TRACK REVIEW: Bree Runway (ft. Missy Elliott) - ATM

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Bree Runway (ft. Missy Elliott)

PHOTO CREDIT: Lusha Alic 

ATM

9.4/10

The track, ATM, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MSrDtm_EPE

 The mixtape, 2000AND4EVA, is available via:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4lmOcEBG9fJjc6UeMbttVt?si=d-wBLLMDQQS6fV1MKEG4mw

RELEASE DATE:

6th November, 2020

GENRES:

Hip-Hop/R&B

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

LABEL:

EMI

TRACKLISTING:

APESHIT

LITTLE NOKIA

ATM (Ft. Missy Elliott)

DAMN DANIEL (ft. Yung Baby Tate)

ROLLS ROYCE

GUCCI  (ft. Maliibu Miitch)

4 NICOLE THEA & BABY REIGN

NO SIR (FREESTYLE)

LITTLE NOKIA  (ft. Rico Nasty)

__________

HERE is an artist who is definitely…

among the most exciting and explosive that the U.K. has seen for many years! I can’t think of another artists like Bree Runway who has that same air of star quality and panache. There is confidence is everything she does and, with a new mixtape out, it is the perfect time to review her. I will mention 2000AND4EVA at the end but, with ATM out there and showing Bree Runway in full flight, I wanted to highlight the song. It features vocals by Missy Elliott – someone who is a hero to Bree Runway. I am going to discuss Bree Runway before I get to the song and, whilst Missy Elliott does feature in the song, I feel Bree Runway is the main focus. Although she has a few E.P.s out already, I think the mixtape really announces her and shows top the world what she is all about! I want to take a chronological approach to Bree Runway, so I feel it is important to look back at her childhood and the environment she grew up in. As we discovered from a feature in DORK, it that classical portal, MTV, that stirred her imagination:

“In a way, she has. Born in Hackney, Bree grew up glued to the telly, watching music videos on MTV which influenced her own artistry later on (the 'APESHIT' video is so Missy Elliot, it got co-signed by the legend herself). A born performer, she'd put on shows for her family as a kid, organising the whole thing herself.

"My mum used to go to work, and me and my cousin would be left at home, and we would always watch MTV. That inspired me to start hosting mini-concerts to my family members," she says over the phone from London, where she's performing the decidedly less glam task of combing banana from a hair mask out of her hair.

 “So I’d organise the line-up, and I would decide which cousin would be singing and which cousin would dance and which cousin would rap, and then I’d tell the adults that we’re gonna come down by eight o’clock, I need everyone’s sat down and then we’d perform for them. Then that carried through to primary school and stuff. I would do performances, and my mum was almost like our own Tina Knowles because she’d make our costumes for us. And she’s still very involved in my costume stuff today”.

I think the – at the time – toughness and danger in Hackney was pivotal when it came to adopting a survival-mode tactic and having tough skin. I think the area is better now but, years ago, there was a reputation that proceeded Hackney. For someone young trying to make their way and experiencing life, maybe Hackney was not the safest and most calming area of London to live in! In an interview with DIY from July, Bree Runway talked about her experiences in the area:

“Born and raised in Hackney, in an area that she refers to as ‘Murder Mile’, Bree is quick to note that, in order to survive in such an area, she needed to harden her skin. “Before I wasn’t strong enough, but as I grew, it was inevitable. [Hackney] has taught me to have a voice and stand by it,” she explains. Though she experienced bullying in her younger life, she credits those moments as shaping her both as a person and as an artist. “I stand for something so much stronger now,” she nods. “You can’t call me crazy for wanting to express myself a certain way”.

One thing that I have not covered up until this point is the inspiration behind the moniker. ‘Bree Runway’ is a very distinct name, and, with no obvious reason, I went on a bit of an exploitation. She conducted a really interesting interview with Equate Magazine and the question came up:

“EQ: How did you come up with the name ‘Bree Runway’ and who is she?

BR: The name Bree Runway actually came from a very long Facebook name that I made when I was around 16, it was a naming ceremony that my really cool cousin, Pedro, gave to all the cousins – we were all gathered, it was like a family party and his name was ‘Runway Pedro’ and I used to think he was so cool, he always had the latest fashions and everything like that, and I always thought “I wish I could be him, I really wish I could be him” but that day that he passed the runway name to me I was like “[gasp] I’m keeping it!” so I made a Facebook name and added ‘runway’, ‘Tokyo’ and everything you can think of. So, when it came to choosing an artist name I think I just looked at my Facebook name and thought “I think I will just pick something from this which is personal to me”. Then I cut my name down, my real name down, and used Bree, and picked runway from the name that was passed down to me. And now Bree runway is just this very super confident, super face, unique, one of one, she’s like nobody else, she is very fearless, and she’s just this powerhouse, a really tiny girl who is a powerhouse and is just day by day taking over the world. I feel like she is des- tined for world domination, yeah! That’s Bree Runway!

EQ: What inspired you to start creating music and who is your biggest inspiration?

BR: I’ve always been into music because I come from a very musical background, my dad was a drummer, he used to drum for church and he’s the one that always used to put me on to music. I always used to love how my mum would always dance around to it too, she is also a very creative per- son as well, she used to make her own clothes – she is a DIY queen! She was also always playing new songs – well, old songs, and so through my parents I think is where my love for music came from.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenn Five 

Even driving around to market with my mum always used to listen to Magic radio and I was just so mesmerised by the melodies. I feel like music from the ‘80s and ‘90s, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston – artists like that – inspired me to start creating music because the harmonies were just like “oh my God, this is so beautiful”. So, through that, and then artists like Lady Gaga, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie – seeing their artistry growing up really kicked me up the arse to be like “I want to do something like this. I feel like there’s something unique in me, as there is something unique in them”. I want to bring my piece of art and birth into the world”.

I do love the fact the Bree Runway was introduced to music through her mum, for the most part, and there was a lot of classics hits from the 1980s and 1990s in addition to MTV. It sounds pretty oldskool, which is surprising, as Bree Runway’s music has such a modern sound and is a lot different to the music one hears on stations like Magic. I was interested reading how Freddie Mercury came into her orbit, and I wonder whether Bree Runway projects and absorbs some of Mercury’s prowess and power. One cannot easily definer artists like her, but I was surprised by the musicians and sounds that she draws from. I will discuss Missy Elliott later, but I can just picture Bree Runway discovering all this great music and slowly putting together this sound of her own and dreaming of a career in music. I want to move on and, alongside her inspirations, one must talk about Bree Runway’s own style and approach.    

When she spoke with NME, she explained the different sounds she mixed together and why she adopts such a fearless and effecting style of delivery:

“NME: Your music has earned you a cult following online because of its varied and fearless style. How would you describe your sound?

Bree Runway: “It’s genre-bending and genre-fluid. It’s pop, trap, dance, R&B, rock, PC music — hell, it’s even sometimes country music too! Black women in music are always expected to sing R&B or soul: we are always boxed in. I’m always asked if I’m a soul singer and I say, ‘No, actually, I make very in-your-face, destructive pop that is all genres and everything at once.’ I try to study a genre I don’t really listen to on a day-to-day-basis because there is honestly inspiration everywhere: it’s best to go digging in places you don’t normally go.

“Artists from my native Ghana got me into music and genres like High Life, that my dad would play constantly. My dad was a drummer and would always have music on around the house. It was through MTV that I started discovering artists like Lil’ Kim, Britney Spears, Madonna, Missy Elliott, Pharrell, Kelis, The Neptunes: those artists helped me to evolve my sound into what it is today. When these guys performed, they gave a major middle finger to the industry and didn’t give a fuck. They weren’t afraid to get ugly for their art, and that kind of non-conformity drives what I do”.

It is intriguing learning about her Ghanaian heritage and how that mixes with conventional music of the West that she was exposed to young. With some Missy Elliott and Madonna fusing with some of her dad’s influence, it must have been a very vivid and eclectic household in which to live!

 PHOTO CREDIT: Qavi Reyez

I want to quickly mention Bree Runway’s visual identity, as I think that is important and naturally partners with the music. Her photos are captivating, as she has this style that is very much her own, and she does explode off of the screen/page. When she was in conversation with PAPER, Bree Runway’s fashion and visual approach was raised:

“This is apparent in Bree's frenetic, yet singular sound, which fuses rapping, singing and a mind-melding array of genre influences, both modern and retro. Visually, Bree incorporates freestyle and pop choreography, turns eye-catching, high-fashion looks and addresses savvy social commentary (i.e. the gender wage gap, racial injustices and self-image). Take a look at recent videos to last year's breakout Be Runway EP tracks "Big Racks" (with Brooke Candy), "2ON" and the Missy Elliott-approved "Apeshit," and quickly find yourself immersed in Bree's colorful world.

Even with the support of a label, who, depending on the artist, might install marketing and creative teams to create an artistic vision from scratch, Bree controls her vision every step of the way. And as a dark-skinned Black woman from London, who has risen above her fair share of systemic bullshit, Bree's calling the shots is non-negotiable”.

Alongside such amazing and individual fashions is her music, which is full of energy and colour. The videos Bree Runway has put out are amazing indeed. In a feature with NYLON from this year, Bree Runway talked a bit more about her dynamic and sound:

“High-octane visuals have since become somewhat of a calling card for the young artist, which she pairs effectively with equally bold music, a sound she once described to NME as “destructive pop that is all genres and everything at once.” While “Gucci” flirts with a steely, club-like anthem, “Apeshit” is full ‘90s hip-hop, complete with flares of electric guitar and thumping percussion; what makes both memorable is Bree's potent delivery: confident and alight with attitude.

“I just feel like you've got to leave the viewer wanting more, and that's what those kinds of videos from the early 2000s made me want,” Bree, aka Brenda Mensah, says over the phone one morning from lockdown in London. “I want them to want more and to watch it again”.

Even though Bree Runway has a few E.P.s credited under her name – including 2015’s RNWY 01 -, Be Runway of last year was really her proper introduction, I think. The fact she has put out a mixtape just after a year from that E.P. shows that she is spilling over with ideas and there is this relentless sense of curiosity and passion that one can hear in her music. I want to mention that Be Runway E.P., as it is a truly striking debut. In an interview with The Line of Best Fit, Bree Runway discussed the influences behind the E.P.:

“From '90s TV shows to Ghanian Highlife, from trap to 70s baroque-pop, from Banksy to bespoke furniture, Runway’s influences are expansive, and it plays in her favour. Tracks like new offering “Damn Daniel” are inventive, playful, genre-defying and unique. Filming the video during lockdown pushed her creative direction full circle, serving herself the twenty-seven page guidebook. Featuring Atlanta’s Yung Baby Tate, the two vocalists take on the characters Keisha and Felicia, dancing through a colour-rush of Fresh Prince inspired, 90s MTV chaos.

On her first EP Be Runway she jumps from confessional catharsis to buoyant hooks in the space of a middle-eight. Runway’s talent lies in her ability to piece together the past in a way that’s personal, refreshing and immediate.

Bullied at school over the colour of her skin, Runway resorted to skin-bleaching creams as a teenager. “There’s so many behind the counter products that change your skin tone, it’s actually crazy,” she explains. “All you have to tell them is, no not that one, the one behind the counter. And they look at you and it’s like, alright. Almost like a drug transaction. You’ve just got to give them the wink and they’ll give it to you”.

One really interesting facet of Be Runway is its cover. On it, we see an image of Bree Runway’s face half painted white, as she smiles. It is a very memorable image and, when she spoke with Equate Magazine, the subject of that cover was explored:

“EQ: Identity plays a big part in your artistry – we’ve seen from your last EP cover. Can you explain that a little to us and why it was important to portray?

BR: That [EP cover] was actually inspired by a lady who inspires me a lot; Grace Jones. Grace Jones did a cover for The Face Magazine, and I wanted to find a way, on my cover, to portray the fact that we live in a generation where everybody doesn’t want to be themselves. They don’t really want to be themselves, and that’s what inspired me to make music, I was specifically getting at how we, in the times we live, as black people, are the blueprint. And although in time we’ve been tortured, we’ve been embarrassed, we’ve been disgraced, we’ve been talked down upon – people don’t want to see us up, but in all that we continue to rise and evolve be- cause it’s what we’re great at doing. I feel as though through all of that the oppressor, whoever this may have been, just wants to be like us because we have everything. We have the rhythm, we have the sound, the style, we even had the resources, the land – everything. So, what’s happening on the cover is a Caucasian person who has used my “BE RUNWAY” spray, which I was selling in the ‘Two On’ music video, and has spread them- selves to be runway, and be me! So, it has two meanings, this is just one of the meanings, where although people want to put us down we actually are the blueprint, and here they are happy as hell to spray the spray to be Bree Runway, a black woman who is jazzy as fuck [laughs]. The other meaning behind the spraying yourself to be Bree Runway is it could be for anyone who presses play is actually using that spray to be Runway because being Run- way represents freedom, and represents a limitless way of thinking, there are no boundaries in my art, and in my lyrics.

I really don’t give a fuck, basically. So, you listening to me – I hope it inspires you to just free yourself, free your mind, and of any status quos, especially as a young black girl. I always told: “you can’t do this, you can’t do that” and we are always put into a box, but I hope I inspire you to carve your own lane and make your own print in the world. You don’t have to copy anyone else and that’s what Bree Runway is about”.

I am going to finish off by exploring the subject of race and how, as a black woman, Bree Runway has experienced life and the music industry. I have a few things to get to before that conclusion, but I wanted to briefly touch on the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, as she has had their support since the beginning. When Bree Runway spoke with the Gay Times, she was asked about her connection with her L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ fans:

“The gays are going to go crazy, that’s for sure. It felt like there was an immediate connection between you and your LGBTQ+ fans – how early on did you notice their support?

I would say 2017 when I dropped What Do I Tell My Friends? I was like, ‘Oh, y’all love me? I love y’all too.’ Like, literally. I love their support so much because it’s very much like how I support people, in the sense where it’s shame-free. It’s loud. It’s proud. You really do feel it. It’s OTT. It’s everything that I am, you know what I mean? I feel like sometimes people shy away from supporting certain people, that are stars and maybe have the numbers or whatever, because ‘Oh, I don’t want to come across as a beg. I don’t want to come across as a fan.’ But there’s none of that, that pride in that community. It’s just no, ‘We love you, and we’re showing you that we love you.’ I can relate to that kind of love, that kind of celebrating a person because that’s how I am as a person. I’m shame-free. If I fuck with you, yes, I’m gonna show you! I’m gonna support you loudly and proudly. I love that”.

I want to finish this section by talking about Bree Runway’s association with Missy Elliott. From idolising her on MTV and listening to her music as a child to actually working with her, it must have seemed like an impossible dream come true for the London-born artist! Even before the two hooked up on ATM, Missy Elliott delivered a thumbs-up to another track - as we learn from the NME interview:

“One of your heroes growing up, Missy Elliott, gave your latest single ‘APESHIT’ her seal of approval recently. How did it feel seeing her reaction?

“It was mad! I’m so thrilled but I still feel like my body is still in a really intense shock mode after seeing that unfold. It was 3AM and I was literally screaming when I saw that Missy Elliott tweeted about the ‘Apeshit’ video. I obviously couldn’t scream loudly — it was 3AM! — but it was like an internal scream and of course then I started to shake. Missy Elliott!

“When I was growing up, I was glued to MTV watching Missy and here she was, bigging up my new single. She’s also following me on social media now and I still can’t believe it!”

That song clearly had the Hip-Hop queen hooked and, before long, Missy Elliott was recording with Bree Runway on a stunning new track. Returning to that interview with the Gay Times, and Bree Runway revealed how the new collaboration came about:

“Honestly speaking, that shit is the wildest shit ever. It’s even wilder, because I remember when Gucci dropped. The internet was going crazy for it and I was like, ‘Okay, I gotta get off my phone. This is too much. Wow, this is great.’ So I’m about to close my eyes and sleep, and it’s like 12am at this point. I get a call and I’m like, ‘Hmm, it’s my ANR at this time.’ I mean, we talk around the clock anyway, but I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ He was like, ‘You need to wake up right now. Missy’s team reached out and she wants to do a record with you.’ I was like, ‘Pardon?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Pardon? What are we gonna send her?’ We sent ATM, and he came back and said, ‘Yeah, she wants to do it.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ It’s wild, because that’s someone that I’ve grown up admiring. That’s someone who has paved the way for an alternative girl like myself, and you want to work with me?”.

ATM is a terrific cut from the mixtape. The introduction finds Bree Runway asking “Do you like money?/A-T-M, A-T-A-T-M/A-T-M, A-T-A-T-M/A-T-M, A-T-A-T-M/Push my button, my button again”, and she delivers the lines in quite a teasing and sensuous way. The flow accelerates as Bree Runway talks about a guy who is only interested in sex, and all the heroine is interested in is a finer style of life; she is quite classy and will not be cheapened by someone so prurient and lacking in respect –“You know what I need and there ain’t nobody finer/Shoes, top, skirt, bling, purse, all designer/Huh, tough bitch but my ass soft/They said I look like a painting by Van Gogh/You know a girl like me cost/Ain’t gotta talk too much, but you know what’s up”. I do love the rather American aspect of an A.T.M., and how Bree Runway has sort of intrigued and hooked this guy, but she is letting him know what the score is! The chorus comes back in – where Bree Runway and Missy Elliott are together -, and then Missy Elliott takes the second verse. Like Bree Runway’s experiences, there is this directness from a guy, but there is this sense of him being a bit too below her station – “Met this dude in Wеst Palm Beach/He was so fine, askеd, could he call me/Yeah, probably if you spend your money/But if you don’t got a job, get the hell up off me”. Money and aspirational desires mix with rawer sexual desires and something more explicit. Missy Elliott is typically assured on the verse, and she explains how Jamaican guys are her type; Missy Elliott pops and grooves on top of a great beat.

The idea of these guys who are hitting on Missy Elliott and Bree Runway being a bit cheap is highlighted; both give them a piece of their mind, and Missy Elliott is definitely not going to settle. “Misdemeanor all in the bag, that’s Birkin/Showtime, open up the curtain/I’m a classy chick, y’all birds still chirping/Ooh, ooh, y’all birds still chirping/I got so much drip, you could see me surfing”. I get a real vibe of the 1990s and the classic Hip-Hop from that time and, whilst it is clear that Missy Elliott songs like Work It are a frame of reference on ATM, Bree Runway makes the song her own and combines superbly. The flow and rhythm has a lot in common with Missy Elliott’s work, but the vocal sound and the incredible delivery is very much the work of Bree Runway! Both artists have a different approach and vocal sound, and it is wonderful hearing them trade verses. It is a shame that a video cannot be made that would really bring the words to life – one that is quite steamy and racy; perhaps Bree Runway and Missy Elliott in the U.S. and putting the world to rights! After Missy Elliott has delivered her verse, Bree Runway takes the reigns of the song once more. In the bridge, Bree Runway declares: “Whine your body now/Make him spend some more/Ain’t nothing personal (Unh)”. The bridge has a nice echoing sound, and it slows the pace down somewhat before the chorus races back in. On the longest song from 2000AND4EVA (at just over three minutes) Bree Runway (and Missy Elliott) pack so much in. As I said, it is a pity that a video might not be possible; at least not one that is as ambitious and physical as perhaps Bree Runway had envisaged, ATM is one of the definite highlights from a fantastic mixtape! It is a terrific track where Bree Runway gets to pair with a musical inspiration of hers – and she manages to match Missy Elliott in terms of confidence, commitment and skill!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Missy Elliott/PHOTO CREDIT: Cindy Ord/BET/Getty Images

There are a couple of things that I want to explore before finishing up. One subject that I wanted to explore is how Bree Runway experiences music and feels being a black woman in the industry. From the Equate Magazine interview, that aspect did come up:

“EQ: As a young black female in the industry do you feel like you’ve faced any challenges making your way to the top? Do you ever feel need to compromise?

BR: In life, in general I feel like at some points I have had to compromise. Maybe when I first started I felt like, or at some point in my career, as I was crossing over to the sound that I have now I did feel like for me to actually chart, and fully make it as a pop star – because I’ve always wanted to be a pop star but my sound started of very urban at first – I felt like I needed to almost whitewash my music in order for me to make it and that’s really not the case – the key was and is to just be myself really. I did feel like that though at some point because I looked at the charts and I saw the kind of pop music that was charting and I thought “damn, I don’t sit in the same house as these sounds, this is not really me”. The key is that as a young black female in the industry, you just have to just stay true to what’s on your heart sound wise and it’s going to resonate with everyone. Also, it goes back to the ‘Big Racks’ cover – what I was trying to capture is that being a black female, there are a lot of challenges we face and comprises we have to make which aren’t necessarily true to our authentic selves. It boils down to having to speak in a certain way in workspaces – you’re thinking “is my name too African to get this job”, and doors can be closed to us just because of this. We always have to find a mask to put on to not offend or be “too black”, so yes, I did reach that place musically, and I’ve been there too in the normal working world, but I really did question whether I’d have to dilute my sound in order to make it, but I realised that’s not and should never be the case”.

Bree Runway is an inspiring artist for so many people out there, no less Black girls who watch her videos. The confidence Bree Runway shows and the messages she sends out are definitely making an impression on a lot of people. In the interview with DORK, Bree Runway talked about what she wanted to achieve regarding her time in music:

“But learning to love herself was crucial to who she is as an artist today. Click on any of her music videos or check the replies to her tweets and you'll find many young Black girls telling Bree what an inspiration she is and how she's everything they wanted to see in a pop star growing up. The video for 'Big Racks' kicks off with statistics about racism in the workplace, and throughout she's shown experiencing various microaggressions, and eventually covering her face in white plasters to assimilate.

"I want to stand for something, you know, because in general I do stand for something, and I want to show that to like the world as well. I'm not someone that just gets up on camera and dances like I really do care about shit. And with my platform, no matter how big or small I want to share my own important shit".

When she spoke with NYLON, that topic of being an inspiration came up - and Bree Runway feels that responsibility when she hears positive feedback:

“Your music has really inspired a lot of young women, especially young black women. I was on YouTube and I saw a lot of comments saying that you're the black pop star that they've always dreamed of. How does it feel to hear that?

Do you know what, it makes me feel or it reiterates to me that I have a responsibility, and me being a musician is just more than anything you could, I don't know, it's just less about the vanity and more about the purpose, 100%. I feel like I was placed in this position to almost be like a gateway to women in the next generation. Even women of all ages, I think. We all struggle with that limitation that has been put on black women like growing up, there's still women repairing themselves from traumas in their past and things that have been said about them, or how they've been made to seem at work. There's so many different ways you can face limitations as a black girl”.

I will wrap up, but I wanted to bring in a  fun little bit of an interview that Bree Runway conducted with London in Stereo which was quite quick-fire; where she talked about her favourite music/books etc:

“Earliest song you remember…

spice girls – viva forever! I was so young and dramatic, it used to make me cry all the time! it has such a euphoric feel to it, I imagine if ascending to heaven was a song? that would be it.

The worst job I’ve ever had…

omg, so I had to quit my dream retail job at Christian Louboutin, my music schedule was getting so busy but then I started getting super low on cash, I had to start waitressing, they treated me like absolute crap, managers had 0 respect for waitressing staff, it was so depressing. but I had to pay them bills!!

A book I love…

‘The Secret’ there’s so much power in that book and has really contributed to my positive, ambitious mindset! I dream with NO limits, always”.

I have no idea whether Bree Runway is planning any gigs but do keep your eyes out as she will definitely want to hit the road soon! The 2000AND4EVA mixtape is a stunning release, and there are some great collaborations alongside tracks where Bree Runway is at the centre. It has received some great reviews, and it looks set to be one of the best releases of 2020. I look forward to seeing where Bree Runway goes from here, but it is clear that she has a very bright and busy future! I can imagine her conquering the world very soon and making it to the same level as one of her idols, Missy Elliott. On songs such as ATM, and the fantastic 2000AND4EVA mixtape, Bree Runway shows that she is very much…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Anna Fearon

HERE to stay!

___________

Follow Bree Runway

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/breerunway

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/BreeRunway/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/breerunway/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/58hqTaCiqGrMsNmmm3qL7w?si=euDbAGraTlmeZx5xh-gUgA

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCySatgCaNi8gwpH-LsYK2dQ

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Bree Runway

TRACK REVIEW: Greentea Peng - Revolution

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Greentea Peng

Revolution

 

9.7/10

The track, Revolution, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxqiiSqm3jE

RELEASE DATE:

30th October, 2020

GENRES:

Neo-Soul/Psychedelic R&B

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

LABELS:

Universal Music Operations Limited/AMF Records

__________

COMING up today…

PHOTO CREDIT: Stefy Pocket

is an artist who is definitely like no other around! I have been tracking Greentea Peng for a little while, and I have been struck by her voice and talent. I think a lot of solo artists at the moment either sound unremarkable or the same, but Greentea Peng (Aria Wells) is bursting with colour, soul and so much potential! I am going to bring in a fair few interviews because, whilst I am keen to review her new song, Revolution, I wanted to portray a bigger picture of a fantastic artist. I suppose, when it comes to where to start regarding Greentea Peng, that name comes to mind. It is definitely intriguing and, when she spoke with ACCLAIM she explained the moniker:

“It’s a bit of an obvious question but I wondered if I could get a quick backstory on the name Greentea Peng?

Green tea is like my favourite tea, and there was a packet I found while I was away, this amazing packet, it was dreamy. It was called Green Tea Seng and the woman on it was really peng so I was like oh, Greentea Peng. That’s literally where it came from. It started as a bit of a joke so it’s not that deep.

I think it’s such a cool name, it suits you well.

Thank you. It’s funny that it does because it’s such a random thing but I hear that it actually does. I feel like it does too, so it’s worked out well”.

I want to do a bit of a chronological move, because it is interesting thinking about the development and maturation of Aria Wells and when she became Greentea Peng. I am not sure when I first heard of Greentea Peng, but it must have been early last year. One is struck by the tattoos and fashion – which I shall cover later -, but I think the depth of her voice and music really gets into the heart. There is a definite power and prowess to an artist who, whilst exploring Neo-Soul (or ‘Psychedelic R&B’ as she labelled her sound), can elicit as much force and beauty as any other artist out there.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Stefy Pocket

When she spoke with VICE back in 2018, Greentea Peng talked about how quickly things have happened and how she would never have pictured herself in music in such a way - considering how chaotic her life was:

“It’s mad, cos a year and a half ago, I would’ve never said that I’d be doing this,” she tells me. “I thought I was just gonna, I don’t know, work in bars – which is what I’ve been doing since I was 15.” After leaving home as a teen, which we’ll come back to in a minute, she spent a few years ricocheting around London and the inside of her own head. She set aside the journals in which she’d been scribbling lyrics and stories, from about 13, and threw herself into being out and about instead. It was, as she starts to say, “normal teenage stuff plus a lot of reckl–” her voice drops. “Well, I don’t eve–… A lot of drugs, drug-taking. And I’ve always been a sensitive person, who tends to get overwhelmed quite quickly when it comes to emotional stuff. I think that, plus teen hormones plus the drugs… it was just a maaaaaad time,” she says, the syllable dragging out”.

By the sounds of it, she’s been able to flip objectively negative experiences into just… life experience, for years. After her parents split, her family – minus her father – relocated to England’s south coast. “I mean, it was a madness. My mum didn’t want me to go to secondary school in south London; the school’s were really bad at the time, all transitioning into academies and stuff, which she wasn't down with. So we moved to Hastings. It was a biiiiiig” – and she almost sings this, stretching the word out over a raspy note that dives downwards – “culture shock. Even at a young age, it affected me quick dramatically, I’d say. Because it was a very white area when I moved there – there are a lot more brown people there now.” She chuckles. And so she looked different, “my attitude was different – it was just… different, you know what I mean? I’d grown up on an estate quite independent from a young age.” And Hastings felt nothing like that”.

It is fascinating hearing her so candid and realising how quickly things have changed. As a person, Wells would have considered a full-time music career far-fetched when she was a teenager. I think every artist has to start on modest foundations, but they eventually get there. I am curious to know when music came into Wells’ life and when she adopted the ‘Greentea Peng’ name. Returning to that ACCLAIM interview, and we get some explanation and backstory from the woman herself:

“When did you start singing and what kind of music was inspiring you early on?

I started singing about age 4. My dad inspired me a lot, he was into a lot of classical music and theatre. He’d teach me a lot of the theatre songs, so I started off singing stuff like that, and in the church choir and stuff. Then I started to get inspired by Ms. Dynamite and Lauryn Hill and The Fugees, stuff like that. I was very much into R&B and hip-hop quite young, watching MTV Base and that sort of thing. When I got a little older my tastes broadened a bit, I got into rock music, reggae, ska, and heavy metal, but before that it was mostly R&B and hip-hop.

So when did you sort of become Greentea Peng?

Well, I stopped singing for a while really, I didn’t think I was ever going to sing again until I was about 21. I was living in Mexico and randomly joined a band. That was the first time I’d sung in about six years, and that was when I started to think about calling myself Greentea Peng. I didn’t start writing songs until I wrote Sensi. I was just doing covers and playing around, getting used to singing again, you know what I mean? Then, when I moved back to London I started writing again”.

I want to move on but, reading back to that interview snippet above, and there was that moment when Aria Wells almost decided against music - and the world would never have heard of Greentea Peng. I think that new name gave her confidence and a sense of determination, and she has really made strides since.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Wil Spooner

Sticking on the teenage years, and I think the move Wells (I shall refer to her thus regards her life pre-Greentea Peng) made to Mexico when she left school was pivotal. It seems like an unusual move, but it appears to have awoken her. In an interview with The Line of Best Fit last year, we learn more about that move to Mexico and the creation of the Sensi E.P. of 2018:

“Despite always having been naturally creative, Peng admits that she had suppressed her talents for a long time, the result of teenage angst and trying to figure out who she was. “I was quite inside myself and angry at the world,” she confides. However, she took the leap of moving to Mexico once she had left school, pursuing her desire to travel. It was here that her love for music was re-ignited. “I was watching a lot of live music and it reminded me of how much I was in love with it, how much I needed it. I needed a creative outlet,” she explains. While out there, she met her manager who would encourage her to carry on singing. Once she had returned home, her talent became a serious professional opportunity and she released her first EP Sensi in 2018.

Not only has her time travelling triggered Peng’s musical ambitions, but it’s helped to shape the sounds she creates. At one point during our conversation, Peng remembers lying in the desert of California, smoking joints while listening to Erykah Badu and J.Dilla’s “Didn’t Cha Know” way before she started singing again. This coming together of jazz, hip-hop and lo-fi textures is something Peng emulates in her work with London producer Earbuds, who has become renowned for his collaborations with Slowthai. “I had already been playing around with another mate in the studio,” she remembers. “I listened to the beat for “Moonchild”, and I was like, ‘this is mad, I love it’ but I was like ‘how the fuck am I gonna write to this?’ And it just came to me one day. I finished it on the overground while on my way to my first session”.

There are a few other things I want to address before getting down to the review itself. I have brought in information regarding Greentea Peng as an artist and how that name came about; the teenage years of its creator and how she went through some tough years. I want to bring in revelation and information regarding Greentea Peng’s voice and spirituality. As we learn from an interview in VICE from 2018, songs that tackle quite heavy stuff are transformed and made almost healing and spiritual:

“I’m a bit taken aback by the chaos that prefaced what we hear from her now. Her music is rich and calming, like a camomile paste you’d rub into your skin (please don’t try that, I just made it up). Her voice evokes the grit of Erykah Badu or Amy Winehouse, over love letters to weed’s calming effects (on “Medicine”) or how chasing money may still leave you empty, on single “Moonchild.” So it’s a jolt to know that the positivity, the light, the curiosity she feeds into her music now came from a pretty dark time. Sensi sounds like a stand-in for a rebirth, I suggest.

“It really was,” she says, drawing her jacket a bit closer as a lorry rumbles by. “I was at the point where I couldn’t even… I couldn’t even process my own thoughts or emotions. I was so detached from everything: the universe, myself, everything. I was in a huge amount of denial about what was going on in my life. I was angry, deluded, selfish…” She chuckles drily, and her voice trails off. This honesty, about 20 minutes into our conversation, is what listeners have tapped into in her music – she’s been able to channel anger, confrontation and contemplation into songs that invite you in”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Hadden for CRACK

I think a lot of songwriters can be a bit limited when it comes to inspiration and their palette. They might talk about themselves quite a lot and, whilst important, their personal lives are never quite as intriguing and fresh as other subjects. There is a personal aspect to Greentea Peng’s music, but she is someone who is moved by the natural world and something higher. In a feature from CLASH last year, we discover more about her compositional inspiration:

“They just intrigue me I guess, The mystery excites me,” Greentee reflects. “I’m obsessed with the sun, and have been from a young age - I'm very sun orientated. I get very depressed in the winter.  The moon drives me mad, so I sing about her a lot. 'Saturn' is a trip - I wrote it on mushrooms in Mexico, on the beach. So that song is literally a trip."

As well as looking beyond herself and our mortal realm, Greentea Peng looks beyond the human too – she often sees the natural world as making more sense than the human, like we're a sort of disconnect on earth. "I feel closer to trees and nature and animals – I wish i could feel closer to humans,” she says. “I go through stages of being very withdrawn and distant from humans." Is that why she looks outward? "Yeah, and I have a mad inner space, so it's good to look out sometimes. Putting things into perspective, the mundane shit".

Tying into what I have sourced above, there is this fascinating blend that you get with Greentea Peng! It is easy to bring in big names like Erykah Badu when pointing at inspirations, but I don’t think that is far off the mark. Greentea Peng, like Badu, mixes a variety of emotions and subjects; there is something soothing and smooth about the voice, but there is also a real spark and energy. This is explored more in a NOTION feature from earlier in the year:

“In a myriad of genre-blending sounds evocative of a grand coalition between Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu, Aria teases the perceived boundaries between opposing states: looking inwards and outwards; hope and despair; tender vulnerability and strength. She crafts shapeshifting music that draws you in—it’s like a soothing balm chronicling the trials and tribulations that punctuate our everyday lives. Through honest and frank poesies to love and loss, for Aria, it’s about the feeling and gaze that she can hold with the listener more than anything else. “You wanna connect with people,” she tells me. “You wanna get everyone vibrating on the same frequency as you and you wanna be spreading love”.

I will move things along soon, but one cannot talk about Greentea Peng without mentioning London and how that inspires her. It is very evident that so many things about the city infuses her music and affects the way that she writes. I guess, what with London being so multicultural and broad, you do get so many different points of inspiration! Going back to the interview from The Line of Best Fit, and the lure and power of the city of explained and explored:

“London is at the heart of Peng’s writing, in what she explains as “the tongue-in-cheek of it, the kind of vibe... it’s an attitude, innit.” At present, she’s chatting over the phone while taking a break from a studio session in the city, before performing a DJ set. “It’s the most diverse city I’ve ever been to. Growing up I very much loved London, my Dad brought me up very ‘yeah London town, the best town in the world.” Listening to songs like “Inna City” from the EP, you can hear the capital laced throughout. From the twang of her vocals, to the eclecticism of the production, and lyrics like, “Your double vision, inna city / You can get it if you're witty / Work your way up in a jiffy / What you got, I want it, gimme,” she perfectly illustrates the lovable-toughness of life in the Big Smoke.

 This is where Peng grew up until she went to secondary school, at which point she began living and studying in Hastings, a place that could not have been more different. “It affected me in many different ways, in hindsight it’s one of the best things that could’ve happened really,” she explains. “It helped shape me a lot, it gave me two different perspectives, two different lives. It was cool being able to grow up in nature and by the sea, and still come down to London”.

Greentea Peng has travelled quite widely, and I think so many different parts of the world go into Greentea Peng’s music. It seems that there is something about London and the people that is especially resonant and important, Circling back to the ACCLAIM piece, and the subject of London came up:

“London has always been an eclectic and exciting city for music. Why do you think that is, and how does it differ to other cities in the world culturally?

There’s nowhere like it, because there’s nowhere as diverse. I’ve never been anywhere as diverse as London, it’s mad here. It’s the people that make it, which is why stuff like Brexit and this Windrush shit that’s happening is peak, man. Because this city without the people ain’t much of a city at all. That’s wagwan with the music too, it’s a big social and creative hub”.

There are four more things I want to tick off quickly before getting down to assessing Greentea Peng’s Revolution but, sticking in London, and it appears that her patch in South London is particularly stabilising. When she spoke with CLASH, she talked about how she has found balance:

"I'm lucky I live in South [London] - it's green, full of trees, I have a garden - so every morning I sit and look at the trees and chat to the birds chilling on my roof. Even when I did't I’d find that balance, go walk in a park, and I'm lucky - my parents live in Hastings so I can always go there and look at the sea. I know I'm lucky and it's not that easy for everyone, I feel blessed."

Maybe it makes sense then, her jumping around from place to place, yet feeling rooted in a pocket of London - keeping that balance. And part of that is making sure not to be isolated, keeping up creative connections and energies, with those she makes music with. "I love having a family, a team you can rely on and grow with creatively and mentally, Greentea smiles. “And musically - the more instruments the better".

  PHOTO CREDIT: Stefy Pocket

Before looking at Greentea Peng’s style and identity, I want to briefly touch on travel and how this has fed into her music. Whilst it seems that she is settled now and travel has been beneficial, I am interested in whether travel has been stabilising or quite disruptive. Looking at that feature/interview from CLASH, and it is not only different physical areas that have influenced Greentea Peng; different areas of the musical map have made their mark:

“But she hasn’t always been this settled. Greentea Peng has lived in many, very different places - London, Hastings, Mexico - how's that affected her approach to music? "I think it's all contributed to a bit of a mix up, I'm a bit confused,” she says. “Everything's mash up and integrated. It's kind of fun. It's obviously not a conscious thing you do, going off like that, but looking back it's effected my style and music. I've taken a bit from everywhere and made it my own."

She says it’s because of this natural absorbing of her surroundings that means she tries not to listen to too much new music right now: "It sounds mad doesn’t it? Obviously I rate everyone, but it's too easy to be influenced."

In terms of sounds she might have drawn from other places, Greentea says it’s something more practical that she’s taken from elsewhere. "I don't know man, it's all been a process. Obviously a lot of RnB and hip-hop's in there, but a lot of reggae and dub,” she reflects. “In Mexico, musically I was listening to a lot of bands and live music – and that woke me up in a sense. I’d always worked with DJs and producers – like Earbuds [longtime producer], he's a G, he's my boy - but while I was out there seeing all this live music I thought, 'Ah fuck, I really want a band”.

One looks at images of Greentea Peng and you cannot help but notice that she is very striking! I love her tattoos, but her sense of style is very much her own. I think this plays a role in her music, and that identity and look is very clear and imbedded in everything she does. I found a feature from late last year that highlighted Greentea Peng’s beauty regime. A couple of interesting questions struck me:

“How do you tell stories and assert your identity through your tattoos?

Greentea Peng: Some of them are thought out, some are quite unconscious or just for fun. I love tattoos and don’t think I’m consciously trying to tell a story but maybe subconsciously they do. My most recent tattoo is the throat chakra symbol on my throat to remind me to always sing.

What does beauty mean to you, and what are your go-to products?

Greentea Peng: Beauty is becoming more of a nature-orientated thing. I make my own bits or buy organic natural stuff off a guy on the market. While I do enjoy wearing a bit of make-up, my favourite thing is to get my eyelashes done with my girl Oona Beauty. I love a lash. Other than that it’s a strict lip liner – I can’t go anywhere without it which is a problem”.

Linking into tattoos and skincare comes clothing. Again, looking at Greentea Peng, and her wardrobe is so colourful, confident, and characterful! I think so many artists are unremarkable in this area, or they seem to follow what is fashionable and trending. As we learn from an article in THE FACE, Greentea Peng very much follows her own instincts:

“Peng’s style represents her. She wears what she wants to wear, and doesn’t buy into the zeitgeist. ​“I love dressing up. I’ve always shopped in charity shops [because] I could never really afford brands, so I just made myself look cool in different ways,” she says.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Hadden for CRACK 

But with such an eclectic wardrobe, how does she decide what to wear? ​“I dress different every day. One day it’s a Nike tracksuit, the next it’s a mad hat. It depends what my mood is. It’s funny, I don’t like to stick out but if you see the garms I wear one part of me must do. I learnt that I don’t need to copy the way [people] dress, because I don’t wanna look like any of you anyway! So I might as well dress mad and look how I want to look. The older I get the more I think ​‘fuck it, I’ll wear that’. I’m not as fussy anymore”.

Just to finish up, and I want to quickly return to Greentea Peng’s music growth and the fact that there has been this real leap in the past couple of years. I love her 2018 E.P., but I think her confidence grows by the year. Even early in 2019 when she chatted with Music Week, we were hearing and seeing someone wholeheartedly being given wings and strength by music:

“Those days in Mexico, where she first met her management team, are fading into the distance fast. “It’s a completely different vibe now, man,” says Greentea. “It was a wicked start and I’m really grateful. It gave me experience of gigging, hard crowds, people who didn’t give a shit, doing dinner music, hotels… Do you know what I mean?” Music has offered Greentea Peng a lifeline. She’s still getting used to it all, but she’s happy to “ride the wave”. “I’m so much more confident, man. I used to have to get so waved before a show and drink a lot to calm my nerves, now I’m enjoying it more than ever,” she says. “I’m learning, becoming a bit more comfortable”.

I will get to reviewing Revolution, as it is another great release from Greentea Peng who, despite lockdown and everything that has been happening, has been pretty busy this year. Her new release is among her very best and most immersive.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Stefy Pocket

With its heavy beats and a laidback vibe, the contrasts that fuse into Revolution grip you from the start. The chorus comes up first, and Greentea Peng asks some interesting questions: “Feels like a revolution/But whose revolution?/As we search for solutions/Seems like no resolutions”. Those words can apply to the state of the world right now and how we seem to be getting nowhere. Given that 2020 has seen definite shifts regarding race relations and various aspects of the world, I wonder whether Greentea Peng is referencing what has been happening in America (or more generally). There is a bit of mystery in the chorus, so one naturally investigates and searches inside themselves. I do love Greentea Peng’s vocal and musical style, as there is Neo-Soul, R&B and Reggae vibes sitting against one another - and it is both beautiful and inspiring. Whereas artists in Grime or Rap might project words with attack and venom, Greentea Peng has this more laidback style that, whilst no less potent, I think makes the words more accessible and indelible. The first verse definitely offers up food for thought: “We are fighting these wars/Like those who came before us/Their message still loud and clear/The duty now on us/See the profits, it's speaking/Only love is the release/As they crucify Jesus, Judas still singing his praises/As they shoot us down, knee pressed on the ground/As I beg for my life from you/And my brother lets me down/See, wherе do we go from here, man?/Whеn you insist on declaring war on mine/Like we won't take a stand, mm”. It does seem that there is a lot of 2020’s tensions in the lyrics. I am thinking about the killing of George Floyd and the outraged that sparked around the world – and how the long-held problem of racism in American policing came to the fore once more.

It does seem that there are no answers and improvements being made in the U.S., but one can look at the U.K. and similar problems regarding race and equality – are our leaders actually concerned and understand why change needs to occur?! I love the funkiness and flow of Revolution. I think this is Greentea Peng’s greatest song to date, and one that showcases her potent voice and lyrics. After the chorus comes back in, a beautiful post-chorus arrives: “Yeah, they shoot us down/They long for our crowns/The prospect of you and me together/Watch their walls tear down”. One could interpret those words as being quite personal and about a relationship, but I think Greentea Peng is referring to the world at large and how there is so much division. Although the heroine is angry and searching for answers, there is a spirituality and calm. In the second verse, she is confused and wondering what is happening: “They have tricked us with false freedoms/As they course freedom into the collective/So we feel like there is more that we connect with/That we need more in common than our hearts and our souls/I'm a sheep, but, for you, man, no, no/Only God is my shepherd/I'm lost and I'm wondering/Trying to decide what law this is, is it rhythm?/Nah, this shit is so imbalanced”. The addictive and compelling delivery and compositions means Revolution is a song that you will come back to time and time again. It is amazing track, and one that I hope forms part of an E.P. or album very soon. Greentea Peng is one of the brightest talents around and, on Revolution, she steps up another gear!

I wonder whether we will get a new E.P. or a debut album from Greentea Peng next year. With a couple of E.P.s under her belt, she is building a nice foundation and exploring different subjects with each song. Last year’s RISING E.P. was another terrific release and, to me, even stronger than Sensi. Greentea Peng spoke with ACCLAIM, and she discussed how RISING differed to Sensi:

“Let’s chat about your new music. I wanted to say congratulations on the new EP because I’m really feeling it. To me, there’s something really pure about your music. I think we’re so used to hearing about material shit and there’s a lot of bravado in the music we consume today. Not to say you’re switched off to those trends, obviously you have ‘Peng’ in your name but I feel like you’re operating in a different lane to your peers.

[Laughs] Oh man, thank you, I hear that. I like that you said that, because no one has really said that before. It’s something I try and steer away from. I don’t want to encourage that stuff, because we don’t need any more of that.

Can you tell me what the EP is all about?

There’s so many themes in it. It’s always about love. This one is a bop. It’s like a walk around the city on different days, one song per day. I should have put an extra song on there. It’s all different moods. Sensi was just one theme but this one is like a little glimpse at different moods”.

I want to finish up by returning to the feature from NOTION, where we get to learn what the aim of Greentea Peng’s music is. Every artist has their own reason for creating music, but it is clear that music is hugely important and transformative for Greentea Peng:

“I’m not trying to be out here preaching to people. I’m trying to express myself and be honest and if people interpret that and have a spiritual connection to that then, obviously, that’s sick because that’s what you wanna do,” she says, earnestly. “But, I don’t like labels, man. When people interview me, that’s not what I’m trying to focus on. People always focus on the spirituality, or, you know, ‘when I was younger and moving to Hastings and the effects and… I dunno. People love a fucking story innit. Like a sob story and that.”

So, putting clichés and labels—thankfully—aside, what is the underlying purpose of her music that she wants us to take away from it? “It’s my way of expressing myself, innit,” Aria states matter-of-factly. “Especially, when you’re writing about stuff that’s personal—it’s a way of shedding it away”.

I shall leave things there but, with another incredible song under her belt, Greentea Peng ends a successful 2020! Next year is a bit unsure for many artists, and I do think that things will improve. I hope we get more material from Greentea Peng, as she is one of the best new British artists and someone who has a sound and voice…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Hadden for CRACK

THAT takes you somewhere else.

___________

Follow Greentea Peng

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/greentea_peng

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Greenteasensi/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/greenteapeng/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5z9wLR0RGBcWMXr4fCZW0K

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCRAEpTfF75VPJlChgCRMAA

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Greentea Peng

TRACK REVIEW: Bruce Springsteen - I’ll See You in My Dreams

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Bruce Springsteen

I’ll See You in My Dreams

9.7/10

The track, I’ll See You in My Dreams, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Wi5ff4pNw

The album, Letter to You, is available to order via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/bruce-springsteen/letter-to-you

RELEASE DATE:

23rd October, 2020

GENRES:

Rock/Folk Rock

ORIGIN:

New Jersey, U.S.A.

LABEL:

Sony

TRACKLISTING:

One Minute You're Here

Letter to You

Burnin' Train

Janey Needs a Shooter

Last Man Standing

The Power of Prayer

House of a Thousand Guitars

Rainmaker

If I Was the Priest

Ghosts

Song for Orphans

I'll See You in My Dreams

__________

I think this is the first time…

PHOTO CREDIT: Bob Riha Jr./WireImage

that I have reviewed The Boss, Bruce Springsteen - but it seems like the right time to do it. Only a year after recording Western Stars, the man is back with another terrific album, Letter to You. Both albums have been celebrated by the critics. I think Springsteen is on a really good run of albums, but Letter to You is him backed by his E Street Band – the first time since 2014. The twentieth studio album from Bruce Springsteen, it is amazing that he can remain so consistent and surprising! One would think he would have lost a bit of his step and energy, but he has released an album that has all the heart, emotion, physicality, and variation that one would come to expect from him! Like I do with all artists, I want to assume that people need some gaps filled in and a bit of biography, so it is only right that I do the same for Bruce Springsteen – even if his background and rise is well-known and obvious. When Springsteen spoke with The Guardian back in 2016, we learned more about his earlier years:

“As a kid, he felt invisible. That stopped when he started playing guitar. “Suddenly I was able to make a very loud noise, and a noise that was not so easy to ignore,” he says. “I had my little rock’n’roll band and we were playing to a small gym full of dancers and their friends, and they immediately looked at you as a presence in their lives.”

When he was 19 his parents moved to California, and he was free to pursue music, to become – as he would say on stage years later – a “prisoner… a prisoner of rock’n’roll”.

Politics started entering Springsteen’s music, though far from explicitly, with his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, in 1978. That was when his music ceased to be the myth-making epics of his first three albums, and he started writing instead about ordinary people and their struggles. He wasn’t informed by reading political tracts. “I just referred to my experiences growing up – my parents’ lives, my sister’s life.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

His parents had struggled to make ends meet, his mother working as a legal secretary, his father in a succession of blue-collar jobs. His sister had married in her teens, and she and her husband’s travails inspired his masterly song The River, about a couple trying to face up to the wedge that joblessness drives into relationships. “I was surrounded by people who were youthful but living very complicated adult lives,” he says. “They were having kids at young ages and trying to build a work life and a home life that was very adult. It was very easy to draw upon. It wasn’t a stretch or a strain.”

Having children made Springsteen realise that his work wasn’t his life, it was a substitute for life. “I realised that previously I’d expanded my work life so that I’d have something to do during the day, and into the evening. Without it, what am I gonna do? Go home, sit in a chair and watch TV? So I’d expanded the time it took me to do my job. Once the kids came along, I realised, I could squeeze my previous 18 hours of work day into six or eight, without any problems whatsoever. I realised the song is always going to be there – there’s always going to be a song in your heart or in your head – but kids, they’re there and then they’re gone. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. Once I realised that, I found a tremendous freedom from the tyranny of my own mind”.

I do think that it is amazing that Springsteen has built such an incredible career from fairly humble beginnings, and he has remained so rooted and loveable from the very start. I wonder whether there will be a proper biopic regarding Springsteen in the future; someone taking him on in various stages of life, so that we can see his story laid out.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I want to bring things to 2020, as it has been as strange a year for Bruce Springsteen as everyone else. For someone who loves to tour and get his music to the fans, it would have been worrying seeing Coronavirus strike and dominate the world. Things are pretty bad in the U.S. regarding case numbers, so who knows how long it will be until Springsteen can get out there and perform his new album. In an interview from earlier in the year, Springsteen was asked how he is finding the pandemic and what he is doing:

“Springsteen said he’s “very worried” about friends such as Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Jackson Browne, who have been diagnosed as having the coronavirus. “I spoke with (Browne) a little bit and he seems to be doing all right at the moment,” said Springsteen. “‘I’m just wishing him well, and a lot of love.”

Asked if he’s talked to members of the E Street Band, he said, “I talk to Steve (Van Zandt) quite a bit, which is always a source of great entertainment. So he keeps my spirits up.”

