FEATURE: Dreams: Why CATTY Supporting Stevie Nicks at BST Hyde Park Has This Wonderful Romance

FEATURE:

 

 

Dreams

IN THIS PHOTO: CATTY 

Why CATTY Supporting Stevie Nicks at BST Hyde Park Has This Wonderful Romance

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IT happens now and then…

IN THIS PHOTO: Stevie Nicks/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

and is more common and possible in the modern culture. What I am referring to is artists who are perhaps rising or not yet at the mainstream being given the opportunity to perform alongside legends and truly established artists. Artists like Taylor Swift selecting various artists to support depending on which country she is performing her Eras Tour. It must be a moment of real shock and ecstasy for an artist who gets that opportunity. Something they can talk about forever. In years and decades past, maybe the process was slightly different. If you got that sort of chance, it is possibly the case that the artist’s manager – the big and established artist – sees this upcoming act and recommends them. Maybe there is this word-of-mouth vibe. It probably occurred less than it does now. You would hear stories of those waiting or working behind bars getting these massive opportunities. Their dreams coming true. Being pulled from that somewhat modest setting and making it onto a giant stage alongside a hero of theirs. Almost this Hollywood vibe. This takes me to the recent case of CATTY. This is someone who has been on my radar and I hope to feature in my Spotlight feature soon. She is an amazing talent who I hope gets interviewed and profiled a lot soon enough. Take her music to new levels and people. As the BBC write, CATTY has been given the chance this summer to appear alongside Stevie Nicks at BST Hyde Park:

“A singer has secured a dream gig performing as a support act at a Stevie Nicks concert after using Instagram to "sell herself like a dog".

Catty, also known as Catrin Hopkins, will appear on stage at the Fleetwood Mac star's BST Hyde Park show.

It was all thanks to her sending a voice note to the booking agent on Instagram saying: "Hi, this is so embarrassing, but I just think it should be me."

The independent artist, from Caernarfon, Gwynedd, still works as a waitress to fund her career and will now join six other artists to make the all female line-up on 12 July.

"I called my manager and said ‘there’s no way this can go ahead without me’," she told Radio Wales Breakfast.

"We basically just emailed everybody that we could and we weren't getting any responses.

"So I found the booking agent and I just sent her a voice note on Instagram."

Catty started her career in the pop duo Dusky Grey in 2016 before moving to London to become a solo artist in 2021.

"I am pushing myself constantly, I'm also still a waitress and I have no shame about that," she said.

"Making music is so, so hard in terms of making money. That's how I'm funding everything - that's how I fund every show, that's how I fund every song that I put out.

"It’s really hard, but there's no way that I would ever do anything else.”

Stevie Nicks will headline BST in Hyde Park on 12 July

Catty is no stranger to supporting big artists after singing at a Lewis Capaldi concert as part of Dusky Grey, but said this opportunity was her "big dream".

"I’m quite calm about it now because we found out two weeks ago, but this means the world to me," she said.

"The reaction I had when it was announced, I just cried. That’s literally my hero!".

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A post shared by 🌜CATTY🌛 (@catty.mp3)

Even if the circumstance of CATTY supporting Stevie Nick is not quite the same as being discovered oldskool or getting her name spread about town, it is a modern equivalent. This young and very passionate artist putting her heart out there to share the stage with a hero. What I love is that this sort of thing can happen more in the modern day. With platforms like Instagram and TikTok, smaller artists can reach these major artists and, sometimes, their dreams can come true. That Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac song, Dreams. It seems very appropriate for CATTY. There is something wonderfully almost filmic about this coming together. A new artist whose has this music idol and hero. Never assuming the two would meet. That now will happen. Although CATTY Joins other women on stage, there is something about her story and situation that is particularly fantastic and rare. Not to suggest that all artists take to Instagram and work tirelessly to get their heroes to notice them. It may not always pay off or be possible. CATTY is also someone who has put in the hours and hard work. It is not like she is a talent show contestant who has been given a shot because of some T.V. exposure. The marrying of something new like Instagram and that bygone thing about dreams coming true in this strange and unexpected way. I think this is why the story stood out for me. I wanted to write about it. We might see other artists get that same opportunity as CATTY. They may be working in bars or shops between gigs and music commitments. Suddenly find themselves in the position where they get the gig of a lifetime! You can get tickets to see Stevie Nicks on 12th July. There is this great and varied BST Hyde Park line-up. It will be amazing. Especially true for CATTY. Going on stage to support an idol of hers. It shows that, in a hectic, competitive and packed music landscape, where artists have to struggle for recognition and survival, dreams really can…

COME true.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Deep Cuts: Leave It Open

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Deep Cuts

Leave It Open

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I have written about this…

track a few times before. Usually when marking the anniversary of The Dreaming. Kate Bush’s fourth studio album was released in 1982. Although it reached number three in the U.K., EMI felt it was slightly underwhelming. Many still feel that this album is too inaccessible and weird. Too much experimentation and not enough quality. Deeper and more layered than anything she released previously, this was Kate Bush producing solo. Utilising the studio and technology like the Fairlight CMI. With various sonic inspirations blending together, this was a bold and brilliant new direction. An artist clearly growing in ambition and scope. Kate Bush was only twenty-four when The Dreaming came out. It seems even more remarkable when you hear the brilliance of the songs on the album. A song that was not released as a single and one I don’t think I have heard on the radio, Leave It Open is certainly a deep cut. I may retread some information I put into previous features. There is no doubting the fact that Leave It Open is a deep cut. A song that many people are unaware of. I will go into the track in a bit. First, and thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia, we have examples of when Bush discussed one of her most intriguing, fascinating and compelling tracks. One whose range of sounds and contours is a real step above anything from her first three albums:

“Kate about ‘Leave It Open’

Like cups, we are filled up and emptied with feelings, emotions – vessels breathing in, breathing out. This song is about being open and shut to stimuli at the right times. Often we have closed minds and open mouths when perhaps we should have open minds and shut mouths.
This was the first demo to be recorded, and we used a Revox and the few effects such as a guitar chorus pedal and an analogue delay system. We tried to give the track an Eastern flavour and the finished demo certainly had a distinctive mood.
There are lots of different vocal parts, each portraying a separate character and therefore each demanding an individual sound. When a lot of vocals are being used in contrast rather than “as one”, more emphasis has to go on distinguishing between the different voices, especially if the vocals are coming from one person.
To help the separation we used the effects we had. When we mastered the track, a lot more electronic effects and different kinds of echoes were used, helping to place the vocals and give a greater sense of perspective. Every person who came into the studio was given the “end backing vocals test” to guess what is being sung at the end of the song.
“How many words is it?”
“Five.”
“Does it begin with a ‘W’?”
It is very difficult to guess, but it can be done, especially when you know what the song is about.
I would love to know your answers.

KATE BUSH CLUB NEWSLETTER, OCTOBER 1982

‘Leave It Open’ is the idea of human beings being like cups – like receptive vessels. We open and shut ourselves at different times. It’s very easy to let you ego go “nag nag nag” when you should shut it. Or when you’re very narrow-minded and you should be open. Finally you should be able to control your levels of receptivity to a productive end.

RICHARD COOK, ‘MY MUSIC SOPHISTICATED? I’D RATHER YOU SAID THAT THAN TURDLIKE!’. NME (UK), OCTOBER 1982

Talking about “guessing”, at last someone has discovered what’s being said at the end of “Leave It Open” – well done! But let me tell you about some of the fascinating encounters I’ve had. There is a Mr. John Reimers from the U.S.A. who has rung up once a week with his new version:
“Is it…?”
“Nope!”
“Well, is it…?”
“Nope!”
“Tell me! Tell me!”
John, you’re terrific!
But I’m afraid this is just a mild case. One night I woke up to a tapping on the window. It was someone hanging from a nearby tree by their feet. In their hands was a card, and written on it was: “Is it ‘We paint the penguins pink?'” I’m afraid I had to laugh, and shook my head. They burst into tears and ran off into the moonlight. But I think the cleverest was a phone call I had the other week.
“Hello, Kate?”
“Hello?”
“It’s Jay here, how are you doing?”
He sounded a little squeaky to me. Then he said: “You know, it’s ridiculous. I was sitting here listening to the end of ‘Leave It Open’ the other day, and I just couldn’t remember what you said – I know it’s crazy but -“
I interrupted.
“‘We paint the penguins pink.'”
“Oh, yeah! Of course, how could I forget? See you soon – bye!”
Hmmm… see what I mean?… C-lever!
But seriously, I have enjoyed your guesses tremendously, but I have terrible dreams about your reactions now that the answer has been revealed. Do I hear cries of “You’re kidding! But that’s stupid!” or “Cor, that’s pathetic – all our efforts overthat?”
Well, I hope not… And remember to let the weirdness in.

KATE BUSH CLUB NEWSLETTER, 1984”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pierre Terrasson

There is a lot going on through Leave It Open. Even though journalists have not really spent too much time with the song – I have not seen a single feature dedicated to it (apart from ones I have written!) -, there has been some fan discussion and dissection. Thanks to this website for leading me to postings and theories by fans that go back to 1985. People spending time with Leave It Open and offering some interesting insights:

“On "The Dreaming" there is a two-way message that is sung at the end of "Leave It Open". When you play it forwards it sings "We let the weirdness in". And when you play it backwards it sings "And they said they would not let me in"!

I've tried this several times, and I can't hear the word "not". All I can hear is "They said they would let me in". As to how they did it, I'm not an expert in the field, but I have what I think is a pretty good guess. It's drowned out by the music in the part where the music is still going, but in the part at the very end, I can hear something in the background, and although the voice is intelligible, it still sounds weird. This makes me think that they've recorded the two messages separately in normal, forward voices, then reversed one of them, then combined the two signals together. I'm not familiar with the Fairlight, but I wouldn't be surprised if such things were not too difficult to do on it. They probably tried different relative speeds and offsets until they got something that produced the desired effect. When we play the record in one direction or the other, we're actually hearing both messages at the same time, one forward and the other backwards. Because we tend to notice intelligible speech more than unintelligible speech, we hear mostly the forward message. One of the scientists I work with has done some research in the field of speech intelligibility, so if I get a chance I'll talk to him about it and I'll forward his comments to this mailing list”.

That ending mantra of “We let the weirdness in” almost became a motto or mission statement for The Dreaming. It is a weirder and darker album than anything Kate Bush recorded before – or since really. Bush writes so beautifully and vividly through this song. There are so many standout lyrics and passages. I have some favourites. This is one of the best: “Narrow mind would persecute it/Die a little to get to it/(But now I've started learning how)/I leave it open”. I often wonder what compelled Kate Bush to write various songs. That thing about humans being like vessels and cups. Opening and shutting ourselves at various times. In a way, I think Leave It Open is a companion piece for the first single from The Dreaming, Leave It Open. That song is humanity's endless search for knowledge. I like how there are connected songs and clear themes. Maybe Leave It Open would not have succeeded as a single. It is a shame that it is under-exposed and explored. That lack of live performance and stage spotlight. I wonder what would have happened if Kate Bush had gone on tour after The Dreaming. Maybe exhaustion meant that this was not a consideration. Such is the atmospheric and powerful nature of those songs, to see them on stage would have been magnificent! In terms of the production and her vocals, I think that Leave It Open is one of her absolute best. I would urge people to check out the song. It is magnificent and should be played on radio. If many see it as not suitable for most stations, those with taste and appreciation of music that has surface and is not your ordinary Pop song should give this a shot. It is an important chapter and moment from one of Kate Bush’s albums. Many people close their minds and hearts to this song. I think that people should really…

LEAVE them open.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: A Swedish Pop Mix

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Zara Larsson

A Swedish Pop Mix

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WHEN you think of nations…

IN THIS PHOTO: ABBA/PHOTO CREDIT: Olle Lindeborg/AFP/Getty Images

that have provided the best Pop music, inevitably people’s minds go to the U.K. or U.S. In terms of quantity, I guess these are safe bets. In terms of Pop with a difference, maybe there are other options. It is renowned how strong Swedish Pop is. Rather than tie this playlist to a distinct date or anniversary, I felt a Swedish Pop mixtape would be a perfect energy boost for this week. Many might only feel there is ABBA and that is all there is to select from. If you take from more recent years, there are great Swedish Pop tracks that have come onto the scene. In a lot of cases, these are artists that were born in Sweden and now live elsewhere – though that would still constitute Swedish Pop. You will know almost all of these artists, yet there might be a few that are new to you. From the deliriously upbeat to something a little more tempered but still wonderful, this Swedish Pop Digital Mixtape shows what a strong and consistently brilliant nation they are. Maybe more eyes should be on nations like Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Rich and diverse in terms of the music. For a pure hit of Swedish Pop, the playlist below…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Cardigans

IS all that you need.

FEATURE: Misread: Kings of Convenience's Riot on an Empty Street at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Misread

Kings of Convenience's Riot on an Empty Street at Twenty

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UNLIKE some albums…

turning twenty this year, Kings of Convenience’s Riot on an Empty Street probably won’t get the same attention. It is a quiet storm. Something swelling, beautiful, dramatic and vivid. It is a gentle album, yet one with such rich and sumptious vocals and wonderfully immersive lyrics. Songs that bring you inside. Ones you are captivated by. The second studio album from the brilliant Norwegian duo, Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe, two of the songs feature Feist – Know How and The Build Up. I wanted to shine a full light on a really brilliant album that turns twenty on 21st June. I remember buying the album and not knowing what to expect. Three years after their remarkable debut, Quiet Is the New Loud, Riot on an Empty Street offered more of the same thing. If anything, their second studio album sounded bigger and fuller than their debut. You could feel that life in confidence and scope. Produced by Kings of Convenience and Davide Bertolini, I think that some reviewers missed out on Riot on an Empty Street. Others did not give it the praise it truly deserved. I can understand some doubts or criticisms against Riot on an Empty Street. For an album that tries to bring in more Dance and Electronic influences, maybe the blend is not quite right. Perhaps an album that nods more to the past rather than comes into the twenty-first century. Also, Feist perhaps underused or not given the strongest parts. There is also this sense of politeness and few risks. If you know what to expect and are not thinking it is going to be a big evolution from their 2011 debut, then Riot on an Empty Street offers plenty. The production is bigger and fuller. The duo’s most recent album, 2021’s Peace or Love, was praised. It retained their core sound but brought in Bossa Nova influences. Being released during the pandemic, perhaps it did not the attention and full exposure it would otherwise have enjoyed.

I do really love Riot on an Empty Street. The fact that Feist introduces a new vocal element. The standout tracks like Misread, I’d Rather Dance with You, Surprise Ice and The Build Up. Each time you pass through the album, you will discover something new. It is a beautifully deep album that is a lot more than surface. I feel some critics did not pay as much attention to Riot on an Empty Street as they should. Denying themselves of something stunning. I want to bring in a review from AllMusic. This is what they observed when they assessed the 2004 album from Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek:

“Riot on an Empty Street ends a long period of inactivity for Kings of Convenience. During their three-year layoff Erlend Øye could be found making solo records and DJing while Eirik Glambek Boe was finishing his psychology degree. Luckily for fans of beautiful vocals and thoughtful indie pop, they decided to get back together. What this band is all about is the sound of Boe and Øye's voices blended together in harmony. Their first album (in both incarnations) erred on the side of consistency. Here the band seems to have learned the all-important lesson of pace and variety. The arrangements are fuller too with pianos, strings, the occasional electric guitar, and lovely guest vocals on two tracks from Broken Social Scene member Leslie Feist. Not to say that they have gone crazy with change. They still stick pretty closely to the acoustic guitars and vocals path, and the tone of the album is autumnal and restrained as before. They have just added more songs like the gently driving "Misread," the lilting waltz "Stay Out of Trouble," and the downright peppy "I'd Rather Dance With You." Øye's side trip into electronica only rears its head on the non-electronic but modern-sounding "Love Is No Big Truth." No matter what the song, though, when their tender, fragile voices harmonize it can be breathtaking. And heartbreaking. The moment in "Surprise Ice" when Eirik is joined by Erland will raise goose bumps. There are many others like that on Riot, and they are what sells the record. If you sort of liked the first record but wished it was more interesting, that it had more punch of both the sonic and emotional variety, then your wishes have come true”.

I do hope that there are plans to bring Riot on an Empty Street to vinyl. I am having a hard time finding too many options. As it is twenty on 21st June, it would be a good time to consider it. A really gorgeous album that you can lose yourself in, I would also hope people revisit it. Maybe opinions have changed. Though it received generally favourable reviews – The Independent gave it five stars; The Guardian four -, those who provided three-star takes or were a little mixed might do well to listen back now. I want to end with a review from No Depression. They make some interesting observations about the sumptuous Riot on an Empty Street:

“Over the last two decades, the idea that “dance music” could ever signify a static, all-encompassing genre has essentially passed. “Dance” has since melted down into a giant puddle of prefix-and-suffix-affixed subcultures, and Norwegian folk duo Kings Of Convenience are rallying for the inclusion of one more: post-club.

Part-time (and widely acclaimed) DJ Erlend Oye and his songwriting partner Erik Glambek Boe — adorably credited as “low voice” and “high voice” in the album’s liner notes — play tender folk songs remarkably well-suited to jerky cab rides at dawn, when your vision is foggy at best and home seems awfully far away. With their doleful acoustic guitars, breathy, microphone-eating vocals, and pristine production, Oye and Boe have mastered the art of the comedown.

Riot On An Empty Street, the duo’s third original full-length, nods to the soft intimacy of Nick Drake, and, perhaps surprisingly, fails to reference Oye’s extracurricular electro-jaunts. The Kings tend to avoid electronic flourishes, opting instead for pretty organics: piano, strings, guitar, and the soft muscle of two perfectly harmonized voices.

The opener “Homesick” is a joint love letter from Oye & Boe to Simon & Garfunkel (complete with self-referential longing for “two soft voices blended in perfection”), while “Know How”, featuring Broken Social Scene vocalist Leslie Feist, mixes a swinging, lounge-infused piano melody with sweet, toe-tapping vocals.

Folky, tender, and seeped in gray, pre-dawn light, Riot On An Empty Street is a tender homage to the art of descending”.

If you are unfamiliar with Kings of Convenience or their music, check out their official website. Hopefully we will hear more music from them. They always produce these tender and beautiful albums that have these sparks and bright colours at the edges. Different genre and instrumental influences. All pulling towards the stunning vocal chemistry and harmonies from their duo. As it is twenty this week, I wanted to show Riot on an Empty Street some love. It really is such…

A wonderful album.

FEATURE: Worthy Rumours: Would Kate Bush Playing Glastonbury Ever Be a Possibility?

FEATURE:

 

 

Worthy Rumours

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush received the Editors Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in the Palladium, London on 30th November, 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Alan Davidson/Rex/Shutterstock

Would Kate Bush Playing Glastonbury Ever Be a Possibility?

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MAYBE that question…

IN THIS PHOTO: Emily Eavis/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

has quite an obvious answer. When we think about Glastonbury Festival and whether Kate Bush would ever appear, most people would say the same: absolutely not. In terms of logic, she is sixty-five, hasn’t performed live for nearly a decade. She has not released an album since 2011. In terms of Kate Bush and her live dynamics. She has her own set and confines. Bush does not play festivals. Aside from a Japanese song contest in 1978, Bush has not really performed to a huge crowd beyond her 1979 tour and 2014 residency. On both occasions, she chose the venues and there was this sense of her setting the parameters. Making sure she was comfortable in that space. The shows involved a sense of intimacy. Different sets and costume changes. Doing anything outside of that would have been a no-no years ago. Now, as we have not really heard anything new from Bush in so long, it would be an impossibility. I mention Glastonbury, not only because it is a matter of days away. One of its organisers, Emily Eavis, was asked which artist would be her dream headliner. She chose Kate Bush. This Louder article gives more details:

“Emily Eavis says her dream festival headliner for Glastonbury Festival is Kate Bush.

During a recent appearance on the BBC’s Sidetracked podcast to discuss this year's upcoming event, festival organiser Eavis was questioned by hosts Annie Macmanus and Nick Grimshaw on who her dream booking would be.

In response, she says: "Do you know who I would like to get who haven’t had… Is Kate Bush. I’d love to have her. I’ve put it out there that I’d love to have her.I hope one day."

Unfortunately for Eavis, such a scenario is unlikely to happen, considering Kate Bush has only ever hit the stage for two official tours across her entire career - firstly in 1979 for the Tour of Life, followed by Before The Dawn, her 2014 residency at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.

In spite of this, Eavis remains optimistic and adds: "But you never know I mean Elton was a pipe dream and it happened.

"But I think you’ve also got to create these new headliners like Dua Lipa. We’re creating this moment for her and that’s really as exciting as anything.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the organiser revealed that Glastonbury Festival will most likely be taking a year off in 2026, stating: "We are due a fallow year. The fallow year is important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to stay out for longer and reclaim their land.”

She continues, “I think it’s important, I think it gives everybody time to just switch off and the public as well. Then you kind of go away for a bit and it feels lovely when you come back. And I think it’s quite good not to be seen to be cashing in.”

Glastonbury Festival will return to Worthy Farm, Somerset this year on June 26-30, with Dua Lipa, Coldplay, and SZA headlining the Pyramid Stage”.

In the past, I have been dismissive about anyone suggesting Kate Bush would play Glastonbury. I know people who do not know her history and views might naturally assume a festival slot would maybe be a possibility. I guess those who know Bush a bit better realise that Glastonbury would be out of her comfort zone. Even so, the fact that she is so sough-after means that you can never rule anything out. When Elton John headlined Glastonbury last year, many thought Kate Bush would make a guest appearance. The two are friends and she covered John’s song, Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time), in the 1990s. The two duetted on Kate Bush’s most recent studio album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. Many would have loved to see them share a stage. Also, as there are more intimate stages and areas at Glastonbury, maybe a Pyramid Stage slot would not be the only option. Obviously nothing will happen this year. Emily Eavis announced 2026 will be a fallow year for Worthy Farm. Giving the land a chance to rest and recover. It does call into question next year. It will be forty years since Hounds of Love was released. Seeing this iconic artist take to the headline stage and performing from that album would be perfect. Even if you could not get the same atmosphere and sense of amazement you might see at Eventim Apollo, maybe something could be produced that would bring to mind 2014’s Before the Dawn. You wonder whether, as that residency was unique and she performed twenty-two dates, would Kate Bush want to repeat herself?

I am not sure how much of Kate Bush’s career Emily Eavis knows about. Interviews where Bush has talked about live performances. How it would be difficult for her to consider doing anything like headlining Glastonbury. Of course, she can always surprise us. Given how Before the Dawn seemed like a closing chapter regarding live work, I would say there are very long odds of her doing anything like it again. Also, as Bush was nervous performing in a relatively small space like the Eventim Apollo, it would be astronomically nerve-wracking playing Glastonbury. Unless she has a very special desire to play there and maybe bow out with a headline slot next year, I think we can safely assume that it will be a ‘no’ from her – were more offers to come from. Regardless, it got me thinking about the appreciation there is for her music. Of course, we would all love for Kate Bush to be announced headliner next year and conquer her nerves and opinions regarding festivals. She is not overly averse to them, it is the fact she doesn’t play them and is not that kind of live artist. It got me thinking at least about the upcoming tenth anniversary of Before the Dawn. That happens in August. It will get people nostalgic. Those who were not at one of the dates would love to see Kate Bush perform somewhere else. Can we really rule out any more live work?! Whether it is a one-off at Abbey Road Studios in a more stripped-back capacity or Kate Bush would ever go on another residency, there will be a lot of speculation and fantasies. Discussion around Glastonbury will be on people’s mind. Emily Eavis has made it clear how much she wants Kate Bush to play.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during 2014’s Before the Dawn/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Noble and Brite/PA Wire

Undoubtably, as Emily Eavis has revealed Kate Bush is her dream headliner, fans like me are imagining possible setlists and how it would go. We are going to mark a decade of Before the Dawn in a couple of months. What comes next? There are no plans of new material or anything new. There has also not been any announcement or plan for footage of Before the Dawn to come to cinemas or DVD. It does leaver this hole. People who have never seen Kate Bush live. The big reason Bush returned to the stage – in terms of a big production – since 1979 was because of her son, Bertie. She needed a bit of convincing to get there. There would be even more reticence and hesitation doing anything massive like Glastonbury. Even if it was her final live performance. Bertie (Albert) is in his twenties now. There is a new generation of fans. That would be a push, I guess. Also, Kate Bush is always doing new things. In terms of between albums and the sound/themes. Her 1979 tour is very different to Before the Dawn. I guess there is always a slim bit of hope. It would be the most popular and perhaps best Glastonbury headline set ever. However, knowing so much about Kate Bush and the fact she has never played a U.K. festival, there would need to be this big incentive and reason. One cannot rule anything out in the next year. No doubt she will realise that Emily Eavis wants her to headline. People are very keen for Kate Bush to do something. Whether it is a live set or a new album. That tension and excitement. A new opportunity to hear from Bush. It may seem totally implausible and like he longest shot ever. That thought of Kate Bush stepping onto Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage next year for the Sunday headline slot. Maybe coming out as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) plays. Ending with a song like Hounds of Love. It gets me thinking about all these concepts and possibilities. However remote, a Kate Bush Glastonbury headline set is…

WORTHY of consideration.

