TRACK REVIEW:
Joy Crookes
The album, Skin, is available here:
https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/joy-crookes/skin
ORIGIN:
London, U.K.
RELEASE DATE:
15th October, 2021
LABELS:
Insanity/Speakerbox/Sony
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IN this review…
I get to spotlight and investigate a fantastic young talent. Joy Crookes is someone who I have been following for a little while. Yesterday, Crookes did an in-store at Resident in Brighton, and everyone was queuing to get (her) records signed. They were eager to chat with her. It is a sign of her popularity and musical power that there is such love and demand for her! I am going to work my way up to details about her new, just-released debut album, Skin. I have selected a track from it to review. There is a lot to uncover and explore regarding Joy Crookes. There is an interview from GQ from earlier this year where Crookes is asked (among other questions) a couple of interesting things:
“The first time you realised you wanted to be a musician…
Never. I don’t think I ever had that moment. This was like a slippery accident. You can’t be what you can’t see and the closest person I looked like on TV was Pocahontas. Maybe I could find some representation in MIA, but I just didn’t think music was a job. I didn’t have music in my family. My grandma was in the choir at church, but that was the closest thing I had. As much as I’m creative, I’m also very pragmatic and my thoughts were that this wasn’t really a thing that people did.
How do you earn money from that? There was that classic immigrant mentality of “How am I going to make this work?” I worked part time and then, slowly, it became clear that that was something I could potentially do. I left school at 16 and that might have been the first time when I thought, “I’m going to give this a shot.” I think that also relates to the immigrant mentality, because when you get an opportunity, you’re like, “I’m going to try it, because if I don’t, I might regret it. I have to try my best.” My alternative plan was to study history at university.
The first record you ever bought…
I think the first record I ever bought was Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. I was really obsessed with HMV. As much as I’ve grown up with phones, I was still the generation that [would] go and buy physical CDs. So I used to be at HMV every week on a Wednesday and I think that was when my genuine interest in music was rife. My dad used to take me there from when I was really, really young and we just used to go in and talk with the people that worked there. I remember when James Blake’s album first came out and they were like, “Oh, I’m not sure about his voice.” I was like, “You’re dumb. He’s going to be amazing! Watch when he becomes huge”.
I want to spend some time Crookes’ early career and her young exposure to music. ACCLAIM highlighted Crookes as an exciting rising talent recently. She was bitten by the music bug at a really young age it seems:
“When your mum left the house as a kid, you used to play guitar and write songs. What do you think originally pushed you to pick up that guitar when your mum was out?
Curiosity, I think, and boredom. There wasn’t much thought behind it. It was just like here’s another thing I could do. Let me just give it a go.
How did your career start building, did you start posting on Soundcloud?
It was Youtube, I did covers and then I did my own songs here and there between the covers, and then one of the covers did semi-well and I got management through that, and then I would be posting on Soundcloud and stuff and then yeah, it was just a really slow-burning process from there.
Do you remember the first songs you wrote or do you try and forget?
No, I remember a lot of them. I wrote one when I was 12 about clouds being a metaphor for depression and when the clouds cleared up so did my brain.
Your family seems to play a huge role in your music. What did they think when you started pursuing it?
I guess they were like me, they didn’t understand how it was a job, which is understandable cause I don’t come from a background, in the sense, that none of my family were in particularly creative roles so, you know, it was like, “but how does 1 + 1 equal 2?” kind of mentality. Which I understand, cause if I had a child I’d be the exact same. So it wasn’t that they weren’t supportive but I think they were just quite sceptical”.
If you need any proof that Crookes has exploded onto the scene and already has been taken to heart, DIY interviewed the rising star earlier this month. Even though she has gained popularity and is celebrated, Crookes has not compromised her vision when it comes to her debut album, Skin:
“Since the release of her debut single ‘New Manhattan’, then aged just 17, South Londoner Joy Crookes has been adhering to the mantra that slow and steady really does win the race. Nominated for the BRITs Rising Star Award in 2019, she’s sold out multiple shows across the UK and Europe, played Glastonbury and drip-fed a trio of EPs. Only now, however, is the 22-year-old readying the biggest step of all.
“All those notable achievements gave me imposter syndrome. I was so grateful, of course - but I don’t rely on external validation. It’s just not who I am,” she explains. “If anything, it makes me go the other way and go, ‘Fuck - now, we need something else out of me!’ That terrifies me.”
