FEATURE: Marking a Phenomenal Year for Music: The Best Albums of 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

Marking a Phenomenal Year for Music

 IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé

The Best Albums of 2025

_________

EVEN though…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Charli xcx

there are a few more weeks of potentially exceptional albums and ones that could be among the best of the year, I think we have seen the absolute best. Like so many people, I wanted to highlight the standout albums from a brilliant year. Even though my rundown and spotlight is a little restrictive – with ten albums included – I do think that it has plenty of variety. Albums I would recommend people investigate. From a year-defining album from Charli xcx to some terrific albums by established and newer artists alike, it has been another stunning year for music. Below are ten albums that I feel are…

THE best of 2025.

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Charli xcx – BRAT

Release Date: 7th June

Label: Atlantic

Producers: A. G. Cook/Cirkut/George Daniel/Charli XCX/Gesaffelstein/Finn Keane/Hudson Mohawke/El Guincho/Jon Shave/Linus Wiklund/Omer Fedi

Review:

“The out all night in last night’s makeup, glorifies Lana Del Rey, a little bit messed up, and “you hate the fact she’s New York City’s darling” ones. If her latest album – a set of rave-y dance songs digging deep into the artist’s insecurities and looking good while doing it – is an attempt to court that crowd, it’s so good that it might as well be pandering.

Whereas Charli’s previous full-length effort Crash was her most garden-variety-pop release in years, recreating the synthpop of the late 20th century with a modern flair, Brat is a diametrically different kind of dance record: she “came from the clubs,” as she said in a post on X, and to the clubs she shall return. Brat is chock-full of grimy, booming synths, driving drum-machine beats, and repetitive hooks; these tracks would be best experienced by a headbanging, borderline-violent crowd surrounded by smoke machines and illicit hallucinogens. At fifteen tracks, the album’s club-friendly repetitiveness can make it a bit of a stretch to get through, especially because a few tracks feel less essential than the rest. But overall, it’s still surprisingly exceptional as a front-to-back listen.

That power and cohesion is due in no small part to the album’s producers. Electronic music visionary A.G. Cook, who has led Charli’s production work since the mid-2010s but largely took a backseat on Crash, has his fingerprints all over Brat; he even gets a shoutout on each of the album’s first two tracks. It’s all the little A.G. touches – the cutesy piano melody in “Mean girls,” the choice of synth on the outro of “Rewind” – that make this album feel a little closer to Charli’s comfort zone, if one can even call it that. Her PC Music-inspired, pioneering, avant-garde, abrasive comfort zone.

Even if Brat is Charli’s most bouncy, propulsive album, though, it’s also her most vulnerable.

It’s a common trope for pop artists to write introspective lyrics a couple times per album, in an attempt to show that the pop star, too, is a human being. Maybe the ambitious will write a whole album talking about their feelings. But Brat isn’t just inward-looking – it’s a full-on self-character dissection, delivered with all the rawness of a self-hating Notes app rant. Some tracks appear to be about other pop stars explicitly, and most delve into Charli’s most difficult feelings, from generational trauma to body image issues to an obsession with the Billboard charts. She describes herself as inhabiting the “background” at clubs, wonders aloud whether or not her contemporaries actually like her, expresses her fear of actually meeting someone for the first time in real life, asks if she “deserves commercial success,” laments how much she over-analyzes her face shape. She sings about how her jealousy of other pop stars can drive her to suicidal ideation; she writes about her fears that her parents’ generational trauma might have reached her. Even when paired with bombastic dance beats, this is easily the most insecure, dark album Charli has ever released. And in context, the few songs where Charli sounds fully and unreservedly secure in herself – “360,” “Von dutch” – start to sound less like re-affirmations of her greatness and more like attempts to convince herself of it.

Brat isn’t entirely mournful, though: on occasion, moments of hope filter through the misery of celebrity that pervades Charli’s lyricism. On “Everything is romantic,” she pens a list of small joys – “Bad tattoos on leather tanned skin / Jesus Christ on a plastic sign / Fall in love again and again / Winding roads doing manual drive” – and repeats it again and again, clinging to the beauty in those otherwise-insignificant moments. And at the end of the album on the penultimate “I think about it all the time,” she writes about meeting a friend and her new baby: “standing there, same old clothes she wore before, holding a child”. It’s these moments of vitality that cut through the insecurity and suffering throughout most of Brat, reminding Charli and her audience simultaneously that life can be – and is – beautiful, despite everything. “My career feels so small in the existential steam of it all,” she writes on “I think about it all the time”. Maybe it is.

By the end of the album, Charli seems to have no memory of her vulnerabilities. Instead, on album finale “365,” she raps over a sped-up mix of opener “360” about looking hot, calling an ambulance, and generally having what sounds like the craziest house party of all time. It’s superficial, unpoetic, unimportant – and absolutely deserved. She sounds more alive than she has in years. After over a dozen tender, depressive, beautiful club tracks, by the end of Brat, Charli is ready to actually be at the club. And you know she’s going to shine at its centre” – The Line of Best Fit

Key Cuts: Club classics/Von dutch/I think about it all the time

Standout Track: 360

Nadine Shah – Filthy Underneath

Release Date: 23rd February

Label: EMI North

Producer: Ben Hillier

Review:

“Nadine Shah is lingering backstage after a “blinding” show at the dawn of the track ‘Sad Lads Anonymous’ from her tour de force fifth album ‘Filthy Underneath’. Her gloriously expressive Wearside accent runs free in a spoken word monologue: “The band left hours ago, according to the work experience kid that I’m currently telling all my deepest darkest secrets to in a toilet cubicle”.

If that kid was privy to the first draft, then we are all now treated to the fully-realised final product. Those secrets, sadly, carry a profound weight: since Shah’s last album, 2020’s ‘Kitchen Sink’, she lost her mother at the height of lockdown, her marriage came to an end and she attempted to take her own life. Through a period of recovery has emerged a career-best statement of Shah’s songwriting prowess, where inner struggles are rendered with maturity and relatability, supercharged by a fearless, expansive sonic palette.

Twitches and chirrups of static fuzz adorn ‘Even Light’, a track ridden by a sense of foreboding, gothic paranoia, but at a rollicking, devil-may-care pace. ‘Food For Fuel’ shows off the qawwali devotional influence of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, while ‘You Drive, I Shoot’ and ‘Keeping Score’ find Shah and longtime producer Ben Hillier [Blur, Depeche Mode] creating soundscapes that can send a shiver through the listener without ever alienating them. If the arrangements occasionally seem sparse and uncertain, then with Shah’s deeply felt vocals, we are always firmly rooted in a human place, where a warm embrace is never far away.

‘Greatest Dancer’ details nights watching Strictly with her ailing mother while illicitly slipping down some of her medicated morphine. What results is a glorious moment of escapism, a hallucinogenic fantasia with galloping drums and a glitterball swirl of dreamy synths.

But on ‘Topless Mother’, the mood changes as she sings, “When you were born you broke the mould / Another lie to you your mother told”. A glimpse into Shah’s recovery period, the song collapses into a non-sequitur chorus of random word exclamations (“Samosa!”, “Iguana!”), and we ponder whether Shah is shirking at us trying to listen in too closely, or surrendering to the jumble of her own internal monologue.

‘French Exit’ is a disarmingly frank contemplation of the day of her attempted suicide. “Blue polka dot and matching trousers / Reapplied lipstick, a clown who counts the downers / Just a French exit, sliding off the dancefloor / But how close is it, the now until the no more,” she sings, the poignant, matter of fact specificity averting any danger of glamourisation. Shah is writing about the darkest places a person can reach in a devastatingly human manner that demonstrates a rare level of repose and reflection” – NME

Key Cuts: Even Light/Greatest Dancer/Twenty Things

Standout Track: Topless Mother

Beyoncé – COWBOY CARTER

Release Date: 29th March

Labels: Parkswood/Columbia

Producers: Various

Review:

“Ever since Beyoncé – to quote the lady herself – “changed the game with that digital drop” via her self-titled fifth album, released without warning in 2013, she’s become the fixed point around which popular culture oscillates. Bandwidth-swallowing think pieces, detailed decoding of every lyric, plus an increasingly vexed right-wing America have kept her name on everyone’s lips. She wasn’t exactly a cult concern before, but the last decade has seen her move beyond mere superstar status, aided by 2016’s internet sleuth-facilitating infidelity opus Lemonade and 2022’s liberated, post-lockdown dance party, Renaissance.

That last album was billed teasingly as Act I, and now arrives the second part of a mooted trilogy. While Renaissance, with its celebration of the oft-ignored influence of Black queer dance pioneers, facilitated a healthy amount of debate, you could cobble together a hefty book on the discourse that’s already swirling around Cowboy Carter. Inspired by a less than welcome reaction to the Texan’s performance of her country single Daddy Lessons at the 2016 Country Music Awards – where she was dismissed as a “pop artist”, seemingly code for “Black woman” – it’s an album that takes country music by its plaid shirt collar, holds up its (mainly) male, pale and stale status to the light and sets it on fire.

A deliciously camp revenge fantasy suddenly breaks into a snatch of 18th-century aria – one of many vocal flexes

Thrilling opener Ameriican Requiem – a slow-burn, country-rock opera – references that CMA controversy directly (“Used to say I spoke too country / And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough”), before making broader statements on who gets to call themselves a “true American” (“A pretty house that we never settled in”). It is followed by a cover of the Beatles’ folk-y Blackbird (here retitled Blackbiird, a consistent motif used throughout the album to denote it being Act II), a song that was inspired by the experiences of nine teenage Black girls attending an all-white school in post-segregation 1957, featuring vocals from upcoming Black country singers Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy. It’s an opening salvo ripe for music scholars to unpick.

But Cowboy Carter is never just one thing. Nor does its scholarly detail weigh it down. Just as it uses country music as a backdrop to explore other genres, it also utilises anger and injustice as shades of a bigger picture. There’s fun to be had via the playful, thigh-slapping single Texas Hold ’Em, which makes more sense preceded by an introduction from a stoned Willie Nelson. The unhinged Ya Ya is a freewheelin’ sprint through social and economic disparity that channels the electifying spirit of Tina Turner, and samples Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys.

While Beyoncé’s take on Jolene by Dolly Parton (or Dolly P as she’s recast here) loses some of the original’s desperation by morphing into a glint-eyed warning, it’s still a hoot to hear her spit lines like “Jolene, I know I’m a queen, Jolene / I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisiane.” Daughter is a deliciously camp revenge fantasy that suddenly breaks into – and this is one of Beyoncé’s many vocal flexes on the album – a snatch of the 18th-century aria Caro Mio Ben, sung in Italian.

By swapping the tightly packed synth and drum programming of Renaissance for live instrumentation (including percussion made from the click-clack of Beyoncé’s nails), Cowboy Carter has a looser, baggier feel than its predecessor. The excellent, loved-up Bodyguard unspools like a lost Fleetwood Mac classic, all rippling 70s soft-rock melodies, while the sweet Protector, dedicated to her daughter Rumi Carter, sounds like it was knocked out around a campfire. II Most Wanted, meanwhile, finds Beyoncé and pop-country maven Miley Cyrus trading odes to their ride or dies as if sharing the same mic.

If this all sounds decidedly mid-paced, Cowboy Carter isn’t solely about rustic shuffles. Spaghettii, which features Linda Martell, the first Black country star to perform on the Grand Ole Opry stage, is a trap-infused head knocker; II Hands II Heaven rides a soft electronic pulse and samples Underworld; while the finger-pointing Tyrant fuses fiddle filigrees with rib-rattling bass, perfect for a sweat-soaked dosey doe at Club Renaissance.

Cowboy Carter’s scope and scale can be overwhelming, as can its 27-track runtime – the shorter interludes-as-songs cause a dip in excitement midway through – but there’s something about its construction that pleads with you to consume it as a whole; a journey not just through, and beyond, American roots music, but through various moods, shades and emotions that coalesce as a celebration. It feels like a feast at a time when pop is offering up scraps. As she mentioned herself when announcing the album to a mix of anger, intrigue and confusion: “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.” It’s also her fourth classic in a row” – The Guardian

Key Cuts: BLACKBIRD/TEXAS HOLD ‘EM/ALLIIGATOR TEARS

Standout Track: SPAGHETTII

Jack White – No Name

Release Date: 19th July

Label: Third Man

Producer: Jack White

Review:

“Jack White didn't get where he is without a keen sense of theater and self-promotion, and not many artists could build a buzz around a new album the way he did with 2024's No Name. On July 19, 2024, anyone who made a purchase at one of White's Third Man stores in Detroit, Nashville, and London would find in their bags a mysterious LP, in a plain white sleeve and with the white labels simply stamped "No Name." Of course, the sort of folks shopping at his stores are the sort of music nerds who would be intrigued and delighted by getting a mystery disc, and before long the music media was abuzz with stories about White releasing a new album in a manner that was at once secretive and bound to call attention to itself. It didn't take long for needle-drop bootlegs of the album to circulate online, and within a week, No Name had been given an official wide release. So what sort of album did White make to hype in this manner? No Name happens to be the most straightforward rock & roll album he has delivered in some time, a set of 13 tough guitar-based tunes with an abundance of swagger and a kick that melds the punky minimalism of the White Stripes with his well-documented obsession with Led Zeppelin. (You could make an effective drinking game out of making listeners take a shot when they hear a clear Zep lift in the melodies or White's guitar.) If White's two albums of 2022, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive, found him introspectively exploring the outer margins of his music as he struggled with the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, No Name is an enthusiastic return to the familiar, though it doesn't play like a regression so much as an artist embracing their strengths and having a good time doing so. The lyrics are full of braggadocio, declaring "If God's too busy then I'll bless myself" in "Bless Yourself" and "I'll make you miss me again" in "Missionary," and they're matched to guitar work that rhymes. White's leads constantly swing from elemental chunkiness to bluesy flash without losing his footing, and the clean, unobtrusive production flatters his tone and lets the other musicians strut their stuff without taking the spotlight off the star (as if he would permit such a thing). Even without its publicity stunt release, No Name would doubtless click with an awful lot of Jack White's fans, and it's the sort of idiosyncratic but lean and mean rock album he's needed to make for a while” – AllMusic

Key Cuts: Bless Yourself/Bombing Out/Terminal Archenemy Endling

Standout Track: Archbishop Harold Holmes

St. Vincent - All Born Screaming

Release Date: 26th April

Labels: Total Pleasure/Virgin

Producer: St. Vincent

Review:

“While hardly the most original observation, St. Vincent’s constant use of reinvention and high concepts shares a few similarities with our dear departed Starman. Both Clark and Bowie stand as ferocious creative forces spurned on by the next big idea, hungrily eager to change their musical makeup with every project. There’s also a shared sense of the alien that both artists inhabit. There’s a distance, the feeling of them being an observer of our world, not an earthy participant. Such elements make their songs exciting, otherly, and, of course, unique to most others. Why the preamble? To highlight why Clark’s previous album, 2021’s ‘Daddy’s Home’, didn’t quite linger in people’s hearts as well as her other work.

Inhabiting the sleazy funk and soul of 70s New York sounded exhilarating when announced, but when all was said and done, Clark embracing nostalgic sounds and aesthetics of yore didn’t come across as 100% convincing. Her dominant aura and forward-thinking spirit just didn’t fit the warm tones of the past – which takes us to ‘All Born Screaming,’ ten tracks of off-kilter rock and pop that sees Annie strap on her angular guitar and set coordinates straight for the sun. In other words, she’s back.

While ‘Daddy’s Home’ wasn’t without its merits, this latest release had an immediacy that it could only dream of. Despite opener ‘Hell Is Near’ acting as the album’s moodiest cut, there’s a lurking sense of propulsion and menace from the off. There’s a dash of Led Zep folk rock by way of the moody textures of trip-hop. Bold, arresting, and Clark at her finest. The following ‘Reckless’ sees her harness her love of Nine Inch Nails, embracing the cinematic darkness one Trent Reznor perfected. Groovy and dangerously carnal, she absolutely nails the sense of isolation and intimacy that NIN made their name with.

Continuing her teenage love of alt-rock is the lead single ‘Broken Man,’ an industrial-flavoured stomper with Mr. Dave Grohl adding his powerhouse drumming to proceedings. It’s three and a half minutes and gritty swagger, and it will undoubtedly become a live favorite for years to come. With Clark literally covered in flames on its cover and the title being, well, what is, you’d be excused for thinking that her seventh album may be her most somber, but at the midpoint, things take a welcome turn.

‘Big Time Nothing’ marries some of the funk and soul elements of the previous album but filters them through a kaleidoscopic prism of electronica and dance. It’s a far more exciting prospect. Not happy with subverting expectations there, Clark then goes full Bond theme tune on the brilliant ‘Violent Times.’ John Barry-esque guitar licks and horn blasts are married to lyrics focused on eyes and immortality. It’s a treat and makes you wonder why on earth St. Vincent has yet to be tapped to do a theme – after all, Garbage did a bang-up job.

Ever imagined what Annie Clark doing Blondie would sound like? Dream no more, ‘So Many Planets,’ breezy nu-wave is your answer. Light ska elements add a summery sheen to the number before Clark lets loose a mischievous guitar solo that shows off her chops without overpowering the song’s upbeat vibe. As for the mental-as-hell-sounding title track? An 80s-flavored foot-tapper slowly morphs into a trippy disco outro, like a more unhinged cousin to the beloved ‘Fast Slow Disco.’ Until its last moment, nothing is as it seems on ‘All Born Screaming’.

While it’s not a controversial take to say St. Vincent doesn’t have a bad album, this latest set sees Clark back in domineering form. There’s not a second wasted on the album’s taut track list, the songwriter managing to balance her teenage inspirations simultaneously, go back to basics, and break new ground all at once. Bowie soared highest when being his freaky little self. The same can be said of Clark, whose songs come alight when icy beauty and danger go for a dance—a staggering return” – CLASH

Key Cuts: Reckless/Big Time Nothing/Violent Times

Standout Track: Broken Man

Laura Marling - Patterns in Repeat

Release Date: 25th October

Labels: Chrysalis/Partisan

Producers: Laura Marling/Dom Monks

Review:

“I want you to know that I gave it up willingly/ Nothing real was lost in the bringing of you to me,” sings Laura Marling to her baby daughter on Patterns in Repeat. Recorded mostly at the 34-year-old musician’s north London home, the album features infant gurgles and dog collar jangles interspersed with her decisively plucked acoustic guitar. It’s a record that celebrates motherhood as an expansion of creativity, rather than the stifling of it that she had expected.

It’s unsurprising that Marling feared the pram in the hall. Ever since the release of her 2008 debut album, Alas I Cannot Swim, released when she was just 18, critics have compared her precocious talent to that of Joni Mitchell – who put her only child up for adoption in 1965 and spent much of her subsequent songwriting career comparing the lonely exhilarations of her fearless artistry with the cosy prison of domesticity that she contemptuously/covetously cast as “the lady’s choice”.

Like Mitchell, Marling finds her truth in angular melodies that often elbow aside space for her blunt, questing confessions. She left home young, read fiercely, and sang of loving with wild unsentimentality. Often toying with the idea of walking away from the music industry, she took a break in America where she befriended vagabonds, cult members and people who lived off grid. She went electric (like Mitchell) on her 2015 album Short Movie, and in her podcast Reversing the Muse, challenged cultural constructs around women and art. On 2017’s Semper Femina she sang of yearning “to be the kind of free/women still can’t be alone”.

But it has been almost 60 years since Mitchell (then 20) felt forced to choose between music and motherhood. She was alone, with no support from her child’s father or her parents – and had not yet established herself as an artist. By contrast, Marling is a well-established talent, with financial security and a loving partner (a songwriter-turned-charcutier). Under these fortuitous conditions, she’s found parenthood to be an adventure and she stretches out thoughtfully into many of its corners on this album, like a baby in its first cot. Opener “Child of Mine” rises from a terrycloth-soft strum, casually picking up a heavenly choir as it journeys from intimate scenes of father-daughter kitchen dancing to the more abstract mysteries of the unreachable infant mind. Strings and accompanying male vocals curl around Marling’s voice like tiny fingers.

Marling recently earned a masters in psychoanalysis and attended “family constellation therapy” – a therapeutic approach in which she looked for patterns in gene pools. The skippily picked “Patterns” sees her relaxing into the repetition of generations that turn like seasons. She rakes leaves on “Your Girl” – the melody is slinky and her voice drops to a drawl as she tells a lover that he “let me down sometimes” as she “tried to play a boy’s game”. A piano pops in on “No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Can” and the guitar takes on a moody, melodramatic Spanish flare on “The Shadows”. You can hear the narrative turning on a flamenco dancer’s heel as Marling laments: “She knows, of course she knows… and one day she’ll tear me apart.” There’s a little flick of the skirt to Led Zep’s “Stairway To Heaven” in there, too.

There’s a bittersweet nod back to Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice” on “Caroline” – a song written from the perspective of an older man getting a call from the old flame who left him, asking her not to call again because: “I got married and I love my wife/I have kids, they’re good and grown now/All in all I’ve been happy with my life.” Marling’s voice – once again, like Mitchell’s – is often most soul-grazing when it drops low and cold. She contrasts those moments with the sweetness of a forgotten tune that goes: “Laaa, la, la, laaa – something something, Caroline.”

Marling has often credited her dad for teaching her his “birdlike” guitar technique. Here she goes one further and covers a song he wrote as a young man called “Looking Back”. Here his daughter projects herself into the future where she remembers the joy of early motherhood – she knows she’ll ache for it one day. The latin-flavoured “Lullaby” does what it says on the bottle, promising her child that she is “safe in my arms”.

The album closes neatly with its title song – jazzy chords lifting to hammock-swung refrains. “A smile or two/a gap between your tooth,” wisecracks the singer, always with an edge of sharpness. Never sappy. Strings saw their way between semitones like teethers. It should be enough that Marling has expressed this version of motherhood for herself and her family alone. But I can’t help hoping it opens hopeful doors for other creative women – and shows the music industry how to value and support mothers without expecting them to crack on like nothing game-changing has happened to their minds, bodies and souls” – The Independent

Key Cuts: No One's Gonna Love You Like I Can/Caroline/Lullaby

Standout Track: Child of Mine

English Teacher - This Could Be Texas

Release Date: 12th April

Label: Island

Producer: Marta Salogni

Review:

“Not everybody gets a time to shine,” muses English Teacher’s Lily Fontaine on the suitably star-gazing ‘Not Everyone Gets To Go Space’ from their long-awaited debut ‘This Could Be Texas’. It’s a tongue-in-cheek line that also pragmatically lays out the logistical nightmare and societal issues that a free-at-the-point-of-delivery intergalactic travel system would create for us normies. A pretty perfect encapsulation of the band’s marriage of the fantastic and the everyday, and a pithy reminder of where we’re at.

There have been a lot of headlines of late about how totally impossible it’s becoming for musicians, artists and creatives to exist – let alone thrive. Venues closing, streaming services not paying out, shareholders laughing at us, and opportunities disappearing: see some sad-but-true points made by James Blake, Another Sky, BRITs champion RAYE and The Last Dinner Party in their correction of those out-of-context “cost of living” comments.

Yes, doom surrounds us, but so does talent. If you’re mourning a drought of decent new bands, please find the nearest bin. The year is still young and you’ve already been spoiled with stellar first albums from NewDad, Sprints, Whitelands and Lime Garden, for starters. The odds are stacked against these bands, and yet they deliver. Leading the charge are Leeds’ own English Teacher.

Another set of dry and talky post-punkers, they are not. Heavenly album opener ‘Albatross’ lays the table nicely with some gorgeous indie-prog string and piano work with a smack of ‘90s peak Radiohead. Buzz-generating single ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’ delivers a rollocking ode to the little guys with big ideas – namely fellow Northern legends the Pendle Witches, John Simm, Lee Ingleby and The Bank Of Dave – vowing that “no one can walk over me”.