He also said he and his wife Patti Scialfa (who also spoke briefly during the interview) “are hanging out a lot together … we’re actually have a good time together. We’re on the farm, so, you know, we have our horses here, and we get to spend a little time with them. That’s been nice.”

He also said he’s been working on new music. “I try to keep my day as full as possible, and to keep myself from going completely cabin-fever crazy.”

He said the new music “is going well, and hopefully it keeps going well.” He also said “I have no predictions on it yet,” meaning he can’t say when it will be ready to be released”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Demartin

I want to cover a few different subjects for this review, so I was interested knowing about the writing process and how Springsteen tackles songs nearly fifty years since his debut album. Every album Springsteen puts out sounds completely complete and impactful. He is still putting his all into every song, and it is evident that music means so much to him after all of these years; maybe providing a sense of release and fulfilment that so many artists feel. That said, as he told RNZ's Charlotte Ryan on Music 101, the process of writing is quite intimidating:

“Bruce has sold more than 150 million records worldwide and has won plenty of awards too, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award (for Springsteen on Broadway). In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016.

Despite this, he still describes song writing as an equally terrifying and incredibly fulfilling experience.

It's terrifying because you never knew whether you will be able to repeat the magic, Bruce says.

"I've done it for 50 years. I don't know how a song takes place and I don't know anyone who's ever been able to explain it because you pull something from nothing and you create something physical from it...

"There's an element of it that is quite frightening in a sense and then there's another element where, when it does happen and something's good, it's one of the most wonderful feelings in my life ...it's still an incredible experience, the act of writing a song."

He says he generally writes about a third or half of a song at a time, "a little bit piecemeal" and it's a "tremendous relief" when songs are composed as quickly as for this album”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

One cannot really compare two consecutive Springsteen albums, as he does change his sound between them, and he seems to always want to move forward. Letter to You is a more stripped and live-sounding record than Western Stars and many of his previous albums - and Springsteen took on a different approach when it came to the tone and sound. The presence and influence of his E Street Band was fundamental when it came to creating something quite sparse-yet-powerful. Returning to the previous interview, and The Boss explained his plan for Letter to You’s dynamic:

“He wanted a sound that was just the basic band with no extraneous instruments. "I wanted two keyboards, guitars, bass, drums - I just wanted the raw sound of the band the way it existed on say Darkness on the Edge of Town and so it really suited itself to immediate live recording."

Reuniting once again in the studio with the E Street Band was "a sweet benediction". They recorded the new album in just four days and on the fifth day they "listened and told stories".

"It was just a great process ... [we] spent about three hours a song, the band played entirely live, all the vocals are first takes. So it was just a unique and wonderful experience for us".

I am going to jump to politics, and this will take up a large chunk of space before I actually get to reviewing a track! One cannot talk about Bruce Springsteen without mentioning politics and America, as some of his greatest work has been defined by these potent and eye-opening songs that take a look at America and really get to the core. Under the leadership of Donald Trump, I am surprised Springsteen hasn’t released a huge anthem like Born in the U.S.A. – something that really addresses the problems in America and takes a shot at the those in power.

This year has seen America being led more and more towards a point of no return; race riots have broken out and there seems to be so much more division. As Americans cast their vote – in the hope that Joe Biden can win the upcoming election -, maybe there is a sense that hope and change is close by. It must have been alarming and upsetting for Springsteen seeing everything collapse and explode this year. He spoke with The Atlantic a few months back, and he was asked how he felt about the state of America right now:

“David Brooks: We’ve got people marching in the streets. We’ve got great tumult. What do you see? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about what’s going on out there?

Bruce Springsteen: I don’t think anybody truly knows where we’re going from here yet. It depends on too many unknowns. We don’t know where the COVID virus is going to take us. We don’t know where Black Lives Matter is going to take us right now. Do we get a real practical conversation going about race and policing and ultimately about the economic inequality that’s been a stain on our social contract?

Brooks: Let’s talk about America and the meaning of America. I once heard you say, in an interview, that Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” That’s an illustration of how songwriters have always had this long conversation about what America means. And we’re sort of in a crisis around that now. We have an American national narrative that doesn’t include everybody. So how do you think about the meaning of America, the American story?

Springsteen: When I started, I self-consciously saw myself as an American artist and as an average American. I figured I had a talent that allowed me to create a language in which I could speak about the things that concern me and that I felt were of concern to the place that I lived—to my neighbors and the people that I’d grown up with. I don’t know if I would call it a political point of view, but I had a point of view when I was very young, and I always viewed popular music as a movement towards greater freedom. Great music brings greater freedom …

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I don’t think there will ever be one music that’s going to tell the full story, the full American story, again. The culture is too fractured right now. But I believe it’s the artist’s duty to proceed as if that above statement is untrue. To proceed as if it’s possible to have a monocultural moment and to write something and to record something that is deeply meaningful and exciting and will reach the whole nation and change the culture.You’ve got to go ahead on that impulse, you know.

Brooks: There is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you. You’ve spent so much of your life writing about working-class men and, in particular, working-class men who were victims of deindustrialization, who used to work in the factories and mills that were closed, whether in Asbury Park or Freehold or Youngstown or throughout the Midwest. But a lot of those guys didn’t turn out to share your politics. They became Donald Trump supporters. What’s your explanation for that?

Springsteen: There’s a long history of working people being misled by a long list of demagogues, from George Wallace and Jesse Helms to fake religious leaders like Jerry Falwell to our president.

The Democrats haven’t really made the preservation of the middle and working class enough of a priority. And they’ve been stymied in bringing more change by the Republican Party. In the age of Roosevelt, Republicans represented business; Democrats represented labor. And when I was a kid, the first and only political question ever asked in my house was “Mom, what are we, Democrats or Republicans?” And she answered, “We are Democrats because they’re for the working people.” (I have a sneaking suspicion my mom went Republican towards the end of her cognizant life, but she never said anything about it!)”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

That is quite a big chunk of text to quote, but I felt it was important to bring it in, as Bruce Springsteen’s music and ethos is so tied into politics. He is someone who is deeply affected by what is happening at the moment, but I think it is interesting to see how he conducts himself and what politics mean to him personally. I was looking back at that interview from The Guardian, as it seems that politics is about how one conducts their life:

“For Springsteen, politics seems to be about the way you live your life as much as anything. It’s about being decent. About being fair to others. Being a good man. So what does being a good man entail?

“That’s a big question,”

It is.

“I guess, really… I probably learned the best answers to that from my mother. My mother was basically decent, compassionate, strong, wilful. She insisted on creating a world where she could make her children feel as safe as possible, even though she certainly had her faults in that area. But she was consistent. You could count on her. Day after day after day. And she was very strong. The best part of me picked up a lot of those characteristics and I struggle to live up to them today. So I think dependability, strength, wilfulness… put in the service of something good – those are the things that matter to me.”

His mother had to be the rock because his childhood in New Jersey was, to say the least, peculiar. He spent a chunk of it in the early 1950s living in Freehold with a paternal grandmother who loved him too much, compensating for the death of her daughter in 1927 (“It was very emotionally incestuous and a lot of parental roles got crossed,” he told the writer Peter Ames Carlin); school was cruel, his father Doug – consumed by an often silent rage against the world, and against the son who mystified him – crueller still, emotionally at least”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Duncan Barnes

There is one thing I want to cover off before I tackle I’ll See You in My Dreams from Letter to You. I want to briefly circle back to that interview with The Atlantic as, among the hatred and violence that has been seen this year in America, there are aspects which make Springsteen feel optimistic. Billboard were reacting to that interview from The Atlantic; Springsteen talked about race relations and the clear divide between the Democrat and Republican parties:

“What makes him feel most optimistic, though, is watching all the young people in the street, as well as the demonstrations they've inspired around the world, which he thinks will ultimately be about more than Floyd and police violence against American citizens.

The interview also finds Springsteen talking about whether we've made any progress on racial equality and why the President's "march to St. John's [church]" to pose with a Bible with his "phony all-white contingent" just didn't look real. "Because it wasn’t real. That is not the America of today," he says. "That culture, which keeps Black people invisible, is gone. In the present moment, if Black people are not visible, that’s not acceptable. And I think that’s a sign of progress. When you see the Democratic side of the House filled with brown people and Black people, straight people and gay people, and then you look at the Republicans, who appear unchanged by history at this moment? They look ridiculous. And despite their current power, they look like a failing party".

I shall get down to reviewing I’ll See You in My Dreams, as it is a fantastic song from Letter to You, and it is also the closing track. I was keen to review this track, as it is one that I keep coming back to time and time again/ It has made a big impression on me.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

Although there is quite a lot of energy to the composition of I’ll See You in My Dreams – the band provide a definite sense of forward motion -, the lyrics seem to point to something more emotive and lost. It appears that Springsteen is remembering a friend that has gone. Whether he is talking about America in general and how the country has been lost, or whether the song pertain to a particular person, there is clearly a lot of meaning and personal relevance behind the words: “The road is long and seeming without end/The days go on, I remember you my friend/And though you're gone and my heart's been empty it seems/I'll see you in my dreams”. Springsteen’s voice carries quite a bit of weight, but it also quite contemplative and spirited. I wonder whether, when Springsteen sings “I got your guitar here by the bed/All your favorite records and all the books that you read/And though my soul feels like it's been split at the seams/I'll see you in my dreams”, there is this particular love that has been lost. The images are quite vivid and resonant, and the song really does make you think. Although he is dealing with quite weighty words and sentiments, there is a definite energy and verve that portrays a sense of reconciliation and optimism. When it comes to the chorus, Springsteen talks about meeting this person in his dreams; the suggestion that, maybe, the person has passed and this reunion has a sadder element: “I'll see you in my dreams when all our summers have come to an end/I'll see you in my dreams, we'll meet and live and laugh again/I'll see you in my dreams, yeah around the river bend/For death is not the end/And I'll see you in my dreams”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

I am really interested in the meaning behind the lyrics and whether Springsteen is reacting to someone that he is lost or has been departed from – or whether he is not necessarily taking from his personal life. One cannot help but get caught up in the drive and sense of hopefulness, even if there is a suggestion that all might not be all that it seems. At the midway point of the song, the spotlight is handed to the band and there is whirling organ, beautiful guitar licks and this very beautiful passage. I think Springsteen’s voice sounds as stirring now as it has ever been! It is impossible not to be swept up in the sense that, even if it through dreams, Springsteen will get this reunion and valuable connection. In a wider sense, I think songs like I’ll See You in My Dreams offers a bit of hope to the wider world; people are going through a really tough time and music like this really offers something positive and energising. Every song on Letter to You is fantastic, but I think that its closing track is the best. It is classic Springsteen, in the sense that there is this mixture of powerful optimism and rousing vocals, together with something deeper and more emotional. I have listened to I’ll See You in My Dreams a lot, and I think that it is one of Springsteen’s best songs in years – not that this is a slight against his other tracks; it is just that I’ll See You in My Dreams is so good!     

I want to finish up by returning to the subject of Springsteen and politics. We might see a new President elected very soon (let’s hope so!), but Springsteen is as rattled and worried as everyone else at the moment regarding the way America is being run. In an interview with CBS This Morning earlier in the year, Springsteen provided his view on Trump’s presidency:

"It's just frightening, you know? We're living in a frightening time," he said of the current political landscape. "The stewardship of the nation is — has been thrown away to somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what that means. You know? I mean, United States of America is in your care. Do you know what — do you know what the stakes are? Do you know what that means? And unfortunately we have somebody who I feel doesn't have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American."

"You campaigned for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Is there anybody, if they called you, you said, 'okay, I'll go out?'" King asked.

"I don't know ... I mean I've kind of spent my chips on the folks I've helped in the past. But I always take it as it goes and see. See how it turns out. Or what comes up as we get closer to elections".

I think the next Bruce Springsteen album will very much reflect the aftermath of the U.S. election and maybe how the world is adapting to life after a pandemic. At the moment, I think Springsteen is much more in a self-reflecting and personal mindframe. Letter to You includes some of his most affecting songs, and the critical reaction to the album has been hugely positive. It is, as I said earlier, amazing how The Boss can produce these staggering albums after all of these years! It makes us excited to see where he might go next and what the next chapter will be. Having released one of the best albums of 2020, make sure you grab a copy of…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

THE amazing Letter to You.

___________

Follow Bruce Springsteen

PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

Official:

https://brucespringsteen.net/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/springsteen

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/brucespringsteen/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/springsteen/

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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3eqjTLE0HfPfh78zjh6TqT

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ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Bruce Springsteen

TRACK REVIEW: beabadoobee - Together

TRACK REVIEW:

 

beabadoobee

PHOTO CREDIT: blackksocks

Together

9.6/10

The track, Together, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngDzKqMv5yM

The album, Fake It Flowers, is available to order via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/beabadoobee/fake-it-flowers/lp-plus

RELEASE DATE:

16th October, 2020

GENRE:

Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

London, U.K./Iloilo City, Philippines

LABEL:

Dirty Hit

TRACKLISTING:

Care

Worth It

Dye It Red

Back to Mars

Charlie Brown

Emo Song

Sorry

Further Away

Horen Sarrison

How Was Your Day

Together

Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene

__________

MOST artists I review…

PHOTO CREDIT: blackksocks for Rolling Stone

were alive during the 1990s, but that is not the case with beabadoobee. She seems so suited to the music of the time and such a fan, yet she was not alive during that decade. It makes it all the more remarkable that she channels some of the 1990s’ sounds into her own as though she experienced it first time around. I will come onto that later but, with her debut album, Fake It Flowers, out and getting so much love, I was eager to review a track from it. There has been a lot of attention around beabadoobee, and she is an artist who has made a big mark in such a short time. At just twenty years old, she is establishing herself as one of the most remarkable and popular young artists in the U.K., and there is something about her music that is simply engrossing and spellbinding. She would have had big plans for this year, as the momentum she gained last year – with the release of her E.P., Space Cadet – primed her for a very busy schedule in 2020. Instead, things are very different, but that does not mean that beabadoobee has been quiet! I just want to briefly quote from an interview in The Standard pre-pandemic, that gives a brief bit of biography and also shows just how much she has achieved in such a short time:

“Beatrice Kristi Laus settles into the corner booth of a Wandsworth cafe at 2pm and orders mozzarella sticks, which are breakfast. The 19-year-old is winging it again and why not? From her cutesy, hastily chosen stage name Beabadoobee — a scatting play on her first name Beatrice — to her lower-than-lo-fi debut recording Coffee, which earned her a record deal after she put it online for fun in 2017, she’s made a virtue of avoiding pre-planning.

Things she has made to look effortless in 2020 include: being tipped on all the lists — she’s been named a Brits Rising Star, a YouTube One to Watch and a BBC Sound of 2020 in recent weeks, racking up Instagram followers to the tune of almost 375,000 and becoming an arena act. She’s about to support The 1975 around the UK, including two nights at the O2 next month. She only finished school last summer, with terrible A-level results”.

Before I get to the present and look at her music now, I want to head back to beabadoobee’s childhood and upbringing; put in interview snippets where she talks about that period and what it was like – so one can get a better overview and impression of the songwriter. I think her school life and those years were not the smoothest and happiest, and it is almost like beabadoobee was born in the wrong time. Inspired and made happy by music from the 1990s, I think there was a determination to get into music and taker a different course. Not to suggest that school was unhappy purely because of her music desires, as it is quite a complex issue, but it is obvious that beabadoobee (Beatrice Lau) had other ambitions and important things in her life. When she spoke with The Forty Five this year, we get a sense of what beabadoobee’s school years were like:

“At the risk of psychologising, her desire to cocoon herself in the familiar sonics of young childhood feels logical when you consider Bea’s rocky adolescence. Raised in West London, school was far from ideal, and she hints at other struggles too, a ‘dark period’ that seems to link back to a feeling of placelessness, her Filipino heritage rendering her as something of an outsider in a classroom full of insecure teens looking for an easy target. Soon, she had fallen in with the ‘stoner crowd’, and just before starting her A-Levels, her teachers called time on her erratic attendance and attitude – she was asked to find a new school. Not the easiest conversation to have with your parents…

“Well, honestly, at first, I feel like any parent would be like, “er, what the fuck?” she remembers. “I wasn’t taking education seriously. I only got into music quite late in my life, and when my dad bought me a guitar at 17, it meant a lot that he understood that I needed something to distract myself from being so sad. He and my mum saw how hard it was growing up in a predominantly white, all-girls Catholic school – you know those backhanded compliments and snidey little remarks? Girls can be amazing, but for some reason, secondary school is just a shithole.”

PHOTO CREDIT: blackksocks

Signing a record deal at 17 could have induced its own regrets, but she remains happy on Dirty Hit, finding it difficult to imagine herself anywhere else. Her comfort is emphasised by the location from which she talks – a residence out in the Oxfordshire sticks, where she’s currently working on an unspecified recording project with The 1975, to be released at some point after she’s had time to “properly live in the ‘Fake It Flowers’ universe”.

It would have been hard assimilating and feeling seen in a school where there were a lot of white faces, and it was surely a strange and lonely time for her. That struggle to feel accepted can be heard in her music but, from an outsider’s viewpoint, one can understand why music would have been a more appealing and sensible route than further education or a more conventional path, as it seems like beabadoobee gained more knowledge and joy from listening to music than being around school and her peers. In that interview with The Standard, she talks more about the alienation and oddness of school:

“It sounds as though she’s had some difficult teenage years to work through before gaining the confidence to be centre stage. “School was predominantly white, rich girls. It was very hard to fit in. I struggled a lot with self-acceptance, what I wore, how I did my make-up. The popular girls wouldn’t bully you so obviously but bring you down in a way that hurt just as bad. No boys really liked me. I was an anomaly. But I had to go through all of that, and feel shit, to be in the mental state I’m in right now. It really shaped me as a person”

I am going to move onto a different subject in a second but, if school seemed like a struggle and a place where beabadoobee did not fit in, then it appears that her parents offered her more support and solidity. The family moved to the U.K. from The Philippines, and whilst it must have been scary going to such a different country, it seemed like there was more opportunity here. Even though American and British bands of the 1990s soon came into her orbit, there was a lot of different sounds filling the home. In this interview from DAZED, beabadoobee discusses the pride she has in her parents and the pride that they have in her:

“Bea overflows with adoration when she talks about her mum and dad, saying that they moved to the UK “for me – that’s why I want to do everything for them. Even though I can be a cunt sometimes.” She was born in Iloilo City in the Philippines in 2000, where she says her parents were well off, her dad working as a representative for a pharmaceutical company. “They wanted a better education for me,” explains Bea. “My dad had a super intense life as a kid. He was in the slums, shining shoes and shit. So it was his life goal to not make me go through any of that.” When Bea was two, her mum, a nurse, moved to London; a year later, Bea and her dad followed. Her dad then trained as a nurse too, and Bea's 11-year-old brother (who has ASD, and who she describes as “fucking amazing”), was born a few years later.

Bea’s parents spent her childhood filling the house with OPM (Original Pilipino Music), including bands like Itchyworms and APO Hiking Society, as well as the Smiths, the Cranberries, and Sonic Youth. They’re more stoked than anyone that their daughter is playing the O2 tonight (“I’m pretty sure my mum low-key always wanted to be in a band,” says Bea). But a few years ago, it wasn’t their plan for her to skip university to pursue music. They enrolled her in a prestigious all-girls’ Catholic grammar school in west London. Bea hated it. “The teachers were really mean, the girls were really mean,” she remembers. “There was not a lot of Asian girls in my school, they were predominantly white and rich – and I was not” – she lets out that bright, boisterous laugh – “I was a migrant!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Louise Bennett

I am going to spend some time in the 1990s as, when you look at the reviews for Fake It Flowers, many have noted that the decade can be heard in the bones and blood of the music. The 1990s was very important to me, and I really love the music of the time. It is a decade so full of variety and life, and I can understand why songwriter now are so enamoured of the 1990s. In this interview with The Guardian, there is a bit more exposure regarding her school experiences, but also why she was drawn to Alt-Rock of the ‘90s:

“It is a sound that suited her character better: at least one thing that seems to draw her to early 90s alt-rock is its preponderance of tough, expectation-defying female role models, from Courtney Love to Bikini Kill to Kim Deal. “People were expecting me to be super-cute and quiet or whatever, and then they realised I had a big, fat mouth and went to an all-girls school that kicked me out,” she says. “And I’ve been through shit, so much shit in my life, I’m not going to shut up about it. I just want to be that girl I needed when I was 15 for someone, you know?”

She says her experience of school was “intense”, even before she was expelled “for a combination of bad grades and behaviour”. Her parents moved from the Philippines to London because they thought she would get a better education, but she suffered a breakdown aged 11, followed by the “isolating” experience of being one of only a handful of Filipino girls at her Hammersmith secondary school”.

It is amazing that beabadoobee has gone from those unhappy and unfulfilling years at school to where she is now in quite a short space of time! It is testament to her determination and love of music that she has built a fanbase and reputation so quickly. They do say that every great songwriter has to have experienced some sadness to be that good but, for beabadoobee, I think music provides her with the sense of direction and community that school lacked.

The 1990s is a fascinating period for beabadoobee, and I think she would have like to have lived it that period – as I shall reveal a bit later. I want to go back to that interview from The Standard, as it appears like beabadoobee has inspired quite a lot of teenagers to listen to music they might not have otherwise discovered:

“She’s also been responsible for introducing a lot of current teenagers to the wonders of Nineties music. Her most recent EP, Space Cadet, is packed with scuzzy guitar rock influenced by that decade, including She Plays Bass, which was inspired by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and D’arcy Wretzky of Smashing Pumpkins. Then there’s I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus, in which this teenage girl born in Manila expresses a burning desire to be the 53-year-old frontman of Californian indie band Pavement. “This tripzz me out,” he tweeted when he heard it. Then he brought his children to one of her US shows to meet her, which caused a bit of excitement. “He went in for a handshake and I just jumped at him and said: ‘Iloveyousomuchthankyouforcoming!’” she gushes.

So what does she want to know about the Nineties? I was there the whole time. This news suddenly makes me much more interesting to her. If I tell her I saw Pavement play Reading Festival in 1995, it might be like someone back then telling me about The Beatles on the Apple Corps rooftop. “I guess it was much more wholesome and innocent back then?” she queries. “Because you didn’t have social media. But I guess you still had magazines and shit”.

Fake It Flowers kind of picks up where Space Cadet left off in terms of sounds and vibing off of the ‘90s. Not that the decade is entirely responsible for her sound and passion, but it is very important. Beabadoobee was interviewed by NME recently, and it does appear like she would have loved to have lived a few decades ago:

“So Bea wishes she was a ‘90s kid. Her bedroom is decorated with posters of the decade’s dominant film star, Tom Hanks, and at a recent show, the support act was a projection of his 1993 film . The first CD she bought was Green Day’s Dookie’, and she genuinely used to listen to cassettes instead of an iPod on the school bus.

“People think I’m just some quirky girl who pretends to love old movies, but I genuinely fucking do,” she says. “I’ve been obsessed and nostalgic because I never lived in that era. I’ve always wanted to live in the ‘90s and no-one says that, because they think it’s cringe. But pretty much all the people I listen to are dead now…”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Curtis Hughes

One subject I have not touched on yet is the impact of social media and how, like all artists, beabadoobee is not immune to the negativity that is commonplace there. Although she personally does not get a lot of criticism on social media (as far as I know), she is aware of its impact, and it is hard to ignore it. It is such a shame that artists do have to face this unfiltered and thoughtless criticism and hatred from people, and, for beabadoobee, it has affected her. She spoke with NME and discussed social media viciousness:

“Have you had to deal with much negativity on social media?

“Getting hate sent to me is probably the hardest thing I’ve had to overcome. Some people think everything in my bedroom is so fake and all deliberately planted to make me out to be a quirky girl. I’m not really used to people being that mean about things I like. I’m very self-deprecating as it is, but the hate I see – I’m just not used to that. I’m trying to stop crying about it now.”

Has pushing back to haters influenced your music?

“I was so angry and emotional when I wrote ‘I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus’ and I’m so glad I did. It felt so good to have all that self-love in the lyrics. I feel like I’m shouting at everyone who tells me not to be me. I love my blue-hair. Yes, I sit at home and cry to Pavement. Fuck what everyone else says”.

I just want to grab another passage from that NME interview, as there is a great bit regarding beabadoobee as a person. If you look at photos of her, you get this impression of someone who is very cool indeed! It was nice to read a little bit about what beabadoobee is like being interviewed:

“Bea has started dreaming of a bigger world and seems to be having quite a bit of fun doing so. She’s excitable and inquisitive, but with the blissed-out slacker vibes of her heroes. She’s also clearly still getting used to people being interested in her music and life. Before each answer she gives a moment’s thought before answering, and most of them end with a nervous chuckle.

In spite of this, she’s devastatingly cool. Her striking hair styles indicate her mood, like on self-love anthem ‘I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus’, where she bigs up her new electric blue hair. “Every time I do something, I want to change my hair. It’s just as important in the music to me,” she says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Curtis Hughes

There are a couple more things I want to tick off before I come to reviewing Together from Fake It Flowers. I am not going to review the whole album, but I would encourage people to investigate all of Fake It Flowers, as there is a great blend of sounds. It is clear that beabadoobee has developed and grown as a songwriter over the past year or two. When she spoke with The Forty-Five, we get a clearer impression of the sound of Fake It Flowers - and beabadoobee explains why the album sounds different to her previous work:

“Despite having already developed somewhat past it, ‘Fake It Flowers’ demonstrates a distinctly more ambitious and identifiable sound than anything Bea has released before. It’s not always an easy listen – some of the lyrical themes are so intimately personal that she says she’s unlikely to ever play certain songs live. Striking the balance between musical disclosure and self-preservation is an eternal battle, but she sees this record as an opportunity to embrace a new chapter, challenging herself to reflect upon everything that’s brought her to this point. Her intent is set not only in the music, but in her image – like each era before it, her newly blonde hair is an emblem of change – her very own version of a movie makeover montage.

“It’s a lot to do with me growing and maturing from touring,” she says. “I know I haven’t been on many, but I toured the US, and I did a headline UK tour with Dirty Hit, and, um, shit happened. I’ve made loads of mistakes; I’ve met a lot of people that weren’t so good to me. ‘Sorry’ is something that is so personal – admitting and confessing to my mistakes is one big thing I never usually do. Lyrically, there’s just so much more to reflect on, and with the sound, I guess, naturally after playing arenas with The 1975, I wanted to make songs that would fill those rooms. I wanted to sound powerful”. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Blow

I have listened to the tracks on the album, but I never thought of the significance of the album’s title, Fake It Flowers. Beabadoobee was asked about this when she was interviewed by Nylon:

“Is the album title Fake It Flowers a reference to anything, or is there any deeper meaning behind that?

It's quite funny, actually. I named the album that because every time I downloaded something on my phone, it would automatically save as "fake it flowers." If I was recording a demo in the studio or in my bedroom, it would just always automatically save as "fake it flowers." I found it really interesting because there was no flower shop near my house called Fake It Flowers, but found out that there was a shop called Fake It Flowers in my studio. It was like fate, all the songs just accidentally being saved under that name. I thought it was a really pretty name. That's the thing about flowers, that they are all so unique and beautiful in their own way”.

The last thing I want to discuss before moving on to the review concerns beabadoobee’s music and why it connects to people. She has a very large fanbase, and that covers all ages, genders, and corners of the globe. There is clearly something that resonates and speaks to people. Nylon were keen to know why her music inspired a lot of people:

I think they have a relatability with my writing because I think we are all around the same age. It's mostly girls like me who like the same things, who experience the same things. They find a similarity with that. And also the fact that, I was also reading some comments yesterday, that they do feel there's a bit of a nostalgic feeling they get when they listen to my music. And it's probably because their mom used to play it when they were growing up, or the movies they liked. I grew up listening to all this music.

My mom used to play all these amazing front-woman bands. I subconsciously just used that inspiration through my music without even realizing. I got back into all these artists that my mom used to play when I was really young. I discovered more, and I think people can hopefully hear that and recognize that. I think they find that quite comforting”.

I am going to move on now and review Together. It is one of the standout songs from Fake It Flowers, and one that perfectly showcases beabadoobee’s many talents and unique songwriting.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Blow

There is quite a lo-fi sound to Together. The guitar, at the start, is quite scratchy and there is this beat, but it is quite a naked and raw. It instantly has that flavour of ‘90s Indie and Alternative Rock, and beabadoobee’s voice is instantly gripping in its quiet intensity. The first verse is quite short, and we get to the chorus pretty quickly! That verse – “Crash the car again/The same mistakes again/Don't wanna hurt you like I did” - could be taken literally as an actual crash, but I get the sense that it is used as a metaphor. A lot of songs that deal with personal emotions and matters of the heart are quite oblique, and Together does not provide explanation as to what mistakes have been made and why things are like they are. This means that the listeners can work on their own interpretation; giving too much away might distil the song’s potency. There is a quiet-loud dynamic that means the verses are quieter and calmer in deliver, and there is this fire and explosion in the chorus. The guitars get quite grungy, and beabadoobee’s voice sharpens and becomes more impassioned. The words “'Cause I'm not waiting for you/But I don't want to hurt you” come along, and it got me to thinking. There is quite a bit of mystery and intrigue in those lines, and one wonders what has happened between the two and what the words mean. There seems to be that sense of contradiction: the heroine not holding out for her sweetheart, but she also does not want to hurt them either.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Louise Bennett

I like the sound of the verses, as beabadoobee’s voice is smokier and there is this underlying tension that works through the composition. “All alone again/It hurts my heart again/I think my blood is running thin/I'm away again/It hurts my head again/Don't wanna be away from your skin”. The repetition of the word ‘again’ is quite effecting, and it does appear that there is a long history between the two - and our heroine has made the same errors a few times. The second chorus is longer than the first, and there is a little more exposition and revelation: “'Cause I'm not waiting for you/But I don't want to hurt you/Guess that's how my life will go/At least we're together though, together though/Together though, together though”. There is that idea of togetherness, even if one gets the impression that the two are separate and there is a division. Beabadoobee has this unique vocal sound that is very modern and her own, but one can definitely hear her musical inspirations in there too. Before the chorus comes back in, there is another short verse – “Hurt myself again/I thought you'd notice it/Don't wanna fix it like you did” -, that hints that her lover/friend has been a bit negligent and absent-minded, but there is that contradiction in the lyrics that takes your mind in different directions. You get this feeling that beabadoobee’s mind is a bit muddled, and she is still trying to find her way – “'Cause I'm don't want to let you know/I've been thinking of letting you go/Guess that's how the whole story ends”. The outro is one of the most memorable parts of the song. Beabadoobee’s voice is at its most intense and hypnotic, and there is this slight passage where there is a little bit of musical accompaniment but there is this strange intimacy. Then, the noise ratchets back up and we get this burst of intensity -  “I think I'm okay by myself, I'm doing great/But we'd be better together, better together/Together though, together though, together again”. The song ends and, whilst it seems like the two would be great together and things would be better, beabadoobee needs to be on her own - or that is the only choice. Together is a song that will have you coming back, and it is one of the finest from the Fake It Flowers album.

PHOTO CREDIT: Callum Harrison

I shall wrap up soon but, just before, there are a couple of things I want to cover. I mentioned how beabadoobee has come a long way in a short time, and life now is very different to how it was when she was at school. Her music has taken her around the world, and she has made some pretty notable friends. The interview with NME gives more detail:

“She’s making more famous friends, and definitely not daunted about making the first step. When she supported Mac DeMarco in Dublin earlier this summer, the pair went out post-show, did karaoke and she ended the night with a Mac-designed tattoo of a face on her arm

Since she got a verified account on Twitter and Instagram, she’s been slipping and sliding into the DMs of any one of the heroes that’ll take her. First was Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon and Tom Hanks, though neither have responded as of just yet – “I’ve messaged them twice with the same thing; I’m that much of a beg” – but she did get a response from The Moldy Peaches’ singer Kimya Dawson, who was flattered by the message”.

This year has been a tough one for all artists, and beabadoobee was planning to get on the road and take her music far and wide. That is not going to happen for a while, and let’s hope that she gets to perform soon enough. Back in July, she spoke with i-D and she was asked how the pandemic was affecting her:

“As you say, it was supposed to be a big year for you in terms of tours and festivals. How was it mentally adjusting to such a massive shift in plan?

I remember it being really sad. I was obviously so gassed about doing all these shows and hanging out with my band in America... but America looks a bit fucked right now, so I’m glad that I had a breather.

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Gunning

And now you’re back at it and about to release the first single from your debut album! When you look back, do you remember what kind of person you were when you released your first song “Coffee” in 2017?

I was still in school and didn’t even think about music as being an actual thing I could do, so I never imagined any of this could happen. I released “Coffee” thinking it was just for fun, and something other than school to do with my friend Oscar. It was all very innocent and young and naive. I’m still kind of the same, but I guess the industry is becoming more familiar now”.

And what's your post-pandemic plan?

When this is all over, or when the album drops -- whichever comes first -- I wanna have a massive party. A princess-themed album party.

For friends and collaborators or for fans too?

Just for people that worked on the album and girlfriends from school. And I really want to do a show. I feel like if corona had never happened and Fake It Flowers was coming out, I’d do a show the next day, a random free show. That would’ve been the dream”.

I will leave it there, but I would urge people to pick up Fake It Flowers, as it is one of this year’s best albums. Beabadoobee has a great future ahead of her, and I think that she will be topping festival bills in the next few years. There is that mix of the deeply personal and the more universal in the music that has connected with so many people, and the tracks will definitely stay long in the mind.  The tremendous beabadoobee will be putting out simply incredible music…

FOR years to come.

___________

Follow beabadoobee

PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Curtis Hughes

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/beabad00bee

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/radvxz/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/radvxz/

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/artist/35l9BRT7MXmM8bv2WDQiyB?si=ZFvu5p1fQqitMRlNZgQZjw

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOf6pX571cKC0rhOZqv2y7Q

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

beabadoobee

TRACK REVIEW: The Lathums - I See Your Ghost

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

The Lathums

I See Your Ghost

9.5/10

The track, I See Your Ghost, is available from:

https://open.spotify.com/track/1UcJ8D36Uu4M2jFsKfUnUH?si=RtPa2V8ISYGPFIgV3SX2Lg

The Ghosts EP is available to pre-order via:

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/1531730786?app=itunes&cId=WE&i=1531731090&ign-itscg=30440&ign-itsct=catchall_p4&ign-mpt=uo%3D4&lId=1866634&sr=1&src=Linkfire

RELEASE DATE:

30th October, 2020

GENRES:

Alternative/Indie

ORIGIN:

Wigan, U.K.

LABEL:

Island Records

__________

IT has been a while since I have…

included a new band in this feature. I think the music scene is still being dominated by solo artists and, whilst there are some good bands around, the majority of the great artists out there are solo. That said, one could not have missed the rise and rise of The Lathums. It gives me a chance, not only to investigate a promising group, but to take my focus away from London – so often the obvious go-to when it comes to music. The Lathums hail from Wigan and, whilst many of us associate the North with bands such as The Stone Roses, and The Beatles, I think many are unaware of the terrific bands that exist in every corner of the North. Whilst Wigan might not be as packed with legendary and new bands as, say, Liverpool or Manchester, it is the home to one of the U.K.’s most encouraging groups! Before moving onto a topic that I am keen to explore, I will grab from a CLASH article which introduces the lads:

“Humble but confident, the Wigan four-piece made up of frontman/singer Alex Moore, Scott Concepcion on guitar, bassist Johnny Cunliffe and drummer Ryan Durrans make sublime, jangly guitar-laden songs soaked in melodic textures. Not only resembling The Smiths, they connect with sonics of The Beatles, The Coral, The Stone Roses and The Housemartins. The Lathums are a close unit where everything’s natural and feels right.

Although some lyrics derive from sadness, there’s a wider palette of emotion displayed and optimistic sentiments occur with frequency. A dedicated writer Moore has a rare gift for capturing life’s essence with humour, charm and precision, offering nuanced perspectives that allow for exploration and gritty portrayals. There’s a belief that lyrics exist to explore themes of local, national and international interest, hence subjects like the French Resistance, digital culture and materialistic age are tackled with intelligence and imagination”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Crowston

I think Wigan is important for a number of reasons. Not only does it put a different part of the North on the map, but it seems that the fans and locals there are among the most supportive. At this very hard time for every artist, I think getting as much backing and loyalty as possible is vital; it seems that the Lathums have a tremendous backing from their home crowd! It is not the only reason why they are so popular and talked-about, but I think it might have been harder if they were from London. Perhaps it might have taken them a bit longer to get that buzz but, as there is such a passionate and dedicated following there, it was only a matter of time before The Lathums began to accrue that sort of acclaim and reputation. In an article from Get Into This, Alex Moore nodded to the hometown masses:

“Moore states that the support in their home town has been important for the young four-piece.

“It helps to have that backing,” he says. “Obviously Oasis had Manchester and The Beatles had Liverpool getting behind them so this is our equivalent.

I don’t want to use the word gang to describe it , it’s more like a scene. Everyone has been really supportive, the people who are associated just help us anyway they can”.

Although this review is going to be shorter than the usual ones I put out – as The Lathums have conducted fewer interviews than most acts I assess -, I think I can go into quite a bit of depth and explore them from a number of different angles. Indeed, the band have found themselves on this rise of attention and popularity. I am not suggested that it has been an overnight success – as every band works their work gradually to prominence -, but The Lathums have resonated very quickly and are signed to Island Records.

That legendary imprint, through the years, has signed everyone from Any Winehouse to Nicki Minaj, and it is testament to the quality and appeal of The Lathums that they have found themselves signed to one of the best labels around. That does not mean that their future is assured, and they will be pampered. Island Records will provide the band with a platform and guidance, but the guys are still going to have to put in the hard graft – which they know already. It is a major accomplishment to be signed to such a big label so soon, and one would expect quite a few albums to come from them in the future. I want to grab a few different bits from that CLASH feature/interview I just sourced from, as Moore talks more about the local support; but we learn just how busy the band have been since their formation – and a particularly prominent and popular musician who saw a spark in them:

“Moore sees their nurtured community as key to who they are as people and musicians. “Community is a good word for it”, he reflects. “Back then our reputation was built around word of mouth. It’s passed from friend to friend, so it’s like a close knit family thing. It’s not really like fans, it’s all part of the movement and part of the team.”

Two Eps are out already; one’s self-titled from last year, ‘Fight On’ was released earlier this year. 3rd July represents a milestone as ‘All My Life’ comes out, it’s the first song Moore ever wrote. He was just sixteen at the time and about to leave school, and it shows the songwriter at his purest. Produced by James Skelly, recorded at Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios, it’s their first release on Island Records. The band recently signed key documents with the label.

The band themselves might not have expected people to be so receptive so soon, and Moore sort of found music as this useful outlet where he could funnel his emotions through; there is sort of this comfort in picking up a guitar and playing. The reaction that he was afforded by those he played his earliest material to was immediate – in the sense that people were stunned and there was this wonderful response.  The impression the band made when performing their songs live also helped get them recognised:

“I wanted to pour my emotions through the guitar, and I found some solace, almost”, he says. “It was borne out of desperation, I think. I had a lot of bad times going on when I was younger, so that was my escape. I was just doing it for myself.”

“I showed the song to people, and everybody seemed quite stunned at first”, he adds. “Everybody said they didn’t expect me to be able to sing. I don’t look like the sort of person who can sing, apparently. It was all my emotions from being young, all these experiences just spoke through the song.”

Live gigs make up parts of The Lathums’ rise and simmering success. Having delivered their own UK tour of packed, in-demand shows playing to full crowds, they stopped at iconic venues like Glasgow’s King Tuts. They also played alongside Blossoms on tour and will re-join the Stockport band for some European dates in February. A gig sharing the stage with Paul Weller is on the cards. Studio sessions to work on songs for a debut album are being arranged”.

I have been looking back at The Lathums’ earliest recordings, and they started so young! Having success and recognition when you are in your teens can be quite daunting, and I think there is this sense of expectation – from the public and artists – to improve and use that as a benchmark, which can be quite daunting and damaging. The fresh-faced band have seen music they produced and started at school end up in the charts. In an interview with Music Week, Alex Moore reflected on the chart success, and he seemed almost unaware of the significance of such acclaim:

“All aged just 20, singer Alex Moore, guitarist Scott Concepcion, bassist Johnny Cunliffe and drummer Ryan Durrans must be responsible for one of the few ‘school’ projects to end up in the Top 20, which is where The Memories We Make – a collation of their first two EPs – landed earlier this month, reaching No.14 in the UK album charts.

“It’s quite weird really, I’m not up to scratch with charts but obviously it’s a big thing isn’t it?” asks Moore down the line from Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios where he’s working on the band’s debut album with producers Chris Taylor and James Skelly (the latter also frontman of The Coral). Moore says the Wigan-born band have managed to take their rapid success in their stride, insisting the four-piece are “just normal people doing what we love”. Yet, with offers for collaborations already piling up, Moore admits he’s eager for more. “I feel quite excited by it, the fact that we can impact so many different people from different places, it’s quite a humbling feeling,” he notes”.

I want to stick on the subject of popularity and instant success, not to blow smoke up the band’s bottoms, but to underline how their music has been taken to heart, in a way we have not seen with many acts of the past decade. Maybe it is the commitment and loyalty one finds in the North, or maybe it is the effect their music has on a wide range of people. Whatever the reason, there has been this wave of affection and support for The Lathums. I am eager to review their latest track, I See Your Ghost, but I wanted to spend a bit more time on how they have been received by the public. When speaking with NME this year, the band were asked about their success and rise – and Alex Moore reacted to their tour selling out so quickly:

“Your latest tour sold out in five minutes and things are picking up nationwide. What’s happened there, then?

Alex: “It’s crazy really, it’s all word of mouth how this has happened. We put a few tunes out and got a bit of a local following. Then with Twitter and social media everybody got onto it and we’ve just built up from there and it’s not stopped. I think people are just ready for some proper music again. Not to be arrogant but everybody wants to hear good music and for a long time there’s not really been that [guitar] band you can get behind and really get involved with.”

“The gigs have been mental too. Sometimes I don’t even have to sing. We played a gig at King Tuts and literally from stepping out to going off stage, everybody was singing every word to our songs. It was madness”.

It is a shame that the band cannot play much this year (though there are dates booked for next year), and they might have to wait until next year before they can really hit the road and get the music out there. They will be frustrated, as they have captured an energy and sense of acclaim that has fed right into their music. Not that the train has come to a stop, but the band will be desperate to get back on the stage and take their music to new places. Their Ghosts EP is released later this month – just in time for Hallowe’en! -, but they were asked by NME about their previous E.P., and what it was like having such an esteemed and well-known musician producing (Alex Moore and Scott Concepcion reacted):

“Another indie legend, The Coral’s James Skelly came on board to produce your last EP. How have you found working with him?

Alex: “It felt like being on work experience really for musicians. It’s kind of like learning your trade. He’s dead good with us James as well because he’s kind of been there and done it. He’s already had this journey. He always says if ‘you need any guidance or advice or anything just give me a text’ and that gave us a lot of confidence. He knows that we’re screwed on and very on to the music. When we go in the studio, we know what songs we’ve got and how we’re gonna portray them and get them across and James soaks up that information.

Scott: “Sometimes he tells us to tone it down a little bit because we go overboard sometimes. He just adds a bit of class”.

Before coming to The Lathums’ latest song, I picked up on something from the Music Week feature regarding Alex Moore’s upbringing and the music he was exposed to. I have spoken about the band’s rise and spreading popularity, but I have not really addressed musical influences. It seems that The Beatles’ music is not only important to The Lathums but, as Alex Moore discussed, perhaps their messages of positivity rubbed off on them in terms of what they project:

“The singer grew up surrounded by music, recalling vivid memories of his mother singing Motown around the house, which encouraged him to sing when he was “dead young”. The Lathums’ collective influence though is that fab perennial The Beatles. “I got into them from Scott. He has these musical fads where he just becomes completely obsessed by someone,” explains Moore. “I already knew The Beatles obviously, but he broadened my mind to them and I delved in a bit more.”?

For the singer, his band’s main purpose now is to spread positivity in the world through his lyrics, and The Beatles are the reason behind that goal. “They made really positive differences in society, they gave people a different perception of things, and they united people who would’ve otherwise never even spoken to each other. I want to make positive differences too,” he declares. While he doesn’t see himself as a political artist, Moore has sung about everything from the French Revolution to Generation Z and is sure the band’s new songs will “ruffle a few feathers”.

One of the tricky tasks I was faced when reviewing I See Your Ghost is that, from what I can see (or not), the lyrics have not been published anywhere – this always allows me the chance to dissect them and not mishear lines. In this case, I am having to try and pick up as many lines and words as I can from the recording and, whilst this is easy enough for most tracks, there is a quickness and restlessness to the song which makes it quite difficult! That is okay, as the song’s title sort of gives you an indication as to the crux and theme. The idea seems to concern ghosts, obviously, and the enduring presence of the departed. This song is a bit of a change in pace for The Lathums, as they have put in some Ska and Reggae touches. There is a definite groove that one would associate with the genres, and the words are delivered with plenty of speed and turns. So many bands can get hooked on a sound or think that, when they get noted, that they need to stay with that sound and do not move forward. The Lathums are a curious and evolving band, and it is great to hear them in this mode. The song starts with some deep and exciting bass; a real rumbling that makes you wonder and allows images to form in the mind. A guitar line hooks in and provides a speed and lightness that contrasts nicely with the bass. At just over two-and-a-half minutes, the boys deliver a song as economically as The Beatles would back in the day and they manage to pack in so much! I like Moore’s vocals, as he delivers the first line in one manner, and then his voice speeds up.

I have not heard a song that goes through so many shifts so early! From that introduction, which is quite brooding and deep, the song brightens and accelerates. As I say, the lyrics can be quite hard to decipher, as Moore delivers them pretty rapidly! There are songs that are almost designed to be performed live and get the crowd jumping – and this is one such song! It seems like the hero is talking about something being “worth their weight in bones”, and we/she must listen to him carefully as he could save you “ever so much time”. In terms of lyrical inspiration, the band have not really explained the song, so it is down to the listener to come to their own conclusions. To me, the song is less about the paranormal and literally seeing a ghost – even though ghosts aren’t real, so you can’t ‘literally’ see one -, but of a spirit that has died; in the sense that there was a relationship that has now died. That would seem to make more sense to me but, of course, there is that chance that the band are referring to ghoulish spirits. With elements of The Coral in the song’s sound and a slightly skeletal/ghost ship sound – that was prevalent on The Coral’s debut album -, it is pleasing to hear The Lathums sound slightly off-kilter. Talking about (I think) “cities of snow”, one gets flashes of images and scenes, as the song races through the mind. I just mentioned The Coral and, perhaps as a nod to mentor/producer James Skelly, the chorus evokes their sound.

At night, the hero sees her ghost – if, indeed, it is about a lost lover -, and the chorused vocals are extremely evocative and pleasing! The band never let their foot off the accelerator throughout the song. The chorus is brief-yet-pleasing, and then we are back with the rapid and delirious verse. This time, our hero asks the heroine/spirit if there is anything they want to ask him; they seem very funny to him and, as the next part of that thought sort of gets buried because it is a very fast delivery, I think that actually adds some weight. If all the lyrics were out there and we could have them to hand, I think that might take something away from the song. Instead, there are these slightly gaps; almost like we are getting fragments of the story and, ghost-like, we never get the full body and essence. The band are incredibly tight throughout and each player adds so much to the brew. Even though this someone is gone, they “feel so close”, and one can hear the sense of loss in Moore’s voice. Again, I will stick with my theory of escaping love, and an important person that has slipped through his fingers. At the half-way marker, Johnny Cunliffe’s bass comes back in, and we get another ghoulish, twilight rumbling. From the sway and wave of energy that came before, there is this chance to breathe. The song rumbles and rises; there are wordless vocals that have a spectral feel, as the composition builds and builds. There is a fiery riff – props to Scott Concepcion -, and Ryan Durrans’ drums gallop and pound. Our hero, towards the end, says that this person is too close and that nobody knows. There is plenty of intrigue and mystery in those thoughts, and it gives me plenty to ponder. With only a few seconds to go, there is another twist in the tail, and that sped-up and rapid-fire vocal comes back in to end the song. I have listened to I See Your Ghost over and over, and it is one of those songs you can listen to without getting bored! Not only because it is so short, but the band pack so much in! As I said earlier, they could have stuck with the sound of previous tracks or repeated themselves, but they have produced a new-sounding cut that splices Reggae, something akin to a Coral-esque sea shanty, together with Ska elements. It is a refreshing blast from the young band, and they demonstrate such economy and talent in a single song. I look forward to the arrival of the Ghosts EP if this is the standard they have set!

I shall wrap up soon, but I want to end with a little look to their future. If you can pre-order the Ghosts EP, I would recommend that, as it is going to be a tremendous release. The Lathums have had a busy and exciting past year and, like so many, it has sort of ground to a halt. At a time when they would have wanted to attack and play as much as possible, they have been stifled and held back. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for them. NME asked them how they felt about the current situation:

“The pandemic has had a devastating impact on the live circuit this year. How have you coped with it?

Scott: “At first it was like a crushing blow because we had loads of gigs lined up but after we’d got over the initial bitterness of it all, we just realised that we could just go in the studio after lockdown had been lifted and record the tunes that we had. So silver linings.”

Alex: “Everyone is in the same position though aren’t they? We were very lucky because we had just signed our record deal and we could just sit in our rooms and write songs for weeks and weeks. There was a good momentum going for us before COVID but I don’t think it’s stopped to be honest. Everyone is just more raring to go. Obviously it’s a really horrible time for everybody but I feel like it’s put things into perspective, what we take for granted, even just going to a gig. I think it’ll make people realise when we come back, what’s actually important”.

I guess the band have plenty of time to perform and strike, and they have a great record deal under their belt. I know that they will be alright and continue to recruit fans, but it is unfortunate that their momentum has been slowed slightly at a pivotal time. If you are not following them at the moment, get onto social media and keep abreast of the Wigan band’s movements. There will be a lot of talk regarding a debut album and when we might be able to see that in the world. I am sure The Lathums have a plan for that and, as they have an E.P. to promote and will want to be able to perform a lot of the album live, it will happen…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Latham/@MRJOHNLATHAM

IN good time.

