FEATURE: Sleeping on An Icon: Why We Need to Cherish and Share Music Legends Whilst They Are With Us

FEATURE:

 

 

Sleeping on An Icon

 IN THIS PHOTO: Paul Simon/PHOTO CREDIT: T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Why We Need to Cherish and Share Music Legends Whilst They Are With Us

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RATHER than this being grim…

PHOTO CREDIT: Diana Onfilm/Pexels

and talking about the mortality and lifespan of musicians, it is a plea to music fans out there. Specifically younger listeners. Those who maybe ignore an artist because they are ‘before their time’. I think this is a real problem. Others might be too involved with modern music to really appreciate those who have inspired these current greats. What happens when we lost an amazing artist that has been recording for years is that many people come out of the woodwork. They will express their sadness and write how big a loss it is. How they love that person’s work and that this is a huge tragedy. I don’t know how genuine this is. Whether you get this rather phoned-in or copy-and-paste reaction to death. If you pressed a person, would they really have that knowledge and relationship with that artist?! It does seem morbid. I think that we do need to investigate and spend time with icons now. Rather than leave things until they pass and we express how much that artist meant to us – when they probably didn’t really -, there needs to be more of an attachment to these legends. It does come back to that thing as to whether we are led to same-sounding music. If algorithms and streaming services point us towards music that is quite similar. If we get caught in this cycle of being recommended daily playlists on streaming services and will always listen to what is suggested. In terms of the mainstream and what is around now, there is a lot of samey music. Not enough diversity and range within. This might also affect what we listen to and how we approach music. If we stick with a very similar sound. There is a generation that grew up on icons and that is what they listen to most. I am conscious that there are generations that either do not know about these artists or listened to them when they were children or teens - and they have now put them aside. Because these people are not recording or not as frequently as they used to, we tend to forget. Everything is about the new and upcoming. I do feel that we slip by older artists.

Think about some of the true greats who, in a decade or so, might not be with us. Possibly less. Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan. Maybe they need not be as huge as them. These are artists who have given so much and I don’t think we should leave it there. Recognise how important they are now and what they have given to music. It makes me wonder whether there needs to be documentaries about these artists. I have been thinking about artists like Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon. These amazing songwriters who might leave us in the next decade. It is not too late for people who maybe have been sleeping on these icons to do something about it. We are in a culture where older music is not as recognised and recommended as it should be. There is this thing about what is new and current being trendy and preferred. There is a whole generation of musicians that are almost being ignored. Assumed their day is done. Even someone like Madonna. Popular when she goes on tour, yet I wonder whether there are generations that should be picking her music up and talking about it more. As she is not recording at the moment, she is seen as less relevant as a  modern-day great. There aren’t really documentaries or anything new about these legends. If I think about these icons that are still with us and we need to celebrate, there is not really a lot of new investigation and appreciation. Making sure that young generations know about them. That those who briefly engaged with their music know more. It is quite sad to think that we will loss some great artists and many people will post half-hearted or cliché reaction – and they would have missed out on so much.

We do need to appreciate these artists whilst we have them. It is quite sad when we see this parade of famous people come out when an artist dies and say how they have always been fans or it is a massive loss. How sincere that is. Maybe time is against some of the oldest artists who might leave us shortly, but not necessarily so. There is this archive for each of them. In terms of the music itself and interviews with them. Again, I think we are driven in modern culture to listen to what is new. A lot of what sounds similar. We really do have to get out of that habit. It is so important to cherish some of these magnificent and decades-long artists who have given us so much. Really understand how much they have contributed. Without them, so much of what is around today would not exist. There are studies that show how we explore new music less as we get older. It might mean that people who grew up with music greats are less likely to move forward and may stick with what they know. I am talking to those people who have either overlooked a great or did not grow up around them. This feature was inspired by a phrase in the recent book, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. Written by Alex Pappademas, it is a book about the characters in Steely Dan songs. Pappademas was writing about the death of Walter Becker in 2017 and how all these celebrities came out and expressed how much he meant to them. How inauthentic their words were. How, as he said, they “slept on an icon”. Missed out on someone great whilst they were with us. It is the way with many artists we have lost. It was that way when Amy Winehouse died in 2011. It is quite sad that we miss out on so much. That thing when we loss great artists and didn’t really spend enough time getting to know their music. Rather than leave things until then, we need to spend time away from what is new or in our collection and embrace these legends. The media and filmmakers doing more to highlight these artists and putting something out that will engage with younger listeners. Rather than rely on a certain generation(s) keeping this music alive and it being assumed icons are cherished by all, I don’t think that is the case. So many are being overlooked. We need to talk about them now and tell them how much they mean to us…

BEFORE it is too late.

FEATURE: State of the World: Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

State of the World

Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 at Thirty-Five

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THERE is debate…

as to which Janet Jackson album is best. All of them are worthy, though I do think that Control (1986), Janet (1993) or The Velvet Rope (1997) could get in the medal positions. These albums are all hugely acclaimed and successful. All different and astonishing. Within this golden run of albums was Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. Released on 19th September, 1989, I wanted to mark thirty-five years of perhaps her best album. I think it just shades Janet. I have not heard whether there is a special anniversary reissue of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. A chart-topper in the U.S., 1989 was a year where Janet Jackson was at the peak of her powers. After the success of Control, A&M Records wanted something similar. One of the worst traits of record labels: if an album becomes successful then artists should do the same once more rather than evolving or having a say. Instead, Jackson built this concept album that tackled social issues. She worked with some amazing songwriters like Terry Lewis and mixed a range of genres to create this compelling and incredible album. I want to get to some features that explore Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. I would recommend you read this 2014 feature from Billboard on the twenty-fifth anniversary of a classic album. They spoke with songwriters Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to guide us through the tracks. I just want to drop in the introduction:

“If Janet Jackson‘s third album, 1986’s Control, was a declaration of independence, the follow-up, Rhythm Nation 1814, was a constitution — a blueprint for the kind of country that this confident, sexy and newly independent 23-year old woman wanted to live in. At least it was for roughly a third of its runtime.

Released 25 years ago tomorrow (Sept. 19, 1989), Rhythm Nation 1814 begins with a pledge: “We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs.” From there, it goes into the title track, a national anthem for this colorblind utopia Janet has imagined. The four digits in the album’s title refer to the year “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written, and with the help of James “Jimmy Jam” Harris III and Terry Lewis — the production team behind Control — Jackson gives Francis Scott Key‘s greatest hit a New Jack Swing remake.

Rhythm Nation stays political for a few songs and then segues into kinder, gentler relationship songs, many of which dominated radio and MTV. An unprecedented seven of the album’s singles made the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100, and four of them — “Miss You Much, “Escapade,” “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” and “Black Cat” — hit No. 1. The album, not surprisingly, topped the Billboard 200, vaulting Janet to a level of pop mega-stardom almost on par with that of her brother Michael Jackson”.

Moving onto a feature from The New Yorker written by Amanda Petrusich. Diving into an album that was a “post-racial utopia founded on the power of groove”, it is a fascinating article. I hope that more is written about it ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary. If you have not heard Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, I would definitely urge you to do so. It is one of the greatest albums of all time:

“Its title (Jackson added the 1814 because that’s the year the national anthem was composed) suggests a kind of musical Arcadia, where everyone is unified by a deep and undeniable imperative to move: a compulsory shoulder pop, an instinctive wiggle, or whatever it is that happens to your body when you hear someone yell, “Gimme a beat!” D.j.s in particular had been arguing for decades that dance could be a way of minimizing the distance between races, genders, and creeds. David Mancuso, a legend of New York disco, often spoke about the dance floors he commanded as fiercely egalitarian, a place where hierarchies were instantly erased and the crowd became a single, loving organism.

Jackson opens the record with a strange monologue: a call for unity, chanted in a steady monotone.

We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs. We are like-minded individuals, sharing a common vision, pushing toward a world rid of color lines.

“Interlude: Pledge” from “Rhythm Nation 1814”

The citizens of Rhythm Nation are universalists, rallying only for the greater good, which makes “Rhythm Nation 1814” feel, in some ways, like the last major pop record that could credibly be described as optimistic. Already by the late nineteen-eighties, Jackson’s entreaties sounded gentle and idealistic compared to those of more radicalized consciousness-raising artists.

Public Enemy and N.W.A. arguably had a more profound influence on pop culture today; it’s hard to imagine a contemporary pop star, who came of age in an era when intersectionality is the dominant critical framework, successfully insisting that we’re all more similar than we think. The vision of a world in “Rhythm Nation,” in which societal ills such as poverty, drug use, and unemployment are merely individual problems, not inextricably linked to systemic injustice, hasn’t aged especially well. The colossal empowerment anthems of our time—such as Beyoncé’s “Formation,” from 2016—are less about erasing difference than claiming and celebrating it.

Jackson was incalculably influential in other ways, though, including in her use of the music-video format. A thirty-minute long-form music video, which Jackson’s team took to calling a “telemusical,” was produced to promote the record just prior to its release. It contained three distinct, shorter videos—for the singles “Miss You Much,” “The Knowledge,” and “Rhythm Nation”—all shot in black-and-white, surely a nod to Jackson’s vision of a color-blind society. The story line functions as a kind of P.S.A., following two kids with big dreams whose lives are ravaged by drugs.

The video premièred on MTV, and was later released on VHS. The eighties were a remarkable moment for the synching of the musical and the televisual, an idea seeded by Elvis Presley’s provocative, hip-thrusting appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” three decades before. Michael Jackson’s fourteen-minute video for “Thriller,” which was directed by John Landis, premièred in late 1983; it was followed by groundbreaking video work from Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits, and Madonna.

Janet Jackson worked with Anthony Thomas, then an unknown choreographer, who later honed the pop-and-lock (he was influenced by the jerky, rousing funk and disco dances developed on the West Coast in the nineteen-seventies), and is now often referred to as “the man who changed the face of hip-hop.” The video for “Miss You Much,” choreographed by Jackson and Thomas, includes an incredibly captivating chair routine that would be imitated for years after.

Jackson’s pioneering integration of the visual and the musical wasn’t immediately recognized or appreciated by critics. In the eighties and early nineties, music journalists often considered too much spectacle a distraction, or evidence of something prefabricated and therefore inauthentic. “Spontaneity has been ruled out,” Jon Pareles wrote of Jackson’s live show in 1990. “Rockism,” as it later came to be known, valued songwriting and a particular kind of pained earnestness over practiced performance. As a young critic, I internalized these values so thoroughly that it took me years to unlearn them, to figure out how to trust pleasure and lightness and drama. Eventually, criticism in general remade itself, and writers now routinely acknowledge that there’s a distinct and sophisticated art to the extra-musical extravaganza”.

I am going to end with an anniversary feature from Albumism from 2019. Marking thirty years of Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, this is an album that is still so relevant and powerful today. Maybe that is the power of Janet Jackson’s music and voice. It may be a reflection on the way the world is slow to change and we do not learn lessons. It means Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 will never sounded dated or a product of its time:

“Where Control was an album about a woman staking her independence and coming into her own, the follow-up would cast its gaze wider to the world around her. Heavily influenced by Marvin Gaye’s landmark What’s Going On (1971) album, Jackson wondered if a modern take holding a mirror up to the social issues of the time could be achieved.

And so, with producers and confident confidants Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis by her side, the trio bunkered down during the winter of 1989 at Flyte Tyme studios in Minneapolis to make an album that could inspire a generation to become more socially conscious of the world they live in and the part they can play.

Fueled by the notion of creating a collective not bound by space, race, gender or sexual orientation, Jackson formed the Rhythm Nation, adding the numerals 1814 to reflect the year the Star Spangled Banner was written (and purely coincidentally, R and N are the 18th and 14th letters in the alphabet, respectively.)

Pumping out of the speakers, “Rhythm Nation” is a tour de force of metallic tribal beats, drum loops and samples featuring Sly and The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and Jackson’s own hits from the Control album. A frenetic industrial groove underpins Jackson’s vocals as she implores, “Join voices in protest to social injustice / A generation full of courage, come forth with me.” The song deftly marches the fine line of being rousing without being preachy, capturing the ideology and purpose behind Jackson’s message all wrapped up in a hard to sit still groove.

From “Rhythm Nation,” we segue into “State of The World” via a channel surfing interlude that mimics Jackson’s own experience of watching news stories on CNN and being moved into action.

“State of The World” pulls no punches as it addresses the scourge of drugs, homelessness, prostitution, school shootings, poverty, teen suicide and teen pregnancy. Rather than trying to solve the problems in a four-minute pop song, Jackson decides to bring awareness to these issues and hopes to encourage her listeners to think about what they can do to drive change. Amidst the clanging metallic beats and wandering synth bass, the dire situation is given a voice and perhaps some hope as Jackson sings “Can’t give up hope now / Let’s weather the storm together.”

If “State of The World” presented real world problems, the following track, the beat heavy “The Knowledge,” offers a way out. Extolling the virtues of the United Negro College Fund’s motto “A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste,” Janet advocates for her listeners to pursue the power and opportunity that education brings and the doors it can open. One of Jackson’s most powerful songs, it (along with many of the songs from Rhythm Nation) remains incredibly vital and modern in both its outlook and sonic representation.

The album’s opening trio of songs clearly establishes the project’s intent and mission. Having challenged and opened minds, Jackson was now ready to give the listener a little reprieve from the social messaging with the dance-pop fare of “Miss You Much.” As she states in the interlude “Get the point? Good, let’s dance,” she’s stated her point and is now ready to celebrate some of the more positive moments in life, namely love.

As the first single from the outing, “Miss You Much” was the bridge between the dance orientation of Control and the new direction of RN1814 the record label, and maybe even fans, pined for. Its instantly catchy groove and playful vocal delivery primed, this dancefloor filler bubbles with pop-funk and sweeps the listener away with its airy vocal melodies and ode to new love.

The slinky bassline of “Love Will Never Do Without You” seduces with ease as Jackson sings about the desire for a fulfilling love, even one against the odds. With a shimmering arrangement beneath her, Jackson delivers one of her finest moments on record. Often characterized as having a whispering vocal, here Jackson sings with strength and confidence and layers the song in lush backing harmonies that glisten with every passing line.

But as reality is oft want to do, these moments of relief are cracked by the harsh brutality of life. Inspired by the Stockton Playground Shooting that took place during the recording sessions, “Living In A World (They Didn’t Make)” is a somber reflection on the ills adults create for the next generation. Again, Jackson isn’t trying to claim she knows all the answers, but rather presents an issue for the listener to ponder.

Closing the midpoint of the album with “Living In A World,” Jackson frees up the second half of the project to explore a brighter side of existence kicking off with the jubilant, springing “Alright” with its New Jack Swing groove and acid house inspired loops and squeaky bass. If the first side of the album is characterized by the dominant black and white moody photography of the album cover, then “Alright” is an explosion of Technicolor bursting at the seams.

“Escapade,” with its pure pop sensibility, is smile inducing. Jackson’s playful personality is perfectly captured on record and underpinned by an irresistible chorus and double clap accompaniment. Its light and airy feel is the perfect counterpoint to the heaviness of the album openers.

As the only wholly self-penned track on the album, “Black Cat” exposes Jackson’s rockier side and gives us a glimpse into the challenging relationships of her past. Set against a classic rock beat and raucous guitars, she growls in her vocals, offering a raspier, rawer delivery that resonated with both rock and pop audiences, giving Jackson one of her four Number 1 singles from the album.

Just as the album opened with a trio of songs focusing on social consciousness, the album closes with another trio of songs, this time focused on relationships, love and sexuality. “Lonely” leads the pack with a slow-jam of densely stacked harmonies and swaying melodies. “Come Back To Me” is a pleading ballad of lament and longing, and “Someday Is Tonight” is the sexual climax of Control’s “Let’s Wait A While,” where Jackson delivers on the promise of being “worth the wait.” Sensual and breathy, Jackson seduces and pulls you in, setting the tone for her more sexual slow burn songs that would close out many of her albums that would follow this.

Rhythm Nation 1814 is perhaps the most perfect encapsulation of Janet Jackson. In many ways it became the blueprint for her albums that would follow both in structure and sequencing. And despite the fears of her record label, it was an unqualified smash success, surpassing the sales of its predecessor and cementing Jackson’s place within the superstar sphere.

Accompanied by a powerful and engaging 30-minute mini-movie, Rhythm Nation 1814 found Jackson wearing her heart on her black military inspired sleeve and dared to make a difference. In what would soon be iconic black and white imagery and oft repeated dance moves, Jackson created a look, feel, and sound of a whole generation to feel a part of.

But more important than the millions of sales and countless Top Ten hits, the album made an impact in people’s lives. It opened eyes. It gave voice to the issues of the day. It encouraged its listeners to make a difference in the world and their own lives. It made them care.

And it made a difference. If music has the power to connect us to an emotion or feel a part of something bigger, then Rhythm Nation did that. Kids hearing “The Knowledge” were inspired to stay on in school or seek a college education. People wary of differences became less fearful and embraced them. It inspired a generation to believe, to have hope, and feel that they could make a change. It engaged and connected with the listener. And it gave the listener a feeling of belonging, a place to feel good, to feel empowered.

Thirty years on and Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 is still a landmark album. It still resonates. And sadly, it reflects many of the ills that still plague us. It’s both a time capsule and a mirror. A movement for the heart and mind. It’s a near flawless album. One that pulled Jackson once and for all out of the shadows of her elder siblings and made her a bona fide superstar who can still sell out arenas to this day. It’s an important milestone not only in Jackson’s career, but in the musical landscape in general. And when talk centers around great albums with a social conscience, it deserves to be included”.

On 19th September, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 turns thirty-five. In my view, Janet Jackson’s greatest and most important album. The Rhythm Nation World Tour 1990 became the most successful debut concert tour by a recording artist at the time. Timely and important in 1989, the themes addressed throughout Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 are still relevant to this day. It makes me think how we need another album like this today. Thirty-five years after its release, this album still creates shockwaves and impressions. It affects and resounds…

IN 2024.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Nina Persson at Fifty: An Ultimate Playlist

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Nina Persson at Fifty: An Ultimate Playlist

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A wonderful artist and songwriter…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Cardigans

I discovered in the 1990s as a child is Nina Persson. The lead of The Cardigans, she turns fifty on 6th September. I wanted to celebrate this amazing artist. Someone who has also worked solo and as a collaborator. I am going to end with a career-spanning playlist featuring some of her solo material, work with other musicians, plus a good selection of tracks with The Cardigans. A definite icon of the 1990s and a legend in her own right, she deserves to be recognised. Before I ger to that playlist, AllMusic have a biography of Nina Persson. Someone who has had a truly amazing career:

“Known primarily as the frontwoman for the '90s-formed Swedish indie pop heroes the Cardigans, Nina Persson also went on to front the solo project A Camp for a pair of albums in the 2000s. While living in New York she issued a proper solo album, the '80s-inspired Animal Heart, in 2014 before moving back to Sweden. Persson was relatively quiet in the late 2010s, resurfacing every now and then for a guest spot or collaborative single, but in 2023 she shared top billing with U.K. folk artist James Yorkston on The Great White Sea Eagle, which also featured Swedish chamber group the Second Hand Orchestra.

Growing up in Jönköping, Sweden, Persson was a relative latecomer to pop music, only beginning to show interest in it when she was well into her teens. After meeting Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson while at art college, she was asked to front the Cardigans even before she'd performed live on-stage. In the mid-'90s the band issued four albums -- from 1994's twee, soft-released Emmerdale to 1998's three million-selling Gran Turismo -- while steadily finding further worldwide commercial success with each concurrent release; the band managed to achieve this while gradually pursuing darker themes and sounds along the way.

Released in 1996, First Band on the Moon -- which featured the international hit "Lovefool" -- was the first Cardigans record to include lyrics penned by Persson, and by the time a band hiatus arrived due to various bandmembers' family commitments, she was more than equipped to be the main creative force behind the solo side project that she named A Camp. The 2001-released, self-titled album was produced in the main by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, but also featured some production and instrumentation from ex-Shudder to Think guitarist Nathan Larson, who Persson married that same year following their relocation to New York in 2000

In the mid-2000s, the Cardigans resumed work and released a pair of albums, each of which topped the Swedish charts. 2003's Per Sunding-produced, country-influenced Long Gone Before Daylight continued the band's tradition of progressively issuing downbeat material, while 2005's Super Extra Gravity saw the return of Tore Johansson, who had produced each of the band's '90s albums.

The second politically themed A Camp album, Colonia, took influence from classic pop of the '60s and '70s and appeared in 2009, the same year that her contribution to the Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse album Dark Night of the Soul was made available. In 2010, Persson gave birth to her son Nils, and subsequently -- although she contributed vocals to Larson's soundtrack projects of the period, as well as to James Iha's album Look to the Sky -- became less focused on making music in the years that followed. However, by 2014 she had readied a proper solo album, the first to appear under her own name. Released that February, sessions for the '80s pop-inspired Animal Heart took place in collaboration with both Larson and Fruit Bats mainstay Eric D. Johnson. After this Persson and her family relocated from New York back to Sweden and settled in Malmö. Apart from a pair of Swedish-language singles featuring, among others, Bob Hund frontman Thomas Öberg, she kept a low profile until 2022 when she teamed up with Scottish folk singer/songwriter James Yorkston. Released in 2023 The Great White Sea Eagle marked Yorkston's second project with Swedish chamber pop group the Second Hand Orchestra. As longtime admirers of Persson, Yorkston and producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist invited her to be the featured vocalist on many of the album's songs”.

A singular voice and songwriter, I am glad I have an excuse to feature Nina Persson! Turning fifty on 6th September, I do hope that we get more music from her soon. Whether that is another solo album or anything with another musician. I am not sure whether we will get any new music from The Cardigans. In any case, below is a playlist that shows what an amazing artist Persson is. Here is a collection of songs from…

A music icon.

FEATURE: Spotlight: KNEECAP

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

IN THIS PHOTO: Kneecap backstage at Glastonbury 2024/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Ford for NME

KNEECAP

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I am a little late…

getting to the KNEECAP party. The second studio album from the trio, Fine Art, was released in June. It is one of the most acclaimed albums of this year. I will get to a couple of those reviews to end this feature. Before that, there are some interviews I want to spotlight. Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí are KNEECAP. One of the most respected, promising and controversial groups around.  A film about the band has just been released. KNEECAP charts the rise of the Belfast-based trio. It has won some rave reviews. It is a perfect time to discover KNEECAP. I will start off with an interview from The Line of Best Fit. A thrilling and terrific band who were and are rebelling through rave:

“Sitting alongside him, Móglaí Bap (Naoise O'Cairealláin, and the other half to Chara), is quick to jump in. "You’re not deeply thinking about anything," he quips, prompting a returning slew of insults, a burst of laughter from the third part of this trio, DJ Próvaí (JJ O Dochartaigh), and quickly solidifying the personality of Kneecap.

In the relatively short span since this hip-hop band’s formation, Kneecap has rocketed from local notoriety to international acclaim. The raw energy and irreverent wit that quickly set them apart also led to debut single, "C.E.A.R.T.A," (Irish for ‘Rights’) being banned by the Irish language radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta in 2017. In 2019, the South Belfast Democratic Unionist Party openly criticised them for chants of “Brits out” during one of their performances – which later went on to inspire their shamelessly satirical single “Get your Brits Out”. Even now, they’re suing the UK Government after their £15,000 Music Export Growth Scheme grant was revoked, with officials citing it would be inappropriate to fund "people that oppose the United Kingdom itself."

