FEATURE: I Give Them What They Want to Hear: The Varied and High-Profile Love for Kate Bush in 2024

FEATURE:

 

 

I Give Them What They Want to Hear

PHOTO CREDIT: Assai Records (Glasgow) 

 

The Varied and High-Profile Love for Kate Bush in 2024

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THERE have been a few releases and occasions recently…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

that shows there is this varied and huge love out there for Kate Bush. That her appreciate spans far and wide. It may seem obvious but, in 2024, it seems to be at this new peak. Probably broader and more ecstatic than at any other time. Perhaps not at the same extent as a major modern icon like Taylor Swift, it is still amazing to think that an artist like Kate Bush – who has been recording music for fifty years – is still being discussed so much. I shall come to a new edition of a Kate Bush biography that is coming out in July. Yesterday (20th April), Record Store Day happened in the U.K. One of the special releases was a 10” edition of the Kate Bush single, Eat the Music. Looking beautiful and snapped up around the U.K., it was great seeing all the smiling faces of people who got their copy! Queuing up at independent stores, so many Kate Bush fans claimed their copy. Also out at the moment, a new edition of MOJO magazine finds Kate Bush adorning the cover. Inside, writer and author Tom Doyle discusses Kate Bush’s early years. That transition from this teenage songwriter who signed a deal with EMI and soon was thrust into the limelight. It is a wonderful feature from Doyle. He wrote the biography, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. Later in the year, Baby Bushka are heading to the U.K. A tribute to Kate Bush, they will be performing a selection of Kate Bush material and the Folk songs that inspired her. We also have amazing tribute artists like An Evening Without Kate Bush (Sarah Louise Young), and a recent tribute by Sooz Kempner.

There has been this new swirl of Kate Bush affection and representation. I think that we will see more of that as the year progresses. Look on social media and every day you will see so many people discussing Kate Bush and her music. As I have said before, you can see how Kate Bush’s music has influenced modern artists. New acts like The Last Dinner Party and established artists like Dua Lipa clearly have been affected and inspired by Kate Bush. There is this mix of high-profile acknowledgment from artists and the passion that fans show. From grabbing Eat the Music at independent record shops recently to the daily discussion about Kate Bush, her fandom is rising and expanding. Leah Kardos has written a book about Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love for the 33 1/3 series. It is out in November. As we are still in April, we are going to see a lot more Kate Bush activity in terms of magazine articles and books. Who knows what will come. It is always wonderful seeing Kate Bush’s music and brilliance spread far and wide (though radio stations still stick to the hits/Hounds of Love). From long-time fans who were out there for Record Store Day alongside new fans through to authors and journalists who are ensuring that Bush’s legacy and career is highlighted and dissected, there is this ocean of love and respect out there. One of the greatest Kate Bush authorities – perhaps the best -, Kate Bush News, have their wonderful podcast. Between Kate Bush News reporting all the latest and exciting happenings (including Bush donating and two amazing, signed Boxes of Lost at Sea artworks to the Cabaret vs Cancer charity), and the podcast bringing in guests who have worked with Kate Bush, we are getting all this exposure and revelation. The artist herself engaging with fans.

It is a really amazing time for Kate Bush fandom. So many interesting things happening. One of the big occurrences later this year is when Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush is reissued. Expanded and updated, this is a book everyone needs to pre-order. Not only is there a foreword from the brilliant authour and journalist Sinéad Gleeson (who edited the must-read This Woman’s Work with Kim Gordon), but there are going to be contributions and quotes from some big-name Kate Bush fans. The fact that we now have Gleeson, a wonderful author and writer, adding to this new edition is exciting enough. The revision of the book shows that a lot has happened in Kate Bush’s career over the past few years to justify it. Also, inside the book, there will be contributions from Kate Bush fans such as Paddy McAloon (Prefab Sprout). That is quite a big coup. I knew he was a fan of hers, though I listen to Prefab Sprout and can see a line between the two. Some definite crossover. Also contributing is journalist Jude Rogers and musician Jim Kerr. Maybe it is not a surprise that there is this embrace and variegated curiosity for Kate Bush. There are artists who have not released albums in a long time/retired who get books and articles written about them. Once more, it makes me feel how we definitely need a new and comprehensive Kate Bush documentary. I am shocked that there is nothing announced already.

Who are still being discussed in the media and are relevant. I remember reading articles written about Kate Bush prior to the pandemic that asked whether she is still relevant. That she has faded from view. Now, there is this sense of revival and explosion. The truth is that Kate Bush has never gone away. It is true that she has gained a lot of momentum and fresh fans since, say, 2019. There are reasons for this. I suppose the fact Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was featured In Stranger Things started this chain and snowball (her song featured in an episode that broadcast in 2022). Kate Bush reissued her lyrics book, How to Be Invisible, last year. The original came out in 2018. She has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame recently. Bush also has been quite active in terms of reissuing her studio albums. Released through her label, Fish People, it gives new fans a chance to pick up these amazing albums. Some felt that the reissues were a cash-grab, though I think it is her making sure that people appreciate and discover her albums on vinyl. Also, they were exclusively released through independent record stores. Bush realising how important these are to the fabric of the high street. With everything she does, there is this passion for physical music. I would like to think she’d be open to expanded anniversary reissues of her albums. Hounds of Love turns forty next year. A perfect excuse to open this album up. Some might say, as it has been reissued recently and in a special presentation, that it may be overkill putting it out again. I do feel that the inclusion of the B-side, Under the Ivy, plus any unreleased treasures from the archive would warrant a fortieth anniversary release.

All of this has combined to ensure that Kate Bush is very much being talked about! It is amazing to see. I do feel that this year will be another busy one in terms of representation and growth. Every time a book is released or we see magazine coverage or there are updates from Kate Bush, this reaches new corners of the globe. The humble and honest Kate Bush superfans alongside respected journalists and famous artists who are showing their love for an icon. All of this makes my mind and imagination race. Possibilities and potential. Not least a new album and whether that will come. Anything planned for The Sensual World’s thirty-fifth anniversary in the autumn. Maybe a new documentary or project that recognises the way Kate Bush has inspired a new generation. More podcasts and books. I think that it is unlikely we will hear any announcement from Kate Bush regarding a new album or anything we have not heard. I feel she is going to provide updates to her website and donate more items to charity. A signed goodie that is going into a prize draw to raise money for War Child is another example of Kate Bush engaging with charity. It also brings fresh love her way. People curious to know more about her and check out her music. Kate Bush proving she is a very special artist and human! Knowing Kate Bush is out there in the world and is at least aware that there is this acknowledgement of her music and importance must be very humbling.

It is a very busy and fascinating time to be a Kate Bush fans. I feel there has been more activity and attention paid to her music than at any time of her career. So many people recognising her impact and originality. Every new magazine feature or book not only is a revelation from someone who adores what Kate Bush does. For people like me, who writes a lot about Kate Bush, there is always something new to discover. I think 1974 is the year when she signed to EMI - I know she signed a contract in 1976, though I think there was some motion and agreement in 1974 -, so it is fifty years after this important moment for a then-teenager. I love how Bush herself is at the stage in her career where she is happy to acknowledge and reissue her older work. Not always the case, I hope that we get a Director’s Cut/50 Words for Snow situation: Bush tackling and addressing previous work to clear the way for new. Yesterday’s Record Store Day created a lot of joy. Music fans attending record stores and finding some rarities and special releases. Among the most awesome images was Kate Bush fans proudly showing off their copies of the 10” of Eat the Music (where I think Lily and Big Stripey Lie is also included). It got me thinking about how it is part of this year where there are Kate Bush projects and salutes through media and print. Through music and social media. Fans well-known and street-level showing Kate Bush…

PHOTO CREDIT: The state51 Conspiracy

ALL the love.

FEATURE: Frequency Modulation: When Will Radio Stations Properly Acknowledge and Represent Women?

FEATURE:

 

 

Frequency Modulation

PHOTO CREDIT: mahdi chaghari/Pexels

 

When Will Radio Stations Properly Acknowledge and Represent Women?

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I am not sure…

PHOTO CREDIT: David Bartus/Pexels

what the official figures are regarding radio stations and gender parity. In terms of the playlists and how many songs are by female artists. We will get a report later in the year. I think that it will make for alarming reading. I listen to a few stations on a fairly regular basis. What I am noticing is that there is barely any movement regarding gender equality! There are some especially bad stations. I always pick on stations such as BBC Radio 2 and Greatest Hits Radio. Radio X and Absolute. Even BBC Radio 6 Music, the best when it comes to striking for equality, have a very long way to go. Programme song schedules that are either heavily skewed to male artists or just about equal. As female artists are dominating music and, as I have said, released the best albums for quite a few years ago now, it is always angering and insulting! Think about all those features that came at the end of last year and early this year. Most of those tipped artists were women. There is no shortage of new female artists that are worthy of being played on a variety of stations. Definitely no issue regarding legacy and older artists. I don’t think many radio stations are so rigid that they have little room for women. Even genre-specific stations – who are quite narrow – still have the potential to do more than they are. I wonder whether there is impetus to actually improve. Even now, as we look to a summer of festivals in 2024, many are struggling to book female headliners. Too many excuses that are covering for the fact that they are not doing enough. The fact that Glastonbury’s two female headliners this year (SZA and Dua Lipa) seems so extraordinary speaks volumes. The first time they have booked two female headline act. It seems exceptional that, in over fifty years, that is the first time! To be fair, Glastonbury could have booked a third female headliner. Kylie Minogue, Björk, Little Simz. It would have been more refreshing and stronger than Coldplay – who are the third headline act this year.

IN THIS PHOTO: SZA/PHOTO CREDIT: Mason Poole for Variety

My point is that there is never a shortage. Any excuses regarding a lack of female headliners is a lie. No festival has anywhere to hide. Even so, things are still dire. Not as much progress as there should be. Radio stations seem to struggle from a similar lack of consideration. How have we got to 2024, in a year when it is obvious female artists are on top, and things are still as they are?! I can’t think of a radio station hat affects a gender-balanced playlist/schedule. Maybe smaller ones do though, when you think of commercial stations and the bigger names, it is hard to think of anyone doing as much as they can. This is inexcusable. It is pretty sorry that female artists are not deemed worthy enough to be on playlists. I don’t think it has anything to do with quality, fitting into their demographic or there being any sort of unwritten rule that says male artists should be in the majority. I feel that festivals and radio playlists should naturally be female-heavy. It would be wonderful to think a male bias is overturned ` and women are finally at the front. Overturn decades of sexism and ignorance. It is so frustrating that radio playlists seem unwavering. I know the situation is worse in Ireland. The entire industry needs to do more. All major festivals in the U.K. have to do more and are not exactly quick when it comes to reversing gender inequality. With more options than ever when it comes to amazing women to book as headliners or further down the bill, many are still being ignored. Many rely on radio airplay to get them noticed by festival organisers.

PHOTO CREDIT: Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz/Pexels

It is part of the chain. Venues booking female artists based on what they hear. If they are struggling to make it onto schedules, it makes it harder for them to get to the attention of headline organisers. I would be interested to see officially statistics and findings whenever that comes. Seeing how far big radio stations have come since last year. Even if the situation is not as bleak as it was years ago, I am confident very few can say they have achieved a fifty-fifty balance. Maybe BBC Radio 6 Music are the only ones yet, when I look at various programmes and count how many women are chosen on schedules compared to male artists, so many are still leaning towards men. It is an odd situation. One would feel that every radio station could and should make an instant change. It would not be too hard! I realise many have new artists playlists and there are certain limitations, though none are in the position where they are lacking female artists to add to the mix. It is this weird split between clear dominance of female artists. In terms of original sounds and innovation. Many of the best-reviewed albums are from women. So much of the terrific new music. I hope that radio stations do a lot more to include women. One would feel a fifty-fifty split would be the least they can do. Embarrassingly, I don’t really think any major station is in the position where they are there or near at all. It is a sorry state of affairs that needs to change! As each year comes and goes, only small steps are made. This is a problem that can be fixed incredibly quickly. There seems little effort of impetus to do that. Rather than there being any logical reasoning, this male bias and sexism that is still rife through the industry is present and correct on radio playlists. Gender inequality and a lack of female representation on radio playlists needs to be…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A thing of the past.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: The Paul Heaton Birthday Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

  

The Paul Heaton Birthday Playlist

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ONE of our most loved and respected songwriters…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rianne Downey will be performing alongside Paul Heaton at this year’s Glastonbury Festival

the amazing Paul Heaton celebrates his birthday on 9th May. I am going to come to a playlist featuring some of his best songs alongside his former Beautiful South bandmate, Jacqui Abbott. Paul Heaton will be performing alongside Rianne Downey at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. This year also marks thirty-five years since The Beautiful South released their debut album, Welcome to the Beautiful South. Rather than compile songs from The Beautiful South and The Housemartins (the band Heaton was in prior to The Beautiful South), I am focusing more on his work with the great Jacqui Abbott – someone I hope he works and performs with soon enough. Before I get to that playlist, here is some biography about one of the greatest songwriters ever:

“The mellifluous voice of Paul Heaton has often masked the jagged satirical content of his lyrics. Stamping all of his projects with not only wry wit but a flair for infectious melodies, Heaton was known as leader of popular but short-lived U.K. college rock group the Housemartins in the mid-'80s before forming the Beautiful South in 1988. Contrasting Heaton's lyrics with a sophisticated, jazzy pop sound, that band released ten albums between the late '80s and the mid-2000s, reaching number one with their 1990 single "A Little Time" and the U.K. Top 15 with every single album. After they disbanded in 2007, Heaton focused on his solo career, issuing three records on his own before partnering with onetime Beautiful South vocalist Jacqui Abbott for 2014's What Have We Become? With nods to Motown soul and early rock & roll, the collaboration was a hit, and they went all the way to number one in the U.K. with their fourth LP, 2020's Manchester Calling. Working with the same crew, they were back with N.K. Pop in 2022.

Born in Bromborough in Merseyside, England in 1962, Paul David Heaton was raised in Sheffield from age four until the family moved to Surrey when he was in his early teens. It was there that he and his older brother Adrian formed their first band, Tools Down. At the time, he was still splitting his time between music and football, which he went on to play outside of school at the amateur level.

By his early twenties, he was based in Hull, where he formed the Housemartins with guitarist Stan Cullimore, bass player Ted Key, and drummer Chris Lang in 1984. A demo got them a record deal with Go! Discs. They released their first song, "Flag Day," in 1985 before Norman Cook (later known as Fatboy Slim) replaced Key on bass, and Hugh Whitaker of the Gargoyles briefly filled in for Lang until Dave Hemingway took over on drums. In 1986, the group made it to number three on the U.K. singles chart with their third single, "Happy Hour." Issued that October, their album London 0 Hull 4 also reached number three and hit the Top Ten in Norway and Sweden. Like contemporaries the Smiths, the Housemartins were college radio stars in the U.S., where their jangly riffs and brainy, humorous songs landed in the bottom half of the Billboard 200 with help from MTV airplay. The band's second album, 1987's The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death also reached the U.K. Top Ten and the lower tier of U.S. album chart.

After the Housemartins disbanded in 1988, Heaton and Hemingway formed the Beautiful South. The Beautiful South expanded Heaton's musical canvas, exploring jazz and even country influences with former Anthill Runaways vocalist Briana Corrigan, bassist Sean Welch, drummer David Stead (formerly a Housemartins roadie), and guitarist David Rotheray, who became Heaton's new songwriting collaborator. While many critics and student-run radio stations in the U.S. continued to laud Heaton's talent, the Beautiful South became far more successful in England. In the summer of 1989, they released their first single, "Song for Whoever," on the Housemartins' old record label, Go! "Song for Whoever" climbed to number two, while its follow-up, "You Keep It All In," peaked at number eight in September 1989. A month later, the group's debut, Welcome to the Beautiful South, was released and went to number two, eventually going platinum. The band's only number one single, "A Little Time," helped 1990's Choke replicate both sales feats, and their third LP, 0898, reached the Top Five behind three Top 30 singles. Following the release of 0898, Corrigan left the group and was replaced with Jacqui Abbott, who made her first appearance on the band's fourth straight Top Ten album, 1994's Miaow. It was followed at the end of the year by the greatest-hits collection Carry on Up the Charts, which entered the charts at number one. It stayed there for several months, going platinum many times over and, in the process, becoming one of the most popular albums in British history. The album wasn't released in America until late 1995, after it broke several U.K. records.

Two multi-platinum number one albums followed in the form of 1996's Blue Is the Colour and 1998's Quench before 2000's Painting It Red peaked at number two. Heaton issued a solo album under the alias Biscuit Boy (aka Crackerman) in 2001 that barely cracked the Top 100 before rejoining his band for 2003's Gaze. It didn't fare as well by their standards, though it still reached the U.K. Top 15. After a move to Sony, 2004's Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs hit number 11 with a set consisting mostly of covers. The Beautiful South's final album, Superbi, arrived in 2006, and while it reached number six on the album chart, it was their first to not be represented in the Top 40 of the singles chart.

The group called it quits in 2007, having sold more than 15 million records worldwide, and Heaton shifted his focus to his solo career. He released 2008's The Cross Eyed Rambler under his own name. Two years later, Heaton returned with Acid Country, which he helped to promote with a bicycle-led U.K. pub tour. The year 2012 saw the release of Presents the 8th, a stage play that boasted a single conceptual song told in eight chapters, dealing with the seven deadly sins, and featuring guest vocalists. In 2014, he released What Have We Become?, a collaborative album recorded with the Beautiful South's Jacqui Abbott. After the warm reception of that effort, which catapulted to number three on the U.K. albums chart, the duo regrouped for 2015's Wisdom, Laughter and Lines. The success of their renewed partnership was also reflected in an extensive and well-received set of live dates, culminating in a sold-out homecoming gig to a crowd of 20,000 in Hull in 2017. That same year, Heaton and Abbott released their third record as a duo, Crooked Calypso, which was produced by longtime collaborator John Williams (Cocteau Twins, Alison Moyet). The year 2018 brought the career-spanning The Last King of Pop, a 23-track collection representing both of Heaton's beloved bands, solo material, and his partnership with Abbott. It peaked at number ten on the album chart. The pair returned with the Williams-produced Manchester Calling in March 2020. Conceived as a double album in the fashion of the Clash's London Calling, the slightly abbreviated 16-track set topped the album chart in the U.K. They headed back to the studio with Williams and their established backing band (guitarist Jonny Lexus, bassist Chris Wise, drummer Pete Marshall, and keyboardist Stephen Large) for 2022's N.K. Pop”.

In salute of the wonderful Paul Heaton, I have put together a selection of his album tracks with Jacqui Abbott. Many of these I am sure will get an airing at Glastonbury very soon. As he celebrates his birthday on 9th May, it is a good time to listen to the incredible music of Heaton. One of the very best we have ever produced. His amazing and distinct words…

SHOULD be highlighted.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Selections from the National Recording Registry’s Twenty-Five Additions for 2024

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Blondie photographed during the Parallel Lines shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: GEMS/Redferns

 

Selections from The National Recording Registry’s Twenty-Five Additions for 2024

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MAYBE this passed some people by…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Elviss Railijs Bitāns/Pexels

but I feel that the National Recording Registry is really important. Albums and songs that are inducted and preserved for all time. Those deemed culturally significant. There are some great works in there. Recently twenty-five new additions were announced for this year. They will join some of the greatest music ever recorded. I wanted to end this feature with a playlist featuring selected songs (either standalone or from albums) highlighted and chosen for induction into the National Recording Registry this year. Not only will they be in this amazing registry and archive. I think that new ears and listeners will get to hear some stunning albums. Before getting to that playlist, The Line of Best Fit tell us about the songs and albums that will be included in the National Recording Registry:

“Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has named songs and albums by ABBA, Green Day, The Chicks, Blondie, The Cars, Bill Withers, Notorious B.I.G., Jefferson Airplane, Kronos Quartet, and Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, and more, who join the likes of last year's inductees Eurythmics, Queen Latifah, Madonna, and Mariah Carey.

Full list of 2024 inductees:

Lt. James Reese Europe’s 369th U.S. Infantry Band - “Clarinet Marmalade” (1919)

Viola Turpeinen and John Rosendahl - “Kauhavan Polkka” (1928)

Various Artists - Wisconsin Folksong Collection (1937-1946)

Benny Goodman Sextet with Charlie Christian - “Rose Room” (1939)

Gene Autry - “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949)

Patti Page - “The Tennessee Waltz” (1950)

Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats - “Rocket ‘88’” (1951)

Johnny Mathis - “Chances Are” (1957)

Perry Como - “Catch a Falling Star” / “Magic Moments” (1957)

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder (1964)

Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow (1967)

Lily Tomlin - This is a Recording (1971)

Bill Withers - “Ain’t No Sunshine” (1971)

J.D. Crowe & the New South - J.D. Crowe & the New South (1975)

ABBA - Arrival (1976)

Héctor Lavoe - “El Cantante” (1978)

The Cars - The Cars (1978)

Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)

Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick (MC Ricky D) - “La-Di-Da-Di” (1985)

Bobby McFerrin - “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (1988)

Juan Gabriel - “Amor Eterno” (1990)

Kronos Quartet - Pieces of Africa (1992)

Green Day - Dookie (1994)

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die (1994)

The Chicks - Wide Open Spaces (1998)”.

From some older and classic work through to some modern classics, an eclectic and fascinating range of music is going to be inducted into the National Recording Registry. It is this amazing and astonishing collection of music that showcases the range and diversity of American recorded sound heritage in order to increase preservation awareness. The sheer diversity of nominations received highlights the richness of the nation's audio legacy and underscores the importance of assuring the long-term preservation of that legacy for future generations. Currently, there are six hundred works/titles on the National Recording Registry. Below are the sensational and hugely important recordings that have been added into the Recording Registry…

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Reche/Pexels

FOR 2024.

INTERVIEW: Sarah Close

INTERVIEW:

PHOTOS: Katie Silvester

 

Sarah Close

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I am a big fan…

of the wonderful Sarah Close. The British artist is currently based out in Los Angeles. I have been speaking with her about her musical path and how her career has progressed since her start. She discusses her stunning new single, Justify. The song is the inaugural release in Close's ambitious double E.P. campaign for this year. Building on the narrative established in her previous singles, Forgive or Forget and Liars Like You, this empowering, unforgettable and gorgeous Pop anthem explores and examines themes of heartbreak and self-liberation. Her lyrics poignantly explore the realisation that certain individuals may never change, prompting a transformative journey towards self-empowerment and liberation from toxic relationships, while tapping into a bad bitch energy; that you’re finally done with empty promises; that next time will be different. Close herself produced the track. It is an exciting and happy time for this artist that everyone should know and listen to. A unique and awesome talent who I predict a long and golden future for, Close discusses upcoming gigs and how much input she had into the video for Justify. She also reveals what is coming next. Such an incredible talent, it is amazing hearing Justify. A talent who is going from strength to strength. If you have not heard Sarah Close’s beautiful and memorable music, then make sure that you…

CONNECT with it now.

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Hi Sarah. How are you? How has your week been?

I am doing really well! It’s 8 a.m. in L.A. right now and I’m almost at the end of a long 2-month trip. I’ve been writing music out here with a lot of new collaborators, and yesterday I wrote a song that I am OBSESSED with. I’m listening on repeat! It’s always such an exciting feeling when you get a song like that. In about 2 hours, my friend Raelee is going to pick me up and we are driving to Malibu (my first time going there) for a beach day because it’s 30C today!!! So all in all, it’s been a great week.

I have been a fan of yours for years. How do you feel your music has evolved since the start? Looking back to your earliest release, how do you feel about how far you have come?

Oh myyy!! I mean my music has shifted and changed so so much. When I released the Caught Up E.P. back in 2017, I was a super-young kid who loved (and still loves!) pop music and dreamt only of being a pop star. I still love those songs, but when I listen now, I can hear that girl who was still figuring herself out. After that release, I had a lot of people in the music industry giving me their opinion on what kind of music I should make, and I didn’t realise at the time, but that really influenced me. I wish I had had the guts to stand up to them, but I was a young girl, a people pleaser, and I thought they knew more than me.

The pandemic really gave me a chance to slow down, and I credit that time with truly helping me find myself as an artist and songwriter, away from anyone else’s opinions! I had a lot of emotions to process during that time, and I think my songwriting matured and became more vulnerable. I had more complex things to say and write about.

I really embrace that I’m an artist who has gone through a few different iterations of myself to get to where I am now. I used to feel a little bit bad that I didn’t come straight out the gate with a sound that I consistently stuck to, and then I realised that way of thinking only hurt myself!

I’ve always been someone who loves going to the studio and playing around with different sounds and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I love where I’m at right now, and this feel like a very authentic space for me, but hey… I don’t wanna say too much, but I know I have a few songs in the pipeline that are going to really surprise people…

Looking at a recent video from your social media/YouTube, I know you have been spending a lot of time in the U.S. and discussing your life and figuring things out. How important was it to share that video, and how did the positive and supportive fan feedback make you feel?

It was really important. I am definitely in a confusing stage of my life; trying to figure out where I want to live and what I want my life to look like. But I feel like everyone goes through this, and I just wanted to be honest and share what’s going on. As confusing as it is, it’s also really exciting to not know what’s coming next, and my parents constantly encourage me to embrace uncertainty in my life! When I posted that video, I lovedddd reading the comments. There were a lot of people who are going through or who had gone through exactly the same thing, and I just think it’s so helpful to know that you’re not alone in any feeling really.

Talk to me about your new single, Justify. How did that come together in terms of the lyrics and the initial seeds?

Justify is a moment where you really get to celebrate yourself and the love you have for you!!! A few years ago now, I went through a breakup that taught me so much (also made me write a lot of sad songs), but my biggest lesson was that I don’t have to have anyone in my life who makes me feel small, unlovable and bad about myself. I really wanted a song on this record that captured the moment you realise you don’t have to stay and try to justify your behaviour anymore. That you can leave. That moment feels so powerful to me, and it was the first step towards ending a toxic relationship cycle that hurt me so much. So I knew this song was going to be important, even from the initial feeling.

I already had the chords and most of the chorus written when I had a session with Adam Argyle (who I write so much of my music with). He came over one day and helped me finish it. It was a really quick and easy song to write once we perfected the chorus. I think we both really understood what the song was about from our own personal experiences.

“It’s the first time I’ve produced a song by myself that is this big of a production, and I am so proud of it”

I am a big fan of music videos. Did you have a lot of input into the video for Justify? What was it like shooting it?

