FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from the Best Audiophile Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Alina Vilchenko/Pexels

 

Songs from the Best Audiophile Albums

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I am not going…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

to say too many words, as I want to get to this mixtape. One that collects songs from the perfect albums for audiophiles. Maybe there is something wrong about uniting the digital versions when the beauty of these albums is hearing them on stereos or record players. However, you can get a sense of the mix and perfect sound. Hopefully compel you to seek out a few of these albums and add them to your collection. Albums where the sound and aesthetic is absolutely key, I know that stereo makers will use many of these albums to test their equipment. Glorious and sublime, enjoy songs from L.P.s that are an audiophile’s dream. You will know most of these albums, though there might be some you do not. This Digital Mixtape might lead to…

PHOTO CREDIT: Diana ✨/Pexels

SOME new discoveries.

FEATURE: Ballad of a Thin Man: Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

Ballad of a Thin Man

 

Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited at Sixty

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IT is hard to believe that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Bob Dylan in 1965/PHOTO CREDIT: Fiona Adams/Redferns 

this album turns sixty on 30th August. Bob Dylan’s sixth studio album was released on 30th August, 1965. Not only is it one of the best albums of the 1960s and Bob Dylan’s career. It is one of the greatest albums ever released. Ahead of the anniversary of Highway 61 Revisited, I am looking inside an album that pulled further away form his Folk routes – consider the epic closing track, Desolation Row – and included more Blues-Rock influences. A type of poetry perhaps less political. Fantastical in places but sharp and biting in others. More ambitious and bigger than his albums that came before, Highway 61 Revisited’s lead track, Like a Rolling Stone, is a song that could be considered the best ever. Definitely up there! So, because of all of this, there is a lot to say about the album. I will bring together a few features and reviews, so that we can get a clearer picture of why it is so important in terms of Dylan’s career and the music landscape of 1965. As I write this (3rd August) it is only a day until the sixtieth anniversary of the recording of Desolation Row. The swansong and this incredible piece of music, it followed two days after four other albums tracks were recorded – including the title cut. I want to get to some articles. Because Rolling Stone paywalls everything – and they do not offer people one free view a day, which is bad business -, I could only get a fraction of their 2015 celebration of Highway 61 Revisited on its fiftieth anniversary:

“Highway 61 is the middle album in the trilogy of Bringing It All Back Home and Blonde on Blonde—from that moment when Dylan flipped for the Beatles, went electric and banged out these three rock & roll albums in the space of 14 manic months, three albums everybody (including Dylan) has been trying to live up to (or just plain imitate) ever since. All three have different flavors — if Bringing It All Back Home takes off from the Beatles, Highway 61 is the Stones and Blonde on Blonde is Smokey Robinson — but unlike the other two, Highway 61 never lets up. This album has no “On the Road Again” or “Obviously Five Believers” — a moment of pleasant filler where you can catch your breath. Each of the nine songs tells its own immaculately frightful story.

And more than Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 is a band album, rather than a solo album. The songs are juiced with perfect moments of musical interaction — Charlie McCoy’s guitar on “Desolation Row,” Paul Griffin’s piano on “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” Bobby Gregg’s drums on “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” Michael Bloomfield’s twang in “Tombstone Blues,” everybody and everything on “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Even the infamously out-of-tune guitar on “Queen Jane Approximately” adds to the spirit”.

It is interesting to start with that, though I need to access articles where I can see the whole thing and get more context and content. That takes me to The Bob Dylan Commentaries. They give us some background and lead-up to 1965’s Highway 61 Revisited. Why the album has the name it does, and how it was recorded pretty quickly. At least by today’s standards:

“Highway 61 was recorded over a two-month period, not including a failed attempt to record with John Mayall’s Blues Breakers (which featured a young Eric Clapton on guitar). The first sessions were done on June 15th and 16th, 1965, which yielded only one song, Like a Rolling Stone. The album was finished at the second set of recording sessions done that August. Between the two sets of sessions, Dylan switched producers, from Tom Wilson to Bob Johnston. Guitarist Mike Bloomfield claimed Dylan was not satisfied with Wilson’s work with a band, although others, including Dylan, claim to have no knowledge of why the change was made.

Great art is often a product of interesting historical periods, and 1965 was definitely a time of turmoil in America. The Vietnam War was quickly escalating, and the country’s unease with the strategy and the morality of the war was growing. The civil rights movement was in full swing, and violence in the streets was a regular event, with large riots occurring in Selma, Alabama, and in Los Angeles. Malcolm X, a black civil rights leader who promised to take the civil rights fight into white America, was shot and killed. In general, a new morality was taking hold of the younger generation. They questioned the authority and wisdom of the nation’s leaders and thinkers. There was a feeling of freedom, and also anger at an older generation that not only failed to see the possibilities of this new way of thinking, but actively tried to repress it. The revolutionary ideas, the angry tone in the lyrics, and the harshness of the music of Highway 61 undoubtedly were fed by the turmoil of the times.

Dylan was also experiencing a good bit of turmoil in his own life. Personally, he had just recently parted with long-time friend and lover Joan Baez. He had met Sara Lownds, who would eventually become his first wife. Professionally, Dylan was experiencing a strong, and what must have been completely baffling to him, backlash from critics and friends concerning his move to rock ‘n’ roll. Irwin Silber, editor of the influential Sing Out! Magazine wrote an article with the title “Open Letter to Bob Dylan” in which he bitterly criticized Dylan for abandoning protest songs and folk music. Although Like a Rolling Stone was making its way up the singles charts quickly, his electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival received mixed reviews from his fans, and the same was true of his subsequent US tour.

The title of the album refers to a highway that runs from Thunder Bay, Ontario through Dylan’s birthplace, Duluth, Minnesota (which is close to his childhood home of Hibbing) all way through the middle of the country, ending in New Orleans. This highway is well-known for being a route that hundreds of southern blues and jazz musicians traveled in search of northern factory jobs during the early parts of the 20th century. Many of the most influential blues musicians traveled this route, including Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf. Along the way, they spread the southern blues into other parts of the country.

Certainly, Dylan was using the album’s title as an allusion to the influence the blues had on his music. Why he tacked on “Revisited” is less clear. Perhaps he is referring to his return to the blues-based rock music that had influenced him as a teenager when he listened to blues stations on AM radio and played Little Richard and Elvis Presley covers in his early bands.

The cover photo was taken by Daniel Kramer, also the photographer for the Bringing It All Back Home cover. The photo shows Dylan with a semi-scowl on his face, wearing some kind of weird blue shirt with an orange butterfly-like pattern, and a t-shirt underneath with an advertisement for Triumph motorcycles. Sidekick Bob Neuwirth stands behind him, his camera dangling from his hand. I imagine this photo was selected to emphasize the rebellious lyrics and music of the album.

Dylan’s liner notes consist of several rambling paragraphs of unintelligible drivel. The notes were written in a style similar to that used in his book, Tarantula, which was written in 1965/66 but not released until 1971. As the liner notes, it is mostly unreadable.

Dylan and producer Tom Wilson recruited a formidable group of musicians to play on the record. Dylan asked Mike Bloomfield, the guitarist for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, to play guitar. Bloomfield had never recorded in a studio before and said he didn’t even own a case for his guitar when he showed up at the studio. It turned out to be a wise choice, as Bloomfield’s fierce sound with a heavy blues-influenced style gave the album much of its musical identity. Al Kooper was invited by Wilson to play guitar on the record but ended up playing the famous organ part on Like a Rolling Stone. Other key players included Paul Griffin on piano and Bobby Gregg on drums.

Highway 61 is really a monumental achievement, arguably the high-water mark for the art form. It influenced an entire generation of artists, and continues to influence rock musicians today”.

I am going to end soon with a review of perhaps Bob Dylan’s most important album. In terms of the sound of it and how it took his career to a new level. Beginning a classic trilogy of Dylan albums – 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home preceded Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde arrived in 1966 -, it is no wonder that we continue to praise the songwriting and the impact of Highway 61 Revisited six decades after it release. Five years ago, Albumism providing a detailed and really interesting retrospective. One that makes me look at Highway 61 Revisited in a new light. An album that I absolutely love and feel is the pinnacle of Dylan’s lyrical genius:

“Given Highway 61’s hallowed status over a half a century later, it gets lost what a legitimate artistic risk it was for Dylan at the time. Dylan made the conscious choice to take actions to potentially piss off his core audience by going full electric. And he didn’t even wait for Highway 61 Revisited to be released to drop this bomb; in the midst of recording the album, he gave his infamous performance at the Newport Folk Festival. He took to the stage, Fender Stratocaster in hand, dressed like a rock star, only to meet a cascade of boos.

Now, it’s never been clear whether the audience booed him during this performance because they thought he was a “sell-out” or because of the overall quality of the sound (either too loud or too soft, depending who you ask). But the legend endures the crowd rejected Dylan’s rock star aspirations. But Dylan was undeterred, soon returning to the studio to record the rest of the in-progress album. Still, it added an urgency to the sessions. If you’re going to give your fans the proverbial middle finger, the gamble had better pay off.

And, well, here we are, over a half century later, and Highway 61 remains one of Dylan’s most beloved releases. And it’s remembered for both its musical and lyrical innovation.

Besides being nearly fully electric, none of the songs on Highway 61 Revisited featured just Dylan and his guitar. Eight of the album’s nine tracks feature full electric band, some of whom were session musicians that he worked with before, while others were new faces like Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, who would go on to join the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

Together, Dylan and the session musicians created a vibrant sound that built on honoring Dylan’s blues influences. The 1,400 mile stretch of road known as Highway 61 begins in Minnesota, following the Mississippi River throughout its length. It winds past Duluth, the place of Dylan’s birth, and runs south through St. Louis, Memphis, before ending in New Orleans, all cities intrinsic to Dylan’s personal and musical identity.

In terms of lyrical subject matter and approach, Highway 61 Revisited strikes a pair of distinctive notes. On one hand, it’s a bitter and at times outright mean album. Dylan is an artist, so he’s sensitive about his shit, and held his critics in complete contempt. Through swaths of the album, he questions their intelligence, sincerity, and overall value to society.

“Ballad of a Thin Man” may sound mourning and sorrowful, but it’s the angriest on Highway 61. The song radiates bile as Dylan chronicles the misbegotten adventures of Mr. Jones, a dullard who fancies himself as an educated and sophisticated individual of great influence, oblivious to the fact he’s in way over his head. On some level, the song seems to be about Dylan’s increasingly difficult relationship with the music press. Or the song could reflect Dylan’s disdain towards outsiders who attempted to glom onto ’60s counterculture without an understanding of the circumstances that spawned it. Numerous journalists with the surname of Jones have claimed to be the source of inspiration for the “Mr. Jones” character. Aside from a glib answer he gave Nora Ephron and Susan Adminson in an interview back in 1965, Dylan has remained mum about Mr. Jones’ true identity (if there even is one).

One of my favorite stories about “Ballad of a Thin Man” (and Highway 61 Revisited in general) is that it became a source of inspiration for the Black Panther Party. According to Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale in his book Seize the Time, both he and Huey Newton were obsessed with the song, believing that Dylan was speaking to the plight of Blacks in the United States through the lyrics, as he speaks of “tourists” being attracted to the “freak shows” of the ghettos across the country.

Highway 61 Revisited is still considered Dylan’s most towering achievement, and a complete and unabashed success. It set the tone for rock album moving forward in the 1960s, influencing countless musicians, writers, and poets. Of course, Dylan continued to evolve over the 50-plus years since its arrival, so much so that his legacy as both a folk hero and rocker can co-exist.

The success of Highway 61 goes to the core of whether it’s better to stick with providing your loyal fans with what they want, or to take the high risk/high reward plunge. Highway 61 doesn’t definitively answer that question. Instead, the lesson seems to be that quality music trumps everything else. But it’s still a bit astonishing that a sense of restlessness is what helped secure Dylan’s immortality”.

Let’s wrap up things with a review from Audioxide. Actually, it is two-third of the review. However, there are two interesting interpretations and opinions proffered. Both reviewers including Ballad of a Thin Man, Tombstone Blues and Like a Rolling Stone in their top three from Highway 61 Revisited:

“Fred

Bob Dylan has a gift for making you feel like you’re sharing in a dark, beautiful secret in the same breath that he’s telling you to go take a hike. He has no shortage of seminal works, but Highway 61 Revisited is probably the finest meeting of his anger and his clarity. The record is almost everything it’s cracked up to be, and that amounts to something pretty special — especially where side one is concerned.

The no bullshit drum intro to “Like a Rolling Stone” is classic Dylan, smashing the door in with a straight-to-business thud, and the record continues in kind. The opener’s a masterpiece. Not much I can add there. The guitar motif on “Tombstone Blues” is perfect. Thank god he went electric. The instrumentals are given some space to breathe between there and “Ballad of a Thin Man”, which is absolutely ghastly. I love it. Side one of Highway 61 Revisited is as good as it gets, frankly. Epiphanic and livid in equal measure, it’s like being bludgeoned with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by the man himself. Marvellous.

Side two doesn’t quite sustain that level, at times bordering even on pedestrian, but in the context of the album that works rather well. After the onslaught of the first 20 minutes, it’s nice to have some time to nurse one’s wounds. You get to “Desolation Row” which strips things back and plays the record off and it all winds up being a bit of a Journey. Bob Johnston’s production enables the sense of intimacy the music deserves; the sound is raucous, but always sat just behind Dylan. He speaks and the band shakes. It really is quite an exquisite balance.

You can hear the record's age, but the record isn’t old. Like Dylan himself, there’s something mythical about it, its plane high above any one time or place. He sings and we listen, the instrumentation hanging on his every word along with the rest of us. It’s one of those things that reassures you with how expressive and beautiful people are capable of being. (Or at least that Bob’s capable of being, and we of understanding.) One for the ages, and an endless pleasure.

Favourite tracks //

  1. Ballad of a Thin Man

  2. ­­Like a Rolling Stone

  3. ­­Tombstone Blues

9 /10

Andrew

Highway 61 Revisited manages to do a lot with seemingly little. At first glance, Bob Dylan uses simple chord structures, down to earth vocals and story-driven lyrics which puts him alongside an overwhelming sea of other artists. But what sets this album apart from a majority of other albums is the sheer character and hidden intricacy of the whole tracklist.

Front-loaded with a stonking opening combination, “Like a Rolling Stone” hollers and quivers out during its chorus, and instantly grabs the listeners attention with its memorable hook and some wonderful instrumentation across the board. “Tombstone Blues” is quite the opposite, cantering along for six minutes. Folksy without being twee, and poignant without being preachy, this is a track with substance that you can still have a lot of fun with. Songs like “Ballad of a Thin Man” and the title track of the album have similarly little for me to complain about, with more to enjoy each time I return. The former drapes a moody, smoky atmosphere across the mid-section of the album, while the latter spins and whirrs along the titular highway.

The few tracks that are less memorable are more than made up for by the rest, and where I initially felt as though all the best material was up front on side one, further listens have warmed me to the second side. I feel as though this is an album I want to start each Sunday with, with its laid-back tone lasting throughout its near hour play time. It’s been a pleasure to listen to Dylan’s characterful vocals and memorable hooks, and Highway 61 Revisited will certainly be going into my favourites list.

Favourite tracks //

  1. Like a Rolling Stone

  2. ­­Tombstone Blues

  3. ­­Ballad of a Thin Man

9 /10”.

On 30th August, Bob Dylan’s extraordinary masterpiece, Highway 61 Revisited, turns sixty. Its legacy is enormous. How pioneering the album was. I want to crib a bit from Wikipedia and what they have collated regarding the legacy of a 1965 work of genius: “Highway 61 Revisited has remained among the most highly acclaimed of Dylan's works. Biographer Anthony Scaduto praises its rich imagery, and describes it as "one of the most brilliant pop records ever made. As rock, it cuts through to the core of the music—a hard driving beat without frills, without self-consciousness." Michael Gray calls Highway 61 "revolutionary and stunning, not just for its energy and panache but in its vision: fusing radical, electrical music ... with lyrics that were light years ahead of anyone else's; Dylan here unites the force of blues-based rock'n'roll with the power of poetry. The whole rock culture, the whole post-Beatle pop-rock world, and so in an important sense the 1960s started here”. Few people in 1965 who heard Highway 61 Revisited would know where Dylan would head and how long he would continue! As it is, he went on to release thirty-four studio albums (and he is not done yet let’s hope!) and inspire musicians the world over…

SIXTY years later.

FEATURE: If Your Name’s (Not Yet) on the Guestlist… The Brilliant The Trouble Club, and Some Wonderful Women I’d Love to See

FEATURE:

 

 

If Your Name’s (Not Yet) on the Guestlist…

IN THIS PHOTO: The EURO-winning Lionesses captain and Arsenal player, Leah Williamson/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Chipper for Wonderland

 

The Brilliant The Trouble Club, and Some Wonderful Women I’d Love to See

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THIS is a fairly self-indulgent feature…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Trouble Club’s owner and CEO, Ellie Newton

as it is me, as a member of The Trouble Club, dreaming of guests I’d have on my wish-list. I will get to the usual housekeeping before moving on. I know I wrote about The Trouble Club last month. I imagine the next time I will cover them is close to December. Maybe a look back on a brilliant and memorable year. The club, owned by CEO (and queen) Ellie Newton, has a growing army of (mainly) women who turn up in force for events. Hosting events at a range of different-sized venues – from the larger Union Chapel to the small and cosy The Hearth -, the range of events and speakers hosted is incredible! From politicians and authors to entertainment figures and musicians, this is a club people need to seek out if they are not a member. Past events of recent weeks includes the brilliant Cally Beaton: Namaste Motherf*ckers, and A History of the World in Six Plagues with Edna Bonhomme. Future speakers include Tulisa Contostavlos, Marina Hyde, and Emily Maitlis. Such a pedigree of wonderful women! You can and should follow The Trouble Club on Twitter and Instagram. I know members are asked, when they join The Trouble Club, who they would like to see speak. I think I chose Margot Robbie. Maybe she is out of the budgetary reach and would need to be hosted at a massive venue given the potential demand! However, one of the ‘dream guests’ I am about to feature connects to Margot Robbie – and she is also a massive name. Even though a lot of Trouble Club members (unfortunately) suggest speakers who are dead – always a drawback! -, mine are very much alive!

I did previously suggest a few names I am not sure about. Gillian Anderson is great, though the recent controversy around the novel, The Salt Path (she starred in the film adaptation), might complicate things. Gisèle Pelicot and Greta Thunberg are women I would love to see speak. Also D.J. and broadcaster Lauren Laverne and actor Florence Pugh. However, I am sure that Ellie Newton and the brilliant people she works with at The Trouble Club – including Zea, Ella and Jen – have guests locked in and there are not many spaces free. This is just me imagining and thinking about who I would love to see – and why that is. The first name came to me made sports headlines over a week ago. She is the captain of the Lionesses’ UEFA Women's EURO-winning team. Actually, they not only retained the honour but are the first England football team ever to win a major tournament on foreign soil. Making me wonder why we give so much importance, attention and money to the men’s game when, no offence (or some…), they are comparatively underachieving, boring and overhyped! And I think the Lionesses are even finer role models. Leah Williamson would be a hugely popular Trouble guest. Someone inspiring so many girls and young women to get into football, she is an amazing player and advocate of the women’s game! I am going to bring in a recent interview with her. Such a positive idol for women and girls, she and her teammates made history and stole the nation’s hearts just over a week ago. Wonderland spoke with Leah Williamson back in May. I wanted to source some of that interview, just showing what an amazing and interesting person she is. D.J. and broadcaster Annie Macmanus (who would be another great Trouble Club guest) – also known as Annie Mac - spoke with a “Lifelong Gooner. Author. Activist. Jazz piano enthusiast. Certified girl crush”. The headline of the article continues: “At 28, The Lionesses’ Leah Williamson has captured the nation’s heart both on and off the pitch”:

“At Arsenal, the club she joined at nine through the Centre of Excellence, she’s become the heartbeat of their defence—and, at the time of writing, is preparing to face Barcelona in the Champions League Final. For England, the Lionesses’ Euros 2025 squad hasn’t been announced yet but we unofficially assume she’s not only in it, but will captain the team once again.

Off the pitch, her reach is just as commanding. An OBE for services to football. Five co-written children’s books. The first female England player to speak at the UN, where she addressed the Sustainable Development Goals Summit and called for gender equality in sport. A steady stream of charitable work.Leah Williamson hasn’t just captained the Pride of England—she’s become it. Did we mention she’s 28?And, to add to the list, she single-handedly got DJ, Author, Broadcaster and host of podcasts Changes and BBC podcast Sidetracked, Annie Mac, back into football. Leah’s influence, so far, has defied scientific explanation. But if there’s anyone to try and explain its effect, it’s Annie…

Annie Macmanus: I listened back to our Changes episode from summer 2023 and loved that conversation. You were recovering from your ACL injury and about to head to Australia with your mum and brother to watch the World Cup—your first time watching an international tournament instead of playing in one. You were reflective but also positive and focused on making the most of that time beyond football. Looking back, howwas that period for you?

Leah Williamson: Firstly, it genuinely saved my football career—in terms of reigniting something. When you’re young, you always think the big day will come, because you’ve got time. But the timing of my injury forced me to refocus and be more deliberate about everything, especially football. It put me in a much better place. Off the pitch, though—the things I didand the time I spent with people—I would never have had thatotherwise.

AM: How hard was the physical side of coming back? And afternine months out, is there fear that you won’t have your place on the team?

LW: One hundred percent. It’s not even a question—it’s a fact.Will I be able to play again? Am I still as valuable to the team?All of that. During my ACL injury, I had this phrase in my head:‘Enjoy the moments.’ So when I was close to returning—a sell-out at the Emirates against Man United—I threw myself a party with all my family and friends. I thought, why shouldn’t I celebrate this? It’s a big moment. And then I got injured again and didn’t make my return. Still had the party. It was difficult because everything kept breaking along the way. I tore my hamstring, irritated my other knee, tore a muscle in my hip that’s almost impossible to tear. Little things kept happening. So I’d say it wasn’t until September—and this all started in February—that I finally felt like there was nothing wrong with me anymore.

AM: And what about confidence? Beyond the physical side, how hard was it to regain the belief that you could still do it?

LW: That’s been the main struggle, and it’s still ongoing—there are still firsts to tick off. I love the phrase, ‘Faith and fear both have little evidence.’ It’s your choice which one to follow, but sometimes you lean too far one way. I’m trying to live in the present and trust my ability now, but without anything to go on, it’s hard. My brain works like, ‘Give me the info and I’ll act on it,’ and I had no data, no evidence, no memory—that’s what I struggled with.

AM: I know you said it’s ongoing, but is there a sense that the more you play there’s a sense of your body, your brain coming together and aligning with each other? Is it just practice? Is it just boots on the field?

LW: For a long time, it was that. It was, ‘I feel uncomfortable, but unless I do this next step, I’m not going to know.’ Just chasing that hope that with more game time and more minutes, it’ll figure itself out. But then you hit moments where you expect something of yourself and don’t quite deliver. Or the opposite—you go in thinking, ‘We’ll see what happens,’ and have a great game, and suddenly it’s, ‘I’m back!’ Then you hit a bit of a downer again. I think it is about playing and time, but also, like I said, you have to be more intentful. Instead of thinking, ‘I know what to do,’ you have to actually tell yourself, and then hope you can deliver when the time comes”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Munroe Bergdorf/PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Rossi for HUNGER

An activist and role model (and fashion model) for the trans community, Munroe Bergdorf is someone who I would love to hear speak for The Trouble Club. The English model and activist has walked several catwalks for brands including Gypsy Sport at both London and NYC Fashion Weeks. Munroe Bergdorf was also the first transgender model in the U.K. for L'Oréal, though she was dropped within weeks after a racial row. You can buy her amazing new book, Talk to Me, and also watch the documentary, Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf. I am going to drop in a recent interview with. I also suggest people check out her brilliant interview with former Trouble Club guest, Emma-Louise Boynton. Bergdorf recently spoke with Big Issue as to why we need to have the transgender conversation on a human level. She has been the recipient of abuse, violence and hatred for years. The transgender conversation is especially pressing given the heinous ruling by the Supreme Court that a woman is defined by sex and not gender. A ruling that not only thrilled transphobes like JK Rowling, but also will create less access and integration for transgender women. It will also lead to much more abuse, ostracisation and stigmatism:

“I mean, that was just the beginning, really,” she tells Big Issue. “Things have definitely got worse.”

Until 2015, Brussels-based advocacy group ILGA-Europe consistently ranked Britain as the most LGBTQ+ friendly country in Europe. Since then, we’ve plunged to 22nd place, named alongside Hungary and Georgia as countries with the biggest falls in rankings.

Public support is slipping too – only 64% of Britons described themselves as “not prejudiced” against transgender people in 2022, down from 82% just a year earlier.

As one of Britain’s most recognisable trans women, Munroe Bergdorf has had a front seat to this downward spiral.

“If you look back at when we were gaining visibility in 2015, public approval was good,” she reflects.

“People didn’t feel threatened by trans people, and they genuinely felt that trans people deserved equality and respect, and self-ID wasn’t a contentious issue because there was no reason for it to be.”

What changed? Bergdorf pauses.

“I think that homophobia never really went away,” she says. “The will to demonise queerness never really went away, and suddenly we have a very visible community that is visible enough to exploit, but small enough to not have to pander to for votes. I think all that hatred really got directed towards us at a time of convenience.”

At the same time, “anti-woke” has hardened into ideology. The political Overton window has shifted right.

“We do not believe in DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and that madness in any way at all,” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said last month. His party leads Labour in an increasing number of voting intention polls.

Section 28 all over again

But the past was no utopia either. When Bergdorf was growing up in 1990s Essex, she was “consistently bullied” for her effeminate mannerisms and mixed-race heritage.

“I was raised during Section 28 so I legally couldn’t talk to my teachers about my sexuality,” she recalls. “I felt embarrassed that I was being bullied, I hadn’t come out yet as queer. I had no one to talk to.”

Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1988, Section 28 barred schools and local authorities from “promoting homosexuality”, effectively cutting off support for queer youth. The law wasn’t repealed in England and Wales until 2003.

It’s so recent, I say. Surely, we should celebrate that progress?

“Well, I don’t know,” Bergdorf replies, “because Keir Starmer introducing the inability to speak about gender identity in schools is basically Section 28 all over again. So we definitely haven’t come that far.”

She’s referring to a 2024 Conservative proposal to ban educators from teaching the “contested view that gender identity is a spectrum”. Then-opposition leader Keir Starmer agreed he was “not in favour of ideology being taught in schools on gender”.

Legal protections are shifting too. In April, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of “woman” is based on biological sex, allowing authorities to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces – even those with a legal gender recognition certificate. Gender-critical campaigners called it a “win for common sense”. Trans activists condemned it.

“The judgment does not remove the legal protections trans people currently enjoy under the Equality Act,” a panel of United Nations experts said. “But it may be used to justify exclusionary policies that further stigmatise and marginalise an already vulnerable population.”

The guidance is a devastating blow for trans rights, Bergdorf says. “The EHRC guidance [the Equality and Human Rights Commission interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling] could function as segregation.

“Trans rights are very much a litmus test in what we will accept. And if we accept the segregation of trans people, we accept that they can be harassed, demonised and dehumanised, then we really condemn ourselves to that narrative.”

In this view, trans rights are a bellwether for other civil liberties. If discrimination against this tiny community is allowed to continue, Bergdorf argues, other rights, “say, gay marriage, or the right to not be discriminated against if you have an abortion, or the freedom of religious expression” could be next.

It’s a bleak picture; a parochial society governed by fear and hostility. We’re already seeing such a society take shape across the Atlantic. Despite everything, Munroe Bergdorf refuses to give up hope.

“A large swathe of the population can be forgiven,” she says: they are “misguided, not malicious”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Claudia Winkleman/PHOTO CREDIT: Channel 4/Nic Serpell-Rand

Three more guests that I would love to see at The Trouble Club some time down the line. If you have read down this far – and apologies to Ellie Newton if she is contacted by any of these people asking to be a guest (I am not sure if that would seem like pressuring her!) -, then I hope that you check out these amazing women. One reason I love The Trouble Club is that I get to hear stories and experiences from these varied, multitalented and engrossing women I would not normally have direct access to. If they are promoting a book or discussing their career, you go away emotional, affected, laughing or inspired – or sometimes all four! We have seen figures from T.V. and radio speak before. One that would be terrific is Claudia Winkleman. Host of The Traitors, co-host of Strictly Come Dancing (with Tess Daly), and this amazing broadcaster and intoxicating human being (and author of 2020’s Quite), this would be a popular and well-attended event. This interview from GRAZIA from the start of the year shows Winkleman in modest mood. Claiming that she is merely a “tiny orange woman” – she is, in fact, a national treasure! -, she is self-deprecating, funny and always compelling to listen to! She recently stood in for Graham Norton on his chat show for an episode, and I feel she is a natural talk show host. Someone who I could (and would love to) see acting in a show or film:

“She’s bowled over by The Traitors’ success. ‘We didn’t foresee this. We went to Scotland with the amazing people who make it and a pair of red fingerless gloves and gave it our best shot. I think people like it because the psychology is extraordinary – just watching people work out whether they’re being lied to. The dynamics feel addictive. I’m completely obsessed.’

