FEATURE: Spotlight: Westside Cowboy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Westside Cowboy

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THIS wonderful…

Manchester band formed in 2023 and, since then, have seen their music reach a wide and adoring fanbase. Reuben Haycocks, James Bradbury, Aoife Anson O'Connell and Paddy Murphy are Westside Cowboy. I think each year sees a lot of solo artists highlighted for greatness. I guess the majority of the best or best-reviewed albums are from them. However, the band market right now is really fertile and productive! Especially in the U.K. and Ireland. Many more great examples than here than in the U.S. even. Westside Cowboy release their sophomore E.P., So Much Country ‘Till We Get There, on 16th January. The band have some U.K. dates ahead, but they also have a couple of gigs in the U.S. I love how the band have a date in New York and one In L.A. Five days apart, it seems like a long way to go for two gigs! However, it is amazing that Westside Cowboy have demand there and, after these gigs, there will be more demand and opportunities next year. Back in June, The Line of Best Fit spoke with the Manchester quartet. Everyone needs to hear their music, as we are going to be talking about them for a very long time to come:

“Before coming together as Westside Cowboy, Haycocks, Murphy, O’Connell, and Bradbury were orbiting one another in various groups – with The University Of Manchester acting as the barycentre. Haycocks, Murphy, and O’Connell met during freshers week and quickly hit it off. Within two days, Haycocks and Murphy started a band called DieKaiDai. “It was very different, it was noisy. We tried to make it poppy, but ultimately it sounded very confused and very young,” Haycocks tells me. “We made all the mistakes that were possible to make being in a small band.”

Meanwhile, Murphy and Bradbury were in a band called Katz, which Bradbury describes as “a three-piece surf-punk band that played so fast it ceased to exist.” Mid-sentence, the band’s attention diverts to a car driving past. They fill me in on their observation, explaining that someone had gone the wrong way down the one-way system, which feels oddly symbolic of the difficulty that they ran into with their earlier projects. “We got sick of those bands,” Murphy says. “We were sick of slamming our heads against the wall and feeling like things weren’t natural to do.”

When walking the dichotomous line of surf-punk and noise-rock-pop started to feel like a dead end, it was an encounter in Johnny Roadhouse – the renowned music shop where Bradbury worked at the time – that led them to change course. The conversation was simple.

“James was like, ‘Do you want to start a band called Westside Cowboy?’” Murphy recounts. “And we were like, ‘Yeah.’” O’Connell – a cellist who had never picked up a guitar – joined on bass and took to it naturally. With Haycocks on vocals and guitar, Murphy on drums, and Bradbury on guitar, they ditched experimental music and stripped the music back to its simplest form. “We just wanted to play a fucking song again,” Murphy says, referring to the less complicated structure of traditional pop music that they grew up with.

For the most part, tradition exists as the foundation for Westside Cowboy. However, this is not to suggest that their sound is dated. The word that they use to describe it is “Britainicana.” It’s their own coinage to describe American roots music reinterpreted through a very English lens, and it’s not static. The band tells me what represents “Britainicana”: The La’s, Johnny Roadhouse, Violent Femmes, Chappell Roan, and Back to the Future. It feels limitless. “We grew up smothered by American media – films, TV, all of it,” Murphy explains. “Like with everything, when you’re a kid, you seek to emulate it. But you live in rural north-west England. You’re not on the Sunset Strip, or Manhattan,” he continues, earning chuckles in agreement.

Rather than reject those borrowed influences, they transmute them by reimagining Americana through the British DIY tradition that they know while embracing the contradiction that comes with it”.

Creators of an intriguing sound and music that is deigned for everyone, Westside Cowboys are proving that bands, those who produce this amazing utilitarian and hard-to-ignore music, are so vital. They offer something that solo acts cannot. In April, DORK spotlighted a band who were self-proclaimed “Britainicana pioneers”. I do think that next year is going to be a massive one for them. After a string of gigs in some really cool venues, they will pick up these new skills. That experience on stage is not new to them. However, the more they play, the more we will talk about them. It means they will catch the eyes of festival organisers. Expect to see them bossing it next summer:

“The band’s approach to songwriting reveals a sophisticated understanding of pop’s emotional power. As Haycocks explains, “I think there are always themes that songwriters are drawn to, and I think that they are generally similar across most styles of writing. I am drawn to the idea of a love song as a way of hyperbolising your experience. Unfortunately, we don’t all live in our favourite songs, but a good love song is close enough to our own experience to connect to us on an emotional level but lofty enough to give us an escape and seemingly lift us out of our own unremarkable experiences.”

This philosophy – finding the extraordinary within the ordinary – permeates everything Westside Cowboy do. The response is refreshingly unpretentious when asked about the message they want listeners to take away from their music: “Not too sure, we haven’t really thought about it before. At the end of the day, we’re just four mates who love to play music, pop music. more than anything else. I guess it would be, ‘Don’t think, just enjoy it’. It’s music for everyone, we hope.”

The band’s trajectory continues to accelerate. They’re currently finishing their first EP, scheduled for release in the summer, and their live calendar is filling up with a number of events. “We have some really cool festival slots coming up that we’re excited for: Green Man, End of the Road… we’re incredibly lucky and feel very grateful for all of it.”

Their ambitions, while substantial, remain grounded in authenticity and community. “We make a bucket list every year,” they share. “The one last year we said that we wanted to play the Ritz (we’d played two gigs at cafes at the time), and it somehow happened!” But beyond the venue wish list, their goals reflect a deeper purpose: “I suppose our main goal at the moment is just to have our music connect with as many people as it can. Whilst we’re doing this, though, we’d also like to be able to lift up the people and causes we love, too. Getting to do this is such an insane luxury that we want to use our music as a vehicle for giving as much as we possibly can.”

This commitment to community extends to their festival appearances, where they’re as excited to watch other acts as they are to perform. They enthusiastically name-check fellow Manchester band Holly Head, who they’re keen to see when they play Dot To Dot, describing them as having “the best grooves and live show going. A generational rhythm section on show there.” Their festival experience varies – while Reuben has been attending Green Man “every year since like 2013 or something stupid”, guitarist Jimmy has never attended a festival before. “I guess he’ll be having a trial by fire,” the band quip.

As our conversation winds down, they share two pieces of information – one whimsical, one significant. “Babies are born without kneecaps,” they insist, before adding, “We’re also in the final for Glasto emerging talent” – which they’ve since won, ‘FYI’ – “that’s maybe just exciting for us, though.” Their final message combines both playful persistence and social consciousness: “We’re not joking. Babies are seriously born without kneecaps. Donate to Medical Aid For Palestinians if you can!”.

NME spoke to Westside Cowboy ahead of their appearance at Glastonbury this summer on the Woodsies stage. They won the Emerging Talent Competition. I may be a bit late to them. Getting huge focus earlier in the year, I think they will make their way back onto the radar. One of those bands who will be dubbed the ‘Sound of 2026’. Or those to watch. As they put out the So Much Country ‘Till We Get There E.P. in January, there will be new interviews and focus:

“There’s a lot of different American influences in the sound of the band…

Bradbury: “Yeah. Hank Williams and Bob Dylan were important early on.”

Murphy: “Reuben and I were coming out of a band that was way more experimental and noisy, and we’d kind of burnt ourselves out with that – we wanted to reconnect with more traditional styles of music. Reuben was raised on folk music, and Jimmy’s a massive Elvis nut, really into his early rock’n’roll.

“So, it just felt easy compared to what we’d been doing previously, where everything was overcomplicated and maybe even a little bit pretentious. It seemed like way more fun to just have a laugh playing skiffle covers or country songs, really simple and timeless stuff with just three or four chords.”

You’ve described your sound as ‘Britainicana’. Was there a blueprint for that style?

Anson-O’Connell: “I think there’s many different blueprints for Britainicana. We’ve just given a very old thing a new name. Folk is in the mix, too; we have some amazing friends in a Manchester folk band called Brown Wimpenny, and although they make such different music to us, they are Westside Cowboy in ethos. Or maybe we’re Brown Wimpenny in ethos.

“We all grew up with folk music and religious music, and the first song I ever wrote was inspired by a Lankum gig. I think not being able to play the guitar very well lends itself to writing in that style, actually.”

How important has Manchester been for you as a base? What’s it like to be a young band starting out here now?

Bradbury: “COVID felt like a bit of a reset for Manchester. It seems much easier to get people out to shows now than it used to be.”

Anson-O’Connell: “At the minute, I don’t know if there’s anywhere more exciting for music. We’ve had a few conversations about that with friends recently; just talking about how lucky we feel to be here.”

Murphy: “It’s nice how small and tight-knit the community feels. You’re bumping into friends who are in bands on the street all the time. And everything feels new. There’s great bands coming up, like Martial Arts, Shaking Hand, Dove Ellis and Holly Head, and none of them sound like Joy Division. None of them sound like Oasis or The Smiths”.

Such a tremendous young band with this sound that sticks in your heart and head, I am excited by what their new E.P. has to offer. They released the This Better Be Something Great E.P. in August, it is a pretty quick follow-up! You wonder if an album will arrive next year. Until then, go and show your love for..

THE wonderous band that is Westside Cowboy.

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Follow Westside Cowboy

FEATURE: Spotlight: Cliffords

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Cliffords

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HAVING just completed…

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

some amazing tour dates, it did get me thinking about Cliffords. They consist of Iona Lynch, Gavin Dawkins, Harry Menton, Daniel Ryan and Locon O'Toole. I have not seen them live but I will make sure I do when they next come to London. Their Salt of the Lee (Acoustic) album was released last month. It mixes the songs with their The Salt of the Lee E.P. and acoustic versions. I shall bring in some interviews with the band, in case you have not heard of them or do not know too much. I am starting out with Rolling Stone UK, who interviewed the Cork-based back earlier in the year. They are a terrific Irish guitar band. A nation that is producing so many at the moment, Cliffords are proof that some of the most important and distinct music is coming from the country:

“What’s the story behind how Cliffords came to be?

We were a secondary school band, basically. We formed in a place called Ballincollig and we were just playing in a garage for years. That was with me and Gavin who’s in the band now, but we had other previous members too. After a few years we did a battle of the bands at UCC (University College Cork) and we were so bad, like truly terrible. But we ended up winning and we met Harry our guitar player and we met Locon who is our keys player. That was two years ago and we’re here now!

Is there any artists that are particularly big influences on our sound? I can hear shades of Wolf Alice in there, if we’re going for contemporary ones

It’s cool because we all have different tastes, but I know the lads would definitely say Radiohead is their biggest influence and for us as well Wolf Alice is a huge one. I’m a really big boygenius fan and Phoebe Bridgers is a huge inspiration for me. Then there’s the Smashing Pumpkins too.

I can hear shades of The Cranberrries too, but I appreciate that might be a lazy comparison…

Nah you can’t go wrong with The Cranberries and I do get that a lot! I think it’s a similar voice type thing and look, I was watching one of their music videos the other day and realised I had the same haircut as Dolores O’Riordan. And as for lyrics, Joni Mitchell is my all time favorite. So we’ve got a good mix and we also do an album of the week club, where each person chooses an album each week and everyone has to listen to it.

It’s been really cool to expand our tastes. Like this week it was Tom Waits, and for years I had asserted that I hated Tom Waits. I really hated him and called him the scary man. Every time I got in the car with Harry, who loves Tom Waits, I’d just say turn off the scary man! But I listened again this week and I was like God, I’m wrong, he’s class!

You mentioned growing up in Cork, does that sense of place become a central character in your music?

Yeah and people make fun of me because I overuse it! I was out last night and someone said to me ‘It wouldn’t be like you to mention Cork in a lyric, Iona’. It is pretty true that almost every song has a street or even like some kind of imagery or iconography.

There’s this red cross on the top of a church around Cork, it’s up on a hill so you can always kind of see it and it’s like always looming and I don’t know why, it’s just so like attractive or something, but like loads of bands write about it as well from Cork, so I bring it up loads in our next recordings. It’s personified, but it’s nice”.

In May, they released the Salt of the Lee E.P. For NME. Iona Lynch and Locon O'Toole spoke with them about their rise. “The streets and sights of Ireland’s second-largest city loom large in the rising four-piece’s sonorous indie, woven into the tales of their young lives”. As NME write, this amazing band’s incredible stories are taking them beyond Cork and to bigger things. In a year that has seen some hugely promising bands come through, Cliffords are among the very best:

“As today’s designated interviewees Lynch and O’Toole talk, they often focus on the idea of bettering themselves. Cliffords have an album of the week club; recent selections include Divorce, Ethel Cain and Tom Waits. The club helps make a “massive difference” to their songwriting, the keyboardist says, “because there’s so much music out there and it helps you understand [it better]”. Their first experiences recording helped boost their abilities as musicians who could “think about [our music] on the next level”. Ask what their ambitions are, and after joking about mansions in Miami, they keep things simple. “I want to get better and play shows,” Lynch shares. “I want to make a really good album and I don’t care how long it takes for us to do it.” Across from her, O’Toole nods: “We love the process, that’s the thing.”

Given how much new music is being put out these days, the band are well aware of the need to make themselves stand out – but you get the impression they’re not willing to compromise on their art to do so. Dawkins’ arresting trumpet lines add an unusual, emotional extra layer to songs like ‘My Favourite Monster’, but the band aren’t going all-in and making it their gimmick. “Every song, he’ll go, ‘I hear a trumpet line’,” Lynch says, jokingly rolling her eyes. “We’re like, ‘Not in every song! You have to play the bass sometimes.’”

Right now, it feels easier than ever for Irish bands to get a look-in where they may previously have been overlooked, thanks to the country’s culture having something of a capital-letter Moment. For Cliffords, the opportunity is a double-edged sword – something they’re grateful for, even as it points to a prior ignorance and narrow-mindedness. “Everyone in the industry keeps asking this question of what’s happening in Ireland right now, but it’s always been happening – it’s just that you’re looking now,” Lynch says. “There’s almost a fetishisation [of being Irish], it’s kind of othering. You wouldn’t really say that about bands from England. I do find that frustrating, but I also get it because I don’t know about lots of places in the UK.”

‘Salt Of The Lee’, though, is strong enough a record that it could grab the attention it deserves, whether the world was focusing on Ireland or not. Its closing track ‘Dungarvan Bay’, a moving exploration of grief that was started one week after the death of a close friend, is some of Lynch’s best songwriting yet. She returned to it a year later with a new perspective on loss.

“I don’t think you move on from grief, it just becomes a part of you,” she begins. “I’m devastated he passed away, and I think of him every day, but you can’t change those things in your life, and you do have an option of what you do about it. I didn’t want this song to be that version of grief that’s super devastating and all-consuming. There were parts of it that were really beautiful – as friends, we went camping in Dungarvan for a week, and we had some really great nights out. I wanted it to reflect this growth of it still being there, but changed”.

 

I will move to DIY and their interview from June. Cliffords say how they always get labelled as a ‘great Irish band’, and there has to be this distinction or restriction. They want to be known as a great band, period. Also, it is interesting how they note people maybe only connected or knew about them through fellow Irish groups like Fontaines D.C. However, Cliffords have been working hard to get their music out there, so it is high time people paid attention – and paid them their dues:

“Theirs wasn’t a path that included any secret shortcut to stardom, though. The band spent 18 months playing around Cork before breaking their way out of the city walls and into the wider Irish - and now also British - music scene. “I think I sent an email to different UK and US college radio stations every day trying to get them to play our music,” chuckles Locon, “and then we eventually got onto a Spotify playlist, and spent pretty much every day last summer meeting with industry people, which just felt like all the work had been worth it.”

Obviously, none of this would be possible if the tunes themselves weren’t truly brilliant. Debut EP ‘Strawberry Scented’ unveiled Cliffords’ ability to mix catchy arena-rock choruses (‘Sleeping With Ghosts’) with softly sung yet powerfully heartbreaking lyricism (‘Shattered Glass’) - a formula Iona first landed on as a way to untangle her thoughts.

“I wrote my first lyrics when I was about six in my bedroom,” she remembers, “but the only music I listened to was Taio Cruz on ‘Now 77’, so all the lyrics were like ‘we’re going out tonight girls’ or ‘we’re in the club’. But then, as a teenager, I loved dodie, and now my icons are Adrianne Lenker and CMAT – they’re just the most amazing storytellers – so I guess I try to write like them, but in my own voice.”

 

Now, sitting on this bustling Brighton street and drinking coffee to heal their sore heads, the band are gearing up to release their second EP, ‘Salt of the Lee’ - a collection of four songs designed to, in Locon’s words, “really announce ourselves.”

“We were consciously writing an EP this time,” he continues, “it’s got a bit more grit, it’s dirtier, it’s more focused on the band we want to be.” Iona nods: “I was less particular about lyrics this time, too. I want people to make up their own minds on the stories instead of me spelling out exactly what’s going on.”

Side by side, these two EPs - though separated by only 13 months - evidence enormous growth. Anthemic lead single ‘Bittersweet’, replete with grungy guitar lines and soaring trumpet details, contrasts beautifully with lyrical folk ballad ‘Dungarvan Bay’. Elsewhere, ‘My Favourite Monster’ tells the tale of a local villain through social analysis and boisterous choruses, while Iona’s self-proclaimed favourite ‘R&H Hall’ opens with an emotional piano line before exploding open into a folk-rock ode to their beloved Ireland.

Indeed, their Irishness is at the very heart of the band, musically and spiritually, and Iona beams with pride when talking about growing up in Cork: “Irish culture is all around you, it’s in your DNA. We learn the language in school; the music and literature and history is everywhere; even when you grow up, you see trad music sessions in pubs that anyone can join in with. You’re taught to be proud of your culture, and it’s only now we’re starting to appreciate it.”

“British people are only paying attention now because of bands like Fontaines DC, but it’s always been happening,” Locon adds. “Our government encourages music, they let people have fun in small rooms whether they’re good or not. In Britain, people don’t have the chance to be bad because there are no small rooms left to play, so [music] is only available to people who have had lessons in school or whatever; it’s just for upper-class kids”.

 

I am finishing out with an interview from CLASH. Many people assume they are just starting out and they have exploded out of nowhere. Even though they are getting big attention and this year has been their busiest, the group has been gigging and getting their name out there a long time. It is worth re-emphasising. That said, I think that next year is going to be their busiest and best so far, in terms of the gigs they play and what they accomplished:

“The group spent years playing every gig they could physically get to, and building a solid local following.

“We were the band who’d play every support slot in Cork! You could text us half an hour before the show and we’d show up and play there,” says Lynch. “We played three shows a week in one venue once.”

“We used to play at this bar called Fred’s every week, and pretty much every [time] we’d write a new song and just play it,” Lynch adds.

With plenty of familiar faces in the crowds, this was the perfect time in the band’s career to get instant feedback on their newer songs. But things have inevitably changed.

“Since you’ve released music and people outside of your immediate local scene are hearing it, you don’t have that same liberty,” says Lynch.

Wider fame has also led the band to seek more structure and discipline. Iona explains how the band have spent time in London for a focused writing week not long after the release of ‘Salt of the Lee’ (and just ahead of their debut Glastonbury appearance). This is the first time Cliffords have written in this way, although they’ve always co-written their songs, Iona says. Those songs are strikingly personal; it’s what makes Cliffords such a compelling act. But how can writing collectively produce this genuinely heartfelt emotion? Lynch puts it down to the band’s friendship and shared history.

“We all at this point live together and know the ins and outs of each other as people,” Lynch says. “We’ve all grown up in the same city; we kind of have a similar outlook or experience – my story is as much as Gav’s as it is Harry’s… we’re all living the same thing, through a different perspective but I think I know them well enough to see something that they would see.”

 

As Lynch explains, “There has to be individuality in the songs and you have to be telling your own story, but through a wider lens maybe.”

Writing prolifically while growing up together means the band have found themselves charting their own personal development.

“It’s like writing your own autobiography as you go along,” Lynch says, then describing her philosphy on the art (or science?) of songwriting.

“Really great songwriters practise, they write songs every day, they do lots of things in their life to get to know their inner voice and get to the point where their true self is really distilled,” she says. “I used to think it was this thing I was just good at, and I could write whenever, while now I’m much more about structure and practising — trying to write a song every day and consuming things like art and other music that will inform my writing.”

“And it becomes easier when you’re treating it more like work rather than this mad experiment that sometimes goes right! We’re seeing ourselves as musicians rather than just as a band who are having fun,” Lynch says. “We released the first EP because that was the thing to do. We didn’t really get that people would listen to it! The second EP felt more like a project.”

With their fanbase and live audiences growing, there are now higher expectations put on Cliffords. Lynch explains how she and her bandmates are trying to block out some of that pressure in order to keep true to themselves.

“Otherwise you’re trying to write songs for other people… I don’t think people actually want what they think they want,” she muses. “You should write the songs you’re going to write and they’ll enjoy them if they truly enjoy your music”.

Cliffords want to be known as a great band. The fact that they are Irish should not the focus in that sense. There have always been great bands out of Ireland. However, it is important to recognise the country and the sheer wave of talent coming from there. The Cork heroes have had a triumphant year and played incredible gigs, been award-nominated and released some terrific music. Looking ahead, and I do feel like they are going to get to some huge festivals and maybe there will be another E.P. I am excited for this band and I feel they are going to be around for many years. Anyone new to Cliffords needs to get involved…

RIGHT now.

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Follow Cliffords

FEATURE: Spotlight: Getdown Services

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Getdown Services

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AS we look towards…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Miles

next year, a lot of websites will share their tips of the artists we need to follow. You know that Getdown Services will feature highly. I discovered the duo recently and know that they are ready for massive things. A Bristol-based duo consisting of Josh Law and Ben Sadler, Getdown Services make craft incredible, satirical music about modern British life. They released their debut album, Crisps, in 2023. They were recently nominated for the Play Next award by Rolling Stone UK, alongside other amazing rising artists like Jacob Alon and Rianne Downey. Quite a few of the interviews with Getdown Services are from earlier in the year. However, I think that it is relevant and will give us a good idea of who they are and why you need to follow them. Let’s begin with an introduction from last year:

“The pair originally started the group as an attempt to escape the drudgery of their everyday circumstances, but with a burgeoning cult fandom behind them, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they land in the big time.

What is it about a Getdown Services show that people have really taken to?

Ben: Well, do you remember when you were younger and you were watching Dick & Dom in da Bungalow? I will make this comparison. You see blokes who seem to have absolutely no dignity or self worth at all, chucking mushy peas at a load of kids? I think we touch a similar sort of thing.

 

I think you’ve just given me the headline there, lads…

Josh: It’s true! We do get it a lot and I think that gigs can actually be quite awkward environments. They’re quite tense and it’s an unnatural way of interacting with people. There’s someone there, you’re just kinda watching them and the way we enjoy it is to let loose and try to make each other laugh. That’s a big thing because that can give permission to other people to let loose a little bit. I’m not putting ourselves down here, I think that’s what people like sometimes more than the music itself. I think it’s just a bit of an excuse to be completely stupid for about half an hour and people who are quite tense will continue to be like that if the band’s nervous too.

Ben: I think you’re right. It’s an unnatural way to enjoy it too. A play is one long story not to be interrupted, but with people you should let people do their thing. What’s really nice for me is looking out and most of the time people are grinning. They’re having a nice time in those 45 minutes and they come away thinking, well, something happened!

Josh: When we started playing live early on it became quite obvious that this was a thing about us trying to make each other laugh, really. And that’s how the recording started and the whole thing felt ridiculous. It started to feel like, well, if other people can get something out of it then everyone’s a winner. We can have a good time and so can they. Even if people don’t enjoy it, I think they secretly do a bit!

And does all this fit into the mantra of your Instagram bio, which simply reads Britain’s Best Band…

Josh: Haha, well I was thinking about that the other day. We should probably change that, because when we made the page we just thought we’d put it because it was funny and nobody was paying attention. We weren’t even really paying attention to what we were doing and it’s just stayed there since day one. We’re obviously not Britain’s best band, but also we kind of are?

Ben: If you make yourself invincible and untouchable, then you know, then no one can take you down a peg or two!

You’ve spoken before about the thread of escapism within your music too – what is the importance of that for you?

Josh: Yeah, especially with our last album Crisps, which reflected a sense of drudgery, boredom and dissatisfaction.

Ben: But with our latest EP we’ve been on the road and it was written a lot while we were away, so everyday life isn’t the same as it was. We’re playing shows and getting to do this amazing thing. It sort of rubs off on you a little bit, feeling quite lucky”.

Even though they got a lot of focus earlier in the year and were being tipped for success as a new act, I think they will also get a lot of new attention. A duo that can also define 2026. As their sound has changed and they have developed as a duo, that will attract and intrigue a lot of new websites. DIY inducted Getdown Services into their Class of 2025:

“It feels like with the music, we can get our creative stuff out, and then with the lyrics it’s getting our mental health problems out. They’re completely disjointed; they’re not the same thing,” he continues. “We’re genuinely out of our depth when it comes to vocals so we’re trying to keep it as honest as we can. If you don’t know what you’re doing it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is good, but you do know if you’ve been honest or not. So that’s a good test: I don’t know if it was good but I know it was honest and that’s all I can do.”

It’s this lack of formality or box-ticking that’s perhaps the duo’s best quality. Though there have been no lack of young alternative groups railing at the state of things in recent years, Getdown Services operate somewhere between the surreal observations of Dry Cleaning, the sweary annoyance of Sleaford Mods, and two blokes in a pub putting the world to rights. Some of their songs talk about landlords and gentrification, but they also talk about telly and snacks and poo. “I don’t think anything political in our music is trying to achieve anything beyond vocalising how we feel,” shrugs Josh. “Anything political is political by chance because it comes under the umbrella of things that bother us.”