Huge input! As an indie artist, I really have to get creative when it comes to making visuals, as I don’t have huge budgets to work with. It was a simple shoot just involving me and a friend and my laptop camera. I got him to ask me questions about the song and about the inspiration behind it, and I love the idea that you get to watch me have a conversation about the song, and how the different emotions play out on my face during it.

You produced Justify. How important is for you to produce, and is it something you enjoy? I don’t think artists who produce their own material get enough attention and credit

I did produce it! It’s the first time I’ve produced a song by myself that is this big of a production, and I am so proud of it. I moved back to the island last summer because I wanted to finish the rest of the new music off alone, and being there really gave me a chance to focus. Producing Justify was hard. I knew I wanted it to be upbeat, but everything I was doing didn’t feel right. Then one day (and I kid you not, this is the truth) I had a dream about what it should sound like. I woke up at about 5.30 a.m. and headed straight downstairs to my set up to start making it. Once I had the initial idea down, it was all about fine tuning and from there I really enjoyed it! It’s super special to me as well, because my little brother is playing bass on it. I love that we got to collaborate in that way, and he’s playing bass on a lot of the new songs to come!

Producing my own music has been the biggest thing that’s helped me discover who I want to be in my music. I think an artist having input into the production is so key to creating music that feels really true to them. I don’t think an artist necessarily needs to produce everything, but I think it’s great to be able to sketch out small ideas for another producer to build upon.

You have a lot of new music and two E.P.s planned for this year. What has it been like putting it all together? What is it about 2024 that compelled you to step things up and launch this new phase?

It’s been SO GREAT AND SO EXCITING. I love the world that we have created with this music, and I can’t wait for people to see the visuals and to really be immersed in the sonic world. I feel like my whole career has been building up to this year, and I feel resolute in who I am and the music I want to give to the world. Last year, I took time to really finish everything off, so that in 2024 I could just hit the ‘go’ button and not stop.

I know there are a lot of people who would like to see you perform live. Do you have any U.K. or U.S. dates coming up?

I do! This summer I’m going to be doing a couple of support shows in the U.K. and some of my own headline shows will come later in the year. I am DYING to play some shows overseas in the U.S., and I’m hoping to get some funding this year to help make that happen!

“I’m the happiest I have been in years, which is so so nice to say”

After Justify, when might we see more music? What would you say to the many adoring fans who are pumped for what is coming this year?

Very very soon!!!!! The release of Justify is the first song of many to come this year, and as I said above… once we hit ‘go’ we are not stopping!! I wanna tell them, get ready!!!!

Not necessarily talking about music, how are you feeling about things right now? It has been a very busy and changeable time for you recently. Are you excited about the future? How important is music and putting it out into the world?

I’m the happiest I have been in years, which is so so nice to say. I feel like in 2023 I got to wave goodbye to an era of my life and shut the door on a time that involved a lot of heartache and sadness. With that goodbye, I’m aware that I’ve welcoming in the next phase of my life. There’s a lot of ‘newness’ happening for me right now: new relationships, new music, new friends, new places and cities I’m exploring. I feel excited for it all. I can’t wait to get this next body of music out, and for what I have planned after that, and to eventually put out the songs I am creating every day on this L.A. trip. I just know there are good times ahead.

Finally, and for being a good sport, you can choose any song (other than your own) and we’ll end with it. What do you want to go with?

She’s On My Mind by Romy. Oh my god. I love this song; it’s so joyous. I dance to it in my kitchen every day. It never fails to make me feel good. It feels nostalgic and modern all in one.

____________

Follow Sarah Close

FEATURE: From Coachella Queens… How Women Will Define and Dominate Festivals This Year

FEATURE:

 

 

From Coachella Queens…

IN THIS PHOTO: Doja Cat at the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival/PHOTO CREDIT: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Coachella

 

How Women Will Define and Dominate Festivals This Year

_________

I have been thinking a lot…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Gwen Stefani of No Doubt and Olivia Rodrigo performing at Coachella/PHOTO CREDIT: John Shearer/Getty Images for No Doubt

about women in music. How there is still misogyny and sexism levied at them. In fact, thinking of recent news events, there is still so misogyny in the world. Some really disgusting and unforgivable occurrences. In terms of general attitudes towards women, how far have we come in the past few decades?! This question can be asked of the music industry. Whilst there have been steps made, I still feel like the female dominance we see clearly out there is not being met with respect and opportunity. Still so much imbalance. It is only this year really when Glastonbury has addressed its all-male headliners. I am going to reference and source an article from The Guardian that was published yesterday (14th April) in reaction to the Coachella festival in the U.S. It seems like an odd festival. In the sense many of the acts did not get the crowd response they deserved. Blur were among those who blasted the crowd for not being engaged and properly appreciative. What the article highlighted is how women salvaged and defined the festival. I feel this is something that is going to be repeated throughout all major festivals, begging the question as to whether there needs to be commitment and need guidance at all festivals going forward. Will it also lead to greater progress in the industry regarding tackling misogyny and addressing gender imbalance? Although Coachella is not the best guide as to how every festival this year will pan out, yet it is clear we are seeing a change.

Not to say there are a lack of exciting make headliners and festival-defining acts. It is the case that women are dominating. Coachella saw Doja Cat, Lana Del Rey, No Doubt and so many others rule. Bringing in guests such as Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish, it was a huge show of female empowerment, talent and togetherness. The Guardian explained why female artists helped lift an otherwise tepid Coachella:

“As someone who attended (for free, as press … though I did succumb to the call of the $16 Claw), I can confirm that rumors of Coachella’s demise are a little premature. Yes, there were fewer people. But the diehards still showed up – with a notable exception being the so-called Queen of Coachella, Vanessa Hudgens, who skipped out this year due to her pregnancy.

Some of the attendees I spoke to were there for the fifth, eighth, or tenth time. It’s a tradition they admitted to planning their year around, no matter who plays. One college-age woman I spoke to ahead of the gates opening on Friday night said she’s come since childhood with her dad, noting with a straight face that, “He’s an OG. He has a vintage Coachella shirt from 2008.”

But a flop year remains valuable for the feedback it gives us. Remove the noise of a once-in-a-lifetime, Beychella-esque headline performance and you can take stock of the tradition as a whole. What’s working: booking surprise special guests who bring the nostalgia points.

My soul left my body for a moment when Kesha walked out to support Reneé Rapp, altering the opening line of her recession-core banger Tik Tok to “wake up in the morning saying fuck P Diddy,” amid allegations of sexual assault against Sean Combs. Not even a rough onstage tumble that left the promiscuous girl herself Nelly Furtado bloodied kept the special guest from working the crowd at Dom Dolla. It was nice to see J Balvin call in a beaming Will Smith, who joined a cast of dancing green aliens for a rendition of Men in Black, reminding us inthe wake of the Oscars slap and whatever Jada’s been up to that he’s ultimately a showman at heart.

One attendee, an influencer-in-her-own-mind type who asked me to film as she delivered a straight-to-camera monologue for TikTok, declared that this year was “for the girls!” I agree, unless said girl was Grimes, whose disastrous, issue-plagued DJ set was ultimately just cut off in a satisfying display of schadenfreude. Or Lana Del Rey, who also did not fare well during her Friday headline set due to constant audio issues and what appeared to be old-fashioned nerves.

But overall, the best of this year’s acts projected girl power, not in the corny, superficial way that’s all too common in pop, but by simply showing up and tearing up. Gwen Stefani climbing on top of stage scaffolding while leading the call-and-response chorus of I’m Just a Girl during No Doubt’s headline set was one of the highest highs of the festival, and Doja Cat’s sapphic mud pit closer alone was worth the price of admission.

Raye, a UK star who’s now on a US ascension, gave early Amy Winehouse during a tight, mid-century styled set. When it came time for Ice Cream Man, a raw and unflinching account of Raye’s sexual assault at the hands of a music producer, she left every woman I could see in my section wiping away tears – myself included – and the many of the men staring solemnly down at their feet, unable to make eye contact.

Coachella is such a well-oiled machine that moments of real emotion can be hard to come by – it’s essentially the music industry’s Disneyland. Raye’s admission served as a rare gasp of authenticity. Ditto for Victoria Monet’s loud and clear call for an end to the genocide in Gaza, a plea that received one of the longest and loudest rounds of applause I heard all weekend. (Levant, a 23-year-old part-Palestinian DJ also roused a crowd with his full-throated call for a free Palestine, and it’s a shame his set conflicted with No Doubt’s reunion.)

Danish R&B singer Erika de Casier’s early 2pm death slot started with only a dozen or so attendees, but grew into a full crowd as she worked through her polished, ‘90s-tinged slow jams. Anyone in the mood for rave vibes could be found at South Korean DJ Peggy Gou’s tent, where she slung remixes while a cast of gender-queer gogo dancers hyped up the audience.

Admittedly I only went to see pop star Sabrina Carpenter because I thought I might get a glimpse of her potential boo Barry Keoghan (I did not), but the nascent star won me over with unadulterated pop girl charisma. And then there was Rapp, who not only brought out Kesha, but also enlisted the cast of The L Word to introduce her show and performed in front of a giant pair of scissors (because, you know, lesbians).

Ice Spice drew so big of a crowd that I couldn’t even enter her tent. I later learned on TikTok that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were there, but I’m glad that rumblings of a Swift guest appearance on stage didn’t materialize. Spice had the opportunity to dominate all by herself, actually keeping her mic on and not relying too heavily on backing vocals, as many performers do”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Glastonbury Festival

I do think, more and more, the incredible albums released by women translates to festival stages and shows why they should have been represented more years ago. Whilst many of the most notable acts and performances at Coachella were from established artists, there is a wave of newer talent coming through who are shaping up to be future legends. Think about Glastonbury and how Dua Lipa and SZA will be clear highlights showed how women are staking their claim as the most exciting and strongest festival choices. Shania Twain will bring her magic to the legends slot. The other Glasto headliners, Coldplay, seem like also-rans. A tired choice that has little logic. The festival could easily have booked a third female headliner like Little Simz and made a big call – though I feel there is still a fear here for major festivals to have an all-female headliner look (something that I don’t think has ever happened). Even if there is a huge way to go for festivals, I feel Coachella is the start of festivals creating memories and wonderful moments because of its queens. Readings and Leeds is a U.K. festival still struggling to book female headliners. Hopes that they correct their ways and realise they need to do better, Glastonbury’s balanced bill and long-overdue steps to book women as headliners will pay dividends. It may be a big call, but I think this is true: women are going to be the highlight of nearly every festival this year. The fact that the amazing music they have been putting out is being recognised is leading to festival bookings and naturally assured and astonishing performances.

Going forward, it does the beg the question as to whether attitudes will change. There is still a big issue with sexism and a true lack of parity. I hope the face of festivals changes. We should no longer see booking female headliners as something that needs to be done. It should be natural. Normalising having them headliner every year. Festivals need to make that commitment. I also feel festival need to take more risks and book younger and less established artists as headliners. Ensure that the reviews and news we hear from festivals like Coachella – where sets from women are positive and impressive – makes it clear that the male-dominated and focused festival scene should and can reverse easily. That needs to spread throughout the industry. A matriarchy replacing the patriarchy! This summer is going to see some iconic sets from female headliners. Rising artists making their mark. The festival queens coming through and showing why they should have been a larger part of the conversation a long time ago. Coachella is the start of things. This year will be a revolution. Let’s hope that next year builds on that so that all festivals have no issue with booking female headliners and balancing their bills. Not that this will fix inequality and misogyny that still exists in the industry. It does prove how amazing our women are. How they are defining and dominating. Words I have no problem in reusing because it is true. Our queens are going to slay festivals this year. It is wonderful to…

SEE them reign.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: 1979: Danny Baker (NME)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in London on 29th September, 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Jill Furmanovsky

 

1979: Danny Baker (NME)

_________

IT might seem strange…

that I am including one of the most disrespectful and dismissive interviews Kate Bush was subjected to for this edition of The Kate Bush Interview Archive. One reason I wanted to put it in here was that it as published in 1979. On 20th October, after Bush had completed The Tour of Life and was preparing Never for Ever. In terms of singles that had come out to this point, we had Wuthering Heights and The Man with the Child in His Eyes from The Kick Inside. Hammer Horror and Wow had been released from Lionheart (also 1978). The public perception differed from that of critics. Whilst Bush was popular and her singles and albums sold well, there was this critical perception that she was weird. A hippy. A witch perhaps. Misogynistic and sexist, that view did not really shift until years later. I guess she always had some rough interviews regardless of the album she was promoting. The disrespect and patronising attitudes was probably at its peak in 1978 and 1979. Danny Baker wrote for NME and interviewed Kate Bush. Probably one of the worst hatchet jobs of that year, it is testament to Kate Bush’s professional, maturity – neither of which Danny Baker displays! – and calm that she professionally got through the interviews. I hope she has forgotten this experience. I wanted to highlight it because it shows the sort of attitudes and words levied at her in 1979. Only twenty-one when this interview was published, it must have been crushing and angering reading something like this. Thanks to this amazing website for providing the text to an interview that is a travesty and shitsh*w. It is a chance to see how amazingly dignified Kate Bush always has been. 1979 was also an interesting year.

She has completed The Tour of Life. Thinking about her third studio album, I guess Bush would have been excited to be in this position where she could talk about past work but also look ahead. Not to blame anyone for agreeing to the interview. I suppose EMI were keen for Bush to be as exposed and out there as possible. For the first few years of her career, she was subjected to some awful and rather tense interviews. I have included most of the NME interview here:

“NME had been after a KB interview for a while but, so I'd learned on leaving the office, her management were less than obliging. Me? Well, the truth is that I had no opinions about Kate at all. I knew the singles, but I really couldn't find it in me to go any deeper, to check out her roots (he said, nicking in this piece's most contrived gag). I still don't...such was our meeting.

Hey Kate. Do you feel obliged to sing like that these days?

"What? You mean..."

Y'know, like you could age the nation's glassblowers.

"Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I don't feel obliged--that is me. See, like in a recording studio, when it's all dark and there's just you and a couple of guys at the desk, well, you get really so involved that to actually plan it becomes out of the question. It just flows that way. As a writer I just try to express an idea. I can't possibly think of old songs of mine because they're past now, and quite honestly I don't like them anymore."

Doing Wuthering Heights must've been murder then.

"Well, I was still promoting that up until 18 months after I'd had it released. Abroad I was still promoting it on TV, where I was able to do it backwards and (she mimes it whilst picking her nose nonchalantly)...just weird." Have you still got people around you who'll tell you something's rubbish?

"My brother Jay, who's been with me since I was writing stuff that really embarasses me--he'd let me know for sure... Yeah, there's a few I can really trust."

She smiles again and I was warm to her. Mind you, she speaks my language, so I could be sympathetic because she's one of the South London rock mafia. I ask her what it's like to be paraded in the Sun and suchlike as the Sex Goddess of POP!

"Hmmm. You see, you do a very straight interview with these people, without ever mentioning sex, but of course that's the only angle they write it from when you read it. That kind of freaks me out, because the public tend to believe it..."

Asking a few more questions, I begin to realise that this isn't the kind of stuff that weekloads of Gasbags <The NME letters page> are made of. I'm searching for a key probe, but with Kate Bush--well, there's not likely to be anything that will cause the twelve-inch banner-headline stuff, is there now? I recall Charlie Murray's less than enthusiastic review of her Palladium shows, which were apparently crammed with lame attempts to "widen" the audience's artistic horizons--y'know, lots of people dressed as violins and carrots an' that. CSM reckons it was one of the most condescending gigs in the history of music. Kate had read the review, but she didn't break down.

"Just tell me one thing," she said in normal tones. "I mean, was he actually at the show that night?"

Yeah, sure. I remember he told me he'd spent a week there one Tuesday.

"Oh, well, in that case that's just his opinion and he's entitled to it."

We all smiled again, and Kate asked me if I'd seen Alien. I wondered if she got out much herself.

"Well, I don't get out to parties often. I have this thing about wasting time..."

Oh really? Which thing is that?

"You know, I nag at myself all the time for being a waster. I think, 'Gosh, you could be creating the world or something.'"

Well, that certainly seems a worthwhile thing to do, all right, although it has in fact been done before. Y'see, occasionally Kate allows the poet and all-round Tyrannosaurus Rex dreamer to slip out, a sucker for Lord of the Rings. For a start I have cut about a hundred "wows" and "amazings" from her speech. She talks at length about how important she feels it is to be "creating" all the time, and when I asked her if she looked to the news for any song inspiration I got this curious answer:

"Well, whenever I see the news, it's always the same depressing things. War's hostages and people's arms hanging off with all the tendons hanging out, you know. So I tend not to watch it much. I prefer to go and see a movie or something, where it's all put much more poetically. People getting their heads blown off in slow motion, very beautifully."

She grins broadly again. Kate is an artist through and through, seeing the world as a crazy canvas on which to skip. Her outrageous charm covers the fact that we are in the midst of a hippy uprising of the most devious sorts. I approach her on the question of being a woman in pop music once more. How do her workmates treat her?

"Well, when I started, I felt really conscious of being female amongst all these fellows. But these days I feel like one of the lads."

That doesn't sound very healthy.

"Oh, yeah, it is. When I'm working, it's really important for me to get on with it in that way. But at the same time, I sense that they're very respectful, because they make me aware of being a woman, and will lay off the dirty jokes and that..."

Incredible. Do you find men in awe of you?

"Socially? Well, I find that--with people that I haven't seen for a couple of years, because they won't treat me as a human being. And people in the street will ask for autographs and also won't treat you as human, but...ah...sometimes I get really scared. Sometimes when I'm going to the supermarket to get the coffee and cat litter, I get freaked out and see all these people staring, and you turn around and there's like forty people all looking at you...and when you go around the corner, they're all following you! You start freaking out like a trapped animal.

"However, I don't notice guys doing it on a personal level. Maybe some will keep their distance, but that may be because they don't get off on me.

"You see, when I first got started, I thought that I'd better watch out for these rip-off artists and stick with old friends. But it's amazing that since I've been in the business, I've made many more real friends, especially on a working basis. I find that I can get so involved with a guy working with me--and usually on a platonic level, which is great! That's so special, like these two minds linked on this one project. And that is a very beautiful thing that I'd never have experienced if I had not been in this business.

"And what's more, I'll keep these friends for life, because not only do they care for you, but they give me information and their teachings. What more could I ask for?"

Do you think there's a danger of becoming detached inside music?

"Probably. I don't read newspapers, and I've said I don't watch the news. I love books, but I don't read much.

"What I do is I get people to read to me, and I put the stories in my head."

A bit like a hat, I suppose.

"And films. I watch an awful lot of TV films."

Do you think you might be avoiding real life?

"Well, no, because I think that all these heavy issues--equality among blacks and whites, etc.--have all been done before, and if you do it now, it has to be very cleverly handled. It all gets too negative and cliched. So I find that, working with fantasy, I can handle the same issues, perhaps, but in a more positive way."

Don't you think that albums can make you feel and think sometimes without er...pussyfooting? I remember the first time I heard The Clash, and...

"Oh, yeah, some of these new bands are amazing. They're just springing up. The Police are just amazing..."

Here, listen, I think you've got the picture. Kate Bush, to meet, is a happy, charming woman that can totally win your heart. But afterwards on tape, when she's not there and you actually listen to all this, well...golly gosh. Don't lose sleep, old mates, it's just pop music-folk and the games they spin. Wow”.

It is a bit of a car crash interview. Danny Baker is truly to blame. I have never really respected him that much. An example of snobbish and dismissive attitude towards an oriignal female artist, I think Baker should have stuck to Punk artists and not really been assigned someone more interesting and intelligent. He was out of his depth! As one of the final examples for The Kate Bush Interview Archive, I was keen to both explore how some corners of the press approached Kate Bush and perceived her. Also, in terms of how Kate Bush reacted to stupid or insulting questions, she was so strong and professional. I am not sure other artists would have handled situations so well. Proof if ever it was needed that Kate Bush is…

A supreme human.

FEATURE: Inside the Essential and Sensual Worlds: Kate Bush’s 1988 and 1989

FEATURE:

 

 

Inside the Essential and Sensual Worlds

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

 

Kate Bush’s 1988 and 1989

_________

I like doing…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush cuts her 30th birthday cake on 30th July, 1988 at Blazers Boutique, where she was raising money for AIDS victims on behalf of the Terrence Higgins Trust (celebrities appeared in shops at Covent Garden, London as shop assistants to sell T-shirts and raffles. The money generated from this, plus 5% of the shops' takings, were donated to the charity)/PHOTO CREDIT: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo

some Kate Bush timeline-related features, as it provides a glimpse into the extraordinary and sometimes mundane things that filled that time. Sometimes you get a packed few months/year with lots of promotion and interesting stuff. Others provide some routine stuff alongside bigger events. In terms of stepping back in time this time around, I have used this essential website to document what Kate Bush did in 1988. I relying on the accuracy of the dates they provide though, if there is any inaccuracy, you can forgive that. One reason why I am looking back at 1988 and 1989 as it is the period when Kate Bush was clearing the way for her sixth studio album, The Sensual World. In fact, it was in May 1989 when The Sensual World was finished. Almost thirty-five years since one of her best and most acclaimed albums was complete. It is interesting hearing about the lead-up to that. How some events of 1988 might have influenced sounds and tones on The Sensual World. Rather than her being an artist who records an album then goes on tour and repeats that cycle, here was someone who was starting to break away from relentless promotion. 1988 is a very interesting year in terms of things she was involved in. Some very worthy causes and commitments:

“1988

Publication of The Kate Bush Club Newsletter is suspended pending the release of Kate's still-unfinished sixth studio album.

Kate attends a concert by Davy Spillane, an Irish musician formerly of the band Moving Hearts, who contributes uillean pipes tracks to Kate's new album. She also attends concerts by the Momentary Lapse of Reason incarnation of Pink Floyd, and by violinist Nigel Kennedy.

April 1, 1988

A report is printed in The Guardian that Kate has taken on a lead role in the longrunning television series Dr. Who. The date of the report is overlooked by some fans.

July 30, 1988

Kate celebrates her thirtieth birthday by participating in an AIDS charity project involving some 200 celebrities. She serves as a shopkeeper for the day at Blazer's boutique.

August 22, 1988

Kate comments on London for a BBC2 television programme, Rough Guide to Europe.

There is a lot to take in before we have even get to September! I wrote a feature back in 2021 regarding how Bush spent her thirtieth birthday (30th July, 1988) volunteering her time for charity. Typically her! Someone always dedicating time and her support to very important causes. It is a shame that ‘report’ about Kate Bush being cast in Dr. Who was an April Fool’s trick. Someone who was offered a lot of acting roles and rarely did any, I think she would have been perfect as a assistant for The Doctor! Maybe playing a villain. I suspect that Bush, were the offer genuine, might have actually agreed to it! That Rough Guide to Europe contribution is quite interesting too. How the offer came her way. I guess she was quite open to various voiceovers and interviews if they were interesting and worth her time. It seems like there may have been rumbles that The Sensual World was coming in 1988. The fact the fan newsletter was suspended was a way of stopping presses ahead of this big release. There would have been so much interest and speculation as to what an album would sound like that followed Hounds of Love. One that came four years after that carried extra weight and responsibility.

It is amazing that, in a year and time when she was still putting the finishing touches to The Sensual World, Kate Bush used the occasion of her thirtieth birthday to do some fundraising. Most of us would have put ourselves first, though Kate Bush was pitching in and doing some retail work at Blazer's boutique. To have been one of the customers and have seen Kate Bush serving and helping out. When we think of her career and events, it is her charity work and commitment that deserves its own chapter. She has done so much through the years. She does much to this very day. War Child are the official charity partner for Record Store Day UK. They have an exclusive Rega turntable signed by Kate Bush as well as a signed test pressing of her upcoming Eat the Music 10" single. You can enter the prize draw and be in with a chance of winning that. Yet another incident of Kate Bush focusing on charity. Let’s move into the remainder of 1988 and what was happening:

September 1988

Midge Ure releases a new album, which features a guest duet vocal with Kate on the track Sister and Brother.

Fall 1988

After making contact with Joe Boyd, co-producer of the Balkana compilation album of traditional Bulgarian vocal music, Kate travels to Bulgaria to meet with Yanka Rupkina, Eva Georgieva and Stoyanka Boneva, nationally famous soloists who perform and record together under the group name Trio Bulgarka. Meeting again with the Bulgarians in England, Kate records three vocal tracks with Trio Bulgarka for the sixth album, and makes an appearance with the Bulgarian vocalists for a video-taped segment of the BBC series Rhythms of the World, which is broadcast in the spring of 1989.

I have touched on this when discussing The Sensual World and the use of the Trio Bulgarka. Kate Bush was no stranger to travel when it came to recruiting artists and getting that particular sound. She would do it for The Sensual World but, for Hounds of Love, she travelled to Ireland and recorded artists there. These Irish sessions were important to her. She is half-Irish (on her mother’s side), so she made that journey. It was a bit stranger and less familiar being in Bulgaria. Led to the trio through her brother Paddy and his discovery of them, they are an essential ingredient on The Sensual World.

1989 was understandably busy and eventful. Full steam ahead getting The Sensual World finished. Having met and worked with the Trio Bulgarka through the autumn of 1988, we would hear these collaborations come to light and life in October. One of her most accomplished and beautiful albums. One where she changed sound and dynamic. A more feminine album. One with a female energy. Hounds of Love has a deliberate masculine energy. Kate Bush, thirty when The Sensual World came out, was perhaps at a stage in life where she was exploring sensuality and life through a feminine lens, musically and lyrical. Even though the article says that Bush finished The Sensual World in May, that would be the spring rather than the summer. Even so, the spring and summer of 1989 was important. Another case of her committing to important causes. Bush has always been interested in ecological matters and conservations. Issues explored occasionally in her music, I wonder whether it was in her mind to feature that more on The Sensual World:

Summer 1989

Kate appears briefly in a video for a worldwide television programme about ecological issues called Our Common Future. She is seen in a London studio with many other artists, singing two lines from a song written for the programme (not by Kate). The song is called Spirit of the Forest. The programme, with the pre-recorded video, is aired on June 4, 1989.

There is also a report that Kate appeared at the United Nations with Peter Gabriel and other artists in support of the campaign to save the rain forests; but as of presstime this report had not been confirmed.

Kate's sixth studio album is finally finished at the end of May.

Fall 1989

Kate's new single, The Sensual World, is released on September 18th, and her sixth studio album, The Sensual World, is released at last on October 16th. The video for the first single is debuted during the week of September 15th. Meanwhile Kate's new U.S. label, Columbia Records, decides to release Love and Anger as their first Kate Bush single, and Kate, apparently trusting the company's knowledge of the American market, must rush to produce an accompanying video.

