FEATURE: Major Feelings: Saluting the Incredible Rina Sawayama

FEATURE:

 

 

Major Feelings

PHOTO CREDIT: Olivia Lifungula for The New York Times 

Saluting the Incredible Rina Sawayama

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I will end with a playlist…

PHOTO CREDIT: Han Yang for Who What Wear

featuring some of her best songs, as the amazing Rina Sawayama celebrates her birthday on 16th August. There are a few reasons why I want to discuss Rina Sawayama. In addition to it being her birthday soon, she has made the music news recently. One big reason is that she has called out another artist on the Dirty Hit label, Matty Healy. The 1975 lead is not short of controversy. This is not the first time that Sawayama has taken a shot against Healy. Here is a history of their changing relationship. It is clear that, whilst Matty Healy has some musical influence and has been important when it comes to the career of artists like Rina Sawayama, he is someone who needs to be taken to task. With so many different controversies surrounding him, he is still seen in the media as a bit of a hero. Not many articles take against him or ask him to explain himself. Since he was exposed for making racist and sexist comments he has, rather weakly, said he will change – that he is not that same person as he was then. I don’t think many people believe that for a second! There is a lot about him that is quite unsettling. Whilst many do love the music of The 1975 and they are a very popular band, how many high-profile artists like Healy are challenged and punished for their problems and controversies?! Rina Sawayama recently called out Healy again during a recent performance:

“During her Glastonbury performance, Rina Sawayama took a moment before playing her song "STFU" to address controversial comments that Matty Healy had recently made.

“I wrote this next song because I was sick and tired of microaggressions," she said. "So, tonight, this song goes out to a white man who watches [pornography series] Ghetto Gaggers and mocks Asian people on a podcast. He also owns my masters. I’ve had enough."

In a fan-captured video during their performance at TRNSMT Festival on Sunday (9 July), in the part of The 1975's set where Healy begins to say something controversial before being cut off by his bandmates, he appeared to acknowledge Sawayama's video.

Towards the end of "STFU", with the intro of Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" playing in the background, Sawayama spoke out against Healy for the second time.

“So I was thinking a lot about apologies. It’s just funny how some people get away with not apologising ever, for saying some racist shit, for saying some sexist shit... Why don’t you apologise for once in your life without making it about your fucking self?”.

Not that this applies only to male artists, but there is a certain leeway applied to them if they are accused or racism, sexism or misogyny. Whilst there is plenty of judgment and attack against Healy on social media, there is not a huge amount of condemnation from the industry. Not too many other artists calling him out. That seems a shame! Not that he is being protected but, as a famous artist, is there this sense that he is untouchable and is just being a Rock star?! That is just his way, isn’t it?! He is this rebel and outspoken figure, so what does it matter if he does a few things that raise eyebrows?! This does seem to be such a casual attitude from many. I don’t think it should take a labelmate like Rina Sawayama to almost stand alone in the industry in challenging Healy. There are other artists around at the moment who are equally unpleasant and offensive. It annoys me how it is always women who have to challenge and speak about male artists’ offenses and prejudices. There does seem to be more awareness from male artists and other men in the industry – even if there have been a few that have come out and spoke against Matty Healy. Rather than make this all about one musical minnow, I wanted to celebrate Rina Sawayama. She is an amazing and inspiring artist who, in 2020, was excluded from the Mercury Prize shortlist and BRIT nominations for her debut, SAWAYAMA. The rules have now changed, so that artists who have been a resident in the U.K. for five years or more, even if they are not a British citizen, are eligible.

That means, I think, that artists such as BC Camplight are eligible for Mercury inclusion. I hope that he is, but I am not 100% sure about how long Brian Christinzio has resided in Manchester. I suspect that it is more than five years now. He would be eligible (“2.1 Artists must be of British or Irish nationality. Artists are considered to be of British or Irish nationality if (i) they hold a passport for either the United Kingdom or Ireland and/or were born in the United Kingdom or Ireland (“British” or “Irish” respectively) or (ii) they have been permanently resident in the United Kingdom or Ireland for more than 5 years”). I now need to revise my Mercury predictions list, as BC Camplight’s The Last Rotation of Earth would be eligible and worthy. Whereas Rina Sawayama was excluded in 2020, she is obviously eligible now. I think that her second album, Hold the Girl, is going to be one of the dozen shortlisted. It is surely going to be one of the favourites if it makes the list! One of the best albums of last year, it confirmed that she is one of our very best artists. I wanted to highlight her amazing work. Hold the Girl is an album that you really do need. I want to quote a review for that album, before getting to a recent interview. This is what CLASH said about the awe-inspiring Hold the Girl:

“Rina Sawayama is an artist consistently pushing the boundaries of what pop music can be, blending a myriad of styles from hyperpop to nu-metal, all while juggling collaborations with everyone from Elton John to Charli XCX. Debut album, 2020’s ‘SAWAYAMA’, encapsulated this genre-fluid ideology and was executed extremely well. Critical acclaim ensued, among Mercury Prize dramata. 2022 delivers (the dreaded) sophomore LP ‘Hold The Girl’, which is once again an album that refuses to play by the rules and has Rina Sawayama doing whatever she wants. And the result is one of the best pop records of the year.

‘Hold The Girl’ ignites with sombre opener ‘Minor Feelings’, which shows Sawayama crooning over delicate guitars and synths, before exploding into an anti-climax. No loud drums or screaming guitars solos like we’ve become familiar with (see debut opener ‘Dynasty’), but a choral-tinted outro (very of the time). It transitions into the title track ‘Hold the Girl’ via some fountain sounds, and the title track has Sawayama kicking the pop factor to one hundred. Centred around a 2-step rhythm and classic garage vocal chops, Sawayama blazes through some of her best vocal performances to date and the track delivers hooks galore. ‘This Hell’ also delivers infectious hooks and is clearly a track created for a live environment.

While Rina Sawayama continues to rule as Dirty Hit’s pop princess, she is also refusing to do only that. Cuts like ‘Catch Me In The Air’ and ‘Forgiveness’ lean more into soft and pop rock territory, without ever losing her pop polish. ‘Forgiveness’, especially, crashes into a raucous breakdown, balancing delightful theatrics with crunchy guitars and synthesisers. Contrastingly, she also knows how to write a great ballad. ‘Send My Love To John’ is the token ‘slow song’ on the record but supplies arguably Rina Sawayama’s best studio vocal performance ever. ‘Send My Love’ balances folky guitars, and has some amazing riffing work vocally from Sawayama. The Cohen-esque melody lifts adds a nostalgic element, an unexpected but welcomed juxtaposition to the high-intensity modern sounds of the rest of the record.

Closer ‘To Be Alive’ seems to a track that is bridging the gap between hyperpop and mainstream pop – an event that many have been awaiting. The melodies are inherently pop, but the glitchy and beautifully jarring aspects of the beat tease the realms of hyperpop. The sporadic snare hits toward the back end of the track are reminiscent of the late SOPHIE’s incredible work, and the plucky synths wouldn’t be out of place on a PC Music project.

‘Hold The Girl’ is a record that holds something for everyone. Rock riffs, club beats, saccharine melodies, 2000s pop… it truly covers a lot of ground. Like debut record ‘SAWAYAMA’, this sophomore LP does a bit of everything, but this time around feels more refined, consistent and polished: exactly what a follow up should be. And on a label roster saturated with enormous amounts of talent, Rina Sawayama is making a pretty good claim to being the ruler.

9/10”.

For their July Issue, British Vogue caught up with Rina Sawayama. Not only did she get the BRITs and Mercury Prize to change their rules about eligibility. She has always opened doors for other queer Asian artist. A definite role model and inspiration for so many people out there. Ahead of a possible Mercury nomination on 27th July (and her birthday next month), we need to celebrate this incredible artist:

“Since blasting down pop fans’ doors with her breakout 2017 EP, Rina – an exhilarating blend of bubblegum melodies, industrial guitars and lyrics charting the anxieties of online life – Sawayama has established herself as part of a new generation of pop stars reshaping the industry model to fit their own Mugler-clad mould. (So much so, in fact, she convinced the Brit Awards and Mercury Prize to change an arcane set of rules that excluded her, as a Japanese citizen but a near lifelong British resident, and others like her from competing.)

Next came her debut album, Sawayama, in 2020, which received overwhelming critical acclaim – oh, and led to a much-deserved Brit nomination in 2021. “Everything was so exciting,” she recalls of her head-spinning ascent, which saw her return to live shows after the pandemic to play venues 10 times the size as before, decked out in avant-garde cowboy gear and kaleidoscopic Vivienne Westwood bodysuits.

“When the world started to open up, everyone just did everything they could – with work, with their social lives… I went full force.” That also included a role in John Wick: Chapter 4, opposite Keanu Reeves, a collaboration with self-confessed superfan Elton John and taking her chopped-and-screwed Y2K style all the way to the front rows of Schiaparelli and Balenciaga at Paris Fashion Week. (“In my day-to-day life, I could honestly just have a capsule wardrobe and I’d be happy,” she says of her style. “But on stage, I’m all about the gag.”)

It’s not surprising, then, that she began to hit a wall while promoting her second record, Hold the Girl, last autumn. “I think I did over a hundred interviews, almost,” she says of the lead up to the album, which charted more personal terrain, including the re-parenting therapy she’d recently undergone to address childhood trauma. “It was not OK. I was just saying the same shit over and over – and when you repeat the same thing, even if you’re saying it in different ways, you start muddying what the actual record means to you.”

When I meet Sawayama, at a west London café, however, she’s feeling upbeat: perhaps because she’s been spending her time a million miles away from the flurry of stages and red carpets that have defined her year so far. “I’ve mostly been in Wickes,” she says, describing her latest obsession – powerwashing her deck – over a plate of potato waffles. “I’m a DIY girl now.”

The time she’s been able to spend with her tight-knit circle of queer friends during this current two-month break, she explains, has been especially grounding. While Sawayama came out as bisexual to that same group upon graduating from the University of Cambridge – “Having them, my chosen family, and being able to express myself… my body and my mind, was like, I feel safe to come out now,” she remembers – it was the release of her 2018 single “Cherry”, a butterflies-in-stomach ode to infatuation, that saw her introduce herself as pansexual to the wider world. “It doesn’t really matter what your gender expression is to me,” she explains of the term, adding that her understanding of it was prompted, in part, by close friends coming out as nonbinary. “Because it’s a new-ish term, people are still coming to grips with what it exactly means – but if I’m attracted to you, then that’s it, really.”

The weight of expectation placed on Sawayama as one of the few queer Asian musicians in the public eye has come to feel like less of a minefield than it once was too – a shift she describes as “freeing”. “Now, I don’t really think about it,” she says. “Although recently some guy I met in the music industry in America said, ‘You should be getting more commercial opportunities, because you tick so many diversity boxes.’ And I was like…” Sawayama pauses between a bite of waffle to pull a bemused side-eye.

“We’re still not where I want to be, but I think even since I started in music there’s so much more representation now,” she continues, reeling off a list that includes Parasite and Squid Game. “Seeing Blackpink headline Coachella… I could not have imagined that as a teenager – it’s huge. It’s nice to not have that pressure and just enjoy all the art that Asian people are making”.

From calling out a labelmate in need whose opinions and disgraces need to be put under the microscope, to a phenomenal second studio album, to the way she has inspired change and progress in the industry, the stunning Rina Sawayama should be treasured and cherished! Mixing the high-octane and thrilling with intimacy and personality, there are few out there like her. The phenomenal Rina Sawayama is definitely…

A modern icon.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Mick Jagger at Eighty: The Best of The Rolling Stones

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Mick Jagger at Eighty: The Best of The Rolling Stones

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ON 26th July…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Mick Jagger photographed in 1964 by David Bailey

one of music’s icons turns eighty. There are few band leads as mesmeric, influential, legendary and enduring as Mick Jagger. As the voice of The Rolling Stones, he has been delivering such electric and brilliant music for over sixty years. As he is eighty very soon, I wanted to do a few features around that. I will start off with a playlist of the best cuts from The Rolling Stones. Before I get there, AllMusic gives us some details and biography regarding the sensational Mick Jagger:

“As the lead singer for the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger virtually invented the concept of the rock & roll frontman. Taking his cues from soul singers, bluesmen, and Elvis Presley, Jagger crafted a magnetic, carnal persona that retained its charisma even after it was mimicked and expanded by countless singers who followed in his footsteps. He may have been surrounded by disciples, but Jagger never left the spotlight, touring with the Rolling Stones until he was in his seventies. Unlike his lifelong collaborator Keith Richards, Jagger always seemed eager to explore territory outside of the Stones, releasing a solo single called "Memo from Turner" in 1970 and launching a full-fledged solo career in 1985, 21 years after the band's debut. When he released She's the Boss, it appeared that the Stones may have been approaching the end of their career, but it soon transpired that Jagger's solo career would run concurrently with that of the band's. Over the ensuing decades, he released a string of solo albums and formed a supergroup called SuperHeavy with David A. Stewart, and while none of these projects commanded the attention that the Rolling Stones achieved, they nevertheless showcased a restless talent with an interest in pop, dance, and world music.

Mick Jagger met Keith Richards when they were attending the Dartford Maypole County Primary School as children. They met again as teenagers in 1960, discovering they shared a love of American blues, rock & roll, and R&B. At the time, Jagger was a student at the London School of Economics and was playing with a London band called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Within two years, Jagger and Richards had formed the Rolling Stones. During the course of the '60s, the Stones were the only rock & roll band to rival the popularity of the Beatles. In the process, they cultivated an image as the most dangerous band in rock & roll, a status that was confirmed not only by the band's reckless, decadent behavior, but also by Jagger's lyrical obsessions with sex and violence.

In the early '70s, Jagger began to break away from the group. He had become the most famous member of the Stones, partially due to his role as the band's lead singer, but also due to his immersion in the jet-set lifestyle, where he became a familiar figure in New York art circles and Hollywood. Jagger began acting toward the end of the '60s, first in the Australian film Ned Kelly and then in Performance, which contained his most celebrated performance. After his brief foray into film, Jagger concentrated on singing with the Stones and being a celebrity, appearing in mainstream gossip columns as frequently as music publications.

During the early '80s, Jagger and Richards conflicted over the musical direction of the band. Jagger wanted to move the band in a more pop and dance-oriented direction while Richards wanted to stay true to the band's rock & roll and blues roots. By 1984, Jagger had begun recording a solo album where he pursued a more mainstream, dance-inflected pop direction. The resulting album, She's the Boss, was released in 1985. Jagger filmed a number of state-of-the-art videos for the album, which all received heavy airplay from MTV, helping propel the record's first single, "Just Another Night," to number 12 and the album to platinum status. "Lucky in Love," the second single from the album, wasn't quite as successful, just scraping the bottom of the Top 40. In the summer of 1985, Jagger and David Bowie recorded a cover of Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" for the Live Aid organization. The single peaked at number seven on the U.S. pop charts; all the proceeds from its sale were donated to Live Aid.

Around the same time that the Rolling Stones released their 1986 album, Dirty Work, Jagger released the theme song from the movie Ruthless People as a single (it peaked at number 51) and told Richards that the Stones would not tour to support Dirty Work. For the next few years, Jagger and Richards barely spoke to each other and sniped at one another in the press. During this time, Jagger tried to make his solo career as successful as the Rolling Stones, pouring all of his energy into his second solo album, 1987's Primitive Cool. Although the album received stronger reviews than She's the Boss, only one of the singles -- "Let's Work" -- scraped the bottom of the Top 40 and the record didn't go gold.

Following the commercial failure of Primitive Cool, Jagger returned to the fold of the Rolling Stones in 1989, recording, releasing, and touring behind the Steel Wheels album. Steel Wheels was a massively successful venture, and after the tour was completed, the Stones entered a slow period, where each of the members pursued solo projects. Jagger recorded his next solo album with Rick Rubin, who had previously worked with the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The resulting Wandering Spirit was released in 1993 and received the strongest reviews of any of Jagger's solo efforts. The album entered the U.S. charts at number 11 and went gold the year it was released. A year after the arrival of Wandering Spirit, the Stones reunited for Voodoo Lounge, supporting the album with another extensive international tour. The Stones repeated this pattern with 1997's Bridges to Babylon before entering a quiet phase.

Jagger welcomed in the 21st century with 2001's Goddess in the Doorway, his fourth solo album; despite a glowing review from Rolling Stone, it failed to generate much attention. The Rolling Stones celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2002 with the compilation Forty Licks and an accompanying tour, then Jagger turned his attention to collaborating with Dave Stewart for songs for the 2004 remake of the classic 1966 Michael Caine film Alfie. Mick duetted with Joss Stone on Alfie, thereby laying the ground work for the Jagger, Stewart, and Stone supergroup SuperHeavy, which also featured A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley. SuperHeavy would release their lone album in 2011, and during the gap between that eponymous record and Alfie, Jagger kept himself busy through his film production company and with Stones projects, including the release of a new album called A Bigger Bang in 2005 and a number of tours. Following the Stones' 2016 blues album, Blue & Lonesome, Jagger returned his attention to his solo career for the first time in 16 years”.

To celebrate a huge birthday for one of the all-time greats, I have assembled a playlist featuring the best of The Rolling Stones. You will know most of these songs – though there may be a few that surprise you. Whether you are a fan of the band or not, it is hard deny the impact Mick Jagger has had on music. Still inspiring artists to this day, I know that fans will come together on 26th July to mark his eightieth. Still touring with The Rolling Stones, there is no slowing this titan! Long may we see him on the stage! I know there have been whispers the band are working on their twenty-fourth studio album (which would follow 2016’s Blue & Lonesome). I think we all hope that The Rolling Stones bring us…

SOME new music soon.

FEATURE: Watching Her With Them… Looking Ahead to Kate Bush's Before the Dawn at Nine

FEATURE:

 

 

Watching Her With Them…

Looking Ahead to Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Nine

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I find it hard to believe…

 PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

that this time next year, we will be looking ahead to the tenth anniversary of Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn! Her only live residency, she performed a series of twenty-two days at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo. The same venue where she performed several dates of The Tour of Life in 1979, it was the first time Bush returned to a large-scale live commitment – a gap of thirty-five years no less! I am going to drop in some details I have sourced before, but I wanted to react to that live extravaganza and return all these years later. Unfortunately, it was an event I did not attend. I could not get a ticket before all the date sold out. It is one of my biggest regrets! I can remember, back in March 2014, the excitement that was felt when Kate Bush announced that she would be taking to the stage:

“Announced on 21 March 2014, Before The Dawn was the first set of live dates by Kate Bush since the Tour Of Life in 1979. Originally, 15 live dates were announced. A pre-sale ticket allocation took place on 26 March for fans who had signed up to her website in previous months (and years). After this pre-sale, a further seven dates were added due to the high demand. Tickets went on sale to the general public on 28 March and most of them were sold out within 15 minutes. All dates took place at the Eventim Apollo in London (UK). The tour was a critical and commercial success, with all shows sold out.

Before The Dawn was a multi-media performance involving standard rock music performance, dancers, puppets, shadows, maskwork, conceptual staging, 3D animation and an illusionist. Bush spent three days in a flotation tank for filmed scenes that were played during the performance and featured dialogue written by novelist David Mitchell. Also involved with the production were Adrian Noble, former artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company, lighting designer Mark Henderson and Italian Shadows Theatre company Controluce Teatro d'Ombre. The illusionist was Paul Kieve, the puppeteer Basil Twist, the movement director Sian Williams and the designer Dick Bird. The video and projection design was by Jon Driscoll”.

Given the title, Before the Dawn, I guess you could have guessed the concept would unite Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave and Aerial’s A Sky of Honey. Both conceptual suites, the former came out in 1985; the latter arrived in 2005. Joining these songs cycles that occurred twenty years apart, The Ninth Wave takes us from the night darkness to the dawn. A woman that is adrift at sea and perilously close to death, the does she survive question has been a hot debate. In the show and on the album, the heroine is rescued – though there are clues and lyrics suggestion she drowned and was seeing herself from above the world. A Sky of Honey is the second disc of Aerial. Going through the course of an entire summer’s day, that idea of the dawn being represented and important in two different ways is striking. Whereas The Ninth Wave is turbulent, haunting and occasionally beautiful and heavenly, A Sky of Honey is calming, set in nature and inspiring. Before moving onto thoughts about the anniversary next month and some thoughts regarding Kate Bush’s live future, there are a couple more things I want to drop in. Going back to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia:

“Band

The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of David Rhodes (guitar), Friðrik Karlsson (guitar, bouzouki, charango), John Giblin (bass guitar, double bass), Jon Carin (keyboards, guitar, vocals, programming), Kevin McAlea (keyboards, accordion, uilleann pipes). Omar Hakim (drums), Mino Cinélu (percussion). Backing vocalists were Sandra Marvin, Jacqui DuBois, Jo Servi, Bob Harms and Albert McIntosh. Some actors were involved as well: Ben Thompson played Lord of the Waves, Stuart Angell played Lord of the Waves and the painter's apprentice, Christian Jenner played the blackbird's spirit, Jo Servi played witchfinder and Albert McIntosh appeared as painter. Supporting actors were Sean Myatt, Richard Booth, Emily Cooper, Lane Paul Stewart and Charlotte Williams.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay

Set list

Act 1

Introduction

Lily

Hounds Of Love

Joanni

Top Of The City

Running Up That Hill

King Of The Mountain

The Ninth Wave

And Dream Of Sheep (video)

Under Ice

Waking The Witch

Watching You Without Me

Jig Of Life

Hello Earth

The Morning Fog

Act 2

A Sky Of Honey

Prelude

Prologue

An Architect's Dream

The Painter's Link

Sunset

Aerial Tal

Somewhere In Between

Tawny Moon (lead vocals by Albert McIntosh)

Nocturn

Aerial

Encore

Among Angels

Cloudbusting”.

On 26th August, 2014, DIY were among those who gave their thoughts about the majestic, theatrical, epic and applauded Before the Dawn. It is clear that everyone who was part of the twenty-two shows will never forget that experience:

“While you try to catch your breath and reorganise your sense of reality after three hours of an astonishing, immersive and utterly singular show, the one thing that instantly becomes apparent through the mist is that Kate Bush is not one to cede to your run-of-the-mill expectations.

The whole night feels unreal and unravels in a dreamlike fashion – even attempting to put it into words here it seems to dissolve on the screen. That’s not just because of the feverish speculation that came before the show or the fact that Bush hasn’t performed in concert since 1979, but also because whatever your hopes or anticipations for this show – one of the most eagerly awaited pop performances in history – Bush turns them on their head and pours them away in an avalanche of artistic contrariness and outlandish theatre which sees the stage filled with a wooden mannequin, fish skeletons, sheets billowing like waves, a preacher, a giant machine that hovers above the audience pounding like a helicopter as well as lighthouses and living rooms, axes and chainsaws.

Yet through all the theatrics and artistry one thing remains constant, and it’s the thing that shines through the most: the rush of humanity that ties all the ideas together; the one thing that takes Bush to that other place. It’s the innate heart that pulses through all this theatre and all these ideas: the simple truths of love, hope and family life that hold all her ideas together.

‘I feel your warmth,’ she says appreciatively as the crowd passionately cheer and clap her every move and gesture. And it’s her shy but generous smile at the response from the crowd which shows exactly what this means to her.

PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

This is the weight of 35 years being lifted – thrown off with the skilfulness and heart that shows Kate Bush is no ‘mythic’ artist but a very real, supremely talented original. Tonight is an unequivocal demonstration that she’s a one-off: only she has the ambition, nerve and imagination to pull off the ideas that had filled her mind.

Yet at first it seems she’s going to play it pretty straight. Barefoot and dressed in elegant black, she strolls around the stage gently, occasionally twirling. It begins with ‘Lily’ as she leads a small group of backing singers that includes her son Bertie (who, she says, has given her the “courage” to return to the stage). The band that line up behind her are as tight as you would imagine. They play ‘Hounds Of Love’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’. They sound huge, they sound brilliant. If there’s one thing you notice most it’s that her voice is remarkably powerful and it’s brilliant on ‘King Of The Mountain’ which brings the opening ‘scene’ to a close, heralding a storm as a bullroarer fills the air and cannons fill the theatre with confetti.

It’s now time for the drama of ‘The Ninth Wave’, the second half of ‘Hounds of Love’. Here we see a story of resignation and resurrection played out in the most theatrical of ways. We see Bush in a lifejacket floating in water, looking up at the camera as if waiting to be rescued (she’s reported to have spent three days in a flotation tank at Pinewood Studios to create the special effects). At one point fish skeletons dance across the waves, at another a helicopter searches the crowd, before a living room (yes, a living room) floats across the stage in which a son and his father – played by Bertie and Bush’s husband Danny McIntosh – talk at length about sausages.

It’s hard to comprehend exactly what’s happening but the band skilfully navigate the pastoral prog and Celtic rock. Even when the music isn’t captivating, the sheer sense of spectacle means you can’t avert your eyes for a second. As the ‘The Morning Fog’ brings the performance to a close with another standing ovation.

After a twenty minute interval – during which time the bars buzz with delirium – the third act sees her play out ‘Sky of Honey’, the entire second half of ‘Aerial’. It’s so intricately detailed that you get the feeling Bush had always planned to perform these two scenes live.

‘Honey’ is a grandiose daydream moving through a summer’s day. Again the scope of her vision is immense – even when the songs don’t enthral the enormous paper planes and human birds do, as we see a wooden mannequin finding himself lost and alone. Bertie plays a major part throughout dressed as a 19th-century artist – and at one point telling the mannequin to “piss off”. It ends, as only it could, with Bush gaining wings and flying.

She returns to earth to perform a solo version of ‘Among Angels’ on the piano, before the band return to help close the show with a joyful ‘Cloudbusting’. “I just know that something good is going to happen”, she sings as a now even more euphoric crowd jump to their feet.

