FEATURE: Prince at Sixty-Five: Revisiting the Idea of a Biopic or Film Featuring the Genius’s Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Prince at Sixty-Five

IN THIS PHOTO: Prince in action during a Purple Rain tour performance in Los Angeles, March 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Revisiting the Idea of a Biopic or Film Featuring the Genius’s Music

_________

I might publish another feature…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Prince performing at the Fabulous Forum on 19th February, 1985 in Inglewood, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

ahead of Prince’s sixty-fifth birthday on 7th June. We lost the genius in 2016, but I am very keen to celebrate his legacy and life through a series of features. He is one of the all-time greatest and most influential artists. I don’t think we will ever see anyone quite like him again! When I wrote some features commemorating his passing (Prince died in April 2016), I did mention how there has not been a biopic or new documentary about his life. Not that his music is obsolete or the man needs reframing. I just think he is due some celebration on the big or small screen. Documentaries seem obvious. He is someone who continues to influence artists and millions around the world. I am sure we could have a series of documentaries that discuss his iconic albums – including Purple Rain and 1999 -, and what he gave to the world. There have been documentaries through the years, but not anything thorough since he died in 2016. In terms of biopics, there is always some sort of talk and rumour. It is hard to get the tone right and clear things with the estate. I am sure that they would give permission for a project, providing that it was truthful, open, and featured the right actor in the lead role. Prince’s career and life was so compelling, successful and varied, we do need to see the great man on the big screen! I feel that, alongside Madonna, this is one of the major artists who has been missing from cinema. Maybe many might feel it would be sacrilege to his legacy and brilliance. Can we expect an actor to replace Prince? I can see what they are saying, but nobody is trying to dishonour him. In fact, I feel a biopic could introduce Prince’s music to a new generation!

As he would have been sixty-five on 7th June, I am thinking more and more about his life and music. How it has not really been explored as much as it could have been. With such a long career, it is a decision as to whether home in on a particular period or do something more wide-ranging and career-spanning – though I suppose focusing on his golden period in the 1980s might be wiser. I would be fascinated if a film explored the time between Prince releasing 1999 (1982) and Purple Rain (1984), or how his career hit a new level after that. As an inspiration for other Black artists, an activist and icon, Prince defied racial stereotypes. His music was flamboyant for sure, he his amorphous sexuality was not common at the time. There is no doubt that Prince is a role model and peerless historical figure. If not a biopic, then there is scope and promise regarding a film that features music from Prince. As I previously wrote, there are films that use an artist’s music as a soundtrack. Maybe the lead characters are inspired by them. A coming-of-age narrative that uses these songs to score some powerful scenes. With Prince, this could really bring to life a remarkable and moving film. From funky and exhilarating tracks to political statements and raw cuts, through to more romantic or sexual sermons, his wonderful catalogue could feature in a film!

There are all sorts of possible scenarios, but a film set in the U.S. seems like the best place. I like the idea of an individual or a group of friends bonding and being inspired by Prince. His songs scoring big moments. Whether it is love/sex, or something joyful. Maybe a tense moment. One where someone faces racial prejudice or violence. There is that possibility of making it a more musical film, and one or two songs – such as Let’s Go Crazy – do suggest a bigger choreographed number, or even a solo performance/dance. I can’t think of any film from recent years where an artist’s music has been the backbone and inspiration through a motion picture. Not that Prince can ever be forgotten or under-appreciated, but I do feel like there needs to be a big project and screen representation. We are getting posthumous releases – and that will continue for many years to come. I do like the idea of a film set in the 1980s or 1990s. A group of friends facing challenges or discrimination. Chronicling their lives and events, Prince’s music would very much be a driving force and sense of stability and guidance. I have been thinking about this a lot. As Prince is sixty-five on 7th June, it is right back at the forefront. An amazing and legendary artist who, to my mind, has been ignored when it comes to documentaries and films especially, there is a place – and I think demand – for the mighty Prince. Even though he died seven years ago, his legacy and importance will never fade. I long for the day when we see Prince’s life or music firmly on the big (or small) screen. I’d like to think, if he were still with us, that he would…

FIRMLY approve.

FEATURE: Good Times Roll: The Cars’ The Cars at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Good Times Roll

The Cars’ The Cars at Forty-Five

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THROUGHOUT the year…

I am marking big anniversaries for important albums. One I could not let go is The Cars. The eponymous debut album from the U.S. group, it is rightly regarded as a classic. Featuring timeless songs such as My Best Friend’s Girl, Good Times Roll, and Just What I Needed, it reached eighteen on the US Billboard 200 and has been certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is one of the forerunners and defining albums of New Wave. I am going to get to a couple of reviews for The Cars. Before getting to them, Albumism provide some context to the album’s release. It came out on 6th June, 1978. This was a time of change and shifting musical tastes. Maybe Punk was starting to lose ground and dominance to other genres. There was nothing quite like The Cars in mainstream music at that point:

“The world in 1978 was a sea of confusion and in search of an identity. The previous summer, the so-called King of Rock and Roll died on the toilet and his unfortunate demise was emblematic of what was occurring in the music world. The illusion of innocence was gone. It became increasingly evident that the business part of “the music business” was more important to the people who ran it. Music heads wanted more than what was being offered on the radio. Punk broadened the landscape, but many of us were not ready to swim that far out into the ocean. We craved something different and lucky for us it arrived late in the spring of 1978.

The Cars’ self-titled debut album was released in June 1978 and was critically well received. To this day it is considered the cream of the New Wave crop. The Cars is a nine song rock classic that expanded our sonic horizons. It was no longer just about the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac. Rock music was going in a different direction and the casual radio listener was ready to follow wherever The Cars were going to take them.

Even though Ric Ocasek was the main songwriter and leader of the band, Benjamin Orr was the group’s heart and soul. His performances on "Just What I Needed,” "Bye Bye Love,” "Moving in Stereo" and "All Mixed Up" personify the band’s sound and these songs are still being played on many classic rock stations today. The beauty of this album is that it came out of nowhere. The opening riff of "Just What I Needed” immediately transports me to a good place. I’m 13, in my room, listening to WNEW-FM and wondering “who the fuck is this?” The Cars’ debut album is everything good about discovering new music”.

There are a couple of features about The Cars’ debut album prior to getting to reviewers. The first, from Rhino, was published last year. I was not aware quite how influential and vital The Cars was. Maybe it is the impact and originality of the songs. Perhaps the album arrived at a time when something different was needed:

“In June 1978, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was nearing the end of an epic nearly six-month run at #1 on the Billboard album charts, ruling the roost from the end of January through early July. The biggest rock albums of the year where from Boston, flying high with the group's second LP, Don't Look Back, and Billy Joel, whose 52nd Street album grabbed #1 for the last seven weeks of the year.

Amidst that barrage of sonic bombast, on June 6, 1978, the Cars released the band's debut album, simply titled: The Cars.

“It was beautiful to put that first bunch of songs together,” guitarist Elliot Easton told Rolling Stone in 1979. “It was the first time it was so easy in any band I’d been in. We knew we wanted to stick it out. The way it worked was, it would either be on a cassette, or Ric (Ocasek) would pick up his guitar and perform the song for us. We’d all watch his hands and listen to the lyrics and talk about it. We knew enough about music, so we just built the songs up. When there was a space for a hook or a line — or a sinker — we put it in.”

The band's confidence was high, to say the least: “We knew we were good before we did our first gig,” drummer David Robinson casually added.

It was May 1978 when the Cars released the band's first single: "Just What I Needed." The song was a success, making a formidable impression across rock and pop radio with its stark and minimal approach. The catchy pop melodies combined with bassist Benjamin Orr's affected vocals and the track's inventive arrangement immediately stood out from the hit parade. On the charts, "Just What I Needed" cracked the top 30 to peak at #27 on the Hot 100 in September 1978.

With the lead single picking up steam, the Cars released the band's self-titled debut album on June 6, 1978. From the record's anthem-like opening track (and third single), "Let the Good Times Roll," it was clear that the Cars were driving towards new frontiers in the world of rock 'n' roll, and inspiring a sea of new bands in their wake.

With "Just What I Needed" rocking radio and the charts throughout the summer of 1978 and well into the fall, the group's second single didn't arrive until October of that year: "My Best Friend's Girl" was another instant classic in the Cars' canon, the top 40 tune peaked at #35 on the Billboard Hot 100, but has proven to be one of the most enduring songs of the entire 1970s.

"I began playing the demos of 'Just What I Needed' and 'My Best Friend's Girl' in March 1977 during my weekday slot, from 2 to 6 p.m. Calls poured in with positive comments," Boston radio DJ Maxanne Satori recalled. "The Cars' sound was fresh. It wasn't punk, hard rock or folk rock. I thought of it as pure pop for now people, the title of a Nick Lowe album."

The Cars was a breakout smash, cruising to peak at #18 on the Billboard 200 for the week of March 24, 1979. The enduring power of the record was evidenced a few years later in the summer of 1982. That's when deep album cut "Moving in Stereo" was used most effectively during the memorable swimming pool scene in teen coming of age movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That scene would get referenced for a new generation during Stranger Things 3.

“I guess we do have a pretty good aesthetic sense,” the late Ocasek pondered back in 1984 during an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune. “But, you know, pop music can be good, too. We just hope that the pop music we make has people think a little more than some of the trash that’s out there.”

"We used to joke that the first album should be called The Cars' Greatest Hits," Easton said in the liner notes for Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology. "We knew that a lot of great bands fall through the cracks. But we were getting enough feedback from people we respected to know that we were on the right track”.

There is a feature from a couple of years ago that underlines and emphasises the Pop mastery that is present throughout The Cars’ phenomenal debut album. Forty-five years later, it is still widely played and adored – and no doubt still inspiring bands coming through:

“At just over 35 minutes, The Cars in its entirety is about as lengthy as a standard lunch break, and if one’s attention wavers for even a moment they are liable to have missed half the experience. Rather than obstruct its appeal, however, the album’s brevity actually encourages repeat listens, which themselves often reveal previously undetected details with each subsequent review. The record is frighteningly easy to enjoy and is dripping with pop appeal, but also features incredible artistic interest and idiosyncratic expression which makes the record something of a musical equivalent to junk food in its enjoyability and addictive nature, but with the nutritional benefits of fruits and vegetables.

Having assembled just two years prior to the release of their debut album, the Boston-based Cars origins actually lie further west, with lead singer/rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek and bassist/occasional lead vocalist Benjamin Orr having first met in Ohio where the two were living at the time. The two would later reconnect in Columbus and would establish a collaborative partnership which would continue until the 1988 disintegration of The Cars. The pair soon relocated to Boston as a folk act under the name Milkwood, and would release one album which failed to make a discernible impact. This venture did bring them into contact with future Cars keyboardist Greg Hawkes, however, and soon after, lead guitarist Elliot Easton and drummer David Robinson would join the fold, solidifying the lineup of what would become the Cars. 

Taking on a new musical direction, the band quickly began to pick up steam, performing in local venues and recording demos which would garner significant record label attention and result in a bidding war for the band between Elektra and Arista Records. Ultimately, the band opted to sign with Elektra, predicting that their fusion of electronic, rock, and new wave would attract greater attention among the label’s roster of more traditional sounding acts. Producer Roy Thomas Baker was urged by the label to attend a performance of the band’s, which prompted him to sign on as their producer, a role he would maintain over the course of their next four albums. With all the necessary elements in place, the band entered the studio in February of 1978 to record their first album.

The album opens with the slinky, single-note arpeggios of Ocasek’s “Good Times Roll,” a sardonic observation on the absurdity of celebrity status and the rockstar posturing which had become prevalent in popular music at the time. The lyrics can also be interpreted as an acceptance of the inevitability of chaos, underlined by the G major chord in the bridge – the minor 3rd of the song’s key, E major – which makes its appearance concurrently with the drums, sparking an atmosphere of unease and seemingly indicating the approach of something sinister. Elliot Easton establishes himself early on as an unsung hero of the album, as his understated lead guitar work weaves in and out of Ocasek’s chugging rhythm and peppers the backdrop with broad, mid-range swells which silently dictate the track’s mood. The critique of lifestyles glamorized by society and the media, but ultimately detrimental to the people living them, is a recurring lyrical theme throughout the album”.

There is no denying The Cars’ place in musical history. As one of the all-time best debut albums, you’d have thought there might have been an anniversary vinyl release. I have not heard news of what coming about. That is unfortunate. The reviews are available, and they are unanimously positive from what I can see. This is what AllMusic said about The Cars’ 1978 debut:

“The Cars' 1978 self-titled debut, issued on the Elektra label, is a genuine rock masterpiece. The band jokingly referred to the album as their "true greatest-hits album," but it's no exaggeration -- all nine tracks are new wave/rock classics, still in rotation on rock radio. Whereas most bands of the late '70s embraced either punk/new wave or hard rock, the Cars were one of the first bands to do the unthinkable -- merge the two styles together. Add to it bandleader/songwriter Ric Ocasek's supreme pop sensibilities, and you had an album that appealed to new wavers, rockers, and Top 40 fans. One of the most popular new wave songs ever, "Just What I Needed," is an obvious highlight, as are such familiar hits as "Good Times Roll," "My Best Friend's Girl," and "You're All I've Got Tonight." But like most consummate rock albums, the lesser-known compositions are just as exhilarating: "Don't Cha Stop," "Bye Bye Love," "All Mixed Up," and "Moving in Stereo," the latter featured as an instrumental during a steamy scene in the popular movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. With flawless performances, songwriting, and production (courtesy of Queen alumni Roy Thomas Baker), the Cars' debut remains one of rock's all-time classics”.

I will wrap things up with a review from Rolling Stone. They highlight the insatiable and catchy melodies and that blends of eccentricity and accessibility. The Cars is a wonderful album that is coming up for forty-five years. We will be talking about it decades from now:

“The first sound you hear on "Just What I Needed," the single from the Cars' debut album, is the repeated thump of bass notes against the short, metallic slash of guitar. It's a magnificent noise: loud, elemental and relentless. But the Cars–the best band to come out of Boston since J. Geils–aren't interested in simply traveling the interstates of rock & roll. They'll go there for the rush, but they prefer the stop-and-go quirks of two lanes. Before "Just What I Needed" is over, guitarist Elliot Easton has burned rubber making a U-turn with his solo, and Greg Hawkes' synthesizer has double-clutched the melody. Leader Ric Ocasek once sang that he lived on "emotion and comic relief," and it's in this tension of opposites that he and his group find relief (comic or otherwise) between the desire for frontal assault and the preference for oblique strategies. This is the organizing principle behind not only the single but the entire LP, which is almost evenly divided between pop songs and pretentious attempts at art.

The pop songs are wonderful. (Besides "Just What I Needed," they include "My Best Friend's Girl" and "You're All I've Got Tonight.") Easy and eccentric at the same time, all are potential hits. The melodies whoosh out as if on casters, custom-built for the interlocked but constantly shifting blocks of rhythm, while Ocasek's lyrics explode in telegraphic bursts of images and attacks ("You always knew to wear it well/You look so fancy I can tell"). Neither Ocasek nor bassist Ben Orr have striking voices, but by playing off the former's distant, near-mechanical phrasing against the latter's sweet-and-low delivery, the band achieves real emotional flexibility.

As long as the Cars' avant-garde instincts are servicing their rock & roll impulses, the songs bristle and–in their harsher, more angular moments ("Bye Bye Love," "Don't Cha Stop")–bray. The album comes apart only when it becomes arty and falls prey to producer Roy Thomas Baker's lacquered sound and the group's own penchant for electronic effects. "I'm in Touch with Your World" and "Moving in Stereo" are the kind of songs that certify psychedelia's bad name. But these are the mistakes of a band that wants it both ways–and who can blame rock & rollers for that? (RS 274)”.

On 6th June, The Cars’ immaculate debut album turns forty-five. It is tragic that Ric Ocasek is no longer with us (he died in 2019), as his incredible songwriting defines the album. If you have not listed to The Cars before – or not for a long time -, then do carve out some time to do so. It is an utter…

WORK of brilliance.

FEATURE: When You Got a Job to Do, You Got to Do It Well: A Holy Bond: Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

When You Got a Job to Do, You Got to Do It Well

IMAGE CREDIT: UMG

A Holy Bond: Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die at Fifty

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I do not often…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Redferns/Getty Images

celebrate big anniversaries for songs (only albums normally), but there is one that I wanted to mark. In my opinion, the best James Bond theme song is Paul McCartney and Wings’ (I shall shorten it to ‘Wings’ for the rest of the feature) Live and Let Die. It has all the ingredients that you look for in a Bond theme: drama, sexiness, a hook-y chorus, and explosions, tension and whimsy. It is a beautiful song written by Paul and Linda McCartney. It was released on 1st June, 1973. I was keen to explore the track ahead of its fiftieth anniversary. 1973 was a big year for Wings. On 30th April, we marked fifty years of the band’s second studio album, Red Rose Speedway. Whilst it received some mixed reviews upon its release, I think that it has been re-examined since. Containing the classic My Love, it is a wonderful album that was a big step up from their 1971 debut album, Wild Life. Later in 1973 (5th December), Wings released the mighty Band on the Run. Their finest album, I think it ranks alongside the very best Beatles albums – although Paul and Linda McCartney were creating something distinct and new with Wings. That album is a colossus that proved Wings were much more than a Beatles side-project. In the same way as The Beatles would release singles that did not feature on their studio albums, Live and Let Die was this amazing release between two studio albums that could have appeared on Band on the Run. It did appear on the Archive Collection Reissue of Band on the Run and as part of Red Rose Speedway Archive Collection reissue – though the group could easily have slotted it onto the original album as a closer or hidden track.

Live and Let Die was released in the U.K. as Apple R 5987 on 1st June, 1973. It spent fourteen weeks on the singles chart. It reached number nine. There are a few features that I want to introduce, as this is an iconic song in the cannon and catalogue of Paul McCartney. Reaching number two in the U.S., Canada and Norway, Live and Let Die was a huge hit that has divided people when it comes to the all-time best Bond songs. I think it should always be at the top. With Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Henry McCulloug, Denny Seiwell, and Ray Cooper in supreme form, this song will live forever. The legendary George Martin (who produced most of The Beatles’ studio albums) was responsible of the orchestral arrangement. When it was released as a single, the B-side was I Lie Around. Many have interpreted this song as a reply to John Lennon’s track, How Do You Sleep? A track (from his 1971 album, Imagine) that attacks Paul McCartney, this unofficial reply is typically clever and subtle. I am going to start by bringing in a feature from Entertainment Weekly. In 2021, they revealed the story of the most exhilarating Bond theme ever:

"Live and Let Die" was written by McCartney and his wife Linda while the band was recording Wings' second album, Red Rose Speedway, in London. "On the Sunday, I sat down and thought, okay, the hardest thing to do here is to work in that title," the ex-Beatle would later tell Mojo journalist Paul Du Noyer. "I mean, later I really pitied who had the job of writing Quantum of Solace. So I thought, Live and Let Die, okay, really what they mean is live and let live and there's the switch. So I came at it from the very obvious angle. I just thought, 'When you were younger you used to say that, but now you say this.'"

"Live and Let Die" was put on tape at London's AIR studios. "It was recorded live in a big room," Wings guitarist Denny Laine, who plays bass on the track, tells EW. "We had to have the orchestra live and so we needed the big room. I think it was recording it live that gave it the excitement. It usually does in a studio. When you've got a live recording it has the energy, the performance, which may be the reason why it was so popular."

The track was produced by George Martin, the longtime Beatles collaborator. "Oh, George was a sweetheart," Laine says of the producer. "He was the ultimate professional. Obviously it was Paul who wanted him. He knew what he was doing. He always had suggestions too. He wasn't a background guy. He was up front. He gave good ideas."

According to 007 legend, when franchise producer Harry Saltzman initially heard the track he thought it was a demo and planned to have it another performer cover it, before being informed that McCartney would only allow the song to be used if it was performed by Wings. Saltzman acquiesced to the demand, to the benefit of both the franchise and the band. "Live and Let Die" proved the most successful Bond theme up to that date, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard chart. The tune was nominated for an Academy Award but was beaten by the title song from The Way We Were. Wings' first album, 1971's Wild Life, had not enjoyed the critical or commercial success of McCartney's work with The Beatles. Red Rose Speedway was a bigger hit, but it was the success of "Live and Let Die" which really established the band as a major musical force. "It was pretty big for us," Laine says of the song. "We used to do it live ourselves with the band, with Wings. Obviously, the audience just loves that track because it was so famous."

Wings dissolved in 1981, but "Live and Let Die" has lived on. In 1991, Guns N' Roses included a cover of song on the band's multi platinum-selling album Use Your Illusion I with their version becoming a staple of the group's live show. "I loved it, I really did," says Laine. "It lends itself to a heavy rock version. Wings' version was a rock version to a certain degree but it was also an orchestra. Guns N' Roses did it as a rock band and they did a good version of it."

Over the years, the song has become a fixture at solo shows by both McCartney and Laine. "It always goes down really well," says Laine. "It's like a 'Goodnight!' song. The fact that it goes from the slow section to the fast section, and then back into the slower piece, and then rocks out at the end, is a great way of finishing the show”.

I will finish by looking at the aftermath and success of Live and Let Die. I don’t think that we often think about James Bond themes isolated. What I mean is that they are always associated with the film, and we do not really discuss them in the context of an artist’s career alone. I think, when it comes to Wings, I always feel it is a single that has a life of its own. One that you could play now and it would not necessarily make you think of James Bond. It is a track that remains so fresh and compelling because it has this dexterity and depth. I will move to an article from The Guardian that was published last year. The tale goes that James Bond producers heard the Wings song and thought it was a demo. They wanted a female singer to record the vocals, rather than Paul McCartney. The Guardian recount the story about a song that could only be delivered by the genius that is Paul McCartney:

“It had always seemed inconceivable that the James Bond producers wanted to replace Paul McCartney with another singer for Live and Let Die, particularly as his title song for the 1973 Roger Moore classic became a massive hit.

But the story told by Beatles record producer George Martin, and repeated by McCartney, was that the 007 producers thought McCartney’s recording with his band Wings was just a demo and they wanted a female voice.

Now Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, authors of a forthcoming book, have unearthed unpublished contracts in a US university archive which show that the Bond producers always wanted McCartney for the opening credits and another performer for the film’s disco scene.

Kozinn, music critic of the New York Times for 38 years until 2014, said: “This has been a longstanding story in the music world – the producers of Live and Let Die wanted to replace McCartney with a female singer. Martin told the story many times. Paul’s picked it up many times. Actually, the internal communications revealed that it was always in the contract that there would be two versions of the song.”

In his 1979 memoir, All You Need is Ears, Martin recalled playing McCartney’s recording to Harry Saltzman, who produced the Bond films with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli: “He sat me down and said, ‘Great. Like what you did, very nice record, like the score. Now tell me, who do you think we should get to sing it?’ That took me completely aback. After all, he was holding the Paul McCartney recording we had made. And Paul McCartney was – Paul McCartney. But he was clearly treating it as a demo disc. ‘I don’t follow. You’ve got Paul McCartney,’ I said. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s good. But who are we going to get to sing it for the film?’ ‘I’m sorry. I still don’t follow,’ I said, feeling that maybe there was something I hadn’t been told. ‘You know – we’ve got to have a girl, haven’t we?’”

In one interview, McCartney said: “The film producers found a record player. After the record had finished they said to George, ‘That’s great, a wonderful demo. Now when are you going to make the real track, and who shall we get to sing it?’ And George said, ‘What? This is the real track’.”

Sinclair, an award-winning documentary-maker, said: “That became part of that collection of stories that George and Paul would tell over the years, and nobody ever corrected it”.

Regardless of where you rank Live and Let Die among the other James Bond themes, there is no denying it is a Wings classic and one of the best songs Paul (and Linda) McCartney ever wrote. In the middle of a year where they were arguably at their commercial peak, this magnificent, mad and wonderful Bond theme was released into the world. On 1st June, we mark fifty years of an iconic and classic theme. Wikipedia provide some information about the commercial acclaim and critical reception of Live and Let Die:

“Upon release, "Live and Let Die" was the most successful Bond theme up to that point, reaching No. 1 on two of the three major US charts (though it only reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100) and No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also received positive reviews from music critics and continues to be praised as one of McCartney's best songs. It became the first Bond theme song to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but ultimately lost the award to Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were". It won the Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974.

Wings performed "Live and Let Die" live during their concert tours and McCartney continues to play it on his solo tours, often using pyrotechnics during the instrumental breaks. It has been covered by several bands, including Guns N' Roses, whose version appears on their 1991 album Use Your Illusion I. One of the more popular covers of the song, their version was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in 1993. In 2012, McCartney was awarded the Million-Air Award from Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), for more than 4 million performances of the song in the US”.

Billboard's contemporary review called it "the best 007 movie theme" to that time and one of McCartney's most satisfying singles, by combining sweet melody, symphonic bombast and some reggae into one song. Cash Box said that the song was "absolutely magnificent in every respect". Record World predicted that it "should have a long chart life."

"Live and Let Die" reached No. 1 on two of the three major US charts, though only reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 for three weeks. It was kept from the No. 1 spot each week by three different songs, "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern, "Touch Me in the Morning" by Diana Ross, and "Brother Louie" by Stories. "Live and Let Die" also peaked at No. 9 in the UK. The single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies.

Sales of the single release and of the sheet music were "solid."[23] The sheet music used the line "in this ever-changing world in which we live in" as part of the opening verse of the song. In the Washington Post interview more than 30 years later, McCartney told the interviewer, "I don't think about the lyric when I sing it. I think it's 'in which we're living', or it could be 'in which we live in', and that's kind of, sort of, wronger but cuter," before deciding that it was "in which we're living".

IN THIS PHOTO: Wings on holiday in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: MPL Communications Ltd 

"Live and Let Die" was not featured on a McCartney album until the Wings Greatest compilation in 1978, and was included again on 1987's All the Best!, 2001's Wingspan: Hits and History, 2016's Pure McCartney, and in 2018 as a restored bonus track on a reissue of Red Rose Speedway. The entire soundtrack also was released in quadrophonic. It was also included on The 7" Singles Box in 2022.

United Artists promoted the song in trade advertisements for Academy Award consideration, though producer Broccoli opposed the marketing tactic as unnecessary. The song became the first James Bond theme song to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song (garnering McCartney his second Academy Award nomination and Linda her first). In the Academy Award performance of the song, entertainer Connie Stevens dressed in a "silver-lamé outfit" with a Native American-looking headdress "descended from the ceiling" and then was "variously lifted and tossed about" by dancers dressed in various colours until she left the scene. The song lost to the eponymous theme song from the musical film The Way We Were”.

Undoubtedly one of those songs that is impossible to dislike, the epic Live and Let Die turns fifty on 1st June. I first heard the song when I was very young, and it has lost none of its power and drama. It is a wonderful song that will always be special to me. Some may say that it is not the greatest Bond theme ever. There is no doubt in my mind that….

NOBODY did it better.

INTERVIEW: Joan LeMay (Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan)

INTERVIEW:

IMAGE CREDIT: University of Texas Press 

Joan LeMay (Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan)

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AN incredible book…

IN THIS PHOTO: Joan LeMay

that every music lover should own, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, is out now. You do not need to be a Steely Dan diehard to appreciate this engrossing and beautiful book. The group, led by Donald Fagen and Water Becker, released some of the finest albums of the 1970s (and '80s). Classics like Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972) and Aja (1977) are among my all-time favourite albums. Go and grab a copy of a remarkable and must-read work. With the text written by writer and journalist Alex Pappademas, and the gorgeous, characterful, and unique images by Joan LeMay, it is a wonderous and awe-inspiring book you will not be able to put down! I have been speaking with LeMay about the book. Before getting there, and if further convincing was required, here is what you can expect from the stunning Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan:

“literary and visual exploration of the songs of Steely Dan.