Back in England, the new single debuts at number 12 in the Music Week/Gallup chart, sinking to number 15 its second week; but the BMIRC chart tells a quite different story, listing the single's chart debut as number 16, but placing the record at number 10 the second week.

The album does rather poorly in England, mainly for two reasons: the radio stations' refusal to play the music, and Kate's unwillingness to offer any more than minimal support for the record. She makes no personal signing appearances, and makes only a few brief television appearances.

At the end of the year Kate's longtime electric guitarist Alan Murphy dies prematurely, and she attends his funeral in England”.

I would disagree about the album’s performance in England. It did poorly in the U.S. (reaching forty-three, which is still not too bad). It got to number two in the U.K. That is a decent chart showing! She gave quite a few print interviews. There were some interesting interviews and features in 1989. Maybe not promoting as hard as she did for Hounds of Love, Kate Bush still put in a lot of time speaking about The Sensual World. She was starting to peel away from the tireless promotion of the past. Something that would be more defined by 1993’s The Red Shoes. I suppose The Sensual World is less commercial compared to Hounds of Love. Nothing quite as soaring and epic as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) or Hounds of Love. Although The Sensual World is quite an energetic track, a lot of the songs are different in sound. Perhaps more contemplative and emotive. I guess that is why Columbia Records released Love and Anger as their first Kate Bush single. It is one of the more spirited songs. Kate Bush directed the music video, though it is a song few people know about. Not one you hear played at all. In a busy year, the loss of Alan Murphy would have hit her hard. Someone she was very fond of, it was like losing a member of the family.

I really love 1988 and 1989 in terms of Kate Bush’s career. That blend of charity stuff and some promotion. Getting The Sensual World finished by May 1989 (if that is inaccurate then my apologies!). It was quite a distance between the album being finished and being released, through Bush was pretty busy when it came out. I can see interviews where she has spoken at length about making The Sensual World. It is interesting looking at the build-up and year before the album came out. Everything she was involved in. Working with female voice was a rarity. Not something that was part of her studio albums until 1989. She would work with the Trio Bulgarka for The Red Shoes. Bringing new sounds and culture into her music added something special and very powerful. It would be another four years after The Sensual World until we got the seventh studio album. The Red Shoes once more took Kate Bush in a different direction. Before the album was released, she lost her mother (in 1992) and broke up from Del Palmer. It was a changing time. More turbulent than the period between Hounds of Love and The Sensual World. I have a lot of love for The Sensual World. It remains such…

A magnificent and majestic album.

FEATURE: Both Sides, Now: Joni Mitchell’s Clouds at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Both Sides, Now

  

Joni Mitchell’s Clouds at Fifty-Five

_________

I am pleased that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Joni Mitchell in 1969/PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Joni Mitchell’s albums have returned to Spotify, as it allows me to include it here. The album I am referring to is her second studio album, Clouds. Many people talk about Joni Mitchell’s career starting with 1970’s Ladies of the Canyon. Many overlook her first two albums, 1968’s Song to a Seagull and Clouds. Released on 1st May, 1969, I am looking ahead to its fifty-fifth anniversary. It is a fine album and demonstrates the blossoming and district songwriting gifts of Joni Mitchell. One of her best songs, Both Sides Now, ends Clouds. It is a magnificently confident work. Even if future albums such as Blue (1971) are more highly regarded, one cannot overlook the importance and sheer wonder of Clouds. After Song to a Seagull gained a lot of exposure, Mitchell recorded the amazing Clouds at A&M Studios in Hollywood. Mitchell produced most of the album herself. Clouds reached thirty-one in the United States. In spite of the fact that Clouds is a wonderful Joni Mitchell album, there is not a lot of press about it. Hardly any features that celebrate it. Compare that to what is written about Blue or Ladies of the Canyon, and it is really surprising that there is so little out there. I hope that someone writes about Clouds as it turns fifty-five. Released when Joni Mitchell was only twenty-five, it showed just what an extraordinary lyricist and musical talent she was. So far ahead of her peers! As I cannot find too much in the way of features that explore the making of Clouds, I am getting down to some reviews. I will start with For Folk’s Sake and their review from 2010. Most of the reviews I have found are quite old now. It would be good to see some fresh words about a brilliant album:

“Clouds was Joni Mitchell’s second album and won her a Grammy for best folk performance in 1970. I didn’t know the album’s biography before I came to write this piece because when you come to an artist with a large back catalogue you don’t necessarily hear their songs, or buy their albums, in the order they were released. I was aware this was early Joni but that was all- and in a way I’m grateful because I think I fell for Clouds without prejudice. I didn’t know that several of these songs had been recorded by other artists prior to Joni singing them herself (they are of course all written by Joni Mitchell), or that some people consider her earlier folk albums to be less accessible.

I think I return particularly to Clouds because it has a song for just about every mood or situation you could find yourself in on it. To have this album with you is to always have something that will comfort, console, quell apathy, inspire optimism and even anger. The record can certainly seem like quite a disparate collection of tunes but I like that range and I do think there is a common thread to be found- and to me it is to know yourself. The album is bound at either end with two remarkable songs, Tin Angel and Both Sides now, but all ten tracks are constantly selected on my i-pod, here are some of the reasons why:

Tin Angel: The refrain of Tin Angel is ‘I found someone to love today’; that should be one of the happiest lyrics a person can write but when you first listen to this song it is all melancholy and melody; it is entirely in a minor key and a stark bare opening for an album. When you listen again- and again- you hear the hope in the final repetition of ‘I found someone to love today’. This is a song about looking back and forward at love, by the end I always feel a little more peaceful and a little more hopeful.

Chelsea Morning: Chelsea Morning is Joni in Big Yellow Taxi mode, it’s optimistic, it paints a picture for you of somewhere exciting, a place where you can’t wait to start the day. For quite a long time I thought it was about Chelsea in London- but really of course it’s about how wonderful everywhere is when you are in love.

I don’t know where I stand: The song for when you don’t know what to do about love. It can also be about not knowing what to do with yourself- or what to do next- if you want. It won’t fix the uncertainty, or the mood that means you find yourself walking around for hours; but it will go walking with you and tell you other people have felt like these things too.

That Song about the midway: This song fascinates me because it has a lovely melody and it is slightly lower, which I prefer for Joni’s voice. I still don’t really know what it’s about, is she following a man like a compass, or as the song goes on is it something more sinister. Great storytelling even if the denouement never comes to me.

Roses blue: This song is all unsettling melody and lyrics- and quite stunning. It grabs and takes hold of you, you can’t listen quietly to this, or do anything else while it is on- it is by far the most dramatic song on the album and it sounds like it could have been released yesterday.

The Gallery: ‘I gave you all my pretty years’ I am sure other people contributing to Joni week are going to write about her being a voice that made sense in music for girls and women but never was it truer lyrically to me than in this song. I know Joni doesn’t like to be called a poet so I will just say she is a great lyricist.

I think I Understand: This is quite a quiet song in all senses; it doesn’t shout to be noticed amongst this collection. It’s sweet though, you might like to listen to it on a long train journey when you are somewhere between being awake and asleep.

Songs to ageing children come: Kate Bush owes a great deal to Joni Mitchell’s vocal here. Joni’s voice is doubled and the guitar is extremely simple. The very phrase aging children never fails to move me.

The Fiddle and the Drum: This is a (sadly) timeless lyrical, melodic, acapella tune in the tradition of folk music. It must have been a sad song when Clouds was first released, when the Vietnam and Cold Wars were raging; it’s even sadder now, now that the children or grandchildren of those wars are fighting more pointless battles, further away from home. It is a reasoned, measured argument against violence and war and a standard for the peace movement. It would be moving sung by anyone but sung by Joni Mitchell it never fails to make a lump in my throat, a crack in my voice, tears in my eyes.

Both Sides Now: One of the songs that people who aren’t Joni Mitchell fans like, or know. Those songs are often the ones I don’t enjoy on albums but in this case it’s not so. I honestly didn’t know this had been sung by anyone but Joni Mitchell or that she wasn’t first to record it, I can’t imagine many other people doing it such justice. This version seems very pure compared with the version she re- recorded recently and which featured on the Love Actually soundtrack which I remember so many people commenting on. It is the song equivalent of a bottomless glass of comfort to me.  I don’t always have the answers but if Joni doesn’t either then that’s okay with me”.

There are two more reviews I am bringing in before wrapping things up. Alt Rock Chick provided an expansive and hugely detailed review in their review of 2013. It gives some keen insight into songs that still sound relevant and powerful to this day. I think that Clouds is one of Joni Mitchell’s more underrated albums:

“The reflective mood of the album is firmly established in the tone and theme of the opening track, “Tin Angel.” Opening with only the sound of single acoustic guitar notes, the music shifts to unusual chords—ninths and sustained seconds—chords that defy expectations and create a sense of detachment from the humdrum of daily life. The lyrics sing of mementos that are “reflections of love’s memories,” the little souvenirs we keep in boxes to help us recall past feelings and, perhaps, past failures. While such physical reminders of existence are an endangered species in our digital world, “Tin Angel” reminds us that tactile and olfactory experiences can make such past experiences seem more alive (I still have a precious little box where you can find odd things like subway tokens, obsolete currency and a small wooden whistle given to me by a Ukrainian woman I met in Vienna). More important to the purpose of the song is that these trinkets from the past fulfill a need during times of sadness, reminding us that we were once happy, once loved. Hence the chorus, “Guess I’ll throw them all away/I found someone to love today.” What is so wonderful about Joni Mitchell at her best is that she is rarely one-dimensional; in this case, the love she has found is a risky proposition: “Not a golden prince who’s come/Through columbines and wizardry/To talk of castles in the sun.” She further describes him as having a “sorrow in his eyes,” and wonders “What will happen if I try/To place another heart in him.” The song ends ambiguously, never describing the consummation of the relationship. This is what is so beautiful about “Tin Angel”—it leaves you on the knife edge of risk, and too often, despite our inherent loneliness, we feel that love represents the greatest risk of all.

Unfortunately, the mood dissipates with the far too sweet “Chelsea Morning,” a song about which Joni Mitchell said, “I don’t think of it as part of my best work.” It’s not, and the lines “And the sun poured in like butterscotch/And stuck to all my senses” make me cringe as if I’d just eaten a mouthful of Duncan Hines Cherry Chip Cake. Fortunately, it’s a brief departure into youthful exuberance, for she quickly returns to nascent womanhood with “I Don’t Know Where I Stand.” Echoing the theme of love and risk we heard in “Tin Angel,” the song starts as if she’s just left the saccharine experience of her Chelsea room where she was “braiding wildflowers and leaves in my hair,” to find her exuberance collapsing with the realization that love involves risk and the possibility of deep pain. In this situation, she wants to tell someone “I love you” but doesn’t know where she stands with that someone. I’ve always found it interesting that fear of rejection often blocks us from taking action to move a relationship forward because it’s a paradox: the relationship can’t go forward unless we make the move, but our paralysis prevents us from the possibility of having the very thing we want. The rationalizations for inaction are plentiful, and we take advantage of every single one to avoid having to face the possibility that the person of interest may not be interested:

Telephone, even the sound of your voice is still new

All alone in California and talking to you

And feeling too foolish and strange to say the words that I had planned

I guess it’s too early, ’cause I don’t know where I stand

“That Song About the Midway” is more of a character sketch than a relationship song, though the intensity with which the narrator follows the intriguing character suggests that she believes there’s something elusive and attractive about this particular soul. It is said that the song is about Leonard Cohen, and the “midway” is symbolic of the life of the traveling musician, of searching for a lucky break and becoming tired of it all. Perhaps, but I’ve always found that once I hear that a famous person wrote such and such song about another famous person, the experience is similar to glancing at the cover of People while waiting at the checkout stand (haven’t done that in a while!) and finding out who’s cheating on whom. Who gives a shit? The knowledge reduces the potential universal appeal of the song, trivializing it by turning it into a secret code for an exclusive club. If I step back from that bias, I would say “That Song About the Midway” has some interesting imagery but there are other more moving songs on Clouds.

“Roses Blue” is one of those. This sketch is about a woman who has found alt-religion (“She’s gotten to mysterious devotions/She’s gotten to the zodiac and zen/She’s gotten into tarot cards and potions.”) It would be out of character for 60’s child Joni Mitchell to condemn someone who had such hip beliefs, and she doesn’t. The real problem is what every religion does to a true believer—it turns a potentially nice person into a flaming asshole:

She’s laying her religion on her friends

On her friends, on her friends

Friends who come to ask her for their future

Friends who come to find they can’t be friends

Because of signs and seasons that don’t suit her

She’ll prophesy your death, she won’t say when

Won’t say when, won’t say when

When all the black cards come you cannot barter

No, when all your stars are stacked you cannot win

She’ll shake her head and treat you like a martyr

It is her blackest spell she puts you in

Puts you in, puts you in.

This song triggers another one of my biases, and in my role as a music reviewer, I have an obligation to disclose such biases. Here goes: if I met the genie in the lamp and he gave me my three wishes, the first two would have to do with certain sexual fantasies and the third would be to order the genie to abolish all forms of religion on earth and wipe the memories of every person on the planet of any religious influence. Religion has caused more pain, death and separation than any single force in human history, and frankly, the benefit of something as ephemeral as faith hardly compensates for the millions and millions of lives that have been cut short or diminished by the violence and oppression that religion generates. While you may not agree with my views, it does explain the anguished attachment I have to this song: Rose’s crime is not religion, but what she has allowed religion to do to her—cut her off from human friendship by giving her the illusion that arcane knowledge entitles her to elevate herself above the unbelievers. I have experienced people like Rose far too often: the glazed look of distant disdain, the pity in the voice as she tells you how limited you are for not buying her shit . . . the works. “Roses Blue” gives me both the creeps and a sense of sadness that I have to accept that there are people on this earth to whom I will never be close, for there’s no way I can break through the religious plexiglass and relate to them as equals. In that sense, the song is a microcosm of the larger sorrow that religion continues to bring to our world today.

The comment box is down below for those of you who want to condemn me to the everlasting fires of hell.

“The Gallery” features one of the loveliest pure melodies on the entire album, supported by equally beautiful harmonies. It is a tale about a woman who admires a man’s paintings then temporarily becomes the painted object until another takes her place. Sadly, she opts for self-immolation and stays to care for his house, dusting portraits and collecting mail from other female admirers. The power of the song comes from the recognition that the value of women in our society is directly related to our fleeting beauty:

I gave you all my pretty years

Then we began to weather

And I was left to winter here

While you went west for pleasure

I should say, “American society,’ for in France, I’ve seen women twice my age who still have “the look” and continue to turn heads. Age is so overrated as a variable in sexual desire; people who feel that way have allowed themselves to be manipulated by Madison Avenue’s definitions of beauty. Look: I intend to be as hot and horny at sixty-four as I am at thirty-two and baby, I will have some serious fucking lessons to share at that point in my life!

Back to our story—“I Think I Understand” has more of the feel of “Tin Angel,” but deals somewhat inadequately with the ongoing battle against fear. It’s followed by one of my least favorite Joni Mitchell songs, “Songs to Aging Children Come,” where chromatic chords and thirds create harmonies I find rather annoying. I cheer her for her willingness to experiment, recognize that some experiments yield less satisfactory results than others and forgive her for irritating me.

The last two songs on Clouds easily make up for the less effective numbers, and both have deep resonance at this time in my life. The first, “The Fiddle and the Drum,” is Joni’s message to an America that at the time chose to embroil itself in the absurd conflict we know as The Vietnam War. I don’t think Americans fully appreciate how frightening America seems to many of the people in the world—Americans tend to accept violence as one of the inevitable prices one pays for living in a so-called “free society,” and because they view the rest of the world with deep suspicion and distrust, they tend to be closed to any foreign feedback. One of the primary reasons I chose to leave America had to do with its culture of violence—its worship of guns and its veneration of the military. In “The Fiddle and the Drum,” our Canadian friend Joni Mitchell mourns the choice that Americans have made “to trade the handshake for the fist,” something that may be even more relevant today in the era of “The American Empire” than it did the Cold War years of Vietnam when at least the evil Russians were around to take some of the heat. The dynamic is still the same, though: fuck the world, we’ll do whatever the fuck we want because we’re Americans and we’re the best fucking country in the world, so fuck you. Such a tragic perspective! Such a waste of human potential and human life!

And so once again

Oh, America my friend

And so once again

You are fighting us all

And when we ask you why

You raise your sticks and cry and we fall

Oh, my friend

How did you come

To trade the fiddle for the drum

You say we have turned

Like the enemies you’ve earned

But we can remember

All the good things you are

And so we ask you please

Can we help you find the peace and the star

Oh my friend

We have all come

To fear the beating of your drum

Joni sings “The Fiddle and the Drum” a capella, and while her version doesn’t quite match June Tabor’s cover (no one sings anti-war songs as powerfully as June Tabor), her performance is still compelling.

Before the release of Clouds, Judy Collins had a major pop chart hit with “Both Sides Now.” I am very thankful that Joni Mitchell decided to record the song herself and rescue its reputation. Judy Collins’ version is a mechanical, lifeless, overproduced piece of crap that sucks all the emotion and complexity from the song, making it sound like background music for Disneyland. Joni Mitchell’s version, stripped down to guitar and voice, is a masterpiece of vocal and rhythmic dynamics that sounds blessedly more human than machine.

“Both Sides Now” is a song about what Blake called “contraries.” As he so wisely wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.” Thematically, this brings us full circle in Clouds, for “Tin Angel” opens the album with the experience of living on the knife’s edge between polar opposites. The learning experience described in “Both Sides Now” is that because truth is something we perceive differently depending on mood and circumstances, the “real truth” can only be found in that no-man’s land between the two sides. The song is also linked to the other polar dynamic in Clouds—the need for love and the risk of loving:

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels

The dizzy dancing way you feel

As ev’ry fairy tale comes real

I’ve looked at love that way

But now it’s just another show

You leave ’em laughing when you go

And if you care, don’t let them know

Don’t give yourself away

She reaffirms the importance of this theme in the opening lines to the final verse, “Tears and fears and feeling proud/To say ‘I love you’ right out loud.” Interestingly, she also links our discovery of love with our discovery of self, and with the inevitable rejection we face when we fail to meet the expectations of friends who were comfortable with the expired version:

But now old friends are acting strange

They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed

Well something’s lost, but something’s gained

In living every day”.

I will end with a review from AllMusic. There are actually some useful links on Joni Mitchell’s website, where you can access more reviews and information about Clouds. With cover art by Joni Mitchell and recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, Clouds is a classic that has never quite received the respect and focus that it deserves:

“Clouds is a stark stunner, a great leap forward for Joni Mitchell. Vocals here are more forthright and assured than on her debut and exhibit a remarkable level of subtle expressiveness. Guitar alone is used in accompaniment, and the variety of playing approaches and sounds gotten here is most impressive. "The Fiddle and the Drum," a protest song that imaginatively compares the Vietnam-era warmongering U.S. government to a bitter friend, dispenses with instrumental accompaniment altogether. The sketches presented of lovers by turns depressive ("Tin Angel"), roguish ("That Song About the Midway"), and faithless ("The Gallery") are vividly memorable. Forthright lyrics about the unsureness of new love ("I Don't Know Where I Stand"), misuse of the occult ("Roses Blue"), and mental illness ("I Think I Understand") are very striking. Mitchell's classic singer/songwriter standards "Chelsea Morning" and "Both Sides Now" respectively receive energetically vibrant and warmly thoughtful performances. Imaginatively unusual and subtle harmonies abound here, never more so in her body of work than on the remarkable "Songs to Aging Children Come," which sets floridly impressionistic lyrics to a lovely tune that is supported by perhaps the most remarkably sophisticated chord sequence in all of pop music. Mitchell's riveting self-portrait on the album's cover is a further asset. This essential release is a must-listen”.

On 1st May, we mark fifty-five years of Joni Mitchell’s Clouds. Her second studio album, it would arguable begin one of the most important and astonishing runs of albums in history. Think of how amazing Ladies of the Canyon, Blue and For the Roses is. Only three years between the release of Clouds and her fifth studio album, For the Roses. Such a prolific artist. I hope that more documentaries and podcasts are made about Clouds and Joni Mitchell’s career in 1969. Such a memorable year for music in general, she released an amazing album that has stood the test of time. Fifty-five years after it came into the world, Clouds is a mesmeric…

WORK of brilliance.

FEATURE: Feel a Whole Lot Better: Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Feel a Whole Lot Better

  

Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever at Thirty-Five

_________

ONE of the finest and most enduring…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers in concert at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater on 14th Aug, 1989 in Irvine, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

albums of the 1980s, I wanted to celebrate Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary on 24th April. Among Petty’s most successful and strongest albums, it contains classic tracks such as Free Fallin’, Runnin’ Down a Dream and I Won’t Back Down. It is an album I am very fond of. The debut from Tom Petty, it was a step away from his band, The Heartbreakers. It does feature contributions from members of the band, such as Mike Campbell and Jeff Lynne. Roy Orbison features, though he died prior to the album’s release. George Harrison is also in the mix. With Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Mike Campbell writing and predicting the tracks, it was this collaborative album where Tom Petty was exploring his music roots. There are a few features and reviews about Full Moon Fever that I am very keen to bring in. I want to start with a 2019 feature from Billboard. They gave a track-by-track guide to a classic album. I have selected a few of the best-known numbers:

“One 1987 fall day in L.A., Tom Petty went out on a drive to play some baseball — and had a run-in that would define his career. Driving to the Thrifty Drug store to pick up a mitt, he pulled up to a red light — and caught a glimpse of Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne in the next car. Petty waved for Lynne to pull over.

Lynne, then in town to produce Brian Wilson’s solo debut album, began stopping by Petty’s house to woodshed new material. Together, they seemed to reignite each other’s mojo. Over the first two days, they wrote “Yer So Bad” and one of his signature songs, “Free Fallin’.”

Thus, the ball got rolling for Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever, a bold step outside the Heartbreakers that shot to No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Wednesday (April 24) marks the album’s 30th

Petty was deep into stardom with the Heartbreakers, but by 1989, what looked like a holistic gang was disrupted. After the tour for 1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), the band was scattered around the country — and Petty was on-edge and paranoid from an arson on his home in May 1987.

Lynne, too, was ready for a change. ELO had disbanded in 1986; in the producer chair for Petty, he could flex his creative muscles in a new way. His Beatles-tuned approach — radiant keys, dense harmonies, outsized choruses — buffed Petty’s sound to a gleam.

This drew mixed reactions from the Heartbreakers. Guitarist Mike Campbell stepped up as his sidekick and co-wrote “Love Is a Long Road” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”; keyboardist Benmont Tench, though credited on “The Apartment Song,” felt burned. “I was pissed off and hurt,” he told Rolling Stone. “We were supposed to make a Heartbreakers record.”

Bandmate drama aside, the sessions foreshadowed a new union: the Traveling Wilburys. One year before Fever, the tongue-in-cheek supergroup released its first album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. Listen closely, and you can hear George Harrison and Roy Orbison singing backing vocals on “I Won’t Back Down” and “Zombie Zoo,” respectively.

When Petty suddenly passed away Oct. 2, 2017 of an accidental overdose, Lynne’s tribute was one of the simplest and most touching: “Tom was the coolest guy I ever knew.” Full Moon Fever reflects that brotherly respect — and remains the zenith of Petty’s solo career.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Full Moon Fever, here’s a track-by-track retrospective of the album.

“Free Fallin’”

Petty’s most recognizable song is his ultimate work of magical realism: cosmic flights, vampiric marches and out-of-body experiences set against mundane San Fernando Valley geography. Never had he worked in such dualities: references to many Angelenos’ daily commute set to sky-high suspended chords. We don’t know what became of the good girl and the bad boy, but it hardly matters — “Free Fallin’” is magic. And at No. 7, it was Petty’s highest-charting Hot 100 solo single.

“I Won’t Back Down”

In 1987, Petty waged and won a courtroom battle against B.F. Goodrich, a tire company that ripped off his song “Mary’s New Car” in a TV ad. Eleven days after the decision, an unknown assailant burned his home to the ground. These tribulations led to “I Won’t Back Down,” a clear-eyed song of resilience; its bracing simplicity made Petty second-guess its value. “That song frightened me,” he said. “I thought it wasn’t that good because it was so naked.” But, as always, he stood his ground.

“Runnin’ Down a Dream”

A high-octane favorite that has appeared everywhere from NASCAR to the Super Bowl halftime show, “Runnin’ Down a Dream” is the best of Petty’s songs about small–town escape. Campbell’s Dick Dale-like motif adds a lick of danger; he nailed the song’s string-popping coda in one take. “He looked like a stone statue,” marveled Petty. “He didn’t even blink or move.” Petty sounds blissful, name-dropping his buddy Del Shannon, at home between the highway dividers”.

Apologies if there is some repetition regarding facts and story about the recording of Full Moon Fever. Albumism spotlighted Tom Petty’s debut solo album on its thirtieth anniversary in 2019. Even if it does sound distinctly like a Heartbreakers record, it is very much a Tom Petty solo album. However you regarded it, there is no denying its consistency. Such a strong effort from the magnificent Petty:

“Petty's solo album actually had most of the Heartbreakers on it. Mike Campbell, the Heartbreaker's lead guitarist, played across the album and even co-wrote two songs. Benmont Tench, Heartbreaker keyboardist, played on one track, as did bassist Howie Epstein. The only Heartbreaker not on the album was drummer Stan Lynch, with whom Petty had an often-contentious relationship.

The album came about due to Petty's friendship with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra. Lynne helped Petty write and produce "Yer So Bad," which wound up on Full Moon Fever. A day later, the two wrote and recorded "Free Fallin'," another iconic track from the album, at Campbell's home studio. Petty tried to make the album a Heartbreakers’ LP, but the rest of the band wasn't interested, as Petty recounted in Paul Zollo's Conversations with Tom Petty: “So I got to [Campbell's] and Howie [Epstein] was sitting outside the door of the bedroom. And he seemed kind of preoccupied, like he could be in those days. He was waiting, almost like a doctor waiting in the waiting room. And he said, 'You don't really need me for this, do you?' And he said, 'I don't like it.' I said, 'Well, if you don't like it, I don't need you.' And he said, 'Okay, I'm gonna go,' and he left. Right then I went, ‘well, this is going to be a Tom Petty solo record because I like it.’”