That defiance carries through to the lilting ‘fuck the Tories’ vibe of ‘Broken Biscuits’ as Fontaine demands someone take responsibility: “Can a river stop its banks from bursting? Blame the council, not the rain”. ‘R&B’ is a jagged fiery revenge song that sees the singer spit back at misplaced presumptions about her race and place in music: “despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B”.

The utterly gorgeous ‘Albert Road’ will speak to anyone who remembers bittersweet moments of boredom and frustration, and teenage daydreaming themselves out of the wire in working class neighbourhoods. As Fontaine offers: “So don’t take our prejudice to heart, we hate everyone” and refreshingly concludes without irony or patronisation: “That’s why we are how we are, and that’s why we don’t get very far” – NME

Key Cuts: The World's Biggest Paving Slab/Broken Biscuits/Nearly Daffodils

Standout Track: Albert Road

Fontaines D.C. - Romance

Release Date: 23rd August

Label: XL

Producer: James Ford

Review:

“When Fontaines D.C. dropped their debut album Dogrel in 2019, the Irish post-punkers were heralded in some quarters as generational voices, a band that was able to dissect their Irish identity in a way so acute that it evoked the spirit of that nation’s great poets — whether that was classic voices like James Joyce or modern hellraisers such as Shane McGowan.

“Dublin in the rain is mine,” the group’s singer Grian Chatten famously affirmed on the spiky punk of ‘Big’.

This thread continued all the way to their third album, 2022’s Skinty Fia, in which they offered the perspective of a band wracked with a degree of guilt when they moved away to London after hitting the big time.

But two years later, their return feels like a hard reset. This time around, it seems that this record is defined by something less rooted in reality and a search for something far more fantastical. To paraphrase a very famous quote from Dorothy Gale: “We’re not in Dublin anymore, Toto.”

The first sign of this came when they released the swaggering lead single ‘Starburster’, which saw the group decked out in oversized sports tops, hair clips and wraparound sunglasses.

It seemed like a sign that the band were searching for something bigger, and that’s only too clear on the sound of this latest record.

On the titular opening track, the group display an unsettling, Kubrickian edge as Chatten croons “Maybe romance is a place” over imposing, piercing instrumentals.

At times, it feels like this bigger sound is that of a band triumphantly gunning for the big leagues too, cementing their place as generational greats. It’s shown on that aforementioned rock-star verve of ‘Starburster’, but the searing ‘Death Kink’ — an examination of toxic relationships — feels like one of the best songs that Chatten has ever written.

As the album closes too, ‘Favourite’ feels like the closest thing they’ve ever managed to a driving song. We mean this entirely in the positive sense; it’s the kind of softly melodic, hook-laden number that could be paired nicely with a sun-soaked trip through the country, windows fully down, of course.

All of which is to say this: Fontaines D.C. have abandoned the serious for the fantastical, the tangible for the surreal. This new identity and successful quest for something, ahem, BIG, suits them down to the ground. They’re in a brilliant world, and indeed a league of their own” – Rolling Stone UK

Key Cuts: Romance/In the Modern World/Favourite

Standout Track: Starbuster

Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown

Release Date: 17th May

Label: Domino

Producers: Beth Gibbons/James Ford

Review:

“Stylistically, Lives Outgrown approaches folk music, thanks to its acoustic guitars and strings; but it feels denser, louder, and more exploratory, like stumbling across a junkyard deep in the forest. Unusual textures abound: In “Tell Me Who You Are Today,” producer James Ford (of Simian Mobile Disco) strikes piano strings with metal spoons; for another track, he and Gibbons spin whirly tubes over their heads, in search of the perfect creepy tone.

Melodies of endless melancholy and lyrics of pointed depth, reminiscent of Gibbons’ work with Portishead and (briefly) Rustin Man, her duo with Talk Talk’s Paul Webb, reflect the singer’s period of self-reflection. Lives Outgrown has moments of crushing relatability, as she tackles subjects like motherhood, anxiety, and menopause, her unvarnished humanity a world away from the otherworldly rage she inhabited on Third. “Without control/I’m heading toward a boundary/That divides us/Reminds us,” she sings on “Floating on a Moment,” striking a beautifully sparse rhythm and tone, while the opening couplet of “Ocean” (“I fake in the morning, a stake to relieve/I never noticed the pain I proceed”) distills years of dull suffering into two elegant lines. Her melodies are strong as iron: The elegantly inevitable “Floating on a Moment” and cathartic album closer “Whispering Love” are among the best songs that Gibbons has put her name to.

Gibbons’ voice makes comparisons to Portishead inevitable—and there is, perhaps, a tang of Adrian Utley’s spaghetti western guitar in the opening bars of “Floating on a Moment.” Occasionally, she makes veiled references to her past, with phrases that seem to mirror lines from elsewhere in her catalog. On the whole, though, the singer makes a concerted effort to outrun her musical history. Gibbons said that she wanted to get away from snare drums and breakbeats—both key elements of the Portishead sound—while recording Lives Outgrown, with the drum lines of collaborator Lee Harris (formerly of Talk Talk and a contributor to Gibbons and Rustin Man’s Out of Season) instead hammered out on toms and bass.

This percussive roll is complemented by an inconspicuously cosmopolitan mixture of sounds. Unusual groupings of instruments are packed into devious musical layers, like the viscid concoction of bass clarinet, bass, cello, Farfisa, harmonium, recorders, “fuzz flute,” violin, singing tubes, and bowed saw that is daubed over “Beyond the Sun”. This darkly sylvan stew has little of Portishead's cinematic high drama; its abstruse angles and woodland heavy metal are closer to Tom Waits’ discordant masterpiece Swordfishtrombones than the clean guitar lines of Out of Season. Gibbons also employs backing vocals for the first time, their sparing use bolstering, rather than radically altering, the album’s makeup, although the children’s choir and wobbly recorder on “Floating on a Moment” and “Beyond the Sun” give the two songs an unsettling air of innocence lost.

The arrangements, largely by Gibbons and Ford, luxuriate in the slightly unreal edge of music once removed. Much of the instrumentation (for example, the sweeping, almost Middle Eastern string lines on “For Sale”) could have been written at any point in the last century, although the rejection of the snare drum’s rebellious crack nudges Lives Outgrown into a parallel universe where rock’n’roll never really took root. Verses are punctuated by wild brass skronk (“Beyond the Sun”) and violins scrape across the percussive surface like nails on a blackboard (“Burden of Life”). These leftfield choices underscore the courageous and subtly unusual nature of Gibbons’ album” – Pitchfork

Key Cuts: Floating on a Moment/Lost Changes/Oceans

Standout Track: Reaching Out

The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy

Release Date: 2nd February

Label: Island

Producer: James Ford

Review:

“Unapologetically flaunting an MO of gleeful maximalism at every turn, The Last Dinner Party’s hotly-anticipated debut album was never going to be a meek thing, but it’s hard to recall an opening gambit that greedily embraces every possible ounce of opportunity quite like ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’. If the primary spoils of major label backing are that the barriers to things like lavish string sections and world class producers (in their case, Arctic Monkeys’ go-to guy James Ford) are removed, then the London quintet have used their deal with Island to facilitate an album that dreams not just big but huge. It begins with a literal orchestral overture - 96 seconds of world-building that removes you from boring old reality and plants you into their version of Fantasia. Then, 11 tracks of similarly sky-high, grandiose ambition, that tie together lofty literary sentiment, cinematic sweeping theatricality and killer melodic indie hooks with an equal affinity for each.

It’s this unlikely balance that is The Last Dinner Party’s greatest trick. A band composed of both classical and alternative musicians, they knit the two sensibilities together in ways that sound like little else. Recent single ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’ might be the only modern pop song to reference Leningrad and the Red Scare, but it’s also all sorts of fun, switching up time signatures and styles from bombastic chest-puffing to a cheeky ‘60s shuffle. Early highlight ‘Burn Alive’ begins with tense, ‘80s gothic drama before exploding into a rousingly defiant chorus; ‘Beautiful Boy’ makes use of woodwind and an Oscar Wilde-like sense of romanticism; ‘Gjuha’ sees keyboard player Aurora Nishveci singing in Albanian, while it’s frontwoman Abigail Morris’ natural sense of vocal melodrama that’s likely earned them a fair whack of Kate Bush comparisons.

Dangling the carrot right through to the record’s closing moments, they leave breakout debut ‘Nothing Matters’ until the penultimate track. But it’s a holy trinity of brilliance in that single, the roaring rock opera of ‘My Lady of Mercy’, and ‘Portrait of a Dead Girl’ that sees out ‘Prelude…’s final third in truly ecstatic fashion. The latter track in particular serves up crescendo after crescendo; nestled between the band’s two finest singles, it’s even better than either of them.

If Wet Leg’s globe-conquering debut showed that it was still possible for an indie band to reach the dizzying heights of yore, then the success of The Last Dinner Party feels like one step further; proof in an age of algorithms that a completely singular band can beat them all and come out on top without diminishing a shred of their vision. If their debut is only the ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’, then it’s truly thrilling to imagine what they could dream up when they reach the real meat of their career” – DIY

Key Cuts: Caesar on a TV Screen/Sinner/Nothing Matters

Standout Track: The Feminine Urge

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Taylor Swift at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

The Digital Mixtape

Taylor Swift at Thirty-Five

_________

THERE are not many…

big artists’ birthdays at this time of year. Not significant ones anyway. I wanted to focus on the incredible Taylor Swift, who turns thirty-five on 13th December. Perhaps the biggest artist in the world,. I have compiled a playlist featuring many of her hits and some deeper cuts. One of the most inspiring live performers and best songwriters of her generation, Swift has achieved so much over the past few years. Such a remarkable talent who seems to get better with every album. Before I get to that playlist, I am bringing in a biography of Taylor Swift:

“Taylor Swift is that rarest of pop phenomena: a superstar who managed to completely cross over from country to the mainstream, becoming an enduring pop culture icon and conquering the world in the process. Swift shed her country roots like a second skin, revealing that she was perhaps the savviest populist singer/songwriter of her generation, one who could harness the zeitgeist, make it personal and, just as impressively, perform the reverse. These skills were evident on her earliest hits, especially the neo-tribute "Tim McGraw," but her second album, 2008's Fearless, showcased a songwriter discovering who she was and, in the process, finding a mass audience. Fearless wound up having considerable legs not only in the U.S., where it racked up six platinum singles on the strength of the Top Ten hits "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me," but throughout the world, performing particularly well in the U.K., Canada, and Australia. Speak Now, delivered almost two years later, consolidated that success and moved Swift into the stratosphere of superstardom. Her popularity only increased with her next three albums -- Red (2012), 1989 (2014), and Reputation (2017) -- and found her moving assuredly into a pop realm where she already belonged. Even when she scaled back her approach with 2020's stripped-down sibling releases folklore and Evermore, she remained at the top of the pop world, a position she maintained with re-recordings of her back catalog along with albums like 2022's chart-topping Midnights and 2024's The Tortured Poets Department.

This sense of confidence had been apparent in Taylor Swift since the beginning. The daughter of two bankers -- her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, worked at Merrill Lynch; her mother, Andrea, spent time as a mutual fund marketing executive -- Swift was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and raised in suburban Wyomissing. She began to show interest in music at the age of nine, and Shania Twain wound up as her biggest formative influence. Swift started to perform regularly at local talent contests, eventually winning a chance to open for Charlie Daniels. She learned how to play guitar and began writing songs, signing a music management deal with Dan Dymtrow; her family relocated to Nashville with the intent of furthering her music career. She was just 14 years old but on the radar of the music industry, signing a development deal with RCA Records in 2004. Swift sharpened her skills with a variety of professional songwriters, forming the strongest connections with Liz Rose. Taylor's original songs earned her a deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but not long after that 2004 deal, she parted ways with Dymtrow and RCA, all with the intent of launching her recording career now, not later.

Things started moving quickly once Swift came to the attention of Scott Borchetta, a former DreamWorks Records exec about to launch Big Machine Records. Borchetta saw Swift perform at a songwriters showcase at the Bluebird Cafe and he signed her to Big Machine in 2005; shortly afterward, she started work on her debut with producer Nathan Chapman, who'd previously helmed demos for Taylor. Boasting original song credits on every one of the record's 11 songs (she penned three on her own), Taylor Swift appeared in October 2006 to strong reviews and Swift made sure to work the album hard, appearing at every radio or television event offered and marshaling a burgeoning fan base through the use of MySpace. "Tim McGraw," the first song from the album, did well, but "Teardrops on My Guitar" and "Our Song" did better on both the pop and country charts, where she racked up five consecutive Top Ten singles. Other successes followed in the wake of the debut -- a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist (she lost to Amy Winehouse), stopgap EPs of Christmas songs -- and Swift concentrated on delivering her sophomore set, Fearless.

Appearing in November 2008, Fearless was certified gold by the RIAA in its first week of release, and the record gained momentum throughout 2009, earning several platinum certifications as "Love Story," "White Horse," "You Belong with Me," "Fifteen," and "Fearless" all scaled the upper reaches of the country charts while "You Belong with Me" nearly topped Billboard's Hot 100. Along with the success came some headlines, first in the form of an infamous appearance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards where her acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye West, who burst on-stage to declare that Swift's rival Beyoncé deserved the award more, but her romances also started gaining attention, notably a liaison with Twilight star Taylor Lautner, who appeared with the singer in the 2009 film Valentine's Day.

Her flirtation with the silver screen was brief, and she poured herself into her third album, Speak Now. Released in October 2010, Speak Now was another massive first-week smash that refused to lose momentum. Hit singles like "Mine" and "Mean," which won two Grammy Awards, played a big factor in its success, not just on the country charts but on pop radio as well. Following a 2011 live album called World Tour Live: Speak Now, Swift turned toward following a pop path on her fourth album, hiring such mainstream musicians as Dan Wilson, Butch Walker, and Britney Spears producer Max Martin. This mainstream pulse was evident on "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," the first single from Red. Upon its October 2012 release, Red shattered expectations by selling over a million copies in its first week, a notable achievement that was doubly impressive in an era of declining sales. Once again, Swift's album had legs: it was certified platinum four times in the U.S. and its international sales outstripped those of Speak Now. She supported Red with an international tour in 2013 and more hits came, including "I Knew You Were Trouble" and "22."

As Swift geared up for the release of her fifth album in 2014, she made it clear that 1989 was designed as her first "documented, official" pop album and that there would be no country marketing push for the record. "Shake It Off," an ebullient dance-pop throwback, hit number one upon its August 2014 release. When 1989 appeared in late October 2014, it once again shot to number one and became her third straight album to sell one million copies in its first week (a new record for any artist).

Swift gathered many awards in the subsequent year, including Billboard's Woman of the Year, the Award for Excellence at the American Music Awards, and a special 50th Anniversary Milestone Award from the CMAs. Her 1989 World Tour included Asia, North America, and Europe during the last half of 2015, and she won three Grammy Awards at the 2016 ceremonies, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video for "Bad Blood." At the end of 2016, she released "I Don't Wanna Live Forever," a duet with ZAYN from the soundtrack for Fifty Shades Darker. The single reached the Top Five across the world. Swift returned with her sixth album, Reputation, in November 2017. Preceded by the number one hit single "Look What You Made Me Do," Reputation debuted at number one, and while it didn't replicate the success of 1989, the album did help underscore her popularity while also pushing her toward mature musicality.

Reputation was Swift's final record for Big Machine. In November 2018, she signed with Universal Music Group, which distributed her new albums under its Republic Records banner. The first album under this contract was Lover. Released in August 2019, Lover was preceded by two singles, "Me!" and "You Need to Calm Down," which both reached number two on the Hot 100 and helped push the album to number one. The acclaimed LP and two of its singles received a total of three nominations at the 62nd Grammy Awards.

Swift's plans to support Lover with a tour in 2020 were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With some unexpected time on her hands, she wrote and recorded a new set of songs, many in collaboration with Aaron Dessner of the National; Bon Iver and longtime Swift associate Jack Antonoff also contributed. The resulting album, folklore, was released in July 2020, and went straight to the top of the Billboard 200. Less than five months later, Swift released a companion album to folklore called Evermore. Featuring many of the same collaborators as its predecessor, the Grammy-nominated Evermore debuted at number one upon its December 11, 2020 release. Altogether, the sibling LPs planted Swift atop the U.S. charts for a combined 11 weeks, and folklore became the best-selling album of 2020.

In 2021, she began the process of re-recording her back catalog after her Big Machine masters were sold off in 2019, starting with 2008's Fearless. The first of these tracks -- "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" -- arrived that February, with Fearless [Taylor's Version] arriving in April. The new version of Fearless contained cameos from Colbie Caillat, Keith Urban, and Maren Morris, along with several previously unheard tunes originally written during the same time period; it debuted at number one on Billboard upon its release. Swift next revisited Red, releasing Red [Taylor's Version] in November 2021. Another chart-topper, this revamp of the 2012 album featured new duets with Phoebe Bridgers, Chris Stapleton, and Ed Sheeran, along with a ten-minute version of the ballad "All Too Well." Another re-recording, "This Love (Taylor's Version)" (originally off 1989), arrived in May 2022 and was included in the soundtrack to the coming-of-age drama The Summer I Turned Pretty.

At the same time she was revisiting her past work, Swift opened up another chapter in her career with the October 2022 release of Midnights, an album co-produced by Jack Antonoff and featuring a duet with Lana Del Rey on "Snow on the Beach." A moody, electronica-tinged album loosely conceptualized around songs the singer purportedly wrote in the middle of the night, Midnights topped numerous global charts, including the Billboard 200. In late 2022, she also had a supporting role in the David O. Russell film Amsterdam, and sales of her ensuing tour broke the record for the most concert tickets sold in a single day. By early 2023, Swift's career-spanning efforts had converged when she took home the Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Short Film for her ten-minute version of "All Too Well." Soon after, on Valentine's Day, she released Lover Live from Paris, which captured highlights of a September 2019 performance at the Olympia on limited heart-shaped vinyl.

Next up on the re-release schedule was Speak Now [Taylor's Version], which arrived in July 2023 with six additional songs that were written for but not included on the 2010 LP. Fall Out Boy and Paramore's Hayley Williams, both cited influences for Speak Now, appeared on two of those songs. That year, Swift also commenced her record-smashing, critically-acclaimed international stadium jaunt dubbed The Eras Tour. The extended journey -- spanning over 150 shows -- was so profitable and in-demand that Swift released Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in cinemas worldwide at the end of the year. Before 2023 was over, she also moved forward in her re-release series with 1989 [Taylor's Version], a revision of her pop-minded fifth album from 2014. As with many of the re-releases, the set included multiple previously unreleased songs from the same time, as well as re-recorded versions of some of Swift's biggest hits.

In early 2024, Midnights won the Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Album and Album of the Year, helping Swift make history by being the first artist to win the latter award four times. During her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album, she announced the April 2024 release of her next record, The Tortured Poets Department. The songwriting-focused album featured 16 new tracks, with each of four different physical editions featuring a different 17th bonus track. The album included guest features from Post Malone on the song "Fortnight" and Florence + the Machine on "Florida!!!" Just two hours after the album was released into the wild, Swift announced its expansion into a double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. Topping charts in over two dozen territories, it remained at number one in the U.S. for months, just as Swift continued the Eras Tour across Europe”.

Ahead of her thirty-fifth birthday on 13th December, I wanted to shine a spotlight on the brilliant Taylor Swift and her catalogue. One of the most impressive in music history, I know many fans will mark her birthday a matter of days before Christmas. If you are a fan or not, you will find much to enjoy in this Digital Mixtape. Here is a birthday playlist featuring tracks from…

A modern-day icon.

FEATURE: Stargazing: Does the BBC Sound Of Give Enough Spotlight to Newer Artists?

FEATURE:

 

 

Stargazing

IN THIS PHOTO: Ezra Collective

Does the BBC Sound Of Give Enough Spotlight to Newer Artists?

_________

IT is exciting…

IN THIS PHOTO: Chappell Roan

at this time of year, as we get the shortlists and longlist of artists tipped for success the following year. Most music websites and magazines project their forecast. They compile lists of artists who they deem worthy of following. There are bigger and established acts, though you get a good amount of upcoming artists. The BBC Sound Of 2025 has been announced. There has been a division of opinions when it comes to the names announced. I know it only one poll and list, though it is telling that a lot of their artists are more established rather than new. Although the BBC Sound Of poll is not exclusively for new artists, it should clear more way for fresh blood. One might argue that ‘sound of’ is not exclusive. It is an artist who is going to define the year ahead. There does need to be a division between artists making big strides and those newer artists who are worth seeking out. It seems this year’s list of contenders is not as fresh and unknown as previous years. Though, if you look back through previous years, you have to ask whether the BBC should be doing more for newer acts:

“BBC Radio 1's Sound of 2025 longlist has been announced, with breakout stars like Chappell Roan and Barry Can't Swim joined by newcomers including Myles Smith and Good Neighbours.

The award is given to rising artists with "the best chance of mainstream success" in the next 12 months. Past winners include Adele, Sam Smith, Michael Kiwanuka, PinkPantheress and Haim.

Last year's winners, The Last Dinner Party, went on to score a number one album and a Mercury Prize nomination for their debut release, Prelude To Ecstasy.

This year's longlist also includes indie band English Teacher and Northern Irish rap act Kneecap. The winner will be announced on BBC Radio 1 and BBC News in January.

The 11 acts in the running are:

• Barry Can’t Swim

• Chappell Roan

• Confidence Man

• Doechii

• English Teacher

• Ezra Collective

• Good Neighbours

• KNEECAP

• mk.gee

• Myles Smith

• Pozer

The nominees were chosen by a panel of more than 180 music industry experts and artists including representatives from Spotify, the Glastonbury Festival and the BBC; as well as musicians such as Sir Elton John, Dua Lipa, Jorja Smith, The Blessed Madonna and Sam Smith.

US pop star Chapell Roan is the clear frontrunner, after an electrifying year that saw her go from Olivia Rodrigo's backing vocalist to breakout pop star.

Rejecting the trend for whispery bedroom pop, her songs are full of cheerleader chants and exuberant hooks that document her coming of age and the discovery of her sexuality.

Last week, she was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including best new artist and album of the year, for her debut The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess.

Also hotly-tipped are London jazz ensemble Ezra Collective, who won the Mercury Prize in 2023 for their soulful and ebullient album Where I'm Meant To Be”.

It is a shame that there were not one or two more spaces for acts that have perhaps had less exposure as larger artists such as Confidence Man, Ezra Collective or Barry Can’t Swim. I would have thought there would be one or two more women in the shortlist. One can certainly see why Chappell Roan was longlisted. She is one of the biggest artist in the world at the moment and she is creating a lot of conversation. You would put good money on her winning easily. I wonder about some other choices. English Teacher are a smart choice and should take one of the top three placings. It is hard selecting artists that make the longlist. There is so much debating and discussion. It is a tough choice as you are going to exclude some many people and can never please everyone! Although there is some vital new energy and some lesser-known artists in the running, I do worry that the top three will be filled out by artists who have already been around for a while and are perhaps not going to ‘define’ next year. I did think that a group like FLO might make the cut. There are many artists I could add to the mix, but you have to respect it is impossible to really get a true impression of artists who will define 2025 when you only have eleven spots. However, there has been some consternation and backlash against the longlist. How there are popular artists taking up space that could be reserved for newer artists who are going to break through next year.

In their article from yesterday (20th November), CLASH highlighted how bizarre the eleven names are. A random list with only three names that could be seen as new. They ask what is the purpose and point of the BBC Sound Of longlist each year when they are not interested in representing and highlighting newer artists. Established and already-popular artists do not really need to be on a list like this. It creates this monopoly that needs to be addressed:

“Ezra Collective are on there – a Mercury-winning jazz group who CLASH have supported for almost a decade across three studio albums. Having sold out London’s OVO Wembley Arena a matter of days ago, do they truly need that spot? Barry Can’t Swim is on there. Nominated for the Mercury, the SAY Award, and a BRIT, he caused a road-block at Glastonbury and sold out O2 Academy Brixton three times over without breaking a sweat. By what metric is he ‘new’

Then there’s mk.gee, who has been making music for a decade; English Teacher, who won the Mercury live on BBC 6Music a few weeks back. Confidence Man, who are now building their fourth studio album, and Chappell Roan – who is already a globally recognised icon, a figure re-shaping culture.

