FEATURE: No Sweat? A New Era and Huge Year for the Iconic Melanie C

FEATURE:

 

 

No Sweat?

PHOTO CREDIT: Oliver Begg for Stellar

A New Era and Huge Year for the Iconic Melanie C

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THERE are going to be…

PHOTO CREDIT: Charles Dennington

a few interviews dropped in here, in addition to a few of songs from Melanie C’s upcoming album, Sweat. That album arrives on 1st May. Whilst known as ‘Sporty Spice’ during her regency with the Spice Girls – more on them soon -, she is perhaps at her most energised and fit now. Looking sensational and delivering these high-intensity photos, you feel like Sweat has a double meaning. This icon, now fifty-two, in peak physical health and absolutely stunning, perhaps pushing back at ageism and sexism. Women in music seen as over the hill or irrelevant when they past forty. Though things have improved slightly the past few years, you still get stations with strict demographics. Songs from Sweat will not be played as wide as they should, even though they are from a legend of music who has had a hand in some of the most important Pop music of the past thirty years. Sweat is also a call to the Club. The sort of ecstasy and euphoria she experienced in the early part of the 1990s, before she found fame with Spice Girls. I have been a huge fan of Melanie C since the Spice Girls’ stunning debut single, Wannabe. I am going to come to interviews with Melanie C. Snippets from a couple from this year. An opinion piece that argues she is Pop’s most underrated icon. A Dance icon. We look at artists like Dua Lipa, Charli xcx and younger acts. Melanie C is right up there with the best and most relevant queens of Pop, I feel. I covered the Spice Girls recently when there was talk they may reunite. She revealed in a recent interview with Stellar in Australia how Spice Girls faced sexism early on. Ageism took. I am going to pop this interview in below, in addition to others. However, there are some important Spice Girls things to cover off.

This music queen is in a year where she is looking ahead and releasing stunning new music, but also there will be nostalgia and this huge anniversary coming up. Released in Japan on 26th June, 1996 and 8th July, 1996 in the U.K., this is an absolutely huge moment! I am not sure what is planned in terms of celebrations. However, it must be quite nerve-wracking, as people will ask about a Spice Girls reunion. Will they do some gigs to mark thirty years of Wannabe?! Their debut album, Spice, turns thirty on 19th September. I guess there will be a vinyl reissue and things around that. Melanie C has said how she and the rest of the group – Geri Halliwell-Horner, Emma Bunton, Melanie Brown and Victoria Beckham – are wary of doing a reunion wrong. Rushing it or it being seen as a cash-in. Maybe not giving the fans what they deserve. There has been talk for ages and reasons why they have not performed. The group not all on the same page. Some divisions maybe. However, in a year where they mark thirty years since their debut single arrives, fans from the 1990s and new alike crave this event to happen! It is impossible to mark that thirtieth without something happening. Unlike Oasis, I cannot see the five-piece going on a big tour – gauging fans with eye-watering ticket prices in the process – and that being that (though you feel the Gallaghers might get back on stage in the future). Perhaps a couple of gigs or a special one-off. You do feel like they all have their own stuff going on. That is especially true for Melanie C.

Embarking on this new album, Sweat, and getting that out there. Also, that fear of ageism and sexism lingers now. I feel like Sweat will be reviewed a certain way and restricted in terms of where it is played. Have Heart, Radio 1, Capital and other stations spun it? I do think that, when you are a woman over the age of thirty-five or forty, stations seen as ‘younger-focused’ overlook your music. I am sure these stations have played Melanie C recently, through given how incredible recent singles have been and how important she is, why has she not been given unquestioning airplay and respect?! I am eager to see what Spice Girls-related things happen later this year. Wannabe still sounds so fresh and vital today. You can hear major artists of today who, consciously or not, nod back to Spice Girls. Sabrina Carpenter is someone I imagine being a fa of the group. Addison Rae too. You can hear the whole interview below. However, this article notes how, personally, this is a happy time for Melanie C:

“This week, the former Spice Girl told the Stellar podcast her perspective on work/life balance has really changed since she met her now-partner, Australian model and filmmaker Chris Dingwall, a few years ago.

“The grass is always greener, isn’t it? As an artist, I love what I do and in the last couple of years since meeting my partner, I’ve really started to accept that my work is such a big part of my life,” she told Something To Talk About host Sarrah Le Marquand.

“Rather than separating work and life, I enjoy them both together, which has been a big shift for me,” she continued.

“I think that really happened after I met my partner, Chris. He is able to travel with me a lot. “He’s a screenwriter so he can often work from anywhere and that usually means with me, which is good for me.

“It’s just so beautiful to be able to enjoy the life I have with the person I love.”

It’s believed the couple first crossed paths in 2023 when Mel was touring around Australia as a DJ.

Speculation that the pair were dating increased after they posted similar photos from the same hotels to their respective Instagram accounts around the same time.

In July 2025, Mel confirmed their relationship, posting a carousel of loved-up photos from a recent holiday on her Instagram with the caption: “A slice of paradise”.

Elsewhere in the interview, the Never Be The Same Again singer opened up about the Spice Girls’ secret group chats.

“I’ve got in trouble for saying this in the past but all friendship groups have this,” she said.

“We have different ones with different people in [them].

“But the one that makes me laugh – it’s so funny, over the years we have this running joke where everything is Mel B’s idea.

“So the group chat that she started is called ‘My idea’ and she will definitely be the one sending the funny messages.

“I said to Emma [Bunton] once: you know, you’re the only person who’s not got a group chat without you in it. And she’s like, what do you mean? You’re so diplomatic.”

One of the things they’ve discussed on those group chats? A potential Australian reunion tour.

“It would be wonderful. It’s incredible to think ‘Spice Mania’, which is what I call the period between 1996 and 1998, was only two years,” she said.

“We went on tour in 1998 and we toured Europe and North America and they’re the only places we ended up getting to. America didn’t even see the original five Spice Girls because Geri had left by then.

“Our live performances were quite limited and that breaks my heart because that’s my favourite part – so I’d be the first person to put my hand up to tour Australia, followed closely by Mel B, probably”.

Apologies for lazily or oddly dropping in video interviews and songs in the middle of seemingly unconnected interviews. There is a tonne of stuff I want to include. It is clear that there is part of Melanie C always with the Spice Girls. This year is one where she is thinking back to 1996 and breaking through with the group. I can only imagine the pressure she must feel from those who want the group to get back on stage or do something special. However, it has to be right and they all have to agree.

However, she also is looking ahead to Sweat and tour dates. I will bring in a review for the title track soon. There are a couple of interviews from this year that I want to get to. Incidentally, go and follow Melanie C on Instagram, as it is fascinating seeing everything related to Sweat revealed. This is a massive year for her. I am pumped for new music but, as a fan of Spice Girls, that side of things too. I want to head back to earlier in the year when The Times spent time with Melanie C. Actually, they talked about Spice Girls and asked if a reunion as going to happen:

“Was that the Spice Girls’ experience? “No, we called the shots.” You did? “Oh yeah. But I was shocked. I did a panel a couple of years ago with Leigh-Anne [Pinnock] from Little Mix, Shaznay [Lewis] from All Saints, Nicola [Roberts] from Girls Aloud and Keisha [Buchanan] from the Sugababes. I was shocked to hear their stories. Their stories made my blood boil! The experiences they had? I went, ‘What the f***? The Spice Girls, did it mean nothing?’ We thought we were paving the way for everyone else.”

In what way? “When we started we were wet behind the ears. ‘We wanna be famous! We wanna be famous!’ Then people started saying things like, ‘Girls don’t really sell records, not like boy bands. You’ll never be on the cover of Smash Hits, because girls buy the magazine.’ And we were like, ‘F*** that!’ And we started talking about ‘girl power’. When you’re in a band you have to figure out who you are, and we were like, ‘We have to be a girl band, for girls.’ ” One that made the industry reconsider where women stood within it, how powerful they could be and how they deserved to be treated.

“I look back and I think, ‘Wow, you were lucky.’ But I also think we were petrifying. There was something about the energy of the five of us.” You think people were scared of you? “Yes, I do.” You were sort of unknowable, unpredictable, rogue, I say. Like that time Geri pinched Prince Charles’s bottom. “We’d quite revel in that. We were from majority working-class backgrounds, we were going to make music in this heavily male-dominated industry. We had to go in, all guns blazing, make the impact. Sometimes we laugh and go, ‘How did we get away with it?’ But it had to be done.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Claire Rothstein

Like pretty much every celebrity I have ever met, Melanie Chisholm has suffered on account of fame, perhaps as much as she has benefited from it. Perhaps more. “I’ve had some very lonely times in my life,” she tells me. “I’ve had some very difficult times.”

The Spice Girls fizzled out at the end of the Nineties, in a tangle of solo projects that followed the official departure of Geri Halliwell in 1998. In the months before the band’s demise, Chisholm developed issues related to eating, associated with the endless, cruel scrutiny of the tabloid press. “I was exercising more, eating less, getting smaller and smaller.”

Does she think that would have happened to her if she hadn’t been famous? “No, I don’t think it would.” I wonder if the other Spice Girls realised what was happening to her, if they tried to raise it. “Yes, absolutely, it was a very physical thing, very noticeable. When you’re with each other for so much time and your eating habits change, they’re aware. They did try to speak to me, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.”

Chisholm reached rock bottom, she says, after the band ended, when she was trying to find an identity and a career beyond Sporty Spice. She was devastatingly lonely, working and working and neglecting her social life to the point where “I’d come home, and it was just me”. By the millennium new year things had reached breaking point. “I was with my family in LA and I couldn’t get out of bed. I was crying and crying. I’d started having a binge-eating disorder, but I didn’t understand it.” Finally she sought professional help, was diagnosed with both clinical depression and disordered eating, and slowly began to heal.

“When I was pregnant with Scarlet [her daughter, now 16], that was such a huge moment, because for the first time in my life I was proud of my body. I was like, wow.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Claire Rothstein

Scarlet’s father is the property developer Thomas Starr. He and Chisholm were together for ten years before splitting in 2012, when Scarlet was three. Chisholm was in a seven-year relationship from 2015 with Joe Marshall, who was also her manager. “So that was complicated,” she says. For the past two years she has been in a relationship with the Australian model Chris Dingwall.

Are you in love? “I mean, of course!” They met on the celebrity dating app Raya. Is dating as a celebrity a nightmare? I don’t understand how famous people do it. “I don’t understand how anyone does it. When I found myself single, you know what it’s like. You’re like, ‘Not interested, I don’t want to meet anyone ever again.’ Did that for a bit. Then, a night out with the girlfriends, oh, you’ve got to get back in the game! Made me a profile.” She met Chris quickly — “luckily”, as she was already getting tired of men messaging her, “making references to, like, ‘Ooh, Spicy!’”

Dingwall was based in Sydney, Chisholm in north London, but “I had a DJ tour booked in Australia”. They met up, went for dinner, “Been together ever since.” He is good for her because he is incredibly calm, she says. Might she marry him? “You know what? It’s something I didn’t think would be part of my story. But I’m so happy with Chris. Maybe it is something that will be in my life. I just think, just do all the things. Do you know what I mean? Have all the experiences.”

And of course we talk about the Spice Girls. How close are you now? “With the other girls? It fluctuates. Like any friendship group. I’ve always been really close to Emma.”

Are they in a WhatsApp group? “I got in hot water recently. I did an interview with Emma and I said, ‘Oh, you know there’s always a WhatsApp group without you in it, right?’ And she was like, no! But what I was trying to say to Emma is, ‘You’re the only person who is in all the WhatsApps.’ She is that person. She’s never acting up. Everyone else is acting up at some point, but she’s the one who never acts up.”

When was the last time she acted up? “It’s going to be when all this press comes out.” I ask her to give me an example of a Spice Girls WhatsApp group name — one of the ones she’s in. “There’s one Mel [B] started, called My Idea, because everything’s always her idea, allegedly.”

She says she has watched the Victoria Beckham Netflix documentary: “We went to the premiere.” Was that the last time you were all together? Yes. What’s it like? “Well, that was a public event. It’s more fun when it’s just us, and we haven’t changed. It’s like family. You know when you go home and you just fall back into those roles?”

You hate them and you love them and you switch allegiances in a heartbeat and gang up against someone else because it’s funny? “Exactly. People say, ‘Oh, are you still friends?’ It’s more than that. It runs so much deeper. We drive each other mad, you know? Someone is often acting up, and they have to get pulled back into line, but we’d probably go [to war] for each other.”

Professionally, and personally, things seem pretty perfect for her. She tells me she loves DJing, “which I’ve been doing for the past eight years”, and which inspired this album of dance music. She says it’s like she’s picking up that love of raving from where she left off, just before the Spice Girls happened.

And of course I ask her about a future possible Spice reunion. Chisholm has told me that the 2019 reunion tour was wonderful, the first time they’d had the time, space and perspective of age to appreciate “the legacy we’d created. My personal view on this? It’s a public disservice for the Spice Girls to not get back on stage together. You’re speaking to the wrong person, because I’m there, you know?”

I guess there is still a lot of conversation around Spice Girls and their legacy. However, we also need to herald and recognise Melanie C as a phenomenal solo artist. Sweat is this new era. Rather than try to slot in with modern artists and the sound they are making, she is staying true to herself. However, there does seem to be this rise in Dance and Disco. Madonna returning to the dance floor this year for a follow up to her 2005 classic. Kylie Minogue’s previous couple of albums very much immersed in Dance and Disco (more the former I guess). Melanie C. However, there is personal resonance and relevance to Sweat and its sound. How she is nodding back to her pre-Spice days and the music she was immersed in. You can pre-order Sweat here:  “Before she became Mel C of the Spice Girls, Melanie Chisolm found herself swept up in the UK's burgeoning '90s rave scene partying to the sounds of Prodigy and Grooverider. Her new solo album Sweat is a love letter to those heady and formative days; an invitation to party, to find community on the dance floor and joy in a dark world. Recorded between London, Stockholm and Sydney, Sweat fuses her past and present - the sport and the spice, the forgotten teenage raver and the accomplished DJ”. Before closing things up, there is an article championing Melanie C and arguing why she is underrated. This is a very special and important artist we all should show more love for:

“When people talk about pop reinvention, the conversation almost always circles back to names like Madonna or Kylie Minogue. Artists who continually reshape their sound, their image, and their relationship with the dance floor.

But there’s another pop icon who deserves to be part of that conversation: Melanie C.

As she releases “Undefeated Champion”, the third single lifted off her forthcoming record, Sweat, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Melanie C has quietly been releasing some of the most compelling – and most underrated – dance-pop of the past five years.

For many listeners, Melanie C will always be synonymous with the global pop explosion of the Spice Girls. Yet if you trace her solo catalogue from the late ’90s to today, what emerges is one of the most fascinating genre journeys in mainstream pop: alternative rock, acoustic confessionals, euphoric trance, sleek disco-pop, and now a fully realised embrace of underground club culture.

And in many ways, it all comes back to the dance floor.

Long before DJ booths and Ibiza residencies, Melanie C already had one of the defining dance records of the early 2000s.

“I Turn To You” – from her debut album Northern Star – became a euphoric club anthem thanks to its thundering remix culture. The song’s propulsive trance production and emotional release captured the peak of turn-of-the-millennium dance music: ecstatic, cathartic, and built for 4am dance floors.

It wasn’t just a hit. It was a statement.

While many of her peers were leaning into R&B or radio-friendly pop, which, yes, the artist also known as Sporty Spice also flirted with, Melanie C embraced the energy of European club music – something that, in hindsight, foreshadowed the direction her career would eventually circle back to.

Fast forward two decades and the dance floor came calling again.

In 2018, a spontaneous DJ booking at the flamboyant London queer club night Sink The Pink reignited Melanie’s connection with club culture. What began as a one-off experiment quickly evolved into a genuine second act: DJ sets at iconic Ibiza venues like Pacha and Café Mambo, and festival appearances that placed her directly back in front of dance music audiences.

That energy fed directly into her 2020 self-titled album, Melanie C, one of the most purely enjoyable dance-pop records released that year. Tracks like “Who I Am,” “Blame It On Me,” and “In and Out of Love” pulsed with confidence: sleek house rhythms, disco shimmer, and hooks that felt both nostalgic and forward-facing. The album wasn’t trying to chase trends. It sounded like someone who had rediscovered the music that first made them fall in love with dancing.

And crucially, it sounded authentic.

Part of what makes Melanie C’s current era resonate so strongly is the space where it lives: queer nightlife. Dance music has always been inseparable from LGBTQ+ culture – a lineage that runs from underground house clubs to Pride main stages. By stepping into that world not just as a performer but as a DJ and participant, Melanie C positioned herself within that tradition rather than above it.

The connection feels organic. There’s a sense of shared joy in her music – the same feeling she describes when recalling nights spent dancing among strangers who suddenly felt like community.

It’s a quality that links her, spiritually at least, with icons like Kylie Minogue and Madonna: artists whose music thrives in queer spaces because it offers both liberation and escape.

Now comes Sweat.

If her 2020 album reintroduced Melanie C as a dance-pop artist, the new record looks set to double down on that identity – pulling together the threads of her life: the athlete’s discipline, the pop star’s instincts, the DJ’s understanding of rhythm, and the raver’s love of euphoria.

In a cultural moment that often feels defined by anxiety and global uncertainty, her instinct is simple: make joyful music.

It’s a philosophy that echoes the best dance music traditions. Clubs have always been spaces where people temporarily outrun the world’s chaos – where, for a few hours, rhythm and community take precedence over everything else.

If Sweat succeeds, it won’t just be another entry in Melanie C’s discography. It will be further proof that her career arc – from Spice Girl to club DJ to dance-pop architect – has been one of the most quietly fascinating evolutions in modern pop.

And perhaps it’s time the conversation caught up with that reality. Because when it comes to reinvention, resilience, and an instinctive understanding of the dance floor, Melanie C belongs in the same breath as Madonna and Kylie.

The only difference is that people don’t say it often enough”.

Rather than bring in any reviews or more interviews, I shall call time here. I wanted to talk about Melanie C’s huge year. Sweat coming out on 1st May. This worldwide tour in promotion of the album. I think she will be on the road when Spice turns thirty However, for Wannabe’s thirtieth (8th July if you are going by the U.K. date) there is nothing in the diary yet. One of pour all-time great artists, I am excited to see how Sweat is received. I love the tracks she has put out so far, and it shows she is always adapting and evolving. Let’s hope that Melanie C keeps on releasing music for many years more. The future of Spice Girls and whether anything will happen this year. It is down to them I guess. However, Melanie C also need to focus on her…

HER vital solo work.

FEATURE: Picture You: My Kink Is Karma: Why Chappell Roan’s Right to Privacy Should Be Respected

FEATURE:

 

 

Picture You

My Kink Is Karma: Why Chappell Roan’s Right to Privacy Should Be Respected

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BORN Kayleigh Rose Amstutz…

in Missouri, Chappell Roan is one of the most distinct, fascinating and talented artists we have seen over the past decade or so. Her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, was released in 2023 to critical acclaim. More than your average Pop artist – if you could call her music purely Pop -, this exceptional songwriter is an incredible live performer, icon and role model. In terms of her cultural influences, we get a glimpse of it here:

“Roan's success has led her to be called a "queer pop icon", "a superstar in the making", and a "visionary performer". Roan has been credited with leading a "lesbian pop renaissance" on the music charts and within the cultural zeitgeist. Roan's music brought the concept of compulsory heterosexuality into the forefront of mainstream pop music. She has been praised for her "unapologetic authenticity" and "expression of her queerness and femininity" in her music and live performances, inspiring young women to embrace their own sexuality. She has also been applauded for her image "rejecting the male gaze" within the pop landscape. Roan has been praised for her "punkish" attitude towards the status quo for queer performers and applauded for "rewriting the rules of lovelorn pop". Rolling Stone described watching Roan's performances as "like watching Michelangelo craft the statue of David in real time".

In October 2025, Roan stopped in Kansas City in her home state of Missouri during her "Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things Tour". The city celebrated her arrival, decorating several buildings in the downtown area in pink lighting, as well as a mural painted depicting Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess at the city's local Hamburger Mary's. Her shows also featured local drag performers as openers.

Roan launched the Midwest Princess Project in October 2025. A nonprofit organization, it aims to uplift trans youth and to protect other LGBTQ+ communities”.

There are these artists that go beyond music and use their platform to do good in the world. To help communities, get involved in politics and make the world a better place. Chappell Roan is one of those people. There are corners of the media that list her controversies and try and paint her in a bad light. That she is this diva – which can be an empowering and positive terms when we think of amazing women – who is aloof or rude. Someone who does not want fame and is horrified when her boundaries are violated and her privacy is threatened, this unfair impression that she is prima donna. This is the same sort of crap that has dogged women for decades. This internalised misogyny and sexism that Madonna had to face from the early days of her career. If a woman in music has an opinion, does not do what is expected of them or does not chase fame or the lure of the press, then they are seen as icy, unpleasant, cruel and this horrible person. I have spoken about Chappell Roan in the context of Kate Bush. Both artists are hugely inventive and have this huge L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fanbase. Innovators and multi-talented artists, Kate Bush also says she never wanted to be famous. She even booted photographer Robin Kennedy, who later remarked, "I didn't think that anyone so small would be able to kick so hard". The altercation was considered out of character and was reportedly a reaction to a comment made by the photographer. That event in 1991 was totally justified. This takes me to Chappell Roan and how she takes to the press. A recent example of her turning the camera on photographers harassing her whilst she was trying to enjoy dinner, there was a divide in opinion. Some saying that she is high-profile and a popular artist who does not get to pick and choose what attention she gets and relies on photographers to get exposure and promote her work. There are those who say that artists should be allowed privacy and should not have to take it in their stride when the gutter press violate their requests for privacy. I obviously fall heavily down in the latter camp. I shall come to that. Artists like Chappell Roan should not have to face criticism if they turn the lens on the paparazzi. Doja Cat, whilst revealing her borderline personality disorder diagnosis, defended Roan and said, rightly, how she did not hurt anyone and had every right to set personal boundaries. In 2024, Chappell Roan was praised by fans after she yelled at a photographer who swore at her on the red carpet at the MTV Video Music Awards. That same year, Roan called out a sect of creepy fans who harassed her family and were overstepping boundaries.

It is something that women face more than their male peers. This harassment, abuse and fans’ obsessive and inappropriate behaviour. Constantly under the spotlight and glare of the media, it is bad enough that they have to work tirelessly and tour for ages in this exhausting reality and, on top of that, have to fends off press intrusion and their fans being unsettling and abusive on social media. Those getting too close and making them feel uncomfortable. I am going to come to a recent article that highlighted the recent incident of Chappell Roan filming the press when they tried to film her. Karma, it seems, is an absolute bitch! However, in 2024, The Face were quite precinct in their choice of words when they said how Chappell Roan is “staring into the abyss of superstardom”. It does very much seem like that. Artists wanting to release music and be themselves who also want to set boundaries. Required to be all over social media, tour around the world and always be seen and active, it does more damaging and abyss than it does pleasurable and beneficial. Even though there are obviously positive, the realities of being a popular artist seems quite toxic. An experience even worse for popular women in music:

“Yes, Chappell Roan has been talking to all the girls: Gaga, Charli, Sabrina, Lizzo, Katy. ​“I just got coffee with Lorde and Phoebe [Bridgers],” she says with a self-effacing grimace that indicates she knows how that sounds. ​“Tomorrow, I’m going over to see Lucy Dacus [of Bridgers’ side project boygenius].”
Everything – and by ​“everything”, we mean the femininomenonal ascent of Chappell to the summit of Pop Mountain, Summer ​’24 – started in early spring, when the Missouri-born singer-songwriter began shooting up the mainstream spine of awareness via an opening slot on the North American leg of Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts tour.

As spring gave way to Pride and festival season, a storm of viral performances from Coachella,The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, MTV and NPR’s Tiny Desk online gig series flooded social media with clips of Chappell performing her now inescapable queer anthems, including Good Luck, Babe!, and her music quickly began scaling the global charts.

To put things into context: last September, she dropped her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, to little fanfare beyond her cult following. This August, it climbed to Number One on the UK Albums Chart – almost a full year after its original release.

At first, back in the spring, she didn’t understand why huge stars such as Gaga and Charli were suddenly checking in to see if she was OK. ​“I was like, ​‘Mmm, this isn’t that big. Everyone’s so dramatic!’” she says. Now, Chappell recognises the pop girls’ protectiveness as a lifeline. ​“They were immediately, immediately supportive,” she says, smacking her palms together for emphasis. ​“Immediately.” Her voice grows taut, almost aggressive, from a rush of emotion before melting back into the quiet admission of an overwhelmed 26-year-old: ​“It’s been so amazing, because I’m very scared and confused.”

I’m curious about the performance persona of Chappell Roan – which she’s often described as her drag project – and whether it stems from any specific childhood inspiration. As anyone who’s attended sleepaway church camp worship night can attest to, the American Bible Belt has quite the theatrical tradition. But she minimises the early influence of her Christian upbringing and even modern drag culture as subjects of direct study. ​“I didn’t start watching Drag Race until last October! I was really confused about the ​‘reading’. Like, that’s so mean!”

It is, then, difficult to extract a sense of what young Kayleigh was like and whether this streak for pageantry was in her all along. Wasn’t she at least the type of kid who put on cartwheel-inflected dances to Britney Spears in the family basement? Her whole face softens at the assumption. ​“I wish I was that girl,” she says. In reality, little Kayleigh was a ​“problem child”, constantly fighting, kicking holes in walls and going in and out of therapy.