“Where we come from is obviously so cheery,” jokes Bap, “when we started off in music we had criticism coming from both sides of the community. So we definitely don’t discriminate when it comes to taking the piss.” Próvaí adds with a grin, “Though there are some things you can’t joke about.” He doesn’t elaborate on what those ‘somethings’ are; despite their outspoken personas, the group knows where they draw the line. Their debut longplayer Fine Art, released last week on Heavenly Records, exemplifies this ethos. It’s an unapologetic celebration of their heritage, scattered with pointed commentary on the socio-political landscape they tread. However, fans might be surprised if they were expecting something as openly incendiary as their earlier projects.

“We are absolutely thinking about what we’re saying,” shares Bap, reflecting on the band’s hope that Fine Art will still press some buttons, “but here we were thinking about the music a lot more…Not that we were focusing on pissing people off before. It was just the subject matter.”

With Toddla T on board as producer for Fine Art , Kneecap aimed to “up the ante” musically. “Toddla’s like real professional. He’s worked with everyone and had everyone in that studio. It brings out the best in you, being around people like that,” Chara continues. “You really feed off it”.

Kneecap are a band still surprised by their rapid rise: “We started writing tunes about, you know, killing sniffer dogs,” says Chara with a laugh. “We didn’t expect to get signed by a record label…we were quite sceptical of English people kind of profiting off our long-standing history,” adds Bap. With everything falling into place, Fine Art showcases Kneecap’s growth, exploring boundaries and creative depths with newfound support, regardless of their occasional headline-making antics. And still, despite the polish and layers and new instrumentation, their music retains the same confidence, banter, and booziness that defines them.

“We love not being predictable,” shares Chara, backed by murmurs of agreement from his bandmates. “We love collaborations and we love the idea of doing collaborations.” Occasionally these things meet, with Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten delivering an unruffled chorus on the deliberately sedate “Better Way to Live” or Lankum’s Radie Peat lending her voice to the almost mystical opener “3cag.” It’s a benefit of hip-hop, Bap shares, discussing the ways the genre lends itself to experimentation between styles and sounds. After all, Kneecap boldly refuse to be boxed in, a sentiment echoed in their evolving musical expression. While rooted in local culture, this hip-hop trio's music resonates with universal themes of resistance, identity, and revelry, appealing well beyond the borders of the North of Ireland. This is a band that taps into a universal desire to say ‘fuck it’ and have a party.

PHOTO CREDIT: Sophie Barloc

As they reminisce on their journey, Próvaí shifts to their upcoming film, a self-titled semi-fictional biopic releasing later this year. "Flying over to Sundance unexpectedly?! I mean, we never expected a big premiere in the middle of America. Having people come up to you in the middle of Utah. Half Mormons, half Normans,” he finishes with a titter. “We started writing the script in 2019 with Rich [Peppiatt, co-writer and director],” recalls Bap. “It was great fun to sit and have a crate of 20 Guinness and write.” Próvaí adds with a laugh: “It was great until, like, page 40 when the drink kicks in.” This prompts more laughter from the trio, as they excitedly talk over each other, affectionately recounting their raucous writing sessions. “The script was beautifully written for ages, then just terrible after that,” finishes Bap, chuckling.

At their core, Kneecap are storytellers. While the band kept their screenwriting and musical storytelling separate, they do recognise a similar desire to create a world through Fine Art, itself a concept album set entirely inside the fictional raucous Irish pub “The Rutz”. “It kind of incorporates every walk of life,” Bap muses. “One minute someone’s going to be singing an Irish folk song – and if someone’s singing an Irish folk song you have to be very very quiet or else you’ll be shunned – and the next minute you’re going into a cubicle and there’s six fellas taking coke, so it’s the ups and downs of the pub”. Próvaí continues: “It matters that oral tradition in Ireland, going back centuries of storytelling, was passed down by mouth. Whenever you’re in a setting like a pub, you hear all the stories from the local community and it all ties in”.

Apologies if there is crossover between the interviews at all. I was particularly struck by one from The Guardian from February. Interviewed by Miranda Sawyer, she noted how KNEECAP’s riotous music was uniting young people in Northern Ireland and, in the process, reviving the Irish language. This was before the release of the KNEECAP film. It has been such a busy and important year for the band. I was sort of surprised that Fine Art was not shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Maybe it missed the cutoff. You know that this album will scoop plenty of prizes and honours:

“Though they’ve been bubbling under for quite a while, this year Kneecap are kicking into a higher gear. (And yes, their name is a cheeky reference to paramilitary punishment.) There’s the forthcoming album, a tour of the US and Canada, a main-stage appearance at Reading and Leeds festivals and – the thing that will catapult them to much bigger renown – their excellent, harum scarum, semi-autobiographical film, Kneecap. The band all play heightened, cartoon versions of themselves to tell a heightened, cartoon version of their story, with a Trainspotting-cum-8-Mile feel. It won the audience award at this year’s Sundance film festival.

The band returned home from Sundance before the award was announced, but they’d already made quite the impression. Not only with the film – described by the festival as “a wild, ketamine-laced ride from start to finish, punctuated by songs, touches of animation, and voiceover narration by Óg Ó hAnnaidh” – but with their stunts. They brought a PSNI (Northern Ireland police force) Land Rover with them, and found a place called Provo to have their picture taken with it. “It ended up that we were on the front of all the magazines, because of that jeep,” says Mo Chara.

The hipster Americans might not quite have got the significance of an Irish-language band driving round in a PSNI car, nor indeed of Provo (a genuine Utah city, but also Irish slang for a member of the Provisional IRA), but they got the joke. Like Eminem, Kneecap’s humour is the key to their success. Their wit and eloquence shine through everything they do. There’s a great joe.co.uk interview about “stupid questions you shouldn’t ask Irish people”. After a beautifully argued section from Mo Chara, about how the British will only be able to deal with their colonial history if they tackle it as openly as the Germans did after the second world war, he says: “But the Brits just wanna hide their past, because they feel too guilty,” and makes a fists-to-the-eyes cry-baby face.

Through their very existence, Kneecap are often seen as political, not only by unionists in Ireland’s North, but by the UK government (Kemi Badenoch’s Department for Business and Trade recently intervened to stop them receiving an arts grant, of which, more later). Their songs have been banned by RTE for their copious and celebratory drug references, and for calling the PSNI the RUC (the pre-peace police force). They’ve been escorted from their own concert by security for chanting revolutionary slogans; they’ve got a song called Get Your Brits Out, about a (hypothetical) wild night out with the DUP’s Arlene Foster, Jeffrey Donaldson and Christopher Stalford (“Christy” in the song); another called Fenian Cunts, about Mo Chara having sex with a Protestant (“you can call me King Billy if you want”); and a skit about the IRA coming down hard on drug takers. They’re post-Good Friday agreement bad boys, taking out every old authority figure without fear: “We don’t discriminate who we piss off.”

In 2019 they advertised their Farewell to the Union tour of England and Scotland with a cartoon of Arlene Foster and Boris Johnson strapped to a rocket atop a bonfire. And in 2022, before playing at West Belfast’s Féile An Phobail arts festival, they unveiled a wall mural of a PSNI jeep, also on fire. “They get more upset about a mural of a jeep on fire than they do about a real jeep on fire,” says Mo Chara. “The last time I saw a real jeep on fire was in the [unionist area] Shankill,” says Móglaí Bap. “That’s the truth!”

Though it’s their establishment baiting that makes headlines, far more fundamental to the band’s soul and mission is the fact that all three are Irish speakers (Irish is Móglaí Bap’s first language). This might seem unprovocative to anyone outside Belfast, but official recognition of the Irish language was one of the reasons why the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended in 2022 (the DUP opposed the Identity and Language Act, which gave Irish a legal status equal to English). The act was eventually passed in late 2022 and the campaign to have the language recognised is a storyline in the film. Kneecap started rapping in Irish to show that it’s a living language that can describe not only the traditional Irish smell of turf on a fire but what’s going on in real life now, from sex to drugs to silly jokes about drinking Buckfast.

And beside all of this, to most of their young fans Kneecap are simply a great band: funny, wild, a brilliant live act, a craic. As one YouTube commenter says: “I do not understand a word they’re saying, but I do understand that this is an absolute banger.” The best rap comes from a living culture, and Kneecap’s is working-class Belfast. They’re self-proclaimed “lowlife scum”.

As you might be able to tell, drugs play quite a part in Kneecap’s world. They invented Irish words for them, because the language didn’t have them. “Snaois” is coke, “capaillín” is ketamine. Tattooed across Móglaí Bap’s chest is 3CAG, the title of their 2018 album. It stands for “3 chonsan agus guta”, the Irish for “three consonants and a vowel”, meaning MDMA. Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap started doing this while hanging out in their teens. Later, they had a squat for a while together and ran events. Everyone would go out until 2am, then pile back and bring out instruments and play Irish music, dancing till 6am. “MDMA and Guinness,” says Mo Chara. Rave, rebel songs and great tunes, all still central to what Kneecap are about.

“Kneecap was born of the need to represent that identity,” says Móglaí Bap. “[We were part of] this weird first group of young people in an urban setting in Belfast to really speak Irish together socially… sharing the words and the youth culture, and taking recreational drugs, and all that melded together.”

And using their own language to express what they want. Móglaí Bap set up an Irish-language festival – it’s how he and Mo Chara first met Próvaí, who came to speak – and he wrote a play in Irish about a young man being addicted to gambling, which he was for a while. “It’s about language and culture,” says Móglaí Bap. “There’s no point in having a united Ireland if it’s just about economics”.

Prior to getting to some reviews for Fine Art, there is one more interview that I want to get to. You should check out other interview with them. DIY featured KNEECAP in March. The trio explained how they want to unite people through their gigs and music. How language should not be a barrier at all:

“The record unleashes several killer collaborations, with Lankum, Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten and Jelani Blackman among the many guests. “We wanted to show people that a group who rap predominantly in Irish can collab with a Black fellow from London and it works,” Mo explains. “We’re both from backgrounds that have been downtrodden for a long time. Also, Jelani is fucking incredible; he’s criminally underrated.”

After their access to arts funding was blocked by the UK's Business Secretary, we spoke to Belfast trio Kneecap about the significance of financial support for artists, freedom of speech, and what happens next.

The band will also embark on a North American tour and are due at big British festivals such as Reading & Leeds in the summer. “It’s an opportunity for us to inspire people and show them that the language isn’t a barrier,” says Móglaí. “You don’t even think about the Irish language when you’re going to our gigs – that’s why it’s amazing that we’re on the main stage of Leeds.”

Earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival, Sony Pictures bought the rights to Kneecap’s self-titled fictionalised biopic. With an as-yet-unannounced general release date, it’s the highest-budget Irish language film ever made and is every bit as bonkers as you’d expect. Though large parts are not, some scenes in the film are true: the band did perform their first gig full of their beloved 3CAG, and Próvaí did get fired as an Irish teacher for an on-stage photo of his bare arse, ‘BRITS OUT’ painted on each cheek.

Other narratives diverge from the band’s lives, but reflect contemporary issues in their world. A brooding Michael Fassbender plays Móglaí’s fictional father, a hardened IRA terrorist who fakes his own death. “Half the kids in my class, their parents were in the IRA,” says Móglaí. “I’m sure they suffered quite an amount when your parents are involved because it causes a lot of troubles and mental health issues. That PTSD is intergenerational.”

Unexpectedly, Kneecap have recently entered their most audacious act yet by suing the British government. Originally approved for a £15,000 grant under the Music Export Growth Scheme (which is jointly funded by the industry and government), it was overruled by the Tories at the last minute, claiming they didn’t want to give taxpayers’ money “to people that oppose the United Kingdom itself”. Kneecap have now legally challenged them for the “unlawful” decision. “I was loving it,” Mo declares. “Bringing the Tory government to court? You can’t put a price on that for PR.”

It’s a pivotal point in the story of both Kneecap and Northern Ireland. Just weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Assembly was finally restored after two years out of action, and the country gained its first ever nationalist First Minister, Michelle O’Neill. It’s one step closer to Kneecap’s vision of a better future for everyone. “People who went to private schools in London shouldn’t be making decisions based on young people’s lives on a completely different island with a completely different understanding of reality,” says Mo. “You’ve had enough of a chance at it, and you failed miserably. It’s time for an alternative.”

Kneecap are some of the most entertaining, provocative and savvy musicians around, and they’re determined to expose as many people as they can to their culture. It’s a cause close to their hearts, but at the end of the day, the rappers also just want to kick up their heels and enjoy the ride. “It’s time enough now that we can all take a step back and joke about it,” says Mo. “It’s been so serious here for so long that we wanted to do that with our music and have a fucking comedic look on it. We all know how to take a joke, we know how to toe the line. We’ll just keep doing what we do”.

Prior to wrapping up, it is worth getting to a couple of the (many) positive reviews for the simply brilliant Fine Art. I want to start off with a five-star salute from NME. I would be very surprised if Fine Art is not named album of the year by many sources! I have passed through it a couple of times and have been blown away. If you have not discovered the group then I would suggest you get involved now. They are still on the rise, but it is only a matter of time before they are festival headliners:

“Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara rap over DJ Próvaí’s intoxicating beats without ever losing your attention. Skipping between English and Irish, language is no barrier to a good time. Opener ‘3CAG’ (which stands for “3 chonsan agus guta”, Irish for “three consonants and a vowel”, that’s MDMA, kids) features Lankum’s Radie Peat to deliver a modern spin on soulful Irish folk before Kneecap tell you exactly who they are on the title track. Named after their two-word response to the media frenzy that followed their 2022 unveiling of a hometown mural that showed a Police Service of Northern Ireland jeep on fire, they fill in on the headlines from their favourite place, “in a dimly-lit shit run-down pub… seeing how high I can get on government funds”.

Between the skits and the bants, there are highs: the feral rush of cutting loose and buying a packet on payday on ‘I’m Flush’, the sweet R&B romance of ‘Love Making’, the trash meets tradition of ‘Drug Dealin Pagans’. But, as they spit on the profound ‘A Better Way To Live’ featuring Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten, that’s only “the upside of the seesaw”. You gotta come down, too.

‘Sick In The Head’ points out how drugs and booze are ultimately cheaper than therapy (“I’m too far gone when it comes to mental health, rather be sick in the head with a little bit of wealth”). Tthe bittersweet ‘Way Too Much’ speaks of weighing up the release vs the aftermath, and ‘Rhino Ket’ is a nightmare race to the depths (“I can’t hold up my head, this shit puts rhinos to bed”). This is the poetry on the cubicle wall: sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes aggravating, but it’s got your attention.

“This wall was built years ago to stop the Protestants on this side fighting with the Catholics on the other,” comes a quote from the ‘90s documentary Dancing On Narrow Ground on the clubby ‘Parful’, telling the story of how drugs and dancing helped bring some temporary peace in Ulster. “But every Saturday night, hundreds of people go out, just go out clubbing and forget about the divides between each other”. An ode to the abandon and unity that come from chain-smoking with your mates and getting lost in the rave, ‘Parful’ perhaps best captures ‘Fine Art’ and the spirit of Kneecap.

In the dark of the night out, the moment is all that matters and the rave will set you free. To shout that in a ‘dying’ language on a record that couldn’t sound any more alive? That’s power – and Kneecap have it”.

I am going to end with a review from Still Listening Magazine. It is interesting reading the various takes on Fine Art. What various people take away from one of the most important albums of this year. It is a mesmeric and unforgettable listen. I do think we should pay attention to the music coming from Northern Ireland. Whilst bands from the Republic of Ireland such as Fontaines D.C. are getting massive acclaim, do we spend that much time on Northern Ireland?! KNEECAP are putting the country back at the forefront:

“In their own words, KNEECAP basically started making music for the craic, releasing C.E.A.R.T.A. (Irish for “rights”) in 2017 without really expecting it to go anywhere. Local virality, raucous gigs, cult following, Tory condemnation, and an Audience Award at Sundance followed. Now, 7 years later, “Fine Art” has arrived. This is the Irish rap group’s sophomore record, following 2018’s “3cag”, the record is a considerable step up from any of their previous releases, with increased production value and more thematic cohesion while retaining the punk energy which, essentially, defines the group.

Told loosely through the story of a night out in Belfast, the album carries us through some meta-commentary, some anecdotal storytelling, and a dedication to the role of the rave scene in cross-community relations in the North of Ireland, all while looking introspectively at their use of recreational drugs.

Sonically, the record largely blends hip-hop (roughly half in Irish and half in English) with a variety of EDM genres, including house and rave. The first third of the album sees KNEECAP employ their trademark aggression and energy, epitomised by “I bhFiacha Linne”, which basically serves as roughly 3 minutes of threats towards anyone who owes Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara any money. From here, there is a shift towards some more conventional hip-hop, with singles “Better Way to Live” and “Sick in the Head”, which look at the effects of generational trauma on their drinking habits and mental health. Towards the end of the album, “Parful” and “Rhino Ket” then bring the mood back up, rave influencing the sound and the lyrics of these tracks.

Another notable factor in “Fine Art” is the interludes. I think it’s really easy for interludes to be used in a way which can detract from the momentum of an album, they can often fee a little intrusive. However, on this album, the result is quite the opposite. They’re short and sweet, help to tie the narrative together, and allow KNEECAP to showcase their sense of humour.

For me, “Harrow Road” is the strongest track on the record, which follows the only direct jab towards us Brits in “KNEECAP Chaps” (fans of “Get Your Brits Out” may be disappointed by this album). “Harrow Road” tells the story of Móglaí Bap getting lost in London after being dropped off in Wembley rather than on Harrow Road by a taxi driver. There’s a surprising amount of affection in this song, which I think also includes some of KNEECAP’s best flows, particularly from Mo Chara.

There is still room for improvement from this album though. While the blend of English and Irish makes for some unique and cleverly utilised rhymes, I think there are some lines which seem a little clumsy, possibly as a result of this record being written in full in a matter of weeks. I think this sticks out in the hooks for “I bhFiacha Linne” and “Sick in the Head”, where I think the line “I'm too far gone when it comes to mental health” is the worst example on the record. Moreover, I think it would be interesting to hear some slightly darker, possibly more industrial production on a KNEECAP. While pretty much all of these beats undoubtedly go hard, they do tow the line with being a little safe.

“Fine Art” is a real statement of intent as a record. Its energy is infectious, and I have found it really easy to obsess over basically every track on the album, which comes in part from the surprising amount of lyrical depth. Compared to their work in the late 2010s, this release is much more mature and confident, and I hope that they continue this upward trajectory”.

Whilst not a brand new band, I do think KNEECAP should be on everyone’s radar. Perhaps there are a few people who do not know about them. You can well see this band going from strength to strength to world domination! Maybe not as known and revered across Europe and the U.S. as they are in the U.K. that will all soon change! KNEECAP demand your attention, so ignore them…

AT your peril.

___________

Follow Kneecap

PHOTO CREDIT: Hannah McCallum/The Observer

Official:

https://www.kneecap.ie/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/kneecap32

Twitter:

https://x.com/KNEECAPCEOL

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ZVACPeq7ccGCoUXwtafUU?si=B-r79BfzRtSlgVMUMVZRrw

Bandcamp:

https://kneecap.bandcamp.com/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8_tdf_kr2tn01dFmRK6wQ

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/KNEECAP32/?locale=en_GB

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Thirty-Nine: After The Dreaming’s Release, a Chance for Refresh and Rest

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Thirty-Nine

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin

After The Dreaming’s Release, a Chance for Refresh and Rest

_________

ONE has to sympathise with Kate Bush…

as the majority of her career – well, up until 1993’s The Red Shoes – was defined by a work schedule that would burn most people out! Even between 1985’s Hounds of Love and 1989’s The Sensual World, she was packing a lot into that time. I want to focus on Hounds of Love, as it turns thirty-nine on 16th September. I have written about this before, but the period between Kate Bush completing 1982’s The Dreaming and starting work on Hounds of Love was one where she got back a sense of calm and stability. Of course, she was working for some of this time. The Dreaming was released in September 1982. Three years later, she would release her next album. The Dreaming was a hard album to make in a lot of ways. Such an intense period of creativity and production, Bush was clearly burned out an exhausted once it was completed. There was not a tonne of promotion, though she did keep busy during 1982 and there was a lot of travel and energy expended. The period after that was quite pivotal in regards how she approached her next album. Before getting to that, this website lays out what Kate Bush’s 1982 was like:

“March 1982

Kate finishes the overdubs and goes into the final mixing of the album. This session lasts two months.

April 1982

Kate's projected book Leaving My Tracks is shelved until early 1983.

The album's release date is put back to September for marketing reasons.

May 1982

The Dreaming album is completed, after a combined work period of more than sixteen months. Kate goes off to Jamaica for a holiday.

June 1982

Kate does some session work for Zaine Griff, who with her had attended Lindsay Kemp's mime classes back in 1976. She does backing vocals on a track dedicated to Kemp, called Flowers.

The release of the single The Dreaming is delayed.

The first issue of Homeground is prepared. 25 copies are run off on an office photocopier.

July 21, 1982

At 48 hours' notice Kate is asked to take David Bowie's place in a Royal Rock Gala before HRH The Prince of Wales in aid of The Prince's Trust. She performs Wedding List live, backed by Pete Townsend and Midge Ure on guitars, Mick Karn on bass, Gary Brooker on keyboards and Phil Collins on drums.

"The best moment by far was Kate Bush's number, a storming success..." (Sunie, Record Mirror)

July 27, 1982

The single The Dreaming is finally released, to excellent music press reviews saluting Kate's creative courage. The single is stifled, however, by the radio producers and presenters, particularly on BBC Radio 1, who will not play it. The plans for a twelve-inch version are aborted.

August 1982

Despite no daytime airplay on Radio 1, The Dreaming enters the singles chart, but peaks at number 48.

September 10, 1982

Kate appears live at a special Radio 1 Roadshow from Covent Garden Piazza to be interviewed briefly about her new album.

September 13, 1982

The album The Dreaming is released. Written, arranged and produced by Kate around the rhythm box and the Fairlight CMI. The radio programmers and most of the British reviewers are mystified. The album demands more of them than they can give.

September 14, 1982

Kate makes a personal appearance at the Virgin Megastore in London's Oxford Street. The queue again exceeds 100 yards in length.

Kate proceeds by train to Manchester, using a specially cleared goods car to rehearse for a video for the next single. In Manchester Kate records an interview for the BBC TV programme The Old Grey Whistle Test for use on the 17th, when the video for The Dreaming single is shown for the first time on British TV.

September 21, 1982

Kate makes an appearance on the commercial TV programme Razzmatazz, performing There Goes a Tenner, which is to be the next single.

The album enters the charts at number 3.

Kate goes on to Europe to promote the new album. In Munich she performs The Dreaming single [on Na Sowas -- the so-called "giant iguana" version] and is presented with a Gold Record for German sales of Never For Ever during the same television appearance.

The next stop is Milan, where Kate gives the first of four performances of The Dreaming single [on the Italian television programmes Happy Magic, Zim Zum Zam, Riva del Garda, and Disco-Ring.

