FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential September Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Suki Waterhouse

Essential September Releases

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AS I write this (10th August)…

IN THIS PHOTO: London Grammar

there are some really great albums planned for next month. A busy month for new releases, I am going to highlight those I think you should pre-order. You can see a more comprehensive and extensive list of albums out next month here. There are four release weeks/dates I am going to include. Each of them is pretty packed! On 6th September, there are a fair few albums you will want to get a hold of. I am going to highlight three. The first is David Gilmour’s Luck and Strange. You can pre-order here. The legendary musician is an amazing solo artist. Of course, formerly with Pink Floyd, you are going to want to get a hold of this album. A musical master showing that he is still very much a major force in music:

“The brand-new album by David Gilmour, Luck and Strange was recorded over five months in Brighton and London and is Gilmour’s first album of new material in nine years. The record was produced by David and Charlie Andrew, best known for his work with ALT-J and Marika Hackman, with lyrics mostly written by Polly Samson, Gilmour’s co-writer for the past thirty years. The album features eight new tracks along with a beautiful reworking of The Montgolfier Brothers’ ‘Between Two Points’, which sees Romany Gilmour, who performs backing vocals across the album, on vocals and harp. Musicians contributing to the record include Guy Pratt and Tom Herbert on bass, Adam Betts, Steve Gadd and Steve DiStanislao on drums, Rob Gentry and Roger Eno on keyboards and the string and choral arrangements are by Will Gardner. The title track also features the late Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright, recorded in 2007 during a ‘Barn Jam’ at David’s house. The album’s cover image, photographed and designed by renowned artist Anton Corbijn, is inspired by lyrics written by Charlie Gilmour for the album’s final song ‘Scattered’. Gatefold sleeve and booklet with photography and design by Anton Corbijn”.

Another album from 6th September I want to recommend comes from Hinds. The amazing Viva Hinds is an album I think you will want to add to your collection. The first album from them since becoming a duo – from a quartet -, Viva Hinds follows from The Prettiest Cure. The title seems to indicate some form of new confidence or liberation. Maybe a sense of defiance after losing band members. I really love the group and don’t feel they lose any impact and importance halving members. Still so magnetic as a duo. You will want to pre-order this album:

“Spanish indie rockers Hinds are back with their utterly triumphant fourth album, Viva Hinds. Written by the band’s co-founders, co-vocalists, co-guitarists and co-songwriters Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote, it features their first-ever fully Spanish language songs, as well as first collaborations with the likes of Beck and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten”.

Boasting one of the most eye-catching and well-designed album covers of this year so far, Max Richter releases In a Landscape on 6th September. It sounds like it is going to be a really interesting and original idea. Something you will want to check out. I would advise people to pre-order the album. I am relatively new to Richter and have not really investigated his previous work. I do think he is a phenomenal artist that everyone should check out and spend some time with:

“Max Richter presents his 9th studio album 'In A Landscape'. A record about “reconciling polarities"; bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living. "A memoir of the present moment”. In his own words, Max describes the music on the record as being about “connecting or reconciling polarities. the tracks themselves are, as ever, my attempts to figure out how to make sense of our lives in the here and now of our daily life as I experience it.” One of the most influential and acclaimed composers of all time, Max's fusion of classical technique and electronic technology, heard across genre-defining solo projects, countless scores for film, dance, art and fashion, has won him legions of fans world-over, and blazed a trail for a generation of artists”.

There are five from 13th September that are well worth getting into. Pre-ordering. It is a busy week with plenty of options. I think there are five albums in particular worth spending some money on. The first is from a wonderful British trio who I have been a fan of since their debut album over a decade ago. That is London Grammar. The Greatest Love is going to be among this year’s absolute best albums I feel. With another great album cover, the Hannah Reid-led trio are going to provide a real treat. An album well worth pre-ordering:

“The Greatest Love follows the British trio’s critically acclaimed #1 selling album Californian Soil, which was released in 2021 and earned the band their second BRIT nomination for Best British Group. Arriving over a decade since the trio first entered the industry, the new album is a celebration; the sound of a band laying to rest the past and realising a newfound sense of freedom.

First single House embodies London Grammar’s new trajectory as frontwoman Hannah Reid delivers the uncompromising lyric: This is my place, my house, my rules. Speaking about the single Hannah said, “House is about drawing boundaries around yourself. When I hit my thirties, my mindset shifted, and I no longer felt like a victim of anything – it all felt within my power. I thought, making music should be fun, and we're gonna make that happen.”

Having first formed as teenagers at University, their seminal double-platinum selling debut If You Wait paved the way for what was to become a hugely successful career for the band, the rare longevity of which has firmly rooted London Grammar in British pop culture. Now over 10 years later, the band have sold more than 3 million albums world-wide, with two #1 selling records, 1 billion streams, an Ivor Novello and numerous BRIT Award nominations under their belts”.

Let’s get to another great album out on 13th September. Similar to David Gilmour, Nick Lowe is this long-serving and wonderful legend who continues to produce magnificent music. Indoor Safari sounds really interesting. I know I have pretty much said that about every single album so far. I have known about Nick Lowe for years but not checked out his latest tracks. This is an album that sounds like it will appeal to long-time fans and newer converts. Go and pre-order this album:

“Nick Lowe returns with Indoor Safari, his frst studio album in over a decade. Backed on every track by Nick's trusted collaborators Los Straitjackets, Nick exhibits his razorsharp songwriting ability through a multitude of sonic environments. With his signature wit on display for grooving numbers like "Went to a Party" and "Don't Be Nice to Me," to the heartfelt sentiment on "Blue on Blue" and "Jet Pac Boomerang," and topped with Nick breathing new life into hidden gems of the '60s like "Raincoat in the River" and "A Quiet Place," Indoor Safari demonstrates how Nick Lowe continues to make his mark as a performer, songwriter and producer over a half-century after his start in the music industry”.

Completely different in terms of style and sounds, Nilüfer Yanya’s My Method Actor is an album that I am excited about. There is not a lot of information out there about it. It is a shame that there is not more on websites that have new albums. How much information do consumers need?! I guess keeping it brief can be useful and economic, though I would like to see more about My Method Actor. I would suggest people think about pre-ordering the new album by the exceptional Nilüfer Yanya:

“One of the most exciting musicians today, Nilüfer Yanya returns with a brand new studio album My Method Actor via Ninja Tune. With a unique blend of soulful melodies, indie rock grit, and jazz influences, Yanya’s music continues to captivate audiences worldwide. The new body of work being a development and evolution from her previous sound. Her first album Miss Universe and its 2022 follow-up Painless cemented her as one to watch and a staple in the indie scene, lauded by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Recommended if you like…Arlo Parks, King Krule, Sharon Van Etten, Helado Negro, Sudan Archives”.

The album I am most excited about next month is Suki Waterhouse’s Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. One of my favourite artists around, the fabulously-titled new album from the British-born, American-based artist is one I am going to check out. With a fabulous album cover, it makes me think about great album art and how we do not highlight it enough these days. Anyway, I think that you will want to pre-order the latest album from an artist I have so much admiration for:

“The new album by Suki Waterhouse is a masterful slab of exuberant, emotionally vulnerable pop with hooks galore. It features her hit songs “OMG”, “To Love”, “My Fun”, plus 15 brand new songs.

Suki Waterhouse’s music sounds like a collage of her inspirations, experiences, and emotions stitched together by honeyed vocal delivery, bright-eyed melodies, and evocative storytelling. It doubles as a mirror image of her life as a consummate creative, artist, actress, model, and mother, yet it also breaks the glass to unveil raw truth. She leans on an ever-evolving sonic palette to convey what she’s feeling - whether it be folky Americana, nineties alternative, turn-of-the-century indie, or handcrafted otherworldly pop. You’ll hear Suki’s longing in a swooning chorus, fearlessness in a crunchy chord, elation in a danceable waltz, and wonder in a soft coo befitting of a lullaby. She faithfully followed a lifelong passion for music to her 2022 full-length debut, I Can’t Let Go. Adorned by “Moves” and “Melrose Meltdown,” it incited widespread critical applause from Variety, Nylon, NME, The Line of Best Fit, and more. Between headlining shows and touring with Father John Misty, “Good Looking” surged online, generating nearly a billion streams, going RIAA platinum, and paving the way for the Milk Teeth EP. Simultaneously, she absorbed inspiration from a season of change earmarked by unforgettable moments a la gracing the stage of Lollapalooza 2023, performing on multiple continents, becoming a mom, and closing out the Gobi Tent at Coachella in 2024. Everything just set the stage for the gold-certified songstress to assert herself as a versatile, vibrant, and vital presence on her 2024 double-LP, Memoir of a Sparklemuffin”.

Prior to getting to the great albums due on 20th September, there is one more from 13th that I am interested in. Tindersticks’ Soft Tissue. One of the most prolific bands around, this is going to be another tremendous and original album from Tindersticks. Nobody sounds like them. I think that there are many people who will want to pre-order this album:

“Tindersticks' 14th album Soft Tissue showcases their exploratory spirit, mixing intimate songwriting with experimental soundscapes. The album evolves from their previous work, balancing introspective lyrics with innovative musical textures. Band members, including singer Stuart Staples, emphasize the collaborative nature of the creation process, fostering a dynamic dialogue that shapes their music. Key tracks like "New World" and "Always a Stranger" highlight this blend of personal reflection and sonic exploration, underscoring the band's enduring ambition and versatility”.

There are five from 20th September I am excited to get to. The first is Blossoms’ Gary. The Stockport band released their eponymous debut in 2016. Their fifth studio album follows 2022’s acclaimed Ribbon Around the Bomb. I am really looking forward to hearing what Gary offers, as Blossoms are a fantastic band who have been consistently releasing brilliant music since their inception. I would recommend those new to the band to pre-order Gary, as it will be a really rewarding and satisfying album. It is shaping up to be among this year’s most promising releases:

“Produced by J Lloyd (Jungle 12M MLs) and James Skelly, What Can I Say After I'm Sorry? ushers in the start of the band's 5th album campaign. The album titled Gary is named after a 8 foot fibre glass gorilla was stolen from a Lanarkshire Garden Centre in early 2023, and since then there has been a campaign to locate him, his rear end was recently found, but his frontage is still missing! Cameo from Everton Football Manager Sean Dyche…The band's 5th album comes after four top 5 albums in the UK. Blossoms’ 2016 debut topped the album charts for two consecutive weeks and went on to earn the band Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominations, while 2018’s Cool Like You charted at Number 4 in the UK album chart, spawning the anthemic singles I Can’t Stand It, There’s A Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls) and How Long Will This Last? Their third studio album, 2020’s Foolish Loving Spaces was the band’s second UK Number 1 album and following the release of In Isolation/Live From The Plaza Theatre, Stockport in 2020”.

The next album due on 20th September I want to recommend is Joan as Police Woman’ Lemons, Limes & Orchids. Yet another September with a wonderful cover, I am looking forward to hearing the new album from an artist I have been following for a while. Go and pre-order Lemons, Limes & Orchids. Joan as Policewoman is such a distinct and remarkable artist. With every album, she produces work that gets into the heart, mind and soul. Her forthcoming release will be no exception to that rule:

“The twelfth of her studio albums, Lemons, Limes, and Orchids is a crowning showcase of Joan's voice in all its metamorphic splendour.

“I was ready to make an album that truly featured my voice. The basics were recorded like they used to be- with me singing live along with the band. My good friend said told me this is the sexiest album I’ve ever made. Honestly, I think she’s right.”

The record is a nocturne about love and loss — what else is there? — and a reckoning with our collective disorientation, part hymn to holding on and part benediction of letting go.

Joan has toured the globe, performing in dive bars and symphony halls, at independent music festivals and on the BBC, and has collaborated with a kaleidoscope of luminaries, including Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Tony Allen, Damon Albarn, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Sufjan Stevens, Anohni, Beck, Meshell Ndegeocello, Toshi Reagon, David Byrne, and Daniel Johnston. She has participated in three Africa Express trips, teaches at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, lives in Brooklyn, and loves the world”.

There are three albums from musical Katys/Kates. We have new work from Katy Perry (143) and Kate Pierson (Radios and Rainbows). The best of the K-named artist releasing a new album on 13th September is Katy J Pearson with Someday, Now. Go and pre-order the album. Here are all the details that you need to know:

“Following 2020’s Return and 2022’s Sound of the Morning, Someday, Now sees Katy J Pearson’s signature acoustic-led, sweetly-voiced singer-songwriter fare transmuted through the desk of electronic producer Nathan Jenkins, aka Bullion. After a period of burnout, self-enforced exile from music-making, and solo travel, Pearson came back to her practice with clarity of mind and vision. “I knew exactly who I wanted to work with, I knew exactly who my session band were going to be, I knew where I wanted to record. It felt like I was finally calling the shots for myself, and that was so empowering”, she reflects.

Where previous Katy J Pearson records were made with a slower, more piecemeal approach, Someday, Now was rigorously written and rehearsed ahead of time, and laid down efficiently over a couple of weeks at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, with a band composed of Heavenly label-mates Huw Evans [H. Hawkline, Aldous Harding, Cate Le Bon, and Pearson’s Sound of the Morning and The Wicker Man EP] and Davey Newington [Boy Azooga], along with fellow Broadside Hacks collaborator Joel Burton. It was engineered by Joe Jones [Aldous Harding, Dry Cleaning, Jane Weaver]”.

I will do two more albums from 20th September before ending with three from 27th September. The next from 20th is Nelly Furtado and 7. Again, there is little about the album available on the Rough Trade site. I would advise people to check out interviews like this. You will get some more background and insight from Furtado. I have loved her music ever since her 2000 debut, Whoa, Nelly! It is one of my favourite albums from that decade. Her seventh studio album, in spite of the uninspiring title, seems like it is going to be a very personal album. One that follows on from 2017’s The Ride. Even if you are new to Nelly Furtado or have dipped in and out through the years, I would suggest people go and pre-order her new album:

“Grammy Award-winning global superstar Nelly Furtado releases her highly anticipated new studio album, 7. Her most inspired and personal collection to date, 7 is the culmination of four years of artistic rediscovery. Nelly Furtado is an undisputed icon whose innovative songwriting shaped an era and transformed pop music”.

Let’s move on to the final album due for release on 20th September. I am looking ahead to Pale Waves’ Smitten. A band that I am pretty keen on, it is going to be an incredible album I am very sure. The Manchester band should definitely be on your radar. I think that you need to get involved with them. Go and pre-order their upcoming album. It is going to be truly tremendous:

“Acclaimed Manchester-based pop-rock outfit Pale Waves burst onto the scene back in 2018 with the runaway success of their debut album My Mind Makes Noises. Two top five albums later and an outpouring of support from the likes of BBC Radio 1, Apple Music, Spotify, NME, and more, the band are back with a newfound maturity to accompany their fourth studio album Smitten.

While Pale Waves’ first three albums focussed on the band’s immediate present, Smitten is a lot more preoccupied with past lives – some more recent than others. Written two years after Unwanted, and after the tour that followed, Heather found herself in a headspace where she could finally breathe, and reflect, like peeling through the pages of a long-forgotten teenage diary and being surprised by what she found. “I found myself writing about not just a certain time period, but my whole life, from years ago,” she says. “When I fall in love, I fall deep, and it’s interesting to me that you can feel so fascinated and smitten with someone and then they can become a total stranger. So I feel like Smitten really summarised perfectly what I felt for others at a certain point”.

Even though there are many more from 20th September worth buying, I am selecting three from 27th September you will want to pre-order. The first one is Hayden Thorpe’s Ness. The former Wild Beasts lead has had this amazing solo career. This is an album with another fabulous cover. Quite a bounty in September! If you are new to his work, I would suggest you pre-order Ness. It is going to be a sumptuous and beautiful album. The concept and narrative for his upcoming work is really engrossing and original. I am compelled to listen and see what Ness offers:

“Using a process of redaction, Thorpe brings songs to life from the pages of best-selling author Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name. Ness is inspired by Suffolk’s Orford Ness, the former Ministry of Defence weapons development site during both World Wars and the Cold War. Acquired by the National Trust in 1993 and left to re-wild, it to this day remains a place of paradox, mystery and constant evolution. Thorpe’s Ness is an ode to Orford Ness, the physical place and the book it inspired, both featuring the words of Robert Macfarlane and the artwork of Stanley Donwood.  Where possible, this album has been made using recycled materials”.

Let’s wrap up with two more albums from 27th September. The first is Holly Macve’s Wonderland. You may not know this artist. You really do need to listen to her music, as she is this relatively undiscovered gem. I think people need to pre-order Wonderland. If you need some more details about an album that is sure to scoop some hugely positive reviews, then the below should give you some guidance:

“Having been declared by Lana Del Rey as "one of the most beautiful singing voices in the world," Holly Macve returns with her 3rd album Wonderland.

Released on her own imprint 'Loving Memory Records' Wonderland is Macve's most opulent, cinematic, luxurious album yet and confirms Macve's status as one of the UK's most exciting songwriters.

When singer-songwriter Holly Macve wrote her third album Wonderland, it coincided with a period of profound transformation - but not in any way she could have imagined. "It's been a time of real change in my life," she shares. "Moments of extreme highs and extreme lows, it's just kind of been chaos."

Now taking ownership of her journey in every possible way, optimistic that the future is finally looking a lot brighter. "I think that Wonderland is meant to represent the next chapter in my life, which is me being unashamedly myself," she says,"and just appreciating being alive”.

The final September-due album I want to highlight is bittersweet. It is the posthumous eponymous album from the much-missed SOPHIE. We sadly lost her in 2021 having suffered an accidental fall in Greece. Her absence is notable and yet her influence lives on. SOPHIE is such an important album that people need to pre-order:

“SOPHIE, the self-titled second album from the visionary artist, producer and pop pioneer, released via Transgressive and Future Classic.

This album was created by SOPHIE and some of her most cherished collaborators. Close to completion when she tragically died, it has been lovingly finalised by those who hold her closest. As SOPHIE's studio manager and most trusted sounding board for over a decade, Benny Long was heavily involved in the release of Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-insides, with mastering, production and mixing credits to his name. The two then worked together over several years developing the concept and production of this follow-up album, which Benny has lovingly completed, honouring SOPHIE’s vision.

“When we, SOPHIE’s family, took our first steps towards bringing this project to fruition we contacted the dear friends with whom she envisioned the album. We wrote, “We have been finding comfort in the music SOPHIE left us, it is a gift that we truly cherish as we try to find a way forward, with SOPHIE forever at the centre of our worlds.”

SOPHIE didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music. It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most.

This album has always told the story of SOPHIE’s musical journey, a cacophony of skill and creative vision eclipsing time and genre. Her unique sound world moves at an emotional level, encouraging the listener to intuitively embrace the ever-evolving landscape of light and dark, soft and hard, to the end of self-love and joyful self-acceptance. Emphasising contradictions of sound and material, SOPHIE’s work supersedes the pure aural to create the dimension she dreamed of.

Now, it holds another poignant meaning, it tells a life story, from mysterious unknown, through wild clublands, to euphoric immateriality.

SOPHIE gave all of herself to her music. It’s here that she can always be found”.

Above are albums from next month that you will want to investigate. So much variety and choice! From SOPHIE and London Grammar to David Gilmour and Suki Waterhouse, it is a really busy month with some potential year-best releases. You can check out what else is out next month. If you are stuck of which albums you need to add to your collection, I hope that the selections in this feature…

PROVIDE some useful guidance.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Dua Saleh

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Grant Spanier

Dua Saleh

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AN album that I am looking forward to…

comes from the Los Angeles-based Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh. Their forthcoming album, I SHOULD CALL THEM is among the most anticipated of the year. Such a remarkable talent. This incredible actor and artist, we all need to turn our attention to what they are about to deliver to us. I want to bring in some articles and interviews. Highlighting the phenomenal Dua Saleh. I want to actually start out with someone else spotlighting Saleh. The Guardian recently included them in their Ones to Watch feature. Someone who definitely has a fanbase and traction here in the U.K. Make sure that you follow this incredible musician:

“Since 2017, the artist’s songs have folded in rap, indie, rock, jazz and R&B with poignant musings on love, self and grief. Saleh has previously said their comfort in making such unapologetic self-explorations is rooted in finding their voice from a young age. Their family were refugees from the second Sudanese civil war, moving from place to place before eventually settling in the US, in Minneapolis. There, a teenage Saleh led a high school walkout in protest against the disproportionate school-to-prison link for disadvantaged young people, acutely aware of injustice and the need for collective action and care.

Their spectacular forthcoming debut album, I Should Call Them, is somewhere in the same league as Ghanaian American star Amaarae in terms of its boisterous, unrelenting ambition. Saleh flits between sugary vocals and more unflinching, rap-adjacent inflections over cosmic electronics, sultry strings and cacophonous guitars. It’s a bold, mesmerising set of songs examining softness, toxic relationships and climate anxiety. Saleh is unafraid to take up space and, in turn, create it for others. In doing so, they look set to become one of the most inventive, sensual pop purveyors of the moment”.

It is important to hear from Dua Saleh. Get to know more about them. Deservedly, they won the Rising Star in Music as declared by Gay Times last year. As we see it is a big and important honour for Saleh. They have managed to maintain this varied and brilliant acting career but also this focus on music. A singular sound that is like nothing else around it. Such a distinctive artist who I am fairly new to. Do make sure that they are on the radar:

“Dua Saleh is the recipient of the GAY TIMES Honour for Rising Star in Music.

Saleh has seamlessly made huge strides in both music and acting.

Revolting against the binary, they have fluidly intersected genres and created their own music that crosses over a glitchy alt-pop sound to sultry afrobeats and, more recently, emo genre. Saleh delighted fans in 2023 with their return to music under new record label 2023, Ghostly International, with single ‘Daylight Falls’.

Their unexpected venture into music at the age of 22 was enriched and influenced by Saleh’s formative years. They were born in Kassala, before the Second Sudanese Civil War, ahead of fleeing to the States as a refugee of war.

“In Arabic, a lot of the sentences strung together are naturally prose or poetry,” they told GAY TIMES exclusively in their Honours cover interview. “I think Sudanese people are wordsmiths even if they’re not trying to be, there’s a real charm to the language.”

They also recalled how the imam’s prayer calls introduced them to pentatonic scales, which they now draw on when making left-field R&B.

This poetic quality is evident in their work that integrates English, Spanish, Arabic and patois, enmeshing their experience of spoken word to explore the musings and complexities of non-binary identity and sapphic romance.

PHOTO CREDIT: Erik Carter

The LA-based star has released three EPs Nūr, Rosetta and Crossover, all of which have received widespread critical acclaim and racked up more than 81 million streams cumulatively. The EPs were followed up with the album Crossover, which sits alongside an impressive portfolio of remixes and collaborations including Travis Scott, Bon Iver and Sampha.

This was followed by their acting breakout role in the third season of Netflix’s acclaimed series Sex Education. They starred as Cal Bowman, a new student from Minnesota. Like Saleh, Cal is non-binary and throughout the third and fourth seasons their character navigates gender dysphoria, microaggressions and chosen family networks.

It is their unapologetic commitment to be themselves and carve their own path that they have been celebrated by young Black, Muslim, gender non-confirming and queer people.

They are aware of the importance of this responsibility: “To have a nonbinary Sudanese person who was a refugee on the cover of GAY TIMES, for example, is really incredible. Not to make it about my identity points, but I am hyper-aware of how shifts in history are propelled by moments like these. And as much as I might shy away from it, it’s good to be there for your people, in whatever capacity it is”.

Prior to coming to an interview from this year, I want to go back to last October. Attitude highlighted an intriguing rising star on their stunning growth from poet to songwriter. How they were using artistry to inspire activism, and how queer music speaks to their soul. If you are new to Dua Saleh, I would recommend people look back at their older interviews and music to see where they have come from. How music and influence has changed for them:

“Dua Saleh (they/xe) is a cultural chameleon. You might know them for their powerful performance as heroic character Cal, who is trans, in Sex Education.

You may also be familiar with their viral performance poetry on social media. Now, signed with a new record label, they return to the spotlight with new single, ‘daylight falls’ and an upcoming R&B-inspired album. 

Here, James Hodge talks to Dua about their growth from poet to songwriter, using artistry to inspire activism, and how queer music speaks to their soul. 

You began life in Sudan, and then moved to America, where you have lived all over the country. Who were the pop culture icons that you grew up with?

The biggest Sudanese influence was Mohamed Wardi. He’s a big star in Africa: he’s our Madonna, our Michael Jackson. He makes operatic music in the Sudanese tradition. He’s very high drama, which I love – that’s where I get my dramatic flavour from. But then there’s my Western influences. Beyonce, of course, is my biggest influence. I need to stop saying that in interviews – she’s going to think I’m a crazed fan, but I really love her. And then there’s my love of punk: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Sex Pistols…

You began your artistic career as a performance poet and later made the move to music. How did the transition take place? 

Creativity is in my bloodline: Sudan is a melting pot of culture amongst the African nations. I’ve been writing poetry since I was three years old. Songwriting came later and was a natural development from that but it came from a different place. I was suffering with depression because I wasn’t being honest with myself about my non-binary identity. My gender dysphoria made me anxious – I was constantly being referred to as a woman and it was extremely triggering. As my music emerged, I found it soothed me. Music was and continues to be my saviour.

Are politics important to your music?

Personally, I try to avoid politics in my art itself. I am a musician – I don’t know anywhere near as much as NGOs and action groups about political life. But I engage in politics by supporting these organizations and aiding them through my creative outlets. Currently, I’m working with groups who are trying to get assistance to Sudan as they’re in the midst of a civil war. I’m planning on throwing fundraisers when I perform later this year to raise money for the Darfur Women’s Action Group. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Braden Lee

Your new single, ‘daylight falls’, explores what it means to be a survivor. What inspired it? 

It’s deliberately ambiguous because I wanted it to remain universal – about struggles in all their forms. It’s for anyone who is wrestling with their mental health. I wanted to offer words that encouraged the listener who is in need, whatever the cause – depression, addiction – to talk about how they are feeling. Suicidal ideation is something that I struggled with in the past. Instead of climbing on the railing on the edge of a bridge, talk to somebody, anybody. Family, friends. 

It’s a different sound for you, venturing into indie music. What inspired it?

