FEATURE:
International Women’s Day 2021
IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé
My Six Favourite Female Artists
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FOR this feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
I wanted to highlight some seriously amazing women who have made a major impression on me. It is International Women’s Day on Monday, so I am highlighted my six favourite female artists and selecting a few of their albums. I have chosen their ‘best’ album (if that the same as the album I think people should start with then I have selected the one that has received the greatest acclaim), the album to begin with, one that is less obvious but worth exploring, in addition to a classic cut. I also put in a playlist for each. It is a bit like a Buyer’s Guide but the format is slightly different. We will celebrate and salute so many great women in music on Monday but, now, I was eager to spotlight six brilliant artists who, for different reasons, have resonated with me through the years. Here is some fantastic music from…
PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Avedon/©The Richard Avedon Foundation
SOME awesome women.
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Beyoncé
The Finest Album
Lemonade
Release Date: 23rd April, 2016
Producers: Beyoncé/Diplo/Kevin Garrett/Jeremy McDonald/Ezra Koenig/Jack White/MeLo-X/Diana Gordon/Boots/DannyBoyStyles/Ben Billions/Mike Dean/Vincent Berry II/James Blake/Jonathan Coffer/Just Blaze/Mike Will Made It
Labels: Parkwood/Columbia
Standout Tracks: Hold Up/Don’t Hurt Yourself/Formation
Review:
“The personal cannot help but overshadow the political when dealt with so forcefully. On the film released on HBO to coincide with this album, Beyoncé does not pull her punches: throwing away her wedding ring, wielding a baseball bat with venom, committing suicide, dripping water, destroying cars… all of this is nothing next to the venom exhibited in the music, and songs.
"So what are you going to say at my funeral now that you've killed me?” she asks. “Here lies the body of the love of my life whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother of my children both living and dead. Rest in peace, my true love, who I took for granted."
The culmination of the spooked Pray You Catch Me and Hurt Me, Don’t Hurt Yourself features licks from rock stalwart Jack White. The distortion and fury, and occasional breaks of restraint from White work, brutally and wonderfully.
Elsewhere, Daddy Lessons mixes New Orleans jazz with a country beat for reasons best known to itself, and swings like Boris Johnston hanging from a telegraph wire. Sandcastles, meanwhile, sounds like another Coldplay-collaboration-in-waiting (fortunately bereft of Coldplay), not bad as such – actually, really good. It feels a little obligatory, like every Beyoncé album has to contain one or two torch ballads (the other is Forward, featuring James Blake). Her voice though, in its rawness of emotion and tear duct-filling emotion, pushes at the boundaries of what is considered acceptable. Likewise, 6 Inch where her voice starts to crack and falter, sounding oddly vulnerable.
In a week where we have has to come to terms with the loss of one more explosive and unpredictable and talented and genius pop star, it is so reassuring to know that Beyoncé is still among us – and from the sounds of this – has still yet to reach her peak. Both Prince and Nina Simone (whose voice also features here) passed away on April 21. Sometimes it feels like Beyoncé is determined to pick up the mantles of both” – The Independent
Key Cut: Freedom
Where the Start
Destiny's Child
Release Date: 17th February, 1998
Producers: Mathew Knowles (exec.)/Tim & Bob/Sylvia Bennett-Smith/Jerry Duplessis/Jermaine Dupri/Rob Fusari/Che Greene/Vincent Herbert/Wyclef Jean/KLC/Jay Lincoln/Mark Morales/O'Dell/Cory Rooney/Terry T/Craig B/Carl Washington/D'Wayne Wiggins
Labels: Columbia/Music World
Standout Tracks: No, No, No Part 2/With Me Part I/With Me Part II
Review:
“Destiny's Child isn't quite just another debut album from an R&B girl group. The quartet worked with Wyclef Jean and Jermaine Dupri among others, and their voices sound beautiful together. Still, much of the album sounds indistinguishable from all the other female groups out there. When Destiny's Child does sound different, as on the single "No, No, No, Pt. 2," they're more than competent” – AllMusic