___________

Follow The Lathums

Official:

https://www.thelathums.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TheLathums

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/thelathums/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thelathums/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6PXYvMeTixxDzYAYugMlbg

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwm2mdiUXApmL5bCxHtgJIA

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

The Lathums

TRACK REVIEW: Melanie C - Good Enough

TRACK REVIEW:

  

Melanie C

Good Enough

8.9/10

The track, Good Enough, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4s9qXNgQ8

The album, Melanie C, is available via:

https://melaniec.net/

RELEASE DATE:

2nd October, 2020

GENRE:

Pop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

PRODUCERS:

Billen Ted/Future Cut/Paul O'Duffy/One Bit/George Reid/Biff Stannard/Ten Ven

LABEL:

Red Girl Media

TRACKLIST:

Who I Am

Blame It on Me

Good Enough

Escape

Overload

Fearless (ft. Nadia Rose)

Here I Am

Nowhere to Run

In and Out of Love

End of Everything

__________

AS it is a rainy day and…

we will want to stay in and keep warm, I think it is a perfect time to listen to music and find some escape there. Some terrific music has been released in 2020, and I think it is a year where artists have really hit a new level. There has been so much variety and quality and, every week, it is a chance to discover some tremendous new albums! With her Melanie C album out in the world, it gives me a chance to write about the amazing Melanie C herself. I like how there has been this gradual change regarding her name. Many of us know Melanie C as Mel C of the Spice Girls – she was dubbed ‘Sporty Spice’. Real name Melanie Chisholm, there has been this slight change that seems more grown up; calling herself ‘Melanie’ seems to indicate that she has entered a new phase of life and wants to be seen differently as an artist. Her eponymous album is, perhaps, her most personal to date, and there are so many terrific tracks to be found. I will be reviewing Good Enough later but, before then, I wanted to cover off a few things. As I shall explore in a minute, Melanie C is this inspirational and strong voice - almost twenty-five years since the Spice Girls broke through with Wannabe. A source of strength and direction for so many people out there, it would be hard for some artists to step aside from a popular band and not only make it on their own but to sound relevant and powerful as a solo artist. I want to explore this more a bit soon. I would encourage people to go and buy Melanie C, as there are some really cool bundles available on her official website. I like how there is a choice of vinyl, C.D., and cassette, and that we get such range. At a moment where streaming seems more convenient and accessible, artists are still going to so much trouble to give us a great physical experience! Melanie C is an album that will sound incredible on vinyl, so people should go and do that.

PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Clinch

I like how there is this preservation of cassettes and artists like Melanie C are putting their albums out on this format. That is a great retro touch and, whilst Melanie C would have seen some of Spice Girls’ albums put out on cassette back in the 1990s, I think C.D.s had pretty much taken over by then. I still maintain that an album sounds better on physical formats, and you get something more tangible and warmer. One can hold the album in their hand and, when playing it, get this experience they would not be able to enjoy on digital platforms. I am sort of going off on a bit of a tangent, but I wanted to raise the point of physical albums and how there is this demand and boom. Rather than put Melanie C out on Spotify and C.D., there are other great options and bundles that her fans can enjoy. Before moving to the present and looking at Melanie C as a solo artist, of course, we cannot ignore the Spice Girls. The group are still together – and they toured last year – and I am not sure whether there are plans to record new music. Certainly, as Melanie C, Mel B, Emma Bunton, and Geri Horner have recorded solo albums since the group split up, and they have matured as artists, the music they would produce now as a band would be very different to what we heard back in the ‘90s. It is hard coming back after that time with an album, as there is so much expectation; critics will judge the Spice Girls against what came before, and the challenge would be to sound current and genuine but also retain some of that classic sound. Being in a successful girlband of the 1990s must have been a dream, as it was such a fervent, exciting, and rich time for music. There was so much wonderful music around, and it would have been a dream on some level.

Most of us would be unaware of the pressure the Spice Girls faced…and Melanie C was not immune. Although the group existed as a five-piece for less than two years, it was an intense time; Melanie C – perhaps trying to keep her ‘Sporty Spice’ moniker true – was eating very healthily and hitting the gym hard. That may sound sensible, but she was reluctant to relax, socialise and indulge, maybe feeling that she needed to be ultra-disciplined and strict. When she spoke with The Guardian late last year, she discussed that time and how she coped:

“She says they were well cared for. The problem was, she didn’t want to be looked after. “I was a grownup, thank you very much,” she says. Instead, she entered “survival mode”, spending three hours a day in the gym, subsisting on fruit and steamed vegetables. “My life was out of control and the only thing I could control was how much I ate and how much I exercised,” she says. “One of my biggest regrets is that there were years when I wouldn’t socialise because I didn’t want to eat in front of people. I just think: ‘Cor, what a waste of life.’”

The Spice Girls’ ubiquity obscures the fact that they only existed as the original five-piece for 22 months, with Geri quitting in May 1998. The other four slogged on through two more tours. Chisholm says it couldn’t have lasted much longer. “We destroyed ourselves,” she says. “We were exhausted, we were homesick.” They never formally split – which, I tell her, was torture for a 10-year-old with a blind faith that they would return. She laughs, apologetically. They never announced the end, because they couldn’t be bothered with the press interest. “We were burying our heads in the sand. And, to be a bit of a wanker, you’re always a Spice Girl; it never stops”.

There is still that appetite for the Spice Girls whereas some of their contemporaries – like All Saints, and TLC -, perhaps, do not court the same sort of media focus and speculation regarding new music. The level of fame and hysteria that afforded the Spice Girls was pretty mad!

PHOTO CREDIT: Anthony Harvey/Rex/Shutterstock

Now, there is a new generation that are discovering their music and, as solo artists and as part of the group, the members are still influencing and acting as role models. It is hard to say what is next for the Spice Girls, but Melanie C is definitely embracing her solo career and she is more determined and motivated than ever. I want to return to that interview with The Guardian, where Melanie C talked about the reunion tour of last year, and why her eponymous album is especially important:

“While she says – contrary to comments from Mel B and Emma – there won’t be new music, Chisholm would love to do more shows, playing territories the band never visited. “I’d do it at the drop of a hat,” she says. I tell her that the Guardian rarely reports on rumoured reunions, but that we often make an exception for the Spice Girls owing to the mania around their existence. Why are we still so obsessed by them? She laughs. “It was quite unusual for a female band to be that successful – and not only successful musically; it was a very cultural movement.” Plus, we are living in a period of nostalgia for 90s Britain. “British music was ruling the world. Even politically, things were on the up. Or we thought so.” And the Spice Girls, she says, are like an ongoing soap opera.

The response to this year’s tour – and admiration from a generation of young artists including Billie Eilish – renewed Chisholm’s solo ambitions. Her previous albums flew under the radar, but the partnership with Sink the Pink and the hiring of a snazzy new PR company suggest someone who wants to make a bit of a splash again. She agrees. When her manager of 18 years retired, Chisholm realised she wanted to speed up. She hired a new team, who gave her a “kick up the bum”, and sought out exciting young writers and producers, which she says has produced a high strike rate of good material”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Nadel

Returning to the subject of that band pressure and what it must have been like in those early days, and I think we get an impression that it was all care-free and wonderful. The adulation and opportunities would have been amazing, but there would have been such tight and rigorous demands placed on the group; very little time to unwind and this weird sort of numbness and detachment – as Melanie C and the others would not have been seen as normal or allowed to live a conventional life. Maybe things are different now – as we do not really have huge groups like the Spice Girls (maybe BLACKPINK, BTS, and Little Mix are exceptions) -, but it must have been a rather odd and head-spinning time for a young woman like Melanie Chisholm. If she did not feel comfortable or right speaking about her experiences and troubles when she was at the peak of her powers, she has looked back now and talked about those times. When she spoke with The Standard this year, Melanie C revealed what it was like being in the world’s most-famous group:

“It’s heartwarming that these days she feels qualified to dispense advice, given that she has spoken about suffering from depression and anorexia during the pressure-cooker days of the girl group. Those nicknames (imposed by Top of the Pops magazine rather than chosen) and personalities boiled down to a single trait (the pouty one, the cute one, the one who sticks her tongue out, the backflipping one, etc) helped them to translate internationally but also made them superstars ridiculously quickly. There was one year and 11 months between the release of debut single Wannabe and the departure of Geri Halliwell from the group, with two albums and Spice World: The Movie in between.

“When you’re young, if you’re lucky enough to have that level of success, the workload is insane. You don’t know your arse from your elbow. It is literally survival mode,” she says. “It wasn’t about not enjoying the work, but it was more difficult behind the scenes, ­dealing with being in the public eye and the dynamic of the band”.

I do not want to hang too closely to the Spice Girls and focus on the band, but I know it is important to Melanie C, and that time impacted how she approached her solo work. It must have been a weird and scary proposition stepping away from such a well-known group and launching a solo album. I remember when Melanie C’s first solo album, Northern Star, arrived in 1999, and the sort of expectation there would have been. That album is more musically diverse than any Spice Girls record and, as it might have been harder for her to stamp out her individuality and true voice on a Spice Girls album – as we have five different personalities alongside one another -, going solo afforded her that opportunity. In an interview with GQ from this year, Melanie C spoke about emerging from the group and stepping out alone:

“How did she take to being a solo artist at first, coming out of the cocoon of a juggernaut like the Spice Girls? “When I think about the girls, what we were like, there are some big personalities there! And I was probably one of the quieter members of the band – although I still love a chat. Once I went solo, and I was still only 25 at that point, I wanted to be seen as an individual and I did things in order to distance myself from the group, perhaps. I became a bit rebellious: I cut my hair, put out a single that was a bit rockier…”

There are a few other topics that I want to broach and explore before moving to review a track from the Melanie C album. Again, not to labour a point too much, but Melanie C is now talking about being in the Spice Girls and the fact that she had an eating disorder and lived with stress and depression.

There are artists today will idolise Melanie C, and they might feel that her experience in the music industry in the 1990s was a lot easier, and life in a major group would have been far simpler than being a big artist today. Melanie C is in a happier and healthier space now, but so much of being in a group would have been about image and being more part of a machine, rather than being natural. Tabloid pressure and stories would have had an effect on Melanie C, and it is heartbreaking thinking about what each member of the Spice Girls would have experienced and what toll everything took on them. In an interview with Glamour from this year, Melanie C was asked about projecting that image of Sporty Spice, and what impact that had on body image and confidence:

“Can you remember a time when you were trying to be this ‘perfect’ image of yourself?

I think probably the early days in the band with the girls in the mid-90s. There were lots of different events that led to this, but I think one of the big things was being in the public eye and reading about yourself in the tabloid media, because nothing prepares you for that. And when you're reading about yourself it's like reading about a stranger, because we all meet people and we all have opinions on people, but you're not used to knowing everybody's opinion about you. It was very odd to read about yourself and think, "Who's that?" And I think that's what wobbled me quite a lot.

Did being Sporty Spice put a pressure on your body image, in a way you didn’t expect?

Do you know, I don't know with that because I grew up dancing and doing gymnastics and when I was a kid, I was so active, and I never even thought about body image. I went to performing arts college and I was actually quite close to some people with eating disorders and I know a lot of dancers, a lot of people in that environment. It's very difficult. Obviously, you look at yourself in the mirror all day and, I mean, I'm sure things are a little bit different now and I know the modelling world is the same, but you're told to lose weight. There's a certain way you're expected to look in that profession and it never affected me. That was through my late teens and it wasn't until the Spice Girls really took off that I became very self-conscious about the way that I looked.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chris McAndrew/Camera Press

That's when I was exercising obsessively and I wasn't eating properly, I lost a lot of weight and I was living in an unsustainable and unhealthy way for a couple of years. When you're young and you leave home, you start eating a bit of rubbish and going in the pub and having a drink and all of that. But I never had an extreme, I never dealt with any of that in an extreme way until what happened, happened. I think a lot of that was due to just how crazy the whole situation was”.

Moving onto a really positive aspect, and Melanie C is a champion of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. I think she is not only giving strength and important comfort to anyone who, like her, has experienced an eating disorder and dealt with stress and depression, but Melanie C is giving her voice to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. Being an ally is very important to her, and it is another reason why I wanted to highlight Melanie C. Not only is she an artist who continues to grow and release amazing material, but she is among a selection of artists who use their platform to bring about change and raise awareness about issues they are passionate about. When she spoke to Glamour, Melanie C explained why it is important to lend her support to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community:

“One of the amazing things you have done recently is champion the LGBTQ+ community, especially when you toured with Sink The Pink. What have you learned about being an ally?

I learned so much. When I toured with Sink The Pink last year, we went and toured the Prides all over the world and it was straight off the back of the Spice Girls tour. I literally did three sell-out shows at Wembley and three days later I was on a plane to Sao Paulo and then I was on a float going down Paulista Avenue with over 3 million people on the street. It was insane and it was brilliant. The Spice Girls have always had an incredible support from the LGBTQ+ community and we've always appreciated that, but I've never worked that closely with people from that community.

I'm super proud to be an ally. I feel more than an ally. I feel like I am part of that community and the reason why is because I was working with drag queens, non-binary people and working alongside them, learning their stories and the challenges that they faced growing up has just helped me to accept myself again on another level entirely. I just feel like last year it was such an important year for me. With the Spice shows, kind of everything came full circle. And then I knew I'd have fun with Sink The Pink and touring Prides, but I didn't realise the profound effect it would have on me”.

Many might associate the Spice Girls with Girl Power, and that mantra and slogan that was everyone when the group came through. It gave identity and strength to a lot of girls and young women and, whilst some see it as a bit phoney and meaningless, it was very motivating for a great number of people. Not only is Melanie C a supporter of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, but she is keen to support trans people. In an NME interview, she explained why Girl Power extends to them:

“When asked if it’s important to her that “Girl Power” extends to trans people, she answered: “Absolutely. We’ve always talked about Girl Power being about equality – and it’s equality for all. Like Black Lives Matter, it’s about education.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Nadel

“We’re afraid of the things we don’t understand and that’s where prejudice comes from, so I’m very proud to be an ally to the trans community.

She added: “The great thing I learned working with non-binary people [during her 2019 Global Pride Tour with Sink The Pink] is to see people as people and not as a gender which is really hard because we’re conditioned”.

I think 2020 is a year where we are seeing the real Melanie C. Maybe there was a reluctance to open up prior to now, but now she is speaking out - and we get to see more of this amazing artist. I am just about to move to reviewing Good Enough, but I was struck by an interview from The Times recently, where Melanie C discussed a BBC performance – and a rare chance for people to see inside her home:

“In July, from her home studio strewn with blankets and fairy lights, she collaborated with the BBC Concert Orchestra for Radio 2’s House Music, performing spine-tingling, rearranged versions of the Spice Girls’ Say You’ll Be There and her latest single, Blame It on Me, which spent a month on the station’s A-list.

“Letting people see my home felt weird at first,” Chisholm says. “I’m a very private person, but lockdown loosened me up. That shared experience of everyone in isolation made any sense of pretence seem ridiculous.

“I’ve spoken a lot in the past about my battles with depression and it really helped me hearing from fans trying to make sense of the same situation. Their stories compelled me to reach out. To my great surprise I loved being so open and allowing people to see the real me”.

I think Good Enough is a song that has potential to be a great single – and I could imagine a pretty good video to go alongside it! It opens with some darker tones and electronics that remind me a bit of Billie Eilish (I will mention her at the end, as she is a big fan of Melanie C). Rather than perhaps the lighter and punchier sound of some of her earliest work, there is a seriousness and sense of mood with Good Enough. That might suggest that Sporty Spice has become Sluggish Spice but, actually, a more mature and darker sound is a great development; I think the sound is more contemporary and the tracks on Melanie C are more affecting and nuanced than a lot of her previous albums. There is a nice mixture of lightness and weight to Melanie C’s voice. There is a sweetness and tenderness, but there is also a sense of doubt and emotion. The lyrics are direct and simple, and many can relate to the sentiments and feelings of the first verse: “It could be easy but you're making it so hard/You keep on calling but I don't wanna pick up/We both know what you're gonna say/You're gonna make it so complicated when it could be easy but you're making it hard”. In terms of what is being laid down, I think it is a story of a relationship facing the rocks, rather than it being more directed at the wider world and the sense of expectation that Melanie C must still feel; perhaps a look at how she is more confident as a woman and artist, and for people to stop comparing her music of now to the past. Maybe there is a feeling that, perhaps, there is another layer to be found, but it seems that matters of the heart are at the forefront. The energy level soon notches upwards, and the beats and electronic swell. There is almost a Dance and Disco feeling in the song; maybe a sad-banger type of dancefloor vibe!

PHOTO CREDIT: Conor Clinch

Our heroine explains that her sweetheart/this other person is trying to fix something that isn’t broken, and there is this pressure. Maybe her lover wants things to be better and is trying to fix things, but they are fine as they are. The two are in different places, and it seems like it will be hard to bring about a resolution and find some common ground. The song shifts another gear and there is this explosion and energy unleashed in the composition. Melanie C delivers lines with heavy breath and a sense of exasperation, as she tries to come to terms with a frustrating experience. In the chorus, she explains how, if there seems to be room for improvement when things are fine, then things look bleak: “Good Enough, Good Enough/Now you're losing control/Oh, there's nowhere to go/When nothing's good enough/Good Enough oooh oh/Good Enough oooh oh/If I leave you behind, I believe I will find/Something good enough”. At a juncture where our heroine wants some support and she is looking for answers, it seems like she must do so alone. Being with someone else seems like a better move, as the bond she is in now seems to be quite imbalanced and rough. That lack of understanding and connection can be felt in the song and the vocal performance. Although the composition has a lot of drive and rush, our heroine is trying to find her way forward. There is a line that makes me feel that she is not willing to pack things in just yet: “You're not making easy, but I'm not gonna give up”. Although there might be an easier and better relationship available, you get the feeling that there is a lot of history between the two. By the time the song ends, there is a real feeling that Melanie C has got a lot off her chest, but you wonder what comes next. Good Enough is my favourite song from the album, and one that I have returned to quite a bit.

There are some gig dates in the diary and, whilst plans might change, it will be an opportunity for people around the world to see Melanie C play and to hear first-hand songs from her new album. So long after the Spice Girls exploded into the world, one of its members is out there and producing incredible music. I think Melanie C is one of her most varied and personal albums, and there are no signs to suggest that she is slowing down any time soon! Not only has Melanie C got fans of the Spice Girls behind her, but she is also resonating with some huge artists of today. One (perhaps unlikely) superfan of Melanie C is Billie Eilish. Eilish was born in 2001, so she did not hear any Spice Girls albums the first time around – the last single the group released was in 2000 -, but she would have grown up listening to a lot of their music, and she would have connected and related with so many of the tracks. Although Eilish’s music is very different to that of the Spice Girls,  it must be very moving for Melanie C to realise that one of the world’s biggest artists holds her group in such high esteem. She spoke with GQ about having Eilish as a fan and what it was like meeting her:

“One superfan who feels all Melanie’s vibrations is none other than Billie Eilish, British GQ’s summer cover star and self-confessed Spice Girl fanatic (as is Eilish's entire family we’ve heard, not least her father). The “My Future” singer might be keen to know her adoration is fully reciprocated. “I am such a big fan of Billie. And her brother Finneas. I saw her play Shepherd's Bush Empire a few years ago and she had already outgrown that venue.

“To hear her fans screaming every word of every song – and not teenage girls screaming for boys, but girls screaming for girls – it was beautiful. I just felt something so familiar, something similar I experienced with the Spice Girls. We met backstage that night and I felt a connection. Billie is wise beyond her years. To have Billie Eilish as a young role model is really refreshing. She’s what the world needs right now. I’ve been itching to hear what she’s going to do next.” No doubt the feeling is mutual; Sporty Spice stans Billie, Billie stans Sporty Spice. It's a transatlantic, cross-generational, multi-genre musical love-in. And we approve”.

I think Melanie C is an important album, as it feels like she is accepting herself fully for the first time, and we get to hear the real Melanie C. Returning to that interview with The Times, and she talked about how she has moved on and why her eighth studio album is her most important:

“Since 2018 Chisholm has been a DJ-for-hire, playing corporate events, private parties and festivals. Unlike a lot of her celebrity peers, she doesn’t just stand behind the decks, waving her arms in the air.

“I could never do that,” she says. “I’m a total tech nerd. I’d always fancied giving DJing a go, but I thought maybe I’m too old to learn a new skill. From lesson one I was obsessed … I don’t go clubbing any more, but as a DJ I can dance and I don’t have a hangover the next day.”

Despite the young collaborators, Melanie C is a grown-up album with an obvious theme of self-acceptance. Its first single, Who I Am, was initially conceived as a swipe at the other Spices. Or as Chisholm more delicately described it last year: “It’s about certain people who are happy for me to be — how shall I put this? — in my place.” Now she insists it’s about herself more than anyone else.

“In the past perhaps I haven’t wanted to upset the apple cart,” she says. “And that suited some of the people around me. But one of the great things about getting older is that you have the courage to care less. The whole album is saying, ‘This is who I am, take it or leave it.’ That apple cart? I’m finally up for kicking it over”.

Go and get a copy of Melanie C – or go and stream it -, as it is always great having her music out there. I am not sure what the next year ore two holds for her, but I am sure she will want to tour as much as she safely can, and her eponymous album seems like this new phase; future albums, I anticipate, will follow a similar lyrical and sonic path to that of Melanie C. It is wonderful to see that, after all these years, this northern star still…

SHINE bright.

___________

Follow Melanie C

Official:

https://melaniec.net/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/melaniecmusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/MelanieCMusic/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/melaniecmusic/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/60vX3zLcdKRXvKLITVh5Df?si=bPDED8l4S0KcUDhXnqC3LA/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8LdsWQODS_wri_dHb4YO8Q

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Melanie C

TRACK REVIEW: Pillow Queens - Child of Prague

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Pillow Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Faolán Carey

Child of Prague

9.6/10

The track, Child of Prague, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SnyQ0RxutE

The album, In Waiting, is available via:

https://pillowqueens.ffm.to/inwaiting

RELEASE DATE:

25th September, 2020

GENRE:

Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

Dublin, E.I.R.E.

PRODUCER:

Tommy McLaughlin

LABEL:

Pillow Queens Records

TRACKLIST:

Holy Show

Child of Prague

Handsome Wife

How Do I Look

Liffey

A Dog’s Life

Gay Girls

Harvey

Brothers

Donaghmede

__________

THIS is quite a special review for me…

as I get to review a band who I have known and been aware of since (almost) the start of their career! When I say ‘known’, I sort of mean know about, as I was struck by Pillow Queens from very early on. Rachel Lyons (drums, vocals), Cathy McGuinness (guitar, vocals), Pamela Connolly (bass, guitar, lead vocals) and Sarah Corcoran (guitar, bass, lead vocals) performed their first London gig a few years ago at The Finsbury. I was hosting a special night that celebrated promising new bands and, memory evades me, but they were on the bill with a couple of other great acts. I was keen to meet them and see them play live, as they had blown me away with their sound and I had heard nothing like it. That night in October was great, and a lot of friends of Pillow Queens’ came down. They stormed their set, and, after that night, I had no doubt that they would go a very long way! That almost sounds like I am claiming that their success is down to me – of course it isn’t! More, it was a feeling that was very evident when you hear them play. Not only is now the perfect time to review them because their debut album, In Waiting, is out – and gaining hugely positive reviews -, but it is great to see how far they have. They are getting the kudos and attention they deserve and, also, the Dublin band – though the members are from various parts of Ireland – take my mind back to Irish music and what a strong and original scene there is there. I think there is still too much focus on London when it comes to new acts, and I feel there is always going to be a degree of favouritism towards the capital. More and more, Ireland is showing that people need to look in the direction of a nation that has always produced stunning music. Pillow Queens are one of the brightest and most arresting bands for years, and I would not bet against them becoming festival headliners in the next few years.

In terms of how they started out and where they met, I can help with that. The band spoke with KEXP earlier in the year and were asked about that:

“KEXP: Tell me a little bit about how the band started and how you all came together.

Sarah Corcoran: So we have a story about how we met on a basketball court. It's about 60 percent true, which is enough to make it true. Myself and Cathy met on a basketball court around the time that we started the band. So it kind of is true. But Pamela knew Rachel and Cathy for like 10 years. I've known you for like six years or seven years or something like that. So we all kind of knew each other through each other. We just wanted to start a band because we'd all do musical projects before and we were sort of ready to start something new. We wanted to be in a band that toured. We wanted to be in a band that recorded and we wanted to just take it a bit more seriously. Everyone was on the same level so we just decided, "let's do it". So we've been nonstop since we started everything, which is great.

You were all in bands before forming Pillow Queens. What's the Irish music scene and community like?

Pamela Connolly: It's amazing. I guess maybe when we were all in bands, it was a little bit before it became as good as it is now. Most of us were in bands during the recession. So it was good, but people would get taken advantage of a lot. But now the scene – not even just Dublin, all around Ireland – is amazing. The scene coming out of Limerick is class. And it's not just guitar music. It's hip-hop. It's R&B. There's a revival with trad and lovely folk music as well. The scene is really strong and people are taken a lot more seriously now being from Ireland. I hope it keeps going that way and it just gets better. But I highly recommend [to] look up as many Irish bands as you can because they're all pretty good. We're only OK [laughs].

Corcoran: Irish bands really support each other at the moment, which is really nice. I mean, maybe that’s always been the case, but definitely, from our experience of being in Pillow Queens, we’ve received support from bands of every genre on touring, recording, on just getting local gigs. One of the guys from Bitch Falcon lent me a bass for this session because my bass is terrible and I can’t afford to buy a new one. So I was like, “Can I borrow a bass?” And he was like, “Yeah, absolutely!” Just gave me his bass for this.

Sarah Corcoran: mean, writing is always cathartic anyway. So you can put your worries into a song and then it’s just like boxing them up and not dealing with them [laughs]”.

Everyone knew, at that Finsbury gig, that Pillow Queens were something special but, before that, the home crowd realised the band has a buzz and quality that was impossible to ignore. I think it is important to look at Pillow Queens’ start, as it is as important to the creation and road to their album as anything else – in the sense that one can see get a fuller picture of the band and their past, rather than just looking at the song on their own. Their first gig was in Dublin and, as this interview with The Irish Times shows, Pillow Queens got an unexpectedly impassioned response:

“Their first gig was as low-key as you can get, a fundraiser for rescue dogs in Bello Bar in Portobello, Dublin 8, in December 2016. On arrival, however, the stairs down into the basement venue was jammed, with people turned away from the sold-out show. The word of mouth was instant. “I had no idea why we sold out the first gig,” Connolly says, “Even before we played, we had already been booked to play Ones To Watch [a Whelan’s showcase]. Nobody had watched us yet, so we didn’t know we were ones to watch. We got that, and after that we said ‘yes’ to everything.”

“Yes to everything” now sees them in and around the 40- to 50-gig mark over the year and a half they’ve existed as a band. As the rumblings of approval from bookers and labels grew, and the industry presence at their gigs increased, a manager came along in the form of drummer James Byrne (ex-Villagers, Soak), who owns the Any Other City label and also manages Girl Band”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vanessa Ifediora

There are a few things that I want to tick off the docket before I get down to reviewing a track from In Waiting. I want to look back to last year because, as the band were thinking about their album and building their profile, it was that important transition between early success and recognition and taking those next (big) steps. Maybe there was a sense, in the beginning, that Pillow Queens – when playing live – just went and performed the songs and, maybe, there was a slight nervousness. Any band starting out is going to concentrate on making their performances as solid as possible, and there is not always that confidence to speak out or call the shots. Pillow Queens definitely acquired greater confidence through 2018 and, when they spoke with PASTE in 2019, they remarked how they were definitely more assured and confident:

“Pillow Queens have undergone their own growth as well, since it’s been the most consistent music project for the band members. McGuinness says of the group, “I think we have more confidence. When we first started playing gigs, we were a little bit unsure with the language talking to certain engineers and having the voice to say, ‘It should be sounding a little bit different.’”

Or, as Lyons so beautifully puts it, “We’re definitely more cock-sure.”

The self-assuredness comes across when their goals for 2019 come up. There’s mention of wanting to play more across Europe or tour with another act in the States. “I mean, that’s one of my big reasons for being in a band as well, is the opportunity to travel and see tiny venues and eat hummus in every single state of America,” Corcoran jokes”.

There was an energy and ambition in the band from very early on. When I saw them play, I could definitely tell that they wanted to play a lot more gigs in the U.K. and, beyond that, they had ideals to tour widely. A lot of newer bands are happy enough to play smaller gigs to get experience and learn their craft, yet Pillow Queens seemed fully-formed and they were eyeing up a bigger stage!

PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Gerrard

When they spoke with The Irish Times, it is apparent that one member, Sarah Corcoran, definitely provided Pillow Queens with a fire and spirit that has helped get them where they are now:

“On that can-do attitude, the band agrees that Corcoran is the one who gives them momentum. “I don’t think we’d be where we are now if she didn’t have a jetpack on being like, ‘we’re going to get this,’” Connolly says of Corcoran, “When we started the band – myself and Sarah – we weren’t even a band. We were sitting in the apartment not even fully having any songs, and Sarah was like, ‘I think we can play Electric Picnic this year.’”

Corcoran says she had a definite idea of the direction she wanted to pursue, “that the band needed to be a certain outfit made up of certain talented people. I feel like I was lucky enough to be paired with these guys, so I suddenly had something that I was able to drive. I know what we’re doing is great, now it’s time to show everyone else that it’s great. I was saying that we could do a UK tour even though we were only four months old”.

I am going to wrap this review up by talking about politics and how that feeds into Pillow Queens’ work but, at this juncture, I feel it is important to address a subject that is a big part of the band’s music and spirit: queer identity. As a band of four queer musicians, it couldn’t not be a vital fountain of inspiration; more than that, it is something that is very natural. I think we are so used to having this heteronormative ideal of music and the fact songs are about boy-meets-girl. There are more queer artists and those in the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ spectrum, but I still feel there is a sense of reluctance from the industry and many listeners to embrace different sexualities.

When they chatted to KEXP, Pillow Queens were asked about the song Gay Girls and, whilst it is not entirely about queerness (there is a religious aspect), it is an aspect of the track:  

“Queer identity seems to come through in a lot of your music. Pretty directly in songs like "Gay Girls." Is it important for you to share that perspective in your music?

Connolly: And yes and no. I think it's it's hard to not because it's so much a part of your identity that when you're writing it just comes out anyway. Then someone may ask you a question like, 'Oh, you're really trying to protect your career identity.' I'm actually not. I'm just writing the way maybe a straight man would write about his experiences, I'll write about mine. We'll write about ours. So it's not at the forefront of our mind, but we do know that it's important. But I don't think it's a thing that's always on the table. It just happens. It's not conscious. And I like it that way because I think if we were trying too hard it would come across that way. I like casual queerness [laughs].

Corcoran: I think as well, a song like "Gay Girls," the title would make you think that it's a song about queerness, but it's only really on the very cusp of being a queer song. The title, obviously, but it's more a comment on religion and that sort of thing. I mean, the wringing hand imagery is like... We can't help but write about religious things. We all were brought up in very religious environments so it always comes out. And because I suppose queer themes are so contradictory maybe of like religious themes, maybe that's where the juxtaposition happens”.

Some might say that queer identity and promotion is gimmicky, but it is an integral and natural part of Pillow Queens’ identity. The band, as they told The Line of Best Fit this month, are keen to talk about their queerness – and, also, many peopledo not realise that they are queer at all!

“It was also the intention that the band would consist of four queer women. Queerness is in the very DNA of Pillow Queens; their foundation built on being visible as queer artists, with In Waiting featuring song titles such as “Gay Girls” and “Handsome Wife”. “That was something that was important to us,” says Corcoran. “I’ve been in bands before where we were approached by a queer publication, and the other members of the band were like: ‘We don’t want it to be a gimmick, we don’t want to make that a thing’. And it’s like, okay, it’s not gimmicky, it’s just a big part of my identity that I don’t wanna be hiding. I don’t wanna feel like we wouldn’t do any queer press. With Pillow Queens it’s the total opposite to that.”

“[We would] welcome it. We don’t get enough,” Connolly laughs, before quipping, “I don’t think people know that we’re gay.”

“This is our coming out article,” Corcoran replies, tongue in cheek”.

“As if in answer to those years of grief and shame, In Waiting feels like a celebration of queerness; of queer love, queer joy and queer identity. “Handsome Wife” is a beaming reflection on the glee of being in love (‘The silence is so soft / I’m gonna be free’), while "A Dog’s Life" sees them take pride in identity and community despite the coldness and inequity of the society around them; all of this viewed through a prism of queerness that is recognisable almost innately to those who share in it.

“There’s so much emphasis on negatives, and homophobia and hate, and that’s not what being queer is. There’s so much joy in it,” Corcoran says. “I found myself through queer art and queer performance, and finding that community.”

“Unfortunately, it is mostly in moments of negativity that you become very aware of [your identity] — it usually has to do with safety and stuff,” says Connolly. “But then there’s moments of positivity—older people reminiscing about their youth, saying: ‘Hey, I wish there was a band like you when I was growing up.’ Or younger ones being like: ‘I’m so glad to see people like me on stage”.

The last point that I want to explore before reviewing is that, as we are still locked down and restricted, it is a very strange and tough time for any artist to release a debut album – or any album. Pillow Queens were thinking of delaying the release but, with no real definite end in sight, they knew that they had to put the album out. The band have worked so hard to get to where they are, so they would have loved to perform these songs and do a much more expensive promotional tour (although they have got some dates in the diary that, whilst scaled back, will allow people to hear them play these new tracks). It seems that lockdown was not necessarily that much of a nightmare for Pillow Queens.

They talked to CLASH and discussed what it was like releasing an album at a very uncertain and odd time:

“Among all the chaos of COVID-19, it was never going to be easy to release an album - and a debut one at that - but they found a way to make it work for them. Pamela describes her experience. “I think it’s been different for a lot of people. I think it’s hard to complain too much because I’m healthy and all the girls in the band are healthy.”

We spent it separately so it was hard to keep up the creative aspect of the band. Had we at least been within 2km of each other, we could have potentially still worked on [creative] stuff but, in saying that, I think we may have benefited in regards to releasing the album, because there was a lot of admin stuff to do, there were a lot of contingency plans in terms of how we could get enough money to release the album and, during lockdown, that’s when we all did that. I think if the lockdown didn’t happen, that would have been a lot harder to figure out”.

‘In Waiting’ is actually being released independently by the band. Speaking of the debut album, Pamela is “super excited” to be sharing ‘In Waiting’ with their fans. She describes creating the album as “awesome” and a way for the band to really develop their sound. “It was a labour of love”, she jokes. “I think it’s a weird time to be releasing an album but I think it’s the right time for us”.

I shall move things on now and, rather than review the entire album – as I would not be able to give every song proper justice -, I have selected Child of Prague to review - and I would urge people to buy In Waiting (there is a link at the top of the review).

Pillow Queens performed Child of Prague for KEXP, and it is one of my favourite songs from In Waiting. At once, one is interested in and affected by the song. I am not sure where the title comes from – I forgot to ask the band -, but I was instantly intrigued by the lyrics. The introduction provides this combination of flames and coolness. The guitar and drums have a spark and flow, but they also seem laidback at the same time. It is a brilliant sound, and I was already hooked and curious to hear what came next. When the first verse arrived, the words made me conspire and imagine: “I'm sitting on a fortune don't you know?/You ruined it by leaving me outside in the snow/Now my head's in the ground, my neck is weak/Do us all a favour and forget how to speak”. If one took the lyrics literally, you would be going off in various directions and it might be a little weird and disconnected. For me, it is metaphor and there is an oblique nature that allows for a sense of personal interpretation. I prefer not to know the origins of a song and what inspired it, because I think it can take something away; one goes in knowing a bit too much and something is lost in terms of flexibility and imagination. The band’s performances are stunning, and their musicianship through Child of Prague is amazing. Whilst the composition is not too intense or punchy, there is the perfect blend of notes and emotions that gives the song life and depth! That may sound like a weird sentence, but what I mean is that the band combine a verse that has this mystery with a composition that adds so much story and feeling. What I love about the song (among other things) is how Pillow Queens defy convention and the obvious. Rather than Child of Prague being a simple verse-chorus-verse, they follow the first four lines with a distinct passage that changes pace and tone.

The line “I'm not going” is followed by some gorgeous backing (some ‘oohs’ sung beautifully), as is the line “If you're not with me”. I love that passage, and I was listening to the words and how they were sung. There is that lingering curiosity and mystique that makes Child of Prague so arresting. Before we get to the brief-but-beautiful chorus with those incredible backing vocals, there is more light to be shed. “Cover me in kindness, cover me in sand/A lover or appendix or a whole new strand/I wanted clearance, a release/Need you to tell me I'm a masterpiece” is one of the more direct stages of the song, whilst the language employed is among the most imaginative and striking. My thoughts turned more to the subject of love and faithfulness, but there is that feeling of contrast and doubt. The composition, again, manages to remain quite restrained whilst adding in so many subtle layers and nuances. The way the drum, guitar and bass move and combines is incredible! Combine that with an amazingly strong lead vocal and words that make one stop and think, and the song is one that you will repeat again and again. Before the song ends, there are another couple of distinct phases. Pillow Queens follow the chorus with an instrumental break that is full of melody and heart. It is dreamy and lush, but I detect a sense of pondering and sadness too. The lyrics suggest some form of heartbreak and struggle, and one feels that in the composition. Other bands would add in words and needless exposition, but Pillow Queens leave it to their instruments to both provide a sense of explanation and obliqueness without a single word being sung. Then, our heroine sings: “Leaving me out on my own/Leaving me out in the snow”. That is repeated. The song ends with the lines “Leaving me out on my own/Leaving me out” before the composition wrap things up. I have gone back to Child of Prague again and again, as I think one picks up different things the more you listen. It is a tremendous song from an album that has so many wonderful moments and stories. I particularly love Child of Prague because it has this immersive quality, but there is a depth and seriousness that gets into the mind and will linger on. Such a powerful and fascinating song from a band who have crafted one of the best albums of 2020.

PHOTO CREDIT: Faolán Carey

In concluding, I want to bring into the frame the way Pillow Queens fight for social justice. There are a few bands out there that go beyond the music and act as champions for various causes. Pillow Queens talked to The Line of Best Fit about political and social justice in their music and, whilst this is important to them, they do also want to just write about love and relationships – and, as queer artists, they feel it is unfair for that to be labelled as political:

“Both inside and outside of the songs themselves, Pillow Queens have consistently used their platform to stand for matters of social justice. Over lockdown, they took part in Irish Women In Harmony, a collective of musicians using music to raise money for domestic abuse support charity Safe Ireland; they’re participants of Keychange, an initiative that seeks to address the gender imbalance in the music industry; at gigs, they’ve spoken out against Ireland’s inhumane Direct Provision system of housing asylum seekers; and of course, to be freely queer women in a country that still grapples with a long culture of homophobia and misogyny can be in itself a political act.

It’s a responsibility that they value, yet equally one that they’re wary of. “As individuals, we feel very strongly about a lot of stuff, but I don’t think we should be looked at in terms of ‘all of their music should be protest music,’” Connolly says. “Because if you get a band with four lads in it, they’re not expected to continually make music that is about a political struggle. And sometimes you wanna exist in that world, where you’re like: ‘I wanna write a love song’. But for the fact that this love song is about queer love, it is suddenly political. So we are put into that box, which we thrive in and enjoy; but it’s hard to exist and also be a political entity”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Faolán Carey

Pillow Queens’ debut album is out, and it marks a very important chapter for a band who, whilst they themselves might not completely have believed it, were always primed for huge success! Everyone who has seen them play live would agree, and I think the future looks very promising for them! I guess it is strange having ambitions and making plans with a pandemic happening, but there is an optimism and confidence in the band that looks beyond that – they know that, when things start to return to normal, they can get out there and strike - but a few gigs in the calendar for next year will allow them to stretch their muscles! When they spoke with The Forty Five prior to In Waiting coming out, the subject of future plans came up:

“With the band’s debut album, ‘In Waiting’ on the way, have the nerves taken over?

“I’m terrified!” Sarah laughs, “It’s coming out in September and this is our first piece of work that’s really thought out. We’re happy to stand behind it as our first album so it’s this huge deal for us.”

Pamela is feeling quietly confident about the body of work they’ve pulled together. “If we had put it out earlier in our career, it probably wouldn’t sound the same at all. When we were releasing ‘Gay girls’ or ‘Brothers’, we had found the sound we wanted. Before that, it was a little bit inconsistent because we’re still growing as a band, so it’s nice to release this as our sound in one package.”

As the band is making big moves, we ask how they’re feeling about the future. “I’m very optimistic which maybe is not the best quality as a musician, because sometimes it doesn’t happen. Sometimes a global pandemic happens when you’re meant to play South by Southwest!” she says of the band’s cancelled appearance at the Austin festival, “But I’m really confident in what we did with this album and if all things go in our favour, there’s no reason that we can’t be worldwide superstars!”.

Those last two words are very important, I think. Pillow Queens, very much so, can be worldwide superstars! They are a band who have been taken to heart by so many people, and their popularity will only grow! Can they go on and rank alongside the very best bands out there? For me and so many people out there, there is absolutely…

NO doubt about it.

___________

Follow Pillow Queens

Official:

https://pillowqueens.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/PillowQueeens

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pillowqueens

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pillowqueensband/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7BDvurihyagH0uSPNDJX7d

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnbsEGI3QVqif8YCHIdsj1w

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Pillow Queens

TRACK REVIEW: Alicia Keys - Love Looks Better

TRACK REVIEW:

Alicia Keys

PHOTO CREDIT: Milan Zrnic

Love Looks Better

9.3/10

The track, Love Looks Better, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDAGzzOEHFo

The album, ALICIA, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/alicia-keys/alicia

RELEASE DATE:

18th September, 2020

GENRE:

R&B

ORIGIN:

New York, U.S.A.

PRODUCERS:

Jonny Coffer/Ludwig Göransson/Alicia Keys/Rob Knox/Sebastian Kole/Delano "Sean C" Matthews/Morgan Matthews/Johnny McDaid/Jimmy Napes/P2J/Rance/Sampha/Christopher "Tricky" Stewart/Swizz Beatz/Khirye Taylor/Ryan Tedder/Noel Zancanella

LABEL:

RCA

TRACKLIST:

Truth Without Love

Time Machine

Authors of Forever

Wasted Energy (ft. Diamond Platnumz)

Underdog

3 Hour Drive (ft. Sampha)

Me x 7 (ft. Tierra Whack)

Show Me Love (ft. Miguel)

So Done (ft. Khalid)

Gramercy Park

Love Looks Better

You Save Me (ft. Snoh Aalegra)

Jill Scott (ft. Jill Scott)

Perfect Way to Die

Good Job

__________

THIS week…

I am reviewing an artist who I have been listening to since her debut album came out in 2001. Songs in A Minor is a fantastic introduction, and, through the years, Alicia Keys has put out some truly incredible albums. Her new album, ALICIA, has just come out, and I think it ranks alongside her very best. The album has a nice balance of hope and a feeling of lost. It is one of Keys’ broadest and most satisfying albums, and there is edginess and political themes mingling among the more personal. Before brining things up to date and discussing themes relating to ALICIA, I want to bring in a few interviews relating to Keys’ start and that incredible debut album. Like I have said on previous reviews: we do not really think about an artist’s early life and start when listening to their music. There are some who will say that there is no link between childhood/youth and the music they will go onto make, but I think there is. When it comes to Alicia Keys, it was obvious and evident that she had a talent from a very young age. In this interview from The Times from earlier this year, we learn more about her teenage years and how Songs in A Minor started life in high school:

“Keys was something of a teenage phenomenon. Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, she was an only child and a classically trained pianist. She started composing songs at 12 and was spotted, aged 13, by her longtime manager, Jeff Robinson, who saw her performing with her three-girl band in Harlem. At 17, she signed a contract with the music legend Clive Davis, who signed and launched Whitney Houston. Much of her debut album, Songs in A Minor, was written while she was still in high school and recorded in her bedroom. It went straight to No 1 and rave reviews poured in; Rolling Stone compared her, aged just 20, to Aretha Franklin”.

Every artist looks forward to releasing their debut album, and there is that excitement and sense of self-assessment. Every artist works hard towards that debut, and they put a lot of themselves into it. There was a certain amount of buzz surrounding Keys before Songs in A Minor came out, so when the album arrived, there was a degree of inevitability that it would be a huge hit. When she spoke with Stereogum recently, Keys talked about the success and awards Songs in A Minor achieved:

“STEREOGUM: You have so many on your shelf, but you first swept the Grammys in 2002 with Songs In A Minor. Take me back to that moment when you were at the show and getting five wins in one night”.

KEYS: I actually have chills. It just brought a sensation back to me that’s so vivid. I never expected the response to be what it was going to be for Songs In A Minor. I had been working so long to try to make it come to life and it felt like it would never happen, you know?

I remember I was just fresh off my first tour, I guess it might’ve been North America at that time. We hadn’t gotten to Europe yet. I was exhausted because I was just trying to pretend that I could do everything that everyone thought I could do. But I didn’t know what the hell I was doing! I woke up that morning and was sick. I couldn’t even sing on that big night. I had a huge performance for “Fallin’” with a little piece of “A Woman’s Worth.” And I did like a flamenco version with this dancer Joaquin Cortés. I took a vitamin B12 shot to open my voice up so I could sing again. But it was like a damn dream. I felt like I had entered outer space and all these people who I only knew from television were like “Alicia!”

Whilst awards and recognition would have been important to Keys – and she would have been happy her debut album was so well-received -, the sort of recognition and popularity she gained at a young age was also pretty daunting and new. Nothing would have really prepared her for that sudden rise! I think this aspect is important to highlight when we discuss Keys’ subsequent albums and how her career has developed. She could have been overwhelmed by the success and degree of pressure, but she has put two or three years between albums, and every one of them has been different to the last – rather than copying the template and sound of Songs in A Minor. Whilst she has endured and is one of the most influential artists around, those early days of stardom were quite intense. In an interview with NPR, Keys reflected on how she felt when she was known and heard everywhere:

“It's definitely very confusing. I know that I felt deeply conflicted and very confused about how to adjust to a new way of existing. But for me, being so young and having to adjust to becoming well-known was a trip, a super trip. I put up a lot of walls and I put up a lot of barriers, so the face that I outwardly presented was a mask — of trying to preserve sanity. I was so excited and thrilled that people were getting to know the music and excited about what I was working on. And it was such a blessing.

PHOTO CREDIT: David Luraschi

But at the same time, I had to kind of keep myself together, because if you can imagine, I didn't know what to do, how to act, what to say, what not to say. I didn't know that people were manipulative or would want you to say things that would then spark controversy. I didn't know that people tried to lead you into places that you would then not realize that you got led there and have to figure out. It was a totally a new experience. And because of that, I started to build up a wall of claiming my personal space, but in a way that wasn't direct and honest, as I am now.

Now I can easily claim my personal space. I can say, you know, "It is not a good time for me right now," or I can say "I'm not comfortable doing that." And it's fine. Everybody will be fine with it. And I could have done that then, but I didn't know how to. So I instead I'd put up a wall to kind of protect myself. And I started to mask my feelings; the mask was that everything was all right when it wasn't always all right. And I should have been OK with everything not being all right, but instead I felt like it always had to be perfect or look right or be OK”.

Alicia Keys’ work has always been defined by a sense of maturity, personal meaning, and original direction, so different to the way many of her peers are presented. It would have been easy, especially at the start, for Keys to be marketed as a typical commercial Pop artist, in the sense that there was a particular look and sound. This is a side of music that has been evident for decades, and there is an ugliness that is not really talked about.

It is down to Keys’ toughness and determination that she refused to go that way, and she proved that she could be a success by being herself. I wonder where Keys might have ended and how her music would have sounded if, instead, she had been pushed into an unwanted direction and gone down a bad road. When she spoke with The Times, Keys reflected on her instant success, and how she was able to navigate her own path:

“How does she look back, post-#MeToo, on such a charmed rise to fame? “I think what enabled me to navigate the disgusting, nasty, treacherous world [of the music industry] was that I had enough street knowledge and street experience to really have a certain wisdom and awareness,” she says. She resisted advice to lose weight and never generated the oversexualised imagery and tabloid headlines that felled contemporaries such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. “My instinct is really strong. I’m a really hard worker. But it took time to figure out how not to fall on my face half the time. It was all literally a prayer. I was so focused on what there was to do that I didn’t have a lot of time to f*** around.” Today, she radiates positivity — her Instagram account (18 million followers) is filled with smiling selfies captioned with things like “Go create your world!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan James Caruthers

I am jumping ahead to the new album, her seventh studio album, as it sees Keys present some of her finest music, almost two decades after her debut was released. ALICIA is a fantastic record, and I think it is a more impactful and personal album that previous efforts, Here (2016), and Girl on Fire (2012). Both of those album were successful, but I think there was a certain degree of Keys being a bit guarded and distant regarding true personal revelation – especially on Girl on Fire -, whereas there was a certain lack of clarity and focus on Here. In an interview with CLASH, Keys discussed how motherhood affected her new album and, as you may have guessed from the title, it is very intimate and personal:

“This new need to start sharing more of herself can be heard all over ‘ALICIA’ as well as in the pages of ‘More Myself’, reflected in new and varied sounds, as well as subject matters. “There’s openness, more clarity. I’ve got a bigger perception of where I want to go,” she says. It could all sound a bit ‘LA’ if it wasn’t so clear that Keys has genuinely been on a profound personal journey over recent years. From famously swearing off make-up to founding her non-profit initiative She Is Music, promoting female advancement in the industry, this is an artist who’s finding herself.

“It’s mostly just comfort level, getting to know yourself intimately,” Keys says, of this new-found mental space she’s worked towards. “Looking in the mirror more over the last couple of years, becoming a mother. Motherhood got rid of all that stuff, about making people happy. I had the baby and everything became more clear.” Mother to two young sons, Egypt and Genesis, with her husband and fellow New Yorker Swizz Beatz, she says the experience has allowed her to look at sides of herself she avoided for many years – the “angry Alicia” the “sad Alicia” – and talks about how things that seemed to be priorities before just melted away, about realising her workaholic tendencies and desire to please people were maybe coming from the wrong place”.

Before moving on to a review of a particular terrific track from ALICIA, I want to focus on a few more things. Forgive the length of the review and how there is a way to go until we get to the nub, but I think this context is very important, and I like to go deep when it comes to artists. One reason why I think Alicia Keys’ music connects to readily is that she is very compassionate and loves people. So many big artists are distant and can find it hard to bond with others, yet Keys has not lost any of that common touch. This will bring me to her recently-published autobiography but, when in that interview with CLASH, Keys talked about her connection with people (something that inspires even her more personal numbers):

“She also talks about the importance of seeing the world through other people’s eyes, acknowledging other people’s stories and struggles. “It [the song] talks about how rare it is to really connect, really communicate with another person, to really listen to another person’s story, really connect with their struggle, what they’ve come up from,” Keys explains. “We all stand with other people every day, on the train, on the bus, on the street – but we don’t know these people. It’s rare that you actually meet a new person, and connect with them, listen to them, because we’re always busy, always running, trying to keep it all together. We’re more ‘connected’ than ever – I can talk to someone right now in Istanbul – and yet, sometimes not. I think that’s another beautiful part of the underdog’s story. I love how it’s written from that storyteller perspective”.