FEATURE: The Sounds of Science: Looking Ahead to the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary of Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique

FEATURE:

 

 

The Sounds of Science

Looking Ahead to the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary of Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique

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1989 was a truly legendary year…

IN THIS PHOTO: Beastie Boys in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Rider

for Hip-Hop. Among the big releases from that year was De La Soul’s debut, 3 Feet High and Rising. Not only was this album one of the most important Hip-Hop albums of 1989: Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique is among the finest albums ever released. One of the best from the year for sure. It is testament to its sampling, production and extraordinary variety that the trio’s second studio album is so enduring. It is still played to this day. A big step on from their 1986 debut, Licensed to Ill, not everyone embraced Paul’s Boutique. After their debut, there was so criticism. Some feeling they were a joke or novelty act. Some accused them of sexism and bad attitudes towards women (something the trio addressed on Paul’s Boutique). One reason why Paul’s Boutique alienated some was the amount of sampling and its scope. Perhaps not as accessible as Licensed to Ill. Their second album masterpiece was produced by the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers. It was recorded over two years at Matt Dike's apartment and the Record Plant in Los Angeles. Even if Paul’s Boutique was not promoted widely by Capitol and the sales were not as big as expected, it has become the group’s most loved albums. An iconic and seismic release. I am going to get to some reviews and features about the album. An album I would urge people to buy, I do wonder whether there will be a thirty-fifth anniversary reissue. Paul’s Boutique was released on 25th July, 1989. I would recommend people look at this Billboard feature that is a track-by-track guide. Also, this feature explores one of the greatest albums ever. I am going to start off with this article from Albumism. On its thirtieth anniversary (in 2019), they took us inside the brilliance and background of the Beastie Boys’ stunning second studio album:

“The road to making Paul’s Boutique was not an easy one, largely due to the all too familiar tale of the music powers that be and the artists not being on the same page. In the midst of the success of their 1986 debut Licensed to Ill, the Beastie Boys’ vision of where they wanted their careers to head were vastly different from that of producer Rick Rubin and Def Jam founder Russell Simmons. From 1986 to 1988, the Beastie Boys carved their own space in the frat boy hip-hop territory. Despite having hip-hop’s first Billboard #1 album, by 1987, the trio (Adam Horovitz a.k.a. Ad-Rock, Adam Yauch a.k.a. MCA and Mike Diamond a.k.a. Mike D) started to grow disenchanted with their situation.

According to their memoir The Beastie Boys Book, Horovitz said, “Things seemed to be going great, so we just rolled with it all. Going on tour, opening for Madonna, and then Run-D.M.C., it was like a dream that we didn’t even know existed for us that had come true. We’d become a big group of friends having ridiculous fun, making music, playing shows, traveling, and getting paid money to not actually have a job. But at a certain point, Rick and Russell started coming up with ideas and making decisions for us.”

Horovitz also claimed that Rubin chose the artwork for Licensed to Ill and re-produced their biggest hit, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!),” without their consent. “We were too busy living the high life to pay attention. Big mistake. Kids, when someone’s making decisions for you, you can also bet that they’ve decided to take what’s yours,” Horovitz added.

Eventually they grew tired of that act, especially when Simmons suggested to Yauch that he continue his onstage persona of the drunk guy at the party offstage. The Beastie Boys became victims of the age old trick of being forced to tour endlessly, only to discover by the end of the tour that they were flat broke and they owed the label another album.

After a year of contentious lawsuits, the Beastie Boys signed a deal with Capitol Records with the groundbreaking Paul’s Boutique being their first record for the label. The group got a brand new lease on life and an opportunity to contribute to the making of the album. Produced by the Dust Brothers, Paul’s Boutique is a masterpiece that would not be able to be made today because of its groundbreaking use of samples. It would be financially prohibitive.

By the time the Dust Brothers and the Beastie Boys got together, most of the album’s tracks were instrumentals that the producers had been working on previously. In a 2009 interview with Clash magazine, Yauch stated, “They had a bunch of music together, before we arrived to work with them. As a result, a lot of the tracks on Paul’s Boutique come from songs they’d planned to release to clubs as instrumentals— ‘Shake Your Rump’, for example. They’d put together some beats, basslines and guitar lines, all these loops together, and they were quite surprised when we said we wanted to rhyme on it, because they thought it was too dense. They offered to strip it down to just beats, but we wanted all of that stuff on there. I think half of the tracks were written when we got there, and the other half we wrote together.”

The aforementioned “Shake Your Rump” contains an array of samples that require multiple listens to figure out exactly where the beats came from. The samples range from “Funky Snakefoot” by Alphonse Mouzon to “Jazzy Sensation” by Afrika Bambaataa and The Jazzy 5 to “Get Off” by Foxy. “Shake Your Rump” is three minutes and nineteen seconds of organized chaos that is infectious.

Among the other highlights from Paul’s Boutique are the lesser known “Egg Man” featuring the baseline from Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” and the theme from Jaws and “High Plains Drifter,” a song about a low life drifter traveling cross country with samples from “Those Shoes“ by the Eagles, “Your Mama Don’t Dance“ by Loggins and Messina, and “Put Your Love (In My Tender Care)” by The Fatback Band as the background music. The most successful single from Paul’s Boutique was “Hey Ladies,” which managed to peak at #36 on the Hot 100. It was a far cry from the hits on Licensed to Ill, but in terms of overall quality, the songs on Paul’s Boutique are far superior.

As you listen to the album, it’s clear that this is a Beastie Boys production without interference from a label head or producer. This was their voice going forward. They crafted outrageous stories set to beats and samples that set them apart from many of their peers. In his speech inducting the Beastie Boys into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, Public Enemy’s Chuck D stated, “After Licensed to Ill, the Beasties left the Def Jam label and broke with their producer Rick Rubin and still kept it going on. Everyone wondered and many people were pessimistic about how the hell they were going to top their multi-platinum debut, Licensed to Ill. But their second album, Paul’s Boutique, broke the mold, and with it they accomplished everything they hoped for”.

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Its approaching thirty-fifth anniversary is cause for celebration. I do wonder whether the surviving members, Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz  and Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond will mark it – we sadly lost the brilliant Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch in 2012. I want to move to this feature from Tidal. Again, in 2019, they were keen to go deep inside Paul’s Boutique on its thirtieth anniversary:

“Despite the success of Licensed to Ill, critics seemed less than impressed by the Boys. They often derided the Beasties as an obnoxious  “comedy act,” Run-DMC poseurs cashing in on the rap-rock sound. (The durags didn’t help.) Naysayers characterized the beer-fueled antics, irrepressible horniness and degradation of women in their music (and live shows) as earnest immaturity instead of thinly masked satire. (It was likely somewhere in the middle.)

The “Fight for Your Right (to Party)” video could have been called a documentary and no one would have blinked. With that single alone, unwittingly or not, three ex-punks were credited with creating the soundtrack to the execrable acts of fraternity pledges who probably found Andrew Dice Clay insightful.

Rolling Stone granted the Beasties some self-awareness, but their review of Licensed to Ill attributed the visceral, speaker-frying hybrid of concussive percussion and searing rock guitar entirely to Rick Rubin, despite the fact that the Beasties are listed as producers. If their scores on Kool Moe Dee’s infamous “Report Card” reflected the views of the Beasties’ peers, those who shared stages with the group also gave them a low passing grade.

Amid the critical backlash, Def Jam was, according to the Beasties, withholding royalties from Licensed to Ill as a punitive measure. The label wanted a sophomore record, but the group wanted a break after a year-plus of touring. “They did not fucking pay us — Rick [Rubin] and Russell [Simmons], our friends, Def Jam,” Ad-Rock wrote in 2018’s Beastie Boys Book.

There are differing accounts of how the Beastie Boys wound up recording the majority of Paul’s Boutique at the small, Hollywood apartment of the late Matt Dike, co-founder of the now-iconic Los Angeles label Delicious Vinyl (Tone Loc, the Pharcyde, Young MC). Ultimately, the Beasties were captivated by the instrumentals they heard from Delicious Vinyl affiliated producers the Dust Brothers (John “King Gizmo” King and Mike “E.Z. Mike” Simpson).

By 1988, they had split from Def Jam and moved to L.A., signed to Capitol for millions, and rented a mansion in the Hollywood Hills in hopes of making a record that would erase, or at least distance them from, the frat bro image.

“I think that they were focused on not being a one-hit wonder and breaking away from the popularity and the fanbase that the song had garnered for them,” Mike Simpson told KEXP in a 2015 interview. “They really wanted to reinvent themselves and make a statement that they were more than ‘Fight for Your Right (to Party).’”

For the past three decades and for all eternity, all talk of Paul’s Boutique rightfully begins with the beats. The Dust Brothers took the thundering walls of disparate sounds pioneered by the Bomb Squad on Public Enemy records (e.g., It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back) and dialed back the dissonance while dialing up the funk.

In the Dust Brothers and Matt Dike, who was present for and influenced many recordings, the Beasties had found true musical kinsmen — people whose eclectic tastes went beyond the rap and rock that had informed Licensed to Ill. Rubin’s beats on that album almost sound primitive by comparison.

“They’d grown up listening to many of the same records, so they were into it,” Simpson told KEXP. “It seemed to be a good match.”

Those records became Beastie-tailored collages, a collection of beats composed of (literally) hundreds of samples pulled from funk and soul (Curtis Mayfield, Rose Royce, Zapp, Kool & the Gang, the Meters), rock (the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix), rap (Funky 4+1, BDP, Run-DMC), reggae (Pato Banton, Scotty) and more. Drum breaks, bass lines, guitar riffs, vocals from rap records and radio commercials — nothing was off limits. The Dust Brothers and Beastie Boys expanded the horizon and parameters of sampling further than anyone thought sonically or technologically possible in 1989.

Capitol reportedly paid between $200,000 and $300,000 to clear as many samples as they could, but there are undoubtedly more left uncleared. The sum is paltry considering the amount rap artists would later pay for a single sample. It’s proof that the beats on Paul’s Boutique could have only existed in the era before sweeping and expensive (and arguably incommensurate) copyright litigation forever hamstrung the genre.

The only 1989 rap record that approached sampling with the same scope and playfulness was De La Soul’s Prince Paul-produced Three Feet High and Rising (which did result in a lawsuit).

There’s a fan-run website devoted to textually cataloging every sample (and lyrical reference) on Paul’s Boutique. If that’s not sufficient, you can visit WhoSampled to play the exact bar(s) the Dust Brothers and the Beasties looped. Hearing the pieces of music in isolation affirms the artistry required to make them fit together, to make them virtually indivisible.

For a test case, you needn’t look any further than “Shake Your Rump,” which is essentially the first song on the album. (“To All the Girls” is an intro.) There are four different drum breaks, but it never sounds like they’re from different records. Instead, they come off like brilliant tangents or improvised solos. If no one told you that the rubbery, undeniably funky bass line came from Rose Royce’s “Yo Yo,” you might think it was also from the same song sampled for the main drum break (Harvey Scales – “Dancing Room Only”).

The sounds on every beat, whether that’s the infectious Commodores riff on “Hey Ladies” or the multiple Beatles samples on “The Sounds of Science,” become inextricable parts of the whole. It’s as if each beat were a house made of vinyl, a structure that would collapse without the support of each interlocking bass line, drum fill and vocal sample embedded in dust-coated groove.

One of the main reasons the beats on Paul’s Boutique work so well is that the Beastie Boys were equally unpredictable, trading punchlines and shouting them in unison with an effortless polish and fluidity not present in the more rigidly delivered verses of their debut. Together, they weave in and out of each other, in and out of the drum breaks, like the Showtime-era Lakers on a fastbreak.

They don’t just rhyme around the esoteric vocal samples, the samples become part of the rhyme schemes, part of their hooks. They converse with them. The combination of their three distinctive voices, although grating to some, packed the collective bravado necessary to compete with the dozens of sounds playing in unison.

Lyrically, Paul’s Boutique was a marked leap forward for the Beasties. Largely jettisoning the Licensed to Ill narratives that played like an X-rated version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, they had begun to find the right mix of high and low brow. Literary references to Jack Kerouac and J.D. Salinger appear on the same album with similes about The Flintstones and The Brady Bunch. With odes to egging people (“Egg Man”) and songs that seemed to glorify grand theft auto (“Car Thief”), it’s clear that they hadn’t abandoned all hijinks”.

I will end with a couple of reviews. There were a few dissenting voices in 1989. In years since, the retrospective reaction has been hugely positive. Paul’s Boutique was remastered on its twentieth anniversary. Pitchfork gave it a perfect ten when they shared their thoughts. I did not hear Paul’s Boutique when it came out in 1989. I discovered it in the 1990s. I first heard their debut before Paul’s Boutique. It was quite a leap in imagination and faith experiencing their second album! Since then, I have played the album so many times all the way through. I still have not to the bottom of it! A masterpiece in terms of sampling and its innovation, maybe Paul’s Boutique represents a time we can never return to. Artists unable to get clearance to samples so they can create something like Beastie Boys’ sophomore release:

“Paul’s Boutique is a landmark in the art of sampling, a reinvention of a group that looked like it was heading for a gimmicky, early dead-end, and a harbinger of the pop-culture obsessions and referential touchstones that would come to define the ensuing decades' postmodern identity as sure as “The Simpsons” and Quentin Tarantino did. It’s an album so packed with lyrical and musical asides, namedrops, and quotations that you could lose an entire day going through its Wikipedia page and looking up all the references; “The Sounds of Science” alone redirects you to the entries for Cheech Wizard, Shea Stadium, condoms, Robotron: 2084, Galileo, and Jesus Christ. That density, sprawl, and information-overload structure was one of the reasons some fans were reluctant to climb on board. But by extending Steinski’s rapid-fire sound-bite hip-hop aesthetic over the course of an entire album, the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers more than assured that a generally positive first impression would eventually lead to a listener’s dedicated, zealous headlong dive into the record’s endlessly-quotable deep end.

There’s a lot that's already been said about the daring eclecticism and arguably irreproducible anything-goes technique with which the Dust Brothers assembled the album’s beats. The music is a big, shameless love letter to the 1970s filled with a conceptual bookend (the Idris Muhammad-sampling, ladies-man ether frolic “To All the Girls”), numerous line-completing lyrical interjections from Johnny Cash, Chuck D, Pato Banton and Sweet, and, just for kicks, nine truncated songs spliced together and stuck in at the end as a staggering 12 and 1/2-minute suite. If the sonics on It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back evoked a sleep-shattering wake-up call and 3 Feet High and Rising a chilled-out, sunny afternoon, the personality of Paul’s Boutique completed the trinity by perfectly capturing the vibe of a late-night alcohol and one-hitter-fueled shit-talk session. Even now, after being exposed to successively brilliant sample-slayers from the RZA to the Avalanches to J Dilla, it’s still bracing just how meticulous the beats are here. These aren’t just well-crafted loops, they’re self-contained little breakbeat universes filled with weird asides, clever segues, and miniature samples-as-punchlines.

There’s dozens of clever touches and big, ambitious ideas that still sound inspired: a cameo appearance by the opening drumbeats of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” in “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun”; the manic yet seamless percussion rolls and the giddy tour through the Car Wash soundtrack on “Shake Your Rump”; the two-part slow-to-fast tweaking of late-period Beatles on “The Sounds of Science”; a sparingly-used Alice Cooper guitar riff adding a mockingly pseudo-badass counter to the whimsical Gene Harris-based soul jazz backbone of “What Comes Around.” It all gets writ large in “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” the aforementioned album-closing suite, which careens through turntablist striptease, a not-yet-throwback 808/beatboxing showcase, funk grooves of every conceivable tempo, and a Jeep-beat bass monster so massive and all-consuming that Jay-Z and Lil Wayne 2.0’d it in late 2007. Even the less-frenetic moments are sonically inventive; there’s only two acknowledged and minimally-tinkered-with samples in “3-Minute Rule,” augmented with a starkly simple bassline from MCA himself, but it’s one of the finest examples of deep, cavernous dub-style production on any golden age rap record.

And, of course, there’s Ad-Rock and MCA and Mike D themselves. Where the aesthetic of Licensed to Ill could have permanently placed them in the crass dirtbag-shtick company of “Married With Children” and Andrew Dice Clay if they’d kept it up, Paul’s Boutique pushed them into a new direction as renaissance men of punchline lyricism. They were still happily at home affecting low-class behaviors: hucking eggs at people on “Egg Man”; going on cross-country crime sprees on “High Plains Drifter”; smackin’ girlies on the booty with something called a “plank bee” in “Car Thief”; claiming to have been “makin’ records when you were suckin’ your mother’s dick” on “3-Minute Rule.” But they’d also mastered quick-witted acrobatic rhymes to augment their countless pop-culture references and adolescent hijinks. “Long distance from my girl and I’m talkin’ on the cellular/She said that she was sorry and I said ‘Yeah, the hell you were’”—we’re a long way from “Cookie Puss” here.

While each member has their spotlight moments—MCA’s pedal-down tour de force fast-rap exhibition in “Year and a Day,” Mike D having too much to drink at the Red Lobster on “Mike on the Mic,” and Ad-Rock’s charmingly venomous tirade against coke-snorting Hollywood faux-ingénues in “3-Minute Rule”—Paul's Boutique is where their back-and-forth patter really reached its peak. At the start of their career, they built off the tag-team style popularized by Run-DMC, but by ’89 they'd developed it to such an extent and to such manic, screwball ends that they might as well have been drawing off the Marx Brothers as well. It’s impossible to hear the vast majority of this album as anything other than a locked-tight group effort, with its overlapping lyrics and shouted three-man one-liners, and it’s maybe best displayed in the classic single “Shadrach.” After years of post-Def Jam limbo and attempts to escape out from under the weight of a fratboy parody that got out of hand, they put together a defiant, iconographic statement of purpose that combined giddy braggadocio with weeded-out soul-searching. It’s the tightest highlight on an album full of them, a quick-volleying, line-swapping 100-yard dash capped off with the most confident possible delivery of the line “They tell us what to do? Hell no!”.

The final review I want to highlight is from AllMusic. It is always interesting hearing different perspectives on this wonderful album. Thirty-five years after its release, Paul’s Boutique continues to inspire and amaze artists. I am going to be interested how critics and fans view the album on its anniversary:

“Such was the power of Licensed to Ill that everybody, from fans to critics, thought that not only could the Beastie Boys not top the record, but that they were destined to be a one-shot wonder. These feelings were only amplified by their messy, litigious departure from Def Jam and their flight from their beloved New York to Los Angeles, since it appeared that the Beasties had completely lost the plot. Many critics in fact thought that Paul's Boutique was a muddled mess upon its summer release in 1989, but that's the nature of the record -- it's so dense, it's bewildering at first, revealing its considerable charms with each play. To put it mildly, it's a considerable change from the hard rock of Licensed to Ill, shifting to layers of samples and beats so intertwined they move beyond psychedelic; it's a painting with sound. Paul's Boutique is a record that only could have been made in a specific time and place. Like the Rolling Stones in 1972, the Beastie Boys were in exile and pining for their home, so they made a love letter to downtown New York -- which they could not have done without the Dust Brothers, a Los Angeles-based production duo who helped redefine what sampling could be with this record. Sadly, after Paul's Boutique sampling on the level of what's heard here would disappear; due to a series of lawsuits, most notably Gilbert O'Sullivan's suit against Biz Markie, the entire enterprise too cost-prohibitive and risky to perform on such a grand scale.

Which is really a shame, because if ever a record could be used as incontrovertible proof that sampling is its own art form, it's Paul's Boutique. Snatches of familiar music are scattered throughout the record -- anything from Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly" and Sly Stone's "Loose Booty" to Loggins & Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance" and the Ramones' "Suzy Is a Headbanger" -- but never once are they presented in lazy, predictable ways. The Dust Brothers and Beasties weave a crazy-quilt of samples, beats, loops, and tricks, which creates a hyper-surreal alternate reality -- a romanticized, funhouse reflection of New York where all pop music and culture exist on the same strata, feeding off each other, mocking each other, evolving into a wholly unique record, unlike anything that came before or after. It very well could be that its density is what alienated listeners and critics at the time; there is so much information in the music and words that it can seem impenetrable at first, but upon repeated spins it opens up slowly, assuredly, revealing more every listen. Musically, few hip-hop records have ever been so rich; it's not just the recontextulations of familiar music via samples, it's the flow of each song and the album as a whole, culminating in the widescreen suite that closes the record. Lyrically, the Beasties have never been better -- not just because their jokes are razor-sharp, but because they construct full-bodied narratives and evocative portraits of characters and places. Few pop records offer this much to savor, and if Paul's Boutique only made a modest impact upon its initial release, over time its influence could be heard through pop and rap, yet no matter how its influence was felt, it stands alone as a record of stunning vision, maturity, and accomplishment. Plus, it's a hell of a lot of fun, no matter how many times you've heard it”.

On 25th July, the landmark Paul’s Boutique turns thirty-five. In 1989, when so many genius albums were released, one of the finest albums ever came out. It really changed Hip-Hop. Taking it in new directions and showing what was possible. If you get a chance, go and listen to the album and play it the whole way through. It really is a listening experience…

LIKE nothing else.

FEATURE: Cease and Resist: Are Enough Artists Speaking Out Against Injustices and Evils in the World?

FEATURE:

 

 

Cease and Resist

PHOTO CREDIT: Anderson Santos/Pexels

Are Enough Artists Speaking Out Against Injustices and Evils in the World?

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EARLIER this week…

PHOTO CREDIT: Pok Rie/Pexels

Nadine Shah took to social media to say that she does not care whether her career is damaged or she loses fans because of her support for Palestinians and her repeated calls for a permanent ceasefire. This genuine anger and passion that she holds. Someone who wants an end to slaughter and this vile evil. It seems like a natural reaction we all should take. That said, when you are in the public eye or in an industry like music, there is a risk about speaking out and up. Even though it should not lead to fans reacting negatively or labels getting upset, it sometimes can be the way. It is not even a political statement or side: it is a stance for humanity and one against genocide. Fans took to social media to support Shah and her post. At a time when we are seeing some of the most horrific and disturbing genocide and destruction on a daily basis, it made me wonder why there is not a louder chorus out there. On a positive side, artists are pulling out of Download and Latitude. They also pulled out of The Great Escape in May. The reason is that Barclays are among the sponsors of these festivals. The bank is investing in companies associated with the Israeli military. It has made them (Barclays) targets. You can read more here. It is good that artists are taking a stand. After seeing Nadine Shah’s post and her continued commitment to end the genocide and call for change, artists are choosing missing out on a festival slot because of their objection to Barclays and their connections with Israel. At least there is that sense of defiance and moral stance. I do wonder whether artists need to be more vocal.

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A post shared by Nadine Shah (@nadineshah)

It is great that artists are standing strong. I do feel more artists should be doing more. Using their social media platforms to highlight what is happening in Gaza. It is not just the genocide there that should be highlighted. In terms of rights for the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. The continued hatred against the transgender community. There is also the environmental destruction we are seeing. Throw into the mix the political ineptitude and insanity we are seeing in so many countries (including the U.K.), and you have to wonder whether artists are reacting enough. Of course, there are some that are speaking out. Big names in music such as Dua Lipa have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Others call out politicians and ensure that their voices are heard. Consider the size of the industry and how urgent it is to do something. We are seeing people take to the streets in protest. In other areas, there is a lot of discourse and action. Aside from some festival withdrawals, is there enough anger and discussion?! One reason why Nadine Shah’s post was so startling and impassioned is that she must have been getting some heat and flack given her protest and disgust. Is there too big a risk for artists doing this?! Shah is someone who puts principles above fans’ reaction or her career. I know SPRINTS, Massive Attack and Annie Lennox have shown their support for those affected in Gaza. However, you have to wonder why many artists are either silent or, when it comes to action, not doing quite enough. You cannot force anyone, I know. It is a lot. Even so, things are so horrifying and bleak now! It is important that the industry speaks up. Not only in calling for an instant and permanent ceasefire. There is so much political turmoil, discrimination and misogyny that also is perhaps not being tackled and spotlighted.