As the momentum around the band has increased, however, so has an inclination to somewhat level up – albeit in their own way. Though the beauty of a Getdown Services live show is in its chaos, the two friends want it to be chaos of the good kind. “We want to respect the people giving us their time and money so we’re taking it more seriously, whereas before we were a bit more throwaway and didn’t really give a fuck about any of it,” says Josh. “There are people that like what we do, so let’s try and make it good. That’s how much the ambition has grown: let’s try and be a good band.”

They suggest that their new material – the next steps on after both ‘Crisps’ and this winter’s ‘Your Medal’s In The Post’ EP – is taking the band down a route that’s “a bit more personal, maybe less humour”. “But there is a song where Josh shouts a quote from Planet of the Apes…” Ben caveats. “Yeah it does feel a bit ridiculous to say that this new stuff’s all serious and then the first song is us shouting like monkeys, but it’s definitely changed!” his bandmate says.

Yet whether lyrically serious or silly (and given their subsequently-dropped festive single ‘Dr. Christmas’, we’d gauge they haven’t entirely moved over to the former camp), you sense that Getdown Services will always be in it for the right reasons. “People can make their own minds up, but for us it’s just a way to enjoy something we like doing together anyway: taking the piss, making each other laugh, and doing music,” says Ben. “So we’re just doing that, but putting it on a stage”.

I want to take a slight detour and include a fairly recent interview from Guitar for Idiots. They spoke with Getdown Services’ Josh Dunn about the duo’s kit. How important the guitar is in terms of their sound and live performances. If you have not investigated this wonderful two-piece, then do make sure you do some investigation:

“Matt Dunn: The first one is about the role of guitar in Getdown Services, who I think of as a genre-bending band. Where is the guitar in your creative process?

Josh Law: When the band started, we started this band just about 4 years ago. Guitar has been my main instrument my whole life, but when we started the band I was kind of sick of guitar. The band started as a way to try and do something different. I was always into garage rock bands, I liked the White Stripes and stuff like that. But I was just sick of the whole guitar world for a little bit. So for a lot of the stuff the guitar was just kind of begrudgingly in there. I don’t really know how to play any other instruments, we do all the recording ourselves, so we have a go at everything. But I have to get the guitar in because it’s the only one I know how to play.

But just over a year and a half ago something happened. I started playing guitar live, the guitar came out and I was like I really like this. There’s something about the context of this band that made me feel more free. I didn’t feel so constrained by blues rock. It’s kind of become the main instrument now. When we write new music now, the guitar’s the main one. The thinking with the guitar playing now is a bit more, how can we take this recognizable form of guitar playing, and how we can we put that in a context where it doesn’t feel so familiar.

MD: I had noticed that you were playing pretty affordable guitars, but in the gear world right now there’s real romanticism around using cheap gear again and trashy gear again, like the new JHS pedal based on the Tascam. But you seem to live in this reality, do you use a laptop? An amp? Pedals?

JL: Recently I downloaded my first amp simulator. I use Ableton, I was always kind of against using it, this is a free one, I think called “Build Your Own Distortion” but occasionally I’ve got a Roland JC, the most clean amp ever, as everyone knows. I record out of that sometimes, I record a lot of bass out of that.

One of the reasons I don’t use equipment was because when the band started I had fallen out of love with the guitar. I’d had quite a big pedal collection, I was playing psychedelic rock, like everyone did in the mid 2010s. I’d realized when I’m watching bands and the guy’s just fiddling with pedals, it’s the most frustrating thing to see. I sold everything, all my amps, everything, with no intention of starting a band. Then this band started happening and I’ve got to figure out a way to record guitars somehow”.

I am wrapping up with PRS for Music and their interview with Getdown Services. Conducted back in the summer, it was festival season. The duo talking about touring and the importance of getting their music out to fans. A tremendous group/duo live, if you get the chance to see them play then do:

“We try to focus on making sure we’re in the right headspace to give it the beans every time we play live. It can be tricky to balance all your needs while you’re on tour: often you don’t sleep enough and spend a lot more time being social than you might usually. Because of this, we like to shoehorn in alone time and make an effort to be nice to each other and everyone we meet. Red Bull, eating vegetables, not drinking too much, crying in the car and remembering the sheer power of rocking out all helps when you’re on the road.

‘We go into gigs with an attitude of wanting to engage everyone in the room, whether or not they like us — our music is almost secondary. We’re letting off steam and, in doing so, hopefully giving people permission to switch off and do the same. We’re forcing the audience to pay attention for their own good during our live shows. Even if they hate the entire performance, we’d bet money they feel better than if they’d spent that same time just scrolling on their phone.

‘Smaller towns that don’t get as many touring bands coming through always have a different vibe to somewhere like London, where the audience are spoiled for choice. Playing in bigger cities can sometimes feel like you’re performing at a networking event for industry people as much as you are playing an actual gig. Showcase events themselves can feel like a bit of a drag, but whenever we play them we try to focus on getting the people there to stop chatting and let loose a bit, like we do with all our shows. We’re aware that there’s something really funny about the arrogance of us playing at a showcase event and belittling industry people while we’re playing. Having said that, they do serve a purpose that isn’t solely cynical, and we’ve met some really nice people at those kinds of events.

'It’s always exciting playing in new places, especially if it’s somewhere we don’t necessarily feel like we’re an obvious fit. I think being in situations like that gives us extra energy which hopefully makes the performance more engaging. It’s all in the name of fun!

‘We go into gigs with an attitude of wanting to engage everyone in the room, whether or not they like us — our music is almost secondary.'

‘Playing live is definitely the pinnacle of being a musician in terms of sharing your music with other people. Social media engagement and streams don’t make a dent on the feeling you get from playing a gig. When it comes to songwriting, we occasionally factor in how something will work live more than we used to because we play live so much. Lyrically, though, it’s often detached from the world of touring”.

The duo are currently touring the U.K. and Europe, and most of the shows seem to be sold out. They are back in the U.K. at the very end of the year and have dates in the diary for next year. Crumbs 2 is their latest E.P., and it that was released on 5th November. Maybe their finest release yet, I am excited to see what comes next! Make sure Getdown Services are on your radar, as Josh Law and Ben Sadler are a duo…

YOU need to know.

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Follow Getdown Services

FEATURE: Spotlight: Girl Group

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Girl Group

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THIS amazing group…

are currently touring the U.K. and released their new single, She Goes, earlier this month. Girl Group might make them a hard name to Google and locate for obvious reasons, though it does also not rigidly define them in terms of their sound. You might imagine they would be making music like girl groups/bands of today/old. However, they are very different to what you may imagine! They are Katya Birkeland, Lily Christlow, Thea Gundersen, Mia Halvorsen and Maria Tollisen. Girl Group are a five-piece band based in Liverpool who formed after meeting at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2023. Their debut E.P., Think They’re Looking. Let’s Perform, was released earlier in the year. It is an amazing release. I am going to move to a few interviews with Girl Group. I am going to start out with music is to blame. and their chat with them from this year:

“Girl Group — the real one — is a messy, magical, feminist force rewriting what it means to take up space in the music world. Born out of friendship, frustration, and a lot of glitter, the five-piece met at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and decided to do things their way: fully DIY, fully woman-led, and fully chaotic in the best way.

Music Is To Blame caught up with them just before their explosive opening set for Olivia Dean in Paris, where they left a crowd of new fans screaming. With their debut EP ‘Think They’re Looking, Let’s Perform’ just released on June 20th, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. In this Seven Questions series, we talk about community, being fangirls, filming music videos with no budget and big dreams, and the power of building something that feels like home.

Introduce yourselves and where you're from.

Mia: We are four Norwegian girls: me, Thea, Maria, Katya are from Norway, and Lil is from Yorkshire!

Lil: We’re all from all over, but we met in Liverpool at Uni.

Mia: So, the band started in Liverpool!

What do our readers need to know about Girl Group?

Mia: Our main goal with Girl Group is to try and challenge the boys club in the music industry. One of the most important things for us is to bring women together and get each other and ourselves to believe more in ourselves and each other. Also, show that a woman's way of doing things could be just as good or even better. We want to champion all the genders – especially in the time we live in, I think it’s very important to include as many people as you can. For us, it’s been important to prioritise women and non binary people, especially in a system constantly trying to put them down. This is our main point – while trying to have fun!

Thea: We also want to create a comfortable place for us. In the music industry, there’s a lot of misogyny. Having a safe space where women can bring ideas and not feel stupid, underappreciated, or not good enough, is our goal.

Mia: The safety of making mistakes as well. When you grow up, you’re being told that you don’t belong somewhere or that you have to be perfect to belong there. But you will never be perfect if you can’t make mistakes!

What are your three “desert island” albums?

Mia: As a group, Wet Leg’s debut album is kinda what brought us together. We are obsessed with Addison Raye’s style. We’ve also been heavily inspired by Brat [ed. Charli XCX’s album]! It just makes sense – we are so different as well, it’s the girly pops that are bringing us together. It’s cool, strong women, that are being very unapologetic and out there.

Lil: It’s been very cool to see pop women being more and more experimental – like Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter or Lily Allen.

Mia: I think the EP coming out on the 20th is heavily inspired by Brat since we finished it that Brat summer!”.

I will come to Bricks Magazine. Published in July, this was a talk with a five-piece who encapsulate and define Zen G girlhood. They discussed “Spice Girls, Y2K nostalgia, and their DIY ethos inspired their debut EP”. This is a group that we will be talking about for years to come:

“While the sound of the EP jumps between dance, drum ’n‘ bass, and crunchy indie, one band unified them early on. “Wet Leg’s album was the first piece of music that we all just absolutely loved and couldn’t stop listening to together,” says Maria.

That feminist legacy runs deep. “From the very first session we ever did, that was what we were writing about: our experience being in Liverpool and being a woman in Liverpool,” explains Katya. The band doesn’t just sing together – they write every lyric in full collaboration. “We don’t have a main couple writers,” Maria emphasises. “Having those conversations beforehand, that’s been important to us.”

Mia adds: “I think we all have this hunger to write about things we’re really engaged in – like feminism – but also focusing on the fun sides of being a woman, and the painful sides, but sometimes in a playful way.”

“It’s a process of sitting down and seeing what happens, but also planning a bit: like, what do we want to make a song about today, while still keeping to the themes of what we stand for and who we are as people?” Thea explains of the group’s writing set-up. “I don’t think it was planned too much in terms of one song sounding a certain way. We wanted to be genre-fluid so we didn’t want to confine ourselves to one style. There’s a rockier song, a DnB track, and more of a party anthem. Altogether, it creates a full body of work.”

Girlhood & nostalgia

For Girl Group, girlhood isn’t a phase to outgrow – it’s a lens through which to create. Rather than sanitising or mocking it, the band taps into its weirdness, intensity, and emotional excess. Their lyrics bounce between bratty and vulnerable, but always orbit the kinds of feelings you might scribble into a childhood diary: jealousy, fantasy, unfiltered rage.

That rawness is part of what makes the EP hit so hard. There’s yearning underneath the pop shine, and a kind of emotional maximalism that feels distinctly teenage in the best way.  “Some of the things that we’ve bonded over and that we love to talk about as inspiration are the kinds of things that we [all grew up with] in our early girlhood,” says Maria.

More than just a nostalgic moodboard, Girl Group’s take on girlhood is about reclaiming softness and silliness on their own terms. “When I was a teenager, I suddenly realised, ‘oh, it’s not cool to like girly things’,” reflects Mia. “Then you grow up and you realise – you should [take] joy in those things.”

While the group is based in Liverpool, their origins stretch across borders – four of the five members are Norwegian, and the contrast between cultures is something they feel deeply. “Stylistically, I feel really influenced by where I’ve lived in my life,” Katya says. “I grew up in Oslo, then moved to Liverpool, and seeing how people dress – it’s very defined, and in a very different way.”

“In Norway, you’re not really supposed to make much out of yourself,” adds Mia. “You’re not supposed to stand out. Coming to Liverpool, you were supposed to take up that space – we would never make this music if we’d stayed in Norway.”

Still, Oslo lingers in their creative process. “There’s so much space there, literally,” Lil says, recounting a recent trip to Norway that the group took together. “It’s slower, too. That’s been a really nice part of working over there, it does feel very rooted in a specific time”.

I will finish with a new interview from CLASH that caught my eye. I am quite new to Girl Group, but they make an instant impression, and you know that they are going to dominate the scene. Inspiring so many women and girls. They are not only making music that feels true to them and is authentic. They are also creating music that speaks to other women and is for them:

“I think we all came to university thinking, ‘wow, we’re gonna be pop stars’, just to realise the sexism we experienced in the outside world still exists here. We weren’t respected or included, which is a common experience for women in any field,” explains Maria. “I read The Second Sex and it explained a phenomenon which really resonated with me,” Mia chimes in. “It talks of the heteronormative society we’re in and how we’re forced to love our oppressor and hate ourselves, or see other women as competition. When really, the only way to change the system is to bring ourselves together. As soon as you recognise that, everything shifts. You can focus on the incredible sides of being a girl, as well as the issues we still face.”

It’s this statement that seems to encapsulate the heart of Girl Group’s music. Beyond their playfulness and synergy, perhaps the most profound part of their music comes from the subject matter: the everyday, often mundane, experiences of womanhood. Detailing everything from messy girls nights out, to the quiet comfort of a friend’s bedroom, Girl Group snapshot the very best and worst that femininity has to offer, celebrating it all with fierce joy. “Every song has contributions from all five of us,” Katya explains. “We want to depict exactly what happens to us and how our life is right now. The way that we wrote a lot of our lyrics was writing down conversations we would have. We felt like we captured these moments of our friend group.”

 

Nothing captures this unabashed revelry more than their latest single, ‘She Goes’, a track that blends confessional lyrics about female admiration with a pulsating backing that’s reminiscent of a racing motor. It’s a song that places you in the very centre of an experience that sits in the memory of every woman who listens, and yet feels refreshing to hear, like something unlocked and unburdened.

“To exist as a woman is political,” Mia continues. “We use our music to touch on gender oppression, but also to revel in the fun moments that are so true to us. Through being authentic and expressing our experiences as women, we are being political.”

With an outlook and sense of artistry that is strikingly authentic, it’s no surprise the group have found themselves on tastemakers lists. Yet, despite their organic rise, they seem to talk about the future with a sense of determination that never flinches. “Our next project is a lot more conceptual,” Maria explains. “Each song is about a lot of ideas that we’ve kind of always talked about, but really wanted to narrow down.” The sense of closeness and comfort that exudes as they converse amongst themselves feels as rare as the band’s clear, keen vision.

Through being true to themselves, Girl Group have crafted more than a collection of tracks, but a space where every woman, no matter who they are, can find something to resonate with”.

If you have not followed Girl Group yet then go and check them out. I am sure there will be another E.P. or album soon. This quintet are primed for global success. They have such a large fanbase so far but, as we look towards 2026, you know that they are going to be collection legions of new fans. Such incredible music and this close connection between the members, there is no stopping this…

MIGHTY force.

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Follow Girl Group

FEATURE: Another Kylie Christmas: Why New Festive Music from the Pop Icon Is Such a Gift

FEATURE:

 

 

Another Kylie Christmas

  

Why New Festive Music from the Pop Icon Is Such a Gift

__________

THIS year has and will see…

modern artists release Christmas music. It is a bit of a risk in terms of commercial success. It is a seasonal thing and many people do not like Christmas music. It can be hard to compete the classics and, with so narrow a focus and potential in terms of themes and lyrics, it can be a challenge. I raised this in another feature. One artist who has put out a fair deal of Christmas material is Kylie Minogue. In 2010, Let It Snow and Santa Baby came out. Kylie Christmas arrived in 2015. The following year, it was reissued as the Snow Queen Edition. Minogue co-wrote a few of the tracks, including Cried Out Christmas and Christmas Isn't Christmas 'Til You Get Here. Even though that album received some mixed reviews, I love what Kylie Minogue did with originals and some well-known Christmas songs. Her take on Winter Wonderland and Santa Baby are especially standout. I think people will always be a bit down on artists doing Christmas albums. As we have heard these standards and classics reworked time and time again. Kylie Minogue will also appear at the Capital FM’s Jingle Bell Ball 2025 on 6th and 7th December. Oddly, I do think there is something quintessentially Christmas about Kylie Minogue. Something in her voice that she can breath new life into older Christmas songs. It has been a bit of a gap since she has graced us with Christmas music. What she delivered in 2015 and 2016 was a real gift for fans - I shall keep thew Christmas puns and wordplay to a minimum! –, and I feel like Kylie Christmas should have got warmer reviews and something less Scrooge-like from critics! Maybe that sense of familiarity with the songs. However, as mentioned, some of the original works are really interesting - and they reignite that discussion about modern Christmas.

This takes us a recent development. An Amazon Music exclusive came out in the form of XMAS. “The track will be available digitally exclusively from Amazon Music as well as on CD, 7 inch gold vinyl, and 12 inch zoetrope vinyl – available to pre-order at Amazon and via Kylie’s official store“. It is the lead single from the Fully Wrapped reissue of Kylie Christmas. Marking a decade of that incredible album, we get this best of with some new tracks. You can tell how much Minogue genuinely loves Christmas! As I said, there is something Christmas-like about Kylie Minogue. She is bringing us some modern-day Xmas cheer. Official Charts reveal how Kylie Minogue is going to be entering the race for Christmas number one this year:

“Kylie Minogue enters the race for 2025's Official Christmas Number 1 single with brand-new tune XMAS, an Amazon Music Original.

The track (pronounced X-M-A-S, btw) is available to stream now exclusively on Amazon Music, and is also available to pre-order on CD, 7-inch gold vinyl and 12-inch zoetrope vinyl via Amazon and Kylie's official online store.

Kylie joins the likes of Ellie Goulding, Katy Perry, Sam Ryder and Tom Grennan as the latest artist to lend their voice to Amazon Music's festive Originals series, which have proven a force to be reckoned with in the iconic Christmas Number 1 race in recent years.

In 2023, Sam Ryder's Amazon Music Original You're Christmas To Me was just pipped to the post in a festive chart battle against WHAM!'s Last Christmas, landing at Number 2. Last year, Tom Grennan threw his hat in the ring with It Can't Be Christmas, which made Number 4 on the Official Christmas Singles Chart, before peaking at Number 3 a week later.

Could Kylie take XMAS all the way this year?

This comes alongside the announcement of a 'Fully Wrapped' reissue of Kylie's Kylie Christmas album, 10 years after its original 2015 release.

The record includes four brand-new tracks - Hot In December, This Time Of Year, Office Party and XMAS - and will be released on December 5.

Kylie posted: "I can’t wait to share this album with you, featuring four new songs and a little extra sparkle”.

Fully Wrapped is going to be really interesting. I think that it is not only reserved for Minogue fans. Her Lovers. This will follow from last year’s TENSION II. Minogue in a period of retrospection and reimagining. TENSION II, a companion piece to 2023’s incredible TENSION. Now, with Fully Wrapped, we get this companion piece or revisit to Kylie Christmas. It makes me think Minogue is clearing the way for new music. How she might grace us with another album maybe next year or in 2027. The Australian icon has definitely been busy the past couple of years. I hope that she gets top rest at home in Australia and there is time for some decompression and getting together with family. XMAS is a nice stocking filler. Actually, it is more than that! We have this amazing new song that will join new songs for the Fully Wrapped release. I am especially intrigued to hear what Hot In December is about. Maybe a racy and saucy Christmas song, we will get these contemporary Christmas takes alongside some classics. It is hard to get the balance right. If you attempt a new Christmas song, people will sniff at it and say it cannot compete with the greats. If you try and cover the classics, then people say that it is not a patch on the original. You can’t win, really! I said in a recent feature whether there is much purpose to releasing Christmas music now. It is reserved for a certain time of year and new Christmas songs now might not be played next year. There is a shorter shelf life compared to album tracks. I think Kylie Minogue is one of those exceptions. Artists that you associate with Christmas and always seem to bring something distinct. Even when she is adding her own stamp to some festive gems of the past. XMAS is a tantalising insight into the forthcoming reissue of Kylie Christmas. A present that fans around the world are…

KEEN to unwrap.

FEATURE: The Best Albums of 2025: Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp

FEATURE:

 

 

The Best Albums of 2025

 

Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp

__________

I am running…

a series of features trat explores the very best albums of the year. It is a subjective measure of course, though there are clear standouts from the year that need to be discussed. I am continuing this run by looking at a year-defining album that arrived on 24th October. I am going to get to reviews for The Boy Who Played the Harp, as it is a work of true vision and genius from the British rapper. The album acted as a follow-up to We're All Alone in This Together (2021), Dave’s second studio album, and Split Decision (2023), Dave's collaborative E.P. with Central Cee. The Boy Who Played the Harp features guest appearances from James Blake, Jim Legxacy, Kano, Tems, and Nicole Blakk. In terms of the title and its derivation, it is a reference to the Book of Samuel (1 Samuel 16:14–23), where Saul summoned a young, brave shepherd, David, to play the harp to soothe him as he was being troubled by evil spirits. Whereas other albums in this run will include words from the artists who made them, I have not seen any published interviews with Dave. It does make it harder to get some personal interpretation and perspective. However, there are features and reviews around the album that I will spotlight. I want to start with a review from NPR and their opinion on The Boy Who Played the Harp:

“Of all the epic heroes to be namechecked in hip-hop lyrics, few are invoked more often than the shepherd David. The appeal of the Old Testament figure who conquered Jerusalem and felled Goliath could scarcely be more obvious: Rappers love warriors and kings, and he is both. He rose from the runt of the litter, faced long odds, silenced his haters and toppled a behemoth, literally becoming the stuff of legend. "If David could go against Goliath with a stone / I could go at Nas and Jigga both for the throne," 50 Cent once rapped. David is not just an underdog for the ages — perhaps the underdog — but a symbol of faith moving the immovable object out of one's path. And yet, there is much more to the Bethlemite's character than giant-killing.

The set-dressing around the big showdown in 1 Samuel is less fit for the rap theme of overcoming struggle to become a champion, but it is the primary fixation of the exceptional British rapper born David Orobosa Michael Omoregie. Dave, as he is known mononymously, is more concerned with what happened before David faced Goliath: As the story goes, the king Saul disobeyed God, and the prophet Samuel anointed David to rule in his stead. In the wake of his defiance, Saul was plagued by evil spirits, and a servant suggested he call David in to play the harp for him as a means of relief; David did so, and the spirits vanished. These are the Biblical verses that shape the rap verses on The Boy Who Played the Harp, Dave's third album, the first in four years — and his esteemed discography's crown jewel.

Since 2018, Dave has been the U.K.'s most decorated lyricist, scoring an Ivor Novello Award, a Mercury Prize and an album of the year win at the Brit Awards. But trophies pale in comparison to a higher calling, and on his latest work the rapper embraces not just his scriptural namesake but 1 Samuel's 16th chapter, in which David is anointed and plays his harp to pacify the phantoms. It could be said that London's top boy has spent the better part of an illustrious career soothing evil spirits, ancestral meditations girding his songs about being a traumatized Black yute in Streatham who grew into a generational voice. But the load of that responsibility is clearly weighing on him. He has ascended to a position of meaningful power; how best to use it?

Now 27, the rapper narrates the new album as though stricken by the contradictions of his chosen profession and sucked into the bog of its self-sustaining stress cycle: His artistic self-immolations have brought him popularity, which leads to class insulation, which in turn induces the shame and survivor's guilt that lead to further immolation. "How can I explain that I don't want to heal 'cause my identity is pain?" he pleads on "My 27th Birthday," before adding, "I wanna be a good man, but I wanna be myself too / And I don't think that I can do both." The personal reflections from inside his quarter-life crisis lead him not only to a philosophical breakthrough but to his sharpest music, expanding the theater of his solemn, elegant sound into a baroque cathedral. The Boy Who Played the Harp is as majestic as it is sturdily built. Across its 10 songs, Dave reevaluates what he owes his listeners, his forebears (in both rap and activism), his protégés (in the game and the streets), his community (at local, cultural and racial levels) and himself. "Ten years I been in the game and I won't lie, it's gettin' difficult," he raps. "This s*** used to be spiritual." The album is breathtaking in both its clarity of thought and purpose, as it walks all who bear witness through a career reckoning turned spirit awakening”.

Never has this knack been put to greater use than on "Fairchild," a gripping six-minute opus that details the sexual assault of a fictional 24-year-old woman named Tamah. Men in hip-hop have yet to meaningfully engage with rape culture, or acknowledge the ways rap culture has fed it, but Dave (who has never shied aways from stories of abuse) takes this moment of messy self-examination to consider his involvement — as party thrower and bystander — and to amplify the accounts of survivors. As he raps, he shifts in and out of phase with the artist Nicole Blakk, warping the perspectives of narrator and listener. Their voices echo out over each other until he finally slingshots into the foreground with a call to action, a muffled synth blaring like a siren in the distance. It is a powerful, determined bit of portraiture that reveals just how elaborate his orchestration has become”.

I will move to a take from Atwood Magazine. For anyone who does not own Dave’s The Boy Who Played the Harp, I would urge you to go and get it. It is one of many masterpieces from this year. It is one of the most affecting listening experiences of the year. I think the last time I sat down with a Dave album was 2019’s PYSCHODRAMA. I think that this is the best thing that he has ever released:

“It’s hard to conceptualize The Boy Who Played the Harp without discussing “Fairchild.” Akin to Adolescence, Dave brings light one of the most harrowing aspects of our modern times, how individually easy it is for men to cause extreme societal damage. The prior 30 minutes has Dave on his hands and knees, pleading for guidance or a relief of our societal pressures. Underneath all the weight, the album’s penultimate tune has a two-minute delivery from Nicole Blakk outlining an assault, the cultural behaviors that empower men to sexually harass women, and the self-preservations women go through to simply exist. It’s a haunting listen. The song is five minutes long. It feels like forever, it will never end. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours. By the time you’re welcomed to the conclusion, Dave bravely asks,

“Am I one of them?”