Key Cut: No, No, No Part I
A Deeper Dive
I Am... Sasha Fierce
Release Date: 12th November, 2008
Producers: Bama Boyz/Bangladesh/D-Town/Darkchild/Ian Dench/Blac Elvis/Toby Gad/Sean Garrett/Amanda Ghost/Andrew Hey/Jim Jonsin/Beyoncé Knowles/Harold Lilly/Dave McCracken/Rico Love/Ramon ‘REO’ Owen/Stargate/Tricky Stewart/Ryan Tedder/The-Dream/Wayne Wilkins
Labels: Columbia/Music World
Standout Tracks: If I Were a Boy/Halo/Broken-Hearted Girl
Review:
“Having transitioned into a more grown-up sound, Beyoncé has gotten conceptual on us: Her third album offers two discs, a collection of heartfelt ballads credited to Beyoncé and a danceable set credited to "Sasha Fierce," the pop diva's more brash, lady-empowering alter ego. Though some of the slow songs have thoroughly memorable tunes, the lyrics are full of bland self-affirmation and saggy lines like "You're everything I thought you never were." But the "Sasha" disc boasts Beyoncé's most adventurous music yet: She rides frothy techno on "Radio," turns out modal-sounding hooks over 808 bass on "Diva" and juices the eerie, Nine Inch Nails-style beats of "Video Phone" with lines like "Press 'record' and I'll let you film me." Another plus: The girl who blew up going all melismatic has never sung with more restraint than she does on Sasha” – Rolling Stone
Key Cut: Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
A Classic Cut
Crazy in Love
Release Date: 18th May, 2003
From the Album: Dangerously in Love (2003)
Producers: Rich Harrison/Beyoncé Knowles
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Madonna
The Finest Album
Ray of Light
Release Date: 23rd February, 1998
Producers: Madonna/William Orbit/Patrick Leonard/Marius de Vries
Labels: Maverick/Warner Bros.
Standout Tracks: Drowned World/Substitute for Love, Ray of Light/Nothing Really Matters
Review:
“Returning to pop after a four-year hiatus, Madonna enlisted respected techno producer William Orbit as her collaborator for Ray of Light, a self-conscious effort to stay abreast of contemporary trends. Unlike other veteran artists who attempted to come to terms with electronica, Madonna was always a dance artist, so it's no real shock to hear her sing over breakbeats, pulsating electronics, and blunted trip-hop beats. Still, it's mildly surprising that it works as well as it does, largely due to Madonna and Orbit's subtle attack. They've reined in the beats, tamed electronica's eccentricities, and retained her flair for pop melodies, creating the first mainstream pop album that successfully embraces techno. Sonically, it's the most adventurous record she has made, but it's far from inaccessible, since the textures are alluring and the songs have a strong melodic foundation, whether it's the swirling title track, the meditative opener, "Substitute for Love," or the ballad "Frozen." For all of its attributes, there's a certain distance to Ray of Light, born of the carefully constructed productions and Madonna's newly mannered, technically precise singing. It all results in her most mature and restrained album, which is an easy achievement to admire, yet not necessarily an easy one to love” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Frozen
Where the Start
Madonna
Release Date: 27th July, 1983
Producers: John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez/Mark Kamins/Reggie Lucas/Butch Jones
Labels: Sire/Warner Bros.
Standout Tracks: Lucky Star/Holiday/Everybody
Review:
“Madonna vaguely criticized her debut’s sonic palette while promoting its follow-up, 1984’s Like a Virgin, but its focus is part of what makes the album so memorable, so of a time and place. She would soon become known for ritual pop star metamorphosis, but with a clearly defined musical backdrop, Madonna was able to let shine her biggest asset: herself. The way Madonna’s early collaborators talk about her—even the ones who take issue with her, like Reggie Lucas, who wrote “Borderline” and “Physical Attraction” and produced the bulk of the album—often revolves around her decisiveness, her style, the undeniability of her star quality. Some of these songs, like the self-penned workout “Think of Me,” aren’t all that special, but Madonna telling a lover to appreciate before she vacates is so self-assured, the message carries over to the listener. And when the material’s even better, like on “Borderline,” the passionate performance takes it over the top.