It’s a truly bizarre list. Indeed, the only artists who might genuinely be considered ‘new’ or ‘emerging’ are UK rap trailblazer Pozer, Myles Smith, and viral pop duo Good Neighbours. That’s essentially three names, from 11.

That isn’t to say the music picked is bad, per se. CLASH have supported each and every artist on this year’s Sound Of 2025 list – from gaelic rap vagabonds Kneecap through to Stateside queen Doechii. It’s more than the long-list placed the platform as a whole into sharp context – what is the Sound Of poll even for, anyway?

The reactions online have been equally strong. “Did you publish last year’s list by mistake?” asked one wag on social media. Terry Charleton said “this is a joke” while another user summed it up: “It was always supposed to be about championing new acts who hadn’t had a breakthrough yet… instead we’ve got festival headliners and multiple Mercury Prize winners. What a joke!

Ultimately, CLASH fully understands that predicting the year in music is a fool’s errand – critics are waiting with the same barbs year-on-year. It’s just that this list makes no sense at all – it doesn’t serve anyone, least of all emerging artist. Furthermore, it has to be seen against a broader context – less and less music is coming through. If we look at the BBC, the shrinking of their Introducing strand means its undeniably effective (and often inspiring) new music champions are hamstrung. DJ, label owner, and conversation starter Elijah has also pointed out the flaws in 1Xtra’s programming, with the drive-time schedule more interested in revisiting Lil Wayne & Chris Brown hits than championing homegrown talent.

There is a chokehold on new music in this country – the BBC Sound Of poll feels broken”.

I will round up very soon. Before that, NME also published a feature that collated some fan response to the latest BBC Sound Of list. Perhaps the most divisive in many years. It is clear that next year’s list needs to redress big issues this year. We do not need award-winning artists to be so heavily represented. If the BBC are keen to foster new artists who could make waves through the coming year then they need to stop being lazy and make easy picks of big artists who are obvious going to be successful next year – as they are already successful! It is quite worrying:

“Following the announcement, fans have been taking to social media to weigh in on the list – with many arguing that while the artists are all of a high calibre, a number of them have already experienced significant success, and that they hoped to see newer names highlighted.

“’The Sound Of list has a strong track record of predicting future superstars..’ by picking acts that have – checks notes – had films out at the cinema, headlined Wembley Arena, been nominated for numerous Grammys, won the Mercury Prize,” wrote Benefits on X/Twitter. Another agreed in the comment section, writing: “Does that mean that headlining Wembley is now just a stepping stone on the path to fame and glory? I always assumed it was headlining the Dover Castle in Camden.”

“Every single artist on the BBC Sound of 2025 list is already doing pretty well. This is their most lazy list yet,” a third shared, while another added: “Sad to see the Radio 1’s full Sound of 2025 longlist. It used to champion new acts & at least half of these are well established.

"The Sound Of list has a strong track record of predicting future superstars..” by picking acts that have – checks notes – had films out at the cinema, headlined Wembley Arena, been nominated for numerous Grammys, won the Mercury Prize.

“I thought the inclusion of Peggy Gou on last year’s list was a bit embarrassing, but sheesh the Sound of 2025 list is utterly insulting to any genuinely new act who HASN’T won a Mercury or spent four months at Number Two. It’s sending out a really shitty message too,” someone else wrote”.

It is sad that a longlist that should be all about including exciting new acts has been attacked because it is tired and seemingly interested mostly in big artists. The random mixing of artists. There does not seem to be as much thought and logic from this year’s longlist as there should be. You know Chappell Roan will win. Even if English Teacher win, they have a Mercury Prize, so there seems to be this entry requirement that you need to have won an award or be established to win! The few new acts on the longlist will be out of the medal places. It is clear that the BBC need to do better…

IN 2025.

FEATURE: An Underrated Festive Treat: Kate Bush’s Christmas Special at Forty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

An Underrated Festive Treat

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during a performance of Them Heavy People for the 1979 Christmas special, Kate

Kate Bush’s Christmas Special at Forty-Five

_________

I have covered this programme before…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

so I will try and approach this from another angle. Let’s start with some of the fact. The Christmas special, Kate, was broadcast on the BBC on 28th December, 1979. I wanted to look ahead to its forty-fifth anniversary. I am going to be busy posting other Kate Bush features near Christmas, so I felt it only right to find some room for this wonderful episode. Although it was broadcast a few days after Christmas in 1979, it was recorded in October 1979. Many overlook or criticise the special as it is not quite like a true live performance. Bush finished up her run of dates for The Tour of Life in 1979. This was seen as a final engagement of the year. An encore perhaps, albeit in a very different setting and with less of an impact. It is clear Bush did not want to mount something huge for Kate. It was more low-key than her extraordinary tour. Many have highlighted a few numbers as being a little odd. Perhaps the look or choreography leaves them cold or confused. Some of the performances are pared-down or lesser versions of the ones that were mounted for The Tour of Life. Recorded out of Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham with choreography by Anthony Van Laast (who can be seen in the video for The Wedding List playing the groom). The Wedding List was one of the numbers not recorded at Pebble Mill Studios. It was recorded at Nunhead Cemetery in South London. I will come to some takes on Kate Bush 1979 Christmas special. As it is almost forty-five, it needs to be reappraised and back on T.V. I hope that the BBC re-run it this year to mark the anniversary. The thirteen-song set consisted of a mix of cuts from her first two albums. Songs that would appear on 1980’s Never for Ever, The Wedding List, Egypt and Violin, got an outing and di add something new to proceedings. There were guests spots from Peter Gabriel. It was one of the earliest times the two worked together. Bush would appear on a couple of later Pete Gabriel albums and she would take to the stage with him again. Gabriel performed at a tribute show for Bill Duffield during The Tour of Life. He was a lightning technician who sadly died during the warm-up gig.

It was nice that Gabriel was given a quite big role. One of the most affecting moments of Kate was when he and Bush covered Roy Harper’s song. Another Day. A gorgeous moment that could have been released as a single. I think there are many highlights from Kate. Granted, there is not much of a festive theme. Although ‘The Angel Gabriel’ is a nice nickname and appropriate one for Peter Gabriel during a Christmas special, we were treated to a live performance of December Will Be Magic Again. That song was released as a single in 1980. Many people first heard the song during that Christmas special in December 1979. Are there any lowlights from Kate? Maybe a real feeling that there is no audience. Something canned and artificial. I am not sure about logistics and practicalities, but one feels that it is just Bush performing to an empty studio. Also, a few songs that you hoped would make the cut. Blow Away (For Bill) could have featured. Maybe even a cover of a Christmas classic. A rare outing for Ran Tan Waltz – a B-side for Babooshka in 1980 – is a delight but has a someone unusual choreography. It is trying to be cute and fun but does not fit the song’s somewhat cheeky and sexual lyrics. It is a bit of a misfire. However, alongside the duet on Another Day, there are huge highlights. Bush performing a beautiful version of Symphony in Blue. December Will Be Magic Again too. The fact that it is another Kate Bush live performance – albeit it one vastly different from The Tour of Life – is to be treasured! I will end with reasons why we need to celebrate and re-evaluate Kate ahead of its forty-fifth anniversary.

I am going to bring in articles that have explored the extraordinary-yet-divisive 1979 Christmas special. Weird and wonderfully Kate Bush, The Cut shared their opinions of Kate in a 2020 piece. I am glad that people have written about it, even though there is a note of confusion:

“The 1979 Christmas special is also significant because in many ways, it’s Kate’s departing gift to fans — a bow atop a year that would mark the end of her concert career for the next three decades. Like anything with the notoriously private singer, the more information I try to find on this special, the more questions I ultimately end up having. Why, for instance, did Kate think it was appropriate to perform a murder-suicide ballad for a holiday show? Who at the BBC approved this to go on air? How does she pop out of a garbage can so effortlessly in skin-tight leather pants? And does she even know what a Christmas special is? Do we?

But this is why I keep coming back to the Kate Bush Christmas special, year after year. The desire to conform to the cookie-cutter — and completely unattainable — Christmas ideal unleashes my inner control freak, but I never stop to ask myself why I want this version of the holidays in the first place.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1979 for her BBC Christmas television special, Kate/PHOTO CREDIT: TV Times/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Even her one Christmas song is a wink to this idea. In “December Will Be Magic Again,” she sings with childlike yearning for the idyllic Christmas. “The white city, she is so beautiful, upon the black-soot-icicled roofs,” Kate coos. It’s a beautiful image, the dusting of pure white snow, falling like the haze of nostalgia to cover the tarnished memories we’d rather forget. But Kate knows it’s a pipe dream. And she gives us permission to let it all go.

Her Christmas special feels especially relevant this year, as normal has never felt more out of reach. It would be easy to give into a collective sense of despair as we enter an uncertain winter. But when I watch Kate roll around on the floor, fake blood dripping from her lips as she gleefully shoots a hole into the chest of her lover’s murderer, I am embraced by the warm comfort that things will be okay. Even if this holiday isn’t what we envisioned, it doesn’t make it any less special — all we need is to give ourselves the space to get a little weird”.

In 2019, Medium marked forty years of Kate with an in-depth look at the special. An interesting song-by-song examination. I want to bring in their view of several of their songs. In case you wonder, their ellipsis at the end of Another Day refers to Egypt. It is true that there are some bizarre staging choices for some songs. Egypt and Ran Tan Waltz. Less large-scale and ambitious as her 1979 tour, we get more intimate and perhaps repetitious versions of Them Heavy People and Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake. However, I love every moment because it all makes this fascinating and hugely watchable whole. The fact that it happened at all. The lack of a Christmas theme. Or many Christmas songs at all. It is a shame more people have not written about Kate:

“Ran Tan Waltz

Is this a Christmas song? No.

Is this a song about death? Not that I know of!

Is it unreleased? Yes. It would later be released as a B-side for “Babooshka” in June 1980.

A direct quote from my notes: “Kate Bush invented adult babies”

Speaking of bizarre tonal shifts, Kate is back — now in drag as a man — to sing “Ran Tan Waltz” with her wife and their adult baby. The choreography here is bonkers, wonderful, and really physically involved. She’s constantly getting picked up and thrown around, which causes her to lose both her beard and her hat, and by the end of the performance she’s no longer Kate Bush in drag as a man, but rather just a slightly disheveled Kate Bush in a vest.

December Will Be Magic Again

Is this a Christmas song? YES! This is undoubtedly, without a question, a Christmas song. Don’t get too excited though, because this is literally the only one in the whole special.

Is this a song about death? No.

Is it unreleased? Yes, it would be released in 1980.

A direct quote from my notes: “This song is really beautiful”

THIS IS A CHRISTMAS SONG!!! And a damn good one at that — I had never really appreciated how nice of a song this was until re-watching this special. Really gorgeous melodies here, and the piano arrangement paired with the jingle bells is really lovely! Good job, Kate. I’m sure we won’t be getting another bizarre tonal shift following this lovely Christmas song, right.

The Wedding List

Is this a Christmas song? No.

Is this a song about death? YOU BET YOUR ASS IT IS!!!!!

Is it unreleased? Yes, it would be released in 1980 on Never For Ever.

A direct quote from my notes: “She follows a Christmas song with a song about two murders and suicide!!!”

Kate follows her nice little Christmas song with the unreleased banger “The Wedding List.” Kate’s wearing a very wild wedding dress, and we cut back and forth between pre-recorded footage of her husband getting shot on their wedding day and in-studio footage of Kate plotting and enacting her revenge on the murderer. At the end of the song, her now-reanimated dead husband lifts her in the air and she dies in his arms. Merry Christmas!

Another Day (duet with Peter Gabriel, Roy Harper cover)

Is this a Christmas song? No.

Is this a song about death? No, but it’s depressing as hell.

Is it unreleased? No, it’s a cover of a 1970 Roy Harper track. Gabriel and Bush had plans to record and release it at some point, but never did.

A direct quote from my notes: “I don’t know what to say about this”

Peter Gabriel comes back to perform a duet of Roy Harper’s “Another Day.” It’s not a Christmas song, but it is an extremely depressing song about reflecting on What Could Have Been with a former lover. Peter and Kate really sell it, performing both the past and present versions of the couple. It’s a beautiful performance, but it’s hard not to laugh when you remember that a) this is ostensibly a Christmas special and b) it’s proceeded by “The Wedding List” and followed by, well…”

Many Kate Bush fans are unaware of the 1979 Christmas special. I admit that it does have its downsides. The hollow feel of the audience. The limitations at Pebble Mill compared to The Tour of Life. The fact it is a smaller and less spectacular set compared to gigs Bush performed earlier in 1979. However, there are so many great things. Peter Gabriel featuring and almost stealing the show. A televised set for those who could not see Kate Bush play live. The Wedding List is a real standout. Such a shame it was not released as a single from Never for Ever. Apologies if I have repeated myself. I have written about Kate a few times now. Because it has received criticism and bafflement from many, it does deserve more love ahead of its forty-fifth anniversary on 28th December. It is a magical, wildly eccentric and varied show that would have been well received by Kate Bush fans.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Paddy Bush in discussion whilst working on 1979’s Kate

A great way to end 1979, it still creates fascination and discussion all these years later! I do hope the BBC have a space for Kate this Christmas. In terms of releases, I am not sure it will come out on DVD. I would like to see an HD or 4K version on YouTube. There are some behind the scenes photos from the special, but having more written about if and getting words from Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Anthony Van Laast, Paddy Bush (her brother featured most notably during The Wedding List) and the dancers (Gary Hurst and Stewart Avon-Arnold). I have a lot of respect for Kate. I am curious what Bush thinks of it now. If she ever does! During such a whirlwind period of her career, I guess Kate was something that was forced on her to an extent rather than it being something Bush was passionate about. Graeme Thomson writes about Kate in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. He likes some moments but feel it is not a career highlight. That is fair. However, the brilliant and often beautiful Kate is well worth watching. Despite its lack of Christmas songs it does feel Christmas-like to me. It is a treasure I will defend and love…

FOR the rest of my life.

FEATURE: A New Director’s Cut: What Will Future Kate Bush Visuals and Videos Entail?

FEATURE:

 

 

A New Director’s Cut

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

What Will Future Kate Bush Visuals and Videos Entail?

_________

I cannot say with any profundity…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

that I know how Kate Bush thinks and where her ideas come from. In terms of music videos or how she wants her photos to look. I am going to look ahead to the possibility of an eleventh studio album and speculate what direction Bush could head in. For many upcoming features, I am looking back to her debut album, The Kick Inside, Wuthering Heights (its first single) and the years before 1978. Really going back to the start and spending some time looking at Kate Bush the teen prodigy. It is important to explore that as we head into a new year. It does seem likely that we will be graced by a new Kate Bush album in the future. She dropped that little bombshell, sort of, when speaking with Emma Barnett for BBC Radio 4 recently. Rather than this being evasiveness, you do get the feeling Bush wants to bring us new music. In terms of what that could entail, I will go into it for another feature. In terms of the sounds, themes and even personnel. However, I have been thinking about the visual aspect. What was notable from 2005’s Aerial onwards is how Bush has promoted those albums practically invisibly. We got generous reviews and plenty of words from her for Aerial, Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow (both 2011). For Aerial, there were some promotional photos shot by Trevor Leighton. For her 2011 albums, some nice shots from her brother, John Carder Bush. The icon not hiding her face away or shying from photography. Although she guards her privacy fiercely, she knows she has to have promotional photo taken. It is part of the campaign and extension of the album itself. Whilst Aerial’s photos didn’t have a particular theme, it was just nice seeing Kate Bush’s face! For Director’s Cut, there was more of a concept. Bush very much in the mode of a director. Examining a roll of film. One where she was hugging a cat (not a directorial duty but it was cute!) and there was this distinct tone, colour palette and feel. For 50 Words for Snow, alongside Bush in some artic gear looking very snug, she was shot ‘conceiving’ songs and in this directorial mode still. A creator and visionary. That trusted bond with her brother and that creative collaboration that has existed for about sixty years now. I do imagine that he will take photos for her if there is indeed another album coming.

ALBUM PHOTO COVER CREDIT: John Carder Bush

I can’t see Bush wanting to work with too many other photographers. We will have to wait for a title before we get any impression of what direction the photos might take. Whereas her early career saw her mixing album promotion shots with press photography and various different shoots, that has been limited since 2005. Fewer new photographers and working with the same photographer for the most part. I imagine John Carder Bush would be in her mind for all future promotional images. Though she might take a chance on a new photographer. In terms of the album visuals, more and more, I predict Bush will not include her own face. The last album where we did see her face was 1989’s The Sensual World. With her mouth covered by a flower, The Red Shoes in 1993 featured only feet…in red shoes. Aerial was a waveform of a blackbird song. Director’s Cut was an image of some film, whilst 50 Words for Snow is a woman kissing a snowman. It is an image inspired by one of the album’s songs, Misty, where a woman enjoys a tryst with a snowman after which she wakes find a puddle of water in her bed the following morning. Perhaps more intriguing and varied than simply having an image of Kate Bush on the cover, there is that feeling of the album covers being less personal and more to do with the music. I can appreciate Bush wants to keep the music about the music. There have been no press photos of her for quite a few years. I think about ten years or so. The year she took Before the Dawn to the stage and picked up an award for it too. Bush was nominated for 2012 BRIT Awards as Best British Female Solo Artist, but lost to Adele. She also made her first public appearance after a decade years, picking the South Bank Sky Arts Award in the Pop category for 50 Words for Snow. It has been a bit of a gap since we have seen her at an event or photographed by the press. Ten years in fact.

I think promotional interviews are likely to be very similar to how they have been for her latest albums. We will not see Bush in the flesh or on T.V. Not even a filmed podcast. Though it would be nice to see her filmed and speaking with BBC Radio 6 Music or BBC Radio 4 from a studio or great location, I feel it is more likely she will be at home and it will be audio-only. I will delve more into that side with a feature about a possible new album. I am in speculation mode. You can’t blame me! Kate Bush has always been innovative when it comes to music videos. If she winces at some of the early videos – around 1978 through 1979 – and feels that they are not representative of her, she can be very proud. They are moving and memorable because she is in them! A presence that is instantly magnetising and mesmeric. I think there was a turning point from Army Dreamers/Breathing onwards. Two singles released from her 1980 album, Never for Ever, you could see her videos becoming more cinematic. Bush learning from every shoot to the day she would direct her own videos. From Hounds of Love on, we saw Bush put her stamp on videos. She had assisted and co-directed prior to directing the video for Hounds of Love’s title track. You could feel a distinct colour palette. With nods to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Bush expanded and broadened her vision. I love the videos for The Big Sky, Experiment IV, The Sensual World and This Woman’s Work. Bush also directed Eider Fall at Lake Tahoe in 2012. That was a video for an edited version of Lake Tahoe – taken from 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. In terms of her video output, she has lent more into animation that live action. She did appear in King of the Mountain in 2005. That was the only official single from Aerial. The video was directed by Jimmy Murakami. Bush was conscious about her looks and weight and, as such, has not appeared in her videos since.

She did direct the video for Deeper Understanding (from Director’s Cut) in 2011. That was not hugely acclaimed and, though ambitious, is pretty odd and messy. I have said that before. However, Bush did also direct the video for Little Shrew (Snowflake) that has just been released. It is a magnificent animation that ranks alongside her best work. You can read more about it here. Working alongside illustrator Jim Kay, what was released – a video to raise funds for War Child – is a masterpiece that stirs the emotions. It has just won several awards at the International Film Festival at Cannes. I do feel Bush wants to work more with animation in the future. Even though the latest video took a lot of time, the fact Bush has directed a couple of animated videos already suggests she is comfortable in that medium. It means she does not need to be in the video and is not limited by imagination or budget. Able to create something extraordinary and cinematic for less money than it would cost to shoot live. I love how she is a big fan of music videos and always wanted to see The Ninth Wave (from Hounds of Love) visualised. That was brought to the stage in 2014 but could well be visualised in the future. Maybe she will continue to archive and make animated videos for some songs from 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. I do assume any future Kate Bush video will either be animated or feature other actors. In rather pretentious and self-indulgent fashion, I am going to end with a video concept. One that does not have a song attached to it but would be a slightly large-budget video inspired by filmmaker Michel Gondry. The reason I bring this up is because Bush has always been a visual innovator. Whether it is her album covers or videos, as a director, she very much explored ideas beyond the cliché Pop videos and what here peers were doing. Directed by Julian Doyle, the video for Cloudbusting (from Hounds of Love) is dazzling and unique. Some of the moment on the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve show Bush is a direct who can produce jaw-dropping moments. Her video for Little Shrew (Snowflake) is a work of wonder!

This is someone who will release more music and very much have visuals in mind. As Bush loves vinyl and has gone to great lengths to reissue her albums and ensure they reach new people, she will put so much effort into the album cover and the vinyl itself. Whether it is another animated cover or one that is more photographic but does not feature her, I am not sure – though the former seems more likely. I do feel it is a long shot we will ever see Kate Bush appear in one of her videos again. Perhaps too conscious still about her looks and that niggling self-conscious voice that was an issue when she was filming Aerial. I do think animations will feature heavily through any music videos she provides from now on. Bush is a magnificent director across multiple mediums and visual styles. I know we will get promotional photos but, as a new album is likely to have only one single released – and, therefore, one video -, it does beg the question as to what it might entail. I think Bush is one of these artists who still loves making videos. How important they are and how they connect to music. As such, I do wonder whether she will indulge in a video that is filmed rather than animated. This is purely self-indulgent, but I have recently written about how music videos are not as innovative as once they were. Maybe it is budget constraints or a feeling videos will not be seen and are not as lucrative, popular or even necessary as they were decades ago. It is a shame music is becoming less visually-minded and we are seeing fewer groundbreaking videos and few genuinely standout album covers. Kate Bush is an artist who could have a big budget and would still engage with music videos. Taking them somewhere genuinely new. I also wrote in that feature how we are not seeing pioneering video directors like Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze emerge. I had a video ideal combining his work on Beck’s Deadweight, Björk’s Bachelorette and more specifically Cibo Matto’s Sugar Water.