Olivia Rodrigo was a start point – I love current punk pop, alongside the pioneers of electronic music. I’ve recently signed with a new label – Ghostly International – and I’ve been writing for other artists like Travis Scott, but this was my first time working with other songwriters. I came with ideas, with melodies – I’m very melody-driven, but working with incredible talent helped me to make it perfect. That’s what I strive for as an artist – simply to make the best song possible.

The video is very striking in its visuals in its journey out of the darkness. It ends with a striking explosion of pink and blue. What is the significance of the ending?

I wanted the ending to culminate with my return to life out of the darkness. It’s an acknowledgement of my transness. 

Your upcoming album, in contrast, has a very different sound. You have hinted that it’s going to be R&B. Can you give us anymore teasers as to what to expect?

It’s really queer. It’s boisterous. For me, queer music is like when you look up to the heavens and find amongst the clouds a glowing clarity – a beautiful sound that bursts through. It is the universe reaching out to us. 

And on that note, it’s been a hard week for queer people in UK politics. What message would you offer the community during this time of struggle?

It’s easy for us to talk about hope, but we must stay strong and continue to fight. You deserve your rights. Voice your concerns loudly – be honest and proud of your existence.  Don’t let people tell you that you can’t be yourself and continue to lobby – we have to push politicians to do what’s right”.

The final feature that I want to bring in is from DAZED. A beautiful and fresh fusing of Black Metal and R&B, it is no surprise that Dua Saleh has been gaining a lot of intertest and conversation around them. It is only a matter of time before they are a festival fixture. I would love to see Saleh at Glastonbury next year. The release of I SHOULD CALL THEM should make that almost a sure-fire eventuality:

“Using straightforward R&B and rock elements to underscore feelings of betrayal and lust, “want” chronicles the realities of situationships, specifically, toxic on-again, off-again situationships. “It’s an anthem for those relationships that might happen at the right time but feel so right that you go against your intuition,” Saleh explains. “It’s about discovering self-worth but still wanting to lean into that cheeky naughtiness.”

“want” is Saleh’s latest single, a captivating glimpse of what’s to come from their highly anticipated debut album I SHOULD CALL THEM, which is set to be released in October via Ghostly International. Saleh, who first attracted attention online for their poetry, signed to Ghostly International in 2023 after releasing their punk-infused stand-alone single “daylight falls”.

Following their three critically acclaimed EPs, alongside their breakout role in Netflix’s hit series Sex Education, Saleh has skillfully combined and reversed genre norms with a gritty, bold and melodic sound that is socially concerned. Their new album, I SHOULD CALL THEM, is a unique compilation of electronic indie-pop songs with R&B influences. This blend of genres is both creative and profoundly personal, as the album celebrates the joy, resiliency and spiritual strength of love shared by two star-crossed lovers. And featuring striking collaborations with Gallant, serpentwithfeet, Sid Sriram and Ambré, I SHOULD CALL THEM is a statement record that only Saleh could make.

We spoke to the LA-based musician about their music, the conflation between their activism and artistry and how R&B is their safe space. 

How would you describe your music to someone who’s not come across your music?

Dua Saleh: I can’t really describe my music as it stands now, but I can give you some insight into the music that I’m currently releasing. There is an emphasis on R&B and alternative R&B that I’m leaning towards because of influences from childhood. Nostalgia is a huge part of creation for me right now and R&B is a safe space for me to fall back on when I need to calm my nerves. I would describe my new singles as R&B with electronic infusions. It’s an homage to my love for the genre.

What are your earliest memories of music?

Dua Saleh: Probably listening to cassette albums with my mom in Asmara, Eritrea. I remember listening to a bunch of people and dancing with them in my neighbourhood during “Haflas”, another word for Sudanese parties.

What’s your star sign, and are you a typical one of that sign?

Dua Saleh: Scorpio, and yes, I am, but only because I have six-star placements in Scorpio on my chart!

What’s your love language?

Dua Saleh: Quality time.

If you could create a new micro-genre of music, what would you call it, and what would it sound like?

Dua Saleh: I’m creating it already. One of my upcoming songs is a mixture of R&B and Black Metal. Keep an eye out for that.

What music are you listening to right now?

Dua Saleh: Throwbacks. Brandy, Wutang and Mya etc.

Are there any misconceptions about you?

Dua Saleh: People think I’m an activist! I’m not. I’m mainly smooth-brained!

Do you have any guilty pleasures?

Dua Saleh: Sweets. Lately, I haven’t been able to stop eating baklava”

Out on 11th October through Ghostly International, I SHOULD CALL THEM will announce Dua Saleh as this incredible young artist. Someone already established as an actor, I think that their music is even more remarkable. A person who clearly brings a lot of the disciplines and emotions from acting into their music (ands vice versa), I am going to be keen to see what the future holds for them. If you do not know about the magnificent Dua Saleh, then make sure that you…

CORRECT that now.

___________

Follow Dua Saleh 

Official:

https://www.duasaleh.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/doitlikedua/

Twitter:

https://x.com/doitlikedua

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@duasaleh8613

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2DGBzoOLcKLK3eWxFyugdB?si=ofbFbuT5RD24TCion9wEFg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/doitlikedua/

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Elvis Costello at Seventy

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Elvis Costello at Seventy

_________

ON 25th August…

PHOTO CREDIT: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

we celebrate the seventieth birthday of Elvis Costello. One of the most successful and celebrated artists of his generation, I want to end this feature with a career-spanning playlist of some of his best-known songs. An artist who has achieved so much in his career, I want to bring in this biography from AllMusic. We get some fascinating details and information about a truly legendary musician:

“Elvis Costello arrived as a sneering spitfire, the smartest and meanest singer/songwriter in the first wave of 1970s British punk backed by the Attractions, a band who could match his ferocity. Soon, Costello galloped away from the loud, fast rules of punk, demonstrating his musical and verbal facility with Armed Forces, a 1979 album that contained "Oliver's Army," "Accidents Will Happen," and his cover of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding," a trio of singles that turned into new wave standards. Such rapid musical evolution and switches in style became the rule in Costello's career, as he amassed a catalog that seemed to touch upon every conceivable genre of popular music. Many of his more esoteric projects arrived in his middle age and beyond, after he'd cultivated a loyal audience in the '80s through a series of rapid-fire masterpieces, most backed by the Attractions. He later reconvened the band -- and later still, retains most of the players for his latter-day backing group the Imposters -- but starting with 1989's Spike, Costello seized the freewheeling opportunities that came with being a solo act, bouncing from dense pop to classical compositions to collaborations with '60s icons Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach. This sense of adventure increased in the 2000s as he toured with the Imposters, cut Americana albums with his old cohort T-Bone Burnett, and collaborated with both New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint and the venerated hip-hop group the Roots. His eclecticism never seemed forced: the one constant in his career was an insatiable appetite for music, a hunger evidenced by such adventurous albums as the jazz-inflected Hey Clockface and Spanish Model, where he reworked This Year's Model with contemporary Latino singers. Alongside his left-turns, stripped-down albums like 2022's The Boy Named If showed that the fire that inspired him to pick up a guitar in the first place hasn't dimmed even a little.

The son of British bandleader Ross McManus, Costello (born Declan McManus) worked as a computer programmer during the early '70s, performing under the name D.P. Costello in various folk clubs. In 1976, he became the leader of country-rock group Flip City. During this time, he recorded several demo tapes of his original material with the intention of landing a record contract. A copy of these tapes made its way to Jake Riviera, one of the heads of the fledgling independent record label Stiff. Riviera signed Costello to Stiff as a solo artist in 1977; the singer/songwriter adopted the name Elvis Costello at this time, taking his first name from Elvis Presley and his last name from his mother's maiden name.

With former Brinsley Schwarz bassist Nick Lowe producing, Costello began recording his debut album with the American band Clover providing support. "Less Than Zero," the first single released from these sessions, appeared in April of 1977. The single failed to chart, as did its follow-up, "Alison," which was released the following month. By the summer of 1977, Costello's permanent backing band had been assembled. Featuring bassist Bruce Thomas, keyboardist Steve Nieve, and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation to Bruce), the group was named the Attractions; they made their live debut in July of 1977.

Costello's debut album, My Aim Is True, was released in the summer of 1977 to positive reviews; it climbed to number 14 on the British charts but it wasn't released on his American label, Columbia, until later in the year. Along with Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, and Wreckless Eric, Costello participated in the Stiff label's Live package tour in the fall. At the end of the year, Jake Riviera split from Stiff to form Radar Records, taking Costello and Lowe with him. Costello's last single for Stiff, the reggae-inflected "Watching the Detectives," became his first hit, climbing to number 15 at the end of the year.

This Year's Model, Costello's first album recorded with the Attractions, was released in the spring of 1978. A rawer, harder-rocking record than My Aim Is True, This Year's Model was also a bigger hit, reaching number four in Britain and number 30 in America. Released the following year, Armed Forces was a more ambitious and musically diverse album than either of his previous records. It was another hit, reaching number two in the U.K. and cracking the Top Ten in the U.S. "Oliver's Army," the first single from the album, also peaked at number two in Britain; none of the singles from Armed Forces charted in America. In the summer of 1979, he produced the self-titled debut album by the Specials, the leaders of the ska revival movement.

In February of 1980, the soul-influenced Get Happy!! was released; it was the first record on Riviera's new record label, F-Beat. Get Happy!! was another hit, peaking at number two in Britain and number 11 in America. Later that year, a collection of B-sides, singles, and outtakes called Taking Liberties was released in America; in Britain, a similar album called Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers appeared as a cassette-only release, complete with different tracks than the American version.

Costello and the Attractions released Trust in early 1981; it was Costello's fifth album in a row produced by Lowe. Trust debuted at number nine in the British charts and worked its way into the Top 30 in the U.S. During the spring of 1981, Costello and the Attractions began recording an album of country covers with famed Nashville producer Billy Sherrill, who recorded hit records for George Jones and Charlie Rich, among others. The resulting album, Almost Blue, was released at the end of the year to mixed reviews, although the single "A Good Year for the Roses" was a British Top Ten hit.

Costello's next album, Imperial Bedroom (1982), was an ambitious set of lushly arranged pop produced by Geoff Emerick, who engineered several of the Beatles' most acclaimed albums. Imperial Bedroom received some of his best reviews, yet it failed to yield a Top 40 hit in either England or America; the album did debut at number six in the U.K. For 1983's Punch the Clock, Costello worked with Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who were responsible for several of the biggest British hits in the early '80s. The collaboration proved commercially successful, as the album peaked at number three in the U.K. (number 24 in the U.S.) and the single "Everyday I Write the Book" cracked the Top 40 in both Britain and America. Costello tried to replicate the success of Punch the Clock with his next record, 1984's Goodbye Cruel World, but the album was a commercial and critical failure.

After the release of Goodbye Cruel World, Costello embarked on his first solo tour in the summer of 1984. He was relatively inactive in 1985, releasing only one new single ("The People's Limousine," a collaboration with singer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett issued under the name the Coward Brothers) and producing Rum Sodomy and the Lash, the second album by the punk-folk band the Pogues. Both projects were indications that he was moving toward a stripped-down, folky approach, and 1986's King of America confirmed that suspicion. Recorded without the Attractions and released under the name the Costello Show, King of America was essentially a country-folk record, and it received the best reviews of any album he had recorded since Imperial Bedroom. It was followed at the end of the year by the edgy Blood and Chocolate, a reunion with the Attractions and producer Nick Lowe. Costello would not record another album with the Attractions until 1994.

During 1987, Costello negotiated a new worldwide record contract with Warner Bros. and began a songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. Two years later, he released Spike, the most musically diverse collection he had ever recorded. Spike featured the first appearance of songs written by Costello and McCartney, including the single "Veronica." "Veronica" became his biggest American hit, peaking at number 19. Two years later, he released Mighty Like a Rose, which echoed Spike in its diversity, yet it was a darker, more challenging record. In 1993, Costello collaborated with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters, a song cycle that was the songwriter's first attempt at classical music; he also wrote an entire album for former Transvision Vamp singer Wendy James called Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears. That same year, Costello licensed the rights to his pre-1987 catalog (My Aim Is True to Blood and Chocolate) to Rykodisc in America.

Costello reunited with the Attractions to record the majority of 1994's Brutal Youth, the most straightforward and pop-oriented album he had recorded since Goodbye Cruel World. The Attractions backed Costello on a worldwide tour in 1994 and played concerts with him throughout 1995. In 1995, he released his long-shelved collection of covers, Kojak Variety. In the spring of 1996, Costello released All This Useless Beauty, which featured a number of original songs he had given to other artists but never recorded himself. Painted from Memory, a collaboration with the legendary Burt Bacharach, followed in 1998. The album was a success critically, but it only succeeded in foreign markets, outside of its home countries of the United States and Britain. A jazz version of the record made with Bill Frisell was put on hold when Costello's label began to freeze up due to political maneuvering. Undaunted, Costello and Bacharach hit the road and performed in the States and Europe. Then, after Bacharach left, Costello added Steve Nieve to the tour and traveled around the world on what they dubbed the Lonely World Tour. This took them into 1999, when both Notting Hill and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me featured significant contributions from Costello. In fact, he appeared with Bacharach in the latter as one of a pair of Carnaby Street musicians, albeit street musicians with a gorgeous grand piano at their disposal.

Continuing his tour with Nieve, he began singing the last song without a microphone, forcing the audience to sit in complete silence as he usually performed "Couldn't Call It Unexpected, No. 4" with nothing but his dulcet baritone filling the auditorium. After the record company's various mergers ended, Costello found himself on Universal and tested their promotional abilities with a second greatest-hits record (The Very Best of Elvis Costello). The label promoted the album strongly, making it a hit in his native Britain. Unfortunately, they also made it clear that they had no intention of giving a new album the same promotional push, leaving him to venture into other fields as he awaited the end of his record contract. His first project was a collection of pop standards performed with Anne Sofie Von Otter, which included a few songs originally written by Costello. The album was released in March 2001 on the Deutsche Grammophon label, neatly coinciding with the extensive re-release of his entire catalog up to 1996 under Rhino Records. Each disc included an extra CD of rare material and liner notes written by Costello himself, making them incredible treats for fans.

In 2001, he found himself with a residency at UCLA, where he performed several concerts and was instrumental in teaching music during the year. He also began work on a self-produced album that featured Pete Thomas and Nieve -- now billed as a band called the Imposters -- entitled When I Was Cruel, and the album finally found release on Island Records in the spring of 2002; at the end of the year, he released a collection of B-sides and leftovers from the album's sessions entitled Cruel Smile.

When I Was Cruel kicked off another productive era for the ever-prolific Costello. In 2003, he returned with North, a collection of classically styled pop songs pitched halfway between Gershwin and Sondheim. The next year, he collaborated with his new wife, Diana Krall, on her first collection of original material, The Girl in the Other Room. That fall, Costello released two albums of his own original material: a classical work entitled Il Sogno and the concept album The Delivery Man, a rock & roll record cut with the Imposters. Issued in 2006, My Flame Burns Blue was a live album with Costello fronting the 52-piece jazz orchestra the Metropole Orkest; the release featured classic Costello songs (with new orchestral arrangements) alongside new compositions and a performance of Il Sogno in its entirety.

The River in Reverse, a collaboration with R&B legend Allen Toussaint, arrived in 2006, followed by Momofuku, another effort credited to Elvis Costello & the Imposters, in 2008. That same year, Costello teamed up with veteran producer T-Bone Burnett for a series of recording sessions, the results of which were compiled into Secret, Profane & Sugar Cane and readied for release in early 2009. The pair also recorded a second album, National Ransom, which appeared the following year. In 2011, Costello & the Imposters released The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook!!!, which was recorded live over a two-day stint at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. The next year or so was relatively quiet, but at the end of 2012 he released a new compilation called In Motion Pictures, which rounded up songs he contributed to films.

Costello devoted himself to working with hip-hop band the Roots in 2013. Originally planned as a reinterpretation of songs from his vast catalog, the album Wise Up Ghost turned into a full-fledged collaboration and was greeted by positive reviews upon its September 2013 release on Blue Note. In 2015, Costello announced that he was completing work on his memoirs, and that the book, titled Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, was scheduled for publication in October 2015. Costello also compiled a companion album, Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album, which featured a career-spanning selection of songs from his catalog, as well as two previously unreleased selections.

In July 2018, Costello revealed that he was recovering from a "small but very aggressive cancer." By the time he delivered the news, he was not only on the mend but had a new album with the Imposters in the can. Look Now, the group's first record together in a decade, appeared in October 2018; it won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album the following year. Look Now was followed quickly in 2020 with Hey Clockface, the first album credited to Elvis Costello as a solo act in ten years.

Inspired by revisiting the master tapes for "This Year's Model" for a soundtrack contribution to David Simon's The Deuce, Costello decided to rework the album of the same name by preserving the original Attractions backing tapes and adding new Spanish-language vocals by contemporary Latino musicians such as Juanes. The resulting Spanish Model appeared in September 2021. At the same time Costello was working on a new set of songs using the skills of Attractions' drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve, along with longtime Imposters' bassist Davey Faragher. Recorded remotely, The Boy Named If eschews any hint of introspection in favor of the vitriolic sonic kick of early Costello records and big, tangled emotion. Released in early 2022, the album also features a duet with Nicole Atkins”.

As Elvis Costello turns seventy on 25th August, it is only right to mark his contribution to music. How much of an icon he is. I am going to end with a playlist. A collection of some big hits that most people know, alongside some lesser-known cuts. Showing the huge breadth and depth of his talent. Make sure that you start the playlist and…

PUMP it up!

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Ten: The Cast, Crew and Big Names in Attendance

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Ten

PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex Features

The Cast, Crew and Big Names in Attendance

_________

THIS will be the penultimate…

feature that I write about Before the Dawn. I have been fascinated by the whole experience. This whole residency that nobody really expected to happen! It was a great shock when Kate Bush announced this extensive run of shows at Hammersmith. Taking the original fifteen dates and then expanding it to twenty-two, this was a hugely acclaimed ‘return’ for an icon. I have covered so many different elements and aspects of the residency and how it was is important. The thoughts and feelings Kate Bush would have had when she took to the stage for the first time on 26th August, 2014. That sense of excitement and nerves. I will finish with a more general assessment and feeling. Maybe where Kate Bush goes from here. I wanted to use this feature to discuss the cast and crew. Those who were on stage with Kate Bush. Also, the fact that so many big names came and witnessed before the Dawn ten years ago. I will start with words from Kate Bush about why she decided to embark on this quite exhausting and committed residency:

“Kate about Before The Dawn

I’d got to a point where I’d down two albums very quickly, one after the other and I didn’t want to go in and make another album. So I thought maybe I should do some live shows. (Laughs) That’s what happened. I didn’t want to do the shows without Bertie because I thought he’d be a very valuable part of the process, which he was, and it needed to fall at a time that worked around his schedule and that happened to be a good time for him.

I thought the whole idea of putting a show together would be a lot of fun. Not that being in it would be fun, that was very frightening. But putting a show together was something I thought I could do. (…)

I really liked the idea of trying to move from what seemed to be a straight rock concert into a piece of theatre. And what I thought would be fascinating – which I’d not seen done before – was moving from obvious rock show, rhythmic lighting to theatrical lighting.

Jim Irvin, ‘Waving… Not Drowning’. Mojo (UK), January 2017”.

One of the big reasons the shows were so applauded was what was coming from the band. If you think about how important it is to get the right players connected, this is what Kate Bush did. It must have been quite a process deciding who would work well together. As she was piecing together the residency and how it would look, she almost had to approach it like an album. Which of her players would be best. Perhaps she did not want to rehearse loads of musicians and then whittle them down. Instead, she would have known those who were right for the show and then there was a lot of rehearsal. I would be interested to know what that process was like and whether Bush had this longlist of musicians that she did have to cut down. On drums was the magnificent Omar Hakim. One of the most essential and potent players on the stage, Hakim was responsible for some of the most driving, powerful and impactful moments during the residency. Also on percussion was Mino Cinélu. Those two incredible artists giving the heartbeat to the show. An old friend of Kate Bush’s, John Giblin, sadly died last year. He was on bass. He has worked with Kate Bush as early as Never for Ever in 1980. Rather than Bush choosing older band members she worked with before exclusively or going with those who she was fresh to, there was this mix. I like the fact that she worked with Giblin and his incredible bass work was heard by thousands. David Rhodes was one of the guitarists alongside Friðrik Karlsson (who also played bouzouki and charango). In October 2013, David Rhodes was invited to join the band for Bush’s Before the Dawn. The first rehearsals took place in March 2014 with Kate Bush, John Giblin and Rhodes. Band rehearsals started in April 2014. The live shows were recorded and released as Before The Dawn in November 2016. I will move on but, interestingly, David Rhodes spoke with Super Deluxe Edition in 2016 about working with Kate Bush. Also, some of the songs that were rehearsed and considered for Before the Dawn but not used:

“SuperDeluxeEdition: How was it? Can you sum up the whole experience of those six weeks performing in Before The Dawn?

David Rhodes: It wasn’t just six weeks of course, I found out about it, or I was asked about joining, last October [2013].

SDE: And how were you approached; how did that happen?

DR: That was quite funny. I got a call from her [Kate’s] manager. No, it was an email from her manager and he said can you call me as soon as. So I called him and he said would you be interested in playing for Kate and I said “yeah, of course.” He then said “can she call you tomorrow?” and I was out on the road, I was in Dusseldorf with Peter Gabriel and so I said “yeah, if she calls me at nine o’clock her time, I’ll have had breakfast and I’ll be back in my room reading the paper.” I was back in my room reading the paper and I’d forgotten she was going to call and you know when you get an unknown number on your mobile, it’s PPI or it’s your own bank or it’s some shit and I picked it up and just went “AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?”And then she said, “Oh, it’s Kate” and I spent ten minutes apologising to her! She just sounded … well, it just sounded like a delightful project. I guess I didn’t speak to her then for quite a long time, but she sent me a list of songs to check out towards the end of the year.

SDE: When you first got that call in October, did she already have quite a clear vision of what she wanted to do?

DR: I think she was pretty damn clear, yeah. She knew the material late in the year, but very precisely. There was only one thing I’d started listening to – and I can’t even remember what it was – but something got ditched.

SDE:  Really? Because The Ninth Wave and the second half of Aerial, A Sky of Honey, they’re obviously as is. You’re not going to leave anything off that.

DR: No, the first section … I can tell you if I look [David clicks around on his computer]

SDE: This is probably a stupid question, but you didn’t have any hesitation in accepting the offer to play…

DR: No, none at all… [David find’s the info on his computer] She was wanting to do Sat in Your Lap and then changed that for Top of the City. We never rehearsed Sat in your Lap. I learned it, but it never got as far as rehearsals.

SDE: If that had been done, that would’ve been the earliest track to be performed, because that was off of 1982’s The Dreaming.

DR: Yeah. Well, Never be Mine we rehearsed quite a lot, but only did it a couple of times.

SDE: Why didn’t Never be Mine make it into the show, then?

DR: I think Never Be Mine was just a bit too downbeat. And then the other thing we looked at briefly, what was it? The Big Sky, which we’d tried. We only tried it once with the whole band – once or twice – and it just sounded like a bit of a mess because she was thinking of that as the encore, maybe. I think both Bertie and I thought Cloudbusting would be better, so we pushed for that”.

Completing the band were Jon Carin and Kevin McAlea. Between them, they handled programming, guitars, vocals and uilleann pipes. Incredible musicians with a lot of experience between them, they worked magnificently alongside Kate Bush. The trust she would have put in her band. The KT Fellowship. Bush did some pre-recorded piano and synths. I like the fact there was this mix of artists who had never all played together before. Also, with the musicians were the singers and cast. This was a production that was much more than a live show. Like The Tour of Life in 1979, this was a theatrical production. In the chorus were Jacqui DuBois, Sandra Marvin, Bob Harms, Jo Serv and Albert McIntosh (Bush’s son). A rich and magnificent sound, again, I am curious how Bush decided on who to select as the chorus. Those voices that would blend together. How big the chorus was going to be. Especially moving and vital when performing on numbers from Hounds of Love. We do not talk about it a lot. It is important to nod to the rest of the cast and crew. The wonderful collection of people who were as pivotal as Kate Bush and her band. Part of the Fellowship:

“Backline Technicians:

Baz Tymms

Chris Lawson

Morten Turbo Thobro

Steve Grey

Sound Consultant: James Guthrie

FOH Engineer & Surround Systems Supervision: Greg Walsh

FOH Engineer: Davide Lombardi

Live Lead Vocal Engineer: Stephen W Tayler

Monitor Engineer: Ian Newton

Surround Systems Engineer: Davey Williamson

Soundscapes: James Drew

THE NINTH WAVE

Astronomer: Kevin Doyle

Witchfinder: Jo Servi

Helicopter Pilot, Harmonic Vocals, Fujare: Paddy Bush

WATCHING THEM WITHOUT HER

Ben: Albert McIntosh

Dad: Bob Harms

Poem at end of Jig of Life written and narrated by John Carder Bush

Astronomer’s Call, Helicopter Pilot, Watching Them Without Her

Written by David Mitchell & Kate Bush

‘Water Tank’ Lead Vocals

Researched & Recorded by Greg Walsh & Ian Newton

Chorus MD: Nick Skilbeck

Puppeteer: Ben Thompson

Puppet Created by Robert Allsopp”.