[She may also have visited Spain during this trip, but I have no confirmation.]

October 1, 1982

Kate appears on the BBC TV programme Saturday Superstore to be interviewed about the new album.

Kate makes personal appearances in Glasgow, Newcastle and Birmingham. The album goes Gold.

October 8, 1982

While in Birmingham, Kate records an appearance on the BBC TV programme Pebble Mill at One, being interviewed by Paul Gambaccini about the new album. The interview is screened on October 29th, and part of the video for There Goes a Tenner is shown; the only time that this video is aired on British TV.

Kate is off again to France for more TV promotion of the album [including a lip-synch performance of Suspended in Gaffa, which is released as a single in Europe; and an in-depth interview for French TV station France-Inter]

November 1982

Kate is in Germany promoting album and single. [She gives a lip-synch performance of Suspended in Gaffa, known as the "puppets" or "marionettes" version]”.

You can see that it was a very busy time! Not a lot of time for rest and any form of recovery. After putting everything into The Dreaming, something had to change. One of the reasons why Hounds of Love is such a grand, ambitious, warm and accomplished album is because Kate Bush had time to recharge. Not to overstate and be too dramatic. Kate Bush was focused and this incredible producer in the studio. Outside of it, one wonders whether she had any sort of life at all. During The Dreaming, she would exist on takeaways for months. Not spending time to cook and relax, her time was spent getting quick meals in and not spending enough time unwinding. So professional and focused in the studio, it would have been so hard for her to relax and shift after a long day (and night) of recording. When she visited Jamaica in 1982, she found the silence and peace there deafening! That was in June. This verdant paradise, it was a real culture shock. In a relationship with Del Palmer, I can only imagine how difficult it was at times. They were with each other all of the time, so there would have been moments of tension and fallout. Supporting one another, I guess their relationship at that time was more professional than it was romantic. Bush not allowing herself much time for enjoying a physical relationship. Bush really did go all-out with promotion. She was becoming so involved with music videos too. Conceiving and co-directing The Dreaming’s title track video – her first solo direction was for Hounds of Love’s title track -, she balanced all this with interviews around the world. I will come to Hounds of Love very soon. It is worth noting how there was this speculation around Kate Bush. Rumours of weight gain and a drug habit in the press. If an artist was out of the public eye for a short time, there was this rumour mill! Kate Bush was not immune.

It is important to look at the lead-up to Hounds of Love’s recording and what was happening in Kate Bush’s life. 1982 and 1983 were crucial. The move to the countryside and her childhood home meant that she could return to the past. A simpler period. She knew that something had to change. Not only did she need a healthy period of creativity and recording. Recording out of different studios around London was expensive and gruelling. Financially able to build her own studio at her family home, Bush had this incredible period where she was writing, dancing and singing. A healthier diet, the influence and benefit of her family and a rural backdrop worked wonders. Bush wrote to her fan club in the summer of 1983 and noted how the year was like 1976. Aged seventeen/eighteen, that would have been when Bush was recording demos and only a year from entering the studio to record her debut studio album, The Kick Inside. 1983 was a year where she returned to East Wickham Farm and would write all night. There was, as Graeme Thomson notes in his book, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, similarities between Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel. He built his own studio at Ashcombe House. He and Bush worked on their fifth studio albums at more or less the same time. The year Hounds of Love was released was when Gabriel was working on So. Both masterpieces and career highs. It is no coincidence that autonomy and a bespoke studio was responsible for this amazing creativity and feeling of freedom! In the barn at the farm at East Wickham, Bush was returning to a place where she played the organ after school and would later work through Lionheart (her second studio album released in 1978) with the KT Bush Band. Designing the studio and with a blueprint in mind her father, Dr. Bush, also assisted with various parts of the studio. A hands-on approach that would have been a thrill. I don’t know if any photos exist of the studio being built!

One of the most shocking results of The Dreaming’s recording and release is that EMI almost returned it. There is a clause in many record contracts that a label can turn an album away or refuse to release it. They were close to doing that with The Dreaming! It is great that there was such a quick return and new lease of inspiration for Kate Bush. Bush played new tracks to Paul Hardiman (engineer) on 6th October, 1983. He engineered the first stages of the album. Impressed by what Kate Bush had created and what she and Del Palmer were putting together. From November 1983, sessions began for Hounds of Love. That whole year was a really important one. The building of the home studio and the way Bush was writing in a new way. A familiar environment gave her the strength and comfort to create in a far less stressful and constrained way. In terms of the recording for Hounds of Love, there were not the pressures of studio bills. Everything being judged on cost rather than merit. The fact Bush might have felt stressed trying to do so much in a short time so that she did not go too far over budget. Thirty-nine years ago, Bush’s most successful album came out. I will discuss the songs and the brilliance of the album in the next feature. What I did want to start with is talking about the background. How she was working on The Dreaming and promoted it quite a bit. Maybe less intense than years past, but she was working hard to put The Dreaming out there. The impact that this had on her. 1983 was a year where so much personal development occurred. In terms of her diet, working practice and routine. It was a much more warm and safe space. A different process that resulted in a very different album. I guess there was some concession to EMI and their need for something more commercial or accessible. Little did the label know what she was working on in 1983 and soon…

WHAT she would put into the world.

FEATURE: From Bad Seeds Grow Beautiful Blooms: Has Any Other Artist Achieved the Same Consistency as the Nick Cave-Led Band?

FEATURE:

 

 

From Bad Seeds Grow Beautiful Blooms

Has Any Other Artist Achieved the Same Consistency as the Nick Cave-Led Band?

_________

SOMETHING occurred to me…

IN THIS PHOTO: Bruce Springsteen photographed in July 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Sergione Infuso/Corbis via Getty Images

when I saw a review for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ new album, Wild God. Of course, when we look at reviews, we have to understand they are subjective. There are albums that get all positive reviews so you have to trust that wisdom of crowds. The collective acclaim. There are some that get mixed reviews. When it comes to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ career, they have been going since 1984. That was when their debut album, From Her to Eternity, came out. Wild God comes out on 30th August. It is the band’s eighteenth album. Not only is that amount of albums impressive on its own. It is the consistency which is particularly stunning. Even if you have this niche sound and hit gold at the start, there is no guarantee that critics will love the same sound further down the line. Those artists that get acclaim consistently through the years always reinvent and move forward. There are not that many acts who have released eighteen albums. Any that do have a few blips. It is only natural. Think about an artist like Paul McCartney and his solo career. He has released eighteen studio albums. There have been those that received mixed reviews. Maybe his highs are better and more important than Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’. And he was a Beatle! asked on Twitter who could match the band and I got a suggestion of Pet Shop Boys. At fifteen albums, they have released fewer than Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and their Metacritic average – a collection of reviews averaged to get a score out of 100 – is a bit lower. I would imagine Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to be in the 80s at least. Someone else suggests Bruce Springsteen as a challenger. Twenty-one albums in, there have been a lot of classics. Maybe three of his albums have not scored brilliant reviews. Another few have got mostly acclaim and a few mixed. If we add it all together, then he might be the closest to matching Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ scores/average - though you feel Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will enjoy a better run in the next five or ten years.

There are a lot of questions and considerations. As I say, reviews are subjective. I am not a big Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fan, and I would say I prefer the body of work from Madonna, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush – obviously – and other artists who have had long careers and released multiple albums. One has to respect a career without a bad album. One might say that the band has a brief period where they were not at their best. Think about 2001’s No More Shall We Pass and its follow-up, Nocturama. Neither of them bad albums, though the reviews were a little less than universally positive. Even so, the band followed up with 2004’s Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus. That was a triumphant return to form. Some artists would tire and might have had this longer spell of average work. Think about all the greats who have spanned multiple decades and it always happens. There is no telling how long Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will endure I suspect quite a few more years with the potential for multiple albums. I want to come to that review from The Guardian of Wild God and some things that were observed:

“The album’s songs don’t stint on darkness – pain, suffering and death all feature, including the passing of Cave’s former collaborator and partner Anita Lane – but suggest that life can still provide transcendent euphoria despite it all. The song about Lane is called O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is): it’s gorgeously melodic, decorated with abstract smears of vocoder and a telephone recording of Lane giggling as she recalls their dissolute past, and deals in reverie rather than mourning. On Frogs, Cave walks home from church, pausing to look at a frog in the gutter: “leaping to God, amazed of love, amazed of pain, amazed to be back in the water again.” Even if it doesn’t get far, the song seems to suggest, that’s not the point: the point is to keep leaping.

The music follows suit. Cave has reconvened the Bad Seeds – who seemed a little surplus to requirements among Ghosteen’s beatless drifts and who didn’t appear at all on Carnage, an album credited to Cave and Ellis alone. Wild God deftly melds the meditative, flowing sound of its immediate predecessors with the band’s trademark muscularity (one of the enduring mysteries of Cave’s career is how a band that’s seen something like 23 different musicians pass through its ranks over the years, always sounds like the Bad Seeds regardless). The result is a set of songs that feel simultaneously airy and teeming, not least with a preponderance of glowing melodies. They frequently surge into vast, ecstatic exhalations – there’s a fantastic moment near the end of Song of the Lake, where Thomas Wydler’s drums, which have previously moved things along at a stately, measured pace, suddenly burst into a series of gleeful, clattering rolls. Or the mood flips completely: Conversion initially sounds haunted and stark, before exploding into life midway through in a mass of voices singing and chanting, Cave’s extemporised vocal sounding increasingly rapturous over the top.

The title track, meanwhile, is similarly joyful, although lyrically oblique. One way you could read it is as a sardonic self-portrait, rock’s former Prince of Darkness in his late 60s (“It was rape and pillage in the retirement village”), grappling with the dramatic shift in perception that Cave has undergone over the last decade as it builds to an explosive, cathartic climax, bolstered by choir and orchestra. Said climax seems to reaffirm his faith in the transformative power of music and communality: “If you’re feeling lonely and if you’re feeling blue, and if you just don’t know what to do,” he cries, “bring your spirit down!”

If that’s indeed what that song is saying, the point is underlined by the album as a whole. Packed with remarkable songs, its mood of what you might call radical optimism is potent and contagious. You leave it feeling better than you did previously: an improving experience, in the best sense of the phrase”.

Rather than this being a casual observation of such a positive review for a band who keep on getting them, I have been thinking about that sense of longevity and what makes a band like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds an exception to a rule. What is it about their songwriting and albums that means they continue to wow critics. It is not a case of them not selling. They are a massive commercial success too. They bring in new fans but hang on to their existing ones. Each album offers something new. There is definitely something in their discography that is rare. Almost unique. I am trying to think of another artist who has released eighteen or more albums and maybe only had two of them score anything less than universal acclaim. It is hard to think of anyone else. Is it possible in a modern music scene to establish that sort of acclaim and solidity?! To have your albums constantly reach new levels of excellence. I guess some might say Taylor Swift could match that. She is in her thirties still and her debut album came out in 2006. A career half as long as a band like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, she could go for a couple more decades and achieve something almost impossible. I don’t think that even a modern megastar like Swift could keep that record. That run of wonderful albums. Maybe a band like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a sound that is distinctly away from the mainstream. It is not beyond the realms of plausibility that an artist could build a charge and really stands alongside Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. In a modern climate – with so much competition and many artists taking big risks and sometimes falling short -, is there any way we could see this golden run?! I am not sure. I was reflecting on the latest work from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and how it will like scoop many more five-star reviews. Their past three or four albums definitely have. What next for them?! Probably sticking close to the sound of Wild God, I do feel they are going to keep on grabbing the hearts of critics. Forty years after their debut and eighteen albums-deep, this is a body of work almost unmatched in music history. It is exciting what comes next for…

THE Australian legends.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Four: Celebrating a Record-Setting Album

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Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Four

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed attending the British Rock and Pop Awards in February 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Syndication/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Celebrating a Record-Setting Album

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IT is not often now…

where you will get artists setting records for an album’s achievements. In terms of the sales and weeks at number one. You feel that everything that could happen regarding setting records has already been done. Kate Bush has set a few in her time. In 2014, Bush became the first woman to have eight of her albums in the Official Albums Chart at the same time. That was after the success of Before the Dawn. Take it back to 1978 when she became the first U.K. female artist to have a number one single with a self-written song. Someone whose sheer originality, talent and timeless appeal and popularity means that you can not bet against Bush setting another record. It is no surprise that there was this momentum after Wuthering Heights went to number one. Her first two albums, 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart, both went into the top ten of the U.K. album chart. Maybe it was a matter of time before Kate Bush got a number one album (I am referring to the U.K., as The Kick Inside reached number one in a couple of nations). She reached number one in 1985 with Hounds of Love. The same in 1986 with The Whole Story (her greatest hits collection). The Sensual World, The Red Shoes, and Director’s Cut reached number two. All of her studio albums have reached the top ten albums charts here. If some albums have not got huge critical acclaim or have been slightly overlooked, that is not the case when it comes to the public. As far as EMI were concerned, like any record label, it is sales and commercial success that means the most. They are not necessarily looking at reviews and seeing those as a mark of success and achievement. All the same, there was something amiss after the release of Never for Ever on 8th September 1980.

I maintain Bush’s third studio album is her most underrated. It is one of her best. Contemporary reviews were a mixture of positive and some more reserved or less positive takes. To be fair, most of the reviews were encouraging. That was a step up from the more muted response to Lionheart. It was clear Kate Bush was inspired keen to move her sound on. Never for Ever has familiar strands and sounds, yet it was a bigger and more ambitious album compared to her first two. A wider sound and lyrical palette. If there was this exhaustion after Never for Ever’s release that carried into The Dreaming, there was probably a more positive energy going from The Tour of Life into Never for Ever. Even though Bush was tired, there was that energy and desire to create an album following time on the road. You can hear the passion and inspiration through the album. The promotion for Never for Ever was fairly intense. Over the following week after its release, Kate Bush undertook a record signing tour of the U.K. One of the most notable examples of the acclaim and popularity she had from fans was at Oxford Street, London. There were massive queues of fans waiting to get the album signed. Bush then visited Europe to promote Never for Ever. The album entered the U.K. album chart on 20th September, 1980. It reached number one. It held that position for only a week, yet it was in the chart for a long time. It was the first ever album by a British female solo artist to top the U.K. album chart, as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number one. In 1980, that seems extraordinary!

Kate Bush had come from a hugely adored and acclaimed tour and into the studio where that momentum continued. Never for Ever reached number one. Setting a record and with this huge fanbase with her, I do think that EMI should have had more faith. Consider the fact they were not keen on Bush’s solo-producing The Dreaming. I don’t think it was concern for her mental health or a feeling she might get buried. I feel there was this doubt around her ability and talent. As she was co-producer – with Jon Kelly – on a number one album, why were there any barriers?! I do feel there was hesitancy from EMI for Bush to produce Hounds of Love as The Dreaming did not perform as commercially well as Never for Ever. It got to number three but did have some mixed reviews. I still think there was some reluctance for EMI to let Bush take on the challenge of The Dreaming. She was still very young, though she had more than proved herself. How much personal care and conversation was there?! EMI wanted Bush to promote Never for Ever as much as possible and take it to as many people as possible. I didn’t hear of any particular reward from EMI following Bush’s record-setting number one album. In terms of a budget and supporting their artist, I do keep thinking it would have been great if EMI celebrated Never for Ever’s success and did show more love to Kate Bush. Perhaps they did. However, I get the feeling that there was not a huge amount of allowance. If they ‘allowed’ Bush to produce The Dreaming, they were still strict about completion time. Released two years after Never for Ever, that feeling that she still needed to produce albums every year. Shouldn’t such a commercial success like Never for Ever have meant Bush was more than a commodity or someone who was making the label money?! It doesn’t sit too easy!

Regardless, we need to recognise the significance of Never for Ever’s success. It sounds like it was a great and productive time. With Bush stepping into the producer role, it was this breakthrough. Kate Bush being recognised as this extraordinary talent. Her first album where she was producer going to number one in the U.K. is impressive! I do feel that this sort of success should have seen EMI doing a bit more. Allowing Bush a bit more time to make an album. Not feeling like Bush was taking too much time. I will wrap up in a minute. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia collated interviews where Bush spoke about Never for Ever. Bush pleased that she was producing and had more control over her own work:

“For me, this was the first LP I’d made that I could sit back and listen to and really appreciate. I’m especially close to Never For Ever. It was the first step I’d taken in really controlling the sounds and being pleased with what was coming back. I was far more involved with the overall production, and so I had a lot more freedom and control, which was very rewarding. Favourite tracks? I guess I’d have to say ‘Breathing’ and ‘The Infant Kiss’.

Women of Rock, 1984

From here on there are big progressive steps. I was starting to take control at this point, making sure I had enough time and getting involved in production.

Love, Trust and Hitler. Tracks (UK), November 1989”.

On 8th September, it will be forty-four years since Never for Ever was released. It was a turning point. From there on, Bush knew that she wanted to produce. The Dreaming was her first solo production, though it is clear that recording Never for Ever was hugely important and had some wonderful moments. It is a brilliant album that contains three of her most successful and strongest singles – Breathing, Babooshka and Army Dreamers.

I think more should be written and said about Never for Ever. The context. Those four months between the end of The Tour of Life and working on the album. The four months after and going into The Dreaming. In fact, Bush started recording The Dreaming the same month Never for Ever was released. That sense of her releasing an album and then almost having to be straight into the studio to follow it. Not really allowed time to chill out and enjoy success. That is something that gets to me. How much of that decision to make another album was Bush’s?! That sense of promoting one album and recording another one was something she faced in 1978. EMI really should have said to Bush to take time out. I would love to have heard conversations after Never for Ever went to number one. Whether it was Kate Bush or EMI that drove the conversation around making an album straight away. Or beginning recording at least! I want to end with a nice segment The Quietus’s feature from 2020. They marked forty years of Never for Ever and opened the feature with these words:

“No one was safe once Kate Bush arrived at Abbey Road, not even the people in the canteen. Sessions on 1980’s Never For Ever were fun but punishingly long, especially when she and her band spent hours playing with their freaky new toy, a Fairlight CMI digital sampler. One day, they smashed all the studio’s crockery and recorded the different timbres of each shattering cup and glass, just so they could play an arpeggio of breaking-shard samples on ‘Babooshka’. It sounded incredible, but not everyone thought the effect justified the means: the kitchen staff were so appalled, writes Graeme Thomson in his fascinating biography Under The Ivy, that Bush apparently grovelled for forgiveness with Belgian chocolates.

Maybe the final confectionery-based detail in that anecdote is too good to be true, just like the apocryphal tale of Bush inviting an excited EMI bigwig to her house to show him what she’d been working on during a long, mysterious hiatus, only to then present him with some freshly baked cakes. What is beyond doubt, though, is how much hard graft went into her third album, and what a huge turning point it proved to be. Despite being overshadowed by what followed, it’s the start of her transformation into a one-of-a-kind auteur, the record that made her later, greater glories possible. Tired of EMI’s conveyor-belt approach to rushing out LPs, Bush assumed more ownership in the studio and changed the way she made music forever. “The whole thing was so satisfying,” she enthused in 1980. “To actually have control of my baby for the first time.” Forty years later, it’s no less significant: Never For Ever isn’t Bush’s best album, but it might well be the most important”.

There is a lot more to explore when it comes to Never for Ever. Its amazing eleven songs. The shift from Bush being produced by someone else to going on tour and heading into the studio to produce. The impact and relevance of her reaching number one. How it set the course for the rest of her career. It was a new phase and chapter. Bush not discarding her first two albums…though there was this feeling that she really had to produce and control her own work. If some see Never for Ever as transition to her peak and mere promise rather than brilliance, I think that Never for Ever is…

STILL an underrated classic.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty-Two: Technological Leaps and Invention

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Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty-Two

Technological Leaps and Invention

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I am looking forward to…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport

marking the forty-second anniversary of one of Kate Bush’s best albums. On 13th September, 1982, she released The Dreaming. Recorded between September 1980 and May 1982, this was Bush’s most intensely focused period of work to date. Her most ambitious, focused, layered and detailed album, it was her producing solo for the first time. As such, this was Bush’s most personal, committed and revealing album to that point. I love the fact that she had this desire to really put herself into the album. Discovering the Fairlight CMI during recording of Never for Ever, it was very much at the forefront of The Dreaming. Opened to its endless possibilities, I want to go more into this side of the album for the first of a couple of features to mark The Dreaming’s forty-second anniversary. I think that Peter Gabriel’s influence was a big reason why technology and the Fairlight CMI was a big focal point. There was another artist who really opened the floodgates and started the process of The Dreaming’s recording. I shall come to that. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia has collated interviews where Bush spoke about The Dreaming:

“Kate about ‘The Dreaming’

After the last album, ‘Never For Ever’, I started writing some new songs. They were very different from anything I’d ever written before – they were much more rhythmic, and in a way, a completely new side to my music. I was using different instruments, and everything was changing; and I felt that really the best thing to do would be to make this album a real departure – make it completely different. And the only way to achieve this was to sever all the links I had had with the older stuff. The main link was engineer Jon Kelly. Everytime I was in the studio Jon was there helping me, so I felt that in order to make the stuff different enough I would have to stop working with Jon. He really wanted to keep working with me, but we discussed it and realised that it was for the best.

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

Yes, it’s very important for me to change. In fact, as soon as the songs began to be written, I knew that the album was going to be quite different. I’d hate it, especially now, if my albums became similar, because so much happens to me between each album – my views change quite drastically. What’s nice about this album is that it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. For instance, the Australian thing: well, I wanted to do that on the last album, but there was no time. There are quite a few ideas and things that I’ve had whizzing around in my head that just haven’t been put down. I’ve always wanted to use more traditional influences and instruments, especially the Irish ones. I suppose subconsciously I’ve wanted to do all this for quite some time, but I’ve never really had the time until now.

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

I can understand the impetus for Kate Bush to focus on a studio album following 1980’s Never for Ever. About four months passed between the release of Never for Ever and her starting work on The Dreaming. It was quite a tough time for Bush. Considering the fact she started working on Never for Ever not long after 1979’s The Tour of Life and the same short period of time between Never for Ever coming out and beginning her fourth album, there was not a huge amount of gas in the tank. That period after Never for Ever was quite empty and unusual. A sort of introverted depression, she would try and sit at the piano to write and nothing would come out. Buying a property in Eltham, London, after Never for Ever’s release, it was a cosy if not luxurious part of London not far from the family home at East Wickham Farm. That combination of being close to the comfort of home but in her own space, it was a sensible base. Her brother Paddy moved in next door. There was family and support around her. Thanks to Graeme Thomson and his book, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, for being a guide and inspiration for this feature. Bush installed her own eight-track demo studio in her house. With equipment including a Yamaha CS-80 and piano around her, it was a creative hub. If ideas for Houidini and The Dreaming were developed using Never for Ever, it was Stevie Wonder who helped end a sort of temporary writer’s block. When Kate Bush and Del Palmer saw him perform in September 1980 at Wembley Arena, Bush was awed by his sheer energy and stamina. That electricity inspired her to write Sat in Your Lap.

