FEATURE: Time for a New Fang? Them Crooked Vulture: When Will They Return?

FEATURE:

 

 

Time for a New Fang?

Them Crooked Vulture: When Will They Return?

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I have been thinking about…

supergroups and the fact that, today, we do not really have that many. Sure, groups will call themselves that! They don’t have the authority, calibre and conviction as some of the classic supergroups. I think one of the very best modern supergroups is Them Crooked Vultures. Consisting of Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, their eponymous album came out in 2009. The album debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200, selling 70,000 units in the U.S. in its first week. I have been listening back to Them Crooked Vultures and marvelling at the sheer quality of the songs! Such a tight and talented trio, there have been no plans for a follow-up albums. I think that there is a demand for Them Crooked Vultures to do something together again. I know that Dave Grohl is busy with Foo Fighters and still mourning the loss of his bandmate, Taylor Hawkins. Josh Homme is producing and there has been recent accusations from his former wife, Brody Dalle of domestic violence. Perhaps there is too much going on for the group to come together right now. I do feel like their debut is underrated. Maybe there are one or two weaker tracks, but the album is bursting with gold! From the incredible opener, No one Loves Me and Neither Do I, to Dead End Friends (my favourite track), and the epic closer, Spinning in Daffodils, it is a brilliant Rock/Blues album! Like some supergroups, Them Crooked Vultures do not suffer the issue of someone taking charge and dominating. Although Homme is the lead songwriter and would have the biggest creative say, the tracks are collaborative, and the group are friends. It is a democracy that you can hear on the album and see in the live performances.

In terms of bands, I don’t think there is anyone like Them Crooked Vultures around. It is clear they had a blast recording their debut album. I think they are too good to leave it with one album! With no announcements regarding new Foo Fighters or Queens of the Stone Age music, there is an opportunity for the group to get together for their second album. Although some were more reserved regarding the 2009 album, there was a lot of positivity. This is what AllMusic said in their review:

“Often, supergroups wind up dominated by one particular personality - think Eric Clapton in Derek & the Dominos, Jack White in the Raconteurs -- which makes the egalitarianism of Them Crooked Vultures all the more remarkable. Of course, when it comes down to it, it’s a group of three natural-born collaborators: John Paul Jones, the old studio pro who gravitated toward provocative partners after Led Zeppelin’s demise, teaming up with R.E.M. as easily as he did with avant-queen Diamanda Galas and nu-folkster Sara Watkins; Dave Grohl, who hopped into an empty drummer’s chair whenever the opportunity presented itself; and Josh Homme, who set up a mini-empire based entirely on jam sessions. If Them Crooked Vultures brings to mind Homme’s projects more than Grohl's or Jones', it’s largely due to his role as lead vocalist and how guitar can push a rhythm section as powerful as this to the side, dominating with its grinding riffs and solos. Homme’s predilection for precision does reign supreme -- when the group stretches out, even wallowing in the murk on “Interlude with Ludes,” there’s the sense that, like a great improv troupe, the trio freaked out then retained the best moments, trimming away the indulgence and experiments, leaving behind intrinsically, grippingly musical hard rock, where power is secondary to interplay. And while there are melodies and hooks that certainly dig into the skull, what impresses is chemistry, how the three play together, how they instigate each other, and how they spur each other on, to the point where their familiar tropes sound fresh -- as on “Scumbug Blues,” where Jones’ “Trampled Underfoot” clavinet intertwines with Grohl’s avalanche and Homme’s rigorous psychedelia - creating guitar rock that’s at once classicist and adventurous and undeniably thrilling”.

Not just reserved to me, I know there are other fans of Them Crooked Vultures who would love to see them back again. In another review, The A.V. Club wrote the following:

“What should be expected of Them Crooked Vultures? Put Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones in the same band, and it’s hard not to do some basic rock ’n’ roll algebra. Adding Queens Of The Stone Age’s catchy crunchiness to Nirvana’s relentlessly driving rhythms and Led Zeppelin’s flowing basslines and rich orchestral textures certainly sounds, well, super. But Them Crooked Vultures is not the sum of its members’ most famous bands. Thinking that it could be means overlooking an obvious fact about super-groups: Rock stars don’t form bands with other rock stars in order to top what they’ve already done. They do it because hanging out with famous rock stars is a hell of a lot of fun. Freed from the weight of untenable expectations, Them Crooked Vultures is a hell of a lot of fun, too”.

A magnificent album that everyone should check out, Them Crooked Vultures deserves a follow-up fairly soon. I have been revisiting the album and wondering why, over twelve years on, why Josh Homme, John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl have not returned to the studio. Maybe they will at some point. With a clear chemistry and respect for one another, you can feel that brotherhood and incredible musicianship in every song. You do not need to know much about Homme, Grohl and Jones to realise that Them Crooked Vultures is…

SUCH a mesmeric supergroup.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Mariah the Scientist

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Mariah the Scientist

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AN artist who has been on my radar…

for a little while low, the unbelievable Mariah the Scientist is one of the most fascinating and engaging artists around. Creating such wonderous music that cuts deep and has this directness, I have no doubt she will be an R&B icon and legend of the future. Inspired by the likes of Frank Ocean, she very much has her own style and layers. Atlanta-born Mariah Amani Buckles is someone who should be on everyone’s radar too. Her second studio album, Ry Ry World, was released last year. There are a few interviews that I will bring in. I am going to also highlight a review of Ry Ry World. It is an album that did not get a load of coverage. Considering it is brilliant and has no weak spots on it, I hope that people do pick it up and bond with a truly awesome young artist primed for the super leagues. There is something about Mariah the Scientist’s voice and the way that she commands a song means that every note makes its mark and has its place. An utterly instinctive and accomplished artist who released a  new E.P. recently. I want to go back to 2020 and an interview from Pitchfork. The year before, she put out her remarkable debut album, Master, on the RCA label:

“The details she discusses in her songs resonated with a lot more people than she originally anticipated. Not that she totally understands why. “It’s strange to me that people say shit like they really feel me because… they don’t!” she says. “You don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. At the end of the day, you don’t know. You’ll never know.”

Mariah’s songs are specific, and she says they’re completely true to life. But they’re not literal narratives, instead something closer to autofiction via ballad. Her observations are wry, charming, precocious, but not pretentious. And, as a 21-year-old woman making her way through a dumb man’s world, she has a perspective not always prevelant in R&B, as her thoughts on love include critique, not just lamentation. It’s as if someone wrote the woman’s perspective to the debauchery bragged about in the Weeknd’s songs: If his music offers tales of aspirational ridiculousness told live from the party of a lifetime, hers gives us the view of the girlfriend who had to live with his ego when he woke up the next the morning after doing too much coke.

Pitchfork: How did you start writing?

Mariah the Scientist: It sounds so corny when I say it, but I feel like my first notions of writing were poems in my dorm room. It was to no beat. It was just things that rhymed.

Why is that corny?

It’s almost uneasy for me thinking about it sometimes, because I feel like my whole life my parents really instilled structure. The creative thing wasn’t as appreciated in comparison to hard work and academics.

What were you writing about initially?

Anything, anything. I started harping on the fact that in the back of your head there’s something called a hypothalamus, right? And that’s where all of your hormones are secreted, and your hormones are responsible for every feeling. Back in the day, I was smoking a lot of weed, so I was doing a lot of research on how THC affects your hypothalamus, and the secretion of hormones, and little things like neurotransmitters, and how when you smoke weed it falsifies your sense of happiness, because it’s secreting dopamine. I was writing about that kind of stuff.

You were writing science papers for school about it, or you were just writing for yourself?

It was a combination of the two. I feel like when I think about it now that’s probably why I liked doing it, because I could combine what I was learning in school—because I really do fuck with science, that’s a real thing for me—with the shit I was going through, wondering why I was feeling the way I was feeling. I couldn’t help but try to dissect that. So it’s like: Your heart is broken, and you feel so shitty, what is responsible for that? And then it turned more sentimental, almost like storytelling”.

 Last year, VICE featured Maria the Scientist. Even though Lil Baby and Young Thug feature on Ry Ry World, it is very much the Hip-Hop queen who is at the centre and creating the biggest waves and impressions:

“In 2019, Mariah released Master, her major-label debut led by the melancholy ballad “Beetlejuice,” a song so personal that the listener feels special by being made privy to the intel she reveals. Mariah’s superpower is in the intricacies of how she writes this love story, coming up with creative ways to describe that her man’s deception was eventually just another way to control her. “Cause you’ll lie to my face / And then you’ll say that even Jesus forgave,” she sings. In the two years since Master, Mariah has only strengthened that skill. And although Ry Ry World’s was also completed two years ago, the former science major kept tweaking it for precision. The result is a project that is both a haunting yet sentimental musing of relationships, and break-ups, that have held space in Mariah’s heart.

The album art for her latest project, which features the singer smiling with an arrow through her chest, is the first indicator of Mariah’s pain tolerance. She is reflective on Ry Ry World, acknowledging that sometimes, she’s stayed in situations she should’ve left a lot sooner. On “Aura,” which samples the Isley Brothers’ “Make Me Say It Again Girl,” she’d use her last breath to salvage her relationship—even if he’d rather be friends. Elsewhere, on “2 You,” she sings “Should’ve left you last July, but I was only trying to save us.”

Where most love songs offer bouquets of flowers, Mariah’s music might as well commemorate her old flames on tombstones. VICE sat down with the singer to talk about her real-life love for science, heartbreak, and working with Lil Baby and Young Thug.

VICE: How would you say that Ry Ry World continues the narrative that you started on Master?  

Mariah the Scientist: It’s a different narrative now. [Master] was a little more down. I was down when I was writing it. I was down when I was recording it, but now I feel different. The dynamic has changed and the perspective has changed. If there’s any correlation between the two it’s just that I’ve grown and evolved and this project, when you deep dive and read between the lines it’s the most multifaceted depiction I could give of how I’ve changed in the past two years.

Your music is a little dark and twisted. You describe your relationships like a Tim Burton film. Would you attribute that to being in toxic relationships, or is that just the lens you gravitate towards?

Someone can say there are a couple of different sides to a story. I can’t say how they interpreted those situations, but when I’ve looked back on those situations it just seemed so gruesome. I was done really dirty in a lot of those relationships. Even though I wasn’t literally murdered, it felt like a lot of things were taken away from me, or maybe I sacrificed a lot. It felt like a lot of things were killed off in me, and I felt like the only way I could show it imaginatively was what I can create”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Gunner Stahl

The penultimate interview I want to grab from is VIBE. Again, they spoke with Mariah the Scientist last year. Some really interesting answers and observations came up. A step up from her 2019 debut, Ry Ry World is an album from an artist reaching new heights:

“Do you think that singing about your experiences and your personal ups and downs is an important part of your own healing process?

I think that when I have something on my chest … like something I just want to get off my chest. I do think it’s easier to relieve myself of that when it comes to writing a song, but a lot of times I don’t have much to talk about. You know at all like, go on long binges of not writing anything and then like, all of a sudden, I’ll have something to talk about again and then I’ll just binge write for maybe a week or two weeks at a time. It definitely goes back and forth a lot. I think overall it’s just…I don’t know, it just comes down to honest emotion. I feel like it comes in waves, you know?

What made you decide to name it Ry Ry’s World? If it were a real place we traveled to, what are we going to see? What does it smell like in Ry Ry’s World?

Initially, there was a different title and I think I just sat on it a little too long. I didn’t like it as much by the time the project was coming out. Plus, like the dynamic of songs and everything it was just shifting. I felt like it was just more oriented around myself, and I didn’t really want it to be… I don’t like the idea of this project necessarily being fully about somebody else I kind of feel like it’s just more about me

I think it would just be a lot of scientific sh*t going on (laughs). Literally, I swear I love science. I know a lot of people don’t really make that correlation, I think it’s just a name, but I’m obsessed with it. If Ry Ry World was a place, I would bring space closer to the skyline, the skyline will be like the planets. I think you will find the most exotic plants and flowers and fruits, as the norm, like you can go outside and pick it. I think it would be colorful. I think it would be just like a utopia, to be honest. All of the natural things in life but enhanced. Like on steroids, the most beautiful things but just really more vibrant.

Do you think you’ll ever branch off your music career and get back into science professionally?

I’ve definitely thought about it, especially over Corona. It [coronavirus pandemic] just changed my perspective on a lot of things including [my] career. I had a lot of time to … I don’t want to say studying and reading books every day, but I definitely was more in a place where I was trying to pick up more information on subjects that I found interesting. I definitely would go back into it [science] professionally for sure. I’m trying to see if I can find some sort of avenue to make a hybrid out of my career. I don’t really like the idea of having to pick and choose. I feel like you should be able to have everything. I don’t like the idea of being categorized or having to pick a category. I just feel like life is really vast and you should be able to jump around, to be honest. It’s not like we just are single faceted.

With Ry Ry World, it’s been about two years since Master was released. What can you say have been some defining moments or some pivotal points for you personally or as an artist between the two projects? How have you been able to kind of keep track of that growth and evolution?

I think I’ve just changed in general as a person, and I think I’m still changing every day. In a good way, though. I feel really good about it. I was just in a completely different place when I was writing and recording Master. It was more dark. I think I still have that capability of being in some darker place but realistically, that’s not what I want to be. That’s not necessarily the kind of person I want to be. I don’t want to be constantly in a dark place. I do appreciate the mysteriousness that I hold but, I don’t think that I would just want to be constantly speaking on dark and dreary moments. I would rather have better things to talk about. Like I said earlier, it’s not that I wanted it to be like that. Those are just the experiences that I had, but hopefully, I’m hoping that it evolves to a better place. I mean, I feel like it is already, but you know it probably gets even better.

What do you think or hope fans take most from this project?

I just want them to like this project. Granted, it seems like it’s about someone else, but a lot of times I’m talking to myself. I just feel like it’s more about the perception. I think you should just be honest. I would like them to take from it that…I think I just have a lot of layers, very many layers. I just feel like I’ve been a million different people in this lifetime, which is weird because I’m only 23. I’m sure things will change more but I just feel like I have just changed so much and I’m still changing.

Even with that being said, that doesn’t mean that I have to be one person. I could just be different things every day. You can just be different. I just want everybody to realize that we’re different on purpose. If we were all the same… which makes no sense as to why everybody’s forcing this narrative to just all be on the same sh*t. Everybody wants a bust-down, everybody wants to go to the club every night, and everybody wants a Birkin bag. That’s cool, but do you want that because everybody else wants it, or do you want it because you really like it? I just feel like you can be different and have a bunch of different layers and they don’t have to look anything like the layers of someone else. This should be respected. This should be cool”.

Prior to coming more up-to-date, Pitchfork were among those who sat down with Ry Ry World. It is an album that I really love and have come back to again. If you have not listened to it, make sure you carve aside some time to experience it:

“Mariah’s second album confirms her as one of modern R&B’s realest talkers, as well as one of its most vivid storytellers. Her earliest songs began as poems, and there’s an imagistic quality to Ry Ry World’s casual evocations of, say, snow on a sunroof during a trip to Toronto, or the “damage in the brain matter” inflicted by a lover’s mixed messages. Less consistent lyricists would make these lines into centerpieces; for Mariah, they’re scenery.

The careful observations endow Mariah’s storytelling with particular heft. “I want to remind my fans to ‘tell it like it is’ because it helps define your character,” she said in an interview last year. “If you’re gonna be the bad guy, own it.” She commits to the bit with flair. With its pitched-down “Cry Me a River” sample, “Revenge” morphs from a confessional to a murder ballad; Mariah bares emotional wounds before imagining righteous payback. “Tell ’em that in death we’ll meet again,” she sings, voice cracking. “Like it ain’t your blood that’s on my hands.” You could imagine it soundtracking some avant-garde production of Macbeth, but it runs deeper than theater, too. It can be easier to pour out your heart by couching its secrets in hyperbole.

Ry Ry World is concise at just 10 tracks; along with recent projects from serpentwithfeet, Jorja Smith, and Victoria Monét, it’s a refreshing counter to the more bloated releases of major label R&B. At times the brevity is frustrating. With production from Swedish duo Jarami (Frank Ocean’s “Chanel,” “Biking”), the 90-second intro “Impalas & Air Force 1s” feels like a blissed-out drift through a coral reef. It would be welcome at triple the length. The unmemorable “Maybe” slides into watery ambience, and cheap shots at “big booty [...] city girls” don’t add to its likeability. Mariah is at her best when she focuses on her own desires and agency. Over Spanish guitars on the raunchy “Walked In,” she plays feature artist Young Thug at his own game. “Off the Tesla, yes sir,” she instructs, before warning, “None of that cappin’ about booin’ up.”

Fans have long gossiped about Mariah’s past relationship with Lil Yachty; in “Brain,” over a beat that rattles like a pinball in a sewer, she namechecks one of his tours and seems to describe her own depressive episode from the time. “I just/Wanted to escape for sure,” she sings, adding pained backing vocals. “I was/Staring out the big window, but I/Should've locked the bedroom door.” Once she starts it feels like she can’t stop, in a raw, diaristic digression that’s unique to Ry Ry World. You might find yourself replaying the song to let its brutal honesty sink in.