It is odd to search for a song that a video goes with. Having the egg before the chicken! I sort of feel like it would suit a five-minute song similar to Arcade Fire’s Ready to Start. However, it is an adaptable concept I feel would perfectly suit a Kate Bush song. I also think that it could open a film adaptation of The Ninth Wave. Something I am determined to see come to life. So this video idea might well be the opening sequence before cutting to the first scene. Maybe a director like Roxana Baldovin or even Michel Gondry could direct. It would be a wonderful new direction for Bush. The idea would feature a film director making a movie and a woman going about her life who wants to be an actress. It would be shot in New York and the left-hand side of the screen is the filmmaker putting together the film in December 1985 (or completing it then, at Christmas). The action would be reversed, so that we start from the final scenes and completion and work back to the very start – as he searches for his lead actress. We see the end of the film an actress accidentally killed by a falling piano. The video would sync the left and right sides of the screen similar to that of Sugar Water. On the right is the actress whose life is going forward. It would start in June 1985 and would work to September in the final scene, where the screens merge and the two meet in a café called Michel’s, where upon they would put together two scarps of paper. The director’s says ‘Thank God’ (his note referring to the fact the actress dies) and the woman’s says ‘I found you!’ (referring to a suicide note that mentions her unborn child). They would then hold hands and smile as people take away parts of the café set which are actually small chairs and props (thanks to forced perspective). The twist is that the woman will be the actress who eventually dies but she is pregnant and wants to start a new life. We wonder whether this is a dream the director had or is it hers? Also, what is real and what is not. Almost like Christopher Nolan directing a music video! In the same way as this treatment is me searching for a song to go with the video, the woman is trying to find a very specific film role based on her experiences and desires. The point is that the filmmaking is quite mundane and ordinary and her life is extraordinary and film-like. There would be the occasional crossover between left and right screen where a jogger, people on the street and car accident would crossover and merge.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ali Pazani/Pexels

At the start, we see a huge action scene or bustling street that looks like a movie but is the woman’s real life. There is a camera filming a film that is comparatively boring. The video would have humour. Sign gags and visuals jokes (drug references and 1980s nods; a vat of morphine that ays ‘Property of John Candy’) together with some physical comedy, some genuine horror, suspense, romance and genuine emotion. The woman is pregnant and wants to build a life for her child. She is carrying around a letter that might be a suicide letter but changes her mind. Her life is too hectic and she wants to escape into the fantasy of the film world. The letter becomes damaged and tears. A dog tries to snatch it near the end. The film director has a script that is being re-written according to the action in the right of the screen. As he tears pages and gets rid of some, that affects the action in the woman’s life. The same with her letter and the film. The film is about a woman who has a boring life and wants to find excitement. The reverse of the woman’s life. There is this symmetry and connection between both sides of the screen. A point in the middle where the characters both stop and there is action behind them. The camera swings to the right on the left-hand side and goes to the other side and the camera on the right swings to the left as we see a brief shot of someone asleep. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference and key to the video. Like eyes blinking. The camera swings referring to eyelids opening and closing again. Nods to directors like Spike Jonze and a taxi driver with a cow’s head (a reference his video for Daft Punk’s Da Funk). There is a moment outside an abortion clinic. The woman visits a music shop and puts on a vinyl of the (Kate Bush) song that is playing and listens to it as words from the song appear on the wall in the street that she runs past. Both sides of the action end in September 1985 (the month Hounds of Love was released, which will be referenced in a comical way) and the woman has got this message to meet the director. The director needs to reshoot his film but the woman does not know the fate of the other actress. Is it the same woman but the dead woman is her and the action is her dream? They both sit at a small table and have scraps of paper that they put together and we close in on them merging to say, ‘Thank God I found You!’. It then pans back up as they smile and the set is cleared and we fade. Is it a dream or was it part of the film? It is very Michel Gondry-esue in terms of layers. Rather than these being single-take scenes, Gondry’s influence would be in terms of the editing and leaning heavily on the video for Sugar Water and similarities to videos for Beck, Björk and even Lucas (Lucas with the Lid Off).

It is essentially me coming up with a specific video that would suit a particular sound and hoping Kate Bush comes up with it! To be honest, the treatment could fit a Kate Bush song. However, if she does go in the same direction as she did with 50 Words for Snow, then it may be a challenge! However, as she wants to do something different, you never know! What I do know is that she will still put a lot of emphasis into music videos. She has directed some stunning ones. I do hope that she takes a visit to live film again and shoots directs or conceives of something great. In my treatment idea, I wanted the woman to be played by U.S. actor Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and the film director by Donald Fagen (Steely Dan). Bush is a Steely Dan fan and it would be a fun combination. With reference to other videos such as Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, Childish Gambino’s This Is America and Weezer’s Buddy Holly, it would be ambitious! I would like to think Kate Bush would be into something like that. It depends whether the music would fit the idea. Maybe destined to have an interesting five-minute video treatment go unclaimed. If I knew how to make music and had a large budget – probably at least £100,000 – then it would be worth it. No matter. The point of this feature was to cast ahead and think about Kate Bush as a visual artist. Someone who always has been an innovator and visual thinker. The videos she has appeared in and directed have been these incredible pieces of cinema. Even the earliest videos have this real sense of wonder and beauty. I do like how she is still directing and spend so much time on the Little Shrew (Snowflake) video. Someone who puts so much effort into getting the look of a video right. So much story and brilliant images.

IN THIS PHOTO: Rachel Brosnahan in 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: We Are The Rhoads for Variety 

I love how Bush’s love of films has worked its way into her music which then goes into her own videos. That exciting possibility that a new single might come at some point. What will the song be and how will the video go? What will it encompass? Maybe it will be another animation or Bush will direct a live action video with her own concept? Perhaps she will work with a new director and charge them to direct something based on her treatment. It seems unlikely Bush is going to appear in anymore videos. That is a pity but you can see why she might not want to commit. Instead, we could get something radical and boundary-pushing. I do worry that the art – and that word ‘art’ is very deliberate – of the music video has gone. Mainstream artists can afford bigger-budget videos but they are not using that money to do much truly innovative and mind-blowing. Smaller artists can do a lot with a smaller budget but their videos do not get as many views so less impetus to do anything that inventive. We do need more major artists looking at the classic videos and trying to equal them. Kate Bush, if and when she does give is new music, could very well do that. Create a video that stays long in the mind. Whether because of it intricacies and layers of a beautiful simplicity that is affecting and singular. Bush is this stunning filmmaker so my hopes are high for the future. This tantalising and hugely exciting possibility for…

A new director’s cut.

FEATURE: A Match Made in Chelsea: Does Kate Bush and Rosalía Being Seen in a Studio Mean New Music Is Coming from the British Icon?

FEATURE:

 

 

A Match Made in Chelsea

Does Kate Bush and Rosalía Being Seen in a Studio Mean New Music Is Coming from the British Icon?

_________

THIS may be the rumour mill…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rosalia in 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Mariano Regidor

working overtime, but there has been a sighting of Kate Bush in a studio with Rosalia. It seems like an unlikely partnership and it does not effectively and obviously suggest the two are working together. However, and I have it on good faith, that this studio is Studio 13, which is located on Latimer Road in Chelsea, London. It is unlikely that someone would mistake Kate Bush for another woman. Even at sixty-six, she is recognisable from her old self. Not a case of any ordinary human being mistaken for Kate Bush. Bush has a place in Chelsea I believe. It could well be a case of Kate Bush visiting the studio for another project. Whilst the odds are long, Rosalia – who is a Spanish artist who released the Spanish-language album, Motomami, in 2022 – and Kate Bush could be working together. There have long been rumours and talk that Bush and Big Boi have recorded something together. He keeps teasing it but I am always sceptical as to whether anything has actually been laid down! Maybe Bush does not want it out there until she releases new music. It does seem odd that these two disparate artists would be spotted together. It could have been Bush being seen near Rosalia at the same time, not necessarily them together. However, as it is unlikely that it was mistaken identity, it does create some ripples of excitement. I heard people react to the news saying Rosalia would not be in Bush’s radar. The assumption she does not keep up with modern music and has no idea who someone like Rosalia is. That would be ignorant and presumptuous. Since Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was used in Stranger Things and she has reached new territories and gained a huge new American following, she would have no doubt some more into contact with a lot of contemporary artists.

It may be the case Bush was simply visiting the studio. It would seem random is she was popping in with no eye to recording music or planning it for the future. It is true that Bush has not collaborated with many female artists. Aside from some personnel for her live shows and recorded music with the Trio Bulgarka and Mica Paris, I can’t think of many occasions where she has had women on her albums. Starting out in the 1970s, it was rare to see female musicians in studios. Apart from the artist in question, I mean. Most female artists worked exclusively with men. Studios were run by men and collaborations, when they did happen, mostly involved men. Bush grew up influenced by male musicians and the influence of her two brothers, Jay and Paddy. Also, Bush did not want to be influenced by female artists and was not very keen being compared to contemporaries like Carole King. However, things have moved on since then. Bush seems to be much more open as an artist when it comes to working with others. Whilst we want a new album to be as collaboration-free as possible, Bush uniting with contemporary artists like Rosalia would be amazing! A fan favourite collaboration would be between Bush and an admirer of her work, Björk. The two would sound phenomenal together! It is all speculation at this moment. Many also said Bush would not want to work with any modern artists. Nobody can speak for her or assume this based on history. Nobody knows what a new Kate Bush album would be like or whether she would work with other artists or go purely solo.

I can’t get over this rare sighting and the questions it raises. If it is indeed Kate Bush in Chelsea at a studio unlisted and hard to find, this does suggest future ambitions. A couple of other questions have been asked. When Bush spoke with Emma Barnett for Today recently, she did say she was keen to work on something new and had lots of ideas. Was this her saying that to please fans or the hope that people would not ask that question anymore?! It would seem foolhardy and naïve to think this was lip service. If she had no plans to release new music then she would be evasive and do what she has done previously when asked this question: say she had nothing planned and leave it at that. The fact she did say she was excited to look ahead at new music is all but confirmation that it will happen. There is also the question as to how far along she has come in the process. Many think a vague announcement means Bush has yet to write songs and is wrapping things up. Others, including author Graeme Thomson, suggest Bush sparking that tantalising thought of an eleventh studio album means she has already cultivated ideas and is a way through the process. Maybe not everything written ready to record. At least not at the blank page stage. I do think that Bush has an eleventh studio album in mind and she has started work on songs. Next year could well be the year we get the announcement we never thought would come: that the one and only Kate Bush has blessed us with new music! I always assumed she would record at her home studio and would work with musicians and personnel that have worked with her previously. However, you can never predict Kate Bush! One thing we can be sure of is that nobody should assume anything.

Many thought that Bush taking to gardening – when she spoke with Emma Barnett in 2022, Bush said she was really into gardening – was a sign of retirement. Fans of Bush know gardening has been a source of creativity and productivity for her. Nobody predicted that we would randomly get a new interview, a video (Bush released Little Shrew (Snowflake), which she directed and released to raise money for a charity she has worked alongside before, War Child) and there would be this potential for a new album. Listen to that interview and her tone is genuine. Not a woman trying to shrug off the question or in two minds. It is unlikely nothing new has been written since 50 Words for Snow. When interviewed about that album in 2011, Bush said she had more than enough ideas for a second album like that. In a future feature, I will explore what a new album might sound like and what sounds/themes will be explored. What is significant about Studio 13 is that it as founded by Damon Albarn. The Blur frontman also leads Gorillaz. Kate Bush mentioned the band in interviews previously (I heard her say that she bought a Gorrilaz album when she was promoting 2011’s 50 Words for Snow) and it might well be the case both artists are collaborating with Gorillaz on a new album. Rosalia did shout-out Kate Bush at the 2018  GRAMMYs, so it made me think Bush was working with Rosalia on a new album. However, it may seem more likely that Bush has contributed to a potential new album from Gorillaz. All guessing at the moment! I don’t think she would be spotted at a studio like that unless she was working on something in there.

Perhaps it is more likely original material from Bush would be done at her home studio and would be a less collaborative effort. Bush has worked with others in the past. Most of her collaborations in the past were in the 1980s. Working with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Roy Harper. She has contributed to tribute albums and worked with artists such as Prince and Big Country on their studio albums. Over the past few decades, there has been previous little in the way of Kate Bush cropping up on other records. This new flash of possibility has got fans excited. We cannot safely assume anything as of yet, though this confirmation Bush has been at Studio 13 with Rosalia is quite an exciting proposition! She would want privacy and people not pressing her on what she is doing there. However, as Kate Bush fans desperate for new material or any sign of her voice being on a record, one cannot help us but to dream and speculate! She herself recently said how she has been archiving and how she now has lots of ideas for something new. Who knows when that will arrive and what form it will take. For now, this potential match made in Chelsea does strongly suggest Bush is appearing on someone else’s album. More likely Gorillaz’s than Rosalia’s. Maybe it was just a visit and she wanted to see the studio or was invited by Damon Albarn. What could come. This inside scoop has got people excited. Rosalia fans think Bush will appear on her album. Many think it is for a Gorillaz album. It could all be simple enough: Kate Bush was in the area and wanted to scope the studio out for a future possible recording. However, so soon after saying how she has lots of ideas, it seems unlikely it is a coincidence. Lucky number 13 in Chelsea! This small and off-map studio. We will all have to patient, as Bush would not like to have anyone put it into the ether anything is confirmed. It is all rumour and what-ifs! However, she will forgive her fans for being excited and letting our imaginations run away with us! I am sure Kate Bush will update us when the time is right. Until then, we will all wait…

WITH bated breath.

FEATURE: Kate Bush, From Three Different Perspectives… Gathering Together Guido Harari, Gered Mankowitz and John Carder Bush

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush, From Three Different Perspectives…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978 (in the ‘Hollywood’ shot)/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Gathering Together Guido Harari, Gered Mankowitz and John Carder Bush

_________

THESE three…

IN THIS PHOTO: A young Kate Bush (Cathy) photographed by her brother, John Carder Bush (this image is available in his book, Cathy)

kings I have named above all have a different relationship with the divine Kate Bush. Guido Harari is someone who captured Kate Bush at an interesting period in her career. From around 1982 through to 1993, Bush had produced her first album solo (The Dreaming) and then went on to release her masterpiece, Hounds of Love, in 1985. By 1993, she was in her mid-thirties and her sound had changed. She was about to go on a career hiatus. Capturing those transformations, events and changes would have been fascinating for Harari. Wall of Sound Gallery have a link where you can buy The Kate Inside. Many of Guido Harari’s wonderful photos of Kate Bush that show unique and beguiling sides of her. In 2016, Harari was interviewed by The Guardian about an extraordinary decade shooting Kate Bush:

“Any other star,” says Guido Harari, “would have gone crazy. They’d have probably thrown me out.” It was 1am one night in 1989 and the Italian had been photographing Kate Bush non-stop for 15 hours. “We hadn’t eaten. We weren’t really talking. Just shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot, costume change, more makeup, shoot.” You worked in silence? “Yes. It was like we had telepathic communication.”

Bush had asked Harari to do the official photo shoot for her new album The Sensual World. And then, in the early hours, Harari had a bright idea. “I thought she looked like the figurehead of a ship. So I would make her look as though she was swimming towards the camera underwater.”

Harari decided to create this image by shooting Bush in a Romeo Gigli dress in front of a rented painted backdrop that looked like a Pollock painting. Then he would ask her to step out of the shot, rewind the film on his Hasselblad camera and shoot the backdrop again, making it look like she was a swimming through a submarine world of drips and blobs.

And then he had another idea. Why not have two images of Kate Bush on the same frame? “And then I thought: why only two Kates? Why not three Kates – all swimming in the water? She had to stand really still so she wouldn’t go out of focus because I was using a wide aperture, so there was no depth of field. She had to walk out of the shot, then back in, stand very still, and do the same again. I knew it was going to be great but it was going to take time and patience – and you don’t get either often from famous people when you’re photographing them.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on a trampoline in 1993 during filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Isn’t that when her PR minder should have intervened and said: Guido, enough already? “Well yes! But there was no minder. She was never part of what she called the machine.” As we chat, Harari shows me shots from his new book The Kate Inside, which documents his 10 years photographing the British pop star. It shows her wearing a T-shirt that says: I am a prima donna. “My God,” he says. “I’ve worked with some real prima donnas, not to mention any names. She wasn’t one of them.” Indeed, there is a copy of her handwritten thank you note which says: “You’ve made me look great.”

Harari has made his name over the years with disarmingly odd images of musicians. Leonard Cohen asleep on a little table before a huge painting; Tom Waits strutting in an improbably voluminous cape; Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed in a moment of tenderness, her nuzzling nose disappearing into his open shirt. Harari was a Kate Bush fan from the first time he heard her first single, Wuthering Heights, on the radio in 1978. “She was a pioneer, especially in Britain where no solo female artist had had a number one-selling album until she came along. And you had the sense that, despite her wistful manner, she had balls of steel.”

The photographer first met her in 1982 in Milan, when she was promoting her album The Dreaming. In the book he describes his first impressions: “Beautiful golden eyes, pouty lips, a big mane of hennaed hair.” Bush and her dancers had just come from a TV studio. “She was wearing what looked like decaying astronaut gear,” he recalls. “I had my equipment with me, so I asked them to improvise. What amazed me was how she switched. She seemed to be this shy girl then suddenly this wild beast came out. ”

In Milan, Harari showed her proofs for a new book he was making about Lindsay Kemp. The choreographer had trained the teenage Kate Bush in the mid-1970s, becoming a mentor to her, as he had been for David Bowie. “So my book was like a calling card – showing her that I understood where she was coming from artistically.”

Choreographer Lindsay Kemp, with Kate Bush in curlers, during the filming of The Line, The Cross and the Curve. Photograph: Guido Harari

Three years later, Bush called, asking if he would do the official shoot for her album Hounds of Love. “I went to meet her at her parents’ farmhouse in Kent. She had built a 48-track studio. One thing that really struck me was that there was no glass between the control room and where the musicians recorded. It was a place of silence and retreat from the rock’n’roll world. She had no desire to go to parties or be famous. Instead, she had her family around her. Her father was her manager and her brother had taken photos for her previous albums.”

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

For the Hounds of Love shoot, Bush told Harari that she would bring clothes that would be brown, blue and gold. “Nothing else! No other clues! So I got some backdrops I thought would go with those colours, and at 8am she turned up at the studio with her makeup woman and a few outfits and we went to work.”

Most of the photographs in Harari’s book have never been seen before. “There are lots of outtakes. What would happen is, at the end of the day, I’d have hundreds of rolls of film which I’d edit and then send to Kate. She’d send, say, four images to the record company. What nobody has seen until now is the progress through the day’s shoot. They really give a sense of her. The way she’s goofy one minute and then posing the next.”

After doing the photography for Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, in 1993 Harari was asked to be the stills photographer for her 50-minute film The Line, The Cross and the Curve starring Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Kemp and Bush, and showcasing songs from Bush’s album The Red Shoes. “It was a great invitation because I could be a fly on the wall. No fancy set ups, just me recording what was happening.” He’s particularly proud of his shot of Bush asleep on set in her curlers with Kemp posing behind her head. “I know she was disappointed in the film, she maybe thought it was a flop - not commercially but for her. So the photos were never published.”

That shoot marked the end of their collaboration, but there could have been another chapter. In 1998, Bush phoned Harari and asked if he would photograph her with guitarist Danny McIntosh and their newborn son, Bertie. “I said, ‘No. This is a private moment, keep it as it is”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993 whilst filming The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Before moving to the second incredible photographer, we get new perspectives and angles from this Amateur Photographer interview with a masterful photographer who took some of the most iconic and enduring images of Kate Bush. Bringing something out of her that nobody else has or ever will. It makes me wonder whether we will get promotional photos of Kate Bush when she does release her eleventh studio album. Will it be her brother, John Carder Bush, who is charged with that?! Guido Harari’s collaboration with Kate Bush is truly astonishing:

“How did you end up collaborating with Kate Bush?

I had a chance to meet Kate when she was promoting The Dreaming, her fourth album, while she was in Italy. I showed her the book and she was very excited by it and agreed to be photographed. So that book started the whole collaboration, which I had with her for ten years.

What was Kate like to work with?

When she called me up in 1985 to do her official promo photos for Hounds of Love, I was surprised to find that she didn’t want to explore any major concepts. She was very impressed with the photos I’d taken of Lindsay, which were very natural photos, not contrived or too posey, so she wanted me to capture something authentic; she didn’t want me to turn her again into a diva or icon, she wanted me to find a different approach.

She would come to the studio, just with her make-up artist and a bunch of clothes and no major briefing, nobody around like managers or agents, so it was really like shooting a friend. Not much conversation – total concentration. Her focus was incredible. We would shoot for 12 or 15 hours straight. It was amazing.

Kate Bush is famous for being obsessive about having full control of everything that she does, but I had the feeling she would let me go as far as I wanted to go.

So a lot of the photographs were unplanned beforehand?

Yes, that’s basically how it was. She would just bring clothes that she felt comfortable in, you know, a kimono, some casual clothes, some very colourful things that had a nice texture, and it was very much improvised. It was very much ‘let’s use these key elements and see how far we can go’. That happened on the 1985 shoot for Hounds of Love and in 1989 for The Sensual World, and then the last shoot from that period was in 1993 on the set of the film The Line, the Cross & the Curve.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush taking a nap during the filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

What was it like being on the set of her film?

That was the most memorable opportunity I had with her, as she had stopped performing live during her first tour in ’79, so to be on the set of her film gave me chance to take performance shots and also to do some reportage, like I had done with Lindsay.

Again, she didn’t restrict me in any way. I was able to shoot everything I saw, which was very unusual for her, and in the end we had an impressive amount of photos. That part of my archives of Kate has never been seen, as she retired for 12 years just after that, so the images became instantly became passé in a way.

What kind of director was she?

I have been on sets with Italian directors and unless you are the official photographer, you are always in the way of somebody so you feel like you have to beg to get pictures, but with Kate it was like, OK, you are free to do whatever you want.

I could sit very close to her with a wideangle and she would rarely look at the camera unless I asked her to, she was really natural. She was totally absorbed in her work because she was also not just acting in the movie but also directing. She had just two weeks to complete the filming. Then she wanted to edit it very quickly in order to bring the film to the London Film Festival, so there was a lot of pressure on that side.

But at the same time she had the ability to gather a group of collaborators around her, that she felt very comfortable with, so there was really no tension having to finish quickly, it was really free flowing.

What made you decide to publish your new book of your photoshoots with Kate?

The idea of the book came about twoyears ago when she announced new concerts for the first time in 35 years. We had a first show in London at the Snap gallery, with mine and Gered Mankowitz’s photos, who had shot the first two album covers.

There was a lot of interest in my work from the fans. We had published a small catalogue for the exhibition, but it was soon very clear that fans wanted more.

I thought I would use all the pictures from all the shoots and present them in a sequence to give people an idea of how a shoot can start very slowly, and then peak and go down, because we get tired, and then we’ll have another peak of creative energy and then it dies down. It’s a dynamic that you rarely get to see because photographers will offer their hero shots and forget about everything else.

It is also intersecting to see in a sequence of pictures how Kate would go from a laugh to a joke and then get her diva expression, and then all of a sudden crack up again with a joke and so you see moments that usually get discarded when you edit a photoshoot because they don’t promote the artist, but do make interesting events in the book”.

I am getting interviews from each of the three photographers before coming to an idea. The second I want to include is Gered Mankowitz. Through his partnership with Kate Bush was shorter – between 1978 and 1979 – than what Guido Harari enjoyed, his images are no less important. That debut album period. Capturing Kate Bush when she was just starting out. Shots that launched her into the world. His coffee table book, WOW!, like Harari’s The Kate Inside, is essential and I would advise people to buy it. I would recommend people listen to this BBC archive from 2015, where Gered Mankowitz discussed working with Kate Bush. He also photographed The Rolling Stones. An interview I have brought in before, Big Issue chatted with Gered Mankowitz in 2014 about his work with Kate Bush:

“I was brought in to create the launch image for Wuthering Heights and I think what makes Kate brilliant is her unique talent, her extraordinary energy, her vision – everything she does has a tremendous vision.

I remember her to be somebody who worked very hard. She was very young, 19, when it came out and she was wonderful to work with. Very energetic, very frenetic, quite difficult to tie down sometimes, to get her to focus on making an idea work, she wasn’t very experienced in having her photograph taken at that time, which was part of the challenge. But her individuality shone through.

I don’t think I had to draw it out of her, it was there, it was bubbling out of her. When I first went to the record company to discuss the session she wasn’t there but they played the video of Wuthering Heights that they’d made. It was quite obvious that she was a unique and special talent, not just because the music was so extraordinary but because of her individual look, her beauty and movement and style.

She had a really special quality, which stood out instantly on record and visually. I knew that I had to be at the top of my game to produce an image that was going to complement and support this extraordinary talent, and that’s what I tried to do. I always try to break these things down so that they are as simple as possible.

I had to be at the top of my game to produce an image that was going to complement and support this extraordinary talent

I only had a very loose connection with the record company. They already had a cover for the album The Kick Inside, but they didn’t have an image of Kate, it was quite obscure and it wasn’t as up-front of Kate as they wanted it to be. But I sense that they weren’t quite sure where they were going with her.

What they seemed very certain of was here was a unique and special talent and that they had somebody who was pure gold, but they were being led by her and I think that they weren’t sure who they were getting.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that she was in control of our session, but she was very much in control of the way she looked when she stepped out of the dressing room and I saw her for the first time ready for the camera I was blown away and knew it was going to be something special.

We did the very famous leotard pictures. I chose the leotards to make visual link with dance, that was the point of choosing and selecting them, I wanted to keep it extremely simple, I hope that in the portrait there would be a visual connection with dance which was clearly very important to her.