PHOTO CREDIT: Marta Branco/Pexels

Some of the risk factors includes fans retracting support for an artist. They might also be abusive too. It can have a huge impact on the artist’s health. Labels might also feel that any protest or personal statement might be political. Something that risks dividing fans and maybe damaging their chances of radio play. It is tough for all artists to maintain a living. They have to please fans, get gigs, get airtime and also sell units. There is so much to balance. Many do not share political opinions because it might alienate some fans. It can be risky. Even if voicing anger and upset at the situation afflicting Palestinians is not political, there are some who feel it is not an artist’s place to get involved. That they should only be focusing on music and not this. I feel we have reached a point when there is no turning back in that respect. Why are more not breaking ranks and taking risks for something that is far bigger than music?! It is not that artists do not care. Even if politicians call it a ‘conflict’ or ‘war’, and our world leaders are sick and pathetic, as they either show sympathy towards Israel or do not call out genocide, artist are better than that! So many news channels talk about this ‘war’ and are covering it like Israel is being affected and should be cared about. They are not getting angry or doing the right thing. It is a callous and horrible thing to see nobody in the media or politics with any real shred of decency and humanity. It means that artists need to show their superiority and use their voices now. It is not really good enough to stay silent. As I say, things beyond the genocide. Politics, the environment, the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, women’s equality and more. I can appreciate it is very hard for them to potentially take such a risk and strike out and show their hurt. To call out for change and everyone to do the same. We are at a moment when everyone throughout the music industry needs…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio

TO show their anger!

FEATURE: …And Then the Deluxe Edition… Is There An Argument for Bringing Back the Physical Single?

FEATURE:

 

 

…And Then the Deluxe Edition…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

Is There An Argument for Bringing Back the Physical Single?

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IT is great…

that artists can put out a studio album and then, very shortly, they follow with a Deluxe Edition. It gives fans extra songs. Some say that putting out the same album out – bar a few new tracks – twice in short succession means that fans are being exploited in a way. If it is a digital reissue, then you are not really charging anything. There are artists like Taylor Swift who can put their studio album out and then an expanded or Deluxe Edition. It is not only major artists. I do think it is mainly them, as they have the massive fanbase and I guess there is that demand. One of this year’s best albums, BRAT, has just come out from Charli XCX. Pitchfork report on a deluxe issue from Charli XCX. Called Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not, the title at least is a nod that she knows that it is more or less than same album, with some extra tracks:

“Three days after Charli XCX released her new album Brat, the English pop star has unveiled a deluxe edition of the LP. Brat and It’s the Same But There’s Three More Songs So It’s Not features three new tracks and is out now. “Hello Goodbye” was produced by A. G. Cook; “Guess” was both produced by the Dare and co-written with 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady; and “Spring Breakers,” which samples Britney Spears’ 2003 song “Everytime,” was produced by A. G. Cook, Easyfun, and Jon Shave. Give it a listen below.

While record sales aren’t yet available for Brat until one week after its release, the album has already surpassed 2022’s Crash as Charli XCX’s biggest streaming debut on Spotify; Brat had 15.4 million streams on its release day, whereas Crash racked up 5.9 million. Charli XCX shared four singles before Brat’s release: “Von Dutch,” “Club Classics,” “B2B,” and “360,” the latter of which got a remix featuring Swedish acts Robyn and Yung Lean”.

I do like that artists can be tongue-in-cheek about the situation. I don’t think that it is taking advantage of a successful and popular artist. The plans for the quick expanded BRAT would have been decided upon a while ago, I guess. I do wonder, if artists put out the album with a few new tracks, is that a sign that the artists did not have faith in the material. Are they potential B-sides?! In a lot of cases, the extra tracks are actually fascinating. It may be the case that there was a form of economy and editing. Artists not wanting to put out a studio album with fourteen or fifteen tracks. In some cases, the original album has fourteen or fifteen tracks. So it is probably not an idea to add a few more. I guess a deluxe edition or expanded album means diehards can buy both - or, for those who did not get the original, you can have this wider-ranging album. I guess you cannot really compare the two types of albums. The first version is the one the artist wanted to release. I suppose anything after that is a treat for fans. Tracks that have no place to go. I suppose artists could put them on an E.P., though that might be not be ideal. I have nothing against artists releasing, as Charli XCX says, the same album with a few new tracks. It keeps momentum going and we get more insight into a wonderful release. Songs that were perhaps considered but then did not make the cut. Even if these new tracks are not as great as the original album tracks, it is good that fans get to own them. All of this got me thinking about modern-day physical media.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jorge Fakhouri Filho/Pexels

I suppose any deluxe or expanded albums digitally do not put fans out. Many would prefer to own them but, if artists are worried about expense or not being able to afford both, then having it in a digital form solves that issue. I wonder whether reintroducing singles might be a way that studio albums can come out and these extra tracks can also be released, just not on another albums. Maybe artists are fine as things are but, for fans, many might be spending £10 or more on the same album for a few new songs. I know that physical singles would cost money. Fans do want to own material. Artists could put out a leading single and have these extra tracks as B-sides. Maybe spreading them out over two singles. Given that artists are releasing albums on cassettes and C.D., clearly fans have a desire for physical material beyond vinyl. It is a shame that the single died out. At a time when we are getting so many albums reissued so quickly after they were released, there is this situation of fans paying twice for the same album. Maybe not a massive saving, having single options with B-sides would solve the problem – to an extent at least. Artists could then include demos or actual ‘B-sides’ on the mix and have a single with a few tracks on. It would sort of be like an E.P. but not. Having artists in such form and all this extra material they want to give to fans. I do like that connection and generosity. I do often wonder whether there is this situation for fans where they buy the album but also really want the reissue-re-release. Many can still do that, yet I am aware that many might be priced-out. Sure, if there is a digital release too then they get the same experience anyway. Many want the physical product. If there are albums with extra tracks, it suggests that these could have made their way onto a physical single. Giving fans those tracks before the album comes out would be a real treat.

I suppose the problem around physical singles is what to play them on. There are cassette and C.D. players. Do many younger fans especially find them too old-fashioned or jarring?! Given the reliance on smartphones, it might seem somewhat primitive or long-winded. When they can stream a song instead. Even so, artists are putting out expanded albums on C.D.s. Fans do snap up these and cassettes and then just leave them aside. If they invested in a device alongside having smartphones, then they could have the best of both worlds. I do feel that there is this wonderful excess that means there is call and mobility for the return of proper singles. I do find it slightly odd that studio albums come out and then, days or weeks later, we get the same thing coming back out. It is the only way artists can do it. If we have singles, then these additional tracks already have a home. It means we can focus on the album and not really have the worry about putting it out again with new tracks. Even so, I have nothing against artists doing that. Many fans are happy to have the option. Physical music is very much experiencing this resurgence. Multiple generations investing in albums in multiple forms. It will cause debate, I know. It is a thought I have that will be shared by others. Not just a nostalgia thing, I believe that physical singles could find…

PHOTO CREDIT: Swapnil Sharma/Pexels

A dedicated fanbase.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Joni Mitchell – Little Green

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in a 1971 shoot with Vogue/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Getty Images

Joni Mitchell – Little Green

_________

ON 22nd June…

Joni Mitchell’s masterpiece, Blue, turns fifty-three. Its third track is one of the best on the album. Little Green is one of the most emotional and beautiful songs that Mitchell ever recorded. Although it has a hopeful tone, I was not fully aware of the story behind the track. Because Blue is fifty-three soon, I wanted to focus on a song that maybe would not be people’s first choice to dig deep with – that would be Carey, Blue or California. Hardly a deep cut, I don’t think many people rate Little Green as highly as some of the more established and played tracks from Blue. I like the colour connection to. The mix of Green and Blue in the titles. In any regard, it is worth focusing on a deeply personal song that many did not know the meaning of when they heard it in 1971. These years later, we know the story behind a standout from a genius album. There is a lot of information I need to include. I will start with American Songwriter and the heartbreaking decision that inspired the track. Apologies if any details are repeated between these features:

“The intensely emotional story behind Joni Mitchell’s “Little Green,” much like the track itself, was hidden in plain sight for decades. Mitchell tucked the song neatly in the middle of the A-side of her deeply cathartic album ‘Blue’ (an album so excruciatingly personal, Mitchell would later say it embarrassed Kris Kristofferson, who told her, ‘God, Joan, save something of yourself’).

But in that summer of 1971, Mitchell wasn’t in the business of hiding anymore. At the height of her fame and with a long, promising road ahead, Mitchell used ‘Blue’ as a rearview mirror to revisit and reconcile with her past. In its reflection, the singer-songwriter saw a younger version of herself, pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend in a dilapidated Toronto boarding house.

She had her child on February 19, 1965, and named her Kelly Dale Anderson, after the verdant shade of green. “Little Green” would be reborn into musical perpetuity six years later.

“Little Green” Paints A Devastating Picture of the Events of 1964

In the summer of 1964, Joni Mitchell had just dropped out of the Alberta College of Art and was living with her then-boyfriend, Brad MacMath. After Mitchell became pregnant, MacMath left. He went to California, she sings in the second verse of “Little Green.” Hearing that everything’s warmer there. So, you write him a letter and say, ‘Her eyes are blue.’ Little Green, he’s a non-conformer.

The “Big Yellow Taxi” singer tried to raise her daughter at first. At a time when it was taboo to be a single, unwed mother, the musician entered a marriage of social convenience with fellow folk singer Chuck Mitchell. Both attempts at a stereotypically “normal” family life fell short. Joni placed Kelly up for adoption six months after she was born, and she and Chuck divorced shortly thereafter.

Joni kept her child a secret from her parents, who were still living in Saskatchewan. She sings of her younger self in the third verse: Child with a child pretending, weary of lies you are sending home. So, you sign all the papers in the family name. [Mitchell’s family name was Anderson.] You’re sad and sorry, but you’re not ashamed. Little Green, have a happy ending.

Joni Mitchell Explained Her Reasoning For Naming Her Daughter Kelly

For all of the heartbreak imbued into Joni Mitchell’s writing, “Little Green” was melancholically hopeful. Mitchell placed her daughter for adoption in the hopes that she would enjoy a better, safer, and more stable life than the struggling artist could provide at the time. The vivid shade of Kelly green, after which Mitchell named her daughter, personified this deeply rooted optimism.

Call her Green, and the winters cannot fade her, she sings in the first verse. Call her Green for the children who’ve made her. In the song’s chorus, Mitchell compares the shade of green to the color when the spring is born and like the nights when the Northern lights perform. She even muses on what her daughter’s future late-winter birthdays would look like. There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes, Mitchell sings. And sometimes, there’ll be sorrow”.

I imagine that all songs on Blue have a very deep and rich history. A fuller story that many listeners do not know about. Certainly, a lot has been written about Little Green. It was pretty brave of Joni Mitchell to write about the baby that she gave up for adoption. Few songwriters would have that sort of strength. I can imagine, as she has revisited the song fairly recently, that it still must be quite strange. This article on Joni Mitchell’s official website gives us even more depth into Little Green:

“It is all there, encoded in the song. A true story of secrets and lies. The child "born with the moon in Cancer" is the baby that Joni Mitchell gave up for adoption. She felt she had no choice. At 21, she was Joan Anderson, dirt poor and pregnant, an unknown folksinger in a Toronto rooming house. The girl was born on Feb. 19, 1965. The child's father, a Calgary artist named Brad MacMath, had, as the song says, disappeared "to California/hearing everything was warmer there." Joni balked at the prospect of being a single, destitute mother, and was not prepared to ask her parents back in Saskatchewan for help--they did not even know she was pregnant. She tried a desperate marriage of convenience, to a fellow folksinger named Chuck Mitchell, but it would soon collapse, leaving her nothing but a new surname. "Weary of lies," as Joni sings in Little Green, she "signed all the papers in the family name," and sent her baby, Kelly Dale Anderson, into the unknown. Kelly, as in kelly green.

Penned two decades before Mitchell's secret was finally exposed in a tabloid newspaper four years ago, Little Green was part private confession, part wishful prophecy. And the "happy ending" hoped for in the song had already begun to unfold. At the age of six months, Kelly--renamed Kilauren Gibb--found a home as the adopted daughter of two teachers, David and Ida Gibb, in the cozy Toronto suburb of Don Mills. Kilauren grew up in a world of private schools and country clubs and tropical vacations. She landed a career as a fashion model.

But, as the song predicted, there was also sorrow. The mystery of Kilauren's adoption cast a lengthening shadow over her life. She says that her parents did not tell her she was adopted until she was 27 and pregnant with her own child. Kilauren then embarked on a frustrating five-year quest to track down her birth mother. Now 32, she is separated from the father of her son, Marlin, who is almost 4. And a "happy ending" quite different from the one envisioned in Little Green has come to pass. In the past few weeks, amid a blaze of media attention, mother and daughter have reunited, their high cheekbones, blue eyes and long blond hair framed side by side. "I've had pain and joy in my life, but nothing like this," Mitchell told a reporter in Los Angeles, where she has lived since 1968. "It's an unparalleled emotional feeling."

The story reads like a fairy tale. But the tale is beginning to show some tarnish. Mitchell, who is twice divorced, has not just gained a daughter, she has inherited an entire family, innocents who have found themselves in the spotlight at a time of tremendous emotional upheaval. Losing Kilauren to her birth mother "was our greatest fear," adoptive mother Ida Gibb told Maclean's last week. "It was a nightmare that this would happen to us when she was little and when she was a teenager. Now, it is easier to take. But it's still hard."

Kilauren, meanwhile, has had to cope with the excitement of finding her birth mother and becoming famous all at once. Hounded by reporters, she disconnected her phone last week and abandoned her apartment. Soon, she had handlers marketing her, selling interviews and juggling requests from the likes of Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King. "You can't imagine the onslaught of press from all over the world," says Mitchell's Vancouver-based manager, Sam Feldman. "It's so bizarre. It's something out of a movie."

The Joni-Kilauren saga is a story that has become too good for its own good. Its appeal obviously goes beyond Mitchell's mellowing stardom. It is about seeing the destinies of the famous and the unknown thrown together in a lottery-like twist of fate. It is also a fable for the baby boom generation, one that suggests miracles can still be salvaged from the emotional losses of the Sixties. But above all it has played out as a very public adoption drama--and shed light on the dilemma faced by families whose adopted children seek out their biological parents.

What really complicates an already sensitive issue, however, is the fact that Kilauren Gibb's story has become a property. Swamped by interview requests, Gibb put Mitchell's manager in charge of her publicity. And she also had her boyfriend, an orthopedic parts salesman named Ted Barrington, act as a go-between. After several days of trying to set up an interview with Gibb last week, Maclean's finally received a call from Barrington, who said it could be arranged for $10,000. When told that Maclean's does not pay for interviews, he became impatient. "It's all business to me," he declared. "The money's for Kilauren. She doesn't have a pot to piss in. She's a student right now [living on student loans while studying desktop publishing at George Brown College in Toronto] and she should really be able to profit from this, at least monetarily."

But what about her newfound birth mother? "Joni's asset-rich but not cash-rich," replied Barrington. Kilauren is getting "quite anxiety-ridden. If you were in her position, and you were being hounded all day long, you'd say what the f - - - am I getting out of this, except a real bad headache." Then he added, before hanging up, "If you've got an offer, let us know. You have my pager number." Later, after talking to Feldman, Barrington phoned back to apologize. "I was out of line," he said, adding: "All the good stuff is at the back end with book deals and all that. I'm just worried about Kilauren being exploited. I'm just worried about my girlfriend."

Even Mitchell's octogenarian parents, Bill and Myrtle Anderson, have been swept up by the media blitz. "It's sort of a fairy-tale thing," Bill told Maclean's from his home in Saskatoon, "but some of the publicity isn't so entertaining as far as we're concerned. It's been hectic, especially for Myrt. The phone's been ringing off the wall." Myrtle and Bill both say they are happy to discover their granddaughter, and a great-grandson. "But I feel sorry for the adoptive parents," says Myrtle. "They do all the work and then suddenly they have a rival." Her husband concurs: "The parents who brought the child up deserve a lot of credit, and sometimes we feel they're being overlooked," he says. "I hope they don't lose her."

Kilauren's parents live on a quiet crescent in Don Mills, in the same grey-brick bungalow where they raised their children. They invite a visitor down to the basement, into a classic Fifties rec room with wood panelling and a red shag rug. Framed photographs of Kilauren and her older brother, David (now a 36-year-old Toronto advertising executive), cover the walls. Although David is not adopted, the siblings look remarkably matched, both blond and long-limbed. There are glamor shots from Kilauren's fashion portfolio. David, who dabbled in modelling himself, strikes a muscled pose in white underwear. There is also a picture of a beaming David, as captain of the football team at Upper Canada College, being introduced to Prince Philip. Kilauren was educated just down the road from U.C.C., at equally exclusive Bishop Strachan School.

More photographs, hundreds of them, in albums stacked on the rec room table, showing the children frolicking on beaches from Maine to Florida. A number of the pictures are inscribed with loving captions such as "my two chickadees," and they are all meticulously dated. "I would say we had a happier family life than average," says Ida. "We were very fortunate." Before retiring, she taught teenagers with learning disabilities and her husband taught at a teachers college and worked at the ministry of transportation. "When David was 3 1/2, we were doing very well, and we wanted to share it with someone," explains Ida. "Taking a child into your home seemed like a good way of doing it. We just phoned the agency, and what surprised us is how quickly it came through," recalls Ida, who had to drop out of a postgraduate course in education to take care of their new charge.

Ida seems puzzled by Kilauren's claim that she did not find out she was adopted until she was 27. "She knew when she was a teenager," she says. "Her friends told her. But maybe the full significance didn't sink in." Kilauren's father, meanwhile, says: "The mistake we made was in trying to say she's not adopted, that she's one of us and let's forget the whole thing and put it away somewhere, because we wanted her to be part of the family." Then he adds: "People are born. They are a life. They belong to nobody."

Kilauren's brother, David, expresses empathy for his parents. "There's a lot of fear there," he told Maclean's. "They're thinking, 'My gosh, are we going to lose her? Are we being replaced?' On top of that, you add the fame component. They're very modest, very quiet people, and all of a sudden there are people knocking on their door at seven in the morning wanting to take their picture. It's a lot to deal with. But it's all turned out better than you could have hoped for."

Ida is getting over her shock. "The thing is, Joni phoned me and we had a good chat," she says. "I found her to be quite a nice person, and that made all the difference in the world to me. She assured me that there weren't going to be any big changes, that nobody's going to lose anything."

Mitchell also put in a call to Kilauren's biological father. She had her first conversation with Brad MacMath in 32 years. "It was very weird," says MacMath, 56, who runs a Toronto photo studio with his wife. "But there was no animosity." Last week, MacMath also met his daughter for the first time. "I was elated," he says. "But it was very strange. We had fun noticing the mannerisms we have in common. We walk the same, have the same dimples, the same little knobs on our shoulders--surfer knobs."

In the excitement surrounding Kilauren's reunion with her birth mother, meeting her birth father almost seemed an afterthought. Trying to contact MacMath, Ted Barrington phoned Linda Miller, an old acquaintance from Don Mills--without realizing that she was MacMath's wife. "I'd photographed Ted's wedding five years ago," Miller laughed. "The marriage only lasted six months. So yesterday he phoned me up out of the blue, because I'm the only photographer he knew, and he said, 'Have you heard of this Brad MacMath guy?'"

That, as it turns out, is just one in a trail of bizarre coincidences linking Kilauren to her past--slim degrees of separation between Sixties abandon and the Nineties commitment.

Kilauren's biological parents were both art students in Calgary when she was conceived. They moved to Toronto during the pregnancy and discussed settling down. "Oh yeah," sighs MacMath, "we had to go through all that. But we were not communicating." He went back to Saskatchewan, then on to California. "I was trying to be an artist," he says, "and when she got married to some other guy, I just divorced myself from the whole situation. That was the last straw."

Mitchell, in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, says that her main concern at the time was to conceal her pregnancy from her parents. "The scandal was so intense," she recalls. "A daughter could do nothing more disgraceful. You have no idea what the stigma was. It was like you murdered somebody." Mitchell's mother, however, now says, "If we had known she was expecting a baby, we would have helped. I'm sure we would have encouraged her to keep the baby, but we didn't know anything about it until several years later when she and Chuck separated and she was home and told us about it."

Mitchell remembers giving birth in a Toronto hospital, where "one of the barbaric things they did was they bound the breasts of unwed mothers to keep the milk from coming," she says. Complications, she adds, kept her in the hospital for 10 days with her child. During the early years after the adoption, Mitchell told the Times, she "worried constantly" about the child's health because her pregnancy diet had been "atrocious." In an interview on CBC Newsworld's Pamela Wallin Live--broadcast, by coincidence, on Feb. 19, 1996, Kilauren's 31st birthday--the singer explained that she had no recourse but adoption. "I didn't have a penny," she said. "I had no money for diapers, or a room to take her to. There was no career on the horizon. Three years later, I had a recording contract and a house and a car, but how could I see that in the future?"

In 1968, Mitchell's career began to take off. She won a Grammy for her album Clouds, and singer Judy Collins turned one of its songs, Both Sides Now, into a hit. Another cut, Chelsea Morning, would later inspire Bill and Hillary Clinton in naming their daughter. In 1970, Mitchell released Ladies of the Canyon, which featured such classic songs as Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock and The Circle Game. The same year, she recorded Blue, an intimate excursion into loneliness and loss, which many consider her masterpiece.

Although Mitchell kept her secret from her parents for several years, and from the media for almost three decades, those close to her knew. "It was very much part of her life," singer Murray McLaughlan told Maclean's. "I think she was always looking for the child." Another friend, Toronto music manager Bernie Fiedler, remembers being with her at the Mariposa Folk Festival about four years after Kilauren's birth. "There was a couple with a little girl wanting to speak to Joni. We went over and talked to the girl, who must have been 4 or 5, and afterwards Joni turned to me and said: 'That could be my daughter.' I will never forget that. She was obviously suffering tremendously."

Over the years, Mitchell made some quiet attempts to track down her daughter, without success. But while promoting her album Turbulent Indigo (1994), she fielded questions about a tabloid report of a "love child," and took her search public for the first time.

Kilauren, meanwhile, was already looking for her mother. She says it took nearly five years for the Children's Aid Society to produce the adoption documents that she requested. Even then, the papers offered non-identifying information, just dates and some telling biographical details. A Joni Mitchell fan could have matched the profile to the singer without much trouble. But what finally led Kilauren to identify her birth mother was a tangled thread of coincidence winding all the way back to the birth of the Sixties counterculture.

The maze of events begins with Duke Redbird. Now a Toronto CITY TV entertainment reporter, in 1964 he was writing and reading poetry at folk festivals. Redbird moved into a Victorian rooming house on Huron Street, and Mitchell, already pregnant, moved in across the hall. Most of the boarders were broke. "It was a very sad and lonely time for her," Redbird says. "I remember Joni being a very private person. I would hear her singing in that beautiful voice of hers, strumming her guitar behind the closed door of her room."

One day, Redbird's brother, John (now deceased), came by and gave Mitchell a couple of apples, a gesture that she never forgot. Years later, she met Redbird at a concert and asked him to convey her thanks to his brother.

Cut to 1988. Redbird meets Annie Mandlsohn while both are studying at York University. "Never tell this to anybody," he told her, "but I lived in the same house as Joni Mitchell; she had a baby and nobody knows." Late last year, Mandlsohn's current boyfriend, Tim Campbell, introduced her to Kilauren Gibb--Campbell, Gibb and Barrington had all grown up together in Don Mills. Gibb showed Mandlsohn the Children's Aid information describing her mother as a Saskatchewan folksinger who had moved to the United States. "That was the key," says Mandlsohn. "I said, 'Kilauren! Your mother is Joni Mitchell!'”.

I am going to end with a feature from The Guardian, In 2020, Cameron Crowe spoke with Joni Mitchell. It was around the release of Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 1: The Early Years (1963-1967). Mitchell talked about life before fame, and the correct way to sing her songs. Little Green was mentioned in the interview. It is interesting seeing how she relates to the track all these years later:

“CC Back to Live at Canterbury House [the fifth of the five discs in The Early Years]. You’re playing three sets at night, and for the second show you open with Little Green. It’s a very personal song, a song to your daughter who you’d painfully given up for adoption. To deliver the song properly, did you have to go to a difficult place to sing it?

JM No, the song kind of rose above the difficulty.

CC I remember you once saying every vocal performance is acting: “You must be the character who wrote the song when you sing it.” When you listen to this early music, are you playing a character? And “No, it’s me” is a valid answer.

