FEATURE:
My Five Favourite Albums of 2021
Joy Crookes – Skin
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RELEASED on 15th October…
PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben W Deschamps
Joy Crookes’ debut album, Skin, is one of the later releases this year that challenges for the crown of the best album. It is one of my favourites from the year. The British-Irish-Bangladeshi singer-songwriter has crafted an album that is so impressive! I think that Skin will be nominated for awards. It is one that I feel will be shortlisted for the Mercury Prize next year. The new single, When You Were Mine, is one that has been in my head ever since I first heard it. With vocals reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, it is a gorgeous song that gets into the heart! Skin mixes Soul and Jazz together with sumptuous strong arrangements. Crookes has said how Skin is an autobiographical album about her heritage and identity, together with her experiences of young adulthood and heartbreak. Like I did with Laura Mvula’s album, Pink Noise, in the first part of this feature, I will end with a couple of reviews. Before then, I have been looking at interviews Joy Crookes was involved with whilst promoting Skin. Learning more about the album’s themes and influences has helped me appreciate and understand it better as a listener. i-D spoke with Crookes prior to Skin’s release and got a tour around the shoot for the single, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now:
“Joy's heritage, a mix of Irish, Bengali and Bangladeshi, is a large part of her life. But it has at times made her feel pigeonholed in a kind of global ambassador role she never asked for. Her forthcoming full-length debut, Skin, is a reflection of its pertinence. "Fundamentally, this is an album about identity," Joy says, "My aim with this album is to express that we should be able to be loud and use our voices to say what we want, whether that's about casual sex, or politics, or anything else. I just want to be me." A worthy cause indeed: Gemma Collins, for one, would be proud.
PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben W Deschamps
How did you come to call your debut album Skin**?
**I've always been into one-word titles. I like the simplicity and the frankness of it. My plan always was for my first album to be honest and straight up, and not beating around the bush; strong but vulnerable at the same time, because vulnerability is a strength as well. I was trying to make all of those themes -- of strength and confusion and frustration and vulnerability and fear -- fit into one word, and I think that's what [Skin] does.
Your skin is meant to be the largest organ in your body. Biologically that's what it means, but I guess externally and socially, it can be a point of weakness or discrimination.
**I wanted to talk to you about the non-musical samples you have scattered throughout the album. What influenced you to include little messages to your grandmother alongside things like elevator announcements?
**The album is really intimate. Sometimes musicians will explain to the very core -- in interviews, like, for Genius -- what everything about their music means. I think by including voice memos, and by including basically every member of my family, it contextualises the songs without me having to say anything at all.
**'Feet Don't Fail Me Now' is a song about your frustrations with social media activism. Was there a particular situation that compelled you to write about that?
**It was the [Black Lives Matter] protests last year. I actually wanted to admit to my own defeat when it comes to that sort of thing. This character that I play in the song, we all have been her at one point or another, where we find it much easier to be complicit and hide amongst people without actually saying anything. It's so much easier to do that, assimilate and be complicit.
**Let's talk about the video, because that is cinema. What was the experience of putting it together like?
**Not loads of eating, getting a cherry tattoo on my arse, lots of pain, being quite unfiltered and thanking God that my director Taz [Tron Delix] was as collaborative as he was and that his producers were crazy enough to listen to what I wanted, and made it happen”.
I was intrigued seeing and finding out how Skin’s lyrics came together and how the album took shape. Lockdown and the pandemic must have affected the course and narrative of the album. CLASH interviewed Crookes in August. We get to find out the album’s statements and messages. As someone who battles anxiety, Crookes wrote a lot during lockdown to channel it:
“To manage and control those anxious feelings, Joy committed to keeping a diary throughout lockdown, where she logged everything from waking up and exercising to seeing friends and sitting down at the piano. “Because if I didn't do that,” she adds, “I physically wouldn't think I had done anything and then that would spiral my anxiety into thinking I was useless and I was lazy and I was all these things that I love to call myself in my head. I knew exactly what I was doing with my days and it felt like I had control in a time where literally the whole world lost control.”
Despite her refreshing honesty about the effects of the pandemic on her own mental health, Joy also believes that it’s been a hugely transitional year, both musically and personally. She was nominated for the Brits’ Rising Star award last year and placed fourth in BBC’s Sound Of 2020 poll, both of which hint at what’s to come for the young singer-songwriter. She’s now readying herself for the release of her debut album, which is due later this year, and is a remarkable body of work from someone that is skilled as a vocalist and musician and has a profound lyricism that displays both vulnerability and maturity.
