FEATURE: Revisiting… Lorde - Solar Power

FEATURE:

 

Revisiting…

Lorde - Solar Power

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FOR this Revisiting…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ophelia Mikkelson Jones

I am coming to an album that was given mixed reviews when it came out. Lorde’s third studio album, Solar Power, was released on 20th August, 2021. Lorde wrote and produced the album with Jack Antonoff, with whom she also worked on her 2017  studio album, Melodrama. An album that went to number one in several countries and hit number two here in the U.K., the third album from the New Zealand-born Ella Yelich-O'Connor is phenomenal. I saw a lot of two and three-star reviews, but there were also some hugely positive ones. It split critics quite a bit as good as Melodrama, it does come close! I think that Solar Power was given a bit of an unfair shake in 2021. Listening now, and it is an album that keeps reveal layers and wonderful moments. Prior to getting to some positive reviews for Solar Power, I want to source a couple of interviews. With songs written by Yelich-O'Connor (she credited herself as Lorde when it came to production) and Antonoff, Solar Power is this incredible album that will stay with you. In August 2021, The New York Times featured Lorde. Stating here was someone who achieved hits as a teen and is now chasing the sun, Solar Power seems like Lorde’s most important work to date:

“It’s not even that the singer and songwriter born Ella Yelich-O’Connor, now 24, presents as especially perfect, or self-assured or immune to criticism. It’s not that she doesn’t suffer from second-guessing, insecurities, bouts of vanity, impatience or mindless cellphone scrolling.

But Lorde — the human and the artist — can usually be found one step ahead, intuitively and emotionally, having thought through her reality from most angles: how something felt to her, how she might express that, how it will be received and how she might process how she was interpreted. This is a skill set that many people who become known like she did — as a gifted small-town teenager with an out-of-the-gate smash success — can feign pretty well. But few do it as convincingly.

“I know enough to know that people in my position are symbols and archetypes and where we meet people, in the context of culture and current events, is sort of outside of our control, so I try not to fret too much,” Lorde said recently, with characteristic consideration and Zen, ahead of the release of her third album.

“It’s a very funny position to be in,” she acknowledged. “It’s absurd.”

But it’s this sense of perspective and self-awareness that has kept Lorde going in an often unforgiving industry. In fact, she made an entire album about finding balance.

“Solar Power,” out Aug. 20, is what happens when a pop star outwits the system, swerves around its strange demands, stops trying to make hits and decides to whisper to her most devoted followers how she did it. For Lorde, the trick was having a life — a real life — far away from all of this. And also throwing her phone into the ocean. (A therapist didn’t hurt either.)

After the reign of “Royals,” her first single — which spent nine weeks at No. 1 and won two Grammys — and her three-times platinum 2013 debut “Pure Heroine,” Lorde took four years to release a follow-up. Her second album, “Melodrama,” in 2017, paled in comparison commercially, but it realigned out-of-whack expectations, establishing the singer as a phenom-turned-auteur, earning her rave reviews and another Grammy nomination, this time for album of the year. Then she hoarded four more years for herself.

Along the way, Lorde became an industry blueprint for a sort of world-building, precocious wallflower singer-songwriter, helping to usher in a generation including Halsey, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. But Lorde hasn’t really stuck around to see it.

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“I went back to living my life,” she said of her recent hiatus, identifying as “a hothouse flower, a delicate person and a massive introvert,” drained after a year-plus of promotion and touring for “Melodrama.” “It’s hard for people to understand that.”

“The question I’ve gotten a lot recently is, ‘What have you been doing?’” she added. “I’m like, ‘Oh, no, no, no — this is a break from my life.’ I come back and perform these duties because I believe in the album”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Justin J Wee for The New York Times

I want to move on to NME. An artist hugely admired around the world, there was a lot of attention and press around Solar Power. NME noted how there is a singularity to the album. It is a hugely intriguing and nuanced album that does unfold over time. Maybe many critics need to revisit it and approach with fresh ears:

“Aside from Lorde herself, the biggest character on ‘Solar Power’ is our planet. The album is a celebration of the natural world, from the musician’s insistence that we should “hope the sun will show us the path” on album opener ‘The Path’ to ‘Fallen Fruit’’s disappointment in past generations leaving today’s youth to deal with the climate crisis. Even the sounds on the record reflect the nature she was so inspired by, her beloved 808 drums and synths – which made 2013 debut ‘Pure Heroine’ and its 2017 follow-up ‘Melodrama’ so compelling – replaced by acoustic guitar and analogue drums.

“There’s some statistics about electronic music being more likely to be made in cities or urban environments and the opposite is more likely to be made in open pastures,” she says. “I think that makes sense based on my experience. ‘Melodrama’ was very much made in a city and also for a different time of day. I think when you’re trying to bust the 808s out to represent the golden hour…” She trails off, laughing at the idea.

‘Solar Power’ is a singular record in 2021’s musical landscape. It has elements of the Laurel Canyon folk influence that you can hear in record’s such as Clairo’s ‘Sling’ (the gen-Z star also provides backing vocals on several tracks) or Birdy’s ‘Young Heart’, but the way Yelich-O’Connor marries that with other influences – referencing Primal Scream, Natalie Imbruglia and, brilliantly, S Club 7 and Robbie Williams on the title track alone – pulls it into its own unique space of sunkissed folk-pop that feels like its sprouted from the soil itself.

“I guess that was part of why I stepped back from consuming the internet in a really consistent way – I wanted to know what I would make when I wasn’t dialled into what everyone else was making,” she theorises. Lorde has gone mostly off-grid – she’s locked out of her social media accounts, has blocked Google on her phone and YouTube on her laptop, and made her phone grayscale to try and pull herself out of a digital addiction. “One of the things that starts to happen when you have any sort of community is you start to move as one, in a way. I honestly don’t think I could have achieved this if I tried four years ago, just because [I was in] the whirlpool.”

“I was like, ‘Is this all I can do? Is this the sum of my parts, being an entertainer?’”

In the past, the 24-year-old says, she would have been drawn into trying to make her own version of what she saw other people doing. “I would even just see someone wear something and I’d be like, ‘I really need to get that, that’s what we’re wearing now’,” she says, laughing. Divorcing herself from being so in touch with the cultural zeitgeist allowed her to put the focus back on herself and follow her instincts.

For each of her albums, Lorde has undergone a big personal transformation. Records, for her, are ways to unpack the events and relationships in her life. In the four years between ‘Melodrama’ and ‘Solar Power’, she says “so much” has changed, particularly in the way she’s reset her relationship with fame and the by-products of it. Rather than view her pop star existence as her “normal” life and her time at home as a holiday, she sees it as being very much the other way around.

“For someone like me, there’s a lot of fractals,” she begins. “There’s me in my house with my loved ones; my neighbours who know me to be a famous person; people in my country who know me to be a famous person; people in other countries who know me to be a famous person. It takes a second to figure out what your relationship is going to be.” To work that out for herself, she says, she needed to tap out and sink into a more domestic life at home – one where she gives herself weeks at a time off work, living in a very “luxuriously unstructured” way until she feels the itch to get back in the studio”.

I want to bring in a review from Rolling Stone. They had plenty of praise and positive points when it came to the incredible Solar Power. I think that it ranks alongside the best albums of 2021. If you have not heard the album, then make sure that you rectify that:

“Nothing moves up a quarter-life crisis quite like a global climate catastrophe and a pandemic, so Lorde’s is right on time. With Solar Power, she’s right in the thick of it: wearied by teenage fame and capitalism, worried about the state of the earth and grieving the loss of her beloved dog Pearl. To abate the bubbling undercurrent of grief and stress, she escapes to the beachside resort in her mind. It’s the dawn of a new Lorde — dare we say, in her Margaritaville era? — trying to channel her inner chill to mixed results.

The title track led off Lorde’s album cycle, a Jack Johnson-y slice of commercial sunshine pop that embraced some of the lush harmonies of her previous two albums but pivoted far away from the underlying darkness. The rest of Solar Power has the same approach in mind: Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers fill out the background vocals on a mix of Laurel Canyon-esque acoustic cuts and serene ballads. As she promises on “Oceanic Feeling,” her “cherry-black lipstick’s gathering dust in a drawer/I don’t need her anymore.

Lorde spends a lot of the album shedding her skin. Phones get tossed in the water. She bids adieu to “all the bottles, all the models” and “the kids in line for the new Supreme.” The music she loved when she was sixteen gets left back in New Zealand, probably collecting dust next to the lipstick. She essentially Gone Girl’s herself from her past, taking a sparse few memories with her, like the one of Carole King presenting her with a Grammy Award on “California.” But even her relationship with her own music is fraught: “I thought I was a genius/But now I’m 22, and it’s starting to feel like all I know how to do is put on a suit and take it away/With my fistful of tunes that it’s painful to play,” she admits “The Man With the the Axe.” The ballad itself is a bit sleepy; while there is ambient emotional tension threaded through the album, that doesn’t always translate to the way a song sounds, leaving some of those reflections feeling more whimsical than they probably should.

Meanwhile, those glimpses into her early twenties psyche don’t mesh and often complicate the more satirical moments. “Mood Ring,” which is sonically a highlight and lyrically a miss, is one of the more obvious satires, tackling wellness culture through the lens of Sixties commune life. While a valiant attempt, what it misses is that one of the best parts of Lorde’s songwriting is her incredible earnestness. When that is let loose, like on the absolutely stellar “Oceanic Feeling” and Big Star-esque “Big Star,” she is an unstoppable pop force.

Solar Power largely meanders through the anxiety, a bit of a relatable smooth brain approach to all that’s going on in the world. Lorde admits as much on the album: she basks in the inconclusiveness of her deep thoughts. Even Robyn, who appears at the end of “Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)” as a flight attendant on Strange Airlines, destination Sadness (quite literally) is not even sure where the tour will take you. (And though always pleasant to see Robyn, imagine the type of sweeping dance floor monster the pair could’ve made in a different part of Lorde’s musical journey!)

The timing of the songwriter’s most inward album yet is a bit funny: we are seeing the impact of her first two albums absolutely dominate popular music. Her influence has left an indelible mark on the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and even Billie EIlish, both of whom hit the same notes on how taxing celebrity can be before they even hit their twenties. We are hearing a version of Lorde everywhere nowadays, but Lorde herself can’t hear any of it with all those seashells pressed to her ears, listening deep for the sounds of crashing waves in the distance. She’s figuring out her life in real time, chipping away at who she is and who she could be through her music. And has enlightenment been found? No, she professes, but she’s trying”.

I am going to finish with a review from NME. Awarding thew album five stars, Rhian Daly was stunned and blown away by an artist who has released three stunning albums in a row. I am curious to see what album number four might offer:

“On her previous two albums, Lorde made modern classics. ‘Pure Heroine’ surveyed the life of teenagers in 2013, bored and over the typical milestones of what we’re told success is, too busy drifting around the suburbs in friends’ cars to care about the trappings of luxury. Four years later, on ‘Melodrama’, she took us into one night at a house party and the dissolution of a relationship, deftly capturing every angle of a break-up.

For her third album, the Kiwi star is bringing things back to our most basic level – paying tribute to nature and the Earth itself. “The beginning of summer is my favourite time in New Zealand, and this year in particular it feels like a gift,” she shared with fans in a round-robin email last year, before ‘Solar Power’ was announced. The first piece of material she previewed from the record – its title track – captured that feeling perfectly. “I hate the winter / Can’t stand the cold,” the 24-year-old sings. “But when the heat comes/ Something takes a hold.”

Lorde revels in the environment throughout the album, whether she’s suggesting jumping off Bulli Point on her home country’s Lake Taupō on album closer ‘Oceanic Feeling’ or looking to the skies for answers on ‘The Path’. “Now if you’re looking for a saviour – wellm that’s not me,” she tells us on the latter, dark and moody flute melodies floating beneath her. “Let’s hope the sun will show us the path.”

While ‘Solar Power’ draws its potency from Mother Nature, its creator doesn’t sugarcoat the reality that the natural world, which is so inspiring to her, is in danger of irreversible change. “Wearing SPF 3000 for the ultraviolet rays,” she sings on ‘Leader Of A New Regime’, a stripped-back island escape that makes hermitting yourself away from the chaos of daily life sound like a dream (“Got a trunkful of Simone and Céline and of course my magazines / I’m gonna live out my days”). ‘Fallen Fruit’ takes on the generations that came before us, condemning them, over unsettling folk music, for leaving “us dancing on the fallen fruit”. She asks: “How can I love what I know I am gonna lose?”

‘Solar Power’ reflects Lorde pulling from Earth not just lyrically, but musically too. Where ‘Pure Heroine’ and ‘Melodrama’ were filled with euphoric synths and crisp digital sounds, this album peels away all our technological advances and relies on more organic sounds. Even when swathes of mellotron or Wurlitzer coat the tracks, as on ‘Fallen Fruit’ or ‘Secrets From A Girl (Who’s Seen It All)’, they do so in a way that feels like they’ve been pulled from the soil rather than coursing with electricity.

Elsewhere, the record deals with grief – not for the climate especially, but for Lorde’s dog Pearl, whose death in 2019 delayed this release. “‘Member what you thought was grief before you got the call?” Lorde asks herself on ‘Secrets…’ and, later, Swedish alt-pop don Robyn dials into the track for a spoken word verse that tells us: “Welcome to sadness / The temperature is unbearable until you face it.” It’s a gentle, generous song that softly urges Lorde to keep going and get through her pain, nudging her to trust in her instincts and believe in the answers she holds inside herself.

Pearl pops up again on the reverent ‘Big Star’, which pays tribute to the pure, non-judgmental relationship between pet and owner. “I’m a cheater – I lie and I’m shy / But you like to say hello to total strangers,” Lorde murmurs on its first verse, summing up her late dog’s accepting nature, which is at odds with humans’ flaws. “You’re a big star,” she adds fondly. “Want to take your picture / ‘Til I die.”

To counter ‘Solar Power’’s worship of our planet and its creatures, ‘Mood Ring’ offers a tongue-in-cheek look at wellness culture. Dropping references to yoga positions and crystals, the track depicts relying on the titular jewellery to know how you’re doing. “I can’t feel a thing,” Lorde sighs. “I keep looking at my mood ring / Tell me how I’m feeling.” The subtly amusing lyrics also find her noting: “Can’t seem to fix my mood / Today it’s as dark as my roots.”

There are comments on ageing too; on ‘Secrets’, the 24-year-old laments how quickly her last decade has slipped by, and the gorgeous ‘Stoned At The Nail Salon’ sees her meditate on growing up. “All the beautiful girls, they will fade like the roses,” Lorde notes, later adding: “All the music you loved at 16, you’ll grow out of.”

‘Solar Power’, though, doesn’t feel like a record that will suffer that same fate – this is an album that grows in quiet stature with every listen, new nuggets of wisdom making their way to the surface, peeking through its beautiful instrumentation that weaves a stunning, leafy tapestry. Few artists strike gold on every record they create but, for the third time in a row, Lorde has done it again, crafting yet another world-beater”.

An album that I think was unfairly criticised by some. Many feel a little disappointed, but I feel Solar Power is a typically remarkable album from Lorde. One of the greatest songwriters of her generation, we are going to hear a lot more music from her. A fine work that deserves a lot more love, I know that Solar Power will…

SHINE bright for years.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Tracks from Incredible Duos

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Outkast

Tracks from Incredible Duos

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WHEN defining a ‘duo’…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Confidence Man

I am talking about the vocals and the two people synonymous with the act. There are some duos such as Steely Dan and Tears for Fears who played with musicians. One would class Tears for Fears more as a duo. Steely Dan may seem like a band but, as they were fronted by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, I think of them as a duo with musicians around them. I was compelled to think about duos after re-listening to Charles & Eddie’s 1992 hit, Would I Lie to You? I was musing as to whether you get male vocal duos anymore. It seemed like there was a time when we had that sound, but it is not so common now. There are great duos today like Wet Leg, and Let’s Eat Grandma. I think about the evolution of duos and the scope they possess. From harder-edged to more Pop-based, there have been some great duos through the years. Again, I am classing a duo as two people that are backed by musicians. Here is a playlist featuring some terrific songs from…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Charles & Eddie

GREAT duos.

FEATURE: Revisiting… Toni Braxton – Spell My Name

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

Toni Braxton – Spell My Name

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I have included…

Toni Braxton a fair bit on my blog through the years. I have not mentioned her latest studio album, Spell My Name. The ninth studio album from the R&B legend, it was released by Island Records on 28th August, 2020. For this amazing album, Braxton assumed more control in terms of writing and producing the material. Spell My Name also features a range of collaboration, including appearances from H.E.R. and Missy Elliott. Quite underrated in my opinion, I wanted to shine some new light on an album that has a lot to offer. Before coming to two differing reviews, I want to quote from a couple of interviews. The Guardian  interviewed Braxton in August 2020. It is interesting learning more from one of music’s most influential legends:

“I didn’t realise I could sing until my teenage years. Singing was so much a part of me and my family. We got up, we sang, we went to bed. I think at elementary school I realised I had a different tone. My voice was always low. I remember everyone in class singing Joy to the World and I was the only one who couldn’t sing it in the key. I was always the kid in the room with the low voice that made you turn around.

Nobody believes how I was discovered. They think it’s a story for publicity, but it’s absolutely true. I was in college and one day I was at the gas station, singing to myself while I filled the car. The attendant [William E Pettaway Jr, writer of Girl You Know It’s True, by Milli Vanilli] comes up to me and tells me he likes my voice and that he’d like to do some demos with me. I thought it was just a line, but I went with it and here I am. He went on to buy the gas station!

I regret not having more sex when I was younger. I should have drank more. I should have partied more. Smoked more, even. I think my religious upbringing stopped me doing a lot of things that I should have done. It’s not a good look at the age I am now. The way it works is you do that stuff in your 20s and 30s and then in your 40s you’ve earned enough to pay for the therapy.

I was starstruck meeting Stevie Wonder. He was touching my face – which is how he “sees” – and telling me how beautiful I was. I was, like: “You could cop a feel right now, Stevie, and I wouldn’t care – you’re Stevie Wonder!” I’m a huge fan. Meeting him was absolutely massive to me”.

