FEATURE: Spotlight: Paris Jackson — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Janell Shirtcliff

Paris Jackson

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BECAUSE she just released…

PHOTO CREDIT: Djeneba Aduayom

the dreamy new work, the lost ep, I think it is a perfect time to feature the incredible Paris Jackson. It is a weird couple of days. Tomorrow, I am releasing a future about her late father, Michael, as a new biopic is in the works. I adore Michael Jackson, and I was a massive fan right from childhood. I ask whether the public reception of the biopic will be kind and whether it is the right time to release it. Whilst an icon, there is still controversy attached to his name – is that something that the public and critics will negatively respond to? I think that such an influential artist deserves a biopic, yet it may be a difficult time to release a project. We shall see what happens. I want to spotlight his stunningly talented daughter, as she is an artist in her own right – even though, clearly, her father was a big influence and source of guidance for her (she was just eleven when he died in 2009). Aged only twenty-three, she is someone with a busy and hugely prosperous future ahead! In addition to music, she is an actor and model. I think her music career is starting to take off; her new music is her strongest work yet. I want to work up to some great interviews. Prior to coming more up to date, I wanted to look back at her debut album, wilted, of 2020. It is a really strong album, and I think that it is actually a bit underrated. Whether the lost ep is a transition between albums, I am not sure. It is a gorgeous trio of tracks that showcases her amazing vocal and songwriting prowess.

Before working my way up to her new E.P., Republic Records gave us the skinny when it came to her amazing debut album, wilted:

“Over the course of 11 exquisitely composed tracks, Jackson illuminates her journey from sorrow to strength with a specificity that’s often heartrending. But when absorbed as a complete body of work, Wilted radiates a deep sense of wonder that Jackson traces back to her fascination with one of nature’s strangest phenomena: the possibility of rebirth from decay, as manifested in the life cycle of her most beloved plant. “I love mushrooms and what they represent, which is decay as an extant form of life,” says Jackson. “You take a wilted flower that’s deprived of sunlight and water and everything it needs, and as it breaks down and rots away, a mushroom will grow from that. A new life is born, and it’s an unconventional sort of life. Maybe the daytime the flower existed in wasn’t the right place for it to grow, but now it’s nighttime and everything’s neon and happy and so beautiful. This mushroom gets to live its best life.”

Building off a batch of demos she’d recorded on her own, Jackson created  Wilted at Hull’s Atlanta studio with the help of his longtime collaborator/producer Dan Hannon. As a massive fan of Manchester Orchestra—her left arm bears a tattoo of the cover art from their 2017 album A Black Mile to the Surface—Jackson sought out Hull and McDowell based on the relentless imagination behind their output, and felt an immediate creative chemistry with both musicians. “Straight out of the gate we were all on the same page, and by day three we all started getting weird—but the exact same kind of weird,” Jackson recalls. “There were certain songs on the record where I told them, ‘If there’s anything you ever wanted to try in the studio before but felt like it was way too out there, just run with it.’ We were all so excited about trying new things, and we felt free to experiment with whatever we wanted.”

Like all of  Wilted, the luminous lead single “Let Down” balances that unbridled experimentation with Jackson’s elegant sense of songcraft and gift for sculpting indelible melodies. A portrait of precarious longing, “Let Down” unfolds in a graceful convergence of textures inspired by the music of Radiohead (a factor Jackson lovingly nodded to by taking the track’s title from a cut on OK Computer). “That album is one of my favorites, and it was definitely a reference point for some of the sounds on this record,” she says. “I love how they combine acoustic and electric guitar and layer in a lot of synth, and how Thom Yorke will hit all the notes in his vocal range in just one song.” When matched with the dreamlike quality of her lyrics (“Head hanging down/Shredded evening gown/Eyes painted black/A tragic paperback”), the impact of Jackson’s own voice is doubly powerful, transmuting heartache into something impossibly lovely.

While much of  Wilted embodies a heavy-hearted mood, the album opens on the unfettered hope of “Collide,” a gentle reverie whose tumbling piano tones and sweetly lilting harmonies capture the pure rush of falling in love. “I wanted to start out on a happy note, and then as the story goes on the hope starts to fade and you’re trying so hard to hold onto something that’s just falling apart,” says Jackson. An anguished plea for peace of mind (“I wanna hold my head up high/I want the truth/I want a goddamn lullaby”), “Repair” hints at the devastation to come, the track’s tender urgency intensified by its ingeniously crafted rhythms (“It sounds like chains rattling, but really it’s us shaking a giant box of tambourines,” Jackson points out).