That understanding and easy ability to bond with others is why Keys remains so popular and accessible. There is something about her music that gets to you and speaks directly. Rather than the songs being quite intangible and obscure, every listener can take something away from Keys’ music. Albums like Songs in A Minor were so popular because there was that blend of the personal, and songs which looked outward and were very much for other people. As she mentioned to Consequence of Sound early this year, she is a songwriter who writes for the people:

“I just feel so connected to people. I’ve always felt like I understand people. I can walk into a room and I can feel the energy of people so clearly. Even if I don’t know exactly what’s going on, their exact details, I know the energy and I can relate to that energy. It doesn’t matter where I am. I can be in Korea, I can be in Europe, I can be in Brooklyn, I can be anywhere. That’s something that really is part of who I am and part of who I’ve always wanted to be. I always wanted to have and create conversations that are real and genuine.

I’ve always considered myself an artist of the people. I don’t want to be on some pedestal that is unobtainable. That’s not even a real thing. I believe we can connect with each other, and it does something for you. I definitely love not only performing, but I love connecting with people on a real level. I love sitting down with people and just having a really honest conversation because I find that there are so many similarities that we’re all experiencing. We’re all going through this, trying to figure it all out”.

I want to briefly talk about womanhood because, on recent album, some people noted how this subject was sort of lacking. Not lacking, perhaps, but there was less about women’s place in the world, and motherhood definitely made a difference. Although her first son was born in 2010, I think ALICIA is an album where Keys’ truly soars and tackles womanhood and her own battles. I just want to bring in a great section from the interview in The Times, as we learn more about Keys’ early life and how her father left when she was very young:

“It was motherhood that started a shift in her thinking about women’s place in the world. Her first son, Egypt, was born in 2010. “You literally have a tiny being who could not even survive without you and something about that …” she trails off. “I remember waking up to habits that I had. I tied a lot of my value to the amount of things I could get done in a day,” she says. “I think that’s a very womanly thing to do, this idea of ‘how many people can I make happy?’”

Her father left when she was two years old, and she was raised by her mother, Teresa, a part-time actress and, says Keys, “a beautiful, amazing soul and an emotion-on-her-sleeves person”. In 2010, Keys married the Bronx-born Kasseem Dean, aka the DJ-producer-performer Swizz Beatz, who Kanye West once called the “best rap producer of all time”. They first met as teenagers; he is Muslim and she describes herself as “spiritual”, and talks often of “prayer” and “good energy”. They blessed their first child, Egypt, in a South African Zulu ceremony before his birth; Genesis’s name is taken from the Old Testament”.

If you have not got Alicia Keys’ book, More Myself, then you can buy it or get the audiobook. I would urge people to do so, as it gives us a lot of insight into a wonderful musician, and it will appeal to fans of Alicia Keys and those who are a bit new to her music. In the interview with NPR, Keys gave more details about More Myself:

“They are so similar in this exploration, in the concept, in the conversation about identity, and what makes us up to be who we are, and the expectations that are put upon us mostly from outside sources — societally or from your family, or from those people that you love, or yourself.

I've been thinking so much about who I am, and what makes me that way, and how can I stay connected to the truth of that even in a really, really noisy world ... And so I guess there is these parallel themes about identity, these parallel themes about liberation, about how does one liberate themselves from the messages and the things that have been constantly pumped in our minds so that we start to believe in them [when] they're not necessarily true. So to find your own truth, I think is one of the most powerful practices”.

Tying into what I said before about these ideas of womanhood and a woman’s place in the modern world, Keys has been reacting to the way the world is changing and the political disaster in America. On More Myself, and ALICIA, Keys is more open about womanhood and her own story and upbringing. As we learn from the CLASH interview, this year marks a real change and evolution for Keys:

“She sees this as being something deeply female, and that now is the time to acknowledge it: “I’m excited about the conversations we can have, they’re really powerful, really relevant and at this time in the world we’re really seeing how important the feminine energy is. It’s so important for balance, it’s so important for everything. And it’s definitely happening – that’s why we have to go through all this bullshit. It’s time for drastic change, drastic. I mean if a woman was running the country, would this shit be going on??”

Keys sees her new book as being a part of this conversation – which she says she was ready to write because “I’m ready to be more open” – tracing her own personal story as well as the wider theme of womanhood. “In so many ways the book brings us through the journey so far and explores these themes and places that we’re all going through [as women] and how to really become our authentic selves,” she says. “How do you become more of who you actually are? Wherever you turn, is there anyone encouraging anyone else to be unique, or different, or do something new? No! That’s the first person that’ll be made fun of, nobody is being encouraged to be more themselves – more like everyone else, that’s what we’re encouraged to be. That’s the message we get from the minute we come into the world, so how do I, how do we, do that? That’s what the stories share, as far as I’ve seen it – I have so much more to learn by the way, but I’ve definitely learnt enough to show me”.

Alicia Keys has performed Love Looks Better on Good Morning America, and the NFL Kickoff Concert, and it is the seventh single/release from ALICIA. I wonder whether there will be an official video for the song, as I can imagine something evocative and stunning! The song’s introduction brings in a firm and funky piano note that has a darkness to it that is mixed with a vocal shout. It is a man’s voice, and it is a wordless cry that fuses brilliantly with that piano. One is caught and interested from the very off, and Keys comes in and delivers one of her most effecting and memorable vocals from the album. The first verse is delivered with a real determination and sense of focus that brings the words to life: “All I, all I ever wanted/Was a dollar and a chance/Find, find what I'm made of, alright/Coming, coming from the bottom/Better learn how to dance/Find, find what you're made of, alright”. I get the feeling that Keys is talking about her earliest years and her experiences in the industry before and after her debut came out, but I also think this is a more general message for people who have had to fight and find their way. Whilst the delivery makes the words sound personal and true to her, one can also read them as a message from those who have fought and struggled and are shouting out. In modern America, I can imagine there are more people than ever who feel disenfranchised and lost; desperately looking for some source of stability and reliability!

I brought in interview segments regarding Keys’ connection to people, as Love Looks Better seems, to me, to be a  song for and about the people around her. From the sharper and moodier tone of the first verse, the piano accelerates, and Keys’ vocal is more soulful than before – there was more of a Hip-Hop/Rap delivery at the start. Again, the lyrics have meaning to Keys and her plight, but one can also look beyond that to the wider world: “Feel like my love is wasting/Every day, yeah/Get so damn tired of chasing/Every day, yeah/And now it's you I'm missing/Every day, yeah/Every day, yeah/Every day”. It is clear that Keys has been throwing out love and that is either not being reciprocated or, in the modern world, so many people have taken her for granted. I also feel like this is the songwriter is also putting her heart out there to someone who has been missing for a while; maybe a sweetheart that has left her or they are separated at the moment. There is a real drive and energy as the song continues. Keys’ vocal is both open and vulnerable, as she puts herself out there is a very real way. “So can we talk for a minute?/Stop for a minute/All I wanna do is you/Oh can we touch for a second?/Be us for a second/Don't matter what I give it to”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan James Caruthers

As the song goes on, I think the lyrics become more personal and specific. It is this sense of yearning and desire that burns through. I am not sure what has caused this separation and declaration, but there is a real rawness and urgency that comes from Keys. It is said that her love looks better on her lover, and one can feel that heat and meaning. “Hold up/All I, all I ever wanted/Was a city and some keys/Run, run through the street now, alright/And now it's you I'm missing/Every day, yeah/Every day, yeah/Every day” is Keys explaining how she wanted that sense of settlement and belonging, but it seems empty and almost meaningless if she is doing it on her own. Keys’ passion and determination never relents as Love Looks Better continues, and it is clear that there is this longing and real need for things to be as they were. When she sings “So can we talk for a minute?/Stop for a minute/All I wanna do is you/Oh, can we touch for a second?/Be us for a second/Don't matter what I give it to”, you can really hear the feeling in her voice, and one cannot question her truth and intent.! Love Looks Better is a terrific song from, in my view, one of Alicia Keys’ best albums. There are many more gems on ALICIA, but I wanted to review Love Looks Better as it is so impassioned and powerful! Keys’ voice remains one of the most stirring and reliable in modern music, and she has not lost that ability move and impact the listener. Let’s hope she continues to put out material of this calibre for many more years to come!

I have talked a lot about Love Looks Better, as it is my favourite song from ALICIA, and it is one of the songs that was not mentioned much by reviewers. I just briefly want to nod to an interview with The Guardian, where Keys looked at each song on ALICIA and gave a bit of background. Whilst all the tracks on the album are brilliant, Underdog is another song that has caught my ear. It is striking and moving how Keys explained that track:

“This single from new album Alicia, co-written by Ed Sheeran, goes back to those people dreaming of a better life: “The hustlers trading at the bus stop / Single mothers waiting on a cheque to come.”

“I am that person,” she says. “The one that wasn’t supposed to make it out of Hell’s Kitchen, who was supposed to end up being a prostitute, a young mother at 16 years old, or addicted to drugs. I am the one who was supposed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got injured or killed. And what the fuck is a dream? A dream is a luxury, if you have to pay all these bills and put food on the table for your kids. That is why I understand so much about what it means to have the strength to follow your own path. All the songs I’ve ever written that have been considered empowering or uplifting, I’ve written them at my lowest point. Because I needed to remind myself: don’t forget that”.

PHOTO CREDIT: David Luraschi

Before wrapping things up, I would say to people follow Alicia Keys on social media, as I am sure there are tour dates booked for later next year. Hopefully, she will be able to get out on the road at some point and take these new songs to the people. Ever since the start of her career, things have been so busy and chaotic. One wonders whether Keys has had a moment to rest and reflect, but I think she is taking more time out to take care of herself. Her autobiography and new albums has really made a difference to Keys when it comes to her mental-health and self-care, but she explained to Billboard what else she has been doing to take care of herself:

“You told us last year that working on your new album Alicia along with your autobiography was the best therapy for you. What forms of self care are you using right now to stay the best version of yourself?

One part of the self care [routine] I'm using 1000% is understanding my feelings and emotions, and being able to verbalize them immediately. You know when there's a thing and it hits you sideways, and you have to take a minute to be like, "Ooh, I didn't like that or that bothered me." In the past, I would have rattled off reasons as to why it was all right, and how it wasn't meant to be or whatever. Now, I've gotten much better at identifying, "OK -- that was a real emotion I had. What is it, and where did it come from?" Sometimes, it comes from a place where it doesn't have anything to do with that person that you're actually dealing with at the time.

Then, being able to verbalize it and say it right away. I find that being able to just honestly express [things] in a way where it's not lingering, or taking 20 more years because you held it in for so long, has given me truly a beautiful self-care mechanism. That's one thing. And definitely some time with hubby. That's a really important self-care moment because the kids are all around every second of every minute -- and I love it because I spend so much time away from them -- but also just reconnecting with those people that you love, especially your lover or your loved ones, makes you feel so good.

And of course, time for myself with my meditation and my journaling. I can get into my own mind and space without interruptions. Those are some of tools that I use to stay right”.

2020 is a very odd year, but the music world has delivered some of the best albums we have seen for a veery long time. ALICIA is an album that must have had a very different intent and energy when it was being written compared to now. What I mean is Keys couldn’t have foreseen what was ahead regarding the pandemic, and what world her album would be introduced to! Regardless, it is out and is receiving some of the best reviews Keys has received in many years. I think she has entered a new phase of her career and has created something both open and personal, but also there is the more political and intense. ALICIA sort of nods to her debut album, where vocals take central stage, and that voice is as strong and nuanced as ever! It is an album from a musician who truly is…

PHOTO CREDIT: Paola Kudacki

A modern-day icon.

___________

Follow Alicia Keys

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/aliciakeys

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/aliciakeys/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/aliciakeys/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3DiDSECUqqY1AuBP8qtaIa

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5X3f0fxO4YnVKVZP8p6hg

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Alicia Keys

TRACK REVIEW: Doves - Broken Eyes

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Doves

PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Shard

Broken Eyes

9.4/10

The track, Broken Eyes, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pISDosb4Aes

The album, The Universal Want, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/doves/the-universal-want

RELEASE DATE:

11th September, 2020

GENRE:

Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

Cheshire, U.K.

PRODUCERS:

Doves/Dan Austin

LABEL:

Virgin

TRACKLIST:

Carousels

I Will Not Hide

Broken Eyes

For Tomorrow

Cathedrals of the Mind

Prisoners

Cycle of Hurt

Mother Silverlake

Universal Want

Forest House

__________

SOME bands release an album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Paradise

and you enjoy it, and there is a moderate amount of excitement surrounding it. With Doves, the arrival of The Universal Want is hugely significant and important! The band’s previous album, Kingdom of Rust, arrived in 2009, and many people wondered whether the northern heroes would put anything out after that. It is great to have an album from them and, whilst they cannot tour of put their new material out to the people at the present, the album itself is terrific - and I am sure Doves will be out on the road as soon as they can! I will review a track from the album soon, but I wanted to, oddly, travel right back to the 1990s when became aware of the band that would become Doves: Sub Sub. Jez Williams, Andy Williams and Jimi Goodwin were part of this very-different sounding group, and they hat a massive hit with Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) in 1993 with Melanie Williams. I think as Doves as being this transformative band who are always exploring new ground, yet the transformation from Sub Sub to Doves is radical! I want to bring in an interview from XS Noize, here Andy Williams discussed that period for the eventually-to-be Doves:

“Before Doves, you were Sub Sub and had a massive hit with the club anthem ‘Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)’. How did you find the transition musically from that to the first Doves album Lost Souls?

AW: It wasn’t an overnight thing; we had got bored of huddling around a keyboard and sampler. We grew up around more traditional rock bands, and we missed that part of playing. If you check out some of the later Sub Sub stuff, you will see we had already started that transition. We did a track with Tricky and did a track with Bernard Sumner from New Order, and if you listen to those songs, we had started with more of a band sound and playing again.

It’s well known towards the end of Sub Sub; our studio went on fire, and we wanted a fresh start after that. Yeah musically we were worried if people would take us seriously, but you’ve just got to follow your gut instinct with these things. We spent years perfecting the first Doves record so as long as the music stands up, no one can touch us, and we would get away with it, and we did”.

It has been a while since we have heard activity from Doves. They performed a big gig last year – which I shall mention later -, but in terms of albums, we have not had anything since Kingdom of Rust. Although Carousels sort of announced the return of Doves, it is actually Prisoners that caught my ear hardest! In terms of its immediacy and impact, it is this song that sort of brought me back to the Doves of old. It is a wonderful song and, whilst not indicative of the general sound of The Universal Want, it is such a confident and stunning thing. I am going to sprinkle in various interviews through the review, as it is nice to hear from the band, and I think they will help contextualise the album and their sort of return – even though they never really went away! In this interview with NME, Jimi Goodwin talked about the origins of Prisoners:

“Prisoners’ is about that yearning that Doves have always had,” said Goodwin. “Just over the horizon, there’s always something better. Sometimes we get trapped by our own behaviour. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts. They can take you to some pretty dark and unexpected places if you let them. It’s a song about checking yourself. It’s not to do with lockdown or the pandemic, it’s just the day to day wellbeing. A lot of Doves lyrics are shot through with that notion of having a word with yourself.”

The frontman continued: “Self care is getting easier, and it should never have been taboo to speak about mental health. People are more inclined to show their emotions a bit more these days. A problem shared is a problem halved. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘This life caper is hard’”.

PHOTO CREDIT: CityLife Manchester

This is a new stage for Doves, and this is them releasing music in a whole new decade! Whilst 2020 is not an ideal year to release new music, the Cheshire band have given us all a treat, and it is wonderful having The Universal Want in the world. It must be a bit intimidating for them to have a record out, and at such a strange time! If Doves had released an album this year after a little break, then there might not have been so much intensity and focus. Because they have been away for a long time, there is so much more attention at their door. In a year like 2020, having to field that sort of intensity and expectation must seem strange for the boys. I have heard interviews with Doves, and they are glad people love the album and singles so far, and it sounds like they are really looking forward to the next stage! It is amazing to think that it has been eleven years since Doves put out an album, and they must feel the same! In fact, returning to that NME interview with Jimi Goodwin, the frontman talked about the band’s return and what the new record is about:

“It’s probably the most organically-made Doves record,” he told NME. “No one was second-guessing it. It was born out of chatting to each other over email. I was meant to be doing my next solo record and they were supposed to be doing a new Black Rivers album. We started pooling all our material and the material that we couldn’t work into shape on the last record ‘Kingdom Of Rust’.”

“Time really does fly and I can’t believe it’s been 11 years,” he said. “We’re friends at the end of the day, and we just clicked back into place like it was yesterday. It’s nice to have had that space between the records. It was starting to feel like punching the clock a little bit before we took a break.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Redfern/Redferns

“We’re rehearsing songs from the new album so we’ll be ready when we’re allowed to play live again next year,” he said. “There was originally talk of doing a theatre tour this September, but the pandemic came along and put that to bed. Our first gig back at the Royal Albert Hall was so special, and we couldn’t have dreamed of a better cause or a better building to play for people who wanted to see us operate.”

Goodwin added: “We find ourselves in the middle of such strange world events. It’s still exciting to be releasing music, because I’m dead proud of what we’ve managed to pull together after 11 years. It’s like what Picasso said when German troops marched into Paris. He was painting an apple at the time and said, ‘Keep drawing your apple’. Keep doing what you do”.

So many people (me included) are pleased to have the guys back, and they have sort of picked up where they left off. Whilst there has been a lot of time between albums, I don’t think they have radically altered too much, and there is something new-yet-familiar with The Universal Want. I can imagine how odd it is for the iconic band to put new material out after such a gap, but they are relieved to put this material out that they have been working on for a long time. It makes me wonder whether there are other songs they wrote for The Universal Want that was rejected, or maybe there are extra songs that will find themselves in another album in a year or so. When Andy Williams spoke with At the Barrier about Doves’ return, he was asked how it feels having an album out after such a time away:

“Really good. Very, very nice to be getting new music out. We’ve spent a lot of time writing which we try and do day in-day out but to actually get something out is really satisfying. It’s been a great process getting there. We’ve been talking about how it was a fast record to make and it was mostly pleasurable as an experience. We had a really good laugh making it and we had the benefit of having a lot of material at the start of it which we hadn’t before because all three of us have been writing away from the band.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Shard

We also had a couple of songs from the vaults, so to speak, which we managed to nail this time which was so gratifying. It’s so frustrating when you can’t get a song right; when you have a good idea but you get so far and hit a brick wall and you have to put it down. There are a couple of songs on this album where the genesis of the songs began during Kingdom Of Rust. We’d heard them again a few years ago and one of us threw an idea out there to try and finish it.

Long answer to a short question! It feels really good to be getting a new album out. Cant wait for people to hear it!”.

Not to dig over old ground, but I wondered what provoked Doves to sort of put things on hold like they did, and why they had this kind of split. Not to rake over some potential drama, but I think it is important in terms of the record, and it gives a bit more background. It was worrying to think that Doves might not be back and would be consigned to the rubble…but that could never be! After Kingdom of Rust came out, there was this success and the brilliant reviews - and the band themselves were busy touring. They could not have foreseen that they would put things on ice after that album, and few of us knew that there were any issues in the ranks at that time. Whilst everyone is joyed to have them back, I wanted to look back at that time in 2009 when the band released such a huge album, and many were discovering Doves for the first time. In an interview with The Independent, the band talked about 2009 and what happened:

“2009’s Kingdom Of Rust saw no corrosion in their fortunes, making No 2 in the charts. Yet at the last show of its tour at the Manchester Warehouse Project in October 2010, Doves broke up onstage, to the surprise of most of the band. “Jez went ‘this is our last gig! Thanks everyone!’” Goodwin laughs. “It was our last gig in the campaign. Me and Andy just grinned at each other and went ‘what the f*** is he on about? He’s trying to split us up, is he?’”

PHOTO CREDIT: CityLife Manchester

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jez argues. “There was no phone call on the Monday, was there? Going ‘are we going in then?’”

Doves cite creative and business stresses, family issues (“life gives you a big whack now and then, dunnit,” Goodwin says) and the wearying album-tour treadmill as root causes of the strained four-year birth of Kingdom Of Rust, which necessitated the hiatus. “We didn’t argue enough,” says Goodwin. Their underlying issues “came out in bickering, if it came out. It never came out full-blown clearing the air.”

“Everyone had issues going on,” adds Andy, while Jez claims that “the process was way too long and painful. There was a very difficult writer’s block, we just went through it all at that point”

I will shuffle along soon enough, but I cannot talk about Doves and any of their new music without discussing that time away and what it is like coming back to the music world after such a while. Listening to The Universal Want, and there are no nerves or any suggestion that it is a big deal that they are back with us! That is refreshing, as a lot of bands would misjudge things or create an album that strikes the wrong balance. I think the fact The Universal Want is very much an album for these times and is providing people with so much strength and inspiration is worth noting. There are so many moments of uplift, but there are songs that make you think and really open your eyes. Regardless, before I move onto dissecting the album a bit, just a little nod to that time apart, and what it was like when they all got back together.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

Going back to that interview with At the Barrier, and the band talked about whether they feel there was new energy when they went back into the studio:

“I think so yeah; and an appreciation of what all three of us brought to the band originally. We enjoy each other’s company.  We missed writing together and we also gave each other more room. If someone wasn’t feeling great one day we’d reconvene at a later date whereas during Kingdom Of Rust we were working solidly day-to-day; clocking in. It was quite militant. We’ve always had a strong work ethic but this time it was different because of the way we gave each other space if they weren’t feeling it. It was a lot easier as a process”.

As the years went by, one can imagine that the Doves boys looked at themselves and asked whether they would be a band again. I am pleased they have sort of had that time to reflect and appreciate their bond, and work on things that needed to be addressed. It is like we have this renewed and repurposed band on the scene; one that are ready to keep going strong and put out a lot more material – let’s hope so at least! I am going to mentioning a special gigs the Doves performed last year, but my last mention of Doves’ return takes me back to that interview from XS Noize from earlier, where Andy Williams addressed a very important question:

“The band were on hiatus for eleven years did you imagine the break would be so long?

AW: No, we did a Best of album in 2010, and we toured that for a few months then eleven years past, and we started this new record in 2017 and didn’t tell anyone. We started writing together very naturally, and we were more than ready for it again. Obviously, I have seen a lot of Jez over the years because he is my brother and we did the Black Rivers album. I only saw Jimi a couple of times a year, but we spoke and kept in contact all the time because he is an old friend.

We fell back into it, and it felt very natural and familiar, but in a good way, so the early days of writing were inspiring, and the songs were coming. We had a lot of ideas because Jimi had been working on his second solo album and Jez and I were working on the second Black Rivers album. Hence, we had a lot of material to go at, and we resurrected some old Doves songs that we thought we would have the clarity of time to work out what was missing in those songs and we eventually got those completed. On the whole, it was an enjoyable process”.

By all accounts, the reunion was not a big and glitzy affair. The band had to feel their way back into things, and there would have been discussions as to what direction they wanted to take. How strange it must have been for the group to come back together and discuss new material, and I get the feeling they would have preferred it was much more open and public. When looking back at the interview from The Independent, and a passage regarding their reunion and discussions caught my eye:

“The band’s reunion was a clandestine affair. With their parent label EMI’s having changed ownership several times since 2011, “we didn’t even know who we were signed to”, so they told no one of their secret sessions at a variety of locations in the Peak District, the Cotswolds and Manchester, beginning in 2017. With no pressure to write singles or please anyone other than themselves, they concocted a comeback that pays dues to their entire career, from acid house touches to anthemic choruses worthy of their 2000 debut Lost Souls, while also absorbing modernist flavours: glitchtronica, psych, amorphous synthetic tones. Comeback single “Carousels”, inspired by childhood trips to the fairgrounds of North Wales, is a dizzying array of sonic light trails, psychedelic steel drums and broken rollercoaster clatter, all the better to evoke life’s waltzer whirl. “We felt this was us trying to push ourselves,” Andy says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

I will move along shortly, but The Universal Want is not the first we have seen from Doves since 2009. Unexpectedly, the band did play an important gig last year for the Teenage Cancer Trust, and it was a big moment for them! Not only was that gig one of their first public ones in a very long time, but the charity means a lot to them, so they would have had this sense of pressure and responsibility. Maybe not a pressure, but it meant a great deal for them, and they wanted the performance to be about the charity and not the band sort of ‘reuniting’ on stage. In the XS Noise interview, Andy Williams addressed that gig, and whether that performance helped facilitate a move into the studio:

“The band played the first show in ten years at the Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust in March 2019. The band enjoyed a fantastic reception. How did that feel after being away for so long?

AW: It felt terrific, and it was an excellent way to come back for a great cause. We had done gigs for Teenage Cancer Trust before. We weren’t going to do it, but then Roger Daltrey wrote to us directly, and we were big fans of The Who growing up, and we thought, “We can’t say no to Roger Daltrey.” (Laughs) It felt like the right way to come back. In the beginning, we were a bit scared but Dave, our manager, convinced us that it was a good way to come back and it was a good fit for us and it is for a fantastic cause. It was pretty nerve-wracking on the night, and there was a lot of expectation, but the audience carried us through it. There was so much warmth in the room, and it was a night I won’t ever forget”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

“After that performance, did it give the band more confidence when you went back into the studio?

AW: Yeah, I think so. We were kind of on our way by then in the studio. We had done quite a bit in 2017, and we did a bit in early 2018 then we put recording to the side for a while once we were offered that gig. We thought, “Right, we are going to have to spend some time getting our shit together and getting these old songs back into shape.” But yeah, we were entirely on our way with the record by then. We hadn’t told anyone what we were doing so that there was no pressure on us because it might not have worked out. We could have gone back into the studio, and it might not have happened, so we didn’t want that weight of expectation on our shoulders. But yeah, certainly the reception of the Albert Hall gig put wind in our sails, and we realised there was a hunger for new Doves music. That night was a humbling experience; people had flown in from South America, the states and Australia – it was insane how far people had travelled for the show”.

It is big to have the boys back, and I was keen to review a song from The Universal Want, as I have been following Doves for years now. Broken Eyes is the new release from the album, and it is a track that really interested me. I was eager to investigate it so, without further ado, I shall crack on…

There is this fantastic bit of guitar that opens Broken Eyes, that sort of reminds me of the 1960s and bands from that era. It is hard to describe, but it sounds terrific and it provokes this real sense of nostalgia – not that I was alive in the 1960s; it just evokes a feel of another time. The video is really interesting, as we see various different scenes in various different rooms. The camera keeps panning and does not cut away, as we move from room to room and explore these different scenes. I think it is a great video and, rather than steering the listener to a particular truth or origin of Broken Eyes, it acts as a fantastic accompaniment that deserves multiple viewings. After that introduction guitar, our hero steps to the microphone. The first verse really intrigued me: “There's a light but no one's home/You can hear the silence drone/A little artificial bliss/A happiness counterfeit/I've been chasing away those fears/Just happy to let things slip/Oh, when my angel appears/She's wasting her time”. It sounds quite a defeated passage, but there is a sense of purpose and rhythm to the vocals that summons energy and verve. In terms of sounds and compared to previous albums, I think we are hearing Doves summon the sort of vibe they put out on The Last Broadcast in 2002 – maybe that is just me, but this song could fit there. Maybe it is the hero feeling that he is defeated, and things are a bit lost, or maybe our man is finding peace within himself. The lyrics are open to interpretation, but I get a sense that there has been this tough time, or maybe the hero is reacting to the world around him and that is taking its toll.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Redfern/Getty Images

“I can't help it if you don't feel satisfied/You only ever looked at me through broken eyes/From the shortest of the nights to the longest sunrise/Broken eyes” comes next, and my perception changed a little bit. Perhaps it is not our man that is feeling lost or negative; maybe it is his sweetheart that has lost some faith and strength. The lyrics are excellent, and I think each listener will have a slightly different approach to the meanings. As the song continues – and, in the video, how we see these bizarre and striking glimpses into various rooms -, there is a pang of nostalgia and looking back on things. Our hero sings “I've been dreaming about my past/Thinking about a friend/And how we grew up too fast/Enjoying the years slip past/You see you're present, but never here/It's been a day, but feels like a year/Oh, when my angel appears/She's wasting her time”. Maybe this heroine is trying to help her man or maybe the ‘angel’ is this spirit or shoulder for him. In any case, I get the feeling that the hero wants to return to how things were and go back to a time that was simpler and happier. Many of  us can relate to that with how things are at the moment! The band sound terrific throughout Broken Eyes, and it is a stunning song that reveals new layers every time you hear it! “I've been dreaming of you for days/How I wish you were near/Oh, when my angel appears/Don't tell her I'm here” are words delivered from the heart, and, again, I wonder whether they refer to a lost friend or lover - or it is just a plea to return to the past and finer times. There is so much emotion, passion and atmosphere in the song, that one gets swept up by it; Broken Eyes gets right into the heart and eyes, and it will be reverberating around the brain long after you have heard it.

I am keen to see where the band goes next, as they must be itching to get back onto the road and get their new material heard. It has been a long time out, and so many people are desperate to see Doves play near them. When Andy Williams spoke with At the Barrier, the subject of touring came up:

“How excited are you to play the songs live? Prisoners will be huge in the live environment; I can imagine the vibe in the room.

We have the tour booked for March and April and I definitely can’t wait. I’m hoping that we will be able to do that. It’s a massive part of what we do. We’re really excited and we’re already working out how we can play the new material live. There are only four of us on stage. Some come quickly but some are a bit more challenging.

I can’t wait to get out there, connect with people and see the whites of people’s eyes. It sometimes doesn’t feel real until you start performing the songs live. It’s the first time that we’ve put an album out without the usual shows”.

Long may the band continue, and they will definitely be out there next year and performing – keep your eyes on their social media to see where they are gigging! The Universal Want is one of the best albums of their career, and Doves have found new strength, inspiration, and brilliance. It is great to have them back with us, and 2020 is a year that has been made better by their return! Broken Eyes is a stunning track from the new album, and it is a song that I really wanted to explore. I will end things by throwing out a salute to…

THE much-loved Doves.

___________

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Doves

TRACK REVIEW: Declan McKenna - Rapture

TRACK REVIEW:

Declan McKenna

PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Hahn

Rapture

9.7/10

The track, Rapture, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHMOCS42Uv 

The album, Zeros, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/declan-mckenna/zeros

RELEASE DATE:

4th September, 2020

GENRE:

Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

LABEL:

Columbia

TRACKLIST:

You Better Believe!!!

Be an Astronaut

The Key to Life on Earth

Beautiful Faces 

Daniel, You're Still a Child            

Emily

Twice Your Size

Rapture

Sagittarius A*

Eventually, Darling

__________

WHEN I do these reviews…

I like to look at the whole artist and approach the subject from a number of different angles. I feel it is important to go a little deep, as so many reviewers provide a few lines about an album and you never really get to learn more about the process and aspects that contributed to its creation! In the case of Declan McKenna, there is a lot to discuss. I have been aware of his music since his debut album, What Do You Think About the Car?, arrived in 2017 and, even back then, one can tell that he was an exciting and original talent. His new album, Zeros, shows that he has grown as a songwriter and is reaching new levels of brilliance. I want to first cover the subject of pressure on your artists. Tracking back to a comment from Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Ek, recently, where he said that artists need to be more prolific and cannot put out an album every few years and expect to be okay. There is that pressure to keep putting out material, and I feel a lot of artists release so many singles because they feel they will be forgotten or rendered obsolete if they leave a few months between tracks. Run the Jewels released RTJ 4, and that was after a four-year gap; Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia arrives three years after her eponymous debut; Perfume Genius’ Set My Heart on Fire Immediately was his first album in three years; Phoebe Bridgers’ Punisher is one of the best from this year and her last album, Stranger in the Alps, came out in 2017. Even Bon Dylan has left three years between his new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, and his album before that, Triplicate. Apart from artists like Charli XCX putting out incredible albums so soon after their last – How I’m Feeling Now comes only a year after Charli -, so many of the very best albums of this year have come after sizeable gaps, so that artists could germinate, find necessary inspiration and space, and create an album that was not rushed and a product of record company pressure. After Declan McKenna put out a brilliant debut album, there would have been this feeling – from himself and outsiders – that you need to capitalise and keep going. I think the actual act of growing up and allowing time to elapse has meant McKenna has explored new avenues, picked up a lot of life experience, and been able to bring something different to his music. When he spoke with the BBC recently, he discussed that comment by Daniel Ek, and how he feels about that unhealthy cycle of releasing so much music without much of a break:

“Three years later he's releasing the follow up record, Zeros.

It's a gap he's "more than comfortable" with but he thinks some people in the music industry aren't as patient.

He says recent comments from Spotify boss Daniel Ek that artists can no longer release "every three to four years" if they want to stay relevant are "unhealthy".

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Kiki

"I think it was an unnecessary comment... the problem is how condescending it comes across," he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"It's scary when one of the guys in control just seems to show a lack of appreciation for artists who want to release music in different ways.

"Algorithms work when someone is doing a daily vlog or something, not when it's someone's life's work.

"People still like albums, why you trying to ruin that for people? I don't understand."

The 21 year-old also thinks the pressure he feels from streaming platforms is starting to rub off on fans.

"Someone will release an album then a month later it's like 'where's the music?'.

"It shouldn't be like that and it's not healthy. If that is the modern landscape, then that is scary.

"This stuff takes years to conceptualise and come up with. I can just see that becoming worse and worse and I don't think it's cool to put artists in that position.

"I can't say doesn't get to me even though I try and avoid letting it influence my decisions".

It is testament to McKenna’s instincts, patience, and strength that he has gone away and made an album that is true to him. Since his debut album came out in 2017, McKenna has found so many new people come his way. Whilst the exposure has been great, a certain level of expectation would have been placed at his feet. His second album could have been quite muddled or rushed but, as I say, it is beautifully crafted and a  real development! Looking back at how he started out, it has been a memorable and whirlwind past five years for McKenna - since his debut single, Brazil, arrived. This NME interview takes us inside his remarkable rise:

“In terms of viral success stories, Declan’s is a particularly unique case. His debut single, the riff-happy ‘Brazil’, quickly became a runaway hit in 2015: self-released when he was still some months shy of 16, the sprightly, intelligent cut of indie-pop with which he defiantly called out the corruption scandal around the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The work of someone unafraid to obscure the definition of a protest song, it was bold and forward-thinking, much like the precocious singer-songwriter himself.

That very same track led Declan to being crowned the winner of Glastonbury Festival’s prestigious Emerging Talent competition in 2015, which immediately threw him into a heady whirlwind of press tours, social media attention and formal meetings with industry executives – and all while he should have been revising for his final GCSE exams. After a major label bidding war, he signed to Sony offshoot Columbia and in pursuit of stardom, and left school for good”.

In terms of where McKenna is now as an artist, I think the fact that he is now twenty-one – he recorded bits for his debut in 2015 – means that there is more maturity, authority, and layers on Zeros. That may sound patronising, but I think any artist who is really young has their limitations and is still learning. In terms of experiencing life and picking stuff up, a lot of that will come as he grows older, and I feel the three years since his last album has taught him so much. Time on the road would also have given McKenna new direction and insight, and what we hear on his second album is a young man blossoming, discovering more about himself and the world around him. I will nod to McKenna’s social awareness and political nature, and I think a bit of his debut album was putting out these deep and arresting songs that had a Pop twist. In the NME interview I just quoted from, McKenna discussed what he was trying to achieve with the debut:

“With my first album, I was just simply trying to highlight problems within society and put it into pop songs,” he tells NME. “I think that music is the best way to share a message, as I might as well be promoting stuff that I think is wrong in the world.” He looks away from the camera and gives himself a minute to consider his answer deeply. “Though I still can’t put myself at the forefront of my generation because all I was doing was trying to say something important in every aspect of that body of work, but there has since been this expectation for me to blur the lines between myself as an artist and as an activist”.

Of course, if you release a successful album, you get new opportunities in terms of your budget and ambitions. Not to say that a tonne of money was thrown at McKenna after What Do You Think About the Car?, but he definitely provide himself, and he would have more sway when he came to Columbia to talk about the follow-up. Not only has McKenna had a bit of time to get on the road, spend some time with himself too and absorb a lot around him, but I think he genuinely sat back and pondered whether he wanted to record his second album in the same way he did with his debut - or whether he needed to alter things and change the landscape. In a recent interview with DORK, Mckenna talked about working in Nashville for Zeros, and what adjustments have come into his camp since the debut album:

“It's been over a year now since Declan upped sticks with his band to Nashville to begin making the album. The one thing that characterised the lengthy sessions for 'Zeros' with producer Jay Joyce was a desire to make a proper band record; to harness the fevered energy and flamboyant exuberance of Declan's stage show on record. "I really made a focus on this album on the live energy and space. Making sure stuff was epic but not overcrowded, and I had moments of expansiveness and moments of simplicity," he explains. "I was feeling confident in myself and confident with my band and the team around me who were just awesome. I don't know if that means anyone will like the songs more, but as long as I'm happy, I think that's a good place to start."

The ability to work more collaboratively was a development from the way he made his debut, which still had the hallmark of his early days working songs up from loop pedals with basic equipment. "There's nothing like experience and time with equipment to help you learn both how to come up with more ideas but also to help you execute them," he says. "Part of it was improving my role as a producer even though I didn't actually produce the album. Increasing how much I could influence the sound of the record and what I wanted creatively".

“It was a different way of writing for Declan. With less of a reliance on overt, grandstanding statements, he instead favoured an ever-evolving mystery and a series of playful, witty and, at times, heartbreaking character sketches that shine a light on some greater universal truisms of the modern world we live in. "The ideas that I thought would be the concept of the album never stopped changing," reflects Declan. "I was thinking about space" - a recurring theme on the record - "and how that metaphor tied into so many things that I care about; the environment, denied aspirations of a lot of young people in the world. All of that was very important to me”.

What I love about What Do You Think About the Car? is that it was unafraid to tackle big subjects and something as weighty as transgender suicide (on the track, Paracetamol). Clearly, McKenna is someone who is affected by personal and global tragedies. Whether it is the needless and heartaching death of an individual or the purge of an entire nation, this will all seep into his mind and move him to put pen to paper. One might expect something a little more throwaway and lighter from someone so young, but McKenna is different from so many of his peers in that sense. Whilst What Do You Think About the Car? has some great riffs and sense of fun, I think McKenna has been conscious to not water down his lyrical content, but make sure there is a bit more lightness and brightness in the mix. Rather than diluting his impactful and hard-hitting lyrics, I think the music has been heightened by a move more towards the fun. It has given his material new depth and nuance, and I think it will introduce McKenna to new audiences. When McKenna spoke with DIY, he discussed bringing some fun to Zeros:

“Though still based around the social commentary that saw him hailed as a “voice of his generation” with his first album, ‘Zeros’ sees Declan stepping slightly away from that role and embracing a more fun side to his music too. “People have put a lot of pressure on me, saying all this crazy shit [like that]. So I was like, well with this album I’m just going to write, and just going to create, and it’s not going to be me trying to put out any specific direct political meaning in the way some of the songs did on the first album,” he says.

“I was just about having fun doing it! Some points in it, I’m chatting absolute shite and it feels great! There’s still direct songs, like [pre-album single] ‘British Bombs’, and I still have the desire to do that. But I didn’t want anyone to think I hold the belief that all art has to be the most significant thing in the world. At the end of the day, the reason I love music is because I like sticking it on whenever, and I like going to festivals and I like to party. It’s about getting that balance between the reflection [of society] and the party, and I think that’s where my music lies”.

Not only has there been a slight sonic shift and one in terms of emotion and energy; I also feel that McKenna has experimented more in terms of his own image. When I heard McKenna’s debut and saw photos of him in various interviews, I felt that he had that sort of mix of David Bowie and Marc Bolan (T.Rex). Not to suggest there is an androgynous quality, but McKenna has this sort of allure and flamboyance that we can link to those icons. I am not sure what music McKenna grew up on, but one suspects that there was a lot of David Bowie in the house! Not to suggest he is the modern-day incarnate, but it is fascinating seeing an artist who has this combination of intelligence, mystique, innovation, and style. More gender-fluid than a lot of other artists, I feel McKenna is more confident in terms of his look and sexuality than he might have been back in 2017. Again, age and experience has provided him with that necessary passing of time so he can not be more expressive and assured. When he sat down and chatted with Attitude, the subject of sexuality and self-expression came up:

“As he poses for a self-directed shoot from lockdown for Attitude's July issue - out now to download and to order globally - Declan opens up about his sexuality in his most candid interview yet: one that sees him reflect on school, therapy, and the often difficult transition from teenage years to your early 20s.

Of the sexual-fluidity he's previously pointed to as an identifier, McKenna says: "It’s hard to define. I feel more confident talking about it now than I did a few years ago – I remember being asked a lot about it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Kiki

"At the time, maybe two years ago or so, I was reading up on a lot of stuff and believing myself to be individual, made up of many parts and not just this one thing.

"It felt very hard to pin down, but ultimately I just feel like myself. I would never have really said my sexuality is restricted to any gender or anything."

The former winner of Glastonbury Festival's Emerging Talent Competition goes on: "It always feels like it’s changing: how I feel and how I am”.

Declan McKenna is definitely providing a voice, influence, and sense of direction to many people out there. From sexuality and being true to yourself through to other artists who might be wary about taking on certain topics, McKenna is someone who, I feel, will be the voice of a generation! I just want to stay on one particular theme before moving on: David Bowie. Doing some more digging, I have discovered that, indeed, the much-missed legend is someone who means a lot to McKenna. One can sense a bit of Bowie’s D.N.A. in McKenna when you see some of the photos, the way he writes and how McKenna can sort of change his persona and foundations between albums – even if this is only his second album. Going back to the NME interview that I sourced from earlier, and the subject of Bowie came up:

“On ‘Zeros’, these influences come out to play – kicking and screaming. Blink and you’d mistake the cover’s coruscating, motion-blurred portrait of Declan for ‘Space Oddity’-era Bowie, and that seems to have been the intention all along. “The glam-rock era was just full of life,” he beams, chuckling softly. “I’m fascinated by the clothes that musicians of that era could get away with wearing, and the concepts of space and time that were invariant to the music of the 1970s. The energy! The freedom! The inspiration!”

He took those ideas and ran with them. Where his lyrics were formerly straightforward and direct, ‘Zeros’ is often powerfully evocative and at times dark, evoking the space-age ideas that many of his primary inspirations drew from. “So what do you think you’re doing telling people lies? / The hope’s going like Christmas pies” he sings on the poignant, juddering ‘Daniel, You’re Still A Child’. “But it’s never gonna stopturning you pink”.

I feel a lot of artists now get accused of being quite limited in terms of their songwriting and vocals. It is the case that there are so many out there, it can be difficult latching onto someone with genuine potential and originality. David Bowie is not the only artist who McKenna is challenging – in a unique and very personal way -, but I think the master is always close to his heart. One might say that evoking Bowie’s spirit into the music might give it too familiar a sound, but McKenna merely sprinkles in various bits here and there, whether it be a particular phrasing on a song, a photoshoot idea for a magazine, or a sonic diversion. Going back to that DIY interview, and an interesting piece of Bowie-related information caught my eye:

“Inspired by the likes of T.Rex, Kate Bush, Bob Dylan and the ever-useful motto of “What would David Bowie do?”, Declan’s new album is a glitzy journey through a dystopian landscape, complete with end-of-the-world scenarios and a plethora of colourful characters. Recorded in a converted church over several weeks to reflect the sense of “weirdness,” his aim was to channel the energy of his live band into the record, compelling his band to “play shitter” in order to keep the live vibe and translate his original ‘70s space opera vision into something “not quite as corny”.

There are a couple of other things I want to tick off before I get down to review a choice song from Zeros, but I wanted to return to lyrical inspiration. Maybe fitting of someone who admires David Bowie so, space and the solar system are pretty big in McKenna’s mind. I think a lot of us were very curious as children regarding the universe and what lay between us and the uppermost reaches of the universe. That wide-eyed curiosity is something that has not abandoned McKenna. Again, this circles back to McKenna being a bold and original songwriter who wants to explore issues beyond love or self-inspection. There is a lot of the personal in Zeros, but there is also that mindset that takes him to recesses and spaces that few other artists are documenting. Reuniting with that DORK interview, and McKenna discussed his fascination with space and the great beyond:

“The ability to float off in all manner of lyrical flights of fancy allowed Declan to indulge in a lot of his childhood obsessions. "I was interested in space when I was growing up and read a lot of books about the solar system. In my teenage years, I listened to a lot of music from the 60s that was about the space race," he says. "I like how corny that stuff is now. You can make a space concept album and people are like, well done, that's the thing everyone does. The thing I was trying to consider was the idea of how humans have a tendency to look up for something larger than themselves. Space is used as a metaphor. Different religions are used as a metaphor throughout the album.

"A lot of it is just about human struggle and how we take away our responsibilities by looking at these things and by branching out further than what we've got. We have Earth, and we have each other. If we can't look after those, then nothing else is going to look after us. Different people believe different things, but the one thing we can all agree is real is us and Earth. I was very interested in space and spirituality as an escape that makes us feel like we're powerless when really we are very powerful and have very important responsibilities that we have to be aware of. That was one of the big things for me. A lot of the time humanity is going in a dangerous and destructive direction that most people don't want”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

The last subject I want to touch on before getting down to business sort of takes us back to my first points regarding pressure and expectations. Not only do new artists get this pressure after a great debut that they need to follow things up quickly – and so many artists in general are expected to put stuff out regularly -, but there is that online presence that can be exposing and poisonous. Of course, there are good sides to social media, but there is that unfiltered and poisonous aspect that can amplify and intensify if you are a popular figure. What I mean is that there are people out there who will undermine artists or attack them for no reason. I don’t think we really can grasp just how damaging it can be for an artist to read a nasty or negative tweet about them. McKenna would have faced that like anyone, but he is aware that social media needs to be a nicer and more respectful place. When McKenna spoke with NME, we hear an incident of when he was under the spotlight and some of the reaction he faced – and how McKenna wants social media to be less about blame and more about healthy conversation and acceptance:

“With so much of his public presence rooted in his history of political activism, his stans understand his commitment to social change. But of course that doesn’t shield him from criticism: in June, unable to attend a series Black Lives Matter protests in his hometown due to public transport complications, he posted a lengthy Instagram statement voicing his support for the movement. The post was met with a level of vitriol from some followers, who accused Declan of performative allyship, despite his long-standing, renowned effort to use his platform responsibly.

Instead, he wants to encourage healthier conversations online: “Someone should not have to constantly be reminding you guys that they think X is wrong or right, you know. Not everyone has that close relationship with the internet and a lot of people need a bit more space from it”.

Sitting down to review Rapture, and one is caught from the very off! The lyrics video sees our hero backed by singing statues, and McKenna sports some nifty flares/trousers and some heeled shoes! The backdrop – I assume it was a greenscreen-shot video at McKenna’s home – is quite apocalyptic and sparse, whereas there is something more calm and alluring in the foreground. I do love that blend, but the intro just sees the words ‘jet black’ repeated. What makes it more extraordinary is the vocal is robotic and processed. It is layered so we get this spacey and futuristic vibe from the vocals, but there is something Glam Rock or almost Disco with the composition. It is a big and immediate sound that packs so much punch. One wonders whether the jet black refers to the state of the world and what things are like right now. McKenna’s voice comes to the fore, and he is backed by a fantastic percussive beat and momentum that keeps the energy of the introduction going. The first lines, “At first, you will find/A prophecy of what could have been, you know (You know)” make me wonder what McKenna is referring to, but I think it is less to do with a specific event and more to do with current affairs and how the world has transformed. McKenna’s voice can be playful but there is also that seriousness that keeps the words grounded and ensures they get right into the brain! In terms of imagery and lyrical heft, McKenna always delivers songs that make you think. “Cross-hatched in the metal when you're cracking up/But you're part of the pack, pup/You're part of something bigger than the laws of nature” is beautifully phrased and written, and I think it is sort of down to the listener to decide what McKenna is saying. I think, in the early stages, it is more of a general look at the world today and the song’s title, Rapture, kind of gives you a hint as to the subject matter.

There is a passage that is definitely political and charged. I wonder whether McKenna is casting himself back into the 1980s or is looking back at the turbulent leadership of Margaret Thatcher when he sings: “Mrs. Thatcher/Your cruel heart navigates the world we live in/With its anger/Going nowhere, coming at ya”. In the verse, there is a bit of Alex Tuner of the Arctic Monkeys. One gets a pleasing twang of Alex Tuner (the name of my new podcast!), and there is a great blend of edge and swagger. The chorus definitely gets the feet tapping and it has plenty of sway and energy to it. Like so many Declan McKenna songs, one gets this pairing of serious and thought-provoking lyrics and something a little lighter in the composition. McKenna said how he wants to bring some more fun into his music, and the chorus – “Rapture in my head/I keep looking up like I'm already dead/Rapture, oh my Lord/I've been playing catch-up/I'm already bored” – is definitely imbued with something jollifying and gratifying. I think that makes Rapture a more nuanced song, as one might be hit by the energy and kick to start with but, when they return, the lyrics hit harder or the vocal might resound a bit louder. There is no doubt that McKenna is feeling the weight and he is struggling with the way things are; both a sense of the world around him straining and his own existence being affected. One gets this obliqueness with the lyrics, as you can definitely get a sense of the tone and general inspiration, but the specific origin might not be obvious. I do love that, and this is definitely apparent in the second verse: “Oh, God, tell me I sure am on the list/How can you make yourself so scarce from someone you love?/Oh, it don't make sense/Your love is never better than the morning after (Morning after)/Well, Mother Nature, coming at ya”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Kiki

The chorus comes back in, and it provides that kick and catchiness, but things definitely get more heated as we head to the bridge! Through the song’s video, McKenna is backed by those statues and a war/storm-addled scene, and he sways and dances to the music. The bridge is where the full effect of rapture and anger infiltrates his bloodstream. It is the most visceral moment of the song, and one is definitely moved. “'Cause it's rapture in my head/You say this is up/I'm already dead/Rapture in my head/You say this is up/I'm already dead” is delivered with such force. Rather than it being vituperative, it is this emotional release that, because of the intensity of feeling, gets our hero to the floor. He turns his back to the camera – turning his back on logic and, as we see, facing the rapture and destruction -, and we then end with the introductory coda with that robotic vocal. I think the words ‘jet black’ pick up reinforced and renewed meaning at the end (compared to the start), and one is definitely changed after listening to the song. It is a remarkable track from McKenna, and it is my favourite cut from Zeros. There are plenty of other songs that match the brilliance of Rapture, and I think we might have a possible album of the year contender in our midst! The spellbinding Declan McKenna is growing more assured and wonderful with age, and I think he has really grown as a songwriter. There are many more years ahead of him, and there is no telling just how good he will get – I think we might have a modern icon shaping up before our eyes!

PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Pentel

Having been a follower of Declan McKenna since 2017, it has been wonderful seeing him rise and grow in popularity. He has managed to remain level-headed, and I think Zeros is a fuller and more accomplished album than his debut. Like a lot of artists, McKenna has faced the hard decision of whether to release an album during this pandemic. There is no telling when it will end, so it was probably less about waiting until things ended and more to do with finding a moment when things calmed down a bit. McKenna spoke with Billboard, and he was asked about recording Zeros, but also what it has been like releasing it in such strange circumstances:

“What was it like recording Zeros in Nashville?

