FEATURE: Blueprints of the Masterpiece: Kate Bush’s January 1984

FEATURE:

 

 

Blueprints of the Masterpiece

Kate Bush’s January 1984

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FOR a few early features this year…

I am going to go to this website and pick some periods in her career and dissect them. I am going back forty years. There are a few events from January 1984 that caught my eye. In terms of where Kate Bush was in her career, she was in-between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. The former arrived in 1982. In the period between 1982 and the start of 1984, there has been quite a bit of activity. It is important to look at the year before to see why 1984 was a pivotal one. Where Bush made real strides laying the groundwork for her masterpiece, Hounds of Love. At the start of 1983, Bush was under pressure to tour because of the relative lack of commercial success for The Dreaming. The singles not doing well. There was definitely plans for Bush to do something new after The Dreaming. In May 1983, a couple of months before her twenty-fifth birthday, a book/memoir, Leaving My Tracks, was shelved. One of those great what-ifs! Fans would definitely have loved to read an autobiography or book from Kate Bush. In the middle of 1983, there was some U.S. activity. The Kate Bush five-track mini-album was released in the U.S. and Canada (the Canadian release contained six tracks). Importantly, whilst there were movements towards greater U.S. awareness and impetus to get her commercial stock rising, Bush was in England planning and construction a bespoke home studio. One that would be the centre of one of the greatest albums ever released.

By September 1983, Bush was writing for Hounds of Love. A year after her previous album, there was this shift in terms of her sound and creative vision. A summer where she had time to be with family and relax, Bush was keen to move away from The Dreaming in terms of the recording and tone. Whilst, in November 1983 EMI conceive the idea of touring the Live at Hammersmith Odeon video around the American colleges – another grab at trying to get U.S. audiences interested in her music more -, Kate Bush was more interested in ensuring that her fifth studio album was done very much in her own vision. Rounding up 1983, The Single File video compilation is released. Bush makes personal appearances in Kingston and Holborn. More a year of promoting The Dreaming, some retrospection and U.S. plans. 1984 was one where Bush was much more interested in pushing forward. That said, as we can see below, the first month of that new year saw a couple of interesting moments:

“January 1984

The new studio being more or less ready, Kate begins work on her fifth album, directly demoing the songs and building on the original demo rather than re-recording.

January 16, 1984

Kate helps launch the Sky Channel, the first satellite TV station in the U.K.

January 23, 1984

The Single File box set of singles is released, further fuelling rumours that Kate is to leave EMI.

EMI-America release Lionheart and Never For Ever, begin a heavy back-catalogue promotion under the theme Looking Back to See Ahead”.

The studio completion and demo work is what I am interested in. Even so, I do love the fact that Kate Bush helped launch the Sky Channel. It is one of those weird and wonderful aspects of her career. Also, that detail regarding The Single File box set being released. I think that the release was timed at a great moment. Six years after her debut single came out, it was perhaps overdue that there would be some retrospection. A couple of years after that was released, The Whole Story came out. Capitalising on big moments in Bush’s career. At the start of 1984, there had been this gap since her fourth studio album. Not only an opportunity to keep her music at the forefront, it is a nice bridge between two albums. I can understand why some might feel she wanted to leave EMI. Given the lack of single commercial success from The Dreaming, an artist might feel like the label was not behind them. Instead, rather than it being about dissatisfaction and a way to clear the decks, this was a chance for fans to get the singles in one place. It has not really been done before that. Of course, between 1984 and now, Bush has released old material quite a few times – though only one greatest hits collection (that stops at 1986). There was this period, forty years ago, when there was the final stage between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. In the same month that there was this collection of singles – perhaps to stoke interest internationally -, Bush was starting to put together songs for Hounds of Love. That idea of the studio having been built and her being inspired to write. I can imagine what an exciting and fertile period it was.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the studio in 1984 recording Hounds of Love/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

I like the fact that Bush did not demo a song and then re-record it. Most artists do that, where you get this basic and sketch of a song before they go back and then re-record with extra elements and layers. Instead, what we hear on Hounds of Love is Bush’s original demos. Only with her going back and adding to them. Classic songs like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Cloudbusting starting life quite differently. She then played the demos back and then was compelled to add to that mix. I wonder if that is a reason why Hounds of Love is a classic and so loved. A different sound and feel to other albums. Over a year later, Kate Bush would release her most acclaimed album. Thinking back to January 1984 when these songs were taking place. It was a definite moment when she moved from professional studios and an old way of working to this autonomy and home comforts. The fact that she had her own studio and it was by the family home meant that there was less stress and pressure. Able to take her time and work in the same spot – even though there was some recording Windmill Lane (Dublin) and Abbey Road (London). At the start of 1984, Kate Bush was ready to begin work on her masterpiece. Before too long…

SOMETHING wonderful would follow.

FEATURE: I Don't Owe You Anything: Will The Smiths’ Eponymous Debut Album Get a Fortieth Anniversary Reissue?

FEATURE:

 

 

I Don't Owe You Anything

Will The Smiths’ Eponymous Debut Album Get a Fortieth Anniversary Reissue?

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AMONG all of the albums…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Smiths in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Chalkie Davies

celebrating big anniversaries in 2024, there is no doubt that The Smiths is one of the biggest. The debut by the legendary group, it was released on 20th February, 1984. Its fortieth anniversary is nearing. It made me wonder whether there will be a special reissue for an album that is enormously influential. Arriving into the world where Synth-Pop was ruling and the music mainstream was a very different make-up, along came a band who started something fresh and urgent. Intelligent, melodic and nuanced songwriting. Morrissey’s intelligent and standout lyrics tied to that distinct tone his voice carries. Johnny Marr’s phenomenal and genius guitar work, together with Andy Rourke’s bass and Mike Joyce’s drums. A terrific band came onto the scene. Sadly, we lost Andy Rourke last year. He knows how much The Smiths’ debut album means to people. I hope that there is appropriate fanfare and celebration around its upcoming fortieth anniversary. The single from the album, What Difference Does It Make?, was released on 16th January, 1984. Even if fans choose later albums like The Queen Is Dead (1986) as the best album from The Smiths, is there a more important one than their eponymous debut? One that changed music and heralded this new sound.

What is quite annoying and baffling is how little has been written about their debut. It is more straightforward than their following albums, though the significance and quality of the 1984 debut cannot be overstated! Why have more features about its value not been written?! It is a strange thing. Plenty of press about the band in general, though not their magnificent debut. An album that does not sound dated at all. The song still shine and sparkle. Classics and standouts like This Charming Man and Reel Around the Fountain played to this day. I will come to a feature where figures in the music industry discussed the influence of The Smiths on them. It all began with their phenomenal 1984 debut. Rolling Stone reviewed The Smiths in June 1984:

“WHEN TOM ROBINSON sang “Glad to Be Gay” back in 1978, he did it as a dirge — the irony, while bracing, was entirely obvious. Six years later, the singer and lyricist of the Smiths — a man called Morrissey — has little use for the ironic mode: His memories of heterosexual rejection and homosexual isolation seem too persistently painful to be dealt with obliquely. Morrissey’s songs probe the daily ache of life in a gay-baiting world, but the bitterness and bewilderment he’s felt will be familiar to anyone who’s ever sought social connection without personal compromise. Whether recalling the confusion of early heterosexual encounters (“I’m not the man you think I am”) or the sometimes heartless reality of the gay scene, Morrissey lays out his life like a shoebox full of faded snapshots.

Given Morrissey’s rather somber poetic stance, The Smiths is surprisingly warm and entertaining. Though Morrissey’s voice — a sometimes toneless drone that can squeal off without warning into an eerie falsetto — takes some getting used to, it soon comes to seem quite charming, set as it is amid the delicately chiming guitars of cocomposer Johnny Marr. And the eleven songs here are so rhythmically insinuating that the persistent listener is likely to find himself won over almost without warning. From “What Difference Does It Make?,” a clever reprise of a venerable garage-punk riff, to the striking opener, “Reel around the Fountain,” and the U.K. hits “Hand in Glove” and “This Charming Man,” this record repays close listening”.

What comparatively little is written about The Smiths is perspective and interesting. In a year (1984) where Pop queens like Madonna were dominating the mainstream, The Smiths’ music seemed so vastly alternative. I know the legacy of the band and their debut is somewhat marred by Morrissey. Even if his lyrics and vocals are wonderful and help make The Smiths what it is, controversy surrounding him in years since makes some feel guilty about embracing the band. I get that. It would be unfair to ignore an album as crucial and iconic as The Smiths because of a quarter of the band. Consequence shared their thoughts in a 2019 feature:

“With its release on February 20, 1984,The Smiths was an instant game-changer. There was nothing like it just yet; it wasn’t as heavy as Joy Division or as rock and roll as Elvis Costello and the Attractions. It didn’t have the elaborate gossamer of The Cure or Siouxsie Sioux’s cathedral wailings. Instead, Morrissey’s drab voice soars and sours in contrast to Johnny Marr’s majestic guitar work, full of mystery and sorrow.

This album opens with a song about child abuse, and it’s not the only one. “Suffer Little Children” is about the five children murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in what would become known as the Moors Murders. The song was so shocking that the album was removed from several shops, but Morrissey struck up a friendship with Ann West, the mother of Moors victim Lesley Ann Downey, who agreed that the song was written with only the best intentions.

But there have always been songs about crime and hurt. What makes The Smiths so unique is that so much of it revolves around both homosexual and asexual longing — the desire to be desired even if that desire must never or will never be consummated — rather than the traditional love songs or breakup anthems that make up so much of music. “I am sorrow’s native son/ He will not rise for anyone,” he moans on “Pretty Girls Make Graves”. It’s all daring subject matter, even now, to sing about the complex nature of lust, of wanting to be desired without the trappings of sex.

The Smiths even has a lullaby. On a pop album by four childless twentysomething lads. It’s a bold choice for any musician, but “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” is a distinctly Smiths lullaby, full of ominous threats — “There’ll be blood on the cleaver tonight” is gore that would fit right into Grimm’s Fairy Tales — but ultimately brimming with the sort of aching tenderness that Morrissey, with flowers in his back pocket, would make his signature. Perhaps that’s why Morrissey’s descent into curmudgeon hurts so badly — because his lyrics rip apart love into all of the complicated and often contradictory pieces that make it up. Anger and pleasure, need and desire, sexual and familial, Morrissey explores all of these, even when they hurt. Even when they don’t make sense.

“Hand in Glove” is perhaps the best example of this strictly Moz phenomenon. Hailed by the band, at the time, as the best song they’d written, it is The Smiths at their purest, Morrissey with his heart bare and bruised, Mike Joyce keeping everyone steady on the drums, Andy Rourke’s bass warm and inspired, while Johnny Marr’s guitars rain down a sun-drenched melancholy. “No it’s not like any other love,” Morrissey bleats. “This one is different because it’s ours.” It encapsulated what it was like to be a Smiths fan, that there was no other band like it in the world. It says, it’s okay to be tender. It’s okay to be witty. It is love unadulterated by money or sex or gossipy friends, and as such, Morrissey knows it cannot last. That innate understanding of human nature, the ugly pieces we hide from ourselves, is the DNA of every Smiths song, put on full display as though in a lit glass case.

Though “You’ve Got Everything Now” was the debut single, it’s “This Charming Man” that steals the show. It is as perfect a fusion of Morrissey and Marr as there ever was, elaborate, poppy guitars play with, not against, Morrissey’s coy, lilting vocals. “I would go out tonight,” he teases this song’s subject. “But I haven’t got a stitch to wear.”

Listening to any Smiths record is a life-changing experience, whether in 1984 or 2018. No one has been able to match Morrissey’s exact blend of wit and melancholy, the uniquely British charm that cannot be put on or manufactured. It’s a shame of the highest disappointment that Morrissey is such a trash bag, but not even he can ruin what we all once had.

“It just wasn’t like the old days anymore,” he sings on “Still Ill”. We cannot hear The Smiths again for the first time, and we cannot listen to them without thinking, Fuck, man, Morrissey is such a toolbox. But I invite you to put on The Smiths in a quiet room, perhaps with headphones, perhaps in the dark. Listen in full as though it was the first time, recalling who you were and who you are now and how you got to be there. Imagine Morrissey isn’t The Absolute Worst. Chances are you will fall in love with this album all over again in that pure way that you can only love The Smiths, even if just for that moment”.

I will end with thoughts around the fortieth and whether we will get an anniversary reissue. I hope so! First, last year, The Guardian celebrated forty years of The Smiths’ existence. The fact that their debut single, Hand in Glove, was released in May 1983. It is interesting that a track many associate as being on The Smiths, This Charming Man, did not appear on the original U.K. L.P. release. It appears as the first song on side B of the original U.S. L.P. release. The first U.K. C.D. release in 1986 did not include the song; all UK C.D. re-releases since 1993 include it:

“The interplay of gloom and light, of Morrissey’s biting lyrics and Marr’s bright guitars, are what has made the band so enduring for successive generations of British indie musicians, says Connie Constance. The 28-year-old Watford musician counts the Smiths as one of her biggest reference points when it comes to guitar sounds, along with the Clash. “The sound has all the negativity that I think Brits just naturally have,” she says. “It has this gritty, I’m not bothered, moany thing, while having this beautiful layer on top that makes everything feel like it’s gonna be all right.”

Although Constance first engaged with the Smiths as a child, she didn’t realise until later the impact they had on all the other bands she had grown up listening to. “I was listening to their back catalogue and being like, ‘Oh my gosh, this sound is so laced into all of British indie rock,’ from that moment onwards.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a longtime Smiths fan, remembers that the band “came along at a time when the north-west of England was probably at its lowest ever ebb in recent history. It seemed to me to be a recurrent theme in Morrissey’s lyrics that you can kind of aspire to be more than this. You don’t have to be dragged down by your situation or circumstances.” In Burnham’s eyes, the band gave the region a rare sense of cachet. “When I got to university, people would ask, ‘You’ve seen the Smiths?’ and it was like, OK, I’ve got something that you want – that was important, in terms of building a sense of confidence and ambition.”

Richard King, author of the book How Soon Is Now: The Mavericks and Madmen Who Made Independent Music 1975-2005, says the Smiths created a give and take with their fans that felt fresh. “Morrissey wasn’t an adolescent, but he did seem to know how to articulate the extremes of adolescence, and there were very few people who did,” he says. “There was a sense of generosity and value in every release – the picture sleeves, the tone they used, the B-sides: everything they did had this value that you couldn’t find anywhere else – and it felt like it was coming directly from the band. It meant that the emotional investment that you put in as an adolescent, into the songs and their meaning, you felt like that investment was returned by the band in their quality control and their look.”

Although it had been common to pledge sartorial fealty to a genre or subculture – such as punk or goth – Smiths fans, even before they had released an album, dressed like the Smiths. Although other artists had developed a similar aesthetic sensibility previously, most of them, such as Orange Juice’s Edwyn Collins, took their cues from 1950s Americana, with leather jackets, sunglasses and immaculate quiffs. Morrissey combined the 50s hair with what Reed calls a “studenty” look – raincoats bought from charity shops and vintage stores. That look, now, has calcified into what might be termed the classic indie boy aesthetic: T-shirts and shirts tucked into 501 jeans, thick-rimmed glasses, mismatched or ill-fitting outerwear.

Fletcher saw the band in late 1983, and remembers seeing that “fans were already dressed like them – in London, people were carrying flowers in their back pockets. From 1984, Morrissey had the big overcoat thing, and suddenly you just started seeing people like that. It was like some of them were just coming out of their shell – they were very bookish people who suddenly realised that bookish was fashionable, and they didn’t have to apologise for their NHS specs and being a bit dishevelled and literate and into pop music.”

Burnham remembers Manchester’s Affleck’s Palace as being a centre of the Morrissey aesthetic. “Morrissey created it, but people would go there to replicate it,” he says. “It was vintage 501 jeans before they were as ubiquitous as they became, cardigans, stuff that was deliberately old-school looking. It was kind of an outsider look – it became anti-cool fashion before that existed in our heads.”

He recalls the Smiths acting as a kind of codex for broader culture. When the band performed on the South Bank Show, for example: “I remember everyone videotaping it, and it really laid out a hinterland of references. People started reading Oscar Wilde – it kind of did broaden your horizons, liking the Smiths.” The band’s iconography and music was so strong that despite’s Morrissey’s aesthetic and political shifts after he went solo – on 1988’s Bengali in Platforms he suggested south Asian migrants didn’t belong in the UK, and by 1992 he was draping himself in the union jack – many fans can easily separate the Smiths off in their minds.

The freedom that the band seemed to offer their audience – to remove themselves from staid ideas of how to look, dress or think – was revolutionary at the time. King remembers the way Marr and Morrissey interacted on stage, and the amount of fun they seemed to be having, feeling radically new. “The two of them dancing together as men, but both being very feminine and, in Johnny’s case, quite androgynous, was incredibly powerful,” he says. “It felt to an adolescent audience that it was giving them agency to act differently – two men dancing together not in an overtly homoerotic or political way, but just having fun together in their own unique way.”

Moreover, Morrissey pioneered a musical expression that wasn’t geared towards heterosexual romance – or even romance in general. “To have somebody that wasn’t singing either, ‘I’m in love with you,’ or, ‘You broke up with me,’ but singing, ‘I’m not really sure if I want love, I don’t know if I want romance’ – he managed to encapsulate feelings that so many people had,” says Fletcher. “I don’t think anybody had come along with that.”

Constance says that Morrissey’s less explicitly masculine presentation has “allowed a softer side of men in indie bands to come through” in the years since. “I feel like men can share a bit more in the indie world, and they can sing and get things off their chest a bit more, rather than being just this like brutal anarchist punk or superstar over-sexual glam-rock male,” she says. “Someone like [the 1975’s] Matty Healy – Morrissey was the first of that [archetype]”.

There deserves to be a wave of new features written about The Smiths ahead of its fortieth anniversary on 20th February. There is shockingly little out there right now! Undoubtably one of the most significant debut albums ever, it one that inspired legions of bands. I hope that there is a reissue where we get some extras and demos. The oriignal album either released in a range of coloured vinyl, or perhaps one where we get some remixes. Maybe it is too late to do anything if there are no planned released. I suspect that something has been organised. Look at the legacy of The Smiths:

“Slant Magazine listed the album at 51 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s" saying "There's no reason why a mordant, sexually frustrated disciple of Oscar Wilde who loved punk but crooned like a malfunctioning Sinatra should've teamed up with a fabulously inventive guitarist whose influences were so diffuse that it could be hard to hear them at all and formed one of the greatest songwriting duos of the '80s." PopMatters included the album on their list of "12 Essential Alternative Rock Albums from the 1980s" saying: "Morrissey's career are fully accounted for on The Smiths, where they are rendered all the more piercing by Johnny Marr's delicate guitar-picking and John Porter's stark production".

In 1989, the album was ranked number 22 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was #481 on that magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The magazine ranked it at #473 on an updated list in 2012, calling it "a showcase for Morrissey's morose wit and Johnny Marr's guitar chime". The album was ranked number 51 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time. It placed at number 73 in The Guardian's list of the 100 Best Albums Ever in 1997”.

Perhaps their most underrated albums, they would produce more complex and ambitious work from 1985’s Meat Is Murder on. Produced by John Porter, The Smiths was recorded in a piecemeal nature because of The Smiths’ touring commitments. Morrissey felt the finished album was not good enough. He is wrong. There is no doubt how wonderful The Smiths’ 1984 debut album. I just regret it has not been praised and dissected more. I hope that at least a few people share some words ahead of its…

FORTIETH anniversary.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Australia’s First Nations Queens

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Australian rapper Barkaa (who is a Malyangapa and Barkindji woman) photographed for GQ in 2020

Australia’s First Nations Queens

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I came across an article…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Miss Kaninna/PHOTO CREDIT: Tristan Stefan Edouard

from the end of December from The Guardian that discussed Indigenous women from Australia merging the world’s oldest living cultures together with Hip-Hop whilst also wrestling with racism and social injustice. I was not aware of some of the queens of Australian Indigenous Hip-Hop and whether more is known and explored around the world. How many of these artists get played and celebrated in the U.K. for example? It made me want to dive more into that world and highlight that clash of these amazing artists fighting against racism and injustice whilst also producing the most amazing and powerful music. I am going to end with a playlist feature music from Indigenous queens. There are these incredible First Nations women who are releasing music that is moving and important. Malyangapa Barkindji rapper Barkaa is one example. There are these empowered and inspiring Indigenous artists who have found a way to weaponise their voice:

“When the Indigenous hip-hop artist Charmaine Jasmine Armstrong – also known as Dizzy Doolan – started spitting rhymes 22 years ago she was one of a handful of women in Australia’s rap scene.

There was no one to teach her how to put songs together, promote herself, apply for grants or even upload music. In the early 2000s the Australian scene was dominated by white men – groups like the Hilltop Hoods.

“There was no other female rappers that I knew of really doing their thing,” Dizzy says. “There was no one to look up to, apart from your American groups.”

Two decades later Dizzy is part of a growing number of Indigenous female artists across Australia. They are merging the world’s oldest living cultures with a comparatively new genre of music: rap. They’re also ushering in a new wave of hip-hop that wrestles with racial politics, Australia’s bloody past and social injustice.

In far north Queensland, Dizzy, a Takalak, Agwamin, Gureng Gureng and Wokka Wokka woman, grew up listening to jazz and blues. At 16 she released her first rap song, No Shame – a message about not letting that feeling hold you back.

“My mum’s sister passed away, so I was at a very down point,” she says. “When I discovered songwriting and rap, I was like, ‘Oh, I can put on my pain and struggle and make it sound cool.’ Turning your pain to power.”

At 18 she recorded her first song on to CDs and would walk the streets of Brisbane, putting them into letterboxes.

“I was like, ‘How can we get this music out?’ I had no iTunes, there was nothing like that – we barely had access to the internet.

“But the beauty about hip-hop is you only need a pen and paper. I started with no beat, just banging on the table.”

As mainstream Australia’s taste for rap developed, so did Dizzy’s career. From chasing small gigs in Brisbane she went on to support huge international artists including Fatman Scoop, T-Pain and Akon. Now 38, Dizzy has just released her first full album.

“I wasn’t valued as much as a male would be in the industry,” she says. “But then, you use that, you take that and you use that as power, and prove them wrong.

“Nowadays there’s a big movement of more female artists in the scene, which I’m so excited to see.”

Struggling with backlash

Many female hip-hop artists have found their success has been tainted by racism. Miss Kaninna, who is of Yorta Yorta, Djadja Wurrung, Kalkadoon and Yirendali heritage, knows this well.

The artist was crowned the 2023 Unearthed artist of the year for her single Blak Britney, which shot to number one on Triple J within a fortnight of its release.

“I’ve had so many positive things birthed out of releasing Blak Britney, but I’ve also experienced more racism in the past eight months than I ever have in almost my entire life,” she says.

Miss Kaninna says the backlash is exhausting – but it drives her to make more music.

“Indigenous people have found a way to weaponise their voice that can reach farther,” she says. “Like, if you thought the Blak Britney or Pinnacle Bitch was hectic, like these motherfuckers aren’t even ready”.

Maybe not artists or a genre/scene that has yet to gain exposure wider around the world, I thought it was interesting reading about Australia’s female First Nations rappers and their work. Articles like this and this also expand on the great names changing Australian Hip-Hop. The struggles they have faced and how they are turning that backlash and prejudice into something constructive and compelling. Below are just a few examples of the amazing rappers who warrant greater attention and spotlight. As we head through this year, different genres and styles of music will come to the forefront. It would be good, if in years to come, the music of Australia’s First Nations queens…

IS better known.

FEATURE: Tomorrow’s Pearls and New Frontiers: Saluting Donald Fagen, His Songwriting Genius with ‘The Dan’, and How His Music Inspires Me – and Why Its Influence Is Rare to Detect Wider Afield

FEATURE:

 

 

Tomorrow’s Pearls and New Frontiers

IN THIS PHOTO: Donald Fagen shot in London, 1991/PHOTO CREDIT: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images

Saluting Donald Fagen, His Songwriting Genius with ‘The Dan’, and How His Music Inspires Me – and Why Its Influence Is Rare to Detect Wider Afield

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MAYBE 10th January…

PHOTO CREDIT: ALTEREDSNAPS/Pexels

will see more people remember the life – on the date of his death – of a mainstream music icon, rather than the seventy-sixth birthday of a more ‘underground’ musical figure. The former is David Bowie, who died on 10th January, 2016; the latter is one Donald Fagen. One of the founders of Steely Dan (co-founder Walter Becker died in 2017) should be celebrated. I am going to talk more about his solo work, why it impacts me, and how it is unusual we have not seen many modern artists imbue that incredible sound and sonic aesthetic. I want to talk about Steely Dan, as that was my first exposure to the New Jersey-born genius that is Donald Fagen. I would suggest y’all check out Good Steely Dan Takes on Twitter and the podcast, Gaucho Amigos. A go-to and well of Steely Dan archives, takes and knowledge, I am sort of aiming this partially in their direction. I am also nodding again to the sublime and phenomenal writer and journalist Alex Pappademas, and illustrator and artist Joan LeMay. They published a book last year, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. It is a stunning and gorgeously written and illustrated book where Pappademas and LeMay look at the characters on Steely Dan songs, rather than do a standard biography about Steely Dan. I wrote about the book several times (including here), and I was lucky enough to get a couple of copies of it signed by Joan LeMay at an event in London near where I live (she did at the time; she has moved to New York now I understand). Such a really cool and lovely person, it is a shame I did not get more time to chat (shyness on my part), as she helped create an essential Steely Dan guide.

IN THIS ILLUSTRATION: Aja’s eponymous heroine and cover figure (on the album, there is a photo of Japanese model and actress Sayoko Yamaguchi)/ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Joan LeMay/Courtesy of the University of Texas Press

When I finished reading the book – which now I have read several times -, it made me realise how special Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were as writers. Not only did these songs I first heard in childhood take on new meaning. The characters dropped into verses and choruses are now coming to life. Their importance. The way the duo could write these amazingly vivid people. Even if they have an unnamed character (Deacon Blue’s ‘The Expanding Man’ or the semi-anonymous ‘Peg’ from the song of the same name), you feel like you can see them. Identify with their story. Donald Fagen brought this writing vividness and wonder into his solo material. He has released four solo albums: 1982’s The Nightfly; 1993 Kamakiriad; 2006’s Morph the Cat; 2012’s Sunken Condos. Fagen suggested in this interview that he is working on new material. That was in September 2022. I would be surprised if we went through this year without the announcement of a fifth solo studio album. If many go for his 1982 debut as his best solo work, to me it is his most recent album, Sunken Condos, that is king. I think that there is a real desire for something from Donald Fagen. He still tours with Steely Dan. Even though he was briefly hospitalised last year, he is okay now and will no doubt by touring throughout this year. He is a few days shy of turning seventy-six. It made me think how there is this gap that needs filling by him. Nobody else sounds like him. Even if Steely Dan are hugely popular – if slightly niche and underground still; not as shared and played widely by mainstream radio stations -, it has not been reflected in terms of other musicians’ output. Who could help but be inspired to write their own version of Peg (Aja) or Hey Nineteen (Gaucho)?! What about Donald Fagen’s solo work like New Frontier (The Nightfly)?! Also, perhaps take a cue from the alluringly brilliant Florida Room (Kamakiriad)?!

Even though artists such as Kate Bush have name-checked them a few times in the distant past – and her song, James and the Cold Gun starts with a piano riff very much inspired by The Dan -, you can’t hear Steely Dan or Donald Fagen that overtly and obviously in many artists’ work today. I have written about this before. How come modern artists are not emulating Donald Fagen and Steely Dan?! I posed that on Twitter a while ago and Nerina Pallot – who covered Peg in 2009 - suggested that the studio-craft and sheer hours of recording needed to do so would be expensive and draining. True in a way. Yes, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker spent so much time drilling musicians and seeking that perfect sound. The fact Donald Fagen obsessively worked to get the ‘right mix’ and fade out for Gaucho’s Babylon Sisters means any modern artists trying to do that might be bankrupted very soon! I am not suggesting artists hire Electric Lady Studios in New York for three months and try to release their version of Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic or Katy Lied. At a time when technology can provide a recording base or crutch at least, I suppose hiring musicians would be costly enough. There are artists who could afford it. It is not the case of needing an army of session players for an album. I mean just the vibe and mood of a Steely Dan or Donald Fagen album. The dreamy and lush harmony vocals. Cutting and clever lyrics, together with the richness of sumptuous brass, standout percussion and wonderfully inventive guitar lines. These arresting characters and situations. Maybe any project without Donald Fagen’s vocal might suffer, though I cannot think of any band/artist since Steely Dan who can readily been compared to them.