I am going to end with a bit of an interview Bush was involved with in 2016. Looking at those names above, there is that mix of old friends, family and new people. I guess The Tour of Life was mostly composed of those Bush knew and had worked with. She needed that sense of support and familiarity. Before the Dawn, a bit more daring in that sense. In interviews, Bush did not really talk much about the selection and those working around her. Rather, she talked about the experience of performing and what it was like being on the stage. Sadly, I did not manage to get there. I can only imagine how stunning it would have been hearing the band come together and create something stirring. The wonderful cast and crew who helped bring everything to life. The dedicated hours ensuring it was all exact to Bush’s specifications. I guess it is not possible to name every celebrity that saw Before the Dawn. We all know Kate Bush has many high-profile fans. Whereas the vast majority of the audience were regular fans, there were these familiar faces that were standing alongside them. I guess most came for the first night. Seeing that unique performance. It also makes me feel how the performances differed. Whether that first night – 26th August, 2014  - was more moving and arresting than later dates. If Bush’s nerves were on show that first night. The raft of positive reviews seem to suggest that she was near-flawless. However, she had this incredible audience cheering on her on. The passion and love from the crowd. In 2014, we did see celebrities take to social media to talk about being at Before the Dawn. Witnessing something they would never see the likes of again.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Laverne was among those high-profile names who attended Before the Dawn

If you think about how diverse Kate Bush’s fanbase are, that was highlighted with the high-profile guests. I know that David Bowie was rumoured to be in the audience but was not. Even so, look at this list: Lily Allen, Marc Almond, Gemma Arterton, Bjork, Peter Gabriel, Dave Gilmour, Guido Harari, Holly Johnson, Lauren Laverne, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney, Caitlin Moran, Frank Skinner and Ricky Wilde. Pete Paphides was also there. So many more celebrities. If you go and get Graeme Thomson’s excellent Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, you will get more details about Before the Dawn. All the build-up and the people who were there in attendance. He gives a longer list of famous names. I can only imagine too what it was like for normal and regular fans spotting some big names. Chatting with them before going in. Of course, there was a hospitality package that fans could buy. I am not sure how many of the celebrities went for that. I don’t think there was a sense of them divided from the rest. Thinking they were V.I.P. Instead, this was more of a congregation. Brand new fans and diehards alongside celebrities. A real eclectic mixture. This beguiling and overwhelming electricity and awe that Bush received across twenty-two dates ten years ago. I want to finish bringing in some of an interview with FADER.

In 2016, when the live album was released, Bush was asked about Before the Dawn and her recollections. I think she must still have been taking it all in. That feeling of energy and nerves still running through her, two years after the final date:

“As a performer, do you you get lost in the moment or do you focus on the technical intricacies?

I had to stay really focused as a performer because I'm quite nervous, and I wanted to make sure I was really present when I was performing so that I could try and deliver the character of the song. And actually, the first set was the most difficult part to perform for me, because almost each song is from a completely different place.

Before the 2014 shows you hadn’t toured since 1979. When your return to the stage was so well-received, did you wish you’d done it sooner?

I don't know really. The original show was of the first two albums that I’d made, and I had hoped that to do another show after I had another of two albums’ worth of material. And as I started getting much more involved in the recording process, it took me off into a different path where it was all about trying to make a good album. It became very time-consuming, so I moved into being more of a recording artist. And every time you finish an album, there's the opportunity to make visuals to go with some of the tracks. So I became very involved in that, as well”.

 On 26th August, it will be ten years since that first Before the Dawn date. I think that there may be some sort of acknowledgement from Kate Bush. Posting something about being on stage and how she feels about it now. Maybe nothing like a special release or DVD of the residency. Instead, people will take to social media to talk about their thoughts and feelings. I wanted to shine a light on the musicians, cast and crew who were with Kate Bush for Before thew Dawn. Those who we may not think about when discussing the importance and excellence of that residency. It is important to recognise their massive contributions. Ten years ago, they helped create something…

TRULY life-affirming.

FEATURE: New Room for the Life: The Prospect of Remixing Kate Bush’s Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

New Room for the Life

N THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn

The Prospect of Remixing Kate Bush’s Tracks

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ALTHOUGH it has been done now and then…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

it is not something that you see much. It might tie into my hope that there will be a Kate Bush project like a tribute album or a greatest hits collection. It is great when we have the studio albums reissued. It brings that music to a new audience. That is really important. Perhaps we have seen the last of the Kate Bush album reissues, even though there are big anniversaries ahead. The Sensual World this year; Hounds of Love (among others) next year. It might be a long shot to think that we’d get new editions with demos or unheard songs. What I do know is that there is so much of the original album material either undiscovered or overlooked. There is this disparity between her most streamed and heard songs and the rest. I was thinking about remixes because, aside from the fact Hounds of Love was remixed in 2012, there hasn’t really been a lot of other reversions and new takes on her songs. There are cover versions, though I would like to hear the original song remixed. I know that albums like The Kick Inside, and especially Lionheart got a bit of criticism because of the material. Perhaps not engaging enough. A little similar to The Kick Inside. A lack of a real step forward. When Bush embarked on The Tour of Life in 1979, she played every song from The Kick Inside and Lionheart, bar the former’s Oh to Be in Love. That has always baffled me. Why leave that one song out!? Almost like Bush not performing Hounds of Love’s Mother Stands for Comfort – the rest of the first half and the entirety of The Ninth Wave was performed – during 2014’s Before the Dawn, I wonder why this one song was left out. It would have been intriguing to see how she mounted and visualised this track. Anyway, I digress! What was interesting about The Tour of Life is how Bush brought these studio tracks to life.

I think it was actually one of the future/new songs, Egypt, that got one of the biggest lifts and new leases of life. The album version is on 1980’s Never for Ever. It is a great track, though some critics feel it is one of the weakest songs on the album. A bit of a turgid or filler track. It is a harsh viewpoint, yet Bush really added something to the song on the stage. I wonder why she did not bring the stage version into the studio. In a way, the stage version and album version are separate and different-sounding songs. Bush’s stage version sounds more like a remix. How the studio track got this fresh perspective. Even though there have been remixes of Kate Bush’s tracks, there has not been too much inspection and reinvigoration. Not that remixes improve a song in all cases. Not that the original album tracks need refreshing. I do feel that there is a problem with her music getting out there. Radio stations play the singles. It depends on the station. When you do hear Kate Bush tracks on the radio, they are ones you have heard. You only get a limited and narrow perspective of her work. Think about the full expanse of her music. How there are so many album tracks either never played or discussed - or only now and then. Even though Kate Bush is always relevant and has inspired so many artists through the generations, there is still a struggle fully bonding her to young generations. Th success of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) really only brings that song and its sister album (Hounds of Love) to them. I don’t think it is a powerful enough moment to ensure that these young listeners dig deeper and sustain their curiosity. As it is, I don’t think that there is as much knowledge and awareness of Kate Bush and her legacy. So many defining her by one song or in very cliched terms. This artist being weird, reclusive or a product of the 1980s. None of that is true. How do you get her album tracks to the people?!

In the same way as Bush’s Tour of Life showed how her songs could change their shape but retain their core, I do feel that remixes would do something extraordinary. Not only would they stand as great pieces of work in their own right. It is a great way to introduce people to the original albums. Think about all the new fans of Kate Bush. Maybe only aware of her because of exposure and fresh success in 2022. Their reference point is a 1985 single so, as such, they might not wander too far. Do many listeners in their teens and twenties listen to songs from Aerial (2005), The Sensual World (1989) or even The Kick Inside (1978)?! It is hard to make those albums attractive and current/relatable to those who have not heard them or did not experience them when they were first released. Even if there are some younger listeners that will dive deep, most will skim the surface and not spend as much time with Kate Bush as you’d hope. It is not only young listeners. Even those older and long-terms fans might not know about many of the album tracks. Rather than a remix album, I do think that it would be fascinating and worthwhile if producers and artists provided their takes. Giving bigger songs and album tracks a remix. Again, as I say, it has been done before. Not a whole load of examples. Not a big enough movement to really ensure that people are listening to all albums and compelled to explore the fountainhead. I do worry that it is hard to hook and keep young listeners especially keen on Kate Bush with the original albums alone. As wonderful as they are, remixes can often shine a new light on a great song.

Think about great remixes through the decades. Rather than disguising a song and making it unrecognisable, you do get something different and fascinating. I like the idea of Kate Bush tracks getting this treatment. I can’t imagine she would object. As she is such an innovator who was always pushing herself in the studio and never produced two albums that sounded the same, I think that Bush would welcome her original songs given a fresh lick of paint. A new vision. Maybe artists like Charli XCX taking on a Kate Bush song. St. Vincent. Some amazing producers. Rather than it being covers, you would instead retain the album song. Some might feel breaking up album tracks would create an issue. Would people really go back to the album the song came from or would interest start and end at the remix?! I do think that there could be this more widespread appreciation and curiosity around Kate Bush’s music after remixes. Maybe not every album track. Instead, there would be a selection of remixes of songs from each of her nine studio albums (I am not including 2011’s Director’s Cut). It takes my mind back to the way songs dismissed on Kate Bush’s studio albums were celebrated when she performed them during The Tour of Life. Critics lauding the stage version and not really bowled over by the studio takes. I would love to see a raft of remixes. Some really good reasons to do that. A better chance of bringing in potential new fan to an entire album rather than the odd song. Seeing some of those album tracks shown in a new setting. From modern remixes to some older interpolations/remixes by, among others, Utah Saints, Kate Bush’s album tracks have largely stayed as they are. The odd special mix here and there. Not a tonne of remixes released more widely today. Tracks that are reworked are bigger tracks. I would love deeper cuts getting a remix. That could unleash and unearth…

SO much potential.

FEATURE: Doin’ Time: Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! at Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Doin’ Time

Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! at Five

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PERHAPS the finest album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Melodie McDaniel/Billboard

from Lana Del Rey, Norman Fucking Rockwell! was released on 30th August, 2019. I wanted to mark its upcoming fifth anniversary. Ranked as one of the best albums of 2019 by multiple publications and websites, Del Rey’s sixth studio album reached the top spot in the U.K. and U.S. Recorded at a wide range of studio around the U.S. (mainly Los Angeles) – and a couple in the U.K. -. Del Rey’s masterpiece scored wide acclaim from critics. Five singles were released from the album: Mariners Apartment Complex, Venice Bitch, Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – but I Have It, Doin' Time, and The Greatest. Next month, Lana Del Rey releases her tenth studio album, Lasso. It is interesting thinking about the period after Norman Fucking Rockwell! was released. After the release of her sixth studio album, things took a huge turn for Del Rey:

“During a new interview, Del Rey was asked about where she currently stands from a creative perspective, to which she responded: “The music took a huge turn from Norman, and it’s been going down that path aggressively. I’m going to continue going where I feel the only next stop is, but I think it’ll be in an Americana vein.”

“The hard thing, in your personal life or in public, is that you can lose the idea that passion should be your true North. And, instead, safety should be. That’s the biggest pitfall. Being scared into making safe choices. Having a little bit of a cool-off period from the heat that might have been in a bad way, I got to reevaluate things. When there’s a little space, you get to choose. Then things get good,” she added to The Hollywood Reporter”.

In 2021, Lana Del Rey released two incredible acclaimed albums: Chemtrails Over the Country Club and Blue Banisters. Whereas Norman Fucking Rockwell!, in terms of sound, was Soft/Psych-Rock with some piano ballads, Chemtrails Over the Country Club is more of a Folk, Country Folk, and Americana record. It was clear Del Rey moved consciously in a different direction after Norman Fucking Rockwell! Not in a bad way. I will wrap up after getting to some reviews. This is what NME wrote in their five-star review of one of the most celebrated albums of 2019:

“In Lana Del Rey’s Twitter bio you’ll find a quote from Walt Whitman’s 1892 poem Song Of Myself. It’s an unsurprising move for someone who’s spent much of the last decade carving out her niche as a 21st-century pop poet documenting, much like Whitman did, her own perspective of America.

The quote itself – “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself; I am large – I contain multitudes” – feels like an apt one for this point in Del Rey’s career. Since she broke through with ‘Video Games’ in 2011, she’s been pegged as music’s resident “sad girl”. In 2017, she challenged that label as she beamed at the world from the sleeve of her fifth album ‘Lust For Life’. The narrative was that she was happy now but, as Whitman himself alluded, life doesn’t have a single focus and no one is consistently one thing through it all

On ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’, Del Rey is many contradicting things. She is hopelessly in love and resigned to misery, an emotional crutch and a “fucking mess”, willing to forgive the men in her life and disappointed in those who orbit in the same circles as her. It’s an album of emotional ups and downs but one that feels, perhaps thanks to her past habit of filtering things through a world of old Hollywood glamour and soft-focus romanticism, like her realest one yet.

There’s nothing soft or romantic about this record’s opening lines. “Goddamn manchild/You fucked me so good that I almost said ‘I love you’,” she sings on the title track, gentle piano rolling beneath her. As she continues, she paints a fuller picture of the target of her words – a fun and wild “self-loathing poet” who blames his inadequate words on the news. As with many of the men in Del Rey’s songs, she openly acknowledges his flaws with a wicked sense of humour, but seems OK to stick it out with him. “Why wait for the best when I could have you?” she asks at one point, as if finding someone better who doesn’t make her feel blue isn’t a realistic option.

On ‘Love Song’, a gorgeous track that drifts on stroked piano notes and the ghostly echo of strings, things are a little better. “Oh, be my once in a lifetime,” she murmurs serenely, as if she’s whispering her desires to a sleeping lover. ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’, which swells and strips back like the tide, and the dark, driving ‘California’ find her offering to hold someone up and guide them through gloomier days (“You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are/When you’re lying in my arms,” she promises on the latter), while ‘Happiness Is A Butterfly’ has her almost nihilistically accepting a tragic fate. “If he’s a serial killer then what’s the worst/That can happen to a girl who’s already hurt?” she asks with the air of someone always expecting the worst. “If he’s as bad as they say, then I guess I’m cursed.”

Overall, ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ isn’t a surprising record – it’s a logical next step for Del Rey to take in a journey that’s seen her grow from hip-hop-flecked pop to bohemian folk. It would be easy for it to feel like Lana Del Rey-by-numbers but she avoids that trap by making something filled with beauty that subtly moves her sound on, ushering her into territory marked “timeless”. For anyone who thought her team-up with Jack Antonoff, a now omnipresent figure in big female pop records (Taylor Swift, Lorde) and this album’s producer, would mean the Bleachers frontman’s brand of crystalline euphoria being injected into the mix, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything here feels entirely Lana, exactly as you’d want.

Just because ‘NFR!’ isn’t entirely unexpected doesn’t mean there aren’t any moments that catch you off guard though. For starters, there’s a pretty faithful cover of Sublime’s ‘Doin’ Time’, originally recorded for a documentary about the Long Beach ska-punk band. Del Rey’s version has more of a mystical air to it, but still contains echoes of the original’s dubby grit woven into its witchy atmosphere.

Then, there’s the little utterances that are littered throughout the record that you wouldn’t bat an eyelid to with anyone else but feel odd given how closely linked the person singing them here is with nostalgia and vintage Americana. On ‘The Greatest’ (maybe one of the greatest songs she’s ever written), she sings, “the culture is lit and I’ve had a ball” in a tone that could be incredibly sincere or eye-rolling sarcasm. As the album comes to an end, she throws in a quick nod to modern technology, purring, “Hello, it’s the most famous woman you know on the iPad” on the tender waltz of ‘Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have – But I Have It’.

That she veers from the ultra-modern to references to Sylvia Plath and photographer Slim Aarons, and from Laurel Canyon folk to trembling psych solos, on an album named after American author and illustrator Norman Rockwell only seem to prove the point she’s trying to make in her Twitter bio. Lana Del Rey is large – she contains multitudes, and the way she balances and embodies them on her fifth album is nothing short of stunning”.

I will move on to a review from Pitchfork. In 2019, the album arrived at an interesting and changeable time for American history and identity. The relevance of Norman Rockwell as the album’s title and focal name. In relation to his viewpoint of idealised America. Lana Del Rey, in 2019, perhaps at a point where she no longer could present herself as Americana. These almost stereotyped images of America and American life. The more I listen to Norman Fucking Rockwell!, the more that I think it is a reinvention and new phase for Lana Del Rey:

“In 2017, Lana Del Rey stopped performing in front of the American flag. Where the singer-songwriter born Elizabeth Grant had once stood onstage before a wavering projection of stars and stripes, charged by a brash apple-pie and blue-jeans patriotism, she now deemed the flag “inappropriate,” preferring a screen of static instead. For a woman whose songs are like miniature syllabi in American Studies—saturated in references to jazz, girl groups, heavy metal, Springsteen; Hemingway and Fitzgerald; money, power, glory; excess and loss; Whitmanian multitudes—it felt like an act of defiance.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! is Lana at her deepest, and it arrives at a time when the history of America as we know it is being rewritten. Norman Rockwell himself illustrated idyllic images of American life and its history, spending 50 years with the Americana propagandists at the weekly Saturday Evening Post. His best-known works used a wondrous narrative style to center comfort and simplicity: A pastoral idea, painted and personified, of the American Dream. Lana neatly cuts through that outmoded fantasy with an emphatic fucking hyphen mark of irreverence, or enthusiasm, or both. As Lana revives American myths, with an empty deadpan that would make Lou Reed proud, she also exposes them. Like the Beach Boys, she’s looking for America; like Elvis, she’s discomfiting; like Dylan, she’s a trickster, and we are all potentially fooled.

Lana is one of our most complicated stars, a constantly unresolvable puzzle—someone who once called her own work “more of a psychological music endeavor” than pop. But on Norman Fucking Rockwell! that ground-swelling complexity coheres to reveal an indisputable fact: She is the next best American songwriter, period. Trading much of her hardboiled trap-pop and trip-hop malaise for baroque piano ballads and dazzling folk—equal parts Brill Building precision, windswept Laurel Canyon, and 2019 parlances—Lana has begun a dynamic second act in profundity. “I really do believe that words are one of the last forms of magic,” Lana once said, and she exalts each syllable more than ever here. Where her elegant wordplay once made her the Patron Saint of Internet Feelings, she now sounds like a millennial troubadour—singing tales of beloved bartenders and broken men, of fast cars and all of the senses, of freedom and transformation and the wreckage of being alive. The stakes have never been higher.

Sometimes Jack Antonoff productions seem to fly because they have been given a trampoline or a children’s bouncing castle. But here, with delicacy and grace, he and Lana find new wings in minimalism, fresh air to breathe, a structural relief. From its cascade of opening piano notes—“God damn, man child” are felicitous first words and the national mood—Norman Fucking Rockwell! achieves levity, tension, and a disarming self-awareness. The languor of Mazzy Star and downbeat skitter of Portishead meet the easy pop-rock breeze of Carole King on 1971’s Tapestry, or the searching resilience of Joni Mitchell on 1972’s For the Roses. It feels like a wall has come down, like Norman Fucking Rockwell! is less to do with camp, and more to do with real life; less to do with scripting the incandescent character of Lana Del Rey and more to do with human complexity; less about aesthetics than being. You can hear the room everywhere, and for all the spectral harmonies and cinematic splendor, it sounds like Lana alone, embracing classic Angeleno isolation.

Lana’s pillars are intact before you even hit play: glamour, eccentricity, the absurd, wit. “Your poetry’s bad and you blame the news,” she proclaims on the title track, with a raised eyebrow, and this forthright song grows more savage from there. On a nine-and-a-half-minute lullaby called “Venice Bitch,” she sings the line “fresh out of fucks forever” like a lilting lady of the canyon—in pop tradition, Lana treats California like a conceptual promised land, and here is the smoggy sprawl, stretching into a neo-psychedelic ballad for a new age of acid festival jams. She curses like the sailors on the cover. She employs old-school lingo on the one hand (“Catch ya on the flipside”) and a narcotic slur on the other. And there is no other pop star who could palatably cover Sublime’s “Doin’ Time” and turn its mall-reggae into something so balmy and sweet.

Above all, Norman Fucking Rockwell! is the sound of a heart shattering and reforming just to shatter again—of troubled people attempting to navigate the mess of love. Her ache is from empathy: for our crumbling world, for the down and out, for lovers at war with their minds. “If he’s a serial killer/Then what’s the worst that can happen to a girl that’s already hurt?” she sings like a crime novelist on “Happiness Is a Butterfly,” which is to say it is fleeting, setting herself up for a kind of heartbreak so torturous it should be possible to have it surgically removed. Many of these exquisitely narrated songs contain reminders that the trappings of masculinity—breaches in communication, emotional stiltedness, fear of vulnerability—come from the same toxic status quo as systemic patriarchy. On the wrenching “California,” Lana processes as much: “You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are,” confessing in a tumbling rush that “I shouldn’t have done it but I read it in your letter/You said to a friend that you wished you were doing better.” Each word is on a pedestal; the song exists to amplify them. Her faint country warble wells more with each verse, and it’s devastating.

Radiating new dimensions of sensitivity and eloquence, “Mariners Apartment Complex” is a towering peak on Norman Fuckng Rockwell!, a four-minute drama about fateful potential romantic energy. But its turbulent grandeur could speak to the whole Lana Del Rey story. “You took my sadness out of context” and “They mistook my kindness for weakness” are bold refusals to be misunderstood. Referencing Elton John with her pristine declaration “I ain’t no candle in the wind,” a phrase originally inspired by the early deaths of Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin, is a patent embrace of life from a woman who once wrote, “I wish I was dead.” When she sings, “I fucked up, I know that, but Jesus/Can’t a girl just do the best she can?” it could be a mic-dropping rebuttal to the ludicrous standards she faced from the start (and the overblown, Internet-engineered Lana outrage that now seems sexist and pathetic). The Hollywood author Eve Babitz once wrote, “Once it is established you are you and everyone else is merely perfect, ordinarily factory-like perfect… you can wreak all the havoc you want.” Lana’s evolution follows suit. “Mariners Apartment Complex” is the sort of ballad that makes teens want to bang on pianos and spill their souls.

Lana zooms out to find her zenith. A piano ballad to close down the bar at the end of the world, “The greatest” collapses time, as if Lana is writing the zeitgeist on a typewriter, her lines raving up with fevered reference to rock’n’roll and depression and a proverbial “Kokomo.” Turning the weight of a generation into light, her words crest like the white of a tidal wave—“L.A.’s in flames, it’s a getting hot/Kanye West is blonde and gone/‘Life On Mars’ ain’t just a song/Oh, the livestream’s almost on”—and they feel on arrival to have existed forever. As ever, Lana regards the despondency of existence as a realist, offering a funhouse reflection of the way we live.

Call her Doris Doomsday: “The culture is lit/And if this is it/I had a ball,” she resolves with ecstasy and fire, a lightning rod of humor, sadness, and perception; flip jadedness and abiding love. Fanning the flames of a culture ablaze, Lana sings each word like a prayer, finessed with conviction and smoke, chaos and control. “The greatest” is a galaxy-brain moment in the pantheon of pop, and it belongs to a generation fully aware we are at risk of being distracted into oblivion, Juuling towards early death while watching Earth burn.

Norman Fucking Rockwell! is the apotheosis of Lana Del Rey, songs of curiosity and of consequence, darkness and light, a time capsule of 2019, proof that a person cannot escape herself but she can change. Lana has said hope is dangerous because of her own experience, because in Hollywood she “knows so much.” Hope is dangerous because women are rarely taken seriously, from matters of authenticity to cases of assault. Hope is dangerous because the world fails women, and the bigotry to which American power is currently pitched ensures it. Lana calls herself “a modern-day woman with a weak constitution,” witnessing “a new revolution,” with “monsters still under my bed that I never could fight off.” What makes this final song of survival so cutting is the palpable difficulty in her delivery. When she lands on “a gatekeeper carelessly dropping the keys on my nights off,” it sounds like an oblique image of corrupted power, as upsetting as it ought to be, one to finally drain her of hope. But she still has it. In a piercing falsetto we rarely if ever hear from Lana, perhaps saved for her most pressing truth, she touches the sky: “I have it, I have it, I have it.” And when she does, you believe her".

I am going to finish with a review from The Independent. Heralding an album where Lana Del Rey was at her most assertive, they observed how Norman Fucking Rockwell! sat somewhere between the minimalist and incredible Trip-Hop of her earliest work, and the “scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years”. Norman Fucking Rockwell! is this modern masterpiece. I hope that it gets a lot of celebration and new love five years after its release:

“Lana Del Rey has always been obsessed with the past. Hers is a sound rooted in nostalgia, a paean to everything she was born too late to live through: old Hollywood, Sinatra, beat poetry, Sylvia Plath and Fifties Americana. At her best, she mines something fresh from it all. At her worst, she wallows in it. Her new album Norman F**king Rockwell, named after a 20th-century American artist, does both.

Co-produced by Jack Antonoff, as is now decreed by law of all female pop stars, the album is sultry and soporific, sitting somewhere between the minimalist trip-hop of Del Rey’s early days, and the scuzzy desert rock she has toyed with over the years. The drum beats are scarce, the piano, harp, and Guns N’ Roses guitar solos are many, and the melodies are more like musical mood boards. She sings of iPads and dropping pins, and it is almost startling that she has even heard of such things.

Often, Del Rey’s music has offered up a sort of anachronistic passivity. Her breakout single, 2012’s “Video Games”, was an infatuated ode to a deadbeat who drank beer, played computer games and yelled at her to “get over here”. “I like you a lot,” she sang on 2015’s “Music To Watch Boys To”, “So I do what you want.” An optimistic reading would suggest a faint sense of irony bubbling under the surface of such sentiments. A less optimistic one might accuse her of glamourising subservience.

This time around, though, things are a little different. “God damn, man child,” is the album’s first line, a statement of intent sung over bleating brass and harps. “I’m a star and I’m burning through you,” she sings on “Love Song”, which sounds like an alternative universe “Wonderwall”. And on the excellent “Mariner’s Apartment Context”, she declares – just as Leonard Cohen and George Michael did before her – “I’m your man.”

This is Del Rey at her most assertive – personally, if not politically. Those hoping for a barbed protest record in keeping with Del Rey’s newfound public activism (last year she called President Trump a “narcissist” who “believes it’s OK to grab a woman by the pussy just because he’s famous”) will be disappointed. But it is gratifying to hear her take control. Aside from “Happiness Is a Butterfly”, that is. “If he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst that can happen to a girl who’s already hurt?” she asks. Crikey.

The singer-songwriter’s nomadic personality is reflected in the vast scale of reference points on her new record, In a Galaxy. It’s technically a follow-up to 2014’s The Wild, the Wilderness, but the newfound boldness on this new work is startling.

Since that first record, Mushonga has begun to incorporate themes of empowerment into her work. On “AtalantA”, she showcases her muscular vocals, which are capable of switching between an airy lilt to a deep, emotional moan, as she sings lyrics inspired by the Greek hunter goddess who refused to marry. In a Galaxy is a record that takes you far beyond the borders of the world you’re familiar with, and into something altogether more colourful”.