One of my favourite artists ever, another reason I wanted to highlight Spell My Name is that Toni Braxton’s eponymous debut album is thirty in July. A month where a lot of terrific albums have big anniversaries, Braxton has lost none of her magic, passion and talent. Her latest album is one that needs to be heard by more people. FAULT chatted with Toni Braxton in December 2020 about her latest album. I have selected a few questions from their discussion:

“Do you feel you achieved everything you wanted to with the Spell My Name album?

Toni Braxton: I think I did – sometimes the concept of an album comes to me right at the start, and sometimes it comes at the end, but for this particular project it all came together pretty quickly. I knew I was going to do a heartbreak album, but one with a lot of hope in it.

There’s always been an old school versus new school R&B discussion, but you bridged the gap working with both longtime practitioners and relative newcomers this album – was that a conscious decision?

Toni Braxton: I’ve always wanted to collaborate on a song with Missy, I’m a huge fan of her work. HER is very talented – she’s a musician who plays a roster of different instruments, and I was impressed when I saw her on a morning show playing the piano – she reminded me of myself as a young musician. So it was more out of admiration for the different artists than a statement.

What would you say was the most challenging part of your musical journey so far?

Toni Braxton: My lack of knowledge about the business side of the industry. As an artist, I just wanted to sing and let my art to be out there, but it’s a journey that you have to take by yourself, and thankfully along the way it got better. 

I think your learning moments also helped educate other artists on their journey – does that give you some comfort?

Toni Braxton: I think so, I also learned a lot from other artists like Anita Baker, Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston. I was in 12th grade when Whitney came out, and I loved her so much, and I think you always have to pay it forward.

You’ve seen the industry change during your tenure as an artist, do you feel enough real progress has made?

Toni Braxton: It’s changing slowly, but women still aren’t heads of record companies, and there are so many talented female writers and producers that you don’t hear about. We’re not celebrated like men are. Missy Elliot, for instance, is a fantastic producer and writer but I don’t feel that’s truly appreciated. The same goes for me, Mariah, Alicia Keys and so many others but I find with guys in the business, they’re always being bigged up for their talent while people don’t recognise the talents of female artists the same way.

What do you want your art to say about you?

Toni Braxton: That I’m a risk-taker, a trendsetter and a real talent”.

I am going to get to some reviews for Spell My Name. Many were not taken with the number of ballads on Spell My Name. Maybe more synonymous with more energised, sultry, or spirited songs, the 2020 album does seem more introspective and slower than some of Braxton’s earlier work. This is what CLASH observed in their review of an album that deserves a lot more love and revisiting:

“Toni Braxon is an unimpeachable icon, one of the voices who reconfigured R&B during its 90s Imperial phase. Later turning her hand to acting with a run of hugely successful Broadway appearances, her 2018 album ‘Sex & Cigarettes’ lit up the charts. Clearly, this American legend has nothing to prove.

‘Spell My Name’ is hard to fault, then, but also difficult to truly love – her new album, it’s a slight affair, clocking in at a slender 10 songs, one of which is technically a ‘bonus’.

‘Un-Break My Heart’ goddess is an impeccable vocalist, and the highs on display rank with some of the best of her career. ‘Gotta Move On’ for example, pairs Toni Braxton with modern day trailblazer H.E.R., while the vastly popular single ‘Do It’ couples the divine R&B chanteusse with indefatigable creative iconoclast Missy Elliott.

Aside from these songs – and frisky opener ‘Dance’ – it’s a largely down tempo affair, and this leads to each song blurring into the next. There’s a preponderance of slo-mo balladry, and while the likes of ‘Spell My Name’ and ‘Happy Without Me’ are expertly sung, it’s no more than that – the sound of a legend showing off her chops, maybe, but ceding ground at the cutting edge.

It’s far from a failure, with ‘Spell My Name’ boasting moments of rich maturity, the kind of lyrical openness that has always made her work so intriguing. Yet there’s also an unwillingness to embrace contemporary movements in R&B, in the manner of, say, Brandy’s recent LP.

But perhaps that’s churlish. Toni Braxton has more than earned the right to exist on her own terms, and fans will find much to adore on her tenth studio album.

6/10”.

In this feature that revisits incredible albums from the past five years, a treasure from 2020 came in the form of Toni Braxton’s Spell My Name. It is an album that gets more stronger and more rewarding the more you listen to it. In a four-star review, The Guardian offered the following observations and impressions:

“It’s been eight years since Brandy’s last album – forgivable for someone who’s “been an original since 1994”, as she boasts on I Am More on this new one. The R&B singer is such an icon that when you google the phrase “the vocal bible” her picture comes up, all thanks to the supremacy and range of her voice.

B7 isn’t exclusively a trip down memory lane, but it does cruise past a few old haunts. Brandy’s trademark raspy vocals and sublime harmonies on Rather Be and Lucid Dreams are nostalgia-inducing for anyone who grew up listening to her acrobatic riffs and runs. Baby Mama featuring Chance the Rapper is a rhapsody to her 18-year old daughter and an anthem for single mothers. “I’m every woman,” she sings, evoking Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston.

Perhaps Brandy shouldn’t quit her day job when it comes to rapping – her attempt on High Heels is so-so – but the singer sure knows how to duet. Love Again, featuring Daniel Caesar, ripples with lavish melodies, and their layered and distinct voices marry to create the bespoke cocktail your strange summer’s been missing. So good it could square up to 1998’s beloved The Boy Is Mine”.

If you are a fan of Toni Braxton or not, I would recommend that you listen to the wonderful Spell My Name. Maybe there are one or two tracks that are a bit similar or could be nixed, there are also some modern-day Braxton classics. I especially love Dance, Do It and Happy Without Me. Such an influential artist, let’s hope there are more albums from the iconic Toni Braxton. Spell Me Name, whilst not up there with her very best, is a worthy and solid album with many highlights and deeper cuts. It shows that, nearly thirty years since her debut album, she is an artist we…

ALL should cherish.

FEATURE: I’m Amazed: Pixies’ Timeless Debut Album, Surfer Rosa, at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

I’m Amazed

Pixies’ Timeless Debut Album, Surfer Rosa, at Thirty-Five

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LOOKING ahead to…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

21st March, and that is the thirty-fifth anniversary of one of the greatest and most influential debut albums ever. Pixies’ Surfer Rosa was released on the British label, 4AD. Produced by Steve Albini. Even though Surfer Rosa is now regarded as a classic, it failed to chart in the U.S. or U.K. Surfer Rosa was rereleased in the U.S. by Elektra Records in 1992, and in 2005 was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The Boston band released something truly distinct in 1988. Prior to the release of Pixies' debut mini-album, Come on Pilgrim, in October 1987, 4AD’s head, Ivo Watts-Russell, suggested they return to the studio to record a full-length album. The plan was to use producer Gary Smith (who produced Come on Pilgrim), but due to a disagreement between him and the Pixies’ manager, Steve Albini was hired. The legendary producer (who went on to record Nirvana’s In Utero in 1993) was a superb choice – a name suggested by 4AD. To mark the approaching thirty-fifth anniversary, I will come to some reviews of the album. Prior to that, there are some features to bring in. Guitar highlighted and saluted the genius of Surfer Rosa for a feature in 2020:

“David Bowie called the album, which went Gold on both sides of the Atlantic, “the most compelling music outside of Sonic Youth made in the entire 80s”; it blew PJ Harvey‘s mind; Kurt Cobain admitted to ripping off Surfer Rosa; the artists not yet known as Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead were listening closely, too.

Surfer Rosa‘s origins lie in the Purple Tape, a demo recorded over six days in March 1987 using $1,000 borrowed from singer and guitarist Black Francis’ father. 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell was impressed enough to sign the band and put out eight songs from the demo as the EP Come On Pilgrim. By the time Pixies went into Boston’s Q Division Studios to record Surfer Rosa with producer Steve Albini in December 1987, they were a tightly wound unit. Countless hours of rehearsals in a sewage-soaked basement rehearsal room enabled the whole thing to be wrapped up in just 10 days, costing $10,000 – with 4AD paying Albini a flat fee of $1,500.

Wantonly unorthodox

Central to the chilling brilliance of this strange, unsettling album is the balance and contrast between the three main players – Francis (real name Charles Thompson), Philippines-born lead guitarist Joey Santiago and bassist Kim Deal. Francis’ more controlled rhythm playing is a steadying counterpoint to Santiago’s wantonly unorthodox approach, while Deal’s chugging basslines bring a melodic levity to the seething brew. Try to imagine Gigantic without her simple yet immediately evocative contribution, for example.

Both guitarists, who met at the University Of Massachusetts, wanted to use Telecasters on Surfer Rosa, but Francis got there first, deploying his blonde 1980s American Standard into a Vox AC30 for the sessions. Santiago settled on a Les Paul, borrowing Deal’s 1970s Goldtop and plugging in to a Peavey Special, while the bassist used an Aria Pro II Cardinal Series through a Peavey Combo 300.

“A Les Paul is a really good complement to a Tele,” Santiago told Guitar.com in 2018. “If you’ve got the Fender, you’re gonna have to have the Gibson to counteract it, unless you want to be a country act, and then you’re all Tele’d out. It’s Mick Jones and Strummer and all that good stuff…”

Both players were determined to carve their own niche, too, rejecting the histrionic hair metal tropes that dominated rock music in 1987. “Mainstream guitar had a lot of typewriting skills,” said Santiago. “The only thing that was impressive about it for me was the speed. But in the back of my mind I was like, ‘I don’t care’. It just wasn’t my thing.”

Francis and Santiago were ripping up the rule book, messing with song structures and pairing chords and riffs that sat uneasily, Santiago’s anti-solo stance at the heart of many of the album’s most memorable moments. Witness the thrilling sense of discord in the riff and churning unison bends on Where Is My Mind? That song’s solo, too, is unusual, Santiago playing notes from the B minor pentatonic scale over major chords.

“The music is unconventional,” Francis told Guitar.com. “There’s a lot of half-steps, a lot of chords that don’t theoretically go with the key, but it seems to work”.

Before getting to a review, there is another great feature that is worth sourcing. The Quietus marked the thirtieth anniversary of Surfer Rosa in March 2018. Aside from the wonderful production and compositional brilliance, The Quietus argue that it is Pixies’ strange and often disturbing lyrics that helps give their debut album (and subsequent Pixies albums) its unique and urgent edge:

“Surfer Rosa was, and still is an amazing record. It’s Pixies’ best, something that becomes ever more apparent with the passage of time (reviewing Bossanova for Melody Maker in 1990, Bob Stanley remarked that he didn’t really get the genuflection before Pixies albums, since they had so much filler; he’s largely right, but Surfer Rosa is by a distance the one with the least filler). It’s a landmark record because it doesn’t sound of its time, whereas so many of 1988’s other critical favourites do sound of their time, for reasons of technology or fashion or context: NME made Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back it’s album of the year, with Surfer Rosa at No 10, which was a perfectly reasonable position to take - Millions is a great, groundbreaking album - but 30 years on, Surfer Rosa is the one that has aged into timelessness rather than becoming a period piece.

I think the reason Surfer Rosa sounds timeless, sounds classic, is that, at heart, it is a very traditional album. Listen to it closely (even better, don’t listen closely; just have it on in the background). It’s not a revolutionary statement of musical intent. It’s a Classic Rock album. No, it doesn’t sound like Boston or the Stones or ZZ Top or any of the behemoths of American radio formats; it’s a bluesless album, a product of the great schisms of the late 70s in which not just punk but hard rock, too, expunged the shuffle from guitar music that wasn’t specifically celebrating the blues. But so much of its DNA is in Classic Rock that it’s easy to see why British audiences seized on it: while satisfying fetish for newness that British music fans like to identify in themselves, because of its dervish noise and lyrical perversity, it offered so many familiar comforts that you didn’t need to be a maven of the underground to love it. Conversely, maybe it was neglected in America because the underground tastemakers noted Pixies’ conservatism, while it remained too leftfield for the actual Boston and ZZ Top fans.

The clarity of that spacious sound – unusual in the mid-to-late 80s, when engineers and producers were taking advantage of new technology to make records as full and overwhelming as possible – made Surfer Rosa very easy to listen to. It might not be lush, but because it eschews maximalism it means the melodies – the vocal melodies, the guitar lines, the countermelodies of the bass – are always foregrounded. All its hooks are evident, and for all the ferocity of the guitars, the instrumental set-up never conceals them.

Now, one might plausibly argue that had Pixies made the exact same album musically but paired them with the lyrics of, say, The Wonder Stuff, then history might have been different: would critics have frothed over the Surfer Rosa with quite the same urgency had they not been singing about incest, violence, more incest, more violence, and sundry other unsettling kinkiness? Had the critics not frothed – this being an age when the weekly music press still wielded influence – would the indie public have embraced them so wholeheartedly? Had the indie public not embraced them so wholeheartedly, would they have passed into pantheon of great bands, or would they be another of those groups who get occasionally reissued, gushed over in the specialist press a bit, then forgotten again, like The Feelies, a pioneering American indie band who remain consigned to the margins?

Surfer Rosa endures. It will continue to endure. Teenagers will continue to discover Pixies – you see them at the shows – thrilling to the lyrical transgression; adults will continue to listen to them, reliving a past. Younger bands will continue to acknowledge them – Kings of Leon, of all people, cited them as an inspiration when the two groups shared a bill in Hyde Park last summer. Nowadays, the notion that Pixies are a classic band isn’t something to dispute. It’s only a hop from there to accepting them as Classic Rock”.

Unsurprisingly, the reviews for Surfer Rosa in 1988 were phenomenal. Retrospective ones have perhaps been even more constructively positive and amazed. This is what AllMusic observed in their review of one of the finest and most enduring debut albums that has ever been released. It is clear that Surfer Rosa is this majestic and astonishingly consistent and faultless work from the sublime Pixies:

“One of the most compulsively listenable college rock albums of the '80s, the Pixies' 1988 full-length debut Surfer Rosa fulfilled the promise of Come on Pilgrim and, thanks to Steve Albini's production, added a muscular edge that made their harshest moments seem even more menacing and perverse. On songs like "Something Against You," Black Francis' cryptic shrieks and non sequiturs are backed by David Lovering and Kim Deal's punchy rhythms, which are so visceral that they'd overwhelm any guitarist except Joey Santiago, who takes the spotlight on the epic "Vamos." Albini's high-contrast dynamics suit Surfer Rosa well, especially on the explosive opener "Bone Machine" and the kinky, T. Rex-inspired "Cactus." But, like the black-and-white photo of a flamenco dancer on its cover, Surfer Rosa is the Pixies' most polarized work. For each blazing piece of punk, there are softer, poppier moments such as "Where Is My Mind?," Francis' strangely poignant song inspired by scuba diving in the Caribbean, and the Kim Deal-penned "Gigantic," which almost outshines the rest of the album. But even Surfer Rosa's less iconic songs reflect how important the album was in the group's development. The "song about a superhero named Tony" ("Tony's Theme") was the most lighthearted song the Pixies had recorded, pointing the way to their more overtly playful, whimsical work on Doolittle. Francis' warped sense of humor is evident in lyrics like "Bone Machine"'s "He bought me a soda and tried to molest me in the parking lot/Yep yep yep!" In a year that included landmark albums from contemporaries like Throwing Muses, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies managed to turn in one of 1988's most striking, distinctive records. Surfer Rosa may not be the group's most accessible work, but it is one of their most compelling”.

I am going to end this feature with a review from the BBC. They  note how the lyrical mood and themes had shifted quite a bit from Come on Pilgrim. There is something altogether more serious and darker on Surfer Rosa. Even though the lyrics are a bit different, Pixies ensure their debut album is eclectic, elastic and has plenty of light and layers. It still stands up and sounds fresh thirty-five years later:

“Though the specialist subjects of sun, surf and dubious sexual encounters of their debut ep (1987’s Come On Pilgrim) had been retained, the overall mood masterminded a year later on their first full length record was altogether more unruly.

The Bostonian quartet, formed by guitarist and singer, Charles Michael Kitteridge Thompson IV - who for understandable reasons of alt rock credibility rechristened himself Black Francis – fell in with producer Steve Albini to create an album which though failing to chart at the time, had a telling influence on those picking up on the harsh, surly undertow of its (at times) frat-house humours.

Albini’s production simultaneously amplifies The Pixies’ endearing naiveté and hectic energies, contrasting the polarities of throwaway trash (the tongue-in-cheek nerdy B-52s-type hero worship of “Tony’s Theme”) versus the snarling thrash of “Vamos” (a remade carry-over from Come On Pilgrim) which does much to lend the album its unsettling volatility.

Although “Gigantic” co-written and sung by bassist Kim Deal, shows they were more than capable of delivering hook-laden pop, it credibly opened up the kind of territory which Kurt Cobain and pals would later claim as their own.

Indeed such was its legacy, David Bowie covered “Cactus” on 2002’s Heathen. Somewhat sanitised on that occasion, the original version here has a don’t-go-there edge to it, and is one of the best songs ever to burst in and shine an FBI-style flashlight onto the darker, closeted recesses of obsessive love; ‘Bloody your hands on a cactus tree/ Wipe it on your dress and send it to me.’

The left-field locations continue with “Bone Machine,” the limelight veering between Francis’ tale of parking lot molestation and a wonderful solo by their ingenious lead guitarist, Joey Santiago. Beginning like James Brown’s “Sex Machine” being not so much taken as frog-marched to the bridge, it rapidly leaps into a revved-up blast recalling one of King Crimson’s Robert Fripp’s patented chordal solos; a genuinely thrilling 18 seconds that you never want to end. Though the follow-up, Doolittle (1989), ultimately widened their appeal, this is indispensable warts-and-all stuff that set the benchmark”.