However, daunting as the prospect may have been, Joy has stuck to her guns, taking the time to fully flesh out narratives for this month’s debut album ‘Skin’. It’s a record that sees the singer tackle heartbreak, self-identity and the pains of growing up with an astonishing vulnerability. Full of openness and depth, ‘Skin’ brims with nostalgia, but delivers it in a manner that feels deeply personal - often to a point that’s almost too close to the bone, such as on the sensitive ‘To Lose Someone’ or opener ‘I Don’t Mind’.
PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Fieber
“It’s funny, because though lots of thinking goes into the music and lyrics, it’s just as important not to think,” Joy considers. “That’s where the nostalgia comes from - when I’m writing lyrics and I’m not thinking, it’s my subconscious doing [the talking]. The best thing it can do is flow.”
It’s an unassuming way of describing her process, but there’s evidently far more going on here than merely channelling the vibes. Her journey has been a constant evolution of self-understanding, of slowly piecing herself together. “Actually, none of this has anything to do with music - it’s to do with myself and my own healing. I think naturally, that just kind of seeped into my music because I was taking such a personal angle on everything,” she says thoughtfully. “The feeling of longing is something that I’ve always meddled with. Because of my mixed identity and heritage, but also the people I’m attracted to, and growing up in South London - an environment where suffering was such a normal thing. And I think because my life has always been a little bit polarising in places, nostalgia is something that gives me a home when I have nothing else to hold on to”.
Whilst her musical tastes are important when it comes to Crookes, her heritage and background is also vital. South London is particularly instrumental regarding Crookes’ passion and sound. This subject was discussed in an interview with CLASH a couple of months ago:
“Joy is a South Londoner of Bangladeshi and Irish heritage, and this inevitably influences her sound and the nature of the storytelling throughout her music. You can hear numerous musical influences in her debut, from Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald to Amy Winehouse and Solange, but the album also contains a multitude of personal touches, and a very distinct sense of place that puts further emphasis on this theme of identity.
“London is always a backdrop for me because it's my home. I grew up with Portuguese people, with Caribbean people and people from West Africa – with people from all over the world. And you become a sponge, because you are just constantly surrounded by people from across the world.”
The album is a clear expression of all the things Joy grew up around and so London, in a way, becomes a character in itself, highlighting her innate interest in people and their stories. “Things that seem very normal to you like taking your shoes off when you enter an auntie's house might be very alien to someone in a different part of the world. But you pick up these gestures, you pick up these expressions, you pick up a way of living and a way of carrying yourself that just becomes your identity”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Maya Wanelik
The nature and importance of Crookes’ heritage is something that I want to stay on for now. Going back to the ACCLAIM interview, Crookes addressed her heritage. She stated why, when people ask whether her heritage influenced her music, grates. Whilst her upbringing and heritage is in her music and it is clearly at the forefront, it does not really influence her songwriting and individual songs:
“You portray your heritage either subtly or very explicitly within your music and your videos. I’m Islander, and Australian so I feel like I know what it’s like to be pigeonholed. When a publication or a platform describes you by your heritage, say Bangladeshi-Irish Londoner, how do you feel about those labels? Are there pros and cons to that?
I think it depends on the context, I mean like, I think naturally, it’s more “exotic” and “weird”, a weird mix or a country you’ve never heard of, or this and that and the other, and in that it’s annoying cause it’s like, “well actually as much as we’re called ethnic minorities we are just a global majority”, so all of you just need to have some geography lessons, even myself included clearly, but I think that the thing that pisses me off the most probably is when people ask me “How my heritage has influenced my music?” cause it’s a bit like asking me how my breakfast on the morning of writing ‘Poison’ influenced writing ‘Poison’. How the fuck am I meant to make that link, I have no idea. I’ve been this person, I can’t step back from my body. And also that question, when was Eric Clapton ever asked how has your Englishness influenced your music apart from being slightly problematic at times. I just think it’s a really non-specific question and I think that happens to me because I am someone who is of heritage – it just feels like a massive jump, it feels like I’d need six hours to answer a question like that”.
The last interview that I want to source regarding Crookes’ heritage is from Vogue. She explained how her Irish and Bangladeshi culture is incorporated into her music. There is a marked contrast between how each is represented and utilised:
“It just makes me, doesn’t it? My dual identity reflects more about me as an artist. I grew up with so many different cultures and influences around me, but it’s not as if I play the fiddle and sitar in my songs. Irish people have a real way with words, we have incredible writers like Oscar Wilde, Paddy Kavanagh, Van Morrison. Then Bangladeshi culture is different – the way we style our hair, the way we present ourselves, our mannerisms. Sure, it would be easy for me to do lots of Indian scales – they do after all, influence jazz – but I’m more about my lyrics.”