JM It’s not like that. It’s, you know, the words to the song are your script. You have to bring the correct emotion to every word. You know, if you sing it pretty – a lot of people that cover my songs will sing it pretty – it’s going to fall flat. You have to bring more to it than that.

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in a 1968 shoot for Vogue/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Getty Images

CC You later included Little Green on Blue. You once told me that all your albums were concept albums. I asked you what the concept was for Blue. You paused and just said: “Blue. ‘I am blue.’ That’s the concept.” You also said that there was an image you’d dreamed of at the time: human organs in a cellophane bag.

JM Yeah, it was about that time. I had a dream that I was a plastic bag sitting at a concert, and there were a lot of fat women on stage all playing strange instruments, like big tubas and accordions, and not hip instruments, you know? I was sitting there, a bag of organs, sobbing in the audience, transparent – you could see all my innards. It was a strange dream. I tend to remember my dreams. They’re little movies, they’re visual. I tend to remember the things that are visual. That’s the way I was feeling at the time. I felt very vulnerable.

CC What was your concept of love back then?

JM I didn’t have one. I just occasionally would fall into it, or thought I did. I’d have a strong, palpitating attraction to somebody; that’s what I called love, I guess.

CC Has your idea of love morphed or changed over the years?

JM Not that much, really. It’s still the same. I make the same mistake over and over again, and I’m just a fool for love”.

On 22nd June, Blue turns fifty-three. One of the greatest albums ever released, it is a flawless work. One of its more underrated tracks is Little Green. I hope that it gets more airplay and attention as we head to the anniversary. You do hear it now and then, though other cuts from Blue get more focus. I think Little Green is one of Joni Mitchell’s best tracks. Knowing a lot more about it makes the song…

EVEN more moving and vivid.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Amanda Reifer

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamar Harding

Amanda Reifer

_________

A divine and simply extraordinary artist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jimmy Fontaine

that everyone needs to listen out for, Amanda Reifer is someone very much equipped to go the full distance in music. She has an extraordinary sound and songwriting style that is so distinct and different. There are not that many interviews with her from this year. I want to start by going back to 2022. Following on from the 2020 single, Shitty Day, Amanda Reifer was in the process of putting the video together for the phenomenal single, Bag. Although I would argue this year has been important in terms of her career and evolution, 2022 was a big one. Poptized spent some time with Barbadian artist. Someone whose best days, I feel, are not too far away:

“Amanda Reifer is making 2022 her year, and she’s making sure it’ll be your year too. Infusing affirmations and good energy into her upbeat music, her songs are the perfect soundtrack for manifesting your goals. Her latest single “Bag,” her first release with Republic Records, is a vibrant pop song that combines a variety of genres, and it’s the perfect song to kick off your new year.

Brigid Young: Hi! Thanks so much for taking the time to hop on this call with me!

Amanda Reifer: Of course! Thanks for taking the time to talk to me! The feeling is mutual.

BY: So congratulations, first of all, on your release!

AR: Thank you!

BY: This is your first release since “Shitty Day,” which was back in 2020. How does it feel to have put out a new single?

AR: I’m really excited. I’m really excited, too, that it’s with the Republic partnership. It makes me feel like I’m moving forward after working for so long as an independent artist. It’s nice to have that support, and it’s a good start for me in terms of what’s to come for the rest of the year. Just super excited about it all.

BY: Do you feel like you have sort of a different goal or mission now with your music, since becoming a solo musician?

AR: Oh, for sure. In exploring my voice as a solo artist, I’ve found a lot of power and a lot of strength in expressing my womanhood so openly. My music gave me that experience of expressing myself without worrying if it resonated with the group members, and it gave me that power. I really want to share that feeling. When I write my songs, I want them to empower the listener. Definitely women listening, but also men! I want you to feel like there’s nothing you’re incapable of doing. That’s the energy I want to give. I also want people to understand the importance of expressing, not just the strength and the power, but also the vulnerability and softness, and the power that’s in acknowledging those parts of yourself. So for me, it’s just about pure expression, and the power behind that. I want people to be able to feel that.

BY: Definitely. Do you feel like it’s sort of therapeutic, in a way? To be able to write so authentically?

AR: Yes! Definitely. I’ve been working on this now, as a solo artist, for a few years, and being able to express myself through song in the way that I have has really helped me to grow as an individual, and to grow as a woman, and I love that, you know? I definitely feel it’s a lot more… you get a release from it when you talk from your own experience.

BY: For sure.  So, “Rich Bitch Juice” was your first track to really blow up, and like you’ve said, you’ve been a solo musician for a few years now, so how did it feel to see that success after working so hard at your craft for a while?

AR: It feels great! I love that people enjoy the song as much as I do, like that song is a vision board for my life, really. It’s like an audio vision board, so to speak. It was me speaking into existence: the mood, the energy that I wanted to carry through. I love that it resonated with so many people. If someone turns it on in the morning and it gets them started in the right way, and gets them going after things they want in life, then I’ve done my job! I love that, it makes me very happy.

BY: That’s awesome! You have a really interesting sound to your music, it’s sort of a fusion of many genres. Who are some of your inspirations, when it comes to music?

AR: This is a tough question because I’m inspired by so many different things! I love old reggae artists, like Bob Marley. I’m also inspired by Gwen Stefani, in her earlier projects. I have a broad source of inspiration! I have an eclectic taste, so I pull from a lot of different things. It’s interesting, it’s not just musical artists that inspire me, it’s also films, characters in movies that I resonate with, there’s different things like that. I pull from those things. That’s just to name a few.

BY: For sure. So, let’s talk a little bit about “Bag!” Can you tell me a bit about the writing process?

AR: Yeah! So “Bag” was like a no pressure record, you know, when you’re in the studio, just vibing and not really necessarily thinking about what you’re going to write. The producer played this track and I was like, “What is that?! This sounds dope!” I don’t know where it came from, but I just kept saying this line over and over: “that bitch fuckin’ with your bag.” I loved the playfulness of the tone, it was really just me talking at first. We turned that into the hook, and then I started to craft the concept around it. I sat on it for a minute, honestly, and I came back to it and I co-wrote the verses and kind of came up with this concept of, “what does being in your bag really mean?” It’s not really just about money, it’s about being in your zone. Living your best life. Going after things you want, and feeling good about yourself. We crafted the song around that concept, to encourage people to stay in situations, in environments, and around people that help you stay in your bag.

BY: It’s a great anthem to go into 2022 with.

AR: I hope you’re in your bag!

BY: I’m in my second semester of my senior year of college, so this is definitely the time to be in my bag!

AR: Oh, perfect! You gotta get your manifestations, and your playlists, you gotta be having the best 2022!

BY: You get me! I also wanted to ask about your partnership with Republic Records, how did that come about?

AR: Well that’s really exciting too, because, you know, being with the band I was also signed with the band, and I’ve been an artist for a very long time. So for me, it wasn’t just about just getting a deal for the deal’s sake, I really wanted to partner with the right people and the right team who understood the vision. People who could create what I see for my career, you know? Long story short, I started working with Title 9, they’re amazing, and it was through Sam and Wendy at Republic that we kind of decided that Republic was the right fit. It just made sense. They got the vision, they understood the nature of the partnership, and we decided to do that.

BY: That’s amazing! So, you just put out this awesome song, the new year just started, you’ve got this partnership, what’s next for you? If you can give any spoilers, that is.

AR:  (laughs) I’m actually in Miami right now shooting a video for “Bag!”

BY: Oh, no way!

AR: Yeah, we literally just landed this morning, that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m working on my album, I’m really excited about it. I’m gonna say… it’s almost finished! There’s some surprises there with that as well, I’m really looking forward to sharing. I definitely want to put my album out this year, I’m really excited about that body of work that I’ve been working on.

BY: It sounds like this is the year you’re going to be in your bag, no doubts.

AR: Girl, you know! We’re doing what we came to do this year. We’re doing the things that feed our soul, that light us up, the things that make us feel good about our life here, you know? That’s 2022”.

If you want to read about Amanda Reifer’s previous incarnation, in the form of Cover Drive, then you can read an interview here. The British-based group are well worth exploring. To show where Reifer came from. Her new single, Colonize, was released earlier this month. It is a phenomenal song. Mixing Contemporary R&B with Reggae, there is this wonderfully powerful and heady blend. An instantly spellbinding artist who I have bonded with hard. I am looking ahead to see what comes from Amanda Reifer. I am going to end with a couple of 2024 features/interviews with Reifer. This Yahoo interview saw Reifer talking about going solo. She also discussed Colonize:

“Authenticity is rare in today’s music industry, and Amanda Reifer wants to be considered a needle in the haystack.

Hailing from Barbados, Reifer’s music is just as vibrant as her homeland. Her eclectic fusion of pop, hip-hop, soul and reggae is a testament to her artistic diversity and commitment to uniqueness.

Reifer’s musical journey began in London as the frontwoman for the band Cover Drive. The band snagged a No. 1 hit in the U.K. with their single “Twilight” and were regulars on the Top 10 and Top 40 charts.

Although Reifer saw success with the band, she knew she wanted more. In 2020, she chose to put herself first and took a leap of faith by moving to Los Angeles to pursue a solo music career.

“Stepping out on my own, from something that I had been a part of as a young girl and starting over, was the first step in defining myself as a young woman and knowing my voice,” the singer said.

She continued, “It meant leaving behind everything I had known and built. I had no finances, no support or an individual public platform. I found confidence and support in my family and friends.”

Reifer supported herself as a songwriter and creative collaborator until her leap of faith paid off. In 2022, she was in a recording session with Kendrick Lamar, co-writing and singing on “Die Hard” feat. BLXST from his No. 1 album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

“I was in the studio working on my project, and I was introduced to Kendrick,” Reifer said, recalling the life-changing moment. “So when I played him my records, he complimented my pen, which was such an honor; I’m humbled that he took the time to sit and listen to my work at that point.”

“Die Hard” was nominated for best melodic rap performance at the 65th Grammy Awards, a moment Reifer says left her in “disbelief.”

“I’m just a little girl from Barbados. I watched [the Grammys] on TV; I see these incredible artists and people I admire,” she stated excitedly.

She continued reflecting on the big moment, “To actually be there, I was in a little bit of disbelief. I was just so humbled and grateful to be a part of something so much bigger than myself, part of a project so much bigger than myself. Even with that little small, small part I played. I was given the opportunity to create on something that has impacted my life in incredible ways.”

With the momentum of a Grammy nomination behind her, Reifer has begun the final tweaks on her debut project.

“I’ve been working on this album for three years. I’m so excited for people to hear this music,” she said.

The project’s lead single, “Colonize,” is the visual and audio personification of Reifer’s journey from the girl in a band to the artist standing alone. In “Colonize,” she advises a lover to resist the urge to impose, discredit and colonize her in his quest to obtain her heart. Having no restrictions and embracing the moments in relationships can be applied to love, business, creativity or friendships.

Like several other videos, Reifer co-created, co-directed and co-edited the striking visuals for “Colonize.” The singer went home to Barbados and filmed the video at her aunt’s home, which was one of the first plantation homes on the island. Reifer intentionally cast her family and childhood friends in the visuals to represent the beauty of independence and strength in Black women.

“My friends and my family have self-ownership and independence. We’re out here doing our things. We’re artists, we’re writers, we’re mothers and sisters. And to stand there in that competence and strength in support of one another and on the land we were oppressed upon was the statement I wanted to make,” she said regarding the stunning imagery.

Small details in the video exemplify Riefer’s dedication to her artistry, such as using her friend’s books, including a chair in her family for over two generations and wearing clothes made by local Black vendors.

Reifer’s voyage to find her voice and independence can be quantified by her genuine approach to her artistry, and she’s not looking to compromise anytime soon.

“All those different qualities, those complexities, those dualities, those things that exist all at once are now in this project, and being able to put that to pen and writing those experiences has given me a lot of liberation and freedom,” she said unapologetically. “And I’m just eager to share that”.

It is pleasing that an album seems close by. We will get this fully-fledged and expansive look into Amanda Reifer’s talent. You can tell she puts her heart and soul into everything she does. Growing stronger and more amazing by the year, I wonder whether she has any plans to tour the U.K. There will be a lot of demand for her here. An artist that is primed for world domination, I hope more and more eyes focus her way. Last month, HYFIN spent time with Amanda Reifer:

“Reifer’s creative process is deeply influenced by her experiences and the holistic way she views and manages her artistic expression. Her stunning and mature visuals are a testament to her growth and dedication to her craft. “The maturity that you see and that expression all come from the experiences I have had to go through to deliver something like that,” she explained.

One of the standout elements of Reifer’s visuals is the authentic representation of her roots. “I made sure that I went home to shoot all my visuals with a local crew, my friends from Barbados. I want people to get a sense of where I’m from and who I am,” Reifer shared. This authenticity and connection to her home are palpable in her music videos, which capture the beauty of everyday life and the environment that has influenced her.

Water is a recurring theme in Reifer’s work, serving as both an inspiration and a metaphor for her personal journey and artistic expression. She described water as a complex element embodying various qualities— vast, deep, playful, inviting, mysterious, and dangerous. “I think that’s a great metaphor for us as women and people who are complex beings,” Reifer noted. This complexity and fluidity are mirrored in her music, which spans different genres and showcases her versatility as an artist.

Reifer’s diverse artistic influences reflect her eclectic taste and respect for powerful, pioneering women in music. When asked about her personal Mount Rushmore of artists, she mentioned Lauryn Hill, Roberta Flack, Sister Nancy, Amy Winehouse, and Rihanna. These artists have left an indelible mark on Reifer’s music and artistic vision.

A significant milestone in Reifer’s career was her collaboration on Kendrick Lamar’s album “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.” This experience, she said, was a profound learning opportunity that has influenced her writing and approach to music. “To be in that space definitely just put me in a posture of being a student. I watched everything, received everything, and then gave my best,” Reifer recounted.

Looking ahead, Reifer’s upcoming project promises to deliver more of the heartfelt and genre-bending music that her fans have come to love. She hints at new sides of herself that listeners have yet to discover, urging them to keep an open mind for what is to come”.

If she is not in your life, spend some time with the music of Amanda Reifer. I am really looking forward to a debut album. I can see Reifer headlining big stages before too long. Such is the impact and popularity of her music. This year has been a busy one for her. There is a lot of good stuff to come. Everyone needs to follow…

THIS incredible artist.

_____________

Follow Amanda Reifer

PHOTO CREDIT: Junior Sealy

Official:

http://www.amandareifer.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/amandareifer

TikTok:

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

Twitter:

https://x.com/amandareifer

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuox9qxf0dv6T5LhPYWabHQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1PpDfXOUG7gxUjR1quWnwp?si=GlR2DiFMTxeAdCowegnuMw

FEATURE: I've Been Doing It For Years, My Goal Is Moving Near: Kate Bush’s Sat in Your Lap at Forty-Three

FEATURE:

 

 

I've Been Doing It For Years, My Goal Is Moving Near

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a single cover outtake for Sat In Your Lap/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Kate Bush’s Sat in Your Lap at Forty-Three

_________

THERE is something distinct…

about Kate Bush’s Sat in Your Lap. The brilliant first single from 1982’s The Dreaming, it was actually released on 21st June, 1981. The Dreaming arrived in September 1982. I feel there was an urgency from EMI for Kate Bush to release a single following 1980’s Never for Ever. Keep her name in the mind. It must have been strange getting a first single from an album that would not arrive for nearly fifteen months later! I guess we have examples of that today. Singles will come out and then an artist will put out the album a long time later. For Kate Bush, this was new and a bit strange. I wanted to make the approaching forty-third anniversary of one of her defining songs. Perhaps the most single-worthy release from The Dreaming, it went to eleven on the British single chart. It is a song that was different from anything Bush put out previously. More percussive and almost tribal, it is faster and rawer than anything from her first three albums – The Kick Inside (1978), Lionheart (1978) and Never for Ever (1980). There are interpretations as to what the title could mean. Maybe that knowledge falling in your lap is a book or inspiration. Graeme Thomson, in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, speculated it could be to do with enlightenment through sex. Sat in Your Lap  features Preston Heyman on drums. They were recorded in the stone room at the Townhouse Studio 2. It is a huge contribution and one of the defining sounds of song. I am going to include some information I have previously used in other features about Sat in Your Lap. I shall add new details as I wrap up. It is worth knowing more about the video and the song itself. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia provides details about the video. We also get words from Kate Bush regarding the genesis of Sat in Your Lap:

“Music video

According to Kate, “The video was filmed over two days, one part at a video studio, the other at the audio studios. The former provided the quick, easy technical sides to be performed, the latter provided the space and presence. The large parquet floor was to be a feature, and Abbey Road’s past, full of dancing and singing spirits, was to be conjured up in the present day by tapping feet to the sound of jungle drums – only to be turned into past again through the wonder of video-tape. The shots were sorted into a logical order: all long shots were audio studio, all others were video studio. A storyboard was drawn up and was very closely worked to, being hung on the wall on days of shootings. The editing was a long, difficult job, as it was comprised of many sections which had to be edited together (just like the big musical one). The editor worked all day and into the next morning with great skill and patience, and only when someone told us did we find out it had been his birthday and he’d worked it all away. One of the exciting things about making the video was the “accessories” we used, such as the lovely costumes and props. The jerk-jacket which we used in ‘Army Dreamers’ was used again for a short sequence, and although there’s a silver wire, it feels like flying. Out of the harness and into the light of a timeless tunnel, as a little magician’s box springs to life and the room is filled with laser and skaters.”

Kate about ‘Sat In Your Lap’

I already had the piano patterns, but they didn’t turn into a song until the night after I’d been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on theRolandand worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare. I now had a verse and a tune to go over it but only a few lyrics like “I see the people working”, “I want to be a lawyer,” and “I want to be a scholar,” so the rest of the lyrics became “na-na-na”‘ or words that happened to come into my head. I had some chords for the chorus with the idea of a vocal being ad-libbed later. The rhythm box and piano were put down, and then we recorded the backing vocals. “Some say that knowledge is…” Next we put down the lead vocal in the verses and spent a few minutes getting some lines worked out before recording the chorus voice. I saw this vocal being sung from high on a hill on a windy day. The fool on the hill, the king of the castle… “I must admit, just when I think I’m king.”

The idea of the demos was to try and put everything down as quickly as possible. Next came the brass. The CS80 is still my favourite synthesizer next to the Fairlight, and as it was all that was available at the time, I started to find a brass sound. In minutes I found a brass section starting to happen, and I worked out an arrangement. We put the brass down and we were ready to mix the demo.

I was never to get that CS80 brass to sound the same again – it’s always the way. At The Townhouse the same approach was taken to record the master of the track. We put down a track of the rhythm box to be replaced by drums, recording the piano at the same time. As I was producing, I would ask the engineer to put the piano sound on tape so I could refer to that for required changes. This was the quickest of all the tracks to be completed, and was also one of the few songs to remain contained on one twenty-four track tape instead of two!

KATE BUSH CLUB NEWSLETTER, OCTOBER 1982”.

I want to bring in a brilliant incisive and analytical feature from Dreams of Orgonon from 2020. Looking deep inside Sat in Your Lap, we get a real understand as to why this track is so incredible. A real departure and evolution from Kate Bush. Still regarded as one of her best singles ever. No denying why it is so popular. It is still played on the radio today:

“The aftermath of Never for Ever was a period of burnout for Bush. Prone to depressive burnouts after the completion of projects, she found herself drifting into a nadir of fruitless ennui, which she deemed “the anti-climax after all the work.” Completing Never for Ever in May 1980, Bush, not for the last time, put significant space between herself and the public, taking a holiday after an exhausting several months of recording. By the time Never for Ever was released in September, Bush was only just recovering from her creative inertia. Her timing was auspicious, as Never for Ever not only became her first #1 LP in the UK but the country’s first ever #1 studio album by a female solo artist ever. Never for Ever’s success was accompanied by heaps of promotion by Bush, including the usual run of performing songs on talk shows as well as signing albums for hundreds of fans at a time. Now she had more creative agency than she had previously, touting Never for Ever as “the first [album] [she] could hand to people with a smile.” Kate Bush the prodigy who sang “Wuthering Heights” was already a distant memory, transforming into Kate Bush the great 1980s British songwriter.

Yet Bush’s listlessness and struggle to write songs persisted for some time. It’s not hard to see why — the stress of Never for Ever’s production and the attention of the British public would be enough to put a damper on anyone’s creative output. It took seeing other musicians at work to get her motivated again. In September, Bush and her boyfriend Del Palmer attended a Stevie Wonder concert at Wembley Arena. Wonder was in a period of creative renewal himself. Having recently turned out a rare Motown flop in the distinctively titled Journey Through “the Secret Life of Plants”, he’d rebuilt confidence with his delightful Hotter than July LP. The concert broke Bush out of her writer’s block — “inspired by the feeling of his music,” as she later wrote, Bush got back to work on her songs, and forged a path towards her next album.

“Sat In Your Lap” wasn’t always Bush’s first self-produced song. For a time, she entertained bringing in experienced producers, including long-standing David Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, going so far as to spend a day in the studio with him. The collaboration went nowhere, and Visconti has grossly remarked “all I can remember is the Bush bum.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bush decided to take on the producer role herself, with the intensive collaboration of a series of engineers. The first set of sessions for the album that would be The Dreaming were staged at Townhouse Studios in May 1981. Her collaborating engineer was Hugh Padgham, a producer for Phil Collins and XTC known for the “gated drum” sound that would define 80s pop (compress the drums, use a recording console’s “gate” to remove their reverb, resulting in a kind of sound vacuum. See Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”). Bush and Padgham’s time in Townhouse was productive yet short-lived. Padgham is rare among Bush collaborators in having negative feelings about working with her, grumbling about her tendency to overpack a mix and experiment rather than having a concrete, straightforward vision. After laying backing tracks for three songs, Padgham moved on, dissatisfied with his latest gig but having indelibly marked the sound of The Dreaming.

Bush’s ad-libs, piano riffs, and rhythm track came together quickly in the studio, quicker than any other song on The Dreaming. Having a drum-centric engineer like Padgham was incredibly useful for her, as the early recording of Bush’s rhythm track showed. “Sat In Your Lap” is heavily percussive, built around its drum sound and brass section (initially synthesized on a Yamaha CS-80). The partially syncopated drumbeat (“dum-DUM-dum-DUM”) is Preston Heyman’s most memorable to date, a fine translation of the demo. The frantic, almost pharyngeal rhythm track has a kick drum so guttural and suppressed (though not apparently gated) that it can easily be mistaken for one of Bush’s vocal onomatopoeias. The track’s sonic menagerie (Bush’s recurring motif of musical instruments as bodily extensions lives to a maniacal extent), a veritable ensemble of screams, tinny horns on the Fairlight CMI, swishing bamboo sticks (thanks to Paddy Bush and Preston Heyman) childlike whispers, “HO-HO-HO’s,” and bellows of “JUST when I think I’m king!”

What better to bring Bush out of a period of creative stagnation than a missive to psychological stagnation? Or even better, a tremendously loud, busy, and clamorous one. Amidst the song’s sheer volume is a narrative of inertia and stillness. Bush deploys a childlike whisper in the verses, a canny juxtaposition with the rhythm track’s masculine percussiveness, indicating juvenile trepidation as she watches adults go about their lives: “I see the people working/I see it working for them/and so I want to join them/but then I find it hurts me.” The verses are terse observations from an unmoving figure, grounded in a desire to catch up and have a powerful mind: “I see the people happy/so can it happen for me?,” “I want to be a lawyer/I want to be a scholar/but I really can’t be bothered,” “I want the answers quickly/but I don’t have no energy.”

The verses are similarly sclerotic, sticking to its home key and mode of Ab Dorian closely, with an incessant chord progression of i-VII (Abm7-Gb), a relatively conservative doublet of chords that seem paranoid about wandering away from the key’s tonic (limiting a verse to its key’s tonic and subtonic is uncharacteristically parsimonious for Bush), and even staying in 3/4 the whole time. The refrain sees a return to Bush’s harmonic and rhythmic weirdness. Her predilection for following up a key’s tonic chord with the tonic of the parallel key lives as ever, as she maneuvers from Ab minor’s IV chord (Db) to Ab major’s iv (Db minor). The refrain otherwise sticks to a fairly conventional Ab minor (IV-iv-i-IV), with a smattering of Bushian time signature changes (it mostly sticks to 4/4, with a bar in 2/4 at the tail end of “some say that knowledge is something sat/in your lap” and “ho, ho, ho”). The post-chorus breaks with Ab Dorian, modulating to Db Mixolydian (a major key alternative to Dorian mode) with “JUST when I think I’m KING!”, dallying with chords not present in the key (A) and owning its unified disjointedness.