It’s intrinsic, it’s the work thousands of young boys are demanded of themselves. To close out the emotional climax, Dave issues his ultimatum:

“Can’t sit on the fence,
that’s hardly an option.
You either part of the solution
or part of the problem.”

Change is possible, it can happen, and it’s demanded the individual starts it.

The title track ends the record. It’s a barrage of political and cultural grievances past and present. Words fail to summarize the topics succinctly: [military drafts, survival instincts, societal martyrs, white adoption of black music, the occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian Genocide, artistic risk to discuss topical issues, illegal occupation of stolen land, the rape and pillage of Africa, failure of African leaders to share wealth, continued generational protests for civil rights, affluent partying while the poor struggle, and biblical expectations of the name David] are packed into the 4:37 long conclusion. Somehow landing optimistic, the grand struggles we all face will one day be stories of progress. Change never starts on the grandest scale, progress is always painfully incremental, yet a new world is continually and optimistically possible. Dave ends the album with:

“My ancestors, my ancestors
told me that my life is prophecy
And it’s not just me,
it’s a whole generation of people
gradually makin’ change
There ain’t a greater task
Shift that, make a name, make a start”

It’s exceptionally heavy. Reading the lyrics or discussing them is difficult. You’re challenging yourself, your own comforts, and your own patterns. For many, it won’t be a pleasant listen. For some, the presentation and packaging of The Boy Who Played the Harp will be one of the most memorable listening experiences of the year.

Underneath the depth and topical lyrics, the production is sublime. It’s mostly self-produced by Dave himself, leveraging watery chords and numerous vocal chops. It never feels claustrophobic despite the content. It’s contrived innit, welcoming instrumentals allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough for the lyrical themes. James Blake is featured twice, on the opener and on the aforementioned “Selfish.” A few tunes were written to be more welcoming, “175 Months” or “No Weapons,” yet even those demand the listener to confront racism-infused violence, and the biblical path of life.

The Boy Who Played the Harp is a monumental release, and shows the progress of Dave as a rapper, artist, and producer.

In a post-Blonde, To Pimp a Butterfly, and Sometimes I Might Be Introvert world, Dave’s introduced the newest culturally charged opus that demands listener growth. We’re forced to hear the cultural atrocities we accept and also understand the societal expectations we place on ourselves and others. Can you accept yourself for your shortcomings? Can you forgive your neighbor for the crimes in their name? Do you strive for a better self? For a better other? If you can’t answer those questions, that’s fine. It’s a perfunctory question from Dave, rather than confessing your own answers. You’re the only on that can confront those answers, when you’re ready”.

There are a couple of other reviews that I want to bring in. Stereogum took us deep inside one of 2025’s best albums. I do love this album and it has really stayed with me. I am thinking of personal highlights. I think Fairchild or maybe History. You revisit the album and something hits you the next time you pass through:

“He turns that self-analysis outward with tracks like “Fairchild” and “Marvellous,” mildly didactic but necessary tales of a world filled with creepy men and toxic masculinity. For the former, Dave provides a real-time accounting of a woman’s sexual assault, sifting through uncomfortable mundanities that preceded the attack. He ends by examining his own complicity in a sexist world, resulting in a track that’s emotionally immediate enough to cancel out its heavy handedness.

The album is a serious one, but not everything here is so dire. The Kano-featuring “Chapter 16” is a chill bro reunion that’s touching, thoughtful, and realistic; the details and conversational ease of it all make you feel like you’re sitting at OXO Tower as the two catch up on the things that changed and the things that can’t. When Dave decides to get romantic as he does on the TEMS-assisted “Raindance,” he grafts a mellow afrobeat with convincing sincerity Drake misplaced sometime around 2015: “We can get into it or we can get intimate/ The shower when you sing in it/ Better than Beyoncé, I like the sound of fiancée/ You know, it’s got a little ring to it.” The shift between charm and searing introspection helps keep the album from total monotony. Unfortunately, the hooks themselves do not. She can sing her ass off, but the “Raindance” hook has all the creativity of ChatGPT prompt for “How to make the most forgettable love song you’ve ever heard”: “It’s the way my mind fallin’ away/ In my heart, I know/ You feel the same when you’re with me/ You know I’m all you need/ You’re where I wanna be/ My darling, can’t you see?”

A similar lack of distinction impacts the album’s production. Dave’s raps remain sharp, and his self-perception is commendable, but competent as they are, the beats feel flavorless. The tepid strings and piano keys are great soundtracks for contemplation. But swirled with Dave’s less-than-aerodynamic vocals, they envelop you in a monotonous fog; I needed to jump to NBA Youngboy in between a few tracks. The hooks themselves don’t do much to elevate Dave, either. Parts of the James Blake and TEMS collabs are fun, but I barely remember a word either of them sing. Their placements here aim for prestige, but the choruses feel like placeholders.

The potency of Dave’s message is generally enough to make you appreciate the Good Word. Part confession, part sermon, he takes you to church. But unlike the most dynamic preachers, he doesn’t always make you forget you’re stuck there”.

I am going to finish off with The Guardian and their five-star assessment of Dave’s The Boy Who Played the Harp. Saluting what a skilled rapper he is, this is going to be included in a lot of year-end lists. The best of 2025. One of our greatest artists, do go and listen to Dave’s latest album. I am curious where he heads next and what his next chapter will be. Seemingly growing in stature and brilliance with each album, what does the future hold? Before he considers his next musical step, he has a string of tour dates next year:

“The Boy Who Played the Harp is a very muted-sounding album indeed, big on sparse arrangements, gentle piano figures and subtle pleasures: the unsettled, skittering beats and helium vocal samples that open 175 Months, the quietly eerie harmony vocals that appear midway through My 27th Birthday. Several of its tracks run over the six minute mark, while even its poppiest moments – No Weapons, which reunites him with Sprinter producer Jim Legxacy, and Raindance, a collaboration with Nigerian singer Tems – feel understated. And once the opening verses of History are out of the way, it’s an album noticeably light on self-aggrandising swagger: to judge by the rest of the lyrics, Dave has spent a significant proportion of the last couple of years consumed by a series of existential crises. “Why don’t you post pictures, or why don’t you drop music?” he admonishes himself at one point. “Or why not do something but sitting and stressing yourself?”

Some of his issues are universal, the kind of thoughts that tend to plague people in their late 20s, that weird period in life where you realise that you’re incontrovertibly an adult, whether you feel like one or not. He spends a lot of The Boy Who Played the Harp thrashing over the pros and cons of settling down, unable to work out whether it’s something he is emotionally capable of or not: “You should have had kids … don’t you feel like you’re behind?” he frets on the crestfallen Selfish. The brilliant Chapter 16 is styled as a lengthy dialogue between Dave and Kano, the latter now a patriarchal figure in UK rap, whose career began when Dave was at primary school. It shifts suddenly from discussing the music industry and the impact of sudden fame on your friends to Dave petitioning Kano, a contented family man, for relationship advice: the latter hymns the pleasure of swapping “a silver Porsche” for “leather Max-Cosi baby seats in the SUV”.

But he also seems conflicted about his career, worrying aloud about whether his lyrics are sufficiently socially aware, and whether they have any impact even if they are, working himself up into such a state on My 27th Birthday that he ends up questioning whether the world actually needs to hear anyone rapping at all: “We don’t need no commentators, we can leave that to the sports / Just listen to the music, why’d you need somebody’s thoughts?”

The irony is that he has already answered that question. An album full of self-examination by a rich and successful pop star might seem like a schlep on paper, but Dave is a fantastically smart, sharp lyricist, more than capable of making it work – The Boy With the Harp feels fascinating, rather than self-indulgent – just as he’s technically skilled enough to make the album’s muted sound a bonus: it focuses attention on his voice and exemplary flow.

It’s a point underlined when he finally shifts his gaze outwards on Marvellous and Fairchild, two tracks that emphasise his brilliance as a storyteller: the former tracks a 17-year-old’s progress from drugs to violence to jail, while the latter slowly details a sexual assault, shifting from Dave’s voice to that of female rapper Nicole Blakk, before exploding into a burst of rage that variously takes in “incels”, the murder of Sarah Everard, and hip-hop’s objectification of women: “I’m complicit, no better than you”. It’s harrowing, gripping and powerful: all the evidence you need that Dave’s doubts about himself are unfounded”.

A truly wonderful album that will leave impression on everyone who listens to it, it is no surprise that it has garnered such incredible praise. It is a shame there are no interviews where Dave speaks about The Boy Who Played the Harp. Maybe that means we are not guided and can interpret songs as we feel fit. Dave has given so much of himself with the album, anyway. It is wonderful and awe-inspiring to hear…

A master at the top of his game.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards Nominees 202

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IMAGE CREDITS: Rolling Stone UK 

 

The ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards Nominees 2025

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THERE are a fair few…

music award ceremonies each year. The GRAMMY Awards in the U.S. is perhaps the biggest of the calendar. In the U.K., we have the BRIT Awards. I think that the most credible and coolest are NME’s award ceremony and Rolling Stone UK’s. Official the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards, I wanted to compile a mixtape of the nominees that have been announced. I am featuring a few of the categories from Rolling Stone UK. I am including nominees in The Song Award, The Album Award, The Play Next Award. There is also The Live Award , The Artist Award, and The Breakthrough Award. Let’s not forget The Group Awards. There is that mix of contemporary legends and stars of tomorrow. Blending together in a playlist. The Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025 will be held on Thursday, 20th November at the Roundhouse in London. It is going to be an amazing evening. Never gaining the same plaudits and attention at the BRITs, I do hope there is coverage for this great award ceremony. You may know some of these artists in the mix below, though there are going to be others that are new. I am excited to see who walks about with awards in two weeks. It will be an amazing event, so do make sure you follow it and check the social media feed of Rolling Stone UK. Hosted by Danny Dyer, it is going to be epic! Take a listen to the prestigious and awesome nominees who are going to make the Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025…

ONE of the very best.

FEATURE: Where Love Lives: In Reaction to This Year’s John Lewis Christmas Advert

FEATURE:

 

 

Where Love Lives

IN THIS PHOTO: Alison Limerick holds a vinyl copy of her iconic 1990 single, Where Love lives, which is the central focus of this year’s acclaimed John Lewis Christmas advert (and has been reworked by artist/producer, Labrinth). Limerick said (of the honour): “I squealed when I heard that Where Loves Lives would be in the advert – literally squealed like an excited child”)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

 

In Reaction to This Year’s John Lewis Christmas Advert

__________

IT is a bit of an event each year…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock/The Independent

when we start seeing the Christmas adverts on T.V. Starting about now, all the major supermarkets put theirs out. Although not as utilitarian or ‘grounded’ as other chains, John Lewis are more upmarket. However, that is not to dimmish the importance of their Christmas adverts. There have been some great ones through the years. I am not sure whether it brings more people into one of their stores. However, it always provokes reaction and conversation. You can see every John Lewis Christmas advert aired. You can find a rankings list here. I am going to start out with some critical reaction to this year’s advert. One that I think is their very best in years. I am not really a fan of Christmas adverts and rarely succumb to the tear-jerking charm and allure. However, this year’s offering not only hits all the right emotional buttons. It shows positive masculinity between a father and son. It also, importantly, gets the music choice just right. One of the downsides of John Lewis Christmas adverts is how there are often syrupy and quite characterless cover version of well-known songs. If the foreground and film itself is superb, I feel like the musical choice is often a little drippy and a bit too sickly-sweet. That cliché of Pop versions of classics washes out the colour and purpose of the original. However, this year brings Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives into focus. John Lewis members can actually buy a limit edition version of the single on vinyl. All profits generated from its sale will support the John Lewis Partnership’s Building Happier Futures programme, which aids individuals who have grown up in care. That is something you want to support! The moment that the dad received a vinyl copy of this song – clearly one that means a lot to him – is simple but effective. You can see the advert below.

The reaction to the advert has, for the most part, being positive. For someone like me – who grew up listening to amazing music like Where Love Lives and it is my sort of era (well, I was a child when it came out but it was a song I played a lot and love to this day) -, I can connect with the song and its meaning. It is that thoughtful gift and moment. Good Housekeeping noted in their review:

“Well, you can get the baubles out because the ad has landed and it's a celebration of music – namely, the 1990s club ‘banger’, Where Love Lives by Alison Limerick, which provides the soundtrack, and transforms into a new, slowed-down version by Labrinth.

It's also a tribute to father/son relationships.

Whereas last year's ad focused on two sisters, the stars of the John Lewis Christmas ad 2025 are a father and his teenage son. At the start, you see the dad tidying up under the tree and discovering a present that was missed in all the Christmas chaos.

His son watches anxiously as he unwraps his gift – a vinyl record – which immediately transports the dad back to his clubbing days. We then see snippets of his relationship with his son over the years (the shots of the boy as a baby and toddler running to his dad are real tearjerkers, as is the hug at the end).

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock

The story of a son looking forward to his dad's reaction to his gift also feels like a bit of a throwback to many people's favourite John Lewis ad ever, The Long Wait – the one with the little boy who just can't wait to give his present on Christmas Day.

The message? If you can't quite find the words, choosing just the right gift will say it for you. The theme was inspired by research that found we struggle as a nation to say what we really mean, but Christmas is a time when we try to reconnect.

This year's ad also reflects the the fact that 1990s and 2000s children have grown up and now have families of their own, so we're now seeing the Millennial Christmas, with all the traditions and tunes that come with that.

This one goes out to the 90s club kids”.

Even though I bemoaned the slowed-down version of classics before, usually a piano version that is quite a lot to take in, we do get that happening in this year’s advert. Actually, last year’s advert featured Richard Ashcroft’s Sonnet. Look at the songs used in all of their adverts, and there have been a lot of more ‘saccharine’ (others might find a more appropriate word) versions of well-known songs. A hallmark for John Lewis, I guess they have to keep with traditional and speak to their customers. The Guardian were a bit more cynical with their opinion of John Lewis’s new Christmas advert. One that came out early than last year’s:

“Meanwhile, the advert perfectly captures a very common moment of fatherhood. I’m talking, of course, about the time you decide to go clubbing, only to realise that since having a child you’ve become horrifically old and decrepit and that, to all the young people around you, you now basically represent the creeping spectre of death, and you’re suddenly hit by the realisation of how ancient you are, and you go home depressed and never attempt anything fun or exciting again until you die.

And then anyone under the age of 20 will take something else from the advert. That is: what the hell does any of this mean? It’s a film about someone buying a vinyl record from a bricks and mortar shop, that’s being shown on linear broadcast television? Why? Why go to all this bother? Why doesn’t the son just play him the song on Spotify? Why doesn’t he type ‘Where Love Lives’ into TikTok and give his dad the gift of an algorithmically generated feed of some Russian children lip-syncing to it? Wouldn’t that be easier?

PHOTO CREDIT: John Lewis/PA/iStock

Honestly, to Gen Z or younger, this whole thing must be like watching a highly commended entry from an obsolete technology competition. You know what? Next year, why not go even further? Why not release the John Lewis advert as a phénakisticope about a farmer trading a goat for a sack of stubble turnips? It couldn’t possibly be any more of an anachronism than this.

But maybe I’m being cynical. There’s still a romance to clinging on to traditions that are no longer useful. A tangible record will always be more special than an online stream. Visiting a shop will always be more special than clicking an object on a website. There’s something reassuring in the way that we’re still discussing a television commercial. And we’re doing it via the medium of print journalism, the most obsolescent technology of them all. Merry Christmas everyone!”.

The version of Where Love Lives is reimagined by Labrinth this year. It will give attention to that version but, more than anything, it will draw a different and younger generation to the original. Missing out on the song the first time around – it was released in 1990 -, it will compel parents to discuss the song with their children. The Independent shared the products featured in the John Lewis advert and lauded its sentiment. At its best this year, I have seen so much positive reaction:

“The UK’s equivalent to Hallmark movies, the John Lewis Christmas TV advert has finally arrived – officially marking the start of the festive period. After last year’s lukewarm reception, the stalwart is back to form with a tearjerking tale of a father and son bond, set to a nostalgic soundtrack.

The advert has introduced us to plenty of memorable characters over the years (including Buster the bouncing dog and Edgar the excitable dragon), but the 2025 addition has a more grown-up feel. On Christmas Day, a dad walk sadly past his son who has headphones in. While cleaning up the discarded wrapping under the tree, he discovers a gift from his son addressed to him.

Inside, it’s a vinyl of a nineties dance track that floods him with memories of his youth spent clubbing. Across the dance floor, he spots his son who transforms into a toddler, then a newborn baby in his arms. Marking the passing of time and the power of music, the heartwarming ending sees father and son embracing by the Christmas tree.

The songs in John Lewis’ Christmas advert always make the music charts (see Lily Allen cover Keane’s Somewhere Only We Know and Elton John singing Your Song). This year, the 1990s dance icon Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives is reimagined by Labrinth”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Labrinth remarked how being involved in the John Lewis Christmas advert is a ‘big deal’/PHOTO CREDIT: Ian West/PA Media Assignments/PA Wire

Alison Limerick revealed that her iconic song was never intended for release. Even though I am not completely taken by Labrinth’s cover version of the song, it is not used in a lot of the album and is actually one of the best (or least forgettable and annoying) cover versions in recent years. I have hears cover version of Where Love Lives, and it is good to slow the song down and reveal more emotional layers. However, maybe the fade from the hypotonic and dancefloor-uniting smash into the ballad-y and Folk-Pop (if that is the right genre-melt?) is quite abrupt and does not quite hit the landing! However, it is amazing that John Lewis have featured this thirty-five-year-old smash that is still widely played to this day but might not be known to children and teens. The advert is shot brilliantly, and I love the cut between the dad unwrapping the gift and then being transported into the club as his older self and dancing alongside younger club-goers. Words do not have to be spoken between the father and son. It is a tender moment that says enough on its own. Many have noted how it promotes positive masculinity. In a landscape where toxic masculinity and male violence dominates, it is a much-needed dose of positivity. Some might say it not so huge, given John Lewis adds are often very sensitive, family-based and have that warmth. Something feels more urgent and different this year. The advert sees the dad holding his son as a baby and toddler, and then we see him (the son) coming down the stairs, and the two sharing a look before embracing.

It is an intriguing advert! At the very start, the son has headphones on and looks quite nervous, as the dad finds the present (as the rest have been opened and cleared up) and the sister looks on. I wonder how the son knew about that track and why it means a lot to his dad. Many have noted how hard it is to get a copy of Where Love Lives on vinyl! Maybe there was this evening where the father was discussing his younger days when he was in clubs in the early-1990s and fell for this song. Perhaps not always an open and easy relationship between the two; the music itself and the memories it holds (for the dad) broke a barrier and evoked a happier time. Content with his family, it was a blast of nostalgia that will resonate with people like me. That idea of the power of music from our childhood and youth and how it not only remains in our hearts but never ages. I want to finish with an interview with Alison Limerick from almost exactly a decade ago. Limerick was asked about her relationship with a song that, at this point was a quarter-century old:

“Latti Kronlund wrote ‘Where Love Lives’ and famously picked you to record it – why you?

At the time I was involved with this glorified fashion show at the ICA in London which involved singers, jugglers and other performers rather than models. I sang ‘God Bless The Child’ [Billie Holiday’s 1941 classic] and Latti was in the audience. He apparently told people afterwards that he absolutely had to work with me but it took him six months to connect because the ICA, being security-minded, wouldn’t give him my number. We worked on three or four songs which, to be honest, were really odd and abstract, and then he disappeared off to Sweden for ages. Latti eventually returned with another five songs, one of which was ‘Where Love Lives’. He told me that that was my song to sing because it required someone with a big two-octave range, and I had it.

Do you keep in touch with Latti?

I do and we have something really special planned for [21] January. He’ll be playing Ronnie Scott’s in London with his ‘big band’ Brooklyn Funk Essentials, and he’s asked me to join him for a one-off twist on ‘Where Love Lives’. It’ll be the first time we’ve ever performed the track live together, and after all these years. It’s a fantastic song…such an amazing shock to see what it has become.

It’s become your life in so many respects – truly, what’s your relationship with it like these days?

There was one point a few years ago where I was upset about it; upset that it would define me regardless of whatever else I did. But ‘Where Love Lives’ turned me into a focused artist after years spent as a jobbing singer, dancer and actress. And when I see people reacting to it that’s always genuinely amazing. More so now, when those people are not just of the older club generations but the new ones too…the twenty-somethings. When you’re live they are always new ways to sing a classic song like that and keep it fresh. A few years ago I was probably playing around with it too much and taking it too far away from what the fans recognised. So now I keep it a little more controlled and enjoy the atmosphere I’m creating. I hear a few DJs have been playing it at Glitterbox to some great reactions this summer. I’m really looking forward to performing the classic version there in person soon. Can’t wait!”.

If some have been bah humbug or ho-hum about this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, most have been very positive. Often seen as the best Christmas adverts on T.V., there is this high standard to uphold. However, Jonh Lewis have hit all the right notes and made a step forward. I think the slightly less overt stripping back of a slowed-down and syrupy cover is a necessary move. That choice of story and central song is inspired, timely and not obvious. They could have gone with an Oasis song or cashed in and played it safe. However, by going slightly more underground – or at least embraced a genre they have not before -, it has captured attention and greater discussion. Great music, memories, father-son bond and positivity to the fore. Something as primitive and simple as a musical memory, it incredibly powerful and resonates with everyone. The Guardian asked their readers what Dance track they would gift to their teenager. We can identify with that advert in some form and all have songs and time periods we flash back to and cherish. It will bring attention to Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives, but also record players and headphones. Basically, as there are music items involved, I was keen to cover the advert for that reason alone. If some feel the new advert is a bit corny, I think John Lewis have achieved a…

PERFECT blend and balance.

FEATURE: More Than a ‘Muse’ The Unheralded and Underexplored Women on Classic Album Covers

FEATURE:

 

 

More Than a ‘Muse’

 

The Unheralded and Underexplored Women on Classic Album Covers

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I have been thinking about…

some of the classic albums that feature women on the cover. Not famous and well-known faces. Many bands and artists did it as a way of either keeping themselves off of the cover or creating some sort of allure or sexiness. Whether designed to provoke some sort of reaction or a stylistic choice, we do not really know about these women. Of course, in some cases, the women used on the covers are not consulted with and then take the artist/band to task. One such example is the cover star of Vampire Weekend’s Contra. The press always refer to women on covers as ‘muses’. It seems like such an insulting and dehumanising word. These women help the artist to sell records and make the cover what it is. As Vanity Fair wrote about the woman on the cover of Contra: “Ever since she was 23, people have been using Ann Kirsten Kennis’s image to sell their products. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, she appeared in magazine advertisements, catalogue pages, and television commercials for a long list of recognizable brands, among them L’Oréal, Revlon, Fabergé, Parliament, Cuervo, Jordache, and Vaseline. She did looker ads and lingerie ads and bathing-suit ads too”. In 2011, The Guardian reported how Vampire Weekend settled with Kristen Kennis: “Vampire Weekend have settled their legal dispute with Ann Kirsten Kennis, the model who discovered her photo on the cover of the band's album Contra. Kennis won an undisclosed settlement from the band and their label, XL Records, while her photographer remains locked in ongoing litigation. Contra was already on sale when Kennis's teenage daughter spotted her mum's face on the cover. "I was like, 'Yeah, that's strange. That's me, many years ago,'" Kennis told Vanity Fair in 2010. The Polaroid was almost 30 years old, and Kennis didn't remember posing for it. Although a photographer called Tod Brody claimed she signed a release form in 2009, Kennis, now in her early 50s, denied this. She took them all to court, seeking $2m (£1.3m) in damages. Vampire Weekend and XL always claimed they followed proper steps to license the photograph, blaming Brody for any wrongdoing. Yet even if the photographer misled them, the court could still have found that they did not exercise sufficient due diligence, paying Brody $5,000 but not researching the photo's provenance. By settling with Kennis, the case against Vampire Weekend has been dismissed, Photo District News reports”.

It is a shame that the first example resulted in an unfortunate lawsuit. However, there is no denying that this photo helps make Contra’s cover one of the greatest of that generation. It is striking. It also afford us an opportunity to pay credit to the woman whose image was used. Not a muse. She is, instead, this incredible talent and amazing human whose story and work has been acknowledged and explored more – even if it was as a result of a lawsuit and backlash. Not only making such all legalities are followed, I do think artists should acknowledge this iconic and incredible women on covers. In terms of featuring women on album covers, Roxy Music are notable. Not in an exploitative way. Eight studio albums feature women. A decision the band made, it was almost like selling a work of art or a beauty magazine. Engaging listeners with this beautiful or sexy image. An idea of perhaps what the album would sound like. This article explores the women featured on Roxy Music album covers. I am going to include four examples. If their earlier albums featured unknown women on their covers (including fans), they had grown by the time 1975’s Siren arrived. Whether a famous supermodel or not, these women are part of music history. Part of some of the most iconic album covers ever:

“Roxy Music (1972)

Cornwall-born Kari-Ann Muller was a former Bond girl (she appeared in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) paid a scant £20 to appear on the cover of Roxy Music – a steal for the then-unknown band, whose debut album would go on to define 70s art-rock. Evoking classic glamour shots of the 40s and 50s, the Roxy Music artwork set the template for all future Roxy Music album covers, though Muller would retire from modeling in order to become a yoga teacher. She retains ties to the rock world, however, as she married Chris Jagger, whose brother has fronted a popular beat combo since the 60s.

Siren (1975)

A sign of how Roxy Music’s status had grown in just three years, they were able to encourage globally recognized supermodel Jerry Hall to pose as a mermaid for the cover of their fifth studio album. Ever the charmer, Bryan Ferry is said to have held an umbrella over Hall during the shoot, to ensure that her blue body paint did not wash off. Smitten, Hall was engaged to Ferry by early 1976, though she would leave him the following year for Mick Jagger, subsequently inspiring the Stones’ song, “Miss You,” and becoming the third Roxy Music album covers model to connect the band to Jagger and co.