Steely Dan's songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators-or imbued their characters with so much humanity. Pulling from history, lived experience, pulp fiction, the lore of the counterculture, and their own darkly comic imaginations, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker summoned protagonists who seemed like fully formed people with complicated pasts, scars they don't talk about, delusions and desires and memories they can't shake. From Rikki to Dr. Wu, Hoops McCann to Kid Charlemagne, Franny from NYU to the Woolly Man without a Face, every name is a locked-room mystery, beguiling listeners and earning the band an exceptionally passionate and ever-growing cult fandom.

Quantum Criminals presents the world of Steely Dan as it has never been seen, much less heard. Artist Joan LeMay has crafted lively, color-saturated images of her favorite characters from the Daniverse to accompany writer Alex Pappademas's explorations of the famous and obscure songs that inspired each painting, in short essays full of cultural context, wild speculation, inspired dot-connecting, and the occasional conspiracy theory. All of it is refracted through the perspectives of the characters themselves, making for a musical companion unlike any other. Funny, discerning, and visually stunning, Quantum Criminals is a singular celebration of Steely Dan's musical cosmos”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Alex Pappademas

Published through the University of Texas Press, this is the ultimate Steely Dan text. A companion that you will not want to miss out on! The reviews for Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan have been extremely positive. This is what Expanding Dan (who also interviewed Pappademas and LeMay recently about the book) noted:

“Remarkable...we finally have a book about Steely Dan in which the writing and art fully measure up to the sophistication and beauty of Becker and Fagen's music...Pappademas's incisive, elegant prose poetry pairs perfectly with LeMay's colorful hand-painted portraits that offer humorous and empathetic glimpses of the Dan's menagerie of luckless pedestrians”.

To celebrate a book that will please the long-running fans of Steely Dan, and lure and entice forward those who are new to their work, Joan LeMay discusses how the collaboration between her and Alex Pappademas came about (I would also suggest you check out interview they have done together such as this), when she discovered the legendary band, and which illustration of hers from the book is a particular favourite – and best demonstrates her artistic style and voice. It has been a real pleasure speaking with the brilliant and enormously talented Joan LeMay as, together with Alex Pappademas, they have created a Steely Dan vision that is…

IN THIS IMAGE: The Expanding Man from “Deacon Blues”/ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/University of Texas Press

IN a league of its own!

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Hi Joan. Can you remember how Steely Dan came into your life? Was there a song or album that grabbed you at a young age - or did it take a bit longer for that fuse to be lit?

In my house growing up, there weren’t a lot of records — there was a row about four, five inches thick. It, however, contained the whole Steely Dan catalog (and later, The Nightfly) alongside lots of Linda Rondstadt, Jethro Tull, Best of the Doobie Brothers Vol II, and a few other selections. As a baby, my honest to God first musical memory was being tall enough (I am tall now and was a tall baby then) to plop the platter for Can’t Buy a Thrill onto the turntable. I believe I gravitated towards that over other Steely Dan albums at the time because I was two and a half and the colors on the cover were attractive. The candle has long burned throughout my life as my love for and understanding of Steely Dan has deepened; it is the light that never goes out.

Even though I feel Steely Dan are underrated, now seems like a time when their music is as powerful, affecting, needed and popular as ever. Do you think there is this renaissance happening?

There absolutely is a ‘Danissance’ afoot, and has been for the past few years. Alex writes about the why and how of this beautifully in the book; he and I both agree that when we started this project it was a niche idea for a book, and now that it is out, it is a mainstream idea for a book.

“I definitely escaped into these characters”

Can you tell me how the idea emerged for Quantum Criminals. Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan? How did you and Alex (Pappademas, the book’s author) decide what to focus on and what structure the book would take?

Around 2019/'20, Alex and I had been independently forming Dan-related projects - I had just started making a fanzine called “Danzine”, wherein I planned to draw/paint every named Dan character in the entire oeuvre. Alex had been talking with our mutual friend and the book’s doula, Jessica Hopper, about writing a book for University of Texas Press, where she was in a position to acquire. He pitched her “Bluets, but Steely Dan”, which is obviously brilliant. As they were communicating about this, Hopper saw me post on Instagram about my project, and she texted me “That’s not a zine, Joanie, that’s a book.” She put us together (Alex and I had been in touch with each other on and off over the years because I lived a former 17-year-long life as a music publicist and would send him pitches) and the structure of the book shifted to be what it became.

In terms of focus, we knew we had to implement some constraints so that this thing wasn’t Biblical. Throughout the book’s production, we communicated on Mondays over the phone and looked at a spreadsheet called the MASTER DANIVERSE CHARACTER SHEET - we discussed who I was most excited to paint, which characters would work best as foci through which Alex could write what he wanted to write and went from there.

IN THIS IMAGE: Owsley Stanley from “Kid Charlemagne”/ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/University of Texas Press

The art and illustrations throughout are amazing, so realistic and utterly unique! Did you produce the art for Quantum Criminals. Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan whilst reading what Alex had written, or by listening to the group’s music? How did the creative juices flow in that respect?

In most cases, I finished my paintings before Alex finished his text because I am a fast worker and needed/wanted/am prone to taking a completely immersive, near manic approach when working on projects in series. So aside from instances in which Alex had fantastic thoughts about particular pieces (for example, it was his idea to paint Rudy as MF Doom), I would whip these things out and send him photos as I produced them. I would sometimes do up to three a day. This was during lockdown, and things were often dark. I definitely escaped into these characters. I was also gifted one of those little Crosley turntables and additional pressings of the canonical LPs by my partner at the time specifically so that they’d live in my studio for this project, so those put gas in the car.

“…and it is luck and kismet that Jessica Hopper, in her infinite wisdom, put us together”

Why was now the right moment for the two of you to create this book?

It was the right moment for both of us as individuals to start our respective projects that then merged and became the book, because we each had time and opportunity to start something we each knew we’d love following through on in a sustaining, sustainable way — and it is luck and kismet that Jessica Hopper, in her infinite wisdom, put us together. It is also luck and kismet that between the time that this thing got cooking and the time that it is coming out of the oven, the cultural landscape changed in such a way that it is being received more enthusiastically and widely than I ever, in my wildest dreams, thought it might be.

Is there a particular piece of art from the book that is your favourite? The one you would highlight as representative of the book and your style…

I am really partial to the Holy Man. There’s something sweet and come-hither on his face; I painted him as an odalisque intentionally, which is a parallel that is an easter egg maybe for me and three other people who are into art history enough to find it funny. One thing that was interesting in the making of this is that I was cognizant of the fact that, when you paint 120 paintings in the same style, you have to work hard to sustain that style because the way you paint — little things about technical technique or gesture or vibe will change between the first piece and the 120th. I am a figurative painter and a portraitist above all, and I work in oils a lot, so there is a fair amount of elasticity in my style depending on medium, subject, scale, the project itself….one commonality is that my work is either very vibrantly colorful or it’s in greyscale. I paint differently now than I did in 2021, which is when all of these pieces were made.

IN THIS IMAGE: Josie from “Josie”/ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/University of Texas Press

How has your relationship with Steely Dan changed since Quantum Criminals. Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan was completed? Have you come to appreciate them more and discovered elements to their music that you did not see before?

I learned so, so much from all of Alex’s research, and my love for them deepened as one’s love for anything does when you pay a greater, or different, level of sustained attention to it. One of the beautiful things about Steely Dan is that they invite intense attention; they are the onion that never gets peeled all the way.

“I have never read a more loving, playful, thoroughly researched, generous, hilarious, voicey book about any band in my life, and neither will you”

If someone was unaware of Steely Dan or a little cold towards them, what would you say to them when it comes to buying the book? Why should they go and get Quantum Criminals. Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan?

I would tell them to never cheat themselves out of an opportunity to read Alex Pappademas’s writing. He could write a book that was presumably about toilet paper and it would end up saving someone’s life because of its insights about the human condition. I have never read a more loving, playful, thoroughly researched, generous, hilarious, voicey book about any band in my life, and neither will you.

IN THIS IMAGE: Snake Mary from “Rose Darling”/ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/University of Texas Press

An impossible question, but what would you say is your favourite Steely Dan album and song? Which would you say is the most underrated too? (My answers would be Pretzel Logic, Deacon Blues (from 1977’s Aja), and Daddy Don’t Live in that New York City No More (from 1975’s Katy Lied)…

Great choices - and there are no bad choices, and no right choices. My answer will, of course, change depending on the weather, but from where I sit right now on a Saturday morning at my best friends’ place in Brooklyn, hearing the birds chirp outside and sipping my coffee, I am going to say “The Boston Rag” and Gaucho. I think there is no underrated SD LP — there are ravenous fans of each — but I will say that Walter Becker’s 11 Tracks of Whack has perhaps not yet made the rounds the way that I suspect it will as the Dan fanbase deepens its exploration.

Finally, and for being a good sport, you can select a Steely Dan song and I will include it here…

I’m going to go for “Time Out of Mind”.

FEATURE: Revisiting… Florence + The Machine - Dance Fever

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

Florence + The Machine - Dance Fever

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ONE big reason…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Lillie Eiger

as to why I am including such a recent album into Revisiting… is because Florence Welch was awarded at the recent Ivor Novello Awards for the song, King. It was written alongside Jack Antonoff. It rightly won for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It was an honour for an amazing artist whose fifth studio album, Dance Fever, was released on 13th May, 2022. Despite it being critically acclaimed, I do not hear tracks from it much on the radio anymore. It is an album with some great deep cuts. Without a weak moment, this is one people should listen to. I am going to come to some reviews of the masterful Dance Fever to wrap up. Before then, there are a couple of interviews involving Welch in promotion of the wonderful Dance Fever. I think it is an astonishing work that was one of the very best from 2022. Hitting number one in the U.K. and seven in the U.S., this was a huge commercial success for the group. Led by the peerless Welch, I think that Dance Fever is one every music fan should explore. Before getting to an interview from British Vogue, there is one from The Guardian that I will reference. We get some background and backstory to this amazing artist:

“Dance Fever is Welch’s first album in four years. Like Ed Sheeran or Adele, she is a survivor of that tense period at the end of the 00s when the industry decided that no one was buying recorded music any more. Her rise was steep and surprising: at 23, her debut album, Lungs, launched her on an 18-leg world tour that culminated in support slots for U2. Big gigs, and a big voice, made her a household name but her artistic paraphernalia has always been part of the package: there was a book club with fans (it’s still running) and a couple of years back, a volume of Welch’s poetry.

Today, she sits in a small room in the garden of an art gallery in Camberwell, near where she grew up and attended art college for a while. Four or five large rings chime on her expressive hands: her hair is whirled into a high ponytail which she occasionally releases, with a flick of her fingers, to punctuate a joke or a moment of drama, before piling it back up again.

Welch’s parents divorced when she was 13, and when her mother, an esteemed history professor, married their next-door neighbour, she acquired two new siblings overnight and became even more protective of her own space (her little brother slept in the linen closet). But her stepfather’s late wife had left behind an Arts and Crafts chandelier and a huge gothic fireplace, both of which fed into an aesthetic that has never left her – 13 years after her debut album she still puts one in mind of John Singer Sargent’s Ellen Terry, or the Lady of Shalott in a vintage Laura Ashley dress.

In person, Welch does not have the imperious air she has on stage: she seems to arrive filterless, fizzing with a nervy but rather humorous energy. In the video for her latest song, Free, she plays herself, while Bill Nighy has a cameo as her “anxiety”. Interviews are hard work, she says – she likes to schedule a day off afterwards to lie down. Harder than being on stage for two hours? “I think so, yes, because that’s scripted and you’re in control.”

Being on stage was, of course, a moot point until recently – this summer, she will tour for the first time in three years. Everyone knows that musicians had a terrible time in the pandemic but Welch, with her unusual directness, is a useful person to ask about it. What did she really think her prospects were?

“My mum said: ‘You’ll find something else to do,’” she says. “It felt incredibly final. I don’t know if that’s because musicians and performers lean towards dramatic thinking, but the reality was no one could say, before there was a vaccine, if gigs would ever come back. Maybe in five years, seven years. I often think about everyone meandering back into the world now with so much unprocessed PTSD.”

Welch told her mother: “I don’t really want to exist in a world where I can’t do the thing I feel like I was put on this Earth to do. The thing that gives me meaning, that makes the jumble in my head – which is a sort of screaming nightmare a lot of the time – make sense.” In print, this sounds a bit overblown but in person, she sounds almost apologetic.

Lately, she has been musing on what she calls the “monster of performance” – how it comes round every two years and swallows you up for a world tour. When it slunk off during the pandemic she felt “bereft”. In March 2020, she was in New York, writing songs for Dance Fever, with Jack Antonoff, known for his work with Lorde and Lana Del Rey. Back in south London, in lockdown, she moved her boyfriend in to her flat and wrote “sad little poems” instead, which turned into songs such as My Love (“my arms emptied, the skies emptied, the buildings emptied”). Unable to dance on stage, she danced in her kitchen (“I’m actually really good at wombling around in socks”). Yet Dance Fever, which was eventually produced in the UK with Dave Bayley from indie band Glass Animals, is no disco record. It may be high in BPM, but much of what she’s put on top is dark, strident, mournful: she has called it “Nick Cave at the club”.

I am keen to move onto a couple of the many positive reviews that Dance Fever received last year. First, British Vogue chatted with Florence Welch last April. There is something insightful and revealing with each interview. There are particular sections of the interview that I will bring in, as they are particularly interesting. I think that Florence Welch is among the most inspiring artists of her generation:

“This wry, gently self-mocking sense of humour runs through Dance Fever, which sees Welch return to the euphoric, stadium-sized anthems that defined her early career. After the success of the band’s debut, Lungs, in 2009, each Florence and the Machine album (Dance Fever will be the fifth) has sold in the millions. They have played all the major festivals, been nominated for six Grammys, and Welch herself has performed with everyone from Drake to The Rolling Stones. “Lungs with more self-knowledge,” is how she describes the new album. “I’m kind of winking at my own creation,” she says. “A lot of it is questioning my commitment to loneliness; to my own sense as a tragic figure.” Cue cackle.

Take the opening line of the Kate Bush-esque “Choreomania” (named after the compulsive collective dancing mania that erupted across Europe in the late Middle Ages): “And I’m freaking out in the middle of the street / With the complete conviction of someone who has never actually had anything really bad happen to them.” Or that of the lo-fi electronica number, “Free”: “Sometimes I wonder if I should be medicated / If I would feel better just lightly sedated.”

“I feel like as a female artist you spend a lot of time screaming into the void for people to take you seriously, in a way that male artists just don’t have to do,” says Welch. She was “so tired of trying to prove myself to people who are never going to get it”. So she stopped. And “it set me free.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Autumn de Wilde

The photographer and director Autumn de Wilde, responsible for the album’s artwork and Welch’s new music videos, was instrumental in creating Florence’s new liberated world. “She is an electric genius,” de Wilde says of Welch. “I started to feel like the record she was making was very honest, very raw and modern, but also rich with otherworldly fantasy. I wanted to create a visual escape-hatch into an ancient fairy tale.”

The pandemic was looming when Welch started working with producer Jack Antonoff in New York, having just finished a gruelling tour for her 2018 album High As Hope. “It’s almost like an addictive cycle,” she says of her need to constantly record. “You forget the pain so quickly.” Plus, she was 33 (her “resurrection year”, as she puts it) and felt she was at once “finally growing into herself as a performer” while also increasingly aware of that all-too-familiar “rumbling panic that your time to have a family might suddenly just–”, she clicks her fingers like a magician. “I had this drive underneath me and I was like if these songs want to get out, I have to get them out fast, because I do have other desires…”

It is the push and pull of these “other desires” – namely motherhood and the impact child-bearing can have on a career, a body, a mind – that “King”, the album’s opening track, explores so affectingly. You can already hear its refrain, “I am no mother/I am no bride/I am king”, being bellowed by thousands of women on this summer’s festival circuit. “The whole crux of the song is that you’re torn between the two,” she says. “The thing I’ve always been sure of is my work, but I do start to feel this shifting of priorities, this sense of like,” she drops to a whisper– “maybe I want something different.”

I wonder what it is that makes her feel like she can’t have both – motherhood and a career. She pauses. “I think I’m afraid. It seems like the bravest thing in the world to have children. It’s the ultimate measure of faith and of letting go of control. I feel like to have a child and to let that amount of love in… I’ve spent my life trying to run away from these big feelings. I think I’ve had a stilted emotional immaturity just through having been in addiction and eating disorders for years.” She admits she has a “really complicated relationship” with her body. After years, she is finally comfortable in it, but the idea of the change it would undergo is one she finds terrifying”.

Alongside commercial success, there were huge and impassioned reviews for Dance Fever. Many consider it to be the best Florence + The Machine album so far - in a career that has not had a weak or even slightly good album in it. The consistency of the group is amazing! In fact, the debut single from the group, Kiss with a Fist, is fifteen on 9th June. This is what The Line of Best Fit wrote about Dance Fever in their review:

“Choreomania, as the condition was later termed, was recently put to screen in Ari Aster’s 2019 horror film Midsommar, but Florence Welch’s long-standing fixation with the pagan and the bewitched has rarely felt horrific. Instead, all of her references to witchcraft and the occult have felt like pure theatrics – her music colourful and accessible, her wicker made for the Glastonbury main stage rather than their runes. Since her 2009 6x platinum debut Lungs, her presence has remained stubbornly consistent, an anomaly amongst her pop peers who often contorted their sound to the whim of each passing trend.

Indeed, her fifth LP sticks to the same, fruitful ground. There’s a moment on "Cassandra" where she sounds a little like '90s Nick Cave, which is new, and the final track sounds closer to breezy indie pop than she’s ever ventured before; but the album’s singles are still filled with howled choruses, driving drums and plucked harp. Despite this, Dance Fever feels like Welch’s biggest change of course in a decade. Firstly, it boasts some of her strongest singles ever, and, coming at the end of a four year break and a two year pandemic, it’s not the theatrical Welch who shows up here; this is a woman and a songwriter, no forest-sprite.

On the opening "King", Welch is standing in her kitchen arguing with her partner about her career and about motherhood. It’s filled with personal triumph al a "Shake It Out", but also pieces of startling self-doubt: “I was never as good as I always thought I was” she sings in the coda, “but I knew how to dress it up”. On the wonderful "Girls Against God" she makes a mockery of the grandeur which is her music’s defining sound: “Crying into cereal at midnight… I listen to music from 2006 and feel kind of sick / But oh God, you're gonna get it / You’ll be sorry that you messed with this”. Welch has been many things in her music, but funny wasn’t one of them until now.

On Dance Fever, there’s definitely the feeling of an artist whose decided that they have nothing left to hide. On "My Love", the album’s most-likely hit, she talks about losing her creative spark as lockdown began, and wonders where to put her feelings if not in song. The panic of this loss is palpable, and more horrific than any creature of the night. The moment of rediscovering her muse is a jubilant one, as is the closing stretch of the record, which boasts some of the most delicate instrumentation of a band whose career has been marked by bombast.

Closer "Morning Elvis" is the most self-lacerating song Welch has ever recorded; so raw that hearing it feels like pressing a thumb against a bruise. “I told the band to leave without me / I’ll get the next flight / I’ll see you all with Elvis if I don’t survive the night”. The song ends with the kind of explosive finale which made Welch a star, but after lyrics like these, the jubilation feels truly earned. Dance Fever may not be their pivot towards disco, but moments like these make it as thrilling as a night on the dance-floor”.

The final thing I want to bring in is from CLASH. They were enormously impressed by Florence + The Machine’s Dance Fever. I am surprised that the album was not shortlisted for the Mercury Prize last year, as it was more than deserving. No matter. It definitely resonated with fans and critics alike:

“Proclaiming herself as king, Florence + The Machine’s fourth album is as majestic as it is authentic. Tip-toeing along the lines of grandiosity, the record (and Welch herself) possesses self awareness and is beautifully honest. Anxiety’s dance partner, a girl against god, a defector from love: Florence weaves together poetry, spoken word and angelic vocals effortlessly. Pounding drums are once again her partner in crime and push Dance Fever’s crescendos to a euphoric level.

Ironically, most of the tracks on ‘Dance Fever’ have a choral eeriness to them that would suit the acoustics of a cathedral. Florence is the devil caught in God’s pure gaze as it feels like she dictates straight from her poetical diary. A tone of wizened nostalgia is found on ‘Back in Town’. Thoughts of LA tie it to ‘How Big How Blue How Beautiful’. References to previous records are sprinkled throughout but a familiar clapping pattern and twinkling harp at the beginning of ‘Choreomania’ sends a ‘Dog Days’ shiver down your spine.

Defiance in the face of inner demons paired with the give and take relationship of music making reveal themselves as the main themes of the album. Welch has spoken about how the opportunity for relapse was incredibly present and real during lockdown as well as how wearying being away from the stage was. "Take me back drunken gods", she sings on ‘Cassandra’ as she searches for someone to sing to. Burdened with empty pages and a full heart, Welch captures the vast emptiness of a locked down world.

Jack Antonoff has left his fingerprint on ‘Dance Fever’ although not as clearly as on some of Welch’s contemporaries’ records such as ‘Solar Power’ and ‘Blue Banisters’. ‘Girls Against God’ has a familiar melodic lead guitar that bends to the producer’s will. Beyond that, Florence’s mystical touch injects the right amount of drama and empowers fragility and self-truth. Visceral soundbites of gasping, laughter and guttural throat noises are layered throughout and add to the harmonies and choir of Welch’s voice. Heard on ‘Daffodil’, they add depth to the already cinematic track that has the power of a war cry and the storytelling of a Dickensian villain.

The shorter tracks ‘Restraint’ and ‘Prayer Factory’ are not to be glossed over. They act as epilogues to their previous sister tracks and give them satisfying outros, tenderly teasing you in less than a minute. ‘Dream Girl Evil’ melds rapturous instrumentation with fervent drums. It throws the male gaze into the fire and delights in its burning. Religious metaphors have a small hold over Florence when it comes to desire as seen with ‘Ceremonials’ bonus track ‘Bedroom Hymns’.

In the face of love, bombs are thrown and Elvis asked for forgiveness at the end of ‘Dance Fever’. Balancing a dramatic soundtrack with heartfelt emotion, Florence + the Machine invite you into their fever dream. A dance party to release your demons to, they cast yet another lyrically beautiful and musically capitulating spell.

9/10”.

If you have not heard this album for a bit, go and take a listen to the magnificent Dance Fever. It is a masterpiece from Florence + The Machine - and I think that songs from it should be played on the radio more. With this consistency and brilliance, it will be exciting to see what the group…

COMES up with next.

FEATURE: Movvvvvinnnnnggggg… Kate Bush’s Busy and Important May and June, 1978

FEATURE:

 

Movvvvvinnnnnggggg…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Tokyo, Japan in June 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

Kate Bush’s Busy and Important May and June, 1978

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I have marked a couple of Kate Bush…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Tokyo in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images

anniversaries that happen this month. In fact, they both relate to singles released from her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside. Them Heavy People (released in Japan) and The Man with the Child in His Eyes turned forty-five. Very different but amazing songs, I am sticking with this time period. With her debut album released in February of that year, Bush experienced this hectic and almost whiplash promotional circuit. I think that May and June of 1978 was a period that was both packed and important. In terms of expanding her influence to other nations, these spring/summer months were pivotal. Thanks to this invaluable website for their Kate Bush timeline. For a bit of context, 4th April is where we start. Wuthering Heights, released in January 1978, had been at number one. By that April date, it slipped to three. The Kick Inside got to number three, so it was this time when Bush had an incredible and unique debut single holding steady on the charts (when it got to number one, she set a record as the first British female artist to enjoy a self-written number one single), in addition to an album that clearly provided a lot more depth and appeal than the one track! Bush headed off to Europe to promote both her single and album. In addition to heading to West Germany and France, she was in the Netherlands. In a twenty-five-minute promotional film for the new De Effeling gothic amusement/theme park in Kaatsheuvel, she performed six songs from The Kick Inside. Bush also performed on the Voor De Vuist Weg television programme.

Many people associate Bush with being a bit distant with the U.S. early on. In fact, Bush did visit in April 1978 on a brief promotional jaunt. I can’t find many details about this or whether any interviews took place. It seems that May 1978 was perhaps when she visited America. Bush also appeared on Saturday Night Live (introduced by Eric Idle) in December 1978 and sang The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Even by April 1978 – with one album down -, there were plans and talks of a possible tour. This early travel and international exposure was motivation to broaden the ambitions and visuals. As we know, The Tour of Life happened in 1979. I think it would have been impossible to realise a tour in 1978, as she released two studio albums (her second, Lionheart, came out in November) and promoted her music throughout the year – with barely a moment to perform! She did promote in the U.S. and Canada in May 1978. Even though there are no T.V. appearances here, it was a chance for the still-teenage Bush to experience the different rhythm and pace of North America. Whereas Wuthering Heights got to number one in the U.K., it did not impact North America. It got to eight on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, but I am not sure how much recognition Canadian and U.S. audiences had of Bush in 1978. Regardless, it was a valuable trip and an opportunity for her to get better known there – even if Bush resolutely stated that she did not dream of cracking America. It is a strange that the past couple of years has been the first time when you feel her music has been widely and truly embraced by a number of generations there!

If there was a bit of U.S. jaunt from April 1978, it seemed like Bush had a short break following her North American trip. A rare opportunity to briefly breathe, I can only envisage how Bush was feeling at this point! A few months off her twentieth birthday, it was a vastly different experience to what her old schoolmates would have been going through! It was her dream to make an album, but I don’t think in her wildest dreams she would have pictured how frantic and globe-trotting her first full professional year in music would been. After Bush fought determinedly to have Wuthering Heights released as her first single – EMI wanted the more conventional and accessible James and the Cold Gun -, she was given reign to select her second single. I suppose EMI would have favoured Them Heavy People (a success in Japan) or a song like Kite to be the next release – or even a return conversation around the merits of James and the Cold Gun. Intuitive and the best judge of her own music, The Man with the Child in His Eyes was the next single. That came out on 26th May, where it reached six in the U.K. Maybe because of some U.S. promotion, it actually got to eighty-five on the Billboard Hot 100! You can see why Bush felt The Man with the Child in His Eyes should be a single. Recorded in June 1975 – alongside The Saxophone Song -, it won an Ivor Novello in 1979. Demonstrating her incredible lyrical talent, her instincts proved right. Less of a novelty than Wuthering Heights, there was a nice contrast and balance – The Man with the Child in His Eyes more of a standard; more tender and almost soulful. In Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere, the follow-up later in the year was EMI's first choice, Them Heavy People. Even though that Kate Bush timeline says The Man with the Child in His Eyes was released on 28th May, 1978, I have 26th May down as the release date. I am not sure who can break the tie, but I am going with the latter date, as that is the one that seems to be most common elsewhere. As is the problem when it comes to getting accurate release dates from so far back, there is often no definite answer or single authority who can verify and make that ruling.

