FEATURE:
My Five Favourite Albums of 2021
Laura Mvula – Pink Noise
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I realise there are…
PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Records
seven weeks or so until we get to the end of this year. When deciding upon the best albums of the year, maybe leaving it until mid-December is best. That is why, rather than ranking my five favourite albums of this year, I am not strictly doing that - merely listing my five favourite in no particular order. If there is an album between now and the end of December that makes the top-five, I should have time and opportunity to include it. I am not sure many will rival the albums that I have loved most from 2021. What I am doing for each of the five albums is putting in some information, reviews and interviews with that artist. In addition, I am going to out a link where you can buy the album. I am starting with an album that, actually, is my favourite from 2021. Laura Mvula’s stunning third studio album, Pink Noise, arrived in July. Released through Atlantic, it was produced by Laura Mvula and Dann Hume. Her debut, Sing to the Moon, was released in 2013; her follow-up, The Dreaming Room, came out in 2016. All of her albums have been nominated for the Mercury Prize. Thinking about it, I actually think Pink Noise should have won. Even though I precited (correctly) Arlo Parks; debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams, would win, Mvula’s brighter, bolder and more exciting album was just what we needed to win – an album that is addictive, personal, powerful, packed with fizz and energy!
Even though Mvula is based in London, she was born in Birmingham. The Mercury Prize has been going to London artists a lot over the past five years or so. I feel that it was definitely Mvula’s time to get recognition! I am not the only one to hold that opinion Even so, the 1980s-inspired Pink Noise was hugely praised by critics. In fact, it is one of the most highly-rated albums from any artist. Definitely go and get Pink Noise on pink vinyl. The blend of confessional lyrics and vibrant audio colours blends superbly. Many artists go for this mix and balance. Few succeed as effortlessly and impressively as Mvula. I thought it would be worth seeing what Mvula had to say in interviews conducted around the release of Pink Noise. The first, with NME reveals details about issues and struggles Laura Mvula has had with her label(s) prior to signing with Atlantic. With new management, impetus and guidance, we are seeing and hearing a more liberated and (hopefully) less anxious artist:
“It’s like this: imagine if I was going out with some amateur boxer for ages,” Laura Mvula says a few minutes into our Zoom interview. “And then I was like, ‘I’m never dating a boxer again – they’re dickheads.’ But then Anthony Joshua comes along and asks me out. It was exactly like that! I was like, ‘Hmm – OK, let me check my calendar then…’”
According to Mvula, this playful analogy encapsulates why she signed with Atlantic Records in October 2018 – less than two years after another major label, Sony, had unceremoniously dropped her. She could have chosen to self-release her next album, but Atlantic won her over with a simple sales pitch: “You’re a good artist who writes good music. It’s just about helping people to see that.”
Fast-forward to July 2021 and it’s clear she made the right decision. Mvula’s new album ‘Pink Noise’ is a triumphant reinvention that streamlines her abundant vocal, songwriting and production gifts into a shiny, ’80s-inspired package. The delirious, Michael Jackson-channelling single ‘Got Me’ deserves to become one of the biggest hits of the summer – so let’s hope Love Island‘s music programmers are paying attention.
Mvula’s enthusiasm is heartwarming after the bruising few years she’s been through professionally. Her recording career began brightly in 2013 when ‘Sing to the Moon’, a classy blend of soul and orchestral pop, went Gold and earned her a Mercury Prize nomination. During this period she was invariably described as “classically trained” because she had taken piano and violin lessons at school, then graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with a degree in composition.
She’s since said she felt “trapped” by the label and takes delight today in saying she’s “broken out” of it. “I can’t call myself classically trained because that’s some bullshit, man,” she says firmly. “I took piano to Grade Eight level and violin to Grade Seven [because] I was too shit to play. I think it became this strange form of institutional racism where it was like: ‘Oh my God, the Negro plays the violin.'”
Today, Mvula believes she is still paying a price for speaking frankly about what happened. “I’ve heard that I’m ‘frowned upon’ within the industry,” she says. “Somebody said to me the other day that when I ‘outed’ Sony for dropping me; it wasn’t seen as good form.” Though none of us can know for certain what is said in record label boardrooms, it remains rare for an artist to call out industry gatekeepers in this way. Last week, the fiercely talented singer-songwriter Raye sent shockwaves through UK music by tweeting that her record label, Polydor, is essentially blocking her from releasing her debut album.
PHOTO CREDIT: Atlantic Records
Today, she says having a new management team that fully understands her is really helping. “If I say, ‘I don’t want to do that’, or, ‘Can we do this differently next time?’, I don’t have to be worried about fulfilling the stereotype of ‘the scary Black woman’ who, as soon as she says something with any degree of assertiveness, gets called ‘threatening’ or a ‘diva’,” she says. “I can speak freely and I feel like everyone has a shared desire to make this thing go the furthest it can go.”