By this time, Petty and the Heartbreakers had made seven albums. One could see how Petty might be ready for a break. As much as he liked the band, he seemed invigorated by his work with Lynne, as well as by another guest on the album, Beatle George Harrison. Harrison sang backup on "I Won't Back Down."

A simple mimed performance on a sound stage with some random backgrounds, the video for that song revealed some interesting armchair psychological insights. There's not much to it, however, what's interesting is the band. Petty is singing and playing guitar, with Campbell on lead, and Lynne on bass. Harrison plays guitar and sings background vocals and none other than Ringo Starr plays drums, even though he had nothing to do with the song or the album.

Perhaps Petty was ready for a new band, if only for an album or so, and the solo record presented the opportunity to explore a Heartbreaker-less life. Or perhaps, like so many of us, he wanted to be a Beatle for a day.

Of course, the irony of the album is that it sounds so much like a Heartbreakers record. Petty ran away from home but chose a new family incredibly similar to his old one. But even if the new family was remarkably similar, there were still slight differences. Like Petty covered a Byrds song for the first time on a studio record, giving "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" a Beatles-esque sheen. Perhaps he finally felt free to cover a band that very much influenced his sound because this wasn't a formal Heartbreakers release, but rather a personal, solo dalliance.

Petty seemed, on some level, tired of the Heartbreakers. Which is why it makes sense that the Traveling Wilburys, Petty's supergroup featuring Harrison, Lynne, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison, would come together after Full Moon Fever (although the Wilburys' debut, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, was released before Full Moon).

Petty was on a journey of self-discovery and Full Moon Fever documents the start of that adventure.

The Heartbreakers, other than Campbell, resented Full Moon and didn't want to play the songs live as the Heartbreakers. Petty was well aware of the tension. When asked about if the Heartbreakers would perform this material, back in 1989, Petty joked to Billboard, "If I find some women and money for them, maybe. I haven't asked them yet."

But of course the band would perform these songs. They were too big to not play live. The songs were seared into popular American culture. Can you imagine Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire belting out any song other than "Free Fallin'" as he looks for a celebratory tune on the radio? And while there were two post 9/11 concerts, the only thing I remember from either is Petty's defiant "I Won't Back Down," played with the Heartbreakers, of course, from America: A Tribute to Heroes. Full Moon was just too good to exist only on the record; it needed to be blasted in stadiums and arenas. In fact, the Heartbreakers would add guitarist/keyboardist/backup singer Scott Thurston to help flesh out the sound on the Full Moon Fever tour. The Heartbreakers resented Full Moon Fever but their professional life was intertwined with the album, for better or for worse.

Petty's career was defined by his great songwriting. It should come as no surprise that his first solo album would be a hit machine. It should also come as no surprise that the success of Full Moon Fever created tension in the band. But things eventually cooled down. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would make six more studio albums after Full Moon Fever and Petty would do another solo album, Wildflowers (1994), before he died in 2017.

The world considers Full Moon Fever a Heartbreakers record. The Heartbreakers came around to accepting it as one, but at its core, it’s a Petty solo work. In 2018, Campbell wound up touring with Fleetwood Mac after their guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, was fired. On that tour, Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks performed a Tom Petty song every night as a tribute to her friend and colleague (Petty and Campbell had written and recorded "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," which became a hit for her). The song she picked? "Free Fallin'”.

I will end with a review from Rolling Stone. Before getting to that review, I want to bring in this feature from 2019. I am fascinated about the background and story of Full Moon Fever. How one of the all-time best debt albums came to life. It is a sadness that Tom Petty is not with us to see how people react to Full Moon Fever and its approaching thirty-fifth anniversary:

“Though relaxed and low-key, the Full Moon Fever sessions were also a hotbed of creativity. Primarily tracked in lead guitarist Mike Campbell’s garage studio, the songs were mostly laid down by a core group of Petty, Campbell, drummer Phil Jones and producer Jeff Lynne (who played bass and subtle textural keyboards), though the remaining Heartbreakers and two of Petty’s fellow Wilburys also pitched in. Roy Orbison made a brief cameo on quirky rocker “Zombie Zoo,” while George Harrison played guitar and added decisive vocal harmonies to the LP’s first 45, “I Won’t Back Down.”

Though defiant in tone, “I Won’t Back Down” was also eminently catchy. Its success on the Billboard Hot 100 (where it peaked at No.12) set Full Moon Fever on the road to multi-platinum success. Driven by Mike Campbell’s memorable, zig-zagging riffs, the Del Shannon-referencing road song “Runnin’ Down A Dream” quickly followed it into the US Top 30, while the yearning, nostalgic “Free Fallin” later peaked at an impressive No.7.

Long-term staples of all self-respecting classic rock radio stations, this evergreen trio of 45s have since dominated reappraisals of their parent album, yet in reality Full Moon Fever was refreshingly filler-free. Indeed, Petty and co were right on the money throughout. Whether they were treading well-worn ground on tough, Heartbreakers-esque rockers (“Depending On You”) or veering off on sublime stylistic departures such as the glorious, lullaby-style love song “Alright For Now,” nothing could detour them from the path of greatness.

On the back of its three hits and a string of positive reviews, Full Moon Fever outstripped the success of The Travelling Wilburys Vol.1, peaking at No.3 on the Billboard 200 and going quintuple platinum in North America. Despite stiff competition from 1994’s Rick Rubin-produced Wildflowers, it arguably remains the high-water mark of Tom Petty’s solo career, though its mainstream pop sensibility remained intact on 1991’s robust, Jeff Lynne-produced Heartbreakers reunion, Into The Great Wide Open”.

In 1989, Rolling Stone provided their thoughts about Full Moon Fever. They spotlight many highlights on an album that made an instant impact upon its release. A  top ten in many nations – including the U.S. and U.K. -, Full Moon Fever has since gone on to be crowned one of the best albums ever. If you have not heard it in a while, go and spend time with it:

“Tom Petty picks his friends well. Touring behind Bob Dylan in 1986 helped him and his band, the Heartbreakers, make their most spontaneous and feisty record, 1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough). And his tenure in the Traveling Wilburys let the usually straight-faced Petty loosen up even more: He came up with one of his funniest tunes — “Last Night” — but more important, his performances seemed to gain strength from the relaxed atmosphere. Instead of worrying about writing songs as barbed as Bob Dylan’s, playing guitar as tersely as George Harrison or singing as gloriously as Roy Orbison, Petty just casually leaned forward and played and sang as directly and freely as he could.

Full Moon Fever is another rewarding, low-key side project for Petty. Produced by fellow Wilbury Jeff Lynne, the record is technically Petty’s first solo outing, though all the Heartbreakers except for drummer Stan Lynch make an appearance. What’s more, all the Wilburys save one (Bob Dylan) also show up: Full Moon Fever has the same restless charm and barbed wit as the Wilburys’ LP.

Although Petty and Heartbreaker guitarist-songwriter Mike Campbell earn coproduction credits on the album, it is Lynne who holds sway. The former Electric Light Orchestra leader’s production technique often builds banks of keyboards and backing vocals so high it’s hard to see the song behind them, but on Full Moon Fever there are few of his characteristic excesses. In fact, the broader sound that Lynne brings to these twelve songs (most written by Petty and Lynne) usually fills them out without cluttering them. On songs like the brooding, deliberate rocker “I Won’t Back Down,” Lynne adds his trademark layers with a slightly lighter touch than usual; only on the grand-sounding “Love Is a Long Road” do the synthesizers and extra vocals beef up an arrangement with fat instead of muscle.

The opening song, the delicate “Free Fallin’,” is not only the standout on Full Moon Fever but also one of the most concise, well-rounded performances of Petty’s career. Over a spiral of acoustic guitars, Petty sings the tale of an abandoning lover. His story is full of internal inconsistencies — if he doesn’t miss her, why is the whole first verse about her? — that serve to underline the character’s misgivings. “I’m free!” Petty cries as he barges into the chorus, holding out some redemption for his narrator. But after a pause, he delivers the dark punch line: He’s not free, he’s merely “free fallin’.” Although Lynne’s smooth backing vocals cushion Petty as much as they can, this is one story that holds no happy landing.

“Free Fallin’ ” isn’t the only high point on this sprawling album. The hell-bent “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” which offers a bruising solo by Campbell, suggests that Petty picked something up from touring with the ferocious Georgia Satellites, and “A Mind With a Heart of Its Own,” a pop variation on the Bo Diddley beat, offers up offhand verses absurd and unexpected enough to make even Dylan smile. The barbs reach their peak on “Yer So Bad,” which burps up a hilariously understated opening couplet (“My sister got lucky/Married a yuppie”); it’s a track that could have fit on Beatles ’65. “The Apartment Song” — more folk rock, but with a Chuck Berry edge — also engages in some nostalgia, with a drum break swiped wholesale from Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue.”

Although Full Moon Fever doesn’t sound like a Petty-with-the-Heartbreakers record, there is much on the album to please longtime Petty fans. The chorus of “Depending on You,” with its cascading guitar and keyboard parts, is the most overtly Heartbreaker-like, and the hard-earned lullaby “Alright for Now” recalls “It’ll All Work Out,” from Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough).

The most inexplicable track is a note-for-note cover of the Byrds’ “Feel a Whole Lot Better” that’s all too obvious — Petty’s voice has always been a ringer for Roger McGuinn’s, and this song is the clear antecedent to Petty’s “Listen to Her Heart.” But Petty’s just-as-obvious love for the song steamrolls over most objections.

The whole point of Full Moon Fever, however, is that it makes room for something like “Feel a Whole Lot Better,” which would never find a place on a Petty-Heartbreakers record. The album is a chance for Petty to explore, play and maybe fall on his face without having much at stake. After all, he’s already at work on his next effort with the Heartbreakers. So even if Full Moon Fever isn’t Petty’s best record, it sure sounds like it was the most fun to make”.

On 24th April, we mark thirty-five years of Full Moon Fever. It is shocking to think that MCA Records, under Irving Azoff, originally refused to issue the album because it was felt there were not hits on Tom Petty’s debut album. In 2019, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It is testament to the sheer strength and brilliance of Full Moon Fever. A true classic, I wanted to mark its thirty-fifth anniversary. We lost the amazing Tom Petty in 2017. By listening to albums such as Full Moon Fever, we will…

REMEMBER him fondly.

FEATURE: The Trailer Before the Feature… Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Thirteen: One of Two Gifts in 2011

FEATURE:

 

 

The Trailer Before the Feature…

  

Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Thirteen: One of Two Gifts in 2011

_________

THERE are a couple of things…

that I want to highlight with this feature. Kate Bush’s ninth studio album, Director’s Cut, turns twelve on 16th May. It was one of two unexpected releases in 2011. I am going to come to some reviews for the album. I have dropped some in already in my previous feature about the album’s upcoming anniversary. What I also want to do is explore how Director’s Cut was designed, in part, to make way for an album of new material for Kate Bush. 50 Words for Snow arrived in November 2011. This was the first major project where Kate Bush was looking back at her older material. I know The Whole Story, the only greatest hits album, came out in 1986. This is the only time when Bush reworked an album of songs. She took selections from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. I know she would have had no issues with 2005’s Aerial. Nothing on Hounds of Love (1985) that she would want to revisit. I can imagine there are things on 1982’s The Dreaming she might have wanted to strip back and remodel. Perhaps the reason she chose The Sensual World and The Red Shoes is because they followed such a masterpiece album and were maybe not as she heard them in her head. Perhaps a little too cluttered or dense, this was a chance for her to select particular songs that maybe were not as strong on the original albums. In this new setting they come to life. Even if some fans are divided as to whether Director’s Cut was necessary or not, one cannot argue against the fact it was nice to hear Kate Bush back. Doing promotion and speaking about her work.

Prior to 2011, there had been some activity here and there. After Aerial came out in 2005, there was a bit of promotion for that. The period between 2005 and 2011 is fascinating. There was a single, Lyra, released in 2007. That was used in the film, The Golden Compass. After that double album, one can understand how Bush wanted to take some time out. Given it was twelve years after The Red Shoes when Aerial came, many might have hoped for an album sooner than 2011. That said, as she returned with two in 2011, we can sort of average it out to an album every three years. I will discuss 50 Words for Snow briefly to end. Nobody expected anything in May 2011. Bush normally put out studio albums between September and November. With the exception of The Kick Inside (February 1978), her albums come out in the autumn or winter. A spring release was a nice treat for fans. We got more context when she did put out 50 Words for Snow. At the time of Director’s Cut coming out, I guess Kate Bush had to be secretive about a new studio album. I think the main reason why Director’s Cut came out was the opportunity to correct some past unhappiness. Something that was in her mind a while. There would have been trepidation around revisiting her older music. She is more revisionist now but, in 2011, she was not really. Recorded between 2009 and 2011, it was this project that had to be wrapped up and done early enough so that she could record and finish 50 Words for Snow and release that before the end of the year – as it is a winter album and she did not want to wait another year to put that out.

I can only imagine the sort of juggling that was being done leading to 2011. Having to get these albums done and scheduled so that they both came out in 2011. Few would have guessed we’d get two Kate Bush albums in 2011! I think that the period between 2005 and 2009 was more about family and getting another gap. That impetus and desire to start another project saw her return to songs that many either did not hear the first time around or consider to be perfectly fine on the original albums. I am curious how she decided which tracks to include on Director’s Cut. If you narrow to The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, there might be other tracks that could have made the cut. Maybe query why Deeper Understanding was chosen. Did Rubberband Girl sound better with a new pace and setting? Two of the best reworkings and re-recordings come from The Sensual World. This Woman’s Work takes on a whole new weight and meaning. An older artist singing this song almost redefines the lyrics. Also, and I suspect the main catalyst for Director’s Cut was Kate Bush finally having permission from the James Joyce estate to use Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from Ulysses. Not available when she recorded The Sensual World, with its new title of Flower of the Mountain, this freedom would have inspired her to reapproach that song and then think about other tracks she would like to revisit. An important album and moment for her, I do feel it is not talked about enough by Kate Bush fans. I am, as a I said, coming back to some promotion that may be familiar to some. I will also finish up by talking about 2011 ending with ‘the main feature’ about Director’s Cut – and how different 50 Words for Snow is in terms of its sound and length.

There are some reviews that I will bring in to illustrate how Director’s Cut was perceived. It is unique in terms of her reworking existing songs. I don’t think it is all that common in music, so it was a big and brave decision. The world got a lovely shock in 2011 when it was announced Director’s Cut would arrive in May. The promotional images for the album are particularly pleasing and striking. I think most of the best were taken by her brother, John Carder Bush. Before getting to that interview, it is interesting looking at the chart positions for Director’s Cut. Number two in the U.K., it did well in the Dutch, Scottish and Irish charts. It was a bit of a miss for Spanish and Japanese fans. Interesting how various nations reacted to a new Kate Bush album. One that was unlike anything she had done before. Most of the reviews for Director’s Cut were very positive. There were some that are more constructive. I want to bring in Super Deluxe Edition and their view on the tracks Kate Bush selected to rework/re-record:

“This week sees the release of Kate Bush’s new album Director’s Cut. Six years on from 2005’s Aerial, this album revisits tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes.

Kate – seemingly unhappy with the ‘sound’ of some of these original tracks – has gone back to the multi-tracks and removed certain elements and augmented the original performance with new instrumentation. Drums and Bass are the most prominent changes, with legendary session drummer Steve Gadd behind the kit for most tracks, and the songs all have a new vocal performance, with Kate changing the key to many of them to suit her vocal range of 2011. A few tracks have been re-recorded completely, including the much-loved This Woman’s Work.

Reworking these old tracks is a suitably perverse decision from Kate Bush. Aerial was received as a minor masterpiece, which you would have thought would have encouraged her to move forward relatively quickly, with another album of new material. But instead we are served-up tracks from the two albums that preceded Aerial, rather than anything new.  And what is wrong with The Sensual World and The Red Shoes anyway?

As far as The Sensual World goes, not much. Yes, there is a lot going on in most of the tracks, with Kate layering many sounds together as she had done with 1982’s The Dreaming and 1985’s seminal Hounds of Love. And true, it does sound like an album recorded in the 1980s, but there is nothing wrong with that. Would Harold Faltermeyer’s Axel F be ‘better’ if it was re-recorded with a piano and a real drummer instead of a synth and drum machine?

The Red Shoes is another beast altogether. It’s widely regarded by fans as one of her weakest albums. This is partly down to some below-par songs (by her own high standards) and because it lacks that unworldly Kate-factor. With guest performers including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Prince and Lenny Henry (!) here was just another rock star making just another album. The rumour at the time was that Kate was going for something more straightforward in preparation for a live tour. Regardless, the tour never happened and the album was viewed as a disappointment.

Let’s take a detailed look at the tracks on Director’s Cut.

Flower of the Mountain

This track was originally titled The Sensual World and was the lead single from that album in 1989. Kate had originally wanted to use the words of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, but his estate had refused permission and she was forced to rethink her approach to the song. Kate contacted them again recently, and to her surprise they finally granted permission – this new version is track one on Director’s Cut.

Maybe it’s a case of  ‘watch what you wish for’ since now Kate has finally got the words she wanted, the song suffers for it. It doesn’t help that the backing to The Sensual World has quite a bass-heavy production. Kate’s old vocal cut through this nicely, but the deeper tones of 2011 do not. The vocal delivery is also quite uncertain. It sounds like someone had shoved an A4 sheet of paper with new, unfamiliar words in front of Kate, and asked her to sing along to an instrumental version of The Sensual World. The vocal is far too high in the mix and feels completely detached from the music. It’s possible that this was the intention –  a half-spoken, half-sung ‘soliloquy’ over music. Either way, one of highlights of The Sensual Word album is, frankly, a mess, and amongst the weaker tracks on Director’s Cut.

Song of Solomon

This is a big improvement from the version on The Red Shoes. It’s has a much warmer, sweeter tone and the instrumentation is stripped back, with more room for the various elements to breath. Kate’s voice sounds great on this track too.

Lily

Another track from The Red Shoes, Kate again puts in a good vocal performance, and it does indeed have a nicer, more ‘analogue’ sound to it than the original. However, this song is no classic waiting to be rediscovered. Ultimately an average track, improved a little bit.

Deeper Understanding

This track was released as a (digital-only) single to support the album and Kate went to the trouble to make a video for it starring Robbie Coltrane. If you’ve heard it, you will know Kate has controversially used an ‘autotune’ effect on the chorus to represent the sound of the computer communicating. If you can get used to this (and it is a challenge) this track is actually very successful. Steve Gadd does his best ’50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ drumming and there’s some lovely bass and harmonica interplay in the extended ‘outro’, which is reminiscent of Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up.

The Red Shoes

Like Lily, this track is undoubtedly improved by the new vocal and new mix but it has never been a particularly engaging song. Very skippable.

This Woman’s Work

A rock-solid classic from The Sensual World, that shamefully peaked at only #25 in the UK charts back in 1989. What on earth is Kate thinking of, mucking around with this one, you might ask? Well, she approaches this track with great intelligence and opts for a completely new recording. It’s very minimal – a twinkly delight, as Kate sings beautifully over an electric piano and an ethereal chorus of backing vocals. Imagine lying on your back looking up at the night sky, and falling into sleep as you sing the melody. Outstanding.

Moments of Pleasure

Also a completely new recording, this track from The Red Shoes is another highlight from Director’s Cut. Kate does away with the strings of the ’93 version and keeps things simple again with piano, voice and choir. More meditative than the original, the melody is tweaked slightly and everything feels much more intimate. A very good track just got even better.

Never Be Mine

This track from The Sensual World strips away much of the original production. Kate voice again sounds much nicer here than on the rather shrill original. She takes a few liberties with the melody and the Trio Bulgarka play a smaller role, not coming in until near the end.

A definite improvement, Never Be Mine 2011 feels more intimate and can be rightly regarded as a success.

Top of the City

Another track from The Red Shoes that is an aural improvement, but none of this improves the actual song, which isn’t really very good, then or now.

And So Is Love

A single from The Red Shoes, this track features prominent guitar work from Eric Clapton. The guitar remains, albeit slightly lower in the mix. This song was never Kate at her best and nothing has changed in that respect.

Rubberband Girl

After a couple of average tracks, the album ends on a high, with Kate mumbling her way through this completely unrecognisable version of Rubberband Girl. It sounds a bit like a Rolling Stones outtake from 1971. This footloose and fancy-free version is great fun and seems to be Kate letting her hair down a bit. A good track to end the experiment that is Director’s Cut.

Verdict

It’s difficult to know how to judge Director’s Cut. One thing this exercise does prove is that no amount of knob-twiddling is going to magically transform an average song into a great song, but by the same token, a great song can be stretched and twisted out of shape quite radically and it will still remain a great song. To that end, This Woman’s Work is the shining beacon of this set and Moments of Pleasure is not far behind.

As a compilation of songs it’s obviously very narrow, taking in, as it does, only songs released within a four year period. The Red Shoes represents over 60 percent  of Director’s Cut, so if you were not overly keen on that album do not come to the party expecting miracles.  It would have been a more interesting exercise for the listener if Kate had revisited tracks from across her entire output, rather than just from the two albums chosen. Her only compilation album was released 25 years ago, so a greatest hits of sorts is long overdue.

However, you get the feeling that Kate wasn’t too bothered about what people wanted to hear. Director’s Cut is the sound of Kate Bush satisfying her own artistic curiosity and taking us along for the ride”.

Prior to moving to 50 Words for Snow and how the two are interlinked, there is another review I am mentioning. I like what Dig! wrote about Director’s Cut in 2021. How it was as much of a showcase of how Kate Bush has developed as an artist. It gave new angles and interpretations that have given me more reasons to appreciate and respect what she did with Director’s Cut. An album worthy of much more attention and writing:

“With hindsight, the move looks like a warm-up for Bush’s next album proper, 50 Words For Snow, which followed Director’s Cut’s in November. Revamping her old material also gave Bush the opportunity to right some creative wrongs from her past. Since originally releasing them, she’d grown dissatisfied with the production of both The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

“I just kind of felt like there were songs on those two albums that were quite interesting but that they could really benefit from having new life breathed into them,” she told Dimitri Ehrlich for Interview magazine. “There was generally a bit of an edgy sound to it, which was mainly due to the digital equipment that we were using, which was state-of-the-art at the time – and I think everyone felt pressured to be working that way. But I still remain a huge fan of [analogue]. There were elements of the production that I felt were either a little bit dated or a bit cluttered. So, what I wanted to do was empty them out and let the songs breathe more.”

RICHLY REWARDING, EMOTIONALLY OVERWHELMING 

Three of the songs (This Woman’s Work, Moments Of Pleasure, Rubberband Girl) were re-recorded completely for Director’s Cut, while the drums on all of the tracks were replaced by studio ace Steve Gadd (Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan). Danny Thompson was brought in on bass, and new backing vocals were provided by Mica Paris, Jacob Thorn and Kate’s son, Bertie McIntosh. Most importantly, Bush herself re-recorded her lead vocals for each of the song. Taken together, the overhauls give a new perspective on the material – the studio sheen associated with the late 80s and early 90s is stripped back, and the songs feel warmer and more welcoming. What’s more, they better suit Bush’s more mature, less dramatic vocals, bringing out new meaning in her lyrics.

The only song with “new” lyrics was Flower Of The Mountain (originally recorded as The Sensual World’s title track), which, in place of her original lyrics, now used an extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses – just as Bush has originally conceived the song. While the writer’s estate had blocked her from using his text back in 1989, come the recording of Director’s Cut, she was finally granted permission. Joyce’s words – drawn from the novel’s closing soliloquy by Molly Bloom – helped transform the track from a glossy, radio-friendly single into something more considered and languid. A similar effect was achieved on much of the rest of Director’s Cut, notably with a moving take on Moments Of Pleasure which, once an ecstatic celebration of friends and family who had passed away, had been transformed into a hushed elegy.

Meanwhile, Bush saved the most radical reinvention for one of her most-loved songs, This Woman’s Work. Recast as an ethereal ambient ballad, with Bush’s lower vocal range and thoughtful delivery lending it an air of tangible vulnerability, the re-recording also demonstrated Bush’s artistic confidence – at this point in her career, she was free to follow her muse without considering a song’s hit potential. The results led to some glorious music.

Released on 16 May 2011, Director’s Cut may at first have seemed like a curio, but a closer listen reveals a richly rewarding, often emotionally overwhelming set that emphasises how creative and headstrong Bush remained as a writer, musician and producer at the top of her game”.

It is important that we salute Director’s Cut. Many fans still dismiss it or question its worth. I hope, through these anniversary features, it is clearer why Bush approached this album and its importance. I guess she was not immune to re-recording vocals. She did for Wuthering Heights. On The Whole Story, a new vocal was recorded. Maybe wanting to mature the vocal and tone down some its wilder edges, she may have been in a similar mindset regarding particular cuts from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Not happy with the production. Periods of her life where there was change, loss and upheaval. From revelatory new versions – Flower of the Mountain, This Woman’s Work and The Song of Solomon – to ones that are not as strong as the original album versions – Deeper Understanding and Rubberband Girl -, there is a lot to discuss and love about the album. It did sort of clear the road for what was coming ahead. Bush’s tenth (and most recent) studio album, 50 Words for Snow, was another shock for fans. Not since 1978 had she released two albums in a year. Unlike then, the situation was very different. Releasing through her own Fish People label, 50 Words for Snow had none of the pressure of her early albums. She could have waited until 2012 but, determined to have it out in 2011, she worked so hard to get the album done.

