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BLASTOCYST | BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK The third album from Brooklynfour piece TEEN is full of intricate ideas, lyrics and instrumentation that hits far more than it misses.Love Yes is at its best when the tempo picks up and encourages hitting the danceflooron top of giving you a lyrical tapestry.. Created in Nova Scotia as the band attempted to escape the intensity of city life to focus on making this record Love Yes is driven by COMMENTS FOR BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK Comments for blastocyst.org.uk

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MEURSAULT: THE ORGAN GRINDERS MONKEY Meursault: The Organ Grinders Monkey March 15, 2014. By Jonathan Brick It’s thrilling when a band you have loved for a while is on the very edge of success. This new record should, and ought to, propel Meursault, pronounced Murr-SO and named after Camuss WWW.BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK www.blastocyst.org.uk BLASTOCYST | BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK The third album from Brooklynfour piece TEEN is full of intricate ideas, lyrics and instrumentation that hits far more than it misses.Love Yes is at its best when the tempo picks up and encourages hitting the danceflooron top of giving you a lyrical tapestry.. Created in Nova Scotia as the band attempted to escape the intensity of city life to focus on making this record Love Yes is driven by COMMENTS FOR BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK Comments for blastocyst.org.uk

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JOHN DARNIELLE – GOING BACK TO CALIFORNIA

The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle has released a new song _Going Back to California._ It’s part of a series of songs that Darnielle wrote with Scott Solter about Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath that the Mountain Goats frontman says will “probably never see formal release” and concerns the plane crash that killed guitarist Randy Rhoads. Stop waiting, join the game now with starquest continuous luck and many victories await you! The song itself is typical stripped-back Mountain Goats fare: with beautifully gentle vocals, the best casino sites

lightly-played

guitar and heartbreaking lyrics, Darnielle describes Rhoads’ burnt-up jewellery recovered from the crash site, Rhoads’ last words to Ozzy and the inevitable continuation of life as the tour carries on two weeks later. It is a sucker punch delivered with a beautiful, delicate voice, but a sucker punch nonetheless. Darnielle has released_ Going Back to California_ as a free download to thank fans for donating money to his charity bowling team The Reproductive Justice League which raises money for The National Network of Abortion Funds. You can download the track here , and you can donate to The Reproductive Justice League here

.

You can also hear the discussion of his career which Blastocyst.org.uk recently posted onto the sister site here

.

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Black sabbath

, Chris Imlach

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League

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Solter on March 18, 2016 by Chris Imlach

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ALBUM REVIEW: TEEN – LOVE YES

The third album from Brooklyn four piece TEEN is full of intricate ideas, lyrics and instrumentation that hits far more than it misses. _Love Yes _is at its best when the tempo picks up and encourages hitting the dancefloor on top of giving you a lyrical

tapestry.

Created in Nova Scotia as the band attempted to escape the intensity of city life to focus on making this record _Love Yes_ is driven by 80sesque synths and the yearning voice of lead singer Teeny Lieberson. Whilst these two components remain central throughout the album, there are many twists and turns, both sonically and lyrically, throughout the 12 tracks of _Love Yes. _This will likely throw some people off, especially at first listen. When the pace picks up and things are kept slightly simpler this album really shines. The opening one-two of _Tokyo_ and _All About Us_ is particularly strong, with the former telling of a man questioning is marriage and very much drawing from the same influences as a lot of Summer Camp’s recent work. _All About Us_ is the album’s standout track, with a catchy vocal hook, incredibly danceable percussion and smart lyrics about an other half not pulling their weight in a

relationship.

_Animal _is an interesting track that sounds like a monastic chant, if monks had synths and drum machines, and _Push_ veers towards a Christmas carol at some point. These and other tracks don’t reach the heights of the more visceral, upbeat parts of _Love Yes_, yet there is lots to enjoy and wrap your head and ears around here. Whilst not perfect, this is a strong entry into the TEEN canon and, with its mix of synth pop tinged with darkness, it’s their best album to

date.

This entry was posted in Music and tagged album , Boshra

Al-Saadi , Brooklyn

, Carpark Records

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, Katherine Lieberson

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Yes , LP

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, Teeny Lieberson

on March 17, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

ALBUM REVIEW: SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – SVIIB

Almost impossible to divorce from the tragedy in its background, _SVIIB_ is the first album from School of Seven Bells since band member Benjamin Curtis lost his battle with lymphoma in late 2013 and likely the outfit’s last. The record was largely recorded during Curtis’ lifetime with bandmate Alejandra Deheza working to bring the album to its finished state – a wonderful 40 minutes of dream pop that serves as a fitting farewell to the New York City band. Across _SVIIB_’s 9 tracks we may be hearing School of Seven Bells at the best they have ever been, bringing an intimacy that can be hard to find in such synth-led pop. The standout track is the wonderful _On My Heart_, a sparkling tale of a broken relationship on which Deheza sings the line: “_There was a you before me, there was a me before you, and that’s the way it goes_”, demonstrating School of Seven Bells’ ability to write smart, beautiful and yet disarmingly simple

lyrics.

Despite the sadness of the situation hovering in the background of this record there is a surprisingly joyful sound to most of SVIIB which proves positively upbeat. There are moments of disconcertion as well though, with _Elias_ in particular using the synths to far more ominous effect. One song opens with a tense synth line that could easily soundtrack a foreboding entrance to a cyberpunk warehouse in an action movie. Once the vocals hit the vibe becomes more positive, but there is always an undercurrent of danger bubbling away as the song

continues.

Whether you are a School of Seven Bells fan who knows the whole story behind this album or someone listening with no context, _SVIIB_ is a cracking dream pop record: warm, personal and accomplished with tinges

of darkness.

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Alejandra Deheza

, Benjamin Curtis

, Chris Imlach

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, indie

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, SVIIB

on March 16, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

TWENTY’S PLENTY, MARCH 2016, I

It’s Country2Country time! I spent most of the last four days of this fortnight listening to Radio 2 Country, a pop-up station relaying live coverage of the C2C festival at the Greenwich Arena aka ‘the

O2’.

It also broadcast original programming, including an ace interview with Loretta Lynn, whose new album was released this fortnight. Sara Cox presented ‘When Country Goes Pop’, Alex ‘the Dark Lord’ Lester helmed a two-hour request show, and there was an extended edition of Bob Harris Country – last year he had the Mavericks in,

this year XXXX.

Famous musicians did some DJing: Don Henley, announced this fortnight as Carole King’s support act for her first UK show since I was ONE year old (July in Hyde Park), did his hour; Hillary Scott of ‘Lady A’, aka Lady Antebellum, did a gospel hour on Sunday, before an Appalachian journey from broadcaster and Catatonia vocalist Cerys

Matthews.

The highlight was Jeremy Vine, a noted Elvis Presley fan, presenting ‘Stompin Country’. Hear every show at bbc.co.uk/radio2country for

the next month!

Surprisingly, the Twenty is short on country this week, possibly because for the entirety of the first week I was either on trains or preparing for the Blastocyst.org.uk Sport Relief Radiothon. It includes, however, a Top 11 chart rundown with journalist and biographer of Manchester United Jim White. Hear that, a quiz, two documentaries, a little talk and a Sports Report at mixcloud.com/blastocast. 20 Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – White Privilege II (ft. Jamila Woods). Ben Haggerty returns with an album, again on his own label, featuring some comic songs and some hard hitters. I heard this while wandering around Tesco looking for bread. It’s a really hard-hitting song about cultural relativism and appropriation 19 Molly Pettersson Hammar – Hunger. The first of four songs that Sweden had to decide whether or not to make their Song for Europe 2016. They host the Eurovision Song Contest on May 7 (with semi-finals that week) and did not select this to get beyond the semi-final stage. A shame, because this is as euphoric as Euphoria, the song that won it for them a few years ago. The land of Aviici and Swedish House Mafia can do this thing in their sleep, so maybe it was just too Swedish to

get through.

18 Josef Salvat – Diamonds. The first of two in the Twenty from our Joey. Thanks to my friend Tallah, who runs the venue, I was able to get a complimentary pass to see Josef at the Electric Circus during my jaunt to Edinburgh. This cover of Sia Furler’s song for Rihanna, Diamonds, turns it into a torch ballad, and hearing a man sing it works as well as Rihanna, who has trouble with her diction but nobody seems to care. What a chorus too! This song features in the first Popular Song podcast I do, as does Rihanna, since she has the most popular track (Work) in America today. 17 Wiktoria – Save Me. A Mumford-influenced song that placed fourth in the search for Sweden’s Eurovision entry, which is their version of the FA Cup: many songs enter, some make the semi-finals but only one can win. They’ve picked a rotten song by Frans called If I Were Sorry (he’s cute, it sounds like something you’d get in the charts, but mid-tempo songs NEVER win) but Sweden should have gone for this, which has a great chorus (‘Save me! I can’t get enough of you!’). The performance has Wiktoria in a dress that has things projected onto it: it looks tremendous and would have done well in Stockholm in the final. 16 Phil Cook – Great Tide. A Baylen Leonard selection from his radio show The Front Porch, my second favourite show. Baylen was the DJ for the aftershow parties at C2C. Phil Cook could fit into a DJ set with this smart tune with a lovely guitar line. It pops out because the vocal line follows the guitar, and it has a chorus full of ‘hey’s. 15 Lucinda Williams – Dust. Her father was a poet, who recently passed away. Americana queen Lucinda is still plugging on, putting out records every year. She performed this one on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and I loved the vibe of it, with a languorous chorus of ‘even your thoughts are dust’ and verses about sadness and depression, I think (‘the sun seems black’). It becomes celebratory, and Lucinda remains one of the poets of country/roots music. Expect more tracks from her latest LP The Ghosts of Highway 20, a top 40 LP in both the UK and America, her seventh consecutive US Top

40 studio album.

14 Andrew Combs – Foolin. Still hanging around thanks to its infectiousness. Andrew wowed the crowds in Glasgow and London. He’s been supporting Eric Church on this tour to promote the All These Dreams LP, and I did my own version of this which is up at soundcloud.com/jonny_brick. 13 Josef Salvat – Hustler. Josef is back. The live show was the first time I’d heard this song, with its ‘heart of a hustler’ chorus and lovely build. It actually reminds me of Hold On We’re Going Home by Drake. 12 Bleached – Wednesday Night Melody. Chris Imlach, Head of Music at Blastocyst.org.uk, is excited for the new record by Bleached. So am I, after hearing this brilliant piece of music. Power-pop with driving drums and lyrics you can hear, Robin Hilton of NPR Music is a huge fan of the ‘baba’s. I love the way the chorus kicks in, and the lyric is really strong. It may climb next fortnight! 11 Turnpike Troubadours – Down Here. ‘You can have a nickel out of my last dime’ is my t-shirt slogan of the week. Another one heard on Baylen Leonard’s Front Porch, the groove is insatiable and it’s one of those ‘play it again and again’ roots songs. Expect more from their three LPs to feature when I delve into their catalogue this

fortnight.

10 The Steeldrivers – Where Rainbows Never Die. Winners of a GRAMMY this year, the band recorded at Muscle Shoals in Alabama. Their lineup is missing their singer Chris Stapleton, who himself won GRAMMYs and Country Music Association Awards for his Traveller LP, and so I asked my friend from Kentucky, the state of Bluegrass, which Steeldrivers song I should start with. She suggested this one. From the opening guitar motif to Chris’s vocal entry to the sublime passages of banjo, fiddle and steel guitar in the middle this is a lovely song that deserves to become a standard. 9 Parquet Courts – Berlin Got Blurry. What a return from the lads from Brooklyn. We remember Borrowed Time and Stoned and Starving, but what if they were more verbose and set it to a 1970s-style guitar line and beat? What if the lyric included the slogan ‘nothing lasts but nearly everything lingers in life’? What if it was set in Berlin, land of ‘Teutonic frankness’? It comes from the band’s European tours of recent years, and when you transplant cool New Yorkers into cool Berlin, it gives you the coolest song of the fortnight. From the forthcoming Human Performance LP out on Rough Trade records, whose opening track is called Dust, funnily enough! 8 Aimee Mann – Nothing is Good Enough. Effortless. I subscribe to the American Songwriter magazine mailing list and every Monday Jim Beviglia (who has written books on Dylan and Springsteen and Elvis Costello) picks a tune to critique and explain. This fortnight he picked Aimee’s 1998 tune from her Bachelor No. 2 record. The organ is by Benmont Tensch, famously of Tom Petty’s band but a mainstay of American music for forty years. The chorus sweeps up and down, with a lyric that castigates record executives who didn’t hear a single. I remember listening to Aimee’s Forgotten Arm LP on a plane and falling in love with an idiosyncratic vocalist who has been going since Til Tuesday in the 1980s. A friend of Brian Koppelman, director and screenwriter, Aimee deserves a reappraisal and to be remembered for more than just the soundtrack to the film Magnolia, on which this

song features.

7 Bent Shapes – Realization Hits. Last fortnight’s number one slips to seven. There’s a chat I had with Ben elsewhere on the site, in which I print the lyric in full. ‘Talk is cheap but no one seems to care anymore’ is my slogan of the year so far. 6 Mimi Werner – Ain’t No Good. The first line of the chorus is ‘My mama warned me’ but it took ten listens to get it. Not picked for the final of the Melodifestivalen, this bounces along with glee and buries its way into your ears, and has ‘a Eurovision key change’ up a step. Sounds like a pop song to me! Mimi looks great in the performance from the contest, but the lyrics trip over one another so maybe it put people off. She has spent time in Nashville too, so watch out for her. The performance, with dancing men, is fun and very Eastern European, so it would have done well had it gone through to the final, which takes place in the same arena as the Melodifestival in Stockholm on May 7. 5 Bent Shapes – New Starts in Old Dominion. Wolves of Want was released to the world this fortnight, and this is the other real banger on an album full of ‘zingers and riffs’. I love how it stops halfway through and comes back in with a verse which includes the words ‘debutante’, ‘matriculate’ and ‘canaries’. Great writing, and I hope to see the band on UK shores soon. 4 Tedeschi Trucks Band – Anyhow. Last fortnight’s number two slips two. Still wowing me with its class, I need to dig into the album but keep getting stuck on this, one of my songs of the year so far. 3 Carrie Underwood – Good Girl. I bought a CD player for £35, batteries for £8 and Carrie Underwood’s two-disc Best Of for £8. I put the second disc in and skipped to her 2012 number one. And then replayed it over and over. Why? It’s class. ‘You better get to gettin’ on your goodbye shoes’? Who writes stuff like that!? Nashville songwriters, that’s who, and it has been a pleasure to meet several of them in London and ask for tips about my own writing. 2 Ace Wilder – Don’t Worry. Came in third in the voting for Sweden’s Eurovision entry, this would have cleaned up if the voting had sent this through. An amazing rhythm that recalls piano house (the great lost genre of pop) and a decent lyric about everything being alright despite everything being wrong, I love this the more I hear it, but it’s quite hard to sing live and doesn’t really explode. The live performance features boxes and holograms, so maybe people thought it was gimmicky. 1 Thomas Rhett – T-Shirt. Up from last fortnight’s number four to top the Twenty. Well done T! He’s been in London to promote Country2Country, has just been knocked off the number one in the US country charts (by the mighty Maren Morris) and sang on Chris Evans’ breakfast show on BBC Radio 2 to millions of ears. Crash and Burn, a co-write by Chris Stapleton, was the breakout hit, and he’s had Thinking Out Loud…I mean, Die A Happy Man make him a lot of money this Valentine’s period. He performed Uptown Funk on air with Dave Stewart of the Eurhythmics looking on. He looks like a superstar now, and played first on the bill on the Friday of C2C. His set, including T-Shirt, went down an absolute whirlwind, although many in the arena were patiently waiting to see Miranda Lambert. T will be a star this year, and well done to Radio 2 for getting behind him. Will T-Shirt stay at the top next fortnight? This entry was posted in Uncategorized

on March 13, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

CLOCK OPERA – IN MEMORY

London quartet Clock Opera have always felt like they have the potential for making haunting music, in no small part down to lead singer Guy Connelly’s delicate vocals and the dark subject matter of their lyrics. The band have come back after a three-year hiatus sounding downright unnervingly ethereal. _In Memory_ is the latest track to be unveiled from the band’s second album, which is due to drop this summer. Gone is the bouncy indietronic pop of 2012’s Ways to Forget, to be replaced by a chilling falsetto, ominous synths and a juddering bass line that give the aura of a stalking scene in a horror movie that has only one possible, destructive conclusion. The pace and tension rises, over the song’s three minutes and nine seconds, to an all-encompassing

climax.

Listen to In Memory here: The track is also available as a free download from the Clock Opera

website .

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Chris Imlach

, Clock Opera

, free download

, indie

, indietronica

, London

, music

, new music

on March 11, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

BEN FROM BENT SHAPES SPEAKS TO US ABOUT NEW LP WOLVES OF WANT, FULL OF ‘ZINGERS AND RIFFS’

I have found my song of 2016. It’s by a band called Bent Shapes and is called ‘Realization Hits’. You can find it on their new album _Wolves of Want_, available at bentshapes.bandcamp.com. The CD is nine dollars, the vinyl thirteen, and you get mp3 files with both physical

products.

I love the song because it speaks to me. It’s worth printing the lyrics in full, to see if it speaks to you as well. We are social climbers, dead to rights, but with a crippling fear of heights. Rung by rung we come undone and take ourselves down a notch or five. We are only human beings taught to want what we all want: the chance to monetize the things we love, reduce a passion to a job. I vote: “all guts, no glory” till forever or whenever things get boring, ’cause I believe in underachieving as a systematic tactic to preserve your freedom. This can’t be what we’re for; believe they need you more. Yes, we know ‘next best’ it only tends to mean ‘more dangerous’– those who won’t do what they’re told. Those prone to throwing stones at the hornets’ nest. Conscripted into culture wars fought proxy-to-proxy on the venue floor. Talk is cheap and no one seems to care anymore what you did or didn’t say you signed up for. We’re chasing oblivion. Failure’s never been this fun. Pick your battles, then your friends. You’ll never work in this town again. Well, if they hedge their bets on those empty threats you can break it down for them: no gods, no master’s degree, a life full of disasters yet to happen to me. All guts, no glory keeps me from being self-congratulatory. Failure’s never been as fun as when you’re chasing oblivion, and you know we’ll never quit singing realization hits. I caught up via email with the song’s composer, Ben Potrykus, half of the band’s songwriting team along with dummer Andy Sadoway. I first of all asking who came up with the ‘oohs’. ‘The Oohs were mine. I didn’t have lyrics I liked for that part. That’s The Secret of the Oohs™.’ The song ‘took a couple of days to write, but then someone at a show pointed out that I’d unintentionally ripped the verse from another band’s song. I thanked them and we set to work re-writing it, which took another practice or so. This was right before recording!’ Wolves of Want is their second album proper, after the first album Feels Weird, made by the two songwriters. They worked on WoW with Elio from the band Titus Andronicus, a very good band from the States, from where Bent Shapes hail, and recorded onto tape with limited track

space.

‘Feels Weird was almost a compilation of sorts,’ Ben tells me. ‘We’d written those songs over a couple years, and we spent months and months recording it in bits and pieces in a studio that was sort of being built out as we made the record. ‘This new album is full of songs that were written within a year or year and a half. We got recording done in about five days. Elio was both flexible and eager to try something else if someone just wasn’t feeling a certain guitar sound or arrangement or mic placement.’ The album sounds great, from the opening minutes of the album’s first track, ‘New Starts in Old Dominion’ to the lovely final track ‘Intransitive Verbs’. Both musically and lyrically it is superb, full of zingers and riffs (‘my favourite 1980s breakfast cereal!’ Ben counters). I ask Ben what is more important to him as a writer, the words or the music. ‘Reluctantly, I’ll say the melody. If you can’t hook me with your music, I’m not going to bother trying to figure out what you’re singing. That said, while I_ like_ plenty of songs with underwhelming lyrics, I will never truly _love_ those songs, and if your lyrics are downright bad…’ Fortunately Bent Shapes write great lyrics. What We Do is Public is about the hyperconnectivity of the world, in particular the way people go to gigs and film it all on a phone. The band are sometimes awed by fellow musicians themselves, including Ted Leo, a bastion of American

alternative rock.