IMAGE/PHOTO CREDIT: Canva/Pexels

To me, someone like Donald Fagen is so important. Unique too. Reviews around his solo albums, especially Sunken Condos, have sort of had the same thought: he is in a league of his own and superb, though he doesn’t go beyond his comfort zone much; though it is looser than his previous solo records. They are positive reviews, yet most sort of are comparing it to past work and are not entirely surprised. Suggesting the sound doesn’t alter much between albums. Are they expecting a Jazz odyssey or Fagen to go Pop?! If there is nobody like him in music, do you want him to stray too far from what he is best at – and who else will fill that void he leaves?! The clear reality of his music should overshadow critical dubiousness: if it ain’t broke then why the hell fix it?! Rather than this being pure self-indulgence (though there is some of that in there!), I have been inspired to think of my own Fagen-inspired album. Whilst we await a fifth solo outing from the master, his music has compelled me to dream. An album, The Maris Crane Exposé – the juxtaposition and mystery of an unseen and fabled sitcom character and this major scandal -, would feature thirteen songs very much inspired by Donald Fagen. I have put a hypothetical back cover above. The text does blend into/clash with the background at the times, so the tracklisting is: Local Celebrity; Can’t Buy a Thrill; Coco Chanel in Blue (ft. Margaret Atwood); Winters by the Sea; Put It All on Red; Southside (ft. Lana Del Rey); Katy’s Switch; Stuck in the Middle with Me; For Those in the Back Rows; David Has a Masterplan; Hipsterlooza; Control, Alt, Repeat; I’ll Get to New York City One Day Soon (ft. Donald Fagen and Rachel Brosnahan). Of course, it is a dream and something I will not realise! The frustration with this absence of artists bringing Donald Fagen’s sound more obviously into their own music.

That said, I would love to make the album happen, albeit with someone else singing the songs. With topics covered – alongside traditional love and the sort of wise-cracking and sardonic stuff you’d find on Donald Fagen’s albums – would be climate change, transgender rights, gender equality in music, gun violence in the U.S., women’s rights and autonomy, old minds and bodies keeping track of modern music, and the idolisation of TikTok and social media artists. That sounds like a heavy and serious album! As it is very much channelling Donald Fagen, it would mix clever and important lyrics with wit and wordplay. Whilst nearly every major and acclaimed songwriter or artist has someone in music today that contains some of their DNA, I struggle to find where Donald Fagen’s successors are. Maybe it is a case of him being untouchable and that studio process being too intense. Regardless, as Fagen is seventy-six on 10th January, it should also act as an opportunity for people to seek his music out. I hope it inspires artists enough so they can create something very much with him in mind. Perhaps some important Steely Dan anniversaries – Pretzel Logic is fifty this year – might provoke some movement. Artists like Lou Hayter have covered Steely Dan and are massive fans. In fact, she may be the closest to a Steely Dan mega-fan who is bringing some of their genius into her own work. She is someone I admire hugely and feel will inspire other artists to check out Steely Dan/Donald Fagen - and, who knows, become compelled to follow them sonically and lyrically.

IN THIS PHOTO: Lou Hayter

I was excited about Donald Fagen’s upcoming birthday and the fact solo album number five might not be too far away. With him being the only one making this type of wonderful music, should it be left that way?! I, as a non-musician – though I write lyrics and have aspiration to assemble artists together -, have been influenced to think about my own Fagen/Dan-inspired album. I even got a front cover. A beautiful woman in rollerskates with a spot of blood on one cheek. A seductive look where she bites her lip. A gun in one hand. The backdrop seems like a 1950s milkshake or cola bar in California. You see patrons behind her. An old-style journalist taking a photo with a woman next to him weeping. In her other hand she holds down a newspaper where the headline reads “The Maris Crane Expose’”. The backdrop has a sign for Strawberry Kiss (the fictional milkshake-type bar). Pinks, pastel colours and something that would grab the eye, I got all of that by listening to one Donald Fagen song along: Planet D’Rhonda from Sunken Condos (don’t ask how, I just did!). That fantasy of musicians coming in New York and recording this amazing album influenced by him. One where he could take a vocal turn (I paired him with actor Rachel Brosnahan as a couple (friends/lovers) squabbling in a New York diner who eventually cool off and laugh; a backdrop to the closing track). Without it being too much like Donald Fagen, it does owe a debt to him. One cannot have too much Fagen-influenced magic in the world! Maybe Lou Hayter singing. Or someone else I guess. I don’t know! What I do know is that I am almost as excited by the prospect of a Donald Fagen album as anyone else this year (The Last Dinner Party being high up there; Kate Bush, let’s hope, will drop an eleventh studio album soon). His music is part of my childhood…though it sounds so relevant and original today. Both singular and also waiting for someone to adopt, adapt and personalise. There is nobody quite like The Don (of The Dan). As Fagen sings on Morph the Cat’s What I Do: “It's what I do/I'm specially qualified/To keep 'em satisfied/It's what I do”. Weighing up those words, looking at his impact, and seeing the opportunity for artists to learn from this master…

AIN’T that the truth, brother!

FEATURE: Whole Lotta Love: Jimmy Page at Eighty: His Finest Riffs and Examples of Guitar Genius

FEATURE:

 

 

Whole Lotta Love

PHOTO CREDIT: Ross Halfin

Jimmy Page at Eighty: His Finest Riffs and Examples of Guitar Genius

_________

ON 9th January…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jimmy Page (bottom left) alongside his Led Zeppelin bandmates, John Bonham (top left), Robert Plant (top right) and John Paul Jones (bottom right)/PHOTO CREDIT: Rex

the iconic Jimmy Page turns eighty. Born James Patrick Page in Middlesex, he has gone down in music history as one of the most influential musicians ever. A genius guitarist who ranks alongside the very best of all time, he was a quarter of the legendary Led Zeppelin – alongside lead Robert Plant, bass player John Paul Jones, and the late drummer John Bonham. To mark a huge birthday for a musician who has influenced so many others, I am going to end with a playlist demonstrating his phenomenal guitar skills. Some of his best riffs and exceptional musicianship. You can buy books about Jimmy Page if you want to know more about this pioneer. Also, Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album turns fifty-five on 12th January. It was released on 12th January, 1969 in the U.S. Even though Page has recorded albums with other artists, it is his work with Led Zeppelin that we know him for best. I will come to that playlist. First, AllMusic provide some biography about a true great:

“Unquestionably one of the all-time most influential, important, and versatile guitarists and songwriters in rock history is Jimmy Page. Just about every rock guitarist from the late '60s/early '70s to the present day has been influenced by Page's work with Led Zeppelin -- his monolithic riffs served as a blueprint for what would eventually become heavy metal, yet he refused to be pigeonholed to any single musical style (touching upon folk, country, funk, blues, and other genres). Page also lent a hand in writing (or co-writing) Zeppelin's vast array of classic songs and produced all their albums. Born on January 9, 1944, in Heston, Middlesex, England, Page picked up the guitar at age 13 after being inspired by the Elvis Presley tune "Baby Let's Play House," and while he took several lessons, was mostly self-taught. Instead of attending college right after high school, Page decided to join his first real rock band, Neil Christian & the Crusaders, whom he toured England with. But Page fell seriously ill (with glandular fever) and was forced to quit and recuperate. Dejected, Page pondered giving up music and focusing on another interest, painting, as he enrolled at an art college in Sutton, Surrey.

With the emergence of such bands as the Rolling Stones in the early '60s and their gritty blues-rock, Page's interest in music perked up once again -- but instead of forming a band right away, he decided to hone his craft by becoming one of England's top session guitarists and producers. Although the exact specifics of which sessions he was involved with have become hazy over time, it's confirmed that he worked with many of the day's top acts, including the Who, Them, Donovan, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, among others. By 1966, Page was looking to put his session work on hold and join a full-time band; he accepted an offer to play with the Yardbirds (initially as a bassist, then shortly thereafter as a guitarist), as he was paired up with another one of rock's all-time guitar greats, Jeff Beck. Although the Yardbirds began as a straight-ahead blues-rock band, with the inclusion of Page in the lineup, the group began experimenting with psychedelic and hard rock styles.

Despite it being obvious that the Yardbirds were on the downside of their career (Beck left shortly after Page came onboard), Page appeared on the album Little Games and several tours before the band finally called it a day in 1968. With a string of tour dates still set up throughout Europe, Page decided to go through with the shows and put together a new band that was dubbed the New Yardbirds -- including longtime session bassist John Paul Jones, plus newcomers Robert Plant on vocals and John Bonham on drums. After the completion of their initial tour, the band changed its name to Led Zeppelin and explored the still largely uncharted territory of hard rock/heavy metal. The band immediately became one of rock's most successful and enduring bands, issuing a string of classic albums from 1969 through 1975 -- Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti -- which spawned such classic rock radio standards as "Dazed and Confused," "Whole Lotta Love," "Immigrant Song," "Black Dog," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Kashmir," as the band also became a must-see live act in the process. Page also found the time to work with folk artist Roy Harper (most notably his 1971 release, Stormcock, under the alias S. Flavius Mercurius). Zeppelin was arguably the biggest rock band in the world by the mid-'70s (their influence on other rock bands following in their wake cannot be stressed enough) as they launched their own record company, Swan Song, but it was around this time that Page began dabbling with heroin and other substances, eventually leading to him becoming a full-blown addict by the late '70s/early '80s (as a result, his playing began to suffer). Also, Page's interest in the occult became a concern to those around him (he went as far as purchasing a mansion on the Loch Ness in Scotland that was once owned by renowned Satanist Aleister Crowley).

Zeppelin continued issuing albums until the dawn of the '80s (1976's concert movie/soundtrack The Song Remains the Same and Presence, 1979's In Through the Out Door), but tragedy ultimately derailed the quartet -- the death of Plant's young son in 1977 and Bonham's alcohol-related death in 1980. After Led Zeppelin decided to call it quits in late 1980, Page disappeared from sight (it became known later on that he hardly touched his instrument for a long time afterward). It wasn't until 1982 that Page began to emerge from his self-imposed exile, as he composed and played on the motion picture soundtrack to Death Wish III, compiled the Zeppelin outtakes collection Coda, and took part in the 1983 star-studded A.R.M.S. tour, which saw Page unite with Beck and Eric Clapton for a series of shows that raised money for multiple sclerosis research. In 1984, Page guested alongside Plant, Beck, and Nile Rodgers on the hit EP of rock & roll oldies The Honeydrippers, and formed his first band since the demise of Zeppelin, dubbed the Firm. The group featured former Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers, and despite the fact that their self-titled debut was a sizable hit, the band decided to call it a day shortly after the release of its lukewarm-received sophomore effort, Mean Business.

Led Zeppelin fans were given a rare treat when Zeppelin's surviving three members reunited (with drummers Tony Thompson and Phil Collins) for the mammoth Live Aid at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium in July 1985 -- unfortunately handing in an incredibly under-rehearsed, sloppy performance. Zeppelin reunited again in 1988 for the Atlantic Records 25th anniversary concert at New York's Madison Square Garden (this time Bonham's son, Jason, filled in for his late father behind the kit), and yet again performed another mistake-filled mini set. The same year Page guested on Plant's solo release Now & Zen, as well as issuing his first ever solo recording, Outrider, following it up with a tour that touched upon tracks from all eras of his career. By the early '90s, further rumors of an impending Zeppelin reunion continued to circulate, and after Plant declined an invitation from Page to join forces once again, Page decided to collaborate with former Deep Purple/Whitesnake vocalist David Coverdale, whose vocal style was often compared to Plant's over the years. Page's latest project only lasted a single album, 1993's heavily Zep-like Coverdale/Page, as a proposed world tour was scrapped in favor of just a few select dates in Japan.

In 1994, Plant and Page finally agreed to collaborate once again (although Jones wasn't invited this time), leading to the release of the acoustic set No Quarter the same year, plus a highly popular MTV Unplugged special and sold-out world tour. A year later, Led Zeppelin were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, this being the second time a Page-related band got the nod from the Hall (in 1992, the Yardbirds were honored). The year 1998 saw Plant and Page issue an album of all-new material, Walking into Clarksdale, which was surprisingly not well received by the public, sinking from sight shortly after its release. The duo went their separate ways by the late '90s, as Page joined the Black Crowes for a tour and live album (2000's Live at the Greek). The same year as the album's release, another Crowes/Page tour was cut short due to a back injury Page suffered. But in June of 2001, Page took to the concert stage alongside Plant to celebrate the 60th birthday of Roy Harper.

In 2005 Page was appointed Office of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his charity work, and the following year he was inducted, along with the rest of Led Zeppelin, into the U.K. Music Hall of Fame. A one-off charity concert with all of the surviving Led Zeppelin members, with Jason Bonham on drums, occurred in 2007 at the O2 Arena in London, and in 2008 Page appeared in and co-produced the guitar documentary It Might Get Loud, which focused on the careers and playing styles of Page, Jack White, and U2's the Edge. In 2012 Page, Plant, and Jones received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors from President Barack Obama in a White House ceremony amidst rumors circulating about a possible Led Zeppelin reunion in anticipation of the forthcoming deluxe reissues of the band's first three studio albums. By 2014 those rumors had mostly abated, and Page announced that he was going to put together a band and tour as a solo act for the first time since 1988”.

Many happy returns to Jimmy Page for 9th January. A guitar God who is in the music history books, you can tell his work a mile away. Such a distinct player and composer, he is responsible for co-writing (mostly with Robert Plant) some of the greatest songs ever. From Whole Lotta Love, Stairway to Heaven and Black Dog, there is nobody out there like him. As he turns eighty very soon, below is a playlist of songs showcasing his guitar chops. You can hear and tell why he is…

SO respected and loved.

FEATURE: Possibly, Definitely Maybe: The Beginning of Recording on a Classic Album Approaching Its Thirtieth Anniversary

FEATURE:

 

 

Possibly, Definitely Maybe

The Beginning of Recording on a Classic Album Approaching Its Thirtieth Anniversary

_________

I have it on…

good authority (well, a few websites!) that Oasis began recording their seminal debut album, Definitely Maybe, on 7th January, 1994. Camping out in Monnow Valley Studio in South Wales, the embryonic touches happened. Those early discussions and noodling. The infant notes that would start the process of a masterpiece. Definitely Maybe turns thirty on 29th August. There will be celebrations around the album’s thirtieth anniversary closer to the time. The first single, Supersonic, is thirty on 11th April. Oasis’ lead, Liam Gallagher, has said he will tour the album this year to mark its thirtieth. I am going to bring in some features around a seismic album from one of our greatest bands. Produced by Owen Morris, Oasis, Mark Coyle and David Batchelor, Definitely Maybe was released through the Creation label. A number one success in the U.K., you can read more about the recording and aftermath here. No doubt one of the biggest and most important albums of the 1990s, I often think of it in context of the ensuring Britpop battle that would form between Oasis and Blur. Blur released their debut in 1991. Their third, Parklife, came out on 25th April, 1994. That album too will get a load of love on its thirtieth. There was this media-stoked rivalry between the band. The truth is that they both released their genius albums in 1994. A brilliant time to be alive! If Cigarettes & Alcohol, Slide Away, and Supersonic were not enough, the album starts with one of the best trios of songs ever: Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, Shakemaker and Live Forever. The band meant business and came swaggering onto the scene.

There are a few interesting articles and bits I want to bring in. I will celebrate Definitely Maybe again closer to its thirtieth anniversary in August. As the band started work and were in the studio in January 1994, it is a good time to look back and how those shoots and early ideas led to something supermassive. TIDAL paid tribute to Definitely Maybe on its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2019. The album still sound so vibrant and essential:

“Just a few months after Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Oasis released its debut album, Definitely Maybe, and offered up a no-holds-barred slice of good, old-fashioned rock & roll that changed the face of music almost immediately.

“People always go on and on about the past being this magical, wonderful thing, but that early period really does seem like the last golden period for music,” Noel Gallagher, the former leader of Oasis, says of the earliest days of his band.

The Oasis formula — adding a large dash of the Sex Pistols and T. Rex to the obvious Beatles/Stones/Kinks influences that most British bands wear as a badge of honor — created a turbo-charged sound that’s as urgent today as it was in 1994. But the album had a difficult birth.

Demoed and recorded multiple times over the course of 1993 and 1994 at no less than two major recording studios — and under the tutelage of two producers — Definitely Maybe is a lesson in perseverance and artistic self-assuredness, even as it stands as one of the last great moments from a bygone era in the music business.

According to Oasis’ original drummer, Tony McCarroll, English rock band the Real People initially invited the band in 1992 to record a demo at the group’s Liverpool studio as bait for the record companies. And the demo worked; Alan McGee of Creation Records signed Oasis soon after, sending them back to the Real People to record what was going to be their first single, “Bring it on Down.”

“For whatever reason, it wasn’t coming together,” McCarroll recalls. “I was doing a sound check with the bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, over and over, and the doors kicked open, and Noel said, ‘Keep that going, keep that going.’ That night he wrote ‘Supersonic.’”

The band went on to tussle with the likes of Dave Batchelor, who’d worked with legendary groups like the Kinks, but their styles didn’t mesh. “He had us all separated, when we were used to being in a small rehearsal space, looking in each other’s eyes,” McCarroll says.

“It’s just wasn’t sounding right,” agrees Oasis founder and guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs. “So we had to have a rethink.” The band then decamped to Sawmills Studio down in Cornwall, England, to work with producer Mark Coyle, the man responsible for their live sound. He recorded the band together, in the same room — and the result was electric.

Noel Gallagher was also on a serious songwriting roll. McCarroll and Bonehead recall that he was writing at a furious pace, with each song seemingly better than the last. “At first a lot of them were just long jams that turned into songs,” McCarroll says. “But there were fully formed songs, too. And they were all amazing.”

“I’ve said this before, but the day he brought in ‘Live Forever,’ I didn’t believe he’d written it,” Bonehead recalls. “I was sure it was some obscure ‘60s B-side. It was just so good, and fully formed. But he just kept churning them out, one after the other, and they were all priceless.”

For his part, Gallagher recalls those early days fondly. “You’re only in that position once,” he says. “You’ve had your whole life to get to that point, and the only expectation people have is that you’re going to have a good time and maybe make a single. But by the time I’d written ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ and ‘Supersonic,’ I did feel a bit unstoppable.”

Oasis had cut its teeth on gigs to small, rowdy crowds on the relatively quiet early ‘90s Northern England music scene, honing their individual skills, and working the kinks out of Gallagher’s already formidable songs. But without a great front man, they would have been nothing, says Bonehead. For that, he turned to Noel’s brother, Liam.

“Even when we were teenagers, and he was passing us by on the football pitch, Liam had the swagger and look,” Bonehead says. “It almost didn’t matter what he sounded like, because he was just born a front man.”

“I have fond memories, because that’s when we started out, when you don’t know which way it’s going to go, even though you think you’re the balls,” Liam Gallagher recalls. “You don’t know how people are going to take you. And then it takes off! So those are fond memories.”

By the spring of 1994, when Oasis made its first rumblings on the U.K. music scene, guitar bands seemed to be becoming a thing of the past. The Smiths and the Stone Roses had both called it a day, Cobain had killed himself, and Primal Scream was struggling to replicate their landmark achievement, 1991’s Screamadelica. Oasis stepped into that breach with big plans.

“I could tell right away that they weren’t aiming to be some little-known indie band,” says Gary Crowley, the legendary UK DJ. “They had tunes and charisma, sure, but they were really funny and enjoying themselves at a time when most other bands seemed to hate being interviewed. Noel wanted them to be the biggest band in the world”.

In 2019, Rock Cellar got together those involved in making Definitely Maybe. Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs, original drummer Tony McCarroll, plus the man who signed Oasis, Creation Records’ head Alan McGee, the legendary D.J. Gary Crowley, and host of The Oasis Podcast, James Corcoran, told the story and shared their memories of the mighty Definitely Maybe:

“25 years after Oasis announced its arrival to the world, Noel and Liam Gallagher, Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, Tony McCarroll, plus Creation Records head Alan McGee, DJ Gary Crowley and the Oasis Podcast host James Corcoran, tell the origin story of the band’s groundbreaking debut album.

The Oasis formula — adding a large dash of the Sex Pistols and T. Rex to the obvious Beatles/Stones/Kinks influences — created a turbo-charged sound that’s as urgent today as it was in 1994, twenty-five years ago, when Definitely Maybe, Oasis’ debut album, hit record store shelves.

Rock Cellar gathered together interviews with lead singer Liam Gallagher, guitarist and principal songwriter Noel Gallagher, guitarist and Oasis founder Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, original drummer Tony McCarroll, plus the man who signed Oasis, Creation Records head Alan McGee, the legendary DJ Gary Crowley, and host of The Oasis Podcast James Corcoran, and the end result is the story about the greatest debut album ever made, and what it still means, all these years later, a key part of Oasis’ impact on the world.

Liam Gallagher: It was the beginning, and all that, that was obviously exciting.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: It doesn’t feel like twenty-five years ago. That’s the scary fucking thing. Twenty-five years in anyone’s life is a long time!

Liam Gallagher: Yeah, our goal was getting a record deal. Then having the fucking brains to go into a studio and put my fucking life on hold to go and make some music. Not getting into a silly 9 to 5 job like all the other dickheads there. And not be caught wearing leather trousers.

If I get out of this life without turning into a knob head and being photographed with leather trousers on I think that would have been a bit of a success.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: We started off as the Rain, but that was just a bit of fun. I’d always played guitar. I had a drum machine. I had a bass guitar. And it was just a case of not having much mood to go out and drink every night. I was friends with Guigs, and it was just a case of us chatting and me saying, “You know what, Guigs, why don’t we start a band?” And Guigs was like, “Well, I can’t play an instrument.” And I said, “Well, you know what, I’ve got a bass guitar, and a bass guitar, all you’ve got to do is hit one note. I’ll show you.” So that was it, really.

Then we had a drum machine, and Chris Hutton, who’d sing, but he wasn’t the best singer in the world. And we didn’t have the best songs in the world. But it was a bit of fun, playing and making noise with the drum machine in the garage. That’s how that started.

Tony McCarroll: We were well aware of each other from 10, 11 upwards. I was invited down to watch them one night, he they a drum machine in the corner. They were good. Bonehead was always impressive on an instrument, whatever it was, whatever he played. I joined Rain that night, probably early nineties; 1991.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: The Stone Roses were the big influence. That was in the late eighties. We used to go to Hacienda. On a Tuesday night, they used to have what was called the “local band night.” I think it was a one-pound in then. There’d be eight bands. So we used to rehearse and then after rehearsals we’d go to Hacienda for local band night. It was fucking brilliant, because you’d see these bands and it was cool and retro. We saw Nico playing there, she was living in Manchester at the time.

Tony McCarroll: We definitely had a Manchester vibe. But we had aspirations from that point on. Yes, we want to be famous. Yes, we want to be successful in the music business. We put our hearts into it from that point. I do credit Bonehead. That big wall of sound? That beefy, big, dangerous wall of sound? That carried over to Oasis.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: Liam was always that kid that you’d see on the street. He always had the coolest clothes. He always had the coolest haircut. He always had the coolest walk. If you didn’t know him, you’d take one look at him and think, “That guy’s got to be in a band. He’s definitely in a band. I’ve just got to find out what band he’s in.”

He just looked the part. He didn’t look like a footballer. He didn’t look like a guy who worked in an office. He looked like a guy who was made to be in a band. He just had that whole charisma about him, which he still does. So Liam had never sung before, but he was inspired by the Roses, and that’s what he wanted to do. He came over to mine and sat on the floor and played along to a couple of demos I’d made. His voice came out and it was like, wow. It’s nothing like the Liam we know now. He was a lot more angelic. Melodic. I don’t know how to describe his voice. Upbeat. But he certainly had “that” voice.

Tony McCarroll: The sound was always getting better and crisper. Everyone bang on the notes. We free-formed band songs.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: As soon as Liam came in, we got really going with the singing. We were like, “We’ve got to change the mood of the tunes. We can’t stay as the Rain.”

Tony McCarroll: I was unaware of what he could do. Obviously, his voice has had a battering since then, but he had very clean-cut, high notes, and he was hitting those high notes. You’d never believe Liam Gallagher could do it like that, but yeah, he was there. And I do remember, because I worked with him when he was 16, 17, and he was always saying, “I am going to be famous. I am going to be famous.”

Lo and behold, he kept to his word and made it happen.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: Noel came back off tour with Inspiral Carpets, and asked, “What’s new?” We said, “Liam’s in the band.” He said, “What? Liam’s what? Doing what?” We said, “We’ve got a band, we’re playing down at the boardwalk.” Noel went, “I’ve got to come down to see this.”

Noel came down to see us. And I think he thought, yeah, there’s something there. You look like a band. The songs aren’t there, but you look like a band doing it on the stage. And he was like, “What about if I come down to the rehearsal room where you rehearse? I’ll come down and bring my guitar and bring my amp and we can have a jam.” And we were like, “Yeah, cool.” Which he did. He came down and that extra guitar,

Noel’s guitar, lead guitar, just jamming, had an immediate effect. We knew we had to bring Noel in. But then of course, Noel being Noel, while he was on tour with the Inspiral Carpets, he’d been writing songs. We all knew he wrote songs, but he started playing these songs that he’d written, and it was just like, wow, fucking hell. We were like, this guy’s got to be in the band. “Noel, you’ve got to be in the band and write the songs.” And he joined.

Tony McCarroll: Noel came down to check out what was going on. And I asked him to join, in front of Liam. At first, I believe he wanted to play bass. Or I think Liam wanted him to play bass. That was uncomfortable.

Alan McGee (Creation Records): They played four songs the night I saw them for the first time, and signed them: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” “Up In The Sky,” “Bring It On Down” and a Beatles cover. They played great. Liam sang great. Noel played great guitar.

Liam Gallagher: I just remember just being, like, alright, cool we got a deal. It’s our chance to fucking make it happen and sort it out, you know what I mean? You know, let’s not fucking blow it. Fuck Knebworth. Fuck Maine Road. Fuck all that. The best part of it was getting a deal, getting in the studio, and getting out of shitty little venues.

Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs: When McGee signed us, then we got a manager. We didn’t have a manager at the time. We found Marcus Russell, because Johnny Marr recommended him. And we just went out. We gigged and gigged and gigged. Every night. I was driving the van, and the band were in the back of the van, and we just went out and we gigged, and we gigged. We were so fucking tight”.

I am going to finish up with some reviews. The final one related to a reissued version of the album, complete with demos. The sort of sketches that were being made around this time thirty years ago. They would form into their timeless songs that soundtracked a generation. The BBC reviewed Definitely Maybe in 2007. I think that this is an album that will be talked about for generations. You can see the legacy of Definitely Maybe. It inspired a legion of bands. It continues to influence and compel artists to write and pick up guitars:

“In August 1994, just a few months after Kurt Cobain killed himself (and the grunge movement that he'd become the reluctant figurehead of), Oasis’ debut Definitely Maybe was released.

To put this seismic attitude shift into perspective: Kurt’s working title for the final Nirvana album, In Utero, was I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. Definitely Maybe’s most popular song is called Live Forever.

So how did two punters from Burnage, an unremarkable area of Manchester, become so famous? Despite the fact that the second album, (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory, sold more copies and propelled them to tabloid superstardom and 10 Downing Street, the answers are all here.

The album kicks off with Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, which Noel has since said was the end of everything he wanted to say as a songwriter. He’s right in a sense, as it’s easily one of the greatest songs about being up on stage ever written. On arguably Liam’s greatest ever vocal performance he goads all-comers with: "You’re not down with who I am / Look at you now you’re all in my hands tonight." And that’s without even considering the attendant guitar riffs that snag your brain like barbed wire on your best jumper. If you’ve got a mate or relative who’s having a bad time of it, play them this, then watch them grow 10 feet tall and walk down the street like they rule the whole world.

Although at this point it’s easy to imagine the faces of every other British band of the time sadly searching the classifieds for a new vocation, there are still 10 more tracks left. How about Supersonic, a sky-scraping anthem about individuality adopted by the masses? Or Cigarettes and Alcohol, a brash T Rex paean to hedonism? Or Bring It On Down, a non-stop, no-messing punk stomp to certain death or glory?

It’s easy to trot out the tired argument that these Mancs don’t have the power of The Stone Roses or The Smiths because the songs don’t have the wistful, melancholic air that one comes to expect from songs emerging from that rainy Lancashire city. Is it true to say "It’s just Beatles songwriting with Sex Pistols attitude"? Maybe. But have these songs transcended the Conservative-greyed and Britpop-glossed years in which they became public property to become heroic, gigantic pop monuments in their own right? Definitely”.

In 2014, TIME reviewed the twentieth anniversary edition of Definitely Maybe. I remember when the album came out in 1994 and the excitement in the air. It was the year I started high school. In fact, I started in September 1994, so it was this transition period where I was being kept up and positive by music. Definitely Maybe was a huge revelation:

“When Definitely Maybe dropped in August of 1994, it wasn’t out of the blue. Oasis had steadily been releasing singles for a few months prior, beginning with “Supersonic” on April 11, 1994, six days after Cobain’s suicide. Though “Supersonic” was the first official single released by Oasis (and it even charted in the UK Top 40), the group had been passing around a ‘white label’ demo of their track “Columbia” for a few months prior, but with little interest generated. With the deluxe reissue of Definitely Maybe, that white label demo version has been included, as well as an alternate mix of “Columbia”. Not only does it show that the band was on to something, but also how easily the band could have been written off (especially when listening to the third version of the song included on disc three).

Usually I am not a fan of overloaded box sets with all sorts of multiple versions of songs that barely differ, but in this case I actually find it somewhat interesting to go back and hear what Oasis sounded like before they got a proper producer. For the most part, the demos represent a band that had good ideas and were on the right path, but that something was just not quite all the way there. In John Harris’ book Britpop!, Creation Records label head Tim Abbott summed it up perfectly: “[We] had a great sesh, and we listened to it over and over again. And all I could think was, ‘It ain’t got the attack.’ There was no immediacy.” Consider the two versions of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, the album version and the demo. Though it is still filled with swagger, the demo lacks the braggadocio of the finalized product, yet in a weird twist, actually highlights Liam Gallagher’s voice better. I have never been one to idolize Liam or his style. In fact, I think his voice is rather lackluster, minimal in range; and though he has been heralded as a cross between John Lennon and John Lydon, he’s far more nasally than either (and when you consider how Noel stood in successfully for his brother during the group’s Unplugged performance, it almost relegates Liam to desired but not necessary for the band’s success). But listening to Liam on these demos, dare I say that there is a bit of range in his singing? It almost begs the question as to what happened to it in mixing.