Maybe the New York cool kids rolled their eyes at the Midwest transplant after she blew up, but she had effectively bottled their attitude and open-mindedness and sold it to the MTV generation (sleeve of bangles and crucifix earrings not included). Innocent as it may look now, compared to the banned bondage videos and butt-naked books that followed, Madonna was a sexy, forward-thinking record that took pop in a new direction. Its success showed that, with the right diva at the helm, music similar to disco could find a place in the white mainstream—a call to the dance floor answered by everyone from Kylie to Robyn to Gaga to Madonna herself. After venturing out into various genre experiments and film projects, when Madonna needs a hit, the longtime queen of the Dance Songs chart often returns to the club. This approach doesn’t always work, as her last three records have shown, but you can’t fault her for trying to get back to that place where heavenly bodies shine for a night” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Borderline
A Deeper Dive
Bedtime Stories
Release Date: 25th October, 1994
Producers: Madonna/Dallas Austin/Babyface/Dave ‘Jam’ Hall/Nellee Hooper
Labels: Maverick/Sire/Warner Bros.
Standout Tracks: Survival/Secret/Human Nature
Review:
“Almost all of the aggressive beat and groove combinations that defined Erotica are absent with the exceptions of “I’d Rather Be Your Lover”—a side that deliciously weds Ndegeocello’s bass playing (and rap) to Madonna’s smoky mezzo-soprano—and “Human Nature.” The latter track, a stinging rebuke toward Madonna’s Erotica/Sex naysayers, would have been better served up as a B-side as its petulant script threatened to fracture the more demure, introspective air Madonna embodied on Bedtime Stories. Thankfully, the surrounding song stock buffers and neutralizes its antagonistic energy. Musically though, “Human Nature” is an interesting piece with it being erected around the Main Source hip-hop banger “What You Need”—Main Source themselves had loaned a portion of their cut from the jazz musician Walter Maynard Ferguson’s selection “Spinning Wheel.” “Human Nature” represents one of Bedtime Stories’ multiple arrangements that contain clever sample traces or interpolations, along with “I’d Rather Be Your Lover” (Lou Donaldson), “Inside of Me” (Aaliyah, The Gap Band, Gutter Snypes), “Forbidden Love” (Grant Green), and “Sanctuary” (Herbie Hancock).
Lyrically, Bedtime Stories showcases Madonna’s keen pen that captures the elusive emotional space between strength and vulnerability through love songs or semi-autobiographical entries. “Survival,” “Love Tried to Welcome Me” and “Sanctuary” are undeniable canonical highlights” – Albumism
Key Cut: Take a Bow
A Classic Cut
Vogue
Release Date: 27th March, 1990
From the Album: I'm Breathless: Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy (1990)
Producers: Madonna/Shep Pettibone
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Joni Mitchell
The Finest Album
Blue
Release Date: 22nd June, 1971
Producer: Joni Mitchell
Label: Reprise
Standout Tracks: Blue/River/A Case of You
Review:
“And so it is with Blue, Mitchell’s fourth album. It has, as the title suggests, a melancholy atmosphere, one that functions on two levels: one personal, the other universal. It feels as much like the diary entries of a woman written in the wake of a breakup as it does a more general statement about a generation reeling after a series of shocks (Altamont, Manson, RIP the Fabs). Blue evokes the mourning after the nights of free-love before. If The Beatles’ split was symptomatic of the failure of the youth to come together, Blue felt like the net result. Orphaned by the death of the hippie nation, Mitchell was left to ponder a future alone, minus the comfort of community. Blue introduced a new paradigm for rock: the solo singer-songwriter confessing her woes, making her way in the world alone, without the solace of a band.
Blue invites such fanciful commentary. It feels like poetry set to music, and even though many of the lyrics are simple (“All I really, really want our love to do is to bring out the best in me and you,” from the opening track All I Want), often the music seems to be accommodating the words. As a consequence, the melodies, tracked by Mitchell’s swooping, soaring vocals, can be so hard to follow that it’s almost a miracle anyone can remember them, let alone the artist.
And yet that’s exactly what did happen: these songs became indelibly stamped on the minds of Americans and young people everywhere, isolated and bewildered at the start of a new decade. Carey (which was, tune-wise, Big Yellow Taxi’s slight return), the title-track and The Last Time I Saw Richard may have been highly personal, with speculation that they were about, respectively, former beaus James Taylor, David Blue and her ex-husband; A Case Of You may have been as private as a love letter; and Little Green, about giving up a child for adoption, may have been excoriating autobiography. Nevertheless, these songs, sparsely arranged on piano, acoustic guitar and Appalachian dulcimer, delivered with a jazzy looseness and enhanced by the sustained mood of quiet despair, soon became the property of everyone” – BBC
Key Cut: Carey
Where the Start
Ladies of the Canyon
Release Date: April 1970
Producer: Joni Mitchell
Labels: Reprise/Warner Bros.
