INTERVIEW: Leah Nobel

INTERVIEW:

Leah Nobel

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THE fantastic Leah Nobel has been chatting about…

her new single, Slow Burn, and the story that inspired it. I ask what we can expect from her upcoming album, Running in Borrowed Shoes, and the sort of themes that compel the music; which artists she grew up around and the albums most important to her.

Nobel talks about her future plans and recommends an artist to watch; a few albums that mean a lot to her and whether she gets time to relax away from music – she ends the interview by selecting a great track.

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Hi, Leah. How are you? How has your week been?

Great. Just got back from a hiking trip in The Smoky Mountains - a much-needed weekend away.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

My name is Leah Nobel. I am a multi-genre artist/writer currently based in Nashville.

Slow Burn is your latest track. Can you explain the story behind the song?

During the interview process for Running in Borrowed Shoes, I asked people to share the story behind how they met their significant others; if they believed in ‘love at first sight’ etc. I used what I heard in my interviews to inspire Slow Burn, which touches on the fact that most people’s relationships don’t play out like the fantasy pop culture often perpetuates.

It is from the upcoming album, Running in Borrowed Shoes. What is the reason for that title? Are there themes/concepts that inspired the music?

The title, Running in Borrowed Shoes, was a symbol for what this project stands for. I acted as a vessel for other people’s stories, opinions and experiences and channeled them through song. There are many themes that inspired the music - ‘not feeling good enough’, ‘grief’; ‘feeling alive in the outdoors’, ‘forgiveness’.

Do you have a personal favourite from the album that stands out?

It’s hard to pick a favorite but This Pain Will Be Useful, which is on the full album coming in early-2019, impacts me the most emotionally.

How did you get into music? Was there a particular moment when it all sort of clicked?

I sort of feel like I fell into music by accident.

I never dreamed of being in the music business. I have always loved to sing and I have always known that I wanted to do something creative with my life. I think the first time I recorded in the studio as a teenager I knew that this was something more than a hobby.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

I have been working a lot on my mental-health this year and would love to get to a place where I am less critical of myself.

Do you already have plans for 2019?

The full length record, Running in Borrowed Shoes, will be released!

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

I like the beginning of making records more than anything else. I like being in that quiet space of creativity - totally unsure of what will come out of your efforts.

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

Graceland - Paul Simon

It reminds me of my childhood and I love Simon’s lyrical prowess.

Say I Am You - The Weepies

It will always be one of my favorites, and I can’t really explain why- it is just comforting to me)

Slowmotionary - Ethan Gruska

A current favorite. His smart writing and musicianship blow me away.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

I’d love to open for Carole King. My rider would be exceptionally boring. I like having a healthy meal before I perform and a quiet space to meditate.  

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Remember what makes you different and hold it tight. Support your ‘competitors’ and treat everyone with respect and kindness.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

I will be performing Running in Borrowed Shoes next year. Dates T.B.A.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Ethan Gruska

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Ethan Gruska.

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

I try not to overbook myself because I am an introvert who needs time to recharge. I like to take baths and naps.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

The Valley by Ethan Gruska

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Follow Leah Nobel

Official:

http://www.leahnobel.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LeahNobel

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/leahnobelmusic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/leahnobel/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLWZd038_10HfrF2nuPnmAA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5WHKBKrvTBMPoQX3v3Bq8J?si=nxKyzC-TScqd3y0V-JY3xA

INTERVIEW: Wiyaala

INTERVIEW:

Wiyaala

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IT has been eye-opening and amazing speaking with Wiyaala…

about her upbringing and how she got into music. She talks with me about her mash-up mix of Better Treat Me Right, and how that came to be; whether we can see her on the road before the end of the year – she recommends a rising act to watch closely.

Wiyaala discusses her plans going forward and reveals how she spends time away from music; whether more material is coming down the tracks and whether she has a favourite memory from music so far – Wiyaala ends the interview by selecting a great track.

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Hi, Wiyaala. How are you? How has your week been?

Seems like I’ve living in motorway service stations between promos, gigs and recording in Sheffield, U.K. So different to the roadside ‘chop’ bars in Ghana!

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

I’m Wiyaala; a Sissala girl from Funsi, a small village in the northern part of Ghana. I do something I guess you could call Afro-Pop or Afro-Rock. My songs Village Sex and Rock My Body will give you a taste of my flavours!

A mash-up mix of Better Treat Me Right is up. What is the story behind the song?

I’ve been on tour with an international all-female band GRRRL (like the Spice girls on crack) and U.K. producer Will Mount from What’s That Sound Productions saw me and said he had a song for me. So, I went to his studio and recorded Better Treat Me Right. A few remixes later we ended up with the mash-up mix. I went for it because “I’m not the kind of girl to sit here and wait for you to rescue me”. Where I come from, you don’t get rescued!

You are a big advocate of women’s rights. Have there been particular personal experiences that have made fight harder?

That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? ‘A big advocate for women’s rights?’ Look; like just about everyone else reading this, I’ve had to fight tough every inch of the way to try and get somewhere. Because I’m a woman, that can get you labelled a feminist. I love men! Ok; it’s true I’ve spoken out against child marriage and F.G.M. - which is still happening in some of our communities. But, who doesn’t, regardless of whether you are male or female?

Did your upbringing and childhood shape how you approach music and what you write about?

Of course! I was drumming in the church choir when I was four-years-old! My mum was a chorister. In those days, we didn’t have electricity and we used to sit under the moonlight as a community, singing; dancing and playing games. We were happy. I used to organise the kids to perform for the village chief. I’ve portrayed this life in my song, Siiko. I’ve added a twist to it. With Smartphones and stuff, we are losing some of this culture. I’m saying, don’t forget it. As well as enjoying modern technology, we should add it to what we used to have.

The other thing was the western influence. When I was about eight-years-old, I saw Madonna’s video of Take a Bow on T.V. The red lips, the pointed nipples; the bull…I knew then I could do what she was doing. It was motivational and inspiring for a small girl in the African village.

Might we see more material coming down the line?

Yes - for at least the next twenty-five years. I’ve got a new album due out very soon, Sissala Goddess. I’m also working on an E.P. with my Ghanaian brothers in Sheffield known as the Zongo Brigade. That’s going to include the LGBT Remix of Rock My Body. That song is fun!

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

I’ll settle for having my new album and E.P. out there. I’m a musician; from concept to execution. That’s all. The rest is up to the audience.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

Yes. Performing at Womad, U.K. My first big ‘white’ crowd. They totally bought in to what I was doing. If you get it, you get it. Case closed. 

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

Hahahah! I don’t listen to music! I make it! Sure; I hear music all the time. But, I don’t sit down with a spliff and a drink and analyse albums. I don’t have time for that! I’m usually wandering around the house or sitting in the passenger seat of a car on the motorway doodling on my guitarlele. Or, I’m designing and sewing my own stage costumes. Or shooting and editing little videos for social media.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Look. I’m sorry I don’t have this kind of fantasy! I’ll support any living musician of any genre or nationality on any stage anywhere in the world. We’re all musicians, give us a stage; some basic sound and lighting and our job is to entertain. I don’t make or want crazy rider demands!

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Be the musician you really want to be. Be yourself. Perform live at every opportunity. Do your thing, not somebody else’s thing. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Believe in yourself.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

You can see me with GRRRL at RichMix in London on November 2nd. Then, at the Kin Festival in Bristol (also with GRRRL) on 10th November. Then, I’m back to Ghana and it will be Wiyaala in Concert at the Alliance Francais, Accra on December 8th. Then, I’m back home to Wa in the Upper West Region of Ghana where I’ll be organising the local Djimba World Festival which I started three years ago.

How important is it being on stage and performing? Do you love playing your music to the crowds?

It’s everything. I’ve been a live performer since I was three-years-old. I can never imagine a life without performing. I’ve done crowds of 70,000 in Morocco and crowds of ten at some venues. It’s all the same to me. It’s what I do.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Dark Suburb

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Yes. Dark Suburb; a Rock band from Ghana. Start with I Dey Feel You Die.

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

I don’t. But, if I do, I like spending time with my mum and four sisters; cooking fufu and light soup with goat meat. We gossip, sing and dance and generally have fun.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

Yes. Play the one I already mentioned above, I Dey Feel You Die by Dark Suburb. Thank you

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Follow Wiyaala

Official:

http://wiyaala.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/wiyaala

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/wiyaala

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/wiyaala/

YouTube:

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

SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/wiyaala

FEATURE: Do London’s Red Telephone Boxes Still Ring? The Changing Role of the Telephone in Popular Music

FEATURE:

 

 

Do London’s Red Telephone Boxes Still Ring?

PHOTO CREDIT: @jackofallstreets/Unsplash  

The Changing Role of the Telephone in Popular Music

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WE are in a time where most of us…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @quinoal/Unsplash

are communication through text and email. There are messaging services and, between that and social media; how often does one ever pick up a phone and speak?! A lot of interviews are not being done through Skype and that human connection is lacking! Even if we call a big company; a lot of the time we are connecting with a machine and pre-recorded voices. From Wilson Pickett through to Blondie; the telephone has formed the bases of music for decades. Whether it is a hero dialling up his girl or suggesting the best digits she needs to call or the heroine waiting for a call late into the night; the phone has always carried this potent symbolism and imagery. It can be used as a romantic tool or a way of communicating urgency but I wonder whether we have as many phone-related songs now as decades before. Look at cities like London and you always see tourists posing beside them and I often wonder whether anyone uses them and whether they exist merely to provide photo opportunities. In many ways, the street-level phones many of us used to rely on, pre-mobile phones, seem to be either symbols of past days or have become obsolete. Many are in a state of disrepair. It is sad to see but musicians are still using the phone in the same way musicians always have.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @rawpixel/Unsplash

I will bring in an article that examines the shift in trends but it seems, although the romantic notion of sweethearts talking for hours has been replaced to an extent; we have not come so far as to replace the phone with text and swiping left or right. The article I will bring in makes a good point: many people see voicemail as a violation! How many of us leave a message (rather than text) and do we ever check them?! A lot of us do not have landlines and, as we use Smartphones; so much of what we do is texted. Music still employs the telephone when it comes to romance and friendship but it is interesting music has not shifted so much artists are referencing texting, Snapchat and Instagram. I can detect social media and technology coming into some Pop music but is referencing texting and dating apps etc. the same way artists used to talk about the telephone a step too far?! The Guardian covered this topic a couple of months ago and it resonated with me:

“From Glenn Miller’s Pennsylvania 6-5000 to Drake’s Hotline Bling, pop’s obsession with telecommunications is long and glorious; Lady Gaga committed to the theme so strongly she wore a phone on her head. Phone songs have taken in anticipation (Abba’s Ring Ring), spontaneity (Call Me Maybe), popular hobbies (Village People’s Sex Over the Phone) and smartphones’ woeful battery life (Maroon 5’s Payphone)….

PHOTO CREDIT: @trojantrj  

And that’s before you consider phones’ real-world connections to pop. Decades before Spotify, the nearest teenage fans got to “on-demand” was Dial-a-Disc, where you would phone a number and listen to music looping on reel-to-reel tape machines. Mobile phones made their own impact: from the ringtone boom of the 2000s to the way the Walkman of the past is now built into all handsets, and even the way songwriters’ melody ideas are stored first as voicenotes. In the studio vocal booth, lyrics are read off a phone screen”.

Of course; when the likes of Blondie and whoever used the telephone in their music; this was back when people had landlines and leaving a voice message was not seen as weird. Although that romantic idea of the telephone has been modernised; musicians feel it is a little too much replacing that idea with texting and technology. It is somewhat cold and inhuman singing about texting someone or breaking up with that way. Although there is not that complete move from the telephone to Smartphones; the romantic symbolism and old-skool charm has been replaced. Adele’s Hello (released in 2015) is that old friend calling up; an emotional and revealing song that stands as one of her finest songs.

I feel there is a real opportunity for songwriters to embrace the telephone in a real and old-fashioned way. I am not suggesting we have those phones were you have to dial each number individually in a very pained way – can’t recall what the phones are called but you get them a lot in classic dramas – but the vision of two lovers trying to reach one another by the phone holds so much potency. Some of those sweethearts went to voicemail but it was the build-up before the call and the actual conversation that we were all waiting for. Even in 2018; songwriters realise the lure and importance of the phone:

“Phones are a very powerful trope,” acknowledges songwriter Jack Lee – and he should know. In the 1970s, he was a struggling musician in San Francisco. One afternoon, he received a call informing him that his phone line was about to be disconnected. However, there was time for one more incoming call, which informed him that a band were interested in covering one of his songs. The band were Blondie, the song was Hanging on the Telephone. From his home in Los Angeles, the 2018 version of Lee tells the Guide: “It changed my life, and it saved my life.”

But how true is this in the era of Generation Mute? In 2015, it was reported that phone use among young people had dropped by almost a quarter in just three years. Calling someone unannounced – or, God forbid, leaving a voicemail – is now an egregious attack on privacy. Let’s pick up the phone to Emily Warren, the co-writer of Dua Lipa’s New Rules. “Agreed!” she declares. “It’s a violation!” New Rules, she says, was inspired by the real-life predicament of co-writer Caroline Ailin, who was fielding texts and phonecalls from an ex. “We sat down to write a song that was a guidebook to ending that situation”.

IMAGE CREDIT: Flavs9701  

Has technology made the way we communicate more obsessive, bombarding and less physical? Consider that quote above and many of us have to deal with a barrage of texts and messages. I get countless emails a day and many people you see on the street are texting like ninjas on crystal meth! Digits that once would twiddle a phone cable coyly are now muscular and twitching because of endless texts and this rather obsessive lure. One of the reasons a song like Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone holds charge is because of that anticipation and the fact there was something human behind the words. Even if there was that frustration and sense of longing; we could all relate to what was being said and it (the song) has survived because of the power behind the words. In many ways, songs such as that are popular because they represent a time that no longer exists. I often compare the shift away from telephone-based songs to that age-old view of the highway. Consider the songwriters who discusses being on some dusty trail and the romance of American highways. Many people still take those trips but songwriters cannot really relate to that classic image of a sweet car burning down the highway without a care in the world. There is traffic and jams; we have more people about and, in many ways, one cannot realistically sell an image of a romantic stretch of road and the freedom of the open.

Pre-Internet and the technological boom; people could only really communicate via phone – or letter or fax if you want to be picky – and, as such, it is understandable why the telephone became such an iconic and reliable trope. Now, as I said, most of the ways in which we communicate with a sweetheart or do our daily bidding is either via email, group chats or texts. So many men and women (mainly women) are besieged by texts and it seems like technology has made it easier for us to be obsessed, overly-forceful and, in many cases, plain stalker-like. It is that synthetic and technological aspect that gets to me: how can songwriters talk about being on the phone and hearing someone’s voice when, for the most part, we communicate through texts? Does this mean the phone has lost all of its meaning and music can no longer correlate the telephone with emotional resonance and deep desire? This article explores transmogrification and why the phone will always be important and can never be replaced by texting/emails:

“Yet there are still times when you need to hear someone’s voice – in matters of life, death or love. Which is why 2015’s biggest hits don’t feel too anachronistic. Furthermore, they’re in a grand pop tradition. As Vulture recently pointed out, the Big Bopper’s 1958 single Chantilly Lace set the bar for jams like Hotline Bling. In it, the libidinous singer spends the duration of the song on the telephone, complimenting a woman on her physical assets and peppering the chat with pet names”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @dollargill/Unsplash

One downside to texting is you never know if the person is who they say they are. Not many older songs dealt with duplicity and a faux voice over the other end – someone pretending to be the lover and duping the other. In an age where fake numbers are given and you can get your phone nicked – meaning you can impersonate someone easily – it is not easy to avoid a slightly creepy and dystopian image. The need to speak with someone and hear their voice is always there and, as the above article explained; you get that emotional hit and real connection that cannot be substituted. Consider the multiple dimensions and dynamics of a phone call. It can be a desperate call for help or an emotional call from across the seas. That need to hear someone’s voice and feel reassured is something, I feel, is not being rightly explored by a generation whose minds and eyes are distracted by screens. One can flirt via phone and there is that age-old bootie call; two old friends picking up after years away or, as I did as a child, calling someone up merely to hang and see how they are. Consider that last point. How often do we take the trouble to pick up the phone and ask how someone is or whether they saw that cool new drama last night? Texting and messaging seems to provide an easier and hassle-free option – no chance of voicemail or having to speak – and it would be forgivable if artists dispensed with vocal communication altogether.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @next_spideey21/Unsplash

Consider the nuances of the voice and the way it can never be superseded or demurred in terms of its immense power and warmth:

“A call carries an emotional charge which social media will never replicate. If a boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you via DM, you’d be humiliated – for them. And an important conversation via text will always come across as lazy, especially if you’ve shared something more special than the casual “u up?” exchange. This was proved comically last week when a woman texted the lyrics to Adele’s Hello to her ex-boyfriend as a joke. Also, texts could technically be sent or written by anyone with access to a cellphone. So despite our world having drastically changed since the days of Big Bopper, we still crave the confirmation that the person contacting us is emotionally engaged. Phone calls provide that. Texting and social media, not so much”.

Not only is there still a desire to have a voice speak to you at the other end of the line but a distinctly U.S. phenomenon has been revived – the hotline and that form of communication. I remember them from childhood – you used to get them in adverts and T.V. shows – but there was a time when artists stop referring to hotlines and they seemed tragically outdated. It seems, although not entirely, they are making a bit of a comeback – as this article explores in more detail:

“First up, some context: in 1990, fans could call David Bowie and leave a message to request the songs they wanted him to play on tour. Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince had The New Rap Hotline, 1-900-909-5333, where for $2 for the first minute (35¢ for each additional minute) you could hear a recorded message that changed daily. In the UK, Smash Hits had numbers in the back of the mag to call to listen to the week’s biggest pop hits – like a pay-per-minute Our Price listening post, only one your parents would get incredibly angry about when they saw the phone bill…

“After a few years of screening calls, phone hotlines made a comeback in 2015. On the Dark Sky Paradise album, Big Sean gave out his real cellphone number, 313-515-8772, and fielded calls from fans before realising that, actually, saying “Yes, it’s really me” 8,205 times a day is boring. Shamir, meanwhile, played telephone agony aunt to fans to promote his breakup single Call It Off, while Justin Bieber fans could, er, make his Hotline Bling by calling 231-377-1113 to hear his remix of Drake’s hit”.

“So, is 2017, with Fever Ray and Eminem’s old-school music promotion tactics, the year pop goes analogue, like those irritating people who have swapped their iPhones for Nokia 3310s? The warning signs were there: Adele’s flip phone in the Hello video; Maroon 5’s Payphone; Liam Payne’s ringtone on Bedroom Floor. Could the fuzzy phone effect replace the crackly vinyl sound that lazy producers use to make a track sound “classic”? Will Beyoncé drop the mystique and be calling you 24/7 like an annoying PPI spammer? Will Taylor Swift leave you long, pointless voicemails like your mum? Call us on our premium-rate number, 0800 111 GUIDE, to find out!”

The more artists and consumers investigate and dust-off older music; the more we are becoming aware of new ideas. Consider songs about the telephone and how, when we listen to them, they make us feel warm, nostalgic and, in a way, better. I can listen to Stevie Wonder or Blondie talking about the telephone and can picture what they are singing and the mere imagery makes me imagination swim.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @gypsycompassrose/Unsplash

Even they we live in a time where, as we’re told, we are less connected and happier to avoid talking altogether; there are so many opportunities for songwriters to revoke the beauty and power of the telephone. We all still use them in everyday life: from discussing a job interview to calling your folks; they have not been replaced entirely by texting and emails. Maybe a song that details a late-night call where both lovers are being told (by their angry parents) to end the call because it will break the bank would not fly today. We can all chat for hours for free and, as I said, the landline is becoming marginalised – most homes that have them tend only to rely on them now and then. Whether you feel the telephone is a relic and pointless device that should be left in the past or prefer to pick one up and actually speak with another human; you cannot deny the effect and impact they have made on popular music. The voice, and the nuanced emotions it holds, means we will always use them and, as such, musicians will be able to mine them for gold. Although the march of time has rendered some telephone-based avenues obsolete; artists still bring telephones into music and I feel they could go a lot further. Think about the reason why they existed in the first place and how memorable songs that mention them are. We are all becoming so lost in machines and screens that, in many ways, the telephone seems like an oddity. You can never be rid of the telephone and deny why we all still need them in our lives. Whereas more modern artists are talking about texts and modern distractions; many are keeping the telephone ringing and ensuring it does not get disconnected. I still love its (the telephone’s) romance and simplicity; how it has survived through the years and the ways it can really make an impact. That may make me sound old and slightly uncool but one cannot deny the importance and potency of…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @rawpixel/Unsplash

THE human voice.  

INTERVIEW: Melanie Taylor

INTERVIEW:

Melanie Taylor

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THANKS to Melanie Taylor…

for discussing her new single, Adderall, and its inspiration; what it was like filming the music video and whether there is more coming down the line – she recommends a rising artist that we need to get behind and watch closely.

I ask how which artists and albums have impacted her most and how she got into music; whether L.A. is important and influential regarding her writing; if there are gigs coming along and whether she has plans in place for 2019 – she ends the interview by selecting a '90s anthem.

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Hi, Melanie. How are you? How has your week been?

It’s been busy! I wear a lot of different hats and these days I’ve been changing them often and doing something all the time! I’m obviously an artist, but I also do shows for corporations’ parties and am starting my own record label! So, this week has been a lot about training our new interns. Plus, of course, my new music video’s release!

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

Hi. I’m Meanie Taylor; a Los Angeles based singer and songwriter. I would say I’m Indie-Pop with a soulful Rock edge a la the '90s because that’s what I grew up listening to. As a person, I guess I’m kind of a mix between the hippie stargazer, meditating with crystals and an urban city girl that likes to be surrounded by people. 

Adderall is your new song. How did that song come to you? What inspired it?

It honestly came out of a really bad fight I was having at the time with someone close to me. I wrote the verses and the pre-chorus all in a span of like ten mins when I was just trying to process my emotions and was like crying the whole time through it; it was cathartic for me. And then, when I brought the song to my co-writer (‘R8DIO’), he was like, “What if we made this song like a metaphor to taking Adderall?” and I was like, “That’s kind of bold, but also kind of perfect” - and that is how we got the chorus. In a broader sense, though, I wanted to express that when you hold onto emotions and don’t deal with them, you can end up hurting the people closest to you. 

The video is very striking! What was it like filming it? Who came up with the concept?

Thank you! I knew I wanted dancers to express the song, so I called a long-time friend and choreographer/artistic director, G Madison IV. He has worked with everyone and is on tour with Mariah Carey right now so needless to say he’s exceptionally talented. He took the idea of dance and just elevated it to this idea of me walking into an empty theatre where two dancers would be rehearsing and happen to be acting out the story of my life. He also really encouraged me to be as vulnerable visually as it is in the song, which I originally wasn’t going to do, but am really glad I went there. 

During the filming, the theatre’s A.C. was actually broken and it was extremely hot that day, so it speaks even more to the level of professionalism every one on set, especially the poor dancers, brought to the table! We also got really lucky with the projections; it was kind of an afterthought of images I found online and cut together that ended up being such a cool and needed element to the video!

Do you think there will be more material next year?

I will continue releasing a few more singles I’ve got up my sleeve and then possibly an E.P.!

In terms of other artists; who do you count as influences?