Around the time of her debut, Mariah defined her music as “a summation of my agony.” Recently she updated that description. “It’s more like after agony,” she said. “Maybe it used to hurt, and now it’s just a little scarred.” She traces that evolution in the wonderful “2 You,” a bittersweet ballad produced by DJ Camper, co-architect of at least two of the past decade’s best R&B songs. “I never thought it would go up in flames,” Mariah sings, as her voice breaks through an airy beat built of oohs and aahs. “But look at what we made/Sure was beautiful.” In the video, she performs against a starry backdrop, as if surveying her past with a birds-eye view. Her eyes are wide open, ready to experience it all”.

I am going to conclude with Billboard’s interview with Mariah the Scientist from March. The remarkable Buckles Laboratories Presents: The Intermission is a four-track E.P. containing some of Mariah the Scientist’s best work. It is a glimpse of where she might be heading next:

“The Intermission continues the singer’s knack for mixing interstellar themes with grounded tales of romance and heartbreak. On “Spread Thin,” Mariah offers a measured tell-off to an unreliable lover (“You always think the only one who needs any attention is you/ Don’t be so conceited/ Hope you learn honesty was the only thing that could keep me from leaving,” she laments on the hook).

It’s fitting that the first song Mariah plays for me when we meet in an Atlanta studio is the reworked version of “Church,” considering the 24-year-old singer and I quickly discover we both went to the same Christian school as kids. Although she’s known more for her East Atlanta roots, the artist born Mariah Buckles spent her early childhood years in southwest Atlanta, where she attended Believers Bible Christian Academy, the small private school tucked inside a church and located between a liquor store and Church’s Chicken on Campbellton Road. The updated version of “Church,” which serves as the opener for The Intermission, isn’t exactly a religious offering. Instead, Mariah refers to her lover as her “preacher,” who invokes heavenly feelings (and, of course, a few intergalactic messages).

Even if this new project resonates with fans, serving as a buffer from last year’s album and her next project (expected later this year), Mariah knows she has a bit of work to do this year when it comes to other aspects of her career. While Ry Ry World received mostly favorable reviews, the singer’s live performances have been met with the complete opposite response. Videos of Mariah nervously dancing around festival stages and half-heartedly singing along to her music have repeatedly circulated on social media in the past few months.

“I can’t disagree with [the critics],” she acknowledges. “I do agree that a lot of those performances I did in the last year have been really bad. I hate that for myself. But the only thing I can do now is work really hard at trying to make it better. There’s really no way around it, especially if I’m going to maintain this career in any way… I wasn’t intentionally half-a–ing it, but realistically, that’s what it was.”

Mariah is, admittedly, still feeling reluctant about the increased attention that comes with being an entertainer. “A lot of people prepare for this their entire life. I just decided one day I was going to make a career out of something that I was gifting somebody on a whim,” she says. “I underestimated all that it comes with.”

When we talk she tells me about a time when she practically hid in a corner when a club appearance turns into an impromptu performance. Even when she’s recording in the studio, Mariah says she doesn’t like to have a lot of people around. Oftentimes, she turns out all of the lights and locks the door to ensure no one can come in. In interviews, she shies away from confirming who her songs are inspired by. The vulnerability of writing and releasing a song might be fulfilling, but she still prioritizes keeping her privacy, she says.

Still, the singer says she is committed to figuring out how to balance her career with the demands of fame to deliver a worthwhile experience for her fans. “I’m in a little too deep to be trying to cut corners on this s–t. My only option now is to do it full force and that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” she says”.

Go and explore the wonderful world of Mariah the Scientist. After releasing a phenomenal E.P. this year, she will come back from touring – after appearing in London last week, she is currently back in the U.S. – and decide upon what comes next. Maybe album three? Perhaps she wants to do a film or something else. Anything is possible with the always-sensational Mariah the Scientist! You may have only just heard of her now but, trust me, you are going to have to stand back and…

WATCH her explode.

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Follow Mariah the Scientist

Official:

http://mariahthescientist.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mariahthescientist/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7HO5fOXE4gh3lzZn64tX2E

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/mariahscientist

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ5h-ez6pTE8LzZxNHDhG1g

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/MariahTheScientistOfficial/

FEATURE: Our Loz: Celebrating the Wonderful Lauren Laverne

FEATURE:

 

 

Our Loz

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Woffinden for The Telegraph 

Celebrating the Wonderful Lauren Laverne

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THERE is no timely…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sophia Spring for The Times

reason why I am writing about Lauren Laverne. The host of the BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show, and the iconic Desert Island Discs, she is someone who I listen to a lot. I think I want to discuss her because, since the pandemic started in 2020, she has been an invaluable, trusted and hugely warm presence on the airwaves. I think there should be more interviews with her. A fascinating broadcaster who is a brilliant award show host (I understand she will host next year’s Ivor Novello awards), her versatility and undeniably huge talent has not been fully recognised I don’t think! I have said before how she deserves an OBE or MBE. Whether she would accept it or not, I am not sure. She is deserving of accolades and high honour. I think that, based on her broadcasting alone, she is someone hugely influential and important. Her BBC Radio 6 Music breakfast show keeps bringing in new listeners. I am not surprised. I think I first started listening to her on BBC Radio 6 Music in 2016. That was a year when we lost huge musicians like David Bowie and Prince. During those times, she was a source of comfort and stability. I grew to love her mixture of warmth, humour and accessibility.

Down to earth and super-cool, compassionate, and knowledgeable like no other broadcaster I know, she is someone who has a great ear for the best new music, tied to an encyclopaedic understanding and wide scope of older music. I want to bring in a couple of interviews with Laverne. The first one is from The Guardian from 2016. In addition to her duties on BBC Radio 6 Music – this was before she took over on Desert Island Discs -, she was also presenting Late Night Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4:

“Laverne’s grandfathers (the other was a miner) often figure in her interviews. So it seems reasonable to assume that she values her working-class heritage. Laverne’s father, like her mother, was from a large family, one of six. But both parents – “60s grammar-school kids, that classic working-class thing” – studied hard and had university jobs so that life for Laverne, growing up in Barnes in Sunderland, was comfortable.

“It was a house full of music and books and ideas that were not that usual where I was. There was always a lot of – we might call it alternative culture now,” she says. “We were this funny little middle-class outpost of a big working-class family, and that was a really lovely place to be. Because we had all the advantages of being middle class, but also had a real sense of place in history and culture that connected back to where we were from.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Lee/The Guardian 

Does she worry that her own children will be further removed from those origins? “Well, you know, they’re part of my family too, and they’re part of their own extended family and they have their own relationship with that, with my parents, my cousins, the place that I’m from,” she says. She’s sitting in a swivel chair, spinning from side to side as she thinks. “They’ve been on the beach that The Walrus and the Carpenter was written about!” The question was really an economic one, to which Lewis Carroll – a passion she got from her father – is an unexpected answer. I wonder if she worries about the privileges her children enjoy compared with the life of her grandfathers – does she sometimes feel the need to adjust their perspective?

“What? When we’re throwing another 50 on the fire?” she exclaims.

“My dad said a thing to me the other week that is really interesting. He said, you don’t teach kids the value of money, you teach them the value of people. And for me, that’s what it comes down to. What is a pound? What is a gold bar worth? It’s actually more about how you treat people, so that’s what I try to do.”

In many ways, another radio show is the last thing Laverne needs. She already hosts every weekday on 6 Music, she does voiceover for a children’s show, fills in time with all manner of documentaries and prize-presenting and live events – the Mercury, the Turner, the Baftas, Glastonbury. She has written a teen novel. When she counts her BBC radio stations – “I’m not sure about 4 Extra, but certainly 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, I’ve hosted on” – she runs out of fingers. Somewhere in there, she finds time to call her mother “several times a day”.

I also wanted to write this feature, as I think that the rest of this year and 2023 will be among the most successful for Laverne. Her breakfast show will continue to grow in popularity, but I think there are great opportunities for outside of that. At the moment, I am not sure whether she has any room on her plate for many new projects! I think that there are radio documentaries, podcast appearances and T.V. shows that would benefit from her incredible locker of talent and magnetism. Not to say her radio shows are dominating her time, but I feel there is a lot in front of her that may mean her scaling back. I am going to wrap up in a minute but, beforehand, I want to bring in a more recent interview from The Guardian. As I have said before, there are not that many interviews with her. She is always compelling when being interviewed. She is very relatable and grounded as a person but, having had the career she has already, there is almost an element of the superhuman too:

“What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Unkindness, meanness. People who could make the world better and choose to make it worse.

Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

A caravan. I was brought up going on caravan holidays – but we quickly realised that a double-axle caravan was too much of a commitment and sold it.

Describe yourself in three words

Hopeful, curious and thoughtful, in the sense that I am always thinking about things.

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If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?

The concept of polite disagreement.

What makes you unhappy?

I find it very difficult when the people I care about are unhappy.

Who would play you in the film of your life?

Evanna Lynch who plays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.

What was the last lie that you told?

Oh, what a lovely hat.

What is your most unappealing habit?

I have a tendency to take on a bit too much and then complain about it in my head afterwards.

What scares you about getting older?

Losing people”.

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There is a lot to love about Lauren Laverne. She is someone who brings her listeners in and embraces them. Hugely funny, charming and popular, at forty-four, we are going to hear her on the air for decades more. I would love to see her do more T.V. and side projects. She is such a varied and remarkable person who can grab your attention and keep you hooked with everything she does. I think there is an autobiography or another novel in her (her debut novel came out a while ago now). Maybe we might see her launch a new T.V. music series or a great documentary. One of the big reasons why so many people got through lockdown with positive spirits, Laverne is one of our most important broadcasters. It is her positivity and obvious passion that radiates through! I know she is dedicated to BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio 4 but, in years to come, maybe she will move on. She has helped cultivate a family at BBC Radio 6 Music. She genuinely has that closeness and love for her listeners. An invaluable guide, source of new music and comforting shoulder, it is high time Lauren Laverne is awarded and rewarded for her years of broadcasting excellence – whatever form that takes on. We are going to share one of Sunderland’s (the city where she was born) proud daughters’ essential company…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

FOR many years more.

FEATURE: Paul McCartney at Eighty: Forty: What He Means to Me

FEATURE:

 

 

Paul McCartney at Eighty

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in 1969/PHOTO CREDIT: Linda McCartney 

Forty: What He Means to Me

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I am now at the end…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Mary McCartney

of a forty-run feature marking Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday. On 18th June, fans around the world will mark the eightieth birthday of the greatest musician the world has seen. In the other thirty-nine features, I have looked at his music and legacy in a less personal way. I wanted to use this final feature to talk more about my experiences with Paul McCartney’s music and when it entered my life. Like so many people, it is the music of The Beatles that opened my eyes to Paul McCartney. I think the first time I heard McCartney’s voice and music was listening to early Beatles songs like Love Me Do and She Loves You. Of course, I was raised in a house where The Beatles’ music was easily available and regularly played. I followed McCartney and a solo artist and through Wings, and it occurred to me that this man who I thought I knew was completely unpredictable. By that, I sort of knew what he was capable of with The Beatles. Through the simpler love songs of their early period (1962-1965), through to the more experimental work that came after Rubber Soul (1965), he definitely staggered me as a writer and composer. The one thing that impressed me most about his Beatles work was the sheer versatility! Seemingly always writing songs and never one to stand still, this became even more pronounced after The Beatles. I think that a lot of McCartney’s solo albums and Wings stuff is overlooked or rubbished.

I think that every Wings and solo McCartney album contains something interesting. One cannot overlook the fact that McCartney is such an inventive and original songwriter. Seemingly blessed with this innate ability to construct timeless melodies and countless ideas, I was mesmerised by his versatility. From childlike songs and lovelorn ballads through to multi-part epics and complex tracks, this music spoke to me louder than anything else. Decades after I first heard McCartney on record, I am discovering songs of his that passed me by. Others are revealing their true beauty and, in some cases (such as We All Stand Together), I am reassessing my initial view (a song that I overlooked or did not give time to, I am diving into it with new passion). His music means so much to me, not only because it scored my childhood and opened my eyes to the possibilities of Pop music and McCartney genius. It has this quality and consistency that no other songwriter has. He has endured for decades because of his tireless invention and the fact that he can create brilliant albums so far down the line. 2020’s McCartney III is proof of that – one of his very best solo albums. As he heads into his ninth decade of life, McCartney will slow down and probably won’t tour as much. There is nothing to suggest he will stop anytime soon. I would love to hear a few more McCartney albums. The whole world hopes, just because of everything that has come before, McCartney will make music for many years more.

I think, if Paul McCartney were not such a nice person and one with such a strong conscience, I would not be as enamoured of him and fascinated by everything he does. Someone with a huge heart and this passion to highlight the wrongs in the world and make the world a better place, this sense of campaign, morality and respect for everyone comes through in his music. McCartney has such a common touch, even though he is a global megastar! As a human being, he is as close to a political leader that speaks for everyone as anyone. A person who is so respected and adored because he is genuine and a humanitarian, losing him will be an almighty shock. We will never see anyone else again who has the same qualities and brilliance as Paul McCartney. He has faced tragedy and loss through his life, yet he always seems to have this optimism and approach to life that is inspiring and admirable. One can say that money and security is a big reason for that, but McCartney is a human and is fallible and subject to depression. Many did not think he would continue as a songwriter and artist after The Beatles stopped. When his eponymous debut solo album came out in 1970, many reviews were scathing and spiteful. After that, he kept going and has forged this unique and untouched career! Everyone has their own reasons for loving Paul McCartney, which in itself is unusual. One would think there would be finite reasons, and yet they are countless and all different. For me, he IS music. The ultimate composer songwriter and a simply amazing singer (with a flair and knack for accents and nuance), he has scored so many important moments in my life. This forty-feature run was my way of thanking Paul McCartney for his music and what he means to me. To be completely honest, I cannot…

THANK him enough!

FEATURE: A Mighty Summit: Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and the Opportunity for a Book, Podcast or Documentary About the Iconic Track

FEATURE:

 

 

A Mighty Summit

PHOTO CREDIT: Alamy

Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and the Opportunity for a Book, Podcast or Documentary About the Iconic Track

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LAST week…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Kate Bush posted to her official website in reaction to the fact that her song, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was in the U.K. chart at number eight. From her 1985 album, Hounds of Love, Bush has now had a top twelve song in every decade since the 1970s. Ten years after a remix of the same song was used at the Olympics (for the closing ceremony) in London and charted, this enduring, evergreen and hugely inspiring track continues to reach new people and take on a life of its own! I am going to discuss something that occurred to me in a minute. Given the chart success, sites around the world reported on the legendary Kate Bush making history and scoring her first big chart success in the 2020s. This is what The Guardian said:

“Kate Bush is back in the Top 10 of the UK singles chart for only the third time since the 1980s, after her song Running Up That Hill found a new global audience via the Netflix drama Stranger Things.

Running Up That Hill, which reached No 3 on its initial release in 1985, reaches No 8 this week based on streams and downloads. After a slow start at the beginning of the week, when it was well outside the Top 100, its popularity grew as listeners sought it out following the premiere of Stranger Things’ fourth season last Friday; Running Up That Hill plays a key part in the fourth episode.

It is now the most-streamed song each day on Spotify in the US and the UK, just shy of Harry Styles’ As It Was in Spotify’s global chart, and in the same No 2 position on Apple Music. The song is also expected to place highly in the US charts, which are announced on Tuesday.

This is Running Up That Hill’s third appearance in the UK Top 10; it also re-entered in 2012 after it was used in the closing ceremony of the Olympics. For that version, Bush rerecorded the song at a slightly lower pitch to accommodate for changes to her voice.

Bush has reached the UK Top 10 on six other occasions. She topped it with her debut single Wuthering Heights in 1978, then had Top 10s with The Man With the Child in His Eyes; the live EP Kate Bush on Stage; Babooshka; Don’t Give Up (her duet with Peter Gabriel); and King of the Mountain, her comeback single in 2005, following more than a decade away from recording. Twelve of her albums have reached the Top 10, three of them No 1s.

Running Up That Hill’s latest success demonstrates the cultural might of supernatural thriller Stranger Things, which registered the biggest premiere weekend ever on Netflix, with viewers spending 287m hours watching the first seven episodes. The rest of the season will be released in July.

With its distinctive martial rhythm, spectral synth sounds and a commanding vocal performance from Bush, Running Up That Hill is one of the most critically admired songs of the 1980s. Bush spoke about the song in a 1986 interview:

It’s very much about two people who are in love, a man and a woman, and the idea of it is they could swap places ... The man being the woman and vice versa and they’d understand each other better. In some ways [the song is] talking about the fundamental differences between men and women, I suppose trying to remove those obstacles, being in someone else’s place; understanding how they see it, and hoping that would remove problems in the relationship”.

The song has also reached number eight in the U.S. It reached thirty on its original release - making this chart position her highest position! The finale of season four of Stranger Things happens next month. I believe Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) features again. Bush herself is excited to see it - and I know fans of the show and her music will surge forward eagle-eared. I have cast doubts as to whether filmmakers are aware of Bush’s deeper cuts and why songs like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) are repeatedly used – the more obvious songs appear on film or in T.V. shows. I have thought harder and feel, actually, people might discover Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and then work their way through her catalogue. A new generation have found Kate Bush through a song that has made the news lately. This article talks about the story of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Rebecca Nicholson recently wrote about the track for The Guardian. U.S. artist Kim Petras has also just covered the song. You can look at the latest news about Kate Bush, and there is a raft of articles congratulating her on chart success, in addition to discussing why the Hounds of Love gem continues to shine and resonate. Everyone has their own opinions and views as to why the song keeps coming back and has this power. Maybe there are personal reason, though there is an objective truth about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God).