Regardless, by the end of May 1978, a lot had been achieved. Remember, The Kick Inside was released in January. Two singles down, chart success around the world, and so many people knew who Kate Bush was. She had visited multiple nations, and that was just the start of things! As I get a chance to visit Kate Bush’s visit to Japan in June 1978, I wanted to contextualise it forty-five years down the line. Maybe Bush’s most itinerant two-month period, from the U.S. and Europe in April/May, Japan came calling! Moving has been released in February 1978 in Japan. As I wrote recently, Them Heavy People was released as a single only in Japan. Retitled Rolling the Ball, it reached number three there - its only release worldwide as an A-side. I have written about Bush’s Japan trip of June 1978 (I don’t know if she ever returned to the country after that) before, but not in the context of that period where she recently visited America. Someone who was not a fan of flying from the off, there must have been some nerves and fear about going somewhere so far from home! I am not sure whether it was a decision EMI made to really bolster and boost her profile in Japan, but Bush was thrown into a very deep end with the 7th Tokyo Song Festival. On 18th June, Bush performed Moving live before an audience of 11,000 at the Nippon Budokan. Consider the fact that her biggest gig prior to that would have been a pub booking in England to around a roomful of folk, this was next level! That Japan performance was viewed by over 35 million people! Although it was a weird and inexplicable promotional angle, the gamble clearly paid dividends! Bush won the Silver Prize jointly with American group The Emotions. Moving reached number one in Japan. For someone who was unknown in the country at the start of 1978, she was now a chart-topping artist there! Even though she did not release Japan-only singles past Lionheart, it is amazing that she made such an instant impression there. Though perhaps not that weird. There were mixed blessings to this Japan success…

I wonder why there was such a divide between the East market and those in North America. Is it a language thing? Did the sounds of Moving and Them Heavy People/Rolling the Ball translate more effectively in Japan than Wuthering Heights did in North America? It would be interesting to get some theories and feedback on that. If the U.S. and Canada trips were not synonymous with television performances and that much eventfulness, that is not true when we consider Japan. Perhaps a market more fertile in terms of opportunity and commercial appeal, Bush also appeared on the T.V. show, Sound in S, taped at Tokyo's TBS G Studio. She made her only television advertisement, and her only endorsement for a commercial product - a spot for Seiko watches. Whether slightly coerced or something that was part of an early international career plan – Bush doing adverts and something more akin to what a mainstream Pop artist might do -, I am not too sure. I do like the fact Bush didn’t do more advertising, as her Seiko spot finds her slightly uncomfortable and uneasy. In a country that Bush was not familiar with and was a million miles away from the feel and fabric of her East Wickham Farm home in the U.K., there were moments of awkwardness, cultural appropriation and translation issues – which are understandable as Bush was never exposed to this way of life and language before! Regardless, I think that she was a true professional and stoic presence there. After only a brief holiday following her time in North America (which followed close on the heels of European promotion), she was jetted to a nation that would embrace her music more heatedly and instantly than most – though you wonder how much of it was understood and translated. Her natural charm, hard work ethic and raw talent put her in a very healthy and exciting position by June 1978.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during her trip to Japan in June 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe

One would hope that EMI would offer their young prodigy a break before considering any new steps (and I would advise people to read this excellent feature about Bush’s Japan trip). I hope at least she got her twentieth birthday off (30th July, 1978) and enjoyed some family time! Not long after getting home from Japan, Bush was ordered to get ready for album number two. If that promotional blitz resulted in success and international exposure, it gave EMI the proof they needed that Kate Bush was indeed a star. One feels that money and commercial acclaim were outweighing allowing their tired artist to pause after promoting her debut album so diligently and without complaint. Of course, Bush did not relish the very short amount of time she was given to deliver songs for a new album. As such, only three of the ten that would appear on Lionheart were newly written. Despite the fact the majestic and gorgeous Symphony in Blue was among them, she couldn’t have gone into recording Lionheart in the best of spirits! That was the only album recorded outside of the U.K. (in France), but she had to revamp and rework seven older songs perhaps not considered strong enough or right-sounding for The Kick Inside. She demoed the songs in a studio designed by her brother Paddy (who appeared on all of her albums bar her most recent, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow). That studio was paid for from the royalties Wuthering Heights amassed. I guess the deadlines and way of working were good practise when it came to the foundations for 1979’s The Tour of Life. There, with Bush taking more command and control (and using a lot of her own money to realise her vision and execute the tour), it was a lot of long days and decision making all over the place. It would have been quite a tough time…so you can imagine Bush would have had some retrospective sympathy with EMI.

It is staggering and dizzying considering the amount of growth and work done less than a year after Bush was called into the studio in London to record The Kick Inside. That happened in August 1977. Prior to that, Bush was touring pubs and clubs around the south as part of the KT Bush Band. With bassist Del Palmer, guitarist Brian Bath,  Vic King (who did not feature on her debut album and contact was lost after that, even though he played with The KT Bush Band for some live dates in 2016). I think the original idea for the band, from Paddy Bush, consisted of Del Palmer, Brian Bath and Charlie Morgan playing with Kate Bush. I am not sure whether that line-up played gigs past rehearsals and talk, but it is clear that the one of Bush, Palmer, King and Bath did play a string of dates together. Anyway. I digress! What I mean is that Bush started working in the KT Bush Band in August 1977 (about seven months after she passed her driving test). The Kick Inside gets completed by in August 1977 (though there may have been some additional input in September), and Wuthering Heights arrives in January 1978. If that five months or so seemed like a real leap, that was nothing compared with the five months that followed her debut single coming out! It was a really intense and escalating period where Bush was getting ever busier and known. No wonder what she wanted to tour and step away from album promotion and recording through most of 1979. As it was forty-five years ago, I wanted to revisit and explore an intense and memorable time in Kate Bush’s career. Even if it was quite exhausting and, at times, strange, it was very important. Bush was gearing some real-world exposure beyond the U.K. If it took a while for North America to connect with her music, that trip to Japan helped get her to number one there. It was a mind-broadening and interesting couple of months! I wonder how Bush would reflect on that time now. If it did not yield terrific commercial reward, and she came to dislike flying more than she would have done previously, it showed that there was a market and life for her music…

BEYOND the U.K. and Europe.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Kali Malone

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Kali Malone

_________

I am featuring an artist…

who has released one of this year’s most interesting and wonderful albums in the form of Does Spring Hide Its Joy. It is a longform drone piece by on sine wave oscillators alongside cellist Lucy Railton and Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley. For those new to her, Kali Malone is an American composer and organist based in Stockholm. Her works implement unique tuning systems in minimalist form for analog and digital synthesis often combined with acoustic instrumentation. Born in Denver, Colorado, this is an artist that everyone should know about. I am fairly new to Kali Malone’s work, but she is an exceptional composer and musician. I shall end with a review for Does Spring Hide Its Joy. Before I get there, I want to bring in a few interviews where we discover more about Malone and her background. In 2018, Tiny Mix Tapes spotlighted a phenomenal musician who was on the rise:

“Kali grew up in Colorado and lived there until she was 16, after which she spent time in Western Massachusetts before relocating to Stockholm in 2012. She has been there since and is currently pursuing a Masters degree in electroacoustic composition at The Royal College of Music.

So far in 2018 she has released a cassette, Organ Dirges 2016-2017 (Ascetic House), and an LP, Cast of Mind (Hallow Ground). A triple CD of organ music is coming later this year from iDEAL Recordings, as well as the debut album from her new project with Acronym and a vinyl reissue of Organ Dirges 2016-2017.

PHOTO CREDIT: A.M. Rehm

I know a bit about the music scene in Western Massachusetts, but what is happening in Colorado and Stockholm?

The music scene in Denver, Colorado has changed a lot the past few years. Mostly because Denver has been gentrifying so rapidly and the housing crisis has made a lot of people move, and it’s difficult to acquire venue spaces for underground music. Especially since the Ghost Ship tragedy, which triggered a cascade of repercussions throughout the whole country, some of our most important DIY spaces have been shut down and some of our heroes have fallen, so it’s been a really tumultuous couple of years.

But growing up there, I remember shows happening everywhere always and all extreme musics were bound into a night, so from a very early age, I was exposed to a lot of different extreme expressions. The shows were mostly all ages and happening in people’s homes or warehouses rather than in bars; it was a pretty inclusive community.

In some ways, I’ve found that sort of community in Stockholm for sure. In Stockholm, we have many shared resources and shared spaces, like state-funded studios and venues, so it’s kind of hard to avoid ending up in a community there. A lot of those are institutionalized communities, so people aren’t necessarily choosing each other, but you get a lot of diverse expressions through that also. The thinking is kind of like, “We happen to share this space together, we happen to share these resources, let’s get along and do something.”

You have Fylkingen, which is an 85-year-old artist-run society and venue for experimental music and art. And there’s EMS, a state-funded studio for electroacoustic music that houses very-well-cared-for Buchla and Serge modular systems. At these places, you’re working with many different generations of people at once, so you can really learn a lot and keep certain traditions alive. Outside of those more institutional and formal communities, my friends and I have our own studio called Tropiska Föreningen, and we put on more DIY shows and exhibitions.

Great venues in Stockholm have also shut down since I’ve been there, but that’s kind of the nature of doing underground music — nothing is ever permanent, and you always have to be working at it and readjusting to the circumstances. The minute you get too comfortable with it, you lose it. You always have to live with that anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen next, which is why it’s so important to have that community around you.

Why did you decide to stay in Sweden?

Well, I went there initially because of Ellen Arkbro. I met her in New York when I was 16 at a house show, and a year later I went to visit her in Sweden and she introduced me to EMS and Fylkingen. I started playing music with a bunch of people there, and I never wanted to leave. It was a really formative and groundbreaking experience, especially for my exposure to improvised music. When I first heard Swedish improvised music, I noticed that it was very careful and considerate of the other musicians, and it inspired a different sort of listening in me. Up until that point, when I’d played improvised music, it was a lot about taking space and blasting sound, even though I wasn’t quite sure what I was trying to articulate yet.

After that, I moved to Sweden really naively when I was 18 with just my Fender Blues guitar amp and some pedals, and I’m still there six years later.

How did you begin to play the organ?

One of my first friends in Sweden is an organist, and I would go to the church and watch him practice. But I never really thought of it as an instrument for me because, in my mind, it was still so connected to the traditions of the church; it wasn’t yet sonically liberated from that particular setting and culture for me. Then Ellen Arkbro and my other friend Marta Forsberg put on an incredible organ concert in a church, and that was kind of the first time I heard live, contemporary pieces on the organ that really resonated with me. It was inspiring, but I still wasn’t thinking “I’m going to write for organ.” But then I met the organ tuner Jan Börjeson for some research I was doing for my thesis. I’m very interested in tuning systems and temperament systems, and so I wanted to talk to an organ tuner about their experiences with that because they are often tuning in many different temperaments. I went for a 10-minute interview with him, which turned into us tuning the organ for eight hours, and now I’m his apprentice. So, I actually started playing the organ through tuning it”.

In 2020, as Kali Malone was performing as part of Re-Imagine Europe (she was commissioned by INA GRM), François Bonnet spoke with her. In this fascinating interview, we learn more about Malone’s extraordinary talent and musicianship. She is someone that you need to listen to. Hearing her music and performances is a real gift and wonderful experience:

“FB: Your music has an ‘anti-romantic’ approach. Its expression is not a musical gesture summoned by a genius but by rules and structure that help build a ‘selfless expressivity’. Had you already explored this legacy of Cage and Feldman in the US or is it something you developed in Sweden?

KM: Thanks for that interpretation, I’d say it’s a fair evaluation of some of my work. This approach grew over time while in Sweden. It’s not something I’m entirely bound to, although the more I commit to it the more difficult it is to transition to other forms of expressivity. Applying a rational and generative structure to the organisation of sound challenges my willpower and ego. It submits my chaotic nature to a discipline based on concept rather than emotion. Interestingly, the music ends up projecting something much more emotional and personal than if it had been composed without a predetermined structure.

FB: You create acoustic and electronic music. What are the differences, if any, in the approach to these two modalities?

KM: I love to combine synthesis and acoustic instruments in my work. There’s an incalculable beauty to an acoustic timbre’s organic quality and the human sensibility’s delicate obscurity. There’s also a component in the process of recording acoustic instruments that demands more commitment and clarity from my part, making the whole thing feel more humbling and significant. The idea of ‘the recording’ is quite different when I’ve set up the studio, borrowed microphones, and reserved time with live musicians than when I’m spending hours at my leisure on a new synth patch. There’s an implied scarcity and urgency in the former recorded sound, which might be why my latest works use so much acoustic material.

FB: You’re creating a new work in the context of the Re-Imagine Europe project, which you’ll present at the Sonic Acts Academy and INA GRM’s The Focus Concert Series with a loudspeaker orchestra. Will you develop something specifically for a 360-degree diffusion of your music?

KM: Yes.

I am going to move things to the present time. Bandcamp featured an interview with Kali Malone in promotion of Does Spring Hide Its Joy. I think I first heard her music last year. I have been intrigued ever since. I don’t think that there is anyone quite like her in the industry. I am really curious to see what direction she takes next, and what how she follows the sublime and immersive Does Spring Hide Its Joy:

“You give all of your trust to the music and let it guide your attention rather than anticipate what’s around every corner,” says composer Kali Malone. Malone creates drone meditations that gradually unfold through layered tones. Her latest project Does Spring Hide Its Joy presents three different versions of the finished piece, each of which blossoms from the same score.

Malone found kinship with like-minded artists Lucy Railton, a cellist she met in Sweden who was often working in the Electronic Music Studio at the same time as her, and Stephen O’Malley, a guitarist she met by chance while going through the metal detectors at Ina GRM in France. In the spring of 2020, the three artists were locked down together in Berlin. During that time, they began to make music at Berlin Funkhaus and MONOM and ended up making Does Spring Hide Its Joy, which features Malone on 72 sine wave oscillators, Railton on cello, and O’Malley on guitar.

The music on Does Spring Hide Its Joy is non-linear yet structured. Five-minute blocks link together, forming a ladder the three players move up and down; in total, the work can last anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes. As the trio plays, they react to each other in real time, matching one another’s notes or falling away and leaving empty spaces. It’s about trusting each other and the process and embracing the failures that lead to successes along the way.

Much of Malone’s work employs rhythmic patterns like canons or tuning systems that guide the music in a certain direction. Within these confines, she finds space for creativity and change. “When you have a bunch of restrictions, you lose control because there’s some sort of agency that is given to the composition that you submit yourself to,” she says. “It’s a big puzzle. And then when it does fit together, the piece is so much more perplexing than I could have really imagined or linearly composed.”

 The ideas Malone explores across the album, and her discography, stem from interests she’s held for a long time. She was a musical child; one of her earliest memories is of sitting at the piano, where she quickly fell in love with the sound of the black keys. But it was an experience she had conducting a piece by Pauline Oliveros at 19 that shaped her artistic trajectory. Oliveros established the practice of deep listening, breaking open new ways of actively engaging with sound and each other. The piece Malone conducted, To Valerie Solanas And Marilyn Monroe In Recognition Of Their Desperation, plays with the social dynamics of an ensemble. Through this work, Malone began thinking more about relationships that exist between each player and how you may submit your will to the collective or rebel against it.

Throughout Does Spring Hide Its Joy, the three artists each explore submission and assertion, attentively listening to see when they should play or recede. When performed live, this dynamic shapes the listening experience of the audience. Depending on the space, the piece will take on different forms: If they’re seated in different positions, they may hear different sounds from each other, and different acoustics will create different qualities of sound. For Malone, live performance is where all of the elements come together—and where deep listening thrives. “It’s the moment I can really just completely be present and in the music,” she says. “If I’m able to listen and just enter that zone, then it also opens up a doorway for the other people in the space to go there with me.”

Malone estimates the group has spent 24 hours performing the music live to audiences in 60 or 90-minute concerts. She’s met people who have seen them play it more than once and often think it’s something different. But it isn’t—it’s just that every time, there’s still something left to be unearthed. “It’s so exciting because it just keeps on giving and giving and teaching us new things,” Malone says. “I feel like it’s a musical practice rather than a piece that we can continue and that I would love to continue forever”.

Before getting to a review for Does Spring Hide Its Joy, I just want to highlight parts of an interview from The Guardian. They spoke with Kali Malone in January (when the album was released) regarding her search for the sublime. It is yet another window into the incredible mind of a stunning composer:

“Malone grew up mostly in Denver, where she sang in state choirs, studied classical vocal music, then discovered gigs age 13. “I was a very independent kid, with not so much supervision, and very adventurous,” she says. She moved to Massachusetts alone to study music, then boldly to Stockholm, aged 18, after becoming friends with Swedish avant-garde composer Ellen Arkbro. “I just knew I needed to go,” she says, “I was naive enough to arrive with just an amplifier and my guitar, but the first week I got a job, got my visa, an apartment – I somehow figured it all out.”

She studied electroacoustic composition at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, where she found a fertile cohort including Arkbro, synth musician Caterina Barbieri and Maria W Horn (with whom she ran the label XKatedral) among others. Stockholm provided access to rare synths at EMS, and she began working as a technician at experimental venue Fylkingen (to sound poetry what New York’s CBGB was to punk). During this intense creative time, she made much of what became 2018’s Organ Dirges 2016-17 and Cast of Mind, and The Sacrificial Code: “I would roll all the microphones and mic stands across the building where the organ was every day,” she says. “I was the last one to leave school every night – I’d often get locked in.”

Malone’s organ fixation started when she interviewed organ tuner Jan Börjeson while studying. She began apprenticing with him, climbing inside the bellies of these mechanical whales. She was fascinated by their clacking, wheezing physicality, but also by the possibilities of tunings. “Holding down two notes, the beating patterns that then occur reminded me of what I was searching for in my electronic music,” she says.

She becomes visibly excited explaining the technicalities of how historical organs have been retuned through a process of harmonic standardisation. Grappling with terminology, I ask if this means some are essentially wearing clothes that don’t fit? “That’s a good way to put it,” she says, kindly. She elaborates about wolf tones and commas, and I am utterly lost. “I don’t understand why more people don’t know about harmonics,” she says. “We learn about chemistry, about colour – the science of sound doesn’t just apply to musicians – we experience sound every moment of our lives.”

She mentions a less sublime environmental sound. “There’s a leaf-blower that wakes me up every morning,” she says. “I remember once sprinting outside with my recorder because five guys were leaf-blowing together – it was one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard.” This is the mindset of a musician who is as much receiver as composer: “There’s so much beautiful sound out there – it’s all just your perception whether you experience it as music”.

I will wrap up with a review for Does Spring Hide Its Joy. This is what Pitchfork offered when they sat down and listened to one of this year’s most atmospheric and important albums. Even if it is not the sort of music you normally listen to, I would urge you to give it a try:

“Endurance is a longstanding element of Malone’s music, but Does Spring Hide Its Joy makes it a central component. Each of the three presentations of the piece featured on this release are an hour long (subdivided into 20-minute movements), and, anchored by a shared tonic drone, they easily melt into one sprawling three-hour epic. The music breathes in slow motion, with massive exhalations of bass ceding to stretches of quiet consonance before the next yawning gasp. Change is omnipresent and can be dramatic, but there’s a veneer of stillness that makes listening feel like observing the swirl of a nebula; the spectacle exists on a scale that’s difficult to grasp in one sitting. The most effective way to ground oneself in the piece is to be with the music as it exists in the moment, listening for incremental shifts as they unfold.

What Malone describes as “hold[ing] time together” involves a process of letting go of traditional musical demarcations of time and forming new ones. Drone music is often perceived to lack rhythm, but Does Spring Hide Its Joy is abundant with it, just on different scales than many listeners might be used to. You can mark time with the moments when Railton runs out of bow and changes direction, which don’t occur at regular intervals. The constant ebb and flow of volume, intensity, and dissonance, which takes place in cycles of dozens of minutes, offers another rhythmic viewpoint. But the most fascinating occurs on a much smaller spectrum of time: As the trio builds up microtonal harmonies, warbling beats caused by harmonic interference contract and expand as the frequencies fall in and out of phase with one another. Depending where the listener’s attention rests, clock time, geological time, and quantum time each become observable.

This precise and harmonically dense requires superhuman concentration, and it’s clear from these recordings how closely the three musicians are listening and reacting to one another. Rather than conjure impressions of solitude, the spontaneous decisions the trio makes—to dig into coarse dissonance, to let the glorious simplicity of an open fifth ring out, to fade into oblivion—speak to the joys of building something collectively. In a recent interview with Bandcamp, Malone discussed how working on a score by Pauline Oliveros, the composer and Deep Listening pioneer whose methods were championed in 2020 as a balm for isolation, has affected how she thinks about working within and composing for an ensemble. Out of the singular nature of sustained tones emerge entire worlds of sound that arise from each member of the trio understanding not only their own role, but how to mold their contributions around the distinct personalities of their collaborators.

There’s something utopian about music driven by an attention to understanding those around you, music that pushes listeners to expand their understanding of how time is experienced and demarcated. In a period of upheaval, letting go of expectations of how things should be, beginning with how music should move or present itself, can be a powerful step toward reimagining the future. Rejecting escapism and celebrating invention, Does Spring Hide Its Joy is equally compelling and uncompromising. The music and the feeling of being absorbed in it is its own reward. Just beneath the surface of Malone’s composition lies an alternate path forward: one that is malleable, defined by change and the mysterious complexities of sound”.

An incredible talent that should be known by all, I think we are going to hear a lot more singular and moving music from Kali Malone. Make sure that you check her out. I am not sure if she is going to be playing in the U.K. in the future, but she was here earlier in the month. If you can catch her performing, then I would definitely recommend it. Do go and immerse yourself in…

HER remarkable musical world.

__________

Follow Kali Malone

 Official:

https://kalimalone.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/hotscorpions/

Bandcamp:

https://kalimalone.bandcamp.com/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1I0rODlh5K9pW3JhEla2H9

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/kalimalone.music

FEATURE: Spotlight: Kito

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Kito

_________

AN amazing producer artist, songwriter, and D.J…

Kito is someone that is very much at the forefront right now! Her groundbreaking new track involving an AI replication of Grimes’ voice has caused a lot of discussion and excitement. Kito (Maaike Kito Lebbing), is an Australian multi-talented innovator residing in Los Angeles, California. She debuted in 2009 on Skream's record label, Disfigured Dubz. After Lebbing independently released a 2018 E.P., Haani, she debuted under Astralwerks/Capitol. An amazing producer, Kito has created amazing remixes for Beyoncé's Run the World (Girls) (2011), Broods' Too Proud (2019), and Wafia's Flowers and Superpowers (2019). In addition, she has produced music for Mabel, Jorja Smith, Banks, and Ruel. An acclaimed and hugely respected and admired producer, she was nominated for the Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year (Los Angeles) at the 2020 Global APRA Music Awards. I have grabbed some background from Wikipedia but, in truth, I am keen to get to some interviews. I have put all of Kito’s social media links at the bottom, so do go and follow her. I have written about the imbalance in studios when it comes to female producers and how women often feel unseen or unheard in studios. How the environment can be hostile or inflexible. Kito is definitely a huge influence in terms of the importance and immense talent coming from some brilliant women! She will help to provoke change and conversation; breaking down barriers for women coming through. I will work my way to a recent interview she was involved in regarding AI and her ‘collaboration’ with Grimes.

I am going to go back to last year when it comes to the first interview. Seemingly fuelled and inspired by coffee, a great team, and authenticity (possibly not in that order!), it is exciting seeing this hugely important and inspiring producer and artist come through. She collaborated with BANKS on Sad Girl Music last year. That was one of my favourite songs of the year. I can imagine her working with other enormous artists very soon. I have a list that I could see coming to fruition – as I am sure Kito herself does! The Fade In: talked with the influential Australian. Someone who I think is going to go on to change the industry and really make her mark, it is fascinating reading interviews from a year or two ago. Contrasting that to here and now. What she is currently creating and how important her recent AI work is! I have enormous respect for what she does:

“You have a very outstanding personality that is noticeable both in your music and your look, and we know female artists have always played an important role in raising other girls’ voices and becoming a source of inspiration in many respects. How would you describe the power and/or responsibility of being a female musician nowadays?

Thank you! I find my power in making stuff that I’m excited about. My team is mostly made up of women which I love, plus I also work with so many talented female identifying musicians. I just wanna make good music and make people feel good and hopefully that resonates and inspires others.

How does your creative process usually look like?

Drink lots of coffee then bounce around between different ideas before focusing on one thing and forgetting to eat dinner because I get so engrossed! (I do always eat dinner, just sometimes not until 11pm if I’m really into something I’m working on haha).

When was the most remarkable moment of your career?

I think each time I feel power in my abilities or learn something new. Also the last 2 years have been amazing – finding a great team to work with has changed everything for me (in such a positive way!)

What are your biggest dreams for the future, and what would you like to say to yourself when they come true?

I want to continue making music I’m passionate about, working with artists I love, and one day build my dream studio at the back of my house. I guess I’ll say “you did that” and give myself a pat on the back, and then most likely just continue doing the same ol stuff I’m doing now haha”.

I will see if I can interview Kito one day. I would like to know more about her experiences getting into production and what it was like. How her experiences differ to that of other women in the industry. I want to go back a little further to the start of last year. A few months or so after the release of her E.P., Blossom, Flaunt were eager to spotlight the remarkable Kito:

“Kito is a whole vibe, and it shines through in her music. Here to put on for all the aspiring female producers, songwriters, DJs in the world, the Australian-bred, London-raised, Los Angeles-based recording artist sees her music as an intimate party everyone is invited to, touching the masses on an international scale. From her romantic lyrics to her uptempo production to her catchy hooks, Kito knows a thing or two about hit records.

Last year, Kito received her first Gold record for her song “Bitter” with FLETCHER, which currently hails over 200 million streams and counting. And let’s not forget about her all-star catalog of remixes for the likes of Beyonce to Saweetie & Doja Cat, creating her own lane of futuristic pop.

Fast forward to 2021, Kito unveils her highly-anticipated new EP titled Blossom, reminiscent of a bouquet of flowers and how her mixture of sounds, tones, and emotions are intentionally picked and arranged. Coming into fruition during the COVID-19 lockdown, the 7-track project hails guest appearances from Bea Miller, VanJess, Channel Tres, ZHU, Jeremih and more.

Flaunt caught up with Kito via Zoom, who was posted in Echo Park with her friend’s kitten in her lap. Read below as we discuss her background, being self-taught, being influenced by her friends, the turning point in her music career, the meaning behind Blossom, how she got her features, favorite songs, studio essentials, playing Art Basel, and more!

What was it like being from Australia and growing up in London?

I grew up in a really small town south of Perth in West Australia, really isolated. I got into music through online forums and through friends. I found that community of electronic music when I was pretty young. I also loved collecting records. I then learned to produce, kind of self-taught. It was finding a lot of friends online, sending stuff back and forth and learning in that way.

How did you teach yourself how to produce?

A lot of tutorials. A lot of people, myself included, try to copy something that you hear that you like. At that stage, you’re not very good at being able to mimic something so you end up doing your own thing through good mistakes and trying to copy whatever it is that you’re into. The style of music or even songs, trying to figure out how people made something.

Blossom EP out now, how are you feeling?

I feel great! I feel really happy to tie a bow at the top of that project. That project was mostly done during the pandemic and a lot of time spent on my own at home, so it reflects that musically a little bit. It’s not necessarily club music, but it’s been really fun.

Where did you get the inspiration for the Blossom EP?

I didn’t start the EP like “I’m going to make an EP,” it wasn’t a conceptual idea. It was more so piecing it together from the work I’d already done, then finishing all the songs that tied it together and fit within that project. Also, this EP came from a place of more feminine energy than the past music I’ve made - there are many female collaborations on the EP.

You say the project helps soothe your anxiety. How often are you in front of the computer screen?

I’m in front of the computer way too much. It is important to get outside - it’s as simple as going for a walk, getting coffee, seeing friends... just taking a break so you’re not staring at your screen all day. I’ve learned to find a bit more balance than I used to, especially since during the lockdown we communicated with people on our devices so much more than we were doing before. It’s nice to give my eyes a break from the screens”.

Before getting to the most recent interview with Kito, I want to include an interview from Metal. They highlight how she is a self-taught producer (after watching hours of videos on YouTube) and in a position where she is working alongside some of the biggest artists in the world. Obviously, there is more to her story than that. A natural passion and intuition for crafting and producing the best and most compelling sounds, there is nobody in the industry quite like her. I know many will look up to her and want to follow her lead:

“Right now, you have millions of streams on Spotify and a ton of monthly listeners. What would you say now to that Kito who started producing years ago?

Have fun with it and be less precious. It’s not that serious!

You have collaborated with renowned artists such as Trevor Daniel, Ludacris, Jeremih or Jorja Smith. What other names would you like to work with?

I’d love to work with Pink Pantheress, Princess Nokia, Amaarae, Doja Cat, 070 Shake and so many more.

Sad Girl Music, your latest release with Banks, talks about the sadness of an infidelity from the perspective of the cheater. The track proposes being consistent with our actions but also knowing how to forgive ourselves. Do you usually forgive yourself after making mistakes?

I’m insanely hard on myself – usually when work is involved – and I’m definitely learning to break that pattern as it’s not a healthy one! In the case of infidelity, some remorse is probably a good thing depending on your arrangement (laughs).

By the way, how was this collaboration with Banks born?