My favourite artist of all-time will always be Michael Jackson. I don’t think anyone can touch him in terms of stage performance and career longevity. I was also a huge Alanis Morissette fan and I think you can hear a lot of her influence in my more recent music. I also just grew up idolizing the kinds of singers who could really belt - Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. 

Can you recall when you got into music? How have your sounds changed since the early day?

I have always been singing; since before I could speak actually. I used to point at the radio and demand “lala”, which meant music to me, and then I would apparently sing incoherent lyrics with a big smile on my face. I was always doing choir and show-choir and then musical theatre growing up.   Once I moved to L.A., I had shifted my focus a little more towards acting at the time but I answered a casting call that looked interesting where a production team was looking for artists to promote in Europe and would pay for a single as well as a music video.

My story turned out a lot different, but that production team ended up being the people who brought you Friday by Rebecca Black! So, needless to say, I didn’t stay with them but they did actually help me get my start after giving me a really great music video and a song to start reaching out to other producers with. It was just a process of meeting the right people after that. I definitely used to have a much more straight Pop sound and started to find the more Indie, Electro-Pop with a '90s influence I have now during the making of my second album.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

I am working on the acoustic version of Adderall right now, which will be out really soon. That’s really where the song started, so I thought there should be a version of how it was originally written out there as well that is a little more true to the emotion of the concept. 

Additionally, I’ll be doing a few more performances in the L.A. area before the end of the year and have a special Dance cut version of the video I’m waiting just a bit to release as well…but will definitely be out soon.

Do you already have plans for 2019?

I have a release plan for a few new singles that I’m excited to release! And I’m also really looking forward to getting back in the studio and just continuing to create.  

How important is L.A. regarding your inspiration and vibe? Is it a great place to live?

It’s great for a lot of reasons. Obviously, the sunshine and the vast amount of talent and opportunity here is amazing. However, I’m not as attached to it as I used to be. I think, with the world of technology that we live in, I can kind be making music and promoting it from anywhere. I am extremely drawn to experiencing new cultures and places and that stimulus of travel is actually what inspires me most. So, that’s why I spent a month in Southeast Asia this past January and why it was so amazing to have the opportunity to tour in Australia this past summer!

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

I actually think this past summer’s tour has made it very high on my list. Not only because it was such a dream come true to be experiencing a country I had always wanted to go to, but because I overcame some blocks about performing I didn’t even know I had. For pretty much all of my shows I perform with a band and these shows in Australia required me to just have a D.J. or simply backing tracks, which means I’m on stage all alone - and the idea of that really scared me for some reason.

However, once I started getting into it, I found that it made me connect so much more to the audience than I ever had before and I actually felt freer and in control than any time I’ve performed with a band. I had some hilarious and amazing moments with the audiences in Australia I’ll never forget. Not to say I’m just going to ditch my band now, but it made me realize I was partly hiding behind them instead of doing all the things I did when they weren’t there. 

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette; HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I – Michael Jackson; Back to Black – Amy Winehouse

Jagged Little Pill because of the storytelling her raw emotion expressed - which was just so refreshing and like noting I had ever experienced before as a kid. It was freeing and made me feel empowered. Even now, I listen and just applaud them for their songwriting skills.

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I, I think is probably one of the world’s top-three albums, so I don’t even need to explain the genius that is Michael Jackson and his greatest hits. But, for me, I listened to that album probably twice a day for three or four years as a little kid; dancing around my living room as if I was right there with him. It just shows what an incredible range he had from fun and sexy songs like The Way You Make Me Feel, to one of the most powerful songs ever written, Earth Song.

And, Amy! I also listened to that album twice a day for a very, very long time. Obviously; she had something that no-one will ever be able to re-create but I definitely took a lot of notes on her vocalization.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Bishop Briggs. I think she’s an incredible artist and has been a huge influence for me in my current music.

 As for my rider; I don’t think I’d get too entitled until I really felt I earned it. Haha. But, I would definitely request there be like a dressing room with fresh veggies/hummus and tea…maybe some whiskey? (Smiles).

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

To practice! Every day. I even have to remember to do this myself, but your voice is actually a muscle that needs to be strengthened like anything else. Cultivating stage presence, or even feeling comfortable on stage, doesn’t happen overnight; you need to work at it. Keep getting experience however and whenever you can.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

I will be doing a show in L.A. on Nov 6th at State Social House to celebrate this music video release! For all other upcoming dates just check my website.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Donna Missal

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Well. Speaking of the artist I said I would want to open for (Bishop Briggs); the artist opening for her at the moment is named Donna Missal and is also an incredible talent I first heard about from a mutual producer we’ve both worked with. Her voice, songs; everything is awesome!

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

I have two corgis and they, and my boyfriend I guess, probably get the majority of my time when I’m not working on music! (Of course, they have an Instagram account because what kind of L.A. dog owner would I be if I didn’t give them one - and it’s @thunderboltcorgi if you want a daily dose of cuteness in your life!).

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that). 

Awesoome! My special request is most definitely 4 Non Blondes - What’s Up? I recently covered it at a show and it was so much fun. I feel like everyone can relate to that song, especially in the crazy times we’re living in!

___________

Follow Melanie Taylor

Official:

https://www.melanietaylorofficial.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MissMTMusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/MelanieTaylorMusic

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/MelanieTaylorMusic/

YouTube:

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

SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/melanietaylor-1

INTERVIEW: B Green

INTERVIEW:

B Green

___________

THE awesome B Green has been telling me about…

his new single, Christopher Columbus, and its interesting story. I ask him what comes next and which artists he is inspired by; a few albums that mean a lot to him and whether there are any plans to tour and come to the U.K.

The Atlanta-based artist tells me why the city draws people in; how he manages to chills away from music; which artist he’d support given the chance; the advice he would give to artists emerging – B Green ends the interview by selecting a Prince classic.

__________

Hi, B Green. How are you? How has your week been?

Good, no complaints. Focusing on promoting this record.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

I’m B Green; a musician from Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) currently living in Atlanta, GA. I sing, rap; produce and play some instruments – I do a lot of things creatively. I just released a song, Christopher Columbus, and it’s getting a lot of positive feedback.

Christopher Columbus is your new single. What is the story behind it?

It’s me dismantling colonialism in a song. Taking Christopher Columbus, an icon of the West, to task for many of the atrocities carried out on his behalf and in his wake. It’s also a hard-hitting, Techno-savvy club song but hidden in the nuances and backstory are images that paint a very vivid picture.

I understand an album is coming. Can you reveal any themes and inspiration behind the songs?

I have an entire life’s worth of inspiration to draw from! Topics range from unrequited love, to being black in America; to the beauty of dreams, to being financially insecure - nothing is off limits. I like to write songs that are distinctly my own and ideally this album will be a representation of everything I have to offer as a creative.

As a Hip-Hop artist/M.C.; how important was Atlanta regarding your tastes and direction? What is the scene like there at the moment?

Atlanta is currently the epicentre for both Hip-Hop and Urban music’s consumption and creation. There’s no better place to be with regards to resources, competition; collaboration or any plethora of things. I love Atlanta because it’s unabashedly raw and African-Americans flock from across the country in attempts to grab a piece of the money that seems to be circling the city’s bubbling industries. It’s kept me on my toes and hungry because everybody seems to be only around the corner from the success they so desperately desire. I’m on the precipice and I like having Atlanta as a home base because it’s a big city but it’s slow and charming.

In terms of influences; which musicians did you grow up around?

I grew up listening to what my parents were listening to and that included a lot of old Soul classics like Patti LaBelle, Stevie Wonder; The Isley Brothers, Maze; Isaac Hayes and the likes. When I developed my own tastes, it was for guys with Pop sensibilities like Michael Jackson and Prince. I began playing the drums in church at eight-years-old and, as I grew older, I picked up the guitar out of admiration for guys like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix. Writing poems was something I always did because I was an avid reader. Eventually, I decided to marry my poetry with my instruments and write some songs like my inspiration Bob Marley.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

Christopher Columbus will surpass a million streams on Spotify, which will allow us to set up a festival run throughout spring and summer of 2019. We’ll take the popularity from the streams and the momentum from the tour to release the debut album, Go, in the second half of 2019.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

Four years ago, I was working on a lion share of songs over the holiday weekend with a close friend of mine. We, unfortunately, couldn’t afford to travel home and be with our families for Thanksgiving so we decided to turn that energy into creative energy and worked through the holiday. We grabbed a pre-cooked turkey and some sides from the local grocery store and ate Thanksgiving dinner in the studio. We proclaimed that we would remember the day we had to eat holiday dinner in the studio because we didn’t have any money to travel home and no friends to visit.

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill – Lauryn Hill

It was the first album that blew my mind as a child and, when I returned to it as an adult, it blew my mind again just in a different manner. There aren’t many perfect artistic creations in existence; I think it’s one of the few.

Late Registration by Kanye West

Because that was the album (when I knew) that I was positive there was nothing else that I was going to do with my life other than make music. That album is perfect, to me. I was young and smart and black and angry and this album helped me navigate my way through a lot of my teenage days.

Finally; I’ll have to say Thriller – Michael Jackson

Not for the same reasons as everybody else! When I was a small child, maybe eight-years-old, I discovered a dusty dubbed tape in the basement simply labelled Thriller and, being a curious child, I took the tape, found a Walkman and popped it in. I probably listened to that tape three hours a day for the next few years of my life. It was a perfect album to me. I stumbled on it by happenstance – but I loved it by nature. I saw something in this album and in music that I identified with deeply enough to make recreating the feeling my life’s passion.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Probably Stevie Wonder because I could cut loose on the guitar while he got down on the piano - and he has a catalogue full of classics.

My rider would probably entail a couple cases of water and a tray with a bunch of tiny little sandwiches – they take riders off the top of your take-home pay!

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Stay focused because the race never goes to the swift but to those who endure.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

I’m piecing together a North American festival tour as we speak. I’ll be in the U.K. performing at a few festivals as well.

Might you come to the U.K. and perform?

I’m working on booking some festivals in the U.K. currently. So, you might see me there in the spring; fingers crossed.

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Can I recommend myself?

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

Honestly; I like to solo over loops that I made for hours on end to unwind. Granted, it’s music but it’s a different part of the musical appendage. It’s not creative per se; it’s more open-ended and freeing. Soloing is awesome because it’s like painting a canvas that you never quite cover – there’s always more to be added.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

I Would Die 4 U – Prince. One of my favourites

___________

Follow B Green

Official:

https://brysongreen.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BGreenGoGreen

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/BGreenGoGreen/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/bgreengogreen/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1250g52u11urhttCJRS6y1

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMJnFHTYVbtXOdKCJP-1ITQ

FEATURE: The Greatest Year in Music History? 1967: Twelve Essential Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

The Greatest Year in Music History?

IN THIS PHOTO: Jimi Hendrix/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images 

1967: Twelve Essential Albums

__________

THERE is a lot of debate as to which musical year…

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Who during their stop in San Francisco (during the Summer of Love) where they played two concerts at The Fillmore on 16th and 17th June, 1967/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Marshall Photography LLC

is the absolute finest. I am drawn between 1994 and 1967. The former is one I loved through and can attest to the brilliance and incredible genius that came through. I will write another piece regarding 1994 and how we witnessed a rare and beautiful time for music. 1967 is a year that is no slouch regarding the music that came through! Look at the fantastic songs that emerged in that year. The Beatles brought us Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever and All You Need Is Love. Procol Harem released A Whiter Shade of Pale and we saw The Who’s I Can See for Miles and The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset.

That is just the tip of a giant iceberg and you can see how these artists inspired future generations. Of course; there was the Summer of Love (in 1967) and a time when people were using peace (and substances a bit stronger) to combat oppression, corruption and hatred. It must have been an exciting and colourful time and it is no surprise such eclectic and fantastic music came about. The effects and reverberation from 1967 and, in some ways, still being felt right now. I love the songs from that year - but it is the albums that hold the greatest weight. It is hard to narrow them down but I have selected twelve 1967-released records that demonstrate what an epic and wonderful year it was. Have a look through the selection and I am sure you will find many that are in your record collection. It is a genius-laden rundown that makes a great case regarding 1967 being…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jorma Kaukonen, Spencer Dryden and Grace Slick during a photoshoot in Golden Gate Park, May 1967/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Marshall Photography LLC

THE finest year for music ever.  

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

______________

Nico – Chelsea Girl

Release Date: October 1967

Label: Verve Records

Review:

“Nico once admitted that she could not relate to the songs Reed wrote for her. “I can’t identify with that,” she said of “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “to notice only the beautiful and not the ugliness.” Despite its melancholy, Chelsea Girl is still very much caught up in this world of the Screen Test, one focused on ineffable, alluring melancholy. To today’s casual Nico fans, she still exists in this bubble, a blonde monolith in a white pantsuit, a vessel for dreams and desires. But to consider Nico as frozen in her Chelsea Girl years is a disservice to the active efforts she made later in life to move beyond her image. But consider all of Nico, the strange circumstances of the Velvet Underground, the image of Chelsea Girl, and the horrific, inexcusable actions of her later life. It’s a wholeness she craved all along” – Pitchfork

Standout Track: Little Sister

Captain Beefheart – Safe as Milk

Release Date: June 1967

Label: Buddah

Review:

“Beefheart's first proper studio album is a much more accessible, pop-inflected brand of blues-rock than the efforts that followed in the late '60s -- which isn't to say that it's exactly normal and straightforward. Featuring Ry Cooder on guitar, this is blues-rock gone slightly askew, with jagged, fractured rhythms, soulful, twisting vocals from Van Vliet, and more doo wop, soul, straight blues, and folk-rock influences than he would employ on his more avant-garde outings. "Zig Zag Wanderer," "Call on Me," and "Yellow Brick Road" are some of his most enduring and riff-driven songs, although there's plenty of weirdness on tracks like "Electricity" and "Abba Zaba." [Buddha's 1999 reissue of Safe as Milk contained restored artwork and seven bonus tracks.]” – AllMusic

Standout Track: Electricity

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Release Date: 26th May, 1967

Label: Parlophone (U.K.)/Capitol (U.S.)

Review:

“Some songs, such as Lovely Rita, When I’m 64, Good Morning, Good Morning, Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite and Harrison’s dour, droning Within You Without You, seem undernourished excuses on which to hang florid ideas. But the title track is an improbable scorcher, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds a glittering gem, Fixing a Hole and She’s Leaving Home lovely chamber pieces, and the concluding A Day in the Life one of the strangest and most beautiful recordings ever, an inner-space odyssey juxtaposing Lennon’s ethereal surrealism with McCartney’s prosaic energy and wrapping it all up in an apocalyptic orchestral climax” – The Telegraph  

Standout Track: A Day in the Life

The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico

Release Date: 12th March, 1967

Label: Verve

Review:

“Lou Reed's lyrical exploration of drugs and kinky sex (then risky stuff in film and literature, let alone "teen music") always received the most press attention, but the music Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker played was as radical as the words they accompanied. The bracing discord of "European Son," the troubling beauty of "All Tomorrow's Parties," and the expressive dynamics of "Heroin" all remain as compelling as the day they were recorded. While the significance of Nico's contributions have been debated over the years, she meshes with the band's outlook in that she hardly sounds like a typical rock vocalist, and if Andy Warhol's presence as producer was primarily a matter of signing the checks, his notoriety allowed The Velvet Underground to record their material without compromise, which would have been impossible under most other circumstances. Few rock albums are as important as The Velvet Underground & Nico, and fewer still have lost so little of their power to surprise and intrigue more 50 years after first hitting the racks” – AllMusic   

Standout Track: Venus in Furs

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced

Release Date: 12th May, 1967

Label: Track

Review:

“Whilst some of the licks shot-blasted across the disc ape the twangy pop tones of the day, his solo on “Manic Depression” sounds like its being beamed in from another dimension altogether. “Red House” remains a dazzling blues exhibition that rightly made the jaws of London’s musical elite drop. It’s a sobering thought that when this originally came out in May 1967, the only other serious contender for the crown of guitar godhood, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, was still six months from being released.

The psychedelic flummeries added to an already rich recipe (the title track and “Third Stone From The Sun”) occasionally results in a kind of multi-coloured indigestion. Whilst such embroidery indelibly watermarks the album, it rarely detracts from the stand-out, casual brilliance that is so abundant. This is the sound of the future arriving; tacky, awkward, inspirational, exciting, perplexing and sometimes contradictory for sure, but the future nonetheless” – BBC

Standout Track: Purple Haze

Love – Forever Changes

Release Date: 1st November, 1967

Label: Elektra

Review:

“…Reality resumes on the aptly titled “Bummer in the Summer,” the album’s most straightforward (and weakest) track. It finds Lee doing a Dylan-esque sing-talk that sounds a lot like rapping to me. And speaking of rap, an alternate mix of the album’s closing suite, “You Set the Scene,” which can be found on both this and the 2001 edition of Forever Changes, includes some previously unheard lyrical freestyling (who said Debbie Harry was the first rocker to do hip-hop?). The 40th anniversary edition also includes alternate mixes of the rest of the album, songs from the band’s follow-up single “Your Mind and We Belong Together”/“Laughing Stock” (which didn’t fare any better than the album), and various previously unreleased material that neither adds nor detracts from what has rightfully become one of the most highly regarded and influential rock records of all time” – Slant    

Standout Track: A House Is Not a Motel

Pink Floyd – The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Release Date: 4th August, 1967  

Label: EMI Columbia/Tower

Review:

“Few would criticize the merits of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn itself (as reflected in the rating above)-- it's an essential album. While so many other products of the Summer of Love were positive and unifying, Piper was fractured and scary. Songs like "Astronomy Domine" and "Interstellar Overdrive" captured the sustained improvisational freakouts of the band's live shows, but did so in more concise form. Other songs, like "Lucifer Sam," "Bike", and "The Gnome", split the difference between quirky pop songs and explorations of the nightmarish found-sound fringe, setting a twisted template for countless acts to come. By 1980's The Wall, Pink Floyd had become sterile and solipsistic. At this auspicious start, Pink Floyd were thrilling. Anything was possible” – Pitchfork     

Standout Track: Interstellar Overdrive

The Doors – The Doors

Release Date: 4th January, 1967  

Label: Elektra

Review:

“"Light My Fire" was the cut that topped the charts and established the group as stars, but most of the rest of the album is just as impressive, including some of their best songs: the propulsive "Break on Through" (their first single), the beguiling mystery of "The Crystal Ship," the mysterious "End of the Night," "Take It as It Comes" (one of several tunes besides "Light My Fire" that also had hit potential), and the stomping rock of "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox." The 11-minute Oedipal drama "The End" was the group at its most daring and, some would contend, overambitious. It was nonetheless a haunting cap to an album whose nonstop melodicism and dynamic tension would never be equaled by the group again, let alone bettered” – AllMusic      

Standout Track: The End

Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

Release Date: 10th March, 1967  

Label: Atlantic

Review:

“…And do I even need to mention her voice" Well, here's an anecdote. Aretha famously burst into the Atlantic Records studios and told the Muscle Shoals session musicians, as a manner of introducing herself, 'Get your damn shoes on, you're getting someone who can REALLY sing.' The immediate reaction was one of jaded amusement - they'd heard it all before - and yawns. Then she sat at the piano and starting singing "Respect". They weren't jaded for long after that. The song was recorded with the crack rhythm section right there and then, and that take is the one you hear on this album. Tellingly, underneath the article I've quoted this anecdote from (Q's Top 100 Albums Ever, January 2003), there is a comment from one Sian North, via e-mail. "The greatest female singer ever - bar none!" Anyone care - nay, DARE - to disagree with that"

If nothing else I've said has hit you, then just wonder - how many soul albums are anywhere near as critically acclaimed as this is by both the rock critics and the soul community" This is vital listening if you want to understand the development of black vocal music. It's a landmark in every sense” – Sputnik Music       

Standout Track: Respect

The Who – The Who Sell Out

Release Date: 15th December, 1967   

Label: Track

Review:

“Still things didn’t run smoothly; that wasn’t The Who way. John Entwistle broke a finger punching a dressing-room wall; Keith Moon suffered a hernia; Roger Daltrey – required for the now-classic sleeve to sit for hours in a bath of baked beans – got pneumonia. And The Who’s recording sessions (unlike those of, say, The Beatles) were haphazard affairs, done here and there, all over the place. The mini-opera “Rael” (itself the blueprint for several parts of Tommy) had to be recorded twice, on two different continents, after the first lot of tapes were thrown into a dumpster by a studio cleaner. And the Track Records ad that finishes the second side was recorded over the phone, Moon and Entwistle crooning it from a nearby public bar. This definitive two-disc edition – crammed with try-outs, outtakes and discards, some of them brilliant (“Glittering Girl”, “Jaguar”) – perfectly and finally captures that creative chaos.

In the end, though, Townshend’s wonderful songs (“I Can See For Miles”, “Our Love Was”, “I Can’t Reach You”, “Relax” and the rest), and the band’s sheer exuberance, overcame all obstacles. The Who went on to make more important records (Live At Leeds, Tommy) and better records (Who’s Next, Quadrophenia). But, as this package joyously proves, they never made anything more entertaining or endearing” – Uncut        

Standout Track: I Can See for Miles

Buffalo Springfield – Buffalo Springfield Again

Release Date: 18th November, 1967

Label: Atco

Review:

“The album's lowest point however, follows the lonely and melancholic ballad Furay sings almost alone with his guitar ("Sad Memory"). "Good Time Boy" is sung by their drummer, Dewey Martin who is without a doubt a competent percussionist, but his imitation of soul on this track is both cruel to the lyrics and far from the creativity and high musical standard the rest of the album has. 

Neil's closing song on the album is an experimental song which includes changes from 4/4 measure to 3/4 and an illusion of changing melodies from verse to verse. His voice, Dewey's drums and Don Randi's piano steer the track from beginning to end accompanied by strange audio clips, and audiences cheering to several bizarre music acts including a Martin Sung "Mr. Soul" and an organ grinder. The song is called "Broken Arrow", with its lyrics deep in the Young universe, finding traces of the same story in other songs such as "The last Trip To Tulsa" and "Down By The River".

In short, the album's strengths are its classic rock and country songs, its catchy, blues and country inspired guitar interplay, and its great vocal arrangements both in backing ("Rock And Roll Woman") and harmony ("A Child's Claim to Fame"). Some of the most well-known Buffalo Springfield songs are included in this well-produced, well-made album and so it deserves the status of a classic: 5/5” – Sputnik Music         

Standout Track: Expecting to Fly                 

Jefferson Airplane – Surrealistic Pillow

Release Date: 1st February, 1967

Label: RCA Victor

Review:

“Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era, when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements, before excessive experimentation (musical and chemical) began affecting the band's ability to do a straightforward song. The group never made a better album, and few artists from the era ever did” – AllMusic          

Standout Track: White Rabbit

FEATURE: Britney Spears and a Mighty Debut Single …Baby One More Time at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Britney Spears and a Mighty Debut Single

IN THIS IMAGE: The single cover for Britney Spears’ debut single, …Baby One More Time/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images 

…Baby One More Time at Twenty

__________

I recently produced a piece that…

IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears (circa 2018)/PHOTO CREDIT: Herb Ritts

asked whether Pop music is capable of producing anthems. By that, I do not mean a simple genre called ‘Pop’: I mean every genre that is popular and visible in the mainstream. It has been years since I have encountered a song that can live through the ages! Think about those tracks you recall to mind and provoke great memories and, for most of us, they are from many years back! I think of the Britpop anthems of the 1990s and stuff that was coming out around then. The way I see it; there was this glorious radius where the three or four years prior to 1994 were spectacular and building up that revolution and, from then until, say, 1998/1999, there was this further move that kept the quality high and embraced new sounds. The 1990s as a whole was a great time for music but it was especially brilliant when it came to those bold and memorable Pop tracks. From the best British bands through the U.S. girl groups and the fantastic Pop coming from the country – we were spoiled for choice and enjoyed a rich regency. One thinks of Pop music coming from teenagers now and you might cringe and think the resultant sound is good to be dreadful. To be honest; most of the best Pop music/mainstream stuff you find is from established artists or that which lacks commercial ambition.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Christian Storz

Think back to 1998 and, in terms of Pop anthems, one song stood out: ….Baby One More Time. The debut of the U.S. icon took everyone by surprise and sent shockwaves through music. I am not saying it was as bold as Punk or as seismic as Britpop but, as introductions go, it was one of the more impressive of the decade. I will talk about Britney Spears’ debut single and why it signalled the arrival of a rare talent but, before then, a bit of background on Spears and, indeed, the music that was around in 1998. In June 1997; Britney Spears was in talks with her manager Lou Pearlman about the possibility of joining the female Pop group Innosense (remember them?!). Lynne Spears, Britney’s mum, sent the entertainment lawyer Larry Rudolph a tape of her daughter singing a karaoke version of Whitney Houston with some pictures attached.

IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Rudolph was impressed and felt, rightly, here was a potential star he wanted to send to labels. He wanted a professional demo, and so, the process began. Rudolph sent Spears an unused Toni Braxton song and she recorded her vocals. Spears travelled to New York to meet with four labels but, in the case of three of them, found the same problem: they wanted all-girl/all-boy bands who were in vogue at the time. They felt there was not going to be a 1990s version of Tiffany or Madonna. The 1990s would see other female solo artists become Pop icons – even though Madonna was very much active in 1998 – and they felt groups were the commercial dollar.

 IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for Britney Spears’ album, …Baby One More Time/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

It would be understandable for an ambitious and excited Spears to feel rejected and downhearted after being rejected by three labels. The fact they outright disliked her vocals/song – it was merely a case of her being a solo artist – meant a pleasing call from JIVE Records changed everything. Senior A&R man Jeff Fenster stated Spears’ debut has pop, drive and determination. For someone of that age (she was sixteen at the time) to deliver something commercial but have a lot of emotion and nuance come through was a rarity. Spears was not delivering a song in that very pale and predictable way many Pop artists did. There was emotional range and you could tell she meant every word that was being sung – something that impressed Fenster a great deal. Fenster and the label were also not seeing Spears as this disposal and easy-to-label star many labels were trotting out. There was something personal and distinctly ‘Britney’ coming from that tape. After the label’s president Clive Calder ordered a full album, there was this whirlwind period where Spears met with producers and flied to Sweden. Spears saw herself, at aged sixteen, as a sort of Sheryl Crow-type artist but for a slightly younger audience. When at the studios in Stockholm, Sweden; Spears was shown a song that was originally written for Backstreet Boys and TLC.

 IN THIS PHOTO: The Backstreet Boys in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Spin

The fact they rejected the song led to Spears’ revelation: …Baby One More Time would sound wrong in the hands of the Backstreet Boys and is a little too ‘Pop’ for the savvy, feisty and unique TLC. Spears knew the song would be a hit and JIVE felt the same – it was the first step of her career and arguably, it is her crowning moment. Spears went on to record anthems like Oops!... I Did It Again (2000) and Toxic (2003) but many feel her debut song tops those. The single cover for …Baby One More Time showed this fresh-faced, slightly sullen teenager who was cute and, to be fair, almost child-like in her appearance. The video, as I shall explore, subverted all expectations and showed that, even at sixteen, Spears was no ordinary and modest star – she was pushing boundaries and getting people talking!

The album, …Baby One More Time, was released in January 1999 and, again, showed Spears as this rather cute and sweet teenager – although there is seductive and sexual edge to her smile/pose. Although there was another smash on the album (You Drive Me) Crazy; it seemed like the lead-off single was the definite high-point. This retrospective review, written in 2006, praised …Baby One More Time’s title cut but was dubious about the remainder of the record:

“...Baby One More Time is inexorably linked with image. It is challenging to listen to any of her songs without picturing the corresponding video, or her Rolling Stone cover, or her 2000 MTV Video Music Awards appearance, or her 2003 VMA kiss with Madonna. But Britney has adopted (or has had forced upon her, depending upon your interpretation) a series of contradicting images throughout her career, and especially during her ...Baby One More Time phase. She was being marketed as an icon of innocence alwhile being not-so-subtly promoted as a sexual being. She sang of sex and lust while championing her professed virginity in interviews. The cover of the very album at question features Spears in a wholesome getup with an angelic smile on her face - but her pose is hardly a marker of chastity with the focal point being quite inappropriate for 16-year old artist being sold to 12-year old girls…

 

With the exception of the terrific title track, ...Baby One More Time is a collection of either competent pop songs underwhelmingly executed or underwhelmingly written pop songs competently executed. Attractive pop gloss coats even the most absurd of the tracks, making them, at the very least, well recorded, produced, and arranged. But I can't picture Spears looking back on this album with any sense of pride or accomplishment. Is it any wonder that she won't be performing 'E-mail My Heart' or 'Soda Pop' on the next tour" They're downright embarrassing. But ...Baby One More Time is an interesting album in that it offers a marker for Spears' progression as an artist, as a celebrity, and as a woman”.

If Spears would find greater consistency and critical acclaim on her second and third albums; it is clear her debut single was a glorious moment for Pop that announced this rare and distinct personality. Max Martin wrote …Baby One More Time and, as his chart success and prolificacy shows; he seems to have this secret formula when it comes to penning a Pop gem. He wrote Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life and the Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way; he has co-written/written songs like I Kissed a Girl (Katy Perry) and Blank Space (Taylor Swift). He is the songwriter with the third-most number-one (Billboard Hot 100) singles ever (twenty-two), behind John Lennon and Paul McCartney. As a producer, he has the second-most Hot 100 singles to his name (twenty) – behind the twenty-three of Beatles producer George Martin!

It seemed like Martin was the perfect man to help bring Britney Spears’ magic and marvel to the world. …Baby One More Time is a song in the key of C minor and has a 4/4 common time signature. With compositional elements similar to Robyn Carlssons’ Show Me Love – drum patterns, wah guitars and piano hits – it is a big and interesting song that unites brilliantly physical vocals with an evolving, changing and colourful composition. One of the reasons why Britney Spears’ debut single hits right away is because …Baby One More Time announced its presence instantly! There is no time for a build-up or any sort of mystery: you are right inside the track and it struts right out of the traps! The lyrics, I guess, are about longing and wanting to rekindle a relationship. The subject matter brilliantly complies with the history of Pop and themes relatable to a teenage audience (mainly girls) but does not do so in an ordinary and by-numbers way. It may have been written by Martin but you can believe every word is from the diary of Britney Spears. The ellipsis at the beginning of the song’s title follows the words “Hit me...” Maybe having that full title would provoke images of abuse, kinkiness or some kind of fetish – many people around the time felt the song was about sadomasochism or being hit!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Blur in the 1990s/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Press

In fact, as Spears stated, it was more about that emotional hit and rush of lust she had with this guy; the need to get that back and reignite her soul! It is clear Pop music was going through some changes towards the mid/late-1990s. We has seen the Britpop era end around 1997 and, to many, it felt like more American guitar music was taking over. There was this transition and no real gems in the market in terms of radio-friendly, mainstream songs. Spears started this revival that led to some brilliant Pop revelations. I will come to that but this cornerstone of the Pop market arrived in a year (1998) where the likes of Madonna and Lauryn Hill were reigning. The Queen of Pop (Madonna) was embracing a more electronic, moody and different sound to the one we were used to – in many ways, Spears was following in the footsteps of an early Madonna. Massive Attack (Mezzanine) and Beastie Boys (Hello Nasty) brought out these big and edgy albums whilst Hole’s Celebrity Skin kept the spirit of Grunge, Alternative-Rock and Alternative alive. It was an album that helped start a mini-revolution of its own and Dance music found a new gem in the form of Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. Beck’s Mutations and Manic Street Preachers impressed with This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. Alanis Morissette’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie was turning heads…

1999 saw brilliant albums from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eminem; Blur, The Chemical Brothers and Moby. Blink-182 and Mogwai were busy and, as you can see, the years when the single and album of the same name were released…it wasn’t as though Spears had a lot of like-minded company! Maybe it was this sudden spark that arrived in this harder-edge and less Pop-orientated market that catapulted …Baby One More Time to strange heights. Maybe the albums market was not primed for Britney Spears but there were great and accessible singles from Sheryl Crow (My Favourite Mistake), Barenaked Ladies (One Week) and Faith Hill (This Kiss) that meant Spears’ debut song was not such an oddity. Aside from a couple of confident and anthemic Pop numbers in the form of The Boy Is Mine (Monica ft. Brandy) and You Get What You Give (New Radicals); there was nothing similar to what Britney Spears was putting out. We had Garbage telling us to Push It and Madonna had her Ray of Light but there was no other young, female U.S. Popstar that was bringing something so intense, evocative and memorable to us! We would see great Pop solo artists come about and we left some behind but, in 1998, Spears seemed to be in a league of her own and just what the music market needed!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears in 2018/PHOTO CREDIT: @francesiacuzzi

I will end by looking at its legacy and how its video helped augment the song’s brilliance but this great article from the Independent caught my eye. Celebrating twenty years of …Baby One More Time; writer Lucy Jones reflects on the song’s wonder and layers:  

“Listen to it 20 years later and it’s still a startling, catchy pop song (although the optics of the video are more obviously problematic). But what actually, apart from a heady dose of personal nostalgia if you grew up in the Nineties, makes the song so good? First off, two words: Max Martin.

The songwriter’s musical background was eclectic. He grew up in a small island off the coast of Sweden listening to Elton John, Queen, Vivaldi, Mozart, Depeche Mode and the Bangles. He learnt how to read and write music thanks to a public music-education programme, and formed a glam-rock band called It’s Alive. Their albums bombed, but you can hear in the songs Martin’s acute understanding of pop, and his ability to use a voice to communicate emotion. He also landed a record deal with the late, legendary Swedish songwriter and producer Denniz PoP on Cheiron, who hired him and nurtured his songwriting talent. He started writing for Backstreet Boys, Westlife and Robyn. But “...Baby One More Time” was the first major commercial hit for the multimillionaire songwriting powerhouse...

IN THIS PHOTO: A shot from the video for …One More Time/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images/Nigel Dick

“The beat’s straightforward, four-on-the-floor rhythm with punchy, crashy backbeat kick and compressed snare drums is typical of early Max Martin. The dynamics are simple and solid. The “bridge” is more repetition of what we’ve heard before rather than a middle eight of completely different harmonic structure. The bottom drops out of the music and Britney’s voice is accompanied by a simple piano before the song crescendos into a maximalist: “I must confess! That my loneliness! Is killing me now!”

He’s also talked about changing the energy of the first, second and third chorus of a song. “It’s all about getting the listener to keep his or her concentration.”

Of course, it’s not just about Martin. Britney’s “baby voice”, which is different to her natural voice, is signature and instantly recognisable from the first “Oh baby baby”. According to Martin, she had a “good sense of catching the melody, performing it, taking it to another level. That’s what you’re looking for as a songwriter.” She is often adept at communicating the emotional content of a song”.

There are some songs that succeed and have a disappointing video or those that can be elevated by a great promotional clip but, in the case of …Baby One More Time; the incredible song and its eye-catching video were pretty evenly-matched. Nigel Dick directed the video – the British director has directed over five-hundred, including Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? – and that gained some flak from his peers. The original idea was to have Spears in a T-shirt and jeans but that got changed to a schoolgirl uniform.

One can only imagine the sort of reception someone like Dick would get if he were to pitch this video today and the idea of having a teenager playfully strutting in a school uniform and, to be fair, coming across as sexual and uninhibited…it would raise eyebrows at the very least! A lot of parents showed disapproval and felt Spears was a bad role model. They felt a teenage girl should not show her midriff and others felt she was being objectified. Teenage boys were hooked whilst teenage girls found this bold and relatable artist who gave them confidence and, through her music, compelled them. Say what you want about Britney Spears and the bored Catholic girl suddenly coming alive and rebelling – it is considered one of her most iconic videos/looks and, against a music backdrop that was glorifying girl and boybands; Spears was standing alone as this new and unique teenage Pop idol that was not just a commercial puppet and singing predictable, routine songs! …Baby One More Time has been covered by the likes of Travis and The Dresden Dolls and was listed (by Rolling Stone and MTV in 2000) as one of the twenty-five best Pop songs since 1963. VH1 ranked it as the second-best tracks of the 1990s and many ranked the video as one of the finest of the decade! The single sold over nine-million copies and remains one of the best-selling of all-time.

Right away, even with some weak albums on her debut album, Spears became a phenomenon and was seen as one of the most risqué, edgy and controversial female stars of the time. The drive of post-millennial teen Pop music was spearheaded (no pun intended!) by her and this was no fluke. Spears was not new to the industry when her debut single broke – she has worked as a Mouseketeer and was a well-known actor/singer – and Spears created the same kind of storm as Nirvana and Dr. Dre. MTV and the widespread airing of the music video ensured …Baby One More Time went down in history and Spears, like Madonna in a way, was seen as this figure who was a cross between child-friendly and sweet and this male fantasy – someone who was sexually desirable (despite the fact she was a teenager at the time!) but completely commanding and confident. Maybe songs like Toxic and You Drive Me Crazy are slightly stronger in some ways; …Baby One More Time arrived in the perfect place and time. If it were introduced today, I feel it would be a big hit but many might saw they were similar artists around and it was not as that uncommon. Music has seen the death of Grunge and Britpop and the sort of albums that were arriving in 1998 were very different to what Britney Spears was about.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Britney Spears backstage before her concert on the on the Oops!… I Did It Again Tour in Philadelphia on 7th July, 2000/PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

With very few young Pop singers/bands about - aside from the likes of Backstreet Boys and TLC – I am not shocked …Baby One More Time made such an impact and opened up new horizons. We are all familiar with how Britney Spears developed and where her career would go – even now, twenty years later, she is still making music and is in the U.K. very soon. She has released some great singles/albums but none that have gained the same acclaim and interest as her debut offering. Spears helped bring about a new Pop wave and inspire many; it was this brilliant and eye-opening song that hit you and stayed in the head and, twenty years down the road, still evokes fond memories and compels you to sing alone (or at least mime!). I was still in high-school when the song was released (I am only a couple of years younger than Spears) and it was big news in the playground. A lot of my school peers were listening to whatever was in the charts or something like Five. Ace of Base were around and Moloko and Kid Rock appealed the ‘cooler’ kids. In the weeks before Britney Spears debut single; album releases from The Cardigans (Grand Turismo came out 1st October (1998) and Queens of the Stone Age (their eponymous record was out on 6th October).

It’s hard to put into words what today means to me… 20 years ago, the world heard my music for the very first time! So much has happened since then… but what I really want to say is thank you to my amazing fans who have been there for me since day 1... pic.twitter.com/oeMipXCSl9

— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) October 23, 2018

They sort of summed up what music was about until that point and aside from some fairly similar Pop acts – I think B*Witched were popular in 1998 – it was a very different music scene and one that was not quite prepared for Britney Spears. Some fairly accessible Pop from Cher, Billie and New Radicals sort of gave us a soft landing but, to be honest, Spears outgunned, outstripped and overtook them all. …Baby One More Time turned heads and opened eyes back in 1998 and, twenty years (and a day) after it was unreleased; have we seen a more impactful and instant Pop song? Surely there has not been a finer debut and I feel modern mainstream music could benefit from another Britney Spears.  I know Spears herself is proud of the song – a recent Tweet saw her mark the twentieth anniversary of the track – and I am sure she would be one of the first to say she has not really been able to better …Baby One More Time. It was a rare and brilliant song that came from nowhere and, even this many years on, is seen as one of the…

 IMAGE CREDIT: @britneyspears/Getty Images

FINEST Pop songs ever.  

INTERVIEW: The High Loves

INTERVIEW:

The High Loves

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I have enjoyed speaking with The High Loves…

about the new single, Serotonin, and whether they have plans for new material in 2019. I discover how the Canadian band found one another and what sort of music they are influenced by- the members each choose a song to end the interview with.

I learn where the band will head on tour and which musical memory stands in the mind proudest; the artist they’d support given the chance; what advice they’d give to musicians emerging right now – they highlight some new artists worth getting behind.

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Hi, guys. How are you? How has your week been?

Our week has been really great! The release of Serotonin was well received and we are excited to get the ball rolling on the next steps!

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourselves, please?

We are The High Loves! An Indie-Rock band from Toronto, ON (in Canada). We have been playing together since October 2017 and, since then; we have been playing in some of the biggest bar venues in the city (The Horseshoe Tavern, Lee’s Palace; Rivoli). We released our first single, Perils of Passion, in January 2018 and, since then; we’ve been working on an E.P. that we will be releasing in November.

Serotonin is your new song. What is the story behind it?

Serotonin was the first song Noah wrote for this new project. He was at a low point in his life and working through the song helped him get his energy back. It was a beginning point for the band and it seemed fitting to release it as the first single.

I understand an E.P. is coming? Can you explain what themes and stories inspired the song?

All of the songs are written by Noah Monkton, the lead singer of The High Loves. So, all of the tunes are from his personal experiences with many various emotions. The upcoming E.P. is a reflection of his past year! From start to finish, this record follows a story-line of love, chaos, and reflection.

How did The High Loves come together?

Noah Monkton and Matt Bawtinheimer are both from Victoria, BC and they’ve been playing together for a while. Matt Bawtinheimer moved to Toronto to study at Humber College (in Music) and Noah followed shortly after. After a year of study, Monkton wanted to start a project and took some time off to work on The High Loves. He asked Matt Bawtinheimer and Marko Stojanovic, a fellow Humber College music student, to join his group. Looking for a drummer, they asked a friend for ideas and eventually found Mat D. Landry as their fourth member.

From there; we started rehearsing for our first show at The Supermarket in Toronto. We’ve been at it since then!

Which artists did you all grow up around? Do you have any personal musical idols?

We all come from very different musical backgrounds! We listened to The Beatles, The Strokes; a bunch of Jazz, Funk; Rock, Folk. We have been fortunate enough to have grown up in very musical families. Oh! And! Coming from a French background and family, Mat D. Landry listened to a bunch of weird French music (haha)!

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

We hope to achieve a great E.P. release! Meaning, we want to get to get the most amount of contacts and opportunities to succeed in the long-run! We also hope to get together as a group to write a new record for a potential 2019 release. We are very happy with the opportunities that we’ve had so far and can only hope to grow exponentially from here!

In that same vein; do you have plans for 2019 in terms of what you want to accomplish?

Yeah! We’d love to play with ‘bigger and better’ bands in the scene, draw a larger crowd; play festivals in the GTA and further, write a record; make contacts…everything that we can realistically do in 2019 that could help us get where we’d like to be.

Have you all got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

As a band, we’ve had some pretty great memories so far! I’d say one of our favourite ones could be our first show at The Horse Shoe Tavern on Queen St. Getting the chance to play at one of the most historic venues in Toronto, and even Canada, is a great opportunity. Especially, as our third show!

Which one album means the most to each of you would you say (and why)?

Noah Monkton: I would say Is This It by The Strokes

Because it changed my life! (haha). But, seriously, the lyricism, musicianship and songwriting of the record really connected with me at the time. And the attitude! So much of that raw energy that we’re always looking for!

Matt Bawtinheimer: Probably Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon

I must have listened to that record a thousand times during my younger years, and it really got me inspired to learn about music and especially the possibilities of using the studio as an artform as opposed to just documenting what was naturally created.

Marko Stojanovic: John Mayer's Continuum

It is definitely up there. Great songwriting, great musicians; amazing guitar work and solid production.

Mat D. Landry: The one album that means the most to me would be Revolver by The Beatles

This innovative album truly had an effect on the music of that time and the next major music era of Psychedelic and Experimental music. Amongst many of the great tracks on the record, I’m Only Sleeping is THE ONE for me. The Folk signing of John’s voice, the harmonic brilliancy of the group and the experimental, backward guitar tracks are just some of the key points of this song.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

I think a legend like Paul McCartney would be a fair choice! He still has a great show and such a presence on stage. We’d let Sir Paul choose whatever rider he wanted if we had the chance to support him.

Can we see you on the road this year at all?

We’re still going to be concentrating our time in Toronto as there is still so much ground to cover here! But, that being said; we’d love to play wherever we can. We had previously talked about a road trip/tour to the West Coast (where Noah and Matt B. are from). With the upcoming festival applications, we’ll see where we end up!

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Letnik

Might you come to the U.K. and play?

We’d love to if we got the chance! With the interest from many blogs and musical professionals in the U.K., a couple shows could be a possibility in the future.

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Play as much as you can! Rehearsals with your band mates are the most important thing you can do to get attention when you’re playing live in front of an audience! Being musically tight and on the same page is key to success. Even just a band hangout is great if you want to get together and talk about your next steps as a group.

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

There’s some great innovative bands in Canada that are killing it right now! Among some of the many are: Lovers Touch, Pomes; Telecolor, Akeem Oh; FET.NAT, Moscow Apartment; Ferraro, MCLEAN and The Bandicoots.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Akeem Oh/PHOTO CREDIT: Jennifer Adler

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

The High Loves are busy but we still have some downtime. We love to hang out as band, grab a drink and some pizza; play video games. We also love to go see shows! In a city as rich in culture as Toronto, there’s always something going on at the local venues.

Finally, and for being good sports; you can each choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

Sun Leads Me On by Half Moon Run

Winter Crush by Akeem Oh

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer

Soma by The Strokes

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Follow The High Loves

Official:

http://thehighloves.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/thehighloves/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/thehighloves/

SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-641077429

INTERVIEW: CHILDCARE

INTERVIEW:

CHILDCARE

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THANKS to Ed from CHILDCARE…

for telling me about the band’s latest cut, Man Down (King Kong Shake), and how it came together. I ask how the band got together and what is coming up; he highlights an album that means a lot to him and reveals whether there are gigs coming up for CHILDCARE.

Ed lets me into the band’s world and what makes them tick; whether he gets any chance to unwind away from music and what advice he would give to artists coming through – he recommends some rising musicians whilst the band each pick a song to end the interview with.

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How are you? How has your week been? 

Hello Music Musings and Such. I'm very well thanks. We've just come off a twelve-date tour so it's nice to be back home after a very fun few weeks, but there's loads to be getting on with; my to do-list is on thirteen items.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourselves, please? 

So. We are CHILDCARE and writing to you today is Ed Cares (vocals, gesturing). Also in the band are Emma Topolski on bass, Rich Le Gate on guitar and Glyn Daniels on drums.

Man Down (King Kong Shake) is your new single. Can you reveal how it came together and what its story is? 

The song's a lightish-hearted take on the whole male mental-health thing. I think I wrote most of it last Christmas at my parents' house on the piano, then it's taken quite a while and lots of work to get it to where it is now. The drum machine was a bit of an accident - we weren't going to have any drums and the producer just put them on to keep us on time when we were recording. The message is be vulnerable, be weak: it's ok to moisturise your knuckles if they get dry.

It is from your upcoming album. Is it possible to reveal any themes or song titles we might expect? 