The Fairlight CMI was pivotal when it came to The Dreaming’s palette. Hiring one from Syco Systems to start, she then invested in her own by the end of The Dreaming. She was not alone when it came to embracing that technology. In the early-1980s, there were a wave of Synth-Pop artists who were melding electronics and keyboards. Technology and synthesisers. This futuristic sound. Something new and exciting. Steve Lillywhite, Peter Gabriel’s producer at the time, and Hugh Padgham, who was an engineer on The Dreaming, knew that the friendship between Gabriel and Bush was strong. They connected and were pulled together during a benefit concert for Bill Duffield during The Tour of Life. Bush featured on Peter Gabriel’s third self-titled album in 1980. Inspired by working at his Townhouse studio space and seeing the technology play there, you can feel how that pushed her during The Dreaming. Bush and Gabriel did try and write a song together, Ibiza, but it was not satisfactory or finished. The consoles, drumming sounds, acoustics and sounds being created at Townhouse piqued Bush’s imagination and interest. It was her own creativity and curiosity that makes The Dreaming so immersive and original. Taking that initial seed and starting point and moving in all directions. It does seem like The Dreaming was an unhappy process. Pushing her music to limits and spending tireless hours searching for all sorts of rare and unusual sounds. If a longer break after The Tour of Life might have benefited her more in terms of energy and mental health, The Dreaming would have been a very different album.

I think it is such an accomplished and stunning album because of the commitment Kate Bush put in. Her songwriting was clearly in a different place. There was fantasy, escape and a sense of the ethereal on Never for Ever. Some harder-hitting songs though, for the most part, there is a lightness and airiness to many of the songs. A higher pitch. The Dreaming is a deeper, denser and harder-hitting album. Percussion very much at the core. Angrier, more propulsive and deeper, you get a sense of Kate Bush using technology to filter a combination of restlessness, post-tour comedown; the need to prove herself as a solo producer and show that she could not be easily defined. Shake off tags ands lazy criticism being levied at her. Showing that she was a serious artist. I do love how she was very much in tune with changes at the time. How the start of the 1980s beckoned in this new technology and sound. At her house in London, it was this moment where Bush was stepping away from home and that comfort and embracing multiple studios. The Dreaming was recorded at Advision, Odyssey, Abbey Road Studios and Townhouse. With the Yamaha CS-80 playing a big part of There Goes a Tenner and the Fairlight CMI being present on nearly every track  - except Pull Out the Pin and Suspended in Gaffa -, this was a turning point. The Dreaming was that transition between her piano-based first two albums, the mix of piano and technology on Never for Ever, and pushing things to new heights on 1985’s Hounds of Love. A whole new world was opened up! Kate Bush’s music so radically different to anything she had produced before. If she felt The Dreaming was an album where it seemed like she went a bit mad, it was still a chart success and gained a lot of critical acclaim – even if its singles were not really successful. The biggest takeaway from The Dreaming is Bush excelling as a producer. In terms of what she created and how she embraced and personalised technology of the time. In terms of its layers, sounds, themes and extraordinary palette, I don’t think that The Dreaming has been equalled. Turning forty-two on 13th September, I wanted to celebrate Kate Bush’s…

MAGNIFICENT fourth studio album.

FEATURE: The Tracks of My Years: My Favourite Singles of 2024 So Far

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The Tracks of My Years

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Simz/PHOTO CREDIT: Karolina Wielocha

My Favourite Singles of 2024 So Far

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I have just put out…

IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Marling/PHOTO CREDIT: Tamsin Topolski

a playlist featuring songs from the best albums by women this year. I wanted to do another ‘best of’ compilation. This one is my favourite singles from this tear so far. Featuring those you know and others you might not, there is this eclectic mix of styles and artists. It has been a really strong and varied year for singles. I suspect that we will get more than our fair share of awesome singles before the year is done. It has been wonderful discovering new artists and their amazing tracks. Also hearing wonderful singles from legends and established artists. Such a rich year for music. To honour that, the playlist below sits them alongside one another. You might have your own views and opinions as to which singles are the best. I might have left some out, so suggestions and additions are always welcome! Here are singles released this year that have lingered…

IN THIS PHOTO: SARA/PHOTO CREDIT: Greta Larosa

LONG in the memory.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Tracks from the Best Albums By Female Artists of 2024

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The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS PHOTO: Beyoncé shot for ESSENCE March/April 2024/PHOTO CREDIT: Andre D. Wagner 

Tracks from the Best Albums By Female Artists of 2024

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I have done this a few times…

IN THIS PHOTO: The cover of Beth Gibbons’ album, Lives Outgrown

before, in the sense of compiling a playlist of songs from the best albums by women. I try and do it a couple of times a year. Highlighting the brilliant queens who are releasing the finest albums around. One cannot deny that for years now, the very best albums have been by women! Rather than dividing and labelling – ‘albums by women’ – or giving them their own genre, I wanted to spotlight the simply amazing work out there. The music industry is still hugely slow in creating balance and recognition of women. Right across the board. It is at odds with the hugely proliferation of awesome and original albums by women. This year has been no exception. The quality has been right up there! Maybe not quickly reflected in terms of playlists and festival bookings, one hopes that the kudos and acclaim that these albums have received means all of these artists get their reward and recognition very soon. That women throughout the industry are giving the respect and attention they deserve! There are some real gems in this playlist. Albums from some astonishing artists. Apologies for missing any out at all that should be in there. As we have four months left of the year, I will do another feature in December that looks at all the great albums from women in 2024. Now, as we are bidding farewell to summer, another opportunity to salute the queens. The songs below are from sensational albums…

BY some absolutely brilliant women.

FEATURE: Cross That Line: Segregation and Division in the Music Industry

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Cross That Line

IN THIS PHOTO: Tinashe

Segregation and Division in the Music Industry

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I often think about the music industry…

PHOTO CREDIT: Penda Kamati/Pexels

and whether it has improved rapidly and markedly as it should. In terms of interaction, battling discrimination and division. Thinking of women in the industry, there is still so much misogyny and sexism. Very slowly moving towards equality. I do hope I live to see a day when women feel safe, accepted and valued in the music industry. Get the opportunities they deserve in terms of equal pay and exposure. Get festival headline slots and as much time on radio playlists across the board. Are not subjected to harassment and abuse. I don’t think as much has been done as possible to tackle that from the government. Even if racism within the industry is not quite as extreme or widespread as it was in years past, it is clear there is still segregation and labelling. Black artists being divided and separated from white artists on playlists and in genres. I have been thinking this after reading a recent interview from Tinashe. Speaking with The Guardian, she was very frank and open about her career. How she had face misogyny and RCA forced her into working with R Kelly and Chris Brown. What a potentially poisonous move that could have been! The real lack of respect and appreciation for Tinashe. Something a lot of women in music have to endure. This very toxic environment. The fact that she was almost made to work with predatory and abusive men. Tinashe also noted how there is this segregation and racial division:

“Despite trying to ignore much of the music industry, Tinashe still has a strong handle on its mechanics, and feels that it wouldn’t know what to do with her – a Black artist looking to make genreless pop, not just R&B or rap – if she debuted today. “There’s still a lot of segregation in the industry,” she says. “When it comes to playlists, award shows, who works on your music, how they promote you, it’s very black and white, literally.”

And Tinashe still feels she’s fighting an uphill battle when it comes to her own career – despite the huge success of Nasty. “In terms of being able to build to a huge place, a real mainstream-machine type role, that still is very much gate-kept,” she says, letting out a withering laugh. “It’s hard to achieve as somebody who isn’t playing in those systems”.

It is very true that, when it comes to artists of colour, they are promoted and marketed very differently. In terms of who they work with too. Tinashe is living proof of that. You still see so many playlists on radio and streaming services where Black artists are compiled together and often separated. Especially when it comes to genre-specific playlists. Maybe unconscious racism, things are very much black and white. Very few Black artists given the same budget and attention as white counterparts. When it comes to the mainstream and getting the sort of focus and hype as other artists, there does seem to be this segregation there. Tinashe has hit on something that has been present in music for decades. If you look at the mainstream today and the artists getting the most attention and spotlight, you can see this division. There are amazing Black artists heralded and supported, though very few pushed to the top levels. So much more of a struggle for them to achieve the same sort of adulation and respect as other artists. Music charts especially have been segregated for so long. I was reading this 2021 articles from The Guardian, where Kelefa Sanneh (author of the book, Major Labels) talked about this more:

“The more a genre evolves and sprawls, the harder it is to define its essence. Disappointingly for anyone who cherishes border-crossing artists such as Sly Stone, Prince and the Specials, Sanneh shows that these distinctions usually come down to race: country and rock are deemed to be whatever white people like, while hip-hop and R&B are whatever Black people enjoy. Two years ago, there was furious debate about Billboard’s decision to remove Lil Nas X’s country-trap smash from its country chart because it lacked “enough elements of today’s country music in its current version”. Lil Nas X responded: “A black guy who raps comes along, and he’s on top of the country chart, it’s like, ‘What the fuck?’”

“Our music charts are still kind of segregated because our country is still kind of segregated,” Sanneh says. “There are upsides and downsides to this. In America, Black people are 12% of the population so if every genre was diverse in a way that reflected the population of the country, Black people would be a small minority of listeners in every genre. It’s easy to say that country music should be diversified but it’s harder when you look at R&B.”

Sanneh is adept at disrupting simple binaries; his typical argument is a supple chain of “but…”. He says: “It’s important to me not to reduce any music story to good guys and bad guys.” On the hot topic of cultural appropriation, the man for whom Paul Simon’s Graceland was a unifying family soundtrack questions what we mean by ownership of culture. “Once you start thinking about cultural appropriation in music, it’s hard to think where you would stop. Even if you grow up in hip-hop, there’s going to be stuff you hear later that is not part of your childhood. When Notorious BIG released Big Poppa he was borrowing from the sound of west coast hip-hop. Broadly defined, cultural appropriation is absolutely everywhere”.

Thinking about articles like this from 2020 and this in 2021, has there been much progress?! When you look at award ceremonies and there are entire genres defined by white artists. Black artists usually defined and labelled as Soul or R&B. Country music has been very slow in assimilating and accepting Black artists. The Pop mainstream still struggles. So many areas of music segregate and define. We live in a time when fewer Black artists are given headline slots. In terms of the artists that are given the most airplay and focus by the industry. If things are slowly improving, it is clear that it is a struggle for so many artists. Tinashe being an example. New artists coming through and looking at the landscape. How genres and playlists have this bias towards white artists or will often lazily label Black artists. What she said about gate-keeping and how it is also hard to get to the mainstream if you are genre-less or do not play he game or fit the ideal. With racism and discrimination still widespread in music how easy is it to change things effectively and quickly?! There is a lot to think about and tackle. Something that is so deep-rooted is hard to correct overnight. With artists calling it out, there does need to be action. Award shows accused of racial bias and tokenism, things are not really progressing and improving as fast as they should. It is a deep and challenging subject that deserves more investigation and discussion. Tinashe’s words about her experiences will resonate with so many of her peers. That feeling of segregation. Fewer opportunities to get to the mainstream. These barriers in place if you are an artist who is independent and does not want to compromise their sound and identity. For an industry still not doing enough for women and artists of colour, addressing the issues it still has around race and segregation should be…

A huge priority.

FEATURE: Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Green Day’s American Idiot at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Green Day’s American Idiot at Twenty

_________

EVEN if it doesn’t…

turns twenty until 21st September, I wanted to celebrate an important album. Green Day’s American Idiot might be their best work. The U.S. band’s seventh studio album, it came four years after Warning. It was quite a time away for them. Although there had been compilations in the gap, this was fresh material. Something much more charged and political. The terrorist attacks of 11th September in 2001 has altered a lot of the musical landscape in terms of what was being written. The presidency of George W. Bush. It was definitely a time that inspired something angry from Green Day. Although there are depths and different shades on American Idiot, the title refers to where their thoughts were. Reacting to the politics and consumerism of the time, there was another album due after Warning. Cigarettes and Valentines had its master tapes stolen. American Idiot was a career revival and transformation. Green Day reacting to the Iraq War and the growing disillusionment in the U.S. A concept album around Jesus of Suburbia, a lower-middle-class American adolescent anti-hero. The first time Green Day included transitions between songs. Joining two tracks into one and having longer tracks. It as an ambitious album that was met with critical acclaim. There will be debate as to which Green Day album is best. Many fans like the earlier work. Dookie (1994) or even Nimrod (1997). To me and many others, American Idiot is Green Day’s crowning achievement. I want to come to an article from Alternative Press. In 2016, they argued why American Idiot is the best Green Day album:

“Many people argue that Green Day’s greatest work is their 1994 hit Dookie.  It’s the record that put them on the map and hosts some of their most iconic songs, even to younger generations. (I once saw a 12-year-old get on stage during the band’s 99 Revolutions Tour and belt the entire third verse of “Longview,” a song about boredom and masturbation.) While Dookie is sonically a punk album, it was still incredibly commercial, dominating radio airwaves and MTV.  It’s a solid pop-punk record that will continue to affect generations to come. However, for the most part, Dookie is pretty static. It’s a surface card at best, whereas American Idiot hosts a lyrical depth that convinced me that breaking into a classroom at 2 a.m. was a good idea. I still think it was a good idea—there’s nothing more rock ‘n’ roll than rebellion.

American Idiot was Green Day’s first album that was truly rock ‘n’ roll, a characteristic that Dookie, Insomniac, Nimrod and even Warning lack.  Pulling from themes set forth by the Who’s Tommy and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Green Day embarked on their first rock opera concept record. It was also their first record to openly address and critique the politics of the time. This shift in sound and attitude allowed for a punk mentality told through a rock album more openly accessible to the public, a public who happened to be living in a post-9/11 era looking for a scapegoat.

People wanted to let loose from the stress of the day-to-day pressures presented in a time of mass paranoia and overwrought propaganda. A rock album with iconic, blasting riffs was a simple musical remedy that consumers could easily relate to. But it’s never been the politics in American Idiot that made it so great, though it definitely helped. In fact, there’s really only two politically charged tracks on the album: the title track and “Holiday.” That leaves 11 other movements to shape the story.

So what is this story that makes this release so substantial? It’s an outline of America during 2004. We meet the stereotypical “American idiot” trapped in a culture so invested in materialism, capitalism and war that the general public is seemingly blind to everything else. “Now everybody do the propaganda!” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong commands as if it were just another dance fad. We then meet the cliché suburban youth: the aptly named Jesus of Suburbia. During the huge five-part song of the same name, the album delivers its thesis statement: this is a coming of age story.  Jesus is tired of his humdrum life and seeks adventure by moving into the city, leaving his small, safe world behind. He travels to his metropolis only to be overwhelmed by this new lifestyle (“Holiday”). He endures the hangover and wants to find himself (“Boulevard Of Broken Dreams,” “Are We The Waiting”). He discovers his many vices (“St. Jimmy,” “Give Me Novacaine”). He finds love, or infatuation depending on how you view it, (“She’s A Rebel,” “Extraordinary Girl”) before realizing who he really is and decides to bring himself home (or at least back to reality) (“Homecoming”).  American Idiot is basically “SLC Punk! The Album” sans Heroin Bob.

And yet, this coming of age story we’ve heard “a million and one fucking times” resonates with listeners on a much different level than any Green Day record prior, because, unlike Dookie, it is progressive as well as timeless. American Idiot evolves in meaning and content with the listener as the listener works through his/her own life. It is relevant for the current generation, the one that consumed it in 2004 and the future listeners’ generation that will discover and grow up with the record as life carries on. Teen angst is a monumental part of maturing that is perfectly encapsulated in the first half of the record’s story through the origins of Jesus of Suburbia, but also captured sonically via the majority of the songs. As noted earlier, American Idiot fucking rocks. It hits hard and kids like their music loud, whether they understand the context or not.

In American Idiot, there’s a lyrical sophistication that Green Day taps into seldom seen in any of their other records. They take lines like “I’m not part of your elite/I’m just alright” (“Stuck With Me,” Insomniac) and turn them into “And there’s nothing wrong with me/This is how I’m supposed to be/In a land of make believe/That don’t believe in me” (“Jesus Of Suburbia”). The character St. Jimmy doesn’t just “get high high high/when he’s low low low” (“Misery,” Warning) he becomes “the needle in the vein of the establishment” and the “suicide commando that your momma talked about” (“St. Jimmy”). Problems extend past bored afternoons filled with porn and weed in the ‘90s to severe drug addiction, heartbreak, loss of self, cultural constraints and all the other bullshit today’s set society is forced to endure on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Green Day are snarky: They’re telling the listener welcome to reality, the real American dream, the land of the free while also asking, “Is that a possibility?”

This dichotomy of resolution and reflection has always been a key factor of the record. After you get dumped and get through the Taylor Swift stage where your whole world feels like it’s crashing down, go listen to “Whatsername.” It’s the perfect summary of the numb feeling you get thinking about your ex, vaguely remembering the good times you had and the void you’ve partially filled without them. The whole song itself becomes a metaphor for looking back on what you’ve done in life and accepting the bad, taking notes of the regrets but moving on and moving forward because you have to. When Armstrong says, “This is the dawning of the rest of our lives” (on “Holiday”) he means it. Once you set forth, there is no going back to the innocence you once had. And that (though it may not seem like it) is a damn good thing”.

I will end with a couple of reviews for the fantastic American Idiot. I am keen to highlight this feature Pop Matters. They took us inside the album. Exploring the tracks. Even if Holiday is my favourite from American Idiot, one cannot deny the potency and power of the title track. So iconic and truthful. One of Green Day’s best songs. I think American Idiot still sounds relevant today. It is an album that should have made us think and change. I wonder how much we actually learned:

“Before 2004, few people would classify Green Day’s music as particularly sophisticated, intellectual, or thematically mature. Sure, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” with its poignancy, fragility, and beautiful orchestration, quickly became the introspective acoustic ballad of a generation, and fun singles like “When I Come Around” and “Basket Case” were amongst the catchiest mainstream songs of their era. However, for the most part, the ’90s saw Green Day dominating the airwaves as little more than a premier punk rock group. The band emblemized a contemporary take on the rowdy counterculture retaliation of ’70s icons like the Clash. While it did an excellent job of it (don’t get me wrong), no one ever expected the trio to branch out of its preset genre limitations stylistically, conceptually, or technically.

But then came American Idiot, and everything changed. Part social commentary and part fictional narrative, the record came out of nowhere and blew everyone away with its biting political subversion, exploration of teenage angst, love, and uncertainty, and perhaps most importantly, brilliant structures, transitions, and overall cohesion. On the surface, it offered listeners a touchingly earnest and emotionally universal Bildungsroman about adolescent romance and rebellion that, combined with its multifaceted arrangements, earned it justified comparisons to the Who’s 1973 masterpiece, Quadrophenia. On a deeper level, though, it served as a scorching attack on the hypocrisy and evils of the Bush Administration (as well as the increasingly credulous and submissive nature of the American public). Combined, these achievements resulted in a wonderfully infectious, explosive, and profound work of art.

Although the album showcased astounding growth for the trio in every way, its greatest achievement was (and still is) exemplifying the truest purpose of art: to represent the struggles of the human condition and/or reflect on the injustices and illogicality of the age in which it exists. Upon its release, it received almost universal praise, with IGN arguably offering the most weighty conclusion (along with a perfect score):

“You will emerge from your experience with American Idiot physically tired, emotionally drained, and, quite possibly, changed forever. It is less an album than an experience that demands to be lived. It is a part of my life now, as well as the most satisfying hour of music I’ve ever heard. Nothing else even comes close. In short, American Idiot is flawless.”

“American Idiot”

Rather than jump right in with its story, American Idiot begins with its title track, an invigorating, catchy, and straightforward punk rock single that has almost nothing to do with the plot that follows. In a way, it acts as a bridge between the aesthetic of its predecessors and the sonic evolution that would follow. It starts with a razor-sharp chord progression that’s modest yet engrossing—naturally, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool providing a great rhythmic complement too. Musically, the track doesn’t stray too far from this foundation, although some impressive syncopation and a killer guitar solo help it kick ass. No, what makes “American Idiot” so powerful and affecting are its lyrics and vocals.

As usual, singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong bursts into the song with his characteristic tone and delivery, issuing his decrees with vigor and charming attitude. Cool’s isolated percussion leads the charge as Armstrong attacks the troubles of President George W. Bush’s reign, as well as the complacent and judgmental nature of Americans writ large. Every phrase, from its antagonistic opening—”Don’t wanna be an American idiot / Don’t want a nation under the new media / And can you hear the sound of hysteria / The subliminal mindfuck America”—to eventual jabs like “Well maybe I’m the faggot America / I’m not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda / And sing along to the age of paranoia”, suggests with pinpoint accuracy how hateful, impressionable, and just plain scared U.S. citizens were following the events of September 11th, 2001. People believed whatever the government and media suggested (such as the colorful “threat levels” that frightened us into limitless suspicion). As a result, they subscribed to a fear of the “Other” (as Freud would say).

Of course, the real question is, have we changed all that much since, or are we even more racist/sexist/homophobic and blindly patriotic since “American Idiot” first aimed to shatter our national security blanket? Regardless of the answer, it’s easy to see how impactful and necessary American Idiot was for its time, right from the start. The title track presented listeners with a blunt critique of the world around them, as well as a call of change, action, and self-reflection. At the same time, it stood as an exceptionally lively, dynamic, and appealing slice of punk anarchy”.

“Holiday”

Having properly set up both the social commentary and narrative construct of American Idiot with the album’s first two pieces (“American Idiot” and “Jesus of Suburbia”), Green Day chose the most logical option for the next track: fuse the two agendas into one wholly kickass amalgam. Indeed, “Holiday” is among the most overtly political songs on the record, which is probably why it was such a big hit back in 2004. Likewise, it followed up on the defiant departure of the album’s protagonist, showcasing the next chapter in his journey. A decade later, “Holiday” is still just as catchy, invigorating, and collectively powerful, igniting a rebellious fire in the soul of everyone who hears it, as well as sparking discussions about its meanings.

When we last heard from the main character (on March 3rd, according to the linear notes of the album), he was “running away from pain” and his “broken home”, so it makes sense that we now find him on holiday (vacation), traveling to wherever his destiny awaits. Specifically, it’s now April 1st, and he’s on the streets, reflecting on “the sound of falling rain / Coming down like an Armageddon flame” and declaring his independence. Other statements, such as “I beg to dream and differ / From the hall of lies / This is the dawning of the rest of our loves / This is our lives on holiday”, demonstrate this newfound enthusiasm for freedom, as well as a formal rejection of the corrupt government. Also, the fact that he uses “our” instead of “my” indicates that he’s inviting others to join him (and they do, eventually).

Interestingly, though, most of the lyrics to “Holiday” point the microscope outwardly, continuing the critical lens that “American Idiot” introduced. For example, the “Armageddon flame” signifies that he (and thus, Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong) is also commenting on the “War on Terror” that President Geroge W. Bush started. Essentially, Jesus is predicting that the end of the world will come from this international conflict. For example, “The ones who died without a name” likely relate to both literal casualties (soldiers and civilians alike) and, in a more figurative sense, anyone who’s fallen victim in the hysteria of political conflict. Later on, we’re told that “another protestor has crossed the line / To find the money’s on the other side”, a sentiment that illustrates how people will fight for the “right side” until they realize that perhaps everyone is in on the exploitation.