“Sat In Your Lap” conveys both frantic motivation and fearful inaction — it is enticed by the busy and productive activities of people and intimidated by the energy exerted in them, perhaps suggesting a character outwardly compelled to be a productive adult too soon (it’s possible Bush could relate). It is at once rapid, careening at 146 BPM, and petrified with fear. The music video (Bush’s first without director Keef Macmillan) swerves between stillness and freneticism. During the verses, Bush is mostly seated in a white dress, while the refrains see her cavorting with dancers in dunce caps. Former “gifted and talented” children drained by adults’ external compulsion to excel may encounter a kindred spirit in “Sat In Your Lap.” Yet even in its inertia lays a search — despite the emotional shutting down, the desperate need for knowledge and truth is genuine and constant.

The incessant refrain, consisting of Bush screaming (with occasional variations) “some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap/some say that knowledge is something that you never have,” makes the preoccupation with knowledge clear. Holy shit, says Bush, look at all this cool stuff adults do! And all these neat religious and philosophical paths! “Some say that heaven is hell/some say that hell is heaven!” Is anyone right? The sheer quantity of faiths can be incredibly disorienting to an adult. The comparable power that spirituality can have over a child is often formative.

Spirituality often works at a snail’s pace. Things that become deeply engrained in a young believer’s mind at an early age will only become clear to them several years later. A child confronted with gods can have a variety of emotional responses: indifference, awe, fear, befuddlement, joy. Sometimes a child is deeply moved by what they witness and feel. Yet with that, there can be complete physical inertia — shock and over-saturation, or interior silence and contemplation. For instance, the Hebrew Bible’s prophet Ezekiel responds to his first apocalyptic vision by sinking into days of catatonia. Bush’s answer to the mind-body problem is a symbiotic one — it’s an ouroboros, with no strict origin point, the body and the mind depending on one another. Once “Sat In Your Lap” taps into this idea of

Complicating this is the partial secularity of the song’s search. Her questions aren’t any less spiritual for it — some of the most spiritually complex people I’ve ever met are confirmed atheists, and Kate “I don’t think I’ve really found a niche” Bush hardly seems like a Bertrand Russell-esque non-believer. Ever the aesthete, Bush claims that she’s primarily drawn to the iconography of faith: “such powerful, beautiful, passionate images!” as she said of her Roman Catholic upbringing. Her first ever published writing was a poem about the Crucifixion. In a 1979 interview, she prodded a possible belief in a God, opining that God was “a label for people to put all their belief and love into,” and that putting such emotional effort into one’s relationships with people causes one to “reach an aim.” For all the theological crudeness of this idea (it boils down to little more than a hippie’s plea for everyone to just get along), Bush is (characteristically) unintentionally right. There’s a deep emotional center to faith and prayer. Contemplative and meditative traditions are built on unifying one’s emotional state with spirituality. This doesn’t make the experiences any less real — feelings are facts of life. An empirical understanding of any societal phenomena has to grasp its emotional basis: the values and emotions it appeals to.

As the only answer to the unanswerable is sublime incoherence, the song’s coda is hermetic descent into sensory overload. Iconography blurs (“Tibet or Jeddah,” “to Salisbury/a monastery”) in a tendency that’s strong in the last couple verses, as Bush inverts Psalm 23 (“my cup, she never overfloweth”), dabbles in desert-dwelling, monasticism, cathedrals, and with “some grey and white matter,” the human brain (grey and white matter oversee the brain’s connection to the spinal cord). “Sat in Your Lap” concludes with inconclusiveness: its dance is in the terrifying glory of befuddlement. Asceticism is a cerebral process as well as physical: the brain responds to the body’s state. Bush is engaging with some genuinely fascinating systems of thought here: for all the approaches to the mind/body problem that have been formulated, responding to it with “isn’t scholastically-caused sensory overload a kind of asceticism?” is new.

Recorded at Townhouse Studio 2, Shepherd’s Bush in May 1981; mixed through June. Issued as a single 21 June 1981; released again as the opening track of The Dreaming on 13 September 1982, over a year later. Music video also released in July ’81. Like every other song on the album, never performed live. Kate Bush — vocals, piano, CMI, production. Hugh Padgham — engineer. Nick Launay — engineer (mixing). Preston Heyman — drums, bamboo sticks. Jimmy Bain — bass. Paddy Bush — backing vocals, bamboo sticks. Ian Bairnson — backing vocals. Gary Hurst — backing vocals. Stewart Avon-Arnold — backing vocals. Geoff Downes — CMI trumpets”.

Turning forty-three on 21st June, I felt it important to revisit this song. One that created minor tremors. Very different to what people might have been expecting, it was a glimpse into The Dreaming. The sign that Kate Bush was experimenting more. More rhythmic and percussive than anything she had released as a single, I am glad that it was a success. Sat in Your Lap is one of her best tracks.  Earlier this year, MOJO ranked it as her sixth-best song:

“Out-there outrider for The Dreaming.

Organised chaos: the African drum-charging thunder, the rigid piano lurch, the synthesized trumpet section’s blare – and then Bush sings some kind of six-characters-on-the-run-from-their-author wildness and overrides all that big pushy noise. Breathy Bush and squawky Bush alternate before transubstantiating into the dominatrix dictator – Thatcher pastiche? – declaiming “just when I think I’m king…” Meanwhile, her subject is knowledge, work, idleness, frustration, “’tis I that moan and groaneth”. You’re gobsmacked, but you’ve gotta laugh too”.

In 2018, The Guardian put the song in eighth place. PROG, in a feature from last year, included Sat in Your Lap among her forty best tracks. A wonderful single from Kate Bush, it still sounds so fresh and urgent forty-three years after its release. No sense of it being dated at all. I really love the track. Opening The Dreaming, fans were in for this sonic treat. The rest of the songs on the 1982 album perhaps experiment even more. In terms of ‘weirdness’ or a lack of convention. This was Kate Bush producing music that was perhaps more ‘serious’ than before. Perhaps reacting to continued critical reaction. That patronising and diminishing viewpoint they had of her as someone unserious. Almost child-like. The Dreaming was Bush producing art. Sat in Your Lap was the first sign from that album. Everything was about to change. On 21st June, 1981, she released into the world…

A huge musical statement.

FEATURE: Queens and Sisters: The Continuing Inspiration from Women in the Music Industry

FEATURE:

 

 

Queens and Sisters

IN THIS PHOTO: Charli XCX/PHOTO CREDIT: Charlie Engman for GQ 

The Continuing Inspiration from Women in the Music Industry

_________

I have said a few times…

IN THIS PHOTO: Taylor Swift at Murrayfield Stadium on 7th June, 2024 for her Eras Tour/PHOTO CREDIT: David Fisher/Rex/Shutterstock

how women are dominating modern music. I am not sure what year it was exactly when we switched from that male dominance. I think that it has been at least five or six years where women have produced most of the best albums. They have created the finest and more interesting music. Some of the biggest tours. I think the past few years have been particularly strong when it comes to music’s queens leading the way. Even though the music industry, in many ways, is still male-dominated, when it comes to the music being made, women are leading, A lot of the power still rests with men. I hope that this changes. In terms of balance and equality, there are some steps in the right direction. In terms of festivals and recognition of women in headline slots. I have said this before. We are nowhere near where we should be but, the more women are ruling and leading the way, hopefully the industry will catch on! Not only do we see Dua Lipa and SZA headline Glastonbury later this month. We are currently witnessing Taylor Swift takes her Eras Tour around the U.K. We all know how successful this has been. The reviews for the shows she has performed so far have been enormously positive. Heralding it as a work of brilliance, journalists have written how moving and extraordinary her set is. For my money, Taylor Swift might be the greatest live performer of her generation. Once was the time when male Rock acts were the go-to for live acts. They were the ones most lauded. I think the balance has shifted. Not that there are a lack of great live male acts today. It is clear that the most potent and inspiring live performers of today are women. Taylor Swift is a leading example of how amazing women are taking to the stage and producing live sets that linger in the memory. That we will be talking about for so many years. I will come to a review from one of her recent Eras shows. When Swift played Murrayfield Stadium last week, The Guardian shared their views in a five-star review. Both powerful and intimate, this is an artist at the top of her game:

“It arrives in the UK trailing yet more mind-boggling headlines. In Aberfeldy, Loch Tay has been renamed Loch Tay-Tay in her honour. Not to be outdone, and undaunted by their inability to come up with a Taylor Swift-related pun, Liverpool has rebranded itself as Taylor Town. A radio station in London has been set up that plays nothing but Taylor Swift songs. A recent feature in this newspaper claimed that it’s become literally impossible to avoid hearing Taylor Swift’s name mentioned: no mean feat in an era where popular culture is so atomised and personally tailored that – if a rash of puzzled social media posts about SZA are to be believed – an artist can be big enough to headline Glastonbury while remaining unknown to a significant proportion of Glastonbury-goers.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jane Barlow/PA

So much attention has been focused on the Eras Tour that reviewing it seems almost beside the point. Every conceivable detail has already been dissected and discussed in depth, from the surprise songs she inserts into each show – here it’s Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve from 2022’s Midnights and a medley of Evermore’s ‘Tis the Damn Season and Lover’s Daylight – to the mass of visual signifiers and concert rituals that leave Swifties looking less like mainstream pop fans than Deadheads, albeit more prone to sequins and less interested in LSD than the Grateful Dead’s notorious travelling army of devotees.

Still, it’s an incredibly impressive show. It succeeds in leaping between an eclectic range of material – dubstep-inspired, dark-hued pop; tweedy folk; monster-chorus-sporting anthems and acoustic guitar-driven songs that show her Nashville grounding – all of it linked by Swift’s keen melodic awareness and ability to turn songs about famous ex-partners and celebrity nemeses into universally relatable figures.

You don’t want for plumes of dry ice and flames, costume changes – a snake-bedecked catsuit and diaphanous wood-nymph with cape suitable for Stevie Nicks-ish twirling – or indeed dancers pedalling around the stage on glowing neon bicycles during Blank Space, but it feels less predicated on special effects than on Swift’s ability to work the cameras that track her every move in a way that seems to draw in the walls of a vast rugby stadium. She’s a genuinely engaging performer on a grand scale, the big screens behind her constantly pick up on an array of expressions and asides that create a sense of collusion and intimacy.

The songs from her most recent album, The Tortured Poets Department, get the same vociferous response as the well-worn hits from 1989 or Red, but it does leave you wondering where the woman at the centre of it all goes next. It’s not Cassandra-ish to suggest that this kind of ubiquity and success is an unsustainable moment. Whether she’ll even try to is an interesting question: perhaps, like Macavity, the character Swift sang about in the movie Cats – one part of her oeuvre that doesn’t get an airing tonight – she’ll do a disappearing act.

But, for now, Taylor Swift seems all-powerful, so much so she can take risks: amid the big hits, truncated so more of them can be crammed into the show, she plays All Too Well – a 10-minute-long song – and it’s a show-stopping emotional sucker punch. And when she performs the piano ballad Champagne Problems, the response is so loud, and goes on for so long, that Taylor Swift looks overwhelmed again: this time it doesn’t seem like hokum”.

It is not only Taylor Swift that is delivering these staggering live performances. I feel that, more and more, the most compelling live sets are coming from women. Whether that is a new band or an established solo artist, it is clear that festivals should react to this. I know this year has been an improvement in terms of parity. We are getting all this proof and celebration regarding their live prowess. Music’s queens excelling and overtaking their male peers. Not that it is a competition or a time to pit artists against one another. For decades, men have been given all the opportunities. Assumed to be the dominant force. This sort of music patriarchy. That is no longer the case. I want to mention St. Vincent a recent gig she performed at the Royal Albert Hall on 1st June. A very different show compared to Taylor Swift, here is another queen who is a phenomenal live performer. I realise that there are some terrific male artists whose live sets are brilliant. Not to take anything away from them. I just feel that it is female artists who are taking things to a new level. This is what NME wrote when reviewing St. Vincent in London:

“There’s usually plenty of theatrics to St. Vincent gigs. The ‘Masseduction’ tour explored power, control and lust via PVC suits, a never-ending supply of guitars while the run of shows to celebrate the sugary; ‘70’s-inspired ‘Daddy’s Home’ were driven by a warm spontaneity as St Vincent and her extensive band worked through past trauma amidst (somewhat unfair) social media backlash.

She wanted something more direct and confrontational for seventh album ‘All Born Screaming’ though. “I’m gonna fuck ‘em up,” Annie Clark promised NME earlier this year. True to her word, tonight’s gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall is vicious, destructive, and pure electric.

Throughout the pulverising 90-minute set, Clark wields her guitar like a weapon and attacks the microphone with a restless urgency. Big, cathartic breakdowns teeter on the edge of chaos, but Clark and her four-piece band never let things fall apart completely. It’s gorgeous to watch, but it demands participation as well. With music this charged, there’s simply no standing on the sidelines.

In the years since St. Vincent last played London, co-writes with Taylor Swift (‘Cruel Summer’) and Olivia Rodrigo (‘Obsessed’) have taken over the airwaves, but instead of chasing an arena-sized glamour, ‘All Born Screaming’ is a visceral exploration of death, flecked with hope. That’s very much the mood of tonight’s gig as well.

PHOTO CREDIT: Blair Brown

From the crushing purge of opener ‘Reckless’ through the unsettling horror-infused ‘Big Time Nothing’ to the snotty ‘Flea’, St Vincent indulges in bleakness. It gives the glitching dystopia of ‘Los Ageless’, the soaring anxiety of ‘Fear The Future’ and the pleading ‘Marrow’ an added sense of despair, but there’s more to this show than rage in the dying light.

“Show of hands, who has a Prince Albert,” Clark asks with a smirk, immediately after praising the beauty of the grandiose venue while there’s a playful, choreographed turn from her and her guitarists during ‘Flea’.

“This song is for all the people who have loved immensely, stared at the moon, and taken that leap,” Clark says before a gorgeous ‘Sweetest Fruit’, a stripped back ‘Candy Darling’ is lush and delicate while even the unruly attack of ‘Broken Man’ is sprinkled with tenderness. As St. Vincent describes it, it’s “deep epic beauty and chaotic violence, all at the same time”.

After she dives into the crowd once more and embraces them for the soaring romance of ‘New York’, the night ends with ‘All Born Screaming’. On record, the twisting, furious track feels lethal but performed in front of a crowd, the song encourages a shared experience through collective pain and fear.

“We’re all here for one reason, and that reason is love,” Clark explains. “As far as I can tell, there’s no other fucking reason to do anything,” she adds, offering a vital protest against a world that feels increasingly dark”.

Not only is it from the stage where women are inspiring. I use that word without caution. It is right to say. They are leading the way for the next generation. It is also through albums where we are finding the best music is being made from women. Few cannot deny this. Sisters united, this year is no exception when it comes to women leading once more. I am picking specific examples when it comes to review and examples. It goes much wider and deeper than a few names. I hope that the power dynamic shifts in the industry very soon. The fact that women are dominating should be reflected in those who hold power. Those who make decisions and can make and affect change. We are still in a position where there is discrimination, inequality, abuse and misogyny. Things can and will change. I wanted to use this feature as another opportunity to salute women throughout music. I will round off soon. Before that, one of this year’s best albums arrived on Friday (7th June). From the wonderful Charli XCX, BRAT is possibly the most critically acclaimed album of the year. Following from 2022’s CRASH – which won acclaimed but some mixed reviews too -, this album has gained a raft of five-star reviews. BRAT joins a list of amazing albums from stunning female artists in 2024. I think that, as we head through the year, we will see so many more astonishing and hugely acclaimed albums from newcomers and established alike. Further proof that it is women who are changing things. Producing the most important music of our age. There are ample options to select from when it comes to extremely positive reviews for BRAT. I want to highlight what DIY wrote:

“I’m famous but not quite,” proclaims Charli XCX over the unique balladry of the disarming ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment that immediately dispels the notion that ‘BRAT’ - the singer’s sixth studio album - is going to play out like any other club record. It’s an incredibly fitting statement for an artist who hit the top of the charts with 2022’s ‘CRASH’, landed a track on pop’s soundtrack of the decade for Barbie, yet whose affiliations with the comparably underground and now defunct label and collective PC Music and their shared love of musical unpredictability define them far better. Charli may have faced a fork in the road with ‘CRASH’ propping open the door for pop mega-stardom, but ‘BRAT’ unfolds as an unmistakable representation of her very core; an exhilarating ode to the multiple facets of club culture that have formed the foundations for everything Charli has become over the best part of two decades.

As she sings “sometimes I just want to rewind,” over an unapologetically heavy digital soundscape, her mutually shared debt to pioneering producers and friends AG Cook and Danny L Harle shines brightest. ‘So I’ takes every page from the rulebook that iconic musical powerhouse SOPHIE so brilliantly ripped up prior to her untimely death in 2021 for what is one of the most fitting posthumous homages in recent memory, Charli landing a complex balance between celebration of sound and lyrical heartbreak: “You always said it’s ok to cry, so I know I can.” This candour sits alongside the album’s heaviest calls to underground dancefloors - ‘Club classics’ and ‘B2b’ - which, at opposite ends of the record, pull a thread from the past to the present, the latter living up to its name with jarring precision. Yet even in these moments, Charli sends her vulnerability firmly to the forefront. “I don’t want to feel fearless,” she sings on a record that – at least musically – presents her as just that.

The album is fundamentally bookended by love letters to raves and everything that comes with them, the thunderous ‘365’ pushing opener ‘360’ to levels set to make any heads with a conservative mindset spin. And that’s the real joy here: it’s hedonistic to a tee, and an exhilarating ride through the highs and lows of going ‘out out’, whether the fundamental friendships and relationships that are formed and lost, putting the world to rights in the dark corners of clubs, or the pure ecstasy of an unrelenting dancefloor. If ‘BRAT’ will ultimately push Charli XCX into mainstream pop’s top tier still remains to be seen, but it absolutely guarantees the best night out of your life”.

In addition to highlighting a few recent triumphs from some incredible women in music, I wanted to use it as examples of what is happening right through the industry. We will see more captivating and memorable live sets from music’s queens as we head through the festival season. More year-defining albums. Brilliant new acts coming through. At a moment when women are still overlooked in some ways, the proof is out there that they are worthy of respect and equality! They are very much leading from the front. I think that we will see the dominance…

FOR generations to come.

FEATURE: I'm Headin' Down the Atlanta Highway… The B-52’s’ Cosmic Thing at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

I'm Headin' Down the Atlanta Highway…

The B-52’s’ Cosmic Thing at Thirty-Five

_________

WHEN writing about…

IN THIS PHOTO: The B-52's photographed on 27th September, 1989 in Munich, Germany/PHOTO CREDIT: Fryderyk Gabowicz/Picture Alliance via Getty Images (via Billboard)

The-B52’s’ majestic and brilliant Cosmic Thing, we have to give some context. It is sandwiched between two of their albums that were not big critical smashes. A triumph following from 1986’s underwhelming Bouncing Off the Satellites, they followed Cosmic Thing with 1992’s Good Stuff. A band who many feel peaked with their first two albums – 1979’s The B-52's (which turns forty-five on 6th July) and 1980’s Wild Planet -, there is no denying that Cosmic Thing was a brief return to form. Perhaps not as consistent as the first two albums, Cosmic Thing does contain several of the most popular and well-known songs from the Athens (Georgia) band. Roam, Cosmic Thing and Love Shack are among their finest releases. It is quite timely marking the upcoming thirty-fifth anniversary of Cosmic Thing. The B-52’s have recently played farewell gigs. Playing together for over forty-five years, it was a sad but celebratory send-off. A chart success in the U.S. and U.K., Cosmic Thing was co-produced by Nile Rodgers and Don Was. Recorded at a variety of studios around New York, it was released on 27th June, 1989. With Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson and Keith Strickland in incredible form, you can hear something very special through Cosmic Thing. It would not be right to call it a comeback or revival. Their first two albums are so lauded, so maybe anything that fell below that was unfairly criticised. There is no doubting that Cosmic Thing was a new stage for The-B52’s.

I want to get to some reviews and features about Cosmic Thing. Giving us more background and insight into one of the most life-affirming albums ever. Even if many reviews were tepid in 1989, retrospective assessment has been kinder and more accurate. Maybe not up to the dizzy heights of Wild Planet, Cosmic Thing is a wonderful album that deserves attention and respect ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary. In 2019, Albumism marked thirty years of The-B52’s’ fourth studio album. A time when many were ready to write them off:

“The songs on Cosmic Thing were a slight move away from the band’s previous four albums which had been perceived as more underground “new wave.” Their 1979 eponymous debut album was a hit, particularly in Australia where it achieved the number 3 spot on the charts along with all three singles achieving similar success. Both "Rock Lobster" and “Planet Claire" have become some of music’s most legendary songs in their own right and have also gone on to forever be synonymous with the band and the new wave era they epitomized throughout the ‘80s.

The band’s following three albums did moderately well, with many claiming that their sophomore LP Wild Planet (1980) is their best. Whammy! (1983) and Bouncing Off The Satellites (1986) did not go on to achieve the same success as the previous two and maybe because of this, the band felt the need in the making of the latter album to write separately and switch up instruments (Keith Strickland moved from drums to guitar and keyboard). Sadly, these disruptions were trivial in comparison to the tragedy that struck the band in the most extreme way possible when Ricky Wilson, their guitarist and lead vocalist Cindy Wilson’s brother, passed away from an AIDS related illness in late 1985. It sent the band into shock.

Bouncing Off The Satellites had not yet been completed and given the devastation felt by all band members, the album was not promoted and the band wisely took a much needed hiatus. It’s important to mention Wilson’s death here for a number of reasons; not only was he a founding member of The B-52s and a prophetic guitarist giving the band an incredibly unique sound, but he was also a gay man who had passed away from an AIDS related illness at the height of his career. In 1985, this was not only incredibly taboo and surrounded by prejudice, but it could have very well been the catalyst for the band’s demise. Thankfully it wasn’t and given that June is Pride month, one must pay homage to yet another musician and person who sadly lost their life to HIV/AIDS.

1988 saw the band reunite after nearly three years away from the recording studio and start writing collaboratively, with all remaining four band members having songwriting credits on all four lead singles from the album. In June 1989, the album’s third single “Love Shack” was released and whilst the two preceding singles “Cosmic Thing” (from the soundtrack Earth Girls Are Easy) and "Channel Z” had provided little buzz for the band, it was their foray into the more commercial and incredibly upbeat party anthem that reaffirmed that they were well and truly back.

“Love Shack” is undoubtedly the band’s most recognizable song on a global scale and given that it charted incredibly well worldwide, with a staggering eight weeks at No.1 in Australia, this album was so much more than just a comeback. It was the first time the band had played without Ricky Wilson and to achieve all this success must have been somewhat bittersweet. Sometimes when we are at our lowest, we dig the deepest for inspiration and this album is living proof of that.

The album’s fourth and fifth singles, “Roam” and "Deadbeat Club," went on to chart well, with “Roam” faring better and gaining a GRAMMY nomination. “Deadbeat Club” was a homage to the band’s early life when their parents constantly referred to them as “Deadbeats” and even featured a cameo from their fellow Athenian, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, in the music video. Other notable tracks on the album are the beautifully upbeat “Junebug” and the transcendental, instrumental closing track “Follow Your Bliss.”

Cosmic Thing had a lot riding on its back, but with a production team that included Don Was (Was Not Was) and the legendary Nile Rodgers of Chic fame, coupled with a regrouping of sorts by the band, the album went on to become the group’s most commercially successful venture to date. Whilst many said the band had become “too commercial,” Cosmic Thing most definitely stayed true to their core style of new wave, continuing with the infusion of surf music (most notably with “Follow Your Bliss”) and their own unique brand of upbeat, lyrically positive and infectious dance grooves (think “Love Shack,” "Roam” & “Topaz”)”.

I want to move to a couple of positive reviews for Cosmic Thing. This is an album whose songs I first heard not long after they came out. I recall hearing Love Shack in 1989 or 1990. Roam is quite an early memory. The older I got, I heard the whole album was really impressed. Even if The-B52’s are an acquired taste to some, I have always liked their music. Cosmic Thing might be my favourite album from them. AllMusic had this to say when they reviewed Cosmic Thing:

“Many observers were prepared to write off the B-52's after the release of Bouncing Off the Satellites. Granted, the album was completed in the wake of Ricky Wilson's death, but the group appeared bereft of new musical ideas and were sounding rather stale. In other words, the last thing anyone expected was a first-class return to form, which is what they got with Cosmic Thing. Working with producers Don Was and Nile Rodgers, the B-52's updated their sound with shiny new surfaces and deep, funky grooves -- it was the same basic pattern as before, only refurbished and contemporized. Just as importantly, they had their best set of songs since at least Wild Planet, possibly since their debut. "Cosmic Thing" and "Channel Z" were great up-tempo rockers; "Roam" had a groovy beat blessed with a great Cindy Wilson vocal; and "Deadbeat Club" was one of their rare successful reflective numbers. Then there was "Love Shack," an irresistible dance number with delightfully silly lyrics and hooks as big as a whale that unbelievably gave the group a long-awaited Top Ten hit. The thing is, Cosmic Thing would already have been considered a triumphant return without its commercial success. The big sales were just the icing on the cake”.