The album will be a mix of songs we've put out and some new ones. It's gonna be a Softcore-Psych sort of vibe; Pop tunes but with some unusual arrangements, interludes and spoken word bits.

How did CHILDCARE find one another? Was it an instant bond? 

Well. Emma I met at a party. Glyn I met on a mini golf course and Rich I knew a bit from music. So, we weren't mates before the band started but we've become very close. We have a WhatsApp group and everyone will be getting a message on Christmas day.

You have been lauded by the likes of Annie Mac. What is it like getting support from someone like her?!

Yeah; it's cool to get played on the radio and we've respected Annie for a long time. She's always played good tunes.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018? 

Our debut album should be all wrapped up and I want to be able to bench-press one-hundred-and-sixty.

In that same vein; do you have plans for 2019 in terms of what you want to accomplish? 

Get the album out, tour the album; do loads of festivals and get started on album number-two. Bench-press one-hundred-and-sixty-five.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind? 

Well. We had a really fun gig at Omeara last week, which was our biggest headline show to date. That was v. cool. That, or listening to A Change Is Going to Come by Baby Huey & the Babysitters on mushrooms in July 2017.

Which one album means the most to each of you would you say (and why)? 

I can't get hold of the guys right now cos I'm up early-ish, so I'm just going to pick mine - most albums by Radiohead are basically my favourites. They make me feel sick. I know Rich would pick a Pixies or Elliott Smith album. 

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail? 

I guess, after my last answer, let's say Radiohead - with Pixies as main support and us on first. We'd like a bath of Aperol Spritz on our rider.

Can we see you on the road this year at all? 

We've got two more gigs: Wed, 14th November at Two Tribes Brewing in London and Fri, 16th November at Band on the Wall in Manchester.

What advice would you give to new artists coming through? 

Stay away from heroin. I speak from experience. I've seen a lot of people struggle with it in music documentaries. 

 IN THIS PHOTO: Lazy Days/PHOTO CREDIT: Ellie Crewes

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Lazy Day; Greatest Hits.

Do you all get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind? 

I enjoy table tennis and cooking.

Finally, and for being good sports; you can each choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that). 

Tirzah - Make It Up

Baby Huey & the Baby Sitters - A Change Is Going to Come

Baxter Dury - Miami

Busta Rhymes/Q-Tip/Kanye West/Lil Wayne - Thank You

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Follow CHILDCARE

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/CHILDCAREBAND/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/childcareband

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/childcareband/

SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/childcare

INTERVIEW: NEAVV

INTERVIEW:

NEAVV

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THE fantastic NEAVV…

has been talking with me about her latest single, Keep, and what its story is. She discusses her upcoming album, Fall Hard. Get Sad., and what we can expect from it (it is out this Friday); which artists are important to her and a few albums that strike the heart.

I ask whether there are tour dates coming and whether there will be more material next year; how she came to work with Wendy Parr on her new single and whether she gets time to chill outside of music – NEAVV recommends some rising artists to watch.

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Hi, NEAVV. How are you? How has your week been?

Hi! I’m great, thanks. It’s been a busy week! My new album, Fall Hard. Get Sad., comes out this Friday, October 26th so I’ve been prepping for that. We also just had the release party for it this past Friday here in Toronto.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

My name is NEAVV and I’m an Alternative/Synth-Pop singer and songwriter from Toronto, Canada.

Keep is your new single. Can you explain the story behind it?

I wrote Keep with Wendy Parr (Regina Spektor and Sara Bareilles’ vocal coach) while on a 2017 writing trip to Nashville. I thought that I had already written all the songs for my forthcoming debut album, Fall Hard. Get Sad., but there was just something about Keep that clicked with me and dV, my producer – we both instantly knew that it had to be included on the record.

At the time, I was struggling with how to manage some unhappy relationships in my life that were holding me back. Keep was born out of that. The song is not necessarily about letting go of any one friendship or relationship, but more about the moment when you finally see someone for who they really are, rather than how you hoped they might be or wish they could become.

How did you come to write it alongside Wendy Parr?

I was introduced to Wendy through a mutual friend on Facebook. I was heading down to Nashville to do some writing and put a call out to friends on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to write. So glad I did!

Can we expect any more material in 2019? Are you looking that far ahead?

Absolutely! My new album, Fall Hard. Get Sad., comes out this Friday (October 26th) and we are already working on the next album. Expect more music in 2019!

Do you recall your earliest musical memory? Which artist first struck your mind?

My earliest musical memory was actually watching a group of fiddle players perform in Colorado when I was around three. I begged my parents to play the violin after that for three years. Eventually, they gave in and signed me up for lessons. My parents had a great Beatles collection and I would say they are the first band that really made an impact on me. I was obsessed with them for years.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

I would really love to get Fall Hard. Get Sad. out to as many listeners as possible and make some solid show and touring plans for 2019.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far?

So many favourite memories but, right now, I’d have to say recording Fall Hard. Get Sad. is pretty close to the top.

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

There is no way I could pick just three albums, but here are three of many…

Purple - Stone Temple Pilots

This solidified my love for Alternative music.

Grace - Jeff Buckley

Everything about this album is amazing. Required listening for any artist.

After Laughter – Paramore

Fun songs, wicked singing; important message.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Oh wow…I’m a big Paramore fan, so I would love to support them! As for my rider…gluten-free snacks; red wine and space for my dog backstage. Ha.

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Be authentic, work on your craft and know that you are allowed to say no to things.

PHOTO CREDIT: Chanel W.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

There are some awesome things coming up in 2019 that I can’t share yet but, for now, I do have a few one-off shows. If you find yourself in Toronto in November I will be playing a full band show at The Horseshoe Tavern on November 20th.

How important is it being on the stage and playing your music to the people?

Being on stage is everything! It’s the place where I feel the most like myself. If I could, I would be on stage every night.

 IN THIS PHOTO: X. ARI/ART CREDIT: Anna Olinova

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

I just played my album release party with two wicked alternative artist: X. ARI and FAVVKES…definitely check them out! Also; keep an ear out for BRKN Love.

 IN THIS PHOTO: FAVVKES/PHOTO CREDIT: Dani Gagnon

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

I honestly don’t get a lot of time to chill away from music, nor do I really want to. Haha. But, to unwind, I like to go for long walks with my dog and I also swim on a masters swim team.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

This artist is currently blowing my mind: YEBBA - My Mind

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FEATURE: Rumours and a Strange Tango in the Night: Can Fleetwood Mac Realistically Thrive Without Lindsey Buckingham?

FEATURE:

 

 

Rumours and a Strange Tango in the Night

 ALL IMAGE/PHOTO CREDITS (unless stated otherwise): Getty Images 

Can Fleetwood Mac Realistically Thrive Without Lindsey Buckingham?

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THE situation Fleetwood Mac finds themselves in…

reminds me of The Matrix. Neo, the protagonist, is offered the choice between a blue and red pill by the rebel leader, Morpheus. If he takes a red pill then he would be unleashed into an uncertain world and escape the machine-generated, dream-like world he is in. The blue pill would allow him to go into a beautiful prison – where he would be led to ignorance and live in confined comfort. In fact; maybe it is a bit like Alice in Wonderland. In any case; there is something tricky, unnatural and tense happening in the Fleetwood Mac camp!  The Matrix analogy might seem forced but there is a strange difference between the ‘classic’ Fleetwood Mac line-up we saw during the Rumours period and what we have now. The band’s ‘leader’ Lindsey Buckingham has been booted out of the band amidst rumours of scheduling conflicts. Buckingham, I believe, was due to record and promote a solo album and wanted to fit his Fleetwood Mac demands around that. The band were not happy and Stevie Nicks made it absolutely clear she did not want to perform on the same stage as Buckingham. The history between the former lovers is no secret. The tensions began before they recorded Rumours back in 1977 and, whilst there has been a relatively cordial working relationship since then; things have come to a head and it seems there is no way back.

It might be appropriate to turn a famous Buckingham-penned song back on him. Go Your Own Way, one of Rumours’ best songs has an unhappy irony now that Buckingham has been cast away and castigated. The fact Buckingham wanted to perform and is not happy about the situation has led to a lawsuit. This article explains the situation:

“Lindsey Buckingham — singer, songwriter and lead guitarist on and off since 1975 — is seeking millions of dollars in compensation from band mates Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and John McVie.

The mercurial musician, who wrote and sang the 1976 mega-hit Go Your Own Way, has made it clear he is not happy to go his own way.

In a 28-page lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and a recent interview, Buckingham has laid bare the astonishing extent to which he has fallen out with his former band mates — particularly singer Stevie Nicks, his ex-lover.

The case also reveals quite how lucratively popular the band remains.

Tickets to see them last Saturday in St Louis, Missouri, on their new tour cost up to $899 (£686). Meanwhile, the most expensive tickets to see Buckingham's current solo tour are less than a tenth that price.

According to Buckingham's lawsuit, each of the band's five members was to earn around $13 million from playing 60 shows over two years in a deal with a concert producer, Live Nation. He accuses his former band members of breaching their fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and 'international interference with prospective economic advantage'”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Herbert Worthington

It seems that tensions and disharmony are never far from the shores of Fleetwood Mac. I am not sure whether Nicks’ foot coming down was the deciding factor but it seems like Fleetwood Mac will carry on without Buckingham. Seeing as he has been part of the band for over four decades has created shockwaves and split fans. You can never really tell what truly split the band and whether there were other factors that influenced the decision to fire Buckingham. Maybe he felt he was the natural leader and could do what he wanted to do – the rest of the band were tired and felt he was hampering them. The fact Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks; John and Christine McVie remain in the band means you have most of Fleetwood Mac happily performing together. The fact, too, they have been this solid unit since, I guess, 1975 (bar a few spats and breaks between albums) is amazing. They have survived Rumours and tensions that followed and are resolved to take their show around the world with new band members Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) and Crowded House’s Neil Finn. Ultimate Classic Rock have run a piece that asks how the band will survive post-Buckingham and how Fleetwood Mac’s set will alter – given the fact a lot of their best-loved songs are Buckingham solos:

“Buckingham had been a bulwark for the band since the late-'90s reunion of its classic-era lineup, holding fast when Christine McVie took a lengthy break. Long before that, he'd helped reset their commercial fortunes upon arriving with Stevie Nicks in the '70s…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Fleetwood Mac with their new members Neil Finn (second left) and Mike Campbell (second right)/PHOTO CREDIT: Randee St Nicholas for Rolling Stone

“Then, in April 2018, he was out. Fleetwood Mac quickly announced that two people would join in Buckingham's place, Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, and then began plotting a huge tour.

On the one hand, this wasn't all that out of the ordinary: Fleetwood Mac have had more than their share of lineup changes, and they'd even added two other sidemen (Billy Burnette and Rick Vito) after a previous Buckingham departure. On the other hand, there's 1995's Buckingham-less Time, an unfocused, uninteresting misfire.

How many Buckingham songs – if any – do you expect the reformulated Fleetwood Mac to perform? Are there songs he wrote that feel like required entries?

MICHAEL GALLUCCI: If they're trying to distance themselves from Buckingham, they shouldn't play any of his songs. But I realize that won't happen. So they'll probably play a couple of the more band-oriented Buckingham cuts like "Go Your Own Way," which may be the only one fans really expect, now that I think about it.

NICK DERISO: I found the inclusion of "The Chain" in their initial preview performance on Ellen to be notable. The song, though credited to the entire band, prominently features Buckingham on vocals and guitar – but Fleetwood Mac weren't beholden to that. Mike Campbell's solo took the song in entirely new places. That says two things to me: Fleetwood Mac aren't going to shy away from Buckingham's stuff, and they're not afraid to put their own new stamp on it. Campbell's presence alone might open the door for a re-imagining of other Buckingham songs...

IN THIS PHOTO: Fleetwood Mac (L-R) bassist John McVie; keyboard player and vocalist Christine McVie; vocalist Stevie Nicks; guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and drummer and vocalist Mick Fleetwood stand together on stage after performing a concert on NBC's Today show in New York, U.S. on 9th October, 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo  

On their last tours without Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac delved into material brought in by newer members like Dave Mason. Do you expect to hear Crowded House and Tom Petty songs?

GALLUCCI: Sure do. "Don't Dream It's Over" from Finn and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" from Campbell are shoe-ins, I'd say. I'd guess at least a couple more from each of them too. Maybe Petty's "The Insider" – which, like "Draggin'" features Nicks – and "Something So Strong," the other Crowded House song people might know. Long shots: one of the songs Campbell wrote and performed with Don Henley, and Split Enz's "I Got You."

DERISO: It's actually rather astonishing how often Fleetwood Mac relied on material brought in by hired guns during the '90s-era absence of Buckingham – though it should be noted that both Nicks and McVie left during that period too. They did Mason's "We Just Disagree" and two songs by Traffic; they even covered a song by Billy Burnette's dad. It was embarrassing, really. Even so, if that trend held, we might hear a number of non-Fleetwood Mac tracks – and they'd once again risk losing no small amount of legitimacy by turning into a jukebox band”.

It seems like most of what makes Fleetwood Mac shine and inspire is being left but one cannot help notice the Lindsey Buckingham-shaped hole that remains. In spite of this; the band are planning tour dates next year.

The group have announced a run of dates that will see their new line-up perform some of the best-known Fleetwood Mac hits:

“Fleetwood Mac are to play the RDS Arena, Dublin, on June 13th, 2019, as part of a limited European tour

The veteran rock group are currently touring in the US without guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham after an acrimonious split. The line-up now features Crowded House frontman Neil Finn and guitarist Mike Campbellfrom The Heartbreakers, along with Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood.

The dates announced on Monday include concerts at Wembley Stadium and in Berlin

“We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realise that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style,” said Mick Fleetwood said in an interview in April.

“We know we have something new, yet it’s got the unmistakable Mac sound.”

“We are thrilled to welcome the musical talents of the calibre of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn into the Mac family.” the band said in a statement.

“With Mike and Neil, we’ll be performing all the hits that the fans love, plus we’ll be surprising our audiences with some tracks from our historic catalogue of songs,” said the group collectively. Fleetwood Mac has always been a creative evolution. We look forward to honouring that spirit on this upcoming tour.”

The three dates announced on Monday are:

·         June 6th, 2019: Berlin, Waldbühne

·         June 13th, 2019: Dublin, RDS Arena

·         June 16th 2019: London, Wembley Stadium

Tickets ago on sale on Friday, October 26th at 9am”.

It is good to see any band endure tension and obstacles and come up the other side! The fact long-running bands like The Rolling Stones and The Who are still around and playing is that love of the music. It helps, of course, that the members get along and there is that bond. Others, such as Pink Floyd, seem unlikely to rekindle that spark and adding a new member would seem a strange and unpopular thing to do. There have been bands, like Queen, who have gone on with a different lead/member but it never seems right! The reason we fall for them is because of each member and you take one away and it loses its magic. Queen, obviously, are without Freddie Mercury and it is not the same – even with the talent and force of Adam Lambert belting out the songs! I guess bands like Fleetwood Mac cannot stop playing and go their separate ways if most of the members are together and happy. They are not performing for the money: they want to get the songs to new people and still love being around one another. One ‘bad apple’ or ill-fitting member cannot compromise the rest of the band so I do not begrudge Fleetwood Mac continuing. From a fan’s perspective, you have to ask whether a Fleetwood Mac gig sans Buckingham is an authentic and natural thing.

Although a lot of the band’s best songs were written by Nicks of (Christine) McVie; Buckingham’s contribution and impact cannot be underestimated. He voiced standards such as Big Love, Go Your Own Way and The Chain and it seems odd that he will not be singing them! The fact the two new members are bringing songs from their other bands, also, does not sit well. As good as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Crowded House were/are; you do not necessarily want to hear their songs played at a Fleetwood Mac gig! The reason I mentioned The Matrix and Alice in Wonderland earlier is because it seems like Fleetwood Mac 2.0 is an alternate reality or some weird dream. Would you stick with the new version of the band and live in some form of compromise or remember them as they were and return to the past?! Some might argue the point (that) Fleetwood Mac have not recorded new material since 2003 (Say You Will) and they are trotting out the same songs as we are all familiar with. That is all well and good but one assumes, at some juncture, the band will record new material. There is no use going on the road for years and that will be it – it has to lead to somewhere you’d imagine. I am a big Fleetwood Mac fan but could never consider seeing them live without Buckingham.

It is strange things ended so quickly and there has not been a clear and concise explanation as to why he is no longer welcome back in the ranks. Although you know Fleetwood Mac are, for the most part, still the band you always loved; there is something a little off not having Buckingham near the front. Maybe the new additions will be great and we’ll not have any issues but I do wonder why two new members were drafted. Buckingham has tried to open the lines of communication and get back into the band so it seems everyone else in Fleetwood Mac is making it difficult. It is a sorry sight to see one of their most important members given the silent treatment and, it seems, no longer a part of their plans. I think a Fleetwood Mac without Buckingham cannot really flourish and grow. I would hate to see the band record an album without them and the set-list will be changed. Will they do any song with Buckingham’s voice on or will Crowded House songs replace them?! There are so many things to consider and I am not sure whether the band will be able to create as memorable a show without Lindsey Buckingham as with him. I suppose one cannot live in the past and things do change now and then – even if you do not want them to. I wish the revised Fleetwood Mac the best of luck but the fact we will never hear (I assume) Go Your Own Way or Big Love again – without Buckingham at the least – leaves me very unsettled. I guess there might be a chance of a reunion but it seems the Fleetwood Mac we all know and love is…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Fleetwood Mac in 1977/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

NEVER going back again!  

FEATURE: Radio Reactive: Is Gender Equality in Radio Happening Too Slowly?

FEATURE:

 

 

Radio Reactive

 IN THIS PHOTO: Zoë Ball (who is set to take over from Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show)/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Is Gender Equality in Radio Happening Too Slowly?

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EVERY morning…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @fancycrave/Unsplash

I tune into BBC Radio 6 Music to hear Shaun Keaveny entertain and enlighten the nation – or grumble and moan a lot! That is what I love about him! He is a tremendous D.J. and, through the course of the day, I will listen to RadMac (Stuart Maconie is flying solo whilst Mark Radcliffe recovers from caner) and Steve Lamacq. Tom Ravenscroft has been standing in for Lauren Laverne and the female voices I hear between seven in the morning – before then, actually, as Chris Hawkins is on-air before Keaveny – and later in the evening are men. There are female producers and staff but how many female voices does one hear on the station? BBC Radio 6 Music is one of the fastest-rising options around and there are many reasons why it is my station of choice. I love the passion from the D.J.s and the close-knit bond between the producers and on-air talent. It terms of the music; there is a beautiful mix of genres and we get a combination of new and older sounds. There is gender equality regarding the songs played and, actually, there are a few great music news presenters on the station. Clare Crane and Elizabeth Alker are based in Salford (where a few of the shows broadcast from) and Georgie Rogers is based in London.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Georgie Rogers/PHOTO CREDIT: Georgie Rogers/BBC

I think they are all fantastic and do the station very proud; Matt Everitt, the station’s longest-running music news presenter (who is on Keaveny’s show) is brilliant but it is good there are some very talent women giving us our daily dose of music news goodness. I think they all have their own style and I feel Rogers especially could helm her own show. I think Elizabeth Alker has a Classical music show on BBC Radio 3 and you feel Clare Crane could take on her own show. Apart from a major mistake regarding RadMac – they are moving from weekday afternoons to weekend mornings -; there has been some positive change regarding women at the station. Mary Anne Hobbs moves from the weekends to weekday mornings whilst Lauren Laverne takes over Shaun Keaveny’s breakfast slot – he moves to the soon-to-be-vacated RadMac 1-4 P.M. slot. It is great see Laverne helm breakfast as it means she is the first woman on the station to be in that slot. I also like the fact Hobbs has been ‘promoted’ and allowed more airtime. There are great women on BBC Radio 6 Music: Cerys Matthews, Liz Kershaw and Lamé are essential additions to the station and show, with their talent and popularity, there needs to be more women at BBC Radio 6 Music. I love male D.J.s on the station like Hawkins, Keaveny; Gideon Coe and Ravenscroft – each of them has their place is exceptional at what they do.

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Lamé/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Writtle for Evening Standard

I feel, however, there is more passion and personality coming from the women at the station. There is more humour and warmth; something about their drive and connection with the listeners stands in the mind longer. I wonder whether the male dominance at the station will redress and, given the fact they have promoted two prominent female D.J.s on the station; will that lead to improvement and continued evolution?! I do not like to ask, but I am assuming the women on the station are paid less than their male counterparts. I am not sure whether experience and time slot dictates the wages but there one knows most women in radio are paid less than men. BBC Radio 6 Music is among a slew of stations that are exceptional at what they do but are not utilising the wealth of female talent out there. It was recently announced that Simon Mayo was leaving BBC Radio 2 and, at present, he presents the drive-time show with Jo Whiley. One of the comments he left on Twitter was regarding abuse levied at Whiley. She was targeted and trolled because she was presenting that slot and it shows that not only is under-representation an issue but sexism reigns. Besides the fact the chemistry between them is a little off; the format does not do credit to their combined experience and talent.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jo Whiley/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

I feel, if anything Whiley is the star of that show and brings a lot more professionalism, likeability and grace to the listeners. I know she is being given an evening slot but I wonder why she could not take on the drive-time show herself?! I have confronted this issu before – inequality in radio – and ask why there are not that many women in drive-time slots. Given what we know about pay gaps and how some male D.J.s have reacted – including BBC Radio 2’s Chris Evans leaving to go to Virgin – and what we have seen published in the press; it seems alarming that, alongside the pay gulf comes this lack of trust regarding women. I am seeing improvements come into the big stations but is it quick enough?! BBC Radio 2, like BBC Radio 6 Music, has a female breakfast presenter from 2019. Zoë Ball is going to wake up the nation very soon and it is a big move forward for the station. I feel Sara Cox would have been a better choice but I wonder why she is not being talked about to fill the upcoming drive-time show change. She would be perfect for that time slot but I feel calls will go unanswered and it will be a male D.J. in that slot. I have to wonder whether Ball will get the same wages as Chris Evans when she takes over.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Sara Cox/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

I know Evans’ cachet and commitment commands him a lot of money but Ball has been in radio for years and should get the same. On every big station, there is that problem with pay and gender inequality. I would like to see D.J.s like Sara Cox, Claudia Winklemann and Zoë Ball seen as figureheads and part of a new revolution. Each D.J. has their own personality and they are all fantastic. I am not going to say that every female D.J./talent on radio is better than men but, as I say, you get more warmth and passion from them. From BBC Radio 6 Music to BBC Radio 2; the best and most promising D.J.s, I feel, are women. The fact they form a minority of the stations’ line-ups worries me a lot. I suspect improvement will come in years to come but, as both stations have had shifts and line-up changes; why were there not more in regards women and balancing things out?! Although BBC Radio 1 is a little more aware and proactive regarding women in big shows – Mollie King and Annie Mac are among the station’s best personalities – I still think there is a way to go there. I am not suggesting instant remedy but I think, by 2020, we should have an equal split in terms of gender on ALL of the big BBC stations – including BBC Radio 6 Music.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @adigold1/Unsplash

There are going to be issues around pay but I feel, in terms of time slot, there should be gender equality. Maybe pay is dictated by experience but women should not be overlooked and paid less because of their gender. If a female D.J. has been on the station the same time as a man; the pay should be exactly the same! I am pleased there have been changes regarding breakfast shows but I have to wonder whether this is piecemeal regarding genuine equality. Beside an all-female radio station, JACK, being launched is the radio business still a male-dominated forum?! Through the last few years; there have been enough articles outlining the facts: women are not provided the same rights as men and paid less. Although this article is five years old; there has not been great improvement regarding numbers and ratio:

“Fresh evidence of a gender imbalance in UK radio has been revealed by a survey showing that 20% of shows hosted by a solo presenter involve female broadcasters.