In the song’s most aggressive moment, the music forgoes most of its straightforward rock construction, allowing isolated percussion to stampede behind a punky “representative from California” as he “has the floor”. From there, he (along with backing chanters) utters bold proclamations, such as “Zieg Heil to the President Gasman / Bombs away is your punishment / Pulverize the Eiffel Towers / Who criticize your government”. Clearly, this is meant to connect the Iraq war to Nazism, as well as suggest destroying anyone who’s critical of the US. He goes on to profess, “Kill all the fags that don’t agree / Trials by fire / Setting fire / Is not a way that’s meant for me”, a statement that mocks both America’s enduring homophobia and its juvenile tendency to label anyone who disagrees with blind patriotism as a “fag” (which, in this context, means idiot, weakling, etc).

Although it’s not especially impressive musically (although it’s still very good, don’t get me wrong), “Holiday” still manages to stand out strongly due to its successful dichotomy, as it simultaneously moves the story along and further encapsulates the dense national critique that pervades underneath the surface of American Idiot. Our “hero” stands tall and free, refusing to buy into the deception and dishonor of both his hometown and country writ large. At this moment, he is content in his boldness and self-reliance, but that will change drastically once he begins traveling down the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.

Reaching number one in the U.K. and U.S., you can read more about American Idiot here. It won Best Rock Album at the 2005 Grammy Awards. It is considered one of the best albums of the decade ('00s). One of the best albums of all time. I would recommend people also check out this track-by-track review from Billboard. Before coming to an SLANT review of American Idiot, this is what AllMusic has to say in their review:

“It's a bit tempting to peg Green Day's sprawling, ambitious, brilliant seventh album, American Idiot, as their version of a Who album, the next logical step forward from the Kinks-inspired popcraft of their underrated 2000 effort, Warning, but things aren't quite that simple. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn't use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who's mini-opera "A Quick One, While He's Away," whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn't only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle. But the Who are only one of many inspirations on this audacious, immensely entertaining album. The story of St. Jimmy has an arc similar to Hüsker Dü's landmark punk-opera Zen Arcade, while the music has grandiose flourishes straight out of both Queen and Rocky Horror Picture Show (the '50s pastiche "Rock and Roll Girlfriend" is punk rock Meat Loaf), all tied together with a nervy urgency and a political passion reminiscent of the Clash, or all the anti-Reagan American hardcore bands of the '80s. These are just the clearest touchstones for American Idiot, but reducing the album to its influences gives the inaccurate impression that this is no more than a patchwork quilt of familiar sounds, when it's an idiosyncratic, visionary work in its own right. First of all, part of Green Day's appeal is how they have personalized the sounds of the past, making time-honored guitar rock traditions seem fresh, even vital. With their first albums, they styled themselves after first-generation punk they were too young to hear firsthand, and as their career progressed, the group not only synthesized these influences into something distinctive, but chief songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong turned into a muscular, versatile songwriter in his own right.

Warning illustrated their growing musical acumen quite impressively, but here, the music isn't only tougher, it's fluid and, better still, it fuels the anger, disillusionment, heartbreak, frustration, and scathing wit at the core of American Idiot. And one of the truly startling things about American Idiot is how the increased musicality of the band is matched by Armstrong's incisive, cutting lyrics, which effectively convey the paranoia and fear of living in American in days after 9/11, but also veer into moving, intimate small-scale character sketches. There's a lot to absorb here, and cynics might dismiss it after one listen as a bit of a mess when it's really a rich, multi-faceted work, one that is bracing upon the first spin and grows in stature and becomes more addictive with each repeated play. Like all great concept albums, American Idiot works on several different levels. It can be taken as a collection of great songs -- songs that are as visceral or as poignant as Green Day at their best, songs that resonate outside of the larger canvas of the story, as the fiery anti-Dubya title anthem proves -- but these songs have a different, more lasting impact when taken as a whole. While its breakneck, freewheeling musicality has many inspirations, there really aren't many records like American Idiot (bizarrely enough, the Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat is one of the closest, at least on a sonic level, largely because both groups draw deeply from the kaleidoscopic "A Quick One"). In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s”.

I am going to end with a review from SLANT. They noted how a band seen as slackers on previous work – who perhaps were not likely to be political or rally for change – had really changed things up and were now calling for action. An amazing transformation from Green Day. American Idiot still resounds and reverberates to this day:

“Of all the negative effects the Bush administration has had on the world (and unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, then you know that there are many), the most unlikely bit of collateral damage has to be the return of the rock opera. Dissent has always been a fundamental tenet of punk rock, so it comes as no surprise that the forefathers of popular punk would take a stab at the not-quite-popular-enough sport of Bush-bashing. But an all-out punk musical? With American Idiot, their first studio album in four years, Green Day have resurrected the rock opera medium, and not only have they succeeded, they’ve managed to create a musical-political document that should remain relevant for years to come (possibly even longer if Bush actually gets elected this time).

The story begins on Presidents Day and follows two main characters, Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy, who may or may not be the same person but who both stand on the same side of the political fence, with varying degrees of rage. Ultimately the narrative, which feels flimsy at times and ends with too many loose ends (perhaps the inevitable film or stage production will fill in the blanks), seems less important than Billy Joe Armstrong’s own story. “Maybe I am the faggot, America/I’m not part of a redneck agenda,” he sings on the title track. Billy Joe knows he (Jesus) is pretty much alone in his crusade (“Where have all the riots gone?” he begs in “Letterbomb”), but that doesn’t stop him from attacking both sides with equal vehemence on “Holiday,” one of American Idiot’s most potent tracks: “Another protester has crossed the line/To find the money’s on the other side,” and then, my personal favorite, “Zieg heil to the President Gasman!”

In the tradition of The Who and Pink Floyd, American Idiot is a pompous, overwrought, and, quite simply, glorious concept album. While it may be long on narrative and character skteches (Jesus’s muse is a girl named Whatsername, “the mother of all bombs”), it’s certainly not short on hooks. The guitars are stacked, the drums are big, and the message is crystal clear. There are hints of the more adult-skewed pop-punk of Green Day’s last album, 2000’s underappreciated Warning, on the power ballad “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Wake Me Up Before September,” a lament for Billy Joe’s late father, but American Idiot finds the band exploring new ground, drawing not only on classic Clash riffs but, yes, Broadway musicals for a few multi-part, key-shifting epics. In their attempt to reinvigorate themselves as a band (creatively and commercially), Green Day have managed to accomplish what record companies have failed to do with so many useless tacked-on DVDs and net portals to “exclusive” material: they’ve produced an album you’ll want to own, Kazaa be damned.

The cheeky press notes for the album, set sometime in the future, boldly declares that American Idiot is “the album that started a whole cult of people clutching their hand grenade hearts” and that it’s “neck and neck with Sgt. Pepper as the greatest album of all time.” That remains to be seen, but for a band who burst onto the scene 10 years ago with a record called Dookie, the boys of Green Day, now in their 30s, sure have come a long way. They are, in fact, the real Nirvana, their influence more widely felt than any other American band from the ’90s (sorry, Kurt). Ironically, it seems the slackers of yesterday—the ones who were bored of masturbation, smoking their inspiration, and disenfranchised by the politics of Reagan and Bush Sr.—are now the ones rallying for political change, and hopefully their influence will reach a little bit farther than Sum 41 and Good Charlotte come this November”.

On 21st September, American Idiot turns twenty. American Idiot was planned as a film. However, plans were scrapped. It is a shame. However, it did take on a new life as a stage musical. That premiered in 2009. A documentary, Heart Like a Hand Grenade, was released in 2015 film. It featured Green Day during the recording of American Idiot. Directed by John Roecker and filmed over the process of fifteen months between 2003 and 2004. An inflammatory and essential album, it arrived at a time with so much tension and disenfranchisement. I wonder, twenty years later, whether people…

HAVE truly wised up?

FEATURE: With a New Decade… Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Four

FEATURE:

 

 

With a New Decade…

Kate Bush’s Never for Ever at Forty-Four

_________

ONE is of Kate Bush’s…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

best albums turns forty-four on 8th September. The wonderful Never for Ever might be known to many because of its three singles. There was Breathing, Babooshka and Army Dreamers. It was, in some ways, an album of transition for Kate Bush. If it was not quite a full move into the sort of layered and experimental production we would see from The Dreaming (1982) onwards, there was this bridge between the sort of sound and material that was present on her first two albums – 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart – and what would come. Rather than it being unsatisfactory, it was a big step from her first two albums. Kate Bush was unhappy about working again with Andrew Powell (who produced the first two album) so worked with Jon Kelly. However, come The Dreaming, he would be let go. This being Kate Bush, she would cut ties in the nicest and most polite way possible! After 1979’s The Tour of Life, there was new energy and ambitious to be explored in the studio. For a usual and comprehensive guide, I am going to refer to Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, as there are some great pages written about Never for Ever. As it is forty-four on 8th September, it is important to discuss the album.  Although AIR was still a studio in the mix, this was the first time Bush was recording at Abbey Road Studios. It was a fresh environment. This new decade meant that there was almost a new phase. Everything starting again. Though not quite. EMI were keen for Kate Bush to write four new songs before Christmas 1979. Rather than dip into her older songs, this was the first album where we were getting fresh songs. Bush writing new tracks and not dipping into her archive.

I guess there could have been a few songs where there were early sketches and this was them being built on, though Never for Ever is marked by this sense of a new chapter. Bush did not have a huge amount of time, though there was opportunity to write new material. The album’s title is a reference to conflicting emotions, good and bad, which pass. Bush stated that "we must tell our hearts that it is 'never for ever', and be happy that it's like that”. There was an interesting first revelation that is Babooshka. That song being written and shown to Jon Kelly. I shall come back to that. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia collated interviews where Bush spoke about Never for Ever. I have chosen some to highlight:

“Now, after all this waiting it is here. It’s strange when I think back to the first album. I thought it would never feel as new or as special again. This one has proved me wrong. It’s been the most exciting. Its name is Never For Ever, and I’ve called it this because I’ve tried to make it reflective of all that happens to you and me. Life, love, hate, we are all transient. All things pass, neither good [n]or evil lasts. So we must tell our hearts that it is “never for ever”, and be happy that it’s like that!
The album cover has been beautifully created by Nick Price (you may remember that he designed the front of the Tour programme). On the cover of Never For Ever Nick takes us on an intricate journey of our emotions: inside gets outside, as we flood people and things with our desires and problems. These black and white thoughts, these bats and doves, freeze-framed in flight, swoop into the album and out of your hi-fis. Then it’s for you to bring them to life.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980

Each song has a very different personality, and so much of the production was allowing the songs to speak with their own voices – not for them to be used purely as objects to decorate with “buttons and bows”. Choosing sounds is so like trying to be psychic, seeing into the future, looking in the “crystal ball of arrangements”, “scattering a little bit of stardust”, to quote the immortal words of the Troggs. Every time a musical vision comes true, it’s like having my feet tickled. When it works, it helps me to feel a bit braver. Of course, it doesn’t always work, but experiments and ideas in a studio are never wasted; they will always find a place sometime.
I never really felt like a producer, I just felt closer to my loves – felt good, free, although a little raw, and sometimes paranoia would pop up. But when working with emotion, which is what music is, really, it can be so unpredictable – the human element, that fire. But all my friends, the Jons, and now you will make all the pieces of the Never For Ever jigsaw slot together, and It will be born and It will begin Breathing.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980”.

Going back to the early sketches and ideas for Never for Ever. Just after Christmas 1979, Jon Kelly was invited to Kate Bush’s flat where she played him Babooshka. The first demo of the song dates back to that time. It is Kate Bush at a piano with her voice. A lead vocal and a harmony vocal. Quite Blues-like and (Bob) Dylan-esque, she would then add an electronic drum. Seeing that song in its infancy would have been fascinating. Jon Kelly heard the piano motif and knew that Babooshka was going to be a hit. That it has this potential. There was a bit of a conflict with this song. The fact it was a natural hit meant she might have to do Top of the Pops. Having endured it rather than enjoyed it when Wuthering Heights was top of the charts and she never really had a good experience, together with promotion and interviews, there was this fear. Recording at Abbey Road’s Studio 2 in January 1980, they spent days in there. Jon Kelly and Kate Bush, as producers, hunting for that perfect sound. Different bass players used. The first album where Bush was casting players and the production was different. Rather than someone saying that the sound was right and sticking with the one player, Bush was not in control and she wanted her songs to sound like she had imagined. Not sit back and let someone else shape then. I am going to explore other sides of Never for Ever in another feature.

However, this is a more general look at a really important and brilliant album. Richard Burgess, who was a player on Never for Ever, explained that Bush and Kelly would experiment and try ideas. Sometimes it did not work, but there was this sense of seeing where something would go. The Fairlight CMI, introduced to Kate Bush by Peter Gabriel, was used on Never for Ever. It was not the most user-friendly piece of kit. Although there were limitations and Bush would have liked to have used it more – a lot of the noises and affects were ‘flown in’ by Jon Kelly using a tape recorder -, it was a process where everyone took turns and used the Fairlight CMI. The noise of doors opening and closing. Vocal effects. It was brought into Abbey Road Studios on four occasions. Although a bit bruised in transportation, this fascinating portal of creativity opened Kate Bush’s mind. Bush could now add anything. Putting the future into nostalgia, to paraphrase her words. No longer having to manipulate her voice to her piano to get an effect, there was now this arsenal of options for her to explore. In the second feature for Never for Ever, I will look at some of the songs and the chart success the album enjoyed. One thing is notable about Never for Ever arriving in 1980. It was a time when many artists were brining politics into their music. Although Bush wrote Army Dreamers and Breathing – the former about a young man senselessly being killed in a war and this sense of it being so futile; the latter a foetus’s perspective of nuclear war incoming and that feeling of doom and maybe being protected in the womb -, Never for Ever was not a reactionary album. Danny Baker interviewed Bush in 1979 and there was this condescending attitude. Why she was not writing about politics. His take on her music was that it was hippy-dippy and insignificant.

Rather than react by filing the album with political themes and almost having this unnatural and knee-jerk reaction, Bush was busy working on what she wanted to write. When race riots happening during Margaret Thatcher’s rule of Britain, Bush was ensconced in the studio. Not that she was oblivious to the troubles. She was concerned, but she was not an artist looking out at the struggles – the Miners’ Strike and the Falklands War – and was putting all of that into the music. Her heart and imagination were still at the controls. Music that was much richer and more fascinating that a lot of the dead-ahead and straighter songs from 1980. That is what makes Never for Ever so special and unique As opposed to it being Bush cause-hopping or this being an album about what was happening in Britain at the time, which would have made it sound dated now, this was Bush doing what she wanted to do. As Graeme Thomson writes in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, Bush was a “metaphysical poet in a roomful of hollering three-chord revolutionaries”. The songs on Never for Ever are open and unguarded. They are different and at odds with what was around then. As such, Bush found herself open to press ridicule or some rather sniffy encounters. This got to her. The frustration of dealing with the press. The first album where Bush’s songs were for the whole world and not just for herself.

Never for Ever turns forty-four on 8th September. There is so much to explore and discuss. It is clear that this was a new step and move towards more of where Kate Bush wanted to go. Not quite a complete metamorphism, this was a shedding of the old way of working. Writing at the end of the 1970s and releasing the album in the first year of the 1980s, it could have been a failure. Some critics dismissed the albums and felt it was insignificant in the modern times. Never for Ever did get to number one and gained some amazing reviews. However, I still think that it has remained underrated and misunderstood. Not seen as important and substantial by many, we need to show Never for Ever some love. What I wanted to explore in this feature is how Bush had this new start. A new studio and technology. How it was a chance for her to take the reigns and make her work more personal and true. Not having to ally with a producer that shared a different vision. Forty-four years after its release, Never for Ever remains so impactful and fascinating. You can really hear the differences and evolution. Bush was still twenty-one when she started recording Never for Ever. It is amazing to hear her confidence and ambition! Abbey Road Studios and the Fairlight EMI had helped open up all worlds of possibilities for Kate Bush. Her third studio album changed how she worked. Her mind was now open. From 1980’s masterpiece onwards, there really was…

NO turning back.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Supergrass - Moving

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Supergrass - Moving

_________

THERE is no denying…

that Supergrass’ first two albums, 1995’s I Should Coco and 1997’s In It for the Money, are classics. A band that came straight out of the gate all guns blazing, there are comparisons with other bands. Rather than it being a difficult second album, they had a difficult third – sort of like Oasis, but for different reasons. I think that 1999’s Supergrass is a fantastic album, yet it does have a few filler tracks and is quite top/middle-heavy with a run of a few lesser tracks to end things. They showed they could not be written off. Their penultimate album, 2005’s Road to Rouen, is one of their best. I am not sure whether we will hear any more music from the band. However, their 1999 album is very special to me and I will mark that with a twenty-fifth anniversary feature closer to 20th September. A transformation and evolution from them, they went from the cheeky chaps and this perception of them and incorporated more elements into Supergrass. Perhaps a bit more maturity and grace. Tracks that build up and were more emotive. Of course, this being Suerpgrass, there was still some of their trademark charm, wit and fun! Songs such as Pumping on Your Stereo and Jesus Came From Outer Space. Many critics felt there were too many half-finished moments and not enough of the excellence heard on In It for the Money. Whilst there was little as raw and hypnotically brilliant as Richard III or Going Out, some of the band’s career-best was on Supergrass. Gaz Coombes, Danny Goffey and Mick Quinn produced a solid and impressive album. Ending the century with plenty of bang! Following Pumping on Your Stereo – the album’s first single, released on 24th May, 1999 – Supergrass’ second single and second most-popular song (and not by much) is the majestic, stirring and beautiful Moving. It is the song that opens Supergrass.

Moving is a sublime track! I agree that Supergrass is not sequenced that well. In the sense that two of the album’s weaker tracks – Your Love and Beautiful People – appear in the top third. Two of the weaker tracks, Far Away and Mama and Papa, end the album. Though Mary offer some mid-album brilliance, there are seven tracks between Moving and Pumping on Your Stereo. I often think that Pumping on Your Stereo should have closed Supergrass, as it would end it on such a high. Also, with their being applause and a humorous five final words (“Can we go home now?”), it would have been perfect. I digress! Moving turns twenty-five on 6th September. I think this was about the date I started at sixth-form college. The Supergrass album was a big fixture and I would hear it played in the social areas and lunch room. Moving was a track that was much-discussed. The band opened the album with, in my view, its strongest cut. Maybe a risk not opening with something like Pumping on Your Stereo or Mary, this was a more reflective band commenting on the rush and endless touring of the past few years. They also knew they could not really release Moving as the first single. That contrast between confidently opening the album with Moving but not feeling it was right as the lead single. Whereas Pumping on Your Stereo reached eleven in the U.K., Moving went to number nine. A triumphant and wonderful top ten single, I know that the band have played it a lot live. As they reformed and toured again fairly recently, I wonder how they feel about Moving. Maybe taking on new meaning. Lines like “Moving, just keep moving/Well I don't know why to stay/No ties to bind me/No reasons to remain” maybe about touring and the endless stop and start of life in the band at that point, now might seem at odds with who they became and how they endured. Those words perhaps less poignant and urgent as they were.

I wanted to spend some time with Moving. I love its slow-motion video. Directed by Nick Gordon, its pace and sense of somnambulism and sleepiness depicts the tedium and routine of touring. The weariness and the displacement. How they had no home. Many critics look at Moving as a reason why Supergrass feels less inspired or tired. Perhaps touring taking too much out. The band needing a kick and refresh. 2002’s Life on Other Planets – whilst not hugely acclaimed – went some way to returning in some ways to their former self. People dismiss Supergrass’ third album. It arrived after two adored albums and extensive touring. They needed to change pace and develop their music. Not repeat what they did before. The Moving video is large slow-motion, but there are sections sped up too. Bits repeated. It is that disorientation. Playing Moving at shows fairly recently – this review of a 2020 set not long before the COVID-19 lockdowns is an example -, I hope we get to hear it played live again by Supergrass. There are some features and reviews I want to come to. In 2017, this blog gave their opinion on the magnificent Moving:

“The people:
Written by Gaz Coombes, Rob Coombes, Danny Goffey & Mick Quinn.
Produced by Supergrass & John Cornfield.
Lead vocals by Gaz Coombes.
Backing vocals by Mick Quinn & Danny Goffey.
Guitar by Gaz Coombes.
Drums by Danny Goffey.
Bass by Mick Quinn.
Keyboards by Rob Coombes.

The opinion:
Every once in a while, Random.org gives me a britpop song to write about in this series. This week we get one of the most successful bands of the genre, but also one of the bands that seems to have faded from public consciousness the most. Not really deserved if you ask me, even if it is also somewhat understandable.

The core of their appeal might also have been their downfall in the long run: they made unpretentious songs that sound breezy. Especially their hit singles sound so effortless that you might forget they are secretly something special. Few bands can make a whole career out of music so giddy and upbeat (regardless if the lyrics are all that happy). Its’s a modus operandi that became a bit more prominent in indie rock during the 2000’s, though, but few acts were at the same time so unabashedly poppy as well as alternatively cool as Supergrass at the time. They had broad appeal.

IN THIS PHOTO: Supergrass in 1999/PHOTO CREDIT: Martyn Goodacre

Moving was one of the last real hits the band had; in fact it was the very last in many areas. Although it is one of the least ambitious songs they ever did it still deserves to be seen as a definite final hurrah. Though I’m aware that a case can be made of much subsequent work as being of equal quality, these mostly weren’t hits. Moving was the last big time in the limelight.

The lyrics are in some way about the downside of the limelight. For musicians it means touring, seemingly endlessly. Gaz Coombes essentially sings about the mental boredom and loneliness that comes from the travelling. He wasn’t exactly the first to do so. I don’t know which singer sung about this the first, but the oldest I’m aware of are Simon & Garfunkel on their classic Homeward Bound. Other notable songs about this subject are the popular Faithfully by Journey and the ode to roadies by Jackson Browne, named The Load-Out. There are happier examples too: the Ramones basically bring an ode to their travel schedule on Touring and John Foggerty celebrated “Rockin’ All Over the World”, which was also a hit for Status Quo.

The thing about Moving is that it has lyrics that sound rather sad on paper, but the song itself doesn’t feel that way. This is not a band given to sharing deep, painful feelings. The opening seems to become a honest-to-goodness ballad, but quickly the chorus sets in and everything becomes both up-tempo and upbeat. In fact, when that chorus hits it feels like an explosion, thanks to both a small second of silence before it and a change in volume. It might not be the most original thing ever, but for me it makes the song, as it is executed so satisfyingly.

That goes a long way in explaining the appeal of Moving and Supergrass. Among their Britpop contemporaries they never had the depth of The Verve, the sense of exploration of Blur, the swagger of Oasis and all of the above of Pulp. Yet on songs like this or the other hit of the album, Pumping On Your Stereo, they delivered shameless pop executed in such a way that it became cool, while still retaining its sense of fun. The handclaps, the hooky chorus, heck even the videoclip that turns boredom into something goofy: everything has an honest celebratory feeling that make all these potentially annoying elements glorious.

Of course, as said there was little depth to all this, musically of lyrically, which might in the long run be the reason people forget about them more easily than other britpop contemporaries. I know I can be dismissive of this kind of unassuming music every now and then, but I also have to acknowledge that there is definitely place for well-executed pop as this.
7/10”.