What resulted was one of her strongest album. Such different headspace and routines needed for both albums. Whereas Director’s Cut was a case of taking existing songs and making them into new songs, Bush started from scratch for 50 Words for Snow. Which was the harder process?! Each provided its own challenges and headaches. It is testament to Kate Bush that 50 Words for Snow is this natural-sounding and magnificent album. Almost like suites of music rather than conventional songs. Director’s Cut, in contrast, is taking known tracks and making them updated and new. Balancing and perfecting both would have taken so much patience and commitment! This is a reason why I wanted to mark Director’s Cut’s thirteenth anniversary. It is more than a revisit or reversion. I sort of think about artists like Taylor Swift recording their own albums. Some found that odd. The situations are different, though it is not far-fetched or strange for an artist to go back to various albums and re-record them. We all hope that the thirteenth anniversary of Director’s Cut makes Kate Bush. think about that time and why she released the album. She was keen to sort of right wrongs so that she could move along. I have said it before, but could her recent reissuing other studio albums and some revisionism mean she has cleared some space for new material. We can only hope but never know. On 16th May, 2011, we received the brilliant and fascinating Director’s Cut. I think that it is an album that we need to…

SHOW love to.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 

Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

_________

I have included this song before…

in a feature that looked at music guilty pleasures. Now I no longer believe that there is such a thing, I instead want to celebrate and properly show respect to Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. It turns forty on 14th May. One of Wham!’s biggest and most recognisable songs, it entered the U.K. chart at number four - it went to number one a week later and stayed there for two weeks. It also went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, holding the top spot for three weeks. Written and produced by George Michael, the chemistry between Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in the video and on the song is infectious! Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go went platinum in the U.S, The iconic music video features Michael and Ridgeley wearing message T-shirts ("CHOOSE LIFE") which were created by Katharine Hamnett. Recorded in London in February 1984, this classic was the lead single from Wham’s! Make It Big album (1984). An album that saw a run of four perfect singles – Careless Whisper, Freedom and Everything She Wants followed -, I hope that the upcoming anniversary of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go shines new light on the second studio album from Wham! One of the finest albums of the 1980s. There are a couple of features about the song that I want to bring in. That tell the story of a song that, whilst it divides some, is an undeniable classic. One of the most exhilarating Pop songs ever written. Smooth Radio went deep with the track in their feature about Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’s video:

“As soon as you hear the opening line to 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go', you better buckle in for a joyous ride for the next four minutes.

The song is pure pop perfection, and catapulted George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley right to the top of mainstream success at home and in the US.

Everything about 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' became instantly iconic and synonymous with the 1980s - the optimism of the era, the colourful music video, and especially George's glorious hair.

But who wrote the song? What was the inspiration behind the Wham! track? What was the idea behind the 'CHOOSE LIFE' t-shirts? Here's all you need to know:

As with the majority of Wham! songs, George Michael penned the lyrics to and co-produced 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'.

Their hands-on approach to their songwriting and producing separated George and Andrew from the era of pop groups or boybands that preceded them - they had full control of their output and image, and crafted it themselves despite being so young.

Talking about how he pieced the song together, George said: "I'd done a demo at home that just had a bass line and a vocal on it."

"Usually, I write the record in my head; I know what all the parts are going to be and I sing them to all our musicians. And it was great."

"We actually did it as a rehearsal. We used a LinnDrum because the drummer was late, and it was such a good track that we kept it."

What was the inspiration behind 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'?

Despite Wham! having already made a success of themselves with their 1983 debut album Fantastic, Andrew Ridgeley still lived at home with his parents as it was easier to stay there when he was off tour.

One morning Andrew asked his mum to wake him up, so let a note on his bedroom door stating: "Wake me up up, before you go go."

He and George used to record all of the Wham! demos in that bedroom, and after George saw the note he got a kick out of it and almost immediately wrote their mega hit 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'.

A "go-go" is a dancing club which the song's theme is centred around - it's about a guy who's head over heels for a girl who leaves to go dancing before he's woken up. The song is a plea for her not to go dancing without him again.

George wrote the song with a few throwback themes which lent a nostalgic quality to the lyrics, including "jitterbug" which was a popular dance during the 1930s, and writing "you make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day" who was an iconic actress throughout the 1940-50s.

He later explained what he wanted to achieve with the song, saying: "I just wanted to make a really energetic pop record that had all the best elements of Fifties and Sixties records, combined with our attitude and our approach, which is obviously more uptempo and a lot younger than some of those records."

"It's one of those tracks that gets rid of a lot of your own personal influences; it reminds me of so many different records that I couldn't actually nail them down."

How did the ‘CHOOSE LIFE’ t-shirt trend start?

The t-shirts George and Andrew wore in the music video to 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' became one of the most iconic trends of the decade.

Oversized t-shirts with the block capital logos came into circulation during 1983 but were popularised the following year with Frankie Goes To Hollywood's t-shirt 'Frankie Says Relax' and the t-shirt's Wham! wore stating 'CHOOSE LIFE'.

The 'CHOOSE LIFE' slogan was conceived by fashion designer and political campaigner Katharine Hamnett who designed the anti-drug abuse message.

After Wham! turned the t-shirt into an iconic image, other artists were also seen adopting the message with Roger Taylor wearing the 'CHOOSE LIFE' t-shirt in the music video for Queen's 'Hammer To Fall'.

Was ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ a success after it was first released?

After its release in 1984, 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' was an overwhelming success and transformed Wham! into a global pop phenomenon.

The bubblegum-pop song reached the top of the charts in both the UK and the US, where it stayed at the summit of the US Billboard Charts for three weeks.

Critics said: "the Motown groove and patent vocals of 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' are perfect CHR [Contemporary Hit Radio] material which is executed expertly by this British duo," which saw the track go platinum by selling over two million copies.

It was the first single to be released from George and Andrew's 1984 album Make It Big, and helped launch the success of following singles 'Careless Whisper' (which was credited solely to George despite appearing on the album), 'Freedom', and 'Everything She Wants'.

'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' is frequently cited as one of the most iconic songs of the 1980s.

Has anyone else covered the song?ore You Go-Go (Full Performance + Scene) 4x17

'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' is so attached to Wham! and their image during the 1980s, that no notable artists have dared take it on themselves.

It's understandable why - the music video received plenty of circulation throughout the MTV era, and it became part of the pop culture zeitgeist, so it'd be difficult for an artist to put another spin on it.

The musical comedy-drama series Glee did pay tribute to the song and it's vibrant, positive vibe, with the cast covering the Wham! classic in episode seventeen of the fourth series, called 'Guilty Pleasures”.

Before wrapping up, I want to come to Stereogum and their features. Even though they are lukewarm about the song, it is perhaps the fact that some people misunderstood the video and song. Its sheer energy and delight is cloying to some. That is very much their issue. As it stands forty years later, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go is faultless. It still sounds fresh to this day! It is not dated like many Pop songs from 1984:

“How many people saw the “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” video and assumed that George Michael and Andrew Ridgely, the two members of Wham!, were grinning evangelical anti-abortion activists? It seemed unlikely, and yet the T-shirts spelled it out in a gigantic font: “CHOOSE LIFE.” I don’t know what slogans the pro-life movement was using in the ’80s, but by the ’90s, when I was old enough to take notice of these things, those shirts seemed truly strange. These two bouncy young heartthrobs were dancing and smiling and flirting with the camera, all while blasting out the sort of slogan that angry Christians outside Planned Parenthood clinics were putting on placards

Those “CHOOSE LIFE” shirts didn’t mean what I thought they meant. Wham! got the shirts from Katharine Hamnett, a British activist and designer who made clothes with political slogans. Hamnett has said that her shirts have nothing to do with the anti-abortion movement, that she was enraged to see her slogan co-opted by those interests. To the extent that the kids in Wham! were political, they were lefties, playing benefits for striking miners and singing about partying on welfare money. But you can see where people might get confused. Everything about Wham! seemed too bright and vivid to be real. If they were some sort of subliminal right-wing propaganda effort, it would’ve at least made sense.

“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” Wham!’s American breakthrough, is one of those ’80s nuggets that refuses to go away. It’s zippy and memorable and unashamedly silly, and it pops up all the time in comedies and animated movies. Everything about the song, right down to the exclamation point in the group’s name, demands to be taken with a complete lack of seriousness. But that intense silliness did its job, topping charts around the globe and turning Wham! into a commercial force.

Georgios Panayiotou was 12 years old when he met Andrew Ridgely. (When Panayiotou was born, the #1 song in the US was Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki.”) Panayiotou, the son of a Greek restaurateur and a British dancer, was the new kid at Bushey Meads School, a secondary school on the distant outskirts of London. On his first day in class, a teacher told Panayiotou to sit next to Ridgely, who Panayiotou later called “this horrible little boy.” That teacher did Ridgely a pretty momentous favor that day.

Panayiotou and Ridgely became friends, and they started playing together in a ska band called the Executive. Panayiotou, who’d been determined to become a pop star since childhood, had already been working as a DJ around town. But the UK’s ska fixation didn’t last long, and the Executive broke up. Panayiotou and Ridgely, still teenagers, formed a new group called Wham! Sometime around then, Georgios Panayiotou started calling himself George Michael.

Michael and Ridgely recorded demos at Ridgely’s parents’ house, and they gave those demos to Mark Dean, owner of a UK indie called Innervision Records, when they ran into him at a pub. Dean signed the duo, and their second single, 1982’s “Young Guns (Go For It)” took off after they appeared on the BBC show Top Of The Pops. Very quickly, Wham! became a dominant pop group in the UK, where five of the singles from their debut album Fantastic went top-10. But Wham!’s musical heroes were almost all American, and they wanted badly to make an impact in the US. At first, it wasn’t happening; only one of Wham!’s early singles charted in the US. (1983’s “Bad Boys” peaked at #60.) Americans weren’t trying to hear George Michael rapping, “Hey everybody, take a look at me/ I’ve got street cred-i-bil-i-ty.”

After the success of Fantastic, Wham! broke away from Innervision Records, and after a quick legal battle, they moved over to Epic. That’s when Wham! got rid of the arty, parodic sensibility of their debut and went for a full-on Motown-pastiche vibe. They’d discovered that George Michael was the better songwriter and producer of the two of them, so Michael produced all of Make It Big, their second album. He wrote almost all the songs himself, too.

When Wham! were working on those songs, Andrew Ridgely was living at home with his parents, and Michael and Ridgely were still recording their demos there. One morning, Ridgely had left a note for his mother, who was getting up to go to work: “Wake me up up before you go.” Michael thought it was funny that Ridgely had mistakenly written the word “up” twice, and he turned it into a song, switching things around a little.

Like a lot of Wham! songs, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is about dancing and having fun. Michael’s narrator wants to go out dancing, and he doesn’t want his girlfriend to go out without him. In what may have been unintentional foreshadowing, he seems more interested in the dancing than he is in the girl. He tells her that she puts the boom-boom into his heart and that she makes the sun shine brighter than Doris Day, but he really doesn’t want to miss the chance of hitting that high. (On the bridge, he sings that they should cuddle up in bed instead of dancing, but even then, the club is on his mind: “We’ll go dancing tomorrow night.”)

Michael loved Motown, and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” is his clear attempt at replicating the magic of the Hitsville USA production line. Michael told Rolling Stone that he wanted it to be “a really energetic pop record that had all the best elements of ’50s and ’60s records.” Plenty of people were making Motown homages in the early ’80s, but few of them were quite as blatant as “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” with its high-stepping beat and its relentless feel-good vibes and its big, instantly memorable hooks. There’s a self-consciously retro quality to the song, with its “jitterbug” chants and its Doris Day namecheck. It’s a sort of fetishy celebration of anachronistic Americanisms, released at a time when Americans were in love with British synth music”.

At almost a billion streams on Spotify, there is no doubting that Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go has crossed generations. It came out a year after I was born. I first heard it in the early-1990s. It has stayed with me since. As it is forty on 14th May, I wanted to include it in Groovelines. If you are new to this song, go and spin it now. It only takes one play before it is…

STUCK in your head forever.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Billy Joel at Seventy-Five: An Ultimate Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

  

Billy Joel at Seventy-Five: An Ultimate Playlist

_________

STILL performing live to this day……

the legendary Billy Joel released a new single, Turn the Lights Back On, on 1st February. It was n unexpected release from an artist who has not released a studio album since 1993’s River of Dreams. That was his final album or original compositions. I do wonder whether he would ever return to the studio for a new album. One cannot rule anything out. I wanted to focus on one of the all-time great songwriters as he turns seventy-five on 9th May. I am going to come to some biography about Billy Joel. The special, Billy Joel: The 100th – Live at Madison Square Garden, aired on CBS on Sunday, 14th April. There is a lot going on in terms of his career. Even though this biography is a little old, it still gives a great overview of the brilliance and influence of Billy Joel:

“Billy Joel, singer, songwriter and piano man extraordinaire, has been a major force in popular music for more than 20 years. A native Long Islander, born in 1949, Joel grew up in Hicksville at the peak of the post-World War II baby boom. At the age of four, Joel first discovered and became fascinated with classical music, a love that has stayed with him to this day. He studied classical piano, but as he progressed, he learned how to turn a favorite Beethoven sonata into a boogie woogie romp.

Among his earliest influences, Joel cites Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy, along with the great American composers, Copeland, Gershwin and Ellington. His more contemporary influences include Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.

As he was turning 15, Joel, already a skilled musician, joined his first band, The Echoes (later The Lost Souls). A veteran of many Long Island bands, including The Hassles, and later Attila, it was as a solo artist that Joel made his first significant recording, Cold Spring Harbor (named after a town on Long island's North Shore) on the Paramount label.

Signed by Columbia Records in 1973, Joel recorded Piano Man. Both the album and the single went gold soon after their release, while his third effort, Streetlife Serenade, garnered a first group of many awards to come, including "Best New Male Vocalist" (Cash Box); "Male Artist of the Year" (Music Retailer); and "Record of the Year" for "Piano Man," (Stereo Review). Joel went on to become one of the major forces of the recording artists of the 70s, 80’s and 90’s. Of his 14 album releases, 11 have been certified platinum and/or multi-platinum, in turn generating more than 40 chart-listed single hits, including "Piano Man," “Just The Way You Are," "Only The Good Die Young," "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "Uptown Girl," and "We Didn't Start The Fire."

Among the many honors he has received, Joel has been nominated for 23 Grammy awards, winning six, including two each for "Just The Way You Are" and "52nd Street;" and one for Glass Houses. In addition, he was honored with the Grammy Legend Award in 1990.

Over the course of more than 25 years of performing, Joel has been selling out venues since his early days at The Bitter End in New York's Greenwich Village, to Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. Joel has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, as well as Cuba and Israel. An unmatched tour experience came in 1987, when he became the first American pop star to bring a fully-staged rock music production to the Soviet Union. Joel also performed in Berlin during the reunification of Germany and in the Philippines where he performed for American GI's the day the Persian Gulf War started a continent away.

Over the years, Joel has been active on behalf of community and environmental projects, performing at benefit concerts, most notably the Concert for the Bays and Baymen, Farm Aid 1, Charity Begins At Home, Concert For the New York City Police Athletic League, Back At The Ranch, and The Concert for Walden Woods.

Although he is certainly a successful performer, Joel has always maintained that he is a songwriter first, and there is no surer proof of this than that of having had his material recorded and sung by the greatest performers of our time. Among the artists included in this diverse group are Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Phil Woods, Mose Allison, Ronnie Spector, Bette Midler, Diane Schuur, Isaac Hayes, Barry White, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Garth Brooks. Throughout a career that has included many miles and milestones, it is for Joel's songwriting craftsmanship for which he receives the ultimate accolades.

At the end of the 1990's, Joel shifted his attention from pop to serious music, channeling his favorite classical composer. Fantasies & Delusions: Music for Solo Piano, recorded by Richard Joos, was released in 2002 and proved the enormous talent of Billy Joel was applicable in any genre.

In addition to his Grammy honors, he has received the Gershwin Prize, the ASCAP Centennial Award, and the Johnny Mercer Award. He was the 2002 Musicares Person of the Year, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And with his 65th show at Madison Square Garden on November 9, Joel set a record for most performances by a single artist at the venue. He has been performing monthly, hugely successful shows at The Garden since January 2014”.

On 9th May, the world celebrates the seventy-fifth birthday of Billy Joel. He is on the road and seems to have this new lease. I am not sure whether there will be another album. I also don’t think that enough people discuss the importance of Joel’s music and the influence he has had. I am ending this feature with a playlist that features Billy Joel’s best-known singles, in addition to some deeper cuts. I think that has produced great albums right throughout his career. I think that my favourite is 1983’s An Innocent Man. Many may feel that 1977’s The Stranger is his peak. He has such a broad and impressive body of work. One of the most distinguished and remarkable songwriters of his generation. I am glad that he is still performing and out there. A great chance for younger listeners to catch the master on the road. Ahead of his seventy-fifth birthday, I was keen to salute him and spotlight his amazing work. There is no doubting the fact that Billy Joel is…

ONE of the very best artists ever.

FEATURE: Rhapsody in Blue: Weezer’s Eponymous Debut Album at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

Rhapsody in Blue

  

Weezer’s Eponymous Debut Album at Thirty

_________

OTHERWISE known as the ‘Blue Album’……

one of the defining albums of 1994 was released on 10th May. Recorded at Electric Lady Studios, New York, Weezer’s eponymous debut album was a modest chart success when it came out - yet, in the years since its release, has been heralded as one of the finest of the 1990s. Weezer formed in Los Angeles in 1992. It was a time of Grunge music, so the band initially struggles to truly engage and capture the audience. By November of that year, they had recorded a demo, The Kitchen Tape, that brought them to the attention of DGC owner Geffen Records. Weezer selected The Cars’ Ric Ocasek to produce. Recorded mostly at the iconic Electric Lady Studios in New York City between August and September 1993, Weezer boasts standout tracks such as Say It Ain’t So, Buddy Holly and Undone – The Sweater Song. Whilst there are those who hail Weezer as a classic album and one that has stood the test of time, there is another side to it. Maybe a sound that has not lasted to this day. Out of step with what was happening in 1994. Lyrics that are problematic when it comes to attitudes towards women. A lot to examine. I am going to be mostly positive, yet there are also other layers that I need to explore. I want to start out with Pitchfork’s review of the Blue Album/Weezer. Arriving on 10th May, 1994 – just about a month after Kurt Cobain died -, it was an odd and rather challenging time to release an album like this. However, the fact it is so popular and played to this day shows that it has a big legacy:

“Weezer mastermind Rivers Cuomo was such a somber kid that his second-grade teacher trained the other students to tell him, in unison, “Let me see the smile.” Childhood in Yogaville, the ashram and Integral Yoga HQ led by “Woodstock guru” Swami Satchidananda in eastern Connecticut, was isolating, devoid of much pop culture and adventure—until Cuomo heard Kiss. When a family friend brought their fifth album, 1976’s Rock and Roll Over, to the Cuomo house, it sent Rivers and younger brother Leaves launching off furniture in a way only formative music can. “I’ve pretty much based my life around that record,” he has said. With their comic-book personas and distorted riffs, Kiss cracked Cuomo’s young brain wide open and rewired it for good. He had little idea what debauchery they were singing of, but from that point on, Cuomo began having intense dreams about becoming a rock star, and he began obsessively studying the work of his songwriting heroes.

For Rivers, music offered both a coat of armor and an identity. As a pre-teen enrolled in public school for the first time, Cuomo went by a different first name and his stepfather’s last name (Kitts); his chosen moniker—Peter Kitts—was awfully close to that of Kiss drummer Peter Criss. And while Cuomo was still picked on as he made his way through puberty, he eventually found his people: the metalheads. In 1989, Cuomo moved from Connecticut with his high school band to Los Angeles, ground zero for the AquaNetted and Spandexed. There, he found himself in the midst of shifting tastes, both culturally and personally. He started working at the Sunset Boulevard Tower Records, where he was schooled on quintessentially “cool” music like the Velvet Underground, Pixies, and Sonic Youth.

Also in the mix at this time was a new band called Nirvana. When Cuomo first heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the radio in late 1991 while washing dishes in an Italian restaurant, he was sorta pissed he didn’t write it himself. “Rivers says, ‘I should have written that,’” remembered early Weezer guitarist Jason Cropper in John D. Luerssen’s band biography, River’s Edge. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah. That’s totally true.’ Because the music he was writing was improving in quality every day.” Cuomo’s interest in Nirvana became an obsession. He’d taken notes from Brian Wilson, the Beatles, Scorpions, Yngwie Malmsteen, and, of course, Kiss. But for all his knowledge of rock history, he still cared deeply about writing anthems that spoke to his generation, even if he had trouble looking his peers in the eyes.

Weezer anthems were destined to be different. In 1994, the acts dominating the modern rock charts were pushing against something, from the British aesthetes (Depeche Mode, New Order, Morrissey) to the singular weirdos (Beck, Tori Amos, Red Hot Chili Peppers) to the disenfranchised youth (Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam). With rebellion came a facade of cool, and that was something Weezer could never manage, at least not in the traditional way. Cuomo always tried a little too hard. He would become the fidgety anti-frontman with a thousand “revenge of the nerds” taglines and a Harvard degree to prove it. That dichotomy—the big-time rockstar in khakis and Buddy Holly glasses, who never seems totally comfortable in his own skin—is what launched his cult and anchored his unlikely sex appeal. And his band—drummer Patrick Wilson, bassist Matt Sharp, and guitarist Brian Bell—played along, accentuating their innate geekiness to make Weezer feel like a unified front.

By the summer of 1993, Cuomo had written a number of songs strong enough to convince the alt-rock major DGC to sign Weezer (this despite a lack of buzz around the L.A. scene) and have the Cars’ frontman Ric Ocasek produce their first album. When the group’s self-titled debut—typically known as The Blue Album—arrived in May 1994, Cobain had been dead for a month. A feeling of dread hung over the alternative rock world whose prominence was ushered in by the Seattle sound. With their wired energy, effortless power-pop-punk hooks, and Beach Boys harmonies, Weezer took the alt-rock explosion in a new direction. You couldn’t quite tell if Cuomo was mocking his song’s regressive narrators or sympathizing with them. But once you got past his defense mechanisms and sorting through the humor and cultural references, you found a portrait of a young man’s psyche, riddled with angst and insecurity. And it arrived on the wings of massive riffs and gnarled guitar solos that sounded like they were emanating from a Flying V—on every single song.

The Blue Album’s exploration of the fragile male ego is in full swing by the record’s second track, “No One Else.” Taken at face value, this is likely the most misogynistic song Weezer has ever released. “I want a girl who will laugh for no one else,” Cuomo sings while the band rushes through the fuzzy pop-punk changes, evoking the hyperbole of masculinity. But there’s more beneath the surface. “‘No One Else’ is about the jealous-obsessive asshole in me freaking out on my girlfriend," Cuomo has said. The song acquires even more resonance in the context of its sequencing on the record. Cuomo described the following song, “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here,” as “the same asshole wondering why she's gone.” In actuality, he spends most of “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” muttering to his ex’s wallet photograph and masturbating to her memory, getting in a joke along the way, saying she enjoyed the sex “more than ever.” It’s an absurd scene, but imagine the sentiment coming from the wrong person and it’s suddenly not so funny. Weezer were masterful at walking this line between knowing jokiness and legitimately creepy dysfunction.

This base kind of arrested development shifts back and forth between the narrator’s relationship with girls and his views on himself. If “No One Else” and “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” are mirror twins, so are “Surf Wax America” and “In the Garage.” Given that Weezer were named after a common term for asthma sufferers, no one expected them to be out on a board riding the waves. That tension animates “Surf Wax America,” a well-crafted jumble of harmonic puzzles and barreling punk guitars where the hedonistic surfer lifestyle is both celebrated and chided for its simplistic worldview. Even while the song sneers, the ferocity of Cuomo screaming “Let’s go!” juxtaposed with the solemnness of the band’s Wilsonian harmonies make you believe, once again, in Weezer’s sincerity. Meanwhile, “In the Garage” is an homage to that happy place where no one judges you for your comic books, D&D figurines, and Kiss posters. It seems like over-the-top self-parody, but the garage was indeed a real place where early Weezer practiced and recorded when Cuomo, Sharp, and original guitarist Justin Fisher lived together in the “Amherst House” near Santa Monica. The hopeless ambition of “In the Garage” would make it the defining song of nerd-rock.

In between “Surf Wax America,” a fantasy about someone completely different, and “In the Garage,” a hyper-detailed song about himself, lies a song about his father. There are two more nakedly emotional songs on Blue, which are set off further by Cuomo’s rare embrace of laid-back guitars. Atop a bluesy jangle, “Say It Ain’t So” details the moment when Cuomo’s deepest worries are realized: He sees a beer in the fridge and, remembering how his father drank before he walked out, he senses his stepfather is doing the same. He fears now that he, too, is destined for this fate. Pinkerton, Weezer’s sophomore album, is often described as the tortured confessional to end all tortured confessionals, essentially a diary of Cuomo’s notorious Asian fetish. But “Say It Ain’t So” is just as raw, and arguably has more that its listeners can use, throwing its arms wide open to anyone who’s known the trauma of dad issues. The music is constructed perfectly, building and building until what's left of Cuomo's vulnerability comes out as a bitterly frayed "yeah-yeah," all capped by a guitar solo worthy of the Scorpions.

The desire to write a perfect song can drive some songwriters mad, as their belief in music as a vehicle for emotional expression reconciles itself with the belief that pop is a puzzle that can be solved. On Blue, Cuomo found the ideal balance, as he rarely has since. He understood the rules so well that he also knew when to break them, from Sharp’s super silly new-wave keyboard in “Buddy Holly” to the mumbled dialogue that runs through “Undone” (the band and their friends chatting were a backup plan after DGC refused to clear dialog from an old sci-fi film, “Peanuts”) and more.

For as classic as the album is considered now, Blue didn’t make the 1994 Pazz & Jop year-end critics’ poll. Back then, Weezer were considered alt opportunists or even Pavement ripoffs—a comparison that seems silly now, looking at the distinct rock strains since indebted to Cuomo. But MTV and radio airplay for “Buddy Holly” and “Undone — The Sweater Song” made Weezer huge, and The Blue Album went double-platinum within 15 months of its release. Over the next three years, as Weezer 1.0 slowly imploded (bye-bye Matt Sharp, hello rotating door of bassists), the record would sell a million more and be well on its way to canonization. By 2003, Pitchfork named it one of the best records of the 1990s; two years later, Rolling Stone heralded it as the 299th greatest album ever. And so Blue now sits in a sweet spot of commercial accessibility and critical adoration, a combination that guarantees the album will make its way into the hands of a certain kind of bespectacled teenager for decades to come—the ones who really need it. Cuomo never wrote a song as indelible as “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but he did reach generations of rock kids, proving that coolness is optional if you study hard enough”.

I want to add some contrast before coming onto some positive reviews. The Quietus, in a feature from 2019, highlight the bittersweet nature o the album. Whether you call it Weezer or the Blue Album, one cannot argue the fact it came into the world at a strange time. If the band burned brightly for a short time, it is clear that their debut was important and impactful:

“With hindsight, though, The Blue Album feels almost unrelated to grunge. Even when it skips closest to Seattle, it's different. 'Say It Ain't So', on paper, sounds like a parody of Pearl Jam: lad worries stepdad will become an alcoholic and leave, just like his biological dad did, with gentle verses exploding into furious verses. But it's softer, somehow: it's less forbidding, filled not with rage but sadness: you can sense Cuomo's uncertainty and his desire to be comforted, not a need to hit out.