The most obvious thing taken away from the demo versions of these songs is that though Noel had the songwriting chops and vision, he was missing the objectivity that comes with an outside producer, in this case Mark Coyle, Dave Batchelor (a friend of Noel’s from his days working with Inspiral Carpets), and Owen Morris, an associate of Johnny Marr and an engineer-turned-producer trained in the ways of Phil Spector and Tony Visconti. It was Morris who would be instrumental in putting the balls on Definitely Maybe. In fact, it would be fair to say that without Morris, there would be no Definitely Maybe; at least not in the way we’ve come to know. One of the first things he did was effectively ego-check Noel when he stripped off all the guitar overdubs that Gallagher had layered over the album’s material, and as John Harris stated, “remoulded [the album] into something positively pile-driving.” Morris would go on to produce the first four Oasis albums.

Think about the band’s third single, a song described by Noel as “the tune that changed everything,” and the first that really woke people up to Oasis’ potential: “Live Forever”. In addition to cutting out part of Noel’s guitar solo to tighten things up and make it sound less like what he described as “Slash from Guns n’ Roses,” Morris excised the demo’s acoustic guitar intro to give the song a bit more weight, and instead had drummer Tony McCarroll play a beat that not only solidifies the song but helps give it a boost in becoming the monumental track it would eventually become known as. It’s almost a twisted irony that McCarroll played a part that almost immediately identifies the song but was later fired from the band by Noel for not having the skills to do the job.

In spite of Noel’s objections to an album having five singles, if one were to include both the white label release of “Columbia” and the US single for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, Oasis plucked six songs out of 11 from their debut album, four of which were released before the album, and three rather successfully. And that certainly does not suggest that the non-singles were not worthy of release. “Slide Away”, the last rocker on the album, and a love song on par with “Wonderwall” but with more “grr” and less “ahh,” was originally slated for release until Noel objected. Easily one of the strongest tracks on the album, it has gone on to become a fan favorite and I can only imagine that it’s amazing live. Every time I hear Liam wail that refrain, I see pyrotechnics going off all around.

In spite of everything that Oasis would become on record, on stage, in the tabloids, Definitely Maybe stands above it all. It came before the drama and the bullshit that fed into the media’s desire for conflict. Be it the interpersonal conflict between the brothers Gallagher or the inter-band conflicts with Blur and others, this album remains unscathed. Yes, the brothers fought prior to and during this album’s creation, release, and tour, but not to the point that it was overwhelming or distracting to the fans. That would come later. As would the “Battle of Britpop,” so labeled by the press when Blur’s label intentionally released their single “Country House” the same day as Oasis was set to release “Roll With It”. (Blur may have won the battle, but Oasis most certainly won the war.) And of course, the press’ obsession with the band’s antics, especially Liam’s, rather than the group’s music, wouldn’t overtake everything for another couple of albums. At the time of Definitely Maybe, there was nothing but hope and promise for Oasis. For a band that set out to take over the world and be the greatest rock and roll group since the Beatles, they were well on their way”.

Go and get Definitely Maybe if you can. You can also read about the creation of Definitely Maybe and why it is such an important album. When Oasis were at Monnow Valley Studio and started work on their debut album on 7th January, 1994, could they have known what would come?! How it would be received and how their career would take off?! In one of music’s best years, Oasis’ debut album might be the defining statement and biggest event. They would follow it a year later with an album perhaps even better regarded: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? It all started with the epic Definitely Maybe. If the title hints at uncertainty and modesty, Oasis’ debut album made a confident and emphatic statement about their quality and importance. Absolutely no…

QUESTION about it!

FEATURE: Groovelines: The Bangles – Eternal Flame

FEATURE:

Groovelines

The Bangles – Eternal Flame

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THERE is a good reason…

IN THIS PHOTO: Susanna Hoffs

why I am spotlighting the amazing Eternal Flame by The Bangles. Not only is it a song very dear to me. One of its writers, and a member of The Bangles, Susanna Hoffs, celebrates her sixty-fifth birthday on 17th January. One of my favourite artists, I wanted to salute her. Go deep with an amazing song. Released on 23rd January, 1989, Eternal Flame soon celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary. That is the U.K. release at least, as the song started at eighty-one in the singles chart of 29th January to 4th February, 1989. It is a song that is very important to me. One I remember coming out and blowing me away. From the arresting, beautiful and emotional vocal from Susanna Hoffs, through to the video – one that I saw played on VH1 back in the day -, it a thing of wonder. Taken from The Bangles’ 1988 album, Everything, Eternal Flame was the second single from it (after In Your Room). Like In Your Room, Eternal Flame was written by Susanna Hoffs, Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg. A number one in the U.S. and U.K., Eternal Flame is one of the best-loved songs from The Bangles. The group, Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson, Michael Steele and Debbi Peterson delivered the song with such purity and power. A track that is still lodged in my head nearly thirty-five years after its release. I will come to an article that goes deep inside Eternal Flame. I know there was a feeling within the band that, because Hoffs had the lead vocal on this song and In Your Room, she was being placed at the front – their lead and central focus. I don’t think that was ever true. A case of two songs where she was lead chosen as singles. I hope Susanna Hoffs – who will probably not get to read this – doesn’t mind me celebrating a song that maybe contributed to the break-up of The Bangles. The group did part ways in 1989., yet they re-formed in 1999 and released albums in 2003 and 2011.

IN THIS PHOTO: The Bangles from left, Vicki Peterson, Susanna Hoffs, Debbi Peterson, Michael Steele in 1988/PHOTO CREDIT: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy

In 2021, Susanna Hoffs and co-writer Billy Steinberg explained how they made Eternal Flame. The Guardian got the lowdown on one of the classic tracks of the 1980s. A story I thought was a myth when I was younger – regarding Susanna Hoffs being naked in the studio when recording her vocal – turned out to be true. It was a weird and wonderful time for The Bangles. With songs like this in their locker, there was also a sense of tension and exhaustion:

“Susanna Hoffs, singer, guitarist, co-writer

In 1988, it felt like the Bangles had been touring endlessly. Our second album, Different Light, with the singles Manic Monday and Walk Like an Egyptian, had been released two years earlier. Now, finally, we could take a break from living on buses together.

I began collaborating with the songwriting team Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, who wrote Like a Virgin and True Colors. Writing, for me, had always meant picking up a guitar and crafting a melody; the lyrics would emerge after I felt the emotion of the song. But Billy and Tom would always start with a lyric.

I went over to Billy’s house and was telling him about a Bangles trip to Graceland, in Memphis. When we got to Elvis’s grave, we started recreating Spinal Tap singing Heartbreak Hotel there when we noticed that the eternal flame by the grave was out because it was raining. Billy said: “Wait, eternal flame? That is a great name for a song.” Within about an hour we had the lyrics.

The song is about connection, hope and what we hold most dear. There’s a yearning in it, from the awareness that not everything is eternal, but we don’t want love to seem fragile; we want to depend on it.

When we made the demo at Tom’s studio, we recorded what we instinctively felt should have been a keyboard part, the little tick tock running through the song, on guitar. This was because the Bangles didn’t have a keyboard player. It was Vicki Peterson and me on guitar, Michael Steele on bass and Debbi Peterson on drums. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm and excitement about the song were so great that I carried the demo cassette around in my bag and would play it for anyone willing to listen.

Cut to the tense moment the band sat down with our producer, Davitt Sigerson, to vote which songs would be on the next album, Everything. Eternal Flame was rejected and I was heartbroken, but in the Bangles everybody played and sang and was represented creatively.

Once recording the album was under way, Davitt said: “I keep thinking about Eternal Flame and I know this wonderful keyboard arranger. Let’s go over to his studio and mess around.” When the band heard the result, they decided to go along for the journey.

Davitt had recently produced Olivia Newton-John and pranked me by telling me she did her best vocals in the nude. I imagined it would feel like skinny dipping –vulnerable yet freeing – and I decided to try it. Nobody could see me; there was a baffle in front of me and it was dark. After the first song went so well, I became superstitious about it, like in sports where you have to have your rabbit’s foot, and ended up compelled to skinny dip my way through most of the album, including Eternal Flame.

In 1988, it was the beginning of the end for the Bangles. We’d spent our 20s together, starting as a powerpop, garage-rock, local club band and eventually releasing three albums with Columbia records. After Everything was released, we went off to create our own music in different ways. But we have come back together to tour since, and that same bond is still there between us. It’s an eternal flame!

Billy Steinberg, songwriter

When Susanna told me about the eternal flame for Elvis at Graceland, it made me recall a childhood memory. My family was not very religious but my parents did send me to Sunday school. It was quiet and dark in the synagogue and there was a little red bulb they used to call the eternal flame. I immediately took out a notebook and free associated to the title.

When Tom and I wrote the songs True Colors, Like a Virgin and Alone, we had to make demos and then try to find a record company executive who thought they would be good for one of their artists. We were really lucky because Cyndi Lauper, Madonna and Heart sang the songs beautifully. But it was nothing like when you’re in a room with Chrissie Hynde or Susanna Hoffs, hearing one of those great pop singers sing the song as you create it. It’s so much less arduous and a great inspiration.

Eternal Flame was retro in that it has no chorus. It is structured like an old Beatles song, with the title tagged on to the end of the verse: “Am I only dreaming / Or is this burning an eternal flame?” The Beatles do a similar kind of thing on We Can Work It Out. Instead of choruses, both songs have two bridges (or middle eights). In We Can Work It Out, the bridge is the part that starts, “Life is very short / And there’s no time…” And in Eternal Flame it begins, “Say my name / Sun shines through the rain…” In the 60s, it wasn’t that unusual to have songs structured in that way, but, by the 80s, choruses were much more developed and middle eights had started to disappear.

The enduring popularity of the song is very gratifying. Some songs are hits and then they vanish, and some songs remain evergreen. I think Eternal Flame has that status”.

I love the bones of Eternal Flame. It is a magnificent song that Susanna Hoffs has performed quite a few times live through the years. One she feels an attachment to, I wanted to tie it into her sixty-fifth birthday celebration. An eternal goddess, let’s hope we get a special version of this very soon. I melt every time I hear her sing it! Also in 2021, Stereogum highlighted Eternal Flame for their feature, The Number Ones:

“Eternal Flame” does not sound much like a Bangles song. By the time they recorded 1988’s Everything, their third album, the Bangles had carved out a reliable chart presence with a very specific sound, a jangly and garage-y and consistently upbeat take on harmony-heavy ’60s folk-rock. With that sound, the Bangles had broken through in a huge way. The band’s 1986 single “Walk Like An Egyptian” had spent a month at #1, and Billboard had eventually named it the biggest song of 1987. “Walk Like An Egyptian” also kicks ass. So do the Bangles’ other hits. So when the Bangles came out with “Eternal Flame,” a #1 hit that completely diverged from their established sound, a whole lot of people — some of whom may have been actual Bangles — felt like the song was bad. These people were wrong.

In the late ’80s, the songwriting team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly went on a ridiculous run, cranking out a series of #1 hits that also happen to be bangers: Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors,” Heart’s “Alone,” Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional.” Steinberg was a Bangles fan, and he went to see the band at the Palace in Hollywood. There, he met Susanna Hoffs. Hoffs and Steinberg were both fans and scholars of ’60s pop, and they made plans to write some songs together. One of those songs was “I Need A Disguise,” which Belinda Carlisle recorded for her 1986 solo debut Belinda. That’s a pretty good start.

At one of their songwriting sessions, Hoffs told Steinberg and Kelly a story about when the Bangles had gone to visit Graceland while touring through Memphis. At Graceland, there was an outdoor shrine to Elvis with what was supposed to be an eternal flame. The day they visited, though, it was raining, so the eternal flame was out. Steinberg immediately suggested that “Eternal Flame” would be a great song title. As a kid in Palm Springs, he’d gone to a synagogue that had an eternal flame of its own. In Fred Bronson’s Billboard Book Of Number 1 Hits, a book that I cite in pretty much every column these days, Steinberg says, “There was a little red light — like a little red Christmas light — that they called the eternal flame. I remember thinking that there was this flame that could burn forever. It seemed very mysterious. It was like thinking about how far the universe goes, those little things that kids think about that blow their minds.”

Hoffs and Steinberg wrote the “Eternal Flame” lyrics together quickly, and Steinberg loves pointing out that the song has no chorus. (The “say my name, sun shines through the rain” bit is technically a middle eight.) Hoffs and Steinberg wanted “Eternal Flame” to sound like a track from the ’60s, when pop songwriting often had a less rigid set of rules. (Steinberg: “For us, ‘Eternal Flame’ was the Beatles meet the Byrds.”) Kelly arranged the music, and he and Hoffs recorded a demo together. They knew that “Eternal Flame” would sound better with a piano, but they used guitar on the demo instead, since the Bangles didn’t have a keyboard player. Hoffs sang lead on the demo, and Kelly sang the backup harmonies.

“Eternal Flame” is a love song, of course. But what’s striking about it is how uncertain — how fearful — Susanna Hoffs sounds. She’s head over heels for somebody, but she can’t luxuriate in her own happiness because she’s too consumed with the idea that this love is a fleeting thing. When she goes over everything in her mind, a future without this person becomes a horrifying possibility: “A whole life, so lonely, and then come and ease the pain/ I don’t wanna lose this feeling.”

Those “Eternal Flame” lyrics aren’t statements. They’re questions. Do you understand? Do you feel the same? Am I only dreaming? Or is this burning an eternal flame? It’s hard to imagine Hoffs’ narrator actually asking these questions. Instead, “Eternal Flame” sounds, to me, more like an internal monologue. Hoffs doesn’t really want to tell this person that she watches them when they’re sleeping. Instead, these terrible worries well up within her, and they stay there.

Hoffs’ phrasing on “Eternal Flame” just kills me. She wails the everloving fuck out of the song, but there’s no conviction in her delivery. Instead, her voice cracks and quavers. She’s in anguish. The arrangement answers that anguish back. It’s vast and majestic — strings, synths, pianos, kettle drums. (In the video, each new crescendo triggers a firework explosion or a crashing wave. I love that shit.) The other Bangles, harmonizing behind Hoffs, sound dispassionate and ethereal, like ghosts. They can’t soothe her narrator. All they can do is echo her questions back at her and offer ahhhs that at least come off vaguely sympathetic. In its all-crushing drama, “Eternal Flame” is almost gothic. The song offers Hoffs’ narrator no real comfort. When “Eternal Flame” ends, her questions are still open. She still doesn’t know if this flame is eternal”.

A stunning song that has passion and trepidation in the vocal. This sensed of yearning (and burning) that also has caution and fear. A fascinating song co-written and sung by Susanna Hoffs. She is sixty-five on 17th January…so I wanted to use this opportunity to wish her a happy birthday. Also show my love for one of my favourite songs ever. It is so stirring that it does something to me every time I hear it. When it comes to this song and its white-hot flame, it is something that can…

NEVER extinguish.

FEATURE: Don’t Call It a Comeback! The Media’s Overuse of the Word ‘Return’ – and Whether It Reflects Our Need for Constant Engagement

FEATURE:

 

 

Don’t Call It a Comeback!

PHOTO CREDIT: Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels

The Media’s Overuse of the Word ‘Return’ – and Whether It Reflects Our Need for Constant Engagement

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THIS might seem like an odd feature idea…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

but I can’t help noticing that, whenever an artist releases a new track or album after a short time away, it is called a ‘return’. It may seem like a minor point but, as there is no timeline or rule on how often an artist needs to release music, the word does seem quite pressuring. Like they have been in the wilderness for years and are now back after all of this time. Sure, if someone like Tom Waits released a new single, that might be seen as a return. His album, Bad As Me, came out in 2011. Even so, he has not retired or gone missing in action. Although it does get applied to some artists who have not made music in a few years, you see it all the time in articles relating to a new single from someone who released material a few months before. It doesn’t help that artists like Paul Weller are calling out young musicians who leave gaps between albums! I remember, when Sampha announced news of Lahai, it was seen as a big return. Even if Process, his Mercury-winning debut, was released in 2017, he had not retired or was suggesting he’d be gone. This feeling that he has come back to us after such a long time! Even artists who leave a few months between singles are said to ‘return’. I know what the music media means. They are saying they are back with new material. That is what a music career is. As I said, there is no ruling how often artists should be releasing material, so there is that oddness to saying they have ‘returned’. It can be ridiculous in some cases; maybe someone who released as recently as two or three months ago puts another single out. Suddenly, it is this ‘return’! It sort of makes me wonder whether, in a streaming age where you can get access to music all the time, there is a feeling that artists need to keep producing or fear being irrelevant or passed over!

It bothers me a bit, as I would encourage artists to take as much time as they need. This excitement and anticipation when they release a single or album then leads to people listening and adding to that praise. Do artists feel they need to keep busy and put out music right away?! Fine if that is really what they want to do. I still think music is an industry where there is an unspoken expectation of prolific-ness and productivity. If you dare to take a year between albums or even take six months to follow up one single with another, articles will then keep talking about you returning to the fold. The insulation that it has been a while and, don’t sweat, they are now back! It does seem quite absurd. Rather than this being their musical comeback, the artist is simple conducting their career on their own term. I wonder if this applies to any other industry. Where there is this relief almost when an artist releases music and we sort of assumed they had faded away. Maybe I am reading too much into it, yet so many music news articles relating to new material has that word ‘return(s)’ in it. Such an odd choice. I am not going to highlight or out one website that does it more than others. It is a word I have seen applied to so many. I guess, factually and in terms of the definition, a new song after a little time is a ‘return’. I often wonder what affect that has on an artist if they read it. I don’t think I am bringing up anything new or revelatory. There has on been pressure on artists to put music out as often as possible.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay/Pexels

I wonder whether this can overwork them. Coupled with tour demands and the pressure to keep up with competition and stay in the public eye can lead to mental health challenges and burn out. Maybe social media is a factor in this need for new stuff all the time. Perhaps artists feeling like the streaming age does not pay them enough. That they can earn a living if they keeping pumping out albums, tour them and then repeat. In 2019, The Guardian asked why Pop especially was so demanding and productivity-driven:

“For many artists who release independently, whether they are rappers dropping mixtapes or punks with tape labels, fast-and-furious releases are nothing new. But even major-label pop stars are at it. Ariana Grande released her album Thank U, Next just six months after her previous LP, Sweetener; within two months, she had moved on again, releasing the non-album single Monopoly, later followed by Boyfriend, and is now at No 1 with Don’t Call Me Angel, a collaboration with Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey. This month, before listeners had barely had a chance to hear all of Del Rey’s new album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, she announced that her next record, White Hot Forever, will arrive as a surprise release within the next year.

The studio album was once the industry’s most valued commodity. Back in 2000, the US music industry earned 92.3% of its revenue from the sale of CD albums. It was the peak of the format’s power since its introduction by Columbia Records in 1948. Leaving behind the singles-focused culture spearheaded in the 50s by A&Rs such as Phil Spector, the album hit new levels of commercial and cultural significance in the 60s with the Beatles. Initially, albums were released at the same breakneck pace as singles had been in the 50s, but by the 70s, the rate had slowed as the album became the most revered form of musical expression. “Judgments were simpler in pop’s early days, partly because rock’n’roll was designed to be consumed in three-minute take-it-or-leave-it segments,” wrote famed critic Robert Christgau in Christgau’s Record Guide in 1981. “The rise of the LP as a form – as an artistic entity – has complicated how we perceive and remember what was once the most evanescent of the arts.”

But today, the pace has “completely returned to a hit-driven model,” says Jamie Oborne, manager of the 1975 and head of their label, Dirty Hit Records. “We’ve returned to the days of the 50s or 60s, where people are just smashing out singles in the hope that one sticks. There is a lot of output that is just about building consumption”.

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

There is so much competition and saturation now. A minefield or factors to consider when you come into the industry. The challenges that artists face. I think there has always been the pressure to release material so that there is no drop in popularity and visibility. This push and expectation to get caught in this cycle can have devastating consequences. This article from 2018 asked if there is too much pressure on artists. With the rise of TikTok and social media, coupled to the sheer mass of artists and options out there, this has only intensified:

“Artists have an enormous amount of pressure on them from having to look good and act well at all times, to making and putting out music at a frequent rate, to touring around the world. There are many cases of artists who suffer from depression and anxiety as well as others having drug addictions which lead to suicide. These may have nothing to do with the music industry and to do with the individuals mental state, but the stresses that the industry has on its stars, definitely doesn’t help. Artists who have admitted to have suffered from mental health issues include, Adele, Demi Lovato, Zayn Malik, Selena Gomez, Kanye West, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Sia, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears.

Speaking to NME about his Purpose tour, Bieber said, “You get lonely, you know, when you’re on the road. People see the glam and the amazing stuff, but they don’t know the other side. This life can rip you apart.” As well as this Zayn Malik, who had to pull out of the Capitol Summertime Ball, said “With the magnitude of the event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career. I cannot apologise enough, but I want to be honest with everyone.” “I have anxiety attacks, constant panicking on stage, my heart feels like it’s going to explode because I never feel like I’m going to deliver, ever,” Adele told Q magazine. With Bieber, Malik and Adele all stating that the pressures can be too much, along with many other artists, it shows that the industry should be more aware of how their stars are being treated and should take that into consideration. With drugs and suicide also being prominent in the music industry, we have seen stars like Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence and most recently Avicci take their own lives. This may be the cause of their own mental health bu the music industry would not have helped them if we take the statements from Bieber, Malik and Adele into account”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wellington Cunha/Pexels

The faster an artist works to put out material, the lower the quality. There cannot be that same satisfaction and completeness. Of course, I used a single word the media overuse as a jumping off point. It is not their fault that there seems to be expectations of frequent releases from our artists. It just seems to be the end of the cycle. Almost a sigh of relief that, even if they leave a few months between songs, an artist is back and it is this big thing. In actuality, they there is nothing special or anything that requires such a word! The media are just doing their job. They know that the music industry wants this churn. Artists feel pressured to push hard so that they can keep up. I am not sure what the answer is. This recent article discusses social media’s role when it comes to the heat some artists feel to fulfil a huge demand. In the modern time, how many new artists especially can leave a few years between albums? What if you only want to release a few singles a year? Is that enough?! I think we all need to stop expecting so much from artists. But are we simply conditioned to do that?! How do you resolve this?! Maybe something we are going to be asking years from now:

“Another point to the downside of this expectation is simply the question of the quality of work. Putting together and crafting an album to be able to release a collection of songs is a ton of work and even then, it may not be well received.  But albums that end up being award winning or even fan favorites take time and effort, so who are we to rush that? I think that a perfect example of quality work taking time is Adele. Adele is known for putting out incredible albums, maybe doing a tour, and then disappearing for a few years.

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

No one is really expecting her to put out a single every few months, or even put out a yearly album. However, many artists, especially up and coming, don’t have the privilege of being as established as someone like Adele where they don’t have to make efforts to stay relevant. So for these up and coming artists, it seems that their only hope at success in their music is to just consistently put out music and hope fans are still liking it, which most likely leads to a severe case of burnout before they really even get started in their career. Plus, as these newer artists work to put out music often, they are probably put in a position to not spend as much time on each individual song in order to really craft a masterpiece, which then leads to a lower chance of them gaining newer fans due to the decreased quality of their work. Even though I am not an artist myself, just thinking of that scenario makes me stressed out and overwhelmed”.

I do worry! It is funny that an artist can be seen by the music media as returning to us even though they simply have not released material for a little while. It calls into question a bigger issue that has blighted the industry for years. Perhaps to the point where we cannot return. The mental health pressure artists have to stay afloat and seen is immense. No wonder so many feel reluctant taking time to craft music and spending some time out. This year, there needs to be more awareness of the pressures and slavish demands. Fans being more patient perhaps. Tackling streaming sites so artists are paid more. Tiny steps will lead to a big change soon enough. It would be magnificence if artists could take as long as they need to release material. The media could say the artists has ‘shared a new track’ or they have ‘put out a new song’. Just don’t call it a ‘return’. It is simply a continuation…

PHOTO CREDIT: Karolina Grabowska/Pexels

AND not a comeback!

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Six: Is the Classic Debut Single Still Underrated?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Six

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Is the Classic Debut Single Still Underrated?

_________

THIS is my second…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

feature that marks forty-six years of Wuthering Heights. Released on 20th January, it is Kate Bush’s debut single. I have been thinking about its importance and impact. Getting to number one, it is was the first time a British female artist got to the top spot with a self-written song. Quite a feat considering Bush wrote the song when she was a teenager. In the final anniversary feature for Wuthering Heights, I want to explore it in terms of its popularity. No doubt a big favourite and song that almost defines Bush, I think that Wuthering Heights remains underrated. Still seen as weird by some, there is an element of its being this eccentricity that is not as accessible and play-worthy as, say, Hounds of Love’s singles – especially Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). I will go into the song and some features around it before asking whether more needs to be written and said around the song. Even if The Guardian rated Wuthering Heights the fourteenth-best U.K. single ever back in 2020, you do not hear Wuthering Heights covered more. Maybe one of the more technically distinct songs in Bush’s canon, it is a unique song in terms of the vocal and vibe. That said, among the cover versions, there has not been much radical interpretation – and there have not been many cover versions released in the past few years. Given that it relates to the classic novel of the same name and there is this opportunity to take the lyrics in new directions, artists do not come to it much. Also, look at modern music, and how many other artists have written songs around novels?! I don’t think it happens as much as it should.

I will talk about the legacy and importance of Wuthering Heights. Radio stations are partly to blame, as they still favour other tracks. Hounds of Love gets so much airplay in terms of the obvious singles. I also think that there is chance for podcasts and documentaries about Wuthering Heights and its legacy. Before that, I came across an article from 2004. Sound on Sound highlighted Wuthering Heights as a classic track. Jon Kelly was the engineer on the single – Wuthering Heights was taken from Kate Bush’s first album, The Kick Inside – and recalled his memories of that recording session:

“Kate Bush's smash hit debut single was also the first major project Jon Kelly had recorded. It proved to be a dream start for both artist and engineer, and a perfect illustration of the benefits of working with talented session musicians.

The 1977 sessions for The Kick Inside marked the debut not only of a new artist named Kathy Bush, but also of Jon Kelly as a fully fledged engineer. He had spent the previous couple of years as a tape-op and assistant engineer at the original AIR Studios facility on central London's Oxford Street, during which time he'd assisted the already-legendary Geoff Emerick on recordings by Gino Vannelli, Robin Trower and Gallagher & Lyle. He also "did as many jingles as I could, because I knew that would teach me to be quick", and had worked on several smaller projects with producer Andrew Powell before the two of them joined forces for The Kick Inside. Thereafter, Kelly would engineer Kate Bush's second album Lionheart, co-produce Never For Ever with her, go on to produce and/or engineer for the likes of Paul McCartney, Chris Rea, Tori Amos, the Damned, Deacon Blue, New Model Army and Prefab Sprout, and form a notable relationship with the Beautiful South which has so far yielded nine albums.

Artist Development

A beautifully tender yet haunting musical setting of Emily Bronte's classic love story, 'Wuthering Heights' wrapped swelling keyboards, strings and guitars around a lead vocal delivered in a sustained, almost child-like soprano by the song's 18-year-old composer, Kate Bush.

Mentored by Pink Floyd lead guitarist Dave Gilmour, Bush had been signed to EMI at the age of 16 on the strength of 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' and 'Berlin' (later retitled 'The Saxophone Song') — both recordings, engineered during an 'artist test' by Geoff Emerick, would be included on her first album, The Kick Inside. Thereafter, she had been allowed to study dance, mime and voice while developing her self-evident keyboard and writing talents, and by early 1977 she'd penned 'Wuthering Heights' and numerous other numbers and was ready to enter the studio to record The Kick Inside. This was achieved with producer Andrew Powell and engineer Jon Kelly behind the 24-channel Neve console in AIR's spacious Studio Two, which also housed Tannoy monitors and a 3M M79 two-inch 24-track tape machine, as well as the similar equipment in Studio One, whose vast live area was utilised for the string sessions.

"As a Geoff Emerick protegé, my early miking choices basically mirrored his," says Jon Kelly. "For instance, on drums he loved the Coles 4038s for overheads, as I still do now, and at that time his snare mic was an AKG D19 — he liked that punchy dynamic on the snare, and the D19 provided that kind of definition while the overheads captured most of the size. His tom mics varied between D19s, Sennheisers and Shures; and bass drum mics were usually D12s, D20s and sometimes a [Neumann] FET 47. I can't remember ever putting up any ambients or room mics with Geoff, because during the mid-'70s everything was pretty dry. It was always that Westlake/Eastlake sound, with people taping up cymbals so they didn't ring too much.

"Geoff took immense care positioning the mics. He used to say 'The microphone is like a camera lens. Imagine it's taking a picture.' Having assisted a number of engineers at AIR, the difference I noticed with Geoff was that he always used the cheapest dynamic mics on the drums, whereas others like Bill Price used things such as KM86s on the snare, 84s and 87s as overheads — much more classy condenser microphones. Geoff would use the old dynamics and then bring the sound out with EQ." 