Manifesto (1979)

Perhaps finding it hard to top Jerry Hall, when Roxy Music returned after a four-year hiatus they threw a fake party with a collection of mannequins – some apparently designed with the original Roxy Music cover star, Kari-Ann Muller, in mind. Look carefully in the background and you can see two human models: a pair of twins who were long-term fans of the band.

Flesh + Blood (1980)

Roxy Music went for gold with Flesh + Blood, which hit the top spot in the UK charts in June 1980. The models, staged to look like high-school athletes competing in a sports day javelin contest, were picked and photographed by Peter Saville, best known for his design for work for Factory Records”.

In some cases there is a bit of, well, controversy to the cover star. When it came to blink-182’s cover for Enema of the State (1999) and the nurse, they photographed Janine Lindemulder. An adult film actress, often credited mononymously as Janine. She is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame. In that case, it was very much the band trying to be proactive and perhaps aim squarely at their target audience (teenage boys and those in their early-twenties). Even so, that is not me throwing shade. It is a phenomenal album cover and, rather than it being this mysterious image where the woman is uncredited, shining a light on Lindemulder means she joins the cannon of women who help define incredible album covers. Giving them a story and props. This interesting article introduced us to amazing women on phenomenal covers. Two all-time classic albums are defined by the women on them. Whether accompanying the greatest lyricist ever or a front and centre on a landmark 1990s album, it is their presence, image and gravitas that not only makes the cover timeless. We also get to discover more about them:

“Then there’s Suze Rotolo, immortalized on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), walking arm-in-arm with the Bard of 4th Street down a snowy Greenwich Village avenue. Unlike our other cover stars, Rotolo wasn’t a model but Dylan’s girlfriend and, more importantly, his cultural compass.

This daughter of Communist Party members introduced the Minnesota boy to modern art, poetry, and civil rights politics. She inspired the acerbic classic balled “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and showed Dylan there was more to life than scratchy old Woody Guthrie records. The cover shot, by Don Hunstein, captured young love in its natural habitat – though if you look closely, you can tell they’re freezing their artistic asses off.

The relationship between Dylan and Rotolo was more than just another swinging sixties fling. She opened his eyes to a world beyond folk music, taking him to see Picasso’s “Guernica” and French New Wave films. After hearing her talk about the murder of Emmett Till, Dylan wrote one of his first protest songs. Their love story ended after three years, but Rotolo’s influence on Dylan’s artistry was permanent. She kept quiet about their relationship for decades, finally breaking her silence for Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary, No Direction Home, followed by her own memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time. Suze passed away in 2011 from lung cancer.

Fast forward to 1994, and we meet Leilani Bishop on Hole’s Live Through This. Photographer Ellen von Unwerth recalls Courtney Love calling her with a vision: recreate the prom queen scene from the horror movie Carrie. The 17-year-old Bishop nailed the beauty-queen-gone-wrong look, complete with smeared mascara and that slightly unhinged smile. Apparently, the iconic pig blood was out of stock at the prop store.

The timing proved eerily prophetic – the album was released just seven days after Kurt Cobain’s death, with Bishop’s emotional expression capturing the turmoil surrounding the band and its frontwoman.

Von Unwerth and Love clicked immediately, bonding over drinks the night before the shoot while Love wore her signature schoolgirl dress. Though the photographer hadn’t heard the album yet (it was still being recorded), she trusted that “Kurt’s girls would produce something equally cool [as anything by Nirvana].” The shoot proved to be perfectly timed lightning in a bottle – and Billboard later ranked it #12 on their “50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.” Bishop is now a podcaster and conservationist”.

I have been thinking that there should be a collection or exhibition of album covers with these amazing and diverse women. There are so many I will forget. Modern examples that have nothing written about them. However, this article lists a few I have already covered. However, they also let us know about the woman featured on the phenomenal cover for Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain:

“Along with George Clinton’s other band The Parliaments – who would later go on to become the fully-fledged Parliament – Funkadelic helped to pioneer the iconic funk sound of the American 70s. Their third album, Maggot Brain, was the last in a run of albums, before the group expanded into a funk collective, that were also heavily influenced by psychedelia. Its cover was the perfect blend of the two genres, showing a woman’s head screaming (in either pleasure or pain) sticking out of bare earth covered in roots. All very trippy. The woman in question, though, was the African-American model Barbara Cheeseborough, known for her Afrocentric image – and a symbol of the black culture that is inextricable from funk and soul music”.

Actor Tamarah Park was the model for REO Speedwagon's best-selling 1980 album, Hi Infidelity. Nataliya Medvedeva: A model, singer, and writer featured on the cover of The Cars' 1978 album, The Cars. Also, and an album cover I remember well, was Maroon 5’s Hands All Over. That featured Rosie Hardy: as a 19-year-old photographer, she took the photo of herself.

I guess there was a traditional for Glam Rock and Hard Rock bands to feature women on the covers. In many cases, we will never know who they are. I guess the motivation was, again, to create sex appeal or sell records that way. It does make me wish we knew more about these women. How many of them were ever named or given their dues? In some cases, a provocative or sexy image can be very artistic and classy. The woman on Pixies' Surfer Rosa album cover is not a single person, but the name Rosa comes from a lyric and the cover's concept was a flamenco dancer posing as a surfer girl. The image was created by photographer Simon Larbalestier and his friend, Rosa, who was the girlfriend of a friend of the band. At a time when so many album covers are bland and forgettable, it did turn my mind to the anonymous or under-discussed women who we know by looks but not by name. Learning more about them, I feel, gives extra depth to albums. Many people will have examples of their own. It would be good to know. From Roxy Music to Bob Dylan through to The Cars, Vampire Weekend and Hole, some of the all-time best albums have these incredible women on the covers. More than mere muses or cover stars, they are part of music history and tapestry. I still think there should be a documentary, exhibition or something that explores these women. It would be wonderful to…

KNOW more about them.

FEATURE: How to Be Human: Why Next Year Needs to Be One Where the Industry Prioritises the Mental Health of Its Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

How to Be Human

 

Why Next Year Needs to Be One Where the Industry Prioritises the Mental Health of Its Artists

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MAYBE there is something appropriate…

when we consider the title of Cat Burns’s latest album, How to Be Human. One of our finest artists, the album received some wonderful reviews. I will come to one of them soon enough. Burns was due to tour the album soon. However, due to an intense build-up and promotional period, coupled with how much of herself Cat Burns gave to the album, she has had to make the decision to step back for now and reschedule the tour dates. NME explain more in their recent article:

“The singer, who has also found a new wave of fans by starring on the latest season of Celebrity Traitors, shared on social media that she made the difficult decision to postpone her upcoming ‘How To Be Human’ tour dates following an “intense” period.

The dates were set to kick off on November 10 at the O2 Academy in Glasgow, and continue with shows in Manchester, Brighton, Wolverhampton, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Bristol throughout the month, before ending with a slot at the Brixton O2 Academy in London on November 30. They all come in support of her new album of the same name.

Beginning her update, Burns said: “This album and tour mean the world to me. It’s been a massive journey getting ready to share ‘How To Be Human’ with you. I can’t believe it’s nearly here!! But unfortunately the build-up has been a lot more intense than any of us expected, so myself and my team have made the difficult decision to move the How To Be Human Tour to April 2026.”

The singer added that all tickets will remain valid for the rescheduled dates in April, but added that Wolverhampton has been unable to be rebooked, so a new gig in Birmingham will be taking its place.

“Touring is incredibly demanding mentally and physically, and I want to make sure I’m taking care of my wellbeing so I’m in the right headspace to give you the show you deserve. When I step on stage, I really want to feel my best and give you a night that feels worth every moment of waiting,” she added.

Also on Instagram Stories, Cat confirmed that the scheduled shows at record stores will be going ahead as planned, and thanked fans for their “patience, kindness, and understanding through this”.

“These decisions are never easy and I don’t take your support for granted,” she concluded. “I can’t wait to see you soon and make these shows everything they should be.”

Burns’ new album ‘How To Be Human’ arrived today (Friday October 31), and marked the follow-up to her 2024 Mercury Prize shortlisted record ‘Early Twenties’.

Sharing another post celebrating the release, Burns said: “I left a very big piece of me on this project, going through grief and heartbreak at the same time really re wired my brain chemistry, and I noticed when people try and give uplifting messages about getting through the hard times they never really go into detail about how they got to the end of the tunnel or even what the tunnel looked like, so I REALLY wanted to do that with this album and document the trenches of processing your emotions.”

She continued: “It’s very honest and it’s very vulnerable (perhaps too vulnerable with the voice memos of me crying) but I truly believe art should cost us something so the fact that I’m so nervous putting this out means it’s gonna hopefully resonate with you all.

“I could only have written such a personal project with my nearest and dearest writers who just always make our sessions such a safe space, it’s literally like therapy for me and I’m so grateful to you all for helping me bring this album to life”.

A few things struck me when reading that article. I think many artists want to make albums as personal as possible. So that they are honest and stand out. So it is distinct and feels real. This year has seen so many artists put everything they have inside them into albums. That in itself much be extremely demanding. It is incredible that they have the strength and courage to do this. They then share this with the public. After an album like that has been written and is ready to be released, there is that demand from the industry to promote and make sure people know about it. There is still this emphasis on content and remaining engaged. A promotional build-up that is so intense. Given how hard it is for artists to stand out and to make a career at a time when there are so many other artists and they can only make money from touring and merchandise, there is this emphasis on getting an album out and as many people as possible knowing about it. Having to be across multiple social media platforms and posting teasers videos, photos, reels, stories and so much to ensure that fans are engaged and there is this constant impression and interaction, artists also have to engage in interviews and do live dates even before they announce big tours. That alone can be enough to drain an artist. Venues have limited availability and I think there is this desire for artists to tour new albums as soon as they can. Not leave too much of a gap unless any momentum drops. It may not be true for all artists, though one feels that there cannot be too long a wait between album release and touring. Between the release of an album and that first date, there are interviews that are still being conducted. There is promotion of the tour – right after the album promotion – and artists having to prepare themselves to go on the road.

If artists have to tour internationally, then it adds a whole new layer of pressure. However, even if someone like Cat Burns is touring the U.K., there is the drain of travel together with the gig itself. Moving between towns and cities and having to reveal so much of herself every night, you do wonder how any artists can manage to do it! Burns still is doing record store dates and these smaller gigs. The task of having to step from that promotional treadmill after being lost in an album from so long and then holding crowds in huge venues in your hand, together with all the social media engagement, it is a challenging balancing act. Artists want to give everything to albums and their fans. This often means that they do not have enough left to give to themselves. So much of their emotional and physical goes into the recording that it can be overwhelming. Cat Burns’s decision to take care of her wellbeing is commendable. She could have toured now and burned out, which would have damaged her career and it would have been a big physical and psychological sacrifice. Of course, we do not know the exact circumstances of why Cat Burns needs to reschedule dates, though it is a familiar story. So many artists making the same decision. It makes me wonder about the industry and whether too much is expected. Mental health care is available for artists but, as so many artists are treating songwriting like therapy and being so naked, there does need to be intervention and checks at the writing and recording stage.

There is this wonderful book that “is written directly for the music industry and aims to help musicians and those working in live music to identify, process and manage the physical and psychological difficulties that can occur on the road or as a result of touring. Inside, you’ll find guidance on mental and physical health issues, relationship challenges, preparing for performance, media training and much more”. It is important that artists on the road are taken care of. That demand for them to perform is something that is natural, though few can realise the effort and reality of being on the road and everything that is required to perform a string of gigs and be on top form every date. Do we look before that and how artists are treated before touring? They can change tour dates, though it is a last resort for most. We do not really talk enough about the demands on artists when it comes to promoting albums. How writing an album can be as straining and demanding as touring. I think next year should be one where mental health is one of the top priorities for the music industry. They are already doing a lot in terms of providing support and addressing the issues, though you feel there is still too much demand on artists. What they have to do to stand out, or promote and album and then take it all tour. Put all of this together and it can be devastating and take its toll. Cat Burns will be back fully on the road soon enough but, with a terrific album out there, I wanted to finish with a review of it:

“Cat Burns’ storytelling lyricism is at the forefront of her latest album, ‘How To Be Human’, a tale of loss, heartbreak and love. Despite showing incredible prowess in deceit on BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors, her sophomore album is a truthful insight into recent moments of pain and healing since her ‘Early Twenties’.

In this vulnerable outpouring, Cat shared wanting to “document the trenches of processing your emotions” in this album. The opening track, ‘Come Home’, is introduced by a voicenote from her grandad; “thank you, Catrina, god bless you, love you lots”. Accompanied by melodic piano and strings, her grandad’s passing in 2024 serves as the topic of the ballads. One of the few tracks that balances her first-hand account with another voice, an imagined call “from God”. Setting the tone for the album, there is a pride in which Burns writes about his life; “To hold a family together / You braved the British weather / worked mornings, nights, wherever”. ‘Come Home’ introduces us to an artist who is simultaneously grieving, healing, and coming to peace.

‘Can Time Move Faster’ investigates the popular idiom of “time is a great healer”- an unglamourised reality check of post-breakup healing. The voice of Cat, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this”, is answered in the later track ‘Today’, where we meet someone able to absorb the joy surrounding them; “I’m not the same / thank god I’ve changed”.

‘I Hope It’s Me’ is a duality between wanting the best for someone, “There’s a whole world for you to see”, and hoping they come back to you; “In the end / When you love again / I hope it’s me”. Burns’ balladic writing is at her very best; this song yearns for a lifetime’s love, even if paths change along the journey, a theme returned to in ‘I Love You, But’.

A carefully sculpted tracklist meets a turning point in track five, but by ‘Gemini’, the mood is lifted and the possibilities are endless. Flirtatious ‘GIRLS!’ follows, released back in January, a sapphic anthem that gives way to ‘There’s Just Something About Her’. Talking to girls becomes having a crush on one, by ‘Lavender’, previously heartbroken Cat Burns is firmly in love, skipping through lavender fields in the visualiser.

The final single to be released from the album, ‘Please Don’t Hate Me’, provides closure to the story told throughout ‘How To Be Human’. No longer lonely, Burns is joined by a choir of harmonious voices, as, instead of waiting for the ex in ‘I Hope It’s Me’, she is loving “somebody new”. ‘I Wish You Well’ has a beat impossible not to dance along with, a final gesture to previous lovers before giving way to the penultimate ballad from the album, ‘When I’m With You’. A giddy love song about a newfound, post-healing connection: “I think I’m worrying less / I’m getting close to my best”.

Moving away from romance and grief, the title and final track, ‘How To Be Human’, sheds light on Cat Burns’ experience with neurodivergence. Often speaking out about the impact of her autism and ADHD, most recently on national television, the track unpacks the reality of learning to mask and survive in a world tailored to neurotypical people, “Am I hiding it well / I wonder if they can tell / that I’m not like them”.

Sophomore album, ‘How To Be Human’ opens Cat Burns’ diary to her ever-growing audience, with a lightly acoustic sonic atmosphere which leaves no space to hide for her introspective lyricism. Cat offers listeners sixteen tracks of catharsis for anyone who has experienced loss, and proof that it really does get better”.

It is a shame Cat Burns has had to move tour dates back, though she needs to take care of her wellbeing and ensure that she is able to fulfil the dates and be at her best. It made me think, not only about what artists are expected to do when it comes to promoting an album, but how much writing and recording such a personal and revealing album can be. And the way artists then have to tour it and how much extra weight and fatigue that adds. How the mental health and wellbeing of artists is a paramount priority. Organisations like Music Minds Matter support the mental health of everyone working in music. Their incredible work and similar bodies needs to be highlighted. I do worry about artists and how hard it is for them. In terms of support and focusing on their collective wellbeing, we all hope that this is a major focus…

IN 2026.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Áine Rose Daly

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Áine Rose Daly

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THIS is a bit of a strange one for me…

PHOTO CREDIT: Fay Summerfield Photography

as I usually highlight artists in Spotlight who have new music coming out or have recently put something out. Most of the artists are rising and coming through, though there are some that are established but maybe not known by all. I always look for fairly recent interviews. Hopefully no longer than a year old, I sling everything together to give you an idea of what the artist is about and why you need to follow them. There have been occasions when I have featured actors that are also musicians. Apart from posting to Instagram why Florence Pugh should record some music and put it out, I have never written a feature in the hope that someone will see it and put more music out. Áine Rose Daly is a wonderful actor you may recognise from BBC’s Boiling Point. However, she is also a wonderful artist. Her most recent single, Reprise, was released last year. The music video came out at the start of this year. I am checking out her Instagram, and I have not seen any announcement that Áine Rose Daly is releasing a new track before the end of the year. Maybe a Christmas cover or plans for an E.P. or album. Of course, by the time this feature is actually shared, she may well have announced that we are going to get a new song very soon – or at the start of 2026. The reason I am jumping the gun in a way is making people aware of the music that she has already put out. I tend to find a lot of actors coming into music had music as their first love. It is a natural move for them. You can feel music runs through Áine Rose Daly’s blood. Something that resonated and connected with her as a child, you can feel the passion and love in her songs. So many new artists tend to sound like existing artists. Daly is definitely distinct and you can hear her own voice. The Jersey-born actor was raised by Irish parents. It is intriguing, as I have not heard of another artist with this mix of heritage/background.

Turning twenty-three on 11th December, Áine Rose Daly turns twenty-three. She is still incredible young, so there is no rush getting new music from her. However, I really love Reprise. I am also a fan of The One and her live cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Otherside. Her videos are amazing too. As an actor, she brings so much of those dynamics into music. I have said this repeatedly. Actors bring a certain conviction and physically into their music. It means also that they really shine in music videos. It is hard going from acting to music or balancing the two. I am not sure if Florence Pugh will get round to putting out some music, but like her, Áine Rose Daly is pretty busy. However, you know there is a song or two in her head – and maybe on paper! I get the feeling we may see something from her next year. However, go and check out what she has done already, as she has a wonderful voice and her music really stays with you. She definitely stands out from so many new artists. Would you class her as Pop? Maybe that is at the foundation, yet there is something deeper, more soulful and interesting in the mix. A wonderful range of colours and levels in her voice. This emotional range that means she is such a versatile songwriter and singer. I normally do not feature artists where there are very few interviews out there, as you do not get to know much about them. However, I am going to being one in that I discovered, before ending with a personal pitch and plea to Áine Rose Daly.

I know 2020’s Miles was her debut single. However, 2021’s Places was the first single that really caught the eyes and ears of journalists and fans. I know she has a tribe of music fans that want new music from her. Like Swiftries, does Áine Rose Daly have a term for her followers? Anyway, 2021 was a scary year. Lockdown and COVID-19, it was a strange time. Artists releasing music because there was nothing else to do, but knowing they could not promote it a lot or perform it. However, it must have been challenging trying to find energy and motivation to make music. Places really resonates. Its video is tremendous too. Urbanista spoke with Áine Rose Daly in 2021 about her powerful new release. A song personal to her would have given such strength to others. It is a song I can identify with:

“Speaking about the new release, she said, “I wrote this song a long time ago about my struggles with my mental health and how, at the time, I felt like it was holding me back from doing what I wanted to do with my life.”

Áine Daly is a London-based actor/singer/songwriter. Born and raised in Jersey, Channel Islands to Irish parents and coming from a long lineage of musicians and creatives, Áine has always been surrounded by music and arts.

The last few years have seen Áine’s acting career flourish, having been cast in multiple feature length films and most notably playing a series regular in Amazon Prime’s “HANNA”. Outside of her acting career however, Aine has always maintained her love for songwriting and considers it a major creative outlet for herself.

Having had some space to write more frequently during lockdown and whilst filming for another series of Hanna, Áine has put together a handful of beautifully crafted alternative pop songs and is ready to bring them out of the living room studio they were recorded in and into the world. Aine’s next release will see her join her older brother, singer/songwriter, Tadhg Daly in the list of Jersey born artists stamping their name on the London music scene”.

I am going to come to another 2021 interview in a minute. I want to go off on a bit of a tangent. I adore Áine Rose Daly’s acting work. She is one of these actors who deserves a massive film role. She is so talented and you are drawn to her in a way you are not with other actors. My favourite film ever is Frances Ha. Widely released in 2013, I love that film as Greta Gerwig, as the title character, is so compelling. Someone you feel sympathy and affection for, in spite of her flaws and child-like demeanour. That film hit me hard! I feel like Áine Rose Daly is an actor who could be in a film like this and have a similar impact. That may sound strange, but she is someone you fall in love with but also are awed by. A definite rising star, I hope that film and T.V. directors are knocking down her doors. Not only someone with great dramatic skill and that ability to make you shed tears, I also see this comedic side. I hope one that is exploited more. There is plenty of time ahead, though I feel Daly is going to blow up and appear in huge U.S. T.V. series and a range of films; from big-budget thrillers to more quirky or independent films. I can see her in a music biopic too, but I won’t say which artist I think she reminds me of, as it is sort of trying to manifest something or play this virtual agent. My point is that she has this incredible potential. Also a musical voice that extends beyond Alternative Pop. I sort of feel she has the dexterity to explore other genres. Songs more stripped down and jazzy. Allowing something more emphatic and soulful to come out. Maybe a direction she may consider in years to come. But this is me highlighting the great work Áine Rose Daly has already done. This takes me to another interview worth highlighting.

It is another one back in 2021. There were a few interviews around Places, though I am going to bring stuff more up to date. Noctis chatted with an amazing artist just starting out. During the pandemic, we were all looking around to music to provide comfort and direction. I know many people would have gained strength and solace from Áine Rose Daly. Places is a magnificent song that must have been challenging to write. However, I listen to the song now and it really does move you. The effect it has on listeners is amazing:

“In recent years you’ve built a rather successful acting career, most recently as Sandy Phillips in HANNA. How do the aspects of acting and music compare in your life?

For me, acting and music feel very far apart from each other. I have a lot more confidence when it comes to acting. Maybe that’s just due to having more experience in that area but it definitely comes easier than the music stuff. I’ve had to work a lot on building my confidence up surrounding my own music. It’s always been a massive part of my life but for some reason it feels harder to share that. It’s so personal and makes you feel on display in a way that I never experience with acting. It’s always been a toss up for me on whether I wanted to pursue acting or music but every time I would focus too much on one, I would miss the other. I feel like I need them both in the forefront of my life as that’s when I’m happiest, so here I am, trying to do both and I don’t see myself ever stopping either.

The release also tells the story of a difficult moment in your life where your mental health was becoming a monumental challenge. How natural did it feel to tell the world such a personal story?

It felt pretty natural to tell this particular story to the world really. For the past few years now I’ve become very open about a lot of my mental health struggles and it feels so good to share all this stuff. It’s sounds so lame and cliché, but it really is a case of wanting to talk about all the things I wish I had heard people talking about when I was growing up. Sometimes I think back and feel like maybe it would have made a difference and maybe I wouldn’t have had such a hard time with it all if people talked more about mental health issues and all that encompasses when I was younger. So if I can be a person that makes someone else feel a bit better about what they are going through, or be someone that they can relate to, I’ll absolutely take that role on.

You’re just one of many artists from Jersey stamping your name into London’s music scene. Why do you think the area creates so many talented artists?

I think growing up on an island as small as Jersey is a very strange thing to experience. I see this especially since moving to London and seeing how different it is here. I think this definitely gives people a unique creative perspective which can help the birth of amazing art. I would say a big thing is also the scenery in Jersey. It’s an extremely beautiful place and therefore very inspiring.

Your brother Tadhg Daly is also a music artist, do you think a collaboration would be on the cards at any point in the future?

I would absolutely LOVE to collaborate with Tadhg. It’s definitely inevitable. He is one of my best friends and we spend a lot of time together and run in the same creative circle but an official collab is definitely on the cards, it’s just a case of picking the right moment!

What can we expect to come next from you?

Expect more acting and more music! I’ve still got a lot going on with season 3 of Hanna as well as the release of the film Boiling Point coming very soon so hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot of me! I’m working towards an EP at the moment which means a lot more music coming from me too! I’m so excited about everything that’s going on, it’s all very cool stuff!”.

It is great when we get to look at artists who are from outside of London. Parts of the country not usually discussed. The Isle of Wight has been in focus the past few years due to bands like Wet Leg and Coach Party coming from there and succeeding. Jersey has given us Nerina Pallot, though I think there are other artists from the island that are waiting to come through. Now Áine Rose Daly would put fresh eyes on Jersey. A place I visited as a child and really love. As part of the filmmaking duo, Syvret Rose, alongside Jordan Cox, Áine Rose Daly released the short crime thriller, More Than It Hurts You. The film “tackles complex and often misunderstood experience of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), drawing deeply from personal experience, particularly Áine’s, who has lived with the condition since childhood”. Maybe she is geared towards filmmaking and acting at the moment. As I said before, she is this remarkable actor and one with a massive and busy future ahead. Genuine success in the U.S. and so many great roles you can see her slaying. A life as a director and someone who I feel is going to have such a multi-disciplined career. I cannot find any newer interviews where Áine Rose Daly discusses new music. I hope it is on her mind for 2026. I am aware she probably will not see this feature either, so it may all be moot! However, I did want to put her name out there in the context of her extraordinary music (and for anyone looking to make a new/alternative to Frances Ha, cast her as she would be bloody brilliant!). Reprise is the most recent chapter from one of our best young artists. Four or five songs under her belt, she could put out an E.P., or record some new tracks and release an album; infuse the older with the new. It would be amazing to hear some new music from Áine Rose Daly. It may be at the back of her mind right now, though I – and many others too – do live in hope that it…

COMES to fruition.