At its heart, the songs message about men and women swapping places to better understand one another is universal and irrefutably intriguing! Remarkably produced by Bush, with a chorus that is spine-tingling and singalong, there are so many layers and nuances to be found. Timeless and never subject to sounding dated, we have certainly not heard the last of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) on the screen. Maybe Bush will be less selective because of the song’s new chart potential, or she may feel the inclusion in Stranger Things is exposure enough. The requests will come in regardless! What happens next? Think about how the remixes and covers of the song. It has appeared on the screen and is frequently viewed and rated as one of Kate Bush’s defining songs. Overtaking Wuthering Heights as the most-streamed songs of hers on Spotify, we are now living in a year when Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is, perhaps, Bush most important song. One that blew people away in 1985 and has done again in 2022, there must be some tribute and representation of this history and continued achievement. Maybe there will be a new podcast about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Stranger Things. Taking things back to the creation of the song and it first appearing on Hounds of Love in 1985. It will be interesting to learn about the history of the track; discussions with artists and people who have been compelled by the song.

I also think that a book could be written about this one track. Going into depth regarding its story and origins, we could then move onto the way Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was received in 1985. Take things through the years and the way in the which the track has been played and reached new audiences. It could then come to 2022 and a new lease of life; going on to predict where else Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) will be used and how it might continue to influence and grow. Add to the mix a documentary about the song. That would also be welcomed and embraced. I think Kate Bush herself would be behind such projects. She would not provide interviews herself I don’t think, but it is clear she is touched about the Stranger Things inclusion and the chart success Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has acquired. Undoubtedly one of the most iconic songs ever written, there is a chance for writers, broadcasters and podcaster makers to come together and dissect and document the wonder and phenomenal popularity and love there is out there for the mesmeric Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). After Stranger Things and the way it has brought this song to new ears and discoverers of Bush’s work, I do wonder…

WHERE it appears next.

FEATURE: Inspired By: Part Sixty-Six: Frank Ocean

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Sixty-Six: Frank Ocean

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FOR the sixty-sixth…

part of this Inspired By…, I am also tying things into Pride Month. Happening all June, I wanted to highlight some Pride/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists. Frank Ocean is one of Hip-Hop’s true innovators and heroes. I am going to end with a playlist of songs from artists influenced by him. Before getting to that, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“Frank Ocean has been one of the more fascinating figures in contemporary music since his early-2010s arrival. A singer and songwriter whose artful output has defied rigid classification as R&B, he has nonetheless pushed that genre forward with seemingly offhanded yet imaginatively detailed narratives in which he has alternated between yearning romantic and easygoing braggart. Known first as a writer and Odd Future affiliate, Ocean made his solo debut with "Novacane" (2011), a single regarding a fling that could be read, in part, as a criticism of commercial radio, yet it found a home on mainstream urban playlists and went platinum. Despite further strained relations with music industry machinations, Channel Orange (2012), his first proper album, nearly crowned the Billboard 200 and made him a Grammy winner. When Ocean left the major-label system, his commercial clout was greater than ever, as demonstrated by the chart-topping success of Blonde (2016). His recordings since then amount to a short album's worth of singles including the platinum "Chanel" (2017) and the simultaneously-issued "Dear April" and "Cayendo" (2020).

Born Christopher Edwin Breaux in Long Beach, California, Ocean moved with his family to New Orleans, Louisiana at the age of five. The aspiring songwriter and singer had just moved into his dorm at the University of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. With his future under water, Ocean immediately left the academic life behind and moved to Los Angeles to give music a shot. He cut some demos at a friend's home studio, shopped them around town, and eventually landed a songwriting deal that led to work for Justin Bieber, John Legend, and Brandy. Some of this writing was done beside Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, a fellow songwriter and producer who convinced Ocean to sign a solo artist deal with Def Jam in late 2009. It was also around this time that Ocean met Odd Future and began writing for the crew while making guest appearances on their mixtapes.

In February 2011, as Odd Future were making waves, Ocean broke out on his own with the Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape, issued through his Tumblr blog. Later in the year, he appeared on Tyler, the Creator's Goblin ("She," "Window"), Beyoncé's 4 ("I Miss You"), and Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the Throne ("No Church in the Wild," "Made in America"). Def Jam's plan for the release of Nostalgia, Lite -- an EP-length version of the mixtape -- was scrapped, yet the songs "Novacane" (produced by Stewart) and "Swim Good" (MIDI Mafia) were released as singles with accompanying videos. The former reached number 17 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and eventually went platinum. The latter peaked at number 70. By the end of the year, several publications listed Nostalgia, Ultra as one of 2011's best releases.

Ocean proceeded with the making of his official debut album, working beside the likes of Malay, Om'Mas Keith, and Pharrell Williams as fellow producers. The LP, Channel Orange, was previewed for journalists at a handful of listening events. Some writers alleged that certain lyrics on the album revealed Ocean's bisexuality. Ocean subsequently published a screen shot of a TextEdit file (entitled "thank you's") that included details of a romantic relationship, his first love, with a man. On July 10, 2012, six days after the post, Channel Orange was released by Def Jam as a download. The CD version followed a week later. Along with featured appearances from Earl Sweatshirt, John Mayer, and André 3000, the album involved material about unrequited love, as well as class and drug dependency, all delivered with Ocean's descriptive storytelling and understated yet expressive vocals. Channel Orange received nearly universal critical acclaim and landed on the Billboard 200 chart at number two. Ocean was subsequently nominated in six Grammy categories, including three of the "big four" (Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Channel Orange took the award for Best Urban Contemporary Album, and Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" won Best Rap/Sung collaboration.

As Channel Orange was on its way to gold certification, Ocean began work on a follow-up. Various recording details were reported during those three years. Ocean dropped hints that led to much speculation. Meanwhile, he appeared on Beyoncé's self-titled album, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and James Blake's The Colour in Anything. In August 2016, a video of him building a staircase, accompanied by instrumentals, was streamed on his website. Later that month, he released Endless, a 45-minute visual album that featured additional construction footage and a stream of full-blown songs written primarily by Ocean alone. Jazmine Sullivan, Jonny Greenwood, and Blake were among the contributors to the new material. The following day, Ocean released the skeletal and sprawling Blonde for streaming. Copies of an Ocean-published magazine, distributed at pop-up locations, included a compact disc version with a shorter track list. A multi-genre festival's worth of "album contributors," ranging from many of his previous associates to the likes of David Bowie and Yung Lean, was listed in the pages of the publication. The album replaced Drake's Views at the top of the Billboard 200.

Beginning with the platinum "Chanel," Ocean issued a few singles across 2017, during which he also surfaced on Jay-Z's 4:44, Tyler, The Creator's Flower Boy, and Calvin Harris' Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 1. An update of Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer's "Moon River" followed in 2018. "DHL" and "In My Room" arrived in 2019. "Dear April" and "Cayendo" were offered together in 2020”.

To recognise the enormous influence of Frank Ocean, the playlist at  the end is a great collection of songs from artists who are definitely affected by him in some way. Spanning genres, I think Ocean will continue to be a huge force when it comes to impacting the next generation. This is my tip of the cap to…

A wonderful artist.

FEATURE: Maybe You're Lonely, and Only Want a Little Company: The Kate Bush Fanzine, HomeGround, at Forty: Could We See It Rise Again?

FEATURE:

 

Maybe You're Lonely, and Only Want a Little Company

The Kate Bush Fanzine, HomeGround, at Forty: Could We See It Rise Again?

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AFTER the recent…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982

mass of interest and success around Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) charting after appearing on Stranger Things – the song went to the top ten in the U.K, almost thirty-seven years since its original release -, I wanted to look ahead to a few anniversaries. One that occurred last month was the fortieth anniversary of the Kate Bush fanzine, HomeGround. Released in the same year as her remarkable fourth studio album, The Dreaming, it started life quite modestly. With articles and items pasted together and then photocopied and handed to a selection of fans, the fanzine/magazine grew in stature, relevance and size. I actually have two books chronicling HomeGround from 1982 through to its end in 2011. I think, as Bush has accrued new feats, records and a wave of fans since 2011, there will be an appetite and curiosity to see if HomeGround could reform in some way to commemorate the last decade or so - in addition to looking forward to new music and possibilities. Earlier in the year, Kate Bush News reported how fans can contribute to a special anniversary edition of HomeGround:

“In 1982, in the months leading up to the release of The Dreaming single, we first had the idea of making a Kate Bush fanzine. Over the following 30 years we put out 79 issues, full of news and information about Kate and her music and associated subjects, providing a platform for review and discussion of Kate’s work on a worldwide basis. On the way we also organised, with the official Kate Bush Club, the 1985, 1990, and 1994 fan Conventions, the 1986 Video Party, all of which Kate attended. We also organised the fan contribution to the video shoot for The Big Sky. We were asked to provide the chronology and discographies for the 1987 Kate Bush Complete music and lyric book from EMI Music Publishing, and the sleeve note for the 1997 EMI 100 remastered CD of Hounds of Love.

The last printed HomeGround magazine was published at the end of 2011 and rapidly sold out. It was followed in March 2014 by the hugely successful two-volume HomeGround Anthology, containing over 1,200 pages of material from all 79 issues.

In May 2022 it will be 40 years since the first issue of HomeGround, and we felt we should mark the occasion with a very special issue – issue 80. Our intention is to make this available as a free downloadable PDF enabling us to use full colour.

Just as no previous issue of HomeGround could have happened without contributions from Kate Bush fans around the globe this special issue cannot happen without your help.

We will be producing the familiar news and a special retrospective summary of the last ten years in the Kate Speaking world. What we need are other features, artwork, poetry, short “Letters to the Editor” and even For Sale, Wanted, and Personal Message ads, just as we always did.

Here are some ideas for articles: there’s the work Kate has done since 2012, the 2014 Before the Dawn live performances, the 2015 live album, the 2018 re-masters and The Other Sides, and the Record Shop Day specials. 40 years of The Dreaming. Last words on 50 Words for Snow and the animations. Tribute Bands and tribute gigs, cover versions and Kate songs on TV talent shows. Inspired fictional stories. Reviews and reactions to the many and various Kate related books now available. The trials and tribulations of collecting Kate material. Charts and facts. That day you met Kate. The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, tales of fan conventions and other Kate fan meet ups”.

It is amazing to think back to 1982 and this really important way to bond fans. I can imagine there was some form of fanzine or communication between fans about Kate Bush prior to 1982, but HomeGround was a way of joining fans through letters, photos, news and all manner of Kate Bush stuff. In a year when she released her most experimental and least commercial album to date, few people knew that a few years later she would release something like Hounds of Love. 1982 was a very exciting year to be a Kate Bush fan! Taking her music in a new direction, there must have been a lot of speculation about why The Dreaming sounded like it did and whether it signalled a permanent move into a music territory that she had not stepped into beforehand. If you want the books of HomeGround and a chance to see how it changed and grew through the years, then it is a must-own for every Kate Bush fan. The anniversary was actually on 18th May, but I wanted to mark it now, as it is a great achievement and project that was undertaken. Given the new fans that have discovered Bush’s music through HomeGround, it sort of renews my call for either a new fanzine or club that would unite generations. I know social media is a useful way to connect but, when you think of all the possible material and involvement in something like this, I reckon it would be a great success.

Maybe there could be digital editions that are compiled and fans can access, or there would be a regular Kate Bush fanzine or magazine printed. Maybe not every month, but there could be a twice-yearly edition that would be bumper and packed with news and contributions. Having celebrated their fortieth anniversary, I think it would be great to see HomeGround or a new project come to life. If you are wondering what the HomeGround refers to; Bush has a song on her second studio album, Lionheart (1978), called Coffee Homeground. An underrated track with some of her most fascinating and vivid lyrics, together with a composition that quickly took the sound of The Kick Inside (1978) in a new direction, it was a leap in terms of sonics and experimentation. I am pleased that the fanzine has honoured this song! Now that the dust is settling on the adulation of chart records Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has achieved, maybe a whole book will be written about the history of this song. Perhaps Bush will be made a dame this year. The Dreaming turns forty in September, whilst August marks forty-five years since her debut album, The Kick Inside, was recorded. There is endless chatter as to whether new music will also arrive – a perfect moment to get fans bonded through a physical or digital fanzine. A new fanzine would take its inspiration and guidance from…

THE incredible original.

FEATURE: Pride Month 2022: An L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

Pride Month 2022

IN THIS PHOTO: Hayley Kiyokjo/PHOTO CREDIT: Amanda Charchian 

An L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ Playlist

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AS we are well into Pride Month…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Bronski Beat/PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Prior/Redferns

I thought it was time to mark an important part of the calendar and mark it with some great L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists into a playlist. I have done this a few times before but, for every Pride Month, I do keep it updated and include some newer tracks. This is a combination of songs from legendary and established artists, in addition to some great acts to watch this year. I am hoping to put out another feature related to Pride Month and modern music. I think there are a lot of hotly-tipped L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists breaking through this year. It is an exciting and diverse wave of talent, many of whom have the promise and talent to remain for a very long time. An awesome selection of cuts from L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists, here are some incredible songs for…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Shamir

THIS Pride Month.

FEATURE: Groovelines: The Archies – Sugar, Sugar

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

The Archies – Sugar, Sugar

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THROUGH the course of musical history…

there have not been many cartoon or animated bands. Of course, Gorillaz are pretty well known and popular. They are definite pioneers. Looking further back, there have not been many examples. One can understand why. People do want a human face and, with a cartoon group, there is a lack of authenticity and this sense of them being a novelty. Among the great one-hit wonders, Sugar, Sugar by The Archies is among the very best. Written by Jeff Barry and Andy Kim, it reached number one in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1969. It there for four weeks. Originally released on the album, Everything's Archie, this album was recorded by a group of studio musicians managed by Don Kirshner. Ron Dante's lead vocals were accompanied by Toni Wine and songwriter Andy Kim. The song’s initial release was met with moderate chart success and acclaim. When the song was re-released in mid-July 1969, it achieved enormous success by the late summer/early autumn. I think it is a very summery and delightful song that scored high in the charts around the world. A massive-selling single that helped end the 1960s with a huge smile – at a time when bands like The Beatles were breaking up and there was uncertainty in the air -, it would be nice to think that there is going to be another song like this in the future. Even though it was released fifty-three years ago, Sugar, Sugar has lost none of its power. I have heard the song so many times, yet it remains so fresh and exciting. I know there are people who can’t stand the song.

I was interested reading Stereogum’s article about The Archies’ Sugar, Sugar. It is a track that is made really interesting because few people know about the group and those who wrote the song:

“Jeff Barry was a pop genius who, in the early ’60s, had co-written “Be My Baby” and “Then He Kissed Me” and “Chapel Of Love” and “Leader Of The Pack.” He co-wrote “Sugar, Sugar” with Andy Kim, a Lebanese-Canadian singer and songwriter who was on the way to a pretty decent run as a solo performer. Ron Dante, who sang the lead Archie part, was a former novelty-song guy who would go on to produce records for Barry Manilow and Pat Benatar. Toni White, who’d co-written “A Groovy Kind Of Love” for the Mindbenders, sang the Veronica part. Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry’s ex-wife who’d co-written most of those classic songs with him, also contributed. These were professional music-biz lifers who didn’t fit with the era’s excesses but who knew their way around a hook.

And “Sugar, Sugar” is a merciless hook machine. It’s a bright and shiny love song, aimed at actual toddlers, that tries to express nothing other than non-threatening warmth. And it hits that mark so hard. There’s an almost mechanical precision to the beat — bass, drums, handclaps, guitar-strums. The half-mocking keyboard riff on the chorus will remain in your head through any calamity that doesn’t kill you. And the song stabs away with its own scientifically calibrated power, building to a weirdly overwhelming crescendo.

Do people still get snobby about “Sugar, Sugar”? Probably not, right? A song like that does what rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to do. It fills you up and gives you weird little dopamine rushes, and then it lingers. Lester Bangs once called “Sugar, Sugar” “a rock & roll classic to which something like the Grateful Dead’s ‘Dark Star’ can’t hold a candle,” and Bangs also goaded Lou Reed into admitting that he wished he’d written it.

Does it matter that the Archies were not actual humans? I think it makes the whole stunt even more audacious. Nothing like “Sugar, Sugar” could happen now; the closest thing in recent memory, unless I’m forgetting something, is the fleeting success of Crazy Frog. If the Archies had been an art stunt, rather than a commerce stunt, we’d be talking about them in hushed tones. But it doesn’t matter what kind of stunt they were, since “Sugar, Sugar” still bangs”.