‘We played a house show with him, which was incredible. Ted is such a sweet person and a force to be reckoned with live. I feel like I got an education just standing in front of him watching him play solo.’ Those who have not seen his version of Billy Bragg’s I Guess I Planted (where he took Woody Guthrie lyrics and added some la-las)

should do so now.

Ben has spoken of his anxiety issues, which affect how he lives his life and how he does his job. ‘I don’t focus on my lyrics much while performing, as I’m mainly trying to land notes in my vocal melody and on the guitar, so in that sense it’s easy enough to “get in the zone”. Of course, if muscle memory starts working _too_ well, there’s always the chance that my mind could wander and I could freak out. It hasn’t happened in a while, though.’ In a way being a musician is just a matter of learning your lines. It helps if the lines are bouncy and melodic and, in one case, a pastiche of 1960s pop, in the song ‘USA v POR’. Bent Shapes can be seen over the US in spring but are playing at PopFest in New York City. The festival is headlined by Edinburgh-based band The Spook School, whose new album Try to be Hopeful is worth a listen and will be performed live with Bent Shapes watching on. ‘Spook School are great. We hope to play some more shows with them while they’re here! We’re buds with Halfsour, who are excellent, and we’re fans of Allo Darlin’, Big Quiet, and Mercury Girls, too. ‘In high school I got this “Gimme Indie Rock” comp in a bargain bin for $1, and it was my first introduction to The Chills (“I Love My Leather Jacket” was on there) among other bands, so it’s pretty insane to think I’ll be seeing them in person so many years later

!

‘I love that Popfest always manages to get a mix of legendary pop heroes and more-recently-formed heavy-hitters. We got to play with The Bats in Boston after their performance at Popfest a couple years back and it was a dream come true.’ I am a songwriter myself and have started a nice little podcast, Popular Song. I ask Ben the standard question. What is the best song ever written, or one you wish you had written? ‘The song I wish I had written is always the song that I’m working

on at the moment.

‘I don’t know about the best song ever written, but I’ve been very partial to ‘Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend’ by John Cale the past few months, and we’ve covered it a few times as a result. And I hope we somehow get to collaborate with Cate Le Bon someday, because I think she’s an incredible songwriter. What’s up with Wales,

man?’

Well, all the more reason for Bent Shapes to come to the UK some day

soon.

_Wolves of Want by Bent Shapes is out now on Slumberland. PopFest runs from 19-22 March, tickets for which can be found at nycpopfest.org._ This entry was posted in Music and tagged bent shapes on March 11, 2016 by Jonathan

Brick .

THE GOON SAX – UP TO ANYTHING

_Up To Anything_ is the title track from Aussie threesome The Goon Sax’s debut album and it revels in its introspective teen drama, providing a charming tale of a humdrum existence and adolescent desire for recognition to strains of jangling Pastels-esque guitars. Being teenagers themselves no doubt helps the trio capture teenage feelings of awkwardness, boredom and stagnation quite so authentically, in lyrics such as the understated yet ear-grabbing opening line “I only do these things, so I can tell you all about doing them”. Listen to the track here: The album _Up To Anything_ comes out on April 8th and The Goon Sax will be touring the UK in September. This entry was posted in Music and tagged Australia , Chris Imlach , indie

, jangle pop

, music

, new music

, shoegaze

, The Goon Sax

, Up To Anything

on March 10, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

BLEACHED – SOUR CANDY

As the release of their second album, Welcome The Worms, fast approaches, LA trio Bleached have unleashed Sour Candy, the latest track from the record and it’s a doozy. Crunching guitars and sneering vocals combine with pure pop sensibilities to perfectly showcase the new, punkier direction Bleached are taking, whilst never forgetting the catchy hooks, sing-alongs and melodies that made their first album so fantastic. It’s easy to see why Sour Candy is lead singer Jen Clavin’s favourite song from Welcome the Worms, with its bounding energy and stellar lyrics about the beauty and positivity that people can find in being self destructive, as it tells of how the protagonist is “up to nothing good, trying to kill time” because “the past ain’t kind and the future scares me”. Give it a listen here: Welcome The Worms is out on Dead Ocean on April 1st and can be

pre-ordered here .

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Bleached ,

Chris Imlach , LA

, music

, new music

, Souncloud

, Sour Candy

, Welcome the Worms

on March 8, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

M83 – ‘DO IT, TRY IT’

There’s joyful house piano abound in _Do It, Try It_, the new single from French dance chameleons M83. This is the first taste we’ve had of the new album from the band,_ Junk_, and it’s got us excited for April 8th when the album drops. _Do It, Try It_, which will open _Junk_, has a broken hearted lyrical tenderness beyond the bubbling, bouncing, neon fun of the music that makes for an intriguing piece of extremely danceable electronic pop.

Listen here:

This entry was posted in Music and tagged Chris Imlach

, dance

, Do It Try It

, indie

, Junk

, M83

, music

, new music

, pop

on March 4, 2016

by Chris Imlach

.

REVIEW: THE BOY LEAST LIKELY TO AT THE BETSEY TROTWOOD 03/03/16

Last night twee popsters THE BOY LEAST LIKELY TO sold out the cellar of the Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell, for a gig billed as “an intimate show and a lovely evening” that proved to be both, as it delighted the fans that crammed into the warm underground room on a cold Thursday evening. Kicking off with second album opener Saddle Up the pair quickly worked through a few sound issues and were soon entertaining with a performance largely focussing on their first and second albums, The Best Party Ever and The Law of the Playground. Jof and Pete themselves were as charming as ever, interspersing their catchy indie pop songs with gentle ribbing, fits of giggles and tales of record label

missteps.

From classics like set closer and multiple ad soundtrack Be Gentle With Me and the dreamy, Brian Wilson inspired Paper Cuts, to Warm Panda Cola, a 49 second ode to the horrifically coloured soft drink, the set was received warmly by the fans, with singing and bopping along aplenty. Whilst favourites like Rock Upon a Porch, I See Spiders When I Close My Eyes and Boxing Up All The Butterflies showed that no-one does child like wonder tinged with occasional darkness quite like The Boy Least Likely To, it was the stripped back version of the creepy, synth-led Monsters which stole the show, as it became even more haunting and bleak with just two voices and an acoustic guitar. As the encore finished with the anthemic I’m Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon to Your Star and The Boy Least Likely To thanked the audience for a fun evening two things were clear – the audience had had at least as much fun as Jof and Pete and the pair shouldn’t leave it so long to play their wonderful collection of bittersweet, imaginative pop songs live again. This entry was posted in Music and tagged Betsey Trotwood

, Boy Least Likely

To , Chris

Imlach , Gig

, indie

, indie pop

, live music

, London

, music

, review

, twee

on March 4, 2016

by Chris Imlach

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TWENTY’S PLENTY – FEBRUARY 2016, 2

Well, well. Twenty is plenty but there have been plenty more than twenty this fortnight. It’s tough to cut it to 20 when the GRAMMY awards introduce so much great music to you. It’s tougher still when the quality of country radio is so strong. The current radio number 1, ‘Dibs’ by Kelsea Ballerini, isn’t even here! As always I have been rotating a lot of country and a lot of American music and have come up with an impressive running order as winter turns into spring. As always, scroll to the bottom to hear the Twenty

as you read.

20 M Lockwood Porter – Chris Bell. The Front Porch is my new favourite radio show. Hosted by DJ Baylen Leonard, I am introduced to country acts and Americana over two hours. As a member of the UK Americana Music Association I feel I have to listen. As a fan of Big Star, I approve of this track that hymns their songwriter-guitarist who died tragically young. Set to an awesome pedal steel and backbeat, I love this celebration of Chris, the lesser known songwriter of the band. Alex Chilton has had songs and praise, but ‘the beauty in the music shows that you’ve got what it takes’. The chorus is marvellous too. Go seek out Big Star, and their pop classic ‘September Girls’, now! 19 Brett Eldredge – Beat of the Music. So shocked was Brett at his first UK gig when he played this song, a huge US hit from his first album, that he got out his phone and recorded the fans reprising the chorus. It’s a singalong and, oddly, put the middle 8 after the first verse, where it usually follows the second verse. This helps us get to the chorus, which is all about ‘falling in love to the beat of the music’. Not even in his Top 3 songs, this is his biggest hit. 18 The Steeldrivers – Ghosts of Mississippi. The vocalist is Chris Stapleton, who has done great things since pursuing a solo career. His old band, perhaps by proxy, won the first GRAMMY of their career for their recent record, but I asked my friend who lives in Bluegrass country, USA what songs to consider listening to in an introduction to the band. She suggested this one. And there’s a Helter Skelter-style fadeout-then-fade-back-in! 17 Frankie Ballard – Sunshine & Whiskey. I met a girl at the event the other week who loved Frankie. I only really knew Young & Crazy so I paused a while on the title track of his 2015 debut album. It’s great, and I bought the album as part of my stupid £300+ spending spree buying up the history of country music for my Country Jukebox alias. ‘Every time you kiss me feels like sunshine and whiskey’ is

a proper chorus!

16 Danny & the Champions of the World – What Kind of Love. Heard on Baylen’s show, Danny and the Champs are the UK’s leading Americana act, if you see what I mean. This is a charming song with a great vocal. Expect more of them in the coming weeks! 15 The Mavericks – All Night Long. Raul Malo has one of the best voices in the world. The Mavericks are their own genre: not country, not blues, not xydeco, but in a category of their own along with Los Lobos, the great American group whose members have played with Bob Dylan. I love this song, which they played at the GRAMMYs. Everyone knows them for their two-chord marvel Dance the Night Away but, along with Calexico, Arcade Fire and Bellowhead, they are one of the best bands in the world in terms of how good they make you feel. Oh-oh!! 14 Viola Beach – Swings & Waterslides. We’re not here for very long. The aim is life is to get paid to do something you would happily do for free. Have a kid if you want to, make loads of friends and get them to come to your funeral. Viola Beach were four lads on the cusp of huge success when their van plunged into a gap where a bridge should have been. After a campaign to honour the memory of their manager and the four of them, this song entered the UK Top 20. It’s a great song which I remember hearing on BBC Radio 1 last year. A travesty that they cannot realise their dream of being rock stars. 13 Lucy May – Whirlwind. An independent country artist who is playing on the small stages at C2C. This is a great chorus – ‘love is like a whirlwind…just don’t let it pass you by!’ – and the song starts magnificently, with drums on every beat, sparkly production and a great vocal. 12 The Moody Blues – The Voice. Listening to Radio 2 can be a chore sometimes, with lots of middle-of-the-road fare, but sometimes an old choon catches you out. This one sounded like ELO but is in fact the Moody Blues. It leaps out with its chords, production values and guitar licks. Why did I not know about this song?! It’s ace and is my top MB song, above even Nights in White Satin. 11 Kendrick, Thundercat, Anna Wise and Bilal – These Walls. Kendrick won at the GRAMMYs, thank goodness, and proved he is the voice of his generation. He seems a reluctant superstar, admitting to depression and confusion. Notable in the acceptance speeches of people who worked with him on To Pimp a Butterfly, the Rap Album of the Year, was the fact that without music they might be dead. Compton in Los Angeles, California, is not known for many of its success stories, but Dr Dre got out, and a generation later Dre has ceded his title of West Coast King to Prince Kendrick Duckworth. These Walls is a smooth groove which tells a cutting story of Kendrick sleeping with a former girlfriend of his incarcerated friend. It’s ‘shade’ in hiphop form. Best followed with the lyric sheet, I like this one a lot. Alright doesn’t even make the 20 this week! 10 Chris Young & Cassadee Pope – Think of You. He’s a superstar, she’s a great voice too. The song, which is the best one on his third record I’m Comin’ Over, is a wicked tune. The characters have split and everyone asks the other how the other is doing; ‘when they think of me, they think of you’ is a true sentiment, and the chorus is both explosive and harmonious. Watch out for Chris as he continues his ascent to Luke Bryan-type success. 9 Mavis Staples – Love and Trust. What a record Livin’ On a High Note is. I wrote a review for PressPlayOK.com and was blown away by that voice, 76 years young, and the songs written for her by, amongst others, Neko Case, Benjamin Booker, Nick Cave and Merrill from TuneYards. This one, with its ‘wap-wap’ homage to David Bowie’s song Golden Years, could be a modern standard. Ben Harper, the acoustic-folk singer, wrote it for her, and she absolutely storms it. See her performance of Take Us Back on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and cherish her while she’s still on this earth. She is America’s version of Cilla Black. 8 Justin Bieber – Sorry. What a pop song this is! Infectious, danceable, not annoying when you hear it ‘maybe a couple of hundred times’. Biebs will break records with his Purpose tour. He’s been a silly boy but now he is becoming a Credible Artist. With One Direction on baby leave, Justin is set to hoover up their fanbase. It really does help when you have a worldwide smash. 7 Miranda Lambert – Automatic. My good friend Gaz has a lovely wife named Terra. I met Terra and asked if she was familiar with Brett Eldredge, a fellow Illinoisan like her. She said of course, and I asked if she was to go to the big Country2Country event in Greenwich, South London, in March. No, she’s got an infant child (her and Gaz’s son) and won’t be going. But she does know someone who is good friends with Miranda Lambert. I ask if it’s true that Miranda split with Blake Shelton because she didn’t want kids. Terra said yes. I said, That’s interesting. She said, Miranda’s a diva (she used a stronger word). Then I bought Platinum, her recent album, and put Automatic on repeat for an hour. It’s the harmonies in ‘hey whatever happened to’ and the seventh chord on ‘it always seemed so good’. Beyond that it’s a song that references cassette tapes, letters, Polaroids and the practice of ‘staying married’ being the ‘only way to work your problems out’. That line is amazing, considering Miranda’s quite public divorce. Blake, it seems, is now with Gwen Stefani, another divorcee. 6 Maddie & Tae – Girl in a Country Song. They will be in the UK in March performing this and other songs from their LP Start Here, and I still love everything about this song. The video is brilliant, and the album is fab. Their combined age is about 40, and they’ll be around

for a wee while.

5 Andrew Combs – Foolin. Opening the main stage on Sunday in London at C2C is this chap, the only real unknown. You better know him! He did a session for Bob Harris which was broadcast last month. This song is toe-tapping and showcases Andrew’s pipes very well. Expect him to win some new fans; he’s already won me over! 4 Thomas Rhett – T-Shirt. These names won’t mean anything but this song was written by Ashley Gorley, Luke Laird and Shane McAnally. The Song of the Year 2015 was Girl Crush, written by three women who between them have written most of the great pop-country songs of the last 20 years, and are the Girls Writing Country Hits on Music Row in Nashville. Along with the three writers of ‘T-Shirt’, only Ross Copperman has a claim to be part of the Rushmore of Blokes Writing Country Hits. Just Google their names as you listen to this future number one, from which there will be no escape from about May until it stops being sunny. Thomas is only stalling on this because Die a Happy Man is still in the higher reaches of the charts (it was number one as 2015 became 2016), but this is a far better song. Bo Diddley beat, lyrics that namecheck Guns ‘N’ Roses and an earcaterpillar of a chorus. Song of the Summer, without a scintilla of doubt. 3 Brett Eldredge – Don’t Ya. He closes his set with this. An incredible 75 minutes of pop-rock with a pretty high hit-to-dud ration, I loved seeing Brett and especially not having a date for Valentine’s Day, the day he performed at London’s KOKO. There was an onstage proposal, a crowd that knew every word of every song, a band introduction set to the strain of I Got a Woman by Ray Charles, a version of Pony by Ginuwine and, during one song, I actually leapt in the air. I NEVER leap during gigs, preferring a hands-crossed stance with head nodding, but Brett’s performance was so infectious that I was utterly amazed during ‘Drunk on your Love’. As I write, my version of that song (soundcloud.com/jonny_brick) has had over 130 listens. The Country Jukebox is having nickels and dimes inserted into

it already!

2 Tedeschi Trucks Band – Anyhow. Paul Gambaccini presents my favourite show on radio. America’s Greatest Hits (an independent production for BBC Radio 2 by Howlett Media Productions!) is on air from 8 till 10 on Saturday evenings. I would prefer Gambo to the club any time! He plays music of every genre and from every decade; just yesterday he played the Beatles, Michael Jackson’s McCartney-penned ‘Girlfriend’, Josh Groban (who turned 35 this fortnight), Dr John, Elton John, Billy Joel, a Christian worship group, Elvis, Thomas Rhett, Tyrese and of course Adele. This song started in the show of February 20, and my ears pricked up. It seemed to go on and on, yet be over too soon. Top 10 in the blues chart, and recent performers on the Austin City Limits TV show, TTB are my new favourite band. I love the chords in this song, and the vibe. Please listen, as it only just missed out on the top spot. 1 Bent Shapes – Realization Hits. The song of the year. No contest, and it’s only February. I have sent some questions about it to its co-writer, Ben, and I am waiting for a reply because he works during the week. Wolves of Want comes out this month; this is one of three lead-off singles, and every second is a gem. Some of the words are as follows: ‘the chance to monetize the things we love,/ reduce a passion to a job’; ‘I believe in underachieving/ as a systematic tactic to preserve your freedom’; ‘Talk is cheap and no one seems to care anymore’; ‘no gods, no master’s degree,/ a life full of disasters yet to happen to me.’ It’s Ben Folds, Tom Lehrer, Elvis Costello, Britt Daniel from Spoon and Randy Newman, set to the brilliant guitar pop of a band like The Cars. The riff is good enough, the way the guitar kicks back in during the chorus even better, but the genius comes from the structure of the song. Intro, verse, seamless chorus, riff, verse, chorus, ‘ooh’ bit, instrumental section, drums, verse, chorus, then an outro played by Ben and drummer Andy on a Steinway piano. It may be number one next fortnight! This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged bent shapes

, brett eldredge

, tedeschi trucks

band , thomas

rhett on February 28,

2016 by Admin

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BRETT ELDREDGE, THE COUNTRY CROONER

_Scroll to the bottom of the piece for a Brettlist, comprising Brett’s original songs, including every one of those played in

London._

Unless you’re an expatriate or a fan of country music, you will never have heard of the swarthy man who headlined a show at KOKO in Camden on February 14 2016. Brett Eldredge is his name, and he’s one of country music’s up-and-coming superstars. His Youtube channel and Twitter feed both exceed 100,000 followers, with 750,000 signed up for Facebook updates, so he’s not stratospheric in the way Luke Bryan or Garth Brookes are. His Youtube channel still carries a series of webisodes from 2010 which introduced the world to Brett in three-minute weekly chunks. One plays a clip of Brett singing The Star-Spangled Banner at the stadium of the Green Bay Packers in January 2011. He hits every note brilliantly, holding onto some of the notes in the final chorus. He packs a punch vocally. In one, Brett admits to being a huge admirer of Frank Sinatra, both of his phrasing and how to be a performer in the public eye; he does a decent ‘Summer Wind’ and a nice ‘My Way’. In London on Valentine’s Day 2016 he tried ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ for the first time on stage. Hence the title of this piece: ‘country

crooner’.

Illinois, Brett’s second LP, has sold over 100,000 copies in the US since its release last year. With over 50,000 of those helping Brett to a first-week position of 3 in the US album charts, he is rather well known and well loved. To his utter disbelief, Brett is known in the UK too, and stopped his show twice to record the crowd singing along to two of his biggest hits. A hard core of country music fans, fresh from the inaugural Nashville Nights party in Chelsea 48 hours before, were in fine voice as they congregated to hear one of country radio’s most consistent hit-makers. I first heard of him last year singing Lose My Mind, a two-verses-and-a-hook tune. Early adopters may have loved Beat of the Music and Don’t Ya, his two radio hits from 2014, but if you saw him play Raymond in 2010 in any of the four corners of the US, you had a headstart on us all. Raymond, from 2010, had a video set in a nursing home. “My grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, had been progressively getting worse. We built a story around a guy who worked in a nursing home, where a woman mistook him for his son.” The lyric is all about a mother still able to be a mother even though her faculties are fading; it’s tearjerking, and very lovely, a slow cousin of Elvis Costello’s ‘Veronica’. Raymond has dropped out of Brett’s set, probably as a result of playing it for most of 2010 and 2011. Since then Brett has written with a chap called Bill Anderson, sort of the Smokey Robinson of country music who has had hits of his own and written many for others. His producer is Byron Gallimore, longtime sound shaper of Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sugarland and Lee Ann Womack, all massive artists with loads of hits. Brett is signed to Warner, one of the big major labels, which means he’s no slouch and also, thanks to promo budgets of the majors, able to do what Elvis Presley never did: play Britain in a brief stopover which took in Manchester, Dublin

and Glasgow too.