In fact, I will bring in this feature from Medium and then round off I think. There is a lot to dissect and discuss when it comes to Moving. In terms of its timing and its relevance to where Supergrass were at that point psychologically. Its position on the Supergrass album and its significance of a single release. For anyone new to Supergrass who were too young when the single came out in September 1999, I hope that they check it out:

“Time moves, man: sometimes slowly, sometimes sideways, sometimes with unbearable celerity. But its constant is always motion.

Moving, just keep moving
’til I don’t know what I’m saying
I’ve been moving so long
The days all feel the same

Through time, we are propelled through space. We go from Day 1 to Day Now, a specific place along the line we travel from birth to death. But how do we distinguish if this day is unlike any other? The peripheral landscape might be different: the colours are greener? — the birds are chirpier? — the strangers seem to smile more?

And how does gravity affect the movement? Can it bend time onto itself, to where present me can kiss the forehead of 14 year old me, and I can whisper solemnly, “this will pass, young sir — just keep on moving.”

Supergrass is phenomenal. I hold them up there with Radiohead, and Oasis, as my favorite bands from across the pond during the last couple decades. And honestly, I think their discography, as a whole, probably outdoes those other two bands, as I adore all their albums. Their debut, I Should Coco, is a raucous display of pop sensibilities through a filter of English punk attitude (you’re surely familiar with “Alright” — which to me is what I think Ray Davies would have written if he were born in the late 70s). The whole album is downright anthemic.

Moving, just keep moving
Well I don’t know why to stay
No ties to bind me
No reasons to remain

Though they also didn’t rest on that formula. Their third release, Supergrass, is a masterpiece. It’s more “Village Green” than “You Really Got Me,” with lovely songs that might evoke English meadows on rainy afternoons. “Moving” is the lead track, and it reveals the perfect voice of Gaz Coombes. The song starts with that voice over an acoustic and subtle synth, through the verse. The chorus bounces in, with the bass and drums and electric guitar. There’s a beautiful juxtaposition between the two sections, which comprise the whole song (the third “verse” plays out with no vocals, but rather an outro solo that mirrors the verse vocal melody). It’s a simple song construct that is executed brilliantly.

Moving, keep on moving
Where I feel I’m home again
And when it’s over
I’ll see you again

Time, man. It moves. And we go where the line takes us through space. And we can only anticipate what our future experiences might offer us.

Until then: there’s Supergrass. There’s Gaz Coombes. There’s symmetry as we wait to live, as we move forward”.

On 6th September, Moving turns twenty-five. A song that arrived at a moment of change for Supergrass, its lyrics can apply to modern touring. That grind and mundanity. One of their most revealing tracks to that moment, it was the second single from the brilliant Supergrass album – one that will remain underrated I fear. A tremendous single that I can’t believe is almost twenty-five, it will always be special to me. And, yes, as its title suggest, it is a song that will always move me! That is the power of Supergrass! For those who have not played Moving in a while, make sure that you play it now. It only takes one play through…

BEFORE it hits you!

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from The Final Albums of Legendary Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Songs from The Final Albums of Legendary Artists

_________

THIS Digital Mixtape…

PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels

is dedicated to Led Zeppelin, whose final album, In Through the Out Door, was released in the U.S. on 22nd August, 1969. Marking fifty years of the final chapter of one of the all-time great bands, I wanted to look at the final albums from legendary artists. Whether classic bands like Led Zeppelin or The Beatles or an amazing solo artist, it is quite sad knowing that this will be the end. That said, many bands get back together, so you can never say never! Even so, you can definitely say that about Led Zeppelin! Whilst not one of their finest studio albums, In Through the Out Door still has some brilliant moments. The band did not know it would be their final album. Their drummer John Bonham died in 1980. In Through the Out Door was a big commercial success. To celebrate that, below are tracks from the final albums of some huge artists. Whether for sad reasons or calling time on things, these cuts show you that, in many cases, there was still gas in the tank! The Digital Mixtape shining a spotlight on…

PHOTO CREDIT: Ivan Samkov/Pexels

SOME fine swansongs.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: From Big Stripey Lie to Hounds of Love: Inside the Greatest Tracks and Albums Lists

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing in Paris in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

From Big Stripey Lie to Hounds of Love: Inside the Greatest Tracks and Albums Lists

_________

BEFORE I dive into…

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

some anniversary features and start looking more at albums that were released in September, I wanted to spend a brief bit of time with the lists you see with Kate Bush’s greatest tracks ranked. It is not pertinent in the sense there has been debate or a new list published. I am thinking back and wondering whether these rankings make a difference on our listening. Definitely, you do notice the same tracks coming in the top ten or twenty. A few surprises through in here and there. I think the most recent one might have been from MOJO. With more than a hundred album tracks and some B-sides and covers, there is enough to choose from for a top fifty. I like the fact that MOJO included songs like Song of Solomon in their list – where they placed it at forty-eight:

“Kate swears! In her most R&B song ever.

Marmite, this one. To some “Don’t want your bullshit/Just want your sexuality” is too much information; they prefer their Kate crouched behind prettier metaphors. To others, the startling thrill of Bush’s most direct and demanding love song brooks no contest. It’s startling, but that’s the point: Bush is shocking the guy “who walks the path of the solitary heart” out of his aloof self-importance. And if that doesn’t work, how about “I’ll come in a hurricane for you”? That got his attention”.

Some might say that there are notable songs missed out. That is the thing with song rankings. You will always get some omissions. I am going to bring in some other rankings and lists. MOJO gave us some nice surprises in their ranking from earlier in the year. I like that more obscure songs get attention and people will discover them. I also think that it shows what variety you get from Kate Bush. Whether the same albums are mentioned in the top twenty. I think Hounds of Love will always have the majority vote when it comes to songs in the higher places. I might do a top fifty myself one day. I will discuss the albums and rankings later and what we can learn. I love looking at rankings and how people now perceive and judge songs released from years ago. Especially when it comes to Kate Bush and her earlier work. That period not getting enough attention. MOJO put The Kick Inside’s Feel It at forty-one – though they chose the live take from 1979’s The Tour of Life as the preferred version:

“Falling in lust and in public.

Only Kate Bush can do this: the nice, suburban, English girl, wafting away generations of social/cultural inhibitions – like diaphanous veils, rather than the brick walls many of us crash into as we grow up or try to. Horny sweetness, rampant joy, unbridled grace: song and performance are multifaceted oxymorons, dynamic self-contradictions, and that’s how she reaches so many of us. She asks the same questions we all ask time and again through life and, like Ulysses’ Molly Bloom, she answers: Yes. The live version from 1979’s Tour Of Life remains faithful to The Kick Inside’s simplicity – Kate at the piano, no phantasmagorical show going on around her – but it gains the different intimacy of performance in front of a couple of thousand people, the astonishing candour of sharing with so many, right there, absorbing every detail”.

Critical opinion might differ from the public’s, though it is interesting getting to that top twenty. The elite songs. Will many share the same top ten?! In terms of MOJO, they start with Never for Ever’s Breathing. Never for Ever gets three inclusions. You tend to find that Never for Ever, The Dreaming and Hounds of Love gets most inclusion. Those three consecutive albums that ran between 1980 to 1985. In their top five are two songs from The Kick Inside – Wuthering Heights (two) and The Man with the Child in His Eyes (five) – and Hounds of Love gets three songs in there: Cloudbusting at ten, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) at three and Hounds of Love at one:

“Kate runs headlong from love and right into its clutches.

No matter how refined the circumstances of its creation – built at leisure in Bush’s new 48-track studio – or how newfangled its production – still tangible in the hi-tech stabs and pads of Fairlight, and the crispness of Jonathan Williams’ cello – Hounds Of Love is red in tooth and claw, its breathless, atavistic fear of capture mixed with almost supernatural rapture. Love is thundering through the psychosexual woods, hunting down somebody terrified of what it means to surrender to another person. The song opens with a quote from British horror film Night Of The Demon but that’s the only moment it feels like theatre. From then on, Hounds Of Love maintains a dizzying emotional velocity, the relentless double drumming of Charlie Morgan and Stuart Elliott stamping down on the accelerator. Bush’s voice might dip and soften, but those drums are merciless, while the strident backing vocals, like a hunting horn call, goad her on if introspection threatens to slow her down. It never lets up, every line heightening the pitch, closing the distance between song and listener. It ends with a suddenness that makes it seem like she’s hit the ground and you’ve hit it with her, breathlessly waiting for an answer to the question: “Do you know what I really need?” The uncertainty, however, is not reflected in the confidence – the perfect, dazzling completeness – of the song’s execution. On Hounds Of Love, Kate Bush is going at full pelt, chasing the horizon, running her vision to ground. Not really the hunted, but the hunter all along”.

It is perhaps not surprising that the bigger songs and singles get into the top ten. I wonder whether there is too much risk putting deeper cuts into the top spots. MOJO did include Aerial’s Mrs. Bartolozzi at seven. Lionheart’s Wow came at nine. In fact, there were a couple of surprise entries in the top twenty: A Coral Room from Aerial at thirteen; a B-side, Under the Ivy, at seventeen…and even Waking the Witch being at sixteen is a nice high place. Do opinions change over time regarding which Kate Bush songs are best? It is clear that Hounds of Love has this dominance, though there are other albums getting a nod. When it comes to the highest places, it is a split between Hounds of Love and The Kick Inside. It is the surprises and new perspectives that compel us to dig deep. When What Hi-Fi? listed seventeen Kate Bush songs to test your stereo to, there were songs in there that never really get high up songs ranking lists. Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake (from 1978’s Lionheart), Rubberband Girl (The Red Shoes) and Hounds of Love’s Mother Stands for Comfort (the only song on the album never performed live; the only song from the album’s first side not released as a single). I like that you get the same songs coming high up. It shows that there is love for them. However, with every list and feature, you get some differences that are interesting. How various people view her work and the songs that are best. LOUDER named their top forty Kate Bush songs last year. There were at least six or seven big surprise. A song like The Infant Kiss being in the mix – though it does deserve to be!

“The Infant Kiss (Never For Ever, 1980)

This haunting track was inspired by the 1961 film The Innocents, based on Henry James’ The Turn Of The Screw, about a governess who suspects her charges may be possessed. The young boy flirts with the governess as Bush sings, ‘What is this? An infant kiss that sends my body tingling?’

Alice Lowe: “Kate Bush is such a consummate storyteller; her songs draw you in and take you on an emotional journey. The vulnerability is just astonishing, something about the glass tone of her voice and the unashamed femininity. The subject matter certainly had me fascinated, even scandalised – [it’s] one of her most controversial songs because many thought the lyrics were about paedophilia. But even as a child I was struck by how she was one of the few artists singing about children, childbirth, a child’s perspective, a mother’s perspective”.

Lionheart got a few inclusions. It is a magnificent album that never gets its fair credit. My favourite Kate Bush song, Houdini from The Dreaming, was also picked as one of her forty best songs. Once more, it gives these lesser-known tracks some oxygen and love:

“Houdini (The Dreaming, 1982)

Catherine Anne Davies, The Anchoress: “Kate herself has spoken about how ‘emotionally demanding’ Houdini was to write, and it really manages to capture that beautiful and strange relationship of Houdini and his wife. It’s like a small novel, unwrapped over the course of a single song. I find it so beautiful and epic in its range and depth trying to convey that relationship from beyond the grave.

“Kate’s voice on this stands out for me in terms of its emotional and tonal range: to go from the fragile tenderness of the verses, really conveying the emotion of the story she’s stepping into, and then the utter power of that almost death metal scream/cry in her voice: ‘With your spit still on my lip, you hit the water.’ Just devastating. The way that the fretless bass interweaves with her top line in verse two is stunning. I’m obsessed with the whole arrangement. It’s just perfection”.

Whilst some listings and rankings would overlook albums like The Red Shoes, there were some important inclusions in the LOUDER list. Celebrating songs that are ignored and seen as inessential. You’re the One is a classic example:

“You’re The One (The Red Shoes, 1993)

Anneke Van Giersbergen: “Kate’s lyrics are usually very poetical and sometimes mystical, but this song is so down-to-earth and honest: ‘I’m okay and will move on,’ but suddenly she gets really honest and confesses that she just misses her big love. That contradiction always gets me.

“The song has a long outro solo by Jeff Beck, which is breathtakingly beautiful. There’s a lot going on vocally. There’s this beautiful contrast both musically and lyrically between the verses – descriptive and practical – and the choruses, which are so very emotional and desperate.

“I love that Kate is so involved with every aspect of her music. Also, she doesn’t seem to care about fame or success, but wants to create on her own terms. She has taught me the importance of integrity and being honest as an artist”.

Stereogum did a top ten in 2022 and included the underrated Rubberband Girl in there. I think opinion and narrative does change through time. Obviously, there might be some subjectiveness and personal bias, though we can learn a few things from song rankings. What various people value in songs. Those who instantly go for the obvious tracks. Those who dig deeper. I think we would all debate every song ranking list and say that the order is wrong! The Guardian’s ranking of her singles from 2018 was especially surprising. Lyra (from the soundtrack album of the film, The Golden Compass, in 2007) is definitely not one of Bush’s best singles but was seen as her twenty-third-best. Love and Anger came in sixteenth. Again, not one of the strongest. It is good Rubberband Girl consistently gets some love, even if Kate Bush dismissed The Red Shoes version as a throwaway song. She revisited it for Director’s Cut and I get the feeling she was not overly-fond of that version. What I have noticed is that five songs in particular come in the top five or ten for most. You have Hounds of Love and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Wuthering Heights, The Man with the Child in His Eyes and This Woman’s Work. Again, known and big songs. You tend to find something from Hounds of Love comes top – though occasionally Wuthering Heights steals it. There is a whole psychologically behind the switch of number one. There was a time when Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was always the favourite and, even though that song enjoyed a resurgence in 2022, Hounds of Love ranks higher and seen as better.

Like albums by The Beatles. Is it a case of various works revealing strength over time or something else affecting our opinions and perceptions?! It is interesting to explore it psychologically. Same with Kate Bush albums. Going back to the songs, and it is clear that albums like The Red Shoes, The Sensual World, 50 Words for Snow and Aerial don’t do too well. I wonder whether this is to do with the age of the person writing features or something in the songs that means they do not connect as hard. A lot the denser or more experimental tracks could make a top fifty but not so the much higher positions. When it comes to album rankings, Hounds of Love nearly always comes top. I can understand to an extent, though it is strange few have a different choice. If some rankings change, you tend to find the same patterns with album lists. Hounds of Love will be top. The Kick Inside is top three or four. In the bottom three positions will be Lionheart, The Red Shoes and Director’s Cut. Maybe mirroring critical opinion or the lack of exposure these albums get, I do worry that some worthy and brilliant albums will always be seen as runts and inferior. I will take four examples of album ranking features. Rough Trade put Hounds of Love top, through they shockingly put 50 Words for Snow at ten! Even so, Lionheart, Director’s Cut and The Red Shoes were low. SPIN following the same pattern. It is surprising that 50 Words for Snow comes so low. They put it in eighth. One of her most acclaimed albums, there must be something that puts off some critics. Strange. I would have 50 Words for Snow in the top five!

NME’s 2019 ranking is a standard pattern. Those predictable bottom three and Hounds of Love coming top. In 2022, The Pink News again put The Red Shoes, Lionheart, 50 Words for Snow and Director’s Cut in the bottom four. Not a lot connecting these albums. Two are from 2011, so I am curious whether it is a generational thing or people not loving the modern Kate Bush albums. Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow not getting the love they deserve. I always feel Lionheart should be higher up. How much of these albums do people listen to before voting?! Hounds of Love once again top. What we can see is that there is this favourite across the board and four albums that will sit in the bottom four. A bit of change and shift with the other five, though we tend to see The Kick Inside and The Dreaming high up and The Sensual World, Never for Ever and Aerial lower. The fact 2005’s Aerial much more regarded than 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. So much to discuss when it comes to album and track rankings. If I did my top ten Kate Bush albums, The Kick Inside would beat out Hounds of Love. Never for Ever in third. I would have The Red Shoes and Director’s Cut in the bottom two, though Lionheart and 50 Words for Snow would be higher. In terms of song rankings, I would have Houidini at one and my top-rated Hounds of Love track would be The Big Sky – a song that never really gets affection or a high placing. It would be good to get other people’s views on the best Kate Bush songs and albums. What they think about various rankings and if there is a reason why there is a shift in popularity for various songs and time period – and why 50 Words for Snow is so underrated! I do like the mix of surprising placings, odd choices, the usual favourites and how these lists might shift and adapt in years to come. However, it is always upsetting to see great Kate Bush songs and albums…

LEFT out in the cold.

FEATURE: Oasis’ Definitely Maybe at Thirty: Ranking the Tracks

FEATURE:

 

 

Oasis’ Definitely Maybe at Thirty

Ranking the Tracks

_________

EVEN if Oasis’…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tony McCarroll, Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs, Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher, Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan in 1994/PHOTO CREDIT: Michel Linssen/Redferns

debut album, Definitely Maybe, was a hugely promising start that was not necessarily sustained for too long, it was a really important album. Released on 29th August, 1994, you can get the album here. I am going to get to a sample review for Definitely Maybe. I am also going to rank the eleven tracks from Definitely Maybe. One of the best debut albums of the 1990s, it firmly introduced Oasis to the world. With the songwriting of Noel Gallagher and the vocals of Liam Gallagher, it is small wonder Definitely Maybe resonated. I think that the directness of the songs and the energy throughout captured a spirit and need of the time. When Grunge and darker sounds from the U.S. were more popular, Oasis wanted to create an album that was more jubilant, rousing and uplifting. They did that with Definitely Maybe. You can hear a brilliant podcast here that charts the rise and fall of Oasis. There is depth and detail about Definitely Maybe and the way it was reacted to by critics and fans. It was an exciting time. I will get to the tracks in a minute. First, in 2014, TIME looked inside the amazing Definitely Maybe:

“Despite the fact that they already thought of themselves as “the next Beatles” and made no bones about wanting to be one of the biggest, most successful bands in the world, Definitely Maybe was not a game-changer in making music the way Nevermind was or OK Computer would be. I firmly believe that Blur was the far more creative, technical, and original band of the two (especially after learning from the mistakes of their debut, Leisure), but when it came to making pop music that could find a footing on both sides of the pond, Oasis had it nailed down — for a few reasons.

The first was that in spite of Oasis being a firmly British band (their demo tape was a Union Jack image swirled), they didn’t let that consume them or become an identifying factor for the group, at least not in a way alienating to non-Britons. Oasis used British imagery as part of their schtick, but it didn’t dominate the music. Blur made no qualms about wanting to pursue a distinctly British feel on their albums, and they did so very successfully…in the UK. But like the Jam before them, one of the most important and influential bands post-‘76/’77, their devotion to their homeland would fail to resonate with the Yankees overseas, and as a result would fail to sell records in the numbers they were used to at home.

The second and perhaps main reason was the group’s use of guitars. It may not seem like much, or may seem too obvious to rest a lot of the band’s success on the guitar, but think about when Radiohead first appeared. There was such a lack of guitar-based rock in the UK at the time that the only thing people would talk about was how Radiohead had three guitarists, as if that was completely unheard of (which, at the time, it kind of was).

A third reason for Oasis’ success overseas, both in general and over Blur, could be tied to having to sign to Sony for worldwide distribution due to issues securing an American contract through their label, Creation, who actually had to pay license to Sony to distribute the band in the UK. So, in addition to the creative marketing that the band used at home, they also had the long reach courtesy of Sony. But, as that was out of the band’s actual control, as opposed to their image and music, this might very well be chalked up to being at the right place at the right time.

As implied in the beginning of this piece, 20 years ago also lands us in the middle of grunge and all that is associated with it. And, in the US at the time, grunge (and maybe G-funk) was the only thing that seemed to matter. Oasis’ ability to blend in the elements of psychedelia (both from the ’60s and the updated versions associated with baggy), the swirling haze of dream pop and shoegaze, the melodic tendencies of a dozen other bands, and the crunch of guitar (though certainly not as abrasive as grunge or post-grunge) let Oasis slip nicely into what was happening in both countries. In the UK, kids weaned on Manchester’s continually evolving sounds would feel right at home listening to a track like “Up in the Sky” (a song that, when slowed down, would probably fit nicely on Ride’s Nowhere) just as much as an American kid might gravitate towards the crunchy feedback-laden guitar work in a track like album opener “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”.When Definitely Maybe dropped in August of 1994, it wasn’t out of the blue. Oasis had steadily been releasing singles for a few months prior, beginning with “Supersonic” on April 11, 1994, six days after Cobain’s suicide. Though “Supersonic” was the first official single released by Oasis (and it even charted in the UK Top 40), the group had been passing around a ‘white label’ demo of their track “Columbia” for a few months prior, but with little interest generated. With the deluxe reissue of Definitely Maybe, that white label demo version has been included, as well as an alternate mix of “Columbia”. Not only does it show that the band was on to something, but also how easily the band could have been written off (especially when listening to the third version of the song included on disc three).

Usually I am not a fan of overloaded box sets with all sorts of multiple versions of songs that barely differ, but in this case I actually find it somewhat interesting to go back and hear what Oasis sounded like before they got a proper producer. For the most part, the demos represent a band that had good ideas and were on the right path, but that something was just not quite all the way there. In John Harris’ book Britpop!, Creation Records label head Tim Abbott summed it up perfectly: “[We] had a great sesh, and we listened to it over and over again. And all I could think was, ‘It ain’t got the attack.’ There was no immediacy.” Consider the two versions of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, the album version and the demo. Though it is still filled with swagger, the demo lacks the braggadocio of the finalized product, yet in a weird twist, actually highlights Liam Gallagher’s voice better. I have never been one to idolize Liam or his style. In fact, I think his voice is rather lackluster, minimal in range; and though he has been heralded as a cross between John Lennon and John Lydon, he’s far more nasally than either (and when you consider how Noel stood in successfully for his brother during the group’s Unplugged performance, it almost relegates Liam to desired but not necessary for the band’s success). But listening to Liam on these demos, dare I say that there is a bit of range in his singing? It almost begs the question as to what happened to it in mixing.

The most obvious thing taken away from the demo versions of these songs is that though Noel had the songwriting chops and vision, he was missing the objectivity that comes with an outside producer, in this case Mark Coyle, Dave Batchelor (a friend of Noel’s from his days working with Inspiral Carpets), and Owen Morris, an associate of Johnny Marr and an engineer-turned-producer trained in the ways of Phil Spector and Tony Visconti. It was Morris who would be instrumental in putting the balls on Definitely Maybe. In fact, it would be fair to say that without Morris, there would be no Definitely Maybe; at least not in the way we’ve come to know. One of the first things he did was effectively ego-check Noel when he stripped off all the guitar overdubs that Gallagher had layered over the album’s material, and as John Harris stated, “remoulded [the album] into something positively pile-driving.” Morris would go on to produce the first four Oasis albums.

Think about the band’s third single, a song described by Noel as “the tune that changed everything,” and the first that really woke people up to Oasis’ potential: “Live Forever”. In addition to cutting out part of Noel’s guitar solo to tighten things up and make it sound less like what he described as “Slash from Guns n’ Roses,” Morris excised the demo’s acoustic guitar intro to give the song a bit more weight, and instead had drummer Tony McCarroll play a beat that not only solidifies the song but helps give it a boost in becoming the monumental track it would eventually become known as. It’s almost a twisted irony that McCarroll played a part that almost immediately identifies the song but was later fired from the band by Noel for not having the skills to do the job.

