of "Electricity" backed with the Martin Hannett-produced "Almost," issued by Factory.

Later in 1979, OMD signed with nascent Virgin subsidiary Dindisc and re-released their 7" debut with a Hannett-produced version of the A-side. The full-length Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, recorded by the duo with manager Paul Collister (credited as Chester Valentino), followed in early 1980. It featured new mixes of "Electricity" and "Almost," which were spun off as a third iteration of the first single, and was promoted with two more singles, including the Mike Howlett-produced re-recording of the album track "Messages," which became a number 13 U.K. hit (and in the U.S. registered on Billboard's club chart). These progressions guided Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to number 27 on the corresponding U.K. album chart. Howlett continued to work with McCluskey and Humphreys for OMD's second full-length, Organisation, released later in 1980. Only "Enola Gay" was issued as a single, but that became the duo's first in a streak of Top Ten hits. The parent release followed suit at number six. By then, OMD's live and studio lineup was augmented with drummer Malcolm Holmes (formerly of the ID) and keyboardist/saxophonist Martin Cooper.

Still on the rise in late 1981, OMD released Architecture & Morality, a Top Five U.K. LP and the source of three equally high-charting singles, all ballads: "Souvenir" (led by Humphreys), "Joan of Arc," and "Maid of Orleans." The last of this sequence proved to be the group's biggest international hit, topping the official German and Dutch pop charts and reaching the Top Ten in other territories. (Architecture & Morality was the first proper album licensed in the States by Epic, which also compiled highlights from the first two albums and released them as O.M.D.). McCluskey and Humphreys responded to their greatest commercial success yet with a loosely conceptual effort that shot to number five in the U.K. upon release but soon capsized. Although it incorporated a couple of remixed B-sides and an ID-era composition, Dazzle Ships, co-produced by Rhett Davies and released on Dindisc parent Virgin, was a sharp departure, integrating musique concrète, snippets of Czechoslovakian radio broadcasts, songs about robotics and optical instrumentation, and the descriptively titled charting singles "Genetic Engineering" and "Telegraph."

Although Dazzle Ships was later embraced as a misunderstood and inspired work, a creative high point, OMD took the puzzlement to heart and simplified their lyrics and song structures. For the rest of the decade, they courted pop listeners with their most straightforward recordings. Within a three-year span, 1984-1986, they released Junk Culture, Crush, and The Pacific Age, a comparatively conservative trilogy yielding the number five U.K. hit "Locomotion" and a handful of other singles that fared well. Among their Anglophilic Midwestern fans during this phase was John Hughes, who sought them to contribute a song for the 1986 teen romantic comedy Pretty in Pink. OMD submitted "Goddess of Love," but the original ending of Hughes' screenplay was not well-received by a test audience, prompting Hughes to change the ending and ask the pressed OMD for another song. Overnight, OMD came up with "If You Leave," a number four hit in the States that made a gold seller out of the soundtrack (coincidentally featuring their fellow Liverpudlians Echo & the Bunnymen). The single went down similarly elsewhere and didn't go over quite as well in the U.K., where it peaked at number 48. OMD finished off the decade with The Best of OMD, promoted with the new single "Dreaming," a Top 20 hit in the U.S.

A series of departures left McCluskey as the lone original member of OMD in the '90s. During the decade, with varying support, he put together Sugar Tax, Liberator, and Universal, issued from 1991 through 1996 on Virgin. (In the U.S., the first two were also Virgin products; the latter was available only as an import.) Nine primarily commercial dance-pop singles from these albums, including the Top Tens "Sailing on the Seven Seas" and "Pandora's Box," and the McCluskey/Humphreys-written "Everyday," charted in the U.K. McCluskey also co-wrote and sang two songs on Esperanto, a project from Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos (under the name Elektric Music). Meanwhile, Humphreys and fellow ex-OMD members Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper recorded as the Listening Pool. OMD became inactive toward the decade's end as McCluskey ventured into artist development and songwriting for other acts. McCluskey and '90s OMD associate Stuart Kershaw founded and co-wrote material for the pop trio Atomic Kitten. Their biggest hit with the group was the 2001 U.K. chart-topper "Whole Again," also nominated for an Ivor Novello Award. Humphreys and Claudia Brücken (Propaganda, Act) released an LP a few years later as Onetwo.

McCluskey and Humphreys reunited in 2005 when they were approached to perform on the German television program Die Ultimative Chartshow. It developed into a full reactivation of OMD with Holmes and Cooper. A tour for which they played the entirety of their third album -- documented in 2008 with Architecture & Morality & More, recorded at London's Hammersmith Apollo -- led to new, independently released material starting in 2010 with History of Modern. After a live package from the subsequent tour was offered in 2011, the quartet continued studio work with English Electric, issued in 2013, just before they performed at Coachella. Months later, Holmes left the band after he collapsed during a Toronto gig played in extreme heat; Stuart Kershaw consequently took over on drums. Dazzle Ships: Live at the Museum of Liverpool followed in 2015. The Punishment of Luxury, OMD's third post-millennial studio album, arrived two years later and became their sixth Top Ten U.K. LP (their first since Sugar Tax). OMD celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2019 with continued touring and an elaborate box set, Souvenir, covering their whole career”.

A decades-spanning group who have released more than a few classic albums, I am deciding which four are the essential buys, one that is underrated and well worth a listen. I am also including their latest studio album (I could not find a book about Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). If you are new to the wonders of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark or are a big fan, here is my view on their albums that you…

NEED to buy.

______________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Organisation

Release Date: 24th October, 1980

Label: Dindisc

Producers: OMD/Mike Howlett

Standout Tracks: Statues/The More I See You/Promise

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=30515&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3bouQtY9H1DP39yxqHuFf8?si=0EP7EuAwR3a2yj5FlrsIFg

Review:

“If OMD's debut album showed the band could succeed just as well on full-length efforts as singles, Organisation upped the ante even further, situating the band in the enviable position of at once being creative innovators and radio-friendly pop giants. That was shown as much by the astounding lead track and sole single from the album, "Enola Gay." Not merely a great showcase for new member Holmes, whose live-wire drumming took the core electronic beat as a launching point and easily outdid it, "Enola Gay" is a flat-out pop classic -- clever, heartfelt, thrilling, and confident, not to mention catchy and arranged brilliantly. The outrageous use of the atomic bomb scenario -- especially striking given the era's nuclear war fears -- informs the seemingly giddy song with a cut-to-the-quick fear and melancholy, and the result is captivating. Far from being a one-hit wonder, though, Organisation is packed with a number of gems, showing the band's reach and ability continuing to increase. Holmes slots into the band's efforts perfectly, steering away from straightforward time structures while never losing the core dance drive, able to play both powerfully and subtly. McCluskey's singing, his own brand of sweetly wounded soul for a different age and approach, is simply wonderful -- the clattering industrial paranoia of "The Misunderstanding" results in wrenching wails, a moody cover of "The More I See You" results in a deeper-voiced passion. Everything from the winsome claustrophobia of "VCL XI" and the gentle, cool flow on "Statues" to the quirky boulevardier swing of "Motion and Heart" has a part to play. Meanwhile, album closer "Stanlow," inspired by the power plant where McCluskey's father worked, concluded things on a haunting note, murky mechanical beats and a slow, mournful melody leading the beautiful way” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Enola Gay

Architecture & Morality

Release Date: 8th November, 1981

Label: Dinidisc

Producers: Richard Manwaring/OMD/Mike Howlett

Standout Tracks: She's Leaving/Joan of Arc/Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=30428&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6bR98XzGnklTORDvZ7Oc2i?si=fk85ZctkRiCWrqRj6uG6ag

Review:

“When the scared-to-its-wits opener draws to close, the album shifts to a completely new mood - the fresh, cooling pop charm of ‘She’s Leaving’ and then to the #3 hit 'Souvenir'. The latter is an exquisitely gorgeous classic, with gentle vocals, a feather-soft synth riff and hushed hints of the Mellotron choral sounds that permeate throughout the record. The group used a Mellotron heavily throughout recording, and it crops up in the background of most tracks. After taking in the nine tracks on offer, one can only reach the unreserved conclusion that it proved to be a strike of genius, as the refreshing, icy choral tones help tie everything together, and when combined with infectious synth lines, and OMD’s artistic vision, it all comes together to create a beautiful, consistent atmosphere, that leaves most tracks feeling pleasingly connected and close, despite their diversity. This concept is best witnessed on numbers like the anthemic ‘Joan of Arc’. Opening to a gentle, fluctuating choral hum, before washes of invigorating synth flood the track with an overriding anthemic feel (especially when married to the infectious vocal hook “without me”); the track builds on its simple opening with strong vocals and a subtle, rising melody that gets fuller and more glorious as it reaches the end of its three and a half minute, pop setting.

Truth be told, the album is, track-for-track, one of the strongest and most accomplished efforts the synthpop genre has ever produced. To be honest, the ‘synthpop’ tagline sells the album short, somewhat, as it suggests ‘Architecture & Morality’ is a collection of bouncy, electro-pop nonsense when it is, in fact, far from that assumption. Not to say that OMD don’t do electro-pop supremely well; just listen to ‘Georgia’ - at little over 3 minutes and featuring perhaps the most unashamedly, upbeat synth beats ever witnessed; it almost unnoticeably showcases the bands ingenuity with a bouncy, insanely catchy tune, that serves as a mask for the subtle, building background melody which comes to the forefront in the last 20 seconds of the track - all wobbly, unnerving synths and voices pushed so far back in the mix, they become inaudible, ending on, what is for 80% of its runtime an extremely jovial affair, on an odd, gloomy low - something which repeated listens helps articulate with close listening to the building background melody and ambiguous lyrics.

But what makes the album really special is the fact that it feels more important than the said ‘synthpop’ constraints would have you believe. Its aged extremely well, and the power of hits like ‘Joan of Arc’ still ring true. It’s far too considered and beautifully executed to be brushed off as an unnecessary product of electro-pop cluttered 80s Britain - it’s too clever, subtle and, more than anything else, gorgeous, to be ignored. A cohesive album that is extremely consistent in not only its tone, but also its quality; ‘Architecture & Morality’ is one of the great gems that many may have overlooked or missed - and that is simply a crime. If you’re unsure about the pretentiously named Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, or whether this record is worth the time; one can only plead to you as a fan of great music to another, to give it a chance - and if you’re a fan of electro-pop at any level, you may find that that chance may be one of the most satisfying you ever took” – Sputnikmusic

Choice Cut: Souvenir

Junk Culture

Release Date: 30th April, 1984

Label: Virgin

Producers: Brian Tench/OMD

Standout Tracks: Tesla Girls/Never Turn Away/Talking Loud and Clear

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=30481&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5Ulj58jjnrswKgnn2seFRn?si=-Qwt1zKYRu-z8T3jvZWPDQ

Review:

“Smarting from Dazzle Ships' commercial failure, the band had a bit of a rethink when it came to their fifth album -- happily, the end result showed that the group was still firing on all fours. While very much a pop-oriented album and a clear retreat from the exploratory reaches of previous work, Junk Culture was no sacrifice of ideals in pursuit of cash. In comparison to the group's late-'80s work, when it seemed commercial success was all that mattered, Junk Culture exhibits all the best qualities of OMD at their most accessible -- instantly memorable melodies and McCluskey's distinct singing voice, clever but emotional lyrics, and fine playing all around. A string of winning singles didn't hurt, to be sure; indeed, opening number "Tesla Girls" is easily the group's high point when it comes to sheer sprightly pop, as perfect a tribute to obvious OMD inspirational source Sparks as any -- witty lines about science and romance wedded to a great melody (prefaced by a brilliant, hyperactive intro). "Locomotion" takes a slightly slower but equally entertaining turn, sneaking in a bit of steel drum to the appropriately chugging rhythm and letting the guest horn section take a prominent role, its sunny blasts offsetting the deceptively downcast lines McCluskey sings. Meanwhile, "Talking Loud and Clear" ends the record on a reflective note -- Cooper's intra-verse sax lines and mock harp snaking through the quiet groove of the song. As for the remainder of the album, if there are hints here and there of the less-successful late-'80s period, at other points the more adventurous side of the band steps up. The instrumental title track smoothly blends reggae rhythms with the haunting mock choirs familiar from earlier efforts, while the elegiac, Humphreys-sung "Never Turn Away" and McCluskey's "Hard Day" both make for lower-key highlights” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Locomotion

History of Modern

Release Date: 20th September, 2010

Label: 100%/Bright Antenna

Producers: OMD

Standout Tracks: If You Want It/History of Modern (Part II)/Sister Maries Says

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=275514&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3lIoxoHDQxgpxQj1h1TPMd?si=fGhCNZ1sSqyfHGelDbW6cA

Review:

“Revisionists have got to grips with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (let’s use OMD) recently, boiling them down to their more experimental passages on 1983’s serious electronic classic Dazzle Ships, glossing over later Brat Pack anthems ‘If You Leave’, ‘(Forever) Live And Die’ and the successful early-90s full-pop comeback ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’. Fat, singalong hits don’t fit with a narrative that rates OMD a profound influence on hip 21st century acts like LCD Soundsystem and The xx. And let’s not deny this footprint: OMD’s formative singles Messages, Electricity, Enola Gay and Souvenir – a roll-call of evergreen synth riffs – are a bedrock of modern 80s revivalism. It’s just that while they were toiling for the advancement of earnest electronica, they were also firing out whopping great mainstream chart bullets.

Their first album in 14 years, ‘History Of Modern’, from its austere title to its Peter Saville-designed cover, wants us to believe it’s an industrial monolith made by grey-shirted scholars with unfussy haircuts, but it’s as soaked in big late-80s chords as it is bound by strict electronic principles. Still, there’s nothing unwieldy about this combination; the fit is as smooth as OMD’s original progression. If you keep in mind they were always most at ease at the poppier end of the spectrum, there’s nothing to disappoint here.

Indeed, there’s oodles to delight. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys still have a peerless knack for catchy music box synth signatures, poking familiar refrains onto ‘History Of Modern (Part I)’, ‘Green’ and opener ‘New Babies: New Toys’ – the last one cantering in behind some surprise guitar distortion that threatens that austere monolith after all. And they can still nail the sort of melody that occasionally escapes their natural successors. This skill’s a blessing and a curse – all good when they’re summoning the spirit of Malcolm McLaren’s ‘Madam Butterfly’ on the bewitching ‘Sometimes’ or coaxing a gloomy prettiness out of ‘Bondage Of Fate’; not so fab on the empowerment bluster of ‘If You Want It’ when they’re reminding you of McCluskey’s penance as Atomic Kitten Svengali” – DIY

Choice Cut: History of Modern (Part I)

The Underrated Gem

 

Sugar Tax

Release Date: 7th May, 1991

Label: Virgin

Producers: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark/Howard Gray/Andy Richards

Standout Tracks: Pandora's Box/Then You Turn Away/Call My Name

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=30573&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1J8e1dLKVmZbsyxpGa9lGg?si=zA6jF6J-SmG4DCDzTeU7bg

Review:

“With the split between McCluskey and the rest of the band resolved by the former's decision to carry on with the band's name on his own, the question before Sugar Tax's appearance was whether the change would spark a new era of success for someone who clearly could balance artistic and commercial impulses in a winning fashion. The answer, based on the album -- not entirely. The era of Architecture and Morality wouldn't be revisited anyway, for better or for worse, but instead of delightful confections with subtle heft like "Enola Gay" and "Tesla Girls," on Sugar Tax McCluskey is comfortably settled into a less-spectacular range of songs that only occasionally connect. Like fellow refugees from the early '80s such as Billy Mackenzie and Marc Almond, McCluskey found himself bedeviled in the early '90s with an artistic block that resulted in his fine singing style surrounded by pedestrian arrangements and indifferent songs. There was one definite redeeming number at the start: "Sailing on the Seven Seas," with glam-styled beats underpinning a giddy, playful romp that showed McCluskey still hadn't lost his touch entirely, and which became OMD's biggest single at home since "Souvenir." Beyond that, though, the album can best be described as pleasant instead of memorable, an exploration by McCluskey into calmer waters recorded entirely by himself outside of some guitar from Stuart Boyle. Without his longtime bandmates to help him, the results lack an essential spark (Holmes' drumming creativity being especially missed). In a tip of the hat to a clear source of inspiration, Sugar Tax includes a pleasant cover of Kraftwerk's "Neon Lights," with guest vocals by Christine Mellor, while "Apollo XI" uses Dazzle Ships-styled sample collages made up of moon-landing broadcasts, though the song itself isn't much. Even at its most active -- "Call My Name" and "Pandora's Box" -- Sugar Tax is for the most part just there” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Sailing on the Seven Seas

The Latest Album

 

The Punishment of Luxury

Release Date: 1st September, 2017

Label: White Noise

Producers: OMD

Standout Tracks: Isotype/What Have We Done/One More Time

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1230249&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2zAlIeSfwipohgoINJruZx?si=YLZOejBQR2q-hHVlMAAfnA

Review:

“The Punishment Of Luxury follows in the sonic footsteps of 2013's English Electric, in that it’s a gentle upgrade of that sculpted-from-marble early ’80s sound. Songs with more vigorous tempos—the quasi-industrial title track, robot-Jazzercise surge “Art Eats Art,” the Kraftwerkian “Isotype”—are crisp and focused, while dreamier moments such as “One More Time” employ lullaby-like synth latticework. Throughout, the record traces and mirrors OMD’s influence across the decades, at times recalling Yaz’s percolating new wave (“What Have We Done”) and Hot Chip’s playful synth-pop (“Robot Man”).

Lyrically, The Punishment Of Luxury is distinguished by its thoughtful examinations of power dynamics. Several songs chronicle breakups with humans (“What Have We Done”) and technology (“Robot Man”), while others concern the myriad ways by which humans are controlled, whether by each other or the things they create: On the droning “La Mitrailleuse,” the song’s lone repeated lyric (“Bend your body to the will of the machine”) gives way to the sound of gunfire and bombs, while the title track takes a self-satisfied look at greedy leaders getting their comeuppance.

It’s also preoccupied with the complicated relationship humans have with progress. “Isotype” concerns the changing ways people share words, art, and creativity today, lamenting that ephemerality rules, while “Precision & Decay” comments concisely but effectively on the impact of traditional manufacturing decline, using Dearborn, Michigan’s Ford Rouge Factory as an example. As a digitized female voice illustrates the sobering aftermath of the plant’s demise (“The highway of prosperity / To collapse and dismay”), the song shifts to a TV-newscaster-like figure who intones, “There is no such thing as labor-saving machinery.”

In the wrong hands, this kind of thing could come across as heavy-handed or detached, but The Punishment Of Luxury exudes warmth and empathy throughout. It shines through most on the glittering “Ghost Star,” a tender song about longing for a healing love, and hoping that one day, “when all the wild horses have been tamed / You will welcome me to bed.” OMD has always balanced its love of technology with unabashed sentimentality, and here it allows that vulnerability to become even more prominent, mitigating cynicism and crafting a vision of the future that’s clear-eyed, yet hopeful” – The A.V. Club

Choice Cut: The Punishment of Luxury

FEATURE: Groovelines: Björk – Big Time Sensuality

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Björk – Big Time Sensuality

___________

THIS features allows me the chance…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Björk in Los Angeles in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cultice

to go deep with a great track. Today, I wanted to dive into Björk’s Big Time Sensuality. A highlight from her 1993 debut (except for her actual 1977 debut, Björk) album, Debut, it was released as a single on 22nd November, 1993. Written and co-produced with Nellee Hooper, I think that Big Time Sensuality is one of Björk’s greatest tracks. Even though some feel that 1995 was a big improvement on Debut, I feel the 1993 introduction is a magnificent album where Björk’s voice and talent expands, flies and swoops. The songwriting and production is magnificent throughout the album. Placed halfway down Debut between a cover version of Like Someone in Love and the underrated One Day, Big Time Sensuality is one of the most joyous and energised tracks on Debut (sitting alongside Human Behaviour and Violently Happy in terms of the energy levels and pace). There are a few features I want to bring together, to give us a greater impression of a classic Björk track. One of the defining songs of the 1990s, I was looking for an interview Björk was involved with in 1993. This interview that i-D revisited in 2018 (from their original of 1993) is one of Björk discussing Debut and her music. I thought that it was useful sourcing some passages from the interview:

“Björk’s singing really doesn’t need any fancy qualifiers. God knows that music journalists are, even as you read this, probably scouring their already battered Thesaurus for suitably multisyllabic synonyms for the word ‘ethereal’. And while on the subject of journalistic prose, can somebody write an article about Björk without using the word ‘elfin’?

“I think it’s funny and actually I couldn’t be more pleased with the situation,” says Björk. “When I was growing up, I always had this feeling that I had been dropped in from somewhere else. That was how I was treated at school in Iceland where the kids used to call me ‘China girl’ and everybody thought I was unusual because I was Chinese. It gave me room to do my own thing. In school, I was mostly on my own, playing happily in my private world making things, composing little songs. If I can get the space I need to do my own thing by being called an alien, an elf, a China girl, or whatever, then that’s great! I think I’ve only realized in the past few years what a comfortable situation that is.”

Using dance music as the framework for her songs is a definite departure from the guitar-based pop that Björk has been identified with to date. This belies the fact that she has been a dance fan since the early days of acid house. From 1988 onwards, Björk could usually be found in various London clubs whenever her band schedule permitted. What seems an abrupt change of heart is in fact a long process of musical evolution that has finally reached fruition today. “Dance music is the music that I’ve mostly been listening to in the past few years,” she confirms. “It’s the only pop music that is truly modern. To be honest, house is the only music where anything creative is happening today.”

IN THIS PHOTO: For the Big Time Sensuality video, Stéphane Sednaoui filmed Björk on the truck for an entire day on 26th October, 1993 and drove throughout New York City.

Discussing Björk’s eclectic taste in music gives way to a deeply-felt criticism of the rock tradition: “I could never stand guitar rock. That’s the funny thing. My father was a hippy who just listened to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and I grew up listening to that music. When I was seven, I was convinced that this music was ancient history, that I would do something new,” she says. “I think that as soon as any form becomes traditional, like the guitar, bass and drums, then people start to behave traditionally. It’s really difficult to get a band to stay on the edge using the typical bass, guitar and drums set-up because it tends to lapse into a predictable form. My ideal band would be an open-minded group that won’t let anything get in the way of creating something new. They could use saxophones, teaspoons, drum machines or anything to communicate a whole concept whether it be a house track, experimental music, pop, or just a nursery rhyme.”