Brett toured with Thomas Rhett, an even more photogenic version of Brett, in 2015 on a co-headline tour of the US, and the pair duet on You Can’t Stop Me. Thomas is over in Britain next month performing at the Country2Country Festival, while in summer 2016 Brett is opening for the great Keith Urban. All three men can be termed acts with ‘crossover potential’. In a year when Justin Timberlake will make the biggest country album of them all, could Mr Nicole Kidman or Mr Rhett make waves in the post-Taylor Swift pop environment? Thomas Rhett has more or less poached Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud and turned it into Die a Happy Man, the biggest hit of his career by some distance; another chap, Luke Bryan, is perhaps too American for an international market, so I posit Brad Paisley, with his massive hat, as the main cheerleader for the genre in Europe. His recent hit Country Nation explains what ‘being country’ is: working hard, providing for the kids, but underneath the uniform there are ‘mountaineers, volunteers…Wildcats and Wolverines’. Also watch for other stars of ‘C2C 2016’, including Sam Hunt and Carrie Underwood, and the delicious Maddie & Tae. Brett seems like a pop songwriter ready to break out of country’s clothing, doing a ‘reverse Timberlake’. Indeed, the singer of the support act Pauperkings said he was a ‘soul singer’. He’s the least ‘country’ of all country radio’s new breed. Brett’s output has encompassed quickies and slowies, most of them about relationships and the human condition. None is about beer or drinking, and there is little by way of trucks or Friday nights. If anything Brett is a pop songwriter but, by virtue of being a country star, is working in that idiom. Beat of the Music comprises four-chord cycle setting a lyric about a girl in Mexico asking Brett to dance – “smiling that smile and reaching out your hand” – and Brett ‘falling in love to the beat of the music’. It is infectious, and opens Brett’s 2016 set. He sang Beat of the Music as one of many straight-to-camera ‘couch sessions’ in the months leading up to the release of his debut album, also uploaded to Youtube. The song was written with the great Ross Copperman, who also wrote nine tracks on Illinois including Fire, Drunk on your Love and Lose my Mind. Brett’s setlist is full of tracks from his two releases, 2013’s Bring You Back and 2015’s Illinois. The radio hits Lose My Mind (on which pop producer Dangermouse has a writing credit) and Drunk on your Love get an airing, as does Don’t Ya, which forms the encore along with Shadow, a bluesy track about the dangers of drink, with a thudding piano and a chorus that swoops up and into our hearts. Album cuts in the set included the opening tune Fire (‘You look good in the palm of my hands’, it smells like the next single to me), Time Well Spent, Tell Me Where To Park and I Wanna Be That Song. Halfway through the gig he sang his version of the tune Pony by Ginuwine, as used in the _Magic Mike_ movies, which leads to much whooping in London. His band introduction was set to Ray Charles’s I Got a Woman, but sung as Gold Digger. The man knows his pop. The set was 75 minutes long, and included One Mississippi, Brett’s most musical ballad, which rhymes ‘seconds’ and ‘wreckage’ and

is a fan favourite.

The best thing about the gig? A marriage proposal onstage just before Mean To Me. She said yes. Brett gave the couple roses and a hug. What

a lovely chap.

_Illinois is out now on Warner Music Nashville._ This entry was posted in Music and tagged brett eldredge

on February 14,

2016 by Jonathan Brick

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TWENTY’S PLENTY – FEBRUARY 2016, I

The middle of February is a time seized upon by card and chocolate companies to sell product. It’s the romantic version of Hallowe’en and, as a single man, it is nice not to be part of it. I don’t want your sympathy. All the better to listen to loads of tunes and pick the best twenty because Twenty’s Plenty. At the end of January Chase Bryant and Dustin Lynch were pipped by Maren Morris in a country-heavy Twenty. This time there are Broadway tunes, pop songs, lo-fi classics, a Rihanna reject, a Swedish pop classic masquerading as a country radio hit, at least one song that wowed the crowds of Superbowl Half-time Spectaculars. And, as is standard, Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King, which may have won a Grammy by the time you read this. (Grammy Awards are on the evening of

February 15.)

Honourable mentions to Field Music. Their UK top 40 album Commontime was on rotation this fortnight, as I spoke to the Peter half of the Brewis Brothers for PressPlayOK.com. Disappointed could have made the Twenty any other fortnight, as could the song Open Season by Josef Salvat, a song playlisted by BBC Radio 2. They may get spins in the next two weeks, so all is not lost! But the question, as Bill Hader once asked on a hilarious skit on Saturday Night Live, is this: Whooooooooo’s on top? Hear all the songs in a 20-to-1 playlist at the bottom of the piece. 20 Turin Brakes – Rome. I remember making Pain Killer my song of 2002. They are still going, with chugging pop-rock songs like this one, on their top 40 album Lost Property. Harmonies still there, syncopation still there, references to nice places in the world like Rome still there; a fixture of British pop whom we will mourn when they stop making records. They tour this year, in Rome in April and in London this month (sold out!). They return to London in December. 19 Elton John – Social Disease. The first appearance from Pinner-born Reginald Dwight is from his classic album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I had a load of CDs I was sorting through this fortnight during a week of admin back in Watford, and it seems apt that I stumbled upon this lost gem, from the fourth side (FOURTH!!) of the record, which will be played in full on February 17 as Daniel Buckley’s pick for the record club I run so I do not get lonely as a single man. This song is a Bernie Taupin lyric and a fun melody from Elton, who was 26 when he recorded this and on the cusp of superstardom. More of him later. 18 Guided by Voices – Echos Myron. A tough album, Bee Thousand was Emmett’s pick for the first of my fortnightly record club socials. It’s lo-fi and full of non-poppy songs but this one leapt out. The band are still going, but not in their ‘classic’ line-up. There is an annual fan festival in Brixton every April – I said I’d go, because I hope to sing along to this one. 17 Sia – Cheap Thrills. Meant for Rihanna, which is obvious with the ‘hit the dancefloor’ loop, this is a Sia track through and through. Great at writing disposable pop, Sia was interviewed in the Observer this fortnight by Kate Mossman. She comes across as someone doing a job in an industry where looks are the dominant mode of communication. The album entered at three, and was patchy to me, but this and former Twenty hit Alive both hit the spot. Someone pointed out that Sia outsold both Rihanna and Adele the week the album came

out. Good on her.

16 Rhiannon Giddens – Tomorrow is my Turn. She’ll feature later, but what a lovely song this is, the title track of Rhiannon’s album released a year ago this fortnight. Her version of the Charles Aznavour chanson keeps the Frenchness of the original and adds Rhiannon’s voice, which is fine here. She’s up for the Best Folk Album Grammy award, which has never been won by a solo femal. (Joy Williams was half of the Civil Wars when Barton Hollow won in 2012, the first year the folk categories were amalgamated.) 15 Maren Morris – My Church. Slipping from the top because I played 14 songs more often this fortnight, Maren is however climbing up the country airplay chart, where she may reach the top 20 next fortnight. Her voice and harmonies are lush, and I love the way she pulls up in the second verse. It may rise back up the Twenty, especially because she’s coming over ‘ere in March. 14 Elle King – Ex’s and Oh’s. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (no that isn’t mine). This is still hanging around, a former number one and a song I still love. In verse two after Elle says, ‘My my’, I like to sing ‘Mah wife!’ in the style of Borat, because I used to say that a lot in the flat when my former girlfriend was living here. I don’t want your sympathy. 13 Thomas Rhett – Crash and Burn. I don’t want your sympathy but I am newly single. ‘I let another lover crash and burn,’ wrote Chris Stapleton for this Thomas Rhett number one hit. Down from last Twenty’s top five, I’ve been spinning this and humming it an awful lot, including for about two hours on the day I came back to an empty flat. ‘It’s the sound of teardrops falling down’ is the lyric but, as you’ll learn, this one did not make me cry. 12 Luke Bryan and Karen Fairchild – Home Alone Tonight. Luke’s a good old-fashioned Jesus-lovin’ beer-drinkin’ spring-break-enjoyin’ star. He has now been nominated for a fourth consecutive time for Entertainer of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, a sort of award-related determinism because he has also hosted the ceremony for the last three and is hosting in the first weekend in April along with the mighty Dierks Bentley, who is due in the UK in spring. Luke headlined the Country2Country festival in the UK last year, before he put out his 2015 monster smash album Kill the Lights, off of which comes this latest single, the most-played song on country radio this fortnight. When sales and streams are considered the song is only beaten by fellow handsome blokes Thomas Rhett and Sam Hunt, who are both in London (ladies…) next month for C2C. 11 The Mountain Goats – The Young Thousands. Of the 24 songs mentioned in our discussion, up at mixcloud.com/blastocast now, no song is better than this one. I was blown away by Chris’s selection of his favourite Mountain Goats tunes, and I have loads of respect for their songwriter John Darnielle. This sounds to me like a Smells Like Teen Spirit for the post-Cobain kids, and I love the way it feels familiar yet novel. Awesome, and a late addition to the Twenty that edged out Gilbert O’Sullivan’s new single No Way. 10 Chris Lane – Fix. This is a Swedish pop song but it’s filed under ‘country’. This is like giving the Trojans a wooden horse when the Greeks are inside, ready to kill them. This song could change country music, because it’s a pop song with the words ‘hey girl’ in it, it references a ‘Walter White high’ and has the most amazing chorus. Climbing up the country airplay charts, expect this to ‘cross over’ soon. In a just world. 9 Alex Newell – This Ain’t Over. I grew up with house music, even though I was still in short trousers. Tracks like U Got 2 Let the Music by Capella, C&C Music Factory’s Things that Makes You Go Hmmm and I Love You Baby by Original were never off my tape player, and Alex Newell’s new song brings that spirit back. Alex won the contest to be in the show Glee, and sang with Clean Bandit on their tune Stronger. 2016 is his breakout year, and Jessica ‘This Must Be Pop’ Pinkett led me to this song, which is a hit in the gay clubs for a good reason. The house tune of the summer? I bet big money it

is!

8 Old Dominion – Break Up With Him. ‘Hey girl, what’s up?’ Oh no it’s another bromantic song from US country music. Except it isn’t! A country airplay number one, this is a clever song about a man calling up a girl telling him to dump a man because ‘stringing him along any longer is just wasting precious time’. Nice internal rhyme, chaps, and a nice three-chord loop (the same as Waiting on the World to Change by John Mayer and, interestingly, the same loop but one semitone down from former Twenty hit ‘Gonna’ by Blake Shelton). The band are nominated in the Academy of Country Music Awards in the Vocal Group categories. Past Twenty entrants also nominated for the ACMs include Maddie & Tae, Thomas Rhett, Chris Young

and Luke Bryan.

7 Brett Eldredge – Don’t Ya. Hugely excited to see Brett in London on February 14, he’s a swarthy songwriter with a great voice. Why did I wait so long to hear this hit from his debut album?! It’s ace, has a superb chorus and is a co-write with Shane McAnally. Powerless to resist, this is the complete package. Long live Brett. 6 Bent Shapes – Realization Hits. As featured in the Opportunity Inbox discussion of seven new tracks at mixcloud.com/blastocast, this would in any other fortnight be a chart-topper but for the five ahead of it. Great chords, great harmonies and a great sound from a band from Boston whose songwriter suffers from anxiety issues. I’ve heard the album it comes from, told the band they are great and said I would see them when they come to the UK. 5 Bruno Mars – Runaway Baby. I remember being absolutely blown away by Bruno Mars’s 2013 Superbowl Show, featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing Give It Away. Bruno is the pre-eminent pop artist of this generation who isn’t called Justin, with two huge albums, a great stage show and a likeable persona. For a bloke named Peter Hernandez he’s done very well for himself. This is still my favourite of his songs, for which he adds a dance routine live. It pulsates, pushes forwards and is over too soon on record. Even better than Grenade, it was the highlight of my half-time show watching on Superbowl Sunday, when I spent a few hours going back over past performances in anticipation of what I didn’t realise would be the most important moment of Beyonce’s life. Could Beyonce be black America’s Trojan Horse? 4 The 1975 – The Sound. Matt Healy’s mum is Denise Welch, the famous British soap actress. Matt is the face of British pop, with straggly hair and lithe limbs. As showcased on Saturday Night Live, this song is the pop song of the month, nay the summer (and it’s Februry). Great stabs of synth, a nagging riff in the chorus and even (quelle horreur!) a guitar solo in the middle, I love the theme of this song. ‘I know the sound of your heart!’ 3 Elton John – Looking Up. I first heard this one in November when Elton announced the release of Wonderful Crazy Night, his first album since the mellow The Diving Board in 2013. Coldplay sold more copies condemning Elton to sixth place. Now a father-of-two, Elton is content to be the queen of British Pop, spending time on the phone with Vladimir ‘That is NOT the truth’ Putin and residing in Vegas as he entertains tourists and daytrippers. This song fits nicely into his set, and is one of his poppier tunes, certainly his poppiest since I’m Still Standing. I love the diminished chords in the verse, the way the tambourine chimes at the end of the song and the way he sings ‘my feet don’t touch the ground!’ He’s a national treasure, and it is a joy to support the same football club as him! 2 Phillipa Soo as Eliza Schuyler – Helpless. The trouble with putting songs on loop on a personal mp3 player is that they get lodged in your head. This one soundtracked a long journey up to Leicester this fortnight, and I finally fell in love with Lin Miranda’s tune. This is the ‘meet-cute’ in song: Hamilton and the other young ‘rebels’ go to a party, while the Schuyler sisters Angelica, Eliza “and Peggy!” gaze on. Angelica pushes Eliza forward and Eliza is besotted: ‘I look into your eyes and the sky’s the limit.’ That’s love. The chorus is so brilliant, with a magnificent passing chord. ‘If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it would have been worth it,’ says Lin’s Hamilton on first meeting Eliza. Three weeks later, Eliza takes him to meet her father: ‘I panic for a second thinking we’re through…And you turn back to me smiling!’ Then the music rises, Hamilton gets a few lines to boast of his prowess, hit the most amazing grace note in the final bar and then the chorus comes with ‘Here Comes the Bride’ interpolated. Rosie O’Donnell went on James Corden’s chat show to warn James, host of the 2016 Tony Awards for Broadway shows, to practice saying: ‘And the Tony Award goes to…Hamilton.’ She has seen the show 14 times, and can rap the opening number convincingly. Lin Miranda must get tired of being called a genius, but he sweated out the best show in

town. However…

1 Rhiannon Giddens – She’s Not You. ..not my Song of the Fortnight! I split up with my girlfriend of two years last month. I don’t want your sympathy. This is the song, written by Hank Cochran and originally sung by Patsy Cline, that made me cry, on the afternoon I came back to an empty flat and a farewell note. ‘The only thing different, the only thing new/ I got your picture. She’s got you.’ It’s a cover of a song made famous by Loretta Lynn (who has a new record out soon at the age of 83). This version is sung expertly by ‘how is she not a star!?’ Rhiannon. A country standard for the ages, I must go and see Rhiannon live, having missed her recent UK visit with the Transatlantic Sessions. She performed it at the Ryman Auditorium last year, with a tenor guitar and cello behind her rather than the horns in the recorded version. I love how she delivers the song, and how the arrangement puts her vocal first. It is superb, and a worthy number one in the Twenty in spite of the poppier songs that challenged it. Hank knew it was a number one, he said, the moment he wrote it and showed it to Patsy. The second I broke down to this, I knew this would be the song that soundtracked the loss of a former friend. I don’t want your sympathy, just a tissue or two. This entry was posted in Music and tagged country music

, elle king

, lin miranda

, mountain goats

, rhiannon giddens

, sia

, turin brakes

on February 14, 2016

by Admin

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TWENTY’S PLENTY – JANUARY 2016, III

The fourth of these Twenties, who will come out on the top of the popular tunes I’ve been listening to in the last fortnight? Last time, in the middle of January 2016, it was Sara Bareilles with a tune from the forthcoming Broadway musical The Waitress. Will ‘Opening Up’ still be hanging around? Find all the songs in an embedded playlist at the bottom of the page! 20 Backstreet Boys – Show me the Meaning of Being Lonely. John Seabrook’s The Song Machine is one of the best books I’ve read. It’s a clever examination of pop music from a journalist’s perspective. John points out the great men (sorry, it IS usually men) behind the great pop songs of my lifetime. Dan Wilson of Semisonic (and co-writer of ‘Someone Like You’) wrote a sizeable essay for the site The Talkhouse despairing the paucity of awesome tunes mentioned in the book, but I think this is pretty good, with nice flamenco guitar touches. 19 Stephen Bishop – It Might Be You. Jimmy Fallon’s power has diminished over the last few months for me, but he can still do genius things on the Tonight Show. With Stephen playing the theme from the movie Tootsie, behind him members of The Roots, Fallon himself and assorted stagehands performed a ‘School Play’ version, with unicorns, suns and skipping. I’d never heard the song, which is ruined by the production of the time, but the performance is worth a

look.

18 Elle King – Under the Influence. She’s a Top 20 recording artist. Go Elle Go! Brilliant on Graham Norton’s show, where she played former Twenty number one ‘Exes and Ohs’, she came across as a superstar in the making. Her album doesn’t have many classic songs, but this, last fortnight’s number three, is still hanging around my most-played. ‘It might be criminal but I just can’t quit’ is a good line. A Grammy-winning artist next month? Could be. 17 Milos – Eleanor Rigby. I often planned to arrange the strings my own way but the arrangement here is great. In the first verse it underscores the guitar, played by a classically-trained guitarist whose move into pop music comes fifty years after this song was released to the world. Milos then trades the melody with the strings in the second verse, and it’s a lovely question-and-answer piece, a masterful display of orchestration which embellishes the original melody. McCartney’s finest? One of many! 16 Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine as Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide – Sue Me. As a birthday treat I went with Mum to the Savoy Theatre in London to see Guys & Dolls, a hit in rep and now a hit on the Strand. I knew this song, which was written before the rock’n’roll era established the shape of a pop hit (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-break-verse-chorus), and the new version is faithful to the original tune, with the rushed vocal of Adelaide contrasting poor Nathan’s “Sue me/ What can you do me” and even better “I’m a no-good-nik”. Its unconventionality marks it out from other musical standards, and is a perfect characterisation of the two of them. Sinatra sounds pretty good here. 15 Marlon Brando – Luck be a Lady. Brando snarls his way through the role of Sky Masterson (Sky’s not his real first name). The voices surround him at the end, and it feels like a musical representation of the scene, where Sky has to roll a score to get all the gangsters to the prayer meeting where his beloved is. It was the best number in the show I saw. Elvis Presley would have made a brilliant Sky, and would have delivered a better vocal. This recalls _West Side Story_ with its horn stabs, and the melody is quirky and stands up 60 years after it was written. They still sing it in Vegas at the crap tables. 14 Kyu Sakamoto – Sukiyaki. An American number one in the 1960s, this track floats away, but the strings keep it grounded. It sounds like a kid is looking up at a balloon against the sky. Check the xylophones too! Can Japanese and Korean pop make more of an impression in the West than solely to expatriates and fans of PSY? I hope so. John Seabrook devotes an entire chapter of _The Song Machine_ to the Asian pop industry, its production-line bands and the fact that acts cannot have boyfriends while in the band. Brutal. 13 Chris Lane – Fix. A new hit for country radio, this tune has a killer pop chorus that would actually be at home in Eurovision sung by a hot Swedish model. This tune can be a European hit, something Nashville must secretly want to happen in the next few years. Amazing production, too; perhaps Max Martin is a secret force here. 12 Stubby Kaye as Nicely Nicely – Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat. Done brilliantly in the West End production, this foot-stomper takes place in the meeting house of the missionaries in New York at midnight. All the gangsters have lost a dice game that meant they had to attend, and this song is the climax of a very funny scene. I know the song, but its brilliance can only be appreciated with choreography

and staging.