Mnek wrote the song, so it was really about finding the right home for it! Banks has been a friend ever since I worked on her song Gimme with Hudson Mohawke, and I just felt like this one was perfect for her. I think she really brought it to life.

Of all your songs, which is your favourite?

I have different favourites for different reasons! My favourites to play in a DJ set are Wild Girl and Recap.

To finish off, do you have any other future projects in mind?

I’m always working on stuff! Whether it’s for my own project, or for other artists’ projects. Last year I did music supervision for a short film called Femme that won a BAFTA and it was such an amazing learning experience. I’d love to further explore music supervision and maybe even scoring at some stage”.

Cold Touch might seem like an apt title for a song that uses AI. This is Kito using an AI version of Grimes – getting her vocal pattern and sound – and putting it on a new song. Grimes was very interested and happy to have this done. It expands the debate about AI and how it is used in music. I feel that other artists will follow Kito regarding using existing artists’ voice in the form of AI-generated sounds. It will change how we perceive music. The Face discussed Cold Touch with Kito, and they were curious about the software used to get this remarkable and almost life-like vocal sound:

“Have you heard? Grimes has a new song out. Cold Touch, a collaboration with the Los Angeles-based Australian producer Kito, is an icy, propulsive dance track, a two-minute blast of energy that pairs big-tent EDM and hazed out d’n’b with Grimes’ signature ethereal vocals. But Kito’s collaborator is credited as GrimesAI, which is a different entity to the human born Claire Boucher.

If you heard Cold Touch in a club or on the radio, you’d recognise the voice as Grimes’ instantly. But actually, the vocals were provided by Scottish vocalist Nina Nesbitt, then fed through Grimes’ new AI platform Elf.Tech, which allows anyone to input their own vocals and download a new version of the track, redone as Grimes.

Grimes unveiled Elf.Tech a few weeks ago and, since then, innumerable musicians have been posting their own songs featuring Grimes’ vocals on social media. The technology, which is similar to Holly Herndon’s Holly+ vocal deepfake, was trained using raw audio of Grimes’ voice. On the day Elf.Tech launched, Grimes proclaimed: ​“Grimes is now open source and self-replicating.” She’s said she will split royalties 50/​50 with any successful AI generated song that uses her voice.

When you first heard about Elf.Tech, what was your reaction?

I think it felt very predictable that Grimes would embrace the experimentation of using AI for creative expression. I’m a fan of Grimes, so the idea of trying to make something that would sound like a Grimes/​Kito collaboration was really exciting to me.

What was it like working with the software?

I was in London a couple of weeks ago and I did a session with two people that are good friends of mine and amazing writers – Nina Nesbitt and Fred Ball. I pitched the idea to them to try and write a Kito/​Grimes song using Elf.Tech. So we wrote it together and it’s Nina’s voice that was then transformed into Grimes.

It’s kind of funny, because obviously AI is new for everyone and everyone’s a little confused about what involvement AI has in a song. There’s talk about lyrics being written, but obviously for something like this [Grimes has] trained her AI platform to know her voice. I think it did a pretty good job and it helped that Nina sang the way she thought Grimes would sing it. I think it’s probably harder if you have a really deep voice or something – it might not catch it.

experiment ! The artist @kito wrote and produced an amazing song and used grimesAI voice. I couldn't get the hook outta my head and wanted to try working on it too and then we became insanely indecisive abt everything and decided we shud just make all the versions and vote haha pic.twitter.com/mdyCRx2l0h

— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) May 15, 2023

Did Grimes have any tips on how to make it sound more like her?

She did give me some pointers [after she heard Cold Touch] on how she processes her voice. But we talked about lots of different things we could do – we were being very indecisive about, like, should we work on this further and then fully collaborate on it? Or is it a thing of the moment that we put out and this is Kito’s version, and then we work together on a Grimes version – which, I would hope that we do do that. It’s a funny conversation to have because it’s new for both of us.

A lot of people are a bit iffy about AI in music. What was your first impression of AI’s impact on the industry and how do you feel about it now?

I think it’s a bit scary because, for everyone witnessing it – how fast everything moves and the amount of versions of songs popping up without artists’ consent – it feels like it’s threatening our livelihood. I do think it’ll be a mess for a lot of artists! So much is attached to a voice – a story and an identity. Taking a very recognisable voice that we’ve grown to love and recognise, and having someone else take control of that is scary. Grimes was embracing [AI] and wanting to be part of this experiment. I would never put something up copying another artist’s voice unless they were embracing AI, because I do think there’s a bit of a danger to doing that. I would tread carefully in that respect, for sure.

[But] I actually think [AI] is going to be a tool for us. I don’t think it’s going to be a hindrance for creativity at all. I think it’s probably changed the way I’m gonna work on music this year, just because it was so creatively freeing for me to do something off the cuff and release it so quickly after making it. That in itself feels quite inspiring for me”.

Undoubtably one of the most remarkable producers in the business, she is a brilliant and compelling artist and producer who is going to have a very busy and long future! I can see her working alongside other major artists, whether that is producing for them or pairing with them on various tracks. If you have not heard of Kito, then go and check out her work and follow her. She is someone who is pioneering and astonishing. I think that she is one of the most compelling and interesting producers…

IN the industry.

___________

Follow Kito

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsay Ellary

Official:

http://www.kitomusic.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/kito/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Kito

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3FLUBwpAnaIlIKeaBfsxFe

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFgpyqK5ZrO94s-uCs9xxXQ

FEATURE: Diamonds and Pearls: Prince at Sixty-Five: Inside the Legendary ‘Vault’

FEATURE:

 

 

Diamonds and Pearls

IN THIS PHOTO: Prince, Under The Cherry Moon, 1986/PHOTO CREDIT: AJ Pics/Alamy Stock Photo 

Prince at Sixty-Five: Inside the Legendary ‘Vault’

_________

FOR a run of features…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Inside of Prince’s famed Vault at his Paisley Park Studios home

I am going to mark what would have been Prince’s sixty-fifth birthday. We lost him in April 2016. As The Purple One would have been sixty-five on 7th June, I wanted to explore his amazing career and legacy from a number of different angles and perspectives. I have a couple of other features to go. For this one, I wanted to look to the past and the future. Most artists record everything that they can whilst they are alive. You will get posthumous material. In some cases, this can be controversial. The artists might not have wanted demos or non-album-quality material getting out there. Others might have been working on stuff before they died and it never saw the light of day. Estates have this choice whether to keep these things hidden or put it into the world. In a lot of cases, this material is not overly-strong. It might have been set aside for a reason - but I guess it is nice to still feel that this artist is with us. It is new material at the least. Prince had no idea when he would go. As he died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, he might have been working on something in the days before his death. That drug is highly potent. Prince was unwell in the days leading up to his death. The fentanyl that led to his overdose was contained in counterfeit pills made to look like a generic version of the painkiller hydrocodone/paracetamol. It was a tragic accident that many feel could have been avoided (not because of Prince, but why he was prescribed it). Regardless of the circumstances and what-ifs, it was a monumental loss of a legend who was only fifty-seven! You sort of ask what could have been. Maybe Prince would never repeated his golden run of albums in the 1980s that started with Controversy in 1981 and ended (in terms of quality) with Lovesexy in 1988. He was a true genius, one of the all-time great guitar players, and such a prolific artist. It is that prolific nature that we can see in his Vault (I am putting a capital v in there because I see it as a place and historic site, rather than a mere vault). Most artists have an archive but, in the case of Prince, there is almost this entire career’s worth of stuff in there.

Aside from album reissues where we have had some rarities, there have been a few posthumous albums. Piano and a Microphone 1983 (2018), Originals (2019), and Welcome 2 America (2021) have reached us so far. I wanted to figure what else might be in the Vault, but I also wanted to introduce some features about this amazing treasure trove. There is one album definitely in there but has not seen the light of day. I am grabbing this information from Wikipedia:

“The album was originally recorded in 1986 under the pseudonym Camille, a feminine alter ego portrayed by Prince via pitch-shifting his vocals up to an androgynous register. Prince planned to release the album without any acknowledgement of his identity. The project was initially scrapped several weeks before its planned release, with rare early LP pressings eventually surfacing for auction in 2016; several tracks recorded for Camille were instead included on various other projects, most prominently Prince's 1987 double LP Sign o' the Times.

In March 2022, Third Man Records announced that they had received the rights to release the album, with Ben Blackwell (co-founder of the label) saying "Prince’s people agreed – almost too easy." While the label indicated plans to release Camille, no release date or method of release has been announced yet. There have been no updates on the release since July 2022”.

I am not sure when Camille will get to us, but it does seem like it will be the next posthumous release from the Prince Vault. I am excited by this because it is s shame it was not released in 1986 or 1987. There has been a lot of talk and focus on the album through the years. Maybe there will be an announcement to coincide with his sixty-fifth birthday next month? Although most of this material has been released in some form or other, the fact that we get this new persona is the most exciting aspect.

What about the legendary Vault? What is it? There is an invaluable Prince Vault website that gives you news, album details and information about the iconic artist. In terms of distributing the material in the Vault, because Prince left no will, I guess it is quite complex! Sorting through all of this music and deciding what should go out and when is something his estate are wrestling with. Consequence looked inside his Vault in 2018:

“Located in the basement of Prince’s Paisley Park estate is a bank vault full of unreleased music. As part of their investigation into the musician’s tragic death in 2016, the Carver Country Sheriff’s Office recently released a number of photographs from inside the vault, offering our first peek at the treasure trove of material amassed by Prince over the course of his 57-year life.

According to Prince’s former sound engineer, Susan Rodgers, the vault pre-dates the release of 1984’s Purple Rain and was already at capacity she left three years later. “When I left in 87, it was nearly full,” she explained in an interview with the Guardian. “Row after row of everything we’d done. I can’t imagine what they’ve done since then.”

As Prince’s death was unexpected and he left no will, his estate had no way of accessing the vault as only Prince knew the door’s key code. After drilling it open, the estate’s archivist discovered enough unreleased music to release a new album every year for the next century.

The first batch of this discovered material has begun to see release, including a reissue of Purple Rain, the 1999-era “Moonbeam Levels”, and the original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U”, which surfaced last week. The estate has also struck distribution deals with Warner Bros. Records and Universal Music with plans for more unreleased music to be unearthed in the months and years ahead. An early draft of Prince’s handwritten memoir is also on the way”.

Back in 2021, it was announced that Prince’s Vault – which must have been quite chaotic and disorganised when he died in 2016! – was getting updated and organised. Esquire highlighted a 60 Minute segment that dove into the Vault. This was ahead of the release of the acclaimed Welcome 2 America:

“Death is not an end, but a beginning. Prince Rogers Nelson believed that in his bones. So it was that the night Prince died, a new era, the era of the vault, began.

By the time Prince was 40, he had written and recorded more songs than any artist could possibly release in a lifetime. Material, it seems, is the musical genius’s burden. To house all of his unreleased recordings, Prince constructed a vault in the basement of his Paisley Park complex in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Legend has it that as many as 8,000 songs are stored in the vault. For diehard Prince fans, the vault has been like an insurance plan — a way of guaranteeing the artist’s eternity, despite his premature death. At the same time, the vault has been frustratingly impenetrable and almost impossible to make sense of, especially considering the legal battles that have enveloped it ever since Prince died without a will in 2016.

On Sunday night’s episode of “60 Minutes,” correspondent Jon Wortheim dug into the vault’s status with a brief segment tied to the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America — the first release of a standalone Prince album that is comprised of new and original material. Previously, Prince’s estate only put out deluxe versions of some of the artist’s biggest albums, like 1999 and Sign o’ the Times, or compilations like Originals which was made up of Prince’s recordings of hits that he wrote for other artists.

The segment revealed that in its current state, Prince’s vault is more of a minefield than a treasure chest. The challenge, Wortheim summarized, is “monetizing the catalogue while still trying to do right by Prince.” That enormous task has been left to Troy Carter, a former Spotify executive and Lady Gaga’s previous manager. Since joining Prince’s estate in 2018, Carter has overseen the relocation of the majority of the vault’s contents from Paisley Park to Iron Mountain, a climate-controlled storage facility in Los Angeles, and created a team of archivists whose job it is to propose new releases of vault material.

Carter joked with Wortheim about the pressure of the job. “I want to make sure that Prince isn’t somewhere in heaven giving me the side eye.” In that spirit, the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America is an important first test, and according to Carter, the judges will be the Prince fans who think they have heard everything.“Whenever we can find things that the fans haven’t heard, it’s like a victory,” explained Carter. With it’s 10 previously unreleased tracks, Carter is hoping Welcome 2 America is a win”.

It is lucky that there is access to the Vault. Obviously, because of the sudden nature of his death, details about the code or how to access the Vault died with Prince. He did not leave details of how to get into the locked safe-like unit. Prince hid the code, so when he died and people found the Vault locked, it created a headache! Dave McOmie, a professional safecracker based in Oregon, came into to the rescue and opened the safe. He knew the exact model of Prince's vault - a Mosler American Century - when Prince's estate contacted him.  At six and a half feet tall, several feet wide and 6,000 pounds, it was a job getting in there! Prince was not messing around when he had that thing installed! Whereas many artists would prefer to keep unreleased material private in the event of their death – if they did not deem it good enough to be released commercially –, but that was not the case with Prince. Even if Paisley Park was his home studio, the music he recorded there was not for his mere pleasure – it was for the entire world! In 2021, Brianna Holt wrote for Rolling Stone about the almost holy Vault. She spoke with Prince’s younger sister, Tyka Nelson. Prince would have wanted all of this material out in the world. To honour her brother’s wishes, that is what she is going to do:

“Since Prince’s death in 2016, Tyka Nelson, the musician’s younger sister, has been tasked with helping preserve the Purple One’s legacy. She shares one-sixth of Prince’s estate, with thousands of unreleased songs reportedly stowed away in Prince’s vault. Fans have eagerly demanded a taste of what the artist never got the chance to release on his own. Tyka, along with others who Prince trusted with his most prized collection, has spent the last four years uncovering and preserving treasures that only an artist as transcending as Prince could create. For Tyka, it’s an opportunity to fulfill her brother’s wishes, which he shared with her three years before his passing: “I won’t get off this planet until he gets every single solitary thing he worked so hard for and preserved for all of the world to hear.”

This week, the estate announced the upcoming release of Welcome 2 America, an album Prince recorded in 2010 but never released. It’s just one example of how much of his music the world has still never heard. Prince was notably skeptical of the music industry’s benevolence and, in a prescient move, fought to wrestle back ownership of all of his masters. Now, as his legacy lives on, the careful work of preserving these creations unfolds.

With four albums under her belt and a chart-topping single (“Marc Anthony’s Tune” reached Number 33 on Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in July 1988), Tyka is no stranger to overcoming hurdles and obstacles in the music industry. The 60-year-old singer and songwriter spoke with Rolling Stone about how Prince’s legacy has been preserved since his passing. She discussed what he saw in the music industry at large and why he had the foresight to archive and document his entire collection.

It’s widely known that Prince taught himself to play instruments and that you guys grew up in a very musical family. At what moment did you realize Prince was becoming a star?

To me, for a long time, he wasn’t of the caliber of Michael Jackson and Madonna, but the world thought he was. Of course, I thought it was great, it was wonderful, but it was all surreal. Especially going to the Purple Rain movie premiere and seeing Eddie Murphy and all these stars sitting around and I’m still sitting there going, “Why did they show up? What are they doing here?” My brain really never caught up, and if I’m totally honest, I didn’t catch up until about four years before he passed. That’s when I realized my brother was actually a star. That man was cold-blooded.

How has Prince’s legacy been preserved and not preserved since his passing?

Fortunately, it’s one of those easy jobs with a legacy who’s already said, “This is what’s going to happen and this is what I’m doing about it.” He kind of pre-planned everything and I don’t know where it started or why he began to put all these tapes, and movies, and scripts, and music together and preserve it. After Paisley Park was purchased, I thought it was going to be a soundstage, but it ended up being kind of a rehearsal hall, soundstage, and party place. So then he started planning the museum for it. All of these things were already told to everybody, so they knew what to do. All we had to do is kind of pick it up, put it down, and release the vinyl or CD, or help get the picture a little better, or make the audio a little clearer. But Prince did the work for us, he preserved it himself. Prince was always preserving his own legacy.

IN THIS PHOTO: Prince's sister Tyka Nelson poses for photographers in front of Purple Rain era costumes at the My Name is Prince exhibition at the O2 Arena in London on Thursday, 26th October, 2017/PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Augstein/AP

Prince once told Michael Howe, a former record-label executive, “All these recordings in the vault at some point would see the light of day after I’m gone.” His archive is known to have “thousands and thousands” of unreleased recordings, should fans ever expect to hear more of them like ‘Piano & a Microphone’ in the near future?

Prince always wanted people to hear his music. How dare I not do what this man broke his back to do all his life? There would be no way that I let one note of his music not ever be heard. I would not allow that museum to never open and not let people see what he envisioned. That man put this mess in motion and I won’t get off this planet until he gets every single solitary thing he worked so hard for and preserved for all of the world to hear.

Unfinished work has been said to remain with the family, have you found any things in the vault to be super surprising or exciting to you on a personal level?

Definitely not surprised. Definitely amazed. I guess I’m just so happy that he put his life down like this. Cicely Tyson, I heard, wrote a 400-page book before she passed. And to me that’s exactly what Prince did through his music. This is his life. Prince had old reel-to-reel tapes documenting his life. There’s just so much wonderful stuff in there, and Michael’s been brilliant at going in there and grabbing it all. But you also find these pieces of music that are just the beginning of a song or a chorus and all of the sudden there’s no other half to the song and it’s like, “Oh man, you stopped singing.” So for me personally, as one of the heirs, I can’t speak for all of them, I don’t mind if people hear the small stuff — the little stuff where he’s just sitting there playing with the piano and how he put it together. That might teach some little boy that wants to learn how to put a song together. We never know. Anything and everything, get it out there. If I live 100, 200 years, I would definitely be there helping to oversee getting it out. But Prince’s music will outlive me for sure.

In a 2018 interview, Howe also mentioned that Prince was working right up until the time he passed away and that there are recordings in the vault that are about as close as you can get to the end of his life as possible. Did Prince ever have any plans to retire?

That is not a word in the Prince vocabulary. Not that he wouldn’t use it, but he would never describe himself that way. In his last concert, which was at Paisley Park, he told everybody to come out and announced he was going to stop playing the guitar because he wanted to get better at the piano. That to me is because Judith was kicking his butt on that piano and I think he thought if he didn’t hold his game on the piano — because he was too busy on his guitar — that he would lose it. He wanted to get better at the piano, he wasn’t thinking of stopping. Retirement for him — no way”.

There is going to be a lot of sadness and remembrance on 7th June. Prince would have celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday in style, I am sure! Maybe he would have spent some of the day in the studio, but then he would have tore it up! He missed his sixtieth birthday. It is especially sad when we know he is not around for these big, milestone birthdays. Regardless, we will also share memories and happiness at the phenomenal music he gave to us! In terms of the future, you know there are going to be books and articles written about him. I recently speculated whether we will ever see a biopic about him. Maybe a film that features his music via a coming-of-age-style film. Perhaps we will get a Moonage Daydream-like film about Prince? That 2022 Bowie film – directed by Brett Morgen – was a dazzling and mesmeric feast for the senses! I would like to think at least something filmic or televisual surfaces soon, as the man has been under-represented on the screen since his death! We are safe in the knowledge that we’ll get years’ worth of music from the Vault. I guess Camille will be the next album out but, as Tyka Nelson seems to be the one who will see what is released and when, it will be a steady stream of albums and songs. Maybe quite a bit of it is not up to the high benchmark Prince set at his career best - but the fact that he recorded so much music is to be applauded and appreciated. We give him our thanks for that magical Vault! We also offer him our thanks and love…

FOR everything he gave to the world.

FEATURE: Drink Scotch Whisky All Night Long… Inside the Remarkable Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan

FEATURE:

 

 

Drink Scotch Whisky All Night Long…

IMAGE COURTESY: University of Texas Press

Inside the Remarkable Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan

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ONE of the most exciting music book releases…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Alex Pappademas

of this year comes from writer by Alex Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay. Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan is not only a must-read for all Steely Dan fans: this book is great and accessible to anyone who has not really traversed the catalogue of the American duo (founded by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the played and recorded with a cast of rotating musicians). Released in the U.S. already, this essential book is available in the U.K. from tomorrow (23rd). I would everyone to seek out a copy! I know there are a few Steely Dan books on the market, but I think this is the most immersive, detailed, informative and vivid. You are drawn into the songs of the legendary if underrated group/duo. I think that there is this contrast and curiosity regarding Steely Dan. Most people know several of their songs, yet I feel they are not as embraced and played on radio as much as they should. Perhaps they are seen as too experimental or musical – their songs not as accessible as other artists’. Perhaps it is actually quite cool that they are not overplayed or overexposed. It is almost a secret treasure that fans can discuss…and others might not understand or know! I am going to drop in a couple of pages and images from Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, just as a taster and incentive! I will end up with a review of the book, but I want to open with some overview and promotional interviews.

IN THIS PHOTO: Joan LeMay

To start, University of Texas Press (who is the publishing house) let us know what you can expect when parting with your money. This is a beautiful and wonderfully evocative book that you need to have in your collection. I am really looking forward to my copy arriving:

“A literary and visual exploration of the songs of Steely Dan.

Steely Dan’s songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators—or imbued their characters with so much humanity. Pulling from history, lived experience, pulp fiction, the lore of the counterculture, and their own darkly comic imaginations, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker summoned protagonists who seemed like fully formed people with complicated pasts, scars they don’t talk about, delusions and desires and memories they can’t shake. From Rikki to Dr. Wu, Hoops McCann to Kid Charlemagne, Franny from NYU to the Woolly Man without a Face, every name is a locked-room mystery, beguiling listeners and earning the band an exceptionally passionate and ever-growing cult fandom.

Quantum Criminals presents the world of Steely Dan as it has never been seen, much less heard. Artist Joan LeMay has crafted lively, color-saturated images of her favorite characters from the Daniverse to accompany writer Alex Pappademas’s explorations of the famous and obscure songs that inspired each painting, in short essays full of cultural context, wild speculation, inspired dot-connecting, and the occasional conspiracy theory. All of it is refracted through the perspectives of the characters themselves, making for a musical companion unlike any other. Funny, discerning, and visually stunning, Quantum Criminals is a singular celebration of Steely Dan’s musical cosmos”.

One says that you should never judge a book by its cover. In the case of Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan, that beautiful artwork by Joan LeMay entices you into the book where her unique and fascinating images almost soundtrack Alex Pappademas’s writing. NPR chatted with LeMay and Pappademas about a book that clearly comes from two people who are incredibly passionate and devoted to the music of Steely Dan! Rather than generally write about songs and do something ordinary, they spotlight the characters and figures mentioned in the tracks. That is used as a jumping off point to explore the albums and intricacies of the unmistakable music of Steely Dan:

“Steely Dan is a paradox. As writer Alex Pappademas puts it, it's a "cult band whose catalog ... includes at least a dozen enduring radio hits" — two guys who continually found a way to "embed blue-ribbon misanthropy in music designed to go down as smooth as creme de menthe." And like many great paradoxes, there's more to learn about the band the longer you spend considering it. This is true even if you only know a few of those enduring hits. You might recognize the chorus of "Dirty Work," for example — but did you know that the man singing lead vocals on that track, David Palmer, once played a high school show alongside The Velvet Underground — its first under that name? Did you know that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was written for the wife of a faculty member at Bard College, where Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen studied? Or that one of MF Doom's earliest solo tracks samples the opening song on Aja?

In the new book Quantum Criminals, Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay give a roadmap to the Steely Dan extended universe through the lens of the characters at the heart of the band's songs. Alongside Pappademas' explorations, LeMay's paintings render touching portraits of Steely Dan's influences and inheritors, and speculative illustrations of the personalities who populate its world. Their book uncovers the vast constellation of lyrical references, artistic influences and social and political contexts surrounding the band and its music. In this interview, Pappademas and LeMay answered a few questions about their personal histories with Steely Dan and how Quantum Criminals came to be.

ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

Marissa Lorusso: In one of the book's opening chapters, Alex details his evolving relationship with Steely Dan's music, from mild distaste to somewhat ironic engagement to sincere appreciation — a path he says has been followed by many Millennial and Gen Z fans. Joan, what's the story of your relationship with Steely Dan — did your fandom follow a similar road?

Joan LeMay: Listening to Steely Dan is, honest to God, my first musical memory. Growing up, my parents had a very limited record collection — a stack about five inches wide or so. In it was the entire Steely Dan discography (later to include [Donald Fagen's solo debut] The Nightfly; no other Fagen solo records nor any Becker records made the cut), plus lots of Linda Ronstadt, a couple of James Taylor records, The Best of the Doobie Brothers Vol. II, Carole King's Tapestry and Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick. At 2 years old, I was what one would call a tall baby. I would reach for things. And I'd get 'em, too. I clearly remember the day I was able to reach the turntable, my tiny arms at full stretch above my head, and heft an LP upon it until the peg snapped into the hole. That LP was Can't Buy A Thrill. I liked it the most out of all of my parents' records because of the colors on the cover. I plopped down on our diarrhea-brown shag carpet and was pleased. It seems unlikely that I would remember this so clearly, but I was reading the newspaper at that age — I peaked early.

ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

Steely Dan's lyrics are famously somewhat cryptic, and Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were quite averse to having their lyrics read as straightforward personal narratives. It's clear that so much research went into illuminating these songs, but there's also a healthy dose of creative speculation, too, both in how the subjects of the songs are described and how they're depicted.

LeMay: The only characters I painted that weren't 100% creative speculation (and really, less speculation and more my personal interpretation) were those having to do with actual, living people, like Cathy Berberian, Jill St. John and G. Gordon Liddy. I had a folder on my computer called "DAN CASTING GALLERY" full of images of people in my life, found photos, '60s and '70s fashion catalogs, advertisements and sewing pattern packaging. I painted from a melange of those images mixed with things that had been in my head forever, as well as from a ton of photos of my own body posing in different ways for reference. The most important thing to me was getting the humanity — the profoundly flawed humanity — of these characters right.

Pappademas: And it works — I try to get across that humanity in the text, but having Joan populate this world with real human faces made the finished product into something greater than I could have gotten to on my own.

IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

Anyway, my answer to the question above is that when I'm writing criticism, for sure, but also when I'm writing reported pieces, I feel like there's always an element of creative speculation in what I do. It's just more or less constrained by facts depending on what kind of piece it is. Even if you've sat in a room with somebody for hours you're ultimately imagining their inner life based on what they've told you, and sometimes on what they haven't told you. In terms of Quantum Criminals, yeah, Steely Dan definitely tried to discourage any attempt to read these lyrics autobiographically — and the fact that all their lyrics were composed by (or at least credited to) two writers was their first line of defense against that kind of reading, because even when they're writing in the first person you're conscious that the "I" in every Dan song is to whatever degree a fictional character and therefore a distancing device. But I think it's human nature — or at least it's my human nature — to intuit the opposite and look for places where the art seems to correspond to what we know to be the contours of an artist's life. Because the other thing about Steely Dan is they liked to obfuscate; the fact that they rarely owned up to their music having an autobiographical component (with certain exceptions, notably "Deacon Blues," which they admitted was pretty personal) doesn't mean it wasn't autobiographical. And at times — as with "Gaucho," a song about a duo torn apart by a third party who might be the personification of drugs or other forms of hedonism, recorded for the album Donald made mostly without Walter because Walter's addiction issues had pulled him away from the band — the correspondences became too tempting to not explore. Which is what happens when you write cryptically; it's human nature to decrypt.

I don't know; I guess I'm doing the same thing Taylor Swift's fans do when they decide that some opaque lyric is an Easter egg about this or that relationship of hers, or what A.J. Weberman was doing when he decided "The sun isn't yellow, it's chicken" was Bob Dylan confessing to faking his own death, or what the people who think The Shining was Stanley Kubrick exorcizing his guilt over faking the moon landing. The difference is that I think I'm right and I think those other people are all nuts, because I'm in my bubble and can't imagine the view from theirs”.

For Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield spoke with Alex Pappademas. Sheffield notes how Steely Dan are weirdly timeless. Maybe they were peaking in the Seventies and Eighties; maybe there was a slight dip in awareness and popularity after that. He notes how they are very much on trend and in vogue right now! Perhaps Steely Dan were so ahead of their time; that they had to wait for the world to catch up with them:

“YOU COULD FILL a book with all the shady characters you meet in Steely Dan songs. Quantum Criminals is that book. Journalist Alex Pappademas and artist Joan LeMay take a deep dive into the genius of Steely Dan, and the strange world that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker built together. LeMay illustrates her favorite Dan characters, from Rikki to Kid Charlemagne, from Dr. Wu to Peg, all the way to the El Supremo in the room at the top of the stairs. Pappademas gives a mind-bending guided tour of the Steely Dan universe, exploring their songs, their legend, their negative charisma, their decadent love affair with L.A. Quantum Criminals is one of the sharpest, funniest, and best books ever about any rock artist.

People are more obsessed with these Seventies jazz-rock cynics than ever these days. As Pappademas writes, “Around 2020 an ongoing groundswell of semi-ironic Dan appreciation became a full-fledged revival.” Dan culture keeps growing, with newsletters like Expanding Dan, podcasts, and the brilliant Twitter account @baddantakes. Pappademas theorizes, “Steely Dan are an endlessly meme-able band because they’re a hilarious concept on paper—two grumpy-looking guys obsessed with making the smoothest music of all time.”

But maybe this revival also means they were ahead of their time. Pappademas writes, “If more people are ready for Steely Dan in the Twenties than they were in the Nineties—or even the Seventies—it’s because our fast-warming world is more Steely Dannish than it’s ever been.”

Pappademas spoke to Rolling Stone about the weirdly timeless appeal of Steely Dan, the current Danaissance, the “yacht-rock” question, the “Deacon Blues”/Star Trek connection, his favorite drum solo, and how ironic fandom can lead to the real thing.

IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

How did you begin your personal Steely Dan journey?

It all started with an ironic purchase. At the moment I was coming of age, Steely Dan’s stock was pretty low. I was a young man who consumed a lot of older rock-critic opinions, and I assumed this band was not for me, which is funny because it’s clearly SO for me. I would ignorantly make fun of Steely Dan and then go listen to Pavement, which is in the same vein—musical sophistication meets irony. But I bought Katy Lied because the Minutemen had covered “Dr. Wu” and I wanted to know what the original sounded like. I remember everything I bought that day: a Tortoise remix 12-inch, Miles Davis, Isley Brothers. But I thought, “Yeah, let’s take a flyer for a buck on a Steely Dan album.”

And that’s how the seed gets planted. Because you can try to ironically enjoy Steely Dan, but they’re already ahead of you on that. They were the first yacht-rock parody before yacht-rock existed. A song like “Any Major Dude” has more in common with the Blue Jean Committee or the fake Steely Dan song in Oh, Hello. It’s like they’re already making the parody version before the genuine article existed. And a lot of yacht-rock I think is just Steely Dan with like one less chord and a lot less irony.

 Your origin story is just like mine. For me, it was ironically buying Pretzel Logic within days of turning 30. Totally stereotypical.

Yeah, that biological clock starts ticking and you gotta get a Steely Dan album. They are always waiting for you on the other side of 30. But with the Dan revival that’s happening now, it’s a product of the internet, where those prejudices don’t exist. They’re not something that people have to overcome in order to get into Steely Dan. So the 19-year-olds are into it. There was a post on the Steely Dan Reddit asking people for their age, and it was remarkable because they were all in their 20s. It’s not boomers making those Steely Dan memes we’re all passing around. Something has happened. It’s airborne and contagious, in a way it never was back in the day.

Why is this Steely Danaissance happening now? Why do they speak to our moment?

We’re more cynical. We’re all looking out at the world with a Donald and Walter-ish kind of dismay. So they make a lot more sense now. What seemed cold and remote and jerky about them back in the day—now, that’s just the way people talk. They’re also also writing apocalyptically about their time, and our time now seems so unavoidably apocalyptic. It really does feel like California is sliding into the sea along with the rest of America. So the time is is finally right for them. It only took 50 years”.

How did you two devise the format for this book—Joan LeMay illustrates the song characters, you write about them?

This was two projects that merged into one. Jessica Hopper started working as an editor on the American Music Series and asked me, “Is there somebody you could write a music book about?” So I thought, “Who am I never tired of thinking about? Steely Dan.” Meanwhile, Joan was gonna do a zine where where she drew every character in every Steely Dan song. Jessica said, “Joan, this is not a zine. This is a book.” So these two things came together. But we didn’t try to define these characters. Anything I wrote that felt like fan-fiction got cut immediately. You don’t wanna be filling in the holes in these stories too much.

Time to draft your all-star team. Your favorite drum break on a Steely Dan record?

I have to go with “Aja,” the amazing Steve Gadd. If I could play drums, just sit down like Garth from Wayne’s World and do any drum break, it would be that “Aja” break, including the little stick clicks in the middle of it. That song is peak after peak, with Wayne Shorter just blowing it out. But my favorite Steely Dan drummer has to be Bernard Purdie, playing the “Purdie shuffle” on things like The Royal Scam, when they came back to New York.

Best sax solo?

I don’t wanna say Wayne again, but it’s hard not to. Wayne’s the greatest. That’s the truest jazz moment—it’s like a cosmic wind is blowing through that song at that moment. But I might give it to Pete Christlieb on “Deacon Blues,” the sax player that they recruited from the Tonight Show band to play on this song. They were watching the Tonight Show, heard him, and said, THAT guy. He’s a working musician who happens to work on the song about learning to work the saxophone. In that moment, he IS Deacon Blues. He’s had an amazing long career—he ends up in the Star Trek orchestra, on The Next Generation”.

If you need more conviction to get this book, then the reviews should tip the scales! Even though Forward incorrectly assert Steely Dan have not aged that well (the Rolling Stone interview and huge acclaim for Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan proves otherwise!), they note how essential the book is. In terms of that phenomenal artwork, and the originality of the writing. It is far more compelling than a dry and formulaic telling of one of music’s greatest and most fascinating stories:

“Quantum Criminals — which gets its title from Becker’s wry, physics-derived explanation of a taxi accident that put him out of commission during the making of 1980’s Gaucho — dives deep into that well of weirdness and realness, with the author using the denizens of the Dan-iverse as his springboard. Steely Dan’s discography is so populated with seedy, venal and delusional characters that it would be easy enough for Pappademas to just list them all on a track-by-track, album-by-album basis, with a few lines of explanation and some humorous asides.

But the approach he takes here — zeroing in on a particular song’s subject, and then toggling back and forth between Dan past and Dan future to illustrate what, say, The Expanding Man or The Dandy of Gamma Chi really represent — is a far more engaging and illuminating way of telling the band’s history (and examining Becker and Fagen’s gleefully jaundiced outlook) than such a straightforward rundown would have been.

ART CREDIT: Joan LeMay/Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

Further fleshing out the sleazy parade are Joan LeMay’s colorful and often hilarious paintings, which depict both imaginary characters from the songs — like the pot-smoking Lady Bayside of “The Boston Rag” or the gun-toting Bookkeeper’s Son from “Don’t Take Me Alive” — and real-life characters from the Steely Dan story.

Erstwhile band members like Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and Michael McDonald receive appropriately hirsute portraits, while The Eagles (whom Becker and Fagen would make fun of in “Everything You Did” before inviting them to sing backup vocals on “FM”) are humorously depicted as disembodied heads wafting out of a record player wearing self-satisfied leers. But LeMay also illustrates items like the Coral Sitar used on “Do It Again,” or “WENDELL,” the primitive 12-bit drum sampler developed by engineer Roger Nichols in an attempt to provide Becker and Fagen with perfect beats — because Steely Dan’s tools are ultimately just as important to their story as the fools who come alive in their songs”.

An essential addition to the Steely Dan world that I have been excited to own arrives on U.K. bookshelves tomorrow. It is, in my view, the go-to book for any diehards or new followers!! Make sure you grab your copy, as so much attention and love has been put into Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay. This is a gorgeous and engrossing book that you can enjoy and learn from…

FOR years to come.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Amazing Work from Incredible Female Composers

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: The Ivor Novello-winning composer Hannah Peel

Amazing Work from Incredible Female Composers

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MAYBE there is more recognition…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Hildur Guðnadóttir/PHOTO CREDIT: Antje Taiga Jandrig

and awareness as there was a few years ago, but I don’t think the music industry highlights the incredible and innovative female composers in music. Rather than saluting and supporting the brilliant women with unique and powerful voices, there is still too much focus on their male counterparts. I was thrilled that the amazing Hannah Peel recently won an Ivor for Best Television Soundtrack for her work on The Midwich Cuckoos’ soundtrack. I think we often think of composers as being Classical. Peel is someone who uses analogue synthesisers, tape manipulations, drones and woodwind. She is able to summon and convey these imaginative and wonderful sonic worlds one can immerse themselves in. Such nuanced and stirring music, you can tell her work because it is so distinct (as a side note: check out her series for the BBC, Night Tracks, which she hosts with Sara Mohr-Pietsch). I wanted to use her recent win as a jumping off point to celebrate other female composer. Whether they are brilliant female composers who have released studio albums, or their work is primarily in film and T.V., this is a playlist celebrating female composers – as opposed traditional artistry and songwriting. Emphasis is on their amazing compositions and textures. You will hear an array of stunning work from women that you need to know about. These are awesome and hugely inspiring talents composers who are transforming the industry and influencing women coming through. If a 2021 survey showed that there was still huge gender disparity and inequality when it comes to Classical concerts, there are these phenomenal female composers who are helping to change things. More does need to be done by those in power. Recognising forgotten women is also vital. This beautiful and captivating music below is enough to…

MOVE the senses.

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Last Dinner Party

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

The Last Dinner Party

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EVEN though they have released…

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

the one single, Nothing Matters, there is a certain irony in that title – as everything matters about the group and their rise. The Last Dinner Party comprises vocalist Abigail Morris, bassist Georgia Davies, keyboardist Aurora Nishevci and guitarists Lizzie Mayland and Emily Roberts. They gained huge excitement and acclaim from their live shows. Even though they are the genuine article and a group that are going to get far, there has been a lot of backlash and cynicism. Many accusing the group of being industry plants, given their very slick and sudden rise. The truth is that this professional, talented and tight-knight group are slick and almost too good to be true because they have experience and a natural ability. They have had to face comments and doubts – and they have done so with grace and calm. The truth is this: Why should a great and genuine group of women have to defend themselves when a male group in the same position would not have received the same flack and lack of respect? Writing for The Independent, Jessie Thompson exposed a double standards in the industry:

“If you haven’t heard of The Last Dinner Party, or heard anyone arguing about them, then they have been compared, variously, to Kate Bush, Sparks, Florence and the Machine, Queen and Abba. They dress like extras from Pride and Prejudice (the 2005 version), tearing about the countryside in floaty white dresses in their music video, and they feel like the kind of band tailormade for over-crammed basement gigs with sticky floors and sweaty dancing. I encountered the discourse before the buzz, which was discombobulating, but when I actually listened to “Nothing Matters”, my verdict was swift: total banger. “It just sounds like Abba,” my boyfriend said, before telling me to stop playing it so much. (In fairness, I did get self-conscious about singing a chorus that goes “and I will f*** you, ’til nothing matters” in earshot of my nice neighbours.)

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

I’m not a “music person”, and in the past that’s made me self-conscious about my taste. I’ll never forget the time a man sneered at me for wearing a band T-shirt to a gig (I was happy to be there!) and imagine how I felt when, aged 12, I learnt that Avril Lavigne was “a poseur”? Complicated, indeed. I was even, for a while, hesitant to admit I really liked The Last Dinner Party’s song. Am I, I pondered, simply tacky, gauche and basic? Yes, but the point I’m trying to make is that music world snobbery about “authenticity” can be just as oppressive as the PR-confected hype about hot young things that it is so affronted by. But not only does it make people – often women – feel as though the things they love should be looked upon with disdain, it also regularly results in something more depressing: female artists having to defend themselves.

The Last Dinner Party have already addressed accusations that they were put together by a label, saying on Twitter that “this is just a nasty lie. We weren’t put together like a K-pop girl group, we’ve known each other since we were 18 as we met during freshers week, there are videos of us playing live as an unsigned band all last year and we got signed from those.” For whatever reason – the mind-blowing sight of, I don’t know, women out of the house late at night playing musical instruments? – it is female artists who are most often accused of not really being successful on their own merits, or in command of their own creativity. Wet Leg faced similar criticisms as The Last Dinner Party, while Scandi pop star Sigrid last year admitted questions about her verisimilitude had upset her. “That feels like I’m being discredited, both for my talent but also for all the f***ing hours I’ve spent at the piano working,” she said.

PHOTO CREDIT: Press 

What’s even more frustrating about the pushback to The Last Dinner Party, though, is how it undermines recent – justified – outrage at the ongoing lack of women getting festival headline slots. That, and the fact that no female artists were nominated for this year’s Artist of the Year award at the Brits. Many agreed that the problem was structural – not that women aren’t good enough, but the industry isn’t doing enough to develop them to the heights of their male counterparts. And yet, The Last Dinner Party have been given its backing, and that’s not seen as a positive thing.

Anyway, no number of slick, glossy PR campaigns or media hype can really make people like something. I’ve watched enough heavily trailed “voice of a generation!” debut novels sink without a trace to know that you can lead the public to your heavily publicised product, but you can’t make them buy it. Whether The Last Dinner Party’s second song is as good as their first, we’ll have to wait and see. But a young, talented female band, having to justify their existence in a landscape where female artists already find it hard to get heard? Nothing matters, they say – but I think perhaps that does”.

Even though the debut single has only been out a short time (it came out on 19th April), there is talk of a debut album. The group have said it is coming, which will further add to the excitement and buzz around their music. Normally, when you get a group of women in a group, they are called a ‘girl band’. That is a distinct sound and type of music. The Last Dinner Party are less Pop and R&B-driven - and they are more Indie. I want to get to some interviews – and a live review – with the group. The London group of sisters (in the friendship sense, rather than the literal) are putting down their mark and announcing themselves as worthy of all the hype that has come their way. Expect them to release one hell of a debut album! Before getting to the first interview, CLASH wrote about the attention surrounding The Last Dinner Party. They highlight at some industry truths that affect a lot of artists – and they also discuss how there is definite sexism being the ‘industry plant’ claims:

“In hype terms, however, what goes up must come back down. With plaudits fluttering underneath their wings, cynics emerging online to bring the band back down to Earth. The rollout was all too slick, too planned, too finessed – something must be amiss. “Aha – they’re an industry plant, don’t you see…?”

The case – or so the naysayers believe – is open and close. The Last Dinner Party are managed by a huge company – Qprime, who also look after a plethora of rock gods, from Metallica to Muse, and back again. They’ve just signed to Island Records. They gained the front page of BEAT without releasing a single note of music – surely a sign of Machiavellian conversations. And they supported the actual Rolling Stones last summer.

This last point is the easiest to refute. The Last Dinner Party were booked to play BST Hyde Park, which is in essence a festival. They were bottom of the bill, and appeared alongside such heavyweights as Vista Kicks, JJ Rosa, and Kelly McGrath. It’s an opportunity a lot of other groups have grabbed with both hands – Clash saw sleaford mods play a very similar support slot to The Who in 2015, and nobody calls Jason Williamson an industry plant. Plus, who goes to a Rolling Stones show to see a bottom-of-the-bill support act? You spend half the day queuing at the bar.

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

It’s all part of a wider conversation on privilege, one amplified by the lack of opportunities. Recent statistics showed that around 75% of musicians lose money on their releases – from just-about-breaking-even to thoroughly bankrupting themselves in pursuit of a dream. Media outlets have tumbled – PAPER Magazine shuttered overnight, for instance – meaning that there simply isn’t the press landscape required to filter all this music. It’s no surprise that people are angry – they’re losing money hand over fist, while some seem to rise effortlessly out of the darkness. It is – absolutely – a broken system. The Last Dinner Party received a much-needed hand of assistance from their management company, and most don’t.

And perhaps this is the part that sticks. For many bands, spending 12 months touring, rehearsing, working on your music is a dream almost beyond belief. For most musicians, the art becomes something they attend to in the wee small hours, when the hustle and grind of the day-to-day has been dealt with. It’s working shit jobs, on low pay, and trying to find an affordable rehearsal room with electrics that actually work which becomes the issue.

Some poked fun at their rise, and the associated social media bluster. Yet others aren’t as charitable. Some of the vitriol and venom aimed at The Last Dinner Party by online accounts feels woefully over the top, long since detached from facts. Indeed, the term ‘industry plant’ itself is hopelessly vague, and more a criticism of opaque marketing, and a general, undefinable sense of inauthenticity, than any actual intersection with the music. It’s reminiscent of old rockist thinking – we mean it, man! – and as such it’s little wonder that this libel is so frequently lobbed at young female musicians”.

Around the release of Nothing Matters, there was a lot of press interviews and spotlighting. Releasing one of the best and most original singles of the year, The Last Dinner Party could be on a trajectory that sees them win awards and headline festivals! DAZED spoke with the group around the release of their debut single:

“Despite the pressure of the hype machine, the group – who all met at university in London – remain confident and undaunted. Their long-awaited debut single “Nothing Matters” is a seductively crude and unashamedly vulnerable love song, produced by Last Shadow Puppets’ James Ford, who has previously collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine. In the captivating accompanying music video, directed by Saorla Houston and the band themselves, they invite us into their world of gothic high drama, complete with masterfully placed references to Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and Mulholland Drive. It’s a lavish, theatrical insight into the depths of the feminine psyche.

Following the release of “Nothing Matters,” we caught up with The Last Dinner Party vocalist Abigail Morris to discuss the new single, the importance of styling, and what the future holds for the band.

Firstly, you guys sound like you were born to make music together. How did you all meet each other?

Abigail Morris: We all met in our first year of university and bonded over our obsession with the London live music scene. Our friendship and the genesis of the band formed over many nights of going to gigs together.

PHOTO CREDIT: Press 

You recently released the music video for “Nothing Matters”. How did you come up with the concept for the video?

Abigail Morris: It was inspired by a lot of our favourite films; The Virgin Suicides (1993), Daisies (1966), Black Swan (2010), Mulholland Drive (2001). We wanted to create something visually striking, rich and decadent to go with the music.

How important are fashion and styling in the identity of your band? Do you have any style inspirations at the moment?

Abigail Morris: We’ve always known that our visuals as a band are just as important as the sound, so that’s something we put a lot of care and effort into. At the moment we love Chloë Sevigny and the medieval-core wave.

You’ve been in the studio working alongside James Ford. How has that been?

Abigail Morris: Incredible. It was a complete honour and experience of a lifetime to work with someone who is not only absurdly talented, but immensely kind and encouraging.

You have had such a sudden, electric emergence in the music world. Are there any big dreams in particular that you are working towards?

Abigail Morris: One day we’d like to make a concept album with a short film to go with it – something in the folk horror realm. And to tour Australia!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

NME are big fans and champions of The Last Dinner Party. With a remarkable debut out in the world, there are eyes on the stunning group. I think they are going to have a very busy next year or so. Let us hope that there are no more doubts about their authenticity and place in the industry:

“You mentioned you’ve been recording quite a bit. Is there a finished album hidden away somewhere?

Abigail: “I don’t know if we’re at liberty to answer that question. It’s coming, you know, it’s alive. We did it in Church Studios in Crouch Hill, with [Arctic Monkeys and Foals producer] James Ford, who’s a fucking wonderful, kind, talented man, who really just understood us in a way that no one else has musically. It was just a complete dream come true. There’s been so much intensity around us for so long, so it was nice to have that month of peace.”

Georgia: “We’ll have more music by the end of the year.”

Aurora: “Some things that we play now are not on there, but they might come back in the future.”

Abigail: “I feel like the album, in its state now, wouldn’t be the case if we hadn’t been playing live for so long. We were really able to do a lot of experimenting and feeling the emotion of the songs live, and I think that’s informed it.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

We’re right around the corner from The Windmill, where you played one of your earliest shows. What kind of role has that venue and the scene around it played in the journey of The Last Dinner Party?

Abigail: “When we first moved to London, we would go every week. Something felt exciting and alive about it, especially with bands like Black Midi and HMLTD. They were also doing it in this way that started with playing live first, and there’s this whole mystery around it”.

Georgia: “I feel like The Windmill scene is going to be looked back on as this musical ethos, and its own genre and scene. It felt like being part of something going to those gigs. We didn’t really realise it at the time, but it was like conducting research.”

Abigail: “I wouldn’t say we’re a south London Windmill band, per se, but I think it’s definitely informed our history. Our M.O. is maximalism, having fun, trying really hard, at all times.”

That sense of fun seems to be the total anthesis of a lot of very earnest indie bands, whose whole schtick is being very nonchalant and accidentally talented, almost…

Abigail: “Nonchalance is a dirty word! We just want to have fun. We want to be happy. And I think that’s what we want people to take away when they come.”

Aurora: “And not being apologetic about it!”

Georgia: “People are always going to try and drag you down for trying hard, but so be it”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

Before ending with a live review of one of their shows, I am going to turn it over to DORK. They put them on their cover in April. I didn’t realise that The Last Dinner Party were sort of coming together and starting out during lockdown. Through that time, there must have been frustration about not being able to launch their music into the world:

“Nothing Matters’ is, according to Abigail, “the truest love song I could have written at the time. I wanted to capture that sense of unbridled, untamed love that’s also a little perverse. I set out to write the best love song I could, and this is what we ended up with.”

Full of “Americana vibes”, the band liken the track to Nicolas Cage film Wild At Heart. “It’s got that energy of a runaway horse in a desert,” says Abigail. What about musical influences? “The songs take more inspiration from cinema and how they feel than bands,” says Georgia. “It’s more nebulous than saying ‘let’s do a shoegaze song’.”

As for that absolutely ridiculous guitar solo which Abigail calls “fucking iconic” and “definitely one of the best live moments of the show,” that came about after a producer put a load of glitch stuff over the original classic rock-inspired solo”.

“I realised that might be a sign that it wasn’t good enough,” says Emily, who went away over Christmas and worked on it. “I knew what I didn’t want to do. By eliminating those things, I found the thing I did want to do.”

The Last Dinner Party formed like a lot of groups do – five friends attended a bunch of gigs and wanted to do something similar. “We wanted to look like we were having more fun than some of the bands we’d seen at the Windmill, though,” says Georgia with a smirk while a formative moment for Abigail came while watching Lucia And The Best Boys. “I was in awe of her,” she explains. “Seeing this really fucking powerful woman who was also incredibly kind and joyful was really inspiring.” 

Lockdown meant that the first couple of years of The Last Dinner Party’s existence were a bit of a struggle. “It was so demoralising having one practice, then not being able to see each other for three months,” says Lizzie. There was also a period where the band would just play ‘Burn Alive’ over and over because they “couldn’t get past that first song.”

They persevered, though, and now “everything really feels like it’s in its right place,” says Georgia. “After the tumultuous beginnings, it feels like things have come together.”

“Oh, something’s going to go wrong,” warns Lizzie with a smile. “It’s going to be chaos.”

The Last Dinner Party are speaking to Dork the morning after a commanding headline show at The George, which just so happens to be the same venue where they played that very first gig in November 2021. “We’re a lot more confident now,” says Georgia.

“Every time we’ve played since that first gig, we’ve just added more things,” adds Abigail before listing off five-part harmonies, guitar solos, mandolin, and flute sections. “We just keep trying to step everything up.”

“We’ve become a lot closer as friends,” she continues. “We’re more comfortable onstage, more intuitive of how everyone’s feeling and know what everyone can bring to the band. That’s really just done wonders for our sound.” 

So why have The Last Dinner Party waited until now to release music?

“We wanted the interest to build up a bit more organically. We wanted the live show to be the centre of what we were about, rather than a song or two we’d released on Spotify,” says Abigail. The idea was that by the time it came to actually releasing music, “it would be more meaningful for us and the people who’d seen us live.”

After keeping people waiting, the band aren’t fazed by the hype. “People talk about us being this buzzy thing, but no one’s saying it to our faces,” says Lizzie, who prefers it that way. “We do our shows, we hang out, we make music. It doesn’t feel like too much pressure. Hopefully, the song will get a good reaction, and people will care about it. That’s good enough for me.”

“We’ve worked so hard on it and feel so good about the whole album. We do just feel confident, peaceful and ready to put it out,” adds Abigail. “We’re not worried about living up to anything because this is just what we love to do. There’s no other reason we’re doing this than pure joy.

“Come back to us after we’ve dropped a few singles, though – we’ll be so fucking jaded,” she adds with a laugh.

“Our own expectations are the most important thing to match,” continues Georgia. “And we surpassed those fucking ages ago when they were ‘it would be nice to play some gigs’.”

The Last Dinner Party’s ambitions now involve “keep going, keep getting bigger and Wembley”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie MacMillan for NME

On 25th April, The Last Dinner Party played in Camden. With many people watching them to see if they would be able to translate their incredible music and chemistry to the stage, NME extinguished all doubts with their review. It was a triumphant, electric and memorable gig that showed that The Last Dinner Party are very much here for the long run:

“A glut of fancy dress costumes wouldn’t typically raise an eyebrow in any one of Camden’s characterful venues, but the attire on parade at the Assembly this evening (April 25) is quite extraordinary. Glittering eye masks refract against a giant mirrorball, which twirls around above a sea of giant pearls, bowler hats, corsets, and steampunk goggles. Hell, even the roaming photographer is decked out in black tie.

But at The Last Dinner Party’s biggest headline show to date, costume isn’t so much encouraged, but practically obligatory. The five-piece have crafted an aesthetic that drips with a level of dark excess, donning Renaissance-period gowns for all of their press shots and using gothic font for their visuals. Their arrival on stage is already foreshadowed by expectation; on paper, the band have had just one track out, but this 220-capacity room is sold-out, likewise every UK date they have announced for this spring.

Last week, after a year of building word-of-mouth buzz from touring the London circuit – and opening up for, er, The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park – the band put out their hotly-anticipated debut single, ‘Nothing Matters’. A lightning-in-a-bottle hit, the track has dominated timelines and caused a press furore; tonight, it is greeted with eye-wateringly loud screams, to the point lead vocalist Abigail Morris resorts to singing through laughter, momentarily pausing to cover her mouth in disbelief.

A level of intensity was to be expected. The Last Dinner Party’s earliest gigs were recorded professionally and uploaded to YouTube last year, offering fans an early taste of their Sparks-indebted pop melodrama, which is accentuated in a live setting by surprise flute solos and meticulously rehearsed arrangements. Resplendent in a black leotard, Morris plays up to the poorly-hidden film cameras tonight, acting out the lyrics to the brooding ‘Burn Alive’ with her hands, and blowing kisses to the crowd while the band indulge in some monastic chanting on ‘Beautiful Boy’. She’s a wickedly confident leader, unflinching as she embodies the group’s commitment to fun.

Even better is ‘Portrait Of A Dead Girl’, a storm of forthright sexuality and humour. Morris’ voice rings out, lustful and carnivorous, while the rest of the band seem to have devised a way of creating a faintly preposterous – and yet undeniably lively – racket that could have been ripped straight from Fantasia. They can sound composed and majestic, or conjure up wild masses of noise, often within the space of the same chorus.

The Last Dinner Party’s ability to go straight from something as potent and wrenching as slow-burning ballad ‘Mirror’ to hamming up the theatrics of ‘Lady Of Mercy’ is a hugely impressive skill: even this early on in their career, on stage, they prove to be masters of contrast. It’s impossibly beautiful, ecstatic and ridiculous all at once”.