In fact, Björk’s disillusionment with the state of contemporary music was one of the prime motivations for her Debut. “This record is really about being tired of going into the world’s largest record store in the hopes of finding something fabulous, and walking out with, fucking yet another Miles Davis record because there’s nothing happening that’s challenging.”

So you felt that you had to make that music yourself? “Largely, yes. That was my impulse.” It turns out Björk is a pop star on a personal crusade. “I think pop music has betrayed us,” she states. “Everybody in the world needs pop music, just like they need politics, their pay, and oxygen to breathe. The problem is that too many people dismiss pop as crap because nobody has had the courage to make pop that’s relevant to the modern world. Pop music has become so stagnant. This is really a paradox because it should change and evolve everyday. I don’t think anybody has made a decent pop album in years”.

Not only is Björk’s music remarkable, unique and so transfixing. She also makes sure that her videos are as inventive, cinematic and memorable as they can be. The video for Big Time Sensuality is such an example. The black-and-white video directed by Stéphane Sednaoui is one of Björk’s greatest. Vanity Fair looked at the video in 2015. They provided some great photos from the shoot of Big Time Sensuality:

“Projected on the main lobby wall of Björk’s mid-career retrospective at MoMA is Stéphane Sednaoui’s “Big Time Sensuality” music video from 1993. Björk dances on an empty bed of a truck, driving through New York City. She shakes, shimmies, and scrunches her face to the music. “I love the Björk I filmed and photographed, I enjoy capturing who she is as an individual, I find her more captivating unprotected than when she is hidden under a shelter of beautiful layers”, says Sednaoui. The release of “Big Time Sensuality” propelled Björk's popularity in the States to new heights. Sednaoui shares his photographs and memories from that animated day of filming.

Sednaoui on the work he did with Björk: “She is constantly questioning herself and turned toward the future, it allows to potentially translate past projects into present pieces.”

“I was in a taxi stuck in traffic midtown, playing the song, and it was a perfect match. I added the idea of the flat-bed truck because I lived on 331 Lafayette and watched from my windows the flat-bed trucks crossing Manhattan on Houston Street,” explains Sednaoui, on how he came up with the concept.

Björk and Sednaoui blasted the song on speakers while driving around N.Y.C.; some New Yorkers responded by dancing in the streets.

Sednaoui had some of the young East Village crowd from that time—Kenny Hash, Walt Cassidy, Carlos Taylor, the Green Twins, Frederic Gaston—perform one by one on the truck, but decided to cut it from the video because Björk’s solo performance exceeded his expectations. “We had so much footage that Craig Wood (the editor) and I ended up making three different versions just with her,” says Sednaoui”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Stéphane Sednaoui

One can hear the chemistry between Björk and Nellee Hooper. They are definitely on the same wavelength right throughout Debut. Big Time Sensuality is a magnificent song that bursts with life! Mixing House and Pop, it is both euphoric and soulful at the same time. Big Time Sensuality was one of the last songs to be written for Debut. The song was originally planned to be the first single, but it got delayed by the release of Human Behaviour. Also, it was then intended to be the third single, but, again, it got delayed by the success and positivity that Play Dead received. Big Time Sensuality was released as the fourth single in November 1993. I am going to end with a Wikipedia article that collates the reception Big Time Sensuality received:

“The song was deemed as a highlight of Debut and was praised by critics. Reviewing the album, Heather Phares of AllMusic, noted that "Björk's playful energy ignites the dance-pop-like "Big Time Sensuality" and turns the genre on its head with "There's More to Life Than This." Recorded live at the Milk Bar Toilets, it captures the dancefloor's sweaty, claustrophobic groove, but her impish voice gives it an almost alien feel". The website cites the track as an All Media Network-pick, and in a track review, Stacia Proefrock defined it as an "aggressive, screechy dance number" that "While not scraping the top of the charts[...] was part of an album unusual enough to stand out among its fellow pop releases as a quirky and complex experiment that worked most of the time".

PHOTO CREDIT: Stéphane Sednaoui

Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "Wiggly bass and heavy beat come to the fore here, unfortunately competing with Björk's voice for lead billing, when her vocal really should be allowed to steal the show." Sean McCarthy of the Daily Vault defined the track as "insanely addictive". John Hamilton from Idolator wrote that "this dancefloor monster resembles the soulful American house sounds of Crystal Waters and Ultra Nate in its original album mix, but for the single, it was revamped into a storming trance jam by remix duo Fluke." Martin Aston from Music Week gave it four out of five, stating that it "sees the ubiquitous star this time going for the big dancefloor smash", adding that "she can do no wrong right now." Tim Jeffery from the magazine's RM Dance Update noted, "That soaring voice starts the track over swirling synths before a deep and rumbling bassline powers in and the rest is history repeated as Bjork heads for another smash." Simon Reynolds of The New York Times stated that "the sultry Big Time Sensuality has her vaulting from chesty growls to hyperventilating harmonies so piercing she sounds as if she’s inhaled helium". Johnny Dee from NME commented, "More fun, madness and surprise follows", noting "the pulsating grind" of the song. Vox journalist Lucy O'Brien called it "saucy".

"Big Time Sensuality" was nominated in the Best Song category at the 1994 MTV Europe Music Awards, losing to "7 Seconds" by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry”.

A truly phenomenal song, Big Time Sensuality has not aged at all. Although one does not really hear songs like this made anymore, the production and always-original sound of Björk means that it will not sound dated; it will never be forgotten. In the song, Björk talks about having courage but needing to find more. There is fear alongside positivity. She sings about living life to the full. Big Time Sensuality is an inspiring, affirmative and emotional song that provokes so many different reactions. It is one of dozens of classic and hugely impressive tracks…

FROM the Icelandic pioneer and genius.

FEATURE: In Her Own Words: Kate Bush’s Remarkable Debut Album, The Kick Inside, at Forty-Four

FEATURE:

 

In Her Own Words

Kate Bush’s Remarkable Debut Album, The Kick Inside, at Forty-Four

___________

MANY is the time…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

I have said that Kate Bush’s 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside, is my all-time favourite. Apologies if I repeat myself! As it is forty-four on 17th February, I wanted to put out a few features around the album. Through the years, I have explored Bush’s debut from multiple angles. Today, I am going to look at some of the quotes and interviews around The Kick Inside. Today, I am not sure how much Bush remembers from recording her debut in 1977. She will remember the excitement but, when it comes to details and the specifics, maybe those recollections are somewhat murkier. I know that she sort of reappraised the album at various stages. When it was completed and she was promoting it, there would have been this pride and satisfaction. Soon after, her opinion shifted. I feel there is this sort of lingering dissatisfaction regarding the fact she did not have more of a say in the production and overall sound. Perhaps, were she to do it all over, there would be different decisions made. One can definitely not fault the album as a whole. In terms of the lyrics and the sort of things Bush was writing about…this was a fearless and remarkably frank album that explored sex, philosophy, birth, death and so many other subjects that many of her peers were not covering. Bush herself would say that The Kick Inside was not as experimental as subsequent albums.

When starting out, the natural instinct is not going to be the same as it when you are more established. As an artist, I think she needed to make an album that was true to her, but one that was also quite accessible. If she had turned up in 1978 with an album like The Dreaming (released in 1982), then she may not have gained a lot of approval. As it was, The Kick Inside reached number three in the U.K. The incredible debut single, Wuthering Heights, was a number one. Years later, we are still discussing The Kick Inside and how important it is. In previous features, I have selected reviews that outline its many strengths. In terms of Bush’s remarkable vocals and how she layers characters and these different voices, The Kick Inside is a staggering album. I am relying on the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia when it comes to Bush’s feedback and opinions about The Kick Inside. Rather than there being negative interview quotes where she distanced herself from the album and that time, there is a lot of positivity about the musicians she worked with. In terms of credit and what makes The Kick Inside so special, people do not talk about the input of musicians like Ian Bairnson, Duncan Mackay, David Paton, Stuart Elliott and Morris Pert:

“Hello everyone. This is Kate Bush and I'm here with my new album The Kick Inside and I hope you enjoy it. The album is something that has not just suddenly happened. It's been years of work because since I was a kid, I've always been writing songs and it was really just collecting together all the best songs that I had and putting them on the album, really years of preparation and inspiration that got it together. As a girl, really, I've always been into words as a form of communication. And even at school I was really into poetry and English and it just seemed to turn into music with the lyrics, that you can make poetry go with music so well. That it can actually become something more than just words; it can become something special. (Self Portrait, 1978)

There are thirteen tracks on this album. When we were getting it together, one of the most important things that was on all our mind was, that because there were so many, we wanted to try and get as much variation as we could. To a certain extent, the actual songs allowed this because of the tempo changes, but there were certain songs that had to have a funky rhythm and there were others that had to be very subtle. I was very greatly helped by my producer and arranger Andrew Powell, who really is quite incredible at tuning in to my songs. We made sure that there was one of the tracks, just me and the piano, to, again, give the variation. We've got a rock 'n' roll number in there, which again was important. And all the others there are just really the moods of the songs set with instruments, which for me is the most important thing, because you can so often get a beautiful song, but the arrangements can completely spoil it - they have to really work together. (Self Portrait, 1978)

I think it went a bit over the top [In being orientally influenced], actually. We had the kite, and as there is a song on the album by that name, and as the kite is traditionally Oriental, we painted the dragon on. But I think the lettering was just a bit too much. On the whole I was surprised at the amount of control I actually had with the album production. Though I didn't choose the musicians. I thought they were terrific.

I was lucky to be able to express myself as much as I did, especially with this being a debut album. Andrew was really into working together, rather than pushing everyone around. I basically chose which tracks went on, put harmonies where I wanted them...

I was there throughout the entire mix. I feel that's very important. Ideally, I would like to learn enough of the technical side of things to be able to produce my own stuff eventually. (The Blossoming Ms. Bush, 1978)

As far as I know, it was mainly Andrew Powell who chose the musicians, he'd worked with them before and they were all sort of tied in with Alan Parsons. There was Stuart Elliot on drums, Ian Bairnson on guitar, David Paton on bass, and Duncan Mackay on electric keyboards. And, on that first album, I had no say, so I was very lucky really to be given such good musicians to start with. And they were lovely, 'cause they were all very concerned about what I thought of the treatment of each of the songs. And if I was unhappy with anything, they were more than willing to re-do their parts. So they were very concerned about what I thought, which was very nice. And they were really nice guys, eager to know what the songs were about and all that sort of thing. I don't honestly see how anyone can play with feeling unless you know what the song is about. You know, you might be feeling this really positive vibe, yet the song might be something weird and heavy and sad. So I think that's always been very important for me, to sit down and tell the musicians what the song is about. (Musician, 1985)”.

In the coming months, I want to spend some time exploring The Kick Inside. I have been meaning to put together a podcast that looks at its creation and legacy. Although there have been a lot of positive reviews about The Kick Inside, it is an album that is not as lauded and celebrated as some of her others. Although Kate Bush herself (as you can see above) has some good memories of recording her debut album, she rarely talked about The Kick Inside as being one of her favourites. One of my greatest hopes it that, in a future interview, Kate Bush is asked about her debut album. I looked at interviews she conducted in 2011 to promote 50 Words for Snow. She said that, in some ways, she returned to her debut album in terms of her way of working. The simplicity and, essentially, her working through songs on the piano over and over. A mix of pride and some dissatisfaction, what would Bush make of The Kick Inside in 2022? She has always said how she never listens back to her music - though I would be interested to learn what Bush recalls and how she remembers that fascinating time when she recorded and released an album that introduced the world to one of the best-loved artists ever. Ahead of The Kick Inside’s forty-fourth anniversary, I wanted to bring in a few of Kate Bush’s archived words. Still underrated and, to a degree, misunderstood, The Kick Inside is a phenomenal album that is far stronger and more impressive…

THAN many give it credit for.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Blu DeTiger

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 Blu DeTiger

___________

I have been trying to cover and spotlight…

as many artists as possible recently that are going to make big waves in 2022. One such artist is Blu DeTiger. The New York-born artist is someone that everyone should know more about. An incredible musician, songwriter and D.J., she released the E.P., How Did We Get Here?, last year. I am going to come to a review of that E.P. soon. Before that, there are interviews out there that provide more story and background regarding the incredible Blu DeTiger. Some might know her best as a TikTok sensation. Others might be more acquainted with her early career, whereas some are coming to Blu DeTiger fresh. This interview from DORK gives us some biography about the hotly-tipped star:

“Blu DeTiger is living a life as wild as her name suggests. She’s blowing up on TikTok with her epic bass videos that see her freestyle over pop classics from ‘Baby One More Time’ to ‘Get Lucky’, which are weaved between original compositions and snippets of idealistic New York City landscapes. Her cover of Ginuwine’s ‘Pony’ is also a must-see. Though amassing a following in the millions across the digital sphere, labelling her simply as a TikTok star would be reductive, as she’s been flourishing long before the app ever came into existence, and is now gearing up to release her debut EP.

The EP was crafted in lockdown, which Blu has been spending in her hometown of NYC, where she still resides. “The city is super inspiring. It’s based on hustle and bustle, and everyone’s working all the time, and everything’s moving. You can do a million things in a day, every single day. I think it’s where my drive comes from, being a New Yorker.”

The New York state of mind is instilled into Blu’s existence. Ever since she was a child, she would seize every opportunity she was given, with palpable enthusiasm that she still has to this day, bolstered by a creative upbringing.

“They’re not musical; it’s really funny,” she says of her parents. “But they’re both super artsy and creative. My dad is a painter and a sculptor; he does a lot of different forms of visual art. They were very much adamant about following your passion and living your dream and doing what you want to do. I think that was always instilled in my two brothers and me at an early age, which I’m super grateful for. My older brother started playing drums when he was ten, and I was seven at the time. [It was the] classic sibling thing. I wanted to play an instrument, and I chose bass because I thought it was unique and different. I just fell in love with it. I took lessons and did different music programmes and just practised. There was never a point where I wanted to quit.”

Despite not being legally old enough, Blu’s career in music started to gain traction when she started DJing in clubs around NYC at just seventeen”.

“I love TikTok. I’m obsessed with it. My screentime is ridiculous. It’s so embarrassing,” she laughs.

“There are so many creative people on there. These kids who are just so interesting, and have such good ideas. There are some really good musicians on there too. I think it’s motivating and inspiring. I’ve gotten better at my instrument from making these videos too. I think when I started doing all the TikTok videos, that helped me think differently about the bass, and how it can be more of a melodic instrument. A lot of the time I’ll bring it to the forefront of the song, and I’m putting my own spin on these classic pop songs. That’s been helpful when I even write my own stuff.”

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing apps in the world, but there’s still a hefty amount of stigma surrounding the outlet and whether it should be viewed as a credible platform. It’s a trial Blu has had to tackle as a musician.

“I’m always thinking about this because, for me, there is that stigma,” Blu admits. “I’m so happy that I have a platform there and that I’ve been able to make fans, but I think what people don’t realise a lot of the time is that I’ve been doing music forever. I was DJing since I was seventeen, and playing bass since I was seven. I think it just connected on TikTok. I just found a niche that was able to accelerate.”

Speaking more about her sonic influences, Blu cites a string of 70s funk greats alongside 80s new wave legends. “Chic and Nile Rodgers… I wanted to learn every bassline. When I was getting into slap bass, I learned a lot of Larry Graham, Sly and The Family Stone. I was obsessed with Blondie. I’m still obsessed with Blondie. Tom Tom Club, The Talking Heads… All of this late 70s, early 80s funk disco. Zapp and Cameo. Acts that are so ingrained in my head. Grooviness, funk and disco elements are always going to be present in my music”.

If you have not heard her How Did We Get Here? E.P., I would urge everyone to do that. Prior to you listening to that, there are other interviews that caught my eye. The Line of Best Fit spoke with Blu DeTiger around the release of her debut E.P. Apart from them asking about the importance of the bass, she also discussed the impact of the pandemic:

“BEST FIT: This must be a crazy week for you with the release of your first EP! What have you been up to?

BLU DETIGER: I'm just about to start writing more music, so that's kind of the next wave. I'm gonna just get back into the studio in the next few months, but just release week; all the promo, all of that stuff, celebrating. That's kind of been what's up the past few weeks.

Can you tell me about some of your pre-pandemic touring?

I was touring with a lot of other artists just as a bass player. Like work-for-hire for a bunch of artists, which is really good. I got a lot of experience there; a lot of touring experience. I was scheduled to do all of that stuff for pretty much this whole year. I had my whole 2020 calendar booked up with tours and shows and festivals for other artists, so it was kind of crazy when everything got canceled.

Were you on the road when you realised the extent of the pandemic?

I was doing the Caroline Polochek tour. I was actually in London with her when everything shut down. And then I was about to do this tour with Fletcher, who is a pop artist, and that also got totally cancelled. I was supposed to do two tours with her – I was supposed to do a European tour, and then we were supposed to do an arena tour. That was really sad...

You wrote this whole EP in quarantine, and it was inspired by narratives and things that happened before. How did COVID affect the process and speed of making that EP?

COVID obviously changed everyone's lives, [it was] insane and flipped it upside down. I think, musically and creatively, it's hard to not write about it, you know what I mean? Like, it's hard to not write about quarantine because it's such an extreme switch up of lifestyle. So I think when it came to songwriting, and when I was sitting down to write songs during the whole period, it was pretty obvious to use those feelings to write the songs. A lot of that stemmed from what I was feeling then. That's kind of the common theme throughout the whole EP.

Were there any particular feelings or events in your life that served as a common thread throughout the record or gave you a starting point?

Definitely nightlife – not in the weird way. I don't even party or anything, but I think just experiencing that in New York. I think New York, more like a New York culture and young people in New York, and that sort of scene, like downtown definitely sparked a lot of stuff. Even “Vintage”; describing those characters in “Vintage” is very based on people I’d see and come across in New York. Then the song “disco banger but you're crying in the bathroom” was missing the dance floor or a club. Just New York and nostalgia for pre-pandemic times is kind of the common theme.

How would you sell someone on the bass and the importance of the bass?

I would say that it holds down any song in any band or group setting. It's the groove of the song which is the most important – it's what makes people move. I think what I love is you feel the low frequencies in your chest and your heart and your soul. You can connect with it on a deeper level. Also, it is a really versatile instrument, and you can hold down the group, but you can also offer a lot of melodic elements. It can be the melody, it can be the rhythm, It can be the harmony. So that's what I would say. And it's just cool. Like, it just looks sick.

With your debut EP out, what’s next for you?

I'm just gonna start writing new stuff. The next few months, I’m just gonna be writing more, doing sessions and planning out the next phase, like the Blu 2.0 phase of music and then probably start rehearsing for the shows that will happen later on. So it's kind of a mix of both of those”.

The last interview I want to bring in is from Women in Pop. In addition to pick up on and highlighting individual tracks from her E.P., they also asked Blu DeTiger about her earliest club D.J. days – where, it turns out, she was underage at the time:

“And your latest single ‘Vintage’ which is just so much fun and energy. There's ‘70s style references, ‘80s hooks and early 2000s karaoke references. There's a whole wine cellar of vintage going on there. What is it about those eras that you adore, that you gravitate to so much?

Yeah, part of that song came from me just such a vintage girl. I listen to old music, so does everyone in some capacity, but i think more so when I was growing up. When i was in middle school I was always listening to older stuff and when I was in high school i was listening to disco and my friends were like ‘what?’ We didn't have the same musical taste and background, because I was getting into bass and stuff. I always thought of myself as an old soul compared to my friends. That is part of where the song came from. I take a lot of influence from the past, genre wise, as well. All the funky stuff that are in this track are direct references to that era. We have the ‘80s synth sounds in that song as well. It’s recycling of the past and making it feel fresh at the same time. That's what i was aiming for with this song especially since it was called ‘Vintage’ I definitely wanted to reference some of those tropes in different genres of music but also just keep it really fresh and fun and in the 2020/2021 age as well.

One key track that stands out for me is ‘Figure It Out’ because you've got that boot stomping bass thumping mantra and then it's punctuated by your surprisingly electric soprano vocals, which is beautiful. Do you think that does come from your DJ-ing days where you're like ‘oh we can mix this track with this’, or is that just naturally what you gravitate towards?

I never really thought about it like that but it might just be from me having a knowledge of mixed genres and stuff. When I’m making stuff I just go almost by vibe and just what makes me feel good and what i think would be cool. Most of the time that's just mixing a bunch of stuff. It's all music so whatever feels good feels good, you know?

Your EP How Did We Get Here? is a seven track collection of anthems that put you in control of your narrative and challenges gender stereotypes within music and news culture. Where do you feel that those stereotypes lies?

Ohhh, interesting. First off, there aren't that many female instrumentalists. There are way more now, but when i was growing up it was kind of hard to find. So me being a bass player and putting the bassline at the forefront of most of my songs is maybe against what a traditional female pop star would do. First and foremost I think that is the biggest thing.

 When you started clubbing and DJ-ing you were actually underage. Obviously there’s a lot of guts that comes with that, you've clearly got confidence oozing out of you. But did you ever find a time, particularly when it came to writing your own music and getting it out there, that you felt like you either had to quieten down or shout louder in order to be heard because you were both a woman and a young woman at that?

I think more so when I was growing up and playing and going to like rehearsals. I did a bunch of jazz programs when I was younger and jazz camp and bass camp. I did all that nerdy stuff and all of those things are primarily guys in there. So i think when i was doing those, when i walked into the room, I just immediately stood out because I was a girl and having that extra layer of it made me practice way harder so I could be the best I could be in the room and not just be ‘good for a girl’. That was really prevalent when I was coming up as a bass player. It really motivated me to really practice so that people couldn't just say I was ‘good for a girl’. In terms of my music too when I’m writing and stuff, I don't know if this is a musician thing but there's always times when you'll be in a room with someone else, like a male producer, and they'll try to input their ideas more so and be ‘this is what we're going to do’ and you have to just make sure that you steer the ship and that you're able to dictate what you want to do. That also motivated me to get into producing so that when I can be in the room I can eloquently say how I wanted something to sound and know the right terms so that I could show that I know what's up, you know?”.