Which doesn’t mean she’s figured out how to win, despite her privileged view. ‘I don’t think there’s a formula. I wish there were. Although, actually, I’m really pleased there isn’t, because then people would know how to win. I do think the power of persuasion is everything. I also think you have to have a lot of empathy.’

So you don’t have to be a bit of a sociopath? ‘I don’t like the narrative that Faithfuls are good and Traitors are bad,’ she insists. ‘I wouldn’t make anyone a Traitor who didn’t ask to be one. That would be unfair. The Traitors are just as lovely, and that’s what for me makes it so compelling. I really want the Faithfuls to find one, and I also really want the Traitors to get away with it.’ Is she still in touch with any of the former contestants? ‘All of them. Aubrey sent me a video only today of some windows that he helped dress. I can’t let them go. I feel very protective over them.’

She’s tight lipped about the celebrity version of The Traitors, slated to start filming this summer. ‘I feel so bad because we’ve bonded over the Hula Hoop,’ she wails. ‘I would really like to tell you everything, but I really mustn’t.’

People like The Traitors because the psychology is extraordinary. The dynamics are addictive.

Of all the things that might have come to pass from The Traitors, becoming a fashion influencer wasn’t on her bingo card. ‘I don’t understand what happened. I’m a 52-year-old woman who happens to like a fingerless glove. I’m a tiny orange lady, and my fringe is too long.’ If self-deprecation suits her, so too does her Traitors wardrobe, a chic melange of cosy coats and knits offset with tartan. ‘I’ve always loved big sweaters and winter clothes. I’m allergic to summer clothes. I never want to see a shoestring-strap top or an open-toe sandal. I don’t do barbecues. I never leave the house between April and September. Give me big tights, a heavy sweater and a Wellington.’

It sounds as though she and her stylist, Sinead McKeefry, have fun constructing her on-screen persona. ‘For Strictly, one year I was Anita Dobson. This year I was Demis Roussos, which is why I wore a lot of kaftans. For the first [series of ] Traitors, it was Princess Anne meets Ronnie Corbett meets someone who is going to a golf sale. For series two, we went a bit Sarah Brightman. It was a large mood board.’

Off-camera, she has a uniform. ‘I wear the same black Topshop jeans – they’re falling apart, but I refuse to give them up – with sweaters that I’ve had for 30 years, DMs and either an ancient long black coat or one of my son’s puffers.’ But not a lace-up DM. ‘No – a bulky Chelsea boot. Who’s got time for laces?’

Not Winkleman, who last year stepped back from her Radio 2 show to spend more time with her children – Jake, 21, Matilda, 18, and 13-year-old Arthur – whom she shares with her husband of 24 years, producer Kris Thykier. The hardest part of being a parent? ‘Them leaving,’ she says. Her eldest two are at university. ‘It’s horrendous. I don’t understand why they don’t have that in the baby books, along with all the advice about breastfeeding and how to steam a butternut squash. Why can’t there be a chapter saying, “You’re going to have these little puffins that you’ll love more than life – and then one day, they’re off.”’

Strictly recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, a fact she still finds hard to fathom. ‘I started presenting It Takes Two when my [eldest] son was one. I can’t believe I’ve been part of this amazing show for almost his entire life. How lucky am I to do Strictly, Traitors and The Piano?’ Suggest it’s talent as much as luck and she quickly refutes it. ‘That’s not faux self-deprecation. It’s the truth. I cannot believe how lucky I am and when it ends – and it’s got to be around the corner – I know that I’ve already had too long a run, so I’ll say, “Thank you so much and bye-bye.”’

Both she and her Strictly co-host Tess Daly are in their fifties, a fact that not so long ago would have precluded them from anchoring a primetime TV show. ‘I think it’s much better,’ she says of older women’s visibility on screen. ‘My bosses are all women, number one. And number two, I feel like there’s a home on telly for people who are older. But I would love to hear from people who disagree with me, because we need to hear those voices as well’”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Zoey Grossman for TIME

Two more guests I have on my dream Trouble Club guestlist, this name is perhaps ambitious. The one I said connected with Margot Robbie. A record-setting director and someone who has been Oscar-nominated as a director – never having won that honour, it is a ceremony that struggles in its sexism towards female directors -, Greta Gerwig would be one of the most popular speakers. She lives in New York but, even if she came to the U.K., could she be lured?! I do think she could speak at a venue like the Barbican Centre or Southbank Centre. I want to go back to an interview with Gerwig from last year. Barbie was released in 2023 and made over a billion dollars at the box office. Gerwig became the first female director to achieve that feat. A lot of eyes were on what she would do next. I believe she is directing a new Narnia film, so a continuation of huge-budget films rather than a return to the more independent-spirited films before (I mean, Little Women, Lady Bird and Frances Ha (my favourite film ever) had smaller budgets and cannot be considered big studio films or mainstream hits). One of TIME’s Women of the Year 2024, they spoke with Gerwig last February about the success of Barbie and what her next big swing will be:

“The success of Barbie means that Gerwig, 40, now has the rare latitude to write her own ticket in an increasingly risk-averse industry—a freedom that could have been immobilizing. But Narnia, Gerwig says, had been gestating for a long time; she’d written a draft before ever setting foot on the set of Barbie. “Knowing that I’d laid the groundwork for Narnia and wanted to return to it—that’s probably something I set up for myself psychologically,” she says. “Because I know the right thing, for me anyway, is to keep making movies. Whatever happens, good or bad, you’ve got to keep going.” Hollywood is still reeling from pandemic shutdowns, strikes, and layoffs, facing omnipresent pressure from Wall Street to turn ever higher profits; in a moment like this one, she feels fortunate to get to do what she loves. “It’s never not astonishing to me that somebody gives you money to make a movie,” she says.

Gerwig’s story is as much about commerce as it is about art: her films are humane, emotional, and playful; she is the only director in history to have their first three solo feature films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Yet her movies also clean up at the box office: her semi-autobiographical solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, grossed $79 million against a $10 million budget; her next, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved Little Women, was budgeted at $40 million and took in $231 million—both extraordinary returns on investment.

These commercial triumphs reflect how her work resonates in the culture, particularly among women and girls, whose emotional lives and ambitions Gerwig explores in her films. But to make her success about gender would be to diminish how her work also transcends its boundaries. “I always think about the intuitive way you love a song or a movie,” she says. “You love something, and you just love it. You don’t think to yourself, ‘I have to love this because it’s by a woman, for a woman.’ That’s part of it. But it’s not why you love it.” She pauses. “You love it because it’s great.”

I ask her whether the need to prove her command over this space is something women feel more deeply, for the exact reasons articulated in Ferrera’s now famous monologue: there’s an uneasy relationship between women and their ambition in a patriarchal society. “I don’t know if it’s gendered,” she says. “But I know I want to be able to make a body of work that feels like it’s undeniable in terms of the work itself. I don’t want there to be an asterisk next to my name. Do I have more of that than male filmmakers? I don’t know! I know plenty of deeply insecure male filmmakers who are plagued in their own ways.” (I resist the impulse to ask for their names.)

The question of sexism also haunted this year’s Oscar race. While Gerwig was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, she was shut out of the Best Director category, while Barbie’s lead and producer, Margot Robbie, was also excluded from Best Actress, despite being acclaimed for her nuanced, layered performance. Fans wondered: Might the movie, or its star, not look like the Academy’s picture of serious filmmaking?

“Of course I wanted it for Margot,” Gerwig says. “But I’m just happy we all get to be there together.” There’s also, she points out, ample accolades for the film at the Oscars. “A friend’s mom said to me, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t get nominated,’” she says, laughing. “I said, ‘But I did. I got an Oscar nomination.’ She was like, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful for you!’ I was like, ‘I know!’”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Michaela Coel/PHOTO CREDIT: Spencer Hewitt

To be fair, there are myriad other women I would also love to be a Trouble Club guest. Kate Nash, Samira Ahmed, CMAT, Naomi Campbell, Jenny Saville, Gloria Steinem (a previous Trouble guest) and so many more accomplished and phenomenal queens. However, the final of my five ‘dream guests’ inclusions is Michaela Coel. A hugely important actor writer and television director, 2020’s I May Destroy You is one of the most important, affecting and brilliant pieces of television that has been produced in the past couple of decades! Before getting to a 2023 interview with Coel, earlier this year, Interview Magazine paired Michaela Coel with Little Simz. Coel asking Simz about her new album, Lotus:

“COEL: We’ve got the same PR, but they didn’t know that we knew each other. [Laughs]

SIMZ: Really?

COEL: They said, “Would you like to interview Little Simz about her album? I think you met her at the GQ Awards last year in New York.” I said, “Excuse me madam, I’ve known this bitch 10 years. Yes, I’ll do it.” You seem stronger and more resolved, and firmly standing in who you are.

SIMZ: I’m really grateful to hear you say that, because when you’re in it sometimes, you don’t know. I feel it as well. Even though you’re always growing and whatnot, I just feel way more comfortable in my skin, you know?

COEL: Yeah. How does what you learned, and the unfortunate experiences that you’ve had regarding abuse within this industry—financial, emotional—how does it shape how you choose your collaborators going forward?

SIMZ: Damn, big question. I think if anything, it’s made me more open to working with different types of people. When you close yourself off and you’re in a cocoon, that’s when the fucked shit happens. It made me more excited to be able to share my gift. There’s so many talented people on the earth.

COEL: Yeah.

SIMZ: Not that I forgot that, but I maybe didn’t want to see it. If anything, it’s given me a newfound excitement, because what I found is by trying new things, it unlocked something in me that I didn’t know existed. It’s given me a newfound freedom to be a bit more experimental in my work. I felt like a child again. Again, going into situations, not one man up”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz/PHOTO CREDIT: Jackson Bowley

Soon to star in a BBC drama, First Day on Earth, I think we are going to see a lot more from Michaela Coel. Someone who would be an epic and hugely powerful Trouble Club guest. However, this again is just me promoting the club and its work rather than trying to manifest anything! I will end with a 2023 interview with Michaela Coel from Harper’s Bazaar. As we see written near the top of the interview, Michaela Coel’s “openness, authenticity and a spirit of experimentation have been key to unlocking her creativity”:

“Visibility, therefore, is important to her. Coel is a pioneer in many ways, having worked up to a position where she can be seen and heard; she was the first Black person for five years to attend the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and the first Black woman – and only the fourth woman in its 42-year history – to give the Mac-Taggart lecture (previous speakers include Rupert Murdoch and Jeremy Paxman).

"It’s 'seeing to believe'," she says firmly. "When I was growing up, I never saw a picture of a Black woman sitting in a director’s chair. I didn’t know that was something that we could do, so it almost wasn’t something that I wished for. I just kind of stumbled here."

PHOTO CREDIT: Josh Sinner

Coel’s creative journey has been defined by a strong sense of self rather than premeditation. Given her stratospheric success, it’s reassuring to hear that at each moment in her career, she never imagined an audience bigger than the one that was before her. "I’ve been writing for 16 years," she explains. "At no point did I ever think ahead, when I was writing poetry in my car or turning up at theatres doing open-mic nights for 50 quid – and that was only if you won. The most important thing is your relationship with your creativity. That can be difficult to nurture in a world that is very into things like social comparison, but I see it as crucial to encourage people to focus on what’s in front of them."

This spring, Coel is helping to launch the BMW Filmmaking Challenge in partnership with the British Film Institute. She will mentor five shortlisted filmmakers, who will each receive a £10,000 production budget and access to cutting-edge technology to make their project. The winner will have a red-carpet premiere at the London Film Festival in October, and the shortlisted entries will be screened.

Coel sees this an opportunity to reach as many communities as possible, and to give writers creative space to take risks. "I want to impart that it’s OK to get it wrong, it’s OK to mess it up," she says. "And we should be allowed that space”.

I know that Trouble Club members all have their ideas of who they would love to see speak. However, the guests that are confirmed and have passed are all simply incredible! It is credit to Ellie Newton and her passion for The Trouble Club that means it continues to grow and recruit members. Always a pleasure and experience being in the room with so many brilliant women (and a few men). I will revisit The Trouble Club for the final time this year in a few months but, for now, I am thinking and looking ahead to who might appear for The Trouble Club as we head…

TOWARDS 2026.

FEATURE: The Gaps Between the Tracks: Why the Incredible Series, Mix Tape, Resonated Strongly with Me

FEATURE:

 

 

The Gaps Between the Tracks

 

Why the Incredible Series, Mix Tape, Resonated Strongly with Me

__________

THERE is a lot to unpack…

IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Hunt and Rory Walton-Smith as teenage Alison and Dan in the miniseries, Mix Tape/PHOTO CREDIT: Cáit Fahy

when it comes to Mix Tape. A new series that is available on the BBC iPlayer. It is an adaptation of the book by Jane Sanderson. I will drop in a positive review for the four-part series. I sort of stumbled upon it. I had heard of the series and there was talk of it. As its title instantly connects with music and something oldskool and maybe something the digital generation cannot understand or appreciation, I dived in. I was born in 1983, so mixtapes and cassettes were a natural part of my childhood and teenage years. I will come to that. There are so many things to recommend about the series. The writing and direction is wonderful. The narrative spans from the late-1970s and early-1980s in Sheffield to the early-2010s in Australia (and Sheffield). The story follows the characters of Daniel and Alison as they reconnect through social media after initially connecting over music during their youth in Sheffield. I think maybe the modern-day scenes are more up-to-date and set around now, though I may be wrong. In any case, we flash between the young Daniel and Alison as they are in school and embarking on this teenage romance. Bonding through their love of music, they exchange cassettes, vinyl and talk about their favourite music. Discussion about which is the best The Velvet Underground song. An early moment where Alison is stopped in her tracks listening to Nick Drake’s Northern Sky. It is very emotional and evocative. The power of music and experiencing it in physical form. Even though the adult Daniel shares albums via Spotify with Alison as they reconnect and he travels to Sydney to see her after all these years, most of the music is played through headphones, stereos or in a rather traditional and physical way. The actual feel of physical music is why the series and music  pops and sticks long in the heart. Here is every song that is included throughout the series. I will end with a digital mixtape of all but one of the Mix Tape tracks (as it was not available on Spotify).

IN THIS PHOTO: Teresa Palmer as Alison/PHOTO CREDIT: Joel Pratley

The entire cast is terrific! The adult Daniel is played by Jim Sturgess. The adult Alison by Teresa Palmer. Even though she has an Australian accent now – rather than her childhood Sheffield accent; her hair is now blonde and not brunette -, the two pick up where they left off. After having conversations around why she left Sheffield and what happened. The two are incredible and have this amazing chemistry. The end, though it has some rom-com cliches, is moving and tear-jerking. You will these two to get together again following the dissolution and strain of their troubled marriages. The teenage Daniel is portrayed by Rory Walton-Smith. An actor I had not heard of, I feel he has the look and talent to portray musicians like Alex Turner (Artic Monkeys are played in the series). If there is a Beatles biopic of the young Paul McCartney, Walton-Smith would seem like a natural fit! Kudos also to Sara Soulié as Katja. Daniel’s wife, the Finnish-Danish actor is superb as someone living with the jealousy and suspicion of her husband getting too close to an old love - and balancing that with her ambitions and happiness. The standout to me is Florence Hunt, who is going to ne a massive success! Not to compare her to her namesake Florence Pugh, but I do see Hunt taking on simar roles and having that success. Some of her scenes are particularly harrowing (including a rape scene), yet she handles the role and conveys the multiple emotions and nuance superbly. You can tell her and Rory Walton-Smith instantly clicked as their bond and romance seems convincing and right. They gel really well. Florence Hunt has appeared on Bridgeton and will appear in the forthcoming Queen of the Sea. Only eighteen, she is a remarkable talent who I can see in blockbuster films, Indie classics and maybe, and I am not sure how her singing voice is, recording music. Someone who inhabits the warmth, compassion and strains of Alison without any flaws. Teresa Palmer is also perfect in that sense as the adult Alison despite the fact that (obviously) the two actors playing Alison never share any screentime.

If some reviewers felt Mix Tape had some plot holes or there was too many rom-com cliches and overused beats, one cannot fault the performances, the phenomenal soundtrack and the fact that the perfect flashbacks are blended seamlessly with the ‘foreground’. Switching between decades-past Sheffield and the contemporary landscape, it is never jarring. Stories and characters giving equal weight and attention. This is what The Guardian wrote in their review from June. Even though I am nearly a couple of months late to the Mix Tape party, I only completed watching it on Saturday (2nd August) and I was compelled to write something – moved as I was by the very end:

“The question “will they or won’t they?” permeates many romantic stories, and it is almost always answered with “they do eventually”. In the four-part Irish-Australian drama Mix Tape, that evergreen question is still there, more or less, but it has been deepened and expanded in interesting ways. It’s not really about whether Alison and Dan will get together because we know they already did – one of the show’s two distinctly different timelines follows them as lovestruck teenagers in the 1980s.

But the other timeline, set in the present day, reveals Alison and Dan went their separate ways and haven’t seen each other for many years. There’s the possibility they might get back together, despite each being married with children to other people. But for me, it was more interesting to contemplate whether either of them could finally find healing and closure for their deeply unresolved feelings. The past is a lonely place, as they say, and it has left big sandbags weighing down their minds.

Which all sounds rather heavy. But this series – directed by Lucy Gaffy and written by Jo Spain, adapting Jane Sanderson’s novel of the same name – is staged with lightness of touch and is a real pleasure to watch. At its core are four beautifully judged performances: from Teresa Palmer and Jim Sturgess as adult Alison and Dan in the present day, and Florence Hunt and Rory Walton-Smith as their younger selves. The latter convey giddy, intoxicating young love while the former are more plaintive and yearning.

IN THIS PHOTO: Jim Sturgess plays the older Daniel in Mix Tape/PHOTO CREDIT: Leanne Sullivan

As adults, Dan is a Sheffield-based music journalist while Alison is a bestselling novelist living in Australia. When a radio interviewer inquires about her upbringing in Sheffield, she gently infers she’d rather talk about something else. The script is full of small but salient moments like these, fleshing out the characters’ lives and emotions without dumbing things down or applying highlighter pen.

We’re introduced to the leads at a house party in Sheffield in 1989, when young Dan spots Alison from across the room. They get to know each other partly by swapping mix tapes, which of course enables plenty of needle drops (think Joy Division, the Cure, New Order). I initially feared a cheesy “soundtrack of love” element, but Gaffy strikes a good balance: sweet but never cloying. The characters’ intense connection is tempered by the knowledge they’ll ultimately split, the circumstances gradually revealed.

When Dan sends Alison a friend request years later, we can tell by the look on her face that it’s welcomed. Visually conveying this kind of emotional information isn’t easy, though it helps to have complex and enigmatic eyes like Teresa Palmer, who is very good at saying a lot with a little. She often plays roles that require her to balance relatability with concealed depths, such as the recent miniseries The Last Anniversary, Disney+’s cult-themed drama The Clearing and Cate Shortland’s kidnap movie Berlin Syndrome. Sturgess is excellent too as Dan, a man who seems to be constantly running things over in his mind, haunted by gaps in his life that might never be filled.

The terms “flashback” and “flashforward” feel too sharp and simple for Mix Tape. The jumps back and forward in time are more like joins, feeling fluid and instinctual; props to editors Katrina Barker and Christine Cheung. The trick – also demonstrated recently in Justin Kurzel’s psychologically complex series The Narrow Road to the Deep North – is to make each timeline feel both independent and interconnected: satisfying on their own terms, but also inseparable.

I was moved by both story strands in Mix Tape, which really do feel like two sides of the same coin. At four episodes of roughly one hour apiece, the runtime felt just right: more than enough to truly get to know these people. I left wishing the best for them”.

Although the story of Alison and Daniel coming together and then being pulled apart by family tragedy and unfortunate circumstances and then coming back together later in life is not something I can relate to, some of it did resonate. I remember bonding with someone very special when I was a child and it would be a case of us and friends very much sharing music and discussing artists. Our lives have gone different ways, and I often think about meeting up and connect with her. It would not be the same as it is was, though Mix Tape did take me back to my childhood of the 1980s and 1990s. I recently wrote a feature bemoaning the lack of needle drop moments in film. Maybe it is the cost of licensing songs and getting clearance that means songs are often briefly used or in the background. Mix Tape could not have worked on the small screen if artists whose songs were used charged a huge amount for their use (I guess T.V. shows do not really make money, so it would be unreasonable to ask for a lot of money!). Even though there are not some Quentin Tarantino-type needle drops through Mix Tapes, the songs are used to great effect. Stirring emotions, scoring incredible scenes and, in the case of Nick Drake and The Velvet Underground, integral to the bond and connection between Alison and Daniel. Songs that drive the story forward. The heavy use of diegetic music is very effecting and powerful. I was brought back to my childhood and how music, especially physical music, was so vital. Swapping albums and sharing headphones. Despite growing up further south than Sheffield, a lot of what was including ion Mix Tape I could identify with. I would encourage everyone to catch the series and binge it in one go!

It got me thinking beyond that. I know there was a 2021 film called Mixtape, so this idea of using mixtapes and music integrally in films and having the soundtrack being front and centre is not new. I don’t think it is retro or unrelatable. There is also a 2011 short called Mixtape. So the title and landscape is well covered. However, the stories and songs are different in each. I have always wanted to put together a film like Mix Tape. Obviously, the title would be different, though it would look at two people who knew one another that are in different places. Two sides of the world. Both sides of the cassette. Some genuinely great needle drop moments, including one where the lead in headphones is captured in a one shot walking through the streets or Camden or New York – I could not decide between the two –, and there is this ‘street symphony’. Songs played in cars and shops that builds in the streets blend and creates this rise. They go into the main character’s headphones, and the action in that opening sequence match the lyrics. I sort of see the film poster of someone on a train as a light is reflecting and projects an album cover (maybe Abbey Road or London Calling) opposite to give the illusion they are actually in the album cover! Maybe more practical and affordable as a T.V. series. However, today, when I was in Camden and thinking about Mix Tape, I encountered that moment walking down the street and different stalls and shops blasting music out (including Bob Marley). For me, in terms of setting, maybe the '90s is appropriate. A decade that has been covered a lot in terms of the music of that time used on screen, the soundtrack and the story would be different and original.

I was listening to Oasis a lot whilst in Camden and great memories came flooding back of my hearing Champagne Supernova and Live Forever for the first time – from their debut album, 1994’s Definitely Maybe and the 1995 follow-up, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, respectively. Roll with It, the second single from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, turns thirty on 14th August. That song went up (and lost to) Blur’s Country House in the Bitpop battle of 1995. As much as anything, I don’t think there are a huge amount of T.V. shows and films where music is integral. Maybe it is the cost of clearing songs, though Mix Tape has a packed soundtrack where huge artists like The Cure and The Stone Roses feature. I guess bands like Oasis or Blur might charge more. However, these songs capture the times more than anything else. I think people can access forgotten memories through music in a very powerful and emotional way. It makes me want to put together my own series like Mix Tape. Inspired by the fantastic cast – especially the exceptional future icon Florence Hunt (who I would love to work with but will be getting a lot of massive offers very soon!) -, I have not been as affected by a recent series as much as that in recent years. Please do go and check it out if you have not watched it already. Even though Mix Tape is a literary adaptation and not an original idea for T.V., it does justice to Jane Sanderson’s words. I do feel that we will see more ideas like this coming to the screen. Compelled and hugely motivated writers and directors will soon be…

FOLLOWING Mix Tape’s lead.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Girls Don’t Sync

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Girls Don’t Sync

__________

I am long overdue…

spotlighting the remarkable and empowering Girls Don’t Sync. In terms of who they are and why they are so incredible, they “are an all-female group of DJs, producers and curators who are bringing much needed inclusivity and energy to underrepresented dancefloors worldwide. Matty Chiabi, Sophia Violet, Hannah Lynch and G33 came together to form Girls Don’t Sync in summer 2021, and exploded onto the scene soon after with one of the most-watched Mixmag Lab’s of the year. Their fresh take on UKG, house and bass has made them a must-see act at the likes of Glastonbury, Boomtown, Parklife, Lost & Found and many more this year, winning fans around the world for their boundless energy and the unforgettable atmosphere they create with each performance. In an era of feminine resurgence, Girls Don’t Sync are inspiring a new generation of dance music fans and becoming leaders of their scene”. Their latest track, Come Get Dis, is so incredible. I have been listening to it a lot. If you want to go and see them, here is where you can find them. They play the Reading & Leeds Festival on 21st August. Girls Don’t Sync is a Liverpool-formed collective that expanded into London. The phenomneal Matty Chiabi, G33, Sophia Violet, and Hannah Lynch should be on your radar. I am going to start out with a DJ Mag interview with Girls Don’t Sync from last year:

“Girls Don’t Sync have evolved at warp-speed over the past two years, compelled by a grounding ambition to embody the change they want to see in the world of dance music. The roots of the collective were established in promoting and self-funding their own events across Liverpool, elevating DJs and artists who were otherwise underrepresented; now, Matty Chiabi, Gaia Ahuja, Sophia Violet and Hannah Lynch are world-builders. Theirs is a community where your troubles get lost in the mix, where mentorship, confidence, good times and even better tunes are top of the bill.

“Infectious” is the word that orbits their performances, which have been demanded not only by UK strongholds such as Glastonbury, Boomtown and The Warehouse Project, but on an international scale across Europe. These four best friends pour drinks for their audience, make a point of connecting with people beyond the decks, chatting and sharing a dance, and in the case of their DJ Mag HQ performance last year, literally fall to their knees with the thrill of hearing the tricks in each other’s mixes. Girls Don’t Sync give the impression that they aren’t looking for fans, but friends; they don’t put on shows, but parties.

We catch the collective in the afterglow of their headline performance at KOKO, the iconic venue in Camden that has welcomed era-defining artists from Amy Winehouse to Prince. Not only did it sell out, being the fastest-selling event Girls Don’t Sync (GDS) have thrown so far, but it was also one of the most in-demand performances at the venue throughout 2023. To celebrate, they shared some extra treats, including surprise sets from a host of friends like p-rallel and Saint Ludo, and unveiling their original material for the first time (set to be released later in 2024). It was a night that saw their ambitions align with reality”.

The four DJs play B2B sets, each one unleashing a distinct flavour that is unique to their musical DNA. “We never practise together,” notes Hannah. “We all have surprises for each other because we have no idea what each other is gonna play — but that’s where the power has always been with us as a group because we don’t rehearse it. It’s all about living in the moment and bouncing off each other’s energy.”

While Matty gravitates towards UK funky, hard drum tracks and Afrobeats, Gaia pays homage to her London roots and South Asian heritage with a collision of grime and Arabic instrumentals. You’ll catch Sophia tapping into hard house and a lineage of rave classics viewed through a European lens, and Hannah is something of a musical excavator, surprising the others with the deep-cut edits and remixes which have led to their biggest moments.

“We’ve all got our own superpower,” says Gaia. “Obviously we share music, we talk about music, but there’s a moment before a set where I’ll say to Matty, ‘I’ve got a song I want to show you’, and I’m not only showing it to her, but thousands of people in that very moment. Even off the back of our DJ Mag stream, those reactions we have to each other are completely real because I don’t know what anyone is going to play. It’s all an element of surprise and inspiring reaction, and that’s what makes us so special.”

Each of the GDS DJs give their time to mentorship and nurturing talent. After being gifted a DJing course for her birthday, Gaia reached out to Hannah — the only female DJ in Liverpool she knew of — asking if she could shadow her, and together they began hosting workshops at their local community centre. Now, GDS has their sights set on expanding the educational element of the collective into a scholarship or a developing free workshop on a larger scale with no barrier for entry”.

Girls Don’t Sync have always been more than a D.J. collective. They are a movement. Going beyond the music, they are brining people together with their inclusive music. They talked about Fourmation Records and championing communities through their records when interviewed by Beatportal last year:

“Surprising the Dancefloor

At its heart, "Come Thru" is designed for the dancefloor—a track that keeps ravers on their toes and invites everyone to share in its energy. Matty highlights the intentionality behind its structure: “The breakdown followed by the 90s pianos creates this euphoric moment. It slows down, pulls people in, and then surprises them by bringing everything back with even more intensity. Those moments of togetherness on the dancefloor are what we live for.”

The track’s infectious vibe comes from its universal appeal. “It’s a song about connection and joy,” adds Matty. “No matter your musical background, we want everyone to feel that invitation to ‘Come Thru,’ to let go and enjoy the moment together.”

A Label, a Tour, and a Mission

The release of "Come Thru" marks a pivotal moment for Girls Don’t Sync. Not only does it debut their original sound, but it also launches their label, Fourmation Records, and kicks off their highly anticipated UK tour. For Sophia, the timing couldn’t be more special. “Launching the label and hitting the road at the same time felt like the perfect way to connect with fans. We’re excited to bring ‘Come Thru’ to life on stage and to share what we’ve been working on with new and familiar faces.”

Touring also gives GDS a chance to spotlight the wider DJ and producer community. “Curating our lineups has been a highlight,” shares Hannah. “We’ve been able to book DJs who inspire us and give a platform to emerging talent who are integral to the scene. It’s a full-circle moment to see those we admire sharing a stage with us.”

Championing Community Through Music

For GDS, community isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the foundation of everything they do. “Our music is about bringing people together,” Gaia explains. “Whether it’s through shared passions, experiences, or values, we want our sets to feel like safe spaces where everyone can let go and have fun.”

The group also recognizes their role in challenging barriers and supporting marginalized voices within the music industry. “We’ve faced challenges, and we know many others in our community have too,” Gaia continues. “But those shared struggles are what unite us and inspire us to keep pushing for representation and inclusivity.”