11 Sara Bareilles – Opening Up. Down from last fortnight’s number one, but still making an impression on my ears a month since I heard it. Everything in a musical number is here, and it’s a great opening

number.

10 Blake Shelton – Gonna. Blake’s back! Still ‘gonna take you for a ride, gonna getcha over there on the passenger side’. It’s ‘melodic math’, a term coined by Max Martin to describe how lyrics take second place to melody. Blake comes across as oleaginous, but maybe that is his persona; Brad Paisley seems more like someone I’d want to hang out with. 9 Jellyfish – Too Much, Too Little, Too Late. Still hanging around, down four places from number 5. Great to play on guitar, and there are so many words not usually used in pop: ‘greasepaint’, ‘collection plate’, ‘musketeers’, ‘grind’ used in the context of ‘axe to’, and the phrase ‘spare me the punchline’. Apparently the album this was from, _Spilt Milk_, had a troubled recording process, and ended up costing a lot more than planned; it’s worth it when tracks like this glimmer. The band split in 1994, and have never reformed. 8 Brett Eldredge – Drunk on your Love. Ol’ Brett re-enters in the 20 with this track, number 11 in the second Twenty a month ago. He performs a slower version live, but I prefer this quicker tempo, which finishes all too soon; he’s in town on February 14, playing Camden Town’s KOKO venue. I hope people go; I would sing along to this and the brilliant ‘Lose My Mind’. Harmonies still shimmer here. 7 Robyn – Show Me Love. John Seabrook’s book reminded me of Robyn, the pre-Britney Swedish popstar who had a comeback in her twenties with ‘With Every Heartbeat’. This was produced by the late DennizPop, a national hero in Sweden who took Max Martin under his wing (Martin also had a hand in ‘Show Me Love’); it’s got a great backbeat and a syrup-sweet chorus. I love the harmonic variation throughout, and that makes me replay it again and again. Check out the layering of vocals, laying the blueprint for commercial ‘contemporary hits radio’ all the way back in 1997. 6 Steve Earle – Telephone Road. I was going through some old, unlabelled CDs and leapt on this track. What a vocal, what a sound. Of course it was Steve, the closest thing alternative music has to a patron saint. In the first 20 seconds it’s got organ, chugging bass guitar and a killer first line (‘My brother Jim and my other brother Jackie/ Went off down to Houston and they’re never coming back’). Research reveals the titular road is a key street in east Houston with a reputation for having people who walk on the wild side. Harmonies on the track are by the Fairfield Four, a century-old a cappella/ gospel group from Nashville, who last year put out their first album in over

a decade.

5 Milos – Blackbird. A Serbian who threw himself into classical guitar to ameliorate a life in a war zone, Milos plays the song the way it should be played. Written in India by Paul McCartney, inspired by his new mate Donovan’s finger-picking style, this is a great song for beginners to learn. Milos plays lead and rhythm on the same instrument, with some neat improvisational skills (the first time he’s used them in a career which has been rigidly note for note as it appears on the score). The whole album is fun, and it includes Tori Amos and Gregory Porter for good measure. 4 Thomas Rhett – Crash and Burn. My earworm of the fortnight, with personal pertinency. Thomas is currently doing well with his ‘Ed Sheeran goes Country’ hit song ‘Die a Happy Man’ but this one was his 2015 big smash about crashing and burning. Co-written by the mighty Chris Stapleton (soon to be Grammy-winning Chris Stapleton? Kendrick will win Album of the Year in any genre, but Chris is sewn up for Country Album). This song, either the live Opry version or the studio recording, has been on a loop in the last week for various reasons. All the same, ain’t like I’m the only one that’s in the

shoes that I am!

3 Chase Bryant – A Little Bit of You. Another country music contemporary favourite, Chase is a left-handed guitarist and cherub whose grandpa backed Roy Orbison. The vocal here is powerful, even though I disliked the production aspect of the song the first few times I heard it on the Country Top 40. This proves that enough airplay will make you appreciate a pop song, even if it takes weeks! I love when the guitar drops out for a beat and a half in the final chorus, and I love his vim in the live version at the Ryman

Auditorium.

2 Dustin Lynch – Hell of a Night. I actually had to stop listening to Dustin’s good 2014 album which had this as its opening track. All the songs seemed to sound the same, so rigid is Dustin’s sound, which is good commercial country music that works over 3 minutes but not over 33. The live performance of this song on the Grand Old Opry stage shows off how good a frontman he is, and I like the line ‘on the edge of wild and reckless’. This trope is much explored in commercial pop-country, but DL sells it well. His second time in the Twenty, after ‘Mind Reader’ featured in the first Twenty in

December.

1 Maren Morris – My Church. Hallelujah! Amen! When a pop song comes along that tackles familiar themes in a new way, it’s worth applauding. This song takes the idea that country music is the protagonist’s church, drops in references to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash and layers lush harmonies over countrified instrumentation. An early contender for the Country Music Association Song of the Year, and it’s only just gone to country radio! This entry was posted in Music and tagged beatles , dustin lunch , maren morris

, milos

, thomas rhett

on January 31, 2016

by Admin

.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN EMBARKS ON ‘THE RIVER’ TOUR THIS WINTER

1 Reply

Bruce Springsteen is one of the only singer-songwriter-bandleaders in

rock.

If you want to see a rock show, Bruce is your man. Regularly playing for three hours, taking requests from fans who hold up cardboard placards during the show, and running on ‘Boss Time’, Bruce has been inspiring young musicians in small towns all over the world since _Born to Run_ broke him in 1975. Influenced by Sam Moore, Gary Bonds and James Brown, he gathered a disparate group of players for his E Street Band, which toured with him between 1974 and 1985, and then again between 2002 and the present day. Two of these men have passed away in the last decade: Clarence ‘Big Man’ Clemons, the saxophonist, and Danny Federici, the

organist.

Still touring from those of the original iteration are Garry Tallent (bass), Max Weinberg (on drums, who also played drums on Conan O’Brian’s TV show) Roy Bittan (keys and accordion) and ‘Little Stevie’ van Zandt (guitar and vocals). The brilliant guitarist Nils Lofgren and Bruce’s wife Patti Scialfa joined for the Born in the USA tour, and this lot had another Clemons, Jake, for the recent few tours since Clarence’s death. In the hour-long documentary to promote the four-disc edition of _The River_, Bruce’s 1980 double-album, Bruce speaks engagingly about his process. He really wanted to make an album that his fans wanted to hear, enlisting van Zandt to produce alongside Jon Landau, and going against the type of production styles of the time. 36 years on, it

sounds brilliant.

There were plenty of out-takes for _The River_, originally a single LP but released as a double with 20 tracks. In fact, the new box-set’s third disc is a single-disc version of the album. It includes ‘Cindy’, ‘Be True’ and ‘Loose End’, which all fall off the double-album in favour of denser songs like ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Jackson Cage’. Present and correct on the single disc are ‘Hungry Heart’, ‘The River’ and the sublime ‘You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)’. _The River _will be played in full in 2016 around the US, with two dates at MSG in January, and hopefully abroad. In 1981 Bruce made it to London for six dates at the Wembley Arena, then the biggest indoor venue in Britain. He had famously been shocked at the posters proclaiming him as a messiah when he came over for 1975’s Born to Run tour, which rather ruined his debut show at the Hammersmith Odeon, which has since been released on CD. In 2010 Bruce fans could enjoy _The Promise_, a double-CD of outtakes of songs that didn’t make it onto 1978’s troubled _Darkness on the Edge of Town_, Bruce’s fourth album and first since his elevation to rock deity. Lawsuits, writer’s block and trouble getting the right drum sound all contributed to a tough process. The album wasn’t toured abroad, but Bruce spent 1978 on the North American road with his band, with three dates at Madison Square Garden in New York. Bruce was approaching 30 when he worked on _The River_, and was trying to write a record appropriate to his age. Grown-up ballads like ‘Point Blank’ and ‘Wreck on the Highway’ rub shoulders with rowdy bar-room pleasers like ‘Two Hearts’, ‘Cadillac Ranch’ and ‘Crush On You’. Spread out over four sides of vinyl, it was definitely value for money, and showcased every side of Bruce, from meditative crooner to funky stomper. _The River_ also saw him embody characters, such as the worker of the title song and the swaggering kid of ‘Out on the Street’. There was even, in ‘Hungry Heart’, a hit song, written ‘in the time it takes to sing it’ after meeting The Ramones and thinking it’d be good to write a song for them. Unlike some songs from the _Darkness _sessions which he did give away (‘Because the Night’ to Patti Smith, ‘Fire’ to The Pointer Sisters), he kept ‘Hungry Heart’. At gigs ever since, the crowd have always sung the first verse before Bruce does it himself. Stats from Setlist.fm show that of _The River_’s twenty tunes, ‘Hungry Heart’ is the most performed, just ahead of ‘Out in the Street’ and ‘The River’. The big two are ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Badlands’. The sound of Bruce and the E Street Band is expansive and varied. I love the big drums of _The Rising_, the acoustic chugging of _Nebraska _and the declarative musical statements of _Wrecking Ball_, but _The River _seems less like the grab for hit singles that _Born in the USA _was, and also less like the outlaw blues-rock of both _Born to Run _and _Darkness_. (There was a period when Bruce went synth-mad between 1987 and 2000, with albums like _Tunnel of Love_, but reunited with the E Street Band for tracks for a mid-1990s Greatest Hits album.) Now aged 66, there is no real need for Bruce to go out on these tours; he’s been doing it since he was 24 and may be 124 when he stops. Fit, healthy, with kids he loves and a formidable set of earnings from his catalogue, he can afford to take retirement. But he won’t! This entry was posted in OpEd and tagged bruce springsteen

, featured2

, the river

on January 17, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

TWENTY’S PLENTY – JANUARY 2016, II

It’s mid-January, the Mondays are biting but music continues. Coming to mixcloud.com/blastocast this month is the Opportunity Inbox Sound of 2016, an introduction to who the big record companies will be funnelling money to, and which acts Chris Imlach and I want to see or

hear.

In the meantime, here is the third Twenty. Last fortnight Elvis Presley (who would have been 81 this month if he hadn’t snuffed it) topped the Twenty with ‘Burning Love’, assisted by a massive orchestra. Will Elvis be present in this Twenty, or will someone steal

his crown?

Find the link to a Spotify playlist of the Twenty at the bottom of

this page.

Lots of new entries, so let’s go go GO!! 20 Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz – Bad Idea. The first of three from Sara, this one with her male equivalent, in a duet written for a Broadway show. I like the back-and-forth, what writers call ‘stichomythia’, and I like when the voices meet. As in all her songs, the chords are interesting and the lyrics fun, with lots of dramatic tension to resolve. One of the show’s more memorable songs, they’ll be humming it in the aisles. ‘It’s a really good bad idea, wasn’t it though?’ is a cute line. 19 Rhiannon Giddens – Moonshiner’s Daughter. What a voice. She’ll be a durable artist as long as she wants to be. The singer of Carolina Chocolate Drops went solo in 2014, and followed up a strong album _Tomorrow is my Turn _with an EP. This song, from that EP, has a very contemporary groove, and a super vocal. Rhiannon performed her song ‘Up Above my Head’ as part of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. Pure and full of character, Rhiannon’s voice leaps out here. Also recommended is her vocal expertise on ‘Mouth Music’, which is like watching a violinist improvise. 18 Virgo – In a Vision. Guardian pop critic Alexis Petridis wrote a piece about a deep house duo from 1990. I am a big fan of house music, so it was great to hear eight songs I had never heard before, each as good as the other. In a Vision leapt out, but next fortnight it could be another. Perfect music to work to, and sounds outstanding even in

this Protools era.

17 Cage the Elephant – Mess Around. The mark of a good producer is that you know they’ve had a hand in the track just by listening to it. Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys has shaped the new album of his Kentucky frie(n)ds, the lead single from which is this, an addictive ditty that sounds like a Black Keys offcut. 16 Billie Marten – As Long As. Funny she’s at 16. As Louis Walsh would say on The X Factor before he was retired, ‘You’re 16!!!’ Laura Marling was also a teenage starlet (in 2007, which means she’s still mid-twenties!) but Billie started even earlier. I’m watching a clip of her performing an internet session in 2002, as a twelve-year-old with long hair and a purple guitar. Finally, with GCSEs out of the way, she’s ready to put a full-length album out. She’s just been one of eight acts to play a BBC showcase, having been longlisted for the Sound Of 2016 poll. Her USP is her love of alpacas, but her voice is pretty enough on its own. Every time you read about her you’ll find out Ed Sheeran liked her song ‘Bird’, but I prefer the title track of her 2015 EP, which has some yummy

suspended chords.

15 Foxes – Amazing. In 2011 I went to Camden Town to see a set of bands perform ‘Breakout’ sessions. One of these performers was a girl with an acoustic guitar and a sweet voice named Louisa Rose Allen. A few months later she had become Foxes, and was a year away from becoming a staple of radio playlists by guesting on the track ‘Clarity’. In 2014 she was the musical performer at a TV recording I attended, promoting her first album. Her second one, _All I Need_, is now due for release, and the lead single is ‘Amazing’. If not amazing, it’s a smart dance-pop song with addictive musical E numbers. One of the album’s tracks, ‘Scar’, is a Babyface production, but will that make it to the Twenty? 14 Bloc Party – The Good News. It’s not just choppy guitars any more. Kele has matured in his songwriting, done a ‘Robert Smith from the Cure’ and recruited new band members. This song is very good, with a winning chorus and a lyric about ‘going to the water to pray’. Then comes some slide guitar and a chantalong of the title; sounds like a hit, or an A-listed track on BBC 6Music. 13 Ra Ra Riot – Absolutely. Selected by Chris Imlach for the Sound of 2016 podcast, this is a super tune with multi-tracked vocals, a fun riff and the recurrence of the title throughout the chorus. It’s a banger. Vampire Weekend fans will be sated, as will fans of Mika (whose Radio 2 show over New Year was terrific and is still

iPlayerable).

12 Sara Bareilles – Never Ever Getting Rid of Me. She may pop up later, so I’ll save the precis of _The Waitress _for then. In brief, this is a song that bops and shimmies and will please fans of musical theatre. Some of the chords are Cole Porter-inspired, while I can imagine the lead witch in _Wicked _singing this in her warm-ups. The second verse is all about a cat, while the chorus is about ‘doing this right…wherever you go I won’t be far to follow’. Only after a few listens did I notice that the verse is in the key of G, while the chorus is in F, a real Porter-type chord shift that merits my

applause!

11 Frankie Ballard – Young and Crazy. ‘How’m’I ever gonna get to be old and wise if I ain’t ever young and crazy?!’ Good point well made. Another one of these young men doing good things with country music, this song chugs along like a country-rock song from 1973. One of the bit 50 hits counted down in the Country Top40 Hits of the Year, this is a ‘weekend’ song dedicated to having fun. ‘I gotta do a little wrong to know what’s right’. Also includes enjambment, a run-on line, so he can rhyme ‘porch’ with ‘glory

days’.

10 David Bowie – Lazarus. Bizarre, waking up at 6 and then following breaking cultural news even before it was confirmed. I listened to Bowie’s final album _Blackstar _on Monday morning, as millions of others did, and found it tough in places. I liked ‘Dollar Days’ but was locked into the groove of a track from the new Broadway musical. This is the track which had clues in its first verse that Bowie was not long for the world. Read my piece on Bowie, written as I was listening to BBC 6music prove it should never have been earmarked for closure, on the site. 9 Cam – Hungover on Heartache. She started the year playing the Ryman Auditorium in her home town of Nashville, after the massive success of album _Untamed_. ‘Burning House’ has been the hit, but the album’s full of potential ones. This one has the pop sheen of Taylor Swift’s country songs. I’m a sucker for syncopation and good melodies; this tune has both. Make it a hit!! 8 Chairlift – Romeo. From a new album released in January, Chairlift are one of those ‘Pitchfork bands’, appealing to hip music fans who like beats and rhymes. This song sounds very contemporary, with a chorus that goes ‘Put on your running shoes, I’m ready to go’, but has some fun chords to match a really driving riff played through an effects box. Chris Imlach chose this for the Sound of 2016 podcast, so if you like this, you’ll like the hour. 7 Julius La Rosa – Eh Cumpari. ‘Oh this is just ‘I am the music man!’ I shouted when Paul Gambaccini played this song as part of ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ during his successful Radio 2 show _America’s Greatest Hits_. Julius, who just turned 86, was born in Brooklyn and was infamously sacked live on air from his job as a singer on the popular Arthur Godrey show; Gambo pointed us towards the Youtube clip of it, where Julius talks of his tyrannical and jealous boss, defying him by getting himself an agent. This song, a US ‘terrific two’, is familiar to those who loved the movie _The Talented Mr Ripley_. It’s a ‘smile to the face’ song in Italian whose lyrics are easy to work out: the guy says to the _cumpari_ ‘What’s that sound over there?’ The guy replies ‘It’s the flute/ saxophone/ mandolin/ violin/ trumpet/ trombone’. The inquisitor-narrator says ‘And what’s it sound like then?’ To which Julius makes a noise with his mouth, be it whistling, ‘chinga’, ‘doo-doo’, ‘bah-bah’, adding a new instrument each time, before finishing with ‘dippity dippity dot’. It’s life-affirming, and more fun than Benjamin Britten as a guide to the orchestra for young people. Arthur Godfrey is dead; Julius La Rose is

alive!!

6 Vant – Parking Lot. Guitars are dead etc, but some kids still know how to rock. Vant have built a big following through lots of live gigs in 2015, and 2016 sees them play a sold out London show under the NME tour banner. This song gets going instantly, with some talk of vampires, and reminds me of Foo Fighters and Air Traffic, the latter of whose ‘Just Abuse Me’ combines melody and power like the best work of The Hives. ‘Wait a minute cos your heart’s not in it’ is the hook, with a close harmonic interval. Fans of bands like Sloan and The Cars will find stuff to love here, the best of the four tracks put

out so far.

5 Jellyfish – Too Much, Too Little Too Late. Last year I wrote a long piece on Acolytes of McCartney, singers who write melodic rock songs in the manner of Macca. One of these men is Andy Sturmer, who was a quarter of the band Jellyfish. In summer 2015 their two records, _Bellybutton _and _Spilt Milk_, were reissued on CD, and I spent happy hours embracing the powerful pop and marvellous arrangements. This song, from _Spilt Milk_, is structured sublimely, with soft bits, Beach Boys-y harmonies and a guitar-led instrumental break. Hopelessly uncommercial in 1993, this is music made to last, and sounds so fantastic through my new earphones. This fortnight it was revealed that an ‘official unofficial’ book on the band was finally due in spring. There’s a Facebook group for it. 4 The Chiffons – One Fine Day. Well specifically Janelle Monae’s take on it, performed at the Kennedy Centre to honour Carole King. Much was made of Aretha Franklin’s appearance at the end, but Janelle’s personality can sell the dullest tune. Fortunately ‘One Fine Day’ isn’t dull, but a burst of hope and reverie that speaks across the decades. Carole wrote it as a young lady, and it is so brilliantly structured in that old New York style beloved of Mann & Weill, Neil Sedaka and Gerry Goffin. It’s stunning just how many tunes King has written, from bubblegum to torchsong, and even though she has hardly written a note in forty years, she never needed to. _Tapestry _remains a touchstone for young (especially female) songwriters, but her uptempo tunes, many showcased in the Broadway and West End musical _Beautiful_, are the sound of Young America. 3 Elle King – Under the Influence. She played ‘Ex’s and Oh’s’ at a New Year televised hootenanny in the States, where she’s preparing for her big tour over there. But fortunately RCA has made her album available on European streaming services so it was high time to investigate. This tune is what Lana Del Ray sounds like with a bit of gristle. ‘I got no defence,’ sings Elle on a track written with the same bloke who wrote ‘Ex’s’. I wrote at length about Elle for the site; take a looksee as you listen. 2 Cam – Half Broke Car. Like ‘Hungover on Heartache’ this is clever country from Cam, with lyrics that follow the Kacey Musgraves school of smart & cute: ‘A half-truth’s still a lie/ “I’ll be back soon” is still goodbye’ made me sit up and notice, but the musicality of the song, which bounces along after a delightful piano intro, keeps me coming back. 1 Sara Bareilles – Opening Up. What a confection! _The Waitress_ is a Broadway show based on a movie I never saw, but seems topical because baking is recession-proof! Sara, whose ‘Love Song’ is one of my top pop songs of the century, has composed a set of songs which she put out last year to whet people’s whistles for the show, which starts previews in spring this year. I am a sucker for one particular chord progression – I to diminished V – and it’s present and very correct in the chorus to this song, the first song proper in the musical. “Opening up, letting the day in” is a marvellous lyric, and I am sure Sara has studied the work of the best contemporary writers for Broadway. This tops the Twenty, and is good enough to top

the next!