The lyrics are unapologetic and as she describes, “mad honest”. “It’s a personal challenge – I don’t do it for anyone but myself. I put a lot of pressure on myself to reveal so much. But there are some songs that reveal things to me. For example, I wrote “Don’t Let Me Down” in 10 minutes. I had the chorus in my head and the verses spilled out and then I understood things about my relationship with my ex that I didn’t when we were together,” she explained.
Though her lyrics are emotive and deep, they are also brilliantly cheeky, capturing the British wit that helped Lily Allen make her name. A powerful example being a line in "Power", where she sings: "You’re a man on a mission, but you seem to forget, you came here through a woman – show some fucking respect." Genius.
Joy dares to bare her most vulnerable self in her latest single, “Since I Left You". She revealed, “I had broken up with someone who I was with for the majority of my teens. A week after, I shot off to Bangladesh for the first time in six years, and I was extremely hurt and in a place that made me feel vulnerable, because it’s home – where my mum and ancestors are from. The video is actually based off a genuine photo that was taken in my great grandma’s village in Bangladesh – the washing line, my hair, which is a nod to my culture, how my brother was sitting. My mum walked onto set and started crying. My great grandfather is actually buried next to where the photo was taken”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Fieber
One subject that I wanted to mention was anxiety and how, for artists like Crookes, the past year or so has been especially tough. For those who live with anxiety, it has been a struggle. Coming back to the CLASH interview, Crookes revealed how she coped with anxiety and managed to channel some of it into something productive:
“I really severely suffer from anxiety,” Joy Crookes tells me over Zoom as we chat about the tumultuous events of the past year. “It's always been something I've had and I have my coping mechanisms but obviously I didn't have a coping mechanism for a fucking pandemic because I didn't know there was going to be a fucking pandemic!”
The past year has undeniably contributed to a collective rise in levels of anxiety, with isolation and feelings of uncertainty impacting even the most calm and confident of spirits. For Joy, 2020 offered a rare opportunity to stop, reflect and progress her own creativity, but it was also a natural catalyst for those intrusive thoughts. “The thing about me is that I'm very solutions-based,” she says. “In order for me to tackle my anxiety, I need discipline. I need routine and regimen and I almost act like I'm at a boarding school but I am the headmaster as well as the student.”
To manage and control those anxious feelings, Joy committed to keeping a diary throughout lockdown, where she logged everything from waking up and exercising to seeing friends and sitting down at the piano. “Because if I didn't do that,” she adds, “I physically wouldn't think I had done anything and then that would spiral my anxiety into thinking I was useless and I was lazy and I was all these things that I love to call myself in my head. I knew exactly what I was doing with my days and it felt like I had control in a time where literally the whole world lost control.”
Despite her refreshing honesty about the effects of the pandemic on her own mental health, Joy also believes that it’s been a hugely transitional year, both musically and personally. She was nominated for the Brits’ Rising Star award last year and placed fourth in BBC’s Sound Of 2020 poll, both of which hint at what’s to come for the young singer-songwriter. She’s now readying herself for the release of her debut album, which is due later this year, and is a remarkable body of work from someone that is skilled as a vocalist and musician and has a profound lyricism that displays both vulnerability and maturity.
“I think the main statement of the album is that I just want to be me,” Joy explains. “The album is about identity, and it is as specific and as complex as that. So some of the stories are informed by people that I'm very close to in my life, and some of the stories are informed by my own experience. There's a longing and there's a bittersweet nature in the album. And there's celebration, and there's reality. It's a lived experience, it's my reality, and it's my identity. And it's me performing my identity”.
Joy Crookes is an artist who brings the subject of mental-health into her music. As someone who lives with anxiety, she finds it important to represent her experiences honestly. Whilst her lyrics are raw and affecting, she is also keen to expound self-care and how vital that is. In a Hotpress interview back in 2019, the topic of mental-health arose:
“Her take-no-prisoners perspective is underpinned by often hard-hitting lyrics and sultry-yet-forceful vocals. “It comes from personal experience. I don’t sit down and go ‘I’m gonna write this political song so I seem political’. I write it because I care about something. And if something has affected me, or hurt me, or hurt a best friend, or I just don’t agree on how people are treating other people, it really comes from just a place of care.”