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

During the same session we reproduced the image of Wuthering Heights that she’d recorded for the video because everybody wanted stills of that but in those days they just couldn’t take them from the film. She did the whole dance for me. [Big Issue: “Wow!” Gered: “Wow indeed!”]. The only thing I didn’t have was the dry ice she had in the video, but it was spectacular.

We did four big photo sessions together between January 1978 and March or April 1979 and dance was always very high up on the list and a lot of the pictures we did are her moving, her different leotards, leaping, spinning, dancing and expressing herself like that and that was so important and trying to capture that in a very graphic way.

She could just look at the camera you would melt. You sense that she was really special and felt Wuthering Heights was going to be a big hit and I know that EMI was going to really get behind it. What nobody knew was how huge she would be and how important.

I had worked with a lot of people who had become incredibly successful for one reason or another – The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, who had that same charisma and presence as Kate, as did Annie Lennox and Suzi Quattro. What you recognise is talent and charisma but that doesn’t necessarily turn into longevity.

We know you’re going to move from one single, one album to the next and hope that the artist and everything in their support structure around them is going to remain intact and supportive, and that the artist will build a fan base that is solid enough to support them.

The one thing that was very clear was here was a very individual and unique special artist. There’s always terrible pressure on people especially if your first record is a huge hit. I don’t think that any of her records have been as big as Wuthering Heights but she’s big enough, talented enough and clever enough not to be overwhelmed by the success.

She would appear to be completely in control of her career, and she’s managed to maintain her privacy. When she makes an appearance [in public] she’s thought about it, and considered it, and the response to it is always huge.

The one picture that in a way is inescapable is the pink leotard Wuthering Heights picture. It’s one of those pictures that become iconic and represents so much, and that doesn’t happen very often. It has a life of its own and it has energy. I think it’s a beautiful portrait of a very beautiful young woman.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

The Big Issue: There has been discussion over the years whether her sexuality was being exploited – depending how it’s cropped, it’s quite graphic…

Gered: It didn’t occur to me at that time that [the nipples visible in the full-length shot] would be a problem. I know that it was pretty edgy for the late ’70s but it wasn’t sort of discussed or thought about a great deal. That was how she looked and I wasn’t going to say to her “I think you should cover up”.

She looked absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking at a cropped version of it now and it still has all the power that it did then. Her breasts might have been titillating to a few young boys but her beauty and her serenity, her stillness are what really make this a special photograph.

She used her sexuality throughout her performance

She certainly knew what she was doing, that’s how she came out of the dressing room, looking like that, and there was no attempt by anybody to make her look like that. That’s what she looked like and I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. I think it’s very, very beautiful.

I’m the photographer and I took that picture, and I don’t see how I could have exploited Kate Bush. She was in control of it.

But she used her sexuality throughout her performance – look at the Babooshka video or any of the records and promotional videos and stills, certainly in those first three or four years of her career she was a very sexual person and I think that came across in the way she moved, looked and the way she sang.

For me that makes any discussion or debate about whether the picture was ‘exploitative’ redundant. She wasn’t like Miley Cyrus trying to draw attention to herself through her sexuality. She’s a very strong woman and as a strong woman you know that she’s aware of everything that’s around her and I completely reject any possibility that the pictures were exploitative, it reflects her beauty and her power and serenity, and her comfortableness with it.

The Big Issue: It’s such a direct portrait, you feel like you know her, her face looks so open but she’s not giving anything away, it gives you chills still to look at it now.

Gered: It often is the case that in the beginning when an artist makes a really profound impact it’s often their first moments that are sort of welded into the public consciousness and that’s one of the most gratifying things. Going back to my favourite image, I’m incredibly proud and thrilled to have been associated with Kate Bush at this early stage. It’s fantastic to hear you say that [above] about it”.

katebushnews.com · The Kate Bush Fan Podcast Episode 53 - John Carder Bush interview - Part One

John Carder Bush has the longest creative relationship with Kate Bush. As her brother, he began taking photos of her when she was a small child. You can see shots of Bush as a young girl. Although it is another expensive purchase, we do get these rare and heart-warmingly intimate photographs taken at and around East Wickham Farm – the family home where Bush resided until her career started to take off. You can also purchase KATE: Inside the Rainbow. It is a fascinating book that every Kate Bush fan should own:

“Stunning and unique images from throughout Kate Bush's career including:

Outtakes from classic album shoots and never-before-seen photographs from The Dreaming and Hounds of Love sessions

Rare candid studio shots and behind-the-scenes stills from video sets, including 'Army Dreamers' and 'Running Up that Hill'

Includes original essays from Kate's brother:

From Cathy to Kate: Describes in vibrant detail their shared childhood and the whirlwind days of Kate's career

Chasing the Shot: A vivid evocation of John's experience of photographing his sister

'For me, each of these images forms part of a golden thread that shoots through the visual tapestry of Kate's remarkable career. Storytelling has always been the heartbeat of Kate's body of work, and it has been a privilege to capture these photographic illustrations that accompany those magical tales' John Carder Bush”.

I want to come to my idea. Whether it is a podcast or a filmed episode, getting three photographers together who, between them, have taken dozens of images of Kate Bush and contributed massively to her career, would be a treat for fans! In 2017, Attitude interviewed John Carder Bush about a lifetime photographing his sister. That incredible access to someone he has shot as a child, right through to an older woman for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. I am sure the two are not done yet:

“But while Kate certainly steers the ship, there are a core group of creatives helping her to realise each aspect of her ambitious musical projects – from her epic 2005 masterwork Aerial, to last year’s spectacular Before The Dawn live residency.

Key in this inner circle is Kate’s older brother, the photographer and writer John Carder Bush. John headed the Kate Bush management team for twenty years and since her early childhood, and throughout her career, he has photographed his little sister both candidly and professionally. His images have appeared on album, single and magazine covers worldwide. That instantly iconic Hounds Of Love album cover? He was behind the lens.

To coincide with Before The Dawn, last year John published a new edition of Cathy, his collection of photographs of his younger sister as a little girl. What’s been sorely lacking, though, is a catalogue of this remarkably visual artist’s career to date. Until now.

Kate: Inside The Rainbow is a collection of beautiful images from throughout her career, from her early days pre-Wuthering Heights right up to her most recent album, 2011’s 50 Words For Snow. It includes outtakes from classic album shoots, rare studio shots and behind-the-scenes stills from video sets, plus many other candid shots from John’s years turning the camera on his sister.

Basically, Kate Bush fans: here’s your new bible. John Carder Bush himself tells Attitude about this amazing project, some 40-odd years in the making…

John, Kate – Inside The Rainbow is just gorgeous. Why did now feel like the right time to put a book like this together?

I think the timing of this book was dictated by the reprint of Cathy [last year]. So many people had shown an interest in that book long after it went out of print, and it seemed logical to see what would happen if I brought it up to date. Originally, when I published Cathy back in 1986, I had planned to do three books – Cathy, Catherine and Kate, but like so many ambitious plans, it never happened.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the photoshoot for Babooshka (1980)PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Let’s start with those earliest photos you took of your sister, the ones that formed the book Cathy. Was it a case of your little sister being an easy subject to practice on, or were you aware even in those early days that there was a ‘star quality’ to her?

In those days I had only just started to feel that the camera could evoke something I wanted to express about childhood and the world of the imagination that so many children live in. I was also excited by my personal discovery of the pre-Raphaelites and had started collecting illustrated books of the turn of the century, which nobody was interested in in the early sixties and could be bought for next to nothing. My little sister was the perfect model, and although I was pleased with the results, I don’t think I detected star quality – we were a long way away from the her future career; when you know someone so well and see them every day of your life, you just don’t notice that kind of thing, although looking at them now it is quite clear she had something special.

This feels about as close to an ‘official’ retrospective book of Kate’s career as we might get. What are her thoughts on it?

I first discussed the book with Kate back in the summer of 2014. The live shows then swept her away for a few months. When I had done a preliminary selection of photos and written the text, I showed them to her for her comments and I then worked with her final selection of images for the rest of the project. As I remember, she pointed out that she had ten ‘O’ levels, when I had put nine.

When you look through the images in the book, do you see changes develop as the years go on? There’s a sophistication that seems to really develop in Kate’s imagery from Hounds of Love onwards…

Yes, I agree. You can see the development in the sense that she becomes more expert at conscious projection, more confident in knowing what works and what does not, and I think the same thing applies to my photography.

One thing that strikes me, looking through the book, is her willingness to try different things – poses, props, costumes etc – in the pursuit of a great shot. Did either of you take the lead in those situations, or was it quite a 50/50 partnership?

I think this is dictated by two different things. With album and single shots, there is a very specific intention to project a persona that matches the songs; with promotional shots, variety becomes very important otherwise every session would have looked the same. With album and single sessions, Kate always had a very definite idea of what she wanted before she stepped in front of the camera and it was a question of trying to realise that in a photographic context.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2011 for Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

In the book, you mention Hounds of Love being a favourite record – it’s the album with perhaps the most iconic artwork of Kate’s career. What is it for you that makes that album / period a particular favourite?

Hounds of Love seems to me to demonstrate the perfect combination of Kate’s power and ability to be able to operate successfully in the world of popular music, and at the same time create something iconic like The Ninth Wave that transcends the throwaway nature of the charts. I also had a lot more involvement with that album executively and creatively, and writing and performing the poetry section on the song Jig of Life meant that I had many happy memories of that time.

There is a big time gap in the book from The Red Shoes to Director’s Cut – eighteen years between photos. How had things changed when you went back to photographing Kate after all those years?

The big difference was that I was photographing her face and not her feet! But, seriously, nothing seemed any different except the machinery I was using; digital and not analogue. And, of course, she now had a son who was popping in to see what was going on, whereas it used to be the other way round.

I loved reading your thoughts on Before The Dawn – it was the sort of thing fans couldn’t really have imagined would ever happen. Do you have any idea where Kate’s headed next? New music, or a continuation of Before The Dawn perhaps?

The silence that usually surrounds Kate between projects in a ‘golden silence’, and out of that ‘golden silence’ always comes a golden nugget of creativity, like Before the Dawn. Let’s wait and see…

Before the Dawn was really the first big opportunity for many Kate Bush fans to interact, to feel part of a community. Have you had much interaction with Kate Bush fans over the years?

There has always been a very active and fertile fan scene around Kate and her music even when there has not been any new product for a few years. Kate fans are very dedicated people, and the depth and originality of her work has allowed them to maintain an ongoing dialogue with each other that is quite unique. Certainly, Before the Dawn was a wonderfully dynamic coming together of that energy, and sitting in the audience I could feel their love for her as an overwhelming presence. Over the years, I have developed some friendships with a few of her fans that I value highly”.

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

I will wrap up soon. We have heard words and perspectives from three incredible photographers. John Carder Bush and Gered Mankowitz working with Kate Bush from 1978 (and before). Although John Carder Bush did not take many promotional photos in 1978, he was involved with the album cover for Lionheart (1978). His pre-1978 photos and what he took of Kate Bush for her album covers and videos from Lionheart onwards are exceptional. Guido Harari came to Kate Bush later but got to chart one of the most important and interesting periods of her career. From The Dreaming through to The Red Shoes and The Line, the Cross and the Curve. John Carder Bush photographing Bush for her most recent album. Although there has been some interaction between the three photographers and each have provided interviews where they spoke about working with Bush and what that was like, it would be great to have all three together. Where they can bring their photobooks and shots. They can dissect and discuss working with Kate Bush. With John Carder Bush the most experienced, he could begin looking through the photos in Cathy. What it was like capturing his sister in the 1960s and beyond. Charting a period where she was unknown but obviously had something special about her. How that perspective and dynamic changed as he was photographing the Hounds of Love cover. Taking us all the way through to 2011, nobody else has the same legacy when it come to committing Kate Bush to film. I would like to hear more from Gered Mankowitz and his take. An experienced photographer by 1978, he has worked with some titans and music greats. It seems he got something from Kate Bush that he did not from any other artist in terms of the looks and magnetism. Some of his shots are truly fascinating and unforgettable. From the pink leotard shot that was going to be used for the Wuthering Heights cover to the black-and-white ‘Hollywood’ portrait, this is someone who shot Kate Bush as she was in her teens and then just in her twenties.

A remarkable series of photos where we can see Kate Bush grow and change. Mixing bold and energetic shots with more sensual, intimate and grounded, his portfolio is well worth exploring. He could also discuss his book and select some of his favourite photos. It would suggest a visual medium. A filmed episode where we could get some examination of these images. Bringing in Guido Harari, who got to photographer Kate Bush too during Hounds of Love. Alongside John Carder Bush, getting some remarkable images of Kate Bush. I especially love his photos from 1989 when The Sensual World was released. John Carder Bush also took some stunning shots then, so the two could swap notes. Those candid and behind-the-scenes images from The Line, the Cross and the Curve. I would also be intrigued to know what it was like on that set. Hearing from John Carder Bush about how the photoshoots unfold. How many notes his sister gives him. We could explore some of the studios and locations where the photos were taken. If there are particular cinematic or visual references that are in the photos. Whilst we examine Kate Bush’s albums and videos, few people take the time to discuss the photography. Images that are as powerful and meaningful as the music and visuals, they not only help to market Kate Bust and chart her evolution; they are also these time capsules and phenomenal images that will live forever. They tell stories and show different sides to Bush that you cannot get from her music, videos or interviews. Getting these experienced photographers together to talk about how it felt capturing Kate Bush at different times. How they feel about the images now. Whether John Carder Bush will take more photos of his sister. Fans old and new alike would benefit from a programme (or filmed podcast) where we hear about Kate Bush’s photographic allure from…

THREE points of view.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Five in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Five in 2025

_________

SOME might say…

that the fifth anniversary of an album is not important. I grant you it is not as significant as a tenth anniversary, though it is still a milestone. I wanted to mark albums turning five next year. 2020 was that strange year when the pandemic began. As such, I think we related to albums released then differently to how we did before or after. We have a new connection and relationship with them in 2024. Artists unable to tour these albums, there were some fantastic works that gave us all a lot of strength and distraction. The final part of this run of features is all about the best albums of 2020. Some wonderful releases that turn five next year. Cast your mind back to that year where we were separated physically but music still kept us bonded. However strange and stressful it was, music was a real source of focus. As such, I think it is important to…

HIGHLIGHT the best of 2020.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Ten in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Ten in 2025

_________

IN the penultimate…

part of this run of features that marks albums celebrating big anniversaries next year, it takes us to 2015. Albums that have tenth anniversaries coming up. Another strong year for music, that decade anniversary is quite big. There will be a few albums in the Digital Mixtape that you might not remember. Some obvious ones too that are modern greats. Make sure that you take a listen to the playlist below. It is packed with hugely memorable albums that arrived in the middle of the 2010s. Because they have big anniversaries coming along, I wanted to salute them. A host of simply brilliant albums, this is the best of the best from 2015. Let’s take a closer look and listen and flip ahead to next year to the finest albums…

TURNING ten.

FEATURE: Before Lifting the Needle… Ranking Kate Bush’s Best Album End of Side A's/Start of Side B's

FEATURE:

 

 

Before Lifting the Needle…

IN THOS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn

Ranking Kate Bush’s Best Album End of Side A's/Start of Side B's

_________

THIS Kate Bush feature…

is back to an album rankings. Whereas before I have ranked her best album openers and closers, I don’t recall ever looking at the middle of the album. The best side A ends and side B starts. I think that Bush’s albums really succeed and speak when the tracks are in the right order. How hugely important sequencing is. I do feel like many people overlook this. I have celebrated her great album openers. How she can leave some superb tracks as closers. Now, and hoping I have not repeated myself, I am thinking about the end of the first side and the start of the second. I know that Aerial is a double album so has more than two sides, so I am just concentrating on the A and B side. The same for 50 Words for Snow. Although not a double album, it has two vinyl. It may seem obvious or like Hounds of Love would win. However, we are talking about two specific tracks. The way you end that first side before lifting up the needle to flip the vinyl. What greets you when you drop it back down. Fans will have their own opinions. It has been good to explore her discography for this feature and consider which albums are best when it comes to keeping you hooked. Finishing up the A side with a great track and keeping that momentum going. Maybe one or two albums not great in that respect, though most of them have strong cuts that mean you are exciting to hear what happens when you flip the vinyl. Here is my opinions as to the best side A-ending/side B-opening combinations. It would be good to…

HEAR your thoughts.

_____________

TEN

DIRECTOR’S CUT (2011): Lily (A)/(B) Deeper Understanding

This is harder to rank as Director’s Cut was re-recorded songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Many debate whether the originals are better or the reworked versions. In the case of Director’s Cut, there are a few songs I prefer to the original versions. Lily closed side A. I think that the version on The Red Shoes is stronger. However, the 2011 recording is really interesting and we get to hear Bush’s slightly older voice giving new life and meaning to the song. How she stripped it down and reworked this song. You have to give her credit for that. I hope that it means more people connect with the song and maybe go and listen to The Red Shoes. I feel Director’s Cut gets written off and is never viewed highly when critics rank Bush’s studio albums. Her ninth is not her strongest, though it has a few real gems that need to be celebrated and mentioned.

One of the most controversial reworkings on Director’s Cut is Deeper Understanding. The original is brilliant because it was futuristic when it came to seeing how technology would take over. With stronger production and a more effective vocal on The Sensual World, I am not sure whether Bush should have revisited the song in 2011. She also released the song as a single. The impact of the lyrics not as deep and effective then. The video is also quite weird and messy. Not her finest directing outing. It is a shame. I would have loved to have seen another song from the album released as a single. Maybe Lily or Never Be Mine. I would relish seeing videos for either of those songs.

NINE

THE DREAMING (1982): Leave It Open (A)/(B)The Dreaming

This is a case of sequencing perhaps not being perfect. Closing the first side of The Dreaming is the brilliant Leave It Open. One of the standouts, this was a period when Bush was experimenting more. Producing solo for the first time, I love all the levels and layers on Leave It Open. Another song – alongside Sat in Your Lap – about knowledge and the mind, it is fascinating reading what Bush said about Leave It Open:

“Like cups, we are filled up and emptied with feelings, emotions – vessels breathing in, breathing out. This song is about being open and shut to stimuli at the right times. Often we have closed minds and open mouths when perhaps we should have open minds and shut mouths.

This was the first demo to be recorded, and we used a Revox and the few effects such as a guitar chorus pedal and an analogue delay system. We tried to give the track an Eastern flavour and the finished demo certainly had a distinctive mood.

There are lots of different vocal parts, each portraying a separate character and therefore each demanding an individual sound. When a lot of vocals are being used in contrast rather than “as one”, more emphasis has to go on distinguishing between the different voices, especially if the vocals are coming from one person.

To help the separation we used the effects we had. When we mastered the track, a lot more electronic effects and different kinds of echoes were used, helping to place the vocals and give a greater sense of perspective. Every person who came into the studio was given the “end backing vocals test” to guess what is being sung at the end of the song.

“How many words is it?”

“Five.”

“Does it begin with a ‘W’?”

It is very difficult to guess, but it can be done, especially when you know what the song is about.
I would love to know your answers.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982”.

A title track many considered to be her weakest, The Dreaming did divide people when it came out. Released as a single that reached forty-eight in the U.K., many were put off by Bush adopting an Australian accent. Perhaps a little too inaccessible and un-commercial to make an impact, the politics behind the song were also questioned. Whether Kate Bush was qualified to discuss the destruction of Aboriginal homelands by white Australians in their quest for weapons-grade uranium. The fact that the song features Rolf Harris also leaves a bit of a black mark:

“Well, years ago my brother bought ‘Sun Arise’ [by Rolf Harris] and I loved it, it was such a beautiful song. And ever since then I’ve wanted to create something which had that feel of Australia within it. I loved the sound of the traditional aboriginal instruments, and as I grew older, I became much more aware of the actual situation which existed in Australia between the white Australian and the aborigines, who were being wiped out by man’s greed for uranium. Digging up their sacred grounds, just to get plutonium, and eventually make weapons out of it. And I just feel that it’s so wrong: this beautiful culture being destroyed just so that we can build weapons which maybe one day will destroy everything, including us. We should be learning from the aborigines, they’re such a fascinating race. And Australia – there’s something very beautiful about that country.

‘The Dreaming’. Poppix (UK), Summer 1982”.

EIGHT

NEVER FOR EVER (1980): Egypt (A)/(B) The Wedding List

This might be one case of less than brilliant sequencing. I think that Never for Ever is one of Kate Bush’s best albums. However, one of its lesser songs, Egypt, ends side A. I think that a song like All We Ever Look For or The Infant Kiss would have been a stronger way to finish the first side. However, Egypt is a good song. It is one that I like a lot but again divides critics. One of the overlooked tracks from Bush’s early career, we do to listen to it more. This is what Kate Bush said about Egypt and the story behind it:

“The song is very much about someone who has not gone there thinking about Egypt, going: “Oh, Egypt! It’s so romantic… the pyramids!” Then in the breaks, there’s meant to be the reality of Egypt, the conflict. It’s meant to be how blindly we see some things – “Oh, what a beautiful world”, you know, when there’s shit and sewers all around you.

Kris Needs, ‘Fire in the Bush’. Zigzag (UK), 1980”.

One of Kate Bush’s best songs period opens the second side of Never for Ever. Maybe similar in tone and nature to James and the Cold Gun, The Wedding List is much finer. It is a terrifically clever song about a bride who goes on a rampage after her husband-to-be is shot at the altar. It is a song of revenge. One of the highlights from Kate Bush’s 1979 Christmas special, I think it warranted the chance to be released as a single. It would have got a high chart placing for sure. I do think that this deep cut is one of her very best creations. In this interview, Kate Bush talked more about revenge and The Wedding List:

“Revenge is so powerful and futile in the situation in the song. Instead of just one person being killed, it’s three: her husband, the guy who did it – who was right on top of the wedding list with the silver plates – and her, because when she’s done it, there’s nothing left. All her ambition and purpose has all gone into that one guy. She’s dead, there’s nothing there.

Kris Needs, ‘Fire in the Bush’. Zigzag, 1980”.

SEVEN

LIONHEART (1978): Oh Enbgland My Lionheart (A)/(B) Fullhouse

Kate Bush’s second studio album does not have the same strength as her debut when it comes to the end of side A and the start of side B. However, it is still exceptional. With Oh England My Lionheart being a sort of unofficial and almost-title track taking us to the end of the first side, it is a strong and beautiful thing. A song that she performed for 1979’s The Tour of Life, this is a track that needs to be played more. Many think of Kate Bush as being quintessentially English. Even though she is half-Irish, her Englishness is often brought up. Even if she distanced herself from Oh England My Lionheart in years after Lionheart was released, around the time the album came out, she was talking about it as one of her favourites. You can see why. Parodied by Pamela Stephenson on Not the Nine O’Clock News and written by Peter Brewis, this is what Kate Bush said of the stunning Oh England My Lionheart:

“It’s really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we’re away, you know, “ah, the wonderful England” and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we’ve got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like “I remember the war and…” You know it’s very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it’s really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War… Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it’s really just a exploration of that.

Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978”.

Fullhouse was partly autobiographical. Kate Bush said how it was hard for her to cope with feelings of fear, paranoia and anger. Maybe her getting everything out of her system, it is unsurprising that she was putting this into songs. With two albums released in 1978 and endless promotion, you get a real feeling of how Kate Bush was battling against stress and fatigue. Expected to write new material when she had little time. One of the new songs written for Lionheart, Fullhouse is a standout from the album. Though many critics feel it is one of the weaker numbers. Though for some reason the song has been renamed as Full House, I do prefer the original spelling. A song that deserves more love and is a great example of Kate Bush’s songwriting excellence, it is a brilliant way of opening the second side of Lionheart.