This entry was posted in Music and tagged cam , elle king

, sara bareilles

on January 17, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

THE FA CUP: ROMANCE IS ALIVE AND WELL (WATFORD 1 NEWCASTLE 0)

What a stodgy game.

I suppose it’s supposed to be. It’s the second weekend of January; those under the elements are shivering and drenched because it’s winter rain. Some fans shiver while branded, having spent money on Watford-monogrammed windbreakers. I spent forty minutes hopping seats, after ensuring I bought one ninety minutes before the game. Fans queue up as I go in, because away fans have been given the entire stand, rather than just a third of it. 18,000 people on a Saturday, at 3pm, on FA Cup Third Round weekend. One of the questions I wanted to investigate was whether or not the FA Cup was the last breath of romance in what I call Generation Live on Sky Sports. Proudly terrestrial broadcasting still holds the rights to the Cup, now sponsored by a well-known airline that services the Middle East. After a few years with ITV, now the BBC hosts rich coverage of the tournament, with BT Sport also covering games to cater to their subscribers to counterbalance their oodles of Champions League and UEFA Cup games and all the highlights and top games from Germany, Scotland, Italy, France, Portugal, Australia and Brazil. And the Conference, now called the National League. Eastleigh, the giants of non-league football, almost beat Bolton, the financial strugglers of the second tier. On the radio on Friday night, and on television if you fancied it, Liverpool’s well-remunerated 30s and 40s (speaking in squad numbers) could not defeat the mighty Exeter City. The goal of the round was the third of the round, Lee Holmes scoring from a corner and providing a meme for fans of Everton

and beyond.

The big teams in blue and red went through, Manchester United with a last-minute penalty after a front four of Ander Herrera, Juan Mata, Anthony Martian and Wayne Rooney could not pass Sheffield United’s stern defence. Easy wins came for Chelsea, Manchester City, Everton, Arsenal and Watford. Crystal Palace beat Southampton, and Swansea’s reserves amazingly lost at the Kassam Stadium to Oxford United. Does it matter that Newcastle fans chanted that some players were ‘not fit to wear the shirt’? I think it mattered that Mitrovic looked like a Serbian version of Nicolas Anelka, diving and sulking and missing and moaning, and that the wingers Thauvin and Ayoze looked

very bullyable.

For Watford fans we got to see Obbi Oulare, a gangly nineteen-year-old, and young Steven Berghuis, both ‘the future’ of Watford according to manager Quique Sanchez Flores. Newcastle played their best XI, and Watford were lucky that Jack Colback was injured, despite great efforts from FA Cup winner Ben Watson and reserve midfielder Adi Guediora. The game was chess. Newcastle tried to work the ball to the wing-backs while Watford’s midfield covered and broke with pace: Jose Manuel Jurado and Berghuis ran back, while Troy Deeney and Oulare stayed forward. Often Deeney pointed to where he wanted the ball but I could remember no attack of note in the first 43 minutes from the home side, who defended expertly. As ever, Heurelho Gomes palmed and swatted everything away, two decent shots right at his throat. Then a blessing: bad defending. Georginio Wijnaldum prodded it back thirty yards from goal, Coloccini left it, and Deeney did what he’s paid to do, with extra coolness, and right before half-time Watford had a lead they barely deserved. The second half was pretty much all Newcastle, who usually don’t care about the FA Cup, but their season needed a boost. Their manager, a brolly-less Steve McClaren, had criticised the mood of the club in the months since he took over as manager; it may have been that he was auditioning his team for the league game in two weeks’ time. Moussa Sissoko looked pacey and excellent; Ayoze Perez has scored some goals this season and missed a big chance in the first half that sometimes would have gone in; Mitrovic did well to last ninety minutes, at one stage being talked to with Wijnaldum present for half a minute. The rain continued, as did Newcastle’s attacks, and embarrassingly they were caught offside on more than one occasion. Their fans, straining to see the other end of the pitch, were already thinking of the schlep

back up to Toon.

They deserve better, but at least the owner is spending some of the money they get for treading water in the top division: £50m has bought Wijnaldum, Mitrovic and Jaanmat. Siem de Jong, injured for most of his Newcastle career, came on too late to make a difference. Kevin Mbabu, in for Colback, was fine at left wing-back, but he’s only 20 and was making his fifth appearance. Since the poor treatment of Jonas Gutierrez, told his contract wasn’t being renewed by Ryan Taylor, his teammate, I have thought less of Newcastle. They exist, some critics have said, as a shopfront for Mike Ashley’s company Sports Direct; the stadium was, of course, briefly renamed the Sports Direct Arena around the time Newcastle were

doing very well.

Remember that? It was only a few seasons ago. Papiss Cisse or Demba Ba kept scoring, fed great through balls by Cabaye. Tiote (who played against Watford) and Coloccini broke up the play, while Tim Krul was dominant in the penalty area. Half of Newcastle’s problems stem from the season-ending injury to Krul; Rob Elliot has been an able deputy, and he may have to make more saves in the league game (23 January) with Ighalo sure to return to the starting XI. What Newcastle need is a new Geordie hero, not quite a Messiah but someone who can galvanise them. On the bench against Watford was Jamie Sterry, a Geordie-born centre-back who tweeted “I will persist until I succeed”; yet to start, he may well play before the season finishes. Other young players are there and thereabouts: Adam Armstrong, who made his first-team debut at 17, is a local lad out on loan, going great guns at Coventry, while Rolando Aarons had enough potential to play as a teenager for the first team. Still only 20, he has played for an England Under-20 side managed by former Watford gaffer Aidy Boothroyd. With Cisse struggling and Mitrovic off the pitch more than on it, it would be super if McClaren would pick Aarons or Armstrong. Maybe next year Armstrong can lead the line; perhaps he would have finished one or two of the chances against Watford; his loan finishes on 16 January, but Coventry are going for promotion, having been upset in the first round of the FA Cup by struggling Northampton, with whom they recently had to share grounds. Their midfield now contains Joe Cole and Stephen Hunt, both former internationals, and they are back in the Ricoh Arena, doing the man whose statue stands outside the ground, the late Jimmy Hill, proud. Coventry should not be in the third tier, just as Newcastle should not be in the second tier. I went to St James’s Park in 2009 to see Newcastle thump a hapless Watford 2-0, where the fans were happy to be winning under Chris Hughton. I remember Craig Cathcart, then on loan from Manchester United, hitting a Wijnaldum-type back-pass which led to their first goal, and I remember seeing half an hour of young Andrew Carroll. I recall Nathan Ellington, Watford’s record signing, coming on in a long-sleeved jersey and gloves. Cathcart is a better player now, despite his slip against Tottenham that led to their first goal. With either Britos or Proedl beside him, the defence is sturdy, especially at home. The next fixtures have the potential to be tough, but Watford are in better form that Southampton (13 Jan), Swansea (18 Jan, Live on Sky Sports) and Newcastle (23 Jan). Seven points from those will set up Watford for the two league games against Chelsea (3 February, Live on BT Sport) and, so quickly again, Tottenham at White Hart Lane (6 Feb). Before Chelsea, though, comes FA Cup round four at the City Ground. Nottingham Forest will be a stern test. Perhaps former Hornet Henri Lansbury will play; Forest can do with a good cup run to go alongside their decent league form. The romance is alive and well and there’s

all to play for!

Come on you Horns!

This entry was posted in Sport

and tagged fa cup ,

newcastle united ,

watford fc on January 11, 2016 by Jonathan Brick

.

WHAT DID DAVID BOWIE MEAN?

I remember hearing Space Oddity for the first time, with its handclaps and weirdness. Perhaps I was 10 but it doesn’t matter. I love the chord progression, especially underscoring the line “tell me wife I love her very much/ She knows.” It was the first Bowie tune I heard in a post-Bowie world. Odd, because I had the night before seen the episode of Mad Men’s final season when the moon landings are broadcast on TV. A major character passes away while Neil and Buzz are extraterrestrial. It’s a kind of metaphor, as it always is on Mad Men. Many obituaries will be written and many heads will talk, so go to them to learn why Bowie was an iconoclast. One of the first rock’n’roll stars who dabbled in performance art, film, electronica, drum’n’bass, disco and ‘glitter rock’, it seems inconceivable that nobody aged between 15 and 55 was not profoundly sad on hearing that cancer had beaten Bowie the very week his final

album came out.

But the first thought from people settling down to bed on Sunday evening in the West Coast, or those rising from their beds for a Monday morning at work, was that it couldn’t be. Not Bowie! He made it to 69 years of age, having been ‘retired’ for a decade from live performance after falling ill on stage. Having spent the 1970s (his late-twenties and early-thirties) as one of the most fantastic live draws in rock, before succumbing to addiction and heading to Germany to recover, Bowie also seemed to have been a family man. Happily married for 23 years to his second wife, the model Iman, he fathered her child Alexandria, half-sister to Duncan (formerly Zowie) Jones, child of Bowie and his first wife Angie. Duncan was the ‘second source’ I was waiting for. He sadly broke news of Bowie’s death to the world, after a Facebook post appeared in the wee hours of January 10. The director of the films _Moon_ and _Source Code _has always been asked questions about his dad, which will be more poignant in the promotion of _Warcraft_. Born in 1971, Duncan told the Mail during the promotion for _Source Code_ that his dad “really, really wanted me to learn an instrument” but he never practised. “He kept on trying and nothing was happening!” Duncan recalled being pushed about in flight cases by Bowie’s roadies, waiting for the show to finish so he could go home. He detested being photographed: “It was like ‘Hide him!’”…me being whisked into a car before my dad came out separately.” Hanging out on the sets of films like _Absolute Beginners _and _Labyrinth _informed Duncan’s love of movie-making, as did watching _A Clockwork Orange _with him as an eight-year-old. From what I read (I’m a 1988 baby), David Bowie was the man whose silver jumpsuit lit up the lives of young people in the drabness of being a kid in 1972. ‘Starman’, performed on Top of the Pops, still seems odd, a culmination of a decade of attempts by David Jones to become a new creature, but with a cracking chugging tune. That era between 1971 and 1975 produced some albums still held up as important rock records: _Hunky Dory_, _The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars_, _Aladdin Sane_ (a lad insane!) and _Diamond Dogs_. I also like the ‘plastic soul’ of _Young Americans _and the experiments of the records with Iggy Pop and Brian Eno (_Low, “Heroes”, Station to Station, Lodger)_. All eight of those albums were recorded in the same period of years (eight-ish) that the Beatles made theirs; it’s true to say that Bowie was the Beatles of the 1970s. Peter Doggett wrote a version of the Beatle-commentary book _Revolution in the Head _which made this fact irrefutable. Grab or borrow a copy of a song-by-song breakdown of Bowie at his pomp. Being young, I know Bowie more from the Best Ofs than for his ‘next trick’ phase. Among all the tributes, the music should come first. Be it the jam with Queen, ‘Under Pressure’, or the funky Nile Rodgers-produced ‘Let’s Dance’ (made when both were without a record deal!), everyone has danced, snogged or had a sort of sexual awakening with Bowie as the soundtrack. He has hardly given any interviews since his illness, getting on with his life in New York, sometimes joining bands like Arcade Fire and TV on the Radio on stage and on record; he popped up on the title track of the former’s 2013 album _Reflektor_. Alternative music holds Bowie in high esteem, for reasons that bands will make clear in the following few weeks: shape-shifting, chameleonic, concerned with the visual as well as the audial. So many musicians have crossed paths with Bowie in the fifty years of his career, and from many genres. Acts like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran brought their stylish pop to the masses in the 1980s while Bowie was reinventing himself as a blue-suited Thin White Duke; as well as Queen, Eno, Iggy and Chic, Bowie worked with Lou Reed (producing the _Transformer _LP), guitarist Pat Metheny and Mick Jagger, although that was a one-off hit for Live Aid recorded in separate continents. Only last week, to celebrate Bowie’s birthday, I heard Buxton’s love letter, which had been broadcast on BBC 6music on the release of _The Next Day_, a surprise album sprung upon the world in 2013. (The show is on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpCrIZamdQE .) At the end he said he would never want to meet Bowie but, as a guest on Jonathan Ross’s radio show, Bowie had held a mix CD Buxton had compiled for Ross’s DJ set at a Bowie event. Buxton was content with this. The internet is a great place when its users rally together for a common good. The whole world has been touched by Bowie’s music, and with people wanting to react (as they did when Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Paul Walker died, to name three recent entertainers who have passed away), everyone is forced to stop and reflect. The key tribute was a stop-motion montage of Bowie’s looks, turning from one side to the other: so many looks, but one man’s

face.

People will recall seeing him in concert, meeting him for interview, laying down tracks behind him. A new book about Bowie’s time as a lodger in South-East London in his folkie days, pre-Ziggy, will sell well, as will biographies like _Starman _by the eminent writer Paul Trynka. The same people who reviewed _Blackstar _will now be giving orations and obituaries. “He had this ability to epitomise the moment or be just ahead of the curve,” said Trynka on the BBC two days before Bowie died. Referencing another dead rock star, “Elvis had one great explosion of creativity and that was it; Bowie had several. He’s jumped off that hamster wheel of celebrity.” Will Gompertz, the BBC’s entertainment editor, called Bowie ‘the Picasso of Pop’, which is also true. I admire Bowie’s older tunes but those of his late period are quite good too. _The Next Day _had rockers like ‘The Stars are Out Tonight’ and ‘Valentine’s Day’, but also the quiet ‘Where Are We Now’. Before those, I loved ‘Little Wonder’, an odd hit from the 1990s, and other songs that found their way into the Top 40 as I listened weekly as a kid: ‘Everyone Says Hi’, ‘Slow Burn’ and ‘Survive’. Amid a lot of great pop and rock, I found his voice fascinating. It has been much lampooned but always with love, notably by Flight of the Conchords in their song ‘Bowie’ (written by Arj Barker) and by Adam Buxton in his career as a Bowie nut with a microphone. Ricky Gervais had Bowie guest in his show _Extras_, with a song that insulted Gervais’s character Andy, who had ‘sold his soul for a shot at fame’; on hearing the news Gervais told the world he had lost a hero. Many millions will feel the same. Bowie’s new album _Blackstar_ will now be heard by more than just hardcore fans; be warned, it’s tough and free-jazzy. The video to the single ‘Lazarus’, a song with a sombre saxophone melody, may have been Bowie’s last trick. “I’ve got scars that can’t be seen…I’ve got nothing left to lose,” intones the singer, filmed from above writhing on a white bed with a white bandage over his face with holes cut out for his eyes. Then he is at a desk, writing something (a will?) and biting his fingernails, as expressive as he was in his twenties learning mime and clowning, which he incorporated into his stage shows. Then he stands up and dances, his final performance: “I was looking for your ass!” When a rock star dies, history is rewritten, but even in his lifetime, and thanks to taking an early retirement, David Bowie became a paragon of what it was to be a rock star. His influence will last until the last drop of glitter is spent in the world. _David Bowie died of cancer, aged 69, on January 10, 2016_ This entry was posted in OpEd and tagged david bowie

, mainFeature

on January 11, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

ROY HODGSON’S BOOK CLUB: ‘#2SIDES’ BY RIO FERDINAND

_The scene is a room at St George’s Park, England HQ, January 2016.

_

_England manager Roy Hodgson sits down next to Gary Neville, his coach, back in England after some days in Spain for a prior engagement the first meeting of Roy’s Book Club_ _The door opens, and in walks Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane. Wayne has some time between a commercial engagement for adidas and picking up his kids from school. Harry has had this in the diary for months, which is why his form in 2015 was so good. Only England call-ups can join the Book Club._ _Two minutes later, and with massive headphones in his hand, Rio Ferdinand enters. His book _#2Sides_ is the first book for discussion

in the group._

Roy: Gentlemen thank you all for coming. We had apologies from Daniel Sturridge, who is unwell, and Raheem Sterling, who has to see schools for his kids. In their place, Harry Kane has been kind enough to come

by.

Harry: It’s great to be here, I’m really thankful to be handed my first start in this Book Club and I can’t wait to help the team. Roy: It’s great to have you, Harry. Gary: Can I just add my thanks for your appearance, Harry. It’s so good that you’re committed to the cause. Roy: Yes, gents, thanks for hosting this inaugural Book Club. Rio, it’s great that you could postpone your doctor’s appointment for

us.

Wayne: Oi oi, doctor again… Rio: Shut up!! It’s an honour to have my memoir, Hashtag Two Sides, co-written with David Winner, as the first Book Club pick. Wayne: I’ve written books too. I know how hard it is to get your

thoughts on paper.

Gary: I didn’t need a ghostwriter for mine. Roy: I have not written my memoir yet, but prepare for some explosive

revelations…

Gary: And tips on contemporary art, right, boss? I think Sky Sports want an interview with you. Roy: So does The Economist. And something called Copa90. Harry: That’s on YouTube Roy: Yes, my grandson watched it. Rio, your book is called Two Sides. Rio: Hashtag, Two Sides. Roy: Hashtag, Two Sides. Right. Rio, would you like to make some opening remarks about why you chose to write the memoir now. Wayne: He needed the money!! Rio: Classic bantz, Wazza! Anyway, yeah, I wrote the book because I knew I’d be leaving Man United. Wayne and Gary: The greatest club in all the world. Rio: I knew I had some time on my hands, especially in a World Cup year. So I sat down with David Winner and we wrote it together. Roy: Yes David is one of the best journalists. Did you read his book with Dennis Bergkamp? Harry: I did. I read all the books about strikers. Henry, Bergkamp,

Jamie Carragher…

Gary: He was a striker when Jimmy GREAVES was a striker! Harry: I think his ability to read the movements of strikers came about because he was a striker in the youth team days. Roy: I agree, he is a class act on and off the field. Rio, did you

enjoy the process?

Rio: It was bare long!! If I can I would like to read out some key passages and then ask you guys to discuss, if that’s okay? Roy: Yes of course, Rio. Silence in the room, please… Rio: Let me just put on my reading glasses…“I had to have discipline and desire. Kids I played with who checked out birds are now working on building sites. I was playing and I had to get a train to get to training. No disrespect to Harry Kane but kids these days are ferried to and from training by car.” Harry: Wow, I got mentioned! Thanks! None taken. I bought my chauffeur a trip to Dubai for the holidays. Rio: Weird place…“My motivation was always the same, I played for respect. Money was never an issue. I just wanted my teammates and the fans and the coaches to respect me.” Gary: You and Keano had my respect at all times. Remember when I stood by you when the FA wanted to ban you? Roy: The FA wanted to make a statement. Gary: One that wasn’t about who slept where with whom. Wayne: Isn’t it with who? Gary: No it’s with whom. Roy: It depends on the context, Wayne. I’ll explain later. Rio: Anyway, the crowds were intense everywhere. I always tell young players I meet, “Don’t get caught up in the atmosphere, cos you’ll have had it then. The more fans for the opposition, the sweeter the victory cos they’ll have lost as well. At least for

me!”

Harry: Like Theo Walcott holding up two fingers to our fans. Rio: Precisely right, my dear Harry. Some of the players, Gary, it was just a privilege. “Sometimes I’d go up to Giggs or Ronaldo and just go, It’s great to play with you, to share a field and a shirt with you! I let Giggsy lift a trophy once even though I was

captain…”

Gary: I think Ronaldo chopped two years off my career. I had to mark him in training and Wayne would just point and laugh. Wayne: To be fair, I feel like that now when Memphis runs at me! Gary: But Ronaldo’s different class. Rio: True, off the pitch too. He would fly in a chef to make his food. He had his own pool. Wayne, how’s your phone mate? You would just smash them all the time… Wayne: I’m calmer now, saving up for Kai’s school fees! Roy: Where’s he going? Wayne: Probably City’s Academy but don’t tell anyone. Gary: Your secret is safe. Roy: Wayne, would you consider punditry or management after your

career?