“I think the main statement of the album is that I just want to be me,” Joy explains. “The album is about identity, and it is as specific and as complex as that. So some of the stories are informed by people that I'm very close to in my life, and some of the stories are informed by my own experience. There's a longing and there's a bittersweet nature in the album. And there's celebration, and there's reality. It's a lived experience, it's my reality, and it's my identity. And it's me performing my identity.”
Joy is a South Londoner of Bangladeshi and Irish heritage, and this inevitably influences her sound and the nature of the storytelling throughout her music. You can hear numerous musical influences in her debut, from Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald to Amy Winehouse and Solange, but the album also contains a multitude of personal touches, and a very distinct sense of place that puts further emphasis on this theme of identity.
“London is always a backdrop for me because it's my home. I grew up with Portuguese people, with Caribbean people and people from West Africa – with people from all over the world. And you become a sponge, because you are just constantly surrounded by people from across the world.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan
The album is a clear expression of all the things Joy grew up around and so London, in a way, becomes a character in itself, highlighting her innate interest in people and their stories. “Things that seem very normal to you like taking your shoes off when you enter an auntie's house might be very alien to someone in a different part of the world. But you pick up these gestures, you pick up these expressions, you pick up a way of living and a way of carrying yourself that just becomes your identity.”
From 2018’s ‘Influence’ EP and brilliant singles like ‘Mother May I Sleep With Danger’ and ‘Early’ to ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ and her upcoming debut full-length, Joy’s warmth and sincerity continues to shine through with an added sense of self-assuredness. When asked about her ultimate goal with this album, she notes that she’s already achieved it.
“I'm proud of being able to speak about things I struggled to speak about on a daily basis. I just want people to know that it's me, and that's it. It is a massive career and personal milestone, and it's taken so long and it's taken so much heartbreak and self-doubt, and booking therapy sessions and not thinking I'd ever be able to write again or get to this point.
“I'm so proud,” Joy continues, “I've never been this proud of myself in my life. So I'm hopefully carrying that energy into whatever I do next, personally, or career wise. It's like, you've done it once and you can do it again”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan
Before getting to some positive reviews for, in my view, the best debut album of this year, there is another interview that I want to source. DIY spent some time with Crookes last month. Having worked hard to get where she is now, it is clear that she is going to break barriers and not compromise in any way:
“Skin’ is a record that blends this core of introspection with a timeless, jazz-infused vocal. It’s also one that gets by with a little help from its friends, recording at the legendary Abbey Road with production from Blue May (Kano, Shygirl) and Stint (NAO, MØ), and collaborating with Matt Maltese for a title track co-write. “I always wanted to have a certain quality of sound with this album, and I was working with someone [Blue] who is incredible and facilitated my madness. So, when we wanted strings, we both said it must happen at Abbey Road!” she laughs. “There was a slight level of ridiculousness that we tried to go for and were allowed to go for, so we took advantage of that. And that over-ambitiousness actually ended up being achievable.”
The result is a mesmerising soundscape of soul and jazz, with a palpable orchestral atmosphere that rubs up alongside Joy’s old-school inspirations, from Young Marble Giants to Nina Simone. It’s an eclectic melting pot of everything that’s at the centre of the 22-year-old’s curious and music obsessed sonic world.
At the centre, though, remains Joy, who speaks humbly and with generosity about the process that’s led to her long-awaited first record. “I think I come across as self-assured because I'm a DIY person; if I can't find someone else to do it, I'll do it myself. But for the first time, I found a family and a community who helped me feel safer - especially when I was going into my brain demons. They believed in me and came together to create this thing,” she says. “More importantly, I fucking stuck by myself when I needed it the most. And then I had my first album in my hands! The only way to describe the feeling of that is the biggest amount of euphoria. It was the first time I ever felt proud.”
It’s been a long voyage to get to this point - one of self and sonic discovery. And now, with a debut that comes good on all those early plaudits, Joy Crookes is determined to speak only truths and break every rule. “Everything’s just a big ‘fuck you’, really - like wearing a lehenga to the BRITs. I knew no one else would be doing it, which is a shame, but I was going to do it,” she beams. “I come from a lineage of Bangladeshi women who are naughty and fight back. And because of that, following rules is not cute to me. It’s not in my blood or in Bangladeshi blood. Rebellion is part of our fucking DNA!”.