Growing up, she felt isolated, not only within the rural Midwest but also her family and her own brain – she was finally diagnosed with bipolar II in 2022. ​“All I want in life is to feel like a good person, because I felt like such a bad person my whole life – the worst kid in the family, always so out of control and angry,” she says. ​“It’s been really hard to forgive, one, my parents for not knowing how to handle that correctly. And two, myself, for being like, dude, you were unmedicated, going through puberty and refused to believe you were anxious or depressed.”

The project of Chappell Roan, then, can be more wholly understood as a therapeutic experience, not only for fans who might have an idea of what those emotions feel like, but also for the artist’s younger self. ​“Now, I am the girl who does the Britney routine; I am the girl who plays dress-up. I’m making up for that time. When I realised that I should dedicate my career to honouring the childhood I never got, it got big quick.”

“Big” as in becoming a de-facto festival headliner in the US, touring through Europe this autumn and, hopefully, nabbing some music trophies. Nominations in multiple Grammy categories, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year, seem like a no-brainer. ​“My mom would love to go to the Grammys or the Brits,” she says. But Chappell is, at best, iffy on the whole awards thing. ​“I’m kind of hoping I don’t win, because then everyone will get off my ass: ​‘See guys, we did it and we didn’t win, bye’! I won’t have to do this again!”

What’s more important to Chappell is the long game. ​“I feel ambitious about making this sustainable,” she says. ​“That’s my biggest goal right now. My brain is like: quit right now, take next year off.” Her mouth forms a small, tense line again. ​“This industry and artistry fucking thrive on mental illness, burnout, overworking yourself, overextending yourself, not sleeping. You get bigger the more unhealthy you are. Isn’t that so fucked up?” It’s a problem within the music industry, she notes, but also its attendant attention machines – TikTok, Instagram, the entire internet – which all feed on manic self-compulsion. ​“The ambition is: how do I not hate myself, my job, my life, and do this?” she says. ​“Because right now, it’s not working. I’m just scrambling to try to feel healthy.

The Kayleigh side of her still craves the idyll of anonymity – off-hours, she’s been caught by fans practising somersaults in Central Park and racing shopping carts in Ikea. But such bursts of spontaneity are getting rarer. These days, she almost always has to wear a wig in public. She’s even had to let her therapist go, after realising they were no longer equipped to deal with her rapidly accelerating fame.

And it’s getting scary, actually. There are now paps, scalpers and obsessives who buy plane tickets just so they can wait at the gate for when she lands. For every unicorn of a young star with the power to command gigawatts of attention, there’s a seedy microeconomy sprouting around and glomming on”.

I am not sure if there is a second album coming from Chappell Roan at some point. She will take her time and release music when she is ready. I love The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and instantly knew that this was a very special artist. I hope that she will forgive me comparing her to Kate Bush – not that she will be reading this feature! -, but it is a high compliment. Something about how she is a genius that is so different to everyone around her, yet is reliable and widely adored. A hugely positive role model and force for good, she played in Chile yesterday (15th March and has a date in Brazil on 21st as part of a Lollapalooza double. This recent case of Chappell Roan almost being stalked by the press when she was going about her business. Even though it was during Paris Fashion Week, Roan had asked for her boundaries to be respected. The reaction from some was unhelpful. Boy George saying that she should own her fame. Practically telling her to smile and get on with it, no artist should have to deal with press harassment. He said this: “The trick is to own your fame. yes, it’s annoying at times but so is being ignored and told [you’re] a ‘has-been. Life is always now and I think Chappell looks great but cheer up girl. The world is at your feet stop kicking it! It takes so much more time to say no to a picture or a signature. Boundaries are boring. Break them with the magic of kindness!”. I think that Boy George is wrong. This idea of killing with kindness is not helpful when it comes to press and the fans. Artists should not have to have boundaries broken and be thankful they are being noticed! What is notable is this clear misogyny. People on social media branding Roan unlikable and hostile because she took a stand and defended her privacy. Male artists not exposed to the same sort of judgement and criticism. This Vogue reaction piece raises some interesting observations and truths:

“Earlier this week, Chappell Roan was filmed in Paris during fashion week filming the paparazzi with her phone. “I’m just trying to go to dinner, and I’ve asked these people several times to get away from me,” said Roan, 28, while swivelling her phone about in a circle, annoyed. “These are all the people that are completely disregarding my boundaries.” It’s not the first time the pop star has expressed her discomfort with the more parasitic side to fame. “Women do not owe you a reason why they don’t want to be touched or talked to,” she wrote in 2024 as part of a longer statement.

While not wanting to be hounded by paps or fans sounds fairly straightforward, Roan’s reaction appears to have gotten under a lot of people’s skin – my own TikTok FYP is currently full of fans and critics alike branding her “unlikeable”. The main crux of the argument seems to be this: if you do not enjoy the mechanics of fame, then why partake in the ecosystem? Adele, for example, manages to largely avoid the limelight by rarely attending pap-heavy spots. She has described herself as living an “ordinary life”. Roan, on the flip-side, went out for dinner at the height of fashion week, following a string of front row appearances with her equally famous pals.

I get the argument. Being worth multi-millions, and having your art consumed by the masses, often requires a Faustian bargain – one in which you must choose between being hassled nonstop or having to navigate public life like someone involved in professional espionage. But I also think it’s worth interrogating why this deal with the devil needs to exist. Is it possible that the boundary-crossing nature of the tabloids, and now also fans with camera phones, has become so normalised that it’s hard to imagine a world in which we push against it? Why shouldn’t Chappell go for dinner during fashion week without being harassed? Is that really such an insane request?

As to her being called “unlikeable”, I wonder whether there is indeed even a “right” way to be famous. Celebs are lambasted for saying or doing too little (Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Emma Watson). Or, like Chappell, they’re criticised for saying or doing too much. They’re rinsed for being nepo babies – though when a working class artist does manage to crawl their way to the top, they’re often torn to shreds regardless. Celebs are expected to be politically engaged and eloquent with it, while also not saying anything that might alienate fans. And while I don’t prescribe to the notion that artists are above critique – nor that they shouldn’t be politically active (art is inherently political) – I do think there needs to be some realism when it comes to our expectations of people who are, like us, simply human.

If I were famous, I know for a fact that I’d behave in more “unlikeable” ways than Chappell Roan (and, for the record, I don’t think any woman, famous or otherwise, needs to be likeable). I’d probably freak out on camera so often that I’d be turned into a reactive meme. I’d likely say the wrong thing, more than once, and then have to deliver a Notes app apology, which would then be dissected on TikTok for being so tone deaf”.

I refute the idea that major artists should have to avoid certain events and spots because they should be expected to be photographed endlessly. If any artist asks to be left alone then they should be. Whilst that might seem terrible naïve, it is plain harassment and, if you feel an artist has fewer rights than an average person in that regard, then you have to ask yourself some searching questions. Modern artists are allowed to record, tour and follow their dreams without having to deal with obsessive fans, disrespectful press, unhelpful and imbecilic music peers and attacks online. Support from Doja Cat and other corners is encouraging, though you feel Chappell Roan will always be labelled as awkward, demanding, unlikable and this egotistical and difficult diva. How many women through the music years have had to deal with that?! They can shrug it off and power through, but why the hell should they have to?! They should not have to avoid public events because they face being harassed by the press or not being able to have dinner in private. All of this should raise questions about artists today and the pressures they face. The mental health tour of exhausting touring and having to churn out music. Dealing with abuse, harassment, misogyny and threats online. Followed by the press and always judged on what they say (or do not). Chappell Roan is an amazing artist and human who does so much good in the world. She should be treated with respect and dignity. However, when she is not and she reacts, there is this criticism and judgment. Again, you can feel this endless, internalised and almost normalised double standard and misogyny. You’d hope lessons will be learned and the press and fans alike will give Roan the space and prancy that she rightly deserved. However, given the nature of celebrity and how everyone thinks they have the right to do and say what they like to artists that…

WE will be back at square one.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Alison Goldfrapp at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Alison Goldfrapp at Sixty

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THIS is an artist…

whose work I have followed since the debut Goldfrapp album in 2000. Felt Mountain was this acclaimed and successful debut album from Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp. Even if it did not chart high, it was nominated for the Mercury Prize. As Alison Goldfrapp turns sixty on 13th May, it is an opportunity, not only to combine some Goldfrapp songs, but bring in some solo tracks too. Before getting to that playlist, here is some biography about one of the most distinct and brilliant artists in music:

“Thanks to her alluring, multi-octave voice and wide-ranging influences, Alison Goldfrapp has left an adventurous mark on electronic and pop music as a collaborator and solo artist. Working with Orbital and Tricky in the mid-'90s soon led to her partnership with composer Will Gregory as the multi-platinum-selling and award-winning duo Goldfrapp, where her quicksilver vocals held together a body of work that borrowed from folk, cabaret, classical, disco, techno, '80s pop, and glam rock. Though the duo's most danceable work was often their most successful -- 2005's Supernature and 2010's Head First both debuted in the Top Ten in the U.K. and earned Grammy nominations in the U.S. -- quieter albums like 2000's Felt Mountain and 2013's Tales of Us were just as powerful in their own right. In the 2020s, Alison Goldfrapp pursued a stylishly creative solo career, blending thoughts about aging and climate change with euphoric grooves on 2023's The Love Invention and returning to her synth pop roots on 2025's Flux.

Born in Enfield, London, Alison Goldfrapp was the youngest in a family of six children that moved frequently during her early years. Once they settled in Alton, Hampshire, she first studied at the Alton Convent School, where she sang in the choir, and then at Amery Hill School, where she stood out because of her punk outfits and love of disco. As a teen, she spent several years traveling Europe, absorbing music from artists including Donna Summer, T. Rex, Kate Bush, Iggy Pop, and Serge Gainsbourg. By the time she was 20, she had returned to the U.K.; as a fine art painting major at Middlesex University, she incorporated mixed sound, visuals, and performances in her installation pieces.

Along with writing her own songs, Alison Goldfrapp collaborated with other artists. In 1994, she appeared on Orbital's album Snivilisation and recorded two songs on Dreadzone's The Good the Bad and the Dread: The Best of Dreadzone. The following year, she lent her vocals to Stefan Girardet's music for the film The Confessional and Tricky's Maxinquaye. After a mutual friend gave some of her demos to composer/producer/multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory -- who studied Western orchestral and chamber music at the University of York and went on to perform with artists and ensembles including Tears for Fears, Peter Gabriel, the Cure, and the London Sinfonietta -- the pair decided to work together.

Taking Alison's surname as the moniker for their collaboration, Goldfrapp began their acclaimed, shape shifting career with their September 2000 debut album Felt Mountain. Though it reflected the trip-hop boom of its time, it also revealed more unexpected influences such as folk and cabaret, and its distinctively glamorous sound led to a gold certification in the U.K. as well as a place on the Mercury Prize shortlist. Goldfrapp leaned into their love of disco, glam-rock and techno on April 2003's seductive Black Cherry, which went platinum in the U.K. and spawned the Ivor Novello Award-winning hit single "Strict Machine." The duo doubled down on its dance leanings with their August 2005 breakthrough Supernature. Certified platinum in the U.K., the album earned a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2007 (the album's glammy single "Ooh La La" snagged a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording). Goldfrapp moved in a drastically different direction with February 2008's The Seventh Tree, a set of soothing ambient and folk-tinged songs that was certified gold in the U.K. They switched gears again on March 2010's Head First, touching on the joyous sounds of the Pointer Sisters, Van Halen and Olivia Newton-John, and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2011; the single "Rocket" received a nomination for Best Dance Recording. The duo revisited the moody introspection of Felt Mountain and The Seventh Tree on September 2013's Tales of Us, a top five hit in the U.K. that also made the top ten in several European countries. On March 2017's Silver Eye, Goldfrapp balanced their danceable and reflective sides, resulting in another top ten chart placement in the U.K.

Following Silver Eye's release, the members of Goldfrapp took a break from their work as a duo, which earned them an Ivor Novello Inspiration Award in 2021. Gregory concentrated on composing, writing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2019 production of King John and scoring the 2022 thriller series Chloe (which also featured contributions from Alison Goldfrapp and Adrian Utley). Alison Goldfrapp focused on directing and photography before returning to music in the early 2020s. She sang on two songs from Röyksopp's Profound Mysteries album trilogy, a project that spurred her to build the home recording studio where she created much of her first solo album. Working with producers including Claptone, Paul Woolford, James Greenwood, and Head First collaborator Richard X, Alison Goldfrapp drew on Italo disco, bossa nova, and more for the smoothly grooving, club-oriented sounds of May 2023's The Love Invention. Another success, the album reached number six on the U.K. Albums Chart and topped the U.K. Independent Albums Chart. In mid-2024, Alison Goldfrapp launched her own record label A.G. Records with the release of the single "I Wanna Be Loved (Just a Little Bit Better)." The following April, she collaborated with Purple Disco Machine on "Dream Machine," then opened for Scissor Sisters' 25th anniversary tour of the U.K. and Ireland. For her second solo album, August 2025's Flux, she worked with Richard X and Sound of Arrows' Stefan Storm on romantic, escapist synth-pop”.

I do hope that there is celebration of Alison Goldfrapp’s music on 13th May. An incredible artist whose latest album, 2025’s Flux, is well worth digging out. Let’s hope there is more music from her down the line. Ahead of her sixtieth birthday, I wanted to show my appreciation of this incredible producer and artist. Someone whose music I have loved…

FOR over twenty-five years.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Matt Helders at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Matt Helders at Forty

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ONE of the best drummers…

alive today turns forty on 7th May. Matt Helders is the drummer with Arctic Monkeys. So many of their songs defined by the percussion. Helders is the one who provides that heartbeat and rush. Not only a powerful drummer, he has such nuance and technical ability. He has also released a studio album, and collaborated with artists such as Dean Fertita, Josh Homme and Iggy Pop. To mark his upcoming fortieth birthday, I am going to end with a selection of his drumming work with Arctic Monkeys. Prior to that, it is worth bringing in some biography:

“Helders has said that he ended up playing drums as "that was the only thing left. When we started the band none of us played anything. We just put it together. They all had guitars and I bought a drum kit after a bit." However, Helders has mentioned the influence rap music has had on the band, saying "We were rap fans at school more than now ... it still influences us in some ways; like for me, it's the drummin'. The groove element, like foon-keh music." In addition, Helders cites seeing Queens of the Stone Age as the biggest influence on his development as a drummer, saying "the one thing that changed me the most was seeing Queens of the Stone Age live at a festival ... as soon as they came off I was like – 'Fuck, I need to start hitting harder.'" Helders also explained the band's insistence on singing in their native Sheffield accent, saying, "when you talk between the songs at a gig and you're speakin' English in our normal accent, it seems a bit strange when you burst into song like you're from California or something ... it looks a bit daft."

In a similar fashion to other members of the band, Helders has remained true to his hometown roots, suggesting that seeing places all over the world makes him more appreciative of Sheffield, which still provides the basis for the band's lyrics. "And all around you, there's still plenty of things to write about. Touring lets you see a lot of places that you realise you wouldn't want to live in ... and when you come home, it's pretty easy to slip into your old ways, to all the places you've always gone." Helders also points out that despite the fame of the band, he can still avoid being mobbed in the street – "If we all go out together at night clubbing, it's difficult, but alone you don't get recognised much."  In ode to his Sheffield roots, Helders can sometimes be seen with the numbers "0114" on the front of his drum kit, which is the dialing code of his native Sheffield”.

I am not sure whether Arctic Monkeys will release any more music. They contributed to the Help(2) album recently with the song, Opening Night. You feel like they will perform together again but, in terms of albums, 2022’s The Car was their finale. Though you never know. However, Matt Hedlers will definitely continue to play and drum either on his own records or with other acts. Not only one of the best drummers of modern times, Helders surely sits alongside the all-time greatest. Such is his impact and talent, he is key to Arctic Monkeys’ sound and endurance, I feel. Even if Alex Turner’s lyrics and vocals are genius, there is something about Helders’s beats and incredible drumming that elevates the songs. As he turns forty on 7th May, I wanted to show my respect for…

A king of the kit.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs: Mrs. Bartolozzi (Mrs. Bartolozzi)/Pandora (Suspended in Gaffa)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 2005 for Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Mrs. Bartolozzi (Mrs. Bartolozzi)/Pandora (Suspended in Gaffa)

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THIS first song is one…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pierre Terrasson

that I have covered a few times already. I will approach it from different directions. That is Mrs. Bartolozzi from 2005’s Aerial. I will discuss this build up to that new album after twelve years. How fewer singles have been released from her most recent three albums, and how Mrs. Bartolozzi deserved a single release. I will also discuss the way Bush has always been seen as eccentric and silly, and why a song like Mrs. Bartolozzi united her present and past. The second song I am going to concentrate on is from 1982’s The Dreaming. On an album with relatively few characters, there is one in Suspended in Gaffa that gives me something to discuss. Pandora is mentioned. Let’s start out with Mrs. Bartolozzi. This is one of those songs where Bush might have coincidentally come across that surname. How it came to her mind. As she discussed in this interview, the subject and lyrics of Mrs. Bartolozzi reflected her domestic life at the time. A new son, Bertie, who was keeping the washing machine busy! Part autobiographical and fantastical, you can imagine Kate Bush bringing this song to mind pretty readily and quickly:

“Is it about a washing machine? I think it’s a song about Mrs. Bartolozzi. She’s this lady in the song who…does a lot of washing (laughs). It’s not me, but I wouldn’t have written the song if I didn’t spend a lot of time doing washing. But, um, it’s fictitious. I suppose, as soon as you have a child, the washing suddenly increases. And uh, what I like too is that a lot of people think it’s funny. I think that’s great, because I think that actually, it’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written! (laughs)

Clothes are…very interesting things, aren’t they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and…what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are…

So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting. And then it was the idea of this woman, who’s kind of sitting there looking at all the washing going around, and she’s got this new washing machine, and the idea of these clothes, sort of tumbling around in the water, and then the water becomes the sea and the clothes…and the sea…and the washing machine and the kitchen… I just thought it was an interesting idea to play with.

What I wanted to get was the sense of this journey, where you’re sitting in front of this washing machine, and then almost as if in a daydream, you’re suddenly standing in the sea.

Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 1 November 2005”.

That surname, Bartolozzi, is one that many might not know. Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularising the ‘crayon’ method of engraving. I do wonder if this is who Kate Bush had in mind when she was coming up for a name for her heroine. Before moving on to the topics I was going to cover, I remember when Aerial came out in November 2005 and being blown away by its scale. How it is this double album that has an album of more traditional songs and this conceptual second disc, A Sky of Honey. Mrs. Bartolozzi features on the first disc. If Aerial is seen as quite layered and grand in terms of its compositions, Mrs. Bartolozzi is one of its sparsest. Bush on the piano. I will mention this when discussing how the song married her past and present. King of the Mountain was a shrewd single choice from Kate Bush. Her first album single since 1994, that track is about Elvis Presley and fame. How the King of Rock and Roll might be alive somewhere on a mountain. I sort of think that it was more about Kate Bush and how many felt she was hidden away or this recluse off in a mansion somewhere. There was definitely a lot of speculation around Aerial. What form it would take and how it would compare to 1993’s The Red Shoes. There are few similarities between those albums. Bush started a family and gave birth to Bertie in 1998. In terms of her work schedule, it must have been quite a juggling act. Though the first songs were written before Bertie was born, he weas her priority from 1998. It would have been difficult looking after a new son and putting together a double album. I can’t remember the sort of speculation that was building towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s. Bush was not completely away from the spotlight in all that time. She did pick up an award at the Q Awards in 2001. In an interview around that, she revealed a new album would come.

That said, she was not in a position to give a date. In 2001, think about what was at the forefront. Kyllie Minogue’s Can't Get You Out of My Head was one of the biggest songs of that year. Pop artists like Britney Spears at the forefront. There was such a seismic shift in terms of music released that year. Whereas the 1990s might have been about Grunge, Britpop and other genres, more Electronic and Indie influence coming to the forefront in 2001. The Strokes' Is This It?, Radiohead's Amnesiac, Daft Punk's Discovery, Jay-Z's The Blueprint, and Björk's Vespertine among the standouts of the year. Did people feel that a Kate Bush album would arrive in 2001 and sit with what was out that year?! She would have been aware of what was around and how the music she was making was distinct and perhaps did not fit in. Bush had always been distinct and not necessarily looked to slot in with what was happening that year. In 2005, Aerial stood alone in terms of its sound and feel. Not that many other artists doing what she was doing. After 2001 and that Q appearance, there was certainly a lot of chatter and rumour regarding when an album would come and what it would be likely. I think it is telling how Bush promoted the album. The Red Shoes was the last time she did T.V. or any documentaries. Aerial’s promotion was for radio and print. There were promotional photographs, though most of them were shot from the waist up. There are a few exceptions, though Bush was possibly conscious about her looks. A new mother who had been away from the limelight for a while, her privacy was as important as ever. Maybe there was some self-consciousness considering the promotional photos and how she was self-conscious when shooting the video for King of the Mountain with director, Jimmy Murakami. I can understand why only that single was released. Not committing to more and further music videos, this trend continued for 2011’s Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow (Deeper Understanding and Wild Man the respective singles). King of the Mountain is the most recent time that Bush has appeared in a music video. I feel it will be the last we see of her filmed. I do feel like she should have released more singles from Aerial. Mrs. Bartolozzi is a choice option. I wrote in another feature how an actor could have played Mrs. Bartolozzi. Seeing the song visualised would have been a real treat. The lyrics speak of clothes entwined in the washing machine and wrapped in one another. Clothes on the line blowing in the breeze. A fantastic music video could have accompanied those lyrics, for sure.

I do feel like Bush wanted more control of her music and not wanting it to be about singles. Aerial is an album (a double) that she wanted people to experience as a single piece of work. Releasing singles takes away from that. Even though Mrs. Bartolozzi would have been a great single and would have done well on the charts, it sits on an album as part of a larger story. I think that it is significant that it appears after Bertie on the tracklisting. A song about her son. This joyous thing. A song that is about the domestic and the fantasy and mundanity of cleaning and filling the washing machine, there was this curious pairing. Bertie in her mind when it came to Mrs. Bartolozzi, perhaps. One could say that Mrs. Bartolozzi is one of those lost singles. How it could have come out and would have been marvellous. We will never know. I did read some reviews around Mrs. Bartolozzi. Whilst some were impressed by how it elevated the everyday to something truly stirring and emotional, others picked up on lyrics and wrote Bush off as eccentric. This was nothing new. However, in 2005, she was in her forties. No longer this very young artist who was seen as inexperienced or ingenue, this cliché and stereotype about Bush remained. How she was eccentric and odd. “Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy/Get that dirty shirty clean/Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy/Make those cuffs and collars gleam/Everything clean and shiny”. If some feel those lyrics are self-parody and ridiculous, I actually think they are charming and child-like. This wonder about something quite ordinary. One of the most notable elements of Kate Bush’s lyrics is how she can blend the poetic with the slightly absurd. Mrs. Bartolozzi is an example of that. It is almost classical and operatic in its potential. I could imagine it build up with strings and backing vocals. Bush could have done that. Rather, she kept it scaled-down and intimate. She does provide backing vocals, though it is the power of the piano that is key. The lyrics invite the listener to immerse themselves in the song. It is one of her greatest moments and a track that is not talked about as much as it should be. It is a pity that some wrote it off as this moment when Bush was being silly or parodying herself.

Evident on 50 Words for Snow especially, there was a melding of the past and present. In the sense you can hear themes and lyrics and feel they were from early albums like 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart. Aerial’s Mrs. Bartolozzi is charged with the erotic and sexual. If you feel it is about household chores and a woman mopping a dirty floor and trying to get the laundry done, it is this sensual song where the heroine drifts off and lets her mind wander. We never see who Mrs. Bartolozzi is. Bush perhaps not wanting to put herself directly in the song. She did say in an interview with John Wilson in 2005 how the name was chosen at random - as it fitted better tthan ‘Brown’. However, Bush did say she was told about/aware of Therese Jansen Bartolozzi (ca. 1770 – 1843), who was a pianist whose career flourished in London around the end of the 18th century. She was the dedicatee of piano works by a number of famous composers. Bush did say how she was doing a lot of washing and stuff around the house. That naturally bled into her lyrics. How many other artists can make the domestic and almost trivial and turn it into a masterpiece song?! Bush showing why she was still leagues ahead and this innovator! There are fewer examples of the romantic and erotic in her music from 2005. Even so, 50 Words for Snow had Misty. A song about a woman that spends the night with a snowman. Mrs. Bartolozzi talks of these clothes tangled in the suds. On the line in the breeze. You can sense bodies in them. Rather than it being about laundry and fabric, human beings in those clothes. How it being Bush at her piano with no adornments adds this charge and sense of the intimate and tender. Many people might have feel this was unbecoming of an artist in her forties. Ageism and misogyny. Bush nodding back to her earliest days. Or just being her authentic self. Also, Aerial is an album where family and her setting was at the front. Illusions to her new family and cleaning for them: “They traipsed mud all over the house”. The symbolism of these lyrics could be about divided lovers or this fascinating with clothes and how they have the scent and memories of people in them: “My blouse wrapping itself around your trousers”. The water in the washing machine becoming the waves. So many lines step between fantastical and sexual: “Little fish swim between my legs”. Perhaps memories of someone gone who the heroine wished was here: “I think I see you standing outside/But it’s just your shirt”. In all of this, I wonder who Mrs. Bartolozzi is and whether Kate Bush had a specific person in mind. I would still love to see a video for this song. A modern actor or artist playing Mrs. Bartolozzi. Who would be a current first choice? Margaret Qualley. She has a resemblance to Kate Bush, and I also feel that she is a terrific actor who could do something wonderful in a video. It will never happen, though it is always nice to dream!