For the London-based singer, self-care is also extremely important. The taboo around mental health, she says, is damaging to those who are suffering.
“Don’t be afraid to talk about it,” she advises. “Don’t be afraid to feel like you’re different. It’s actually a power, more than it is a weakness. You feel more. You experience more. You’re more intelligent. And if you’re suffering, seek advice.”
As for herself, Crookes explains that addressing her mental health through music has been a cathartic experience. Much of her recent songwriting has had an introspective focus centred not only around emotional well-being but also her relationship, her home, and the interactions she has on a daily basis.
“I’m not afraid to be vulnerable. And that’s empowering in itself, too,” she asserts. “So, fuck it to people who think that being vulnerable is a bad thing. It’s a great thing, it’s very empowering.”
Taking musical inspiration from everyone from Little Simz, Tierra Whack, and BenjiFlow to The Clash and Gregory Isaacs, Crookes’s music lands on a unique island of soulful sound, influenced by R&B and hip hop and strengthened by her powerful lyricism”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Carlotta Guerra
This brings me to Crookes’ Skin. It is an amazing album that will rank alongside the finest of this year. The reviews so far have been incredibly powerful and positive. Coming back to the DIY interview, we get an idea of the sonic blends and inspirations that go into a stunning debut album:
“'Skin’ is a record that blends this core of introspection with a timeless, jazz-infused vocal. It’s also one that gets by with a little help from its friends, recording at the legendary Abbey Road with production from Blue May (Kano, Shygirl) and Stint (NAO, MØ), and collaborating with Matt Maltese for a title track co-write. “I always wanted to have a certain quality of sound with this album, and I was working with someone [Blue] who is incredible and facilitated my madness. So, when we wanted strings, we both said it must happen at Abbey Road!” she laughs. “There was a slight level of ridiculousness that we tried to go for and were allowed to go for, so we took advantage of that. And that over-ambitiousness actually ended up being achievable.”
The result is a mesmerising soundscape of soul and jazz, with a palpable orchestral atmosphere that rubs up alongside Joy’s old-school inspirations, from Young Marble Giants to Nina Simone. It’s an eclectic melting pot of everything that’s at the centre of the 22-year-old’s curious and music obsessed sonic world.
At the centre, though, remains Joy, who speaks humbly and with generosity about the process that’s led to her long-awaited first record. “I think I come across as self-assured because I'm a DIY person; if I can't find someone else to do it, I'll do it myself. But for the first time, I found a family and a community who helped me feel safer - especially when I was going into my brain demons. They believed in me and came together to create this thing,” she says. “More importantly, I fucking stuck by myself when I needed it the most. And then I had my first album in my hands! The only way to describe the feeling of that is the biggest amount of euphoria. It was the first time I ever felt proud”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Hadden for The New York Times
I want to source heavily from a BRICKS interview. They highlight tracks, and we get to learn more about the themes behind them. I especially like what Crookes said about nostalgia and what it means to her:
“Nostalgia is a theme to varying degrees throughout the album. In ‘When You Were Mine’ you say: “I don’t miss you, it’s not that way / but somebody better want me like that someday” which to me completely sums up the Catch 22 of nostalgia as a concept. It’s like, by virtue, you know that specific person and circumstance wouldn’t work if it were transposed onto today, but you also long for replication of that experience, in this instance that nostalgic love. How much do you feel nostalgia plays a part in the album?
I think I spend 96% of my life reminiscing. Nostalgia is… it’s what we said earlier, it’s a longing to belong, right? I feel like that’s just my kind of sandwich. That’s who I am. My memory is ridiculous; I can go to places I went to when I was eight or nine and remember streets and where the library is and this, that and the other. I think it’s just fundamentally a part of my blood to be nostalgic, and to long for something because I actually get a lot of kick out of longing for things. Maybe that’s quite a Bollywood part of me, I don’t know.”
You also play with scale and habitat in a way that makes it distinctly personal to you. Yes, there are plenty of references to London, but it’s not about London, it’s about the significant minutiae within the city attached to your memories that have embossed themselves on your mind, and that do the same to the listener. It’s almost like a scrapbook tour of Joy’s nostalgic London: the 19th floor of the tower, or the bakery table with the “plate of cupcakes to sugarcoat the aftertaste” in ‘Unlearn You’. What was behind the decision to zoom in and out so much throughout the album?