There was a lot of justified excitement and praise around How Did We Get Here? It was definitely one of last year’s finest debut E.P.s. It makes me wonder whether another might follow this year. Among those keen to have their say was The Line of Best Fit. This is what they noted in their review:

“Sonically, DeTiger dips in and out of lo-fi pop, rife with vivid funk explosions, and bass-heavy interludes. How Did We Get Here? is a quirky EP, and a fittingly sweet introduction to the world of New York's new bass aficionado. Whilst opener, the viral hit “Figure It Out”, is arguably where DeTiger found her fame, it’s throughout the rest of the EP where she truly shines.

The alt-disco instrumental “disco banger but you’re crying in the bathroom” is an effortlessly upbeat ode shadow of a disco track. It’s a rejuvenation of the genre for the modern age; groovy, catchy and sprinkled with just the right amount of gen Z angst.

“Night Shade” is another stand out moment. Here her luminous vocals dance over a slinky bassline, sprinkled with some glittering funk guitar - there’s something about this track that’s just so cool. Whether this be the fluid lyricism or the frankly fantastic adlibs, it’s a tune embossed with an elegant groove.

However, not every track lands as well as these. The viral opener, although catchy, just feels too laidback for an otherwise bouncing EP. The bassline lacks lucidity, and the hook just misses its target. Similar critiques can be said about “Cotton Candy Lemonade”. Although dulcet breaks are often welcomed on full-length albums, something feels off about having an otherwise carefree EP stop so suddenly in its tracks to welcome in a more sombre tone.

Throughout the rest of the EP, we’re served infectious visions of the perfect boy (“Vintage”), frisson-inducing rhythms and radiant backing vocals (“Toast with the Butter”) and some devilishly fun auras of an outdoor disco (“Kinda Miss You”). No matter the strain of pop, DeTiger asserts herself wholeheartedly within the body of the music.

Although How Did We Get Here? sometimes loses itself in its attempt at deeper moments, it makes up for it with the youthful exuberance in the rest of the tracks. Perfectly mixing feelings of sweetness, coolness and glitter, Blu DeTiger has begun to master her craft, while welcoming in a (not too) distant summer”.

A brilliant and multifaceted talent, Blu DeTiger is an artist who is going to have many more years in the music industry. She is already being hailed as one of this year’s names to watch. After a 2021 that saw the release of her debut E.P., she will want to gig as much as possible and, I guess, work on new material. It is exciting to see where she might head next. If you have not followed Blu DeTiger yet, then acquaint yourself with…

A phenomenal musician.

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Follow Blu DeTiger

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Hur 

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/bludetiger

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/bludetiger/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsvWmnNTLqrNF26vFBgJsKQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5NyCIBCeU080ynEj33S4hC?si=oZBp5YAeTFiyl91gf36pWg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/bludetiger

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@bludetiger

FEATURE: Second Spin: Scott Walker – Bish Bosch

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Scott Walker – Bish Bosch

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ALTHOUGH the album won some positive reviews…

one does not hear too many of its songs mentioned or played on the radio. As many of the songs on Scott Walker’s Bish Bosch are quite long, that is understandable. Although Bish Bosch is very different to his earlier albums, it is still utterly brilliant. The album was named among the best of 2012 by many publications. Released on 3rd December of that year, Walker described it as the final instalment in a trilogy that also includes Tilt (1995) and The Drift (2006). At seventy-three minutes, maybe Bish Bosch is a Scott Walker album for the diehards. Produced by Walker and Peter Walsh, I think that the album warrants more praise and exposure. Although it is a long and pretty intense listen at times, Walker said that Bish Bosch was written in just over a year. Before coming to a couple of reviews of Bish Bosch, I wanted to bring in an interview from The Quietus. In it,John Doran spoke with Scott Walker about the creation of the album and how it came together:

“You've said that you have to wait a long time for lyrics to come to you; that it's a waiting game. How long did it take in the case of Bish Bosch?

Scott Walker: This time I set aside a year, which normally I don't do. I just thought I'm going to try and see if I can speed up the process by not doing anything else. So it took me just over a year to get the lyrics and everything done, which is lightning speed for me. But I really had to wait and wait and wait almost every single day for the words to come.

Earlier this year your manager released a statement saying that Bish Bosch left off where The Drift finished. To what extent is that actually true and does the new album finish a notional trilogy?

SW: Well it feels like that, but I don't think it's literally true; they're not joined together. We have developed a style. And we've been elasticating that style, pushing it to its limits, and that's why I think people can hear this same sound going across three records. It's possible that this is the last time we'll try this particular atmosphere and we'll try something very different next time. But Bish Bosch is also very different. There's a lot of bass on The Drift and Tilt but on this one we've used the bass only here and there. That was because we were trying to get a vertiginous feeling where the bottom drops out from under you, leaving you with nothing to hold onto for a lot of the time. And when the bass comes in [smacks hands together violently] it's a very welcoming thing.

Some of the dark atmospherics on the album made me think of the more ambient end of dubstep. To what extent do you keep up with new music, say for example, on the Hyperdub label?

SW: I know Burial. I know all that stuff. I try and keep up with so much stuff, whether it's Burial or a hit record off the radio.

On first listen, I actually found Bish Bosch more harrowing than most current releases in the fields of black metal, noise, industrial and power electronics, where causing distress or discomfort to the listener is often an integral part of the aesthetic. To what extent do you know these genres, and to what extent are you trying to put your listener through the wringer, as it were?

SW: I'm aware of the sort of music you're talking about, black metal and so on. I'll dip in and listen to that kind of stuff but my music is coming from me - I don't know exactly how, but it is coming from me. Generally with [noise and power electronics etc] everything is going one way. The vocals and the sound are only going one way, and I try to give several layers to keep you interested, more like in a painting perhaps. Maybe there will be an underlying seriousness, maybe there will also be some humour, but there will be a lot of stuff happening at the same time. And I think that's the main difference between what I do and black metal for example.

Where did the album title come from? I believe it has something to do with an idea of a giant female artist…

SW: I knew I'd be playing with language more than I had on any of the previous albums. I wanted the title to introduce you to this kind of idea and reflect the feeling of the album, which was [claps hands briskly] bish bosh. And we know what bish bosh means here in this country – it means job done or sorted. In urban slang bish also [phonetically] means bitch, like "Dis is ma bitch". And then I wrote Bosch like the artist [Heironymous]. I was then thinking in the terms of this giant universal female artist. And this idea continued to play through the record in certain spots”.

Maybe not his most accessible album, I do feel that Bish Bosch is one of his most rewarding. The songs are fascinating and enormously powerful! It is hard to describe the effect and impact Bish Bosch has on you. I want to start by sourcing a review from AllMusic. This is what they observed:

“Bish Bosch is, according to Scott Walker, the final recording in the trilogy that began with 1995’s Tilt and continued in 2006’s The Drift. Its title combines urban slang for the word "bitch" and the last name of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Like its predecessors, Bish Bosch is not an easy listen initially. It's utterly strange, yet alluring. Musically, Walker is as rangy and cagey as ever. His players have worked with him since Tilt; they know exactly what he wants and how to get it. A string orchestra arranged and conducted by keyboardist Mark Warman, and a full symphony on three cuts are also employed. The lyrics on Bish Bosch are full of obscure historical, philosophical, medical, geographical and cultural allusions. For instance, subatomic science, a dwarf jester in Attila the Hun’s court, St. Simeon, and an early 20th century fad all appear in "SDSS14+3B (Zircon, A Flagpole Sitter)." Elsewhere, Nicolai Ceausescu, Nikita Khrushchev, the Ku Klux Klan, and God himself show up. While Bish Bosch is another exercise in artful pretension, it is the most accessible entry in this trilogy and well worth the effort to get at it. Themes of decay are woven throughout these songs -- of empire, of the body, of language and religion -- yet they are often complemented and illustrated by wry, pun-like, and even scatological humor. Walker's pessismism is akin to Samuel Beckett's and like the author, he holds space for a sliver of hope.

On "Corps de Blah," a chorus of farts answers an a cappella lullaby whose lyrics are grotesque. Before it's over, Walker reaches operatic heights vocally, singing about bodily functions, surgery ("Nothing clears out a room/like removing a brain"), speculative philosophy, and romantic betrayal, all while accompanied by thrumming, wailing strings, metallic guitar riffs, a flailing drum kit, and layers of electronics and ambience. "Epizootics!" uses a “tubax” -- part baritone sax, part tuba -- that introduces an infectious, fingerpopping drum chant before Walker employs bop-era vocal phrasing to climb to a careening crescendo before his version of a Hawaiian folk song closes it. "Tar’s" power electronics shriek is brought to earth by a rhythmic strategy that involves machetes frantically clashing against one another. Despite its 21-plus-minute monolithic length, "SDSS14+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)" is almost welcoming. Layered ambient and looped textures, bombastic rock dynamics, metal guitars, soundtrack effects, and Walker's theatrical baritone allow the listener inside the maelstrom of his soundworld. Here, as in many other places on Bish Bosch, traces, hints, and suggestions of melody are given small but pronounced spaces that momentarily relieve the listener's sense of dislocation and tension before building them up again. His voice too, is freer to float and engage something approaching lyricism. With Bish Bosch, Walker creates a kind of Möbius Strip: by virtue of creating a less physically demanding sonic landscape, he provides a way into his iconic trilogy on his way out of it”.

To round things off, it is worth highlighting another review. One of the things I noticed about reviews of Bish Bosch is that they are passionate and deep. Those who heard the album were compelled to go into real detail! This is The Guardian’s take on Scott Walker’s fourteenth studio album:

“One might admire Walker's ambition, his determination not to underestimate his audience, but the risk is that all this leads to music as an arid intellectual exercise. The real skill of Bish Bosch lies not in the precision with which Walker has arranged sounds around his words, but in the fact that the results frequently affect the listener's gut before their brain. There's something thrilling about the moment when the rumbling groove of Epizootics! erupts into a weirdly uplifiting brass fanfare, or the arrival midway though Phrasing of a ferocious metal guitar riff. The vocal melody of Corps De Blah is utterly lovely – it's not so far from the kind of thing Walker would have once set to a luscious Wally Stott orchestration, instead of ominous electronics and the sound of a chisel hitting stone.

Walker has always protested that people miss the humour in his work – in fairness, that's perhaps an inevitable consequence of writing songs about existential despair, Nicolae Ceaus ‚escu, illness, and disgust at the human body – which may be why he appears to have amped it up here. It's hard to listen to Bish Bosch without dissolving into helpless laughter at least once, maybe at the chorus of farting noises on Corps De Blah, or perhaps during the 21 minutes of SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter), which not only finds Walker variously referencing subatomic science, Attila the Hun, Buñuel's 1964 film Simon of the Desert, Louis B Meyer and Roman numerals, but singing in his pained baritone about playing "fugues on Jove's spam castanets", a line that seems to come not from history or science or European arthouse cinema, but Roger's Profanisaurus.

Improbable ROFLs aside, listening to Bish Bosch is still a bruising, draining experience: however much you admire Walker's world, you might not want to stay there long. There's a paradox to it: it's music that clearly requires a lot of time and effort to fully unpick, while defying you to play it often enough to actually do that. For a lot of listeners, including his fans, that would make Bish Bosch a pretentious failure: who wants to buy an album you can hardly bear to listen to? Equally, you could argue that tells you more about how unchallenging and emotionally limited most rock music is than it does about Bish Bosch itself. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, you'd be hard-pushed to claim there's anything else remotely like the album itself”.

A phenomenal album that I feel one does not often mention or hear linked with the best of Scott Walker, Bish Bosch turns ten at the end of this year. Walker sadly died in 2019. His music and influence will live forever. He is a legend and iconic voice that will ring through the ages. He left so many incredible albums behind. Bish Bosch is one of them. If you have not heard it before, then now is a good time to…

DIVE right in.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: ‘Saturday’ Jams and Gems

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Vinicius Wiesehofer/Unsplash 

‘Saturday’ Jams and Gems

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THIS is quite a general playlist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash

but, as it is a Saturday, I wanted to put together some songs with the weekend word in it. I am not sure I have covered this before. We all look forward to the weekend and, to me, Saturday is the finest day of the week! This Lockdown Playlist includes songs with ‘Saturday’ in the title (and there is a song from The Saturdays in there). If you need a bit of a boost to get you going, I hope that this collection of awesome tracks helps you out. Spin the playlist now and I hope there are some songs in here that can raise a smile and…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ervo Rocks/Unsplash

GET under the skin.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside at Forty-Four: A Glorious Album and a Heavy Promotional Schedule

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside at Forty-Four

IN THIS PHOTO: On 9th February, 1978, Kate Bush scored her first T.V. appearance, performing the A and B-sides of her new single (Wuthering Heights and Kite respectively) on the West German show, Bios Bahnhof (Bio’s Station) 

A Glorious Album and a Heavy Promotional Schedule

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FOR my series of Kate Bush features…

marking forty-four years of her debut album, The Kick Inside, I wanted to compile a playlist of videos from 1978 where Bush is performing live or appearing on T.V.. This feature will be sort of in two halves. I am going to bring in a review of The Kick Inside from 2019. I still think The Kick Inside is an underrated album in Bush’s cannon. Whilst retrospection has helped raise its profile and see it ranked in her top five albums, I get the impression that it will always be seen as a good debut that Bush would better. Leaving aside the two huge U.K. singles, Wuthering Heights and The Man with the Child in His Eyes, there are so many terrific songs. From start to finish, The Kick Inside is such a fascinating and broad album with different vocal characters and stories combining. Sound so confident throughout, Bush ensures that every track leaves an impression. Turning forty-four on 17th February, I hope that more people discover the album and it gets a lot of love. One cannot define The Kick Inside with a couple of songs. Its legacy and reputation is so strong because of the complete whole. Laura Snapes reviewed The Kick Inside for Pitchfork in 2019, and she really got to the heart about one of the most extraordinary debut albums in music history:

“That Kate Bush named her debut album The Kick Inside might make it seem like her music is the product of a maternal wellspring. Women artists likening their work to their children is one culturally accepted way for them to discuss creativity; it implies a reassuring process of nurture. Another is as a bolt from the blue, a divine phenomenon which they just happened to catch and transmit to a deserving audience; no need for fear of a female genius here. But Bush’s debut, released when she was 19, says “Up yours” to all that.

Yes, the song “The Kick Inside” is about childbearing, but the young woman is pregnant by her brother and on the cusp of suicide to spare their family from shame. Subverting the folk song “Lucy Wan” (the brother kills his sister in the original), it shows the depths of Bush’s studies and her everlasting curiosity for how far desire can drive a person. She was signed at 16 but her debut took four years to make, during which she engaged multiple teachers in a process of spiritual and physical transformation. She pays tribute to their lessons alongside rhapsodies on unexplained phenomena, delirious expressions of lust, and declarations of earthbound defiance. Rather than feminine function or freak accident, these are the cornerstones of creativity, she suggested: mentorship and openness, but also the self-assurance to withstand those forces. Her purpose was as strong as any of them.

Besides, Bush had always felt that she had male musical urges, drawing distinctions between herself and the female songwriters of the 1960s. “That sort of stuff is sweet and lyrical,” Bush said of Carole King and co. in 1978, “but it doesn’t push it on you, and most male music—not all of it, but the good stuff—really lays it on you. It’s like an interrogation. It really puts you against the wall and that’s what I’d like my music to do. I’d like my music to intrude.” (Evidently, she had not been listening to enough Laura Nyro.) That reasoning underpinned Bush’s first battle with EMI, who wanted to release the romp “James and the Cold Gun” as her first single. Bush knew it had to be the randy metaphysical torch song “Wuthering Heights,” and she was right: It knocked ABBA off the UK No. 1 spot. She soon intruded on British life to the degree that she was subject to unkind TV parodies.

But provocation for its own sake wasn’t Bush’s project. EMI not pushing her to make an album at 15 was a blessing: The Kick Inside arrived the year after punk broke, which Bush knew served her well. “People were waiting for something new to come out—something with feeling,” she said in 1978. For anyone who scoffed at her punk affiliation—given her teenage mentorship at the hands of Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and her taste for the baroque—she indisputably subverted wanky prog with her explicit desire and sexuality: Here was how she might intrude. The limited presence of women in prog tended to orgasmic moaning that amplified the supposed sexual potency of the group’s playing. Bush demanded pleasure, grew impatient when she had to wait for it, and ignored the issue of male climax—rock’s founding pleasure principle—to focus on how sex might transform her. “I won’t pull away,” she sings almost as a threat on “Feel It,” alone with the piano. “My passion always wins.”

The louche “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” treads similarly brazen territory though lands less soundly. She fantasizes about “that feeling of sticky love inside” as if anticipating a treacle pudding, and there is an unctuous gloop to the arrangement that makes it one of the album’s least distinctive songs. More complex desires tended to elicit her more inherently sensual and accomplished writing. “Moving,” her tribute to dance teacher Lindsay Kemp, is so absurdly elegant and lavish that its beauty seems to move Bush to laughter: There is deep respect in her admiration for him, in concert with piercing operatic notes and impish backing vocal harmonies that sound like they should have been handled by a chorus of Jim Henson creations. “You crush the lily in my soul” as an awed metaphor for the timidity of girlhood gone away is unimpeachable.

What made Bush’s writing truly radical was the angles she could take on female desire without ever resorting to submissiveness. “Wuthering Heights” is menacing melodrama and ectoplasmic empowerment; “The Saxophone Song”—one of two recordings made when she was 15—finds her fantasizing about sitting in a Berlin bar, enjoying a saxophonist’s playing and the effect it has on her. But she is hardly there to praise him: “Of all the stars I’ve seen that shine so brightly/I’ve never known or felt in myself so rightly,” she sings of her reverie, with deep seriousness. We hear his playing, and it isn’t conventionally romantic but stuttering, coarse, telling us something about the unconventional spirits that stir her.

And if there is trepidation in the arrangement of “The Man With the Child in His Eyes,” it reflects other people’s anxieties about its depicted relationship with an older man: Will he take advantage, let her down? This is the other teenage recording, her voice a little higher, less powerfully exuberant, but disarmingly confident. Her serene, steady note in the chorus—“Oooooh, he’s here again”—lays waste to the faithless. And whether he is real, and whether he loves her, is immaterial: “I just took a trip on my love for him,” she sings, empowered, again, by her desire. There’s not a fearful note on The Kick Inside, and yet there is still room for childish wonder: Just because Bush appeared emotionally and musically sophisticated beyond her years didn’t mean denying them.

“Kite” unravels like a children’s story: First she wants to fly up high, away from cruel period pains (“Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o”) and teenage self-consciousness (“all these mirror windows”) but no sooner is she up than she wants to return to real life. It is a wacky hormone bomb of a song, prancing along on toybox cod reggae and the enervating rat-a-tat-tat energy that sustained parodies of Bush’s uninhibited style; still, more fool anyone who sneers instead of reveling in the pure, piercing sensation of her crowing “dia-ia-ia-ia-ia-ia-ia-mond!” as if giving every facet its own gleaming syllable.

“Strange Phenomena” is equally awed, Bush celebrating the menstrual cycle as a secret lunar power and wondering what other powers might arrive if we were only attuned to them. She lurches from faux-operatic vocal to reedy shriek, marches confidently in tandem with the strident chorus and unleashes a big, spooky “Woo!,” exactly as silly as a 19-year-old should be. As is “Oh to Be in Love,” a baroque, glittering harpsichord romp about a romance that brightens the colors and defeats time.

She only fails to make a virtue of her naivety on “Room for the Life,” where she scolds a weeping woman for thinking any man would care about her tears. The sweet calypso reverie is elegant, and good relief from the brawnier, propulsive arrangements that stood staunchly alongside Steely Dan. But Bush shifts inconsistently between reminding the woman that she can have babies and insisting, more effectively, that changing one’s life is up to you alone. The latter is clearly where her own sensibilities lie: “Them Heavy People,” another ode to her teachers, has a Woolf-like interiority (“I must work on my mind”) and a distinctly un-Woolf-like exuberance, capering along like a pink elephant on parade. “You don’t need no crystal ball,” she concludes, “Don’t fall for a magic wand/We humans got it all/We perform the miracles.”

The Kick Inside was Bush’s first, the sound of a young woman getting what she wants. Despite her links to the 1970s’ ancien régime, she recognized the potential to pounce on synapses shocked into action by punk, and eschewed its nihilism to begin building something longer lasting. It is ornate music made in austere times, but unlike the pop sybarites to follow in the next decade, flaunting their wealth while Britain crumbled, Bush spun hers not from material trappings but the infinitely renewable resources of intellect and instinct: Her joyous debut measures the fullness of a woman’s life by what’s in her head”.

The video compilation show the different performances Bush conducted in 1978 in promotion of The Kick Inside. It is staggering just how much she managed to cram in! Performing for T.V. in America, Japan and Germany (among other countries), having to travel so much and the sort of fatigue that brought never shows. She remains so radiant, intelligent and accommodating in every interview. Her performances are so compelling and entrancing! Next month sees the forty-fourth anniversary of Kate Bush’s stunning debut album. The Kick Inside is, to me, such a seismic release. It is an album that definitely warrants more attention and retrospective forensic investigation. Let us hope that the forthcoming anniversary…

SEES that happen.

FEATURE: Countdown to Ecstasy: Ranking Steely Dan’s Studio Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

Countdown to Ecstasy

Ranking Steely Dan’s Studio Albums

___________

I am going to cheat here a bit…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Henry Diltz

because I think I did a ranking of Steely Dan’s studio albums a while back. I have changed my mind regarding a couple of the album placings. I have also sourced some biography from AllMusic before. I am going to use that again prior to getting to the rankings. 2022 marks fifty years since Steely Dan’s debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, was released. Because one of their members, Walter Becker, died in 2017, we will never hear another album of original songs from them. It is a shame but, in the time Becker and Donald Fagen recorded together, we were treated to nine amazing studio albums. Here, I have recommended the best tracks from each; a link where you can buy the album (their albums are not easily available on vinyl), and the standout track (plus a review to go alongside things). Here is some great detail about the incredible Steely Dan:

“Most rock & roll bands are a tightly wound unit that developed their music through years of playing in garages and clubs around their hometown. Steely Dan never subscribed to that aesthetic. As the vehicle for the songwriting of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan defied all rock & roll conventions. Becker and Fagen never truly enjoyed rock -- with their ironic humor and cryptic lyrics, their eclectic body of work shows some debt to Bob Dylan -- preferring jazz, traditional pop, blues, and R&B. Steely Dan created a sophisticated, distinctive sound with accessible melodic hooks, complex harmonies and time signatures, and a devotion to the recording studio. With producer Gary Katz, Becker and Fagen gradually changed Steely Dan from a performing band to a studio project, hiring professional musicians to record their compositions. Though the band didn't perform live between 1974 and 1993, Steely Dan's popularity continued to grow throughout the '70s as their albums became critical favorites and their singles became staples of AOR and pop radio stations. Even after the group disbanded in the early '80s, their records retained a cult following, as proven by the massive success of their unlikely return to the stage in the early '90s.