The ratio of women to men on radio declines even further when it comes to shows with multiple presenters, such as the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, where Sarah Montague is the only woman among the five regular hosts, alongside John Humphrys, James Naughtie, Evan Davis and Justin Webb…

 IN THIS PHOTO: John Humphrys/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Sound Women, a campaigning group lobbying for a better gender balance in radio, found listeners were 10 times more likely to hear male voices than female ones on shows hosted by two or more people.

It also surveyed 20 of Britain's most successful female broadcasters, including Jo Whiley, Clare Balding and Annie Nightingale, and found that none of them had been asked if they would like to co-present with a woman rather than a man.

Asked which female presenter she would like to go on air with, Montague chose the BBC's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, the presenter of Radio 4's Woman's Hour Jane Garvey, and the former BBC Breakfast host Sian Williams.

Nightingale, the longest-serving Radio 1 DJ, chose Fi Glover as her dream female co-host. She agreed there should be more women on radio but said: "You don't want just want to be there to make up the numbers. You want to be there because you are the best person for the job."

It took Nightingale four years from first applying to getting the job as Radio 1's first female DJ. It took another 12 years before the second, Janice Long, was appointed”.

It is shocking seeing the figures in black-and-white and I wonder, if we saw a report now, whether there would be a huge difference. I do not think so. There might be more women coming into radio boardrooms and in management positions – there are a lot of great female producers – but, when it comes to being on the air…how many women are we hearing daily?!

 IN THIS PHOTO: Vick Hope/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

I am baffled why it is so hard to an equality and why there cannot be that balance. There are plenty of wonderful female D.J.s who could do solo shows or be part of a partnership. Even when big stations do one-off shows and documentaries; most are from men and that is another area that can be addressed. D.J. Vick Hope – who co-hosts the breakfast show on Capital FM and is an award-winning journalist/D.J. did a piece for Marie Claire that outlined her experiences:

“…Now consider this: in the long history of male-female duos, the man almost exclusively sits at mic 1; the woman at mic 2. Incredible, right? So, without question, the man is in control, meaning that until he decides to switch her on, the woman across the desk from him essentially has no voice.

For me it’s what this mechanical fact represents that stings. I was told this six years ago when, fresh out of university and full of ambition, I attended a talk for budding broadcasters at the BBC led by Woman’s Hour anchor Jane Garvey. At 21, excitedly embarking upon my broadcasting journey, it hit me hard. Why, I thought, are producers and programmers not questioning an ingrained power structure that subconsciously silences women. Regardless of their talent or drive, the message is clear: ‘Know your place… because that’s just how it is.’

Six years into the industry, challenging this antiquated assertion has become a daily battle for me. Yes, I work with fantastic TV and radio teams, my job is a dream, I love my colleagues and, to be clear, I’m not pointing fingers here at any companies in particular. But there remains an inherent systemic problem that’s lamentably become the norm…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @rawpixel/Unsplash

Why does an overwhelmingly male office of production staff raise so few eyebrows? Why is it still acceptable that the only female producer is still relegated to tea runs and answering the phones, or that an almost entirely male presenter line-up goes unchallenged for just looking plain weird. Because, come on, in 2018, it does. Really weird.

Together, we can put pressure on our employers to do better, to represent the rich diversity of the audience they serve, to stop painting women as sidekicks, as appendages or accessories to men. Otherwise, we risk other young women sitting in talks like I did six years ago thinking, ‘I know my place, and it’s not here”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @rawpixel/Unsplash

It is good to hear, first-hand how sturdy the glass ceiling is. It makes people think and, as Hope says; things need to change and proactive debate/lobbying can see changes come through. There are a lot of smaller stations – most of them Internet-based – that have a balance between men and women and I feel they should act as an example as how things are done. In terms of all the biggest stations out there – including Capital FM, Radio X and Absolute Radio – it is predominantly men; most of them are white and middle-aged. I shall address age and race in a separate piece but the homogenisation and clear sexism needs to change very soon! There are some illuminating radio documentaries that show the sexism in the arts and how women are (mis)treated. The fact there has been some changes in breakfast radio is good to see but there is a long way to go before the nuclear inequality is made safe and we see a radio industry where women are equal. There are, as I stated, more women coming into the boardrooms but production teams and most of the radio heads are men. I wonder whether, in addition to direct changes at the stations, there needs to be some grassroots education at a foundational level. From school syllabuses to music colleges; do we all need to show the issue at hand and encourage greater parity?

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jenni Murray and Fi Glover of Woman’s Hour/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

There are plenty of women out there speaking loud and directly campaigning but do men need to do more?! I have tried to get onto Woman’s Hour and have a say regarding this but have not been contacted. It seems a lot of women are doing what they can but men are not coming forward – or there is a feeling men do not know what they are talking about and are insincere. I want to bring in this article from 2014 and compare it to the one we have seen from Vick Hope. Although there have been some changes between 2014 and now; look at the words below and we have seen little visible improvement:

“One cold, early morning earlier this year, Lilley Mitchell, 29, found herself standing in the kitchen of a stranger's house in Oxford, looking out onto his water-sogged back garden and expressing disbelief.

Right in front of her eyes, water was creeping up to the back of the house. Any minute now, it would spill into the kitchen.

Lilley was witnessing the cold reality of the Oxford floods. On one of her first assignments for BBC Radio Oxford, Lilley was right in the middle of the biggest story of the day in her area.

As far as local radio goes, Lilley realised it doesn't get much more 'real' than this.

She is one of a handful of 'rising stars' picked out by the BBC as part of its drive to get more women onto the airwaves. The broadcaster hopes that by giving talented female 'rookies' a chance to try out reporting in local patches, it will make room for other female reporters to move up the career ladder or branch into different roles; such as co-presenting their own show”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @csbphotography/Unsplash

There are ‘women in radio’ courses that actively encourage women to get into the business but that raises questions whether radio stations are hiring women because of tokenism or quotas:

“The BBC 'women in radio' courses, which took place in Birmingham, Salford and London, came about after Lord Tony Hall, the broadcaster's director general, last year made it one of the organisation's priorities to boost the number of women presenting local radio breakfast programmes.

As of April 2014 – the latest figures available – some 32 per cent of breakfast shows now have female presenters. In just eight months, there's been some improvement. As Mr Hall states, the broadcaster is "heading in the right direction".

But breaking these figures down, the 12 per cent rise equates to just five women. Four of those are solo presenters (Emma Britton on Somerset;Etholle George on Suffolk; Nicky Price on Norfolk and Georgey Spanswick of York) and one is co-presenting (Lizzie Rose on Humberside).

 IN THIS PHOTO: Former BBC executive Helen Boaden/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Even Helen Boaden, the director of BBC Radio, (which provides national radio stations), has said there is a "danger" that women are brought in to the BBC – whether it's presenting a radio programme or appearing on a comedy panel show – to boost numbers, rather than because they are categorically the right person for the job”.

Some defend the imbalance and say radio station hire who they think is best for the job as opposed a blanket gender equality – that suggests either women are discouraged from getting into radio or the ones here are untalented and not as skilled as men. I know well enough there are plenty of keen and talented women in radio who are not being recognised and noted as much as the men. The fact alarming figures show an imbalance makes many women feel they will not get very far at all – many are turning to podcasts to have their say and be heard; fearing mainstream and local radio will not hire them.

Another school of thought revolves around women and childcare. Some say women, obviously, will want children and that comprised their long-term reliability. Childcare is readily available and I feel it is not an issue that should affect gender equality:

“There are some excellent examples of women who juggle childcare with breakfast show presenting – including Radio 5 Live's Rachel Burden, who says that working (very) early mornings allows her to see her kids in the afternoons.

But for other mums, the hours just don't suit, Holdsworth says.

"Some women specify they can only do a certain time of the day. The other thing we have difficulty with is someone who wishes not to be on air five times a week; if they're not appearing every day it makes it harder.

"Inevitably, where mothers are the main childcarer in their family, this could exclude women for a part of their careers. They need to have the confidence to come back in."

And do mothers, generally, have the confidence to come back? More broadly, could it be the case, for example, that women – mothers and non-mothers – are holding themselves back from putting themselves forwards for radio roles?

Holdsworth says: "I think both women and men hold themselves back. The one issue we have identified with some women, though, is a fear of the technical side of radio”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @hsfju/Unsplash

The problem regarding women not being fairly represented in radio is not limited to the U.K. From Australian thorough to America; it is clear there is a worldwide issue that needs tackling. There are courses that urge women forward but I feel immediate changes can happen at the biggest station that will do more good than courses – it proves there is a place for women and equality is possible. Making changes to breakfast line-ups is great and a positive steps but look at the other time slots and how many male faces there are (compared to women) and it is clear a lot more needs to be done! From music news presenters like Georgia Rogers to on-air talent like Sara Cox and Liz Kershaw – are we doing enough to create a fifty-fifty balance in the industry?! I feel change is being talked about but not enough is being done. Until there is a retuning and big wake-up call; radio will be seen as a boys’ club and will discourage women from getting into the business. The plethora of brilliant women in radio shows what potential there is and, if we lose them from the airwaves; that will have a damaging and profound effect…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @clemono2/Unsplash

ON us all.  

INTERVIEW: Tina Boonstra

INTERVIEW:

Tina Boonstra

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I have been speaking with Tina Boonstra…

about her new track, Find You, and how it came together. She reveals whether there is a concept behind her song series, Underrated Animals, and what the next single will be; how she got into music and which albums are important to her.

Boonstra tells me what gigs she has coming up and whether she gets time to chill away from music; what advice she would give to artists coming through and which rising band we need to get involved with.

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Hi, Tina. How are you? How has your week been?

Hello! I’m pretty good, thanks. I released a new song called Find You on Friday, so it’s been a pretty nerve-wracking week, but good fun too.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please?

I’m a singer-songwriter based in London, but (like most people in London) I’m not really a Londoner. I like to say I’m from Liverpool, because I spent my teenage years on the outskirts of the city but, unfortunately, I don’t have the accent so no-one ever believes me.

Find You is your new single. What is the story behind the song?

Find You is realising how completely un-self-sufficient I am. I have a tendency to slip into thinking that I don’t need anyone or anything to be happy. I’m fine on my own and, if stay focused and work hard enough, I’ll get what I want. But, the truth is, it doesn’t work like that. I hate to admit it, but I can’t survive this city and this life on my own. If I try to; I either end up living like a robot, not really feeling or enjoying anything, or a total wreck on the floor. Usually, both. It’s a disaster. Find You is about being honest about that and trying to figure out a way back to the things that matter.  

I understand it is part of a series of songs called Underrated Animals. Is there a concept behind the tracks and what compelled you to release a series?

It happened by accident, really. As we were recording this project, I realised that all the songs explored the idea of weakness or smallness from a different perspective.

When it came to designing the cover art; we had this idea to use unpopular animals to depict each song, as a way to try and celebrate the small and the weak. That’s how the idea came about to release all the songs as a series.

Why should we always talk about the pandas? Or the lions? What if I’m not a panda? What if I’m a pangolin or a jellyfish? Should I try to change who I am? Try to be bigger, louder; more appealing?  Everyone wants to be strong but, if we try that, we end up all the same. In this project, I wanted to celebrate the small and overlooked. And, hopefully, get people thinking about how great small is and how powerful weak can be - maybe we’re all just underrated animals?

When might another single come forward? Are you releasing a new song at regular intervals?

The next single is called Flicker and will be out early next year 

Growing up in a missionary family; how did that affect you in terms of music being played and when music came into your life?

My parents weren’t really that into music, so my main exposure to music at the start of my life was the Gospel music that was sung in my church in South Africa. Some of it is pretty wild and raucous which I loved and still do. Then, there are other songs in that genre which come from such a deep place; it’s hard not to be moved by them.

It was great, but also quite restrictive. Thankfully, I have three older sisters who eventually started sharing their music collection with me. From Nirvana to Elvis; whatever they were into, I was into as well; for a better or for worse.  

 PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Greenfield

Which artists did you discover young and become involved with?

Because of my slightly limited exposure to music growing up, I have so many memories of coming across new music as a teenager and being completely blown away; from Bob Dylan to No Doubt. I loved discovering new artists. Jeff Buckley had a particular impression on me. I was pretty obsessed with the album Grace as a teenager.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

Well. Releasing music can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I hope people will connect with the new song and I hope I manage to stay human through the process.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

It’s an incredible feeling when you’ve worked on a song which describes a time or feeling in your life to hear other people connect with that song. I don’t think there’s anything quite like it.

Which three albums mean the most to you would you say (and why)?

Oooh; only three? I don’t know. I’m very fickle so I’ll probably change my mind depending on which day you ask me. Today; I think I’d say

Grace - Jeff Buckley

A Black Mile to the Surface - Manchester Orchestra

Chutes Too Narrow - The Shins

Such different artists writing such incredible songs. All of them have had a big impact on my life personally and as a songwriter.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

I’m playing at the Hope & Anchor on 25th October and at The Finsbury on 6th Dec. More info on my website.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Tough choice. There are so many great bands around right now. Maybe Manchester Orchestra. I think they’re doing amazing things at the moment.

When it comes to a rider, I’m a simple creature. I don’t need much. Just some water would do me. My band, on the other hand...

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Make exactly the music that you want to make. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Do what you want to do and do it because you love doing it. At the end of the day, nothing else really matters.

 IN THIS PHOTO: VOS

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

There’s this new band called VŌS that are doing pretty cool things right now. You should check them out.

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

I’m a big fan of wild swimming. There’s nothing quite like it.  I’m a bit of an introvert, really. I like reading books or being outdoors in the countryside.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

I Was Alive Back Then - Kevin Devine

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Follow Tina Boonstra

Official:

https://tinaboonstra.wordpress.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/tinaboonstra/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tinaboonstra/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/tinaboonstra

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2H6LfNrRiHP6J007Cgol35

YouTube:

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INTERVIEW: Blast Bomb

INTERVIEW:

Blast Bomb

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THE German band Blast Bomb…

have been telling me about their new E.P., Burn History & Live Today, and what themes inspired it; whether they have a favourite cut from the E.P. and how they all found one another – the guys recommend rising artists to watch.

I ask whether they are planning more tour dates and if we can see them in the U.K.; what sort of music they grew up around and how they relax away from music – the guys each select a song to end the interview with.

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Hi, guys. How are you? How has your week been?

Johnny: Great, thank you. We are talking to you from a bar in Hameln. We play here tonight…

Tobi: The Mad Music Club.

Klaus: Yesterday, we played a great show in Bremerhaven; too much free drink....but I was a good boy and didn’t drink.

Torben: This week is great because of the shows. It’s great to be back on the road.

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourselves, please?

Torben: We are Blast Bomb; an explosive Crossover-Punk band from Hamburg.

Johnny: That’s actually a very tough thing to describe. I can only call it Blast Bomb. Andy from The Dukes of Bordello (we’re currently on the road with them) says our style is “Loud sh*t”. I actually like that! We officially formed early last year and we are really proud of what we have achieved.

Burn History & Live Today is your new E.P. Is there a concept behind it, would you say?

Johnny: I would’t say it’s a full-on concept, but I noticed, as I was preparing for the recorded sessions, that the songs kinda followed a story of the reason why I´m now in Germany. It was never supposed to be this way.

Klaus: There is a concept in the lyrics. The four songs are linked through that way.

Torben: From the music side; it is definitely not following a concept. It was just an example of all our styles! We are still finding our sound.

Do you each have a favourite song from the E.P. at all?

Johnny: Burn History. I love that one. It’s so erratic and powerful lyrics.

Kai: Gambler and Live Today. They show the two different sides to our sound.

Klaus: Burn History and Stray…because I wrote it!

Tobi: Gambler. The original recording had a two-minute drum Jazz intro - and we cut it out because it was too long. I’m still not happy about this.

Torben: Burn History and Live Today. Both are fantastic.

How did The Blast Bomb get together? When did the band form?

Torben: Me and Klaus tweaking on amps in the High Gain District rehearsal room, when Tobis comes in. So, we start a session together, which was great. So, a few sessions follow. Then, Kai comes to us (we know him from the youth) and only a vocal was missing.

Kai: We did a post on a Hamburg music forum and Johnny replied to us - and Blast Bomb was complete. That was in January 2017.

Johnny: These guys have, on and off, been working together for twenty years; so it was like walking into a little family. I liked that. Plus; we are all very open-mined so it helps makes us unique.

Which artists did you all grow up around? Do you have any personal musical idols?

Johnny: I was raised on The Beatles, Pink Floyd and David Bowie, so they are my D.N.A. But, as I grew up and became an angry teenager, I was heavily influenced by Black Sabbath, Amen and Turbonegro. So, quite a contrast. But, my personal idol, without question, is John Lennon.

Klaus: I love the Rock stuff from the '70s, but also harder Metal and Punk-Rock are my favourite styles. I love Adriano Celentano and Dean Martin. Just sayin’.

Kai: From '70s Classic Rock to '80s Thrash-Metal to Scandinavian Rock ‘n’ Roll, I was influenced by all kinds of stuff...

Tobi: Billy Cobham; Chick Corea; Nomeansno.

Torben: I grew up with German radio in my parents’ house - that was Neue Deutsche Welle, mostly. First record for me was Run-D.M.C. The second was Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill; after that, I went to Rock. The biggest influences were then Guns N’ Roses and I start playing guitar because of Slash; like a lot of guys in my age. Then, Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera pushed me to another direction. But, so far or in general, it is/was a mix between Rap and Rock.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018?

Johnny: World domination! Haha. Actually; I just hope we continue to grow at the speed we currently are. I really believe in this music and I’m very proud of the E.P. with have recorded.  I hope that the listeners understand what we are trying to create.

Klaus: I hope to be able to reach a few more people with our music.

Kai: We have a killer shows coming up. I hope they are successful.

Torben: That the E.P. reaches the correct ears. This, of course, is the toughest part of our job.

Tobi: To continue writing good songs!

Have you each got a favourite memory from your time in music so far – the one that sticks in the mind?

Johnny: I think, for me, it would have to be my first-ever European tour with my old band. So many amazing experiences; amazing roads and views. The crowds were all so warm and friendly. We even had a couple ‘getting it on’ on top of our bass drum in one show! But, I actually think my best musical memory is yet to come - and that´s what inspires me.

Torben and Klaus: The first time we played outside Germany. We have a tour in Spain and we had to fly. It was really special.

Kai: The first time I played my Rickenbacker on stage. It’s been one of my favourite instruments since I was younger. It’s a 4001 and is from 1979. It’s an awesome instrument.

Tobi: Every time I make music and create music, it fills me with a unforgettable feeling. My aim is to have this feeling until the end of my life.

Which one album means the most to each of you would you say (and why)?

Johnny: Pink Floyd – The Wall

My mother us to play that album to help me sleep when she was pregnant with me! But, it’s not the greatest album of all time: that’s, without question, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Torben: Guns N´Roses - Appetite for Destruction

It made me learn guitar! But, I never played a song off it!

Tobi: Nomeansno - Wrong

Because its right!

Kai: Led Zeppelin – One

It was the first album I brought with my own money!

Kai: Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time

Because, it opens a door to another dimension.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail?

Johnny: Paul McCartney or Amen, I think. As for rider; I would need peppermint tea and prawn cocktail Walkers! Oh; I miss them crisps.

Tobi: Nomeansno. Energy drinks! Nasal spray and some herbs...

Torben: Smoke Blow. Backstage, I need Iso drink and beer.

Klaus: Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes. I just need beer and food!

Kai: Gluecifer. They are still the kings of Rock. Craft beer and a good steak - cooked rare!

Johnny: Funny how we all said food. Such an exciting band, right?

Can we see you on the road this year at all?

Johnny: We are on the road as we speak!

Do you think you’ll come to the U.K. and play next year or this one?

Johnny: Next year, we plan to visit. If we are allowed. Would be really cool to bring the guys over.

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

Johnny: Don´t conform to the norm and create only what you want!

Torben: Never give up on your dream.

Kai: Practice, practice and practice all the time and then, when you’re good enough, you can relax and party (Euroboy – Turbonegro)

Klaus: Practice and play live early.

Tobi: Practice even when you think your good enough!

IN THIS PHOTO: Van Holzen 

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

Klaus: Van Holzen. They are the most exciting band in Germany.

Torben: Chefboss. They are from Hamburg.

Kai: Svartanatt are from Sweden. Fantastic.

Johnny: They may be new to you but, to us, they are damn old…but Smoke Blow are fantastic!

Tobi: Moving Parts.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Chefboss

Do you all get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

Johnny: Music is my unwinding!

Tobi: I play drums.

Torben and Klaus: We all have families so it’s great to spend time with them! And Sport!

Kai: (Parental advisory).

Finally, and for being good sports; you can each choose a song and I’ll play it here (not any of your music - I will do that).

Johnny: I really love the new Paul McCartney album. Despite Repeated Warning is fantastic; the riff two minutes in...

Tobi: Nomeansno – Rag 'N Bones

Kai: Imperial State Electric – Down in the Bunker

Torben: Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes - Devil Inside Me

Klaus: Kvelertak – Blodtørst

___________

Follow Blast Bomb

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/blastbombhamburg/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7cij4crvmjih0TbfNkBWtf?si=IovLQtSSSLyLWWLuidfrAg

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FEATURE: Dissillusions: Is Bringing Musicians Back to Life Through Holographic Projection Morally Right?

FEATURE:

 

 

Dissillusions

IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse captured in 2004/PHOTO CREDIT: Karen Robinson 

Is Bringing Musicians Back to Life Through Holographic Projection Morally Right?

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THIS is one of these subjects that can really divide people…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Amy Winehouse photoed in 2003/PHOTO CREDIT: Karen Robinson 

depending on your ethical viewpoint. Amy Winehouse is the latest deceased musician to get the holographic treatment. Winehouse died in 2011 and, naturally, people miss her and long to see her perform again. There have been rare songs released and a collection of half-finished cuts brought to the public. A documentary about her life, Amy, was released a few years back and it has been announced a biopic of the singer will start work fairly soon. I was a bit shocked to discover a biopic was being considered because Winehouse is that unique character who cannot be easily replicated. One wonders who will play her and whether that portrayal will be able to get within miles of who she was and why she captivated people. The news she is to go ‘on tour’ in the form of a hologram sent shivers up my spine. You can say it is good people get to see her tour again but the fact she is dead and what we are seeing is some weird spirit on the stage, to me, doesn’t sit right. The Guardian’s Laura Barton reacted to the news and asked, as I am, whether ‘resurrecting’ stars is ethical and moral:

“It has been announced that Winehouse will return to the stage once again in 2019, touring the world in hologram form. Winehouse is not the first artist to receive the hologram treatment – there have already been such incarnations of Tupac Shakur, Maria Callas, Michael Jackson and more. But the decision to turn Winehouse into a hologram, seven years after her death from alcohol poisoning, has divided many. For some this is a celebration of a great and much-missed musician. Others argue that an artist who loathed touring and hated fame should be allowed to rest…

 

In the case of Winehouse, proceeds from the tour will be channelled into the Amy Winehouse Foundation, the charity established after her death to aid vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, particularly those coping with substance abuse and emotional problems. The singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, is the executor of Winehouse’s estate and chair of the foundation, and was intimately involved in negotiations for the hologram tour. It was just a couple of years after her death that he was first approached with the idea. “It was way too early,” says Mitch. “At that time, I could barely watch a video of Amy, never mind a hologram. I completely dismissed it out of hand.”