This sense of togetherness extends beyond their fanbase to their peers in the DJ and producer world. “We’ve built such strong relationships with like-minded artists over the years,” says Gaia. “There’s a real collective sense of respect and celebration within the scene, and that energy fuels what we do”.

I am going to wrap up with a recent interview that Girls Don’t Sync did with Wonderland. Well, as it was around the time of the release of their single, Our House, the four-piece penned an essay about nightlife. There are sections that I want to bring in here:

“Girls Don’t Sync are reshaping expectations and lighting fires of euphoria. The Liverpool-formed four-piece are part girl-group, part collective, all impeccable vibes, getting dance floors moving across the globe, with sets at Glastonbury, Parklife and a residency at Ibiza’s Amnesia all forthcoming this summer.

At a pinnacle in their career so far — releasing a new celebratory, well-crafted single “Our House” via their own label FOURMATION — the girls are reflective of their journey. Nightlife in the UK and across the world has taken a massive hit in the years post the pandemic, with young people’s relationship to partying quickly evolving. As a vital voice for inclusion, diversity, education and moral-led hedonism, everything that Girls Don’t Sync do feels grounded in improving the scene around them, supporting their community and raising awareness.

To shine a light on their own experiences, offer observation on the ever-changing world around them, and give advice on a plethora of personal issues, Girls Don’t Sync share with Wonderland a heartfelt and deeply resonant essay — read exclusively below.

People like Eric Gooden, who runs District, (where we held our first GDS event), gave four girls trying to drive change, celebrate diversity, and champion a new wave of artists a real chance. District is one of the only Black-owned venues in Liverpool, and has always been more than just a music space; it’s a cultural hub that’s fostered community and creativity across generations for years. Being part of that ecosystem felt powerful, especially so early on in our career, it will always be a reminder of how vital these spaces are to the landscape of club culture. Without venues like District, the next generation of DJs, promoters, and music lovers lose a place to connect, grow, and find their voice. As we began playing out as a group, we naturally gravitated to these venues rooted in the underground; Meraki, Hidden, Motion, and Old Red Bus Station, spaces that played a key role in our growth,  and whose recent closures are a stark reminder of how much the scene still needs protecting.

We can’t ignore the bigger issue: our government must urgently recognise and protect a vital part of our culture, not just overlooked, but actively being dismantled. Funding cuts have devastated the arts sector, galleries, museums, and beyond and to us, grassroots clubs are just as crucial. We believe they should also be acknowledged as fundamental and essential cultural landmarks where passions ignite, identities form, spanning generations and communities, and careers are launched across the UK. It’s the ravers, the staff, the artists, and the relentless energy, DIY ethos and commitment that keep this culture alive. It is a given that clubs are undeniable cornerstones of culture and community but they also fuel our economy, a £36 billion industry as well as supporting over 425,000 jobs every year. Yet, in the last decade, more than half of the UK’s grassroots clubs have shut down… and the future of British music and culture is under serious threat.

In acknowledging the void that has been left in the nightlife industry, the question we have to ask ourselves is, “what is the solution?” We’ve seen people unite, raising their voices and galvanising their efforts both online and offline to defend these spaces. Take the facts and figures presented by NTIAs Night Time Economy Report or the introduction of London’s first ever Nightlife Taskforce; these new and very practical steps certainly provide us with a huge glimmer of hope for the future.

As artists, we believe we have a responsibility to protect nightlife in whatever ways we can. It’s more than a job, it’s our livelihood, our escape, our connection to community. That’s why we feel so strongly about supporting the spaces that shaped us. We have the power to create demand, to direct audiences, and to uplift grassroots venues and collectives from the ground up. And while these shows might not bring the same money as a big festival, what they offer in culture, energy and connection is unmatched”.

An incredible collective who continue to grow and are bringing so much togetherness and joy through their music, ethos and record label, I wonder if an E.P. or album will be coming this year or next perhaps, as there will be demand. I absolutely love everything about them and feel they are such an important and powerful voice(s) for good. Make sure you follow them and show support! Go catch them play if you are nearby. These four incredible women are a phenomenal D.J. collective but there is much more to them than that. It is clear they are going to be releasing incredible music and making changes in the world for…

MANY years more.

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FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Nine: Under Ice

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

 

Nine: Under Ice

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MOVING through Hounds of Love…

as we look ahead to its fortieth anniversary on 16th September, we have reached the majestic The Ninth Wave. Discussing the tracks in order, I am now to Under Ice. After And Dream of Sheep and its yearning for sleep. A woman adrift at sea after going overboard on a boat/ship, from the dreams of sleep and counting sheep, she is now struggling under ice. Maybe pulled under in the cold water, it is one of the most terrifying songs on the album. Up there with Waking the Witch. Suspenseful and tense, there is not a lot written about it. I will come to, as I am with all songs on the album, Leah Kardos’s fantastic 33 1/3 Hounds of Love book. At 2:21, it is the shortest song on the album. Before getting to Leah Kardos’s words – I think her section on Under Ice is the shortest when it comes to the songs -, there is a little bit of background. Another crucial track, from the potential struggle and terror of And Dream of Sheep, this is a very real and urgent song where the heroine might have fallen asleep or has been dragged beneath the water. However, there is not that sense of manic in the music. Not like Waking the Witch. Multitracked vocals (from Kate Bush) imploring the woman to get out of the cold and to safety, there are not a lot of musical components. It is the vocals that particularly resonate. I will comes to the lyrics of the song, as they are especially standout. Kate Bush performed this song – as part of The Ninth Wave – during her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. I have included the audio for that at the end of the feature.

However, I will come to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia and their interview archive, where Kate Bush spoke about one of The Ninth Wave’s most important songs. If you have not heard the song then you really need to now. It is so powerful and spinetingling:

“It was very much the idea of going from very cold water, it’s getting dark, you’re alone, the only way out is to go to sleep, no responsibilities, and forget about everything; but if you go to sleep, the chances are you could rool over in the water and drown. So you’re trying to fight sleep, but you can’t help it, and you hit the dream. The idea of the dream being really cold, and really the visual expectancy of total loneliness, and for me that was a completely frozen river, no-one around, everything completely covered with snow and icicles, and it’s that person all alone in this absolute cold wilderness of white, and seeing themselves under the ice, drowning, to which they wake up and find themselves under the water.

Kate Bush in an Interview by Tony Myatt at the 1985 Kate Bush Convention

This was all kinda coming together by itself, I didn’t have much to do with this, I just sat down and wrote this little tune on the Fairlight with the cello sound. And it sounded very operatic and I thought “well, great” because it, you know, it conjured up the image of ice and was really simple to record. I mean we did the whole thing in a day, I guess. (…) Again it’s very lonely, it’s terribly lonely, they’re all alone on like this frozen lake. And at the end of it, it’s the idea of seeing themselves under the ice in the river, so I mean we’re talking real nightmare stuff here. And at this point, when they say, you know, “my god, it’s me,” you know, “it’s me under the ice. Ahhhh” [laughs]

Richard Skinner, ‘Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992”.

I like how her brother Paddy Bush is on harmonic vocals. It is this familial voice maybe urging his sister to be safe. Bush’s family does feature throughout The Ninth Wave. Under Ice is a track that many people do not know. I am going to source almost all of what Leah Kardos writes about this song. We head down to the “cold atmosphere of A minor”. I hear this song and think of her 2011 album, 50 Words for Snow. That is an album all about the cold and wintery vibes. If Mother Stands for Comfort is the standout on the first side of Hounds of Love because it is cold and skeletal compared to the much warmer and fuller songs around it, Under Ice might be its companion piece on The Ninth Wave. Leah Kardos observes, interestingly, how Under Ice’s “lean arrangement…consists of three layers of Fairlight (all using the TRAMCHLO preset that featured all over side A). One layer is a bass octave, poking rhythmically on the root notes; above it, a nervy staccato theme on parallel 5ths and behind it, a Fairlight pad that holds an A (sus2) shape throughout”. I was fascinated to learn (and I did not know this) that Under Ice might be unique because it is a thought-composed song. Meaning there are no repeating parts. The track is “one continuous unfolding movement from start to end”. The strings that stab and are a staccato joy – composed on the Fairlight and not real players – have similarities with those on Cloudbusting. Parallels and connections between songs on side A and The Ninth Wave. “Bush sings in sync with the parallel 5th Fairlight part, with accented rhythms in groups of three and two (‘won-der-ful’ … ‘ev- ‘ry-where … ‘so-o’ … ‘whi-ite’). Under Ice has this sense of disorientation and something almost witch-like. A spirit coming to the heroine. Maybe something lurking under the water!

Leah Kardos remarks on the lyrics. Noting how the lyrics paint something wonderful and safe, “but the music and sound design tell us different, with the bleak texture backdropped by the vague sounds of threatening wind and weather Bush’s voice is deep, tremulous and severe. Then a different voice – gentle, elongated, untethered from the stabbing Fairlight motif – describes the scene; a frozen river, no one else around, they’re skating fast across the ice”. Whereas one might listen to Under Ice and think that this sound and figure under the ice is a spirit or vision, the heroine actually realises it is her. “As she cries, It’s meee! Ohh!’, her voice reaches up high, only to slide slowly down as the pulse slackens to a stop, leaving the Fairlight pad shivering in the wind”. Kardos commends Bush’s production skill and instinct because Under Ice is terrifying and immersive without loading layers of instruments and ideas. The “Incidental sonic flourishes heighten the cinematic effect”, as she writes. Paddy Bush’s harmonic vocals are on the final drone. Sampled in the Fairlight. Under Ice has fewer words than nearly any other Kate Bush song. Split into that almost positive and hopeful section, before we get to the second section, where the struggling woman understands what is trapped beneath the ice is actually her. I love the first section: “It’s wonderful/Everywhere, so white/The/river has frozen over/Not a soul on the ice/Only me skating fast/I’m speeding past trees/Leaving little lines in the ice/Splitting, splitting sound/Silver heels spitting, spitting snow”. The second of seven songs on The Ninth Wave, it is the first moment when you fear the woman on the ocean is genuinely in danger of dying. Waking the Witch is the extension and companion piece. It is voices of her friends and family trying to wake her. Whether exhausted from her icy struggle or actually dying, these are her final dreams. The song is busier and faster. An urgency that you do not get from Under Ice. A remarkable song that creates genuine chills and shivers with very few elements and words, Under Ice is…

A mini masterpiece.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: The Last Dinner Party

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachell Smith for Rolling Stone UK

The Last Dinner Party

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I have featured The Last Dinner Party…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Last Dinner Party backstage on day four at Lollapalooza on Sunday, 4th August, 2024 at Grant Park in Chicago, IL/PHOTO CREDIT: Barry Brecheisen

a few times on my blog. Their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, arrived last year. It won a slew of positive critical reviews and saw the group nominated for the Mercury Prize. Consisting of of Abigail Morris, Lizzie Mayland, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies and Aurora Nishevci, the band have this incredible chemistry and connection. I am looking ahead to their second studio album, From the Pyre, which is due on 17th October. They have said in an interview how this new album is more character-driven and a bit darker than their debut. It will be interesting to see what comes out. Because I feel they are incredible influential and empowering so many women and female artists, I am going to explore The Last Dinner Party in more depth. Specifically, I am including a couple of recent interviews with them. So that you can get a sense of where they are now and what we can expect with From the Pyre. Before getting to a new interview from Rolling Stone UK, I want to head back to last year and an interview from earlier this year first. I am starting out with an interview from The Guardian from last summer. The Last Dinner Party spoke about misogyny, maximalism and making it big:

“From the beginning, the music and aesthetics “came hand in hand”, says Morris. Regular gig-goers themselves, they aspired to generate a sense of occasion and community. “Being in a room of people jumping around, having a great time – that’s what we wanted to create,” says Mayland.

Although they were rehearsing throughout 2021, they didn’t pursue gigs until pandemic restrictions had been lifted fully. “We didn’t want people to be sitting down,” says Morris. “From the beginning, we were taking it so seriously.” They even staged a photoshoot to launch their Instagram account, styling themselves and roping in friends to dress the set and photograph them. Ironically, those images were later held up as evidence that the band was cynically assembled by Island Records, the label to which they had signed. “‘Their first shoot clearly shows loads of money; they’re obviously industry plants,’” Morris laughs, recalling one comment. “But we did that all ourselves.”

The charge dogged TLDP through their early press. I’m not sure myself what an “industry plant” actually is, I admit. “I don’t think anyone is,” says Davies. “There’s no definition. It’s typically just young women who are successful.”

The criticism conflates investment with inauthenticity, she complains. “The Beatles were industry plants. If that’s your definition – ‘the industry helps you’ – then every single artist who’s been aligned with a record label is the same.” I recall Lorde and Billie Eilish – both teenagers when their music was discovered – being tarred with that brush. “Hmm!” Morris cuts in, with her formidable comic timing. “I’m noticing a trend!”

More recently, the criticism has given way to acclaim. Prelude to Ecstasy became the bestselling British debut album by a band since Years and Years’ Communion, in 2015, and received rave reviews. That itself has been “disturbing”, says Morris: “The impostor syndrome sets in – and the confusion.” She doesn’t want to come across as churlish, or disrespectful of fans, she adds. But “when you’re told one thing over and over, it loses the significance and sincerity”.

How has the band learned to protect themselves? “TBD [to be determined],” quips Nishevci, to raucous laughter and rapid‑fire suggestions. “Therapy,” says Roberts in an undertone. “Stop reading comments,” says Mayland. “Stop reading interviews,” adds Morris. Davies: “Just log the fuck out.” They now post to social media via an intermediary, having last year made headlines with their rebuke of some male fans on Twitter: “We see the weird shit you post about us and are highly unimpressed! Have some fucking decorum.” (Davies claims authorship.)

Although squarely gen Z themselves, playing to “screaming women”, as Morris proudly describes their recent crowds, TLDP’s classic rock influences and heavy airplay by 6 Music meant they were embraced, early on, by an older male audience. There is a strand of paternalism to the Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins’ approval of Roberts’s “proper guitar solos”, while interviewers emphasise their youth and style.

“It’s always the tone of surprise with men: ‘You impress me – well done,’” agrees Morris. “It’s a strange kind of avuncular gatekeeping, like they’re the ones who are the arbiters of rock music: ‘Have you heard of the Slits?’” Early on, Davies says, they were treated “like we were the first women to have picked up guitars” – erasing their influences and their individuality (Mayland is non-binary).

They are excited by the possibility of pushing open those rusting gates. At Latitude festival last year, the band was set upon by two small boys who wanted their guitar picks. They had always hoped to inspire young girls, says Morris; now, they are dreaming of helping the next generation of men to be “not afraid of women, or intimated, or angry … It was so wonderful to see young boys, pre‑tarnished by patriarchy, not looking at us in any way other than with awe and respect”.

Speaking with NME from the red carpet at this year’s BRIT Awards, The Last Dinner Party discussed mental health, burnout, and the revelation that new material is on its way. They also stated how, when they started a band, they did not realise that it was so much like starting your own business. Quite an intense lifestyle:

“While at the BRITs, The Last Dinner Party discussed how they want to encourage more discussion around artists’ mental health, and told NME that their second album is on the way.

The band caught up with NME while on the red carpet for this year’s BRIT Awards, where they were nominated for four awards, but walked away with Best New Artist – and used their speech to voice support for grassroots music venues.

During the interview, the band looked back at the milestones they’ve seen since taking home the Rising Star award in 2024, and revealed what changes they have implemented since facing mental health struggles on the road.

Looking back at how they were forced to cancel several live shows at the end of last year due to “emotional, mental, physical burnout”, the group told NME about the realisations they have had going into 2025.

“[It’s about] planning your year with limitations. Not just seizing every single opportunity because it’s great,” bassist Georgia Davies told NME. “You have to value yourself as the greatest thing. If you don’t put that first, everything else will crumble. Setting out your expectations for the year and what your physical and mental limitations are [is vital].

She continued: “We hope other artists learn from that, because we learned a really valuable lesson from having to [cancel shows], and we hope the industry at large absorbs some of it. A lot of other artists have had to do the same thing, and it’s tragic for the fans and everyone involved. I hope it’s something we all learn from going forward.”

Keyboardist Aurora Nishevci agreed, explaining how the band hope to encourage more widespread awareness across the industry: “There is not a lot of discussion. Historically, artists have not had a

She continued: “When you start a band, you just want to write music and play music. It’s something you love, but you don’t think you’re starting a business. You have to set the safeguarding for yourself, you have to learn how to run it and employ people. So when you enter into making any music from music — which is really hard in the first place — then there is that whole other learning curve that comes”.

I am going to start out with an in-depth new interview from Rolling Stone UK. Apologies if it seems a bit random in terms of what I have sourced. I have selected parts of the interview that are of particular interest to me, though do go and check out the complete interview:

“Now, with their excellent second album From the Pyre set for release in October, the band returns to Rolling Stone UK, this time as bonafide cover stars. “This feels like our Almost Famous moment,” singer Abigail Morris says with a smile when we meet the five-piece in the café of the National Theatre a week before the band’s cover shoot. The London group say that this record — which arrives a mere 18 months after their debut — came partly from a desire to embrace the momentum, but also simply because they never stopped writing.

“There’s never been a gap of separation where at one point we were like, ‘OK, it’s now time for album two,’” says Morris. “It was always happening; we wanted to write new songs and we knew that’s what we had to do.”

A listen of the second album reveals that the band’s familiar and brilliant brand of 70s-flecked baroque pop and art-rock bombast is as present as ever, but change is evident too. They began working on the record with producer James Ford in late 2024, but the reins were taken up by Markus Dravs — known for his work with Coldplay and Florence & The Machine — when Ford was diagnosed with leukaemia earlier this year.

Ford — who is now thankfully in remission — told the group in a text message to “have fun, be bold and make a classic record”, and it was these words that loomed large after they were written on a studio whiteboard.

In heeding that advice, they have created an album they believe to be more “fearless” than their debut and more direct too. That’s shown on the bold lead single ‘This Is The Killer Speaking’ — which feels like their first ever country pop moment and is enriched by one of their biggest choruses to date. Fittingly, recent performances have seen Morris striding the stage in a cowboy hat to give the song a powerful dose of yeehaw.

When the Last Dinner Party first emerged in 2023, there was a sense of boldness and an overall feeling that here was a band who knew exactly what they wanted to be from the very start. When ‘Nothing Matters’ arrived in April 2023, it established Morris as a singer with shades of Kate Bush and the face of a band so singular and fully formed in their vision that it felt impossible for many to comprehend.

This — paired with the fact that they landed a record deal with Island before releasing a single — led to accusations that the band were industry plants. The fact of the matter is that a YouTube video of a scrappy early gig near Millwall FC’s ground in deepest south London was enough to spark a label bidding war, but the damage — in the form of vitriolic backlash online — was already done.

It was a tricky time, the band say, but they’re no longer willing to let the truth get distorted on the eve of a new era. It no doubt helps that they’re an incredibly close unit too. There’s an unspoken shorthand throughout our chat where the eyes of each bandmate will collectively land on the person that they feel is most suitable to answer a question. Or, quite simply, the overwhelming sense that they’ve managed to stay really good mates during the kinds of storms that could easily strain a lesser connected band.

“I think we do have thicker skin when it comes to people talking bullshit online about us. We’re more prepared to be like, ‘OK, but that’s a lie,’” says Georgia Davies. “It was quite shocking to see it for the first time and for people to believe it, but at this point we’ve seen it thrown at people who are quite obviously not a plant and have had a well-documented rise like Chappell [Roan]. I think seeing it happen to female artists across the board is just like, ‘OK, mate! Sure!’

“In the band, we live in such a bubble of being so heard and so valued as artists. Our abilities are trusted among each other and among our crew. With that moment and other moments through a woman’s life you realise that misogyny is still a big thing, and it’s very alarming to be like, ‘Oh, you do think that I’m not as smart, as capable, because I’m a woman, and we’re women in the band.’ It’s quite confronting to see someone who thinks there’s no way that this could exist without a man pulling the strings behind it. It’s just very, very sad.”

Then there’s the small matter of the fuel on the fire that engulfed the band last year when an article from The Times asked: “Is there a future for bands?” and featured a quote attributed to Morris which claimed that “people don’t want to listen to post-punk and hear about the cost-of-living crisis anymore.”

The piece then went on to pointedly note that Morris had attended “the liberal boarding school Bedales” in Hampshire “where fees can be £43,000 a year” and suggested that “the cost-of-living crisis probably isn’t a huge issue for Morris.” Within hours of the piece’s publication, Morris was pilloried and deemed “tone deaf”, as an entire Daily Mail article dedicated to the furore noted.

The only problem, as an apology from The Times acknowledged, was that Morris never said those words. They instead came as part of a wider point, stripped of all context, made by Davies in a separate interview some six months previously. She noted how the band’s theatrical music could provide escapism from “the brutality of our current political climate”. But by that point, the quote had spread across the whole internet and back again.

“It was my worst nightmare, and it still stresses me out,” Morris explains. “I get very anxious doing interviews now. I feel fine at the moment, but it hurt me so deeply and made it incredibly hard for me to be confident doing interviews or speaking publicly at all. Even at the BRITs this year I didn’t want to say anything if we won because I didn’t want anyone to perceive me or my voice in a certain way. I’m still getting over it, honestly, because it hurt me, and it was really horrible.”

They supported Olivia Rodrigo at BST Hyde Park in June and say that the US singer was keen to tell them how ‘The Feminine Urge’, a stand-out track from their debut album, will likely take its place in her Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year. There is also the sense that both are moving mountains to make rock music more inclusive, as shown in the thousands of young women in attendance to see both Rodrigo and the band.

“It’s pretty lovely,” notes Nishevci of their young, heavily female crowd. “It’s sweet, it’s wholesome and you feel a sense of community like you’re in something together.”

They also have, as Guitar World noted last year, a “Queen-inspired indie guitar hero” in the form of Emily Roberts, who even invited Brian May to a Hammersmith show last year. Roberts’ solo on ‘Nothing Matters’ was a defining part of the track’s success, and there’s a sense that, to borrow a phrase from another set of guitar gods, she gets to turn it up to 11 on this new record. In the process, she’s inspiring women of all ages to pick up the axe”.

I am looking forward to hearing From the Pyre. Without doubt one of the most important bands around, these queens have no doubt helped to open doors and to break down tired barriers. Even if there are some sections of the media who question them or feel they are inferior to male bands because they are women – a sexism and misogyny that you do still see -, there is this received wisdom that The Last Dinner Party are very special indeed. An important band that we need to listen to. Ahead of their second studio album being released, I wanted to salute and highlight…

THE London quintet.

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FEATURE: Spotlight: Indy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Elinor Kry

 

Indy

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WHEREAS some might simply…

PHOTO CREDIT: Elinor Kry

see her as the sister of Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor), Indy (Yelich) is a superb artist in her own right. One that I want to spotlight here. Again, like I say with many, she has been on the scene a little while. However, I feel that with her new E.P., Fame Is a Bedroom, out in the world, it is a perfect time to feature her. I am going to start out with a feature/interview from Teen Vogue. She discussed her Fame Is a Bedroom E.P. and talked through all of the tracks. I have included her words about the first two singles:

“To Addison Rae, fame is a gun. To 26-year-old singer-songwriter Indy Yelich, fame is a bedroom — one she witnessed take shape firsthand from the moment her sister Ella Yelich-O’Connor launched her public career as Lorde with the 2013 “Royals” music video, set in a suburban bedroom.

It’s also the title of Indy Yelich’s latest EP, out August 1: Fame Is a Bedroom. The title is, in part, a reference to “leaving your identity at the door and being blood and being sisters, and everything else kind of falls away,” she tells Teen Vogue. “It's the emotional tug-of-war of loving a sister who belongs to the public, but learning to trust that private relationship when it feels like the world is watching.”

That’s not to say this EP is wholly about Lorde, or even about fame in a literal sense. The intimacy of sisterhood in the public eye carries over into the idea of knowing someone in a deeper way than other people do, whether it’s a friend, a lover, or a famous sibling. Growing up with people watching — and they’re always watching, even if you’re not a celebrity — changes the way you see the world and your relationships. What once felt like true love can eventually be seen for all its flaws, and how you see yourself at 23 can shift totally by 26. On Fame Is a Bedroom, Yelich processes breakups with friends and the ends of romances, but also an end to a past version of herself.

Below, in her own words, Indy Yelich takes us through the making and meaning of her new EP, from the songwriting to the sound to the Sex and the City references.

Track 1: “Savior”

Sample lyric: “You're 35 and you've got a daughter / How would you feel if this happened to her?”

You know the five stages of grief? I wanted to start on this [moment when] it felt like the end of a formative relationship, and it's the first time I started to see it as it really was. I wanted to come in swinging. I wanted to lay the foundation for Fame Is a Bedroom as, not a violence per se, but a cut you open. And then, as the EP kind of goes on, you're starting to understand what's happening.

Each track is an act of departure, and I feel like this one, sonically, is my most jarring, so by the time the song is done, there's some kind of acceptance in the lyrics. You're going to see me everywhere and all the things I do. I'm going to haunt that bar you like on 7th Avenue. A lot of “Savior” was written in a few dive bars. I would write down notes on little pieces of paper.

It's very raw, the strings are very vulnerable, and it's very rich in imagery. The first post chorus —it's like the gold that I can't get back. I'm 26 now; I started writing it at 24, so it's unlocking this part of me that's very, not just Carrie and Big-coded, but a version of myself that I've had to claw back to. I'm single and I'm very kind of happy in that fact, and it brings back a past version of myself I'm very protective of, I think.

Track 2: “Up in Flames (The Wayland)”

Sample lyric: “I saw you on a date, she’s just as young.”

I can only write as much as I know at the time. “Up in Flames” and “Idol” solidified that for me, because those are songs just written for me truly, down to the co-production, down to using a lot of my vocals, turning them into instruments. It was really important as a 26-year-old for this record, [for me] to write songs that I would want to listen to myself, the kind of inspirations that I like. The ability to enunciate — that was really validating for me because I'm realizing that I'm doing this art, yeah, of course to connect with people, but ultimately it's to make sense of my own experience.

I wrote “Up in Flames” in New York, so that was the one record that was actually written in New York, which I feel like you can tell just because it's so me. I knew that I wanted to have this really sad, kind of dirty, jarring electric guitar, a pulsing synth.

The themes — it's a lot of things. It's borrowing someone else's body to get a new one. It's my part in a fling. It's the first time I'm thinking, I'm not perfect here. I'm essentially, maybe subconsciously, using someone to get over somebody else. The outro, for example, relates to another song.

That outro, that bridge outro, is my favorite work. "Where is that world we lived in? I tried to find my way back / You're on a plane to Reno to meet her mom and dad / You're in my blood now / You're in the taste of everything I miss, so I go back to the Wayland." I felt very Ethel Cain-coded in that bridge.

I co-wrote that song with Gaia Menon and then Noise Club, these two producers I really like. I could hear Gaia singing in the room — the “oh oh oh” part — and I was like, "Gaia, it's really important. Can you sing this on the mic?"

“Up in Flames” is not just my debut as a songwriter, in a sense; not a co-producer, because I didn't get those credits, but someone who trusted herself enough to hear those instruments, and I'm carving them out. I felt a little bit like a director. It was incredible.

Sometimes it's not my voice that is most powerful in moments. Sometimes it's an instrument, sometimes it's what someone else can bring out in me. It's funny, because that's the one song that I feel like people have been like, "That's your best one yet." There's actually this playlist where they put “Broken Glass” by Ella and me next to each other on Spotify — I think it was on the “Young and Free” playlist. I thought that was really special, to see us together like that”.

This interview from FADER chats to a New Zealand-born artist who has drawn a lot of influence from New York. Indy is navigating her own career and someone that you cannot compare to Lorde in that sense. Fame Is a Bedroom is very much her own experiences and sound:

“Indy says that moving to New York City at 18 sparked her transition from poet to songwriter, and her new EP is packed with nods to the city. The shaky music video for “Sail Away,” a song about a codependent queer friendship, was shot in front of Indy’s favorite local bar, while the bridge of the pensive “Grace” was inspired by Carrie Bradshaw’s popularization of the taxi cab theory.

“I'm attracted to bars and people and things that aren’t the norm because my life is not necessarily the norm,” Indy says. She’s hinting at not only the unique experience of being a young artist, but also the connection at the core of her new song “Idol” — her relationship with her older sister Lorde.

Ahead of the arrival of Fame Is A Bedroom, a project that grapples with the “abnormal” and brings hidden parts of her life up to the surface, Indy talks honing her identity as a songwriter, doing album rollouts with Lorde, and the New York City of it all.

The FADER: I saw your Instagram post celebrating the Virgin release and thought it showed a really wonderful relationship. What has it been like to do album rollouts with Ella (Lorde) at the same time?

Indy Yelich: We're only two years apart and we spend a lot of time in the same city. So I think that we became a lot closer, as you do with your siblings when you're older. I heard a lot of Virgin throughout it being made, and she heard a lot of my songs. There's a song “Idol” that I've written about her that she's heard and she loves.

It's kind of funny, there's this [Spotify] playlist called Young and Free and this new song I have, “Up in Flames,” has just come out and it got all this amazing Spotify play. But there's one thing that I noticed. There was [Lorde’s] song “Broken Glass,” and they put “Up in Flames” right next to it, which I thought was really special. It's quite magical, especially because I'm really over the moon about Virgin. It really feels personal to me in a sense because we spent so much time together when it was being made and so many sleepovers and things like that. It's quite surreal as Fame Is A Bedroom is starting to come out and it's alongside each other.