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Starting At The Top

All of this served as Kelly's starting point for the very first Kate Bush session, during which he was "learning as I went along and dreadfully insecure. I give full credit to Andrew [Powell] and the great musicians, who were very supportive, while Kate herself was just fantastic. Looking back, she was incredible and such an inspiration, even though when she first walked in I probably thought she was just another new artist. Her openness, her enthusiasm, her obvious talent — I remember finishing that first day, having recording two or three backing tracks, and thinking 'My God, that's it. I've peaked!'"

The live rhythm section that Jon Kelly recorded for 'Wuthering Heights' consisted of Kate Bush playing a Bösendorfer grand piano, Stuart Elliott on drums, Andrew Powell on bass and Ian Bairnson on a six-string acoustic. And in terms of the miking, Kelly adhered pretty closely to Geoff Emerick's favoured choices while adding some of his own.

"For the drums I used a D19 on the snare, Sennheiser 421s on the toms, a D12 on the bass drum and a [Neumann] KM84 on the hi-hat," Kelly recalls. "The bass was DI'd and amped — at the time I was very keen on the Susan Blue DI box, while a Marshall cabinet and Marshall head were miked with an FET 47. Ian Bairnson's acoustic was recorded with a Neumann U87, as were Kate's piano and vocal — I was a big 87 fan, I used to use them on everything. I still think it's a really under-rated microphone. When people listen to one on its own they often think it's a bit hard and doesn't have such a huge sound as some of the valve or softer-focus mics, but it's so efficient once you place it within the mix.

"Kate always recorded live vocals, and they were fantastic, but then she'd want to redo them later. In the case of 'Wuthering Heights', she was imitating this witch, the mad lady from the Yorkshire Moors, and she was very theatrical about it. She was such a mesmerising performer — she threw her heart and soul into everything she did — that it was difficult to ever fault her or say 'You could do better.'"

Virgin Territory

David Paton, who was the bass man on the other songs, overdubbed 12-string acoustic guitar on 'Wuthering Heights', and after Ian Bairnson redid his six-string part, Jon Kelly double-tracked them and tweaked the Varispeed on the machine to provide some breadth together with a chorusy feel. Then Andrew Powell hired a celeste and played the chime-like arpeggios that double with the piano motif during the song's intro and the sections preceding the chorus... all of which was virgin territory for the fledgling recording engineer.

"There was a fair bit of fun involved in working with instruments like that," Kelly recalls. "Kate would certainly get involved, poking her head all around to see where it sounded nice. There was a good feeling of camaraderie, so I never felt nervous... just insecure! I recorded the celeste with a Coles ribbon mic positioned on the soundboard at the back, and that worked out fine.

"You couldn't keep Kate away from he sessions even if you had wild dogs and bazookas. She was just drinking it all up, learning everything that went on. The first moment she walked into the control room, I could tell that's where she wanted to be, in control of her own records. She was so astute and intelligent, and she was also phenomenally easy to work with. An absolute joy. I can't remember any bad moments at all."

Next to overdub some parts was percussionist Morris Pert, who spent an entire day working on songs for The Kick Inside. "The only things he played on 'Wuthering Heights' were crotals, which are like disc-shaped glockenspiels," Kelly explains. "Again, these were doubled with the piano motif throughout the song."

Then came the strings recorded in AIR's Studio One — eight first violins, six second violins, six violas and six cellos — as well as three French horns. These comprised the section that was used on 'Wuthering Heights', whereas a smaller section was used for some of the other songs — the parts for a couple of numbers were recorded in each three-hour session.

"That was a huge room, twice as big as the live area in Studio Two," Kelly remembers. "It could accommodate between 60 to 70 musicians, and had high ceilings and a lovely, bright sound. Everything sounded great in there. I miked the first violins with a couple of 87s, as I did for the second violins, the violas, the French horns and as overheads — back then you could have called me Mr. 87. At least there were FET 47s on the cellos. I'd try to use as few mics as posssible in Studio One because the room sounded so good and there was this phase thing going on — the more mics you used, you could fool yourself into thinking it sounded better, but things would cancel one another out and you'd lose the vibrancy.

"Nothing was slaved, everything was kept 24-track on this album, and that was fortunate because slaving was a really laborious process in those days — before Q-lock enabled us to efficiently run two machines together, we'd have to physically get two tapes in the right position to start a song. Tracks one through five were hi-hat, bass drum, overhead left, overhead right and snare — hi-hat would always be the first casualty if we needed an extra track — and tracks seven and eight were the tom-toms. Track six was missed out because you couldn't pan between odd and even on the Neve desks in AIR, while some of the groups had faders on them and some weren't normalised. You had to be careful about getting groups caught between the two, because there were cancellation problems. Meanwhile, the strings were mixed to two tracks and the French horns went to just one track."

Ian Bairnson's electric guitar solo, which winds its way through the closing stages of 'Wuthering Heights', was played in the Studio Two control room, his Les Paul going through a Marshall head and Marshall 4 x 12, miked with... yes, a pair of 87s, one close, the other about four feet away.

"Ian warmed up and developed that solo while I got the monitoring right, and there was one take that was just great," says Kelly. "Being in the control room, he missed the feedback from the amp, and I can remember telling him to get close to the speakers, expecting this to do the same. You can tell I was pretty naïve..."

Kate Bush, meanwhile, re-recorded her 'Wuthering Heights' vocal late one night, miked with a Neumann U67. "I liked the clarity of the 67," Kelly explains. "For me, the top end was a little better suited to vocals than the 87, helping with diction, and to that I added some [Urei] 1176 compression. At that point, there was only one track left, and Kate did just two or three passes, and that was that. There was no comping, it was a complete performance."

Even if Kate Bush might not recall too much from the recording and that period, it is clear that Wuthering Heights is important! She fought for it to be the first single release against the will of EMI (who favoured the more conventional James and the Cold Gun). A song that she performed dozens of times – across T.V. and 1979’s The Tour of Life -, it was once her defining and most popular song. I think it has been slightly buried in recent years by the Stranger Things/Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) success. I have asked before whether, in the same way, Wuthering Heights, is due its big T.V. moment. A song I actually feel outranks Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in terms of quality and importance, what of the magnificent and strangely enticing debut single?! In 2018, Kate Bush honoured the memory of Wuthering Heights’ author, Emily Brontë, for a Yorkshire monument:

“Kate Bush will pay tribute to the Brontë sisters in a new memorial on the Yorkshire Moors, on the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth and 40 years after Bush’s haunting, chart-topping “Wuthering Heights”, inspired by the enduring novel of the same name.

The singer has written an inscription for a stone that will be placed on a seven mile trail between the Brontë’s family home in Haworth and the sisters’ birthplace in Thornton. A stone for her sister Charlotte will be placed at the family house while the Anne stone will be in a meadow in Haworth at the dedicated museum.

“I am delighted to be involved in this project” Bush said in a statement. “Each sister being remembered by stone in the enigmatic landscape where they lived and worked is a striking idea. Emily only wrote the one novel – an extraordinary work of art that has truly left its mark. To be asked to write a piece for Emily's stone is an honour and, in a way, a chance to say thank you to her”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978

This article talks about the strangeness of Wuthering Heights. It got to number one in 1978 but, were it released today, I don’t think it would be a massive success. In an age of TikTok-driven Pop and less fascinating sounds, could the buying public embrace Wuthering Heights?! I feel the song is still misunderstood and under-played. More exposure of this iconic track would definitely make it more familiar – and, therefore, less unusual. More artists adding their stamp to it. I recorded a podcast about the song to mark its forty-fifth anniversary last year. I was surprised how few others there were out there. Not many recent articles about this song. In terms of radio play, it gets included now and then, though there is still that lazy dependence on Hounds of Love. With nearly two hundred million streams on Spotify, it is the second-most streamed song of hers on the platform (behind Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). One might say that means it cannot be seen as underrated. That said, the visibility and exposure of the song wider afield is slender. Not too much modern evaluation of the track. Perhaps some see it still as took kooky. I think it is one of Pop music’s most important and seismic moments! A song that broke a record and introduced one of the most distinct artists ever, we need to discuss Wuthering Heights more than we do. It is forty-six on 20th January. I hope people play it and really do some background reading. Listen to interviews Bush gave about the song. I hope more magazine articles, books, podcasts and bits are produced that celebrate a phenomenal song. That they do not leave a beautiful and entrancing song up on those…

WILEY and windy moors.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Divorce

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Evans via The Independent

Divorce

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A band who…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rosie Sco

have a pretty busy start to the year in terms of gigs, I am a little late to the Divorce party. They are a band who have established themselves as ones to watch. Featuring on stations like BBC Radio 6 Music, you need to get behind this force! The Nottingham band released their first single, Services, in 2022…so they are still quite new. In the past year or so, they have made big steps and released a string of great singles. The Alt-Country and Grunge-fuelled project from Nottingham consists of Kasper Sandstrom, Felix Mackenzie-Barrow, Tiger Cohen-Towell and Adam Peter-Smith. I am going to get to a few interviews with the band. Felix from Divorce spoke with Wax Music UK last year about the formation of the band and their development:

“It’s somewhat fortunate for Nottingham quartet Divorce that they’re adept at grinding the best out of these potentially awkward situations, and if their experience of the last year is anything to go by, they’ve got a canny ability to swing the approval of a room. This is down to a combination of their consummate professionalism on stage, their playful candour, and most of all their knack for penning earworms of the highest calibre. Having all plied their trade in other bands in their hometown circuit and beyond, they’ve certainly used their expertise to elevate their output to new levels under this new guise.

Now twelve months on from the release of their first single, ‘Services’, it’s hard to deny that Divorce have experienced a whirlwind of a year, culminating in the release of the four tracks that make up their debut EP Get Mean. The resulting record careers between a raw and grungy sound and country-flecked indie balladry, and while those may sit at rather opposing opposites of the musical spectrum, it’s a winning combination for Divorce. While the songs are ultimately a slick mix of their dry wit and tight musicianship, it’s the interplay between vocalists Tiger Cohen-Towell and Felix McKenzie-Barrow that stand out as the stars of the show, crafting impeccable harmonies that often catch the listener off guard.

After the two spent years together performing under the name Megatrain, Tiger and Felix clearly have this bond that creates magic when they collaborate, and Divorce is no exception to that. With the additions of singer-songwriter Adam Peter Smith on guitar and Do Nothing guitarist Kasper Sandstrom on drums, their sound is elevated to a greater level, and once you witness it unfold both live and on record, it’s no wonder they’re able to provide that star factor.

Speaking at the tail end of last year prior to the release of Get Mean, I spoke to Felix about the spectacular breakout year Divorce have had, their coming together as a band, and what lies ahead for the group in 2023.

Was having a more diverse input from the others a major factor in wanting to expand?

Adam and Kasper were people we’ve always respected massively as musicians, and we knew that we would work. It was a conscious decision to open the room of thoughts a bit wider and I think that’s enabled us to have more faith in our decisions and pick each other up when we’re not feeling good. As well as the band having a really strong ensemble presence, the team around us has been great as well.

Was the idea for Divorce already floating around before the other members came along?

I think there were a few songs that were written in a limbo period where we were unsure whether we were going to carry on Megatrain or do something different. ‘Checking Out’ is one of those that we wrote a while back, maybe four or five months before we started Divorce. Some stuff has been sitting there a little while, and it’s been really nice to revisit that as the four of us, but the bulk of it has happened pretty organically as a four-piece. I think largely it feels nicer to share that with all the members.

A lot of people have been quick to make comparisons to alt-country, which is something that there isn’t as much of here in the UK. Where do you stand on this labelling, and what do you feel you have to offer towards it?

I think it’s a tricky one, because I wouldn’t say I know the country culture enough to wholeheartedly say that we’re making country music. That comes from a whole different world to anything we really know, but I think maybe we have an instinct for writing folk songs essentially. Maybe when you add a band to that it becomes country – I don’t know. We’re quite heavily inspired by a lot of US music. Tiger and I had the chance to do a few dates with The Felice Brothers in Ireland while we were playing as the backing band for our friend Lorkin O’Reilly, which was pretty special. Coming back from those shows, we felt really inspired, and their records have inspired us for a long time. There’s something that I feel is sometimes missing from band stuff in the UK; there’s a lack of warmth that I think we want to feel running through our music. As long as there’s a warmth that feels as human and imperfect as possible, while still being listenable, that’s the aim.

Obviously a lot can change in a short space of time, and the band hasn’t existed for that long so it can be hard to put stuff into perspective. With that in mind, do you feel that this collection of tracks best represents you currently, how you have been leading up to now, or where things are heading in the future?

Altogether I feel like it’s a pretty good example of how we’ve grown over this first year. We played our first show in late 2021, and the music didn’t start getting released until a little while after that, so it definitely is a marker of where we’ve been and maybe the last two tracks on it (‘Checking Out’ and ‘That Hill’) are possibly the most closely linked out of the four. When we did ‘Services’ we kind of bashed it out and didn’t bother with any overdubs playing how we’d play live, and while that’s fun and a good place to start, I think those two show we’ve opened our minds a bit more to the instrumentation and aesthetics. We’ve allowed the softness and some of the subtleties that come with it to come through, and maybe having a little more confidence in ourselves has allowed us to not be fighting so hard. It’d be nice to carry that on into the new year, and whatever comes after this we’ll be a bit more prepared to tackle”.

I am going to move on to a couple of interviews from fairly recently. Before that, DIY spoke with Divorce in September. They had announced their fantastic E.P., Heady Metal. There was a lot of excitement around a band who were growing in stature and confidence. Their live shows getting so much acclaim and positivity. If you have not found the Nottingham quartet yet then do make sure that you check them out. One of the U.K.’s premier and most promising young bands:

“Your debut EP 'Get Mean' came out last year, and its follow up 'Heady Metal' is due to arrive in November. How do you feel you've developed as a band between the two releases?

Tiger: I think this EP feels far more intentional as a body of work, and although with an EP there’s less pressure to do anything except put your best songs forward, they definitely feel like they illustrate the last year for us personally and professionally. Things have moved pretty fast since the last release; we’ve had to wise up to a lot of things fast and sort of get our ducks in a row. At times it’s felt rushed but I think that’s been exhilarating in a way; this is the fastest we’ve ever turned around songs, it’s nice to not have to sit on them for too long.

You're from Nottingham - how would you describe the regional scene around there? Who are some other local artists we should check out?

Felix: It’s a lovely close-knit scene, and for a small city there’s always tons going on. Catmilk and Victory Lap are really exciting us at the moment and you should get to know!

'Heady Metal' explores concepts of identity, vulnerability, and intense periods of personal change. What prompted the shift in focus from the character studies of your earlier work?

Tiger: Getting older, and also being a bit more relaxed about lyrical subject matter in general. Before, I felt like we were very much writing for Divorce, and trying to figure out what we wanted to say as a band, and although that was fun I think on this EP we wanted to pour more of our personal experiences into it. I think with the way that the band has been sculpting our lives lately, that shift was inevitable.

You're going on a tour of the UK this November. What can fans expect from a Divorce live show?

Felix: I hope people leave our shows feeling uplifted and like they’ve been part of something genuinely live, in that it’s never quite the same each time. We don’t like to plan things too heavily, because we get a lot more joy from the spontaneity of it. Apart from all the stunts we make Adam do. They have to be planned meticulously because they could cause serious harm to him or the rest of us”.

I am going to get to some new interviews with Divorce. Left Lion chatted with Divorce last month. With Heady Metal out in the world and getting a load of love, there was a tonne of anticipation and curiosity. This will all translate and transfer to the live arena when they take the songs on the road. Go and see Divorce play if you can. Such a magnetic and magnificent band to see in the flesh:

“They credit Nottingham's music scene not only for what it has done for them since Divorce formed, but also for introducing them to each other in the first place. "None of us would have met each other without all of the shows that happen every day of the week in Nottingham - open mics and things like that at JamCafe, The Bodega... Those venues mean a lot to us," Felix says. "It's a connected web - we all had different projects before Divorce even formed, and we were admiring each other’s projects from afar," Tiger adds.

Their “darkly humorous” name was chosen due to its “strong and memorable” nature, and it has definitely generated some humorous remarks - from fans saying ‘my husband/wife isn’t going to like this’ at the merch table, to a direct message from a man whose T-shirt arrived in the post on the exact day that his divorce was finalised. "Maybe we'll have an era where we all get married and we can sing about that!" Felix laughs. "I do wonder sometimes if it will be my downfall... I was thinking of getting a tattoo of it, but what if I want to get married one day?"

Heady Metal will have been released by the time you are reading this, but they promise that there are more surprises up their sleeves that are still yet to be revealed. "There are some visuals coming with one of the songs that will blow all your heads off because they’re so ridiculous," Tiger says. "It should come with a warning, really - a trigger warning!" Adam laughs, "You won't be able to unsee it." Felix adds: "We haven't seen the edit yet but there's no way it can't be terrifying and frightening - but also incredibly…” he pauses for suspense, “breath-taking." Very intriguing...

Even though there were a handful of unreleased songs from the EP when I was speaking to them, they already found that people were singing the words back to them at their shows. "They don't all boo when we play them, at least!" Felix laughs. "It's always a bit less of a reaction, of course, but people who come to a lot of shows do know them even though they're unreleased." Tiger adds; "For a while, people have been singing the chorus to Eat My Words. Divorce fans love to sing!" With all of the debate about gig etiquette right now, it's refreshing to hear that Divorce fans are a nice, respectful bunch.

This month will see the band perform at a sold-out Rescue Rooms, the biggest venue on their headline tour. "That is really silly to us. This far in advance, it just feels wild,” Felix laughs. “Even though it’s our hometown show, it was actually one of the slowest selling ones," Adam admits, something that he says that Willie J Healey also experienced with his hometown show in Oxford that was taking place that evening. But then Tiger, pointing out that it is double the size of the other venues they are playing, adds, “It's an iconic venue to us, and being able to play to that many people in Nottingham will be a privilege."

The radio plays that the band have received from Steve Lamacq of 6 Music has helped them to gain new fans, who have visibly been supporting Divorce by turning up to their shows. “I was sitting outside the venue after we played last night; I was eating some fried chicken. This guy came along wearing a really big hat and asked me to shake his hand but my hands were covered in chicken,” Felix says. “But I shook his hand anyway, and he said he’d heard us through 6 Music. Radio fans listen to your music, and they don’t care if your hands are covered in chicken!” he laughs”.

Divorce have been tipped by a few sites as ones to watch this year. DIY initiated them in their Class of 2024. A band with a lot of momentum behind them, this promise is going to be fulfilled through the year. The more gigs they do, the more that experience and confidence goes into their music. A quartet impossible to ignore:

“The EP they’re toasting today, ‘Heady Metal’, represents a notable leap forward from 2022’s debut ‘Get Mean’. Where, around that period, the band were often labelled as ‘country-punk’, from swelling centrepiece ‘Right On Time’ to the synthy ‘Scratch Your Metal’, their latest is far less categorisable. Rather than genre, the throughline is in the feeling: a collection of songs that look inward and process change with a poetic, sometimes yearning, often dryly humorous turn of phrase. “Oh, it’s the year of me! I’m fixing all of my devices,” goes opener ‘Sex & the Millenium Bridge’; “I wanna be beautiful / I wanna be good to myself,” cries the cathartic chorus of ‘Birds’.

Talking about the tracks, Tiger references the idea of an “emotional zeitgeist”. “It’s the flare up of feeling when you’re going through big changes,” they say. “A zeitgeist is usually used on a more societal level, but the way that, as people, we just commit to eras emotionally and then come out and look back on them feeling really different…” “And then bring that reflection into the present with the new light it throws on it,” picks up Felix. “There was a lot of self-examination.”

Divorce on their recent EP 'Heady Metal' and having Self Esteem as a fanDivorce on their recent EP 'Heady Metal' and having Self Esteem as a fanDivorce on their recent EP 'Heady Metal' and having Self Esteem as a fan

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Miles

Though Divorce is still a fairly new project, Felix and Tiger have been writing together for the best part of a decade, from when they were just 16. “Back when we were little rascals, running around Nottingham,” Tiger laughs. It’s an evidently close-knit bond that comes through in the increasing nuance of their music. “It feels like there’s a lot of songs coming out and we just have to work out which ones hold hands,” says Felix. “We’re finding subtler and subtler ways of connecting.”

Though they joke about the lingering effects of their previous theatrical forays (“I think we’re quite annoying people; acting kind of inherently requires you to be a bit annoying,” laughs Felix), there’s a lack of inhibition and pretension to the band that allows them to put their feelings out there, warts and all. “The aesthetics of this band are very emotionally-driven instead of what looks cool, and if what’s right for the song means making ourselves look silly or being theatrical then that’s how we’ll do it,” says Tiger. “That lack of worrying about what your body or face looks like and just worrying about the emotional intensity of it, that’s something we’ve got from acting.” “I’ve never found a successful way of looking cool,” Felix sighs as Adam affirms: “But that’s why you ARE cool…”

One person who certainly agrees with him is Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, who’s been shouting about the band on Instagram at every opportunity. “She will NOT leave us alone…” jokes Tiger. Earlier this year, when Divorce were very much still in their infancy, she handpicked them to support on a smattering of shows. “She’s so supportive. To bring us on the shows we did with her… it’s not every day someone takes you to the prom,” Felix smiles.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Miles

Next up, alongside a Spring 2024 support tour with Everything Everything, is a move towards a coyly-described “larger amount of music”. Whatever form that takes, they’ll have to top ‘Heady Metal’’s anarchic cover shoot day, for which they shipped in a room full of dogs to join them. “For half an hour it was the best, and then the other half an hour it was like… OK, now they’re pissing,” recalls Kaspar. “I was the only one who got pissed on!” retorts Felix. “It was a 4D scratch and sniff kind of experience, except I didn't even have to scratch. The owners would throw treats at us, so not only were we covered in piss, we were covered in treats, and then covered in dogs.”

Fun, messy, sweet and silly, it’s an image that suits Divorce well. Their music might come firmly from the tangled depths of the heart, but they’re also relishing every win they can whilst putting it all out there. “It feels like the last six months have been pretty mental in terms of the snowballing we’ve been doing,” says Kaspar, as Felix continues: “People are giving us the chance to do the thing we’ve wanted to do for ages.” Tiger nods: “We’re THIS close to the chance”.

If you do not know about Divorce, then go and follow them on social media and ensure that you check out their music. What a sensational band we have in our midst! They have released a terrific E.P. in Heady Metal. They will expand on this throughout the year. I am excited to see where they will head through the year. Even though they have been together a short time, Divorce have made big strides. Their formation and success is a…

MARRIAGE made in Heaven.

___________

Follow Divorce

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Evans via The Independent

Official:

https://divorcehq.co.uk/#/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/divorcehq/

TikTok:

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

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Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0YMVzWF9HWGbV4DZHfCyKo?si=Dc7K7aJVQgWzCXEZUtjoRg

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FEATURE: It's Thursday Night, It's Seven O'Clock… Top of the Pops at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

It's Thursday Night, It's Seven O'Clock…

IMAGE CREDIT: BBC

Top of the Pops at Sixty

_________

THERE is something interesting to think about…

IN THIS PHOTO: Clara Amfo presented Top of the Pops: Review of the Year 2023, which aired on 28th December on BBC Two/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC Studios/Michael Leckie

when it comes to marking a big anniversary that happens on 1st January. On Monday, it will be sixty years since Top of the Pops launched. There is a case to suggest that the legendary and long-running series had its flaws. With some of its presenters mired in scandal and disgrace (especially the vile Jimmy Saville), there are black marks and issues if we look at the series with rose-tinted glasses! The show went through various shifts in terms of its format. Acts being made to perform live. Not all changes and ideas worked out. Some of the presenter should be written out of history. There were a raft of guest presenters, normally artists, who were hit and miss. Even so, there is no doubting the importance of an institution. I want to bring in a few features that talk about the evolution of Top of the Pops. The highs and lows. I will end with a feature that quite rightly calls for its return (and the reasons why it is a good idea). The series ended in 2006. Almost eighteen years later, there is a definite desire and rationale to reinstating and repurposing Top of the Pops for a modern audience. The BBC charted the history of Top of the Pops. Its early days must have been so exciting and different. Nothing that had really been seen on British television:

“When the BBC launched Top of the Pops on 1 January, 1964, absolutely no one could have believed it would become an authentic pop institution. Originally transmitted from a converted church in Manchester, Top of the Pops was commissioned for six shows. There have been over 1800 editions of the Pops since then.

The reason for its success is simple. Top of the Pops always remains true to its original format. After 34 years, the show still provides - via the Top 40 chart - a weekly snapshot of what's truly popular in pop music, always ending with the number one record. "It's a great idea for a programme, a brilliant format," says Chris Cowey, who has produced the show since the summer of 1997.

The influence of the Pops has been so huge over the years, that performing on the show is now almost a 'rite of passage' for aspiring young artists. "I always used to consider myself a failure until I appeared on Top of the Pops," says Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. There have even been two songs - by The Kinks and The Rezillos - named after the show, which was also name-checked in The Boomtown Rats' 1978 number one hit, 'Rat Trap'.

The very first Top of the Pops, broadcast on a Wednesday evening at 6.36 pm, was introduced by DJ Jimmy Savile. The opening band was The Rolling Stones, who had just made number 13 in the chart with 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. They were followed by Dusty Springfield with 'I Only Want to be With You'; 'Glad All Over' by the Dave Clark Five; The Hollies with 'Stay' and The Swinging Blue Jeans performing 'The Hippy Hippy Shake'. The show was completed by filmed pieces with Cliff Richard & The Shadows and Freddie & The Dreamers, together with The Beatles, who played the week's number one, 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'”.

Even though Top of the Pops spanned five decades, there were definite periods where it was at its peak. Many would say the 1970s and 1980s were when the series was at its very best. Not only in terms of the acts who performed on the show. There was also this perfect balance between the quality of the music, the variation on offer, and the excellent presenters. This feature from earlier in the year discussed how Top of the Pops was a go-to for legendary artists the world over:

“Having established a transatlantic connection, the 70s was when Top Of The Pops became a truly global brand. In a decade that has more than its fair share of variety – everything from punk to glam, hip-hop, reggae and high-octane rock’n’roll made it into the charts – it’s also remarkable how many overseas acts made the pilgrimage to BBC Television Centre, knowing that the show’s audience of up to 19 million couldn’t be found anywhere else. Having dropped by to perform his classic reggae hit “The Israelites” in 1969, Jamaican star Desmond Dekker returned in 1970, performing “You Can Get It”; as the decade came to a close, Australian hard rock icons AC/DC were on hand to deliver some ear-splitting “powerage.” Swedish pop icons ABBA made several appearances through the 70s, introducing classics such as “Mamma Mia,” “Waterloo,” and “Fernando” to the UK.

And so a pattern was set. In the decades that followed, every style of music was represented, and acts came from all over the world to add the iconic TV show to their list of successes. So important was the show that even the most established stars came back throughout their career, with Queen appearing in 1982, almost a decade after releasing their debut album, Queen II, to perform “Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)” on 17 June 1982.

A glance at the list of luminaries that appeared on Top Of The Pops also traces the changing cultural zeitgeist throughout the years. American alt.rock began to make its first tentative forays into the mainstream when R.E.M. turned up to perform “Orange Crush,” in a decade that saw shimmering UK pop (in the shape of The La’s’ “There She Goes,” first released in 1988) nestle with globe-straddling synth-pop courtesy of Soft Cell (“Tainted Love”), The Human League (“Don’t You Want Me”), and Duran Duran (“Girls On Film”). And that’s just the 80s. Fast-forward to the 90s and you’ll witness the battle for dominance between Blur and Oasis also form part of a wider transatlantic face-off between UK Britpop and the US grunge scene. Add in the show’s dedication to promoting some of the more memorable promo clips by the likes of Underworld and Kelis, and it becomes clear to see why the 90s is remembered as a uniquely postmodern decade”.

In July, The Scotsman explored how Top of the Pops was an excellent documentary of music evolution. Among the chaos and controversy, there were these iconic moments. With BBC Four putting out old episodes weekly, we still get to experience these snapshots of Top of the Pops and how it changed through the years. I wonder if there is an easy archive and access where you can watch every episode available from the BBC. Maybe an updated documentary is needed that looks inside the brilliant Top of the Pops. All of its wonder and weirdness:

“One of my favourites has to be the 1972 intastella rock-and-roll performance of Starman by David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars. The live shot is a good sum-up of Bowie’s pioneering spirit, innate skill for transcending the boundaries of music and revolutionary fashion sense. The interactions between guitarist Mick Ronson and Bowie on stage are fun to watch and the performance showcases the band’s studio excellence.

Another has to be Kate Bush’s debut on the show. At barely 20, the English musician, who has now sold millions of albums worldwide, graced the stage with her performance of Wuthering Heights in 1978. Watching the recording now, which she apparently described as “a bloody awful performance” at the time, and knowing what success she went on to have is perhaps what adds to it.

As for the weird, or rather provocative, spectacles on stage, TOTP doesn’t disappoint. From Rod Stewart playing football on stage midway through his gig to Robbie Williams singing with his jeans down round his ankles (I think they were meant to come all the way off but got stuck), to Blur’s energetic performance of Country House where bassist Alex James is wearing an Oasis t-shirt while smugly smiling at the camera – a nod to the hit chart frenemy relationship between the two bands at the time.

Also Nirvana giving the middle finger to TOTP rules that musicians had to lip sync to prerecorded songs with frontman Kurt Cobain changing the lyrics and putting on a strange voice – for example "Load up on guns, bring your friends" became "Load up on drugs, kill your friends.”