Then she’s gone. You’re left with the image of a singer who has managed to retain her mystery and surprise. An enigma, the mythic artist who is intensely human. It’s overblown and preposterous and brilliant. All its startling achievements, magical highs and am dram faults – its relentless ambition and human imperfections – make it the only document you could possibly have asked for from such a unique artist. Before the Dawn is everything you would expect but couldn’t imagine”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: NME/Getty Images

There are a few thoughts I had. One relates to books and podcasts about the night. I have not seen either. Whilst the live album provides you with some of the spectacle and atmosphere of being in attendance in Hammersmith, I guess it can’t replace the feeling of being there. Kate Bush spoke with Matt Everitt for BBC Radio 6 Music in 2016 (when the live album was released). She put a lot of time and effort into mixing and producing the album. That 2016 interview was the last time we heard Bush in a promotional audio interview until last year – when she spoke with Woman’s Hour about the success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I wonder if there will be a book or podcast about Before the Dawn. Thoughts and reactions from people who were there. Including many famous faces, it would be awesome to hear them all compiled in a podcast. I think the same could be said of a book. Combining photos, and introduction maybe from Bush, we’d have the build-up and background, the reviews and performances, sketches about the stage and concept, in addition to a conclusion. That would be very popular, as next year is ten years since Bush brought us Before the Dawn. It is a pity that not that much has been done regarding Before the Dawn and its impact. Someone could tie it back to 1979 and mention The Tour of Life. I think there would be a lot of people keen to read and hear more about a phenomenal residency.

I wonder, above all, what this nine-year-gap means in terms of Bush and her next steps. I have speculated we may get news soon of an eleventh studio album. She always surprises us, so you can never predict what will come and when. Was Before the Dawn her live farewell? I guess the scale and effort involved mounting the production could not easily be repeated. Bush is sixty-five on 30th July, so maybe she doesn’t have the same impetus and energy as she might have done a decade ago. That said, Madonna is taking her Celebration Tour on the road soon. She has recently been hospitalise, though the sixty-four-year-old will be on the stage very soon. You can never totally rule out further livre work, though it is unlikely she will do another residency. Anything where she performs live would be a blessing. I can see a few songs being performed from Abbey Road Studios. I have mooted this before. I do feel, rather than look back at Before the Dawn wistfully, there should be projects about it coming to light. Immortalising this wonderful and unexpected event. In August 2014, Kate Bush fans flocked to the Eventim Apollo to catch the icon on the big stage. Even though the show has been filmed and there is a DVD, we might never get to see it. I hope more is explored and exposed from the awe-inspiring Kate Bush. She proved that there are few performers as incredible as her. Wha a vision she brought to the stage! For that reason, ahead of its ninth anniversary, we need to explore further…

THE stunning Before the Dawn.

FEATURE: A Modern-Day Icon: Recognising the Brilliant Broadcaster and Free Your Mind Label

FEATURE:

 

 

A Modern-Day Icon

Recognising the Brilliant Broadcaster and Free Your Mind Label

_________

ONE of the finest and most important…

voices in broadcasting belongs to Arielle Free. As presenter of the essential Radio 1’s Future Artists, she is part of this vital group of tastemaker broadcaster introducing us to the finest talent of the future. Alongside her station-mate Clara Amfo, Free lets us know about the sounds that we need in our life. The most interesting and innovative rising artists around. There have been some recent changes at BBC Radio 1. Arielle Free used to present Early Breakfast, but that has been shifted. One of the reasons that I am writing about her is that I think she is on the cusp of getting a huge presenting role. Having shown her value and incredible talent at BBC Radio 1, of course she will continue there, but I see her going to another station like BBC Radio 6 Music or Apple’s Music 1 schedule. A huge reason why I tuned into BBC Radio 1, she has this wonderful future ahead. In March, she peddled across the U.K. in a gruelling challenge to raise money for Red Nose Day. It was an amazing challenge that raised a load of money! Born in Stirling, Scotland, Arielle Free is a major talent who is a successful artist and D.J. I have recently posted a feature asking why there is not another music T.V. show to sit alongside Later… with Jools Holland. I think that Free would make an excellent co-presenter on a new format. She has that passion for music that is infectious and undeniable. I did feature her relatively recently but, since there have been developments and things I missed out, I wanted to return. I shall come to her music label soon enough.

Before getting there, there are some interviews that I want to bring in. You might not know about Arielle Free and where she has come from. Undoubtably a modern broadcasting icon, I think she has so many years ahead. Big success and huge shows. An extraordinary producer, Free spoke with Headliner last year about an exciting new single:

“Esteemed BBC Radio 1 DJ, presenter and now producer Arielle Free chats to Headliner about her recently released debut single, Soul Full, featuring Joe Killington with Mortimer via Defected’s D4 DANCE label, and her excitement about returning to the stage for some big festival sets this summer…

Despite only just starting her music production journey during the first UK lockdown, Arielle Free’s trajectory from radio DJ to beatmaker is one that makes a whole lot of sense.

Released on Defected’s D4 DANCE label, Soul Full is a big, unapologetically fun, soulful house number that is sure to get feet tapping – a track that its creator likes to think all generations can enjoy. But how does Free feel about kicking off her career as a full-fledged producer?

“It’s a bit weird,” she responds. “Because when I first started dabbling, I felt like I was hitting my head off a brick wall. I was using Ableton at the time, and then a friend recommended I try Logic, which I just got a lot better at and allowed me to learn more. I was working with my friend who works for Community Music, an organisation based in Brady Arts Centre on Brick Lane, and I was really lucky because I used to do pirate radio in that building…

“I did a few lessons online, and I was put in touch with an amazing mixer in Bristol who I went to learn with in the studio. We soon started a little project, and by the end of day we had Soul Full, just without the vocals.”

When it came to finding someone to sing on the track, Free had just the person in mind.

 “I love Joe Killington, and he’d just done vocals for the Disciples track Solid Gold, so I slid into his DMs and he was up for it!” she recalls excitedly. “Rather than getting a deep, gravelly vocal like on Solid Gold [she proceeds to give an excellent impression of this lyric], he actually sent me more of a falsetto vocal with a house/disco edge. It just took the track to another level.”

Soul Full has received a lot of love on the radio, and although you’re unlikely to find Free on any kind of underground lineup, “I’ve never been one of the cool kids”, she’s accepted that she works best sticking to what she knows and loves: big, uplifting vocal house and disco numbers.

“I'm learning so much and getting such lovely feedback from my peers and friends [including Calvin Harris!], so I feel really blessed,” she continues. “I think the track helps people, who’ve maybe never seen one of my DJ sets, to understand what they should expect from my gigs.

“I'm a big percussion fan, and I like to lean towards latin house and sometimes afro house vibes, but I also really enjoy vocals leading me down a path. It's been great to get those muscles working again.”

Around five or six years ago, things were quite different for the palpably ambitious producer; she would host her own radio shows every week for no pay and with hardly any break in an attempt to build her online audience. Testament that natural talent and hard work quite often pays off, she eventually found herself working the early morning slot on BBC Radio 1.

“During covid I went down to just one live show, we got a pre-recorded show for Saturday, and I lost my Sunday show completely, but I was really lucky that I worked within the BBC because we really became a public service during that time,” she laments. “It really showed me how valuable it was to people's lives. In the morning, our listeners used to be the straight through crews; delivery people, people on their way to the airport for their holidays, and those who had been out clubbing. We almost lost that audience entirely, and gained listeners who were up in the early morning who were anxious, or maybe were sitting on their own terrified of what this thing was, that none of us knew about at the time.

“Keeping everyone company and making things entertaining for people to provide a bit of a distraction, and then coming out of that feeling more united and hopeful was a real journey. It felt like we really needed the listeners as much as the listeners needed us.”

Already in-demand on the live circuit with her own label and club night, ‘Free Your Mind’, Free reveals that things are starting to move when it comes to festivals this summer. Her Parklife journey has been one of the particular highlights so far.

“I played one of the smaller tents a few years ago, and that’s where you learn resilience and gain an understanding of what you should play in a festival environment when it could be pouring with rain and there’s headliners you’re competing with,” she says. “This year is the first time I’ve actually made it onto the artwork of a festival bill.

“I’m also playing One Out which is one I've always wanted to be on, and that's alongside my pal Chloé Robinson – we've never been at a festival together on the same bill so I’m buzzing for that. I've got all these ambitions for places that I want to play, so I'm really hoping that 2022 is just another year of going to cool places far and wide, including Ibiza…” she trails off with anticipation.

Free is currently working on getting a sample cleared in time for her next summer track, and is also working on the follow up to Soul Full, “which is a wicked sample of an old ‘60s track, and is very me,” she says. “I’m also excited to put out more tracks on my label, because we put a bit of a pause on that, but now everything's set up”.

I have not really seen or heard an extensive interview with Arielle Free. She has achieved so much, and she has such a versatile career. Surely, it must only be a matter of time before we get this deep dive into the life and times of an amazing broadcaster, D.J., producer, T.V. presenter and hugely influential and inspiring person! Sunday Post interviewed Free last year:

“So, it’s a case of choosing a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life?

I love being on the radio, I love DJing and I love music, so I think I’m really fortunate. I know how much of a privilege it is to be my position, where I can broadcast and DJ on the radio and gig all weekend. It hasn’t felt like hard work. There’s been occasions where I’ve been tired, but I just look forward to the next one.

Your remix of Gorgon City’s Tell Me It’s True is out this month. How did that come about?

Amazon are doing this amazing series where they get DJs to remix other DJs and producers they have always really aspired to or idolised. I’ve been the biggest fan of Gorgon City, so it’s been just a total privilege. Tell Me It’s True is a song I fell in love with from the album Olympia, and I’ve given myself a bit of a reputation for loving it.

PHOTO CREDIT: ITV

Is it true your vocals are on the record, too?

Yes! I couldn’t find the “woops” that I wanted to highlight points within the track, so my friend helped to record me doing them!

You supported Calvin Harris at Hampden Park in July – was that a career highlight?

It was pretty surreal as Hampden is huge. When I did Glastonbury this year, I was in a tent with the crowd pretty much on top of me, it was so electric, amazing – I knew instantly that gig had gone well. But because Hampden is so big when I came off stage, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t until people tagged me in videos after and I saw the sea of people that I knew they had enjoyed it.

It was also so special as I was able to invite my whole family along. Having my grandpa come and witness what I do on a daily basis, in Hampden, was really huge because he’s a big football fan. He couldn’t believe that I was playing in Scotland’s national stadium!

You also host Love Island: The Morning, the official podcast. Can we expect you back for the winter series in January?

I don’t know, actually – but I hope so! We had a really nice summer spending eight weeks together on the show. It was a really great series, so I’m keen to see what the winter one is going to be like, whether it’s going to be in South Africa and who is going to be hosting”.

Apologies for shifting around a bit in terms of subjects but, before I get to one of the big reasons for writing this feature, I want to mention Free’s incredible D.J. work. It takes her around the world however, she is a bit of a legend on Ibiza. DJ Mag profiled Arielle Free last year and asked her about her experiences and time on the island:

“Future Rave is currently one of the biggest nights on the island, how did you get your residency there?

“Last year, when there were still restrictions in place, Ushuaïa were doing a thing called Palmarama, and it was tables only. At that point you could dance at your tables, but you weren't allowed to mix and whatnot. It was their way of trying to open up in some capacity. I was invited out to play for David — it was me, Riton and him. Riton was running a bit late and I played for about two-and-a-half hours, and my set went really well. I was only meant to play for an hour-and-a-half I think. And honestly, for this I will forever be grateful to the Ushuaïa family, the staff fed back to the booker on how they loved my set and how good I was, and they told me that I had really impressed the staff and that they would like to book me. Word got back to David, and here we are.”

What advice do you have for other up and coming DJs to land a slot like this?

“I really wish I knew the answer to that. I think it's just being in the right place at the right time, or just constantly playing to the best of your ability. Hustle — I think just taking those opportunities that are given to you. And you do have to do that thing, say hello and thank you to everyone you speak to. You really do have to make the most of the opportunities that you are given, regardless of if you are playing to 50 people or 6,000 people, and going out of your way to say how much fun you had. You've got to really stand out by giving the most of your time and seizing the big opportunities that you find yourself in.”

How have the nights been going?

“It is a brand-new night on the island, we are there for 18 weeks every Friday. Friday night in Ibiza is a really busy night on the island, you’ve got Marco Carola’s Music On, Trick at DC-10, Amnesia also — we’ve been fortunate as to how good the crowds have been.”

 What are your favourite nights on the island?

"If you ask me what is one of my favourite nights in Ibiza, I have to say Glitterbox at Hï. It has to be one of the most amazing nights on the island — the detail that goes into it, nothing beats it for me. There's the mix of the disco and the classics, and also you get the harder stuff in the second room — and the dancers and the spectacle. It’s such a visual experience as well as a sonic experience. I love it. I mean, not just because of the production levels — visually it blows my mind. They change it every week. This is what blows my mind, the fact that they change the production every week. Every week they’ve added something to the visuals, they do something different that is just going to make it pop even more. It's just a huge production. I'm impressed by it all. I mean, I know I do sound like I'm shouting up Hï, but they blow my mind every time with the production — and not just at Glitterbox, at the other nights as well. They really put so much into it.”

What would be the perfect weekend in Ibiza for you?

“Okay. We're landing. I don’t know, say Thursday, shall we say I dive straight into the club? What happened Thursday? I mean, you’ve done Tale of Us, which is huge and an experience like no other. Then it is Friday morning, you want to get up, get out to the beach, go for a nice swim in that gorgeous ocean. Soak up all the energy. Get ready, maybe treat yourself to a nice dinner or something like that late Friday evening.

“I've recently discovered Terra Masia, which is like a farm to table experience — just beautiful. I’m a big fan of actually just doing the classic Cafe Mambo sunset, and dinner and drinks. Afterwards, then you’ve got to get yourself down to Future Rave, obviously. If you've got time before maybe pop into Calvin Harris at Ushuaïa, because it's such a huge show and the production levels blow my mind.

“Then on Saturday you’ll be a wee bit hungover, so feel like you just need to have a pool day. Get yourself some jamon flavoured Raffles, and some Fanta lemon and lots of fizzy water, agua con gas, then dive into Ants late in the afternoon when it's not too hot, and get yourself dancing. If you do have some energy, you can always pop into Black Coffee if you wanted. Then there’s the Sunday, you want to get yourself down to Bora Bora beach, and then you're going to go into Glitterbox because Glitterbox is the only way to wind up the Ibiza experience. When I say you need to have your energy for Glitterbox, you will need to have your energy because you'll go thinking, ‘I'm probably not going to make it because everyone's burst by the time they get to Sunday’. But no. There you are and you're alive, it is one of the most thriving, most wonderful sensational experiences on the island. And if you are still there on Monday night, maybe pop in to see Danny Howard at Amnesia.

"I mean, it's going to cost you a fortune, but if you can do, go down the street and grab yourself some discount tickets from the promotional teams — that will help. You've got to do the full Ibiza clubbing experience as much as you can, especially if it's your first time — you’ve got to dive right in. Oh, and if you do get a chance, you've obviously got to pop into Pike’s for a little cheeky cocktail, because Pike's cocktails are absolutely delicious”.

I am going to round things up soon. I would suggest you check out this brilliant playlist Free suggested recently. Her Free Your Mind label is a home and haven for the best uplifting new House and cuts. I can see this label expanding and having a big impact on the scene. There is also her Free Your Mind  club. Olivia Stock from DJ Mag spotlighted Free and an amazing new single, Technicolour Kenny, where she joined Jake Shears. It is clear that the BBC Radio 1 legend is breaking out into the world and has this phenomenal future ahead:

“BBC R1’s Arielle Free has teamed up with Jake Shears for a new single, ‘Technicolour Kenny’, released via her new house imprint, Free Your Mind. Listen to it below.

The single, which samples Kenny Loggins 1977 track ‘I Believe In Love’ and features vocals from Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, is the first release on the new label. Described as a “massive slice of summery disco house”, the track sees the BBC Radio 1 Dance and R1 Early Breakfast host venture further into the world of production.

Speaking on the origins of the tune, Free said: “Technicolour’ was the first track I ever made. I fell in love with the original after hearing it on a US Radio station on the way to my brother's wedding. It samples a Kenny Loggins track, the yacht rock radio station my car was stuck on played it THREE times and every time I heard it, I thought this would make an unbelievable dance track!”

The Glaswegian creative force made her producer debut in 2022 with a string of highly collaborative releases including ‘You Can’t Stop Me’ on Eats Everything’s Edible label, and ‘Release I Need’ out on Nervous Records, featuring London-vocalist, Kelli-Leigh.

With her new label and club night, Free hopes to “provide an all-encompassing home that will support house and electronic producers from across the spectrum… I’m so happy this moment is finally here. There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears but the Free Your Mind record label is a go and I couldn’t think of a better track to launch than the first production I ever made.” Releases on the imprint are already in the pipeline from Jenn Getz & Alfie, Toriah, and fellow radio host, Tiffany Cornish”.

A magnificent D.J., broadcaster, producer, label owner and all-round music queen, I wanted to salute the awesome Arielle Free. She is someone I have immense respect for. I can see her going on to manage a stable of artists changing the face of Club and House music. One of the most respected D.J.s out there, her BBC Radio 1 work also keeps her busy. Beyond this, she will be in demand from other stations. Apart from Love Island, there will be other T.V. work too. It is a moment where these new possibilities and avenues will be ahead. An exciting time for someone everyone should follow. She also recently did some presenting from the Glastonbury Festival. This amazingly nimble, broad and effortlessly talented presenters and broadcast, it is not long until queen Arielle Free conquers the world. I wanted to salute one of this country’s…

GREATEST and most important talents.

FEATURE: Tickled Pink: Welcome to Barbie Land! The Promotional Whirlwind of Greta Gerwig’s Upcoming Blockbuster

FEATURE:

 

 

Tickled Pink

IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie’s director and co-writer, Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Ellen Fedors for Rolling Stone

Welcome to Barbie Land! The Promotional Whirlwind of Greta Gerwig’s Upcoming Blockbuster

_________

THERE is no doubt that…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie and Nicki Minaj at the premiere of Barbie, held at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on 9th July in Los Angeles/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Buckner for Variety

when Barbie is released into the world on 21st July, it will be one of the highest-grossing and popular films of the year. I have already predicted five-star reviews – and I will bring in a review that has already been written – and Academy Awards (Margot Robbie and maybe Rylan Gosling for acting; Greta Gerwig for direction; costumes and cinematography perhaps). As a music journalist, of course I have an interest in the soundtrack. Some of music’s biggest names have contributed songs. From Dual Lipa to Lizzo, there have been some amazing songs added to a soundtrack that everyone should pre-order. It is out on the same day as the film - and, of course, it available on neon pink vinyl! I am pumped about that, but I wanted to look at some of the promotion or the film. When I recently wrote about Barbie going up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, I did include an interview involving Greta Gerwig, plus one from Margot Robbie. Because there has been some cool video interviews and features together with press, I will bring that together. I will end with a review of Barbie. The film is undoubtably going to be a masterpiece! More than any other film this year, there is this whole world and brand. This Barbie blitzkrieg has taken the world by storm. So many people getting into the spirit. Although it must be exhausting for stars Margot Robbie and Rylan Gosling, and director and co-writer Greta Gerwig, there is also this thrill of unleashing a huge film into the world. One that is probably primed for a sequel at some point, one would imagine.

I am thrilled that this comedy is out soon, as the genre does not often get this much attention. Such a huge film as Barbie will bring so many people to the cinema. Many who do not have any connection with Barbie. It is a film that has crossed boundaries and borders and seems to have conquered the world! The marketing for the film is terrific. And I mean terrific. It is another reason why Barbie will win awards and massive box office receipts. I shall start with a couple of interviews about the film. I am going to come to some Margot Robbie press, as she is the iconic Barbie in the new film. In one of her most important and impressive roles so far, she has confirmed herself as one of the most iconic and inspiring actors of her generation. I want to start off with a beautiful and brilliant interview Rolling Stone conducted with Greta Gerwig. She discussed making the film and what it was like immersing herself in Barbie Land for several years:

“I know you tend to resist autobiographical interpretations, but when Barbie says, “I don’t wanna be an idea anymore,” something about that really reminded me of your transition from a much-discussed actress to a writer-director.

You know what? It’s so funny. That did not occur to me at all. But now that you say it, of course! When you’re directing something, you have to be a bit stupid about yourself, or a little bit unconscious. And, yes, you’re totally right. And also, I had no idea. But that’s true. It’s completely true.

There are things like I grew up in Sacramento, and Ladybird takes place in Sacramento. But so many of the things that are personal that come through your movies are never the things that are the most obvious to you. The things where you really feel unconsciously seen are things like that, where you realize, “Oh, man, I didn’t hide anywhere.” And that’s always part of the joy of making art for people, is sometimes they understand it more than you do, which is unsettling.

IN THIS PHOTO: Ryan Gosling, Greta Gerwig, Simu Liu, and Marhot Robbie on the set of Barbie/PHOTO CREDIT: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros

Sorry!

No, but it’s good.

How did you come to decide on Barbie’s arc in the movie?

I hope two things made that journey feel surprising but inevitable. I started from this idea of Barbieland, this place with no death, no aging, no decay, no pain, no shame. We know the story. We’ve heard this story. This is an old story. It’s in a lot of religious literature. What happens to that person? They have to leave. And they have to confront all the things that were shielded from them in this place. So that felt like one thing.

There’s a lovely scene where Barbie sees an older woman — a sight she’d never encountered in Barbieland — and tells her she’s beautiful.

I love that scene so much. And the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She’s a legend. It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way — it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, “Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.” And I said, “If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.”

Yeah, I kind of thought that was an absolutely key moment for Barbie’s journey.

That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie. The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced. There’s the more outrageous elements in the movie that people say, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe Mattel let you do this,” or, “I can’t believe Warner Bros. let you do this.” But to me, the part that I can’t believe that is still in the movie is this little cul-de-sac that doesn’t lead anywhere — except for, it’s the heart of the movie.

Margot said when she first saw the screenplay, she loved it, and was positive that the powers that be would never let you make it. How do you think you got it all through?

The movie in its conception and even from the script stage was always a wild ride. But I think that in the execution of it and the directing of it, it allowed me to go even farther, and to make it even more like a candy-colored explosion of things that people didn’t necessarily think would be the Barbie movie. But, yeah, I can’t account for it. But I’m thrilled to bits that they let me do it this way.

How did you craft the moment where Barbie finally learns that some women in the real world hate her and find her oppressive?

It felt like we had to give the counterargument to Barbie, and not give it short shrift, but give it real intellectual and emotional power. And Mattel was incredibly open to it. I said, “We have to explore it, because it’s a lie any other way. And we can’t make it a lie.” I think they heard it.

The feminism in this film comes out so naturally, just by placing Barbie and Ken in the real world. It starts the moment they arrive in Venice Beach. Ken feels that people are suddenly looking at him with respect, and Barbie doesn’t have the words for it, but she feels she’s being objectified. Did that flow out as naturally as it seems?

I think of the film as humanist above anything else. How Barbie operates in Barbieland is she’s entirely continuous with her environment. Even the houses have no walls, because you never need to hide because there’s nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed of. And suddenly finding yourself in the real world and wishing you could hide, that’s the essence of being human. But when we were actually shooting on Venice Beach, with Margot and Ryan in neon rollerblading outfits, it was fascinating because it was actually happening in front of us. People would go by Ryan, high-five him, and say, “Awesome, Ryan, you look great!” And they wouldn’t actually say anything to Margot. They’d just look at her. It was just surreal. In that moment, she did feel self-conscious. And as the director, I wanted to protect her. But I also knew that the scene we were shooting had to be the scene where she felt exposed. And she was exposed, both as a celebrity and as a lady. To be fair, Ryan was like, “I wish I wasn’t wearing this vest.” [Laughs.] But it was a different kind of discomfort.

When I hear you use the word “humanist,” I feel like I need to gently push back on behalf of the fans who are going to love this movie and perceive its message as unabashedly feminist.

Of course, I am a feminist. But this movie is also dealing with [the idea that] any kind of hierarchical power structure that moves in any direction isn’t so great. You go to Mattel and it is really like, “Oh, Barbie has been president since 1991. Barbie had gone to the moon before women could get credit cards.” We kind of extrapolated out from that that Barbieland is this reversed world [where Barbies rule and Kens are an underclass]. The reverse structure of whatever Barbieland is, is almost like Planet of the Apes. You can see how unfair this is for the Kens because it’s totally unsustainable.

Now that you’ve entered this world of big franchises, how will you balance your directing career going forward, between huge commercial films and smaller ones?

I think probably every director has a fantasy baseball league in their head of what movies they want to make. And there’s some movies I’d like to make that require a big canvas. At the same time, I’ve seen so many directors move between bigger movies and smaller movies: Chloé Zhao doing Nomadland and making Eternals. Or Steven Soderbergh, or even my weekend buddy Chris Nolan. He made the Dark Knight trilogy — and they’re wonderful — and then made The Prestige, which is not a tiny movie, but it is also not the same thing. I want to play in lots of different worlds. That’s the goal.

There’s footage out there of you directing the garden scene in Lady Bird, and you seem so joyous. It feels like you love being a director.

I love it so much. I love every part of making a movie, soup to nuts. And Margot is the same way. For us, it’s Disneyland every day. I honestly can’t believe I get to do this”.

I already sourced this interview for a recent feature regarding comedies and how the very best and most ambitious of this year have been made by female directors and screenwriters. I want to come back to The Guardian’s interview with Greta Gerwig, as we discover new sides to the director and writer. She seems like a joy to speak to! It is almost a shame that the Barbie excitement and build will die not long after the film comes out on 21st July:

“Gerwig was invited to write Barbie by the actor Margot Robbie who, with Warner Bros, had bought the rights to the film. (Robbie stars in Barbie as Barbie.) Gerwig has said she was terrified to accept the job. “It’s not like a superhero, who already has a story. It felt very much like it was going to be an adaptation. Except what we were adapting is a doll – an icon of the 20th century.” Before writing the script, Gerwig thought: “It felt complicated enough, sticky enough, strange enough, that maybe there could be something interesting there to be discovered.” She didn’t know she was going to direct the film until after the script was written. “I kind of had two thoughts: I love this and I can’t bear it if anyone else makes it. And: they’ll never let us make this movie.”

To pitch Barbie to executives, Gerwig wrote a poem so strange and “surreal” that she will not read it to me now. When I ask what it concerned, she says, “Oh, you know, the lament of Job?” before adding, “Shockingly, it does actually communicate some vibe of the movie.” Gerwig wrote Barbie with her partner, the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, though for a while she didn’t tell him she’d enlisted his help. (“He was like, ‘Did you sign us up to write a Barbie movie?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, Noah, get excited!’”) They worked on the script during the pandemic, when doubt plagued the future of the communal cinema experience.