SIX

THE SENSUAL WORLD (1989): Heads We’re Dancing (A)/(B) Deeper Understanding

Many people do not know about Heads We’re Dancing. I do really love the song, though I can understand some people might have found it less appealing or instantly connectable as other tracks through The Sensual World. However, Heads We’re Dancing is a brilliant song to end side A of Bush’s sixth studio album. An underrated jewel that Bush discussed for a 1989 interview:

“It’s a very dark idea, but it’s the idea of this girl who goes to a big ball; very expensive, romantic, exciting, and it’s 1939, before the war starts. And this guy, very charming, very sweet-spoken, comes up and asks her to dance but he does it by throwing a coin and he says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” Even that’s a very attractive ‘come on’, isn’t it? And the idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror. What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening. And I think Hitler is a person who fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And I don’t think you can blame those people for being fooled, and maybe it’s these very charming people… maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to be.

Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1, 14 October 1989”.

A track not selected as a single first time around but was when it was re-recorded for 2011’s Director’s Cut, Deeper Understanding is another of Bush’s standout songs. Talking about the pull of technology and how it has power of it, this was prescient and spookily forward-thinking. Bush predicting how technology would dominate our lives. Here is some interview archive, where Bush discussed Deeper Understanding:

“Yes, it is emotional disconnection, but then it’s very much connection, but in a way that you would never expect. And that kind of emotion should really come from the human instinctive force, and in this particular case it’s coming from a computer. I really liked the idea of playing with the whole imagery of computers being so cold, so unfeeling. Actually what is happening in the song is that this person conjures up this program that is almost like a visitation of angels. They are suddenly given so much love by this computer – it’s like, you know, just love. There was no other choice. Who else could embody the visitation of angels but the Trio Bulgarka? [laughs]

John Diliberto, ‘Kate Bush’s Theater Of The Senses’. Musician, February 1990”.

FIVE

THE KICK INSIDE (1978): Wuthering Heights (A)/(B) James and the Cold Gun

There is no denying how strong The Kick Inside is. Opening with Moving and ending with the title track, it also boasts a brilliant end to the first side and start of the second. For all the tracklisting and details (what made up the side A and B (C and D for some albums), I have referred to Discogs. This is a single album but one filled with huge intent and unique brilliance. The teenage Kate Bush putting out an album in 1978 unlike anything around it. Perhaps one of the best incidents of album sequencing, we end that first side of the vinyl with the debut single, Wuthering Heights. It could have been the album lead-off track or second or third. Instead, it is the sixth track. Meaning you get this recognisable and very strong end to side A. It is also preceded by The Man with the Child in His Eyes. So both U.K. singles ending the first side. That beautiful duo on side A that means the listener is in a trance before lifting up the needle.

Opening the second side of the vinyl is a song that was considered as the first single for The Kick Inside, James and the Cold Gun. Often seen as one of the most conventional and ‘radio-friendly’ songs on the album, it is a contrast to Wuthering Heights. It provides a rush of energy and rawness. After that, there are love songs and numbers with a different energy. I do admire the sequencing on The Kick Inside. The strongest tracks are well-positioned to create the biggest impact. Even if James and the Cold Gun is not the most admired or strongest track on the album, it does mean you get a rush and something more accessible to open side B – after the strange and beguiling Wuthering Heights. It is a great partnership that means you are hooked as you go through the second half of the album. A song that is often overlooked and rarely played, I feel it is a great one. A track Bush was honing whilst playing with the KT Bush Band in 1977, it ensures that those buying and hearing The Kick Inside in 1978 (and now) had two golden tracks either side of the needle lift.

FOUR

50 WORDS FOR SNOW (2011): Lake Tahoe (A)/(B) Misty

Kate Bush’s latest studio album is seven tracks. Longer songs that allow for more space and light. Tracks that unfold and unfurl. More Chamber Jazz/Pop than conventional Pop or Art Rock, it was a new direction for Kate Bush. I also think that the sequencing on the album is perfect. 50 Words for Snow perfectly organised. We end side A with the wonderful Lake Tahoe. It is one of my absolute favourite songs from 50 Words for Snow. I would love to see a full-length animation for this song. It would be filled with some potent and memorable imagery. This is what Kate Bush said about the dark and haunting Lake Tahoe:

“It was because a friend told me about the story that goes with Lake Tahoe so it had to be set there. Apparently people occasionally see a woman who fell into the lake in the Victorian era who rises up and then disappears again. It is an incredibly cold lake so the idea, as I understand it, is that she fell in and is still kind of preserved. Do you know what I mean?

John Doran, ‘A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed’. The Quietus, 2011”.

Flipping to side B of 50 Words for Snow, after the hypnotic Lake Tahoe, we then get the epic Misty. A song that some people do not like, this is a bit of a cheat, I’ll confess! I would put this as number one when it comes to the best side A-ending/side B-opening combinations, but technically Misty is side B. It is 13:32, so it takes up that entire side, so it has no competition. However, it is a truly special song that does not get the credit it warrants. Another song that I would love to see animated in its entirety, this is what Kate Bush said about the sublime and magical Misty:

“It’s a silly idea. But I hope that what has happened is that there’s almost a sense of tenderness. I think it’s quite a dark song. And so I hope that I’ve made it work. But in a lot of ways it shouldn’t because… It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, the idea of the snowman visiting this woman and climbing into bed with her.
But I took him as a purely symbolic snowman, it was about…
No John, he’s REAL (laughs).

BBC4 Radio, Front Row, 2011”.

THREE

THE RED SHOES (1993): Lily (A)/(B)The Red Shoes

Although it is one of her most opinion-dividing albums, 1993’s The Red Shoes does have its share of exceptional songs. The most obvious example of an album that could have been re-sequenced to make it stronger, it does have a weak second half. However, two stunning tracks are in the middle. Ending side A with Lily, you get this rousing and driving song that was the track Bush opened Before the Dawn with. She also re-recorded it for Director’s Cut. I think that the 1993 recording is the best. Here is a bit of background to the song:

“The song is devoted to Lily Cornford, a noted spiritual healer in London with whom Bush became close friends in the 1990s.

“She was one of those very rare people who are intelligent, intuitive and kind,” Kate has said of Cornford, who believed in mental colour healing—a process whereby patients would be restored to health by seeing various hues. “I was really moved by Lily and impressed with her strength and knowledge, so it led to a song – which she thought was hilarious”.

Keeping the momentum going, The Red Shoes opens its side B with the sublime title track. The Red Shoes was also released as a single by EMI Records in the U.K. on 4th April, 1994. It was the lead track of the movie The Line, the Cross, and the Curve, which was presented on film festival at the time of the single’s release. I think that this is one of the strongest side B-opening songs. There is not a load of information out there about the track. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia gives us some more information about the various releases of The Red Shoes’ title track:

“There are three versions of ‘The Red Shoes’: the album version, which was also used on the single released, and ‘Shoedance’, which is a 10 minute remix by Karl Blagan of ‘The Red Shoes’, featuring excerpts from dialogue from the movie The Line, The Cross & The Curve. Finally, there’s the version from Bush’s album Director’s Cut in 2011”.

TWO

HOUNDS OF LOVE (1985): Cloudbusting (A)/(B) And Dream of Sheep

Kate Bush’s most acclaimed and known album is perfect when it came to tracklisting and the sequencing. Opening with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and ending with The Morning Fog, you can’t really fault it! The end of side A and start of side B have no faults. But is this duo of songs the strongest when compared to other others?! Cloudbusting ends side A wonderfully. A successful single and one of her most loved songs, it was another with a really interesting and compelling story:

“‘Cloudbusting’ is a track that was very much inspired by a book calledA Book Of Dreams. This book is written through a child’s eyes, looking at his father and how much his father means to him in his world – he’s everything. his father has a machine that can make it rain, amongst many other things, and there’s a wonderful sense of magic as he and his father make it rain together on this machine. The book is full of imagery of an innocent child and yet it’s being written by a sad adult, which gives it a strange kind of personal intimacy and magic that is quite extraordinary. The song is really about how much that father meant to the son and how much he misses him now he’s gone.

Conversation Disc Series, ABCD 012, 1985”.

Starting side B of one of the best albums ever is And Dream of Sheep. It begins the concept suite, The Ninth Wave. Bush actually recorded a live video for this song that was used in the 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. One of the best songs on Hounds of Love and this emotional and beautiful moment from Kate Bush, it means that we have two genius songs that form the middle of a masterpiece:

“[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ is about them fighting sleep. They’re very tired and they’ve been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it’s starting to get dark and it doesn’t look like anyone’s coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they’re trying to keep awake; but they can’t help it, they eventually fall asleep – which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)”.

ONE

AERIAL (2005): Mrs. Bartolozzi (A)/(B)How to Be Invisible

Perhaps my favourite side A end and side B opener comes from Aerial. The entrancing and dreaming Mrs. Bartolozzi is a song I feel would have made a perfect single. I am taking the tracklisting on Aerial from the 2005 oriignal release when it comes to what ends side A and starts side B. I think it did change when the album was reissued. It is interesting reading what Kate Bush said about Mrs. Bartolozzi:

“Is it about a washing machine? I think it’s a song about Mrs. Bartolozzi. She’s this lady in the song who…does a lot of washing (laughs). It’s not me, but I wouldn’t have written the song if I didn’t spend a lot of time doing washing. But, um, it’s fictitious. I suppose, as soon as you have a child, the washing suddenly increases. And uh, what I like too is that a lot of people think it’s funny. I think that’s great, because I think that actually, it’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written! (laughs)
Clothes are…very interesting things, aren’t they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and…what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are…
So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting. And then it was the idea of this woman, who’s kind of sitting there looking at all the washing going around, and she’s got this new washing machine, and the idea of these clothes, sort of tumbling around in the water, and then the water becomes the sea and the clothes…and the sea…and the washing machine and the kitchen… I just thought it was an interesting idea to play with.
What I wanted to get was the sense of this journey, where you’re sitting in front of this washing machine, and then almost as if in a daydream, you’re suddenly standing in the sea.

Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 1 November 2005”.

Opening the second side of the first vinyl is the majestic How to Be Invisible. This is a song that not many people discuss but really should. It is filled with so much brilliant and vivid imagery. A song that will stay in the memory and draws you in. It is a perfect way to open side B. I really love it and feel it needs to be played on the radio more. This is my favourite passage from the song: “Eye of Braille/Hem of anorak/Stem of wallflower/Hair of doormat/Is that the wind from the desert song?/Is that an autumn leaf falling?/Or is that you, walking home?/Is that the wind from the desert song?/Is that an autumn leaf falling?/Or is that you, walking home?/Is that a storm in the swimming pool?”.

FEATURE: Access All Areas: Can FLO Kickstart a Girl Group Revival?

FEATURE:

 

 

Access All Areas

PHOTO CREDIT: Thurstan Redding for DAZED

Can FLO Kickstart a Girl Group Revival?

_________

IT is a very exciting time…

for Pop at the moment. In  terms of dominance and who is at the top, it is very much about the solo artist. One can say Charli XCX leads the way. I think that a lot of the sounds and songs we hear on BRAT (her latest studio album) are going to influence artists coming through. An award-nominated album that is among the best-rated of this year, I think that she is going to be headlining festivals next year. She is already booked to headline Primavera Sound. Alongside her are other great Pop queens such as Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. Intelligent and innovative Pop that is refreshing the genre. There is still a problem with homogenisation, though there are distinct artists showcasing something both fresh and familiar. Challenging music that is also accessible and instantly classic. In terms of the girl group market, that is not as healthy and prevalent as it was in decades past. With its last peaks being in the 1990s and 2000s, I guess you can say more modern groups like Girls Aloud kept the flame alive. In the 2020s, there has not really been a great charge of girl groups. With other sound and genres being favoured, the once-ruling blend of Pop and R&B the great girl groups used to provide is very much in the shadows. However, there are a couple of acts that could well buck that trend. Where once the U.S. led the way when it came to the best girl groups – I am thinking TLC and Destiny’s Child were up there -, there are some great modern British examples. Say Now are a group with keeping an ear and eye out for. I would also say that FLO are right up there. Perhaps the leading girl group of the moment.

There is definite demand and desire for these groups. Think about the reception Sugababes got when they played Glastonbury last year. Girls Aloud may not be recording any new music, though you feel a some more tour dates are on the cards. They did a tour earlier in the year and there is very much this hope they will put something new out. Spice Girls could well reform one day or perform some gigs. Legends of the scene like TLC are still performing. These queens are giving strength and influence to the modern breed. Even if groups like FLO have their own sound, you can hear links to brilliant U.S. and U.K. girl groups. Perhaps we are not going to get the same sort of wave of girl groups as we had years ago. Their debut album, Access All Areas, has won critical praise. Many have asked whether the trio (Renée Downer, Jorja Douglas and Stella Quaresma) could be the next big thing. Their contemporary take on the R&B-driven sounds of previous girl groups has the potential to be huge. As one or two reviews of their albums mention, perhaps a bit more grit and risk-taking with the sounds. An edge, sense of experimentation and swagger that is perhaps lacking. Not that FLO are playing it safe, though you do feel that they need to be a more daring and look at the girl group history books. That will come with time. It does seem that FLO have the potential to lead a girl group charge for the 2020s. I will come to a couple of reviews for Access All Areas to end things. I do want to bring in a couple of fairly recent interviews. They clearly (and rightfully) have confidence in their talent and future. The first interview I want to source from is from DAZED from September:

“The debut album from FLO, Access All Areas, took the best part of three years to find its direction. The number-switching and lock-changing on the good-for-nothing boys chronicled in their viral debut single “Cardboard Box” was a baby-faced introduction to the girls as they were back then. The lyrics were rough and ready (“Ima put your shit in a cardboard box”), but there was an unmistakable quality to their harmonising that was well beyond their years. Now, nearing five years together, the three young women of FLO are (still) in the throes of growth, but it’s the experiences in the past two-and-a-half years that have informed the album. For Jorja Douglas, Stella Quaresma and Renée Downer, a reintroduction may not be strictly necessary, but there is a story in the journey they have been on – a snapshot behind the scenes of the making of a band, and the breaking of anything (or anyone) that stands in the way of their success.

Seated around a semi-secluded corner table at The Standard’s Decimo restaurant in London, the girls are a few days out from a scheduled performance at Lollapalooza Chicago, but there is little haste. It’s a rare moment of respite they welcome among all the preparations, even though, technically, they’re still at work. After scanning the drinks menu, Jorja opts for a honey and saffron amaretto sour and, when Renée asks for peppermint tea with honey, Stella follows suit. But what will they eat? “Erm…” Renée ponders aloud. “What are we not going to eat?!” Jorja jokes. Our orders are taken and the table is cleared of menus as Jorja circles the table, filling everyone else’s glass with water before pouring her own. “Let’s get it cracking,” Stella prompts as Renée’s signature knotless goddess braids are swept out of her face and she begins to tell me the story behind their naming ceremony.

PHOTO CREDIT: Thurstan Redding

“We were coming up with loads of names like ‘Her Story’, ‘Minx’…” she recalls with a slight cringe. “Minx?!” Jorja and Stella shout incredulously. “Oh my gosh,” Stella drones with subtle embarrassment. “Yeah! Minx was in there! What else?” Renée asks as eyes shift between one another in the silence. “A bunch of stuff that wasn’t memorable, clearly.” Stella interrupts. “Her Story was probably the best but it’s also a bit, like… get a grip,” Jorja finishes. FLO was a placeholder name taken from a mysterious white cat milling around at Island House – a residence set up by the label where the artists could “do whatever, really” – that they decided to name. “Anytime we’d say we were thinking of calling ourselves FLO people would laugh and be like, ‘FLO? Like the period app? You guys can’t be called FLO!’ But it stuck and here we are. We’ve given it meaning, you know… Flo[w], we’re in sync and there are three of us. Everything works!” Renée says, before Jorja inserts cheekily: “Period!”

Jorja has a way with words that leaves little room for one’s own conclusions to be drawn. As the eldest, and self-proclaimed “sassy” one of the group, she can be soft and carries mama bear-like qualities and is a witty conversationalist. “I feel like I’m good at making decisions or sparking thoughts that lead to decisions, if that makes sense?” she says when asked what she brings to the group. Stella, the middle child of FLO, maintains a level of calm throughout our conversation that stands in contrast to Jorja. When she does speak, her contributions are well-timed and considered. “I’m definitely the most level-headed one,” she affirms. “I can see different points of view very easily and I’m one to take a minute to assess the situation. I’m a big assessor. I like to assess the room and situation before I speak.” Renée and Jorja both agree that Stella is also the funny one, whereas Stella describes Renée as “very organised. She keeps us in check but she’s also the baby as well. She’s very sweet and caring.” Renée is both beyond her years and endearingly young. She is the youngest in the group but in no way a liability, as can be the case stereotypically. “I make sure that we don’t miss anything, and discuss and stick to deadlines which is very important because this is a business,” she says. “Stella is like my chill sister that will be on anything and Jorja is like my big sister that will clart me and tell me what I should be doing, but she’ll hold me down and always have my back.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Thurstan Redding

The members of FLO are each their own women, but also a sisterhood in sync. Their journey as a band began in 2019 after being formed by Rob Harrison, an A&R at Island Records on the lookout for singers to form a girl group. At the time, the girls were all posting videos singing covers on Instagram: “You know, that’s what the kids were doing and that’s how he found us,” Renée says of their now ex-manager, with whom they parted company this year. “I got an email from Rob saying, ‘I’m putting together a girl group. I’ve seen your videos, can I come to see you sing somewhere?’” says Stella, recalling how the pieces all fell into place. Fast-forward through a few rounds of group sessions mixing with different girls in different groups, and the three of them were put together, with this year marking their fifth anniversary. In fact, the group came together right before the pandemic, which was something of a blessing in disguise for the girls. “With the pandemic came so much conflict, whether it be [with] the label or management, so we had the chance to get totally on the same page with each other and battle through all these issues,” Jorja explains. “We were thrown into the deep end as far as being in business with a bunch of strangers goes. The pandemic allowed us not only to bond with each other but to make our bond unbreakable.”

I also notice how fans, or ‘FLO Lifers’ as the band has dubbed them, can be very opinionated. In fact, generally speaking, fandoms nowadays tally stream numbers and critique era-rollout plans and creative direction more rigorously than the people paid to do so. The girls aren’t blind; they see it all. In fact, they often agree with their assessments. “We kind of agree because of the journey we’ve been on,” says Jorja. “We’ve seen first-hand the flaws and holes where A&R and marketing are concerned. To be honest, it’s kind of refreshing to see that people see what we see. It’s nice to have the majority appreciate and enjoy what we’re doing because we are trying really hard, but it also reminds us that we’re not crazy and that the grievances we have behind the scenes are valid, because other people were noticing them too.

It feels like we’re circling a part of their journey that holds great significance here. When I ask them to go into these grievances, there’s an unspoken resistance as knowing glances are exchanged. When they do speak it’s with a palpable sense of caution, the only time in our conversation you can feel them holding back. There are clear frustrations, but seemingly none great enough to take our talk to a place where past burdens hold weight in their present. “We feel like we’ve been surrounded by a lot of yes-men and people who don’t know what to do with us, which is understandable,” says Jorja. “It’s taken a long time for us to find people we are happy with and want on our team. We love constructive criticism because that’s something we don’t feel we’ve received a lot of, but [the people who] have given us constructive criticism [in the past] weren’t necessarily the right audience or the best deliverers. They didn’t understand FLO and that’s something we struggled with, growing our team – having people who know us, know the music we create and that scene.” However, they all agree that their boyfriends offer great support. “They don’t shy away from us,” says Jorja. “They will tell us all of their opinions, sometimes unprovoked.” “Mainly unprovoked,” Renée confirms with a subtle side-eye.

Clearly, finding people who not only understand them individually but as a group of young women with a vision has been a point of contention for FLO. Even their style has taken a hit as they’ve worked through trial and error with different stylists and creative teams – so what exactly is their vision? “I think it’s ever-changing, to be honest, and we’re gonna keep evolving so people either grow with us or they don’t,” says Stella. “I’m kind of like, I think it’s us? As in, not that we’re the problem, just that we should just do it ourselves,” Jorja continues, before Renée adds: “I think there are people out there that will, like, guide and help us because at the end of the day, we’re still growing, but something which we’ve always done is be involved. So as we learn more and find people who will help us grow and develop, there definitely will come a time where we can do it and we’ll be confident and able to run the ship ourselves”.

It is encouraging that FLO’s brilliance and buzz has reached the U.S. An interview/profile from The New York Times earlier this month heralded FLO as a group matching ambition with nostalgia. How they are reinventing the girl group for modern times. Quite high plaudit for the quite new group. I think that they do have the foundations to be one of the greats. Hopefully lead a revival that could see a range of girl groups rise up. Make a challenge to the mainstream Pop titans:

“From the start, the group was a high-concept project. In 2019, Flo’s initial manager, Rob Harrison, and its label, Island, set out to create an R&B girl group that would revive and update the sound and attitude of acts from the 1990s and 2000s. While that era’s R&B has been a key ingredient in the rise of K-pop, American and British R&B have lately favored solo acts rather than groups. “A girl group was missing from the industry,” Douglas said.

The label auditioned teenage R&B singers, seeking individual and collective chemistry, after it “basically found us all on Instagram,” Downer said.

Flo’s three members were ready. They had grown up in an era of professionalized pop training, youth talent competitions and social-media self-promotion. Quaresma recalled that even when she was in elementary school in Devon, England, she was determined to become a pop performer. “I was 12 and I was, like ‘Mom, I’m behind my schedule,’” she said. “‘Everyone in London is already starting their careers. I’m behind them all, I’ve got to do something.’ So every day after school, I went to dance class and worked on singing.”

Quaresma and Downer met as students at the Sylvia Young Theater School in London, whose alumni include Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora and Emma Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice of the Spice Girls. Douglas was 14 when she won a televised singing competition on CBBC, the BBC’s channel for children, and she continued to post songs online. Downer and Douglas had befriended each other on Instagram, only to meet in person for the first time during the auditions for Flo.

Part of the audition process assigned singers to work up cover versions as a group. Downer, Douglas and Quaresma quickly found that their tastes aligned; they arranged a mash-up of Frank Ocean and Jazmine Sullivan.

Once chosen, the members of Flo began an intense process of self-invention. The lingering girl-group stereotype of Svengali producers controlling naïve singers was not for them. But they welcomed hard work, and they spent two years in preparation — songwriting, recording, costumes, chorography — before unveiling Flo.

“We were like, ‘We want boot camp,’” Downer recalled. “We want to be ready, we want to rehearse and practice. We started doing sessions: learning each other’s voices, and learning about our blend and how we were going to be unique as a girl group. Figuring out what we all liked, what we could bond over.” She said they did write a lot of songs, and wanted to release music earlier. “But looking back, the development time was very necessary because we were very young.”

Holding back their debut album was not a decision to be taken lightly. Flo persisted.Credit...Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

They found a steady collaborator in the English songwriter and producer Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike, who records as MNEK (pronounced like his last name) and has worked with Beyoncé, Dua Lipa and Madonna. “Cardboard Box” was one of their first collaborations, back in 2020. In a telephone interview, MNEK said, “They were all like 16, 17, and just figuring it out and learning how to be a group and learning how to harmonize together and how to write together.”

Although Flo tried songwriting sessions via Zoom during the height of the pandemic, the group strongly prefers gathering together in one studio. “It’s just all about conversation,” Quaresma said. “You know, what we’re going through. Sometimes we’re not even going through it, we just want to write a story, make something up. Then we’ll do melodies — either on the mic or on the phone or in the room. And then we write to those melodies.”

Holding back their debut album was not a decision to be taken lightly. Flo persisted.

“They really care about their craft,” MNEK said. “In the 1990s they would have released an album they weren’t really happy with — and got dropped. The girls did have the luxury of just being, like, ‘This album isn’t right. We need to improve it. We care about this album and we don’t feel that we have to release music that is subpar — because we haven’t yet.’ They’re all really involved and nothing’s coming out unless they’re happy with it. They are very strong-willed women and they have good instincts.”

While their early material relied on British producers, Flo brought in American collaborators for “Access All Areas,” a way to experiment that could also broaden their audience. “Caught Up,” a single from the album, was co-produced by Pop Wansel; it suavely incorporates the jazz guitarist Joe Pass’s solo acoustic version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.”