On 21st March, one of the all-time great albums turns thirty-five. The all-conquering Surfer Rosa is a debut masterpiece from Pixies. The album had a profound effect when it came to shaping the sound of Grunge and Alternative Rock. Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain explained how the album formed the basis and inspiration for their Nevermind. You can hear a lot of Surfer Rosa’s dynamics and themes in 1991’s Nevermind. That connection alone shows how phenomenal and important Pixies’ debut album is. In reality, the album has had a gigantic impact on the music world. Ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary, I wanted to highlight the brilliance of…

THE amazing Surfer Rosa.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Miley Cyrus - Bangerz

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Miley Cyrus - Bangerz

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A huge selling 2013 album…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Miley Cyrus at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/WireImage for MTV

from Miley Cyrus, Bangerz went to number one in the U.S. and U.K. Perhaps her finest album to date, I wanted to write about it for a couple of reasons. First, Cyrus released her incredible eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, on 10th March. If many critics feel this is her finest work yet, I want to look back a decade to an album that arrived on 30th September, 2013. Whilst there were plans at the time for Cyrus to focus on her acting career, that was changed. She started work on Bangerz in mid-2012. Not as Pop-orientated as her previous work, there is something edgier and more Hip-Hop/R&B-based on Bangerz. Whilst there is Pop at the core, fans and critics noted how this was a departure from Cyrus. There are some incredible collaborations on Bangerz. Britney Spears, Big Sean, French Montana, Future, Ludacris, and Nelly feature. Cyrus co-wrote twelve out of sixteen tracks. Maybe shedding a more wholesome and Disney-esque image that one might have got from the Hannah Montana star, Bangerz established a more provocative, liberated, and sexual artist. Someone who was maturing and entering a new phase. It seemed deliberate that she was pushing away that alter ego and former life. If the public bought the album in droves and many publications listed Bangerz in their favourite albums of 2013, the reviews were a bit mixed. I am going to bring in a couple of the bigger and more positive ones. There were quite a few two and three-star reviews for an album that is much stronger and better than that. A moment where Miley Cyrus took control of he rpublic image and released an amazing alvbum, I think that people should revisit Bangerz almost a decade from its release.

If Endless Summer Vacation is an album that talks about Los Angeles and is a love letter to the city, Bangerz is more about romance and a young artist establishing herself fully. Shaking off the past. There were a lot of positive review for Bangerz, but there were far too many mixed ones. Before getting to review, this MTV feature speaks with the co-writer and producer of Adore You (one of the singles from Bangerz), Oren Yoel. He looked back at Miley's major leap into adulthood, and the album's legacy a decade on:

“You can’t think of 2013 without picturing Miley Cyrus. Rocking a flesh-toned two-piece bikini, Miley and her twerk-centric performance with Robin Thicke at the MTV Video Music Awards in late August caused an uproar, but really, the then-20-year-old artist was just out there having fun, embracing her young adulthood, and expressing her autonomy. And she brought that fun and exploration fully to life on the album she released a month later, Bangerz.

After the release of her sophomore LP Can’t Be Tamed in 2010, Miley revealed in a Billboard interview that she felt “disconnected” from it and the rest of her older music. “I was 16 or 17 when I made it. When you’re in your twenties, you just don’t really know that person anymore,” she said. A few years earlier, she told MTV News, “The more I make music that doesn't truly inspire me, the more I feel like I'm blending in with everyone else.”

Unlike her previous albums which were fully centered in pop (or country, in her Hannah Montana era), Bangerz found her taking the adventurous route, dabbling in hip-hop, as heard on her hits “We Can’t Stop,” “FU,” and “Love Money Party,” as well as in and her collaborations with rappers like French Montana and Big Sean. But Bangerz’s opening track, the tender “Adore You,” kicked off this new version of a nearly 21-year-old Miley with a tender look at love from a more heartfelt place.

Oren Yoel, who co-wrote and produced the track, revealed to MTV News that the star wanted to show off both her fun-loving spirit and her maturity. “This was her way of showing that she's growing up,” he said. “I think she always wants something that touches her and hits the soul viscerally.” He said Bangerz was meant to reflect the changes in Miley’s life at the time, including throwing “awesome parties.” And Miley got real with her creativity during this era. “She pulls the things that she likes from different things and puts them together,” he continued. “So I think she wanted some big-booty bass and then just a great song.”

To make the track, Yoel met up with Miley in Philadelphia in 2012, where her then-partner Liam Hemsworth was filming a movie. “We got cheese steaks brought to us,” he said. “We worked at the studio, and there was this one huge room, gorgeous, and then a little room in the back that was barely hanging on. Miley wanted to work in that room. I remember [thinking], ‘Well, all right, OK, let's do it.’” Yoel tidied the place up (“I like a little feng shui in the room”), and then the two of them, along with co-writer Stacy Barthe, “hung out in this little back room, eating some cheese steaks and just talking about life. It was a really, really cool time.”

The end result was “Adore You,” which led off Bangerz on an earnest note. Although her other love songs such as “Wrecking Ball,” “My Darlin’,” “Someone Else,” and “On My Own” touched on heartbreak, the R&B-inspired pop ballad “Adore You” found Cyrus embracing the positive aspects of a growing love. The accompanying music video depicted a surreal montage of Miley lying under the bed covers and in the bathtub, suggestively expressing the star’s dual erotic and romantic feelings for her lover. The lyrics were simple but straightforward: “When you say you love me / Know I love you more / And when you say you need me / Know I need you more.”

“When somebody else is excited about love, it makes you excited about love, the possibility of it,” Yoel said. “And so I think that her excitement touched me, and it's just that all-encompassing thing. Everybody needs love, and when you find somebody special and you want to show them why they're special and her talent, amazing talent is to sing. And she showed that the best way she could to him.”

Yoel feels pride for how the song has touched others’ hearts. “I've gotten videos of it being played at weddings and a whole bunch of stuff,” he said. “I was sitting in the car and saw somebody listening to it next to me, bawling and crying. [I’m] very proud of how special that record has become for certain people.”

“Adore You” peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, while fellow Bangerz singles “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can’t Stop” reached No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. The latter originated from musical duo R. City, a.k.a. Rock City, who initially wrote it with Rihanna in mind. In a 2013 Vixen interview, the pair said Bangerz producer Mike Will Made-It pitched for Miley to take it instead. “We felt like this could be somebody’s first single,” R. City’s Timothy Thomas said. “We knew it was going to be big because it was very original.” A glimpse of Miley’s lively parties was featured in the hit’s music video, which was filled with bizarre props like giant teddy-bear backpacks, a mountain of white bread, a French-fry skull, and a woman simulating slicing her fingers. Even more surprising, Miley got into a brawl with her party guests. Director Diane Martel explained its significance to MTV News in 2013. "That fight scene is awesome. What female artist lets themselves get their ass kicked in their own video?" she said. "This is what I mean about her. Miley is my hero”.

I am going to come to a couple of reviews. In a positive assessment of Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz, this is what Rolling Stone had to say about an album that I think that everyone should hear and get to know more about. A decade on, and it still sounds brilliant and full of highlights:

“WAY TO KILL it, Milez. Your VMA performance put the Internet in traction, enraging liberals with its dicey racial burlesque and scandalizing conservatives with its twerking-toward-Bethlehem decadence. You’ve taken raging-bull control of your sexuality, even if it has often looked like LBJ taking control of our policy in Vietnam. And now you’ve sealed the deal with the Rihanna-meets-Gaga-meets-Pink-meets-Britney party grenade of a record your special moment merits.

Bangerz is the sound of Hannah Montana gone Miami Vice. “You think I’m strange, bitch?/Shit’s bananas like a fuckin’ ‘rangutan, bitch,” she rhymes in a sketchy hip-hop drawl on “Do My Thang.” It’s strange but it’s also traditional: Her Disney-steeped voice never takes a back seat to the wide-ranging production (from the likes of Pharrell, Will.i.am and Dr. Luke), and Billy Ray’s daughter rocks a country vocal during several tracks. Some skeptics – let’s call them haters – might argue that Cyrus isn’t wholly comfortable in her new dirty/crazy persona. But that’s part of the strange charm: “We Can’t Stop” undercuts wild-child woo-hoo with dark, uneasy sonic textures, and ballad crushers like “Wrecking Ball” ride the hunger and confusion that make great coming-of-age pop. “I just started living,” she sings on the starkly beautiful album opener, “Adore You.” There’s as much terror as power in that realization. That’s what makes it stick”.

I am going to finish with a review from Entertainment Weekly. One of the most effusive reviews of Bangerz, I do feel a lot of critics should have been on their page when it comes to a very strong and enduring work from Miley Cyrus. It is an album that can be appreciated by existing fans, in addition to those who are new to their work and want a place to start. Bangerz is the sound of Cyrus starting fresh and making a statement:

“Ever wonder what the grinning naked women in Robin Thicke’s ”Blurred Lines” video were thinking? Miley Cyrus might’ve solved that riddle with ”#GETITRIGHT” — created, as it happens, by ”Blurred Lines” mastermind Pharrell Williams. Over scratchy funk guitar that evokes Daft Punk’s ”Get Lucky,” the 20-year-old describes a heightened state of nude (or nudelike) being to an absent lover: ”Would you believe I’m dancing in the mirror?/I feel like I got no panties on/I wish that I could feel ya/Now hurry, hang up that damn phone!”

The song’s every bit as immodest as you’d expect from a young lady who recently spawned a craze for swinging unattired on public pendulums. It also establishes who gives the orders in Mileyland — and who lays claim to the spoils: ”I got things I wanna do to you,” she declares, after she’s already recounted an orgasm. Bangerz, executive-produced by shrewd Atlanta beatmaker Mike Will Made It, is the onetime Disney star’s fourth studio album, but her first as the master of her own destiny and — with the two lead singles already landing at No. 2 and No. 1 — a pacesetter in music. It’s also utterly fresh, a pop blitz from a hip-hop blueprint, and proof that Miley won’t settle for just shocking us.

In fact, she wants us to know her heart. A couplet like ”We were meant to be/In holy matrimony” could sink the hardiest song, but she coolly carries it off in ”Adore You,” a pretty, goop-free ballad that flaunts a key facet of her versatile voice: the throaty diva swoon. The M-word pops up all over Bangerz, most notably in ”Drive,” a sad-Kanye-esque track that Miley has said she started last Valentine’s Day, after first grazing the rocks with now ex-fiancé Liam Hemsworth. But she rebounds quickly: Immediately following the self-explanatory ”FU,” which folds starry Adele-style sass and a French Montana verse into expertly inlaid dubstep wub-wubs, comes ”Do My Thang,” a ripping dance track in which a rapping Miley issues a general warning to ”stay in your lane.”

Yes, Miley raps. And if you can’t stand Ke$ha, you probably won’t take to Cyrus’ skills, either. Her confidante Britney Spears rhymes too, on ”SMS (Bangerz)”: ”They ask me how I keep a man/I keep a battery pack!” But it’s all in Cyrus’ toolbox, along with everything from mutated honky-tonk (the winningly nutty Pharrell production ”4×4,” with Nelly) to shameless frat-party-starting (”Love Money Party,” featuring Big Sean paying tribute to red Solo cups). She’s not only game for ”My Darlin’,” a trippy duet with Auto-Tune artiste Future, she makes it a genuine weeper. And when she’s handed conventional EDM club bait such as ”Someone Else,” she calls up her chops and throws into relief just how meek typical DJ bros like their hook girls.

Miley’s not one to use her guests as ornamentation — she needs them to turn her pop pedigree inside out. Wherever her passions alighted in the past, she’s obviously infatuated right now with hip-hop and its perpetual drive for new and exotic sounds. Bangerz may be about breaking up and wilding out, but it also agitates for the future. When she sings, ”Been wondering where you been all my life,” in ”Adore You,” she might as well be addressing her own reinvented self. A-“.

Go and listen to the amazing Bangerz. Released in 2013, it celebrates its tenth anniversary in September. Although the brand-new Endless Summer Vacation can be seen as one of her most complete and best albums, I think that Bangerz is still at the top. An amazing collection of songs from an artist breaking from the past, it needs to be heard and respected…

BY all.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The Best of Lana Del Rey

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

The Best of Lana Del Rey

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ON 24th March…

the sensational and iconic Lana Del Rey releases her ninth studio album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Although she (Lizzie Grant) released the eponymous debut Lana Del Ray in 2010, I think Born to Die is her true debut. That 2012 album is hugely underrated. Since then, she has released some of the best albums of the past twenty years. One of the greatest songwriters of her generation, we will see that demonstrated through Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. I recently read the superb profile and interview that Hannah Ewans conducted for Rolling Stone UK. It is such a deep, interesting and great piece of writing where we learn more about Lana Del Rey’s past work, career and her new album. I think her ninth studio album will be among her most personal, arresting and enduring:  

“Del Rey’s music once had a cool distance. It felt like she was melancholically singing over your shoulder. Now, however, her lines are played straight to the camera and then knock the fourth wall aside entirely to speak to you directly. There’s a playfulness, freedom and an honesty about her immediate reality on her new album, Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Tracks flow in a jazzlike trance; classic piano and acoustic songs blend into hip-hop, pop, gospel and choral numbers. Colloquial lyrics move as fast as a Beat writer’s poem: they seamlessly speak to a friend about culture, offer mundane updates on what’s going on in her daily life, present notes on dark relationships. But songs frequently, as Antonoff notes, come together with a “voice of God, some joy or hopefulness”.

Antonoff returns as a producer on multiple tracks. “You have a weird whiplash of not knowing what you’re supposed to feel,” says Antonoff of the second single, the horror folk meets internet rap track, ‘A&W’. “That sensation is across the album: you could dissect the tone of whether it’s hints of gospel or bringing back some of the 808s and the fucked-up side of things. But in the studio, it was just about finding what is shocking in the moment.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Grant

The tunnel under Ocean Boulevard is a real place. In LA’s downtown Long Beach, the abandoned Jergins Tunnel will still gleam if you cast a light on its white, sand and caramel-coloured tiles and beige mosaics on the floor. People walk above today not knowing what lies beneath. In the late 60s, it was sealed off and closed to the public, but once upon a time it was a subway for holidaymakers to access the beach. Cotton candy and souvenir vendors lined those walls. Not to be too literal, Del Rey says of Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd, but “would it be a worrisome concept to be boxed out and sealed up with all these beautiful things inside with no one able to gain access except maybe family?”

Lana wears own dress, gemstone bracelet by Swarovski, bangles and rings stylist’s own (Picture: Chuck Grant. Styling: Joseph Kocharian)

It’s a revealing query that shows Del Rey’s sensitivity around how she’s perceived and understood has softened but remains an enigmatic concern. “That was a question I had because that’s a very plausible thing that could happen with the music, with how pointed people’s perceptions of my music can be,” she explains further. “Would it probably, plausibly, get to the point where it became a body of work that made me a vessel that was sequestered to the point where only family would have access to the metaphorical tunnel?”

This album is a box of treasures of its own dedicated to family. You hear it in the constant reminders that this is what Del Rey calls a “name-out or call-out album”. She mentions her father, sister, brother, Caroline’s baby and all those loved ones around her to “keep them close in the music” because they’re with her every day. Some jokes and lines are drawn directly from conversations with her girlfriends, like on ‘Fishtail’ when a friend’s date promised he would come over to her house to braid her hair, but he never did. “If people think my music is good it’s because there’s other people involved in the songs and in the process of making it. So many people,” she says, with a smile at just how good it is”.

Looking ahead to her new album and back at the incredible work she has produced so far, below is a career-spanning playlist featuring her singles and best deep cuts. I hope that Del Rey continues to release albums for years to come. With such an expressive and mesmeric voice and style, that is matched with her unique and engrossing songwriting. The recent Rolling Stone interview lets us into a truly amazing human. I look forward to hearing what Did You know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd offers. It is going to be another successful and acclaimed album from…

A genius and hugely compelling songwriter.

FEATURE: Get on the Floor: The Legendary Quincy Jones at Ninety

FEATURE:

 

 

Get on the Floor

PHOTO CREDIT: Rich Fury/Getty Images for EJAF 

The Legendary Quincy Jones at Ninety

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ON 14th March…

 PHOTO CREDIT: M Records/Getty Images

the legendary producer and musician Quincy Jones turns ninety. His illustrious and amazing career spans over seventy years. He has accrued eighty GRAMMY Award nominations, 28 GRAMMYs, and a GRAMMY Legend Award in 1992. I am going to mark his approaching ninetieth birthday with songs from albums that he has produced. Whilst he is best known for his work with Michael Jackson on his albums Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987), he has worked with a range of different acts through the decades. Before getting there, AllMusic have an incredible biography of the master Quincy Jones:

“In a career spanning over seven decades, Quincy Jones has earned his reputation as a renaissance man of American music. Since entering the industry as an arranger in the early 1950s, he has distinguished himself as a bandleader, solo artist, sideman, songwriter, producer, film composer, and record label executive. A quick look at a few of the artists he's worked with -- Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Lesley Gore, Michael Jackson, Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, and Aretha Franklin -- reveals the remarkable diversity of his career. He has been nominated for a record 80 Grammy awards, and has won 27 in categories including Best Instrumental Jazz Performance for "Walking in Space" (1969), Producer of the Year (1981), and Album of the Year for Jackson's Thriller (1983) and his own Back on the Block (1990). Outside recording studios, he has produced major motion pictures, helped create television series, and written books, including Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones (2001). An inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2013), he has continued producing and recording, contributing the song "Keep Reachin'" for the documentary Quincy: A Life Beyond Measure (2018).

Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 14, 1933. While still a youngster, his family moved to Seattle, Washington and he soon developed an interest in music. In his early teens, Jones began learning the trumpet and started singing with a local gospel group. By the time he graduated from high school in 1950, Jones had displayed enough promise to win a scholarship to Boston-based music school Schillinger House (which later became known as the Berklee School of Music). After a year at Schillinger, Jones relocated to New York City, where he found work as an arranger, writing charts for Count Basie, Cannonball Adderley, Tommy Dorsey, and Dinah Washington, among others. In 1953, Jones scored his first big break as a performer when he was added to the brass section of Lionel Hampton's orchestra alongside jazz legends Art Farmer and Clifford Brown. Three years later, Dizzy Gillespie tapped Jones to play in his band, and later in 1956, when Gillespie was invited to put together a big band of outstanding international musicians, Diz chose Quincy to lead the ensemble. Jones also released his first album under his own name that year, a set for ABC-Paramount titled This Is How I Feel About Jazz.

In 1957, Jones moved to Paris in order to study with Nadia Boulanger, an expatriate American composer with a stellar track record in educating composers and bandleaders. During his sojourn in France, Jones took a job with the French record label Barclay, where he produced and arranged sessions for Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour, and traveling American artists like Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan. Jones' work for Barclay impressed the management at Mercury Records, an American label affiliated with the French imprint, and in 1961 he was named a vice-president of Mercury, the first time an African-American had been hired as an upper-level executive by a major U.S. recording company. Jones scored one of his first major pop successes when he produced and arranged "It's My Party" for teenage vocalist Lesley Gore, which marked his first significant step away from jazz into the larger world of popular music. (Jones also freelanced for other labels on the side, including arranging a number of memorable Atlantic sides for Ray Charles.) In 1963, Jones began exploring what would become a fruitful medium when he composed his first film score for Sidney Lumet's controversial drama The Pawnbroker; he would go on to write music for 33 feature films.