Walter Becker (bass) and Donald Fagen (vocals, keyboards) were the core members of Steely Dan throughout its various incarnations. The two met at Bard College in New York in 1967 and began playing in bands together shortly afterward. The duo played in a number of groups -- including the Bad Rock Group, which featured future comedic actor Chevy Chase on drums -- which ranged from jazz to progressive rock. Eventually, Becker and Fagen began composing songs together, hoping to become professional songwriters in the tradition of the Brill Building. In 1970, the pair joined Jay & the Americans' backing band, performing under pseudonyms; Becker chose Gustav Mahler, while Fagen used Tristan Fabriani. They stayed with Jay & the Americans until halfway through 1971, when they recorded the soundtrack for the low-budget film You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It, which was produced by the Americans' Kenny Vance. Following the recording of the soundtrack, Becker and Fagen attempted to start a band with Denny Dias, but the venture was unsuccessful. Barbra Streisand recorded the Fagen/Becker composition "I Mean to Shine" on her album Barbra Joan Streisand, released in August 1971, and the duo met producer Gary Katz, who hired them as staff songwriters for ABC/Dunhill in Los Angeles, where he had just become a staff producer. Katz suggested that Becker and Fagen form a band as a way to record their songs, and Steely Dan -- who took their name from a dildo in William Burroughs' Naked Lunch -- were formed shortly afterward.

Recruiting guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder, and keyboardist/vocalist David Palmer, Becker and Fagen officially formed Steely Dan in 1972, releasing their debut, Can't Buy a Thrill, shortly afterward. Palmer and Fagen shared lead vocals on the album, but the record's two hit singles -- the Top Ten "Do It Again" and "Reeling in the Years" -- were sung by Fagen. Can't Buy a Thrill was a critical and commercial success, but its supporting tour was a disaster, hampered by an under-rehearsed band and unappreciative audiences. Palmer left the band following the tour. Countdown to Ecstasy, released in 1973, was a critical hit, but it failed to generate a hit single, even though the band supported it with a tour.

Steely Dan replaced Hodder with Jeff Porcaro and added keyboardist/backup vocalist Michael McDonald prior to recording their third album, Pretzel Logic. Released in the spring of 1974, Pretzel Logic returned Steely Dan to the Top Ten on the strength of the single "Rikki Don't Lose That Number." After completing the supporting tour for Pretzel Logic, Becker and Fagen decided to retire from live performances and make Steely Dan a studio-based band. For their next album, 1975's Katy Lied, the duo hired a variety of studio musicians -- including Dias, Porcaro, guitarist Elliot Randall, saxophonists Phil Woods, bassist Wilton Felder, percussionist Victor Feldman, keyboardist Michael Omartian, and guitarist Larry Carlton -- as supporting musicians. Katy Lied was another hit, as was 1976's The Royal Scam, which continued in the vein of its predecessor. On 1977's Aja, Steely Dan's sound became more polished and jazzy, as they hired jazz fusion artists like Wayne Shorter, Lee Ritenour, and the Crusaders as support. Aja became their biggest hit, reaching the Top Five within three weeks of release and becoming one of the first albums to be certified platinum. Aja also gained the respect of many jazz musicians, as evidenced by Woody Herman recording an album of Becker/Fagen songs in 1978.

Following the release of Aja, ABC was bought out by MCA Records, resulting in a contractual dispute with the label that delayed until 1980 the release of their follow-up album. During the interim, the group had a hit with the theme song for the film FM in 1978. Steely Dan finally released Gaucho, the follow-up to Aja, in late 1980, and it became another Top Ten hit for the group. During the summer of 1981, Becker and Fagen announced that they were parting ways. The following year, Fagen released his solo debut, The Nightfly, which became a critical and commercial hit.

Fagen didn't record another album until 1993, when he reunited with Becker, who produced Kamakiriad. The album was promoted by the first Steely Dan tour in nearly 20 years, and while the record failed to sell, the concerts were very popular. In 1994, Becker released his solo debut, 11 Tracks of Whack, which was produced by Fagen. The following year, Steely Dan mounted another reunion tour, and in early 2000 the duo issued Two Against Nature, their first new studio album in two decades. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Steely Dan followed it in 2003 with Everything Must Go. Fagen's solo album Morph the Cat was released in 2006, and Becker released Circus Money in 2008 as Steely Dan embarked on another tour. In September 2017, it was announced that Becker had died in Maui, Hawaii. He was 67-years-old.

Fagen carried on with Steely Dan after Becker's passing, often calling the group "the Steely Dan Band." This new lineup was showcased on a pair of live albums released in September 2021: Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live and Donald Fagen's The Nightfly Live, both recorded between 2018 and 2019”.

Leading up to the fiftieth anniversary of Can’t Buy a Thrill (in November), I am going to do a series of features about the group/duo. For now, here is my view on which studio albums fit where. Maybe you will disagree with some of the placings. It would be interesting to hear…

WHAT you reckon.

________________

9. Everything Must Go

Release Date: 10th June, 2003

Producers: Walter Becker/Donald Fagen

Label: Reprise

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=65834&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: The Last Mall/Slang of Ages/Everything Must Go

Review:

“When Steely Dan released Two Against Nature in 2000, their first album in 20 years, it was an unexpected gift, since all odds seemed against Donald Fagen and Walter Becker reteaming for nothing more than the occasional project, let alone a full album. As it turned out, the duo was able to pick up where they left off, with Two Against Nature seamlessly fitting next to Gaucho and earning the band surprise success, including a Grammy for Album of the Year, but the bigger surprise is that the reunion wasn't a one-off -- they released another record, Everything Must Go, a mere three years later. Given the (relatively) short turnaround time between the two records, it comes as little surprise that Everything Must Go is a companion piece to Two Against Nature, and sounds very much like that album's laid-back, catchy jazz-funk, only with an elastic, loose feel -- loose enough to have Walter Becker take the first lead vocal in Steely Dan history, in fact, which sums up the Dan's attitude in a nutshell. This time, they're comfortable and confident enough to let anything happen, and while that doesn't really affect the sound of the record, it does affect the feel. Though it as expertly produced as always, there's less emphasis on production and a focus on the feel, often breathing as much as a live performance, another new wrinkle for Steely Dan. Sometimes, it also sounds as if Becker and Fagen have written the songs quickly; there's nothing that betrays their high standards of craft, but, on a whole, the songs are neither as hooky nor as resonant as the ones unveiled on its predecessor. While it might have been nice to have a song as immediate as, say, "Cousin Dupree," there are no bad songs here and many cuts grow as nicely as those on Two Against Nature. But the real selling point of Everything Must Go is that relaxed, comfortable, live feel. It signals that Steely Dan has indeed entered a new phase, one less fussy and a bit funkier (albeit lite funk). If they can keep turning out a record this solid every three years, we'd all be better off” – AllMusic

Key Cut: Godwhacker

8. Gaucho

Release Date: 21st November, 1980

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: MCA

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=17020&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Babylon Sisters/Glamour Profession/Time Out of Mind

Review:

“A man flees west, pursued by saxophones. That’s how Steely Dan’s Gaucho starts, with “Babylon Sisters,” a foreboding melody that creeps into the room like toxic fog, and a lyric about a guy in a car en route to a three-way. While the horn section keeps rupturing the mood the keyboards are trying to set, the narrator spins stick-with-me-baby fantasies of California leisure and hedonism for his female companion(s). There may be no more perfectly yacht-rock tercet in the Dan canon than, “We’ll jog with show folk on the sand/Drink kirschwasser from a shell/San Francisco show-and-tell.” But even the singer doesn’t believe the sales pitch. By the end of the verse he’s talking to himself, or maybe he has been all along. “It’s cheap but it’s not free,” he says. “And that love’s not a game for three/And I’m not what I used to be.” Meanwhile, Randy Brecker’s muted trumpet dances around him, mocking his pain the way only a muted trumpet can.

Good times! Is it any wonder Gaucho—the seventh Steely Dan album, and the last one Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would make together until the year 2000—is the one even some hardcore Danimals find it tough to fully cozy up to? The almost pathologically overdetermined production is elegant, arid, a little forbidding, and every last tinkling chime sounds like it took 12 days to mix, because chances are it did. And underneath that compulsive craftsmanship, that marble-slick surface, there’s decay, disillusionment, a gnawing sadness. But that’s what’s great about Gaucho. It takes the animating artistic tension of Steely Dan—their need to make flawless-sounding records lionizing inveterately human fuckups—to its logical endpoint.

It’s their most obviously L.A. record, so of course they made it in New York, after spending years out West making music so steeped in New York iconography it practically sweated hot-dog-cart water. And it’s also the most end-of-the-’70s record ever made, 38 minutes of immaculately conceived malaise-age bachelor-pad music by which to greet the cold dawn of the Reagan era. The characters in these songs have taken an era of self-expression and self-indulgence as far as they can. They’re free to do and be whatever and whoever they want, but all that severance of obligation has done is isolate them from other people.

The only character who’s having any kind of communal fun is the coke dealer on “Glamour Profession,” who makes calls from a basketball star’s car phone and takes meetings over Mr. Chow dumplings with “Jive Miguel…from Bogotá.” Everyone else is lost out there in the haze, having mutually demeaning sex or reaching for human connection in angry, possessive, usually futile ways. “Gaucho” and “My Rival” are both about relationships into which some threatening/alluring interloper has driven a wedge; both “Hey Nineteen” and “Babylon Sisters” are about older guys who chase younger women and wind up feeling older than ever. Things fall apart, the center does not hold, there’s a gaucho in the living room and he won’t leave, and it’s getting hard to act like everything’s mellow” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: Hey Nineteen

7. Two Against Nature

Release Date: 29th February, 2000

Producers: Walter Becker/Donald Fagen

Label: Giant

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=17120&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Gaslighting Abbie/Janie Runaway/West of Hollywood

Review:

“Speaking of “unexpected”, though, Two Against Nature initially made for a pretty surprising listen. As much as I praise albums like Aja and The Royal Scam, none of the records from the duo’s initial run manage to reach the - for lack of a better word - JAZZINESS of this one. The chill atmosphere and lush arrangements of Gaucho have now been expanded even further, and a lot of the instrumental passages really do approach the realms of traditional jazz fusion. The 70s Dan albums always flirted with jazz classics, but their pop leanings always brought them back under the umbrella of “jazz rock” instead of all-out jazz fusion. In other words, if you’re looking for the most challenging and complex record Donald Fagen and Walter Becker ever released, this is the one. Just listen to the way the title track keeps shifting in and out of different time signatures with its latin beat, or how “Almost Gothic” can’t seem to pick a consistent key or chord progression to stay in.

But here’s the thing: the record goes about its business in such a subtle way that you’re not going to absorb it all in one listen. The music still goes under the same chill guise you’d get from a slick smooth jazz album, but it’s the little quirks that really set it apart. One of the best examples of this comes in the form of “Negative Girl”; the tune is so relaxing as it glides across your eardrums, but listen closer and you’ll find wonderfully complex bass lines from Tom Barney and equally off-kilter drum patterns. On the other side of the energy spectrum, you have the upbeat closing mini-epic “West of Hollywood” which starts out pretty conventionally before revealing its true colors halfway through; a roaring saxophone solo takes over, with Chris Potter tearing it up over ever-changing keyboard melodies. Consequently, stuff like this also makes Two Against Nature the least accessible Dan record, but it’s incredibly rewarding if you give it a chance. Plus, there are still some songs that are much more approachable, notably the relatively straightforward singles “Cousin Dupree” and “Janie Runaway”.

Of course, as with most albums by the duo, the polished music is often presented in contrast with the lyrics. “Cousin Dupree” was the most extensively discussed song to come from the album, as it deals with a slacker who’s just a little too interested in his cousin, and the lyrics even got a nod from Owen Wilson for being reminiscent of the movie You, Me and Dupree (though the song came out first). But let’s be real here; wild topics like infidelity and incest aren’t really out of place in a Steely Dan album. So if anything, I have to commend them for sticking to their guns after being away for so long. Other songs explore similarly dirty topics, such as the sexual escapades found in “Janie Runaway” or the meth-fueled character portrait of “Jack of Speed”. Just as with Gaucho, the music is so beautiful and slick that you almost get distracted from just how dark these songs can get. The juxtaposition is simply fantastic.

While I probably would have rooted for Kid A at the 2001 Grammy Awards, Two Against Nature wouldn’t have been far behind it. People may still complain and consider the win an “upset”, but this really is a fantastic album that progressed Steely Dan in a meaningful way stylistically. If anything, it actually represents the end of their slow transformation into the jazz fusion group that they were always hinting at becoming… it just so happens that people had to wait another 20 years to finally hear it. Give it a listen if you’ve been predisposed to avoid it; you might be surprised” – Sputnikmusic

Key Cut: Cousin Dupree

6. The Royal Scam

Release Date: 31st May, 1976

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16969&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Kid Charlemagne/Don’t Take Me Alive/The Fez

Review:

“We’ve all heard of the genre called “outlaw country”. But with Steely Dan‘s 1976 fifth studio album, The Royal Scam, the group put forth a collection of songs that may be labeled “outlaw fusion jazz”. With allusions to characters both fictional and contemporary, many lyrical themes focus on darker subjects such as crime, homelessness, drug dealing, divorce, the loss of innocence, and other general bad faith “scams”. Musically, this album features more prominent guitar work than most Steely Dan releases, led by band co-member Walter Becker and session guitarist Larry Carlton, who delivers some of his finest performances on this record.

Steely Dan began as a tradition rock group but following their early success, Becker and lead vocalist/keyboardist Donald Fagen wanted to tour less and concentrate on composing and recording. Following their tour in support of Pretzel Logic in 1974, Steely Dan ceased live performances all together. Eventually the other members departed, with group founder and guitarist Denny Dias staying on in more of session role for later albums while Becker and Fagen recruited a diverse group of other session players starting with the 1975 release Katy Lied including Carlton and backing vocalist Michael McDonald.

With the sessions for The Royal Scam, the group brought in funk/R&B drummer Bernard Purdie for most tracks as Becker and Fagen strived for amore rhythmic sound. The album was produced by Gary Katz and it’s cover features artwork originally for and unreleased 1975 album by Van Morrison.

The album begins with its best overall tune and, really one of the most musically rewarding songs by Steely Dan, “Kid Charlemagne”. This track is built on a catchy clavichord which works perfectly in the cracks between the vocal phrases and rhythm provided by Purdie and session bassist Chuck Rainey, But the most rewarding moments here are are dual leads by Carlton, blending elements of rock, funk and jazz with not a single note less than excellent. “The Caves of Altamira” follows as a jazz/pop with more fine rhythms and featuring a rich horn section, climaxing with the tenor sax of John Klemmer. The lyrics refer to cave paintings in Spain created by Neanderthals, proving early man’s call to be creative and expressive.

Carlton’s heavily distorted and snarling guitar works into a full intro lead for “Don’t Take Me Alive”, another track that explores the criminal edge lyrically. However, this track has an overall feel of 1980’s AOR rock, which really shows Steely Dan’s forward-looking approach to compositions. “Sign In Stranger” changes pace as a piano-dominated piece led by Paul Griffin who provides most of the musical movement and a great lead section. Griffin also co-wrote “The Fez” along with Becker and Fagen, a track that starts with slow and moody piano but soon falls into a perfect 70s funk rhythm with some disco-era, over-the-top synth strings on top” – Classic Rock Review

Key Cut: Haitian Divorce

5. Katy Lied

Release Date: March 1975

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16954&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Bad Sneakers/Your Gold Teeth II/Any World (That I'm Welcome To)

Review:

“The songs Becker and Fagen came up with are the usual mix of the funny, cynical, and cryptic, but here and there are moments of what seems to be actual sweetness. The brilliance of their songwriting is that they always aimed for complexity and never allowed themselves to be pinned down. Everything was up for negotiation, even when the lyrics were studded with clear meaning. “Black Friday” is a brilliant depiction of chaos, describing what it would be like to make your way out of town and cash your checks when the apocalypse hits. Fagen makes evil sound appealing, suggesting that it might be the only sane response to living in an insane world, but listen with the other ear and you hear the satire and even a kind of yearning from someone who might actually wish for a better world. Meanwhile, Becker plays the best guitar solo on the album, capturing the ragged edge of the moment.

Steely Dan made songs about the destructive force of male vanity that came from two people you knew were speaking from personal experience. They never hold themselves above their characters, but they don’t let them off the hook, either. On “Bad Sneakers,” we see a man bopping around the street near Radio City Music Hall like he owns the place. We feel what he feels but also see how ridiculous he looks, while McDonald’s background vocals suggest grace in his awkwardness, celebrating the energy that powers him even though his actions are laughable. “Rose Darling” is the third track in a row to mention money specifically, but on a more casual listen it sounds something like a pure love song. And then two cuts later, the A-side closes with “Dr. Wu.”

Lodged in the middle of the album that came in the middle of the decade and in the middle of Steely Dan’s decade-long, seven-album run is one of their very best songs, a weary and funny and specific and mysterious ode to longing and loss. “Dr. Wu” gave the album its title (“Katie lies/You can see it in her eyes”) and crystalizes its essential mood. One moment it’s about drugs, the next it’s about a love triangle, and then you’re not sure what’s next or even what’s real, and weaving through it all is the saxophone solo from Phil Woods, connecting dots between musical worlds both corny and elegant, from Billy Joel to Billy Strayhorn.

The characters flailing clumsily throughout Katy Lied are paralyzed by desires they aren’t introspective enough to understand, so all they can do is keep stumbling forward. “I got this thing inside me,” Fagen sings in a bridge on the late album highlight “Any World (That I’m Welcome To)”, “I only know I must obey/This feeling I can't explain away.” Sometimes obeying those desires lead people to something ugly and inexcusable, as on “Everyone’s Gone to the Movies,” a song about a guy who is almost certainly grooming kids for abuse. It’s a Todd Solondz film rendered in sound, and Fagen only shows us the lead-up, forcing us to assemble the pieces in our heads as he hides the crime behind the album’s cheeriest arrangement.

This collision between word and sound—in which the precise moral takeaway and is obscured even as the music makes it go down easy—made the band hard to trust. “The words, while frequently not easy to get the definite drift of, are almost always intriguing and often witty,” John Mendelsohn wrote in a review of Katy Lied in Rolling Stone. But a few paragraphs later he concluded: “Steely Dan’s music continues to strike me essentially as exemplarily well-crafted and uncommonly intelligent schlock” – Pitchfork

Key Cut: Black Friday

4. Countdown to Ecstasy

Release Date: July 1973

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16898&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Bodhisattva/The Boston Rag/Show Biz Kids

Review:

“Now renowned more as studio-based boffins, following the release of their first album, Can't Buy A Thrill, in 1973 the newly-minted Steely Dan found themselves forced to tour. This forced them to create the follow-up on the hoof. While the band expressed a certain disappointment with the results (and certainly the commercial gains fell way short of the predecessor), Countdown... remains a jewel in their very large artistic crown. A more jazzy affair than Can't buy..., the album built on the duo of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's ability to combine cynicism with wit, intelligence and some great hooks, all bolstered by the best players around. Still composed of a core of Jim Hodder (drums), Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter (lead guitar) and Denny Dias (rhythm guitar), the duo demoted David Palmer to backing vocals and handed the mic to Donald for perpetuity. It was a wise move.

These tales of drug abuse ("Boston Rag"), class envy ("Your Gold Teeth"), and post-nuclear devastation ("King Of The World") needed the distinctive, weary tones of Fagen to propel them. While opener, "Bodhisattva" may have been a live staple designed for soloing, the band's chops were now fearsome enough to elevate it beyond mere jamming. What's more in "Pearl Of The Quarter" the pair showed that with little more than nuance they could paint a rich picture indeed (it's the tale of a midddle class boy chasing forbidden fruit).

Add to this the usual array of talent drafted in to fill any gaps ie; Rick Derringer's fearsome slide on "Showbiz Kids". With the latter the Dan also forged their fearsome reputation as social commentators as they finally turned their gaze towards the excesses of the West Coast, while reserving no mercy for even themselves ('they got the Steely Dan t-shirts').

Post-modern before the term was coined, erudite, musically literate and still unbelievably cool; Steely Dan by this point were setting a benchmark that few have ever matched” – BBC

Key Cut: My Old School

3. Aja

Release Date: 23rd September, 1977

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16921&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Black Cow/Peg/Josie

Review:

“The album, which went on to sell 2 million copies, was (at least initially) anathema to a new generation of listeners who rejected the calculation of its expensive studiocraft. Which is in a way highly ironic, since Fagen and Becker’s gnomic lyrics spun stories as sharp-fanged and perverse as any found in the punk canon of the day.

Beyond their obvious allegiance to “Chinese music” (the term applied by Louis Armstrong to bebop), the art-schooled Dan maestros drew on a wealth of literary inspirations for their lyrics, which dealt heavily in subterfuge and misdirection, in the manner of a Times Square three-card monte game.

The influence of Beat forefather William S. Burroughs, whose scabrous experimental novel “Naked Lunch” spawned the band’s name, is always lurking behind the rocks, as are the dark comedians Bruce Jay Friedman and Terry Southern.

No high-lit precursor made as abiding an impact on Steely Dan’s music as did the Russia-born novelist Vladimir Nabokov, for whom Fagen and Becker shared a mutual love. The author of such satiric, game-playing books as “Lolita” and “Pale Fire” contributed his cloaked scenarios, unreliable narrators and caustic observations of human madness to their songs.

The hypnotic suavity of the musical concepts on “Aja” and Fagen and Becker’s propensity for writing brainy, elliptical lyrics manage to obscure the sometimes Stygian stories at the album’s core.