“Cardboard Box” and other songs on “The Lead” had little mercy for errant boyfriends. The lyrics on “Access All Areas” allow more room for affection, juggling self-assurance and vulnerability, independence and lusty attachment. (The title song is not about a backstage pass.) “‘The Lead’ was about shifty men,” Douglas said. “And then ‘Access All Areas’ is a lot more positive, because that reflects where we’re all in our lives.”

The new album also includes an unexpected hard-rock blast — mockingly titled “I’m Just a Girl” — that taunts anyone who underestimates Flo’s ambition or success: “How many Black girls do you see on center stage now?” they sing.

“I think authority is the magic key to Flo,” Douglas said. “It’s just making sure that we always say what we’re thinking. We don’t believe in beating around bushes. And then always making sure our voices are heard. That is one thing that we’ve done from the start, and it’s definitely something that we’ll continue to do.”

She smiled. “It got us this far”.

I do think that all the signs are good. FLO are here to stay. Even though contemporaries like Say Now suggest it is quite a growing market, I think that it will take time before we see more girl groups come through. With FLO gathering a lot of love and spotlight, it is a very exciting time. Even though The Guardian were looking for a bit more risk from Access All Areas, they did have praise and positivity from an excellent debut album:

“Access All Areas makes you abundantly aware that the charts would be a better place with Flo in them. The songs are punchy and well written, as on the poppy Nocturnal, or Check, which has a faint but noticeable UK garage skip to its beat. The trio bring thick, satisfying harmony vocals without indulging in showy over-singing, and an impressive quantity of attitude to sagas of useless boyfriends and relationships gone wrong: you really wouldn’t mess with the girls singing IWH2BMX, or commanding over the stammering rhythm and rock guitar of closer I’m Just a Girl. They can do slow jams, both of the straightforward bedroom-bound variety (Soft), or the kind that traverse more complicated emotional terrain: How Does It Feel marries its measured pulse to a wrathful, vengeance-shall-be-mine mood.

But Access All Areas also demonstrates why Flo haven’t quite exploded. There are plenty of good tracks here, but no undeniable no-further-questions smash hit: you get the link to SWV or Writing’s on the Wall-era Destiny’s Child, but at present, they’re an SWV without a Right Here or a Weak; they’re a LaTavia and LeToya-era Destiny’s Child without a No, No, No or a Jumpin’, Jumpin’.

In addition, the one period detail Access All Areas’ production misses is that R&B in the era it celebrates thrived on sonic risk-taking and adventure. Quite aside from the songs, the big hits frequently worked by snagging listeners with novelty – even the poppiest of their avowed influences, Sugababes, weren’t above throwing the odd spanner into the works, as on the Gary Numan-sampling Freak Like Me. That sense of innovation is lacking here. It’s great to get Missy Elliott to drop a verse on your single; it would be better still to incorporate some of the head-turning surprise that Timbaland brought to Aaliyah’s We Need a Resolution – or indeed, that the Neptunes brought to Kelis, or Rodney Jerkins to Brandy. It comes close on Bending My Rules, which marries a scrabbly guitar sample to a lurching beat, but it feels like a simulacrum of early 00s oddness, rather than a fresh embodiment of its spirit.

Without that – or the aforementioned killer hit – their debut seems more like a solid start than an obvious smash, a good idea that needs fleshing out before it really comes into its own. There’s a spark about it that suggests Flo deserve the space, time and opportunity to do just that: they’re in touching distance of being genuinely great, but their debut album is a stop on a journey rather than an end in itself”.

I am going to end with a four-star review from NME. They were very much behind the wonder of FLO’s Access All Areas. It should rank alongside the best debut albums of this year. A statement of intent from a trio who are very much set on longevity and success. Make sure you follow them and listen to everything they put out:

“It’s been a moment since girl groups have commanded the hearts, minds and radiowaves of music lovers – at least, that’s the case in the West. Gone are the days of Xscape, TLC, All Saints, Spice Girls and many, many more. Fortunately, the time has come for a much needed “bad bitch replenishment”, as Wicked star Cynthia Erivo announces on record opener ‘Intro’: that’s British trio FLO and their debut album, ‘Access All Areas’.

Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer and Stella Quaresma cleverly tap into their reverence for the ’90s, with many of the record’s tracks sounding like they were ripped right out of that moment in time. Their angelic melodies on ‘Bending My Rules’ evoke ‘Runaway Love’-era En Vogue, the soulful ‘On & On’ would be right at home in SWV’s discography, while album highlight ‘Shoulda Woulda Coulda’ brings to mind Destiny’s Child’s seminal ‘The Writing’s on the Wall’ album.

FLO aren’t one-trick ponies, though. ‘Access All Areas’ ventures beyond the promised R&B girl group formula, such as on certified trap banger ‘In My Bag’, featuring a standout verse from Memphis rapper GloRilla. But not all of their risks pan out as well as that track. ‘How Does It Feel’, for example, is as generic as contemporary R&B comes, while grungy album closer ‘I’m Just a Girl’, despite the strong message of representation behind it, is an overproduced mess that flattens the hell out of the trio’s selling point: their voices.

Thankfully, there are plenty of anthemic, showstopping vocal moments (‘AAA’, ‘Check’ and ‘Walk Like This’) to offset the duds, and even a few ballads (‘Soft’ and ‘Trustworthy’) to really complete the throwback experience – truly a “feast for our ears”, as Erivo puts it in beginning. Throughout the album, the trio are comfortable and in their zone, and this gives them space to imbue the recordings with almost-magical levels of confidence and attitude.

On ‘Access All Areas’, FLO have it all down pat: the talent, charisma and star power are all on display. Riding on the wave of nostalgia has gotten the trio this far, and now it feels as if they’ve within striking distance of a true breakthrough. Even if ‘Access All Areas’ doesn’t overwhelmingly herald the return of R&B girl group dominance, the massive momentum FLO have built over the past two years hint that the dam is about to break”.

I do think FLO will ignite a charge of girl groups. Even if it make take some time to fully materialise, we could see something big. I don’t think it pure nostalgia that Girls Aloud, Sugarbabes and their peers are still very much in people’s hearts. It is their connection and sound that you don’t get with solo artists. Something extra. Even if modern Pop especially is defined by solo artists, we are seeing flashes of brilliance from groups. It is time for a new and exciting period of girl groups. Perhaps on the fringes slightly at the moment, as FLO know, it will soon be a case of…

ACCESS all areas.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Fifteen in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Fifteen in 2025

_________

I am nearly…

at the end of this run of features. I will finish by celebrating and highlighting albums released in 2020. Those greats that turn five next year. I have a couple of playlists to put out before then. Now, I am focusing on tremendous albums from 2010. Perhaps one of the more overlooked music years, there were some modern classics released that year. I am going to get to them for this Digital Mixtape. Saluting those albums turning fifteen in 2025. Most of us remember back to 2010 and what was around them. If you need a refresher as to what was critically acclaimed that year, this feature should be of some use. A needed nod to the very best albums…

FROM 2010.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Twenty in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Twenty in 2025

_________

I am working my way down…

through these anniversary features. Compiling playlists including songs from albums celebrating big anniversaries next year. I am moving now to 2005. A wonderful year for music, half way through a new decade (and millennium), we saw sounds and tastes shift. What you will hear from this mixtape is the very best from that year. Some greats and classic albums that turn twenty next year. If you were about in 2005 or not, you should enjoy what I have assembled. Some really terrific albums that have endured over the past two decades and sound amazing to this day. Have a listen through a Digital Mixtape filled with top tunes. Some epic cuts from albums…

TURNING twenty next year.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: A Wolfhound At the Door: 1994 and 1995

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart

A Wolfhound At the Door: 1994 and 1995

_________

MAYBE a bit of a downer…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in London in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

subject to bring up when it comes to Kate, I did want to look at the years 1994 and 1995. It was a difficult period for her. Following the release of The Red Shoes in November 1993, Bush didn’t entirely retreat from the spotlight. However, it is clear there was something of a black dog at the door. A fatigue and depression. It is not surprising! After working tirelessly on The Red Shoes and the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve – Bush was promoting it around its release on 13th October, 1994 -, there was this need to step back or focus on herself. It was a fascinating time. Bush was still working quite hard in 1994. Bush was commissioned to write a series of short musical pieces for a $30 million U.S. T.V. advert campaign for the Coca-Cola drink, Fruitpoia. I am referencing once more Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush for guidance and facts. It is interested that she was lured into advertising once more. The first time was when she did a spot for Seiko in Japan in 1978 where her song, Them Heavy People (Rolling the Ball in Japan), was backing her. I think there was this definite sense of drain and exhaustion. The process of recording and promoting an album. A sense of burn-out from making a short film in 1993 too. Bush wanted to keep engaged but did not want to be in album recording mode or do promotion. This opportunity meant that she could do something creative for a good product – and earn handsomely from it. Ever since, Bush has not engaged with any advertising campaigns. The thirty-second pieces had cool titles such as Nice, Soul, and Solstice. Apart from also contributing to an album, Common Ground, which featured artists recording Irish songs (Bush’s beautiful rendition of Mná na hÉireann is sublime), there was far less activity. It was clear that a break was needed. Recording and promoting almost non-stop since she was eighteen, this woman in her mid-thirties was taking on a huge weight. It was a moment when she needed to take stock. It was disheartening getting mixed and negative reviews for The Red Shoes and The Line, the Cross and the Curve.

Kate Bush always disliked what she recorded. In a sense that she was never truly happy with her output. She did her best at the time but there was this lingering sense of dissatisfaction. In 1993 and 1994, there was this negativity pouring out. Critics started to compare Bush to contemporaries like Tori Amos. Focusing on the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities rather than the music. A sense of fascination and approval had gone. It is no surprise that this impacted hard on Kate Bush. It was not only critics that were negative towards Bush. A loyal and diehard fanbase were also not entirely in love with Bush. Through fanzines and messageboards on the Internet, there was this horrible and suffocating pressure. A feeling of a tide turning. The 1994 fan convention was the last one Bush attended. She did say how she was very sensitive to the criticism and feelings around her work. How her energy was sapping and that caused exhaustion. After putting so much effort into an album and short film, Bush would have hoped for some positivity and a chance to ride some critical acclaim. Instead, it did seem like there was more darkness than light. Bush was almost dismissive about The Red Shoes. A tone that suggested resignation and apology. This was quite new and worrying. The interviews around the album are not the best. In terms of what she is being asked and how interviewers approached her. Bush did her best in the interviews, yet you could sense she was ready to sign off for a while. Rather than looking ahead to another album or with her usual energy, something was wrong. One can appreciate how an artist that was so in demand and was not afforded a break would show signs of retreat. Bush, aged thirty-five, had lost a long-term relationship and was dealing with the death of her mother (in 1992). The city was this rather toxic and busy landscape. Not ideal when you are in need of relaxation and calm!

PHOTO CREDIT: Kate Bush whilst filming the video for Rubberband Girl in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

One can look ahead to 2005 and the release of Aerial. How Bush created a new family and was living away from London. Maybe that desire was there as early as 1993 and 1994. In 1994, the press were still very much not letting up. Taking digs and spreading rumours, all of this fuel was added to a fire. One can only imagine what Kate Bush was feeling. Not being afforded enough time to grieve her mother’s death and process the end of a fifteen-year romance, something had to change. In Graeme Thomson’s book, he notes how the years 1994 were 1995 were ones defined by isolation and depression. This was not something new. After 1982’s The Dreaming was released, Bush suffered nervous exhaustion and was prescribed bed rest. After such intense recording and promotion, she had to regroup and take steps so that she could continue her career. Bush did come back with 1985’s Hounds of Love. This time around, the break between albums was longer. That desire to be in the studio and record was a lower priority. Watching bad sitcoms and quiz shows, Bush slept a lot and I would assume she was not eating healthily. Bush was in a very low mood and it was a troubling time. It is easy to look at this time and feel like it was Bush suffering a massive low. Hitting rock bottom. In fact, it was only a brief period of isolation and depression, though it is significant. I don’t think many Kate Bush fans know about what she was doing in 1994 and 1995. There were few professional engagements. The last promotion duties for The Red Shoes were completed in 1994. Bush performing And So Is Love on Top of the Pops. A bit of travelling and interview. You can sense and feel that she was suffering. The sheer demand of recording and promoting took its toll. I am trying to more eloquently put it into words! Even if there was this down period where Bush slept an awful lot, watched television and wanted to be alone, she did also manage to engage in a normal and sociable form soon enough. Whether it was eating out at a high-end restaurant in London, attending David Gilmour’s fiftieth birthday (in 1996) or enjoying a play, she was keeping busy enough.

Look ahead to 1996, Bush wrote and recorded the demo version of King of the Mountain. That was the single released from 2005’s Aerial. Sunset and An Architect’s Dream were written in 1997. Bush welcomed her son, Bertie, into the world in July 1998. That period between The Red Shoes coming out and giving birth. Quite interesting bookmarks. 1994 and 1995 are fascinating. How there was this turbulence and personal struggle. Bush was asked about whether she wanted to have children in an interview from 1994. She was very much open to the idea. I think the loss of her mother and the cessation of her relationship with Del Palmer meant that she was looking to create new comfort and meaning. The loss that she suffered turned her mind towards children. She was in a new and strong relationship with Danny McIntosh. It is remarkable that Kate Bush rode through a very difficult time and soon came out the other side. Starting work on a new album and starting a family. The strength she found to begin writing and recording only a few years after The Red Shoes came out. However, this was a slow creative build. Aerial would arrive nine years after its first song was written. A double album that was incredibly generous and accomplished, it is also one of her most positive and hopeful works. Quite a contrast to the mood and aesthetic of 1994 and 1995. These years were not completely defined by blackness and isolation, yet it was a definite bridge. Bush could not carry on and push herself hard. The energy and motivation was not there. Blown back and stunned by some bad reception from fans and critics, I do think about Kate Bush in those years and it is heartbreaking. Spending so much time at home and needing a lot of sleep. Similarities to 1982 but a much more severe version of that.

I am going to end this feature soon. I wanted to feature 1994 and 1995, less in a negative and downhearted sense. It is important to highlight this time. The endless work and push through 1993 and a lot of 1994. Making an album and short film. Having to promote both when I am sure Bush would rather peel away and be left alone. She needed some time to recalibrate and reflect. During a heavy time when she was not in the spotlight, Bush did manage to engage with music and make contributions. It was not too long before she opened up to the possibilities of a bright future. New material and new life. The lessons of The Red Shoes were present in her mind. From that point on, she would conduct her career differently and her working life would shift radically. In terms of how she promoted her work, where and how she recorded and the time she would take to complete an album. In a future feature, I am going to discuss how Kate Bush sort of pushed away from EMI after the release of Aerial. There was this definite sense of wanting independence and not wanting to engage in the same sort of promotional cycle. Not being held to deadlines. Even if Aerial was a long gestation, she was still very much aware that EMI were keen for Bush to release an album. That expectation would have been there from 1994. Get back on top after a mediocre period. Regain some of that traction and love that was around after the release of Hounds of Love and The Sensual World (1989). Rather than 1994 and 1995 being a time that ruined Kate Bush, it was a reset and chance for thinking about her future without obstacles and distractions. The positives we can take from that. From the days when a black dog was waiting at the door to Bush relocating, working in her own studio, starting a family and creating a masterpiece eighth studio album, one has to applaud her strength and focus. Rather than being finished and out of favour when Aerial was released, the phenomenal Kate Bush came backed adored and…

STRONGER than ever.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Twenty-Five in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Twenty-Five in 2025

_________

IN the next part of…

this run of features, I am now up to 2000. That incredible year where we welcomed in a new decade, century and millennium. It also saw an interesting shift in terms of music. The 1990s still quite fresh, there was this transition and change. As such, the best albums from 2000 are quite varied and unique. I was keen to assemble a playlist to include songs from the best albums of that year. Phenomenal albums that are turning twenty-five next year. I was sixteen when the year 2000 started and it was a time when I was bonding with music in a new and stronger way. Below is a playlist containing songs from albums that heralded in the new millennium. The first greats of the twenty-first century. If you were there at the time or not, you will find much to enjoy…

FROM this mixtape.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Thirty in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Thirty in 2025

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KEEPING this feature going…

I now turn my attentions to albums celebrating thirty years in 2025. It is one of the most packed and golden years for music. That is 1995. A time when Britpop was rising and there was this huge array of wonderful music around, the year spawned more than its share of classics. I have compiled songs from the best albums of 1995. Again, if you were not around in 1995 it doesn’t matter. These songs and albums transcend the time in which they were released and still sound fantastic and relevant today. Some classics that are turning thirty next year. 1995 might be the best year of that decade for music, so it is a pleasure to collect together cuts from the absolute best albums. Here is a Digital Mixtape of songs from gems turning…

THIRTY next year. 

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Albums Turning Thirty-Five in 2025

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from Albums Turning Thirty-Five in 2025

_________

EVEN though I would say…

1990 is one of the weaker years of the decade for music, that is less a reflection on the artists and more the incredibly high standard that came from 1991 onward. To mark albums that came out in 1990 and are turning thirty-five next year, I have compiled a playlist featuring songs from the very best albums of the year. I remember 1990 and the music that was out that year. It was an interesting transition from the very end of the 1980s. Still some of those sounds around, but a distinct new wave of genres and sounds emerging. I will capture as many as I can in this Digital Mixtape as we look ahead to golden 1990 albums that…

TURN thirty-five next year.

FEATURE: Feel It: The Texture of Kate Bush’s Albums

FEATURE:

 

Feel It

The Texture of Kate Bush’s Albums

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I am racing through Kate Bush features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith

as there is a lot to cover off before the end of the year! I have some Christmas-related features to explore. I wanted to discuss something different for this outing. I want to look at her albums in a different way. Influenced by something I read in Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, it has made me think about the textures of and in her albums. The feel of them. Think about all of her ten studio albums and the dynamics and compositional qualities. We can examine the songs individually and the sound and lyrics. Think more generally about the albums. Maybe I do not mean textures. I previously wrote how Bush’s albums tend to have their own colour schemes and palettes. Whether there is the pink and reds of love and femininity or the blacks, greys and darker colours through to the clear purple and silvers. This made me think about the sort of weather and dynamics you get from each albums. Let’s work from two particular ones and source our way back. Think about 2005’s Aerial. I have written about domesticity and motherhood is at the heart of this album (much like Laura Marling with this year’s Patterns in Repeat). Psychologically, Bush very much in a happier space after 1993’s The Red Shoes. Embracing nature, her garden and home more and sourcing inspiration from this environment, it is small wonder that you listen to Aerial and feel a lot of air and space. There is this physical sense of atmosphere. Natural sunlight and warmth that one gets from the music through the album’s second disc, A Sky of Honey. On the first disc, A Sea of Honey, there is space and embrace. It is a very personal record, and not one that excludes the listener. It is this undeniable sense of intimacy and tenderness, together with this real need to let songs breathe. I will come to The Red Shoes. That was a more eclectic and loaded album in terms of its layers and production. Aerial is an ambitious and majestic work, though it is one that consciously feels accessible and expansive.

Graeme Thomson notes how there was less need for percussive guidance and technological fuss. More traditional instruments on Aerial. A range of guitars, pianos and percussion. With Bush’s voice deeper, that also gives the songs more gravitas and this wonderful gravity. Aerial is abound with birdsong, leaves, wind, sunshine, the natural world and the fine details of home. A brown jug, a washing machine, the kitchen and dirty floor. The comfort of new life and the joys of new responsibility. Not that Aerial is a purely English album. In terms of its sonic palette, it travels far and wide. Spanish and Italian influences. The domestic is very much a touchstone, yet there is so much imagination and fancy. In terms of the texture and feel, you get this warm glow and distinct scents and emotions. One feels calmed and soothed, yet Bush as a producer and songwriter allows the listener to escape into her world. A Sky of Honey’s summer’s day. We can feel and hear the sunrise and the coming dawn. There are elements of this in Bush’s first two albums, 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart. Rather than think of those albums in terms of colours and shades, how about the emotions and textures. In terms of compositional elements, there are threads of Aerial. The use of piano, percussion and guitar. Quite sparse in some respects with plenty of space. However, I think that The Kick Inside especially is less international and wide-ranging than Aerial. Apart from a jaunt to Berlin in The Saxophone Song, we have this real sense of home. Domesticity playing a different role. If Aerial is more about home and new life and purpose, The Kick Inside is about exploration and embracing sexuality. As such, there is this feeling of eccentricity and sensuality. Bush’s vocals quite high on a number of songs. If Aerial has a slow pulse, The Kick Inside’s changes rapidly. We have calmer and more contemplative moments alongside shocks and sharp rises. Vocals that are gymnastic and flexible. Background vocals and this feeling of a cast. If Bush used the outside world and nature to create textures on Aerial, The Kick Inside and Lionheart is all about voices and personas.

At the centre if this teenage Kate Bush. This real sense of touch and feel. I think that it is the physicality of expression on these albums. When Bush sings of passion and sex. Thar real sense of urge and the tactile. I think the objectives on these first two albums was more about relationships and desires. The compositions less expansive and full of air and light. Graeme Thomson felt Aerial was about “pastoral sensuality” and the elemental. The younger Kate Bush much more concerned with the intricacies and complexities of love. Exploring the physical. There are characters and fantasies. There is horror and darker elements together with a sense of anxiety. I was compelled to think about the textural feel of each Kate Bush album as nobody has really expanded on it or written about it in that sense. You can definitely feel some of that air and space of Aerial on Never for Ever. A real sense of ethereal and dream-like. There is this mix of space and the compact. Think about how we get this on songs such as Blow Away (For Bill), Delius (Song of Summer) and even Night Scented Stock. Coupled with the sounds of Army Dreamers and Breathing. How the former is quite light and has a jaunty spirit yet is dark and about loss. Breathing is smoky and suffocating. The sense of impending destruction. Bush looking out to the world in a political way for the first time. Perhaps less personal than later works, Never for Ever is the sound of a woman still exploring her body and mind but developing as a producer. With one foot in her teenage past and one stepping ahead, it is fascinating to feel all the different textures on this album.

The Dreaming is one of the most fascinating in terms of textural feel. It is a widely far-flung album. There is domesticity and the personal in a few of the numbers such as All the Love. Even though percussion and the Fairlight CMI are at the heart of the album, there is also more vocal layering than previously. Gravel and growl. Bush’s voice huskier and more dominating and hard-hitting then ever before. With very little space or air through the album, you do get this sense of tension and fear. The propulsion and nightmare of Get Out of My House gives The Dreaming this quite rough and gloomy feel. Maybe sparks of electricity. Some might think it quite a cold album, though I think that it is one that is full of different emotions and nuances. If the colour scheme is blacks and browns, you have all manner of complexity and layers. So many details and sounds mix with Bush’s most varied vocal palette. Such a stark contrast to her first two and most recent few albums. It is hard to put into words what sort of textures are on The Dreaming. Night and shadows. Fog and cigarette smoke. I think The Dreaming is one of Bush’s most itinerant albums. We follow a Vietnamese solider in the undergrowth and trees. The smell of war and the sticky heat. The overload of sound effects and sounds. Fretless bass, subtle time signature switches and this metallic haze. The Dreaming takes us to Australia; Night of the Swallow to Ireland. There is air and light on some numbers, yet the weather through Bush’s fourth studio album is stormier and wetter. A sticky heat and humidity. We race through history and time-zones. Houdini takes us back to early-twentieth century. There Goes a Tenner a London crime caper.