________________

Follow Áine Rose Daly

FEATURE: Silent Night: The Difficulty of Releasing New Christmas Songs and Rivalling Nostalgic Classics

FEATURE:

 

 

Silent Night

PHOTO CREDIT: RDNE Stock project/Pexels

 

The Difficulty of Releasing New Christmas Songs and Rivalling Nostalgic Classics

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I guess overexposure…

PHOTO CREDIT: George Dolgikh/Pexels

gives us a bit of an antipathy to Christmas songs. I have not heard many played at the time of writing this feature (2nd November), though by the time we get to late-November, shops are playing all the classics. I am forty-two, and a lot of the Christmas classics that are played at this time of the year were ones I grew up on. You can look back at those from the likes of Slade, Mud and Wham! Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody was released in 1973. Wizard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday was also released that year. Wham! released Last Christmas in 1984. Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You came out in 1994. So I got some Christmas songs that were released a decade before I was born. That Wham! classic came out when I was one. Mariah Carey’s when I was ten. So, when I was ten, I pretty much had heard all of the best and most-played Christmas songs. Of course, every year brings us new Christmas songs. We will soon see this year’s come through. Of course, I think Christmas songs are a generational thing. In terms of people of my age grew up listening to the very best. Songs older than that, from the 1950s and 1960s, are ones my parents heard but are not played as much. I think there is a sweet spot in terms of time period. Maybe from the 1970s to the 1990s. Of course, you do hear shops play Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (1958), White Christmas by Bing Crosby (1942) and, ah yes, I forgot to mention 1987’s Fairytale of New York by The Pogues (feat. Kirsty MacColl).

Whilst some of the much older Christmas songs will remain, I think we are starting to see them fade out. Last year, I did not hear them played as much as I did years previous. There is a reliance on that time period I mentioned. I do think that, in a few years’ time, those classics of the 1950s and 1960s might die altogether. It also is bad news for new Christmas songs. I would advise people to buy Annie Zaleski’s wonderful This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits, as it takes you inside some of the most cherished Christmas songs. I have written before how it is hard to release a new Christmas song. Not only are these tracks seasonal. They are unlikely to get much airplay at all. Maybe some shops will play them, though most will go with the reliable classics. Familiarity means that people will stay shopping and in the shop. However, there is also that risk every year that, as we hear the same songs over and over, it just drives people nuts. In general, it is a risk releasing music in December. It is a quiet period for albums, as people are geared for Christmas and the music press slows. Of course, there is that chance to exploit the Christmas window, though artists tend to get their albums release before December. In terms of Christmas music, physical singles aren’t a thing anymore and the likelihood of most artists getting good streaming numbers for a Christmas song is low. Unless you a major artist like Taylor Swift who has released a Christmas song – 2019’s Christmas Tree Farm -, then it might be waste of time. However, it is interesting hearing new releases.

What angle they take and whether they go for the more traditional route in terms of themes and imagery or go a bit off piste. I do like something more alternative, as it is rarer and you can get bored of artists saying the same thing. It is important that we have new Christmas songs so that they can sit with the tried and tested. However, it is such a gamble for artists. Also, a lot of the best Christmas songs have been around so long that they have worn into our brains. It is harder to make that same impact now. I also feel like Christmas songs lack a certain purpose. Sure, they do remind us of the big day is coming. Beyond that and their use at parties and on T.V., do most of us sit around listening to Christmas songs in December? They seem more for background and when you are shopping. I am always less inclined to make Christmas playlists, though I am pleased when I hear my favourite Christmas song, Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody – which I have heard hundreds of time and do tire of! I do sympathise with artists who put out a Christmas track now, knowing it will be popular (or not) for such a brief time and is a bit of a gamble. Artists releasing albums of Christmas covers. You hear interesting interpretations through, as I say, most of us come back to the songs we heard as children. Even for children now, I feel like they will be more exposed to the songs I heard and, when they are my age, these tracks will still be in their mind. It is interesting to think it Christmas songs will even be played in a few decades. I can imagine that they will be less rare, as more people will shop online.

Rather than Being down on Christmas music, I wanted to examine it in the modern day. The psychology behind the Christmas songs we gravitate towards. If there is a formula that exists. I would say that the songs need a big chorus and a feelgood vibe. That sounds obvious, but some of the more mournful or slower Christmas songs are becoming less popular. Shops playing them earlier and earlier each year is meant to compel us to shop for Christmas goods, but it can be irksome. A challenge for artists wanting to release their own Christmas song. At best, artists can release them for fun and add their name to the list if Christmas tracks. They have to know that there is limited upside in terms of exposure, airplay and financial reward. I think that generational thing is true. Christmas songs from the past couple of decades rarely played. Those from the 1960s and before will start to fade and become less demanded, aside from the odd few which you do need. That will leave a smaller number of seasonable regulars that you are likely to hear now if you go out. The joy of Christmas music is nostalgia. The fact Wham! were the Christmas number one last year emphasises that. This feature explores why Christmas music isn’t timeless anymore. How artists have a very high bar to reach to when it comes to releasing their own songs. Some of the obstacles they face:

“The Challenge of Modern Holiday Music

Artists still put out new Christmas songs every year, but they often struggle to find the right balance between tradition and innovation. A classic Christmas song doesn’t just reflect the musical style of the time—it embodies the mood and sentiment of the holiday itself. Modern Christmas music tends to lean heavily on reinterpreting existing Christmas standards, with a few new additions each year. Artists like Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande, and Michael Bublé are more likely to release albums full of covers and reimagined classics rather than trying to craft something brand-new that could join the ranks of “Jingle Bells” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

And while there’s nothing wrong with a great cover—Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” is a holiday bop that has definitely earned its place on holiday playlists—there’s something about a fresh, original holiday tune that carries a lot of weight when it becomes part of our tradition. But writing a song that has the ability to capture that elusive sense of holiday magic? Now that’s the tricky part.

It’s All About Timing and Luck

You also can’t underestimate how much luck and timing play a role in a song becoming a classic. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” wasn’t a chart-topper the moment it was released in 1994. It took several years for the song to gain the cultural traction it needed, but now it’s arguably the most enduring modern Christmas song of all time. The timing was right, the song captured the magic of Christmas in a fresh way, and it resonated with millions of listeners—eventually becoming a holiday anthem.

This is why it’s so hard to predict what will become the next big Christmas hit. It requires more than just a catchy melody—it requires something that connects with the spirit of the season in a way that feels both new and timeless at the same time. And while a few artists may create songs that could become future classics, there’s no guaranteed formula for success.

In the end, the reason we don’t see new Christmas classics every year is because it’s hard to capture lightning in a bottle. We may get a few newer songs that rise to prominence (and some even become holiday favorites), but truly joining the ranks of the all-time greats? That’s a much rarer feat. Christmas classics are built over time, through cultural moments, memories, and a kind of magic that’s difficult to predict. And for now, the old standards are likely to continue reigning supreme”.

Have we reached a point where we genuinely do not need new Christmas songs? If the same ones are played every year, artists face releasing their music into the void. The pull of nostalgia is one that applies to people of my age and those who grew up listening to the all-time best. I don’t think it will apply to younger generations. Their nostalgia is going to be the same as mine, which is quite weird! Although, if it is hard to write a Christmas original that stands the test of time, there are artists who put their stamp on existing Christmas songs that provide a pleasing alternative. This article goes into more detail:

“According to Berklee College of Music’s forensic musicologist Joe Bennett, it’s all about the nostalgia. In 2017, he analyzed the elements of holiday music that bring in the most monetary and commercial success, including Spotify-charting hits during the week of Dec. 25. From a lyrical standpoint, they all had an element related to “the home, being in love, lost love, parties, Santa or reindeers, snow or coldness, religion, and peace on Earth.”

It is clear most people desire songs that are comforting, transporting listeners to an idealized version of Christmas past with universal themes of joy and warmth. New releases are not meeting this mark and cannot deliver the kind of warm nostalgia that a Bing Crosby tune executes so well.

In his iconic song “White Christmas,” Crosby longs to return to a simpler, more idyllic time: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas / Just like the ones I used to know / Where the treetops glisten and children listen / To hear sleigh bells in the snow.” With its fluttering flute and gentle piano, the song evokes a warm fireplace and fall of snow.

However, one artist who I think does not fall into this category of failed contemporary Christmas is Laufey, an Icelandic jazz singer. She delivers covers of classics with beautiful accuracy of the original songs while bringing a fresh new production. Having been classically trained in violin and piano, she has a deeper understanding and implementation of the older sound we have grown to love. Her background in jazz and Norah Jones-inspired style distinguishes her from the many pop singers attempting to stake their claim in the niche of holiday music.

Ultimately, we do not need more Christmas tunes from today’s musicians. The nostalgic charm and fond memories tied to the past bring an unmatched element of ambience to these songs that new releases lack. For those who want to enjoy such classic Christmas music, I would suggest turning to the greats of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald. For a taste of the holiday spirit with a modern twist, I would recommend Laufey’s newest EP, “A Very Laufey Holiday”.

It is a tricky thing! I would love to discover a modern-day Christmas song that rivals the best, though I think we are predisposed to the ones we already know and are a bit blinkered. I would say to people to check out new Christmas songs, even if you are only adding them to a playlist. It adds variety and freshens things up. However, it is difficult to penetrate the market and rial the best with such a narrow lyrical framework. All the traditional and clinches imagery has been mined and taken. Artists need to look beyond that, which can alienate people who prefer their Christmas songs more traditional. That may, in turn, put artists off releasing Christmas songs at all. Which would be a shame. It just goes to show that those Christmas gems we have heard for decades and listen to every year…

ARE impossible to rival.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Moments of Pleasure at Thirty-Two: A Song Underrated and Overlooked in Spite of Its Beauty

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Moments of Pleasure at Thirty-Two

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993

 

A Song Underrated and Overlooked in Spite of Its Beauty

__________

I have written…

about Moments of Pleasure a few times. It was released as a single on 15th November, 1993. The third single from Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes (the second in the U.K.), it reached twenty-six in the U.K. I love that the single had some really interesting B-sides. This is what Kate Bush Encyclopedia say: “The 7″ single and the cassette single featured the instrumental version of ‘Moments Of Pleasure’ on the B-side. The 12″ single added the track Home For Christmas. The CD-singles were different entirely and added, besides the title track, the tracks December Will Be Magic Again and Experiment IV. The non-limited version also had the track Show A Little Devotion. Finally, there was also a Dutch 2 track CD-single, featuring Home For Christmas as the second track”. In addition to marking its thirty-second anniversary, I wanted to react to some critical assessment. Before I get there, it is worth bringing in some background from Kate Bush. What this incredibly moving song was about and how it came to her:

“I think the problem is that during [the recording of] that album there were a lot of unhappy things going on in my life, but when the songs were written none of that had really happened yet. I think a lot of people presume that particularly that song was written after my mother had died for instance, which wasn’t so at all. There’s a line in there that mentions a phrase that she used to say, ‘every old sock meets an old shoe’, and when I recorded it and played it to her she just thought it was hilarious! She couldn’t stop laughing, she just thought it was so funny that I’d put it into this song. So I don’t see it as a sad song. I think there’s a sort of reflective quality, but I guess I think of it more as a celebration of life.

Interview with Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2, 9 May 2011”.

Whereas it might not be an ignored song, I feel like some of the critical reaction in 1993 was a bit harsh and wholly unjustified. I wrote about this song earlier in the year. Rather than repeat what I published then, I wanted to approach the song from a different angle. Although there was a little positive reaction to Moments of Pleasure, there was one comment in a review that caught my eye. Let’s take a look at some of the reactions. Music & Media noted this: "For most singers a ballad is just a slow song, but for Bush it seems like it has to be an emotional confrontation which classic composers would like to be credited for". Terry Staunton from NME commented, "Her personal exorcisms reach new heights on 'Moments of Pleasure', a deceptively simple ballad with a swooping chorus and a coda where she namechecks the people who've been important to her over years. It's a song that may baffle the world at large, but it wasn't written for us; Kate's just decided to share it”. It is that final line about Moments of Pleasure and it not being written for us. Whilst many applauded the beauty and swell of the song, there was also a whiff of sexism or condescension. I know NME were probably not attuned to more emotional and personally revealing music in 1993, yet you get the sense that there was this dismissal of women who put out heartfelt or personal songs. True, there are personal elements. Kate Bush name-checking friends lost. She sings about her mother (who died in February 1992 and was ill at the time the song was recorded). There is a lot of loss. Raw and evocative, there is also hope and strength. It is a song that swells and builds like this choral piece. Bush never saw it a sad song, thought that reflective quality gives it some sadder undertones.

Reapproaching it for 2011’s Director’s Cut, I do love both versions. I feel there was some sense of dismissal. Even if Moments of Pleasure meant something to Kate Bush, it was very much for everyone. I don’t think a whiff of sexism was reserved to magazines like NME. It is great that Moments of Pleasure was appreciated by others. Even so, I do feel like it remains underrated. Streamed over four million times on Spotify, it has done well but not nearly as good as other Kate Bush singles. She never really ever got the approval of all critics. Melody Maker wrote how “Moments of Pleasure' is The Big Literary Effort, Kate at her very tremble-inducing, vocal-range-like-the-Pyrenees best”. The Independent only had this to say: “A smile and a tear from the Welling siren”. Music Week, in spite of its positive take wrote of the “off-her-trolley lyrics”. That insulting and dismissive attitude! Was it just Kate Bush that was receiving this kind of sexism in 1993? Not by a long way! One could say, at a time when British music was embracing the early signs of Britpop and Moments of Pleasure was detached from that, I feel like successful and original women were viewed with cynicism and misogyny. Moments of Pleasure is an extraordinary and arresting song that is filled with stunning imagery and soul-baring sentiments. Especially touching is where Bush names people at the end of the song. Bill Duffield, a lighting technician who tragically died after the warm-up show for Bush’s The Tour of Life in 1979, still very much in her heart!

A song that should have got this rapture and genuine praise seems to have been laced with something sour and sniffy. Maybe if Bush had produced a stonking Rock song or uplifting Pop number then she would have been given an easier ride. However, in 1993, we were eight years past Hounds of Love. The scene had shifted and maybe it was felt that she was out of step with modern music. Not forward-thinking and as innovative as before. This is unfair. The Red Shoes is a fantastic album with some of Kate Bush’s best music in it. I love Moments of Pleasure and wanted to mark its thirty-second anniversary (15th November). However, some of the critical reception baffled and annoyed me. Some of Kate Bush’s most striking and affecting lyrics. “Just let us try/To give these moments back/To those we love/To those who will survive” is an example. If men of the music press were not particularly fond or sold by Moments of Pleasure, I do think that others have taken it to heart. That says, it is still an underrated song. The Red Shoes is an album not as streamed and discussed as others. Go and hear this magnificent song. Thirty-two years after its release and it still has lost none of its wonder. I heard it many years ago and was transfixed then. I play it now and feel the same. A track that deserved more genuine love than it got, Moments of Pleasure is a gem that everyone should listen to. One of the standout songs from…

KATE Bush’s seventh studio album.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work at Thirty-Six: How Come It Has Not Enjoyed the Same Resurgence as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work at Thirty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

 

How Come It Has Not Enjoyed the Same Resurgence as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)?

__________

PERHAPS most new Kate Bush fans…

discovered her through Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and its use in Stranger Things back in 2022. I have talked about this endlessly, so I am not going to go into it too much more. However, that song really exploded and experienced this resurgence. Partly because the track is a classic and has this warm and propulsive sound. Maybe because how it was used in Stranger Things. Scoring especially powerful images, a lot of fans connected with it. Since then, the track topped the charts and is Kate Bush’s most-streamed song. That is not the only song of hers that has experienced some recent popularity. If the Hounds of Love cut is her biggest success, Never for Ever’s Army Dreamers is not too bad in comparison. Rather than it being used in a film or T.V. show, it did get this focus on TikTok. Lots of videos had that song playing in the background. Because of the atrocities and violence we are seeing in countries like Ukraine, a new significance to a track that calls outs the futility of warfare and how it sacrifices young men. You can easily see why these two tracks are especially potent and popular. I have no doubt that we will get another Kate Bush moment. Where a track of hers gains the same sort of success as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did a few years ago. Maybe Army Dreamers is going to be that song. It seems like it could be used to devastating effect. There is one song that has been used a few times in film but has not really gained the life that Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) did.

This Woman’s Work was the second single from 1989’s The Sensual Word. It turns thirty-six on 20th November. It is unique in the sense that it started life in a film. In 1988, it was used in John Hughes’s She’s Having a Baby. It was then included on The Sensual World. One could say it already received its flowers back in 1988. However, what I am talking about is that modern-day revival. Bringing a song back into consciousness. I am going to get to some background to the track. But I wanted to ask why, in spite of the fact this song has appeared in films in recent years, it has not ignited in a big way. Many feeling it has been overused. First, this is what Kate Bush said when it came to the inspiration for This Woman’s Work:

“There’s a film called ‘She’s Having A Baby’. And John Hughes, the director, rung up and said that he had a sequence in the film that he really wanted a song written to be with. And I’d only worked the once before on the ‘Castaway’ film – where I’d really enjoyed that – so I was extremely tempted by the offer. And when he sent the piece of film that the song was going to be part of, I just thought it was wonderful, it was so moving, a very moving piece of film. And in a way, there was a sense that the whole film built up to this moment. And it was a very easy song to write. It was very quick. And just kind of came, like a lot of songs do. Even if you struggle for months, in the end, they just kind of go – BLAH! – You know. [Laughs]. So that was the first song that I wrote for ‘The Sensual World’ album. In fact at the time we weren’t even sure whether to put it on the album or not. And I must say that Del was very instrumental in saying that I should put it on the album, and I’m very glad I did. Because I had the most fantastic response – in some ways, maybe the greatest response – to this song. And I was really – I was absolutely thrilled, that you felt that way about it.

Kate Bush Con, 1990”.

Thirty-six years after its release as a single, I do wonder if the song has been overused. I say ‘overused’, though it has been used in  The Mother (2023) and M3GAN 2.0 (2025). The former, you feel, was misplaced. A song about motherhood perhaps, but more to do with this expectant father having to step up. Perhaps not the most appropriate song for the Jennifer Lopez film. In the latter, it was used more to comedic effect. Perhaps it is about the context. I would love to see This Woman’s Work used in a film but in this really cool scene. As it has been used in a film already, you could not repeat that. However, so many people do not know about this track. It is the sixth-most streamed song of hers on Spotify. Though popular, there has not been a lot of conversation around it. Is the fact Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has this energy and sense of energy mean it is a more natural success than a song that is more emotive and downbeat? In a modern age, where most of the more popular Pop music does have this fizz and dynamic, can a song that is slower and sadder succeed? It opens up discussions around tastes and whether we are naturally drawn to songs that provoke physical reaction and happiness rather than contemplation or tears. This article from 2023 explains how This Woman’s Work has been used beyond film. It has appeared in T.V. series. If some feel the song is an emotional shortcut or a lazy and cliched way of trying to evoke emotional responses, I feel like it has been misused and not given its dues. It is not going to get the same sort of explosion and life as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Though it seems odd that, given the song has been used quite a bit in film and T.V., that it has not gained a bigger life. This Woman’s Work is a classic, yet it might be a song more cherished and memorable in private moments, rather than being seen as this big screen triumph. Something that has touched a new generation of fans. Regardless, I do feel it is an important song. As 20th November marks thirty-six years since it was released as a single, I did want to revisit one of Kate Bush’s greatest works. Whether it will be used again in film and T.V. remains to be seen. There is no getting around the fact that the song means a lot to people. I think it has this reputation as being used lazily as a go-to when we want to summon up an emotional response. However, it used in a different or new way, I see no reason why This Woman’s Work couldn’t reach new fans and finds its way…

BACK on the charts.

FEATURE: Bringing Opera and Classical to the Mainstream: Why ROSALÍA’s Berghain Is Such a Revelation

FEATURE:

 

 

Bringing Opera and Classical to the Mainstream

PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Maggio

 

Why ROSALÍA’s Berghain Is Such a Revelation

__________

THERE is no doubting the fact…

ROSALÍA’s Berghain is one of this year’s best singles. It is also one of the most revelatory and different. One of the greatest artists in the world, maybe you define her music as Experimental Pop or Alternative Reggaeton. Her third album, Motomami, was released in 2022. Her upcoming fourth studio album comes out on Friday. LUX is going to be among this year’s best albums. Its lead single features Björk and Yves Tumor. I am picking up on something The Guardian posted. Whether Berghain is Opera. It is this dramatic, bombastic, string-filled and mesmeric song that features a series of German verses "Seine Angst ist meine Angst, Seine Wut ist meine Wut, Seine Liebe ist meine Liebe, Sein Blut ist mein Blut". In English: 'His fear is my fear, His anger is my anger, His love is my love, His blood is my blood”. The fact that the song brings together a Spanish superstar, an Icelandic icon and a wonderful American artist (you can guess who is who!), coupled with the German lyrics, makes this a song that is so different to what is in the Pop mainstream. There are few artists singing in different languages. You do get some artists singing in Spanish. Maybe there are additions of other languages as an effect or a gimmick almost. Artists like Gwenno singing in Cornish or Welsh is more natural and authentic. However, what ROSALÍA has done with Berghain is unique:

“Since her breakout album El Mal Querer in 2018, the 33-year-old musician and producer born Rosalía Vila Tobella has made her name on visionary avant garde mutations of the flamenco she studied at a prestigious music school. She has also attracted praise and controversy for exploring Caribbean and Latin sounds on her 2022 album Motomami.

Her new record centres her classical training: the LSO is featured throughout – directed by Daníel Bjarnason – alongside fado and flamenco singers. “It is thrilling to watch this woman grow,” Björk wrote in an approving tweet. “Congratulations to her with this incredible album, switching genre kung-fu style. This concept is fierce!”

With its thunderous strings and Wagnerian vocals, the lead track is in parts more Radio 3 than Spotify hit, but pop fans seem delighted by the star’s return. As one posted on TikTok of the evident heartbreak on Berghain: “I love whatever is wrong with Rosalía, this song is actually INSANE.”

Perhaps predictably, it’s classical music fans who seem more divided. It piqued the attention of Classic FM, which asked on its website: “Why does Rosalía’s song Berghain feature a symphony orchestra and German opera?”

On TikTok, the classical music influencer Daria Challah called it “probably the most important thing that’s happened to classical music this year … Finally an artist has delivered something that will really change the way people see this tradition of music.”

Classical critic Hugh Morris disagreed, calling it “new musical kitsch”. He accused Rosalía of perpetuating the “genrefication” of classical music and using “pre-digested musical gestures as a shortcut to depth or emotional power”. Others have pointed out that despite her technical prowess as a singer, the amplification and effects mean the song cannot be considered opera.

New York City-based opera singer Sarah Khan, who went viral for her traditional operatic rendition of Berghain on TikTok, praised Rosalía’s genre-crossing.

“I immediately heard opera, but she also trained in the vocal art of cante flamenco, and you can tell she’s done a lot of study to perfect this song,” Khan said. She also praised Rosalía for singing in another language.

“German is difficult to sing if it’s not your first language,” she said. “Part of classical opera training is learning how to manoeuvre your resonance and your tone through languages that you’re not familiar with. She did it really beautifully.”

Khan, 26, also said she connected with the rare, distinctly feminine perspective of the song – about being overwhelmed by a male partner’s fear and anger, and dissolving like “a sugar cube” – in comparison with the male perspective of most operas.

In most male-written librettos, she said, “there’s a hero, a direct peak and climax. But in this storyline, you can tell she’s wrestling with her broken heart as the music gets louder and softer. It’s not like she breaks through and then doesn’t have a broken heart any more; she’s going in and out of it. That pulls the storyline to a very feminine, human place.”

For Khan, whether or not Berghain technically constitutes opera is immaterial. “The way that opera connects with a person is very subjective, which I think is beautiful,” she said. “Having opera come to the mainstream inspires more people to sing it, maybe to learn it and appreciate it and to want to go and see an opera”.

It is no surprise that the song has confounded some people. I have recently written how there is this melding of modern Pop and Classical. How artists are performing with orchestras. St. Vincent, Little Simz and Dua Lipa are examples of artists whose music has been elevated and transformed by partnering with orchestras or string quartets. Maybe there is still snobbery from purists. Orchestras and Classical being seen as pure and maybe adding something as commercial as Pop weakens or waters it down. However, the clash leads to spectacular results! ROSALÍA is a hugely innovative artist who has created this operatic song. From a feminine viewpoint, this is something new in Opera. By bringing a song like Berghain more into the mainstream, it will help bring more attention to Opera. A style and art that some turn their noses up to. See as inaccessible or overwrought. ROSALÍA is one of the most extraordinary vocalists in the world. How she can naturally inhabit the spirit of an acclaimed and professional Opera singer. It is a wonderful song! I do feel like a lot of Pop music is quite stale and unnatural in terms of sound. Maybe you would not define ROSALÍA as ‘Pop’. Though she is a commercial artist, yet she is making music that differs from a lot of the more bland Pop being offered. Vigorous, thrilling, dramatic and evocative, Berghain is this revelation. We can argue whether it is Opera or not. Classical music has remained somewhat distant from Pop and the mainstream. Even if artists do collaborate with orchestras, there is rarely any real integration. I still think there is dubiousness and elitism when it comes to Classical music. How some have asked why ROSALÍA would step into this world.

There have been reviews of Berghain. This is what Pitchfork wrote: “Berghain” feels as ambitious as Lux’s supposed four-movement structure, cantering from violin fireworks à la Vivaldi’s “Winter” to a pummeling Rite of Spring grand finale. Yves Tumor is here—to usher us into the final act—as is Björk, whose own gale force presence threatens to knock the song on its side like a two-dimensional façade. Then there’s the matter of the titular Berlin nightclub. Last year, French Lebanese DJ Arabian Panther accused Berghain of cancelling a scheduled performance due to his pro-Palestine views. Controversy is built in with Rosalía—a Catalonian who sang in an Andalusian accent on 2018’s El Mal Querer and became a superstar making reggaeton—but “Berghain” never quite earns its provocation”. The Face were more positive: “Rosalía’s first single off her hotly-anticipated album, Lux is nothing short of epic. Accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish artist takes on opera, merging German, Spanish and English in a devotional love song that borders on dangerous obsession. Singing in German, a choir emphasises in the chorus: ​“His fear is my fear/​His anger is my anger/​His love is my love/​His blood is my blood,” before Rosalía joins them in a towering falsetto. Björk, who last collaborated with Rosalía on the 2023 one-off single Oral, belts out a chorus and Yves Tumor barks ​“I’ll fuck you till you love me” through a wall of distortion. This truly theatrical comeback is blowing up the internet, in part thanks to the strange and absorbing music video that feels like the trailer to a Lanthimos film. It’s safe to say I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of Lux. TL”.