On 30th August, the phenomenal Norman Fucking Rockwell! turns five. Even if some felt that Lana Del Rey did not expand her horizons and take on a new persona, there was a definite move from the kitsch patriotism and the flag draping (to paraphrase one reviewer) to something more intriguing and dystopian. Reflecting America now as it really is rather than harking back to a vintage age. It was a fascinating and much-needed step forward. Some put other Lana Del Rey albums ahead of Norman Fucking Rockwell! when it comes to rankings. To many, her 2019 release is…

HER absolute best.

FEATURE: Madonna at Sixty-Six: Why the Icon Can Never Be Replaced As the Queen of Pop

FEATURE:

 

 

Madonna at Sixty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna during her Celebration Tour (2023)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Why the Icon Can Never Be Replaced As the Queen of Pop

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BECAUSE we celebrate…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1986/PHOTO CREDIT: Herb Ritts

Madonna’s sixty-sixth birthday on 16th August, I have been writing about her. This is my third and final feature. I think about how Madonna came through strong on her debut album and, with each album after that, built on her reputation and name. Starting out as this original and fascinating artist, it would only be a few short years before she was the confirmed Queen of Pop. Solidified and undeniable by 1989’s Like a Prayer, even some critical and press backlash and attack for 1992’s Erotica and 1994’s Bedtime Stories could not dent her reputation. The innovation and impact of those albums showed she was in a league of her own. I think some critics took against her for her work in the early and mid-1990s is because it wasn’t what they were expecting. Always evolving and creating new sides and personas, you only have to look around in the years since to see how albums like Erotica have actually influenced so many other artists. Not only has Madonna forged her own career on her terms and given us so many timeless and pioneering albums: she has had to face so much criticism and sexism. Rising through the 1980s in a landscape that was male-dominated and championed Rock bands and men who were open about their sexuality and desires, when Madonna did the same, she was judged and attacked. In spite of all it all, Madonna stood strong and defiant! She is someone who has always had this loyal and loving fanbase and a media who have not exactly been consistent or kind. You cannot doubt her popularity and success. It seems heartbreaking and angering that, for so many years, Madonna had to face so much poison and offence.

Through the '00s, she still managed to keep her music fresh. Moving with the times and working with a range of collaborators, there has not been this loss of momentum through the past couple of decades. An artist always at the forefront. One might say that artists since Madonna are more relevant and worthy. You can look at modern-day artists like Dua Lipa. Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift. In terms of the modern Pop scene, you can trace lines from nearly every artist to Madonna. Whether they consciously acknowledge her or not. I don’t think anyone will live to see the day when another artist takes that crown. There can never be another Queen of Pop! A few days shy of her sixty-sixth birthday, Madonna sits commandingly in a modern Pop scene she helped to forge. Despite there being so much ageism hurled at her, the recent Celebration Tour shows that she is unstoppable and at the top of her game. Creating a spectacle up their with her finest tours, the stamina she displayed lets us know that we will see her perform for a while yet. There may be a new album soon enough. What we do know is a long-awaited biopic is in the works. All of this activity and promise means Madonna is not only a legacy artist or someone trading on the past. She is very much driving the modern Pop conversation. Even though this feature was published in 2011, Rolling Stone collated votes as to who the Queen of Pop was. Madonna won quite convincingly:

“To say that Madonna won this poll in a landslide would be like saying that she was a kind of popular pop singer in the 1980s. It wouldn't even begin to explain the scope of the situation. She received five times as many votes as Lady Gaga, who landed in second place by a very comfortable margin. The only persistent criticism that Gaga has dealt with in recent years is that she's too much like Madonna. It's a hard shadow to escape. Madonna is a musical icon without peer. Her run of hits over the past 30 years is simply astounding, and when she hits the road, tickets sell like it's a Led Zeppelin reunion tour. Sure, her last few albums didn't match up to the classics. Nobody cares. She's Madonna. Lady Gaga has accomplished more in recent years than any artist of her era, but she's still got a long climb until she reaches Madonna level. It's very likely that no other artist will ever reach it though. Her manager Guy Oseary recently tweeted that she's started recording her 12th studio album, so clearly she has no intention of slowing down anytime soon”.

One might say a decade on and things have changed. Sure, Taylor Swift is more of a modern icon. Someone being compared to Madonna, even though their music is very different. You still get articles that are half-hearted. Those accusing Madonna or ruining her legacy with occasional controversy or unwise comments. It seems that there is always this scrutiny around her. There always seems to be this issue around her age. Articles like this asking if she should act her age. Whether she needs to be edgy to prove herself. The thing is, Madonna is authentic. If an older woman dares to act bold and true to herself and not ‘act her age’, she is dismissed and ridiculed. These rolled eyes ands disgusted faces. Why should someone in their sixties not have the same verve and desire as a younger woman?! She is giving so much strength to women of her age in the industry. Those who also have faced ageism. Last year, ahead of her sixty-fifth birthday, Sky News celebrated a warrior, genius and icon:

“Rihanna, Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have all recognised her influence on their careers, with Beyonce hailing her a "masterpiece genius".

She's had more top 10 hits than Elvis, sung a Bond song, met Queen Elizabeth and performed at Super Bowl half time. There's even part of an academic discipline devoted to her - Madonna studies.

But now, following news of a stint in intensive care following a "serious bacterial infection", fans have been left scrabbling for positive news around the pop icon's health, not to mention the ticket-holders for her now-on-pause tour which had been due to kick off next month.

While the star is understood to be home and recovering, the media frenzy around her illness is just a small sign of the impact Madonna has had on the world, transcending the music industry to become one of the most recognisable faces of the 20th and 21st centuries - a post-modern icon playing the game by her own rules.

The best-selling female recording artist of all time, her sparkling four-decade career has earned her multiple awards and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

A master of reinvention, those of a certain age who have followed her over the years have been treated to numerous musical styles, as well as a succession of colourful personas.

Unsurprisingly, as a woman at the top of her game and in financial control of her art, her business acumen has led to the Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello-winning singer being labelled a "control freak".

However, Madonna insists she values collaboration, saying in a 2012 interview: "I can't work on my own… I need to hear what people think all the time."

Battling her way in the industry years before the #MeToo movement, she reportedly rejected the advances of Harvey Weinstein (whose then company Miramax produced her 1991 documentary Truth Or Dare) telling him: "Get away from me, you smell like a f****** ashtray."

Her more recent criticism of ageism and sexism in both the music industry and society, has received widespread media coverage..

An early adopter of the hands-free headset microphone, the piece of kit has since been informally named in her honour, dubbed the "Madonna mic".

One constant in her career has been her ferocious work ethic. An exercise lover, she has at times worked out for five-hours per day as well as following a strict macrobiotic diet. It's a dedication which has allowed her to maintain a peak level of fitness and tour into her 60s.

Madonna has previously called cancelling gigs a "punishment", and at the time of her Madame X cancellations told fans that despite considering herself to be "a warrior I never quit, I never give in", she had been forced to stop performing "so that I don't inflict further and irreversible damage to my body".

Despite the setbacks, her tour record as highest-grossing female performer of all time was only broken last year, when she was overtaken by Taylor Swift's The Eras tour.

Perhaps the last word should go to the curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Howard Kramer, who said: "Madonna and the career she carved out for herself made possible virtually every other female pop singer to follow... She certainly raised the standards of all of them... She re-defined what the parameters were for female performers."

A re-inventor, a re-definer and a role-model - Madonna may be briefly out, but as her history proves - she's unlikely to stay down for long”.

Think of everything she has gone through and all that she achieved. The way she pathed the way for so many others. Changing the face of Pop music forever. It is great that there are artists that are compared to her. Those influenced by Madonna. I don’t think that a lack of albums, ageing or a new breed of Pop artists coming through can change the order and displace Madonna. Her legacy is too strong. In terms of the record-breaking feats, the sold-out tours and albums that feature in lists of the best of all time. Also, in a music scene more dominated by men and less open to women like her, her passion, determination and fortitude is not something we have had to see in recent years. To come out the other end and continue to make phenomenal music and stay true. If some feel her Instagram videos and posts are a bit too much, you can’t deny that she has earned the right to be who she is and do what she wants! There is still so much in Madonna’s future. It is remarkable she is still with us and still so strong and vital. An artist whose influence you can feel right through modern Pop. That will never change! How could any artist, regardless of streaming numbers and massive tours, achieve what she has accomplished?! It is clear that there will…

NEVER be another Madonna.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Major/Minor: The Least-Streamed Songs from Classic Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse poses for the cover for 2006’s Back to Black/PHOTO CREDIT: Mischa Richter

Major/Minor: The Least-Streamed Songs from Classic Albums

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IT is great when classic albums…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1967

are celebrated and highlighted. Whilst many associate classic albums with the singles and biggest songs, how many of us consider the deep cuts? Looking on Spotify, I am interested in the songs that are least-streamed. These all-time great albums with the ‘minor’ song. The one that has not got as much love as the rest. It does not mean that this is the worst song. It just has not captured as much attention as the rest. I wanted to shine a light on the least-streamed songs from a selection of timeless albums. Give more light and exposure to these minor cuts on major albums. I write about classic albums on big anniversaries, so it has been interesting focusing on them without having to wait for that. I love the big songs from those tremendous albums, though there is something really interesting uncovering those tracks that are not as regarded as the rest. I know Spotify figures do not represent a wider appreciation or truth of an album. It is a usual guide and metric as to the way people interact with albums and particular tracks. Below are the least-streamed songs from classic albums. It has been a pleasure putting the mixtape together. A chance to play tremendous songs that have not got as much…

IN THIS PHOTO: Ms. Lauryn Hill photographed in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Mannion

LOVE as they deserve.

FEATURE: Sugar High: Looking Ahead to the First Anniversary of Iraina Mancini’s Undo the Blue

FEATURE:

 

 

Sugar High

Looking Ahead to the First Anniversary of Iraina Mancini’s Undo the Blue

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I realise I have…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jason A Miller

written about this album a lot! Almost as compensation for the lack of words it received last year. On 18th August, 2023, the sublime Iraina Mancini released Undo the Blue. We had heard singles previously. In fact, one can trace her career back to 2018. A song that does not appear on the album, Undercover, was released then. Lovers in the Dark came out in 2019. The first single that does appear on Undo the Blue is Shotgun. From there, we got a fairly consistent run of excellent, distinct and beautiful singles that would make their way onto her eclectic, personality-filled, dynamic, sumptuous and hugely accomplished solo album. After Undo the Blue was released, Mancini went on tour. She performed a string of dates around the U.K. I caught her twice in London. I was due to see her at the 100 Club earlier in the year but had to miss it because of suspect kidney stones. I was literally on my way to the gig and had to detour pretty sharp. I was gutted. She is a captivating live performer who is note-perfect. No bum notes or any nerves. Like you are hearing a studio version, only with the extra power and punch of the live band. Mancini a truly transfixing and stunning live performer! Incredibly stylish, chich, cool and charming, she is humble and sweet. Someone genuinely overwhelmed by the crowd’s rapture and affection. Someone who I hope gets to play some big venues around the world. I have said how she would be able to play cities like Paris. Some time in New York and Los Angeles too. An American audience surely awaits. In addition to her U.K. tour, Iraina Mancini also played some festivals and big dates. Go and check out her official website.

After the release of the album, there were some remixes. Saint Etienne were involved. A terrific remix of one of the album’s standout tracks, Sugar High. There was  Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation of Undo the Blue. I think there are so many possibilities when it comes to remixing her tracks. I would love others to get involved. Undo the Blue picked up a couple of amazing reviews. This and this. In terms of live performances, she played with The Coral and did some stunning solo sets. I was aghast that more did not review Undo the Blue! Think about the fact songs were being championed by BBC Radio 6 Music. This Needle Mythology signing releasing such an incredible debut album. Where were NME, DIY, CLASH, The Line of Best Fit, The Times, The Guardian and everyone else?! It did seem like they let slip through their fingers one of the best albums of the year. I genuinely feel that Undo the Blue is a flawless album where every track hits hard and is phenomenally strong. Iraina Mancini is a D.J. who has a show on Radio Soho. She is a someone who has this incredible passion for music. A person who digs deep into the crates. Through French and Japanese sounds. Through Disco and Psychedelia, she has won high-profile fans such as Lauren Laverne and Jo Whiley. Born in London, Mancini’s father is Warren Peace. He was a childhood friend of David Bowie, and he contributed to several of Bowie's albums and tours. If you look through Mancini’s music C.V., included will be the time when she was part of a band called The Venus Fury. She was in that with ex members of The Zutons and The Dead 60s.

There is this incredible pedigree and passion. Someone who brought so many different styles and colours to her debut. A phenomenal lyricist and composer, every song sounds both honed and tight but also loose and nuanced. You will get something new from the tracks every time. A brilliantly sequenced debut album, you have an equally potent and appealing first, second and third third. The one-two-three of the racing and thrilling Deep End; the ultra-cool and Beatles-flavoured (I compared the sound to their Revolver period) and then the wonder and joy of Sugar High. Already, three songs in, we have covered different moods, decades and genres! With singles having their distinct videos made, I often wonder what Mancini would have come up regarding videos for My Umbrella and Need Your Love. No matter how many times you play Undo the Blue, it loses none of its sparkle, power, utter brilliance and fascination. So many layers and treasures to be discovered. I think fans are looking ahead to fresh material and seeing where she goes next. Undo the Blue is wonderfully produced. It has this flow. Every track is very different but each can almost be the pick of the album. I know people choose different favourite songs – mine is Undo the Blue, though Deep End and Sugar High I have seen performed live and really love what Mancini does with them. I know I will write about her music when new stuff is out. As the first anniversary is coming up, she will mark that occasion. You can buy the album and some cool merchandise too.

Last year was such a strong and interesting one for album releases. Some absolute classics were released. Besting boygenius’ the record, Iraina Mancini’s Undo the Blue did something very special. Not only was I struck by the songs and hugely determined to see her live. I also listened to some of the influences you can hear in tracks and went back the source. Tracing back and imagining the records Mancini would have been hearing and inspired by when writing her tracks. Her writing and composing is so rich and cinematic. Every song compels vivid projections. I have said how the songs would fit wonderfully in a short film or they could be on the screen. Listening to the album again in full, it makes me excited to see what comes next. There will be no sophomore slump or difficult second album. In fact, it might be even finer than Undo the Blue. Quite a scary and astonishing thing for any artist this early on! Iraina Mancini will be releasing music for years more. Play bigger and bigger venues across cities and countries. In terms of other opportunities, she will collaborate with other artists and, who knows, appear on the small screen. I would love to get an insight into her record collection and her songwriting. Sort of an At Home with Iraina Mancini. Her in the studio putting everything together. Such is the brilliance of her debut, I do hope that the upcoming first anniversary – on 18th August – moves people who have not heard the album to go and check it out. Mancini should be hugely proud of what she achieved! Alongside her fellow producers and songwriters, she created a masterful and spellbinding album. Undo the Blue is an album that you should buy, drop the needle on, and sit back and let it absorb into the heart and soul. It will leave you on…

A massive sugar high.

FEATURE: I Associate Love with Red… The Colours of Kate Bush’s Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

I Associate Love with Red…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the filming of Eat the Music (the song was from 1993’s The Red Shoes; the video was featured in the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve)

The Colours of Kate Bush’s Albums

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I shall try not…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

to mention this book in every Kate Bush feature. The magnificent and newly republished Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush compelled me to think about Kate Bush’s albums in a different way. Graeme Thomson’s book has given me a lot of inspiration. It is one particular section when he was talking about the differences between 1982’s The Dreaming and 1985’s Hounds of Love. The colour palette that each album summoned. He remarked on, I think, the blacks, greys and browns of The Dreaming. Dirtier, duskier and darker. Edgy, suffocating at times. More downcast or dirtier. Compare that the more purple, green and silver Hounds of Love. Essentially representing emotions and dynamics within each work, you can also tell from the cover. I think Kate Bush, whether consciously or not, was tying colours and design to the mood of each album. The Dreaming’s cover summons up escape and death-defying. Maybe linked to something she was feeling at the time in terms of being overwhelmed or strained by demand, there is brown in the cover. Hounds of Love is purple. You feel this album is more about renewed energy and ambition. Some might say (perhaps correctly) that colours have no meaning. That you cannot really apply them to anything deeper and psychological. If seems like bad science or something quite New Age, I do think that, in music terms at least and Kate Bush especially, there is some weight into the suggestions colours mean something. I have seen so many reviews of her albums where colours are mentioned. Colour Symbolism is a subjective thing. We attach various words and meanings to each colour. It was something I was taught at school. Linking colours to words and feelings. Blue was for sadness. Red for love or anger. Yellow for hope. White and black, of course, life and death. It is hard not to associate colours with particular feelings or meaning.

I do think that we can look at Kate Bush’s ten studio albums and at least apply one colour to each. Her first, 1978’s The Kick Inside, is pink. Although many covers of the album were used around the world, there is a focal colour. I think that various covers were used is to make sure she was marketed differently in each nation. The U.S. cover more wholesome and relatable to a U.S. audience. The Japanese cover much more daring and sensual. I don’t think EMI knew how to market her. One cover, the U.K. one, perhaps would not translate around the world. They did focus from Lionheart on. In any case, think about The Kick Inside and its themes. It is a distinctly feminine album. In 2019, writing for Pitchfork, Laura Snapes remarked how The Kick Inside is extremely feminine (Graeme Thomson also notes this in his book). There is incredible maturity and desire. Lust and personal revelation. Exploration:

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

Although The Kick Inside is a complex and varied album, it definitely has its own colour chart. Pink traditionally symbolises peace, femininity, romance, warmth and nurture. There is romance and sweetness. A mix of the white of innocence and the burning red passion of love. Some might say that it is reaching but, for artists like Kate Bush, you do get a sense of albums being defined, not only by emotions and themes, but by colour. The Kick Inside summons up pink. Neon at times. The juvenile and youthful. The original lyrics for The Man with the Child in His Eyes were written with a hot pink felt-tip. Kate Bush wore a pink leotard for the cover to Wuthering Heights. That Gered Mankowitz photo was scrapped, though you can see a version on the Japanese release of The Kick Inside. Kate Bush’s debut is feminist, lustful, pure, tender and passionate.

The next two albums are perhaps a little harder to define. No single colour. 1978’s Lionheart shares a lot of D.N.A. with The Kick Inside. There are pinks. There is definitely purple in the mix. In terms of that colour represents the mystical and regal. It balances the fire and passion of red with calm of blue. There is a song on Lionheart, Symphony in Blue, where Bush explicitly mentions the meaning behind and power of colours. How they match her mood. Consider these lyrics from Symphony in Blue:

“I spent a lot of my time looking at blue

The color of my room and my mood

Blue on the walls, blue out of my mouth

The sort of blue between clouds when the sun comes out

The sort of blue in those eyes you get hung up about

I associate love with red

The color of my heart when she's dead

Red in my mind when the jealousy flies

Red in my eyes from emotional ties

Manipulation, the danger signs”.

Perhaps a more complex and less easy-to-define album, you get a variety of colours and shades with this album. The listener can feel the blue and red. The warmer pinks. However, as has been noted, there is paranoia and stress on the album. The same colour that would come four years later with The Dreaming. Depending on what source you use, different colours can have vastly contrasting qualities. I think brown and black can have positives though, as Graeme Thomson wrote, they are associated with the darker and more depressed. Less attractive. Perhaps the worst and wetter days of autumn. You get that from Lionheart. The anxiety and fear that screams through some of the songs (such as Fullhouse). A young artist making a bold step but also backed into a corner. Lionheart has perhaps the broadest and most fascinating colour palette.

How do you define and represent Never for Ever in terms of colours? It was a time of growth, change and opportunity. The slate being cleaned. After 1979’s The Tour of Life, Bush was starting again. Producing with Jon Kelly, this felt like a moment where she could assume say and control. Put more of herself into the music. Look at the album’s cover and you see mainly white. Some brown, though there is more of the white there. Think also of Kate Bush’s reissuing her studio albums recently for independent record stores. She designed the vinyl art. In terms of the colour scheme. I think that she choses colours very deliberately. The Kick Inside is orange – opportunity, growth, creativity and freshness -; Lionheart is dirty pink (a more tarnished or dulled version of The Kick Inside’s pink; maybe a sense of disappointment or dimmed passion); Never for Ever is Blade Bullet (this mix of brown with some black flecks). Maybe this retrospective and conscious representation of what her albums mean to her now and how she felt at the time. I see Never for Ever as a light album. Optimism and hopeful. Experimental and fresh. There is yellow coming through. A warmer and more airy palette than we would have for The Dreaming or Hounds of Love. Less suffocated and tense than Lionheart. Although white has no hue, it is often associated with cleanliness and clarity of mind. Quite appropriate considering that Never for Ever was very much that. White can also represent perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning; the new, neutrality, and exactitude. Emotionally, from Kate Bush’s perspective, there was this feeling of transition. Not quite a blank canvas, there was this feeling of new creativity and rebirth. Even if Bush has almost disowned every album before Hounds of Love, there is no doubt she was relieved in 1980 when she could produce Never for Ever. What she wanted to do from the start of her career.

Maybe not purely psychological colours, browns, blacks and greens mix. It s a darker and denser album. You can definitely feel a change of seasons between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. It is understandable that there was a sense of the anxious and paranoid on The Dreaming. It was an intense working period. Bush had been working flat out since 1978. Producing solo for the first time, The Dreaming is a different-sounding album compared to Never for Ever. Whereas the 1980 album felt quite light and had this sense of looseness and breathing room, there is none of that in The Dreaming. It is harder hitting, punchier and denser. Lots of layers and a bigger influence from the Fairlight CMI. As such, you get these hues of brown, black and grey. Hounds of Love came along three years later. Psychologically, Bush was in a better place. Even if the workload was problem the same for Hounds of Love, she had allowed herself a break. Building her own studio near her family home, the influence of the countryside – or a slightly less hectic setting – meant her imagination was being influenced by that. Even so, one can see some tension and suspense right through The Ninth Wave. In terms of colours that suggest themselves, there is lightness and nature. Greens coming through. Purple is the colour that springs to mind. If The Kick Inside has a pink softness and lustfulness, there is something perhaps a little more mature and developed on Hounds of Love. Love and personal relationships still at the fore, though discussed through a different lens.

Purple is synonymous with creativity and pride. Very evident when you think about Hounds of Love and Kate Bush’s life at this time. Also, I often feel the choice of purple on the cover was maybe a nod to someone like Prince. Having released Purple Rain the year before, maybe a suggestion to that. There is that blend of the stability of blue and the fierce energy of red. Purple represents creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic. Going back to the Prince point, I think that the fact she made the reissued album Purple Beret is a salute to Prince’s Raspberry Beret. In terms of the emotional spectrum, there are silvers, greens, oranges. More nature and nurture, together with shades of green. It is purple that seems to come through. Whether that is influenced by the cover and Bush’s outfit in the Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) video. Light purples are associated with light-hearted, romantic energies, while darker shades can represent sadness and frustration. There is that mix of light-hearted romance and frustration right through the first side. On The Ninth Wave, there is sadness and frustration. Always hopefully, you do get the sense that Bush had colours in mind when creating the blueprints for her masterpiece.

The next two albums are interesting. Turning thirty in 1988, Bush followed Hounds of Love with 1989’s The Sensual World. Obviously, with it being an album with sensuality running through it, there is also this womanly and feminine energy. Bush wanted a more masculine and harder sound for albums like Hounds of Love. Feminine energy and influence is more present on The Sensual World. Not that this means a return to pink. That is more youthful and teenage. The reissued vinyl is a beautiful Ash Grey. I would actually say that red and grey are the colours that come through. If you think of the look of the album cover. This black-and-white portrait by John Carder Bush. A red flower (a rose?) over her mouth. One might think grey is boring, passive, deathly and pallid. In fact, rather than it being neutral and detached, grey can be a symbol of power. Also, grey is the colour of intellect and of compromise. It's a diplomatic colour, negotiating all the distance between black and white. This is very much what I think of when listening to The Sensual World. A very mature and sophisticated album, but one where Bush is at her most personal. Many of the songs reveal something about her in a way we had not heard before. Even if she was not being autobiographical, you can feel more of herself coming through. This is where red comes in. Red is about passion, love and energy. This can be heard through so many of the songs. The title track, This Woman’s Work (in a paternal sense). There are strange twists on desire and romance from Between a Man and a Woman, Heads We’re Dancing and Love and Anger. Authority and authoritative figures in Deeper Understanding and The Fog. The clash of greys and reds.

The Red Shoes and Aerial are very different albums with their own palettes. Of course many might associate The Red Shoes with red. There is that. Love and passion for sure. There is still romance and lust throughout. Loss too. And So Is Love, Why Should I Love You?, Constellation of the Heart and You’re the One. There is vibrancy throughout the album. The extraordinary energy of Eat the Music and The Red Shoes. If there were greens and purples on Hounds of Love, The Red Shoes has oranges and pinks. I would say that there is there is love, nurture and compassion. Shades and hues of pink. Not in the same manner as The Kick Inside. Not soft and tender, it is more about self-love and outward compassion. The orange of happiness, creativity, attraction and adventure. In terms of Kate Bush’s life, she was entering into a new relationship. In her thirties, she was looking ahead to maybe starting a family and taking a break. As such, there is this clash between reflectiveness and looking forward. Not a dark or gloomy album, there is brightness. Even the most inward-looking or heartbroken songs have this sense of compromise and calm. Not angry or upset. The reissued vinyl for The Red Shoes is a dark red. I guess Bush was thinking about the cover and maybe a sense of keeping the colour true to the title. Deep love and blood. This Dracula red as it is called, perhaps a portrait of self-sacrifice and loss. Aerial is Bush with a new son. Starting a family and being in an idyllic house with a beautiful garden, new life, dawn and summer are present. It is not hard to detect the colours on Aerial. The strong yellows and oranges. It is a mix of the summer and autumnal. Physically and emotionally.