Let’s get to some reviews. Skin was greeted with widespread acclaim. I love the album because it was my introduction to Joy Crookes. There are so many wonderful songs that hang together – yet they have their own sound and personality. Beautifully warm and soothing the one moment, Skin can offer striking lyrics and some sharper edges. It is a beguiling brew that results in this incredible sonic cocktail! CLASH noted the following in their review:
“Joy Crookes radiates a self-confidence that defines herself in terms of who she isn’t. Transcending labels with her blend of neo-soul and R&B, she takes all the hooks, choruses, and high value associated with pop and packages them into something wiser. After all, calls to soul, jazz, and Motown are considered the province of generations past, right? Wrong. Spiced up with modern production and relatable reference points, 22-year-old Crookes is the real thing.
In the past two years alone, she has been nominated for the BRITs Rising Star Award, was due to support Harry Styles pre-pandemic, and has sold out her headline shows across the UK and Europe. She imbues her music with a genuine soulfulness, all the while touching on vulnerable topics including mental health, generational trauma, politics, and sex.
Honouring her Bangladeshi-Irish heritage, ‘Skin’ places this pertinence front and centre. The title track’s lyrics are evident: "Don’t you know the skin that you’re given was made to be lived in? You’ve got a life. You’ve got a life worth living". Crookes dispenses wider encouragement and, despite the pain, remains optimistically intimate with her featherlight tones as orchestral soul-jazz weaves around her. Later in the album, her skin becomes the subject of a political narrative in ‘Power’, where she makes an ode to the female figures in her life while exploring the misuse of authority in the current social climate.
The misty-eyed haze lifts on songs like ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Wild Jasmine’ which are filled with guitar riffs and experimental sonics. Crookes twists through narratives of both new beginnings and old flames, finding value in tumultuous times. Inviting listeners to daydream, ‘19th Floor’ laments on belonging. With a string arrangement that wouldn’t feel out of place on the discography of Portishead, Crookes vocal comparably reaches untold altitudes. Across ‘Skin’, the 13 smooth jams showcase Joy Crookes not only as a vocalist or candid writer but as the new face of British soul. While many artists chase nostalgia, Crookes offers a different way forward by disregarding the traditional boundaries of classicism”.
I’ll end it with a review from DIY. I could keep quoting positive reviews, as there were so many sources and sites that praised an album that announces Joy Crookes as one of this country’s brightest artists. Only just twenty-three, there is no telling how far she can go! This DIY’s take on the unforgettable Skin:
“Nearly two years after receiving a BRITs Rising Star nomination and placing fourth in the BBC Sound of 2020 poll (a title that, in retrospect, she’s probably more than happy not to have been crowned with), South Londoner Joy Crookes’ debut arrives not as a rushed product of the hype machine but a rich, varied and considered body of work that audibly benefits from the time its had to breathe. Close and justified comparisons will obviously be drawn to Amy Winehouse, but it’s not just a similarity in old school warmth that Joy draws with her fellow Londoner; like Amy, there’s a timeless quality to ‘Skin’ that pulls equally from more nostalgic orchestral flourishes (‘When You Were Mine’) and slicker, more modern influences like the Massive Attack-echoing ‘19th Floor’. ‘Trouble’ slinks along on dub rhythms, previous single ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ pairs string flourishes with lyrics about retweeting, while the album’s title track - written alongside Matt Maltese - is a piano ballad as fittingly affective as you’d expect from the pairing. ‘Skin’ is an album worthy of elevating the singer into the realm of Britain’s classiest chart-bothering talents. It does everything a debut should, dipping into multiple pools but uniting them all with a consistent outlook and a clear voice. Joy Crookes, by rights, should be riding ‘Skin’ into the big leagues”.
I do think that people should buy Skin, as it is an album that is so rewarding and affecting. When critics’ lists of the best albums of 2021 come out in the next month or so, we are going to see Joy Crookes’ debut, Skin, appear near the top of most of them. In a year that has offered a lot of great music, Crookes stands out as one of the very best artists. The remarkable Skin is an album that…
FEW have managed to equal.