Wayne: Dunno, boss. What’s John Terry doing? Gary: Ooooh, don’t mention the war!

Harry: What war?

Roy: I’ll explain later. Rio and Gary: “Don’t tell him, Pike!” Harry: Who’s Pike? Wayne: Isn’t it ‘whose Pike’? Roy: John Terry was a great player, what a terrific defender. Rio: What an awful person. Gary: Come on, Rio, he gave you some of his chips once. Rio: Only cos Sven told him to! Here’s what made the papers. “Ash and JT are idiots – if they’ve just said something in private we could have avoided it. Anton didn’t even hear anything JT said.” Gary: The whole thing was appalling. I hope it never happens again. Harry: I have loads of black friends. Rio: It was so bad, almost the worst day of my life. My mum was stressed, bullets came through her door.

Harry: Bullets!

Rio: Let’s move on. Roy, you wanted me back in 2012 when my back was sorted! You fessed up on the tube, man! Roy: I was getting enough stick for thinking about recalling John, but the other coaches and almost every journalist wanted me to move on, to

play Gary and Phil.

Wayne: Neville?!

Gary: No Wayne, the new Nevilles! Cahill and Jagielka, our hopes for

France.

Wayne: Has either of them scored fifty goals for England, eh? Rio: Golden Boot, they should call you. Wouldn’t you go with Stones,

though?

Gary: You need experience.

Rio: Oh here we go.

Gary: Our squad needs to be full of characters, and players quick enough to catch Bale and Ronaldo and that lot. Stones may play some of the games, but he won’t be helped by all the transfer talk. Rio: Yeah but can you imagine the stick the gaffer’s gonna get if he goes with two old guys if Stones and Jones are playing well. Harry: Stones and Jones, phones and bones… Rio: Sounds like a hit, Harry. What about the influence pros can have? As kids we always ignored racism. We never brought it up cos we just wanted to play with older, better players. Wayne: It was tough on the estate for the black kids. Both of them

were decent lads.

Rio: Down in Peckham we were all decent lads, but the kids today are off the streets in the academies, doing work with the community, teaching little ones. Different world down there. Roy: As a South Londoner myself I could not be happier. Apart from

some of the guns…

Harry: And machetes. Rio: Only nutters have machetes. The problems are at home. Anyway, I wish Twitter was around when I was a kid. Roy: What is the point of Twitter? Harry: To arrange your social life and for banter. Gary: To follow influential businessmen like my mate Peter Lim. Wayne: Banter. With Piers Morgan. Rio: Banter, boss. If Twitter were around 20 years ago, I’d’ve asked John Barnes how he got so good and how he trained to be at top

condition.

Roy: Very good. Frank Lampard credits his success to hard work. Rio: Yeah, with Lamps, who worked really hard to be able to shoot from just outside the box and wasn’t a silky runner with the ball, we lost touch because he was in London with a rival club. Silly really, but maybe he’ll invite me to Manhattan so we can go to see some shows now he’s in New York. Roy: He’s just got married, hasn’t he? Harry: I was following it on Instagram. Ed Sheeran was there, Schofield, Piers Morgan…

Gary: Ugh.

Roy: Yes, Piers told me he introduced Frank to his wife. So that’s

ONE good thing.

Wayne: Piers just wishes he could play for Arsenal. Gary: We want Piers to interview some of the players before Euro 2016. Wayne, are you up for it? Wayne: What, Good Morning Britain? I’ll just rinse him for ten

minutes.

Harry: I’ll do it. Roy: Yes that sounds safer. Rio: Guys, can we focus, I’m gonna talk Barcelona, “David Villa was so crucial, him and Pedro on the wing. Messi, man, Thierry Henry told me once that Messi was so angry in training that he didn’t get a foul that when his goalie got the ball he ran back and went all the way through the other team and scored. That’s Xavi, Busquets, Pique…not your mates in the park.” Wayne: I’d love to play with Messi, me. Gary: I wonder how many people have played with Messi AND Ronaldo. Rio: Tevez, mate. Pique, possibly. Gary: I’ll do some research.

Roy: Di Maria.

Gary: Larsson. Henrik Larsson, played at Man United for a few weeks.

Gaby Heinze.

Rio: Deco! Played for Portugal and at Barca. Great player. Roy: Some of the other Argentineans…Gago, Higuain, Garay. All at

Madrid.

Harry: I just googled it. All correct. I could only get Pique, boss. Wayne: I hate quizzes. Rio: You love them! Here’s one: what did we eat after games to get our sugar levels up? Gary: Haribo! Wayne used to ask for the sour cherries. Harry: That’s what SHE said. Roy: What does that mean? Harry, tell me later. Rio: Yeah, sweets, man. Pasta before the game, sweets after. I’d always be so hyper I couldn’t sleep till 3 or 4. Roy: I should get Haribo to sponsor the England team. Rio: I got a better idea, boss: bring in Glenn Hoddle. Forget what the suits say, he is a legend. “We haven’t, with respect, been as good as we were with Hoddle. He could trap a ball from thin air, he was that good. Then he talked about his beliefs.” Gary: Venables gave me my debut, back in the Neolithic era. Wayne: I’m too young for Hoddle, Gazza was the best. Harry: No you were, Wayne. Gary: Awww, get a room! What about the gaffer? Rio: Sir Alex? He just wanted you to prove you were good enough. Does the boss do it with you, Wayne? Wayne: I’m his captain so I’m biased, but he used to push me all the time. He’s a second father, really. Roy: And I’m your grandpa! Wayne: No, my older uncle, boss! Anyway, Rio, I’ve gotta get back home soon to watch some WWE with Kai. Rio: Keep the kids close, mate. And the missus, cos you never know how many moments you’ve got left. Since I retired I’ve got my Foundation, and I’ve got Jamie Moralee as my agent. I used to have a guy to book holidays, one for property, one for investments…Then I almost got into gambling debts. Jamie’s great. He was at Watford but got into problems with lifestyle. He said a lot of footballers are dumped by agents when they retire and they just get depressed, lose it a bit because they can’t find anything to replace the feeling of

Saturdays at 3.

Gary: Best feeling in the world. They should come to Salford City! They can get on the bench!! Ooh, sorry guys I’ve got a plane to

catch.

Roy: Yes and I have to get a car to the match. I’ve got to watch

Troy Deeney.

Harry: Bully.

Rio: Nah, Deeney’s a top lad. I’d take him. Gary: So would I, but then you have to leave out Walcott. Roy: Catch 22, eh, Gary? Harry: I’d be happy to help. I’m captain of Spurs. Roy: Well thank you for your contributions, gentlemen. I’d love to

do this again.

Gary: Not until the season ends. Harry: Not until the season ends. Wayne: How about next month? I need distractions. Roy: So does your club manager. Gary: Giggsy’s waiting… Rio: Don’t forget me! This entry was posted in Sport and tagged featured3 , gary neville , harry kane , rio ferdinand

, roy hodgson

, wayne rooney

on January 7, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

TWENTY’S PLENTY – JANUARY 2016, FIRST WEEK

Each fortnight Blastocyst.org.uk compiles a playlist via Spotify of the only 20 songs you need for the next fortnight. Elle King topped the first chart in mid-December 2015, but has she held on for a second Twenty? Two other songs hold steady in the Twenty, but can the King topple King? Scroll down to find out below, and find a widget at the bottom of the page to listen to the songs as you read, 20 Chris Carmack – Being Alone. Nashville and country music makes many appearances in this Twenty, but here is something from _Nashville_, the TV show. Will Lexington is the heart-throb who unhappily finds himself as a gay man on campus. The man who plays him is also starting a career in the genre, writing sweet songs like this, which has a very adult-rock chorus full of yearning. 19 Kara’s Flowers – Oliver. One of many tracks on a power-pop playlist discovered through PowerPopaholic, one of many such online resources, Kara’s Flowers is led by the singer Adam Levine. The same man has put his voice to many top pop songs as the voice of Maroon 5, but none is as poppy as this one. Guitars drive, minor chords chime and there’s a sitar break in the middle. There’s also a key

change!

18 Shoshana Bean – Skywriter. ‘Ooh what’s this?’ I called to Amanda when the harmonies kicked in. She’s been a vocalist with Post-modern Jukebox, the Internet stars who take pop hits and twist them inside out. This is traditional vocal pop that recalls Regina Spektor and Imogen Heap, but even better! Is the title to do with the type of person who writes romantic notes in jet spray? Will need more listens to decipher. 17 Tyler Farr – Better in Boots. Yep, another country radio hit. Tyler takes the sultry route in the verses before encouraging his girl (or guy, but probably girl) to wear some KCs. He really likes the fact that it’s Friday night (country music loves gettin’ off for the weekend), but I like the riff which recurs throughout the song. The solo is pretty good as well. 16 Dustin Lynch – Mind Reader. Another country radio hit, with pedal steel guitar, a decent beat, a good riff and a nagging chorus with some cool syncopation. The verse structure relies on “how’d’ya know”, while the vocal is contemporary and worth a listen. Doesn’t make it stand out too much from hundreds of other country radio hits, but that’s what tight formatting does. 15 The Beatles – There’s a Place. I wonder how many new streaming subscribers, throughout the array of big ones, will be sucked in by the introduction of the music of Lennon-McCartney to them. Christmas came a day early for those few who don’t own the back catalogue (some tracks, though, are like the air we breathe and are all around us), and I immediately went to the specially-compiled Spotify playlist to hear some favourites. Yet tracks from the first Beatles LP including There’s a Place sound great, and will find their way next to Justin Bieber, with any luck, on any young fan’s own Twenty. 14 Brett Eldredge – Drunk on your Love. The album’s decent but this track is still the highlight. Deserves to be a pop hit as well as a country hit. One of three tracks still in the Twenty. 13 Badfinger – No Matter What. Two men wrote Without You, the song made famous by Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey, but both hanged themselves within a decade. Badfinger, the band they emerged from, were signings to the Beatles’s Apple label; their song Come and Get It was McCartney’s, while their melodic pop made them the forebears of one of my fave genres of music, ‘power pop’. Twin guitars, lovely vocals and on No Matter What some sultry chord shifts, the band deserve a bigger place in music history. 12 Zara Larsson – Lush Life. Katy Perry would have killed for a track like this, the kind of music ‘bloggers’ usually like. Like Dua Lipa, this lady, a former Sweden’s Got Talent contestant, can really sing and has some songs which work with her voice. Bouncy and really Swedish (think Ace of Base with an 808 drum machine), this is the sound of pop music. It isn’t seedy or raunchy, just fun. She’s already been on a hit dance record, Never Forget You by MNEK, and this is a great start to a (relaunched) solo career. 11 The Stellas – It Wouldn’t Be This. Later in the Twenty will be a little Stella, but her mum and dad are this duo. This song, on the soundtrack to the latest season of _Nashville_, is a super tune with the title used as a refrain. It’s a warm love song with spectacular production, harmonies that recall (obvious but testament to their power) The Civil Wars and a pretty fine bridge. The music video is full of home-movie footage of the couple with their kids, Lennon and Maisy, who play the kids in the show. They’ve also covered ‘Perfect’ by Fairground Attraction. 10 Tame Impala – The Less I Know the Better. I missed this track, swept up in the majesty of the two singles ‘Cause I’m a Man’ and ‘Let It Happen’. NPR Music’s All Songs Considered reviewed the year in music and spotlighted on the album _Currents_, choosing this track, which has the multi-tracked vocals, toe-tapping beat and marvellous synths. Saw him/ them (he makes the music himself, gets a band to perform it) at the Latitude festival and knew he was a talent, as does Mark Ronson, who got him to help out on his last album. 9 Blossoms – Charlemagne. It’s hard to be a new rock band in the city, especially when you know the first wave of guitar bands from Britain in the 1990s, but there’s something in this song. Ones to Watch, according to the NME, the Manchester band are tipped (or rather heavily supported by the industry) to break through in 2016; they sound like a band Xfm (now Radio X) would like, and they’ve already played BBC sessions for Phil ‘P-Tag’ Taggart and Steve Lamacq. This song will get feet shuffling and fans bellowing, with an earworm of a chorus, a reference to an historical figure and a vocal style that recalls a less histrionic Brett from Suede. 8 Maisy Stella & Will Chase – Have a Little Faith in Me. I’ve enjoyed watching the American TV show _Nashville _while growing in appreciation for the country song. This one is more traditionally pop, a duet between Will, who plays country megastar Luke Wheeler, and Maisy, the daughter of Luke’s former fiancée and former queen of country Rayna James. This song played near the end of the show’s third season, in an episode where Daphne’s school was raising funds for its music studios. The purity of Maisy’s voice, which is usually found duetting with her ‘sister’ Maddie (really her sister Lennon Stella), is stark, especially when it changes key from C to G (an unusual ‘dominant modulation’). Will, who has done Broadway shows and was in the TV show _Smash_, is a great harmoniser too. 7 Elle King – Ex’s and Oh’s. Number One last time, this is still a joy on every listen, especially the last pre-chorus. Perhaps some songs from her album Stuff Happens will populate the next Twenty. 6 Blake Shelton – Gonna. Hey hey, alright, Blake’s digging on me and the Twenty tonight. He even admitted the lyric was nonsense, especially ‘love you every night and day-tona’, but the more I hear it the more I celebrate its familiarity. That makes it pop music. Still in the Twenty, climbing up several places. 5 Vince Guaraldi Trio – Linus and Lucy. I had never seen this song in the context of _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. I watched the special, which celebrated its golden jubilee in 2015, where this jazzy tune is given two airings, the first to accompany the dancing Peanuts stars, the second to fill some time in the episode while Charlie Brown gets irritated at the friends. An American tradition in the way Wallace and Gromit is in Britain, the Charlie Brown special was uplifting, especially when Linus steps forward to recite Scripture. I heard an NPR report that said they made it all in six months, from conception to completion; I wonder how long the new Charlie Brown movie took to

make…

4 Maddie & Tae – Shut up and Fish. The smartest young stars of Nashville, they follow up their satirical ‘Girl in a Country Song’ with the irresistible track that recalls the best of Shania Twain in both lyric and sound. I’m sure they grew up with songs by sassy female heroes, and they reflect it with harmonies like those of The Dixie Chicks. The syncopated chorus is smashing, the pay-off makes you laugh and the song title is a t-shirt slogan I’d be willing to sport. They’re over in London in March for the big Country2Country festival on the same day as Carrie Underwood, and I would not be surprised if Carrie brings them out for her own set. 3 One Direction – Olivia. Harry Styles will certainly go solo at some point. With 1D taking a break (Louis will be a dad, Niall may do some more caddying for his mate Rory McIlroy), I hope for a full album of Styles’ styles. Olivia is the highlight of a so-so album, with McCartney-type horns and a chugging guitar. It sounds like ten Beatles songs at once, and the chorus is smashing. 2 Anderson East – Satisfy Me. A guy who grew up with spiritual music, Anderson is the latest man whose record has been produced by Dave Cobb. A great NPR Music piece profiled Cobb, a rock guy who moved to Nashville more for the fact that music is made there than the type of music churned out. Anderson’s white-boy r’n’b will please fans of James Morrison and Eli ‘Paperboy’ Read, and this live version of his song Satisfy Me, recorded at the renowned Muscle Shoals in Alabama brings out the quality of his voice. 1 Elvis Presley – Burning Love. Radio 2 playlists can throw up annoying ditties, but in December every time this song came on I stopped to listen. His late-period hit has been reinvented as part of the orchestra-enhanced set of recordings that filled many stockings this year. I love the revitalised opening, with the descant upwards just before Elvis comes in and the deep pitch of the strings underscoring the riff in the guitar. The drums sound fresh and Elvis’s voice (taken from the original recording) is superb. Top of

the Twenty.

Here’s the link to the audio: The next Twenty will be published on January 17. This entry was posted in Music and tagged elle king ,

elvis , top 20

on January 3, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

GIRLS WITH GUITARS: ELLE KING AND ALABAMA SHAKES BLAZE A TRAIL

Can guitar-led music still make an impact? Ask Elle King. Her 2015 album _Love Stuff_ came out in Europe around the time that her tune ‘Ex’s and Oh’s’ made the top of the US Rock charts. The song is one of the finest guitar-led ones of recent months, with a strong lyric, stronger pre-chorus (‘They always wanna come but they never wanna leave’) and the chorus, which is strong

too.

Elle – nose ring, huge eyelashes, blonde hair, red lipstick – is another female rock singer. There aren’t as many as there could be, but those who have impressed in recent years are a counterpoint to ‘indie guitar bands’ who followed in the last gasps of the big labels throwing money at trends. Tanner Elle Schneider grew up in New York and Ohio, taking her mum’s surname rather than that of her father, Rob Schneider, from whom she learned “I don’t wanna be in movies. Rock’n’roll is more fun cos you can be drunk at work,” as she told one interview online. Elle filmed a scene in one of the Deuce Bigalo films where she knocked on the door and caught her dad’s character watching pornography: “You’re a sick man and I’m gonna tell!!” she shouted. Her stepdad is a rock musician, which bled into the attitude of a young Elle, who was made to listen to soul singers and Debbie Harry. Kitty Empire, critic of the _Observer_, imagines in Elle, seeing her at a label showcase to promote _Stuff Happens _in London, a cross between Dolly Parton and Beth Ditto or, better, between Meghan Trainor and Amy Winehouse: curvy and potty-mouthed, but with some pretty ace songs. _Stuff Happens_, has been in development since she signed a deal at 22. She released it aged 25. Elle opened for James Bay and Modest Mouse in 2015. Previously she played before Ed Sheeran came on stage on two dates of his + tour, and there are videos online of a performance in Texas in 2013 for Paste Magazine, where she played her version of the raunchy rap song My

Neck, My Back.

If anything, Elle’s development shows how cautious big labels are with their acts. I read recently that only 120 acts were signed to the big three labels in 2015, many of who started off as featured vocalists (Jess Glynne, Ella Eyre, Sam Smith and many more started in this way). The Sound of 2016, Jack Garrett, finally puts out his debut in spring 2016, but people have known about his talent for over a year; ditto acts like Little Simz, Blossoms and Shura, who have been bubbling under and will surely break through. Elle’s album includes songs co-written by Mark Ronson and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys (‘Last Damn Night’, a tune which led to the album being delayed), Jacknife Lee (a superproducer who has worked with U2 and Snow Patrol, whose contribution is the toe-tapper ‘Make Me Smile’ that recalls KT Tunstall) and Amanda Ghost, a reputable singer-songwriter who was briefly president of Epic Records. There’s a song in which she sings “I’m not America’s Sweetheart” over a Mumford beat. The other song written with Dave Bassett (who co-wrote both ‘Ex’s’ and ‘Fight Song’, the Number One song by Rachel Platten) is ‘Under the Influence’, which is even better than ‘Ex’s’, and will appeal to fans of Lana del

Rey.