Even though the article does not criticise ROSALÍA, the fact Classic FM wrote about Berghain means there is a certain amount of judgment. Their headline is “Why does Rosalía’s song ‘Berghain’ feature a symphony orchestra and German opera?”. That seems to suggest judgement. Why are we still at the point when artists who try something different is questioned. Especially if you are a woman. If fans of other genres are more accepting and less questioning, there does still seem to be a degree or elitism. Speaking with Linton Stephens, host of the Southbank Centre’s new podcast, So, Hear Me Out, CRACK asked for a breakdown of ROSALÍA’s incredible new track. The fact that it draws from Classical pieces means that it not only brings a new urgency and gravitas to Pop and the mainstream. It will hopefully draw those not overly-familiar of Classical to the genre:

“Which era of classical music do you think Rosalía’s Berghain draws from most strongly?

It instantly transported me to the sound world of Vivaldi’s concerti or the orchestral music of Rameau. The vibrant textures and rhythmic vitality are characteristic of the Italian Baroque.

Are there any particular classical works that Berghain reminds you of?

The arpeggiated opening reminds me of Vivaldi’s most famous Bassoon Concerto in E Minor, but when the choir enters, it also evokes the grandeur and richness found in Bach’s sacred works – or even Handel’s oratorios, as well as more modern choral music.

For listeners drawn to the classical elements in Berghain, what pieces or composers should they explore next?

Definitely seek out the instrumental works (especially concerti) of Vivaldi. If it’s the choral elements, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana has moments that offer that same kind of compelling raw emotion of massed voices.

How do you see Rosalía’s formal classical training background shaping her approach to composition and vocal performance on the track?

You can hear that the foundation of this work is rooted in classical traditions and built up from that. What’s unique is how Rosalía then brings in her own style and influence. She drops down the octave, and the genres begin to morph from traditional to modern. That’s what innovation is all about.

Do you think we’re entering a moment where more pop artists are engaging seriously with classical music? In your opinion, what might be driving that trend?

Not necessarily classical music, but live, instrumental and orchestral music, yes. I think it’s a way of adding some robustness and gravitas to live performances and recordings of genres that are generally more pared back. Also, I think with the introduction of AI, instrumental collaboration from the orchestral world reminds us that it’s authentically human-made”.

It is important that music, Pop or otherwise, evolves and keeps fresh. If ROSALÍA had released a single that sounded like her last, then there would be no bother. However, it does seem like there is still this risk of criticism or judgement if you step into Classical or Opera. Maybe it is not as accomplished as professional Opera. However, it is this remarkable modern-day operetta. This wonderful and sense-altering explosion that brings together the London Symphony Orchestra, Björk and Yves Tumor. I hope it is a sign of things to come from LUX. The innovative, sensational and hugely consistent ROSALÍA has released a single that has divided some. However, it has raised a larger conversation about marrying Opera, Classical and genres of music seen as more conventional and popular. How Berghain will open conversations around Pop artists working more with Classic artists and orchestras. If some have raised questions about why ROSALÍA would sing in German, create something operatic and step into the Classical world, the thrilling and monumental Berghain is nothing but…

A positive thing.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: What’s My Age Again? blink-182’s Tom DeLonge at Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Anna Lee Media

 

What’s My Age Again? blink-182’s Tom DeLonge at Fifty

__________

I wanted to mark…

the fiftieth birthday of Tom DeLonge. The guitarist and vocalist of Blink-182 celebrates his birthday on 13th December. The band released their ninth studio album, One More Time..., in 2023. There was a period when DeLonge was not in the band. Departing in 2015, he was prompted to return after bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2021. After a meeting between DeLonge and his former bandmates, the trio overcame lingering disputes, which later led to DeLonge's return. It is great that he is back in the fold. I am going to celebrate his fiftieth birthday by combining some of the best blink-182 songs. Before getting there, I am coming to some biography from AllMusic:

“As the singer/songwriter fronting blink-182, Tom DeLonge was one of the biggest punk rock stars at the turn of the millennium. He parlayed that success into the spacier project Angels & Airwaves, a group heavily indebted to the college rock of U2 and the Cure, which DeLonge formed while blink was on hiatus in the back half of the 2000s. For a while, he kept both a reunited blink-182 and Angels & Airwaves afloat, but after the blink reunion collapsed in 2015, he launched a solo career with the clearinghouse demo To the Stars.

To the Stars appeared two decades after blink-182's 1995 debut Cheshire Cat, but that wasn't the start of DeLonge's musical career. A native of the San Diego suburb Poway, the teenage DeLonge loved skateboarding and punk, learning how to play guitar in his early teens. In his late teens, he formed a group with drummer Scott Raynor and bassist Mark Hoppus, flying through a variety of names before landing on blink-182. They cut a demo called Flyswatter in 1993 and another called Buddha in 1994, signing with Cargo Records later that year. Cheshire Cat, their official debut, arrived in 1995, supported by heavy touring, all of which helped the group take the leap to the major-label MCA in 1996. Dude Ranch, their major debut, came out in 1997 and the single "Dammit," along with the group's slot on the inaugural Warped Tour, helped raise the their profile. Raynor left the band in 1998, replaced by former Aquabats drummer Travis Barker. This new lineup recorded 1999's Enema of the State, the album that turned blink-182 into crossover stars thanks to the hits "All the Small Things" and "What's My Age Again?" Over the next few years, blink-182 was the reigning pop-punk band, with their 2001 album, Take Off Your Pants & Jacket, sustaining the group's momentum.

Despite this success, tensions started to surface in the band when DeLonge cut the 2002 side project Box Car Racer with Barker but not Hoppus. A full-band effort, the eponymous blink-182 came out in 2003, and its darker, artier sound didn't satisfy some of the band's fans. Then came further fractures in the band's relations, highlighted by Travis Barker's decision to film a reality show for MTV called Keeping Up with the Barkers and DeLonge's desire to slow down their schedule so he could spend time with his family. All this led to blink's breakup in 2005.

DeLonge resurfaced in 2006 with a new band called Angels & Airwaves, an ambitious outfit inspired by '80s college rock icons the Cure and U2. A&A released their debut, We Don't Need to Whisper, in 2006, quickly followed by I-Empire in 2007. The next year, DeLonge decided to reunite blink-182 in the wake of Barker surviving a plane crash. A full tour followed in 2009 but the reunion album, Neighborhoods, didn't surface until 2011; during this down time, DeLonge recorded the ambitious, multi-part A&A project, Love Album, Pts. 1 & 2. Neighborhoods performed respectably but softly, leading the band to part from their major label -- now Interscope, after several corporate consolidations -- in October 2012. An indie EP called Dogs Eating Dogs showed up at the end of 2012, then DeLonge turned his attention back to Angels & Airwaves, recording the 2014 album The Dream Walker. Next up was another blink-182 album, but the band fell apart again in early 2015. DeLonge rallied by releasing his first solo album, To the Stars -- a collection split between blink demos and ideas for A&A -- that April”.

Sharing the lead vocals with Mark Hoppus, I am including blink-182 songs that feature either his incredible guitar or vocal work. Maybe you have not heard of the band or are a minor fan. I feel it is important to mark his fiftieth birthday on 13th December. Below is a mixtape of wonderful tracks from the district and…

SIMPLY brilliant blink-182.

FEATURE: She Loves You: Why We Need to Give Proper Respect and Credit to the Women Who Defined and Shaped The Beatles’ Lives

FEATURE:

 

 

She Loves You

IN THIS PHOTO: Anna Sawai will portray Yoko Ono in the 2028-due Beatles films from director Sam Mendes/PHOTO CREDIT: Andie Jane for Vanity Fair

 

Why We Need to Give Proper Respect and Credit to the Women Who Defined and Shaped The Beatles’ Lives

__________

IT is exciting learning…

IN THIS PHOTO: Saoirse Ronan will play the exceptional Linda Eastman in Sam Mendes’s Beatles films/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage/Getty Images

about some important casting for Sam Mendes’s new Beatles films coming in 2028. We know who will play each of the Beatles, but we also know who has been cast as some hugely significant women in the band’s life. What has troubled me is how articles refer to them as ‘Beatles wives’ or reducing them to supporting cast. Not important as the band members. Almost like afterthoughts. Whilst many might think of Yoko Ono, Patti Boyd, Maureen Cox and Linda Eastman as the wives/partners of John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, they are so much more than inspiration, muses or lovers. Not only did the band write timeless songs about them. They are as important regarding their career and success as female fans. The screaming and impassioned girls who were devoted to the band. I shall come to that later. Even though there were darker times (fans getting too attached and possessive; fans screaming so loud The Beatles couldn’t hear themselves play), they are unsung heroines and crucial people in the legacy and importance of The Beatles. As are the compelling, fascinating, strong and wonderful women who have just been cast. Let’s hope that they get plenty of screentime and they are explored and as big a part of the dialogue as The Beatles’ members:

“Sam Mendes’ ambitious four-part Beatles film has confirmed the casting of four main female roles.

Sony Pictures officially announced that Mia McKenna-Bruce will play Maureen Cox, with Saoirse Ronan as Linda Eastman, Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono and Aimee Lou Wood as Pattie Boyd. All four had been strongly rumoured to have been in line for their parts, but only now has their participation been confirmed.

Each of the four real-life women played significant roles in the Beatles’ story. Cox met drummer Ringo Starr as a 15-year-old trainee hairdresser in 1962, when the band were still regulars at Liverpool’s Cavern club; they married in 1965 but were divorced 10 years later. Eastman was a photographer who met Paul McCartney in 1967; they married in 1969 and she joined his post-Beatles band Wings and performed regularly with him until her death in 1998. Ono, an artist and musician, met John Lennon in 1966; they were married in 1969 after Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia, and they remained together until Lennon’s death in 1980. Boyd, a successful fashion model, met George Harrison in 1964 on the set of the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night; they were married in 1966 and divorced in 1977 after she had become the object of attentions from Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton, who co-wrote the 1970 song Layla about her.

IN THIS PHOTO: Mia McKenna-Bruce has been cast as Maureen Starkey (née Cox) in The Beatles (the working/current title of Sam Mendes’s four films)/PHOTO CREDIT: Iona Wolff

Mendes said in a statement: “Maureen, Linda, Yoko and Pattie are four fascinating and unique figures in their own right – and I’m thrilled that we’ve managed to persuade four of the most talented women working in film today to join this amazing adventure.”

Currently titled The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, Mendes’ project was first announced in 2024 with the aim of making four separate fiction films, one for each member of the band. In April, the band members’ casting was announced – Paul Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Starr and Joseph Quinn as Harrison – and in May reports emerged that award-winning writers Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan and Jack Thorne had been hired to work on the films”.

The casting news is great! Amazing actors will bring to life some incredible women. When we read books about the band and see documentaries  concerning The Beatles, how much of their story is told? In terms of recognising their importance and the role they played in the success of The Beatles. People have reacted to the casting news and asked why we are not going to see Jane Asher (Paul McCartney’s former girlfriend) and Cynthia Lennon (John Lennon’s ex-wife) portrayed. Two incredibly important women, why are they being side-lined? I do hope that Sam Mendes ensures that Mia McKenna-Bruce, Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai and Aimee Lou Wood will be given big roles and they are not merely there to fill parts and have minimal dialogue or interaction. It made me wonder how much time we spend discussing the women behind The Beatles. At a time when their husbands and boyfriends were in the middle of a global media storm and being mobbed by fans, they often had to deal with attacks from the press, jealousy from fans and being overlooked. How lonely and isolating it must have been for these women a lot of the time.

IN THIS PHOTO: Aimee Lou Wood is going to play Patti Boyd in the forthcoming Beatles films/PHOTO CREDIT: Lulu McArdle for ELLE

However, these women had their own careers and lives. Fascinating, intelligent and supportive partners who have never really received their dues. I do worry that they are going to be side players in the films about The Beatles. Of course, people want to see the band and the films are going to be about The Beatles. However, you cannot ignore just how crucial Yoko Ono, Maureen Cox, Linda Eastman and Patti Boyd are. Ono and Boyd are still with us, so I will be interested to see how they react to the films. Patti Boyd said, when Aimee Lou Wood was rumoured to play her, how pleased she was. I am curious about Yoko Ono. In terms of the way she was treated and what she faced, her experiences were possibly the hardest and worse of any of the women! Not to say it was especially easy for the others, you do feel that Yoko Ono was especially villainised and affected. I want to bring in this article  from 2022, that was published in response to the publication of Christine Barrett-Feldman’s book, A Women’s History of the Beatles. Whilst academics, authors and experts of The Beatles, in the past, were male-heavy, there are more women discussing the band and offering new perspectives. Critically, they are talking about how women shaped The Beatles! Highlighting the importance of their largely female fanbase, through to the wives of the band members, there are these great podcasters and authors who are shining lights on the girls and women who helped make and define The Beatles:

“I’ve been reading books about the Beatles for over a half-century but none have spoken to me like Christine Barrett-Feldman’s A Women’s History of the Beatles. This much-needed book shows us the mission-critical role of women in transforming four talented and ambitious young men into the Beatles, and the myriad ways the Beatles have, in turn, inspired and transformed the lives of women across three generations.

Feldman-Barrett, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Australia’s Griffith University, is a self-described “aca-fan”—an academic who studies a cultural phenomenon of which they’re a fan. Yet you won’t find the pretentious, obfuscating prose often found in academic books on fandom. It’s well-written, respectful of the reader, and acknowledges that fandom is joyful. Focusing on female perspectives gives the book a different kind of energy that is hard to describe.

Similarly refreshing is that the book is authoritative without the attitudes of expertise or ownership that characterize much academic and popular writing about the Beatles. Despite more women of all ages participating in Beatles scholarship and commentary in recent years, Boomer men shaped the discourse and still predominate. In my 2014 book, Beatleness, I described Beatles scholarship as a conversation among male observers, and offered a sociocultural analysis of first-gen Beatles fandom that broadened the conversation; others are broadening it as well.

Scholars such as Katie Kapurch, Holly Tessler, Kit O’Toole, and Erin Weber bring new perspectives, and podcasts such as bc the Beatles and Another Kind of Mind—hosted by millennial women—expand the conversation in that medium. But A Women’s History of the Beatles does something different.

By centering women in the Beatles story, which Feldman-Barrett likens to a fairy tale, it becomes clear how the surround and support of women—fans, friends, and family—made the Beatles possible, and shows us three generations of women—musicians, journalists, academics, fashion designers, ethnomusicologists, tour guides, visual artists, DJs, and TikTok stars— whose Beatles fandom inspired a range of personal and professional pursuits.

A Women’s History of the Beatles is organized thematically rather than chronologically, though it does begin at the beginning, with the foundational support of mothers and aunties, and the unfailing devotion of female fans in Liverpool and throughout Merseyside—to whom the world owes an enormous debt of gratitude.

Feldman-Barrett suggests the Beatles’ rapport with their fans—locally and then globally—was a natural extension of their relationships with the strong, supportive women in their families who “served as role models and mentors.” Indeed, despite prevailing attitudes toward women in their Northern, working-class milieu and tales of sexual adventure on the Reeperbahn and on tour, A Women’s History of the Beatles shows that the Beatles’ “interactions with women were varied, multidimensional, and contextual.”

Many observers say there would have been no Beatles without Brian Epstein; others say George Martin was the sine que non. But after reading this book, it’s clear that Mona Best and Astrid Kirchherr come before either of them. Pete’s Mom provided a venue—even after the unceremonious sacking of her son—that positioned the band to continually expand and energize their loyal local fan base which, in turn, fueled their confidence and determination. This created a positive feedback loop that propelled them to Hamburg and their transformative residencies.

It was during a 1960 residency that the Beatles befriended Kirchherr, whose friend Klaus Voormann persuaded her to go with him to the red light district to see and hear them “mach schau.” Six years later Voormann would design the cover of Revolver, and three years after that would play bass in the Plastic Ono Band. But none of that would have happened were it not for the alluring and enigmatic Astrid, the educated, middle-class girl who wore leather and a Jean Seberg pixie cut. A musician and photographer who says Kirchherr was one of her biggest influences aptly described her as “a woman who went where she wasn’t supposed to go.”

According to Feldman-Barrett, Astrid played the role of fairy godmother in the Beatles’ fairy tale, the kindly, knowing figure who ensures good things will happen. Using her camera as a magic wand, she was the first person to take composed photos of the band; the first person to whom this idea occurred! Her female gaze showed these “Cinderlads” who they were and the Prince Charmings they would eventually be.

Feldman-Barrett writes: “Kirchherr was able to fully identify, document—and then further shape—the Beatles’ magnetic appeal. It is through her black-and-white photographs of the band that we first see the Beatles as objects of desire and Kirchherr as the ‘desiring subject.’” Even readers familiar with the story will come away with a new appreciation for Kirchherr—and gratitude for Voormann’s persuasive ability that October night in 1960.

We’ve heard hundreds of male musicians from David Crosby to David Grohl talk about how the Beatles inspired them. A Women’s History of the Beatles shows us female musicians—some famous, some not—who have been similarly inspired, and corrects the persistent narrative about girl fans liking the Beatles primarily because “they’re cute.” Readers will be surprised to learn about the Liverbirds, the four Cavern girls who started a band and opened for the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones on their early UK tours. (Check out Feldman-Barrett’s A Women’s History of the Beatles playlist here.)

Yoko, who Feldman-Barret says is the preeminent female figure in the Beatles fairy tale, “was not widely received as a virtuous maiden worthy of a princely reward. Instead, she was presented and viewed as a cunning sorceress who had Lennon spellbound.”  She was also a “godmother of punk” whose influence can be heard in numerous punk, post-punk, and riot grrrl bands.

Other important contributions of A Women’s History of the Beatles are the overlooked voices of lesbian fans—who found the Beatles attractive “irrespective of their sexual orientation”—and black fans, like the woman from the south side of Chicago who moved to the UK because of them. Another black fan recalled, “There’s something about how [the Beatles] talk about the world that has always made me feel comfortable in my own skin and made me feel like it’s okay to like what I like and be who I am.”

Beatle wives and girlfriends— Cynthia, Pattie, Jane, Maureen, Yoko, and Linda — are presented as significant figures in their own right. But Feldman-Barrett also zooms out and puts their Beatle relationships in a broader context, showing how they were role models for fans as well as exemplars of changing gender dynamics throughout the decade”.

Other articles like this observe how “There is a cultural tendency to link mainstream music with women, specifically young girls and teenagers. Burdened by societal levies on age and femininity, teenage girls are a scarily undermined social sector. As both women and popular music are deemed simple, female fans are positioned as the appropriate counterpart. One of the most culturally significant bands of the modern era, The Beatles, is a prime example of this undervaluation. The Beatles were fandom-less, unknown and non-credible until teenage girls started paying attention to their art”. In terms of the casting of The Beatles’ wives, let’s explore their influence (this word is going to repeated a lot, so apologies, but I think it is necessary and accurate). Last year, Women’s Weekly paid tribute to the feminist forces behind the greatest and most influential band ever. Patti Boyd had a huge impact:

“English model and actress Pattie Boyd first met her soon-to-be husband, George Harrison, on the set of the 1964 promotional film, A Hard Day’s Night.

“On first impressions, John seemed more cynical and brash than the others, Ringo the most endearing, Paul was cute, and George, with velvet-brown eyes and dark chestnut hair, was the best-looking man I had ever seen. At a break for lunch, I found myself sitting next to him. Being close to him was electrifying,” Pattie would later recall of the fateful meeting.

Whilst Pattie eventually became George’s wife, inspiring songs like Something and I Need You (as well as an infamous rock love triangle with Eric Clapton), one of her biggest contributions to The Beatles is often overlooked.

It’s no secret that LSD played an integral role in The Beatles’ discography, but it was Pattie Boyd’s dentist, John Riley, who first introduced the band to it. The unassuming dentist laced John, Cynthia, Pattie and George’s coffees with the psychedelic during a dinner party in 1965.

“We were just insane… we were just out of our heads… we all thought there was a fire in the lift, but it was just a little red light, and we were all screaming, all hot and hysterical!” John recalled of the night.

Meanwhile George said of the experience: “I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass,” he said. “It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours.”

Pattie also was responsible for The Beatles’ introduction and deep interest in Hinduism and Indian culture. She had been previously introduced to Transcendental Meditation by her sister, and convinced the band to join her to watch a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967. This interaction sparked the famous trip to India the following year which had a monumental impact on the band’s music and direction”.

Linda McCartney/Eastman was massively crucial. Not only in terms of what she gave to The Beatles. The solo work of Paul McCartney, and her role in Wings. She was someone who had a profound effect on McCartney. Let’s hope that Saoirse Ronan is given the chance to fulfil the multiple sides and the sheer brilliance of this incredible woman:

“Though Paul and his long-term girlfriend, Jane Asher, broke up in 1968, the Beatle wasn’t single for long because he quickly met the love of his life, Linda Eastman. The pair met at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in London in May 1967 and again for the launch of The Beatles’ latest record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

From the moment they got together, Paul and Linda became an inseparable force. Though Linda only saw the last few years of The Beatles, she’s credited with guiding Paul through the emotionally tumultuous breakup of the band and the ugly ensuing legal battles that followed.

With a trusty Nikon camera by her side, Linda snapped some of the band’s most candid and authentic moments in the final years of their time as a group. She continued to photograph Paul through his solo career and in the Wings era giving Beatles fans a comprehensive visual narrative to pore over for years to come”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman at a press launch of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, held at Brian Epstein’s house at 24 Chapel Street, London on 19th May, 1967 (Eastman and McCartney first met four days earlier at the Bag O’Nails club. They would marry on 12th March, 1969)/PHOTO COURTESY OF: The Paul McCartney Project

Yoko Ono is the most maligned and vilified of The Beatles’ wives. Still recording today, you would hope more than anyone, her importance is brought into brilliant focus! I am sure that Anna Sawai will do a phenomenal job. She is an extraordinary actor and it is only right that she is given proper flowers and space. That these amazing actors portraying these often forgotten women are not reduced to a few lines or being at the back. How they impacted The Beatles and the legacy they leave is as vital, I think, as the band’s:

“When a married John Lennon step foot into the Indica Gallery in 1966, he wasn’t aware that the woman he was about to meet would irreparably set The Beatles on a different musical path. Yoko Ono’s avant-garde approach to art quickly spilled into John’s creative processes, which undeniably exasperated tensions within the group, but ultimately pushed John to create some of The Beatles’ best music.

“She wanted more, do it more, do it double, be more daring, take all your clothes off,” Paul explained during an interview with Barry Miles for his book Many Years from Now. “She always pushed him, which he liked. Nobody had ever pushed him. Nobody had ever pushed him like that. We all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far out.”

Paul and John had both previously experimented with tape loops and other sound engineering marvels in songs like I’m Only Sleeping and Strawberry Fields Forever. However, the White Album saw John’s experimentalism reach new heights on songs like Revolution 9 which, thanks to Yoko’s influence, is eight straight minutes of unbridled cacophonous mayhem. Unlike John, who was a self-taught musician, Yoko was classically trained which also saw her lend a hand to composing songs like Because and The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.

Though Yoko is often unfairly cast as the villain who broke up The Beatles, it’s well-documented by the band themselves that factors like Brian Epstein’s death and the ravages of fame and time had eaten away at their comradery long before Yoko entered the picture. But what Yoko did do was open John’s mind to endless musical possibilities which made for boundary-pushing art and music”.

I am being pretty liberal when taking from this feature, though it is pertinent and very relevant. I will bring in sections about two women not included (as yet) in Sam Mendes’s films and why their omission would be an oversight. Maureen Starkey is someone who many overlook and do not see as important:

“Maureen Starkey was the most enduring feminine force behind The Beatles. She met Ringo back in 1962 and stayed married to him through Beatlemania, the breakup of The Beatles all the way through to 1975 when the pair divorced.

As a 15-year-old trainee hairdresser in Liverpool, Maureen was a regular at the Cavern Club where she quickly became acquainted with The Beatles and other skiffle groups. It was here where she met Ringo as he was standing on the precipice of unprecedented fame and adoration.

“Richy was just the drummer at the time,” Maureen recalled in a 1988 interview with the French magazine Le Chroniqueur. “I don’t remember when he first asked me out on a date, but he did just after he left the Hurricanes and joined the Beatles.”

Maureen and Ringo became a couple as The Beatles fame soared and the pair married in 1965 after learning they were pregnant with their first child. Along with the other Beatles and their partners, Maureen joined Ringo in India in 1968 where their musical prowess was opened up to unlimited bounds. Though she didn’t directly inspire any officially released Beatles tunes, that’s not to say she wasn’t a muse.

George Harrison, who would later have an affair with Maureen to the horror of his other bandmates, once sang a pointed song titled ‘Maureen’ during the 1969 Get Back sessions. Though he claimed the track was penned by his pal Bob Dylan, sceptics and die-hard Beatles fans argue otherwise. Ringo also commissioned Frank Sinatra to sing a special rendition of The Lady is a Tramp for Maureen’s birthday in 1968 with the song title being changed to ‘The Lady is a Champ’.