One of the things that you've talked about quite a bit is the impact of moving to New York when you were so young at 18. How do you think that you and the city have both evolved since you first came here?

New York doesn't really take bullshit from you. I moved overseas so young, with such a preconceived idea of who I thought I was. Being in a fast-paced city actually helped me slow down, I think. It helped me get a sense of community, just learn about myself, my own identity. I've been [in New York] so many years that I have seen it change. I moved there way before COVID, so it just felt very different. Even my favorite bars I go to, you know, that are cash only, local dive bars, I've just seen such an influx of people.

What do you love about The Knicks?

It's joyful and people love it, and it's American, and it makes me think of New York and my love for it. I met some of my best friends through just talking to people at Knicks games. I don't know what it is, and I don't know where it came from, but it's truly my obsession. I know I would have made it when I'm going courtside. And truly one of the reasons why I want to do this is so I can go to Knicks games”.

I am going to end with a very interesting interview that I want to people to read in full. It is from SPIN. Published back in March, Indy discusses the single, Savior, and how “lessons in love shaped her songwriting”. It is a great place to end. Make sure you follow Indy on social media and listen to her music:

“While Indy notes her parents never neglected her, 31-year-old lawyer Jerry, or 23-year-old engineer Angelo amid Lorde’s rise, it helped that she was a “typical middle child—loudest, naughtiest, and would never let myself be forgotten.”

With Lorde’s success having inspired grander dreams, Indy moved to L.A. to pursue acting at age 18, before New York won her heart. The bustling, vibrant energy invigorated her, whether it was by sitting in bars with a book, attending New York Knicks games, or lugging suitcases of laundry to the laundromat.

The creative stimulation meanwhile spawned two poetry books, sticky notes and Dudette, which helped her develop her artistic identity enough to feel ready to venture into songwriting. “Then it took a few years of doing sessions and demos and chatting away to people so I could get in rooms with them and learn how to write songs. Songwriting versus writing is still very new to me.”

“I wanted to work on my creative voice and figure out what I had to say first,” she adds about her unhasty transition into music. “I didn’t put music out until I was sure about it and my first song, ‘Threads,’ is still one of my favorite songs ever. I knew in my heart I wanted to give this a shot and I’m lucky to have this unique perspective and upper hand [of learning from Lorde’s experiences].”

While comparisons to Lorde were inevitable, Indy was never hesitant about following in her footsteps. Writing and releasing music simply felt “natural” and necessary. “I would regret not expressing myself if I didn’t do this. I don’t want to be 80 years old and have been too fearful to express myself because of what people may say. My sister gives me good advice because she’s experienced the industry and my mom’s an artist as well—we’re a family of artists, so it’s like create or die!”

Lorde’s advice has been invaluable to Indy. Having released three records, topped the charts and toured the world, Lorde, 28, has urged Indy to trust in her personality, experience and musical instincts.

“Especially if I’m in a room full of producers and I think something sounds good and they think something else sounds better,” she says. “It’s about trusting your artistic vision, sound, and ability to enunciate what you’re going through. Learning how to advocate for my art has really helped me. I’ve had to fight for a melody or guitar part to be a certain way. It’s a skill that takes time to learn, but it’s so important for young women to have it and to also have role models—especially someone like my sister. Having her guidance has helped me so much with remembering to protect my art and remembering it’s my art.”

Indy also credits her New Zealand background for instilling traits which have proved beneficial in the cutthroat music industry, like talking to anyone and not taking herself too seriously. “Kiwis are just chill. Things don’t faze them and applying that to life is nice.”

It was en route to New Zealand that Indy couldn’t help being fazed by the devastation she’s now sharing in “Savior.” What should have been an exciting flight home to release her first EP turned into a “shell shocked” 13-hours in the air after her ex dumped her before she boarded the plane. “There were all these rom-coms on the plane and I was like, ‘I cannot watch a rom-com,’ so I watched Shrek … which turned out to be a rom-com. I felt like I was going to break down. I ended up watching a documentary about birds”.

A tremendous talent, there will be a lot more coming from Indy. If you do not know about her music already then do go and check it out. Fame Is a Bedroom is a terrific E.P. In terms of where she goes from here, it will be interesting seeing how her music grows and develops…

THROUGH the years.

________________

Follow Indy

FEATURE: The Great American Songbook: Fiona Apple

FEATURE:

 

 

The Great American Songbook

IN THIS PHOTO: Fiona Apple in 2020/PHOTO CREDIT: Malerie Marder for The New Yorker

 

Fiona Apple

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IN this series…

IN THIS PHOTO: Fiona Apple in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: David Corio/Getty Images

I celebrate the work of incredible and legendary American artists and songwriters. This time out, it is Fiona Apple. Her 1996 debut album, Tidal, is among my favourites. Apple released her most recent album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, right near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It was another remarkable album. All five of her studio albums are astonishing. A singular songwriter whose work I admire above most other artists, I am ending with a twenty-song look inside her brilliance. Hard to hone down to only twenty songs. That said, these do give you an idea of why she is so respected. Apple has received a wealth of accolades, including three Grammy Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards and a Billboard Music Video Award. The New York City-born artist is such a phenomenal songwriter. It was an easy choice including her in this series. Let’s hope that she has more albums in her, as the world always needs music from Fiona Apple! This is a salute and show of respect to one of the greatest songwriters and artists…

WHO has ever lived.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Something Like a Song: Lake Tahoe (50 Words for Snow)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Something Like a Song

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a publicity photo for 50 Words for Snow, creating Lake Tahoe

 

Lake Tahoe (50 Words for Snow)

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I want to feature…

this Kate Bush song, as the seven songs on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow do not get the respect they deserve. The latest album from Bush, it often features quite low when critics rank her work. Maybe in the bottom three. It is disappointing as, when it was released, 50 Words for Snow got a lot of praise. Some five-star reviews. I do feel many people need to revisit this album. It is a wonderfully rich album where the songs are longer than her previous work. They provide this more immersive experience in my view. You can inhabit the tracks and hear the production brilliance. Bush, still, not talked about enough as a genius producer – which is what she is. Because of all of this, for this Kate Bush: Something Like a Song, I am honing in on one of the best tracks off of 50 Words for Snow. If it were shorter, I feel Lake Tahoe would have been great as the second single from the album. As it was, only one song was officially released as a single. That is Wild Man. I will go into a bit more depth about this song. To get the true sense of why 50 Words for Snow is brilliant, you have to listen and let the album infuse into the senses. It meant a lot to Kate Bush. Earlier in 2011, she released Director’s Cut. That sort of cleared the way for a new album. One that had clearly been on her mind for a long time. A wintery album that is almost the opposite of A Sky of Honey – the second disc of 2005’s Aerial, it is the course of a summer’s day, where we go full circle -, I do love how transformative the music is. I at least was really stunned the first time I heard the album. It changed something in me. Director’s Cut was reworking songs that appeared on 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. Seven jewels on her 2011 album, Lake Tahoe is a song that is really interesting. One of her very best tracks, I feel.

What is interesting about 50 Words for Snow – among other things – is the featured vocalists. No stranger to using other voices, the array of guests that provide their voices is impressive. Bush’s son Berte is on Snowflake. Elton John is on Snowed in at Wheeler Street. For Lake Tahoe, Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood provide their vocals. Steve Gadd is on drums. Kate Bush is on the piano. It is a tight and wonderful group that recorded a song that has a really interesting story. In terms of influence, Bush has taken from so many unusual sources. A lot from horror or fiction or television. I mean they are unusual in terms of the fact it was unconventional for artists to approach songwriting inspiration away from their personal lives. Bush was a much more ambitious and interesting songwriter. Even though it was not a single, Bush wrote and directed a short animated video to accompany Lake Tahoe. Called Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe, it features five minutes from the eleven-minute track and contains elegant shadow-puppetry. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia provides a part of a 2011 interview where Kate Bush talked about the inspiration behind Lake Tahoe:

“It was because a friend told me about the story that goes with Lake Tahoe so it had to be set there. Apparently people occasionally see a woman who fell into the lake in the Victorian era who rises up and then disappears again. It is an incredibly cold lake so the idea, as I understand it, is that she fell in and is still kind of preserved. Do you know what I mean?

John Doran, ‘A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed’. The Quietus, 2011”.

Before finishing up, I am bringing in some reviews of 50 Words for Snow where Lake Tahoe was mentioned. One of the standouts from the album, I do hope more people listen to the album. It is a spectacular work from Kate Bush. As part of their review, Pitchfork said this about Lake Tahoe: “Similarly, while the lake-bound ghost of "Lake Tahoe" is overjoyed to find her long-lost dog-- coincidentally named Snowflake-- at the end of the song, the reunion comes with its own specter of bittersweet afterlife”. This is what DIY observed about a beautiful song that you really fall inside and visualise: “Lake Tahoe’ sees Bush showing off her experimental side and features an operatic duet between Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood”. Even though they awarded 50 Words for Snow a three-and-a-half-star review, NME’s observation about Lake Tahoe is interesting: “‘Lake Tahoe’, featuring classical singers Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood, is a chilly choral ghost story based around the urban myth of the cold Californian mountain lake, whose bottom is rumoured to be lined with perfectly preserved bodies. The smoky and sparse feel of the piano puts us somewhere between minimal modern classical and Carole King or Laura Nyro”. In 2014, The Quietus selected some of their favourite Kate Bush deep cuts. Lake Tahoe was among them:

“Just as Benjamin Britten blended the voices of a tenor and a countertenor in his second canticle – singing together in perfect and still unison, they represented the voice of God advising Abraham to sacrifice his own son – fifty-nine years later Kate Bush scored Lake Tahoe for a tenor and a countertenor. Singing together they become the voice of a ghostly narrator. “Cold mountain water, don’t ever swim there”, they warn. Lake Tahoe is 1,645 feet deep. Lake Tahoe is filled with mosquito fish, bluegill, cutthroat trout, the bodies of Chinese railroad workers from the 1870s and a drowned Victorian woman still dressed in white satin.

The dead don’t float in Lake Tahoe, the cold preserves them. A thousand feet down their blue eyes are open but once a year they walk the shore. Kate Bush sees her Victorian woman searching for a dog. “Snowflake! Snowflake!” she calls out. Kate Bush becomes a Victorian woman. “Snowflake! Snowflake!” she sings out. Her dog is warm at home sleeping in the kitchen. Kate Bush’s skin and hair are wet, her eyes blue, underneath her fingernails is Tahoe silt. We cannot save her. And the snow is falling – softly at first but soon in deep plodding flurries like the heavy walking chords of her piano as she climbs the keyboard out of Lake Tahoe. Quavers of snow crown the surrounding peaks, melting into the chilled water. Lake Tahoe doesn’t freeze. You cannot walk across it, unless you are Snowflake running towards his ghostly mistress – ears flailing, curly white hair windswept behind him”.

There is no doubting the fact that Lake Tahoe is a terrific and accomplished piece of music. Bush’s piano playing so gorgeous and moving. The lyrics are ones that could only come from Kate Bush. My favourite example is this: “No-one's home/Her old dog is sleeping/His legs are frail now/But when he dreams/He runs...Along long beaches and sticky fields/Through the Spooky Wood looking for her/The beds are made. The table is laid”. Even if it is a deep cut, that is not to say people should overlook it. Every time you pass through Lake Tahoe, it offers up some new and compelling. A truly grand and magnificent track, this is one that everyone needs to hear. Once you do, it will definitely leave an impression…

IN your memory.

FEATURE: Spotlight: The New Eves

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Silvester

 

The New Eves

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I am focusing on…

this Brighton-based band, The New Eves. They are currently in the middle of a run of in-stores and live dates. Go and catch them if you can. Formed in 2021, The New Eves consists of Violet Farrer, Nina Winder-Lind, Kate Mager and Ella Oona Russell. Their album, The New Eve Is Rising, was released on 1st August. I will end with a review of that album. I shall get to some recent interviews soon. However, here is some more details about a band that definitely need to be in your mind:

“Nestled somewhere between primal rock’n’roll live performance and transcendent ritual, there’s an unmistakable alchemy that happens when Violet Farrer (guitar, violin, vocals), Nina Winder-Lind (cello, guitar, vocals), Kate Mager (bass, vocals) and Ella Oona Russell (drums, flute, vocals) step onto a stage together. It’s a boundless, uninhibited kind of magic that feels completely new; that’s writing its own rulebook for how to exist - as a band, as women, as humans in the world - from the ground up.

“The space we go into when we perform feels quite far away from regular life. It takes a lot out of us and we really go into this other dimension, so it’s amazing that we can bring people there with us,” says Ella. “The live show is what’s got us everywhere - we had barely any music out, it was all so underground, but people just wanted to come and they’ve never stopped coming”.

Published back in May, Rolling Stone UK spoke with the band about, among other things, their anticipated and extraordinary forthcoming album. I am new to The New Eves but I know that they are going to have a very long future. You can just tell! Everything on The New Eve Is Rising is instantly memorable and original! A band forging their own path and releasing music that will endure for many years:

“Your debut album, The New Eve Is Rising, encompasses your whole story from your formation until now – can you tell us about how you have developed in that time?

Kate: When we started writing the first songs, we didn’t really know whether we were going to even like play shows or do anything. We weren’t planning for them to be in an album, but once we thought about making an album, it just made so much sense to for it to encompass the whole first chapter of us as a band.

Violet: [All the songs] work together regardless of which one’s older and which one’s newer. It’s not that we haven’t like advanced, but they all go together, and they’re all just us.

Nina: Are we more refined? No, we’re not more refined. Are we more assertive? Ah, we were very assertive at the beginning!

Kate: Every time we write a new song, we look into a slightly different place, but, like the others were saying, it all just seems to fit together. That’s what always amazes me. We go from such a different angle but somehow it still fits together. We’re like, ‘How does this work?!’ But it just does.

If this album is presenting the band’s first era, what do you think are the hallmarks of The New Eves so far?

Nina: There’s a real honesty about this body of work – this is literally what just came out of us, whether we wanted it or not. What do you guys think?

Kate: We don’t have this direct comparison of what the next chapter ais nd what’s different about it. There is something really great about all of this stuff just coming from us without having that feedback of people listening to it and defining what it is for us. It’s very free in that sense, and anything that comes afterwards will  partly be an interaction with that.

Nina: It’s very honest and it’s very confident, in the way that a child is really confident. Maybe we didn’t really know what we were doing all the time, but in some way, we really, really, really did know what we were doing and we did it, and this stands as proof of that.

You’ve said you want to create your own mythology as a band – can you explain that?

Kate: It feels like the right way to properly announce ourselves to the world by putting out an album rather than an EP. There are quite big differences sometimes between the songs and the themes that any one of them on their own feels like it misses out this other part of what we are. The album doesn’t necessarily have  a story that runs throughout it, but it does say something as a whole thing that you can’t do with just one song. We really felt it was really important to do that.

Nina: It was parallel to the songwriting process. One of us will have read a book and we bring it in, nd then it ignites something”.

In July, The Line of Best Fit chatted with The New Eves. This literary Punk-Folk group are conjuring magic and urgent music that is sending them into uncharted territory. A sound that, once experienced, becomes addictive! They are one of the most impressive new groups I have encountered in many years:

“Brighton has been both a creative incubator and a bit of a challenge for the group. They describe the scene as unusually supportive. “It’s a really nice container to grow in,” flautist and drummer Ella Oona Russell explains, “but you could pay £500 for a cupboard,” she adds, only half joking. It’s a place that forces bands to get resourceful, something The New Eves have turned into an art form.

From the beginning, their creative process has been less about planning and more about giving the songs a space to reveal themselves. “Most of our material we make together in the same room,” Winder-Lind explains. “We’ll have a jam and things will happen… between us in the space.” You can hear that looseness in the album: some tracks spiral and churn like spells being cast, others unfurl more slowly, drawing you into their world rather than pushing for attention.

They call their sound Hagstone Rock – an appropriately mythic label for music that references 12th-century lovers, the Bible, and highwaymen’s caves, while also pulling influence from krautrock, Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground, and the accidental grandeur of DIY shows. It gives the music a timeless quality. They are not loyally revisiting these old stories but instead doing something more like rewilding them. Take their song “Highway Man”, for example: a reimagining of Alfred Noyes’ 1906 poem, warped into something darker, stranger, and freshly feminist.

The band’s audiences are a mix of the devoted and the unexpected. Despite the distinctly feminist current running through The New Eve Is Rising, they’re quick to point out that the atmosphere is anything but exclusive. “Even though there is this big feminine element,” Russell says, “it’s actually very open and inviting.” Winder-Lind agrees: “We’ve had young boys come up to us like, ‘Wow.’ That’s really cool! It makes me really happy that it’s not such a closed group.”

Despite their growing following, the band are keen to connect with one group in particular: “We want to get to the teenagers,” they laugh. “We do have a TikTok now, but none of us have really ever been on it.” Russell adds, “I’ve literally never seen what TikTok looks like. It feels like too much!”

What emerges in conversation with The New Eves is that this is not a band trying to define themselves, but instead determined to explore. “This chaos,” Winder-Lind says, “it’s coming out because it needs to come out.”

“We’re going into the future,” Russell says. “It’s going to be different. We’ve been making all this music for such a long time without much public engagement… we really have no idea what to expect.”

And yet, the momentum feels inevitable. The New Eve marches on – somewhere under a hand-stitched banner, frayed at the edges, proudly DIY, and all the more powerful for it”.

Before getting to a review of The New Eve Is Rising, I want to highlights part of an interview with DIY. Since they released their debut single in 2023, The New Eves have enjoyed this incredible rise. With their debut album out, they are expanding their horizons and are capturing new fans and followers. A group that you most definitely need to follow:

“Accordingly, whether it be photography, painting, or their tailored, cottagecore-leaning apparel, the group place equal importance on an array of artistic mediums. As these practices already play a huge role in their individual selves, Kate explains, “it would be hard to keep [them] out of what we’re doing.”

Given that many of the band’s visuals are set against strikingly provincial, quintessentially British backdrops, it feels appropriate that they chose the rural Wye Valley’s iconic Rockfield Studios to record most of their debut album. “We weren’t in London, and there was no outside noise. If you needed some space, you went up in the hills,” Nina details. “We all had our own rooms with our own bathtubs - it was incredible.”

Those who have caught The New Eves in concert will likely attest that the finished recordings stay very true to their live counterparts - something that Nina notes was “really important for us”. Continuing, she explains: “Because that’s kind of where the magic happens - when we play together in a room.”

Whether delighting in the fraught, bristly propulsions of ‘Highway Man’, or losing oneself in ‘Astrolabe’’s droning strings and primal incantations, the journey to the enigmatic heart of the band truly begins with the album’s powerful opener and pseudo-title track, ‘The New Eve’. Challenging religious, societal and gender conventions with captivating poetic conviction, the song is a goosebump-inducing portal into their world. “There’s middle-aged men who have had an incredible experience listening to that song,” Nina shares. “It revealed itself in a mystical way: I made a painting called ‘The New Eve Is Rising’, and then a bit later I wrote that poem, and then we did the song.”

The chord-striking boldness of these lyrical expressions in the context of the band’s all-female lineup has led many to brand The New Eves as ‘feminist’. However, they make clear that their relationship to the term is actually much more complex and far-reaching than the label leaves space for. “It’s like when we get called a ‘female band’,” Nina tells us. “I think it’s very, very simplifying and sometimes a bit patronising when someone [says] ‘oh, you’re a feminist band’. I think we need a different language around these things. Right now, we have these terms like ‘feminism’ and ‘female’, and they’re still very present in our language, but I feel like it’s shifting. We’re on the edge of something.”

The last year has well and truly been a whirlwind for the group, from their signing to Transgressive Records, to bagging slots supporting Black Country, New Road and YHWH Nailgun. “It’s crazy - we haven’t actually had that much time to look back and feel proud, because it’s been so busy,” Nina admits. It may be mile-a-minute at the moment but, to their audiences, The New Eves undoubtedly make a lasting impression - one which, they hope, will inspire people to “feel something they haven’t felt before, and do something they haven’t done before”.

Before rounding off, it is worth including a review for The New Eve Is Rising. It has won a lot of praise. And it is easy to see why! I have said this about a few recent albums, but I do think that The New Eves’ debut album could be in with a shout of inclusion on the Mercury Prize shortlist this year. The Guardian commended a band with a scent of The Velvet Underground and a mix of “trad folk, anarcho-punk and hippy whimsy”:

“Something of the Raincoats’ rickety post-punk explorations seem to haunt its sound, albeit relocated from Notting Hill to a more pastoral setting. So does the lo-fi avant-garage rock of the early-80s Fall, which is audible amid the simple riffs and relentless drumming of Highway Man. There is occasionally a bleating quality about the vocals that automatically summons the ghost of Tyrannosaurus Rex-era Marc Bolan. Equally, at their most full throated, they recall the powerful but ascetic harmonies of folk family the Watersons. When the vocals tend to spoken word declamation – as on opener The New Eve – you might think not only of Patti Smith but those moments in Crass’s oeuvre when the microphone was ceded to Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre.

And yet, if there are plenty of artists other than the Velvet Underground whom you could compare the New Eves to – from trad folk to distaff anarcho-punk to hippy whimsy – the band’s central point still stands. Whatever ingredients went into the recipe, the result doesn’t ultimately sound like much else, and there is often something rather thrilling about being in its presence. The weird blend of glam drums, sawing strings and folky vocal roar on Cow Song, for example. Volcano’s slow surge from gentle fluting bucolia to a potent sense of menace. The moment on Rivers Run Red when the scrabble of strings and guitars dramatically finds an urgent percussive shape.

It’s given an extra frisson by the fact that, whatever the circumstances of its recording, The New Eve Is Rising sounds as if it’s being played live, by a band who prize immediacy over virtuosity, with all the teetering potential for disaster that suggests. There’s a certain white-knuckle intensity to the moment when Circles shifts its rhythm, and given that the change is counted in with such vociferousness, perhaps it hasn’t always come off in the past.

Said disaster never strikes, although you do occasionally wonder if something may have been lost in translation from live show to studio, despite their best efforts. The spoken-word manifesto of The New Eve probably feels more viscerally powerful delivered in front of your eyes than it does coming out of your speakers. But the moments when the album doesn’t quite work are tempered by the sense that this is a band still in a state of flux and progress, working out where they might go next – the “rising” in the title seems the operative word – rather than a perfectly finished product with all of the doubts about how to move on which that would entail. That the New Eves are overflowing with ideas is obvious from their interviews and their debut album alike. The latter presents them in rough hewn and occasionally chaotic style: it feels exciting, as does their future”.

Do go and check out The New Eves. Genuinely a band who can endure for decades, they have the talent to rank alongside the very best of the best. The next few years are going to be very busy and exciting for the group. The New Eve Is Rising is an album you need to hear now. This amazing quartet are thoroughly deserving of…

ALL the hype.

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Follow The New Eves

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty: Eight: And Dream of Sheep

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the shooting of the video for And Dream of Sheep, a song that is part of her suite, The Ninth Wave/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton 

 

Eight: And Dream of Sheep

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I am going to come…

to Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 book, Hounds of Love, and what she says about Kate Bush’s And Dream of Sheep. I am embarking on a twenty-feature run to mark Hounds of Love’s fortieth anniversary on 16th September. I have written about every song on the first side. Now, we flip the record over and look at the first song from the second side: the majestic and cinematic The Ninth Wave. One of Bush’s most-streamed and popular songs, And Dream of Sheep, has been performed live. It was actually filmed. A filmed piece that was shown on a screen during the 2014 Before the Dawn residency shows, she was filmed from the point of view of an overhead camera. Bush slips under the water at the end of the song. This article from The Guardian provides more details:

“In the lead-up to her 22-date run of sold-out Before the Dawn performances in 2014, Kate Bush spent three days submerged in a tank filled with water. Not for some new-age cleansing ritual, but to create a sense of authenticity while shooting the video for And Dream of Sheep, a song about a woman who is lost at sea.

This realism however, became more tangible than Kate had initially imagined. According to a spokesperson for the artist, she spent so long in the water during the first day of filming that she contracted mild hypothermia, but recovered after a day off and carried on filming. “Everyone agreed it had added to the authenticity of the performance,” they said.

Recorded at Pinewood Studios, the video for the track – which features the musician strapped to a lifejacket, hoping to be rescued – was created for her unexpected return to the stage, during which she performed The Ninth Wave, her 1985 song cycle that the Guardian described as “disturbing, funny and so immersive that the crowd temporarily forget to applaud everything Bush does”.

For And Dream of Sheep, Kate Bush travelled to Dublin in the spring of 1984 for some amazing sessions. Also part of those sessions was given up to Jig of Life (a song that features later on The Ninth Wave). Dónal Lunny later recollected how Bush asked him to play the single whistle note at the end of the track over and over again for three hours as she was searching for just the right ‘bend’ in the note.

Prior to getting to Leah Kardos’s interpretation and analysis of And Dream of Sheep, below are some interview examples where Kate Bush talked about a hugely important song. One that opens The Ninth Wave. The heroine adrift and wanting to be somewhere cosy and safe where she can fall asleep. Little does she know that her experience being stranded in the water is about to endure and get much worse:

“[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ is about them fighting sleep. They’re very tired and they’ve been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it’s starting to get dark and it doesn’t look like anyone’s coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they’re trying to keep awake; but they can’t help it, they eventually fall asleep – which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

An engineer we were working with picked out the line in ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ that says ‘Come here with me now’. I asked him why he liked it so much. He said, ‘I don’t know, I just love it. It’s so moving and comforting.’ I don’t think he even knew what was being said exactly, but the song is about someone going to sleep in the water, where they’re alone and frightened. And they want to go to sleep, to get away from the situation. But at the same time it’s dangerous to go to sleep in water, you could drown. When I was little, and I’d had a bad dream, I’d go into my parents’ bedroom round to my mother’s side of the bed. She’d be asleep, and I wouldn’t want to wake her, so I’d stand there and wait for her to sense my presence and wake up. She always did, within minutes; and sometimes I’d frighten her – standing there still, in the darkness in my nightdress. I’d say, ‘I’ve had a bad dream,’ and she’d lift bedclothes and say something like ‘Come here with me now.’ It’s my mother saying this line in the track, and I briefed her on the ideas behind it before she said it. And I think it’s the motherly comfort that this engineer picked up on. In fact, he said this was his favourite part of the album. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 21, 1987)”.

I will end this feature by including the live version of And Dream of Sheep from the Before the Dawn residency. Leah Kardos opens her section about And Dream of Sheep by noting how The Ninth Wave opens in the same tonality as the final song from the album’s first side, Cloudbusting. It is fascinating how Kardos talks about the notes and gets deep into the music and composition. For example, “The melody across the opening lines is marked by the distinctive upward interval of a perfect 5th; the words leap up from E to B (‘Little Light’), the vocal melody underlined by bright, ringing, [piano octaves. The 5th is immediately restated (‘shining’), from a lower B up to F#”. Kardos writes, regarding one of Hounds of Love’s most beautiful and important songs, how, throughout, there is this “upwards extension of the melody is the urgent blink of wakefulness; the sloping, softened melodies that curl downwards to the tonal resolution are the figures that lull Bush’s protagonist to the irresistible comfort of slumber”. I have always though that And Dream of Sheep is a dream in itself. Maybe a woman who is having this dream about being lost at sea. Or the song in which our ill-fated heroine is taken by the water and everything that goes after is a dying thought or did not happen. That sounds grim, though The Ninth Wave compels each listener to provide their own interpretation. Leah Kardos continues by saying that the “harmonic progressions waver between minor energy in the ‘A’ phase, circling around the similar chord relationships of ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’, C#m7 to A6 then B (i- VI -♭VII); in the ‘B’ phase, the music feels comfortable and assured with grounded harmonies that are vaguely familiar to what we’ve heard on ‘Hounds of Love’ and a similar pedal point tethering the emotion firmly in position: E (flashes of E6), F#m/E then B/E”. That sublime and soothing magic is observed by Kardos.