In spite of Noel’s objections to an album having five singles, if one were to include both the white label release of “Columbia” and the US single for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”, Oasis plucked six songs out of 11 from their debut album, four of which were released before the album, and three rather successfully. And that certainly does not suggest that the non-singles were not worthy of release. “Slide Away”, the last rocker on the album, and a love song on par with “Wonderwall” but with more “grr” and less “ahh,” was originally slated for release until Noel objected. Easily one of the strongest tracks on the album, it has gone on to become a fan favorite and I can only imagine that it’s amazing live. Every time I hear Liam wail that refrain, I see pyrotechnics going off all around.

In spite of everything that Oasis would become on record, on stage, in the tabloids, Definitely Maybe stands above it all. It came before the drama and the bullshit that fed into the media’s desire for conflict. Be it the interpersonal conflict between the brothers Gallagher or the inter-band conflicts with Blur and others, this album remains unscathed. Yes, the brothers fought prior to and during this album’s creation, release, and tour, but not to the point that it was overwhelming or distracting to the fans. That would come later. As would the “Battle of Britpop,” so labeled by the press when Blur’s label intentionally released their single “Country House” the same day as Oasis was set to release “Roll With It”. (Blur may have won the battle, but Oasis most certainly won the war.) And of course, the press’ obsession with the band’s antics, especially Liam’s, rather than the group’s music, wouldn’t overtake everything for another couple of albums. At the time of Definitely Maybe, there was nothing but hope and promise for Oasis. For a band that set out to take over the world and be the greatest rock and roll group since the Beatles, they were well on their way”.

Of course, all of the tracks on Definitely Maybe at great. There are some stronger and more renowned than others. Eleven interesting and worthy songs, I did want to order them. The classics from those who warrant more listening and attention. I am taking from Billboard and their song-by-song feature from 2014. I know that:

ELEVEN

“Married With Children”: Although “Definitely Maybe” is a distinctly British record, it ends with an acoustic tune inspired by American sitcom heroes Al and Peg Bundy. As Noel told the NME, he was thinking about the travails of cohabitation when “Married With Children” happened to pop on the TV. “It’s another song that anybody could relate to,” he explained, “because if you live with a girlfriend or just a flatmate, there are always pretty things that you hate about them, and the song’s just about pettiness”.

TEN

“Digsy’s Dinner”: If Noel doesn’t woo you with his melodies or his winning personality, there’s always plan C: his totally amazing lasagna. Liam stretches the vowels like they’re strands of mozzarella, and yet despite the playful down-stroked guitar and music-hall piano, “Digsy’s” isn’t as cheesy as it seems. “These could be the best days of our lives,” Liam sings, “But I don’t’ think we’ve been living very wise.” Maybe the domesticity he disses two songs later isn’t such a bad thing”.

NINE

“Bring It On Down”: On the disc’s grungiest track, Liam takes aim at some loathsome “you” that sounds an awful lot like himself: “You’re the outcast / you’re the underclass / but you don’t care because you’re living fast.” Drummer Tony McCarroll gets a lot of gruff for being a rudimentary player, but it’s his bashing that anchors Noel’s wanking and turns this rather tuneless song into something memorable”.

EIGHT

“Up in the Sky”: Whether Liam has a clue what the lyrics are about, he sings each line with the same electricity heard in Noel’s scorching psych-rock guitar riff. Liam’s fired up by the mere idea of saying something profound, and when you’ve got a singer that keen, any old mumbo-jumbo will do”.

SEVEN

“Columbia”: Buried in the thick swirl of psychedelic guitars is one of the disc’s most honest lines: “I can’t tell you the way I feel / because the way I feel is oh so new to me.” Rather than try to articulate feelings he doesn’t even understand, Noel pours all of his energy into creating music that makes his confusion sound sexy”.

SIX

“Supersonic”: “No one’s gonna tell you what I’m on about,” Liam sings, and again, that hardly matters. From the opening drumbeat and moody guitar arpeggio, “Supersonic” is another terrific mix of youthful posturing — “I need to be myself / I can’t be no one else” — and pure nonsense. The line about “a girl called Elsa” who’s “into Alka Seltzer” refers to a farting dog, and the whole thing reportedly took 10 minutes to write”.

FIVE

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Star”: The ambition was there from the start, though Liam isn’t just singing about making loads of money and shagging supermodels. Music represents an escape from the monotony of the city, and if you can make a big glorious noise like this — check out the cacophony around the 4:00 mark — you’re at least halfway to a better life.

FOUR

“Shakermaker”: The Gallaghers may be rip-off artists, but at least they swipe from multiple sources at once. Here, they nick the verse melody from the 1971 Coca-Cola jingle “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” — a bit of thievery that cost them dearly in court — and borrow the word “plasticine” from “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,” an obvious reference point for this goofy neo-psychedelic pastiche. The characters of “Mr. Clean” and “Mr. Soft,” meanwhile, come from Jam and Cockney Rebel songs. Noel was lucky he only faced one lawsuit. There were grounds for a class action”

THREE

“Slide Away”: Similar in sound and feel to “Live Forever,” “Slide Away” is the album’s only real love song. It’s more “us against the world” rhetoric, though Noel says more with his soaring guitar licks — composed on a Les Paul borrowed from Johnny Marr — than he does with his lyrics”.

TWO

“Cigarettes and Alcohol”: You can’t go wrong with a T. Rex groove or lyrics about drugs and booze, and this song has both. It also has something resembling a political message: “Is it worth the aggravation / to find yourself a job when there’s nothing worth working for?” The short answer: no. Crack a can, light a match, bang a gong, get it on”.

ONE

“Live Forever”: If “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” is a late-night affirmation — something to scream at 2 a.m. after a few gin and tonics — “Live Forever” is the sober early-morning corollary. No one thinks of the Gallaghers as optimists, but here, Liam does a fine job of selling Noel’s “wanna live, don’t wanna die” hopefulness. It’s about young outsiders chasing immortality, and it’s Britpop’s national anthem”.

FEATURE: Amelia: This Flight Tonight: Putting Women at the Centre of Albums

FEATURE:

 

 

Amelia

This Flight Tonight: Putting Women at the Centre of Albums

_________

IT is a bit…

IN THIS PHOTO: Amelia Earhart

of a coincidence, but we have two albums about Amelia Earhart coming along. On 30th August, Laurie Anderson releases Amelia (“Amelia’ is due August 30. Laurie Anderson’s first new album since 2018’s Grammy-winning ‘Landfall,’ it comprises twenty-two tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson wrote the music and lyrics. She is joined on the album by Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson”). You can hear examples of Laurie Anderson speaking about the album. Here on BBC Radio 4 and with The Stranger. Anderson explained why she wanted to focus on Amelia Earhart:

“Why did you choose Amelia Earhart?

She was very badass. She decided, if I complete my flight around the world, I'm going to set up a situation so that girls can participate in shop class. There's still a stigma about women in technology—except in coding. How many women do you see doing other tech stuff? Or, for that matter, how many women are in government? I just thought that we’d be so much more advanced by now.

Things are going backward, like abortion rights. What time is it? I thought we did that in the '70s! We did do it; I was there. I remember our sense of achievement. We never thought it would start going backward like this. We never imagined that. The world is full of stuff that you can’t imagine. But, here we are”.

It is quite a risk perhaps focusing on a subject like a female aviator. Maybe most people do not know who is. Quite obscure in a way. It is important putting women at the front of albums. Making sure we highlight more incredible women. I will come to another album that is about Amelia Earhart. First, this is what Uncut said about Amelia:

“On Amelia, Laurie Anderson tells the story of Earhart’s life as she makes her fateful attempt, in 1937, to circumnavigate the world in a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane. It’s a riveting tale anyway, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, but Anderson – who was first commissioned to work on this back in 2000 and has performed versions of it, on and off, since then – puts herself in Earhart’s position, right in the cockpit, so that we experience the journey as a daily diary inspired by Earhart’s own pilot entries. With Anderson at the controls, imagining what it’s like to fly, it flows as if in a dream state – part biography, part hallucinatory audiobook.

Having written about herself from an anthropological point of view for much of her career – most recently on 2018’s Landfall, with Kronos Quartet, about Hurricane Sandy, and 2015’s reflection on mortality, Heart Of A Dog – Amelia is Anderson’s first major work of biography. But she approaches Earhart with the same cool-headed mix of fascination and curiosity as any of her weightier subjects, looking for what made the woman tick and extracting the humanity in the story through her research. Of course, both Anderson and Earhart are pioneers in their respective fields, and you sense that Anderson sees something of herself in the way Earhart instinctively positioned herself at the forefront of communications, science and technology in the 1930s while breaking down barriers between the sexes. “She was the original blogger,” says Anderson, noting that had Earhart lived, she planned to open an engineering school for girls. As Earhart declares, in a broadcast excerpt Anderson uses for one track: “This modern world of science and invention is of particular interest to women, for the lives of women have been more affected by its new horizons that any other group.”

Anderson calls her first performance of Amelia, at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2000, “a train-wreck”, and so this final recorded version, propelled by an orchestral score that conjures the serenity and anxiety of flight, is the result of years of tweaks and improvements. She added a layer of electronics, guitar and percussion, as well as engine and external sounds for a more immersive listen, and presents each of the 22 tracks as a short diary entry, either a paragraph or page, narrated by Anderson in that calm, reassuring voice. “I remember going to the airfields at night in Los Angeles, and watching the daredevil pilots do loop de loops in the sky,” she says on “Flying At Night”, which Earhart would have done. As the custodian of her late husband Lou Reed’s archive, Anderson, who is 77, knows how difficult it is to assemble biography – Amelia can only be her interpretation of events, laced with that quality of magic realism Anderson brings to all her projects

On that final flight, Earhart set off eastwards from Oakland, California on May 20 with her navigator Fred Noonan, stopping off as planned in various countries on the route, where she would speak to local reporters to make sure her trip received as much publicity as possible. On July 2, they took off from Lae in Papua New Guinea for Howland Island, 2,000 miles away in the Pacific Ocean, but never made it. Radio communication was poor and the plane likely ran out of fuel, ditching in the sea – there have been various attempts to locate it. Earhart and Noonan were officially declared dead in 1939.

Anderson heightens the drama as Earhart’s flight nears its watery end. The music of “India And On Down To Australia” is melodious and dreamy as excitement builds, Anderson whispers and sings using Auto-tune. But as they head over Indonesia, the physical toll hits Earhart – “I’m tired, so tired” – she’s exhausted, almost hallucinating as the chintzy melody from Altered Images’ “Happy Birthday” appears on “Road To Mandalay”, curdling as she becomes disorientated. The titles tell the rest of the story – “Broken Chronometers”, “Nothing But Silt”, “The Wrong Way” – but Anderson’s admiration and affection for this feminist icon is such that you come away from Amelia with a greater respect for those who keep on taking risks”.

It is a case of you wait for an album about Amelia Earhart and then two come along! Public Service Broadcast release The Last Flight on 4th October. It is an album that I would recommend people go and get:

“The Last Flight is our version of the story of Amelia Earhart's final, ill-fated journey in 1937. Having successfully navigated over 20,000 miles and 5 continents on her round-the-world trip, her aircraft, the Electra, vanished without trace near Howland Island. Her whereabouts, and those of her navigator, Fred Noonan, remain a lingering mystery to this day.

Rather than focus exclusively on the flight itself, the record is as much an examination of Earhart's remarkable character. She was an extremely rare blend of grace, composure, technical aptitude and a fortitude that the rest of us mere mortals can barely dream of, all enveloped by the soul of a poet. She was possessed of a seemingly unquenchable thirst for life - in her words, 'to find beauty in living... to know the answer to why I’m alive... and feel its excitement every moment'. That thirst for the abundance of life, the sheer joy and privilege of living, long outlasts her disappearance and death. It should serve as an inspiration, almost an instruction, to the rest of us; this record is our attempt to translate that inspiration into music”.

It is great that a pioneer and this inspirational figure has a couple of albums made about her. That there will be this new awareness of who she was (and her incredible life). I don’t think that Laurie Anderson and Public Service Broadcast were aware of each other’s projects. It would be nice if they combined at some point, as they could create something magnificent. I hope that there is a collaboration down the line.

I am going to move on in a minute. Before I do, Louder spoke with Public Service Broadcast’s J. Wilgoose Esq. about The Last Flight and why the group are focusing on Amelia Earhart. It is going to be very interesting hearing what they offer on their new album. It makes me think more about Amelia Earhart and her importance. Someone who is deserving of more recognition and focus. Perhaps often assumed as being this tragic figure who failed to achieve her dreams and was unimportant. That is clearly not the truth:

“Conceptual pop proggers Public Service Broadcasting have announced that their brand new studio album, The Last Flight, will be based around the final doomed flight of pioneering female “aviatrix” Amelia Earhart.

The Last Flight is the band's first album since 2021's Berlin-based concept album Bright Magic and will be released through SO Recordings on October 4. The band have also shared the video for the first single from the album Electra, which you can watch below.

"The song is about Amelia Earhart's plane, the marvellously named Electra," explains J. Willgoose Esq. "To match the name, the vibrancy and the excitement of the aircraft, the track is full of pulsing electronics and interlocking, percussive melody lines, plus pace."

Aged 25, Earhart flew higher than any woman before her in 1922, and in the years that followed was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, setting multiple speed and distance records. In 1937 Earhart announced that she would circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra aircraft. She crossed the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. She left Papua New Guinea to fly to Howland Island in the Central Pacific but never made it.

"I wanted to do a woman-focused story, because most of the archive we have access to is overwhelmingly male. I was initially drawn in by Earhart’s final fight, rather than the successes that she had, but the more I read the more I became fascinated by her. Her bravery and her aeronautical achievements were extraordinary, but her philosophy and the dignity that she had… she was an outstanding person.

"The final flight is the spine of the journey: the story jumps off at different points, and examines different facets of her personality, her relationship with her husband, her attitude to flying, her attitude to existing. She gave herself, I think, less than a 50% chance of survival when she flew the Atlantic alone. To put yourself, willingly, in those situations… I think it says something about that drive at the heart of humanity.

"However The Last Flight isn’t doom-laden or covered in grief. There’s adventure, freedom, the joy of being alive. The reason why she wanted to fly was to find the beauty in living – ‘to know the reason why I’m alive, and to feel that every minute.’ The flight did fail, but she was right. Of all the people we’ve written about, I have the deepest respect and admiration for her."

Unlike previous PSB albums, The Last Flight does not feature does not feature original first-person testimony, but dialogue newly recorded by actors, including Kate Graham who read Amelia. The band used Earhart’s own writings including 1937’s Last Flight and her biography East To The Dawn by Susan Butler, as source material”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Vlada Karpovich/Pexels

I would love to think that this is the start of a renaissance regarding putting women at the front. It is true that a lot of albums are male-led. If they feature a subject or person. Most albums are quite personal. We do not have that many albums dedicated to women. So many incredible pioneers, trailblazers and warriors that could be committed to tape. I am thinking of heroines through history, politics, literature, music and beyond. Women like Margaret Atwood being commemorated in a song. Conceptual albums about incredible women through the ages. Whether the album focuses on one woman or takes its time to recognise multiple women, I hope that the two example of Amelia Earhart being celebrated and discussed opens up more conversation. Why more women are not the epicentre of albums. I know that a few artists have taken the time to commemorate women in their albums. Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY! Even though the album is not entirely about famous women through time, it does mention quite a few. It was released in 2019. Woods discussed the songs here. There are not that many albums out there where women are highlighted. As I say, most albums are personal and about the self. Those artists talking about their lives and thoughts. When albums are less personal or conceptual, you don’t get much written about women. Think about all the amazing women who could be spotlighted through song.

Artists could write about iconic artists like Madonna, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé or less exposed or lesser-known music innovators. Just consider the breadth and variety of female subjects. From throughout history to the modern day. There are countless examples who have not had their story told. I also think we need to put women more at the forefront when it comes to various subjects. Misogyny, sexual assault, sexism and discrimination they face. Not that many artists doing that at all. It will be nice to think that more albums will come through. That women will be in the middle. I do hope that there is this consideration. It is important so that future generations have this knowledge and exposure. I am not sure how many women through history are taught at school. Whether there is this understanding at school age. Music is a way of providing this history lesson. Telling stories about these amazing women in an accessible and interesting way. I feel their stories are not told often enough. That has to change. Let’s hope that Laurie Anderson and Public Service Broadcasting pique the interest of other artists. I would love to hear an album where women like Joni Mitchell are sung about. Amazing female politicians and women who have made a big difference through time. Modern-day icons and those who maybe have gone unrecognised. It is only right that incredible women…

GET their dues.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Ten: What Do We Take From the Acclaimed and Beloved Residency?

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn at Ten

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during her Before the Dawn residency in 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: Gavin Bush/Rex

What Do We Take From the Acclaimed and Beloved Residency?

_________

THIS Monday (26th)…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush shooting the video for And Dream of Sheep (a song that is part of her suite, The Ninth Wave)/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

it will be ten years since Kate Bush stepped on stage to deliver the first of twenty-two dates at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith. I have already talked about the build-up and the preparation. For the final anniversary feature of Before the Dawn, I want to think about what we can take from the residency. I will drop in a couple of the reviews once more. Even though no high-profile name who attended one of the Before the Dawn dates took my up on an invitation to speak about their experiences and recollections of that wonderful experience, I did get a few interactions and replies on Twitter. A few of the people who were there:

“@sproutsfan

“I was lucky enough to get tickets after being a long time mailing list member so my brother and I flew from the USA and joined another friend  from London and his wife.  3 of us had been at the Sunderland empire show in 1979 so a Kate “reunion”. So many memories from the night”.

@timmonsdan

Another fan from the US.  When the email came announcing the tour I was shocked.  What was great was I had some issues with the ticket purchase for the second show I was buying. I sent an email providing feedback not expecting anything but I got access to tix again.

So I did see two night.  One with my wife and the second to a guy I sold the tix to on EBay  it helped pay for the trip..  amazing experience and we had Jimmy Page sitting in front of my wife and I.

I also am a taper and recorded both shows   I’ve only shared a copy with the guy who bought the ticket from me.   I know I will never experience anything like that anticipation again for the first night.

Sir: I read James Walton’s review of Kate Bush (Arts, 30 August) on the train home from London. As a hardcore fan, I can assure him it really was well worth the £150 ticket price, return trip from Glasgow, and overnight stay. My only regret was that I was looking down from the circle. I now wish I had shelled out the money for the stalls. They seemed to be having much more fun than my cohorts, who were comparatively restrained. Indeed, I only managed one ‘We love you Kate!’ before bowing to social pressure. A Glasgow audience would have raised the roof, circle or not. But this is to gripe. It was a thoroughly splendid evening, made all the better by the discovery that Kate is a devotee of Tennyson. I don’t think it too fanciful to suggest that in her own way she is every bit as accomplished an artist as the great man himself.

John-Paul Marney - Glasgow”.

Even though Before the Dawn ended on 1st October, 2014, its reverberations and impressions are still being felt ten years down the line. The combination of the anticipation and excitement, together with the explosive love and enormous buzz from the opening night, together with the wonderful reaction to all of the dates has made Before the Dawn one of the most acclaimed and important concert series ever. That is not an overstatement! We talk about modern-day concert phenomenon from the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Those tours are incredible and inspiring. Modern-day spectacles. Whilst there is no denying their implant and brilliance, one has to think about Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn back in 2014. There are a few reasons why it was so talked about at the time and remains seismic. Consider the fact that her first and only big live commitment to that point was back in 1979. The Tour of Life was an exhausting yet groundbreaking tour. In some ways, I don’t think Bush could equal or top what she did thirty-five years previously. It is clear it was a really demanding and intensive tour. There were plans to your down the road. As early as The Dreaming (1982) she would have thought about it. I think it was in 1991 at a fan convention when she gave a big hint that she would do tour dates. In fact, when she saw Prince play at Wembley back in 1990, Bush was scoping out the venue. Attending that concert with her Del Palmer, Prince revealed her was a massive fan of hers. That would have ignited something in Kate Bush. The fact other things soon got in her way – the death of her mother in 1992; the release of an album and short film in 1993; the need to step away and start a family – meant touring and any major live work would have to wait.

The fact Bush was almost seen as reclusive or retired in the 1990s and many thought a stage return was impossible added to the surprise and wonder of Before the Dawn. Also, it was another ambitious and wonderfully immersive live experience. She could have sold out her dates doing a simpler set. Kate Bush really threw everything into it! Perhaps even eclipsing what she pulled off in 1979, Before the Dawn could have been a let-down. In the sense so many people built up what it would be. Kate Bush exceeded everyone’s wildest dreams! No hyperbole in the reviews and reaction, few tours have met the magic and wonder many saw in 2014. Also, the consistency and brilliance of Kate Bush. In her fifties and having not performed on a stage for some time, you can tell how much preparation and rehearsal she put in. Note perfect and up to her very best every date, I think that many modern-day artists looked at Before the Dawn for inspiration. There is no denying how influential and impactful that residency was. I think that it is one of the most important live tours/residencies of the past twenty-five years. The acclaim and words written about it is set in stone. I will round up with some takeaway and what we can learn from Before the Dawn. Before that, here is a review from Pop Matters. They were reviewing the 2016 live album, but they looked back at a sense of community togetherness in 2014:

“Bush’s brothers, Paddy and John Carder, are very much present in the live performance of an album on which they played an integral part. John Carder Bush reprises his riveting narration on a thunderous presentation of the Celtic flavored “Jig of Life”. Bush’s character, still lost at sea and spiraling further into delirium, imagines herself as an old woman who beseeches her younger self to stay alive so that the elder’s part of the lifeline is not cut from the future. The suite’s epic climax, “Hello Earth”, is majestic and thrilling. It’s masterfully arranged and performed, arguably the album’s highest point in an ocean of highs. The finale, “The Morning Fog”, which enacts Bush’s character awakening after being rescued, is as exuberant as one would expect. It concludes The Ninth Wave with a sense of joyous triumph and a deep appreciation for life.

The Ninth Wave alone is worth putting down the money for this collection, but Bush is far from finished. She tackles an even more elaborate piece with A Sky of Honey, a lengthy suite originally released as the entire second half of Aerial. This section may try the patience of some listeners who aren’t necessary die-hard Kate Bush fans. The third act has moments of spellbinding beauty, but also at times, there are lulls that were more effective for audience members who were able to experience the visuals on stage. Some of the interludes and longer pieces don’t translate particularly well to an audio-only presentation. Put more bluntly, portions of the hour-long suite are simply a bit dull.

That said, one cannot help but be impressed by the scope of the production and the power with which it is brought to fruition. Bush’s son, Albert McIntosh, who was an integral part of the show’s creative team, delivers a winsome vocal on “Tawny Moon”, a piece newly written for the show that is sequenced between the suite’s two highlights, “Somewhere in Between”, and the dazzling “Nocturne”. The nearly 10-minute “Aerial” closes the suite with a massive explosion of sound, drama and presumably, for the audience fortunate enough to have the chance to see her, enormous spectacle. It’s an ending worthy of a long and winding journey that is ultimately worth taking despite the occasional drifts into tedium.