IN THIS IMAGE: A depiction of Pandora (the first human woman, she was created by Hephaestus on Zeus's orders as punishment for humanity)

Let’s go from 2005’s Aerial back to 1982’s The Dreaming. Different situations and recording processes. If Aerial is full of space and sky and Kate Bush was a new mother and was living away from London. I think she may have been in a clifftop mansion near East Portlemouth in Devon at this time. She also had a home in Berkshire, so perhaps this is where Mrs. Bartolozzi was written. However, with the sea being so close to her Devon house, you can envisage her casting her mind there. Suspended in Gaffa was written at a time when Kate Bush was in London and working between multiple studios. Spending long days and nights on the album, Suspended in Gaffa is actually one of the lightest and less anxious-sounding tracks on The Dreaming. It is one of those songs where a character/figure is named, yet it is not a song around them. Unlike Mrs. Bartolozzi, where this woman is at the centre and it is her song, Pandora is briefly mentioned in Suspended in Gaffa. Even so, it caught my eye. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman, created by Hephaestus on Zeus's orders as punishment for humanity. Gifted with beauty and curiosity, she is famous for opening a jar (often called a ‘box’) that released all evils and miseries into the world, leaving only hope trapped inside. The first thing to address about Suspended in Gaffa is how it is quite autobiographical in nature. Bush was not writing this way a lot previous to this. How does Pandora work around the inspiration behind Suspended in Gaffa? Here are some interview archives where Kate Bush discussed Suspended in Gaffa and it meaning:

“Whenever I’ve sung this song I’ve hoped that my breath would hold out for the first few phrases, as there is no gap to breathe in. When I wrote this track the words came at the same time, and this is one of the few songs where the lyrics were complete at such an early stage. The idea of the song is that of being given a glimpse of ‘God’ – something that we dearly want – but being told that unless we work for it, we will never see it again, and even then, we might not be worthy of it. Of course, everybody wants the reward without the toil, so people try to find a way out of the hard work, still hoping to claim the prize, but such is not the case. The choruses are meant to express the feeling of entering timelessness as you become ready for the experience, but only when you are ready.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982

I could explain some of it, if you want me to: Suspended in Gaffa is reasonably autobiographical, which most of my songs aren’t.  It’s about seeing something that you want–on any level–and not being able to get that thing unless you work hard and in the right way towards it. When I do that I become aware of so many obstacles, and then I want the thing without the work. And then when you achieve it you enter…a different level–everything will slightly change. It’s like going into a time warp which otherwise wouldn’t have existed.

Richard Cook, ‘My music sophisticated?…’. NME (UK), October 1982”.

It is interesting that notion of Bush seeking something and wanting it but not being able to achieve it. I do wonder if the song relates to her career ambitions at that stage. How she was trying to be a type of artist and work on her own terms and have some autonomy. However, having to work to a schedule and having a certain pressure, there were these obstacles. She made sacrifices when it came to The Dreaming. Spending so much time working on the album to ensure it was true to her. There are personal insights and revelations in the lyrics. These lines seem to give a glimpse into her mindset at the time: “But sometimes it’s hard/To know if I’m doing it right./Can I have it all?/Can I have it all now?/We can’t have it all”. Near the end of the song comes these lines: “I won’t open boxes/That I am told not to/I’m not a Pandora/I’m much more like/That girl in the mirror/Between you and me/She don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere at all/Not anywhere at all/No, not a thing/She can’t have it all”. Bush maybe being told to keep in her own lane. Not being too ambitious or experimental. An idea of opening boxes she was not supposed to perhaps a reaction to how she was seen as this one particular type of artist and was not encouraged to be different or experimental. If she did open the box or broke away, then there would be all these consequences. Perhaps one of the most revealing songs on The Dreaminmg, you do get a feeling Kate Bush was embodying Pandora. Except, rather than opening a box and all these evils coming out, perhaps a sense that a lot was bottled in and she could not really get this relief and release. This artist who could not have it all, very telling that Bush was sort of saying that she could not be the artist she wanted to be. Or be that and have a personal life too. A subject very relevant to modern music. How very few major artists can have it all in terms of the professional and personal. There is a bit of the oblique and mysterious in Suspended in Gaffa: “He’s gonna wangle/A way to get out of it/She’s an excuse/And a witness who’ll talk when he’s called”. A lot of the personal in the song. However, there are the more impersonal or detached lines that could be about Bush and her career. I do think of Bush casting herself as Pandora. Or the opposite. This box in front of her. If it is opened, which she might want to do, then the result could be damaging and determinantal. This quest for knowledge and achieving something. Obstacles being in the way. Rather than it being laziness and Bush wanting not to take risks, perhaps it is too dangerous and problematic taking risks.

A fascinating song, one of the most emotional lines actually connects with her mother, Hannah: “Mother, where are the angels?/I’m scared of the changes”. Perhaps vulnerable and feeling in need of protection, you get the sense of a woman in her twenties plunged deep into recording an album and feeling lost. At a point in her career when she was looking for something but being held back. Almost like Pandora standing over a bomb, there is rawness, emotion, philosophy, pondering and so much more in Suspended in Gaffa. What is particularly noteworthy is that the video for the song did feature, briefly, Kate Bush’s mother. It is a rare occasion when her parents featured. Of course, her brother Paddy was in quite a few of her videos. Few might have seen Kate Bush’s mother. If you see Suspended in Gaffa as a quest for God and enlightenment, I think there is more of the personal and tangible in there. Bush perhaps feeling adrift or in a difficult situation. The video for Suspended in Gaffa does contain a touching moment when Bush is hugged by her mother. What stands out regarding Suspended in Gaffa is the mixture of the deep and thought-provoking and something more child-like. That is not an insult. There is a whimsical or playful aspect to the song. Religions and theology. Religious imagery and symbolism sitting alongside mythology and Pandora. Quite relevant and striking mentioning her. A window into Kate Bush’s mind and feelings when recording The Dreaming. Or I might be reading too much into it. However, before finishing off and mentioning one more subject, there is a wonderful article from Dreams of Orgonon about Suspended in Gaffa:

“One perspective that appears throughout The Dreaming is that of childhood and play — it treats the untethering of the subconscious as revealing a small, confused child. From one perspective of maturity, people can be viewed as complex adult emotions and cynicism burying a repressed inner child. “Suspended in Gaffa” certainly lends itself to this reading. Panto-like in its musical qualities (and certainly in its music video, which we’ll get back to shortly), it’s a waltz in C major, playful and initially parsimonious. Par for the course in The Dreaming, the verse’s chord progressions follow the rhythm in shape, particularly with its descending patterns of two major chords followed by minor chords (V-IV-ii, then V-IV-vi-iii), with a result of nearly staccato chipperness and a less cheerful supertonic or submediant. Its buoyancy is something of a ploy though — Bush’s vocal, while acrobatic in its emphatic lunges towards certain syllables (“OUT/in the GARden/there’s HALF of a HEAVen”), maintains a certain reservation often running lyrics together (“Whenever I’ve sung this song I’ve hoped that my breath would hold out for the first few phrases, as there is no gap to breathe in,” Bush wrote later), as Bush sings primarily from the back of her throat with results that sound like she’s gulping the lyrics, likely a frustrating move to listeners with less patience for Bush’s sometimes unintelligible lyrics. “FEET Of MUD” and “IT ALL GOES SLO-MO” are certainly B.V.s for the ages.

Yet at the core of this excess, there’s a simplicity to “Suspended in Gaffa.” It has the same expansive and consumptive obsessions as its sister songs — youthful aporia, an obsession with an unreachable god, a desire to unite with the subconscious. Yet it filters this through a childlike, somewhat Carrollian filter, with a surfeit of internal rhymes, abstract nouns, and ambiguous pronouns like “out in the garden/there’s half of a heaven/and we’re only bluffing,” “I try to get nearer/but as it gets clearer/there’s something appears in the way,” “I pull out the plank and say/thankee for yanking me back/to the fact that there’s always something to distract.”

The lyric is an endless series of prevarications, often relating to knowledge, or the unattainability of it (see “Sat in Your Lap”). The refrain’s “not till I’m ready for you,” “can I have it all now?/we can’t have it all,” “but they’ve told us/unless we can prove that we’re doing it/we can’t have it all” speak to an “all or nothing” approach, not identifying exactly what’s at stake so much as its urgency. Desire gets codified as an end in itself, often for a god (“I caught a glimpse of a god/all shining and bright”) — “until I’m ready for you” gives away the game (constructive spiritual union with a deity is impossible if one is unready to consent). “The idea of the song is that of being given a glimpse of ‘God’ — something that we dearly want — but being told that unless we work for it, we will never see it again, and even then, we might not be worthy of it,” Bush explained to her fan club. Tapping into the subconscious is a difficulty — when one has a glimpse of something wondrous, there’s a desperation to retrieve the feelings associated with it. “Everything or nothing” can be a neurodivergent impulse, but it’s also how a taste of the sublime works.

The nature of aporia in “Suspended in Gaffa” is cinematic. There’s the title, obviously, referring to the line “am I suspended in gaffa?,” itself a reference to gaffer (or “gaffa”) tape, which is commonly used in film and stage productions. The laboriousness of cinema is inferred a few times (“it all goes slo-mo”), as reflections and manipulation, staples of cinema, get pulled into the mix. Bush even goes quasi-Lacanian at one point; nudging herself with “that girl in the mirror/between you and me/she don’t stand a chance of getting anywhere at all,” a moment of amusing self-deprecation.

The music video, while counterintuitively simple in its setup of Bush dancing on her own in a barn, is similarly weird. Bush’s hair is made up to twice the height of her head as she dances in a purple jumpsuit, slowly jogging in place and thrashing her arms on the floor like an adolescent Job on her rural ash pile. In a pleasantly domestic turn, Bush’s mother Hannah appears (shockingly) as Bush’s mother. The resulting video is both tender and discordant, the ethos of “Suspended in Gaffa” in microcosm.

Bush’s fight with aporia moves forward. She mixes religious metaphors like a hermeneuticist in a Westminster pub (“it’s a plank in me eye,” taken from Matthew 7:5, is adjuncted by “a camel/who’s trying to get through it,” a quiet subversion of the Talmudic “eye of a needle” axiom, cited by Christ in the Synoptic Gospels and additionally by the Qu’ran 7:40), grasping fragments of faiths, mediums, and metaphors in their simplest form. The results are crucially inchoate, as the perspective of a child so often is. Yet through that rudimentary perspective comes a different understanding of emotional truths than one usually finds from an adult point-of-view. Fragments and naïveté are by no means inherently less scholarly than a more mature perspective; sometimes, they’re the most efficacious tools a person has for exploring the ridiculous and sublime.

(Bush.) Personnel: Bush, K. — vocals, piano, strings. Elliott — drums. Palmer — bass. Bush, P. — strings, mandolin. Lawson — synclavier. Launay — engineer (backing tracks). Hardiman — engineer (overdubs). Cooper — engineer (mastering). Backing tacks recorded at May/June 1981 at Townhouse Studios, Shepherd’s Bush. Overdubs recorded at Odyssey Studios, Marylebone, West End and Advision Studios, Fitzrovia from August 1981 to January 1982, 4-and-a-half months. Mixed at the Townhouse from March to 21 May, 1982. Issued as a single 2 November 1982”.

In the case of Pandora, the act of opening this box released diseases, toil, and sorrow into the world, ending the Golden Age. Only Hope remained inside, as she managed to close the jar in time. I have said before how Bush brings in mythology and religion. Bush often brings archetypes, and folklore into her music, using these narratives to explore intense human emotions, transformation, and spiritual, mystical themes. Her music often invokes the ‘triple goddess’ archetype, blending paganism, Druid philosophy, and classical mythology. Consider the title track from 1985’s Hounds of Love. It is, in part, influenced by the myth of Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft and the dark moon. The "black she-dog" is associated with Hekabe, the Trojan queen, and Hecate's howling dogs, which are viewed as harbingers of death and ghosts. Hounds of Love’s Jig of Life also brings in Greek mythology. A fellow track on The Dreaming, Get Out of My House, has been interpreted as a reference to the myth of Hecuba (Hekabe) being driven mad by sorrow and transformed. Maybe we can trace her interest in Greek mythology back to 1970. Aged eleven/twelve, this website highlights how the seeds were planted early. An interest time of change and curiosity: “Kate follows her elder brother John and begins to develop her poetry. Her piano playing is an outlet for her frustration. She is heavily influenced by an interest in Greek mythology”. What I want to end by saying is how you can feel this young woman exploring and seeking. Sat in Your Lap critiques people who want the rewards of wisdom without doing the hard work, suggesting that true understanding requires effort, yet often reveals deeper layers of ignorance. I am curious whether Bush was thinking of particular people, like politicians, or reacting to a wider sect. She was tirelessly working and pushing. Bush saying about the track, this: “Suspended in Gaffa is trying to simulate being trapped in a kind of web: everything is in slow motion, and the person feels like they're tied up. They can't move”. I sort of feel like Bush was trying to achieve something and growing but was being held back or kept in a box. Maybe scared and exhausted, there is this song that is almost like poetry. In fact, this message board sees people analysing the lyrics and breaking them down. One of her most powerful and memorable songs, Suspended in Gaffa raises as many questions as it answers. This 2025 Medium article trying to get to the bottom of the song: “SongMeanings.net has some angles worth a look. One take says it’s her wrestling art — gaffa as the mess of ideas that won’t line up, “I want it all” her drive to break through. It fits; The Dreaming was her pushing limits, maybe battling her own mind. Another sees it as a shot at the suits — those “they” who demand she prove her worth. The plank in her eye? Noise from execs or life pulling her off track. It’s got teeth; she’s never bowed easy. Kate’s only hinted “gaffa” is about being held back — tape, sure, but bigger too. Her rules, our guesses”. Two compelling and different Kate Bush characters. From Mrs. Bartolozzi and this song about housework, laundry, cleaning the floor and the ordinary and mundane turning into something epic and sensual. We also have Pandora mentioned in a standout from The Dreaming. Both compelling and arresting, I did want to examine these two different figures and talk around them and explore other themes. A chance to dive deeper into…

THE work of Kate Bush.

FEATURE: And If You’re Coming, Jump… Kate Bush’s The Big Sky at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

And If You’re Coming, Jump…

Kate Bush’s The Big Sky at Forty

__________

I have covered…

this track a fair few times through the year, so you will forgive me for repeating myself when it comes to the resources I bring in. In terms of interview archive where Kate Bush talks about the background to The Big Sky. My favourite track from her 1985 album, Hounds of Love, this was a difficult one to put together. Struggling to get it right or form, there was this struggle to get the song made. However, what we have seems effortless and completely natural. Testament to Kate Bush as a producer that she made this song that has no audible cracks, rough edges or sounds like it was pieced together or this mismatch. Arguably her most joyous and jubilant track, it is this child-like sense of wonder that comes through. Maybe people do not herald The Big Sky as much as other songs on Hounds of Love as they do not feel it is as serious or deep. I love everything about The Big Sky. How Bush fought to get this song made and it went through these changes. The composition especially is astonishing. Martin Glover (Youth) providing this wonderful bass part. So funky and pulsating, it gives this racing heartbeat to the song. Charlie Morgan sounding epic on the drums! Del Palmer and Charlie Morgan on handclaps. Paddy Bush is in the mix on the didgeridoo. Morris Pert providing some percussion, alongside Alan Murphy on guitars. There is a reason for coming back to The Big Sky. The fourth single released from Hounds of Love, it came out on 21st April, 1986. Marking forty years of the final single from her masterpiece. It reached thirty-seven in the U.K. It went to fifteen in Ireland. That is interesting, as Bush does mention Ireland in a lyric (a cloud that resembles the country). I am always surprised The Big Sky was not a top twenty. It is a song that has a commercial and accessible feel yet it is unmistakable distinct from anything that was out in 1986. This was the same sort of time as singles like Peter’s Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach (which came out in June 1986). It was an exciting time for music. Maybe people bought Hounds of Love so did not want to purchase The Big Sky separately.

I do feel that this classic track should get some new attention and admiration on its fortieth anniversary. Before I continue on, it is helpful to get some context from Kate Bush. How this difficult song started life and what Bush had to do to make it work. It is to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for that invaluable information:

“Someone sitting looking at the sky, watching the clouds change. I used to do this a lot as a child, just watching the clouds go into different shapes. I think we forget these pleasures as adults. We don’t get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them; we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood – how perhaps the “fools on the hills” will be the wise ones. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

‘The Big Sky’ was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I’m writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)”.

One of my favourite details is that Kate Bush directed the video for The Big Sky. This was not her debut directional outing. She had assisted and co-directed videos prior to Hounds of Love. However, on an album where she was very happy and wanted to go into directing and have more say on her visuals, the title track was the first she directed. That was the third single from the album. After Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Cloudbusting came out, with Bush watching the directors and learning, she stepped out as a director. I love what she did for The Big Sky!

There is some debate as to whether The Big Sky came out on 21st or 28th April, 1986. I am taking the date from Music Week and their edition from 19th April, 1986. They selected new singles coming out that week. Recorded at Wickham Farm Home Studios (Welling, England) and Windmill Lane Studios (Dublin, Ireland), critics were positive towards the song. As I have written before, Sounds declared that The Big Sky was a “moment of real, mad bravado" and "the best and most threatening thing this bizarre talent has ever done”. The video is something that charms me every time! Bush in all these different outfits. This mad editing that cuts between all these seemingly random scenes. It is a kaleidoscope and smorgasbord of fascinating characters, colours and imaginative visions. After the video for Hounds of Love, which was perhaps more grounded and had a different feel (and was partly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps), this was a chance for Bush to go sillier and bigger. Spending five weeks in the U.K. charts, most people will not realise that the B-side was Not This Time. An underrated and almost known track, it is important in the sense that The Big Sky was the final single from Hounds of Love. Not that Bush would leave a big gap until her next single came out. I will highlight it closer to the time but, later in 1986, she put out the greatest hits album, The Whole Story. Experiment IV  was a new single she included on that. It was a hectic time for her. 1985-1986 saw her do so much promotion and put out arguably her most enduring videos. Even if The Big Sky does not get mentioned in the same breath as Cloudbusting and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), I feel it is worthy of discussion. Highlight scenes from the video.

I love how Del Palmer features in it as an army major. Paddy Bush is in there too. We see finished videos but do not really know what it was like on set. Unique in terms of how fans were allowed access, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia also reveal how a select group of lucky fans were given the chance to be extras on the video: “The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the ‘crowd scenes’. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted”. At such an epic filming location, I wonder how quickly the video came together. It is like a film in a way. The scale and characters in the video. Bush speaking with her crew to make sure she got the right shots. Those fans maybe having to wait around for a while, but having this extraordinary and memorable day! Filmed so close to the single release, this was a hard song to visualise, I am sure. You listen to Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love and there are more obvious synopsises. However, The Big Sky’s video could have been as troublesome as he song itself! Bush could have got another director to work on it. However, she cleared had a vision for this single and executed it brilliantly! I do feel that The Big Sky is the standout track from Hounds of Love. It is a song that I never tire of hearing. As it turns forty on 21st April, I did want to come back to it. Not many people have written about the song. It is one of Kate Bush’s best. So delightful and delighted, you can feel this audible sunshine and smile. Even if it was a pain in the studio and almost didn’t happen, the finished version is exceptional. I did mention in a recent feature how The Meteorological Mix featured on Best of the Other Sides. Kate Bush loved listening to the mix and picking up new things. A real headrush of a track, The Big Sky is…

PURE sunshine.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Rose Gray

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

Rose Gray

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THIS artist…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rose Gray at the BRIT Awards at Manchester’s Co-Op Live Arena on 28th February, 2026/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

has appeared on my blog a few times now. I have raved about her debut album, Louder, Please. That was released last year. I felt it warranted a Mercury Prize nomination and a lot more love than it got. I spotlighted Gray in 2022 and again last year. I want to include her for a third time, as there have been developments since her last appearance. News of new music. Rose Gray is someone I can see having this incredibly long career. One that includes acting too. Maybe it is presumptuous to say she would make an amazing actor, though I do feel that she is has this untapped potential and talent that would translate to the screen. In terms of music, she is one of our finest songwriters. Hackney Wick is one of my favourite songs from the past few years. I have not seen her live yet, though I shall try and rectify that. I did forget to mention that Rose Gray was nominated for a BRIT. Nominated alongside Jacob Alon and Sienna Spiro in the Critics' Choice Award category, Alon won (and they are worthy of that honour). However, it does show that Rose Gray is a serious talent to watch. Looking at her tour dates, she does have some incredible dates coming up. On 14th May, she plays London’s KOKO. I am tempted to go to that. Five days after that and she will play in New York. Gray will soon conquer America and I can imagine her performing on huge U.S. chat shows and appearing on some big stages there! I am going to get to an interview from this month. Bring things up to date. However, it is worth mentioning that Rose Gray performed at Trans Mission recently. Billed as “A Night of Solidarity For A Lifetime Of Change", it aims to support, celebrate, and raise funds for the transgender community. She was on a bill that included Wolf Alice.

An artist who firmly supports the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, so many reasons to cherish and admire Rose Gray. On a slightly random tangent. I did actually think Rose Gray would be named in the cast of the upcoming series of Beatles films from Sam Mendes. I am not sure if she is a fan of the band, though I feel she has the ability to slot into a 1960s-set film. Something about her that would stand out. Anyway. I digress. My Beatles tangent is not a coincidence. Rose Gray’s boyfriend, Harris Dickinson, has been cast as John Lennon in those Beatles biopics/films. Not that Gray should have played an ex of Lennon. I feel like there was a role for her. Actually, last July, Gray was interviewed Emma Stout for Interview Magazine. She did actually talk about her Beatles era and how it was  and look. Maybe she would blanch at being cast in a Beatles film in that case:

“STOUT: Who’s in your pop girl coven—besides Kesha, obviously? Which pop girls are you listening to right now?

GRAY: Addison. I’m absolutely in love with that record and the production on all those songs. I’m so into her aesthetic.

STOUT: She’s amazing. There’s something about her that makes you think, “We would be best friends.” And that’s what all the best pop stars do.

GRAY: Charli does it well. Like, you want to be their friend.

STOUT: On the subject of pop 101, I was so impressed reading your interviews because you have this immense appreciation for pop history.

GRAY: I do love pop music. “Studied” makes me sound way too studious—I’ve just been in love with pop music ever since I was a kid.

STOUT: What was the first CD you ever owned?

GRAY: It was Christina Aguilera Stripped. Also, Lily Allen was a big part of my childhood. I just love that first record Alright, Still. And my mom loved Madonna, so I grew up with Madonna on in the house. It took me to get a bit older to really fall in love with her.

STOUT: So we have Madonna, Addison, Charli—

GRAY: Oklou, Björk. I love Alanis Morissette. Jagged Little Pill, I always come back to that record. I saw her at Glastonbury, like, 3 weeks ago. Have you been to Glastonbury?

STOUT: No. We have Gov Ball, but we don’t have a music festival like Glastonbury.

GRAY: They should start doing one. What do you call the countryside of New York?

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Stout

STOUT: Upstate, darling. Charli had this album listening party upstate, and she brought all these journalists out to the middle of nowhere. There was no cell service, and it turned into a two-hour DJ set. Wait, have you been to Basement?

GRAY: No, but I’ve heard a few people talk about it. I’m in New York again in a month. It’s the first night of the headline tour, but I can do it.

STOUT: The first night of your first tour!

GRAY: I know—it feels so good.

STOUT: What’s your pre-show ritual?

GRAY: I do my own makeup and that helps me get in the zone. Then vocal warmups and put on some good tunes.

STOUT: Are you superstitious?

GRAY: I am, but I don’t think I am with my shows. Whenever I do bigger shows, I have a two-minute interlude of me speaking before I go on stage. Sometimes if I don’t have that, I don’t feel as connected to my performance. During those two minutes, I just zone out.

STOUT: You look fabulous, by the way. Can you describe your look?

GRAY: The knit piece, hot pants, boots, and ripped tights. All my tights are ripping. I wore these for a show the other day and they ripped. But it’s the most perfect rip, almost like I did it on purpose. I didn’t. I always wear this kind of vibe now when I play.

STOUT: You’ve very mobile.

GRAY: I like to be mobile.

STOUT: How did you find your look?

GRAY: It happened quite naturally. There have been some eras over the last six or seven years.

STOUT: Bad eras?

GRAY: 100 percent. I’ve had some really weird eras. I had an era where I dressed like I was a Beatle. Very 60s, sort of Sergeant Pepper. Tight and tailored. Do you know what? It was a vibe.

STOUT: And where are you now?

GRAY: Now, everything is stripped down—apart from the hair. I love tights, little shorts, vests, a bonnet, sunglasses. Mysterious, but also comfy. I’ve got to move a little bit on stage.

STOUT: Speaking of the Beatles, your boyfriend is playing John Lennon in the biopic. How do you fend off the “Dickheads”?

GRAY: Oh, they’re lovely. They are so nice. I think they like me.

STOUT: Last question, what can I expect tonight?

GRAY: Sweat and choreography”.

One more 2025 interview before moving on, Ticketmaster UK caught up with Rose Gray in October. She put out the A Little Louder, Please. An extended edition of her remarkable debut. Ticketmaster UK chatted with Gray after the release of her then-new single, April. It is not an exaggeration to say that Gray is going to be a future icon. An artist who will headline massive festivals and have the same sort of career trajectory as the biggest Pop artists in the world:

“Nine months down the line, do you resonate with the ethos of Louder, Please even more, considering how you’ve been firing on all cylinders?

It definitely resonates with me even more now, having sung those lyrics, or shouted them, like, in ‘Damn’. I kept accidentally writing songs with ‘louder’ in it, coming back to the word. Whenever I’m on the mic, I still say, ‘Could you put up a little louder, please?’