Standout Tracks: For Free/Ladies of the Canyon/Big Yellow Taxi
Review:
“This wonderfully varied release shows a number of new tendencies in Joni Mitchell's work, some of which would come to fuller fruition on subsequent albums. "The Arrangement," "Rainy Night House," and "Woodstock" contain lengthy instrumental sections, presaging the extensive non-vocal stretches in later selections such as "Down to You" from Court and Spark. Jazz elements are noticeable in the wind solos of "For Free" and "Conversation," exhibiting an important influence that would extend as late as Mingus. The unusually poignant desolation of "The Arrangement" would surface more strongly in Blue. A number of the selections here ("Willy" and "Blue Boy") use piano rather than guitar accompaniment; arrangements here are often more colorful and complex than before, utilizing cello, clarinet, flute, saxophone, and percussion. Mitchell sings more clearly and expressively than on prior albums, most strikingly so on "Woodstock," her celebration of the pivotal 1960s New York rock festival. This number, given a haunting electric piano accompaniment, is sung in a gutsy, raw, soulful manner; the selection proves amply that pop music anthems don't all have to be loud production numbers. Songs here take many moods, ranging from the sunny, easygoing "Morning Morgantown" (a charming small-town portrait) to the nervously energetic "Conversation" (about a love triangle in the making) to the cryptically spooky "The Priest" (presenting the speaker's love for a Spartan man) to the sweetly sentimental classic "The Circle Game" (denoting the passage of time in touching terms) to the bouncy and vibrant single "Big Yellow Taxi" (with humorous lyrics on ecological matters) to the plummy, sumptuous title track (a celebration of creativity in all its manifestations). This album is yet another essential listen in Mitchell's recorded canon” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Woodstock
A Deeper Dive
Clouds
Release Date: 1st May, 1969
Producers: Joni Mitchell/Paul A. Rothchild
Label: Reprise
Standout Tracks: Tin Angel/Chelsea Morning/The Fiddle and the Drum
Review:
“Clouds (1969) is the introduction to Mitchell's real deal, shaking folk tradition and giving off a little humor and spirit. The album sounds casual. Lyrically, she was transitioning from the era's de facto hippie sensualism (colors! the weather! vibes!) to the classically prosodic style (Keats! Cohen!) she'd become known for. The album's biggest signs of life are two of her most famous songs-- the kicky "Chelsea Morning", which is about as straightforward as Mitchell ever got, and "Both Sides Now". Though she'd known burden and heartache plenty by her still-tender age (she'd borne a child alone and in secret after dropping out of art school and married singer Chuck Mitchell in order to make a family; he changed his mind a month later and she put the baby up for adoption) she sounds a bit too young and chipper to be singing about disillusionment. Still, Clouds was a landmark, and she landed a Grammy for Best Folk Performance” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Both Sides, Now
A Classic Cut
Help Me
Release Date: March 1974
From the Album: Court and Spark (1974)
Producer: Joni Mitchell
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Kate Bush
The Finest Album
Hounds of Love
Release Date: 16th September, 1985
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Standout Tracks: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)/Hounds of Love/Hello Earth
Review:
“Using her voice, both through various effects generators and as a lead vocalist, she has devised a mechanism whereby some of her more quirky - and sometimes irritating - vocal mannerisms can be integrated into the album as orchestral elements, giving them a real context.
True, here and there, as in 'Hounds Of Love', her vocal comes close to the moment of grate-ness that signifies a mite too much mannerism for comfort, but several hearings show it to be more or less in context.
One track in particular 'And Dream Of Sleep' seems to me to sum up the strengths of the album. Actually it's a simple piano-accompanied ballad, evoking that moment of despair when you can't sleep and want to, but it is made by the melody the orchestration, (simple interpolations on bouzouki by Donal Lunny and whistle by John Sheahan), and the imagery: *If they find me racking white horses/They'll not take me for a buoy.* Now where did that come from? And the last line *Ooh their breath is warm/And they smell like sleep/And they say they take me home/Like poppies heavy with seed.* Poppies heavy with seed! Yes!
Which is another way of saying that many of the songs here are evocative not explicit, the words used are imagistic and mercurial in their choice, and deployment. They come from the apparently vast store of references that Kate Bush has accumulated through reading, seeing, listening, touching... Good grief! Almost lost it there!