“There was this sense of wanting to make something anarchic and wild and completely bananas,” Gerwig says, “because it felt, like, ‘Well, if we ever do get to go back to cinemas again, let’s do something totally unhinged.’” The anarchy of Gerwig’s Barbie comes from “the deep isolation of the pandemic,” she says – “that feeling of being in our own little boxes, alone.”

Barbie was conceived in 1959, by Ruth Handler, who co-founded the doll’s manufacturer Mattel. Barbie has since occupied a complicated position in the lives of her owners. On one hand, she has been terrible for girls’ body image, a fact Gerwig acknowledges playfully in the film’s opening 20 minutes. (On discovering Barbie’s flat feet, several other Barbies, and at least one Ken, heave mawkishly and knowingly in disgust.) But according to fans she has empowered, too. In more recent times, Mattel has produced dolls with different skin colours and in different shapes. While researching Barbie, Gerwig toured the company’s headquarters. “The kind of amazing thing is that Barbie went to the moon before women had the ability to get credit cards,” she says. “That’s crazy. She was always a kind of step ahead.”

At Mattel, Gerwig saw an image of an all-female Barbie presidential ticket. “I was like, ‘Huh, so Barbie’s done it, but we haven’t?” (The first presidential Barbie appeared in 1992; in the film, president Barbie is played by Issa Rae.) Gerwig was fascinated. “As an icon, she’s always been complicated,” she says. “She has always had these two sides to her.”

Growing up, Gerwig had a tangled relationship with the doll. “I was always intrigued,” she says, because, “Barbie was, if not exactly forbidden in our house, well, it was not encouraged.” Why not? “Oh, the usual criticisms. ‘If she was a real woman, she wouldn’t even be able to stand up; she wouldn’t be able to support her head.’ My mum was a child of the 60s. She was like, ‘We got this far, for this?’” Eventually, Gerwig’s mother relented. “She got me my own,” Gerwig recalls. “Fresh out the box.” It replaced the neighbourhood hand-me-downs she had been playing with.

But Gerwig already had a strong connection to other dolls, the kind you mother, and she had a vivid imagination. “I played with dolls until… I don’t want to say too late, but I played with them long enough that I didn’t want kids at school to know I still played with them. I was a teenager. I was about 13 and still playing with dolls. And I knew that kids at that point were already kissing.” She smiles. “I was a late bloomer.”

Gerwig has said that Barbie’s story mimics that of a girl’s journey from childhood to adolescence. “I always think that 8, 9, 10 years old is peak kid. I was brash and unafraid and loud and big. And then, you know…” Puberty. “It’s a shrinking. Wanting to make yourself smaller, less noticeable, take in all that spikiness and bury it. And you’re profoundly uncomfortable, because you’re going through metamorphosis, literally.” You begin to introspect. “But also, you’re getting tall. You’re getting your period. You get spots.” Gerwig describes childhood as being at peace with the world and adolescence as being suddenly not. “My experience of it was wanting to hide.”

I ask, “Is the film about growing up?”

“It’s not about growing up, exactly,” she says. “But in a way… This is about Barbie, an inanimate doll made out of plastic. But the movie ends up, really, about being human”.

In many ways, the themes in Barbie chime with those Gerwig has tackled previously, not least in Lady Bird, her loosely autobiographical directorial debut, and a 2019 adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women, which the critic Anthony Lane said, “may just be the best film yet made by an American woman”. Both films star Saoirse Ronan and feature adolescent women becoming new, more complicated versions of themselves. Gerwig was nominated for best director at the Oscars for Lady Bird – she became only the fifth female director to be nominated for the award. If Lady Bird announced Gerwig as a top-tier filmmaker, Little Women confirmed it. Plaudits followed. Hollywood invited her in. But Barbie is different altogether: bigger budget, bigger anticipation – what might be the first true summer blockbuster, post-pandemic. When I ask Gerwig how she feels about the film’s release, she says, “I’m just so nervous. I’m so nervous. I’m excited! But I’m so nervous.” And then: “I just can’t believe, like, here it is… Let’s go!”.

Again, I will source an interview that I have used before. Vogue spent some time in Margot Robbie’s company. Getting to the heart of the film and the actor, it is wonderful interview with some fantastic photos. One reason I wanted to revisit these interviews is because there is so much detail and some incredible images! It is always captivating and wonderful when you get these immersive and thoroughly in-depth interviews. I have selected parts from the Vogue interview to highlight:

“LuckyChap wanted Gerwig and Baumbach to have full creative freedom. “At the same time,” Robbie says, “we’ve got two very nervous ginormous companies, Warner Bros. and Mattel, being like: What’s their plan? What are they going to do? What’s it gonna be about? What’s she going to say? They have a bazillion questions.” In the end LuckyChap found a way to structure a deal so that Gerwig and Baumbach would be left alone to write what they wanted, “which was really fucking hard to do.”

Gerwig and Baumbach did share a treatment, Robbie adds: “Greta wrote an abstract poem about Barbie. And when I say ‘abstract,’ I mean it was super abstract.” (Gerwig declines to read me the poem but offers that it “shares some similarities with the Apostles’ Creed.”) No one at Lucky­Chap, Mattel, or Warner Bros. saw any pages of the script until it was finished.

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

When I ask Gerwig and Baumbach to describe their Barbie writing process, the words “open” and “free” get used a lot. The project seemed “wide open,” Gerwig tells me. “There really was this kind of open, free road that we could keep building,” Baumbach says. Part of it had to do with the fact that their characters were dolls. “It’s like you’re playing with dolls when you’re writing something, and in this case, of course, there was this extra layer in that they were dolls,” Baumbach says. “It was literally imaginative play,” Gerwig says. That they were writing the script during lockdown also mattered, Baumbach says. “We were in the pandemic, and everybody had the feeling of, Who knows what the world is going to look like. That fueled it as well. That feeling of: Well, here goes nothing.”

Robbie and Ackerley read the Barbie script at the same time. A certain joke on page one sent their jaws to the floor. “We just looked at each other, pure panic on our faces,” Robbie recalls. “We were like, Holy fucking shit.” When Robbie finished reading: “I think the first thing I said to Tom was, This is so genius. It is such a shame that we’re never going to be able to make this movie.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

LuckyChap did make the movie, of course, and it’s very much the one Gerwig and Baumbach wrote. (Alas, that joke on page one is gone.) If you saw the trailer released in December, you’ve seen the opening of the film. It’s a parody of the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But instead of apes discovering tools in the presence of a monolith, little girls smash their baby dolls in the presence of a gigantic Barbie. Robbie-​as-​Barbie appears in a retro black-and-white bathing suit and towering heels. She slowly lowers a pair of white cat-eye sunglasses and winks.

I saw more of the movie one morning at the Warner Bros. lot. After the Kubrick spoof we go on a romp through Barbieland, “a mad fantasy of gorgeousness,” as Sarah Greenwood, the film’s set designer, puts it later. Barbie wakes up in her Dreamhouse and embarks on the Perfect Day, accompanied by an original song that serves as soundtrack. (I am not allowed to say who sings it.) Everything everywhere is infused with pink. “I’ve never done such a deep dive into pink in all my days,” Greenwood says. Barbie’s perfectly fake, color-​saturated world retains many of the quirks and physical limitations of the toy version. Her environment isn’t always three-dimensional, and the scale of everything is a bit off. Barbie is a little too big for her house and her car. When she takes a shower, there is no water. Her bare feet remain arched.

IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie photographed by Ethan James Green for Vogue, summer 2023

Stereotypical Barbie was a tough nut to crack. Usually Robbie finds something called “animal work” helpful. Tonya was a pit bull in life and a mustang on the ice. Nellie, Robbie’s character in Babylon, was an octopus and a honey badger. An octopus because they are survivalists; they have a lot of nerve endings; there’s a fluidity to them; and they change their appearance. A honey badger because they have square backs and thick skin. “They’re such an insane animal,” Robbie says. “You can hit a honey badger with a machete.” With Barbie, animal work wasn’t useful. Robbie tried a flamingo but didn’t get anywhere. At one point she was really struggling. “I was like, Greta, I need to go on this whole character journey. And Greta was like, Oh, I have a really good podcast for you.” Gerwig sent Robbie an episode of This American Life, about a woman who doesn’t introspect. “You know how you have a voice in your head all the time?” Robbie says. “This woman, she doesn’t have that voice in her head.”

To sort out the sexiness question, Robbie had to break it down. “I’m like, Okay, she’s a doll. She’s a plastic doll. She doesn’t have organs. If she doesn’t have organs, she doesn’t have reproductive organs. If she doesn’t have reproductive organs, would she even feel sexual desire? No, I don’t think she could.” Therefore: “She is sexualized. But she should never be sexy. People can project sex onto her.” Thus: “Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it’s fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt.”

I do glean a few details about the rest of Barbie. The arc is partially inspired by something Gerwig read when she was a kid, in the 1994 bestseller Reviving Ophelia. “My mom would check out books from the library about parenting, and then I would read them,” Gerwig says. The book describes an abrupt change that happens in American girls when they hit adolescence and begin to bend to external expectations. “They’re funny and brash and confident, and then they just—stop,” Gerwig says. This memory bubbled up early in the writing and Gerwig found it “jarring,” the realization that this is where the story had to go: “How is this journey the same thing that a teenage girl feels? All of a sudden, she thinks, Oh, I’m not good enough.” There’s a completely different color template for the real world, Prieto mentions when we speak. Techni-​Barbie is only for Barbie’s world. “We wanted to create a distinctive look for Barbie, for her world, as opposed to the real world,” Prieto says.

Also, Robbie’s speech patterns change. She brings this up when describing Barbie’s non-accent. (Barbie shouldn’t sound like she’s from anywhere in particular, therefore: “General American accent. It’s called GenAm.”) At the start of the movie, Barbie speaks in a higher register, and: “Everything is very definite. There’s no second thought. There’s no hesitation.” Later, her voice lowers, and there are more pauses”.

I am going to finish with a review for Barbie. Go and see it if you get the opportunity. It comes out on 21st July. The official site is here. That will give you more details regarding its social media channels and all the information that you need. No doubt this is going to be the cinematic event of the year! The reviews that have come out already are hugely positive. I literally don’t think there will be anything less than five and four-star reviews from across the board. It is going to be impossible to find much fault with a film that will delight and blow the senses. In fact, rather than hunting a single review, let’s get a selection of opinions. Variety presented a selection of the opinions about the superb Barbie:

“A select few humans got a glimpse into Barbie World on Sunday night at the world premiere of Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.

Social media exploded with reactions. ScreenRant writer Joseph Deckelmeier called the film “funny, bombastic and very smart,” adding that “Greta Gerwig aims for the fences and hits a home run.” Deckelmeier praised Robbie’s performance as “great” and noted that Gosling and Simu Liu are “pure entertainment.”

Collider writer Perri Nemiroff praised the craftsmanship of the film, particularly the costume and production design. When it came to the story, however, she had more mixed opinions, stating: “I think the film serves Margot Robbie’s Barbie and her journey especially well, but there are other characters experiencing important arcs that needed more screen time to really dig into and explore to the fullest.”

Jamie Jirak of ComicBook.com called the film her “favorite film of the year,” writing: “Greta Gerwig somehow exceeded my expectations…Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination, I’m dead serious!”

“Pay Or Wait” host Sharronda Williams called the film “witty, heartfelt and downright fun,” particularly complimenting Gosling as a “scene stealer delivering most of the laughs.” Williams also stated that the screenplay “feels bloated at times.”

Variety‘s social media editor Katcy Stephan called the movie “perfection”: “Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play”.

A film that everyone will need to go and see, I wanted to have a look at some of the promotion around Barbie. I wanted to especially highlight Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. I think that Ryan Gosling is fantastic and he may well get a lot of award buzz for his role as Ken. He is a natural comic actor and I hope he pairs with Robbie again soon, as the two have this instant chemistry and clear affection for one another. It is the command and star quality if Margot Robbie that she brings to the role of Barbie. Directed by the phenomenal Greta Gerwig, it sounds like it was a really fun and exciting set to be a part of! With a terrific soundtrack accompanying the film on 21st July, the marketing has been brilliant. One of the best campaigns in living memory. Not that this alone will make the film a spectacular success. It will pull hundred of millions of dollars/pounds in the box office and, as I have predicted, earn awards for Robbie, Gerwig and probably Gosling too! On 21st July, so many of us will be spending time immersed in Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography and Greta Gerwig’s fine direction. Stepping into Barbie Land. This film has brought people together and created so much conversation – not just around the film and a series of films based around Mattel figures, but also feminism and reappropriating Barbie and her impact. It has most definitely left us all…

IN the pink.

FEATURE: Speaking Words of Wisdom: Will We Get a Second Get Back Documentary from The Beatles and Peter Jackson?

FEATURE:

 

 

Speaking Words of Wisdom

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in January 1969 during their legendary rooftop gig in London/PHOTO CREDIT: Apple Corps

Will We Get a Second Get Back Documentary from The Beatles and Peter Jackson?

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THERE is always something going on…

 ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Madison Grosvenor

when it comes to The Beatles! In terms of news, exhibitions, auctions, reissues and general news, we are never short of action! Whilst we Beatles fans are blessed and lucky to have access to their music and new information about them so many years after they broke up, there are certain questions and what-ifs. I think many people wonder which album of theirs will be reissued. The previous one was Let It Be. Many would want the next reissue to be for 1965’S Rubber Soul. Giles Martin, the arbiter and super-producer in charge of all of this, has made no announcements yet. I suspect that we will get an album reissue in the next year or two. They are always so exciting to hear! I saw a recent article from Rolling Stone about the recording of Let It Be and that Peter Jackson Get Back documentary that came out in 2021:

“Producer/engineer Glyn Johns recorded the whole of the Let It Be sessions for the Beatles in 1969, and mixed a raw version of the album that wouldn’t be released for another 52 years —  so he’s far from a fan of the Phil Spector-embellished album that came out in 1970. “He did a terrible job,” Johns says on the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. “Don’t misunderstand me — I respect Phil Spector for his early work tremendously. But somebody like Phil Spector shouldn’t ever be allowed near a band like the Beatles, in my view. Phil Spector was always the artist in the records that he made. He treated the artists like parts of the machine to make the end result. I don’t think the Beatles ever require that kind of input.”

The new episode, which also includes an interview with Ringo Starr, was recorded live at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Starr’s 83rd birthday, with Rob Sheffield and Hall of Fame vice president of education Jason Hanley joining host Brian Hiatt to interview Johns about the making of Let It Be and more. To hear the whole episode — which also includes some of Johns’ memories of working with The Rolling Stones, the Who, and Led Zeppelin — go here to the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. A few highlights follow:

Johns thinks the Beatles improved tremendously as players from their early days. “I had the good fortune to be present on a recording for a TV show they did in the very early sixties called Around the Beatles, and it was done at the studio where I was working,” Johns says. “And the backing tracks sounded pretty average, like any band really. I actually think they all developed tremendously as musicians from there, George in particular. George was not the most instinctive guitar player like Eric [Clapton] George needs time to sit and work stuff out, and when he does it is phenomenal. It’s just phenomenal. Ringo, I didn’t pay much attention to initially, but by the time I got to record them, it became apparent to me what an astonishing drummer he is, and I don’t think he gets nearly enough credit to this day. He really is quite remarkable. His feel. I’m talking about his feel. His technical ability is average, but his feel exceptional. Also, what he does, where he puts what he plays is quite remarkable. And without him, they would not have been the same band. I don’t care what anybody says.”

Starr has no idea where he got the beat he plays on the released version of “Get Back.”

In early rehearsals, as shown in Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, “it’s just straight rock,” Starr says. “And then it’s on the roof and I’m, I’ve got that shuffle-swing march going and I don’t know what came into me to do that. I just felt good at the time doing that. That’s how most of my drumming was actually. It’s a feeling kind of playing, not an absolute restrictive type of drumming.”

When George Harrison temporarily left the Beatles during the making of Let It Be, it felt “very real,” Johns says. “Extremely real! He even took his eight track back. Talk about throwing your toys out the pram! I was really upset: ‘Bloody hell. I’ve waited all these years to work with them. I’ve been in it for two minutes, and it looks like it’s all over already.’ And of course, that turned out not to be the case, but it was pretty disappointing”.

Reading some of that Rolling Stone article casts my mind back to Get Back. In terms of its importance, that documentary recontextualised our understanding of The Beatles’ relationship during that time. The perceived wisdom prior to that documentary was that there was a lot of in-fighting and disharmony. Many assumed that Yoko Ono added to a lot of the tension – like she was in the way or, absurdly, broke up the band. In fact, whilst there was some argument and bad moments (George Harrison walking out), there was a lot of relaxation, happiness and great moments. The bond between John Lennon and Paul McCartney is particularly striking. They still had that mutual respect and love for one another.

It was a great gift to get the documentary and the 468 minutes of the band rehearsing and recording new songs. I do wonder whether more from that time will come out. By all means, Peter Jackson would have kept material aside. There were many more hours originally filmed and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The more we understand from those latter days, the more we can appreciate them anew. Future generations will also get more context and truth. We do not necessarily need a further three-part series, but more footage from those sessions would be a treasure! I think that there is a lot of curiosity regarding what was left out and how much is left. It is always brilliant to know that people around during the time The Beatles: Get Back are still with us and will talk about it. I know fans were so appreciative to Peter Jackson for bringing us this footage and, in the process, giving us a new perspective on a very important period in the band’s history! I have the feeling that there is a lot more to be seen. More than will add new layers to the greatest band ever to have lived. Let’s see what the future holds. If nothing comes about, then we can let it be. I know there will be books, albums and various other Beatles bits arriving in the coming years. It is just that the impact of that three-part documentary in 2021 was profound. If it could happen all over again, then that would really be something. From the more boring moments in the studio when the band were noodling, to that epic and iconic rooftop gig, it was a hugely emotional watch! I know Beatles fans around the world would love to spend some more time with The Beatles as they put together wonderful songs. We can never say never, because none of us know…

WHAT the future holds.

FEATURE: Personality Crisis: New York Dolls’ Sensational Eponymous Debut at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

Personality Crisis

New York Dolls’ Sensational Eponymous Debut at Fifty

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A classic case…

 PHOTO CREDIT: P. Felix/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

of a genius debut album selling poorly but being met with critical acclaim – or the other way around in some cases -, the New York Dolls’ eponymous album was released on 27th July, 1973. Recorded at The Record Plant in New York, there is something very loyal to the city. Hailing from New York City, they gained huge local respect and re by playing shows through Lower Manhattan in the lead-up to cutting their debut album. There was reticence from record labels to push ahead signing and recording New York Dolls due to their outlandish and excessive lifestyle. The vulgarity and outrage they stirred from the stage. That was part of the deal. They were a genuine Rock band who were stirring things up! Also, as there was a lot of homophobia in New York City (and the wider world) in the early-1970s, concerns were raised. Maybe they inspired David Bowie to an extent (who developed his Ziggy Stardust persona more or less around the same time as the release of New York Dolls), the band donned an extravagant and eye-catching wardrobe, high heels, eccentric hats, satin, makeup, spandex, and dresses whilst performing. Perhaps there was a fear they would be ostracised and attacked releasing an album. No doubt their stage performances inspired artists both in the U.S. and U.K. They were a terrific cult band who were so different to everything around them. Whilst a lot of Rock from the 1960s and 1970s (and beyond) was very male-driven and sexual, there was this androgynous aspect to New York Dolls which stood them about. The fact the band dragged up for the album cover of their debut is part shock value - but also sent a message that they would not be censored or discriminated against!

Recording their phenomenal debut album with Todd Rundgren – who, renowned for his sophisticated Pop tastes was not overly keen on New York Dolls’ sound -, he got down their live sound on the debut. Although there would have been disagreements whilst recording, the partnership did yield a classic. New York Dolls is so impactful and enduring, as it talks about  urban youth, teen alienation, adolescent romance, and authenticity. The band - David Johansen, Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane, Jerry Nolan, Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders – created this vital album. Reappraised as one of the most important debuts ever, it certainly ignited Punk Rock and more beside. Defining and shaping New York music with their distinct sound, many consider New York Dolls to be a better Glam/Rock album that anything that followed from David Bowie or Marc Bolan (T.Rex). I want to round off with a couple of reviews for the mighty New York Dolls. Writing in 1973, this is what Rolling Stone had to say:

“THE ALBUM COVER hits with a stark black and white photo, title scrawled in lipstick red aross the top. The boys appear on a white satin couch with a strange combination of high pop-star drag and ruthless street arrogance. There’s lipstick, eyeshadow and platform boots, but there’s also some sinister slipstream flowing here. Remember the earliest Stones’s publicity photos? What was scruffy and outrageous then looks so commonplace now — in ten years will this photo seem as quaint?

But the Dolls are a lot more than just another visually weird band. In much the same way that the Stones and the Who began as symbols of and for their club audiences, the Dolls, in their series of legendary gigs at the Mercer Arts Center came to be the forefront of a new creature/clan. Somebody once described them as “the mutant children of the hydrogen age”: boys and girls of indeterminate gender, males with earrings and flashing orange hair, females with ducktails and black leather, interchangeable clothes, makeups and postures, maybe gay, maybe not — and what’s it to ya, mothafuckah? (Wistful lost children with battery acid veins and goldbrick road dreams … how hard it is to be outrageous these days …)

Interesting sociologically, but it could get pretty deadly on a music level, if it weren’t for the Dolls’s street sense. They don’t take their movie any more seriously than they take anyone else’s, and they play it with a refreshing and sardonic sense of humor.

In fall of last year the Dolls Toured England, where their first drummer died of chemical complications. They returned to the US and added friend Jerry Nolan, who seemed to spark a tightening-up and surprising musical growth. The band attracted a lot of record company interest, but most executives went away mumbling and snarling — with the exception of Paul Nelson, who kept coming back. In time a contract was signed and work began, with whiz-kid producer Todd Rundgren at the board. At first the combination seemed not only bizarre but unworkable: Todd, ace of complex board work and over-dubbing sessions versus the driving but basic dead-end kids of the Seventies. But strangely enough, the compromise between live raunch and studio cleanness and complexity seems to work about 90% of the time.

Generally, the Dolls’s live sound is the traditional two-guitar, bass and drums, with occasional harmonies behind lead vocals, and for the most part, it is maintained here. As is often the case with first albums, the group got too hung up with the toys of the studio — a few lead lines are all but buried in overdubs, some vocal choruses are just a bit too rich — but on the whole, it’s mostly straightforward power rock.

Lead singer David Jo Hansen wrote most of the lyrics, and his keen sense of the absurd comes through on the opening cut, “Personality Crisis,” a driving rocker. “With all the cards of fate mother nature sends, your mirror’s always jammed up with all your friends…. You got so much personality, you’re flashing on a friend of a friend of a friend …” The cut is a jumping companion piece to classics like “20th Century Fox” and “Cool Calm and Collected.” After finishing the screaming end of the take David sauntered into the control booth at the Record Plant. “Was that ludicrous enough?” he asked earnestly.

“Looking for a Kiss” is many people’s favorite Dolls song. It’s another full-power rocker with contemporary slice-of-urban-life lyrics: “I did not come here lookin’ for no fix — ah, uh-uh, no! — I been out all night in the rain babe — just looking for a kiss.” Guitarists Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain (he’s the one with the roller skates and clown rouge on the cover shot) lay down a suitably harmonic-cacophonic city sound behind David’s sincere plea — “I mean a fix ain’t a kiss!”

“Vietnamese Baby” is a love song, and Todd’s magic fingers turn the drums into occasional bursts of machine gun fire. “Now that it’s over baby — whatcha gonna do?” “Lonely Planet Boy” is a comparatively acoustic ballad with a great late-night smoggy city feel, as close as the Dolls get to being ethereal. David’s voice is almost a whisper over the Ice Dog saxophone of Buddy Bowser. Although just a taste too busy, the cut has a mood of drifting solitude that’s just right at the end of a strange sad night when the manholes have been trying to bite you.

“Frankenstein (Orig.)” — it was written before Edgar Winter’s — is the album’s “bad acid” song. It builds an air of oppressive and droning inevitability, helped along by Todd’s droog-ing on the Moog. In an interview David explained, “The song is about how kids come to Manhattan from all over, they’re kind of like whipped dogs, they’re very repressed. Their bodies and brains are disoriented from each other … it’s a love song.”

“Trash” has an infectious rhythm riff, and uses Stones and Beach Boys quotes as well as old R&B lines: “How you call your loverboy? Trash!” It’s a nonsensical, good-rocking ass-shaker. Probably the most easily accessible song here is “Bad Girl” (“A new bad girl moved on my block/I gave her my keys, said don’t bother to knock”). The guitar break by Johnny is short, catchy and effective. Nobody takes any long solos anywhere; what counts is the song, words and music and the arrangements are lean and mean, put together with craftsmen’s ears.

“Subway Train” is a personal favorite. The charging guitar phrase that keeps running throughout has all the metal banshee mania of the Seventh Avenue IRT, and the riff is equally relentless. “I seen enough drama just riding on a subway train,” David sings, and if you’ve ever been there you know just what he means.

“Private World” is another favorite, about your own fantasy retreat from it all (“Shut the door!”) — with an oddly familiar and infectious riff, and nice honky-tonked piano by Todd and Syl. The album closes with “Jet Boy,” mostly words on a swooping riff; Marvel Comics meets the Lower East Side. Throughout, the rhythm of drummer Jerry Nolan and bassist bad Arthur Kane is solid and pulsing, the guitars fast and slashing, the structures simple but effective”.