I am going to wrap things up with a review from the BBC. I do hope that there is some form of commemoration and highlighting of Cosmic Thing prior to its thirty-fifth anniversary on 27th June. It is deserving of a lot more love than it got back in 1989. I guess, in such a big and important year for music, there was focus on other types of sounds and bands. No real excuse, mind:

“In the late 80s, after an initial burst of Technicolor freakery around the start of the decade, The B-52s were circling the Where Are They Now? columns, seemingly a wonky remnant of their own past. By the time Cosmic Thing had successfully reinstalled them bigger and better than ever before, the question was answered thusly: "Probably in Australia, hovering up sales, or scooping up awards ahoy."

This was the band’s first album (their fifth overall) to be recorded after guitarist Ricky Wilson died during the recording of 1986’s Bouncing off the Satellites; understandably, with the band in no mood to promote BOTS at the time, Cosmic Thing signalled something a comeback. It also saw a slightly less-lurid and kitschy look adopted – a professional move onwards from the wigs, lobsters and planets named Claire found on their iconic eponymous debut of 10 years earlier. It paid off too, chiming with the positivity and fun times the awaiting 90s had to offer, and becoming their most successful album to date.

Of course, this was mainly due to the success of the single Love Shack, a karaoke staple to this day. It was kept off the number one slot by Beats International and Snap! in the UK, but was one of the biggest singles of the year in their native US and spent eight weeks at the summit in Australia, a place that had taken the band to its heart before anyone else had. The song was based around a road trip they took out to Atlanta. Roam, the other big hit from the album, also did decent business and has been commandeered ever since as a theme for adventure holidays. The album is like a celebration of life and wonder, rather than what could have been an obituary for their earlier selves. This is true even on Deadbeat Club – a song that can be taken either as a slacker anthem or, more factually, a reflective discourse on their earlier days of no money, with ideas bursting out of their hair.

Smoothly produced by Nile Rodgers and Don Was, Cosmic Thing breathed new life into the b(r)and, and pointed the way ahead. We’ll draw a discreet veil over the Flintstones theme cover that followed a few years later, and instead hold Cosmic Thing aloft as a fine encapsulation of The B-52s’ world”.

If you have not heard Cosmic Thing or are unfamiliar with The-B52’s, then I would say that this album is worth revisiting. Also check out their eponymous debut and Wild Planet. Put it on, turn it up loud, and you’ll imagine yourself headin’ down the Atlanta highway…

LOOKIN’ for the love getaway.

FEATURE: Hang On to Your Love: Sade’s Diamond Life at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Hang On to Your Love

Sade’s Diamond Life at Forty

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A truly brilliant debut album…

that reached number two in the U.K. and number five in the U.S., Diamond Life is a classic. Led by the intoxicating and sublime Sade Adu, the album boasts singles as grand and timeless as Smooth Operator and Your Love Is King. Prior to forming Sade, Adu began as a backing singer for British group, Pride. Adu and three original members of the group - Paul Anthony Cook, Paul Denman and Stuart Matthewman - departed the group to form Sade. It was not long before their titular lead gained interest from record labels. Recorded at Power Plant (London) from October to November 1983, the band wrote the tracks. Stuart Matthewman and Sade Adu wrote the majority fo the tracks together. Fifteen songs were recorded. Some cassette versions featured fifteen tracks, through the L.P. and C.D. versions have nine tracks. There are various reason why Diamond Life is so enduring. The mix of Soul, Jazz and Pop is a brew and blend hard to resist. Perhaps not that common up to 1984, we mark forty years of this brilliant album on 16th July. I want to get to a few features and reviews for Diamond Life. One of the most important and impressive debut albums of the 1980s, I hope that a new generation of listeners pick it up ahead of its fortieth anniversary. I am going to start out with a feature from Albumism published in 2019. It is interesting discovering the background and lead-up to Diamond Life:

“Helen Folasade Adu was born to Adebisi Adu—a Nigerian lecturer—and Anne Hayes—an English nurse; she was the second child conceived by this interracial couple residing in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, undoubtedly a remarkable origin given the period. When Adu and Hayes’ marriage fractured four years after their daughter’s birth, Hayes relocated back to the United Kingdom with her children, settling first in Colchester and later in Holland-on-Sea—two areas of Essex, England. Hayes did her best to give her son and daughter a normal upbringing and that structure allowed them to focus on whatever their passions might be; Adu’s interest centered around the plush lure of fashion.

For the young woman who would come to be known as Sade—a shortened version of her middle-name Folasade—London called to her and in pursuit of a higher education based in fashion, Adu enrolled in the venerated Saint Martin’s School of Art at 18. While Adu tasked away at her clothing design studies, another point of curiosity began to surface within her: music. It began innocuously with the Saint Martin’s student singing with Pride, an emergent and polite funk outfit popular in and around London at the very top of the 1980s.

Everything changed upon Adu forming a creative friendship with Pride’s dapper guitarist/saxophonist Stuart Matthewman. Adu and Matthewman began writing together and out of those scripting spells came the embryonic song shape of “Smooth Operator.”

Adu and Matthewman’s inevitable defection from Pride occurred in the first half of 1983; Adu’s activities at St. Martin’s ceased thereafter as well. Soon, the duo saw themselves expand to a proper group with the addition of keyboardist Andrew Hale and bassist Paul Denman. The artistic chemistry between Adu, Matthewman, Hale and Denman bonded the four youths right away and upon deciding to christen themselves after the namesake of their lead vocalist, the quartet got busy tightening up their live presentation.

By mid-1983, Sade had racked up several lauded showcases in London and one abroad in New York City. Record label intrigue reached a fever pitch in the wake of these performances and Sade eventually received a formal invitation to sign with Epic Records. Upon signing with the imprint, work commenced on their debut album Diamond Life with producer Robin Millar over a six-week span.

The nine-track song cycle is a sumptuous aural spread comprised of lithe funk (“Smooth Operator”), exotic jazz tones (“Your Love Is King”) and robust R&B (“Frankie’s First Affair”). A smart pack of session men provided support for Matthewman, Hale and Denman, however, it is their respective chops that give each track its own enthralling sonic radiance. Dovetailing between meticulousness and improvisation, the space between those two methods is where Sade’s trademark sophistication reveals itself on the steamy floor-filling black pop of “Hang on to Your Love” and the nimble soul of “I Will Be Your Friend.”

The entries contained on Diamond Life don’t just flout instrumental prowess, compelling song texts sit ensconced at the core of the arrangements and an identifiable vocal presence breathes life into them. Aside from a co-write credit from Ray St. John on “Smooth Operator,” a four-way split between the band members on the flashy “Cherry Pie,” and a cover of the social commentary chestnut “Why Can’t We Live Together?”—originally handled by the stateside singer Timmy Thomas in 1972—the remainder of Diamond Life leaped forward from the imaginations of Adu and Matthewman. Standing tall amongst the spicy rhythm sections, rich brass accompaniment and assorted percussion patterns of her musical brothers is Adu. She enchantingly straddles the divide between observation and active participation in every narrative gathered here.

When Diamond Life did finally arrive in stores in July of 1984, it made quite a splash. The record not only blew open an already vibrant rhythm and blues scene in the United Kingdom, it helped to center it as a dually dominant force capable of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its American counterpart for decades to come. Further, Sade’s rise to prominence became living proof that a woman of color fronting a coterie of white male musicians could be a persuasive platinum seller as much as any of the antecedent English music exported to foreign shores.

With five more acclaimed studio recordings having come since Diamond Life, Sade’s international reputation is undiminished. Still, the darker resonance and romance of Diamond Life is as powerful as it was thirty-five years ago when taken on its own merits, separate from Sade’s other projects. Inspiring and enrapturing to any and all who encounter it, the classic appeal of this effort will continue to endure amid the finite trends that are part and parcel of today’s manic music marketplace”.

I would encourage people to pick up a copy of Diamond Life. It is a true classic! One of the most distinct and beautiful debut albums ever. Such rich songwriting. Those unbelievable, knee-buckling and hugely soulful vocals from Sade Adu! I will end up with a couple of reviews for an album that has gone multi-platinum. The incredible Sade were almost the forebearers of the British R&B wave that came in the late-1980s and 1990s. Artists like Soul II Soul, The Brand New Heavies, Simply Red, Jamiroquai, and Lisa Stansfield followed. I feel many of them took something from Sade. The band definitely brought Neo-Soul to the fore. The first review I want to include is from Rolling Stone:

“Ferocity and abandon are the hallmarks of a certain, and maybe the best, kind of soul music, but Sade's neat, self-possessed sophistication has its own shine.

Sometimes snubbed as "middle of the road," Sade did keep her soul under control on 1984's Diamond Life. There's the elegiac "Sally," as well as the curiously empathetic "Frankie's First Affair," in which a smooth operator gets his emotional comeuppance. And even the still-ubiquitous, samba-laced "Smooth Operator" is closer to a cautionary tale from a too-wise young woman than an actual revelation of whatever may have been Helen Folasade Adu's blues.

Finally, though, with the swinging, wrenching "Cherry Pie" (and, to a lesser extent, with the torchy "Your Love Is King"), Sade sets her elastic, evocative alto free. She's the queen of going thick and rich with her voice, but the way Sade flings out "You were the only one/You were the only one" over attitudinal percussion is intoxicating and forceful, and the band (Stewart Matthewman, Paul Denman, Andrew Hale, Paul Cooke) must have known it: At almost six and a half minutes, "Cherry Pie" is the longest and best song on Diamond Life.

If Sade hadn't rocked it so proudly, girls such as Alicia Keys and Erykah Badu and male crooners including Maxwell (whom Matthewman ushered into the limelight) and Eric Benet would have had less to feed their artistic selves. Twenty years later, Sade's Diamond Life has lost none of its blue bling-bling”.

Let’s finish off with a review from Pitchfork. They also look back at 1984 and where Diamond Life fitted in. A year where big stadium acts and New Romantics dominated the British scene, it might have been quite hard for Sade to break into the mainstream. As it was, Diamond Life was embraced and was a huge commercial success:

“In 1984, while British new romantics like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet filled arenas with enormous synth-pop, Sade became the minimalists, crafting quiet, vintage soul out of basic components. Their end product, Diamond Life, values brevity. The band had a weapon in lead singer Helen Folasade Adu—Sade for short—a modest contralto who wore hoops with a classic red lip and moved in silence like Carmen Sandiego. Despite early comparisons to the likes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, Sade, then 25, saw not jazz but Black American soul as her band’s core influence. “I’m frightened of anyone for one minute thinking that we’re trying to be a jazz band, because if we were, we could do it a lot better than we’re doing now,” Sade said in 1985. “Our music is clearly pop, because it’s easy to understand.”

More precisely, their sound liquified soul and jazz into new-school pop. They were executors of spaciousness. With Diamond Life, Sade produced feeling music that became a prototype for a generation of singers who favored naked elegance: D’Angelo, Jill Scott, Alicia Keys. Maxwell later borrowed guitarist, saxophonist, and co-writer Stuart Matthewman for his own immaculate 1996 debut Urban Hang Suite; and Drake once equated the “dark sexy feel” of Sade’s records to those on his mixtape So Far Gone. The seductive undertones of artists like Tinashe and Yuna are similarly tethered to Sade, whose fierce dashes of sensuality originated here.

Over nine tracks, Sade sings of unwanted separation and missed connections under the banner of “quiet storm” music, the nickname for mood-setting, after-hours R&B that powered adult contemporary radio. Washington’s WHUR-FM is said to have originated the format in 1976 in response to radio programming that featured predominantly white easy listening acts. Quiet storm was, in contrast, a platform for balladeers like Anita Baker and Luther Vandross and their mellow grade of soul. For Sade, a band that conveyed turbulence even in their subtlety, the label fit. The swagger of “Smooth Operator,” their breakout U.S. single, almost overshadows the fact that the subject’s task is to travel across state lines breaking hearts. Their album, for the most part, seeks out and cherishes serenity and stability in partnerships while acknowledging the rocky parts. Lead U.S. single “Hang On to Your Love,” a stylish, midtempo number, views commitment as a courageous act, and on “Your Love Is King,” Sade drags out her prose, praising ordinary love between the exhales of a sax. The song has all the romance of a shimmering sunset gondola ride.

Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, Sade moved to England at 4 with her mother and brother. As early as 14, she began hitting nightclubs, and by the mid-’80s, the former art student turned menswear designer was casually experimenting as a backup vocalist in the seven-piece funk band Pride. Sade and Matthewman then morphed into a slicker breakout known collectively as Sade (a band name suggested by the singer herself), with Sade as their lead singer, keyboardist Andrew Hale, and bassist Paul S. Denman.

At the time, Sade was living in a deserted fire station, where she and Matthewman would listen to her collection of soul records, from Curtis Mayfield to Nina Simone. When band manager Lee Barrett began shopping a demo featuring “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love Is King”—material they’d been performing in clubs across England—producer Robin Millar said label execs dismissed their songs as “too slow, jazzy, and too long.” Next to the electro-pop of that era, Sade read as desperately tender, which proved to be an asset. The band eventually landed a deal with Epic in 1983 and issued Diamond Life the following year.

As with other idols whose enigma was part of their appeal, Sade practically invented the artist hiatus, taking years-long breaks between records, trading celebrity for freedom and longevity. She was, by all accounts, the coolest in everyone’s orbit. Tom Hanks, who appeared with Sade on Saturday Night Live in 1985, told The New York Times, “Calling her elusive or mysterious might color her as unkind or remote. She was not that. She was, rather, just very comfortable in the command of her art, as well as her presence.” Sade communicated gravity, often amid a cascade of keys and gentle sax riffs suspended in the air. Her voice entered the room like a chill. But her strength was in her ability to render truth and desire concisely. In relaying the sensation of a physical rush on “Your Love Is King,” she sings, “You’re making me dance…” and pauses before settling the emotion: “…Inside,” stretching its syllables into eternity.

The tracks on Diamond Life play in the arena of blues because Sade sought inspiration in the love stories of soul music that centered everyday people. On Diamond Life, she’s still refining her narrative voice, so the allegory in a cut like “Sally,” a sauntering tour through “one angry day in New York,” about the Salvation Army, has good intentions, but it’s the rare Sade song that offers the pretense of sentimentality in lieu of the real thing. The working-class anxieties that became a thread in their music materialize on “When Am I Going to Make a Living,” a song Sade wrote on the back of a receipt from the cleaners one night during a downpour.

Even when the lounginess is laid on thick, the album’s tones are subdued enough to be affecting. The damp ambiance of songs like “Frankie’s First Affair” and the six-plus-minute “Cherry Pie” burn like the type of molten soul expected to backdrop a film noir. While the track billows and tapers, becoming more atmospheric than dynamic by the end, Sade’s debut is a strong compilation of stories that bristle with simplicity”.

On 16th July, Diamond Life turns forty. It celebrates its ruby anniversary. When ranking Sade’s albums, I would put Diamond Life at the top. Many might say it is 1992’s Love Deluxe. Such a confident and wonderfully immersive and original debut album, I hope that there is spotlight of Diamond Life as it turns forty. Singles like When Am I Going to Make a Living and Hang On to Your Love sit alongside wonderful deeper cuts like Sally and Cherry Pie. There is no denying that Sade’s Diamond Life was…

SUCH a spectacular start.

FEATURE: Walk Straight Down the Middle: Kate Bush’s Music: Are the Deeper Cuts ‘Radio-Friendly’?

FEATURE:

 

 

Walk Straight Down the Middle

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989

Kate Bush’s Music: Are the Deeper Cuts ‘Radio-Friendly’?

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I am not sure how the debate started…

PHOTO CREDIT: Denis Oregan

but I was on Twitter and discussing Kate Bush’s music with someone I follow. We were discussing singles and why particular songs were not released. I maintained that a couple from, 1982’s The Dreaming, specifically, Houdini and Get Out of My House, could have succeeded. Bush released at least three singles from that album that were not successes – There Goes a Tenner, The Dreaming and Suspended in Gaffa. In fact, Night of the Swallow was not that popular. One could say that this album was not designed for singles. I think we assume that this equates to no chart potential or radio play. Maybe that was the case in the 1980s. Today, there is a breadth and variety of radio stations beyond the commercial and riskless. Those stations that have no edge or any sort of acceptance for anything that isn’t easily digestible and single. That is why I get angry that Kate Bush songs are not played more. We assume that Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is played most and almost synonymous with her because it is easy to listen to. In fairness, Bush deliberately made songs from the first side of Hounds of Love more commercial and accessible after The Dreaming’s sound and critical reaction. I would not say that this is song is the definition of radio-friendly. I don’t like this assumption that anything not released as a single is not radio-friendly. I don’t like ‘radio-friendly’. Hounds of Love is more accessible than most of her albums. Most of Kate Bush’s singles are less experimental and strange than some of her deeper cuts. That does not mean that these songs should be ignored. If you think about British radio, you occasionally get deeper cuts played. Most of the time, it is a few songs from Hounds of Love – the title track among them -, Wow, Babooshka, maybe Sat in Your Lap and This Woman’s Work. These songs are seen as suitable for radio. Not that challenging or off-putting for listeners. I do realise that radio was much more restrictive in the 1970s and 1980s. Bush was a bit stuck when it came to releasing singles that would be played and chart.

I feel this attitude continues today. We naturally assume that the songs that were successful singles are the only ones people want to hear. Anything else would not be popular. I don’t think that the term radio-friendly applies to songs that are not instantly commercial or ‘safe’. In terms of language, lyrical content etc., that is where radio-friendly comes in. Stations like BBC Radio 6 Music are an example of people who play really any type of music. There are enough radio stations that have a broad palette and, therefore, could play any Kate Bush song. I have heard Slipknot on BBC Radio 1 I have heard obscure Jazz and showtunes on BBC Radio 2. You get complex and symphonic Classical music on BBC Radio 3. There are niche and lesser-heard Folk songs on multiple stations. Captain Beefheart gets played. Modern-day groups that are angular and eccentric get airtime. Kate Bush’s songs, by comparison, seem quite ordinary and inoffensive. Nothing that would cause a listener to switch off. Think about the songs that one might lazily think are not radio-friendly. You’d be looking at The Dreaming’s tracks (aside from Sat in Your Lap), a few from 1978’s Lionheart and maybe a few from 2005’s Aerial. I cannot really name a song that is so out-there it could not make it onto radio. There is this media perception that Kate Bush is weird; this artist that only has a few songs that you can play on the radio. I am struggling to remember the last time a non-single from Kate Bush was played on British radio. If something deeper is, it is usually suggested by the listener. To be fair, she released enough singles that means we will never only hear one or two tracks. Even so, perhaps the dominance of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) gives people the impression that this is the definition of Kate Bush. We need to stop assuming that most of her catalogue is unworthy of radio play. Listeners cannot make their mind up if they don’t have a choice. Stations assuming that the singles are the only think worth hearing.

I don’t think there is any mandate or directive from EMI or Kate Bush that particular songs are played. Old and inaccurate perceptions of her and her music pervade to this day. The fact that platforms like TikTok maybe make the situation worse when it comes to narrow definition regarding her catalogue and sound. How there is a world of music unexplored and unknown because it is seen as unplayable or inferior. That is not the case. There is really no such thing as a radio-friendly song or artist. Everyone has a place somewhere. Few more so than Kate Bush. For all that she has given to the music industry, her music deserves a lot more than it is afforded. The more that we learn about the full extent and brilliance of her music, the more it will reach generations. The more people of all ages will understand. I don’t like this notion that only a select few Kate Bush songs could be played on the radio. The more singular and reductive stations are, the worse the situation becomes. We risk walking down the middle. Picking songs that are tried and tested. Those most people have heard. Only the occasional rare gem coming through. All radio stations should do a lot more to celebrate…

THIS woman’s work.

FEATURE: Screen Dreams: Why Is There Virtually No Music T.V. in 2024?

FEATURE:

 

 

Screen Dreams

PHOTO CREDIT: Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels

Why Is There Virtually No Music T.V. in 2024?

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WHEN I was a child…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

and teenager, there was an abundance of music T.V. I know that this was before the Internet took over and we had options like YouTube. I do not maintain that this has replaced the need for music on T.V. There two are very different. For a start, people do not often watch live music on YouTube and social media. Most people use that for music videos and interviews. In terms of seeing artists perform, television very much has an important role. Also, we still listen to artists perform on the radio. That medium has not really declined. I wonder why there is this disappearance of music T.V. Many assume that it is because music videos are not popular. That TikTok and Instagram has made it redundant. For one, music videos were popular back in the day because they were on television. I think that streaming makes people turn away from videos. If there was a bigger screen and focused way of looking at the latest videos, it would not only mean streamlining the masses of choices. I feel it may help revive that desire fort artists to push the artform so that they can see them on a music T.V. programme. In terms of social media, it has its place regarding promotion and spreading music. You can’t get the same experience of watching live performances, music videos, interviews and features from these platforms. It is more that a lack of options means people assume music T.V. is a thing of the past. We have the excellent and long-running Later… with Jools Holland. Over three decades, it has platformed so many incredible artists. It has its format and niche. I do maintain there is an opportunity for at least one competitor. A show that would have aspects of that – the live performances and interviews -, throwing in features, music news, and an array of other things. Maybe a magazine show mixed with those live performances, it would prove popular. I have said in previous features about music television how there have been attempts in the past. Formats that have not really worked.

 I understand it is a hard thing to achieve. I recently read a feature in The Guardian that reported on the closure of music video channels. Fergal Kinney argues how music videos are in decline. That everything is reduced and tighter because of the needs and nature of TikTok. How there are reduced budgets so that you do not get these huge and ambitious videos. That rings true in a sense. I would say that music T.V. goes beyond the video. That live performances, classic videos and albums and all aspects of the music world have a place still on T.V. That we should not rely on the Internet. There is a community aspect to music T.V. Even so, it is sad that closures and reductions mean that nearly all music T.V. is now through the Internet:

“Channel 4 have announced the closure of The Box, 4Music, Kiss, Magic and Kerrang! on 1 July, amid declining eyeballs on linear TV, rising operating costs and plummeting advertising revenue. The stations – which served a hard-to-reach national audience often underserved by the music industry – now “no longer deliver revenues or public value at scale”.

After the rollout of digital UK satellite television in 1998, the new millennium saw an arms race in music broadcasting as corporate boardrooms targeted the bored and music-loving teenager. At their peak, between 2003 and 2010, there were nearly 40 rolling music video channels available in the UK.

While MTV Select, which ran on viewers’ requests, was an early education in democracy (disappointing), shows like VH2’s The Next Song Will Be Great implicitly understood the gamed, double-your-money promise of music TV on young minds. A show about the 100 Best Videos Ever became a highbrow seminar on auteurs such as Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, and was where I first encountered groundbreaking videos such as Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy, Bjork’s All Is Full of Love and New Order’s Bauhaus-influenced True Faith.

That collision of eras and styles is important. Much has been made of how 2010s streaming flattened 60 years of pop history, but for millions it was the music channels that got there first. This had implications: despite the best efforts of MTV2’s Zane Lowe-fronted Gonzo interview show, it was hard to be quite so thrilled by indie acts such as the Pigeon Detectives and Babyshambles once they were juxtaposed with their obvious indie influences, the Smiths or the Cure. Later, Simon Reynolds theorised about pop music’s addiction to the past, but here was the first time I witnessed contemporary music culture’s fight for oxygen against its own history.

Music TV could foster strange pleasures, too – and I don’t just mean staying up late to catch the version of Rock DJ that doesn’t cut before Robbie Williams rips off his own skin. Grownups would be bemused why, aged 14, I knew all the words to Cliff Richard’s Wired for Sound, but I’d become hooked by the Milton Keynes roller-skating video of this Magic TV mainstay.

In the 2020s, linear music TV is a dispiriting experience: a carve-up between Jools Holland, BBC Four’s Friday night archive Top of the Pops programme and Sky Arts’ bewildering clash of Andrea Bocelli arena shows and boomer-friendly reunion rock. What remains of music TV is nostalgia for an ageing broadcast audience: Tony Blackburn’s That’s 60s channel or Mike Read’s Heritage Chart Show. Like a lot of things about living in the UK, it is run poorly, without love, and in the slavish service of an imagined community of retirees”.