In 1964 work with Count Basie led him to arrange and conduct sessions for Frank Sinatra's album It Might as Well Be Swing, in collaboration with Basie and his orchestra; he also worked with Sinatra and Basie again as an arranger for the award-winning Sinatra at the Sands set, and would produce and arrange one of Sinatra's last albums, L.A. Is My Lady, in 1984.

While Jones maintained a busy schedule as a composer, producer, and arranger throughout the '60s, he also re-emerged as a recording artist in 1969 with the album Walking in Space, which found him recasting his big-band influences within the framework of the budding fusion movement and the influences of contemporary rock, pop, and R&B sounds. The album was a commercial and critical success -- the title song won a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Large Group or Soloist with Large Group -- and kickstarted Jones' career as a recording artist. At the same time, he began working more closely with contemporary pop artists, producing sessions for Aretha Franklin and arranging strings for Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon. While Jones continued to work with jazz artists, many hard-and-fast jazz fans accused him of turning his back on the genre, though Jones always contended his greatest allegiance was to African-American musical culture rather than any specific style. (Jones did, however, make one major jazz gesture in 1991 when he persuaded Miles Davis to revisit the classic Gil Evans arrangements from Miles Ahead, Sketches of Spain, and Porgy and Bess for that year's Montreux Jazz Festival; Jones coordinated the concert and led the orchestra, and it proved to be one of the last major events for the ailing Davis, who passed on a few months later.)

In 1974, Jones suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm, and while he made a full recovery, he also made a decision to cut back on his schedule to spend more time with his family. While Jones may have had fewer projects on his plate in the late '70s and early '80s, they tended to be higher profile. He produced major chart hits for the Brothers Johnson and Rufus & Chaka Khan, and his own albums grew into all-star productions in which Jones orchestrated top players and singers in elaborate pop-R&B confections on sets like Body Heat, Sounds...And Stuff Like That!!, and The Dude, the last of which resulted in a Grammy for Producer of the Year. Jones' biggest mainstream success, however, came with his work with Michael Jackson. Jones produced his breakout solo album, Off the Wall, in 1979, and in 1982 they teamed up again for Thriller, which went on to become the biggest-selling album of all time. Jones was also on hand for Thriller's follow-up, 1987's Bad, and the celebrated USA for Africa session which produced the benefit single "We Are the World" (written by Jackson and Lionel Richie), and he produced a rare album in which Jackson narrated the story of the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Jones' own Back on the Block, released in 1989, hit the pop Top Ten and led to five more Grammy awards, most prominently Album of the Year.

Having risen to the heights of the recording industry, Jones moved from scoring films to producing them in 1985. His first screen project was the screen adaptation of Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, directed by Steven Spielberg. In 1991 he moved into television production with the situation comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which gave Will Smith his first starring role. Jones' production company also launched several other successful shows, including In the House and Mad TV. He produced a massive concert to help commemorate the 1993 inauguration of president Bill Clinton, and at the 1995 Academy Awards won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In 1996 Jones performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival to celebrate his 50th anniversary in the music business. The concert was captured on video and released as a DVD.

Jones spent the rest of the '90s and first decade of the new century concentrating on his music publishing business, completing Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, and being an "unofficial" cultural ambassador for the United States. In 2004 he helped to launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project, benefiting children in conflict-inhibited situations all over the globe. In 2010, Jones released Q: Soul Bossa Nostra, his first album in 15 years. As with many of his previous solo albums, the set featured appearances by popular vocalists like Amy Winehouse and Usher. Three years later, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award. He continued working with artists including Emily Bear, Nikki Yanofsky, and Terrace Martin, and released the Chaka Khan collaboration "Keep Reachin'," recorded for Quincy: A Life Beyond Measure, a 2018 documentary about his illustrious career”.

To celebrate the ninetieth birthday of the fantastic Quincy Jones, below is a playlist of singles/songs from albums he has produced. The man’s golden touch is all over some of the all-time great albums. It just leaves me to offer the icon…

THE very happiest birthday wishes.

FEATURE: Lines, Crosses, and Curves… Musing About Kate Bush Possibilities for 2023

FEATURE:

 

 

Lines, Crosses, and Curves…

Musing About Kate Bush Possibilities for 2023

_________

I am thinking ahead…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

to 30th July, as that is the sixty-fifth birthday of Kate Bush. I was planning on doing a series of celebrations but, as I think Bush herself would not want that sort of fuss, maybe something a bit more toned-down! Closer to the time, I will start a run of features. I might also do a podcast about Lionheart. Her second studio album, it was released in November 1978. That might be a fitting tribute. It will be exciting building up to 30th July and seeing how the world reacts. Last year was an unexpectedly busy one when it came to Kate Bush and her music. In addition to articles and books (including Tom Doyle’s excellent Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush), there was a lot of love for her online. Rather than me repeating myself about what I predict will happen this year, there are a few possibilities and hopes that I hope will come to be realised. We have just celebrated the forty-fifth anniversary of her debut album, The Kick Inside (on 17th February), and there are one or two big anniversaries this year. Naturally, fans around the world hope that this year is one where Bush will announce some new music. You never know what might happen, but I think we could hear something around summer sort of time. That would be amazing to read! Apart from that, of course there will be cover versions and the usual array of magazine features – and there is a new Hounds of Love 33 1/3 book coming later this year too.

I wanted to both reintroduce a few ideas and subjects I have covered before, but sort of muse on what could come to light or what is missing from the market. You never know what could be announced, which is why it is always exciting being a Kate Bush fan. In the same way that I am going to scale down any ideas for Bush’s sixty-fifth birthday, she herself would not really embrace a full-on blitz of books and projects. Rather than cashing in on her recent success and fresh resurgence, what we will see are lovingly assembled and researched books. I always bemoan the lack of Kate Bush podcasts, but I think we will see more this year. Not that it is being marked by a big anniversary but, as, on 2nd April, it will be forty-four years since Bush embarked on The Tour of Life, that warrants attention. That was the warm-up gig to her only tour. In terms of artefacts and mentions about it, you do not get a lot. There are three things and releases that I think should come to light. A release relating to The Tour of Life is one. Whilst there has been physical release for 2014’s Before the Dawn – Bush’s twenty-two-date residency in Hammersmith – and there is memorabilia available online, there is very little concerning The Tour of Life. Apart from the On Stage E.P. – four tracks taken from the tour, the E.P. was co-produced alongside Jon Kelly -, there isn’t a great deal. I know that Bush herself has said she loved the tour, and it was a great deal of fun (if tiring). There are so many people who do not know about it. A podcast covering it would be a good starting point for many. Perhaps speaking with people who were there back in 1979, taking a deep dive into the tour and its impact would be fascinating.

Although a podcast would be easy enough and great, the audio and visuals of The Tour of Life are sort of in bits and would benefit from being remastered and combined. I have written about this before but, as I think this year is one where more people know about Bush’s music, this iconic and hugely important tour needs to come to physical formats. There are some remastered videos of Bush performing during The Tour of Life, but nothing official. There is a Nationwide documentary that looks at the preparation and aftermath of the gigs, but either a Blu-Ray/DVD release of a full set and that documentary, or maybe a YouTube video or new documentary where we get remastered footage from several dates on the tour, and that is then cut with with parts of the Nationwide feature. It would kind of be a new Kate Bush documentary, but one that is specifically about The Tour of Life. It would be fascinating to see that come to life. It would need to be agreed between EMI and Kate Bush, but the Tour of Life is one of the only major parts of her career without an official album or release. We have the studio albums, a greatest hits collection (The Whole Story), plus a few other things. A full set from The Tour of Life, with cassette and C.D. options – vinyl would be the main attraction of course -, together with some linear notes/photos would be more than fair. I am not sure why there has not been a release, as Bush would support it and has fond recollections of The Tour of Life.

Before moving to an idea around two studio albums from Bush that celebrate big anniversaries later in the year, I keep coming back to the idea of photos. This is a big thing for me when it comes to Kate Bush. Nothing has come in recently, and I think there is a whole archive of wonderful photos that could come to light. Cherished volumes like John Carder Bush’s Kate: Inside the Rainbow show that there isa affection and demand for photos. As I have also written about, I am not sure whether it is easy to collate press photos (from official shoots and interviews) from through the years. I would love to see more photos of Bush by Gered Mankowitz. He took a lot of fabulous images of Bush in 1978 and 1979. Guido Harari sort of took up the baton from there, and there are two large and more expensive coffee table books from them both. I think something similar to Kate: Inside the Rainbow that is more affordable and maybe combines great images of her through the years would be welcomed. Maybe bringing in addition or unseen photos from John Carder Bush, it could be a chronological book. Maybe bringing in interview snippets, information about her studio albums and other information, there is a whole world of Kate Bush imagery that would look beautiful in a new book. Again, I don’t think that this is something that she would object to. Maybe in collaboration with John Carder Bush, Guido Harari, and Gered Mankowitz, there could be this celebration and salute of an icon. If it were possible to have some press photo and images from The Tour of Life and Before the Dawn, then that would provide a brilliant and wonderful compendium for established fans and new alike.

 PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Two of Kate Bush’s studio albums have big anniversaries this year. Both are in November. The Red Shoes turns thirty, whilst Lionheart will be forty-five. Both are underappreciated albums. Whilst we will not see anniversary reissues, there should be something around the anniversaries. When it comes to Lionheart, there are interviews and music videos. I do hope that magazines and websites take some time out to mark an album that is very strong and does not get the attention and respect it deserves. There have not been many (if any) podcasts exploring the album. Whilst albums such as Hounds of Love and The Kick Inside will get articles written about them, there has been precious little when it comes to Lionheart. Bush’s second studio album, it was a little rushed. Even so, at only ten tracks, there is no real wastage. Some of her best songs can be found on this album – including the newly-written Symphony in Blue and one of the singles, Wow -, so I do think that there is a need to highlight this album. Again, podcasts could come about, but I do hope a magazine dedicates some pages to the making of Lionheart and shining new light on it. It did then lead to The Tour of Life, where all of its tracks were performed live. In fact, an alternate title for the tour was The Lionheart Tour. Perhaps tying in something to do with Lionheart and The Tour of Life could happen. It would be nice to think.

In terms of albums that do not get a great deal of focus, The Red Shoes is right up there. Similarly to Lionheart, the 1993 album has plenty of great tracks. Whilst I do not consider it to be as strong as Lionheart, it does have some magnificent work on it. Rubberband Girl, Eat the Music, Moments of Pleasure, and Lily alone are enough to confirm that it is well worth a lot of love! I would love to see something come about in November for its thirtieth anniversary. Again, there will be no reissue or anything like that but, as I have said for a long time, there are not many remastered videos. Rubberband Girl, Eat the Music and Moments of Pleasure have great videos. HD versions of them would be awesome. Also, and also turning thirty later this year (13th November) is the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. This short film, directed and written by Bush (she also starred) was maligned. Bush herself put distance from the short, but I think it has some fabulous moments. Perhaps a remaster of that too would welcome it to new fans and, in the process, shine new light on its better moments. Magazine articles definitely need to come for The Red Shoes, as this was the last studio album by Bush before a twelve-year hiatus. It was a fascinating period!

 PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart

There is the possibility to put together some great articles, podcasts and events to mark some key Kate Bush albums and occasions. Of course, there is no telling what else could be coming this year in terms of commemorations and acknowledgements. I still think that there should be something to do with The Tour of Life, as it is a monumental and hugely important part of her career that has not really been explored or revised since 1979. A lot of people do not even know about it. With photobooks of her the subject of real fascination, they illuminate a beguiling and multi-layered artist. I know there are so many images out there that are striking and complex that could sit together beautifully. I have been thinking about this because of the occasion of her sixty-fifth birthday on 30th July. It has got me thinking about how there should be something in the world before then. In a previous feature, I suggested the idea of a tribute album. Rather than flood the market with a Kate Bush swell of things, something like a Tour of Life release or a podcast about Lionheart would fulfil a need. Not only would be it be beneficial for established and older fans of Kate Bush. It would also be revelatory and beneficial…

FOR the younger generations.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Mae Muller

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Mae Muller

_________

YESTERDAY…

it was officially announced that London-based artist Mae Muller would be representing the U.K. in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Coming from Liverpool, it will be a year where many people think we will win it. Sam Ryder finished second last year. Many are tipping Muller to go one further. With her terrific track, I Wrote a Song, impressing fans and press alike, it seems like there is a sure-fire winner already concocted. It has all the components needed to get the judges handing out big scores on the night. It is a timely moment to put her in Spotlight and highlight her work. An amazing artist who has released two E.P.s, Chapter 1 (2019), and no one else, not even you (2020), there will be this demand and expectation of an album. After she appears at Eurovision in May, there will be many more people with their eyes trained the way of her amazing music. Before I get to some previous interviews so that we can discover more about the stunning Mae Muller. Here is more information about out Eurovision hopeful and how she came to represent us:

“Following an extensive search headed by 2023 partners the global music management and publishing company TaP Music, the BBC can confirm that singer-songwriter Mae Muller will be representing the United Kingdom at the 67th Eurovision Song Contest, set to be held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine, in May 2023 with I Wrote A Song.

The news was exclusively revealed by Zoe Ball on the Radio 2 Breakfast show earlier today (Thursday 9 March) and tonight at 8.55pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, Scott Mills will have the first exclusive TV interview with Mae and the first televised broadcast of the official music video.

Mae was still working at a pub when she landed her first publishing deal. Within two years she’d released 3 EPs full of pop gems that stood out for their melodic hooks and lyrics that were feisty and unapologetic in their frankness. Stealing the attention of the industry, she supported Little Mix on their 2019 stadium tour, landed millions of YouTube views, and scored a top 10 US chart hit with her platinum selling single ‘Better Days’ which she performed on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Having signed to Capitol Records UK (part of Universal Music Group), Mae continues to stand out and in 2022 she was nominated at the MTV EMAs and VMAs. Since then her music has reached over two billion streams and 5.5m monthly listeners on Spotify.

Mae Muller co-wrote I Wrote A Song with Brit-Nominated songwriter Lewis Thompson (David Guetta, Joel Corry, and Raye - Bed) and Karen Poole, who has written for Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, David Guetta and Alisha’s Attic.

Mae Muller says: ”I'm SO excited to participate in Eurovision this year and represent the UK! I've loved watching Eurovision all my life, so to compete in such a massive music competition is simply brilliant. I’m a huge fan of so many of the artists that have found success at Eurovision, from ABBA to Måneskin! Sam Ryder was so amazing last year and proved the UK can be back on the left-hand side of the leader board! I wrote the song I Wrote A Song a few months ago when I was going through a hard time and wanted to feel empowered about relationships, so for it to be chosen for this year’s UK Eurovision song is honestly a dream!”

TaP Music co-founders Ben Mawson and Ed Millett say: “We have always been fans of Mae for her voice, songs and star charisma, and when we heard I Wrote A Song, we were really taken by its impactful message - “songs as a form of therapy” (a great message for the biggest song contest in the world!) alongside its playful tone and up-tempo fun production. From the moment we met Mae, we knew she would be an incredible ambassador for the UK at Eurovision. Alongside her abundant talent, she has the most wonderfully warm and fun personality and expressed positivity and excitement about the opportunity to represent the UK. We are super excited to work with Mae, EMI and her management company Modest! on supporting Mae to get another great result at Eurovision.”

Jo Charrington, Co-President of EMI says: “We’re incredibly excited for Mae to be the UK’s entry for Eurovision. Mae is a standout talent with superstar quality, she’s bold, charismatic, fun and a mesmerising performer who has already amassed a global following through her music. Working alongside TaP, Modest! and the BBC, we feel hugely confident Mae will deliver an iconic moment for the UK at this year's momentous show in Liverpool."

Rachel Ashdown, Lead Commissioning Editor for Eurovision at the BBC says: “We’d like to thank TaP for their extensive search for the UK entrant for Eurovision this year. Mae’s commitment and drive in representing the UK is undeniably clear and I am certain that she is going to be a brilliant ambassador with I Wrote A Song.”

Suzy Lamb, MD of Entertainment & Music at BBC Studios says: “BBC Studios are so excited Mae Muller will be flying the UK flag on home turf in this very special Eurovision year.  We could see from the very first time we met her that she is a ball of positive energy and we can’t wait for the rest of Europe and beyond to fall in love with her and her fabulous song.”

Tonight on BBC One and iPlayer at 8.55pm, Eurovision 2023: Meet the UK Act will introduce Mae to the UK audience in an exclusive interview with Scott Mills. In the show, Scott will delve into Mae’s career and hear how Mae is preparing for the contest in Liverpool. It will also showcase the music video in the first televised broadcast.

The contest itself will take place in Liverpool in May. The UK are hosting on behalf of Ukraine, following the country’s victory at the 2022 contest with the song Stefania by Kalush Orchestra. The Semi Finals will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Tuesday 9 and Thursday 11 May at 8pm and the Grand Final will be broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer plus via BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds on Saturday 13 May from 8pm.

For the latest information on the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2023, follow @bbceurovision on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok and BBC Eurovision on Facebook.

The BBC One coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 is a BBC Studios Entertainment Production commissioned by Kalpna Knight-Patel, Head of Entertainment. The Head Of Delegation is Adam Wydrzynski, and the Assistant Head of Delegation is Lucy Youngman. Pete Ogden is the Creative Director for BBC Studios in the North. Suzy Lamb is the MD of Entertainment & Music at BBC Studios. The Lead Commissioning Editor for Eurovision for the BBC is Rachel Ashdown”.