A song that I feel is much more than a novelty, one cannot listen to Sugar, Sugar without feeling lifted and happier. The sheer infectiousness of the track steers it away from cloying and too sweet territory. There is no doubt that the insatiable and sunny Sugar, Sugar…

A 1960s classic.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Melody's Echo Chamber – Melody's Echo Chamber

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Melody's Echo Chamber – Melody's Echo Chamber

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BECAUSE Melody’s Echo Chamber’s…

latest album, Emotional Eternal, came out in April and won some incredible reviews, I wanted to concentrate on the eponymous debut studio album by French musician Melody Prochet. It was released on 25th September, 2012 on Weird World Record Co and Fat Possum Records. A remarkable and beautiful album, I don’t think it got all the positivity it could have. I am going to finish with a couple of positive reviews for Melody’s Echo Chamber. Spine-tingling, otherworldly and dreamy, if you are not aware of the work of Melody’s Echo Chamber, then the eponymous debut is a great place to start. It is an album that definitely requires fresh ears and a new take. Brooklyn Vegan spoke with Melody Prochet in 2012 around the release of Melody’s Echo Chamber. I have selected bits of the interview; they provide detail and depth about a incredible album that everyone should know and listen to:

“Having previously fronted the more overtly pop My Bee's Garden and The Narcoleptic Dancers, Melody Prochet discovered dreampop, enlisted the help of Tame Impala's Kevin Parker (a busy man this year) to capture the sounds in her head, and Melody's Echo Chamber was born. Recorded at Parker's home studio in Perth, Australia, and at Melody's grandparents' seaside home in the South of France, the self titled album -- out September 25 via Fat Possum -- is a gorgeous headtrip. You can stream a couple cuts from it below.

I met Melody on a very rainy late July afternoon to talk about the new album, finding her sound and how she's going pull it off live. On the latter, NYC will find out in October when Melody's Echo Chamber open for The Raveonettes at Webster Hall.

BV: You had a couple bands before this, very different sound. What made the change?

Melody Prochet: I just grew up, really. I've always been writing songs, and the people you meet they influence you. It wasn't till I was 19 that I heard the kind of music I listen to now, so for many years it was a different style. I hadn't digested all these new things.

Was there a certain record or group you heard where you were like, "Yes! This is the kind of music I want to make!"?

A million different records. I'm a fan of so much stuff I wouldn't know where to start. I was listening to Debussy at the same time I was listening to Spiritualized or Red Krayola, so it came from all over.

How did you end up working with Kevin from Tame Impala?

Two years ago my old band My Bee's Garden supported Tame Impala in Europe. We got along and we shared a lot of songs and it just blossomed into collaboration. It started with just a couple songs but it was really easy to work together. Complimentary opposites.

You say it was easy, but as a listener it sounds very dense and layered, like a lot of work.

I wasn't hard to make, it was very organic and natural. Most of what you hear are first takes and we did the drum sounds in two seconds. We put mikes on a pile of bricks in the yard because we didn't have professional setups. It was a very natural process, making the record. But I know what you mean, the production is really cool. I'm obsessed with production, though I'm not really good at it yet myself. I have the vision, but I need magic hands to do it for me. This record was my dream sound. I've tried for years to get it but finally found the right hands to sculpt it.

Did you come in with songs or was it more born out of the studio?

I came in with songs and some basic recordings but it was messy. Kevin helped figure out what we could keep, how to organize that mess. I tend to write pretty and dreamy songs -- I studied classical music for 12 years -- but I was boring myself so Kevin helped destroy everything and put it back together, find the right balance. I think we did pretty well in that way.

You said you have a classical background. Did you play any on the album?

A little bit but I didn't have any good instruments. I just have this tiny viola. I tried but it didn't sound that good. It would need a big one. So that's my big goal for the next record is to do the string arrangements. Or at least put them through a lot of crazy effects.

The vocals on the album... they were recorded in France, at your grandmother's house?

Yeah at this house on the beach in the French Riviera which is heaven on earth. Not in summer when everybody is on holiday there, but in the Spring. But the house is being sold right now, it's pretty sad, so I had to go there to do it, one last time. I also needed the isolation. I'm so self conscious, singing in a room with people”.

I want to end up with a couple of reviews for the wonderful Melody’s Echo Chamber. It is coming up for its tenth anniversary. Displaying the clear and stunning talent of Melody Prochet, this is an album that you need to hear. This is what AllMusic wrote about Melody’s Echo Chamber:

“The name Melody's Echo Chamber doesn't particularly roll off the tongue, but it does a fine job of preparing you for what you're going to hear on their self-titled album. Melody is Melody Prochet, the songwriter/singer behind the band, true, but the record is also coated in layer after layer of sweetly sung melodies -- "Echo Chamber" thanks to the homespun weirdness of Tame Impala's Kevin Parker and his effects-drenched, very echoey production. Cute tricks with their name aside, what Prochet and Parker have come up with here is music that follows in the tradition of art pop groups like Broadcast and Stereolab, borrowing their use of sound and structure to give their ultra-catchy songs loads of sonic depth and texture. Every song on Melody's Echo Chamber plays with sound and space, sometimes stripping things back and leaving space between the instruments, sometimes covering everything with a heavy blanket of reverb and fuzz. Parker is a whiz at each approach and his drum sounds are absolutely perfect throughout. Within the shifting arrangements and sounds, there is the consistent sound of Prochet's light and breezy voice. Even though it sometimes feels like she could drift away in a light wind, she anchors the songs with simple and direct vocal melodies that keep the songs out of the realm of mere experiments with sound. Even the trickiest tunes, like the bossa nova-space pop hybrid "Quand Vas Tu Rentrer?" and the uneasy listening "Snowcapped Andes Crash" (on which the duo gets extremely trippy) are tethered by her voice. The combination of Parker's inspired production, Prochet's lovely singing and evocative songwriting, and the perfect balance the duo strikes between pop and art makes Melody's Echo Chamber a rather stunning debut”.

NME provided a very positive and interesting take on Melody’s Echo Chamber. I did not experience the album in 2012. It is one that I discovered and listened to first relatively recently:

“Welcome to the court of 2012’s psychedelic king and queen. As the leader of Tame Impala and sometime contributor to Pond, The Dee Dee Dums, Mink Mussel Creek and other Perth-based bands, Kevin Parker has installed himself as this generation’s retro-psych regent by playing a brand of ’60s psychedelia most had given up for dead.

Now he’d like you to meet his girlfriend, Melody Prochet – a classically trained musician from the French countryside who moved to Paris, discovered rock music and, as the cosmos dictated, got talking to Parker backstage at a Tame show. Soon enough she was in Australia, unfurling her diabetically sweet melodies in Parker’s personal studio.

But while Tame’s bejewelled new record ‘Lonerism’ had a specific date-line in mind – summer 1966, The Beatles making the transition from ‘Rain’ to ‘Revolver’ – Melody’s Echo Chamber is less bound by big names. It’s in thrall to the past, sure, but to lesser-known music like Pentangle and Comus; to stuff that occupies the forever-French hinterland between musique concrète, Serge Gainsbourg’s thing, jazz and Muzak. The stuff that Stereolab brought back into the Anglo-Saxon world in the ’90s; ideas that Broadcast ran with.

When Melody’s light-saturated first single ‘Crystallized’ rolled into our Twitter feeds back in March, it was easy to dismiss the shimmery-shiny song as standard blog-bait. But ‘Melody’s Echo Chamber’ manages to create something just as dark as it is light.

‘Snowcapped Andes Crash’ not only has a title that could’ve fallen off the back of Radiohead’s ‘Amnesiac’, it also pushes Melody’s stilted, reverb-caked guitar arpeggios towards ‘Knives Out’ territory, before breaking back towards the safety of the Cocteau Twins. ‘Quand Vas Tu Renter?’ takes the bizarre keyboard tone childhood Casio users will recognise as ‘dog bark’ and pushes it into an uneasy clinch with spy jazz. Then, if things start to drift off into the lazy, stoner-y drone that Tame Impala fans will know only too well, she isn’t afraid to try something weird to snap out of it. ‘IsThatWhatYouSaid’, for instance: a backwards-tracking squall that’s like flying an aeroplane through a flock of guitars.

What it all adds up to isn’t big-push psych loonycakes like The Flaming Lips, but something more subtly disorienting. The

‘echo chamber’ name comes from Melody sitting in her bedroom, making a sort of den, and blurting out her tunes to no-one but a hard drive. It’s that sense of intruding on a private moment that Parker and Prochet have managed to retain. After all, here are two people who already see the best in each other, and with ‘Melody’s Echo Chamber’ they’ve tried to make everyone else see it too. It shows”.

Go and listen to the remarkable Melody’s Echo Chamber if you are not aware of the album. With Prochet putting out the third studio album, Emotional Eternal, this year, let’s hope there is a lot more to come from her. There were some very warm reviews for Melody’s Echo Chamber - but some were not entirely convinced. It does require more airplay and affection. Very shortly into the opening track its true beauty and strength…

WILL be revealed.

FEATURE: I'm the Replacement for Your Part: Kate Bush: The Horror Collection

FEATURE:

I'm the Replacement for Your Part

PHOTO CREDIT: Fotex/REX 

Kate Bush: The Horror Collection

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I have written about…

 IMAGE CREDIT: iniminiemoo

Kate Bush and her fascination with suspense and horror. Rather than retread, I wanted to take a slightly different approach. This is going to be the final feature in a run around the inclusion of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) being included in the Netflix series, Stranger Things. Earning much huge chart success and records, she has been thrust firmly back into the spotlight because of it! Although her Hounds of Love superhit is not horror-themed, it was used prominently in a series that has a darker, scarier tone. I have raised it before, but I think that there will be people looking around and thinking which Kate Bush songs could feature next. She is not going to throw open the doors and grant permission to anyone wanting to use her music in film or T.V. Whereas most would assume that Bush’s music is best used in romantic comedy, I think her catalogue is ideally suited to series and films that are more psychological or have a shadowy vibe. Apart from obvious songs that have yet to be used for suspense and horror films – I am thinking about Hammer Horror (Lionheart) and Get Out of My House (The Dreaming) – there are other songs on Hounds of Love people do not think about. But, like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), it would resonate with a wider audience. Mother Stands for Comfort, Under Ice, Waking the Witch and Watching You Without Me are songs that would perfectly elevate and score remarkable scenes. Another great song that is long-overdue a feature in a horror or psychological drama is Experiment IV (a single from her 1986 greatest hits album, The Whole Story). Thinking about it, most of Hounds of Love, nearly every track from the album could be used in some form or other in a psychological drama or horror.

Whereas a lot of people will focus solely on Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and that song is going to get a lot of covers and new coverage, there are a load of Kate Bush songs that, if she is willing, could be used in similar series to Stranger Things. From The Kick Inside’s title track and Wuthering Heights, through to Lily from The Red Shoes, there are songs of Kate Bush that would earn new merit and focus. Not to suggest that now Stranger Things has created history for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) everyone should jump in! I have seen people on Twitter highlight a selection of Kate Bush songs that are either not well-known and played or they are definitely prime for some screen time. What the Stranger Things experience has proven is that Bush’s music, regardless of tone, theme and sound, has the potential to mesmerise if paired with the right actors and visuals. If exposure on big series and films is a way for the new generation to find her and others to be reminded how brilliant she is, then it would be a good thing to have more Bush music on the screen. Although Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has not been officially re-released as a single, it has topped charts and earned Bush records. An artist who has been a chart success since the 1970s, ample proof that love and support for her music spans the generations.

The innate cinematic and filmic resonance of Bush’s music has been evident since her debut single, Wuthering Heights. Though inspired by the Emily Brontë novel, it was a T.V. adaptation that influenced Bush to write the song. Get Out of My House was compelled by Bush reading the Stephen King novel, The Shining - and yet it has not been used in a film of that sort. There are so many missed opportunities and gaps. It is about moderation. Rather than flooding Bush with requests to use her music for anything – which could lead her to reject everything -, series and films are going to be written with her music in mind. Some classic, underrated and deeper cuts would prove as potent and popular as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) on Stranger Things. I shall not write about the subject again, as I have others in mind. Looking ahead to the rest of this year and the future, I believe we will see Kate Bush feature more on the screen. She was involved quite intently on ensuring that Stranger Things’ use of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was just right. If further requests come through and she is keen, she will also be quite involved again. Maybe this new love and attention of her older music will translate to new music perhaps. For now, it is nice to recognise the ever-awesome and genius Kate Bush as the…

QUEEN of the screen.

FEATURE: David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at Fifty: The Iconic Musician’s Greatest Album?

FEATURE:

 

 

 David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars at Fifty

The Iconic Musician’s Greatest Album?

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THERE is definitely a case to be made…

 IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: Masayoshi Sukita

that The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is David Bowie’s greatest album. Released on 16th June, 1972, it turns fifty very soon. I have written about it before, but I have been looking through the tracks and it acts almost like a greatest hits collection! Certainly, there are four of five of Bowie’s best songs on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Reappraised as one of the most important and influential albums ever, the album also has one of the strongest side ones ever. With Five Years, Moonage Daydream and Starman in the first side, the second has Lady Stardust, Suffragette City and Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide! At the start of a run of albums that ranks alongside the greatest ever, maybe embodying the persona of Ziggy gave Bowie license when it came to the songs. There is something to be said about how a persona or identity can inspire musicians to write in a way they would not have if they were writing as their ‘normal self’. Although there is much debate, I feel The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is definitely high up on the list. If you disagree about whether or not it is Bowie’s best album, you cannot deny its iconic and influential status! This Wikipedia article talks about the legacy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars:

“Ziggy Stardust is widely considered to be Bowie's breakthrough album. Although Pegg believes Ziggy Stardust wasn't Bowie's greatest work, he states that it had the biggest cultural impact of all his records. Trynka states that besides the music itself, the album "works overall as a drama that demands suspension of disbelief", making each listener a member of Ziggy's audience. He believes that decades later, "it's a thrill to be a part of the action."

In retrospectives for The Independent and Record Collector, Barney Hoskyns and Mark Paytress, respectively, noted that unlike Marc Bolan, who became a star a year before Bowie and influenced his glam persona of Ziggy Stardust, was unable to stay in a position of stardom in the long run due to a lack of adaptability. Bowie, on the other hand, made change a theme of his entire career, progressing through the 1970s with different musical genres, from the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke of Station to Station (1976). Hoskyns argued that through the Ziggy persona, Bowie "took glam rock to places that the Sweet only had nightmares about". Ultimate Classic Rock's Dave Swanson stated that as the public were adapting to glam, Bowie decided to move on, abandoning the persona within two years. Writing on Bowie's influence on the glam rock genre as a whole, Joe Lynch of Billboard called both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane records that "ensured his long-term career and infamy". He argues that both albums "transcended" the genre, are "works of art", and are not just "glam classics", but "rock classics". In 2002, Chris Jones of BBC Music argued that with the album, Bowie fashioned the template for the "truly modern pop star" that had yet to be matched”.

Every track on the album has its worthy and important place. Threads, layers and stories of this epic and amazing opus, Far Out Magazine ranked the songs on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars last year. I think Bowie’s fifth studio album is not only among his very best. It is one of the greatest albums ever released. Rolling Stone asked its readers in 2013 which Bowie album was the best. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars claimed the top spot:

“The world has just five years left and it seems like there is no hope, but suddenly an alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust enters the body of a man and offers us salvation in our dying days. Sadly, he "took it all too far" and wound up killing himself in a "Rock and Roll Suicide." It's a story that virtually nobody has ever bothered to follow, but that hardly matters. The songs on Ziggy Stardust represent the high point of the entire glam movement. Also, Bowie was reborn onstage as Ziggy Stardust, providing a much-needed rock star in an otherwise bleak music landscape. Even better, parents hated him. Bowie has had bigger hits and more acclaimed albums, but never in his career did he seem quite as important or refreshing. This is the Bowie album that will be in the history books”.

It is interesting how various journalists react to the album and the tracks. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars changed everything that came after it. I hope that the fiftieth anniversary of this masterpiece gets people thinking and debating. My favourite album from Bowie is Station to Station though, oddly, I think The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is technically his best! From the imagery and persona of Ziggy Stardust to the sheer quality of the songs, together with the production from Bowie and Ken Scott, this is a historically important album. This is what SLANT said in 2004 about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars:

“Trying to imagine popular culture without the influence of David Bowie’s copper-headed prefab rock star alien is practically impossible (or at least a lot less interesting) but the aspect of Bowie’s breakthrough album and the resulting phenomenon that usually gets overlooked is the music itself. Like Marilyn Manson’s music today (though he’s yet to come up with anything as insidiously catchy as “Hang On To Yourself,” but give him time), Bowie’s contributions to the pop music lexicon have been overshadowed by the eye shadow of his characters. Unlike some of the lesser glam acts that followed in Bowie’s platformed footsteps, the tunes on The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, somewhat loosely held together by the concept of the Earthbound exploits of the interplanetary rock star, strangely avoid the trap of being so much dated, post-hippie nonsense.

Kicking off with the ‘50s-styled opener “Five Years,” then setting off on slinkier, more soulful territory with “Soul Love,” Bowie and band (featuring gardener-turned-guitar hero Mick Ronson) establish early on that the album could almost serve as a travelogue of the history of pop music, as seen through the eyes of both the alien protagonist and his adoring fans. You’ve got the unbridled rock ‘n’ roll hysteria of “Suffragette City” (all together now: “Wham bam, thank you ma’am!”) and “Star,” which is delivered with a no-nonsense, workmanlike sensibility by the Spiders while being carried over the top by Bowie’s amped-up croon. There’s the trippy frippery of “Moonage Daydream,” resplendent in early ‘70s hallucinatory imagery (“squawking like a big monkey bird,” indeed) and wigged out leads courtesy of Ronson and producer Ken Scott (who never really seemed to receive as much credit in shaping the sounds of Bowie’s early output as Tony Visconti would on later albums). And of course, there’s the big single: the saccharine-sweet “Starman” being the most overtly pop of the album’s 11 tracks, replete with swirly strings, cosmically-conscious lyrics and a chorus that still, some 32 years later, gets arms aloft during Bowie’s current stadium romps.