The fact that nostalgia music television is popular is not only about reliving the past. There are aspects of those shows that can be translate and updated for modern audiences. Music venues are closing and struggling. They are under-financed. Music television has that opportunity to provide exposure and opportunity for rising artists and established alike. At a time when so many artists price fans out, it is this affordable option to see them perform. New music videos of any budget could be shown. It means they are not overlooked. Artists would feel inspired to reinvest in music videos. Mixing in older albums and nostalgia together with the cutting edge. A variety of genres and artists featured. Discussion and interviews. Music T.V. is not just about videos. There is so much to feature and highlight. The sad thing is that there is not enough investment in and care of a previous institution. I like the fact that Later… with Jools Holland continues and shows no signs of ending. That proves that music T.V. is not dead. It is about getting the right format. When that does happen, the market could grow. Lacking investment and faith in music T.V. is a dangerous thing. The more we lean into TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, the more insular and private music becomes. Songs and videos get shorter. Also, TikTok seems aimed at younger music fans and artists. Where do older artists find a space and crowd?! The vinyl revival and growth shows there is a lust for the tangible. People wanting something that last longer than digital music. I feel the same about music television. A longer-form show where you have to engage, rather than watch short videos or rely on having a short attention span. The death of music television is not here yet. We need to ensure that it never is. One of the reasons I am so passionate about music is because of music T.V. and all that it gave to people of my gnereation. To lose that would damage and deny the new generations coming through. To ignore and discount music television would be…

A real tragedy.

FEATURE: She Loves to Come for Her Ride: Digging into the Unusual and Unknown Sides of Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

 

She Loves to Come for Her Ride

Digging into the Unusual and Unknown Sides of Kate Bush

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AHEAD of the release…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993)

of the reissued edition of Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, I have been thinking about the more unusual and lesser-known sides of her career. Those facts and titbits that many might not know about. That book, written by Graeme Thomson, is an essential and authoritative biography. It has been revised to include more up to date events like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) featuring in Stranger Things (2022) and getting to number one. I am not sure how deep to go and what things casual Kate Bush fans know already. There are a couple of unknown bits of information I might need to consult the book about, as they are a pretty hazy memory. I think that Kate Bush was a big fan of The Muppets when she was younger. Especially Animal. I do remember, early on in the book, there is a section that says, one day, when Kate Bush was walking down the street, she thought someone was waving to her and she started waving back. Before realising it was actually someone washing the windows! I think the more we know about the unusual, the cute, the rare and deep, the better impression we get of Kate Bush. I am interested in reading a book or magazine that collects together some of this rarer content. The more unusual or lesser-known interviews. Facts about Bush and some gems that may not even be known to hardcore fans. I did put a shout-out on Twitter to see if anyone had any favourite unusual/odd Kate Bush facts. One person responded with a comment about how her favourite flavour of Angel Delight was butterscotch. I don’t want to give to much credence to the notion that Kate Bush is eccentric or this mythical figure. That is how she was painted by the media for years. This apparent recluse and oddity. When people write about Kate Bush or there are articles, all the more obvious and well-trodden information is provided. Readers rarely get to know more about her various sides. How many know that Kate Bush (and Del Palmer) were at the final Ziggy Stardust concert in 1973? Bush cried her eyes out when it was announced Ziggy Stardust was retiring. Maybe thinking that meant David Bowie was retiring, it was a shock. That concert was at the Hammersmith Odeon. No coincidence this is a venue Bush chosen to perform at during 1979’s The Tour of Life. It was also the venue Bush performed in for the twenty-two nights of 2014’s Before the Dawn (named now the Eventim Apollo).

I think, the more and more I hear Kate Bush on the radio and see her represented in the media, the more defined she is. In terms of the image, her songs and value. The way people describe her. The same words keeping coming up. It gets tiring. People do not go deep enough or bother trying. I realise that highlighting some rarer knowledge about Kate Bush might mean people double-down on calling her weird or witch-like! I do think that it (these facts) add charm, dimensions and depth. When I see features about Kate Bush facts, many of them are the same. There are few that go beyond that. I have collected a few I want to drop in. I would like to hear from anyone who might want to add something. There is a whole world of the back-road Kate Bush. These interviews, performances, trivia and factoids that would be tantalising for fans old and new alike! In terms of lost songs and opportunities that never were quite realised, one of the top is the fact that Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush were going to record a song together, Ibiza. Having not reached the studio, it would have been wonderful to have heard the song! Kate Bush appeared on several Peter Gabriel songs, though he never appeared on hers. The two have shared a stage. I do hope that if a new Kate Bush album comes, Peter Gabriel is included. In terms of songs that were recorded but never released, Never for Ever was completed during the sessions for 1978’s Lionheart. Bush did call her third studio album Never for Ever, although it does not have a title track. Bush disliked her vocal on the song. Producer Andrew Powell loved the vocal. It is a shame that this unreleased song may never come to light. I am going to hop around a bit in terms of time period and subject. Many might not know that Kate Bush (Cathy/Catherine as she would have been called) took up karate. Her eldest brother, John, was an instructor at Goldsmiths College Karate Club. I think that Bush practising karate fed into her love of dance and movement. She did this between writing songs and poetry for her school magazine. Her nickname at school was ‘Ee-ee’, due to her squeaky kiai – this is the battle cry made by combatants when performing an attack move.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982

Whilst The Kick Inside’s James and the Cold Gun was not about James Bond, Bush was approached by Bond producers to record the theme to Moonraker. This is one of the great what-ifs when it comes to artists who could have recorded classic Bond themes. Think about Lana Del Rey or Radiohead. When it came to Moonraker’s theme, the iconic Shirley Bassey eventually recorded it. She recorded one of the very best themes. It would have been intriguing hearing what Kate Bush did with that opportunity! People might not be aware that Kate Bush interviewed herself for fan-club newsletters. In 1987, Bush was interviewed by two fictitious characters – her aunt Hetty and cousin Zwort Finkle. Zwort enquired as to why Bush didn’t do that many interviews. She said: “I find it very difficult to express myself in interviews…Often people have so many preconceptions that I spend most of the interview trying to defend myself from the image that was created by the media eight years ago”. I may do another feature about relatively unseen interviews people should check out. Two very different ones from 1994 – this one here and this - are really important. Going back to the Kate Bush Club Magazine, in the Christmas 1981 issue, Bush wrote about a recent trip to Loch Ness, where she claimed to have seen a UFO: “I noticed three lights in the sky, descending in a diagonal line. Then they formed a horizontal line and remained static just below a layer of cloud. There were huge circular orange lights; and we set off in the car in hot pursuit. We thought maybe they were some kind of stadium lights, but they were too near to the clouds; and we had never seen aircraft with such big lights, nor that colour”.

A lot of people do not know what sort of music Kate Bush was inspired by. During an interview with Pulse, where Bush discussed songs that impacted her, she mentioned John Lennon’s #9 Dream, which featured on Walls and Bridges in 1974. Bush also mentioned Billie Holiday and Roxy Music. There were some odd musical collaborations and charity endeavours. Bush made a guest appearance on Spirit of the Forest, a 1989 Live Aid-style charity single also featuring Iggy Pop, Kim Wilde, Fish from Marillion, the Jungle Brothers and the Ramones. It was a flop! Perhaps not compelled by human voices the most, when asked by Radio 2 in 1996 who her favourite singer was, Bush said it was the blackbird, and her second favourite was the thrush. Perhaps that comes as no shock. In 1981, Kate Bush was interviewed by anthropologist Desmond Morris. Bush did not stumble when asked this question: “Do you like your voice?” She not only said that she didn’t, but she then eloquently explored and explained why. Kate Bush was never a fan of flying. Not necessarily scared of it, she did find it tiring. Not a shock really, as she lived in Australia for a bit as a child. Even so, in 1978, her attitude was more positive. She did say she wanted to fly more. That comment came after she flew to Holland in 1978. She made trips to Japan, Jamaica, the U.S. and Australia. One side of Kate Bush that is not explored is her pets. Her dogs, Bonnie and Clyde, appear on the cover of 1985’s Hounds of Love. At the time of Aerial's release, she had a dog called Ted. Pyewacket was a member of Kate Bush’s household during the late Seventies and Eighties. Living alongside Zoodle, he was the subject of a comic strip Bush drew for the Kate Bush Club Newsletter. Moving onto Kate Bush as a groundbreaking, she was the first singer/songwriter to stage a concert where she danced alongside a team of professional dancers. Bush did so whilst singing live through a headset microphone. She rewrote the rules on how artists could perform live. People often credit Michael Jackson with popularising and introducing cinematic videos. The truth is, by the time Thriller arrived in 1982, Bush had already released epic and cinematic videos.

Kate Bush did not dabble in advertising a lot. She did wrote a series of short instrumental pieces for a Coca-Cola fruit drink, Fruitpoia, in 1994. With a different piece for each flavour, they are well worth watching on YouTube. Way before American Idol and X Factor were known here and the U.S., Kate Bush took part, sort of, in a Japanese version in 1978. She debuted at a Tokyo Song Contest to promote her tour. Bush came in second. These are only a few of the odder facts and deeper bits of information that adds new colours and layers to Kate Bush. Such a phenomenally busy and diverse artist, I do crave for the day when there is a Kate Bush book where we dig down and discover all the wonderfully unusual bits of information about her. On social media, I learn something new about Kate Bush nearly every day. I go down YouTube wormholes and discover these videos I have never seen before. Finding odd photos and discovering new facts that make me fall deeper for everything about Kate Bush. If you are a new fan, I hope you have learned a few things about Kate Bush you did not know. Diehards might have their own facts and oddities they could pass my way. Rather than focus on the obvious songs and the same old narrative, there is much more to Kate Bush than meets the eye. She truly is one of the most fainting artists ever. I want to end by recommending people go and pre-order a copy of Graeme Thomson’s new edition of Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, which is published on 27th June. That will give you all the information and detail that you could ever need. The more you explore and the deeper you go, the wider your knowledge is. That is what makes Kate Bush…

SO very fascinating.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Pride Month: Modern-Day L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ Artists to Watch

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Mia Wray/PHOTO CREDIT: Madeline Kate

Pride Month: Modern-Day L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ Artists to Watch

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IT is Pride Month…

do I was keen to get to a playlist that combined modern-day L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists that need to be on your radar. I will put out another feature or two related to Pride, as it is important that it is discussed and celebrated. You can find out more important about Pride Month here. There are some wonderful Pride/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists on the scene at the moment. From legends and icons through to artists coming through, they are warrant highlighting and salute. It is great to hear radio stations put together playlists and dedicated their time to marking Pride. I am sure you will know some of these artists, though there are likely to be a few that are new. It would be great to hear any tips from people when it comes to artists that should be include on the playlist. In honour of this year’s Pride Month, below is a playlist of some contemporary L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists that you need to know about. As you will discover, they are truly fantastic. These are remarkable and important artists who are…

IN THIS PHOTO: Ray Laurél

FLYING the flag.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Lambrini Girls

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Titouan Massé

Lambrini Girls

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THERE might be a bit of…

confusion and inconsistency, in the sense that Lambrini Girls are a duo, though they are also in publicity photos with a third member, Banksy. Rather than refer to them as a trio, there are going to be photos with Banksy included. The interviews are with Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira. Recent cuts God’s Country and Body of Mine are incredible and stunning examples of the Punk duo’s prowess. Lambrini Girls should be on your radar. Earlier in the year, VOCAL GIRLS spoke with the duo. Following their E.P., You’re Welcome, Lambrini Girls are definitely on a mission. One of the most powerful and important acts in the country:

“Following last year’s debut EP ‘You’re Welcome’, Lambrini Girls are back with riotous new single ‘God’s Country’. To mark its release, VOCAL GIRLS chat to the band about using their platform and responsible activism.

“I don’t think there’s any point in being a punk band and releasing a political song that’s a pile of shit,” Phoebe Lunny, vocalist and guitarist of punk duo Lambrini Girls, says firmly. She’s reflecting on their latest single, ‘God’s Country’, which takes thrashing aim at the pretty bleak state of affairs in the UK right now. “Just saying ‘don’t trust your government, let’s have a fucking beer, waheeeey’ – it trivialises it,” she continues. “I wanted [‘God’s Country’] to actually be attuned to the current political landscape.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Brodie Florence

To date, Lambrini Girls (completed by bassist Lilly Macieira) have followed the same highly-charged and unwavering path, confronting social issues such as lad culture, misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia across last year’s ‘You’re Welcome’ EP. They’re now hunkering down on a farm to write their debut album, where they do at least have the idylls of Oxfordshire countryside – complete, as they cheerfully inform me, with horses, chickens and geese – to offset the doom. ‘God’s Country’ is the first single to bridge the gap between the two projects: twisting hot-headed, flag-wielding patriotism on its head to poke holes in its logic, the song takes “God save the king” as its snarling refrain – an unfortunate coincidence given last week’s announcement of Charles’ cancer diagnosis. “The timing of that!” Phoebe sighs, shaking her head ruefully. “What can you do? That’s out of our control.”

One issue Lambrini Girls have always shouted loud about is the treatment of women and non-binary people, from their avid support of trans rights and ‘FUCK TERFS’ merch to songs like ‘Boys in the Band’,  which calls out the toxic culture enabling assault (“Problematic and well connected / But it's still being deflected / Because we separate the art from the artist”). The government’s Misogyny in Music report, published at the end of January, therefore came as little shock to either of them. “People on X [fka Twitter] were [reacting] like–,” Phoebe slaps a hand across her mouth to feign outrage, “–what?!” She sighs, exasperated. “What do you mean ‘what?’! This is our whole fucking lives! This is every non-male person’s career in music. It’s like everyone forgot the #MeToo movement happened, or think it just exclusively applied to the film industry. No!”

“Among women and queer people it’s common knowledge,” Lilly nods. “When I was first getting into music, my mum warned me about the industry and said ‘you never have to do anything you don’t want to do’, blah blah blah. Even she was completely aware of what it’s like.”

An example of social media’s mixed blessings, in the wake of the report, Instagram provided a space for people to share solidarity as well as their own experiences. Phoebe points to a statement posted by Izzy Baxter Phillips, frontperson of Black Honey. “I think what’s beautiful is that the more people who are vocal, the less scary it gets,” Phoebe says. “[Izzy’s] in a relatively big band, so a lot of smaller bands, or a lot of women or queer people, are gonna see that and think ‘it’s safe for me to do that too’. It makes it a lot easier for other people who might be a bit scared to do so – which is slay!”

Among other things, the report aims to limit the use of NDAs and develop a school programme to combat misogyny in boys. The latter point feels most critical for digging out the problem’s cultural root, but that is far easier said than done. “I feel like we’re in this weird sensationalist cycle where this kind of thing comes out and there’s a temporary uproar about it, but no one’s actually learning from it,” Lilly says. “People don’t take responsibility and don’t look at their roles in these things – particularly men, to be honest. The people who are affected by it are lower down in the power dynamic because we’re affected by it; that’s the inherent nature of it.”

“You have to recognise your privilege and use it to open dialogues, which might even get you in a bit of shit,” Phoebe agrees. “Every non-male person is putting their fucking neck on the line – it’s not enough to just see it and be like ‘aw yeah, that’s shit, let me repost that’.”

Challenging “cis geezers” and the generally unconverted to accept their sermon is why festivals and support slots are an important part of the Lambrini Girls agenda. “If you’re preaching to the choir 24/7 you’re enforcing your bubble, but you’re not making it any bigger,” Phoebe says. “In a crowd of 700 people, you might change one person’s mind, or at least make them think; that’s what’s important.” In fact, making people think seems to be the band’s raison d’être. Theirs is not a hollow, controversial-for-the-sake-of-it rehash of punk; nor is it aloof, claiming absolute wisdom from atop the high horse. Instead, Lambrini Girls are navigating both the political and digital landscape with admirable transparency - learning as they go - and making sure to scream their lungs out about any and all prejudice they see along the way”.

In February, DIY chatted with Lambrini Girls. They explained how they wanted to piss people off and make them question themselves. They are releasing such potent music that everyone needs to hear. With stations such as BBC Radio 6 Music shouting about them, this duo are primed for headline stages:

“Lambrini Girls, their vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lunny explains, has always been “a passion project”. Born from the bones of a different band and a frustration with the Brighton music scene (and beyond), the project started in earnest when Phoebe met bassist Lilly Macieira-Bosgelmez - who’d been given 24 hours to learn the band’s set from scratch - and “something just clicked”.

Both were ambitious, determined to try and make music their career. More importantly, both were angry: about the ubiquity of misogynistic and homophobic ‘lad culture’; about the widespread occurrences of sexual assault at gigs; about the musicians and fans who perpetuate these behaviours. And so they set about addressing all these issues and more via the medium of fiery, three-minute punk scorchers - music that is virtually unignorable, intensely powerful, and utterly memorable.

“Hey mum / Why haven’t I had a boyfriend? / Um, maybe it’s because I’m potentially a lesbian?” Phoebe intones on debut single ‘Help Me I’m Gay’. Live, its performance involves asking the crowd to “put your hand up if you’re gay!” - something which can variously be “a celebration of people’s queerness” if there are lots of hands, or simply a way to show people that they’re not alone. And in encouraging this sort of community in others, the pair have gained confidence in their own identities, too. “I was a little bit more of a late bloomer with my sexuality,” says Lilly. “I started off saying ‘I’m half gay’, because I’m bisexual, and then with time I learned that actually, that’s not being half gay - [bisexuality] counts just as much. There are some parts of the queer community where you can be made to feel a bit invalidated as a bisexual person, so the band really helped me in that sense.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

Elsewhere on Lambrini Girls’ 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’, tracks like ‘White Van’, ‘Lads Lads Lads’ and ‘Boys In The Band’ take aim at society’s deeply embedded problems with sexual harassment, with the latter placing the alternative music scene under particular scrutiny. Do they think that any significant progress has been made with tackling abuse culture within the industry? “In Brighton, it seems like people are being a lot more vigilant of it and opening dialogues,” muses Phoebe. “But I think there’s a lot of work to be done in London. It’s not a safe space; there are bands that are actively known to have done very dodgy stuff who still get to play the venues everyone else does.”

The first step towards stamping out these sorts of behaviours, the band believe, is “calling out your mates and believing victims.” Lilly explains that “we’re not trying to peddle a sort of inconsequential cancel culture where you hear something bad about someone then immediately cut them out. If someone is willing to take responsibility or explore the ways in which they might have hurt someone, that’s something really positive to go off.” The same can be said for their attitude towards the social discourse surrounding trans rights; in an era where social media has us primed to think in absolutes, it’s important to give people the grace to get it wrong (misgendering someone, for example) - providing they’re willing to learn.

“There’s ignorance on one hand,” says Phoebe, who is currently sporting a Lambrini Girls cap emblazoned with the words ‘FUCK TERFS’. “Then there’s wilful ignorance. There are people who are being actively hateful and are trying to stop other people just having human rights.” But, as Lilly acknowledges, “fifty years ago we’d be having this conversation about homophobia rather than transphobia. So I’d like to hope that [trans rights] will change with time.”

Phoebe also points out that these conversations shouldn’t centre around the band. Rather, their goal is “to show allyship and use [their] platform to bring these conversations into a slight mainstream” - something they believe is intrinsic to being a punk artist. “If you’re building your platform off politics, you have to put your money where your mouth is. If you’re a political punk band, then you do have a degree of responsibility to use your platform for good”.

Last month, Lambrini Girls were interviewed by Rolling Stone UK at Awake Festival. Among their missions is to make men speak up when they see things that aren’t okay. So much modern music is empty and is all about love stories and personal woes. The music of Lambrini Girls seems much more important. They are tackling themes and asking questions that the biggest artists in the world are not. You almost wish that roles were reversed and Lambrini Girls got to tour the world and have tens of thousands of people watching them:

“The Brighton punk duo address the issue on their song ‘Boys In The Band’, which sees them take aim at musicians who take advantage of their status to commit heinous acts.

“Hide your drink, from the boys in music, Before you pass out in their limousine,” comes their stark warning on the song.

Taking aim at victim-blaming, they add: “It was completely your fault, you can’t prove it was assault. And you shouldn’t have got so drunk at their gig.”

Before performing the track at last weekend’s Wide Awake Festival, the pair also encouraged attendees to call out their friends whenever they are confronted with inappropriate behaviour.

Speaking backstage, vocalist Phoebe Lunny told Rolling Stone UK: “It’s really important to us. We’re both women, so it’s something that we can relate to directly because it’s one in four women.

“Any crowd can relate to what we’re saying because half the crowd has experienced it, it’s something which is happening constantly and it is a massive societal issue that we have. It does really just stem from the fact that people hate confrontation, calling out their friends and actually speaking to their friends about it.

“Especially in music scenes, everyone just wants to be popular. Everyone wants everyone to like them. So when they hear something dodgy, they don’t say anything.”

She went on: “I’ve been that person [who doesn’t anything] myself, I know I have. But it comes from opening a dialogue and educating yourself and learning and also relating to something hat you can’t really relate to yourself sometimes.”

Her bandmate, Lilly Maciera, added: “I think also what we’re trying to do is trying to get men specifically to take accountability and to get more involved in things that they are seeing happening. Because I think the issue applies to all of us. I don’t think it is just men, but because of the power dynamic that exists between men and women, I think generally it shouldn’t be this way, but men hold a lot of power. And I think there’s a difference between women being like, this is fucked up, this is not OK and a man saying that.

“I think the reason for this is because women can relate to experiences as such. And I think men generally can, but not all of them. And it’s less likely for men to be able to relate to these kinds of experiences because I think micro-aggressions are a part of our daily lives. I think they are part of all women’s daily lives, and I don’t think they’re a part of men’s daily lives. So I think it’s all about making men feel aware about their privilege and trying to get them to be able to identify situations that are not OK and trying to encourage men to speak up about things when they see things that are not OK”

Explaining how the song reflects the “social climate we’re in,” Maciera went on to explain how parallels can be made with the importance of speaking out against the ongoing war in Gaza.

“The genocide that’s happening at the moment is the same thing. We’re not directly affected by it, are we? But it’s very important to stand up for it,” she said”.

I really love Lambrini Girls. They are such a vital force for change and conversation. Releasing stunning music that has real depth and bite, you need to get involved and follow them. As they are on the radar of some big music websites and radio stations, you are going to see them climb even higher with each new single. I cannot wait for an album from them. Artists that call out the bad and unlawful, compel change in those not doing enough, and who are also committed and passionate activists is…

ONLY be a good thing.

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Follow Lambrini Girls

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/lambrinigirlz

Twitter:

https://x.com/Lambrini_Girls

TikTok:

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

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr33PPOQ3kfnONhM6a49CGA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6VR4TJ20WGiho2xZWMuuWb?si=rNiyQIwETIW8ZruCXIITog

Bandcamp:

https://lambrinigirlsband.bandcamp.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LambriniGirlsband/

FEATURE: Spotlight: Charlotte Day Wilson

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Charlotte Day Wilson

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ONE of the best albums…

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Tammaro

of the year has come from the magnificent Charlotte Day Wilson. Cyan Blue came out in May and is an album that you need to add to your collection. I have been following her for a while now. Although she has been making music for a long time, many might know her as a collaborator rather than a solo artist. Her second studio album announces her as a major talent who you need to watch out for. I would urge people to pick up Cyan Blue. This is what Rough Trade say:

“Toronto-born-and-raised singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Day Wilson announces her highly-anticipated sophomore album Cyan Blue via Stone Woman Music / XL Recordings. Cyan Blue finds Wilson crafting a smoothly woven cyan tapestry of her eternal influences; thumping gospel piano, warm soul basslines, atmospheric electronics, and penetrating R&B melodies. Yet, it possesses a sense of vastness that rings in a new era for Wilson, one in which she’s embracing collaboration and newfound creative openness tinged with wistfulness and yearning and a reflection on youthful  innocence. “I want to look through the unjaded eyes of my younger self again,” Wilson explains of making Cyan Blue. “Before there wasn’t as much baggage, before so much life was lived. But I also wish that my younger self could see where I am now. It would be nice to be able to impart some of the wisdom and clarity that I have now onto her.”

Working with producers like Leon Thomas (SZA, Ariana Grande, Post Malone), and Jack Rochon (H.E.R, Daniel Caesar), Cyan Blue demonstrates Wilson’s sonic expertise while also showcasing the next evolution of her time-bending songwriting. Through 13 hypnotizing tracks, she continues to use music as a vessel for unpacking relationships, which in turn allows her to meet and understand herself in life-spanning, panoramic focus. But, on Cyan Blue, she challenged herself to kick her perfectionist tendencies.  “Before, I was extremely intentional about creating music with a strong foundation, a bed of artistic integrity,” Wilson reflects. “But that was a bit stifling, like, ‘Let me just make a great piece of art that will stand the test of time, no pressure.’ Now, I think I'm getting out of this frozen state of needing everything to be perfect. I'm more interested in capturing feelings in the moment as they happen and leaving them in that moment.”