I have known about Mae Muller’s music for a couple of years now, but I did not know much about her in terms of her tastes, upbringing, and ambitions. One of our best Pop artists that can sit alongside Dua Lipa and Charli XCX, she is a fantastic talent who is going to release so much more great music. I know there will be a lot of people crossing fingers she releases a debut album this year. In 2021, Glamour spoke with this incredible rising talent. It is fascinating getting to know more about Muller and the sort of music she listened to when young. She is a strong role model for women around the world. Someone who is empowering, inspiring and hugely talented:

“When you think of big UK music talent you picture Dua Lipa, Adele and Little Mix amongst others. Well, have we got news for you, Mae Muller is about to join this epic roster of talent and we’re getting a front row seat!

Singer, songwriter and professional baddie in our eyes, Mae Muller, 23, confesses that perhaps her passion behind performing came from growing up in her North London family home, fighting for all attention to be on her — blame it on middle child syndrome — although she confesses that her parents went on to have more children, her passion for showcasing her talents didn’t go away:

“I'd stand on the coffee table and sing songs and force everyone to have a look at me. I was always just that annoying kid.” she reveals as she virtually sits down to kiki with GLAMOUR.

It’s obvious that Mae has been working on her impeccable stage presence and her captivating flair for performing for some time, with a unique sound that has the power to span generations.

However, Mae Muller didn’t actually get into music until she turned 19. She reveals that she struggled to find a way in, so resorted to where some of the greats like Justin Bieber and Adele did — social media. “I started putting videos of me singing on Instagram and I put a song up on SoundCloud and then from there it just kind of snowballed. I started getting into sessions and just making more and more music and working on improving my writing skills.”

Mae Muller is now working on her latest music projects and is the ambassador for Love, MeMeMe – a Gen-Z, forward-thinking wellness and skincare brand. We managed to squeeze into her busy schedule to talk all things music, therapy and sharing advice for young women that money can’t buy...

My musical taste comes from listening to Dixie Chicks CDs on long car drives...

“Both of my parents are big music lovers. My grandparents used to live in Wales and I remember being in the car with my mom on these really long car journeys to see them. She’d put on the Dixie Chicks’ album, Home, and I just fell in love with it. I loved their songwriting and storytelling. I just thought it was so beautiful. I think that was really instilled in me from a young age.

I have imposter syndrome, but I also have the opposite as well…

My mom then bought me the All Right, Still album by Lily Allen, and I was definitely too young for those stories, but that was another album that has kind of changed my life. I was like, ‘Who is this girl? She just says whatever she wants, how she wants to say it, telling these insane stories.’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to do that’ and obviously because she's singing with her London accent, I really heard myself there, I thought it was amazing. It's started my love story for music and storytelling.”

I want to be able to create music that you hear, see and feel...

“I also loved Florence & The Machine. I loved Gwen Stefani, I was obsessed with her when I was younger. Who wasn't? All three of them [including Lily Allen] are such different artists, but what I think they all have in common is that they're really strong women who are amazing storytellers and great writers.

"I'm a very visual person. Whenever you listen to their music, you can really see it and see what they're saying. That's something that I've always really wanted to do on my own art.”

I’m surrounded by powerful woman on my team…

“There are things that are out of your control, like the people that lead your label, and that are on the board of things, but I try to request my direct team to be women, because I think they deserve to be in these spaces too and that makes me more comfortable.

"I've always said, I want my manager to be a woman. I have minimal interest [in being] surrounded by middle-aged men, because – I'm sorry – how can a group of middle-aged men understand exactly what's best for me?

"The president of my label is a woman, which is rare and great. I think women just get it and they just see things differently.”

We need the music industry to be more inclusive...

“We need to look out for each other. I’d like to see people that are in the top positions employing more women. I feel like a lot of the time when you're in the studio, a lot of the writers are women, but a lot of the producers are men. I'd say around 95% of the producers I work with are men. I feel as thought there are so many talented women out there that are just not being given the same opportunities. I think it's just about giving everyone an equal chance and just being vocal and proactive about it”.

Let’s skip forward to last year. As an artist who as releasing material and trying to break through and tour when the pandemic hit, maybe there is a bit of a delay in terms of Mae Muller being on people’s radar. The last couple of days have been a whirlwind for her. So much promotion for Eurovision. A hot tip to win for sure, it will be intriguing to see what she does when it is over in terms of her direction and plans for releases. Women in Pop spoke with Muller about the track, Better Days, songwriting, and taking control:

“You are a major pop powerhouse. The rest of the world sees Sweden as next level when it comes to incredible pop music. Do you feel a little bit like you're in Valhalla at the moment?

Oh, the level of talent here is insane. I've done a writing trip here once before, I had two weeks of writing. And if you do two weeks of writing, and you get two, maybe three good songs that's a good trip, you know? Every single song that I wrote here with the people that I was working with were all amazing. They know how to write a good pop song.

You are a powerhouse, and I have read a couple of interviews where you confessed you were a middle child spotlight puller - great thing! How did you get into music? How did you go from ‘mum, dad look at me’ to where you are today?

Honestly, I just always loved the attention! I've always really enjoyed writing and I've always loved music, but I just didn't really know how to get into it. It was always this big unknown thing. And I would ask, ‘How do people do it? How do you become a singer?’ and people say ‘you get a record deal’. And I'm like, what? You just skipped right to C, what’s A and B first? It was very confusing to me. I just started putting music out on SoundCloud actually, just doing it myself because I was like, ‘I'm just gonna get out there, it doesn't matter if it's not the most sparkly shiny thing’. I just wanted to get my stuff out there. I used to do these little singing videos on Instagram and they were not very good, but then through that I met management and then I just was writing every day and in sessions. I was releasing music independently for a year, and then I got signed [to a label] and that's when it really started popping off.

I want to talk to you as well about your last EP, 2020’s no one else, not even you. This is a work of art, of heart and words. I just love the way you put that EP together. You clearly had your hands on every single moment of the process and I can almost feel like you're learning as you do it and you're leading with your integrity. What does creating and being that present in music, do for you?

It's just a release. I feel like it's really easy to get caught up in the deadlines, the ‘when is this going to happen?' When can we make this work?’ You forget that we're here to make music and I'm so lucky that I'm so involved in the process. It’s been a great release for me and those songs on that EP are so important and it came at such an integral part of this journey. I just feel really lucky that I have, basically, free therapy isn't it? It’s fantastic!

On that, who were those sheros that you were listening to growing up? Who were those women that you were not just pretending to be and singing along to, but who were the ones that you were like, I want to make that?

I used to love Lily Allen when I was younger and especially in a lot of my earliest stuff like you can really hear her influence because I just wanted to tell stories. I used to listen to her and she sang with her with her own accent, with her own voice. She was just herself and I really really liked that. And then I listened to Florence & The Machine, who I love whose storytelling was just incredible. My mum used to play Dixie Chicks and Simon Garfunkel in the car, which was very different to what I do, but it's just amazing storytelling and I've always just been so swept away with that. I've always known that whatever I do, and whatever kind of music I make, I want people to be able to see it and to feel it and for there to be as a message”.

I am going to finish off with a feature from DORK from August. An artist who has captured widespread attention and is someone who is impossible to ignore and dislike, the passion she has for music is clear. After a successful and big year in 2022, this one is going to be the most eventful, successful and greatest so far for her I think! There will be a lot of new fans coming on board and discovering her music. Again, that demand for an album will be undeniable and large:

“You’ve done quite a few collaborations now, but how did this one come about?

I’ve been such a big fan of Marshmello, has such a legend and to work with him was such an honour. I think he heard ‘American Psycho’ while I was in the studio and loved it, so he then made it a million times better. I couldn’t believe it at the time; this was when ‘Better Days’ was really starting to do its thing too, so my life was going absolutely crazy. I’ve been a fan of Trippie Redd for a while and just wanted a cool rapper on it, so we went for it and asked him – the worst he could do is say no, but he said yes and smashed it! His verse added something that neither of us could ever have done. It’s a very unlikely trio, but it really, really works.

You’ve expressed that this song is kick-starting a new era – what’s changed?

‘Better Days’ was my first introduction to success on a new level, and I’d never experienced that level of elevation before; it felt very new. Now that I’ve seen what I can do, I’m trying to go even bigger. This era visually is a bit darker, more intense; it brings out a completely different side to me that I haven’t really shown before. A lot of my stuff is sassy and tongue in cheek, which is a big part of who I am, but it is nice to say no; I can offer some serious shit now. It’s been good for me personally to express that.

You started working on music aged 19 and have been grafting away for the last five years. How did the sudden exposure from that track feel?

Really weird. It happened overnight in a way; it became this massive thing that just kept growing super quickly. I have actually been working on my music for five years, though, it took us so much hard work to get here, and then suddenly, it finally broke through. I felt ready for it because I had worked for that long and had time to figure out who I am. I think it looks really appealing to have overnight success with your first song, but that must actually be really scary because you wouldn’t really know what you’re doing. I feel really blessed to have had that time to grow – I might have found it hard, and I did get a bit impatient, but now that this is happening, I’m really grateful.

Your songs use negative events in your past to instil a sense of self-worth in the present – why do you think that has connected with so many people?

I think that is a universal experience. It’s really easy to get lost in the fear and anxiety of past trauma, and that can stop you from enjoying certain things in the future. Trust is a big thing – once your trust has been broken, it can be really hard to trust someone again. I wanted my music to show that there is life after that negativity, in relationships or anything else. If you feel bad now, that’s not going to last forever. I’ve been through some shit, and yet here I am – you can find power in that”.

Our Eurovision representative this year, and an artist who is being talked about a lot right now, go and follow and support the sensational Mae Muller. I would be interested hearing an album and what else she has to offer. I Wrote a Song is her Eurovision entry. It will definitely be a popular choice on the night! After the dust has settled on the contest in May, all eyes will be on this…

ORIGINAL and fantastic young artist.

___________

Follow Mae Muller

PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Alexander for FAULT

Official:

https://www.maemuller.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/maemuller/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/maemuller_

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1BEUkE2CSUgHTLSBMZdnFB?si=YvPe0SPbSMuR6W_gGduuhA

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJUE0ZnNiQ5HLdyaMz1JA3g

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FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: C2C: Country to Country at Ten

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

C2C: Country to Country  at Ten

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AS a special anniversary…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lainey Wilson/PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Berger

starts today and is continuing through this weekend, I wanted to mark it with a playlist. C2C: Country to Country is a huge festival that was set up ten years ago. I am not a huge Country music expert, but I do like the new crop of artists coming through. There are some legends of the genre, and it is a great scene to get involved with. I am going to end with a playlist of artists playing across the C2C: Country to Country festival, in addition to some other modern-day Country gems. Before then, here is some background to a crucial and celebrated event in the music calendar:

“C2C: Country to Country is Europe's biggest country music festival created by AEG Europe and SJM Concerts in association with the Country Music Association. The festival takes place each March in London, Glasgow and Dublin, with three days of the best in country music and programming. Performances come from the world’s best country stars as well as emerging talent from Nashville, UK and Europe.

C2C was first launched in March 2013 at The O2, London as a two day event with Carrie Underwood and Tim McGraw as headliners. This was Tim McGraw’s first UK appearance.

In 2014 C2C launched in Dublin and in 2016 C2C grew into three days and added C2C Glasgow. In London, new stages outside of the arena included the Bluebird Café, BBC Radio 2 Country Stage and the Late Night Sounds Like Nashville Stage.

C2C 2022 saw multi award-winning headliners Luke Combs, Darius Rucker and Miranda Lambert along with Kip Moore, Brett Young, Ashley McBryde, Russell Dickerson, Scotty McCreery, Flatland Cavalry, Tennille Townes and Hailey Whitters take to the arena stage.

C2C is delighted to announce that it will return for its ninth year on 10th to 12th March 2023”.

To mark ten years of C2C, and also celebrated some great modern Country music, below is a playlist with a selection of artists who have/will appear at the three-day festival. If you are not overly familiar with modern Country or need some guidance, then hopefully the playlist will be of assistance. Below are some are some terrific Country tracks from…

SOME true greats.

FEATURE: Please Please Us… The Beatles' Debut Album at Sixty, and the Idea of an Anniversary Event

FEATURE:

 

 

Please Please Us…

The Beatles' Debut Album at Sixty, and the Idea of an Anniversary Event

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WHILST few fans of The Beatles…

PHOTO CREDIT: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

would put their 1963 debut, Please Please Me, at the top of the pile, it is undoubtably one of the most important and revolutionary albums in history. I actually love Please Please Me and, as it is sixty on 22nd March, I have been wondering how the world will mark it. Go and buy it on vinyl, because it is as terrific album that captures the energy, excitement and promise of this young band who would soon change the trajectory and sound of Pop music. Most of the songs on the albums were captured during a single session on 11th February, 1963. I love how it was recorded a month before its release. With such urgency and efficiency, this amazing debut is more like a live album compared to a studio one. Studio albums find artists working weeks and months to put their songs together, do overdubs and different takes. Here, there is the feeling and sound of a band getting songs down quickly in order to capture a simplicity and electricity that was necessary. The Beatles would experiment and push the studio to the limit soon enough, but their debut is a terrific album that makes you feel like you are watching the band in concert!

I want to get to an idea or hope. Hoping that people celebrate this huge anniversary of an album that changed music. I will start with an article and a couple of reviews for the stunning Please Please Me. Far Out Magazine wrote a feature a year ago that collates the words of The Beatles band members. Their thoughts and recollections of a debut album that would thrust them into the limelight:

“This album was one of the most revolutionary moments in music. It set pop music on course for the golden horizons yonder and shaped rock ‘n’ roll for decades to come. That’s because, with Please, Please Me, an album jam-packed with The Beatles own compositions, the Fab Four confirmed that things would never be the same again. While there are endless reviews and revised reports of this landmark moment in music, we think it’s best to hear about the album in the words of those who helped create it. So, below, we’re looking back at The Beatles’ debut album through the words of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

The record was revolutionary for two main reasons. Firstly, the album contained, by and large, songs that The Beatles themselves had composed which was, at the time, a more than unusual occurrence — pop groups were expected to ‘play the hits’. Equally as innovative was George Martin’s employment and his desire to ensure that the album sounded like attending a Beatles concert.

The Fab Four had made a name for themselves on the stage. Not only in their native Liverpool and the hallowed Cavern Club but across the channel in mainland Europe too, where they had a particularly interesting residency along with the great and good of the music scene in the unlikely pop mecca of Hamburg. As well as their songwriting, the band’s incredible live shows had been a huge part of why they were signed and given the opportunity at a live album in the first place.

Lennon remembered the album back in 1976 as a true to life occurrence. “That record tried to capture us live,” the bespectacled Beatle recalled, “And was the nearest thing to what we might have sounded like to the audiences in Hamburg and Liverpool. You don’t get that live atmosphere of the crowd stomping on the beat with you, but it’s the nearest you can get to knowing what we sounded like before we became the ‘clever’ Beatles.” The album captures the band’s intensity in their salad days, with all the sweat and joy of performing live pouring out of the LP with every rotation.

The reason George Martin was able to capture so much of that visceral showmanship was that the band had reacted well to the arduous conditions for recording. Unlike most artists today, the group were shovelled into the studios for a searing day of sessions. “The whole album only took a day… so it was amazingly cheap, no-messing, just a massive effort from us. But we were game,” remembered McCartney in 1988 of the experience. “We’d been to Hamburg for Christ’s sake, we’d stayed up all night, it was no big deal. We started at ten in the morning and finished at ten at night… it sounded like a working day to us! And at the end of the day, you had your album.”

Adding: “There’s many a person now who would love to be able to say that. Me included.”

While the thrill of making an album emboldened the band, that didn’t mean they let their artistry slip away. In 1963, Lennon recalled the experience: “We sang for twelve hours nonstop. Waiting to hear the LP played back was one of our most worrying experiences. We’re perfectionists. If it had come out any old way we’d have wanted to do it all over again. As it happens we’re very happy with the result.” Considering the songs on offer, we’re not surprised that Lennon was sated.

Largely buoyed by Lennon-McCartney’s powerhouse partnership, The Beatles revolutionised pop music by writing and performing their own songs. At the time, it was a partnership that seemed as steadfast as it was successful. Lennon could see the value of his partnership from the very beginning, speaking in 1963: “All the better songs that we have written — the ones that anybody wants to hear — those were co-written. Sometimes half the words are written by me, and he’ll finish them off. We go along a word each, practically.”

There are some serious songs on the album too. The record’s opener, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, is one of the Fab Four’s most beloved songs. A track which came out of the duo ditching school, “We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars,” remembered McCartney in 1988. “I remember I had the lyrics, ‘Just seventeen/Never been a beauty queen,’ which John… it was one of the first times he ever went, ‘What? Must change that!’ And it became, ‘you know what I mean.'” Starting with a bang, the songs only go further to showcase the talent at hand.

Next on the record was ‘Misery’, a song originally written for Helen Shapiro; it now works as a perfect representation of a John Lennon pop song, Lennon himself telling David Sheff: “It was kind of a John song.” Another track that was Lennon’s song “completely” was the title track from the record ‘Please, Please Me’. Though it was an original composition, the song was heavily inspired by one rocker: “It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song, would you believe it? I wrote it in the bedroom in my house at Menlove Avenue, which was my auntie’s place. I heard Roy Orbison doing ‘Only The Lonely’ or something. That’s where that came from.”

The next track on the album also showed the band’s promise, as ‘Love Me Do’ remains a seminal moment for the entire band, including McCartney, who recalled in 1982: “In Hamburg, we clicked… At the Cavern, we clicked.. but if you want to know when we ‘knew’ we’d arrived, it was getting in the charts with ‘Love Me Do.’ That was the one. It gave us somewhere to go.” Coming to the studio to lay down the tracks for ‘Love Me Do’, The Beatles approached their first real recording session, “I was very nervous, I remember,” said McCartney some years later. “John was supposed to sing the lead, but they changed their minds and asked me to sing lead at the last minute, because they wanted John to play harmonica. Until then, we hadn’t rehearsed with a harmonica; George Martin started arranging it on the spot. It was very nerve-wracking.”

‘P.S. I Love You’ may not go down in history as the best Beatles number of all time, but it did set a precedent for a songwriting trick McCartney would employ through a lot of his career: “A theme song based on a letter… It was pretty much mine. I don’t think John had much of a hand in it. There are certain themes that are easier than others to hang a song on, and a letter is one of them.” It shows that while the band weren’t relying on other people’s material exclusively, they knew how to play the commercial side of the game. One aspect of which was ensuring that each band member — who were being marketed similarly to something we’d align with a boyband — had a song to sing. ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’ was penned for Harrison to add his vocals to, something he didn’t exactly relish: “I didn’t like the vocal on it. I didn’t know how to sing”.