Bowie was always partial to the pomp side of pop, especially in the early phases of his recording career, and Ziggy Stardust carried all the drama of a Shakespearean play (as seen on acid, of course). “Lady Stardust” is a love song addressed to both the androgynous astro-rocker and to rock ‘n’ roll itself, with its lilting piano motif married to a stadium-sized chorus. And with the title track we have the ultimate glam rock (hell, the ultimate rock anthem), with a riff that would provide air guitarists decades of enjoyment accompanying the tale of the wayward rocker from Planet X, capped off with the dramatic tag that would become the alien’s epitaph: “And Ziggy plaaaaaayyyed…guitar!”

Still, a pop masterpiece is nothing without a killer final act, and it’s with “Rock & Roll Suicide” that Bowie draws the Ziggy saga to a close. Like the album opener, it has the innate heartrending properties of weepy, wall-of-sound shrouded pop classics of a bygone era, married to a message of the redemptive power of rock ‘n’ roll: “You’re not alone!” shrieks Bowie, shouting from some rooftop that exists in the mind’s eye of the listener, staving off the mundane of the everyday with an exhortation to give him our hands, and to follow his lead. And as Ronson tears off another lighter-waving lead and the strings swell to a final, definitive stroke, you’re sent reeling, as if you’ve made the journey back to Earth from some far-flung intergalactic locale, previously visited only in dreams. Truly timeless pop—truly timeless art in general—is transformative; you emerge somewhat different after experiencing it. And in giving in to his own imagination and creating his own world, Bowie changed ours immeasurably, and for that many a pop fan should be eternally grateful”.

It is so sad that Bowie is not around to toast and reminisce about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars fifty years later (the legend died in 2016). Although he adopted other personas and guises through his long career, I don’t think he managed to create a character as compelling as Ziggy Stardust! I think Bowie was at a real creative peek in 1971 and 1972. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a remarkable and utterly timeless work of brilliance that will shine, inspire and survive strong…

THROUGH the rest of time.

FEATURE: Kate Bush in June 1977: A Beautiful Calm Before a Debut Album Storm

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush in June 1977

A Beautiful Calm Before a Debut Album Storm

 __________

I am going to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

put out a series of features marking Kate Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, turning forty-five through the next couple of months. Although it was released in February 1978, the recording of its was completed in August 1977 (it began in around July of that year). I will also put together proper anniversary features early next year. As it is June 2022, I want to look back forty-five years for this one feature – and I will steer away from this time period for future Kate Bush features. With buzz around her still because of the big role Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has played in Stranger Things – Bush herself has been working with the show and seems to be fully onboard with the track being used so heavily -, it is good to sort of take things back to a simpler, quieter time. It is great that, as we speak, Kate Bush’s music is being talked about so fervently. New fans are ensuring that one of her best songs is storming the download charts and putting her firmly in the spotlight! I wonder what will happen after Stranger Things’ new season ends and there is a fading away of attention on Bush’s musical inclusion on the series. There are anniversary celebrations and other stuff that will happen later in the year. I predict that the spotlighting of her most famous song will compel Bush to release new music – whether that is this year or next. I want to think about June 1977. Bush was not going fresh into The Kick Inside in July/August. A couple of the songs from the album had already been recorded in 1975 (they were The Man with the Child in His Eyes and The Saxophone Song).

A lot of June was dedicated to gigs with the KT Bush Band. Between March and June, the band (comprising Kate Bush, Del Palmer, Vic King and Brian Bath) played about twenty gigs around and near London. Playing their final gig at The White Elephant Club in Mayfair as an EMI showcase, it was decided that Bush was ready to head into the studio. I guess that is the main focus of June 1977. It is amazing to think that, twenty-five years ago, Bush was playing small pubs to a crowd who had no idea what was about to happen! Playing songs that would appear on The Kick Inside – including James and the Cold Gun and Oh to Be in Love -, this was invaluable live experience and exposure for Kate Bush. I did not only want to mention again the performances of the KT Bush Band. In a previous fracture where I mentioned how June 1977 was the final month the KT Bush Band performed, I was not aware of the later gigs. More than anything, June 1977 marked a time when this young woman (who was only eighteen) was embarking on an unpredictable career. Whilst some of her same-aged friends might have been heading to university, she was in the earliest stages of her career. Of course, she already had a record deal, and we knew that a debut album was coming. Bush was still finalising and thinking about the songs that would appear on The Kick Inside. Before she could head to AIR Studios for several weeks or exciting recording and taking those big steps, she would have been unaware of how her career would take off.

The dates vary, but Bush was called to come to the studio in August 1977 (though some say July). In March of 1977, she wrote Wuthering Heights (a late addition to the album, as the other songs were more or less written before that). By September of 1977, she was battling EMI to have that song released as the first single from the album (they favoured the more conventional James and the Cold Gun). In the space of a couple of months, Kate Bush was thrust into the thick of things! Therefore, June 1977 feels like one of the most important months in Kate Bush’s career. She was excited about performing these small gigs, and I wonder what life was like at her family home. At East Wickham Farm, I get the sense her parents would have been a bit worried but also very proud. Seeing their daughter embark on a music career would have stirred a mixture of emotions. There would have been discussions about what she has been up to and gigs ahead. Songs coming together and plans for her debut album. Maybe concern that, in spite of her undeniable talent, things might not explode straight away or work out long-term. I am fascinating getting a sense of what things were like with the KT Bush Band, her thinking about making her album, EMI watching their protegee blossoming, her day-to-day life, and what she did when unwinding.

1978 was a manic year for promotion, so 1977 seems like a time more reserved to creating music and preparing the groundwork. June and July 1977 was a time of gaining live experience, working on album songs (maybe honing them a little) and thinking about the future. I know that Bush was excited about her debut album and doing something she had dreamt about since she was a child. Thinking about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and what her career was like in 1985 – busy; successful; at a peak – made me want to glance back forty-five years to 1977. It was only a short time before Bush and the band started recording The Kick Inside with producer Andrew Powell. I am going to do a short series of features around her debut in July and August. There is something almost romantic and calm about June 1977 in Kate Bush’s world. Some gigs here and there, but time for her to concentrate on her album and not being too overwhelmed. That would all change soon enough! Forty-five years ago, the world was witnessing…

A star being born.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Oliver Sim

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

Oliver Sim

__________

PRIOR to the release of his album…

Hideous Bastard in September, I wanted to shine a light on the magnificent Oliver Sim. Go and pre-order his album, as it is a self-confessional journey of fear and shame inspired by the queer horror films he loves. Oliver is joined by Jamie xx, who produces Hideous Bastard with an elegant touch, and Jimmy Somerville. It is going to be one of the best albums of this year. There are a couple of interviews that I want to source, just so that we can learn more about Sim. I know him best as a member of The xx alongside Romy Madley Croft and Jamie xx. Last month, Sim shared the hugely potent and personal track, Hideous. NME reported news of the incredible Oliver Sim putting out a song that everybody needs to hear:

“Oliver Sim has shared his new single ‘Hideous’, which addresses the xx musician’s diagnosis with HIV at the age of 17.

The track is the latest preview of Sim’s newly announced debut solo album ‘Hideous Bastard’, which has been produced by Jamie xx and is set for release on September 9 via Young.

Sim has today (May 23) shared ‘Hideous’, which features Bronski Beat and The Communards’ Jimmy Somerville on guest vocals. It’s also been accompanied by a new Yann Gonzalez-directed video, which you can see below.

In a note accompanying its release, Sim explained that ‘Hideous’ explores his experience of living with HIV.

“Early on in the making of my record, ‘Hideous Bastard’, I realised that I was writing a lot about fear and shame,” Sim wrote. “I imagine that might paint a picture of a dark, ‘woe is me’-sounding album, but in recent years I’ve become a firm believer that the best antidote to these feelings can be bringing them to the surface and shedding some light on them.

“I haven’t written the record to dwell, but rather to free myself of some of the shame and fear that I’ve felt for a long time. So, I hear a lot of the music as joyous, because the experience of writing and recording it has been the complete opposite of what fear and shame have been for me.”

Sim continued: “Two thirds in, having a good idea of what the record was about, I realised I’d been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.

“So, quite impulsively, I wrote about it on a song called ‘Hideous’. I thought I could release it into the world and be done with it. After playing the song to my mum, being the protective and wise mum that she is, she gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. She suggested that I spend some time having conversations with people in my life first. Either people I hadn’t told yet, or people I had told but hadn’t wanted to talk much further on it. Since writing ‘Hideous’, I’ve spent the past two years having those conversations, which was difficult and uncomfortable to start with, but has allowed me to feel a lot freer and has only strengthened my relationship with myself and with the people in my life”.

I want to finish off with a terrific interview and profile from The New York Times. It was published to publicise the forthcoming release of Hideous Bastard. It is a fascinating article that paints the picture of a hugely strong young man. Sim talks about writing about his H.I.V. positive status:

“Sim’s vocals on “Hideous Bastard” are flinty and melismatic. The lyrics are wry and heartbreaking. “A lot of the sense of humor is very British,” he said. “To me, starting a song with ‘I’m ugly’ is hilarious.”

Oliver Sim is far from ugly in any conventional sense of the word. He is tall and slim, with gigantic amber-colored eyes that he says turn a bit green when he cries. On an April afternoon, he sported baggy khakis and a fresh tan courtesy of a weekend watching his bandmate Jamie xx at Coachella. Something darker lurked beneath his blue-and-white-striped button-down: a T-shirt emblazoned with “Buffalo Bill’s Body Lotion,” an allusion to the serial killer in the film “The Silence of the Lambs.”

“Hideous,” a mid-tempo pop song with moody and lush orchestration, opens the album, and its final verse packs a wallop: “Been living with H.I.V. since age 17, am I hideous?”

Those lyrics are true. Oliver Sim has been living with H.I.V. for 15 years. Many of his friends and family were aware of that fact, but this is the first time he’s chosen to discuss his status in public.

“I wrote that song knowing that a lot of this record had to do with shame and fear and I knew I was dancing around something that causes me the most shame,” he said.

Sim said he was inspired by musicians like John Grant and Mykki Blanco, who make challenging and nuanced work and are also open about their H.I.V. positive status. “For me, this is the opposite of shame,” Sim continued. “If I were deepest in shame I would have made a record not talking about any of this stuff.”

When Sim first wrote “Hideous,” he played it for his mother. “She gave me a great piece of advice,” he recalled. “She was like, ‘How about you have some conversations before you do this?’”.

“The stigma associated with H.I.V. made a lasting impact on him. “It started to marry itself with my sexuality,” he said. “As if sex itself was something that was destructive or dangerous or shameful.”

“And I think I wanted to pull that apart, to separate those two,” he added, referring to his new album. But Sim stressed that H.I.V. is only one part of the story he’s telling on “Hideous Bastard.”

“This record isn’t about H.I.V.,” he said. “I’m not naïve, I know it’s going to be talked about and it will be a defining part of it, but that’s not how I see this record. It’s about shame, it’s about fear and it’s celebratory.”

After the cemetery, Sim wanted ice cream. His publicist knew a great place in Los Feliz that offered flavors like biscuits and jam and everything bagel. Before entering the shop, Sim lit a cigarette and waxed about Jamie Lee Curtis. “I think I wanted to be her: angry and sexy,” he said.

Sim doesn’t come across as angry. He also doesn’t come across as morose or withdrawn, as he has frequently been described in the past. In person, he was quick to laugh and easy to talk to. As we rode around Los Angeles, he dished about a recent date, sang along to “Together Again” by Janet Jackson and professed his love for the reality TV show “Selling Sunset.”

“I don’t think I’m the shy, awkward person that’s maybe been written about or portrayed,” he said, tapping a cigarette. The pandemic also made him realize that he wasn’t quite the introvert he had always thought himself to be”.

I will wrap things up now. Go and pre-order Hideous Bastard if you can. Oliver Sim is so compelling as a person and songwriting. This all goes into his amazing work. I am looking forward to seeing how his solo album is received, in addition to where The xx go next and whether they are going to put out another album. The remarkable Oliver Sim is…

A major talent.

_____________

Follow Oliver Sim

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

Official:

https://oliver-sim.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/hideousbastard/

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KDu9uqzqseVCpQXMa8Pvm

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ZVyrGJBZrvtyFSMqfnWkg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/oliversimofficial/

FEATURE: Three Years on From Madame X… What Next for Madonna?

FEATURE:

 

Three Years on From Madame X…

What Next for Madonna?

__________

ON 14th June…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna onstage during the 2019 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on 1st May, 2019 in Las Vegas/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for dcp

it will be three years since Madonna released her latest and fourteenth studio album, Madame X. This year is not exactly going to be quiet for her! I think the biopic she is directing is moving along. As I suspected, Julia Garner has been offered the titular role. Erotica turns fifty later in the year, and I suspect that Madonna will be involved in some anniversary commemoration of a reissue of the album. 50 Number Ones is the new remix album. There is a lot going on in her world. Also later this year, her debut single, Everybody, turns forty. Even though there are no immediate plans to follow Madame X, I think fans will be looking the way of new music. Madonna did tour the album before the pandemic, but she suffered from injury and setbacks. Whether she is going to look more to live work rather than new music, I am not too sure. Madame X was an album that put Madonna back on the critical radar. Not that her previous albums were poorly received but, since 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, her albums have got mixed reaction. Madame X was a lot more positively received. Madame X, an alter-ego her album is named after, is also the title of a 1908 play written by Alexandre Bisson. It was great seeing Madonna embody another alter ego. Like Erotica and Mistress Dita, this was a chance for her to make a more conceptual album. Featuring some of her best modern-day singles – Crave and I Rise among them -, I get the sense that we may hear more from her soon.

There was definitely a lot of love from fans when Madame X came out in 2019. Madonna was sixty when the album was released. It is testament to her endurance and sense of reinvention that she managed to put out an album that showed that she was still one of the greatest Pop artists in the world. This is what AllMusic said in their review:

“Madame X is the rare album from a veteran artist that puts earlier records in a different light. Ever since the 1980s, the conventional wisdom about Madonna claimed she brought trends from the musical underground for the purpose of pop hits, but Madame X -- a defiantly dense album that has little to do with pop, at least in the standard American sense -- emphasizes the artistic instincts behind these moves. The shift in perception stems from Madonna embracing a world outside of the United States. While she's been an international superstar since the dawn of her career, Madonna relocated to Lisbon, Portugal in 2017, a move that occurred two years after Rebel Heart -- an ambitious record balanced between revivals of old styles and new sounds -- failed to burn up any Billboard chart outside of Dance singles. These two developments fuel Madame X, an album that treats America as a secondary concern at best. Madonna may address the political and social unrest that's swept across the globe during the latter years of the 2010s, but her commentary is purposely broad. Perhaps Madonna errs on the side of being a little bit too broad -- on "Killers Who Are Partying," she paints herself as a martyr for every oppressed voice in the world -- yet this instinct to look outside of her experience leads her to ground Madame X in various strains of Latinx sounds, trap, and art-pop, music that not only doesn't sound much like the American pop charts in 2019, but requires focused attention in a manner that makes the songs not especially friendly to playlisting.

Madame X has its share of colorful neo-disco numbers and shimmering chill-out tracks, but they're painted in dark hues, and they're surrounded by songs so closely cloistered, they can play like mini-suites. Case in point is "Dark Ballet," an ominous number that descends into a sinister, robotic rendition of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Reed Flutes" section from The Nutcracker -- an allusion that recalls not the future, but the dystopian horror show of A Clockwork Orange. Such darkness hangs heavy over Madame X, surfacing fiercely in the clenched-mouth phrasing on "God Control," but present even on the bobbing reggae of "Future." The murk does lift on occasion -- "Come Alive" gains levity from its clustered polyrhythms -- but the somber tenor when combined with fearless exploration does mean Madame X can be demanding listening. The rhythms are immediate but the songs aren't, nor are the opaque productions. While this thick, heady confluence of cultures and sounds may demand concentration, Madame X not only amply rewards such close listening, but its daring embrace of the world outside the U.S. underscores how Madonna has been an advocate and ally for left-of-mainstream sounds and ideas throughout her career”.

Before coming to a bit of a round-up, I want to source some of SLANT’s review of Madame X. A terrific release from Madonna, this was an artist with a new lease of life, taking her undeniably great music to new places:

“Of course, Madonna has never been your average pop star. Though her music has deep roots in R&B and disco, she is, at heart, a rock auteur, with all of the inclinations toward upending the status quo and expressing a singular vision that designation implies. Her last album, 2015’s Rebel Heart, was designed by committee, while its predecessor, MDNA, was recorded during a period when she seemed more interested in directing movies and extending her brand than making music. So it makes sense that when she decided to forgo songwriting camps and aspirations of a late-career radio hit for her 14th album, Madame X, Madonna turned to French producer Mirwais, her primary collaborator on American Life.

In other words, Madame X sounds like the work of an artist reawakened, and one who’s got something to say. It’s a development reportedly inspired by her time in Lisbon, where she was surrounded by musicians and art in a way she hadn’t been since her pre-fame days in the East Village. The influence of Lisbon’s multicultural history can be heard on tracks like the fado-meets-Motown “Crazy”—co-produced by Mike Dean, the album’s other principal knob-twirler—and the polyrhythmic “Batuka,” featuring Afro-Portuguese group Orquestra de Batukadeiras.