With “Let Down” serving as the album’s centerpiece, the latter half of  Wilted fully immerses the listener in its unsparing catharsis. On “Eyelids,” for instance, Hull joins Jackson for a hushed meditation on the unbearable pain of memory, their voices blending in a beautifully haunting duet. One of the album’s most exhilarating moments, “Scorpio Rising” speaks to the mind-warping effects of despair, building a potent momentum from its jagged riffs and wildly frenetic percussion (an element partly formed by sampling Jackson’s sharply inhaled breath). That volatile energy also infuses the title track to Wilted, a glorious epic whose spectral harmonies and shapeshifting sonic layers ultimately give way to a self-possessed clarity (“A new flower manifests/One that won’t need the sun…I’ll be my own sun”). And on “Another Spring,” Jackson closes out with a bright and soulful piece of folk-pop imbued with clear-eyed resolve (“I’ll rearrange and let my wounds shine through/Let my wounds bring another spring”).

In bringing Wilted to life, Jackson continually tapped into her fine-honed intuition. “The songs tend to come when I suddenly feel the need to sit down and play guitar,” she says. “If I ever try to force it, then nothing really happens. I’ll usually find a chord progression that feels good and then a melody that works with it, and the lyrics just happen on their own.” A lifelong singer who names such eclectic songwriters as George Harrison, Ray LaMontagne, and Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx among her inspirations, Jackson has embraced a deliberately free-spirited creative approach since penning her first song at age 13. “It’s never been an ambition of mine to find a certain sound or formula to stick to,” she says. “I know that my music is always going to keep changing with each new thing I make. I just want to try everything.”

With the release of  Wilted, Jackson remains passionately focused on pushing forward in her artistry. “I experienced a lot of healing through making this record, and in an ideal world it would be amazing if people experienced a similar kind of healing from listening to it—but I’d rather leave it up to them to take whatever they want from the album,” she says. “I put so much of myself into these songs and got as raw and vulnerable as I possibly could, and we ended up taking them to a level that I never could have imagined”.

I have a lot of love and respect for Paris Jackson. Children of incredibly famous artists have that extra pressure on their shoulders. They will always be compared to their famous parent or asked about them all of the time. Having lived so much of her young life in the spotlight, she has shown incredible strength and dignity. This is an artist that we need to support and show affection for. Variety published a fantastic interview with Paris Jackson (she spells her name in all lowercase on some of her channels; I will keep it as is). I have highlighted a few questions and answers from that chat:

“Did COVID factor into your writing at all?

Not really so much in the writing, but it definitely gave me more free time.

How long have you been writing songs prior to this?

Maybe a little less than 10 years, I think.

But this felt like the right time to make your debut with a record?

Yeah, I guess. It really just worked out the way it did. The album was just ready, so we were just like: okay, let’s release it.

Did you see the album as having a concept or a story to it?

No, at first I didn’t, because I wrote all the songs as I was going through just life. Then when it came time to actually get in the studio and start recording demos, it was a matter of: Okay, well, out of all the songs I’ve written this year, which ones am I going to choose to record? And as I was writing down which songs I wanted to record, it started to seem a little bit like a concept record. So I was like, Okay, I’m going to intentionally make this, you know, a story. It’s my experience with love and betrayal and heartbreak. And, in that sense, it is autobiographical. But I feel like it’s also written in a way that can be all-encompassing, because everybody experiences that in some form or another, you know?

Do you write your songs on a particular instrument?

Guitar. That’s the only one I know well enough to be able to write on. I’m kind of slowly picking up piano here and there, but I don’t know it well enough to be able to write on the piano.

So you went to Andy with a batch of demos. What kind of form were they in?

I had gone into a studio out here with an engineer, and recorded just very basic ideas of what I wanted to do with the songs. I had guitar and vocals. And for “Another Spring,” for example, I didn’t have a banjo, so we took the guitar, I did some plucking, and then we tuned it up using autotune, and added filters over it to make it sound like a banjo. We used sample percussion to get the ideal sound that I was trying to go for, and then we used a synthesizer to get the cello sounds that I wanted. I would just sing to the engineer what I heard and what I wanted, and he would play it on the synthesizer. So they were just like really standard demos. But Andy said that normally when he works with someone new, they just come with like a voice memo from their phone. So he said it was really helpful that I had basically full songs. … Some songs, as I’m just playing it on guitar after it’s been written, I’ll hear what I want the bass to sound like, and if I want there to be electric guitar. I’ve been told I have the producer brain, so I definitely hear the song before it’s made.

What was the stamp you felt Andy could give these songs?