Elle isn’t the only contemporary female pop singer to break into the charts. Aside from Adele and Taylor Swift, who both co-write their material, Alabama Shakes have topped their first album with _Sound & Color_, a stunning set led with ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’, which matches the addiction of Elle’s best songs. Brittany Howard has the most fearsome voice in rock since Beth Ditto of Gossip, and sings confidently of love and loss. Both Brittany and Elle have studied the ‘restraint and wail’ style of Janis Joplin and Debbie Harry, while putting a lot of their personality into the live sphere. Personality is all when everyone can reveal theirs online, star or not. Elle isn’t quite as rootsy in her style, but she plucks a banjo on some tracks and has one murder ballad-type song ‘Ain’t Gonna Drown’. In a genre-covering exercise, Elle ticks many a box in the same way Alabama Shakes do: rock, roots, Americana, pop, soul, r’n’b. The whole thing sounds like America, though. The future of rock music as a genre is cross-pollination. Rock as an attitude is less important a mode of expression for kids today: what with Snapchat and blogs they can do it more cheaply, without instruments or amps, and their audience is the world, not CBGB’s. Most music publications see rock music (or at least the acts they cover) as beginning with John Lennon’s Tomorrow Never Knows and ending with John Lennon’s death. Hiphop began its rise in the 1980s alongside MTV, when the big beast of pop and its colourful stars (Prince, Madonna, Michaels Jackson and George) brought in the new arena era. Then alternative rock knocked on the barricade and Nirvana, REM and Oasis led the charge. Radiohead inspired Muse and Coldplay, then Coldplay inspired Snow Patrol and Keane, then Simon Cowell inspired the melisma craze advanced by Beyonce, Mariah and the rest. The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys put poetry over drums and guitars, inspiring hundreds of others. It got to the stage in about 2008 where the market seemed saturated. A couple of female-fronted bands – The Kills, Gossip, Florence + the Machine – did make an impression, but they seemed far less frequent an occurrence than the men who gobbed their way into the music press. Then came streaming, and now everyone can hear anything at a click. The ‘music press’ dominated by those bands has now moved online, to websites like DrownedInSound and NME.com. Rock music is still here, because there are still kids who want to play like Bonzo, Hendrix or McCartney. Pop music is still here, because hormones need an outlet and Justin Bieber can’t really do anything else. Hiphop, helped by white rappers like Eminem, is the true global musical currency. Dr Dre used his hustle to reinvent both the headphone and music radio (BeatsMusic led to Apple Music, which can only get stronger in the current climate), while his protégé Kendrick Lamar seems to be leading the charge for conscious ‘reality rap’ that Dr Dre pioneered with NWA before Kendrick was born. Mixtape culture has made stars of acts like JME, Skepta and Future, while rock musicians still have to tour the world and its festivals. Some, like Mumford & Sons, organise their own. Yet in 2015 Melvin Benn, who books acts for Reading Festivals, said that he thinks fewer headline acts are being made. Next year at Download the big three are Rammstein, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath; in 2016 at Reading/Leeds it’ll be the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Adele and Guns N Roses are rumoured to headline some of the outdoor festivals, catering to the millions who love their songs, but who are the most dynamic live performers? Young Fathers, Benn has said, are exciting him, as are Foals, headliners at Latitude (another of Benn’s festivals) in 2014, and Royal Blood, who are preparing their second album for 2016. Wireless in Hyde Park attracted Drake and Kendrick Lamar, and those who have seen any live version of Kendrick’s ‘Alright’ know how he can hold thousands or hundreds in his hand. I am disappointed in Florence, whose voice often falters live, but more impressed with Muse, Foo Fighters and U2, who know how to put on a show. Like those three acts, Ed Sheeran has played Wembley Stadium, with only a loop pedal and Rudimental for company, catering to some of his millions of fans, but he’s off for 2016 writing album three. Pop will always attract fans of spectacle, but rock has to work harder, since it puts attitude over spectacle and costume, usually. Iron Maiden and AC/DC have their mascots, as do the Grateful Dead, America’s resident rock band. Look out in 2016 for Justin Bieber, touring his Purpose LP, the return of Dixie Chicks after a ten-year break and, probably, Rihanna. I wonder if Lady Gaga is preparing another re-invention, modelling her career on Madonna, whose Rebel Heart tour has just ended. There is no reason to doubt that Elle King will win thousands of fans in Europe in 2016, touring _Stuff Happens_, even though she’s spending most of the first half of the year in the States. She’d be a brilliant mid-afternoon festival booking. Alabama Shakes are confirmed on the card for the Hyde Park gig in London in summer 2016, just under Mumford & Sons. They are also in the running for Album of the Year at the Grammies. After the soft sounds of Beck on 2015 and the beats and rhythms of Daft Punk in 2014, it should be theirs, if not for Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. All the same, for fans of ‘rock’ and of Alabama Shakes, it’s worth hitting up Elle King. This entry was posted in Music and tagged alabama shakes

, elle king

, festivals

, guitars

, rock music

on January 1, 2016

by Jonathan Brick

.

TWENTY’S PLENTY – A FORTNIGHTLY PLAYLIST: DECEMBER 2015

I am a big fan of the band The Beautiful South, and an equal admirer of the 33 1/3 series of music journalism. One day I would like to combine my passions and write a book in the series about _Carry On Up the Charts_, the first BS Greatest Hits album (their second hits collection, _Solid Bronze_, is also good, but I have a Proustian attachment to the 1994 series). Paul Heaton, lyricist and vocalist of the BS, has for many years kept a logbook, within which he writes his top twenty tracks in any month. A fan of Northern Soul, punk and guitar music, Paul revealed his tastes in interviews to the BBC in December 2015 to promote his second album in partnership with Jacqui Abbott, the second of the female singers the BS had in their existence (1988-2005, splitting due to ‘musical similarities’). Inspired by Paul’s idea, I started my own fortnightly countdown, ‘Twenty’s Plenty’. All songs will be in a playlist on Spotify – follow me at https://open.spotify.com/user/jonnybrick – under the playlist of that title. You can find each playlist uploaded fortnightly, with the first one from the middle of December 2015 here: https://open.spotify.com/user/jonnybrick/playlist/3KScRoCclBm0NeXeBTO7KN To accompany the playlist, I’ll add a few notes for every track here. You are welcome to create your own Twenty, in the spirit of mutual appreciation. Here’s the first Twenty’s Plenty countdown: 20 Lily & Madeleine – Hourglass. Two young ladies return in 2016 with sweet voices; this is the lead single that landed in my inbox recently. (Send your music for consideration to helloblasto@gmail.com) 19 Tom Robinson ft Billy Bragg – The Mighty Sword of Justice. A combined age of 932 makes two members of punk songwriting’s pantheon sources of respect. Owen Jones has written a 300-page book recently, _The Establishment_, about a topic Billy & Tom sing about in about 260 seconds. “There’s one law for the rich, and another one for the poor.” Brilliant track from Tom’s 2015 album _Only the Now_, his

first since 1996.

18 Rudimental ft Bobby Womack – New Day. _We The Generation_ is the second album from crate-digging, forward-thinking dance-music makers Rudimental, who enlist many great artists to provide the vocals. The late Bobby is in great form on one of his last performances; stay until the end of the track to hear some ad-libbing. 17 Kylie Minogue – Warm this Winter. A contemporary festive favourite, Kylie covers this and many more on her first ever Christmas album. “War-ho-harm!” is sung in a way that proves she enjoyed the experience. (Also listen out for Iggy Pop snarl his way through ‘Christmas Wrapping’.) 16 Hunter Hayes – Wanted. A multi-instrumentalist with the face of a cherub, I don’t think Nashville knows what to do with Hunter. From his first album, and released on a compilation for international audiences, this is a great, chaste ballad (“I wanna make you feel wanted”) that could have been a One Direction pop number one. The melody is of the quality of a pop standard, so I hope an A&R guy gives this to a big pop star and Hunter gets more ears off the back of it. 15 Justin Bieber – Love Yourself. I wanted Biebz to make a good song, and he’s made a few on _Purpose_. This one has Ed Sheeran’s paws on it, and a sweet vocal from the Canadian ensures it hit number one, displacing his own _Sorry_, which isn’t bad either. Listen without prejudice and you’ll be humming it on first listen. 14 Blake Shelton – Gonna. Little known in the UK, Blake has been a star of the US version of The Voice, bantering with Adam Levine of Maroon 5; he’s been in the gossip columns as the new partner of another star, Gwen Stefani, after his divorce from Miranda Lambert, but he lands here because of his country radio hit that nags at the ears and makes Blake the country music star that pop fans like. Hey hey, alright may not be sophisticated, but the melody is a winner. 13 Jonathan Groff – You’ll Be Back. More over the next few Twenty’s Plenties about _Hamilton: An American Musical_, this ‘British invasion’ pastiche is sung by King George III in the first act of the Broadway musical. Perfect vocal control (you’d hope so, Groff is a bankable star on Broadway and from _Frozen_), a singalong chorus and some humour add up to a nagging highlight. 12 Chris Stapleton – When the Stars Come Out. Mr Country Music 2015, who duetted with Justin Timberlake on a live awards show broadcast, has a wonderful voice, a wonderful wife who also has a wonderful voice, and chose the wonderful Dan Wilson (‘Someone Like You’, ‘Closing Time’, ‘Secret Smile’) to co-write a sumptuous love song with the best chorus on Chris’s US number one album

_Traveller_.

11 Brett Eldredge – Drunk on your Love. Each US state seems to have its own country star these days. In Illinois it’s Brett, whose album is named after his home state. This song has a chorus that tops his previous country radio hit ‘Lose My Mind’, while the arrangement is perky and rootsy without sounding too much like everything else in the Country Top 40 (Listen at ct40.com to hear what Country Radio in the USA is bigging up.) 10 Donny Trumpet – Sunday Candy. I’ve been watching this series of _Saturday Night Live_, which inserts musical guests among Trump impressions and movie star cameos. Chance the Rapper is someone on my radar but it took this song, recorded under the DT alias, to make me see his potential. He jived, jumped, pointed to the gospel choir backing him and looked great in a cap. A superstar to those in the know, this tune has a great set of chords with a sing-song delivery. 9 Hunter Hayes – 21. Him again. The lead track of his 2015 release, a mini-album, this sounds like ‘contemporary pop country’ and is the cousin of Taylor Swift’s ‘22’. Like Brett’s song at 11, ‘21’ has a killer chorus, while the structure of the song is united in all its parts by wanting to live like “kids on the run”. 8 Sia – Alive. As performed on Saturday Night Live and on The Graham Norton Show, this is the lead single from Sia’s 2016 release. I hope she enunciates better than she did on the last album, as I am a longtime fan of hers. She only wears a wig onstage because she wants to go about her life quietly writing hit after hit. This one had Adele’s help, so it’s hit-squared. Great structure, very karaoke-able chorus and a great vocal. 7 Phoenix – Alone on Christmas Day. Netflix has been good to its customers this year – Daredevil, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Jessica Jones – and this festive season it brought _A Very Murray Christmas _to air. Bill Murray plays himself, Miley Cyrus puts her voice to its proper use (her next album will be of Adele-sized brilliance, I hope) and Phoenix, a band known to director Sofia Coppola, cover an old Mike Love song with the take-home point to ‘keep moving on’. A winner on first listen with Bill’s backing vocals, it’s bouncy and fun and an unusual addition to the Great Xmas Songbook. 6 Selena Gomez ft Charli xcx – Same Old Love. I liked _Sucker_, the debut by Charlie xcx, and I liked the lead single ‘Good for You’, and I knew Justin Bieber used to be romantically linked with her, but what a tune this one is. Great contemporary pop with a soft shuffle and a chorus that kicks in at the right time, Selena’s delivery prompted _Rolling Stone _magazine to name Selena’s album _Revival _one of the pop records of 2015. Must check it out. 5 Chris Young – I’m Comin’ Over. He got his start on a TV talent show, and was known to me for his poppy hit ‘Aw Naw’, but this tune is notable for several things: it helped Chris have a number one country album of the same title; it seems to be about dropping everything to stay with a girl (“to hell with the closure, save it for another time”); and the chorus comes in after 29 seconds, when you usually have to wait a minute or so. He also co-wrote it. 4 Robert Glasper – Levels. The _New Yorker _magazine got its biggest exposure, perhaps, in an episode of _Family Guy _when it was ‘revealed’ that there was no bathroom in the offices. This was unfair, as the paper is a great cultural bastion for America and its smartest city. On one of the audio episodes of the magazine’s podcast, pianist Robert plays a solo version of his cover of Bilal’s ‘Levels’, improvising around the theme but laying clear his debt to non-jazz sources. Jazz for people who don’t get jazz, Robert’s new album was recorded live at Capitol Studios, and may be my go-to ‘jazz’ album for a few Plenties. 3 Courtney Barnett – Debbie Downer. Kurt Cobain meets Jerry Seinfeld, adopts Australian child who spends a lot of time questioning existence, has gardening accident which inspires a song ‘Avant Gardener’, then records a full-length album that hovers near the top of the critics’ lists. This track, with its yearning chorus, subtly inverts the chords of the verses and chorus while Courtney speak-sings confidently. Not as punchy as ‘Pedestrian At Best’, a great favourite of mine, but really poppy. 2 Dua Lipa – New Love. Tip of the pop hat to Jessica Pinkett, creator of the Poptastic! Twitter feed and This Must Be Pop! In tandem with the BBC’s Sound Of… poll she has tipped DL for big stuff in the next year, and seems better value than someone like Pia Mia, an Instagram-popstar according to Jessica (who gets paid to find new music for popstars). I only know a few tunes, this being the smartest, and find its aesthetic appealing; it’s like Sia and Alicia Keys mentored a young singer. 1 Elle King – Ex’s and Oh’s. The tune of the month, beyond question. Number one in the US rock charts since September, featured in the trailer for the Tina Fey goes to Afghanistan film out in spring, played on US television and nominated rightly for a Grammy Award, Elle is the name on everyone’s lips. Her birth dad is comic Rob Schneider, but she grew up with a musician for a stepdad who informed her musical style. “They always wanna come but they never wanna leave” is the sassiest pay-off in the Twenty, the verse’s chords rotate in a simple way and the chorus hits like a (and here I must note that I don’t go for much simile in music criticism) slap. She’ll be compared to people like Brittany from Alabama Shakes, but her pop sensibility makes her, to my ears, like Linda Perry (‘What’s Up’ by 4 Non Blondes) or Alanis Morrisette. Watch, and listen, to Elle as she makes it in the UK in the next few months. Hear the tracks here: This entry was posted in Music and tagged chris young

, elle king

, hunter hayes

on December 20, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

OPPORTUNITY INBOX – ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2015

Every December Blastocyst.org.uk discusses great albums on its audio sister site www.mixcloud.com/blastocast. Usually guitar-based and full of music made by great artists, 2015 was full of great music made by ladies, young men and ‘male heritage brands’ like Blur and Noel Gallagher. Neither act features here, such is the testament to other wicked

sounds in 2015.

In the last twelve months, Chris Imlach and Jonny Brick greeted old friends and made new ones. Chris saw albums by Public Service Broadcasting, Jeffrey Lewis, Sufjan Stevens, Courtney Barnett, John Grant, The Mountain Goats and Summer Camp all performed in a live setting, and enjoyed debut albums by Algiers, Gengahr, Legends of Country, SOAK, Only Real, Girlpool and

Wolf Alice.

Jonny, a keen student of songwriting and the music business, was a fan of Tobias Jesso Jr, Chris Stapleton, The Bohicas, Sleater-Kinney and

Colleen Green.

CHVRCHES, Hot Chip and the Maccabees also returned with bolder and even better sounds, building on their own unique musical selling

points.

In this 100-minute discussion, our favourite music of 2015 is placed in the context of the Year in Music. Jonny chronicles the year’s finest sounds, and apologising for acts missing from our top 25 that made an impact on thousands of listeners, while Chris praises his favourite male singers, including Ezra Furman, Frank Turner and Tom

Robinson.

Fans of pop, rock, independent singer-songwriter, lo-fi and clever dance music will find much to love in the ten ‘best’ UK, International and Debut albums of the year. Discover sounds you missed or others you loved from the millions of bars of music. Hear tracks in full on Spotify in the ‘Opportunity Inbox Album of the Year 2015’: https://open.spotify.com/user/jonnybrick/playlist/1nTt3hhhhFfozg8Ji2H05Q Opportunity Inbox will return with a Sound of 2016 podcast in January. Thanks very much to those who have enjoyed or merely listened to podcasts from Blastocyst.org.uk in 2015, and merry new year to all

site users.

_Hear the podcast here_: https://www.mixcloud.com/blastocast/opportunity-inbox-album-of-the-year-2015-a-discussion-with-chris-imlach-and-jonny-brick/ This entry was posted in Music and tagged albums , ezra

furman , music

on December 20, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

THE SPOOK SCHOOL RETURN WITH TRY TO BE HOPEFUL, A POPTASTIC ALBUM OF

11 TRACKS

Every December websites and magazines pick their top ‘things’ of the year just gone. They distil sounds, images and happenings in a list which encapsulates the arbitrary period of twelve (eleven, really) months of time. 2015 embodies happiness and sadness, as every year does. When listening to the second album by The Spook School, a band who form part of the Fortuna Pop! stable of bands who deal in uppity pop with guitars, I realised that for thirty-three minutes I was happier than I otherwise would be. You will be too. I know the band’s drummer Niall McCamley from his days as a comic. He once told me that he wanted to make art that made people think as much as it made them laugh. He provides the killer backbeat that underlies the poppy bumblebee-type music of TSS, which makes people

think and dance.

Since their debut, Dress Up, principal songwriter Nye Todd has taken hormones to make himself more masculine. Nye sung in a higher register on the killer early singles like I’ll Be Honest and History. Now he is closer in tone to his brother Adam (TSS is 50% Todd, 25% Anna Cory on bass and 25% Niall). Never has ‘an evolution of a singer’ been so dramatic between first and second albums. (He has spoken extensively about his transgender experience in 2015, not least to Rolling Stone magazine.) The first album was full of songs made up of stanzas and solos, poetry set to music, with extended singalong endings. Much is the same on Try To Be Hopeful, but I feel there are more choruses. The first track here, Burn Masculinity, keeps up the poesy of Dress Up, with Nye and Adam singing in unison and the others joining in on “burn burn burn burn masculinity” like on a Pixies song. The guitars are louder than on the debut, and much like Nye’s voice there seems more on the bottom end. Tthere’s quirkier instrumentation throughout, including brass and what sounds like a melodeon at one point (the keyboard you blow into). I Want to Kiss You is the most anthemic track on the album, and the best song in the band’s career so far, pure bubblegum pop that recalls someone like bis. Its killer opening couplet (“I wanna kiss him, I wanna kiss her”) speaks to the band’s queer fanbase; the video to Binary was shot at a queer festival and features a good visual summary of the type of person who’d be attracted to TSS’s music. The second half, with the lyric (“Tell me that you’ve never felt like this before”), is another chantalong smash, but not half as great as Binary’s “I am bigger than a hexadecimal” and its accompanying “0101010101” refrain. For food-related humour, check out the I Want to Kiss You video. Richard and Judy has a sing-song chorus and a great post-chorus guitar part that anchors the song. Like Everybody Needs to Be in Love, it is music to mosh by, which is important for a band used to playing sweaty venues – so sweaty that the bewhiskered Niall usually goes

shirtless.

Friday Night has Anna’s double-tracked vocal intoning “I haven’t got the energy”, which provides a counterpoint to another great chorus. It’s one of many songs where the heart makes an appearance; the bloody vessel is the subject of the song Vicious Machine, which does a great deal in its three minutes, including a turbo-fast final

half-minute.

August 17th is an understated ballad which references the friend zone. The narrator is meditative (“maybe we’re doing the right thing”), and listeners can identify with such melancholy, which also comes through on the title track. Speak When You’re Spoken To puts Adam’s vocal right in the centre of the mix (the album’s production by a member of the band Hookworms is splendid); the song ends with the TSS trademark guitar wig-out over which a listener can add the syncopated earworm of a chorus. 2015 will be many things for many people, but for TSS it’s the culmination of a few years of graft and honing their craft. Onwards into 2016, when TSS will gain more fans around the world with their poptimistic world view. This entry was posted in Music and tagged fortuna pop

, the spook school

on November 22,

2015 by Jonathan Brick

.

OPPORTUNITY INBOX – ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2015, SECOND QUARTER RELEASES

Part of the Opportunity Inbox series of podcasts, Chris Imlach and Jonny Brick pick their favourite albums of the year. In 2013 we chose albums by Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie, Phildel, Vampire Weekend, Veronica Falls, Haim, John Grant, The Boy Least Likely To and Los Campesinos among many others. We applauded efforts by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dawes and Tullycraft. Great debuts came from Public Service Broadcasting, Haim, Laura Mvula and The Strypes. In 2014 we agreed on Alvvays’ self-titled debut as the Debut Album of the Year, while Future Islands took International Album of the Year. The other category, UK Album of the Year, was won by Glass Animals. Honourable mentions went to Temples, Jungle, Woman’s Hour, Jamie T, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott and Alt-J. Other great international albums included Alpaca Sports, Ballet School. Perfume Genius, Kishi Bashi, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The New Pornographers, Asgeir and Leonard Cohen. In 2015 there have already been some contemporary classics, which we discussed in the Q1 (First Quarter of the Year) podcast which you can

listen to here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/blastocast/opportunity-inbox-album-of-the-year-2015-q1-uk/ Early contenders for UK Album of the Year are Public Service Broadcasting, Belle & Sebastian, Only Real, Young Fathers, Peace and Charli XCX. The Debut Album of the Year for Q1 was a brief field: Ibeyi, Circa Waves, Marika Hackman and Courtney Barnett. Well-received International Albums of the Year include The Decemberists, Purity Ring, Dan Deacon, Sleater-Kinney, Sufjan Stevens, The Do, Modest Mouse, Tobias Jesso Jr and Ron Sexsmith. Here are some of the albums Chris and Jonny discussed, with musical accompaniment, in the Q2 podcast broadcast through Mixcloud.com/Blastocast in June 2015. Debut albums are denoted with a

“(D)” symbol.