Madame X plays like a musical memoir, sometimes literally: “I came from the Midwest/Then I went to the Far East/I tried to discover my own identity,” Madonna sings on the Eastern-inflected “Extreme Occident,” referencing her rise to fame and spiritual awakening, famously documented on her 1998 album Ray of Light. A multi-part suite that shifts abruptly from electro-pop dirge to classical ballet and back again, “Dark Ballet” is a Kafkaesque treatise on faith and her lifelong crusade against the patriarchal forces of religion, gender, and celebrity—an existential battle echoed in the Jean-Paul Sartre-quoting closing track “I Rise.”

The album’s autobiography is also conveyed sonically: It’s a thrill to hear Madonna singing over a ‘90s house beat on the smoldering “I Don’t Search I Find.” But despite its ballroom strings, finger-snaps, and throaty spoken-word bridge, comparing it to “Vogue” or “Erotica” would be too easy. This isn’t a song so much as a mood. It’s downstairs music, the distant bassline rumbling beneath your feet as you slip into a bathroom stall for a quick bump or fuck.

Madonna has a reputation for being a trendsetter, but her true talent lies in bending those trends to her will, twisting them around until they’re barely recognizable, and creating something entirely new. The album’s pièce de résistance, at least in that regard, is the six-minute “God Control,” which begins with Madonna conjuring the spirit and disaffected monotone of Kurt Cobain—“I think I understand why people get a gun/I think I understand why we all give up,” she sings through clenched teeth—before the whole thing implodes into a euphoric, densely layered samba-disco-gospel mash-up. Throughout the song, Madonna’s vocals alternate between Auto-Tuned belting, urgent whispers, and Tom Tom Club-style rapping as she takes on the gaslight industrial complex and so-called political reformers. On paper, it might sound like the ingredients for a musical Hindenburg, but—somewhere around the midpoint, when she declares, “It’s a con, it’s a hustle, it’s a weird kind of energy!”—it all coheres into the most exhilaratingly batshit thing she’s done in years.

If, metaphorically, Madame X represents Madonna’s rediscovery of her voice as an artist, then it also highlights the literal loss of it. Over the years, the soft edges of her voice have grown sharper, and the album’s pervasive vocal effects—most gratuitous on the electro-ragga “Future” and, to a lesser degree, the haunting “Looking for Mercy”—have a distancing effect. The heavy Auto-Tune on Music and American Life was deployed in service of larger conceptual themes like imperfection (“Nobody’s Perfect”) and anonymity (“Nobody Knows Me”), contrasted by the bare performances of more confessional songs like “Easy Ride.” Here, filters are indiscriminately thrown on nearly every song, which only serves to obscure Madonna’s humanity. On “Medéllin,” for example, her admission that “For once, I didn’t have to hide myself” is pointlessly cloaked in Auto-Tune, keeping us at a remove”.

Even though the rest of 2022 is going to be busy, I feel there is this swell of curiosity and demand for new Madonna music. There have been remixes and hook-ups since 2019, though not a lot in terms of solo material that indicates where she might head next. Maybe she will return to her 1980s and 1990s sound and release an album that sounds like Erotica (1992), Ray of Light (1998), Like a Prayer (1989) or True Blue (1986). It would be interesting hearing a blend of those albums, rather than something that sounds like Madame X. As good an album as it is, it is very modern. I think that a combination of current and throwback would be a good next step. Madonna is at her peak when making these innovative Pop songs that stick in your head. One of the issues with Madame X was the processed vocals. There were quite a lot of producers and writers in the mix. Hearing an album more streamlined and personal, I feel, would make for even stronger music. Whatever comes next, it is going to court a lot of attention. Three years since her latest studio album, Madonna still keeps people guessing. Someone who is always reinventing themselves and ensuring the music is fresh and evolved, it is hard to predict what her fifteenth studio album will sound like. When it comes to Madonna…

YOU never can tell.

FEATURE: As Long As You're Not Afraid to Feel: Kate Bush’s Stunning Catalogue: Where to Start?

FEATURE:

 

 

As Long As You're Not Afraid to Feel

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin 

Kate Bush’s Stunning Catalogue: Where to Start?

 __________

THERE have been a few articles…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of the video for The Big Sky (from Hounds of Love)

published over the past few weeks in reaction to Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) storming charts around the world. It features in the current season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, and it is set to appear again. I am writing this on 7th June so, by the time this is published, the song may well have reached number one either here or in the U.S.! As it is, the song hit number eight in the U.S. – Bush’s highest chart position in the county; Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) originally went to thirty there on its released in 1985. I have sort of covered this before, but a lot of articles have responded to Bush’s new chart blitz with beginners’ guides to her work  - where to start in terms of the albums and the songs that you need to listen to. It is useful to have a guide so that you can narrow things down and then, when you have a taster, expand from there. I will end with a playlist of songs across her ten studio albums that should give new finders of Bush’s music a helpful and varied exploration. For me, I always say to start at the start: in this case, her debut album, The Kick Inside. I feel you can only really get a true sense of an artist’s evolution if you go from their debut album and work forward. If you are a young listener and have heard Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and love the song, then Hounds of Love is an album that you will cherish and treasure.

In terms of music of hers you can listen to for free or very little, her albums and interviews are on streaming platforms and sites like YouTube. I would say to start by spending a few hours watching interviews and documentaries with her. This provides a good overview of her career and who Kate Bush is. There is a lot out there that will keep you engrossed. Rather than use streaming services solely when it comes to Kate Bush’s music, have a taste of her studio albums. Some casual yet essential research like this is both enjoyable and informative. You can discover her great videos and interviews but, in terms of the music, which albums you like best. From 1978 to 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, Bush’s music has altered and changed. One cannot say there is a distinct ‘sound’. You may be a bigger fan of her 1980s output; some might prefer her more modern output. From there, make a list of three studio albums to own on vinyl. This is a good starting point and, as a listening experience, owning her albums on vinyl is the way to do it! Rough Trade are pretty useful when it comes to her albums on vinyl; you can shop around if they do not have the ones you want in stock. If your budget is quite low – as vinyl can cost quite a bit! -, I would say the C.D.s are also really good. Make a playlist of your own with your favourite Kate Bush songs. Alongside the physical albums, you also have a selection of her songs you can listen to on the go.

There are a couple of other things that I would also advise new listeners to do. I have previously advised books that you can get that give you a greater impression of who Bush is. I think, if you are starting out, her lyrics book, How to Be Invisible, is essential. Having this hamper of Kate Bush songs, albums and a book is a nice foundation for anyone. As I say, from there, there are multiple options regarding expanding and building that collection. I think that Bush being back in the charts should be applauded! More than that, she is an artist who endures because of the sheer brilliance and originality of her songs. The Guardian wrote their own guide as to which tracks new listeners should start with. They discussed how Bush was successful and established right at the start of her career:

“It’s fair to say that hardly anyone would have predicted Bush becoming such a revered and influential artist, when she emerged in 1978. She was immediately hugely successful – her debut single Wuthering Heights went to No 1, the accompanying album The Kick Inside sold a million copies – but her public image seemed to be that of a dippy-hippy throwback who’s every other word was “wow”, and this image was burnished further by the unbridled outlandishness of her TV performances and videos. Trained in interpretative dance and mime, from the start Bush was not at home to accepted notions of cool.

In truth, The Kick Inside was packed with evidence of how extraordinary she already was. Its 13 tracks were culled from a longlist of 120, written throughout her teens, and contained songs about menstrual pains and masturbation. The title track told the story of a woman killing herself after becoming pregnant by her own brother. It should go without saying that these were not normal topics for a platinum-selling singer-songwriter 44 years ago. She claimed to be influenced by David Bowie, Elton John and Roy Harper, but you wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t said it: from the start, she sounded only like herself.

Even at 19, there was a certain steely self-possession in her approach. Offered the seemingly unmissable opportunity to launch her career in the US with a place on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours tour, she declined: if she was going to perform live, she wanted it to be an audio-visual extravaganza – as on her 1979 Tour of Life and, again, on 2014’s Before the Dawn shows – and you couldn’t do that in a 20-minute support slot. Her American record company was so furious at the snub, it refused to release her next three albums in the country.

Then, rather than capitalise on her sudden initial burst of commercial success, her music got stranger and richer. The cover of 1980’s Never For Ever depicted a bizarre phantasmagoria billowing out from under Bush’s skirt, which seems like a pretty accurate interpretation of how listening to her music increasingly felt, and continues to feel like: a deeply weird, frequently beautiful and occasionally unsettling world that you immerse yourself in.

Her videos and TV appearances, meanwhile, became more elaborate and idiosyncratic: it would be lovely if Running Up That Hill’s fresh success leads people to her amazing performance of the song on the chatshow Wogan, Bush singing behind a lectern, as if delivering a speech or a sermon, while her band, clad in dark robes, slowly advance from the rear of the stage. She produced more huge hits – 1985’s Hounds of Love was her biggest-selling album, despite its second side containing some of the most abstruse music of her career; her lengthy 2005 “comeback” Aerial shifted over a million copies – alongside stuff that was more coolly received, most notably 1982’s dense and demanding The Dreaming (its artistic reputation has nevertheless rocketed over subsequent decades). Occasionally, the most critical voice about Kate Bush’s work has belonged to Kate Bush. She “never liked” her rushed second album, Lionheart, and memorably described her short musical film The Line, the Cross and the Curve as “a load of old bollocks”. Her 2011 album Directors’ Cut consisted entirely of reworked songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, complete with the implicit suggestion that she wasn’t happy with the original versions.

From the moment that Wuthering Heights appeared – a swooning, swooping ballad sung in a keening soprano, at the height of punk – Bush has always seemed entirely apart from whatever else is going on in the charts. In the long term, that has meant her music has never dated. Running Up That Hill feels completely different from everything else in the Top 10 in 2022, but it felt completely different from everything else in the Top 10 in 1985 as well. In the interim, it hasn’t taken on any patina of age; it resolutely doesn’t sound of its era”.

There will be quite a lot of listeners who have discovered Kate Bush through Stranger Things or Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That is a good thing. Rather than stick with that song and Hounds of Love, it is worth thinking about starting your own collection and what you might select. I am not sure what the future holds regarding new music or older music of hers being brought to the screen. I think the success Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has achieved this year so far will lead to new projects and books pretty soon. I have said before how a new greatest hits collection is long-overdue. Maybe Bush, pleased at the success of her Hounds of Love hit, will green-light a new package. To end this feature, I have compiled a playlist of Kate Bush songs for those new to her work - or those who need a bit of a refresher course. Let’s hope that, throughout 2022, Bush continues to grow in stature and reach new people. Adding fresh blood and ears in the direction of her music. It is humbling and exciting seeing waves of new fans joining…  

HER massive and adoring fanbase.

FEATURE: Revisiting… King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G.

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G.

 __________

FOR this outing of Revisiting…

I wanted to feature one of the many albums by the Australian band, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Their latest album, Omnium Gatherum, came out in April. It is their twentieth studio album! That is amazing when we consider that the band’s debut arrived in 2012. Ten years after they came onto the scene, the band are still producing such different and always-moving music. They never repeat themselves. I wanted to spend time shining a light on K.G. Released in 2020, it was their only album that year (slackers!). I am going to round up with a couple of reviews for the album. Their sixteenth studio album, one could forgive the guys for taking it easy or reigning it in. No such problems on the amazing double album, K.G. Slightly underrated in my view, some might have missed the album. For those not initiated into the world of the band, go and listen to the amazing K.G. It is an album that was produced by band member Stu Mackenzie. In terms of track length and numbers, it is fairly conventional – as the band released an album earlier this year, Made in Timeland, containing two fifteen-minute songs! If you have not heard K.G., then I think that you need to! This is what AllMusic wrote when they reviewed a typically innovative album from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard:

“Over a ten-year span spent releasing an album every few weeks (or so it seemed) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard never repeated themselves, always pushing forward and trying new things whether it was lengthy jazz excursions, gloom-and-doom synth prog, or thundering thrash metal. That changed some on 2020's K.G., where the band revisit the approach used on Flying Microtonal Banana, the group's 2017 album built around the avant-garde sounds of their custom-made guitars and altered instruments. Stuck in their various homes during the global pandemic, the band gravitated toward the unique instruments and built a batch of songs using their non-Western tunings and tones.

Unlike that album, though, where that almost felt like a (mostly successful) gimmick, this time the guitars are more fully integrated into the songs. "Automation" and "Some of Us" kick and twist like classic King Gizzard-style psychedelic rockers, the acoustic guitars of "Straws in the Winds" have a snarling bite that matches the evil sneer of the vocals and sentiment of the lyrics, "Oddlife"'s guitar solos are pure prog, and "The Hungry Wolf of Fate" revisits the blown-out metal attack of their most recent studio LP with a nice mix of restraint and explosive power. Even though much of the record transverses familiar sonic territory, the band still find some room for surprises. The acid house synths percolating behind the wall of guitars on "Minimum Brain Size" are a nice touch; the group work up a sweaty groove on "Ontolgy" and in the process sound something like Talking Heads butting heads with Kid Creole & the Coconuts; and in the album's only real shocker, they drop some bubbly Madchester grooves on "Intrasport." The sound is so slinky and giddily elastic, it makes one wonder what a full album of King Gizzard songs made for dancing would be like. Judging from this, and the band's track record, probably pretty great. Apart from this one song, King Gizzard don't break much new ground on K.G., and while that in itself might be something of a letdown, the result is still quite pleasing. Listening to them tread a little bit of water is still better than listening to the fresh ideas of 99.9 percent of other groups, especially when it's done with the energy and passion the band exhibit here”.

Among my favourite albums of 2020, I do wonder where King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard get their energy, ideas and sense of drive. They are an amazingly consistent band. Whereas most groups release a new album every couple of years or so, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard can’t wait that long. 2021’s L.W. was seen as the second part of a double album – though I want to pull them apart and focus on K.G. itself. They are bursting with music! This is what Under the Radar wrote for their review of K.G. They were impressed with an album that ranks among the best from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard:

“Ten years since their formation, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are back with yet another heavyweight entry into their ever-growing discography. Their sixteenth studio album, K.G., subtitled Explorations into Microtonal Tuning, Volume 2, fits comfortably into the Melbourne outfit’s oeuvre.

K.G. is the closest thing to a self-titled album we’ll ever get from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. It’s a fair representation of the band, with their normal calling cards: syncopated rhythms, microtonal instruments that echo Arabic and Turkish influences, flutes, harmonica, and deep lyrics.

King Gizz have always been clever at pairing genre-bending song structures with meaningful lyrics, packed with philosophical motifs and activism shrouded in science fiction. K.G. certainly holds that trend. Tracks such as “Minimum Brain Size” and “Ontology” contain complex observations of human existence, but these revelations can be easily missed because of the songs’ captivating delivery.

Longtime fans of the Gizz can recognise certain similarities with 2017’s microtonal study, Flying Microtonal Banana—the first two singles from K.G., “Honey” and “Some of Us,” both feature microtonal instruments predominantly. But where the band’s past work differs from K.G. is in the risks the now six-piece continues to take. It wouldn’t be enough for K.G.’s 10 tracks to merely pick up where Banana left off. Instead, King Gizz continue to explore genres (disco, funk, house, and cinematic music, to name a few), lyrical content, and fan interaction. The fourth single, “Automation,” was accompanied by a “DIY project” for fans: the band supplied raw audio files and footage; in return, fans could remix the song and make their own music videos. The move echoed King Gizz’s ethos of lo-creativity, and gave the band’s loyal fanbase a chance to connect amidst a global pandemic.

This gesture of community in the face of adversity is a typical King Gizz move. The band released six live albums in 2020 (the latest, their 2016 San Francisco show), with a portion of the profits going to Australian wildlife relief. They released a concert film, Chunky Shrapnel, in April. And at a time when everyone is stuck at home, facing uncertainty, grief, and loss, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have given something special to the world: the ability for fans to connect, and to (virtually) travel the world alongside the band’s diverse musical influences. (www.kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com).

A remarkable album that remains a little underplayed. It got some positive reviews, but not quite the same sort of acclaim that it warrants. That is why I wanted to put it here and encourage people to give it another spin. If you are not aware of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, then there is no right place or album to start with. I would think K.G. is as good a starting point as any! The Melbourne band showed that, even though they release albums quite frequently, this work rate…

DOESN’T dent the quality.

FEATURE: Spotlight: yunè pinku

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Blackwell 

yunè pinku

 __________

REAL name Asha Yuné…

the lowercase yunè pinku is a major artist based in South East London. The Malaysian-Irish producer and songwriter is a sensational and huge talent who, surrounded by promising young artists, stands out and defines her own sound and career path. I am going to drop a few songs in before wrapping up. There are not too many interviews online with her – which I am sure will all change as yunè pinku becomes more widely-known and puts out more music! I have heard her played on BBC Radio 6 Music, though I think her music has this universal and utilitarian quality that means it can be played anywhere and be appreciated by all. This year’s Bluff is a phenomenal E.P. from a super talent who is accomplishing such heights at such a young age. Last year, NOTION named yunè pinku as one to watch for this year:

“yunè pinku is a fitting ambassador for a new generation. The artist burst onto the scene late last year with a confident debut single “Laylo”, which depicts the struggle of an anxious introvert to put on a brave face for the world. yunè uses the rich history of electronica as a sandbox for her own exploration, drawing from sounds both nostalgic and cutting-edge alongside frank songwriting unveiling her anxieties. She’s already gained the attention of Joy Orbison, who featured her on BBC Radio 1 last year and later collaborated with yunè on a guest mix, and has provided vocals for a new Logic1000 track, cementing her ever-rising status in the annals of electronic music.