I am obsessed with his music. Honestly, he can do no wrong in my eyes. So when I brought the songs to him, I was just like, “Whatever you want to do with these songs, let’s do it.” There were some songs where he was like, “I don’t want to change anything at all.” And then there were some songs where he’s like, “All right, well, let’s work on the lyrics,” or “let’s improve this in some way.” Or he’ll just totally take the producer standpoint and enhance the sound. And then, like “Eyelids” for example, he totally wrote his own verse, and we worked on the harmonies together. But I trust his instincts. We connected in a really cool artist way. Most of the time, if someone tries to tell me to change something, depending on the person, it can feel like they’re not respecting my art, you know? But with Andy, there was so much trust there that I was very open-minded to what he had to say.

Did you envision a certain palette of sound, or a genre of music you wanted the songs to end up in?

I knew I wanted “Undone” to be more upbeat, a little bit more on the rock side. I knew I wanted “Scorpio Rising” and “Wilted” to be the weirder ones on the record. I wanted to really experiment with textures and just weird sounds, and I really wanted to make the listener feel uncomfortable in a comforting way. I believe that art is supposed to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I wanted to try and capture the feelings that I get when I listen to certain Radiohead songs, and howI’ve seen some people react where it just makes them uncomfortable and uneasy, but it feels so comforting to me. I knew I wanted “Another Spring” to just be like super folky. And then there were just some other ones where I’m like, “Yeah, I just want it to be a mashup of Radiohead and Manchester Orchestra, so, I trust you, Andy. Do your thing.”

Manchester Orchestra. Radiohead. What other kind of music do you gravitate to? Which artists speak most to you?

Honestly, I have so, so, so many influences. But for specifics, “Undone” was very heavily influenced by the band Grandaddy, and the lead singer Jason Lytle and his music. “Another Spring” was very influenced by Caamp and the Lumineers.

What adjectives would you use for what this record is?

Mmm… just a good starting point. Because I want to keep growing. I want to keep expanding. I want to keep experimenting. I want to try as many things as I can, while staying true to myself and what I think sounds and feels right. I mean, just for the sake of naming a genre, I’d say it’s more alternative folk, but I don’t plan on staying with just that. I’m definitely going to keep some of those elements, but I really, really want to expand, and just try everything out.

Talk about the little touches and textures on the album, like the glass jangling or whatever that sound is on “Repair.”

That was a really fun one to record. That one was very heavily influenced by Cage the Elephant — and Radiohead, of course. The sound that you’re thinking of, the percussion, was actually a box filled with tambourines and shakers and little percussion thingies, and we just shook the whole box in front of a mic. It was really fun.

I was also really struck by the quality of your voice. I hadn’t heard you sing before. Who would you say are some of the inspirations for you as a singer?

I guess Thom Yorke, for sure. And Andy. I don’t know. I mean, I grew up hearing my dad’s voice all the time, so I imagine that’s definitely got to have an influence on me, subconsciously — and just picking up things here and there because that was my childhood. I think all the music that I listen to, in some way, just influenced my sound.

Your singing voice feels very unaffected. It doesn’t have a put-on to it. A lot of popular singers do a voice, and yours is a little bit more pure.

First of all, thank you — I appreciate that. That is definitely my intention, is to be as honest as possible with my music, and to just be myself. But I definitely, in the future… I’m starting to try out different sounds with my voice, and see how far I can go before it starts sounding bad and weird. When I’m by myself in my car, I’m trying out different voices to see what sounds right. Up until this point, I’ve just been 100 percent myself, and just singing how I sing. But I’m trying more raspy stuff, and just trying to see what my voice can do, and really explore.

You mentioned Thom Yorke, who goes up into falsetto a lot. There’s something very vulnerable about that — especially for a man, I guess — but something kind of pure and vulnerable about his voice.

Oh man, he’s so incredible. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out “In Rainbows – From the Basement,” which they released earlier this year, he does exactly what you’re talking about. It’s kind of like a wailing. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard”.

Paris Jackson’s music is incredible and shows that she has a long future. Of course, her dad would have been a big reason why she wanted to make her own stuff. As we learn from this TODAY article of March 2021, Paris Jackson has been influenced by her father a lot. She also earns everything herself and does not want anything handed to her.

“The model, actor and singer noted that she was conceived in Paris, born in Los Angeles and was raised “kind of everywhere but” those iconic cities.

“It was also like we saw everything,” she said of the upbringing she and her brothers, Prince, 24, and Bigi, 19, enjoyed. “We saw third world countries. We saw every part of the spectrum.”

Looking back now, she regards it as “a blessing and a privilege to be able to experience so much at a young age.” And she feels fortunate that her father gave her so much more than just a material inheritance. The music legend left her with enough life lessons to last a lifetime.