It is interesting that in the breaks between verses that there are various voices. The radio transmission of a coastguard. Bush’s family appear in various moments on Hounds of Love. Hannah, her mother, can be heard saying “come here with me now”. This soft and reassuring line is what she would say to her young daughter whenever she had a nightmare. I love learning more about the notation and compositional elements. A real depth and forensic look in the way few other people have provided. It shows songs like And Dream of Sheep in a new light. Kudos to Leah Kardos! She writes how the “arrangement is led by piano, and the texture is predominantly organic, with a brief flash of orchestration that swells dramatically through the words ‘sound of engines’”. Bouzouki and multitracked whistles are “tender and reassuring”, whilst Bush’s vocal is “delicate and dramatic, wrapped in artic Quantec reverb; you can almost feel the chill mist on her breath”. This feels like one of her most personal songs. A genuine fear of being on the water and not knowing what is beneath. You will roll over if you fall asleep and drown, so this is her trying to stay awake against impossible odds and a lack of hope. Rather than neatly segueing into the next song on The Ninth Wave, Under Ice, Bush sings with “a descending, wilted voice, the music stalls on the dominant B7 over E – the song has no ending, but rather it connects directly to the nightmare hallucinations of ‘Under the Ice’”. As I move to Under Ice next in my look inside Hounds of Love, its songs, the album cover and aspects around its legacy, I reflect fondly on And Dream of Sheep. It is a track that connects with so many listeners. And Dream of Sheep is the starting point of…

A brilliant, nerve-shredding and emotional suite.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: Madonna - Ray of Light

FEATURE:

 

 

Beneath the Sleeve

 

Madonna - Ray of Light

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THERE are three reasons…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna photographed in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Peggy Sirota

why I am including Madonna’s Ray of Light in this Beneath the Sleeve. Well, four, actually. Not only is it one of the best albums ever; one that was very important in 1998. I was a teen then and absolutely love this album. My favourite Madonna album. Veronica Electronica was released on 25th July. Madonna always thought of this as a companion remix album to her seventh studio album, Ray of Light. However, unfortunately, Veronica Electronica was put on hold due to the ongoing success of Ray of Light and its singles. Now out in the world, Veronica Electronica features rare and previously unreleased remixes by several of Madonna's collaborators from the Ray of Light era, including Peter Rauhofer, William Orbit, Sasha, BT, and Victor Calderone. There are two other reasons for spotlighting Ray of Light. It is Madonna’s sixty-seventh birthday on 16th August, so this is a chance to celebrate that by focusing on a masterpiece of hers. Also, a couple of recent articles – around the release of Veronica Electronica – write why Ray of Light is guiding the sound of Pop in 2025. However it is perhaps at its most relevant now, some twenty-seven years after its release. Released on 22nd February, 1998, Ray of Light hit the number one spot in many countries, including the U.K. A different sound and direction from 1994’s Bedtime Stories, Madonna worked with producers William Orbit, Patrick Leonard and Marius de Vries. Iconic singles like Ray of Light, Frozen and The Power of Good-Bye are among Madonna’s best songs. With this new sense of spiritualism that moved away from perhaps the more sexual and liberated sound of her previous work, this was not Madonna entirely looking inward. Ray of Light’s title track is as euphoric and extravert as anything she would ever release! I would advise people go and get this album on vinyl. I am going to explore some features. That give us insight and depth. Take us beneath the vinyl sleeve and into the grooves.

I am starting out with The Quietus and their thirtieth anniversary feature in 2018. Lucy O’Brien has written about Madonna and published a book about her (2007’s Madonna: Like an Icon). She shared her thoughts on Ray of Light three decades after it took Madonna’s legacy and brilliance to new heights. One of the most influential albums ever:

“The album came at a crucial time for Madonna. After the high octane success of the 1980s, her 1990s were testing and difficult. Slut-shamed over her Sex book and the Erotica album, Madonna engaged in angry attention-seeking exercises like saying “fuck” 13 times on Late Show with David Letterman. She had lost confidence, and the tentative R&B of 1994’s Bedtime Stories felt like marking time. Veering off into musical theatre with the Evita project took her into safe MOR territory, but, ironically, rather than turning her into a 1980s pop has-been, those strenuous theatrical songs sung with a full orchestra gave her voice depth and tone. By then Madonna was in her late 30s and re-evaluating life, casting around for answers in study of Yogic philosophy. The birth of her daughter Lourdes in 1996 knocked out some of that infamous ego, so that when she returned to the studio in 1997 for the Ray Of Light sessions she had discovered a more intense, personal voice than the so-called “Minnie Mouse on helium” of earlier years.

Ray Of Light was created in old school prog rock fashion – with mainly one producer, over a period of months, in an intensively collaborative process. “She produced me producing her,” said William Orbit. Recorded in a modest studio in an unfashionable part of LA, the album was intentionally un-industry. Early sessions with Babyface were shelved, and Madonna’s longtime producer arranger Pat Leonard was sidelined in favour of an awkward English eccentric whose hardware kept breaking down. Although Orbit’s perceived amateurism made her nervous, Madonna knew from his dancefloor remix of 1990’s ‘Justify My Love’ that he could create the futuristic tone she craved. With Bass-O-Matic’s Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Bass (named after a Pink Floyd album), and the rave anthem ‘In The Realm Of The Senses’, Orbit had already declared an interest. Kabbalah and new motherhood opened Madonna’s mind, but it was the alchemy between her and Orbit – his trippy underground vibe and her willingness to experiment, that triggered her transformation of consciousness. With Ray Of Light they created the sonic space and musical textures for the sparse poetry that’s embedded in her songwriting. Previous hit-driven albums, with the exception of moments on Like A Prayer and Erotica, hadn’t allowed room for that potential to emerge. For the first time she could express herself in-depth.

Madonna did her background reading – everything from JG Ballard to Anne Sexton to Shakespeare’s sonnets were inspirations here – and did lengthy songwriting sessions with Leonard and Rick Nowells (“her lyric writing was poetic and intelligent,” the latter says, “she knows how to channel a song”) before she set foot in the studio. Once there, little Lourdes was installed in a playroom, and Madonna focused on the tracks that would eventually piece together a story. “I traded fame for love/ Some things cannot be bought… Now I find/ I’ve changed my mind,” she sang on opening track ‘Drowned World/Subsitute for Love’. The apocalyptic dreamscape of JG Ballard’s Drowned Worlds sets the tone. From there she moves into ‘Swim’, a low-slung electro song where Madonna delves into the religious themes of her pop past as the Sin-eater, carrying “these sins on my back”. ‘Ray of Light’ then provides a giddy moment of reawakening, with Orbit pushing her to sing a semitone higher than her comfort zone in order to stretch out that sense of hedonist abandon. This is the song, with its accompanying Jonas Akerlund video – all speeding lights, winking urbanscapes and fast motion skies – that relaunched her career, that married techno beats to cranked-up oscillators and wall-of-sound pop, and begged the question, did Madonna neck a zesty pinger?”.

Prior to getting to those two new articles about Ray of Light’s influence today, I want to bring in an archive interview from 1998. SPIN shared this feature of their interview that was originally published in April. A couple of months after Ray of Light was released. It is interesting reading interviews with Madonna at that time and what she says about the album:

“As much as she’s perceived to be pop’s shrewdest businesswoman, Madonna has rarely taken he most direct route to the bank. Working deviance-phobic nerves with the queer boys and girls of her Sex Book was not exactly playing it safe. There has to be a surer way of getting paid than creating a decade and a half’s worth of gay nightlife soundtracks. She’s obviously made a few unpopular cinematic choices. So the only real option for the sole ’80s icon still thriving in the ’90s was to make the kind of record she puts on her boom box — a blend of haunted singer/songwriter introspection and beat-savvy electronic exotica that may not play in Topeka, if U2’s Pop is any indication.

In doing so, Madonna still pushes buttons. Just as she once sang that she wasn’t sorry for sharing her erotic fantasies, Madonna does not apologize for turning inward and employing the language she’s learned while journeying to the center of her still-firm chakras. On her new album, Ray Of Light, she sings about karma, quotes mystics, changes Sanskrit as she would in her yoga class, kisses emotionally stunted lovers good-bye, and croons a lullaby to daughter Lourdes as if her warble breathed butterfly kisses. Her brazen vulnerability is destined to be someone else’s touchy-feely-trendy hogwash: Madonna has not lost her ability to endear and annoy, and in its digitized, navel-gazing way, Ray Of Light is Madonna’s most radical, mask-free work.

The comparatively sexless tunes take their time to generate heat, but the sonic bacchanalia crafted by William Orbit (and, on four tracks, by Massive Attack associate Marius DeVries) is as propulsive as her newly bolstered vocal chops are controlled. Despite Ray Of Light’s aural hipness, Madonna asserts sincerity to the point of occasional — and affecting — awkwardness. When she sings to baby Lourdes, “You breathe new life into my broken heart,” she turns shamelessly sentimental syllable into the spine-tingly stuff of which sweet pop dreams are made.

“If it looks like I just got out of bed,” Madonna announces as she arrives at her neighborhood coffee shop without a bodyguard, assistant, or publicist, “I did.” She’s dressed in a nondescript black knit shirt, black pants, and chipped black nail polish. Brown roots inches long lead to a tangled mess of brassy blond. At the end of the interview, Madonna politely refuses the reporter’s request for a snap-shot. “Maybe next time when I don’t look like and old sea-hag,” she suggests. Throughout the interview, she remains candid, but rarely does the club-queen who would be king lapse into her infamous dis-intensive talk-show persona. She even tried to be kind about Yanni. Sometimes, I miss the old Madonna.

Why make another album?

Why breathe? Because I love it. Because I love making music. It’s what I do.

When I got this assignment, I wondered, “What can I possibly ask Madonna that hasn’t been asked?” And then I thought, “Music! I’ll ask her about music!” So, for starters, how was making Ray Of Light different than making your other records?

Well, my daughter came to visit me every day in the studio so there were lots of baby interruptions; that’s new. Mostly, though, I look at more musical chances. I let William [Orbit] play Mad professor. He comes from a very experimental, cutting-edge sort of place — he’s not a trained musician, and I’m used to working with classically trained musicians — but I knew that’s where I wanted to go,so I took a lot more risks Oftentimes the creative process was frustrating because I wasn’t used to it; it took a lot longer than usual to make this record. But I realize now that I need that time to get where I was going.

What’s the songwriting process like between you and your collaborators?

Well, it happens differently every time. In William’s case, he would often given me tapes of snippets he was working on — eight-bar phrases, 16-bar phrases, stripped-down versions of what you hear on the record. And I’d listen to them over and over and it would just inspire lyrics. I’d start writing a little bit and then I’d go back to William say, “Okay, let’s expand on this musical idea.” And as we’d expand on this music, I’d expand on the lyrics. That was true for most everything except for the album’s last track, “Mer Girl.” I decided I would write a song to the music as given to me, and when William asked me if I wanted to do something with it, I said, “I want it just like it is, I want you to put the tape up right now and I’m gonna sing to it.” And did it in one take. For “Frozen,” a song wrote with Pat Leonard, I was obsessed with the movie The Sheltering Sky and the whole Moroccan/orchestral/superromantic/man-carrying-the-woman-he-loves-across-the-desert vibe. So I told Pat that I wanted something with a tribal feel, something really lush and romantic. When he started playing some music, I just turned the DAT on and started freeassociating and came up with the melody.

How has you approach to vocals changed with this album? You seem to be going for a more European approach to singing, almost operatic, less colloquial.

I studied with a vocal coach for Evita and I realized there was a whole piece of my voice I wasn’t using. Before, I just believe I had a really limited range and was going to make the most of it. Then I started studying with a coach. God bless her. My secret dream is to sing Italian at songs, so at the end of my lesson my teacher would let me sing Italian operetta. Maybe that affected me unconsciously.

Ray Of Light is a very soulful record, but it sounds nothing like contemporary soul, à la Mary J. Blige. Have your feelings about black culture and black music changed?

I don’t think that a lot of soul searching is going on in soul music these days, so in that respect it’s pretty disappointed and uninspiring. There are definitely artists whom I respect and admire, but for the most part R&B is not what it used to be.

Why do you think that is?

There seems to be a certain kind of formula that is getting over right now. No disrespect to Puff Daddy — he’s a real pioneer in a lot of ways — but constantly recycle other people’s music is not very inspiring. You’re just hearing things you’ve already heard before. It makes you want to sing along but you’re not really going to another place with it. As I was driving over here, I was listening to the radio and there was this Stevie Wonder song. Where is somebody who writes like that now? It’s so sad. I guess Babyface comes closest, but I consider his stuff more pop. I can’t think of anybody who’s as deep and as layered as Stevie Wonder. Instead we get the cartoon version of life: being powerful, rich, and having beautiful woman. I don’t think they’re setting out to push the envelope or take music to another level. It’s about intention.

How do you pick who you’re going to collaborate with? I’m sure you could have anyone you want

Well I could, but I always go for the cook in the kitchen [laughs]. I like to work with people who take chances. Usually they’re undiscovered, because once people are successful they don’t like taking risks.

But you’ve worked with Patrick Leonard all along.

Yes, on songwriting, but no production. We write great songs together, but from the production point of view, the music that I listen to comes mostly from England and France, and there’s a certain European sensibility that I couldn’t have gotten from an American producer.

Why is that?

There’s a greater acceptance of cutting-edge things there. That goes for fashion, film, music. There is a real competitive thing going on in England about who can sell the most records, who can have the biggest box-office receipts. I’m much more inspired by the stuff coming out in Europe than i am out of America.

Like who?

Bjork, Everything but the Girl, Trickly and Martine.

What about Bjork attracts you?

She’s incredibly brave and she’s got a real mischievous quality about her. I find her very compelling, really daring.

How about Everything but the Girl?

There’s a plaintive quality to Tracey Thorn’s voice that I really respond to. And that song, “Missing”? I know they’ve played the shit out of it and I ‘m over it and everything, but it was such a brilliant song”.

The first of this year’s features that looks at the modern relevance of Ray of Light is from The Independent. Back in April, Madonna responded to a comment on her Instagram page. It concerned how many modern artists seem to be following in Madonna’s footsteps in terms of their sound and stage presentation:

“Did you see so-and-so copied you?” Madonna is asked, in this hypothetical but presumably factual exchange – one as likely to have taken place in 1992 as it is 2025. “God forbid a woman takes inspiration,” Madonna coolly replies. The dialogue, pasted on top of an image of the star strutting down a London street in shades, was accompanied by a further caption: “I see you, I love you. You’re doing great sweeties.”

Madonna has thawed over the decades, both when it comes to her own back catalogue (her 2023 greatest-hits tour would have been unthinkable a handful of years earlier) and her relationship to the many artists who’ve cast themselves in her image. But there’s still a glint of prickly, passive-aggressive menace to how Madonna views the pop world – a kind of “I know, adore and support the fact that you’re ripping me so brazenly off” – that feels uniquely, hilariously her. Case in point: the announcement, just a few weeks after her Instagram post, of a long-rumoured collection of remixes locked in the Madonna vault since the late Nineties, each of which feels like a sonic blueprint for the exact kind of music currently being produced by music’s most outré pop girlies, from FKA Twigs and Addison Rae to Arca, Caroline Polachek and Erika de Casier. Jade, Britain’s next big pop hope, even threw out a cover of Madonna’s stark ballad “Frozen” in March. God forbid a woman takes inspiration.

Veronica Electronica, which is released tomorrow, takes its name from an alter ego Madonna teased in 1998 during the promotion for Ray of Light – her sensual, nocturnal dance record that housed hits such as “Frozen”, as well as “Drowned World/Substitute for Love”, “Nothing Really Matters” and the still-dazzling title track, with its twisting, twirling techno melody and euphoric vocals. A remix album bearing the Veronica Electronica title was mooted for release a year later, until Madonna grew distracted by sessions for her 2000 record Music – an album that would build upon her work with Ray of Light’s key producer, the spacy genius William Orbit, as well as the French electronica pioneer Mirwais Ahmadzaï.

But whether it’s truly new or not, Veronica Electronica feels like an attempt to root the pop sounds of 2025, as if to remind modern listeners of the inky, plaintive dance music from whence they came. It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in pop music sounds like Madonna, because Madonna is more or less all pop music, or at least the template for everything we recognise as female pop stardom today. But it’s been more pronounced than usual lately, with the year’s two best pop records – FKA Twigs’s Eusexua and Addison Rae’s Addison – both fusing traditional pop hooks with a chilly, introspective, ambient gloom, much like Madonna did on Ray of Light and Music.

On January’s Eusexua, a portmanteau of “euphoria” and “sexuality”, Twigs shifts out of the eerie midtempos of her earlier material and into full-blown experimental pop. There is an almost cyborgian eroticism to the record, her vocals warped into metallic purrs, the production bubbling and curdling underneath her toplines. “Girl Feels Good”, a slinky celebration of female sexuality co-produced by Ray of Light’s Marius de Vries, is a clear highlight, shifting from a sparse oddity into a busy lab experiment full of dramatic strings and glitchy synths. It could be lifted from turn-of-the-century Madonna – which Twigs herself has directly acknowledged, performing the track on her tour with choreography borrowed from the video of Madonna’s 2000 folktronica masterpiece “Don’t Tell Me”.

Six months on from Eusexua came Rae’s full-length debut Addison, which traded the Britney-aping power-pop of the former TikTok star’s early EPs in favour of lush trip-hop and sensuality. It’s partly out of necessity: Rae is not a powerhouse of a vocalist but a 24-carat whisper singer, Addison’s soundscape matching the limitations of its star’s pipes. But it helps evoke a gorgeous airiness across the record’s 12 tracks (its producers have stated Ray of Light was a key influence). Rae’s lyrics are often abstract and opaque, like dream logic, or what comes out when you pop a foreign language into Google Translate (“Tell me who I am, do I provoke you with my tone of innocence?”).

While Madonna is known for her steeliness – that sense that she’s almost infallible when it comes to criticism or emotional setbacks – Ray of Light was itself born of pain. She called the period prior to its recording her “rock bottom”, in which she faced relentless backlash over her sexually provocative output, questions about her marketability and relevance in an increasingly busy pop landscape, and a resulting crisis of confidence. “I think Madonna’s been of the opinion that it’s self-indulgent to admit sadness and loneliness,” her friend, the filmmaker Alek Keshishian, told Vanity Fair in 1998. “Before, it was always, ‘I have no regrets.’ This time it’s [quoting ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love’] ‘...now I find I’ve changed my mind.’ That, to me, takes a great amount of courage.”

Ever a magpie, she sought to replicate sounds on the pop fringes – Bjork, Massive Attack, Everything But the Girl, Tricky – and blow them up to their most commercially viable. (As if something was in the water, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue both released their most sonically interesting albums to date – 1997’s The Velvet Rope and Impossible Princess, respectively – around the same time.) Ray of Light touches on grief, faith, depression and nascent motherhood – Madonna had given birth to her first child just over a year earlier. The record was a smash, selling 16 million copies worldwide and netting Madonna four Grammys. Orbit was himself transformed into pop’s go-to producer for a time, too, working his magic in the studio for No Doubt, Blur, Melanie C and – most satisfyingly – on All Saints’s “Pure Shores”, arguably the most serene piece of Y2K ear-candy put to record.

And now we’re here. Why the resurgence of this particular Madonna sound? Call it a kind of musical reset, perhaps, from the wordy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan or the maximalist, Eighties-tinged pop of Dua Lipa or the non-industrial segments of this year’s middling Lady Gaga comeback record. Or maybe it’s even a response to the newfound, post-Covid allure of sweaty, underground nightclubs and dancing with strangers. The “Ray of Light” video concludes with Madonna losing her mind, all by herself, on a crowded dancefloor – just one restless speck of humanity in a massive universe beyond any of our comprehension. Haven’t we all felt that way at least once in the past few years?

Whatever the reason, Veronica Electronica is here to remind us of who dove into this terrain first. Or if not first, at least the most successfully. And where’s the harm in that?”.

I will end with a brilliant article from BBC. They argued how Ray of Light is 2025’s hottest album. With Veronica Electronica released, it did get journalists considering the power and endurance of its sister album, Ray of Light. I do think that Ray of Light is one of the most important albums ever. One that many did not expect Madonna to release following Bedtime Stories. That album was a reaction to 1992’s Erotica and the criticism it got from many due to its sexual nature and ‘controversy’. Ray of Light marries her innate ability to write instant Pop classics. Motherhood and spirituality enforces many of the 1998 album’s best moments:

“Madonna's varied discography is a mother lode of musical inspiration. With her early albums such as 1984's Like a Virgin, 1986's True Blue and 1989's Like a Prayer, she helped to invent the concept of the instantly recognisable, clearly delineated pop "era". But, during the past year or so, a slightly more recent Madonna album has become a touchstone for a new generation of musicians – 1998's Ray of Light, a cutting-edge collection of swirling electronica, which she largely crafted with British producer William Orbit.

"It's the perfect blend of pop sensibility and electronic innovation: it manages to deliver both, which is rare," Welsh electronic musician and producer Kelly Lee Owens tells the BBC. Owens, who cites Ray of Light as a major influence on her 2024 album Dreamstate, believes Madonna's masterpiece feels like "something that was fated to be made" in that "it was created at exactly the right time and place and has now become timeless".

British singer-songwriter Mae Muller also drew from Ray of Light while working on her new EP My Island, which was released earlier this month. Muller says the album's euphoric title track helped to put her in "a magic place of nostalgic melancholy" that made her "want to dance", which is her "favourite place" musically.

The album's spin on 90s electronica – beautifully fluid and flecked with techno and trip-hop – is disarmingly contemporary once more

This year alone, music critics have detected Ray of Light's sonic legacy in acclaimed albums by British avant-pop alchemist FKA Twigs (Eusexua), Portuguese-born Danish R&B musician Erika de Casier (Lifetime) and US TikTok creator-turned-pop singer Addison Rae (Addison). The album's aqueous-sounding spin on 1990s electronica – beautifully fluid and flecked with techno and trip-hop – is disarmingly contemporary once more. In March, former Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall (now known as JADE) released a suitably dramatic cover of Frozen, Ray of Light's chart-topping lead single. She said she was drawn to Madonna's haunting ballad because "it feels like a mix of genres" and "isn't your typical pop song". In a way, this cuts to the crux of Ray of Light's enduring appeal: because the album was such a cultural disruptor when it came out, it retains a rare cachet more than 27 years later.

IN THIS PHOTO: Addison Rae is among the contemporary artists whose work displays influences of the 1998 Madonna album/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Now, Madonna herself is revisiting the Ray of Light era with an accompanying (if somewhat belated) remix album called Veronica Electronica. Just released, it collects seven club-centric reworkings of songs from the original LP alongside one previously unreleased demo: the resilient break-up song Gone Gone Gone. When Madonna announced Veronica Electronica's release in June, a post on her website explained that it was "originally envisioned by Madonna as a remix album in 1998", but the project was "ultimately sidelined by the original album's runaway success and parade of hit singles that dominated the spotlight for more than a year".

No self-respecting pop star undersells their achievements, but this isn't hyperbole. When Ray of Light was released in February 1998, it debuted at number one in 17 countries and at number two in the US. In the UK, it spawned no fewer than five top 10 singles: Frozen, the pulsating title track, the reflective ballad Drowned World/Substitute for Love, a touching double A-side of The Power of Good-Bye and Little Star, and the existential club anthem Nothing Really Matters. Ray of Light would go on to sell 16 million copies globally: an especially impressive total given that Madonna released the album when she was 39, a challenging age for female performers who refuse to narrow their ambitions”.

Ray of Light's intoxicating sonic cocktail wouldn't pack such a punch if the album didn't contain some of Madonna's most ruminative and revelatory songwriting. She celebrates the birth of her daughter Lourdes on the lovely Little Star, but also confronts the death of her mother on the astonishingly stark album closer Mer Girl. "And I smelled her burning flesh, her rotting bones, her decay," Madonna sings in hushed tones. "I ran and I ran, I'm still running away." Owens says the overall effect is "so emotionally raw and sonically intimate" that what Madonna is singing about, a devastating visit to her mother's grave, "feels almost tangible somehow".

IN THIS PHOTO: Ray of Light's influence can be heard on EUSEXUA by FKA twigs/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Elsewhere, Madonna explores the essential emptiness of fame on Drowned World/Substitute for Love, social unrest on Swim, and her yearning for human connection on standout album tracks Skin and Sky Fits Heaven. Frank believes Ray of Light's spiritual streak is another reason why it chimes with so many contemporary artists. "A sense of the spiritual and introspective is all over pop music now," he says. "When you listen to Charli XCX's [2024 album] Brat or Ariana Grande's most recent album [last year's Eternal Sunshine], they're soundtracking their journey of spirituality and self-care – their search for meaning – on top of a foundation of electronica."

On one occasion, Madonna takes her quest for spiritual enlightenment a little too far. The album track Shanti/Ashtangi, which she sings in the ancient Indo-European language Sanskrit, sets lines from an Indian hymn, the Yoga Travali, to a rattling techno beat. It's doubtless well-intentioned, but also feels like crass cultural appropriation coming from a world-famous white woman.

In a way, though, Ray of Light's occasional flaw only adds to its appeal. "The album feels 100% authentic to Madonna, which is what people have always wanted from music, but maybe even more so today," Muller says. Owens agrees, saying that while "the electronic landscape Orbit created is timeless", Madonna's "vulnerability still resonates deeply" too. For this reason, Ray of Light's influence seems unlikely to wane. It's an album that redefined, and continues to shape, the kind of music that pop stars can make and achieve success with”.

I will finish here. No doubt a seismic album in terms of Pop history and the impact it is still having, Ray of Light is one that everyone needs to own. Though Pop artists today are not copying Madonna, it is clear they are compelled and moved by Ray of Light and want to show their love for it. When you hear the amazing music right through the album, then it is pretty…

EASY to see why.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Blusher

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight 

 

Blusher

__________

MAYBE I am…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Brianna Da Silva

a bit late to this wonderful trio. An Australian group who released their E.P., RACER, earlier this month, they are on my radar now. I am going to end with a review of the E.P. I want to start out with an interview from last year from The Line of Best Fit. They shone a light on the amazing Blusher. This is a trio (Miranda Ward, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Lauren Coutts) that you need to have in your life. They are going to go places:

“Formed in reaction to the isolation of pandemic, the camaraderie of the three members is the propelling force behind Blusher. Completed by Lauren Coutts and Jade Ingvarson-Favretto, they began writing in bedrooms as lockdown lifted, before signing with Atlantic off the back of their first ever show. Their ascent has been something of a whirlwind ever since, taking in international headlines, a wealth of new music, and a slot supporting homeland queen Kylie.

Although based in Melbourne, it’s only Ingvarson-Favretto, who is part-Swedish, that grew up in the city, playing in an ABBA tribute band with her family. “My parents are still in it and that's been their career for my whole childhood and life up to now. I perform in it with my siblings as well. I would play the part of Agnetha and we would do the accents and the outfits and everything,” she says. “I used to force my dad to play piano for hours and I would make up gibberish songs as a kid with him. That was kind of my first taste of music and writing.”

As they’ve progressed, their creative process has become more collaborative, working with outside songwriters and producers in sessions around the world, and collaborating fluidly in the studio. “We all do a little bit of everything. We all play multiple instruments a little bit, we all have a hand in the top lines,” says Ward. “We do fall into creative patterns sometimes, but a lot of the time we just see what happens. I guess we have the things that we gravitate towards; Jade's very melody-focused and Lauren’s really production and lyric-focused and I love a good bassline. But also we all do everything.”

Their recent releases are an explosive rush of slick production and instant songwriting, platforming their combined talents and sugar-rush delivery. Tracks like “24 Hours in Paris” tread a sophisticated line of feeling familiar yet idiosyncratic, while previous offering “Rave Angel” glows with sass, clever construction and inventive hooks.

Blusher also individually worked on their own versions of the singles, bringing different aspects of their own sonic identity to the music. “We got the stems for ‘Accelerator’ and I was like, ‘God these stems are good,’” laughs Coutts. “I think that was just a bit of a passion project for me, I didn't really think anything would necessarily come of it and then it became something quite special. We talked about releasing it and then I think it was also just a really good opportunity for us to showcase our production skills.”

With a sold out London headline behind them and headline dates in Australia awaiting their return, Blusher are ready to continue their breakneck progression, still developing and expanding while keeping that formative connection at their core. “We're working on a remix for another artist altogether at the moment, which is something we haven't done, but maybe the next step is a Blusher remix where we all collaborate on it,” says Ward. “We're just experimenting a lot at this point and writing in different ways and who knows what is gonna be the vibe for singles coming up. We are collaborating a lot but we're also just bringing it back to the three of us a lot as well. Just bringing it back to how the band started, in the room with the three of us”.

There is quite a lot to cover when it comes to Blusher. There were a lot of interviews from last year and there is some stuff from 2023. They have been out there for a little bit, though I think this year is their biggest and most important. Wonderland. included Blusher in their New Noise feature. I have heard them on the radio here, though I don’t think they are been giving enough airplay. Blusher are pushing Pop boundaries:

“Congrats on your new EP, “RACER”. How are you feeling about the release?

Miranda: I don’t think we’ve ever been more excited for a release. RACER feels like the perfect combination of our three individual tastes and experiences coming together to make something that is so us, but also so much bigger than us. We’ve been working on the EP in one way or another for more than a year, and it’s pretty surreal at the moment to think that we get to see how everyone else connects to it. The best feeling is hearing peoples’ stories of our songs helping them get through a breakup, or pumping them up when they feel terrible, or that they’ve made their new best friend at a Blusher show. We’re hoping these songs lead to more of those moments.

What’s the story behind the project’s title?

Jade: Being a RACER is a state of mind where someone is their boldest, brightest, most magnetic and unapologetic self. They’re their own stunt person, they’re the ones starting the dance floor while the rest of the party is trying too hard to be cool. Being the most authentic possible version of yourself is very “RACER”.

What inspired the thematic direction of the EP?

Lauren: The camaraderie we share with each other through all of our experiences being a band — from the start it’s felt like we’re a tight knit team encouraging each other to be our most RACER selves. The energy you have when you’re in the ‘getting really into fitness’ part of a breakup. Girlhood, confidence, and clubbing as a team sport. The first song we wrote for the EP was about taking your best friend on a marathon night out to help them through their breakup, and the concept snowballed from that moment. 

Across the project, you flirt with the expectations of what pop is and has been — is that intentional or emblematic of your fluidity as musicians?