If it shocked and stunned back in 1973, it lost none of its impact and brilliance years later. Like any cult album, the sales were not terrific. Critics could identify this band who would instantly change the music world. You only need to hear the opening track, Personality Crisis, to tell that New York Dolls mean business! AllMusic sat down with New York Dolls’ debut and noted the following:

“When the New York Dolls released their debut album in 1973, they managed to be named both "Best New Band" and "Worst Band" in Creem Magazine's annual reader's poll, and it usually takes something special to polarize an audience like that. And the Dolls were inarguably special -- decades after its release, New York Dolls still sounds thoroughly unique, a gritty, big-city amalgam of Stones-style R&B, hard rock guitars, lyrics that merge pulp storytelling with girl group attitude, and a sloppy but brilliant attack that would inspire punk rock (without the punks ever getting its joyous slop quite right). Much was made of the Dolls' sexual ambiguity in the day, but with the passage of time, it's a misfit swagger that communicates most strongly in these songs, and David Johansen's vocals suggest the product of an emotional melting pot who just wants to find some lovin' before Manhattan is gone, preferably from a woman who would prefer him over a fix.

If the lyrics sometimes recall Hubert Selby, Jr. if he'd had a playful side, the music is big, raucous hard rock, basic but with a strongly distinct personality -- the noisy snarl of Johnny Thunders' lead guitar quickly became a touchstone, and if he didn't have a lot of tricks in his arsenal, he sure knew when and how to apply them, and the way he locked in with Syl Sylvain's rhythm work was genius -- and the Dolls made their downtown decadence sound both ominous and funny at the same time. The Dolls were smart enough to know that a band needs a great drummer, and if there's something likably clumsy about Arthur Kane's bass work, Jerry Nolan's superb, elemental drumming holds the pieces in place with no-nonsense precision at all times. "Lonely Planet Boy" proved the Dolls could dial down their amps and sound very much like themselves, "Pills" was a superbly chosen cover that seemed like an original once they were done with it, and "Personality Crisis," "Trash," and "Jet Boy" were downtown rock & roll masterpieces no other band could have created. And while New York Dolls clearly came from a very specific time and place, this album still sounds fresh and hasn't dated in the least -- this is one of rock's greatest debut albums, and a raucous statement of purpose that's still bold and thoroughly engaging”.

A blazing and seismic debut album from the New York Dolls, this eponymous album definitely inspired bands like Kiss, Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Damned, Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, and The Smiths. Its impact and influence can still be heard in new bands. I am not sure whether there are anniversary plans ahead of 27th July. If there is no reissue of New York Dolls, at least people need to dig it out and let this incredible album do its work. It may have been recorded in New York City by a New York City band, but this landmark and hugely influential debut album was very much…

FOR the world!

FEATURE: Under My Skin: Kate Bush in Japan, June 1978: The Iconic Koh Hasebe Shot

FEATURE:

 

 

Under My Skin

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

Kate Bush in Japan, June 1978: The Iconic Koh Hasebe Shot

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YOU can see the actual…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe (Shinko Music/Getty Images)

photo here of Kate Bush in Japan back in 1978. It is one that is hugely significant to me. The shot was taken by Koh Hasebe when Bush visited there in June of that year. Only four months after her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released into the world, Bush was in a new country with a very different way of life. Not used to something that was a culture clash compared to the U.S., I wanted to revisit this period for one reason. I have a couple of Kate Bush tattoos already, but they are both lyrics – from two songs on The Kick Inside. I wanted something of her face. It was a hard decision to make but, looking through some iconic early shots of her, I was struck by the photos in Japan. Dressed quite casually, Hasebe captured this teenage artists quite relaxed but curious. Even though she is smiling in some of the photos, it is the ones of her looking more pensive and mysterious that moved me. You can see another article, where the image is front and centre. There is something about the shot of her looking on with flowers in the foreground that is especially beautiful and striking. Other than it being a fantastic composition, that photo is taken half-way through one of her busiest years. In fact, apart from maybe 1985, Bush was not to experience a year quite as hectic as 1978! It was a dizzying time where she went around the world promoting her album and performing. Still new to the music industry, it was an exciting, confusing and packed year where she went to new places and really hit the ground running!

EMI, with their new prodigy having already had a number one single (Wuthering Heights) and a debut album that was a chart success, were keen to show her off and see if she could conquer the globe. Bush had released Moving in Japan in February, 1978. Them Heavy People was released in Japan in May 1978. Gaining hype and momentum there, she went on this trip that saw her perform at a music festival, film her one and only advert (for Seiki watches), sing songs by The Beatles, and be met with huge acclaim from a loving audience. Maybe there was some slight cultural appropriate from Bush when in Japan – such as the outfits and looks in general. You can read more about that trip in this article. I love the fact that she was popular in Japan. In fact, Moving reached number one there. Them Heavy People went to number three. It was only to be expected she would visit Japan. I am not sure how much time she had to relax and explore the country. It was important that she promoted her music whilst there. Even if the itinerary was a bit strange, perhaps it was a hard country to crack. In terms of interviews, there would not be many interviewers who spoke good English. No music shows like we had in the U.K. Trying to break through language and cultural borders, something about Moving and Them Heavy People resonated with audiences in Japan. Both quite spiritual and beautiful songs, I am not sure whether Wuthering Heights would have been as successful there – even if Japan is known for being a bit strange and bold.

Another reason for doing this feature is to get people to think more deeply about Kate Bush. There will be fans that want a tattoo of her. It is always a hard choice. Maybe you go for something based on Hounds of Love (1985). You may want Kate Bush a bit later in her career. Whatever you go for, it has to mean something and be more than skin deep. Even if it is literally on your skin, the meaning and relevance of that tattoo does have to go beyond that. I love the shot I chose by Koh Hasebe as, like Gerd Mankowitz, John Carder Bush and Guido Harari, he managed to capture Kate Bush in a very deep and extraordinary pose. Whilst it may seem like an ordinary photo, there is so much interesting context. Taken during this wild and unusual trip to Japan, Bush looks thoughtful and almost sullen. I am not sure what the directions were like for Hasebe. With a limited time with her, he had to capture this range of shots that expressed different sides and moods. The one of Bush with flowers in the foreground is compelling and arresting. With that eye shadow/mascara and long brown hair, it is a stunning look! I was intrigued by her pose and what she might have been thinking when the photo was taken. More than anything, it captures Bush at a pivotal moment. She was thrust into the world and hitting the scene hard. EMI were hardly allowing her time to breathe. June 1978 was in the middle of a busy time. The previous month, she took her first promotional trip to the U.S. By July, she was in France to start recording of her second studio album. It was a mad and whirlwind time. I can only imagine what it was like when she was in Japan. Exciting in many ways, there must have been a feeling and longing for home. Excited to make her second album, she was not given too much time to write new material. I do think about that and how that made her feel. Both beautiful and stirring, that Koh Hasebe shot of Kate Bush in Japan looking on really compelled me. It is truly a remarkable and…

MEMORABLE photo.

FEATURE: Waking Up: The Queens Highlighting and Fighting Sexism and Misogyny During the Britpop Era

FEATURE:

 

 

Waking Up

IN THIS PHOTO: Elastica (Justine Frischmann, Justin Welch, Donna Matthews and Annie Holland)

The Queens Highlighting and Fighting Sexism and Misogyny During the Britpop Era

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I have been inspired by a new series…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Garbage (led by Shirley Manson) in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Maryanne Bilham Photography/Redferns

on BBC Sounds that explores The Rise and Fall of Britpop. Presented by Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq, it is a fascinating look at one of the most important yet divisive music periods. I think that there was some division when Britpop started around, let’s say, 1993 – though I don’t think there is an official date, the likes of Suede launching their debut this year cemented the term. Dividing people into groups and clans, there were those who liked Oasis or Blur. You also had Pulp, Suede, and those a little on the periphery like Menswear, Supergrass, and Cast. Big bands at the time like Radiohead never realty fitted into Britpop. It was a particular sound that still exists to this day. There is no denying the fact that it was a huge time. These amazing British artists ruling and producing the best music. Whilst there was a combination of division and unity, there seemed to be this divide between male and female artists. I am going to end with a collection of songs from some of the finest women in the Britpop era. With bands led by the likes of Shirley Manson (Garbage), Justine Frischmann (Elastica) and Louise Wener (Sleeper), there were these captivating and powerful women singing timeless and hugely inspiring songs. There was this relatively lack of exposure and acclaim. Sexism and this rise of the lad culture. In the fourth episode of the BBC Sounds episode, Louise Wener, Shirley Manson, Miki Berenyi and Justine Frischmann discuss their experiences.

Among the interviews for the show, this notion that women were seen as sex objects. Reduced to their bodies. double standards regarding women talking about sex and being open, and this cliched version of masculinity. Whilst female artists of the time were playing as well, partying as hard and making as big an impact as their male counterparts, they were still not gracing as many magazine covers, getting as much acclaim and respect, or being discussed as much in terms of their musical brilliance. Often there are poisonous attitudes when women talk about sex and love. Dismissed as sex-obsessed or dirty, men were celebrated and idolised for saying the same things. Many of the great bands with women in (or comprised of women alone) were not featuring in magazine or in interviews. When many still talk about Britpop, women are frequently kept at the outskirts. Not put at the centre like Blur and Oasis. There were so many amazing women who could not make the covers unless there was a level of sexuality and explicitness. Blur’s video for Country House – the song that went up against Oasis’ Roll With It in the big battle of Britpop in 1995 – was meant to be ironic, but it sort of highlighted how many viewed women. Seen as sex symbols and bodies, it is an unfortunate casting of women. An in-joke that not everyone got. Lad mags, as is explored in the documentary, took the industry back to darker times. Women were often expected to talk in a certain way and fit into this very regressive narrative.

The Britpop world celebrated the horrid page three and porno ‘fun’ of the time. This weird and insulting representation of working-class culture. These amazing women making music and trying to be seen were often leered at. Shirley Manson said in the documentary how society is tougher for women. There is this impossible standard. The music industry, especially during Britpop, wanted women young. If they dressed like women and were comfortable in their own skin, they faced this sexualisation and view that they were meat. Many had to dress more like men to get attention or for this sort of thing to stop. Women were often marketed as sex objects or expected to be very revealing in a very bad and toxic way. If the industry has changed slightly, I think there is still a perception that women are objects. They do not have depth or real meaning beyond their looks and bodies. This was something that existed before Britpop, but the movement enforced this very dangerous and dismissive attitude. Britpop, as the documentary concludes with, saw women pave the way for change. For new artists to come through. Some of the absolute best singles and albums from that Britpop reign – 1993 to about 1998 – came from bands like Lush, Sleeper, Garbage, Skunk Anansie, Elastica and those with phenomenal women at the helm. Even today, so many women – including Garbage’s Shirley Manson – at loggerheads with magazines about the way they are presented. There are still huge challenges. We romanticise Britpop and forget about women’s experiences. Sexism is only half of the story when it comes to women and their role in Britpop.

There was so much misogyny too. I am going to reference a few articles that discuss how women were perceived during a high time where men were celebrated and seen as music heroes. Far Out Magazine wrote late last year about the misogyny that was rife and somewhat undiscussed during the Britpop period. If we have happy memories of the brilliant music and uplift of that time, we do tend to sweep away or forget how women were viewed. Things like the Country House video definitely didn’t help things:

“Another respected figure from the time is Sleeper frontwoman Louise Wener, whose hits such as ‘Inbetweener’ and ‘Sale of the Century’ are hailed as Britpop highlights. Despite these hits, Wener faced ample sexism, and it’s something she hasn’t forgotten. “The music press was so leaden and serious back then,” Wener told Long Live Vinyl. “It was hard to get any humour across. There was a basic sexism, too; this fake shock of, ‘Oh, it’s a woman at the helm! Writing the songs!’ Because of that, the men in the band had to be diminished in some way.”

Much of this manifested itself in the term “Sleeperbloke”. Originally used to describe Wener’s bandmates, guitarist Jon Stewart, drummer Andy MacLure and bassist Diid Osman, it soon became a way of depicting the apparently forgettable men in a female-fronted band. Later in the interview, MacLure said of the term: “Only female-fronted bands had Sleeperblokes in the ’90s. It was a terrible, misogynistic way of operating.”

One moment in Britpop that has long been the subject of intense criticism is the video of Blur’s 1995 single ‘Country House’. Although the single is most famous for being the band’s offering in the fierce media spectacle ‘The Battle of Britpop’, against Oasis hit ‘Roll With It’, the misogyny contained within is more significant.

The accompanying music video of ‘Country House’ was directed by artist du jour Damien Hirst and depicts the song’s narrative of a man – played by Keith Allen – who escapes the rat race of the city for a big house in the country. However, it also features models Sara Stockbridge, Vanessa Upton, and Page 3 girl Jo Guest in an objectifying way. The women involved are used as sexual objects and nothing else.

Blur guitarist, Graham Coxon, has been particularly critical of the video, labelling it “demeaning to the girls” who appear in it. In his 2022 memoir, Verse, Chorus, Monster!, he wrote: “It made me angry because here I was, finally in a band, and the experience seemed to be getting cheapened by Page 3-type imagery, a revival of sexism and football hooliganis”.

Of the objectifying, he added: “I was clashing heavily with the Britpop thing and didn’t feel the need to refer to women’s body parts in a rude way.”

This begs the question, why wasn’t Britpop more heavily protested against at the time? Despite all the promises of the liberal 1990s, outdated social mores were yet to change, and #MeToo was still a long way away. Ultimately, Radiohead put it perfectly – Britpop was “backwards-looking”.

Before coming back to a more serious side of the debate, Caitlin Moran wrote a feature for Stylist imagining what it would have been like if Britpop was dominated by women. Instead of wall-to-wall men, it would have been a very different world. One, I think, vastly more interesting! I have selected a section of her funny, honest and often thought-provoking feature that caught my eye:

“Rejoice in a female Supergrass – so young they’re still almost children, wildly hairy, pedalling away on their Chopper bikes in the video to Alright. Stoner lady- monkeys with one of the greatest drummers, Dani, Keith Moon-ing (sorry, Kate Moon-ing) so hard and wild behind her kit, she ends most gigs just in her bra, beaming, exhilarated, at the crowd.

The odd, appealing innocence of Caught By The Fuzz – which is essentially the origin story of Ilana and Abbi from Broad City, in which some young women try to buy some marijuana, but it all goes wrong in the most amusing way possible.

If a band as hairy as Lady Supergrass had existed when I was a teenage girl, there’s every chance the female moustache would have become a fashionable look. I could have saved myself 20 years of waxing. We would all have lady moustaches now.

As for Jarvine Cocker – that gangly, sexy nerd of Pulp, kung fu kicking in their charity shop suit – well, overnight, it became OK for everyone to wear glasses. I would never have bought contact lenses if I had seen Jarvine Cocker sing Common People at Glastonbury in 1995 – glasses steaming up and howling, “I wanna live with common people like yoooooou!” jumping in the air like a praying-mantis. And I wasn’t the only one.

 A week later, the cities of Britain were filled with elegantly shabby types in suits and glasses, talking about class war, carrying bottles of cherry brandy around in their battered satchels, and busting their demented dance moves at parties, while boys swooned at their geeky insouciance.

Now look, I don’t wish you to get me wrong. I loved the Britpop we actually had. Man, you could live the life of a Number One pop star by simply getting up, going out, having a fag, putting it out, seeing your friends, seeing the sights and feeling aaaaaalright.

A parallel world

But we can admit, now: when Damien Hirst is eventually commissioned to make a Britpop sculpture, it will be a 60ft high pile of cocks and balls, with, like, four tits stapled to the side.

As someone who was there at the time, it often felt like that bit in Game Of Thrones’ Battle of the Bastards, where Jon Snow is slowly being crushed under a pile of hundreds of hairy men-soldiers. But, in this case, all the men are in vintage Adidas tops, shouting, “Oi oi, mate! Nice one!” at each other.

That’s why it’s fascinating – something new and diverting for the eye! – to see, just for a second, what it would have been like in a parallel world. A world of women.

To imagine – as the great Johanna Lennon might have put it – there’s no Stephen. It’s easy if you try.

Just imagine what Titpop’s finest might have looked like…”.

Articles such as this explain how memories and books have been released that highlight how imbalanced and toxic Britpop was for women. Many of thew major players of the time – including Lush’s Miki Berenyi - have spoken honestly and candidly about their experiences. Women were written out of Britpop. There are horrifying testimonies from women in bands at the time. I want to finish by looking at a couple more articles. To be fair, there are essays, books and many more examples where the misogyny and sexism of Britpop is explored. The Quietus’ feature from 2013 took an extract from Clampdown: Pop-Cultural Wars on Class and Gender by Rhian E Jones. The extract was about Britpop culture - via Shampoo and Kenickie – and social class and gender:

“Kenickie's brassy, breezy self-expression was also presumed to signify an 'easy' sexuality, making them the objects of an unstable mixture of lust and disgust:

We were asked if we were in anyway like Viz's Fat Slags, 'only thinner', and these were the journalists who liked us! The interviewers seemed bemused by our hostility to their question - 'So what you're asking us, then, is, are we slags?' replied Lauren [Laverne, vocalist/guitarist] coolly. The asking of such a question demonstrates the reduction of all their assumptions about our perceived class, gender and regional roots to the grotesque parody of North East women in the Fat Slags comic strip. This ignored our own statements about our identity in our music.

This lack of understanding by a middle-class media of how such a comparison might be received highlights the frequent intersection of sexism and classism, whereby all women who are perceived as working-class are implicitly 'chavs', and all 'chavs' are explicitly easy. Kenickie's female frontline, like Shampoo, had an earthy, cartoon-glam aesthetic, half Old Hollywood starlets, half explosion in Claire's Accessories. Their particular brand of glamour was, as Susan Sontag wrote of Camp, 'a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it'. Their towering heels, aggressively revealing outfits and lashings of makeup were worn on their own terms; a Pink Ladies-inspired protective covering rather than a puppeteered provocation. Tangled up with the roots of this look was the history of glamour as a means for 'ordinary' girls to dress 'above their station' through artifice, lavish and luxurious but popularly accessible, which did not require the backing of 'good breeding'. In its more recent forms, this kind of glamour has become identified with either 'vulgar' appropriation or defiant class drag, in both cases serving to emphasise rather than disguise the class of its wearer. Carol Dyhouse's history of the term, however, traces how glamour's possibilities for transcending class and gender barriers generated predictable anxiety, cloaked in snobbery and appeals to national loyalty: at the height of 'glamour' as emulative and ambitious artifice and excess, a signifier of the upwardly-mobile and autonomous woman 'on the make', British Vogue encouraged its female readership to forsake this brash, democratic and over-the-top aesthetic in favour of a 'natural English look'”.

I’ll end with an article by The Guardian from last year. Lush’s Miki Berenyi’s Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success is an essential memoir that, among other things, sees her discuss her time in music when Britpop was celebrating men and not embracing edgy and alternative women who were doing things their own way and looking to be heard and respected:

“James does in fact offer Lush the chance to plug Lovelife in Loaded, but only if Emma and I strip down to bikinis. It takes me a moment to realise he’s serious. And why shouldn’t he be? Plenty of others have no issue with baring the flesh, so why shouldn’t he assume that I’m up for it, too?

Emma and I do a photo shoot for Dazed and Confused and are presented with a rack of clothes selected by a stylist. The photographer picks me out a black top and a leather mini. It’s only when I put them on that it becomes apparent that the skirt is the width of a football scarf and barely covers my arse. As we walk through the magazine’s busy offices, I tie my jumper around my waist to cover my rear and make sure I walk bolt upright, lest the skirt ride up any further.

This kind of sexist bullshit is becoming commonplace and reframed as “edgy”. I’m recommended a hot new photographer who is hailed as a visionary genius for shooting underage models in white underwear having a pillow fight on a bed. The snapper’s brilliant creative idea is to have Emma and me pose in a toilet cubicle. We position ourselves in our usual stance, but now he’s telling me to stick one leg against the door or push my hip out and stretch an arm up the wall. Any shift in my posture has the microskirt riding up, so I cautiously comply only as far as dignity will allow. When he indicates that he wants me to bend over the toilet, legs splayed and look back at him over my shoulder, I realise that this whole set-up is an elaborate ploy. The magazine isn’t interested in Lush, they just want some wank fodder for their readers. I firmly tell him no and we finish the shoot. The piece ends up relegated to an eighth of a page with about 40 words of text.

At one of the Soho House soirees, while I order drinks, a drunk comedian slurs at me to either suck his cock or fuck off. As I stand chatting to friends, Alex from Blur is sprawled on the floor making “phwoarr” noises and sinks his teeth into my arse. The Carry-On Sid James impersonations are a common theme. I fall into conversation with Keith Allen and try to ignore him sweeping his eyes around my body, twitching with overheating gestures and tugging at his collar to show he’s letting off steam. Another comedian sharing a cab ride suggests he come in for a bunk-up, despite having spent the entire night excitedly chatting about his imminent fatherhood. Liam Gallagher shuffles around me, wondering aloud when I’ll be ready to fuck him in the toilets.

This isn’t flirting, it’s constant, relentless sexualisation. And there’s a nasty edge to it, implying that it’s me, not them, who is asking for it.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lush in 1994/PHOTO CREDIT: Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

I recall Suzanne Vega once pointing out that Madonna may be breaking boundaries, but every teenage girl who dresses like her is still treated like a slut. I’m experiencing a similar uncomfortable side effect with the supposed androgyny of Britpop. While Justine from Elastica and Sonia from Echobelly and Louise from Sleeper, wearing suits or jeans and T-shirts, get treated as one of the boys, my long hair and short dresses are now a signal that I’m gagging for it. I’ve been doing what I do for years and now I’m being reframed as happy to be objectified.

I’ve been reading feminist texts since college, however unfashionable that might be right now – and to be fair, Chris always found it a bit tiresome. My education, both at North London Poly and from the politicised bands I’ve followed, has taught me to see through the “harmless fun” to the misogyny that drives it. I’m not militant about it. I don’t crucify people for crossing a line, I just recognise there is one. And I need to know someone well enough to accept that they’re “just joking”; I’m not going to swallow it as an excuse from a bloke I’ve just met.

I tag along to the NME Brats awards and the only women to take the stage all night are some semi-clad dancing girls and Candida Doyle, keyboard player in Pulp. Of the 17 categories, with 10 entries each, there are just seven women included and four of those are in the solo artist category: Madonna, Björk, PJ Harvey and Alanis Morissette (Paul Weller wins). The claim that Britpop celebrates sassy women in bands is a veneer. I saw it before with riot grrrl, where (in the UK, at least) the press consisted mainly of pitting women against each other. It spawned a host of “women in rock” debates that to my shame, I got dragged into, badmouthing Kylie Minogue when it was the men comparing every other female musician disparagingly to her sexy pop”.

I do love a lot about Britpop. At its best, it saw some sensational artists go head-to-head. There was this sense of celebration and hope. This is something hard to imagine today. We do not often look at the darker and more regressive side of Britpop: one where women were sexualised and overlooked. This misogyny and inequality is explored in an episode of the brilliant The Rise and Fall of Britpop on BBC Sounds. I would urge everyone to listen to the series! To end, I wanted to combine together the amazing women of Britpop. Those pioneers and hugely influential figures whose music will endure for decades! If they were not given their dues and respect in the 1990s, I think that there has been a correction and fonder retrospective attitude. It is clear that these amazing women gave such much to the music scene at pivotal and celebrated time in British culture. More importantly, they opened doors and have influenced a whole wave of female artists coming through. For that alone, they should be offered…

ETERNAL respect, gratitude and thanks.

FEATURE: Enable Repeat: The Addictive Nature of Streaming Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Enable Repeat

PHOTO CREDIT: Danish Saifi/Pexels

The Addictive Nature of Streaming Music

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THIS might be a bit of a personal thing…

 PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

but there are other people who will surely be able to relate. I actually want to discuss a few things when it comes to streamed music. Even if physical music is booming and sales are looking really impressive, there is still that limitation regarding affordability. We cannot buy as many albums as we would like. As physical singles are no longer a thing, artists have to rely on streaming alone to get people to listen to them. I still think people should buy albums, though one has to be selective and reign themselves in. Streaming in beneficial, as you get to hear albums and sample them before you buy. Singles are easily available to hear, and there is no doubt that a balance between buying albums and listening on streaming sites is best. Whilst artists are not paid nearly as much as they should for being on streaming, I think another problem exists when it comes to the listener. I pay Premium on Spotify, but I often think that this is not enough to pay. When you consider the fact you can listen unlimited to whatever music you like ad-free, it seems £9.99 is far too little! Considering I pay this sort of money for streaming T.V. – Disney+, Paramount etc. – and I use that comparatively little, it does seem that I (and everyone else) should pay more for music. Not to suggest a cut-off point but, as I pay very little to stream, I wonder whether I am getting as much out of it as I can. I tend I play the same songs over and over again. This addictive nature means that I can rinse a track and saturate it and it loses some value. You can do that with a physical single, but I am exploring less than I should do – leaning on these few songs and playing them to death. There is this addictive nature to streaming music. Whilst it is good to love a song and want to play it, there are one or two I cannot seem to stop playing. I wonder whether this is a healthy thing, and whether there should be some cut-off.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Boakye/Pexels

Spotify has the Daily Mix playlists. This is based on what you listen to. They will then create various mixes and playlists by genre and type of artist. It is good for prosperity and reference, but it is easy to rely on those and, again, play the same songs. Because there isn’t this streaming limit, I do wonder whether many of us are playing songs we know and love and not exploring enough. It can be very hard to open people eyes to the full extent and variety of new music. Even if there are weekly playlists of new music, so many artists and songs get missed out. It is vital there is older music and I can make playlists of my favourite songs, I feel Spotify and other streaming platforms should do more to highlight artists that do not get that many streams. I find that the Spotify interface is quite useful and easy to navigate. There is a choice of podcasts and music, but I find something is missing. Maybe an option to limit older songs you play regularly. A chance to pay a little bit more per month and ensure that some of that money goes to new artists. Perhaps integrating some of the features you get on Bandcamp. Being able to stream unlimited, but also there being a section where you can buy singles and albums from artists. Maybe it would not be the full amount, though a small fee – rather than streaming the music for very little – I think would change our listening habits. I do love older music, but I am getting hooked on the same artists and songs. I wonder how healthy it is going back to the same songs over and over again.