It was nice -- pretty freeing to get out of London and just go somewhere to finally put it all together. The studio was really big but still immersive, and [producer Jay Joyce] was a delight to work with. We also have some good friends out there from touring, so it was nice in that way to hang out and have some downtime.

What are the challenges of releasing an album during a pandemic?

Pressing delete on all of my plans and having to be creating so much similar stuff from home, basically. It’s a whole different style of working that I can’t say I’ve enjoyed a lot of the time. It’s not particularly rewarding for me, just recording things from home and whacking it on the internet.

What about the positives?

I guess people have had time to listen and connect -- it’s just a shame that we’ve had to keep everyone waiting”.

I shall leave things here, but I would encourage people to go out and buy Zeros – there is a link at the top of the review - and follow one of the best young artists we have. I am looking forward to seeing where McKenna goes next and what he has in store. He will be itching to play live, and I hope there is an opportunity where he can play a socially-distanced gig or do a livestream, just so he can play these new songs to an audience. In any case, he will be out and busy next year, and it will be exciting to see the reception he is afforded. Keep your eyes on Declan McKenna, as he is a wonderful songwriter and…

A bright young talent.

___________

Follow Declan McKenna

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Kiki

Official:

https://www.declanmckenna.net/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/declanmckenna

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/DeclanMckennaMusic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thedeclanmckenna/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2D4FOOOtWycb3Aw9nY5n3c

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/DeclanMckennaMusic

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Declan McKenna

TRACK REVIEW: Kelly Lee Owens - Re-Wild

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 Kelly Lee Owens

Re-Wild

9.6/10

The track, Re-Wild, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVwZwVTwMPs

The album, Inner Song, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/kelly-lee-owens/inner-song

RELEASE DATE:

28th August, 2020

GENRES:

Synth Pop/Dream Pop

ORIGIN:

Flintshire, Wales/London, England

LABEL:

SmalltownSupersound

__________

I am going to revisit a subject…

that I have brought up in various interviews recently: how this year is being dominated by women. The last few years have seen women rise to the fore and release some truly phenomenal albums! I think this year is one where women have ruled like never before. I mention it because there is still huge sexism in the industry and there is still inequality. From festival line-ups and award shows, change is happening very slowly! I think this year has been made much richer by the innovative and sensational albums we have seen. From Phoebe Bridgers, Dua Lipa and Fiona Apple, the finest music of this year has been released by women. I hope that those in the industry can see the staggering music put out by women and they pledge to make changes and strive towards gender equality and greater rights for female artists. Not only are the albums released by women tremendous in terms of quality; they are hugely varied and original. This takes me to Kelly Lee Owens. The Welsh-born, London-based artist has just released her album, Inner Song, and it is one of this year’s very best. I will come to that album and a song that I have highlighted for special consideration but, before then, I want to go back to Owens’ earliest years and her eponymous debut album – which was released in 2017. This article from Under the Radar in 2017 introduces us to an exceptional talent:

"I didn't really know, in a way, what production meant until I started working with Daniel Avery on Drone Logic," explains Kelly Lee Owens. The 28-year-old Londoner grew up in North Wales, but traveled about, studying in Manchester and then moving to London to focus on music. She discovered her love for dance music thanks to working in a record store called Pure Groove with Avery, leading to her contributions on the techno producer's 2013 record Drone Logic. Following their collaboration, Owens dropped two white label 12-inches alongside her Oleic EP. But this year is the first time Owens is releasing a full-length.

It's almost surprising that she's only now releasing her first LP, but it was really Avery who opened her up to the world of production. "Sitting in on the sessions was when I got really into analog production," explains Owens. "It quickly became an obsession—especially with analog, it's very tangible and works within the Logic program as well. I realized very quickly that I very much knew what I wanted and what I wanted the sound to be."

A body of work fully envisioned by Owens, her self-titled debut is a "sonic diary" that oscillates between dark techno, ethereal pop, and Krautrock, always leaving you wondering what's next. Owens' breathy vocals paired with pulsating beats reveal an album riding the emotional spectrum. Inspired by Björk's Vespertine and the thousands of tiny beats and home recordings that she compiled over two years, Owens' first record includes a plethora of unconventional sound bites (in the past she has used all sorts of weird noises, including a cracker melting into soup). "On the first track there are tiny Japanese bells that I found that I literally whacked into a pencil and a rubber microphone [to create unconventional noises]...I added reverb and that's kind of the outro to that track," describes the up and coming producer. "It keeps it interesting for me, if nothing else."

Instead of starting off with lyrics, Owens wrote the music first—it was her way of experiencing her emotions. "I needed that therapeutic sense of wanting to talk about specific situations that have affected me and relationships seemed to be a theme that came up," she says. "A lot of songs reflected specific relationships—maybe that was just my way of processing stuff. Also, interestingly, it led into a relationship with myself." While the idea of connections was weaved into the record, it thematically wasn't a conscious decision for her. "I put myself in the deep end and just hoped for the best and things start coming together," says Owens”.

That debut album was three years ago, and it received some great reviews. I think Owens has taken a big leap since then, and her sound and modus operandi has altered. I love the direction of Inner Song, and how it builds from the early promise and brilliance of her debut. Like Kelly Lee Owens, Inner Song ranges from the bold and big Techno and something more emotional and inward-looking. That sonic and emotional dichotomy has defined Owens’ work, but I think she has really come into her own and struck gold on her second album! I am going to include another interview in a second, as it talks about the direction of the new record and, whilst it has similarities to the debut, there are differences that have resonated and translated into five-star reviews. I think Inner Song is a more personal album and it digs deep and resonated for longer. Loud and Quiet highlighted the richness of Inner Song and how Owens has developed as an artist:

“It’s a record that once again divides its time between the throb of wordless techno tracks and down tempo dream pop numbers, with myriad of other influences thrown in to both. ‘On’ pulls off each style one after the other, when Kelly’s breathy vocal drops out over the blips, the pace quickens and switches to a low-end thump for the next two and a half minutes. A similar tone – of warmth and smoothness – permeates the whole album, regardless of any given track’s leading style: like the thudding ‘Melt!’, which features perfectly weighted drops, and Kelly’s clearest venture into vintage Krautrock – ‘Jeanette’.

By grounding everything in the bass, Inner Song is tied together with a richness that perhaps goes all the way back to when Kelly first heard The Knife. There’s a murky RnB slow jam, too (‘Re-Wild’), some old-school two-step at the end of the otherwise meditative ‘Arpeggi’, and John Cale collaborates on ‘Corner of My Sky’ – something that, as a proud, Welsh indie nut, Kelly still can’t quite believe: “I cried when I finished the arrangement,” she says.

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas

The most marked difference is that Inner Song is sounding less dub than Kelly Lee Owens, which is a side effect of Kelly’s most direct decision when making this record: where her first album treated her voice as just another musical instrument, feeding her vocals through a Space Echo or Watkins Copicat, Inner Song lifts her voice to the front of the songs she sings on. “I supported Four Tet in America, and when Kieran saw me live he came over and said, ‘why have you been hiding your vocals? Get them up there next time.’

“But this record is also a reflection of my life. I’ve been through quite a lot in my personal life. It sounds clearer because that’s how I feel.”

It doesn’t take two listens to Inner Song to identify much of it as a break-up album. Kelly is, after all, singing hooks like, “So, this is how it must go / In my way / Moving on”, and ‘L.I.N.E.’ stands for ‘Love Is Not Enough’.

“What I’ve decided is to not divulge too many of the details,” she says, “especially when there’s another person involved. But the album focuses on a lot of loss. What I’ve realised is that even in the deepest and darkest of times – and this is cheesy – is that sense of hope. There’s always something hopeful in my music. It’s the melancholic Welsh girl thing. Again, I can’t help it. I’ve tried to write something in a major key and I just can’t do it”.

As I say, I think Inner Song is one of the finest releases of the year, and I think there are personal reasons why Owens’ music connects so heavily and readily. She worked as a nurse, and her experiences with mortality and vulnerability, I feel, are vital when it comes to us understanding who she is as a songwriter and why her music is so powerful. Not only can Owens tap into emotions and experiences that other songwriters cannot access, but she understands the healing nature of music and how it can help people.

PHOTO CREDIT: Burak Cingi

There is more to Inner Song than Owens’ C.V., but I feel the reason why (or one of the main reasons) Inner Song is such a stunning record is that it is unafraid to discuss and tackle darker subjects, but there is a resounding sense of hope and providing the listener with light. I am fascinated by Owens’ experiences as a nurse and how it has fed into the music. When Owens spoke with The Guardian earlier in the year, the power of healing was discussed – she revealed how she is making the experience of lockdown easier to deal with:

“Owens understands the role of healing more than most: in her late teens, while others would be waiting tables, she worked as an auxiliary nurse in a cancer ward, “holding people’s hand as they die”. The job gave her a unique insight into death. “Hearing is supposedly the last thing that goes,” she says, and so, when her grandmother died, “everyone was around her, holding her hands, telling her they loved her. That’s one of the ways to die well.

“This sounds really weird,” she adds, “but I feel like later on in life I might become a death doula. We need to have more conversations about death, and I’m not afraid of that.”

It is obviously devastating to consider that, right now, people aren’t able to see their loved ones as they pass. “People are dying alone and it’s a very serious thing,” Owens nods, although she has been thinking about alternative comforts. “I know it’s a pandemic, but maybe there could be their favourite scent in the room, or maybe there could be music playing,” she suggests. “It’s obviously not easy to do any of this, and the NHS is struggling, but I can’t help but think of little ways that would help ease [their pain].”

PHOTO CREDIT: Liam Jackson

She recently dedicated a playlist of calming tracks to care workers, some of whom she is still in touch with from her hospital days, and who she is understandably concerned about. “The PPE [shortage] is absolutely huge,” says Owens. “I know a lot of doctors who are refusing to work, and I fully support them in that. The government is putting it as a war, so we have ‘heroes’, and actually all they’re doing is what they’d normally do with wars, which is to sacrifice people”.

Not that I want to dwell on death and mortality, but I think it is important to mention when we talk about Kelly Lee Owens. Given her experiences as a nurse, it is inevitable that the nature of life and death is always on her mind, but I think her music is a lot richer and more moving because of those experiences. I feel it is vital to get a more comprehensive and intimate look at an artist before approaching their music, rather than just penning a couple of paragraphs that barely scratch the surface. Kelly Lee Owens is a fascinating human, and I was eager to dig out as much research and interviews as I could in order to properly contextualise her music and original talent. In the interview from Loud and Quiet, Owens’ relationship with death was revealed:

“I could talk about death all day,” she says. “I feel it was a privilege to be there at the end of someone’s life, and it’s inevitable, so we need to be able to talk about this more. I genuinely believe that you can die well. The hearing is the last thing to go, so when my nana passed I was talking her through her death, and I would do that intuitively in the nursing home I worked at before the hospital and in the hospital. I would have days when I’d have stopped working for the day and someone’s dying and they’re alone, and I’d say, ‘I’m going to sit in that room with that man so that he doesn’t pass alone.’

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sara Amroussi-Gilissen

“I’ve seen a lot,” she says. “The body is just a shell, and I’ve seen that essence disappear and go somewhere else.”

I suppose once you’ve cared for cancer patients in your late teens, moving to London to jump over fences into locked parks, keeping in touch with Graham Coxon and finding your own Arthur Russell only to let him go again aren’t such terrifying prospects. That Kelly’s done any of them is really quite incredible, even if Google does tell me that Virgos “take their responsibilities seriously”. It also says, “If you are ever unsure of how a Virgo feels, just look at their artwork”.

In contrast to death and the fragility of people, Owens knows that music has this enormous and unique capacity to restore and rejuvenate. We can all relate to what Owens discusses in Inner Song, and I think another reason why the album has been received so effusively and enthusiastically is because of its relatability. Maybe it is the current situation and lockdown that means the songs are even more nuanced and potent than they otherwise would be. Owens’ debut album is a wonderful thing, but I think the strides she has taken and what she has learned since has made her sophomore album so amazing. Above everything else, Inner Song is here to provide hope and strength for people who feel alone or are struggling to cope. In an NME interview, Owens discussed suicide in men, and how she wants her new album to give people some comfort and strong reassurance:

“I’m definitely not afraid of leaning into the cracks emotionally,” Owens says, citing an unexpected response from her male listeners. “A lot of men send me messages saying ‘I cried listening to this’ or ‘this made me connect to my emotions’. That is phenomenal,” she enthuses, “to hold space in that way, especially with men, who have been so forced to forget their feelings,” noting that suicide remains a top killer of men in the UK.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonangelo Molinari

It’s particularly fitting, then, that she chooses the word “strength” when asked what she hopes ‘Inner Song’ will give people. Deeper still, she wants them to “not be afraid to be alone,” pointing out that ‘alone’ used to be two words: “all one – meaning ‘whole’. That’s what this time has shown us: being whole within the self is the greatest of all strengths and, that, however painful things can be at times, expressing that pain is healing”.

I will move on to reviewing Re-Wild in a minute but, in lieu of reviewing the whole of Inner Song, I want to, instead, look at Owens as an artist and various sides to her work. I have highlighted her work as a nurse and how she has progressed since her debut album, but I have not touched on the experimental nature of Owens’ music and her love of Techno music. I think she is a huge innovator and someone who absorbs sounds and music like nobody else. If her experience as a nurse gave her a privileged glimpse into human frailty and the power of hope, I think her experience of working around music and records has driven her as a sonic pioneer and composer. It raises a question as to how one’s work experience can directly feed into their music, and how instrumental a varied C.V. is. Owens has definitely enjoyed a broad and interesting life, and her time working at a record shop gave her a spark that has been burning bright ever since. I want to bring in an article from Music Tech, where we learn more about her time at a record shop and how the music played their inspired her:

“As well as immersing herself in music scenes across the country, Kelly’s palette was also broadened by the time she spent behind the counter of important music retailers. Her employment at the legendary Pure Groove when she first moved to the capital proved to be a crucial step in her development. “The Farringdon shop was where I first met Daniel Avery,” she says. “Then I met Erol Alkan and mavericks like Andrew Weatherall. I ended up becoming friends with these people and was lucky enough to call them mentors and collaborators.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Liam Jackson

Surrounded by inspiration, both in person and from the shop’s speakers, sparked a transition in Kelly. She would go from selling records to making them. “My songs are an amalgamation of the places and people I’ve connected to,” she says. “Everything I’ve been exposed to has seeped in”.

Kelly’s creativity is driven by her love of sampling, and she’s carving out a reputation as someone unafraid of wrapping her recording equipment around even the most unlikely sound sources. “I sample all sorts of weird stuff,” she says, with a laugh. “This is going to sound odd but my nan’s hearing aid whistles a lot. When she took it out, it made this really high-pitch sound, so I recorded and processed it. You can sometimes create magical moments from the most unexpected places.”

When preparing to record, Kelly sets up her environment in a way that allows for maximum experimentation, so she can get the most out of her creative outbursts. “I’ll hook up a synth like a Korg Mono/Poly to some kind of sequencer just to see what happens,” she says. “Sometimes a random pattern will emerge that just works, especially with analogue, where you can’t predict anything. When I worked with Jon Hopkins, he’d recently collaborated closely with Brian Eno. Brian told him there’s no such thing as a mistake and I agree. You have to look out for these moments, as these are the gems you didn’t even know you needed”.

There are a couple of other subjects I want to introduce before I settle into a review of Re-Wild, but Owens is a fantastic producer, and I think she is helping to redefine the role of a producer. Through the years, artists and producers have had greater accesses to affordable equipment, and one does not need to be in a studio or have a lot of money to produce an ambitious and accomplished album. Especially now, as access to studios is reduced, a lot of artists are producing their own work, and many are doing it from their own homes.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kim Hiorthøy

I don’t think people mention Owens’ production talents when they talk about her music. I want to bring in a brief passage from Music Tech (again), where Owens explained how producers now do not need to be overly-au fait with technology or have a great knowledge of the studio and usual processes:

“Kelly is keen to reconfigure notions of what producers should be in 2020. With so much easily available and affordable gear on the market, these days there are innumerable avenues down which music-makers can take their creations. Though a fundamental understanding of the machinations of programs such as Pro Tools and Logic is likely to help, complete technical proficiency shouldn’t be anybody’s end goal. “Many people think producers are technical wizards but you don’t need to be to come up with great music,” says Kelly. “There are so many ways to get music made and finished. It all depends on the kind of producer you are”.

Two more things I need to cross off the list before I get down to business is how Owens’ singing voice has been pushed more to the front now, and what a great vocalist she is. I also want to write about, despite her talents as a vocalist, she is having to fight for attention and approval still. Since her 2017 eponymous debut, Owens has come on in bounds as a writer and singer, and I think an important reason why the subjects and striking lyrics on Inner Song are so moving is because of the clarity and strength of her vocals. In this interview from Dork, Owens explained why her voice is more prominent:

“In contrast to her first record, Kelly's vocals and lyrics are more prominent here. You can hear the sound of her blossoming as a writer as she deals with big, bold themes, both personal and global, with songs that tackle climate change and the elemental power of Earth. "The lyrics are more straight to the point," she states. "I needed the messages to be heard literally, clearly. The vocals have got more confidence to them, and that informs the production as well."

PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Stedeford

"If you think about a day in your life and the range of how many different emotions you go through, then all that can happen within one track. 'On' is the perfect example of that, and it's what I always call a hybrid," she continues. "I can go into the honesty of that feeling of letting go and moving forward. Then it can transform you into that feeling of acceptance and the music changes, and it's like let's literally move forward and create shapes and sounds. The sounds push me forward. The emotion ties it together and allows that flow of ideas".

Kelly Lee Owens has collaborated with others, and I was especially struck by the wonderful track, Luminous Spaces, from earlier in the year. It is a fantastic song, and we hear Owens’ voice on the track. Unfortunately, as this interview from The Guardian explains, Owens’ contribution was ignored; many people were raving about Hopkins and his brilliance instead:

“It was her “insistence”, she laughs, that resulted in her and friend Jon Hopkins making the ambient-trance song Luminous Spaces in January. Originally a remix of his track Luminous Beings, Owens did the arrangement and added vocals, and it became something new entirely, even otherworldly. So it was disappointing for Owens to see the part she played diminished.

“Unfortunately, all the comments on YouTube are like: ‘Jon’s a wizard, he’s amazing,’” she says. “His production is amazing, but I took that track and made it what it is. And he’ll tell you that.

“It’s boring,” she continues, “but I still have to fight my corner, because if I don’t I’m passed off as ‘just the singer’. Why are we presuming that if a woman’s voice is on something, it’s the only thing she’s contributed? We have to keep undoing those preconceptions”.

Have no doubt that Kelly Lee Owens is greatly respected. I still think there is a lot of sexism and ignorance towards women in music, but Inner Song is an album that one cannot ignore! It is a staggering album and it will open many new doors for Owens. There are a lot of great songs that I could have reviewed from Inner Song, but I was particularly affected by Re-Wild and I wanted to throw some love and light on this great track.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonangelo Molinari

Although there are few different lyrics in Re-Wild – line are repeated to create great impact -, I do love the composition and the layers of the song, and how powerful Owens’ voice is and what she does with the song. Three is this electronic coda that opens the song that is stirring and haunting at the same time. We hear a pulsing beat, and one already constructs images and scenarios for the song. A terrific introduction can set the listener off in all kinds of directions, and I was already immersed and dreaming before the vocal came in. As a producer and composer, Kelly Lee Owens has this intuition and knack of crafting incredibly rich and interesting compositions, and she wastes no time in getting under the skin on Re-Wild. I would be interested to know where the title stems from, and whether it refers to her being reborn and this new sense of life and vivacity entering her life. The opening verse offers some form of explanation and insight: “Felt the power in me/Things are different in me/Watch your eyes open me/Watch your eyes open you”. The simplicity and beauty of those words is amazingly moving, and Owens delivers them with so much heart and meaning. One can arrive at their own conclusions as to who inspired those lyrics, but I was thinking more of a romantic background rather than anything else. Backed by a beat that provides throb and blood flow, Owens layers her voice and she beautifully weaves her vocals so that there is this mixture of the heady and tangled. I have gone back to the first verse again and again, as there is so much to investigate and study. On the surface, the verse might sound quite simple and sparse, but there is so much detail in the composition and there is endless nuisance in the vocal. Owens is such an underrated singer, and one of the great strengths of Re-Wild is Owens’ vocal performance.

The pace and flow changes as we move from the first verse into the pre-chorus. The pre-chorus is a little faster, as Owens sings “Taking release/taking release” (twice), and, again, I was thinking more about a relationship and the nature of love. Maybe I have got my interpretation wrong, but the truth of the origin is known only to Owens. The chorus is the song’s title projected in different ways. The first ‘re-wild’ is almost shot and delivered in quite a sharp way, whereas the second delivery is breathier and dreamier. It is amazing to learn that it is only Owens singing, but she manages to create this effect where one hears different tones and emotions – apologies if that sounds patronising, but it is an amazing vocal performance! From opening verse to the first chorus, so many different visions flow, and one is knocked back by the beauty and potency of the song. The chorus is especially stunning, as the title becomes a coda and, with each repeat, the word seems to take on new meaning and provokes a new image. The composition adds so much atmosphere and shivers, and I just love how Re-Wild moves and twists! The second verse is fairly similar to the first in terms of its message: ”See the freedom in me/Allow the freedom in you/Free yourself with the truth/That's already in you”. I was wondering at this point whether, if we are to assume Owens is talking about a relationship, the bond has strengthened or ended.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kim Hiorthøy

The lyrics can be taken both ways, as it seems that both have discovered the truth and freedom, and a definite change has arrived. It sounds quite positive in delivery, but there is always that other side that could be more resigned and downbeat. I am just naturally jumping to the conclusion that Owens is revealing a relationship and passion that has entered her life, but the lyrics could be broader and universal. Some people prefer lyrics that are more explicit in their meaning, and I do like the room for interpretation, and the fact that every listener will have their own slant. Owens’ voice is amazingly composed and strong throughout and, though she doesn’t explode or implode, one feels this real tremor and passion that is wonderous. The combination of the slightly moodier composition and the sweeter tone of Owens’ voice could be an unnatural blend, but Re-Wild never sounds jarring or uneasy. The final pre-chorus – this time “Facing release, facing release/Facing release, facing release” – and chorus stirs the senses and gets the heart beating fast! By the time Re-Wild ends, one needs a few moments to collect themselves, but they will go back and listen to the song again, as new things are uncovered every time you go back. Every track on Inner Song is amazing, but I was particularly attracted to Re-Wild, as it is a song that keeps coming back to mind. I am not sure whether I have interpreted the lyrics correctly, but maybe that is the point: if the actual truth and origin was known, then the beauty and power of Re-Wild might be diminished. If you have not got hold of Inner Song (or streamed the album), then make sure you do, as it is one of the best albums of the year, and it is proof that Kelly Lee Owens is an artist with a huge future ahead of her!

PHOTO CREDIT: Carys Huws

I am not sure how Kelly Lee Owens’ diary is fixed for this year, but one suspects that 2021 is a year where we will get to see Inner Song on the road. I am sure there will be festival dates, and I wonder whether she will be given a prominent slot at festivals like Glastonbury. Big changes have come in over the past five months, and I am always impressed that so much great music has been created whilst under lockdown. Owens originally scheduled Inner Song for release on 1st May, but it was pushed back to 28th August because of the COVID-19 situation. Many of the lyrics on Inner Song take on new and unique meaning at this changeable and uncertain time. In the interview from Dork, Owens talked about lockdown and how it has given her album a new sense of meaning:

“She goes on to describe how the album's themes of the fragility of our ecosystem and the way we interact with it have taken on an added poignancy. "There's a lyric on the album that says, 'Never pausing to take it in, always avoiding your sense of dread'," she explains. "I wrote that before all this happened but this is what's going on. We're forced to take a pause to look at all these things we've been avoiding. As difficult as that it is there's such beauty that can come from it. Emotional intelligence, connection and respect for each other and globally for the planet. It's a time of deep introspection, and I think that can only be a good thing".

I shall wrap things up now, but I have been eager to review Kelly Lee Owens for a long time, as she is an artist that I have a tremendous amount of respect and time for. In Inner Song, she has released one of this year’s defining albums, and I cannot wait to see where she heads from here! Who knows where she might head for a third album and where her current album takes her in terms of tour dates – which might have to wait until next year. Owens (like many women in music) has been overlooked and dismissed a lot, and she is still having to battle to have her voice heard and respected despite the enormous quality of her work. Kelly Lee Owens is such a phenomenal artist that deserves…

SO much respect.

___________

Follow Kelly Lee Owens

Official:

https://www.kellyleeowens.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/kellyleeowens

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/kellyleeowens

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/kellyleeowens/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5eitAUlYmlha3LLWg7aBn5

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9wARUGtGtBwyghM9itiAKw

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Kelly Lee Owens

TRACK REVIEW: London Grammar - Baby It’s You

TRACK REVIEW:

 

London Grammar

Baby It’s You

9.1/10

The track, Baby It’s You, is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK9a-ccrLY

RELEASE DATE:

19th August, 2020

GENRES:

Indie Pop/Dream Pop

ORIGIN:

Nottingham, U.K.

LABELS:

Ministry of Sound Recordings Limited/Metal & Dust

__________

I will end this review…

by talking about the return of London Grammar but, to start, I wanted to go back to the beginning. I have been familiar with the three-piece for a long time, and they have this effortless connection with one another. Even though Hannah Reid’s voice is at the front and gives their music so much atmosphere and beauty, the brilliance of Dominic 'Dot' Major and Dan Rothman cannot be understated. They are an incredible unit and, with a new track out there, it is great to have them back. It begs the question as to whether the Nottingham-formed group will release an album by the end of the year, or whether we will wait until next year. I think we often approach groups and do not really consider how they met and what their early life was like. Maybe it is just me, but I like to hear the origins and see how far they have come. In the case of London Grammar, they met at university. When London Grammar spoke with Interview Magazine, they were asked about their start:

“HOLLY RUBENSTEIN: How did you all meet?

DAN ROTHMAN: I met Hannah in our first year at Nottingham University. We started playing shows together in bars and clubs and met Dot a year later, who was studying in the year below.

RUBENSTEIN: When did you start thinking that music was going to be a viable career option?

HANNAH REID: We were spotted by an A&R at a live show around the time that Dan and I were doing our exams. We’d just met Dot, and we’d been writing our songs for about six months. That was one avenue as to how things kicked off into us getting signed. A couple of months prior to that, Dan was talking about the future and saying he might have to go away, so we were really fortunate.

ROTHMAN: Playing live at that time was always a bit of fun. It was funny that out of that came all of this. I’ve been in bands before where you try really hard to get signed. We were really lucky.

DOT MAJOR: But we did work hard. We’d drive down to London to gig once a week.

REID: We’d made the decision that we wanted to write all the songs and make a body of work that we were happy with. We chose to put “Hey Now” out online, but we didn’t expect it to do what it did”.

I want to take a chronological look at London Grammar, because I think it is important to get background and a better understanding of them before tackling their current song. The timeline will stop at 2017 because, to the best of my recollection, they have not conducted an interview since then! Maybe there are interviews coming after the release of Baby It’s You but, as it is, London Grammar have put a full stop in 2017. I have mentioned how London Grammar, as a unit, are vital, but I have to spend a moment talking about Hannah Reid’s voice. It is a singular and striking instrument, and it gives the songs of the group so much weight and wonder. I am not sure who she takes inspiration from, but one cannot help but hear Reid sing and be completely entranced by her! I want to bring in a feature from The Guardian from 2013, as it mentions Reid’s voice, but there is also a section relating to the band’s appeal and fanbase. As we have seen London Grammar grow and expand their fanbase, it is interesting to see how they were being cast in 2013:

“A lot of the interest in the group is focused on Reid's voice, a chilling soprano with the yearning of Joni Mitchell, the minor tones of Regina Spektor and the enunciation of a public-school teacher. Still, her vocal talents should not distract from the group's knack for simple songwriting: each track on the album is built from only piano, guitar and sparing percussion, almost entirely free from flourish or ostentation.

This attitude to composition brings to mind Coldplay and Adele, which does mean that London Grammar may struggle to remain hip. They do have young fans, and as Reid says, "my hair is quite cool", but mums come to their shows out of choice, rather than obligation. A few years ago they might have been lumped in with singer-songwriters of the Dido ilk, but the legacy of bands such as Alt-J and The XX has meant that middle-class kids singing nice ballads do not have to spend their lifetime stuck in the CD player of a home counties Volvo”.

2013’s If You Wait was their debut album, and it was one of the most impressive debuts of the year. I remember getting that album and thinking that London Grammar sounded like nobody around. I am fascinated by three-pieces and how they deploy their members. With Reid at the front, and Major and Rothman supplying the music – Reid is their lyricist –, it is a terrific system. That sounds quite artificial, but what I mean is that configuration really suits the group, and we saw it bloom on their debut album. As I say, I do just want to bring us forward as much as possible before reviewing their latest track. If You Wait was met with great anticipation and excitement, and a lot of press sources were keen to interview this interesting new group. Returning to that earlier interview from Interview Magazine…the band were asked about If You Wait and how they were feeling:

“RUBENSTEIN: How are you feeling about the imminent album release?

MAJOR: It’s really crept up.

ROTHMAN: The feeling is fear.

REID: I just try and not think about it. We’ve felt so lucky about everything that has come our way so far, and we can’t believe how it’s going. You’ve got to try and be chilled about it, which is quite difficult for me!

ROTHMAN: Once the album was done and we’d signed it all off, it was far easier to relax about it. It was like, whatever happens, happens. But I’m obviously still terrified to hear what people think about it.

RUBENSTEIN: Surely you can’t be that worried? You’ve had such huge support, both from the critics, and the fans.

REID: I think I get used to being in my little nucleus so much that I don’t really have a perspective about what’s going on on the outside”.

Now that I have given a little interview context regarding the debut album, when the band released their second album, Truth Is a Beautiful Thing, in 2017, there was a lot of expectation. It had been four years since they released their debut, so many people were wondering if they had disappeared – such if the impatience of the music media! Although their second album did not quite gain the same praise as their debut, I could see London Gramma evolving, and there is a lot to recommend about it – songs such as Big Picture, and Oh Woman Oh Man are stunning! Of course, as there had been a gap between albums, there were a lot of people at London Grammar’s door. It is interesting reading interviews from 2017, as they provide us a chance to catch up with the guys and learn how the second album came together. In this interview with DuJour, they talked more about Truth Is a Beautiful Thing:

“Generally, with your first album, you never consider the fact that anyone would actually listen to it,” says Dot Major, the trio’s keyboardist and drummer. Adds Rothman, “We’re not the kind of band, unfortunately, that can judge success on where we chart.” At least one fan would say that’s not the worst thing. As Elton John recently commented, “[London Grammar] is not the kind of music that gets in the charts these days, because there’s no room for intelligence in the charts.”

So success must be measured in less quantitative ways. “I’m excited about playing festivals,” Rothman says. “I think that’s the real barometer of whether people have actually been listening to the new album. Either they’ll turn up to see us, or they won’t.” Even in the four years since they arrived on the scene, the music industry has changed dramatically, and the band says that navigating it often feels like a shot in the dark. “The Internet has been amazing for music,” says vocalist Reid. “But it’s changed how young people value it, because it’s so accessible. I hope streaming becomes monetized in a more ethical way for the artist. Especially for independent musicians”.

 It is clear that, one of the reasons why there had been a four-year gap between albums, is because London Grammar were moving in different directions and did not want to repeat what they put out on their debut. Maybe the striking change in tone took critics by surprise; perhaps many were expecting the band to duplicate their debut. In any case, Truth Is a Beautiful Thing saw London Grammar experiment more, and I think Hannah Reid’s voice and writing is even stronger on their second outing. The band spoke with Indie Mag to promote their second album, and they were asked about the tonal shift between albums (among other things):

“The songs you’ve released from “Truth is a beautiful thing” are all characteristically dramatic and very in tone with the style we all fell in love with 4 years ago—have you stayed true to your roots or can we expect some serious surprises from the new record?

Hannah: This album is different from our first record. In terms of surprises, I don’t think so. My voice, the lyrics and arrangements, it will always be characteristic and essential to our sound. It will always have these “haunting” elements, I suppose.

Dot: There are artists that are much more “designed”, in a sense. Like, they deliberately create a specific sound, it’s like a set goal. That’s something that we’ve never really put much effort in. When we three, these individuals clash, what happens just happens. We all gravitate naturally to certain fields of interest, certain topics we feel the need to address through our music. Putting all of this into one pot eventually led and still leads to what you know as our music, today.

Dan: Solo artists, in particular, try to experiment with themselves and their product. Whereas bands usually evolve more naturally, as oppose to purposefully adapting new styles. We didn’t go into this saying “We want the record to sound like THIS”, it just happened, you know?”

One of the things that is being talked about more is how success and pressure can have such a draining and damaging affect on an artist/group. Hannah Reid, when you listen to her songs, exerts so much feeling and emotion, but how many of us think about the women behind the songs?! I feel we sort of leave things at the door and do not really wonder about the artists and how they are feeling. That is natural, as we cannot really spend that much time and energy on every act! Regardless, modern music is such a machine and is incredibly demanding. For Hannah Reid, who fronts London Grammar, there is more pressure and expectation on her shoulders. I will talk about Reid’s stage fright, but there was a period when the exhaustion and fatigue got to her. As we learn from this interview the band provided The Guardian in 2017, things sort of ground to a dramatic halt:

“Major was the last to learn about Reid’s decision not to go to Australia. She called Rothman, began sobbing and – amid the commotion – the two forgot to tell their drummer. “I was at Leon in the airport and couldn’t get hold of either of them,” Major remembers. “Eventually I spoke to Dan and he was like: ‘Oh shit, no one’s told Dot.’ I said: ‘I’m getting on the plane.’ And he said: ‘You do that and I’m going to fucking kill you. We’ve got stuff to sort out.’”

The crash had been coming for a while, and the band postponed further dates for reasons publicly announced as “illness” and “vocal fatigue”

“The exhaustion really kicked in for me after a year,” says Reid, a friendly but unshowy frontwoman. Her battle with stage fright has been widely reported, but the effects of success were physical as well as mental. “I spent the second year pretty much just hanging by a thread – I didn’t really know what was wrong with me. Then I just got used to feeling that way and I was like: ‘I must have some kind of illness, I must have chronic fatigue syndrome.’ I got tested for a whole bunch of stuff, it got kind of weird. My liver wasn’t working properly even though I was completely teetotal”.

“The thing about touring is that young artists don’t always have much say or control,” Reid says. “You’re quite naive. You say: ‘Yeah, I want to do everything.’ And you want to please everyone. You’re so grateful, but you get sick at some point because everyone does. You have to cancel stuff, and then that has to get rescheduled. It can very quickly go from being manageable to snowballing into the kind of schedule that can end up wrecking your voice. The worst thing about it is disappointing the fans,” she pauses. “We’re going to do things differently this time”.

One can only imagine how scary it was for Hannah Reid, as there were these commitments but, unable to go on and feeling completely worn, that was it! It is not the fault of the record label or anyone representing London Grammar, but I think there is this assumption that artists can just keep going and everything is okay. Maybe artists themselves feel they can push through, but there has been greater discussion and communication over the past few years regarding mental-health and the wellbeing of artists. I think stage fright is something that afflicts many people in the music industry and, if you live with it, of course that has a really profound effect on you as an artist!

The studio is quite an intimate space where one can make mistakes and come back to a song. When it comes to the stage, there is a huge audience, and the room for error is very slim indeed! Maybe things are slightly improved for Hannah Reid today but, back in 2014, The Independent spoke to London Grammar, and Reid talked about stage fright:  

“She doesn’t seem to particularly enjoy playing live at all. The very prospect of it leaves her riddled with nerves, and she is constantly fretful about protecting her voice.

“It’s my instrument, and my instrument is within me, so I do have to take extra care of it,” she explains. She is gluten-intolerant, and in addition to avoiding certain foods, also has to swear off drink during tours. After shows, she says she can’t really talk at all, and so simply retreats to the hotel, and to bed. “Pretty boring, right?” Does she ever enjoy the hour she spends on stage?

“Sometimes, yes, but sometimes the nerves don’t lift at all, and I just feel horrible, and panicky throughout.”

To help combat this, she has recently started practising Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is essentially acupuncture without the needles. You establish “energy meridian points” along the body (these normally cluster around the head and chest), then tap them with your fingertips while simultaneously focusing on the problem and repeating positive affirmations to counteract them. While the average GP may view this with a mixture of ignorance and derision, it is based on Eastern practices dating back thousands of years. And, she says, it works”.

In fact, wind things forward a few years, and this interview from The Skinny saw the subject of stage fright come back up. I guess, with every album and tour, you cannot really avoid the stage, and it does not seem to matter what treatments you use and how you deal with things: stage fright is so tough to handle, and those nerves are always there and waiting to come back. Of course, some artists can defeat this issue but, for Reid, it is something that is always there:

“This might be a notion Reid realised while tackling her well-documented stage fright. “I still have been really, really nervous. It has been hard,” she admits. “It sounds really cliché but breathing exercises are really good and also the biggest thing for me is that I just learn to accept it. That’s kind of my routine – I just have to do it and feel really shit…” Their slot at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Hull proved especially daunting: “We were, oh my god, so terrified just because that was the first festival back home, it was the BBC and it does really matter. But it was reassuring; we had a really good reaction I think… I hope! Well it was a good enough reaction for us on stage, I was really happy.

“I do think back to what I was like on the first album and I am slightly better. Everything that we’re doing now, the radio sessions and the TV things, we have done before, which does just take some of the stress out of it all”.

If some of London Grammar’s earlier tracks started with moodier compositions, there is definite light and energy emanating from the opening phases of Baby It’s You. I think this is one of the most interesting evolutions from the trio: how they have managed to keep hold of their mystique and that raw emotion, but the music has widened and there is more colour and emotional breadth to be found. The song’s introduction is fantastic, and it really builds so many images. We wait for Hannah Reid to come in and, when her voice enters the scene, it is as affecting and mesmeric as always. “All these lights are changing/See ‘em everywhere/In my veins like lightning, I don’t even care/And the crown is heavy, I don’t wanna move/All these colours in me but all I see is you/And nothing else matters” is the opening verse, and there is plenty of passion and intrigue in equal measures. I love the imagery portrayed, and it clear that there is real emotion and passion in Reid’s heart. Everyone will have their own interpretation of the lyrics, and I like the fact that there is that blend of the literal and oblique. In the verse, Reid’s vocal is slower and there is this pause between lines. There is definite emphasis on the importance and emotion of the lines, and one notices a shift in the chorus. “You, baby, it’s you” is delivered quicker, and the composition accelerates and brightens. I have always loved that combination of Major and Rothman’s composition and production, and the stirring vocals of Reid. There is that dreaminess and etherealness that captures you but, when you hear Reid sing, there is so much depth to her voice, and one drifts away and is helpless to resist its beauty!

There are relatively few lyrics to Baby It’s You. Instead, the words are given time to resonate and embed. I think a song can become too cluttered if there are a lot of lyrics, and it can be difficult getting to the real truth. On Baby It’s You, there is a simplicity and purity that is very striking. The song’s pace continues on a more energetic plain, compared to the opening few moments and the first verse. It is like Reid has been awoken, or there has been this realisation that has opened her eyes and given her the spirit and energy she needs. “All this painted faces, singing back to me/There's an ocean here, but you are all I see/And nothing else matters” is another verse that has this great affection and desire at the centre, but the phrasing is such that one takes their mind in various directions. Again, everyone will have their own view and vantage of the song and what the words are describing. It is clear that there have been challenges in the heroine’s way; there have been obstacles and fake people, but now her mind is clear and her path is set. The more one listens to Baby It’s You, the more the song reveals. It is a terrific track, and, for me, it is the nuances in Reid’s voice that really brings things alive – although Major and Rothman are wonderful as usual. It is great to have London Grammar back, and many people will be looking forward to seeing what is next for them. On the basis of Baby It’s You, they have been in inspired form, so that is tantalising regarding the possibility of a new album!

It is good to have new material from London Grammar. There has not been much word from them since 2017 and, at a time when social media means artists can fill people in with their every breath and thought, it has been a relatively quiet and undramatic past few years from the band. They have done some live dates, and I suspect that a lot of material has been recorded. The first suggestion of a third album has come in the form of Baby It’s You, and it is another step forward for them. It makes me wonder, when there is another album, what we might get. I have talked about the single, but I thought it was also worth bringing in interviews that covered their first two albums, in addition to shining a spotlight on Hannah Reid and explaining that, even though she has this stunning voice and the songs sound completely focused and controlled, she has battled stage fright and exhaustion, and maybe this is something that she still has to shoulder. I think it is good that Reid has spoken about these problems, as it will resonate with other artists, and they will also have the confidence to speak out it. I am not sure what London Grammar have planned in the way of gigs, as they will probably put things on hold until next year like most artists. I am also not too sure whether a third album is coming along soon, or whether this is also something that we will see next year. With every year and album, London Grammar bring in something new, and I think Baby It’s You sound so different to what they were putting out on If You Wait. Even though they have come a long way, London Grammar have retained their key sound, and they sound stronger than ever. I will leave things there, but it is great to hear new music from the trio, and let’s hope that there is more coming along soon. If there is a third album in the works, it will be interesting to see…

WHERE they head.

___________

Follow London Grammar

Official:

https://www.londongrammar.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/londongrammar

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/londongrammar/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/londongrammar/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Bd1cgCjtCI32PYvDC3ynO?si=IBhC6qX5RlmT0p022E2x_g

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1oCOqdqlNDz5Sxnlk08ZrQ

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

London Grammar

TRACK REVIEW: IDLES - Model Village

TRACK REVIEW:

IDLES

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Ham

Model Village

9.8/10

The track, Model Village, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjr11lGEBg4

The album, Ultra Mono, is available to pre-order here:

https://www.idlesband.com/collection/ultra-mono/

RELEASE DATE:

25th September, 2020

GENRE:

Post-Punk

ORIGIN:

Bristol/London, U.K.

LABEL:

Partisan Records

TRACKLIST:

War

Grounds

Mr. Motivator

Anxiety

Kill Them with Kindness

Model Village

Ne Touche Pas Moi

Carcinogenic

Reigns

The Lover

 A Hymn

Danke

__________

BECAUSE the wonderful IDLES are one of my favourite…

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsay Melbourne

modern bands, I felt that I needed to review them this weekend! I know I have reviewed the band before and, whilst I try not to repeat myself, it has been a while since I visited them. Before I talk about the new single and aspects of IDLES’ upcoming third album, their new track, Model Village, has an incredible video! It is directed by Michel Gondry (with his brother, I believe) and it is one that made me smile. Although there is a deeper meaning and message in the video, and it conveys something quite serious, the animation is wonderful, and one cannot help but re-watch the video, as it is a lot more engaging and interesting than most out there! IDLES have always produced wonderful music videos, and I never expected them to hook up with Michel Gondry – who is my favourite director in any realm. I love his work, and I hope he and IDLES continue to work together in the future. I do think that music videos are as important now as ever and, whilst music television does not play the same role as it did years ago, a great video is an important thing; it can bring the song to new people, and you do get artists who do not really put much into videos. IDLES have this knack of releasing brilliant videos, and they provide their songs with new angles and nuances. The video for Model Village is superb, and it means that I have listened to the track more than I normally would. I love how IDLES approach things, and they put so much care and attention into each aspect of their music. I am going to look back and quote from interviews the band - mostly their lead, Joe Talbot – conducted a little while back, but their new album, Ultra Mono, is out on 25th September. Ultra Mono is one of the most-anticipated albums of the year, and it follows the epic Joy as an Act of Resistance from 2018. The Bristol band seem to get stronger with every album, and I do feel like they are one of the most real and powerful bands around.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Gallo

In terms of the new record, then what are we to expect? A few months ago, DIY caught up with the band, and their lead, Joe Talbot, explained what will arrive with Ultra Mono:

“Though the forthcoming record undoubtedly still rings with the same need for connection and truth - “It’s exactly the same as the last two albums,” he notes, “hopefully it’s a window onto us and mirror onto you” - you sense that the frontman is keen to ensure IDLES are musicians first, and slightly inadvertent figureheads of a new movement second. “That’s why hopefully you’ll never see me in the tabloids, because it’s not about images of me, it’s about the art we create,” he continues, emphatically. “It’s important to keep that distance otherwise you end up becoming a celebrity and no one wants that, not really.” And so, while excitable chatter around the record might initially stem from its potential emotional impact - how it can progress the hammer blow hit of catharsis that ‘Joy…’ landed two years back - the main talking points at play here look set to be sonic ones.

Recorded at France’s La Frette Studios and written “slightly remotely”, with the singer in Bristol and guitarist and main co-songwriter Mark Bowen in London having both recently become fathers, the coming together of the album too seems born from a determination to harness and progress their own musical powers. “I think we’ve found a similar joy in what makes a good song. Bowen is a very creatively engulfing person; he wants to do everything and make it massive and play all the time, but we’re learning the economy of sound, and space and silence within songs,” explains the frontman. “It takes a lot of writing to find out what you love about music, and then you write what you love instead of trying to write the next Radiohead song. We found each others’ strengths and enjoyed each other’s skin.”

Thematically, the band have honed their sights in too, with the record’s title forming a basis for them to “set boundaries and individually flourish” within its concept... except he won’t tell us what it is yet. “Absolutely not!” guffaws Joe at the - very reasonable, let’s face it - question of letting slip the titular key to LP3. But there are, however, some breadcrumbs to help establish the trail so far”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Patmore

It is amazing to think how far the band have come since their debut, Brutalism, was released in 2017! Prior to then, they were relatively unknown, and that debut really opened doors for them. In fact, it wasn’t really until the second album (Joy as an Act of Resistance) arrived that they gained proper respect, and their music reached a much larger audience. I think many people assume a band like IDLES sort of came from nowhere or were fully-formed when their debut came out. Like most acts, the road to realisation and success has been a gradual one for the Bristol band. It has not been easy but, over the past decade, IDLES have been able to grow, and they have reached a place where they can be themselves and don’t have the same worries and limitations as they did as a new band all those years ago. I want to bring in an interview from NME from last month, where Joe Talbot explained how IDLES grafted and gained the experience so they could get to where they are now:

“The beautiful thing about us being ignored for 10 years is that there was no one telling us what we couldn’t do, we just had to learn it ourselves,” Talbot began. “And that meant that now I think ‘Ultra Mono’ is vigorously Idles. It’s fluent in Idles language because we’ve just been able to take baby steps every moment, make mistakes, and no one’s fucking at our gigs so we can make mistakes and come back stronger.

“We just built it slowly over time,” he added. “It made us really appreciate selling 40 tickets. It made us really appreciate being able to write five decent songs in a row, because we took that time and we were given the breadth to make mistakes, and now we’re here.

“I think experience is fucking amazing but you also have to hold yourself accountable and work your ass off. It’s not an industry that carries people. They chew you up and they spit you out”.

I want to change directions slightly and pick up on an aspect of IDLES’ music that was evident in their first two albums, and one will hear on Ultra Mono. Many might assume a Post-Punk band like IDLES would be raw and unfiltered. So many of the older Punk bands were, but I think there has been a welcomed evolution from the 1970s and 1980s whereby bands can put out this physical and gutsy music, but there is sensitivity and vulnerability underneath. In fact, when it comes to opening up their hearts and discussing themes that are more sensitive, IDLES have definitely been at the forefront and inspired other bands to do likewise. In any genre, it can be difficult to be that bare and honest, and it is especially tricky if your music is Punk/Post-Punk. In the DIY interview I quoted from earlier, Talbot talked about vulnerability and, as last year was such a busy one, what impact that had on him:

“The songs are all projections of inner workings,” he continues. “I’m not preaching or telling anyone else what to do. I’m showing people what I’m doing to become a better person in the long run - no, not better, but a more productive person...” More productive than the 190 shows the band managed to plough through during 2019? “Numbers aren’t necessarily productive,” he answers, with a wry chuckle. “I probably wasn’t a very productive person by December last year, I was at my ends for sure...”

Even when IDLES are pushing their artistic limits and attempting to make a heavy, thumping record to challenge hip hop’s greats, it’s comments such as these that show the band are still determined to allow themselves to be vulnerable. And, having debuted a handful of new tracks during last year’s winter tour run, the co-existence of these ideas is already easy to hear”.

Listen to songs on Joy as an Act of Resistance, and you get these gut-wrenching moments, and so much emotion and vulnerability. June deals with the death in childbirth of Talbot's daughter, Agatha. Other songs on the album address toxic masculinity, immigration, the changing roles of men, and mental-health.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Norton

Not only is addressing subjects like this important and inspiring for the listener, but I also think there is something therapeutic about the music. For listeners, there is the chance to bond with this very urgent and deep music; filter some of your own fear and anger through the songs and connect with a band who mean every word they sing. I think for IDLES, and Joe Talbot especially, the past couple of years have been hard, and he has faced personal tragedy and addiction. Back in 2018, Talbot spoke with The Line of Best Fit, and he addressed how he became addicted to alcohol, and the impact that had on him and the people around him. Although music has helped a lot in terms of rehabilitation, it is obvious that Talbot has taken responsibility for his past, and he needed to change:

“The last time I'd kept in my emotions I became rampant with drugs and alcohol and I was violent towards my friends and my partner, and I was a horrible man,” he says. He stops in his tracks to clarify that he was never violent in the sense he was punching or kicking, but that he was aggressive. “I was a nasty man,” he adds, bluntly. “I never wanted to go back there.”

“I'll make a mistake a few times but you won't catch me doing it forever, and I'm pretty good at accepting fault; sometimes I just think the way to improve is completely wrong. I'd always convince myself that isn't wasn't alcohol that was the problem, but that I was just drinking too much or whatever. The big thing I thought I was doing was being honest – but it turns out I really wasn't being honest at all.”

“But that's where I am now,” Talbot says with quiet relief. “I know I have to be more open with my partner and communicate with her more, my friends and family too, and let them all know where I am emotionally”

PHOTO CREDIT: Stewart Baxter

There are a couple of subjects I want to tackle before moving on to review Model Village. Not only are they relevant to past IDLES albums, but they will also feed into Ultra Mono. One reason why I love IDLES is because they are a band that tackle toxic masculinity. Again, maybe this is not something one would expect from a band who deliver such powerful music. Part of that power derives from how they tackle stigma and harder themes that many people avoid. Again, I want to come back to Joe Talbot, as I think his past and earliest years have enforced how he approaches lyrics and what makes IDLES stand out. I want to return to the interview from The Line of Best Fit, where Talbot addressed the role of gender and toxic masculinity:

“Talbot's ideas on gender and masculinity – “there's no real anything in terms of gender... it's all fake,” – charge Joy As An Act Of Resistance to new heights. Like every strand of thought of the album, his ideas on the topic are shaped by a newfound honesty and a place of genuine, Agape-type love for the goodness in humanity. Yes, masculinity is profoundly toxic – but there's a hope for change. At least on an individual level.

“I was very excited about becoming a father – or at least a parent,” Talbot says. “I've always wanted that. To try and encourage another human that's it's okay to be different and weird.”