Again, the warmth and happiness of orange. This new creativity and life. The orange of the sun. Whether you associate colours with meaning and words or just hear Aerial and can identify the songs and lyrics with a colour, there are distinct ones on here. Yellow shines though. Its warmth and optimism. Happiness and cheer. Perhaps the happiest and yellow-ist album Kate Bush ever released. Also, in sadder moments where she thinks of family; perhaps some grey or black. However, in terms of the colours, there are also greens of nature. Growth and luck. You can detect this brighter and beautiful palette. Think about her two most recent albums. Those from 2011. Director’s Cut was revision of The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Those original colours blended perhaps. In terms of it being a fresh and new album, I see blue, orange and purple. People might disagree. In terms of that blend of the future, prosperity, love, wisdom and freshness. It is a fascinating album to dive into. An older Kate Bush revisiting songs she originally recorded over twenty years earlier. There is a lot of wisdom and re-evaluation. When considering the intent and emotion, she was forging a path for new work. Trying to address and correct the pass Psychologically, making amends or looking at things with new eyes and wisdom. It is that wisdom and sense of re-evaluation which leads me to blues especially. It is interesting that the reissued vinyl is Hazy Red. Like red, there is passion, energy, excitement and love. However, as it is hazy; perhaps less intense. Looking at the past and these songs with a haziness. Even if it is a fresh look at the tracks, it is this older women maybe recontextualising songs she wrote when she was in her twenties and thirties.

50 Words for Snow is Kate Bush’s most recent studio album. Of course, many would jump to white of snow. Maybe the grey of sludge. In terms of the visions, themes and feel of the album, there is a lot of white. In terms of physically too, there is white. However, there is also black and blue coming through. The white represents purity, peace, goodness and emptiness. In terms of the blankness of snow. Think of blue and its association with trust, calm and peace. Blue is also about open spaces. 50 Words for Snow is full of open spaces and huge vistas. Wilderness, lakes, nature and cities covered in snow. In terms of black, there is elegance, death and mystery. The mystery of the unknown. The Wild Man subject. Sasquatch or a yeti. The mystery and death of Lake Tahoe. A ghostly figure. There is elegance of the snow and the compositions. Bush’s vocals often very elegant. Mixing black, white, blue and even some orange together. The sense of adventure, warmth and creativity of orange. A mix of colours that is not overpowered by white. Of course, in terms of what you associate with the album, maybe white stands out. It shows that, through ten studio albums, a wide colour spectrum has been represented. Of course, if you do not think colours have psychological meaning or depth, then it will mean nothing. I think Kate Bush would link colours to emotions and themes. From the pink of The Kick Inside to the yellows and greens of the later work, via the browns and darker shades of The Dreaming, you would almost have this colour chart of her albums. The vibrancy and richness of some of the albums and the more dense and concentrated of others. Similarities between albums and colours they share. I was thinking back to that passage from Graeme Thomson where he compared the colours of The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. The darker and deeper browns and blacks of the former; the purple and green of the latter (with some other colours attached to each). It goes to show that her studio albums have this depth. I hope that this feature has given them…

NEW perspective and meaning.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Liang Lawrence

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Mila Austin

Liang Lawrence

_________

I am quite new…

to the music of Liang Lawrence. She is someone who instantly intrigues me. As she herself is quite new to the scene, there are not a tonne of interviews out there. I would advise people to check out interviews like this. I am going to bring one in very shortly. On 2nd August, she released her magnificent E.P., When Dead and Gone. It is a phenomenal release from one of the brightest and most engaging young artists coming through. A singular talent whose music genuinely will blow you away. I am going to come to some features and an interview soon. First, from the Wilderness Festival website – Liang Lawrence recently played there -, here is some brief biography:

“Liang Lawrence is a singer-songwriter currently creating and performing in the UK. Her debut EP 'letters to myself' was released in August 2023 and racked up over 1 million streams in a matter of weeks.

Having grown up in 8 different countries before she was 18, Liang’s ability to find a home everywhere she goes is reflected in her borderless audience with listeners around the world.

Liang was drawn to music as a source of grounding consistency - painting pictures with words, Liangtaught herself to play guitar and write songs from her bedroom, she found in music a love for story telling and a way to express the messy emotions of everyday life.

Liang’s raw and honest tunes lean into indie folk, soft rock and electronic territories in the vein of Clairo, The Japanese House, beabadoobee, boygenius and Lizzy McAlpine. Most recently, Liang has played a BBC Introducing Showcase and supported artists including Adam Melchor, Will Joseph Cook, Sophie May, Bully, Olive Klug and New Rules”.

One of my favourite singles of the year is Eulogy. A gem from What’s Dead and Gone, I am glad that it got some attention and spotlight. I want to bring in a review of the track from Atwood Magazine. This song showcases what a stunning talent Liang Lawrence is. If you have not heard Lawrence, then you need to follow her on social media and listen to her music:

“Eulogy,” a stunning song from singer/songwriter Liang Lawrence, draws you in from the very beginning, thanks in large part to its unforgettable opening lines:

Intentional or not
I keep on wearing black out to the shops
Now we’re talking outside Tesco
And it looks like I’ve been mourning for months

With lyrics like that, it’s no surprise that Lawrence has quickly become a rising star in the music world. The artist had a unique upbringing, living in eight countries before she turned 18. During this time, she taught herself to play guitar and started writing songs, finding comfort in music as one of the few constants in her life. Now she brings her unique experiences and perspective to her songwriting, telling stories from her everyday life that are clearly resonating with her growing legion of fans.

The situation unfolds in a way that is very theatrical and a bit surreal, and that’s the point. Lawrence explained the inspiration behind the song in a recent BBC Music interview: “I was thinking about how dramatic it all felt when I first broke up with my partner,” she said. “And I really wanted to kind of make fun of that difference — how you feel months later, you’re like ‘I’m so fine now,” but then months before you were feeling really horrible.”

While the song’s imagery and the details of the story it tells may be highly specific, it describes a scenario many people will likely find relatable — it’s that feeling in your stomach when you run into an ex out in the world, and the flood of emotions that accompanies such a chance meeting.

After this dramatic opening, “Eulogy” takes a more serious and reflective tone, with Lawrence thinking back to what caused the relationship to end and wondering if things could have been different:

If you knew all you had to do was say sorry
Would you do it over, do it over again?

Sonically, the song unfolds in three acts — the acoustic opening, a middle section that introduces drums and additional instrumental layers, and a final section in which a crunchy electric guitar accompanies Lawrence as she repeats the question she can’t get out of her mind: “Did you love me?”

But the version of the song that’s now on streaming services was far from the only arrangement Lawrence tried in the studio.

A snippet of “Eulogy” first went viral before the song even had an official studio version, so Lawrence and her team scrambled to record and release the full song after its initial success online. During this process, they continued to reinvent and tweak the song’s production.

“We must have gone through 40 versions of the song,” Lawrence told the BBC of the recording process.

Lawrence has also performed and recorded alternate interpretations of “Eulogy,” including a gorgeous, wistful acoustic version for that same BBC interview. This ability to reimagine her songs is a testament to the strength of Lawrence’s songwriting and musical creativity, and it makes me even more excited for her new EP What’s Dead and Gone, which will be released on July 26th via The Other Songs.

So now that we’re here
Shall I read you out my eulogy?
Oh, I’ll speak in remembrance
You can say all you should have said to me
And we’ll gather our friends
Paint a picture of an end
That’ll help them all find closurе
Spare the details of thе gore
You say wait ’til it blows over

And if you knew all you had to do was say sorry
Would you do it over, do it over again?
Do it over, do it over again?
Do it over, do it over”.

This is another interview that I suggest you listen to. This one is from 2020. I guess, when I said that Liang Lawrence has not been on the scene long, four years is a while! However, in terms of releasing an E.P. and really getting to the attention of journalists and radio stations, these are still the first steps. I am going to finish with a fairly recently interview. However, first, there is an interview from 2022 that interested me. A graduate of Exeter University, Lawrence was interviewed by The Tab about her work. This biology graduate and TikTok was already being recognised as a hugely promising artist:

“When thinking of graduate prospects, the main thing that comes to mind as a best case scenario is a nice grad scheme perhaps with a potential job at the end of it. Otherwise, it’s back to the pub in our home town which employed us when we were 16. Whilst a few of us may have come to uni with dreams of fame, still harbouring teenage fantasies of being spotted, these soon died as we realised that we couldn’t even rouse a cheer at the Vic open mic night and consequently haven’t sung since. Losing your dignity in TP is one thing, losing it at an open mic night is another. However, Liang Lawrence has officially put the rest of our graduate prospects to shame, having been snapped up by a recording company just months after graduating.

 Despite having done her undergraduate degree in Biology, Liang also found time to regularly write original songs and share them with her 111.2K TikTok followers. Combining her love of music with her natural activism, she’s produced songs which touch on everything from: anxiety, seasonal depression, and relationships to abortion rights and climate change.

Talking to The Tab Exeter, Liang said that “it’s just so crazy how things are starting to happen I guess, I never would have thought this could happen for me just from starting out in my bedroom teaching myself the ukulele.” Although she has so many highlights, a stand out moment would probably have to be releasing her original Turns Out on TikTok, which drew attention and praise from pop and celeb royalty including Joe Jonas and Sabrina Carpenter.

She’s already working with some top bands and musicians, including the likes of Fickle Friends and has recently collaborated with Flyte *fangirls*. But, you can still catch Liang at open mic nights around Exeter, performing her originals and some banging Oasis covers too. She admitted she had a special soft spot for Pura Vida as it’s where she did her first ever live performance, and soon became the resident Thursday musician at its sister café: Sunset Society. Although she loves performing solo, she mentioned that “she’s going to start looking at finding a band soon”. *immediately sends her a DM despite having zero musical talent…* She’s releasing new music in a month”.

I will wrap up in a minute. What’s Dead and Gone is Liang Lawrence’s second E.P. It follow’s last year’s letters to myself. That was another stunning E.P. One that I have listened to a lot. View of the Arts spoke with Liang Lawrence earlier this month. The globetrotting artist has this rich and fascinating multicultural background. Discussing the difficulties of personal growth and artistic development, it is a fascinating chat:

“View of the Arts: Liang, you’ve had a fascinating upbringing, having grown up in 8 different countries before turning 18. How has this multicultural background influenced your music and artistic expression?

Liang Lawrence: I’d like to think it’s made me quite an open person and I mean that in both very open to being vulnerable but also very open to learning from other people’s experiences and stories.

View of the Arts: Moving between countries at a young age must have been challenging. How did you find consistency and stability in music during those times?

LL: I think writing and music was the only thing I thought I could control and had to myself. It was the only way I felt that I could express myself whilst having such an unsettled feeling all the time. I’m part of a family that very much dealt with the grievances of moving around by “just getting on with it” and I think I never wanted to feel like a bother or a burden expressing just how overwhelming things felt but the music was able to turn something I thought would be annoying and difficult into something lovely and easy for people to hear. I remember the first few times I’d finished writing a song and it was the proudest I’d ever felt.

View of the Arts: You mentioned that music has been “a grounding force for you”. Could you elaborate on how learning to play the guitar and writing songs from your bedroom helped you navigate the difficulties of your childhood and teenage years?

LL: I think it gave me something to completely lose myself in. I always struggled to focus at school but the second I started to write or learn a song, I was fixated on getting it perfect and spending as much time as needed to get there. To this day, I am terrible at explaining how I feel, I practically go mute when I’m asked to talk about how I feel but if I’m able to write a song and explain it in the context of a story it feels a lot less scary.

View of the Arts: You just released your second EP, What’s Dead and Gone, which contains 6 songs that explore themes of youth, romance, and modern femininity. How much of your personal journey over the past year influenced this release?

LL: They could not be more influenced by my personal journey over the past year, to be honest. All of these songs were written in the year after my first EP, which came out almost exactly a year ago. I spent the majority of the past year of my life just dying to understand myself and trying to feel true to myself, my femininity, and my sexuality, to be honest. It resulted in plenty of terrible and wouldn’t-ever-go-back-there experiences, but equally, I think I needed to go through them to understand myself better.

I was practicing some pretty reckless behaviors by myself and with others, sometimes strangers, and just realized that so much of my validation came from other people, specifically men. Once I kind of circumnavigated that, I realized that so much was tied into it. I had a period where I was almost experiencing what I can only understand as gender dysphoria and just feeling like I wasn’t “a good woman,” and I couldn’t express myself sexually without crying, and I never wanted anything to do with my own body unless someone else wanted it. All that to say, those are the feelings that were governing my headspace when I wrote these songs.

View of the Arts: The title What’s Dead and Gone is quite interesting. Can you tell us how you came up with it and what it signifies for you?

LL: To be honest, it was more of a title for myself than anyone else. I just wanted to mark the end of the bad habits, feelings, and people this project revolved around. In the most dramatic and lowest of times, I really felt like whatever personality and character I had in me was dead and I was just this corpse that was unattractive and uninteresting walking around, so there are also a lot of references to death throughout the EP.

View of the Arts: While I truly love all the songs on this EP, two of my favourites are Set Me Up and If Only. Could you share more about the creative process behind these tracks? Specifically, I’d love to hear about your approach to the musical arrangements and what was going through your mind when you wrote the lyrics.

LL: Those two songs stem from the same story, they’re just talking about two very different angles and feelings that were sparked by the same situation. I wrote them just a month apart from each other as well so I think I was finally able to process the situation in a way that meant I could almost choose how to approach it. I find I can only really write about something once I’ve processed it. I wrote Set Me Up with a lovely writer/producer, Hugo M Hardy. Truly one of my favourite people ever. It was our first session and I came in with this experience that I wanted to tell a story about that painted me as the villain in a way.

Set Me Up talks about letting someone fall in love with this ideal version of you and love that that’s as far as it will go. It was a really interesting spot to be in and it was just a realisation both of us were projecting this ideal on our relationship and ourselves. We changed the demo of this song a lot, it was a bit more of a soft rock sound at first and then I wanted to give more space to the lyrics and story so we stripped it back a bit and slowed it down and Joey Walker and I put it in this electronic folk world that gets busier and “messier” as you get further into the song/story.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nick Ilott

If Only was the last song I’ve ever written about this relationship I had and I think it was very much just an acceptance that there was a part of me that wanted something to work out between us, which I think I felt guilty about for a long time for several reasons. But I think I was combatting that guilt and not sitting with it for months because of how they treated me and who they were and the nature of our relationship and then eventually wrote ‘If Only’ as almost a surrender. Joey and I wanted to keep it pretty stripped, especially being the last track of the EP. Then when we added strings we just knew that was all it needed and I immediately cried when Jed Bevington played the outro in the studio.

I think “What’s Dead and Gone” is even more introspective than ever. It’s the most honest I’ve ever been in my music.

View of the Arts: Your music leans into indie folk, soft rock, and electronic territories. How do artists like Clairo, The Japanese House, and boygenius inspire your sound and songwriting?

LL: I love how honest and almost “in real time” all of their writing is. Eulogy was the first song we worked on in this project and that soft rock and electronic folk sound just really suited the way the stories needed to be told.

View of the Arts: You’ve supported various artists and played at a BBC Introducing Showcase. What have been some of the most memorable moments from these experiences?

LL: My guitarist and I recently played some amazing shows in China supporting HONNE and I think those were just so special for so many reasons. I got to see my family and be back home for the first time in five years all while doing what I love. Not to mention the crowds were the biggest we’d ever played and they were so sweet.

View of the Arts: As an artist with an Asian background, how do you perceive the representation of Asians in the music industry? Do you feel a sense of responsibility to bring more visibility to Asian artists?

LL: I think especially in folk, indie, and the singer-songwriter world, I do often feel incredibly out of place and frequently think about how I don’t look like most of my peers. I believe it’s the industry’s responsibility as a whole to recognise that POC have been overlooked and silenced in all genres for years and years, so shedding light on POC artists with, ultimately what is the most important aspect; that they have different voices and experiences and stories to tell through their music, is always so important. I will never stop sharing Asian artists I love and am inspired by and I think it’s so important that it’s made clear that there is room for all of us and pitting artists against each other for the token space of “Asian Indie Pop Girly” (just as an example) is incredibly toxic and undermining.

I think it’s also important to note that when asking an Asian artist about their sense of responsibility to represent an entire continent of people isn’t very considered which is part of the problem. There are five different regions within the continent of Asia, made up of 48 countries of which have incredibly different cultures and incredibly rich and complicated histories. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to be where I am but the space I take up in this industry could never be used to represent “Asian artists”.

View of the Arts: You’ve drawn comparisons to artists like Clairo and beabadoobee. How do you feel about these comparisons, and how do you see your musical style?

LL: I love Clairo and beabadoobee, I love how they are experimenting with different genres in pop. I also love both of their vibes. I think at the core of my music it’s always incredibly honest and telling some kind of story which means that I’m able to experiment with my sound until I find one that feels most like me. I think I’m still coming to grips with my sound and that’s so fine and so important but I’m excited as it feels closer and closer with every song I write.

View of the Arts: When you are not working and writing songs, what do you do to get away from it all and relax?

LL: To be honest just spending time in nature is when I feel most relaxed. I love going for sea swims so when I can get away to a beach I am the happiest.

View of the Arts: What are your plans for the future? Are there any new musical directions or projects you’re excited to explore?

LL: I’m super excited to continue to explore working with my band. I love collaborating and the idea of creating a project with my band and then getting to perform the song is so exciting to me. I’m in a real country/grunge/midwest emo phase so hopefully there will be stuff coming in that world soon. I also am just excited to get even more honest in my music than I have ever been. As grateful as I am for the people who have found me through social media, I’m interested to see how things change as I worry less about my social media presence and “image” and more just about the stories I’m telling”.

One of our very best young artists, everyone needs to throw their support behind the incredible Liang Lawrence. What’s Dead and Gone is a wonderful E.P. from someone I can see being in the industry for many years more. She has this voice that hooks you in. Her songs stand up to repeated plays. Such a compelling songwriter and artist. I have never heard her perform live, though I will try to in the future. It is clear that the sublime Liang Lawrence is…

IN a league of her own.

__________

Follow Liang Lawrence

PHOTO CREDIT: Mila Austin 

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/lianglawrence_/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/lianglawrence_

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3nMWhKVpR0rMn7WFZ0XQoQ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ds0qtJvxbNmUPHWyXBfGA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/alianglawrence/

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The Mercury Prize 2024 Shortlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

 IN THIS PHOTO: Corinne Bailey Rae

The Mercury Prize 2024 Shortlist

_________

EVEN though the shortlist…

IN THIS PHOTO: Cat Burns

was announced last month, I wanted to spotlight the twelve albums in contention for this year’s Mercury Prize. I did predict a few a while back, though I am surprised the likes of Nadine Shah (for Filthy Underneath) was not shortlisted. Also, I did not think Charli XCX’s album, BRAT, would be in contention, as it was released very recently. Though the record label would have submitted the album before it was released to get her in the mix. It might stand as the favourite. Before making a prediction and deciding the top-five, here is some more detail about the artists and albums who will compete for the Mercury Prize:

“The Mercury Prize has announced its 2024 nominees. The panel’s selections for the best British or Irish album of the year include Charli XCX, Beth Gibbons, Nia Archives, Berwyn, the Last Dinner Party, Barry Can’t Swim, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Ghetts, among others. Check out the full shortlist below. The winner will be announced in September, but the public ceremony has been scrapped for the first time in the award’s 32-year history.

After hearing the news, Charli XCX took to social media to share her thoughts on the nomination, writing, “brat has been shortlisted for the mercury prize and i really am so honored. its so nice to see this body of work get so much love, it truly means the world and watching it take on a life of its own has just been so wild and quite fucking crazy..”

IN THIS PHOTO: Barry Can’t Swim

This year’s panel of judges—chaired by the head of BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music, Jeff Smith—includes the Jamie Cullum, Mistajam, Jamz Supernova, and journalists such as Phil Alexander, Will Hodgkinson, and Sophie Williams. Last year’s Mercury Prize winner were Ezra Collective, who became the first jazz artist to win the award.

Mercury Prize 2024 Shortlist

Barry Can’t Swim - When Will We Land?
Berwyn - Who Am I
Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
Cat Burns - Early Twenties
Charli XCX - Brat
CMAT - Crazymad, for Me
Corinne Bailey Rae - Black Rainbows
Corto.Alto - Bad With Names
English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
Ghetts - On Purpose, With Purpose
Nia Archives - Silence Is Loud
The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstasy”.

I am confused as to why there is not a public ceremony. How things are going to go down. It does feel unexpected and unjustified to cancel that side of things. The performances on the night and the excitement of the ceremony together is a big reason to watch and pay attention to the Mercury Prize. I hope it loses none of its lure and wonder. And I hope that the public ceremony comes back next year. Despite that error of judgement, there are twelve diverse and great albums in contention. Few precited Ezra Collective would beat the favourites last year, so you cannot bet against Corta.Alto, Nia Archives or Barry Can’t Swim winning. It would be great for Beth Gibbons to win, though she might also be seen as an outside bet. In reality, there are five artists who will be seen as favourites. I think BERWYN, Cat Burns, Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Corinne Bailey Rae are the top-five. With CMAT not far behind. Being the Mercury Prize, this could all change, though personally I would like to see either Cat Burns or Corinne Bailey Rae win this year. We shall see. Next month, one of these amazing twelve albums will win the Mercury Prize. They are all deserving. To end, I have compiled a mixtape of the twelve artists shortlisted and two tracks from each album. It goes to show that the 2024 shortlist is one of the strongest…

IN recent years.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak: Lionheart’s ‘Two Bands’ Awkwardness

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: The album cover for Kate Bush’s Lionheart (1978)/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak: Lionheart’s ‘Two Bands’ Awkwardness

_________

THIS time around…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Japan in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music

for Kate Bush: The Tour of Life, I want to focus on a pivotal and transformative moment. Not necessarily entirely positive. After 1978’s The Kick Inside, Kate Bush would have assumed she had won the right to select the band she played with. She did for 1979’s The Tour of Life. Produced by Andrew Powell, Kate Bush assisted production on the follow-up. Lionheart was recorded in France between July and September 1978. Only a few months after her debut came out, Bush was busy with its follow-up. Think about how hard she promoted The Kick Inside - and how she would still have been promoting it when she was working on Lionheart. It is staggering that 1978 threw so much at her. EMI wanting this momentum to keep going. They wanted product. Maybe Bush was not quite ready to tour, though she was not afforded the chance to rest and relax after such a successful and hectic promotional circuit for The Kick Inside. As such, when it came to Lionheart, Bush was sent from London to Super Bear Studios in Berre-les-Alpes. There were changes and shifts. The recording environment was very different from AIR in London. It was more conducive to relaxation, even though it was stifling hot. It would have seemed like a tempting holiday for Bush and her musicians, though they were there to work. However, they did get time to sit by the pool and have some downtime. It all boded well. Even if the album was rushed and Bush only had time to write a few new songs, she was a professional and wanted to make a great album. Learning more about the studio and production, as Graeme Thomson writes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, Lionheart is the album where she becomes a studio baby. Fascinated by all the options the studio offered. Kate Bush felt that The Kick Inside was an album where she was less the architect and pioneer. They were her songs, though someone else’s vision and stamp was on them. She played the song as needed and that was it.

Lionheart was very much an opportunity to change that. She could have more say when it came to the production and the musicians she played with. Although I really love Lionheart and feel it is underrated, Bush has written it off. Looking back with a sense of regret, it was impossible to make something both different to The Kick Inside yet better. Many feel that at least two of the news songs, Coffee Homeground and Fullhouse, are muddled and half-hearted. Filler on the album. One new song, Symphony in Blue, is fascinating and among her best songs from that early period. It was this sense of Kate Bush wanted to work with players she performed with as part of the KT Bush Band. Having Del Palmer and Brian Bath in the mix. The more studio-savvy and experienced players of the debut – including Ian Bairnson and Duncan Mackay – were chosen over Bush’s choices. You can hear Del Palmer and Paddy Bush on a few songs. However, Lionheart has this feeling of tussle and awkward compromise. Transition and evolution that was stunted and rushed. A producer who wanted to repeat the debut in terms of the personnel and sound. Kate Bush, still a teenager (until 30th July, 1978), knowing that things needed to move and change. Andrew Powell was keen to hear Kate Bush’s ideas, and even came down to East Wickham Farm and listened to her band perform. Brian Bath was especially nervous. Even so, Powell had no real enthusiasm for using Bush’s guys. In that first couple of weeks, Bush’s band recorded eight tracks. Powell was not convinced or comfortable. There were logistical issues that gave Powell cause for concern. Charlie Morgan, who drums on Wow and Kashka from Baghdad, admits that the translation from those rehearsals at East Wickham Farm and recording in France was flawed. The band were a bit slower and less assured than the players on The Kick Inside.

As such, what could have been a case of Bush knowing best and her players blowing any concerns away, they were up against it. Coming into a professional studio in a new country. Not as match-fit as they could have been. It was not their fault. However, I feel that Bush’s band and Powell’s choices could have played together and harmonised. There seemed to be this truce. Bush got her band on a few songs, yet it was clear they would not be a permanent fixture. Powell’s attitude to Bush’s guys was a bit passive-aggressive. He would play with amp settings whilst they were playing. Asking Paddy Bush to track and improvised a part during Kashka from Baghdad. That would be almost impossible. You get the feeling Powell was questioning every take and tuning. It is fascinating that, mere months after a hugely successful album was released, its follow-up would find its producer question Kate Bush and her instincts. Powell felt that Bush’s players were not up to scratch. He would stop takes and question guitar lines. Say that notes were out of tune. Powell wanted the songs to be at their very best. He felt that some performances were substandard and not as polished as they could be. It seemed like Powell was not invited to the party and was hitting back. Bush and her band would have been in one camp and him in the other.

I have huge respect for him and his work, though it seemed like he wanted to keep control and power. With his band in the studio, he would have no obstacles or questions coming his way. Bush did get some studio experience, though it was in an assistant capacity rather than a full co-produce. Think about what Kate Bush was feeling during this time. She wanted her players on the album so that it would be more personal and different to her debut. However, she also knew that the players she had on The Kick Inside would work well and there was no real reason to send them away. Hilary Walker, who was the head of EMI’s international division – thanks to Graeme Thomson for the information! -, was dispatched to Nice to play Devil’s advocate. In fact, briefly acting as Bush’s P.A., she came to insist Bush’s band were fired and sent back to England. Bush was then put in this position of bowing to EMI’s demands and Powell’s disapproval. Her friends, including boyfriend Del Palmer, were dismissed. It meant that, awkwardly, the old band going back to England would either bump into the new band in the studio or at the airport. Imagine the conversation at night between Kate Bush and Del Palmer. Her staying on and Palmer not being involved in the album. Many of the band did hang around by the pool or would go on trips. They did not contribute much and were not needed but, for moral support and some familiarity, it would have been a comfort at least for Bush. However, Charlie Morgan went straight back to England. In July and August, 1978, recording recommenced. The band from The Kick Inside clicking back in. Even if the first few days would have been awkward and a little strained, things did get smoother.