This is kind of deep, but since I was a kid, I’ve always pushed for more. Whether it’s making music, art or learning a dance, I will take it to the next level. But it’s also quite exhausting, constantly wanting more for myself. It’s brilliant for my career, because a lot of people would have probably stopped a few years ago, when things weren’t working.

What turned things around for you? Can you pinpoint a moment or period where the music you were making really clicked with your personality?

If I’m being completely honest, I think it was when the album came out. From the morning that my album came out, on 17 January 2025, everything did fall into place. Behind the scenes, things happened that needed to happen. All the shows I wanted to play, I started to book. The artists that I’ve grown up loving started messaging me and wanting to collaborate.

Is that even more rewarding given how long you took to craft it?

I’d got to a place where I actually accepted that no matter what happens with the album, I’m proud of it. I love it, and it will be out forever. The record label that I put my album out with were really supportive of me, but they didn’t think I was ready to be an album level artist. I had to really push to put out an album, insane [amounts].

Is there a reworked version on the deluxe edition that will surprise people the most?

I really love the reimagined version of ‘First’ that I did with Melanie C. That is a soundscape that people might be a bit shocked to hear, but it’s a world that I’ve always loved. There’s real variety in the record. I’ve got classic club bangers, but some of the reimagined versions are quite strange, odd, and alternative. Opening the projects up again really inspired me to take them in different directions, because I didn’t have any pressure for these tracks.

You recently released a mini doc about ‘Hackney Wick’. Is there more of that story to tell, regarding how the place helped shape the Rose Gray we know today?

There’s definitely more I feel. I feel very healed by that song. So many people in America told me how much they loved that song, which is so funny, because I imagine most of them haven’t been to Hackney Wick. It represents that place, wherever it is in the world, that you were drawn to, where some of the big life memories happened.

While you’ve been all over the world, do you miss the place, or is it reassuring that you always have it to come back to?

Hackney Wick has changed. I still love it and choose to meet my friends there for a drink. I really appreciate London more, now that I travel. [There’s] nothing quite like home. London is in my bones, it’s who I am.

Some people might disagree, but I think we’ve got a good balance of work, play and cosiness [in London]. Now we’re moving into autumn, all of our activities are going to change. Stockholm has that, New York has that, but a lot of places in the southern hemisphere are hot all the time and don’t have that.

Are you enjoying riding the wave of everything that’s happening at the moment?

It’s been pretty consistent. When I’m in a studio, I’m sat on my arse with coffee all day. I’m very comfortable and rested when I’m making music. I’m also quite a good sleeper now. I’m making sure that I’m taking a step out of it, remembering how much everything has changed, trying to appreciate it and take everything in. I’m one of those annoying people that’s in a really amazing moment, and then I’ll tell everyone that I think it’s an amazing moment!”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Rose Gray at Trans Mission at OVO Arena, Wembley on 11th March, 2026/PHOTO CREDIT: Corrine Amos

I am finishing off with NME, who spoke with Rose Gray backstage at the Trans Mission event on 11th March. Gray talked about “embracing the guitar on her “wild” forthcoming album, and explained how she uses her music to represent the voices of those around her”:

“When asked about what she has planned after the Trans Mission gig, Gray shared that she is gearing up for her upcoming UK headline tour (find tickets here), and also writing some new music that sees her lean into “wild” new avenues.

“I’m bringing out a new single, which I’m actually debuting tonight,” she said, referring to ‘Straight From The Club To Your Heart’. “I’m still a bit nervous playing new stuff [because] it feels like I’m about to open my diary in front of thousands of people.”

When asked about what fans can expect from the new material, the singer added: “I’m not departing my ‘Louder, Please’ world. It’s still electronic, it’s still pop, and it’s still very anthemic. But I am definitely transitioning into a different world. I have some guitars, which is wild for me, and I’m still in the thick of making the new record.”

Last January, ‘Louder, Please’ was given a four-star review from NME and praised as incorporating an “enigmatic cutting edge into her upbeat dance-pop sound”. It was also named as one of NME’s best albums of 2025, and saw Gray shortlisted for the 2026 BRITs Critics’ Choice shortlist. The latter was later awarded to Scottish singer-songwriter Jacob Alon.

As well as Gray, other performances on the night came from Rahim Redcar, who performed Christine And The Queens’ tracks ‘Full Of Life’ and ‘Deep Holes’, Kate Nash who played fan-favourite ‘Foundations’, and Wolf Alice who showed up after their win at the BRITs to break out acoustic versions of ‘Leaning Against the Wall’ and ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’.

Olly Alexander ran through some Years & Years songs too, and was introduced to the stage by Sir Ian McKellen, who also recited Shakespeare’s The Strangers’ Case speech from Thomas More to the crowd – having also done so on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”.

I think it is timely to re-explore Rose Gray and her music. As she is about to start these incredible tour dates and there is talk of new music, a lot of people looking excitedly in her direction! A spectacular artist who is going to be in the industry for decades, I don’t want to manifest things like acting roles. However, you feel there is all this unrealised talent in Gray. Focusing on music, she is undeniably a modern great. I am excited to see what the future holds. A modern queen who is on the rise, here is someone who you need to follow. Go and show…

HER some big love!

___________

Follow Rose Gray

Official:

https://www.rosegraymusic.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/rosegray_/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@rosegravy

Twitter:

https://x.com/rosegray_

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5YYrWH3w4JYijU4JZrOXWA?si=xEEANb5-RoCZp9RrnkMoCw

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/rosegrayyy

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwBKtW5UEKfHpdRrhbyW3Pw

FEATURE: Sending a Dangerous Message: Why Controversy Around the Romanian Eurovision Song Contest Entry Is Justified

FEATURE:

 

 

Sending a Dangerous Message

IN THIS PHOTO: Alexandra Căpitănescu will represent Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest on 16th May

Why Controversy Around the Romanian Eurovision Song Contest Entry Is Justified

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MAYBE some people…

will not be concerned or feel that it is irrelevant, considering how this year’s Eurovision Song Contest has been dogged by controversy. In the sense Israel is being allowed to compete and some nations, rightly, have pulled out. Israel should be banned out of a moral responsibility. It is a pity that the U.K. has not shown more backbone. It is disappointing and cowardly that we are still in the contest, considering that a representative of a nation committing genocide is being given a worldwide platform. Unfortunately, strangulation during sex is something that is prevalent. It does not always apply to women. However, largely, it is men strangling women during sex. It is an incredibly dangerous practice that can, and often does, lead to death. It is not something that should be promoted or seen as acceptable. In terms of music, addressing this is a risk. It definitely should not be included in songs in a positive way. Romania’s Eurovision Song Contest entry is Alexandra Căpitănescu. She is an incredible artist. However, her song, Choke Me, has rightly been called out for promoting a very dangerous message. This article explains more:

“Romania's entry for 2026's already controversial Eurovision Song Contest is facing criticism for allegedly promoting the dangerous practice of sexual strangulation, according to The Guardian newspaper.

Choke Me, by Alexandra Căpitănescu, includes lyrics such as "I want you to choke me" and "make my lungs explode", and has been described as "reckless" by campaigners against sexual violence.

Last year, The Guardian reported that more than half of sexually active people under the age of 35 in the UK have experienced strangulation, with more than two in five sexually active under 18s having either been strangled or strangled someone during sex. The report suggested that choking has "become part of a dangerous drift towards increased violence in mainstream pornography" and that there are consent issues around the practice in sexual encounters.

Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University and the author of Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn and How We Fight Back, tells The Guardian that the lyrics of Căpitănescu's song display "an alarming disregard for young women’s health and wellbeing".

"The song – and its choice by Romania/Eurovision, and promotion by those organisations – represents a reckless normalisation of a dangerous practice," she says. "It's playing fast and loose with young women's lives. The emerging medical evidence is that frequent sexual strangulation is giving young women brain damage."

However, a caption on the Romanian TV broadcaster's YouTube channel offers a different perspective on the message of the song, stating, "Choke Me speaks about the emotional pressure, doubts and turmoil that many young artists go through when trying to find their own voice and place in the world. Through an intense and deeply personal interpretation, Alexandra Căpitănescu transforms this experience into a powerful and authentic musical moment. The atmosphere of the song captures the tension between fragility and the strength to move forward, inviting the audience into a sincere emotional experience."

The Guardian says that there have been calls for the song to be disqualified.

Meanwhile, Căpitănescu has been booked to perform at the London Eurovision Party 2026 at HERE at the Outernet on April 19.

Eurovision 2026 has already attracted controversy, and international boycotts, due to Israel's participation in the contest. Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Slovenia, and Holland are neither participating in, nor broadcasting, this year's event in protest against the still on-going violence against Palestinians in Gaza, where a 'ceasefire' is in effect”.

This article from last year highlights some terrifying and alarm statistics: “More than two in five sexually active under-18s in the UK have either been strangled or strangled someone during sex, research has found, despite the serious dangers of the practice. “Choking”, as it is commonly known, has become normalised in young people’s sexual habits, the study by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (Ifas) showed, with 43% of sexually active 16- and 17-year-olds having experienced it. More than half of people under the age of 35 have experienced it, with nearly a third wrongly believing there are safe ways to strangle someone. The survey also revealed a crisis of distress among those on the receiving end, with 36% saying they felt scared during the experience and 21% suffering dangerous physical symptoms, including dizziness and even loss of consciousness”.

If there was a track promoting sexual confidence or something positive then it would be okay. I do think that it is reckless to sing a song where the heroine asks to be strangled. Not only will people sing this. There is always a chance that people will listen to the messages in the song and feel that it is to be followed. One might say people are not easily swayed and nobody will hear Strangle Me and actually ask to be strangled during sex – or strangle someone themselves. However, it is a strange choice of song to bring to a worldwide event. I am surprised that the track was chosen as the representative for Romania. An event like Eurovision is already facing accusations or supporting and given platform to a genocidal nation. It should look at the songs entered and ban any that are controversial or send out a bad message. The contest should be an evening of celebration and love. Maybe the organisers felt the song was tongue in cheek or jokey. However, when it comes to a subject like strangulation and a dangerous sexual practice that is costing lives and almost seen as normalised, this is not something we should allow. When it comes to young men having sex, they are watching videos and visiting sites like Pornhub and seeing women being choked and strangled. It is abuse. They see this as how sex should be and what women like. Choke Me portrays a situation where strangulation is seen as thrilling, desired and wanted. Even if Alexandra Căpitănescu is not someone who is going to be responsible for a rise in strangulation during sex, this is not a topic that should be discussed positively or even flippantly in music. If you are writing a song about strangulation, then it needs to be seen as negative and something that should be stopped. This is reverse progress. Romania are not among the favourites. Still, it is going to be shocking seeing people cheering and celebrating this song. Alexandra Căpitănescu is a great artist and someone who should be using her voice for good. There is no ambiguity in the lyrics: “All I need is your love/I want it to choke me, choke me, choke me/Born for you to control, I want you to choke me/Ch-ch-ch-choke me, ch-ch-ch-choke me/Love me, make my lungs explode/All I need is your love, I want it to choke me/Ch-ch-ch-choke me, ch-ch-ch-choke me”. Many young men and women will sing these lyrics and not understand the weight of them. The Eurovision Song Contest needs to improve and not allow songs like this to pass through. In more than one way this year, the organisers really need to…

LEARN a lesson.

FEATURE: Modern-Day Queens: Lola Young

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern-Day Queens

Lola Young

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THIS edition…

of Modern-Day Queens is about one our very best Pop artists. Lola Young released her third studio album, I'm Only F**king Myself, last year. The south London artist won a GRAMMY for Best Pop Solo Performance for Messy. That standout song has not surpassed a billion streams. Young also won the Breakthrough Artist award at this year’s BRITs. I am going to come to some interviews with an artist who is going to be a legend of the future. In terms of what she has achieved and where she is headed, there are few artists like her. The music resonating with such a wide audience. An authentic and true artist, Lola Young spoke with ELLE about I’m Only F**king Myself. One of the most downloaded artists on the planet, Young spoke about there being no façade or alter ego with her and the music:

“Young was raised on rhythm: she grew up in Beckenham, south London, with her mother and stepfather, a professional bass player. By the time she graduated from the Brit school, she’d already caught the eye of her now-managers Nick Shymansky and Nick Huggett – the men behind Amy Winehouse and Adele, respectively – at local gigs and open-mic events, and signed to Island Records. By 23, she’d released 27 singles, two albums and two EPs.

‘I didn’t grow up with loads of money,’ she says. ‘My mum and stepdad are proud, and I support them where I can. I’m from a musical household and started piano early. A lot has changed, but so much has stayed the same. I have the same friends, the same family, the same sisters stealing my clothes. That grounds me.

‘I never want to let the glitz and glamour take my head to a different place. You can get swept away quickly – it’s terrifying. When you’re living a more luxurious life – being brought out to a fancy boat by a brand or something – you realise how many different pockets of the world exist and it’s easy to lose yourself. People treat you differently. They know who you are before you walk in. I’ve never spoken about this before, but it’s something I’m still grappling with. It’s strange. You have to know who you can turn to – who’ll tell you when you’re being a shit.’

Young’s meteoric ascent has earnt her an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, the Rising Star award at this year’s Ivor Novellos and a feature with Tyler, The Creator on ‘Like Him’. It’s the kind of career trajectory most artists take a decade to build. But the real standout moment came in June, when Billie Eilish personally asked Young to open for her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour.

‘She wanted me to join her on the whole tour, but I couldn’t because of other shows we had booked,’ she says. (In the end, Young played two nights in Paris.) ‘[Billie] is so genuine, and she was very complimentary about my work. I look up to her so much – we’re a similar age – watching what she stood for, how she came through. Just seeing her was enough to feel really empowered and remember why I do this. We had a little chat after but I was completely starstruck.’

I’m Only F**king Myself isn’t just an album. It’s a memoir – a scorched-earth account of sex, sabotage and survival, written with Young’s longtime collaborators Manuka and Solomonophonic, known for their work with Doja Cat and SZA. She wrote most of it in Paris over six months – a creatively rich, quietly intense period as ‘Messy’ took on a life of its own. ‘All the songs connect to me in some way,’ she says of the 14-track record”.

I am moving to an interview from earlier this year. Speaking with Rolling Stone UK in Los Angeles, after award wins and this new wave of attention and success, it has been seen as a comeback. It is not the case at all. Lola Young has always been active and relevant. However, there was a period of recovery needed after she collapsed on stage in 2025. With a lot more to give, this is a new chapter for her:

“It was a whirlwind of a year,” Young says of her 2025. “It was so mad and beautiful and exciting, but it was also, at times, very sad.” Yet the music industry can move at an unyielding clip, particularly when artists are rocketing to stardom like Young was.

Young was in demand, shuttling from one corner of the world to another, with massive performances, including Glastonbury and Lollapalooza Paris, loading up a packed schedule. Her days started moving at warp speed, the hours hectic and endless and exhausting. All the while, she had gotten help for an active addiction to cocaine and worked with a sober coach who traveled with her for a lot of 2025. But as the year progressed, things got heavier and harder.

“If I’m gonna be honest with you, the enjoyment was deteriorating,” she says. “Just small things that I had to do: an interview, a piece of promo. I just didn’t know all the stuff that comes with it. But I wasn’t in a good place, and there’s two sides of the coin …” she trails off. “You want to say yes to everything because everything’s on the table, but then you also have to balance that with your mental health, and I’ve been super open about my mental-health condition that I suffer from, and also about all the other stuff that’s going on for me.”

That summer, Young’s manager, Nick Shymansky, told The New York Times that Young had relapsed and gone back to treatment. She returned to public life a few months later, releasing her third album, I’m Only F**king Myself, on September 19. The LP, razored, chaotic and edgier than her past releases, chronicled her experiences with love, isolation, and recovery, set to upbeat sounds. Once the record came out, it was back to promo; she did Fallon and a YouTube interview and a performance for the Grammy Museum Foundation. On the outside, it seemed she was in a good place, but behind the scenes, she’d been barreling toward crisis.

People saw the breaking point in unforgiving real time. On Sept. 27, Young was onstage in New York, at the All Things Go festival. Young prefers not to talk about the specifics of that day, but audience video showed what happened: She was in the middle of singing her song ‘Conceited’ when she turned to the side, as though she wanted to say something to someone standing there. She stumbled briefly, and then seconds later, her eyes closed and she went completely rigid, falling backward. Almost immediately, the digital age’s most pernicious habits took over: The clip ricocheted across the internet, propagating over and over across every social media platform, a person’s worst moment on constant repeat. Hundreds of videos followed, with fans worrying about Young’s health, speculating about the pressure she was under. The crueler ones accused her of faking the whole thing and staging the incident for attention.

There was noise and concern and uproar in the months that followed, but none of it reached Young. A week after she collapsed, she posted a message on Instagram: “I’m going away for a while. It pains me to say I have to cancel everything for the foreseeable future. Thank you for all the love and support.” She checked into a facility and went on lockdown for two months. She had no phone or access to the outside world. She was in there while people speculated about her incessantly. She was in there when news of her two Grammy nominations arrived: Best New Artist, and Best Pop Solo Performance, for ‘Messy’.

PHOTO CREDIT: David LaChapelle for Rolling Stone

A ton of artists supported her: Katy Perry sent her a message; Charli XCX wrote her an email. Kesha and Elton John both reached out. Lady Gaga texted. “That was pretty mad,” Young says. “And that made me feel safer.” She credits her fans and how incredibly supportive they were throughout the past several months.

Still, coming out of that has been a careful process, with her health at the center of it all. Young says that, unlike previous recovery attempts, the approach is different this time: The facility she visited is holistic, centering on therapy and psychology instead of solely treating addiction. Since leaving, she’s been attending AA meetings and has a sponsor.

Young says her relationship to work has also changed. “One thing that’s really helped me is slowing down, mentally, taking time to process,” she says. “Days off, that’s really important. Enjoying time with friends, people that love you.” But, she’s had to navigate both tough moments and criticism, especially after canceling shows and appearances. “There was a bunch of hate, but you know what? Fuck it,” she says. “When you’re doing something, there’s always going to be a couple motherfuckers talking shit. But at the same time, it was a decision, like I said, that I had to make, and it was sad that I had to do that. What else was I going to do, die? That was the reality of where my addiction was heading.”

There’s no manual for pop stars dealing with addiction, but Young and her team have found that having her take her time and listen to herself helps most. “We’ve learned that things need to slow down, and that’s really healthy to know that,” she says. “But, no, I don’t think it’s fair that people push blame on anybody when they don’t know the full story.”

Still, she gives fans who worry about her some benefit of the doubt. “I don’t really blame [those] people either, you know, because they’re protecting me and they care,” she says, adding, “I think it’s sweet that people wanna, you know … but people on the internet, honestly, [they’re] insane, some of them. They’re just pulling something out of nothing and running with it a million miles per hour.”

Focusing on Young’s addiction feels reductive, especially when her catalog is filled with humor and intellect and skill. She bristles at the idea of becoming a spokesperson for sobriety when her own journey hasn’t been easy or linear. And yet so much of her strength as an artist involves being truthful about what’s happening inside her. “I’m just writing what I’m feeling, and then I’ll realise later, ‘Oh, fuck. I shouldn’t have said that I’m a raging drug addict.’ Then I’m like, ‘You know what? I am. What the fuck am I trying to hide?’”

It’s that unwavering honesty and vulnerability that’s traveled so far —worldwide, in fact — reaching people who need to hear her music the most. Anecdotally, she’s heard how her songs have cheered people up, guided them through breakups, reminded them that they’re enough. A fan recently wrote that he was so deeply moved by her music, he taught himself English to understand her better.

And then there are those who’ve told Young that her music saved their lives. “I want to just help in any way that I possibly can,” she says”.

I am going to end with a live review from The Times. They saw her perform at the London Palladium earlier this month. It is clear that Lola Young will have a busy summer with performances. Although she only released an album, I think that Lola Young will be working on new material and has other ideas. It is exciting to see her in a better place and inspiring so many people. This strong and resilient artist that has many years ahead:

“Since then she has won awards at both the Grammys and the Brits while building a reputation as someone who is prepared to lay out every issue, from addictions to bad boyfriends to serious mental health problems, in pop songs that have their appeal in being so unguarded. The challenge was in Young balancing her clear talent and charisma with the pressures of exposure, but this concert proved to be a well-judged coming in from the cold.

“It’s a bad game of love we’re in,” sang Young, playing solo piano, on Bad Game (3am), mining the lonely spirit of Joni Mitchell while throwing in some Mariah Carey-style vocal gymnastics for good measure. From there, she came across as being in control of the situation: here was someone who can open up and bleed in song, but align that with a professionalism that brings its own form of protection.

“So I’m back,” she said, as a pianist joined her for Why Do I Feel Better When I Hurt You, which displayed her lyrical speciality: going deep into relationship problems without supplying any answers, probably because, being only 25, she hasn’t got them yet. “Life’s a game and I just can’t win,” she lamented on Penny out of Nothing; Sad Sob Story was one big gripe about an old boyfriend. The zest with which the female-dominated audience sang the words back to her illustrated how closely they related to them.

Young was also entirely capable of maximum rudeness. One Thing was a catchy pop singalong about having zero interest in some guy’s mind but a lot of interest in his body; Post Sex Clarity evoked the feeling of pure attraction in the face of reason. Drugs featured too, with D£aler equating addiction to substance abuse and marrying the two. Dancing before the crowd, making the fans sing the choruses, she seemed almost carefree. But the songs themselves revealed the troubled waters within.

“I guess you know what’s coming,” she said in the encore. “This song changed my life.” That led the way for Messy, in which she listed all the criticisms levelled at her: smoking like a chimney, not being skinny, pulling “a Britney every other week” (ie, having a meltdown). The messiness is what makes Lola Young stand out, of course. If she can continue to hold it together, as she did at this appealingly compact concert, and transplant the chaos into song rather than let it take over her life, she’ll be fine”.

An artist we should be very proud of, I wonder what the next year or two holds. More albums and awards, for sure. There is so much affection and respect for Lola Young around the music world and far beyond. If you are new to Lola Young, then do go and listen to her music. One of the strongest artists in the world. As a songwriter and performer, there are few others…

IN her league.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life at Forty-Seven: Thinking About the Preparation and Rehearsals

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life at Forty-Seven

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing at the London Palladium during the midway point of The Tour of Life on 19th April, 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Still/Redferns

Thinking About the Preparation and Rehearsals

__________

ON 2nd April…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush pictured in Liverpool shortly before her The Tour of Life date at the city’s Empire Theatre on 3rd April, 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

it will be forty-seven years since the warm-up gig for Kate Bush’s The Tour of Life. I would first recommend you buy Max Cookney’s Kate Bush: On Location from last year, as it spotlights important locations that Bush filmed or performed in. Or just those significant in terms of her career. Whilst most discuss Kate Bush in terms of her music but we do not get to hear about the places and spaces that are vital, this book is invaluable and illuminating. Cookney writes about some of the venues for The Tour of Life (or The Lionheart Tour). One that struck my eye is The Rainbow Theatre. That is located on 232-238 Seven Sisters Road. I live right near there (is no longer open as a music venue, but the building still exists. It was acquired in 1995 by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) and converted into a church, which remains active there today), and this Finsbury Park’s spot was really important in terms of The Tour of Life. It was where the final rehearsals took place. Built in 1930, this was originally a four-thousand-seat cinema called the Finsbury Park Astoria. From the early-1960s, the Astoria was used for one-night concert. The Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among those who played there. The Astoria became the Rainbow Theatre in November 1971. The venue was then exclusively used for Rock concerts. I can imagine how Kate Bush attracted to it. It was sadly closed in 1981 because of license violations, running costs and poor maintenance. It was designated as a Grade II building in 1974 so was protected from demolition. It seems like the tour crew moved to the theatre on 15th March, 1979 and were there for a six-day-long period of rehearsals. Scheduled to begin on 18th March, everyone would get the weekend off and return on 26th to begin a further four days of dress rehearsals. The first public performance of The Tour of Life was set to start on 1st April, 1979.

The Rainbow Theatre was not the first choice. Richard Ames, Kate Bush’s Tour Manager, has kept a lot of the itinerary and paperwork from that time. You can see some of the archives here. The Duke of York’s (which was a lot smaller than the Rainbow Theatre) and Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (the 1976 production of A Chorus Line was about to close). The Rainbow Theatre was chosen because it did not have any long-running shows playing there and there were few restrictions. It was mostly empty. I can attest, living in a very old property with no central heating, that you do need heaters on pretty much all year round. That was doubly true in March of 1979, so Richard Ames did hire heaters to keep the crew (and Bush) warm. They cost £13 a week each…plus the gas. I am taking that from Kate Bush: On Location. Before talking about the locations and London spots that were used for preparation and rehearsals for The Tour of Life, I do want to quote from Richard Ames’s recollections. It is great that we have this archive. Also, read his memories of The Tour of Life coming to Europe:

“Billy Duffield was my friend. I saw him and his girlfriend socially as well working with him on previous tours. I tell this whole sad story as it happened on this audio clip but it's important to me that he's remembered for giving the whole show a massive boost of confidence as we went through the dress rehearsals at the Rainbow. Billy was not one of the original crew hired for the tour, it was deemed necessary to bring in a lighting desk operator at the very last moment with 2 or 3 days of rehearsals left before the first show. I suggested Billy be called and he was available, and between tours. He had worked last year with me on Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel and the band Sailor, and he was the LD for Peter Gabriel as well.

So he came in and got to grips with the show and instantly made the light show snappier and more dramatic. He had amazing reactions and could pull and push a fader in an instant. The management team were delighted and as I said, as we left for Poole Arts centre everyone was very excited.

We had decided before the tour began to have a spare room for "Mr Smith" at every hotel to meet up and chill out in after the shows. It was a communal room, band and crew alike just hanging out, having a beer and a smoke.