But there is a truth in the over-statement, that the album touches on, let's say, areas that most others don't, without ever really becoming absolutely specific - in 'Mother Stands For Comfort' for example, there is reference to the murderer, the madman. But is it literal or figurative?
Some people may not be mad about the idea of songs that reveal themselves as a range of possibilities of meaning rather than statements, but personally I like it - in the right hands. It's not vagueness, it's simple the use of words that are loaded with meanings depending on the angle from which you approach them. The other side of this is the strength of the production, the careful architecture of the noise. There is a great density here, a richness.
Irish people will derive amusement and interest from two elements, the Irish influence in the music, some of which was recorded here (arrangements by Bill Whelan) and the song 'Waking The Witch', the third track in a remarkable series of dream evocations that open side two. *Bless me father for I have sinned.* she sings. *I question your innocence* he thunders in reply. Ah yes!
'Hounds Of Love' has continued to invite repeated listens, and (a good sign) keeps on revealing new responses, and showing the intent of the various accentricities. There are a few other singles there, but it's not really that king of album. It's a very powerful and, dare I say it, female album, and I'll be a plying it long than most” – Hot Press
Key Cut: The Big Sky
Where the Start
The Kick Inside
Release Date: 17th February, 1978
Producer: Andrew Powell
Labels: EMI (U.K.)/Harvest (U.S.)
Standout Tracks: Moving/The Man with the Child in His Eyes/Them Heavy People
Review:
“Strange Phenomena” is equally awed, Bush celebrating the menstrual cycle as a secret lunar power and wondering what other powers might arrive if we were only attuned to them. She lurches from faux-operatic vocal to reedy shriek, marches confidently in tandem with the strident chorus and unleashes a big, spooky “Woo!,” exactly as silly as a 19-year-old should be. As is “Oh to Be in Love,” a baroque, glittering harpsichord romp about a romance that brightens the colors and defeats time.
She only fails to make a virtue of her naivety on “Room for the Life,” where she scolds a weeping woman for thinking any man would care about her tears. The sweet calypso reverie is elegant, and good relief from the brawnier, propulsive arrangements that stood staunchly alongside Steely Dan. But Bush shifts inconsistently between reminding the woman that she can have babies and insisting, more effectively, that changing one’s life is up to you alone. The latter is clearly where her own sensibilities lie: “Them Heavy People,” another ode to her teachers, has a Woolf-like interiority (“I must work on my mind”) and a distinctly un-Woolf-like exuberance, capering along like a pink elephant on parade. “You don’t need no crystal ball,” she concludes, “Don’t fall for a magic wand/We humans got it all/We perform the miracles.”
The Kick Inside was Bush’s first, the sound of a young woman getting what she wants. Despite her links to the 1970s’ ancien régime, she recognized the potential to pounce on synapses shocked into action by punk, and eschewed its nihilism to begin building something longer lasting. It is ornate music made in austere times, but unlike the pop sybarites to follow in the next decade, flaunting their wealth while Britain crumbled, Bush spun hers not from material trappings but the infinitely renewable resources of intellect and instinct: Her joyous debut measures the fullness of a woman’s life by what’s in her head” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Wuthering Heights
A Deeper Dive
Never for Ever
Release Date: 8th September, 1980
Producers: Kate Bush/Jon Kelly
Labels: EMI (U.K.)/EMI America (U.S.)/Harvest (Canada)
Standout Tracks: The Wedding List/Army Dreamers/Breathing
Review:
“You listen to all of these records in sequence and good as The Kick Inside is, it’s just very apparent that the songwriting has gone up a gear with Never Forever. Strident, diverse, and intense Never Forever is the last Bush album with batshit mental prog art, the last album with an outside producer (though she co-produced with Jon Kelly), and the last record before she started using her beloved Fairlight synthesiser/sampler. It was also her third album in three years, that preempted the first meaningful gap in her career - you could point at the ways in which it predicts The Dreaming and call it a transitional album, but the truth is Never for Ever feels like the [apotheosis] of Leotard-era Kate Bush. The songs are just dazzlingly strong and distinctive. There are singles: ‘Babooska’ is a lot of fun, and the closing one-two of the eerie ‘Army Dreamers’ and the apocalyptic ‘Breathing’ is remarkable. But there’s a hell of a lot of little-remembered gold amongst the album tracks: the breakneck ‘Violin’ and tongue-in-cheek murder ballad ‘The Wedding List’ are really extraordinarily good pieces of songwriting” – Drowned in Sound