 PHOTO CREDIT: master1305 via Freepik

What I think needs to happen is for Platforms like Spotify to emphasise new music more. They could have a legacy section, but more playlists of new music and lesser-heard artists would be really rewarding. Radio is great for new music discovery, though I do miss out on so much. I have got into this very reductive and destructive habit of spinning the same songs and staying in a bit of a cycle. Not expanding my horizons and embracing newer sounds. Spotify and other platforms are great and give us so much access to all music. Perhaps it is just my listening habits, and yet other people I know get into the same routines. If you can get all this music for £9.99 a month, I tend to find you will utilise that and play your favourite music over and over. Rather than spreading out more with new music and podcasts, I am trying to drag myself out of a rut. Spotify and similar streaming sites are so vast and full of options. It can be a case of being overwhelmed and not missing out on so much. I feel we should all be paying more for streamed music. The reason for writing this feature was to sort of unburden myself a bit! Rather than keep on top of the best new music, I am relying on suggested mixes, my old playlists and these few songs time and time again. Because there are no limits and I can play a song over without paying music more, I am getting lazy. Perhaps people would bulk if there was a new payment structure and a raise. I kick myself for overlooking certain songs and artists, though there aren’t many guides or daily playlists that highlight them. That combination of repeating the same songs and not diving too much into new music tied to that low cost of streaming in the first place is affecting all of our tastes and habits. It has made me realise that I need to stop recycling and taking the easy option and spend more time exploring the full and wonderful array…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jess Bailey Designs

OF new songs and artists.

FEATURE: Spotlight: eee gee

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

eee gee

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EACH week…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Joacim Fougner

I am coming across great rising artists that slipped me by. The remarkable eee gee is someone that everyone should know about. I am a recent convert, but she is definitely someone who stands apart. There are not many recent interviews with her. Instead, I wanted to provide various bits of detail and information from features that teach us more about an incredible young artist with a bright future. Here is a bit of background about eee gee:

“eee gee is the project of Danish singer/songwriter Emma Grankvist. She released her debut album Winning in February 2022, which received multiple five-star reviews and it was since elected ‘Best Album Of The Year’ by multiple music medias like Soundvenue and GAFFA.

eee gee’s elegant universe is one of paradoxes – things are not always what they seem. Searingly honest, she writes songs about heartbreak and not feeling good enough while calling it “winning” and knowing just how lucky she actually is in the scheme of things. She lives in the complex world of a young woman trying to find her way. Her compelling storytelling about love, life and everything in between creates a relatable moment in every song”.

Her debut album, Winning, was released early last year. One of the best debuts of the year, it brought her music to the attention of the wider world. A perfect demonstration and representation of her magnificent talent and sound. Ones to Watch had their say on Winning. If you have not heard eee gee, I would recommend that you check out her debut album, as it is a great place to start:

“Life has a way of teaching us hard lessons from time to time. The key is to manifest what you've learned from your journey, and not hold your past against you. Wisdom is not an attribute doled out lightly, maybe because it is rarely justified. But every now and then, an artist comes along to share with us wisdom gained from their life lessons so that maybe, just maybe, we won't have to learn the hard way.

Brooklyn-based Danish artist Emma Grankvist, more popularly known as eee gee, has crafted an intimate, daring, and honest album with her latest release Winning. Masterfully demonstrated throughout the album is Grankvist's ability to tell a story, her story. Singing honestly about recollections of her past and revelations about her character are what make this album so captivating. It also helps that her voice is so euphonious. This album oozes confidence in all the right ways, a feat evident on tracks like "Killing it" and "Favourite Lover." You could pull a line anywhere off this album and use it as an inspirational quote.

With a delightfully eclectic mix of indie-pop, folk, and soul, Winning is a thoroughly fantastic listening experience, not only for the nuggets of wisdom you can mine from the lyrics but because it contains a range of tracks that will move you, as well as make you want to move. On the track "Favourite Lover," Grankvist states, "I don't care what you're saying about me" - but after listening to Winning, it will most assuredly only be good things”.

Before getting to a feature about eee gee’s amazing new single, ghost house, Rolling Stone UK wanted to find out more about an artist who refuses to put her music into one. Someone had to compare with anybody else, it is great that she got this nod and spotlight. Let’s hope that even more people discover her music. It is a true revelation:

“It’s a ghost house, dating’s haunted, everyone’s scared, to catch feelings,” comes the snappy chorus of ‘Ghost House’, the commitment issues synth pop banger that marks the first taste of She Rex, the latest album from Danish star eee gee.

The singer, real name Emma Grankvist, deals in whip-smart lyrics and striking melodies that offer a refreshing perspective on the world around her, all wrapped up in a package that’s brilliantly tough to pigeonhole.

“There was a big moment for me when I started realising that I could write songs in different genres, because I love Banks, but I also love Joni Mitchell,” she tells Rolling Stone UK.

Now, She-Rex will take that sound in further directions, with the singer promising a disco-tinged element too.

We first you saw supporting in Arlo Parks on the Rolling Stone UK stage at The Great Escape earlier this year. How was that experience for you?

It was amazing, because it was our first show outside of Denmark where we didn’t bring all of our equipment, so that presented the challenge of having to play on a smaller setup which was really fun. We’ve always been curious about that was going to work, but it’s a fun way to do things.

You were raised in Denmark and you’ve said that singing in your native tongue could help you go to the top there? Why didn’t you choose to take that path?

Phonetically it suits my personality better to sing in a language that’s a little softer, Danish can sound a little harsher on the syllables and the vowels. It’s a beautiful language, but singing in your own language means there’s no filters between you and the audience. Personality wise I’m more of an introvert so having a small sense of a cloak between me and the audience helps a little bit. But now I’ve lived in New York for two years, I actually feel more connected to the language which is interesting as I’m growing a little bit more mature and a bit more confident in music. That cloak is starting to fade away, so I do feel that I’m beginning to connect with people even though it’s not my native tongue.

There’s multiple sides to your sound. Some parts are full pop whereas others are perhaps a bit folkier. How did you land on these sounds when first writing?

It’s funny because I had a project before this one with a producer that was definitely leaning way more towards like alternative pop. And I remember we started out writing and sounding like acts like Beach House, but we really wanted to start writing more commercial pop and I listened a lot to Banks in that time and I was really into like that very melancholic dark electronic pop thing.

But when we started playing live – I don’t know if it was a combination of the key and the chords and the production and the melody – I just, it just didn’t feel like it was vibrating with me.

So when we ended that project, I just knew that I had to start over again and really investigate what genre felt authentic to me and where I’m from and really make sure that it felt like an extension of me instead of just being something that was trending or felt cool. There was a big moment for me when I started realising that I could write songs in different genres, because I love Banks, but I also love Joni Mitchell.

Also, I started thinking about how Copenhagen and Denmark takes in so many global influences, because we love Beyonce and Frank Ocean and Adele. We’re so influenced by all of these genres that are not really authentic to where we’re actually from culturally.

So I just really felt the need to, to investigate more of like the folk genre which I feel like is way more, you know, authentic to where we’re actually from.

It’s funny that people have been saying it sounds like Lana Del Rey because I love Lana but it was never like a thing I was going for.

Do your live shows help that connection to grow?

Yeah. I’d played my first shows and festivals for a year and it’s very easy for me to feel a strong connection when I’m on stage. Look, I wouldn’t necessarily put my music on for like, you know, going out and the peak of the party, but it definitely could be there at a pre party or coming down from a party. That’s the same vibe I’m really going for at festivals.

Your second album She-Rex arrives in September. Where does it take your sound and what can you tell us about the title?

It’s interesting because on my new album I’ve experimented with disco, so maybe I am getting closer to the songs that get played at the peak of the party and the peak of festivals!

The title is a rather sarcastic response to my first album, that was a very emotional record and about never really knowing where you’re standing with yourself. You know, trying to work with all the self care and self awareness in a world that is trying to pull you apart.

It’s an extension of that and, you know, T-Rex represents a primal and aggressive instinct. There’s a softer touch on the record too, but it has that I want to conquer the world feel, which felt very appropriate for a second album.

It’s also funny that Rex in Latin is king, because of course they had to give the biggest dinosaur male characteristics. I thought it was funny to make it into a She-Rex. The She King! It’s a fun word play and it has a strong base in humour and tongue in cheek lyrics”.

You might be aware of eee gee’s new single, ghost house. I hope that you do go back and listen to her previous music. Another awesome cut from the Danish innovator, maybe we will get an E.P. or another album fairly soon. There is definitely a huge demand for what she is putting out there. CLASH had this to say about her latest gem:

“Danish alt-pop voice eee gee has shared new single ‘ghost house’.

The songwriter’s 2022 debut album ‘Winning’ was a supremely intelligent dose of synth pop, blending witty lyrics with some superb melodies. She’s on a hot streak, too, with eee gee set to release a follow-up this year.

New album ‘SHE-REX’ will be released on September 1st via Future Classic, and it finds the songwriter – real name Emma Grankvist – broadening her vision. As she puts it: “I make music for the introvert, who is constantly pushed into the uncomfortable extrovert way of how the world works.”

Take new single ‘ghost house’. Out now, it blends superb word play with rippling electronic melodies, building to something irresistible. A song about love and betrayal, she sings: “Did he just use me as a build-up in a song / That never gets to where it could belong…?”

eee gee explains…

“I have a good friend who fell in love with this guy – a cliché of a cool, free-spirited surfer-dude with nice hair and that one-in-a-million look. They went all in on what seemed to be a match made in heaven. He even talked about her on the phone with his mom. However, one day my friend found out that he was actually dating several other girls and that he was anything but ready for a serious relationship,”

She continues: “Dating is haunted. If anyone should ever have a chance to find real love when looking for it, you probably need to break up with your own bad habits and expectations of what you think you need first. Ask yourself, why do you want to fall in love? If you find the answer, I believe you’re most likely able to meet new exciting people with the right intentions”.

Although I am new to eee gee, I have been listening back and getting a better and bigger sense of what her music is about and who she is. This is an artist I can confidently and thoroughly recommend. In a very busy and varied scene for new music, she is someone who stands out. If you are in search of some fascinating new music to get your ears around, then I would like to point you in the direction of…

THE brilliant eee gee.

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Follow eee gee

 Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/eeegeephonehome/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/eeegee8

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7wwdO3koJONTrS5TtFJ8RN

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6xXWizTuMA9VVhep6qSpA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/eeegeemusic/

FEATURE: From a House in Nebraska… Why Ethel Cain’s Social Media Experiences Should Give Pause to Music Fans Around the World

FEATURE:

 

 

From a House in Nebraska…

IN THIS PHOTO: Ethel Cain

Why Ethel Cain’s Social Media Experiences Should Give Pause to Music Fans Around the World

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IT can be risky…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Gouw/Pexels

for any artist being on social media. Whether it is Twitter, Threads, Instagram or any other platform, they are followed by a huge and anonymous number of people that have this very direct and unfiltered access to an artist’s accounts. Many of the accounts from bigger artists are run by a team. You do have artists who look after their own accounts. Whilst most of the feedback and comments are kind, there is a lot of toxicity and dangerous remarks - as pretty much anyone can follow any artist. Many have quit social media or pulled back because their fans’ comments have taken a toll. Either that or it is too much having to maintain the accounts and keep the career going. One wonderful artist everyone should know is Ethel Cain. Florida-born Hayden Anhedönia is a hugely inspiring and incredible transgender artist whose 2022 album, Preacher's Daughter, was one of the best of that year. She is someone who has been on social media for a while. Someone who interacted with fans and reacted to memes, videos and posts. That has changed slightly. Feeling that she is more a performing monkey, The Guardian highlighted her relationship and changing interaction with social media platforms during a recent interview (as Ethel Cain is touring the U.K. next month):

“Part of Anhedönia’s popularity – she has nearly 300,000 Instagram followers, and was the face of recent Givenchy, Miu Miu and Marc Jacobs campaigns – can be attributed to the fact that she is extremely internet literate, and became known online for a sharp Twitter feed on which she participated in jokes and memes about her public image. It soon began to feel as if she was “a dancing monkey in a circus. It’s very like, ‘Oh, she’s so funny on Twitter, she’s so relatable’ and then it becomes this big weird joke cycle,” she says. Although she stresses that she loves the support and adoration of her fans, she says it can become demoralising to not have her art met on the level she’d like it to be: “Don’t get me wrong, laughter and memes and jokes are always really fun. But when you want to post something to be consumed seriously, people are still joking – and then you get like, thousands of comments that are like, ‘silly goose’. All of a sudden, you start to feel like you can’t turn off the memeable internet personality thing.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Ethel Cain on stage at Coachella 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Enoch Chuang

Live, Anhedönia is a captivating, remarkable performer: during a show at the London club Omeara last year, you could hear a pin drop as she shepherded an audience of thrilled young fans through her largely hushed setlist. But at concerts, Anhedönia will sometimes be trying to perform her quietest, most intimate songs, only to have people yell jokes at her, breaking the spell. “I had a show recently where I was singing the really quiet intro to Sun Bleached Flies,” she recalls. “I went to hold [a fan’s] hand and they began sort of screaming, ‘I didn’t even know who you were two weeks ago, I found you through a meme on TikTok.’ It’s almost like heckling. I don’t think any of them are mean spirited, but it’s a little jarring.”

Earlier this month, she deleted her Twitter, leaving fans aghast. “I always kind of conflated openness with honesty and I thought that if I was completely transparent and bared every aspect of my soul that people would think I was relatable and kinda cool,” she says. “Then I was like, I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t want to have all of my personal business and every innermost thought just out there on the internet for the world to see.”

Another part of the reason Anhedönia pulled back from social media was the way that her fans began to demand access not just to her, but to her friends and family. “I really had no idea the full nature of [my success] until I had those closest to me kind of half-joking, half actually kind of complaining, being like: ‘People are DMing me and asking me questions about you and trying to become my friend only to find out months later that they’re really just trying to get to you through me,’” she says. “I always thought that success would exist in a vacuum for me but it did start to affect my family. And my closest friends and even just acquaintances of mine. I’m not Britney Spears, but it was noticeable for them and it created a really weird dynamic between us for a while.”

Part of the problem, Anhedönia thinks, is the fact that she is often classed as a pop artist, and therefore becomes part of the stan economy, wherein teens treat female artists “like fantasy football teams”, arguing “about streams and stats and followers and almost using them as like Pokémon to fight each other”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor)/PHOTO CREDIT: Suzie Howell for The New York Times

It made me think about other artists who have deleted Twitter or spend less time there. From Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor) to Nadine Shah, there are great artists who, for various reasons, spend less time on there or have let their team run their accounts. Maybe Instagram seems like a slightly safer space, it is that vulnerability and enormous weight that means it is overwhelming. Negative comments can have a devastating impact on mental health. From sexism to sexual harassment to insults and hateful remarks, too many artists have to detach from their fans this way because you cannot filter and block out that negativity – unless you read the comments and then block that user. Fans wanting more access and invading the private lives of artists’ families is scary! You do wonder how many other artists have to face this sort of thing. It is sad that Ethel Cain has had to take the step of deleting her Twitter account – though you feel like it might be the best move. It is such a shame too. If you get rid of accounts, it potentially deprives people of news and updates about an artist you love or may not yet know. But, at the end of the day, the health and wellbeing of the artist is paramount. There are Ethel Cain update and news sites, so the fans have that resource. I think it is important that everyone in the music industry should be able to post on social media without having to process a lot of bullying, negativity or unrealistic demands. Being allowed limits and not having to show too much of themselves and give too much away.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nadine Shah/PHOTO CREDIT: Fraser Taylor

Stories like the one Cain has shared should give pause to music fans around the world. Think about that dialogue and interaction you have with artists. There is that hard balancing act. Do artists need to post all of the time and give too much away? By sharing personal details and updates, it strips away mystery and can feel far too open and revealing. If they just stick to updates and sharing news, many will accuse them of not interacting with fans or being boring. If they delete social media accounts, that can also have a big impact. It is an impossible situation! Even smaller artists have that conflict between creating this almost friend-like and warm nature with fans, but they are also susceptible to people they have never met stomping their privacy, asking too much of them, or even asking about their families. Whether they are posting from a house in Nebraska, and office in London, or somewhere in Australia, you feel like it is impossible to balance, navigate and create a healthy relationship with fans that has boundaries. It is a shame that Ethel Cain has deleted her Twitter account. I know other artists will be in a similar position. I can appreciate fans have this direct contact and might want to know more about an artist, but they have to realise what effect that has. It can be really shocking, pressurising and uncomfortable when there are so many people wanting so much. Let’s hope that Ethel Cain’s words and testimony opens music fans’ eyes across the world. The privacy, wellbeing and mental health of artists should be…

THE main priority!

FEATURE: Various Shades of Blue and Pink: Inspiring Women Directors, Writers and Actors Injecting Originality and Invention Into the Comedy Genre

FEATURE:

 

Various Shades of Blue and Pink

IMAGE CREDIT: Lionsgate Films 

Inspiring Women Directors, Writers and Actors Injecting Originality and Invention Into the Comedy Genre

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I will take a slight detour…

IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie’s (the film is out on 21st July) director and screenwriter (with Noah Baumbach), Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Leeor Wild/The Observer

for this feature. Whilst I am going to start off by mentioning something musical, it will then divert into comedy. This blog is mostly about music, but I do bring in other topics and themes from time to time. One of the most interesting and excellent soundtracks of the year is for the Barbie film. Lizzo, Charli XCX, and Dua Lipa are among the artists around included. There are a couple of T.B.A. artists. We have been promised something quite big in that regard. At the time of writing this (9th July), we do not know who those missing pieces are. Maybe it will be Britney Spears, but nothing has been confirmed still. Out on 21st July, the Barbie film is going to be one of the biggest box office draws of this year. I think that it will be viewed as one of the best comedies in a very long time. I want too quote from an interview by The Guardian/The Observer from today (9th July), where Barbie’s director Greta Gerwig spoke with Alex Moshakis:

“To pitch Barbie to executives, Gerwig wrote a poem so strange and “surreal” that she will not read it to me now. When I ask what it concerned, she says, “Oh, you know, the lament of Job?” before adding, “Shockingly, it does actually communicate some vibe of the movie.” Gerwig wrote Barbie with her partner, the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, though for a while she didn’t tell him she’d enlisted his help. (“He was like, ‘Did you sign us up to write a Barbie movie?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, Noah, get excited!’”) They worked on the script during the pandemic, when doubt plagued the future of the communal cinema experience. “There was this sense of wanting to make something anarchic and wild and completely bananas,” Gerwig says, “because it felt, like, ‘Well, if we ever do get to go back to cinemas again, let’s do something totally unhinged.’” The anarchy of Gerwig’s Barbie comes from “the deep isolation of the pandemic,” she says, “that feeling of being in our own little boxes, alone.”

Such are the levels of secrecy around Barbie that I was only allowed to watch the first 20 minutes of the film, which I did in a large screening room, alone but for a projectionist, a Warner Bros employee, and a man who sealed my phone in an opaque bag. Watching 20 minutes of a film is not enough to say if it is good or not, but it is enough to confirm an early vibe, which is anarchic. There is colour and artificiality, fun and chaos. There are many Barbies and many Kens. It has the atmosphere of an over-the-top gender-reveal party during which various things go wrong. Barbie’s feet become flat, not stiletto-arched. Her shower runs cold. Her breakfast burns. She develops neuroses. A once perfect-seeming life becomes not perfect.

PHOTO CREDIT: Leeor Wild/The Observer

Before filming, Gerwig organised a Barbie sleepover at Claridges, the London hotel, and invited a number of the film’s female cast: Robbie, Rae, America Fererra. The Kens were invited, but asked not to spend the night; the Barbies wore pyjamas and played games. “Honestly, it just felt like it would be the most fun way to kick everything off,” Gerwig says. “And it’s something you don’t get to do that much as an adult. Like, ‘I’m just going to go have a sleepover with my friends…’”

Behind the lens: directing Lady Bird. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Alamy

Gerwig is known for creating open, democratic sets. And she describes part of her job as “creating an atmosphere of acceptance, no wrong answers, no judgment. It allows people to feel safe, to bring wonderfully wild things to the table, which they otherwise might not want to.” (“She’s into things arising,” the actor Jamie Demetriou, who appears in Barbie, told me.) That everyone on set bonds is important to Gerwig – hence the sleepover. Before Little Women, she asked the film’s primary cast – Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Eliza Scanlen – to memorise a poem, and to later recite it to each other. “These were professional actors,” Gerwig recalls, “but there was something about the fact they had to select a poem and then recite it… It was very intimate and amazing, and they were very vulnerable. It instantly felt helpful in creating that connection.” She later adds: “As a director, you have the job of dreaming up the movie, and then you have to get everyone else in the movie – hundreds of people – to have that same dream, too.”

Demetriou recalls the Barbie set being full of positivity. “A lot of the film I spent with Will Ferrell and Connor Swindells talking about how there was this magical drip-down effect from her,” he told me, “this positive vibe that everyone wanted to keep going.”

Barbie is what I wanted to use as a springing board. The comedy genre is one that has always struggled in terms of consistency. Most of the classic films are in the past. We are in a time when other genres are producing the most original and memorable concepts. There have been some good comedies released over the last few years, though nothing that stands out as a classic. This year sees at least a couple which provide hope. Barbie is one of them. Although there are dramatic elements and it is more than a straight-out comedy, its tone and ambition means that it is going to be a huge smash! I think a bigger budget and a director that has this incredible vision can make a comedy an enduring success. Barbie has that ambition and budget. That is not the only reason comedies are limited.

I think many filmmakers are repeating what is out there. Not showing enough endeavour and bravery. So many lazy comedies come out that sag the shoulders. This year has seen some truly awful comedy attempts come to the screen. This recent one is part of a growing list. In terms of the ‘failures’, it comes down to the tone being misjudged, Not being sufficient laughs or a strong enough cast. I know comedy is very hard but, in many cases, there is that potential for it to be something at least passable. More than any genre, when comedy fails or gets it wrong, it makes that massive and unmistakable dent. It is a deafening silence! Other comedies like No Hard Feelings have been getting a drubbing. Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most versatile and talented actors of her generation. She is lumbered with this misjudged and weird script that is very questionable in terms of its ethics! Playing a woman who is paid to give a teenage son a good time – essentially have sex with him -, it is quite an odd place to go to. Seemingly belonging to another time, even though No Hard Feelings has got some okay reviews, many have slammed it. One of the most divisive films of the year, it just shows that when comedies get it wrong it is incredibly noticeable! There have been many more comedies that have not stood out or had anything good to say about them.

I am not down on comedy - far from it! It is a wonderful genre that, when done right, can be amazing. I have written several times about my 1980s-set concept set in a high school that has a unique edge. A rare comedy that would need a massive spoiler, I am always frustrated I cannot get it off the ground, as objectively it would be much more interesting and funny than most comedies that have come out this year. But that is not the way the industry works! Even if you have a great idea, so too do countless other aspiring filmmakers. It is almost impossible to get your script to anyone with any pull and leverage. Regardless, something that is always in my mind, it makes me think about the successes. Barbie is going to be a terrific film that undoubtedly will get five-star reviews. I have already predicted massive things for it (three or four Oscar nominations among them). A new film that is bringing something raunchy and risqué to the plate is Joy Ride. The title implies theft and frivolity, but it clearly about a road trip that has an X-rated element. A clever title is backed up by an excellent script from Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, with superb direction from Adele Lim, it is incredible Asian women writing and directing incredible Asian women. It is almost a first in terms of a comedy film. Groundbreaking and highly regarded, its plot I will crib from Wikipedia:

“Audrey Sullivan, an adoptee with white parents, lives in White Hills, Seattle with her childhood best friend, Lolo Chen. Audrey is an overachiever who works as a lawyer at a prestigious firm, while Lolo makes sex-positive art. Promised a promotion to Partner if she can close a deal with a Chinese businessman, Audrey and Lolo take a trip to China, joined by Lolo's cousin Vanessa, nicknamed "Deadeye", who is socially awkward but obsessed with K-pop. In China, Audrey meets her college roommate and close friend Kat, who is an actress on a popular daytime show, and despite being sexually promiscuous in college, is engaged to her co-star and Christian fiance Clarence who is saving himself for marriage.

The group meet Chao, the Chinese businessman at a party, where Audrey vomits on him. Chao claims that in order for him to do business with Audrey, he must meet her birth family, whom she has never met. Lolo lies to Chao that Audrey is in close contact with them. Prior to the trip, Lolo had called Audrey's adoption agency and tracked them down. Audrey resolves to meet her birth mother and take her to Chao's party to close the deal.

The quadruple board a train to Audrey's adoption agency, where they are seated next to a drug dealer. They are forced to consume various amounts of cocaine after a train inspection — the drug dealer then steals their luggage and has them kicked off the train. Stranded in the middle of rural China, Lolo contacts former NBA star Baron Davis, who is currently playing in China. The four women injure several players in sex-related accidents the following night, causing the basketball team to refuse to drive them to their destination.

The group makes it to their destination. There, Audrey discovers that her mother is not Chinese but rather Korean. In a last ditch effort to secure the deal, one of Deadeye's online friends secures them a private jet to Seoul, but without their passports, they pretend to be a new idol group to pass the border. Lolo livestreams their idol performance on Instagram Live, only for Kat's skirt to inadvertently fall off, revealing a large devil tattoo on her vulva. They are forced to instead take a boat into mainland Korea.

Lolo's livestream inadvertently goes viral, with hundreds of millions of people seeing Kat's vagina. Chao calls Audrey to inform her that the deal is off, and then Audrey is fired from her job, while Kat is at risk of losing her television deal. The quadruple have a fight and split. Audrey learns that her birth mother has passed away and visits her grave, but meets her birth mother's husband there. Her husband shows Audrey a video recorded by her birth mother before her passing. Audrey returns to Seattle and makes up with Lolo and Deadeye.

One year later, Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye are in Paris for a best-friends trip. Audrey started a new law firm, Lolo has begun waiting tables and selling her art, while Kat is engaged to Clarence”.

There have been X-rated comedies that are daring and push boundaries. A lot of times they can be very crude and ‘blokey’. I think the fact that this film is led by women has this empowering and fresh take. A lot funnier and more endearing than many like-minded comedies, Joy Ride is going to be the pinnacle of comedies this year – depending on what Barbie serves up perhaps. Having to answer to ridiculous criticism that it is anti-white, it is blatantly sexist and misogynistic attack that male directors and screenwriters would not get! I want to bring in one of the many wonderful reviews for Joy Ride. This is what The New York Times had to say:

“The new “Joy Ride” offers a modern-comedy bingo card with pretty much all the squares checked: mismatched besties, an oddball crashing a group outing, said outing going wildly off the rails, freewheeling sex, projectile vomiting, unhinged debauchery involving booze and drugs, and a crucial plot point hinging on an intimate body part.