It was in this room at the hotel in Bournemouth after the Poole show that I got the awful phone call from Nick Levitt that there had been an accident, that Billy had fallen through a hole in the audience seating and landed on his head 15 feet below.  I got down to the venue, walked through the scene and then went straight to the hospital. I spent the rest of the night there trying to locate the phone number of his parents, the only persons the hospital were interested in talking to.....

Well Edinburgh was just a little insane. The mess we made of Mr Smith's room cost a packet and I tell Paul the story in the audio clip above. It's not just rock and roll bands that get a little out of hand you know!!!

I must also tell the short story of our first night at the London Palladium. Kate had the 'star' dressing room and somehow, I just don't know how, the TV got stoved in, broken, it was an accident.  Well, the staff there thought we were hooligans for some reason and very nearly banned Kate from the room for the rest of our stay. We begged and pleaded with them and it was forgotten about the next day, thank God.

Well, to play Oxford was truly amazing for me, my home town and I got to invite my mother to the show and have her meet Kate at the hotel for drinks after the show. It hasn't been often that I got to play in Oxford, I think was my second or third time, as in 1978 we played the Oxford Polytechnic with The Cars. Anyway we stayed there overnight at a little 3-star hotel called the Linton Lodge off of the Banbury Road.

In the morning as it wasn't so far to Southampton, we took a small detour and went 2 miles up the road to my favorite pub, The Trout in Wolvercote. As a schoolboy I used to work there in the summer holidays, a beautiful place right next to the river. It's still going strong. Anyway we stopped there for a pint of beer before legging it down to Southampton for the next show”.

I do think that we the preparations for The Tour of Life are so interesting. The same with 2014’s Before the Dawn. In terms of London and the locations Bush worked in through her early career, there should be this new map or podcast. From Covent Garden to Elephant and Castle to the pubs and clubs the KT Bush Band played in through 1977, it is really fascinating looking at these areas and spaces. I want to bring in Dreams of Orgonon, and their words around The Tour of Life. Thinking about Kate Bush moving between these London locations. Slowly bringing together The Tour of Life:

“Planning for Bush’s tour (known then and during its existence just as the Kate Bush Tour) began at the end of December 1978 with a brainstorming session involving Bush and set designer David Jackson at EMI’s headquarters. Further preliminary meetings were held at East Wickham Farm in January, and shortly afterwards Bush was meeting wardrobe consultant Lisa Hayes. Rehearsals then began in earnest: Bush spent mornings at The Place performance center in Euston, preparing the tour’s dance routines with choreographer Anthony Van Laast (now of Mamma Mia! and Harry Potter fame) and dancers Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. These sessions were as collaborative as they were instructive: Bush had worked with Van Laast before, as he’d appeared in the “Hammer Horror” music video as her masked dancing partner. They spent the mornings designing routines for the show, informed by Van Laast’s seasoned dancing skill and Bush’s mime training. It was a positive union: the resulting concerts have notable dancing which is inseparable from the songs it’s set to. As Bush had to both sing and dance onstage, she and Van Laast worked out choreography that would both work as dance and allow her to sing without losing her breath. The minimalism of “Moving” and Bush’s all-limb gesturing during it is one such careful work of planning, as is her most frenetic gun-happiness during the extended bridge of “James and the Cold Gun,” where she doesn’t sing.

Rehearsals for the tour’s music were staged initially at Wood Wharf Studios in Greenwich, before moving to Surrey’s eminent Shepperton Studios in March. The shows were precisely outlined, retaining the ideas of The Kick Inside and Lionheart while developing them further onstage. Lionheart is at its core a work of musical theater, and its stage incarnation helped it to be the best version of itself. Out was the ill-paced sequencing of the album, supplanted with a solid theatrical structure. Bush also had a different lineup of musicians than her two albums so far: she’d begun sneaking the KT Bush Band into the studio by including them on “Wow” and “Kashka from Baghdad,” but a proper reunion of the old touring group was mostly in swing onstage. It wasn’t the exact same band (drummers Charlie Morgan and Vic King declined to return), but the quartet of Bush, bassist (and her partner) Del Palmer, guitarist and bandleader Brian Bath, and stalwart polymath Paddy Bush were playing music together again. Preston Heyman, Bush’s best drummer to date, joined the group and brought a percussive explosiveness to the concerts that the albums lacked (“when he hit the cymbal Kate used to blink,” said Brian Bath). Keyboardist Ben Barson, saxophonist and pianist Kevin McAlea, and guitarist Alan Murphy were the other new additions to the group, assuring that the shows would sound as lush as Bush’s albums”.

I want to include words I wrote in 2024, and how another venue was considered for the London leg of The Tour of Life: “Although not explicitly named at the time, instead of the Hammersmith Odeon – where she ended the run -, there were plans to use a beautiful venue that was hanger-like. The only one that logically fitted the description is Alexandra Palace in London. Bush felt sick when she released how small she would be compared to the vastness of that space! There were plans at one point to incorporate robots into the set”. Whilst Bush and her crew toured the U.K. and Europe in some amazing venues in 1979, I am thinking about the humbler foundation. The rehearsals and preparations that mainly took place in London. I guess there would have had to be some secrecy around the rehearsals. So that the press did not intrude and spoil anything. Bush had a big hand in everything about the tour. I can imagine that she was keen to rehearse in locations that felt comfortable and private. The Rainbow Theatre was a great choice for those final rehearsals. Imagining her rocking up in Finsbury Park in March 1979. Forward a few days to that warm-up gig at Poole. Performing at the Wessex Hall, which Richard Ames described as being a “live rehearsal for the big theatres”, and a show that “went just absolutely beautiful”, things rolled on from there. The first official date was 3rd April, 1979 at the Liverpool Empire. You can read more about the tour here. As we mark forty-seven years of Kate Bush’s only tour, I did want to spend a bit more time looking at the rehearsals and the preparation. The final moments before the rave reviews came in and she was being cheered by loving crowds each night, it would have been exciting putting the final touches on. What would come was this…

EXTRAORDINARY live experience.

FEATURE: Remembering the Legendary Prince: Which Is His Best Album?

FEATURE:

 

 

Remembering thinge Legendary Prince

Which Is His Best Album?

__________

IT might be impossible…

IN THIS PHOTO: Prince during the Sign o’ the Times photoshoot/PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Katz

to narrow down to one Prince album. The one that is seen as his best. In terms of commercial performance and critical acclaim I guess the likes of 1999 (1982) and Purple Rain (1984). He ruled the 1980s and was one of those artists that stood alongside other icons like Madonna. This really fertile, innovative and enduring time. Where massive Pop artists were releasing masterpieces and there wasd this enormously focus around them. Things have changed today, and we do not really have artists like Prince anymore. I don’t think that there is one album that you can say defined him. In terms of his best, of course that is subjective. I do think that there are objectively a few of his albums that stand above the rest when it comes to quality and significance. To me, I think his best album is 1987’s Sign o’ the Times. Turning forty next year, I feel everything hits the right notes. In terms of the cover and its design. Following up 1986’s Parade, and the first album since disbanding The Revolution, I want to go inside an album that I feel is Prince’s strongest. The reason I am assessing and revisiting is because we are approaching the tenth anniversary since his death. He died on 21st April, 2016. It was such a blow to his fans and the music world. The loss of a musical giant. I am going to get to some features around Sign o’ the Times. In 2020, the BBC provided an oral history of Sign o’ the Times. Releasing an album at a time when his stock was not as high as it was in 1984, there was a sense that he has to produce something better than Parade. The film it was a soundtrack for, Under the Cherry Moon, was panned and was not up to his standard. However, Sign o’ the Times was this sense of Prince hitting a peak and everything coming together:

“Recorded in 1985 and 1986, Dream Factory was a collaborative songwriting project with The Revolution's Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin (Susannah's sister). Light and playful, it contained early versions of songs like Strange Relationship, external and Starfish And Coffee, external.

Wendy Melvoin [Guitarist, The Revolution]: "It was such a beautiful time of exploration."

Lisa Coleman [Keyboards, The Revolution]: "Sometimes the work was just work. But this? It was like kindergarten for songwriters. As musicians, as songwriters, we were a little bit nuts."

Matt Fink [Prince's keyboard player 1978 - 1990]: "I love all that Dream Factory material that he did with Wendy and Lisa. Songs like In A Dark Room With No Light, or All My Dreams. I loved the the throwback to the 1930s movie soundtrack vibe. It was like when Paul McCartney would write songs like Lady Madonna. An interesting departure for him."

Susannah Melvoin [writing on Facebook, 2017, external]: "Prince wanted me to come up with some ideas for the Dream Factory album artwork... which was originally The Flesh / Dream Factory. He chose my third attempt [which] has me opening the door to his dream world... or as it will be forever known 'The Dream Factory'."

Duane Tudahl: "Dream Factory would have been a great Prince and The Revolution album but he moved on from there."

The Revolution is over

On 17 October, 1986, Prince's publicist issued a press release announcing the dissolution of The Revolution. It began with a quote from one of Prince's all-time idols, Joni Mitchell.

Joni Mitchell: "He's driven like an artist. His motivations are growth and experimentation as opposed to formula and hits."

Susan Rogers: "Wendy and Lisa mattered so greatly to Prince - but they were really eager to stretch out and express what they could do musically, aside from Prince, so those tensions were there. And those tensions were exacerbated when Prince and Susannah became engaged, because it seemed to be tying Wendy with an even stronger chain to Prince, whether she was going to remain in his band or not.

Duane Tudahl: "Wendy and Lisa weren't fighting Prince - they were fighting to stay with him. I don't think they had intentions of leaving. But I think once he realised that they could leave, he got protective and said, 'I'm not going to allow you to hurt me, I'll hurt you first.'"

Matt Fink: "I tried to dissuade him [but] he didn't want to listen to me. I stayed friends with all of them, obviously, but it was a difficult time."

Robyn Riggs [Prince's publicist, speaking to the Associated Press in 1986]: "It was mutual as far as I understand it. He's coming up with something different. Nothing's definite at this point."

Duane Tudahl: "You want to lose a friend, ask for money... The unfortunate thing is they deserved it [because] what they were bringing to Prince was almost incalculable. They were making 800 bucks a week. That's no money."

Prince [singing on Rebirth Of The Flesh, recorded days after firing his band]: "It isn't about the money, we just wanna play."

Wendy Melvoin: "Once we were gone, he turned into a different person. And that's the nature of who he was. He became someone else in every phase - and the previous phase would disappear."

Forever in my life?

In November 1985, Prince moved into a yellow, three-storey mansion in Galpin Boulevard, Minnesota, with Susannah Melvoin. She had designed the house and its dedicated recording studio while he was in France shooting Under The Cherry Moon.

Susannah Melvoin: "Wendy and Lisa and I lived together and we would have [Prince] stay at our place. We became really close. He got to be in a family of three women, and we got to have our Prince. Not many people had that kind of relationship with him."

Prince [speaking to MTV in 1985]: "One thing I'd like to say is that I don't live in a prison. I haven't built any walls around myself, and I am just like anyone else. I need love and water. I don't really consider myself a superstar. I live in a small town, and I always will. I can walk around and be me."

Susan Rogers: "In the studio there was this rich, deep royal purple carpet, and on the back wall of the control room Susannah Melvoin had designed these stained glass windows. When the setting sun would come in at the end of the day, we'd have these beautiful prisms on the floors. It was really gorgeous."

At this point, Prince and Susannah were engaged, and several of the songs on Sign O' The Times discuss their relationship. Among them is the love-struck devotional Forever In My Life, which Prince recorded twice in August 1986.

Duane Tudahl: "The first take sounds like a heartfelt demo that a guy's playing on acoustic guitar. Just strumming it for his love."

Susan Rogers: "The very first version is a young man, expressing the kind of sentiment he might on his wedding day. He sounds happy and optimistic. The version that ended up on the album is more serious. This is a tone that says, 'Yeah, I think I'm going to do this and it'll be hard.' It's a more mature perspective."

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End of youtube video by Prince - Topic

Robyn [pop star / fan]: "I don't know if you know the story about how the background vocals happened the way they did? He recorded all these vocals and something went wrong - so when you listen, the background vocals sing the lyrics before the lead vocal does. That was a mistake [but] he ended up keeping it because he really liked it. The unexpectedness of those backing vocals makes it a little bit like it's coming from a subconscious place."

Another song about Susannah was If I Was Your Girlfriend. In the lyrics, Prince imagined being her platonic best friend - and gaining access to her most intimate secrets.

Susan Rogers: "Being Wendy's twin sister she's very close to Wendy. It was a way of asking, 'Why can't I have the closeness you have with your sister? Why can't we be friends, too?'"

Alicia Keys [pop star / fan]: "If I Was Your Girlfriend - come on, man, how are you going to write that? It is so exact - you can hear a guy thinking like that. 'Man, maybe I'll never be as close to her as her girlfriends are... So could I be your girlfriend?' It's deep man. He was so profound, so prolific”.

I am going to move to this article, that takes us inside Sign o’ the Times. Prince’s insiders discuss this timeless album that many see as the greatest of all time. It is this staggering double album with no filler tracks. It could have been a mess or come across as bloated. However, I do feel that it is such a consistent album where every track is essential:

“A lot of musicians end up doing the same song over and over. Sign O’ the Times sounds like nothing he’d ever done before,” Prince archivist Duane Tudahl says. “It is staggering.”

“Tell them that!” he exclaimed. “We need to bring it up to the industry standard!”

It wasn’t the first or last time Prince leapt to his feet during our hour-long talk, but it was his most emotional. Sign O’ the Times (Super Deluxe) is a glorious remaster transferred from the analog master tapes, including B-sides, alternate versions, wholly unreleased songs and a live show. The outtakes aren’t leftovers; they are polished, fully realized prime-era Prince. They just simply didn’t make the album.

“If an element doesn’t fit, the element goes away,” Tudahl says. “That’s amazing self-discipline: ‘I have three hits on here, but they don’t fit the tone.’”

Melvoin got to revisit that prolific period of time when she, her sister Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were Prince’s go-to musicians.

“It’s been a really interesting time because it has enmeshed me in a period of my history that was kind of weird—all sorts of experiences,” says Melvoin. “It wasn’t just work. On an emotional level, on a personal level, there was a lot going on at once.”

Prince’s finest love songs—“Forever in My Life,” “Adore” and “Nothing Compares 2 U” among them—were written for Melvoin. She even shares a rare co-writing credit on “Starfish and Coffee,” a song about her childhood friend Cynthia Rose, but with no royalties. Money talk “starts rifts, and I don’t think any of us wanted to start it,” she says.

Sign O’ the Times started as a double album called Dream Factory, and evolved into the triple-disc, 23-song, unreleased album Crystal Ball.

“I grew up when albums came out every three or four months. I wanted to make a lot of music,” Prince said in 2004. However, Prince’s label, Warner Bros. Records, hated it. Too long, too expensive. Too much Prince.

“Crystal Ball was something he loved. He was super tapped-in to the part of himself that he wanted to share,” Melvoin says. “When he turned that record in, Warners didn’t like it. It was way too long, and they didn’t respond to the music. He was not happy about that in the slightest.”

Thus the seeds were sown for Prince’s eventual ’90s uprising, that led to the legendary name-change and “slave” talk. He left Warner Bros. to be a trailblazer and sell his own music online.

“My life got real serious there for a second, getting out of the record industry. You have to realize that I was told I couldn’t leave. Excuse me? What did you say?” Prince said. “With the mergers and revolving door of executives, it was like musical chairs or something.”

Going online was a risk, but he was confident. “It’s almost like hearing a weather report and knowing it’s going to rain. You can tell people and they either believe you or not.”

Warner Bros. had put great faith in him early in his career, but wavered as the years went on, despite the many millions of dollars his work had earned the company.

“It just means they weren’t enlightened enough or had the same faith that I had. If you love somebody, you should always love them,” Prince said. The downside, he added, was, “You’re just worried how you’re going to get out of this and not look like exactly what I eventually ended up looking like—this spoiled, pampered baby.”

Jesse Esparza, a Prince uber-fan since he was a child, has become a close confidant of Wendy, Lisa and Susannah. Like most fans, he’s thrilled to see what’s in the vaults. He sees this as a continuation of Prince’s determination to release as much music as possible.

“He always found a way,” Esparza says. “That’s what was so exciting about being a fan. He’d find a way to get as much music to you as he could. We literally knew every year that there would be a new album.”

Otherworldly Creativity

“It’s almost an otherworldly creative energy that was in abundance in this time,” Melvoin continues. “Who has this profound period in their lives where they’re in love, working, being creative, establishing a future and being involved with the most profoundly creative artist?”

Tudahl is archivist for the Prince estate, going through thousands of hours of music to meticulously research what’s in there; he first attracted the attention of the estate due to his exhaustive research for his book, Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions, 500-plus pages of details.

“Every day I’m humbled. Every day I’m blown away to have a small piece of his legacy,” Tudahl says. “He was always about music, even when he wasn’t recording music. I didn’t realize how much he recorded until I did the book. The entire month of September of ’83, he was in the studio every day. Then he did a tour, he’s recording concerts all the time, then he’d be in the studio with Sheila E., recording all the time. He’d record the soundcheck, then record the concert, then record in the studio, then fly out to the next show. He did the work of five people”.

The BBC asked in their 2020 feature whether Prince’s Sign o’ the Times is the greatest album ever. There would be an argument for that, though I can appreciate Prince fans might see other albums as his best. If you have not heard Sign o’ the Times before then do go and check it out:

“So much of Sign O’ the Times tells the story of Prince changing and searching. Part of the way through its creation he sacked most of his band The Revolution, with whom he had conquered radio and MTV. His relationship with his fiancée also ended. This incident in particular birthed perhaps the most sought-after unreleased song of all: Wally. It’s a song in which Prince laments a failing relationship by singing to his confidant and bodyguard at the time, Wally Safford.

The story of why Wally was never released has made fans ache for decades. Prince had recorded the ballad, engineered by Susan Rogers, only to demand that she erase the track. Rogers refused and asked him to sleep on it. Undeterred, Prince turned up all the faders on the console and hit the record button, destroying the song and his outpouring of grief. Rogers describes the incident as “heartbreaking”, the sense of loss evident in her voice as she tells the story all these years later. Prince did walk out of the session with a mono cassette of the mix, which, officially at least, remains lost to this day.

A second version of Wally recorded a few days later is featured on the new release. When Rogers heard it recently she describes it as “same song, different attitude”. “The original Wally was a cry of pain,” she explains. “It was vulnerable and just beautiful. But he didn’t like showing weakness. Even having a cold or flu was something he didn’t want to admit to. In this version of Wally, he’s saying ‘I’ll be fine’. That’s not the Wally I remember.”

Regardless of any individual track omissions and the online gripes of some Prince ultra-fans who believe Sign O’ the Times: Deluxe should feature an even more extensive track list, the scale of this new release is monumental. Duane Tudahl, senior researcher for the Prince estate, describes the process of assembling a new version of what many fans consider the holy grail of Prince albums. “We went through everything we could find for this period. It took a year of hard work, focus and dedication. We lost sleep. We wanted it to be so right. The chronology of the track list aims to match when the songs were recorded. It’s his story, about being in love or being angry or being spiritual.”

Indeed, the first of the vault tracks on this release is a jaunty, hyperactive 1979 version of I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, recorded a year after Prince released his debut album and eight years before Sign O’ the Times came out. Susan Rogers explains that both I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man and Slow Love had extended gestation periods. They were songs that Prince took out of his vault and updated when deciding on a track list for Sign O’ the Times. Not only did Prince assemble an album from the bank of material recorded in 1986 going into 1987, he also borrowed from his own history.

‘A singular talent’

The result was 16 songs that many consider to be the greatest album of all time, although greatness is, of course, subjective.  As Duane Tudahl laughingly points out: “There are some Prince fans who will say Sign O’ the Times isn’t even Prince’s greatest album!”

The impact and longevity of a record, however, can help separate great from merely good albums. Eric Leeds believes Prince changed the trajectory of pop music. “I would put a Ray Charles record or a James Brown record on that list,” he tells BBC Culture. “People talk about Sgt Pepper. Think about impact. Of all of those icons of the ’80s, Prince was the most remarkable musician. Madonna or Michael Jackson are not in the same league as even the most basic version of Prince. I can’t imagine how pop music would develop from the ’80s onwards without Prince. Take Madonna and Michael out of the mix and not that much would change.”

The new, expanded Sign O’ the Times presents glimpses of a parallel purple timeline, which invites the world to reassess what this work means.

“Music and culture are a living dynamic,” says Susan Rogers. Perhaps we are yet unable to adequately draw conclusions about the impact of the album and of Prince more broadly. To this day he is remembered by many as a pop star. Sign O’ the Times and its expanded deluxe incarnation make a compelling case for Prince as a leviathan multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter. There is more range on the original album and on the deluxe edition than most pop stars explore in their entire careers. There are powerful invitations to dance, meditate on the carnal and to find God. The songs are consistently brilliant: it is a vision of an artist searching for gold – and finding it.

Rogers suggests that 33 years after its original release, Sign O’ the Times still has something new to tell us about the greatness of Prince. “Van Gogh was not considered particularly creative in his lifetime. It was future generations that made reassessments. Then these people were seen as geniuses. The idea of ‘best’ or ‘greatest’ is recreation. It’s a prize at the fair. What is more important is ‘will something stand up?’ My hunch is Sign O’ the Times will. It exemplifies the work of a singular talent at his heights”.

I am going to end with this GQ feature from 2017. Turning thirty a year after Prince died, many ere looking at Sign o’ the Times with new eyes and ears. How Prince’s death affecting the listen and meaning of the album. GQ noted heralded “This postmodern magnum opus obsessed with sex, death and faith remains a milestone of 1980s culture – and Prince's ultimate legacy”:

“It is not a concept album, but more like a piece of postmodern architecture, reflecting how 1980s styles converged in a distinctive and sometimes brazen new way in art, design, film and TV. The album cover was suitably mysterious, with only part of Prince's out-of-focus face in the foreground and a seedy stage behind, the drums perched on an old Pontiac Grand Prix, everything in peach and black (his designated colours for the project). "Prince looks at all his music, in his whole life, as a movie, and everybody who's involved with him on whatever level is a character in his movie," said Eric Leeds.

It is easy to forget that this was a major album by one of pop music's biggest global stars, not some experimental outrider. What was the competition? Rick Astley? And 1987 was the year the wheels came off pop music in Britain, with adverts driving a rash of tired Sixties soul rereleases. In the US the big beasts remained, but more troubling for Prince was the start of house music and the proliferation of hip hop.

After Sign O’ The Times, in striving for freedom, he found himself trapped in a prison of his own making

The bludgeoning libido of The Black Album was recorded then ditched immediately after Sign O' The Times, its reputation as a great lost album undermined once it was heard in full. Prince supposedly abandoned it because he thought it was "evil". It seems he was being overwhelmed by the weight of his own concupiscence and complained of a spirit called "Spooky Electric" amid rumours he had himself been spooked after a bad experience with ecstasy. His tenth official album, Lovesexy, was him turning away from the darkness and into the light. He was never quite the same again.

Prince always had an uneasy relationship with hip hop. He felt threatened by it, both as a style that would overrun his territory and as a sign of his own vulnerability and age. He regularly turned down requests for permission to sample his older work, his attitude determined by his religion, commercial paranoia and an increasingly eremitic existence in Paisley Park. "Some of these acts I really dig but I don't want my music used that way," he said in 1997.

Can it be coincidence that, as so often happens to great men, the retreat to Xanadu brings about a kind of madness in which awestruck acolytes exist only to serve – to bend to the will and whim of their master – and that the achievements of the past become impossible to repeat? That's not to say Prince was a tyrant, but that, after Sign O' The Times, in striving for freedom he found himself trapped in a prison of his own making. By the late Nineties it seemed Prince wasn't quite Prince any more. He was like a Japanese soldier, still fighting the last war.

Susan Rogers says, "Prince was smart enough, as a young man, to know that he'd need to let people in if he wanted to have a long career, so he did it. But, to the outside world, he appeared as a big enigma."

What is left is art and art endures. At his induction to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2004 he said, seemingly unaware of the irony, "Too much freedom can lead to the soul's decay." Then he went on to not just steal the show but take it, frame it and mount it on his wall with his embarrassingly brilliant guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

By today's standards, Sign O' The Times may seem a cold album. But all things being cyclical, Prince and the plastic, superficial 1980s followed the sincerity of folk-rock and the ideological purity of punk. In this context, Prince was the successor to David Bowie, in that the art and artifice were the point. Heart for heart's sake was not an issue. It was the ideas that mattered. Now we value emotional nakedness above all else, in a culture where workaday honesty is judged to be "real" while around us songs, radio, TV and films become reflections of Facebook status updates.

He was different then and he's different now. He is just different. And Sign O' The Times is as wondrously, deliciously different as he ever got. Prince believed he was engaged in a cosmic war between good and evil, but for us his most important fight was against an evil somewhat closer to home. The evil of banality. Thankfully, he won”.