Key Cut: Babooshka
A Classic Cut
This Woman’s Work
Release Date: 20th November, 1989
From the Album: The Sensual World (1989)
Producer: Kate Bush
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Björk
The Finest Album
Post
Release Date: 13th June, 1985
Producers: Björk/Nellee Hooper/Graham Massey/Tricky/Howie B
Labels: One Little Indian/Elektra
Standout Tracks: Hyper-ballad/It’s Oh So Quiet/Isobel
Review:
“After Debut's success, the pressure was on Björk to surpass that album's creative, tantalizing electronic pop. She more than delivered with 1995's Post; from the menacing, industrial-tinged opener, "Army of Me," it's clear that this album is not simply Debut redux. The songs' production and arrangements -- especially those of the epic, modern fairy tale "Isobel" -- all aim for, and accomplish, more. Post also features Debut producer Nellee Hooper, 808 State's Graham Massey, Howie B, and Tricky, who help Björk incorporate a spectrum of electronic and orchestral styles into songs like "Hyperballad," which sounds like a love song penned by Aphex Twin. Meanwhile, the bristling beats on the volatile, sensual "Enjoy" and the fragile, weightless ballad "Possibly Maybe" nod to trip-hop without being overwhelmed by it. As on Debut, Björk finds new ways of expressing timeworn emotions like love, lust, and yearning in abstractly precise lyrics like "Since you went away/I'm wearing lipstick again/I suck my tongue in remembrance of you," from "Possibly Maybe." But Post's emotional peaks and valleys are more extreme than Debut's. "I Miss You"'s exuberance is so animated, it makes perfect sense that Ren & Stimpy's John Kricfalusi directed the song's video. Likewise, "It's Oh So Quiet" -- which eventually led to Björk's award-winning turn as Selma in Dancer in the Dark -- is so cartoonishly vibrant, it could have been arranged by Warner Bros. musical director Carl Stalling. Yet Björk sounds equally comfortable with an understated string section on "You've Been Flirting Again." "Headphones" ends the album on an experimental, hypnotic note, layering Björk's vocals over and over till they circle each other atop a bubbling, minimal beat. The work of a constantly changing artist, Post proves that as Björk moves toward more ambitious, complex music, she always surpasses herself” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Army of Me
Where the Start
Debut
Release Date: 5th July, 1993
Producers: Nellee Hooper/Björk
Labels: One Little Indian/Elektra
Standout Tracks: Venus as a Boy/Big Time Sensuality/Violently Happy
Review:
“The first three tracks are built from hypnotic loops. On 'Human Behaviour' a swampy kettle drum jazz vibe circles around Bjork's rasping larynx, trying to find a melody but eventually settling for the search. 'Crying' swims on a niggling piano riff, while the wonderful 'Venus As A Boy' creates an Arabic mantra. Here, as on most of the album, the tonsil gymnastics are kept to a minimum, but it's still a vastly disarming sound: a voice only a lifetime of Marlboro abuse or a guttural foreign language where people have names like Gudmundsdottir could create.
There's a bonkers part in 'There's More To Life Than This', though, where she sounds positively possessed. Allegedly recorded live in the Milk Bar toilets, a muffled house beat chunders away somewhere in the distance amid giggling chatter, then a door is closed and Bjork is left to sing alone about nicking boats and sneaking off into the night. This woman is quite patently barmy.
But even this is ill preparation for 'Like Someone In Love'. Accompanied only by 80-year-old harpist Corki Hale, it's the kind of tearful ballad you'd expect to find in the sad interlude of some crackly old black and white Judy Garland film. More fun, madness and surprise follows - the pulsating grind of 'Big Time Sensuality' and 'Violently Happy' plus the sweet unearthly breeze of 'One Day' which ripples along to baby gurgles and ambient fizzes.
This is an album that believes music can be magical and special. It will either puzzle you or pull you into its spell. And if you fall into the latter category, 'Debut' will make every other record you own seem flat, lifeless and dull by comparison” – NME
Key Cut: Human Behaviour
A Deeper Dive
Volta
Release Date: 1st May, 2007
Producers: Björk/Timbaland/Danja/Mark Bell/Damian Taylor
Labels: One Little Indian (U.K.)/Polydor (Europe)/Elektra/Atlantic (N.A.)