It’s as you said. It’s all those really small things. ‘Unlearn You’ is about my experience with assault and abuse. It’s one of the hardest songs I’ve ever written; I find it hard to talk about my experience with my past in general, so I challenged myself with writing a song about it. What I do as a human being is I deflect, so my way of deflection actually is that I will sugar coat, no pun intended, a story with “Oh and this was the colour of the cupcake” and “this is what they were doing and this is what they were wearing”, to almost push away from having to admit what I am about to say or get into the core of it. The core of that song is “I wanna unlearn you from my body”, but how did I start on cupcakes? I think it’s a deflection mechanism, and also it’s just the way that I speak as a human being. Being Irish, and Bangladeshi too, we tell stories with every fucking detail before we actually get to the point, so I think that that’s just what I’ve done, but I’ve used London as those stories.
Despite the vulnerability of the album, you also don’t suffer fools easily in it, and you don’t shy away from challenging the cast of characters we discussed earlier to have more integrity and honesty, especially relating to men. The album kicks off with “You wanted my body not my mind / not just your lover for Friday night” in ‘I Don’t Mind’ and ends on a rallying cry: “You came here through a woman, show some fucking respect. We’re your bitches we’re your hoes, we’re the people and we know, all we want to do is be accepted but we don’t,” before you finish with “You’ve got nothing on me.” Was it significant for you, aside from showing your vulnerability, to have moments of strength and power on the album?
Definitely, because it’s how I am. I am foul-mouthed and dirty-minded, I am all these things but I am also incredibly passionate and deep and love human beings, so I think that was naturally going to be the case. But I do love the statement of intent by starting the album with “You wanted my body not my mind” and ending with ‘Power’ – with the last song almost being a bonus track which has also got funny lyrics like “mattress surfing” and “bound to no beds”. It’s like, you know what, I am going to make mistakes and fundamentally, at the end of the day, I am just going to be a human being. It brings everything back to square one. My favourite people in the whole world – the artists I look up to, be that songwriters or even painters – they’re real-ass people that are kind of shit at times and do shitty things and make mistakes that I think the general human being would make. I’m obsessed with knowing that, whatever I go through as a human on a day to day basis, the people that I look up to go through the same thing too. Like Frida Kahlo, people put her on such a pedestal but she was a bit of an asshole at times, and had affairs and had a foul mouth. She wasn’t the capitalist version everyone’s made her now.
Do you think there is a sense of the political within your introspection too?
I think the political side of the album varies between the obviously political and the personal political. [The content of ‘Unlearn You’] for example is something that unfortunately so many people have to go through inside as opposed to being able to be out about it. You could almost argue that a majority of the songs have that slight political skew. I think for me to be able to be a Brown woman who speaks so openly about my sexuality, and be like, ‘well I don’t want this to be a future ting, I am also just enjoying this casual sex’ – that can also be political too”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan
Sticking with the Bricks interview, the vocals and production were introduced. The vocals are stunning and hugely memorable. The production sound is broad and seems to change between songs. It means Skin is an album that has different shades and personalities:
“Your vocals across the album are timeless in a way that the great vocalists are. In the same way that the album gives us a journey of your life up until now, your voice also carries history in it, alluding to the Nina Simones and the Ella Fitzgeralds while also kind of announcing yourself as the heir to their throne. While you were making the album, did you listen to and try to take inspiration from the great singers in the musical canon?
Not just while making the album, but when I was making myself too. The great female, Black jazz singers are my biggest inspirations because of their unapologetic and fearless voices on and off stage. I get compared to Amy [Winehouse] a lot and that’s a lovely and a great compliment, but my narrative is not anything like Amy’s narrative. My narrative is more similar to those Black women that founded Jazz because they’re talking about their skin, they’re talking about certain topics that fundamentally are not part of Amy’s experience necessarily. I am not saying my experience is the same as the greats – but that I have more of a shared experience with them than Amy. That’s not to take any credit away from Amy – it’s just something that can annoy me sometimes because it’s definitely those women like Nina [Simone], like Ella [Fitzgerald], like Sarah Vaughn that give me that… fire. I’ve been watching their old videos since I was 14, so it’s a part of my makeup.