“I felt very lonely growing up – I had plenty of friends and my parents were wonderful, there was no neglect or anything, no financial strife. I had a wonderful upbringing, but I always felt lonely. It was during counselling, during the making of the album but after my daughter had died, that I really got to realise how little I spoke of my emotions, even though I felt like I was an open book because of my music and my lyrics – I feel like I'm quite blunt because I don't fuck around with words”

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsay Melbourne

The last thing I want to talk about before moving on is the revival of Punk, or the growth of Post-Punk. Maybe the genres have been augmented and celebrated is because of the sort of themes IDLES are addressing, and how different their music is. They combine the spirit of Punk and its potency, but they have expanded the lyrical palette and created music that is a lot deeper and more resonant. There is a political edge, as I shall discuss at the end of this review, but they are very personal and connect with so many people. IDLES were interviewed by NME last year after they were nominated for a BRIT award, and Joe Talbot was asked about IDLES’ role in reviving the Punk scene:

“We were talking to Laurie from Slaves last week and he namechecked you guys in declaring that there’s been much more of an acceptance towards punk lately than there has been in recent years. Do you feel the same way?

“I love that guy. Yeah, of course there’s a lot of younger kids getting involved and that makes it attractive to the industry. It is absolutely more popular now. You’ve got some amazing bands coming through, and some amazing bands that are coming through. I heard a cheeky rumour that Girl Band are going to do something soon. I like a really good band called Egyptian Blue. They played at Yala at one of Felix from The Maccabees‘ nights. They were fucking sick. It’s great, and that’s what happens.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

“The other side of music is bloated, boring and awful. You’ve got loads of DJs with weird masks on and it’s all falling apart. It’s a bit Ant & Dec these days, isn’t it? People are getting bored of that shit and they want to hear people talking about what’s going on around them. People with Mickey Mouse heads on playing other people’s songs isn’t that interesting.”

Would you use the word ‘revival’?

“The last time that anything like that happened was with The Strokes, then The Libertines kicked off and what not. Then 2009-10 happened when everything got awful. It’s weird. I was clearing out my attic and reading an old NME from 2008 with all the new bands from nu-rave and all that. It was fucking great. Young Knives had a second album out, Art Brut had a new album out, We Are Scientists were on their second album. It was that second wave, then after that it all got a bit shit.

“I think Girl Band’s album was the last album that got me really excited. I thought that was going to get loads of kiddies into noise-rock and stuff, but it didn’t. What needs to happen now is for a young band to come out and make this fucking amazing album that excites everyone and changes everyone’s mind again. Well, maybe not a young band – maybe IDLES need to do it? We’re touring with Fontaines DC. They’re friends of ours. I’ve got their album on my phone and it’s fucking sick. That could be THE album. It fucking should be. There are other albums coming out that I’ve heard that are unreal too. I hope it happens, just to change the scenery”.

I do like how Model Village seems to encapsulate a particular state or area of society: those who are unevolved and discriminatory; a sort of person that one can find anywhere, but they have become more vocal and amplified given growing tensions around the world. With the Black Lives Matter movement creating greater unity, but also bringing to the surface a lot of hatred for those who oppose its values, I think a song like Model Village seems to encapsulate a lot of communities around the world!The song does have that wonderful video, and I think the fact that it is animated gives the video more width and ambition; it can be more eye-catching and vivid, and the cost is far less than if it was live action. The opening verse is not too angered or snarling: instead, Talbot delivers the words with a spring, and there is a this sort of growing menace that gets under the skin – rather than shout or deliver the words with growl, there is something more intimidating about Talbot’s delivery. “A lot of nine-fingered boys in the village/They haven't got much choice in the village/Model car, model wife, model village/Model far, model right, model village” says our hero. The idea of this model village is that the people have built something fake and ideal to them but, to be fair, it is not representative of the real world and it needs to be dismantled. The people are not too friendly in the model village, and it seems like this perverse ideal of supremacy and a ‘perfect Britain’ is one that needs abolishing – “Got my head kicked in in the village/There’s a lot of pink skin in the village/"Hardest man in the world" in the village/He says he's got with every girl in the village”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ania Shrimpton

The chorus is the moment when Talbot lets his voice power and roar. As opposed the almost playful nature of the verses’ delivery, the chorus has this slowed, elongated and animalistic quality. It is a powerful section of the song, and one cannot help but be moved: “I beg your pardon/I don’t care about your rose garden/I've listened to the things you said/You just sound like you're scared to death”. The video provides more depth and detail, as we see these figures race around the village, and all sorts of carnage and destruction take place. After the brief switch in the chorus, the second verse returns to the sort of inhabitants who are full of hate and bile. There are “a lot of overpriced drugs in the village/A lot of half pint thugs in the village”; a lot of white skin and thugs in the village and, as you look deeper into the words, Talbot is singing about something much more alarming than there being these small communities of racists and heartless people. In the modern day, the problem is far wider, and it is the politicians who could make a change but not doing anything. “Just give them an anthem and they'll sing it/Still they don’t know the meanings in it/Just saluting flags 'cause it's British/Idiot spirits think they're kindred” reinforces this idea of there being a split in Britain, and how urgently there needs to be reform and change. Model Village is another insane cut from an album that many are predicting will be the album of the year – even if there is still competition! They seem to tap into a feeling that many of us share; that desire to eradicate the worst of society and make things better. Their way with words and the sort of power they can deliver is what sets them apart from so many other artists.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lindsay Melbourne

The composition for Model Village is brilliant: from a raging guitar line and pummelling drums, the guitars then twist and wind, whilst the bass provides this wonderful sense of tension and movement. Talbot is at the front and, as usual, he is on tip-top form! The end of the song provides some of the most striking and urgent lines: “You gotta laugh as the curtain twitches/And the villagers bury their riches/But the village doesn't know what rich is/Just snitches snitching on snitches/Only one thing to do in the village/Just say toodle-do to the village/Toodle-fucking-do”. Even though Model Village is over four minutes in length, it seems much shorter, and you will cone back to it time and time again. It is one of IDLES’ best songs to date, and one knows that Ultra Mono is going to be absolutely huge! The band have already released three other singles – Mr. Motivator, Grounds, and A Hymn -, but I think Model Village is the best of the crop so far. It is an incredible song whose lyrics are so vivid and spot-on. They perfectly illustrate scenes inside of areas of the nation that are very bullish, unyielding in their wrong attitudes, and beholden to this idea of a pure, white Britain. Sadly, I think these enclaves are not reserved to margins and in smaller villages – big cities are embedded with people who want things to return to how they were, or they want to whitewash Britain. After such a fractious and strange year, I think Model Village holds more meaning and chills than it would in other year, and one cannot help but be gripped by this incredible track. Whilst a track as incredible as Model Village would be a peak in the career of all other artists, really, it is just business as usual for the unstoppable juggernaut that is IDLES!

Let us wrap things up soon but, just before, I would urge people to pre-order Ultra Mono, as it is going to be one of this year’s biggest albums. I am going to quote from a couple of older interviews that relate to the changing political landscape. In 2020, I think things are even more tense and divided than they were back in 2018, for example. I feel this is why IDLES connect with so many people, and why their albums are so impactful. I want to return to the interview from The Line of Best Fit from 2018, where Talbot discussed the political divide, and what side of the fence he sat on:

“The ongoing political landscape is scarred on all sides, with every angle catapulting projectiles at every other. Talbot says, with a degree of surprise, that many of his “'normal', admirable left-wing friends” began leaping onto the bandwagon, hurling insults and attacks at those who disagreed with their outlook on life.

“I am left wing,” he states, dampening any ideas of otherwise. “I am very socialist minded in the sense that I truly wish I could sacrifice my wealth – when I say 'my wealth' I don't mean give up my house or anything, but I am more than willing to pay considerably more tax and all the things the government should be subsidising for children of all wage gaps, all races, all socio-economic and socio-political areas, in all areas of the country. Things like housing and diet and fucking education. The health service. Equal opportunity is my main agenda.”

“With that in mind,” Talbot tracks back, “I saw a lot of people slinging mud – left, right, and centre. Obviously from the right, but suddenly more apparently from the left. To understand things as a humanist, as someone from the left, you need to be open to everyone's opinion. I don't mean you have to sit there and listen to every individual person, but you need to understand the context of where the people who voted Brexit are coming from: they wanted change. A lot of those people were deprived of the opportunity to work for a living or have access to housing – lots of things that the government stripped them of. The government then 'intelligently' used the tabloids to blame the whole thing on all immigrants. It's what right-wing politicians do all over the world and have done forever”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ebru Yildiz

Before wrapping up, I want to go back even further to a 2017 interview from Loud and Quiet. It shows that, even back then, IDLES were really responding to what was happening around them; providing something that not many bands were – or doing it in a much more meaningful and powerful manner. With the country so split and conflicted, Joe Talbot talked about the political scene, and his bandmate, Mark Bowen, posed an interesting question:

“It’s not like we’ve tapped into a zeitgeist, it’s more that the zeitgeist has tapped into us,” adds Talbot. “People are a lot more socially aware than they were five years ago. They’re a lot poorer than they were and politicians are getting away with a lot more than they used to. It’s creeped in slowly and now bands like us and Sleaford Mods are getting popular you have people popping up saying, ‘who are you guys? You’re just tapping into shit.’ Nah, we’ve always been here but the situation has changed. Conversations up and down the country have turned more political. It’s what people want to hear about right now.”

“Do you find you want to write more political stuff now because of what’s going on?” asks Bowen, stepping into the role of interviewer. “No. I want to be more obtuse,” answers Talbot obligingly. “It would be lame to be like Green Day singing all that American Idiot stuff; it’s, like, well done. I bet Little Mix will come out with a political song any day now. I want to be more expressive and explore myself as a man within this political climate. That’s what we’re doing with the album. I’m interested in how politics affects my psyche, my emotions and my role in society. Basically, I don’t want to keep talking about the bastards and focus more on me as a bastard”.

I have sourced a lot from IDLES’ past, but I think that it is crucial when looking at the present. The band have come a long way, and they have definitely changed the music scene. I think Ultra Mono will be their most successful album, and they are a band who are remaining true to themselves; not needlessly going more mainstream or changing their music as they are more popular and well-known. It is full steam ahead for a band who have grow personally, and I think their music has provided great help and catharsis for so many out there. They will be keen to get back onto the road as soon as possible and, with a new album beckoning, it will be fascinating to see how the tracks…

TRANSLATE to the stage

___________

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IDLES

TRACK REVIEW: Glass Animals - Tangerine

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Glass Animals

Tangerine

9.0/10

The track, Tangerine, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB2tIfKpIuQ

The album, Dreamland, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/glass-animals/dreamland

RELEASE DATE:

7th August, 2020

GENRE:

Pop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

LABEL:

Polydor

TRACKLIST:

Dreamland

Tangerine

((home movie: 1994))

Hot Sugar

((home movie: btx))

Space Ghost Coast to Coast

Tokyo Drifting

Melon and the Coconut

Your Love (Déjà Vu)

Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth

It's All So Incredibly Loud

((home movie: rockets))

Domestic Bliss

Heat Waves

((home movie: shoes on))

Helium

__________

WHILST things are still pretty tough…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ollie Trenchard

and we are in lockdown, music is providing a sense of relief and stability. In this review, I am tackling Glass Animals. They have a new album out, Dreamland, and it is one of their best! It has been a hard time for the band, and I will discuss a terrible incident that affected Glass Animals and impacted their career. One of the things that impresses me is that, during lockdown, so many artists have been creating music and putting some fantastic stuff out there. Glass Animals’ lead, Dave Bayley, was interviewed by The Standard in April, where he talked about lockdown and creativity:

“Sitting in his home studio in Hackney, just out of two weeks’ quarantine and still a long way from his music life getting back to normal, Dave Bayley of Glass Animals is feeling optimistic. “Between me and the guys, we have a lot of ideas for how to keep things ticking — almost too many ideas,” he tells me. They include, as of next week, filling their website with downloadable music samples and images so that fans can make their own versions of Glass Animals songs and artwork. At the other end of the creative spectrum, the band have just begun selling two types of toilet roll in their online merch store, one dotted with the four Oxford school friends’ faces, the other printed with the words “Ass Glanimals”.

“I think everyone’s in an interesting headspace,” he continues. “Maybe the stress and the anxiety of all this, plus the isolation, could be quite healthy for people’s creativity in a weird way. Or maybe people have just run out of weed and started to be more productive”.

An accident involving Glass Animals’ drummer, Joe Seaward, almost threatened to derail the band and set them back. It came out of the blue, and it was a real blow for the Oxford-formed group. I remember hearing about the accident a couple of years back and being pretty shocked. One cannot really predict things like this, so Glass Animals had to adapt when the accident happened.

Now, a couple of years after it happened, things seem a lot better, even if Seaward is still feeling the effects. Glass Animals were interviewed by NME earlier in the year, and they were asked about the accident and how they have adapted since:

“It feels like a miracle to be talking to Joe Seaward, drummer of Oxford’s indie quartet Glass Animals. His bandmates tell NME it is a miracle. Seaward himself is certain it is. “I think that my accident shook everyone to the core,” he says, balancing his head in his hand, his fingertips tracing the outline of a deep scar on his skull. “Everyone was very close to losing a friend, a brother, a boyfriend, a son and a bandmate.” His eyes fill with tears.

In July 2018, Seaward was hit by a truck while riding his bike in Dublin. As well as a severely broken leg, Seaward suffered brain damage after a complex skull fracture: he required two lengthy, life-threatening operations to repair the damage. On waking, he found that he had no short-term memory. He couldn’t walk, talk, eat, read or write. “Everything that made me… me was taken away,” Seaward says. “And I couldn’t even remember why”.

It’s a bitter time for the group. After two years of rehabilitation, Seaward had returned to performing following a series of warm-up gigs earlier this year. Bayley says that being back on stage in February was the greatest feeling: “It felt like a miracle and it was a miracle really. At one of our first shows in Manchester, everything clicked again. I remember just being so thankful that we could still do this. I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky we were”.

When any group is rocked by an unexpected setback, everything takes a backseat. I can only imagine what it was like for Glass Animals when they heard the news and what their lives were like; how they managed to keep going and change plans. Although their new album has been made with their drummer, I think the accident of 2018 has impacted their approach and feeds into Dreamland.

It is pleasing the band are a unit again, and that they are on the road to recovery and strength. Before moving along, I wanted to stick on the subject of Seaward’s accident and what the rehabilitation process was like. In this interview from Entertainment Weekly, the group talked about the period after the accident:

“For the 30-year-old singer, who first met the Glass Animals drummer when he was 13, the assuredness of his friend’s rehabilitation arrived after playing music for him a few days following brain surgery. When “Zombie” by Fela Kuti started up, Seaward began to tap his foot in time with the music. The moment served as one of the dummer’s only memories in the hospital. Concentration and recall were two of the biggest things impacted by his operation. But with steady progress and help from his bandmates, Seaward was able to recover quickly; he started walking again about a week later. Yet the dichotomy between the mental and physical recovery was clear from the outset. He had to be told multiple times that he’d even broken his leg.

“I was walking across the hospital thinking, ‘This f—ing hurts!’ Seaward says. “And I said to the nurse, ‘This is really hard’ and she said ‘You broke your femur’ and I remember thinking, ‘What the f—k?! Why didn’t anyone tell me?!’ They said ‘We did try, you just have no recollection of it.’” His bandmates were checking in the whole time. They even drove Seaward home from the hospital to Oxford in a tour van when they were supposed to be playing shows in America. “It was all very ironic,” MacFarlane says with a laugh”.

To sort of shift things in terms of direction, I think one of their band members being involved in such a horrible event has altered how they approach music and what they write. How to Be a Human Being of 2016 is very different to Dreamland, and I think the lyrics have changed notably. I have heard all of Dreamland, and one still hears all the hallmarks of Glass Animals’ sound, but one can tell that the past few years has really altered their mindset and outlook.

When Dave Bayley was interviewed by DIY, he discussed how Seaward’s accident was very potent regarding how he approached songwriting and what/who he wrote about:

“This process of complete life re-evaluation has also changed the outlook of their musical direction. As the band's lead songwriter and producer, the singer was already working on new ideas for another character-driven record when the accident occurred, sharply altering his lyrical perspective.

"I've always liked quite conceptual projects, and I did have a theme in my head for this new record; it was all about happiness and how that manifests," he explains. "But then suddenly, Joe was in the hospital. I obviously spent a lot of time there, and you're worried and exhausted and surrounded by a lot of dark things, and it makes you feel very reflective. You think about all the mistakes you've made, all the shitty things you've done… I think that's when the more personal approach started. I just started asking the questions that I asked of people on the last record about myself a bit, and this new record has evolved to become more introspective."

Looking inwards hasn't compromised any of the band's trademark upbeat sonic energy. Latest single ‘Your Love (Déjà Vu)’ is a slinky, slippery number that sits comfortably among their best work, summoning early ‘00s R&B to craft something that feels effortlessly Glass Animals. Once again finding himself drawn towards the personal, its origins began from his work outside of the band - producing songs for a range of pop and hip hop artists including Joey Bada$$, Flume, 6lack and Suzi Wu”.

I am bringing in a lot of articles and interviews, as it is interesting hearing the band speaking about their past and how the music of today has been affected thus. I am keen to come to my review of Tangerine but, before then, I want to investigate a few more themes that are important when illuminating Glass Animals in 2020 and Dreamland. Before moving on, I want to bring in another exert from The Standard, where Bayley continued on the theme of new lyrical perspective and how he is delving more into the personal:

“Describing the new music the band have already been playing on tour, he says he’s been writing from more of a personal perspective than ever before. On the previous album, he was telling stories of strangers he’d met on the road, apart from the ballad Agnes, which is about the death of a friend. He struggles to perform it live sometimes, he admits, but it is probably their best song, so it’s hardly surprising he might try to tap into that area again. “The new stuff is very personal, and I’m still a bit weird about it. I constantly feel quite selfish. Singing these songs the first couple of times, they really pulled on the nerves”.

I have talked about the past and how Glass Animals have had to move forward whilst dealing with a tragedy, but their new album is out, and has already gained a lot of positivity from the press. I think a new lyrical perspective and Dave Bayley revisiting his childhood are important factors on Dreamland. If one compares How to Be a Human Being, and Dreamland, there are definite changes one can detect. I am going to bring in interview text where the band have discussed a new lyrical path and the themes that define Dreamland, but I want to source from The Independent, where Dave Bayley talked about his childhood and what it was like growing up in a small town in Texas:

“Compared to its predecessor, the Mercury Prize-shortlisted How to Be a Human Being, Dreamland is autobiographical, shot through with memories of early childhood growing up in the small city of College Station, Texas. It tackles everything from formative relationships to masculinity, in particular the toxic expectations of young boys that Bayley – who is sensitive, emotionally intelligent, and occasionally quite shy – was confronted with. There are glimmering synths that rocket overhead like shooting stars, trippy hip-hop beats, bossa nova rhythms, warped electric guitar lines, the brassy horns of their 2019 track “Tokyo Drifting”, and a fantastic sample of “Deep Shadows” by Sixties Michigan soul singer Little Ann. All of this is interspersed with audio from home movies of Bayley’s youth, augmenting the album’s bittersweet theme of lost innocence.

“You don’t realise until later how dark it all is,” he says, of childhood gender stereotyping. “It’s so ingrained – being told to play American football and basketball and hide your feelings, and be this kind of macho superhero. That’s definitely not what I was, and I felt really s****y for not being that.” He addresses this on Dreamland song “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”, about one of his childhood best friends.

“We discovered everything together,” he says. “Dr Dre, Eminem... we used to pull up the aerial on our boombox to catch different radio stations.” When Bayley moved to England, aged 13, he and his friend drifted apart. Some time later, he heard the news that the friend had been caught trying to bring a gun into a local school. “The world can change people in ways you never thought were possible,” he says. “We need to start challenging that. It’s f***ing dangerous”.

If the accident of Joe Seaward influenced Glass Animals had a profound affect on Dreamland and how they approach music now, I also think that Bayley’s childhood and earliest memories are also very important. The band have tackled music from a character perspective on previous albums, and there has been a slight reluctance to write from a personal viewpoint. Maybe this is to do with Bayley and how he was raised. It can be quite hard putting yourself on the page, and you have to go on stage singing these songs in front of strangers. I can appreciate why it is not easy to open up in songs, and how a more detached perspective was preferable. Dreamland is a real evolution for Glass Animals, and I wonder whether the band will continue down this same path for future albums. I did not know about Bayley’s personal life and childhood before researching for Dreamland. In this NME interview, Bayley talked more about his early life and what it was like for him:

“‘Dreamland’ sees Bayley revisit his childhood. Going back to that time, he began to understand where his reluctance to write about himself came from: “I was brought up in Texas where you’re born male, you’re born with a penis, you play American football, you don’t talk about your feelings. That’s embedded into the psyche of men there from a very young age. People want you to be a hero, to be strong. To show any sort of vulnerability was a weakness. The title of the album refers to the fact I’d often totally zone out in class at school and start dreaming of weird things just to escape. I felt trapped.”

Vulnerability is palpable on ‘Dreamland’. It encompasses the full spectrum of human emotion on dreamlike songs that soar with lightness and nostalgia (Bayley recorded many of the songs on vintage equipment) but are often much darker lyrically. While still retaining the tropical tinge of their early Alt-J-meets-Hot Chip leanings, ‘Dreamland’ sees Glass Animals more confident in their musical identity, mixing styles assuredly, rather than tentatively, as in the past”.

I do not mean to stick on this theme, but I think many people approach reviews and music from a very narrow perspective. It is great to talk about the music how it makes you feel, but I love to hear context and factors that can direct a song or album. Although Dreamland is a more personal and revealing album than its predecessors, it is also a lot of fun and has a huge amount of spirit! I think that Glass Animals are tackling new sounds and genres on their third studio album. In this  DIY interview, we learn more about the sonic and thematic developments on Dreamland:

“The album is chock full of playful melodies and pre-school sounds, harking back to Bayley’s formative years. Take the bubbly synth refrain and xylophonic chimes of ‘Hot Sugar’, or the sweetly naive fantasy of two bickering pieces of fruit on ‘Melon and the Coconut’. And then there’s the endless pop culture references that litter almost every song: The Karate Kid, GI Joe dolls, ‘90s video games like Doom and Quake. The album is anchored, meanwhile, by Bayley’s mother’s voice - a recurring presence through a series of interludes ripped from home videos.

“Through all the ups and downs, the weird and confusing shit, she was always there to stabilise things,” says Dave. In this context, these audio snippets feel like a kind of hand-holding device that guides the listener through the childhood traumas and heavier subtexts that appear elsewhere.

Songs like ‘Helium’ and ‘Heat Waves’ explore past relationships with a heavy heart, while the brooding lament of ‘It’s All So Incredibly Loud’ peaks as Bayley repeatedly cries “I’m breaking down”. But the album’s darkest moments go even deeper. “I feel like I’ve gone really far into all the problems, torn all the plasters off, and those wounds are just there, all bloody, and that’s it,” he explains. Sometimes it’s liberating, but at other moments it’s more about acknowledging that “things are pretty fucked up”.

I am going to move forward in a second, but I want to end this section by discussing the band adopting new sounds and stepping into new genres. Not to say that Glass Animals’ first two albums were limited, but I think Dreamland is their biggest and more varied step yet. Reverting back to that DIY magazine interview, and the band’s collaboration with Denzel Curry on Tokyo Drifting is a particularly big moment:

“Landing a collaboration with Florida rapper Denzel Curry on recent single ‘Tokyo Drifting’ was undoubtedly a coup in legitimising Glass Animals’ genre-hybridising approach; with its trap-style hi-hats, rap verses and booming, brassy refrain, it almost borders on grime. But unlike Bayley’s other collabs in the hip hop world, many of which landed on his doorstep after the band’s 2014 single ‘Gooey’ became an unexpected hit in America, getting Curry involved took a lot of work. “Joey Bada$$ had got in touch when we were in New York playing some summer show in Central Park, and 6lack had reached out by just sending me a bunch of fire emojis on Twitter. But with Denzel it wasn’t easy,” he remembers. “I basically nagged him over the internet via every avenue possible until he replied. It turned out he doesn’t even check his own social media, but one of my friends played him the beat and he was like, ‘This is sick, what is this?!’.”

Dave is visibly still chuffed to have pulled it off. As the conversation drifts towards the album’s physical release, he unexpectedly brandishes a Denzel Curry nunchuk at the web cam, before listing off all kinds of merchandising miscellanea that the band have in the making: “We’ve got a cereal bowl coming, we’ve got spoons, PEZ dispensers with our heads on them… all these things I liked as a kid”.

On Dreamland, there is a real mixture of the fun and retro. There is the more oblique in terms of lyrics, but there is also the affecting and personal. I wanted to talk about Tangerine, as it is a natural highlight, and I do love the sound of the song and the images the lyrics project. Building off of a computerised beat and this real feeling of nostalgia, Bayley steps to the microphone and lets us into the song’s world: “As cold as an old ice cream sandwich/As focused as Mr. Miyagi/You poke at your phone postin' aerial photos/Of you with your smoothie”. Many bands and artists have discussed people being distracted and the addiction of technology, but none do it quite like Glass Animals! Bayley almost raps the lyrics as he pulls together these weird and wonderful images. I have always liked how Glass Animals approach songwriting, and you get this very fresh and original style. It seems that our hero cannot make the girl happy (“'Cause you got issues with your daddy”), and we are getting a peek into a relationship that has some issues and differences. On paper, the two seem very different, and there are some definite tensions. The chorus sees the hero in a more revealing mood: “But I wish I could show you more of yourself/I wish I could make you somebody else/But I left it way too late/Are you stuck in your own ways?”. In terms of vocal intonation, there is little in the chorus that suggests Bayley is regretful or that vulnerable, but there is an urgency to be found. Glass Animals are in a more reflective and personal frame on Dreamland, and it is interesting hearing a different side to them. There are some twisted electronic sounds and that beat; the band have their own sonic voice, and I really love the composition on Tangerine. There is pleading and desire from our hero – “Hands, knees, please/Tangerine, sugar, honey, sweet/Got what I need, Tangerine”-, and it does seem that he used to know this person well years ago, but things have changed recently.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ian Laidlaw

Lines like “You let the Devil in/And all you talk is money, money/Money, money, money” suggests that a sweetheart has succumbed to the lure of something shallow, but I look in a wider sense and wonder whether the song is about something more general and political. The chorus has this charm and energy that is hard to resist, and I do really like how there is a constant energy and flow to Tangerine. Maybe there was a sense of togetherness and future years ago, but something has happened that has altered the dynamic. “You've been dreamless and sleepin' for years/Super-clear since the late-1990s/You only look at me properly now/When you're drunk, watchin' movies” is an interesting image, and it sort of makes me curious whether we are talking about a romantic relationship that has gone through the motions, or it is a friendship that has sort of hit the rocks. The repeated mantra of “I'm beggin', hands, knees, please/Tangerine, come on back to me/You got what I need, Tangerine” gains extra momentum and importance the more it is said, and I wonder whether Tangerine is the nickname for his lover, or whether it is something else. The way Glass Animals write has always intrigued me. We get all of these terrific and rich lines that take the imagination in different directions. I think there is a lot more in the way of the personally raw and vulnerable on songs like Tangerine. Whilst we might not get a lot of background regarding this relationship and why things have gone awry, I think every listener can sort of tell their own story and have their own take on the song. I really like it, and it is one of the best cuts from Dreamland – and it is my favourite song of the record. It is great to have Glass Animals back and putting out incredible music!

Dreamland is a huge album from Glass Animals, and it has come off of the back of a particularly tough couple of years. The band probably did not think that they would continue on after Joe Seaward’s accident in 2018. They have shouldered that huge setback, and they have come through the other side renewed and more focused than ever. Dreamland is one of their finest albums, and it is another great album in a year that has seen more than its fair share. I am not sure what the band have planned regarding gigs going forward, and they will probably be looking at 2021 for any realistic promotion and exposure. I am glad to see Glass Animals are still together and making music. Not that Seaward’s accident has been all bad: in terms of lyrics and sonic direction, I think the band have forced themselves to make changes and widen their horizons. If you have not bought Dreamland, then go and get it – the link is at the top of this review -, and witness one of this year’s best releases! I am a fan of the band and, whilst I like their character songs, the more personal approach works really well on Dreamland. It is good to have them back and let us hope that the future is more stability and less fraught than things have been since 2018. I will finish now, but it has been great assessing their new music, and I am glad that a lot of other people have been digging Dreamland. On their third studio album, the band have created…

A terrific work.

___________

Follow Glass Animals

 PHOTO CREDIT: Ollie Trenchard

Official:

https://opensource.glassanimals.com/

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https://twitter.com/glassanimals

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https://www.facebook.com/glassanimals

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https://www.instagram.com/glassanimals/

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https://open.spotify.com/artist/4yvcSjfu4PC0CYQyLy4wSq?si=s3FqjvmiSh2kTtqOg_QPaA

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Glass Animals

TRACK REVIEW: Brandy - Borderline

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Brandy

Borderline

9.5/10

The track, Borderline, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr2r3H477uY

The album, B7, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/brandy/b7

RELEASE DATE:

31st July, 2020

GENRE:

R&B

ORIGIN:

Los Angeles, U.S.A.

LABEL:

Eone Entertainment

PRODUCERS:

Matthew Burnett/Darhyl "Hey DJ" Camper/LaShawn Daniels/Jordan Evans/Hit-Boy/Brandy Norwood/Cory Rooney/Alonzo "Lonnie" Smalls II/Joshua "YXSH" Thomas

TRACKLIST:

Saving All My Love

Unconditional Oceans

Rather Be

All My Life, Pt. 1

Lucid Dreams

Borderline

No Tomorrow

Say Something

All My Life, Pt. 2

I Am More

High Heels (ft. Sy'rai)

Baby Mama  (ft. Chance the Rapper)

All My Life, Pt. 3

Love Again (with Daniel Caesar)

Bye BiPolar

__________

IT is good to have Brandy back…

with a new album! I really love her music and her last album, 2012’s Two Eleven, was a success. There are various reasons why it has been a while since her last record but, with B7, we get some classic on her seventh album! Before I look at a few different aspects of Brandy and her music, I want to nod to one of my favourite songs of the 1990s: The Boy Is Mine. A duet with Monica, the song is taken from Brandy’s hugely admired second album, Never Say Never, of 1998. That entire album was a real breakthrough from Brandy, and it not only showcased her broad thematic range, but an incredible voice – she was crowned the ‘vocal Bible’ after that album. I have been listening a lot to music from the ‘90s, and there was something about the time that was electric and hugely inspiring! Some artists might feel slightly regretful being linked to just the one song or people talking about it so much but, for Brandy, it gave her some fresh exposure and took her music to new levels. In a recent interview with Billboard, Brandy talked about the legacy of The Boy Is Mine:

“Currently on the Billboard Hot 100, several female duets are hitting No. 1, a feat that only eight songs have ever accomplished, including “The Boy Is Mine.” Thinking back, did you have any idea how big of a hit it would become?

I didn't know how big it was gonna be; I had no idea that it would be No. 1 for 13 weeks. I didn’t know. But I did know that it was a special record. I knew that it was a special record before I got on it, before Monica got on it. I knew just with the way the track sounded, I never heard anything like that.

But then when the song was written on top of it, and then ... when it all came together, I was like, "OK, this is different." And then when Monica put her stamp on it, you just heard the contrast between her and I. I knew that it was gonna be something special, but I had no idea it was going to do what it did. I'm still blown away today. It was an incredible moment that I kind of wish we would have seized even more”.

To go in a slightly different direction, and it is amazing to consider where great singers started out; what was the root of their soulfulness and ability. For some, it is their peers or a particular place. In the case of many singers, they learned about singing and a different way of performance from the church. Many might assume it is just Soul and Gospel singers who are influenced by church music, but there are so many different artists who sang at church as a child and, from that moment, they were transported. From Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples to P.P. Arnold, some of the real greats sang at church and things grew from there. I’d like to think that a lot of the new generation sang at church, but I think it is rare. Brandy definitely learned and honed some of her talent and promise from going to church when she was young. In this interview with The Guardian from this year, she discussed her bond with the church:

“Brandy Norwood was always destined to be a singer. As a young child she would accompany her dad, a gospel vocalist and choir director, to their local church in Mississippi. “Watching what people’s voices did to audiences, I wanted to see if my voice could do a little of that,” she recalls. When she was four, her family moved to LA. A talent show regular, her demo CD eventually found its way to Atlantic; when the label signed her, Brandy’s mum became her manager”.

I want to take a slightly chronological path from here because, as I consider the young Brandy singing at church to the successful artists she is now, one has to look at her earlier years. Brandy Norwood’s 1994 album, Brandy, was a great introduction to a wonderful vocalist. Though she only co-wrote a few songs on the album, I think her personality shines through, and that record is a lot more than a template for her voice.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tyren Redd

After that promising debut, a new team of writers and producers worked on 1998’s Never Say Never. The album established her smooth sound, and it afforded Brandy a way into film and T.V. The album combined R&B and Pop, and Never Say Never was impactful to artists like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears who were about to break through. There are so many great tracks on that album, including The Boy Is Mine, Never Say Never, and Almost Doesn’t Count. In some ways, I think Brandy has incorporated some of the sounds of Never Say Never on her new album, B7. I remember that album coming out in 1998, and it was clear that a very authentic and accessible artist was in our midst! Whilst Never Say Never’s success cannot be defined by a single factor, it seemed that the discovery of Rodney Jenkins was a real boost. This article discusses the success of Never Say Never, and how Rodney Jenkins helped expand and strengthen Brandy’s music:

“Never Say Never was completed in the spring of 1998 and ready for a June 9 release. Brandy, Darkchild, Foster and so many others had no idea that this album would go on to be the singer’s best-selling album to date. Darkchild’s production mixed with Brandy’s complex yet controlled runs, effortless riffs, and dope background vocal arrangements were a musical marriage made in heaven. On top of all of this, the pair were so young, with Brandy being 19, and Darkchild 20 when the album was released.

Some music critics and Brandy aficionados argue that the singer’s third studio album Full Moon secured her place in R&B history and catapulted her into the greats category, complete with the "Vocal Bible" title. As Brandy stated in an August 2012 interview with Complex, “To find Rodney Jerkins was rare. They don’t come around like that every day. To find him, it was a match made in heaven, and it still is…. He helped me to be versatile…. He helped me find my voice.” Brandy grew confident as both an artist and a young woman on Never Say Never, creating an album that showed both personal and vocal growth. There was a sound that was created 20 years ago with Brandy’s vocals and Rodney’s production that is still unmatched. A sound that gave us Never Say Never, a sound that birthed the Vocal Bible.

After such a huge success, Brandy’s career did take a slight downturn after 1998. The aforementioned article from The Guardian documents the success of Never Say Never, and how Brandy navigated some difficult years that followed:

“For a period in the late 90s and early 00s it felt as if Brandy, AKA the fan-ordained “vocal Bible”, was being fast-tracked for Houston-level success. Her second album, 1998’s Never Say Never, sold 16m copies worldwide, thanks in part to its lead single The Boy Is Mine. A playfully confrontational duet with fellow R&B upstart Monica, it spent 13 weeks at No 1 in the US, finishing as the year’s best-selling single. Its opulent sound – fluttering harps, cascading backing vocals, elasticated bass – rewired the genre, with its then-unknown co-producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and co-writer LaShawn Daniels going on to craft era-defining hits for the likes of Destiny’s Child, Jennifer Lopez and Houston herself. A year later, now one of the biggest pop stars in the world, Brandy was given her own line of Barbie dolls. “A black Barbie with braids and little baby hairs coming out,” she smiles. “Truly unbelievable.”

While there were other hits – Have You Ever, What About Us?, Talk About Our Love – by 2005 Brandy’s commercial appeal had stalled. In 2006, she was involved in a fatal road accident (a topic very much off the table during our interview) that forced her to quit as a judge on America’s Got Talent. While subsequent albums showed flashes of brilliance, they were often undermined by her rocky relationship with music itself. “Sometimes you get caught up in being popular and relevant, and that makes you lose the reason why you’re connected to music,” she says. “I’m scared of that. I don’t ever want to get to a point where I’m doing music for the wrong reasons”.

I do not want to dwell on the rough years, but the fact that Brandy has just released one of her best albums and is still hugely important shows her incredible spirit and resilience! I think a lot of artists face struggles and pressures, and after such a blockbuster album like Never Say Never, I can only imagine what life was like for her. If an artist self-pens and produces material, I guess they can mould and progress their own sound but, in the case of so many R&B and Pop artists, they have teams behind them that help define the sound of an album. 2002’s Full Moon had a lot of the team and D.N.A. of Never Say Never, but it never reached the same heights, and there were few songs that had the same connectivity and magic as The Boy Is Mine. If Brandy has inspired a lot of young artists coming through, by the turn of the century, a lot of them were overtaking her and at the forefront – as the years progressed, it became harder for Brandy to establish a hit and find consistency.

As this article highlights, Brandy faced a low point and battled depression and disorientation:

“Despite working with everyone from Frank Ocean to Bruno Mars, by 2008 Brandy’s music career was flagging — even she recognised writer/producer Rodney Jerkins didn’t give her his best work on the project. The 2012 follow up, Two Eleven, fared even worse. She even dabbled with rapping as Bran’Nu on Timbaland’s Shock Value 2 album.

Brandy kept busy — judging on America’s Got Talent with David Hasselhoff, starring in a reality show with Ray J, competing on Dancing With the Stars and more acting work in both films (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Temptation — Confessions of a Marriage Counselor) and TV shows including Drop Dead Diva, 90210,The Game and this year’s Zoe Ever After.

The singer has been open about her battle with depression, following turmoil in her professional and personal life and a string of setbacks and missed opportunities.

Brandy admitted she renewed her faith in God and focused on daughter Sy’rai, who is about to turn 14 and regularly features singing on her mother’s social media.

“People would never guess the dark space that I was in about a year ago and how long I was sad and depressed. It showed in my physical frame and in my eyes,” Brandy said in 2014”.

I think it is great that, through renewed faith and direction, Brandy was able to regain strength. Brandy’s daughter, Sy'rai Iman Smith, is following in her mother’s footsteps, and she appears on a track from B7, High Heels. Though it is great that Brandy has a daughter with a flair for music, there comes with that a sense of protection: a need to make sure that she does not fall into the same traps as she did. Though the music scene is different to the one Brandy entered in the 1990s, there are definite hazards to navigate.

One can see parallels between Brandy and her daughter and, as she (her daughter) has the music bug, Brandy understands the business and wants to keep her daughter protected. When promoting B7, Brandy spoke with Rolling Stone and that subject came up:

“She’s the same age that you were at the peak of your ascent, as both a singer and actress. I can’t imagine what your teen years were like, especially having a foot in both those worlds. Do you look back on that time with fondness, or does it feel like a traumatic thing to have gone through as a young woman?

I think it’s a little bit of both. I got a chance to experience things that I’d never dreamt of, and then everything that I ever dreamed of. But then also, I had to grow up in front of the public. I didn’t get a chance to make private mistakes and really discover my own voice without having to deal with everyone else’s voices and thoughts and opinions about the things that I was doing. Trauma definitely comes along with that, but I was able to overcome that and I’m able to look back on my past with a lot of compassion and no regrets.

I’m also able to protect my daughter. I’m able to give her advice and let her know that she has a lot of time, she can grow up a lot without having to be in front of the public eye. She can take her time with it, she can be known a little bit right now and then grow in privacy and then come out a little bit later. She doesn’t have to come out at 18. She doesn’t have to come out at 21. She can wait until she’s in her mid-twenties. She doesn’t have to follow the same path. I can just teach her different things that I didn’t know at that time. I’m thankful for the life that I’ve had and for the things I’ve been able to experience”.

The discussion about gaps between albums is one that frequently comes up. Today, as in years past, there is this sense of expectation from fans and record labels. At such a competitive and busy time for music, taking a while between albums can be risky. If artists hurry and put out albums every year, they can rush and create something quite disposable and untrue to them! I do worry about the sort of pressure artists face to keep putting out material, and that is true of Brandy. She is in a different position to many of her peers, but 2012 was when her last album arrived, so many people have been asking whether she has disappeared, or her career has ended. Her first album came out when she was a teenager and, at forty-one, Brandy is still a young woman! It does seem insane that an artist takes a few years away and they are either forgotten about or people wonder whether their career has ended. I think rushing albums and releasing material that is not to her best could have been damaging. Instead, Brandy has come back with one of her best albums! That said, many people have been wondering about Brandy and what started the process for B7. When chatting with Rolling Stone, Brandy talked about the process of putting her album together:

“This is the longest between two albums for you in your career. When would you say that the process for this album started for you?

I feel like it started about three years ago. I was balancing television and studio time. I put everything I could into this project. It was so freeing for me, because I did get a chance to really dig in and write from my heart of hearts. I was able to really get a lot of things off of my chest, really use music as a way to escape and heal.

I really don’t like that it took me this long, but I’m glad that I didn’t rush it because when you’ve been absent from music for so long you want to make sure that it’s your best work. For me, I approached this album like this is my last project. What would I want it to sound like? How would I want to express myself? I took my time in that way.

What were the actions that you had to take in your life, besides getting out of that bad label contract, to feel that freedom on a day-to-day basis?

I went to Broadway, and Broadway was an eye-opener for me. [Brandy played Roxie Hart in Chicago during several stints between 2015 and 2017] I had never felt so inspired the way I felt when I was on Broadway, I felt so free every night when I was performing. Just being able to feel my voice in that way, being able to feel a crowd in that way, it opened up a lot of dreams that I didn’t know I still had. From there, I started to go into the studio again and record. I released a few songs, just for the fun of it, just to feel the interaction with my fans. From there, I really wanted to create a body of work”.

That last question-and-answer is quite striking! Another theme that keeps coming to mind, and one that I am really interested in, is how an artist’s music sounds when signed to a label, and how much freedom they have. Certainly, an artist cannot release albums at their own speed, and the nature and sound of their music might not be what they wanted. Labels, especially big labels, help get the music out there, but some of the autonomy and flexibility artists enjoy can be stripped. For Brandy, assuming assertion and taking her music where it needs to go was a big consideration when making this return.

This article from Entertainment Weekly talks of Brandy putting out B7 on her own label:

“B7, meanwhile, marks Brandy’s first independent release on her own Brand Nu Entertainment/eOne label (2012’s Two Eleven was released by RCA).  “I was inspired by the opportunity to have control over my music and be the ultimate decision maker of my career," she says. "It’s not that I had no creative control before but I was inspired to be more hands-on with this project because I was approaching it as if it could be my last time making music.” Brandy co-wrote and -produced all but one of the new project’s 15 songs, and worked with an impressive group of collaborators, including Kim “Kaydence” Krysiuk, songwriter/producer Darhyl Camper Jr. (H.E.R., Mariah Carey), and the late LaShawn Daniels, the Grammy-winning producer and "Boy is Mine" co-writer who died last September in a car crash. “He was such a light,” says Brandy of Daniels." “He knew how to bring out the best in me. He always made me feel comfortable to dig deep outside of my comfort zone. And I listened. I just pray he’s proud of what I was able to complete”.

This year has been an incredibly strong and varied one, despite the fact it has been a very challenging time, some truly wonderful albums have been released! As I have said many times, women have been leading and dominating the scene! From Haim and Phoebe Bridgers to Fiona Apple, Brandy, Waxahatchee, Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware – and so many others -, it is the album from women that has made the biggest impact, I feel. It is not the case that women from a certain genre have been leading the charge: artists from various corners have added so much brilliance. If R&B, in recent years, has seen men make big strides, 2020 is the year where women have regained assertion and power. As this Billboard interview with Brandy from this year highlights, 2020 has been a year when women have led; she also talked about the power of music:

“We’re going to remember 2020 for a lot of things, but it’s become the year that women led the R&B pack. Why do you think Black female R&B artists like yourself, Jhené Aiko, Chloe x Halle, Kehlani and Teyana Taylor have been showing up in such a major way over the past few months?

I believe that music heals. Music is the language that we all speak. It is what we all need, and I feel like we need it more now than we ever have. This is the year where we all need to feel like we have something to get us through. ... I was a little hesitant with putting out music in this time because, of course, you want to speak to the times. And I'm thinking, "My music is not about exactly what's going on right now." But then I thought, "But this is the time where people need to feel like they have something to just escape and just help them heal." ... So that's what made me feel better about releasing [the album].

And I think that we don’t want to feel alone. We need to feel community, we need to feel togetherness, we need to feel love right now. And I think music is the best way to feel that. It’s the shortcut to feeling that right away”.

Before reviewing a track from B7, I wanted to lead in with a positive aspect. I have looked at Brandy’s breakthrough in 1998, and the ensuing years which were more unpredictable and tough. Although Brandy has gone through some bad times, I think she has managed to gain new strength and focus. Her latest album seems like one of her most realised and personal. I have been sourcing from other sites and articles quite a lot, but I think it helps contextaulise the music and give more insight into a fantastic and inspirational artist. The last article I want to quote from is from The Guardian. Brandy spoke with them last month and, whilst she discussed how great it would be to collaborate with Enya (a dream collaboration for her), she also highlighted how music has acted like therapy and a source of guidance:

“For now, Enya can wait. While in many ways B7, released via her own label, is classic Brandy, off-kilter production anchored by a voice still deep enough to swim in, it also feels like a fresh start. No more placating egos, no more chasing commercial expectations. Having previously had her experiences distilled into other people’s words, she is now credited as a co-writer on every song, often alongside her early mentor LaShawn Daniels, who helped turn those burning ambitions into reality. Tragically, Daniels died last September during the making of the album.

“It’s a little scary because I had to finish it without him,” she says, dabbing away tears. “I just wonder: would he be proud of what I was able to put together?” She takes a breath. “Music is my therapy,” she nods, almost to herself. “I don’t know what my life would be without it”.

I will move on now, as I am keen to assess my favourite song from B7. Borderline is the latest single from the album, and it is a terrific track! Brandy co-wrote every one of the fifteen tracks on B7, and I think that is a reason why the album has resonated with so many people. The fact that she has a say and can put her own experiences and blood into the music makes the performances sound pure and natural. Borderline is a terrific song that packs a powerful video. The start shows Brandy being led into a padded cell by two members of staff at a psychiatric ward, and that cuts to images of Brandy alone on stage as she looks up with a tear in her eye. It would appear that the song is going to be quite heavy and something that reveals her scars, but it less about personal tragedy and depression and more to do with the perils and unpredictable nature of relationships. In terms of sounds, one can notice a definite shift from Brandy’s earlier work to now, not just in terms of the production but her voice. There is a duskiness that many might not be expecting if they are only aware of her from the 1990s. Looking at the video, and we get fast-forward scenes of Brandy in a cell and, whilst it is quite unsettling, there is something quite stirring and striking. Brandy is a great actor, and I think she proves that in the incredible video! After a wordless introduction – or one consisting of ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ -, the first verse definitely builds images and possibilities. “You're sorry, you're sorry (Sorry)/What would you do if you're alone? (Yeah)/Would you think about me?/I know there's something wrong with you” leads me to think that there was this relationship that has gone wrong, or there is a division between the two.

Looking at the video, and it is clear that the scenes of torment and psychological distress are more a metaphor; the padded cell is Brandy feeling trapped, misunderstood, and castigated, whilst her on the stage is a feeling of isolation and trying to connect. It appears that this man is on her mind all of the time and, whilst she is feeling crazy and losing her mind a bit (again, that is perfectly reflected in the video), she knows that he really belongs with her – “You can feel it, you can't help it, baby/I'll give you this heart of mine”. I do like the unconventional nature of the video, and how it helps bring the song to life in a way many people might not have considered! Although one cannot experience the same bounce and lightness in vocal terms as on hits like The Boy Is Mine, this more mature and different-sounding Brandy is wonderful – and, to be fair, there are so many different moods on B7, that we get an essence of who she is now, in addition to a nod to her past days (as I mentioned earlier on). Brandy is able to return, to an extent, to her previous days and be very much in the present without losing focus. The video becomes lighter, literally, as the sunlight cracks through, and Brandy’s once-tear-stained and upset face employs a smile and there does seem to be this realisation/uplift. That said, the chorus does offer some honest and insight that may explain why this current relationship is not working out as harmoniously as it should: “Don't wanna be schizo this time (Oh)Never ever cheat, never lie to meI'm the most jealous girl (Girl)”. It is very heartening and brave of Brandy being so honest, and I can genuinely believe that Borderline pertains to a real-life relationship and experience, rather than her approaching the romance from a fictional headspace.

I keep referencing the video, but it is a very powerful film, and it will stay in the memory for a while – kudos to director Derek Blanks and his team for creating a video where, for the most part, we just see Brandy on the screen (which gives it a very personal and, at times, claustrophobic feel). Cutting in from different angles and speeding the film up and stopping it, we get this real sense of motion and a racing mind! Brandy looks very striking and fantastic in the video, and the white background offers light, but it also seems like this blank canvas; the heroine almost reassessing herself and trying to start afresh. Brandy sings how she is all alone and, whilst Borderline does not offer a catchy chorus or big hook, I think its consistency and directness is much more powerful. Brandy’s voice is at once smoky and dark, but there is so much nuance and layers to be found. She is an incredible singer and puts so much emotion into the song. She explains how she is loving alone, and it seems like, for the moment, she is wrestling with herself and something that cannot be cured right away – though she does need love and connection, and you can feel that sense of desire coming through. The third verse, again, takes us into Brandy’s psyche and offers reason as to why she has found herself in a strange and lonelier space “I'm so dangerous, baby/I need you to see/Believe what you see/Feel what I feel/And my feelings don't die/It's why I cry (Cry)”. I do wonder whether Brandy is trying to ward off the man or, to avoid any pitfalls and conflict after they get invested, she is being pretty frank and letting him know what is going on. As the video cuts from Brandy in her cell – where soon she is wrestled and restrained – and her on the stage shedding tears, some of the most standout lines arrive: “Got another lady, havin' a baby/Goin' crazy, but I'll be your friend, baby/Take what I can, baby”. I wonder whether Brandy has experienced cheating and trying to come to terms with someone who has led her astray.

I do really love Brandy’s voice throughout Borderline, as it does take us deep inside her heart; the sheer conviction with which she sings cannot be faulted! Though it would have been nice to hear her voice really belt and strike in the chorus, that is not to say a more levelled and restrained vocal performance is less affecting and lacking! Conversely, it is impressive that she remains composed and does not succumb to the tension that is clearly there! There is little in the way of real anger and blame through the song. Instead, Brandy knows that her personal life is not as ideal and settled as it could be, so she provides some form of explanation in the fourth verse: “Maybe in another lifetime (Right place)/Caught me at the wrong time (Wrong time)/In the end, I'm the only one/Gon' get torn apart (Oh)”. Brandy’s voice does become more impassioned as the song nears its end. From a darker start, one can feel her open up more and, as I said, you get a combination of her more traditional R&B sound from the 1990s, and something more modern and a little darker. The song’s title, I feel, has more than one meaning. Maybe the ‘borderline’ refers to the two lovers being close to chaos and stability; teetering between the two, and maybe it is referencing to the two becoming too involved, and the fact that there will be problems if they do. It is interesting to speculate, and I think the simple-yet-effecting words that end the song offer some form of resolution: “We can't cross the line/Borderline/Schizo this time/We can't cross the line/Borderline”. B7 is full of gems and great Brandy songs and, whilst I would urge people to listen to the whole album, I wanted to focus on Borderline, not only because of its excellent video, but I feel it is Brandy at her most revealing, honest and brilliant. It shows that, eight years after her previous album, she has lost none of her authority, strength and passion!