Miranda: I think that’s unavoidable with us, to be honest. We’re all total music nerds at heart. We all have a lot of respect and love for our elders. We’re always listening to ABBA, The Beach Boys, Madonna, Kylie. We’re also obsessed with futuristic, boundary-pushing pop and dance music. One thing we basically never do is reference something that’s big or trending at the moment. We’re super fluid with what we listen to and what we’re inspired by, but creating through the venn diagram of the three of us means it will always turn out quintessentially Blusher.

You’re hitting the road once again later this year. What can attendees expect from a live show?

Miranda: Bangers, bubbles, bass, choreography, remixes, covers, new merch, CD’s, energy, afterparties.

You’ve previously toured with Sugababes, Tove Lo and played with Kylie Minogue — what did those experiences teach you?

Lauren: These shows were such a dream come true. We definitely took many notes from each of their shows from choreo to band set up to fashion – but I think the most inspiring thing for me is just to see these women having long, sustainable, fun careers in the music industry. Our job is made a lot easier by the path that these women have forged.

What else is to come from you — this year and beyond?

Jade: We’re so excited for the RACER era and we have big plans for remixing the EP and touring and travelling a lot. We love writing when we travel and we find a lot of inspiration from whichever new city we’re in at the time. We want to write for the next project, make as many new friends all over the world as we can, and find some matching vintage Adidas boxing boots”.

The final interview I am including is from The Honey Pop. It is great that Blusher have some U.K. dates coming soon. It is going to be an opportunity for fans here to see the trio being their new E.P. to the stage. That will be some experience! Go and follow them on social media if you have not done so already:

“One thing we’re obsessed with is how every part of the band has a creative voice—from something as simple as ‘mp3’ in your Instagram handle to Jade’s iconic ribbon fishnet tights. But to really get to know you as individuals: if each of you had to pick one thing as your personal brand—a signature move, look, or vibe—what would it be?
Impossible! Artists are complex creatures with way too much going on under the hood to be able to explain themselves like that – it’s why we have to keep writing songs. But okay, we’ll try our best

Miranda: violin nerd turned bass-drop fiend

Jade: dorky fairy who shreds omnichord and does the worm at weddings 

Lauren: golden retriever with headphones on

‘Racer’ is the perfect opener for the EP—the name alone sets that wild, handkerchief-flailing kickoff for the whole body of work, especially ending with ‘Running To You.’ What was it about that track that made you want to grab listeners by the collar and hook them right from the jump?

Jade: Thank you! We wanted this song to feel like your best friend bursting into the room, convincing you to come on a night out and filling you up with chaotic energy. It feels like it’s daring you to be the boldest, most unstoppable, and fizzy version of yourself. Like a lot of the songs on the EP, it was inspired by the bond the three of us share and how we bring out the RACER in each of us. The RACER ethos is about being the person to start the dance floor while everyone else is worrying about what other people think.

We love the lyric “The track is fading out, you know the feeling” on ‘Marathon’—it captures that wistful moment of something ending, both sonically and emotionally. Is there a closing lyric on the EP—whether literally the final line or just one that feels like a full-stop—that you’re especially proud of? Something that really lands the plane for you?

Miranda: “Crying in the club, yeah, I’m so cliche. But I’m crying in the club in a cool new way” – really sums up how I feel about writing pop songs. There’s always an interesting new perspective to explore on the classic topics of pop like heartbreak or love.

Lauren: “We’ve got matching blisters now, they call us sisters, wow” – this is a special one to me because it’s a direct window into our friendship, which is the heart of RACER and everything we do.

Jade: “I do it for the love of the sport” feels like it captures our passion and grit completely. We formed this band because we wholeheartedly love making music. As long as we can say we have put every ounce of sweat and conviction into the art, who cares if anyone else likes it or not?

Supporting Kylie Minogue at British Summer Time in Hyde Park is a massive moment, but it also feels like two eras of Australian pop colliding. What kind of wisdom do you think you can take from how she broke out in 1988, and how does that merge with what you’ve learned navigating 2025—where handing someone a cassette has turned into chasing virality on socials?

Lauren: Supporting Kylie was such an unbelievable moment for us; even now, it’s hard to believe we did that! She’s such an icon and an inspiration for us. There’s obviously a lot to take from her and her performance, but for me, I think it’s the everlasting nature of great songwriting. The music industry is always changing, whether we’re burning CDs or becoming video editors, we’ll be adapting with it for our entire careers – but the thing that doesn’t change is the power of a great song, a great performer, and their ability to bring people together. It’s really inspiring to see the way Kylie has sustained this incredible pop stardom for decades, plus she seems to be really happy and healthy, which we love to see!

And finally, because Aussie music deserves all the love, who’s an Australian artist you’re really vibing with right now? Someone you think more people need to have on their radar?

Jade: Memphis LK

Lauren: Phoebe Go 

Miranda: Sycco”.

NME were among those who shared their views on the sensational RACER. There have been some incredible E.P.s. released this year. Blusher’s is among the best. I am excited to see where the group goes from here. One of the brightest names in new music:

“In a post-‘Brat’ world, it’s easy to draw a line between Charli XCX’s culture-shifting record and any project of hard-hitting, bittersweet club sounds that comes after. While shades of the British popstar’s impact can certainly be found on Blusher’s second EP ‘Racer’, the Australian band have been drawing from a similar well of influences since their sublime 2023 debut EP, ‘Should We Go Dance?’.

The pop-minded trio – made up of Lauren Coutts, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Miranda Ward, who all trade roles as producers, singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists – recommit to the dancefloor on the six-track ‘Racer’, where they’ve sharpened their sound and, more importantly, their hooks. Take the cheeky ‘Don’t Look At Me Like That’, where the chanted cadence of the chorus ( “Don’t make it / Ro-man-tic / Don’t look at me like you’re in love / Don’t make it / Dra-ma-tic / Don’t look at me like that”) is an inescapable earworm.

The same stickiness can be found across most of the EP. High-octane title track ‘Racer’ is a gorgeous cross between ‘Tension’-era Kylie Minogue and ‘Brat’’s rave energy. Meanwhile, ‘WHATEVERWHATEVER’ might be light lyrically (“I wanna go out, I wanna stay in / I want to get delirious and do it all again”), but the breezy synth-driven anthem about brushing off pressure is great for setting the mood for a night out.

Not every song can be a banger, though. The melody of ‘Marathon’ is instantly familiar, even if you can’t put your finger on it – but once you realise it’s reminiscent of the children’s tune ‘Camptown Races’, the song is ruined for good. Pair that with lyrics that are more cringe than cool (“Crying in the club, yeah I’m so cliche / But I’m crying in the club in a cool new way”), and you have the EP’s only skip.

A better surprise is earnest closer ‘Running To You’. At first, it comes off as lovely but quite typical – like one of those label-mandated ballads you’d find on almost every K-pop album. But, just as it’s winding down, the lasers and synths start swirling and the hi-hat kicks in, transforming the song into a euphoric Boiler Room-esque instrumental as their vocals loop in the background.

It’s Blusher themselves who best encapsulate the EP on the joyous, ABBA-coded disco tune ‘Last Man Standing’, where they sing “And I do it for the love of the sport, and I do it ’cause I just want more” over a driving bassline and shimmering synths. Both the line and song sum up the band’s entire vibe and ethos: turning the dial up to 10 and giving it their all just because they love pop that much. It comes through in droves on ‘Racer’, where they’ve turbocharged their fun-loving electro-pop sound, bringing it to the next level”.

Anyone who has not heard of Blusher, go and check them out. They are primed for big things. Even if I am slightly new to them, I will make up for a bit of lost time. I am definitely invested now. Following the release of RACER and some tour dates in their diary, the group will grow and build their fanbase. There is no doubt that Blusher’s Miranda Ward, Jade Ingvarson-Favretto and Lauren Coutts are trhe real deal. This year has been busy for Blusher. I am looking ahead to see what is in store…

IN 2026.

____________

Follow Blusher

FEATURE: Groovelines: The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson) - To Build a Home

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

  

The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson) - To Build a Home

__________

A name that some people might not know…

Patrick Watson is a remarkable artist with this beautiful and entrancing voice. Some people know about his solo career and tracks like Je la laissierai des mots (that has over a billion streams on Spotify). Watson is a Canadian artist whose debut album, Waterproof9, was released in 2001. Actually, that is technically his only solo album, as everything past that was from his group, Patrick Watson. One of his most well-loved moments was singing with The Cinematic Orchestra on their album, Ma Fleur. The opening track on that album was To Build a Home. It was released as a single on 29th October, 2007. It is a gorgeous and spine-tingling track I wanted to explore more for this Groovelines. Although there were mixed reviews for Ma Fleur, many highlighted To Build a Home as an especially captivating moment. I will go more in depth with this track. I want to start out with Wikipedia and their section regarding the critical reaction to the track:

“To Build a Home" had a positive reception from music critics. Critics often saw Watson's vocal performance as a highlight on the song. For The Observer, Stuart Nicholson wrote that "Swinscoe transforms three- and four-chord vamps into something special." For Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro regarded the vocals as "bellowing [and] haunting", while Tyler Fisher of Sputnikmusic said that Watson "nearly steals the show". Maggie Fremont of Vulture called it "one of the most emotional songs ever performed."

"To Build a Home" has been used in several different television shows and films, including This Is Us, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, Friday Night Lights, and Orange Is the New Black”.

I want to move to an interview from Red Bull Music Academy. Jason Swinscoe from The Cinematic Orchestra. He was invited for a talk about “his career at the RBMA Bass Camp in Vienna before a performance later that night”:

“Can you tell us about this song? It has a different approach to rhythm, because there are no drums. For a guy coming out of club culture, it must have been quite a step to leave out the drums completely.

It was definitely a considered thought. I was in clubs a lot at that time, and what I think was happening around Ma Fleur was that I was actually losing interest in the club scene. And so I wanted to write a record which was a little less beat-oriented. For me, it got to the point where it was just all about the beat, it’s like, “Where’s the music?” I was consciously trying to do more songwriting stuff.

Music is such a strong language, and it’s one that I’m just going to continually explore.

With “To Build a Home,” I had a chord progression in Paris, and I went to Montreal, where my manager Dom put me in touch with Patrick Watson. Patrick was introduced to this guy Jeff, who was running Ninja Tune in Montreal at the time. He used to be on the same hockey team. Yes, because they’re Canadians. They love their hockey. Patrick was, I think, quite a pathetic hockey player. He was the goalkeeper, that’s why he got the shit position. But Jeff heard this guy singing occasionally, and he was like, “You should check this guy out.” I got in touch with him and he was doing his own music at the time, writing music to short films.

I just went to Montreal for five days, and we sat down and just wrote that tune. We did it in the first couple of days really. It was a very collaborative experience. I was like, “Patrick, I’ve got these piano chords,” and he just came up with the melody and we wrote the lyrics together. It was just one of those magical combinations of right time and right place”.

There are not that many reviews for To Build a Home. However, it is a song that a lot of people love. Drowned in Sound awarded the track eight out of ten in 2007. This was a track I first heard in 2007 and instantly was affected by it. I still listen to it now and am moved every single time. It is a stunning song that is so evocative and dreamy. You can close your eyes and picture yourself inside of it:

“That was worrying, back there: the piano keys were dabbed gently and Jason Swinscoe’s vocal arrived, angelic, offering a sweet melody. Oh no - it’s going to sound like Keane. The Cinematic Orchestra have lost the plot.

But that was about 20 seconds into this six-minute long, download-only single - the first taster from new album, Ma Fleur. Yes, this is sensitive stuff, but it’s saved from soppiness by its artistic vision: while strings start to swell up, crescendo-ing, ‘To Build A Home’ never fully takes flight. Instead, it toys with you, undulating up and down, devoid of percussion, light as an eddying breeze. The combination of dainty music and themes of love, loss and feeling safe at home could become twee and over sentimental, but Swinscoe’s turn of phrase and cracked, world-weary cry makes ‘To Build A Home’ reminiscent of Elbow’s ‘Scattered Black & Whites’ in tone, or some of Nick Drake’s more plaintive material, skirting the line between simple shite and simple genius, and fainting onto the right side.

As a sign of things to come from Ma Fleur, this is very promising indeed”.

It is strange highlighting and praising a song that is not particularly liked by either The Cinematic Orchestra or Patrick Watson. Jason Swinscoe said he feels shackled to the song and sort of feel that it defined them - and regrets that. Patrick Watson was not hit by the song and feels others are a lot better. However, millions of people do love the song and it is a sublime and stirring work. Before finish up, I want to bring in this Patrick Watson interview from last year:

“While many have offered heaps of money to license the Montreal musician’s acclaimed work over the years, he says there are certain ethical lines he refused to cross.

In the case of “To Build a Home,” his 2007 piano-string ballad with the Cinematic Orchestra, one corporation with a history of what he calls “reasonable ethical doubts” wanted to license his song for an internal marketing video. Watson said he flatly declined their request.

“We were offered half a million,” he said in a recent conversation from his Montreal home.

“I’m not anti-corporation. I just think there’s a difference between corporations.”

Watson said he wrestled with similar moral quandaries numerous times early in his career, concluding that musicians sometimes have to pick their “evils” and settle on rights deals that allow them to sleep at night.

“To Build a Home” has appeared on TV shows spanning “One Tree Hill” to “Schitt’s Creek” and an array of live sports montages.

“CP: You didn’t have a previous working relationship with Cinematic Orchestra before “To Build a Home,” so how did that come about?

Watson: I got the gig in the weirdest way possible. I was a goalie when I was a kid. And Jeff (Waye, former North American label manager of the U.K. record label) Ninja Tune was my coach. I was on their team at the Exclaim! Cup (a longtime charity Toronto hockey tournament consisting mostly of musicians). I played this great game and Jeff was a competitive hockey coach in a really funny way. He’s like, “All right, since you played such a good game, Cinematic Orchestra is looking for this singer for a song.” Which was good for me because I was a nobody. They sent me the tune and it was this four-on-the-floor house track with the chord progression in it. And then Cinematic Orchestra’s Jason Swinscoe came to Montreal to work with me on a piano version. It was a demo and it was not supposed to end like that. I thought they would chop it up and do s–t to it because they’re an electronic band. But instead, they’re like, “We’re releasing it like that.” And I’m like, “You guys are nuts”.

I always think that there is another music video that could be made for the song. Not to say the one out there is bad. However, I always imagine scenes when I hear the track. Something about a child growing into adulthood. Starting out in this home that was once full of life and a place for adventures. That child now an adult and seeing scenes projected on the wall. Now, the house left and is collecting dust. The tree in the garden one of the only things remaining from those early days. I feel, about eighteen years after it was released as a single, there have been that many songs that are as affecting and transcendent. I am not bothered that its creators are not kind to the song. It is for the public and is not theirs anymore. To Build a Home is this startling and gorgeous piece of music I think connects with people for different reasons. Maybe it is something universal about home and memories. Looking back to the past or recalling childhood. I am not surprised it has been used so much on the screen, though it is best heard without other people’s visuals. Having this solitary experience. It has not aged at all. You can listen to it a hundred times and it does not lose its beauty and atmosphere. For anyone who does not know the song, I would strongly encourage you to listen to it. A gem from The Cinematic Orchestra’s Ma Fleur, I will always love this song. It is why I wanted to spotlight it. A wondrous piece of music that will always…

STIR emotion in me.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Spiller (ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor) – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

 Spiller (ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor) – Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

__________

THIS single is one I remember…

IN THIS PHOTO: Cristiano Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released/PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock

coming out and I was instantly hooked! On 14th August, 2000, this incredible song came out. Written by Cristiano Spiller, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Rob Davis, Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) is one of the biggest songs of the 2000s. Arriving in the first summer of that decade, it is this blissful track that takes me back twenty-five years. I was seventeen when it came out and I was transfixed by it. Such a catchy and evocative song, it was the first time I had heard of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She has gone on to enjoy this incredible career. Spiller was also new to me. Though less prolific than Ellis-Bextor, he cannot be called a one-hit wonder. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) went up against Victoria Beckham’s debut single, Out of Your Mind. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) won the battle! I am going to get to some information about the song soon. It was a track that started as an instrumental. Fearful that it was tor repetitive and would not be played on radio, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, formerly with the band Theaudience, was brought in to write lyrics and sing. Rob Davis slightly reworked the lyrics and came up with the song’s subtitle. Ellis-Bextor’s hook was “And so it goes... how does it feel so good?". Davis replaced it with “If this ain't love... why does it feel so good?".

On 8th September, twenty years after the song was released, Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor discussed the making of Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) with The Guardian. As is mentioned in the article, this classic was “the first song ever to be played on an iPod. But, as its creators reveal, the demo was left in a car – then tossed on to a floor and forgotten”:

“Cristiano Spiller, DJ, producer and songwriter

This was one of the fastest tracks I ever produced. It was 1999, the night before I was due to fly to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, where all aspiring DJs and producers went. I was trying to stay awake for my early-morning flight and put on an unreleased version of Carol Williams’ Love Is You. I ended up sampling it and, in a couple of hours, I had Groovejet more or less written.

I was picked up at Miami by my friend Boris Dlugosch, who was always looking for the next smash. I put the track on, but we started talking and didn’t pay much attention to it. He dropped me at my hotel, but I forgot about the CD – my only copy – and left it in his car. That night, he was DJ-ing at a club called Groovejet. When I arrived, he had just played it and the place had gone crazy. Everyone wanted to hear it again – and again. Based on the incredible reaction, it felt natural to name the track after the club.

I knew it had to have lyrics, though. I had no money to get the sample cleared and the labels didn’t want to risk paying the advance because they didn’t think it would recoup the cost. So I sent promotional copies to the best record shops in Europe, and soon all the tastemaker DJs were playing it. Suddenly, all the labels wanted to pay the advance.

I signed to EMI’s Positiva Records and we started talking vocals. I wanted an original, charismatic voice, not the classic disco-diva singer, which was so over-done. From a pile of demos, Sophie’s beautiful voice immediately stood out.

I was really into house and underground clubbing. I had no idea how the pop world worked. I didn’t understand how important the charts were or what Top of the Pops was. It was a completely crazy time but also a dream come true: I ended up DJing at the best clubs and parties around the world.

Groovejet gave me so much freedom – it meant I never had to do another pop hit. I could just keep on making music for clubs.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Roney/Getty Images

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, , singer and songwriter

When I first listened to the instrumental track, I stopped it halfway through and thought: “Why have they sent me dance music? I don’t like dance music!” A couple of weeks later, I was tidying my flat and found the CD on the floor. I played it again and this time I thought it really had something.

I’d just come out of my band, theaudience. We’d been part of the whole NME/Melody Maker indie scene, but elements of that world were tough, especially the press. I was only 19 but they were always quite nasty and never particularly supportive. Groovejet was a breath of fresh air, a brilliant way of turning the page. The dance world didn’t intimidate me – it was welcoming and I felt at home.

‘Everyone was talking about who would be No 1’ …Spiller and Ellis-Bextor in 2000, when Groovejet was released. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock

I agreed to sing on the track and went into the studio with my own ideas and wrote the verses quickly. Eventually, they spliced my verses with a brilliant chorus by Rob Davis. Mine was rubbish in comparison! The track’s magic is in his chorus and Spiller’s instrumental. I was so happy to be the voice on it.

The song was everywhere. It was on heavy rotation on Radio 1 months before release. Things really blew up when it got the same release date as Victoria Beckham and Dane Bowers’ Out of Your Mind – Victoria’s first release post-Spice Girls. Suddenly we were on the front pages and even the Six O’Clock News. Everyone was talking about who would be No 1.

The day before the result came in, I was waiting for a bus and thinking about rushing into Woolworths to buy a copy because I’d heard there were only 500 copies in it. In the end, Groovejet reached No 1, outselling Out of Your Mind by 20,000. I never did make that trip to Woolworths!

Having a song that people are really fond of is a gift. I’m still really happy to sing it. It gave me the confidence to genre-hop. When my son discovered it was the first song ever to be played on an iPod, he finally looked impressed by something his mum had done”.

This feature from 2021 is fascinating. We get to learn more about a track that has endured for quarter of a century. Sophie Ellis-Bextor has a good relationship with it. Not sick of it, like some artists who always get associated with songs and have to live with that, she is good friends with it. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) still sounds so fresh and sun-kissed. It is one of the ultimate summer tracks:

“The finishing touches

It wasn't just a vocal track that Ellis-Bextor signed herself up for. She also had the opportunity to help write the song's vocal melody.

"They were looking for someone to sing the track, but they were also looking for a top line: they didn't have the song yet," she says.

"So, I wrote a song. I think another four or five writers had also written pitches for the song.

"In the end, they took a chorus from this really brilliant songwriter called Rob Davis. They put his chorus with my verses, sort of spliced together.

This article contains external content that failed to load. It may have been removed or is no longer available.

That brilliant chorus was always the best option and Ellis-Bextor has no ill-feelings about her option being shunned.

"It wasn't very good," she says of her idea for the refrain.

"They picked a much better chorus. I think Rob's chorus is brilliant. His one was definitely stronger."

Though, at the time, the singer did have one reservation about that chorus, and she ain't afraid to admit it.

"I was quite uncomfortable about the fact that the 'if this ain't love' had the word 'ain't' in it," she says.

"Because it was not part of my normal vernacular. I mean, that's so ridiculous, but I was 20 and I just had lots and lots of rules.

"You know when you're younger and you just live like that. 'These are things I like, these are things that are cool, that's not me'… I guess it's also figuring out what kind of artist you want to be and what's important to you.

"It shows you that you can think things are important and they're just really not. You've got to learn these lessons."

Cristiano Spiller, the Italian producer who crafted the track, was not a huge part of the creative process by the time Ellis-Bextor became involved.

"To be honest, I didn't spend a lot of time with Spiller," she says. "He came for that week to record and do some press shots. Then he came for a week just before the song came out.

"He seemed alright! He was friendly enough. He didn't have tons of English, but he seemed very well meaning.

"I think what he did with the track is really clever."

What he did with the track was to breathe new life into an old disco jam. It's not an uncommon way to make dance music, but it does require a deft touch.

"The song that 'Groovejet' is taken from is a song called 'Love Is You', which was released in 1977 by a singer called Carol Williams.

"It's a really beautiful song, but he took some really clever bits to sort of create the track of 'Groovejet'. He's a talented guy, Spiller."

YouTubeCarol Williams Love Is You

"It is a really cool song. I did a cover of it a couple years back, I quite liked this sort of weird circular nature of it. There's a nice serendipity there.

"It's a real puppy dog of a disco song. It just wants to be liked."

As for the name? It comes from the name of a Miami nightclub. Ellis-Bextor finds it as curious as you do.

"Spiller had a friend that was DJing at this big club called Groovejet," she says. "They played it there and there was a big reaction from the crowd. So, he's like, 'Let's call it Groovejet'.

"I mean, to be honest, to me it's quite weird. because I've got such a massive relationship with the song, but I've got zero relationship with Groovejet itself. I've never been there. I don't even know what it looks like.

"Does anyone even know it's called that? Or do they just think it's called 'If This Ain't Love'? It's quite funny if you think about it. The word Groovejet is not featured in the song at all."

What came next

'Groovejet' was massive.

In fact, 'Groovejet' is still massive. It sold bucketloads upon its release and has had tens of millions of streams across all platforms. It remains an iconic reflection of what dance and pop music sounded like at the turn of the century.

"That song just sort of changed everything," Ellis-Bextor says.

"I mean, there's the obvious stuff, like the fact it was commercially very successful. It ended up going to number one in I don't even know how many countries: like 11 or 12 countries.

"It was extraordinary for me to go from one summer with my indie band that was falling apart, and then the next summer I'm going to Ibiza and singing at end of season parties in front of thousands of club goers, and just being introduced to that whole world.

"It's the first time I'd had a song go to places that I'll never go to. That was that was an extraordinary idea to me, like I could fly somewhere new and they'd be like, 'Oh, we know that song'."

Commercial success was grand. But it's the personal growth that Ellis-Bextor considers the greatest gift the song gave her.

"Most importantly, it shook up and changed the way I saw myself and the possibilities and options that I had.

"I thought, 'Right, you know what, if I trust my instinct, I can actually embrace a lot of different genres. I don't have to stick to indie music'.

"I love guitar music. It is still part of the map of how I make music most of the time, but it basically made me embrace the fact that, if you peel back my layers, I'm basically a pop kid.

"From then I thought, 'Okay, it's open season. I can dip my toe in lots of different water now'”.

You can find out details about Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s demo for the gem of a song. It has this amazing story, and I think the collaboration with Spiller works really well and they have this chemistry. I think the video is one of my favourite things. Ellis-Bextor and Spiller never meeting until near the end. Them both in Bangkok and never crossing paths until late on. This feature is Spiller revealing the complete story. He discusses the video and how that came to be:

“When it was time to decide what to do with the video, I honestly had no idea, so Positiva commissioned a bunch of different treatments from production companies, most of them were a bit too serious, but the script that stood out was titled Big in Hong Kong as a reference to Big in Japan, it was much more down to earth as it was basically making fun of my height, which is something I’ve always been comfortable with, also Sophie’s role was nicely balanced with mine.

The final location became Bangkok. I was, of course, excited for filming my first ever music video in such a beautiful city but honestly it was also kind of shocking, it was July during the rainy season, incredibly hot, wet and polluted by the heavy traffic. The first day I got stomach flu probably from the water used for ice cubes and I was especially surprised by the amount of sex tourism I witnessed around the streets during those few days. Thankfully our German director (Frank Nesemann) focused on the city's brighter side, with the whole crew, he did a great job.

Fun fact #1: To go to Thailand I met in Paris with Stefano, my Italian manager, we had to take a direct flight to Bangkok with Air France during the final match of UEFA Euro 2000, ITALY vs FRANCE. Stefano was really into soccer and on the plane, it was 300 French versus us 2 Italians, the pilot (also French) was receiving updates via radio and was giving commentary during the flight, Italy pretty much dominated the whole game and were ahead by one goal, I played it cool but my manager could barely contain himself, at minute 90 he was already celebrating, then France scored so we went into extra time and they won it in the 103rd minute with a golden goal. The plane went crazy, everyone doing chants to our faces, so my manager wasn’t in the best of moods for the next 48 hours.

Fun fact #2: the director had asked me to bring over my favourite clothes for the video. So, I travelled with a big suitcase full of clothes (mainly t-shirts), we then met in my hotel room and I showed him everything. He didn’t like one single piece, so we only kept my shoes and they sent someone shopping for clothes for a 2.08 m (6.8 ft) tall dude… in Bangkok!

Fun fact #3: when I ask the taxi driver to turn the music up in the taxi, if you read my lips it looks like I am swearing in Venetian dialect, for 20 years I get asked by my Venetian acquaintances for confirmation about that, so once and for all: NO, I was just asking him to turn up the music!”.

14th August, 2000 was a big date in music history. Not only because Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) was released and took people by surprise. It also was in this chart battle and won. Still so popular and played to this day, I know we will be discussing this single for many years to come. Put the track on today and…

PLAY it loud!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs of Singlehood

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Darkshade Photos/Pexels

 

Songs of Singlehood

__________

ONE of the bittersweet things…

PHOTO CREDIT: Vlada Karpovich/Pexels

about being single – permanently in my case! – is that it can provide a lot of freedom and space. There is also that independence. However, there is also a loneliness and sense of being an outsider. There is nothing wrong with being single. However, so many songs focus on love, desire, sex and relationships. If you have not been in one or are single, it can be isolating or jar slightly. However, there are songs of artists either writing from singlehood or saying that they are fine and happy being single. It can be empowering. The dynamic and narrative has changed a lot when it comes to love and relationships in music. I find a lot more artists are writing about the transience of sex and relations. Maybe more focused on themselves and fulfilment rather than what is expected and common. For this Digital Mixtape, I have compiled an assortment of tracks from artists writing about their single status – whether happily or a as a slight lament. Loving yourself and being confident in the face of a toxic relationship. Embracing self-worth and moving on from negativity. Many might be able to relate to that! For those newly-single or those who have had that status for a while, these are songs that I hope speak to you. Or that at least give you some strength and solace! Unlike decades past, when it comes to singlehood and its ups and downs, today we have…

PHOTO CREDIT: Designecologist/Pexels

MORE artists talking about it.

FEATURE: I’m So High: Kylie Minogue's Light Years at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

I’m So High

 

Kylie Minogue's Light Years at Twenty-Five

__________

EVEN if…

IN THS PHOTO: Kylie Minogue in 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Burmiston

its album cover is not as eye-catching and striking as its follow-up, Fever (2001), there is no denying how important Kylie Minogue’s Light Years is. Spinning Around is probably the best-known single from the album. Minogue’s seventh studio album, it came three years after Impossible Princess. That 1997 album remains one of her most underrated. Released on 22nd September, 2000 in Australia and three days later in the U.K., it was a big success. Following the commercial dip of Impossible Princess and some mixed critical reviews, this was a definite statement. A very different-sounding album that embraced Dance and Disco, it is one of her greatest albums. Pure joy from start to finish. 2001’s Fever might be even better, though some would say Minogue’s most recent work is her best. She is one of those artists who is consistently brilliant. Light Years was Kylie Minogue going back to her Pop roots but working with different producers. Fresher, edgier and more compelling than her albums of the 1980s and 1990s, this was Minogue entering a new century with a new purpose. Embracing music from the 1970s and the Disco/Dance from that time, one cannot deny how phenomenal the songs are! Even if some critics were not sold on the lyrical content - there are songs of female empowerment, desire and sex -, others did note how this was a revitalised and powerful album from Kylie Minogue. Light Years has not aged. Inspiring so many of today’s Pop artists, Minogue is touring and playing songs from Light Years to this day. She will no doubt salute twenty-five years of a breakthrough album, at a time when many had written her off. I will get to some reviews of Light Years and some insight into the album and why it is so remarkable and important. Light Years won the ARIA Award for Best Female Artist and Best Pop Release in 2001. Reaching number two in the U.K. and one in her native Australia, Minogue hit a new career high and was undertaking this new phase and chapter.