On 21st April, we remember Prince a decade after his death. He is this artist that will never be equalled. In terms of his workload, talent and what he achieved. We will never see anyone like him again. I asked what his greatest album is. Everyone will have their own opinions, though Sign o’ the Times comes top for me. I wanted to show love for Prince’s…

1987 masterpiece.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Something Like a Song: The Song of Solomon (The Red Shoes/Director’s Cut)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Something Like a Song

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

The Song of Solomon (The Red Shoes/Director’s Cut)

__________

I am sort of linking two things…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

together for this feature. I have written about Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut and its fifteenth anniversary. That happens on 16th May. I do wonder if there are Kate Bush songs that appear on two different albums that are practically unknown. The Song of Solomon originally appeared on 1993’s The Red Shoes. I have seen barely anything written about it. I want to explore some of the lyrics and the vocal performance from Kate Bush. I may have written about this song in some form previously. However, I do not think there have been standalone pieces about it. I have been searching. You can say that about a lot of Bush’s tracks. However, The Song of Solomon appeared on two albums. I am not sure if Kate Bush needed to reapproach it, as I think The Red Shoes’ version is wonderful. This is an album that divides people, yet there is a lot to love about it. In terms of the energy that runs through tracks like Rubberband Girl, Eat the Music, and The Red Shoes. I think the sequencing is odd. You go from highs to lows without too much balance. Rubberband Girl into And So Is Love to Eat the Music to Moments of Pleasure. Ups and downs there. I feel that The Song of Solomon is a gem that doesn’t get written about. Sandwiched between classics, Moments of Pleasure and Lily, I wonder if people forget about it because of those huge songs either side. It was not included on the setlist for 2014’s Before the Dawn. I wonder if the first three tracks on Director’s Cut were the three songs Bush wanted to rework the most. Flower of the Mountain, titled The Sensual World on the 1989 album of the same name. Bush got the permission to use text from James Joyce’s Ulysses that was a big reason she recorded Director’s Cut. The Song of Solomon is the track two. The Director’s Cut version is gorgeous and features the beauty and spark of Bush’s voice. Stripped back and perhaps more emotionally rich and emotive than the version on The Red Shoes, I do think that the original is starling and worthy of a listen.

I think that The Song of Solomon effortlessly sits next to Moments of Pleasure on The Red Shoes. They have a similar sound and sense of drama. I think the 1993 version is really lush and warm. It has this intensity to it. Raw emotions on display. On Director’s Cut, you retain some of that, though maybe Bush felt the production was a bit artificial or it drained something from the song. Interesting to see how she approached this song in 2011. One could argue it is a song that she liked. Suggestions that any song from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes not re-explored for Director’s Cut is one Bush loved and did not want to change. It could also be true she did not want to spend more time with the track. A mix of the two. I personally think that Bush loved The Song of Solomon and wanted to correct things that she was unhappy about. I have never heard The Song of Solomon on the radio. It seems that be one of these quintessential Kate Bush songs. In terms of her songwriting brilliance and its origin. Baby Bushka, who are an American tribute band who have covered Kate Bush’s songs, tackled The Song of Solomon. I will include it below this section of text. There are some players that feature on both versions. Facts Bush kept. The Trio Bulgarka providing vocals. They featured on some wonderful songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. They are magnificent on The Song of Solomon. Danny McIntosh on guitar. The percussion switch is noticeable. Charlie Morgan and Stuart Elliott on the version from The Red Shoes. The legendary Steve Gadd adds new dimensions and brings something different from the song in 2011. Even if the 1993 version seems bigger and fuller, there are fewer players and elements. I was going to include Solomon in my Them Heavy People… feature and work around that. However, I do wonder why Bush chose this biblical figure. Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, was the third king of Israel (reigning c. 970–931 BCE), renowned for his immense wisdom, wealth, and the construction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. As the last king of a united Israel, he brought great prosperity but later fell into idolatry due to his many foreign wives, leading to the kingdom's eventual division.

I am not sure why religion was especially on Bush’s mind for The Red Shoes. Not that religious imagery and iconography is all over this album. Lily name-checks Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and Uriel. Though Solomon is the title character but never named or mentioned in the song. Well, Bush does mention that this is “The Song of Solomon”. However, never explanation why that biblical figure or the relevance. Bush mentions “I’ll be Isolde or Marion for you”. Isolde (or Iseult) is the tragic Irish princess from the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde, while Marion (Maid Marian) is the courageous, independent counterpart to Robin Hood. There is this mix of classic, poetry and wisdom with something quite bold and raw. Bush sings “Don’t want your bullshit, yeah/Just want your sexuality/Don’t want excuses, yeah/Write me your poetry in motion/Write it just for me, yeah/And sing it with a kiss”. I do love the intrigue of the lines “This is the Song of Solomon/Here’s a woman singing”. Almost Kate Bush casting herself in a fable, tale or something real and grand. I have heard the song over and over and am trying to get to the bottom of it. I cannot find interviews where Bush discussed The Song of Solomon. Reviews around The Red Shoes and Director’s Cut do not spend a lot of time with it. There are so many lines that I am stunned by and wonder what Bush is referring to. One example is “I’ll be the Rose of Sharon for you/I’ll do it for you/I’ll be the Lily of the Valley for you/I’ll do it for you”. In terms of streams, the version on Director’s Cut is more popular than the one on The Red Shoes, in the sense that it did well compared to the other tracks on the albums. The way Bush’s voice can go from being gentle and almost trembling to this full-bodied thing. When Bush sings “Just being alive/It can really hurt” on Moments of Pleasure, we get this similar sound and vocal affectation on The Song of Solomon.

I am going to end up soon. I do wonder if there are tracks from Kate Bush that have appeared on two albums – there are not many examples – that are pretty much anonymous. Big Kate Bush fans know about this song, but how many people away from that?! I think that The Song of Solomon is this gorgeous song that boasts amazing vocal work from Bush and the Trio Bulgarka. Perhaps the production is not as good as it could have been. I am not a musicologist or know much about what makes a good production. To my ears, The Red Shoes’ The Song of Solomon sounds atmospheric and epic in places. Bush might have wanted to remove some of the gloss or pare it down a bit. I do love the version on Director’s Cut, and I feel it is important to mention that album, as it turns fifteen on 16th May. However, I would recommend people go and listen to The Red Shoes and how it fits there. So many of the deep cuts miss out on wider exposure. The Song of Solomon is not something I suggest gets a viral moment. However, it is a track that could score a film or T.V. scene. I would love to see it brought to a wider audience. There is actually one article about The Song of Solomon I found whilst typing now and want to end with. In terms of reviews, The Song of Solomon was mentioned by The Quietus when they revisited The Red Shoes in 2018: “The steamy ‘The Song Of Solomon’, meanwhile, mixes a literary text and desire in the same way that ‘The Sensual World’ let Ulysses’ Molly Boom step off the page and experience physical pleasure. This time, there was no-one stopping Bush lifting lines from her chosen book, the Hebrew Bible, although the erotic charge of the chorus is all hers: “Don’t want your bullshit, yeah/ Just want your sexuality.” Music Street Journal observed this in their review of The Red Shoes: “As the mellower, artsy vibe brings this into being, it again feels more like the Kate Bush with which we're familiar. As her voice joins, that effect is augmented. There is a definitely an artsy vibe to this. The cut feels a little classical and also jazzy. This is a magical piece. It definitely stands far above the first three songs of the album. I'd consider this a highlight of the disc. It does earn a very minor parental warning depending on your tolerance level for the lyrics. I'm sure for most of us it's not an issue, but for some it might be”.

Whilst I was wondering what role Solomon played in this song and how the biblical figure figured into this song, the Financial Times spotlighted a gem and showed love for a track that is “A poem from the Bible’s most unusual book that takes the form of a duet between lovers”. It is good that at least there is one bit of focus and affection for an under-loved Kate Bush diamond of a song:

“Any biblical scholars listening in 2006 to Robbie Williams’ disastrous electro-rap experiment Rudebox (“career suicide” in his words) would have been surprised to discover, amid the album’s terrible raps and laboured Pet Shop Boys tributes, a passage of choruses lifted from the Old Testament. “Kiss me with your mouth/ Your love is better than wine,” Williams sings in “Kiss Me”. The song is a cover of a 1985 hit by Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy and the reference is to the opening lines of “The Song of Solomon”: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.” It is a suitably incongruous context in which to find the Bible’s most unusual book, “Song of Songs”, which has left a rich trail in pop music. “The Song of Solomon”, or the “Song of Songs”, is a poem that takes the form of a duet between lovers. The language is erotic, a symphony of allusions to touch, sight and smell. Lips resemble “a thread of scarlet”, tongues taste of “honey and milk”, breasts are like “two young roes that are twins”. (Perhaps you have to be an Aramaean shepherd to really get that last one.) As there is no mention of God, much exegetical energy has been spent trying to distance the verses from associations with “worldly” love. In Judaic tradition they are understood as an allegory of God’s love for the Jewish people. Christians treat them as an account of Christ’s love for the Church or God’s love for the Virgin Mary. But none of these pious interpretations can hide the simple truth about “The Song of Solomon”. It’s about sex. “Kiss Me” by Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy A tasteful veil falls over its carnal nature in popular music, too. The crooner Perry Como adopted its alternative title in “Song of Songs”, crooning about a “night of bliss” amid the roses; sappy orchestral pop made the bliss sound as risqué as holding hands. The 1929 film Lady of the Pavements featured racy Lupe Vélez, the “Mexican Spitfire”, starring as a prostitute. In one scene she warbles the Irving Berlin-penned waltz, “Where is the ‘Song of Songs’ for Me?”, a romantic ditty in Hollywood’s tart-with-a-heart lineage.

To the Scottish poet Robert Burns, “The Song of Solomon” was “the smuttiest sang that e’er was sung/ His Sang o’ Sangs is a’ that.” Nick Cave, who balances a keen interest in smut with an equally keen interest in Christianity, has spoken of it having “a massive impact” on him, an entrée into a “world of pure imagination”. Leonard Cohen in 1979 © Getty Leonard Cohen’s work is deeply imbued with its sensual, mystical spirit. Yet Cohen carefully treads around “The Song of Solomon”. His poem “The Traitor” cast Solomon’s “black, but comely” female protagonist as a “sun-tanned woman” upon whose thighs Cohen lingers “a fatal moment”. Yet when he turned the poem into a song in 1979, a reference to Solomon’s “rose of Sharon” was changed to “the rose of high romance”, as though rejecting too insistent an influence. Its apotheosis in pop lies in Kate Bush’s “The Song of Solomon”. Released on her 1993 album The Red Shoes and revisited on 2011’s The Director’s Cut, the song is a masterpiece of desire. Harp and piano circle with seductive deliberation around Bush as she calls out to a lover, phrasing the word “sexuality” with such drawn-out longing it becomes a mini-song in its own right. She is accompanied by female voices, the Trio Bulgarka from Bulgaria, whose murmured chants add a numinous backing to her expression of physical yearning. In an aggressively sexualised culture, it sounds as calm and dignifying as devotional music”.

As Director’s Cut turns fifteen on 16th May, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about as track that appears on that album originally from 1993’s The Red Shoes. Even if the original means more to me and I feel is better, the reversioned 2011 take is great too. I hope that more people listen to this track, as it is rarely discussed, played or really seen as one of her best. One for the diehards. On an album that is seen as one of her weakest (which could either apply to The Red Shoes or Director’s Cut), perhaps people skip by this. If many see this as inessential Kate Bush, I do think that The Song of Solomon is…

ACTUALLY a lot better than that.

FEATURE: Just When I Think I’m King: Kate Bush and the Devoted Fans

FEATURE:

 

 

Just When I Think I’m King

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005

Kate Bush and the Devoted Fans

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SO many major artists…

have names for their collective fans. I am not sure whether Kate Bush would encourage it or have a say. However, there is this growing fanbase. So many people picking up on her work. Bush’s influence spreading and catching hold like never before! I do feel like there is this modern relevance that is understated. How she is very much weaving her magic and legacy through the modern music industry. What always amazes me is how there are so many knowledgeable and passionate fans. I follow major artists on social media and, whilst you get these authoritative fans and can feel something special between them, maybe there is an undercurrent of competitiveness or something lacking. When it comes to Kate Bush, her growing army of fans are so loving and modest. Learning from each other and only wanting to show our love and appreciation, I have learned so much from those I follow. I know there are huge artists where you have this expert. That person who is seen as the authority. I don’t think that is the case with Kate Bush. Is that a good or a bad thing? I have said in features before who I deem to be the world authority. Of course, it is never a competition and Bush herself would not care for that sort of thing. However, there are the good folk at Kate Bush News and HomeGround who have been writing about her for decades. Since the earliest days. I would defer to them when it comes to knowing more about Kate Bush then I know. There are fans online who are always teaching me things. Every day. I do wonder if we should name and highlight the experts. I think that might encourage something bigger. In terms of projects or greater exposure. What I would like to see over the past year or two is a chance for Bush’s incredible genius and influence to be properly celebrated and exposed.

I did want to mention experts and authorities, as there has yet to be that highly detailed and life-charting book about Kate Bush. I am not sure whether Bush would support it. I think she would. One that explores and dissects her early life and career and brings it up to date. Maybe a mammoth feat, having something like this in the world would be valuable for new fans and diehards alike. I also feel that Kate Bush is worthy of this type of representation and depth. I myself am an avid fan. I am prolific but I am always learning from fans. That is the main point of this feature. Celebrating those who constantly talk about Kate Bush, but do it in such an interesting and accessible way. I follow accounts where photos are posted daily. Ones I did not know existed. Those who share facts and details that are new to me. Others might not do the same thing. Album rankings or sharing underrated songs. In terms of that combination of admiration and passion, there are few fan communities that rival this one! Kate Bush fans always highlighting the brilliance and originality of this icon. This is a crucial moment. I am in a position where I follow people who have been with Kate Bush since her debut single, Wuthering Heights. There are also young fans who are experiencing Kate Bush and are taking their first steps into her work. I keep saying it, but there will be a new album at some point. There is literally no telling when that could be. You’d hope in the next year or so, though it could be longer than this. I do feel it is a time for mobilisation. There are not really many Kate Bush podcasts or episodes when we get to bring together those who know Bush’s work best. Or highlighting fans and hearing from them. I am always blown away by the dedication that you get from them. From an artist who has not realised a new album in nearly fifteen years. It is the fans and their endless dedication to Kate Bush that drives me.

A bigger question revolves around legacy artists. There is so much spotlight put on major artists of today. It is important that they are highlighted, though do we really consider those who came before in the same way? Even if they are not as relevant as newer artists perhaps, I do feel that someone like Kate Bush is only really talked about when there is news or some viral moment. Perhaps the experts and fans need to do something. Can we fill that void when it comes to a tome or an event that means people can come together to discuss Kate Bush?! I have pitched this several times. Even so, Kate Bush’s music and career should not be seen as bygone or reduced to certain songs. I have been thinking of other legendary artists and how they are perceived today. How there might be this one expert who is seen as the go-to. Also, there are a lot of different projects happening around that artist from fans and journalists. Or authors. Kate Bush is very private, so it might be natural that there has not been that same sort of focus. I know who I think is the Kate Bush world authority. I also do genuinely believe that the swelling fanbase need something to bond over. Before a new album comes out. There have been some great books and smaller documentaries. Beyond that, what have we seen over the past few years?! It comes down to the wishes of Kate Bush. Many will say that she wants very little fuss and would feel uncomfortable with anything like I have suggested. That said, Bush has always shown respect for her fans and, so long as does not need to get involved, I don’t think she would balk or have any issues. I just feel she is such an important artist, though there does seem to be this notable absence. I salute the fans and how they are showing people, me included, so many different layers and sides to Kate Bush. I am itching for a greater coming together. Something that maybe brings together these ardent fans who are more anonymous alongside the experts and well-known fans. The least that we could and should do for…

THIS phenomenal artist.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Sophia Stel

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Keeler for NME

Sophia Stel

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BACK in September…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryley Paskal

Range spoke with Sophia Stel. They chatted with “The effortlessly undone electronic darling on surrendering to imperfection and her new EP, How to Win At Solitaire”. Raised in this large religious family and born on Vancouver Island, it is fascinating reading about the upbringing and background of Sophia Stel. Her music and sound is unlike anything I have heard. An amazing artist that you need to know about:

“Stel doesn’t so much lead these songs as she drifts through them, her voice occasionally submerged, stretched, or barely there at all. “All Seven Seasons” is a highlight—looped guitar, skittering drums, everything slightly off-axis. Like the rest of How to Win At Solitaire, it’s less about polish than sensation: clipped, isolated, anti-expressive in a way that still lands.

Stel’s rough-around-the-edges approach isn’t carelessness—it’s a commitment to grit over finish. “I’m not much of a perfectionist, I just want it to be listenable,” she says, as if that were ever really in question. “I think sometimes it’s just a matter of convincing myself that it’s good enough to let it go. It’s less about feeling like ‘this is totally perfect,’” she says. That straightforward pragmatism cuts through the usual artist anxieties around perfection, a testament to Stel’s ability to balance vulnerability with resolve.

While most emerging artists present calculated visions of control, Stel’s path is defined by uncertainty. “I keep trying to make a plan, but it’s kind of proven to be impossible because things are just changing constantly,” she says. There’s no meticulous strategy—just a commitment to keep creating amid the flux. “The only clear-cut plan I have is just making as much music as possible… this year, I probably need to learn to be okay with not knowing what’s going to happen.” Her perspective rejects tidy identities and linear stories, embracing the friction inherent in transformation.

Solitaire isn’t about mastery—it’s a game of endurance, an exercise in sitting with uncertainty and learning to be okay with what you can’t control. That ethos runs through Stel’s music and her process: a restless, ongoing disruption. This is the sound of an artist fully aware that the only constant is change—and that’s where the real potential lives. If How to Win At Solitaire stakes a claim in electronic pop’s fringes, Stel’s next move will be less about winning and more about what it means to keep playing”.

Wonderland. named Sophia Stel as one of their artists to watch this year. It is clear that she is turning a lot of heads: “Breaking through the ice of Vancouver’s quietly thriving independent scene, Sophia Stel’s murky ethereality is striking a chord between glacial experimentation and heated pop iridescence. September’s EP “How to Win at Solitaire” took her haunted warmth to new depths – gorgeously performed and produced. Finding fans among both social media zeitgeisters and dorkish music fans, Stel’s elegantly trailer-trash aesthetic could be synonymous with 2026”. Before getting to some interviews from this year, this office interview from last year is worth highlighting:

“How has being Canadian shaped your path as an artist?

In Vancouver, the scene is pretty small and there are very few female producers. I didn’t really understand how the music industry worked when I first started out. At times it felt isolating. But now, I feel really proud to be from here. Canadian artists are so creative and hardworking, and I think that kind of underdog energy makes you push even harder to be seen internationally.

Were you always artistic and drawn to music?

I used to walk around and sing and make up songs. That’s what my mom always said. I took some music lessons and started writing songs, and honestly, once I started, I found it pretty hard to stop.

What did you use when you first started making music?

I bought a 2013 MacBook when I was young, and honestly, I used that until last year. I’ve always worked with pretty minimal gear: a $300 mic, a $100 interface, and before that, just a USB mic and GarageBand. My guitar was a gift from a friend. It’s not fancy, but it works. I’ve always believed if you want to make something, you’ll find a way.

Have you found your sound as an artist or is it still evolving?

It’s definitely still evolving. I was saying before, hookiness or a catchyness is really important to me when I am making music. But it's more than that, it's a certain feeling and it's hard to explain–more of an emotional connection to what I'm making. I’m always chasing a feeling, something emotional, honest, intimate. I’ve never had a moment where I’ve gone, “This is it, this is my sound forever.”

Outside of making music, what are your passions?

I’ve really gotten into videography, just random moments mostly, anything that catches my eye. It feels like this natural extension of making music, like I’m building little visual worlds. Also, I have always loved to skateboard.

What’s next for you?

I want to score a film. I want to produce for other artists. And honestly, I want to make the best album of all time”.

Actually, there is just the one interview from 2026 I will spotlight THE FACE, and their interview. From self-producing incredible Electropop songs in the same place she tended bar, Sophia Stel then moved to “walked the runway in Paris and inked a deal with A24 Music. Now, she’s connecting with diehard lovesick fans across the world”. If you have not heard the music of Sophia Stel then do go and check her out:

“Finding herself mentally conjuring lyrics to the thumping beats – all while pouring shots – Sophia would go home and scribble them down. Eventually, her boss let her use the club’s green room on weekdays to record. It was an incubating space that was special to her. ​“I made all of How to Win At Solitaire down there. That’s why there’s so much electronic guitar on the record, because I could play it super loud. It was,” she laments, ​“the perfect space for me,” not least because ​“you could smoke inside”.

You don’t need to read the EP’s liner notes to gauge that the songs on How to Win At Solitaire were written out of the peculiar longing of heartbreak – when life moves on, but you haven’t. On Taste – a melancholic anthem she began writing with a synth that had been left behind at Paradise – she sings: ​“Heard you’re on a new thing now /​Yeah, that’s just what it takes /​And for you it’s slowing down /​And I wonder how it tastes”. As she puts it: ​“My music has always been very personal in a way that, a lot of the time, I think: ​‘Oh, I wish it wasn’t quite so personal.’ But it’s like I have no choice. It’s vulnerable just to sing, or to make something. So if the lyrics are too, I guess maybe that’s fitting.”

Even over Zoom, Sophia’s long, fine hair, rakish frame and elfin vibe are striking; she could cameo in a photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron or Bill Henson. Unsurprisingly, the fashion world has taken note. In September, she walked in Ann Demeulemeester’s SS26 show, for which she wore cascading white feathers in her hair.

“It was my first time in Paris and I had pretty much the best week of my life,” Sophia remembers. ​“I was extremely nervous, but everyone was really nice and helped me understand. I kept the feathers in my hair for days.” Sophia’s hair is her Samson signature. In fact, her friends won’t let her cut it off. ​“About a year ago I actually Photoshopped a photo of Angelina Jolie’s pixie cut onto myself. I thought it looked quite fire. But my friends were like: ​‘No, definitely don’t do that!’ Then, within a month, I was like: ​‘Oh, this is my favourite thing about myself.’ Now I’m trying to grow it to have the longest hair in the world.”

PHOTO CREDIT: David Sims

If Sophia has caught the attention of casting directors, it’s as much about that vibe as her literal styling, and it derives from her close creative partnership with her longstanding visual collaborators. In the video for I’ll Take It, she rocks up to a 10th-floor gym after hours, wired headphones in and purple adidas hoodie zipped, mouthing her lyrics as she lifts weights and spins about. In the sunrise opening of the rooftop-set Everyone Falls Asleep In Their Own Time, she lights a cig and not-quite-winks at the camera. By the end, she’s veered into parkour, the city skyline behind her, the moves and views a callback to her and Aaron’s youthful passion for skating. ​“With street skating, you’re always looking. You view things with a creative mind. Spots where you could do a trick. [Our] favourite thing was just to smoke weed and edit a skating video. It’s so fun.” A few months back, Sophia’s skating connection and fashion credentials synced up rather nicely when she modelled for Palace’s holiday lookbook.

Beyond the shifts at Paradise, Sophia has always made music while bopping around different forms of work, from gardening to painting houses. ​“It’s been good to do these jobs that don’t steal a lot of focus or mental energy, in some ways,” she says. ​“Even if that meant being a bit broke, it was always about having more time to make music.” But now, as her music career ramps up, she’s gone full-time. Capitalising on her rising profile, the deluxe edition of How to Win At Solitaire was recently released with features from Mura Masa, Tommy Genesis and SOPHIE collaborator Cecile Believe.

Now, with the backing of A24 Music, Sophia plans to maintain her autonomous spirit. ​“They completely support my creative vision,” she says of the record label outpost of the film company. ​“It’s been amazing to work with them.” In practice, this means she’ll still be self-producing all the music for her as-yet-untitled debut album from home – or, increasingly, while on the road as her real life as a touring musician begins”.

It is exciting that Sophia Stel is coming to the U.K. and will play London on 23rd April. Go and get a ticket if you can, as she is an amazing artist and I can only imagine how powerful her live sets are. Following the release of How to Win At Solitaire last year, I am curious what is next for her. In terms of another E.P. or an album. This is a simply outstanding songwriter that you…

SIMPLY must hear.

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Follow Sophia Stel

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Keeler for NME

Official:

https://www.sophiastel.net/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/insignificantfunds/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@calv1nk1nd

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@sophiastelll

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/18w9tq3c2x11niEFNYqeex?si=q8_uSycdS2q9ITJlCoiuRw

FEATURE: A Queen of Fashion: What Are Kate Bush’s Most Iconic Looks?

FEATURE:

 

 

A Queen of Fashion

IN THIS PHOTO: The phenomenal Kate Bush photographed 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris

What Are Kate Bush’s Most Iconic Looks?