Still, artists are often complicated creatures, and Mvula says that while making ‘Pink Noise’ she actually thrived on the initial indifference of her co-producer Dann Hume, who’s worked with Wiz Khalifa and Troye Sivan. Because he “didn’t seem bothered” about working with her, she almost felt like she had to “woo him”. Before she bonded with Hume, a member of alt-rock band Evermore, Mvula spent 18 months going into songwriting sessions with various producers she had never worked with before. It was a new experience for an artist who considers herself “very self-sufficient” – and one she says she enjoyed – but an album concept stubbornly refused to emerge.
“I got so overwhelmed that I remember asking my manager, ‘What’s the protocol if I can’t deliver [the album] and have to break the contract?'” she admits.
The breakthrough came when she and Hume began working on ‘Safe Passage’, a glistening mid-tempo track from the album that begins with booming, Phil Collins-style drums. “I remember leaving the session and thinking, ‘This is it – this is the album,'” she says. Mvula had already made the “skeleton” of the song at home, but Hume helped her to elevate it. “I think it’s hard for any producer to work with me because I produce as well,” she says. “It’s about taking something that’s already there and making it shine even more. And I think that’s harder than giving a producer [a demo with] a vocal and a guitar and saying: ‘Make a whole musical world for me”.
I can’t get enough of the infectious Pink Noise! It takes its sonic guidance from a sensational decade for music. It is hard to believe that the 1980s still divides people. Maybe there are those who associate it with the naffer Pop end of things. The artists mass-produced where their songs were written by-committee. Look beyond that and one discovers and uncovers a rich decade whose sounds are being heard and incorporated by artists today. Mvula spoke with gal-dem recently. The subject of the ‘80s being divisive came up:
“I had, like, one date with this guy from Bumble. I remember when we were texting, and I was in the middle of the record – it was in lockdown, so we couldn’t meet. He was asking me about what the album vibe was and I said ‘1980s’, and he said, ‘I hate the 1980s’. And he’s not the first person.”
There is a pause as my personal shock and disgust are audible over the questionable quality of our Zoom call; after all, what heathen would profess to not love 1980s music? It is a sound that is newly synonymous with Laura Mvula who – in returning with her third consecutively Mercury-Prize-nominated album Pink Noise – has taken critics and fans by surprise with a record that is rich, bold and undeniably steeped in 1980s influence.
“I think it’s quite divisive as an era,” Laura continues. “There are quite a few people that passionately hate it. They hate synthesizers, they hate the buoyancy, the boldness – but for the same reason there are a lot of people that passionately love the same thing.”
Growing up in a family that adored the era meant that Laura held an innate affection for the time. Her father, particularly, was a massive fan of Earth, Wind and Fire whose sound she proclaimed she intended to emulate with Pink Noise (“I think I deliberately said things that seemed outrageous to me in order to give myself a goal and also just to silence people so I could get on with it”).
Laura recalls being referred to as “underrated” due to the unique sound of her first two albums. “I got used to all those taglines: ‘she’s in her own lane’, and ‘she’s created a genre that is new in itself’. But the moment I stepped into this nostalgia and these 1980s references that are very obvious, that takes a different kind of conviction and courage from me, which has meant that I am in turn much more confident and not so concerned anymore.”
One of the most left-field moments of Pink Noise comes from ‘What Matters’, her soft, comforting duet with Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil that sprung from a bit of pushback when her label suggested the feature come from a rapper. “I was like, no, I’m not gonna do that thing, all because I’m Black you just wanna pair me with another Black person and just force into some false relationship. It’s weird”. She told her management that she was looking for a youthful yet seasoned rock voice reminiscent of Peter Gabriel, when someone suggested Neil. “I love the song so much. He was so kind. He was so awesome about it. [When] I got the file sent to me, I listened at home in my living room and cried”.
The surprise in public reaction to her change in sound on Pink Noise has also been interesting for Laura to witness but, she says, this present iteration is who she has always been – only this time around she’s shedding her exoskeleton and baring her authentic self for all to see. “I’m not scared of what will happen if you see who I am because you don’t hold the power. Journalists used to write the most sort of systemic racial shit,” she says, “They would say ‘classically-trained Mvula’, which is just a way of apologising for me being there. It’s like ‘it’s alright, she’s classically-trained, she has a right to be here’ – and I played up to it. I thought it was a thing, like ‘look, here’s this Blackie that plays violin’.”
This realisation that she was complicit in perpetuating those public perceptions of herself was a hard pill to swallow. “I had to do a lot of soul searching and be prepared to throw off that façade. I’m realising it’s a long road and Pink Noise has kind of been like a balm,” Laura adds. “It’s a healing thing that helps me in the struggle. I feel armed with it, and I feel ready. I definitely make no excuses anymore”.