What’s been your career highlight so far?

I’m not sure really, I’ve been pretty lucky being able to work with such great people so early on! Working with Bone Soda back in November was great though, it was the first time I’ve ever performed in front of people so that was pretty cool.

Who are your key influences?

I think my production and vocals are inspired by very different artists. Vocally The Cardigans, Eartheater and Melody’s Echo Chamber would be huge influences, but then for production I love traditional UK garage/house like Sunship or Interplanetary Criminal. I like the mismatch of kind of indie-inspired vocals with these classic house instrumentals.

What has been your biggest lesson from 2021?

I think I learnt a new appreciation of real honesty and transparency. Whether it’s career or personal, I’ve just realised no one can fault you for just being honest and willing to kick up when you really want something.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

SASSY 009, Gorillaz or Easter probably, kind of different choices but both all banging artists. Guaranteed fan-girling with all of them.

Dream performance venue?

Le Carmen in Paris looks gorgeous, but I think in London there are so many great venues – like the Roundhouse and loads of open air performance spaces in the summer, which I love!

What are your goals for 2022?

I’d love to try out live performance and DJing more this year and keep cracking out tunes! It’s all quite open this year, which I’m really liking”.

There are a couple of interviews that I want to bring in. NME spotlighted an amazing Electronic producer and artist who is likely to have a very busy summer in terms of dates and festival appearances. She is a simply amazing and unique artist:

“Having never been a fan of “all-out raving”, Yunè Pinku found a whole new appreciation for the more chilled-out side of electronic music during lockdown. “Just listening to some other stuff made me realise that there are way more kinds of electronic music than I thought there were,” says the teenage producer, real name Asha Yuné. This period of discovery has further influenced the Malaysian-Irish 19-year-old, whose fusion of UK club culture, introspective lyricism and hypnotic melodies has propelled her to become one of the fastest-rising names in the dance music scene.

It’s surprising, then, to hear that Yuné “actually hated electronic music growing up”. Her initial disinterest in the genre, she says, was down to constantly hearing her mum’s favoured trance music around the family home (Yuné preferred, er, Billy Joel and Madonna). As she got older, however, Yuné began to enjoy “messing around with soundscapes” and writing songs in her bedroom. “I’ve always really liked writing, but I wasn’t making music to go anywhere,” she recalls. “So I just started adding bits and bobs.” While she originally only utilised her vocals as a backing to her music, over time Yuné’s voice came to the forefront of her creations: “I think you can carry what you’re trying to say or what the feeling is [in your music] a bit more when there’s words to it.”

As she started to build up a collection of tunes, Yuné began – albeit nervously – to show them to her friends, some of whom were already active in the music industry. “Back then, the stuff I was making was not in the same sort of lane of what they’d be into, so I wasn’t very confident in showing it to people for a long time,” she remembers. Despite having no official releases to her name, Yuné then managed to land her first BBC Radio 1 guest mix during Joy Orbison’s residency in July 2021 – though she didn’t realise how much of a big deal it was at the time. “[Orbison] was one of the first people I worked with when I started working in music,” she recalls. “We did a few sessions, and then he asked if I wanted to do something on his show and I was like, ‘Sure!’”

Two months later, ‘What You Like’, a collaboration with Logic1000 that the pair created over email, arrived, and it now boasts over 2.6 million streams. “I was quite excited about that [collaboration], because I hadn’t met any girls in electronic music up until that point,” Yuné says of working with the Sydney-born, Berlin-based DJ and producer on the track. “I think there’s a massive thing going on now where you’ve got Nia Archives, Logic1000 and PinkPantheress, who are all producers. There’s definitely a boom coming in that sense, which is nice to see.”

‘Bluff’, Yuné’s debut EP as Yunè Pinku (Yunè is a childhood nickname which means ‘cloudy’ in Japanese, while Pinku is a nod to her love of Pingu), sees her join that list of artists who are instilling a sense of intimacy into their club-ready tracks. Carrying that oh-so-relatable feeling of “accidental anxiousness”, the four-track ‘Bluff’ was written during the pandemic and consequently serves as “a diary of where I was at that time”. Recalling how she was “having a hissy fit about being bored and missing things”, the EP narrates the period of “going from lockdown and being quite isolated [to] then trying to readjust to being back out in the world”.

I am going to finish things off with a recent profile from CRACK. As big fans and supporters of yunè pinku, they were eager to highlight her work and ask about the future:

“Music for introverted ravers” is how Asha frames her output today, an accurate summary that simultaneously betrays her own somewhat strained relationship with club culture. “I like small parties, but I just find clubs very intense,” she explains matter-of-factly, going on to imply that successive, enforced lockdowns actually served as a kind of creative liberation.

“The idea of listening to that kind of music without being in an intense environment was something that just hadn’t occurred to me before,” she remembers. “I’d sit in my bedroom disappearing down 90s garage wormholes, discovering all these different types of electronic music. And that’s when I really got into dance music – through just chilling out, rather than dancing or whatever.

Having cut her teeth making lo-fi bedroom-pop and soundscapes inspired by post-war radio, Asha began looking to UKG and experimental house, and incorporating more club-centric sounds into her productions. After circulating some demos, it wasn’t long before she found herself collaborating with Logic1000 on 2021 single What You Like, and recording guest mixes for Joy Orbison and The Blessed Madonna, which were aired on BBC Radio 1 and 6Music respectively. Listening to Asha discuss the creative rationale behind Bluff, it isn’t difficult to see why she’s already pulling such high profile support.

“Overall, there’s a punchiness to the project that I think came from a place of being pretty panicked at what’s out there in the world. And with the rise of ASMR, I was really interested in exploring textural sounds. I’m just so fascinated by the concept of digital natives, and by the fact that a lot of young people now probably find the sounds of computers more familiar than, say, the sound of a river or birds singing.”

As for the future, Asha’s ruling nothing out for the time being. “I’m happy to go wherever the wind takes me musically,” she smiles. “Although now I’m also really interested in being a ski instructor”.

There is another interview from last week. The Line of Best Fit featured her as an artist on the rise. Every interview reveals new layers and details about a phenomenal artist:

“Growing up, she had a range of jobs–from bartending to interning for Prada and working in a crystal shop. “You’d get the weirdest stories from there,” she enthuses on the latter. “We’d have mums coming in and being like, I’ve just found out the guy that I was seeing everyone else at the school, and then they’d be looking for a crystal that might help their situation. And then we got proper geezers in, who’d be like [grunts] I can't tell anyone at work about this, can I? It was really interesting because you’d get all of these people that you’d never think would be into that kind of stuff.”

As someone who’d always been drawn to creative writing–even applying and getting into journalism courses at Yale and Cambridge on a whim–being surrounded by stories and differing perspectives is important to Asha. When we talk about her inspiration for Bluff, she tells me how she tends to draw from others' experiences. “I just write down a bunch of random things or thoughts or phrases I hear on my notes app and whenever I’m trying to write lyrics I’ll look to that page and come up with something. When mates of mine would be telling me these insane stories of like, ‘and he was married and he had kids and–’ and you’re like woah. So I guess I kind of draw on their stories more because you know they got the drama,” she laughs.

She dabbled a little in piano growing up, but began to experiment with music fully as a teenager, downloading production software from a blank website her cousin had sent her. Tampering with her computer, she delved into the production world, at first making Clairo-influenced bedroom pop and then “Bladee-weird Drain Gang stuff”. A few years later, she began to click more with electronic music. “I’d only really listened to music in the pretext of like a club or something, and then I realised you can do it outside of a club and on your own grounds and stuff. I like to draw and write electronic,” she tells me, noting inspiration in boundary-pushing artists Eartheater and Sassy 009.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Almeida

Emerging from lockdown with over 150 songs created in her bedroom, mostly shared solely to her boyfriend at the time, managers she had connected with via SoundCloud and a friend of a friend, her family were surprised initially. “No one knew I made music. I was like I might get a record deal soon, and my mum was like what? My mum’s the number one listener now. I think the biggest comment I get from my family is, I don’t get it but I’m so proud of you. Electronic music is not everyone’s bag.”

Prior to any releases, Joy Orbison invited Asha to contribute a guest mix during his radio 1 residency last year, and a few months later she collaborated over email with Logic1000. Now, with her debut EP well-received and a buzz around the young artist, she’s conscious of the additional pressures. “I psych myself out sometimes and will be like I don't know if this is a commercially good song. I guess it’s the battle between the commercial mind and the creative one.”

“I wouldn’t consider myself someone who has ever craved the spotlight. I think I’d be more so like a stagehand person by nature, but it’s interesting because I’ve had a few conversations recently where it's been like do you see yourself and your artist project as separate things? And I don’t think I do really; I think they’re strains of the same person eventually, but that in itself is quite interesting,” she tells me, considering the direction that Yunè Pinku has been in and will go in. “Through being in these situations where I am more of a focus than I ever thought I’d be, you see new parts of yourself and learn that you actually are okay with this”.

Everyone needs to investigate yunè pinku’s music. Having started out and gained traction over the past year or so, 2022 is a year where her music is starting to get noticed and played widely. A magnificent rising star who has endless potential, we all need to support yunè pinku. I have only recently discovered her, but I was instantly grabbed and won over. A compelling and captivating artist and person, the magnificent and wonderful yunè pinku is…

SUCH a strong and memorable force.

_____________

Follow yunè pinku

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/yune_pinku

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/yune.pinku/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2sY4BbYrbvNVgsNzo6HddD

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJSw4KXAxjAV2sytDDFfdYA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/yunepinku/

FEATURE: Spotlight: Allison Ponthier

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Lissyelle Laricchia for Vogue 

Allison Ponthier

 __________

FOR this Pride Month…

I will use a couple or few of the Spotlight features to shine a light on inspiring and phenomneal L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists. Allison Ponthier is a queer Country artist whose E.P., Faking My Own Death, was one of the best of last year. She has put out music this year, but the interviews I am quoting are from last year – and they were released around the time of E.P. coming out. Released back in August, I think Ponthier is a sensational artist who is going to be an icon. This is well-timed, as she is going to release her new E.P. on 10th June. She is releasing a track, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, but I am not sure whether the E.P. shares that title or exactly what form it will take. Lots of eyes will be on her social media channels next week. Anyway. There is no particular order for these interviews. Each teach us something about Ponthier and her wonderful E.P. NME chatted with Ponthier last August. It is interesting how her move from Texas to Brooklyn impacted her songwriting:

“You moved from Texas to Brooklyn, New York when you were 20. What was that like?

“I grew up in a town called Allen, it’s not a small town but it is a conservative town in the Bible Belt. I had grown up wanting to live in a big city, and especially in New York, because I watched all the movies and was a kid that was obsessed with showbiz and entertainment. When I finally moved here I made the decision very quickly – from the time that I decided to move and to when I actually moved was around two and a half weeks, which sounds very Manic Pixie Dream Girl of me, but I really wanted to be somewhere where I could be myself.

“I was in the closet for years by the time I had moved to New York, and I wasn’t intending to move and just live freely, but that there was a part of me that was really hopeful that I could.”

Did the move impact the music you were making?

“Definitely. When I was in Texas, I was making R&B-inspired pop music. It was me making songs over vocal loops, which was very fun and I loved making music like that, but I was really afraid to make music that was genuinely vulnerable, that was me telling my story or expressing feelings that I wasn’t familiar with.

“I hadn’t even begun to entertain the complicated feelings of coming out, or the complicated feelings of me never truly feeling like I belonged when I was growing up, and so a lot of the music I made was ‘cool music’. I made what I thought people would like to listen to at a concert and I tried to be someone I wasn’t.

“And then when it came to moving to New York, I was so alone that I didn’t have to perform for people personally, and I was really, really heartbroken over the fact that I was scared to come out. The first song I wrote about it was ‘Cowboy’, and ‘Cowboy’ was a country pop song, that kind of came out of nowhere. I grew up with country music but I really rejected it because I wanted to be a rebel, and I wanted to be different. And because of that, it was really surprising that the song that came from my heart was the song that kind of reminded me of where I grew up.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Julian Buchan

Do you still get nervous putting songs out?

“I’m nervous when I do everything, I mean, I’m a healthy level of nervous right now; but ‘Cowboy’ was especially nerve-wracking. It came out a few years after I came out, but I had never told the story of me coming out through music before. And ‘Cowboy’ is quite an alternative song so I was like: ‘Maybe not everyone will love it. Maybe not everyone can dance to it, but even if everyone can’t dance to it, I hope that a few people can cry to it and feel validated by it’.

“Some artists are artists that everyone can party to or celebrate with, and while I would love to be that, I really want to be the kind of artist that could be someone’s favourite because they relate in a unique way to my story.

“I’ve had quite a few people reach out to me and say that ‘Cowboy’ spoke to them, especially people who are also from the South like I am. I think there’s a lot of people that felt like they were the only person on Earth as a queer person. And I always say that I feel like I invented being gay and that’s why it was so lonely. I didn’t know about other gay people until I was 12 or 13-years-old. And whenever I say that other queer people laugh and be like, ‘Yeah I’ve totally felt that before’. And, in a weird way, releasing ‘Cowboy’ has kind of made me realise how silly it was that I ever thought I was alone in the first place”.

PASTE also spoke with Ponthier in August. I want to stay on the subject of the songwriter moving from Texas to New York. Even though she has adopted a new city and area of the U.S., there is still that identity and connection with Texas in her music:

“As the kid discovered her artistic voice, fun fashion sense, and—having come out—the support of a whole thriving gay community she hadn’t had back home, she remembers taking any gig she could to put her food, such as it humbly was, on the table. A talented visual artist, she drew commissioned portraits of people’s pets. She made her own jewelry. She even tried modeling for a bit, until her agent split town with all the money he owed her. “I even worked for the American Museum of Natural History for a little while, doing their Snapchat stories,” she says. “I’ve always been a creative person. That’s why a lot of the odd jobs I was doing were creative.” Once she finally got financially ahead, she began attending concerts, trying to meet as many musicians as she could. “I so desperately wanted to be a part of something, I really put myself out there, even though I was very socially anxious,” she adds.

Every performer who has starved for their craft loves to romanticize the early hardscrabble days, when there was nothing in the pantry but Top Ramen and/or peanut butter. And Ponthier is no different. Growing up in Texas, though? Not so colorful, she’s sad to report. She was extremely introverted, and expressed herself through a cavalcade of passing phases, like horse nerd, an indie-rock phase, a Zooey Deschanel 1950s-dress period, and one where she would dress up like characters from her favorite movies; she preferred the old Sunset Boulevard-era classics flickering on the TCM network, until she stumbled upon her first horror film on Halloween at 15—the Paris Hilton-starring remake of Vincent Price’s House of Wax. “It was kind of brutal, and I remember watching it and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’ve never seen a horror movie before! This is the greatest thing on Earth!’” she says. “And now House On Haunted Hill is probably my most-watched movie of all time.” It’s the newer Dark Castle version, she clarifies; she’s preparing to delve into the original William Castle celluloid crypt.

Naturally, her surroundings could only stifle Ponthier for so long. She knew she was different, understood that she had to leave home to find her muse, and was tired of feeling like an alien, an oddball outsider. “And it wasn’t just because I was in the closet,” she says. “It was mostly because I had such a hard time making friends. I think the best thing that could have happened to me when I was younger was having proper representation for queer people—I didn’t even know what being gay was until I was 12 or 13 years old. I was really, really sheltered growing up, so moving to New York was like a culture shock.” Fortunately, a YouTube video she’d posted of her teenage self singing Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” had gotten a favorable response from some New York-based managers; she’d declined their offer then, but tracked them down in their then-mutual hometown. And as they all shared a love of vintage horror and sci-fi, it proved a perfect team-up.

Ponthier’s new handlers, now based in L.A., encouraged her to let her freak flag fly. So while she sings Texas tales of twisters, like her ballad “Tornado Country,” or her dabbling in convoluted personas while residing there in the Faking My Own Death title track, the EP proved to be a total catharsis, which ultimately led to its definitive “Cowboy” proclamation. As much as she was fitting into her new city’s scene, she still felt like a Southerner, even though she spoke with no discernible drawl. “So I was some kind of hybrid of the two,” she now understands. “And I also had never said I was Texan more in my life than when I had moved to New York—it was like the third thing out of my mouth every time that I spoke”.

Even though New York was quite liberating for Ponthier and one feels, as a queer artist, it is a more open and accepting city perhaps (compared with Allen, Texas), it must also have been nerve-racking. Faking My Own Death is an interesting title. Maybe saying goodbye to the old self and reinventing herself, one can take it a few different ways. Cosmopolitan’s interview with Allison Ponthier is particularly interesting. I have selected a few sections:

“Cosmopolitan: It’s been an incredible year for you, especially these past few months as you’ve released your EP, Faking My Own Death, and started to perform. Does it all feel surreal?

Allison Ponthier: I never thought that I would be able to do music full-time. I’ve loved music since I was a kid and I always wanted to be an artist, but I never thought that I could be. I really struggled with giving myself permission to dream big. It was so weird. I was a super-shy kid and had trouble relating to other kids and making friends. Even though I really struggled with putting myself out there, there was still a part of me that always was trying to move in the direction of being an artist.