Some claim Bush had a sour taste in her mouth being put in the middle. Others think she was okay but upset. She knew that some of the tougher songs on the album benefitted from a more studied and experienced band. Symphony in Blue is an example. Regardless, there was this moment when everyone had to be on the same page and record. Things did become harmonious and routine. The musicians later to waking up. They would meet by the pool. Diving into the pool or from the villa roof into the pool. Joint being rolled. Bush often involved with that but not always. Notepad and pan in hand to write and jot ideas and lines, she would often sunbathe near-nude. It was refreshing and laid-back. The older male musicians perhaps not used to a women, only just twenty, in their midst! Even if they all lived together under the same roof, shared meals and recorded together, there was no falling out. It was a close-knit group, yet there was this feeling that Bush was a bit tired. The seemingly endless promotion for The Kick Inside and then right into another album. Some of the songs, as Graeme Thomson notes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, give a window into Bush’s mindset. The paranoia of Fullhouse and Coffee Homeground. Even Hammer Horror seems to be appropriately shadowy and tense.

Bush had got so much positive reception for the debut album. Wondering if she should repeat herself or do something different, there was also a feeling she could not please everyone and do right. People claiming she was a record company puppet or someone who was a novelty. In the studio, Bush was hard on herself. In terms of getting the vocal right. Wow went through so many takes! Bush never fully happy with her performance. As assistant producer, she had to try and explain ideas to the musicians. Trying to connect emotionally and bond, she also needed to try and translate her sometimes less technical and honed ideas into something that would understand. Maybe a bit more abstract, conceptual and general than the more studied and rigid notes and guidance they were used to. Unfortunately, there was a bit of mickey-taking and laughing. This young woman maybe not able to put into words her ideas, and the experienced musicians thinking she sometimes was out of her depth. Regardless, Bush knew that the studio offered up so many possibilities. Powell recalls how the two had their own ideas and directions but there wasn’t complete agreement. He didn’t entirely like what she was doing and she didn’t like what he was doing. However, as Powell noted, Bush wasn’t dogmatic. Returning to London in September 1978, Bush was right back into the promotional cyclone.

Jetting off to Australia and New Zealand in October for promotion, is it is amazing to think that, since January 1978, Bush had released her debut single, Wuthering Heights; The Kick Inside came out in February; she was promoting until the summer – including trips to the U.S. and Japan -, and then she recorded and completed her second studio album! I often think what Christmas 1978 was like. Bush, perhaps back in the family home at East Wickham Farm, exchanging gifts, watching some T.V. and celebrating. The first time she got to relax and reflect. Making resolutions for the year ahead. What she did resolve to do was not to work with another producer again. At least one who did not share her values and visions. She wanted more say and control. It would lead to het o mount The Tour of Life in 1979 and use the musicians she wanted to work to. This carried on after the tour when she started recording 1980’s Never for Ever. I think that the ‘two bands’ conflict and situation during Lionheart was a real turning point. It resulted in a disjointed second studio album that then sparked something in Kate Bush. Resolved to use her personnel and produce her own album, she would co-produce Never for Ever with Jon Kelly. From 1982’s The Dreaming onwards, it was her solo in the chair, together with her selected musicians. Rather than Lionheart being a case of a wonderful young artist roaring, it was more of a purr. A purr before a roar, perhaps. I still love the album. You can never really feel the joints or sense two different bands pulling in different directions. Andrew Powell and Kate Bush caught in an awkward situation where they both wanted to get their own say but also work together. Even if the two bands scenario blew over and there was a happier recording environment pretty soon, it was an event that…

CHANGED everything going forward.

FEATURE: High-Tech, Lo-Fi: Have Smartphones Damaged the Gig Experience and Distorted How We Hear Music?

FEATURE:

 

 

High-Tech, Lo-Fi

PHOTO CREDIT: Luke Miller/Pexels

Have Smartphones Damaged the Gig Experience and Distorted How We Hear Music?

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THERE is so much debate…

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei

around the use of phones at gigs. There are artists who insist that the audience leave their phones aside and keep them away. That thing of everyone needing to document gigs. I can understand that people want a memento or proof that they were at gigs. That chance of capturing magic moments or moments that nobody will believe. I absolute loathe when people play videos or music on their phone loudly so others can hear. Those who have conversations and put it on speakerphone without thought of others. Those who have not discovered earbuds or are blissfully unaware that others do not want to hear their music choices, YouTube videos or chat. It is extremely rude and imposing. I think that technology is great in the sense we can listen to music privately and access anything without bothering others. It can be a solitary thing but, actually, you can share albums in a way we never could years ago. A whole library of albums that span decades. The reason I bring these subjects is because I wonder whether technology has improved or hindered how we experience music. When it comes to gigs, I can appreciate people taking photos outside a venue. That is fine. This thing of people taking, let’s face it, blurry and crappy photos of an act. What benefit do they get?! I can’t see how these photos would hold power and memories years from now. Lost in an endless album of other photos that will likely be deleted or discarded. I can never get my head around people filming gigs. How much people lose doing this. I personally would never want to post videos or share what I saw at a gig. You have to be present and experience them. If you are too busy photographing and filming, what is the benefit of physically being at a gig?! You also lose that sense of community and connection. For artists, it can be very distracting. Also, the thing of the audience not looking at the stage. Like there being this conversation and the other person looking at their phone. It has that element of rudeness, even if the person does not mean that.

1 week since @LatitudeFest and we are still not over the love 🤍 Thank you so much for sending us your videos! pic.twitter.com/1YmAiirJMi

— London Grammar (@londongrammar) August 3, 2024

The results of these videos are always poor. Again, like photos, what do you really get from it?! All the videos you see uploaded to Twitter and Instagram are so poor in quality. The sound is awful and tinny. I really hate it. Also, many artists might not want their performances shared to the world. People who paid good money to be at a gig spending so much time not actually engaged with it. There is that thing of nobody being able to experience anything without documenting it. A curse and huge issue that has been here since the advent of smartphones. I do worry that, more and more, we are losing the ability to be able to see something in the flesh without distraction or that thought that we need to capture a photo or video. This is a big conversation point that divides people. If artists are comfortable with people filming them, that is one thing. Other members of the audience might not. Also, it is that amateur nature. The photos and videos are vastly inferior to what you would have seen and heard. So, if you literally miss something to take an inferior version of it, what is the point at all?! Maybe it is not so much about getting something for prosperity and to show people. It is this modern illness most of us have. Not being away from a phone and needing to always be on them, regardless of whether we need to or not. An addiction and dependence. I would say that phones need to be banned from all gigs. Just be in the moment and present! People would say that is too forceful and wrong. If I were a performer, I would want them watching what I was doing. Interacting with each other and being all together. That is how gigs used to be. No other option but to watch the music. Of course, there were disposable cameras; there was not a massive issue of people whacking out their cameras and snapping.

ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Redbubble

The same with listening to music. I think smartphones encourage people to force music on others. Making it less private so that everyone can hear. I know too that there has always been a problem with people sharing music and not caring. What rankles is the poor quality you get from smartphones. None of the warmth and depth you get from physical music. This may sound like a gripe from someone who was born in the 1980s and is struggling to understand change and modern technology. As a music lover, I can appreciate the value of smartphones. There is that ease of access and, at a time when there are few portable devices for playing physical music on, this is a good option. I tend to find that you lose so much listening to music through a phone. I guess there is no real modern alternative that would be better. As we are streaming music and now and we consume more digitally than physically, we have to adapt. We are told that technological advance is better and good. The more high-tech something is the better. I do not agree when it comes to music. There is something much more enriching and beautiful when it comes to lo-fi. Going to gigs and not being slaves to our phones. Listening to music even through a laptop seems a much preferable option than a smartphone. If you want to share your gig experiences and music, then you can do this privately. I feel that technology has taken something from us. In terms of how we approach live music and experience it. How we digest music and what we get from technology. I am not saying that we need to revert to the past and carry around a Walkman/Discman and completely abandon taking video and photos. I feel there is a real fear from artists that too many that come to their gigs are not participating. I think that phones have done a lot of damage to how we perceive and experience music today. Maybe I am wrong. It is clear that there is…

A lot to discuss.

FEATURE: Is There So Much Hate for the Ones We Love? Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) at Thirty-Nine

FEATURE:

 

 

Is There So Much Hate for the Ones We Love?

Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) at Thirty-Nine

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EVERY important Kate Bush album…

PHOTO CREDIT: ZIK Images/United Archives via Getty Images

should be celebrated and discussed. I know that there is enough attention for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). However, as it turns thirty-nine tomorrow (5th August), I wanted to write about it. I have spent a bit of time lately concentrating on 1985 and discussing that period. I will move along in future features. Here, it is worth revisiting and diving into Bush’s best-loved song. To this day it remains her most popular track. The most-streamed on Spotify. It reached number one a couple of years ago. After featuring on Stranger Things in 2022, there was this new explosion and interest in a song that was popular from the off. In 1985, it did reach number three in the U.K. It is a pity that more has not been written about one of the absolute greatest songs of all time. I hope there will be more assessment and celebration next year on its fortieth anniversary. The first single from Hounds of Love, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was written and produced by Kate Bush. Stopping to think about that. In terms of the production, there is this atmospheric and epic sound. From that introduction on, you are immersed in the song. It is testament to Kate Bush’s talent as a producer that the track still stands up today and has not dated. I often imagine the track coming together in the studio. Bush imagining it. Piecing it together and experimenting with different lyrics and sonic ideas. I am not sure whether the lyrics came together quickly or there was some back and forth. Talking about the desire for men and women to swap places so they can better understand one another, that was a rare subject in 1985 – or now for that matter. With most artists discussing themselves or love for example, this is a track that was very different to anything around it. Doing some digging, it does seem like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) came together naturally and quickly.

There must have been so much inspiration around Bush when she was creating Hounds of Love. From 1983 onwards, she changed her life. From the stress and exhausting working hours of The Dreaming (1982), Bush stepped away from working at London studios and spending endless hours without thinking of herself. She changed her diet to a healthier one and recommitted to dance. As I have said before, she then spent time with her family and boyfriend and built a bespoke studio right next to the family home at East Wickham Farm. With a nicer and less hectic environment, she was imagining these absolutely wonderful songs. I will talk about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) more in a minute. First, it is to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for more detail and background. Also, what Kate Bush had to say about the track and its background:

“Song written by Kate Bush. The song was reportedly written in one evening in the summer of 1983. It was the first song recorded for the subsequent fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. The electronic drums, programmed by Del Palmer, and the Fairlight part were present from the first recording of the song. The lyrics speak of Bush’s impossible wish to become her lover, and he her, so that they could know what the other felt. Kate played the first versions of the songs to Paul Hardiman on 6 October 1983. He commented later: “The first time I heard ‘Running Up That Hill’ it wasn’t a demo, it was a working start. We carried on working on Kate and Del’s original. Del had programmed the Linn drum  part, the basis of which we kept. I know we spent time working on the Fairlight melody/hook but the idea was there plus guide vocals.”

The track was worked on between 4 November and 6 December, with Stuart Elliott adding drums, but closely following the programmed pattern. Alan Murphy added guitar parts whereas Paddy Bush, always providing the most ingenious instruments, played the rather better known balalaika on this track.

The working title of ‘Running Up That Hill’ was ‘A Deal With God’. Representatives at EMI were hesitant to release the single as ‘A Deal With God’ due its use of the word ‘God’, which might lead to a negative reception. Bush relented and changed the title for the single. On the album and subsequent releases the title was ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”.

Song written by Kate Bush. The song was reportedly written in one evening in the summer of 1983. It was the first song recorded for the subsequent fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. The electronic drums, programmed by Del Palmer, and the Fairlight part were present from the first recording of the song. The lyrics speak of Bush’s impossible wish to become her lover, and he her, so that they could know what the other felt. Kate played the first versions of the songs to Paul Hardiman on 6 October 1983. He commented later: “The first time I heard ‘Running Up That Hill’ it wasn’t a demo, it was a working start. We carried on working on Kate and Del’s original. Del had programmed the Linn drum  part, the basis of which we kept. I know we spent time working on the Fairlight melody/hook but the idea was there plus guide vocals.”

The track was worked on between 4 November and 6 December, with Stuart Elliott adding drums, but closely following the programmed pattern. Alan Murphy added guitar parts whereas Paddy Bush, always providing the most ingenious instruments, played the rather better known balalaika on this track.

The working title of ‘Running Up That Hill’ was ‘A Deal With God’. Representatives at EMI were hesitant to release the single as ‘A Deal With God’ due its use of the word ‘God’, which might lead to a negative reception. Bush relented and changed the title for the single. On the album and subsequent releases the title was ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”.

Kate about ‘Running Up That Hill’

This song is very much about two people who are in love, and how the power of love is almost too big for them. It leaves them very insecure and in fear of losing each other. It’s also perhaps talking about some fundamental differences between men and women. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)

It is very much about the power of love, and the strength that is created between two people when they’re very much in love, but the strength can also be threatening, violent, dangerous as well as gentle, soothing, loving. And it’s saying that if these two people could swap places – if the man could become the woman and the woman the man, that perhaps they could understand the feelings of that other person in a truer way, understanding them from that gender’s point of view, and that perhaps there are very subtle differences between the sexes that can cause problems in a relationship, especially when people really do care about each other. (The Tony Myatt Interview, November 1985)

‘Running Up That Hill’ was one of the first songs that I wrote for the album. It was very nice for me that it was the first single released, I’d always hoped that would be the way. It’s very much about a relationship between a man and a woman who are deeply in love and they’re so concerned that things could go wrong – they have great insecurity, great fear of the relationship itself. It’s really saying if there’s a possibility of being able to swap places with each other that they’d understand how the other one felt, that when they were saying things that weren’t meant to hurt, that they weren’t meant sincerely, that they were just misunderstood. In some ways, I suppose the basic difference between men and women, where if we could swap places in a relationship, we’d understand each other better, but this, of course, is all theoretical anyway. (Open Interview, 1985)”.

Since Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was featured on Stranger Things and gained huge chart success, features have been written about the song. How it has endured and connected with a young audience. I will bring some of those in. Starting out with The New Yorker, they explored this work of genius for a feature in 2022. How, for an artist often seen as experimental and perhaps niche to some, this classic track has gained a wide audience and does not alienate. How Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is a TikTok sensation and has gained this whole new influence and importance:

“In her heyday, Bush was the sort of experimental artist whose unorthodoxy actually helped her popularity, and, from the early days of her career, she was commercially successful in the U.K. Bush came from a middle-class English family and dabbled in music alongside her brothers until she was discovered by the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. She had a striking, acrobatic voice, a love of interpretative dance, and a fantastical visual sensibility that made her especially exciting within Britain’s prog-rock scene. Her début single, “Wuthering Heights,” was the first U.K. No. 1 that was both written and performed by a woman. Still, she never fully managed to cross over to the U.S. charts. “Running Up That Hill” is her first American Top Ten, a feat that comes thirty-seven years after the song’s release. Bush, a typically private person who hasn’t released a new album since 2011, was so struck by the song’s renaissance that she put out an enthusiastic statement on her Web site: “It’s all really exciting!” she wrote. “Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.”

Pop music has always recycled its old ideas, but, more and more, it has been revisiting them whole cloth. Information overload and constant digital stimulation have prompted us to compulsively seek refuge in our cultural past, where characters, story lines, and hit singles are reliable and predictable. We see this same tendency on television and in the movies, where reboots and sequels dominate. In music, too, there is eternal solace to be found in trusted old favorites. Each year, the stats of what people listen to on music-streaming services skew more and more heavily toward “catalogue,” or music that is classified as five years or older. Meanwhile, TikTok trends and TV shows resurface old music—whether it’s rarities or bygone classics—exposing dated songs to young audiences who didn’t hear the songs in their prime. In 2020, a skateboarder on TikTok helped Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”

It’s tempting to see this phenomenon as a refreshing exception to social media’s dogged recency bias—a serendipitous detour through memory lane that creates a mini-avalanche of attention for an old song. It is genuinely delightful when old songs bubble up in unexpected ways. And yet there’s something a little disconcerting about a once-in-a-generation artist like Bush being removed from the larger backdrop of her strange and singular vision, and accidentally refashioned as a viral event. There is magic in discovering and exploring her work, magic that is difficult to access when all you’ve done is simply turn on the most popular television show in the world.

This constant repurposing of the past also means that the music supervisors who select songs for popular shows are vastly influential as tastemakers and gatekeepers. Along with social-media influencers, they’re bestowed with the mystical power to breathe new life into an old song, particularly if a show is as big as “Stranger Things.” (We saw the phenomenon earlier this year, when the music supervisors of “Euphoria” featured Gerry Rafferty’s croony 1978 song “Right Down the Line” prominently throughout the season.) And yet this type of fresh exposure often does little to shore up an artist’s legacy in our shrinking memories. It was only four years ago, in fact, that Bush had another big TV moment, her voice coursing through the pilot of Ryan Murphy’s drag-ball drama “Pose.” The song was “Running Up That Hill”.

One reason why Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is so impactful and speaks to people as it feels personal. Whether you see it about a song asking for universal understanding between men and women or one about a love story and this particular couple, its messages and core resonate and can be understood by everyone. We are living in such a scary time. So much disharmony. So much hatred and misogyny out there. Not that women need to understand men better – as that would excuse their actions -, though it is clear that men need to put themselves in a woman’s place and better understand them. There are a couple of other features I will get to. First, back in 2023, Two Story Melody wrote about a song that can have this very personal potency:

“It feels like something in that song is speaking to you, and no one else.

Then you find out that millions of people are listening to that song and it feels jaded, it feels like it’s no longer special because everyone is in on the secret!

One of the reasons “Running Up That Hill” endures is that it has exploded into popular culture twice in that way and it never feels jaded, never feels overplayed.

And I just wondered… why?

In Stranger Things 4 (you may have heard of that too) the character of Max listens to “Running Up That Hill” a lot, eventually using the song as a kind of talisman. The song is imbued with magical powers which doesn’t seem that far from the actual song itself.

And due to the popularity of the programme, “Running Up That Hill” managed to briefly become one of the most played song in the world, many years after its initial release.

But, for me at least, it never gets old.

Kate Bush wrote the song in 1985, the first song to be composed for her legendary Hounds Of Love album and it makes use of a Fairlight CMI to create the singular signature sound at the start of the song, a warped love-child somewhere between a dog’s yelp and a synth version of some string instrument or other.

The relentless drums, whilst also affected and synthetic, have a tribal quality to them since they hardly change throughout the track, almost as though the song is being used to march to a war somewhere.

Except for a synth pad running throughout the track, the odd guitar growl, and an occasional mandolin-like shimmer, there’s not much else going on.

Apart from that voice.

And what a voice. It’s totally unique, and like many of Kate’s songs, it somehow manages to be vulnerable, strong, commanding, and unbearably emotional, sometimes at the turn of a single lyric.

It carries the song to a place that is urgent and otherworldly. Kate’s harmonies are introduced just when you need them and they are, of course, quite unusual, as are the little explosions of voices in the latter half of the song.

I always thought the song was commenting on a struggle in someone’s life, this person is making a deal with God to swap places with someone, anyone that has an easier time of it, and that meaning, incorrect though it is, is what makes this song powerful. It makes the song a talisman for me, one of the few songs that can often empower me to be stronger than I think I’m able to be.

Whatever meaning people interpret from the song, that magical quality, that embedded weirdness from a place slightly removed from this reality, is what makes “Running Up That Hill” timeless, and endlessly listenable”.

Whilst many explore the lyrics and the way Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) speaks to them, there is not a lot of analysis about the music and the brilliance of the composition and production. I would advise people read the entirety of this 2022 feature from Music Radar, as it takes us inside the production and engineering. Giving us greater idea as to why Kate Bush’s production particularly should be talked about more. How she brought this song together and had this clear image:

“Kate has stated in interviews that the track began life with her asking Del to program the part on the drum machine, after which she laid down the pad and synth hook from the Fairlight over the top. This might go some way towards explaining the unusual section lengths - it’s possible that the unwaveringly linear nature of the drum loop and pad as a backing track to write over, unpunctuated by fills or cymbals, could be what gave rise to the somewhat freeform nature of the song’s structure.

The wide melodic intervals

Kate has always been renowned for her unusual, twisting melodies that leap up, down around and sometimes even completely off the scale. The melody for Running Up That Hill is in the C Aeolian mode, which means that it’s made up of notes from the C Natural Minor scale. It contains some seriously wide intervals, most notably the minor seventh between the Bb of 'our' and the C of the first syllable of 'places' in the chorus. The D note on the word ‘God’ is very special, grating against the C and Eb of the drone and reinforcing the 9th in that Bb9sus4 chord.

The lyrical content

The song explores the relationship between a man and a woman, wondering what it would be like if they were each able to change places and understand the relationship from the other's point of view. How much easier would life be if we could fully understand one another's perspective through our own experience of it?

Kate is on top lyrical form here, with lines like 'there is thunder in our hearts' and 'not knowing that I'm tearing you asunder' highlighting the drama and unconscious trauma that can be present in a turbulent relationship. Making a deal with God to change places, as an alternative to making a deal with the Devil, is powerful imagery, suggesting that divine intervention is the only way left for the couple to truly understand each other. The presumed end result of the deal is compared to the blissful carefree naivety of running up that hill, with no problems.

The vocal effects

As the track gets more and more urgent and chaotic, with overdriven guitars and thunderous drum fills, the outro chorus repeats are peppered with multiple tracks of manic sounding, random vocal wails mixed in the background, adding a sense of unease and confusion as the track nears its end.

As the track gets more and more urgent and chaotic, with overdriven guitars and thunderous drum fills, the outro chorus repeats are peppered with multiple tracks of manic sounding, random vocal wails mixed in the background, adding a sense of unease and confusion as the track nears its end. Meanwhile, in the last section of the outro, over a satisfyingly-resolved, sustained Cm chord, there's a detuned vocal doubling of the lead that has the demonic effect that only a slowed-down sample can offer. Since the Fairlight did not offer timestretching, this may well have been sung at a normal pitch but at double speed and then sampled and played an octave down on the Fairlight's keyboard to match the track's tempo, which would have achieved that sinister detuned sound at a speed matching the original lead vocal.

After just four bars of this intriguing effect, the pounding drums finally cease abruptly halfway through a bar, leaving just that ethereal pad to slowly fade away, the track ending in an exact mirror image of its beginning”.

It is that chemistry and combination of the relatable and stirring lyrics and the phenomenal production that means Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) endures more than most songs from 1985. Think about the albums and songs from that time. Few have the same legacy and modern-day relevance as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). In 2022, Rolling Stone UK talked about this track having a chart renaissance. It was already a Pop standard originally. I remember hearing it a lot in the 1990s and last couple of decades. However, one cannot deny that it has become more heard and discussed since 2022. Ahead of its thirty-ninth anniversary tomorrow, we need to appreciate how Kate Bush wrote and produced this work of sublime brilliance:

“Beyond its lyrics, the song’s production has given it a lot more longevity than many other songs of the era. Bush used cutting edge technology to create it – its chugging rhythm was composed on a LinnDrum drum machine, while she used a Fairlight CMI, a synthesiser with sampling capabilities, to craft its waifish strings – but the result sounds a lot grittier than other mid-80s pop music. This sound, combined with the song’s unquantifiable pop euphoria, has made it endure in a way that many other 80s time warps haven’t.

Despite the singular idiosyncrasies of ‘Running Up That Hill’, it has been a cover favourite for other artists, who all take a unique angle on it. Placebo’s 2003 reinterpretation turned the track into a ghoulish downtempo alt-rocker with even more youthful angst than the original. Their take on the track quickly became US TV’s version of choice, largely thanks to Bush’s refusal to sanction her original song’s use in shows like The O.C. and C.S.I. Chromatics also put a suspenseful, cinematic twist on the track in 2007, with Ruth Radelet’s lo-fi vocals emitting a diamond sharpness that turns the song into a nocturnal loner anthem.

More recently, country star Jade Bird performed a piano cover of the song for Radio 1’s Live Lounge, which stripped it back to voice and keys, conjuring loss and longing in her brusker baritone. UK artist Georgia delivered a dance-inflected though otherwise faithful rendition in 2020, while just last week pop singer Kim Petras released a cover for Pride Month, and offered her own thoughts on the classic track: “It means so much and it’s so elusive. You can definitely decide what you want it to mean. For me, it’s about equality. And my timing for this was strangely perfect!”

@sheiskatebush Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) (1985) #musictok #trending #katebushtok #katebush #fyp #viral ♬ original sound - sheiskatebush

Kate Bush herself revisited her classic anthem in 2012, recording new vocals for a version that premiered at that year’s London Olympics. While the instrumental backing track remained the same, it was pitched down to accommodate Bush’s new vocal range – her voice was deeper than it was three decades prior. And so, not for the last time, ‘Running Up That Hill’ re-entered the UK top 10 – and it would return to the charts again two years later, when Bush announced her first live performances since 1979. That time, the world didn’t just go crazy for ‘Running Up That Hill’ but the entire Kate Bush catalogue, with eight of her albums shooting up the charts simultaneously, and her website crashing from the demand for tickets. At the residency at the Hammersmith Apollo, ‘Running Up That Hill’ was the only song that had previously been performed live, such is the special place it holds for Bush and her fans.

In an interview with Open in 1985, Kate Bush said that the song was “really saying if there’s a possibility of being able to swap places with each other that they’d understand how the other one felt, that when they were saying things that weren’t meant to hurt, that they weren’t meant sincerely, that they were just misunderstood”. A cry for empathy and for understanding – these are timeless themes. Looking at how Bush views the song herself, no wonder it’s endured for so long”.