I am keen to move on. A number one in the U.K., it would be a little while until The Beatles stormed America. In fact, when they first arrived in February 1964, they were met with thousands of screaming fans. It did not take long for them to conquer the planet! Their debut album, whilst not as revered as their classic work, is a historic album in its own right. It kickstarted something profound, seismic and revolutionary. This is what AllMusic had to say in their review of Please Please Me:

“Once "Please Please Me" rocketed to number one, the Beatles rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day. Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins. As the songs rush past, it's easy to get wrapped up in the sound of the record itself without realizing how the album effectively summarizes the band's eclectic influences. Naturally, the influences shine through their covers, all of which are unconventional and illustrate the group's superior taste. There's a love of girl groups, vocal harmonies, sophisticated popcraft, schmaltz, R&B;, and hard-driving rock & roll, which is enough to make Please Please Me impressive, but what makes it astonishing is how these elements converge in the originals. "I Saw Here Standing There" is one of their best rockers, yet it has surprising harmonies and melodic progressions. "Misery" and "There's a Place" grow out of the girl group tradition without being tied to it.

A few of their originals, such as "Do You Want to Know a Secret" and the pleasantly light "P.S. I Love You," have dated slightly, but endearingly so, since they're infused with cheerful innocence and enthusiasm. And there is an innocence to Please Please Me. The Beatles may have played notoriously rough dives in Hamburg, but the only way you could tell that on their first album was how the constant gigging turned the group into a tight, professional band that could run through their set list at the drop of a hat with boundless energy. It's no surprise that Lennon had shouted himself hoarse by the end of the session, barely getting through "Twist and Shout," the most famous single take in rock history. He simply got caught up in the music, just like generations of listeners did”.

Before moving along, I want to source Pitchfork’s review of The Beatles’ 1963 debut album. I listen to it now and I still get chills and excitement. The same things I was feeling as a child decades ago. It has that power and ability to take you back to your childhood! I imagine the band recording at EMI (Abbey Road Studios as it would be renamed) and hearing the album back after a long day of recording. It must have been both tiring and thrilling! Please Please Me is such a fresh and exhilarating experience. With great original songs from John Lennon and Paul McCartney together with cover versions, it is an eclectic and huge compelling statement:

“Besides, at the start they weren't so different at all. Britain in the early 1960s swarmed with rock'n'roll bands, creating local scenes like the Mersey Sound the Beatles dominated. Rock'n'roll hadn't died out, but it had become unfashionable in showbiz eyes-- a small-club dance music that thrived on local passion. It was raucous, even charming in a quaint way, but there was no money in it for the big-timers of the London music biz.

At the same time the record market was booming. The Conservative UK government of the late 1950s had deliberately stoked a consumer boom: Aping the post-war consumption of the U.S., more British households than ever owned TVs, washing machines, and record players. The number of singles sold in Britain increased eightfold between the emergence of Elvis in 1956 and the Beatles in '63. Combine this massively increased potential audience with the local popularity of rock'n'roll and some kind of crossover success seems inevitable-- the idiocy of the Decca label in turning down the Beatles isn't so much a businessman's failure to recognize genius as a businessman's failure to recognize good business.

The Beatles' life as a rock'n'roll band-- their fabled first acts in Hamburg clubs and Liverpool's Cavern-- is mostly lost to us. The party line on Please Please Me is that it's a raw, high-energy run-through of their live set, but to me this seems just a little disingenuous. It's not even that the album, by necessity, can't reflect the group's two-hour shows and the frenzy-baiting lengths they'd push setpiece songs to. It's that the disc was recorded on the back of a #1 single, and there was a big new audience to consider when selecting material. There's rawness here-- rawness they never quite captured again-- but a lot of sweetness too, particularly in Lennon-McCartney originals "P.S. I Love You" and "Do You Want to Know a Secret".

Rather than an accurate document of an evening with the pre-fame Beatles, Please Please Me works more like a DJ mix album-- a truncated, idealized teaser for their early live shows. More than any other of their records, Please Please Me is a dance music album. Almost everything on the record, even ballads like "Anna", has a swing and a kick born from the hard experience of making a small club move. And it starts and ends with "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Twist and Shout", the most kinetic, danceable tracks they ever made.

The "evening with the band" feel makes Please Please Me a more coherent experience than other cover-heavy Beatles albums: Here other peoples' songs work not just as filler, but as markers for styles and effects the band admired and might return to as songwriters. McCartney, for instance, would go on to write songs whose drama and emotional nuance would embarrass "A Taste of Honey", but for now he puts his all into its cornball melodrama, and the song fits.

Please Please Me also works as a unit because the group's vocals are so great. At least some of this is due to the remastering, which makes the Beatles' singing thrillingly up-close and immediate. I'd never really paid much attention to "Chains" and the Ringo-led "Boys", but the clearer vocals on each-- "Chains"' sarcastic snarls and the harmonies helping Ringo out-- make them far more compelling.

And as you'd imagine, making the voices more vivid means Lennon's kamikaze take on "Twist and Shout" sounds even more ferocious. Done in one cut at the session's end, it could have been an unusable wreck. Instead, it's one of the group's most famous triumphs. This sums up the Beatles for me. Rather than a band whose path to the top was ordained by their genius, they were a group with the luck to meet opportunities, the wit to recognize them, the drive to seize them, and the talent to fulfil them. Please Please Me is the sound of them doing all four”.

What is going to happen on 22nd March? I don’t think Giles Martin (son of The Beatles’ late producer George) will reissue anything or remaster the album. There can’t be anything in the vaults from that brief time the band recorded the album! Perhaps there is the odd scrap but, compared with Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road, there aren’t these alternate takes and in-studio chat. You get the sense that budget was limited and there could be no real wastage or any form of experimenting and feeling their way into the songs. This was a band who had performed a lot of the songs live enough times so that thewy felt pretty intuitive and as good as they were going to be. Maybe there are live recordings or the possibility of remastering the band’s December 1962 set at the Star-Club in Hamburg. That would be an intriguing addition! I do hope that there is a proper celebration or something happening. I have not heard whether there are new podcasts or any radio broadcasts that celebrate sixty years of Please Please Me. I know BBC Radio 6 Music do all-day celebrations like this, so maybe they will play the album in full. I love the contrasts on Please Please Me. The first and last songs see the chief songwriters take lead. On Twist and Shout Lennon, with a very sore throat, provides such a raw performance of a song done in a single take. Now considered one of the most important vocals in Rock and Roll. Please Please Me started with Paul McCartney counting “1,2,3,4!” on I Saw Her Standing There and, with it, he ignited…

A music revolution.

FEATURE: The Digital Playlist: Spring Songs to Warm the Body

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Vinicius Wiesehofer/Unsplash 

Spring Songs to Warm the Body

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WE are in…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Carter/Unsplash

meteorological spring, but we have to wait a bit longer until we are in spring itself (20th March). It is very cold and bitter right now, so it doesn’t feel like we are near spring! Colder than we had hoped for March, everyone is looking forward to spring truly arriving. To hopefully get the process started and at least warm the body, below are some spring-ready songs that hopefully will help banish the cold for a little while. It has been pretty horrible weather-wise as of late, and we are all hoping that things brighten and warm up pretty soon. As spring looms and we all want to get outside and feel much cheerier, there are some tracks below that should get you in the mood. Even though it doesn’t feel spring-like at the moment, it will be here…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sergey Shmidt/Unsplash

BEFORE you know it.

FEATURE: Living in Paradise: Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ This Year’s Model at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Living in Paradise

Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ This Year’s Model at Forty-Five

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ON 17th March…

 PHOTO CREDIT: The estate of Keith Morris/Redferns/Getty Images

one of the greatest albums of the 1970s turns forty-five Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model. Following from his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, This Year’s Model saw Costello form The Attractions – keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas. One of the things that amazes me about the album is how quickly it all came together. Recording at London's Eden Studios in eleven days between late-1977 and early-1978, and produced by Nick Lowe, this masterpiece seemed to form and flow with ease! Most of the songs had been written prior to recording, and they had also been played live enough so that the band could get into the studio and lay them down without too many takes and issues. With elements of New Wave and Power Pop, you get embers of bands like The Rolling Stones coming through. There is melody and depth alongside attack and power. This Year’s Model was accused of employing some misogynistic ideas when it came to Costello singing about failing relationships. It does not tar and album that has many more positives than negatives – though it can be problematic and uncomfortable listening back to some of the lyrics today. Before getting to a couple of reviews for This Year’s Model, there is a 2018 feature from Consequence I want to bring in. They celebrated the album’s fortieth anniversary, and noticed how This Year’s Model has a bit more bite and venom than My Aim Is True. The seamless blend and balance of difference sounds is what makes This Year’s Model so deep, rich, and nuanced:

“That next thing was This Year’s Model, a whip-smart pop rock masterpiece that took its predecessor’s flare for cutting wit and tuneful guitar pop and injected it with a generous dash of punk rock venom. It might have been his second record overall, but This Year’s Model was Costello’s first with The Attractions, and that’s an important distinction. The band Clover might have supported Costello’s songs capably on My Aim Is True, but his debut was very much a solo record. This Year’s Model, on the other hand, was the work of a band. Costello now had what would quickly prove to be one of the best backing bands in rock history augmenting his literate lyrics and razor-sharp pop instincts, and the combination proved deadly. As such, This Year’s Model doesn’t just earn its claim as one of the best rock records of the ’70s 40 years on; it was the first in a murderer’s row of classics Costello would tear off with The Attractions during their influential eight-year run.

What makes This Year’s Model so great, even after 40 years, is the way it effortlessly balances out sound and mood. It’s a pretty-sounding pop record that’s actually anything but. The Attractions’ technical dexterity is something to marvel at, nowhere more so than on the record’s frenzied opening track “No Action”. But there’s a perfect give and take between Costello and his band that makes the record fly. While the band works its damndest to keep things musically upbeat, Costello’s lyrics are driven by a darker but equally volatile energy. “I don’t wanna kiss you/ I don’t wanna touch,” he whispers with near-palpable nervousness to start the track. “I don’t wanna see you ‘cause I don’t miss you that much.” Despite the efforts of keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas, and drummer Pete Thomas, Costello can’t dig himself out of the mire of a toxic relationship where he’s doomed to come off as the jerk. “Every time I phone you, I just wanna put you down,” he sings with cold truth. When the band goes high, Costello more often than not goes low. But the two make perfect foils.

Nieve’s keyboard playing, in particular, gives the record a certain wistfulness, but it’s an effect designed to set listeners up only for Costello to knock them back down. More often than not, the subject of the singer’s angst is love on the rocks, and This Year’s Model is bursting at its seams with salty gems. Sometimes he’s not only comfortable, but oddly pleased being the bad guy (“No don’t ask me to apologize/ I won’t ask you to forgive me,” the singer spouts with unmistakable vengeance on “Hand in Hand”). Other times, as on the soulfully subdued “Little Triggers”, he’s equally upset to find the shoe on the other foot (“I don’t wanna be hung up, strung up, when you don’t call up”). Whether he’s playing the bully or the martyr, the end result is savagely cunning.

Costello sharpened his lyrical claws considerably from his first record to his second, but that shouldn’t overlook the leaps the singer also was making musically with The Attractions in tow. Produced and recorded in London by Costello’s early collaborator and mentor, Nick Lowe, This Year’s Model came to be in the thick of punk rock’s first wave. While it’s difficult to call the record “punk” in the classic sense, it’s undeniably informed by the genre’s angry, rebellious spirit. Costello doesn’t spit and mug it up here like Johnny Rotten or take pronounced sociopolitical stances like The Clash, but he’s just as fixated on the idea of breaking the rules in his own sophisticated way. On just his second record, Costello established himself as a musical maverick and shape-shifter. He’s not interested in committing whole-heartedly to punk, soul, or ’60s pop, but rather glomming onto the aspects of those genres that most appeal to him”.

With elegant and sharp songwriting, what makes This Year’s Model so timeless and strong is the backing of The Attractions. A remarkable musical force, it adds extra weight and brilliance to Elvis Costello’s obvious gifts. A huge influence on Punk and New Wave that followed, This Year’s Model was a commercial success around the world. Reaching number four in the U.K. upon its release, it is no wonder people still talk about this album. Often voted as one of the best ever, it must be up there with Costello’s best work. This is what AllMusic noted in their review of the phenomenal This Year’s Model:

“Where My Aim Is True implied punk rock with its lyrics and stripped-down production, This Year's Model sounds like punk. Not that Elvis Costello's songwriting has changed -- This Year's Model is comprised largely of leftovers from My Aim Is True and songs written on the road. It's the music that changed. After releasing My Aim Is True, Costello assembled a backing band called the Attractions, which were considerably tougher and wilder than Clover, who played on his debut.

The Attractions were a rock & roll band, which gives This Year's Model a reckless, careening feel. It's nervous, amphetamine-fueled, nearly paranoid music -- the group sounds like they're spinning out of control as soon as they crash in on the brief opener, "No Action," and they never get completely back on track, even on the slower numbers. Costello and the Attractions speed through This Year's Model at a blinding pace, which gives his songs -- which were already meaner than the set on My Aim Is True -- a nastier edge. "Lipstick Vogue," "Pump It Up," and "(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea" are all underscored with sexual menace, while "Night Rally" touches on a bizarre fascination with fascism that would blossom on his next album, Armed Forces. Even the songs that sound relatively lighthearted -- "Hand in Hand," "Little Triggers," "Lip Service," "Living in Paradise" -- are all edgy, thanks to Costello's breathless vocals, Steve Nieve's carnival-esque organ riffs, and Nick Lowe's bare-bones production. Of course, the songs on This Year's Model are typically catchy and help the vicious sentiments sink into your skin, but the most remarkable thing about the album is the sound -- Costello and the Attractions never rocked this hard, or this vengefully, ever again”.

I will finish off with a review from Pitchfork. It is not often they hand out a perfect ten for an album. That is what they awarded this classic back in 2002. There is something about the album that means it is timeless. I think we will be talking about This Year’s Model for decades to come:

“Anyone can whine. But as a seemingly infinite stream of cliché-obsessed singer/songwriters using misery as a thinly veiled ploy to get laid has proven, very few people can do it well. Drawing inspiration from banal personal miseries and girlfriend tragedies may indeed turn songwriting into some kind of a cleansing experience, but nobody wants to be sprayed in the face with someone else's emotional Lysol. And being preached to? That's nearly as bad. Screamy thugs recycling endless bullshit about the oppressive and destructive state of capitalism, and yet selling their records for profit-- where's the dignity in that?

Elvis Costello, more so than any other musician before or since, has managed to integrate the insight of personal music and the conviction of political music, while avoiding the self-indulgent pitfalls of both. To put it another way, Elvis Costello could sing a song about the oppressive and destructive state of his girlfriend and pull it off with wit and talent to spare.

With My Aim Is True, Costello immediately established himself as the world's foremost angry geek with something to prove. And while the songs on that album were absolutely stellar, Costello had yet to make his defining statement. Clover, who would later become the News and back up a lesser geek who never managed to prove much of anything, did a great job backing Costello's songs, but never really managed to sound like anything more than a backing band.

This, Elvis Costello's second album, marked the beginning of a long and illustrious collaboration with the Attractions, not to mention one of those glorious moments in which a musician discovers a sound that is all his own. While My Aim Is True was largely a guitar-centered album, the sonic core of This Year's Model consists almost entirely of drums, bass, and keyboards. As a result, it's not only a more complex and dynamic album, but also one that steers well clear of the retro guitar twang that marred the less interesting bits of his debut.

Indeed, songs like "Pump It Up" and "This Year's Girl" sound like they were essentially written from the rhythm section up. Pete Thomas' drumming is nothing short of perfect-- on these two songs in particular he keeps the beat deep and powerful, putting accents in all the right places without ever attempting to take the spotlight off the freak up front. With less rhythmically straightforward songs, such as the vaguely reggae-inflected "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea," Thomas shifts accents faster than Miss Cleo, and with far more skill.

"(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" is by far the most angular tune to be found on This Year's Model. But at the other end of the spectrum sits "Little Triggers," a piano-driven pseudo-ballad that plays host to some of Costello's best wordplay. "Thinking all about those censored sequences/ Worrying about the consequences/ Waiting until I come to my senses/ Better put it all in present tenses," is characteristic of Costello's finest lyrics-- eloquently constructed and uniquely insightful without ever being trite or obvious”.

Turning forty-five on 17th March, I wanted to salute and show appreciation for the magnificent This Year’s Model. The first album where Elvis Costello linked with The Attractions, classics like Pump It Up, This Year’s Girl and (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea sit alongside some brilliant deeper cuts. There is no doubting the fact that This Year’s Model will…

ALWAYS be in vogue.

FEATURE: I’ve Got Them on the Wedding List… Keeping the Idea of a Kate Bush Tribute Album Alive

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I’ve Got Them on the Wedding List…

PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Keeping the Idea of a Kate Bush Tribute Album Alive

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EVEN if I have raised and explored…

 IN THIS PHOTO: St. Vincent/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Ford

this subject before, there is something about a possible Kate Bush tribute album that intrigues me. There would be plenty of reasons why it would be popular and necessary. Bush turns sixty-five on 30th July. It would not be done to commemorate that but, ahead of such a big birthday, it would be a fitting tribute to an artist that continues to inspire and amaze. There has never been one that unites major and rising artists. The albums that have been released have been good but, after a year or two where Bush’s music has been at the fore and reached new generations, it would be a great way to introduce her catalogues. There are other big things that would be great when it comes to Bush and celebrating her legacy. New books will come out, and I have been thinking about The Tour of Life from 1979 and how we really need a full set remastered and brought to YouTube or Blu-Ray. Together with it could be an album (on vinyl and C.D.) of one of the sets. Maybe this stuff will not happen, but it would be good if there was something coming from other musicians. In previous features relating to a possible tribute album, I have speculated who could cover what song. I heard that St. Vincent does a mean karaoke version of Wuthering Heights! Rather than a faithful rendition in terms of the vocal sound, it could give her a chance to take the song in a new direction.