How we remember Winehouse – or any artist – is an interesting matter. Alongside next year’s hologram tour, there will be a new film about her life, made by Alison Owens, and Mitch Winehouse, who has been critical of Kapadia’s documentary, hopes that it will offer a more tender portrait of the singer. “Alison is the mum of Lily Allen, who herself has had struggles,” he says. “It couldn’t be in more considerate and caring hands.” Mitch also has absolute approval from Base over his daughter’s virtual image. There will be no drinking on stage, he tells me. “Amy will be portrayed at her best”.

One can claim some of Winehouse’s later performances were unfocused and shambolic – given her alcohol addiction and personal problems.

Whilst there were some ragged and controversial shows; when she was at her best and most composed; there was nobody who could project the same sense of wonder, emotion and realness. You felt like you were hearing sermons and soulful revelations from an artist free from bullsh*t and ego. This was a performer who gave her all to the music and, when on the stage, wanted the audience to see that. It was not so much a case of bringing them into songs and making them part of her words: it was a chance to see this physical being express what was inside her and watch that come out in a very primal and human way. The fact you were, literally, in the same space as Amy Winehouse was what made her such a popular and wonderful performer. Although she was only with us for twenty-seven years; I feel this eternal preservation through holographic representation is morally suspect. It is okay her family have approved this venture and there is money going to Winehouse’s foundation. I applaud the charity angle and the fact Winehouse going on tour as this disembodied projection will raise money to help others but one feels a tribute concert could have done the same thing. One might say having others performer her songs in memory of her treads the same ethical lines as a hologram Winehouse but I sharply disagree.

 IN THIS IMAGE: Gorillaz/IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

There is concert footage of Amy Winehouse and archive material of her. Her records are out there and the hologram that will go touring is not going to give us anything new. You cannot add much to what has already been performed and I wonder whether people who will literally buy into these concerts are doing it for the right reasons. Are they merely there to witness something strange and new or do they genuinely want to support Winehouse and what she stood for?! I still think artists should be left alone but, alas, it seems like nobody is safe. I have covered this topic before and, last time, asked whether there are benefits to holographic versions of stars. Strangely, one can unite disparate deceased in a single performance. You could revive any dead artist and put them together with someone else to create this weird and one-off performance. The only way holograms and these kind of ideas sit well with me is if the artist is living. Consider Gorillaz who, as we know, are sort of cartoon/projection characters with real, living voices. When you see a Gorillaz concert you know the voices and instruments you see are from real people and that is part of the illusion. It is an inventive and new way of turning real musicians into cartoon versions. It has been suggested that holographs could be a way for living musicians to perform around the world without having to travel. If they are ill, exhausted or unable to perform then maybe this is a solution.

I am all for technology advancing music and open to any innovation but live performance, as its name suggests, is about the living and the audience being in close proximity to the artist they paid to see. I do not see much point seeing a hologram performing in any case and if you are struggling to perform then you need to take some time out and recuperate. Unfortunately, Amy Winehouse is in good company when it comes to being turned into a hologram. There is a school of thought that suggests holograms – whether that word is a misnomer or truly accurate – are the way forward and there is a definite appetite for them. There is a theatrical side to it and it certainly does something new with the concept of a live show. If you want to enhance music and use technology this way; ensuring only living artists are involved avoids any moral issues and avoids it being too creepy. An article from Noisey looked at the evolution of holograms and talked about ethical implications:

“When it comes to creepiness, there’s also a moral implication of bringing a celebrity back from the dead and making profit from their image. One suspects Michael Jackson may have been thrilled by his showstopping performance at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards – made by Pulse Evolution, the company Textor started with other facial animation team members from Digital Domain when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But what might Billie Holiday, who died in 1959, think about playing at noon everyday on the Hollywood Boulevard at $22-$32 a pop? Is the fact we can’t ask her – or Jackson – reason enough not to do it? And isn’t the whole thing a little macabre?

IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Holiday in 1938/PHOTO CREDIT: Underwood & Underwood/Corbis  

“Look, Billie Holiday or anyone of our deceased celebrities are performers, right?” says a slightly exasperated Alki, sounding like a man who’s heard this question more than a few times since he entered the burgeoning industry in 2012. “They lived for the limelight, so an ability to continue after death would be something they’d want.” So the thought never troubles him? “Personally, no. Does it create controversy with people? Sure it does. We embrace the controversy because it kickstarts the conversation and creates awareness”.

Another odd thing about holograms if the fact it is sort of a commercial Heaven. Artists can obtain this immortality and continue to make money – for their estate – long after they die and proves, in music, there is life (of a sort) after death. One of my big problems is the artist does not consent – the same is true of biopics. I am uneasy with estates and families speaking for the artist and taking decisions out of their hands. I think Winehouse would object to her going on the road as a hologram; Roy Orbison would be a bit weirded-out and I am sure there are few deceased artists who would actively welcome them being kept on life support through this new technology. How long has the idea of a musician hologram been around? How far has it come? This article looks at that point:

“Five years after his death, Michael Jackson stole the show. He always did when he was alive, and it was no different during Sunday night's Billboard Music Awards (BBMA), when a holographic MJ joined a five-piece band and 16 dancers onstage.

He wasn't the first. When hologram technology emerged two years ago, it seemed like a fad. Now it's a trend of resurrection so common it might just be the future of the industry…

It began in April 2012, when a virtual Tupac Shakur took the stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. It was the first time a hologram had been used in a live performance for such a huge American crowd, and the first time hologram technology was used to ressurrect a dead singer.

The technology is widely celebrated, but the principle is a little more troubling. Bringing back the dead has always been treacherous ground to tread. In robotics, there's a concept called the "uncanny valley," where a digital or robotic likeness of a human is cool until it looks just enough like a real person, at which point it becomes terrifying. Think about any of Pixar's human caricatures, and now think about the Polar Express.

There's also the disturbing symbolism of the whole practice. This may be the future of entertainment, but perhaps it will never sit well. It takes months and long hours to create a likeness (and we will get faster), but it takes years of full life to build the real thing”.

I might come around to the concept of holograms if there was a way of utilising living artists and doing something impossible in real life.

I am always going to be suspect and uneasy with departed musicians because it has that creepy and synthetic quality. A final article agrees with my moral hesitation and asks whether the technology is actually fully-realised:

“I guess I’d be a little more inclined to open my mind to the hologram concert idea if it were more to recreate a particular historical musical moment in the most realistic way possible. If offered the chance to “be there” when Led Zeppelin played three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden, just to name one example, I’d probably bite at it. Live Aid: The Hologram Experience, anyone?

But we’re a long, long way off from hologram technology being anywhere even remotely close to having the capability to “re-create” a full show like that. And I’m not sure we should even try. Maybe things happen and we miss them and that’s OK. Maybe our favorite singers just die and they can “live on” in video footage or through actually living musicians who cover their work. As we’ve learned so often from our technological advances, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should”.

Other people will have their views and say this is a way of preserving artists and ensuring they reach new audiences. Others will state holograms are a chance for people to experience artists in a new light and get to see something nobody else has. I respect some people are open-minded to this concept and see light in it but I feel leaving artists like Amy Winehouse alone is doing more to her memory than reimagining her – whether that is via holographic form or a biopic. Artists need to have a say regarding their life/work and holograms do not give them that chance. The technology might improve and I may come around to the idea but, right now, the idea of reviving a lost musician in this fashion…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @russbaum/Unsplash

LEAVES me somewhat cold.  

FEATURE: Twelve Years of Silence to See a Perfect Prologue... Kate Bush’s Aerial: A Return from the ‘Wilderness’

FEATURE:

 

 

Twelve Years of Silence to See a Perfect Prologue…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush (2005)/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton/National Portrait Gallery, London

Kate Bush’s Aerial: A Return from the ‘Wilderness’

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MY rationing regarding Kate Bush has had to be revised…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

because November is a busy month in terms of her album anniversaries! I will not put up another feature regarding her albums until next year but I wanted to look at Aerial because, not only is it thirteen on 7th November, but few people actually expected it to be released! The fact she has a book of lyrics coming out and is a series of remastered albums before the end of the year suggests any notion Bush is a reclusive and quiet artist should be put to rest. Although she has not released a studio album since 2011’s 50 Words for Snow; the fact she is gearing up for fresh activity suggests she is in the sort of mood to at least tease a new album – who knows what next year will bring?! I am sure something, in some form, will arrive next year but we must be patient! Her album, The Red Shoes, came out in 1993 and that was after an four-year gap (The Sensual World was released in 1989). There were reasons why there was a bit of a hiatus after The Sensual World. Although Bush was never known for her consistent series of albums; she has released two albums in 1978; one in 1980; another in 1982 and another in 1985 – five albums in seven years is quite a lot from someone who was putting her all into every note!

 IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

1982’s The Dreaming took its toll and Bush needed to relocate to the country to find new energy, space and impetus. Hounds of Love was a great and rewarding experience but, again, one that took energy from her. By the time she had finished with that, and after heavy promotion, got down to recording The Sensual World; you could tell there were some strains and a need for a rest. 1993’s The Red Shoes was a strange album that saw various tragedies and personal issues affect the material and influence her after the album was released. Look back at the albums that came before and you can see leaps and evolutions between each. The Red Shoes was a bit of a step back and, to many, remains one of her weaker albums (that and Lionheart (1978) usually get considered her worst). There are some great moments on the record – Rubberband Girl and Moments of Pleasure – but it was not on the same level as the likes of The Sensual World and Hounds of Love. Maybe there was too much pressure to change or top what had come before; a need to adapt to 1990s technology – the production was quite edgy and ‘modern’ – and take a step in a new direction. Whatever her reasoning; some were a bit cold regarding the album and it was a rather rough creative spell.

  IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

People were used to gaps between albums but there was not the four/five year gap that had had come before. The Red Shoes is the only record from Kate Bush from the 1990s and, by the time the new millennium came around; many wondered whether the icon has retired and was done with music. I listen back to The Red Shoes and it is one of those albums that is sort of half-and-half: there are four of five classic Kate Bush songs that are wonderful but then the rest sits between the average and under-par. Maybe a sense of dissatisfaction and critical infidelity got to her and she needed to retrench and find some new solution. The death of her mother around the time the album came out made a huge impact and she split with her long-time boyfriend Del Palmer. It was a tough time for sure and one can understand Kate Bush wanting time to reflect and breathe. The announcement of a new album in 2005 took many by surprise, that is for sure! In the twelve years between records, to be fair, Bush was busy raising a family (her son Bertie was born in 1998) and enjoying a more domesticated, maternal life. Domesticity and a more settled nature affects the material on the double-album, Aerial. Mrs. Bartolozzi is a paen to a washing machine and cleaning.

Make what you want of the potential sexual references regarding entangles clothes succumbing to suds – that sort of double-meaning and cheekiness has always been part of her work. On the album’s first side, Bush opens with the determined, hypnotic and assured King of the Mountain; she, literally, rattles off the number of pi on π and ends with the splendid A Coral Room. Although it is a fairly conventional side of music; the music and lyrics take us in a new direction. Certainty, there are few similarities between The Red Shoes’ songs and what we find on Aerial! The production on 2005’s Aerial is quite modern and fresh but has a warmth and old-fashioned naturalness that is wholly appropriate. The music has that familial and gentle quality. This is Kate Bush in a more settled and content life; she is singing about family, nature and everything around her. With Del Palmer engineering and Kate Bush producing – the former lovers still have a fond and dedicated working relationship – it is a record that sounds as accomplished and consistent as any she ever put out. Most artists, after twelve years away, might come back a little rusty and would take a few more records to find their former feet.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @firstmohican/Unsplash

If The Red Shoes was not a great fit; Aerial is a freer and more sumptuous album. There are fewer weak moments and the music is a lot richer, deeper and more intriguing. I love most of the first half but sometimes skip over Bertie and Joanni. No song on Aerial can be truly considered poor: conversely, it is one of Kate Bush’s most pleasing works and sounds like she has taken all the stresses, doubts and strains of the period after The Red Shoes and mixed them into the album! A new album from Bush, coupled with a more settled and family-orientated life, did not mean a tepid and restrained songwriter. Songs about washing machines, literally rattling off numbers and projecting the most wild and odd imagery showed she had lost none of her potent touch! An Endless Sky of Honey, the second side, is her first concept suite since Hounds of Love in 1985. Where that conceptual arc was about a woman being stranded at sea and trying to stay awake in hope of rescue; Aerial’s storyline is an immersion into the beauty of nature; an embrace of birds, bees; the sky, sea and everything in-between. Like its first side; An Endless Sky of Honey has endless warmth, grace and adventure. In many ways, Aerial’s concept is grander and more startling than Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave. Both relate to the natural world in their own way but there is no struggle and need for survival: a more enriched and recharged Bush is positively opening her imagination and taking the listener with her!

The second side charts a day in the world: from the rising sun and morning birds to the dawning night and silent darkness. It is more like a Classical symphony than a conventional ‘Pop’ concept. Maybe inspired by Pink Floyd and some of their most ambitious moments; one’s mind is boggled by all the detail, invention and beauty throughout the forty-two minute suite. It is testament to Bush’s command that people sit through it and immerse themselves in the music. As I say; it is like a Classical epic that requires you to sit still and digest every note and reflection. Such a contrast to the first side; in some ways, it seems like a perfect accompaniment. If Bush was keen to engage and hook listeners with more straight-forward (if strange) songs on the first side; the second is a chance to unwind and experience this beguiling and wonderful thing! On 7th November, 2005, the world snapped up a new Kate Bush album, not really knowing what to expect and whether it would be an improvement on The Red Shoes. Critics, largely, heaped praise on Aerial and proclaimed it a return to form for the enigmatic musician. The Guardian had their say:

“Aerial sounds like an album made in isolation. On the down side, that means some of it seems dated. You can't help feeling she might have thought twice about the lumpy funk of Joanni and the preponderance of fretless bass if she got out a bit more. But, on the plus side, it also means Aerial is literally incomparable. You catch a faint whiff of Pink Floyd and her old mentor Dave Gilmour on the title track, but otherwise it sounds like nothing other than Bush's own back catalogue. It is filled with things only Kate Bush would do. Some of them you rather wish she wouldn't, including imitating bird calls and doing funny voices: King of the Mountain features a passable impersonation of its subject, Elvis, which is at least less disastrous than the strewth-cobber Aussie accent she adopted on 1982's The Dreaming. But then, daring to walk the line between the sublime and the demented is the point of Kate Bush's entire oeuvre. On Aerial she achieves far, far more of the former than the latter. When she does, there is nothing you can do but willingly succumb”.

Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile, were keen to share their thoughts:

“Maturity hasn’t dulled Kate Bush’s propensity for musical loopiness. Twelve years after her last album, she is still besotted by all the wonders of this good green earth. On the sprawling but focused Aerial, she is a sprite flitting across verdant, languorous soundscapes, cooing along with the birdsong and extolling the virtues of her son, the beauty of numbers — even doing the wash — all the while mesmerizing with her controlled whimsy and intricate arrangements that never overwhelm her voice. Considering the length of her hiatus, this is a remarkable surprise”.

There is another positive review from Rolling Stone:

“Featuring songs about Elvis, mathematics, her son and a washing machine, the first disc rarely rises above a musical whisper. The second, a conceptual work that follows nature's course from afternoon to sunrise, slowly builds via fantastically gorgeous strings, a brief smattering of Spanish guitar, one slinky protracted groove built for "Nocturne," and a duet of laughter and birdcalls on the throbbing title track. Akin to recent Antony and the Johnsons and latter-day Talk Talk, Aerial doesn't deliver anything resembling a conventional pop tune. And this suits Bush just fine”.

There was no shortage of love for Kate Bush and her marvellous return! People were keen to add their comments and, as with all of her albums; Aerial is a work that needs to be played in full and listened the whole way through. The fact An Endless Sky of Honey has multiple parts but you can only stream/buy it is a single album shows how she wants her audience to listen to each part – it would sound disjointed and odd if you picked an odd song here and there!

Bush would not leave us with such a length gap before she followed up Aerial with 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. That album, as the title suggests, took on a wintery theme and saw Bush, again, stick a concept. Her modern work is more synonymous with unified and singular themes – in the sense there is not a collection of disconnected tracks – and it is interesting to see what comes next. One hopes there is not another five years to wait until we see a follow up to 50 Words for Snow but, as I say, it seems like there is activity brewing in the Kate Bush camp. We will wait with interest to see what forms and arrives but I wanted to look at Aerial some thirteen years after its release. One waited almost as long to see that album arrive after The Red Shoes and listening to Aerial in 2018 is a startling thing. The album continues to reveal its treasures and stories and I am amazed she was able to produce something as brilliant as she did. That sounds condescending but it was like being back in the mid-1980s and a refreshed Bush striking rare heights! She left us waiting for a while but it was wonderful seeing her return triumphantly after twelve years. What happens next is down to her but I feel we will get something pretty soon. Kate Bush could have retired from music or released something underwhelming but, with 2005’s Aerial; she confounded everyone and produced an album that reminded everyone…

 IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images

WHY we love her so.  

FEATURE: (Not in Our) House Music: How Noise and Resident Complaints Are Threatening Brilliant Venues

FEATURE:

 

 

(Not in Our) House Music

PHOTO CREDIT: @5tep5/Unsplash 

How Noise and Resident Complaints Are Threatening Brilliant Venues

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WE are aware there are a lot of venues closing…

around the country - and it is hard to pinpoint an exact reason why this is happening! In some cases, there is a lack of demand and popularity that means venues cannot afford to keep going. In other instances; there are factors around licensing and legalities; some close because of a change of management and, whatever the reason behind venues closing, it is sad to see this happen. Some have their theories as to why small venues, especially, are closing and why the live music landscape is getting poorer. This article, written last year for The Guardian assessed the damage and theorised one reason why some venues are closing:

“But for the past five years Total Refreshment Centre has been under the perpetual threat of losing its space in the relentless redevelopment of London’s east. In the last decade alone more than half of London’s 430 music venues that traded in London between 2007 and 2015 have followed a similar path – toppled by planning regulations, noise abatement rulings, the juggernauting cost of land in the capital, not to mention the great outlay of booking bands and staging gigs. It’s a similar story outside of London too: across the UK, music venues that have flourished for decades have begun to disappear.

This week, the Music Venue Trust, the charity that supports the interests of Britain’s small music venues, questioned Arts Council England’s decision to reject its application for funding. The trust argues that while Arts Council England does much to support new music, with money for the internet radio station NTS, live-streaming Boiler Room and contemporary music curators Capsule to name but three, 85% of its music funding has been allotted to opera and classical music, according to the charity, with £96m given to the Royal Opera House alone. With the next round of funding applications in 2022, it’s hard not to foresee that many more small music venues might close in the next four years”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @foulsterr/Unsplash

It is hard to say how bad the problem can get and whether a turnaround can happen – there is a very real issue and I do wonder how long it will be until all our grassroot venues are lost. This report investigated London’s grassroot venues and hoe extreme the issue of closures are:

“35% of London's grassroots music venues have been lost since 2007. Music helps make London a dynamic city. Our music scene is second to none and this decline needs to stop if London is going to continue to be a city that nurtures, creates and enjoys a world famous live music scene.

The Mayor and London's Night Czar are leading the city-wide charge to support and protect London's important grassroots music venues and make London the world’s best music city.

Impact of business rates on London grassroots music venues

A fifth of London’s grassroots music venues could be forced to close due to business rates increases.

A further 18 of London’s 94 grassroots music venues are expected to experience significant financial challenges. In total, these 39 venues account for up to 530 jobs and generate up to £21.5m for the capital’s economy.

On top of this, an additional 23 venues are at risk of having to cut the number of new artists they book, instead opting to put on safer, more-established artists that generate higher sales.

Together, these grassroot music venues account for at least 14,000 emerging-artist performance opportunities annually at risk, and have a knock-on effect for the music industry as a whole, while reducing the opportunities for new and emerging talent in London.

This conservative figure is based on one emerging artist performing at each of the at risk grassroots music venues per night.

Read the full report below produced by Nordicity, commissioned by the Mayor of London”.

PHOTO CREDIT: @seththr/Unsplash 

I know measures are being put in place and the Government are pledging remedies to stem the closures. It is worrying, for all music fans, to see any venue go under and close its doors. I can understand a venue closing if it were not pulling in traders because of low demand and a general feeling of apathy in the community. Maybe that could be reversed but it is hard to compete with modern consumerism and how we spend our nights – people more willing to stay in and save money than go out. It seems, however, one factor is responsible for a lot of venue deaths: noise and complaints from local residents. This report from the BBC sheds light on this growing trend and ways in which soundproofing can protect venues from closure:

"They can be some of the best shows. You have everyone packed in... It's often the most intimate and standout experience on a tour."

That's how artist Isaac Gracie describes playing small venues around the UK - and it's a feeling many in the audience recognise too.

But the UK is at risk of losing more of its music venues, members of the British music industry say.

And now they're hoping parliament will help them stop the decline.

UK Music, which represents the British music industry, is pushing a new law based on something called the 'Agent of Change' principle…

PHOTO CREDIT: @chairulfajar_/Unsplash  

UK Music says 35% of venues across the country have closed in the last decade.

"The big problem has been in recent years that developers have moved in next to pre-existing music venues," says the body's chief, Michael Dugher.

"All of a sudden, the people in a block of flats are complaining about the noise of a venue."

Agent of Change would mean that developers have to pay for soundproofing - either in the homes being built near venues, or in the venues themselves.

Bristol venue Thekla has hosted live music and club nights since the 80s.

Julie Tippins is from DHP Family, the company which owns the venue.

"Thekla is one of the few live music venues and nightclubs that operates from a boat on a harbour," she says - something which limits how much soundproofing they can do at the venue.

DHP Family says Thekla is under threat because of plans to build residential buildings nearby.

"It is completely avoidable if we build the right kind of soundproofing into residential developments," she says, arguing this hasn't happened in the planned development near Thekla.

"If we continue to lose live venues, then it will only just make all of our lives a little bit poorer"

Some new venues, such as The Horn in St Albans, have been working closely with residents to ensure there is cooperation and understanding. Soundproofing checks have been carried and, whilst there is trial-and-error associated; it has meant greater visibility, transparency and understanding. This is one case where a new venue has been able to foresee potential stumbling blocks and avoid needless complaints.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @ddinuzzo/Unsplash

An established venue near where I used to live - The Star Inn in Guildford (Surrey) - is under threat because locals are complaining about the noise projected by live acts. A petition is online – so people can save the venue – and it has drawn a lot of coverage:

“The pub, which claims to be Guildford’s longest running music venue, hosted The Strangler’s first official gig in 1974.

However, the pub has been handed a noise abatement notice requiring a reduction in noise levels or facing fines of up to £20,000.

Pub manager Georgina Baker, who started the petition , described the decision as "stupid beyond words" and said it will "kill our business".

The pub’s “Back Room” is a popular venue for live music and regularly hosts events from the Guildford Fringe each year.

Neil Young, a developer, converted a former office that backed onto the pub into four flats and, shortly after, made the noise complaint to Guildford Borough Council.