I don’t think it is subjective to say Pink Noise is one of the best albums of this year. Critics agree with my fervent proclamation! I love Laura Mvula and everything she does. She is such an inspiring woman and amazing artist. Pink Noise is an album that will be played and celebrated for years. The single. Got Me, is my favourite track. It never fails to get under my skin and in my head! DIY were among the many who were keen to have their say about the amazing Pink Noise:
“Laura Mvula hasn’t had the easiest ride over the past few years. 2013 debut ‘Sing To The Moon’ captured praise for its stellar songwriting, orchestral flourishes and diamond-cut balladry, but peppy 2016 follow-up ‘The Dreaming Room’ arrived to muted fanfare despite the quality of its contents. Following this second effort she was suddenly dropped by her label (via email, pre-pandemic) which jump-started a few years off the mainstream grid. When listening to the sheer power of ‘Pink Noise’, it’s crazy to think Laura seriously considered the prospect of returning to teaching in this downtime. She directly channels recent setbacks into the heart of the LP: on ‘Conditional’ she sings of “another blow to the ego” among sludgy industrial synths and sudden maniacal bursts of saxophone runs. The record largely takes its cues from ‘80s synth-pop, an age of music frequently mined by artists but when it’s done well - as it most certainly is here - it can fashion some real showstoppers.
You can almost feel the dry ice submerging ‘Safe Passage’, a stark opener that lays down the laws of the land with its sparkling synth-play. ‘Magical’ is a chest-pounding love song that builds and soars, drawing back only at the point where it feels as if it’s about to genuinely pop; “Do you remember the time when we were together?” she howls as her voice lifts to the peak of its powers. It’s an album of varying moods, too. Vulnerability rears its head among the swelling brass notes of ‘Golden Ashes’ - “I lost my way again,” she sings before pleading the powers that be to stop her from drowning again. Almost every song here could pass as a single. The title track is catered with slices of tight funk guitar and slinky synths that Prince would be proud of, later ‘Got Me’ bops with its knowing nod to Michael Jackson. Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro guests on the slinky funk ballad ‘What Matters’ with his unmistakable delivery sparkling in the disco lights - a surprising, yet perfect casting. Punchy, fun and beautifully constructed, ‘Pink Noise’ is the triumphant sound of Laura Mvula finding her feet. A career-defining return that most artists can only dream of; pure synth-pop ecstasy”.
Before signing off, another review came to mind that I wanted to share. The Line of Best Fit awarded Pink Noise a solid 9/10 when they sat down with a truly magnificent and compelling album:
“It’s hard to believe she was close to ending her music career and returning to teaching but three years ago, but after dedicated time focusing on her craft, we’ve been blessed with an album inspired by the decade she was born in.
Pink Noise is an obvious departure for Mvula, as she sheds her stripped back, acoustic style and ascends into the world of keytars, smoke machines and shoulder pads to boot. However, the religious undertones and hints of gospel remain in her work, keeping the album rooted in her style and familiar to listeners as she ventures into new pastures.
Starting off with, literally, a bang; Pink Noise opens with “Safe Passage” – an '80s drum masterclass swathed in funky basslines and synths apt for the Stranger Things soundtrack, along with a choral backing harkening back to tracks like “She” from Sing To The Moon. These vocals are prominent in the final act of closing track “Before The Dawn” too, and work as a fitting bookend to the album - showcasing Mvula’s talent for incredibly moving choral arrangements, but also beckoning back to her previous work to not lose sight of where she’s come from.
The aforementioned religious undertones take centre stage in “Church Girl” and deliver the most heartfelt message on the Pink Noise (“How can you dance / with the devil on your back?”), along with arguably her strongest vocal performance on the album. It’s a shame then that the other somewhat evangelical track “Golden Ashes” doesn’t really meet the standard of the album and seems to lose its flow amongst the complex chords and melodies – trying to go somewhere it doesn’t quite reach.
Tracks such as “Remedy” and title track “Pink Noise” take the funk to the next level through ringing guitars and Prince-inspired riffs, basslines and spoken word moments that raise the sexiness of the track (“Give in / to the feeling”). Not to mention the wonderful “Got Me” that almost takes '80s to a tongue-in-cheek caricature of the style, using cliché instrumentation, a swung 6/8 time signature, and the attitude of a woman in a power suit swinging her keytar on stage in front of 50,000 people. It’s truly the high of the album.
All in all, Pink Noise is a roaring success for Mvula’s reinvention. It’s a joyous celebration of her past, her present, and all the success that is to come in her future. Laura Mvula is back, and she’s not going anywhere”.
I wonder where Laura Mvula will head next. Keep an eye out on Laura Mvula’s social media accounts to see when she is touring (go and follow Mvula on Instagram). Pink Noise is an album that will sound staggering on the stage! I feel, in terms of sound, she might keep a 1980s theme for her fourth album. Let’s hope that, when she does release another album, organisations like the Mercury Prize recognise her talent and potential! In a very tough, strange and struggling year, albums with as much lyrical depth and sonic multifariousness have really been a source of support and comfort. It leaves me to salute Pink Noise. It is a tremendous album that is among the very finest…
OF this year.