“The hypnotic suavity of the musical concepts on “Aja” and Fagen and Becker’s propensity for writing brainy, elliptical lyrics manage to obscure the sometimes Stygian stories at the album’s core.”

Take the record’s lead-off track “Black Cow.” The song’s silken, soul-derived groove (propelled by Rainey’s fat bass lines), Feldman’s pristine electric piano solo and Tom Scott’s tenor sax outburst all cloak the tale of a man at odds with his drug-addicted, promiscuous girlfriend, whom he may or may not be clandestinely stalking.

Likewise, the ingratiating No. 19 hit “Deacon Blues” sports one of Fagen and Becker’s many unreliable protagonists: a delusional suburbanite who has decided to reinvent himself as a saxophone-playing creature of the nighttime demimonde. The jittery “I Got the News” — which incredibly made it to the B side of the single “Josie” — is nothing more or less than a description of an especially sweaty all-night sex bout.

Is the unnamed actress of “Peg,” as some believe, actually starlet Peg Entwistle, who leaped to her death from the Hollywood sign in 1932? It’s not outside the realm of possibility. Is “Josie,” as writer Brian Sweet has suggested, about an oceanside orgy celebrating the jail release of a female convict? Again, not an unreasonable conclusion.

For Fagen and Becker, the beautifully tooled music they made with their studio cohorts served as the ultimate alienation effect. The true import of their work, which addressed forbidden impulses that moved to the edge of crime and frequently beyond, was always garbed in satiny elegance; its sardonic and horrific essence was marketed as the purest ear candy.

To this day, “Aja” is a thing of musical beauty with a hard-edged heart, and a consummate act of creative sleight-of-hand” – Variety

Key Cut: Deacon Blues

2. Can’t Buy a Thrill

Release Date: November 1972

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16883&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Do It Again/Kings/Reelin’ in the Years

Review:

“Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were remarkable craftsmen from the start, as Steely Dan's debut, Can't Buy a Thrill, illustrates. Each song is tightly constructed, with interlocking chords and gracefully interwoven melodies, buoyed by clever, cryptic lyrics. All of these are hallmarks of Steely Dan's signature sound, but what is most remarkable about the record is the way it differs from their later albums. Of course, one of the most notable differences is the presence of vocalist David Palmer, a professional blue-eyed soul vocalist who oversings the handful of tracks where he takes the lead. Palmer's very presence signals the one major flaw with the album -- in an attempt to appeal to a wide audience, Becker and Fagen tempered their wildest impulses with mainstream pop techniques. Consequently, there are very few of the jazz flourishes that came to distinguish their albums -- the breakthrough single, "Do It Again," does work an impressively tight Latin jazz beat, and "Reelin' in the Years" has jazzy guitar solos and harmonies -- and the production is overly polished, conforming to all the conventions of early-'70s radio. Of course, that gives these decidedly twisted songs a subversive edge, but compositionally, these aren't as innovative as their later work. Even so, the best moments ("Dirty Work," "Kings," "Midnight Cruiser," "Turn That Heartbeat Over Again") are wonderful pop songs that subvert traditional conventions and more than foreshadow the paths Steely Dan would later take” – AllMusic

Key Cut: Midnite Cruiser

1. Pretzel Logic

Release Date: 20th February, 1974

Producer: Gary Katz

Label: ABC

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16984&ev=mb

Standout Tracks: Night by Night/Any Major Dude Will Tell You/Charlie Freak

Review:

“The album begins with “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”, which would become the biggest hit of Steely Dan’s career, topping out at number four on the pop charts. Musically, this is about as smooth as any song by the band, led by the simple piano line of Michael Omartian and great samba-inspired drums and percussion by Jim Gordon. During the lead and bridge section, the song morphs from jazz to rock seamlessly and the rather obscure lyrics tend to add to the overall mystique of this unique song (although artist Rikki Ducornet believes it was inspired by Fagen approaching her at a college party years earlier).

The choppy rock rhythm and spectrum of brass intervals of “Night by Night” is followed by the cools and somber “Any Major Dude Will Tell You”. Starting with a brightly strummed acoustic that soon settles into an electric piano groove with electric guitar overtones, this latter song offers great little guitar riffs between the verses composed of uplifting lyrics of encouragement;

The oldest composition on the album, Fagen’s “Barrytown” is lyric driven with a moderate piano backing, not all that complex but with good melody and arrangement. Named for a small upstate New York town near the duo’s alma mater, the song is a satirical look at the small town class system. The first side concludes with the only cover and instrumental on Pretzel Logic, Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”. This modern interpretation, features the indelible pedal guitar lead by Jeff Baxter, who emulated a mute-trombone solo masterfully. The rest of the piece pleasantly moves through many differing lead sections before returning to Baxter’s guitar to finish things up.

“Parker’s Band” contains much movement as a funky track with rock overtones. Perhaps the highlight of this track is the dual drums by Gordon and Jeff Porcaro, which are potent and flawless. “Through With Buzz” is a short, almost psychedelic piece driven by mesmerizing piano and a strong string presence. This is another example of how the Katz and the group gets everything out the door with extreme efficiency in this lyrical proclamation of a resolution. The title track, “Pretzel Logic”, contains a slow electric piano groove and verse vocals which are the most blues based of any on the album of the same name. This song contains lyrics that are cryptic, driving rhythms and grooves, a pretty respectable guitar lead by Becker, and is also the only song on the second side which exceeds three minutes in length.

The album’s final stretch features three very short tracks of differing styles. “With a Gun” is like an upbeat Western with strummed fast acoustic, Tex-Mex styled electric riffs, and a strong, Country-influenced drum beat. “Charlie Freak” features a descending piano run, which the vocals mimic with simple, storied lyrics of a downtrodden man who pawns his ring to the protagonist at a discounted price to buy the drug fix that ultimately does him in. The closer “Monkey in Your Soul” features the coolest of grooves, with an electric piano and clavichord accented by horns between the verses and a Motown-like clap to end the album on an upbeat note.” – Classic Rock Review

Key Cut: Rikki Don't Lose That Number

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Eighty-Four: Denise Chaila

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

Part Eighty-Four: Denise Chaila

___________

I have featured…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Róisín Murphy O’Sullivan

the amazing Denise Chaila in my Spotlight feature. She is an artist who is breaking through and is definitely going to be an icon of the future. Someone who is guiding and inspiring other artists in her own right, Chaila started okaying the Limerick music scene in 2012. Her stunning debut E.P., Duel Citizenship, arrived in 2019. Chaila was one of the musical acts featured in the series of remote performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, Other Voices: Courage, in May 2020. Born at the Chikankata-Mazabuka District, Zambia, she moved to Ireland when she was three. Her GO Bravely album was released in 2020. It won Choice Music Prize’s Album of the Year Award that same year. Before coming to some interviews with Chaila, I wanted to mention her recent project, It’s a Mixtape. Released in November, it is another astonishing and mesmeric release from an artist with no real equals. She is a sensational talent! This is what NME had to say about It’s a Mixtape:

“Where are you from, originally?” Denise Chaila mockingly asked on her 2019 debut EP ‘Duel Citizenship’, mimicking the racist questions she’s received as an Irish-Zambian person. On that release’s title track, the Limerick-based rapper, singer and poet deftly blended both cultures and celebrated language as a gift for sharing stories (“I could translate all of my Lenje stories / So that we could sing them as Gaeilge”).

Chaila’s 2020 debut mixtape ‘Go Bravely’ then widened her scope further; her carefully-woven lyrics taking centre-stage atop modest jazz-tinged piano and guitar hooks. The release later won Chaila the RTÉ Choice Music Prize – the first time a mixtape has emerged victorious.

It’s a format that Chaila has returned to again with the simply-titled ‘It’s A Mixtape’. Expanding on her musical horizons, Chaila explores a more varied palette of thumping minimal bass-stabs, warm horn arrangements and haunting, medieval-sounding melodies through a synthesised, futuristic lens. While the production feels cranked-up and bolder, its centrepiece ‘I A M’ is still smouldering and meditative, featuring the voices of friends and family from Ireland and around the world. ‘Energy’, which features MuRli (a fellow founder of Chaila’s label and collective Narolane), is another softer stand-out, built around warm keys and jazz trumpets with a sprinkling of harp.

Chaila often draws on regal imagery and a wealth of mythology in her lyrics. On ‘Might Be’ she collides the Greek god of wine-making, Dionysus, with Queen Medb, a figure in Irish mythology who represents intoxication and mead-drinking. Opener ‘061’ (borrowing its title from Limerick’s area code) proudly declares “I am not a queen, I’m a Prince,” while on closer ‘Return of the King’ the rapper cleverly invokes the words of the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who once brandished a plucked chicken at Plato after he classified man as a featherless biped. “Or Artemis me, I’m only fowl when I’m floating,” Chaila puns, further referencing the Greek goddess of hunting and the Irish young-adult sci-fi series Artemis Fowl in a beat. “Freedom is potent, the future’s in focus.”

It all serves to prove Chaila’s dexterous lyricism, neatly linking threads between the present, ancient mythology and more recent historic events, such as Muhammad Ali’s 1974 ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ with George Foreman (“What they say to Ali?” she asks on ‘Might Be’, before quoting the crowd’s chants “Bomaye!”).

Even when it’s going full-throttle, ‘It’s A Mixtape’ has an inherent playfulness over the course of its five concise tracks. She might compare herself to Kanye on the closer, but by that point you’re already left with a keen sense of exactly who Denise Chaila is and what she stands for”.

In my previous feature, I sourced interviews from 2020. Now, I wanted to look at some press from last year. Having put out an L.P. in 2020 and her E.P. last year, I wonder what this year will bring in terms of new releases. With every fresh release, she uncovers more genius and gold. I am going to drop in a few interviews before finishing up with a recent review of It’s a Mixtape. Early last year, NME spoke with Denise Chaila and discussed her incredible mixtape/album, GO Bravely:

“2020 was a real break-through year – how are you feeling now after such a whirlwind journey?

“So many beautiful things happened for me in 2020, but receiving abuse online was extremely difficult and heart-breaking. If I were white, I could just be a musician and enjoy this experience without having to be serious very quickly and worry about my safety and that of my family. We have to address this head-on, and move into a culture of deep justice work that’s so much more than these people who want to harm me. It’s dependent though on the idea that racism isn’t a black person’s responsibility; we all have a responsibility to sit with each other and have frank conversations. It’s like breaking a bone again to set it properly so that it can finally heal – that’s what we have to do now to move forward.”

You’ve collaborated with a lot of other Irish MCs and co-founded your own record label, Narolane Records. How do you think the Irish hip-hop scene has informed your music?

“Historically, there’s been a lot of shame in Ireland for rapping in Irish accents about Irish things – irrespective of being black or white. So we’re bound by not subscribing to an inferiority complex and always support each other. Every time another Irish rapper does something great, it makes more room for me to grow and vice versa. We’re not looking for something bigger or a move outside of Ireland to legitimise ourselves. What’s special about the Irish hip-hop scene is that we own who we are.”

Your mixtape ‘Go Bravely’ explores the concept of belonging, and overcoming personal pain. Did you have a particular vision in mind before making the record?

“When I was making ‘Go Bravely’, I was really working on my personal confidence and I wanted to reject any self-flagellation in my music. Whenever you hear me being confident on record, that’s me manifesting something that doesn’t always exist. ‘Go Bravely’ was my affirmation: irrespective of your history or your trauma, or the fears you have about the future, or what sort of musician you think you should be, just be brave and meet the moment.”

In your song ‘Copper Bullets’, you tackle misogyny in hip hop – do you think that’s a topic that needs to be addressed more in rap music today?

“Definitely. Personally, I take issue with being called a ‘female MC’. I did not make sacrifices to become a rapper so that you can relegate me as a cute girl doing a cute thing. I’ve worked so hard and crafted my music – if you haven’t put in the 10,000 practice hours, you cannot dismiss me, because I’m a better MC than you. I’m a woman who raps – you don’t have to call yourself a “male rapper”. It’s an unconscious bias that really excludes people from fulfilling their destiny, purpose and having the impact that they should have”.

Last March, CLASH ran a fascinating interview with the Limerick-based artist. It came the day after her win at the RTE Choice Music Prize for GO Bravely. Even though Chaila has grown stronger and more revered as an artist, she was a hugely celebrated and respected artist early in 2021:

“Despite having released her debut single in 2019, with dual release of ‘Copper Bullet’ and ‘Dual Citizenship’, 2020 will forever be known as Denise Chaila’s year, in particular for her single ‘Chaila’. The track went on to become the soundtrack to a summer and catapulted Chaila into widespread national and international consciousness. “People sent me pictures and videos of their children responding to my music and that’s surreal because there’s a whole generation of children who are going to grow up hearing my music like how I grew up listening to Samantha Mumba,” she smiles, adding: “The idea that I could be someone that a child listens to the same way I listened to Britney [Spears] is amazing”.

What should have been a time of great joy, however, was tinged with pain as Chaila became the target of racial abuse online. This abuse escalated with the release of ‘Go, Bravely’. “There have been a lot of very critical decisions I’ve had to make in relation to my safety and trying to protect my family in the face of some very disappointing behaviour from some undesirable members of society has taken precedence over feeling ecstatic about my career,” Chaila recalls of the online threats to her well being brought about by the mixtapes success, which in turn lead her to ask RTÉ not to tag her in any posts on social media relating to the mixtape’s nomination for the choice prize, for fear of attracting vitriol.

Despite such difficulties, Chaila is quick to note how important people’s support for the project has been, saying that “it’s been a mark of the way people have received the music that despite the incredible flux of terrible things, I’ve still found incredible moments of joy where I realise that people are receiving the work as its intended to be”.

Before moving to Ireland at the age of three, Denise Chaila was raised in the Southern province of Zambia, a child of two medical professionals. “The people in the village around us spoke in a language that was neither my mother or my father’s mother tongue, and it separated me a lot from kids my age,” Chaila recalls of her early childhood. Due to her parent’s profession, she grew up surrounded by medics from across the world, including some from countries such as Australia, New Zealand and China, meaning she would spend most of her time with adults rather than children her own age, allowing her to gather a wider view of the world.

At the time, she was being home-schooled by her mother and her mother’s friend. One day, she was being taught the words to ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ and misheard one of the lyrics as ‘like a demon in the sky’. Due to her traditional spiritual upbringing, the ideas of demons floating high above her in plain sight brought nightmares, and months of night terrors. “I couldn’t sleep for months,'' Chaila smiles, recalling the event.

 In an effort to help her child sleep, Chaila’s mother began to flood the house with gospel music, and in particular the work of Belfast Christian songwriter Robin Mark. Denise was urged by her mother to sing Mark’s track ‘Jesus, All For Jesus’ whenever she was scared in the middle of the night, and taught her that this would keep her safe.

“For a really significant part of my childhood, a part of my self-soothing and my spiritual process was singing to myself to feel better,” Chaila explains, “I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would sing until I fell asleep again because I was scared. That slowly became my coping mechanism, so when things become really, really bad, I sing”.

Looking back, Chaila admits how important a moment that was in her relationship with music, and how in times of doubt she harkens back to it. “Wherever I’m going with my life, it starts with being a four-year-old girl who’s really scared who can only sing to her God to make things better” she adds, “Now I’m 27 and I’m still doing the same thing, except now I’m writing the music that I’m singing”.

Her awarding of the Choice Prize for ‘Go Bravely’, a mixtape that touches on subjects such as racism, self-doubt, mental health and the importance of diversity with the lyrical dexterity reminiscent of some of hip-hops eternal greats and Ireland’s illustrious bards, feels like a moment where Ireland simultaneously bowed to Chaila’s greatness and admitted that this was the least they could do.

As one commentator put it, the Choice prize needed Chaila more than Chaila needed it. Does she too see this win as the first step in a bigger plan or the accumulation of almost a decade of hard work?

“For me, Denise Chaila, my narrative spins far beyond what this moment is, but I want this moment to be special and part of making it special was making it healthy for me” she replies, diplomatically, “I honestly tried so hard not think about it until five minutes before they announced it, to keep it healthy for myself, to make this about my career and not make myself happy or sad for three weeks depending on the results”.

In March, there was an interview published that was so deep and readable. A beautiful feature from District Magazine in Ireland, it is something that everyone should read in full. One of my favourite parts of the interview is what Chaila says about success. Rather than fame or money, she is a definite role model:

“Denise Chaila is a musician on a dream trajectory. In the brief two years since the release of her debut EP Copper Bullet/Duel Citizenship, the Zambian-born, Limerick-based rapper has propelled herself out of the category of ‘One-To-Watch’ into becoming Ireland’s eminent breakout star. The past year has been a wild ride for Chaila with the release of her debut mixtape Go Bravely winning her fans across Ireland and further beyond. The most recent milestone in Chaila’s extraordinary journey is winning the Choice Music Prize’s much-coveted Album Of The Year Award.

Winning Album of the Year with a mixtape is certainly a flex but, for Chaila, glory largely lies in the impact her victory may have on the communities she’s a part of. “It means that I’m the first Black woman, Black femme, who won the award. Right? That’s a really big deal. It means there’s a really large Zambian community in Ireland, who felt very, very invested in the Choice this year because of me, in a way that they haven’t felt invested before, and had access to a conversation that they didn’t have a desire or permission to have access to prior to it” says Chaila. “That excites me, and, enthuses me that I was able to be instrumental in that journey. I think it means that what I’m doing musically, in terms of rap and hip-hop is being recognized and canonized in a way that I didn’t anticipate”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Shane Serrano and Jameson 

Chaila’s victory feels like a symbol of change for the Irish music landscape. In the time since hip-hop’s first Choice Prize success through Rusangano Family’s Let The Dead Bury The Dead, Irish hip-hop has been shouldering the heavy label of a ‘rising scene’. Go Bravely’s rapturousreception has pushed Chaila, and the entire genre, into becoming a mainstream mainstay – this is no longer music on the outskirts, hip-hop is now becoming a dominant force. Chaila is tentative in her views on what the award means for the genre as a whole. “I think that it’s important to remember that things can have many meanings. It’s impossible to see where they will end up until we have the privilege of hindsight. I think for now, what it means is that we’re giving permission to ourselves to celebrate and acknowledge different kinds of people” considers Chaila. “The way we continue to do that, to me, is going to say whether or not we are moving away from a certain sound or whether we had a moment. I, for one, feel really, really safe in an Ireland that can celebrate me and Ailbhe Reddy and Pillow Queens and Fontaines DC at the same time”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Shane Serrano and Jameson  

Rather than taking a break and letting success settle in, Chaila has gone straight back to writing. “I’m always writing. Actually, I haven’t stopped writing since I released Go Bravely. I think I’ve been in the studio since some point in mid-September last year and I haven’t really gotten out”. Unfazed by the pressure of writing a follow-up to her debut, Chaila’s confidence in her new work is infectious. “’I’m very lucky that I’m not concerned with the sophomore curse because actually the stuff that I was writing in December, bro, like I think I wrote my best song ever last month and I’m so excited because I’m getting better”.

Chaila draws upon the interconnected relationship between hip-hop and the literary voice as an inspiration to her new “more mature” sound. “Voice as a part of Black work is something that is really profound, it’s really profoundly sacred. Actually, if you listen to James Baldwin speak or Maya Angelou reading her own poetry, or Audrey Lorde reading her essays or Rakim spitting bars, or Erykah Badu, you start to realize that there’s something very important about the multiplicity in the way a voice can be used” Chaila says. “Hip hop as an art form was crafted so that people could have the freedom to use their voice liberally in ways that in their day-to-day life, they might not have been permitted to. Rap is poetry and the only reason why we don’t recognize it as a legitimate form of art is racism”.

Prior to a positive review for the brilliant It’s a Mixtape, PAM interviewed Chaila in November. Although, as a successful Black rapper in Limerick, she is in a minority, Chaila has a very healthy and interesting approach to the scene there. It is about working-class voices having their say and finding a platform:

“And how did your Zambian background inform your worldview?

The truth is, I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out actually.

Me and my sister, we used to say that when we’re in Ireland, we’re considered Zambian. In Zambia, we’re considered Irish. No one ever gave us the respect and the honor of saying that you’re just from where you are.

It feels sometimes like there’s a wall to climb where you have to almost apologize for foreignness and prove that you belong somewhere. I think if you put someone in that system long enough, they’ll start to ask themselves questions.

But there is no right thing. Nobody has the ability to let you know that, finally, you belong. You’re gonna meet someone who tries to exclude you. Someone else whose identity depends on you being other. And it’s really nice to know that you can be the person who grants that to yourself.

What can you tell us about the rap scene in Limerick and in Ireland?

For a very long time, Irishness was devoid of a black consciousness and devoid of black voices to advocate for their black consciousnesses, plural. I think what’s happening in Ireland in terms of hip hop, is that a lot of people have been finding their voices.

I noticed that a lot of the conversation is about class. It’s about working class people having their voices finally heard. It’s about landlords. It’s about economic abuse.

Then Limerick, I find that the nexus of this is really, really expressed because Limerick has been called the wastebasket of Ireland, it is a place that is diminished and denigrated a lot. it used to be called stab city as a way to deter people from going there because you know, this is gangland.

But the thing that is happening in Ireland in terms of rap, what is Irish rap? It is an opportunity. It is people giving themselves an opportunity to redefine Irishness for themselves, and to challenge systems of oppression.

So what’s happening is that we’re seeing an excess of change and we’re seeing people speaking truth to power. And I think that if you care about watching something emerge from its grassroots, you should look at Irish hip hop and you should study the people and you should come and hang out”.

Denise Chaila is going to be making music for decades more. She is a hugely inspiring artist who, as I mentioned, will be a future legend. It’s a Mixtape is another example of what a fabulous artist she is. Everything Is Noise wrote the following about one of last year’s strongest releases:

“It’s A Mixtape shows a different side to Chaila’s artistry, with subtle changes in style and feel to both Duel Citizenship and Go Bravely. Opener “061”, a reference to the area code of Limerick, where Chaila is based, seems like a perfect opener for a live set. High energy and littered with intricate wordplay, “061” highlights Chaila’s self-belief and confidence. The eerie synth perfectly complements the track, with things kept interesting musically with constantly changing beats and electronics. “Might Be” slows things down a little, with the gentle flow leaving much room for Chaila’s artistry. ‘Just ’cause I’m nice don’t mean that I’m not designed to rain hell on anything that comes for my people, my family, my dreams, my purpose, my history, my genome’ comes the lyric, summing up both the artist and the music succinctly.