That was despite warnings from the pub’s owners, Shepherd Neame, when he applied for planning permission that noise would be a problem.

The warning came five years ago but, nonetheless, consent was granted by the council.

Those signing the petition have been lending their support to the prestigious pub.

Callum Weston, who signed the petition five months ago, said: “The Star Inn is an invaluable asset to the cultural fabric of Guildford. It has played host to countless well-established home and international acts, as well as giving young local musicians and promoters a fantastic platform to hone their skills and take their first steps into the creative industries.

“The loss of this historic venue would be an outrage and a huge loss for the people of Guildford.”

Council leader Paul Spooner has also given his support to The Star after the noise complaint was initially made, and said he was “very disappointed” that officers had decided to issue a noise abatement notice.

You can sign the petition here”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @aplaceforcreation/Unsplash

It seems that noise complaints are among the most popular (if that is the right term?!) reasons why venues are closing down. Although spaces like The Star Inn have been there for years; it seems a new crop of residents are creating problems. As the article above shows; many venues are informing councils and local bodies of potential issues and trying to avoid conflict. Maybe, in a lot of cases, councils and those who receive these complaints need to do more. I feel soundproofing should be part of every venue’s plans. Whether that will be too costly and it will be unrealistic I am not sure. I feel that method and solution would avoid needless problems and ensure more venues survive. I am concerned there are closures because of noise complaints. You have to wonder why people are shocked to discover venues will project noise. The people who are complaining live pretty close to these venues. Unless the venue has their windows open and are blasting music from speakers; you have to wonder the radius that comes into play and issues around proximity. If you do live that close to a venue or pub; noise, of course, is to be expected. A lot of venues that are receiving complaints are contained – in the sense there is not a great deal of noise bleed and there is a case of residents being sensitive.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @alexiby/Unsplash

Most of the people who are complaining, one hopes, would have done some research and have been around the local area! You have families moving close to good schools and considering amenities; they are keen to move somewhere affable and well-off and, you feel, they must realise a music venue not only puts out a little bit of noise but is essential to the community. I do wonder whether it is mostly families who are making these complaints and concerned about their children. The exact demographic is not being released but many complaints are from new residents making claims against a venue that has been there for years. These new developments and high-rise apartments attract a more affluent type of person and, not to judge, they tend to be quite delicate and self-concerned. Many do not spend a lot of time at music venues and do not realise how much they mean to musicians who rely upon them. In many cases, the residents could have saved themselves a lot of hassle by doing proper research and consider things like noise when moving into a new place. I do wonder why there is such vociferous complaint regarding noise because the venues who are closing due to noise complaints could have just put in some soundproofing and solved the issue – residents are not accepting this and are unwilling to be malleable. It seems like the majority of the venues that are being threatened with closure due to noise have either been there years – and new residents are making an issue – or local bodies are not adequately protecting them.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @marceloleal80/Unsplash

Is noise really that much of an issue when it comes to health and well-being?! This illuminating article studied the issue at hand:

“…anti-social noise can be an enormous problem. Quite apart from the immediate distress it can cause, some research suggests a link between noise pollution and health issues like heart disease.

Anti-noise legislation exists to make sure noise that is genuinely causing a nuisance can be stopped. And as the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health found, that legislation gets used a lot.

It’s research asked 150 local authorities in England and Wales (that’s 43% of the total) about noise complaints. And it found that, over a 12-month period, there were 10,442 noise complaints relating to licensed premises such as pubs and clubs.

“It’s hard to talk about noise without examining a whole chain of factors,” explains Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of the Music Venue Trust. “At this level, running a live music venue is generally a not-for-profit business.”

“There’s an enormous amount of pressure on venues. Touring budgets have been cut, yet the industry still wants venues to take on the risks of helping new bands develop. At the same time, music venues don’t receive the same levels of public funding as other arts venues.”

It’s something of a slippery slope, with noise just one of many factors affecting venues’ prospects.

PHOTO CREDIT: @outdoor_junkiez  

“A noise complaint can be the last straw,” confirms Mark. “When margins are so thin, venues don’t have the leeway to comply with even minor licensing adjustments”.

It is hard to negotiate and navigate noise! It is such a varied, unpredictable and widespread issue in any high-street. Consider noises from pubs and bars in general – before you even throw in musicians and live performances! I know there is mediation and attempts at detente when venues are threatened but you have to wonder whether venues that are being threatened – and those already closed – have been met with (ironically) deaf ears! Can the problem be avoided on a tight budget?

“Even on a tight budget you can take measures to minimise how much sound escapes your premises:

·         Make sure doors and windows stay closed during performances. If customers tend to enter and leave frequently, install door closers to keep sound leakage as low as possible.

·         Fit acoustic seals around doors and windows. You can buy kits to install yourself for around £100.

·         Evaluate where speakers are located. Speakers attached to walls and ceilings may vibrate the structure of your building, transmitting noise externally.

·         Install sound absorption materials beneath your stage, and make sure there is some kind of anti-vibration material on top.

·         Think about installing noise limiters. These restrict volume without interrupting the sound. If acts provide their own amplification, you can also install a cut-out system, activated if the volume exceeds a defined level.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @jontyson/Unsplash

·         Evaluate noise levels during the sound check for each event. Set a maximum volume level and then restrict who has access to volume controls on the amplifiers or mixing deck.

·         If you are concerned about noise from customers leaving, put up signs and get staff to ask people to be quiet on the way out. Some venues have even experimented with handing out lollipops at closing time!

·         Think about the small things, too. Ask local taxi firms not to toot the horn when picking up customers. And don’t carry out noisy tasks – like tipping bottles into the recycling – late at night.

·         This means you need to be prepared on another front. Try to build up some positive PR that you can draw on in the event of problems.

·         If your building is physically attached to another, go and have a chat with your neighbour. Building a relationship makes it more likely that they’ll come to you with any complaints, rather than going straight to the local authority.

·         Then think about how loyal customers can help. With a little effort, you can turn their enthusiasm to your advantage.

·         “In the UK, we’re terrible at praising,” explains Mark. “We don’t say enough about how much we love having a library, an arts centre, or a music venue. Venues need to take the initiative in showing how much value they give the local community.”

      

·  Try to mobilise your regular customers. For instance, Mark co-owns the Tunbridge Wells Forum. By asking social media followers to post reviews on TripAdvisor, he was able to get the venue listed as the town’s top attraction.

·         He says it’s about playing the long game: “It may seem irrelevant right now. But if we ever have a noise complaint, the council’s attitude will be influenced by the fact that we’re rated as the number one thing to do in Tunbridge Wells.”

·         There’s strength in numbers, too — because when it comes to nuisance noise, a single complaint can shut down a venue. “You’d be amazed at how often a perceived noise problem relates to one angry, vocal person in the community,” says Mark.

The Government has brought in plans to combat the issue. It seems the problem regarding noise is being taken seriously:

“On 18th January 2018, the Government announced plans to adopt 'Agent of Change' into The National Planning Policy Framework.

The principle of ‘agent of change’ protects clubs and music venues by transferring responsibility to “identify and solve any sound problems” at new properties back to developers, rather than the owners of nearby music venues.

What effect will the changes have?

Essentially, it means that a developer of flats next to a live music venue would need to make provision for ensuring the residents were not affected by noise from music, via proper design and soundproofing…

PHOTO CREDIT: @tinaflour/Unsplash 

Likewise, an operator of a new live music venue in a residential area would need to ensure that they installed adequate soundproofing to prevent noise adversely affecting residents already living nearby.

Currently the law, in particular in licensing terms, favours developers of residential homes and their buyers. Under the Licensing Act, they can review a premises licence at no cost to themselves and force the venue to change its practices for the benefit of the residents, even if it has been hosting music events for decades.

Who do the changes apply to?

Introduction of the principle into general law would give added protection to premises to fight against such outcomes. The Planning Policy would not change the ability of people moving into existing residential properties to complain about noise coming from a venue, but it allows for a more balanced approach to the problem.

Richard Arnot, a Partner in Ward Hadaway’s Licensing team, said: “The increase in demand for housing in built-up areas means some residents are coming into conflict with existing live music venues.

“There needs to be consideration between the parties as someone shouldn’t be able to move next door to a music venue and decide afterwards that music is a nuisance. In the same way that it wouldn’t be right for a live music venue to install a sound system without consideration for nearby residents…

PHOTO CREDIT: @aliyahjam/Unsplash  

What effect will the changes have?

Richard added: “This proposal means that developers will be responsible for identifying and solving any sound problems if they are granted permission to build.

“It strikes a balance between the obligations of developers and protects music venues from running into expensive issues as a result of complaints from new neighbours”.

Although these measures have already been implanted and there is on-going contingency; it seems a lot of venues are suffering because they are older and have not been fitted with insulation or been considered under these new guidelines. It is clear cooperation and better communication between venues and residents needs to happen. I can empathise and feel needless noise and volume can put them off; it makes their lives worse and can actually affect property prices. Rather than them going straight to ‘teacher’ and lodging their grievances; I wonder whether they should actually go direct too the venue; not with anger and threats but suggestions and ways in which everyone can benefit. How many times has this potential truce occurred when venues are being forced shut?! I can appreciate how people moving into an area want as little noise as possible but music venues, unless you in big cities, are not all over the place and it is easy to live away from the worse of the noise.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @antonio_dicaterina/Unsplash

If you happen to be in the noise ‘radiation zone’ and near the epicentre of the issue; one would image you’d take all that into consideration and discuss your concerns with the venues. As we heard earlier; new musicians rely on these venues, large and small, in order to cut their teeth and hone their skills. If it is not for these venues, it means artists have fewer chances to improve and that can impede their career development. Not only that but local residents who do not have that many venues near them and being denied and it makes an area poorer. Music brings sociability and togetherness; it can put a town/city on the map and bring revenue to that venue and other local businesses. I realise most venues in the country are not responsible for putting out too much noise and receiving complaints. There are other reasons why venues are closing but, as this article highlights; musicians are feeling the pinch and it is having a knock-on effect:

“The UK’s first live music census has found that a third of Britain’s small venues outside of London are fighting to survive in the face of high business rates and noise restrictions.

Some 29% of small venues, and 27% of all venues, reported experiencing problems with property development around their premises, which can provoke complaints from nearby residents. In response, the researchers recommended that the government continue to develop at a national level a legally binding “agent of change” principle, which would put the onus on developers to soundproof new-build properties, rather than placing restrictions on existing venues. Last month, ministers including housing secretary Sajid Javid committed to strengthening planning rules to protect grassroots venues…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @foulsterr/Unsplash

“Beverley Whitrick, strategic director of the Music Venue Trust, welcomed the news. “For us, the UK live music census is an entirely positive story because it’s taking a lot of the things that we have been saying about the needs of the grassroots music sector and reinforcing it with evidence. MVT has operated as a small organisation on anecdotal evidence for the last few years and we have gone as far as we can with that. And what we needed was evidence to show why help is needed. The census is a huge step forward in providing that help.”

The report also highlighted the difficulty of making a living as a musician in Britain: 68% said stagnating pay made it difficult to earn a viable income, with the figure rising to 80% for those identifying as professional musicians; 66% reported working unpaid for “exposure” that they believe had no positive effect on their career.

Further recommendations resulting from the census included continuing to investigate secondary ticketing via the Competition and Markets Authority, encouraging more extensive funding for emerging artists, venue infrastructure, tour support and rehearsal spaces, and promoting music education in schools and encouraging live music attendance inside and outside the curriculum”.

We all, as music fans, want to reduce the number of closures and stem the issues that are clear and growing. Even though the Government are assisting when it comes to noise; you wonder how much of a long-term impact this will make: in the short-term, we are still seeing beloved music venues close and, with that, musicians and locals who rely on that lifeblood are being hit hard.

 PHOTO CREDIT: @snowshade/Unsplash

I feel noise complaints will continue to threaten venues for years and it is so easy to avoid. If a local resident does not want ANY noise and wants to live like monks observing a vow of silence then good for them. If venues are tossing out nuclear noise then I can see where they are coming from. Venues do not want to close and stop putting on live music and are willing to make arrangements with taxi companies and locals to ensure as little noise as possible is projected. So many of the venues who are being scrutinised are old and have been there before new-build apartments. Even if buildings have been around longer than local venues; you feel a civil compromise and conversation could happen. I cannot stress how important these spaces are for musicians and locals. Bands and artists depend on them for revenue, experience and new fans; locals have that social aspect and can discover new local artists/those travelling to their area. You are not only impacting the local area by shutting down venues but those wider afield. Many people travel from further afield to go to these venues and, when the spaces are closed, where do they go?! I feel more needs to be done, especially by residents, to understand the importance of small venues and avoid such needless loss. If we can do this then that will mean the world to musicians and residents and make that local area…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @gaspanik/Unsplash

A more peaceful and culturally-rich place.  

INTERVIEW: Julian Wa

INTERVIEW:

Julian Wa

___________

THANKS to Julian Wa…

for talking about his recent single, Bloom, and how it came to mind. I wonder whether there is any more material coming and if he has ambitions to hit the road and play his music to the people – Wa recommends a couple of rising artists we need to get behind and support.

The Australian songwriter tells me a few albums that mean a lot to him and what he does when not making music; what he hopes to achieve by the end of the year and whether he feels he has evolved as a musician since the start – he ends the interview with a great track.

__________

Hi Julian, how are you? How has your week been? 

Hi, there. I’m very well, thanks. My weeks are busy but productive. 

For those new to your music; can you introduce yourself, please? 

I have always viewed the music as more of an experience than a collection of songs. Like a psychedelic soundtrack to my life.

Bloom is your debut single. Is there a background to the song?

Bloom is actually about the very opposite: it’s about taking the easier route in life and feeling totally unfulfilled as a result.

Might we see more material coming next year? Are you working on new stuff? 

The main focus currently is an experimental, lo-fi project set for release mid-next year. But, I am working on several things. I like to stay busy and keep my mind focused.

Do you think you have evolved and strengthened as a musician since your early days?

Very much so. Naturally, the more I grow as a musician, the easier it becomes. 

Can you remember when you decided to get into music? Was there a moment you knew it was for you? 

For as long as I can remember, music has always been there for me and I have always had a great deal of passion for it. It’s also very much therapeutic.

What do you hope to achieve by the end of 2018? 

I feel I have achieved most of what I wanted in 2018 with the release of Bloom; recruiting Ditto as my new distributor and gaining some traction on the Aussie music scene. Very much looking forward to what next year has in store.

Have you got a favourite memory from your time in music so far - one that sticks in mind?

I have plenty of stories to tell about shows/tours etc. But, I must say my favorite memories are always recording in total solitude and jamming with close and talented friends

Which three albums mean the most to you (and why)? 

I can’t say definitively as there are many more but currently I would say John Martyn - Solid Air; Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe as Milk and Wings - Wild Life. All three are truly innovative and I feel we are in need of that in 2018.

If you could support any musician alive today, and choose your own rider, what would that entail? 

I would love to work with Reggae artist Barrington Levy. All I need is English breakfast tea and whatever he is smoking .

What advice would you give to new artists coming through?

My advice would be keep your head down and work harder than you ever have if this is what you truly want in life.

Do you have tour dates coming up? Where can we catch you play?

Shows will be announced for late-2019. I want to release as much music/content as possible before getting back on the road. I love having the time to write and record with very little outside influence.

How important is it being on stage and performing? Do you love playing your music to crowds? 

Stage time is everything and I cannot wait to introduce a brand new sound/energy. All very exciting to me.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Harry Heart

Are there any new artists you recommend we check out?

My knowledge of new music is limited to be quite honest…but I will say that Harry Heart and Good Boy certainly have my attention.

IN THIS PHOTO: Good Boy/PHOTO CREDIT: Michelle Fish

Do you get much time to chill away from music? How do you unwind?

My life revolves around the studio and Twitter at the moment - but I can occasionally unwind with a cup of tea and a hug from my partner.

Finally, and for being a good sport; you can choose any song and I’ll play it here.

Thanks so much. Love in Song (from Venus and Mars) by Wings

___________

Follow Julian Wa

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JulianWaMusic

Bandcamp:

https://julianwa.bandcamp.com/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ipYk8torB1TzskYtMFlkI?si=bub9ZJuLQHed31sw1V5P7Q

SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/julianwamusic

FEATURE: Beating the Curse: The Artists Who Overcame the ‘Difficult Second Album’ Pitfall in Style

FEATURE:

 

 

Beating the Curse

PHOTO CREDIT: @adigold1/Unsplash 

The Artists Who Overcame the ‘Difficult Second Album’ Pitfall in Style

__________

EVERY artist who releases a controversial or exceptional debut…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @tjump/Unsplash

has that initial praise…and then they have that burden of expectation. Critics and fans want something even better and, given the fact they came out of the traps so fast and hard; it can be hard replicating that success. So many artists have failed and not been able to reproduce the magic and heat of their debut – producing a whimper of an album and losing all that momentum. There have been, however, plenty of artists who have motivated and moved their way past the hurdles of the ‘difficult second album’ and come up with something if not better than as good as what came before. There are many examples out there but I have collated together the artists who laid down a remarkable second album after a promising/hard to follow/average debut. Whatever the reason for that expectation and pressure; here are the albums that subverted expectations and…

PHOTO CREDIT: @akshar_dave/Unsplash 

OVERCAME idle talk of a ‘difficult’ second album.

ALL ALBUM COVERS: Getty Images

_____________

Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Debut: Definitely Maybe (1994)

Review:

“Fortuitously arriving at the mid-point of the '90s—and representing the peak of a Britpop narrative that took root with the retro-rock renaissance of the Stone Roses and the La’s five years previous—(What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is Oasis' absolute pinnacle. If Definitely Maybe presented Oasis' raw materials—’60s psychedelia, ’70s glam and punk, Madchester groove—Morning Glory melted down and remoulded them into a towering sound that was unmistakably their own, with those omnipresent (but never ostentatious) string-section sweeps classily dressing up the songs like ribbons on a trophy. And yet the real triumph of Morning Gloryis measured not by the tracks that have since become karaoke classics, first-dance wedding standards, and go-to bathtub sing-alongs, but the exceptional album tracks that never got a shot at certain chart supremacy—like the jet-roar jangle of “Hey Now” (for my money, the best Oasis song never to be issued as a single) and the crestfallen “Cast No Shadow”, dedicated to a then-mostly-unknown Richard Ashcroft of the Verve, a band that would soon reap the benefits of Oasis’ American incursion” – Pitchfork

Standout Track: Wonderwall

The Beatles – With the Beatles (1963)

Debut: Please Please Me (1963)

Review:

“What’s particularly distinctive about these early Beatles records is their unapologetic, working class Britishness. The lyrics have the colloquial immediacy of everyday chatter and the band play with a kind of rough house energy, not attempting to match the sophistication of the American records that inspired them. When Lennon lets rip on 'It Won’t Be Long’, there is no attempt to disguise his Liverpool roots, no prettification, just an unadorned vocal (although McCartney is slightly more polite, his over precise enunciation on 'Til There Was You’ sounding like he’s trying to please his headmaster, or, more probably, George Martin).

The songwriting partnership is starting to flower. The loping, jangly rhythm and ascending and descending melody of 'All My Loving’ with its brilliant walking bassline seems utterly original. This is the point rider for where they are going but the cover versions are still the highlights. The Beatles could really rip the guts out of a song, and there’s a rich bluesy version of Smokey Robinson’s 'You Really Got A Hold On Me’, before they utterly take a wrecking ball to 'Money (That’s What I Want)’” – The Telegraph

Standout Track: All My Loving

Joy Division – Closer (1980)

Debut: Unknown Pleasures (1979)

Review:

“Opener "Atrocity Exhibition" was arguably the most fractured thing the band had yet recorded, Bernard Sumner's teeth-grinding guitar and Stephen Morris' Can-on-speed drumming making for one heck of a strange start. Keyboards also took the fore more so than ever -- the drowned pianos underpinning Curtis' shadowy moan on "The Eternal," the squirrelly lead synth on the energetic but scared-out-of-its-wits "Isolation," and above all else "Decades," the album ender of album enders. A long slow crawl down and out, Curtis' portrait of lost youth inevitably applied to himself soon after, its sepulchral string-synths are practically a requiem. Songs like "Heart and Soul" and especially the jaw-dropping, wrenching "Twenty Four Hours," as perfect a demonstration of the tension/release or soft/loud approach as will ever be heard, simply intensify the experience. Joy Division were at the height of their powers on Closer, equaling and arguably bettering the astonishing Unknown Pleasures, that's how accomplished the four members were. Rock, however defined, rarely seems and sounds so important, so vital, and so impossible to resist or ignore as here” – AllMusic

Standout Track: Isolation

Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

Debut: Bleach (1989)

Review:

“The music — fuzz-blast guitars, throbbing bass — roars and spits with enough in-your-face bluster to make your compact disc skip; left-of-center rock rarely sounds as alive as the metallic punk of ”Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the album’s first single. Adding to the music’s edginess, though, are the lyrics. The characters in singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain’s songs all seem vaguely pathological-and oblivious to it. Cobain’s strange idea of a love song, ”Come as You Are,” has a refrain of ”And I swear that I don’t have a gun,” as if that’s supposed to be comforting; in other songs, he mutters lines like ”the animals I’ve trapped have all become my pets.” Nirvana may not stand a chance of selling anywhere near as many records as Guns N’ Roses, but don’t tell Cobain; you never know how he’ll react” – Entertainment Weekly

Standout Track: Smells Like Teen Spirit

Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)

Debut: Slanted and Enchanted (1992)

Review:

“Pavement's sophomore outing does not contain 12 perfect songs but it is close to a perfect album. Each of the best half-dozen-- "Silence Kit", "Elevate Me Later", "Cut Your Hair", "Unfair", "Gold Soundz", and "Range Life"-- contain Malkmus' catchy and highly unusual melodies ("Silence Kit" cribs from Buddy Holly, but even that's an odd gesture) and would be career highlights for most rock bands. But even the songs that aren't necessarily brilliant work well in the context of the album, moving things along in their own way. The Dave Brubeck send-up "5-4=Unity", for example, is a perfect placeholder between two unbelievably great songs. And the closing "Fillmore Jive" ends an album at least partly about the music industry on an appropriately classic rock note, with an extended group-jam coda on par with "Hey Jude". Not many records are this easy to put on in the car and let play start to finish” – Pitchfork

Standout Track: Cut Your Hair

Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique (1989)

Debut: Licensed to Ill (1986)

Review:

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

Standout Track: Shake Your Rump             

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (2006)

Debut: Frank (2003)

Review:

“Any album that features the lines "What kind of fuckery is this?/ You made me miss the Slick Rick gig" demands closer investigation. Of course, 23-year-old Londoner Amy Winehouse demonstrated her aptitude for a tart couplet on her debut album three years ago, but this time the music, too, packs a similar punch, and the upshot is a 21st-century soul classic.

Starting with the pungent single Rehab, everything is in its right place: the exuberant neo-Motown swing supplied by producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi; the rich, sinewy vocals, somewhere between Lauryn Hill, Beth Gibbons and Etta James; and the thoroughly modern songwriting, in which infidelity is betrayed by a telltale carpet burn (You Know I'm No Good) and a lover is less desirable than a good supply of weed (Addicted). On the latter song she triumphantly declares: "I'm my own man." Only a fool would argue” – The Guardian

Standout Track: Back to Black                      

Adele – 21 (2011)

Debut: 19 (2008)

Review:

“While 19 went to number one and she picked up the inaugural Critics’ Choice Brit award, what distinguished Adele from the similarly retro-voiced Duffy was the name she made for herself across the Atlantic, where she won two Grammys and influential fans such as Bob Dylan and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

It is that American success that has shaped Atkins’s follow-up album. It’s steeped in Southern blues, country and soul. In another singer’s hands this might seem a nakedly ambitious attempt to appeal to the American charts, but Atkins makes the material sound genuine, largely because it is perfect for her. Where previously her slight, observational songs seemed barely able to carry her powerful voice, the emotional and musical heft of these styles enables her to really spread her vocal wings.