Bush wraps up the show and album with a two-song encore: “Among Angels”, the only track present from her 2011 album 50 Words for Snow, and a dynamic performance of the majestic “Cloudbusting”. The audience reaction is ecstatic, and Bush’s gracious appreciation is touching and obviously heartfelt.

Before the Dawn is a bit of an enigma. Yes, it’s magical to hear the reclusive Kate Bush live on stage performing these songs, a musical event that few thought would ever happen. There are genuine moments of grandeur on this album, as befitting a project so elaborate and historic. While the album’s highs are very lofty indeed and The Ninth Wave works beautifully, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the entire experience would have been more profoundly entertaining had Bush refrained from performing the entire Sky of Honey set and instead focused on a couple key tracks as part of a sequence comprising a more varied selection from her catalog. It’s easy to imagine songs like “And So Is Love”, “Pull Out the Pin”, “Under the Ivy”, “This Woman’s Work”, “Love and Anger”, “How to Be Invisible” and “Wild Man” among many other Kate Bush gems performed on stage. The notion of a live performance of her duet “Don’t Give Up” (could she have snagged Peter Gabriel for some of the shows?) is spine-tingling to even contemplate.

Still, given the circumstances, it seems churlish to suggest that Bush should have structured her return after a 35-year absence from the stage in any way other than exactly how she wanted. She does it her way, as she always has, and while one may quibble with a few aspects of the album it’s still a remarkable listen. Perhaps now that Kate Bush has completed work on Before the Dawn — the residency and the deluxe live album — she will move on to new projects. It’s clear that nearly 40 years since her debut single, the creative prowess of one of popular music’s most valuable treasures is undiminished”.

In 2014, The Guardian revealed their passion and admiration for Kate Bush. Back on the stage after so long, they highlighted the note-perfect vocals and the thoroughly engaging performance from Bush. Someone showing no weakness or any sense of nerves – even though she was very nervous -, you can only imagine the pressure she would have felt! None of that seems to bleed into her performance. What people saw in London in 2014 will stay with them fore the rest of their lives:

“Backed by a band of musicians capable of navigating the endless twists and turns of her songwriting – from funk to folk to pastoral prog rock - the performances of Running Up That Hill and King of the Mountain sound almost identical to their recorded versions - but letting rip during a version of Top of the City, she sounds flatly incredible.

You suspect that even if she hadn't, the audience would have lapped it up. Audibly delighted to be in the same room as her, they spend the first part of the show clapping everything she does: no gesture is too insignificant to warrant a round of applause. It would be cloying, but for the fact that Bush genuinely gives them something to cheer about.

For someone who's spent the vast majority of her career shunning the stage, she's a hugely engaging live performer, confident enough to shun the hits that made her famous in the first place: she plays nothing from her first four albums.

The staging might look excessive on paper, but onstage it works to astonishing effect, bolstering rather than overwhelming the emotional impact of the songs. The Ninth Wave is disturbing, funny and so immersive that the crowd temporarily forget to applaud everything Bush does. As each scene bleeds into another, they seem genuinely rapt: at the show's interval, people look a little stunned. A Sky of Honey is less obviously dramatic – nothing much happens over the course of its nine tracks – but the live performance underlines how beautiful the actual music is.

Already widely acclaimed as the most influential and respected British female artist of the past 40 years, shrouded in the kind of endlessly intriguing mystique that is almost impossible to conjure in an internet age, Bush theoretically had a lot to lose by returning to the stage. Clearly, given how tightly she has controlled her own career since the early 80s, she would only have bothered because she felt she had something spectacular to offer. She was right: Before The Dawn is another remarkable achievement”.

What can we learn from the residency?! Before the Dawn showed we can never predict Kate Bush. When she announced her residency in March 2014, it blew people away! There were no quivers or rumours. It shows that actually not building things up and teasing endlessly actually creates a bigger surprise and bang. Actually, I guess the absence did do a lot of that work. Even if the set and whole production was large and hugely imaginative, the way in which the residency was announced should serve as a guide to a lot of modern artists who can take something out of the excitement with a lot of the traditional promotion. Also, whilst we can’t predict Kate Bush, we can’t write her off or be doubtful! Some might have been nervous Before the Dawn could fail or at least it might not be as good as we’d hoped. The effort and planning that went into Before the Dawn showed that Bush was still a master and groundbreaking live artist in her fifties. The famous faces and breadth of the fans there also proved how she is not only for the older generations. It doesn’t matter she released an album three years before. People were happy to wait. Bush also was in no mood to let anyone down or do anything less than world-class. Proof that an artist in her fifties could match the very best and most popular younger artists. The mix of the crowd also showed how her fanbase is among the most ardent, passionate and loving in the world! One of the broadest in terms of age and walks of life. The lack of phones and filming meant people were engaged and committed.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing Somewhere in Between with her son Bertie during Before the Dawn/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay/Rex Features

There was no sense of people holding phones up and distracted. Kate Bush wanted people to respect that rule. After all the work and effort, it would have tainted the performance if she stared out at a wall of phones and no eyes! I think that has inspired a lot of artists since. How their fans engage with them in the modern age. Bush helped design and popularise the wireless head microphone in 1979. She was still innovating in 2014! At a high-tech time, she wanted fans to return to basics. As such, people’s experience was so much more involved and direct. More moving, physical and together. Fans engaging and being in the moment! That sense of not being able to predict Bush. We can never say never and say she is retired. However, Before the Dawn felt like a final chapter…of sorts. In terms of live work, this seemed like a magnificent and unforgettable swansong. The result of years of what-ifs and half-abandoned tour plans and live work. I don’t think we will see her back on stage. Some feel Before the Dawn is the last project from her. No albums or anything else. Maybe Before the Dawn is the perfect way to say goodbye and thanks to her fans! The residency also showed how Bush could bring so many people together. So many people discuss being there. I opened with some reactions and testimony. Everyone who discusses Before the Dawn almost does it in religious and spiritual terms. How it transformed their lives. It was more than a live show. No regular gig. Instead, it was a dream come true and this almost transcendent experience! On 26th August, it is ten years since the first date of Before the Dawn. What everyone can agree on is that this truly spectacular and unforgettable residency was life-changing…

FOR everyone who was there.

FEATURE: Spotlight: NIKI

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Justin J Wee for The New York Times

NIKI

_________

MAYBE she would…

not want me to start off looking back a couple of years. Perhaps not as enamoured of this past music as her current work. In any case, it is important to look back and see where NIKI has come from. I wanted to start out with an NME interview from 2022. How the Indonesian-born, American-based Nicole Zefanya became NIKI. I wanted to spotlight NIKI as her new album, Buzz, was released this month. It follows on from 2022’s Nicole:

“When NIKI wrote ‘Every Summertime’, she didn’t expect it to go onto be the lead single from the soundtrack of Marvel epic Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Nor did she expect it to become a viral sensation and her biggest song to date. “It was just one of those last-minute songs that we created at the tail end of the process [of making the soundtrack],” she reflects on a Zoom call from LA. “It’s interesting that it was kind of the throwaway back burner song and now it’s taking off.”

And take off it has. The sunkissed, smooth slice of classic R&B has taken over TikTok and racked up more than 90 million streams on Spotify alone – and counting. While the life it’s taken on might be surprising to its creator, the song’s success won’t feel completely out of the blue to anyone who’s been following the Indonesian singer-songwriter’s journey so far. On it, she’s proven herself to be an imaginative and essential artist whose tracks lift you off into new worlds with each listen.

For the latest in NME’s In Conversation series, we caught up with NIKI to talk about ‘Every Summertime’, Shang-Chi, new music, what to expect from her upcoming Coachella performance and more.

‘Every Summertime’ was inspired by an unlikely artist

It isn’t often these days that Barry White is cited as an influence on a track that’s soaring in popularity; but that’s just who NIKI and her producer Jacob Ray looked to when they were writing her sleeper hit ‘Every Summertime’. Specifically, the balmy jam was inspired by White’s habit of talking in his songs.

“Nobody really talks in their songs anymore,” NIKI explains. “I feel like that trend died in the ‘90s – where it’d be music and just really low voices. We were listening to them just bewildered as to how people made music back then.” What started out as fun listening sessions quickly began to feed into the “magical” moment of writing the Shang-Chi soundtrack single, helping NIKI make a “total car jam” all of her own.

Moving to America has changed her relationship with her hometown of Jakarta

Late last year, NIKI blessed us with another beautiful single in ‘Split’, in which she detailed her feelings on having to adapt and assimilate between her hometown of Jakarta and her adopted home of LA. “Kinda wish I knew what I meant when I say I miss home,” she sings over a timeless, soulful foundation. “Guess I’m forever caught between two worlds / Right foot rock, left foot hard place, head and heart at war.”

“It’s really weird cos, coming to America, I experienced culture shock and now I live in America and I come back home to Indo and then I experience reverse culture shock,” she laughs. That takes the form of “very micro things” like the heat that hits when you first step out of the airport on arrival. “It’s been so long since I’ve adapted to that or been acclimated to that kind of weather, so I noticed it. There are all these things that I took for granted or didn’t notice because you acclimate to your environment, and then you step away and come back.”

Splitting her time between the US and Indonesia has changed the way she thinks about her hometown, the singer-songwriter explaining that the cliché “absence makes the heart grow fonder” has a lot of truth to it. “I view Jakarta in this new way where my love for it has grown,” she says. “My appreciation has deepened and changed. As a kid growing up in one place forever, you’re just like, ‘Yeah it’s home, whatever’ and then having that taken away from you and stepping out of your comfort zone tends to create an appreciation for where you’re from.”

NIKI’s new music goes back to her YouTube roots

Before she moved to the US and before she joined up with the 88Rising crew, NIKI got her start on YouTube, sharing acoustic covers and original songs in the indie-folk vein. Still a teenager at the time, she gained small success with that material, scoring tens of thousands of subscribers and, after winning a competition, opened for Taylor Swift when The Red Tour came through Jakarta in 2014.

While NIKI’s debut album ‘Moonchild’ and recent singles might have skewed towards more electronically produced R&B and pop, what’s coming next will see her picking up the six-string once again. “I’ve been working more guitar-based [songs],” she shares of what she’s been working on lately. “I’ve felt this beckoning call back towards my singer-songwriter roots, so I’ve been exploring and experimenting with that a lot.”

Writing on guitar will likely change the songs she’s writing in ways other than sound, she says, noting that the instrument tends to lead her to write lyrics that are “naturally deeper”: “It just has more substance to it emotionally. When you work with a beat, there’s a lot of things going on and the music guides you and guides what the song must be. But when you’re just with a guitar, it’s easier to dictate what the song could be”.

I want to move on to a few interview from this year. In this, from The New York Times, we learn how a 2010 Taylor Swift documentary, E! True Hollywood Story, set NIKI on a career in music. How it was a revelatory moment for her. Buzz is her third studio album. Moving towards West Cost Folk-Rock. A world away from what she was writing and releasing from the start. Perhaps understandable that she sees now as a fresh chapter and does not look back as fondly as some artists might:

“Zefanya was 15 when she won an online contest to open a Swift concert in Jakarta. In her dressing area before the show, Niki said, “I just see this slender arm poke through the curtain and just peel it back, and she goes, ‘Hi, I’m Taylor, nice to meet you.’ And I just froze, like, oh my gosh, I’m seeing Taylor Swift in the flesh. I remember not being able to say anything to her.” (They took a picture.)

Soon afterward, Zefanya — like countless musical teenagers in the 2010s — started her own YouTube channel, nzee24, singing covers and unveiling her own songs. English was her favorite subject at school, and she delighted in polysyllabic rhymes. Unlike many YouTube bedroom pop creators, she didn’t just strum and sing — she assembled multitrack productions.

Niki continues to produce or co-produce all of her songs. “She’s a great producer,” Ethan Gruska, who co-produced many of the songs on “Buzz,” said in a video interview from his Los Angeles studio. “My job usually, with her, is to take things that are well thought out and sounding really great and scale up. It’s almost like color correcting.”

Zefanya accepted a scholarship to Lipscomb University, a Christian school in Nashville, knowing the city is a music-business hub. During her freshman year, a song that she wrote and uploaded to YouTube at 16, “Little Souls,” caught the ear of the Indonesian rapper Rich Brian.

“I cringe whenever I hear that song,” Niki said. “It was too long. It had no coherent structure. And for some reason people really enjoyed it. I think it was the genuine honesty.”

Brian brought her music to 88rising, an American label and management company that cultivates Asian and Asian American songwriters performing English-language pop. When she signed with the company, she dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles to record as Niki. She took down her YouTube channel, and her early singles for 88rising positioned her as a pop-R&B songwriter, backed by electronics and eager for romance. One single, “Lowkey,” has racked up more than 468 million plays on Spotify. Her 2020 debut album, “Moonchild,” had more somber ambitions, with moody synthesized tracks and high-flown metaphors.

PHOTO CREDIT: Justin J Wee for The New York Times

In the isolation of the early pandemic, Niki reconsidered her teenage songs and decided — glancing toward Swift remaking her early albums — that some were worth reclaiming. In her bedroom she had sung, plainly but gracefully, about high-school insecurities and heartaches.

“I cringe whenever I hear that song,” Niki said of “Little Souls.” “It was too long. It had no coherent structure. And for some reason people really enjoyed it. I think it was the genuine honesty.”Credit...Justin J Wee for The New York Times

For her 2022 album, “Nicole,” she reworked some of her YouTube songs and wrote new ones in their spirit. The songs resonated worldwide; “Backburner,” “High School in Jakarta,” “Oceans & Engines” and “Take a Chance With Me” have each been streamed more than 100 million times. But Niki’s perspective was changing.

“‘Nicole’ is unapologetically just so saccharine,” she said. “When you’re 18, you think, ‘This breakup is cataclysmic,’ you know? I’m 25 now, and I was 17 then, and my frontal lobe is developing as we speak. I would hope I’m a lot more reasonable nowadays.”

Some songs on “Buzz” deal with a more recent breakup. Niki sings about a relationship that ended after “four full laps around the sun” in the intricately syncopated “Blue Moon.” In a chugging rocker named “Colossal Loss,” she vows to play “the blame game” and adds, “I’m happy to report that petty feels pretty awesome.” Niki reproaches, “Did You Like Her in the Morning?” in a delicate waltz.

“She’s very calm, very levelheaded,” Gruska said. “It’s cool to see that somebody who is so even can access the tempest of emotions in an artistic way.”

The sound of the new album downplays electronics in favor of hand-played instruments — guitars, drums, piano — as Niki looks back to West Coast music from before she was born: Fleetwood Mac, Sheryl Crow, Joni Mitchell. For Niki, Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” is “the best song ever written.” The dualities of that song echo through “Buzz,” as Niki seeks balance.

Many of the songs on “Buzz” are about turning endings into new beginnings. The album opens with its title track, a catalog of hopeful moments: “It’s the anticipation when the amps turn on/Just cables and crackle,” Niki sings. A prerelease single, “Too Much of a Good Thing,” sets a casual flirtation to a strutting bass line: “I get the feeling that this feeling isn’t one meant to last anyway/So what do you say?” And in “Tsunami,” Niki sings about an overwhelming, elemental infatuation.

If American pop is a musical language that has conquered the world, Niki still finds her Indonesian roots within it, and has delighted in playing to audiences of Asians and Asian Americans who have thanked her for representing them. “Take Care” is one of the songs on “Buzz” that she produced and played entirely on her own. It’s about a couple going separate ways; Niki sings, “You take someone’s clothes off/And someone takes me home.”

She came up with a bass line on her guitar, topped by chords that she played by strumming a paintbrush across an acoustic guitar, the essence of subtlety. After finishing the song, she realized that her vocal melody uses a scale from Indonesian gamelan music: pelog, a set of seven notes usually played on gongs.

“As I was writing it, I didn’t even think twice about it. It was just like, ‘This feels like the melody that I want in there,’” Niki said. “It just flows out of me”.

There are great interviews like this that I would recommend people read. I am going to end with a couple of NME feature. Well, an interview and a review. In this NME interview, it is said how Nicole Zefanya loosened up and took the reins for her third studio album following exhaustion from touring and career pressure. It was a very strained time. Out of the other side came this real musical revelation and evolution. You can feel it through Buzz:

“When I’m artistically stuck, I like looking to the past as a palate cleanser,” she says. “I had a lot of reservations about updating the songs but I wanted to stay true to the spirit of it. I feel like that schmaltz and saccharine drama was also kind of the charm and superpower of [‘Nicole’]. It’s very difficult, as a 25-year-old, to lean into that kind of honesty you have when you’re 17.”

‘Nicole’’s pivot to the personal was, as it turns out, necessary for NIKI. ‘Every Summertime’, her blithe, joyous love song released for the soundtrack of Marvel’s Shang-Chi, blew up far beyond the intended audience of the superhero film, trending on TikTok and racking up nearly 400million Spotify plays. It’s one of NIKI’s top streamed singles, but she admits that there was a “level of detachment” in writing it, as it was meant for “a larger project that was bigger than me and what I had to say”.

“‘Nicole’ was my attempt at sort of saying, ‘Hey, thank you for listening to that. But also, this is the more personal and diaristic side of me that essentially feels more like me in music form,’” NIKI says. “‘Nicole’ was a necessary stepping stone towards the kind of artist I want to be and the kind of music that really does feel satiating and fulfilling to my soul – I feel like I needed to put out ‘Nicole’ in order to put out ‘Buzz’,” she concludes.

Like ‘Strong Girl’, NIKI wrote the rest of the song on ‘Buzz’ while she toured ‘Nicole’, informing her decision to cut wordy verses and tweak chord progressions to maximise the songs’ live potential. One song that was tricky to perform prior was ‘High School In Jakarta’ – “I would genuinely be out of breath the first few shows, and it was no one else’s fault but my own,” NIKI laughs.

“[I dug] deep into the musicality of my songwriting, which I feel sometimes can be masked by a very pop formula”

In contrast, ‘Buzz’ is much more sparse, relaxed, and loose. “The goal was to just invite more chillness onstage.” NIKI took her songs to producers who worked with artists she carries torches for: ‘Nicole’ collaborator Ethan Gruska (who also worked on Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Punisher’) and Tyler Chester (who recently worked on Madison Cunningham’s ‘Revealer’).

Studio sessions with them were sometimes “nerve-wracking” for NIKI. Some songs were either recorded live, in one take, or without a metronome, in an environment that was “more organic, loose, and musical, which is what I’ve always kind of craved and dreamed of in terms of playing things live”.

The process was a double-edged sword: It “shone a light on: ‘how good a musician am I?’” but also allowed NIKI to “dig deep into the musicality of my songwriting, which I feel sometimes can be masked by a very pop formula of four-chord progressions and syllabic lyrical choices.”

By and large, ‘Buzz’ is filled with colourful flourishes on great loves chased and lost. NIKI astutely chronicles the prospect of a soulmate (‘Magnets’), a hookup (‘Too Much Of A Good Thing’) and that one crippling crush (‘Tsunami’). There’s room for grieving amicable partings (‘Take Care’), just as there is space to lash out at exes. On ‘Colossal Loss’, NIKI howls: “Is this what kids call petty? / I’m happy to report that petty feels pretty awesome….’cause you and I, we don’t talk / to my benefit and your colossal loss”.

The album closes quietly with the strangely hopeful standout ‘Nothing Can’, which is about being comfortable with the idea of saving yourself from pain and suffering because “no one and nothing can”. In keeping with the spirit of ‘Buzz’, she draws attention to what comes next: “But you still smile at a stranger / And you still make your weekend plans…But you’ll still write another song / And you’ll still get breakfast with the band.”

“There are still so many little moments of joy, hope, and freedom in between [that] sort of redeem suffering, which is just general human experience,” NIKI says. “T​​hat’s how ‘Buzz’ started. It was me learning to fall in love with touring and making music that resonated with me, not just this overwhelming sense of, I must be this thing that I guess everyone wants me to be early in my career.”

And who does NIKI want to be now as ‘Buzz’ season approaches? “I think the best way of describing it is I feel awake for the first time – ‘Buzz’ has really felt like me stepping into myself, my authenticity, and my own power, ​​the first odyssey where I have been completely steering the ship on my own. I feel a lot more confident about who I am as an artist”.

I want to end with a review of Buzz from NME. Such a remarkable album, you do not need to know about NIKI’s musical past to appreciate Buzz. It ranks alongside the best albums of this year. Someone who I hope gets a lot more attention here in the U.K. If you have not heard NIKI or know much about her, I would suggest you follow her on social media. Listen back to her previous music but also really explore Buzz and what she is putting into the world now:

“Since the Jakarta-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter signed with 88rising in 2017, she’s explored different expressions of her artistry. She tied up her stories in noirish R&B on her 2020 debut album ‘Moonchild’, and two years later, revisited some songs she’d written in her teen years via the saccharine pop of ‘Nicole’. At the beginning of 2024, she shared the standalone single ‘24’, reflecting on the first quarter-century of her life in a Joni Mitchell-indebted piece of hushed folk-pop.

Mitchell’s influence can be felt on ‘Buzz’ too – as well as that of Sheryl Crow, Liz Phair and Fleetwood Mac. Here, NIKI deals in hook-filled alt-rock, ‘Too Much Of A Good Thing’ strutting on a ’60s pop bassline that means business, shuffling drums and a swooning guitar line weaving around it like they’re in a flirtatious dance. The riff of ‘Colossal Loss’ offers a buzzsaw accompaniment to her devilish descent into petty games, while ‘Magnets’ strips things back to create a mesmerising glacial drift.

‘Buzz’ is the most advanced its creator has ever sounded musically and lyrically – even when NIKI keeps things simple, writing like she’s cornered you in the bathroom on a night out or is recapping dating tales with the girls over brunch. “No guys, I swear he’s not emotionally unavailable / He’s just traumatised,” she protests on ‘Focus’, her defensive tone suggesting she knows her friends are right.

The hum of romantic possibility might characterise much of NIKI’s third album, but it’s awash with heartbreak too. Between the coquetry and cool are wrenching vignettes from a wrecked relationship. ‘Take Care’ depicts the dividing up of a couple and their city, and ‘Blue Moon’ realising what’s been lost. ‘Paths’ is most devastating of all, though, NIKI torn between accepting her fate and holding onto hope for a future reunion: “My youth is in your past / You’ll always have that / And though it didn’t last / I hope our paths cross again.”

Whatever the future holds for NIKI and wherever her musical explorations take her next, ‘Buzz’ solidifies her place as one of music’s most incisive songwriters right now. It’s an album full of heady thrills and emotional lows that confirms, if you’ve been sleeping on NIKI so far, you can no longer do so without truly missing out”.

I am new to NIKI’s work. I think that she is a phenomenal artist that has a long future ahead of her. Her story is fascinating. I feel we will be hearing and seeing a lot more from her very soon. I only had to hear a couple of tracks from Buzz to really bond with the album and appreciate NIKI’s music. An artist who has taken big steps. It will be fascinating seeing where she goes from here. I am excited. There is no doubt that this Indonesian artist is someone who should be…

ON everyone’s radar.

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Follow NIKI

Official:

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