I don’t think that we can claim Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) alone is responsible for a new generation discovering her music. However, it clear there is something ageless and accessible about the song. It means something different to everyone yet, in a strange way, it means the same thing! It bonds us all. We can all understand what Kate Bush weas saying in 1983 – when she wrote the song -, and yet we take something unique from the lyrics. The production that brings all the elements to life. That iconic video of Kate Bush and Michael Hervieu entwined in this beautiful and jaw-dropping dance. I hope that the video gets a 4K remaster (an official one) sometime, as it is Kate Bush’s go-to song for many. Thirty-nine years since its release and it seems more popular and important than ever. Written back in 1983, it would have been inconceivable that Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) would be celebrated more than forty years later! First putting pen to paper all those years back…

SHE could never have imagined that!

FEATURE: Madonna at Sixty-Six: Will We See Anniversary Releases for Two of Her Greatest Albums?

FEATURE:

 

 

Madonna at Sixty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1994/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Earl 

Will We See Anniversary Releases for Two of Her Greatest Albums?

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I will publish two more features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Tabak/Sunshine/Retna UK

about Madonna ahead of her sixty-sixth birthday on 16th August. I will move next to a mixtape with her hits and some deep cuts. Thinking about Madonna, I realise that two of her very best albums have big anniversaries coming later in the year. 1984’s Like a Virgin and 1994’s Bedtime Stories are two very different albums. I hope that there are special releases that expand on these remarkable works that came at pivotal times. Like a Virgin was released on 12th November, 1984. It came the year after her eponymous album. After Madonna was launched into the market and there was this success and acclaimed, she followed it with an album that received mixed reviews at the time but is now regarded as a classic and hugely influential. I want to look at this album before moving to Bedtime Stories. The legendary Nile Rodgers was chosen as the album’s producer. Madonna wanted Like a Virgin to be a success. Already so ambitious, Madonna selected all the songs for the album. She wrote six of the songs on her own; five she penned with former boyfriend and collaborator, Stephen Bray. It must have been fascinating recording the album. Like a Virgin’s recording took place at Power Station Studio in New York City. A culturally important and huge moment for Pop music, there is no doubt that Like a Virgin is classic. One of the best albums of the 1980s. I want to bring in a feature and a review for Like a Virgin. Nearly forty years ago, this album took Madonna from a rising artist who was a queen of the New York club scene to a worldwide sensation. Perhaps the most important artist in the world. In 2021, Classic Pop examined and dissected the second studio album from Madonna:

“As New York’s achingly hip art set gathered at legendary nightclub the Paradise Garage on 16 May 1984 to celebrate artist Keith Haring’s first Party Of Life, the girl who had once dominated the dancefloor with her exuberant moves to Larry Levan’s iconic DJ sets, took to the stage for a special guest appearance in front of the vibrant crowd of which she had once been a part.

Having spent three months holed up in the city’s Power Station studios, Madonna saw the Party Of Life as the perfect platform to premiere two brand new tracks from her recently wrapped second album.

Although she was excited to air her new material for the very first time, the hipster audience remained largely indifferent as she performed Like A Virgin from a bed adorned with white lace before changing into a customised Haring jacket and skirt for Dress You Up.

Only pop culture prophet Andy Warhol had the foresight to recognise the earth-shattering potential of these new songs. “The crowd didn’t really take to Madonna,” recalls artist Kenny Scharf. “But Andy loved her – he told everyone that she was going to be the biggest thing ever.”

Madonna had been working on her second album since the beginning of 1984, penning songs with long-time friend and writing partner Stephen Bray. Her self-titled debut album had been a disappointing experience for her creatively, leaving her frustrated at how little her input and ideas had been welcomed by producer Reggie Lucas.

Despite the moderate success of that LP and Holiday becoming a Top 20 hit, Madonna was keen to move on and start work on her next project – and to do so on her own terms.

Determined not to repeat the mistakes of her debut and to ensure that the album would be exactly as she envisioned it, Madonna informed her label that she wanted to produce the record herself, a request that was immediately vetoed, much to her fury.

Aside from her previous LP not sounding the way she had wanted (with the exception of the tracks she and John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez had remixed before release), Madonna felt that she wasn’t taken seriously, and her talent was being undermined.

She saw the second album as her chance to prove herself. Livid that Warner Brothers didn’t believe in her enough to grant her full creative control, she publicly vented during interviews, detailing her battles against label bosses to who she referred to as “a hierarchy of old men”.

“It’s a chauvinistic environment to be working in because I’m treated like this sexy little girl,” she fumed to Rolling Stone. “I always have to prove them wrong. This is what happens when you’re a girl – it wouldn’t happen to Prince or Michael Jackson. I had to do everything on my own and convince people that I was worth a record deal. After that, I had the same problem trying to convince them I had more to offer than a one-off girl singer. I have to win this fight.”

Refusing to back down, the record label offered Madonna a compromise – the choice of any producer she wanted. Mollified, she appealed to Sire Records boss Seymour Stein for help in a letter in which her frustrations over “the producer predicament” were evident.

“Here I am forced to choose a man once again – help me!” she wrote, listing possibilities such as Trevor Horn, Jellybean, Laurie Latham, Narada Michael Walden and Nile Rodgers before signing off, “Furious love, Madonna”.

Although she had presented a shortlist of ideal collaborators, Madonna had made it clear that Rodgers was her first choice, declaring him a “genius”, citing his production work with Diana Ross, Sister Sledge and David Bowie as examples, as well as his own Chic records which she adored.

A meeting with Nile was arranged during which she played him the demos she’d written with Stephen Bray and told him: “If you don’t love these songs we can’t work together”. Affronted by her bluntness, Rodgers later revealed that he told her: “I don’t love them now, but I will when I’ve finished working on them!”

Satisfied, Madonna accepted her label’s offer to have Nile produce the entire album. Writing in his autobiography, Le Freak, Nile revealed that the fee he earned for producing the album was more than most artists earn from their own records, adding: “I’m pretty sure she hasn’t paid a producer as much since then either!”

The subject of money remained prevalent once recording had begun, with Madonna’s tyrannical manner of communicating with musicians proving problematic. She was in every recording session for the entire duration – whether she was required to be or not and expected similar dedication from the personnel.

If a musician arrived late or didn’t seem to be giving 110%, Madonna barked at them, “Time is money, and the money is mine!”, something which did not go down well with the experienced professionals.

Nile had brought along the Chic Organisation band with him to play on the record, including bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson, as well as sound engineer Jason Corsaro whose idea it was to record digitally, at the time a new way of recording.

The combination of synths and programmed drums with live instrumentation gave the album its bombastic, dynamic sound, elevating it from the dance-pop feel of Madonna’s earlier tracks which she felt were “weak”.

Despite the band having a wealth of experience between them, working across genres and with a myriad of artists, Madonna had no qualms about telling them if she didn’t like the way they were playing something or suggesting alternatives.

Whether it was because she’d been burned by the experience on her debut album and felt the need to overcompensate to make her ideas heard or was just plain rude, the band did not appreciate someone they saw essentially as a rookie being so abrasive and disrespectful towards them.

On one occasion, after she furiously berated a musician for taking a toilet break, Nile walked out of the studio and told her he was leaving the project, forcing Madonna to apologise and rethink the way she communicated from that point onwards. Though it wouldn’t be the last time they would have disagreements, they were resolved cordially.

The restless singer utilised the time that she had originally planned to be promoting her album by flying to Venice to shoot the video for Like A Virgin and signed on to star in her debut film, Desperately Seeking Susan. She also worked with stylist Maripol and photographer Steven Meisel on a series of photoshoots which would become the cover of the album and singles.

Playing with the virgin/whore dichotomy, her name and the album title were completely at odds with the overtly sexual image she presented, dressed in bridal regalia, lingerie, crucifixes and a ‘Boy Toy’ belt buckle.

The wanton bride persona became emblematic of the Like A Virgin era, and never was it more impactful than Madonna’s iconic performance at the first MTV Awards in September 1984. Her first major performance of the track, she began it atop a giant wedding cake and ended it lying on the floor with her underwear on full display.

While some of her peers slammed the brazen sexuality of her performance as trashy and cheap – her manager Freddy DeMann was backstage furious thinking her outrageous set was career ending – the appearance could not have garnered better publicity for Madonna, whose rebellious spirit endeared her to legions of teenage girls across the US. With her name on everyone’s lips, the timing was perfect for the unveiling of the single and album in November 1984.

“It’s a lot more grown up than my first album,” the proud star told MTV. “It’s more well-rounded, style-wise. My first one was termed a dance record and was all up-tempo dance music, but this one has a lot of different sounds. There’s stuff that sounds like old Motown, there’s stuff that’s very high-energy, some songs are very English-sounding, very techno, there’s lots of synths, and two ballads. Ultimately, it shows my growth as a singer and as a songwriter.”

The album received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial smash, transforming Madonna from pop star to pop icon, sparking ‘Madonnamania’.

It reached No.1 around the world and dominated the charts for most of 1985 thanks to its four hits (its singles run was punctuated by Crazy For You and Gambler from the Vision Quest soundtrack as well as chart re-entries of her older singles), the Virgin Tour of the US and a show-stopping performance at Live Aid.

In the UK, the album was re-released to include Into The Groove (taken from the soundtrack to Desperately Seeking Susan), extending its success even further, leading to eventual sales of over 21 million copies worldwide.

In January 1984, Madonna had shocked the world when she announced to Dick Clark on American Bandstand that she wanted to rule the world. Just 18 months later, thanks to the astounding success of Like A Virgin, she was well on her way to achieving it”.

Before moving onto Bedtime Stories, I want to source a review from AllMusic. I know that Like a Virgin got some mixed reception and still does. People criticising the lyrical context and sexuality. Others attacking Madonna’s vocals. One cannot deny how Like a Virgin has inspired generations of artists and is this moment when Madonna was confirmed as the Queen of Pop. If you have not heard the album - or not heard it for a while – then go and seek it out:

“Madonna had hits with her first album, even reaching the Top Ten twice with "Borderline" and "Lucky Star," but she didn't become a superstar, an icon, until her second album, Like a Virgin. She saw the opening for this kind of explosion and seized it, bringing in former Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers in as a producer, to help her expand her sound, and then carefully constructed her image as an ironic, ferociously sexy Boy Toy; the Steven Meisel-shot cover, capturing her as a buxom bride with a Boy Toy belt buckle on the front, and dressing after a night of passion, was as key to her reinvention as the music itself. Yet, there's no discounting the best songs on the record, the moments when her grand concepts are married to music that transcends the mere classification of dance-pop. These, of course, are "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin," the two songs that made her an icon, and the two songs that remain definitive statements. They overshadow the rest of the record, not just because they are a perfect match of theme and sound, but because the rest of the album vacillates wildly in terms of quality. The other two singles, "Angel" and "Dress You Up," are excellent standard-issue dance-pop, and there are other moments that work well ("Over and Over," "Stay," the earnest cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here"), but overall, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts -- partially because the singles are so good, but also because on the first album, she stunned with style and a certain joy. Here, the calculation is apparent, and while that's part of Madonna's essence -- even something that makes her fun -- it throws the record's balance off a little too much for it to be consistent, even if it justifiably made her a star”.

Maybe it is too late for a special vinyl reissue of Like a Virgin. No real documentary around the album. I hope that there is some celebration and something special happening close to November. Forty years of a wonderful album. If Like a Virgin arrived a year after Madonna’s debut and kept this momentum and trajectory going, there was something of the need for revival and recovery with 1994’s Bedtime Stories. 1992’s Erotica was Madonna at her most explosive and sexually charged. Raw, open and challenging, many critics took against it. Feeling she was being too explicit and shocking. Trying to provoke outrage. Although Bedtime Stories was not vastly different and a softer album, it was tonally different. If Human Nature nods and cheekily attacks those who condemned Madonna, other songs are more revealing and explorative in a way we did not see on Erotica. Maybe ‘mature’ would be the wrong word. Less sexually charged and erotica. It is hard to say why Bedtime Stories is both an evolution and her still pushing boundaries. Maybe more sonically and in terms of her lyrics rather than in an explicit way. We need to talk more about Erotica and how it was dismissed by so many. Bedtime Stories is a phenomenal album that should get a thirtieth anniversary reissue. Released on 25th October, 1994, Bedtime Stories arrived in a year where perhaps other artists were ruling. Madonna was still the Queen of Pop, though the scene had changed and it was maybe harder for her to stay at the top. A hugely successful album, there was this divide between the sales and the reviews.

Some praising this new direction. Others feeling the material was weak. Critics who felt Madonna had gone too far on Erotica and she needed to soften her image, today, would be seen as bullies or misogynists. It is awful that Madonna came under scrutiny and was almost forced to tone down her music and come back with an album that was more commercial and less edgy. Even so, Bedtime Stories is remarkable and stands up to this day. In 2014, VICE looked back twenty years at Madonna’s sixth studio album:

“For as long as Madonna has made music, she has endured relentless criticism for her sexuality. She’s been perhaps the most consistent target in the music industry, drawing critiques for more than three decades, and reviews of her work have served as a roadmap for how we scrutinize women at each stage in their music career. Whether it was public speculation on why she isn’t “like a virgin” or it was chastising her middle-aged body in a leotard, the shaming has had many iterations despite its one unwavering resolution: She goes too far.

That’s why her album Bedtime Stories, even as it celebrates its 20th anniversary, is still her most important work. For months leading up to its release, it was marketed as an apology for her sexual behavior, and critics hoped it would be her return to innocence. Instead, she offered a lyrical #sorrynotsorry and a response to the problem of female musicians being scrutinized for their sexuality rather than their music. As a result of the public’s moral concerns, it has become Madonna's most quietly important album, setting the tone for how artists deal with critiques of their sex life.

In 1992, Madonna released Erotica, a techno concept album and ode to bondage, alongside the coffee table book Sex, a softcore pornographic photo catalog of her and her pals. The concurrent releases created enormous and long-running backlash, resulting in multiple countries banning the album from radio airplay and the Vatican banning Madonna from entering. Madonna was already well established as an icon, but her frank lyrics on S&M and published photographs of analingus incited the harshest public outrage in her career. Bedtime Stories was slated to be her one last chance at redemption, and Warner Brothers agreed to produce it under the auspices of a less provocative image.

Both the label and her publicist Liz Rosenberg did everything they could to reverse the damage from Madonna's last projects. They had her release the soundtrack single “I’ll Remember” to bring her a family-friendly hit and further increase speculation that Bedtime Stories would convey her apology. The album’s promo video promises that there will be “no sexual references on the album” and even panders with Madonna saying “it’s a whole new me! I’m going to be a good girl, I swear.”

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Madonna-shaming was a two-part construct: First she was scorned for her sexuality, and then she was eclipsed by it. Since it cited her sex appeal as her sole commodity, the promo video had everyone wondering what she was going to sing about if the topic wasn’t sex. Speculation leading up to Bedtime Stories focused on her exit plan for becoming irrelevant, whether she planned on future facelifts, and what she would offer as a middle-aged version of herself.

“When you’re a celebrity, you’re allowed to have one personality trait. Which is ridiculous,” Madonna told the Detroit News in 1993. When Bedtime Stories was finally released on October 25, she addressed both aspects of the shaming process. Despite the promises in her promo, she continued to acknowledge her sexual desires, although she also experimented with the sound and subject matter. Beginning with “Survival,” a song she co-wrote with Dallas Austin, Madonna doesn’t hesitate to address the backlash and sings “I’ll never be an angel / I’ll never be a saint it’s true / I’m too busy surviving.” The lyrics continue to convey a loosely drawn narrative of the punishment she endured from the media and her feelings leading up to the release, and the songs are carried mostly by R&B melodies produced by Austin, Nellee Hooper, and Babyface.

The definitive single on the album is an explicit rebuke of the backlash. In “Human Nature,” she confirms that wasn’t sorry and that she’s not anyone’s bitch, and she paired the song perfectly with a video that toys with bondage like an Erotica throwback. Right when she is about to drop the mic she whispers, “would it sound better if I were a man?”

Madonna asserted her lack of apology on the grounds that she had not said or did anything unusual; it was simply unusual for a woman to say it. In an interview with the LA Times, she defended Bedtime Stories by saying “I’m being punished for being a single female, for having power and being rich and saying the things I say, being a sexual creature—actually, not being any different from anyone else, but just talking about it. If I were a man, I wouldn't have had any of these problems. Nobody talks about Prince's sex life.”

Beyond offering Madonna’s final word on the scandal of her sexuality, the album pivots to address the misconception that her sexual persona limited her versatility as an artist. The narrative in Bedtime Stories immediately turns introspective, relating “I know how to laugh / but I don't know happiness.” While the album borrows mostly from R&B and new jack swing, it becomes more experimental with the Bjork-penned title track, accompanied with a video that could not have explored the collective unconscious better if Carl Jung directed it. The video for "Bedtime Story" is the first instance of what would become Madonna’s long history of culture-plucking spiritual inquiry, and to this day is stored in a collection at the Museum of Modern Art. As a pair, “Human Nature” and “Bedtime Story” prove that Madonna owned her sexuality and would not be eclipsed by it. While the former fully embraces the decisions she made with previous albums, the latter dismantles the “slut” narrative that her overt sexuality discredits her depth as a performer. Surely people would see this as a feminist masterpiece, no?

Still, critics didn’t get it. The New York Times’ Jon Pareles waxed nostalgic for when “Madonna thrived in the 1980s on being sensational and suggestive against a tame mainstream backdrop,” calling her more recent work “vulgar instead of shocking.” Critical reception continued to focus on the scandal of her attitude rather than the actual record. “Madonna's career has never really been about music; it's been about titillation, about image, about publicity,” began one TIME review, which wasn’t unique in its premise. Any mention of the album’s experimental sound or numerous collaborations were overshadowed by her promiscuous image and once again left cheapened. Bedtime Stories as an album was not the clear apology the public demanded, and its emotional depth was largely ignored. At best, it was thought of as Madonna’s return to a safer expression of sexuality.

The record found commercial success with the release of “Secret,” and “Take a Bow,” but the two most important songs never broke into the Top 40, a problem Madonna hadn’t faced in nearly ten years. Today, Bedtime Stories is not the first album that comes to mind in Madonna’s legacy. It is, however, the most relevant to many of the cultural conversations that are still happening. Had she acquiesced to the public’s call for apology, it could have set a dangerous standard for how the public can decree an artist’s silence, and it would have allowed the categories for female singers to remain in place. Critical anticipation of the album predicted either a penitent pop star or a one-dimensional sexpot. She defeated both categories, and left the critics to ponder if sexuality and solidity are as mutually exclusive as they had hoped”.

There are many reviews to choose from. Very few are all-out positive: they usually come with a bit of a kick or something constructive. In 1994, Rolling Stone provided their take on Bedtime Stories. I remember in 1994 what a huge event the album was. So many eyes on Madonna and how she would follow Erotica. Bedtime Stories contains my favourite Madonna song, Take a Bow. I do hope that there is some form of reissue or at least reappraisal of a compelling and important album:

“After the drubbing she has taken in the last few years, Madonna deserves to be mighty mad. And wounded anger is shot through her new album, Bedtime Stories, as she works out survival strategies. While always a feminist more by example than by word or deed, Madonna seems genuinely shocked at the hypocritical prudishness of her former fans, leading one to expect a set of biting screeds. But instead of reveling in raised consciousness, Bedtime Stories demonstrates a desire to get unconscious. Madonna still wants to go to bed, but this time it’s to pull the covers over her head.

Still, in so doing, Madonna has come up with some awfully compelling sounds. In her retreat from sex to romance, she has enlisted four top R&B producers: Atlanta whiz kid Dallas Austin, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Dave “Jam” Hall and Britisher Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul), who add lush soul and creamy balladry. With this awesome collection of talent, the record verily shimmers. Bass-heavy grooves push it along when more conventional sentiments threaten to bog it down. Both aspects put it on chart-smart terrain.

A number of songs — “Survival,” “Secret,” “I’d Rather Be Your Lover” (to which Me’Shell NdegéOcello brings a bumping bass line and a jazzy rap) — are infectiously funky. And Madonna does a drive-by on her critics, complete with a keening synth line straight outta Dre, on “Human Nature”: “Did I say something wrong?/Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex (I musta been crazy).”

But you don’t need her to tell you that she’s “drawn to sadness” or that “loneliness has never been a stranger,” as she sings on the sorrowful “Love Tried to Welcome Me.” The downbeat restraint in her vocals says it, from the tremulously tender “Inside of Me” to the sob in “Happiness lies in your own hand/It took me much too long to understand” from “Secret.”

The record ultimately moves from grief to oblivion with the seductive techno pull of “Sanctuary.” The pulsating drone of the title track (co-written by Björk and Hooper), with its murmured refrain of “Let’s get unconscious, honey,” renounces language for numbness.

Twirled in a gauze of (unrequited) love songs, Bedtime Stories says, “Fuck off, I’m not done yet.” You have to listen hard to hear that, though. Madonna’s message is still “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself.” This time, however, it comes not with a bang but a whisper”.

As it is Madonna’s birthday on 16th August, I wanted to spend some time with her music and legacy. I thought about two very different but amazing albums that have been anniversaries coming in the next couple/few months. Like a Virgin was this stunning sophomore album some took against. Now, you cannot deny its impact and influence. Bedtime Stories, in contrast, felt more like rebuilding and regrouping. After such backlash in 1992, Madonna could have dug down and gone even further. What she did release was one of her most albums. Critics didn’t really give her the credit that she deserved. I hope that there is anniversary celebration. If even Madonna did not appreciate how remarkable Bedtimes Stories was in 1994, today she can truly…

TAKE a bow.

FEATURE: The Queen of Pop at Sixty-Six: A Madonna Birthday Mixtape

FEATURE:

 

 

The Queen of Pop at Sixty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna on the set of MTV in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Weiss

A Madonna Birthday Mixtape

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I am throwing ahead…

PHOTO CREDIT: Madonna

to 16th August and the sixty-sixth birthday of the Queen of Pop. The legendary and mighty Madonna still is a true icon who is proving that she has no competition. Having completed her Celebration Tour recently and demonstrated that she is one of the most captivating and awe-inspiring live performers ever, we wonder what comes next. There may be a new album at some point. Following from 2019’s Madame X. Her second studio album, Like a Virgin, turns forty later in the year. Bedtime Stories turns thirty. Madonna has announced that she is reviving the music biopic. Potentially called Who’s That Girl, it is high time that we saw a definitive biopic of one of the greatest artists ever. It is likely going to be directed and co-written by Madonna. It is going to be fascinating and long overdue. It seems like there is a lot ahead. Whether we get new music or not this year, there is sure to be activity from Madonna. As her birthday is on 16th August, I am going to write another feature about her. She truly is one of the most distinct and important artists. Someone who has inspired so many others through the years. I wanted to come to a mixtape of some of her best tracks. A sixty-six track salute, this is a nod to the range and brilliance of her music. Whether you are a new fan or someone who has been with her since the start, this birthday salute should…

GET you into the groove.

FEATURE: The Kick Outside: Kate Bush: The Conflict Between the Image of Her As a Serious Artist and the Press Perception

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kick Outside

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

Kate Bush: The Conflict Between the Image of Her As a Serious Artist and the Press Perception

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THIS is something…

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

that I have covered before. I wanted to revisit it. Like I will mention in many features at the moment, I am re-reading Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. It has been reissued, and I am getting all sorts of new inspiration and influence. Thinking about Kate Bush in new ways. Some of the most interesting sections of the book take us to the beginning of her career. When the teenage artist was just starting out. Right from the off, Kate Bush was caught in this conflict. She wanted to announce herself as a serious artist and be taken on her own merit. There was no zeal for fame or anything like that. From a family that was very supportive, there was a lot of art and culture around the Bush household. There was never any suggestion that she would be a novelty act or someone here for a short time. This was someone who was vastly mature and developed on her debut album. If you think about teenage artists of the 1980s and 1990s, what Kate Bush delivered in 1978 was so much more advanced and sophisticated. Unfortunately, from her debut single onwards, there was this pull between critical perception and how others saw Kate Bush. Wuthering Heights was released in January 1978 and climbed to number one. Largely on the strength of radio play and the public, there was this mix of ridicule and amazement How Kate Bush was perceived in 1978, and how she would be viewed for many years after, came after that debut single. Instantly fodder for satirists and impressionists, Bush had a good sense of humour and took it in her stride. It seems heartbreaking that someone who should have been adored and seen as an innovator and hugely original voice, instead, was often derided and sent up. Seen as something of an oddity by many!

That feeling that Kate Bush was instantly reduced to being a target. That she was somehow stupid or weird. The media, not used to an independent and singular female artist making music on her own term, instead of valuing her music and what she said, boiled everything down to her age, gender and class. As such, when The Kick Inside was released, it was not really judged on merit and depth. Many had already written Kate Bush off or labelled her a caricature or punchline. The media focused heavily on Bush’s age. She was nineteen when her debut album and single came out. It was not like she was extremely young and rare. Many artists around her were similar age. The fact she came from a comfortable family made her another target for those who felt she was spoiled or privileged. It has nothing to do with her music or personality. Bush was incredible grounded and modest. Not someone who got into the industry because of wealth or connections. It was the sexual side that was hugely focused on. Sexist and misogynistic, the media were fixated on Bush’s looks and body rather than taking the time to listen to her music and go beyond the surface. With no comparable peers, the media did not know what to make of Kate Bush. Many thought that a man must be behind her success. How could a young woman with such talent and originality do it without some guy behind her?! Almost like journalists today accusing female artist of being industry plants, Kate Bush was seen by some as being led by others.