And her voice is a thing of wonder. There is warmth, power and vulnerability, sometimes in the same note. She has less of the unpredictable edge of Amy Winehouse, or the am-dram cool of Florence Welch, but she has a far greater range and subtlety than either, and hers is a voice that seems to go right to your heart” – The Telegraph

Standout Track: Set Fire to the Rain           

Led Zeppelin – II (1969)

Debut: Led Zeppelin (1969)

Review:

“Clearly, with their hot streak of three LPs, Creedence Clearwater Revival had the most impressive multi-album year of 1969: Bayou Country in January, Green River in August, and Willy and the Poor Boys in November.

But still.

Still: Led Zeppelin II, which came out in October ’69, just nine months after its almighty, self-titled predecessor, must have benefited from the fast turnaround. The recording process was completed at different studios during the band’s near-constant touring in 1969, and maybe the reason it was so successful was the London group, while on the road, didn’t even have time to think about the hype they were building. With LZII, Led Zeppelin became Led Zeppelin, proving their essence at the same time. To speak cosmically about the matter: What happened was what was supposed to happen.

Even more than the debut, LZII is a document of the band’s technical ability, their musicianship. After one album with The Yardbirds — a good rock band, yes, but they had no balls — Jimmy Page linked up with Robert Plant, almost five years his junior but already one of the most dynamic rock vocalists in England, up there with Rod Stewart. A powerful foundation, then, was set from the beginning. Between Page’s solos on the likes of “Whole Lotta Love” and Goldilocks’ yelps on “What Is and What Should Never Be” and others, LZII dazzles. John Bonham, too, was able to shine from behind the kit, particularly with his “Moby Dick” solo. Generations of hard rock and metal musicians, from Metallica to Soundgarden and Mastodon, would be influenced by these very stretches. It’s a lot to think about while the record’s playing, but the physical force is there” – Consequence of Sound

Standout Track: Whole Lotta Love

Madonna – Like a Virgin (1984)

Debut: Madonna (1983)

Review:

“Madonna had hits with her first album, even reaching the Top Ten twice with "Borderline" and "Lucky Star," but she didn't become a superstar, an icon, until her second album, Like a Virgin. She saw the opening for this kind of explosion and seized it, bringing in former Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers in as a producer, to help her expand her sound, and then carefully constructed her image as an ironic, ferociously sexy Boy Toy; the Steven Meisel-shot cover, capturing her as a buxom bride with a Boy Toy belt buckle on the front, and dressing after a night of passion, was as key to her reinvention as the music itself. Yet, there's no discounting the best songs on the record, the moments when her grand concepts are married to music that transcends the mere classification of dance-pop. These, of course, are "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin," the two songs that made her an icon, and the two songs that remain definitive statements. They overshadow the rest of the record, not just because they are a perfect match of theme and sound, but because the rest of the album vacillates wildly in terms of quality. The other two singles, "Angel" and "Dress You Up," are excellent standard-issue dance-pop, and there are other moments that work well ("Over and Over," "Stay," the earnest cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here"), but overall, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts -- partially because the singles are so good, but also because on the first album, she stunned with style and a certain joy. Here, the calculation is apparent, and while that's part of Madonna's essence -- even something that makes her fun -- it throws the record's balance off a little too much for it to be consistent, even if it justifiably made her a star” – AllMusic  

Standout Track: Like a Virgin

Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)

Debut: Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987)

Review:

“In retrospect, Yo! Bum Rush the Show was a blueprint. What came after it was the work of a well-rehearsed unit keenly aware of its purpose and capabilities. Released the following summer, Public Enemy’s sophomore album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was a brash refinement of the themes of Yo! and a jab at the jaws of detractors, high and low. “Bring the Noise” and “Don’t Believe the Hype” railed against the press, holding up the lurid sensationalism surrounding the group as a warning against trusting anything you read. “Caught, Can We Get a Witness?” is a nightmare where P.E. gets nabbed for sampling. (More on that later.) Nationteemed with a didactic social consciousness too. “She Watch Channel Zero?!” strikes out against junk television, while “Night of the Living Baseheads” addresses the crack epidemic, and “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” leads a draft-dodging conscientious objector through a vengeful jailbreak. Chuck’s booming ministerial baritone sparred with Flav’s piercing yawp in a masterful hero-and-sidekick interplay. The message couldn’t entice the masses without the levity; the levity was gimmicky without revolutionary grit giving it weight” – Pitchfork

Standout Track: She Watch Channel Zero?!

Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993)

Debut: Leisure (1991)

Review:

“As a response to the dominance of grunge in the U.K. and their own decreasing profile in their homeland -- and also as a response to Suede's sudden popularity -- Blur reinvented themselves with their second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, abandoning the shoegazing and baggy influences that dominated Leisure for traditional pop. On the surface, Modern Life may appear to be an homage to the Kinks, David Bowie, the Beatles, and Syd Barrett, yet it isn't a restatement, it's a revitalization. Blur use British guitar pop from the Beatles to My Bloody Valentine as a foundation, spinning off tales of contemporary despair. If Damon Albarn weren't such a clever songwriter, both lyrically and melodically, Modern Life could have sunk under its own pretensions, and the latter half does drag slightly. However, the record teems with life, since Blur refuse to treat their classicist songs as museum pieces. Graham Coxon's guitar tears each song open, either with unpredictable melodic lines or layers of translucent, hypnotic effects, and his work creates great tension with Alex James' kinetic bass. And that provides Albarn a vibrant background for his social satires and cutting commentary. But the reason Modern Life Is Rubbish is such a dynamic record and ushered in a new era of British pop is that nearly every song is carefully constructed and boasts a killer melody, from the stately "For Tomorrow" and the punky "Advert" to the vaudeville stomp of "Sunday Sunday" and the neo-psychedelic "Chemical World." Even with its flaws, it's a record of considerable vision and excitement. [Most American versions of Modern Life Is Rubbish substitute the demo version of "Chemical World" for the studio version on the British edition. They also add the superb single "Pop Scene" before the final song, "Resigned” – AllMusic   

Standout Track: For Tomorrow

Carole King – Tapestry (1971)

Debut: Writer (1970)

Review:

“Conviction and commitment are the life blood of Tapestry and are precisely what make it so fine. Of course, commitment alone means nothing; but commitment coupled with the musical talents of a genuine pop artist mean everything. To paraphrase Pauline Kael, writing about director Jean Renoir, Carole King is thoroughly involved with her music; she reaches out towards us and gives everything she has. And this generosity is so extraordinary that perhaps we can give it another name: passion” – Rolling Stone    

Standout Track: It’s Too Late

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (1968)

Debut: Blowin’ Your Mind (1967)

Review:

“Morrison doesn't reach out to the listener, but goes deep inside himself to excavate and explore. The album's centerpiece is "Madame George," a stream-of-consciousness narrative of personal psychological and spiritual archetypes deeply influenced by the road novels of Jack Kerouac. The climactic epiphany experienced on "Cyprus Avenue" paints a portrait of place and time so vividly, it fools listeners into the experience of shared -- but mythical -- memory. "The Way Young Lovers Do" is the most fully formed tune here. Its swinging jazz verses and tight rhythmic choruses underscore a simmering, passionate eroticism in Morrison's lyric and delivery. Astral Weeks is a justified entry in pop music's pantheon. It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle musical structures” – AllMusic     

Standout Track: Sweet Thing

FEATURE: Bad Girl: Erotica at Twenty-Six: A Pivotal Album from a Pop Icon

FEATURE:

 

 

Bad Girl: Erotica at Twenty-Six

IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images 

 A Pivotal Album from a Pop Icon

__________

I know that yesterday was the official twenty-sixth anniversary…

 IN THIS PHOTO: A publicity shot for the 1991 documentary, Madonna: Truth or Dare/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

of Madonna’s Erotica but it is an album that deserves to be marked. There are a lot more interesting albums coming up over the next few weeks that I need to be pay tribute to. You may ask why I’d mark Erotica and single it out. Madonna’s albums are always relevant and many others have passed me by without being commemorated in an article. We continuously talk about music and how it is evolving; whether there are any true icons and superstars out there. Madonna is someone who has always had her own team around her but I think, when you hear the music and how she speaks, this is nothing but her. I have been a fan of her since childhood and always marvel at how she managed to change and evolve without it seeming unnatural. Erotica, released in 1992, was released simultaneously with her first book publication, Sex – a book she alludes to on her follow-up album, Bedtime Stories. Erotica was her first release on Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company. It was the Pop icon ascending from those earlier days of label control; breaking out and creating an album, if anything, defined who she was an still is. That is not to say she is sex-obsessed but the way she frankly and boldly talks about the subject through the album changed music.

She documented everything from the loss of two close friends to AIDS through to personal desires; something teasing and oblique to the out-right explicit and determined. Although the album was completed fairly quickly; this was Madonna in serious mode and not willing to play it safe. Erotica was much more commercially successful than previous albums and was largely well received by critics. The record saw a return after three years and revealed, as we know, a transformation from Madonna. She released the phenomenal compilation, The Immaculate Collection, in 1990 and that sort of signalled, in its title, that something more sexual and brash was coming. Maybe I am misreading but one can definitely sense that desire to be unleashed. Like a Prayer was released in 1989 and many see it as her most successful and acclaimed album. It is accomplished and introspective and, in terms of fashions, it was Madonna less in a fetish mode and more in transition from the boho chic of her early work; looking to incorporate more sensual and revealing looks in her rotation. The cover for the album sees her mix this blend: adorned in jeans and beads but cresting her thumbs inside her jeans that suggests something alluring and saucy! The Like a Prayer was a sensation and marked the first real time she was displaying a more vivacious, sexually liberated and herself! The three years between Like a Prayer storming the charts and Erotica coming into the world was not wasted. Madonna was involved in film and, obviously, ensuring she could take more control and say on her next record.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1992/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Before getting into the studio; Shep Pettibone – her main collaborator on the record – built the basic music for the album and sent it to Madonna before she started filming A League of Their Own. Madonna wrote the melodies and the lyrics and it marked a harmonious and productive collaboration. Although there are some other writers in the mix; the most decisive and obvious blend is Pettibone and Madonna. Madonna liked what Pettibone has come up with and, after filming was completed, work began. The early stages were a bit fraught with some dissatisfaction. Madonna wanted a raw and vibrant edge on Erotica and the first group of songs recorded were met with a bit of a muted reception from the Popstar. This was a period of awakening and the Pop Queen riding high on her fame. She was appearing more on film and her celebrity was rising. Of course, each new album is a chance for revolution and development and, alongside her Sex book; Madonna was embracing something more provocative and intense. We think of Madonna’s career and there are various stages where sex came to the fore. Think about Like a Prayer’s video and songs released for that album. Every album in her career, in some manner, would embrace sex in a very open way but Like a Prayer was a very personal and introspective record. Erotica changed things and is a very overt and confessional record – the confessions on Erotica are more of the sensual, revealing and explicit.

Erotica is a concept album that looks at sex and romance where she adopted the alter ego, Mistress Dita. It was heavily inspired by the actress Dita Parlo and, in terms of music; there is a lot more Pop and Dance – some slight tonal shifts from Like a Prayer but no huge departures. Alongside that core came elements of Disco and House; some New Jack Swing and Soul. The concept sees Madonna ask her lover to beg and, right from the off, here is the world’s most-famous female Pop artist showing she is the boss! Although Madonna references safe-sex; there are references to oral sex and bondage. It is not an album for children and, for sure, it is a record we define with her transition to the apex of the music world. A lot of the lyrics are quite raw and this would continue on her follow-up, Bedtime Stories. In a way, we had a bookmark of Like a Prayer and Bedtime Stories. These albums have a maturity and sense of confession: in a way, Erotica is that middle child that broke out and took chances. I guess people were a little overloaded by sex by 1994 when Madonna had to follow Erotica! Rain, one of the album standouts, is the heroine waiting and hoping for love. One assumes Erotica is full of elicit and sexy songs that push the envelope but, like all of her albums, there is that balance of the mature and immediate.

A lot of the more negative and mixed reviews around the time of Erotica’s release were concerned about its explicitness and frank talk of AIDS. Many, around 1992, were being fed on something softer and tame. The album was ahead of its time and it is only in the years that followed critics fully got on board with it – there are some who still doubt its credentials and look inside the cracks. Renowned for Sound, in a 2014 review, provided their thoughts:

“Without this album, Madonna would simply have remained a provocative yet mainstream pop superstar who could do no wrong, no matter the controversy. The critics would not have slammed her so much that many believed that her career was finally over. Madonna would never have had her comebacks. Pop music observers would also not understand why female pop stars today tend to be naked (Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Rihanna) or in drag (Beyonce in Haunted) in their videos.

In short, Madonna would never have become the Queen of Pop.

Madonna’s weary, husky and rough vocals on Erotica are nothing like the polished, radio-friendly vocals on previous albums. However, they accentuate the rawness and stark reality of the album. Her uncharacteristically gentle purr is alluring on the chilled cover of Fever, but sounds downright creepy on the aggressive hip-hop of Bye Bye Baby. Waiting (whose follow up Did You Do It? is the only real dud on Erotica) has Madonna wandering in that same hotel hallway from the Justify My Love video after a few cigarettes, pleading for her lover in rap and song…

IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images 

Erotica highlights more of Madonna’s ‘bitchy’ side. Her falsely sweet vocals are disarming on Thief of Hearts, as they brutally dish out threats to backstabbers ice cold over sounds of police sirens and smashing glass. Words speaks the truth without being too preachy, over a backing track spiced up with a simmering anger and striking, Arabian-sounding synths.

Other confronting tracks include Where Life Begins (whose priceless lyrics promote safe sex and the woman’s right to be eaten out), Bad Girl (about a lonely woman succumbing to cigarettes, booze and meaningless flings) and In This Life (a funereal ode to Madonna’s friends who passed away from AIDS and a passionate plea against prejudice and ignorance)”.

It might not appear in the top-three Madonna albums among most fans – Like a Prayer, Ray of Light and Like a Virgin, I guess, would be the common choices – but Erotica is, perhaps, the most important and revelatory she ever produced. It is hard to compare it with a modern album because, in today’s climate, Erotica would be banned or muted somehow. There are sexually revealing and confident artists but nobody who has taken to sex in the same way Madonna did in the early-1990s! Billboard celebrated the album’s twenty-fifth anniversary last year and  showed why it such an influential album:

“Erotica occupies a watershed place in the pop pantheon, setting the blueprint for singers to get raw while eschewing exploitation for decades to come. For its 25th anniversary, Billboard spoke to the players involved in Madonna's most creatively daring release. Here's what producer-writer Andre Betts, backup singer Donna De Lory, producer-writer Shep Pettibone, co-writer Tony Shimkin and Living Colour bassist Doug Wimbish recall of the writing and recording of Erotica, the insane release party for the LP and book, and the collective societal pearl-clutching that followed.

Tony Shimkin: After doing The Immaculate Collection and "Rescue Me," she let us know she was working on a new album and wanted us to be involved in the writing. Seeing I was a musician and writer and Shep [Pettibone] was more of a DJ and remixer, we collaborated on the writing of the tracks for the Erotica album. We went up to meet with her in Chicago, post-"Vogue," when she was filming A League of Their Own. So we met with her and started to get to work on some music, and sent it to her as we were working our way through it. She would come into New York and have a book full of lyrics and melody ideas and we started working together in Shep's home studio. I believe the first time she was in New York for an extended period, we were working on "Deeper and Deeper" and "Erotica" and "Bye Bye Baby." She's very driven. There's was never a period of feeling it out -- it was diving in headfirst”…

IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna performs in New York City (circa 1993)/PHOTO CREDIT: L. Busacca/WireImage

“Doug Wimbish: I remember Madonna when she used to go to the Roxy before she got really put on. I'd see her at the Roxy when Afrika Bambaataa was down there or [Grandmaster] Flash, and she was down there jamming out. And not just being a spectator, but being engaged in the scene. Madonna's association with the dance music and the gay scene and the hip-hop scene merging in the downtown clubs in New York City, and her coming from Michigan, she got it.... And she knew Dre had something special. A song like "Where Life Begins" is right up his alley. She had a relationship with Dre for his rawness and realness. You gotta be around someone in this business who tells you, "No, I'm not digging that, that's why." And also keep the window open to listen. I think that's what Dre did”.

Maybe her epic workrate and output in the early-1990s meant the music would suffer a little bit but you cannot deny the impact and inspiration of Erotica. Erotica, Rain and Secret Garden are among her finest tracks and the tour that followed the album’s release was a spectacle and feast for the senses. Bringing the music to life would always be risky but (on the tour) there were naked dancers and all manner of thrills!  

 IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1992/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

This article looks at the album and how Madonna found people’s reaction to her career and how people were perceiving her:

“I think it’s boring,” an emboldened Madonna confided to Jonathan Ross in 1992, when asked about critics not taking her seriously as an artist. “But I think it’s a reflection of society. The subject matter I deal with, because it usually is about taboo subjects, people are so frightened of my ideas that they try to undermine my actual talent or any artistic value that may be in any of my work. And just say ‘oh she’s just doing that to shock people,’ or ‘oh, look, she’s changing her look again, she really knows how to manipulate the media.’ But the fact is if that’s all I was good at doing, I don’t think people would be paying attention to me for this long. I mean, I’m still here”…

 

“Far less shocking—or stimulating—to the senses by today’s more desensitized standards, to say that Erotica was controversial upon its release 25 years ago is an understatement. But the flip side of the coin is that it was an undeniably revolutionary record. The unabashed and forthright way that Madonna redefines sexual identity and power dynamics, deconstructs sexual taboos, and evangelizes sexual freedom was indeed groundbreaking for its time, serving as a much-needed wake-up call for the sexually repressed and repressive, particularly here in the notoriously puritanical United States of America…

Across Erotica’s fourteen compositions (thirteen on the LP’s edited version), Madonna successfully subverts the antiquated, straight-male dominated dialogue about sex by taking full command of the conversation and delivering a clinic in sexual liberation. With confidence and charisma in droves, she flips traditional gender-driven roles and ethics on their head, blurs the socially-constructed lines between the multitude of sexual identities that exist, and gives mainstream voice and validation to those traditionally marginalized toward the fringes of social acceptance”…

 

“The most painful and poignant moment appears with the somber “In This Life,” Madonna’s homage to two close confidantes who tragically lost their battles with AIDS—Martin Burgoyne, an artist and her first tour manager, and Christopher Flynn, her ballet teacher and mentor. Reminiscing about Flynn during a 2010 discussion with the film director Gus Van Sant for Interview magazine, Madonna reflected, “Growing up in Michigan, I didn’t really know what a gay man was. He was the first man—the first human being—who made me feel good about myself and special. He was the first person who told me that I was beautiful or that I had something to offer the world, and he encouraged me to believe in my dreams, to go to New York. He was such an important person in my life. He died of AIDS, but he went blind toward the end of his life. He was such a lover of art, classical music, literature, opera. You know, I grew up in the Midwest, and it was really because of him that I was exposed to so many of those things. He brought me to my first gay club—it was this club in Detroit. I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t fit in anywhere. But when he took me to that club, he brought me to a place where I finally felt at home”.

“Just as refreshing and rewarding musically as it was for its brave social and cultural conscience, Erotica was, is, and will forever be a fearlessly fierce album that only Madonna could make. No one has ever come close to replicating it and no one ever will. In Vanity Fair’s October 1992 issue, Madonna proclaimed, “I’m out to open [people’s] minds and get them to see sexuality in another way. Their own and others.’” More than any other album in her prolific oeuvre, Erotica fulfilled her objective and struck a mighty blow to the plague of cultural and moral myopia, in America and beyond”.

There are other tributes and articles that celebrate and mark Erotica but it is amazing to see how fresh, brash and unique it sounds twenty-six years after its release. I have missed the exact release date by a day but I thought I’d let the hangover cure and the assorted bodies depart the party! I prefer Ray of Light, Bedtime Stories and other Madonna albums but I think Erotica is a hugely important and underrated collection. Perhaps the overt sexuality and frank talk would be censored and criticised if released today but one can look at Erotica and see how it has inspired so many modern artists. From the self-reflective and personal recordings on Like a Prayer; Madonna adopted this new, in-control persona that, whilst fictional, was mirroring her own rise. Madonna was more autonomous and confident than ever and was releasing music that not only shocked but showed there was nobody in music like her!

Erotica split critics but people are still taking about it and it was a pivotal and important period in Madonna’s career. There was yet another big shift between Erotica in 1992 and 1994’s Bedtime Stories – as Billboard investigate:

“While Madonna certainly didn't lack for fame in 1994, the button-pushing Eroticaalbum had soured many critics and fans. For the first time in a decade of superstardom, people weren't shocked by her antics anymore -- even worse, they often seemed exhausted by her.

Artistically speaking, she'd spent the last four years challenging and subverting America's sexual puritanism. But after releasing an entire book called Sex featuring nude pictures of herself and other celebrities, there didn't seem to be anywhere else to go in that realm.

Instead of Erotica's chilly, pounding dance pop, Bedtime puts Madonna in softer sonic territory. There's the singer-songwriter-y "Secret," the avant pop of "Bedtime Story" (co-written by Bjork), the new jack swing jam "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" (featuring Meshell Ndegeocello rapping), the Herbie Hancock-sampling ballad "Sanctuary" and the lush, orchestral R&B of "Take a Bow."

But softer sounds didn't necessarily mean muted lyrics. "Human Nature" finds Madonna taking on her critics more directly than ever with a logical, defiant attack on slut-shaming. And while album opener "Survival" is a cozy R&B-pop song, it was similarly unrepentant in attitude”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: A promotional shot of Madonna for 1995’s Bedtime Story

With the Queen of Pop still active and, if rumours are to be believed, preparing material for a new album; I am fascinated looking back at her career and how she progressed. One can see jumps between every album but not more pronounced than the Like a Prayer-Erotica shift. Maybe there was dissent when Erotica was released and some found it too spicy for their tastes. The songs are incredible and Madonna sounds completely confident and fascinating throughout. I will look at Bedtime Stories when I look at 1994 but I was keen to mark Erotica and show how it impacted music and why it was an important release. Maybe other events around the album – including her book – soured the perception of Erotica and took away from the music but, strip all that away, and what you have is a huge achievement and a stunning album. Erotica helped assert the blueprint for modern-day Pop; it would inspire everyone from Beyoncé and Britney Spears to Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj. Although none come close to matching Madonna’s iconic status; many artists today are still dipping in and out of Erotica and letting it fill their creative minds. If you have a moment spare – and have some headphones as not to offend sensitive ears – have a visit of Erotica and revisit a wonderful L.P. It is a stunning creation from a Pop megastar who was determined to rule the world and outgun her peers. Whilst her best work was a few years away; Erotica saw Madonna rise from the promising and rising Pop artist to a peerless and controversial…

 IN THIS IMAGE: A shot from Madonna’s Sex book/PHOTO CREDIT: Steven Meisel

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