I want to move to a feature from Albumism that was published in September 2020. They marked twenty years of Light Years. I could not include the whole thing here, but I have selected different parts that give us some background to the album and information about the tracks and songwriters. A bit about the critical reaction to Light Years:

“For two decades, the twin narratives around Light Years—Kylie Minogue’s seventh studio album—have been predicated on restoration and course correction.

Concerning the former aspect, Light Years brought Minogue back to commercial prominence with its many platinum returns and a hot streak of singles—of the eventual six it yielded, “Spinning Around” and “On a Night Like This” stood the tallest among the sextet.

Regarding the latter element, Light Years was a supposed referendum on the experimentation that anchored Kylie Minogue (1994) and Impossible Princess (1997), Minogue’s fifth and sixth sets, respectively. Taking her leave of Stock-Aitken-Waterman—the British production trio who guided the first act of her singing career—in 1992, Minogue’s post-Stock-Aitken-Waterman ambitions were boldly actioned on those two aforesaid albums which marked her transition from pre-fabricated pop vocalist to fully realized recording artist. Yet, the specter of her cherubic Smash Hits past lingered.

Consider the piece that ran in Outrage Magazine—an Australian LGBTQ publication—in their November 2000 issue at the height of the promotional blitz for Light Years. The feature was titled “Kylie’s Disco Needs You! The Comeback Queen Camps It Up in the Interview You’ve All Been Waiting For!” Although Minogue was warm throughout her exchange with the interviewer, one cannot help but notice her polite discontent at being tagged as a proxy for all things froth and fluff.

Even with all the accolades won by Minogue up through to Light Years, upon its unveiling, many critics erroneously pegged the project as some sort of retreat into non-substantive fare—they couldn’t have been more wrong. Neither a retreat nor a course correction, Light Years was a soft reset that allowed Minogue to apply everything she had learned toward the practice of generating a chart friendly collection that was also creatively centered. But additional context is required to understand the story of Light Years, which begins with its predecessor, Impossible Princess.

Embraced in Minogue’s native Australia upon its release there, Impossible Princess met with very mixed fortunes in the United Kingdom. Today, the alternative esoterica of this outing has been retrospectively—and rightfully—lionized in many of the same British publications that once derided it. Sadly, in the aftermath of its fraught reception at that moment, Minogue and deConstruction Records—the imprint she onboarded with in Britain in 1993—amicably parted ways at the top of 1999. This left Minogue without a record deal in one of her largest markets for the first time; her contract with Mushroom Records in Australia remained untouched as it had been since 1987.

Tentative blueprinting for Light Years had already commenced before an opportunity to join the ranks of Parlophone Records presented itself. As one of the most venerated majors in the U.K., it was quite a boon for Minogue to receive an invitation to sign on with them given all of the negative trade chatter that her career was on a so-called “downward spiral” in that country. The business relationship between Minogue and Parlophone was soon to be mutually beneficial for both entities; her stay there (up through to 2016) was to become her longest label residency rivaled only by her Mushroom tenure.

All parties involved decided that a lighter touch—thematically and sonically—was the order of the day for Light Years. Having had the space needed to give voice to her darker passions and ruminations on Impossible Princess, Minogue was eager to focus on a bit of flirtation, fun and romance without undercutting her previous growth as an artist. Tasking closely with Parlophone’s A&R team, Minogue petitioned them to forage for material that she would consider recording if it met her standards. This was how “Spinning Around” and “On a Night Like This”—the two eventual smash singles that propelled Light Years into the stratosphere—came about.

The first composition had been drafted by Osborne Bingham, Kara DioGuardi, Ira Shickman and Paula Abdul for Abdul’s sequel to her criminally overlooked third effort, Head Over Heels (1995). When Abdul’s comeback was aborted sometime in 1998 or 1999, “Spinning Around” languished until it was routed to Minogue by Parlophone.

The second selection had come from the collective imagination of Brian Rawling, Graham Stack, Mark Taylor and the late Steve Torch—trackmasters of international dance-pop repute from the late 1990s and early 2000s. “On a Night Like This” had renditions serviced by two singers of Swedish and Greek persuasion, Pandora and Anna Vissi, in 1999 and 2000; the songwriting/production quartet were unmoved by those iterations. They opted to solicit Parlophone to help find “On a Night Like This” a home and with Minogue it found one—her version became the definitive take.

Despite Minogue mining some pre-penned song stock, she did not abdicate her role as a writer. Her pen touched ten of the fourteen tracks to comprise Light Years in a principal or co-writer capacity. Sessions with the likes of Johnny Douglas, John Themis, Richard Stannard, Julian Gallagher, Mike Spencer, Mark Picchiotti, Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams pointed to a generous cross-section of decorated songsmiths, producers, and artists to answer Minogue’s collaborative hails. However, there was also the return of one notable figure more than ready to aid the Princess of Pop on the LP: Steve Anderson.

Numerous critics raved about the escapist airs of Light Years while lazily consigning the tag of “camp” to the record too. “The key words for Light Years were “poolside,” “disco,” “cocktails,” “beach” and loveboat...,” this description of the long player came from the woman behind the tunes as documented in 2002’s  La, La, La—Minogue’s second career retrospective coffee table book co-conceived with (now former) creative director William Baker. But this elucidation from Minogue laid bare a sharply drawn line between knowing kitsch and shallow novelty—that line was ignored by the press along with the actual musicality contained on Light Years due to its playful surface.

Minogue put on her best face to counter the microaggressions of the music columnists—after all, she had a lot to celebrate: Light Years elevated her sales numbers to levels not seen since her Stock-Aitken-Waterman salad days. “Kids,” “Please Stay,” “Your Disco Needs You” and “Butterfly”—the last song restricted to promotional distribution—carried Light Years up through to the incipient half of 2001 with the accompanying “On a Night Like This” Tour kicking off in March of that year; and just on the horizon, an even more unimaginable triumph awaited Minogue with her follow-up to Light Years: Fever (2001).

An integral part of Kylie Minogue’s continued stylistic strength is that there is always something more to discover than what a surface level interaction can reveal. Underneath the carefree exterior of Light Years exists an unrecognized compositional breadth and vitality that affirms Minogue’s ongoing commitment to music excellence—this key tenet to her ever-enduring appeal deserves to be formally championed.

Quentin Harrison recently published Record Redux: Kylie Minogue, the fifth book in his Record Redux series. The ambitious project traces the rise of the Australian pop vocalist from soap actress star to international pop powerhouse by examining every single and studio album in her repertoire. Record Redux: Kylie Minogue follows previous entries from the Atlanta, Georgia based author centered on Carly Simon, Donna Summer and Madonna. Order Record Redux: Kylie Minogue here (digital) and here (physical). An overhauled version of his first book Record Redux: Spice Girls will be available in early January 2021”.

I remember when Light Years came out. I was seventeen and in sixth-form college. I was already a Kylie Minogue fan, though I was not expecting Light Years and how brilliant it was! Fever came out in 2001, when I was in my first year of university. I want to bring in a feature from Dig! that was published in 2022. They highlight how Light Years reset and recharged Kylie Minogue’s career. An ultimate comeback album. Not that her career was in danger! I don’t think she could have released another album like Impossible Princess – as brilliant as it is! In 2000, different Pop sounds were in vogue. She perfectly adapted and reacted:

“Roaring out of the blocks in June 2000, the first taste of Kylie’s new album fulfilled exactly that promise, and immediately became one of her classic singles. Spinning Around may have had a complicated genesis – American Idol judge and former pop draw Paula Abdul had co-written the track for herself – but the demo was passed to Kylie, who was then searching for fresh material. Producer Mike Spencer coated the pop track in a smooth 70s-influenced nu-disco sheen and it topped the charts in both the UK and Kylie’s homeland – a feat she hadn’t managed in Great Britain since 1990’s Tears On My Pillow, and in Australia since 1994’s Confide In Me. Spinning Around’s iconic promo video, directed by Dawn Shadforth, featured Kylie in a pair of second-hand gold lamé hot pants, and it arguably did more to reset her appeal than even the song did. The girl next door had finally grown up, and those hot pants became so famous they later appeared at London’s Victoria And Albert Museum as a critical pop-cultural reference-point.

A credible club act on a hot new winning streak

Later issued as a single alongside the parent album, September’s On A Night Like This was a contemporary electro-pop cut written by the team behind Cher’s mega-hit Believe. It was another Australian chart-topper and made it to No.2 in the UK, consolidating Kylie’s winning streak. On A Night Like This hadn’t been written for Kylie, either, but that didn’t devalue its effectiveness in repositioning her as a credible club act.

There were three further singles issued from the Light Years album, though the knowing masterpiece Your Disco Needs You was considered a step too far by her UK label. Despite only seeing widespread release in Germany (it was also given a limited release in Australia), this camp, Village People-inspired classic has enjoyed an outstanding afterlife, and it is now firmly established among the best Kylie Minogue songs.

Issuing the album’s Robbie Williams duet, Kids, was a more predictable choice for a single, given the former Take That singer’s huge success at the time. The song’s earthy, light rock production made it something of an outlier of the 14 tracks on Light Years, but it performed strongly, and the pair made several live appearances to promote it. Light Years’ final single, Please Stay, leans on hooky flamenco flourishes to lift a charming Richard “Biff” Stannard composition, but the album could have spun out yet more singles, such was the strength of its material.

Defying the critics and outpacing expectation

Of the singles that could have been, Butterfly is a frenetic and convincing club anthem, while the frothy Loveboat (which, like Kids, was penned by Robbie Williams and his then songwriting partner, Guy Chambers) is another highlight. Elsewhere, So Now Goodbye amps up the album’s Studio 54 styling, and the slinky Koocachoo is a kooky delight that might have ended up on an Austin Powers soundtrack. Disco Down is a hypnotic club-pop banger of the highest grade, while the new-wave-styled I’m So High offers a brief break from the glitterball glare. The accomplished cover of Barry White’s Under The Influence Of Love was a genuine revelation at the time, hinting at Kylie’s growing confidence at making a wider range of material her own”.

I am going to end with two different reviews. The Guardian had their say upon Light Years’ release. Even though a lot of the language does date things a bit – and it is a bit condescending in places -, they awarded Light Years four stars. One of the biggest albums of 2000. It still sounds so listenable and phenomenal twenty-five years later:

“One thing you can't accuse Kylie Minogue of is not trying. We've had the permed pop Kylie, followed by the good-girl-turned-bad phase, initiated by a sexual awakening at the hands of Michael Hutchence. Next up was a brief fraternisation with the darker world of indie-pop, which spawned the sublime Some Kind of Bliss, penned by James Dean Bradfield of Manics fame, but very little else. And finally the credible dance diva moment, which led to a less than earth-shattering album (originally called Impossible Princess, but changed to Kylie Minogue) for Deconstruction followed by the sound of silence. The pop world held its breath to see what the second queen of reinvention would come up with. When Madonna, Kylie's blueprint, gave us the techno scribblings and scary warblings of Ray of Light, it could only be a matter of time before Ms Minogue hit back. On the similarly named Light Years, she's finally done just that.

Armed with skimpy hotpants and ironic phrasing, Minogue has recreated disco for the new century and made an album that celebrates being a girl. Not since the Spice Girls has the capacity to fill a dress been so celebrated. Which is why it's strange that Light Years has been packaged with male hormones in mind. Every wannabe pop princess that opens up the cover to relish the wry lyrics inside will be greeted with a soft-focus, head-to-knees pic of Minogue wearing nothing but a towel. Chances are, though, her feet are wearing the sparkliest, sexiest pair of kitten heels in the world, because ladies, behind the FHM mentality, all she really wants to do is dance.

Spinning Around sets the tone, with a giddy dancefloor hedonism that doesn't sound out of place next to Minogue's 1989 hit, Hand on Your Heart. And that's the point. For while she's singing "I'm not the same" one second, the next she's admitting to discovering her rightful place in the world. Because, for all her other musical dabblings, Minogue is pure, unadulterated pop, and where once she saw this truth as her weakness, now she's realised it's her strength. "And did I forget to mention/That I found a new direction," she sings, "And it leads back to me."

On a Night Like This and So Now Goodbye keep up the tempo and disco antics - you can feel the heat from the swirling multi-coloured lights as you listen to them - adding empowering notions of grabbing the best looking man in the club, then ditching him when you feel like it. But Minogue knows better than to think she can do it all alone. It was the less than subtle tweakings of Stock-Aitken- Waterman that gave her success and now she has turned to some more male musical heavyweights to get her back on track. Spice Girls collaborator Richard Stannard adds some polish to the flamenco flavoured Please Stay, while the songs co-written by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers give Minogue the best lines.

There's the fantastic Kids, a duet with Williams also featured on his new album, and Loveboat, a homage to the 1970s TV show of the same name. The latter is a female response to Williams's Millennium - it sounds very similar but has a less cynical approach to love. The familiar references to martinis, bikinis and 007 are all there - Williams really should try joining a new video club - but so too are the verbal come-ons that'll either make you squirm or laugh out loud. "Rub on some lotion," Minogue pleads breathily, "the places I can't reach." More amusing still is Your Disco Needs You, a call to arms that the Village People would be proud of. Minogue has her tongue firmly in her cheek for this camp slice of epic disco that will doubtless become the obligatory soundtrack to every Christmas office party.

It's only when Minogue deviates from the fun that the album falters. Bittersweet Goodbye is an overblown ode to love that seems like an excuse for a video featuring satin sheets, while the title track is suitably spacey, though it still left me singing Brotherhood of Man's Angelo at the end. Ultimately, Minogue shines brightest in the blinding lights of a club and Light Years is an album that should be played as you force your boob-tube into place and drain the remnants of that can of hairspray before you go out. This time round Kylie's got it right”.

I am going to end with Attitude and their feature/review from this year. They revisited Light Years. Future nostalgia from the year 2000, they asked why wasn’t Your Disco Needs You released as a single. It is a good question! It was never released in the U.K. as a single as it was seen as too gay and campy. The sort of homophobia and stupidity that was present at that time. It was a really unpleasant time in terms of attitudes towards women and the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. Your Disco Needs You It is a highlight from an album that I feel has no weak spots:

“In every pop diva’s career comes an album that changes everything thereafter. For Madonna, it was Ray of Light; Cher, Believe. At the turn of the millennium, Kylie Ann Minogue was at her own crossroads. After ditching the brand of bubblegum pop that had made her a star in the 1980s, Minogue radically reinvented herself for the 90s and began to explore a more alternative sound. It was a bold but brave move. The press dubbed it her ‘indie’ phase, but it would fail to eclipse the success of her earlier hits with super-producers Stock Aitken Waterman (‘I Should Be So Lucky’, ‘Better the Devil You Know’). Following the lukewarm success of 1997’s Impossible Princess, the singer took a hiatus. She had a choice: reinvent once again or leave the music business indefinitely.

Closing a chapter by shedding ties with her previous label was vitally needed in order to start over musically. Freshly signed to Parlophone in the UK, a territory that quickly adopted Minogue as one of its own, the singer returned to the studio with a renewed sense of self. Her vision for ‘the new Kylie’ was clear and instinctive. She was ready to embrace her pop past again. Speaking on the album’s inception, Minogue gave writers and producers clear instructions as to what the album should feel like: poolside, disco and cocktails. Fabulous!

The lead single alone, ‘Spinning Around’, achieved her mission statement. “And did I forget to mention that I found a new direction / And it leads back to me”, she declares over sparkly disco production. The track was co-written by singer and American Idol judge Paula Abdul for her own album, taking inspiration from a recent divorce. When Abdul’s project failed to materialise, the song found a new home with Minogue. The synchronicity of the track’s theme of reinvention and Kylie’s own rebrand was a lucky coincidence. The single, paired with an equally legendary video featuring an infamous pair of gold hot pants, rocketed to number one in the UK and Australia. Minogue’s instincts to return to her musical roots had been on the money, with the general public and critics alike embracing her new era.

Second single ‘On a Night Like This’ saw continued success, leaning more into the futuristic and ethereal Europop of the early 00s. The track proved the singer didn’t need to rely on nostalgia to make her mark as a credible pop star of the new millennium. Third single ‘Kids’ further cemented this. The pop-rock number saw Minogue collaborate with former Take That member Robbie Williams, who was in the middle of his own imperial phase. The decision to put the two former teenyboppers together would prove ingenious.

But it was a song that was never released as a single in the UK that would help to reinstate Minogue with one of the highest honours: gay icon status. ‘Your Disco Needs You’ is an over-the-top, giddy dance romp that expresses the power of the dance floor to fix a broken heart. Minogue herself described the track as one of the “campest songs of all time”. It’s laden with queer references — so much so that the record label pulled it from being released in the UK for fears of it being “too gay”. But that didn’t stop the pop princess from filming a music video and making it a staple in her setlist thereafter. Now, that’s allyship.

Light Years was a full circle moment in Minogue’s career. The multi-platinum album reached the top spot in Australia and just missed out on a number one in the UK. It saw the singer return to her roots with a newfound sense of maturity and self-assurance. It was the Kylie the world knew and loved, reimagined for the year 2000. The tunes were confident, sexy and undeniably catchy. Furthermore, it laid the foundations for an even bigger moment waiting around the corner: 2001’s Fever.

Minogue continues to inspire today’s generation of pop girlies, including Dua Lipa and Kim Petras. She also remains as one of music’s most enduring gay icons.

In an interview with Olly Alexander (Years & Years) in 2021, Minogue said of her affinity with the LGBTQ+ community: “I didn’t set out to do that [be inclusive]; it is just naturally how I feel. There is so much talk about inclusivity, and I felt I always had that from the beginning. I used to say, I loved to be able to look out at my shows, and there are just all walks of life. There has never been any judgement”.

On 22nd September (the date it was released in Australia), we spotlight Light Years. This was the start of a wonderful new phase for Kylie Minogue. Following up with Fever a year later, it was a successful and productive time where some of her best music was made. Now, one could say she has taken the sounds of Light Years and Fever and updated them for the modern age. Listen to 2023’s TENSION. Though she always has one foot in the past and golden days. I hope that Light Years gets a load of new features published on its twenty-fifth anniversary. An album that has influenced Pop artists that followed, Kylie Minogue’s 2000 album showed that she was light years…

AHEAD of her peers.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Into the Mystic: Van Morrison at Eighty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

 

Into the Mystic: Van Morrison at Eighty

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ONE of the true music greats…

PHOTO CREDIT: EPA

turns eighty on 31st August. That is Van Morrison. Though not without controversy (his protestations around the COVID-19 lockdowns and his comments around that), you cannot deny he is one of the most influential artists who has ever lived. Because he has a big birthday coming up, I wanted to mark that with a mixtape featuring many of his very best songs. A few deeper cuts thrown in there too. I might not be taking anything from his 2022 album, What’s It Going to Take?, due to the fact it is conspiratorial and him grumbling at the lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions. However, his most recent album, Remembering Now, has been acclaimed and is one of the best of this year. As he has released forty-seven albums, I am not including songs from each. I will take a selection here and there. First, let’s get to some AllMusic biography about Van Morrison:

“Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced what is regarded as perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon. Having penned iconic songs such as "Gloria," "Brown-Eyed Girl," and "Moondance," Morrison has, from the very beginning -- as frontman for Irish blues rockers Them during the early 1960s to a solo career that has lasted more than 50 years -- been subject only to the whims of his own muse. His solo recordings, beginning with the mystical, jazzy folk of Astral Weeks in 1968, cover extraordinary stylistic ground, yet retain a consistency of vision and purity of execution unmatched among his contemporaries. His swinging meld of jazz, pop, folk, blues, and Celtic soul fueled the albums of his Warner Bros. period from the late '60s (Moondance) to the early '80s (Common One). From the late '80s to the end of the century with Mercury, he connected the spiritual power of his musical vision to a re-engagement with his Belfast roots on Irish Heartbeat (accompanied by the Chieftains) and to the blues wails and gospel whispers of his youth on Too Long in Exile, Healing Game, and Back on Top. During the 21st century, his recordings underscored his indelible singing style that bypasses the confines of language to articulate emotional truths far beyond the scope of literal meaning, whether recording pop (Magic Time), country (Pay the Devil), Celtic R&B (Keep Me Singing), folk (Moving on Skiffle), or fingerpopping jazz (You're Driving Me Crazy and The Prophet Speaks, both with organist Joey DeFrancesco). Morrison also cultivated a reputation as an outspoken contrarian in his later years, a side that was showcased on such modern-day protest albums as 2021's Latest Record Project, Vol. 1 and the following year's What's It Gonna Take? Yet, he still found time to celebrate his roots, interpreting rock & roll and R&B classics on 2023's Accentuate the Positive and revisiting his own songs alongside those of singers like Willie Nelson and Joss Stone, as on 2024's New Arrangements and Duets, further underscoring his reputation as both a beloved pillar and an unpredictable rock maverick. In June 2025, accompanied by his quartet and guests, Morrison released Remembering Now.

George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 31, 1945; his mother was a singer, while his father ardently collected classic American jazz and blues recordings. At 15, he quit school to join the local R&B band the Monarchs, touring military bases throughout Europe before returning home to form his own group, Them. Boasting a fiery, gritty sound heavily influenced by Morrison heroes like Howlin' Wolf, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Walter, Them quickly earned a devout local following, and in late 1964 recorded their debut single, "Don't Start Crying Now." The follow-up, an electrifying reading of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go," cracked the U.K. Top Ten in early 1965. Though not a major hit upon its original release, Them's Morrison-penned "Gloria" endures among the true classics of the rock pantheon, covered by everyone from the Doors to Patti Smith. Lineup changes plagued the band throughout its lifespan, however, and at the insistence of producer Bert Berns, session musicians increasingly assumed the lion's share of recording duties. A frustrated Morrison finally left Them following a 1966 tour of the U.S., quitting the music business and returning to Belfast.

After Berns relocated to New York City to form Bang Records, he convinced Morrison to travel stateside and record as a solo artist; the sessions produced arguably his most familiar hit, the jubilant "Brown-Eyed Girl" (originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl"), a Top Ten smash in the summer of 1967. By contrast, however, the resulting album, Blowin' Your Mind, was a bleak, bluesy effort highlighted by the harrowing "T.B. Sheets." The sessions were originally intended to produce only material for singles, so when Berns released the LP against Morrison's wishes, he again retreated home to Ireland while the album tanked on the charts. Berns suffered a fatal heart attack in late 1967, which freed Morrison of his contractual obligations and energized him to start working on new material.

His first album for new label Warner Bros., 1968's Astral Weeks, remains not only Morrison's masterpiece, but one of the greatest records ever made. A haunting, deeply personal collection of impressionistic folk-styled epics recorded by an all-star jazz backing unit including bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay, its poetic complexity earned critical raves but made only a minimal commercial impact. The follow-up, 1970's Moondance, was every bit as brilliant; buoyant and optimistic where Astral Weeks had been dark and anguished, it cracked the Top 40, generating the perennials "Caravan" and "Into the Mystic."The first half of the '70s was the most fertile creative period of Morrison's career. From Moondance onward, his records reflected an increasingly celebratory and profoundly mystical outlook spurred on in large part by his marriage to wife Janet Planet and the couple's relocation to California. After His Band and the Street Choir yielded his biggest chart hit, "Domino," Morrison released 1971's Tupelo Honey, a lovely, pastoral meditation on wedded bliss highlighted by the single "Wild Night." In the wake of the following year's stirring Saint Dominic's Preview, he formed the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, featured both on the studio effort Hard Nose the Highway and on the excellent live set It's Too Late to Stop Now. However, in 1973, he not only dissolved the group but also divorced Planet and moved back to Belfast. The stunning 1974 LP Veedon Fleece chronicled Morrison's emotional turmoil; he then remained silent for three years, reportedly working on a number of aborted projects but releasing nothing until 1977's aptly titled A Period of Transition.

Plagued for some time by chronic stage fright, Morrison mounted his first tour in close to five years in support of 1978's Wavelength; his performances became more and more erratic, however, and during a 1979 date at New York's Palladium, he even stalked off-stage in mid-set and did not return. Into the Music, released later that year, evoked a more conventionally spiritual perspective than before, a pattern continued on successive outings for years to come. Albums like 1983's Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, 1985's A Sense of Wonder, and 1986's No Guru, No Method, No Teacher are all largely cut from the same cloth, employing serenely beautiful musical backdrops to explore themes of faith and healing. For 1988's Irish Heartbeat, however, Morrison teamed with another of his homeland's musical institutions, the famed Chieftains, for a collection of traditional folk songs.

Meanwhile, Avalon Sunset heralded a commercial rebirth of sorts in 1989. While "Whenever God Shines His Light," a duet with Cliff Richard, became Morrison's first U.K. Top 20 hit in over two decades, the gorgeous "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" emerged as something of a contemporary standard, with a Rod Stewart cover cracking the U.S. Top Five in 1993. Further proof of Morrison's renewed popularity arrived with the 1990 release of Mercury's best-of package; far and away the best-selling album of his career, it introduced the singer to a new generation of fans. A new studio record, Enlightenment, appeared that same year, followed in 1991 by the ambitious double set Hymns to the Silence, widely hailed as his most impressive outing in years.

Following the uniformity of his '80s work, the remainder of the decade proved impressively eclectic: 1993's Too Long in Exile returned Morrison to his musical roots with covers of blues and R&B classics, while on 1995's Days Like This he teamed with daughter Shana for a duet on "You Don't Know Me." For the Verve label, he cut 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, a traditional jazz record co-credited to longtime pianist Georgie Fame, and for the follow-up, Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, he worked with guest of honor Allison himself. Morrison continued balancing the past and the future in the years to come, alternating between new studio albums (1997's The Healing Game, 1999's Back on Top) and collections of rare and live material (1998's The Philosopher's Stone and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again).

It wasn't until 2002 that an album of new material surfaced, but in May, his long-anticipated Down the Road was released. Three years later, Morrison issued Magic Time. Pay the Devil, a country-tinged set, appeared in 2006 on Lost Highway Records. That same year, Morrison released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980 and 1974, drawn from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 2008, Morrison released Keep It Simple, his first album of all-original material since 1999's Back on Top. In November of that same year, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live at two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which resulted in 2009's Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl album and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film. His 34th studio album, Born to Sing: No Plan B, recorded in Belfast, appeared in the fall of 2012. In 2015, Morrison made his debut for RCA Records with Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue, which found him sharing the mike on 16 songs with artists such as Michael Bublé, Steve Winwood, Mick Hucknall, and Joss Stone. After signing a deal with Sony Legacy to reissue much of his back catalog, the label issued It's Too Late to Stop Now...Vols. II, III, IV and DVD in June 2016. It consisted of unreleased music from the tour that produced the classic 1973 live album. Later that month, Morrison announced the release of an album of new studio set material. Released in September, Keep Me Singing offered 12 originals as well a cover version of Don Robey's "Share Your Love with Me." A year later, in September 2017, Morrison returned with his 37th album, Roll with the Punches, which saw him mixing new originals with renditions of blues and soul classics that inspired him, from Sam Cooke and Bo Diddley to Little Walter and more. Guitarist Jeff Beck was a prominent guest. It peaked at number five on the Top 200 and number four in the U.K. He followed it less than three months later in December with Versatile, which was recorded in a handful of hotels in County Down. It featured Morrison delivering his own homage to jazz and iconic pop standards including George and Ira Gershwin's "A Foggy Day" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me," Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" (one of two advance singles along with "Makin' Whoopee"), "Let's Get Lost," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and "Unchained Melody," popularized by the Righteous Brothers. The covers are interspersed with six originals, and it topped the jazz album charts and the album remained in the Top Ten for five months. Morrison hit the road with a vengeance. He performed completely sold-out tours across Europe and North America. In April 2018, Morrison issued his 39th album (and fourth in a year-and-a-half) in collaboration with Hammond B-3 and trumpet ace Joey De Francesco and his quartet (drummer Michael Ode, guitarist Dan Wilson, and tenor sax man Troy Roberts). Recorded over just a few days in San Francisco, the set includes jazz and blues standards and reworked jazz versions of a number of songs from Morrison's catalog including "Travellin' Light," "Every Day I Have the Blues," "Miss Otis Regrets," and "The Things I Used to Do." These are juxtaposed with completely revisioned tracks from Morrison's catalog including "All Saints Day," "The Way Young Lovers Do," "Have I Told You Lately," and "Celtic Swing." A week after its release, the album entered the jazz charts in the top spot and remained in the Top Ten for nearly 22 weeks while the group toured the globe. In December, Morrison released his 40th album, The Prophet Speaks. Comprised of six new originals and covers of blues and soul classics from John Lee Hooker, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke, and Willie Dixon, the set was once again recorded with De Francesco's quartet. The following year, Morrison's reissue campaign continued with a triple-disc deluxe version of 1997's The Healing Game. That fall, Morrison released Three Chords and the Truth, a self-produced 14-track offering that included a duet with Bill Medley, the surviving half of '60s white-soul legends the Righteous Brothers, and included jazz guitarist Jay Berliner (the soloist on Astral Weeks). The set also included the song "If We Wait for Mountains," a collaboration with legendary Irish lyricist (and fellow OBE honoree) Don Black.