I have talked a lot about Brandy and her impact. She has enjoyed major success, and there have been some years where things have been a little less stable. Right now, she has released one of her finest albums and things are looking very positive! It is good that, on her seventh album, Brandy is looking ahead and has found fresh spark. Before I wrap up, I want to  return to the article/interview from Entertainment Weekly. I think a lot of critics have not given her albums the respect and love they deserve. Maybe they are not aware of Brandy’s legacy and how important she is to other artists. Look at some of the biggest R&B artists of today, and those who owe a big debt to Brandy:

“That’s good news for the R&B community, which unabashedly stans Ms. Norwood. When her last album, Two Eleven, was met with unfavorable reviews from some music publications, Solange suggested that no one without extensive knowledge of Brandy’s catalog was qualified to review R&B music, tweeting, “Like you really should know about deep Brandy album cuts before you are giving a “grade” or a “score” to any R&B artist.” Jhené Aiko has cited Never Say Never as a favorite album and once told Billboard that Brandy has “the perfect voice.” And Erykah Badu has said that Brandy’s debut album was what she was listening to while working on her own first album, Baduizm. “Just musically, production-wise and the writing, it was really good,” Badu told ET in 2016. “I hadn't heard anything else like it”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Tabone/Getty Images

Actually, I want to bring in an interview from Advocate as it discussed Brandy’s role in supporting the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community…but she was also asked about her legacy:

“These days, Brandy is well aware of her legacy and understands the importance of where it carried this generation’s young artists.

“I love being somewhat of an example to some of the artists that have really shown me love and respect, and it makes me feel that everything I’ve done and everything I’m doing, it serves a higher purpose than just coming out with music and topping the charts or winning awards,” she says. “It’s a deeper meaning as to the work I do, and I love that. I want to stay true to that because you never know who’s watching. You never know who you’re inspiring to become that next thing, or [if] someone’s dreams can come true because they’re watching you. I always want to be mindful”.

It is great to have Brandy back and, with her own label and a sense of personal control, I can imagine that future albums will come fairly frequently. I have seen some really positive reviews for B7, and a lot of people love what they are hearing! Brandy will not be able to tour this year, but there will be a load of fans who want to hear this new material in the flesh very soon. In the meantime, go buy or stream B7, as it is one of the year’s best albums and, as I said, women are dominating with so much variety and strength. Long may it continue! I will wrap up now but, if you have not heard B7 and wonderful songs like Borderline, then do so now and discover an iconic artist who…

PHOTO CREDIT: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images Portrait/Getty

HAS hit a new peak!

___________

Follow Brandy

Official:

https://4everbrandy.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/4everBrandy

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/foreverbrandy

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/brandy/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/05oH07COxkXKIMt6mIPRee?autoplay=true&v=A

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ForeverBrandy

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Brandy

TRACK REVIEW: Taylor Swift - cardigan

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Taylor Swift

PHOTO CREDIT: Republic Records

cardigan

9.6/10

The track, cardigan, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-a8s8OLBSE

The album, folklore, is available here:

https://shop.virginemi.com/taylorswift/

RELEASE DATE:

24th July, 2020

GENRES:

Indie Folk/Alternative Folk/Chamber Pop

ORIGIN:

New York/Los Angeles, U.S.A.

LABEL:

Republic

PRODUCERS:

Aaron Dessner/Jack Antonoff/Taylor Swift

TRACKLIST:

the 1

cardigan

the last great american dynasty

exile (featuring Bon Iver)

my tears ricochet

mirrorball

seven

august

this is me tying

illicit affairs

invisible string

mad woman

epiphany

betty

peace

hoax

__________

I reviewed Taylor Swift last year…

when her album, Lover, was released. Though I liked the album, I felt that it was, perhaps, a little similar to other stuff out there and was not as strong as I made out. I think I got caught in this fever that met the album, and I was caught up in that wave! Not that Lover was a weak album: it was a very strong one, but I think she has made a huge leap with her new album, folklore. I have waited a couple of days to review something from the album, as I wanted to let the album sink in and have a good listen to all of the songs. It seems, as NME reported, that folklore has been breaking records:

“Representatives for Swift have confirmed that the album sold over 1.3million copies around the world within the first 24 hours of its release. Additionally, she has also broken records on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music with the album.

‘Folklore’ has now set the global record for first day album streams on Spotify by a female artist with 80.6million streams. It is also the most streamed album on Apple Music in 24 hours with 35.47million streams, and has set the indie/alternative streaming record in the US and worldwide on Amazon Music (no figures have been shared)”.

I will look at various aspects of Taylor Swift and her music soon, but I like the concept of a ‘surprise release’. This is a concept that has been going for a while, whereby a big artist will not give too much notice of an album, and that sends people into a frenzy. Taylor Swift announced the release of her eighth studio album, folklore, earlier in the week, and that sent the Internet into meltdown! This is a thing that is more associated with bigger acts, the surprise release. I do not think it would have the same impact for a smaller act, and it would definitely not generate the same hype.

PHOTO CREDIT: Pari Dukovic for TIME

I do not think the reason (for a surprise release) is to get attention and stand out. Instead, it avoids all of the machine and strain of normal promotion. Usually, an artist has to go through many stages, and the whole process of promoting an album is so elongated and structured. I can understand why Taylor Swift would decide to release folklore in the way that she did. Instead of garnering a lot of focus and all this pressure, she had already created an album, and felt that it was best just to release it with very little notice. The tone and flavour of folklore sort of suits a gentler impact – though there was so many people tweeting within hours of the album being announced! I shall move on, but I am interested in the surprise release phenomenon, and why artists do it. I think Lover was more of a traditional Pop album, and I think the album did need the normal promotional approach: if it were surprise released, I think it would have been a mistake. Instead, folklore is a different sound altogether, and I do not think the endless videos, teases and tweets would have suited the album. Another thing that is worth mentioning is not only the sonic shift between last year’s Lover, but the sense of progression and quality. Again, not to suggest the last album was lacking, but I think the lyrics are incredible on folklore, as are the compositions, and Swift’s vocals are much more engrossing. That said, I think Lover was a move away from the exclusively Pop territory, and it did head into Indie realms. In fact, when Swift spoke with Rolling Stone to promote Lover, that question was raised:

“In some ways, on a musical level, Lover feels like the most indie-ish of your albums.

That’s amazing, thank you. It’s definitely a quirky record. With this album, I felt like I sort of gave myself permission to revisit older themes that I used to write about, maybe look at them with fresh eyes. And to revisit older instruments — older in terms of when I used to use them. Because when I was making 1989, I was so obsessed with it being this concept of Eighties big pop, whether it was Eighties in its production or Eighties in its nature, just having these big choruses — being unapologetically big.

And then Reputation, there was a reason why I had it all in lowercase. I felt like it wasn’t unapologetically commercial. It’s weird, because that is the album that took the most amount of explanation, and yet it’s the one I didn’t talk about. In the Reputation secret sessions I kind of had to explain to my fans, “I know we’re doing a new thing here that I’d never done before.” I’d never played with characters before. For a lot of pop stars, that’s a really fun trick, where they’re like, “This is my alter ego.” I had never played with that before. It’s really fun. And it was just so fun to play with on tour — the darkness and the bombast and the bitterness and the love and the ups and the downs of an emotional-turmoil record”.

Just look at the reviews for folklore, and one will see how excited people are and how they have taken to the album! It is a remarkable achievement from the thirty-year-old who, through the years, has achieved so much and has made big strides regarding her songwriting. Unlike some of her peers, I think Taylor Swift is more than a musician. She is a role model for so many people and, when it would be easier to say nothing regarding politics and the state of your country, Taylor Swift is someone who has spoken out. This was not always the way. It was tricky breaking rank and showing her political stripes when she has a huge number of fans and is signed with a massive record label. Republic could have advised her not to say anything about Donald Trump and to just stick to the music but, when America was being ripped apart and turned into a dictatorship, Swift was not going to remain silent. Whilst some in 2017 felt that Swift was actually a conduit for Trump’s values, it was clear that she did not support the President but, as her album Reputation was out, she could not be too overt and outspoken.

I think she has become more clear in her opinion regarding Trump, but it is pretty brave of any artist to get involved in politics and sit on one side of the fence! If Swift came out as a Democrat and attacked Trump, that could have had an impact on her young listeners, and it might have been commercial suicide. Rather than sit still and not say anything at all, Swift has been keen to speak about issues important to her. This was explored in the documentary, Miss Americana. It was clear that, from 2017, there was a noticeable shift in Swift’s music and persona. Rather than playing up to the usual role of a young artist in the public eye, I think the waves and cracks caused by Trump compelled Swift to become more activated and vocal about things she was passionate about. In an illuminating interview with The Guardian from last year, we learned about the sonic evolution in Reputation, and what finally provoked her into political activation:

“Meanwhile, Donald Trump was more than nine months into his presidency, and still Swift had not taken a position. But the idea that a pop star could ever have impeded his path to the White House seemed increasingly naive. In hindsight, the demand that Swift speak up looks less about politics and more about her identity (white, rich, powerful) and a moralistic need for her to redeem herself – as if nobody else had ever acted on a vindictive instinct, or blundered publicly.

But she resisted what might have been an easy return to public favour. Although Reputation contained softer love songs, it was better known for its brittle, vengeful side (see This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things). She describes that side of the album now as a “bit of a persona”, and its hip-hop-influenced production as “a complete defence mechanism”. Personally, I thought she had never been more relatable, trashing the contract of pious relatability that traps young women in the public eye.

It was the assault trial, and watching the rights of LGBTQ friends be eroded, that finally politicised her, Swift says. “The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy!” she says. “This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included”.

PHOTO CREDIT: John Salangsang/Shutterstock

What I was saying about Taylor Swift being a role model. One can see how she has spoken about L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ rights and denounced Trump, and this is someone who has a lot of backing and money behind her, but she is more interested in saying what is right and not letting injustice slide. Not only has Swift seen the rights of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community being eroded and compromised, but she herself has had to face sexism and a real lack of compassion. I want to dovetail these two by sourcing from an interview of last year, as I think the two are related: Swift has faced oppression and sexism, and knows that this kind of attack and foul attitude applies to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, albeit in a different context. It has made Swift more determined to see a change and speak out. She spoke with Vogue back in September, and I think the reason why Reputation sounded different to anything that came before was this rebellion against being seen as quite soft and sweet:

“I ask her, why get louder about LGBTQ rights now? “Rights are being stripped from basically everyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender male,” she says. “I didn’t realize until recently that I could advocate for a community that I’m not a part of. It’s hard to know how to do that without being so fearful of making a mistake that you just freeze. Because my mistakes are very loud. When I make a mistake, it echoes through the canyons of the world. It’s clickbait, and it’s a part of my life story, and it’s a part of my career arc.”

I ask Swift if she had always been aware of sexism. “I think about this a lot,” she says. “When I was a teenager, I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand. Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague. The second I became a woman, in people’s perception, was when I started seeing it.

“It’s fine to infantilize a girl’s success and say, How cute that she’s having some hit songs,” she goes on. “How cute that she’s writing songs. But the second it becomes formidable? As soon as I started playing stadiums—when I started to look like a woman—that wasn’t as cool anymore. It was when I started to have songs from Red come out and cross over, like ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ and ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.’ ”

Those songs are also more assertive than the ones that came before, I say. “Yeah, the angle was different when I started saying, I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Basically, you emotionally manipulated me and I didn’t love it. That wasn’t fun for me”.

On folklore, Swift has taken another step forward, and has created her most mature album to date. Some might say that, at thirty, it is quite early to properly grow up and be quite serious, but she has lived in the public eye since she was a teenager, and she has been exposed and judged for so many years! It is clear that her music needed to undergo a sea change, and it will be interested to see how that progresses.

PHOTO CREDIT: Valheria Rocha/TAS Rights Management

Before getting to a song from folklore I was keen investigate, I want to look at the sort of negative attention Swift was receiving. Swift has spoken about her eating disorder and struggles she has faced, and I think a lot of the problem stems from the tabloids and their perception of her. In an interview with Variety, she went into detail about the effect of the press attention:

“In the quiet of a hotel suite, she goes into greater detail on how formative an effect that one early tabloid torpedo had on her. “I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,” she says. “And the headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?’ And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So I just registered that as a punishment. And then I’d walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body.”

She hesitates. “I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,” she says quietly. “But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense” to have it in the film, she says”.

I wanted to mention this, because it provides a wider picture of Swift, and it also shows what she has had to endure. It also shows what a modern mainstream artist has to endure. I do think that life has become a little easier for Swift over the past year or so, but she still has to face a lot of pressure and judgment.

PHOTO CREDIT: Austin Hargrave/Billboard

There was a period where Taylor Swift stopped giving interviews. After Reputation, she sort of went on an interview hibernation, and only picked up on the media trail in 2019. I can understand why she would want to remain out of the limelight, as she did not want every iota of her private life put in the press. I think she is more comfortable now, but there was an intense period where I feel she was feeling a bit buried and exposed. Alongside the media attention, social media was also playing its part. For the most part, her fans are great, and she gets a lot of love online. Maybe one reason why folklore was not given the same extensive promotional as previous albums is because of the associated problems with social media and how committed Swift would have to be regarding promotion of an album and inherent problems. When she spoke with Elle, Swift discussed the problems of social media:

“Our priorities can get messed up existing in a society that puts a currency on curating the way people see your life,” Swift began. “Social media has given people a way to express their art. I use it to connect with fans. But on the downside you feel like there are 3 trillion new invisible hoops that you have to jump through, and you feel like you’ll never be able to jump through them all correctly. I—along with a lot of my friends and fans—am trying to figure out how to navigate living my life and not just curating what I want people to think living my life is."

Swift has also had trouble figuring out where to set boundaries between her private and public life, how to be open enough on social media that she doesn't seem fake without compromising her privacy. "I’m not always able to maintain a balance, and I think that’s important for everyone to know about," she said. "We’re always learning, and that’s something that I also had to learn—that I’ve got to be brave enough to learn. Learning in public is so humiliating sometimes…."

PHOTO CREDIT: Alexi Lubomirski

I am going to get to a review very soon, but I have been eager to show different sides to Taylor Swift, and how her life and career has played out over the past few years. I can only imagine how difficult it is for a hugely successful and popular artist like Swift to be herself and find any quiet away from the glare of social media and the press. I want to nod back to the Miss Americana documentary that came out at the start of the year, as I think many people would have had the impression of who Swift was and how she approached stardom. Most of us have very little clue of what life is really like for an artist like Taylor Swift. I would recommend people watch the documentary but, as this Variety article shows, Swift has had to deal with a lot:

“If this leads you to believe that the pop superstar is in the business of sugarcoating things, consider her other new movie — a vastly more significant documentary that presents Swift not just sans digital fur but without a whole lot of the varnish of the celebrity-industrial complex. The Netflix-produced “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana” has a prestige slot as the Jan. 23 opening night gala premiere of the Sundance Film Festival before it reaches the world as a day-and-date theatrical release and potential streaming monster on Jan. 31.

The doc spends much of its opening act juxtaposing the joys of creation with the aggravations of global stardom — the grist of many a pop doc, if rendered in especially intimate detail — before taking a more provocative turn in its last reel to focus more tightly on how and why Swift became a political animal. It’s the story of an earnest young woman with a self-described “good girl” fixation working through her last remaining fears of being shamed as she comes to embrace her claws, and her causes.

Given that the film portrays how gradually, and sometimes reluctantly, Swift came to place herself into service as a social commentator, “Miss Americana” is a portrait of the birth of an activist. Director Lana Wilson sets the movie up so that it pivots on a couple of big letdowns for its subject. The first comes early in the film, and early in the morning, when Swift’s publicist calls to update her on how many of the top three Grammy categories her 2017 album “Reputation” is nominated for: zilch. She’s clearly bummed about the record’s brushoff by the awards’ nominating committee, as just about anyone who’d previously won album of the year twice would be, and determinedly tells her rep that she’s just going to make a better record”.

I will move on now, as it is interesting to look at the last few years, and how she has got to where she is now. Swift seems more settled than she did fairly recently, and I think folklore is an album from someone who has definitely stepped away from Pop and Country, and entered a new phase of her life.

I wanted to review cardigan from the album, as I think it is the best track, and its video is pretty epic! Most artists do not have the budget Taylor Swift has, but she could have released a video that was overblown and pretentious. Instead, it fits perfectly with the song, and it is an amazing visual! The idea of the song is like being a discarded cardigan; sort of being cast aside and left under the bed. The first verse of the song is delicate and emotional. We see Swift at a piano, as she looks into the distance and ponders the words she is putting out. “Vintage tee, brand new phone/High heels on cobblestones/When you are young, they assume you know nothing/Sequined smile, black lipstick/Sensual politics/When you are young, they assume you know nothing”. The idea of a cardigan projects someone a little older and perhaps a little cosy in their ways. The first verse of the song projects images of a young spirit who will be familiar to many people. This idea of someone appearing to be quite free-spirited and naïve comes through, but I can hear the importance of the lyrics emphasised in Swift’s voice as she tells of being judged and cast aside. Looking beyond the personal, I sort of applied the words to her career and how, for the most part, she was marketed and almost told to be quiet, and there was this view that she was young and a Pop artist, so she would not have any opinions or anything worth hearing. Maybe it simply applies to the personal, and the fact that she was in a relationship where she was not given proper deference and respect. The opening of the video is quite stately and grand, where there is this sense of restriction. It is a simple shot of Swift at the piano but, as the chorus comes in, she is in a forest and, steps away from the piano and explores a new, wider world.

PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Garrabrant

It is like a revelation and opening of her horizons. It seems that, where she felt like an old cardigan and cast asunder before, she met someone who has sort of changed her ways. Look deeper into the lyrics and all is not rosy. Where as Swift sings “You put me on and said I was your favorite”, that would imply that this relationship has rejuvenated Swift and she feels wanted, it seems that she was being fed lines, and she was not the only one in the guy’s life. This idea of maturity and being young gains new light. Rather than it being Swift speaking out and being taken seriously in the media, it is about being in a relationship and being lied to because, as she is young, it is okay to be played. “A friend to all is a friend to none/Chase two girls, lose the one” suggest that Swift has been dealt a bad hand, and this relationship has gone sour. The wording and powerful imagery of the lyrics means that the truth is never too obvious, and I think there is room for interpretation as to the whole story. When the chorus - “But I knew you/Playing hide-and-seek and/Giving me your weekends” – comes in, Swift’s voice changes gear and there is raises in tone. That said, she is engrossed in the emotion of the song, and there is no suggestion that this story will have a happier ending. Whereas she was spending her weekends with someone and feeling special, maybe this was deceitful, and he was actually seeing other women. The video is very beautiful and stirring, and the image of Swift playing in a forest and engulfed in nature is powerful indeed! The refrain is about her being a cardigan and feeling past her best; maybe tossed away and struggling to find ignition. She did have this feeling she had been adopted and repurposed by a new love but, as she sings, “You drew stars around my scars/But now I'm bleedin'” – those lines are especially potent, and they project stirring imagery.

The song’s endlessly evocative imagery and storytelling keeps one involved and attached from the beginning to the end. Swift wrote the song with The National’s Aaron Dessner (who was also one of the producers on folklore) and, whilst he might have helped mould the song, I think the lyrics are very personal and particular to Swift. “Tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy, I/I knew you/Leavin' like a father/Running like water” moves from fantasy and fiction to a very raw experience of abandonment and mistrust. The way that the song shifts so quickly and twists like rapids augments this feeling of betrayal and faked affection. This is ironic as, at its heart, is a cardigan: something very simple, humble, and undramatic! I love the fact that there is only Swift and Dessner credited on the song, as a lot of artists would have a host of producers and writers to pen a song like this – which would make it feel impersonal and insincere. Instead, we have a track that is a lot more impactful, as you know Swift connects with every word. In the third (and final) verse, the mixture of images strikes and stuns. “But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss/I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs” is poetic and filmic: this very romantic image of a tattoo kiss; one can imagine the lovers wrapped in each other’s arms, but there is this poison and fear lurking and infusing the heroine’s mind. “Chasin' shadows in the grocery line/I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired” starts with a beautifully domestic and ordinary setting, made extraordinary and powerful. Swift knows that she would be missed once the excitement of someone else dissipated. Right until the end, I was curious whether Swift was keen to be the only one in the relationship, or whether she was standing next to her lover and turning him away. I feel Swift knows that she cannot trust him, but she does know that he has made a mistake and that she is much more substantial and worthwhile – more than this cardigan that should be left to collect dust under the bed! As she stands in the front porch, the heroine knows that the man would come back to her but, as you would imagine, things have gone too far, and she cannot trust him. I was moved by the performance and lyrics of cardigan, and how much I came back to the song. One can get lost in the story and the wonderful lyrics, and Swift’s delivery puts every word deeply into the mind and heart.

It has been interesting reviewing Taylor Swift, as I did not listen to her music a great deal before folklore, but I have been spinning the album quite a bit. It will be fascinating to see how she follows it, and whether she continues producing music of the same ilk, or whether there is an overhaul and she sort of returns to her roots. I feel where she is now is where she is going to head; no big revolution will occur on studio album nine, and I do think that, with age and experience, she has altered her priorities and discovered a love of a deeper and richer sound that is not as colourful and bold as some of her earlier work. I may be wrong, but I do feel that she will continue to make albums as strong and acclaimed as folklore. I wanted to end by looking back to an interview in Billboard from last year, where Swift was asked about artists’ rights regarding streaming, and pay-outs. This is something that is still burning in 2020, and it is impacting smaller acts harder than the mainstream best:

“You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently -- staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals.

We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about recalibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers.

We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal -- not as a renegotiation ploy -- and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Laveris/Filmmagic

Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it”.

That was just a little aside I wanted to bring in, as it is another case of Swift getting involved and striving for change and equality. Let us hope that there is improvement regarding streaming payments but, for now, I wanted to wrap up and encourage people investigate folklore. It arrived out of the blue, and it has been gaining some simply incredible reviews! I know that Swift will not be able to tour the album this year, but I am sure that there will be a massive worldwide tour next year. I feel that we judge and easily define the most famous artists around and assume that we have them figured. We can be a bit dismissive and, prior to folklore, I had not given Swift’s work too much attention. I was caught by the wave of affection for her latest album and was keen to learn more! Upon hearing the album, it knocked aside any preconceptions, and I saw her in a different light – not that I had any negative views of her music; I just sort of assumed it would not be for me. Away from all the media attention and fame, here is an artist who is a genuinely amazing songwriter, and she is growing stronger by the album. I am looking forward to seeing where Taylor Swift heads next and just what she can achieve. The brilliant folklore might have arrived with little fanfare, but I think the album will resonate and resound…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

FOR a very, very long time.

___________

Follow Taylor Swift

Official:

https://www.taylorswift.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/taylorswift13

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/TaylorSwift

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqECaJ8Gagnn7YCbPEzWH6g

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Taylor Swift

TRACK REVIEW: The Chicks - My Best Friend’s Weddings

TRACK REVIEW:

 

The Chicks

My Best Friend’s Weddings

9.4/10

The track, My Best Friend’s Weddings, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMU0Pfn65lU

GENRE:

Country-Pop

ORIGIN:

Dallas, U.S.A.

The album, Gaslighter, is available here:

https://thechicks.lnk.to/gaslighter

RELEASE DATE:

17th July, 2020

LABEL:

Columbia

PRODUCERS:

Jack Antonoff/The Chicks/Teddy Geiger

TRACKLIST:

Gaslighter

Sleep at Night

Texas Man

Everybody Loves You

For Her

March March

My Best Friend's Weddings

Tights on My Boat

Julianna Calm Down

Young Man

Hope It's Something Good

Set Me Free

__________

I have been meaning to review this band…

for a long time now but, with a new album out, I have no excuses to avoid them! Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire are The Chicks – formerly The Dixie Chicks. They are a terrific group and, when thinking about where they are now and the impact they have made, there is a lot to investigate. I am going to start with the fact that, this year, they haver changed their name. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, many artists and people in general have been soul-searching and calling for change. Some artists have changed their names because their former moniker was either linked to slavery or projected something that seems inappropriate right now. Lady Antebellum became ‘Lady A’ and that has created an instant legal problem – one that is ridiculous and the band themselves created. The Dixie Chicks felt that they could not use that name anymore, so have dropped the ‘Dixie’, and this has been a wise move. This article from The Guardian explains more:

“The trio were unusually quiet as the issue grew louder over two weeks in late June. Then they released a new single, March March, under a new name: the Chicks. The only explanation was a line on their website: “We want to meet this moment.”

The change was a long time coming, says Strayer, the banjo player, a few days after the news is announced. The band had begun to feel uncomfortable about the name on their 2016 tour, she says, with “racist rhetoric” rife in the year of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. “The Chicks” and the abbreviation “DCX” appeared on their merchandise and branding. “Things to water it down,” Strayer says. “Current events were the tipping point, but it wasn’t like we started thinking about it just two weeks ago.”

The outrage cycle that followed the official name change wrote itself. Rightwing commentators accused them of virtue signalling. The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz said they had told “the entire South to p*** off”. Strayer refuses to dignify Cruz’s tweet with a response, and says she has no idea what virtue signalling is. She laughs when I explain: telegraphing woke values to look good online. “You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t, so we just try and keep our own compass on all that stuff.” They expected the trolls: “The people who have hated us since the Bush comment are probably the same people saying that stuff”.

When talking about The Chicks – and their former incarnation -, one must address politics. A lot of artists avoid getting involved in political matters, as it can be risky regarding fans’ reactions and how the record label also reacts. Many want to speak out and have a say, but it can be detrimental to their popularity. The Chicks’ minds have always spoken freely, and when George W. Bush was in power in the U.S. in the early part of the ‘00s, the group spoke out against his decision to declare war on Iraq. A lot of Americans were shocked that war was declared but, in the music world, not that many people spoke out. For a band who were as established as The Dixie Chicks (as they were), there was always a chance there would be some backlash. This recent interview with The Guardian goes into more detail:

“The band’s conservative fans were in for a shock. In March 2003, eight days before George W Bush declared war on Iraq, Maines, the lead singer, told a crowd in London that she was “ashamed” that Bush was also from Texas. Denunciation and death threats followed. They were dubbed traitors and “Saddam’s angels”. Local radio stations organised CD-burning protests and US conglomerates banned them from the airwaves, hobbling their career overnight. They would release one more album, in 2006, their last for 14 years”.

Can the hatred Trump legitimised go back in the bottle? “I feel like we’re really gonna make change this time,” Maines says. “Enough people are fighting back.” The only time she was tempted to break her watertight quarantine was when her two teenage sons desperately wanted to go to LA’s BLM protests – though, with coronavirus numbers rising, she made everybody stay at home.

They talk enthusiastically about Confederate statues belonging in museums. “It’s not about erasing history,” Maines says, “but not having them up for worship”.

I wanted to bring up the way The Dixie Chicks were cancelled back then, as there has been new discussion regarding cancel culture and whether we can delete someone from our consciousness if they have a controversial view or they attract negative press. Recently, J.K. Rowling has been scrutinised and attacked for some of the things she said but, in this modern age, I do not feel it is right or legitimate to blacklist and delete anyone. The Dixie Chicks faced a difficult choice when they spoke out against Bush: they could do the right think by having a say and, in the process, face any consequences, or they could remain silent. In all honesty, it is not like the liberal and right-minded section of America were appalled and turned their back on The Dixie Chicks: it was the very conservative portion that were aghast that a group like The Dixie Chicks could have any political bones in their body. This article explains why The Dixie Chicks’ ‘controversy’ was a rarity back then:

“The cancellation of the Dixie Chicks was driven in large part by conservative listeners, who were shocked to discover that their favorite band didn’t share their political opinions. As Maguire said in a 2006 interview on MSNBC’s Hardball, “You’ve just got a majority of the core of country music listening audience kind of feeling the same way about politics, and we always kind of felt like the black sheep [regarding our political beliefs] but never really used the stage to talk about politics.” Musicians working in other genres — say, pop singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who appeared at the 2003 Grammys with a guitar strap  that said “No War” — didn’t face the same professional repercussions for taking an anti-war stance.

But the cancellation was also driven by the fact that in 2003, in the era before Instagram Stories and tweeting at the president, people weren’t used to hearing celebrities make off-the-cuff remarks, period, let alone controversial off-the-cuff remarks”.

I want to remain on this subject for now because, in my view, the group inspired a lot of other artists to stand up, and when we think about modern politics and how artists have taken against Donald Trump, the fact The Chicks have survived now and continue to speak out is hugely important. Think about a big artist like Taylor Swift and her political views, and I am sure she was moved by The Dixie Chicks’ bravery nearly two decades ago. Of course, with some quarters grumbling and condemning the group back then for their views, this would spill onto radio. It was not until very recently that the group were heard on Country music stations – until then, they were outcast because of their views on Bush and Iraq. It seems insane to think that a group could be exiled for having a political opinion, even if their music was relatively politics-free. This Rolling Stone article discusses the harsh situation The Dixie Chicks found themselves in back in 2003:

“On September 4th, Mike Chase and Amy Faust — morning show hosts for the country station KWJJ in Portland, Oregon — cued up Taylor Swift’s “Soon You’ll Get Better,” a quietly resilient acoustic ballad featuring the Dixie Chicks.

“It’s a song about her own mother struggling with cancer,” Chase explains. “We played the song and also posted it on our Facebook page. One woman [commented by saying] her grandmother had died ten minutes prior to us playing it. And right after that, some guy goes, ‘I guess it would be better if Taylor wasn’t ramming her politics down my throat.’ We thought, ‘wow: what a study in extremes.'”

The Dixie Chicks have been a third rail in country radio ever since they said that they did not support President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. “We’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” singer Natalie Maines said onstage in London. They were staples of the format before their comments and personae non gratae immediately after. Looking back now, country radio’s decision to exile the Dixie Chicks seems to presage the current political moment. “That was kind of the beginning of the cancel culture that we have now,” Chase says”.

It does not shock me that an all-female group would be judged and castigated by a Country station. Maybe thinks are starting to move in the right direction, but the fetid smell of sexism has blighted Country for decades. At a time when acts like The Chicks, and Maren Morris are ruling, it is still the men who get the most airplay and celebration. Look at any article or piece of press that ranks the most-popular Country artists, and the majority will be men. This is not because of a quality imbalance: rather, it is the way radio stations still ignore women, and they consider their music to be inferior. As we can see, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that Country corrects its ways:

“Songs recorded by women constitute just 10% of all songs played on country radio stations, according to a report published last week. That has women in country music and all who care about fairness on the airwaves up in arms.

“Depending on the time of day a listener tunes in to their station, (10% is) barely enough to be heard. It’s certainly not enough exposure to become known, to build a fan base, to climb charts, to gain enough recognition to have access to opportunities and resources within the industry,” wrote University of Ottawa professor Jada Watson, who partnered with cable network CMT on the report.

Kacey Musgraves had a pointed response to the KCQ tweet: "Smells like white male bullshit and why LONG ago I decided they cannot stop me." Musgraves' "Golden Hour" album won the 2019 Grammy for album of the year, with minimal airplay on traditional country radio”.

When the Oscars were criticized for being “too white,” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences embarked on a highly visible and ambitious effort to make its membership more diverse. As the film and television industries came under scrutiny for widespread sexual harassment, investigations and dismissals followed. In contrast, country radio just shrugs.

IMAGE CREDIT: Agnés Ricart

While many country music institutions appear to be rallying for women — this year’s Country Music Association Awards was an example — country radio isn’t budging.

It was early in 2015 that a group of women in the recording industry in Nashville held the first meeting of “Change the Conversation,” dedicated to giving women an equal voice in country radio.

“Male artists have always dominated country radio 70/30, but over the last decade, the percentages for females have dropped dramatically,” Leslie Fram, a member of the group and senior vice president of music strategy for CMT, told me in an interview. “It leads to a cycle of fewer women getting signed, fewer female songwriters getting publishing deals and fewer women on tours. it’s tough to get on a tour if you don’t have a song on the radio”.

The Chicks have been in the radio wilderness for many years now, but their name is not as derided now as it was. With the revised band name, I think it is a new era for one of the most influential Country acts of all time. It seems that, even though the band have been played on U.S. radio quite a bit, they did not expect to be featured at all. This afore-quoted review from The Guardian discussed their relationship with Country radio:

“Even in the world of country, there are signs that the Chicks’ pariah days may be coming to an end. Forty-eight hours after they released the title track as a single, it had been played 750 times on US country radio – though none of the band care, nor listen to the format. “I only turned it on ’cos I didn’t believe that we’d actually get played,” Maguire says. But four months later, it’s off the airplay charts, whereas many songs have stuck around for more than a year. Today, women and mixed-gender groups make up 13-15% of daily airplay; some attribute this pitiful representation to the Chicks’ 2003 ostracisation. In 2015, one independent radio consultant said women’s voices actively lowered their ratings. Strayer hadn’t heard this before. “That’s like saying women are too emotional to be CEOs.” “Sounds like male suppression bullshit!” Maines yells from her Zoom window. “I’d like to see the science behind this – ha! – study”.

Let us move on from the past and talk about the present. The Chicks have a new album out, Gaslighter, and it is their first album since 2006’s Taking the Long Way. It is good to have them back, and the reaction to Gaslighter has been hugely positive. It makes one wonder why the Dallas-formed band took so long to release their eighth studio album. When they spoke with NPR, the group discussed the reason for a long absence, in addition to the themes that have influenced Gaslighter:

PHOTO CREDIT: AP

“The Chicks — formerly known as the Dixie Chicks — is back with a new record called Gaslighter after 14 years. Why the long time gone? Martie Maguire, Emily Strayer and Natalie Maines say they wanted a break to raise their kids, among other things, but after a 2016 reunion tour, they felt the hunger again. Their new album is rooted in failed relationships, some good ones, anger and a lotta humor. Maguire says life experience never hurts writing.

"We're between the ages of 45 and 50 — I'm the oldest, probably with the most baggage — but we've had relationships break up, marriages break up," Maguire says. "Different things happen in our lives, just like everybody else, so when we write a song it's not necessarily about one person. Maybe one line might be a contribution about somebody that did somebody wrong, but it's never one thing. It's not all one bad man."

"There's so many bad men!" Maines interjects amidst laughter.

There are so many great songs on Gaslighter, so it was difficult selecting one to review! I have gone for My Best Friend’s Weddings, as it is, to me, the best from the album. The song was co-written by the band alongside Jack Antonoff (one of the album’s producers), and Justin Trainter.

My Best Friend’s Weddings is a song that has already attracted love and intrigue from Esquire, where they highlight some key lines:

“You set off fireworks that evening,” Maines sings of a fateful night, where her dearest friend wed, twenty years ago. “With a flicker of untruth.” She should have seen it coming: “I was never safe, I was never safe, still not safe/You’d torch me any chance I get.” Such lines are stark in their admission, but so is the fact that Maines voice is never alone when she sings them. Backed by Maguire and Erwin, as it has been for now several decades, there is an unshakeable sense of shared burden—a devastating communion—that is hard to glean elsewhere in music”.

I do not normally quote from another review when assessing a song, but it is clear that this track has resonated with people and is important to many people. There is a calm and reverence that opens My Best Friend’s Weddings. The vocal harmonies are almost choral and spiritual in their nature; calming and hushed, but it is imbued with passion and strength. The opening verse – “Met you at my best friend's wedding/There was something about you/You set off fireworks that evening/With a flicker of untruth” – promises something pure and forever. Before continuing on, it is hard to listen to My Best Friend’s Weddings without thinking about this: In August 2019, in the midst of their divorce, Natalie Maines' ex-husband, Adrian Pasdar asked the court to give him access to all of Maines' unreleased music over concerns it might violate a confidentiality clause in their prenuptial agreement, although he has previously argued in divorce proceedings that the couple's prenuptial agreement is invalid, claiming that Maines should owe him financial support. Pasdar stated that he wanted to know if any of the unreleased material might contain lyrics that pertain to their breakup. I knew there would be a lot of Maines’ heartache and separation in Gaslighter, and it seems like My Best Friend’s Weddings is one of those songs that looks at that relationship with Pasdar.

The vocal accelerates as we reach the pre-chorus: “Jump twenty years, jump twenty years, twenty years, yeah/Lookin' back, in retrospect/I was never safe, I was never safe, still not safe, yeah/You'd torch me any chance you'd get”. It seems like this romance that seemed so promising and exciting, looking back, was always meant to be temporary. Not only has the relationship ended, but it has left the heroine with scars and a lack of trust. By the time the chorus arrives, we hear images of this wildfire coming; the heroine trying to escape the flame and get out of the way of a toxic bond – as she goes, she takes what she needs and does not look back. The words are arresting and powerful, and one cannot help but sympathise. If some relationship songs yearn for the past and have a broken heart, it seems that this one is not mourning the past. It seems strange that things are not where they were before but, as the heroine sings, she prefers her own company anyway – so m any years after they got together, separation and a chance to start afresh is not such a bad thing! With a beautiful mix of solo vocals and backing (on the lines “In twenty years, in twenty years, twenty years, yeah” and “I'm better off, I'm better off, better off, yeah”), we get some solemn strings and organ that gives the track quite an ethereal and almost-religious quality. It is a moving song but, rather than it being one where our heroine wallows, she is happy to be free of a lot of doom and gloom. My Best Friend’s Weddings is so honest, and I love the bravery and relatability – so many people will be able to connect to that feeling of escaping a bad relationship and being able to look past it. We hear about the wedding of a best friend, and how happy she looks on that big day. It is that image and feeling of new love and a future that gives the heroine hope that things can repair and there is such things as a second chance of long-lasting love. I love how there is a real story and sense of progression in the song.

PHOTO CREDIT: Robin Harper

The vocal switches with each scene, and the post-chorus – prior to the bridge – provides one of the most affecting-yet-simple moments, where the lines “Go it alone, go it alone” is repeated. It is delivered in such a way that it is like snow falling. That might sound strange, but one projects images of our heroine out in the cold and, whilst she is not defeated and lost, there are going to be tough moments ahead before she can reach somewhere that seems better and warmer. By the time that we arrive at the bridge, it almost seems like the heroine is on a bridge herself and making hard decisions as she looks at the wild waters below. Her best friend’s wedding, it appears, is a second chance of happiness: this bride has been married before, and there is this sense of rising from the ashes and being able to commit to someone after a divorce/loss. One thinks about Natalie Maines and her divorce, and how she must be asking herself whether she can love again, or whether she will be alone. There is this mantra of going alone and riding waves and fire without anyone else. Rather than it being a lament and look for sympathy, the heroine is stronger on her own, but she is definitely not closed to the possibility that she will welcome someone else into her life – after a period of recovery and introspection. One listens to My Best Friend’s Weddings, and there are so many images that flash to mind. It is, like I said, a story and there is a feeling that separation is painful and life-changing, but a divorce does not have to signal defeat. I like how there is not a lot of instrumentation, which allows the vocals to shin. We get a real range of emotions as the song moves and progresses. I think My Best Friend’s Weddings is one of the best songs The Chicks (The Dixie Chicks) has produced, and it is a standout from Gaslighter.

I have a lot of admiration for The Chicks, as they have weathered a lot of condemnation following their remarks in 2003, and they have, like many of their female peers, had to compete for attention far harder than they should have. Back with a new album, one hopes that the group will continue to put out incredible records. Not only have The Chicks inspired other artists - including Taylor Swift - to speak out when the time is right; they have also resonated because of their incredible music. Although there has been some line-up switches in the group since the debut album, Thank Heavens for Dale Evans, in 1990, Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer, and Martie Maguire are looking to the future. I want to finish by talking about how they have inspired others – including one of the biggest bands of today, HAIM. The fact the group are unwilling to remain silent and urge people to be themselves is one reason why they have remained and have such a strong legacy:

“And yet, their refusal to apologize may have also been the thing that sealed their legacy. When reading the comments of younger female country artists who grew up listening to the Dixie Chicks, it’s impossible to ignore how often phrases like “be yourself” come up. Country duo Maddie & Tae told The New York Times “The Dixie Chicks encouraged us all to unapologetically be who we are” in 2016. And in 2018, Miranda Lambert said, “I want to be the Dixie Chicks for this next generation. To put it simply, I want to write and make music that moves people, to give them freedom to be who they are.” And there is Dixie Chicks Stan-In-Chief Taylor Swift, who brought Maines on stage at a 2015 Los Angeles concert and said, “If not for this woman and her band, I would not have known that you can be quirky and fun and yourself and outspoken and brave and real.” Who knows how we’d be thinking of the Dixie Chicks today if they’d given in and apologized — or if we’d be thinking of them at all.

Considering all the ground that the Dixie Chicks broke, it’s almost fitting that they also pioneered getting cancelled in the digital age. But their refusal to back down didn’t just impact their legacy; it impacted how we see cancellation itself. Through their actions, the Dixie Chicks asserted that fandom isn’t ownership and that you can’t control someone’s thoughts just because you buy their albums or see their movies (or refuse to buy their albums or see their movies). They asserted their rights to be complex human beings and not live up to whatever image their fans projected. It was an incredibly risky statement to make. But in the end, it paid off, for them, and for everyone else who refuses to shut up and sing”.

The last feature I want to drop in relates to when The Chicks interviewed HAIM. Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim have followed the group for years, and it was great reading the interview, as there is a lot of affection from both sides. I want to source a section that relates to radio play and how there is a difference in the U.K. compared with the U.S.:

“ALANA: I think with this record, and maybe on the two records before, the one thing we were always super cognizant of was radio. It’s such a crazy game to play.

DANIELLE: We’ve never been on the radio.

NATALIE: What?

ALANA: In the U.K., yes. But in the U.S., no.

NATALIE: What do you think that’s about?

ALANA: From what I’ve learned about the process of getting on the radio in the U.K., it’s really if a DJ likes your song, then they can play it. That’s so freeing to me. Because we were playing to four people, and then we heard that this woman, Marianne Hobbs, who works at XFM, was playing our song “Better Off,” which was on an EP that we put out for free. And I’ll never forget our first big show was at this place called Dingwalls in Camden. And I forgot something in our van or something, and I opened a door and there was a huge line outside and I literally asked the first person, “Who are you waiting for?” And they were like, “You.”

ESTE: I think people in radio like to put people in a box.

DANIELLE: Alternative radio specifically. We’re a rock band and what we’ve heard through the grapevine is, “You’re more pop than rock.” I think unfortunately some of that has to do with that we’re a band of women and people are like, “You’re women, so you’re pop.”

ALANA: It put us in this box, like, we can’t put a drum machine on this song because then they’ll think that we don’t know how to play our instruments. For this record, I was so tired of wanting to foresee what other people want from us. I just wanted to make the music that I wanted to make. For lack of a better word, we had real “fuck it” mentality.

NATALIE: Radio is becoming less and less, I don’t want to say relevant, but there are so many other ways to be heard now. It’s a really lucky time to be a band. And rock radio is almost obsolete. So I could see how you kind of had to find another area. But you’ve done it and that’s super cool”.

It is great to have The Chicks back and, if you have not heard/bought Gaslighter, make sure you rectify that! Gaslighter is one of the best of the year so far, and I look forward to seeing where the group go from here. It will be thrilling to see, as Gaslighter is one of their…

FINEST albums yet.

___________

Follow The Chicks

Official:

http://thechicks.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/thechicks

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/thechicks

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thechicks/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/71MOozeSslsWXWemwyJJMI

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCiF68IcKFzbQmQaittzMKg

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

The Chicks

TRACK REVIEW: Rufus Wainwright - Only the People That Love

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Rufus Wainwright

PHOTO CREDIT: Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

Only the People That Love

9.5/10

The track, Only The People That Love, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQDYxTLMRhA

GENRE:

Singer-Songwriter

ORIGIN:

New York, U.S.A.

The album, Unfollow the Rules, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/rufus-wainwright/unfollow-the-rules

RELEASE DATE:

10th July, 2020

LABEL:

BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

PRODUCER:

Mitchell Froom

TRACKLIST:

Trouble in Paradise

Damsel in Distress

Unfollow the Rules

You Ain't Big

Romantical Man

Peaceful Afternoon

Only the People That Love

This One's for the Ladies (That Lunge!)

My Little You

Early Morning Madness

Hatred

Alone Time

__________

FOR this review…

PHOTO CREDIT: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

I wanted to write about Rufus Wainwright, because he is an artist I have liked for a long time. This year has been a brilliant one for music and, with a new album out, Rufus Wainwright has just added to that bounty. Unfollow the Rules is out, and it is one of the best albums from Wainwright’s career so far. I have a few things to cover off before I get to a song from the album, as there are quite a lot of different angles one can approach Wainwright from. As we are still locked down, gigs have not really been able to happen, and many artists have adapted by providing live music from their homes - I have seen photos on Facebook of Wainwright performing gigs. This article from GQ from earlier in the year talked about Wainwright’s intimate home gigs:

“With a career spanning more than two decades, eight albums, opera, Shakespeare and more epic covers than we care to count (remember his rendition of “Hallelujah”?), Rufus Wainwright has been a mainstay of the music scene since releasing his eponymous debut in 1998. He’s had his personal struggles – Elton John, who once called him “the greatest songwriter on the planet”, helped him get to rehab in 2004 – but now, aged 46, Wainwright says he’s never been better.

The son of folk icons Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, the singer-songwriter has been playing the piano since before he can remember and is famed for his legendary live shows. Now, Wainwright is bringing some of that same magic into the homes of fans across the world, performing a song a day on IGTV for the duration of coronavirus self-isolation”.

I think you can still see those gigs online, but Wainwright has been coping well under lockdown. I guess one does not have too much choice, but it has been an especially tough time for artists – who are used to being in front of crowds and are usually very busy at this time of year. It is a challenging time, and there are a few approaches artists can take. Many are avoiding the subject of COVID-19 when it comes to their own music; others are tackling it and mixing it right in there. Rufus Wainwright is someone, as it told Riff Magazine, who feels one to confront the subject:

“He feels strongly that artists need to be writing about what’s going on rather than avoiding it, even if it’s challenging.

“I think any creative person who doesn’t use this time to work and to kind of try to process what’s happening is not really an artist, to be honest,” he said. “The world needs to understand what’s happening. People, I think, are craving a kind of release, but also sort of a sort of poetic frame to view this in. When I say poetic, I don’t mean like fuzzy and nice. I mean something that they can meditate on”.

Of course, with lockdown, there have been stresses that every artist has felt. Many had been planning on putting an album out, but they have had to hold it back. Others have released albums early to give fans something to feel positive about, but Wainwrights was intending to release Unfollow the Rules earlier this year. I guess there is not a lot one can do about it, but he must have been disappointed having to hold back the album. When he spoke with The Current back in May, he reacted to the fact that his album would have to be delayed:

“So, Rufus, we've been phoning up various musicians to check in during this crisis. So off the bat, I'll say, how are you doing?

I'm very grateful for everything that I have. I mean, on the negative side, I've had to push the release of my album, Unfollow The Rules, to July 10. It was originally going to be out last week. But, we kept putting out tracks every day on Instagram and I'm working on other projects so there's a lot I can do in the meantime....and also in preparation. I also have a very nice home in the Hollywood Hills and I'm with my wonderful husband and beautiful daughter and, and our health is very good. We've known people who have been, you know, badly affected by this disease. A couple of friends have died and so we're familiar with where it can go. But all in all, I think I'm just incredibly grateful for all that I have and, and I also feel very remorseful for how it's gonna pan out for really the majority of the population because most people are going to lose their jobs or serious setbacks in their prospects. And so it's gonna be a rough, rough road but I think I'm gonna be okay.

And it's good to hear that and it's very heartening to hear the story of the balanced, mixed emotions that we all have. And I'm like this so I get that too. Before we chat about the new record and all of the complications they're in with pushing it back. I'm curious, does your daughter...if she's like my kids right now, is she playing a lot of video games?

It's funny because she's nine years old and there was a debate at one point when she got a computer and I always leaned on sort of the 12-year-old mark, which I know is probably a little later than most parents, but I was really kind of gunning for that. But you know, as soon as this occurred, this whole pandemic, you know, all of that went out the window. She has two computers now. One for school and one for us. And also we share custody with her mother. So, she goes back and forth. So, anyway, she has two computers and you know, she's communicating with her friends. She's not into video games, so much so. So we're kind of spared that. But yes, technology is definitely full-fledged into our child's life, which is a necessity”.

I wanted to include that question about Wainwright’s daughter, as that is something I will return to a bit later. I think, in spite of everything, Wainwright is doing okay right now. Lockdown has not been ideal or easy for anyone, but Wainwright has made it work. I have read a few interviews with Wainwright, and he has been very positive and looking forward. I want to sprinkle in interviews ahead of the review I am going to do, as I feel it is important to get a fuller picture of the artist. Just before lockdown happened, Rufus Wainwright spoke with The Independent, and he reflected on his situation in life and a new sense of domestic bliss:

“But look at him now. At 46, with a career spanning eight studio albums and two operas, Wainwright – now based in LA with his husband, German art director Jörn Weisbrodt – has a full head of dark, glossy hair and a carefully groomed beard the colour of burnished silver. I struggle to find anything but the faintest of laughter lines around the corners of his eyes, which are grey-green and set beneath expressive, copper-coloured eyebrows. I’m actually annoyed at how clear his skin is.

He’s feeling great, too. “What I’m realising right now is that in your forties, there’s this wonderful movement if you’ve taken care of yourself, which I have,” he says, sprawled on a sofa at his publicist’s office in St John’s Wood, London. “I’ve worked on that – I got off the highway and here I am, in this very sweet spot. You know death is coming, you can sense it. But you’re in good health, you’re still vaguely attractive, one of your parents is alive, people buy tickets to your shows, and your husband’s still gorgeous.” The forties are where it’s at, apparently, I say. He chuckles: “That’s because I’m here”.

There is a lot of positivity surrounding Rufus Wainwright, even if his album has been delayed but, now that it is out, he has been conducting interviews, and you can tell that he is relieved people get to hear Unfollow the Rules in full. Whilst Wainwright is satisfied about his life in general, I think there is this fear he has about America and where it is headed. You can hear that in some songs on the album; the sense that things are heading in the wrong direction and, under Donald Trump, America is becoming corrupted and poisoned. In terms of his attitudes towards Trump, Rufus Wainwright made it pretty clear in a recent interview with NME:

“Can you see America going down another path?

“You know, it’s funny. I was at a socially-distanced Fourth Of July thing the other day and speaking to an older French gentleman and lives in California. I asked him if he’d move back to Europe if Trump wins and the pandemic gets worse, and he said, ‘No, I love America. This is where my life is’. I was reminded of the fact that this is a great country and there are so many things about this place that are still very unique and special. Being that this is an election year and we need to go out and fight for this democracy, I feel that there’s something to fight for”.