Standout Tracks: Wanderlust/The Dull Flame of Desire/Declare Independence
Review:
“Once again finding harmony and creating alchemy between seeming opposites, on Volta Björk is bold but thoughtful, delicate yet strong, accessible and avant. The intricacy and complexity of projects like Medúlla and Drawing Restraint 9 suggested that she might have left the more direct side of her work behind, but Volta's opening track and lead single, "Earth Intruders," puts that notion to rest: the song literally marches in, riding a bubbling, ritualistic beat courtesy of Timbaland and Konono No. 1's electric thumb-pianos. Björk howls "Turmoil! Carnage!" like incantations over the din, and after several albums' worth of beautiful whispers, it's a joy to hear her raise her voice and volume like this. "Wanderlust" follows and provides the yin to "Earth Intruders"' yang, its horns and brooding melody giving it the feel of a moodier, more contemplative version of "The Anchor Song." These two songs set the tone for the rest of Volta's pendulum-like swings between sounds and moods, all of which are tied together by found-sound and brass-driven interludes that give the impression that the album was recorded in a harbor -- an apt metaphor for how ideas and collaborators come and go on this album. Timbaland's beats resurface on "Innocence," another of Volta's most potent moments; a sample of what sounds like a man getting punched in the gut underscores Björk's viewpoint that purity is something powerful, not gentle. Antony and the Johnsons' Antony Hegarty lends his velvety voice to two outstanding but very different love songs: "The Dull Flame of Desire" captures swooning romance by pairing Björk and Hegarty's voices with a slowly building tattoo courtesy of Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale; "My Juvenile," which is dedicated to Björk's son Sindri, closes Volta with a much gentler duet. Considering how much sonic and emotional territory the album spans -- from the brash, anthemic "Declare Independence," which sounds a bit like Homogenic's "Pluto," to "Pneumonia" and "Vertebrae by Vertebrae," which are as elliptical and gentle as anything on Vespertine or Drawing Restraint 9 -- Volta could very easily sound scattered, but this isn't the case. Instead, it finds the perfect balance between the vibrancy of her poppier work in the '90s and her experiments in the 2000s” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Earth Intruders
A Classic Cut
Jóga
Release Date: 15th September, 1997
From the Album: Homogenic (1997)
Producers: Björk/Mark Bell
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PJ Harvey
The Finest Album
To Bring You My Love
Release Date: 27th February, 1995
Producers: Flood/John Parish/PJ Harvey
Label: Island
Standout Tracks: To Bring You My Love/C'mon Billy/Send His Love to Me
Review:
“Following the tour for Rid of Me, Polly Harvey parted ways with Robert Ellis and Stephen Vaughn, leaving her free to expand her music from the bluesy punk that dominated PJ Harvey's first two albums. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. Relying heavily on religious metaphors and imagery borrowed from the blues, Harvey has written a set of songs that are lyrically reminiscent of Nick Cave's and Tom Waits' literary excursions into the gothic American heartland. Since she was a product of post-punk, she's nowhere near as literally bluesy as Cave or Waits, preferring to embellish her songs with shards of avant guitar, eerie keyboards, and a dense, detailed production. It's a far cry from the primitive guitars of her first two albums, but Harvey pulls it off with style, since her songwriting is tighter and more melodic than before; the menacing "Down by the Water" has genuine hooks, as does the psycho stomp of "Meet Ze Monsta," the wailing "Long Snake Moan," and the stately "C'Mon Billy." The clear production by Harvey, Flood, and John Parish makes these growths evident, which in turn makes To Bring You My Love her most accessible album, even if the album lacks the indelible force of its predecessors” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Down by the Water
Where the Start
Dry
Release Date: 30th March, 1992
Producers: Head/Rob Ellis/PJ Harvey
Label: Too Pure
Standout Tracks: O Stella/Dress/Fountain
Review:
“These extreme contrasts confused critics at the time: Dry played like a feminist statement but she refused the label, wondering why anyone remarked on her sexual lyrics when plenty of rock and blues bands had gone further before her. Mostly dressed in black, her hair scraped back severely, she seemed to eschew image, but then posed topless on the cover of NME. She insisted that there was no depth to the lyrics, and professed to being baffled by people’s attempts to interpret them, but her considered use of female archetypes to depict a woman’s fall and subsequent vengeance told a different story. All of these things were true at once, part of her distancing push-and-pull. As she told Spin in ’93, “The biggest protection you can have is if people think they’ve got you and they haven’t got you at all.”