Whilst the opening two tracks are peppered with phrases or lines that challenge the listener to step back and look at themselves, it is the powerful “I A M” that steals the show lyrically on It’s A Mixtape. Over ethereal backing, the message is clear – ‘All of my heart is worthy/Nobody else has the right to tell my story‘. The track with the least backing, for me, remains the most hard-hitting, even if the track that follows tries to steal its thunder. “Energy”, at first, feels like an instant crowd-pleaser. Big production, brass leading the way, and energetic delivery all point to the track being a radio-friendly single. That is, until the beat drops to almost nothing, allowing Chaila to deliver another passage of inspiration, citing influential writers, musicians, and politicians (yeah, there are a handful of good ones) amongst others. It is another moment, in the growing list of this particular artist, where the audience is forced to open their ears and take in a message.

It’s A Mixtape concludes with the wonderfully titled and assumedly Lord of the Rings-inspired “Return of the King” (coupled with an earlier reference to the Riders of Rohan). If you wanted a quick introduction to Denise Chaila, this would be as good a place as any to start. The beat here is wonderfully put together, driving the track when needed and knowing exactly where to drop out to give space. ‘Your transphobia is whack/Your homophobia is whack‘ Chaila rasps, a reminder, if it is needed, to call out bigotry anywhere it is seen. Despite comparing herself to Kanye West, it is clear that Chaila’s star continues to burn off its own energy.

Chaila is an artist who continues to grow with each release. There may be little references and nods to other artists throughout the work, but Denise Chaila is an artist intent on paving their own path, with their own tools. All releases thus far have been something more than music. Every bar, every sound, every word feels like it has been carefully planned and put there for a reason, either to deliver a message, or set up the delivery of a message. If you haven’t yet heard Denise Chaila, it’s time to set aside twenty minutes of your day to take in It’s A Mixtape”.

There is no telling just how far Chaila can go as an artist. She won a Music Moves Europe Award for Ireland earlier in the week! With such a strong voice, watching her music go around the world and seeing it move and educate people is genuinely thrilling. A mesmeric songwriter and performer, I am very keen to see her perform live (let’s hope this is possible soon). I feel Chaila is going to join the ranks of the greats in the years to come. The spellbinding and always-wonderful Denise Chaila is…

A voice of a generation.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Forty-Five: The Kinks

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Forty-Five: The Kinks

___________

WHEN thinking of the greatest…

and most influential bands ever, they do not come finer and bigger than The Kinks. So many artists through the years have taken a leaf from the London band. I am ending with a playlist of tracks from those who, in some form, are inspired by The Kinks. Prior to getting to that, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“The Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Early singles "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were brutal, three-chord ravers that paved the way for punk and metal while inspiring peers like the Who. In the mid-'60s, frontman Ray Davies came into his own as a songwriter, developing a wry wit and an eye for social commentary that culminated in a pair of conceptual LPs, The Village Green Preservation Society and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), that proved enormously influential over the years. By the end of the '70s, the Kinks had refashioned themselves as a hard rock stadium act, resulting in a surge of late-period popularity until they disbanded for good in the mid-'90s.

Throughout their long, varied career, the core of the Kinks remained Ray (June 21, 1944) and Dave Davies (February 3, 1947), who were born and raised in Muswell Hill, London. In their teens, the brothers began playing skiffle and rock & roll. Soon, they recruited a schoolmate of Ray's, Peter Quaife, to play with them; like the Davies brothers, Quaife played guitar, but he switched to bass. By the summer of 1963, the group had decided to call itself the Ravens and had recruited a new drummer, Mickey Willet. Eventually, their demo tape reached Shel Talmy, an American record producer who was under contract to Pye Records. Talmy helped the band land a contract with Pye in 1964. Before signing to the label, the Ravens replaced drummer Willet with Mick Avory.

The Ravens recorded their debut single, a cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally," in January 1964. Before the single was released, the group changed their name to the Kinks. "Long Tall Sally" was released in February of 1964 and failed to chart, as did their second single, "You Still Want Me." The band's third single, "You Really Got Me," was much noisier and dynamic, featuring a savage, fuzz-toned two-chord riff and a frenzied solo from Dave Davies. Not only was the final version the blueprint for the Kinks' early sound, but scores of groups used the heavy power chords as a foundation for their own work. "You Really Got Me" reached number one within a month of its release; released on Reprise in the U.S., the single climbed into the Top Ten. "All Day and All of the Night," the group's fourth single, was released late in 1964 and it rose all the way to number two; in America, it hit number seven. During this time, the band also produced two full-length albums and several EPs.

Not only was the group recording at a breakneck pace, they were touring relentlessly, as well, which caused much tension within the band. At the conclusion of their summer 1965 American tour, the Kinks were banned from re-entering the United States by the American government for unspecified reasons. For four years, they were prohibited from returning to the U.S., which not only meant that the group was deprived of the world's largest music market, but that they were effectively cut off from the musical and social upheavals of the late '60s. Consequently, Ray Davies' songwriting grew more introspective and nostalgic, relying more on overtly English musical influences such as music hall, country, and English folk, than the rest of his British contemporaries. The Kinks' next album, The Kink Kontroversy, demonstrated the progression in Davies' songwriting. "Sunny Afternoon" was one of Davies' wry social satires and the song was the biggest hit of the summer of 1966 in the U.K., reaching number one. "Sunny Afternoon" was a teaser for the band's great leap forward, Face to Face, a record that featured a vast array of musical styles. In May of 1967, they returned with "Waterloo Sunset," a ballad that reached number two in the U.K. in the spring of 1967.

Released in the fall of 1967, Something Else by the Kinks continued the progressions of Face to Face. Despite the band's musical growth, their chart performance was beginning to stagnate. Following the lackluster performance of Something Else, the Kinks rushed out a new single, "Autumn Almanac," which became another big U.K. hit. Released in the spring of 1968, "Wonderboy" was the band's first single not to crack the Top Ten since "You Really Got Me." They recovered somewhat with "Days," but their commercial decline was evident by the lack of success of their next LP. Released in the fall of 1968, The Village Green Preservation Society was the culmination of Ray Davies' increasingly nostalgic tendencies. While the album was unsuccessful, it was well-received by critics, particularly in the U.S.

Peter Quaife soon grew tired of the band's lack of success, and he left by the end of the year, replaced by John Dalton. In early 1969, the American ban upon the Kinks was lifted, leaving them free to tour the U.S. for the first time in four years. Before they began the tour, the Kinks released Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). Like its two predecessors, Arthur contained distinctly British lyrical and musical themes, and it was only a modest success. As they were recording the follow-up to Arthur, the Kinks expanded their lineup to include keyboardist John Gosling. The first appearance of Gosling on a Kinks record was "Lola." Featuring a harder rock foundation than their last few singles, "Lola" was a Top Ten hit in both the U.K. and the U.S. Released in the fall of 1970, Lola Versus Powerman & the Moneygoround, Pt. 1 was their most successful record since the mid-'60s in both the U.S. and U.K., helping the band become concert favorites in the U.S.

Their contract with Pye/Reprise expired in early 1971, leaving them free to pursue a new record contract. By the end of 1971, the Kinks had secured a five-album deal with RCA Records, which brought them a million-dollar advance. Released in late 1971, Muswell Hillbillies, the group's first album for RCA, marked a return to the nostalgia of the Kinks' late-'60s albums, only with more pronounced country and music hall influences. The album failed to be the commercial blockbuster RCA had hoped for. A few months after the release of Muswell Hillbillies, Reprise released a double-album compilation called The Kink Kronikles, which outsold their RCA debut. Everybody's in Showbiz (1973), a double-record set consisting of one album of studio tracks and another of live material, was a disappointment in the U.K., although the album was more successful in the U.S.

In 1973, Ray Davies composed a full-blown rock opera called Preservation. When the first installment of the opera finally appeared in late 1973, it was harshly criticized and given a cold reception by the public. Act 2 appeared in the summer of 1974; the sequel received worse treatment than its predecessor. Davies began another musical, Starmaker, for the BBC; the project eventually metamorphosed into Soap Opera, which was released in the spring of 1975. Despite poor reviews, Soap Opera was a more commercially successful record than its predecessor. In 1976, the Kinks recorded Davies' third straight rock opera, Schoolboys in Disgrace, which rocked harder than any album they released on RCA.

During 1976, the Kinks left RCA and signed with Arista, and refashioned themselves as a hard rock band. Bassist John Dalton left the group near the completion of their debut Arista album; he was replaced by Andy Pyle. Sleepwalker, the Kinks' first album for the label, became a major hit in the U.S. As the band was completing the follow-up to Sleepwalker, Pyle left the group and was replaced by the returning Dalton. Misfits, the band's second Arista album, was also a U.S. success. After a British tour, Dalton left the band again, along with keyboardist John Gosling; bassist Jim Rodford and keyboardist Gordon Edwards filled the vacancies. Soon, the band was playing arenas in the United States. Even though punk rockers like the Jam and the Pretenders were covering Kinks songs in the late '70s, the group was becoming more blatantly commercial with each release, culminating in the heavy rock of Low Budget (1979), which became their biggest American success, peaking at number 11. Their next album, Give the People What They Want, appeared in late 1981; the record peaked at number 15 and went gold. For most of 1982, the band was on tour. In the spring of 1983, "Come Dancing" became the group's biggest American hit since "Tired of Waiting for You," thanks to the video's repeated exposure on MTV; in the U.S., the song peaked at number six, in the U.K. it climbed to number 12. State of Confusion followed the release of "Come Dancing," and it was another success, peaking at number 12 in the U.S. For the remainder of 1983, Ray Davies worked on a film project, Return to Waterloo, which caused considerable tension between himself and his brother. Instead of breaking up, the Kinks merely reshuffled their lineup, but there was a major casualty: Mick Avory, the band's drummer for 20 years, was fired and replaced by Bob Henrit. As Ray finished post-production duties on Return to Waterloo, he wrote the next Kinks album, Word of Mouth. Released in late 1984, the album was similar in tone to the last few Kinks records, but it was a commercial disappointment and began a period of decline for the band; they never released another record that cracked the Top 40.

Word of Mouth was the last album they would record for Arista. In early 1986, the band signed with MCA in the U.S. and London in the U.K. Think Visual, their first album for their new label, was released in late 1986. It was a mild success but there were no hit singles from the record. The following year, the Kinks released another live album, appropriately titled The Road, which spent a brief time on the charts. Two years later, the Kinks released their last studio record for MCA, UK Jive. During 1989, keyboardist Ian Gibbons left the band. The Kinks were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, but the induction did not help revive their career. In 1991, a compilation of their MCA records, Lost & Found (1986-1989), appeared, signaling that their contract with the label had expired. Later in the year, the band signed with Columbia and released an EP called Did Ya, which didn't chart. Their first album for Columbia, Phobia, arrived in 1993 to fair reviews but poor sales. By this time, only Ray and Dave Davies remained from the original lineup. In 1994, the band was dropped from Columbia, leaving the group to release the live To the Bone on an independent label in the U.K.; they were left without a record label in the U.S.

Despite a lack of commercial success, the band's public profile began to rise in 1995, as the group was hailed as an influence on several of the most popular British bands of the decade, including Blur and Oasis. Ray Davies was soon on popular television shows again, acting as these band's godfather and promoting his autobiography, X-Ray, which was published in early 1995 in the U.K. Dave Davies' autobiography, Kink, was published in the spring of 1996.

Rumors of a Kinks reunion began circulating in the early 2000s, only to be quieted following Dave Davies' stroke in June 2004. Dave would later recover fully, spurring another round of reunion rumors in the late 2000s, yet nothing materialized. Peter Quaife, the band's original bassist, died of kidney failure on June 23, 2010. Following his death, Ray started demo'ing material with Mick Avory, and Dave slowly became part of the project. As the band prepared a 50th Anniversary reissue of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, the Davies brothers and Avory confirmed they were working on a new Kinks album -- the first the drummer was involved with since 1984's Word of Mouth. Before any new music appeared, the Kinks celebrated the 50th Anniversaries of both Arthur and Lola with deluxe edition reissues, which appeared in 2019 and 2020, respectively”.

To celebrate the legacy and ongoing influence of The Kinks, the playlist below is packed with tremendous artists who one can draw a line back to The Kinks. I love the band and feel that their output in the 1960s ranks alongside the greatest of the decade. Their influence will never wane. Regarding the artists they have influenced, The Kinks have left the music world…

SUCH a huge impact.

FEATURE: Moving Strangers: Kate Bush and the Tokyo Music Festival, 1978

FEATURE:

 

 

Moving Strangers

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Japan in June 1978 

Kate Bush and the Tokyo Music Festival, 1978

___________

I discussed Kate Bush’s 1978 trip to Japan…

in a feature a couple of years ago. Amidst the hecticness of 1978 and the success of Wuthering Heights and her debut album, The Kick Inside, she undertook a promotional blitzkrieg like nothing else! I cannot imagine how straining and discombobulating it would have been to travel all around the world and perform at so many different locations. Alongside the live performances, there was a load of press and T.V. interviews. Air travel was not something Bush ever liked. I can imagine that, after 1978, she came to like it less and less. By the end of the year, she had travelled as far as Australia and New Zealand. Her trip to Japan was, I guess, to help build her name there. As The Kick Inside is forty-four on 17th February, I wanted to publish a run of features about the album and 1978. Bush released singles strictly for the Japanese market. Moving was released in February 1978; Them Heavy People (titled Rolling the Ball) was issued in May 1978. Both singles did well in Japan, and, by all accounts, she was someone who was taken to heart very readily and quickly. Aside from appearing in a watch commercial for Seiko and having photos taken in Japan, one of the biggest promotional tasks of her career to that point took place at the Tokyo Music Festival. I am thinking what her biggest and best-attended live performance would have been to that date. I guess some of her appearances on Top of the Pops drew quite a crowd. In terms of the sheer number of people in front of her in a live setting, the Tokyo Music Festival was a real test of nerves and courage!

It was an odd one-off that I don’t think she would do in any other country. Maybe she did have a curiosity about Japan and wanted to visit. In any case, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives us some information about the festival:

“Annual music festival in Japan. On June 18, 1978, Kate Bush performed her song Moving live at the Seventh Tokyo Song Festival with a band of Japanese musicians before an audience of 11,000 at the Nippon Budokan - with a television audience of something like 35 million watching at home. Kate shared the Festival's Silver Prize with an American rhythm-and-blues group called The Emotions, popular at the time for their hit single 'Best Of My Love'.

I guess the slightly unconventional and different style of Kate Bush would have resonated with a country who embrace the more unusual. Whilst she was in the country, she also did other promotional duties. She performed several tracks by The Beatles for Japanese T.V. (She's Leaving Home, The Long and Winding Road and Let It Be). I know that Bush performed Let It Be live in for Sound in S, on 23rd June, 1978. As Far Out Magazine wrote last year, Bush not only performed Moving at the Tokyo Music Festival. Advertising was not something she did a lot after 1978. Allowing her song, Moving, to be used to promote Seiko was an unusual step:

“As Flashbak points out, Bush was performing the track at the seventh annual international Tokyo Music Festival inside the Nippon Budokan arena when the ‘Hounds of Love’ became an overnight sensation.

Bush’s performance was screened through Japanese television on June 21, 1978, and was broadcast as an estimated 35 million watched on—it secured her cult status and saw Bush instantly gain fame in the country where her off-beat show would be appreciated.

The track, written by Bush and produced by Andrew Powell, is considered a tribute to Lindsay Kemp, her mime teacher of the time. Kemp was an integral member of Bush’s team and can be widely attributed with offering up her unique performance style. ‘Moving’ has a little more nuanced, opening up with a whale song sampled from Songs of the Humpback Whale, an LP. It encapsulates an artist who was not afraid to push the envelope.

The song became an extremely rare 7″ vinyl due to the fact it was only ever released in Japan as part of a well-crafted marketing campaign involving a commercial for Seiko watches. It meant that the song’s desirability only grew alongside Bush’s. There were two pressings made in limited numbers but, where the song truly found fame – and intrigue looking back – was during its use in the Seiko watch adverts”.

Rather than dissect the Japan trip again, I wanted to look at the Tokyo Music Festival. Looking terrified whilst performing, I suppose that this was an idea from EMI to get her music to a massive audience very quickly. The gamble, in that sense, paid off. Bush definitely became a star then. Whilst Symphony in Blue (from 1978’s Lionheart) was the last single released solo in Japan, Bush did swiftly win the affection of the nation. Perhaps the scariness and pressure of the Tokyo Music Festival accounts for Bush not engaging in music festivals. Aside from her own The Tour of Life in 1979, Bush’s live performances would be for T.V. or as part of her own residency. Promoting her debut album with such passion and a real lack of ego, her appearance at the Tokyo Music Festival shows how far (quite literally) she was going to get her music heard. This article from 2019 argues why Bush being a largely studio-based artist post-1978 was a benefit:

“It doesn’t entirely work out for her. I mean, Bush won a silver medal at the Tokyo Music Festival, but the highest honor went to Al Green (which is hard to get upset about. If Kate Bush is going to lose to any singer, Al Green is an honorable choice). Yet she never engages with mainstream pop in the same way again. Bush will remain popular in the charts, but she doesn’t pursue the festival circuit as an artistic path. Soon she’ll retreat even further inward, abandoning a career that involved touring for a studio-bound career. Yes, this has led to tragedies like no songs from The Dreaming ever being performed live. Yet with the slightly hollow and rushed showmanship of her excursion to Japan, it’s hard not to feel like Bush benefits from staying close to home”.

Ahead of The Kick Inside turning forty-three, I am going to take some excursions and look at what Bush was doing to promote the album; go deeper with some of the songs and explore a remarkable debut from a number of angles. Not often talked about and explored, her 1978 appearance at the Tokyo Music Festival is…

BIZZARE and beautiful in equal measures.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighty-Eight: Norah Jones

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Eighty-Eight: Norah Jones

___________

ON 30th January…

Norah Jones’ third studio album, Not Too Late, is fifteen. It is a superb and underrated album. Having sold over fifty million albums through her career, there is no doubting the success of Jones. She is an artist that I have loved ever since her debut album, Come Away with Me, arrived in 2002. In fact, that huge-selling album turns twenty on 26th February. Before recommending her four finest albums, an underrated gem and her latest studio album, AllMusic provide some helpful biography:

“When Norah Jones arrived in the early 2000s, it appeared as if she was the torchbearer for two traditions on the verge of disappearing: sophisticated vocal jazz designed for small, smoky clubs and the warm, burnished sound of the Southern California singer/songwriters of the early '70s. Come Away with Me, her 2002 debut -- conspicuously released on the revived Blue Note imprint -- hit this sweet spot and resonated with millions of listeners, turning Jones into an unexpected star. Instead of cultivating this niche, she soon proved to be quietly adventurous, which perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise for a musician trained in piano and ensconced in New York City's jazz clubs. As the 2000s gave way to the 2010s and 2020s, she incorporated daringly modern musical elements into her albums, which increasingly veered toward adult alternative pop, all the while spending time with side projects where she sang country, punk, and jazz, an indication of her expansive taste and skill, qualities that didn't diminish as her career progressed.

Born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar to the musician Ravi Shankar and concert producer Sue Jones in Brooklyn, New York, Norah moved to the Dallas suburb of Grapevine after her parents separated in 1986. At the age of 15, she enrolled at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, heading to Michigan's Interlochen Center for the Arts for summer camp. When she was 16, she changed her name to Norah Jones, around the same time she began playing solo gigs in the Dallas area. Her first national notice arrived when she was granted several DownBeat Student Music Awards, taking home Best Original Composition and Best Jazz Vocalist in 1996, repeating the latter win in 1997. For a while, she majored in jazz piano at the University of North Texas, during which time she first encountered singer/songwriter Jesse Harris. One of her musical projects during this period was singing in a jazz combo called Laszlo, a group who performed original material by guitarist Jerome Covington; Laszlo recorded several tracks, which were later released in 2007 as the album Butterflies.

Jones moved to New York City in 1999 and after arriving in Manhattan, started working lounges and clubs. She assembled her own group -- one that featured Harris, along with bassist Lee Alexander and drummer Dan Rieser -- while also sitting in with the adventurous jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter and trip-hop group Wax Poetic (she appeared on the latter's eponymous 2000 album for Atlantic). Blues and jazz songwriter Peter Malick discovered Jones singing at the club the Living Room and hired her to sing several of his songs, along with a few covers, during studio sessions in late summer 2000. These would be released as New York City in 2003, after Jones became a star, which happened swiftly over the course of the next few years.

During the autumn of 2000, she recorded a series of demos, which got the attention of Bruce Lundvall and Brian Bacchus at Blue Note; they signed her after a live showcase in January 2001. After recording with Jay Newland, Jones entered the studio with producer Craig Street that May, switching to a collaboration with Arif Mardin in August. Highlights from these three sessions were combined for Jones' debut, Come Away with Me, which appeared in February of 2002.

Initially, Come Away with Me was a modest success, debuting at number 139 on the Billboard album chart. Over the course of the year, however, it gained considerable momentum, thanks in no small part to the single "Don't Know Why," which became a runaway hit at adult contemporary radio, reaching number four and staying on the recurrent play chart, while peaking at 30 in the Top 40. Come Away with Me reached the top of the Billboard charts in January 2003 as part of a run on the charts that lasted 164 weeks -- a sign, like its 2005 diamond certification from the RIAA, that the album found a massive audience. Jones' appeal was cemented at the 2003 Grammy Awards, where she took home five big awards: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Pop Vocal Album. (Jesse Harris also won Song of the Year for "Don't Know Why" and Arif Mardin snagged Producer of the Year.)

Her stardom established, Norah Jones reunited with Mardin for her second album, Feels Like Home. Debuting at number one on Billboard upon its February 2004 release, along with many other charts around the world, Feels Like Home didn't replicate the success of Come Away with Me, but its success was still remarkable: it was certified platinum four times in the U.S., selling over 12 million copies around the world. It also earned Jones a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for its single "Sunrise," in the same ceremony where she won Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals Grammys for "Here We Go Again," a duet with Ray Charles.