With lockdown mentality and the Black Lives Matter protests, would you say there’s been a spike iempathy in America?

“There has, but I must say that it’s impossible to minimise the ineptitude and pure evil of this administration – in terms of just not caring about anybody’s lives. At first they said it was only the old, the sick and the dying who were at risk. Now they’re saying, ‘Well, if young people get it then they won’t die’. These kids are going to have scarred lungs. The amount of what I can’t describe as anything other than evil in our government is pretty breathtaking.”

The track ‘Hatred’ from your new album is pretty on-the-nose about dethroning Trump. Will you be playing that with a renewed passion when you tour again?

“Yes. There will be a residual trauma from this. However I’m in good health, everyone I know is, I live in sunny California, I have an album coming out, people interested in my work, there are projects on the horizon, so I feel very fortunate”.

Later this year, Americans will be able to vote and, hopefully, elect a new President. It is a hard time for everyone, and I think that Trump has made things a lot worse. The public can make a difference and, when they take to the ballot, make a change in America. It is no surprise that Wainwright and so many of his peers are so fired up regarding Trump and his ineptitude. In an interview with The Independent, he talked about making a change through voting and turning the tide:

“At the end of Unfollow the Rules, there’s a wildcard of a track called “Hatred”. It throws you out of the groove of the previous songs, gathering speed as the piano and violin race one another before colliding into a dystopian space-opera. All as Wainwright sings in that rare tenor, with its strange tipsy beauty, as though he’s only just mustering the strength to sound the words.

“I want people to listen to that song, then go and vote,” he says, referring to the forthcoming 2020 presidential race. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 elections, then Hillary Clinton. “I think it’s going to get really wild.”

He feels there’s a sense of discouragement around this election, which is “troubling”. Hope scares him. “Someone once told me, on a Greek island in the middle of the night, that hope is the same thing as fear,” he says. “They are synonymous. I stay away from hope, for now, but I am emboldened nonetheless to fight”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

I want to veer in a slightly different direction, as Wainwright has been tackling other musical avenues over the past few years, particularly Opera. When I listen to Rufus Wainwright’s albums, I always get this sense of the operatic and dramatic. Wainwright’s voice is tremendous, and he can make even the most tender songs seem absolutely beautiful and sweeping. Unfollow the Rules is Wainwright’s first ‘Pop’ album in a long time. Although the worlds of Opera and Classical have been in his life for a while, as he explained to Riff Magazine, they can be very tough indeed:

“Wainwright has spent much of the past decade away from the pop music world, concentrating on his first love—opera. He composed his first opera, “Prima Donna,” in 2009 and it was performed in London, New York, Paris, Buenos Aires and Hong Kong. His second, “Hadrian,” based on the relationship between Hadrian and a lover, premiered in 2018 in Toronto.

In 2016, he released an album of nine Shakespearean sonnets set to music. Although he wouldn’t share specifics, he said he’s also now working on a ballet project: “Rufus is going to the ballet very soon.”

He said he left the pop world behind because he had grown bored of it and the industry, which consisted of repetitive album cycles. But eventually, he was ready to return to his bread and butter.

“Having been away and also worked in the classical music world, which is incredibly brutal and very, very demanding and kind of poisonous at times, it gave me a new appreciation of the pop world and really made me kind of fall back in love with where I came from, which was the songwriting realm,” he said. “I think that this album kind of has … a freshness to it that I think rubs off”.

In order to get a fuller sense of Rufus Wainwright as an artist and human, I think one has to mention family – which is very important to him. The more I have read about Rufus Wainwright this week – when researching his new album – the more I have learned about his family.

I wanted to bring in a section from a review with The Independent, because we learn more about his daughter, Viva, and how his mother, Kate McGarrigle encouraged him to have a child – and how his daughter inspired the title of the album:

“The new album title suits Wainwright perfectly, but it was actually his nine-year-old daughter, Viva, who came up with it. (“She just walked into the living room and stated to everyone she would like to unfollow the rules, and then promptly marched out. I immediately took my quill and scribbled it down.”) She was conceived during a tumultuous time in Wainwright’s life, when his mother was dying of cancer. Viva’s mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen, meaning she is heir to a rather extraordinary musical dynasty (Weisbrodt is “deputy dad”).

McGarrigle had actively encouraged Wainwright to have a child, having apparently “caught wind” of his growing broodiness – “I think she knew she was on her way out and she wanted me to have someone,” he says with a smile. “The other thing was the thought of having a Wainwright-Cohen union was kind of formidable.” It was Lorca’s idea to have a child together, he says. “She was the driving force behind it, and I thank her every day for that. I’m really, really indebted to her.”

Since Viva was born, Wainwright’s relationship with his own father, songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, has shifted dramatically. “We had periods where we almost killed each other,” he says. “I wish I was speaking figuratively but it was pretty hairy at times.” He says they’ve had therapy together, but also thinks Viva has given him a new perspective of “what it’s like when your kid refutes you, or doesn’t want to give you a hug, or is lost in their own world”.

“It’s frightening as a parent,” he says. “[My father and I] were hanging out not too long ago, just a couple of years ago, we went for this walk and then at the end of the walk I said: ‘You know dad, being a dad now myself, I’m aware of how wonderful it is when a child voluntarily hugs their parent. Yeah, so I’m going to do that to you now.’ And I gave him a big hug and a kiss, and I think it was a good move”.

I can only imagine what it was like for Rufus Wainwright when it came to his relationship with his dad. Those years when they were not getting along sound pretty brutal. I just want to end this pre-review section with a section I found in an interview from inews, where Wainwright talked about his experiences of coming out and how, as a parent, some of his dad’s DNA has rubbed off on him:

“The musician, who came out to his parents at 18, has also inherited some of his father’s piercing honesty and doesn’t hold back on how much luckier (but also, in certain respects, less lucky) people coming out today are.

“I think coming out these days is a double-edged sword in the sense that it’s easier – which is essentially a good thing – and young people very much benefit from the information that’s out there and the community that’s ready to embrace them,” he says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

The opening to Only the People That Love is an acoustic guitar strum that moves into a drum crackle. There is that blend of grace and passion, that then leads to one of Rufus Wainwright’s most tender-yet-stately vocals. Every song Wainwright sings is gorgeous and affecting, but I wanted to focus on this track as I really love the vocal performance! “Only the people that love, may dream/In the world of the silent scream/Only the people that love/Mean gotta love mean” is the opening, and one is affected and stopped in their tracks by Wainwright. Backed by the beat of the drum – which is like a heartbeat and is more punctuating than it is accelerated – and acoustic strum, the vocal is sublime. The richness of his voice and the emotion pouring out is truly stunning. In terms of the song’s meaning, I am not sure whether it is motivated by a desire in his life, or whether it is a message to the people. The chorus arrives, and our hero sings about “Go on and do it/Love mean go ahead and do it/Love means go on and say it/Love means go ahead and say it”. The words to the chorus are delivered at a faster pace than the verse, but when he gets to the line “Love means go ahead and say it/Everything”, he holds that final word, and trembles under its weight. It is a powerful moment, and I love how Wainwright elongates various words and the affinity he has for language! One could read his lyrics and deliver them in a way that would not affect people as much as they should but, in Wainwright’s hands, every line is given importance and power. Maybe Wainwright has been reacting to the state of the world and how, in America, there seems to be more division than ever.

One cannot help but be impacted by how things are right now and, as well as campaigning for change, a sense of unity and tolerance is needed. Even though Unfollow the Rules is not a Classical or Opera album, you can definitely feel something operatic in the music! It is hard to explain, but Wainwright goes beyond the realms of Pop and Rock – or whatever genres you would class his music as -, and provides something that is almost like a work of art. “Only the people that love may cry/In the world of eternal goodbye/Everyone else oughta just die/Gotta love die, 'cause” is an intriguing passage, and one that got me thinking as to its origins. I have listened to Only the People That Love a few times, and I just drift away when hearing the track. Maybe it is the simplicity and power of Wainwright’s words and the possibilities they hold; perhaps it is that voice and the feelings it stirs inside someone! “Love dies, go on and do it/Love dies, go ahead and do it/Love dies, go on and say it/Love dies, go ahead and say it with your eyes/Go on and do it/Go ahead and do it/Go on and say it/Go ahead and say it/Don't be shy” is a verse one cannot help be moved by, not just because of the current situation and the extra strain on us all, but how meaningfully the words are sung. Wainwright’s voice is this extraordinary instrument that reaches deep into he heart and really makes an impact! In the chorus, where he says that only people who love will fly, I think that is a message that we can all get behind now! Only the People is a song that you will want to hear a few times round, as it is very moving and contains one of Rufus Wainwright’s standout vocals. It is a tremendous song from a truly incredible album.

In some ways, live music is starting to come back. There are socially-distanced gigs, and there is this transition period where we are getting a sense of normality back. It will be a while until venues can open and festivals start back up, but it is good that gigs can restart in some form. When Wainwright spoke to The Current, he was asked about the prospect of returning to the road and the type of show he might deliver:

“So as we're looking ahead to, at some point, when all of this subsides, you'll get back out on the road again. What sort of show do you have put together? Have you assembled exactly what you want the speed show to look like? What can we expect when you get back out?

I mean, I have an incredible band, who I feel terrible about having to let go for the meantime. We had a whole bunch of shows set up all over the world and those are not looking like they're going to happen but I will subsequently, you know, get them back when I can. I really felt for this album, Unfollow the Rules, that essentially, because it's a return to California and a return to my roots, musically, you know, from in terms of when I started my career 20 years ago. I was really focused on the songwriting and really focused on the kind of musicianship of all involved. I really wanted this tour to be somewhat streamed, slimmed down in the sense [that] it's really about the music and about me as an artist and kind of devoid of some of the more, you know, theatrical shenanigans, which I adore, and which will return. But for this project, I wanted it to be very, very kind of, you know, basic, essentially just about the songs”.

I urge people to and get Unfollow the Rules, as it is one of the best of Wainwright’s career. Whilst lockdown is not ideal, I think he has taken to it okay, and he has definitely kept himself busy! Going forward, I wonder whether Wainwright will return to Opera in some form, or whether he has another album similar to Unfollow the Rules in him. It will be exciting to see, as I think Rufus Wainwright is one of the most astonishing songwriter around. I shall leave things here, only to say go and get the new album and support a musician who…

HAS given so much to us all.

___________

Follow Rufus Wainwright

PHOTO CREDIT: V. Tony Hauser

Official:

https://rufuswainwright.com/

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https://twitter.com/rufuswainwright

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https://www.facebook.com/rufuswainwrightofficial/

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https://www.instagram.com/rufuswainwright/

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Rufus Wainwright

TRACK REVIEW: Paul Weller - On Sunset

TRACK REVIEW:

 

Paul Weller

On Sunset

9.4/10

The track, On Sunset, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqtZcFrZDpU

GENRES:

Singer-Songwriter/New Wave

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The album, On Sunset, is available here:

https://paulweller.lnk.to/onsunset

RELEASE DATE:

3rd July, 2020

LABEL:

Polydor Records

TRACKLIST:

Mirror Ball

Baptiste

Old Father Thyme

Village

More

On Sunset

Equanimity

Walkin’

Earth Beat

Rockets

__________

ON this outing…

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

I wanted to review a music icon who seems to get cooler and better with age! Although The Modfather, Paul Weller, has changed his music through the years and is, perhaps, not as political as he once was, that does not indicate a lack of importance or urgency. In fact, his current album, On Sunset, is one of his finest latter-days recordings, and it has been celebrated by critics across the board! Before assessing the title track from the new album, I wanted to explore a few sides to Weller; bringing in a few interviews along the way, I feel it is important to get a better view of the artist and how he has changed; a little bit about him now and what defines On Sunset. One of the more noticeable aspects of Weller is his reinvention and, as I said, how he has differed from the early days. I first caught onto Weller’s music in the 1990s, when he was shaping bands like Oasis and really making an impact on the modern scene. Track back to the 1970s, and The Jam were one of the most preeminent bands of their time; writing songs that spoke to a generation and, with it, firing up fellow musicians with the power of the music. Look through the catalogue of Weller, and you can see that he never sits still. It is his passion for all kinds of music that means he can not rest and settle for one sound. Weller spoke with Pop Matters recently, and he was asked about that sense of evolution and restlessness:

“Over the next 30 years, Paul Weller established himself as one of the preeminent singers, songwriters, and performers in British rock history. Never one to follow a trend, Weller was usually leading the next sound. Following the success of his 1995 classic Stanley Road, Weller found himself as a lead influence on a whole new generation of bands led by Oasis and Blur.

When asked about the various changes in his career, from punk to soul, acoustic to guitar fuzz, Weller admits it comes from a selfish place, telling PopMatters that "I don't want to repeat myself, which is inevitable at times if you've done this for a long time. But as much as possible, I try not to repeat what I've just done. I try to move on, take it someplace different. I really do it for myself, to be honest with you, and I just have to hope other people like it and come with it." That quest for reinvention was the fuel behind his latest release, On Sunset”

“Weller credits his intense love of music as the driving force to keep experimenting with new sounds and moving forward. On his relationship with music now, Weller says, "I probably have a greater appreciation of it now than when I was a kid. But nevertheless, the inspiration from it, from the time I can remember to now is immense. That alone makes me still want to make music. I want to see if I can be as good as some of the people that influenced me”.

I could not mention Paul Weller and ignore politics. I think about the music he was creating with The Jam in the 1970s and I wonder whether the political landscape and malaise was worse than it is now. It is shocking to think that we might have a more contemptuous cabinet now than nearly forty-five years ago! If Weller was someone who put politics into the mix as a younger writer, it seems that, now, he is less keen to get involved with the charade and disaster that is British politics! That said, he is still pretty fired up and distressed by the lunacy that is unfurling in this country. I want to quote from an interview Weller gave to NME not long after the furore and controversy surrounding Dominic Cummings and his lockdown-breaking trip up the country:

“Weller’s fresh disdain for the political pantomime extends to the Dominic Cummings saga – “there’s one law for one and one for the other; when’s that been any different? Who’s had the 24-hour fucking bar forever; the only place you can still smoke indoors?” – and Boris Johnson handling the pandemic crisis like a clown juggling burning balls.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns/Getty Images

“I’m no fan of any Tory quite honestly,” he says, down the phone from his Surrey lockdown, “but I don’t understand this thing where we’re waiting on the Prime Minister to tell us what’s going on because he’s not a fucking scientist or a doctor – how would he know? He only tells us what he’s been told by his medical boffins, so it’s a bit stupid to think he’s got all the answers; he’s a politician. It is what it is, and where it’s come from and where it’s gonna go to no-one knows, evidently. We’ve just gotta wait it out and try to carry on as best we can”.

“Weller had been one of Jeremy Corbyn’s more vocal supporters in the music world, playing the first Concert For Corbyn in 2016 as the Labour party leader’s groundswell of support grew. Has a recent leaked Labour report – alleging that members of the party conspired to undermine Corbyn amid the 2017 election and beyond – convinced him Labour isn’t just a non-socialist party but actively anti-socialist?

“It’s a complete shit-show,” Paul sighs. “A similar thing has gone on now with the whole ‘Protect our NHS’ thing, which they’ve been trying to sell off for the last 40 years. The NHS was built on very, very decent socialist principles after the War, along with education, the welfare society and a lot of things. They were all based on decent socialist principles and people would be well-advised to remember that.”

Paul Weller is sixty-two now and, whereas other artists of that age might be content with settling back and not trying to shape the scene, for Weller, he is always striving to make a change and leave his mark! It is testament to an artist who is in his sixth decade as a recording artist and, in my view, is one of the most consistent and important artists of all time. What I love about On Sunset – among other things – is that it is an album that wants to affect the listener and has passion at its heart, even though the sounds and songs are very different in tone compared to the work of The Jam and The Style Council.

If Weller’s fifteenth studio album can be encapsulated into a few words, I would say that it is a huge influencer burning bright and proving that he is among the most creative artists out there. I think artists are responsible for helping shape the way we think and having a real role on the listener. It is almost like the influence of a teacher or parent in terms of informing us and shaping our perception of the world. I have listened to the On Sunset album a few times, and I definitely came away feeling very different to how I felt before hearing it – it was a stunning listening experience. Weller was asked (in the NME interview I have just sourced from) about his age and whether it was his role to challenge people and change music:

“Yes I do,” Weller says, “and I think that’s the role of any artist in whatever form. I always thought that is one of the beautiful sides of it all. So I would like to think that I can still do that but I also do it from the point of view that I really want people to come with it – as opposed to The Style Council when I was just putting everyone’s back up and enjoying it, which is a bit weird. I don’t do it from that standpoint anymore, but I always still follow my own instincts and hope people will like it and come with it”.

In terms of sounds and sonic colours on his latest album, I can definitely hear shades of The Beatles. That is no surprise, as Weller has always been inspired by the band, and you can hear elements and splashes of The Beatles on The Jam’s music. Whilst the music of On Sunset might be mellower than his past work, I think it is a beautiful album filled with richness – some of his best modern tracks can be found here. I am fascinated by The Beatles’ continued role in Weller’s life and music, and how it presents itself on his latest studio album. I feel, as I said, quoting from the man himself is relevant in the sense that we get a better impression of On Sunset, and what was in Weller’s palette.

As he told GQ, The Beatles are present and correct on his new record:

“You only had to listen to the opening bars of “Start!”, the post-punk mod masterpiece The Jam released in 1980, to realise Paul Weller had no qualms about wearing his heart on his sleeve. So what if he borrowed the riff from The Beatles’ “Taxman”. What were you going to do about it?

Weller’s obsession with the Fabs can be heard all over his new album, his 15th, On Sunset, a record that seems to push into the future while darting back into the past with wild exactitude. You can hear the strains of another George Harrison song, “My Sweet Lord”, in title track “On Sunset” and delight in the vampy Abbey Road piano on “Equanimity” and “Walkin’”. Not that this is in any way a criticism, as the defining characteristic of this new record is melody, something Weller still finds easy to capture after 40 years in the game.

“Everybody likes a good tune, regardless how it’s dressed up,” he says. “Luckily, melody comes relatively easy to me – it’s a very natural part of the writing process. You’re often trying to find new ways of saying the same thing, but I can always rely on melody to see me through”.

On Sunset is an album that looks forward and has a very different feel to anything he has recorded before, but there are myriad musical influences that give proceedings a very diverse feel. The range of musical textures and sounds that run through the album is stunning. I did say that On Sunset is a modern and ‘now’ album, but there are also nods to the past, for sure. In the same GQ interview, the range of influences was noticed:     

“You can hear Weller’s past all over On Sunset, as well as the past of others: Bobby Womack, Pharrell Williams, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Roy Ayers’ “We Live In Brooklyn”, Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece, even a violin solo in the style of Slade’s “Coz I Luv You”. There is a lot of reflection, not least on the title track, which he wrote when visiting his eldest son in LA last year. “I stayed at this funny little hotel just off the Strip and while I’ve been to LA a lot, I hadn’t spent any time on the Strip for years and so it all came rushing back – the Sunset Marquis, the Rainbow... I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had gone. I love the West Coast: not the psychedelic Grateful Dead but The Beach Boys, especially the later period. Be warned, though, this isn’t my West Coast record”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

I listen to On Sunset, and it sounds like Weller had a great time recording it! That might sound axiomatic because, let us be honest, he would not release it if the experience was hell! More, I mean you can hear Weller enjoying every song and really getting something nurturing and fulfilling from it. Not to suggest that Weller’s early output was a more difficult process, but one can feel an ease and naturalness to On Sunset that resonates and connects. When Weller spoke with Surrey Life to discuss his album, he talked about the recording process:

“I wouldn’t say making music has got any harder. I think I’m actually enjoying the process and the writing a lot more now than I ever did before in terms of recording” he says.

“I have a great respect and appreciation for it and seeing how the finished songs are,” says Weller, who co-produced the new album with long-term collaborator Jan ‘Stan’ Kybert, whose long list of credits include working with the likes of Oasis, The Verve and Massive Attack.

“I wanted to do an album that was soulful and also had an electronic edge to it. Most of the songs on it are quite uplifting, and to me it’s a sunshine record,” he says”.

Whilst I have looked at the man himself and how his 2020 shifts slightly from his earliest material, I think it is important to look at lyrical themes and how his inspiration has shifted a bit – which I sort of alluded to when mentioning how he is less political now. Though Weller is by no means standing by the graveyard waiting to be buried – I could have phrased that better! -, it is inevitable that mortality and ageing would be on his mind, as it is with any artist who enters a certain stage of life. I think mortality is something each of us considers at some point or other and, whilst some artists would be reticent to talk about life’s progress and getting older in their material, I think that it is honest and healthy.

When Paul Weller was interviewed by The Times in July, the topic of age did come up:

“These days Weller is more comfortable addressing bigger issues — such as death. A song from the new album called Old Father Tyme is about, in his words, “Mortality, and acceptance that you are part of a cycle and not being afraid of that. The older I get, the more I try to stay in the now. We live, we move on, that’s just the way it is, man. Energy never dies, but if at the end of it we just go back into the cosmos, that’s fine with me. I’ll be happy to be a little atom, floating about.”

What about Heaven? “It doesn’t have to be the Pearly Gates. We’ve been given Heaven, which is Earth. If we choose to f*** it up and make it Hell, that’s our doing”.

One of the best things about an artist like Paul Weller is his prolific nature! His previous album, True Meanings, arrived in 2018, and Weller has released six albums since 2010! One cannot accuse Weller of being idle, and it is amazing to consider his stamina and never-ending influence! On Sunset is not an album made by a man who merely wants to put out another album and remain in the spotlight: his fifteenth studio (solo) album is a fresh chapter and stunning album from someone who has put his heart and soul into every track. I wonder why Weller gets more prolific as time goes on. Not that I am complaining, but it is amazing to think that a man who has been in the industry for so long still has so much to say! Not only is Weller’s putting out great music on a regular basis; every album is different, and one gets a new experience every time. A few years ago, Weller was interviewed by Gothamist, where he was asked about his prolific nature:

“You've always been pretty consistent in releasing new music throughout your career, but it seems like in the last decade, you've gotten even more prolific and experimental. Is there something that's different about your songwriting now? Do you feel like you've found another gear?

Mainly it's just the feeling of mortality. I don't know, maybe the older you get you think, "Fuck." You know, you look around and someone says, "25 years ago this record was out" or, "It's 40 years you've been making records." And you're just like, wow, it goes by so quickly. So I think there's an element of that: I've just got to do as much as I can. Time's running out. And time goes so quickly. I've got to keep writing and keep trying to produce work. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

But then I think also in lots of ways the pressure is kind off really. I mean, apart from my own self-competitiveness, I'm not trying to compete with a market, you know. I'm not in competition with other artists. I suppose, because I've been doing it for such a long time, you kind of feel comfortable, this is what I do. And people either dig it, or not dig it. And that's fine. I think there's a pressure that gets taken off”.

I have talked about Weller being more prolific and inspired than ever; how he has changed styles and continues to put out brilliant material. I think a lot of that focus and energy has come from the fact that he stopped drinking, and he was helped and supported by his wife, Hannah. It sort of ties back to how prolific Weller has been over the past decade: he has been sober and, as a result, channelled a lot of himself in the music. When he spoke with The Times last year, he was asked about his sobriety and how that changed him:

“It was an ultimatum from Hannah, his (second) wife, 27 years his junior, that made him stop drinking. He had quite the industry reputation as a soak. In the mid-Noughties I used to see him in the basement bar of his record label, where, as a staff perk, every Friday from 5pm the booze was on the house for an hour. He’d arrive at lunchtime: “I’m here for the free bar.”

How has giving up changed him? “I’m just much clearer-headed and much more appreciative of what’s around me. Because with booze and drugs you get numb to a lot of things if you do it too much.”

Has it made him more creative? Some of his best albums have been made in this past decade. “I’m not convinced by that, I think you’re either creative or you’re not. I’ve never not done it [made music] because I’ve been drunk or on gear or anything. I’ve always had to work anyway, even just financially to

keep going, pay for everything”.

I think that it is time to get down to reviewing the title track from On Sunset. It is a song that I really love, and it is a shining jewel from an album that is spilling over with gold.

PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Crofts

I love Weller’s voice on the track, On Sunset. Before we hear him sing, there is some gorgeous acoustic guitar and beats that mixes with some woozy and ghost-like electronics that creates this heady mood. I was thinking about Weller cruising the streets down a Los Angeles strip; the wind blowing through his ample hair and thought heavy on his mind. The lyrics definitely enforce that impression, as the hero says: “I was gonna say hi/But no one there/There’s me forgetting/Just how long it’s been”. I am not sure whether it is an old friend on his mind, but the palm trees are swaying, and the breeze is blowing warmly. It seems like Weller wants to reconnect with someone, but maybe there is a bit of a past and a lot of history that needs to be tackled. Weller’s voice is rough and powerful as the song grooves and rolls on. I love the composition and vocal blend, and you get a real sense of location. The video is brilliant, and we see Weller driving in a convertible, as he muses and thinks things over. I imagine, when he sings of being on Sunset, he is referring to Sunset Boulevard, and that feeling of being around palm trees and a really evocative landscape. In the video, we see Weller checking his mirrors as, behind him, there is a boy riding a skateboard. It makes me think that he is contemplating getting older and addressing his past, or maybe he is reflecting on the past and how things have changed. In some ways, I can hear a bit of The Beatles’ In My Life (from Rubber Soul) in On Sunset. “And the world I knew/Has all gone by/All the places we used to go/Belong to a time/Someone else’s life/Another time” are interesting lyrics, and it is curious to speculate what has compelled Weller to think like this and think about the past.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

It is invariable that all songwriters will look at the world as it was and who they used to be, but there is such emotion and gravitas in Weller’s voice, it is hard not to be moved by it. Rather than the song being quite heavy and foreboding, there is an effortless cool in Weller’s delivery that makes On Sunset a song that offers as much hope and sunshine as it does deeper feeling. “No long goodbyes/I have no point to prove” our hero sings, and he takes a drink of whiskey and carries on. Even though Weller is in a reflective and contemplative state, he is being carried along by the sun and the breeze that continues to blow. I do love the composition as much as anything. We get that start of acoustic guitar and electronics, but then there are horns that come through and strings. It is like we are moving through different phases and scenes and, with it, there is a new soundtrack for each. The composition adds a lot of emotion and story to the song, and at the centre is Weller’s incredible voice! I think his voice sounds more impressive and impactful than it has ever done. Is On Sunset Weller driving in America and thinking about age and how life has changed, or is there something else at play? I have listened to the song a few times, and I sort of change my mind each time. I can sense a man that is surrendering to the beauty of the vista and weather, but it is clear that our hero has some things that he is questioning and pondering. Maybe mistakes have been made in the past. Perhaps Weller is noticing how the passing of time is not always a good thing. It might just be a single moment in time where the hero is letting his mind wander but, really, there is nothing to worry about. Whatever impression one gets, On Sunset is a moving and wonderful song from the album of the same name. It also goes to show that there is nobody in music quite like the iconic Paul Weller!

PHOTO CREDIT: Kmeron

I am not sure, as I say with every artist I am reviewing at this time, when Paul Weller can get on the road and bring the music to the people, but he has dates planned for next year, so go to his official website and you can find all the details. It is a pity that such a brilliant album like On Sunset will not get an airing on the stage before 2021. I actually wanted to take a slight detour before wrapping up, as Weller spoke with The Times last year about the changing role of men, his role as a father, and the #MeToo movement. It was interesting hearing Weller talk about masculinity and how things have changed since he was young:

“It’s a funny old time to be a fella, isn’t it, I begin.

“I think it’s good,” he counters. “It’s a transitional period. For a lot of men — any men that are vaguely conscious at all — they’ve had to reappraise themselves and masculinity. The gaps between men and women have got to be closer, in terms of pay and job opportunities. Everyone has to be on an equal footing. I think in the next five or 10 years, men will grow up differently. I hope so, anyway. That’s how the world gets better, how we evolve.”

His own upbringing, he says, was “a very macho sort of thing, but we live in a different time now. My own kids are very much more sussed. Our family is so mixed as well, we’re like a proper rainbow nation, so it might be different for us,” he adds, referring to the mixed heritage of his eldest two children and his eldest son, who is gay”.

That is a bit of an excursion, but I felt it important to bring it in, just to highlight another side to a brilliant artist. Make sure you listen to On Sunset – and buy it if you can -, as it is a remarkable album, and one of Weller best from the past decade. There is no stopping the man, and one can perfectly imagine another album arriving in the next year or two. He is definitely on form right now, and it is so wonderful to see! I shall leave things there but, having grown up listening to The Jam and Paul Weller, I am stunned that he is still putting out so original and interesting music. It is testament to a man who has a lot to say and is in a very good place right now. Long may that continue as, with Paul Weller in the world, we all feel…

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Nodland

MUCH richer.

___________

Follow Paul Weller

PHOTO CREDIT: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

Official:

https://www.paulweller.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/paulwellerhq

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/paulwellerofficial/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/paulwellerhq/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Lf3LOZp3U3u2f6cWMd3AH?si=PBudr9S9R2el98Ruq4gHFw

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/paulwellertv

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Paul Weller

TRACK REVIEW: Jessie Ware - Soul Control

TRACK REVIEW:

  

Jessie Ware

PHOTO CREDIT: Samantha Casolari

Soul Control

9.7/10

The track, Soul Control, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPwIcHqg8o

GENRES:

Disco/Pop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The album, What’s Your Pleasure?, is available here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/jessie-ware/what-s-your-pleasure

RELEASE DATE:

26th June, 2020

PRODUCERS:

Benji B/James Ford/Joseph Mount/Matthew Tavares

LABELS:

PMR/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope

TRACKLISTING:

Spotlight

What’s Your Pleasure?

Ooh La La

Soul Control

Save a Kiss

Adore You

In Your Eyes

Step Into My Life

Read My Lips

Mirage (Don't Stop)

The Kill

Remember Where You Are

__________

SO many great albums…

PHOTO CREDIT: Carlijn Jacobs

have come out the past few weeks, and it is hard to keep a track! Many people have been waiting excitedly for a new Jessie Ware album, as 2017’s Glasshouse was truly tremendous. Her new record, What’s Your Pleasure?, is out now, and it is picking up some wonderful reviews! I really like Ware’s sound, and there is a mix of the uplifting and more emotive that ones hears on her latest album. Like all great artists, Ware has progressed between albums and grown stronger and more confident. I am going to bring in a selection of interviews through this review that illustrate my point and discuss Ware from a number of different angles – to get a better impression and overview of this terrific artist. 2012’s Devotion is a brilliant debut, but I think Ware grew as a songwriter and performer after that album. When she spoke with The Guardian earlier in the year, Ware talked about the changes between albums:

“She made a decision when she was making her second and third albums, Tough Love (2014) and Glasshouse (2017), to experiment with a more confessional style of songwriting. Ware has been with her partner, Sam Burrows, a personal trainer, since they were both 17-year-old ravers in south London. On autobiographical tracks such as Night Light and Sam, she wrote about them meeting, marrying and having their first child in 2016. But neither Tough Love nor Glasshouse did as well as her debut, and Ware says she lost quite a bit of money on a US tour in 2018.

“On the first album, lots of wonderful things happened to me. Then, with album two, album three, I saw a different side. It was a bit more of a struggle. Fine. Nobody owed me anything. It was music, not saving lives. I always thought I’d be quite matter-of-fact about it, if the music didn’t work out. But people around me – people I trust – would say: ‘You’re miserable’”.

It must have been difficult arriving with this popular and excellent debut and figuring out how to top that. Inevitably, there were suggestions and offers from other writers and producers. Though Jessie Ware has always worked with collaborators, I think something changed after her debut album. Though her second and third albums are excellent, maybe there was not quite the same brilliance in the creative kitchen as there was with Devotion. Perhaps something changed with Ware in terms of her direction and sound – it is hard to put a finger on it. To me, I feel her latest album is her most complete and singular. It is a culmination of her previous work, with some added wonder. When she was interviewed by The Independent recently, Ware talked about her new material and how she feels like a better and more rounded artist:

“She shunned offers of writing in expensive studios in Los Angeles to work with her friend James Ford – who had produced her 2014 album Tough Love – in his attic studio in Clapton, as well as with collaborators including Kindness, Joseph Mount from Metronomy and her former mentor, Dave Okumu. The experience, she says, gave her faith in her own vision. “I totally feel like an artist now,” she says. “This album really cemented that for me. I do feel like I’m getting better as an artist, I understand myself better than ever”.

I will not labour this point too much, but I thought it would be beneficial talking about artistic evolution and changes when investigating What’s Your Pleasure? I am going to tackle my favourite song from the album very soon, but I want to stick on the topic of Ware’s progression. As I said, I think What’s Your Pleasure? is the artist really hitting her peak, but I look back at her previous album, Glasshouse, and it was clear that she had transitioned and really made a leap there.

That is not to say albums one and two were less personal and complete, yet Glasshouse represented a real explosion and sense of revelation. Ware spoke with Nylon when she was promoting Glasshouse, and she was asked about the tone and personal nature of the album – in addition to the way Ware developed as a songwriter:

“Do you feel more confident with your songwriting? It does seem like you were in a different headspace.

Yes. I had more confidence in myself. I feel like a woman. I feel like I’ve grown into myself lyrically, professionally, and I feel much more in my skin. I also have a bit more experience. [On] the last album, were the first songs I had ever written. I have three years behind me now.

How does Glasshouse differ from Tough Love when it comes to the process of making it and the sound?

I feel like it’s more song-led. I wanted to focus on songs and the art of the songs. I just really wanted to get better as a songwriter.

What does your husband think about the songs that address the struggle you guys experienced?

I don’t think he realizes how many songs are about him, which is kind of brilliant. He’s not really focused on my work, which is great. He comes to support. Maybe he will [realize it] when he sees them live”.

I want to move on now, as there is a lot more to Jessie Ware than the music alone. I think her personal life enforces her music as much as any artist, and I will discuss her podcast, Table Manners, soon enough. Like so many musical parents, children impact songwriting and how you approach your work. For Jessie Ware, it must be a bit of a busy time in the household, what with looking after children and still being under lockdown!

PHOTO CREDIT: You Magazine

I do think there is a lot of creativity and songwriting inspiration to be found regarding motherhood, but the recent situation has been impactful on Ware. I was looking at an interesting interview on the Glamour website, where Ware was asked about all her different projects, motherhood and what impact that has had on her:

“Becoming the mother to two children, has clearly given Jessie an even more positive relationship with her body. “I've never felt more like a super woman than when I've given birth,” she says proudly. “I've had two incredible births, which I really prepped for. I know it can go completely the other way and you never really know how that baby's going to make an entrance. But I looked after myself during the pregnancies, because I felt like I was getting ready for this big marathon, that felt like the unknown!”

With a new album to promote, a podcast that has now spawned a successful cookbook which is of course named, Table Manners and two children under the age of five, Jessie Ware is booked and busy even when the world is still very much lockdown. In this time is she finally relenting on the pressures to do it all as a working mother?

“I don't know if I have loosened up enough. I'm the provider. Actually, I'm more than that. I am the breadwinner and I'm proud to be the breadwinner, and my husband is accepting and supportive of that, and he's the most incredible father. There are no egos there and he knows how motivated I am. Just last night in bed I had a new idea and he's like, ‘Your mind doesn't stop.’ He’s exhausted by me, but also, he's completely supportive of that, too. There’s still this archaic presumption that it should be the other way around, weird, isn't it?” she says, turning the question onto me”.

I will mention Table Manners soon but, as I am writing a feature about continued sexism in music very soon, it is a subject that niggles. I wonder why, after so many years, there have only been small steps regarding equality and balance. I have just sourced from an interview that mentions Ware’s children and juggling quite a busy life. Ware is still a young artist with many years ahead of her but, like her peers, I do think there is this invisible line that they cross – something male artists do not have to face! It seems outrageous that age is a detrimental factor when we think about women in music, and how they are often marginalised when they get to a certain point in life. One would argue that Ware’s new material is her strongest, and her experience, success and motherhood has made her a stronger artist that warrants greater respect and opportunity. As she revealed in the afore-quoted Glamour interview, there are still these barriers:

“I agree, if I was talking to a male star, we would never be having a conversation about how a working father copes with childcare and a career. Jessie thinks sexism is still rife in the music industry and beyond. “They don't ask men how they're going to tour with their children, do they? But you get used to it, you take it with a pinch of salt, and it's also something that I struggled to work out. I once got told that I was being really emotional (in a meeting), and I was being really not-emotional, and I wonder whether they would have said that to a bloke. I didn't rise to it, and I was very calm,” she states. “But you know, it happens. I definitely think there's more of a shelf life for women. I don't want to sound negative because actually I'm able to make the music I want to make, but I'm madly thought of as relatively old and I'm 35!”

It might not seem relevant to mention a podcast when discussing Jessie Ware’s music, but I think the experience of doing that has given her confidence and inspiration. I have listened to the Table Manners podcast a couple of times, and it seems like Ware is really in her element. It is a relaxed forum where we really get to see new sides to Ware, as we do with her guests. I do think the conversations and stories unearthed during each episode has bled into Ware’s consciousness as a songwriter and how she writes. Maybe there is a more conversational and varied approach to her writing and sound now; she has definitely taken something from Table Manners and brought it into the musical fold. As we learn from this recent article in The Guardian, Ware has created a sensation in Table Manners:

“Most of the guests on Table Manners have a drink while they are on, and their hosts certainly do. This means that episodes play out a bit like a Parkinson chat show, only recorded by the catering table with many glasses of red, no scripted questions, no pre-prepared anecdotes and endless conversational tangents. The comedian Alan Carr spilled the beans about his wedding (chief celebrant, Adele), while singer Sam Smith admitted he had always thought Mexico was in central Europe. Sadiq Khan broke the Ramadan fast with the Wares. Yannis Philippakis from the band Foals spoke about getting stabbed by his uncle at a party.

Listeners loved all this, and about 80m episodes of Table Manners have been downloaded since 2017. Ware, who has not yet had a top-10 single, got to experience a smash. The publisher Ebury signed the two Wares to a book deal. A live tour was arranged. Since Table Manners started turning a profit, Ware says, it has relieved some of the money-making imperatives on the music. “Music was my bread and butter. Now it isn’t, not entirely – which has made it more enjoyable. Less do or die”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Maurizio Bavutti

Think about previous albums, motherhood, and the Table Manners podcast, and it all is linked by one word: confidence. Success of previous years has contributed too, but I feel it is Ware’s life away from music that has helped enrich and infuse her songwriting and material. I do think that, if you are more confident and less inhibited as a person, that means the music will be stronger and more nuanced. That is definitely the case with the excellent What’s Your Pleasure? It is an album that is rich with remarkable songs, and at the centre is Ware at her most astonishing and committed. It seems like everything has come together for Ware, and she is more content and comfortable than she has ever been. When she chatted with The Telegraph a few months back, she reflected on her life now:

“She intended the album to sound carefree, and it does, gloriously. After years battling with low self-esteem, Ware, now 35, finally feels comfortable in her own skin. The music amply captures that shift in outlook. Though she had an easy ride as a teenager (despite her parents’ divorce, which was “rubbish”), she found her twenties hard. “I think you find out more about yourself [at that age]”, she muses. “And maybe you don’t like everything you find. But now I have a beautiful family, and I feel like my career is getting better and better. I feel very, very lucky”.

Maybe Ware’s current golden form is a result of natural evolution and personal growth, but I feel there is more than that. Credit must be given to Jessie Ware herself, who has made some big decisions, and really allowed herself more freedom from her early days. I am not suggesting her first few albums lacked a certain magic, but the true Jessie Ware can be heard across What’s Your Pleasure? It is an album that clicks from the opening track, and it never relents.

I want to bring in an interview Ware conducted with the BBC earlier this month, as it sort of underlines and emphasises what I was just saying. In the interview, Ware reveals how things have altered and improved in terms of her sound and approach to music:

"For so long I was so scared and nervous," she says. "Like on the first album, I dressed up to hide myself. I'd have my hair done and my power suit, and it was all about trying to make me feel more confident.

"I even hid my 'big voice' on the first record because I didn't particularly want to show it off. But then I worked with [producer] Benny Blanco who was like, 'You've got a voice, sing out a bit more,' so I did a song like Say You Love Me.

"This time I'm going back to this hushed voice - but it's so much more controlled and decisive. And now, playing dress-up is just for sheer fun, because I guess I'm not so nervous anymore.

It was the podcast that allowed her to be herself. It might even have forced her hand. After all, it's difficult to convey a sense of mystique when you've been publicly berated by your mum for not showering.

"I don't feel like I need to prove anything any more," says Ware. "I feel very comfortable and confident".

This sort of brings us up to date and at the glistening feet of What’s Your Pleasure? As the album has been out a couple of days, it has scooped a lot of reviews. I have not seen anything below a four-star review, which suggests universal acclaim! I do wonder whether the album has been submitted for consideration for this year’s Mercury Prize, as I think What’s Your Pleasure? is in with a real shout of winning. I think the combination of uplifting vibes, big songs and a real blend in terms of emotions and subject matter means What’s Your Pleasure? reaches a wide audience and, whether you need to feel roused and energised or require a tender moment, you have options!

One of the great things about Jessie Ware is that she can deliver these very distinct and personal albums whilst moving into new sonic space. One cannot easily compare What’s Your Pleasure? with Devotion, for instance. The most noticeable change from the debut to now is the size of the sound. On her latest album, Ware sounds bigger and more alive than before; exploring Disco and some sounds of the 1980s to create this very spirited and sumptuous listen. She spoke with The Cut recently, and she was asked about this change of pace:

“I’m a fan of your music, and this is so much more disco dancy than the others. Why did you go in that direction?

I think it was a reaction to doing an incredibly autobiographical record last time. I started out in dance music, that’s where I got my voice heard. It was a return to that. I think I really needed it. I really wanted to do the live capacity as well, so then there’s the irony that I’m probably never going to be able to tour this record. But I wanted that element of the tempo, and I felt like my fans really would enjoy that. It seemed like it would be really fun to be able to provide them with something that wasn’t a ballad.

What musical inspirations were in your mind for the album?

It was everyone from Minnie Riperton to Mary Jane Girls, Louis Taylor, Lisa Stansfield, we went everywhere. When James Ford [musician and producer] and I were making the record, I was like, What about this tune? We do a lot of back-and-forth, playing groove tunes and disco tunes. I learned a lot, and he introduced me to a lot. With “What’s Your Pleasure,” the title track, when we were writing it, I could imagine Kylie Minogue singing this, and then it’s got a bit of Blondie in there, too. There’s so much going on. It felt limitless”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Adam Golder

I am fascinated examining changes between albums and what enforces an artist’s palette and mindset, and what reasons lie behind change. I will drop in a few more interview bits through this review, as it is important to hear from Jessie Ware (and me) to get a fuller impression of What’s Your Pleasure? It is primed to be one of this year’s best-reviewed albums. Whilst Ware’s new album has plenty of herself in it, I do not think it is as confessional and personal as previous albums. Ware spoke with Complex and she touched upon that:

“Does What’s Your Pleasure? communicate anything personal about you, or did you want to create more of an atmosphere with the music?

I think there is a way of expressing yourself that doesn’t have to be incredibly autobiographical. There is confidence in this music, and the coherency of this music when you hear it says a lot about me as an artist, telling a story about my day-to-day life. My last record was all about me being a new mother, the struggles in relationships, and this time I didn’t need to do that again. There are some autobiographical songs, and this album does talk about my development as to where I am at as an artist... I am a celebration of my new self-confidence, and that’s exciting. I have never really felt that confident, but now I feel like I have possibly made my best record and everything is alright. I’m going to start enjoying it properly. I didn’t care if I made my best record when I started; pieces fell together, and I was happy. In two years, we wrote so many songs, it was hard to edit the album down. At the moment, I’m feeling like this is my best record, but I didn’t set out to achieve that. I just wanted to make music that felt good to dance to”.

It is no shock What’s Your Pleasure? resonates at this time, as there is a sense of escapism, fun and energy that we all need. More than that, the album does make you think and reflect in addition to feeling lifted and motivated. The songs are so effective and instant, but they stand up to repeated listens!

It is a summation for Ware, and one that I think she will build from; keep moving and progressing as an artist with a lot more years in front of her. I feel a lot of modern music has a dour and depressed façade, so it is always nice to embrace artists that want to sprinkle in something with optimism and sunshine! Artists such as Dua Lipa and Róisín Murphy are particularly good at creating songs that raise the temperature and put a smile on the face. The last interview I want to quote from in this section is with The Independent – one that I dropped in a bit earlier on in the review. The nature of What’s Your Pleasure? was commented upon:

“On What’s Your Pleasure?, she sounds like she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be. It’s one for kitchen discos, a socially distanced garden bop, a Zoom vogue-off. Its songs echo the grown-up, slick synth-pop of Robyn and Róisín Murphy; sleek disco numbers with a touch of dusty soul, a frisson of refined cheese, a nod to Bananarama, echoes of Andy Warhol’s Polaroids of downtown New York and a Nineties hairstyle that led one fan to tweet “My sexuality is @JessieWare’s slicked back high-pony”. Whereas once the music industry didn’t know what to do with pop music made by anyone over 30, now Ware’s appeal is broad: her music is rated by Pitchfork as easily as it is played on Radio 1 or Radio 2.

Ware has said that she wanted this record to make “people want to dance, flirt and have sex” and some critics have drawn a line between its club-readiness and the dancefloor focus of her first album, 2012’s Devotion. Was that something she had in mind? Doing “so many f***ing interviews feels like therapy”, she says, adopting a voice to suggest she’s mock-psychoanalysing herself. “Maybe, subconsciously, I enjoyed the feeling of anticipation and excitement that I got when I first entered into doing music and being a featured vocalist so much that I subconsciously wanted to go back to that naivety, when things were less pressured”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Samantha Casolari

Soul Control is a brilliant track, and one that sort of defines and encapsulates everything that makes What’s Your Pleasure? such a rewarding and memorable listen. Five singles have already been released from What’s Your Pleasure?, but I wonder whether Soul Control will be the sixth – or whether enough has come out of the album, and it would seem like overkill. Regardless, I do think Soul Control is a natural standout. Soul Control spares no time in getting under the skin. The introduction is a cocktail of bubbling synth notes that has this lightness that trips and dizzies. It is a fast and joyful noise that gets the feet moving and the energy flowing. In terms of time period, there is no doubt that the Disco of the 1970s and the Pop of the 1980s plays a role. One can almost imagine Soul Control being spun in a Disco joint back in the day, or appearing on Madonna’s debut album! I do feel introduction are crucial in hooking the listener and setting the scene, and Soul Control is a masterclass in making an instant impact! Ware’s vocal enters, and there is a welcomes cool and soothe to it. I think if her vocal was too charged and hot, it might overload the senses or throw too much energy in there. As it is, we get this blend of the colourful composition and a more restrained vocal – for now at least! It is clear that Ware is under a very seductive and heady spell: “Can't take my eyes off of you tonight/You're moving like a waterfall/Rush into my life, stay a little while/'Cause I know that we could have it all”. Ware’s voice becomes more elastic, widened and accelerated as the pre-chorus comes in, and there is a further gear shift for the chorus itself. Soul Control is a song that builds and builds, and you can feel a palpable increase in energy, whilst this wonderful story is being played out. Backed by some bubbling notes and an excellent score, Ware take the listener by the hand.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rex Features

I really like the chorus, as it has a great hook, and Ware sound completely committed. The lyrics are simple, but it makes me wonder what the ‘soul control’ refers to: “Soul control, that's how you want it/Soul control, that's how I give it to you/Soul control, that's how you want it/Soul control, that's how I give it to you”. One can see those lyrics as a seductive call, but there might be something deeper at play. I was hooked by the emotion and passion coming from Ware’s voice; the way Ware trips the vocals and gives the words so much movement. In way, there are comparisons to Róisín Murphy regarding delivery and vocal intonations, yet Ware very much has her style and skin – though the two artists are friends, and it is great that we have these two very strong and wonderful artists that can deliver these huge Disco-themed songs. It is obvious that there is a palpable electricity between Ware and her man - “Baby, it's automatic/We touch and it feels like magic” -, and there is a mutual attraction. One of the best things about Soul Control is how the lyrics are simple-yet-relatable. In many ways, Soul Control could have come from the 1970s in terms of the story told, but one knows every word means something real for Ware. “You can't take your eyes off of me tonight/Tell me what you came here for” is Ware beckoning and moving; one can feel the heat building in the room as the electronics bubble, swoon, and buzz. Ware’s voice is layered, and you get this great blend of cool-and-soothing and more syncopated lines. I think music is at its strongest when it can connect with every listener and has a positive flair. That is just my opinion, but I instantly gravitate to music that is alive and makes you want to move. Ware never relents in her desire to find satisfaction and surrender to the heat of the moment. By the time the bridge arrives, I think Ware is at her most determined and awed: “And I wanna give you all my love/I'm addicted to these nights”. Like most songs on What’s Your Pleasure?, it is hard to find any fault with Soul Control. It keeps moving and shaking from first to last, and there is an infectiousness from Ware that is hard to refute. The song could rank alongside the Disco classics, but it has a modern aesthetic and personal relevance that means it is not just a throwback. One will wan to spin Soul Control over and over, as it definitely elevates the mood, and you will find yourself dancing and singing along!

I am not sure what the rest of 2020 holds in store for Jessie Ware. She will be keen to do gigs and get out and see people, but so much has been placed on hold until next year. It is a shame, but there is not a lot that can be done! Like some artists, Ware could have held her album back until later in the year but, as we are all in need of some respite and relief, she was compelled to put What’s Your Pleasure? into the world. When she spoke with Her about the album, Ware discussed the reason for putting it out in June:

“Jessie says her label were open to postponing the release of her new record until after the pandemic, but she didn't want to hold on - for that reason alone.

"Disco dance groove, that's what I've been really wanting to listen to in this time," she says.

"So why would I not put out a record that was ready? It was a no brainer. I think everyone is discussing music in a different way during lockdown. I definitely am."

Like the rest of us, Jessie has taken some of her time in lockdown to up-skill. She started with sourdough (which she is "killing"), and has since moved onto styling her daughter's hair.

"I'm working on the French plait," she says. "That's kind of my lockdown thing now".

Go and buy the album if you can – there is a link at the top of the review -, or stream if not. What’s Your Pleasure? is one of 2020’s best releases, and it is one that we all need right now! The songs are brilliantly alive and fulsome; one listens to them, and they cannot help but be moved and affected. It is a stunning thing, and I wonder where Ware goes from here. Of course, there will be more albums, and I wonder whether she will change her sound or stick with a Dance/Disco template. It is intriguing to speculate. I shall leave things there, but I was very keen to review Soul Control, as it is my favourite track from an album packed with jams and gems! Go out and get What’s Your Pleasure? as it is an album that is guaranteed…

TO keep the sunshine burning bright.

___________

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