Cosmopolitan: Many people would categorize your EP as country. What would you say your genre is?

AP: I never really think about the genre before I make something, but if I had to describe it, I would say it’s like alternative pop music that is based off of ’70s country and folk music. I grew up listening to country music because I’m from Texas and my mom also loved it. Especially that ’90s country-pop music like The Chicks or Shania Twain. And because I was a rebel, after living in Texas for so long and since there was some political connotation to country music for a long time, especially in the early 2000s, I was like, I’m better than this. I’m going to get out of this town and move to New York City. I never want to like your country music again. When I actually did move, the music that I gravitated toward, and what ultimately helped me come out when I wrote “Cowboy,” was a kind of pseudo-country song.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarai Mari

Cosmopolitan: How does it feel going into that genre especially in a time when there’s a lot of debate about what is “real” country music, like we’ve seen with Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, and Lil Nas X?

AP: This is a really, really exciting time for country music. Country originally was a really progressive genre and way more inclusive. In the early 2000s, there was this huge shift where country music became quite exclusive. But people are now viewing it as a great vehicle to tell stories. That’s what I love about it more than anything. I am really inspired by queer country artists like Brandi Carlile. I would even consider Lil Nas X a queer country artist. “Old Town Road” is a country song, so he is someone who is a country artist. Any genre should move with the times. I wouldn’t be making country music if I didn’t feel inspired by other country artists who are like me, and that’s thanks to the power of representation. It’s kind of a domino effect.

Cosmopolitan: Growing up as a shy kid, do you feel like the big reason you’re able to perform in front of so many people is because of your journey in figuring out and accepting who you are?

AP: Most of my life, I felt like I needed to make myself smaller or more digestible for a lot of people and to blend in a lot more. But I always had this hunger to stand out and be different. I really do feel like I know myself so much more now. Growing up, I wasn’t always hanging out at other people’s houses or going out. I spent a lot of time fostering my interests and hobbies, which were music and art. As an adult, now doing this EP, I take that thing that was mine, which was the way that I coped with a lot of things, and married it with this fear and dream that I’ve had, which is performing for other people”.

There is so much to unpick and dive into when it comes to Allison Ponthier. She is going to be a huge artist very soon! I am an admirer or her music and, following Faking My Own Death, I am looking ahead. Such a remarkable songwriter and performer, I will try and come and see Ponthier play if she performs in the U.K. Women in Pop interviewed Ponthier about an E.P. that, as it seemed, made her feel better and more comfortable about herself:

“I am a huge fan as well of 'Tornado Country' which ends the EP. It really is like a love letter to the past, which I think is so beautiful. There's something so incredibly warming with it that just reminds all the listeners, ‘hey, you know what, you can go through stages, but you're still going to be yourself at the end of it’. If you could describe this collection as a whole would it be like ‘this is me up to this point’? 

Oh yeah. I didn't have a theme for the EP, I just was like, here are the songs I love. And then when I took a step back, especially when we wrote 'Faking My Own Death', I was like, 'Oh, I get it now'. Because they were all songs about what kind of person I wanted to be, or things that I had gone through. It's all really about identity at the end of the day. At first I was like, maybe I can just only write songs about identity, but really, that's just what was taking up space in my mind at the time. When I moved to New York, I came out and that was very difficult for me, and then when you move to a totally new place and you start over you can kind of be whoever. For me, not being around everyone that I had ever grown up around made me feel a little bit more empowered to figure out who I actually was underneath everything. 'Hell Is a Crowded Room' is about me having anxiety attacks, 'Harshest Critic' is about me being super hard on myself, 'Cowboy' is about how hard it was to come out. So they're all kind of connected in that way.

PHOTO CREDIT: Weslee Kate 

As a listener, we take on your beautiful songs and that people come of age constantly. It's not just like, ‘bam, it happens when you stop being a teenager’. This thing keep happening all the time. And if you've got some music to see you through it, what better way?

Yeah, truly it feels both selfish and natural to say this, but every song that I wrote, whether or not I was doing it as a job, I would have written already. Every song I've written I've written for myself. And in a weird way, it's kind of the least selfish thing you can do, because a lot of people write songs to impress other people, or to seem cool or to prove something to people. For me, I was just like, ‘I need to write the songs that I would like to hear that would comfort me’. It's really helped my self confidence a lot. Making this project has made me feel a lot better about being myself in general.

And you've made a hell of a lot of us feel better about many situations. It's gorgeous. Not to mention, your ridiculously cinematic music videos that accompany everything you do. They are next level cool. Obviously music does more for you than just sonically, do you always see your songs when you're creating them?

Most of the time yeah. Songs that are my favourites, I always see a music video with them. It's like a vehicle for me to write good songs, picturing it like a movie. I love making the videos. I'm a huge movie fan, and I fell in love with music by watching movie musicals. It makes so much sense to me to pair music and visuals. Plus, it's so much fun. There's nothing like stepping on set and seeing a universe that you've created yourself, I'm very, very, very lucky that I am able to do that. whenever it's time to shoot music video.

You are a bit of an old soul with regards to your songwriting, but at the same time, it's so very now. And I think that comes a lot from this new generation of country music. It used to be a dirty word, and now everyone's like, actually, it's kind of cool. Everyone's admitting it now. Can you talk me through music as an influence in your childhood? And when was it that you started to create your own and put it out there?

Yeah, I love talking about this because there's a misconception that you have to be able to write songs from birth to be a good songwriter. I grew up listening to country music, my mum loves country music, and I actually didn't even know pop music existed. It was just country music and church music because I grew up singing in church. I loved country music, especially pop country like Shania Twain and Faith Hill. When I got a little bit older, I was like, ‘well, I'm a preteen, I'm a rebel, I no longer like country music, and I only like indie and alternative music’. Discovering that Pandora existed changed my life, Regina Spektor 'On The Radio' 24/7. I loved Paramore, I loved Imogen Heap, I love Fleet Foxes. It was me trying to find music that made me feel like I could be bigger and better than what my life was in that moment. But I didn't write songs, real songs, until I was 19 or 20. I was so embarrassed to write songs, I wrote one song when I was in high school, it was for a project about the Salem witch trials! My first real artist song happened when I was 19 - and it wasn't good! And it's because I was just learning. It takes time to develop your artistic voice and I didn't really know how to do that. I didn't know how to be vulnerable, I was just trying to sound cool instead of trying to really express myself and tell my story. It's really important that people know that you don't have to write songs forever to be good. It's a skill like anything else and I've been very lucky, I do a lot of co-writes with people I really love and care about and I've learned so much from them. Also on top of that, if you tell unique stories, if your voice is unique, that's the way you're supposed to tell the story, the way that's natural to you”.

I am going to wrap it up now. The stunning and mesmerically talented Allison Ponthier is an artist I am highlighting now because I feel she had a remarkable year last year. There is going to be a lot of new music for sure. Keep your eyes peeled for 10th June and the E.P. she is putting into the world! After the exceptional Faking My Own Death E.P. and the positive reviews it accrued, that will provide the confidence needed for Ponthier to take her music to the next level. I am excited about next week and what we will get. Seemingly finding new inspiration and purpose in New York, I feel the Country artist might move once more in the future. A curious and hungry young artist, few have her remarkable voice and undeniable talent. Recent singles Autopilot and Hardcore make me think Ponthier is brewing and might give us an album soon enough. Although she has collaborated with others through her career, I know there are many artists who would line up to work with her. In return, Ponthier must have a list of artists that she wants to work with! One of my favourite new artists, the future is very bright for Ponthier. If you are new to her or have only heard the odd song, then rectify that! I would urge everyone out there to follow Allison Ponthier and check out what she has released so far. It will soon become obvious why she is going to be making music…

FOR many years to come.

____________

Follow Allison Ponthier

Official:

http://www.allisonponthier.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/allisonponthier

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/allisonponthier/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/37zdNthUsPowEeNJDeCCYx

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFBcIHMbKdkSOP6C7w8oaow

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/allisonponthiermusic/

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Sixty-Five: Pavement

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Sixty-Five: Pavement

 __________

I have written about Pavement…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Leah Nash/The Guardian

a little bit over the past year or so but, as the band are back, it is a good time to focus on them and the influence they have had on other artists. I am going to end wit a playlist of songs from artists inspired by Pavement. Before that, AllMusic provide a detailed biography about the iconic Californian band:

“Pavement is perhaps the defining American indie rock band of the 1990s, the group that captured the slacker zeitgeist of the alt rock era. Standing detached from the tumult of grunge, Pavement seemed laconic, sometimes lazy, as they threaded their love of underground American rock and British-post punk, dressing their winding melodies with squalls of feedback and shambolic rhythms. Initially conceived as a studio project between guitarists/vocalists Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg in 1989, Pavement released a series of EPs that were foundational texts in the lo-fi movement of the 1990s before breaking through to the college rock mainstream with their 1992 debut Slanted & Enchanted. Shortly after Slanted & Enchanted became an indie sensation, the band's classic lineup featuring Malkmus and Kannberg, along with bassist Mark Ibold, percussionist Bob Nastanovich, and drummer Steve West gelled, and they debuted on the 1994 album Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Buoyed by the alt-rock explosion of the 1990s, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain gave Pavement their lone modern rock hit with "Cut Your Hair," but Pavement always felt more at home on the fringes of the mainstream, indulging in their odd obsessions on Wowee Zowee, then trying to tie up loose ends on Brighten the Corners. Pavement called it a day after Terror Twilight but their deep influence was apparent in generations of indie rock bands in the 21st century, a legacy the group celebrated with archival releases and the occasional reunion tour.

Stephen Malkmus (vocals, guitar) had finished studying history at the University of Virginia and returned to Stockton, California, when he formed Pavement with childhood friend Scott Kannberg (guitar, vocals) in 1989. Pavement had released their first 7" EP, Slay Tracks: (1933-1969), by the summer of 1989. Recorded for 800 dollars at the small local studio Louder Than You Think -- which was owned by Gary Young, a forty-something drummer who appeared on the EP -- and released on the duo's own indie label, Treble Kicker, Slay Tracks demonstrated sonic debts to the Fall, R.E.M., the Pixies, and Sonic Youth. While there were only a couple hundred copies pressed of the EP, it managed to work its way to several influential people within the underground industry, including British DJ John Peel. Furthermore, the EP, which was credited only to "S.M." and "Spiral Stairs," became something of an enigma, since it was supported by no press releases or information about the band. By the 1990 release of Demolition Plot J-7, the band had begun to forge these influences into their own signature sound. Pavement moved to Drag City Records and added Young as a member during the recording of Demolition Plot J-7, but the band didn't perform any concerts until after the 1991 release of Perfect Sound Forever.

During preparation for their first concerts in 1991, Pavement added bassist Mark Ibold and, in order to bolster Young's shaky timekeeping, a second drummer named Bob Nastanovich, who had attended college with Malkmus. The new lineup appeared on the band's first full-length album, Slanted & Enchanted, although the group didn't record any of the album as a full band; instead, it was pieced together by Malkmus and Kannberg. Before it was released on Matador Records in the spring of 1992, Slanted & Enchanted created extremely good word-of-mouth praise; before the album was even available promotionally, critics were lavishly praising it in the press. Initially, the band's following was based upon critics and fellow musicians, but soon word began to spread on the street as well. Pavement supported the album with their first national tour, and while it didn't reach many cities, it became notorious for the band's sloppy sound and Young's grandstanding. He would greet the audience at the door, shake their hands, perform handstands during the show, hand out salads, and occasionally collapse drunk. Young was asked to leave the band during 1993; his last release with the group was the EP Watery, Domestic, which was released in the fall of 1992. He was replaced by Steve West, a friend of Nastanovich. After West joined the band, the band's early EPs were compiled on Drag City's 1993 collection Westing (By Musket and Sextant).

Pavement's sound was cleaned up somewhat after Young's departure; it was a combination of having a steady drummer and recording in real studios. Some pundits predicted that Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the 1994 follow-up to Slanted & Enchanted, would be Pavement's breakthrough into the mainstream. To a certain extent, it was. The album debuted on the U.S. charts at 121 and "Cut Your Hair" became a Top Ten modern rock and MTV hit. But despite the LP's overwhelmingly positive reviews, Crooked Rain simply expanded Pavement's cult dramatically, confirming their status as underground, not mainstream, stars. Following the release of Crooked Rain, Pavement recorded sporadically in 1994; Malkmus and Nastanovich also contributed to Starlite Walker, the full-length debut by the Silver Jews, which was led by their college friend David Berman.

Pavement returned with their third album, Wowee Zowee, in the spring of 1995. More sprawling and eclectic than either of its predecessors, the album proved once again that Pavement was a leader of the underground instead of alternative rock's Next Big Thing. Despite the mixed response Wowee Zowee received from critics -- which sparked a Pavement backlash in the press that continued for the next two years -- most of the group's die-hard fans embraced the album. The band also landed a spot on the fifth Lollapalooza tour, which featured likeminded artists such as Beck and Sonic Youth. Though it may have been financially lucrative, the gig proved frustrating for the band; sandwiched in the middle of the main stage's bill, Pavement found themselves playing to fewer people than they might have had they headlined the second stage.

The group began 1996 with the release of the Pacific Trim EP and spent the rest of the year recording their fourth album with producer Mitch Easter. Released in early 1997, Brighten the Corners was seen as a return to the group's more accessible, Crooked Rain-like sound; it was greeted with positive reviews and debuted at number 70 on the American charts. After extensive touring in the U.S. and worldwide, Pavement took a break for the first half of 1998. That summer, among the bandmembers' off-duty activities, both Malkmus and Kannberg performed solo gigs: Malkmus introduced new Silver Jews and Pavement songs at the two L.A. dates he played with Scarnella (Nels Cline and the Geraldine Fibbers' Carla Bozulich's side project), while Kannberg played drums with Half Five Quarter to Six (an impromptu '80s cover band featuring other San Francisco-based musicians) at a charity event called One Night Stand. Kannberg also started his own label, Pray for Mojo (later renamed Amazing Grease), which featured bands like the psych-pop combo Oranger.

That fall, Pavement regrouped and recorded Terror Twilight with producer Nigel Godrich, whose intricate, polished style graced albums by Natalie Imbruglia, Beck, and, most famously, Radiohead. That group's guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, played harmonica on the album's sessions. When Terror Twilight arrived in the summer of 1999, it won uniformly positive reviews, but its bigger, cleaner sound and lack of any Kannberg songs made it feel suspiciously like a disguised Stephen Malkmus solo album. The Major Leagues EP did feature songs from Kannberg -- which he recorded with Gary Young at Louder Than You Think -- but this did little to dispel the breakup rumors Pavement had been dodging since Malkmus' solo gigs, during which he admitted that the bandmembers' desires to live outside of Pavement could spell the group's end. He announced that the band was indeed finished at their November 20, 1999, date at the London Brixton Academy: with a set of handcuffs hanging from his mike stand -- which he said symbolized being a part of a band -- Malkmus thanked Pavement's fans "for coming all these years."

However, the official word from the band and Matador Records was that Pavement were merely on hiatus. But, in the spring of 2000, word got out that both Kannberg and Malkmus were readying solo projects: Kannberg's, named the Preston School of Industry, reunited him with Gary Young; Malkmus' was initially called the Jicks, then rechristened Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, and included drummer John Moen, formerly of the Dharma Bums and the Fastbacks, and bassist Joanna Bolme, who had also worked with the Minders. An interview with Malkmus in the November 2000 issue of Spin confirmed Pavement's breakup for once and all. Ibold, West, and Nastanovich also stayed busy during the group's "hiatus": Ibold started his own label, West toured and recorded with his project Marble Valley, and Nastanovich maintained his horse-racing tip sheet Lucky Lavender. Late in 2000, it was announced that Malkmus' solo album -- which had the working title of Swedish Reggae -- would be known simply as Stephen Malkmus, and that he and the Jicks would tour in the spring of 2001 with Elastica's Justine Frischmann joining as an additional guitarist and Nastanovich as their road manager. Kannberg and his group also began playing dates in early 2001.

Despite the band's somewhat confusing and frustrating end, Pavement helped steer the course of '90s indie rock in a consistently intelligent, unpredictable -- and even fun -- direction. In late October of 2002, Matador released a massively expanded version of the seminal Slanted & Enchanted. The version contained an astounding 36 bonus tracks ranging from an entire live performance to revealing B-sides. A retrospective double-DVD set entitled Slow Century was welcomed concurrently. Matador then released a similarly expanded edition of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain in 2004 and Wowee Zowee in 2006, all the more confirming Pavement's legacy as indie rock trailblazers. In 2009, the band announced a series of 2010 benefit shows in New York City's Central Park and the U.K. that evolved into a full-fledged reunion tour in 2010. That year also saw the release of a compilation album called Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement. Following this burst of activity, the bandmembers once again went their separate ways. In 2015, they reactivated their archival project with the release of Secret History, Vol. 1, a compilation that issued rarities from the 2002 Slanted & Enchanted [Luxe & Reduxe] reissue on vinyl.

Pavement planned to mount a second reunion tour in 2020 but plans were scrapped thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The group was finally able to hit the road in 2022, the same year they released an expanded version of Terror Twilight subtitled Farewell Horizontal”.

A remarkable band who are back now and we may hear new material from soon, the immense Pavement have influenced so many artists through the decades. To show the scale of that influence, below is a packed playlist of tracks from those who have something of the band about them. This is a tribute to the…

ROCK-SOLID Pavement.