Besides this, Maureen was arguably the most die-hard Beatles fan who was present for every stage of the band’s lifespan from Cavern Club rockers to global music phenomenon. Her unwavering adoration is best seen in the Get Back documentary where she can be seen head-banging and cheering on the band during their rooftop performance”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Maureen Starkey

Maybe Jane Asher did not want to be included in the films. She has never spoken about her time with Paul McCartney, and she has remained private. However, her role cannot be diminished: “Some of Paul’s greatest love songs including And I Love Her and Here, There and Everywhere were inspired by his whirlwind relationship with Jane. The pair also had quite the tumultuous relationship which saw Paul pen some of The Beatles’ best melancholy tracks like You Won’t See Me and I’m Looking Through You. But Jane’s impact wasn’t just being a muse, her high-profile career and London abode introduced Paul to a range of new experiences including the theatre – which may have played a part in Paul’s burgeoning interest in fusing operatic orchestras with his rock music”. The same goes for Cynthia Lennon. Often discarded and abused, would it be too troubling, dark and problematic focusing on a woman who was often mistreated horribly by John Lennon?! It would be very harsh if she were left out: “As other girlfriends and wives entered and exited the tightknit foursome, Cynthia proved to be a grounding force that helped them adjust into the fold. Often to the detriment of her happiness and wellbeing, Cynthia also stoically braved loneliness, affairs, single-handedly raising a child, and at times, violence, as John and The Beatles’ career flourished. Eventually, it was John’s spiral into LSD that caused a rift between the pair. “John needed to escape his reality. I understood completely but I couldn’t go along with him.” Cynthia later said of John’s experimenting with drugs. She and Julian Lennon directly and indirectly inspired many great Beatles tracks including You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, Across The Universe, Hey Jude and Julia”.

We must not overlook also the role women in music played on The Beatles and their own music. It is wonderful that such a strong quartet of actors are filing the shoes of women who were more than just ‘Beatles wives’. Instead, these women had incredible influence and were instrumental when it came to growth. Inspiring so many incredible and enduring songs, behind closed doors, I think their importance in keeping The Beatles grounded is pivotal. Although articles have been written about the women behind The Beatles and there are great podcasts out there, a lot of books and recent articles do not cover that. In light of Sam Mendes releasing new Beatles films in 2028, I hope that provided impetus for journalists, writers and fans to discuss the significance of women in The Beatles’ story. Not just their wives. The adoring and loyal fans. Women in music who compelled The Beatles. Without these women, then the band would undoubtedly not be as enduring, successful and important as they are. My concern is that the films might not delve too deeply regarding the lives and multiple sides of these fascinating women. We cannot underestimate the role of these women. This article argues why The Beatles’ screaming fans mattered: “The teens who shrieked for John, Paul, George, or Ringo were learning that their desires could matter on a public scale, and later in the sixties that would start changing gender dynamics in ways we’re still adjusting to”. The Beatlemania fandom and teenage hysteria provided a chance for revolution and expression: “If you were a girl, especially one on the cusp of adolescence, Beatles fandom possessed an additional frisson. The critic Barbara Ehrenreich noted in a 1992 essay that while mainstream culture was increasingly sexualised (paging Philip Larkin), teenage girls were still expected to be paragons of purity. "To abandon control – to scream, faint, dash about in mobs – was, in form if not in conscious intent, to protest the sexual repressiveness, the rigid double standard of female teen culture," wrote Ehrenreich. "It was the first and most dramatic uprising of women's sexual revolution”.

Maybe I am going slightly off the main track: that which concerns The Beatles’ wives. However, they form part of a discussion that needs to be reignited and continue. How compelling and influential these people were! We often talk about women like Patti Boyd and Yoko Ono in terms of the songs they provoked. That rather sexist idea of ‘the muse’. Instead, they were these independent and extraordinary women whose roles and significance is much deeper. How they almost had to remain under the radar because of press and fan intrusion. Stabilising, inspiring, evocative, talented, and superlative, there almost should be a film about them. Or a documentary. A perfect opportunity to emphasis and recontextualise their role, I am hopeful Sam Mendes’s casting reflects this desire. By casting these multifarious and multitalented actors who, between them, have appeared in some extraordinary films and T.V. shows, he is preparing to explore the incredible lives of The Beatles’ wives. They are more than that. The Beatles’ She Loves You contains these lyrics: “Yes, she loves you/And you know you should be glad”. That seems insincere and too little when we think of Yoko Ono, Maureen Starkey, Patti Boyd and Linda Eastman (and the other women in The Beatles lives that may never make it to the screen). These are the phenomenal women whose roles and importance is…

BIGGER than you can imagine!

FEATURE: Girlbands Forever: The Highs, Middles and Lows: Saluting the Icons, and Looking Ahead to the New Crop

FEATURE:

 

 

Girlbands Forever: The Highs, Middles and Lows

 IN THIS PHOTO: Eternal

 

Saluting the Icons, and Looking Ahead to the New Crop

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I would urge everyone…

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Mix/PHOTO CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/MTV 2018/Getty Images

to check out a new BBC series, Girlbands Forever. The three episodes available on BBC iPlayer are extraordinary. Featuring an incredible range of contributors, including members of All Saints, Atomic Kitten and Sugababes, we get a real insight into the realities of being a girlband in the 1990s and 2000s. Although we might think of all the highs and success, there were some real lows and grim realities. Starting with the 1990s, this was a decade when All Saints, Eternal and the Spice Girls did battle for chart success. But what was the real cost?! What was happening behind the scenes?! Some of the first words spoken in that episode mentioned how it was all “smoke and mirrors”. The misogyny and male dominance. How harsh and imbalanced it was. I will end this feature by looking at a crop of incredible girlbands who are coming through. I do wonder whether labelling these awesome artists as ‘girl groups’ or ‘girl bands’ was in any way demeaning or infantilising. However, the more I watched of this series, the fuller picture I got. It changed my understanding of what girlbands had to face and what their lives were like.

These hugely powerful and inspiring women perhaps not getting their due. Whilst the BBC series does chart the high and glorious moments, there is an unmasking of what it was really like. I want to start out by highlighting some observations from the women who contributed to the series. I will select four women who were part of incredible girlbands. Those who have left a legacy and inspired so many girls and young women. From this BBC article, we can glean a sense of what it was like. Sugababes’ Heidi Range shared her experiences:

“Not long after you joined the group, the band had their first number one hit. What was it like being catapulted into the limelight?

I grew up singing my entire life and dreaming that one day I would ‘make it’. It was only a matter of weeks from first joining the band, I was standing on stage at the MTV Awards in Frankfurt, presenting Eminem with an award. It was mind blowing how my life had changed overnight. Cut to a few months later and our first single together, Freak Like Me went in straight at Number 1! It was everything I’d ever dreamt of and more.

The lineup changed several times during your time, how did that impact your experience in the group?

Each lineup change happened for different reasons and each time it was difficult to deal with. I was part of the group for almost 11 years and I guess it’s inevitable that within any job over that period of time, people, their circumstances and their needs change and there’s nothing you can do about it if someone chooses that they want something else.

When you look back at your time in the band, what moment stands out as the highlight?

Looking back now, it was all a highlight really. I spent my twenties travelling the world, writing and performing music with so many incredible artists. I am really proud of what we achieved together.

One performance that really stands out for me though was performing at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday in Hyde Park. The night before the concert, all the artists were invited to take a guest to a pre-show dinner with him and I took my Nan. I asked our glam team to do her hair and makeup, she wore a fabulous dress and then we went to the dinner together. It was the most incredible evening and I’ll never forget spending that special time with her.

Another stand out moment was being the first girl band to play the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in 2003. We were terrified and there was a debate taking place on the radio about whether a pop band should be allowed to perform there as we were driving to the site. We thought we might get bottles of pee thrown at us, but it was absolutely mega. As soon as we came off stage, we all wanted to go straight back on and do it all again.

Kelle Bryan of Eternal was asked what her experiences were. A lot of these girlbands were pitched against one another. Although they all had their own sound and personality, I think there was this temptation to lump them together or be reductive. Even though these women reflect on proud moments, there would have been moments of burnout, sexism, misogyny and the blackness of fame at that time that was hugely detrimental and damaging. Something that one hopes would not exist today for girlbands. Though I suspect some of that poison and misogyny still can be felt:

“Eternal were pioneers for UK girlbands, especially as an interracial group, how did that shape your experience?

It shaped the experience the whole way through, from beginning to end. At the beginning I was quite naive to the knock on effects, because Louise was my friend from school, so I never really thought about her as anything other than just my mate. There was a disparity of interest towards Louise as opposed to us.

On stage, Louise was properly lit, we weren't. They would have makeup for Louise but not for us. Those kinds of disparities were very evident. But on the flip side, when we went to America, there were times where they would focus on the rest of us. The whole way through, it was peppered with all kinds of nuances and difficulties, racism and unconscious bias.

Musically, what set Eternal apart from the other girlbands at the time?

When we started there wasn't anyone before us. It was Bananarama, and Mel and Kim were on the scene. At the time, we proved that girlbands could be successful. Then a whole plethora of groups came after us. In the States, there were SWV and En Vogue, we met them when we started doing promotion in America.

It was quite a strange time, because you're not realising that you’re driving things forward for women, you're just doing the best you can to keep sane and keep working. The schedule was brutal, but you don't realise you're starting a trend, making history or starting a legacy. You're too busy working, because it was lots of hard work!

What legacy did Eternal leave on the girlband scene?

So there's an artist called Laura Mvula and she's amazing. It sounds weird but, for whatever reason she's inspired by what I did in my career, and she attributes some of her success to us. She invited me to go see her when she was doing a live performance for BBC Radio 2 at Symphony Hall and I went with my kids. I've never witnessed anything quite so outstanding as her performance. I can't tell you how incredible she is. I left her a message thanking her so much for the tickets, and she sent me a beautiful and heartfelt voice message back which really affected me.

Another person who does that kind of thing is Emeli Sandé, and Jessie J did just the other day. I can't bear the compliments because it feels surreal. Back in the day, we were just getting on with it, I was in the trenches. I really wasn't thinking about anyone other than get up, don't cry. When it was at its peak you’re thinking ‘I can’t sleep in this bed because though it's not my bed’ and the jet lag was so hard, we were just surviving.

When you hear kind stuff like that from Laura, you're just like, ‘what?’. I think it's because there weren't very many people like us around at the time, and we had gospel roots and sang harmonies, and the music was very R&B led, and you just couldn’t break through the charts with that kind of music back in the 90s”.

All Saints’ Melanie Blatt and Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton talked about their time in two of the biggest British girlbands ever. Whilst there would have been these moments of sisterhood and commercial highs that they would have dreamed of, Girlbands Forever gives a more balanced view of the actual realities. Not looking through rose-tinted glasses. Lessons that hopefully have been learned. Ones we cannot forget or overlook:

“How did you shape the All Saints’ sound and what made you stand out?

The All Saints sound grew very organically. We were listening to a lot of Hip-hop and R&B from the states, so that was always going to be a huge influence. Shaz and I also grew up listening to all sorts of music from Reggae to Funk to Jungle. Shaz has an amazing talent for writing, and once we met K-Gee, who we spent almost two years in the studio with before we got signed to London Records, it was a match made in heaven and with him we created that All Saints sound.

What’s something from your girlband years that you’re really proud of?

I’m proud of what we achieved without really having a game plan. We loved making music fundamentally and that led to a few years of craziness which changed our lives forever. We didn’t really play the game and I suppose that makes me proud!”.

You became a mother during your time in Atomic Kitten, what are your thoughts on how the music industry deals with motherhood?

I can't really comment on how it deals with it now, because I don't know. I'm hoping people have learned from back then that to keep a young woman away from their baby, is probably not going to end in a very positive way. It's going to end in resentment, postnatal depression, and I'd like to think the duty of care towards women within the industry in general is now a lot more caring and understanding. It’s a multi-billion dollar business, but you're also working with human beings, so let's put the human first before the money.

What was the biggest misconception about Atomic Kitten?

That we were always fighting and there was a lot of bitchiness going on. I was on tour with my sisters. Yes, we argued. Who doesn't argue with their siblings? It came from a place of love and a place of being in each other's pockets 24/7, you're going to annoy each other. You need a bit of space, but you don't get it, so you're going to end up sniping. We always made up with each other, so it wasn't as bitchy as people thought. We were very much sisters.

Looking back, what are you most proud of from your girlband years?

Honestly, that I can still sit here in one piece and be a fully functioning person, because there was a time where I thought, ‘Will I ever recover from this?’. Physically and mentally it is really intense and it's overwhelming, but it just makes you more robust, and now I've come full circle. I've launched my own record label. I'm going to be looking after the next generation of young UK pop acts. I wouldn’t be able to do it properly if it weren’t for the experiences I’ve had. The duty of care is huge for me”.

I was a big fan of girlbands in the 1990s and 2000s. All Saints, Spice Girls, TLC, Destiny’s Child were some of my favourites. Little Mix, Atomic Kitten, Sugarbabes and Mis-Teeq are pioneering and important. I will look at a review for the new series. However, there are some fascinating takeaways from the episodes. How Kerry Katona talked about how hard it was. Melanie Blatt reveals how proud she is of the legacy of what she did with All Saints. Though there was all this toxicity and trauma. How there needed to be this sisterhood to survive. I guess, for people like me, we were looking at things from the outside. What the music press were telling us. It was incredible, seemingly. Although a lot of the language used is problematic and definitely misogynistic, and so much of the imagery and photoshoots exploitative, there was this feeling that everything was perfect and the girlbands were having the time of their lives. We can’t forget about the incredible music and how impactful it was. Bands that have endured to this day and changed so many lives. The U.S. bands like SWV and En Vogue shaped how British bands such as All Saints presented themselves. Melanie Blatt discussing how she looked to the U.S. bands and wanted to do what they did. I think what is common and obvious is how ambitious girlbands were. Even if they came from different musical traditions, there was this desire to make it and fulfil their dreams. You do wonder what the experiences for these girls would have been like if they had been mostly managed by women. Female producers and women calling the shots. It seems like the most positive moments and strength came from within the groups. Although you smile hearing members of All Saints and Eternal discuss their path and the kinship within the groups, there was this bleaker side. Girlbands being marketed on their looks. Told to lose weight to conform to ideals of the press and male gaze. In the process, sending out a bad message to girls who followed the group! Signing contracts and seemingly embarking on this wonderful ride. However, the deeper they get into their careers, that is when cracks appear.

Eternal reached number four with Stay. That was seen as a disappointing chart position. The pressure of bands like this to get to number one. Or they were not relevant and important. How detrimental and demoralising that would have been. If boybands were put under less pressure, there were these other standards for girlbands. Listening to male producers sharing their memories of the time and there are moments that make you wince. Like they have not learned anything themselves. Hearing about how punishing things were. Girlbands being punished to the limit to get to number one. Travelling endlessly, out on diets, told to dress in a certain way and being put on this brutal treadmill that involved endless promotion and personal sacrifice. Louise leaving Eternal because of the pressures and the strain of being in such a high-profile band. When Eternal became a trio, they came under the spotlight in terms of their appearance and weight. Sent to a place in the countryside, where the trio were told what to eat and controlled! That experience was shared by other girlbands. Such a horrible misogyny that many did not know about. Constantly under the spotlight. Everything they did and everywhere they went, they were under this lens. Broadcaster Sara Cox talking about how Britain was rebranding and revitalising in the 1990s under a Labour government. Britpop and the cool bands coming through. Spice Girls the best-known and most popular girlband of that time. Every other girlband having to rival them. I can only imagine what it was like behind closed doors when it came to expectations and workload. Discussion around Girl Power and how that term seemed a little hollow. Eternal pre-dated Spice Girls and perhaps coined that term. Though Kelle Bryan was happy as long as women were getting props and respect!

Before providing further reflections on the three episodes, I want to come to The Guardian and their impressions of the extraordinary Girlbands Forever. Whether you were around in the 1990s and 2000s and grew up with these girlbands, or are approaching them new, it is a must-watch series that takes us inside the highs, middles and lows. Showing the glory, guts and the awful realities. An aspect we do not really talk about as much as we should:

“Of course we want the gossip, fallouts and scandals. Band members interviewed for the three-part series are happy to supply. Kelle Bryan from Eternal reveals they were sent to a facility in the countryside and put on controlled diets to manage their weight (though the head of EMI UK denies all knowledge). Kerry Katona tells how a journalist turned up at her mother’s house with a bag of cocaine to get her to sell a story. Melanie Blatt of All Saints says that when she discovered she was pregnant, she was told to abort.

Girlbands Forever could have been a cynical exercise: see who’s desperate enough to want to be in this, dredge up their worst moments while viewers make assessments about which of them has the nicest house. Instead, it has sensitivity and scope, as interested in charting the social mores these artists created, were crucified by, or changed in some way.

I’m not sure things have improved. Attractive celebrities once took pains to hide their relationships, to maintain an illusion of being sexually available. These days, we’ve exploded the notion of privacy, and realised relationships can be cannibalised on social media for cachet. Progress! Black artists once worked five times as hard for a 20th of the attention. Imagine. The show is refreshingly unequivocal that the addition of a slender, blond, white woman could transform a band’s fortune. While our pop culture lens has widened, it’s hardly pointing in a different direction.

It’s the old footage that breaks your heart. They are such vibrantly talented children. Look at Atomic Kitten meeting Westlife for the first time, all teenage flirtation. Check out the “steely, non-choreography” of the early, surly Sugababes. There is adorable footage of Mutya on a Michael Barrymore show, in which she appears to literally be a baby. I’m glad the doc gets into the Sugababes’ revolving door policy. One of the funniest things to happen in music this century, it’s also a living manifestation of the Ship of Theseus philosophical paradox. Let’s not get into that.

Spice Girls are the silverbacks in the ring, who came from nowhere and conquered the globe with their debut single. None feature here, yet it’s interesting to hear from established artists who floundered in the wake of the Jenny-come-latelies. Some profess to being underwhelmed by Wannabe, while their five-way demographic appeal is presented as a triumph of marketing. “Girl Power? That was EMI power,” scoffs producer Pete Waterman.

The music industry comes out of this badly (though Piers Morgan comes out of it worse than anyone). A repeating pattern we’re shown is that when band members get pregnant, the sentence handed down from male management is the same: you’ve destroyed the band. In this context, seeing Blatt perform at Party in the Park with her pronounced baby bump showing, sexy and defiant as ever, is a punk-rock, sea-change vision. Still the coolest person in the room, she had reservations about appearing here at all. “Hello, I’m Mel from the 90s” is how she introduces herself. Oh, she dope.

Another repeating pattern: talented but frustrated girls break ties with their Henry Higgins founders and succeed in their own way. No matter how these bands started, what they become is up to them. Without always feeling empowered, they were avatars of it for younger generations. They represented the joy of being in a gang of girls, often working-class, travelling the world and living a dream. The world needs that. Plus you can’t go wrong with a TV soundtrack of songs including Never Ever, Sounds of the Underground and Scandalous. You know what to do. Push the button”.

I am going to get to an article from Stylist. They react to the BBC documentary and how girlbands were chewed up and spat out. We learn how All Saints were objectified and subject to tabloid attention. Nicole and Natalie Appleton getting the brunt of that press intrusion. How women were judged and condemned, whereas men in the industry – and men in film – were not subjected to this kind of sexism. Sara Cox talking about how there was this small window of celebration for women and bands like Spice Girls and All Saints. Tabloids turning on them. Commentators from the time like Noel Gallagher and Vivienne Westwood discussing girlbands in disparaging and insulting terms. How they lacked talent and it was all about marketing. How deflating it would have been for these women who worked tirelessly and had incredible talent – only to be cut down and stabbed in the back! Girlbands becoming public property. The press had so much power. A hate campaign launched against Spice Girls. How that impacted the mental health of bands like Spice Girls. By the early-'00s, tastes and trends changed. How girlbands like All Saints split because of tensions and differences. The group fell out and they parted ways. You have to think that the press and industry pushed them to that point. Private lives of celebrities scrutinised more in the 2000s. Girlbands subjected to that. Gossip magazines adding to the bile. Such a toxic decade. There were definite high moments within girlbands. The chemistry and friendship. Enjoying the highs. However, as the 2000s offered up so many girlbands, there was this crowded scene. Bands like Girl Thing fizzled out. Lacking authenticity, they were too similar to Spice Girls. It was a brutal machine! Mis-Teeq offered something real and different. It was interesting seeing the evolution. Girlbands taking influence from Garage and other genres. The reality was the same in the 2000s as it was in the 1990s. Signing a record label was the start of a punishing and unglamorous life. Being sexualised and controlled. Manipulated and almost trapped. Traveling the world and it being this ecstatic high. The loneliness that came with quiet moments. That led to excess and drinking too much.

Gatekeepers in the industry comparing girlbands to others. Especially problematic was Mis-Teeq being compared to Destiny’s Child because they were Black. They were not given the same opportunities as white girlbands. Magazines not putting them on the cover. Labels wary of fan jealousy when a member of a girlband would date a member of a rival boyband. Atomic Kitten’s Kerry Katona warned off of dating Westlife’s Brian McFadden. The tabloids harassing the girlbands and their families. Friends and families selling out and these scandalous and untrue stories being printed. How horrifying that was for women. Mis-Teeq’s label, Telestar, went bust. Atomic Kitten’s Jenny Frost (who replaced Kerry Katona in Atomic Kitten) revealed how she went for success and how her and Kerry Katona had no bad blood. The 2010s saw a change in how girlbands came together and made it. Rather than it being music executives, it was talent shows like The X Factor. Was it better for women?! Quite brutal and competitive, there was this public scrutiny and exposure. However, there was this raft of talent coming through that people could see on the screens and were not hidden. Little Mix the standout success from The X Factor in terms of girlbands. They were the first band to win the competition. Sugababes another prominent band from the 2010s. Overload was a video that was a breakthrough. So different to other videos from girlbands. Perhaps less about high choreography and confidence from singing and not exerting, there was this change. Sugababes more real than a lot of manufactured girlbands who came before. They were not told to smile and be extroverted. They were real but, with that, they were seen as moody and difficult. Labelled as being troublesome or outsiders!

Heidi Range – who replaced Siobhán Donaghy – talking about how Sugababes wanted to be the biggest girlband. How this was their dream. Natasha Hamilton of Atomic Kitten was diagnosed with postnatal depression and her doctor said she needed six to eight months off. She was given two weeks! She was absolutely crippled by that. How she could not wait to get off stage. Women were not allowed a career if they had children. Has that changed at all today?! The expectation that women either had to be childless or, if they did have a child, continue their career and not take any time off. Record labels do not come off well through Girlbands Forever. How they drove women out of girlbands and forced bands to quit and break up. Mutya Buena left Sugababes because she suffered from mental health issues. The fact that she was replaced the following day by Amelle Berrabah. That lack of sympathy and any sort of dignity. It was all a machine. Red Dress originally had Buena’s vocals on it but they were replaced by Berrabah’s. How it was cut-throat. All about sales and keeping momentum going! No consideration towards the personal lives, happiness and health of the women. Berrabah revealed how Sugababes were told to keep moody and not smile because that was their image. They were not allowed to smile and be free. Treated more like puppets than people! Jade Ewen instantly replaced Keisha Buchanan. How gut-wrenching and insulting that would have been for Buchanan! Sugababes lost their original members. It was almost like this rotating line-up. Now, Keisha Buchanan, Mutya Buena, and Siobhán Donaghy are back as Sugababes. This reformation is amazing, though you feel that is because they are maybe not subjected to the same intensity and scrutiny as the first time around. Able to record and perform together without any backstabbing, label machinations and this tabloid poison. Broadcaster Scott Mills talked about how a girlband like Little Mix had to engage with social media all the time. Something girlbands of the 1990s and 2000s did not really have to do, there was this pressure to keep connecting with fans and keep the hits coming! Perrie Edwards dated One Direction’s Zayn Malik. Fans of One Direction picking Edwards apart. Like girlbands before, them being public property. Torn to shreds and subjected to attacks. They called off their engagement (he dumped her by text). Shout Out to My Ex is a shout-out/hit-back to Zayn Malik. Perrie Edwards emotionally talked about performing in Las Vegas. How exhausted she was. She experienced panic attacks but felt like she had to go on. No sense of care or protection for her. She was taken to hospital and on a drip. Little Mix had to go on without her. The sense of (unfair) guilt that Edwards felt. She said how there was this group dynamic, there was this feeling that you could not let the team down. The upside is that they had each other, though you wonder whether there was any concern or sense of help from the label and management.

Little Mix released Strip. A reaction to the abuse women faced online, it was this empowering statement. Clara Amfo stating how this was a natural thing and really incredible video. Piers Morgan mocking the video. Amfo saying how the video was not for him and how he was being patronising. Little Mix hit back and their fans were unified. Trolls still took their toll. Jesy Nelson left the band because of the trolls. The positives is a lot of these girlbands reforming and performing again after, as Melanie Blatt said, “the first blush of success”. Spice Girls returned to the stage. All Saints recorded new albums. Little Mix found their way back together. Atomic Kitten got back together, as did Sugababes’ original line-up. After all the sh*t they experienced the first time around, the love for each other and those bonds shone through! Final thoughts shared sort of makes me wonder whether the same concerns apply to modern girlbands. How they were too young and inexperienced to know how things would play out. That they didn’t have control and were exploited. How labels would take advantage and did not really look after their best interests. Bands breaking up because they felt they could not continue. Girlbands are vital, as Eternal’s Kelle Bryan said. Misogyny still raging, so that sense of visibility, empowerment and solidarity more needed than ever! Misogyny and violence towards women much more widespread now than back decades ago. How we need to encourage a new wave of brilliant women. Before coming to that, Stylist reacted to Girlbands Forever and what they took away from it:

“Honestly, every clip in this documentary is a reminder of how the music industry chewed women up and spat them out in the name of empowerment. Men assumed control of these young women and issued ominous warnings (“one day, success is going to go away”), and even at the height of ‘girl power’, female autonomy was seen as a business risk. Indeed, no secret is made of how the Spice Girls were – inspired by the success of the TV show Friends – built to be more “universally appealing” than the R&B stylings of Eternal.