PHOTO CREDIT: ASOS x Nike
The production is versatile throughout the album; at some points it’s very maximalist and it almost sounds like there’s a whole live band behind you, and at others, it’s pared-back so it’s just your voice acapella. The result is very experiential – almost like being plunged into a sort of whirlpool. I remember going to Houston a few years ago for Solange’s album launch and, in the Q+A afterwards, she expressed frustration at being referred to as a singer when, in actual fact, she had spent hours on end trying to find the perfect drum sample for a song, or the perfect strings. I know you had a strong hand in the album’s production, and I wondered whether you ever experienced a similar annoyance at being labelled as a singer when, in actual fact, the way you express yourself in your music is so much more than just that?
It’s a bit of an ‘is the Pope Catholic?’ situation, you know? I hate proving myself, but also it makes me feel like my dick grows bigger when people find out. I am completely on Solange’s side, that’s why I love Solange. Her entire musicality is her, her entire vision is her, her entire brand is her and it’s the same with me. I’m across everything to the point that I was there doing the mastering for the album. Also, funnily enough, I am credited as the co-executive producer on the album. So, it’s fucking lit, you know?”.
PHOTO CREDIT: George Voronov
Prior to coming to a song from Skin that I want to spend some time with, I will stick on lyrical themes a bit longer. Race and politics are covered strikingly and memorably on songs through the album. In this interview, we learn about the way in which Crookes discusses politics and race – one of Skin’s finest tracks, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, is particularly stirring and timely:
“Like her heroes, her most condemning songs have been the ones to win her widespread acclaim, such as rhythmic, Motown-esque anthem “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now”, a critique of social media activism amid the Black Lives Matter protests last year. “The beauty about a song is you can immortalise that moment in time,” she says. “I was having conversations with my friends who were traumatised at the time and I was thinking, how do I be the best ally but also how do I make sure that I'm not making anything necessarily about me? How am I making sure that I'm using empathy as a fuel to fight and also, why the fuck is this person from my school pretending that they care when I know full well that something dodgy or racist would have happened to me in front of this person? Everyone is guilty of it, and there are times where I definitely haven't said things and plenty of times that I should have. I think that if you grew up in the UK, you're racist, whether you want to agree with it or not. You grew up with the British curriculum. We just have to admit – before we make any progress – we're all shit, and be okay with making mistakes”.
Also on the album is “Kingdom”, her biting track written and uploaded straight to Instagram in reaction to the last general election, with lyrics denouncing her perceived bleakness of the future: “No such thing as a Kingdom when tomorrow's done for the children.” When I bring up the motive for the creation of the song, she is impassioned and furious, like so many others. “I think it’s just fucked up because it's been, what, 12 years of Tory austerity? It's got to end at some point. But at the same time, the reality of it ending is…” she pauses, trying to gather her words. “No one fucking likes Keir Starmer. There's no opposition. For me, it really feels like there's no hope. Like I really can't keep relying on Stormzy to be sending Black people to Oxford.” She turns to her friend, who is sitting next to her offscreen, and incredulous laughter erupts from them both as Joy positions herself next to a window to smoke a rolled cigarette.“Why is Stormzy doing the work? Is that not fucking insane – and Marcus Rashford? That in our country, with one of the highest GDPs in the world and crazy rates of poverty at the very same time – you're telling me that footballers and rappers are feeding kids and sending kids to school? That is an indication of a fucked country”.
I want to select the song, Trouble, for special consideration. This is a song that has two different phases at the start. In the intro, we hear a voice: “Trouble’s the same as, same as/Trouble’s the same as mine, as mine”. It is quite a lo-fi vocal and sparse sound that then leads into the first chorus. The sound is fuller, and the vocal is warmer and faster. Crookes’ performance in the chorus is expressive, beautiful and soulful. She is someone who has aspects of her musical heroines in the blend - though she has her distinct sound and style that means her music is so instantly memorable and appealing. I love the lyrics in the chorus: “You’re all that I need/But we break every time/Birds of feather fly together/Your trouble’s the same as mine/You’re all that I need (Need)/But we break every time (Every time)/Birds of feather fly together/Your trouble’s the same as mine”. It seems that, if the lyrics relate to a relationship, it is one that has been fairly tumultuous and up and down. The two, it seems, share one another’s troubles. There is an intensity, yet there is also passion, tenderness and understanding. I really like the first verse and how there is this great sound. The drums sort of trip and roll like a Trip-Hop/Jazz track. It is a great percussive sound that is accompanied by some deep-sounding brass. Crookes’ vocal is typically soulful and rich. She brings so much life and potency to the words. One is helpless but be caught up: “You have me love with difficulty/It’s in the ringtone when you call me/When we go, it’s like tsunami/Runnin’ your mouth with that malarkey/Well let me take the lead and I’ll show/I’m Villanelle to your Sandra Oh/It’s only for the drama I know/Bitter to sweet the way that we flow/So I play for your reaction/Then you throw your cheap distraction/Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah/Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah”.