I am going to end it there. Go and follow The Last Dinner Party. They are making their first steps but, following the reaction to Nothing Matters and their live clout, this is a group that are going to deliver a lot more remarkable music. Abigail Morris, Georgia Davies, Aurora Nishevci, Lizzie Mayland and Emily Roberts are so tight and close. You can tell their friendship is pure and unbreakable! This connection and chemistry comes out in the music and their live gigs. If The Last Dinner Party send out their invitation, be sure that…

YOU accept it.

____________

Follow The Last Dinner Party

PHOTO CREDIT: Press

 Official:

https://www.thelastdinnerparty.co.uk/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thelastdinnerparty/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/lastdinnerparty

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5SHgclK1ZpTdfdAmXW7J6s?si=574C4iqsQZWVB9EHQkmHPg

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@TLDPVEVO

FEATURE: Put Yourself In Our Skin: Opening Up Discussion About Transgender Artists in the Music Industry

FEATURE:

 

 

Put Yourself In Our Skin

IN THIS PHOTO: German-born Kim Petras is an inspiring and hugely successful transgender artist who announced in 2008 that her gender-confirmation surgery was complete

Opening Up Discussion About Transgender Artists in the Music Industry

_________

I am ending with a playlist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Vectonauta via Freepix

of songs from transgender musicians, because I feel that there should be celebration and recognition of their incredible work and relevance. At one time, there was not a huge wave of acceptance and recognition towards the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community in music. Things have changed - but I still think there is a way to go when it comes to embracing and normalising these wonderful and inspiring artists. Before going on, this website provides some really helpful resources. There is still a lot of hatred, ignorance and misunderstanding aimed at the transgender community (including sexual assault against trans women). In terms of discussions and comments, my timeline often has some of the most regressive, stupid and nasty comments made about trans people. I follow musician and LGBT rights advocate, Katy Montgomerie. As a trans woman, she has to deal with more than her share of trolling and hatred. She deals with it with great dignity and calm – often educating and informing ill-informed and horrible people in the process -, but the point is that the trans community should never receive anything but acceptance and love! That applies to music. Whilst I am not seeing a lot of comments aimed negatively at trans artists, neither is there a lot of discussion and celebration of them. I know that there are artists that are trans who have not come out in revealing this through fear of persecution and vitriol. Not from the industry or fans, but maybe the wider social media community. I wanted to use this feature to not only highlight and celebrate some remarkable trans artists, but also open up discussion and thoughts regarding a relative lack of features highlighting and celebrating the trans community. 17th May was the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia. I know there are many artists I might have missed out. I have found examples of great trans women being spotlighted, but if anyone can guide me to some trans men who are making big waves, then that would be amazing!

Many might know about modern legends like Kim Petras or innovators and icons like the late SOPHIE, but there are so many other trans artists who are breaking moulds and inspiring the next generation. From Petras, and SOPHIE, through to Laura Jane Grace (born Thomas James Gabel, she is the lead of Against Me!, and became one of the first prominent Punk musicians), there are these artists who are helping and inspiring fellow trans artists and the wider community who might feel unheard, unloved or misunderstood. There are invaluable articles that list transgender artists that we need to know. I am going to try and include as much music and information as I can in this feature. Trans Day of Visibility happens every 31st March; Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) on 20th November. There are opportunities for the music industry to proudly highlight artists, but also to wide discussion, because I don’t think the trans community are as visibly promoted and truly embraced as they deserve to be. I want to skip back and forth a bit. I am going to get to a couple of 2020 articles that focused on some amazing trans artists. Last year, for WECB, Stephanie Weber listed important trans artists to coincide with Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR):

“Sam Smith (they/them) and Kim Petras (she/her)

“Unholy,” the 2022 collaboration between Sam Smith and Kim Petras, is something that I didn’t know I needed until it was released. It’s a pop ballad about being sexy, using themes of infidelity and non-monogamy to describe two parents “getting hot/ at the body shop/ doing something unholy.” Smith, who publicly came out as non-binary and genderqueer in 2019, was discovered while singing on Disclosure’s “Latch,” and rose to popularity. “Unholy” is a lead into their fourth studio album. All of their songs are full of love and light, like the 2019 song “Dancing with a Stranger” with a feature by Normani or an earlier Smith class “Money on My Mind” released in 2014. Smith’s work is uplifting with fabulous collaborations and danceable tracks. Kim Petras has a similar stylized music presence. Categorized under EDM, pop, and dance-pop, Petras’ bubbly personality fits with her party-tracks. She came out at a young age while independently releasing music since 2017. Prior to her music career, Petras made a debut with the play One Piece of Tape in 2011, being regarded as a queer icon ever since. She’s been nominated and recognized at the British LGBT Awards, GLAAD Media Awards, and most recently the MTV Europe Music Awards for the “Unholy” collaboration with Smith. Both artists remain idols in the queer community by providing representation across the world and making fun music together that speaks to the lived experiences of both Smith and Petras.

Girlpool

Duo Avery Tucker (he/him) and Harmony Tividad (she/her) makeup Los Angeles indie band Girlpool. They’re best known for their cover of Radiator Hospital’s “Cut Your Bangs” and their own “Before The World Was Big.” Much of their earlier music deals with growing up as a young girl in a world that isn’t tender despite valiant efforts towards securing girlhood. In 2014, Girlpool released their first self-titled album on Bandcamp but would later release their music on most music streaming platforms, amassing over eight million streams on “Before The World Was Big” and over 12 million on “Cut Your Bangs.” They have released four studio albums, with Forgiveness (2022) being their final release. A band announcement this last year saluted the end of the Girlpool’s existence, due to both artists going in different directions in their respective solo careers. Yet, they leave fans with a plethora of music to sustain any mood. Their earlier indie music deals with being young and growing up in a foreboding world of misogyny and harm. The xylophone opening of “Before The World Was Big,” with harmonizing lyrics about wearing dresses walking home from school, is young at heart. Their later music is rooted in moody dream pop and is quite emotionally charged. 2022 songs like “Faultline” and “Lie Love Lullaby” deal with heavier subject matters, such as  complex relationships with others and oneself, with lyrics like “I hold my body like a butcher knife/ Smiling for the camera eyes closed,” on “Faultline.” This shift, in part, comes from Tucker publicly identifying as trans, grappling with being in a band called Girlpool but not being a girl. Sonically and lyrically the band started changing to match with his transition. It is clear from social media postings that for Tucker and Tividad Girlpool was a passion project and served a purpose for themselves and their fans. Yet, despite this breakup, Girlpool is one of the most tender bands and talented vocalist duo of the last ten years.

Dreamer Isioma (they/he)

With “Sensitive” trending on TikTok last year, Dreamer Isioma has gained rightful popularity in the indie and R&B scenes. Isioma is a 21-year-old, first generation Nigerian-American musician breaking binaries with both gender and music. Delving into R&B, afrobeats, indie, and hip-hop since 2019, Isioma’s discography is well-breathed for having only started releasing music the last few years. His first album was The Leo Sun Sets (2020) but previously released many singles including “Sensitive” earlier in the year. All their songs are danceable and groovy, like “Cookout,” a light and boppy song. With lyrics like “I don’t sip Robbitussin but I keep these functions bussin’” and “You want beef I want smoke/ It’s a cookout,” Isioma connects their many identities together. On “Huh,” Isioma sings “And I will not stop with this gay shit, nah/ Haters mad ‘cause I'm young, black and famous.” I love Isioma’s music and their ability to sing about themself, bringing in all areas of personality and identity into his music.

Cavetown (he/they)

Robin Daniel Skinner, better known as Cavetown, has risen to fame among Generation Z and fans of cute, queer music. At 23 years old, Cavetown has amassed over eight million monthly listeners on Spotify, allowing him to harness this fame into his own headlining tours. Cavetown blends indie rock and bedroom pop with acoustic stylings, creating a versatile and individualized music genre. They’ve been releasing music since 2015 with the single “This Is Home” and self-titled album in the same year. Their album Lemon Boy (2018), however, is a masterful collection of cute and young songs that represents Skinner in an album. In 2019, “Boys Will Be Bugs” was released on the collective album Animal Kingdom (2019) featuring similar artists like Chloe Moriondo, Simi, and Sidney Gish. “Boys Will Be Bugs” is heartfelt and endearing with lyrics “I’m a dumb teen boy/ I eat sticks and rocks and mud/ I don’t care about the government/ And I really need a hug.” In this song, Cavetown details living as a “boy bug,” possibly a metaphor for feeling like an outsider in a vulnerable world. My favorite line is “Don’t mess with me, I’m a big boy now, and I’m very scary.” Cavetown has a gift of combining themes of youth, intimacy, and love through his signature ukulele and acoustic guitar accompaniment.

Ms. White (she/her)

Although not as popular as SOPHIE or Sam Smith, Ms. White is a hidden gem trans musician. “Full Grown” was Ms. White’s first release in 2017, a jazz single about being in a first relationship featuring the repeated lyrics “I don't want to say it’s love/ If I don't know.” “Stone Street” was released the same year, telling the classic narrative of hook-up culture with rich Wall Street men in New York City, detailed with the lyrics “If you need me/ I’ll be where the rich men go.” Jade (2017) is her first EP, debuting Ms. White’s talented vocal range and tone. Marina (2019) is her only album, featuring the fan favorite “Arizona,” a song about being the other woman. Lyrics “And I’m just a bleach bitch/ She’s that tan on the beach bitch” and “If I had a pussy it’d be mine you’re railing” are moving yet delicate. Ms. White describes the particular challenges of dating as a trans woman, but ultimately sends the message that trans women, like any one, deserve love. She meshes indie and jazz with these lyrically genius moments, making her an uber talented artist”.

Them opened their feature by explaining how trans women have been instrumental and influential in the music industry for years. They went on to write about transgender artists that should be in everyone’s minds – those who have already helped to change the world:

“Trans women have enjoyed a long history in the music industry, and an equally long history of pushing that industry forward. In the 1960s there was the legendary Jackie Shane, an openly trans Black soul singer who made waves across Canada with her hit “Any Other Way” and her unapologetic, unashamed live performances. Europe has had stars like Coccinelle and Amanda Lear, who worked as models and singers in mid-century France. More recently, artists like Anohni, Laura Jane Grace, and Katey Red have found success in genres from art pop to punk to New Orleans bounce.

Today, a new generation of young trans women are rising up and taking over the pop music game. Beyond being relatable to an increasingly queer Gen Z, these stars are by and large bringing a vulnerable, honest approach to their music, a perfect salve for a daily news cycle full of liars and abusers. And whether they’re hitting magazine covers or Times Square billboards, writing top 10 hits or working with A-List producers, this new class is quickly proving that they’re among the new vanguard of pop. Below, we rounded up seven rising trans pop stars you need to know.

TEDDY GEIGER

Pop fans might already be familiar with Geiger’s name; the former pop idol came out as trans last year, but before that, Geiger had already seen major success as a songwriter for acts like 5 Seconds of Summer, Tiësto, One Direction, and Shawn Mendes. Geiger is perhaps best known for writing a string of Mendes’ hit singles, and was nominated for a Song of the Year Grammy just last week for Mendes’ “In My Blood.” That major achievement came on the back of a new, nine-song album released under the name teddy<3 last month, LillyAnna (named after a handle she used online before coming out). Her music has evolved into a lovely dream pop sound that brings to mind the likes of Grimes, Ariel Pink and Perfume Genius, and she’s quickly showing that coming out has powered an interesting new chapter in her musical journey.

AH-MER-AH-SU

The Oakland-based songwriter Star Amerasu (also known as Ah-Mer-Ah-Su) is creating some of the dreamiest indie electronic pop around these days. And with the release of her self-titled debut album, Star, earlier this year, the artist is hitting her stride and singling in on the kind of beautiful, flowingly catchy music she’s always wanted to make. Her single “Klonopin” is a hazy trip through a dream-like afternoon, one that doubles as a confessionary look at her very real struggle with addiction: “I pop my Klonopin in the morning/I pop my pills to keep me going/I think that I might have a problem/But I still ain't hit rock bottom,” before a dreamy loop at the word “Klonopin” comes in for her to sing over. Her music may sound like a beautiful dream, but it’s also filled with deep and relatable truths — songs that tackle her hopes and fears, and ultimately, the strength she needs to be herself in today’s society”.

Even if there are amazing trans women and men who have helped to open doors and emphasis how valuable, important and vital the trans community is, you do not get many mainstream playlists, features and discussions around trans artists. When researching, the playlists I found were from fans. I don’t know if Spotify have compiled a trans playlist. In terms of podcasts, there aren’t many relating to artists I cannot find many recent features either about trans artists and their significance. I know there is a lot of negativity and toxicity being generated online about the transgender community. Perhaps a time when many trans artists feel invisible, prejudiced against or spited, there does need to be more in the way of promoting and promulgating their stories and music! Elevating their voices. I want to flip back to 2020, as there were a few articles written about trans artists. A year before we lost the beloved SOPHIE, it is great that she was mentioned as a leader and iconic trans artist. Insider were among those to write about trans artists that are creating phenomenal work and speaking to a lot of people who are still seen as marginal by many:

“In 2009, Kim Petras made headlines as she battled to become one of the youngest people to get hormone therapy in Germany. After that, Petras worked on her music, sharing it on YouTube. In 2017, she released her song "I Don't Want It At All," which became a hit. In the short amount of time since then, Petras has released a lengthy discography. In fact, her music has over 2 million listeners on Spotify and over 16 million streams.

Some of her hit songs include "Heart to Break," "Hillside Boys," and her most recent single, "Malibu."

"I don't care about being the first transgender teen idol at all," Petras told the New York Times. "I just want to be known as a great musician. On the other hand, that would be totally sick."

SOPHIE got her start in the music industry producing for notables like Charli XCX and even Madonna. Eventually, the Scottish artist started producing her own experimental music that mixed voice distortion with mechanical sounds on singles like "Lemonade" and "Bipp." The unusual pop music became popular among fans, earning the artist a cult-like following. But for the majority of the time, no one knew much about the person behind SOPHIE until she released "It's Okay to Cry" with her face and voice at the forefront, officially coming out as transgender.

"Transness is taking control to bring your body more in line with your soul and spirit so the two aren't fighting against each other and struggling to survive," SOPHIE told Paper magazine. "On this earth, it's that you can get closer to how you feel your true essence is without the societal pressures of having to fulfill certain traditional roles based on gender."

“Shea Diamond spent the early 2000s in prison after she said she robbed a convenience store to get money for gender reassignment surgery. During those years, she worked on her singing and songwriting, so that when she finally got out, she jumped into the music scene. In 2016, she released her first single "I Am Her," which defined what type of music she would create. Two years later, she released her first EP, "Seen It All." Her other top songs include "American Pie" and "Don't Shoot."

"To be a 40-year-old woman, a trans woman, to make it to that age it's not really heard of. We get killed off before we're 25," she told Variety. "The only type of entertainment you want from us — no shade — is Jerry Springer. People don't want to see the struggle of what it takes for a trans woman to survive. It's more comfortable for people — for everybody now — for entertainment purposes to see a drag queen. That's a person who can take it off. The trans experience is a person who isn't doing it for entertainment purposes. Everything this person does is for survival. What does survival look like? It looks like [me]."

Lucas Silveira's career began when he created his band, The Cliks, in 2004. Their music was featured in the lesbian drama series "The L Word," bringing the band widespread attention. Just two years later, he made history becoming the first transgender man to sign with a major record label. Since then, Silveira and his band have released several popular songs, including "Complicated," "Dirty King," and "Oh Yeah."

"Something that I would like to do [as a public figure] is to bring some aspect of normalcy to people like me," he told HuffPost. "We're a very, very diverse community — I've never met two transgender people who've had the same experience".

It is clear that there are so many influential and inspirational trans artists in the music world. Mainstream artists like Kim Petras are helping when it comes to making the industry more visible for transgender artists. I think there is a long way to go for the industry as a whole to emphasis the importance of trans artists. In the sense that they should naturally be on their radar; their stories need to be heard; their music should be much more commonly discussed and highlighted. As I said earlier, there probably are quite a few transgender artists who are wary about getting into the industry, or else are under-played and have to fight to be heard. It is a time when there is so much anti-trans rhetoric and abuse online. It is not only from anonymous and low-key Internet trolls. Figures such as comedy writer Graham Linehan and author J.K. Rowling have shown that there are huge and well-known public figures who are adding fuel to a hateful fire. I can only imagine the sort of fear, upset and anger that many in the trans community feel, whether they are directly targeted, or they see their community is being degraded and disrespected. There is still so much ignorance around that needs to be corrected. A lot of the defence, educating and fighting back is from trans people themselves. I think we all need to do more to support them. There are annual remembrance and celebration days, but I look at the music industry, and there is not the level of support and discussion as there should be. In a rich, diverse and wonderful music industry, trans artists are integral and crafting some of the best music around. If there are articles emphasising this, is the industry doing enough to celebrate trans artists?

IMAGE CREDIT: Freepik

I am going to round off with a few interview and words. To start, The Guardian spoke with one of the most influential transgender artists, ANOHNI (of ANOHNI and the Johnsons) about her experiences in the industry. ANOHNI and the Johnsons release the album, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, on 7th July. ANOHNI spoke about the new music, but we get insight into her experiences as a transgender artist/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ pioneer:

“The title is a pointed reminder of the sacrifices made by LGBTQ+ pioneers such as Johnson. “A lot of the people that have done the most heroic work for the culture have done it at great cost for their own wellness and their own comfort,” says Anohni. “As queer-bodied people, it’s easy to relate to that. Kids in the 70s and the 80s were still often getting thrown out of their houses before they finished high school. You find yourself fleeing to a big city where you can find an alternative to the family structure that you weren’t welcomed within on account of your gender variance.” There can be a hard-won upside to this, she recognises. “In a weird way, that experience becomes a gift, because it gives us a path out.”

Anohni’s last album, 2016’s Hopelessness, was an unsparing condemnation of systemic injustice. Over grinding electronic beats, it conjured barren landscapes pockmarked with graves. But My Back …, with its gorgeous bed of pastoral folk and 70s acoustic soul, casts a more empathic gaze. Lead single It Must Change addresses suffering the blows of prejudice and trying to relate to those who wish you ill. “I always thought you were beautiful in your own way,” Anohni sings gently over laid-back guitar and lush strings, “that’s why this is so sad.” The video stars author and LGBTQ+ activist Munroe Bergdorf.

“The song is wider than just trans rights,” Bergdorf tells me. “But as a trans person at the epicentre of the movement, it really spoke to my experience, wherein ‘the way you talk to me, the things you do to me’ – it must change.” She adds that she wanted to communicate a serene confidence in her performance. “The conversation around transgender rights is chaotic. But the community is calm, resilient, and strong.”

While Anohni’s themes have not wavered, she says, her approach has become more tender. There is a lot more forgiveness in a song like It Must Change, she says, “an almost impossible necessity for forgiveness that, paradoxically, we’re going to have to move through in order to resume any agency to make change”. In part, she credits this shift to her age. “As you get older, one’s approach does subtly shift,” says Anohni, now 51. “And I keep circling different themes, trying to find different ways to [approach them]”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift onstage for the opening night of the Eras Tour in Arizona on 17th March/PHOTO CREDIT: John Shearer/Getty Images

There is also the question today as to whether artists are doing enough to speak up for trans rights and against laws that discriminate against them. Are artists in the U.S. for instance using their platform to react against the wave of anti-trans legislation? The Guardian highlighted why Taylor Swift should do more to speak for her L.G.B.T.Q.+ fans. Are we expecting too much of modern mainstream artists? Are there commercial risks if they take a stance like that?

“But the issue of pop and politics goes beyond Swift, raising questions about our expectations of pop stars, figureheads who have by and large become more politicised over the past decade. Should artists use their platforms to speak out on social issues, and if so, how often and to what extent? (The current calls for Swift to denounce past controversies by her rumoured boyfriend, Matty Healy of the 1975, for example, are both misogynist – expecting a woman to account for her partner’s behaviour – and demonstrative of fan entitlement.) Do we expect them to understand and respond to all the hot-button issues going on around the world? Which countries (or states, for that matter) is it OK for them to perform in?

Now more than ever, these are valid questions to ask of pop stars. Major pop tours are watercooler events akin to sports games, Succession and Eurovision: one of the biggest platforms around, speaking directly not only to young audiences who look to their idols for support, but the wider public who might be influenced by their views. And queer fans can reasonably expect to see support for their causes because today’s pop spectacle was built on the backs of trailblazing queer icons, to whom every star owes a spiritual debt. (In 2017, Swift’s Reputation tour paid nightly tribute to the 19th-century US dancer Loie Fuller, a gay woman who pioneered modern dance and theatrical lighting and fought for artists to own their work.)

It’s understandable that many stars are wary about speaking out, particularly when on stage. Audiences have come for a show, not a political rally. Perhaps that’s why some stars opt for softer actions, such as Harry Styles waving a Pride flag or Beyoncé making venue toilets gender-neutral on her current Renaissance tour. These gestures of support can mean so much for a young queer or questioning fan. But Madonna put her career on the line in the 80s and 90s with her HIV/Aids activism, including a card detailing The Facts About Aids enclosed with 1989’s Like a Prayer album. Considering we’re living through an era of humanitarian and climate crises with a growing backlash against the rights of women, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people, today’s pop stars aren’t taking radical enough action”.

At such a tough time for so many in the trans community, there need to be interviews, playlists and documentaries made about trans artists – the struggles they have faced, what they bring to the music industry, and the people they are inspiring. It is blindingly clear that they are…

SO important to the music industry.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The Queens of 2023 Mix

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Samara Joy/PHOTO CREDIT: UW Union

The Queens of 2023 Mix

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I am always keen to spotlight…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sarah Close

amazing women in music. Away from the legends and icons, I look out for those coming through that are going to change music and make a real impact. I have shouted out the best ten albums made by women this year so far – which I shall add to and update in a few months -, but I wanted to collect together amazing singles from female artists from this year. There are some huge artists in the pack, but there are so many emerging artists that you need to keep an ear out for. If you need to know about the women in music making waves right now, then have a listen to the playlist below. I think that there are going to be some astonishing albums and singles coming from female artists before the end of the year. They are dominating and creating the finest and most original sounds in my opinion. It has been a pleasure compiling incredible singles from this year from some truly amazing women. I hope that you enjoy listening to the…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Marten

CREAM of 2023.

FEATURE: Time for Music’s #MeToo! Making Women in Music Feel Safer

FEATURE:

 

 

Time for Music’s #MeToo!

PHOTO CREDIT: MART PRODUCTION/Pexels 

Making Women in Music Feel Safer

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THERE have been a couple of cases…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kat Smith/Pexels

where male musicians (or those in the industry) have been accused of sexual assault and rape. D.J. Tim Westwood, and artist slowthai are both in the news for the wrong reasons. They are not isolated cases in terms of men in music being accused of sexual assault or abuse. I am not sure how each case will play out, but it does bring to the spotlight an ugly and horrible problem that has existed for decades. It is not only sexual abuse and assault that are making women feel unsafe. I am reminded of Emily Atack’s powerful documentary, Asking for It?, she discusses her experiences with daily online sexual harassment. Even though she is an actor and presenter, this is something that a lot of women in music can relate to. That is a reason why the documentary is so powerful. From high-profile people like Atack, through to rising artists, so many women can share their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse online. It is also threats of violence and general nastiness that seems to be on the rise. I know that raising awareness – women talking about their experiences – is helping, but it should not only be down to them to bring about change. A couple of rather unsettling cases of sexual assault have made me think widely about something I wrote about fairly recently. At gigs, safegigs4women provide advice to those attending gigs. How they can be more aware and help if they see any women being harassed. They have recently partnered with The Anchoress for her tour. She (Catherine Anne Davies) is someone who has been on the receiving end of abuse and sexual harassment online.

One might say that it is a bit repetitive me revisiting something I wrote about only recently. There is one big reason why I am doing so: because nothing has really changed. Organisations and women themselves are tackling and illuminating the extent of the problem; the industry itself and those in power are not doing enough. I want to look further at sexual harassment and assault in the industry - though online bullying and sexual harassment is rife. So many women feel fearful about speaking out and maybe fearing further attacks and criticism. There is also a thing where many women do not feel supported or believed. Emily Atack shared her experiences in a recent documentary. We do need something music-based where we can hear and see just what so many women go through on a daily basis. It is sickening and completely unacceptable! I want to look at a number of articles from the past year that show, through various genres and sides of the industry, sexual harassment, abuse and assault are still very much alive and relatively unchallenged. I will end by reigniting the thought and desire many have is that, like in Hollywood, the music industry urgently needs its own #MeToo movement (in a recent feature, The Times erroneously stated that there is a #MeToo movement in music happening/starting). I don’t think one can say there is a visible, organised or active #MeToo movement in music. Although there are women raising awareness and trying to affect change, it takes the mobilisation of a lot more people and sectors of the industry. There is such a toxic and unrelenting problem at the moment, that it requires something huge! If steps are being made to make women feel safer, one can definitely not say the industry is clean and has things handled. From anonymous trolling and abusive messages to women being harassed and assaulted, why is his not right at the forefront?!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Dragana_Gordic via Freepik

I will continue on that thread. First, there is proof and writing that backs up the hard truths. Many women do not feel safe or like they are being heard. The brilliant Musically published a feature earlier this year that showed it is not only women feeling harassed or unsafe – there is still gender equality and gulfs when it comes to opportunities and equal pay:

“TuneCore and Believe have published their latest ‘Be The Change’ study of gender equality in the music industry, timed to come out on International Women’s Day.

It offers the latest stats on some of the challenges facing women and gender expansive people in music, based on a survey of 1,656 industry folk and musicians.

34% of women surveyed said they had been sexually harassed or abused at work in the music industry, and that percentage rose to 42% for trans people and 43% for nonbinary people.

58% of the people surveyed disagreed with the idea that ‘everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed in the music industry’, with pay gaps, mental health, a lack of access to professional training and development, and being passed over for promotions among the challenges explored.

“We need more change. We, as individuals and as an industry must heed the calls to action and do just that – take action,” said TuneCore CEO Andreea Gleeson.

“Small changes add up and if we each do something different each day, week, month, year, we will see a sea change in the industry.”

You can read the full study, which this year was a partnership with research firm Luminate – here”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Keke Palmer/PHOTO CREDIT: Unique Nicole/Getty Images

Before getting to a more general feature, actor and musician Keke Palmer discussed her experiences in the music industry. There is a lot that needs addressing and tackling, that is for sure. So many women are reporting such shocking things – and there are many more who have not spoken about it yet. It is clear an organised movement needs to happen sooner rather than later:

“Keke Palmer is opening up about her experience in the music industry and the change she wants to see.

While talking with People magazine, in an interview published online Friday, about her new album Big Boss and its self-written accompanying film, which follows her journey within the music industry, the Nope actress said the #MeToo Movement “hasn’t happened in music, and it should.”

“Bad shit happens in all industries, obviously, but specifically entertainment,” Palmer, who has been in Hollywood for more than two decades, added. “We know bad things happen in all of them, but it’s almost like the acting world represents a union and the music industry represents non-union.”

The #MeToo movement, which brings awareness to sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace, grew to prominence in 2017 following multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. He was later convicted in a New York and Los Angeles trial.

“It’s happening in the actor world but eventually, it’s going to come to a damn halt,” the singer said. “Somebody’s going to get called out. Something’s going to happen. At some point, we’re going to come to some kind of understanding. With music, it’s like everybody is being paid, and everybody’s a crooked cop. So, it seems like nothing will ever really come to a head.”

When discussing her personal experiences in the industry, Palmer said she has learned to stand up for herself over time, but that the “sad thing is that you learn these things from being in bad situations. It almost feels like it’s a coming-of-age story for a woman.”

“Being a woman is like, ‘Damn, the biggest mistake you can make is trusting somebody.’ Damn, I just shouldn’t have trusted someone?” she told the outlet. “I wish that there was more that we could do, but it seems like we can’t even really expect for people to respect our boundaries.”

When asked if she’s ever considered moving away from the music industry, given all the setbacks, she said, “Yeah, all the time. All the time I’ve thought about stepping away and somehow would find myself back again”.