Come Away with Me and Feels Like Home painted Norah Jones as a singer/songwriter with a torchy bent, but she began to dismantle that stereotype swiftly by returning to off-beat collaborations. The first of these was the Little Willies, a cosmopolitan country group that also featured her rhythm section of Alexander and Rieser. The busman's holiday began playing NYC gigs in 2003 and became a semi-regular concern over the next few years, finally releasing The Little Willies album in 2006. Later that year, Jones returned with "Thinking About You," her first solo single since Feels Like Home.

"Thinking About You" was the cornerstone of Not Too Late, the 2007 album that was her first to include only original material. Debuting at number one on Billboard -- and many other charts around the world, including those from the U.K. and Canada -- the LP wound up earning two platinum certifications from the RIAA. A few months after the January release of Not Too Late, Jones made her silver-screen debut in Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

During 2008, Norah Jones busied herself with El Madmo, a cheeky indie rock trio with bassist Daru Oda and drummer Andrew Borger. The group released an eponymous album on Team Love that May. El Madmo ushered in a period where Jones frequently collaborated with alternative and indie rock musicians. This could be heard on The Fall, a 2009 album that was her first written and recorded without bassist/songwriter Lee Alexander (the pair parted ways professionally following a romantic breakup). Working with producer Jacquire King and featuring a new batch of collaborators, including co-writers Ryan Adams and Will Sheff, the record debuted at number three and was certified platinum by the RIAA. Its leadoff single, "Chasing Pirates," peaked at number 13 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, her best placement since "Don't Know Why."

A compilation of previously released musical collaborations called ...Featuring Norah Jones appeared in November 2010; it peaked at number 29 on Billboard. In 2011, Jones contributed to Rome, the neo-spaghetti Western rock opera by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. This led to Jones hiring Danger Mouse as the producer for her fifth album, Little Broken Hearts, which appeared in April 2012, just after the January release of the second album from the Little Willies, For the Good Times. Little Broken Hearts debuted at number two on Billboard.

Jones next teamed up with Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong to remake the classic 1958 Everly Brothers album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us. Recorded in nine days with bassist Tim Luntzel and drummer Dan Rieser, the ensuing Foreverly was released in 2013. The following year, Puss N Boots -- an Americana trio Jones formed with Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper in 2008 -- released their debut album, No Fools, No Fun, on Blue Note Records. Jones returned to her solo career with her sixth solo album, Day Breaks, in October 2016. Produced by Jones, Eli Wolf, and Sarah Oda, the jazzy pop of Day Breaks hinted at her Come Away with Me beginnings; it entered the Billboard charts at number two.

During the course of 2018, Jones spent time in the studio with a variety of collaborators with the intent of releasing one new song per month. The first of these, "My Heart Is Full," appeared in September 2018. By the end of the year, she released the seasonal "Wintertime," which was co-written by Jeff Tweedy. These recordings were collected on Begin Again, a compilation that came out in April 2019. A pair of singles, "How I Weep" and another collaboration with Jeff Tweedy called "I'm Alive," arrived in early 2020 ahead of the summer release of her seventh full-length effort, Pick Me Up Off the Floor. Consisting of leftovers from the sessions that produced Begin Again, Pick Me Up Off the Floor was released in June 2020; it debuted at 87 on Billboard's Top 200.

Jones released her first live album, the Grammy-nominated 'Til We Meet Again, early in 2021. Comprised of performances recorded between 2017 and 2019, the set included a version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" that was performed in tribute to the recently deceased Chris Cornell. Later that year, she released her first holiday album, I Dream of Christmas, which featured a mix of originals and beloved seasonal songs”.

Almost twenty years since her debut single, Don't Know Why (a cover which Jones made her own), arrived, Norah Jones has risen to become one of the most popular and loved artists in the world. It looks as though she will continue to make music for many more years. Here are my recommendations regarding the Norah Jones albums…

YOU need to own.

______________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Come Away with Me

Release Date: 26th February, 2002

Label: Blue Note

Producers: Arif Mardin/Jay Newland/Norah Jones/Craig Street

Standout Tracks: Cold Cold Heart/Feelin' the Same Way/Come Away with Me

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=102288&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1JvoMzqg04nC29gam4Qaiq?si=nh10DcVTR9O45BgjR2UN3w

Review:

“Norah Jones' debut on Blue Note is a mellow, acoustic pop affair with soul and country overtones, immaculately produced by the great Arif Mardin. (It's pretty much an open secret that the 22-year-old vocalist and pianist is the daughter of Ravi Shankar.) Jones is not quite a jazz singer, but she is joined by some highly regarded jazz talent: guitarists Adam Levy, Adam Rogers, Tony Scherr, Bill Frisell, and Kevin Breit; drummers Brian Blade, Dan Rieser, and Kenny Wollesen; organist Sam Yahel; accordionist Rob Burger; and violinist Jenny Scheinman. Her regular guitarist and bassist, Jesse Harris and Lee Alexander, respectively, play on every track and also serve as the chief songwriters. Both have a gift for melody, simple yet elegant progressions, and evocative lyrics. (Harris made an intriguing guest appearance on Seamus Blake's Stranger Things Have Happened.) Jones, for her part, wrote the title track and the pretty but slightly restless "Nightingale." She also includes convincing readings of Hank Williams' "Cold Cold Heart," J.D. Loudermilk's "Turn Me On," and Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You." There's a touch of Rickie Lee Jones in Jones' voice, a touch of Bonnie Raitt in the arrangements; her youth and her piano skills could lead one to call her an Alicia Keys for grown-ups. While the mood of this record stagnates after a few songs, it does give a strong indication of Jones' alluring talents” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Don’t Know Why

Feels like Home

Release Date: 10th February, 2004

Label: Blue Note

Producers: Arif Mardin/Norah Jones

Standout Tracks: What Am I to You?/Those Sweet Words/The Prettiest Thing

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=102290&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/42vTuluCgTkgavQGzbMuvG?si=TzW2CFkgRY-2q0aHmUnnJg

Review:

“For a woman with such blatant name recognition, Norah Jones is incredibly equitable when it comes to incorporating her band members’ writing. In part, this good deed will ensure a steady stream of publishing royalty income to the musicians who helped get her to the top. But it also answers several critics who speculated that Jones might not be much more than a pretty face with a pretty voice who happens to play a nice piano. Many of the hit songs on Come Away With Me were written by either Jesse Harris or Jones’s boyfriend and bass player Lee Alexander. On Feels Like Home, Jones seeks to silence her critics immediately with the opening standout single “Sunrise”, which she and Alexander penned together. The title of the tune lasts all day, giving Jones ample time to serenade her listeners. She suggests Billie Holiday with her voice here, which is complemented by acoustic guitar picking by Kevin Breit so fine it doesn’t seem real.

It should go without saying that each track on Feels Like Home receives the attention of Norah Jones’s exquisite voice. While many critics of the album complain about the slow pace of the music, relegating it to little more than background music, it’s hard to believe that they were paying attention. There simply isn’t another singer working in pop music now that holds a candle to Jones. You can throw her up against Britney or Beyoncé, Xtina, or Mariah — any of the so-called divas who can “really” sing — and she blows them all away. All the rest sound like all the rest compared to Jones’ divine instinct for harmony and inflection. Of course, there are tracks on Feels Like Home where Jones proves herself especially exceptional. “Carnival Town” is a fine standout, with Nashville-style harmonizing that will place you on top of your convertible’s backseat on a balmy summer evening, sipping lemonade and welcoming the sunset.

“Be Here to Love Me” is a Townes Van Zandt cover from his early album Our Mother of the Mountain that Jones resurrects with the help of the Band’s Garth Hudson on accordion and a string section that’s gone electric. With the heart of a country girl, Jones lends enough soul to this classic that you wish she’d make good on her promise to record an album of standards and favorites. Hudson performs again on the album, joined by former band mate Levon Helm on “What Am I to You?” The quality of Jones’s voice resonates far beyond the mere 24 years she’s been on earth. Here, she melts you with buttery sultriness that simply defies age.

“Creepin’ In” finds Jones in a duet with legendary singer Dolly Parton, and together they provide the album’s most energetic performance. “Creepin’ In” also features more great acoustic guitar from Kevin Breit, and a steady rhythm section anchored by Lee Alexander’s bass. The song is followed by one of the album’s true highlights, “Toes”, which Jones sings herself like a lullaby spiritual. It’s deep and moody and yearning in a way that will change where you are at by the time Jones is done.

Jones decided to end the album by herself, with a cover of an old Duke Ellington song called “Melancholia”, to which she added lyrics and re-titled “Don’t Miss You At All”. With just Jones’s voice and her piano to take you out, she cradles you in loneliness and heartbreak. Her voice is spectacular, but again, she’s more than just a pretty voice. Years of study gave her a deep understanding of how to play jazz. She’s really a jazz musician who happens to have crossed over. This is the type of torch song that would have been just at home 50 or 60 years ago as it is today. To say that Jones is timeless at age 24 may be a bit of an overstatement. Here, she’s not trying to keep up with the Strokes or beat the sophomore slump. She’s just taking her time on a song for all seasons” – PopMatters

Choice Cut: Sunrise

Day Breaks

Release Date: 7th October, 2016

Label: Blue Notes

Producers: Norah Jones/Eli Wolf/Sarah Oda

Standout Tracks: Tragedy/Peace/Carry On

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1069422&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7ampUMuhfCx0briKjYNKRQ?si=3gspybIPTiuPWG_2GO-YkA Review:

“One element on Day Breaks brings Jones back to her debut. She concentrates on her piano after working with guitar on many of her releases in between. In fact, she shows greater command of the instrument than before, presenting her solos and fills as equal to her melodies and vocals.

One through-line in Jones’ sound holds: She still operates on slow-burn, singing intimately while hushing the volume and measuring the pace. It’s a wee-small-hours-of-the-morning sound yet it’s far from sleepy. Amid that groove, Jones found a sensual new texture for her voice. There’s more smoke in her tone and her vibrato lingers longer, melting into her dexterous keyboard work. During “And Then There Was You,” Jones channels a young Diana Washington. In “Sleeping Wild,” she invokes the subtler tones of Ella Fitzgerald.

A role model for the arrangements seems to be Roberta Flack’s take on “Compared To What.” That’s especially clear on “Flipside, with its roiling piano and flinty bass.

Two classic jazz covers turn up: “Peace,” by Horace Silver,” where Jones swans over the melody, and “African Flower,” by Duke Ellington, where her piano creates a dreamy dialogue with Shorter’s painterly soprano sax. There’s one “off-message” cover: Neil Young’s “Don’t Be Denied,” which Jones punches up with jazzy horns. The original compositions prove equal to the covers, running from the swing of “It’s A Wonderful Time For Love,” to the bluesy reflection of “Tragedy.” Still, it’s the relationship between Jones’ voice and her piano that impresses most. Not since her entrancing debut has she sounded this engaged” – Entertainment Weekly

Choice Cut: Flipside

Pick Me Up Off the Floor

Release Date: 12th June, 2020

Label: Blue Note

Producers: Norah Jones/Jeff Tweedy

Standout Tracks: Flame Twin/How I Weep/Were You Watching?

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1754536&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3pi6NXntLETosIkAuaZEhW?si=pU5ljQcnQMWUE6msMs26rA

Review:

“Rather than set out to record an album, Jones initially cobbled together a series of studio sessions as one-offs, expecting to come away with a few songs to round out the 2019 singles collection “Begin Again.” Even after releasing those songs, however, she found herself sitting with a surplus of material. It’s incredibly rare for “leftovers” to comprise a cohesive album, but “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” does just that.

Though stretching its borders from stormcloud blues to orchestral jazz pop to lithe Motown, the album is tied together by Jones’ ineffable ability to convey big emotions with simplicity. “How I weep, and I sleep, and I march, and I dance … but inside, inside I weep,” she pours out on the album’s opener. As the track ends, Jones’ heart is caught behind in brambles, the loss felt deeply, though the minimalist lyrics only hint at the story. Musically, the song counterbalances the existential weight with an evocative string arrangement from Paul Wiancko, curls of violin like birds darting through the sky, viola dropping like rain on growing flowers.

When daily life in modern America feels compounded by an endless array of issues and calls for hope, Jones’ songs pare away details to let the big moments speak for themselves. Walking the fine line between vague and blunt can be tricky, and “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” keeps itself squarely on the latter. Her lyrics aren’t refined and toiled over, but instead cut straight to the core, as if written directly after each painful moment. Album highlight “Heartbroken, Day After” sells both the angst and the yearning within words of each other. “Heartbroken, day after, our world is wasting away,” she offers, only to rebut herself, as if responding to the tears of the listener. “Oh hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay my little one / I promise we’ll find our way.” As angelic pedal steel guitar and backing vocals blur into a radiant corona, Jones’ voice boosts into another range: “Find a way out!” she calls, bursting out of the gloom.

It’s tempting to align that song and others under a banner of protest or response to the Trump presidency. “I’m Alive” is as simple and direct a statement of hope as many are capable of in this moment. Co-written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, the song uses a nameless “she” as a stand-in for Jones herself and women around the world. “She’s crushed by thoughts at night of men / Who want her rights / And usually win / But she’s alive,” Jones exhales, the trademark smoke in her voice weaving through muscly piano, Tweedy’s choppy acoustic guitar and his son Spencer’s nimble drumming. “He screams, he shouts / The heads on the TV bow / They take the bait / They mirror waves of hate,” Jones adds — a straightforward yet no less affecting summation of the last few years in American politics.

Elsewhere, “To Live” digs into more oppression, but aches to break through. “To live in this moment and finally be free / Is what I was after, no chains holding me,” she sings over the gospel-tinted, horn-laden track. And though the solution to her pain may seem easy — love, right there in front of Jones’ face — there’s a revelatory power to the sway, and comfort in the conviction.

Other experiments leave behind the political sphere to push into more personal territory, though again leaving room for listeners to feel every word without the weight of distance or minutiae. “Flame Twin” slinks and burns like a breakup funk track, and “Heaven Above” (another Tweedy collaboration) rides Jones’ lithe piano and lapping waves of guitar into the sunset, looking up at the sky for signs of a lost love.

While it may not be soundtracking any marches or precisely match any singular breakup, Jones’ latest captures big-picture feelings of anxiety, fear, loss and hope. “Pick Me Up Off the Floor” is a cohesive journey reflecting both tragically and sweetly on the amorphous cloud of heartache that lingers in these moments of pain, offering a hand to help us out of the fog” – Variety

Choice Cut: I’m Alive

The Underrated Gem

 

Not Too Late

Release Date: 30th January, 2007

Label: Blue Note

Producer: Lee Alexander

Standout Tracks: Sinkin' Soon/My Dear Country/Not Too Late

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=102291&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6hpBCxDD4f45hI0UMvOggI?si=PssU1fx7T7KbGzObN6BqOQ

Review:

“Meanwhile Not Too Late moves the singer subtly but surely on from the first two records, even if making its most formulaic track, 'Thinking About You', the lead single looks like a conscious attempt not to scare the punters.

More typical is the opening 'Wish I Could', which sets those familiar creamy vocals against a sparse, daring backdrop of tinkling acoustic guitar and cellos, while a line like 'Love in the time of war isn't fair/ He was my man but they didn't care' lends its love-triangle narrative a sharp, contemporary twist.

A more explicit poke at the state of the States comes on 'My Dear Country', whose waltz-time piano and wry commentary might have sprung from the Randy Newman songbook. 'Nothing is as scary as election day,' opines Norah, before adding: 'Who knows, maybe the plans will change/ Who knows, maybe he's not deranged'. It's a polite, laconic kind of protest song, but protest nonetheless.

The darker, more mischievous mood at work is perfectly complemented by arrangements that are as inventive as they are austere. 'Broken' comes set to a murky string quartet. The aching 'Wake Me Up' shuffles along to little more than a ghostly steel guitar. 'Rosie's Lullaby', whose heroine is beckoned to eternal dreams by a crashing ocean (an echo of Jodie Reynolds's doomy 'Endless Sleep'), drifts past to a sultry electric piano.

Occasionally a more upbeat mood is struck - 'Sinking Soon' is an unexpected foray into Thirties jug band blues, with Satchmo-style trumpet and black-humoured Brechtian lyrics about sailing 'in a boat that's built of sticks and hay'. It's Norah, all right, but not as we know her.

There are, arguably, one or two lapses in judgment, but even they stem from artistic ambition. The coy 'Little Room' is too cutesy for comfort (with bad whistling), while 'Until the End' peters into incoherence after a promising Dylanesque opening ('You got a famous last name, but you're not to blame').

Mostly, though, the risks pay off. The credit is not all Ms Jones's. Lee Allen, her beau and bassist, is at the production helm of the pair's recently built studio, and co-writes on several tracks, as do other members of the 'Handsome Band' entourage. There's a lot of musicality in play, albeit deceptively subdued. It's Norah's album, nonetheless, and what a clever, winning evolution of her talents it is” – The Observer

Choice Cut: Thinking About You

The Latest Album

 

I Dream of Christmas

Release Date: 15th October, 2021

Label: Blue Note

Producer: Leon Michels

Standout Tracks: Christmas Don't Be Late/Blue Christmas/Winter Wonderland

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=2338762&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/60SJnVimx7BPaZz2nec9vO?si=3OpCDoHmQkixMfpDmU4kGw

Review:

“A mixture of Christmas classics and originals, I Dream of Christmas is thoroughly elegant, the equivalent of a flute of Prosecco. The tunes that Jones penned fit comfortably with the standards because she gets why so many Christmas songs feel evergreen: she wraps her languid, purring voice around comforting and inviting arrangements. Though I Dream of Christmas is being released during the second holiday season during the pandemic, the album is refreshingly lacking in angst or melancholy. Instead, there’s a restorative chumminess and winking flirtatiousness that belies the troubled times in which we live.

In keeping with the cool, sexy tone, Jones eschews the more melancholic Christmas tunes like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and instead goes for poppier lighter fare. When looking to contemporary carols, she turns to Ross Bagdasarian’s novelty classic “Christmas Don’t Be Late”, made famous by the high-pitched vocals of Alvin & the Chipmunks. Instead of hewing to the song’s original 1960s pop arrangement, Jones slows down the swinging tempo, remaking the comedy carol into a saucy, torchy chanteuse number.

Jones visits another animated holiday classic, covering Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Guaraldi’s original sounds like something Jones would record, so her take is pretty faithful, with her sinewy vocals taking the place of the chirping children’s choir of the older song. The song has been recorded many times and it enjoys a reverence which leads most renditions to be close to Guaraldi’s. Jones’ version doesn’t reinvent anything, but so much of Christmas is about the familiar (especially now) that it feels appropriate she doesn’t do anything too radical.

Other classics on I Dream of Christmas do benefit from Jones’ special touch. Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” is a recast of a rock and roll number to a simmering, sensual midtempo tune. Jones takes the “blue” from her take on “Blue Christmas” and turns Elvis Presley’s soulful pop ballad into a languorous bluesy dirge. And the usually-sprightly “Winter Wonderland” is turned into an idiosyncratic, curious carol, complete with ghostly synths and steel guitars that lend an almost-Hawaiian feel to the song.

Two tunes represent the Great American Songbook on this set, and both get relatively straightforward interpretations by Jones. Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” has been revisited so many times that it seems nearly impossible to do anything radical with it. Jones doesn’t try. Instead, she offers a fine rendition. Her take on Frank Loesser’s “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” is similarly faithful to the original, the steel guitar giving the song a soupcon of country and western affectations. Still, like with the Berlin number, this song has been covered too many times for any novel interpretations of it anymore.

Of the originals, the opening number, “Christmas Calling (Jolly Jones)”, is remarkable because it captures the kind of timeless loveliness of the classics on the record. It could be the arrangements that stick to the jazz-pop that make the song feel as if it were written by Guaraldi in the 1960s as well as Jones’ charming vocal performance. However, the song is a beautiful pastiche of a contemporary jazz-pop and Christmas pop with an eye toward those swinging Christmas records of the 1960s. It’s a rare contemporary Christmas song that sounds like a Christmas standard (akin to Mariah Carey’s Phil Spector homage “All I Want for Christmas (Is You)”.

I Dream of Christmas feels like a soothing salve on what seems like another troubled holiday season. The record is a wonderful soundtrack to the upcoming festivities and should be on the playlist of everyone’s Christmas party” – PopMatters

Choice Cut: White Christmas

FEATURE: Groovelines: Yazoo – Only You

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Yazoo – Only You

___________

I am looking ahead…

for this instalment of Groovelines. On 15th March, it will be forty years since Yazoo (Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke) released their debut single, Only You. Peaking at number two in the U.K. singles chart, it was later to appear on the duo’s exceptional debut album, Upstairs at Eric's, in August 1982. It is sad that Yazoo only recorded two albums (their second and final, You and Me Both, came out in 1983). I wanted to know more about Only You and how the song came to be. There are a couple of articles that explore the song in different ways. NME named Only You eighth in their list of the greatest Pop songs back in 2012. It is fascinating seeing how Yazoo and Only You came to be:

“On the surface Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke were a startlingly mismatched pop couple. But together they crafted a synth pop classic.

Clarke had been a formative member of Depeche Mode who had, on their debut ‘Speak & Spell’, explored similar sonic textures as displayed on The Human League’s ‘Dare’. The two seminal albums, which were released weeks apart in the autumn of 1981, confronted the alluring anonymity of the disco in contrast to the drudgery of suburbia.

Using Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder as jump off point he added a breezy, “boys from Basildon” pop sensibility in tracks like ‘New Life’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. It ushered electronic music snapping and heel-clicking into the new decade. Their label, Mute, became a lightning rod for bold progressive electronic music.

But Clarke was disillusioned. He decided to jump ship after ‘Speak & Spell’’s Top 10 success, saying “It would be out of order for me to say that their attitude was wrong. It was just different to mine.”

He continued to pen songs, but needed a vocalist to accompany him. 21 year old Alison Moyet was a blues singer who was gigging around the Basildon pub circuit. At the time, she says, she was looking for something more grounded.

“I put an ad in Melody Maker looking for a semi-professional band. Not someone who’d just had a massive hit album,” Moyet recalled.

Clarke was familiar with Moyet’s powerful voice and he felt that in embodied exactly the texture he needed on the new songs he was writing:

I wanted (my) songs to be sung with a lot of emotion. I didn’t know how it would work, but I wanted to try.