Musically, too, its lineage was different. Like the grunge bands, Weezer looked backward, but not to Sabbath, or the Stooges. Their ancestry lay more in powerpop, in Cheap Trick, especially: they share that group's suburban alienation, and also sweetening of that with melodic sunshine. It's a lineage that has often attracted clever and sly American songwriters – Fountains Of Wayne, a few years later, tacked to the same wind.

But Weezer, somehow, didn't end up being one of the great groups. I wonder sometimes if that is because Cuomo is so clever – Weezer's career was interrupted several times by his on-off completion of a degree at Harvard. I wonder if perhaps having created two albums that became totemic, it just became too easy for him. I wonder if, perhaps, he ended up with the problem very clever people doing something populist often have: contempt for his own work and his own talents. When you look at Weezer's subsequent catalogue – rarely actually terrible (with some exceptions: Hurley is a truly excruciating record), but rarely sounding much more than tossed off – it's easy to conclude the whole shebang is something he does out of weary duty, rather than any genuine passion.

There was a curious interview with Cuomo in Vulture a couple of years back. It was conducted by someone who had been at Harvard during one of Cuomo's spells there and had previously interviewed him for the student paper, the Crimson. Cuomo was asked about his time at the university. "Such a deeply satisfying time in my life: intellectually, and spiritually, and creatively, and socially. I really miss it. I've had nothing like that since then. I've been deeply lonely. This is going to sound weird, but it wasn't until I discovered Sam Harris's podcast [Waking Up] that I started to feel some of that need for intellectual-hangout, cafeteria, lunch-room conversation to be satisfied. Now, I listen to him every day and it's like, I'm listening to smart people talk and debate the issues, and I feel a little less lonely … It's the same loneliness I felt touring on The Blue Album, on the bus. It's like, there's got to be something more to life than just the grind of touring and performing and doing interviews."

Those don't sound like the words of someone in love with what he does. That, in itself, is hardly uncommon among musicians. It's the specific desire for something else, something already experienced – a life of the mind – that is unusual. It's not an inchoate desire to be a country squire, or try his hand at painting, or act. He wants to do something that requires more mental exercise than being a pop star.

But the problems of the later Weezer records aren't all down to character traits developed in later years. Many of the problems are present on The Blue Album, except they didn't present as problems, so much. There's the attitude to women, which stretches through the catalogue (notably on Pinkerton's fetishisation of east Asian women). 'Thank God For Girls' from 2016's The White Album has an extraordinary set of annotations on Genius from Cuomo: "I'm so jealous of the hooker-uppers. Seems like it's so easy to get laid now. All these good looking atheletic young guys r getting so much free sex it kills me. Laxitutes. Such a bummer. Such a bummer. To be evaluated by women. To be graded. To be rated. Where do I stand? How big? How strong? How enduring? How energetic? How inventive? So sad that it comes to this. So sad. It IS a competition and I AM being compared." Cuomo was a married man of 46, a father of two, when he wrote that. Maybe it's a take on radical honesty. Maybe. But it's much the same as he felt in his early 20s, on 'No One Else', when all he – or his narrator – demanded was "a girl who will laugh for no one else / When I'm away, she puts her makeup on the shelf / When I'm away, she never leaves the house / I want a girl who laughs for no one else”.

I am going to wrap up with a couple of other reviews for an album approaching its thirtieth anniversary. Audioxide shared their thoughts regarding Weezer’s debut in a feature from 2016. I know that the album divides some people, though it is clear that it has also made a huge impression on so many others. Clearly inspiring to so many other bands:

“André

A key part of what makes Weezer’s early albums so enjoyable is the sincerity of the music. They avoided the bullshit fallacies that other alt-rock pretenders were so keen to churn out, and did so without even thinking about it. Rivers Cuomo was merely an awkward bedroom poet with an ongoing infatuation for metal guitar solos, and these personal traits somehow became key ingredients when creating quirky power pop.

His lyrics on the Blue Album are honest, funny, and often clumsy, which of course is all part of the classic Weezer charm. They wore their influences on their sleeves, yet produced a sound that was fresh and peculiarly original — qualities helped emphatically by the band’s natural humility. Weezer were, after all, a group of nerds who enjoyed chugging away at power chords. There’s more to it than that of course, and though it took some time, Weezer’s unusual lure successfully captured the spirit of the younger generation of the ’90s.

Impressive still, the Blue Album continues to carry that same youthful tone today. It’s a rich selection of seriously catchy tunes, with essential highlights in the form of “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So”, the latter thriving on a damaged vulnerability that reaches its climax through a guitar solo of Iron Maiden proportions.

the Blue Album is simple, but immensely enjoyable, and happens to be one of the most iconic albums of the ‘90s. Weezer were unapologetically weird, yet strangely glamorous, which in itself brought a warming message; they showed us that it was cool to be uncool.

8out of10

Favourite tracks //Say It Ain’t So­/Buddy Holly/­Surf Wax America

Fred

Feeding off a host of tangled, damaged, and gritty rock influences from the late ’80s and early ’90s, Weezer’s debut album is a really lovely reminder that rock bands don’t need to be tangled, damaged, and gritty to sound great. Clean-cut and pleasantly neurotic, the Blue Album shuffles in and winds up rocking out pretty flawlessly.

Power chords, stonking solos, and bashful lyrics about girls and losing your friends and Dungeons & Dragons and going surfing combine into something immensely likeable. the Blue Album is unpretentious to a T, and I love that. There’s some stellar song-writing, too. Rivers Cuomo knows his hooks, and his songs don’t lack variety here. There’s not enough room to swing a cat without (you or it) being snagged by something in the bands repertoire. That tracks as disparate as “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So” can fall into place and make the album feel as complete as it does is a testament to the care with which it was put together.

the Blue Album isn’t profound in the way the word typically suggests, but there is a purity in simplicity that misery and mess can’t touch. ‘I write my stupid songs,’ sings Cuomo, and it’s easy to see why listeners often wind up loving every one.

8out of10

Favourite tracks //Say It Ain’t So­Undone – The Sweater Song­­My Name Is Jonas

Andrew

Weezer’s debut was released alongside many similar bands at the time, but it seems they’ve found success in outlasting the majority, as well as producing an album that has aged well. the Blue Album is, without doubt, a signature ’90s album, but where many albums of the time now sound stale, cheesy, or simply cringe-inducing, Weezer’s eponymous debut manages to avoid all of those pitfalls.

Harmonised vocal lines, characteristic of ’90s rock, are sprinkled across the album, and they, along with the chugging bass lines in tracks like “No One Else”, draw clear influence from bands that came before them, Pixies and Nirvana especially. Clean, picked guitar lines hark back to ’60s American rock, the consistently minor riffs adding a cynical twist to the surf music influences.

It’s a well put together album from the tracklist down to the riffs and instrumentation. It’s genuine, it provides just enough angst, and it doesn’t attempt to draw needlessly deep emotion. It’s very enjoyable to listen to, and easily allows for return visits. Simple, catchy rock.

8out of10

Favourite tracks //No One Else­­Undone – The Sweater Song­­Buddy Holly”.

I am going to end with a review from AllMusic. Maybe there was a weird kind of snobbery around Weezer in 1994. Those reacting to the godfather of Grunge dying. The genre still alive. This different and slightly nerdier sound somewhat at odds with what was deemed cool and acceptable in 1994. It is quite strange. Regardless, I do feel like the years since have been kinder to Weezer’s incredible debut album:

“Even if you lived through it, it's hard to fathom exactly why Weezer were disliked, even loathed, when they released their debut album in the spring of 1994. If you grew up in the years after the heyday of grunge, it may even seem absurd that the band were considered poseurs, hair metal refugees passing themselves off as alt-rock by adapting a few tricks from the Pixies and Nirvana songbooks and sold to MTV with stylish videos. Nevertheless, during alt-rock's heyday of 1994, Weezer was second only to Stone Temple Pilots as an object of scorn, bashed by the rock critics and hipsters alike. Time has a way of healing, even erasing, all wounds, and time has been nothing but kind to Weezer's eponymous debut album (which would later be dubbed The Blue Album, due to the blue background of the cover art). At the time of its release, the group's influences were discussed endlessly -- the dynamics of the Pixies, the polished production reminiscent of Nevermind, the willful outsider vibe borrowed from indie rock -- but few noted how the group, under the direction of singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo, synthesized alt-rock with a strong '70s trash-rock predilection and an unwitting gift for power pop, resulting in something quite distinctive.

Although the group wears its influences on its sleeve, Weezer pulls it together in a strikingly original fashion, thanks to Cuomo's urgent melodicism, a fondness for heavy, heavy guitars, a sly sense of humor, and damaged vulnerability, all driven home at a maximum volume. While contemporaries like Pavement were willfully, even gleefully obscure, and skewed toward a more selective audience, Weezer's insecurities were laid bare, and the band's pop culture obsessions tended to be universal, not exclusive. Plus, Cuomo wrote killer hooks and had a band that rocked hard -- albeit in an uptight, nerdy fashion -- winding up with direct, immediate music that connects on more than one level. It's both clever and vulnerable, but those sensibilities are hidden beneath the loud guitars and catchy hooks. That's why the band had hits with this album -- and not just hits, but era-defining singles like the deliberate dissonant crawl of "Undone - The Sweater Song," the postironic love song of "Buddy Holly," the surging "Say It Ain't So" -- but could still seem like a cult band to the dedicated fans; it sounded like the group was speaking to an in-crowd, not the mass audience it wound up with. If, as Howard Hawks said, a good movie consists of three great scenes and no bad ones, it could be extrapolated that a good record contains three great songs and no bad ones -- in that case, Weezer is a record with at least six or seven great songs and no bad ones. That makes for a great record, but more than that, it's a great record emblematic of its time, standing as one of the defining albums of the '90s”.

On 10th May, it is the thirtieth anniversary of Weezer. The Blue Album. This amazing release from 1994. I was eleven when it came out (it was released the day after my eleventh birthday). It was quite a big deal. Songs such as Buddy Holly have become iconic. I hope that there is some attention and new celebration around the album. Even if it was an early – and perhaps ultimate – peak from the California band, they did go on to record other great albums. I still think their debut is the best. Not just because of the songs throughout - Rivers Cuomo one of the most distinct songwriters of his generations –, but the time in which it arrived. One of change and exceptional evolution in music. One of the best years ever. You can put the mighty Weezer with…

THE best of 1994.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Seventy Years of the Fender Stratocaster

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: alexey/Pexels

 

Seventy Years of the Fender Stratocaster

_________

I am going to end this feature…

PHOTO CREDIT: Leo Fender

with a  playlist of songs from artists who have used the iconic Fender Stratocaster. The legendary guitar line is seventy. It was designed  between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. Even though it is a hugely popular and renowned guitar brand, Fender sold fewer than 750 units between late 1954 and the end of 1955. Now, fifty years after its introduction, it is clear that it has revolutionised music. Responsible for some of the finest riffs and guitar lines ever recorded. A very distinct and trusted sound. I am going to come to an article from The Guardian, which celebrated seventy years of the Fender Stratocaster. They spoke with a few artists about a guitar that changed everything. First, from Fender, here is a bit of background and history regarding the world-famous guitar:

“The Fender Stratocaster is the quintessential electric guitar—a worldwide archetype; the basic form that leaps to mind at the very mention of the phrase electric guitar even among those who don’t play. Maybe that’s because it was so well designed to start with that it has existed largely unchanged for 60 years now, allowing it to become an ingrained form in the minds of successive generations.

Ubiquitous and essential, the Stratocaster has transcended its original intended purpose as a tool (a stylish one, at that) to become such an archetype. It has risen above its everyday function to become a cultural symbol for creativity, individuality, artistry and more than a little exuberant rebelliousness. Been that way for quite a while now.

But it wasn’t always like that. The Stratocaster had to earn its place, and it happened neither easily nor overnight. It took quite a while, in fact, because if it’s true that the guitar was so well designed from the start that it has basically remained the same for six decades, it’s also true that it was so well designed that it was ahead of its time by at least a decade. Indeed, for about its first 10 years or so, the Stratocaster patiently bided its time while the world caught up with it.

Let’s go back to that original era and have a look at the early years of what would one day be the world’s greatest electric guitar.

Fender had made promising inroads into the stodgy old U.S. musical instrument industry by 1953. A scrappy little post-war West Coast upstart that was only seven years old and led by a taciturn self-taught electronics tinkerer, Fender had already introduced two revolutionary instruments—the Telecaster and Precision Bass guitars—plus a full line of well-regarded steel guitars and a small handful of loud, rugged and stylish amps that were the best available.

Fender was small in the early 1950s, but clearly going places, and it’s possible that Leo Fender turned his attention in earnest to a new electric guitar model to succeed the Telecaster and compete with more upscale competitors as early as 1951. Work on elements such as new pickups and a new bridge was certainly well under way by late 1952. Long-held conventions of design and method meant little if anything to Leo, which likely goes a long way in explaining the genesis of an instrument as extraordinary as the Stratocaster. Perhaps author Tom Wheeler put it best when, in his indispensable history The Stratocaster Chronicles, he asked:

"How was such an ultimately dominant product created by a newcomer to the business who seemed to have several strikes against him? Leo Fender wasn’t a serious musician, had little background (or interest) in the traditional crafts or lore of instrument building, and was even less interested in associating with the old-boy network of acquaintances who ran the major guitar companies and might have helped him get on his feet."

It’s not like Leo Fender was trying to be radical and revolutionary. A practical person, he just wanted to build a better guitar. He and his closest staff spent long hours developing and perfecting the new model, which quickly shaped up to be its own instrument rather than an improved version of the Telecaster.

Guitarist Rex Gallion, seen here in Leo Fender’s lab in early 1954 with a very early Stratocaster model, is often credited with suggesting the guitar’s comfortable contours.

The new guitar certainly owed several design elements to its predecessor, though, and as late as early 1953 its body shape closely resembled that of the Telecaster. In spring of that year, however, new arrival Freddy Tavares sketched out a new body shape that sleekly adapted Leo’s balanced two-horned shape for the Precision Bass. The new guitar thus combined features of Fender’s first two instruments of the 1950s, and in another important development in early 1953, Fender sales chief Don Randall came up with a name for it: the Stratocaster.

To compete with more high-end instruments from other manufacturers—particularly Gibson’s Les Paul, introduced in 1952 in response to what Randall once called the “plain Jane” Telecaster—the Stratocaster was a marked step up in design and innovation for Fender. It had not one or two but three pickups, with switching and controls that created great tonal versatility (although, curiously, the switching configuration allowed only three of several possible pickup combinations).

A triple-pickup configuration wasn’t the Stratocaster’s only first. The Telecaster sounded great but wasn’t especially comfortable to play because its squared-off body dug into the player’s body and picking-hand forearm. Guitarist Rex Gallion is often credited with suggesting that a solid-body guitar didn’t need squared-off edges since it didn’t have an internal sound chamber, and with asking Leo himself, “Why not get away from a body that is always digging into your ribs?” The Stratocaster was consequently given rounded edges and deep body and forearm contours that made it remarkably comfortable and added to its sleekness.

The development of the Stratocaster also saw a notably elegant touch in Fender’s first use of a sunburst finish, which was included at Randall’s insistence to give the guitar a more high-end look. This consisted of two then-common paint colors—a brownish-black outer hue called dark Salem, which graduated to a golden inner hue called canary yellow. Sunburst finishes also conveyed the extra advantage of lessening the apparentness of mismatched wood grain in the ash bodies, which typically (but not always) consisted of two or more pieces glued together.

The Stratocaster’s greatest innovation, however, was its bridge. In response to player feedback on the Telecaster, Randall wanted the new guitar to have some kind of vibrato system, and Leo was eager to better the designs by his former business partner, Doc Kauffman, and by his contemporary, Paul Bigsby. The vibrato system had to offer solid tuning stability without compromising tone, sustain, player comfort and ease of use, and Leo immersed himself in the task with his customary focus.

And yet the initial design for the Stratocaster’s vibrato bridge was a pronounced failure. Author Richard Smith notes in Fender: The Sound Heard ’Round the World that Leo uncharacteristically “tooled up his factory to produce the system before fully testing it.” The system—curiously referred to by Fender using the misnomer tremolo—used a bridge with rollers for each string and a separate tailpiece. In this design, the strings actually moved over the bridge on the rollers. Leo and guitarist/advisor Bill Carson apparently thought prototype units sounded fine at the factory, but Leo’s right-hand man in the factory, George Fullerton, said they “sounded terrible.”

Even Carson subsequently noted that when he tried the instrument with the original vibrato system out at a gig, as noted in Smith’s book, it “sounded like an amplified banjo with no sustain.”

The first early ’50s Stratocaster prototype model with Leo Fender’s second—and vastly improved—vibrato bridge design.

Leo invested a great deal of time and money into trying to perfect the system well into 1953 before scrapping the entire design and starting over. In fact, the Stratocaster probably would’ve debuted that year had its original vibrato system not proved so problematic. Randall and his salesmen were chomping at the bit to get the new guitar out, and there was considerable pressure on Leo himself to devise a new Stratocaster vibrato system”.

I will round off with a playlist containing songs that feature the iconic Strat. The Guardian commemorated an important anniversary by speaking with musicians such as Nile Rodgers - who shared what this world-changing guitar means to them. I think that a whole new generation of artists are picking up and discovering the brilliance and importance of the Strat:

‘I found the cheapest Strat in all the shops,” says Nile Rodgers, speaking to me from Miami Beach, the very place he went trawling for what would later be regarded as the world’s greatest electric guitar. “I traded in my Gibson Barney Kessel. The guy behind the counter gave me the Strat – and $300 back. It was the real runt of the litter.”

In a nod to the model played by his hero Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock in 1969, Rodgers stripped the guitar and painted it Olympic white. He then locked himself in his bathroom for three days – “woodshedding” he calls it – until he’d mastered “chucking”, a dazzling new technique that blended offbeat strumming with the muting of fretted notes. It’s a style made for the Strat’s rich percussive qualities and slick feel.

Armed with this new instrument, a 1960 model with a 1959 neck, Rodgers set about reinventing music. His unique sound became the gyrating backbone of disco – he knocked out hits for Diana Ross, Sister Sledge and his own band, Chic. Other acts soon came calling, from David Bowie to Grace Jones, Madonna, Duran Duran and Daft Punk. Rodgers’ Strat can be heard on records that have sold hundreds of millions of copies, earning the “runt of the litter” not one but two nicknames: the “hitmaker” and the “$2bn guitar”.

“It’s what people ask for when they ask for me,” he says. “And I swear, I always go in to a recording session thinking, ‘That’s not what they want.’ Then I see them looking disappointed. ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘This is cool – these chords are great!’ They say, ‘Can you play the Nile Rodgers Stratocaster thing?’ So I get my Strat and do my thing. And they always look so happy. That guitar changed my life 1,000%.”

Celebrating its 70th birthday this spring, the Strat – or Fender Stratocaster – may now be the most recognisable musical instrument of all time. It is almost certainly the bestselling guitar, loved by legions of riffing stars. “The Strat is as sturdy and strong as a mule,” Keith Richards once said, “yet it has the elegance of a racehorse. It’s got everything you need, and that’s rare to find in anything.”

Bonnie Raitt got her first one in 1969, buying it on the street at 3am after a gig. She has played it at every one of her shows since, and it was pivotal to her 13 Grammy wins. “There’s just a tone that doesn’t happen with other guitars,” she says. “It’s all about that middle pickup – you just can’t beat it.”

Radio repair man turned inventor Leo Fender could not possibly have known what he was starting when he began designing the Strat in the early 1950s. Perhaps because he wasn’t a guitarist, he approached the design differently, with an eye on not just manufacture but also repairability. Hence the bolt-on, rather than glued-in, neck. He had hit the mark a few years earlier with the Broadcaster, later renamed the Telecaster due to a legal wrangle with rival manufacturer Gretsch. He also designed the Fender Precision bass. Both were instant successes, popular with western swing bands, but the Telecaster was and remains a slab-like, utilitarian workhorse – two pickups, no nonsense. And as much as musicians loved its sound, they often complained that its square edges dug into their ribs and banged their hip bones.

The Strat, with its neatly nipped navel and two-horned cutaways, is probably what first comes to mind when anyone hears the words “electric guitar”. Millions of players have learned on a Strat – whether made by Fender, its budget Squier imprint, or one of the numerous companies producing copies. Many others dream of owning a top-of-the-range model from the Fender custom shop, costing a five-figure sum. Then there are the secondhand Strats with one previous famous owner. The black 1969 model that Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour played on The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall went under the hammer for almost $4m, in aid of a climate change charity.

So what does a Strat sound like? Anything you want. You can get a taste of its range on all these tracks: Misirlou, Apache, Nowhere Man, Little Wing, Smoke on the Water, Comfortably Numb, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Last Nite, and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor.

Blues maestro Joe Bonamassa has one of the world’s largest guitar collections, including many museum-grade vintage Strats as well as the Howard Reed, the first black Strat. “Talk about Leo Fender getting it right the first time!” he says of the man whose small California company changed the world. “Very little has changed between 1954 and now,” he adds. “It’s essentially been the same guitar for 70 years.”

Indeed, there have been only a handful of alterations. In 1956, alder replaced ash for the body, while rosewood fretboards arrived in 1959. Tone knobs have changed shape, lacquer has been improved, wiring has been tinkered with and necks have morphed. But a Strat has always been a Strat.

IN THIS PHOTO: Jimi Hendrix playing the Fender Stratocaster/PHOTO CREDIT: David Redfern/Redferns

“Fender are in a weird business,” says Bonamassa, whose favourite is his 1955 “Sunburst” Strat, nicknamed Bonnie. “Imagine being the CEO of Ford and your core business is making a car that looks the same as the one you made in the 1950s. And your customers don’t want improvements like satnav or electric engines. Guitar companies are selling nostalgia – but also something that’s timeless so it stays relevant. If you have some creativity, ingenuity and a little chutzpah, you can rule the world with a Strat.”

Justin Norvell has given these strange requirements a great deal of thought during his 28 years at Fender. As executive vice-president of products, he has the job of keeping the Strat relevant. “We have to encapsulate the past, present and future,” he says. “It’s who we are, from Hank Marvin to Mark Bowen from Idles. We have to work out how an instrument that’s oddly unchanged since 1954 moves forward.

“My favourite term for this is ‘colouring inside the lines’. The Strat exists – and there are things you can tinker with inside that. It’s what Leo Fender did and it’s what we continue to do. What’s fascinating is that it has never become a relic. That’s down to new bands coming along and blowing up the music scene with a 70-year-old design. The Strat is reinvented with each generation.”

For all its instant recognisability today, the Strat that Fender first designed was basically a glorified Telecaster. But the arrival of designer and engineer Freddie Tavares changed that. He took inspiration from the two-horned Precision bass while adding innovative touches including the gamechanging tremolo bridge – incorrectly named since the pitch-shifting effect the short metal arm creates is actually vibrato. Three pickups and advanced switching offered greater tonal variation than almost any other guitar on the market, while curves, contours and chamfers were added in all the right places, meaning the Strat sits on the hip and clings to the body more like an item of clothing than a musical instrument.

The Stratocaster – named by Fender sales chief Don Randall – debuted at the National Association of Music Merchants trade show in January 1954 and appeared in shops that April. It was not an immediate success. Sales weren’t good, despite rock’n’roll taking off. As Tom Wheeler writes in his 2004 book The Stratocaster Chronicles, the instrument appeared to be “as far removed from conventional guitars as, say, a baritone ukulele or even a banjo”. He added: “Plenty of professional musicians saw the new Fender as unworthy of serious consideration. Merely a tool, a gimmicky contraption – even a joke.”

Things were worse in the UK, where it wasn’t even possible to get one. Due to a British embargo, Strats didn’t officially arrive until the early 1960s – although the first model somehow arrived in 1959. This was a fiesta-red model that Cliff Richard gave to Hank Marvin, the guitarist of his band the Shadows. Marvin instantly became Britain’s first guitar hero – and a lot of future stars were watching.

“My first guitar had to be red because of Hank Marvin,” says Dire Straits co-founder Mark Knopfler, who used to pass a guitar shop on his way home from school. He recalls pressing his nose to the window to get a closer look at a red Strat. He would eventually own one, famously playing it on Dire Straits’ 1978 breakout hit Sultans of Swing.

The Strat’s popularity grew throughout the 1960s. The tipping point came when Hendrix arrived, possibly the most influential guitarist of all time and rarely seen playing anything but a Strat. “One of the fascinating nuances about Jimi,” says his sister Janie, “was that his guitars weren’t just instruments to him, but extensions of him, part of his persona.”

When the Stone Roses were recording their eponymous debut album in 1988, the producer John Leckie was unimpressed with the thin sound coming from John Squire’s Gretsch Country Gentleman, so rented him a Strat. “I ended up buying it,” says Squire. “It was a battered pink one – and it was a great guitar”.

Let’s end with some songs featuring the Fender Stratocaster. You will recognise many of them, though there will be a few that may be new to you. Seventy years after it was introduced, it has changed the face of music. Starting on quite modest foundations – when it came to sales and its reputation –, it has become almost synonymous and a go-to. We will be talking about and celebrating the Fender Strat…

FOR decades more.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Garbage – Bleed Like Me

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

  

Garbage – Bleed Like Me

_________

I am fascinated by the first…

PHOTO CREDIT: Neil Massey

four albums by Garbage. Their debut, Garbage, and 1998’s Version 2.0 are two of the best albums of the decade. It established them as one of the most distinct and important bands of their generation. With a lot of expectation and acclaim behind them, they then released 2001’s Beautiful Garbage and 2005’s Bleed Like Me. Whilst not as acclaimed as their first two albums, it take the band in a different direction. Showing they were evolving and not reliant on a particular sound. Not wanting to repeat themselves or play it safe. I have previously included Beautiful Garbage in Second Spin. I want to do the same with Bleed Like Me. It is an album back in focus, as a new issue and release has come out. It showcases and highlights what an important band Garbage are. I want to include parts of a recent interview from NME with Garbage lead, Shirley Manson. I will come to positive reviews for the brilliant Bleed Like Me. The fourth studio album from Garbage, Bleed Like Me was released on 11th April, 2005. Differing from their previous releases, the band adopted a straighter Rock style that has a live sound. It was a step away from the more Electronic-based sounds of Beautiful Garbage. It was a tough time for Garbage. Maybe some critics noted disharmony or disconnection on Bleed Like Me. There was tension within the band and some tough days. They briefly split at the end of 2003 and came back together early in 2004. Recording with producer John King in Los Angeles, Garbage discovered this new enthusiasm and focus. Reaching number four in the U.K., I think that a lot of people overlook Garbage’s fourth studio album. I would recommend people investigate the new issue.