Bush was caught in an awkward position in early interviews. With the media over-sexualising her and there being this perception of her, Bush played down her sexuality in interview. Coquettish or dismissive, as Graeme Thomson writes in his Kate Bush biography, it was nonsense she should play it down. Sexuality and her sensual, poetic side was integral to her work and being. Bush was never shy or ashamed about expressing her sexual desires. Her sexual urges and lusts were a huge part of her writing. That does not mean that who she was purely. The media missing the point entirely. That instinct to sexualise and fetishize a female artist when they would never do that for a male artist. Some early photoshoots and pictures did not help things. One, shot by Gered Mankowitz, for the Wuthering Heights cover, was a big talking point. A pose of Bush in a pink leotard where we could see her nipples unfortunately was shared and appeared far and wide. It was scrapped as the single cover and an inferior image used. The image could have been cropped and, to be fair, was not explicit or suggestive. People focusing on sex and prurient rather than the expression on Kate Bush’s face and the artistic merit of an iconic shot. It is no surprise that her brothers Jay and Paddy became very protective of their sister. Jay particular was unhappy with the way his sister was sexualised and it was distracting from her music. With them – and the family – being referred to as the Bush Family Mafia by some, it was this tussle between the label and outside forces…and the need to protect family. Gered Mankowitz actually took a series of shots at Great Windmill Street. It was about the reaction to Wuthering Heights and reacting with images. He mixed leotards with woollen socks. Unfortunately, advertising agencies choice the shot with her nipples showing and plastered it on buses and billboards. In a way, from that moment on, the way she would be perceived by the media was set in stone. I think that the public has a different view. Not focusing on her sexuality and gender.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in March 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Kent Gavin/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix

Jay particularly was strong-willed and clashed with the record label. EMI were not as concerned about the Gered Mankowitz shot and the way it became this defining image of Kate Bush. There started this years-running tussle between the Kate Bush family and labels/the press. This conflict between those seen as not viewing Kate Bush as serious, and her family protecting their sister/daughter as a serious artist. The Bush family were very effective and efficient when it came to protecting the artist. There weas a brief moment when Bush had a manager. He was soon let go. This need to have some sort of discipline or figure that could help manage and temporise a lot of the media frenzy and tabloidisation. In the end, it was about the art and ensuring that Kate Bush was protected and allowed to fulfil her vision. Anything periphery and inessential was jettisoned. Things did eventually improve when it came to the media perception of Bush. Maybe after 1985 things changed. That is seven long years that Kate Bush had to answer questions regarding her looks. It was good that John (Jay) Carder Bush photographed his sister a lot, as that allowed some natural protection. Some positive control.

Gered Mankowitz shot Bush until 1979. Guido Harari came in and was trusted. He worked with Kate Bush into the 1990s. John Carder Bush being the most long-running and stable sensei and guide when it came to forging the image the world had of Kate Bush. It is annoying that it took so long for people to respect and understand Kate Bush! Not to focus on her family background and sexuality. That quest to change the conversation and perception. I don’t think that her fans and record-buyers saw her in the same terms as the media. Bush herself was comfortable with her sexuality, though I feel albums like Hounds of Love (1985) and The Sensual World (1989) – made and released when she was in her twenties and early-thirties – was a deliberate shift towards something perhaps more sensual and grown-up than sexual and naïve. More artistic. That might seem unfair. One can say Bush never played into the media intrigue and odd angle. She was making music that was meaningful to her. Each album different. After 1978, photoshoots did change. The image of her being addressed and shifted. Her debut album is beautiful and awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, there was this battle to let the music speak and define who she was. That was not the way. With The Kick Inside, Kate Bush faced…

THE kick outside.

FEATURE: A Rise in Misogyny and Violence: Thinking About the Women in Music

FEATURE:

 

 

A Rise in Misogyny and Violence

PHOTO CREDIT: MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

Thinking About the Women in Music

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THIS year…

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Meriel Jane Waissman

has been terrible for so many reasons. Aside from genocide and bloodshed, there is political extremism and this feeling that things will never be okay. It seems every year brings new horror. Not to over-generalise or play the blame game. When you think about the perpetrators and those initiating violence and destruction, it is men. Most will say that this has always been the way. That doesn’t excuse what is happening or play it down. The reality is, when we look at all the bloodshed around the world and the evil that is being unleashed, it is led by men. It has been a really terrible time. Barely a week goes by where we do not see misogyny and violence make the news. The rise in misogyny has also been a real source of concern. It has been harrowing to see. I think that it is concerning that it could impact women in the music industry. It has always affected them but, as there seems to be this epidemic and harrowing rise in cases of violence and misogyny, it is hugely concerning. Look at what is happening online and the sort of debates there. I follow women (and men) who are feminists and are often attacked and threatened by men. Having to deal with the most vile and distressing comments. When they highlight cases of male violence and misogyny, they are often met with huge hostility and threats. Degrading language and awful insults. Not to say that all men are culpable. That would be ridiculous. What we do know is that there is this multi-generational misogyny that only can expand and spread. Young boys are being influenced by figures like Andrew Tate. Sexist language is growing in schools. There is this acceleration and virus of misogyny online that is being viewed by young people. All of this makes for a very bleak future. The way girls and young women are viewed. It is almost like we have stepped back decades. Though it is worse now. The way this sort of hatred and violent language can spread so fast.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Gouw/Pexels

Boys and men seem more vulnerable to extreme views. It does not just stop at language and views. What some might feel stops on a laptop and does not spread into the world is. There is violence in schools. Misogyny on the streets. The murder of three girls recently in Southport. The stories we see of women attacked and killed by men. The endless and horrendous misogyny that is rampant online. Social media and the Internet is a perfect breeding ground for this tsunami of misogyny and violence against women. It is not only influencers who are grooming young minds. Those who do not follow influencers expressing their disgusting views. It does not stop at the computer. There has been this physical outpouring. Those in denial are part of the problem. Nobody can think that the problem is small or does not exist. I think there is also a lack of male allyship. In terms of calling this behaviour out. Think about the fact women are defending their corner, speaking about threats to them and a huge problem faced by so many of their sisters. I do feel that there is this bleeding into the music industry. More cases of women through music talking about their experiences. If the music industry is a safer environment than many others, there is still this real danger. For decades, women have been exposed to harassment, violence and abuse at gigs. Feeling unsafe and abused. There is a lot of hatred and sexism online. Threats of violence. I don’t think that these issues have shifted or been tackled. Not by as many people as there should be. There is support from men in the industry, but the heavy lifting and hard work is being done by women. Again, nobody can relax and think that misogyny and this rise in violence against women and girls will not more severely infiltrate and influence the music industry. We do not have to look too far back to see high-profile artists spotlighted because of abuse towards women. Online, I am seeing myself this unnerving rise in misogyny.

PHOTO CREDIT: MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

I am worried by the news and what we are all seeing! There are explanations as to why misogyny has risen. Taking the form of coercion, gaslighting, violence, murder and abuse, we have odd contrast of women slowly but surely being celebrated in music and this long-running inequality being tackled – if far slower than it should! – together with this worldwide and infuriating lack of respect for women. The way they are viewed by so many men. This is a moment when those in power in the music industry need to take a stand and send out messages. There is a lot of love and harmony within music, though it can never be this safe and risk-free place. It is not only huge female artists who are going to exposed to misogyny and violent threats. From live gigs to behind closed doors, what can be done?! No woman I follow who is in music can say they have lived their lives free from sexism and misogyny. There does seem to be this fuel on the fire at the moment. An acceleration of radicalisation and random violence. It is going to be hard to stop the epidemic penetrating the music industry though, right now, there does need to be this attention and focus on women. Not only hearing the words and stories but supporting them and ensuring they have allyship. Making sure they are safe as possible. Violence against women is a national emergency. Not to say music can help to change that but, as it is influential and this powerful platform, there is also a need for campaigns and conversations to happen. It is a terrifying world to be in right now. Unleashed and almost uncontrollable violence and brutality. So much of that violence and threat is being aimed specifically at women and girls. My mind turns to music and not only women in the industry now but those coming through. The as-yet-unfulfilled misogyny that girls now will face when they are older and entering music. So many women are raising awareness and highlighting statistics and facts about the danger than faces them. More needs to be done. Men need to do more and speak up. It is clear that conversations need to happen around…

PHOTO CREDIT: MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

WHAT can we all do.

FEATURE: Memories: Mary J. Blige’s Mary at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Memories

Mary J. Blige’s Mary at Twenty-Five

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1999 is a year…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Mary J. Blige in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Time + Life/Getty Images

that saw its fair share of monumental and brilliant albums. Artists really ending the decade (century and millennium) with a real bang. It was such an exciting year for music. Nobody knew what lay ahead in the twenty-first century. 1999 saw Pop changing and evolving. Dance and other genres changing and becoming more influential. So many timeless albums released that year. Maybe one that some overlook but should be considered as worthy as the best of 1999 is Mary J. Blige’s Mary. The fourth studio album from the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, it turns twenty-five on 17th August. I am going to bring in a few reviews for a tremendous album from a true legend. For those who have not heard the album, I would recommend you check it out. This was a hot run for Blige. 1997’s Share My World and 2001’s No More Drama are incredible and acclaimed albums. If not all critics celebrated this work like they should, fans definitely did. Mary reached number two in the U.S. and five in the U.K. Featuring duets with, among others, Aretha Franklin and George Michael, such rich musicianship throughout, and incredible sampling and interpolations, Mary is an album that was definitely up there with the best of 1999. There was a bit of dynamic and emotional shift from her previous work. Perhaps stepping away from the more raunchy and edgy Hip-hip and R&B, there was this move towards something more sensual, mature and polished. Reminiscent of 1970s Soul music, it was a bit of a shock to some fans and critics. Mary J. Blige, as a dynamic and inventive artist, did not want to stay still and repeat herself.

I want to move on to some reviews of the wonderful Mary. Beginning with one from Rolling Stone. They wrote about the album in September 1999. If some preferred the artist who was breaking boundaries and changing the game at the start of her career, those who could appreciate why Mary J. Blige was moving into new territory definitely got a lot from Mary. It is definitely one of my favourite albums of 1999. It still sounds remarkable twenty-five years after its release:

“AT FIRST IT seems a bit strange: There’s only one MC on Mary J. Blige‘s new album, Mary. On her first and third studio albums — the genre-creating What’s the 411? and the merely stellar Share My World — she tapped a host of rhymers: Busta Rhymes, Grand Puba, Lil’ Kim, Nas. On her second album, the emotional autobiography My Life, there was a Keith Murray cameo and a slew of Puffy-produced interpolations. This latest record is her most superstar-packed — she welcomes aboard Lauryn Hill (producing and singing backup, not rhyming), Sir Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Babyface, Eric Clapton and ex-boyfriend K-Ci Hailey of K-Ci and JoJo — but with the late excision of the stunning “Sincerity,” featuring DMX and Nas, there’s a conspicuous void.

Blige seems to have moved away from the Terry McMillan once-again-he’s-breaking-my-heart mantra to, perhaps, an Oprah love-your-spirit ethos. She begins Mary with the lush Lauryn-produced “All That I Can Say,” singing, “Loving you is wonderful / Something like a miracle.” Two songs later, on “Beautiful Ones,” she sings, “With your love, maybe in my life / You know, we can stop the rain,” a direct answer to her classic theme song, “Everyday It Rains.” Of course, there are songs about sadness, like the brilliant strength-in-pain anthem “The Love I Never Had” — where she blares, “I gotta wake up!” while a Jimmy Jam-and-Terry Lewis-produced live band funks behind her — as well as the deep ballad “Your Child” and the spectacular “Memories.” But “Memories,” with its hot Timbaland-inspired track and junglish drum line, doesn’t match the sadness of which Mary speaks. The woman who concluded My Life singing, “All I really want is to be happy” seems to have found strength and happiness on the album’s closer, a remake of the classic disco invocation “Let No Man Put Asunder.” (You may remember the counterhook: “It’s not over between you and me.”)

Mary is moving away from the hip-hop-tinged, interpolation-heavy sound of her earlier albums into a sound that’s even more soulful, singing over a large live band or alongside Eric Clapton’s guitar or Elton John’s piano. But she remains the queen of hip-hop soul. Where most singers open their throats and make pretty sounds, MCs strive to represent the hopes and fears of their audience, to embody the collective I. Where singers make you love their records, MCs make you love them. So, though she never rhymes, Mary is an MC. On second thought, it’s perfect that the only MC on Mary’s record be Mary”.

There are a couple of other reviews I want to bring in. The BBC celebrated a greatly accomplished fourth studio album from a musical genius. Mary won its fair share of accolades and award nominations. In 2000, Mary J. Blige was nominated for Best International Female Solo Artist at the BRITs. Three GRAMMY nominations, include Best R&B Album. Songs like Deep Inside and All That I Can Say mark this album out as a classic. 1999 is one of the most diverse and exciting music years. Mary definitely adds to the richness and brilliance of the year:

“Mary is the widescreen fourth studio album from Mary J. Blige, which finds her edging further toward an adult-oriented market. Even its cover, a stark black and white image of her with African jewellery, underlines that Blige is leaving the street and going somewhere deeper, more substantial.

Overseen by Blige and Kirk Burrowes, the selection of producers and grooves unite here in a rare way. It is a post-modern composite, and it is, of course, unafraid to parade its bling.

Opening with the Lauryn Hill-produced All That I Can Say, Mary at once demonstrates that Blige, who had then been a star for best part of a decade, could still keep and rise above the company of the hottest current artists.

Sexy takes Michael Jackson’s I Can’t Help It and fashions a woozy, off-kilter vibe. Deep Inside features a re-recording of Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets, with John slamming away at his piano like he’s having the time of his life. It is absolutely infectious, and one of the standouts of Blige’s career.

Rich Harrison - who would go on to produce Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love - is responsible here for Beautiful Ones, which takes a sample of guitarist Earl Klugh’s version of Bacharach and David’s April Fools and supports an incredibly passionate delivery from Blige. Don’t Waste Your Time, a duet with Aretha Franklin, is a beautiful meeting of minds.

One of Aretha’s old duet partners, George Michael, turns up on the spirited cover of Stevie Wonder’s As, which appeared on European editions of the album. It is tribute running riot, with Michael attempting to dazzle in Blige’s company. However, the moment she opens her mouth, he is vanquished. The song gave Blige her then-highest UK chart placing (4), and paved the way for the album to break into the UK top 5.

A huge star for two decades, Mary J. Blige may not have had the ostentatious career climaxes of other artists, but she's created a steady, consistent and often astonishing catalogue. Mary is one of the most thrilling instalments of this career”.

Rather than another review, there are a couple of other features worth sourcing. There is an interview from The Guardian with Mary J. Blige that is fascinating reading. They spoke with her in 1999 about her upcoming fourth studio album:

“The anger management and showbiz etiquette classes seem to be working. An aide asks Mary J Blige to change hotel rooms for the interview, another asks her to change clothes for the photos. No crockery flies. No one dies. Blige acquiesces with a shrug.

Before her ascension with 1991's What's the 411, R&B was still a world of fluttering divas in evening wear. Blige presented new iconography: a hard-headed hip-hop girl who exulted in the tough, working-class culture she grew up with. Despite worldwide appetite for this brash ghetto style, the reality for Blige has been traumatic. Several times it has threatened to derail her career - hence the temper control and etiquette tutor (who has now been sacked).

Her antagonism and surliness are easily traceable to insecurity and low self-esteem. She was brought up by her teenage single mother, Cora, dropped out of school at 15 and seemed set for a life of drug and alcohol problems (both admitted) with occasional hairdressing and babysitting thrown in.

She recorded Anita Baker's Caught Up In The Rapture in a mall for fun and the tape reached Sean "Puffy" Combs. Combs was then the 21-year-old head of A&R at the booming and innovative Uptown records, helping shape new street-edged R&B. He and boss Andre Harrell travelled to Blige's flat, auditioned her and signed her.

Even with success Blige seemed to bear the imprint of the depressive. She walked out of interviews or didn't turn up. She walked off stage on her first British dates and suffered a savage backlash. By the time My Life arrived, Blige says she was suicidal. She split from the ambitious Combs and was on the point of bankruptcy after what she describes as management embezzlement and a bad contract.

Most harrowing of all was her love affair with K-ci Hailey, singer with the now defunct soul group Jodeci. From the outside the pair were the dream couple of the new 90s street soul. But Blige was suffering from what she describes as physical and mental abuse. The mental abuse was made public in 1990. Interviewed on The Word, Blige confirmed the two were engaged to be married. The show then cut to Hailey who denied that the pair were even going out. When I interviewed Uptown boss Andre Harrell in 1994 he confirmed their wedding would take place that summer. When I met Hailey later that year, he said talking about relationships - let alone weddings - would upset his female fans. The relationship ended several years ago.

Today, sitting in a highrise Manhattan hotel suite crammed with lunch, laptops, entourage and family, Blige still bristles with her usual distrust of strangers and media fuss, but she appears the most balanced and business-like I've seen her; happier and stronger.

The new album, Mary, contains some inspiring upbeat love grooves. Never theless it's her rasping bluesy voice on the pleading heartbreak of Don't Waste Your Time (a duet with Aretha Franklin), the Elton John-assisted Deep Inside, and the chilling Your Child which really stop you in your tracks. The nightmare she refers to may be long over, but her new music suggests that the catharsis is ongoing.

K-ci Hailey and his group Jodeci were another spectacular 90s success. The group had driven from a small town in Virginia to Uptown records, sung for Andre Harrell in reception and been signed. In a drastic image change they too came to symbolize the swaggering urban cool that Blige represented. Blige and Hailey could have enjoyed the rush of young fame together, but they didn't. In a spooky echo of the Ike and Tina Turner story, Blige blames K-ci Hailey for continued abuse resulting from his fear of her success. Since their split, a time during which she says she feared for her life, Blige has got her act back together.

"He had to be out," she says. "That was something that was holding me back. He didn't want me to have nothing. He didn't want me to sing when I was already a singer. He held me back from shows when I had to get on planes. When I say mental and physical abuse, everyone knows it was him. He'd use Jodeci interviews to say horrible things about me."

The most extraordinary thing about these revelations is K-ci Hailey's appearance on her new album. The duet Not Looking is, all the more amazingly, about a woman rejecting the advances of a cocky, gangster-type suitor and demanding a more mature and sensible partner. "I did the record with him but we weren't in the same studio," she explains. "I was in New York and he was in LA and we didn't see each other. My managers thought it was a good business move. I was totally against it. But then I tried Joe (another R&B star) on the song, I tried Eric from Blackstreet on the song; no one could pull it off. Then I spoke to K-ci and said 'Would you do the song?' and he said 'Yeah, no problem'. It was just business." Blige tells Hailey on the song "I'm not lookin' for no arrogant egotistical playa shit!" He wails that his love is real and apologises for past behaviour. The song ends with Blige's sarcastic rejoinder: "I know you're sorry".

But Blige has found new friends and musical collaborators through the experience. Lauryn Hill stepped in to lend support and wrote two songs on the album including the new single All That I Can Say. Hill also drew on the pain of bad love for much of last year's Grammy-winning album. Her duet with Blige, I Used to Love Him, takes on new poignancy in the light of these revelations.

Blige now shares her four-bedroom house in New Jersey with sister La Tonya and the latter's husband and children. The surrogate family has given her support, and there's a real feeling of breezy carefree love on I'm in Love and All That I Can Say.

"I'm in Love is about being in love with life. When you feel hope, you feel free and you start loving life. You start feeling that something good is coming - some man maybe. And I say that 'cos I can't help it. I'm into men! Maybe God is shaping him and moulding him right now or maybe he's right in my face every day and I haven't noticed yet. I've got to get used to not having someone around now but it's hard. It's hard in the middle of the night or maybe on the road in Europe. I get depressed. But I'd rather be alone than hold on to something which is artificial."

More recently Blige has entered pop territory uncharted by a credible street artist. Elton John is a friend and plays the Benny and The Jets piano riff borrowed for Deep Inside. She met George Michael the day before his solo performance in a Beverly Hills toilet and ended up recording As, the number one duet, with him.

"We like Sir Elton because he was real from the beginning. I met him at Madison Square Garden and we had something in common because there is a certain person from the fashion industry, a stupid model, that we don't like. Elton said: 'I like you because you don't like her either!' And I was like: 'Someone's with me on this!'

"Then I left the concert and the next day it said on the news he dedicated Benny and The Jets to me. I couldn't believe it. We called and asked him to play on the album. He came to the studio with a Versace bag and all the perfume out of the store. He made me feel real good. He was love. Sir Elton is real!

"I met George in LA with Babyface. I've always been a fan; he's always been in our lives. I grew up watching Wham! and George Michael on MTV. And when he met me, he was like: 'I love you! You're the greatest!' Just to be recognised by him was amazing. So the next day, when the scandal blew up, I was like: 'Oh shit!' But that never stopped me from loving him. But God tests you in so many ways as to what you're supposed to do and I knew I was supposed to love that man no matter what.

With that, she's off to rehearse a show with Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden. Four days later she calls me, anxious to edit the more heinous accusations against her former lover. "That's the past. I don't want it hanging round my neck forever," she says. "I forgive and move on”.

I am going to end with this feature. Writing about Mary last August, they noted how Blige was following her 1970s muse and stepping into Neo-Soul. It was a refreshing and necessary move that brought new layers and elements to her work. Allowed her voice to go to new places. Explore different musical territory and work with some great new collaborators:

“Throughout her career, Mary J. Blige has received many titles to describe her unique brand of soul. On her fourth studio album, Mary, the “queen of hip-hop soul” stripped away her usual contemporary sounds, opting for a classic R&B approach. No longer masking her ornate bravado with hip-hop samples and Uptown vocals, Blige took a plunge into the newly established world of neo-soul, harkening back to essential 70s-styled R&B. The album’s third track, “Deep Inside,” provided its sentimental thesis: Blige wished her listeners “could see that I’m just plain ol’ Mary.”

A new chapter

Released on August 17, 1999, Mary signaled a new chapter not only in the singer’s life, but in her musical evolution. In the three studio albums leading up to the album, Blige earned her place in the industry by fusing uptempo hip-hop swagger with rough-hewn vocals that unearthed the pain and passion of black womanhood – whether that was searching for ‘Real Love’ on her New Jack Swing-tinged What’s The 411?, or declaring “I Can Love You”(better than she can) over the mafioso beat of Lil’ Kim’s “Queen Bi__h,” on Share My World. In the 90s, Mary J. Blige became an iconic voice and representation of Generation X street culture, style, slang, and popular music.

At the end of the decade, both R&B and hip-hop experienced a renaissance, as the genres rapidly merged towards a new alternative. By 1999, neo-soul had pushed its way to the forefront of mainstream R&B thanks to the likes of Erykah Badu, D’Angelo and Maxwell. Blige had previously collaborated with another neo-soul pioneer, Lauryn Hill, on “I Used To Love Him,” from the latter’s The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, and on Mary, Hill returned the favor, writing the album’s soulful opener and singing background vocals on “All That I Can Say.”

A blissful state

The first half of Mary documents a blissful state of being in love, with neo-soul acting as the engine that powers through that euphoria. As the follow-up to “All That I Can Say,” “Sexy” rekindles Blige’s hip-hop soul instincts with a sophisticated lounge groove meant for mixers, while fellow Yonkers native Jadakiss jumps on the track with a verse.

‘Deep Inside’ finds the singer at her most vulnerable and introspective over Elton John’s 1973 classic “Bennie And The Jets,” lamenting the obstacles that her fame creates for her relationships. Hardly a sample or interpolation, when you’re Mary J. Blige, you just get Sir Elton himself to come and play piano on the track for you. Perhaps even more surprising than that, however, is “Beautiful Ones,” which begins with the winding guitar strings of Earl Klugh’s 1976 instrumental “The April Fools” and loops repeatedly over the lush melody as Blige opines about her lover’s qualities.

An old soul

Since her start, Blige always had a knack for drawing on the healing remedies of old-school R&B, most notably on her cover of Rufus And Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” and her use of a jazzy Roy Ayers sample of “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” on “My Life.” This thematic evolution continues on Mary, with its more mature lyrics and the expansive resonance in her singing voice. Blige draws upon 70s R&B and soul for the album, in particular her favorite songs she grew up with.

The first act of Mary concludes with a cover of the 1979 Gap Band classic “I’m In Love.” The song highlights a sunshine motif that recurs throughout the first half of the album, as Blige hits her highest octave on the line “The sun will shine for me and you”.

A painful return

Following “I’m In Love,” Mary takes a turn as Blige once again taps into a darker pain that drives so much of her music. Dubbed a “a virtuoso of suffering” by The New York Times, Blige has also derived art from her most scarring experiences. Rather than dress up that sorrow with theatrics and her usual flashiness, however, on Mary, Blige lets things sink in, keeping the arrangement simple, which allows her to be more vulnerable.

On the consciousness-raising “Time,” Blige takes aim at the world and her armchair critics while referencing two classic songs, first sampling Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise,” from the Motown icon’s 1976 opus, Songs In The Key Of Life, and flipping the script on The Rolling Stones as she laments, “Time is not on our side.”

A turbulent relationship

Blige’s on-again-off-again relationship with fellow R&B crooner “K-Ci” Hailey, of K-Ci And JoJo, has been a core subject throughout her work. Plagued with infidelity, jealousy, domestic violence and drug abuse, the turmoil from their toxic love has brought the singer some of her most memorable deep cuts, including “Memories,” on which she declares, “Valentine’s Day will never be the same.”

Aretha Franklin weighs in and advises her soulful progeny on “Don’t Waste Your Time,” before K-Ci himself appears on “Not Lookin,’” confessing, through back and forth banter, that he doesn’t want to fall in love with Blige, regardless of his true feelings. The pain continues on Mary’s stand-out ballad, “Your Child,” which sees Blige confronting her disloyal partner and the woman he impregnates.

By the time you get to “No Happy Holiday,” Blige realizes she’s still in love, despite the heartbreak, and in true diva fashion, she advises herself to “wake up” in order to not lose “The Love I Never Had,” singing over the funk blare of the Jimmy Jam- and Terry Lewis-produced live band.

All-star guests

Swapping out guest MCs for rock’n’roll legends on Mary, Blige recruited Eric Clapton for the slow-burning “Give Me You,” an organ-heavy olive branch of forgiveness. Slowhand saves the fancier fretwork for later, quietly supporting Blige until he fully unleashes his guitar mid-way through the song. Blige then closes out the album with a disco-influenced cover of First Choice’s 1977 single, “Let No Man Put Asunder.”

By the end of Mary’s 72-minute run, the queen of hip-hop soul has proved that she is, in fact, the queen of R&B. The album not only showcases her ability to weave various motifs throughout her music, but also her skill at tackling different branches of the genre: past, present, and future. Most importantly, it achieved what R&B music is all about: using rhythm’n’blues to express your own story of love, hurt, and redemption, and having the audience feel every note”.

On 17th August, the stunning Mary turns twenty-five. Seven years after her peerless debut album, What's the 411?, Mary J. Blige was still at the top of her game. Ending the century with a remarkable statement and ambitious album, you can hear its influence in artists today. Mary is ample proof that its creator is…

ONE of the all-time greats.