This film, directed by the “Crazy Rich Asians” co-writer Adele Lim, may not reinvent the raunch-com wheel (see: “The Hangover,” “Girls Trip,” “Bridesmaids”), but it does change who’s driving the car. And, most importantly, it is really, really funny.

“Joy Ride” processes all of its familiar ingredients into a sustained, sometimes near-berserk, barrage of jokes, interspersed with epic set pieces. That is, up until the two-thirds mark, when the movie paints itself into a corner and presses the “earnest sentimentality” eject button before managing a narrow escape. It’s a small price to pay for the inspired pandemonium that precedes.

The mismatched friends here are Audrey (the brilliant Ashley Park, from “Emily in Paris”) and Lolo (a deliciously acerbic Sherry Cola), who have been best friends since childhood, when they bonded over being the only two Asian girls in their Pacific Northwest town.

IN THIS PHOTO: Adele Lim/PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholas Sutjongdro

Audrey, who was adopted from China by a white couple, grows up to become a prim, career-obsessed lawyer. She is sent to Beijing to close a deal, with a promotion hanging on her success. Since her Mandarin is practically nonexistent, she brings along the irrepressible Lolo. Completing the comic superteam are Lolo’s socially awkward cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), whose superpower is extensive K-pop knowledge, and Audrey’s college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu, from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), now a screen star in China and engaged to her very hunky and very Christian co-star (Desmond Chiam).

Eventually, Audrey decides to find her birth mother, and the four women set off on an odyssey that immediately devolves into a series of mishaps. The shenanigans come at breakneck speed, and peak with a repurposing of the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion hit “WAP” that could become a late-night-karaoke staple in its own right.

The film is especially sharp around identity and assimilation, and the screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao have fun with the expectations and stereotypes placed on Asians and Asian Americans — including those that are self-imposed. The seams show only toward the end, when the film’s pace slackens, but even then, the cast’s chemistry and flawless timing hold steady.

As the straight arrow protagonist, Park expertly pulls off a trick similar to Kristen Wiig in “Bridesmaids”: Her character serves as the narrative engine, while also setting up comedy opportunities for the others.

If there is any justice, Park will soon be a marquee name. But this applies to all of the central quartet, who so effectively take advantage of the movie’s many opportunities to shine. With “Joy Ride,” summer has truly arrived”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Pugh/PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Lux

I did want to spotlight a comedy that is a success and has taken risks. The fact that it is an Asian cast and has these inspiring women creating and acting in the film is refreshing when you look at a lot of the very boring, homogenised and uninteresting comedies that have come around. With plenty of spark and memorable moments, Joy Ride, I hope, will open the door to raunchy comedy that have heart, intelligence and, importantly, laughs (and diversity)! It succeeded where No Hard Feelings failed. There has not really been a British/American equivalent of Joy Ride. Maybe with American directors, producers and setting, I looked at Joy Ride and its central quartet and I instantly thought about something similar. I think that a British quintet that is in America and has a similar arc to Joy Ride’s heroines would succeed. In terms of cast and chemistry, I thought that Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Jameela Jamil, Amelia Dimoldenberg and Phoebe Waller-Bridge would make an amazing central cast. Friends escaping a life in their own country and taking a trip together in the U.S. could be an amazing comedy. With at least two of the cast (Dimoldenberg and Waller-Bridge) being comedians and comedy writers, it could be directed by an amazing female director. I think that a successful, bold and brilliant comedy like Joy Ride could turn the tide. I think, more than anything, the fact that it is led by women is a major reason for its success. I also think that this is something one can apply to Barbie. Even though actors like Ryan Gosling are in the cast, writer/director Greta Gerwig and stars like Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Issa Rae (Madam President Barbie) are in standout and vital roles.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that two films that are standout comedies in terms of their laugh rate, visions and brilliance are from women. Ones essentially led by women. I am not against male-focused comedies, but most of the finest comedies this year have been directed by women. Take Rye Lane. A British comedy directed by Raine Allen-Miller, it has won some of the most awe-struck reviews of the year. Starring Vivian Oparah alongside David Jonsson in the lead roles, I think that Oparah and Allen-Miller could win awards for their work on Rye Lane. It is an extraordinary success at a time when there have not been a slew of great British comedies. Injecting something new, funny and heartwarming into the genre, there have been some brilliant comedy films among a mass of average, questionable or downright flat ones! Even though I am a male writer (primarily, obviously, a music journalist), the film idea I had is one I want to co-write with a female screenwriter; with a female director and a crew consisting of many brilliant women – and a teenage and adult cast with phenomenal female talent. It is always a shame that there are so many films made by women that have to face criticism and sexism. Joy Ride is not the first of last incident. Barbie goes up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on 21st July. I think Greta Gerwig’s film will win the box office, awards race and audience vote when it comes to this ‘battle’ – the films are pitted together in a loving way where there is a lot of mutual respect.

I did want to use this feature to step away from music briefly. Although Barbie is going to have an amazing soundtrack including some sensational women and an as-yet-unnamed music icon (or two), there are these films coming out this year that showcases some phenomenal female talent. From the wonderful ensemble of Joy Ride and Barbie through to Rye Lane, I think that so many eyes should be on amazing women doing such incredible work. Even if a film like Cocaine Bear got a few mixed reviews, the fact that Elizabeth Banks’ direction was so awesome marks her out as a director who is going to helm some huge projects very soon. A wonderful comic actress herself, she is someone who will inspire so many women coming through. Banks is a producer on Bottoms. Due on 25th August, it also has a connection to Barbie, as Charli XCX composed the music for the film alongside Leo Birenberg. Canadian director Emma Seligman helms a film that has already won enormous plaudit. A high school sex-comedy wonderfully released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – who haven’t distributed many films like this! -, it is about two high school senior girls set up a ‘fight club’ to hook up with cheerleaders before graduation. With a screenplay by Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott, and Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Havana Rose Liu, and Kaia Gerber leading the cast, it is another wonderful and year-best comedy that is helmed and led by women!

I might expand on this concept and notion more, as I genuinely believe women are revitalising comedy at the moment. Not to discount the great male directors and screenwriters, but 2023 is showcasing some truly brilliant women who are going to produce many more phenomenal films. From great talent already out there to a theoretical cast/crew I put together – Waller-Bridge, Pugh, Chan, Jamil and Dimoldenberg -, there is this very exciting revolution happening. I wonder whether there will be any articles published that interviews and spotlight directors like Greta Gerwig, Raine Allen-Miller, Elizabeth Banks and Adele Lim with writers such as Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott and actors like Stephanie Hsu and Margot Robbie. Comedy has been rather patchy for many years now, but you can see these green shoots! From raunchy new comedies and fresh takes on old formats through to these bigger-budget successes, there are some golden comedy flicks standout out. As I said, they are largely led by women. Alongside some rather questionable, lumpen and downright lazy comedies, they are providing such a sense of hope, brilliance, laughs, heart and…

HUGE relief and release!

FEATURE: Flowers in Full Bloom: The Brilliant Women Dominating 2023

FEATURE:

 

 

Flowers in Full Bloom

IN THIS PHOTO: Miley Cyrus/PHOTO CREDIT: Steven Meisel for British Vogue

The Brilliant Women Dominating 2023

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IT is not a shock…

 IN THIS PHOTO: PinkPantheress/PHOTO CREDIT: SKIMS

that female artists have been dominating music this year. In terms of the best albums so far, I think most of the high positions are occupied by them. It is always wonderful seeing magnificent female artists release incredible and original music. In an industry still dogged by imbalance and inequality, news that most of the biggest-selling singles of this year so far will help to open eyes to the fact that things need to change. When it comes to radio playlists to festival bookings, more and more proof is out there that shows women are more than worthy of inclusion and the bigger stages. The BBC’s Mark Savage recently reported on some incredible chart news:

“Miley Cyrus's Flowers is the biggest single of the year to date, says the Official Charts Company.

The break-up anthem, which spent 10 weeks at number one earlier this year, has achieved 147 million streams and more than 80,000 downloads.

Raye's Escapism is 2023's second biggest-seller, while SZA's Kill Bill is in third place.

The Weeknd's two-year-old greatest hits collection, The Highlights, is the most popular album so far this year.

Taylor Swift's Midnights is in second place, followed by Harry Styles' Harry's House.

However, new releases are largely crowded out of the album chart, due to the enduring popularity of classic tracks on streaming services - which now account for 86% of music consumption in the UK.

Greatest hits collections by Elton John (at number five), Eminem (seven) and Fleetwood Mac (nine) are among the year's biggest-sellers, after establishing a semi-permanent residency in the weekly countdown.

Only two albums released in 2023 feature in the Top 10 biggest-sellers list: Lewis Capaldi's Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent, at six, and Ed Sheeran's Subtract, at eight.

Taylor Swift, meanwhile, has five albums in the Top 40, with Midnights joined by 1989 (16), Lover (19), Folklore (23) and Reputation (34).

Top 10 singles of 2023 (year-to-date)

1. Miley Cyrus - Flowers

2. Raye ft 070 Shake - Escapism

3. SZA - Kill Bill

4. PinkPantheress - Boy's A Liar

5. Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero

6. Rema ft Selena Gomez - Calm Down

7. Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Miracle

8. Libianca - People

9. Harry Styles - As It Was

10. Miguel - Sure Thing”.

“The top five best-selling singles of the year are all by female artists - incredibly, the first time this has ever happened in chart history.

The top 10 also features two Afrobeats artists, Rema and Libianca, both of whom had breakout hits at the start of the year. And Ed Sheeran is missing from the Top 10 for the first time since 2016.

Miley Cyrus's Flowers, meanwhile, was the star's first number one since 2014's Wrecking Ball.

The song was heavily rumoured to be about the end of her marriage to actor Liam Hemsworth, including a reference to their Malibu home that burned down in a wildfire in 2018.

She released the track on Hemsworth's birthday, 10 March, and was said to be wearing one of his suits in the video.

Fans also speculated that the lyrics were an interpolation of Bruno Mars's When I Was Your Man, which was reportedly played at the couple's wedding.

Where Mars sang, "I should have bought you flowers / And held your hand", Cyrus replied, "I can buy myself flowers... And I can hold my own hand."

Whilst this chart news is a bit of a rarity, I don’t think that it will be a one-off. In terms of women dominating and delivering those chart-busting hits, this is going to continue through the year and into next. If you search for the best and most popular albums of 2023, you will see so many phenomenal works from female artists. Like the previous few years, I have found that the songs and albums that have stayed in my head longest are from women. I think that reports like the one above should once and for all expel any myths or assumptions that women cannot headline festivals. Radio playlists are still unequal, and we still have to see massive sexism and inequality throughout the industry. Things do have to change. News that the singles charts have been enriched by women will definitely help move things in the right direction.

I do think that 2024 will be a year when big steps are taking in terms of equality. There have been tiny steps in some areas but, by and large, we are seeing the same reports and outcomes – women being overlooked and having to fight harder than men to be heard and respected. I wanted to react to this awesome news about female artists’ chart success. If many people were to compile their top ten albums of this year so far – which I have done myself -, female artists would be heavily represented. We are definitely not done with 2023, so it will be fascinated to see what comes in terms of singles and albums. Maybe yet more chart honours for female artists. If this is the first year in a long while the singles chart has been defined by female artists, I think that we will see this continue…

INTO next year.

FEATURE: Second Spin: D'Angelo and The Vanguard – Black Messiah

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

 D'Angelo and The Vanguard – Black Messiah

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IN this feature…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Harris

I urge people to check out an album on C.D. or vinyl that is either underrated and deserves new love, or it is a great album you do not hear much. If neither option is possible, go and stream that album at the very least. This instalment is reserved for an album that was hugely applauded when it came out. In fact, D'Angelo and The Vanguard’s Black Messiah was my favourite album of 2014. Released on 15th December that year – and it rare to get a year-best album come out that late! -, it came fourteen years after the phenomenal Voodoo. D’Angelo unveiled the album at a New York listening party. Like Prince and his New Power Generation, D’Angelo made a big returns with The Vanguard. There are options to buy Black Messiah. In any case, one of the best-regarded albums of the 2010s definitely should be played more across radio. I wonder if that is the final album we will hear from D’Angelo. He did release a single, Unshaken, in 2019 - though there has been no news of a fourth studio album. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for the masterpiece that is Black Messiah. There are so many five-star reviews for an album from one of music’s absolute greats. That is no surprise! It is D’Angelo’s most immediate and varied collection of songs. Without a weak moment (though I have seen some view Really Love as a bit too routine and unambitious) through the album, it sounds as essential and necessary now as it did back in 2014. Recorded between 2002 and 2014, this is an album that shows its working. Though it is loose and funky at times, I feel it is a very precise album with so much detail.

D'Angelo’s ‘Vanguard’ includes Questlove, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarist Isaiah Sharkey, and horn player Roy Hargrove. Favouring an analog sound that puts it alongside some of the great Soul albums of the 1970s, I think that works wonders. It makes Black Messiah sound more urgent, silky and vintage. Even though it was a success in the U.S., Black Messiah didn’t chart all that high in the U.K. and many other nations. I wonder why that is. Maybe people were not expecting the album or it enjoyed steady sales after a while. I remember buying it the week it came out and instantly being moved by it. It remains one of my favourite albums from the past ten years. Multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter D'Angelo showed the full range of his abilities through Black Messiah. I hope, decades from now, people will remember this as one of the all-time great albums. For that reason, I wanted to shine new light on it – to ensure that it is being played and reaches new people. On its fifth anniversary in 2019, Albumism showed love for the mighty Black Messiah:

“For D’Angelo, an artist who captured the world’s attention with his stellar debut Brown Sugar in 1995 and then took five years to follow it up with the neo-soul defining Voodoo (2000), time between ventures wasn’t uncommon. But it took fourteen years for his third release to see the light of day, the ambitious and genius filled Black Messiah.

Fourteen years. That’s several lifetimes in today’s music scene. Time for audiences to move on. Time for rumors to build. Time for fear to set in. Time for self-doubt to rear its head and strike at the heart of the artist.

But in that extended hiatus, D’Angelo was still musically active, releasing cover versions of artists that had influenced him and guesting as a featured artist on many spots. But this just drove the desire to hear new original material.

And writing was taking place. Sessions with Questlove proved fruitful. Time locked away in a studio writing, composing, performing and producing in a similar vein to Prince delivered a bounty of tracks. But it wasn’t until D’Angelo was joined in the studio with a bevy of top-notch musicians that the stars aligned and work started to come into focus.

Tracks from the early 2010s were fine-tuned, revamped and reinvented and new material was written. And whilst D’Angelo is credited with vocals, guitar, piano, organ, keyboards, synthesizers, bass, electric sitar, drum programming, and percussion on the album, musicians such as Pino Palladino, Jesse Johnson, and vocalist and writing partner Kendra Foster all contributed in no small part. But still, this involved a 4-year process of working on one song for a month or two and then taking a month’s break. A slow and steady approach that built excitement as well as concern that it was busy work without any real deadline in sight (none that would be met anyway).

But then, spurred on by the racial inequality he was seeing amplified by the controversy surrounding both the Michael Brown Jr. and Eric Garner trials, D’Angelo pushed the release up by several months and on December 15, 2014 the world finally got to hear what D’Angelo had so painstakingly been brewing.

Steeped in funk, the album is strongly zeroed in on issues of race relations, the ongoing struggle for equality, and the value of human life, while still reserving time for a handful of tracks about good loving.

It’s been said that part of the reason for the extended hiatus was as a push back by D’Angelo against his public image of being a sex symbol that overshadowed his actual prowess as a musician and songwriter. As he sings in “Back To The Future (Part I)” with a tongue decidedly in his cheek, “So if you're wondering about the shape I'm in / I hope it ain't my abdomen that you're referring to / This what I want you to listen to,” not only is he casting off the sex symbol imagery conjured up by his previous outing, he’s also putting the focus on where it should have always been, and where it always belongs: on his art itself.

With Black Messiah, the focus is back where it belongs. It’s a beautiful, broody, murky mix of funk and soul that carries you from opening track to the final note. It’s not only an encapsulation of D’Angelo’s influence, but also a reminder of why it’s so important that his next release doesn’t take another fourteen years to surface. Though if it does, you can be sure it will be worth the wait”.

I want to turn to some reviews before wrapping things up. Pitchfork were stunned by the surprise release of an album that I think is the best thing D’Angelo has ever released. Alongside The Vanguard, they created this immaculate and enormously powerful work that should be required listening:

“With this week’s shock release of Black Messiah, soul singer and multi-instrumentalist D'Angelo, the man music critic Robert Christgau once earnestly dubbed "R&B Jesus," returns with his first album of new material in 14 years. It was not, as many have suggested, 14 years of silence. The last D'Angelo album, 2000’s Voodoo, was a near perfect communion of buttery soul, Crisco-fried funk, and hip-hop thump, but the video for its calling card ,"Untitled (How Does It Feel?)", a lingering, sensual glance over the singer’s face and chest, turned him into an unwitting sex symbol. Live shows soon descended into catcalling, and D, convinced his music had become an accessory to his looks, slipped slowly out of sight. Dispatches grew scarce and worrisome. There were arrests. There was a car accident. For a while, D'Angelo appeared to follow talented but troubled forbears Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone into the dark.

Even in darkness there was still music. D'Angelo guested on albums by J Dilla, Q-Tip, Snoop Dogg, and more. He taught himself to play guitar. There were perennial promises of a new album. D'Angelo returned to the stage in 2012 peppering sets of old favorites with carefully chosen covers and unreleased new material. Black Messiah isn’t a sneak attack; it’s a slow-simmering gumbo finally boiled over. We tasted its fearless ambivalence to genre boundaries in 2007 when Roots maestro Questlove snuck an early version of the stately Joe Pass homage of "Really Love" to Australia’s Triple J Radio, in 2010 when the punk-hop scorcher "1000 Deaths" briefly slipped onto YouTube and in 2012 when D'Angelo returned to television to unveil the big band funk smartbomb "Sugah Daddy" on the BET Awards. Still, it’s a wonder to hear his mutant groove unblemished by the passage of time and stretched around this gobstopping cosmic slop of country funk, psych and new wave.

Black Messiah is a study in controlled chaos. The nightmarish chorus of "1000 Deaths" arrives late and fierce, as though the band unfurled its crunchy, lumbering vamp just long enough to violently snatch it out from under us. "The Charade"'s Minneapolis sound funk rock follows, every bit as bright as the previous track was menacing until you zero in on the threadbare heart-sickness of D and P-Funk affiliate Kendra Foster’s lyrics. Black Messiah pulls together disparate threads few predecessors have had the smarts or audacity to unite. One song might channel Funkadelic, another, the Revolution, but the shiftless mad doctor experimentation and the mannered messiness at the root of it all is unmistakably the Vanguard. Black Messiah is a dictionary of soul, but D'Angelo is the rare classicist able to filter the attributes of the greats in the canon into a sound distinctly his own. It’s at once familiar and oddly unprecedented, a peculiar trick to pull on an album recorded over the span of a decade.

The bipartite nostalgia romp "Back to the Future" looks for solace in memories ostensibly because the present is discouraging. The love songs run a little morbid. The titular pledge of "Betray My Heart" doesn’t speak fealty so much as candor, and the album’s barn burner of a closer "Another Life" is a song of devotion in the vein of the Stylistics’ "You Are Everything"—except that the couple never really meets. Black Messiah is about finding something to hang onto in dire times, soldiering through the infuriating insanity of oppression with a support system in tow. "It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen," D'Angelo writes in the liner notes. "Black Messiah is not one man. It’s a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader." He may have taken well over a decade to show face again, but it turns out D'Angelo is right on time”.

Even though you can strongly hear the influence of Prince and Sly Stone throughout Black Messiah, these heroes are used as starting points and references – without leaning too heavily towards them and D’Angelo losing his identity. Indeed, Black Messiah is a singular work that could only come from D’Angelo! This is what AllMusic offered when they tried to articulate what Black Messiah means to them:

“The one-eighty Questlove promised back in 2012, when the drummer and producer persuaded D'Angelo to perform for the first time in a dozen years, turns out to be closer to a ten. As those who caught later gigs and subsequent uploads could attest, there were no signs that D'Angelo -- enigmatic maker of two classics that twisted gospel, soul, funk, and hip-hop with aloof but deep-feeling swagger -- was developing his third studio album with production pointers from David Guetta or elocution lessons from Glee's vocal director. Instead, he's made another album that invites comparisons to the purposefully sloppy funk of Sly & the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On. It's more outward-looking, refined, and bristly than what preceded it, however, and has much in common with releases from retro-progressive peers like Van Hunt and Bilal. D'Angelo retains the rhythmic core that helped him create Voodoo, namely Questlove, bassist Pino Palladino, and trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and adds many players to the mix, including guitarist Jesse Johnson and drummers James Gadson and Chris Dave.

Q-Tip contributed to the writing of two songs, but a greater impact is made by Kendra Foster, who co-wrote the same pair, as well as six additional numbers, and can often be heard in the background. The societal ruminations within the fiery judder of "1000 Deaths," the dreamy churn of "The Charade," and the falsetto blues of "Till It's Done," fueled as much by current planetary ills and race relations as the same ones that prompted the works of D'Angelo's heroes, strike the deepest. Among the material that concerns spirituality, devotion, lost love, and lust, D'Angelo and company swing, float, and jab to nonstop grimace-inducing effect. On the surface, "Sugah Daddy" seems like an unassuming exercise in fusing black music innovations that span decades, and then, through close listening, the content of D'Angelo's impish gibberish becomes clear. At the other end, there's "Another Life," a wailing, tugging ballad for the ages that sounds like a lost Chicago-Philly hybrid, sitar and all, with a mix that emphasizes the drums. Black Messiah clashes with mainstream R&B trends as much as Voodoo did in 2000. Unsurprisingly, the artist's label picked this album's tamest, most traditional segment -- the acoustic ballad "Really Love" -- as the first song serviced to commercial radio. It's the one closest to "Untitled (How Does It Feel)," the Voodoo cut that, due to its revealing video, made D'Angelo feel as if his image was getting across more than his music. In the following song, the strutting "Back to the Future (Part I)," D'Angelo gets wistful about a lost love and directly references that chapter: "So if you're wondering about the shape I'm in/I hope it ain't my abdomen that you're referring to." The mere existence of his third album evinces that, creatively, he's doing all right. That the album reaffirms the weakest-link status of his singular debut is something else”.

An extraordinary album from a musical genius, it was a very pleasant early Christmas present that D’Angelo gave the world in 2014. After so long between albums, there could have been fears he had lost his touch or fans might have gone elsewhere. They came out in force (in the U.S. at least!); Black Messiah confirmed that he has still in a league of his own! From the opening bars of Ain’t That Easy to the final seconds of Another Life, Black Messiah is…

A faultless album.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Fall Out Boy - We Didn't Start the Fire

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Fall Out Boy - We Didn't Start the Fire

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THIS might be…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Billy Joel/PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Slaughter/Toronto Star/Getty Images (via The New York Times)

the first cover versions I have featured in Groovelines. There is a special reason for that. Perhaps one of his more divisive tracks, Billy Joel released We Didn’t Start the Fire back in 1989. From his album, Storm Front, the single reached number one in the U.S. and seven in the U.K. You can read more about it here. Even if the album was given mixed reviews, I think that its lead single is a smash. The song runs major political and cultural events in chronological order. A great no other artist had attempted before, everything from the H-Bomb, Peter Pan, Bob Dylan and Wheel of Fortune were all checked off. I cannot imagine how long it took Joel to write the song. Making it all rhyme and scan would have been a tricky feat! As you can imagine, for a song that is original yet quite strange, it was open to parody. The Simpsons did their own version during one episode. In 2021, a weekly podcast began which was hosted by Katie Puckrik and Tom Fordyce. Called We Didn't Start the Fire, each week they examined a subject mentioned in the song, in lyric order, where they discussed its importance and cultural significance with an expert guest. As so much has happened since 1989, there was this opportunity for someone to update We Didn’t Start the Fire. Even they did not do things chronologically – perhaps the downside of the new version – Fall Out Boy have taken on the impossible chalice of cramming in over thirty-three years’ worth of history into a song!

One big reason why I wanted to look into the song was because of a lot of the reaction it garnered. There are a few problems reapproaching a song that was quite divisive when it came out. Even though Billy Joel covered most major events in his 1989 original (and he wasn’t really a fan of the song himself!), there were some bemused by the song. Not something we’d associate with Joel in terms of sound and lyrics, I think that retrospective views have been a bit kinder. It has a cheesiness to it, but I like that history lessons have been taught around We Didn’t Start the Fire. Many children learned about important events because of this song. In fact, I think I may have featured the original in a Groovelines a while ago. It is educational and original. I like Joel’s vocals and the fact he commits to it. The cover version has garnered some negativity. Many highlight some unwise lyrical couplets – rhyming ‘George Floyd’ with ‘Asteroid’ (a video game) maybe lacks sensitivity – and some saw it as tasteless and ill-judged. Fall Out Boy’s bassist and lyricist of the new version, Pete Wentz, sort of had to defend the song. Although he tried to make it chronological and had to discount some events (such as the COVID-19 pandemic), there is a lot in there. It was always going to be the case that stuff would not make the cut. In terms of its reaction, I think that a lot of it is unfair. We Didn’t Start the Fire suggests itself to an update, as it is literally history and culture ran in chronological order. That gap between 1989 and 2023 needed to be filled and explored! There are articles dedicated to explaining what is wrong with Fall Out Boy’s cover.

It is always going to be one of those situations where you won’t please everyone. It is much harder to include everything relevant in a new We Didn’t Start the Fire, as there is arguably more to explore in the past thirty-four years than the first eighty-nine of the twentieth century. The Internet has given access to a galaxy of new possibilities. So much has happened in terms of popular culture, it was impossible to get everything down. The New York Times covered the song. Pete Wentz wrote in an email what the song means to him and why Fall Out Boy covered it:

“I remember hearing the song when I was a kid,” Pete Wentz, the bassist, wrote in an email. “The ‘J.F.K. blown away’ line always stuck out to me. I would always start the verses but get kind of lost a few references in.”