If you have not heard about it, this website provides details about a new release of a wonderful album that never got the critical acclaim and celebration that it deserved. I think that Why Do You Love Me is among the strongest releases from the band. Nearly twenty years after the album came out, I still feel it sounds fresh and exciting. A band who retained the sound of their first two albums but adds something to the mix. That live sound of the album with some of the studio elements of their 1990s work:

“This was the last album issued before the band’s hiatus and features the UK top 10 hit ‘Why Do You Love Me’. The album has been remastered and is reissued across three formats: 2CD with a selection of B-sides, remixes and demos on the second disc, a 2LP red vinyl edition with 10 B-sides/extra tracks on LP 2 and then a silver single vinyl LP which features just the remastered album.

The 2CD and 2LP sets also features the none-album single ‘Tell Me Where It Hurts’ (from 2007) and its two B-sides, ‘Betcha’ and ‘All That Is Good In This Life’.

This album was never actually issued on vinyl back in 2005, so the single LP and 2LP editions are its official debut on the format.

Bleed Like Me is reissued on 5 April 2024 via BMG”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Garbage in 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Ziff

I want to come to sections of an interview that NME recently published. Shirley Manson is one of the most inspiring and respected leads ever. An icon who has given so much strength to fans and followers. Among the questions she was asked, Bleed Like Me was touched on and highlighted. I would urge anyone who has not heard the album to listen to it now:

“Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson has spoken to NME about the reissue of their 2005 album ‘Bleed Like Me’, the worsening conditions of the music industry, and the band’s plans for new material.

This week sees the alt-rock veterans drop their fourth album on vinyl for the first time, along with a raft of b-sides, remixes and rarities hitting streaming for the first time. While containing the singles and fan favourites ‘Sex Is Not The Enemy’, ‘Why Do You Love Me’ and ‘Run Baby Run’, the album arrived to mixed reviews and didn’t perform as well as its hugely commercially successful predecessors.

“To be a frank, I never had a particularly good relationship with that record until relatively recently,” Manson told NME. “We released it at a time of immense strife within the band, and dwindling interest from our record label and the general public.”

While the rock-leaning record has since become a cult favourite and sits warmly in the hearts of Garbage and their fans, ‘Bleed Like Me’ was made during a period of much inner-band tension and “unpleasant interference” from their label, Interscope Records.

“We were nobody’s child at that record label because they hadn’t wanted us there necessarily,” Manson admitted. “They had bought our label Almo, who had been a small independent label, and we had been sucked into this situation where we were a tiny fish in a massive pond. Interscope at the time were arguably the biggest player in the industry, and there we were stuck without an A&R that was interested in us.

“It was really stressful. They kept on pushing for us to work with people that we didn’t feel were the right fit. As a result of our resistance to that, they decided that we were being really difficult. It was at a time in the entertainment industry when people were much more pliable than we were.”

Relations then turned particularly sour when Manson had “a fortunate or unfortunate incident” on a flight from Los Angeles to London, when she was sat next to “a really famous rockstar” who let slip that Interscope had prioritised No Doubt over Garbage.

“I shan’t name [said rockstar] because I don’t want to cause too many ruptures,” said the frontwoman. “He’s really gorgeous and I love this person, but we got drunk together and he told me that he’d been present at an Interscope meeting where our future as a band had been discussed and there was a vote taken at the table where they decided if they were going to spend money on No Doubt or on Garbage. They decided to invest in No Doubt.

“No Doubt are friends of ours, we love them dearly and this has no bearing on them whatsoever, but to hear that from a well-known and highly regarded rockstar was devastating. He told me this story, and then it was war. I wasn’t going to do fuck all for that record label ever again.”

Manson explained how this led to a feeling of the industry only seeing space for one “female-fronted rock band” on the scene.

“We were meeting the same resistance at radio stations too; they were also saying, ‘Well we’ll be playing No Doubt, we won’t be playing Garbage’,” she recalled. “The domino effect was devastating. It caused us to turn in on each other because we were so frustrated.

“We couldn’t really move anywhere and we felt like we were playing with our hands tied behind our backs. That will drive a person insane, and it did. We all went mad and we took the pressure out on each other. It caused a lot of heartbreak.”

Check out our full interview with the NME Icon Award winner below, where she also pointed out how circumstances are only worsening for new and rising artists, and revealed the band’s plans for an incoming new album.

NME: Hello Shirley. Having the rug pulled out from beneath you before the release of ‘Bleed Like Me’ must have done serious damage to the band’s confidence?

Manson: “When you release a record, you’re really leaving yourself vulnerable to criticism, to disappointment, to shame, to embarrassment. When you open yourself to public criticism, yes you can enjoy great praise, which is wonderful and lovely – but it doesn’t touch you like the negative criticism does.

“Although the record sold pretty well – I think it actually sold a million copies in the end – it was received disastrously! We’d got the most damning reviews we’d ever had telling us that our career was over, nobody wanted to hear from us, and there were a lot of cruel comments.”

But you still had to soldier on?

“We had a tour planned, so we just went on tour and forgot about the criticism, but things had got so bad between us as a band. We were in Australia and due to come to the UK. Our manager called to tell us that the tickets weren’t selling very well so I just sat down with the band and said, ‘I love you, but I’m done and I’m going home – cheerio, goodbye!’

“The band wanted to go into the studio to make another record, but I literally said, ‘It wouldn’t even matter if we wrote [The Beatles’] ‘Sgt Peppers’ – they would piss on it anyway’. I didn’t feel like we were being judged on the music, it was all on people’s bigotry towards us and who they believed we were.”

“I went home and I stayed home, and then the shit hit the fan. My life fell apart and we didn’t get back together for five years after that.”

How would you describe that impact of being told, ‘There’s no room for you’?

“It was devastating. ‘There’s no seat at the table’, was what we were being told. Yet we were still expected to fulfil our contract and to go around the world on tour to garner an audience for the record. It was soul-destroying. We all knew there was no point to it. If your label does not give a shit about you then the rest of the world is not going to give a shit about you.”

And the industry had changed so dramatically since the ‘90s too…

“Yes, this was also the period of Napster and file-sharing that we were unaccustomed to. Nowadays, we’re all used to it. We’ve been beaten down and forced to accept the shit sandwich that we’ve been offered. Back then, we had been used to releasing records, records being sold and there being a transactional relationship. Then all of a sudden our music was literally stolen.

“I think I can speak for so many musicians: it was devastating to have your music leaked and have no control over how you’d release a record. You had no idea of how it would drop, who had access to it. That would affect your chart positions, and you were judged by your chart positions. We felt like we were getting shysted at every turn, and we didn’t believe in ourselves enough to think that we’d have a future beyond that”.

I am going to end with a couple of reviews. Although there was some mixed reception, there were those who connected with it. Were not trying to compare Garbage to their past work and feel like they had betrayed that or were weaker, Bleed Like Me is the sound of a band moving forward. Recharged after a difficult few months which could have threatened their future. The fact they are still recording and gigging together today is proof that they are a solid unit – even if the line-up has changed through the years. This is what The Guardian wrote in their review:

“After losing themselves under the weight of second hand identities on their last album, Garbage have spent four years finding their way back to the grungy guitars, girl-group melodies and adolescent angst that made them famous. But Shirley Manson and her misunderstood-bad-girl persona remain unscathed. Falling somewhere between boy-baiting Madonna and the Boy's-Own style of Chrissie Hynde, she entices and discards with equal disdain. "I'm no Barbie doll, I'm not your baby girl," she sings in Why Do You Love Me, like a bra-burning Ronnie Spector. Yet she bemoans the feminist cause on the campaigning Sex Is Not the Enemy, in which she advocates free love through a loudspeaker yet vocally sounds at her most weak. Boys Wanna Fight equates world politics with a Saturday night punch-up - which might be merely a simplification, if Manson didn't sound like a stocking-wearing schoolmarm glorying in the masculinity of the fight. She is equally voyeuristic on Bleed Like Me, coldly observing self-imposed starvation, self-harming and sexual confusion. However, while Manson's changeling vocals are always worth listening to, Garbage's songs often aren't”.

I will end with a review from Rolling Stone. I do contend that Bleed Like Me is a really strong album. It was not provided the support and appreciation it was worthy of. My hope is that this new reissue will get the album to new people. That it will spread and get a new audience. A bridge between Garbage’s eclectic and strong first three albums and where they would head after 2005:

“Garbage have been making smart hard-pop records about desire and disaster, breaking up and starting over, for precisely a decade. It does not come easy for them. Bleed Like Me is only their fourth album in those ten years -- their first since 2001's Beautifulgarbage -- and making it was nearly the end of them. Early fractious sessions ground to a halt when drummer-guitarist Butch Vig -- a celebrity in his own right for his Nineties production work with Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins -- quit the group, effectively killing it.

He returned four months later and Garbage went back to work. This is the result: the first Garbage album that sounds as if Vig, guitarists-keysmen Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, and Scottish vocal fireball Shirley Manson truly know what they're writing, singing and raging about. "I've held back a wealth of shit/I think I'm gonna choke," Manson snaps in "Why Do You Love Me," a high-speed bouquet of rusted-razor-blade guitars. She can smell her own blood on these tracks. You hear it in high, vicious fidelity.

"Bad Boyfriend" opens the record like a honeyed chunk of Blondie wrapped in thick, serrated layers of Deep Purple: big guitars; even bigger drums courtesy of Dave Grohl, modern rock's own John Bonham; punchy-sax-section electronics that give you an idea of how Nirvana's Nevermind would have sounded if Vig had let loose his inner Phil Spector. Manson plays the predatory coquette with breathy relish ("I know some tricks I swear will give you the bends"). But she is under no illusions about the high price of guilt-free pleasure. Manson has surrendered to the inevitable betrayal around the corner before the song is even over: "If you can't love me, honey/Go on, just pretend." Three minutes into the album and the bad news is already in your face: When you want something in the worst way, that is surely how you will get it.

The first two-thirds of Bleed Like Me is easily the best sustained run of studio Garbage since the opening half of their 1995 debut. The density and detail of the charging guitars in "Bad Boyfriend," "Right Between the Eyes" and "Why Do You Love Me" make you wonder if, in another life, Vig, Marker and Erikson were all members of Blue Oyster Cult. They are certainly old enough in this life to know the original New Wave firsthand, so it comes as no surprise that in "Run Baby Run," Garbage do 1982 better and fresher than revival puppies like Kasabian and Bloc Party. Surrounded by a black forest of power-chord distortion, Manson pleads and prays like Deborah Harry atop a bouncing, throaty guitar riff that New Order would envy. Later, Manson shows off her deep affection for Patti Smith in the synth-pop frost of "Metal Heart," fronting the corrosion with a fight and aplomb that prove one doesn't have to sing through scabrous distortion -- take note, Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor -- to mix pain and machines.

A sameness -- a feeling of roaring in circles -- creeps in toward the end of the record, as if the drama and drain of cracking up and coming together again left Garbage without enough strength, time or songs to maintain the high, shrill thrills upfront. But whatever the four of them went through to get this far, it was worth it just for the title track: a haunting spin on Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," except this time everyone keeps falling over. Set in a grassy bed of acoustic guitar, dotted with Sgt. Pepper-esque splashes of Mellotron and mariachi-funeral brass, "Bleed Like Me" is a roll call of the sick, addicted and suicidal - Avalanche the anorexic; Chrissie, the boy who may be a girl -- sung by Manson in a cracked whisper that at times eerily sounds like Courtney Love (before she became a regular on Court TV). Manson spares no love or detail for the victims here -- and that ultimately includes herself. "You should see my scars," she sings with chilling sweetness in the bridge. You'll find it hard to look away”.

For Garbage fans or those who are not overly familiar with the band, I would say that you need to listen to Bleed Like Me. I am a big fan of the band. I feel like they created something strong and cohesive with their fourth studio album. It is deserving of love and fondness. Nineteen years after it came into the world, I like this album as much now…

AS I did in 2005.

FEATURE: Celebrating the Amazing Kate Bush: Why a Personal Ambition Has Become Particularly Important to Me Now

FEATURE:

 

 

Celebrating the Amazing Kate Bush

PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith

 

Why a Personal Ambition Has Become Particularly Important to Me Now

_________

IT is always hard to say…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Del Palmer in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

in any fan community who the ‘expert’ is. That writer, journalist or fan that knows more about the artist than anyone else. It is always a matter of debate. For The Beatles and their music, there is no doubt that is Mark Lewisohn is the man to come to. He is established as the world’s leading expert. For any other major artist, whether that is Prince. Madonna or Taylor Swift, there is no way of telling who the authority is. I guess it doesn’t matter. It does mean that, if people want to find out more about an artist, they can go to that source and find out what they need. In terms of Kate Bush, I think there are a number of people who might be that go-to. Someone who might not be the longest-service fan, though they are considered expert or a particular authority. Seán Twomey of Kate Bush News is the person I consider to the biggest expert. The don of the Kate Bush world. Definitely someone who has been a fan for years and dedicated so many years to bringing us the happenings and news around Kate Bush. There are also Kate Bush fanzines like HomeGround – which ran until 2011 -, with founders working for Kate Bush News. There is also the Kate Bush biographer Graeme Thomson. He has revised and added to his excellent book, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush. It is being reissued in July. You can pre-order it. There are other writers like Laura Shenton and Tom Doyle. Between them, they have this huge knowledge of Kate Bush. Tom Doyle has interviewed Kate Bush and written his own biography, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush.

COMPOSITE CREDIT: Kate Bush News

Also, there are fans across broadcasting and journalism that have written so much about her. Again, it does not matter who that one essential resource is. I just feel it is great that, at a time when there is a lot of activity around her (as she is Ambassador for Record Store Day and recently reissued her studio albums), that there is also so much to discover. An incredible artist who has been making brilliant music for decades. In fact, the past week alone, there have been some announcements of new writing about Kate Bush that has pushed me too. Leah Kardos’ book about Hounds of Love is out in November. It can be pre-ordered now. Tom Doyle, who I have mentioned already, writes an eleven-page feature for MOJO about Kate Bush’s early years for their June edition. This is something you need to get. Graeme Thomson has written twelve pages for Kate Bush’s 2005 album, Aerial, for a future edition of Disco Pogo. Authors whose new work will increase their total word count, in edition to inspiring and compelling journalists like me.

I am not sure how many features I have written about Kate Bush. It is in the hundreds, I know that. Rather than using this opportunity for self-promotion and any sort of bragging rights, I instead wanted to explore a personal aim. I know I will never be the absolute biggest Kate Bush fan. I am forty now. There are people who have been fans for so many more years than me. I publish a few Kate Bush features a week. I have done now for years. I am aware that this is quite a lot, though one of my music and life ambitions is to write more about Kate Bush then anyone who has ever lived. It would not make me the world authority, though I feel it is my love letter and tribute to this icon. I am not sure how close I am to achieving that feat already. I suppose the hundreds of features I have published through the years amounts to a fair few hundred-thousand words. If you look at books like Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, maybe it is sneaking ahead in terms of word count. I can’t think of any journalist who have written more features. Given the Internet is relatively new and we can easily search for authors and blogs and do the maths, I suppose it is a case of me going on and keeping up the pace. I will never wrote a book or anything like that. Features through my blog are my way of showing affection and respect for Kate Bush. I have put in countless hours of research and dedication. In terms of social media attention, Kate Bush features are the ones that bring in the most. There is a loyal group of people who share my features and provide feedback. I really like and appreciate that. I love nothing more than writing about Kate Bush and exploring new things!

My journalism dream is to write more words about Kate Bush than anyone else. It is not about that moment to brag or highlight that fact. Instead, it is the realisation of a passion that has been inside me since I was a child. I first heard Kate Bush’s music. I think, in 1988. It has been a very long time. Not only does writing about Kate Bush means I can get knowledge and this information out to people. I am learning new things all of the time. Every feature, whether it about a song, album or period of her career, leads me to these fresh discoveries and revelations. I always like it when people tell me they have learned something from a feature, or it has made them aware about an important anniversary for example. I love reacting to the latest news and going back and diving deep into Kate Bush’s wonderful songs and albums. Exploring further afield and having this connection with a hugely important and influential artist. I can see no end in sight when it comes to writing about Kate Bush.

I intend to write a few features a week for years. Maybe decades. In a loving and very dedicated fan community, it is always inspiring to see the devotion. To see how much knowledge there is out there! I always learn something from those who know Bush’s work better than me. I also feel like there is so much to learn and find out. I feel it is especially important to me now to keep up the pace when it comes to Kate Bush. See is more relevant and known now than ever. Maybe there are signs and feelings she will announce a new studio album. Her reissued albums are reaching new fans. It is an exciting time to be a Kate Bush fan, so it is vital and a pleasure to share my passion for her. I will never meet her. Writing these features is the closest I will ever get. I do want to get to that point where I have write more words and features than anyone ever. It will not mean I am more of a fan than anyone else! We are a community that supports one another and learns from one another. To me, every feature I publish about Kate Bush seems more important than the last. Knowing that these words are reaching people far afield. Bringing the music of Kate Bush to fresh ears. It is reason alone to continue writing about her as much as possible. I am not sure what the word count is of the person who has written the most about her. I want to get there myself! To surpass that. For many reasons, I want to hit that peak…

ONE day soon.

FEATURE: We Humans Got It All: Kate Bush’s Them Heavy People at Forty-Six

FEATURE:

 

 

We Humans Got It All

  

Kate Bush’s Them Heavy People at Forty-Six

_________

A song that was released as a single in Japan…

on 5th May, 1978, I wanted to mark and celebrate the approaching forty-sixth anniversary of Them Heavy People. I have always thought that it should have been a U.K. single. Two U.K. singles were releases from The Kick Inside. They were Wuthering Heights and The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Bush also released Strange Phenomena in Brazil in 1979. Moving was also released in Japan. That was in February 1978. After the success of that single she released Them Heavy People. I will focus more on the song itself. The connection Kate Bush had with Japan is interesting. If most artists – from the U.K. or outside of America – want to crack the U.S., that was not the case for Kate Bush. She was not received and really understood in America. The Japanese market was more receptive and embracing. Her trip to Japan in 1978 was spectacular, strange and eventful. On 18th June, 1978, Bush performed Moving to an audience of eleven thousand people at the Nippon Budokan for the 7th Tokyo Music Festival. About thirty-three  million people watched Bush on T.V. It was a huge leap in terms of exposure and audience to what she was used to. With a B-side of The Man with the Child in His Eyes accompanying Them Heavy People, there is no wonder the single was a success. A Seiko logo appears on the insert's back side. It is Kate Bush's only commercial release featuring any kind of product endorsement. Bush appeared in T.V. commercials and print ads for the brand in Japan. A live recording of Them Heavy People was the lead cut from the On Stage E.P. It reached number ten on the UK Singles Chart in 1979. Kate Bush performed Them Heavy People a number of times. Part of the set for 1979’s The Tour of Life, she also performed the song on Saturday Night at the Mill.

I am going to drop in a few different live versions of Them Heavy People. One is the video itself, which is taken from a 1979 The Tour of Life performance. Kate Bush performed Them Heavy People on various T.V. programmes, including her only appearance on Saturday Night Live in the America, in addition to her 1979 Christmas special. If you do not know much about the song and why it is called Them Heavy People – it was titled Rolling the Ball in Japan -, then you can read the lyrics. It is interesting reading what Kate Bush had to say about a standout from her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside:

“Kate about ‘Them Heavy People’

The idea for ‘Heavy People’ came when I was just sitting one day in my parents’ house. I heard the phrase “Rolling the ball” in my head, and I thought that it would be a good way to start a song, so I ran in to the piano and played it and got the chords down. I then worked on it from there. It has lots of different people and ideas and things like that in it, and they came to me amazingly easily – it was a bit like ‘Oh England’, because in a way so much of it was what was happening at home at the time. My brother and my father were very much involved in talking about Gurdjieff and whirling Dervishes, and I was really getting into it, too. It was just like plucking out a bit of that and putting it into something that rhymed. And it happened so easily – in a way, too easily. I say that because normally it’s difficult to get it all to happen at once, but sometimes it does, and that can seem sort of wrong. Usually you have to work hard for things to happen, but it seems that the better you get at them the more likely you are to do something that is good without any effort.

And because of that it’s always a surprise when something comes easily. I thought it was important not to be narrow-minded just because we talked about Gurdjieff. I knew that I didn’t mean his system was the only way, and that was why it was important to include whirling Dervishes and Jesus, because they are strong, too. Anyway, in the long run, although somebody might be into all of them, it’s really you that does it – they’re just the vehicle to get you there.

I always felt that ‘Heavy People’ should be a single, but I just had a feeling that it shouldn’t be a second single, although a lot of people wanted that. Maybe that’s why I had the feeling – because it was to happen a little later, and in fact I never really liked the album version much because it should be quite loose, you know: it’s a very human song. And I think, in fact, every time I do it, it gets even looser. I’ve danced and sung that song so many times now, but it’s still like a hymn to me when I sing it. I do sometimes get bored with the actual words I’m singing, but the meaning I put into them is still a comfort. It’s like a prayer, and it reminds me of direction. And it can’t help but help me when I’m singing those words. Subconsciously they must go in.

KATE BUSH CLUB NEWSLETTER NUMBER 3, NOVEMBER 1979”.

A number three success in Japan, I have always wondered what could have been if it was the third and final U.K. single from The Kick Inside. It would have been a chart success here. A chance for Kate Bush to perform it on Top of the Pops:

“There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.”

— G. I. Gurdjieff.

The philosopher-mystic G. I. Gurdjieff’s spiritual path The Fourth Way presents a response to three ways of enlightenment: disciplining the body, emotions, or mind (these are the paths of the fakir, the monk, and yogi, but this isn’t a theology blog). Rather than focusing on becoming one’s true self through just one of these channels, Gurdjieff taught a Fourth Way which prioritized all of them at once. This was a way for people to learn their true selves by engaging with this path in daily working life without undertaking John the Baptistian asceticism. Gurdjieff’s doctrine caught on with such figures as P. L. Travers, Robert Anton Wilson, Peter Brook, and became influential in its disparate, scattered way.

The reference to Gurdjieff in “Them Heavy People” is notable for how it tips an already offbeat song into esoterica. Like much of The Kick Inside, the song is Bush paying her debts to influences and teachers. A number of musicians of the time had spiritual gurus: Pete Townshend never stopped writing songs about Meher Baba, Dave Davies followed yoga teachings, and the Beatles famously lavished Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with attention for a period. Bush touches on this fad not by leaning exclusively on Gurdjieff but by discussing the wonders of influence and being taught.

Bush begins the song with a single phrase, “rolling the ball,” which she calls back and forth across the song’s intro like (fittingly) a ball. She proceeds to speak of having existed in a state of social and mental inertia (“I was hiding in a room in my mind,” “I’d shut the people out of my life”) until some instructive magi hoisted her out of her ennui. Bush is vague on the extent of her isolation, focusing more on how cool it is to be influenced by wise people (the “heavy people” of her title), “wonderful teachers ready to teach me.” The people helping her bring her out of her plight matter more than the spot she found herself in.

So what exactly did the heavy people do to Bush? Their treatments range from the scriptural (“they read me Gurdjieff and Jesu”) to the ascetic (“they build up my body/break me emotionally/it’s nearly killing me/but what a lovely feeling”) to ritual (“I love the whirling of the dervishes”). Bush conjures up a series of esoteric images, ideas keeping her alive mentally and physically as well as spiritually. She’s stepping forward from where she began the song, her eyes tracking a pendulum-like ball, or perhaps getting something started. Gurdjieff’s teachings are compatible with Bush’s aesthetic here: they unify the body with the mind, keeping both alive and in a constant dialogue with each other.

It might be worth contrasting “Them Heavy People” with last week’s song, “Room for the Life,” which has very conservative ideas of what bodily autonomy is. That song ultimately mistook upholding the gender binary and traditional ideas of reproduction as the center of a woman’s existence for some kind of liberation. “Them Heavy People” vibes more with finding new avenues of thought. “Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot”: one’s physical discipline and movement is paramount to moving forward internally. Every one of us has a heaven inside, and Bush makes sure to express hers with dance.

For all its spirituality, “Them Heavy People” is not a hymn. It’s a playful song, one of the poppiest Bush has written to date (Bush has so far spent her career redefining “poppy”), overall staying in A flat with some diversions to D flat. It begins with a glimmering piano riff before descending into a reggae groove in the verse, guided by David Paton’s killer bassline (never quite replicated to the same effect live, as the song’s reggaeness was overemphasized in concert). But rather than falling into the banality of Seventies white reggae, “Them Heavy People” never quite settles into one aesthetic, engaging with the baroque, the sublime, and the childlike all at once. This is best demonstrated by the song’s music video, a shoo-in for the silliest Bush has ever filmed. In it, Bush, dressed in a fedora and sleeveless black top and purple skirt, leans her elbows on a table and gazes in awe at, of all things, a swinging lightbulb, moving from side to side of the frame. She then engages in an utterly goofy mimed brawl with dancers Gary Hurst and Stewart Avon Arnold, both dressed in noir goon costumes that turn “heavy people” into a pun. It’s playful and absurd, and it’s a contender for Bush’s finest video of the Seventies.

Part of what makes the video so remarkable is how it encapsulates the song’s sublime childlikeness. It forms a double act with “The Man With the Child in His Eyes,” while discussing another component of growing up: knowledge. Bush is willing to be awed by these strange new ideas. She makes herself a student because of a desire to fundamentally improve herself (“I must work on my mind”). And she sings about that in the giddiest tone possible.

The result of this enthusiasm is a quintessential Kate Bush song she proceeded to take around the world. “Them Heavy People” was a Japan-exclusive single which she lent to some commercials she was in, and she performed it in a truly wild disco-inflected appearance on a Japanese TV program called Sound in S. The song even made it onto Bush’s one performance on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Eric Idle of all people (I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether this was a fitting choice or not).

Bush will revisit the ideas of “Them Heavy People” as late as The Dreaming (“I keep it shut” may set off alarm bells in the mind of an astute Bush fan), always remembering the fundamental joy of knowing something you don’t know. In some ways, “Them Heavy People” is the last cry of the Phoenix era, a final outing for the childlike epoch of Bush’s old demos. Let’s let have Bush have the final word here: I love the beauty of rare innocence.