“I’m also a full believer that I should earn everything,” she said of her position in life now, as she pursues a number of careers in entertainment and fashion. “I need to go to auditions. I work hard. I study scripts. I do my thing.”

“Even growing up it was about earning stuff,” she recalled. “If we wanted five toys from FAO Schwarz or Toys ‘R’ Us, we had to read five books. It’s earning it, not just being entitled to certain things or thinking, ‘Oh, I got this.’ It’s like working for it, working hard for it, it’s something else entirely. It’s an accomplishment”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Karwai Tang/Getty Images

It is important learning about Paris Jackson’s musical influences and her writing process. I also think that, for someone who is already famed and has an iconic father, there is going to be a lot of concentration and intrigue about her childhood and personal life. In April 2021, Jackson spoke with the Evening Standard. She talked about addiction and living at Michael Jackson’s Neverland. As we become aware, she is someone who is her own artist and has crafted her own credential. She is a very cool, compelling, inspiring and artistic soul:

“World famous from the moment she was born, Michael Jackson’s only daughter says she has become accustomed to battling preconceived ideas about her character. ‘I’ve had more than a handful of people tell me, “Wow, when I met you I thought you were gonna be a bitch!”’ she says, the expletive barely past her lips before she starts trying to reel it back in. ‘Excuse my language. They’re like: “When I met you I thought you were gonna be a spoiled brat.” While that’s nice to hear, it’s also like, oh, people already think that before they even meet me. A lot of times I don’t have a chance to show people who I really am.’

Now aged 22, Jackson is taking her chance to show the world her true self — musically, at least. Her debut album, Wilted, is a collection of melancholy indie-folk inspired by the likes of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Californian band Grandaddy. While that may sound like a far cry from her father’s remarkable pop oeuvre, she counts his work among her influences, too. ‘I think he’ll always influence everything I do in some way, whether it’s subconscious or intentional,’ she reasons. ‘I was around that creativity all the time, so I’m sure I learnt a lot of what I have from that”.

Jackson’s teenage years were particularly difficult. In 2013, aged 15, a debilitating combination of grief, depression and intravenous drug addiction eventually led her to try to kill herself. In the wake of the suicide attempt she was sent to a reform school much like the one where her friend Paris Hilton has alleged she suffered ongoing abuse. When Hilton went public with her allegations last year, Jackson posted her support on Instagram and said she had been through something similar, writing: ‘As a girl who also went to a behaviour modification “boarding school” for almost two years as a teenager, and has since been diagnosed with PTSD because of it and continue to have nightmares and trust issues, I stand with @ParisHilton and the other survivors.’

Today, she stops short of saying these kinds of institutions should be banned outright. ‘I think it depends on every situation,’ she says, taking a drag from her pink-hued nicotine vape. ‘I will say that I understand the necessity of the idea of it. You just have to go about it a certain way, and this was not the way to go about it. The idea is to rehabilitate, not to cause more harm”.

Among those encouraging her musical endeavours is her godfather, Macaulay Culkin. ‘His music taste is really cool,’ she says. ‘He listens to stuff like Devendra Banhart and The Orwells, so when I do stuff closer to that kind of stuff I send it to him. He’s been really, really supportive.’

PHOTO CREDIT: Djeneba Aduayom

Alongside her music career, Jackson is also a model and actor. She appeared in the 2018 crime caper, Gringo, and in 2019 guest-starred in an episode of slasher series Scream. ‘I love acting,’ she says. ‘I definitely would love to keep doing that, and the modelling thing. The older I get and the more I do it, the more I start to actually understand fashion and the art behind it.’

She has come to terms with the incredible fame that was her inheritance, in part by using it to draw attention to causes she believes in. She credits her faith in the power of activism in part to her godmother, Elizabeth Taylor (she is an ambassador for Taylor’s Aids Foundation), but mostly to her father for bringing her up to be anything but a spoiled brat”.

Go and follow the magnificent Paris Jackson. With a new E.P. hot off the press, it is another chapter and development from the rising artist. As she progresses through her twenties and thirties, we will see her music blossom, evolve and expand. I think that, in a way, she will take a similar course to her aunt, Janet. Her music became more political, raw and harder-hitting; maybe more sensual, sexual, personal and challenging from the late-1980s. It would be great to hear Paris and Janet Jackson on record together soon. The California-born multi-talented artist will go into films, T.V. and do a lot in the coming years. You can tell music is her true passion. Always growing stronger and more confident and distinct as an artist, the lost ep is sign that she an outstanding artist! Do not miss out on…