I know Bush can be protective of her music, but she is always open to cover versions. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has been covered a lot lately and, through the years, there have been various versions of her biggest songs. Artists such as Guy Garvey and Björk would definitely been keen. I am not sure whether I mentioned it in previous features, but the proceeds from the album could go to a charity. Crisis is a charity Bush has supported before, so it would be wonderful to have an album out in the world that could raise more money for them. There is a raft of artists coming through and established that would pay tribute to Kate Bush. The fact that nothing of this size of scope has been brought out definitely confirms there is a need for it. I know people do find some Bush covers not nearly as good as the original, but combining eleven or twelve artists together to put their spin on her songs would be terrific. It always warms the heart when a new artists come along that says they have been impacted by Kate Bush. The same goes for those who have been around a long time. It is evident that she has touched so many people. I am not sure which tracks could be included and which artists exactly would be invited. I know that incredible artists like The Anchoress (Catherine Anne Davies) are fans of Bush’s music. Having them all together would be amazing!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nick Knight for NME

I have mentioned a few that would be right for the project. Rather than use it as a sixty-fifth birthday celebration for Kate Bush – as I suspect the album would not be out in time for 30th July -, it is a chance for artists to show their appreciation of her amazing music. Whilst Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has been covered quite a fair bit, there are songs that could benefit from a fresh perspective. Even well-known songs such as Wuthering Heights and Wow would take on a new life if another artists took it on. I am just putting it out there but, to this point, we have not really had anything like it. Raising money for a charity Bush cares about, and meaning her music once again reaches new fans, it seems like a win-win. It would need someone to approach her/her team and raise the concept. If it is met with a ‘no’, then that is fair enough. Any artists can cover one of her songs and put it out there. It just seems like a fundraising tribute album would be effective and a collaborative tribute to her genius. Fans around the world would delight in seeing some incredible artists included…

ONTO the wedding list.

FEATURE: International Women’s Day 2023: Modern-Day Queens: Award Nominees and Winners from 2022 and 2023

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International Women’s Day 2023

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz won the 2022 Mercury Prize for Sometimes I Might Be Introvert 

Modern-Day Queens: Award Nominees and Winners from 2022 and 2023

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WHEREAS I have covered…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Bree Runway

songs from the best albums made by women in recent years as part of a run for International Women’s Day, I wanted to acknowledge the brilliant female artists who have been nominated in award ceremonies and events the past couple of years. I am talking about the NME Awards, GRAMMYs, BRITs, Mercury Prize and beyond. One reason is because it provides a chance to highlight some seriously amazing artists. I still think women are under-represented at award shows, and there needs to be conversations especially around categories such as the BRITs’ Artist of the Year category that, whilst not gendered like in previous years, ignored women altogether! This playlist is about modern-day queens who were either shortlisted for awards last year or this one, or they actually won one (or more). In the final International Women’s Day feature, I will finish with a piece about inequality and ways that things should be addressed and redressed. In this feature is a selection of songs from award-nominated women who are among our…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Snoh Aalegra/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack McKain

ABSOLUTE finest.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Toto - Africa

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Groovelines

Toto - Africa

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A song that went to number one…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Scott Richie

in the U.S., and was a hit around the world, Toto’s Africa is perhaps the best-known song from the group. Taken from the Los Angeles band’s fourth (and best) album, Toto IV, Africa closes the album. There is some brilliant sequencing on that album. Opening with another huge hit, Rosanna, we work our way to Africa. Released in the U.S. through Columbia Records in October 1982, it was Toto IV’s third single overall and second in Europe. Written by band members David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, Africa became Toto’s only Billboard number one. It has endured and taken on a life of its own. At this time (27th February), it has amassed 1,371,925,932 streams on Spotify and over 846 million views on YouTube! It is this colossus that has grown and grown. I want to combine a couple of features about this massive track. Classic Rock wrote a feature on Africa at the end of last year. It was a song that David Paich suggested to the band, and they sort of indulged him. Just about fitting to the end of Toto IV, who knows what would have been if the band had let the song get away:

“Travel broadens the mind. But vicarious travel can bless you with a hit song that's eternal. Or at least one that's still in heavy rotation forty years on.

That's the message behind one of rock's most unexpected long-term success stories, that of Toto's lovable, but cheesy 1983 single, Africa.

Recalling the initial inspiration for what he calls his “little oddball song,” keyboardist David Paich told The Guardian(opens in new tab), “As a kid, I'd always been fascinated by Africa. I loved movies about Dr. Livingstone and missionaries. I went to an all-boys Catholic school and a lot of the teachers had done missionary work in Africa. They told me how they would bless the villagers, their Bibles, their books, their crops and when it rained, they'd bless the rain. That's where the hook line – 'I bless the rains down in Africa' - came from.”

It was the early '80s TV commercials for UNICEF, showing impoverished African children, that put Paich back in the frame of mind to write about his fascination for the Mother Continent. His songwriting instincts knew that a mere travelogue wouldn't be enough. So he added the romantic drama of an old flame into the mix.

“My teachers had said that loneliness and celibacy were the hardest things about life out there,” Paich said. “Some of them never made it into the priesthood because they needed companionship. So I wrote about a person flying in to meet a lonely missionary. It's a romanticised love story about Africa, based on how I'd always imagined it.”

For musical colour, Paich used his Yamaha synthesiser to replicate a kalimba, a metal-and-wood thumb piano that's indigenous to Zimbabwe. Acting as a kind of imprint for all things African, it's the sound behind the catchy, percussive riff in the intro and turnarounds. “It was a fertile time to make music with new sounds, and that kind of defined the song,” Paich said.

Despite feeling that his new tune was touched by magic and God, Paich initially found that most of his bandmates didn't share his enthusiasm. He told Grantland(opens in new tab), “When someone writes a song that doesn't really fit into the Toto mold, the joke is, everybody says, 'Save that for your solo album.' So the band kind of indulged me and let me start working on this track for it. This one barely made it; it just got on the end of the album. It's the one that didn't get away.”

Toto's late drum wizard Jeff Porcaro saw the song's potential and responded to the groove. Inspired by his memories of hearing the “trance-inducing” beats of African pavilion drummers at the 1964 World's Fair, and National Geographic TV specials, Porcaro constructed an intricate network of drums, congas and, with his help from his jazz musician dad Joe, tape loops consisting of bottle caps and marimbas. That attention to percussive detail earned Porcaro a co-writing credit on the song.

Africa was released in October 1982, as the third single from Toto IV, accompanied by a video that almost certainly wouldn't get past the storyboard stage today. Four months later, it was number one in the U.S. and Canada (it rose to #3 in the U.K., and made the Top 10 in several other countries). A staple of oldies radio for many years, the song began its pop culture resurgence in the early 2000s, when it was included in the video game for Grand Theft Auto, then started popping up in TV shows like Family Guy, Chuck and South Park”.

I want to finish with an article from Stereogum that actually looks inside Africa and breaks down its composition and vocal. Focusing on the anatomy of the song gives you greater insight into a classic. There are a few parts of the feature that I wanted to bring in and highlight:

“In 1982, Los Angeles-based supergroup Toto released their 4th studio album, fittingly named Toto IV. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the US release of the second single off the album, and the band’s best-known song, “Africa.” It’s a tune widely loved for its smooth melody and indelible hooks, but also variously reviled—for factors usually having nothing to do with music. In recent years, this pop jam has managed to reach mega-meme status, and at present it is approaching 1.3 billion streams on Spotify (making it one of the most played songs of the 20th Century). In fact, today the song may be more popular than it was in 1983 when it hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. For all the cultural baggage it carries, “Africa” is a truly innovative, masterfully crafted piece of music (which is saying something given that it’s not even the best song on the album!). Yet we so often see the song reduced to droll memes, or dismissed simply as a superficially dramatic (albeit catchy) pop tune. As famous as the song has become, it seems most people really don’t appreciate the brilliance of its musical architecture. But make no mistake: It is brilliant. Let’s check it out.

What’s In A Pocket?

Returning to the drums: Jeff Porcaro, who died tragically in 1992, had an uncanny ability to create grooves that feel assertive, yet laid back. You could spend years studying the thousands of records he played on to try to crack the code — and I’ve tried. A crucial component of Jeff’s pocket groove involves the way he throttled the tempo from moment to moment within a given bar of music, while keeping a steady pulse across the bar line.

When a drummer “pushes,” it means they’re playing slightly ahead to drive the pulse forward. “Pulling” means they’re playing ever so slightly behind, or late, to build tension. (Note: This is not exactly the same as “rushing” and “dragging,” which relate to increasing or decreasing the overall tempo — usually in an undesirable way.) Famously, Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones tended to play his kick drum slightly ahead (pushing), while his snare backbeat was slightly behind (pulling), resulting in a confident groove with an incredibly slinky feel. Every drummer has a signature time feel — a tendency — that’s as distinctive to them as the shape of their face. There’s no mistaking John Bonham’s signature time feel for James Gadson’s, or Bernard Purdie’s time feel for Stewart Copeland’s. Josh Freese, Sheila E., Ringo Starr, Elvin Jones… they’re each instantly recognizable by their respective time feels — i.e., by where they choose to place beats, either slightly ahead, or slightly behind, or right on top.

One of Jeff Porcaro’s hallmarks was the time accuracy with which he chose to place notes during his fills. In Steely Dan’s “Night By Night” (off of Pretzel Logic) Jeff played 32nd notes in early parts of his fills slightly ahead of the beat (pushing), which infuses energy into the phrase, and then he slowed down slightly at the middle of each phrase (pulling), which instills a sense of weightiness (sometimes pushing again at the end). In Toto’s “Africa,” he used the inverse approach: In the early part of a given measure, he placed notes much later than you might expect, and then he made up time just before landing exactly on the downbeat.

Harmonized Melody

The part of the song most people remember is the bit where David Paich blesses the rains down in Africa. Sure, the lyrics are a little goofy (more on that later), but the interweaving vocals make for a gorgeous hook. Paich enlisted main Toto vocalist Bobby Kimball (high vocal), Timothy B. Schmit (probably best known for playing bass with the Eagles), and Steve Lukather (Toto co-founder, legendary guitarist, and musician par excellence) to stack the vocals with him in the chorus.

In big-band jazz arranging, one of the central features is the “soli” (plural for “solo”). Most often, you’ll hear a soli in the saxophone section, with the 1st alto sax playing the melody and the four other saxes (2nd alto, 1st tenor, 2nd tenor, and baritone) filling out the chord underneath, all moving together in “block voicing.” It’s an unmistakable, magnificent sound”.

An incredible song that must rank alongside the all-time best, there is something infectious and timeless about Africa. Even though it came out in June 1982, it has found generations of new fans. Over forty years since its release, there is no sign of people forgetting this track! So instantly recognisable and singalong, Africa popped into my head recently, and I realised I have not covered it for Groovelines. A band that are perhaps defined by a few songs, Toto are worth exploring in more depth and detail. There is no doubting Africa is their masterpiece and a fan favourite. As soon as that chorus kicks in…

YOU can hear why!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Martin Fry at Sixty-Five: The A-Z of ABC

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The Digital Mixtape

Martin Fry at Sixty-Five: The A-Z of ABC

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I like to celebrate…

big birthdays of popular artists. The lead of the legendary band ABC, Martin Fry is the only member of the band who has been there since the start. In fact, he is the only member of the band at all. The incredible lead is still performing and going strong. Even though we have not had an ABC album since 2016’s The Lexicon of Love II, let’s hope that we get to hear a lot more of Martin Fry on the stage. Having been responsible for co-writing/performing songs such as Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look of Love, All of My Heart, That Was Then But This Is Now, and When Smokey Sings, I wanted to mark his upcoming sixty-fifth birthday with a playlist of the best ABC songs. Fry is sixty-five on 9th March. Before I get to that playlist, AllMusic provide a detailed biography about the magnificent ABC and their successful career:

“One of the most popular new wave bands of the early '80s, the British group ABC built upon the detached, synthesized R&B pop of David Bowie and Roxy Music, adding a self-conscious, campy sense of theatrics and style. Under the direction of vocalist Martin Fry, the group scored several catchy, synth-driven dance-pop hits in the early '80s, including "Poison Arrow," "Look of Love," and "Be Near Me."

During the late '70s, Fry ran his own fanzine, Modern Drugs, while he attended Sheffield University. ABC formed in 1980, after Fry interviewed Vice Versa members Mark White (guitar) and Stephen Singleton (saxophone) for his fanzine. The two musicians asked Fry to join their band as a vocalist, and he soon became part of the group; the lineup also featured drummer David Robinson and bassist Mark Lickley.

Soon, Fry had taken control of the electronic band, steering them in a more pop-oriented direction and renaming the group ABC. By the fall of 1981, the band had signed a record contract with Phonogram Records, which agreed to distribute ABC's own label, Neutron. ABC released their first single, "Tears Are Not Enough," in November; it peaked at number 19 on the U.K. charts. Before they recorded their second single, Robinson left the band and was replaced by David Palmer in early 1982. Two singles, "Poison Arrow" and "The Look of Love," became British Top Ten hits in the spring, paving the way for their debut album, The Lexicon of Love, to enter the charts at number one. "All of My Heart" also became a Top Ten hit in the fall of 1982.

Toward the end of 1982, the group began concentrating on the United States. Their American success was helped greatly by the fledgling MTV network, which aired videos for "The Look of Love" and "Poison Arrow" frequently, making both singles Top 25 hits in the spring of 1983. Palmer left the band in the summer of 1983, as ABC were recording their second album. Featuring a harder, rock sound driven by guitars rather than keyboards, Beauty Stab was released late in 1983. Supported by the number 18 single "That Was Then But This Is Now," the album didn't perform as well as the debut, peaking at number 12; the record was also a commercial disappointment in the U.S. Late in 1984, ABC -- now consisting solely of Fry and White augmented by various session musicians -- released "(How to Be A) Millionaire," which failed to put a halt to their commercial slide. Following its release, the duo moved to New York, where they added David Yarritu and Eden to the group; neither member could play or sing -- they were added for the visual effect.

Released at the beginning of 1985, the light, catchy "Be Near Me" became a hit single in Britain, climbing to number 26. Due to the single's success, How to Be a...Zillionaire! became a Top 30 hit in both the U.K. and U.S. "Be Near Me" was released as a U.S. single toward the end of 1985 and it became the group's first American Top Ten hit. Even though they had a fair amount of success in 1985, ABC's subsequent singles stalled on the charts. Fry was also ill for most of the latter half of the year; he recovered in 1987 and began writing and recording with White. In the summer of 1987, ABC released "When Smokey Sings," which was a major hit, reaching number five in the U.S. and number 11 in the U.K. Alphabet City followed that fall, peaking at number seven in the U.K. and number 48 in the U.S. Two years later, they released Up, which only charted in the U.K. Absolutely, a greatest-hits collection, made it into the British Top Ten upon its release in 1990.

Following the release of Up, Fry took an extended break from the music industry, returning in 1997 with a revamped ABC and a new album, Skyscraping, which was only released in the U.K. Shortly before ABC's comeback, England experienced a short-lived new romantic revival called Romo, which increased Fry's exposure substantially, in turn helping Skyscraping to earn good reviews and respectable sales. A live album followed in 1999, and several ABC reissues appeared during the 2000s, including a double-disc deluxe offering of Lexicon of Love. The drummer from that album, David Palmer, returned to the ABC lineup in 2004, and the band released an album of original material in 2008 entitled Traffic. They continued to play concerts and festivals, and in 2009 they played the entirety of Lexicon of Love at Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Orchestra conducted by album collaborator Anne Dudley. They did the same thing in 2012 to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the album, performing again with Dudley, only at London Theatre Royal Drury Lane instead. That night while on-stage, Fry was struck by the idea that the album needed a sequel and soon after he began to assemble the songs and players to help make it a reality. Enlisting Dudley and producer Gary Stephenson, the album captured the sound and feel of Lexicon of Love, while Fry's ageless voice and wry lyrics made it feel like nary a moment had passed since 1982. The album was titled Lexicon of Love II and released by Virgin/EMI in May of 2016”.

To celebrate the upcoming sixty-fifth birthday of the incredible Martin Fry, below are some of the best ABC tracks. There are hits and well-known songs alongside some deeper cuts. If you are a fan of the band or not, there are tracks in here that you will recognise and like. One of the greatest and most distinct singers of his generation, Lancashire-born Fry is a legend who deserves saluting! The songs below show how powerful…

HIS presence and voice is.

FEATURE: Walking Up That Hill… The Hounds of Love 33 1/3 Book, and Which Other Kate Bush Album Celebrations Should Follow

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Walking Up That Hill…

N THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake for the Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) single shoot in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

The Hounds of Love 33 1/3 Book, and Which Other Kate Bush Album Celebrations Should Follow

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THE brilliant…

Leah Kardos is among the authors who will bring great albums to life through the 33 1/3 series very soon. I reacted to the news when it arrived, but I wanted to revisit it. Kardos is a brilliant writer and author, and she is definitely a Kate Bush superfan. I am surprised it has not been done sooner, but Hounds of Love is coming to the series. Maybe it is quite daunting not only trying to condense this 1985 masterpiece into a short book, but it is so well-known and popular, so it is a case of writing about it in an accessible way, but also including details that people might not know – appealing both to new Kate Bush fans and those who are new. Before moving on, I spoke with author, musician and composer Leah Kardos about the upcoming Hounds of Love book, her love of Kate Bush, and what it was like researching the 1985 album.

Congrats on being commissioned to write the 33 1/3 book for Hounds of Love! How did you react when you heard the good news? Why was Hounds of Love the album you wanted to write about?

Hey, thank you! I was overjoyed when I found out, because I’ve wanted to write a 33 1/3 for a long time now. I had submitted two unsuccessful proposals before this one. In fact, my last book, Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie, began as a failed proposal for a 33 1/3. When I heard the news there was a very excited, quite protracted “!!!” conversation over messenger with my best friend. Just days and days of Kate GIFs.