Musicians such as Ashanti have discussed their experiences. It does give confidence and impetus to other women to come forward, knowing they will have the understanding and support of their peers. Although there are a lot of men also asking for change, there is not enough constructive and positive action from higher up. How long before the ongoing and horrifying realities of sexual harassment and abuse in music becomes serious enough to warrant something huge?! One musician I am a big fan of is Jaguar Jonze. The Australian-based artist has shared her experience of sexual assault. This article from The Guardian explored sexism and discrimination in the Australian music industry. It uncovered – via The Raising Their Voices report – that there was an alarmingly high degree of sexual harassment and assault too:

“More than 50% of respondents to a long-awaited report on sexism and discrimination in Australia’s music industry have experienced sexual harassment or harm in the workplace, with the report’s authors describing their findings as confronting, but not unexpected.

The Raising Their Voices report was released on Thursday, the result of more than 1,600 interviews and survey questionnaires that asked musicians, technicians and record label employees about their experiences of sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the industry.

The independent investigation was commissioned last year after a roundtable of music industry professionals was called to address mounting allegations of sexual harm, sexual harassment, alcohol and drug abuse and systemic discrimination in the industry.

Fifty-five per cent of respondents alleged they had experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment and sexual harm in their career. The report defines sexual harm as “behaviour which constitutes sexual harassment, sexual assault, indecent assault and rape. It also includes attempted sexual assault, attempted indecent assault and attempted rape.”

More than one-third said the alleged sexual harassment or harm had occurred within the past five years.

Three out of four perpetrators of alleged sexual harassment were men. The most common places where the harassment occurred was at music venues (45%) followed by the office (21%) or work-related events (17%).

Almost 80% of respondents said they had experienced some form of “everyday sexism” in the course of their career, and just as many – the vast majority being women – said they had experienced workplace bullying.

The report concluded that women do not thrive to the same extent as men within the Australian music industry, and that young people and people of diverse backgrounds, particularly First Nations people, were at higher risk of harm and poor employment practices.

The report also found that women were being kept out of “key decision-making arenas that determine what music gets played and who gets signed, supported, nurtured and profiled”, affecting the industry more broadly.

MusicNSW managing director, Emily Collins, said the findings revealed a strong appetite for widespread and sustainable cultural change across an industry where outdated models of behaviour were still largely tolerated.

“Every workplace, no matter what part of the Australian workforce you’re in, should be safe and respectful,” she said.

“One of the findings is that some parts of the music industry aren’t obeying [workplace] regulations. This report provides a watershed moment for the industry. Despite the findings of the review, the fact that the review exists is a good sign.”

The 76-page report includes multiple first-hand, anonymous accounts of music industry employees’ experiences.

“No one looks at your CV, they look at your chest and your bod,” one respondent said.

“As a young single woman, you are immediately objectified and othered,” said another.

“It’s an industry built on the idea that women are entertainment … women have to work 10 times harder to prove themselves,” said another.

“I can’t progress here because I’m good at making my male manager look good. I’m too useful to him,” said one respondent.

“There is no career path. 100%, there is a very low glass ceiling. There are heaps of women at mid-tier levels, then further up, it’s mainly men,” said another.

Multiple female performers reported being mistaken for a girlfriend of a male bandmember, the report said, with many women saying they felt pressured to appear sexy, accept being paid less and put off having children, in order to succeed.

“Until the people who have been there for [many years] are gone, there’s only so much that can change, because they are the most powerful and they are set in their ways. They’re gonna have their boys’ lunches, they’re gonna have their golf days … It’s habitual almost,” one respondent said.

In July, the newly appointed arts minister, Tony Burke, told Guardian Australia he would leverage his position as employment and workplace relations minister to tackle sexual harassment and discrimination within Australia’s cultural industries.

He cited the 2021 allegations of sexual assault by singer songwriter Jaguar Jonze, and the workplace culture at major recording label Sony Music, exposed by Guardian Australia, which resulted in its long-serving chief executive Denis Handlin being removed after more than 25 years leading the Australian arm of the global corporation.

The Raising Their Voices report found that only 3% of survey participants had made a formal report alleging sexual harassment in the past five years.

The perceived lack of accountability for perpetrators was cited as a major barrier to formally reporting misconduct, the report concluded, and an overhaul of reporting and investigation mechanisms in the industry is one of the inquiry’s 17 recommendations”.

Jaguar Jonze will begin a new show at Sydney Opera House, Vivid LIVE, from 1st June, which she hopes will put the audience in her shows regarding her experiences. It has just been featured by ABC in Australia. It will be a moving, extraordinary and possibly cathartic show that you should see if you can:

“It's something she has been reckoning with ahead of her Sydney Opera House debut for Vivid LIVE, part of the Sydney-wide Vivid festival.

The genre-bending performance will blend music from her debut album BUNNY MODE and two earlier EPs with film and shibari, a Japanese rope bondage practice. Titled The Art of Broken Pieces, the show is a reclamation of bodily and artistic autonomy for Jonze, who has been unable to speak freely about her alleged assault and has found herself increasingly defined by her advocacy over her artistry”.

I have sourced this article before, but VICE investigated the issue of sexual assault in clubs and bars affected female D.J.s. A campaign was started off of the back of DJ Rebekah’s experiences. It makes me think that this is a good catalyst for something bigger and industry-wide:

“When DJ Rebekah read about the allegations of sexual assault surrounding fellow DJs Erick Morillo and Derrick May in 2020, she saw the same instances of sexism and harassment that she experienced early in her career. “I just realised shit, this stuff hasn't changed,” Rebekah told me. “I've been around this industry for over 20 years and nothing's changed.”

As a survivor of sexual abuse in the industry herself, Rebekah set up #ForTheMusic, a campaign to expose the music industry’s sinister underbelly and was inundated with stories from people who left the industry. “I've had many women contact me and say their experience has pushed them out and they've lost so much confidence,” says Rebekah. “There's cases of women DJs having residences in clubs and bars and suffering from harassment, and then they've just stopped their residences.”

The cases Rebekah found align with industry reporting that points to an alarmingly widespread issue that has yet to be fully dealt with. In a 2019 report, the Musicians’ Union, which represents 31,000 musicians in the UK, found that 48 percent of respondents said they had experienced workplace harassment, and the union were aware of cases where artists left the industry completely after experiencing sexism or abuse. The prevalence of abuse in the industry was so widespread that according to John Shortell, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Musicians’ Union, many people saw sexual harassment as an “occupational hazard” that was “part and parcel of the job”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sarah Hildering

Many in the industry believe these figures are a lowball estimate. “I think it's higher,” says Sarah Hildering, the Director of Dance & Electronic at Ingrooves Music Group. In 2020, she helped write the code of conduct on sexual harassment for the Association for Electronic Music. “Women discount sexual harassment for themselves, because they know there will be repercussions.”

Over the last few years, music fans have had to come to terms with allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse directed at some of the biggest names in the industry. These include the late Morillo, who was accused of sexual assault by numerous women; techno DJ May, who was accused of assault by four women and Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, who has numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against him detailed in the HBO Max documentary On The Record. In 2021, actor Evan Rachel Wood and four other women named Marilyn Manson as their abuser; in 2022, multiple women came forward to accuse former BBC Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood of sexual misconduct. Westwood, Manson, Simmons and May have all denied the allegations against them.

Women may be starting to come forward, but the music industry still seems behind the times when it comes to tackling abuse. Why are people leaving the industry and what can be done to stop this exodus?

Stories of artists who quit music after being harassed are commonplace at Good Night Out, an organisation that helps bars and venues better respond to sexual harassment – so much so that many have questioned the mark such a loss has made on the industry. “You mourn the lost potential of the survivors who've been harmed to the extent that their creativity just ended there,” says Kai Stone, the head of communications and partnerships at Good Night Out. “All of those records and gigs that didn't happen because of somebody else's abusive choices and us not having the set up in place to either prevent that or respond to that”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Nomi Abadi

I will finish with an article from Rolling Stone published back in February. Melissa Schuman (an American singer and actor) spoke at a press conference in the U.S., calling out predators and abusers. Let’s hope that this helps keep a ball rolling that needs cooperation and pledges from labels, heads and, of course, men in the in the industry:

“NOMI ABADI HAS been a piano prodigy since she was three years old and has toured around the word as a classical pianist, releasing numerous albums and EPs. But as she stood at a podium in a downtown Los Angeles hotel conference room Friday afternoon, she wasn’t there to talk about her accomplishments.

“I dream of the music industry where there are no sexual predators of women,” the advocate and founder of the Female Composer Safety League said at the press conference ahead of Sunday’s Grammy Awards. “I dream of a music industry where no little girl will ever encounter a sexual predator again … The time for sexual predators in music is over. The time for respect for all women begins now.”

Abadi and other sexual assault survivors gathered to call out the music industry for what they see as a pattern of enabling and profiting off sexual predators.

Jeff Anderson, the lawyer who for decades has filed suits against the Roman Catholic Church over sexual abuse of children and raised widespread awareness of the scandal, organized the press conference and is representing women suing Steven Tyler and Marilyn Manson for sexual assault of a minor. (Tyler and Manson have denied the accusations.)

“We’re here today because this is a time for a reckoning,” Anderson said. “It’s a time for us and the survivors and their allies to call the industry to account. The entertainment industry and the music industry has [permitted], and continues to permit, sexual violence. It continues to protect those that commit it and it continues to profit from [it].”

Anderson went on to compare the music industry to the Catholic Church in terms of what he feels is widespread abuse and protection, with speaker and advocate Alexa Nikolas adding, “Mark a survivor’s words: the music industry is the Catholic Church on steroids.”

“Predators will come and go, but as long as institutions like the music industry enable and participate in the abuse and silencing towards survivors, then it won’t matter if ‘one bad apple,’ as they love to say, gets let go,” she added”.

With each passing month, we hear of men in the industry accused of sexual assault or harassment. There is a big issue on social media where women feel threatened and abused. From live gigs through to events behind closed doors, there are far too many incidents of women being assaulted. If individuals are called out, found guilty and punished, what are the consequences?! I am aware that there are men falsely accused, but the majority of those accused are found culpable. They are not banned from the industry, nor is there an uprising and call for change from those who hold power – or those men in executive positions. There does need to be a #MeToo movement in music that matches that we saw in Hollywood – which, in turn, has brought about change and greater awareness of a massive problem. Things have been bad for so long, so it is long overdue that the industry needs to galvanise and create their #MeToo. Let us hope that…

 IMAGE CREDIT: GLAMOUR

THIS happens soon.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Donald Fagen – Kamakiriad

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Donald Fagen – Kamakiriad

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ONE great music tragedy…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Donald Fagen in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Geraint Lewis

is that we may never get another Donald Fagen solo album! The co-creator of Steely Dan alongside the much-missed Walter Becker, his most recent was 2012’s Sunken Condos. I hope that we do get more music from Fagen. He is one of those writers and singers that you can distinguish from anyone. Although Steely Dan did reform and release new albums after 1980’s Gaucho, the two-album return was more, I think, of two friends saying things unfinished - rather than them entering this second phase. The most interesting work post-Dan is Fagen’s solo material. Even if many would rank 1993’s Kamakiriad as the least spectacular of his four solo albums, it still has so many gems and highlights! It has come to mind, as the album was released on 25th May, 1993. Thirty years down the line, and I am still listening to tracks from this brilliant work. Whilst his debut, The Nightfly, came out in 1982 and is seen as his finest solo work (and up there with the best of Steely Dan), it took him eleven years to follow it! One great thing about Kamakiriad is that it was his first collaboration with Walter Becker since 1986. Becker played guitar and bass and produced the album. The album is an eight-song cycle about the journey of the narrator in his high-tech car, the Kamakiri (Japanese for ‘praying mantis’). It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year 1994. Although it was a commercial success around the world and was award-nominated, it did not resonate with all critics. If you place the Donald Fagen albums that got most critical love, The Nightfly would be top; Sunken Condos second; Morph the Cat (2005) might just top Kamakiriad.

I do think that Kamakiriad is underrated. If it is not as cool, rich and eclectic as Morph the Cat, and it lacks the genius highs of The Nightfly, people need to check out Donald Fagen’s second studio album. I think that it must have been hard releasing an album in 1993. Sounding like nothing around him, it is testament to his popularity and brilliance that Kamakiriad was a commercial success! I want to bring in a couple of perspectives regarding Kamakiriad. This is what AllMusic said in their review:

“Donald Fagen's second solo album is a song cycle of sorts, following the adventures of an imaginary protagonist as he travels the world in his car, a brand-new Kamakiri. It is an odd concept, and one that is not obvious to the listener, but reflection upon Fagen's liner notes while listening to the album does tend to evoke a vision of a non-apocalyptic near future, where swingers sip cocktails and fresh vegetable juices as they groove to synthesized jazz-rock. Evocative or not, this is not Fagen's best effort. The songs on Kamakiriad are mainly static one-chord vamps, with little of the interesting off-beat hits or chord changes that characterized most of Steely Dan's corpus (although, it must be said, Two Against Nature isn't too far conceptually from what Fagen is doing here). There is a slightly antiseptic feeling to Kamakiriad. Although the drum tracks are not synthesized, they sure sound that way, and even the horns sound electronic at times, a far cry from the lush arrangements of Aja. Another shortcoming of this record is the fact that the verse melodies don't sound very developed. The choruses are as catchy and cryptic as you would expect from Donald Fagen, but the verses are less than memorable. Walter Becker, who produced the record, as well as contributing bass and guitar, also co-wrote "Snowbound." Perhaps not surprisingly, it does the best job at evoking classic Steely Dan. Kamakiriad is pleasant as background music, but in the end it doesn't provide enough interesting moments to rank as a must-have. The static grooves, coupled with the long song lengths, and general lack of dynamic movement makes this record one of the least essential of Fagen's recorded output. However, Steely Dan completists will certainly find enough here to keep them happy”.

I am going to round up soon. Ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Kamakiriad on 25th May, I think that people should connect with an amazing Donald Fagen. Albumism explored the under-appreciated and terrific Kamakiriad on its twenty-fifth birthday in May 2018. I am excited to see if there will be fresh inspection of this album in the coming days:

“Fagen’s second solo foray Kamakiriad is an examination of aging, heartache, writer’s block and redemption via a sci-fi roadtrip in the steam-powered Kamakiri. Produced by Walter Becker (who also played bass and guitar), the recording of the album re-ignited rumors of a Steely Dan reunion, and the two treated us to one of the hottest-selling concert tours of 1993.

“Countermoon” brings the funk back in, but it’s got a sneer on it, as all the women (Snakehips, perhaps?) turn on their boyfriends and husbands, leaving them weeping in payphones and pleading for a second chance against a nighttime force of nature. It’s got that wry, quirky charm we’re starting to see emerge as the hallmark of Fagen’s solo work, leaving the darker stuff to Becker. The bright, full melody serves as a precursor to songs like “Cousin Dupree” and “Gaslighting Abbie” on Steely Dan’s Grammy-winning Two Against Nature in 2009.

The Laughing Pines of “Springtime” pull a pretty neat trick—starting out sounding like you’re about to go to your death with a smoky drag, but quickly slipping into something a little more comfortable as our narrator relives some of his old romances, enjoying them even more this time around. The keyboard opens right up and Becker’s guitars come along for the ride, and although the threat of nostalgia is a dangerous one, the music never quite suggests that our narrator is in for anything but a little fun before setting off on the journey again.

“Snowbound” is one of those songs that gets better with every listen, especially in the wake of Becker’s death from esophageal cancer last September. Becker and Fagen have always exuded a quiet sort of male intimacy, what the kids today might call a “bromance” and this song really solidifies that. That’s Becker (with a co-writing credit) on guitar, reviving a song the two of them had written back in 1985. But more than that, as Snakehips and the other women have dropped off, it’s just our narrator and an unnamed friend alongside him in a frozen city. “Let’s stop off at the Metroplex / that little dancer’s got some style” is probably not something you’re going to say to your girlfriend.

This song also contains what Fagen says is his favorite line in the whole album, “We sail our IceCats on the frozen river / some loser fires off a flare, amen / for seven seconds it’s like Christmas day / and then it’s dark again.” It’s a bittersweet image, one I think about in late December as each year winds to a cold and quiet close.

The transition to “Tomorrow’s Girls” is somewhat jarring. Although the song is heavy on the sci-fi themes that populate the album, there’s a certain ‘60s sensibility that threads throughout (the hyper-suburban video, starring Rick Moranis, may be contributing to this feeling) that might have fit a little better on The Nightfly than on Kamakiriad. That being said, I love this song forever and his wire-tight inflection on “A virus wearing pumps and pearls” is one of my turn-ons.

The second co-writing credit on this album goes to Fagen’s wife, Libby Titus, on “Florida Room.” I swear Legend of Zelda ripped off some of this intro for the Fortune Teller’s intro in A Link to the Past. It’s a sweet enough tune, somewhat reminiscent in tone to “Lazy Nina,” which Fagen wrote for Greg Phillinganes’ Pulse in 1984. I passed a bar called the Florida Room while on vacation in Portland, Oregon this past February, and took great delight in texting it to my friend (and fellow Steely Dan fanatic) Matthew.

The album ends with Fagen’s best closing track, “Teahouse on the Tracks.” Flytown doesn’t sound much better than “On the Dunes” (Flytown exists “where hope and the highway ends”) until he discovers a place where he finds old friends and good tunes waiting for him. The horns are at their hottest here, Fagen’s keyboards simultaneously crisp and flexible, each turn of melody delightful and unexpected.

I don’t think there’s a single other song in Fagen’s catalogue—or perhaps even the entire Daniverse—that makes me feel the sort of joy that this one brings me. It makes me think of my wedding, college parties, future plans for having all of my friends in one place for one more night of music and dancing and good times. “Someday we’ll all meet at the end of the street” is how I like to think of Heaven, although I still want to know what he means by “bring your flat hat and your ax”.

On 25th May, Donald Fagen’s Kamakiriad turns thirty. GRAMMY-nominated and a commercial hit, that kudos was not mirrored by a lot of critics. It is unfair, as his second solo album has some brilliant moments! I would recommend any music fan to go and listen to it. Let us hope that we have not heard the last of Donald Fagen when it comes to music. His incredible songs make the world…

A much better place.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Paul Weller at Sixty-Five: His Finest Solo Cuts

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul Weller in 2010/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Willsher ©

Paul Weller at Sixty-Five: His Finest Solo Cuts

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I am going to start with some general biography…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

about Paul Weller, as it is important to get some background to an artist who turns sixty-five on 25th May. As part of The Jam, and The Style Council, Weller enjoyed much acclaim and success. I think some of his greatest work came from his solo career. From his eponymous 1992 album to 2021’s Fat Pop (Volume 1), Weller has released some truly incredible work. He is one of the greatest and most influential artists of his generation. Rather than do a career-spanning playlist that includes music from The Jam, and The Style Council, I am going to focus on the best of Weller’s solo work – ahead of a sixty-fifth birthday that will draw celebration from fans around the world. First, I want to bring in AllMusic’s of the mighty Modfather:

“Paul Weller began his musical career as an angry teenage punk obsessed with old records. Throughout his long career, he thrived in the place where the past meets the present, creating forward-thinking music with deep roots. When he led the Jam, the most popular British rock band of the punk era, he spun his love of the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Who into vital punk rock, spearheading the mod revival of the late 1970s. During the final days of the Jam, he developed a fascination with Motown and soul, which led him to form the sophisti-pop group the Style Council in 1983. As the Style Council's career progressed, Weller became increasingly infatuated with jazz and house music, interests that helped push the group toward the fringes of pop by the dawn of the 1990s. Weller went solo soon afterward, combining classic soul with the hippie prog rock of Traffic, coloring the margins with tasteful electronica influence. His creative rebirth coincided with the rise of Britpop, a movement rife with rockers who considered Weller a formative influence. Stanley Road, his 1995 album, turned into a multi-platinum blockbuster that gave him popular momentum for another decade, after which time he experienced another artistic renaissance with 22 Dreams. The 2008 double album sparked a series of adventurous records that blended rock, soul, and electronic music, a hybrid that could be as spacy as 2020's On Sunset or as vibrant as 2021's Fat Pop, Vol. 1.

Weller's climb back to the top of the charts as a solo artist was not easy. After Polydor rejected the Style Council's house-influenced fifth album in 1989, Weller broke up the group and lost both his record contract and his publishing deal. Over the next two years, he was in seclusion as he revamped his music. In 1991, he formed the Paul Weller Movement and released "Into Tomorrow" on his own independent label, Freedom High Records. A soulful, gritty neo-psychedelic song that represented a clear break from the Style Council, "Into Tomorrow" reached the U.K. Top 40 that spring, and he supported the single with an international tour, where he worked out the material that comprised his eponymous 1992 solo debut. Recorded with producer Brendan Lynch, Paul Weller was a joyous, soulful return to form that was recorded with several members of the Young Disciples, former Blow Monkey Dr. Robert, and Weller's then-wife, Dee C. Lee. The album debuted at number eight on the U.K. charts, and was received with positive reviews.

Wild Wood, Weller's second solo album, confirmed that the success of his solo debut was no fluke. Recorded with Ocean Colour Scene guitarist Steve Cradock, Wild Wood was a more eclectic and ambitious effort than its predecessor, and it was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, entering the charts at number two upon its fall 1993 release. The album would win the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection the following year. Weller supported the record with an extensive tour that featured Cradock as the group's leader; the guitarist's exposure on Wild Wood helped him successfully relaunch Ocean Colour Scene in 1995. At the end of the tour, Weller released the live album Live Wood late in 1994. Preceded by "The Changingman," which became his 17th Top Ten hit, 1995's Stanley Road was his most successful album since the Jam, entering the charts at number one and eventually selling nearly a million copies in the U.K.

By this point, Weller decided to stop attempting to break into the United States market and canceled his North American tour. Of course, he was doing so well in the U.K. that he didn't need to set his sights outside of it. Stanley Road may have been greeted with mixed reviews, but Weller had been re-elevated to his status as an idol, with the press claiming that he was the father of the thriving Britpop movement, and artists like Noel Gallagher of Oasis singing his praises. In fact, while neither artist released a new album in 1996, Weller's and Gallagher's influence was felt throughout the British music scene, as '60s roots-oriented bands like Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, and Kula Shaker became the most popular groups in the U.K.

Weller returned in the summer of 1997 with Heavy Soul, and Modern Classics: Greatest Hits followed a year later. Heliocentric -- which at the time of its release he claimed was his final studio effort -- appeared in the spring of 2000. The live record Days of Speed arrived in 2001, and he released his sixth studio album, Illumination, in 2002. A collection of covers called Studio 150 came out in 2004, followed by an all-new studio release, As Is Now, in October 2005 on Yep Roc. Released in 2006, Catch-Flame! Live at the Alexandra Palace preceded Yep Roc's mammoth Hit Parade box set. It was followed in 2008 by 22 Dreams, a two-disc studio epic that managed to touch on all of Weller's myriad influences. His tenth solo album, Wake Up the Nation, was released in 2010 and it proved another success, earning a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize.

His next album, Sonik Kicks, arrived in the spring of 2012; it debuted at number one in the U.K. and was eventually certified silver. The summer of 2014 brought More Modern Classics, a second solo hits compilation that rounded up the singles Weller released after Heavy Soul. The next spring, he returned with his 12th solo album, the lush, spacy Saturn's Pattern; critically acclaimed, it went to number two in the U.K. and was also certified silver. He added another string to his bow in 2017 with the release of his first motion picture score, for the low-budget drama Jawbone, a biopic of former British youth boxing champion Jimmy McCabe. Not long afterward, Weller delivered his 13th album, the soulful A Kind Revolution, which featured cameos by Robert Wyatt and Boy George.

Paul Weller quickly followed A Kind Revolution with True Meanings, an acoustic-based, orchestrated album that appeared in September 2018. He promoted True Meanings with a series of concerts at Royal Festival Hall, orchestral shows that later became the basis for the 2019 live album Other Aspects. He kicked off 2020 with In Another Room, an experimental four-song EP on the Ghost Box label, then he returned to Polydor for On Sunset, an adventurous soul-electronic hybrid that found him reuniting with Jan Kybert, who had co-produced Saturn's Pattern. Ever industrious, Weller completed his next album shortly after On Sunset's release. That record, the eclectic Fat Pop, Vol.1, featured Weller's daughter Leah, and appeared in May 2021. Right around that time, Weller presented a special concert of classic songs taken from all eras of his long career. Arranged by Jules Buckley and performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, along with Weller's longtime guitarist Steve Cradock, the show was first broadcast over the airwaves by the BBC, then released in December under the name An Orchestrated Songbook”.

On 25th May, Paul Weller turns sixty-five. I know that the legend will continue to release music for a very long time to come, as he has passion and love for what he does. I think we will see some original new music this year. Before that – and ahead of his sixty-fifth birthday -, below is a playlist with his most popular solo material and some interesting deeper cuts from his wonderful discography. Whether you are a big Paul Weller fan or not, there is no denying that the man’s solo material (and his work with The Jam, and The Style Council) is…

TRULY exceptional.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Confide in Me: Kylie Minogue at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Warner Bros. Records

Confide in Me: Kylie Minogue at Fifty-Five

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WITH 2020’s DISCO…

PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Melvin

still ringing in the ears and buzzing in the brain, we have another Kylie Minogue album on the way. DISCO was remixed and got a special edition (Guest List Edition) with extra songs featuring well-known artists. It was an album that deserved this treatment. It showed that the Australian music icon was not somebody who is in any danger of dropping the quality! Minogue announced on social media that another bold-type album, TENSION, will be out on 22nd September (most have put the album title as lowercase, but Minogue uses all upper case on her Twitter feed, so I am going with that!). Here is the news via Music Week:

“Kylie Minogue has confirmed details of her new studio album, Tension, which will be released on September 22.

The album continues her successful relationship with BMG, who helped Kylie Minogue secure No.1 peaks in the UK with her two previous studio albums, Golden (2018) and Disco (2020), as well as the collection Step Back In Time (2019).

According to the Official Charts Company, Golden has UK sales of 166,699 and Disco is on 176,116. BMG managed to grow global streaming on Disco compared to their first release with Minogue.

According to the announcement, Tension is a record of “euphoric, empowered dance floor bangers and sultry pop cuts”, which should delight her fanbase.  

Padam Padam, which opens the album, will be the first single to be released from the record.

Kylie Mingoue said: “I started this album with an open mind and a blank page. Unlike my last two albums there wasn’t a ‘theme’, it was about finding the heart or the fun or the fantasy of that moment and always trying to service the song. I wanted to celebrate each song’s individuality and to dive into that freedom. I would say it’s a blend of personal reflection, club abandon and melancholic high.”

Minogue has worked with a number of producers on the album with seven of the tracks being produced and co-written with her long-time collaborators, Biff Stannard and Duck Blackwell. 

Discussing the recording process, Kylie Minogue said: "I loved being back in the studio with my collaborators but was also able to benefit from remote recording, which we have all got used to – my mobile studio never left my side for a year and a half! The album is a mix of songs I have written and songs which really spoke to me. Making this album helped me navigate challenging times and celebrate the now. I hope it accompanies listeners on their own journeys and becomes part of their story.”

Tension tracklisting: 

Padam Padam
Hold On To Now
Things We Do For Love
Tension
One More Time
You Still Get Me High
Hands
Green Light
Vegas High
10 Out Of 10
Story”.