He continued, “This song was omnipresent in that era, but in a way where it crept through the cracks of pop culture. I remember talking about the lyrics in history class.”

According to Mr. Wentz, instead of a straight cover of the song, the band wanted to amend the lyrics to reflect the 34 years that had passed since its release.

“I listen to Billy Joel’s and so many of the things in it are either massive moments or just kind of shoulder shrugs within history now,” he wrote. “It’s interesting to see what he referenced from the ’50s and ’60s and what he didn’t. And in some ways it’s just etchings inside of a cave — documentation that we existed and these things happened, both triumphant and terrible. We made this song for ourselves and then we hoped our fans would have fun with it.”

Brady Gerber is a rock music critic who contributes to New York and Pitchfork. As a fan of the original, he is quite fond of Fall Out Boy’s take.

“I think every generation gets their own ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire,’” Mr. Gerber said. “I still think the melody is really catchy and fun. And I remember that the initial reaction to Billy Joel’s original version wasn’t really great. I think a lot of people actually hated the song at the time. So it’s funny, because I’m also seeing a lot of people criticizing the song thinking it’s ridiculous, but it’s also just a ridiculous song to begin with.”

While it’s hard to capture every historical moment, the song mimics the original in that its references span a wide range, covering climate change as well as Pokémon and the “Twilight” films.

Fall Out Boy did, however, leave out one of the most recent historical events: “I think our biggest omission was a Covid reference,” Mr. Wentz said, “and we debated it, but we leave that to the next generation’s update!”.

I still think, despite the parodies and endless references to the original 1989 Billy Joel hit, We Didn’t Start the Fire is ripe for revision. Maybe Fall Out Boy’s version means nobody else would try it, but it is a fascinating phenomenon. The way some have attacked it whilst others really like it. It is quite close to the original in terms of melody and rhythm. I think some of the inclusions and notable omissions has been what has split people. Rather than it being embarrassing or tasteless, I actually think that a slight rearrangement and some pertinent inclusions – like The Simpsons and Beyoncé - would have made it a bit better. It has been opinion-splitting. I am fascinated by the new Fall Out Boy version and what people are saying about it. The band’s lead, Patrick Stump, gives it his all at least! It is clear, because many highlight things that could have been included, that there is interest in the original and that idea of tackling history. Will the new version be taught in classes and used as historical reference?! At least it makes us think about the important events, people and moments from the past thirty-four years. It makes me wonder if anyone will pick up the baton from Fall Out Boy and write the third version of We Didn’t Start the Fire…

A few decades from now!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Classic Hip-Hop Albums

FEATURE:

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Ms. Lauryn Hill

Songs from Classic Hip-Hop Albums

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AS 11th August…

sees Hip-Hop turn fifty, I have been putting together features about the wonderful gene. For this one, I have compiled tracks from the classic Hip-Hop albums. Before I get there, this article talks about the rather modest birth of a style of music that would soon grow and take over the world. Whether you consider 11th August to be the day the seeds of Hip-Hop were planted or not, you cannot deny that it gave us a pivotal moment:

“Like any style of music, hip hop has roots in other forms, and its evolution was shaped by many different artists, but there’s a case to be made that it came to life precisely on August 11, 1973, at a birthday party in the recreation room of an apartment building in the west Bronx, New York City. The location of that birthplace was 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, and the man who presided over that historic party was the birthday girl’s brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip hop.

Born and raised to the age of 10 in Kingston, Jamaica, DJ Kool Herc began spinning records at parties and between sets his father’s band played while he was a teenager in the Bronx in the early 1970s. Herc often emulated the style of Jamaican “selectors” (DJs) by “toasting” (i.e., talking) over the records he spun, but his historical significance has nothing to do with rapping. Kool Herc’s contribution to hip hop was even more fundamental.

DJ Kool Herc’s signature innovation came from observing how the crowds would react to different parts of whatever record he happened to be playing: “I was noticing people used to wait for particular parts of the record to dance, maybe [to] do their specialty move.” Those moments tended to occur at the drum breaks—the moments in a record when the vocals and other instruments would drop out completely for a measure or two of pure rhythm. What Kool Herc decided to do was to use the two turntables in a typical DJ setup not as a way to make a smooth transition between two records, but as a way to switch back and forth repeatedly between two copies of the same record, extending the short drum break that the crowd most wanted to hear. He called his trick the Merry Go-Round. Today, it is known as the “break beat.”

By the summer of 1973, DJ Kool Herc had been using and refining his break-beat style for the better part of a year. His sister’s party on August 11, however, put him before his biggest crowd ever and with the most powerful sound system he’d ever worked. It was the success of that party that would begin a grassroots musical revolution, fully six years before the term “hip hop” even entered the popular vocabulary”.

I don’t know if we have seen many films where DJ Kool Herc’s game-changing breakthrough has been documented and been front and centre. Maybe a film based in 1973 where we see that moment play out in a larger. I know that, on 11th August, the world will celebrate fifty years since the world was gifted…

THIS incredible music force.

FEATURE: Rewriting the Masterplan: Why the Reopening of HMV Flagship Store on London’s Oxford Street Is Especially Exciting

FEATURE:

 

 

Rewriting the Masterplan

PHOTO CREDIT: Shutterstock

Why the Reopening of HMV Flagship Store on London’s Oxford Street Is Especially Exciting

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THERE is a lot to celebrate…

 IN THIS PHOTO: A van outside HMV, Oxford Street in 1963/PHOTO CREDIT: HMV

when it comes to physical music. As has been reported – and I have written about a lot -, the rise in vinyl sales signals a slight move from streaming. People want a tangible form of music that is tactile and not ephemeral. They also want to support artists by buying music – which is something they cannot guarantee. Compact discs are not obsolete: their sales are not terrific, but they are holding steady. Also, cassettes are inexplicably popular! Most people do not possess devices on which to play them. Maybe it is another way to give artists money. They are a lot cheaper than vinyl. It ties into a music institution that I want to revisit now. I am not sure whether they will be selling devices to play cassettes in the future. HMV have their own layout and design. That will be the same across all shops. I think, regarding the boom in physical music, more space need to be dedicated to that – and the devices that allow us to play them on. I am going to continue. Great news broke back in April that HMV’s flagship London store on Oxford Street is reopening:

“HMV is set to make a return to Oxford Street after a four-year absence, with a lease signed to confirm the reopening of its flagship later this year.

HMV currently has 120 shops across the UK, including a West London location in Westfield, the specialist Fopp store in Covent Garden, and the 25,000 sq ft Vault in Birmingham – Europe’s largest entertainment store.

Sunrise Records owner Doug Putman acquired the historic music chain in 2019. Since the closure of the 363 Oxford Street store in the same year, the presence of a flagship in the capital has been on the agenda.

Under Putman’s tenure, the business has evolved its concept to centre on a fan and community-orientated offer, including in-store gigs from local acts. It has successfully tapped into consumer demand for vinyl.

IMAGE CREDIT: HMV

363 Oxford Street will feature HMV’s new logo, and be fitted out with the new ‘HMV shop’ concept. The first store featuring the new layout and offering opened in Solihull on HMV’s 100th birthday in July 2021.

The concept will have been taken to 24 new sites – and retro-fitted to 14 of the existing estate – by the end of the year. By 2024, half of the HMV estate will have been converted to the new concept.

Doug Putman said: “The expansion of our fan-focused pop culture offer is really working for us and the reopening of our flagship represents the culmination of a good few years of hard work. We are also opening stores in Europe this year, so while it is the culmination of one phase of work, more excitingly we see it as the launchpad for an exciting new era for HMV.”

The new 363 Oxford Street store is expected to stock a large range of pop culture merchandise, vinyl, film, TV and music technology.

In the past year, HMV shops in the UK have welcomed artists such as Charli XCX, Stormzy, Shania Twain, Raye and Ellie Goulding for signings. The central London shop is expected to draw big names and is set to stage performances from up-and-coming acts through the HMV Live&Local programme.

363 Oxford Street played host to the very first HMV store in 1921. It became one of the UK’s most famous retail destinations. In 1995, Blur performed a memorable rooftop gig. A year later, the store hosted the Spice Girls’ Christmas Lights switch-on.

It remained there until 2000 when HMV relocated to its 150 Oxford Street store (since closed). HMV later returned to 363 Oxford Street in 2013. Since its closure in 2019, the site has been operated as an American-style candy store.

IN THIS PHOTO: Two happy customers browsing at HMV on Oxford Street in the 1960s (via Voices of East Anglia)

ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “This announcement is a cause for celebration across the UK music industry. HMV is one of the talismanic names of the UK High Street and a standard-bearer for the UK’s continued love for physical music, video and games product. Owner Doug Putman and UK MD Phil Halliday have done an incredible job in restoring HMV to profitability, and we offer them our sincere congratulations.”

Cllr Geoff Barraclough, Westminster City Council’s cabinet member for planning & economic development, said: “It’s fantastic to see this iconic brand back on Oxford Street, where it stood as a driver of music and pop culture in the capital for so long. It’s also particularly pleasing it is replacing one of the many US candy stores which sprang up during the pandemic.

“The return of this famous name is proof that there’s a buzz back in the West End. Established retailers want a presence on the UK’s premier shopping street and as a council we want to see the nation’s high street reinvigorated and home to brands like HMV.

“There’s nothing quite like browsing through CDs and vinyl in-store. As a teenager who bought his first LP in an HMV shop some decades ago, I look forward to reliving that experience!”

Sam Foyle, co-head of prime global retail at Savills, acting on behalf of the private landlord for 363 Oxford Street, said: “The return of HMV is a major milestone for Oxford Street. It shows the growth in belief and confidence for the street. The previous vacancy and short term candy store tenant, was the focus of the challenges facing Oxford Street. HMV reopening along with many other global transactions in progress, demonstrates that Oxford Street has recovered”.

It is great news that such an important store is coming back to London. High rent prices was one reason why it closed in the first place. Whilst things have not changed much in that respect, you can see how the new demand for physical music has revitalised chains like HMV. I hope that they survive and continue on Oxford Street for many years to come! In the centre of the capital, there are precious few options when you want to buy physical music. There are independent stores, but they can often be crowded and limited. If you want to have that choice, you need to go to somewhere like Rough Trade East in Brick Lane. That is not too far away, though there is this centrality and convenience having a huge store like HMV in a part of London that is going to get a load of foot traffic. Its reopening will also help revitalise the high street stores around it. There will be those coming to Oxford Street just for HMV. It is going to have a benefit for many other business. No official reopening date has been confirmed, although you know there is a lot of work being done right now to ensure that HMV can open its doors before Christmas. That pre-Christmas trade will get them off to a great start! HMV has always been more than music. There are T-shirts, DVDs and books that you can browse and buy. It is a victory for physical music distributors. I also wonder if HMV on Oxford Street will have album signings and in-store gigs. That would be a great way for artists to get promotion and boost their album sales. If the old shop design was pink and black and seemed a bit glaring, there is something cooler and more toned-down - yet classic-looking and hip - about the new layout and design.

 IN THIS PHOTO: The exterior of HMV in Wigan

So many people have unique connections to HMV. For me, it was a way of discovering new music and really forging a bond with physical formats. Alongside Our Price, there did use to be that choice on the high street. Woolworths were also a shop that sold music. Now, you struggle to find physical music beyond those dedicated to it. Look around one of the busiest parts of a packed London, and it is really difficult to locate a music shop. HMV coming back with a new look is going to have a positive impact on album sales in general. It will also mean that younger music fans will have somewhere they can find all this incredible stuff. I am not sure how much flexibility there is to change the floor plan in terms of what is stocked, but you can get a sense from the Wigan HMV what will be in store in London. This revival and success of physical music makes me reignite the question as to whether devices will roll out so that we can play cassettes and C.D.s more readily. HMV’s unexpected return to Oxford Street is a great bit of news in a moment where there are so many other business struggling to stay open on the high street. I hope that this revival extends to other parts of the country. It will be exciting seeing that big reopen in London and walking into a store many had thought we’d never see again. The benefits for the music industry cannot be understated. It is a big victory that will help to further boost the rude health of physical music. It will encourage more people to buy physical music because of that accessibility. A large space where they can browse and linger. HMV’s flagship store return to London’s Oxford Street is a brilliant success story from this year. I hope that the company’s success and momentum continues…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The chic and stylish at HMV on Oxford Street in the 1960s (via Voices of East Anglia)

INTO 2024.

FEATURE: Revisiting… Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting…

Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club

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MY next excursion…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lana Del Rey and Jack Antonoff produced Chemtrails Over the Country Club (alongside Rick Nowels)/PHOTO CREDIT: Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

into Revisiting… will be an album from the past five years that is underrated or overlooked. This time out, I was keen to highlight a terrific album from one of the world’s greatest artists. One of the finest songwriters of her generation, Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club came out on 19th March, 2021. After 2019’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! scored her the biggest reviews of her career so far, the follow-up was equally brilliant yet different. The contrasting covers were quite striking. Chemtrails Over the Country Club is one of my favourite Del Rey albums. I wanted to get to a couple (of the many) positive reviews for it. Reaching two in the U.S. and one in the U.K., Chemtrails Over the Country Club was a massive commercial and critical success. For Lana Del Rey’s seventh studio album, she enlisted producer Jack Antonoff – whom she had worked with Norman Fucking Rockwell! The album mixes Country-Folk and Del Rey’s traditional Americana. Looking at her family and friendships, that is blended with tales of love, escape and, as you would expect, a healthy dose of nostalgia! All the brilliant and reliable Lana Del Rey hallmarks are there, but this was a definitely evolution and move forward. An artist who never stands still and brings something new to each album, I would urge everyone to check out this album. After her truncated set at Glastonbury last month – where she performed one of the best sets of the festival -, she is very much in my mind again. I will do a deeper dive into her albums and career soon enough.

I want to bring in a couple of different interviews. This article from News Week gave us an insight and preview of detailed discussion of Chemtrails Over the Country Club. It was an album that quite rightly garnered a lot of positivity, curiosity and discussion. This once-in-a-generation artist releasing another masterful and stunning album to the world:

“In the new edition of Music Week, Lana Del Rey and her team talk us through the making of her incredible new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. Arriving hot on the heels of 2019’s acclaimed Norman Fucking Rockwell! and 2020’s Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass poetry book and spoken-word LP, it is one of the most highly-anticipated records of the year.

Part of the discussion, of course, includes reuniting with super-producer Jack Antonoff, with Lana detailing how one of Chemtrails’ finest moments, White Dress, came about as a surprise when she heard him “noodling” around on the piano.

“I just stepped up to the microphone and started ad-libbing an entire song, which was only somewhat modified with layered vocals,” she recalls. “That only happens once in a while, and it also started off as kind of a joke [with] me not really knowing what I was saying or singing about. It just brings me back to that good ol’ fashioned feeling of getting lucky and being able to express myself without really having a second thought about needing to edit it. That’s what the sentiment is about, being brought back to a time when things felt the purest.”

“Jack’s technical skill is off the charts musically, his chords are fantastic if you’re ever stuck for inspiration,” she continued. “On top of everything, he’s just genuinely hilarious which is really important. We have each other laughing a lot.”

Also in the feature, Lana Del Rey, Tap Music’s Ben Mawson and Ed Millett and Polydor co-president Tom March look back at her career to date.

“Coming off Norman Fucking Rockwell!, she’s in the best place she’s been in almost from the beginning of her career,” Polydor’s Tom March told Music Week. It is a position, Lana stresses, that has been hard won.

“I know for myself [at the beginning of my career] it took years of walking into the same [kind of] labels I’m signed to now to have a chance to be understood as a person telling a story rather than a trend,” said Lana. “I fought very hard for that and I’m so glad I did. People may get caught up now and then in the fact that I have a strong look or presentation, but at the end of the day what’s important to me is the fact that I’ve been able to tell my life’s stories, dreams and encounters for over a decade, and that in itself is a triumph.”

She has, assuredly, scored some huge hits such as Video Games (1,047,511 sales, according to OCC data) and Born To Die (612,930), likewise she has superstar collaborations with Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande (Don’t Call Me Angel – 301,131) and The Weeknd (Lust For Life – 217,025). Her biggest single yet, meanwhile, is Cedric Gervais’ dance remix of Summertime Sadness (1,524,549).

Yet Lana’s career has largely been built on the richness of her catalogue, the power of her bodies of work.

“We don’t count on hits,” said Ben Mawson. “Whilst being a superstar, she’s not conforming to anything in terms of modern pop. She wasn’t even when she first came out. Video Games didn’t have any drums and it was a big global hit when, at the time, everything was – and still is – dominated by beats. She’s done her own sweet thing musically since the start and it connects.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to have a hit, it’s just that without meaning to, my journey has ended up playing out more like a long-term game,” Lana told Music Week, before outlining the things that have worked for her. “Long-playing records and lots of them! [With] spoken records in-between, and lots of other little interesting projects. I think an artist can have their finger on the pulse of culture without having big hits, but it might end up being something that isn’t metabolised in the form it was meant to be until a later time. At least that’s how I feel like it is for me mostly”.

A little bit of a detour, for Interview Magazine, Lana Del Rey and co-producer Jack Antonoff were in conversation with one another. I would recommend that everyone check it out. I have selected a particular chunk of it that I find especially interesting. I would also advise anyone who has not heard Chemtrails Over the Country Club to go and check it out now:

“ANTONOFF: On that last tour, you really put an emphasis on building a community. Artists are so isolated. People don’t realize that most of us don’t know each other. I love that you call people and say, “Hey, I’m going to be in your town. Do you want to come sing with me or have coffee?”

DEL REY: You’re so funny, the way you always hit things spot-on.

ANTONOFF: Don’t you feel that way? Like there’s an imaginary club, but it’s not real and you almost feel sad because you wish it was?

DEL REY: That’s especially true when you’re an alternative artist, and you’re not collabbing or making nightclub appearances. You’re either in your room or you’re with your producer. The best thing I ever did was tour the Midwest. I got to know Weyes Blood and Hamilton Leithauser. Devendra Banhart was texting me. I found my heart and I was super happy there. I’m driving back from there now and I didn’t want to leave.

ANTONOFF: Do you feel like you’re ever going to leave L.A.?

DEL REY: I guess I can’t because I have all the animals and I have my family. I don’t know if I’ll do this drive again in a hot minute. The fact that you can be in Kansas in two hours by plane is amazing.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Grant

ANTONOFF: With Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, I feel like you’re mourning a piece of L.A., sometimes literally, sometimes in feeling and tone. Then, coupled with Chemtrails, it’s like you’re starting to talk about all these new places and slowly planting little flags and creating little emotional homes in other parts of America. Obviously I’m here for it, but it does make me wonder if we’re going to be making records in Tucson or Tulsa next year.

DEL REY: It’s funny, the record was Midwestern-sounding before I even went to the Midwest. What’s interesting about having a true muse—and it sounds kind of ridiculous—is that you’re at the whim of it. When I’m singing about Arkansas, even I’m wondering why. The one way I would describe the Midwest, Oklahoma in particular, is that it’s not cooked or oversaturated, and there’s still space to catch that white lightning.

ANTONOFF: That’s why I love Jersey so much. It gives you space to get bored out of your mind, and if you let yourself get bored, you might just think of something great.

DEL REY: One hundred percent.

ANTONOFF: Before I met you, I thought you’d be the opposite of what you are. I’m trying to think of the best way to describe it.

DEL REY: You were probably surprised that I actually write. I guess that’s how I would describe it: I really write. Poems and music. Sometimes I miss the mark, but I know what I’m going for. That’s why I really like hip-hop.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chuck Grant

ANTONOFF: I remember you listening to some of the hardest stuff in the room. I think the best part of really feeling something that someone else does is that it inspires you not to mimic them, but to do you. With Chemtrails, do you feel like you’re revisiting the past?

DEL REY: Not so much where I’ve been, but more like where I’m going. It makes me anxious listening to it, because I know it’s going to be a hard road to get to where I want to be, to do what I want to do. A lot of that’s going to involve writing classes and being uncomfortable in new places with not many friends and raising my dogs and my cats and my chickens alone. It’s going to be work. I hear Chemtrails and I think “work,” but I also think of my stunning girlfriends, who so much of the album is about, and my beautiful siblings. “Chemtrails” is the title track because it mentions them all and it mentions wanting so much to be normal and realizing that when you have an overactive, eccentric mind, a record like Chemtrails is just what you’re going to get.

ANTONOFF: So many people bring a confidence to the table that is actually destructive to the work.

DEL REY: And yet, that’s also often not true. I know some women who put on a real front. The one thing I have to learn from other people is how to be happy, and everyone has different ideas about how to do that and how to keep a lightness in the songs. The one thing that I know that I can do regardless of where I’m at in my process is make a beautiful melody. I don’t really care if you mush an amazing life story into an alternative record. If the melodies don’t stun me, I kind of don’t care. I think it’s interesting if you’re yelling and shouting and talking about where you’re going and what it’s been like, but to me that’s not a record. That’s a therapy session”.

I’ll finish up with a couple of reviews. Rolling Stone, who are big fans of Lana Del Rey’s music, were hugely positive when they sat down with 2021’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club. I think the impression from most reviews is that this is among Del Rey’s most important work. Since Chemtrails Over the Country Club, she has released two further spectacular albums: Blue Bannisters (2021) and Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd (2023). Although songs from Chemtrails Over the Country Club are played on the radio, it is not as explored as it should be:

“I’M READY TO leave L.A., and I want you to come,” Lana Del Rey sings on her latest album Chemtrails Over the Country Club. “Eighty miles north or south will do.” It’s an escapist fantasy the pop singer has entertained before: stealing away from the City of Angels in a pickup truck that no one recognizes. But thankfully – for us, at least – she never acts on her wishes. On Chemtrails, her most subdued and introspective album thus far, she soundtracks the death of the American dream right from the heart of Hollywood, just as she did on her previous effort, 2019’s electrifying Norman Fucking Rockwell! And while it may not have as many grandiose showpieces as its older sibling – no nine-minute “Venice Bitch” to be found here – Chemtrails is every bit as sharp and prescient of a cultural artifact from pop’s premier Cassandra. After all, when that fireball hurtles past Hawaii towards the West Coast, as Lana foresaw on NFR’s “The Greatest,” who’s going to be there to sing torch ballads over the silent, ashen remains of Los Angeles? Lana Del Rey, of course. Where else would she be?

Though Del Rey’s overall project has remained remarkably consistent throughout her career, her growing disillusionment with fame, and with this country’s prevailing iconography of wealth and success, has loomed large as the national mood has grown more dire. Sure, there was always danger lurking behind the Kennedy smiles and gray mansion luncheons featured on Born to Die and her other early works; it’s a trait that this album’s laughably conspiratorial title still carries. But back then, Lana took the Shangri-Las approach, recalling motorcycle crashes and illicit affairs on the beach with a winking, cooing innocence. Even her saddest songs got a dance remix. Not so much anymore. Her observations are somber now, her melancholy placed against a more substantial backdrop. Kids dance the Louisiana two-step in a forgotten bar; a prolonged breakup meets its bitter end; people get high and make out in a parking lot while “the whole world is crazy.” It’s an incredibly bleak yet weirdly comforting sentiment all at once – the notion that one’s personal dramas, the ups and downs of “normal” life, will continue to go on even as the rest of the world goes to shit.

The mundaneness feeds into Chemtrails’ depiction of American whiteness and white womanhood in particular, a long-running fascination in Del Rey’s work that has been called into question recently with her public controversies. In her infamous “Question for the Culture” open letter that she released last spring, her point that she was making space for “women who look and act like me … the kind of women who are slated mercilessly for being their authentic, delicate selves,” got lost in the backlash she received for appearing to pit herself against Doja Cat, Beyoncé, and other pop stars of color. Chemtrails makes her case more plainly: This is Del Rey’s most delicate-sounding album to date, supported by Jack Antonoff’s production taking the Seventies singer-songwriter sheen of NFR and stripping it to its most essential piano-and-guitar elements. (As with the previous album, longtime collaborator Rick Nowels steps in for one collaboration, the haunting folk track “Yosemite.”) Percussion takes the form of soft bongo drums, live drum cymbals, and barely pulsing synths that are nearly dissolved in the ether. These songs are quiet musings, the kind you’d play on a baby grand in an empty ballroom.

Del Rey’s voice, that distinctly mid-century drawl, often fades in and out of the album’s instrumentation. Her tone stays measured and careful: “I only mention it ‘cause.…” she murmurs, in two separate songs, like she’s just said something too revealing to an acquaintance. The showiest display of her vocals, by far, is on opener “White Dress,” where Del Rey upends autobiographical lyrics about her prefame life by singing in her highest possible register, a self-effacing parody of female fragility. “Down in Orlando, I was only 19/Down at the Men in Music business conference,” she squeaks, the words tumbling out. (It’s also a great example of Del Rey’s knack for wringing dry humor out of mythology — it’s unlikely that such a business conference, highlighting the distinct achievements of men in the music industry, would ever need to exist.)

By contrast, a strong current of idyllic female solidarity runs beneath Chemtrails’ ennui. “God, it feels good not to be alone,” Del Rey sighs on “Dance Till We Die,” her ladies-of-the-canyon-themed answer to Le Tigre’s “Hot Topic,” where she recounts dancing with Joan Baez and putting out a house fire with Courtney Love. She draws a line between herself and Tammy Wynette’s tragic subservience on “Breaking Up Slowly,” aided by cool-girl outlaw Nikki Lane, and once again pays her respects to Mother Joni with a faithful rendition of “For Free,” closing out the album with immaculate harmonies by Zella Day and Weyes Blood. For all of Del Rey’s ill-worded defensiveness surrounding how many women of color were depicted in her gaggle of debutante friends on the album’s cover, it only emphasized her earnest belief that such a scene could be both achievable and uncomplicated.

Del Rey’s dreams of places beyond the San Gabriel Mountains take her to more states than she’s traversed in all her other albums combined: Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas (pronounced ar-KAN-sas), Louisiana, the strange land of Northern California. God and religion, too, play an outsized role, ranging from the divinity of Sun Ra to a Bible tattoo to the “Tulsa Jesus Freak” who served as the singer’s most recent muse. Del Rey has always relished in the repetition of proper nouns — designer brands, classic-rock songs, etc. — and it’d be easy to wave off these new additions as merely Del Rey’s way of acknowledging the most recent political climate. But it mirrors a personal evolution for Del Rey, too, as her outward persona of the past five years has gradually moved away from her initial, provocative “Lolita lost in the hood” aesthetic into a woman of more suburban experience, a person who gets routinely clowned by her fans for owning “live, laugh, love” decor and a painting of a sailboat above her fireplace.