While this is only her second album, Wilson’s influence in music has made a major mainstream impact. Wilson broke out in 2016 with her critically acclaimed EP, CDW, followed by 2018’s Stone Woman and made her debut studio album an official coming out moment in 2021 with the critically acclaimed, self-released Alpha.  Over the past decade, she’s been sampled by Drake, John Mayer, and James Blake, while Patti Smith has recently praised and covered Wilson’s 2016 breakout single “Work.” Additionally, she’s collaborated with artists like Kaytranada, BADBADNOTGOOD, and SG Lewis, demonstrating that there’s no sound Wilson can’t adapt to and sprinkle her cyan-colored magic over”.

Cyan Blue is a beautiful and instantly memorable album. Highlighting the fact Charlotte Day Wilson is a phenomenal songwriter. One of these artists that you need to hear. I have a few interviews that are worth sourcing. The first, from Sniffers, takes us inside a remarkable album:

“In Laurel Canyon, alongside her co-producer Jack Rochon, Charlotte Day Wilson crafted her sophomore album ‘Cyan Blue’; a graceful exploration of self through past-reflections and future desires.

While Wilson is known to have self-produced the majority of her previous projects,—from her 2016 EP ‘CDW’, and 2018 EP ‘Stone Woman’, to her 2021 debut album ‘Alpha’—‘Cyan Blue’ is a testament to creative easement achieved through collaboration.

For 'Cyan Blue,' Wilson prioritized enjoying her creative process over the pressure of producing a perfect final product. During recording sessions, she would drive to Ranson’s house each day before heading to the studio together. She shares, “those short drives were as important to us as working on the music, to listen to references while taking moments to check in on each other.” After completing ‘Cyan Blue’, Wilson stated that Rochon allowed her to feel “completely free and weird and able to make mistakes”, stressing to us the importance of having Rochon’s name “loud and clear since he was seminal to the creation of ‘Cyan Blue’.”

The creative freedom that Rochon granted Wilson doesn’t fall on deaf ears, rather their collaborative venture stands as Wilson’s most vulnerable and thought provoking feat to date. Transversing time over 13 life-chronicling tracks, ‘Cyan Blue’’s emotional resonance provides an earnest vantage point into Wilson’s desire for a clear understanding of self.

Hi Charlotte, it’s nice to meet you. Congrats on the new project.

Hello, thank you so much!

I wanted to start off by chatting about the title track ‘Cyan Blue’. You say a reflective line to your younger self; “I wish I could see through your eyes one more time”, can you expand on this wishful thought?

In general I’m on a perpetual journey of trying to connect with my inner child. I feel the most connected with myself when I feel close to the person I was when I was a child. I believe at our core we’re always those people, that we are who we are from a very young age.

Something I’ve always been aware of is my grief towards the fact that we can’t truly feel feelings again, and while we may remember the events that emotionally moved us, or recall what hurt us, or why we felt love, we don’t actually remember how those feelings felt as we lived them. As a deeply emotional person, I’ve enjoyed talking to my younger self about what those experiences felt like for me.

Looking into the future, your track “New Day” revolves around your desire to be a mother. Can you tell us about the personal narrative you shaped within the lyrics?

I wrote ‘New Day’ as I was confronting the heavy feelings I encounter when I think about being a mother in a lesbian relationship, specifically about how only one mother can be genetically tied to the child. This reality hurts sometimes, and while it’s not something I’ve necessarily spoken openly about, I hope that in putting these thoughts into a song that other people in Queer relationships who are experiencing these same feelings feel seen and heard.

I read in a past interview of yours that at the tail end of making ‘Alpha’ you began to deep dive into Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’; Did Joni’s song writing inform your storytelling approach for ‘Cyan Blue’?

Honestly, at large, not really. While that is a seminal album, and though I was working in Laurel Canyon, and she was a big Laurel Canyon girl, I was just using ‘blue’ as a lens to connect to the world around me.

What role did Laurel Canyon play as a backdrop to the creation of your album?

What was important for me in creating this album was to have fun with my friend and collaborator, I wanted to enjoy the process more than anything else. I didn't really care how it ended up, at the end it was just about the process and really enjoying it. Everyday in Laurel Canyon I would pick Jack Rochon up from his house and drive him to the studio, those short drives were as important to us as working on the music, to listen to references while taking moments to check in on each other”.

There are a couple of other interviews and a review that I am keen to get to. ELLE talked to Charlotte Day Wilson about her experiences from adolescence that she brings into Cyan Blue. I am fascinated by album titles that mention colours. How they have an emotional attachment. A variegated palette of albums where the titular colour holds a special significance for the artist. As Day Wilson says in the interview: “I was experiencing some sort of synesthesia with a color between green and blue”:

“Since your debut album ALPHA came out in 2021, what’s changed?

A big thing that’s changed is that things aren’t shut down anymore. My last album came out during the pandemic and I was working on it for the majority of the pandemic. It was a pretty isolating experience. It was hard to feel connected to everyone around when we were all so alone. My process with that album creatively was very insular and very isolating. I was just by myself playing everything and writing everything. Now, I’m coming out of that.

How do you feel about that album now that you’re a few years removed from it?

I love it more than I did when it came out. At the time, I still felt those perfectionist things like wanting to keep tinkering with it and not feeling sure if things were done. Now that time has passed, I think it’s aged well, for me at least.

What were you interested in exploring with Cyan Blue?

Connection. I think it’s one of the most human pursuits that we have as people. We want to connect with other folks, whether it’s people in our community, our neighbors, our partners, our friends, our parents. We want to find those moments.

Did the album title come before the songs?

No, it was a bit about halfway through that I started to think that maybe that could be the title. The other thing with the title is that my eyes are green and blue. On the title track “Cyan Blue,” I talk about how I wish I could see through my younger eyes. That’s a theme that I tend to lean towards a lot, talking to my younger self or different versions of myself. Whether it’s past, present, or future, it’s something that I find really interesting in music. So I follow those leads. Music is a vessel for me to talk to my younger self. It’s healing.

The ninth track on the album is a cover of “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. Was that another way you were calling back to your childhood?

[Laughs] I was lying in bed one night and I started singing “Over the Rainbow” to myself while I was in that weird liminal space between being asleep and being awake. And I was just laughing because I was changing the lyrics and turning it into a song about when a girl is over her gay phase. It was like, “Oh, she’s over the rainbow now.” So then I rewrote a bunch of lyrics to it and I recorded it like that, but we couldn’t get that cleared. So then I had to do a straight cover. In the end, I did find a lot of amazing metaphors that tied in with the rest of the album and it’s just such a beautiful song and I love the arrangement that my friend Jack [Rochon, her co-producer] and I did for it.

I wish they had cleared your original idea.

I think I’ll perform it on stage and people can hear the harshness of what the lyrics were. I think in the end it was a blessing in disguise that I wasn’t allowed to say what I was saying.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matthew Tammaro

That’s a good incentive to catch you on tour.

[Laughs] Yeah.

I also really like the song “New Day” where you sing about motherhood. What’s the story behind that one?

That’s definitely the most deeply personal song on the record. It’s about something that myself and my community and my partner talk about, but I don’t think I’ve heard people write about it before. The song is about the grief and pain that you go through as a queer person in a queer relationship when you’re thinking about having children and how only one parent can be genetically tied to that child. So I’ve always thought about how that would feel. It’s a song about how I want the child and even if she doesn’t have my face, she’ll have my name. So that’s what it’s about. I just want a new day, a new Charlotte Day.

Do you ever feel nervous about being vulnerable in your music, especially in this internet era where things get misconstrued so easily?

I do, but that’s what art is. It’s pure expression. And I know that if it’s something that’s really vulnerable, then other people have felt it too and they probably have been scared to say it or haven’t had an arena to commiserate with other people about it. The thing that I get more scared about is putting out songs that I’m not 100 percent sure are completely true to me.

Did you listen to any music while making the album?

No, I tend to not listen to music when I’m working on my projects because I feel like I absorb too much and I don’t ever want to be too heavily influenced by something. Even if I listen to a song on the way to the studio when I’m in that creative state, there’s a chance that I might end up being like, “Oh, I wanna make something like this.”

I immediately thought of Joni Mitchell’s album Blue, since the title is similar.

That was an influence. I was staying in Laurel Canyon and I was in this blue phase and obviously that album is a hugely influential album for me. But, I don’t know if I would... it’s tough. I feel like some of my heroes have been disappointing me recently. I just found out that she’s done blackface and has an album [Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter] where she’s in blackface. It’s crazy that a lot of people don’t know about that. And she’s never said anything publicly about that or apologized. The same goes for Patti Smith who’s covered my song “Work.” I can’t rock with her anymore because she has a song [“Rock N Roll N*****”] that she [released in the seventies], but she’s continued to perform it up until 2019 and has never apologized for it. It’s tough when you have these people who are hugely influential to you, but can’t rock with anymore. I was so touched that she was covering my song, but disappointed to find those things out.

Wow, I didn’t know that.

It’s fucked up. Everyone should just learn how to take responsibility for their weird fucking actions that they took in the sixties and seventies and somehow didn’t understand that that was wrong. And if you don’t understand that it was wrong at this point, then something’s really wrong with you. And if you can’t say sorry and know that you should apologize, then you’re not cool in my books.

Are you a self-taught producer?

Mostly. But I have had some really important sessions with people and some great mentors who have given me the time of day to let me ask questions about every little thing that they’re doing. But YouTube also taught me a lot.

With this new album, what did you want to achieve artistically?

What I set out to do with this body of work was to challenge my perfectionism and to just capture a moment in time and not obsess over any of the details of how this work was being put together. That was deeply in contrast to my process before. So I definitely achieved that with the help of my co-producer Jack. And I’m super proud of that. I feel like I’ve really grown because of this experience”.

The final interview is from FADER. I know this is a long feature already. It is important in exploring and properly spotlighting such a magnificent artist. With two remarkable albums under her belt (her debut, ALPHA, came out in 2021), there will be many more eyes on Charlotte Day Wilson. A fantastic artist who I hope comes to the U.K. to play at some point. At the moment she is touring North America. I would love to see and feel Cyan Blue come to life on the stage:

“The other side of the album is wishing you could relive your youth with the knowledge of adulthood. What kind of wisdom would you pass on to the teenage Charlotte?

First and foremost, be yourself. I think that's the hardest question that teens and young adults are faced with, "Who am I?" Early on in my music career, there were a lot of people encouraging me to just stay true to myself. But I didn't quite know who I was at that point, maybe because of all the things that distract and bring us further from our core childhood selves.

I would also say something like, "You will find who you are and you will not be alone and feeling confused as to why you can't see yourself in anyone around you. You'll find love, first of all, and second of all, a community."

Was there anything you wanted to capture with Cyan Blue that maybe you didn't or couldn't on Alpha?

I wanted to work in a way that was different and a little bit more uninhibited than how Alpha came together. Jack fosters a very safe space in the studio and it just felt like we were pushing each other out of our comfort zones. We both have slightly perfectionist tendencies, and so we were pushing each other to just follow our intuitions, not editing any instincts musically or creatively. It was fun to kind of have a partner in crime for that.

In what ways would he push you?

He would be honest with me when he thought something was not up to par. That liberated me. He was totally open about just saying, ‘That's not quite it. Just keep going.’

“Forever” samples The Foundations's "Baby Now That I've Found You." What was it about that song that made you want to sample it?

There's this Alison Krauss cover of that song, a super beautiful country version, that my dad used to play growing up all the time. I just sat down at the piano one day and was like, "Let me learn this song, it's so pretty." I make samples all the time and that ended up being one of them.

Something that I was dealing with when I was working on the album, and it's kind of heady and existential, was what you feel when you meet someone who you actually feel like you could spend the rest of your life with. It's the most beautiful feeling but you also have to confront your own mortality when you think about forever with someone, because forever is not infinite.

That's something that I was working through a lot on this project. That feeling of, "Wow, I might have met the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, but that's not enough time with them."

“New Day” is written about having children in a queer relationship. I’m not sure I have heard anyone sing from the angle you take on that song before. Was that partly why you wrote it?

I think that song is my favorite one on the record, and also the most personal and vulnerable. It's something that I've thought about a lot, and that folks in my community have thought a lot about.
Watching people around me have children, and how so much of the experience of meeting two people's child, in our culture, we're so obsessed with being like, "He has your eyes and your nose." While I love doing that too with the folks in my life there was always a little bit of sadness attached to those moments for me, because I’d be thinking about the fact that that'll never happen for me.

Those were some big feelings that I needed to write about. I knew after I had written it that I also hadn't heard anything like that. It felt important to include on the record. I think in some ways, the song feels more like a celebration of coming to terms with the fact that any child that I raise will be my child no matter what.

Someone I wanted to talk about outside of the album is Patti Smith, who is a big fan of yours and has covered your song “Work” live for a few years now. That must have been surreal for you?

It was really moving at first. I read Just Kids at a pretty formative time of my life and it did inspire me to pursue a creative lifestyle in a lot of ways. Hearing her cover “Work” was one of those big kind of "pinch-me" moments, too. Since then, however, I've been made aware that she has a song from the sixties called “Rock and Roll N Word.”

She's never commented on it or apologized for it so I really don't rock with her anymore. I think that it's disgusting that she has such a violent song in the first place, and that she thought she had the authority to use a word like that and to subvert it in her own way.

I sent her a DM telling her, "I think it's a disgusting song, and I think that you should really think about apologizing.” It's obviously extremely disappointing and really sad to see. She never responded but I really think that she should be ashamed of herself.

Someone you have been working with is Nelly Furtado. What can you say about those sessions?

We've written a couple of things together. It’s an amazing experience to work with someone like her. She's just such a legend and it was really an honor to work with her. We text all the time, and she sends me music that she thinks I'll like. It's always very folky. It's really sweet”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Emily Lipson

There is another interview I am including prior to ending with a review. CLASH. There are a lot of great insights and answers. I am particularly interested in what she says about the Toronto scene. I don’t think that this area is covered enough when it comes to musical excellence. Toronto has always produced incredible artists. I can imagine it is boiling over with so many unique and fascinating musicians:

“Since your songs have always carried an emotional weight to them, would you agree that the relationships we find ourselves in are meant to build character and define who we’re meant to be in the future?

Oh yeah, I definitely agree. Not to be corny, but everything happens for a reason and no matter what, we are conscious of what we take away from any given relationship. Like I think it’s all for character building and I don’t know – I’m a believer of destiny to be honest and I think whether it’s a way of coping with the things that come our way or not, I believe that everything happens for a reason. No regrets ever in this life is basically how I try to live.

What initially shaped that perspective for you?

I guess just coming to a place now where I feel very in control of my emotional state. I feel like I’m in a place of acceptance and knowing that no matter what happens, basically, I’ll always be okay. I’m very blessed to have a very loving family and group of close friends, and I think having that foundation of love allows me to kind of go through the external experiences of my life and know that they are all kind of like… nothing will rock me at this point, basically, you know?

How important is it to establish those relationships as you get older?

Yeah, big time. I really do think friends and family are important. To me, my loved ones are the people who hold it down for me and on any given day – no matter what happens with work or anything else – if you have your people in your corner, you’re good.

In terms of the production on your second album ‘Cyan Blue’, what was it like working with Jack Rochon compared to your initial and later recording sessions for ‘Alpha’?

It was a completely different experience for me which was really fun. It’s fun to try something new at this stage in my career. My whole thesis for this new project wasn’t necessarily any sort of concept in terms of the content and lyrics, but my thesis was just I want to have fun making it. Working on ‘Alpha’ and ‘Stone Woman’, I love that music and I’m proud of it but it wasn’t always fun to work on because I spent so much time alone laboring over the granular details of the work.

I learned a lot in that process and I’m really glad that I did it because now I feel like as a producer, technically I can kind of do whatever. Any vision I have I can generally achieve production-wise on my own. But it’s just time-consuming and it can be lonely, and I was working on ‘Alpha’ during the pandemic so that was a lot of alone time already. Working with someone else – Jack specifically because I love him so much, he’s such an amazing human, an amazing collaborator, amazing musician, producer, everything. It not only accelerated the recording process, but it also made it way more fun. Just like sharing that experience with someone felt really comforting for me.

What influenced you to move on from your perfectionist tendencies? And are you still harsh on yourself when it comes to your creative intuition?

I think I have a standard that I hold myself to that is probably, generally, pretty harsh at times. But I think what motivated me to switch my process up was that I didn’t know if I was having fun, and with this project, conceptually to a certain extent and in my life and my approach with everything, I’m trying to connect with my inner child. I think we are who we are from a very young age and the further we stray from that inner child, for me personally, I feel disconnected from myself. And something that I always loved doing as a child and even as a teenager and a young adult before I really had an established career in music, was entering into a flow state with music – just having a state and feeling of play and deep imagination. And also collaboration, having fun with friends.

That’s how most people get into music because it’s a fun thing to do with friends, and the further I got away from that, I felt disconnected from myself and as a result, I think music suffers when you’re not having fun making it. I was just trying to get back to a place of joy in the process and I definitely achieved that so for me I hope that the album does well, of course, but I also just know that I had a great time making it and it’s a success in my eyes because it was a joy to make.

PHOTO CREDIT: Emily Lipson

With Toronto having its own abundance of creativity and community, was it a challenge at all to write an album without having that familiar collaborative environment in your orbit?

I mean Jack is such a familiar Toronto person for me that I think that’s what grounded me. I don’t think I could have done it with someone who I wasn’t as familiar with. I think Toronto comes with me everywhere I go and another nice thing about the entire Toronto music community is that we always find each other in other cities too. I would also say that my Toronto music community no longer really connects in Toronto, we connect elsewhere. I don’t know what that says but I think maybe people have a similar thing with me where it’s helpful to leave the city and just leave the routine of home to tap into a 24/7 creative headspace.

What’s the inspiration behind the song ‘Do U Still’?

Well, funnily enough, you know how I’m talking about this state of play? That song came about basically as a joke. Jack and I were done working for the day and I think that maybe I was taking longer to pack up than Jack was so he was ready to leave. I was just putzing around the studio, packing up or something, and he sat down at the piano and started playing a couple chords and I just started it as a joke, singing but also kind of like screaming those lyrics [laughs]. I don’t know. They just kind of came out of me, you know? I’m not going to say exactly what they’re inspired by but it did come as a joke, like “Do you still love me?”. Just as a joke, you know? And then he was just laughing and I was like “Honestly, I kind of feel like maybe that’s a song”. Again, the creative process is so different every time and that one felt very different. As much as it’s about hoping that someone still loves you, it’s a lighthearted tune that started in a very lighthearted manner.

With “I Don’t Love You” being a small reminder that leaving love can be just as inspiring as finding it, is it difficult at all to write about lost loves and the heartache that can come with failed relationships? Or is it just a part of the process of finding peace in yourself?

I don’t find it difficult to write about – I think it’s super cathartic to write about. But releasing it is sometimes a different story. Because usually, you know, there’s some person that it’s inspired by and I do believe that in order for a grieving process to be complete, you usually do have to cut off communication and when I have this platform as a songwriter to put out my music, it’s almost as though there’s still a conversation, you know? It’s a bit of an odd privilege but also a responsibility that you have to tell a story from your perspective and I just hope sometimes that people know that I’m only singing from my perspective and that there’s always an element of storytelling and it’s not 100% rooted in whatever is factually going on in my life. I squint at reality all the time just to follow wherever the path of least resistance is taking me in the songwriting process.

For me, it’s one of those things where I might think that I have healed from something but then I start writing a song and these lyrics flow out of me, and my subconscious is banging on the door of my vessel to tell me that I still need to process a couple of things. I think it’s cool to be kind of exposed to things within your subconscious that you maybe thought were all well and good and you clearly have to get out somehow.

One interesting line from the single ‘I Don’t Love You’ is the lyric: “It’s more peaceful being heartbroken than crying every night for you”. When did you come to terms with that realization? And how has it changed your perspective on love and relationships?

That’s a good question. I think we all have different understandings of what love is and I have, in many phases of my life, thought that love is just about perseverance no matter what and loyalty no matter what, and to acknowledge that love is just actually letting someone be their full self and encouraging their own kind of growth as a person… I don’t know. I feel like that’s what real love is to me and while being heartbroken is an awful feeling, I do think that finding peace within yourself can be cathartic. I don’t know. Being stuck in something negative is way worse. I don’t know… I don’t have a good answer for that [laughs].

While it’s equally beautiful and complicated, do you still have an obsession with love?

I do, of course, because I believe that love is the meaning of life. Simply put. I don’t really care if it sounds cliche, but I live my life with a pretty strong acceptance and understanding that without love, there isn’t a purpose to any of this. And ‘love’ extends to platonic relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, and familial relationships, and to love well and be loved well is the thing that makes me feel the most complete as a person and the most at peace and at ease. It makes me feel like I can enjoy every day knowing that I’m surrounded by love. So yeah, I would say that hell yeah I’m still obsessed with love [laughs].

What wisdom do you hope to impart on others with ‘Cyan Blue’? And is there a lesson or realization that you hope listeners can take with them into the summer months?

The wisdom and the message that I hope people can come away with in terms of this project – they might not know it if they don’t read the interviews – but really, what I want people to know is that this shit has to be fun. You gotta’ have fun making it and if it feels like you’re fighting with the music, then there’s no point in doing it. Find whatever circumstances it is that you need to have a Tabula Rasa brain going into each session in order to enter into a good headspace and just enjoy the process. Because life is short and just wishing away time or ‘stressing away’ time is selling ourselves short of the joy of the beautiful thing that is making music and making art. Whatever your rituals are with listening to the album in a car, number one is definitely turn it up loud”.

There are a selection of really positive reviews for Cyan Blue. I want to highlight one from Spill Magazine. They had some interesting takes on Charlotte Day Wilson’s second studio album. If you have not heard it then I would recommend you take a listen. It is truly one of the best of this year:

“With the release of her second full-length album, Charlotte Day Wilson provides a captivating musical production, one that is as engaging as it is sonically mesmerizing. Fans of the Toronto native have been eagerly awaiting the follow-up to her 2021 release Alpha, and thankfully she rewarded such patience with Cyan Blue, an album very much worth the wait. Packed with a spectacular range of entrancing melodies and a rather peachy rhythmic groove, this new release marks a significant sonic achievement.

Nothing sparks a soulful record quite like a well-orchestrated rhythm section. The pulsating groove confidently established throughout Cyan Blue sets the perfect backdrop for Wilson’s atmospheric vocal performance. The album opens with “My Way”, a driving tune where the underlying rhythm courses along a distinct current, teasing what is to come with a gospel-like flare. The shimmering guitar sprawled out over the infectious bass in “Do You Still” demands attention and stimulates the listener, hooking them into Wilson’s refreshing musical discourse. The dynamic range in Cyan Blue isn’t gigantic but it is staggeringly impactful. Floating away from the pulsating groove of the livelier songs, she delivers many moments where tracks are stripped down and this is where the album truly begins to glow.

The record plays like a personal reflection, one that is intimate and honest. Wilson’s voice is tranquilizing, echoing through the darkness and coaxing the listener into submission. The quieter moments are where Wilson truly provides a visceral listening experience. At the end of “I Don’t Love You”, a glaringly exclamatory song, the ensemble is reduced to a subtle bass line huddled underneath Wilson’s voice, a move that builds an intensity in her lyrical statements. This kind of dynamic restraint recurs often throughout the album and lends a potency to the melancholic tracks. In “New Day” a haunting melody is presented through the fusion of vocals and piano, both following the same fluttering tune. The result is a wonderfully somber song that digs into the sonic psyche, leading the listener into the sobering world that Wilson has created.

Cyan Blue is loaded with a spectacular range of infectious melodies, subtle ambience and even some unexpected surprises. A pensive rendition of the classic tune “Over The Rainbow” hides deep in the middle of the record and offers another small taste of Wilson’s exceptionally imaginative musical style. A record as rich as Cyan Blue deserves many listens and has a lot more to offer outside of what little is mentioned here. It has proven itself as an album that was undeniably worth the wait”.

Although not a bran-new artist, as someone releasing her second studio album, it is an interesting time for Charlotte Day Wilson. Perhaps not known by all, we are in this transition stage where her new music is going to introduce her to a much bigger audience. We are going to be hearing a lot more from this extraordinary artist…

FOR many more years.

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