She pulls the same trick on Dry’s scumbag subject, going into the record's vengeful second half. She’s Delilah to his Samson on “Hair,” flattering him into submission and cutting off his mane. “I’ll keep it safe,” she sings, sounding emboldened by power, before flipping on a knife edge, realizing: “You’re mine.” The bass zooms as if mapping the swift transfer of power; the rhythm section pounds like Samson’s impotent rage. “Joe” is the record’s most manic moment. There’s no quiet-loud shift, just pure piledriver dynamics as she spits nails at the treachery she’s experienced: “Always thought you’d come rushing in to clear the shit out of my eye/Joe, ain’t you my buddy, thee?”
But rather than commit bloody murder as you might expect, she retreats on “Plants and Rags,” “[easing] myself into a body bag,” and finding solace at home: “Who thought they could take away that place?” she asks as the violin swirls to a deranged squall. Her love of Slint comes through on the menacing fretboard harmonics of “Fountain,” where she washes herself clean and a Jesus-like figure shrouds her modesty in leaves. On “Water,” her first utterance of the word sounds like she’s dying of thirst. By the chorus, when she’s walked into the sea, invoking Mary and Jesus again, she sounds as though the crashing waves are emanating from her own throat” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Sheela-na-gig
A Deeper Dive
Uh Huh Her
Release Date: 31st May, 2004
Producer: PJ Harvey
Label: Island
Standout Tracks: The Pocket Knife/The Desperate Kingdom of Love/Seagulls
Review:
“Even though she's not quite as overt about it as Madonna or David Bowie, PJ Harvey remains one of rock's expert chameleons. Her ever-changing sound keeps her music open to interpretation, and her seventh album, Uh Huh Her, is no different in that it departs from what came before it. Uh Huh Her -- a title that can be pronounced and interpreted as an affirmation, a gasp, a sigh, or a laugh -- is, as Harvey promised, darker and rawer than the manicured Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. That album was a bid for the mainstream that Harvey said she made just to see if she could; this album sounds like she made it because she had to. However, despite the playful tantrum "Who the Fuck?" and the noisy mix of pent-up erotic longing and frustration that is "The Letter," Uh Huh Her isn't the Rid of Me redux that one might envision as a reaction to the previous album's gloss. Instead, Harvey uses some of each of the sounds and ideas that she has explored throughout her career. The gallery of self-portraits, juxtaposed with snippets of Harvey's notebooks, gracing Uh Huh Her's liner notes underscores the feeling of culmination and moving forward. The results aren't exactly predictable, though, and that's part of what makes songs like "The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth" interesting. Earlier in Harvey's career, a track like this probably would have exploded in feral fury, but here it simmers with a crawling tension, switching atmospheric keyboards for searing guitars. Indeed, keyboards and odd instrumental flourishes abound on Uh Huh Her, making it the most sonically interesting PJ Harvey album since Is This Desire? Lyrically, heartache, sex, and feminine roles are still Harvey's bread and butter, but she manages to find something new in these themes each time she returns to them. "Pocket Knife" is an especially striking example: a beautifully creepy murder ballad, the song conjures images of hidden feminine power -- a pocketknife concealed by a wedding dress -- as well as lyrics like "I'm not trying to cause a fuss/I just wanna make my own fuck-ups." "You Come Through," meanwhile, is nearly as direct and vulnerable as anything that appeared on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Uh Huh Her isn't perfect; the track listing feels top-loaded, some of the later songs, such as "Cat on the Wall" and "It's You" come close to sounding like generic PJ Harvey (if such a thing is possible), and the minute-long track of crying seagulls is either a distraction or a palate cleanser, depending on your outlook. Still, Uh Huh Her does so many things right, like the gorgeous, Latin-tinged "Shame" and the stripped-down beauty of "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" (one of a handful of short, glimpse-like songs that give the album an organic ebb and flow), that its occasional stumbles are worth overlooking. Perhaps the most nuanced album in PJ Harvey's body of work, Uh Huh Her balances her bold and vulnerable moments, but remains vital” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Shame
A Classic Cut
This Is Love
Release Date: 8th October, 2001
From the Album: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
Producers: Rob Ellis/Mick Harvey/Sam Cunningham