Whether this mall-dress-wearing era for Lana is just another character or truly her “authentic, delicate self” will no doubt be up for debate, but it’s telling that the most craven desires on Chemtrails all center around stability; the woman who once observed, “Kanye West is blond and gone,” now fears the irreversible damage that fame can do to a person’s psyche more than anything else. “The best ones lost their minds/So I’m not gonna change/I’ll stay the same,” she promises on “Dark but Just a Game.” Speaking to a steadfast lover on “Yosemite,” she remarks, “Seasons may change/But we don’t change.” With a career-spanning ability to freeze-frame historic icons of culture with a single lyric or video, she’s now seeing if the magic trick can work on herself.

For a brief moment, it does. The soaring “Wild at Heart,” the highlight of the album and one of Del Rey’s most poetic efforts to date, is a study in making do with what you already have: the song recycles its most prominent elements from several tracks found on Norman Fucking Rockwell! On the verses, Del Rey floats on a melody borrowed from “Love Song” and “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing”; she makes smoking cigarettes “to understand the smog” sound positively romantic. Suddenly, the music swells up into a chorus section lifted straight from “How to Disappear” — the NFR track that feels most closely linked to Chemtrails in spirit. In that song, Del Rey envisioned herself growing old in the California sunshine with “a kid and two cats in the yard.” Here, we get its antithesis: Del Rey flees Calabasas in the dead of night, leaving L.A.’s fiery hellscape in her wake. As if editing a film montage, her mind flashes to the paparazzi car accident that killed Princess Diana. But in the next beat, she’s back to reassuring herself: “I’m not a star.” Here, if nowhere else, she’s free of being perceived”.

I am going to finish up with NME’s take on one of 2021’s best albums. I know Lana Del Rey has released an album very recently, but you do wonder where she will go next. She is someone I feel could be a screen icon too. Someone who has this incredible talent and hugely powerful and alluring aura. Her distinct and extraordinary voice and always-mesmeric songwriting is all over Chemtrails Over the Country Club:

“Almost 10 years ago, a beautiful song called ‘Video Games’ emerged online, introducing a mysterious new artist to the wider world. The track immediately captured people’s imaginations, with its vintage Hollywood sheen, poetic lyrics and its creator’s elegantly downcast drawl. Lana Del Rey had arrived, and she’s barely stopped spearheading the conversation since.

Throughout a decade as one of music’s top artists, Del Rey has kept a relatively low profile. Compared to other acts of her stature, paparazzi shots and tabloid headlines sensationalising her life are few and, as she told NME in 2019, she leads a life as regular as yours or mine, hosting game nights with her girlfriends and hanging out with her siblings.

Fame and Del Rey’s disregard for it is a recurring theme on her seventh album ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’. On opening track ‘White Dress’, she explores her longing for a time when she was yet to find success; she delivers it in a rasped whisper so urgent it sounds like she’s trying to transport herself back there. “I felt free because I was only 19,” she sings of days and nights spent waitressing and listening to jazz, Kings Of Leon and “White Stripes when they were white hot”.

Perhaps it’s a case of the grass always being greener – pre-fame Lana surely wouldn’t have imagined achieving all she has and wanting to be back bussing tables – but she closes the song rationalising her desire to go back: “Because it made me fee… like a god/ It kind of makes me feel like maybe I was better off.”

The sublime, dreamy float of the title track is similarly nostalgic, calling back to a time where “there’s nothing wrong, contemplating God / Under the chemtrails over the country club”. It’s gorgeous and idyllic, distilling a scene of quintessential Americana into its most poetic form. Del Rey even manages to make the most mundane of chores and activities sound magical: “Washing my hair, doing the laundry/ Late night TV, I want you only”.

Conversely, on the romantic waltz of ‘Wild At Heart’, she’s in the here-and-now, evoking a scene of being chased by the paps, fingers on the shutter. “The cameras have flashes / They cause the car crashes,” she sighs, with an important distinction to make lest anyone get things twisted: “But I’m not a star.” ‘Dark But Just A Game’, which shifts from brooding trip-hop atmospherics to brighter folk licks, was inspired by a party at Madonna’s manager’s house and finds Del Rey explaining she doesn’t “even want what’s mine / Much less the fame”.

Later, she shares a lesson she learned from watching those who came before her: “We keep changing all the time / The best ones lost their minds / So I’m not gonna change; I’ll stay the same.” Rather than whinges about the privilege of being rich and successful, these are sharp observations on buying into your own celebrity and the impact of society’s thirst to know everything about our idols.

The LA-based musician’s last album, 2019’s ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’, saw her hit a career-high with a record that instantly cemented its place as an all-time great. Yet with ‘Chemtrails…’ Del Rey follows it with ease, riding that record’s creative high but looking further back into her past to tie her whole story together in one place.

On first listen – and especially after the more organic sounds of ‘NFR!’ – ‘Tulsa Jesus Freak’ might come as a shock. Del Rey’s voice is fed through Auto-Tune and vocal processors, aping the production of the mumble rappers she declared her love for on her last album cycle. Incorporating elements of hip-hop into her timeless pop is nothing new for Lana – she’s been doing it since her ‘Born To Die’ era – but it’s exciting to hear her invention and refusal to be restricted.

There are plenty of Easter eggs littered throughout the record, connecting it to past releases. On the title track, she sings, “You’re in the wind, I’m in the water”, harking back to ‘Brooklyn Baby’’s “I think we’re the wind and sea”. She repeats ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’’s assertion that she “ain’t no candle in the wind” on the quiet fingerpicked folk of ‘Yosemite’ and ‘Tulsa Jesus Freak’, while ‘Wild At Heart’ brings back the character of Joe, who previously appeared on ‘NFR!’’s ‘How To Disappear’ and her spoken-word poem ‘Never To Heaven’.

As well as paying tribute to herself, on ‘Chemtrails…’ Del Rey carves out space for her heroes and current favourites. ‘Breaking Up Slowly’ finds her swapping verses with country singer Nikki Lane. “I don’t wanna live with a life of regret / I don’t wanna end up like Tammy Wynette,” Lane sings at one point, before Del Rey references the vintage star’s third husband George Jones: “George got arrested out on the lawn / We might be breaking up after the song.”

The album ends with a poignant cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘For Free’, which features Arizona rising singer-songwriter Zella Day and Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering. On the penultimate track ‘Dance Til We Die’, Lana sings, “I’m covering Joni and I’m dancing with Joan / Stevie is calling on the telephone.” It’s a reminder that, more than just being influenced by the likes of Joan Baez and Stevie Nicks, she’s now on a par with them. Lana Del Rey is at the peak of her game – just don’t expect her to come down anytime soon”.

If you have not listened to Chemtrails Over the Country Club in a while, spend a few moments re-exploring it. In terms of her very best albums, it must surely rank in most people’s top three. Though she has produced so many incredible albums, perhaps there will be stiff competition! I don’t think it is talked about and played as much as it deserves – hence the reason it is appearing in this feature. In Lana Del Rey, we have this modern icon who is influencing other artists. One wonders just what she would have delivered in her Glastonbury set had the power not been cut. I am pretty sure that she will be…

BACK there soon.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Brittney Spencer

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Deeb

Brittney Spencer

_________

THE remarkable…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jimmy Fontaine

Brittney Spencer is an American country singer–songwriter that everyone should know about. Whilst her debut full-length is still to come, she has released several singles, including 2021's Sober & Skinny. Spencer has performed on the Country Music Association Awards and has embarked on a world tour. She hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Developing an interest in music from singing in church at a very young age, there was this clear and powerful spiritual and communal connection. Spencer was raised as an African Methodist Episcopal. Coming from a musical family, she began by singing background vocals for R&B and Gospel artists including Jason Nelson. Forward to February 2013: this is where Spencer moved to Nashville to pursue Country music full-time. I am going to bring together quite a few interviews, as it is important to know more about Spencer and her path to Country music. Last year, she spoke with Glamour about her path. After moving to Nashville in 2013, she plugged and worked hard for years to get recognised:

“Glamour: In past interviews you’ve said you never really thought about pursuing music—you just went for it and planned on finding a way no matter what. How do you stay motivated despite the grueling nature of the music industry?

Brittney Spencer: I remember that I’ve wanted to do this my whole life. Like that statement that you just mentioned…I never had a moment in my life where I decided to do music for a living. I just knew at four years old that I wanted to sing. That’s what I've always pursued long before I understood the industry. I’ve been on the road almost consistently since about July of last year. Yes, it’s incredible—but it also takes a lot out of you. So I go back to that place—I go back to that little girl, and it keeps me going because I wanted these days so bad my whole life where I get to sing and write songs. Songs that people connect with and want to hear more of. It’s truly a humbling feeling.

You’ve been candid about how difficult it’s been finding your way in Nashville when you don’t fit in—and how size can play a part of that. Then you released a song called “Sober and Skinny,” which is such a bold move for a new artist who’s defying expectations. Do you feel pressured to talk about your appearance, or is it something you do to inspire other women?

Probably both. There’s no one telling me I should lose weight—not now, at least. I just feel the societal pressure sometimes. Even at the place where I am in my career, just finding clothes that’s in our sizes can be hard. Being a Black woman in Nashville can be challenging when it comes time to book someone to do all sorts of things related to fashion, whether it’s glam or wardrobe. I do feel that systemic or societal pressure at times, but I also feel really empowered. I’m in a constant state of protesting my own thoughts and the things that I’ve been told about what people like me are supposed to look like, or how we’re supposed to approach the world around us. If I’m going to be an artist then I’m going to be myself. I don’t really have a caricature to be—I’m just me, and that’s all I want to be. I just put my truth out there without having to always say it. I’m trying to challenge all of the things I’ve been told to believe about myself and people who are walking in the shoes that I walk in. We are enough as we are.

You just mentioned the intersection of sexism and racism in Nashville. Do you ever get frustrated when people say things like, “Brittney Spencer is redefining what it means to be a Black country artist” when country music is Black music?

You know, when I hear statements like that it takes me back to what I know about history. I spent a whole lot of time studying the history of country music and studying the roots of American music in general. I think that people are just now having an awakening…. They are finally waking up to this thing. I finally woke up to the truth about it a few years ago myself. It makes me excited and very hopeful to know that people are starting to really understand that there is a place for everybody in country music.

It makes me happy to see different sectors in country music making an intentional attempt to rectify history, but more so reshape the future of what this thing is and showing what it always has been when it wasn’t always visible. That makes me hopeful. That’s what gives me just a little more courage to do what it is that I do because I’m honestly not trying to redefine anything more than I am just trying to sing songs. But I recognize the weight of what it is that I’m doing. I recognize the value of my presence in this space, the value of Black presence here in this space. At the end of the day, I just want to sing my songs and love people as well as I can.

What is your advice for Black girls and women who have Nashville dreams of their own but don’t know where to start?

I’d say take it one day at a time, hone one skill at a time. It can be so overwhelming to consider the bigger picture of what it is that you want to do. It can sometimes make your dream feel so out of reach. But just remember that it’s literally one song at a time, it’s one gig at a time. I took a year where I didn’t sing anywhere except for busking downtown after I learned how to play guitar. I didn’t sing at any places; I didn’t take any gigs because I really wanted to focus on learning how to play guitar. I wanted to focus on learning how to write songs and how to make songs that made sense here in Nashville, but I couldn’t do it all.

Also, if anything that you’re doing makes you feel like you have to be less than yourself or it’s not causing you to stretch yourself and grow yourself in the direction that feels good to you as a person—as an artist—leave it alone. It’s just not for you. Finding your place, finding your people, finding your lane is so much more important than trying to be seen and trying to be visible and trying to make it in anything that will be available to you. You’ll lose yourself giving yourself to anything that will accept you”.

I am going to work to some interviews from this year. Last year was a busy one for Spencer. With the three-track E.P., if I ever get there: a day at blackbird studios, in the ether and sounding phenomenal, it is a little taster of an artist who is going to make a huge difference in Country. A compelling woman who is storming a gerne that is broadening and diversifying. Even though it has not always been open to Black artists and women, things are changing slowly. Brittney Spencer is definitely going to break barriers and pave the way for many artists like her in years to come! Last year, American Songwriter spent some time with this incredible human:

“Brittney Spencer has been making waves on the country music scene for years, but she is reaching new heights heading into 2022. Currently out on the 2nd leg of her In A Perfect World Tour and working on her debut album, Spencer promises an exciting year ahead. In an interview with American Songwriter, she reflects on her successes over the past year and gushes about her musical inspirations.

First, as she navigates the ups and downs of rising fame, Spencer reveals how her loved ones and fellow musicians have kept her afloat.

“People have really championed and pushed me into the place where I am in my career. I just feel so overwhelmed with just gratitude for that,” says Spencer. “It’s been just this moment of just recognizing that I get to be more of myself.”

Between her 2020 EP Compassion and her first full-length album expected later this year, Spencer is showing more vulnerability in her music than ever. Her profound lyrics and stunning vocals have recently landed her numerous titles, including Spotify’s 2021 Hot Country Artist to Watch and a spot on CMT’s Next Women of Country.

Yet, as her audience grows, so does the pressure to create art that her fans feel connected to. “There is pressure with that,” she admits. “But there is also a lot of learning about myself, and I’m more focused now than I ever have in my life about what I want to do, where I want to go, what I want to do.”

Her musical direction all started when she was young and a friend at church suggested she listen to The Chicks. Her passion for music, and country music especially, only grew from there. In fact, it wasn’t until Spencer discovered Taylor Swift that she believed she could make country music herself.

 “Dixie Chicks made me like it. Taylor made me feel like I could do it,” she recalls. Spencer, a Baltimore native, was unsure that she had the right voice for country music. But Swift made her realize that country music was about more than having a certain accent. “[Swift] didn’t have a twang—she’s from Pennsylvania,” Spencer points out. “She’s very poetic, and I felt like so much of that… It was me.”

Aside from Swift and The Chicks, Spencer has a wide range of musical heroes who influence her writing. “I like Ray Charles, I love Beyonce, I love Miranda Lambert. I think Jazmine Sullivan is the greatest singer alive,” she lists, to name a few

Spencer believes the diversity of the genres, singers, and songwriters that she admires gives her music a sound that is entirely her own. “I feel like I have a really wide stretch of what influences me, which is probably why it still made my songs sound so different,” she observes.

Now, with a platform of her own, Spencer aims to inspire others as each of these artists inspired her. “It was moments that I heard another person that made me feel like maybe there was a place for me here,” she says. “So I’m inspired by a lot. I try to embody that in my music.”

When it came to putting together her first album, she picked the songs that moved the people close to her. “I have friends that I love who I just trust their ears like crazy. They’re the same ones that helped me pick out the songs for my Compassion EP,” she explains. “But I also have a team there, so I bounce things off some of my team, and I just… I think I also really rely on a lot of the creatives that I kind of come across”.

Before moving things more up to date, when that E.P. was released back in November, Billboard discussed it. They also mentioned how Brittney Spencer, after working in coffee shops and dreaming of forging a career in music, has now signed with Elektra. A huge achievement for one of Country’s finest and most powerful young artists:

“Burgeoning country artist Brittney Spencer has signed with Elektra and will drop if i ever get there: a day at blackbird studio, her first release for the label, at midnight ET.

The highly sought-after Spencer, who put out her breakthrough single, “Sober & Skinny,” independently in 2021, has made tremendous inroads at country, opening for Maren Morris, Reba McEntire, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Willie Nelson and others. Additionally, she is an honorary member of Morris and Carlile’s The Highwomen (which also includes Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires), often stepping in for group members, including on Oct. 30 when the quartet performed at Loretta Lynn’s memorial concert at the Grand Ole Opry, where she substituted for Morris.

Spencer began drawing industry attention two years ago in October 2020, when she posted her cover of The Highwomen’s “Crowded Table” on Twitter and drew the praise of Morris and Shires, who invited her to perform with them when they returned to the road after the pandemic. That dream came true in September 2021 when she stepped in for an ailing Shires at The Highwomen’s appearance at the Bottle Rock Napa Valley Music Festival. CMT’s Leslie Fram also became an early supporter, naming her to the CMT Next Women of Country class of 2021. Spencer made her Grand Ole Opry debut in May of last year and embarked on her own headlining tour last December. She also received a CMT Music Awards nomination earlier this year for digital-first performance of the year.

“We were instantly moved by Brittney’s astounding talent and infectious spirit as soon as we met her,” said Breanna Duncan, senior manager of A&R at Elektra, in a statement. “She has a natural ability to connect with listeners with her brilliant vocal delivery and her gift at capturing emotions through her songwriting is just remarkable. Brittney Spencer is an absolute gem in the music scene and we couldn’t be more excited that she has chosen Elektra as her label home.”

Spencer, who is part of Victoria Secret’s “Undefinable” global campaign, recorded her three-track EP live at Nashville’s Blackbird Studio with producer Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town). The first single is her cover of The Chicks’ 1999 hit, “Cowboy Take Me Away”; the set also includes two originals, “Better As Friends,” co-written with Hailey Whitters, and “A Hundred Years Old,” co-written with Ashley Ray and Sean McConnell.

“These three songs are some of my favorites to perform live, and they reflect a lot of where my head and heart have been lately – a little sad girl fall, a little gleeful nostalgia. I’ve been touring with some of my absolute heroes, getting to partner with brands I love like Victoria’s Secret (like, what?!), and just being a person feeling my way through my ever-changing, stupid life,” said Spencer, who is managed by Activist Artists Management’s Matt Maher and Caitlin Stone. “Still, writing and creating music has been my honest guide, my emotional safety and my best companion this year, my album is close to finished now!”.

Prior to coming to a couple of interviews from this year, this article highlighted an important honour and event from May. In addition to being an inspiring musician who will help diversify and broaden Country music, Brittney Spencer is also making a big difference in the community. Someone who has this wonderful heart and humanity:

“Brittney Spencer has been named Artist Advocate for Habitat for Humanity’s Music Row Build, set for May 13 at Village by the Creek in North Nashville.

As Artist Advocate, she and friends Abbey Cone, Caylee Hammack and Chris Housman will be performing at The Bluebird Cafe on April 13 at 9 p.m. to benefit the Habitat Music Row Build. In addition to the Bluebird performance, Spencer will be at the Habitat build site May 13 with volunteers, supporting this year’s future Habitat homeowner LaShawnda Bowman, who is the mother of four children.

“As a person who’s struggled with housing security and homelessness in the past, it means a lot for me to partner with Habitat for Humanity. Affordable housing can feel impossible to obtain in Nashville. Habitat’s homeownership program provides education and the ability to break down barriers on the build site working with the future homeowners and volunteers who come from all walks in life. Being able to have a home that is affordable means everything,” says Spencer.

“We are grateful Brittney is lending her incredible talent and voice to raise awareness for the affordable housing crisis in Nashville,” says Penny Gattis, Chair for Habitat for Humanity’s Music Row Build. “Our music community providing a pathway to homeownership for a Nashville family is invaluable and we thank Brittney for her advocacy.”

Additionally, UTA will serve as Music Row Build sponsor for 2023.

“I’m thrilled that UTA will join Brittney in actively bettering our community,” says Jeffrey Hasson, Music Agent & Co-Head of UTA Nashville. “Habitat is an amazing organization that positively effects change and this event gives us a chance to give back to those in need.”

Nashville is among the top five U.S. cities on the verge of a housing crisis. Over the last decade median household income has risen 15 percent and home prices have risen 167 percent. Habitat homes are not free and the sustainable homeownership program provides education, budget coaching and home maintenance classes empowering successful homeownership”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: KT Sura

Prior to round up, there are a couple of interviews worth sourcing. Riverfront Times spoke with Brittney Spencer last month ahead of a performance at the World Wide Technology Raceway for the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR event. It seems that Country music is very much home for her. A genre of music that connects deep and resonates within her:

“Did you always have your sights on country music as your genre or did it sort of happen by accident?

A little bit of both. I was brought up in the church in Baltimore, I sang opera for years, and I listened to Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Mariah, Whitney. I started listening to country music as a kid when I had no concept of genre at all. I started really listening to the Chicks. In hindsight, I really didn’t know it was changing my life, but I loved their harmonies and their stories, and I just became a serious fan. I have a lot of different musical influences. But with country music, it was the songwriting that made me gravitate toward the genre. I finally found a place where I felt like I could tell stories that I wanted to tell. I could put my thoughts into words, and it would make sense in country music.

How would you describe your place in country music sonically?

I’m a country artist. Sonically, I’m always going to want to have fun and stick to tradition, but I’m also going to want to bend and break a few rules. That’s just the creative in me wanting to explore. But I want to tell stories, and I’m going to continue to do that in this space because it feels like home to me.

You are one of several Black artists who are currently finding success in country music. What is your perspective from inside the industry?

I want to see more of us. I know things take time, but I can’t wait until we don’t have to have this conversation anymore because it’s so normalized to see so many different cultures in country music. Right now, we’re sprinkled in and still in the beginning stages of seeing the genre diversity, and there’s a lot of people putting in a lot of effort to make that happen. But we need to keep going. What would make me happy is to look back in 10 years and you won’t be able to name the Black country artists if you tried because there’s so many.

Your songs sound autobiographical. Are they?

I do tend to write in first person, but I’m not always the person in the song. Like “Sober & Skinny” is not about me. I’ve never actually experienced that. “Whiskey Rose” is not about me at all. Writing about other people makes me feel more empathetic, when I'm able to find a human way to connect with people in a story I wrote but didn't actually experience. It’s actually really hard for me to write about me. I feel exposed. But every artist that I love does that, and I decided I don’t want to be a mystery, so I think the bravest thing is to put my actual self in songs, and I’m doing it a lot more these days”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicki Fletcher

Recently, Rolling Stone featured a sensational artist who is revolutionising Nashville and Country. Someone making space for Black artists coming through, everyone needs to know her name and investigate her music. She is such a powerful and important artist. Someone primed for very big success:

“BRITTNEY SPENCER WAS stoned and chilling at home in Nashville the night her life changed. She had posted an acoustic cover of “Crowded Table,” a song of radical inclusion by the all-star country quartet the Highwomen, after seeing them sing it on TV. “It was so beautiful watching this supergroup come together in the way they did for this album. I remember feeling so warm inside watching it,” she says.

The group, which is comprised of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires, retweeted her video, and things began to accelerate at a rapid pace. Soon, Spencer was opening shows for artists like Jason Isbell, then making appearances on the CMA Awards and ACM Awards. Now, she’s breaking new ground in a part of the music industry that has not historically (or even recently) made room for Black women. “I’m doing something that is probably already going in the history books,” she says, “and not because it’s me and my song, but because I’m part of something.”

It’s a sunny spring day and Spencer is perched on a group of large stones along Nashville’s Bicentennial Mall, a public park on the north side of downtown that’s in sight of the state capitol building. She’s wearing a sweatshirt that doubles as self-promotion, since it has the title of her song “Sober & Skinny” printed in large letters across the chest.

Spencer grew up in Baltimore — Bicentennial Mall reminds her of public spaces back home, she says — and fell hard for country music after hearing the Chicks as a teenager. Initially she sang backup for gospel and R&B groups around her hometown and the East Coast. Eventually, some of the artists she was working with found out that she wanted to sing country music, and one of them, R&B singer Lil’ Mo, encouraged her to pursue her passion. “I remember one day asking her, ‘Do you think I can actually do this?’” Spencer says. “Everybody knew I wanted to do country music. And she was like, ‘You gotta get to where the music is.’”

So Spencer headed out for Nashville as a 25-year-old who’d just lost her job and felt like she needed to be in town to succeed. She didn’t know much about the country music business, beyond what she’d learned from the Reba McEntire and Taylor Swift documentaries she had watched. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says now. “I actually still don’t know what I’m doing.”

Her early years in Nashville were filled with trial and error, and she had trouble getting anyone in the industry to meet with her. It was Highwomen member Maren Morris’ debut album, Hero, that helped Spencer through a tough period when she wanted to give up. “Here’s this woman who knows how to write, and also she can sing her ass off,” she says. “I listened to that album over and over again for weeks until I talked myself off the ledge of stopping.”

Spencer feels like she’s had good fortune in the wake of her viral moment, and been able to work with people who have treated her well. She’s already been out on tour with Reba McEntire and Brett Eldredge, and had a standout moment singing James Brown on Jason Isbell’s Georgia Blue covers album. “My first points of entry into this industry were with people who made me feel really safe,” she says. “The Highwomen are family to me. Jason Isbell made me feel safe. Going on tour with Brett Eldredge and Reba, they were so kind and so welcoming and so themselves with me it made me feel like I could be myself onstage and off.” In July, she’ll get to play a show in London with Bruce Springsteen.

As the country music industry starts to reckon with its racist past, Spencer’s presence in town alongside other Black women like Mickey Guyton and Madeline Edwards is a powerful indication of how things could be. She sees the opportunity not just as a platform for her own career but for the artists who come after her. “We won’t see the true impact of right now for another few years, when we see the next generation of country artists and race isn’t even a question,” she says. “That’s going to be the real testimony of this moment we’re standing in.”

To make sure that future is better and more open, Spencer has a policy of being honest about racism she experiences in the music industry. It’s not attention-seeking — she isn’t a big fan of receiving attention, despite her career aspirations — but more of a reminder that there’s work to be done. “It’s actually doing a disservice to everybody if people are walking around thinking that these things don’t happen, that we’re much further along than we actually are,” she says”.

Go and follow Brittney Spencer. A Country artist with a distinct sound and hugely powerful voice, you only need to hear a bit of one of her songs to know that she is something very special! Go and check out this wonderful artist to ensure that you…

DO not miss out.

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Follow Brittney Spencer

PHOTO CREDIT: KT Sura for Holler.

Official:

https://www.brittneyspencer.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/brittneyspencer/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BrittNicx

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6YM5gRpMJkP0kUWRcvlHT3

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/brittneyspencermusic/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/BrittneySpencer