I knew for this open call that I wanted to write about Kate’s music, the ideas for it have been brewing for years - but I couldn’t decide on which album to focus on. For a while, my heart was set on writing about Aerial (that abandoned pitch is uploaded as a draft on my academia account if anyone’s curious. But in the end, the RUTH (Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) appeared on Netflix’s Stranger Things) moment of 2022 was too good to ignore, and there’s so much to dig into with Hounds: all the bangers on side A; The Ninth Wave is a real gift to write about. I think that intuition was correct in the end. There seems to be  a bit of special energy around Hounds of Love at the moment with the re-release coming up, the stirrings of something new with the Fish People rebranding, and the move to The state51 Conspiracy. For me, everything feels synchronous and right, even down to the Fish People logo redesign in collaboration with Barnbrook, who I interviewed and got to know with my Bowie book research, and with whom I had some long chats last year about Kate and Hounds of Love specifically. It feels like stars are aligning for this thing.

 “The challenge will be to approach something so familiar with a freshness”

What has it been like writing the book? Did you learn anything new about Hounds of Love and Kate Bush when researching it?

I’m in the research phase right now. I haven’t really started properly writing it – the manuscript is due in December. For the moment, I’m just making lots of notes and doing some deep thinking on the musicological side of things, which I think (hope) will be the book’s USP. That, and situating the work in the larger cultural picture in terms of influence and legacy. One thing I’m really digging into at the moment is Kate’s Before the Dawn concert residency from 2014, where all but one of the songs from Hounds of Love were performed for the first time. I think the theatrical staging of The Ninth Wave really expands and deepens the album content, going quite a long way to illustrate the artist’s own vision of it.

How did it differ to, say, writing about David Bowie for Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie in terms of research and approach?

The difference for me is that the Bowie book was about the last phase of his career, so in a way it was about his entire career too. The whole story of the catalogue; all the connecting threads. Also, I wrote it not long after it happened – barely five years of Bowie’s death in 2016. With this book, it will be nice to zoom in on a single album, a specific time and place, a unique season for an artist who is still around, who could still put more work out yet (I dearly hope she does!). Another difference will be that Hounds has been discussed and written about quite a lot; the late Bowie work, not so much. The challenge will be to approach something so familiar with a freshness.

 “With staggering sound design and next level songcraft, it’s an uncompromising artistic statement and a commercial success”

When did Kate Bush come into your life, and what was it about her music that struck you?

My fandom has gone through some phases. As a younger music student studying piano and trying to write my first songs, I was all about the earlier albums – trying to figure out the chords and sing along to songs like Moving, Symphony in Blue, Wow. Then later, when I got into record production and music technology as a creative and academic interest, I became alive to the staggering expression and sonic daring of The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. As I’ve gotten older, I appreciate Kate’s later work more and more, especially Aerial, which I think offers a profound, life-affirming message for everyone, especially for women at a specific stage of life. Being a woman in her forties, acutely aware of my fading visibility in the world, living in England in thrall to the magic of birdsong, the long-reaching light of summertime, I feel a connection to this work on an existential level!

As a musician and composer, how important is Kate Bush and albums like Hounds of Love to you personally?

Well. Beyond loving it and everything about it, Hounds is so important to me because it’s a complete vision, fully realised. I love how Kate becomes the complete auteur here, working expressively with sound, music, text, reference and image. With staggering sound design and next level songcraft, it’s an uncompromising artistic statement and a commercial success. Immediately accessible and exquisitely deep. Blazing a trail for and setting the template for successive generations of artists – especially female, Queer and trans self-producing songwriters like Tori Amos, Björk, ANOHNI, SOPHIE, Perfume Genius, FKA twigs, Jenny Hval, and so many more.

“I’ve unfortunately seen how female self-producing artists can have their authorship questioned and/or diminished…”

I don’t think enough people talk about Kate Bush’s talent as a producer. Her skill and intuition through Hounds of Love is evident. Do you think she is underrated as a producer?

Absolutely. I would love it if critics and musicologists would start talking about Kate as an influential record producer more. I would put her skills and vision during this era on par with Trevor Horn, or even Prince. Line it up next to Peter Gabriel’s So, and I think Hounds sounds every bit as good – if not better, more daring and stylistically coherent in places. And Peter had Daniel Lanois’ help with production on that one. I’ve unfortunately seen how female self-producing artists can have their authorship questioned and/or diminished - Bjork’s comments to Pitchfork in 2015 about this particular phenomenon come to mind – it makes me wonder had a man produced Hounds of Love, there would probably be a lot more open celebration of the album’s fantastic and influential production values. 

My favourite song from Hounds of Love is The Big Sky, but I adore The Ninth Wave too. Do you have a standout track or aspect of the album that is a personal favourite?

This is a hard one. This week, I’m feeling the dopamine hitting hardest when Jig of Life comes on.

“Ann Powers’ proposed volume on ‘The Dreaming’ would have been an excellent addition to the series” 

I am writing a feature about your upcoming book, but I also ask which other Kate Bush albums should be brought to the 33 1/3 series. Which would you say deserves to follow Hounds of Love?

Well as I said earlier, I think Aerial would be a great addition. There’s so much juicy stuff in there that I haven’t seen many people writing about yet. Ann Powers’ proposed volume on The Dreaming would have been an excellent addition to the series – I really enjoy hearing her talk about this era on Yasi Salek’s Bandsplain podcast, and you just know she would have done The Dreaming full justice. They’d probably never go for it, but I think Director’s Cut could be really interesting to write about, too.

For being a good sport, you can choose a track from Hounds of Love, and I will put it here. Which do you fancy?

Let’s have Hello Earth, since it references several songs, themes and musical motifs from the album…sewing the threads into a satisfyingly dramatic climax. You can’t fail to get swept up and away by it.

I am really pleased that there is a new book coming out about Hounds of Love! Considering what a masterpiece it is, there is little out there in terms of podcasts and books. I am not sure what date the book is coming out (as Kardos is still researching for it), but keep an eye on Kardos’ Twitter feed, and 33 1/3’s page. Given the new attention Hounds of Love has received after Stranger Things featured Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) last year, it is going to provide more background and depth about such an important album. It sort of begs the question as to what comes next. I think we will see other Kate Bush-related books this year, but I have always said how it is important to highlight and explore her albums. 33 1/3 offers a brief-but-deep look inside great albums. I think The Dreaming was published or planned at some point. I may have said it before, but there is an album that has always been underrated that has a fascinating backstory and run-up. 1980’s Never for Ever came a year after The Tour of Life – where Bush toured her first two albums around the U.K. and Europe. Producing alongside Jon Kelly, it features some career-best tracks like Babooshka, The Wedding List, Breathing and Army Dreamers. If not Never for Ever, then I think The Sensual World is an album that is both acclaimed and not known by all. I think these two albums would be perfect for further exploration.

I am not sure whether anyone is planning those books but, when 33 1/3 pitch for new submissions, I think these albums should be options. Of course, all the other Kate Bush studio albums are worthy of inclusion, but Never for Ever is hugely underrated and a fascinating album. The Sensual World came out in 1989 and was the follow-up to Hounds of Love. It saw Bush keep the quality up, but I think it was a more personal album. Full of sensuality and beauty, it had a different tone and palette to Hounds of Love. It is great that Leah Kardos is writing about Hounds of Love. I hope it opens the door for more books about Bush’s albums. We got Tom Doyle’s brilliant biography about Bush last year, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, so I am interested whether there will be another biography or even a photobook. Album dives and books are especially interesting, as it will open them up to new fans and listeners. So far, The Kick Inside, The Dreaming, and now Hounds of Love have had books written about them. I am not sure whether any others have. Every fan has their opinion as to which Bush albums would benefit from a 33 1/3-style representation. Whether it is 2005’s double album, Aerial, 1978’s Lionheart, or 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, there is more demand and a bigger fanbase than there has ever been! Whilst we wait to see if new Bush material will come along, there are these brilliant albums to enjoy. Knowing more about how they formed and took shape provides this insight and illumination. This is a great thing. I am looking forward to reading Leah Kardos’ writing on…

KATE Bush’s Hounds of Love.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Ninety-Three: A Tribe Called Quest

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Aristos Marcopoulos/PRNewsFoto/Legacy Recordings via AP Images

Part Ninety-Three: A Tribe Called Quest

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SIMILAR to Cyndi Lauper…

 IN THIS PHOTO: DJ/Producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Jarobi White and Phife Dawg (Malik Isaac Taylor) celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album

when I included her in Inspired By… last time, this is another Hall & Fame-related act. Both Cyndi Lauper and A Tribe Called Quest are nominated for inclusion this year. The fan vote is open, and it made me reflect on the importance and influence of A Tribe Called Quest. The Hip-Hop group formed in Queens, New York in 1985. Their 1991 album, The Low End Theory, is among the best and most important of all time. Because of that, I wanted to end with a playlist of artists who are inspired by the group. We sadly lost Malik Izaak Taylor (Phife Dawg) in 2016, so the possibility of another album from them is practically zero. Before I get to that playlist, AllMusic provide a biography of the remarkable A Tribe Called Quest:

“A Tribe Called Quest were without question one of the most progressive and crucial rap groups of the 1990s. Along with their brothers and sisters in the Native Tongues -- a crew that also included the Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Monie Love, and Black Sheep -- Tribe struck a natural balance between ruminative and carefree lyrical content, examining personal and deep societal issues without forgetting to have a good time. Just as creative and powerful as producers, Tribe helped create new paths for hip-hop with visionary and inventive sampling from previously unutilized '60s and '70s jazz recordings, among other styles ranging from bossa nova to prog rock, and even collaborated with some of the players whose names were listed in the liner notes they scoured. The group's first five albums, highlighted by the all-platinum run of The Low End Theory (1991), Midnight Marauders (1993), and Beats, Rhymes and Life (1996), added up to one of the decade's most vital artist discographies, rap or otherwise. Six years after their 1998 split, they reconvened onstage and continued to occasionally tour into the 2010s. We Got It from Here...Thank You 4 Your Service (2016), their final LP, became their second number one album months after the death of founding member Phife Dawg.

Although it wasn't until 1988 that they became known as A Tribe Called Quest -- named by peers the Jungle Brothers -- the group started to take shape three years earlier, with Queens native Q-Tip (born Jonathan Davis) and high school classmate Ali Shaheed Muhammad (a Brooklynite) recording demo material with pause-tape beats. The rapper/producer and DJ/producer duo eventually became a quartet with the addition of Q-Tip's childhood friend Phife Dawg (born Malik Taylor) and neighbor slash part-time member Jarobi (short for Jarobi White). Q-Tip was heard first on the Jungle Brothers' 1988 album Straight Out the Jungle. The next year, he was featured De La Soul's "Buddy," and a version of that track, dubbed "Buddy [Native Tongue Decision]," added Phife to the mix. The recorded debut of A Tribe Called Quest followed later in 1989 with "Description of a Fool," issued on Jive. (The group had recorded a demo for Geffen, but the major label balked on offering a contract.) The following April, Tribe released their first album, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Much like De La Soul, Tribe looked more to jazz as well as '70s rock for their sample base; "Can I Kick It?," which followed "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" and "Bonita Applebum" into the Top Ten of Billboard's rap chart, plundered Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" and made it viable in a hip-hop context.

No matter how solid their debut was, second album The Low End Theory, released in September 1991 (after Jarobi's departure for culinary school), exceeded all expectations and has held up as perhaps the best hip-hop LP of all time. In addition to its rich assemblage of samples, it featured jazz legend Ron Carter on double bass for "Verses from the Abstract." Like the debut, it yielded a trio of charting singles. "Check the Rhime" topped the rap chart, and "Scenario," featuring Leaders of the New School (with future solo star Busta Rhymes), went to number six. The Low End Theory included several tracks with props to hip-hop friends, and Tribe affirmed their support of the wider rap community with their third album, Midnight Marauders. The album cover and booklet insert included the faces of over 70 hip-hop luminaries, a coast-to-coast assortment that included members of De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, and Beastie Boys, as well as Ice-T and Too $hort. The LP entered the Billboard 200 at number eight, easily the group's highest placement to that point. It offered several classics, including "Award Tour," the group's sixth Top Ten rap hit, and a sound that was harder than the first two albums. During the summer of 1994, Tribe were part of the fourth Lollapalooza lineup, and the next year were comparatively quiet, apart from several production jobs for Q-Tip. They returned in July 1996 with their fourth LP, Beats, Rhymes and Life, which prominently featured Consequence, Q-Tip's cousin, and production associate Jay Dee (of Slum Village), who had gained notice for his work on the Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia. The album topped the Billboard 200, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rap Album category, and became the group's third consecutive platinum LP. The single "1nce Again" was also up for a Grammy in the rap field.

Before they released their next album, The Love Movement, the group announced it would be their final statement and that they were splitting up. After The Love Movement debuted at number three and earned the group their second Best Rap Album Grammy nomination, each member pursued solo projects to varying degrees of success, but the call of the group proved strong enough that they reunited many times over the years. They headlined the Rock the Bells concert in 2004, toured heavily in 2006, featured on the Rock the Bells tours of 2008 and 2010, and played a series of shows in 2013, including some with Kanye West in New York. They reunited again in November 2015 to play The Tonight Show in conjunction with the 25th anniversary reissue of People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.

The group's performances post-Love Movement helped pay for increasing medical expenses faced by Phife. Diagnosed with diabetes in 1990, Phife eventually needed multiple kidney transplants. In March 2016, Phife died (at the age of 45) due to complications related to the condition. Later that year, Q-Tip announced that the group had completed a new album. The night of their Tonight Show appearance the previous year, the group's original four members decided to put aside their differences and start recording again. Sessions were held in Q-Tip's well-appointed home studio, and the group welcomed guests like Busta Rhymes, Elton John, Kendrick Lamar, and André 3000 to contribute. Though Phife died before the album was finished, Q-Tip was able to power through and complete it. We Got It from Here...Thank You 4 Your Service was released in November 2016 and topped the Billboard 200 on its way to gold status. Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad continued with assorted musical pursuits. Tribe were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022”.

Ahead of what may be induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for A Tribe Called Quest, I wanted to salute them and put together a playlist featuring artists who are clearly inspired by them. Almost thirty-three years since they released their debut album, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, A Tribe Called Quest are still hugely important to artists coming through. The playlist below is features may artists who look up to…

THIS amazing musical force.

FEATURE: International Women’s Day 2023: About Damn Time: Worthy Female/Female-Led Headline Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

International Women’s Day 2023

IN THIS PHOTO: Lizzo appears on Glastonbury’s bill alongside headliners Elton John, Arctic Monkeys, and Guns N’ Roses, but as a ‘support’ artist rather than a headliner herself

About Damn Time: Worthy Female/Female-Led Headline Artists

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NOT to labour…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish is one of the headline acts at this year’s Reading & Leeds Festival

a point I and many have made over the past few days, festivals like Reading & Leeds and Glastonbury have been criticised for a lack of female headliners. Even though Glastonbury have two female headliners booked for 2024 and have Lizzo and Lana Del Rey as ‘support’ for headline acts, it is an all-male lime-up. The issue is more complex than festivals not looking hard enough. Taylor Swift was originally booked, and many ask whether Lizzo could have been a headliner. There is an issue with how female artists are marketed and signed. Labels are signing the same tired male acts and, even when women are signed, they are not being handled and marketed well. Many are going independent. This means that they have to work harder to get exposure and gigs. If festival headliners are usually defined by a certain successful, popularity and experience, I don’t think that needs to be the way. When I posted my disappointment with Glastonbury’s all-male headliners, some said it would be crowbarring a female artist. Do we need to change things? If the rest of the bill is a good split in terms of gender and sound, why does it matter if the headliners are all-male? I argued that it is recognition of women at the highest level, and it shows that festivals do not believe women can command a headline slot and would prove popular. That is not the case.

 IMAGE CREDIT: Glastonbury Festival

Many American festivals have no trouble booking women. Roisin O’Connor, writing in The Independent argued that there is a problem with the U.K. music industry. It is troubling to realise that, unless there are major changes, we might not see many women headline festivals in this country:

“A symptom of this, it appears, is that festival bookers are resorting to old, bad habits in a bid to lure music fans back to the events they’ve gone without for the last few years. In 2022, a YouGov survey found that only one in 10 headliners at the UK’s top festivals were women. Of 200 headline acts, just 26 were female, one identified as non-binary, 24 had a mixed line-up, and the rest (149) were either male solo artists or all-male bands.

But, as Eavis points out, the issue begins far earlier than festival line-ups. Record labels seem perfectly content to sign 100 identikit white male singer-songwriters – your Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi, George Ezra and Sam Fender soundalikes – and just about every spoken-word band that stumbles out of The Windmill in Brixton. Of course, this isn’t the case for women. “There can only be one Adele, one Dua Lipa,” seems to be the argument. The UK industry is still blighted by the ludicrous view that, if you have one female pop star, it’s impossible to break another one on the same timeline. Meanwhile, in the US, they make it look effortless, with Lana Del Rey and Lizzo doing just fine alongside Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, Beyoncé, SZA, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor…

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift was due to headline this year’s Glastonbury Festival, but owing to a scheduling/date conflict she was replaced/PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Garrabrant

There’s also a lack of effort to help emerging female artists achieve any kind of longevity. Labels are busy snapping up viral TikTok stars with one song and zero live experience to their name, then scratching their heads over why fans feel no sense of loyalty towards them, even as industry giants like Capaldi share memories of one of his first gigs in Scotland (he’s currently on a worldwide arena tour). Success such as his does not happen overnight. Yet even now, publications put out their lists championing 100-plus artists to watch each year then fail to mention half of them ever again. Radio stations play the same major label artists on a never-ending loop. Last year’s gender and racial disparity report into UK radio found that UK male solo artists occupied the top 100 more than three times as often as female solo artists, and were present in 80 per cent of all top 100 singles. Sheeran alone took up 10 per cent of the top 50 singles last year”.

The truth is that, even for a two-and-a-half-hour set, there are options at least for festivals when it comes to book suitable and popular women. Setting aside their cost, availability or anything else that might be a barrier – and is often used as an excuse -, the artists in the playlist below are all wonderful potential headline acts (and several of them have headlined festivals in the past). Invaluable directories like The F-List provide so many possible names. It is not as simple as festival organisers need to call these women and book them. There are attempts and efforts made but, when you consider the artists who could command a headline set, you wonder why it is men (and white men at that!) who are consistently booked. Quite boring male artists too. Ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday (8th), below are songs from incredible women/female-fronted acts who could…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lana Del Rey is booked for Glastonbury this year, but not as a headliner/PHOTO CREDIT: Lia Clay Miller for Billboard

CREATE stunning headline sets.