Cobain later supposedly said he was trying to sound like former Smiths frontman Morrissey. The take is a contrast to their furiously energetic debut TV performance playing the same song with such raw energy on the 90s Channel 4 show The Word.

Looking back on the show with hindsight also spotlights the musical gems who were ahead of the curve for their time, such as Gary Numan’s performance with the band Tubeway Army of Are Friends Electric in 1979. At this point, punk rock was still raging, new wave was on the horizon, but Numan brings to the stage a kind of poptronica and new electronic sounds that the crowd seem unsure how to take at first, but by they end become totally entranced.

Delving back into the recorded videos naturally evokes a wave of nostalgia, and a reminder of the inimitable excitement as a child seeing some of the bands you first heard come alive on stage. And, is it fair to say some of the dancing is pretty entertaining to watch now? I think people danced differently when there were no smartphones. There’s more a sense that they are really feeling it; a ‘dance like nobody’s watching you’ vibe. I think the visually arresting debut performance of Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain on the show with Andy Mackay and his jaunty oboe playing illustrates this point well.

Even if you’re not that fussed about the bands (which would be strange), rewatching TOTP’s footage also gives an interesting lesson on the evolution of music which I think also explains its grip to this day.

The programme demonstrates the quantum leaps music made between the ‘60s and the 2000s. From rock to punk to new wave with some Britfunk in the mix, TOTP is an excellent documentary of one of music’s most interesting evolutionary periods.

While on this topic, footage of The Old Grey Whistle Test (TOGWT) is equally indulgeable. While TOTP showcased UK chart hits, TOGWT was more album-focused. The former got me into my love for music in many ways, while watching footage of the latter in later years expanded it”.

I am going to move forward and think about why Top of the Pops, which celebrates its sixtieth anniversary on Monday, needs to return. Den of Geek wrote about Top of the Pops’ iconic moments earlier this year. The more we remember that legacy ad highlights of Top of the Pops, the more it makes me wonder whether we could ever match that today. How would the studio audience react?! Would artists be made to sing live?! What sort of branding would it have?! It is interesting to ponder:

“Top of the Trolls

For most of Top of the Pops‘ first three decades, acts were encouraged to mime their music and vocals over a pre-recorded track – barring rare exceptions. Many acts sought to play around with this stricture, shattering the shared illusion for comedic effect. Sometimes this was done in a spirit of fun, as when Rod Stewart and his Faces bandmates had a quick game of football mid-‘Maggie May’, while DJ John Peel uncomfortably squatted nearby ‘playing’ a mandolin.

Sometimes the mockery came in the spirit of a two-fingered salute. In one memorable appearance in 1995, Oasis’ Gallagher brothers decided to swap places for their performance of ‘Roll With It’. Liam strummed gamely away in the background, while Noel channelled his brother’s bow-legged, front-man swagger, complete with tambourine. Perhaps owing to Oasis’ nascent fame in those days, the producers reportedly didn’t notice the switch until it was pointed out to them afterwards.

A question-mark has long hung over Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ 1982 Top of the Pops appearance. They were performing their cover version of Van Morrison’s 1972 hit ‘Jackie Wilson Said’, when viewers noticed behind them what appeared to be an egregious yet hilarious mistake: a large video screen displaying the image not of the late, great soul singer Jackie Wilson – on whom the song was obviously based – but of Scottish darts’ legend Jocky Wilson. Viewers were quick to assume that Top of the Pop‘s production staff must have goofed, but the wheeze was apparently very much Dexy’s idea. In 2002, the band’s frontman Kevin Rowland admitted to The Guardian: “For a laugh, we told the producer to put a picture of Jocky Wilson up behind us. He said: ‘But Kevin, people will think we made a mistake.’ I told him only an idiot would think that. The morning after, the [Radio 1] DJ Mike Read said: ‘Bloody Top of the Pops. How could they mix up one of the great soul singers with a Scottish darts player?'”

But no flipping of Top of the Pops‘ format was as memorable as Nirvana’s version of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in 1991. Singer Kurt Cobain’s surprise languid, low-octave performance of the high-energy grunge hit has been mythologised as the ultimate fuck-you to the man in response to the show’s miming tradition. The reality though, might have been much more banal. From around 51:00 in Top of the Pops: the Story of 1991, hear James’ Tim Booth, who performed on the same show, tell a completely different story. In this version, Cobain had lost his voice and was suffering with a cold during filming and so asked to mime his vocal but Top of the Pops refused. According to Booth, the Ian Curtis/Morrissey impersonation was Cobain’s workaround response. Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth, the performance went down in legend.

Live and Dangerous

In 1983, New Order was the first band to throw caution, and their potential credibility, to the wind by going fully live, synthesisers and all. This performance of their hit ‘Blue Monday’ is regularly cited in lists of Top of the Pops‘ biggest gaffes and cringe-worthy moments, though its inclusion is a little unfair. Sure, singer Bernard Sumner occasionally looks like a tortoise trying to recreate Henry Hill’s final car-borne dash in Goodfellas, and the music isn’t always exactly in key, but it’s a fine and bold performance of one of the most 80s songs ever; one, moreover, that’s proven to be timeless.

More worthy of inclusion in said lists is All About Eve’s performance of their song ‘Martha’s Harbour’ in 1988. Due to a production snafu, everyone – the studio audience, the viewers at home – could hear the first minute or so of the song… except for Julianne Regan and Tim Bricheno, who sat on stage deathly-still, staring awkwardly out at the audience, in a move that must have been interpreted, at least initially, as a devil-may-care protest. ‘Those bastards are pulling a Nirvana.’ ‘Who’s Nirvana?’ ‘Oh right, that hasn’t happened yet. Forget I said anything.’

Drink Jiving

In 1982, the Scottish national football team appeared on the Top of the Pops’ stage along with actor John Gordon Sinclair to sing their World Cup anthem ‘We Have a Dream’: a half-spoken, half-chanted, self-deprecating ditty that seemed to say: Yeah, we know we’re probably going to last about as long in this tournament as a red-shirt on his first away mission with Captain Kirk, so let’s just have a good time’.

Whatever you think of Top of the Pop‘s lip-syncing tradition, it’s undeniably the best way to counter your average pop star’s predilection for imbibing potentially performance-wrecking substances prior to taking to the stage. That goes ten-fold when your act is a bunch of booze-loving Scottish footballers, none of whom seem to mind leaning hard into national stereotypes. Scotland’s goalkeeper, the appropriately named Alan Rough, explained in a recent BBC Scotland documentary: “You could tell why we were all swaying. We’d been in that BBC bar for about five hours so we didn’t have to practise that bit.”

Given Shane McGowan’s reputation, it came as no surprise to anyone that when he took to the stage in 1987 to mime his way through a performance of ‘Fairytale of New York’ with Kirsty McColl, he was in such a state of inebriation that the act of mouthing along to his own words made him look like a badly dubbed Korean movie. This was jarring for a lot of reasons, but mainly because the young and goofy McGowan – cocooned inside an ill-fitting leather jacket – didn’t look like the kind of man who’d be in possession of a voice so rich in pathos and world-weary agony. Instead, many in the audience would have been wondering: ‘Where is the real Shane McGowan? Why have they kidnapped a young drunk boy from a school disco and forced him to mime along to this song? I’m calling Ofcom.’

Speaking of complaints, no act attracted the level of official opprobrium as the Manic Street Preachers when they performed their 1994 hit ‘Faster’ with singer James Dean Bradfield decked out in a balaclava, which was interpreted by more than 25,000 angry viewers as some sort of signal of support for the IRA. Needless to say: it wasn’t.

Memorable and Iconic

The singles’ charts were a capricious beast, so it was often impossible to predict who’d be appearing on any given Top of the Pops edition. The show could be forced to put bad boys like Cliff Richard on the same bill as more wholesome acts as Rage Against the Machine. Juxtapositions like that, of course, were a crucial part of its charm. Especially when, divorced from their natural environment of the club, rave or music video, even some of the acts weren’t entirely sure how to convey their vibe.

Take The Orb’s rendition of ‘Blue Room‘, their 39-minute epic trance tune, heavily cut down for transmission, featuring two people dressed in industrial, vaguely post-apocalyptic garb playing a weird variation of space chess for three long minutes. Any member of The Greatest Generation who happened to be passing by their TV set that evening in 1992 – and catching a song that sounded like the sort of aggressive hold music their descendants might be subjected to in 2096 – might have been moved to opine: ‘Ah, so THAT’S the freedom millions of us went to our graves protecting in the 1940s…’

Certainly memorable. However, the artists who gave the most iconic Top of the Pops performances were those who best understood the show’s format and how to play to its strengths and weaknesses. It was about pitching yourself in a fun, endearing way without coming off as too silly, but steering clear of pompous pretentiousness – in short, giving the audience a live music video”.

I am going to wrap up with some debate as to whether we need to revive Top of the Pops. This feature an interesting take on it. At a time when we have radio stations and streaming services highlight new acts, together with a vast array of music media websites out there, does Top of the Pops have the same necessity and cachet?! I think that, at a time when major acts are charging fans a load to see them, watching them on Top of the Pops provides that access that they would not otherwise have. We have BBC’s long-running Later… with Jools Holland. Even so, only one music show on national television is pretty poor - at a time when there is a real call for more! Also, Top of the Pops is very different in terms of its tone and format compared to Jools Holland’s series. Metro published a feature this year that argued why we need to see Top of the Pops back on the screens:

“Given this, it’s desperately sad that there is no regular space dedicated to live music on the telly anymore – unless of course you can’t fork out £340 on a Glastonbury ticket so watch it on TV instead. Delightful as the broadcast is, this only happens once a year and doesn’t really cut it.

So of course normal people are going to be priced out of concerts. But it’s not all Ticketmaster and Madonna’s fault.

Ticket prices have also increased because the cost and expectation of production is much higher, with better technology available to make performances pop.

And of course, touring is now the humble artist’s biggest form of revenue since streaming giants have made music less pricey to buy.

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour promotional poster

But at a time when the UK is battling with the cost-of-living crisis, and people can’t afford to heat their homes, over £100 for one night of live music seems tasteless and out of touch.

This price is totally unaffordable to the average Brit, 60% of whom have admitted to struggling financially due to the rising costs of living.

I think if we can’t bring ticket prices down for live shows, it’s time to bring Top Of The Pops back so everyone can enjoy live music like we used to.

Even ex-host Fearne Cotton agrees, as in 2021 she revealed she couldn’t understand why it was axed in the first place.

‘After the show had finished, I sort of campaigned: “Please can we bring it back?” Why is there no decent music TV? I just don’t understand it,’ she said on The Gaby Roslin Podcast.

Experiencing the atmosphere of live music should not be limited to people who can afford it – and it’s not just fans that need this, but artists too.

In a world where everyone with a voice, camera, and internet can call themselves a musician, quality can sometimes be lost in the sheer quantity of content out there.

Bringing back TOTP would fill a much-needed gap of brilliant, curated content, showcasing the best genuine talent in the music industry today.

And why wouldn’t artists want to give more access to fans who can’t afford to see them live?

As a rule, music should not discriminate – especially in our current, polarised world. It should unite. That’s what makes it so powerful.

And while most people don’t have a spare £100 knocking around which they can happily splurge on one night, most people do have a TV and a favourite song.

So let’s bring the music into people’s homes again for free. It’s not just future generations and artists that need accessible live music – the country needs it, especially now”.

As we remember Top of the Pops at sixty on 1st January – though most will have other things on their minds…not least a hangover! -, we cannot say it was faultless and golden. Issues and controversies that mean it is a series that had its problems. That being said, think about all the brilliant moments and those legendary performances! I can imagine there is a big call for its return. So people can see artists play live without paying big money! A great way of discovering new acts. Mixing established artists and rising into this show, together with music news, features and archives. It may not enjoy another huge run. Though I could see Top of the Pops lasting for years more. Clara Amfo’s Top of the Pops Review of 2023 show on 28th December rekindled that love and spark of legendary series! Why it is such a beloved format. If Amfo and another presenter were to helm a new version of Top of the Pops, I can see it sitting alongside Later with Jools Holland. Some may want Top of the Pops left in the past. Maybe us being misty-eyed and too romantic! Sixty years after it launched on the BBC, generations recall their favourite Top of the Pops memories. The more we fondly reminisce, the more we will want to relive that all over again. There is a whole new generation unaware of the madness, magic and musical excellence…

THAT only Top of the Pops provides.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Talia Goddess

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Talia Goddess

_________

THERE are a few interviews…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Henry Diagne

that I want to put together to highlight and go deep with Talia Goddess. I will get straight to them. She is someone that everyone should know about. Hailing from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, Talia Goddess is an artist, producer and songwriter. Someone who has definitely caught my eye and ear. I will start off with this interview from NATAAL:

“What inspired your stage name?

Talia is my middle name and I’ve always liked it. I used it when I started to make my social media platform as a way to separate from my personal identity. So, it’s kind of like an undercover secret identity with Talia Goddess. Then when I started to gain more popularity I made the decision to embrace that as my public persona.

How do you feel you embody ‘Goddess’?

It allows for a sense of divinity to call into my existence when you speak on me. When you say the name Talia Goddess, you’re automatically prophesising a certain energy, an essence that feels protective, divine and spiritual. I chose the word Goddess to remind me of what it means to be aligned with yourself and operating from the point of authenticity and love and openness.

How do you bring that spirituality into your work?

My music is a really spiritual process. There are some songs that I feel were sent to me by God, like I’m the vessel between God, the higher power and the computer. It’s about being able to understand when things align, trusting the unknown and understanding my purpose here being bigger than anything I can comprehend. But also understanding God and spirituality to be the sum of everything that exists, which creates this oneness and unity allowing me to have this love and acceptance of the ecosystem. So that’s something that I use to operate in my daily life.

Your online bio is pretty powerful. It shared about your intention with wanting to be a champion of change. Why are you choosing to show up in the world in that way?

I've always been a leader and the one to take initiative. For example, when I was nine years old, I made an anti-bullying rap song. My goal was obviously to stop bullying but also to show individuality in the sense of being able to rap, enjoy performing and being myself as opposed to what other kids were doing. So, I think it's a radical effort just by constantly showing up as myself, inspiring other people to show up as themselves, and then we can begin to have more authentic relationships with each other. My sense of leadership and entrepreneurship goes hand in hand. It's just a matter of creating the reality I want to see in terms of how I want to engage with art and how I want other people to engage with my art. And art isn’t just music. It’s thinking about the visuals, graphics, movement, how it makes you feel. I can't help but be inquisitive about delving into all of it.

You write, produce and create the artwork. Why do it all?

There are three main reasons. One is financial, you have to compensate people and I did most of these songs in high school. Then often when I did sent things over to other people, I wasn't satisfied with what they did. I’m meticulous so no one else could really understand my vision. Then the third reason is growing up in a digital era, where you have your MacBook and all these tools at your fingertips gives you the capacity to create. It’s a matter of taking the time to learn and figure it out. Being a tech dork at heart, making music and making beats already, means graphic design kinda goes hand in hand. It allows me to think about finding my own visual identity.

Which other mediums outside of music inspire your work?

I started off as a dancer so whenever I listen to music, I pay attention to how my body reacts to it and the physiological sensations that come across, whether it's the bangs of the drums, or the rhythm, or how the frequencies resonate with me. When I'm walking in the street, I’m aware of how my heart moves and how people talk and their body language. It’s both a mental and physical thing. So, when I’m making music I think about how I would move to it or how it stirs me.

PHOTO CREDIT: Henry Diagne

As a child of Guyanese and British parents who was raised in Flatbush New York, how does that influence your art?

A lot of the first parties I was throwing were in the basement of my dad’s house in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He’s a construction worker and DJ. He just posted them on Facebook - no cover, no drugs, no alcohol - just being together and it doesn't matter who you are, it's about why you are there. So now when I throw parties and DJ, I go against the grain of optics of having clicks or having a scene. It’s more-so just people who are in search of an authentic experience through music discovery and having an open mind to whatever the night entails.

Music was playing all the time at home so I was understanding my Caribbean roots through dancehall and reggae and even lovers rock as a British Caribbean sound. I was then hearing afro house and dancing at the same time. Being a first-generation New Yorker, being at the intersection of two sonic palettes and cultural palettes, helps me to create a really cool melange that hopefully resonates with other people.

Your sound is not bogged down by one genre of music. Can you tell me about how you work with different sounds?

We have different moods and feelings so different genres encapsulate that, even when you think about subject matter and how you move. Rhythm and drums are intuitive to me, regardless of the cadence, so I combine different things to see what happens. Being a music producer allows me to have that creative freedom to try new sounds. I can make something and define it later”.

There is a great interview from NOTION that is well worth sourcing. Interesting discussions with an immense talent. I am going to start off with their interview from April of last year. They spoke with someone who was creating a legacy of her own. A sensational proposition with a unique sound a distinct passion and drive. Someone that was definitely getting people excited:

“Influenced by her family, her community and the concrete jungle she was raised in, the multi-faceted powerhouse is helping to redefine the creative landscape in more ways than one. To put it into perspective, Talia Goddess is only 20 years old and is already a talented singer-songwriter, producer, DJ, multi-instrumentalist and founder of record label and creative agency, TRANCE.

For her entire life, Talia has been surrounded by creativity. First introduced to music by her parents, a DJ and a singer, she and her nine siblings were always encouraged to follow their passions. The artist spent her early years as a dancer competing in shows, which was where she first developed her own relationship with music, going on to experiment with singing, doing covers and rapping proverbs. A natural performer, she would often steal the limelight at family functions, competing against the other kids. “I have a really big family — lots of cousins, aunts, all of that. We’d have a lot of family gatherings where there was always music. When I stepped foot in the place it was like a performance. I would just enjoy being in the centre and it kind of became a dance competition. Performing was the core of what really got me into music. This was in New York, before social media.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Amy Peskett

Recognising how our consumption of music is constantly evolving through the latest technology and devices at our disposal, Talia credits her curiosity as the fuel that ignited her passion for production. “I would beg my mum for gadgets and just fuck around with it. We had an electric keyboard which had different sounds, so that’s kind of how I started producing,” she explains. I would layer the keys and add some drums, then add the bass, some chords and it just kept evolving.” Innovative and observational from a young age, Talia enjoyed experimenting through multiple channels and seeing what she could create.

Raised in a Caribbean community and going to her local elementary and middle school, Talia was predominantly surrounded by Caribbean music. It wasn’t until she went to high school that she found herself in a much more multicultural space. “As diverse as New York is, I wasn’t around that growing up. As I started to be around other people, I realised how my identity as a first-generation New Yorker, Caribbean, Black person in America shaped me in a lot of different ways. That it translates to my style or just the overall appreciation for the diaspora.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Amy Peskett

Talia noticed that the prevalence of Caribbean music meant that her community wasn’t really in touch with other sounds. Taking time to research the many intersections that exist within Black music, she began to pay attention to the way different cultures and communities interact with it. “I find that there’s a lot of Black Americans who don’t really get into Caribbean music, they don’t know how to whine and that’s crazy. Similarly, with the rise of afrobeats, that’s a whole new thing to me too. But it’s not new, it’s just different cadences,” she says. “Growing up, I was listening to house music and seeing that it’s kind of gentrified in a way. You’d go to these white people clubs and hear the ‘oonts oonts’, but if you do your research, the ‘oonts oonts’ stemmed from Black music.”

Through her practice, Talia aims to challenge traditional narratives that exist by exploring the many genres that resonate with her. “What I hope to convey is authenticity and individuality in terms of production, just sonically, how it sounds. I’m trying to express my culture, my heritage and the things that make me who I am. It’s also a bit of an experiment to see what resonates with certain people. I do pop, I do rock. I’m really keeping it open. My target audience is real music lovers. People who can just appreciate the story and the artistry.”

Being in a culturally-rich environment like New York, Talia was exposed to many sections of the creative industry. From going to a performing arts school, to attending and throwing parties, singing and producing music and learning how to DJ, she’s already experienced a 360-degree view that many others her age could only dream of. With a talented network of artists around her, Talia came up with an idea to bring everyone together and do projects outside of school, by creating her own label and creative agency. “At the time, I was in high school around all these creatives — art, dance, drama, instrumental, vocal. I went to LaGuardia High School. Nicki Minaj went there, Timothée Chalamet, Alicia Keys, etc. So I’m thinking to myself, ‘Damn we should do some shit’, because you had your curriculum, but it wasn’t really current or relevant to what was actually going on in the arts, especially with streaming or digital art”.

There is one more interview that I want to get to before finishing off. Culted spoke with Talia Goddess last year about her rise in music and plans. An artist that grew up in Brooklyn now belongs to the world. That said, she still might be unknown to some. That is going to change very soon. Someone who is clearly destined for much bigger things. This is someone who started performing at a really young age. Her enthusiasm and curiosity has not waned at all. Really do go and follow the stunning Talia Goddess:

“You grew up in Brooklyn, New York. How do you think the concrete jungle shaped and influenced you as a creative? Did you have any other early childhood influences?

Yes, I did grow up in Brooklyn. I’ve been performing since I was 6 years old. I performed in after-school clubs all over from the Bronx to Queens to anywhere in the tri-state area. Meeting all kinds of people and being exposed to the music industry at such an early age really prepared me for what was to come, especially in a city like New York, where everything is so rough and hustle, you must really work your ass off. It’s kind of like London in a way, I feel like New York is like London on crack. New York has a similar energy, it’s fast-paced pace but it’s not too crazy, yeah growing up in New York gave me the street smarts and the strength of having tough skin to be able to navigate the industry or even my career and knowing how to master my skill and master my craft, that ultimately what sets you apart from the rest, a gimmick is a gimmick, I think New York is known for being real and dope, that’s something you can’t fake. You can’t fake it until you make it, you must be real in this industry. I think it’s just like the entire experience ultimately inspired me, that’s my origin.

In terms of influences, I can’t really pinpoint one specific artist, but If I had to pinpoint one artist it would be Michael Jackson like the Jackson Five growing up, when it came to performing, practicing and the whole etiquette of what it means to be a performer, this was before anything social media or anything like that, just seeing him perform at such a young age was such an inspiration.

Amazing. Of course, Your first EP Poster Girl was posted in 2021 which was overall a very soft and intimate project. How would you describe your musical evolution since then?

I would say I’ve become a lot bolder in my creative choices, initially when I first came onto the scene with a soft and intimate tone people just assumed I was an R&B artist, that was just an appetizer and the first course I’m the complete opposite to that, because I think that being my first project there were a lot of nerves and uncertainty, now that I’ve experienced what’s it’s like to create a body of work, I’m so sure of myself and now I actually want to showcase my creative ability and not play it safe at all. My new music it’s all over the place, but it’s in the same world I think it’s a good reflection of me as an individual, being so multi-cultural and being in so many different spaces, my new music is just a reflection of who I am today. Pushing the visuals, the song, doing more shoots, and just creating this world, I’m so excited to push the pen, and the artistry and continue developing. 

What does your creative process look like? Are you the type to freestyle until something with potential comes up? Or do you always have a set idea of what you want to achieve when making music?

Most times I’ll start with the beat and even going back to the last question, I’m really showcasing my skills in production and my work as a music producer, whether that’s playing with genres, arrangement, or different instruments, I’ll always start with the music that could be loose melodies that I’ll freestyle over while I’m making the beat or play around with loose lyrics and create something from there. Recently I’ve been collaborating with a variety of producers and trying to step into a songwriter space, I worked with a producer who sent me a beat and I managed to get a track together instantly – probably the fastest time I’ve ever done something like that. Most of the time when I’m making music the inspiration is spontaneous and just spouts from being in the right state of mind and the right energy flow to make something cool.

What do you want your listeners to take away from your music?

I think with the new music especially, I want the listeners to really engage with music like the audio sonic experience, wholeheartedly and to fully immerse themselves into the musical experience. I think there is a little bit of a lack of etiquette when it comes to listening to music, sometimes people would play in the background or just play it on their iPhone speaker or talk throughout the song, I really want the listeners to really be able to dissect and really be taken aback by the creative choices. I think my music is unpredictable and I like the fact it sparks conversation and I think that’s what music is about, like it literally stimulates your brain.

I love how passionate you are about your music as well.

Yeah that’s true, I love to take away notes about the production, take away notes about the themes, finding connections between the black diaspora music and how it can intersect and combine and like all the different cool sonic things happening with music right now to create new sounds.

Not only are you a singer-songwriter, DJ, and producer, but you also founded your own record label TRANCE, all by the age of 20. Impressive. How do you balance it all?

I have very irregular work and sleeping hours, I have periods where I’m chilling, living the life, partying, DJing, clubbing, traveling, whatever, being very extroverted, and then when I’m making music or working, a lot of what I do is very isolated, whether that’s recording or just working on my computer, sometimes I’ll have non-stop days where I’m just locking in hours. It also helps that I have a good team, a label, and good peers, who are my collaborators and we kind of bounce ideas off each other. There’s a big aspect of entrepreneurship with everything that I do and I’m still learning”.

The simply brilliant Talia Goddess needs to be on everyone’s radar. I think that this year is going to be her busiest and most successful yet. The momentum that is behind her will make sure of that! I am fairly new to her work, though I am not a fan and will definitely keep an eye to see where she goes. Make sure that this incredible human is in your sights! After a great 2023 and year where she put out the DOWN 2 EARTH album, it is very much full steam ahead. There is no doubt that Talia Goddess is…

SUCH a sensation.

______________

Follow Talia Goddess

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/taliaagoddess/

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TALIAAGODDESS

Bandcamp:

https://taliagoddess.bandcamp.com/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4Otn2nALdNCTFUUExiskqw

YouTube:

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

FEATURE: Spotlight: Sotfcult

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Sotfcult

_________

I have known about Softcult…

PHOTO CREDIT: Pearl Cook

for a little while now. I think that this year is going to be one where they truly capture worldwide attention. Where their music will go to new places. They have tour dates that take them through the U.S. and Australia. The Canadian duo consists of Phoenix and Mercedes Arn-Horn. Before getting to a few interviews from last year with Softcult, here is some biography about an incredible music force channelling Riot Grrrl music for a new generation:

“Softcult is siblings Mercedes (guitar/vocals) and Phoenix (drums/vocals/production) Arn-Horn. The band began dropping single tracks in early 2021, and released their first EP, Year Of The Rat, on April 16, 2021.

Citing Bikini Kill as a major influence, the band takes the ethos of the riot grrrl movement and mixes it with shoegaze, grunge, and dreampop influences. Squarely feminist, the music addresses endemic issues of abuse, assault, harassment, misogyny, and social and gender norms as well as mental health.

The band name is a call for awareness. “We chose Softcult because this band is all about social commentary.”, says Mercedes. “A soft cult could be anything from a church, a government, a family, a band even. It’s anything that you don’t really question where you follow your group of people. We’re all in soft cults in society that we don’t realize we’re a part of, we’re just willing participants because it’s a normalized thing at this point. It can sound a little harsh but it’s also meant to make you question which soft cults are you a part of”.

Softcult’s E.P., See You in the Dark, was released last March. It received a lot of praise. It was no surprise that it was also a time where many sites and publications highlighted them as a group to watch closely. A spectacular duo whose music needs to be sought out. Stereogum spoke to the siblings about their early life and path into music:

“Mercedes and Phoenix Arn-Horn are sitting on the floor of their hotel. The Canada-born twin siblings, who lead the post-punk/dream-pop/shoegaze project Softcult, are in a sleepy state of post-show bliss, having played a date last night the End — a venue on Nashville’s famed “Rock Block.” Today is a day off before heading to Memphis, and then, SXSW. How are they planning to spend the next 12 hours before hopping back on the road?

“First thing’s first: After this, we’ll probably shower,” laughs Mercedes (she/her). “Then definitely get some food and maybe see some more live music.” Speaking to Mercedes and Phoenix, even over a Zoom call with wonky WiFi, it’s clear the duo are currently active in the music industry in a way that suits their needs. No longer attached to a major-label system (the siblings have been playing together in various band formations for a decade), Mercedes and Phoenix (they/them) are not only writing hypnotic melodies steeped in political and social discourse (their third EP See You In The Dark is out Friday) — they’re building an empire.

This isn’t hyperbole. Together, Mercedes and Phoenix oversee nearly every aspect of the business of being Softcult. In addition to creating the band’s artwork, Phoenix runs point on production and engineering. Meanwhile, Mercedes directs and edits their videos. Both create and produce a riot grrrl-inspired fanzine called SCripture and participate in a Discord server where Softcult listeners from around the world can come together. “We made it because we thought it might be a cool thing for people — maybe they don’t live in the same area, they can’t all get out to shows, but they can still connect with each other. It’s another way to foster a community,” Phoenix says about the server.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pearl Cook

“We’re not on it all the time, but we do check on it, make sure everything’s above board, answer questions about the band, how we recorded something, or [made] videos,” Phoenix continues. “The cool thing about it is that the people have made it their own. They can kind of talk about whatever they want. Some talk about recording and producing, pedalboards and guitar tones. Some share personal stories: There’s a channel called ‘Trigger Warning,’ and it’s all them having a place to share what they’re going through and feel safe doing that.”

Growing up together in Ontario, the siblings were homeschooled by parents (their mother is an English teacher) who encouraged them to think independently and pursue their artistic inclinations. “I always feel like there’s two types of homeschoolers,” Mercedes says. “They’re either super religious and want to shelter their children from the world — that was not the case [with us], it was the opposite. I think [our parents] were like, ‘The school system is going to kill your love of literature.’ They just wanted us to experience the school of life. That was a huge gift when we were younger because it did give time to really focus on our music.