Moyet was compelled by the idea, as if there was a perverse attraction to the contradictions involved in a pub singer pairing up with a big time producer, which essentially was what Clarke was. She said: “It (was) almost freak like, this idea of someone from Basildon moving out and actually doing something.”

The two hooked up and began working on a track which had been offered as Clarke’s parting gift to Depeche Mode but rejected. That song was ‘Only You’.

On the track it was the pairing of the glacial synths and Moyet’s almost masculine, bluesy vocal which created the sound of torch song alchemy. The lyrics flowed along with a sad resignation about the end of an affair. Doors are closed, departing scenes are shot from windows above, and love is likened to a game. Clarke may have been talking about his uneasy relationship with Depeche Mode, but with Moyet cast in the lead role, the story changed. She was the woman looking through a scrapbook of photo-like memories, she was lonely and weak, but still the muscle of her vocal suggested she would survive.

The finished track, which was still envisioned as a demo, was taken to Clarke’s former Mute label boss Daniel Miller. “I got the distinct impression he was not interested. ‘That’s that,’ I thought. ‘Get a proper job’.”

Miller’s response was just a poker face, as it turned out. The track was released and hit Number Two in the charts. Over the years, ‘Only You’s reach has been wide and diverse. Flying Pickets took to the Christmas Number One in 1982, whilst Enrique Iglesias took it to the summit of the Billboard Latin charts in 1997. It was also used to Richard Curtis-style effect in the final episode of The Office. But ‘Only You”s power is the melding of Clarke and Moyet’s opposites into pure pop majesty”.

An eventual chart hit that hit the top ten in Ireland and Australia, Only You is one of the greatest songs of the 1980s. I love the unusualness of the single cover and whether it has any meaning or relevance. The sign of its popularity and endurance can be found in the cover versions. Smooth Radio produced an article of facts about Only You. In addition to discussing its chart success, they also named the artists who have covered the classic:

 “How did it perform in the charts?

'Only You' reached number two in the UK chart, behind Nicole's Eurovision-winning song 'A Little Peace'.

It only peaked at number 67 in the US.

An a cappella version by The Flying Pickets proved even more successful, after it was released the following year.

It reached the top spot, and even won the Christmas number one for 1983. It was also the first a cappella chart-topper in the UK.

Because of this, 'Only You' has often been associated with Christmas, with subsequent cover versions having a festive feel to it.

Who else has covered it?

Many! Including:

- Enrique Iglesias

- Joshua Radin (above)

- Kylie Minogue and James Corden

- Selena Gomez

- Judy Collins

- Jason Donovan

- Smith & Burrows”.

One of the iconic hits of the 1980s, it is not long until we mark forty years of the introduction of the brilliant Yazoo. A short-lived duo, Alison Moyet has gone on to have a successful solo career. The combination of her soulful and powerful vocals together with Vincent Clarke’s incredible songwriting produced this immaculate hit. A thing of amazing beauty that still resonates and stops you in your tracks, Only You is a song…

LIKE no other.

FEATURE: Revisiting… Sabrina Carpenter - Singular: Act I

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

Sabrina Carpenter - Singular: Act I

___________

I have included Sabrina Carpenter…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Hollywood Records

fairly recently but, as she has just announced a new album is complete, I wanted to revisit her third studio album (at eight tracks, it is more like a mini-album). Released in 2018, Singular: Act I is terrific. It was followed by Singular: Act II a year later. Despite the large number of producers and studios, there is a singularity and focus to the album. Carpenter is, perhaps, not talked about as one of the most innovative and impressive Pop artists of this time – ranking alongside the like of Dua Lipa and Selena Gomez. Although Singular: Act I got a few great reviews when it came out, it didn’t get high in the album charts. One does not hear too many songs from the album played today. An artist with an incredible voice and powerful personality, even if you are not a fan of modern Pop, you will find much to appreciate on Singular: Act I. This feature allows me to look back at albums released over the past three or four years. Ones that were popular and hyped at the time, yet they have sort of faded from consciousness or they are not as explored as they should be. Carpenter is such a strong and fascinating artist. I do remember when Singular: Act I and hearing songs like Almost Love and thinking how different they were to what is out there. Make sure that you take some time to listen to an album that ranks alongside the best of 2018.

To show the sort of reception and reaction Singular: Act I was afforded in 2018, I am going to drop in a couple of reviews. The first one comes from The Line of Best Fit. This is what they had to offer when they assessed Carpenter’s third studio album:

“While her sophomore album EVOLution symbolised Carpenter’s departure from the folk-flecked pop of Eyes Wide Open, Singular: Act I feels like an even larger progression from the LP preceding it – not necessarily just through her shifts in sound, but in the way it heralds her arrival as a fully-fledged star. This is immediately apparent on “Almost Love” – the album’s lead single and opening number – a commanding, urgent call-to-action for a relationship that needs to take its next step, pushed forward with intermittent whistles and drums.

The album goes on to explore a range of sounds, from “Hold Tight”, a stellar slow jam that kicks into high gear for a huge, stuttering chorus, to “Diamonds are Forever”, a swaggering, theatrical belter. These different leanings are all tied together by Carpenter’s now distinct, confident presence - which shines throughout the LP and imbues its tracks with a unifying sense of self-assuredness, regardless of how they choose to recount relationships both old or new. On the glimmering “Mona Lisa” she spurs on a potential love interest into finding the courage to approach her; the album’s excellent first promotional single “Paris” brings in bells and synths as she sings of returning to an old muse after exploring a new city; and the appropriately titled “prfct” places her vocals at the forefront of a track about embracing the unexpected turns every relationship takes.

Carpenter approaches sourer subjects with a similar sense of self-assuredness. “Sue Me” is an anthemic mid-tempo number about exiting a relationship with the same aplomb as she entered it, and on “Bad Time” – the album’s second promotional single and an undeniable highlight – she gleefully turns the tables on a serial flake. The latter track is also perhaps the best example of the lyricism and pop sensibility Carpenter brings to the album as a whole – creating image-heavy scenarios that are then exploded into a chorus with sticky hooks and a massive pay-off. And though Singular: Act I is described as the lead half of a larger project (with Act II slated for release next year), it’s moments like those, and there are many of them, that make the eight-track album feel like a complete production. It’s certainly no small triumph that Singular: Act I stands so firmly by itself – and its creation marks an exciting new phase of an artist properly coming into her own”.

There is another review that I am going to bring in. It is worth listening to Singular: Act II, as it is the second of the two-part project. I have opted to review Singular: Act I, as I prefer it slightly more. Earmilk highlighted Sabrina Carpenter’s versatility as a performer and writer:

“Je ne voulais pas trouver l’amour, mais Paris a quelque chose qui donne envie d’aimer, d’aimer passionnément,” Sabrina Carpenter utters during the bridge of “Paris,” the second track and one of three lead singles from her third album Singular: Act I. “I did not want to find love,” she says, “but Paris has something that makes you want to love, to love passionately.” Early on the 8 track project, the 19-year-old singer leaves behind the looming foothold that was ever present on her previous projects and instead sets the tone for an unbound new venture abundant with elegance and confidence throughout the 25-minute duration of her latest album.

With each track being solidified and pulled together by a different producer, Carpenter is able to showcase her versatility on a myriad of sonic landscapes. “Sue Me” was created with the help of producers Oak Felder and The Orphanage, the same team responsible for Demi Lovato‘s 2017 smash “Sorry Not Sorry.” On this anthemic declaration of self-assurance and personal strength, Carpenter embodies the energy of an individual unrestrained and unbothered by the discontentment of an ex-lover. This poised assertiveness continues on tracks like “Bad Time,” where Carpenter enlists Troye Sivan and Taylor Swift producer OZGO to flip the script on someone notorious for picking and choosing when they want to engage with someone. While “Diamonds are Forever,” produced by Johan Carlsson who holds a production credit from Ariana Grande‘s “Dangerous Woman,” allows Carpenter to dig deep and hit us with explosive and soul-filled vocals.

“Money don’t buy class, and I can’t be bought like that,” Carpenter boasts on the latter track in an effortless vocal progression reminiscent of a pop star ready to make her mark on an ever competitive and comparative genre. This energy appears first and foremost on Singular: Act I’s lead single and opening track, “Almost Love,” and again on “Mona Lisa,” where the singer sets the basis for a collection of stand out pop records. Carpenter succeeded in crafting hit after hit by pulling production efforts from those all over the pop world whom she hadn’t worked with before, although Rob Persaud, who worked on her 2016 sophomore album EVOLution, makes another appearance on “Prfct.”

Singular: Act I’s stand out track happens to be the one collaboration Carpenter decided to include on the album: “Hold Tight” which features rising hip-hop artist, and son of DJ Jazzy Jeff, Uhmeer. The electrifying production of the song is a product of the work of Mike Sabath who already formulated a hit earlier this year with J Balvin and Liam Payne’s “Familiar.” Uhmeer and Carpenter’s interconnection during the third verse of the track exemplifies two artists dynamic capable of demanding a listener’s undivided attention and reverence. The singer navigates her way through a sonic environment that is nebulous at times, manifesting the aura of a dark and hazy room, but invigorating and turbocharged with precision at others–a description easily extended to the versatility of the album as a whole”.

One of the finest and more underrated albums from 2018, I am looking forward to seeing what we might get from Carpenter’s fifth studio album. At only twenty-two, she has packed so much into her career already! There is no telling how far Carpenter can go in her undoubtably long career. She has so much promise! Spend a moment with Singular: Act I, as it is a great Dance Pop album that will definitely…

STAY in your head.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Lana Del Rey – Born to Die

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Lana Del Rey – Born to Die

___________

I think many would argue…

that Lana Del Rey’s best albums have arrived in the past five years or so. Lust for Life is five on 21st July. Lust for Life, Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019), Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021) and Blue Bannisters (2021) not only signal huge productivity but, when you look at all the acclaim and positive reviews, huge consistency and growth. I really like the four albums prior to Lust for Life. Coming two years after her eponymous debut, 2012’s Born to Die is an album that divided critics. It celebrates its tenth anniversary on 27th January. I wanted to include it in Second Spin, as it is underrated. Reaching number one here and two in the U.S., Born to Die was the world's fifth best-selling album of 2012, and it sold over seven million copies by 2014. In 2021, it became the second album by a woman and the first debut album by a woman to spend more than four-hundred weeks on the US Billboard 200. It is another classic case of an album selling well and being popular with consumers, but less embraced and admired by critics. More confident, lush, distinct and memorable than her 2010 debut, Born to Die has received retrospective reviews through the years. Many who scored the album low in 2012 have written think-pieces about the industry's perspective on Del Rey. I think that was one of the issues. Many were trashing Del Rey and writing her off as fake.

Many on the Internet voiced their displeasure of Del Rey and her music. A genuine and original artist with a sound that married sweeping orchestrations and visions and scenes one could take from the 1950s or an epic road movie, we hadn’t really heard anything like Born to Die. It must have been terrible for Del Rey to receive such hate on the Internet. Many critics felt Del Rey’s voice was too woozy or lazy. Despite some reappraisal and review updates, I feel Born to Die is underrated and warrants new inspection on its tenth anniversary. Alongside the notable singles, Video Games, Born to Die, Blue Jeans, and National Anthem, there are some great deeper cuts (including Diet Mountain Dew). Even though reviews were not that positive, many magazines and sites have placed Born to Die high in their best of 2012/best of the 2010s rankings. COMPLEX ranked Born to Die fourth in their The 50 Best Albums of 2012. In 2019, The Independent placed Born to Die third in The 50 Best Albums of the Decade. I will end with a couple of positive review for Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die. Before that, this article from last year took us inside one of the most remarkable and misunderstood albums of the 2010s:

“Lana Del Rey was just 26 when her first professionally produced album, Born To Die, was released, gaining her overnight success. But it had taken her the best part of ten years to get to that point. Having begun singing as a teenager, by the time she released what was essentially her debut album (a self-titled album was given a limited digital release in 2010, but was withdrawn soon after), on January 27, 2012, everything she’d been working on culminated in one remarkable moment.

Revealing her motives for making music, Lana told Vogue magazine she was more interested in telling her story, rather than making money, concluding, in her ever-authentic manner, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll write another record. What would I say? I feel like everything I wanted to say, I’ve already said.”

A decade’s worth of creative ideas

Lana began singing aged 17, in Brooklyn, sometimes using the name Lizzy Grant while struggling to gain attention. Born To Die marked a turning point, however, with the singer co-writing every song on the album and filtering a decade’s worth of creative ideas into one life-changing moment.

To gauge an early reaction to her music, Del Rey released the song “Video Games,” in October 2011. “I just put that song online a few months ago because it was my favorite,” she told The Observer. “To be honest, it wasn’t going to be the single but people have really responded to it.” Indeed, the promo clip for “Video Games” went viral, gaining 20 million views within five months.

An important creative decision

With the likes of Katy Perry and Britney Spears still dominating pop music in the early 21st Century, a younger generation of fans entered the 2010s seeking something new. Lana’s stripped-back music, performed with live instrumentation and unique vocals, offered them the sound they were looking for; the purity of emotion she drew upon added that extra depth for fans to identify with.

Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue’s 2012 Lana Del Rey cover issue, explained why the singer stood out among the pack, holding her own against the juggernaut success of Adele’s 21: “I am one of the many thousands of people enraptured by the throaty, seductive voice of Lana Del Rey… Once I had seen Lana play at a small event in London, I was convinced that she would be a great.”

Lana’s haunting vocals hadn’t always been so distinctive, but as she told the Daily Star in 2011, “People weren’t taking me seriously, so I lowered my voice, believing it would help me stand out.” Molding herself after vulnerable feminine icons such as Marilyn Monroe, the breathy tone she developed ensured she would be noticed.

Raw and perfectly sculpted

Born To Die isn’t all glamour, however. Lana created some controversy with the track “Lolita” with its obvious references to the Vladimir Nabokov novel centered around a middle-aged man obsessed with the young girl of the title. She also referenced the book’s opening in the “Off To The Races” lyric “Light of my life, fire in my loins.”

But the controversy did little to derail the singer – rather, it aided Lana’s ascent. She has come a long way since the success of Born To Die: building from a cottage-industry talent into one of the biggest stars in the world, she can now command the attention of the era-defining artists that came before her (2017’s Lust For Life found her working with no less than Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks).

As arguably the most powerful moment in her career, however, Born To Die still resonates. Raw and perfectly sculpted, Lana infused every moment with uncensored emotion, tapping into her fans’ feelings at the same time. It’s where the unassuming, somewhat ordinary Lizzy Grant became the global phenomenon we now know as Lana Del Rey”.

It is quite sad reading some of the reviews of Born to Die in 2012. So many dismissing Del Rey and being unkind to her music and image that were and are genuine. An amazing songwriter, voice and creative force, Born to Die is an amazing album. Ultraviolence, released in 2014, saw much more positivity come her way. I would encourage people to listen to Born to Die. This is what The Guardian wrote in 2012:

“It's hard not to feel a twinge of sympathy for Lana Del Rey. She's hardly the first pop star in history to indulge in a spot of pragmatic reinvention that muddies her comfortable background, but you'd certainly think she was. You can barely hear the music over the carping, which appears to be getting louder as her debut album approaches: a cynic might say that's just as well, given the recent Saturday Night Live appearance in which she demonstrated her uncanny mastery of the vocal style deployed by Ian Brown during the Stone Roses' later years – she honked like the foghorn on Portland Bill lighthouse. But one off-key TV spot is surely not a career-ending disaster. Perhaps the arrival of Born to Die will silence the controversy and shift attention to the songs.

Or perhaps not. There's something impressive about her desire to brazen it out, but you do wonder at the wisdom of including Radio, one of those how-do-you-like-me-now? songs in which the singer revisits their terrible struggle to achieve fame. "No one even knows how hard life was," she sings, "no one even knows what life was like," which does rather invite the response: indeed not, but given that your father was not only extremely wealthy but so supportive that he took to the pages of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise to promote your debut album I'll hazard a guess at (a) probably not that hard and (b) basically quite nice.

There's always the chance that she's playing a character, although that seems doubtful, because when Lana Del Rey is in character, she really lets you know about it. The one truly disappointing thing about Born to Die isn't the sound, which understandably sticks fast to the appealing blueprint from Video Games and Blue Jeans: sumptuous orchestration, twangs of Twin Peaks-theme guitar and bum-bum-TISH drums. Nor is it her voice, which is fine: a bit reedy on the high notes, but nothing to get you reaching for the earplugs. It's the lyrics, which in contrast to Video Games's beguiling description of a mundane love affair, are incredibly heavy-handed in their attempts to convince you that Lana Del Rey is the doomed but devoted partner of a kind of Athena poster bad boy, all white vest, cheekbones and dangling ciggie. The reckless criminality of their lifestyle is expressed via hip-hop slang – "yo", "imma ride or die", and, a little Ali Gishly, "booyah" – and the depth of their love through romance-novel cliches ("you are my one true love"). It's Mills and Booyah.

The problem is that Del Rey doesn't have the lyrical equipment to develop a persona throughout the album. After the umpteenth song in which she either puts her red dress on or takes her red dress off, informs you of her imminent death and kisses her partner hard while telling him she'll love him 'til the end of time, you start longing for a song in which Del Rey settles down with Keith from HR, moves to Great Yarmouth and takes advantage of the DFS half-price winter sale.

The best thing to do is ignore the lyrics; easy enough given how magnificently most of the melodies have been constructed. Video Games sounded like a unique single, but as it turns out, it was anything but a one-off: the album is packed with similarly beautiful stuff. National Anthem soars gloriously away from a string motif that sounds not unlike that sampled on the Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony. There's something effortless about the melodies of Diet Mountain Dew and Dark Paradise: they just sweep the listener along with them. The quality is high throughout, which is presumably what you get if you assemble a crack team of co-writers, including Heart FM king Rick Nowels, author of Ronan Keating's Life Is a Rollercoaster, Dido's White Flag and Belinda Carlisle's Heaven Is a Place on Earth.

You could argue that his presence recontextualises Born to Die, drawing it away from the world of the indie singer-songwriter she was initially thought to inhabit and firmly into the mainstream. It fits better there, where no one bores on about authenticity and lyrics matter less than whether your songs' hooks sink deep into the listener's skin. What Born to Die isn't is the thing Lana Del Rey seems to think it is, which is a coruscating journey into the dark heart of a troubled soul. If you concentrate too hard on her attempts to conjure that up, it just sounds a bit daft. What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough”.

The final thing I want to include is a review from NME. Whilst many were doubting Del Rey and providing her music with little consideration, there were those who were more constructive and could hear real potential from an artist who, now, is considered to be among the best in the world. This is their take on Born to Die:

“It speaks volumes about the fuss surrounding Lana Del Rey’s recent Saturday Night Live performance that, after the show, even Harry Potter’s fabled magic wand could do nothing to stem the flow of unkind words directed her way. In the same week that Mark Wahlberg claimed he would have stopped 9/11 if he’d been on board one of the planes that crashed, the self-described ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’ caught hell from half the internet and sundry ’slebs of dubious import for her shaky performance of ‘Video Games’, before compère Daniel Radcliffe rushed to her defence. Amazingly, we’re still not sure which story got most publicity.

Then again, it’s tempting to wonder if Del Rey doesn’t relish the critics’ barbs on some level. Looking back on the controversies that followed ‘Video Games’’ runaway success last year – big lips, career false starts, et al, ad nauseam – they begin to resemble not so much a case for the prosecution as they do a vindication of her ‘Hollywood sadcore’ shtick. Fame and romantic love are the dominant narratives sold to us by modern culture, and who better to call it than this freakishly beautiful, David Lynch-addicted, 25-year-old millionaire’s daughter?

Who indeed. And ‘Born To Die’ certainly isn’t shy out of the traps, gliding in with the title track’s big-budget remodelling of the LDR template. Strings usher us mournfully into the palace of Del Rey’s sadness, her voice curling like art deco smoke-plumes – “sometimes love is not enough,” she sighs. The slightly unhinged-sounding ‘Off To The Races’, meanwhile, swaps the tattooed Romeo of the former track’s vid for a coke-snorting sugar daddy, revelling in the amoral pleasures of being a kept woman with no questions asked.

Next up it’s the ‘Blue Jeans’/‘Video Games’ double whammy. The former’s lush Chris Isaak shades shimmer like sea-spume on Helena Christensen’s naked thighs as Del Rey longs for her James Dean. And the latter has lost none of its uncanny power, those lilting piano chords suggesting the perfect hopelessness of a cherished old photograph. She follows that with ‘Diet Mountain Dew’, a breathless, mid-tempo R&B number. Next, ‘Born To Die’ comes a cropper with ‘National Anthem’, a co-write with former Fame Academy winner David Sneddon, which features some unfortunate quasi-rapping and addresses the record’s themes in a way that’s all fingers and thumbs compared to ‘Video Games’’ flawless seduction.

‘Dark Paradise’ and ‘Radio’ fare better, but still sound like ‘Born To Die’ retreads with their splashy drums and string accompaniments. Recovering momentum, ‘Carmen’, a dark tale of pretty-girl psychosis, is a winner, with Del Rey’s richly suggestive tones conjuring the ghosts of Lauren Bacall’s classic femme-fatales. Meanwhile, ‘Summertime Sadness’, a pop number with that patented, pimp-my-homecoming parade feel and lyrics, underlines the self-fulfilling nature of her prophetic pining: “Think I’ll miss you forever/Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky”.

Although it’s not quite the perfect pop record ‘Video Games’ might have led us to wish for, ‘Born To Die’ still marks the arrival of a fresh – and refreshingly self-aware – sensibility in pop. Some of the sprightlier stuff sits awkwardly, but Del Rey’s ballads pull deftly at a strain of American gothic that runs through performers like Roy Orbison and Bobbie Gentry, and nail the warped sense of nostalgia that’s been in the air recently in a way a thousand wafty shoegaze revisionists could only dream of. And that’s no mean feat”.

A truly underrated album, the approaching tenth anniversary might well see new articles and appraisal of an album that sounds gorgeous and sweeping. Provoking so many different vivid images and all scored by Del Rey’s smoky and beautiful voice, Born to Die is an album that is far deeper and stronger than many gave it credit for in 2012. Ten years later, many can appreciate it for the…

INCREDIBLE album that it is.