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WHEN speaking with…

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

Ken Bruce in 2005 in promotion of Aerial, Kate Bush said the following: “Clothes are…very interesting things, aren’t they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and…what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are…So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting”. She was referring to the track, Mrs. Bartolozzi. One of the standouts from that double album, I have been considering clothing, style and fashion in relation to Kate Bush. We think of certain musicians and associate them with fashion changes, evolving looks and this iconic sense of style. I guess David Bowie is one. Madonna too. These huge artists who changed their look with every album but retained their core. How often do we associate Kate Bush with her style? I have written about this before. Kate Bush’s incredible looks, in a clothing sense, are more arresting than any other artist I think. I would argue Bush is the most chameleon-like artist we have ever seen. Even in 1978, she was pretty broad when it came to fashion. Many associate that year with leotards, white dresses and basic looks. Cliches about Kate Bush. However, if you look at photoshoots and photos from that year, you do get something broad. However, I feel the biggest changes and shifts came in around 1980 or 1982. When she released Never for Ever (1980) and The Dreaming (1982). Perhaps, as she was producing her own albums by this point, she wanted to have more say about what she wore. Though I always feel that Bush was in control of that. The photo I have included at the top is from 1978. I have included shots from Brian Aris and his collaboration with Kate Bush that year. When many associated her with a particular sound and look that year, she was appearing in shoots looking super-cool in leather. Not someone who wanted to be defined or pigeon-holed. In the same way Bush’s music was broad and she allowed herself this full spectrum of sounds and emotions, she was also eclectic in terms of her looks.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at a record signing for The Dreaming at Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street, London on 14th September, 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

I feel a lot of photographers might have exploited her beauty and sex appeal early on. Bush never wanted her looks to distract or define her. What is evident from her photoshoots is how she was never ordinary or, God forbid, boring. I think the stuff she shot with Guido Harari is particularly memorable. The Hounds of Love shots so arresting and beautiful. Since 1978, Bush effortlessly adopted these looks and personas. Or she was naturally being herself. Though her portfolio is perhaps more variegated and diverse than any artist who came before or since. Even for Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow in 2011, she was not resting on her laurels or reigning it in. Always so striking and different. Everyone will have their favourite Kate Bush photos. Where she is quirky, bold or unexpected. Throwing together this look that catches the eye and stays in the memory. I have said how there should be exhibitions where we see a range of photos and outfits. If any outfits remain. I do feel that Kate Bush’s fashion sense and how she could inhabit so many different looks is as striking as her music. Do people have their favourite Kate Bush look? In terms of time period, do you tend to favour those earlier years when she was shooting with Brian Aris and Gered Mankowitz? From leather and lace through to the Claude Vanheye capturing her wearing these extraordinary outfits from Chinese-Dutch fashion designer, Fong-Leng. Maybe shots from Clive Arrowsmith and Anton Corbijn around 1981 and 1982. I think about her album signings when she was dressed casually and was not there for the cameras. However, she was always so cool and distinct. The iconic I Am a Primadonna And You? T-shirt when she was singing The Dreaming. Award shows where she was dressed so fabulously. Even more recent occasions. The outfits for 2014’s Before the Dawn.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978 (though some sources say in 1979)/PHOTO CREDIT: Claude Vanheye

It is staggering considering how hugely broad her wardrobe is! I personally really love the photos she took in 1989 for The Sensual World. And also 1993 for The Red Shoes. Even if many fans instantly go for 1985 and Hounds of Love, you can also see merit in saying 2005 was a peak year. Great shots from Trevor Leighton where Kate Bush looked so incredible. Or those fabulous Gered Mankowitz shots in 1978 and 1979. Capturing Bush more as a dancer than artist. Though his Hollywood shot is perhaps one of the all-time best Kate Bush photos! Bush is undoubtably a style queen. This almost untouched artist who stood out even when she was at her most casual. Perhaps it is just her having this ability to look fabulous and unique in everything! Many write Kate Bush off as being eccentric and odd. Thinking that she just dressed to be peculiar. But you can draw a link between her and Björk. It is about these artists expressing themselves and experimenting. Not wanting to be a traditional artist or being ordinary. It seems hard to narrow down on the most memorable Kate Bush look or shot. I had even forgotten about the Hounds of Love premiere which she attended with Del Palmer and looked stunning in this purple jacket with a white blouse/shirt underneath. In the photos, her hair almost has this red tinge to it. What about the music videos? Babooshka completely different to, say, The Sensual World. Bush looking utterly beguiling (in different ways) in each. I am clearly no fashion or style expert. Maybe it is also her hair and how she wore that. The complete ensemble. The looks Bush could project and how she engaged with the photographer. One of the reasons why I wanted to ask people what their favourite Kate Bush shot or look was is because I follow accounts on Twitter where people share Kate Bush photos. So many that I have never seen. It always stuns me how many different guises and styles Bush had and could effortlessly wow in.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush shot at the British Rock and Pop Awards, February 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Again, is there an artist who is more iconic in terms of their fashion? Perhaps Kate Bush today is a little more reserved or simply does not need to be anyone else or come up with different looks. However, if there is a new album, will she feature in promotional outfits? It is tantalising that we might see this new shoot where Bush stuns and captivates. I recently ran a feature where I said my favourite album cover is 1989’s The Sensual World. That shot, where Bush has a flower covering her mouth and it is shot in black-and-white (technically a purplish-brownish-black ‘duo-tone’), is staggering and timeless! In terms of the best photoshoots, Guido Harari’s shots for The Sensual World and the looks there are amazing. John Carder Bush (her brother) from the Babooshka single cover shoot. Or the Hounds of Love shots for The Ninth Wave. We can see more of his prime shots here. I love the one for Director’s Cut where Bush is holding a cat. Bush beaming in 1989 with that colourful backdrop. I have pitched before how photographers Gered Mankowitz, Guido Harari and John Carder Bush should get together for a documentary to pour over photos they took of Kate Bush. Discuss the experiences and the looks. There is something about Kate Bush and her fashion that gets into the heart and stays in the mind. How she projects so much of her own personality but also steps outside of that too. Almost impossible to define! Whether effortless cool and casual or appearing in these more high-concept shoots, she never looks out of place. David Bowie, Prince, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Rihanna often cited as the most fashionable and trendy artists. In terms of her breadth and impact, I feel Kate Bush is more iconic and stronger than them all. When it comes to he style and looks, there are no artists who…

IN THIS PHOTO: John Carder Bush captures his sister for 2011’s Director’s Cut

CAN touch her.

FEATURE: And This Curve, Is Your Smile… Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes at Thirty-Two

FEATURE:

 

 

And This Curve, Is Your Smile…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Lindsay Kemp during filming of the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, in 1993

Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes at Thirty-Two

__________

THIS is a single and song…

that is not really discussed much or played. I have written about it before. Rather than write about the song on its own, I may also look at it in relation to what was around at the time. The Red Shoes, Kate Bush’s seventh studio album, was released in November 1993. Its title track was the fourth single released from the album. It came out on 5th November, 1994. I always want to cover Kate Bush singles on their anniversary. It is a song that Jessie Buckley recently selected as one of her Desert Island Discs. Kate Bush did not really say much about the single. I can’t find interview archives around it. However, it is interesting how critics reacted to it in 1994. I am taking from Wikipedia and their resource regarding the reception for The Red Shoes: “Chris Roberts from Melody Maker said, 'The Red Shoes' meets its jigging ambition and sticks a flag on top, making her dance till her legs fall off." Another Melody Maker editor, Peter Paphides, commented, "Only as a grown-up will I be able to fully apprehend the texture and allegorical resonance of the themes dealt with in 'The Red Shoes'. Until then, I'll content myself with Tori Amos and Edie Brickell." Alan Jones from Music Week gave it a score of four out of five, adding, "The third single from the album of the same name is not one of Bush's more commercial 45s. Although both rhythmic and literate, it is not the stuff of which Top 10 singles are made." Parry Gettelman from Orlando Sentinel wrote, "The mandola, the whistles and various curious instruments on the driving title track really recall the fever-dream quality of the 1948 ballet film The Red Shoes, the album's namesake”. There was nothing like this song or the album around in 1994. The same month the single was released, the following albums came out: Nas's Illmatic (19th April), Blur's Parklife (25th April), and Pulp's His 'n' Hers (18th April). Even though it reached twenty-one on the U.K. chart and some critical reaction was very kind, The Red Shoes would have been buried among all the heavyweight music that arrived in April 1994. The short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve got a wider release in May 1994. The Red Shoes features wonderfully in the film. In terms of the visual representation.

It also contains the film’s title in its lyrics: “And this curve, is your smile/And this cross, is your heart/And this line, is your path”. There is so much I love about the song and that time period. How the film features, among its cast, the late Lindsay Kemp. How important he was to Kate Bush and how close they were. It must have been odd getting this new Kate Bush single at a time when the music world was shifting and so many big moments happened. On 31st March, 1994, Madonna appears on the Late Show with David Letterman, making headlines with her profanity-laced interview. On 8th April, Kurt Cobian was found dead. Not that this damaged the performance of The Red Shoes, though there was this massive shock running through the music industry. I do not remember that year too clearly. I had heard of Kate Bush, though I cannot remember The Red Shoes coming out. Jessie Buckley said of The Red Shoes’ title track was the first dance at her wedding. How there was so much life and holding of each other. In their back garden, this song created this frenzy and dance. There is this merriment and sway. Whistles and musical bows played by Paddy Bush. Valiha played by Justin Vali. Incredible and image-provoking lyrics like this “Feel your hair come tumbling down/Feel your feet start kissing the ground/Feel your arms are opening out/And see your eyes are lifted to God/With no words, with no song/I’m gonna dance the dream/And make the dream come true/I’m gonna dance the dream/And make the dream come true“. Bush re-recorded the song for 2011’s Director’s Cut. What strikes me is how brilliant the original is. Her production on the song is phenomenal. I am not sure why Bush wanted to reapproach the track. Maybe she felt unhappy about it or wanted to see it through new eyes. Though the version on Director’s Cut is great, I prefer the version on The Red Shoes. Director’s Cut turns fifteen in May, so people will hear the newer version.

In a way, The Red Shoes is like this small doll in a series of matryoshka dolls. The title track from the album of the same name. The Kate Bush album inspired by the 1948 film, The Red Shoes, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The film is about a ballerina who joins an established ballet company and becomes the lead dancer in a new ballet called The Red Shoes, itself based on the fairytale, The Red Shoes, by Hans Christian Andersen. Thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for that information. The 1948 film inspired Bush’s album and title track. Also the short, The Line, the Cross and the Curve. So many things to unpack and connect together. I do think that The Red Shoes’ title track will get overlooked when it turns thirty-two on 5th April. I am surprised it was not released as a single earlier, though I feel it was held back to coincide with the release of The Line, the Cross and the Curve in May 1994. The final single from The Red Shoes, And So Is Love, came out on 31st October, 1994. It was not long after that when Bush took an extended break from music. She did not completely step away, though the somewhat negative reception to The Red Shoes and The Line, the Cross and the Curve did hit her hard. Exhaustion and personal loss contributed. Many associate The Red Shoes with bleakness and mediocrity. In terms of what Bush was capable of. Maybe why she reapproached quite a few songs from the album for Director’s Cut. However, The Red Shoes is this mesmeric and accomplished single that arrived at a time when Britpop was happening here. A U.S. Grunge icon died. It was both strange and celebration. Although The Red Shoes did not really slot in to the British mainstream and it charted outside the top twenty, I think it is one of Kate Bush’s best singles. Thirty-two after its release, it still summons up so many emotions and this unique energy. A golden track from…

A music queen.

FEATURE: The Gospel According to Kate Bush: Encouraging More Writing and Conversation Around This Unique Artist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Gospel According to Kate Bush

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for her 1981 single, Sat in Your Lap (taken from her 1982 album, The Dreaming)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Encouraging More Writing and Conversation Around This Unique Artist

__________

SORT of connecting…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at her home in Eltham, London on 13th September, 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins

to my Kate Bush features around her influence and legacy today. I wanted to think about Kate Bush as someone who has changed music and made such an impact. I wrote about this a while ago. How you could teach a course about her. I think there is a course you can take about Taylor Swift and her work. Nothing quite as extreme as that, perhaps. It is a shame that, given the scale of Kate Bush’s influence, more has not been written about her. I do think that there could be a seminar or event where she is discussed. There was quite a few years ago. Rather than being a dry talk where people lecture and it is seems quite flat, I think this is a period where Bush’s name has reached people who did not know about her before. She is such an icon and there is definitely an argument that she is one of the most important artists alive today. Whilst there are scores of books, documentaries and pieces out there relating to other artists, there is not as much when it comes to Kate Bush. Perhaps she would prefer it that way. I am writing this on International Women’s Day. Thinking about the pioneering women who has redefined genres, changed things, challenged norms and broken ground for other women coming through. Kate Bush is up there with the most important artists ever. I am not sure if she would want to be too out there and mentioned all the time. However, in 2026, despite the fact so many other artists follow her and so many women in music owe a debt to her, there is still this narrow knowledge of her music by so many people. Others who draw a blank. That is not a slight on them. Not everyone can know about every artist. However, I do think there is still a blind spot when it comes to Kate Bush.

For me, she is so much ricjher than a few selected songs. In terms of what she has said in interviews and how intelligent and mature she has always been. Not everything she has said has been right, or even politically correct. However, there could be a whole book published where interview extracts are published. I am not sure how many interviews Bush has been involved in through her career – it must be in triple figures -, though it is clear she has so much knowledge and a rich background. Not too much in terms of new books about her. I wonder whether we can ever truly get to the bottom of Kate Bush’s genius. However, there is so much to be shared with the wider public. For those who love their music but are not really that familiar with Kate Bush, I wonder what the best solution is. You sort of feel like Bush is one of the most influential artists. In terms of how she has affected some of the best artists of today. How she broke ground, records and is this remarkable producer. At a time when many women were not/not able to produce their own music. A live innovator and someone who always stayed true to herself, her brilliant work and wonderful words need to be explored and mined more. I am thinking about her entire career and all the live performances, interviews and her lyrics. She has collected together her own lyrics for the How to Be Invisible book, though these are selected cuts. There is a whole world about Kate Bush that needs to be spotlighted. There are great and updated resources like the Kate Bush Encyclopedia and Gaffaweb. However, I am always keen to get the gospel according to Kate Bush to as many people as people. Her fanbase, Fish People (?!), are out there in force sharing photos, facts and music. Even if Bush herself is not someone who goes online and posts about herself, there is a large sector of society that does not truly know about Kate Bush and her brilliance.

Many might ask what the big deal is when it comes to that. There are so many legendary artists who too are not as revered by as many people as they deserve. When it comes to impact, modern relevance, their incredible personality, wisdom and everything about them as a person and their music, how many people rival Kate Bush?! Perhaps I am biased in that sense. Even so, there is a case to make when it comes to Bush and her being under-discussed. Is she underrated? I think so. Even if Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is the only song most people know she recorded – which might have been the case as recently as a year or two ago -, there is still an absence of wider discovery. The media might not be helping. Not enough written about her. When they do, it is never really that engaging or deep. Do a Google search at the most recent Kate Bush articles and writing. Not too much that grabs your focus. Deeper pieces and something unprovoked by news or one of her songs being in focus. Just talking about Kate Bush’s interviews and what we can take away from those from throughout the years, there is so much to dissect. I guess one of the frustration comes from people I talk to about music blanking when it comes to Kate Bush. Only having this one reference point. I know she is not out there and releasing new music. However, I am always blown away by Kate Bush and learn new things. Big fans of her know about the finer details and are out there sharing her work and talking about her fondly. It would be great if more of Kate Bush was known to more people. In her 1981 single, Sat in Your Lap, Bush sings “I've been doing it for years/My goal is moving near/It says, look, I'm over here/Then it up and disappears”. There is something about those words that I can apply to Kate Bush’s legacy and how there is this lack of deeper understanding. How she has been doing it for years and yet many do not know about her or only one or two songs. We cannot blame them. This is a time when we need to be shouting about Kate Bush. New articles and the odd book. Getting artists together to talk about Kate Bush. Explore this icon from different angles. There are few artists who have ever lived who have made as big an impact on music and culture…

AS her.

FEATURE: Talkin’ Bout Hey Love: De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Talkin’ Bout Hey Love

De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead at Thirty-Five

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THE Daisy Age…

IN THIS PHOTO: De La Soul in January 1991/PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty

did not last long. Maybe overwatered or kept in harsh conditions, De La Soul pretty much declared it dead on their second studio album. Released in 1989, 3 Feet High and Rising was this Daisy Age classic. Against a Hip-Hop scene that was political and aggressive, they put out something that was harmonious, funny, loving and gentle. Not that De La Soul Is Dead revered and undid all of that. It seemed to be the tag that was applied to them was shaken off. The cover of their second studio album shows a pot with daisies tipped over and broken. I do wonder if a certain reaction from their peers or a feeling within the group led them to distance themselves from The Daisy Age. Like their classic intro, De La Soul Is Dead contains skits, humour and truly incredible samples. I want to go inside it now, as the album turns thirty-five on 13th May (it was released a day later in the U.S.). Whilst not as acclaimed and heralded as the 1989-released debut, its 1991 follow-up is still a work of genius. Technically The D.A.I.S.Y. (Da Inner Sound, Y'all) Age, Posdnuos, Maseo and the late Trugoy the Dove managed to evolve and retain their core fanbase. The first single from De La Soul Is Dead was Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey). Considered one of their signature songs. De La Soul is a classic case of critics being divided at the time but retrospection being a lot kinder. Many expecting a same-sounding album to 3 Feet High and Rising. I am starting out with Albumism and their retrospective. Marking thirty years of De La Soul Is Dead back in 2021, it is worth shining new light on it. Often overlooked by those who could not accept De La Soul changing or not wanting to repeat themselves. Or feeling that same quality was not there:

“This is a journey back in time. A trip down musical memory lane, back to a bygone era nostalgically regarded by many as nothing short of golden. An age when hip-hop music was fundamentally defined by a vivacity and adventurism that has evolved, expanded, and mostly faded over the past few decades.

This is also the story of three gifted gentlemen who proved instrumental in defining hip-hop during this most fertile of periods in the genre and culture’s storied history. Formed in 1987 on Long Island, NY by Kelvin Mercer (“Posdnuos”), David Jude Jolicoeur (“Dave,” formerly “Trugoy the Dove”), and Vincent Lamont Mason Jr. (“Maseo”), the imitable De La Soul have always been and continue to be the embodiment of all that is pure and unfettered about hip-hop. True masters of the art form. Trusted ambassadors of the culture. Treasures of American music.

In the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, De La Soul—together with their kindred musical spirits the Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest—evolved the Native Tongues’ unique aesthetic and philosophy, defined in equal measures by whimsy and wit, unparalleled bohemian cool, Afrocentric sophistication, and admirable humility. Musically, the collective placed a heavy premium on appropriating and reimagining a widely varied array of samples, across rock, folk, pop, soul, funk, jazz and beyond, in the interest of crafting fresh and vibrant compositions that reinforced the power of music to move minds, bodies, and souls.

When it comes to the quality and consistency of musical output, even among the many incredibly skilled and prolific artists that emerged during hip-hop’s seminal golden era, only a select few can rightfully claim masterpiece status for each of their first four albums of their careers. De La Soul most certainly fulfill this rarefied criteria, and I’d argue that their legendary colleagues Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, and the aforementioned Tribe qualify as well.

While most fans and critics alike cite De La’s watershed 1989 debut LP 3 Feet High and Rising as the strongest album of their esteemed catalog, I’ve always considered their sophomore album De La Soul Is Dead to be their greatest achievement to date. In fact, I’d say it qualifies as one of my five favorite albums of all time across all genres, perhaps even cracking my top three. OK, definitely cracking my top three”.

I want to draw in this review from last year. There are generations growing up who do not know De Soul and an album like De La Soul Is Dead. Modern Hip-Hop is really different to what it was in 1991, so perhaps it does not instantly resonate. However, released during a classic period of the genre, this album still holds up and sounds fantastic:

“The opening “Intro” is a stage setting. A thread is introduced, a storyline of characters discovering a discarded copy of De La Soul Is Dead. This device allows the group to comment on their own public perception, the shifting currents of Hip Hop, and the very act of listening. It’s a playful, almost self-aware approach, as though anticipating the questions and criticisms that would inevitably arise. This sets up a framework that, while conceptually interesting, occasionally disrupts the album’s pacing.

Then comes “Oodles of O’s.” No grand entrance here, but a simple, almost hypnotic bassline emerges. It’s a groove that settles deep, allowing the rhymes to take center stage. Posdnuos, Trugoy, and Maseo deliver their verses with a precise, conversational flow. The words address the growing commercialization of Hip Hop, a shadow that hangs over the entire album. It’s not a furious condemnation, but a wry observation, a commentary on the pressures and allure of the industry.

“Talkin’ Bout Hey Love” brings a change in atmosphere. A sample of Stevie Wonder’s classic provides the bedrock, but it’s not a simple copy. The instrumental arrangement is intricate, with layers of sound that weave in and out. The track becomes a dialogue, a verbal exchange between Posdnuos and a female voice, exploring the complexities of relationships. There’s a touch of melancholy, a sense of searching for connection in a world that often feels disconnected.

“Johnny’s Dead AKA Vincent Mason (Live From the BK Lounge)” takes a sharp turn into the unexpected. The recording quality is deliberately rough, like a worn-out cassette tape. The track presents itself as a live performance, complete with background chatter and stage ambiance. The song itself is a dark tale, dealing with violence and its aftermath. It’s delivered with a darkly comedic tone, but the underlying message is unsettling.

Then, a jolt of pure energy: “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’.” This track provides a necessary dose of levity. The instrumental is pure funk, with a driving rhythm and an irresistible groove. It’s a celebration of weekend release, a reminder of simpler pleasures. The energy is contagious, making it one of the album’s most immediately appealing moments.

The album continues with “Kicked Out the House,” incorporating elements of house music. “Pass the Plugs” offers a moment of reflection, with a melancholic instrumental. “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” addresses the frustrations of dealing with unsolicited demos, with a catchy and upbeat instrumental. “Shwingalokate” explores more experimental territory, with unusual sound effects and a disjointed structure. “Fanatic of the B Word” features guest appearances, adding another layer to the sound. “Keepin’ the Faith” takes a more traditional Hip Hop approach.

The album concludes with a final skit, closing the storyline. The characters discard the album, deeming it lacking in the elements they associate with Hip Hop. This ending serves as a final commentary on the album’s themes, questioning the very definition of the genre.

De La Soul Is Dead is a complex and ambitious work. It retains De La Soul’s signature creativity and wordplay while venturing into darker territory and a more challenging  musical landscape. The album’s structure, with its recurring skits and diverse musical styles, creates a rich and engaging experience, but the sheer number of interludes and the album’s length can hinder a smooth and continuous listen. While conceptually strong, the constant interruptions can disrupt the flow of the music.

Following the passing of Trugoy the Dove in February 2023, the album takes on a new layer of poignancy. With its complex themes and innovative approach, De La Soul Is Dead remains a significant part of his legacy, a reminder of his artistry and his impact on  music. It is a work that continues to resonate, not only as a snapshot of a particular moment in Hip Hop history, but as an exploration of artistic growth, the pressures of expectation, and the ever-shifting landscape of music itself. It is a complex, layered, and ultimately rewarding experience”.

Before finishing off with another review, I will bring in a 1991 interview from Rolling Stone. A trio that was concerned less with neon, flowers, jokes and everything associated with their 1989 debut, they were now concerned with growing up. De La Soul Is Dead was a symbolic killing of the old selves and this introduction to the new De La Soul:

“With its Day-Glo cover, peace signs and flowers and its rhymes about the coming of the “D.A.I.S.Y. Age” (which stands not for a new form of flower power but for “Da Inner Sound, Y’all”), 3 Feet High and Rising earned the members of De La Soul an image as the hippies of hip-hop, a description the group has never accepted. Dove thinks that “100 percent of the people listening to De La Soul were really attached to the image and not to what we were trying to say.” Pos says that when he and his partners returned to the studio for the new album, they were determined to shake the familiar De La image. “We didn’t want to be pinned down to a visual look,” he says, “and so we thought, ‘This whole daisy thing has to just die.”’

Indeed, the stylish black-and-white video for “Ring Ring Ring” includes a slow-motion shot of a pot of daisies falling off a table and shattering to bits. It’s a neat summary of De La Soul Is Dead‘s achievement; from the unblinking anticrack narrative “My Brother’s a Basehead” to the elaborate tale of sexual abuse and revenge in “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa,” this is the work of an older, wiser De La Soul. Not that the group’s lighter touch is gone – its repartee with a Burger King waitress in “Bitties in the BK Lounge,” for instance, is at least as silly as anything on the first album.

“I feel like we’re showing something else to the people we introduced to a whole new sound on the first album,” says Pos. “Like a lot of the white kids – we’re bringing them to more of a street level this time.” Mase says: “We wanted to show the one side that, yo, it ain’t gotta be a rough beat all the time. And let the other side know there is a rough side.”

This expanded scope makes for a demanding, often bewildering brew. The beats are slow for a hip-hop album, and the grooves are often interrupted by spoken-word segments or careening tempo changes. The three rappers are sometimes too clever for their own good. But they’ve anticipated some of the criticism they’ll undoubtedly provoke: The game-show theme that ran through 3 Feet High has been replaced by a “read-along” story of three knucklehead hoods who bully a schoolmate into giving them a De La Soul tape he’s found in the garbage. They’re not impressed. “These rhymes are so corny,” our narrators complain. “Sounds like Vanilla Ice wrote ’em.”

The hip-hop world has been waiting so long for this album that it’s easy to forget just how young the members of De La Soul are. At twenty-two, Trugoy is the oldest, but the trio has been together for almost six years. Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos, 21), David Jolicoeur (Trugoy) and Vincent Mason Jr. (Maseo, 21, formerly Pase Master Mase) first met in high school in Amityville, a quiet suburb about an hour’s drive from Manhattan but one that has not been untouched by the city’s problems. After kicking around in assorted local groups, the three recorded a home demo of their own “Plug Tunin’,” which sampled Liberace and utilized large doses of their private, whacked-out slang.

Mase played the song for his neighbor, Prince Paul (Paul Houston) of Stetsasonic, who started circulating the tape among local DJs. Soon, De La Soul was the talk of the New York rap world and the subject of a bidding war. The trio signed with the rap-specialty label Tommy Boy Records in 1988. Mase was still in high school.

Prince Paul, who Pos calls “the fourth member of De La Soul,” produced 3 Feet High, an astonishing contrast to rap’s tired bass pumping and chest thumping. Soon, the press was running lengthy explanations of the group’s in jokes, expressions and names (Trugoy is yogurt, Jolicoeur’s favorite food, spelled backward; Posdnuos is an inversion of Sop Sound, Mercer’s old DJ tag). De La’s impact was even more visible on the street. Even as the three admonished listeners to stop wearing trendy clothing on “Take It Off” and preached nonconformity on the album’s first track (“Casually see but don’t do like the Soul/’Cause seeing and doing are actions for monkeys”), their bright, baggy shirts and short dreadlocks became the year’s most copied styles.