“Both [parents] had been teachers in their life at some point,” she adds. “So they were already really good at making sure we knew the things we needed to know, then also giving us space to work on our passions… It’s not a typical band story. I think maybe they thought we were going to be concert pianists or something, but they’re happy that we’re doing something that we love, and they are really supportive with that.”

Launching Softcult in 2020, in the thick of the pandemic and that summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, Mercedes and Phoenix channeled their own frustrations around current events into the music, addressing everything from financial and gender inequality to late-stage capitalism and their experience(s) with the entertainment industry. They soon released a 2021 debut EP, Year Of The Rat, and followed up with last year’s Year Of The Snake EP, which kicked off with a propulsive guitar track wryly titled “BWBB” (“Boys Will Be Boys”).

Their new See You In The Dark EP opens with a My Bloody Valentine-esque “Drain,” which finds the band taking on corporate greed and corrupt politicians that enable capitalist structures for personal gain. The upbeat, chanting “Dress,” meanwhile, addresses sexual assault, feeling unsafe while out with friends, and the lingering trauma when your space has been violated. “See you in the dark/ On thе street, following me/ Watch it flash before my еyes/ All the things that couldn’t happen to me,” they sing over a wash of winding guitars. “It’s a dress, not a yes/ Not a fucking invitation”.

There are a few interviews more that I want to get to before wrapping things up. The Alternative spent some time with Softcult in March. After the Ann-Horn sisters disbanded Courage My Love, they farmed Softcult and mixed Dream-Pop and something harder-edged. I do feel that the next couple of years will see Softcult take to big stages and get headline sets. In a music scene where many women still feel undervalued, they are creating impact and opening doors for women coming through. Definitely a duo to keep your eyes on:

“The EP features songs that were initially meant for their second EP Year of the Snake, released in February of last year. In the past, it wasn’t uncommon for them to go a couple years without releasing music, but Softcult have been prolific as they have continued to be inspired by the new music they’ve been working on. “We don’t like waiting too long in between releases to put something out, so I think there was a little pressure to just keep writing while we still felt inspired and not take a break. I feel like after putting out our first two EPs, we were ready to try some new things and really push ourselves to go out of the box. We wrote and recorded everything in our studio in between touring last year,” Phoenix says of this EP.

Alongside each track they release, they also create minimalistic grainy music videos that are edited and filmed by Mercedes for every single. Phoenix handles the production side of things as well as the engineering and visual artwork for their singles, EPs, and SCripture zines. From the music to the handmade zines, Softcult embodies self-empowerment through creative expression. Their SCripture zines take a closer look at the meaning behind their songs and highlights issues in society they feel compelled to shed light on. Cultivating a community with their fanbase, they also collaborate with their scene by including submissions of art and poetry from others and giving shout outs to organizations and charities that are important to them. Taking on this DIY mentality when it comes to creating their art, they are unmistakably inspired by the artists involved in the ’90s Riot Grrrl movement, and hope to continue passing on similar ethics while empowering anyone listening to them to do the same.

“Even though it’s definitely getting better all the time, the alternative music scene hasn’t always been the most welcoming to women, queer people, people of colour, pretty much anyone that isn’t a typical white guy in a band. It’s also unfortunately been a breeding ground for a lot of mistreatment of women and femme presenting people, especially minors, which obviously isn’t okay. It’s important that we keep paying attention to those problems in the scene, and keep trying to make it a safer place for everyone. The Riot Grrrl movement resonated with us as people that always felt a little on the outside looking in and had a hard time finding our place in the industry. We feel it’s just as important today as it was in the ’90s, and in our own small way we want to carry the torch so to speak,” Phoenix expresses.

Sometimes letting go and starting over allows us to move forward more freely and either reinvent ourselves or realize that growth isn’t exactly linear as we explore different facets of ourselves. In Softcult’s case, it’s a beautiful reclamation of themselves as artists and as women / femme presenting people. With the revival of heavy alternative rock that’s laced with thick fuzzed out tones and ethereal melodies, Softcult are making some of the most relevant and inspirational music out there. Their band name even stems from the idea that any group can be considered a “cult” and provokes listeners to think about what kind of soft cults they may passively be a part of. The best kind of music reflects on the world around us and asks us to question what we’ve known, sometimes serving up disturbing revelations about how we’ve been to each other or to the world. Softcult’s music is not purely self-indulgent as it seeks to reflect their experiences as people and the experience of humanity as a whole and hopefully in doing so inspires us all to move forward with a little more thought than before”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pearl Cook

Another interview from March, Kerrang!. They discussed their new E.P. that highlights (among other things) climate crisis and toxic masculinity. They are definitely creating this genuine and essential new wave of Riot Grrrl. I know that Softcult are going to keep on releasing astonishing music for many years to come. If you have not heard them and checked them out then make sure you connect with them and listen to the music. They are a phenomenal duo:

“Said lyrics confront the perversity and prevalence of rape culture, especially on nights out that suddenly take a turn when a drink is spiked or someone is groped. In the five years since #MeToo, however, do Softcult think there is progress being made?

“I do think we made a lot of progress, because a lot of people weren’t even aware of how serious this issue is,” reckons Mercedes, becoming more animated the more she says on the subject. “I would bet every woman has experienced some form of harassment, whether they’ve come forward or not.”

Then again, #MeToo hasn’t come without backlash, and neither has Softcult’s own quest to raise awareness. “We get a lot of flak [from] people being like, ‘Oh, this band hates men.' It’s not true. I hate misogyny, I hate sexism, I hate rape culture, but I don’t equate that with being male.” Mercedes has, however, seen more men making an effort to listen to women’s experiences. “Men can be a part of the solution as much as women are. You’d also be surprised how receptive a lot of guys are when they hear that, they’re like, ‘That’s disgusting, I’d never do that, I’m going to be looking out.’”

Elsewhere, the darkly fuzzy mid-EP highlight Someone2me tackles a different angle on how misogyny manifests, but with a more personal slant, speaking of an incel who was harassing and threatening Phoenix and Mercedes online for three years. It scared them at first, but when they thought about it, they began to see through this person and wrote Someone2me as an attempt to cut them down to size.

“There was this turning point when we realised, ‘This person is so fucking sad,’” recalls Mercedes. “They have nothing in their life; their hate is what sustains them. They have so much time on their hands because no-one wants to be around someone like that.”

“Honestly, I think that the reason [incels] hate women who reject them is because they cannot accept the failure within themselves to actually be in a relationship with a woman,” adds Phoenix. “When you put the blame on someone else every time you get rejected, you miss the opportunity to be like, ‘What could I learn from this?’ [They think] it’s all women’s fault.” 

Another major issue that see you in the dark takes interest in is climate change, with opening track Drain coldly criticising the billion-dollar corporations whose activities are responsible for the bulk of humanity’s carbon emissions. “As an individual, sometimes the onus is put on you to make a change, but what can I as an individual do to change something that huge conglomerates contribute to?” Phoenix questions. “It feels like you’re screaming into a void.”

“The frustrating part is there’s been a climate emergency since our parents [were growing up]. Because of corporate greed, or maybe because it’s inconvenient, we don’t want to think about it,” adds Mercedes. “Fast forward 40, 50 years, we’re still talking about this shit. It gets scarier the older you get. Touring a van with no a/c in Arizona, you’re like, ‘Okay, I feel it, I can’t bear it one second longer.’ Imagine if your whole existence was like that!”

The alt. music world’s dialogue on climate change and how to respond to it is picking up in volume, with bands like Gojira, Architects and Enter Shikari acting as some of our scene's most vocal advocates. Never ones for empty words, Softcult are playing their part. They’re more than happy to pay a little extra for merch made from organic, recycled fabric; they don’t eat meat; they enthuse over the fact that UK venues are good at offering hospitality, so they don’t have to rely on takeouts and consume more single-use plastic.

Crucially, however, they know that saving the planet is too weighty a task to rest on just their shoulders. “Travel is the big one,” Mercedes asserts. “That’s on the corporations – they need to make it more efficient and greener. A band can’t be like, ‘We’re never going to fly anywhere.’ It’s on the companies to care about making it a greener ride or flight.”

The rest of see you in the dark muses upon more intimate subjects. The achingly delicate One Of A Million offers an antidote to the world’s division by suggesting that humans are more similar than different, while the EP’s final two tracks turn inward. The woozy Love Song delves into the simmering anxiety that accompanies falling in love, while Spoiled asks the critical voice in our heads why it’s allowed to speak freely, when we wouldn’t dream of treating anybody else with the same lack of compassion.

There’s a diverse array of subject matter on show, but the personal and political sides of Softcult are more closely intertwined than might appear. After all, the political, very often, is personal. As a species we’re drawn to fight against the injustices we’ve personally experienced, or witnessed others we know suffer against.

“Pointing the finger doesn’t do anything. To be able to relate to a message, you have to be able to see yourself in it,” Mercedes reasons. “If you don’t get personal with it, it’s in one ear, out the other, or you feel completely closed off from it.”

After all, when people change, society changes. “In order for the world to change, there has to be some change within yourself. Blaming everyone else for problems doesn’t solve anything,” says Phoenix”.

I am going to end with a new interview with Softcult. Messed Up Magazine published a really deep and extensive interview with the duo. I have selected a couple of sections that are of particular note. It is clear that there is this incredible fascination around a magnificent duo. They are such an important act. That is why I think their music should be played more widely. They have a fanbase in the U.K., though I think there are more stations that should include their music. Make sure that you follow them:

“We have a responsibility to the planet.

Among the many issues that threaten not just artists and young people, but those all over the globe – even the ones who deny it – climate change is a top contender for the most likely to end us all. Despite the axe ever balanced precariously above our heads, we have so many everyday worries to contend with first.

So, who is going to do anything about it?

Talking about your song Drain and climate change, I heard you say something that I don’t often hear from other artists, which is that a lot of these burdens of activism and widespread change isn’t really the individual’s responsibility, it’s instead on corporations to make these changes. I’ve certainly felt bad about not doing enough. That being said, what do you think artists can do to help? And do you think people generally do enough?

Mercedes: From my perspective, a big thing artists do have control over is their merchandise. Realistically, touring is not an eco-friendly thing – flying or driving every single day. But, those are the things we aren’t necessarily in control of, until companies make those methods of travel more sustainable. But, as artists who sell merch and put merch into production, you do have choices on whether it’s going to be ethically made – recycled fabric, sustainable, plastic or paper for your CDs. Those are things you do have within your control.

You may be seeing it on a micro level – “but it costs more to do it sustainably.” How can you criticise big corporations when you yourself aren’t ready to make that commitment, that small sacrifice?

So, we always try to print our merch on fabric that’s organic, so it’s got less of a bio footprint, and we generally do a paper sleeve for CDs instead of the dual cases which are the cheapest option. And it might not be the fanciest, but the merch definitely feels nicer, even if you don’t care about environmental stuff. It’s got that vintage feel.

PHOTO CREDIT: Courtney Turner

Phoenix: Yeah, so if you’re a vintage bro … (laughs)

Mercedes: I think that’s the biggest thing I can see artists standing up and doing. A lot of the time, even big touring artists will charge so much for their merch, and it’ll be printed on the shittiest, scratchiest fabric, and it’s not good for the environment. People wear it a couple of times and then, because it’s uncomfortable, they throw it out.

The future is mellow

Softcult’s outspoken songwriting takes a backseat for their latest release. Haunt You Still isn’t a detour from the band’s usual spooky sounds, but it does bring a slightly different, more mellow feeling to their seesaw of grunge and shoegaze.

“Do I haunt you still, in your memories? Do I reappear in your bad dreams? When you think of me, is it fondly? Or do I haunt you still?

Let’s talk about Haunt You Still. Lyrically, as more of a love song, I can draw parallels to those of your older songs. Can you talk about how it connects to what you’re doing now and what it’s about?

Mercedes: Sometimes, we’ll sit down and write songs, and there’s an issue that’s at the forefront of our minds and we really want to write a song about it. And then other times, these lyrics will just come out, and it’s not clear what the song is going to be about until we’re halfway through it. Haunt You Still was one of those, for me. I think I had some stuff on my mind, thinking about relationships, and not just romantic ones but friendships, too. And when they end, and the impact they leave … and maybe thinking about regrets you’ve had from how you handled situations. Like, “I wonder if, now, when this person thinks of me, do they think about the good times? Or is their first gut reaction a painful one.

I guess, that is what the song is about. But it’s also … I get really sick of these breakup songs demonising the other person, and I feel like there’s enough of that already. When it’s justified, it’s justified, but sometimes we can get in this mindset of having to suddenly be like, “Oh, my ex is crazy!” It’s not always like that – sometimes things just don’t work out, and it is what it is

Phoenix: And that’s okay.

Mercedes: We’ve written a lot of songs that are from a very specific point of view, so it’s nice to write something where, instead of us explaining it to people, they can see themselves in it. We always project meaning onto things, but I think it’s a mirror of what we’re going through in our own lives.

Phoenix: It’s a little more introspective as opposed to putting out a statement.

Mercedes: At least for me, and probably for you, too, as we get older, things that are so intense when you’re younger soften a bit. You think about them a bit more, and maybe you’re seeing the other person’s side a little more, and it’s not always so black and white. It’s a little more of a ‘real’ breakup song, in that sense.

I suppose we have however many centuries of literature exploring romance, and people trying to figure it out. I suppose it’s nice to hear a more balanced take.

Mercedes: And sometimes, those are the most painful breakups, because you can’t really understand why it didn’t work out. And you don’t hate this person. It can be like a defense mechanism, sometimes. At least for me, it’s so much easier to be angry than to be sad. I’d rather be filled with this righteous rage that empowers me than be … broken.

The fabulous Softcult have a busy 2024 ahead I am sure. In addition to tour dates, there will be new music and further developments. They will acquire new fans and, let’s hope, get closer to be a headline act at major festivals. The song, Heaven, was released in December. Another terrific cut from Softcult. They are an amazing duo that…

EVERYONE should get behind.

______________

Follow Softcult

PHOTO CREDIT: Pearl Cook

Official:

https://www.softcult.band/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/softcultband

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/softcultband

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/13pYXGtaLO9d06VrXX4Aw0?si=ZfKEwuj-TFuDKem-gmyMFg&nd=1&dlsi=9312b1362b9d440

YouTube:

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

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/softcultband/

FEATURE: Spotlight: Highlyy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Highlyy

_________

WHILST there are not that many…

interviews from her available online, that will change as we move through this year. The brilliant Highlyy is an Essex artist who has already amassed a huge and passionate following on TikTok and Instagram. Like a few of the artists I have spotlighted in the past day or two, Highlyy is a name that I saw elsewhere. I was not aware of her until fairly recently. A sensational Afro-Pop talent who is going to make big waves this year, make sure she is someone that you familiarise yourself with:

“With some of the cleanest vocals in the game, emerging UK songstress Highlyy has taken the internet by storm, easing her way onto playlists and rotations with only one single and a big promise of what’s to come.

What makes Highlyy so significant as an artist is her embodied fluidity. She’s able to transition from English to French to Yoruba in one breath, merging the different layers of her and the communities they signify. She’s a representation of culture and pride, which is simultaneously much bigger than music and yet exactly what it’s all about.

At only 18, she’s hit milestones many artists have yet to achieve, and she’s done so humbly. Collaborating with British rapper Tion Wayne on their breakout hit afrobeats-inspired track “Soldier,”  amassing millions of streams is only the beginning for the young talent.

All it takes is a quick scroll through Highlyy's comments to see the growing impatience for her follow-up, but she hasn’t succumbed to the pressures of an industry with little regard for process and marination. Her pristine vocals aren’t a gift to be rushed, and judging by her glowing confidence, it’s assumed that whatever is being cooked up won’t disappoint.

Free-spirited and inherently jovial, there’s a light she has that radiates from within. She’s trusting in the journey unfolding before her and you can tell she’s having fun, which many in her lane fail at feigning. From repping Essex all the way to Congo, Highlyy is free and for the people”.

With a few singles under her belt from last year, there will be questions whether an album, mixtape or E.P. will come. What next for this incredible artist. Even though she is a fan of Chris Brown and would like to collaborate with him one day – he is someone I hate and feel is a hugely problematic artist given far too much opportunity considering his abusive past -, I can appreciate why she’d love him for sharing her song, Soldier, on his social media. Apparently an E.P. could soon come about. It was suggested when Highlyy spoke with GRM Daily back in September:

“Highlyy’s musical journey began within a richly musical family, her Congolese heritage serving as the bedrock of her passion for music. Influenced by her father’s band and her mother’s choir singing, Highlyy seemed destined for a career in music. As a child, she sang in church and school choirs, quickly gaining recognition for her exceptional vocal talents.

However, it wasn’t until she stepped into a recording studio at just eight years old that she felt the call to create her original music. From that pivotal moment, Highlyy’s curiosity for writing and producing blossomed, propelling her to experiment with her unique blend of traditional African sounds and contemporary influences.

Now, with a burgeoning fan base and critical acclaim, Highlyy is evolving from a rising star to a visionary artist. Her music serves as a powerful medium to address issues relevant to her young audience, empowering them with her aspirational and honest themes, touching upon love, ambition, and the journey to success. She sat to speak exclusively with GRM about her journey so far.

We know that you come from quite a musical background. Tell us about your earliest interactions with music and how that all plays into your life and your interest in music.

“Okay, so obviously, my parents are very into music. My dad was in a band back in Congo. My mum was also a singer in a choir as were my grandparents. My parents bought me a microphone when I was younger. So I would always be making noise and singing in church. They would make me sing, so I joined the choir in church, and the choir in school, and everyone around was just telling my parents your daughter can really sing and you guys should pay attention to that. And, you know, here we are.”

So would you say that the musical ability that you have, has always been really nurtured for you to be able to pursue it?

“I would say that yeah, it’s always been there, you know, music is just around me. Has always been, and forever will be.”

Where does it turn around that you start writing your own music and where does that part come from? Because lyrically you are very strong, such a wordsmith…tell us more about how you started writing?

“My dad took me to a studio session for the first time when I was probably eight years old. My dad was taking me to the studio all the time, every weekend he would take me there to make songs.”

And if you were to describe your sound, how would you describe it?

“I would describe it as fresh, cool, Afro-pop, something new, something that you wouldn’t have heard before.”

Would you say your Congolese heritage influences that sound?

“Yeah, for sure. 100% I feel like it’s just something new. You haven’t heard it before. I don’t hear any artists like me. I’m not gonna lie. It’s something new and fresh. I feel like yeah, being Congolese definitely did play a big part in that.”

Is it important for you to showcase that?

“100% And that’s why I speak in different languages when I make my music so people feel connected in a different type of way.”

Have you managed to reach much of a fan base outside of Congo?

“Yeah!”

Have you been over to do anything yet? Or are there any plans to?

“Yeah, definitely . But you know what, I feel like I have a bigger fan base from Nigeria. But that’s because I do afrobeats and everyone thinks I’m Nigerian. When people realise I’m from Congo that’s when I feel like all of Congo will give me that love.”

Talk to us about the rest of the subject matter on the project and your writing process behind the different topics and how they relate. Is it super personal? Is it other people’s situations? Where do you place yourself when you’re getting into the mode to write a song?

“I feel like everything is personal, and everything just depends on how I’m feeling that day. If a situation just happened, I’ll talk about it. I’m like, let me not waste it. Because I feel when I write about my feelings, or what I’m going through, that’s when I make my best music because it’s really coming from the heart”.

I want to finish with an interview that goes back a bit further – to the summer of last year. Highlyy did mention an E.P. was coming out but, with singles following the interview, maybe it is slated for this year. In any case, there was special attention on the success of Solider. The fact that this is a song that connected with a lot of people. She also spoke about wanting to become a household name – which will happen in years to come I am sure. Wonderland. grabbed some thoughts and impressions from a brilliant and already complete young artist:

“19 years old and already taking the industry by storm, Highlyy is an artist with something to say. Following her global success of a debut single, “Soldier”, the emerging talent is showing no signs of slowing down anytime. Her infectious Afro-pop sound comes to life once more with “Time Like This”, the strong follow up single to her debut.

Growing up surrounded by a musical family, it was only a matter of time before Highlyy introduced her talent to the world. After studying at East London Arts and Music, finding a community of like-minded listeners on TikTok, and working to develop her unique sound, the stars aligned and her hard work paid off. With her all-encompassing, smooth vocals, she effortlessly transitions from Yoruba to French to English — blurring language barriers and creating something meaningful for a truly global audience.

I would love to hear about your single “Soldier” and the experience of it going viral before its release. What was that whole experience like and how has TikTok helped you to reach an audience and connect with your fanbase?

The whole “Soldier” thing, it’s crazy. I made the song at 4am in the morning. I was with my friends and a friend recommended the beat and everything. I made the song on my laptop and posted it on TikTok. It didn’t do anything on TikTok for like a month, so then I sped it up. I was like, “I might as well speed it up with TikTok. You never know what will happen”. So I sped it up and it literally went viral the same day. It’s crazy. TikTok is a very powerful tool for our generation. It really does help with music.

How did the music video come about? What inspired it and how did you create it?

With the music video, we were just like, let’s make it as authentic as possible. Let’s make it as relatable to me and as real as possible. So we used African props, Congolese culture, from the dancing to the food to the looks, everything. Even the little boy, he represented my little brother — and my little brother was actually in the video as well. It’s just authentic. It’s just real. It’s like real life. I feel like the song is a prayer. It’s a story of what I wanted. So I feel like the music video just takes us through my life.

You are building such an incredible community and fanbase. What do you hope your listeners take away from your music?

I just want people to be inspired. Like, I want anyone that goes through what I went through, or has dreams to just know that you can do it, as long as you put your mind to it and work hard. I just want people to really feel it. I feel like my music is very touching. As much as it’s a vibe, if you listen to the lyrics, it’s actually really deep.

Is there anything in particular that you’re really looking forward to, in the near or far future?

I’m looking forward to my EP — that’s gonna come out in July. I feel like that’s when people are really going to understand and know who Highlyy is. And, you know, it will put some respect to my name. I’m gonna have a household name. I want people to really know who Highlyy is.

Take some time out to discover an accomplished artist who is adding her own take and DNA to Afrobeat. Primed to have a very busy year, I can see her hooking up with some major artists on future songs. It is clear that there is this love out there for her. With more music in the ether, that will Highlyy played on more radio stations. Before long, there will be big gig demands and festival bookings. A major talent in the works, keep your eyes peeled…

FOR the sensational Highlyy.

____________

Follow Highlyy

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@1highlyy

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/1highlyy/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4JmaulM4hnNKJzvNgdxx3B

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnvgjKHZYUsItjpxJoh3Z8w

FEATURE: Spotlight: brazy

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

brazy

_________

A staggering talent…

PHOTO CREDIT: tallulah.fx

that I must thank other sites and newspaper for, as they discovered her brilliance before me, it is about time to highlight the extortionary brazy! Whereas last year I was spotlighting a lot of new American artists to look out for, this year seems to be more about British-based acts. That is good! Homegrown pride and strength that is going to go into the international market and make a real impact very soon. There is no doubt brazy is ready for greatness. She is a spellbinding artist you all need to hear! I want to bring in a few interviews with her so that you can get an idea of this multilingual and multitalented queen. Her magnificent E.P., Afro Sexy, was released a few weeks ago. It shows that she is an artist that is very much here to stay! You can just tell that we will be talking about brazy for years to come. Earlier in the year, NATIVE spoke with an artist on the cusp of greatness:

“While female rappers have always been present in Nigerian, evident in the legacy of rap artists likes of Weird MC and Sasha P, their prominence within mainstream conversations is always overshadowed by the inherent dominance of their male counterparts. In recent years, more women—armed with braggadocios lyricism and standout vocals—have made it loud and clear that they are not to be sidelined. As they tell their stories unapologetically and spit the bars like no one’s looking, SGaWD, YTboutthataction, Daisy and more in the budding class of women in rap are taking up space. Another unforgettable frontrunner in this group of artists is Brazy.

Still a relatively new name to the scene, Brazy has been causing a stir since her debut on L0la-assisted “Siren” and one thing that’s remained consistent from the 2021 release till her Velli-produced breakthrough track, “Attends”, is the spontaneity of the craft. Preferring to go down the organic, easy-breezy route, most—if not all—of Brazy’s released tracks were recorded in one take. “I wouldn’t say I’ve started taking music seriously yet,” she responds rather honestly to the question of when she started taking music seriously. “It’s still very much about me chilling with my friends.”

As she takes her time figuring things out and going with the wind of her creative inclinations, Brazy still manages to standout out from the crowd for a number of reasons. Her self-assured lyrics and ear for beats that match her effervescent tone, mostly produced friend and collaborator Babyrixburger, as well as her ability to deliver something different on every track makes listening to Brazy refreshing each time.

Within reason, this drew the attention of alternative rap auteur and alté pioneer Cruel Santino. Sitting amongst many popular names like Koffee, Amaarae, Gus Dapperton and Skepta on Santi’s sophomore LP, ‘Subaru Boys: FINAL HEAVEN’, Brazy’s clutch performance on opening track “Matilda” offered a standout cut from the 21-tracker. Her airy, mellifluous vocals and memorable adlibs, paired seamlessly with Santi’s eccentric production and futuristic sounds, set the pace for what many would consider one of the best projects from 2022. Just like that, from making music as a hobby and fun activity with friends, Brazy was opening act for Santi’s Europe Tour and recording the soundtrack that rocked the sound waves of many end of year festivities in these parts, “Attends.”

If you couldn’t already tell from the witty pre-hook, “cheat on me and I’ll cheat on you,” Brazy is here for a good time. She’s experimenting different sounds and genres but one things for certain, Brazy’s songs are one of one. We caught up with the genre-fluid rap artist on what these moments have been like for her. She goes into detail about working with one of her major inspirations, recording “Attends” in 10 minutes, her new collaboration with UK artist Len, what the future holds and much more.

Our conversation, which follows below, has been lightly edited for clarity.

NATIVE: Let’s kick off with your name. What inspired the name Brazy?

Brazy: It’s actually quite an uninteresting story. You know when finsta’s were a thing, my username was Brazybih and when I went to Uni I didn’t want people to know my real name. My Instagram was previously my full government name and when I went to school they butchered the pronuncialtion. I put my name as Brazybih on instagram and all my friends started calling me Brazy.

NATIVE: Lots of listeners don’t know Brazy studied engineering. Is this a career path you’re pursuing and how do you navigate that alongside the music?

Brazy: I studied Bio-medical Engineering at Uni and that’s when I was making most of my songs. I’ve always called myself a DIY queen. I’m always multitasking. When people find out that I studied Engineering or I speak Mandarin, they’re usually surprised. That’s what I enjoy doing. I like being able to have different sides to me. I will always purse dreams I have for myself alongside creative things. I’m actually not pursuing a career in Engineering because Uni was a scam. However, I am going to be working in sales at an investment bank from July. A lot of my music is based off the knowledge that I have and nothing is wasted. It’s a very integral part of who I am and if you don’t know those things about me then you can hear it in my music. We’re a package.

NATIVE: How would you describe your music to someone who’s never listened?

Brazy: I would say that my music is very, very fun. It’s full of personality. When you hear any of my songs, you instantly have a reaction and it’s normally a positive reaction. It would get you moving and you can really feel my personality in the song. All my songs are different so there’s not one way I can really describe it for now”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by brazy (@brazyybih)

NATIVE: So far, it seems like you’re on the cusp of something much bigger. What more can we expect from you? Any projects or visuals in the near future?

Brazy: The “Attends” video is hopefully coming out soon. I hope to record an EP and drop that soon. I’m just looking for the right people to work with. More performances and more features too. I love doing features. This is just the beginning.

NATIVE: How would you describe your average listener and what audience do you anticipate targeting in the future?

Brazy: My average listener is someone who loves to have fun and isn’t too stuck in their ways. They would listen to me singing on “Gingerbread” but they’d also listen to me giving dance music on “Attends.” That’s my ideal listener and that seems to be my audience. They’re very open minded. They love everything that I do. For the audience I anticipate targeting, that would be the nightclub scene. Songs that can be played over and over at parties and nightclubs. I have that with “Attends.” I could never perform it just once. I performed at a concert once and did that song back to back 5 times. An audience that wants to have fun and vibe just like me”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Obi Somto

Wonderland. spoke with the beguiling and sensational artist who was on so many people’s lips. For people like me who are catching up, it is amazing learning more about her! I think that his year is going to be the best of her career so far. The sublime and mesmeric brazy is an artist in her own league right now! I think she will release an E.P. and get involved with some big-name collaborations very soon:

“One of the hottest young talents emerging this year, Nigerian-born, London-based rapper brazy has been demanding an increasing level of attention with every passing release. Despite being merely 21 years old, there is confidence, charisma and craft oozing from her artistry.

Known for her multi-lingual approach to songwriting – rapping in English, Yoruba, French and Zhōngwén, the rising star blends the styles of afrobeats, amapiano, electronica and dance into a dynamic, coherent and progressive amalgamation of genre, self-coining the approach as ‘afro-sexy, afro-future’. She recently had a stint with Casablanca soundtracking Mugler, an indicator of her chameleonic and characterful ambitions.

PHOTO CREDIT: Obi Somto

brazy has returned with a new single, “omg”. There is something immediately undeniable about the track; she flicks between from English to Yoruba effortlessly, seamlessly spitting atop the energetic production from Parked Up. Augmenting her acclaim, brazy has the sound, skill and image to become a global force.

We caught up with brazy, discussing the impact of her cultural background on her creativity, her musical output, and what the future holds.