Recorded 1977 at London AIR Studios. Performed on various television programs through 1978 and 1979 and performed on the Tour of Life. Studio personnel: Kate Bush — vocals, piano, backing vocals. Stuart Elliott — drummer. David Paton — bass. Ian Bairnson — guitars. Paddy Bush — backing vocals. Andrew Powell — production. Live personnel: Bush — piano, vocals. Preston Heyman — drums. Del Palmer — bass. Paddy Bush — backing vocals. Brian Bath — guitar. Kevin McLea — keyboards. Ben Barson — synthesizer. Alan Murphy — electric guitar. Liz Parsons and Glenys Groves — backing vocals”.

There is this whole history and fascinating story regarding Them Heavy People. What was originally an album track then got a Japanese single release. Performing the song in the U.S., U.K., France, Japan – which is not exactly a live performance, though you can see it here  - and beyond, it was so much bigger than could have ever been imagined. As it was released in Japan on 5th May, 1978, I wanted to both mark the anniversary and use it as an excuse to dive deeper into the song. It is one of my favourite Kate Bush songs. One that I discovered when I was very young. Maybe underrated and under-heard compared to her other music, I think that the stunning Them Heavy People is…

ONE of her best tracks.

FEATURE: Saluting the Queens: Rowena Alice

FEATURE:

 

 

Saluting the Queens

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice


Rowena Alice

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ALONGSIDE some of her…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice

contemporary D.J. sisters, I am really invested in the work of Rowena Alice. I admire her hugely. The London-based (via Brum) D.J. has a C.V. that includes radio entertainment reporter, Boogaloo Radio presenter, and host of the Mixcloud Global No.1 show Incoming on Islington Radio. She is definitely someone everyone should know about! I will try to include as many links to her work as possible. You can follow Rowena Alice on Twitter and Instagram. You can listen to her previous Islington Radio shows. I think that she is someone who has a long future as a presenter, broadcaster and D.J. So many different projects I can see her attached to. Such an incredibly passionate and inspiring person, I will direct you here; where you can discover more about Rowena Alice and her professional background. I really do hope to interview her soon and find out more about her career and musical tastes. She had a busy end to 2023 and has had an exciting and packed year so far. Without doubt one of our finest D.J.s. Someone that you need to know about:

“Rowena is a prolific broadcaster, presenter and DJ. Her current exploits include a slot on BBC Three Counties Radio, indie DJ duties at Propaganda and her own Riot Diet show on London’s Boogaloo Radio, the latter requiring that all bands have at least one female member to qualify for coverage.

Alongside her broadcasting, Rowena holds residencies throughout London at various venues including Queen of Hoxton, The Book Club, The Blues Kitchen, The Lock Tavern, The Metropolitan, and The Boogaloo. She headlined the Boogaloo tent at Standon Calling Festival in 2019, and has played sets in Europe, LA and at London Fashion Week.

Rowena has had brand partnerships with Fred Perry, New Look, Tatty Devine, Motel Rocks, L’Oréal Professionnel, Kappa, K-Swiss, Bulldog Gin, and Stylist Magazine.

She has been described as a “brilliant broadcaster” and a “trendsetter” by Lock Magazine, a “prolific broadcaster, presenter and DJ” by Fred Perry Subculture, and a person who “expresses their individuality through fashion” by Stylist Magazine”.

One only needs to look at that page to see a great many fantastic women D.J.s who are quite new to me. I recently - well, last year - included Rowena Alice in a feature that discussed how there is still a bias and imbalance when it came to female D.J.s. Women have to work twice as hard to get the same opportunities as men. It is appalling and unforgivable given how amazing female D.J.s are and what they bring. It is saddening that we are in a situation where inequality reigns. Things are slowly improving, though it is not happening fast enough. With Rowena Alice standing alongside fellow queens like Peggy Gou, Carly Wilford, Annie Macmanus, and Honey Dijon, there is so much amazing talent out there. One need only look at amazing broadcasters on stations such as Soho Radio. Naturally brilliant D.J.s like queen Iraina Mancini. I think too many people focus on the mainstream stations. Look deeper and further afield and there are so many women adding their own stamp on some incredible sets.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice

I hope that they get the focus and opportunities this year that they deserve. There are a few bits I want to drop in before I wrap things up. I would urge any music magazine and website to seek out Rowena Alice. Someone who, in the interviews we can read and hear already, is compelling, inspiring, passionate, thought-provoking and engaging. I am going to drop in a few interviews with Rowena Alice from a few years back. It is good to hear her talk about her journey into broadcasting and presenting. How she started out as a D.J. Whilst she might modestly think she is an unknown or underground D.J. (her Twitter bio reads: “Your favourite ginger DJ you’ve never heard of”)., this is someone I genuinely believe is going to be a huge name very soon! With her experience and desire, you know that she will go far. Such a natural and brilliant interviewer, I can see T.V. work, presenting across the BBC, and maybe a slot on a major station very soon. Someone a little too good to keep a secret!

We are firmly in the new year. No doubt, Rowena Alice will be thinking of her plans for the summer and what she hopes to achieve. Maybe international D.J. work. A new radio path and ventures beyond what she has done before. She may not look back at old interviews. I think it is important to see how far she has come. In 2016, Rowena Alice spoke with Giana Spiteri. Even then, this phenomenal talent had already achieved so much! Less than eight years later, she has taken further big steps. It is exciting to see just where she will head:

“Hi Rowena! Thanks for chatting with me. I’m very impressed with everything you’ve managed to achieve at the ripe age of 26. truly inspirational. Whilst working on documentaries, presenting for the BBC3CR and writing for Kettle Magazine - what would say have been some of the highlights of your career so far?

The biggest highlights of my career have to be the people I’ve met whilst working on the documentaries and for BBC3CR. In 2013, I flew to LA and got to work in a group with just five others on an interview with Steven Spielberg in his personal screening room at Amblin Entertainment, Universal Studios – I still have to remind myself that it was not a dream! Another memorable interview was with the delightful Simon Pegg, who has been a hero of mine since I was a teenager watching ‘Spaced’. Working for BBC3CR has given me the opportunity to attend film screening and press events, with my favourite being ‘Spotlight’ in January, followed by a Q&A with Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. All I kept thinking was, “BATMAN AND THE HULK, BATMAN AND THE HULK!”. One of the questions I asked Keaton led to his response being in national Newspapers, which was extremely cool. Kettle Magazine is also a fabulous opportunity for me to speak my mind and voice my opinions, so writing for them is always fun! 

Wow that sounds incredible, I bet no two days are alike! What would be a typical week at work for you?

Being self-employed and doing a lot of freelance work means that my workdays can be very up in the air and change weekly. Currently, I attend the cinema on Mondays to catch up on the new film releases from over the previous weekend, and then start work on my reviews; they are then typed up and posted on Tuesdays. I have recently started as the co-host for the Fashion Show on Hoxton Radio in London, and so I am in the studio in Hackney on Wednesdays recording that. Whilst in London, I also meet up with my personal manager Hayley to catch up on new writing work that has come through or events that I want to attend. She’s my hero as she ensures I’m keeping on track – it’s easy to become disorganised and become lost with what is going on when you don’t have a regular working day! I try to use Thursday to catch up on articles I need to write up and interviews that I have sent to me, which I love to do whilst I binge on television series and movies at home or listening to music at my favourite local café. Friday evenings are when I am on BBC3CR, so I use the morning for research into the week’s top entertainment news and gossip that I might have missed before heading to the studio in Dunstable. We’re never given a set itinerary for what we’ll be chatting about, so it’s best to dip into as much as you can throughout the week as well. When I have a bit of free time and I’m not keeping up with social networking, I try to squeeze in some drawing too – it’s a wonderful break from staring at screens a lot!

“That is some great advice - and it's definitely an industry where you have to work hard to get what you want. Thanks for your time Rowena, what would you say is next for you?

My pleasure! Thank you for your great questions. My plan is to carry on doing what I love for as long as I can! I’m hoping to develop my career on radio on the side of writing, whilst hopefully becoming an ambassador for some charities that I hold very close to my heart”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice

There were a lot of highlights that Rowena Alice can reflect back on from last year. Not only did she play at the Club NME relaunch. She also ensured that her end of year was packed with an itinerant and varied diary. Looking at some of her Instagram posts gives you an idea of how busy she was last year! I can only imagine how hectic and fun this summer is going to be. The reason I am highlighting Rowena Alice is that she and so many of her female peers are such tremendous, hard-working and brilliant D.J.s. Are they getting all the credit they deserve?! There is plenty of passion and admiration for them in the club, though one wonders whether they will get salute and recognising from the wider industry. Seeing polls where magazines and websites rank the best D.J.s and them including mostly men. It is frustrating to see! I am going to come to my interview to wrap up. Before that, Fred Perry spoke with Rowena Alice a while back and asked her about music that means the most to her:

“Where are you from?

London (via Birmingham)

Describe your style in three words?

Grunge Powerpuff Girl

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?

The Bronx at the Cambridge Junction in 2010. They were their own support band with their alter ego group Mariachi El Bronx. They went from performing glorious Latin-inspired tracks whilst dressed in matching uniforms, to smashing an energetic punk set in their usual incarnation as The Bronx – starting the set with their formidable track, ‘Knifeman’.

If you could be on the line up with any two bands in history?

Sonic Youth and Nirvana during their European Tour together in 1991. Two of my favourite bands combining their raucous energy and insanely great noise-rock night after night in different European cities – it’s my idea of heaven. Plus, getting to hear Sonic Youth play ‘Kool Thing’ and Nirvana play ‘Aneurysm’ each evening, you could never get bored!

Which Subcultures have influenced you?

Riot Grrrl. It encouraged women to be outspoken, political, and to power their way into the male-dominated punk scene. It showed the importance of women being angry about the state of things and highlighted the fact women should be able to express their views in a safe environment. We have incredible bands currently continuing and evolving the ethos of Riot Grrrl, such as The Tuts, who are fighting for intersectional feminism whilst making extraordinary music. I’m obsessed with their song ‘Always Hear the Same Shit’.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

It would have to be Dolly Parton because she’s the ultimate boss woman! I love that she has complete control over her work, her image, and her legacy. I can imagine it would be a fascinating hour chatting to such a talented woman who is clearly very witty and candid about her life and experiences. I’d also try to encourage her to sing ‘Jolene’ for me because that song and her vocals touch my soul whenever I hear it.

Of all the venues you’ve been to, which is your favourite?

The Buffalo Bar in Islington. I was heartbroken when they had to close it down because it did so much for rock subcultures and emerging bands. It was a small basement venue that was just pure punk. They also provided audiences with intimate experiences with their favourite artists – you were so close to the bands you were practically rocking out on the stage with them. I also have fond memories of my partner Billy Lunn playing tracks from his band The Subways’ second album live for the first time after they’d just got back from L.A. recording with Butch Vig. The crowd’s response to tracks like ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ is unforgettable.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. A queer woman of colour who had a stunning gospel voice and could shred on her gorgeous Gibson guitar – what’s not to love! She was an icon and doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for her influence and impact on rock ‘n’ roll. Her song ‘Jericho’ is still one of my all-time favourites!

Rowena Alice is a prolific broadcaster, presenter and DJ. Her current exploits include a slot on BBC Three Counties Radio, indie DJ duties at Propaganda and her own Riot Diet show on London's Boogaloo Radio, the latter requiring that all bands have at least one female member to qualify for coverage.

The first track you played on repeat?

Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’. I first heard it as a kid when my mum was teaching me how to use her record player after she found me rummaging through the vinyl collection she had from her teens. I was hooked after hearing the opening riff, so had to go back for more!

A song that defines the teenage you?

Pretty much the whole of The Distillers’ Coral Fang record. It was released whilst I was at secondary school, and I was obsessed with it because it perfectly sound-tracked my angsty teen years. I’d probably pick ‘The Gallow is God’ off the album because I sang it onstage at The Square in Harlow as a teenager. My voice did not do justice to Brody Dalle’s sultry and snarling vocals.

One record you would keep forever?

Mclusky Do Dallas - an album that is as bold as it is brutal! When my partner and I first got to know each other, we bonded over our mutual love of Mclusky. I somehow managed to get the inimitable Falco and his other band Future of the Left to play a local venue for my fella’s birthday in 2009, and the band gave us a copy of Mclusky Do Dallas on vinyl. We will treasure the record forever! If you haven’t screeched along with their song ‘To Hell with Good Intentions’ at the top of your lungs during a long car drive, you’re missing out.

A song lyric that has inspired you?

“Two fingers up at those who won’t miss us when we pass away” from The Rakes’ ‘We Danced Together’.
It’s a great reminder that life is short, so do whatever makes you happy and don’t waste your precious time on people who won’t be fussed when you’re gone.

A song you wished you had written?

Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’. A sublime song with brilliant vocals and lyrics. Who wouldn’t want to be known for having written the ultimate “screw you” anthem to egotistical guys!”.

I have a lot of love and respect for D.J.s like Rowena Alice. They work in an industry that still is patriarchal and needs to be improved and tackled. At the end of 2022, for an INJECTION feature called Women in Nightlife: The Patriarchal Setbacks of Being a Female, DJ, Rowena Alice - alongside some of her female peers - shared her experiences of being a D.J. It makes for eye-opening and moving reading:

“Rowena Alice is a DJ and broadcaster based mainly around Shoreditch, specialising in rock and indie music. The first thing she mentioned was how difficult it was to start out as a female DJ and actually be recognised for her talent.

Rowena started her career as a model and has ‘dabbled’ in various industries. The similarities in both the modelling and music industries gave her more of an idea as to how women are generally treated by those of higher authority, and how her identity exacerbates the problem, even when it comes to trying to get booked in the first place.

“It’s an ongoing battle,” explains Rowena. Men with less experience will be booked without trouble, whereas women have to prove they’ve worked at gigs, broadcasted, and have a plethora of accolades just to get in the same position.

Rowena shares what a promoter’s thought process might be for booking a DJ, “it’s just easier to get a man in; they feel safer,” - as men are significantly less likely to be sexually harassed and in danger than women. As a freelancer without an HR team, Rowena looks to other groups, such as the Sound Girls Facebook group, for moral support and advice on getting booked.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice

As I say, there will be more (I hope) with Rowena Alice at a later date. She is a phenomenal, D.J. who has kicked this year off in style. Go and follow her on social media. Playing at amazing London venues like Oslo Hackney and Queen of Hoxton, this amazing talent is enlivening and uniting crowds around the capital. I do predict that she will get gigs and residencies further afield. I am not sure whether she has America in her sights, though I can see Rowena Alice crossing the water in years to come and going down a storm there. I am excited to see what the summer holds for her. Without doubt one of the finest young D.J.s around, it casts my mind back to the gender imbalance and misogyny that still can be found in the industry. How female D.J.s have to play twice as many gigs as their male counterparts to get the same credit. Having to graft harder to get noticed. When you look at the talent out there, we should still not be having this discussion! There are so many phenomenal women out there showing they are among the best D.J.s in the world. We should be saluting the queens. Rowena Alice is someone I have been keen to feature for a long time. I hope that a showreel or trailer of her D.J. work alongside a link to where you can book her is posted to her Instagram account. That someone films and interview with her, as so many people would love to see it. It would also be amazing to see Rowena Alice and her fellow sisters interview one another about their experiences as a D.J. on the modern scene. I am going to spotlight some other amazing D.J. queens. Showing what strength there is. How the industry needs to recognise their talent. It leaves me to salute and send respect to…

PHOTO CREDIT: Rowena Alice

THE wonderful Rowena Alice.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

  

Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark

_________

I find it amazing that there are these songs…

that we still talk about and play today that were released when I was very young. In fact, Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark came out the day I turned one. That was 9th May, 1984. It was the first single from his classic album, Born in the U.S.A. Whether Bruce Springsteen feels the album deserves its acclaim and fame – he preferred the writing on 1982’s Nebraska -, one cannot deny the legacy and importance of Born in the U.S.A. It was a real turning point for Springsteen in terms of his popularity. Dancing in the Dark is one of the album’s standouts. It spent four weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over one million singles in the U.S. The recoding for Dancing in the Dark won Bruce Springsteen his first Grammy Award, as it won for Best Rock Vocal Performance in 1985. The classic has gone on to be listed one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. I am going to bring in a few features about Dancing in the Dark. American Songwriter told the story behind one of the most important singles in Bruce Springsteen’s career:

“When you learn that Bruce Springsteen had written 70 songs for his 1984 Born in the USA album, but none were deemed “standout first single” worthy, the lyrics of “Dancing in the Dark” become even more profound. Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, made that determination as they were finalizing the album’s track list, reports Billboard. Springsteen’s response to Landau, “I’ve written 70 songs,” according to Dave Marsh’s biography Glory Days: The Bruce Springsteen Story. “If you want another, you write it.”

His frustration was evident. Springsteen had worked on Born in the USA for two years and was nearing the finish line when Landau delivered the news that the album needed more, according to E Street Shuffle.

“Jon [Landau] had been bothering me to write a single, which is something he rarely does,” Springsteen told Bill Flanagan in April 1987. “But he did that day. And he wanted something direct. That seemed to be what he was hitting on me for at the time. I was angry. I had written a lot of songs and was kind of fed up with the whole thing. We’d been making the record for a long time, and I was bored with the whole situation.

“That particular night, I came home and sat on the edge of my bed, and the thing I remember thinking first was that we had a record, but it wasn’t necessarily finished; I could change the whole thing right now if I wanted to,” he added.

“That’s all I remember thinking: if I wanted to, I could do something right now that would change the whole thing,” recalled Springsteen.

One can almost picture Springsteen’s body, radiating exhaustion, as he sat down to write song No. 71 for Born in the USA. Some accounts say he wrote it in one night.

Little wonder Springsteen is quoted in Billboard as saying the song turned out to be “my own alienation, fatigue, and desire to get out from inside the studio, my room, my record, my head and … live.”

The song resonated with listeners, especially those in the US. The US economy was in a slump, jobs had dried up, and it seemed rural America was on the brink of disaster. On June 30, 1984, the song spent its first of four weeks at its No. 2 peak on the Billboard Hot 100. That was Springsteen’s highest showing on the chart as an artist.

The song was released during a US Presidential election year. President Ronald Reagan alluded to Born in the USA during a campaign stop in New Jersey. “America’s future,” Reagan announced, according to LouderSound, “rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire—New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.”

A few days later, Springsteen spoke to a Pittsburgh audience about the mention. “Well, the president was mentioning my name in a speech the other day, and I kind of got to wondering what his favorite album of mine must’ve been, you know, Springsteen said, according to LouderSound. “ I don’t think he’s been listening to this one.”

The song he played was “Johnny 99” from the album Nebraska. The song is about a downtrodden person in despair over losing a job at a local auto plant.

At that time, Springsteen was resurfacing from some professional and personal struggles. But things had started to turn around for Springsteen, at least publicly, by 1984. Arguably, that reemergence is evident in the video for the song when a smiling Springsteen pulls a young Courtney Cox from the audience to dance with him as the E Street Band plays.

The actress, who went on to co-star in the TV show Friends, discussed her audition for the video on The Howard Stern Show.

“I thought I was in the wrong place,” Cox said of showing up to the audition and being surrounded by professional dancers, according to ET Online. “I was like, ‘I don’t know what they’re doing, but I can’t even bend my leg. Like, this is it.’

“I went into [director] Brian De Palma’s office, he put on the music and said, ‘Will you dance?’ I thought, ‘Right now, here, in front of you, just the two of us?’” she remembered. “It was so embarrassing. I think that’s why I got it, because I was literally like [nervously saying], ‘OK.’ I think that’s what they wanted, a fan that just couldn’t believe it.”

Later in the conversation, she says: “I do feel like when I watch the video, when I see it, I mean, God, did you see my dance? It was pathetic,” she said. “I’m not a bad dancer, but that was horrible. I was so nervous.”

Springsteen’s live shows often culminate with “Dancing in the Dark,” which the Financial Times calls “a celebration,” although a dark one. Those listening to the up-tempo tune featuring a rising synth line might not realize just how dark it is.

When Springsteen performs the song on the opening night of the Born in the USA Tour in St. Paul, Minnesota, and pulls Cox onstage, he seems like a man whose personal background has shifted to bright multi-colors”.

I am going to move on to the Financial Times and their feature on Dancing in the Dark. It is great to learn more about a song that holds a very special place in so many people’s hearts. I have been listening back to it a lot when researching for this feature:

“Dancing in the Dark” is a celebration. It remains a key part of every Bruce Springsteen live show, usually in the encores, when he pulls someone from the crowd to dance with him, recreating the video, in which a young Courteney Cox cavorts with Springsteen. It’s a moment of ecstatic release. Even in his current Broadway theatre shows, with no E Street Band behind him, it still takes its place third from the end, a promise of joy after the soul-baring that has come before. It is a pop song; a pop song that took Springsteen, with deliberate calculation, to the upper reaches of pop stardom.

It’s a very black celebration indeed, though. When Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, explained that the Born in the USA album still lacked a killer single, he perhaps didn’t expect what Springsteen set to paper that evening early in 1984, what Springsteen described in his autobiography as “my song about my own alienation, fatigue and desire to get out from inside the studio, my room, my record, my head and … live.” In “Dancing in the Dark”, the singer wants to “change my clothes, my hair, my face”; he’s “just tired and bored with myself”. He knows there’s “something happening somewhere” — he just knows he is not part of it.

The despair is masked by the euphoria of the song — Roy Bittan’s swelling synth line is like riding a motorboat on calm waters – and the joy of the video. Quite how important the video is becomes apparent when one trawls YouTube and finds early drafts of it: Springsteen rehearsing with Clarence Clemons in his home; the original version, which was just Springsteen dancing against a black background. He looks desperately uncomfortable, like the man in the song. Evidently it took staging the video around a real gig — the opening night of the Born in the USA tour, in St Paul, Minnesota — to get Springsteen to relax just enough.

The song reached number two in the Billboard Hot 100, and entered the bloodstream of popular culture immediately. The following year, Tina Turner took to performing it live, in lieu of the song she said Springsteen had promised to write for her. Her version was clumpy and colourless, a party hit shorn of desperation. Also in 1985, Big Daddy had a hit single with a dreadful novelty cover, recast as 1950s easy listening country. In 1986, The Shadows tackled it instrumentally, which rather robbed the song of its whole point.

But “Dancing in the Dark” was too dark to be subsumed into light entertainment, and the best versions are those that emphasise both parts of the equation. Mary Chapin Carpenter perhaps took it too far towards misery in her live reading, introducing it as “a bummer song” and playing it as “a bummer song”. Ruth Moody of the folk band The Wailin’ Jennys began the song sombrely before allowing the sunshine in.

Best of all, though, was Hot Chip’s version from 2015. The London electronica group have always had a keen eye for the intersection of melancholy and joy, and “Dancing in the Dark” was made for them. It has the excited propulsion of the dancefloor, taken at a HiNRG tempo — it seems to be racing itself to its end — but Alexis Taylor’s fragile voice can’t carry bombast. And then they perform a brilliant trick — mashing in snatches of another great joy/despair anthem, LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends”. Theirs is the only reading, bar Springsteen’s live performances, that leaves you unsure whether you should be dancing or crying.

It’s surely inconceivable, given his obsessional knowledge of pop music and his love of Frank Sinatra, that Springsteen didn’t know there had already been one very famous song called “Dancing in the Dark”. It’s worth comparing the two, because Springsteen’s reads like an answer to the former. Howard Dietz’s 1931 lyric was about two lovers so entwined in each other that they provide the light for each other to dance through the dark. Springsteen, by contrast, sees dancing in the dark as something to be resigned to. And as he comes to the end of the song, he alters the structure of the chorus (“Can’t start a fire / Can’t start a fire without a spark”) to make the song suddenly lurch over a precipice like a rollercoaster. “Can’t start a fire,” he sings, “worryin’ ’bout your little world falling apart,” and — because people remember choruses — the sting of the song becomes fully apparent”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Bruce Springsteen in action in 1984/PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts

I am going to end with The Mix Review and their words about Dancing in the Dark. It is more analytics regarding the sound and instrumentation. Another angle that gives more depth and nuance to this iconic song. I don’t think that this is too strong a word. The introduction to one of Bruce Springsteen’s best-known and acclaimed albums, we are still playing Dancing in the Dark to this day:

“This song has so comprehensively wormed its way into the collective unconscious that it’s hard to hear it without preconceptions, but at face value that drum sound is pretty strange. For a start, the combination of super-dry kick, densely ambient snare, and diffusely distant hi-hat bear no relation to any kind of acoustic reality. In addition, the hyper-consistent kick and snare hits add a definite drum-machine character to the part. I suspect they’re both triggered samples, in fact, given the ‘AMS Kick’ and ‘AMS Sn’ track-sheet annotations for the same album’s ‘Born In The USA’, as shown in this Sound On Sound magazine article. (The AMS DMX 15-80s was one of the first devices widely used for drum-sample triggering.) The scarcity of cymbal hits is also strange for what is ostensibly a rock song, and the two we do get (at 1:50 and 2:42) are much louder and more forward-sounding than the hi-hat.

Looking at the studio setup from that Sound On Sound article, I find it fascinating how the received wisdom of the time was to isolate all the musicians from each other acoustically, thereby removing any shared ambience, only to add masses of artificial reverb at mixdown to regenerate an acoustic connection! Of course, this rather roundabout process did produce sounds that were new and ear-catching at the time — and there’s no arguing with that — but now that the bouffant quiffs of the ’80s are long deflated, it does seem rather too much like hard work to me.

The small-speaker translation is worthy of admiration, though; there’s no denying the clarity with which the song’s main musical elements would have driven through a mono AM radio. The kick’s kept present in the mix by its perky upper mid-range, for example, and the bass guitar line can be easily traced via the fizzy synth that’s surreptitiously doubling it. The snare is, of course, as solid as you’d expect of a sample, while The Boss himself has clearly been expertly automated to keep softer low-register phrases such as “hey there baby” (0:33) pinned into the same mix position as the upper-register bawling on “I’m just about starving tonight” (2:14).

On a musical level, despite the song’s apparent simplicity, it pulls a neat little harmonic trick. The melodic backbone of the song, as featured in the opening synth riff and much of the vocal line, appears over three different harmonic backings. First you get it over a B pedal note, with alternating Bm and G#m chords, then the bass picks out the root notes of those chords for the second half of the prechorus (0:33-0:38), and for the title hook (0:45-0:51) we get E and C#m chords instead”.

On 10th May, Dancing in the Dark turns forty. From the brilliant Born in the U.S.A., I hope that there is celebration and acknowledgement of this song on its anniversary. I really love the song, so I was very keen to explore it more for Groovelines. It is a classic and one of Bruce Springsteen’s defining tracks. Dancing in the Dark still holds so much power and importance…

FORTY years later.