If DISCO was very much what the title implies in terms of sound, then TENSION seems to be something a bit more modern. DISCO was modern in a lot of ways, but it nodded back to the past. Minogue’s sixteenth album is shaping up to be something special. It has no theme, but it continues DISCO’s Dance and Disco-themed direction. In a year already dominated by female artists, one of music’s legends looks set to keep the standard sky-high and full of gold! The first single from the album, PADAM PADAM, was released this week to huge acclaim and ecstatic reaction online! I am not sure what else TENSION will offer when it comes to flavours and themes, but we are enjoying this run of different-sounding albums that show that you cannot predict Kylie Minogue – and she is definitely not the same artist that released her debut album in 1988. That album, Kylie, is thirty-five in July. From the days of Kylie, the Melbourne-born queen has come a very long way! There is another reason that I am putting out a playlist spanning her entire career. On 28th May, Kylie Minogue turns fifty-five. It is a big birthday and, coupled with this new album news, it is as good a reason as ever to compile her songs into a playlist! To mark her upcoming birthday, and the new single and exciting album coming along in September, below are Minogue’s singles and some great deeper cuts (a massive thanks to Charlotte Bond for her advice and guidance when it came to the best Minogue songs to include!). It shows that there is nobody in music who has a catalogue like her! Let’s hope that we see many more albums from an artist…

WHO has redefined Pop music.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Ninety-Seven: Charli XCX

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Ninety-Seven: Charli XCX

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AS the extraordinary…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Charli XCX with the Visionary Award with Amazon Music, at the Ivor Novello Awards 2023 on 18th May, 2023 in London/PHOTO CREDIT: PA

Charli XCX was awarded the Visionary Award with Amazon Music at the Ivors this week, I wanted to include her in Inspired By… She has no doubt inspired other artists, and is rightly considered one of the most pioneering, forward-thinking and exceptional artists of her generation. Just over a year since the release of her fifth studio album, CRASH, this award-winning and lauded artist has the world in her hands. The Cambridgeshire-born icon is someone who will release albums for many years more. I am going to come to a playlist at the end consisting of songs from artists inspired by Charli XCX. Before that, AllMusic provide us with some biography about this wonderful and hugely original artist:

“Straddling the most experimental and mainstream sides of pop with ease, Charli XCX is just as comfortable working with cutting-edge producers like A.G. Cook as she is touring with Taylor Swift. As a songwriter and collaborator, she helped create some of the biggest pop singles of the 2010s, including Icona Pop's 2012 smash "I Love It" and Iggy Azalea's 2014 chart-topping hit "Fancy." As an artist in her own right, her work spanned the edgy sounds of her 2013 debut album, True Romance, to the more straightforward territory of 2014's follow-up Sucker, which featured the U.S. Top Ten single "Boom Clap." As the decade unfolded, she only became more prolific and eclectic. Along with founding her own label, Vroom Vroom, she issued EPs and mixtapes, including 2017's Pop 2, that allowed her to combine the different sides of her music in a fittingly freewheeling way -- a direction she continued on 2020's acclaimed how i'm feeling now and 2022's Crash, which revisited '90s and 2000s pop foundations of her style.

Born in Cambridge, England, to a Scottish father and a Gujarati Indian mother, Charlotte Aitchison began writing songs when she was 14. By 2008, she was posting her tracks online and performing at raves, taking her MSN Messenger user name as her alias. That year, she released a pair of singles, "Emelline/Art Bitch" and "!Franchesckaar!," and recorded her first album, which she sold at concerts but was never released officially. She returned in 2011 with the singles "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons," both of which were produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, and appeared on Starkey's "Lost in Space" and Alex Metric's "End of the World." She also issued the mixtapes Super Girls, Super Love, and I Like Boys Who Cry, which respectively gathered the female and male artists who shaped her music.

Charli XCX's first original mixtape, Heartbreaks and Earthquakes, arrived in May 2012 and was followed by her U.S. debut EP, You're the One, and another mixtape, November's Super Ultra. Later that year, she scored her biggest hit to date when she appeared on Icona Pop's single "I Love It," which she co-wrote. It became one of the year's biggest songs, hitting number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and topping the U.K. singles chart. Her debut album, True Romance, arrived in April 2013. Featuring production by Rechtshaid, Joakim Åhlund, and Blood Diamonds, the album reached number 85 on the U.K. Albums chart, was a top 20 hit in Australia, and reached number five on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.

Though True Romance earned critical acclaim, Charli XCX was already working on her next album later that year, with collaborators as diverse as Weezer, Stargate, and Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij; she issued the single "Superlove" in December. Her big break came in 2014, when she collaborated with Iggy Azalea on the single "Fancy." The song became both artists' first number one on Billboard's Hot 100 that May (Aitchison also co-wrote "Beg for It," which appeared on Azalea's Reclassified and featured Danish singer/songwriter MØ). Also that month, XCX released the single "Boom Clap," which introduced a more straightforward pop sound. Featured on the soundtrack to the film adaptation of the young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars, it charted in the Top Ten in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, becoming her biggest solo hit to date. The single also appeared on the pop-punk influenced full-length Sucker, which arrived that December. Along with "Boom Clap," the album spawned several more singles, including "Break the Rules," "Famous," and 'Doing It," featuring Rita Ora. Sucker reached the Top 30 on the U.S. Billboard 200, and peaked at number 15 on the U.K. albums chart.

During this time, Charli XCX further established herself as a songwriter and collaborator, penning the Iggy Azalea/MØ track "Beg for It," as well as songs for Gwen Stefani and Rihanna. In 2015, she appeared on Ty Dolla $ign's single "Drop That Kitty" alongside Tinashe and collaborated with Mr. Oizo on his Hand in the Fire EP. Early in 2016, XCX launched her boutique label, Vroom Vroom, releasing an EP by the same name that featured Hannah Diamond and SOPHIE, and singles by RIVRS and Cuckoolander. That year, PC Music's A.G. Cook became Charli XCX's creative director. In October 2016, she released the single "After the Afterparty," the lead track from her scheduled third album; peaking at number 29 on the U.K. Singles Chart, it received silver certification from the BPI. Along with writing two tracks for Blondie's album Pollinator ("Gravity" and "Tonight"), in 2017 XCX released the Number 1 Angel mixtape, which featured contributions by MØ and CupcakKe that March. Around that time, she also appeared on Mura Masa's single "1 Night." Later in the year, the songs from her upcoming third album leaked, leading XCX to cancel the project entirely. A second mixtape, Pop 2, followed that December, and included the single "Out of My Head," featuring Alma and Tove Lo.

In 2018, Charli XCX joined the star-studded single "Girls" with Rita Ora, Cardi B, and Bebe Rexha, later releasing her own singles "5 in the Morning," "Focus," and "Girls Night Out." She also joined Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour as an opener. To close out her year, she issued the single "1999," a collaboration with Troye Sivan that became a Top 40 hit in the U.S. and climbed into the Top 20 around the globe. The song appeared on Charli XCX's third album, which also featured Lizzo, Christine and the Queens, Sky Ferreira, and Yaeji as well as producers including PC Music's A.G. Cook, Easyfun, and Stargate. The simply named Charli arrived in September 2019, and debuted at number 14 on the U.K. charts; in the U.S., it appeared in the Top 50 of the Billboard 200. In addition, she collaborated with BTS' Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook on "Dream Glow," a song from the soundtrack to the group's mobile game BTS World.

Early in 2020, Charli XCX collaborated with Galantis and 100 gecs and was working on her next album, but when the global COVID-19 pandemic required her -- and much of the world -- to shelter in place starting in March 2020, she changed gears. Along with conducting live chats with artists including Orville Peck and Rina Sawayama on her social media platforms, she used her fans' input to test out a new set of songs for an album she completed during quarantine. With production assists from Cook, BJ Burton and 100 gecs' Dylan Brady among others, how i'm feeling now arrived in May 2020 and evoked the spontaneous feel of her mixtapes. The album reached number 33 in the U.K. and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. In 2021, XCX collaborated on the track "Spinning" with No Rome and the 1975 before releasing her own stand-alone song, "Good Ones." For her final album with Atlantic Records, 2021's Crash, Aitchison drew upon an expectedly long list of guest features, including A. G. Cook, Caroline Polachek, Christine and the Queens, and Oneohtrix Point Never. The album reached number 33 on the U.K. Albums chart, and its widespread acclaim included a place on the Mercury Prize shortlist. Along with co-writing and performing on Jax Jones and Joel Corry's single "Out Out," in 2021 XCX also appeared on No Rome's "Spinning" with the 1975 and a version of Elio's "Charger." That September, she issued "Good Ones," the first single from her album Crash. Arriving in March 2022, it also included the Rina Sawayama collaboration "Beg for You" and "New Shapes," which featured Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek, as well as production work by Cook, Rechtshaid, and Oneohtrix Point Never”.

In honour of the recipient of the Ivor Academy’s Visionary Award, I wanted to spotlight and celebrated the influence of Charli XCX. She is one of the world’s biggest artists, but she is someone who very much has her own direction and does not do what is considered ‘mainstream’ or ‘commercial’. The playlist below is a salute to Charli XCX. There is no doubt that she is…

A hugely influential visionary.

FEATURE: Leisure, to The Ballad of Darren… Ranking Blur’s Album Lead Singles

FEATURE:

 

 

Leisure, to The Ballad of Darren…

Ranking Blur’s Album Lead Singles

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NOBODY at the start of this week…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Blur in 2023: Alex James, Graham Coxon, Damon Albarn and Dave Rowntree/PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben Bastienne-Lewis

expected that we’d get news from Blur that they have a new album coming out! They have played a gig at Colchester Arts Centre last night - where it was rapturously received and reviewed! The band are preparing for gigs at Wembley Stadium in July. Their new album, The Ballad of Darren, is out on 21st July. The lead single, The Narcissist, was premiered on Steve Lamacq’s BBC Radio 6 Music show on Thursday. The single went out just before 5 p.m. It was an amazing revelation from the band! Before I get to the point of this feature, NME were among those who reported the news of Blur’s new phase and album:

“Blur have announced details of a surprise new album ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ and shared the first single ‘The Narcissist’.

The returning Britpop legends first announced their comeback back in November with news of a huge Wembley Stadium show – before going on to reveal a second date at the venue before a run of European festival shows and an intimate UK warm-up tour,  which kicks off in their hometown of Colchester tomorrow (Friday May 19).

Now, the band have revealed that the 10-track ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ will arrive on 21 July via Parlophone, and is available for pre-order here. The band’s first album since 2015’s ‘The Magic Whip‘ comes previewed by the single ‘The Narcissist’ – a moderately-paced bittersweet track reminiscent of the alt-rock leanings of 2003’s ‘Think Tank’.

The band’s ninth album was produced by James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Foals, Depeche Mode) and recorded at Studio 13 in London and Devon. Speaking about the making of the record, the band said that it found them taking a stock of their relationship

Frontman Damon Albarn described ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ as “an aftershock record” loaded with “reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now”, while guitarist Graham Coxon said: “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention. Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job”.

You can pre-order The Ballad of Darren. Following 2015’s The Magic Whip, this will be the group’s ninth studio album. I am excited to see what comes from that album. Their first gig since announcing the album went down a storm! Preparing for the Wembley shows, all eyes are on the sensational Blur. Because The Narcissist is out and is different to any other lead single they have released, I wanted to order them. Here is my ranking of Blur’s…

ALBUM lead singles.

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NINE: Go Out (The Magic Whip)

Single Release Date: 19th February, 2015

Producers: Stephen Street/Graham Coxon/Damon Albarn

Album Release Date: 27th April, 2015

Labels: Parlophone/Warner Bros.

Highest Chart Position: 64 (Belgium (Ultratip Bubbling Under Wallonia)

Critical Reception:

“Its fair to say that the return of britpop heroes Blur caught just about everyone off guard. The news of a headline spot at this year’s British Summer Time festival and the impending arrival of their 8th studio album ‘Magic Whip’ seemed almost spontaneous, but finally brought an end to a lengthy period of speculation over the band’s future.

While ‘Go Out’ is merely a tasty morsel of what’s to come, it gives us a reminder (as if we needed one) of why this announcement is cause for celebration. Coxon’s guitar wails and groans before collapsing under its own weight into a bubbling swamp of futuristic synth. A chorus of ‘o-o-o-ohs’ ushers proceedings forwards before Damon interjects with his distinctive estuary swagger. Throughout, it treads the line between grunge and post punk, but splateered with just enough whimsy to keep your attention.

It’s far from their most elegant work but that’s not to say it’s flimsy. Every chiming guitar stab, every howl of screeching feedback has been meticulously placed and to intriguing effect. Rough and ready it might be, but one thing is for sure – it’s inimitably Blur. Welcome back, gents. It’s been too long” – The Indiependent

EIGHT: Country House (The Great Escape)

Single Release Date: 14th August, 1995

Producer: Stephen Street

Album Release Date: 11th September, 1995

Labels: Food/Parlophone

Highest Chart Position: 1 (UK Singles (OCC)

Critical Reception:

“You can see why Country House winds people up. Thanks to the 1995 chart battle with Oasis's lumpen Roll With It, it was released on a tidal wave of hype unrivalled in British pop. Added to that, it's got oompah-brass, cor-blimey vocals, Damon Albarn's pleased-with-himself lyrics and a video seemingly set inside Alex James's head. Even the band didn't seem to like it – once they moved on to to the noisier fare of 1997's Blur album, Country House was banished from the live set, much to the relief of Graham Coxon who'd been attempting to "turn it into thrash metal" on a nightly basis.

It's worth another look, though. Far from being a knocked-out knees-up, Country House is deceptively complex and completely bonkers. It's the second chorus where things get weird – Albarn's chirpy hook about "a very big house in the country" is backed by a falsetto counter, "blow, blow me out I am so sad, I don't know why", both disconcerting and wonderfully melancholy, leading into Coxon's queasiest guitar solo, a discordant, seasick riff of scarttershot notes and fractured scales seemingly beamed in from Sonic Youth or Pavement. The effect is a splash of genuine art-school creativity oddly absent from Damien Hirst's accompanying video, and totally at odds with what Britpop was supposed to be about by that point. Shed Seven could never have done it. The "Blow, blow me out"s return for the breakdown, underpinned by Coxon's chiming guitar to create a ghostly harmony that's more Pink Floyd than Lily the Pink. Even the late arrival of a Madness brass section can't wreck the magic.

When you read Liam Gallagher's famous dismissal of Blur as "chimney-sweep music", this is the track that comes to mind and you can see what he meant. But Country House has everything that made (and makes) Blur fascinating: the common touch, the terrace chorus, the arched eyebrow, the weirdness, the art-school sound, the desire to annoy and to fit in and to lead the field, to be the outsider and the everyman, all at once. It's never completely satisfying, but it's the confidence and the contradictions that save it” – The Guardian

SEVEN: She's So High (Leisure)

Single Release Date: 15th October, 1990

Producer: Steve Lovell

Album Release Date: 26th August, 1991

Label: Food

Highest Chart Position: 48 (UK Chart Singles)

Critical Reception:

“Besides the title track, the CD version contained one other cut also appearing on the 12" release, "I Know." Instead of "Sing," though, "Down" was the third song that appeared here. Designed as a more or less open homage to My Bloody Valentine, Coxon's guitar takes on some of the low-end surge and sprawl familiar from Kevin Shields' own efforts at blowing out speaker stacks. James and Rowntree aim for head-nodding vibes more immediately familiar from, say, early Loop at half the volume or intensity, while Albarn's woozy vocals suit the general air of psychoactive reaction. Compared to real mind melters from, say, Spacemen 3, this is pretty light going, but it's still a worthy listen and one of the better Blur B-sides” – AllMusic

SIX: Girls & Boys (Parklife)

Single Release Date: 7th March, 1994

Producer: Stephen Street

Album Release Date: 25th April, 1994

Label: Food

Highest Chart Position: 4 (US Alternative Airplay (Billboard)

Critical Reception:

“AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described "Girls & Boys" as "undeniably catchy" and "one of the best (songs) Blur ever recorded", praising the band for making the song "feel exactly like Eurotrash", and stating that the chorus was "an absolutely devastating put-down of '90s gender-bending, where even ambi-sexuals didn't know whose fantasy they were fulfilling." Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "Alternative band takes a detour into clubland with an amusing, word-twisting ditty fleshed out with a trance-like synth energy and a hard, syncopated beat, courtesy of the Pet Shop Boys. Way-hip single's primary selling point is the brain-numbing refrain "girls who want boys like boys to be girls who do boys like they're girls who do girls like they're boys." Try saying that three times fast. A good bet for dancefloor action, track should also get a crack at pop/crossover radio." Troy J. Augusto from Cash Box felt that "this track will light up dance floors first, with top-40 and even some experimental urban radio stations close behind. Not what we've come to expect from this quirky guitar-pop combo, which is part of the appeal here. And don't be surprised if RuPaul records a cover of this tasty gem." Chuck Campbell from Knoxville News Sentinel wrote in his review of Parklife, "That great song, "Girls & Boys", is a twisting, slapping, lusty and instantly satisfying neo-disco track featuring Graham Coxon's teasing guitar and Damon Albarn's endearing vocals." He added, "Those who allow Parklife to continue playing after the conclusion of "Girls & Boys" will be disappointed initially, because nothing else on the album is so acutely infectious."

Steve Hochman from Los Angeles Times praised it as a "delightfully sly single". Pan-European magazine Music & Media viewed it as a "comical pastiche on '80s "new romantics"." Martin Aston from Music Week gave it four out of five, complimenting it as "an irresistibly feisty pop bite and, as such, a probable Top 10 hit.” John Kilgo from The Network Forty described it as an "outstanding, infectious" tune. Paul Evans from Rolling Stone felt it is "echoing '80s synth pop". Sylvia Patterson from Smash Hits rated it four out of five, writing, "An organ-grinder of synth pings and guitar perks which sounds just like Elastica (whose singer Damon snogs). It is the sound of Now! (ie 1982) which was a good sound so that's all right. Sort of." Rob Sheffield from Spin described the song as "a scrumptiously sleek Duran-gänger, sounding exactly like the Fab Five circa "Planet Earth" and "Hungry Like the Wolf"." He added, "Over a Eurodisco bass line, vocalist Damon Albarn croons about a beach full of teenagers stewing in their own auto-erotic juices: "Nothing is wasted / Only reproduced / You get nasty blisters / Deep obsession, but we haven't been introduced"."[28] James Hunter from Vibe called it a "brilliant turn on new wave disco that boasts the year's best bent guitars. They bounce all this into a great English, um, blur” – Wikipedia

FIVE: Beetlebum (Blur)

Single Release Date: 20th January, 1997

Producer: Stephen Street

Album Release Date: 10th February, 1997

Label: Food

Highest Chart Position: 1 (UK Singles (OCC)

Critical Reception:

“The question “what happens after Britpop?” wasn’t just an urgent one for the music press and the new bands courting it. It was also fairly pressing for the Britpop bands themselves, Blur in particular. Whoever’s idea it had been, the marketing triumph of Summer ’95 had a lingering and unexpected consequence: once conjured, the Blur/Oasis rivalry could not be easily controlled. The two bands were now bound together as if by some dreadful oath – each liable to be measured on the other’s latest achievements, however irrelevant the comparison.

In 1996 this had done Blur no favours. Sales of The Great Escape would have stood solidly alongside any contemporary LP – except the only one it would actually be compared to. The band, once fawned-over, found themselves exposed to less generous readings from critics – their Britpop-era work a trilogy that had dragged on too long and failed to stick the landing.

“Beetlebum”, when it first appeared, was pressed into this storyline too. Taking some faint clue from the harmonies (and, to be fair, the title) I remember some critics positioning it as a landgrab on White Album-era Beatles: the knotty, raw, arty part of the Beatle legacy that Oasis would never touch. Sense prevailed when the LP came out, and it became more obvious that the band were playing greedy catch-up with all the ideas that had come out of American indie rock in the 90s. They came to bury Britpop, not to extend it.

From this point, the Oasis link began to work in their favour, even as they played it down. Nobody would deny that in the fallout of Britpop, Damon Albarn embraced his magpie side and started hopping across projects and genres with liberated abandon. But because the band most easily linked with Blur became such a byword for bloody-minded non-invention, Albarn’s experimentation within that band was cast in a particularly friendly light. If the most readily-recalled alternative was a shambolic living museum, it’s easy to look at experimenting with indie rock, post-rock or gospel as good things by definition, rather than ask “OK, what does he actually do with them?”

So, on “Beetlebum”, what does he do with his inspirations? On a structural level, it’s rather good: Blur are writing a song using standard post-Nirvana dynamics, with surly, choppy verses that ought to flare into rage on the chorus, but instead bloom into sleepy, burnt-out neo-psychedelic harmonies. Two different parts of the alt.rock landscape, brought together on a Number One hit. It’s admirable and effective, but I also find “Beetlebum” extremely hard to like.

My problem with it is Albarn himself. As well as the social observation songs, and the character songs, he’s always built tracks around ennui and exhaustion, and often they’re his best (“To The End” and “This Is A Low” for instance). As his songwriting seemed to get more personal later in the 90s, though, I found less of a way into these songs. Perhaps because he’d been an effective observer, or perhaps just because he’d been a callous one, I could never get invested in hearing Damon Albarn bare his soul. “Beetlebum” is supposedly written to capture Albarn’s experiences with heroin, which might justify its sullen, self-enclosed feel, but even given that unpromising topic there’s no rock junkie whose drug memories I’d be less interested in. As I said on the “Country House” thread, empathy was never his strong suit – and that goes for eliciting it as well as feeling it.

However unusually-crafted “Beetlebum” is, or however odd seeing it at No.1 was (odd, though not unexpected – this is a fanbase record in an era friendly to them), I find listening to it a cold, unrewarding experience. Or I would, if not for one thing: Graham Coxon’s aggressive guitar work. Competing with Albarn’s listless vocal for too much of the song, he still gives “Beetlebum” its two highpoints. There’s that purposefully ugly, stabbing intro, his guitar scraping at a fixed point like a compass into wood. And there’s the coda, where his plaintive closing riff struggles to keep its bearings on a tide of hostile, skronky overdubs. These parts are thrilling where the rest of the song is sulky, and point to a way out of the Britpop trap that’s spurred by invention, not hurt pride.

Score: 5” – Freaky Trigger

FOUR: Out of Time (Think Tank)

Single Release Date: 14th April, 2003

Producers: Blur/Ben Hillier

Album Release Date: 5th May, 2003

Label: Parlophone

Highest Chart Position: 5 (UK Singles (OCC)

Critical Reception:

“Out of Time" was met with positive reviews from music critics. Alex Needham from NME called it the band's "most straightforwardedly touching single for ages", while Paul Moody from the same magazine praised the song too, stating that Albarn "sings in a voice so pure, clear and welcoming you want to have a shower in it", and "suddenly 'Songbird' doesn't sound so clever after all". Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine thought that "Out of Time" is "lovely", whereas Barry Walters from Rolling Stone called it a "gorgeously mournful single". Kitty Empire of The Observer called it an excellent example of Blur's emancipation, being "saturated with new sounds but faithful to melody". She also deemed the song "a great ballad, intimate and live-sounding, in the tradition of great Albarn ballads like 'Tender' or 'To the End'". According to BBC Music's Dan Tallis, the song is "a perfect pop song and the band struggle to better it". He continued saying that "you only have to listen to 'Out Of Time' a couple of times for it to become embedded in your brain; the dreamy vocals and gentle African drum beat soothe and calm your mind". Andy Greenwald from Spin claimed that "Out of Time" is "the album's highlight", describing the song as "failure-soaked" and "heart-stoppingly lovely".

Devon Powers of PopMatters described the track as "a much more straightforward, apace ballad" compared to the previous song on the album, "Ambulance". Rob Brunner from Entertainment Weekly commented that Albarn's "heartfelt vocals" make up for "sappy" lyrics, while Paste's Jeff Elbel called the track the finest moment on Think Tank. Andrew Future of Drowned in Sound commented that the song "is content to swoon around the string-laiden waves of its own longing beauty, but only reveals its full worth after repeated visits". Similarly, Jeres from Playlouder noted that it "is the best Blur single in ages, but it requires more than a few listens". Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork called the song a "majestic, snaking" song, but noted that it "relies less on the lugubrious, Gibraltar-docked solo than the vast, four-dimensional environment surrounding it". Alexis Petridis from The Guardian deemed it a "doleful and world-weary on" song. In a less positive review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic called the track a "hushed, melancholic elegy in the same vein as 'To the End' and 'Tender', though not as good as either" – Wikipedia

THREE: The Narcissist (The Ballad of Darren)

Single Release Date: 18th May, 2023

Producer: James Ford

Album Release Date: 21st July, 2023

Labels: Parlophone/Warner Bros.

Chart Position: T.B.C.

Critical Reception:

“There are two sides to Blur’s sporadic reunions. There are the live shows – Glastonbury in 2009, a trawl around the world’s festivals in 2012, a global arena tour in 2015, an unexpected one-off performance at one of Damon Albarn’s Africa Express events in 2019 – which are reliably rapturously received: a chance, as Graham Coxon recently put it to “revisit all those great songs”, complete with a distinct emotional charge driven by nostalgia and the evidence that the once-fractured relationships within the band have been mended. And then there is the issue of recording and releasing new material.

By far the most adventurous band among Britpop’s big league, willing to change and push forward in a way their peers seldom were, it doesn’t fit Blur’s profile to reconstitute purely as a heartwarming exercise in nostalgia. But their actual recording process has been fraught since re-forming in 2008. Blur were reported to have made three attempts to record a new album, but only three songs emerged, as limited edition singles; Albarn apparently called time on album sessions in 2012 midway through recording, much to the chagrin of producer William Orbit. Albarn likewise suggested that the tracks recorded at impromptu 2013 sessions in Hong Kong would constitute “one of those records that never comes out”, before Coxon completed the music in secret and invited the singer to add lyrics: Albarn looked faintly surprised to be at the hastily arranged press conference that announced 2015’s acclaimed The Magic Whip.

Perhaps the issue is the weight of expectation, and not merely because of the music they made in the 90s. Blur’s two chief protagonists have pursued impressively eclectic solo paths; Albarn in particular has made a career out of refusing to stand still, so the standard reunion album practice of warming over former glories, creating a memory-jogging simulacrum of the past, won’t cut it. Under the circumstances, you can see why Blur chose to record a new album in secret, suddenly announcing it months after another set of reunion shows went on sale. Entitled The Ballad of Darren and being released on 21 July, Albarn has called it rather gnomically “an aftershock record; reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now”.

The first track to be released from it, The Narcissist, is both less understated than the singles they released in 2012, and less confounding than Go Out, the largely tune-free, feedback-drenched track that heralded the arrival of The Magic Whip. It’s also more straightforward than that album’s more experimental moments (Pyongyang or Thought I Was a Spaceman), chugging along on a two-chord Coxon riff and a metronomic, vaguely motorik rhythm track, before rising into a gently anthemic chorus. If you were forced at gunpoint to compare it to a 90s Blur single, you’d probably pick Coffee and TV” – The Guardian

TWO: Tender (13)

Single Release Date: 22nd February, 1999

Producer: William Orbit

Album Release Date: 15th March, 1999

Labels: Food/Parlophone

Highest Chart Position: 2 (UK Singles (OCC)

Critical Reception:

“The song was awarded “Single of the Fortnight” in Smash Hits, writing: “At seven-and-three-quarter minutes, Tender is at least two too long, but it’s still the best skiffle-folk hymn of the year so far!” Chuck Taylor of Billboard called it a “huge departure” for the band and a “stellar piece of work,” whose sound is reminiscent of the late-‘60s and early-‘70s. He wrote: “it’s simply a polished, well-produced tip of the hat to a time when British pop stars could sing… and play tinny guitar solos without irony.[12] Sarah Davis of Dotmusic called it a “breath of fresh air” and a “beautiful hymn of consolation,” while noting its similarity to “Give Peace a Chance” by John Lennon. “Tender” was nominated in the category of Best British Single at the 2000 BRIT Awards. However, the award was won by Robbie Williams for “She’s the One” – Wikipedia

ONE: For Tomorrow (Modern Life Is Rubbish)

Single Release Date: 19th April, 1993

Producer: Stephen Street

Album Release Date: 10th May, 1993

Labels: Food/SBK (U.S.)

Highest Chart Position: 28 (UK Single Chart)

Critical Reception:

“The lead single ‘For Tomorrow’ is a microcosm of the whole project. Rightfully the opener, the track carries a glam rock edge with Albarn’s vocal delivery reminiscent of David Bowie circa 1971-72, with lush strings that colour the song, heightening its melodic grandeur. It’s a delightful presentation of the sickening humdrum of an ordinary day where boys and girls are “holding on for tomorrow”, a better, brighter tomorrow” – The Indiependent