How has your cultural background shaped you as a musician and creative?

Growing up in Nigeria and around Nigerians has absolutely shaped my creative work. It’s where I got my confidence, my work ethic, my swag – have you ever met a Nigerian who cares about what anyone thinks? Not the ones I know, and that boldness radiates through my music. My love for studying other cultures and languages has also had a huge impact on how I create, I’ve unlocked a whole new range of sounds that I never would have if I limited myself to write in English alone – music is about the bounce, it really doesn’t matter what I’m saying.

How would you describe your essence as an artist? 

My essence is fresh, it’s new, it’s fun, sexy, it’s “what already exists is great, but why don’t we add to it with something even better”. I’m an innovator, I like to create new things – why not?

To you, what stands out to you as an artist? 

You really never know what you’re going to get with me – I’m full of surprises, whether it’s the genre of the song, the language I’m speaking on the song, how I speak, what I do in my free time… I’m the most random, spontaneous person and it definitely reflects in my art. I genuinely try everything, do whatever I want and let myself have fun with it all and you can hear it, that’s very rare”.

The more interviews I read from brazy, the more I love and respect what she is doing. Simply amazing! I am going to source quite liberally from NOTION’s interview from last summer. They chatted with a style icon, incredible young artist, and someone who is no doubt already inspiring so many other people with her creativity and fashion. A mighty and enormously important voice in music:

“For 2023, Brazy’s mission is growth. She’s collaborated with Nigerian Alté legend Cruel Santino [“Matilda”], UK rap whiz Len [“Addicted”] and the genre-bending Odeal [“Be Easy”] – sandwiched in-between stellar performances at Boiler Room and RECESSLAND.

Her discography is full of motivational anthems for the girls, making for the perfect addition to your summer playlists. The L0LA-assisted “Siren” is a serene trap-soaked offering. On the other hand, “Gingerbread” is a stick of bubble-gum pop-rap The Powerpuff Girls would probably listen to as they wallop Mojo Jojo. Describing her music as an uplifting reminder that women can do anything they set their minds to – Brazy is easily one of 2023’s most promising new artists.

On a sun-kissed Thursday afternoon in Hackney, for her first sit-down interview, we spoke to Brazy about her musical journey thus far, the difficulties of being an independent female artist and her fashion endeavours.

You’ve been making music since 2021. How has your sound developed since then?

My journey into music was very spontaneous. It was just me, hopping on beats my producer friends would make. She put out a song, and everyone thought it was crazy.

After that, people would ask me for features, so it was just based on demand. Now, my music is much more intentional. I like my new sound, and it’s still very experimental. The 2021 Brazy is still a part of me, though. I still have the high-pitched thing that I do, coupled with my Afro-type instrumentals from Selecta.

PHOTO CREDIT: Radhika Muthanna

Recently, you’ve worked with Len and Odeal. How did these collaborations come about?

Len was a friend. He just messaged me, and we crafted “Addiction” from there. It was a very cool process – it was random and spontaneous. When people hear “Addiction”, they must think, ‘Who are these two young sexy artists?’ [laughs].

I love working with Len. We make music in a similar same way. With “Addiction”, we worked virtually because I was in Lagos at the time. But this year, we had our first studio session and made four songs in a few hours.

When it came to Odeal, the process was different. He messaged me, telling me he loved my music. He told me he made beats and wanted to sample “Attends”. It worked out great because I’m a massive fan of Odeal, and the way he sampled my song was beautiful.

Do you feel pressure to use social media, especially as an independent artist?

I feel so much pressure, and it isn’t very pleasant. Social media is just not my vibe. As much as my social media looks put together, I’m all about face-to-face interactions. I like to meet people. I take cute pictures and post them, but I don’t really post with a purpose.

It’s so hard for me to find a balance. In this day and age, social media is so important. Even with “Attends”, the way it took off on Tik Tok showed me that if I push something, things can happen. So, with social media, it’s a real love-hate relationship. It can create so many blessings but also share many expectations.

PHOTO CREDIT: Radhika Muthanna

What other challenges do you face as an independent artist?

There are lots. I’m young and only 21 years old – people don’t take you seriously sometimes.

People always ask for validity. It’s hard to provide the evidence and say, “I am a good artist”. Just because I don’t have a label backing me doesn’t mean I’m not good. “They have wanted to (sign me); I just don’t want to”.

Your music is definitely for the girls, would you agree?

It’s funny because my music is for the girls – it’s empowering. It’s weird because I have a lot of male fans, too. It’s I love you guys, but it’s not for you. I’m joking, my music is for everyone, but I have the girls at the forefront of my mind when creating.

And finally, what’s up next for you?

Expect more visuals. I’m trying to merge Brazy the icon with Brazy the artist. An EP is definitely on the way too. Expect more performances and generally just more fun shit. That’s all I can say for now”.

I am going to finish off with an interview from The Face. They spoke with brazy in December. With Afro Sexy about to be released, this was an opportunity to speak with someone who was going from strength. One of these artists that you can well see taking over the music world and conquering the globe! She is more modest but, given the quality of the music she’s putting out, brazy should reach for the stars:

“It sounds weird, but I don’t really have a creative ​‘process’,” the 21-year-old says with a laugh, Zooming in from her home in London. ​“I go into the studio, and then me and the producer create a relationship first. Making the beat is the bulk of the session, I’m very involved in that. Then I just say the first thing that comes into my head. My process is based on vibes!”

The vibes in question: uninhibited sensuality and an ​“Afro-future, Afro-sexy” sound, as Brazy puts it. One of her latest singles, the compulsively replayable, super-smooth omg, nonchalantly flits between English and Yoruba; on Brazy Skank, she blends Afrobeats and baile funk rhythms with plenty of bravado and French lyrics.

Given the confidence with which Brazy approaches her music, it’s surprising that she’s only been releasing music since 2021. Having bounced around London and Nigeria her entire life, over the pandemic, she found herself hopping on friends’ tracks, which inspired her to make her own.

“Growing up in Nigeria had a huge, huge influence on my taste,” Brazy continues, ​“which then influenced my sound. There’s nothing I don’t listen to – techno, Afrobeats, American music, Chinese music, Indian music. I think that’s reflected in my music, which has no limits, no borders. It’s a blend of everything I’ve experienced and everywhere I’ve been.” 

“40% You rule the world for a day. What’s going down?

I’d lift travel barriers so everyone could go wherever they wanted to. Maybe remove financial barriers as well – so that if you went to a country, you could try any food you wanted, do whatever you want, any activities you want, so you get to experience a different space [with] no restrictions.

50% Love, like, hate?

I love travelling and experiencing new cultures. I like dancing. I hate when people are super negative and don’t give things a chance. I hate bad vibes, essentially.

60% What’s your dream holiday destination?

I would love to explore Africa and go to places that are unexplored – waterfalls, mountains, beaches, places you wouldn’t think to travel like Tanzania or Zanzibar.

70% What’s a bad habit you wish you could kick?

I’m super independent and I want to do everything by myself. I wish I could just relax!

80% If you could go back in time and watch any musician perform, who would it be?

This is a classic answer, but Beyoncé. I’ve watched her every single time she comes to London. Every single time. She’s so amazing. I love how much detail she puts into her shows.

90% Can we expect an album soon?

Expect a lot more singles, is all I can say! Then maybe a full length project next year…

100% What can artists do to help save the world?

Continue making great music. Music saves lives”.

Someone I have recently come across, I am playing catch up I know! I am not really invested in brazy and her world. I am in awe of her music and who she is. A really positive force in the music world, I am crossing my fingers this year gives her nothing but good fortune and love! Her fanbase is growing and, with every single, more and more notice her. The magnificent brazy is a rapper charting her own course. If you have not followed her already then make sure you do, as there are…

FEW out there like her!

____________

Follow brazy

PHOTO CREDIT: brazy

TikTok:

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

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/brazyybih

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/brazyybih

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5qdXUxsjbP0UAig0CtqO5b?si=W7pBhU84Q3KJcW5v35JRGQ

YouTube:

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

FEATURE: Spotlight: Aziya

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Aziya

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HAVING discovered her music…

through a great ‘ones to watch 2024’ list from The Independent recently, I have constantly connected to the music of Aziya. I wanted to bring together some interviews from last year where we get to know more about this stunning artist. Someone whose music you might label Rock or Alternative, she is in a scene/genre traditionally dominated by men. With women/female bands/duos like Nova Twins coming through, there is a bit of a shift. That said, there is still a skew and imbalance that artists like Aziya are striking against. Adding their incredible music to the mix. In the process, proving she is a future festival great with many years in the industry left. I am going to start with a short interview from Equate Magazine. This is an interview from 2021. It was published around the release of her E.P., We Speak of Tides. It starts with the story that Aziya was on Instagram showcasing videos of her playing cover songs. The amazing H.E.R. took notice of her. Aziya was selected from twenty thousand rising talents on a ‘Girls with Guitars’ livestream. Not long after, Aziya was signed by Warner Brothers Records. Quite a sudden rise for this spectacular musician who is one of the most distinct and interesting voices in new music:

“Aziya wrote her first lyrics and started singing around age ten. Soon the singer’s parents bought her a guitar to match her craft. “My mom could tell I was writing these songs and needed some form of a complement. So they got me guitar lessons when I was kid.” Raised in East London under a healthy plethora of music, Aziya’s ears were fed System of A Down to Patti Smith to A Tribe Called Quest. “There were so many different genres going on. I was never prevented from listening to anything. It was all at my dispense and gave me a fucked-up music taste,” she admits. The singer then graduated from the Brit School in 2018. The school helped her grow into a stronger producer, singer, and writer.

Aziya’s (nee Aldridge -Moore) self-produced 80s tinged rock single, “Blood”, is a ferocious anthem about bitter family relations as she hollers in the chorus “You’re my blood/it’s a word that you don’t understand/You’re my blood/write it off/cause you know that you can.” “Writing “Blood” was very cathartic for me. It was about a certain situation between a family member and me. I think it can relate to anyone feeling distant from loved ones even though you are blood related. I think it is a universal message even though it was a personal one for me,” she says.

“Blood” was musically inspired by the sounds of the New York City garage rock band scene of the early 2000s especially by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “I love Karen O. I wanted my sound to echo that gritty early guitar sound of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You don’t have to love rock music to listen to my music,” the singer says bluntly. “A lot of my hunger comes from me wanting to change the norm and make it clear to the public that hear my music that it’s me writing and playing. I want to be the artist that I didn’t get to see growing up.”

With her long black locks of hair, her black leather ensembles, and her stylistic moves in the “Blood” video some might even compare Aziya to the late great R&B star Aaliyah, but her sound, even though it contrasts, is what Aaliyah’s was at the beginning of her career—refreshingly cool, exceptionally avant-garde, and stylistically like no other.

I sat down with the eclectic singer to talk music trends, her influences, and growing up in the social media age.

Read the full interview below…

EQ: Is it intimidating debuting on the music scene as a female rocker in a current dominated male field? 

A: It is challenging. I want the public to listen to the music that I am making. There are so many female guitarists that are not being recognized. My main aim is to completely disregard this whole stigma around it so you can listen to my music.

EQ: You were born right on the cusp of the social media age. What are the pros and cons of social media?

A: The pros of social media is that it brings back that punk sensibility. You can do it yourself and reach so many people. The cons are that it can suck you into this vacuum. People compare themselves to others by placing the best versions of themselves on there. If you are having anxiety from it, step away. My advice is to just stay in your lane.

EQ: We Speak of Tides is the new EP. Can you tell me more about it—lyrically and musically?

A: It’s about people, friends, family, lovers with the idea of connection and touch. Those are big themes throughout Tides and my music in general.

Musically the EP is rock music. If anything, I crave to hear the rock genre. There wasn’t any pressure to fill that void right now.

EQ: Your fashion sense screams Aaliyah. Is she a style icon for you, if not who is? 

A: I love Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry, and June Millington. I was discovered as a musician first and fashion modeling came into play. My first love is music though.

EQ: What is the Aziya live experience like? 

A: I need to get to the States! I love to see people moshing and bobbing their heads. Just seeing people in real life singing to my lyrics is all I need really”.

Ahead of the release of her E.P., LONELY CASTLES, Aziya spoke with Wonderland. They asked her about the artists who inspired her, how she would describe her own sound, in addition to what we can expect from her approaching E.P. LONELY CASTLES is one of the most immediate and compelling E.P.s of 2023. It highlights a truly wonderful artist who stays in the mind the first time you hear her:

“Who and what influences you?

Debbie Harry, Santigold, Telecaster, Heartbreak, 2023 & Touring

How did you first discover your love of creating?

The first ever song I wrote and produced was called “Teen Face” – the fact that this idea I wrote could be made into something others could listen to felt like a weird super power.

From there, how did you begin shaping yourself as an artist?

That song (never released) had a guitar solo that was about a minute and a half long. Subconsciously I knew guitar music played a huge role for me and so the references started to become even more refined.

How would you define the essence of your sound?

Songs that I want John Bonham to drum, J Dilla to co-produce and Debbie Harry to feature on.

As someone who produces her own music, what is the significance of maintaining control of the whole creative process to you?

For me it’s like trying to become fluent in another language. You learn it so you can be a part of the conversation.

How do you feel reflecting on your debut EP, “We Speak of Tides”?

That’s my baby and I’m so proud of it, especially because it was done completely independently – from the artwork and visuals to the music. It laid the foundations of this journey I’m on sonically.

What can we expect from your upcoming EP?

Screaming, bizarre middle eight sections that sound like Grimes and Kurt Cobain had an AI song baby. A diary into what it feels like living in 2023”.

I am going to finish with an interview from DAZED. They spoke with Aziya in October. She took DAZED around East London around her favourite spots and explained why she wants to be the new face of British Rock – something that is entirely possible. I think this year is going to be a huge and really important one for Aziya. If you have not heard her music yet then make sure you follow her and listen to as much as possible. I wonder if this year will see a debut album come along:

“Born and raised in Hackney as the eldest of three, Aziya grew up in a household bustling with a vast array of musical influences. “My mom was playing a lot of Stevie Nicks and Patti Smith, but then also A Tribe Called Quest, and my dad was playing Outkast and J Dilla,” she explains, discussing the music she grew up listening to. ”But then in my car journeys to school, my parents would put on a System of a Down CD. So it was very varied, and there were no limits to what I was listening to. I think I really had an affiliation as a kid to guitar music, whether it was like Jimi Hendrix or No Doubt.” When she was ten years old, her mother spotted her affinity for guitar music and brought her first guitar to see how it would progress.

Over a Diet Coke, she reminisces fondly on the first song she wrote at the age of 11. “I thought I ate,” she says, with a laugh. “I tried to make this metaphor about a shower representing love and it was so poetic. It was so deep and I was like ‘Yeah it’s coming out’. It obviously never did.” Eventually, her growing passion for playing guitar and alternative rock music ignited her growing passion for playing guitar and her love of alternative rock music propelled her to pursue a fully-fledged career as a musician.

PHOTO CREDIT: Habi Diallo

During the pandemic, she began posting TikTok videos of her covers and eventually began gaining attraction from artists like Grimes and Florence and The Machine – the latter of whom she later toured with as an opening act. As it stands, she has almost 300,000 followers on the app and 4.9 million likes.

It’s no secret women in alternative rock music have been historically erased and shunned from mainstream history. While she grew up with a rich knowledge of alternative rock music, female role models were not as visible or known to Aziya. Instead, she recounts spending a lot of time countless hours doing research to find the women rock stars who, despite being overlooked, have undeniably paved the way for herself and her contemporaries.

The first female guitarist she found was Viv Albertine from the Slits. “What resonated with me was that she wasn’t classically trained,” she explains. “She didn’t know how to play guitar. She just had friends that were in The Clash and she was hanging out with the Sex Pistols so she naturally just picked up an electric guitar to try it and just like instinctively started playing. I think to me, that’s way more important than someone who's learned for years on end.” One discovery led to another and eventually, she found Sister Rosetta Tharpe. “I think she’s the Rock and Roll Queen,” Aziya says. “She was an amazing guitarist back in the 60s in gospel music and then from her, I found June Millington from the band Fanny. So there are women out there, but you really have to search for them. I just don’t want that to be the case in this generation.”

Two years ago, she released her first EP We Speak of Tides, a five-song record exploring human connection, coming-of-age and the tumultuous nature of relationships. Despite it only being a couple of years since the record came out, the growth that so often occurs during the late teens and early twenties is apparent in her latest project. “I think this EP was different because the first EP for me was working out where within guitar music I sat as an artist,” she says. “So on We Speak of Tides you hear psych-rock influences you hear like heavy guitar, grungy influences. And I think with this EP, it was more like, OK, we’ve gone on a journey. Now, this is where you are, this is your sound”.

There are quite a few features out at the moment that are tipping artists that will make an impact this year. Aziya is definitely among the strongest and most supremely talented. I hope that she gets a lot of radio airplay and love as we move through the year. With a new E.P. as strong as LONELY CASTLES out there, it all bodes well for an exceptional musician. Her music is something that…

NOBODY should miss out on.

____________

Follow Aziya

Official:

https://www.itsaziya.com/

TikTok:

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

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/itsaziya/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/itsaziya

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5GlFG0lCadjEBnY1w1FwwW

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDMJ_yidpoYQCxSGdYhF8kQ

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/itsaziya/

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The Divine and Legendary Melanie C At Fifty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Clinch

The Divine and Legendary Melanie C At Fifty

_________

IT might be a little insensitive…

IN THIS PHOTO: Spice Girls

to mention a woman’s age - especially if they are approaching an ‘important birthday’! In the case of Melanie C, she is such a legend and important music figure, that I needed to celebrate it. Melanie C is a terrific solo artist and, of course, a fifth of Spice Girls. I would love it if they were announced as Glastonbury headliners this year. Melanie C (Chisholm) herself is open to it. The group – Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell (now Horner) and Victoria Adams (now Beckham) – formed in 1994. This year is a big one for them. There is a lot to love about Melanie C who, by the way, has always been my favourite Spice Girl. Someone who I admired (and, frankly, had a crush on) from a young age, she is such an impressive person! From putting up merchandise and interesting stuff up for auction for Shelter, to talking about her mental health in a frank and open way, you know she has inspired so many girls and women (and other people too). A true icon who is beloved and could well be a politician (someone who would attack the Conservatives and really speak for those alienated and ignored), there is so much to admire when it comes to Melanie C. Born on 12th January, 1974 in Whiston, Merseyside, Chisholm has co-written eleven U.K. number-ones. That is more than any other female artist in chart history. Chisholm remains the only female performer to top the charts as a solo artist, as part of a duo, quartet, and quintet. That is a staggering feat! With twelve U.K. number-one singles, she is the second female artist – and the first British female artist – with most singles at number one in the United Kingdom.

A true treasure and queen, here is some biography about the phenomenal Melanie C. I am going to end this feature with a playlist containing some of the best Spice Girls number, together with her amazing solo/collaboration work. I can’t really overstate how much I admire Melanie C. One of our very best people:

“The start of Melanie’s career really needs no explanation at all, as it is rather well documented…

After the iconic 1996 debut single ‘Wannabe’ topped the charts in 37 countries, Spice Girls’ debut album ’Spice’ went on to sell more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album of all time by a female group. The girls went on to sell more than 85 million records, releasing three studio albums, 13 singles and winning a host of awards including a BRIT for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.

Melanie’s first solo venture was her featuring on the hit single ‘When You’re Gone’ with Bryan Adams. As a solo artist, Melanie has achieved over 3 million album sales, two Number 1 singles, and six Top 10 singles, including the iconic hits ‘I Turn To You’ and ‘Never be the Same Again’ featuring the late Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez. In 2005 her track ‘First Day Of My Life’ was to become one of her biggest hits to date, selling over 400,000 copies in Germany alone. It also went on to chart at Number 1 in Spain, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and Portugal where it helped to propel the album ‘Beautiful Intentions’ to double-platinum status and kept it at Number 1 for 9 weeks.

n 2012, Melanie reunited with the Spice Girls for what she described as the highlight of their career as a group – performing at the Olympic Closing Ceremony in London. In one of the most anticipated appearances and in front of a global TV audience of billions, the world could never look at black cabs in the same way again!

2019 Saw the return of the Spice Girls on their sold-out Stadium tour, which served as a joyous reminder of the spell that ‘90s girl power still casts on pop.

Within days of waving goodbye with three nights at Wembley, Melanie was continent-hopping on a very different, if no less glamorous tour, performing at Pride parades with the LGBTQ+ club collective Sink The Pink.

From hosting a float in Sao Paulo – the first international artist ever invited to do so – and performing in New York’s Times Square for World Pride’s closing party to storming everywhere from Stockholm, Santiago, Amsterdam, London, Cologne, Berlin, Brighton, Belfast, and Dublin, the tour proved pivotal to Melanie’s future plans.   “Being a Spice Girl again was like a fairytale and I loved every moment,” says Melanie, “but being on that float in Sao Paulo, with three million people out in the streets, was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was one of those highs you hope never to come down from.”

Melanie released her latest album “Melanie C” in 2021, including bangers such as ‘In And Out Of Love’ also hits ‘Blame It On Me’ & ‘Who I Am’ and her very anticipated memoir “Who I Am, My Story” in 2022”.

Her debut album, Northern Star, turns twenty-five later this year. Spice Girls have that thirtieth anniversary this year. Ahead of her fiftieth birthday on 12th January, I wanted to spend some time with her music and career. I cannot include all the interviews and videos that people need to check out. I would recommend people check out Melanie C’s autobiography, Who Am I? It is a must-read. I am going to end with a quote about the book:

“When you're a woman, though, that power can be easily taken away by those around you, whether by pressure, exhaustion, shaming, bullying or a constant feeling like you aren't enough. I have been known as Sporty Spice, Mel C, Melanie C or just plain old Melanie Chisholm, but what you will read within the pages of this book is who I truly am, and how I found peace with that after all these years.

I have really enjoyed reminiscing and getting everything down on the page, and, though revisiting some of my darkest times was hard, I hope this book can be inspiring and empowering as well as entertaining and give you a bit of a laugh”.

Many happy returns to Melanie C. Even if Spice Girls are not announced as Glastonbury headliners – I have a sneaky suspicion they may be in the mix! -, 2024 is a massive year for them. I know we will hear new music from Melanie C and maybe podcasts/books and other things. She is always so busy, so do keep your eye out. On 12th January, one of our most adored and respected people turns fifty. I wanted to mark that. There is no doubt that Melanie C is dear…

IN all our hearts.

FEATURE: To Watch in 2024: JGrrey

FEATURE:

 

 

To Watch in 2024

PHOTO CREDIT: Leanda Heler

JGrrey

_________

I spotlighted her…

PHOTO CREDIT: Omar Khaleel

In 2020 but, as we are in a new year, and it has been four years since I last discussed her, it is high time I highlight the brilliant JGrrey. I am tipping her for big things this year. She is an amazing artist that everyone needs to follow. Real name Jennifer Clarke, this South London artist had a difficult start. It is clear that making music is the one thing that spoke to her. A true talent and direction. In 2019, in a year that saw her perform at Glastonbury, tour with Billie Eilish and release her debut EP, Grreydaze, there was clear direction and passion in the eyes of JGrrey:

“I grew up in around five or six different foster homes in south London. As a child, I was unsure a lot of the time, like I never knew what was going on. I remember being at a supermarket once and getting told off for walking away from everyone. I felt like I never knew the rules. I did what I wanted to do, and if someone told me off that’s how I’d learn I wasn’t supposed to do it.

‘When I met my adoptive parents, I assumed it was just another foster home, so I wasn’t that bothered. But I do remember thinking my dad was so big, the tallest thing I’d ever seen. During the first month of living there, I’d always ask for a drink or to go to the bathroom. My parents kept saying, “You don’t have to ask, this is where you live.” I slowly started to get it.

‘They lived in Edgware, and I remember on the way home with them I asked if that was London, because I didn’t want to get on a plane and go to a different country. I thought anything outside London was this whole other world; it’s always been a big part of who I am. We moved to Hertfordshire when I started secondary school, and the first thing I wanted to do was move back. Hertfordshire felt a lot more homogenous. I came from a school where my five best friends were Chinese, albino, black, Indian and white, and at my new school I was “the black girl”. My hair was weird, I was different, and that was strange for me. I didn’t know people were different, I thought people were people. I didn’t think about ethnicity or race, but when we moved to the countryside it was like, “Oh OK, that’s a thing here?”. Mum would always say, “People might be racist to you” and I was like, “Not me”. Now I’m 25, I understand that.

‘The only thing I know about my ethnicity is that my birth mother is Irish. Not knowing only fazes me if I really think about it or when I’m around people who are super connected to their heritage. My friend Caspar is half-Bajan, half-English. He can speak patois and has an amazing sense and understanding of both worlds. I have a lot of unanswered questions. My whole life is trial and error, but I think it makes me grow in different ways. I want to be at a comfortable place in my career and personal life. Right now, my focus is music.

‘When I was younger, there wasn’t one specific artist I was into, but I do remember listening to Adele’s album, 19, and thinking, “How are you singing like this?” “How are you writing like this?” “How are the melodies and the music so good?” I felt the same about Beyoncé. It’s her vocal runs; how the hell does her voice do that? I also started to fall in love with musicians like Amy Winehouse, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu.

‘I made my first song when I was bored one day with nothing to do. Me and my boyfriend at the time recorded it and put it online. I didn’t think anything of it, but it got all these comments, and somehow [Roll Deep’s] Manga Saint Hilaire reached out and invited me to a studio session. I went, and was so nervous, but something clicked.

‘I always knew I could sing. I never thought I was particularly good, but I think what made me go back to music after that initial session was the fact that I knew I could do it better. Still to this day, I listen to my earlier songs and think, “Why didn’t I do that part differently?”

‘I’m figuring out a lot more about myself through my writing. I don’t overthink it, it’s straight off the cuff. That means when I look back at my lyrics, I realise I’ve subconsciously written all this stuff. I’m then like, “Oh, that’s a thing I said? That’s something I need to address.” It helps me understand myself a lot better. There’s a song called “Happiness Seems A Hell Of A Guy” from my new EP, which really allowed me to learn about my emotions and relate to them more directly.

‘I usually write when I’m sad, because it’s all I want to do, and it helps me make sense of my feelings. “Pretty Insane’’ is about mine and my mum’s mental health: “My mother doesn’t believe in everything she sees. Sorry, it’s quite sad, we’re both going mad.” I don’t really talk about how I feel, which is ironic because now it’s out there for everyone to hear. I’ve had so many messages from people saying, “This is exactly how I feel”, and that can only be a positive”.

I am going to move to an interview from last year. In October, JGrrey released her mixtape album, If Not Now? It is a magnificent work from one of our most distinct artists. I am going to move to that. I want to get some background and run-up first. Before getting to some current press and love, I want to get to an interview with Off the Block. The Neo-Soul artist was definitely capturing the media imagination. Someone who can write a song out of everything, I don’t think there is anyone in music quite like her:

“How would you describe your sound?

I would describe my sound as laid-back, almost lazy at times, just smoky. Sometimes it can be quite fun, songs like “Pretty Insane” are fun in the production and the way that I’m writing, but then I have songs like “Feelings” or even “Something” which are lazier and more down-tempo.

When you have interviews like this, do you find that journalists want to describe you as an RnB or hip-hop artist? Do you find this to be self-serving?

Yeah, just to make it easier for them. I don’t know what my genre is. For the past year I’ve been non-stop making music and I’m at a point now where I could make two albums with the amount of music I have. “Don’t Fade” is such a different song to “Feelings” or “Growing” or “Ready 2 Die”. I’ll make any music I wanna make. Genre to me is completely fluid, it shouldn’t exist.

Who do you get compared to in the music industry?

I get compared to Erykah Badu because a lot of my stuff is really soulful, and the structure is quite similar. Lily Allen as well, just because I sing in an English accent, which is probably the only thing that draws us together.

I’ve heard a lot of people compare you to Jorja Smith as well, does that bother you?

I don’t think it’s a case of being bothered by it – it’s Jorja Smith. I work really hard on my songs, and when I write them they’re coming from a place that I thought only I knew. So it’s frustrating when someone says ‘that sounds like a Jorja Smith song’ because me and Jorja are two very separate people with very separate lives and two very different sounds and experiences. A lot of the time I think that comparison comes from being lazy, and that we’re both women of colour who write love songs at certain beats per minute.

Do you find that people try to pit you against other female musicians?

I very rarely hear in an interview with, for instance, a male grime artist, being compared to another male grime artist. You wouldn’t do that, it’s almost disrespectful. But with women it’s; ‘you kinda sound like’ or ‘you’ve got a similar style to’ and a lot of the time people do it with the intention to compliment, but actually it can feel like now that’s my direct competition, because you’re essentially saying that we are making the same music. So it turns into: who’s making the same music better? I don’t think it’s done intentionally, but the music industry is a harsh place to be.

That harsh environment puts a lot of women, particularly women of colour, off from putting themselves out there creatively. Throughout school even, girls are brought up in a culture of competition where we compete for opportunities or men, or that it’s desirable to not be a ‘girl’s girl.’ What advice would you give to women who want to put themselves out there but are apprehensive about the misogynistic tendencies of the music industry?

Speaking from experience, I know I could give the best advice in the world but if you’re in a place where can’t or you won’t, or you don’t want to, it’s not going to help. I feel like everyone has a moment, and you can be reluctant because of those [misogynistic] reasons, but if you can see a door opening, or a moment that is just looking to be taken, take the moment, open the door and let people hear your voice. I’ve been in situations where I’ve held back, and I think now ‘why did I not take that moment?’ ‘why didn’t I release that track?’ But of course, it’s easier said than done.