The sense of personality and originality in the lyrics is another distinct aspect of Crookes’ music. She is someone who writes in her own way and one cannot compare to other artists. The roll, funkiness and swagger of the composition takes us into the chorus. With a catchy and compelling composition that will get under the skin and stay in the head, the chorus the second time around seems to have more meaning and backstory. The second verse is assuredly compelling and filled with excellent lyrics: “Bass turn up, can’t hear what we say/Speakers are talking maybe we can tolerate/Cut deep when we play/You’re at your best when I’m in my worst way/Heat’s rising, stay silent/Can we stop trouble mining/We act like the wildest/Really we’re the same, don’t know why we try to hide it”. Listening to Crookes deliver her words, one can hear bits of Reggae, Jazz, R&B, Dancehall and Rap. It is a wonderful and heady brew that makes Trouble such an intriguing and hugely nuanced song. The chorus mantra and message is repeated as we head towards the end of the song. The more that I listen to Trouble, the more that I get from it. At first listen, I was hooked by the composition and all the sounds in the mix. Going back, it was Crookes’ vocal and lyrics prowess that struck me hardest. One can hear many examples through Skin of songs that have these layers and impact one in different ways. Trouble is my favourite song from the album, and it is a prime example of Joy Crookes’ talent and huge promise.
Before finishing up, I am going back to the Refinery29 interview. Even at such a young age, Crookes is a voice of her generation:
“It’s the telling name of the debut album from the 23-year-old musician. A triumphant body of work, it delves into the very DNA of the artist: her lived experiences as a woman but also as a south Londoner with Irish-Bangladeshi heritage, and as a young person living in the UK, working in the music industry.
“Biologically and scientifically your skin is one of the strongest organs in your body,” she continues. “But socially and externally, your identity is something that can be used against you. I like that juxtaposition between strong and weak, and it’s something that I grapple with a lot on the album.”
Tender and soulful, Joy’s music feels like an intimate conversation between friends at that hazy point of the night that meets the morning, where words are hushed and impassioned and the floor is an open forum for honesty. Through her vulnerable storytelling she offers a nuanced exploration of her multiracial identity, while observing 21st century anxieties and issues, which in a year like the one we’ve just had, is affirming.
It’s no surprise that she has garnered a steadfast fanbase. With just one album under the belt, she is a speakerphone for generational discontent and, whether or not people want to admit it, the face of what Britain looks like now. In between taking to the stage at The BRITs in a lehenga (a traditional Indian garment), singing about mental health, abuses of power and casual sex, and even penning a scathing song the day after the Conservative party won the last general election, her music is positioned to engage in the world around and galvanise”.
Staying with this interview, Crookes was asked about the future. There will be a lot of eyes on her as she has released such an impressive debut album:
“She hasn’t started working on new music yet but has been into “writing ideas and stuff”, namely covering songs again, almost a return to her YouTube roots. She tells me that the night before our conversation, she was playing around with an old country song called “Neon Moon” by Brooks & Dunn, which has since been covered by Kacey Musgraves and Cigarettes After Sex. Billie Holiday’s “You Go To My Head” has also had the Joy treatment. When I ask her if she would ever make country music, she tells me she would never write it off. “What it always comes down to is if the song is good,” she confirms.
Joy Crookes is poised to be the voice of a generation. It’s evident the music and the messages spill out of her as a matter of urgency – and whether she’s up for the job, there’s no doubt about it. “I just really like the idea of longevity. And I'd like my music to get more unapologetic.” She pauses in thought. “There are people that make honest music for this generation, it's just few and far between. And I think it's really important for me to take that position. Because of the person I am”.
I am going to end there. Go and buy Skin if you can. As she found out in Brighton yesterday evening, there is a lot of love out there from fans! She is an artist who has captured critical ears and public fandom very quickly. I know that Joy Crookes will continue to make great music and grow even stronger as an artist. Crookes is also an exceptional live performer. If you get the opportunity and she is playing near you soon, then go on and…
CATCH her when you can.
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