Van Morrison responded to the COVID-19 quarantines with a series of anti-lockdown protest singles in 2020. These digital tracks set the stage for 2021's Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, a double album filled with politically charged social commentary. Morrison continued down this path on 2022's What's It Gonna Take? He largely retreated from controversy with 2023's double album Moving On Skiffle, a collection of covers and interpretations of classic American folk, country, and blues songs. In August, he released Beyond Words: Instrumental to his fan club, then in November he released his second double-album of 2023: Accentuate the Positive, a collection of rock & roll oldies.

New Arrangements and Duets, an album of previously unreleased big band and duet recordings, arrived in September 2024. Arranged by longtime Morrison bandmembers trumpeter Paul Moran and saxophonist Chris White, the album found the singer revisiting some of his favorite songs with a handful of guests including Willie Nelson, Kurt Elling, Joss Stone, and Curtis Stigers.

In June 2025, Morrison released Remembering Now, his 43rd studio album. Musically it reflected his series of Celtic soul "memory recordings," from the 1980s: "take me back, take me way, way back" lyrically, musically, and spiritually. Morrison was backed by his longstanding quintet -- Richard Dunn (Hammond organ), Stuart McIlroy (piano), Pete Hurley (bass), and Colin Griffin (drums) -- as well as a horn section, with strings arranged by Fiachra Trench (a collaborator since 1989's Avalon Sunset) and performed by the Fews Ensemble led by Joanne Quigley. Other contributors included Michael Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, legendary lyricist Don Black (Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Quincy Jones); and folk singer/songwriter Seth Lakeman. Its first single was a new version of "Down to Joy," composed for director Kenneth Branagh's 2021 film Belfast”.

An artist who has influenced so many other through the decades, I know there will be a lot of love out there for him on 31st August. When he celebrates his eightieth birthday. Even though I cannot see Morrison making a big fuss of it, it will be an opportunity for the media and fans to show their appreciation for his music. I hope we get more music from Van Morrison as he heads…

INTO his ninth decade.

FEATURE: Tango Till They’re Sore: Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Tango Till They’re Sore

 

Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs at Forty

__________

RELEASED on 30th September, 1985…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tom Waits in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Gruen

Rain Dogs was the ninth studio album from Tom Waits. Many consider it to be his very best. A concept album around "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is seen as a trilogy of albums including Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years. With new influences and sounds coming into Waits’s work, Rain Dogs was this step in a new direction. Although not a massive commercial successful, Rain Dogs is often ranked as one of the best albums ever. I will get to some reviews of Tom Waits’s 1985 release. However, I want to start off with something from Wikipedia regarding the reception of this masterpiece:

“Comparing the album with its predecessor Swordfishtrombones, NME journalist Biba Kopf wrote that Rain Dogs saw Waits continuing "his continental drift through the crannies and corners of America's varied cultures", and concluded that "the lasting achievement of Rain Dogs is that Waits has had to sacrifice none of his poetry in pursuit of new musical languages to meet its demands." At the end of 1985, the magazine ranked Rain Dogs (jointly with the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy) as the year's best album. In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau gave Rain Dogs a "B+" grade and said that Waits had "worked out a unique and identifiable lounge-lizard sound that suits his status as the poet of America's non-nine-to-fivers." Anthony DeCurtis penned a mixed assessment for Rolling Stone, finding that "Rain Dogs insists on nosing its way around the barrooms and back alleys Waits has so often visited before."

Retrospectively, Rain Dogs has been noted as one of the most important albums in Waits' career, continuing the new path which he forged from Swordfishtrombones onwards. In a 2002 reappraisal, Rolling Stone critic Arion Berger gave the album five out of five stars, calling it "bony and menacingly beautiful." Berger noted that "it's quirky near-pop, the all-pro instrumentation pushing Waits' not-so-melodic but surprisingly flexible vocals out front, where his own peculiar freak flag, his big heart and his romantic optimism gloriously fly”.

I will move on by sourcing quite a lot of this Pitchfork review of Rain Dogs from this April. It is illuminating when it comes to the background and lead-up to the album. They describe Rain Dogs as “a romantic and carnivalesque masterpiece imbued with the avant-garde sound of New York”. That seems pretty apt:

“The defining image of Tom Waits’ early career is a photograph taken by Mitchell Rose for Rolling Stone at the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood in 1977. The singer-songwriter had been renting a room there for a few years by that point, but the photo looks like he’d moved in an hour ago. Beer bottles litter the coffee table in front of him; a guitar case rests atop an oversized cardboard box. Waits leans forward, hands folded, looking skeptical, maybe a little put-out, but certainly not embarrassed by the shabby condition of his domicile. He’s sitting in a folding lawn chair that hasn’t seen a ray of sunshine since the Nixon administration.

The next year, Waits put out his sixth LP on the Asylum label, Blue Valentine. The imprint, started by David Geffen and Elliot Roberts in 1971, was a showcase for the Southern California talent that was defining the post-Woodstock singer-songwriter landscape. Judee Sill’s debut album was its inaugural release, Jackson Browne’s with his first record a few months later, and by the time Joni Mitchell issued For the Roses on Asylum in the fall of 1972, Asylum sat near the center of a scene that was becoming a movement.

Waits knew some of these people from shared bills and the scene revolving around the Los Angeles club the Troubadour, where he’d been discovered by manager Herb Cohen. But he didn’t quite fit in. The prevailing mode of the early singer-songwriters was personal expression—you were supposed to draw from your life for your material, dotting your lyrics with references to friends and lovers and changing the details just enough to maintain plausible deniability. Waits wasn’t interested in this kind of sharing. Instead, he turned the whole idea on its head and based his life on his songs.

Like so many in his cohort, his early encounters with Bob Dylan blew his mind. Where many of his peers came up playing in garage bands, learning how to play Beatles tunes and “Louie Louie,” he fashioned himself as a solo songwriter from the beginning, and Dylan was his North Star. In the 2009 biography Lowside of the Road, writer Barney Hoskyns describes Waits’ earliest performances at a local folk society’s hootenannies as little more than impersonations, where “he was so in thrall to the staple Dylan persona that he wore a harmonica around his neck without ever putting his lips to it.” But where others copped the style and tried to write lyrics that could be considered poetry, Waits channeled the elder artist’s drive for reinvention. By the time he was making a name for himself at San Diego folk hoots, his middle-class suburban upbringing in Whittier, California, suddenly became irrelevant: Music was a good way to become someone else.

Waits got a record deal and, inspired by the Beats and associated countercultural figures like Charles Bukowski, he wrote about down-and-out characters and ragged street life, delivering his songs in the guise of a shabbily dressed nightclub hipster. “The Tropicana became a kind of stage,” Hoskyns observed, “a backdrop to Waits’ twenty-four-hours-a-day performance.” As the ’70s wound down, the songwriter worried that he’d painted himself into a corner. His work had certainly evolved between 1973’s Closing Time and Blue Valentine growing bluesier and rougher as his smoked-scorched voice deepened. But he felt stuck and worried that he was repeating himself.

His search for a new sound was set aside when Francis Ford Coppola tapped him to write and perform songs for One From the Heart. The film’s music would be central to the film’s story and Coppola had fallen in love with the boozy after-hours milieu the songwriter rendered so well, so Waits sat at the piano and got to work, clocking in at the filmmaker’s office like a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith. While composing, he reconnected with Kathleen Brennan, a script supervisor he’d bumped into a couple of times, and they fell for each other hard. Within a week, they were engaged, and from that point forward, his creative output would be split into “Before Kathleen” and “After Kathleen.” Her greatest contribution may have been the way she bolstered his confidence. If Waits feared letting go of the persona that had defined his recording career, Brennan convinced him that something better was within his grasp. She also expanded his musical palette, schooling him on the work of avant-garde artists that would be important in his next phase—Captain Beefheart, Harry Partch, Gavin Bryars.

While continuing work on the soundtrack, Waits knocked out one last album for Asylum with his longtime producer Bones Howe: Heartattack and Vine hit stores in fall 1980. It’s a strong record on which he pushed his voice further and added thick and mean guitar. But it wasn’t a radical departure from what came before. The chrysalis-like transformation would have to wait until the next record: With his contract up and a new family to support, Waits fired Cohen, split with Howe, signed with Island, and released 1983’s Swordfishtrombones.

Producing himself for the first time, Waits raided the musical junk shop and returned with wheezing accordion, fragile glass harmonica, thwacking talking drums, bubbling marimba, and too many miscellaneous percussion instruments to list. His previous work was informed by theater and cinema, but the songs on Swordfishtrombones were uncannily visual, the colors and textures of the sound framing his newly sharp narratives. Characters included a sailor on shore leave, a fugitive on the run from the law, and a homicidal office-furniture salesman who sets fire to the family home. If earlier songs sometimes felt like a slurring drunk telling you a story in a bar; now, they felt vivid and alive. Swordfishtrombones was recorded in California with local players; it would take a move east to New York City just after the record’s release to complete his metamorphosis.

Waits found a creative community almost instantly. In recent years, the city’s experimental downtown music scene had gone overground, and Waits felt a kinship with some of its players. He befriended saxophonist and composer John Lurie, whose band the Lounge Lizards had, in its early days, deconstructed jazz, celebrating the genre while undercutting it with amateurism in a way that fit with Waits’ own playful reverence. Through Lurie, he met jazz guitarist Marc Ribot. Hal Willner, who was the musical director of Saturday Night Live, gave Waits an education on the carnivalesque music of Kurt Weill and invited him to contribute to Lost in the Stars, a tribute to the German composer.

Waits summoned drummer Stephen Hodges and bassist Larry Taylor from California, both of whom had worked on Swordfishtrombones, and Hodges was astonished by how quickly and thoroughly a cabal had formed around the songwriter. “He seemed like the frigging Pope of New York,” he told Hoskyns. “He was taking care of business. He was all over the place.” The degree to which Waits was feeling his oats can be measured by the fact that he asked Keith Richards to play on his record, and the living legend agreed—after years of telling guitarists he was looking for a Stonesy feel, Waits had the self-assurance to ask the man himself.

And he knew how to get what he wanted in the studio. “He really has a good ear, not just for this note or that note, but for understanding how the sound is framing the lyric,” Ribot said in a later interview. “What decade is it, what continent is it on, what kind of room is it in?” Rain Dogs has much in common with Swordfishtrombones—antiquated instruments, metal-on-metal percussion, stomping cabaret numbers alternating with wispy instrumentals. But it has a grungier and more scuffed-up aesthetic that puts guitar, both by Waits himself and Ribot, out front. The latter’s style takes in Cuban syncopation, Southwestern twang, free-jazz skronk, and bluesy rock, but above all it forces you to confront the elemental materials of his instrument, with its electrified hum, heavy wood, and vibrating steel. To hear Ribot play is to understand that a guitar is a machine.

Rain Dogs is more of a band record than its predecessor—it sounds like people playing together in a room, and you notice their interplay at least as much as the arrangements. And everything revolves around the drums. After signing to Island, Waits became one of a few artists in the period—see Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp of King Crimson—who experimented with a drum setup with few or no cymbals. Even if indirectly, some of this tendency came from the rapidly expanding interest in “world music” in the U.S. and UK in the 1980s, which made work from percussion-heavy traditions more accessible. And some can be traced to earlier strands of experimental rock, specifically the stand-up bashing of Maureen Tucker and the angular rhythms of Captain Beefheart.

For an artist with roots in jazz and rock, deemphasizing cymbals changes the recording’s character. The hi-hat and ride reinforce perception of the rhythm’s grid, allowing the ear to hear the precise meter more clearly, serving as an aural version of dot-and-dash notation on paper. A kit where cymbals are used sparingly can sound heavier, looser, and more rhythmically free—the drums on Rain Dogs roll, tumble, and lurch rather than simply marking time. “Tom always wanted orchestra accuracy with back-alley blues—it had to be loose, and had to be accurate,” said Hodges in a podcast interview. Amplifying the low-end was his use of a 32-inch bass drum better suited for a marching band, the rumble and quake of its diaphragm lending darkness and drama”.

I will come to some reviews to round things off. This classic interview from 1985 finds Tom Waits sharing a cab ride with Chris Roberts to discuss Rain Dogs. I have selected a section from the interview that was especially interesting. There are some wonderful 1985 interviews with Tom Waits that I would urge people to seek out:

“You constantly draw on the potent and jarring imagery of ‘handicaps’ – deaf, dumb, blind, lame – bandages – and the photo on the cover of Rain Dogs isn’t exactly a Dagwood and Blondie cartoon…

"Ah yeah, it does kinda have that Diane Arbus feel to it. His name is Andrews Peterson – it’s a drunk sailor being held by a mad prostitute, I guess. She’s cackling and he’s sombre. It did capture my mood for a moment. It’s just like – uh – isolated. Maybe this comes from living in New York a little bit – you kinda have to invent an invisible elevator for yourself just to live in: A guy goes to the bathroom on the tyre of a car, then a $70,000 car pulls up alongside an’ a woman with $350 stockings pokes her foot out into a puddle of blood and sputum, an’ the rain comes down, an’ a plane falls off the sky… it just gets a little… you start to just kinda focus on what you have to do an’ where you have to go. I always gravitate towards abnormal behaviour when I’m out on the street, so I have to be careful, cos it’s everywhere! I might never get to where I’m going!"

So does Rain Dogs (swimming, as it is, alongside your current thespian activities) signal a new era for Tom Waits?

"I hope so – just in terms of discovery and ideas. I’m trynna get away from that jazz thing. I live where the Nigerian overlaps Louisiana now. I’m trynna listen more to the noise in my head. My writing process has changed. Like when it’s rainin’ – again! – you have to make sure you have enough things to catch it in. I’m realisin’ the possibilities in arranging, exploring."

While Rain Dogs features some unearthly meddlings with the bizarre, there’s also a clutch of more conformist AOR songs like ‘Downtown Train’, ‘Hang Down Your Head’ and ‘Blind Love’. Which is not to detract from the poignant poetry of ‘9th And Hennepin’, ‘Gunstreet Girl’, the resigned ‘Tango Till They’re Sore’ and the shimmering ‘Time’. There are 19 titles in all.

"I never owned my songs, and now I do. It’s like – I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. So now I send my songs out there, tell them to stick together an’ look out for their brothers. Aw… I usually just try to design something that has purity of purpose. Some are just sketches, some are more developed."

So what’s Keith Richards like?

"A wild animal. A real gentleman."

As a family man, are you thinking more in terms of career these days?

"You can’t, without driving yourself crazy. You can’t perceive it correctly. You just have to stay interested, keep a sense of humour, stay civilised and curious, an’ y’know, enjoy life’s rich pageant. Some are more afraid of success than of failure. It’s hard to get on the radio, an’ without that you can’t affect things an’ ‘catch the young’. It’s all business y’know? I don’t know – maybe I have been a cult for too long, but you do what you do. So many come along as a big sensation an’ then tomorrow nobody gives a shit about them – keep it movin’ pal! I stay a little… outside the glass.

"I think I’d like to take a crack at a wider audience, but with that comes responsibility. If you’re too big you get self conscious, if you’re too obscure you feel nervous. So it’s hard. The main thing is songs. You take off your hat an’ the birds fly out of your head – some homing pigeons, some crows, some never get off the ground, some never even hatch. I don’t wanna sound too sentimental, cos I’m really not. Make some money here, fine…"

Another of your favourite words seems to be ‘demented’….

"Aw… I’m not as demented as I’d like to be. We all have to prescribe to certain conventions and it’s difficult to dismantle this world and rebuild it the way you’d like. Some are completely unselfconscious and gone; I admire that. When I’m an old guy I’ll sit on the porch with a shotgun, and a skirt, and an umbrella, an’ if you hit your baseball in my yard you’ll never see it again."

The Times once described you as ‘the greatest living beat poet’, and you’re still alive. Is there a place for poetry in today’s civilised world or is it an outmoded medium?

"Everybody’s in a hurry. They even rush you in the barber’s. You have to get the most expensive coffin, not just a pine box, so it must be better on the other side. I’m gonna stick around though; you gotta police your area, you have to be in charge.

"I don’t know – all that stuff is vicariously important to me. See, Ginsberg is still alive, Burroughs, Robert Frank… it’s like a party. The ’50s was Chuck Berry, the Korean War, McCarthy… I love the idea of Kerouac. I love the sound of his name, the way it throws a rock through the window and lets you out."

Is cool important to Tom Waits?

"Well, I lose it all the time, so…"

I cannot vouch for this.

Music remains his first love. "I guess it’s where I feel most comfortable." The developing involvement with film and theatre doesn’t occupy as large a part of his daily thoughts as some gratuitous written attempts to justify Tom Waits as an ‘artist’ may have led you to believe. His roles to date have been small if successful – "I study acting a little. I’m trynna learn" – and he says of Coppola: "It’s hard to break new ground when people are watching your every move”.

Let’s go back to 2011. That is when Drowned In Sound published this article about Rain Dogs. It coincided with Rain Dogs Revisited coming to London’s Barbican Hall on 13th July, 2011. This is an album that I have heard a few times but wanted to know more about ahead of its fortieth anniversary:

“Rain Dogs sprawls majestically. The title refers to domestic dogs losing their natural scent tracks back home after a heavy rainstorm: an appropriate moniker for an album which continually casts its eye on downtrodden New York characters cast adrift from normality by events beyond their control, huddling together for an unlikely and unsteady camaraderie. It perfectly encapsulates the point where Waits’ penchant for beautiful, cinematic and poetic ballads confronts the sonic invention and envelope-pushing that he garnered from being introduced to Captain Beefheart, Kurt Weill and other diverse musical manuscripts by his new wife Kathleen Brennan. The influence of the latter is vital in understanding Waits’ development and confidence in relocating his sound into previously uncharted territory: "My wife's been great” Waits admitted to Playboy Magazine in 1988. “I've learned a lot from her. She's Irish Catholic. She's got the whole dark forest living inside of her. She pushes me into areas I would not go, and I'd say that a lot of the things I'm trying to do now, she's encouraged" The influence of Brennan in catalysing the dramatic reactions occurring in his mid-to-late 1980s records resulted in the opposing edges of his music becoming deeply and wonderfully embedded within each other on the album, glowing white-hot with friction.

Take the first half of the album that I described before. You rattle - pinball style, from one inn and doorway of a darkened alley of rogues and miscreants before suddenly, the window of heartbreak opens into the stunning emotional left-right of ‘Hang Down Your Head’ and ‘Time’. Waits is well known for being obtuse and ramshackle. What many don’t realise is that he’s arguably the finest writer of ballads in the last 30 years. He understands tenderness and he understands how to use it effectively without treading onto mawkish ground. A perfect example is the magnificent ‘Downtown Train’, a song which, on that first album listen years ago, I looked ahead and already knew from the Rod Stewart cover version. What did I expect? I expected gruff, angular and prickly. What did I get? A masterclass in how to do a shining melodic anthem while all the time comprehensively eschewing cliché: the art of how to write a so-called “big song”. This is Waits all over. He’ll work you hard, but he’ll reward you in spades afterwards. And for every moment that horrified people look over at you and mouth “What the bloody hell is THAT?” there’ll be another song that you could play to your grandmother and have her nod in sage approval. But with Waits being Waits, there’s always something positioned just that little bit off centre to hold the interest of the curious and the demanding. Listen to the growls and marauding brass strutting their way around ‘Tango ‘till They’re Sore’. Sway to the taut, clipped funk of ‘Walking Spanish’. And admire the Chinese Tangram puzzle intricacy of ‘Diamonds and Gold’, slotting together obtuse pieces with consummate ease. These are the hallmarks of a composer and musician at the pinnacle of their art: experimenting wildly while remaining coherent and gleefully expressive.

The pivotal addition to the roving group of musicians behind the album’s tapestry of sound was guitarist Marc Ribot, whose razor-wire treble lines act as the perfect foil to Waits animalistic mumbles, scats and growls and provides apt musical reflections on the song narrative. A perfect example is the angry, kaleidoscope guitar solo on ‘Jockey Full of Bourbon’, like a drunkard attempting to aim a gun

through the hazy fury of inebriation. Also featured on the album is Rolling Stones lead guitarist Keith Richards, adding his characteristic Telecaster bite to ‘Big Black Mariah’ and ‘Union Square’ (according to Richards, Waits informed him of the style he wanted him to play by wordlessly gyrating in front of him). The forceful, poly- rhythms of Michael Blair and Stephen Hodges add a jarring, unsettling tone to the proceedings with thick, sensual percussion running scared from skeletal marimba. Yet much of the real atmosphere is laid down by the dark, sweeping curtains of New Orleans brass that flit about in the wind of the record. Waits had experimented musically for many years, but it was on this trio of records that he fully began exploring the way that a record’s sound and feel could be tailored to perfectly fit the subject matter. Lyrically, the album contains some of his most vivid images, ranging from the rambunctious rag-tag characters permeating the gloom of ‘Singapore’ and ‘Cemetery Polka’, through to his chiselled-in-dirt poetry depicting scattered human wreckage found in the titular track, and so profoundly expressed, as Larry Taylor’s upright bass dances around in the background, within the spoken words of ‘9th and Hennepin’:

“And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions
And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty. Ah,
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix”

Within the album (as in so many of his records), one of Waits greatest skills is the ability to draw you pictures with his words, gradually sketching in the details without ever resorting to pretension and cliché. Some of the lyrics from ‘Time’ are some of the most striking and evocative lyrics of his entire career, including this incandescently beautiful image taken from the final verse:

“Well, things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl
The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the streets
And when she's on a roll she pulls a razor from her boot
And a thousand pigeons fall around her feet”

By the end of the record, through the pistol smoke, whiskey and tears, you feel that Waits emerges triumphant. The glorious cacophony of accordion, striding gleefully into a marching Dixie jazz band parade on ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ could be seen as either a celebratory party, or an upbeat funeral procession. Either way, Waits seems to have found a realisation waiting for him on the other side:

“Well I see that the world is upside-down
Seems that my pockets were filled up with gold
And now the clouds, well they've covered over
And the wind is blowing cold
Well I don't need anybody, because I learned, I learned to be alone

Well I said anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys
Well I’m gonna call my home”

Rain Dogs, within all its ramshackle yet perfectly aligned mayhem, is arguably the album where Waits’ penchant for ironically juxtaposing the grim and the gorgeous of society is presented in its most vivid colour and shape. As I was soon to discover following that memorable day, having stepped off the coach at Newcastle into a new and beautiful world of music, Waits has never made a bad record, and there are some that would challenge Rain Dogs for the title of his finest album (Mule Variations is equally as good, if not better in terms of overall quality). But in terms of creating a musical landscape where the freaks, the criminals and the crazy share ground with the heartbroken and sensitive under a sky of brilliant invention, it is a record like no other. He’s an artist where it isn’t simply a case of putting a record on and letting it spin ambiguously in the background. He’s someone who metaphorically strong-arms you into attention. But it’s worth every second of introspection. And in my eyes, Rain Dogs is the door into the oddly-lit attic of his mind that is most perfectly shaped for you to slip inside. And if you can stay strong amongst the weird shapes and sounds for just a little while, you’ll probably never feel the need to step out again”.

I will end with two reviews for Rain Dogs. There is this universal acclaim and love for one of the defining albums of the 1980s. Definitely among Tom Waits’s very best. His genius and unique songwriting brilliance in full display! If you have not heard the album then make sure that you do so. This is what AllMusic noted about Rain Dogs in their review:

“With its jarring rhythms and unusual instrumentation -- marimba, accordion, various percussion -- as well as its frequently surreal lyrics, Rain Dogs is very much a follow-up to Swordfishtrombones, which is to say that it sounds for the most part like The Threepenny Opera being sung by Howlin' Wolf. The chief musical difference is the introduction of guitarist Marc Ribot, who adds his noisy leads to the general cacophony. But Rain Dogs is sprawling where its predecessor had been focused: Tom Waits' lyrics here sometimes are imaginative to the point of obscurity, seemingly chosen to fit the rhythms rather than for sense. In the course of 19 tracks and 54 minutes, Waits sometimes goes back to the more conventional music of his earlier records, which seems like a retreat, though such tracks as the catchy "Hang Down Your Head," "Time," and especially "Downtown Train" (frequently covered and finally turned into a Top Ten hit by Rod Stewart five years later) provide some relief as well as variety. Rain Dogs can't surprise as Swordfishtrombones had, and in his attempt to continue in the direction suggested by that album, Waits occasionally borders on the chaotic (which may only be to say that, like most of his records, this one is uneven). But much of the music matches the earlier album, and there is so much of it that that is enough to qualify Rain Dogs as one of Waits' better albums”.

I am going to finish with Far Out Magazine and their take on Rain Dogs. Every feature and review provides different angles and personal takes on a remarkable work from one of music’s most beloved artists. I wonder if and when Tom Waits will follow 2011’s Bad As Me:

“He seems to be a reporter that has also lost all subjectivity. He has slunk well into the weird underworld which he set out to chronicle but – like an undercover investigator who takes up junk to bust a drug gang but fails to kick the habit and becomes aligned with mob life – Waits is now firmly holed up in the streets of the seedy city for good. His reams of unfurling scribbles have never found a more fitting album that Rain Dogs.

Even the album’s backstory seems to confirm this. Waits wrote the record in the belly of the beast in a basement room on Horatio Street in New York City, a place he lovingly describes as “kind of a rough area, Lower Manhattan between Canal and 14th Street, just about a block from the river … It was a good place for me to work. Very quiet, except for the water coming through the pipes every now and then. Sort of like being in a vault.”

He wanted to capture that rumbling city above on the record, so he set about making field recordings—capturing the mechanical hum of the urban dispossessed. This roars forth with the opener ‘Singapore’, an industrial track in the true sense of the word that uses horns and marimbas to transfigure the clang of banging pipes into music. This rumble exists down by the docks, where everyone is “mad as hatters”. They have seen the great scenes of the world from the “sewers of Paris” to the ports of “Singapore” on a boat captained by a “one-armed dwarf” with a penchant for throwing dice down the wharf.

But Waits doesn’t stay there long on his staggering journey. In no time, he’s barking about a poor cursed family on ‘Cemetery Polka’ and then suddenly, nine tracks into his cavalcade, he takes pause with ‘Time’ and finds a quiet spot to get reflective. It’s a beautiful moment amid the mania that highlights the humanity behind all the madness that goes before it and the continued meshuga yet to come. In part, that typifies some of the brilliance of this record: Waits isn’t just journeying through the gutter and transcribing it into music, he takes his time to get to the heart of it.

In this regard, the album seems similar to the Velvet Underground’s bruised banana debut that came before it. While much jazzier and musicologically meandering, it tells much the same beat-inspired tale of cities. In fact, these comments that David Bowie used to describe early Lou Reed are very fitting for Rain Dogs: “[He uses] cacophony as background noise and to create an ambience.” Alongside that both songwriters take inspiration from things “like Hubert Selby Jr, The Last Exit from Brooklyn and also John Rechy’s book City of the Night,” and are boldly unafraid to take pop traditions down a more literary route.

Much like the Velvet Underground, when approached from the frothing surface, Waits’ record seems like the depths of cultural degeneracy. Upon first listen, there is something perturbing about the opening onslaught of ‘Singapore’, ‘Clap Hands’ and ‘Cemetery Polka’ with more conventional jazzy folk being pushed down the tracklisting. These headier numbers kick up the perverse dirt of some dingy dive bar, suddenly whisking the sticky taverna into unwelcome life. While the dissonance of the down-tuned instruments creates the same vibe as the feeling you get when you visit a pub for the first time that you feel you don’t belong in.

After a while, as the album sprawls out, it becomes clear that indeed there are certain bars unfit for every person. The seafarers reside in the realm of sea-shanties down by the quay, while the arty rejects do their best Humphrey Bogart impression in the sepia bars where ‘Time’ rings out, the young hopefuls look for brighter horizons like drunken Bruce Springsteen’s on ‘Downtown Train’, and the friskier fellows sling back Havana cocktails in the sweaty ‘Jockey Full Of Bourbon’. Every cobbled stone is touched upon in Rain Dogs and it results in a masterful album that plays more like a book than a usual twelve-inch, and what a read it proves to be!

But that literary feat is lifted to loftier heights through the perfect energy of the music. You don’t have to pore over the wondrous lyrics to work out Waits’ world, like all the best page-nine tales, you can get a sense of them in a glossed-over leaf through. And that triumph comes down to his unique approach in the studio. As he said of Keith Richards’ involvement on the record: “He’s very spontaneous, he moves like some kind of animal. I was trying to explain ‘Big Black Mariah’ and finally I started to move in a certain way, and he said, ‘Oh, why didn’t you do that to begin with? Now I know what you’re talking about.’ It’s like animal instinct.” That’s what makes Rain Dogs so relatable and joyous—not because we know the streets he sings of, but because the smells and auras also seem to waft up from the whirling record on its hour-long merry-go-round”.

On 30th September, Tom Waits’s remarkable Rain Dogs turns forty. I know there will be celebration, retrospection and dissection nearer the date. Whether you are a Tom Waits fan or not, this is an album that I think everyone should hear. Hard to ignore or not love. So fascinating, I wonder whether a short film or piece has been shot based on this album. Released in 1985, this hugely important and brilliant work is one of the greatest albums…

OF the decade.