Translation? Music industry moguls wanted something whiter, safer and easier to sell.

While some had to fight tooth and nail for every success and others immediately landed a No. 1 hit, it’s little wonder that competition began to simmer between the groups. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that feuds were manufactured and nurtured by the press for column inches.

“We were pretty used to the tabloids being c**ts in general,” says Melanie Blatt frankly.

It’s all too easy to assume that things have got better as time has marched on. That the press has grown more enlightened, that women are no longer demonised for breaking outside the narrow boxes that society assigns them. Sadly, though, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nelly Furtado has stepped back from performing after relentless body-shaming attacks. Jesy Nelson left Little Mix (who appear in a later episode of the docuseries) after years of comparison and online abuse. Taylor Swift and Charli xcx have been plagued by feud rumours since 2018. Lily Allen recently said that she always feels “like I am fighting against a tabloid version of myself”. And just weeks ago, Chappell Roan told The Face she might quit music altogether if the harassment aimed at her and those around her doesn’t stop.

It’s the same poison, albeit administered via a different delivery system. The screaming headlines of the 90s haven’t gone away; they’ve merely been digitised. And, honestly, the damage that was done to women in the public eye by a paparazzi zoom lens? Well, social media now does it faster, louder and so much more personally. Step one foot outside the line, and the mob will be waiting with TikTok reels and cruel Instagram comments.

It’s the same poison, but administered differently

I suppose what Girlbands Forever really shows us is that the problem was never the music: it was how we expected – and still expect – women to behave while making it. They were silently urged to stick to the boringly inoffensive roles that society (ie the patriarchy) has given us. To smile. To be funny, but not funnier than the men in the room. To be ambitious, but apologise for it constantly. To be (and I’m borrowing from Britney Spears here) not a girl, but not yet a woman. And when female artists push back – when they get angry, gain weight, fall pregnant or dare to do something as villainous as visibly age – they are branded a problem to be dealt with.

Every decade, the faces change, but the crime stays the same: being a woman who refuses to shrink herself for comfort. And Girlbands Forever (despite being billed as “a celebration of a time of very special music and talent” by executive producer Louis Theroux) goes out of its way to highlight the pain behind the pop-perfect façade. Because maybe that’s the real legacy of the 90s: not girl power, but girl pressure. A generation of women who were told they could have it all, as long as they stayed within the frame.

Sadly, as Chappell Roan, Nelly Furtado and every woman who’s ever been called “too loud”, “too old” or “too much” knows all too well, the frame hasn’t moved an inch”.

The sisterhood and that sense of girlbands giving voice and solidarity to girls and women. Perrie Edwards (Little Mix) among those who hoped girlbands would live forever. Today, although there is not the same sort of wave of girlbands, there is hope for a revival. British groups like FLO and Say Now burning bright. There is so much to take from Girlbands Forever. Open and revealing, the women who were part of these phenomenal girlbands told their truths. It was so refreshing but also shocking! Positives emerge. How glorious the music was and how there was this sisterhood. I think groups like Say Now and FLO are going to inspire so many other girlbands. FLO released their debut album, Access All Areas, last year. Hugely promising, they look to be girlband legends of the future. Offering a mix of genres and shining and burning with authenticity and power, they are leading a charge. Similarly, Say Now are releasing incredible single after incredible single! I agree that we will always need girlbands. I grew up listening to them and still do today. Girlbands Forever was a wonderful reminder of all the amazing women who released this timeless music against all the odds. From press harassment to misogyny and reductive and demoralising attitudes from labels. Attacked on social media and almost pitted again one another. Women who should have combined and boosted each other were almost baited by the press to go against their sisters. However, the fact that so many of the original queens are back together – whether for a few live dates and nothing more or an album or two -, that is giving inspiration and strength to women who want to form bands and follow their idols. There is probably more stock given to other types of bands now. How girlbands are not as natural and in vogue as once they were, I feel the tide will change. They offer something familiar but alternative. Few bands focus on harmonies and the incredible anthems girlbands produced in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. We can step back a bit and also take strides forward. Girlbands who can take elements from those who came before but add their own personalities and voices into the mix. When you think of all that girlbands have given to music, you have hope that, when it comes to keeping the flame burning and welcoming in the new generation this empire can be built back up…

BRICK by brick.

FEATURE: The Ballad of Houidini and Rosabel: A Kate Bush-Themed Charity Idea for CRISIS and War Child

FEATURE:

 

 

The Ballad of Houidini and Rosabel

IMAGE CREDIT: The Vermilion

 

A Kate Bush-Themed Charity Idea for CRISIS and War Child

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I have been thinking about…

doing something for charity based around Kate Bush’s music. Two particular charities that Kate Bush is close to and has raised funds for, CRISIS and War Child, are in my mind. You can donate to Crisis here. At this time of year, as we are close to Christmas, you cannot help but think about those who have no home. Those who have to live on the streets. It is such a hard time for those who do not have same luxuries as us. Things that we take for granted. Also, War Child is a very important charity. You can donate here. Kate Bush has recently raised funds for War Child. She released the video for Little Shrew (Snowflake) last year, inspired by images of children displaced asnd affected by the invasion of Ukraine. Recently, Bush has invited fifty-two artists to create art based around lyrics from 1985’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) for a charity auction. On several occasions, Kate Bush has been involved with CRISIS. When there was a Kate Bush pop-up shop in King’s Cross in 2018, Bush announced that £61,000 has been raised. There is charity fundraising related to Kate Bush. Earlier this month, The Sensual World – A Kate Bush Celebration raised money for Cancer vs Cabaret. It was organised by HomeGround and KateBushNews.com. I have been thinking of organising something that would raise money for a couple of charities that Bush has spoken about and raised money for. Where people could donate, though there would be this interactive element. People selecting their favourite Kate Bush song or the one most important to them. It would draw attention to that track and her work in a wider sense, then they could share the post with a link to donate to each charity. Each person who took part would donate to each charity – suggested minimum would be £10 total, though there is no upper limit.

Kate Bush’s constant charity work and commitment is inspiring. Other people starting charity events because of her. I have been thinking about CRISIS and the great work they do. How important it is to donate to them to ensure that they can help give shelter and hope to those who are experiencing homelessness. Trying to affect long-term change. War Child are crucial at a time when many children in Ukraine and Palestine have been devastated by genocide and violence. Not just those two countries. At the moment, we are seeing multiple nations affected by conflict. It is the children that are impacted the most. I think that both charities are so worthy. There would be a hashtag for the endeavour, #KateBushCrisisWarChild, and you would post a link to the Kate Bush song. In terms of words, the person would say why the song is so important to them and then paste the links to War Child and CRISIS, where people can donate. Rather than it being an organised event that is limited to a certain amount of people, the hope is that this could spread further and wider. The idea being that you think about a Kate Bush song that means a lot to you and share it with others. Many might ask what this has to do with the charities. The idea is to raise funds and awareness of them. As Kate Bush has done with her own work and compelling artists to create paintings around her lyrics, this would be a simple way of getting people involved, though with an element of creativity and thought. Although this song is not the most important Kate Bush song to me, it is my favourite. One that I have a lot of thought around. I guess, if I were to start a ball rolling and say why this is so important, I would say the following: “Kate Bush at her vocal, production and lyrical high. A peerless and hugely original song from The Dreaming, I adore Houdini”. It is brief but gives explanation as to why the song sticks in my mind.

I have written about Houidini before. I would say Wuthering Heights and Them Heavy People are more important and affecting. I have a longer relationship with those songs. However, Houidini is my favourite Kate Bush song. In 1982, Kate Bush was pushing her sound and experimentation. The Dreaming is a stunningly ambitious and layered album. Producing solo for the first time, you can hear how much effort and time she put into the album. The penultimate song on The Dreaming, Houidini is classic Kate Bush. In terms of the lyrics, it could only have come from her mind! Here, Kate Bush talks about the inspiration behind the song:

“The side most people know of Houdini is that of the escapologist, but he spent many years of his life exposing mediums and seances as frauds. His mother had died, and in trying to make contact through such spiritual people, he realized how much pain was being inflicted on people already in sorrow, people who would part with money just for the chance of a few words from a past loved one. I feel he must have believed in the possibility of contact after death, and perhaps in his own way, by weeding out the frauds, he hoped to find just one that could not be proven to be a fake. He and his wife made a decision that if one of them should die and try to make contact, the other would know it was truly them through a code that only the two of them knew.
His wife would often help him with his escapes. Before he was bound up and sealed away inside a tank or some dark box, she would give him a parting kiss, and as their lips met, she would pass him the key which he would later use to unlock the padlocks that chained him. After he died, Mrs. Houdini did visit many mediums, and tried to make contact for years, with no luck – until one day a medium called Mr. Ford informed her that Houdini had come through. She visited him and he told her that he had a message for her from Houdini, and he spoke the only words that meant for her the proof of her husband’s presence. She was so convinced that she released an official statement to the fact that he had made contact with her through the medium, Ford.
It is such a beautiful and strange story that I thought I had very little to do, other than tell it like it was. But in fact it proved to be the most difficult lyric of all the songs and the most emotionally demanding. I was so aware of trying to do justice to the beauty of the subject, and trying to understand what it must have been like to have been in love with such an extraordinary man, and to have been loved by him. I worked for two or three nights just to find one line that was right. There were so many alternatives, but only a few were right for the song. Gradually it grew and began to piece together, and I found myself wrapped up in the feelings of the song – almost pining for Houdini. Singing the lead vocal was a matter of conjuring up that feeling again and as the clock whirrs and the song flashes back in time to when she watched him through the glass, he’s on the other side under water, and she hangs on to his every breath. We both wait.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982”.

I love how, to get the mucus/gravelled vocal sound, Bush drank milk and ate chocolate to get that sort of phlegm. This is something that is not advised, though she wanted to get this almost ghostly or demonic growl. You can hear this intensified on the final track from The Dreaminmg, Get Out of My House. Bush’s vocals goes from whispered and quivering to this intense and almost frightening shout in the chorus. The imagery throughout is fascinating. So unconventional and original, few artists around Bush were writing about this sort of thing. Her production on the song is superb. The gorgeous and sweeping strings were written and arranged by Dave Lawson and Andrew Powell. We get brief vocal from Gordon Farrell, who says “Houidini”; Del Palmer says “Rosabel believe”. Standout drums from Stuart Elliott. One of the standouts from an album still underrated and misunderstood, I think few songs can match the beauty and potency of Houidini. I do want to get something together where money can be raised for CRISIS and War Child that would involve Kate Bush’s music. I do not have a tonne of followers, so I worry that it might not get that much traction. However, if the charities themselves collaborated, then it could get wider attention and awareness. Kate Bush fans getting a chance to share that standout Kate Bush and say why. For me, I would have to go with my favourite: the spectral and…

SPECTACULAR Houdini.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Anna von Hausswolff

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Philip Svensson

 

Anna von Hausswolff

__________

THIS is someone whose music…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ines Sebalj

I have loved for years, and I compelled to come back to her. I have included her in features before, though I have never spotlighted her. As her extraordinary new album, ICONOCLASTS, is out and is one of the best-reviewed of the year, I want to shine a light on Anna von Hausswolff. I am going to end this feature with a review for ICONOCLASTS. Before that, there are a couple of interviews from recently that I want to introduce. I want to start out with an interview from Interview, where Iggy Pop (who is a guest on ICONOCLASTS) chatted with Anna von Hausswolff. It was a really interesting interview. A lot of mutual respect and curiosity. I have chosen a few segments from their conversation here:

“POP: Oh, that’s beautiful. I’m curious about Iconoclasts, the name of the record you made. How did you come up with that name?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: One of the first songs that I wrote for the album is “The Iconoclast,” and that song became the starting point. The album is about questioning something and breaking out from something. It could be an illusion, a system, a relationship. I wanted the title to just represent the questioning and the breaking out of worship, worship of a lifestyle, worship of thought, and finding something new.

POP: There must be something in the stars right now because that’s happening up and down levels of society. The boundaries and nationalities right now are often very silly.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: I think worship can be such a beautiful thing. It can give you so much hope and inspiration. Worship of love, worship of certain people. But when it comes to people in general, you have to be very careful because it could so easily lean over to something extreme, something that is not grounded in who your true self is. We have such a tendency to become obsessed with things or obsessed with people.

POP: It’s becoming evident, probably through social media, that there are certain people who seem to be doing so well. Meaning, if you count up the numbers or look at the size of the yacht or how many jets or how much they can influence a government. And then there are people who just aren’t getting anywhere and they feel that way. I am an old git who loves very, very much the mid-60s to 1970s, which was titled loosely to the free jazz movement. And the first cut on the record, “Struggle With the Beast,” reminds me of the period where John Coltrane would take a Broadway show tune like “My Favorite Things,” and elevate it with very beautiful music. I’d never heard you work with saxophones or anything like that. How was that recorded? Who are the saxophonists?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: For the whole album, and that track in particular, I collaborated with the saxophonist called Otis Sandsjö.

POP: That’s a good player, really.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: He is brilliant. And like almost everyone I work with, he’s someone that I know from my past, from school or my childhood. Before I made this album, I wrote music for a theater play in Stockholm called The Lower Depths, a play by Maxim Gorky. It was the first time I arranged for Woodwind.

POP: You can read music?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: Very badly, but I know the basics, and I think it’s very convenient to work in Logic. Logic has so many tools where you can work intuitively with a MIDI synth and you can play directly. And then you can add layers and it will convert it into notes.

POP: It’s a killer. There are several times, I think, on Facing Atlas—and then on the one we did, “The Whole Woman,” but also on “Young Aging Women”—where suddenly there are melodies that are very close to certain kinds of pop ballads, trying to lift the chorus and everything. You can write that stuff. Hats off.

VON HAUSSWOLFF: I think I wanted, with this album, to stay a little bit true to who I was at the beginning of my musical career and what sort of music I was interested in, aside from all of the rock and experimental music. When I started playing music, it started with me and my sister and our friend. We were singing together. It was a lot of R&B, a lot of soul, a lot of pop. And we were also dancing hip-hop. So, I wanted to bring in more movement, and I wanted to have these very clear, simple pop lines that would just stem directly from the heart somehow. I would not give it too much thought or intellectualize it too much.

POP: For a listener, it’s pretty rare to hear those sorts of things without being accompanied by some horrible productions beating you over the head. On “The Whole Woman,” my favorite lines are when you say, “I’m not afraid to go down to the harbor” and “See you again to tell you the whole truth.” Do you go down to the harbor?

VON HAUSSWOLFF: Yeah, I do a lot. Whenever I need to air out some emotions, the harbor is my place. The ocean is my go-to spot when I need to calm myself or when I need to get out of my own head. I think the harbor is also, for this song, a place to say farewell at the same time, to clean yourself from your past”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fredrik Bengtsson

A slight detour, perhaps, I did like this feature from The Quietus, where Anna von Hausswolff chose a selection of albums that were important to her. Her favourites. Why these albums are important to her. I have chosen a few to highlight here, as I feel you can detect a bit of each of them in ICONOCLASTS:

“Nils Frahm - Spaces

I became familiar with Nils Frahm through the label Kning Disk, who released my Singing From The Grave and Ceremony records. Kning Disk’s Mattias Nilsson had released The Bells by Nils. That is a very minimalistic classical piano record. When I heard his music for the first time, I fell in love instantly. I had just finished high school, where I had studied classical piano. The classical music world can be really restrained and pretentious. You are supposed to play in a certain way and it is not supposed to be too simple. Simplicity is not anything that you should strive to achieve – or at least that was my impression when I had studied classical music at school.

So, it was a relief to hear The Bells by Nils Frahm. He had a background in classical music but he still allowed himself to play these simple patterns over and over again. He would let the music breath and have a lot of space between each note. At the time, that was very inspiring to hear for me. I then followed him and heard Spaces, which was released in 2013. I heard it when I was touring and was surprised by how much he had progressed, in going from those really simple songs to these huge, grand compositions with a lot of electronic beats. He has took his own way of writing classical music and has combined it with electronics in a very organic way. It felt very new and very special.

I think there are some field recordings and some live recordings on the album. It’s interesting, because all of the songs fit beautifully together. What I am extremely impressed by is his way of making everything sound so organic, even though he is processing sounds through lots of effects pedals or is playing synthesisers on a programmed arpeggio song. That is rare for people who are working with electronics, in the way that he does.

I was his support act for a show in Amsterdam and we have kept in contact by email. He told me a while ago that he built a ‘touring organ’. I was very jealous. I wonder if he treasures his touring organ. I need to steal his touring organ. I then saw him play a show in Paris with his touring organ and he played songs from Spaces, but then he played many new songs on the organ. The new songs were even better. Therefore, his next album may knock Spaces out of this list.

Nico - Desertshore

I got this record from my dad as a birthday gift, but before that I had heard it via my sister. My sister presented this record to me when I was 16 or 17 and then I got it from my dad in my 20s. It was nice to get again from him as I had forgotten how good it was. I remember listening to it a lot when I was 16, but I wasn’t mesmerised in the way I was when I heard it when older.

Nico is probably one of the most influential songwriters for me, when it comes to vocal delivery. She is very brave in the way that she uses her voice and, of course, I am very impressed by the depth of her voice. It is raw, honest, and very authentic. It doesn’t feel like she is putting on a costume and I believe in every single word she is singing. I think it takes a very musical person to deliver such honesty in such complex pop songs. Even though there is complexity to this album, it still feels quite accessible. In addition, there is a very intriguing ambience to this record with lots of interesting sounds. I think it was co-produced by John Cale.

Nico is without doubt one of my most important role models, alongside Diamanda Galás. Diamanda Galás isn’t on this list because I prefer her in a live format than I do on record. With Nico, I love how she delivers her lyrics and I like the rawness in her. She seemed to be a very uncompromising person.

Paul Giovanni & Magnet – The Wicker Man

I have never made a score for a film, but I like to think I am doing a score for a film when I make an album. With a film soundtrack, the artist has to think more of how the pieces are connected to each other and how the album evolves dynamically throughout each song, instead of each song having its own disconnected and separate dynamic from the other songs like a typical pop record. I think that’s why I like to put soundtracks on my favourite album list, because as a whole they are amazing as opposed to an album with five amazing songs and then the rest could be kind of crap.

For The Wicker Man, the music is by Paul Giovanni and Magnet. I think this version of the band Magnet was created for this album. I don’t know if Magnet exist or made anything else apart from this soundtrack. The music is inspired by Scottish, English and Irish tunes and, for me, overshadows the film in its greatness. I like the film as well – it is a very eccentric horror film and at times it almost becomes a musical. I like how the music is so entwined with the film, so they become as one.

I like the record so much because it connects to the places, culture and the people in The Wicker Man. Magnet and Giovanni have taken something old and made something personal and new from it. I like how music traditions can be passed from one generation to another and be changed a little by each transmittance. I realise that now that film is quite old, but for me it still feels contemporary”.

I want to come to an interview from The Line of Best Fit from last month. The Swedish musician and composer talked about her new album. We also learned more about a frightening experience four years ago where von Hausswolff was in a church in Nantes and, outside, there was protest from right-wing Catholic fundamentalists who had barricaded fans away from her gig. When it comes to ICONOCLASTS, Anna von Hausswolff “found kindred spirits in rebels and disruptors to create her most urgent work yet”:

“In a break from von Hausswolff’s own tradition, ICONOCLASTS wears its central themes close to its turbulent surface rather than letting them linger in the depths. “A lot of these songs are about love, in various ways, but I wanted the album to feel like a battle cry,” she says, clenching a fist in her lap. “It felt urgent to me to express a sense of wanting things to change and actually taking steps towards that change. It’s so easy to say what you believe but then not really live by those beliefs or follow those rules. For me, I know I have my morals and my ethics, but I don’t always act by them.”

In a way, it's a continuation of a lifetime’s effort to try and unlearn the habit of people pleasing, which she says is still a constant struggle – but it’s bigger than that, too. ICONOCLASTS is a call for greater agency on every level: passivity is out and breaking free of structures and bonds that no longer serve us is very much in. On “Facing Atlas”, a song about the perils of committing too fully to one viewpoint or side, she invokes the hapless Greek Titan condemned to forever hold up the sky as a symbol of what not to become. “The foolish hope of great eternal beauty,” she sings, as if taunting herself. “This shit breaks my heart.” She’s sorry, too, on eco-banger “Stardust”, which sings of a life “vaporised into the sky” and vehemently howls “it’s time to make mistakes” – or time at least to care enough to try.

“I’m not an activist. I’m not a politician. I’m a musician, an artist, and I think that art should be allowed to not always play by the rules of what’s correct and what’s not correct,” she says, so long as it comes from a place of considered intention. At an hour and a quarter long, von Hausswolff’s sixth album is a lot to digest but not a moment of it goes to waste. Even when “The Iconoclast” screams its way into a void part-way through its 11-minute runtime, those few beats of silence carry just as much weight and speak just as loudly.

These days, von Hausswolff has made peace with the fact that she’s sometimes a little pitchy when she sings. After all, it’s seldom through perfection that our real truths our told, but through the heat and charge of the moment. Few people know that better than ‘godfather of punk’ Iggy Pop, who lends his bombed-out vibrato to pop ballad “The Whole Woman”, ICONOCLASTS’ most outwardly straightforward love song. “He felt like a dad to me,” she says, remembering their first meeting years ago. “He had an energy about him that felt like family.” And while the song was originally written as a conversation between lovers, von Hausswolff sees it now as something much more open. Still a love song, but not necessarily a romantic love. Perhaps a conversation between two sides of the same person, even. There’s an almost ritualistic feel to it, as if calling on the power of the sea to wash away the pettiness of life and find new common ground.

This idea of rising above the daily circus of bullshit is one she returns to a few times throughout our conversation, and it all comes back to hip hop, specifically Kendrick Lamar. “I feel like he’s one of those artists who’s so good at not dwelling in the darkness but rising above it, putting a spotlight on problems and openly encouraging change,” she explains, crediting the rapper for inspiring her to want to be a bigger, grander version of herself, and to stand her ground in the process. “He might actually have been the most important artist for ICONOCLASTS, even if you can’t hear it in the music.”

When it comes to world building and musical horror, few have done it better in recent years than Ethel Cain, who joins von Hausswolff on “Aging Young Women”, ICONOCLASTS’ second luminous ballad, a song about the chances that slip away with time and the angst that comes with their passing. Introduced to Cain’s music by her sister Maria, von Hausswolff says she didn’t fully click with it at first. She wasn’t in the right emotional space to receive it. But then came the breakup, and suddenly everything fell into place. “Once I started really listening it felt very genuine to me and I fell in love,” she says. “Something about Ethel really resonated with me, emotionally, musically, and artistically. Her music felt healing, and the music I was writing was also a way of healing, so I wanted to honour her and have her on this song.”

“I’m always drawn to female artists who use dark aesthetics but aren’t afraid to balance that darkness with a little bit of light, to show both sides. Artists like Chelsea Wolfe, Pharmakon, and Emma Ruth Rundle. I can’t listen to their music all the time because it needs a certain time and space. But, like with Ethel's music, once you find that time and space, it's going to be beautiful”.

I am going to end with a five-star review from The Guardian for ICONOCLASTS. Featuring incredible guests spots from Iggy Pop and Ethel Cain, this spectacular album “pivots from drones to spectacular pop melodies”. It is clear that Anne von Hausswolff is a truly mesmerising artist. I have known about her music  for years and she has not dropped a step. Her sixth studio album, her latest work, might well be her very best. An artist that seemingly gets better with every release:

“Iconoclasts is a long album – it lasts the best part of an hour and a quarter – but it still feels crammed with sound. There are heaving synthesised drones that, in their intensity, occasionally evoke the sound of Fuck Buttons’ 2009 masterpiece Tarot Sport; explosions of fizzing noise; cinematic orchestrations; and drum patterns that marry a ritualistic-sounding thunder to rhythms that variously recall the pulse of dance music, the glitterbeat stomp of glam, and even reggae. Von Hausswolff is less inclined to erupt into shrieks and ululations than she once was, but her singing still has a blazing forcefulness that cuts through the echo she is frequently doused in.

It’s music that feels as if it’s in constant motion, amplified by the fact that the melodies, rich and beautiful as they are, seldom adhere to any standard verse-chorus structure: the songs here usually end up somewhere very different from the place they started. Indeed, its maximalism might be too overwhelming to take in one long sitting.

But if it is too much, it’s too much of a good thing: with their sense of movement, their twists and turns, their radiant tunes, their emotive power, these songs are exhausting because they’re exhilarating. For an album with a worldview summed up by a striking line from Facing Atlas that declares life on Earth “full of shit and full of evil”, that ponders ageing and paralysing depression, and on which it is frequently unclear whether the songs are dealing with something personal or with current events (“the sky is crashing down upon the ships of freedom … the life we had has vaporised into the sky”), its overall mood is a kind of frazzled euphoria. The songs surge and build, the bursts of noise feel cathartic. It’s as if the music is fighting against the tone of the lyrics, urgently pressing forward despite everything. “I’m breaking up with language,” Von Hauswolff sings on Stardust, “in search of something bigger.” In the strange, unique, expansive, impassioned and experimental take on pop presented on Iconoclasts, she seems to have found it”.

I am going to wrap up there. I am surprised that I have not spotlighted Anna von Hauswolff yet. I have included her for Modern-Day Queens, as she is one of the greatest musicians in the world. A phenomenal composer and a hugely consistent songwriter, you can check out her tour dates here. She has a couple of U.K. dates in January, so catch her if you can. ICONOCLASTS is a masterpiece that everyone needs to hear. Her music is so atmospheric and evocative. You put it on, close your eyes, and let it carry you…

INTO this extraordinary place.

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