But late in 1989, De La Soul’s creative process came under fire; the group became the subject of the biggest antisampling lawsuit ever. “Transmitting Live From Mars” is a minute-long gag made up of a French-language instruction record played over an eerie organ loop. Flo and Eddie of the Turtles (and now New York radio DJs) recognized the snatch of keyboards from one of their old records and, alleging that they had never been approached for permission to use it, filed a $1.7 million suit. (The parties settled out of court last August for an undisclosed amount.)

The implications of the lawsuit, more than anything else, slowed the release of De La Soul Is Dead. The album was essentially completed last fall, but it has taken almost four months to process the paperwork necessary to clear all of the samples. “Now everybody is looking for De La Soul to sample them,” says Mase. And indeed, just before the album was mastered, Herb Alpert refused permission to use the Dating Game theme on a new comic bit, which had to be pulled.

This time, though, there are virtually no samples as instantly recognizable as the Hall and Oates or Parliament-Funkadelic riffs on the debut. “Before, I just sampled things that I grew up on and loved, the music our parents listened to,” says Mase. “I still do that, but now I’ll sample anything – I’ll sample knocking on the wall, I’ll sample Tony! Toni! Tone! – anything that sounds good.”

Such wildly imaginative sampling, a refreshing departure from the usual, overfamiliar James Brown breaks, has extended De La Soul’s appeal far beyond traditional hip-hop fans, most notably to white college kids. But will that crowd be able to follow the twists and turns of De La Soul Is Dead? Dove says: “It’s not the same feeling as 3 Feet, where as soon as you put the needle on the record, you jumped to it. But I think people will have faith in us and say, ‘Let’s listen to it for a little while, let’s see what’s really happening.”’ Mase says: “We see this album as directed more to our peers, but it also gives our alternative audience a chance to hear what our peers listen to. Really, instead of being a step ahead, it’s a step back to where our roots are.”

Some of the subject matter, though, is a decisive step forward. “My Brother’s a Basehead,” a bonus cut on the CD, is the most hard-hitting rap the group has recorded yet. Posdnuos says the song’s powerful story is no accident and no joke; he wrote it from personal experience. “One of my older brothers was fucked up on crack,” he says. “I wrote that song basically straight from the anger that I had inside.” Happily, one detail is changed from real life: Unlike the song’s subject, Pos’s brother is currently in rehab.

Similarly, “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa,” an almost surreal and technically breathtaking rap about a friendly social worker who sexually abuses his daughter, is based on a story related to Posdnuos by a friend. “Whatever we see,” says Pos, “whether it’s from within us or what we learn or see in the streets, that’s what we write about.” Mase says that the new album is “more self-explanatory” than 3 Feet High: “It’s like looking into a mirror. We even wanted to have a mirror as the inner sleeve. Because looking to the album, you see yourself.”

The members of De La Soul are trying  to do something no rap group has ever really done: They’re trying to grow up. It would have been easy to return to the D.A.I.S.Y. path; 3 Feet High, Part 2 probably would have flown off the shelves. “The record company was very into the ingredients that went into the first album,” says Posdnuos, “but we told them we were gonna try something new, and it could either fail or work. If it fails, we don’t feel like it’s gonna kill our careers.” Dove says: “The whole D.A.I.S.Y. Age thing worked, so we went along with it. We wanted to take that ladder, and then when we got to the top, we could do our own thing from that point on.”

De La Soul cultivated one of the strongest, freshest and most identifiable images in hip-hop, but having to stay in character outside the studio very quickly proved too limiting for these bright, shy rappers. “Every minute you’re on guard,” Pos says. “I can’t put the Posdnuos thing down for a second.” He cites an unlikely star as inspiration: “If you look at David Bowie and compare how he changed all through the years, that’s how De La Soul would like to come across.”

Some things, of course, don’t change overnight. The members of De La Soul are still three Long Island kids, the kind who drink Hawaiian Punch and who still joke that their real ambition is to open a doughnut shop. But Posdnuos says: “People ask, ‘Has success changed you?’ Obviously, it has – it changes everything from eating habits to thinking habits. It’s hectic, I’m losing hair, but it’s cool.” And do people still ask if the guys in De La Soul are hippies? “When we go to photo shoots, everyone wants to mess with flowers,” says Posdnuos, “but all that is starting to be cleared up. Now everyone wants us to be with caskets”.

I will end up with a review from Treble published in 2008. Anyone who has not heard De La Soul Is Dead needs to give it a shot. Even if it is quite a long listen, I do think that it is one of the most important Hip-Hop albums ever. De La Soul would follow it with 1993’s Buhloone Mindstate:

“One can imagine the burden on De La Soul following the critical and commercial success of Three Feet High and Rising. So much praise, so much pay, and already pigeonholed as hippies of hip hop. Where to go next? De La Soul went dark and disjointed. The result is an album that addresses their success, their own image, and the trends they saw in the hip hop community (i.e., the growth of gangsta rap). Prince Paul’s mixing mastery is still on display (his quirkiest work is the old-timey, bone-tapping “Pease Porridge”), and Posdnuos, Trugoy, and Mase can still flow like champs. There is even some humor (albeit brief, and sometimes dark) on the album, like the mumbled Slick Rick lyrics, or the kazoos and snappy snaps on “Bitties in the BK Lounge.” Yet overall, De La Soul is Dead is edgier, darker, older, and more cynical than its predecessor. Sure, that’s an easy feat given the Technicolor vibe of their debut, but what astounds is how dark they get. It’s not like it’s all gloomy or anything, but compared to Three Feet High and Rising, it’s none more black.

The three singles off the album are all strong spots. “A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays'” is the funkiest of the funky bunch, capturing the excitement of the one day to play after five days of work (which means De La Soul rolls on Shabbos, but doesn’t roll on the Sabbath). “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)” relates the group’s frustrations dealing with overzealous aspiring artists who want to use De La Soul to get into the music business. It features a great refrain that could double as a voicemail message. “Keepin’ the Faith” deals with gold diggers and actually features a sample that is reminiscent of the backing tracks on Three Feet High and Rising.

But “Oodles of Os,” the album’s lead off track, presents the marked shift in De La Soul’s tone. Rather than the big synth blasts of “Me, Myself, and I” or a whistling Otis Redding on “Eye Know,” the backing track on “Oodles of Os” is mostly just a jazzy, descending bassline over drums. The sample on the following song, “Talkin’ Bout Hey, Love,” is a little off-kilter and out of tune. By the time you hit “Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa” in the middle of the album, you are completely immersed in some dark territory. After you listen to the tale of a girl sexually molested by her own dad, you’re then bombarded by “Who Do You Worship,” in which the narrator–a misanthropic dickhead–thinks about how good he feels about being bad.

After all of that, you almost feel the need to step a way and take a break, and those breaks come in the form of one of the album’s skits. The framing narrative of De La Soul is Dead is a bit of pomo self-reflection that would make Charlie Kaufman smile: People who don’t like De La Soul is Dead listening to a stolen copy of De La Soul is Dead. It’s clever and it’s as if De La Soul anticipated that their album would be a commercial failure, especially when compared to their debut.

Since its release, however, De La Soul is Dead has developed a greater following. It’s an album that grows on you with each listen, and what was jarring at first seems less so each go round. At the end of the album, the guys in the framing narrative throw away a copy of De La Soul is Dead. They lament that it lacks pimps, lacks guns, and lacks curse words. Of course, the soul being invisible and intangible, it’s obvious they didn’t sense the album’s soul when they trashed it. They proclaim in unison, “De La Soul is dead”.

On 13th May, it will be thirty-five years since De La Soul Is Dead was released in the U.K. Splitting critics, it was still a commercial success. In years following its release, the album has rightly been labelled as one of the best Hip-Hop releases ever. Thirty-five years after its release and this important and sensational album…

STILL hits the spot.

FEATURE: The Girl Who Wanted to Be God: Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Girl Who Wanted to Be God

Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go at Thirty

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I previously wrote…

about the lead single from Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go, A Design for Life, as it turns thirty on 15th April. I am writing this feature in March but sharing it in April, as the band’s fourth studio album turns thirty on 20th May. I am going to get to features and reviews of this amazing album. It was the first record released as a trio, following the disappearance of lyricist and rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards. Reaching number two upon its release, Everything Must Go is often cited among the greatest albums ever released. There are a few features I want to come to first. They give us some background behind Everything Must Go. It must have been one of the most challenging of the band’s career. Considering Richie Edwards’s disappearance and uncertainty around him, it would have been almost impossible to focus. However, what Manic Street Preachers released on 20th May, 1996 is one of the most powerful and enduring albums ever. In 2016, twenty years after Everything Must Go was released, The Line of Best Fit reflect on this masterpiece. Even though Richey Edwards went missing in 1995, it was still very much raw in the mind of the trio of James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore. The article charts the build-up to Everything Must Go and the gruelling tour in support of 1994’s The Holy Bible. I pick the story up here:

“What would, fifteen months later, be released as Everything Must Go was fairly improbable prior to that day in February, but seemed utterly impossible thereafter. Left with so many questions, Bradfield, Moore and Wire found a shared focus in crafting a remarkably accomplished record. The Manics were not known for conjuring meticulously sculpted music. They’d blustered onto the scene at the start of the decade making forever-quoted claims about selling sixteen million copies of their debut and then splitting up, unfortunately forgetting to then actually record an album worthy of such grand figures. The shambling Guns N’ Roses-light reverb-laced polish that was applied to the majority of the sixteen songs neutered much of their early punk energy, only for the follow up, Gold Against The Soul, to head even further down the hard rock route. By the time The Holy Bible arrived, with its raw inertia and uncompromising intensity, people were losing interest and failed to notice the change.

The space is what stands out the most. It’s there on the album cover, with the band’s portraits neatly arranged in the middle of so much unassuming pastel blue. It’s there in the parentheses below the album’s title, hinting at what is missing. It’s there in James Dean Bradfield’s audible breath at the start of Interiors (Song For Willem De Kooning) which offers a very literal manifestation of the fact he “wanted [the music] to breathe a bit.”

 

Such a pause was rare in the band’s catalogue to date, lyrics normally dominating their songs to such an extent that they necessitated a machine-gun fire delivery from their beleaguered frontman. And yet, Everything Must Go is an album that is delicately arranged. Revered British poet Simon Armitage recently observed rather beautifully that “prose fills a space, like a liquid poured from the top, but poetry occupies it, arrays itself in formation, sets up camp and refuses to budge.” This description perfectly captures the transition that occurs between the songs of The Holy Bible and its successor.

The record’s first single, the song with which the band chose to step out into the public gaze once again, "A Design For Life", is built around only ten lines. That’s ‘only’ in the sense of size alone, for their impact is not to be underestimated. The boozy culture of Britpop had birthed an asinine notion that the working classes were stupid and driven by simple desires. The reclaiming of their status as those capable of intellectual insurgency resulted in the subsequently slightly misappropriated rallying cry of “we only want to get drunk.” Originally intended to highlight the media’s characterising of that section of society, even the band themselves later admitted that the quest for oblivion when eloquence alludes was a feeling with which they were all too familiar of late. It remains the final song in the band’s live sets, twenty years later.

Even if most of their new audience missed the irony of bawling their way through what they perceived to be a paean to alcoholic obliteration, it provided a fortuitous foothold in the world of laddish indie that was dominating the UK music scene at the time. Bradfield remains defiant that “we were not Britpop”, but this rare period, during which the acts who adorned the pages of the weekly music press were somehow also dominating the charts, provided the perfect platform for this oft-overlooked Welsh band to gain purchase in the nation’s affections.

 

Such elevation was soon to be formally confirmed. Taking to the stage in a t-shirt stenciled with the phrase ‘I Love Hoovering’ to collect two BRIT Awards in February 1997, Nicky Wire, with Bradfield and Moore alongside him, looked in his element. Everything Must Go had just been named album of the year and the Manic Street Preachers had gone from being perilously close to having no record deal to occupying the position of Best British Band.

After Bradfield had delivered conventional awards show thank yous, Wire grabbed hold of the microphone and proclaimed “this is also for every comprehensive school in Britain which the government is trying to eradicate. They produce the best bands, the best art and the best everything. The best boxers too.” It was delightfully incoherent and typically out of step with everything else that happened that evening, but the warmth with which it was greeted neatly highlighted the scale of their acceptance in the mainstream. Ten months on from their return, they were heralded by the public and their peers alike, revered in a way to which they were entirely unaccustomed.

The evolution was complete but at what price? Manics diehards were not used to sharing standing room with the beer-swilling Oasis fans, the meticulous anti-image had produced the strange sight of Bradfield on Saturday night television in double denim and even he still wasn’t happy, recalling “there was never a moment where it felt like we won.” Greater triumphs lay ahead, but those twelve songs taken together formed a truly classic album. In an age where endless promotional schedules necessitate insincere hyperbolic proclamations about each new release, it’s heartening to hear Wire stating emphatically that he’s “not afraid to say that I think it’s our best record.” He’s right”.

There is not much written about Everything Must Go and you’d hope. However, I do want to source from Riffology and their feature from last year. They looked at the making of the 1996 album. From the genesis through to the recording process and the commercial success of it. I recall when it came out. I was aware of Manic Street Preachers but this album was a revelation. It awoke me to their brilliance:

“From the start, the creative direction was clear: this would not be a repeat of The Holy Bible. As James Dean Bradfield later told NME, “We didn’t want to make another album about darkness. We wanted to make something more open, more anthemic, something that felt like a release.” The band kept five sets of lyrics Richey had left behind, weaving them into new songs, while Nicky Wire took on a larger role as lyricist. Musically, the band moved toward bigger, more symphonic arrangements, embracing strings, synths, and expansive choruses.

Here’s a look at the band members and their roles on the album:

Recording costs for Everything Must Go were financed by the band’s label, Epic Records. The sessions were not extravagant by major label standards, but the band invested heavily in time and effort, determined to get every detail right. There is no evidence of major financial challenges, but the emotional stakes were high. The working title, Sounds in the Grass, drew inspiration from Jackson Pollock’s paintings, hinting at the abstract, searching quality of the music. The final title, Everything Must Go, came from a play by Nicky Wire’s brother, Patrick Jones. It captured the sense of change, loss, and the need to move forward.

The album’s artwork, designed by Mark Farrow, featured minimalist blue and white imagery, with a Jackson Pollock quote inside: “The pictures I contemplate painting would constitute a halfway state and attempt to point out the direction of the future – without arriving there completely.” The cover’s clean lines and cool colours reflected the album’s themes of clarity, renewal, and looking ahead.

Recording Process

Entering the studio, the band knew they had something to prove. Recording began in late 1995 and continued into 1996, taking place across three main studios: Chateau de la Rouge Motte in France, Big Noise in Cardiff, and Real World Studios in Box, England. Chateau de la Rouge Motte, owned by producer Mike Hedges, was particularly important. The studio boasted a mixing desk originally from Abbey Road, adding a touch of history and prestige. According to Bradfield, the choice of Hedges as producer was influenced by his work with Siouxsie and the Banshees, especially the song “Swimming Horses”.

 

Mike Hedges brought decades of experience to the sessions. Known for his work with The Cure, The Associates, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Hedges was skilled at blending lush arrangements with sharp rock dynamics. He worked closely with engineer Ian Grimble, and the band themselves took a hands-on approach. Dave Eringa, a longtime collaborator, produced and mixed the track “No Surface All Feeling” and mixed “Australia”. Stephen Hague, another respected producer, handled the original production for “The Girl Who Wanted to Be God”. The team used a blend of analogue and digital equipment, with an emphasis on warmth and clarity.

The studio setup at Chateau de la Rouge Motte included classic microphones, vintage compressors, and a legendary Abbey Road desk. While the exact gear list is not fully documented, we can make educated assumptions based on the studios’ capabilities and the era’s technology. Here’s a likely list of hardware and instruments used during the recording:

Throughout the sessions, the band faced moments of doubt and exhaustion. Yet, the process was also marked by bursts of inspiration. “A Design for Life” came together in less than ten minutes, with Nicky Wire describing it as “a bolt of light from a dark place.” The band aimed for a sound influenced by Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, The Cure, Joy Division, and Magazine. The drum sound, in particular, was crucial—James Dean Bradfield said, “The drum sound had to set the tone for the whole record.”

Producer Mike Hedges has an extensive discography. Here is a table of notable albums he produced (excluding Everything Must Go):

Commercial Performance and Reception

When Everything Must Go was released on 20 May 1996, it was an immediate commercial triumph. The album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, selling 60,000 copies in its first week. It remained in the Top 5 for a year and spent 104 weeks in the UK Top 100. According to the Official Charts Company, it has sold 1,097,865 copies in the UK, earning triple platinum status. Worldwide sales exceed two million copies, making it one of the band’s biggest successes.

Internationally, the album charted across Europe, Asia, and Australia. It peaked at number 12 in Ireland, 21 in Sweden, 29 in Finland and New Zealand, 40 in Denmark, 50 in Austria, 55 in Australia, and 63 in the Netherlands. The singles “A Design for Life,” “Everything Must Go,” “Kevin Carter,” and “Australia” all reached the UK Top 10, with “A Design for Life” peaking at number two and going silver (over 200,000 copies sold)”.

I am going to end with a review for Everything Must Go. Maybe there are better of more appropriate reviews for Everything Must Go, though I want to quote NME and their take. Reflecting a lot of reaction to Manic Street Preachers and the disappearance of Richey Edwards, there was a lot of focus on the album in relation to that event and how it affected the band and their music:

“Will they use any of the large pile of lyrics he left behind, or will they choose to press forward with a new ideal? Will they persist with the powerful, mangled claustrophobia of 'The Holy Bible', or will they broaden their sound to incorporate a lusher vision? Will there be songs about Richey or will the issue be skirted? For those who never fell prey to the Manics' charms, the idea that Richey's input wouldn't even be missed is understandable. He was derided as the guitarist who didn't play on the records and who used his instrument onstage merely as a visual prop. But fans know that his ideology, sleeve design and lyrics were the driving force behind the band. How can they carry on without him?

Well, whatever powers them forward now - and it can't be born of the same grim intensity as before - tragedy has not dimmed the Manics' creative glow. 'Everything Must Go' does not collapse under its own sheer significance in the way that New Order's first album did after Ian Curtis' suicide and Joy Division's subsequent split. It's a record that races with heavenly string arrangements and huge sweeps of emotive rock orchestration, one that bristles with a brittle urgency. It is not a wake, but the sound of a band in bloom.

The crucial pointer to this can be found in the realistic optimism of Nicky Wire's lyrics on the title track (the compulsion to pore over the words on the whole album is necessarily huge). "I just hope that you can forgive us," bellows James Dean Bradfield during the chorus, as strings and guitars clash tunefully around him, "but everything must go." How long must they have agonised over these sentiments among themselves, let alone publicly, before committing them to tape? Yet the result is gloriously cathartic.

Richey's lyrics account for five of the 12 songs - three written on his own, two finished in his absence by Nicky - but there are no motivational clues here, as he wrote them while working with the band. Still, the bleak intelligence of the man

8/10”.

There will be a lot of new things written about Everything Must Go ahead of its thirtieth anniversary on 20th May. I wanted to come in early and discuss one of the finest and most important albums ever. 1996 was a year when Britpop was still here and Spice Girls came through. British music was changing and shifting. It was a strange time for Manic Street Preachers. Losing a band member and having to recalibrate, Everything Must Go could have been a mess or something very dark and forgettable. As it is, the Welsh band’s fourth studio album stands up today and is this work of brilliance. Ahead of its thirtieth anniversary, do go and check it out. A twentieth anniversary edition was released in 2016, so I wonder if there are plans for anything on its thirtieth. Cathartic and more polished than what came before, Everything Must Go was a breakthrough, in the sense that Manic Street Preachers reached a whole new audience. All these years later and Everything Must Go is…

THEIR most enduring work.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Nadia Kadek

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Phoebe Fox

Nadia Kadek

__________

A British-Indonesian artist…

who released the stunning Green Car E.P. last year, I do think that Nadia Kadek is well worth seeking out. From Norwich, she was recently featured in NME’s rundown of the one-hundred artists who will define this year. For fans of Nell Mescal and Lizzy McAlpine, I am quite new to her music. However, I am already hooked and engrossed. Having played London’s The Social last week, I do wonder where else she is heading this year. Definitely one of our brightest new artists, I am going to get to some recent interview with Nadia Kadek. For CLASH last year, Nadia Kadek was spoke about “belonging, familial relationships and the diaristic feel of recent EP 'Green Car'”. This is someone who I recommend that you connect with as soon as possible:

“It is in the buzz and anonymity of London life that singer-songwriter Nadia Kadek has found her own sense of belonging. Growing up in a small town created rose-tinted memories for Kadek, but also came at a price. “If you go there for five minutes, you see someone you know. That always made me feel like I didn’t have a lot of space to breathe as a person,” Kadek tells CLASH. “I think London gives me a chance to hide a bit… I’m naturally very introverted and I need space. So it’s the perfect place for that. I can see why people would find it lonely, but I think I just love being alone.”

Kadek’s debut EP ‘Green Car’ is a collection of deeply personal songs which encapsulate a writing style she describes as coming directly from “organic experiences”. The writer strives to capture complex emotions: the unique clash of excitement and nostalgia which blooms as life’s realities reveal themselves; the wonder and confusion of reaching adulthood; and moving on with forgiveness from imperfect family ties.

“Songwriting for me has always been a way of trying to make myself feel seen and heard, and putting my feelings somewhere in order to understand them and understand myself,” Kadek says. “Because actually what I’ve learned from songwriting, and also from listening to other songwriters, is that you’re definitely not the only person experiencing a feeling.”

Although Kadek finds writing songs an essential form of emotional expression, and revels in performing them, it was only recently that she felt ready to commit her music professionally to tape. Her EP ‘Green Car’ came to fruition after Kadek found the right team (musician, engineer and producer Riccardo Damian, and co-producer Jamie Biles) at a time when she had grown and become more confident as a musician..

“I had these songs written for ages and I think they were so precious to me that I was paranoid about getting the recording wrong,” she says. “I kept waiting and waiting for something… I think I needed to do that to know what I know now, which is to trust myself”.

Although there are not a load of interviews out at the moment, there are a few from late last year that I want to get to. The second is from DIY who say that, at a time when A.I. is rising, Nadia Kadek provides these “heartfelt accounts of coming of age anxieties delivered with genuine heart and a desire for connection beyond engagement and algorithms”:

“You grew up in Norfolk, and have British-Indonesian heritage. How did your background and hometown influence your musical education? Did you take on the tastes of your family? Were there venues nearby, or much of a ‘scene’ to speak of?

I was very lucky to be taken along to shows and festivals growing up. My earliest memory was going to Camp Bestival when I was six. We listened to Florence + The Machine all the way there, and then I was on a random lady’s shoulders watching her sing right in front of me that same weekend. I think that exciting upbringing pushed me to see live music any way I could as I grew up, despite there not being much of a scene or any venues in my hometown.

What’s the story behind your first instrument? 

I had guitar lessons until I was 11, but then got really into classical singing so stuck with that instead. Then at 15, I found I couldn’t express myself enough with just that, so I picked the guitar back up and learnt how to play as I started writing my own songs. I still don’t really know what I’m doing on the guitar… but I write very instinctively, so I kind of like the magic of just feeling what I’m playing.

Your debut EP, ‘Green Car’, centres around the bittersweet experience of coming of age and starting to navigate the adult world. Are there any particular albums, books, or films that you still return to, to help you reconnect with your child/teenhood? 

Coraline has been my favourite film for as long as I can remember; it’s so clever that I don’t think I could ever grow out of it. All of Phoebe Bridger’s discography was the soundtrack of my life from 16 to 18, and comforted me so much as a sad teenage girl - if I catch myself listening to her now, it’s usually a sign that something is wrong. It makes me so emotional that I’ve had to put myself on a Phoebe ban!

If you could collaborate with one artist from the past two decades, who would you pick (and why)? 

I would love to write with Glen Hansard; he’s such an incredible performer and storyteller, and I’d love to just have a cup of tea with him to be honest.

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?

I think I’d just make a comforting lemon and courgette orzo, and then I’d finish with my homemade cookies that have white chocolate, dark chocolate and Crunchie bar in them”.

Although not an interview, this review from The Rodeo Mag, reacted to her set at The Waiting Room in London from last October. I do feel that this year is going to be one where Nadia Kadek continues to build her music and gains more and more fans. I would love to see her live, as it sounds like she is truly one of these breathtaking voices that can silence an audience:

“The sounds of Joni Mitchell, Lizzie McAlpine, and Lana Del Rey can all be heard blending to make Kadek’s soulful declaration of emotion. Kadek stares into the abyss wearing polka dots and retro earrings, effortlessly playing through a setlist of seven songs. Her second song, ‘Jenny From Dakota’, gives more of a melody to swing to: ‘I hope you don’t find some love with another one, I hope you don’t find this song on the radio’. Kadek’s songwriting is nothing less than beautifully transparent, never shying away from the pit of her feelings. In ‘Feeling it All’, her first ever release, she sings, ‘If you said jump I would, maybe that’s where I went wrong/ but I was only a kid, every child needs a hero to live’. Silence grows to every corner of the room, and stillness allows for each word to land like a teardrop. There is a casualness to her as she tunes her guitar, talking to the crowd like they’re sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows”.

I am writing this feature before any new music from this year, though I am aware that something might come out soon. The tremendous and awe-inspiring Nadia Kadek is such a remarkable and hugely talented artist who is one of our best songwriters. Her voice is heart-stopping and filled with so much beauty and poetry. Anyone unfamiliar with Nadia Kadek really does need…

TO experience her music.

__________

Follow Nadia Kadek

PHOTO CREDIT: Phoebe Fox

Official:

https://www.nadiakadek.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/nadia.kadek/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@nadia.kadek

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@nadiakadekmusic

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6BWCmhv7pJu4PDZDRnoIKw?si=mQhT5P4mQPSpKhNFCi8Ilg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/nadiakadekbrownsword/