Do you feel like your COLORS session was one of those moments for you?

I very nearly didn’t do COLORS. If I didn’t take that moment I would have been such an idiot! But I did, and I’m very thankful for it. COLORS came out like two years ago, and I’ve only just now found comfort in performing. It was the most gut-wrenchingly nervous thing I’ve ever done. It was horrifyingly scary for me and that’s why I nearly didn’t do it – it’s easier to just not feel those emotions.

PHOTO CREDIT: Omar Khaleel

What’s your creative process like?

The more I’m writing, the more I’m surprising myself with my process. It used to be, when I very first started, finding an instrumental, then finding a melody and fitting words into it; simple as that. Whereas now, the process behind a lot of the songs on my EP has been really strange. For instance, ‘God’s House’ was a poem I wrote and the last track off the EP (‘Something’) was a voice note and the weirdest process ever. Now, I’m just always looking for the next process and how I’m going to surprise myself.

What’s next for you?

Right now I’m in a mindset, but not necessarily a position, because that would sound arrogant, where I can go anywhere with my music right now. I think that’s a really nice mindset to be in because I’m not a naturally optimistic person. The feedback I’ve had from my EP, the music I’m sitting on right now, the people I’m surrounded with and [those] who support my music make me genuinely feel like I can do whatever I want to do with [it]. As long as I can help my parents the way they’ve helped me, and live a happy life while I carry on making music, that’s the goal”.

Let’s get to 2023. On a rainy day back in October, DAZED spent some time plant-shopping with JGrrey in London. It was a relaxed vibe where we got to know more about an incredible talent. Maybe still rising and coming through, I hope this year is one where we see more press from an extraordinary person. I have loved her music for years. If Not Now? might be the best thing that she has ever released:

“What type of music did you listen to growing up and how has it influenced your taste in music?

JGrrey: I listened to a lot of Beyoncé. My dad is a DJ, so he would often be spinning his sets during the day for events that would take place in the evening. It depended on whether he was doing mobile DJ gigs, parties, weddings, or bar mitzvahs – you name it.

I remember being really young and listening to my dad’s music. He unapologetically blasted a mix of songs, including tracks from artists like Amy [Winehouse], Beyoncé, Frank Sinatra, Kelis, and many others. It was such a diverse range of music. Back in his DJ days, he had to do a lot of research to discover new music.

Where was the starting point for your new EP?

JGrrey: I remember when I was writing, there was a lot of ‘song and dance’ in my tracks. Similar to like ‘Dream' or ‘Pretty Insane’, ‘There’s13’ was freestyle. I heard the track and just pressed record, the track itself is my first scratch. I really like keeping as many scratch vocals as I can. Even in ‘Dream’, or my latest single, ‘The Bottom Line’ if I do say so, is a good scratch vocal, and it doesn’t make any sense. The lyrics are absolute nonsense, but it feels good. I’ve seen people listen to that song, they’re singing along with meaning. I don’t know what it means, it’s open to interpretation.

How different have you found working on this project to your past projects?

JGrrey: Really hard because I care about it. I think the setup in which I was making music previously was a setup around men who worked in the music industry. Now I am around women working in the industry and I think that that’s completely changed my perspective because I’m aware, now more than ever, that I, as a woman of colour, a queer woman of colour, need to continue to release music for people like me. I don’t need to write a song for the pop charts. I don’t need to write a song that’s got a great chorus that might go. I need to write songs that other people like me can listen to, feel empowered by, feel uplifted, consoled, reassured and see themselves in.

The cast for your ‘Sick of Me’ music video was made up of entirely women of colour, what was the process behind that?

JGrrey: So it wasn’t just the cast; it was the whole set, the whole everybody from the beginning of production, storyboarding, behind the camera crew, cast, everyone. It was something that I was really active in trying to get, and I did it. I think there are only two men in the whole process of the music video, and it’s not that I’m trying to stop men from doing anything. It’s that I’m trying to make a point. It took me three days to find one woman in the industry. It was really just trying to uplift anyone other than men because the song isn’t about men. The song is for Black women and non-binary people. It is for trans people who I feel like the whole world is against them at the moment with regard to the headlines and the things politicians are saying about their existence.

PHOTO CREDIT: Habi Diallo

When you did finally find all the people to shoot, how was it on set? What was the energy like?

JGrrey: Everyone was just saying, wow, what a difference it can make when the whole room is a community and uplifting one another safely. No one feels like they are a target, no one feels worried, and everyone understands that we are a community of respect. The energy in the room was so validating. All of these people came together just because I thought I was gonna do it and we did it. It was a beautiful thing – very validating.

What do you hope people take away from listening to this project?

JGrrey: I hope they listen to it and remember that everybody is so multifaceted. You know, even you and me sitting here now, I’m showing you one side of myself, you’re showing me one side of yourself. Hopefully, this project will remind people when they listen to it that they are not just one thing, they are everything. You can be whoever you want to be. You want to try anything you want to do. If it brings you joy and doesn’t harm other people, pursue your interests. There’s nothing you can’t do”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Habi Diallo

I shall finish off back at the mixtape. It is a wonderful work that you need to listen to. I feel that this year will be a very busy one for JGrrey. New Wave Mave Magazine got some details about a project from one of the U.K.’s finest young voices. An artist who will have massive worldwide acclaim very soon:

“If Not Now?” is a potent question that we all should ask ourselves, and apply when we have the moments hesitant before deciding whether we should do something or not.

For JGrrey, it’s holding herself accountable on whether there is something that exists called perfect timing and a question that holds itself in the air.

It is also, the title of her new mixtape and the signal of return since her last releases four years ago in an attempt to find the most daring and freeing expression through her limitations to voice what she couldn’t before.

Composed of 8 tracks, the Londoner distils thoughts and feelings with elegant transparency as her distinct, timeless and soulful tone takes you on an impressionistic venture.

The Beginning of the track opens up with the entrancing ‘When?', where JGrrey muses during the aftermath of a personal relationship ending, there is a fondness in her soulful vocals that is endearing but she cannot help but revisit the bad.

Each of the other tracks is unique and individual, on the shortest offering on the project, you can hear the raw live recording of the instruments on ‘Theirs13’ as they improvise on the track.

‘Superfly’ leans into the realm of neo-soul with blue feels and a carefree attitude; ‘Sick Of Me’ is a seductive ego-driven tinged offering and ‘Boys?’ is a typical British nostalgic-sounding track from the early rock 2000s, that taps into her justifiable anger at the action of boys.

There are also barely any features on the mixtape you can only find Brooklyn rapper Zombie Juice and Mercury-nominated Kojey Radical on the project. The latter features on the ‘May’, whilst the Brooklyn native makes an apparency on the jazz-influenced ‘Drream’.

Produced by Grammy-nominated producer Maths Time Joy, we close with the mournful ‘Marble Flaws’ as she likens her relationship to the dying summer, abandoning the pulsating jazz feel, you are kept in time by a gentle guitar and percussion drums and lulled to comfort by the Londoner’s uncharacteristic soft tone.

The music video is also self-directed and shot in Metropolis, featuring JGrrey getting talked down to by a boardroom official. The overall message of the video, however, is of fair inclusion and shows JGrrey choosing to live authentically.

Speaking on the project JGrrey says “I would like to think that my music does what it says on the tin, when I call a project if not now… then that's why I've released it, because I had to, because why not, because I can. I wasted a lot of time, so did you, we all did… and I’ve decided to start making my art unapologetic and without reason, because I can.

I’ve doubted myself for years, then the whole worrld closed and I tried my best to be as close to who I wanted to actually be as possible, an ode to myself, I made some huge changes, everything, I changed everything, I finally listened to what my soul/gut was trying to say.

My partner would ask me why I’d often set my self proclaimed ‘best work’ to one side and wait for the right time to release it? I moved into club36, she saved me.

A sacred place with sacred souls, people I’ve known such a brief time but found home in, we cried, we laughed, we questioned one another and had discussions about everything and anything.

My housemate Frraser would often look at me when I’d doubt myself, or question a big decision, assertively she’d say girl, if not now? And even though it was probably rhetorical, I knew the answer, when? And so if not now is just some prices of art, some things I had to say, and feel, for Uu”.

Someone I feel is going to ascend to new heights this year, we are going to hear a lot more from JGrrey. Such a magnificent talent whose voice and writing takes you somewhere special. She has that power and allure that melts together to create this heady brew. A musical cocktail that is both sweet and smoky, everyone needs this artist in their life. Go and check out JGrrey. Listen back to her older work, but do go and take a moment to listen to If Not Now? A brilliant mixtape from a staggering artist. One that is going to enjoy big success…

THROUGH this year.

___________

Follow JGrrey

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/jgrrey/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/jgrrey13

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/66rDbD3tWR3M1uNuIaDAGx?si=RKhtdsWhTZ2GKzxQg4k-Uw

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmhJoUvS8YinODthaNsyaTA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/JGRREY/

FEATURE: Record High: The Unstoppable Rise of Vinyl Sales

FEATURE:

 

 

Record High

PHOTO CREDIT: Gabi Santana/Pexels

The Unstoppable Rise of Vinyl Sales

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WE are in the middle…

PHOTO CREDIT: RF._.studio/Pexels

of a vinyl revival and growth that I think we will see for many years more. The more we think of streaming and how little it pays artists, the more people are compelled to invest in physical music. I can understand why vinyl is booming and has this allure. I wonder why this year has been such a big one for vinyl. One could say that there is a new wave of listeners who are discovering vinyl. Huge modern artists being streamed but also having their albums bought. Classic albums keep on providing popular. It is magnificent to see! I will come to onto some theories as to why we are seeing such an upswing and continued appreciation of vinyl. First, Music Week reported on a record high year for vinyl sales:

“Vinyl LP purchases have risen for the 16th consecutive year in the UK in 2023.

While that’s not so surprising, what is perhaps unexpected is that vinyl sales are growing at their fastest rate this decade.

Following a 2.9% improvement in unit sales last year, the vinyl market in 2023 has experienced much stronger growth, with an 11.7% year-on-year rise to 5.9 million units.

The figures are based on analysis of Official Charts data by the BPI, and cover the period up to chart week 51.

The increase has been led by new releases from artists including Ed Sheeran, Lana Del Rey, Lewis Capaldi, the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is the year's biggest vinyl seller with 78,767 units (up to week 50), followed by the Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds (42,815 vinyl sales).

As well as the continuing popularity of independent record stores, the vinyl market’s strength was also reflected in HMV’s return to London’s Oxford Street after four years with a flagship store.

While more than 80% of recorded music consumption in the UK is now made up of streaming, demand for vinyl LPs continues to surge, with the market at its highest annual level since 1990.

Additionally, the CD market has sustained its smallest annual decline in nearly a decade this year as it moves closer to plateauing. Almost 11 million CDs were sold across the year, while sales of cassettes topped 100,000 units in a calendar year for the fourth consecutive year.

Led by vinyl, the resurgence of physical product underlines the resilience of the UK music market

Final figures for vinyl LP, CD and cassette sales in 2023 will be unveiled by the BPI on January 3, along with the total volume of audio streams for the year and the final year-end charts.

Dr Jo Twist OBE, BPI chief executive, said: “Led by vinyl, the resurgence of physical product underlines the resilience of the UK music market at a time when streaming consumption continues to hit record levels. Whilst LP sales have now been on an upward path for the past 16 years, it is encouraging to see a stabilisation in demand for CD, as well as new generations of music fans falling in love with the cassette. It is giving people more choice than ever in how they enjoy their favourite music."

New releases top best-sellers list

Seven of the 10 biggest vinyl LP sellers in the year to date are a 2023 new release, led by 1989 (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift and also including her album Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), along with albums by Blur (The Ballad Of Darren), Lana Del Rey (Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd), Lewis Capaldi (Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent), Kylie Minogue (Tension) and The Rolling Stones (Hackney Diamonds).

Additionally, nearly half of the 100 most purchased vinyl LPs of 2023 were released in the past two years and include albums by UK artists such as The 1975, Depeche Mode, Ed Sheeran, Gorillaz, The Lathums, Liam Gallagher, Maisie Peters, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Reytons, Royal Blood, Sleaford Mods and Sleep Token.

These were alongside big-selling vinyl releases by international artists, including Blink-182, Boygenius, Olivia Rodrigo, Paramore and Queens Of The Stone Age, as well as the soundtracks to the Barbie and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 movies.

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover for Olivia Rodrigo’s album, GUTS

Titles defined as catalogue continue to play an important role in growing the vinyl market, with 2023’s biggest sellers including Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which is set to be among the year’s 10 biggest-selling vinyl LPs for an eighth consecutive time.

Other successful catalogue titles on vinyl included reissues and collections by The Courteneers, De La Soul, Oasis, Pink Floyd and Wham!, as well as evergreen classics such as the original studio version of The Dark Side Of The Moon and Arctic Monkeys’ AM.

The vinyl market was also boosted by Record Store Day, which in April reported that its annual event had increased vinyl sales by 122%. National Album Day, which is organised jointly by the BPI and ERA, grew vinyl LP sales on the day of the event by 51%.

Brand new albums also lead the CD and cassette markets, with the 10 biggest titles in each market at this stage having been released in 2023. Take That’s This Life is the year’s top CD, having sold more than 100,000 copies on the format during its first week of release in November, while the other most popular titles include albums by Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi, Pink, the Rolling Stones and Taylor Swift.

Olivia Rodrigo has the top cassette seller this year with her second album, Guts, while other popular cassette titles include 2023 releases from Blur, Inhaler and Kylie Minogue.

Further support for the physical format in 2023 came from increased distribution capacity, with Utopia Distribution Services and DP World opening a new warehouse for physical music in Bicester with a daily handling capacity of more than 100,000 units.

OFFICIAL VINYL ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2023 – Official Charts Company

1 Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

2 The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds

3 Lana Del Rey –  Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

4 Taylor Swift – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

5 Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

6 Blur – The Ballad Of Darren

7 Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon

8 Taylor Swift – Midnights

9 Olivia Rodrigo – Guts

10 Lewis Capaldi – Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent

OFFICIAL COMPACT DISC ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2023 – Official Charts Company

1 Take That – This Life

2 Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

3 The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds

4 Lewis Capaldi – Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent

5 Ed Sheeran – Subtract

6 Pink – Trustfall

7 Foo Fighters – But Here We Are

8 Metallica – 72 Seasons

9 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Council Skies

10 Kylie Minogue – Tension

OFFICIAL CASSETTE ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2023 – Official Charts Company

1 Olivia Rodrigo – Guts

2 Ed Sheeran – Subtract

3 Kylie Minogue – Tension

4 Inhaler – Cuts & Bruises

5 Blur – The Ballad Of Darren

6 Lana Del Rey – Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

7 Sleep Token – Take Me Back To Eden

8 Lewis Capaldi – Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent

9 Hozier – Unreal Unearth

10 The 1975 – Live With The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra”.

I love that breakdown of cassette and C.D. sales; which artists were most popular on each format. I think it is worth saying that not only vinyl that is seeing resurgence and success. Even though they are not at the same level in terms of sales, cassettes and C.D.s continue to be bought. With artists offering C.D. and cassette bundles, there is this option for fans. At a time in history when we can access everything on the move, people are drawn to a format that can only be heard when we are static. Maybe there is that opportunity for people to play an album and have that quiet moment. Being able to stand back and shut the world away. There is something emotional and special about listening to a vinyl L.P. You get the experience of taking the album out of the sleeve and the sheer excitement of holding something that impressive. It is a completely different experience to streaming. You have something that has that tangible quality. Something you can keep and enjoy for years. I guess a lot of fans are buying vinyl for new albums because it is their favourite artist. Lots of Taylor Swift fans buying her albums. That dedication and passion. Maybe some are buying albums they may not necessarily play a lot. Owning it because they can come back to it or add it to their collection. I do think most of the albums bought this year on vinyl are going to be played a bit. Classic albums reaching new hands and incredible modern albums being snapped up by loyal fans. Whereas some might assume fans would stream the albums instead, there is an appetite to have the physical version.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jorge Fakhouri Filho/Pexels

I wonder if we are reverting to a time when physical music was shared and swapped. People exchanging vinyl and discussing their purchases. If older buyers might have been buying vinyl for decades and are continuing to invest, there is this new generation that are saving up, buying vinyl L.P.s and have it to keep for years. Not in a bad way…there is this return to a past decade. Not that people are eschewing streamed music, though it is clear that there is more to vinyl that it being cool and collectable. There is the culture and buying experience when it comes to vinyl. A special occasion and wonderful experience. With vinyl, you also get the superior listening experience and that feeling of ownership. Maybe streaming sounds is like stealing or getting music too cheap. Vinyl lasts whereas streamed music is ephemeral and can disappear at any point. There is the amazing artwork. The fact you can detach from a screen and focus on the album itself without distraction. When streaming offers quick listening, easy access and a chance to skip through tracks, there is this rebellion. People enjoying a slower listen. If we listen to an album all the way through then that means the music goes deeper. It also compels us to buy other albums on vinyl. This U.S. article from earlier in the year highlighted how the vinyl sales success is not going to end anytime soon:

“This resurgence is just one chapter in a broader story about the growing popularity of older technologies. Not only are LP records coming back, but so are manual typewriters, board games and digital cameras from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

There are many theories about why records are making a comeback.

Most of them miss the point about their appeal.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike/Pexels

Why records and not CDs?

One suggestion is that sales have been spurred by baby boomers, many of whom are now entering retirement and are eager to tap into the nostalgia of their youth.

Data shows this theory is not true.

First, the top-selling vinyl albums right now are current artists, not classic bands. As of this writing, Gorillaz, a band formed in the late 1990s, was at the top of the vinyl charts.

Second, data from the recording industry shows the most likely person to buy a LP record is in Gen Z – people born from 1997 to 2012.

Another theory is that records are cheap. While that might have been true in the past, today’s vinyl records command a premium. “Cracker Island,” the Gorillaz album that is currently topping the vinyl sales charts, lists for almost $22 – twice the cost of the CD. Plus, subscribing to an online service like Spotify for 15 bucks a month gives you access to millions of tracks.

A third explanation for the resurgence is that people claim records have better sound quality than digital audio files. Records are analog recordings that capture the entire sound wave. Digital files are sampled at periodic intervals, which means only part of the sound wave is captured.

In addition to sampling, many streaming services and most stored audio files compress the sound information of a recording. Compression allows people to put more songs on their phones and listen to streaming services without using up much bandwidth. However, compression eliminates some sounds.

While LP records are not sampled or compressed, they do develop snap, crackle and popping sounds after being played multiple times. Records also skip, which is something that doesn’t happen with digital music.

If you’re really going for quality, CDs are usually a superior digital format because the audio data is not compressed and has much better fidelity than records.

Yet even though CDs are higher quality, CDs sales have been steadily falling since their peak in 2000.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ron Lach/Pexels

The ultimate status symbol

In my view, the most likely reason for the resurgence of records was identified by an economist over a century ago.

In the late 1890s, Thorstein Veblen looked at spending in society and wrote an influential book called “The Theory of the Leisure Class.”

In it, he explained that people often buy items as a way to gain and convey status. One of Veblen’s key ideas is that not everything in life is purchased because it is easy, fun or high quality.

Sometimes harder, more time-consuming or exotic items offer more status.

A cake is a great example. Say you offer to bring a cake to a party. You can buy a bakery-made cake that will look perfect and take only a few minutes to purchase. Or you could bake one at home. Even if it’s delicious, it won’t look as nice and will take hours to make.

But if your friends are like mine, they’ll gush over the homemade cake and not mention the perfect store-bought one.

Buying and playing vinyl records is becoming a status symbol.

Today, playing music is effortless. Just shout your request at a smart speaker, like Siri or Alexa, or touch an app on your smartphone”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthias Groeneveld/Pexels

I think that vinyl sales will flatten in a few years and then rise again. Into next year and maybe 2025, there are going to be further rises. Massive artists with huge fanbases account for a lot of the success. There are reissues and anniversary releases of albums. Classics that are being re-bought and finding new appreciation. One thing that amazes me is how, even though vinyl sales are stellar, the prices are not coming down too much. It depends on where you buy an album, yet they tend to be over £20 for a single album. Maybe a little less. Let’s say between £18-£20 all the way up to £24 or £25. That may not sound a lot but, when you think about the ease of streaming and C.D.s and cassettes being less, it is impressive vinyl is queen. Also, if you keep the album for years, then that cost is worth it! Perhaps less breakable and brittle as a cassette or C.D., the pure heft of vinyl is a reason why people build a collection and invest in the format. Ending this year with a great slice of news, I wanted to give a salute to the wonderful world of vinyl! I predict that we will see this continued and amazing success sustain…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

RIGHT through next year.

FEATURE: Kings, Queens and Pawns: The Idolisation of Legendary Music Figures and How Darker Truths Are Often Buried

FEATURE:

 

 

Kings, Queens and Pawns

The Idolisation of Legendary Music Figures and How Darker Truths Are Often Buried

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THE more that we hear about…

PHOTO CREDIT: Molly Champion/Pexels

accusations of sexual assault being aimed at men in the music industry – whether artists or those behind the scenes -, it makes me appalled at the fact these acts happened. How brave it is of the women who came forward; also how repulsive it is that these men were allowed to work and will probably not be as punished and tarnished as much as they should! How many of these men accused and found guilty are subjected to prison time rather than simply being fired or shunned by the industry?! It is also making me think historically. I was reading an old interview where Stephen Fry said that a lot of teenage girls who had sex with male artists decades ago would not see themselves as victims. This tone almost suggests they are not scarred or damaged by that experience. Even if there was a grubby culture of groupies which, thankfully, is almost non-existence, that is not to say that they were in control or are not victims. This feeling that was the way things are. It was a badge of honour for those girls. For a start, the way the media portrayed these men as gods was no doubt an allure for these young fans. The responsible adults in no way responsible or caring. A really seedy and disturbing past that we seem to largely ignore when we play and idolise these artists. I am guilty of it myself. Playing certain artists who have in the past indulge in the groupie lifestyle or who have definitely had sex with minors. It is that horrible sense of complacency we get. Almost conditioned to feel that, as they are remarkable artists and have achieved a lot, then we dare not mention their pasts. I am not besmirching their legacy and importance. I feel that there is this whole side of music worship where we almost shrug off or bury some of the darker and more sworded elements.

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

Whether people see it as a product of the time. Groupie culture being consensual and part of that lifestyle. It is that sense of entitlement male artists – for the vast majority of time; I have no doubt there were occasions of female artists and young male fans having sex – that really galls! Not doing anything to push against this. Whether it is legends like The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin or any other massive artist of the 1960s and 1970s, one can only imagine how many occasions there were when there was something exploitative happening behind closed doors (and inside tour buses). Before I go on and expand, I want to defend the use of the word ‘groupie’. Certainly today, and in the past, it is a celebration of fandom. The loyalty and passion fans have for an artist. In this sense, I am referring to occasions of young female fans engaging in sexual intercourse with older male artists and how one cannot excuse the artists who encouraged this. If it was a sense of liberation and freedom for many young women/girls, it is not something that should have been almost glamourised and allowed to happen. The Glasgow Guardian explained how the ‘groupie’ has changed. How that word is often sexist and misogynistic:

“The problematic groupie role may reflect the wider issues of sexism in the music industry, as it sustains the idea of musicians being male and fans being female, as well as showing women and girls to be fans of the people rather than the music. It is also an extension of the frustrating male gatekeeping of music endured by female fans and creates harmful female stereotypes. The most sinister dangers of the groupie idea came to the surface in the fallout of the #MeToo movement, with 2017 bringing about many allegations on social media of sexual misconduct from male musicians, particularly among men in the rock and indie scene in the UK and America. Allegations featured past encounters with young female fans, such as Jesse Lacey of Brand New, who, throughout his career, used his power as an idolised musician to manipulate young fans; and members of Nothing But Thieves who strongly deny accusations of sexual assault but admitted that, “a misuse of the imbalance of power may have occurred”.

PHOTO CREDIT: William Lovelace/Getty Images

With the role of the groupie tinged with the objectification of women and the manipulation of young fans, it seems impossible that it could continue to exist in the modern-day music scene. However, in the age of female sexual liberation, perhaps we would be too quick to judge groupies as sexual objects existing solely for the pleasure of male musicians. In general, it is the harmful stereotypes and the abuse of power in the groupie culture, rather than the existence of the groupie herself that causes the issues. Perhaps then, they can continue to exist, so long as the encounters are between consenting adults. This however raises further questions over the deep-rooted sexism problem of the entertainment industry as a whole and the differences in attitudes towards male and female stars. After all, why are there no male groupies?

We might consider the “stan” to be the modern groupie, as many social media fandoms obsess over band members and artists in similar ways. Nowadays though, female musicians are idolised to the same extent and, for the most part, this is increasingly less sexual. Stans do still fantasise about meeting their idols but are much less vocal about actually wanting to have sexual encounters with them. While the power may still lie with the musicians, social media allows for celebrities to remain accountable and the rise of cancel culture, despite all the negativity it may bring, might be enough of a threat to stop bands from exploiting fans, even if it was acceptable in the seventies”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Fernando Ortiz P/Pexels

The music scene has changed in the wake of #MeToo. I know a groupie culture can mean women who consensually hung out with artists and D.J. and hooked up. There is the darker and more disturbing application that links to underage girls and this sense of status to be had with hooking up with a famous artist. It is a complex area to tread into. Different sides that debate as to whether a groupie is a good word or not. Articles like this provide their own dynamic and interpretation. I am both glad that the modern use of the word is something more about fandom and something less illicit and illegal. I bring this up because a new film, Priscilla, is out. It is about Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis. The King of Rock and Roll. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, you can see the plot here. The film does not shy away from some of the tougher moments. Abuse and sexual assault. Some of the more torrid elements of the relationship. Whilst Elvis Presley felt a lot of love for Priscilla, there is also that aspect of her being a pawn at times. A queen who deserved nothing but respect, she was often subjected to cruelty and negligence. It made me think about the music culture decades ago and attitudes towards women. From young and underage fans almost being encouraged to engage in debauchery with male artists who, in turn, did very little to stop it, to cases of stars who were unsavoury and violent towards women. I am sure we can all think of many artists who this applies to. What is angering is how this side of the artists is almost seen as minor compared to their musical legacy. That argument of whether we can separate the artist from the art. Priscilla is based on the 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me, by Priscilla Presley. It very open, moving and shocking at times. How much of this do we consider when celebrating and enjoying the music of artists?! Should their personal lives impact how we see their legacy?!

PHOTO CREDIT: Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels

It is something that applies to male artists more. The disposability of women. Whether they are seen as ‘muses’ and, therefore, are treated cruelly because they inspire their music – ‘muse’ is another horrible and dismissive term -; or there s a sense that stardom means they are free to do what they please, I think about this a lot. So many artists played on radio and seen as heroes. When you think back to their past and some of their behaviour, you do wonder why this is not called out. Is it ancient history?! I do struggle with that. As much the criminality and depravity that was hushed, accepted or seen as desirable then. That has not totally gone away. There is still some of that practise happening today with some bands. Even Matty Healy of the 1975 – who I do mention a lot, but for good reason – kissing female fans onstage seems exploitative and icky! Willing or not, it seems less about artists being grateful and showing fans compassion. It is that entitlement and seeing women as objects. Young girls and women’s fandom and support often does not get talked about. How important they are to moulding artists. Their role in music history. I think they were often exploited and seen as prizes rather than people. The music history book is littered with occasions of women being abused and tormented by male artists. With new revelations and allegations coming out almost by the week, it causes me to think where we have come from. How women were viewed. Objectified, vilified; seen as disposable and subservient. So many huge artists engaging in some truly awful behaviour. How much do we think about those women and how important they were. How strong they were. Their stories are not often heard. Their importance not celebrated and spotlighted. Reading about Priscilla and some of the moving scenes that people will see compelled me to address the music culture. The misogyny and abuse that has been present for years.

Maybe we have come some way in that respect now, though we still blindly idolise these artists and their music. Many male artists and industry figures today engaging in the same deplorable way as artists of the past. And, still, women not being believed or feeling fearful of coming forward. We are stricter now on men who are accused. In the sense that we will not forget or allow them to profit and live as they did going forward. How much do we look back and reassess the value and purity of some of these almost God-like figures?! Is there an internal balance and conversation where we weight things up, or are we told that a lot of what happened was consensual and okay?! That it was part of the scene. I know I said the ‘groupie’ is often applied in a sexist way. Women liberated and huge fans of artists rather than this seedy and exploitative viewpoint. Even so, there are plenty of occasions of male artists taking advantage of their stardom and infallibility. Do films like Priscilla change how we see someone like Elvis Presley?! Does knowing that underage female fans were in bed with certain groups and male artists change our perception of their music?! Whether you argue against some of my points and have different perspectives, it is clear that power and control has been used in dark ways. Artists using their pull in a very grubby way. It is okay for fans to judge how they view an artist and see their music but, the more we hear about the darker and more abusive sides of some artists and the women/girls who were victims (again, whether you classify them as such is your prerogative), the more we need to step back and take stock. We idolise the artist and mark their contributions and importance. I wonder how much time we take to see the women. Either those impacted by abuse and exploitation, or those who made the artists what they were – either through their loyalty and fandom or being their inspiration. In admiring and lionising the kings, we definitely cannot disregard or overlook…

THE queens.