What to say about Hounds of Love and The Sensual World? The former sort of nods to what Aerial would sound like. There is nature and the natural world. Bush, influenced by the countryside around the family home at East Wickham Farm. She also wrote a lot of the album in Ireland. The landscape and emerald isle. A sense of the open. It is an album that is not quite as airy and warm and Aerial, though there are comparisons. This domestic sensuality. Bush very much rooted and inspired by home but taking us far and wide. The sea, salt and darkness of The Ninth Wave. There are fewer traditional instruments. Greater emphasis on the Fairlight CMI and its percussive elements. Irish instruments and more esoteric touches. It creates its own texture and dynamic. Inspirations from Ireland and further afield. However, I think Hounds of Love is Bush safe and happy at home. If her first few albums found Bush exploring her body, mind and sensuality, her fifth studio album is more about human relationships and something wider and deeper perhaps. The epic fight for survival and strength against the scariness of the deep sea on The Ninth Wave. What we think about and fight for when in that situation. Men and women exchanging places to understand one another. The way love can chase you like hounds. Bush, in her mid-twenties, more attuned to the capriciousness and complexity of love. There is plenty of sky and sunshine on The Big Sky. Plenty of weather too on Cloudbusting. Icier and skeletal notes on Mother Stands for Comfort. This DJ Mag feature from 2021 explores how the Fairlight CMI opened Bush up to electronic textures:

“The use of the word ‘tool’ is critical: The Fairlight was important for what it did, not what it was. And what it did was to open up Bush’s world to a new range of sonic possibility, as she explained to Option like a proto-Matthew Herbert: “With a Fairlight, you’ve got everything: a tremendous range of things,” she said. “It completely opened me up to sounds and textures and I could experiment with these in a way I could never have done without it.”

What is perhaps most striking about ‘Hounds Of Love’ is that, rather than settling down into a new electronic habit, Bush used her new digital equipment in a number of different ways, depending on the song’s demands. ‘Running Up That Hill,’ the album’s gorgeous opening song, uses a subtly propulsive, rolling tom pattern on the LinnDrum (the work of Bush’s collaborator and then romantic partner Del Palmer) that lays alongside cello samples from the Fairlight, which Bush manipulated to create both the main riff and backing strings”.

There is a more masculine energy to Hounds of Love. The Sensual World would change things. A move towards the feminine. Bush proclaiming it to be her most female album at that time. Also, there was more in the way of traditional instruments. Perhaps a slight return to and update of her first few albums. The production on The Sensual World is over-compressed. Something Bush would address when reworking songs from that album for 2011’s Director’s Cut. Even though there is less jumping around through time and space compared to The Dreaming or Hounds of Love, we do get more Irish influence. Especially on the title track. The Trio Bulgarka bringing Bulgarian music and vocals to several numbers. Graeme Thomson also notes in his Kate Bush biography how the sensuality is more imagined and less tangible. A less tactile record. The heat and flame simmering at a lower temperature. There is this warm and sensual hue that never ignites but is a constant. Perhaps a less mechanical percussion sound than on albums like The Kick Inside or 50 Words for Snow, there is this different tone and texture. A simmer and smoulder rather than a red-hot fire. Maybe Bush wanting The Sensual World to be more female meant there was this lack of punch and percussive power. Not reigned-in or conventional, there was this feeling of a deliberate shift. The Red Shoes is perhaps less tactile than The Sensual World. Perhaps the production sound contributed to that. However, there is a sense of the variegated on The Red Shoes. The flavour and scents that dance from songs like Eat the Music. A host of less traditional and more international instruments. Bush once more taking us around the world when it comes to the sounds. Moments of Pleasure could have been a song from The Sensual World. This is still this sense of discovery and need to pleasure; touch and togetherness. However, The Red Shoes has this sense of division and loss. Things ebbing away. Cracks starting to form.

Let’s finish with Kate Bush’s most recent album, 50 Words for Snow. An album once more open with plenty of space. In a different way to Hounds of Love and Aerial. If Hounds of Love took us to the sea and clouds, Aerial had this domestic joy and the slow reveal of a summer’s day. 50 Words for Snow is a chillier album by themes and lyrics, though there are complexities working in the songs. Bush stripping things down to mostly piano, guitar and percussion. The drumming of Steve Gadd key to so many songs. That perfect heartbeat that gives 50 Words for Snow its distinct tone and timbre. I do want to take slightly from Graeme Thomson’s observations in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush about 50 Words for Snow. He notes how Bush was no longer concerned with Pop’s repetition, hooks and and conventions. Working more on the outskirts, her tenth studio album is more Chamber Jazz. The relationship between piano and drums essential and crucial. Bush exploring the wilds and wilderness. Drawing comparisons to artists like Scott Walker or John Martyn. In terms of spirit rather than sound. The softness and purity of Snowflake. How there is a contrast between the two vinyl sides. The second half more upbeat and energised. The first half unfolds more. Longer songs that take time to unfurl. Among Angels taking us back to Bush and her piano. Comparisons to Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave in some spots.

Although, as Thomson notes, the water is deeper and icier. There is mythology throughout the album. The unknown or the undefined. The transient nature of snow. If previous albums had a tactility linked to sensuality, nature and passion, there is more of the ephemeral on 50 Words for Snow. However, there is a tactility to the album. A distinct warmth that might not be instantly obvious. There is this seasonal quality to the album. Whereas the energy, passion and excitement of her previous albums are not tied to time or place, 50 Words fort Snow feels more appropriate this time of year. Winter and Christmas. It has sadness, softness and sensuousness. It is not a downbeat album, though the records throughout feel the cold. You can immerse yourself in the snowy landscapes and the colder environments. The pulse is slower but there are genuine moments of expansiveness and the epic. Sweeping and tender at the same time. It makes me think about the future and the possible texture and dynamics of a new Kate Bush album. Will the stories be far-flung and widespread? Will we have air and space or will there be a denser feel in terms of the instrumentation and production? Is the album going to be a warmer and more domestic affair or steeped in imagination and the otherworldly? A return to more of the Pop and Art Rock of her previous albums or move more to the fringes, albeit with some new twists and scents? I was intrigued to explore the textural feel of Kate Bush’s albums and the differences between them. How you do get distinctly different feels and experiences with each album. How some of her later albums like to her earliest work. The connective chemistry of an older songwriter bonding with her younger self. This being Kate Bush, there is this sense of mystery and enigmatic. If she does grace us with a new album in the next year or two…

WHO knows what will come!

FEATURE: Spotlight: Man/Woman/Chainsaw

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc for The Line of Best Fit

Man/Woman/Chainsaw

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A group that everyone should know…

and are making big waves right now are Man/Woman/Chainsaw. Even though I am not a big fan of that name, I do love the music! Comprising of bassist and vocalist Vera Leppänen,  guitarist/vocalist Billy Ward, drummer Lola Cherry, violinist Clio Starwood, vocalist and keys/synths player Emmie-Mae Avery, and guitarist Billy Doyle, this is a crew that have delivered one of the best E.P.s of the year with Eazy Peazy. I am going to end with a  review of that E.P. Before getting there, it is worth introducing some features and interviews. First, I want to come to a recent interview from The Line of Best Fit. They spoke with the teenage London band. One that are Art Punk but sort of hard to define. A band ripping up the rulebook:

“Songwriting for this collective is fluid – a collaborative process dedicated to merging individual visions into something unique to the Man/Woman/Chainsaw outfit. That’s not to say there isn’t still some vulnerability in bringing a song to the table only to watch it turn into something else. “I think we all probably start a song thinking it should sound a certain way,” Avery muses. “If you listened to the inside of our brains, we’re all probably thinking: ‘this person’s suggestion is shit’,” she laughs, as bandmates shared pointed looks at one another lightheartedly. “But I think the best part is when a song does go in a completely different direction than what you expected, you know?” Leppänen poses. “Because there’s a reason you needed somebody else's brain to think of it.”

“Yeah, the song is so much better once you’ve surrendered it to six people’s mishmash of influences,” concludes Ward. It’s a particular patchwork of creativity that not only makes their music so rich but also embeds within it a sense of that very collaboration. In the sounds they produce, their instruments never compete, instead interweaving a musical push-and-pull. Lighter orchestral notes balance against boisterous fuzzy guitars and sometimes they shape shift, the twinkling now pouring from the guitars while the violin and keys take on the grit.

But, before Man/Woman/Chainsaw were even thinking about writing in this way, before even Eazy Peazy was in the works, this DIY outfit was founding their dynamic approach to making music in the raw energy of live performances. “There was something chaotic about the early gigs,” Ward recalls. “We try to tap into that now, but with more filtering out of the crap.” Cherry carries on the thought: “It started as writing for live performance. Since recording though, we've kind of played the songs a bit differently live. The backbones are the same, but they feel tighter,” she concludes, looking around at the nods of agreement. With over 100 gigs under their belts since debuting at just 16, it's impressive – and a bit surreal – that these young musicians can already tap into their early days for inspiration from their unfiltered expression. “The earliest songs were like, ‘this has a verse where the lyrics are one line repeated four times, a noise section, then the chorus’,” Leppänen recalls with a laugh.

Man/Woman/Chainsaw seem to be a band full of contradictions, their youthful energy contrasting sharply with the depth of their musical maturity. They maintain a DIY ethos while collaborating with seasoned professionals like Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, who's production helped bring a more polished edge to their output. Despite being firmly anchored in their local scene, they also hold ambitions of touring further afield — Europe and beyond (“O2 arena, 2026”) – already in motion with their recently announced SXSW debut next year.

Yet, there aren't many bands with the same conviction in their own musical language as this indie outfit. As they prepare to unleash Eazy Peazy on the world, the group look forward to what’s next. When Starwood sheepishly asks if she can “dare say we’re on the short little road to finding our sound,” she is met with an answer from Ward that encompasses Man/Woman/Chainsaw: “We found our sound and now we’re taking it apart”.

One thing I am trying to piece together is how many members of Man/Woman/Chainsaw there are. In some interviews they are referred to as a six-piece. However, the review I am ending this feature  with labels them as a five-piece. They may need to confirm that, though I will just refer to them as a band and we can quibble over exact numbers. In any case, it is worth coming to Stereogum and their spotlight of the amazing Man/Woman/Chainsaw. Here is a band who are definitely going to be a festival mainstay. I think they will have the same sort of rise and success as bands like English Teacher:

“The youthful London combo, makers of “noisy, unadulterated art punk” by their own description, are dropping their Eazy Peazy EP Friday. Produced by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox, who’s also helmed great LPs by Sprints and Silverbacks, it’s Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s first release for the longstanding American indie label Fat Possum. With multiple lead vocalists and structures that never seem to repeat from track to track, it’s one of those records where every song has its own unpredictable flavor but they all seem to flow from the same collective consciousness.

Opener “The Boss” surges forward with an intensity that only seems to ratchet up as it goes, bassist Vera Leppänen railing against a composite of awful authority figures as Clio Harwood’s violin morphs into gnarly squalls of noise. One track later on “Sports Day,” guitarist Billy Ward is reliving traumatic adolescent athletic experiences over an off-kilter discordant groove. Next comes “Maegan,” on which Pixies-esque banter quickly gives way to a delightful sonic blitzkrieg. The second half of the tracklist ventures into territory both soft and surreal while bringing back the explosiveness in strategic increments. One of the lessons they learned from Fox in the studio: “If everything’s loud, nothing’s loud.”

The band has come a long way since Ward and Leppänen were 16-year-olds covering Nirvana and Lana Del Rey in a bedroom. (They also cooked up a noise-rock version of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” sadly not for public consumption.) The duo spent lockdown learning how to play music, then recruited a rotating cast of bandmates and gigged like crazy around London DIY venues once they hit college. “We would do three, four shows a week sometimes,” Ward says during a boisterous video call with four of his bandmates. “We were just doing lots of shows around London. There’s so much music here that you can just do that when you’re young.”

All those shows helped Man/Woman/Chainsaw figure out where they thrive — “on the thin line between pretty and noisy, often trying to jump between the two,” as Ward has explained in press materials — and to build up a reputation as one of London’s most exciting young acts. The collective approach and orchestral flourishes lend themselves to comparisons with London contemporaries Black Country, New Road, while the interplay between Ward and Leppänen reminds me of indie-pop bands like the late, great Goon Sax.

Last year, the lineup settled into consistency with the addition of Harwood’s violin plus vocalist/keyboardist Emmie-Mae Avery and drummer Lola Cherry. A sequence of early singles on Bandcamp — best of all “What Lucy Found There,” on which Ward and Leppänen trade vocals over hyperactive bass line straight out of a jazz or drum ‘n’ bass track — now play like snapshots of the growth leading up to the roundly accomplished Eazy Peazy. The band members are only 19 or 20 now, but they’re sounding like a seasoned unit.

The EP is full of sharp songwriting and engaging arrangements. Tracks feel epic without extending much beyond the three-minute mark. Each one is full of savvy details, like the dance between Harwood’s strings and Avery’s keys on “Sports Day” or the way Cherry elevates “EZPZ” with drumming that shifts from cavernous half-time to eruptions Ward compares to black metal blast beats. At the center of the tracklist is “Ode To Clio,” so named because Harwood’s violin melody transformed it from its Coldplay-esque beginnings. The band has highlighted it as an ideal introduction to their sound so far.

“I feel like it was the song that best summed up the different kinds of things that we’ve got on the EP. Like obviously we got like ‘Grow A Tongue In Time,’ which is more singer-songwriter-y, kind of pretty, and ‘The Boss’ is a bit heavier and more punky,” Leppänen says. “We wrote that somewhere in the middle, and I feel like it’s kind of brought the kind of two sides [of the band together].”

Although much of the Eazy Peazy material is new to the outside world, to Man/Woman/Chainsaw these songs are old hat compared to the new material they’ve been working on. “For the EP we wrote the songs to play them at gigs because we needed material,” Avery says. “And when we are writing now, we’re obviously writing them to play for gigs and stuff, but it’s nice, ’cause it feels like they’re tied to a project, that we’re writing them towards an album.”

Ward says the band is looking to get more music out soon rather than “taking 10 years to do the album.” In the meantime, there’s lots of touring on deck for early 2025, including a winter UK jaunt and Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s first trip to the States for next year’s South By Southwest. It’s a milestone the band is looking forward to, even if the results of this week’s presidential election have them feeling more wary about the future of America. “I’m scared,” Leppänen says. “But other than that, I’m really looking forward to next year”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc for The Line of Best Fit

Eazy Peazy is one of the great E.P.s. One that distils and highlights all the band’s strengths but also leaves you wanting more. A sign of where they are now and where they might head. NME were among those who sat down to offer their thoughts on Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s remarkable new work. One that has them tipped as one of the breakaway acts to look out for next year:

“There were multiple points throughout the last decade where it looked like UK indie rock might end up forever stuck in a post-punk loop. Fortunately amidst the familiarity of this latest revival, a crop of young bands went in the opposite direction; jettisoning post-punk’s wiry, pared-down approach in favour of something more ornate, progressive and grandiose.

This thrilling new branch of UK ‘indie’ (if there’s any meaning left in that ageing term) took on myriad shapes, from the resplendent melodrama of Black Country, New Road to the bad trip mania of Black Midi. These ambitious, forward-thinking bands served as welcome evidence that alternative rock music had yet to wholly capitulate to retro revivalism – and Man/Woman/Chainsaw are a quintessential product of this genre-busting era.

Few debuts are as simultaneously bold and accessible as ‘Eazy Peazy’. The likes of ‘Ode to Clio’, which swells from gentle embers to a finale inferno, throws rock music’s familiar structuring out the window, whilst retaining a firm sense of internal logic. Closer ‘EZPZ’ offers a more brute force example, maintaining a gripping intensity across three minutes of intricate and constantly shifting orchestral heaviness.

The band’s fusion of grand strings and pianos with more traditional, riff-based rock chaos is a broad success. ‘Sports Day’ contains one or two ideas too many, with the orchestral melodies erring close to unnecessary cacophony. Elsewhere, however, this OTT approach works with impressive elegance; see the simple but potent violin motif that recurs throughout ‘Ode to Clio’ and the interlocking strings and keys that arrive with immaculate precision midway through ‘The Boss’.

This instrumental melange reflects Man/Woman/Chainsaw’s ultra-contemporary, post-ironic lyrical voice. Like the internet-dominated culture in which they were raised, the band smash through the traditional boundaries that separate irony and sincerity, tilting from arch but soulful school memories of ‘Sports Day’ to the abstract literary musings of ‘Ode to Clio’ (“sprawled across my kitchen floor / she’s only arms and legs / her limbs like hairs / spread out starfish”).

Crucially, these metamodern tonal jumps possess real emotional power, matching the musical bravura. ‘Eazy Peazy’ practically fizzes with youthful energy and the possibilities of musical creation. It’s raw and throws everything in its sizeable arsenal at the wall, however, basically everything sticks. The resulting effort’s audacious energy is a sight to behold and whips with enough force to spin your head clean off your shoulders”.

Go and follow the remarkable Man/Woman/Chainsaw. You are going to hear a lot more from them. Check out Eazy Peazy though their Bandcamp or Spotify page and go and see them live if you can too. They have some great dates in the diary for next year, and they will play London’s Scala in April. An exceptional young band with many years ahead, make sure they are on your radar. I am quite new to them but I am compelled to follow them closely. They are a very…

EXCITING force to be reckoned with.

_____________

Follow Man/Woman/Chainsaw

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc for The Line of Best Fit

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/manwomanchainsaw

Twitter:

https://x.com/mwctalks

Bandcamp:

https://manwomanchainsaw.bandcamp.com/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0KheksMhWogVV4frHAihPJ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEvEI1tJO_a1010nPdrim6Q

FEATURE: Deemed to Be Worthy: Who Might Headline Glastonbury 2025?

FEATURE:

 

 

Deemed to Be Worthy

IN THIS PHOTO: Eminem

Who Might Headline Glastonbury 2025?

_________

I know that I…

IN THIS PHOTO: Charli XCX/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

always do a pun around Worthy Farm (where it is held) for Glastonbury features, as I am not really sure what to title them! In this feature, I am thinking about the acts that may headline in 2025. It is not long until we find out who will be performing at Glastonbury next June (25th-29th). Last year was a big one in terms of the headliners. We had Dua Lipa, SZA and Coldplay. It as rare to get any female headliners, let alone two. This is the thing about Glastonbury. In over fifty years, it has ignored women as headliners. No year has had more than one, until we got to 2024. If you count the total headliners, women are vastly overlooked. Organiser Emily Eavis said she wanted to tackle and address this, though it is a case of instantly reversing the male bias. Last year proved there are women who can headline. That was also the case in 2023, though potential headliners like Lana Del Rey were lower down the bill. It is a sorry state. However, let’s hope that last year’s female headliners suggested we no longer had to endure all-male acts. It is very boring and depressing having men dominate the headline slots. However, I am hopeful that 2025 will see more women headline. I believe next year is the last one before a fallow year. Glastonbury will not happen in 2026, to allow their fields and site to recover and rest. Others are already speculating who might headline next year. I think last year’s headliners were good. Coldplay seemed quite an obvious and rather uninspired choice. It is a shame that Glastonbury could not do an all-female line-up and put someone fresher in that spot. Dua Lipa and SZA performed incredible sets, though there were some who were critical.

It does seem that there is a shoo-in for headliner. In June, she is playing at Primavera Sound. Charli XCX might also be available to headline Glastonbury. I think it is hugely likely that she will headline the festival. Having released BRAT earlier in the year, it seems there is a huge demand to bring that to Glastonbury. One of the highest-rated albums of the year, she is dominating Pop right now. I know there would be a massive demand and cheer. She would be an awesome and captivating headliner. I would be very shocked if Charli XCX has not been booked in one of the slots. Maybe as the Saturday night headliner. It leaves two other slots. There are sites like this that predict some of the artists who might be in the running to headline. I think that there will be one band who will headline. It would be unusual to have three solo acts. In terms of possibilities, one hopes that it will be someone other than Coldplay or Foo Fighters or anything that predictable. As they have just released one of the best albums of their career, Songs of a Lost World, who would bet against The Cure headlining?! There is nothing in their diary that would preclude them from appearing at Glastonbury in June. That would be a massively popular booking. Although I personally would not want them to headline – as I think Nick Cave’s attitudes towards the genocide in Palestine is worrying -, Maybe Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds seems like another possibility. Offering a contrast to Charli XCX., perhaps a Sunday night headline slot would suit them. I don’t think Glastonbury will be bold and brave enough to have an all-female line-up, so there will be two female acts at most. Many have speculated how Olivia Rodrigo could headline. Having released one of the best albums of 2023 with GUTS, that is not out of the question. Perhaps another modern Pop titan, Sabrina Carpenter?! She is definitely on the rise and is also booked to headline Primavera Sound 2025. Chappell Roan is also headlining Primavera Sound. They are a festival who are progressive and have no issue finding women to headline. Glastonbury should definitely consider Chappell Roan.

IN THIS PHOTO: Sabrina Carpenter

In terms of a legend who might fill the other headline slot, Oasis have shot that down. They are not available. I don’t think it is evasiveness. They are busy preparing for your dates next year. Also, as great as it would be to have Madonna headlining, I am think it is a long shot. Maybe we will have a legend like Bruce Springsteen headline. However, I get the feeling that there will be a younger line-up for Glastonbury 2025. In terms of bands, what about Fontaines D.C.? As we have the Legends slot, opening up the headline slots to newer acts would be a pretty good move. I would love to see Charli XCX and Olivia Rodrigo headline. It seems like there is a name that is a strong frontrunner. Eminem has apparently been in talks to headline already. I guess that would make a degree of sense. He has not headlined before and would provide a thrilling set. Maybe not popular with everyone, it would provide something alternative and edgy. Charli XCX could bring her own brand of edge and, alongside Eminem, it would definitely be an interesting and varied festival! I know Taylor Swift was supposedly booked or in the frame to headline Glastonbury last year but she had scheduling conflicts. I think she is very unlikely to headline next year. In terms of cost, she would be very expensive. I am not sure whether a festival is what she wants to do. I am not sure what her diary looks like for next year. She has been busy with the Eras Tour. However, if Glastonbury could secure a good deal, maybe it is not out of the question. I said in another feature how it would be wonderful for Spice Girls to reform. They are unlikely to owing to disagreements and disputes between Mel B and Geri Halliwell-Horner. It seems that they might not be able to heal the rift, though it would be perfect having Spice Girls in the Legends slot! I know Billy Joel is a name that has been thrown around. I think a Spice Girls reunion for Glastonbury 2025 would be a huge booking. That would get a massive reaction! The Legends slot is one that could go any way. I have seen names like Cher thrown around. She would be great. Last year, Shania Twain booked in that slot.

IN THIS PHOTO: Spice Girls backstage at the BRIT Awards in February 1997. PHOTO CREDIT: Ray Burmiston/Avalon/Getty

Others in the running for a headline slot or Legends space are Harry Styles and Sam Fender. I have also seen Stevie Wonder talked about. Even though she was not a headliner last year, it would be awesome seeing Little Simz booked as one of the headliners. Perhaps a Legends slot for a Hip-Hop group such as Public Enemy or someone completely unexpected. You can never truly predict who might be booked for the slots. I think the only sure bet is Charli XCX. It would be a massive oversight if she was not confirmed as a headliner. My ideal line-up would be The Cure on the Friday night. Charli XCX then does the Saturday headliner, and she could then be followed by Olivia Rodrigo for the Sunday night closing headline slot. Have either Spice Girls or Billy Joel in the Legends slot. That would call into question a lack of racial diversity in the headline spaces. I do think Glastonbury will book a Black artist to headline, as they are aware of ensuring that there is that representation and diversity. As they have made small steps regarding female representation, let’s hope at least one woman is booked to headline. In terms of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, that is an area that has been represented but could do more – Elton John headlined Glastonbury in 2022. I think that Eminem is probably another safe bet, so perhaps he would take the place of Olivia Rodrigo. That would give us two male headliner. That would definitely be a step backwards in that sense. I think the Legend slot should go to a woman. Though you can’t bet against a band like Pet Shop Boys getting that call. Who knows. Tickets go on sale in a matter of days, so it will not be long until we see who is headlining. Maybe that first headliner announced. Will it be Charli XCX? Eminem? The Cure? Perhaps a long shot like Spice Girls, Taylor Swift or even Sam Fender. It is a great guessing game. After last year’s incredible headline sets, there is pressure to keep that quality high. The rumours and speculation have already started, so it will be fantastic to know exactly who will headline Glastonbury…

NEXT year.