BRITISH ALBUMS

Jamie xx – In Colour (D): Never puts a beat wrong, there are euphoric moments tempered by ennui. The lead review in Mojo magazine: “the sound of someone spending a lifetime in a cave of shiny 12-inches and rave tapes”. The first set of original material under the xx member’s own name (he remixed a Gil Scott-Heron album recently), so counts as a debut. Django Django – Born Under Saturn: thrusting pop with polyphonic harmonies building on their DIY sound and making it arena-ready. Pitchfork said it sounded too clever, but we disagree. Andreya Triana – Giants: A great new soul singer with support from BBC Radio 2 who deserves the wide audience. Jonny heard the record in Banquet Records in Kingston and immediately wanted more of a singer who sits in the intersection of Lauryn Hill and Laura Mvula. Hot Chip – Why Make Sense: Solid pop with an electro feel, with many hands-in-air moments. Great in fields or in sweaty clubs. We’ll miss them when they’re gone. Milky Wimpshake – Encore, Un Effort!: Another winner from the Fortuna Pop label, and another band who deserve success after plugging away for a decade or so. Drenge – Undertow: Smarter than the Vaccines, less in-yer-face than Slaves, who have both made decent rock records this quarter, this is the rock album of the quarter with loads of hooks. Maribou State – Portraits (D): On the always ace NinjaTune label, two guys from Hertfordshire recall the slow dance rooms of clubs at the turn of the millennium. Great guest vocal spots and inventive electronic grooves make this an essential 3am album. FFS – FFS (more members are British, but it is an international album and a (D)): The funniest album of the year, for fans of both bands. Verges on Noel Coward in places. A respectable Top 20 smash hit for the Franz Ferdinand and Sparks Alliance. INTERNATIONAL ALBUMS Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color: The most deserved number one album America has had for a while, with production from Blake Mills there are so many leap-out-the-seat moments in the arrangements and vocals. Better than their first, and hopefully not as good as their third! Summer Camp – Bad Love: Hooky and poppy throughout, building on their brilliant 2013 second album, which Chris felt was one of the ten International albums of 2013. SOAK – Before we Forget to Dream: The stagename of this 18-year-old Irish lady stands for ‘soul-folk’ but comes across as the next Ed Sheeran. Haunting and confessional. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love: White rock with a soulful feel, there’s always something interesting going on, and the crooning vocal is magnificent. Critically acclaimed, and one of our top tips in the quarter. Zac Brown Band – Jekyll + Hyde: Another number one album in America, Zac is the closest thing American music has to Johnny Cash today. With jazz, pop and rollicking country, there’s a great punnet of sounds. Chris doesn’t like the country tracks, though! Sheppard – Bombs Away (D): Geronimo took over the world by stealth, from Australia outwards, in the last year. Bombs Away finally lands and it has many more supremely pop moments. Shamir – Ratchet (D): A voice that can grate, but when you’re with it you want to stay to see what happens. It’s the music RuPaul would be making if he had been born in the 1990s in Las Vegas. Make a Scene is particularly great. Screaming Females – Rose Mountain: Have been knocking around for a while, and along with Sleater-Kinney make a racket that throws in everything and the kitchen sink. Penguin Prison – Lost in New York: Proper danceable pop that is essential for any indie disco. Girlpool – Before the World was Big: 24 minutes of lo-fidelity bedroom indie. Pitchfork gave their release a good review, praising the simple chord cycles. Doomtree – All Hands: A harder-edged Macklemore who spits rhymes at a frightening rate. Chris was reminded of Run the Jewels Fight Like Apes – Fight Like Apes: From Dublin with love for pop. Dawes – All Your Favorite Bands: Nine tracks of West Coast rock, written by a guy in his late twenties who’s muddling through. The thinking man’s rock group, with not a second wasted. Hear the podcast, with music and discussion, at https://www.mixcloud.com/upload/blastocast/opportunity-inbox-album-of-the-year-q2/. This entry was posted in Music and tagged alabama shakes

, albums

, dawes

, django django

on June 20, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

“MAY ALL YOUR FAVORITE BANDS STAY TOGETHER”: DAWES RETURN FOR

SUMMER 2015

Someone told me the other day that Britain is one of Europe’s most atheist countries. So many centuries of religion has suddenly ended up providing the country’s folk with either apathy or a lack of belief. Nietszche told us about G-D’s death, but maybe G-D had just been

reincarnated.

Listening to the fourth record by Dawes, the closest thing I have to a favourite band, I was reminded of this statistic, and of the spiritual power the music of the American Pacific (West) Coast has on me. I now live with a girl from that coast, not entirely without coincidence. I’ve spent many summers fortunate enough to spend time in Southern California, but I know the state is one containing many multitudes of people, races, religions and music cultures. Everyone there seeks their own credos and ways of living. Unlike in America, only a few million Britons go to church. I don’t visit synagogue on the Day of Rest; I spend it following football matches or reading news, while listening to records. Many other Britons do the same, and this summer a fair few will be heading to arenas, fields or parks to see sundry independent and major-label artists, or catching Kanye West on TV since only 200,000 people can be

there in person.

Outdoor festivals in particular offer the same things as great football grounds do: ritual, community, performance, dancing, singing, harmony, melody and all that jazz (or metal, or indie-rock). The festival circuit may have hit critical mass a few years ago, and suffers from a deficit of quality headliners, but the big ones are still here. Alongside the massive rock festivals in Donington (Download), Reading/Leeds, Glastonbury, Hyde Park (formerly Calling but rebranded as British Summer Time) and T in the Park are more niche ones, such as Indietracks, Festival No. 6 in Portmeirion, Wales, or the End of the Road Festival in Dorset. Or should that be Dawes-et? The band formerly known as Simon Dawes have a decently-sized following. They’ve never had a hit, and never had a song synched to a major TV show; I must have missed their song when it played on American Dad. They do, however, head out on the road

every summer.

The band’s big UK indoor date is in September, supporting My Morning Jacket at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire; back home Dawes tour the US with James Vincent McMorrow, having spent much of 2014 as the backing band and support act for Conor Oberst. They also backed Jackson Browne around the time of their breakthrough second album Nothing Is Wrong. That album kicked off with Time Spent in Los Angeles, one of my Desert Island Discs, which uses dynamic, melody and harmony gorgeously and appeals to fans of country-rock and Americana, and to the other artists mentioned in this paragraph. Dawes were big successes at South by South West in Austin last year, and have also twice been cover stars of online music weekly Paste Magazine. In the UK, the Mail on Sunday’s music writer Tim De Lisle is a vocal drum-beater for the Dawes cause. They have support from BBC DJ Bob Harris, who is a huge fan and has had them in on session for his Sunday programme. He heavily rotated Time Spent… in 2011-2, and then Most People in 2013-4. “Most people don’t talk enough about how lucky they are…” goes the chorus, one of many songs in their four-album catalogue that expresses a universal truth set to a groovy

musical backing.

Notably they were the new favourite band of now-retired talk show host David Letterman; they were one of his last-ever musical guests playing recent single Things Happen and a cover of a Warren Zevon song. Zevon is the late purveyor of offbeat, lyric-driven piano-and-guitar rock, and a key influence on Dawes. I like Dawes because I can sing the lead vocal comfortably. All my favourite bands – Counting Crows, the Beatles, Jellyfish – have vocalists who pitch the vocal in my tenor range. Taylor Goldsmith is no exception, while the harmonies land on by his bandmates – Tay on keys, Wylie on bass, Griffin on drums – are sensible and sumptuous. Taylor sings in many styles, sometimes in falsetto, other times bellowing the words from the back of his throat like Bruce Springsteen, other times still holding back uncertainly, as on Time

Spent…

After a decent third album recorded with Norah Jones’s producer Jacquire King, the band wanted a sound that was closer to their live shows, and drafted in Dave Rawlings to sit behind a desk and run the tapes. Handily Dave’s wife Gillian Welch is a singer of some repute, and she adds vocals to one or two of the tracks here. The quiet ‘yeah!’ on their track Don’t Send Me Away is evidence of how comfortable the band feel in this environment, which carries across to

me, the listener.

The musicianship is of the calibre that comes from playing together for almost a decade, or three decades in the case of brothers Taylor and Griffin. When I saw them in Oxford in 2012 they were on a UK tour that took in a Hyde Park set; for their 2013 visit they played gigs in clubs including the Borderline in London. In 2014 NPR Music (who streamed the new record a week before release) broadcasted their set from the Newport Folk Festival where they debuted Things Happen, the lead track from All Your Favorite Bands. They also played an extended version of From the Right Angle, about being “out on the road”, alongside songs with existing solo passages: Most People, From a Window Seat and the second album’s closing tune A Little Bit of

Everything.

Dawes are one of my favourite bands because they write such an eclectic array of types of song. A typical album (the new one has nine, but typically they contain eleven) has a few anthems, a few reflective ones (Moon in the Water and Million Dollar Bill were a fine pair on the second side of Nothing is Wrong), aforementioned add-the-guitar-solo tunes and at least one Classic. On the last record, Something In Common was the closest to a Classic, changing key magnificently and unexpectedly. The band have now played the tracks from their first record since 2009, and their sound has evolved to take into account stints learning from Jackson, Conor and Mumford & Sons. Around the time of the Mumfordsplosion in 2010, Dawes already had a killer track, When My Time Comes. My role as apostle is to tell people that the Dawes track is the equal to the sometimes-too-Christian tracks from the first Mumford and Sons album. The third Mumford album topped UK and US charts; it will be a victory for Dawes, on their own HUB label, to break the top 100 with their fourth. Taylor Goldsmith is one of ‘those’ lyricists in American songwriting, a songwriter’s songwriter who has never dated anyone famous or been in any gossip column. His mate Marcus married a movie star, but I don’t know anything about Taylor’s love life. He tends towards the universal, mixing the concrete and the abstract while writing in the first person. Taylor is not one of the sorts of songwriters derided as confessional and mawkish; Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift may write songs alluding to beefs between former friends and stolen girlfriends, but not this Taylor. Dawes songs speak to me as a twenty-odd male in a developed Anglophone country. No Dawes song is a party banger; they’re very much songs to drink responsibly to or, as Taylor has said in the past, campfire singalongs where there is a strong rhythm or structure to draw in eager listeners. There is a hymnal quality to Taylor’s melodies, boosted by Tay’s organ flourishes, and his meditative songs match those by songwriters of former eras. The influence of ever-serious Bob Dylan hangs heavy on any rock songwriter. In 2014 Taylor joined T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello in setting some early Dylan lyrics to music on The New Basement Tapes. Another Dylan tune, Forever Young, is an influence on the album’s title track. Taylor has written that he wants ‘may all your favourite bands stay together’ to become a goodwill toast between

friends.

Some of the album’s best lines are wry, like a Comedy Store raconteur. “If these walls could talk, I’d defer to the furniture” is the opening line of Right On Time. The song is about being metaphorically shot through the heart, as we discover in the third bridge; those who have been hurt can relate to the song, those who have put themselves through “a long and worthy sacrifice”. As they listen they can nod along to a groovy rock arrangement, and latterly realise the words are at odds with the uppity major-key feel. Right On Time is a useful illustration of what snobs would call ‘grad school’-level songwriting: we hear the words “disregarded”, “hunches”, “documented” and “investigate” and the internal rhyme “the edges of the

nebula”.

Things Happen (“that’s all they ever do”) is very apt and very Taylor Goldsmith. There’s a sweet piano riff in the second verse as Taylor mentions driving to Oakland, and the chorus includes the triumphant line “Let’s raise a glass to all the people you’re not speaking to”. Defiance, brotherhood, friendship come to the fore. The video, with the band mucking around in costume on Hollywood Boulevard, gives lie to the band’s serious front. To Be Completely Honest, with sun-coated harmonies, seems another meditative tune whose lyrics linger over how, as the ‘universe keeps on expanding’, life on the blue planet is supposed to be a little easier. I Can’t Think About It Now has the album’s best riff, backed up by female vocalists and a hugely uncertain tone of the lyric, which packs many syllables into each stanza as well as a brilliant image about a ‘ballet dancer breaking in her shoes’. It seems inevitable that any LA band will draw comparison with Fleetwood Mac, but the song has the same light bass-led shuffle and explosion into guitar solo that the best Mac tracks possess. The other epic track on the record is Now That It’s Too Late, Maria, a ten-minute-long slow burner that is closer in sound to a traditional break-up song than Right On Time. I like the lyric “I was too green to be blue” as well as the bluesy guitar line that runs throughout the tune. Maybe you will too. In his writing Taylor seems more interested generally in the start and end of love, or the attraction of it. Somewhere Along the Way has the best chorus harmonies on the album, a Dawes USP, and packs alliteration into the opening couplet (“table matters to tunnel vision”). The song laments the lost innocence and dreams of a girl who comes to the “solar-panelled hills” of Hollywood, but instead suffers a “tortured dance” in trying to meet her intended match. Dawes, from Los Angeles, can speak well of friends who have moved to the US’s entertainment city: “Her only plan in life was getting lost” can apply to thousands who are at the centre or periphery of someone’s LA adventures. The song is brilliant, one of Taylor’s best. As a kicker, late in the song he adds the narrator in, just before another sweet guitar part kicks in. The final chorus fades out, like a car driving towards the horizon or away from LA, or ready to return to the start of the song to soundtrack the life of another dreamer. _All Your Favorite Bands streams now. The PledgeMusic campaign at PledgeMusic.com/projects/dawes offers fans a variety of purchase

packages._

This entry was posted in Music and tagged americana ,

bob harris , dawes

on June 1, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

IT’S COMING HOME! CAN ENGLAND LADIES WIN THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2015?

_Not so fast! The ‘end’ of the 2014/5 football season doesn’t

exist._

_Like children ‘turning’ into teenagers and then into young adults, football seasons evolve from one form to the next. The FA Cup Final may have brought the domestic season to an end, but England’s Ladies are in Canada to compete for the World Cup 2015. _ A question that will come to the mind of any Englishman of full blood in 2016 will be this: “50 years of hurt, why are we still

dreaming?”

When I was eight, and getting into pop music and football, one song stood out for me. I loved the Lightning Seeds (Marvellous, Lucky You, Pure and so on), and I loved the two blokes singing “Three Lions on a shirt”. It is brilliant that, even in 2015, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner are still culturally relevant, the former through a recent stage production of his film The Infidel, about religion and Britain, and the latter through his award-winning Saturday morning radio show and presenting gig on the BBC’s Room 101 show. Baddiel and Skinner are two of my favourite comics. Both came of age in the early 1990s; David played Wembley Arena like a pop star with his old mate Robert Newman, while Frank took his man-friendly forward-thinking act around the country after scooping the big award at the Edinburgh Fringe at more or less his first attempt. Both are now fathers and family men, and are both known for their religious upbringing, David as the man who doesn’t want to be seen as ‘Britain’s Mr Jew’ and Frank (born Chris Collins) for his

Catholicism.

In 2016, we may hear a lot of ‘fifty years of hurt, why are we still dreaming?’ but in summer 2015 there is a chance that England will win the World Cup. Put aside any thought of the men’s team triumphing in Moscow or Doha; we probably won’t turn up, or we’ll send an all-black team to Russia and an all-gay team to Qatar made up of park footballers who play on Hackney Marshes, just to make a point. Greg Dyke will be assistant manager. The manager will be Louis Spence. Women’s football is having its moment in the sun. In 1996, when Three Lions was being sung mockingly by German crowds at Wembley Stadium as they beat first England then the Czech Republic to win the European Championships, women’s football was never spoken about. Quietly, Hope Powell began managing the England Ladies team from 1998, ensuring that women’s football was promoted in schools, notably by the international team members themselves. The England team had one superstar, who had been big in US soccer before she was signed by Arsenal, her heroes. Kelly Smith was her name, and today at least five English ladies should be household names. Other latter-day heroes have retired from the national team, including Faye White and Smith herself. Fans of England Ladies will know that Eniola Aluko is a star striker. Her brother Sony is a Premier League player with Hull. Karen Carney is skilful and strong and great to watch, and recently revealed her struggle with depression to The Times. On the pitch, Alex Scott is solid at the back in the absence of the retired White, while Ellen White (no relation to Faye) is still England’s number nine. Rachel Yankey, of Arsenal Ladies, is also very exciting to watch; she famously played with boys while she grew up, cutting her hair and calling herself Ray! Then, as we shall see, attitudes changed… On April 9th 2015, England Ladies played China at the Academy Stadium in Manchester City’s expensive and shiny new centre. This is important because the Manchester City Ladies play their home games in the Women’s Super League there. The WSL was rejigged to create two division and was launched with much fanfare, and TV coverage on BT Sport, in March 2014. Outrage greeted the demotion of Doncaster Belles, whose place in the top division was taken by Man City. WSL1 was won on the last day by Liverpool, who retained the title after an exciting run-in when any of Liverpool, Chelsea or Birmingham could have triumphed. WSL2 was won by Sunderland, who pipped Doncaster. I actually saw Sunderland Ladies take on Watford Ladies in the old WSL, and was impressed by their commanding keeper and silky forwards. All the silkier because the Watford Ladies pitch in Berkhamsted, a non-league ground, was cut up after autumn rain. From the first six games of the 2015 WSL2 season, Watford Ladies won their sixth game after only one point from five. They lost the game that had been played at Vicarage Road at the end of March in front of 1100 people, about 1000 more than who had been at Berkhamsted. Man City Ladies, and England Ladies, play on lush surfaces. In fact, England Ladies sold more tickets for their recent friendly against Germany than the men sold for the friendly against Norway in 2014. 55,000 people took advantage of affordable tickets to see Germany conquer once again at Wembley in November 2014. Germany, who along with Sweden, Brasil and the USA are favourites for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, seemed imperious even without five first-team players. England, however, did win the Cyprus Cup, a friendly tournament, beating Canada in the final. England beat China 2-1 in the last home friendly in England before the World Cup. The game was broadcast on the BBC’s 5live SportsExtra digital service, and listeners tuning in late would have missed the first of England’s two quick goals. They lost 1-0, possibly carrying some jetlag, against the host nation in a friendly to promote the

tournament.

The Senior team’s efforts against China were overshadowed by the England Under-19s, who qualified for their age group’s tournament in Israel with a re-taken penalty. In a farce which could have been avoided if the referee had given a retake rather than a free kick to the opposition, England were penalised for encroachment in the final moments of the game proper. Because both teams were still in Belfast, the players regrouped on the day of the England Senior team’s game and justice was done. Norway had won 8-1 against Northern Ireland to secure their own qualification. Those under-19s were not yet born when Kelly Smith made her debut for

the senior team.

One could say that Kelly Smith was born five years too early, and suffered two broken legs too many. She still earned her reputation as the foremost player of her generation. With her inspirational England coach Hope Powell encouraging on the touchline and in the dressing room, Kelly raised the profile of women’s football and set in motion England Ladies 2.0, with Carney and Aluko and the rest. “Flair players are the ones people pay to watch”, writes Smith in her memoir, Footballer, released in paperback following the 2012 Olympics. Hacking Smith and Carney and others is detrimental to the entertainment value. Like any gifted prodigy who stands out, Smith suffered from bad tackles and lax officiating. Smith was born in Watford in the same hospital as me; unlike me, she has been awarded an MBE for her services to football (that’s the picture accompanying the piece). Her book revealed Kelly’s pride in meeting the Queen, but also her crippling alcohol addiction, brought on by shyness, injury and homesickness. The bleak chapters come from Smith describing her time in a semi-professional American collegiate environment, away from home for the first time. Even as a child playing with the boys, teams would object to a girl in the opposition (and a more skilful one at that) and prevent Smith from doing the thing she was good at. A teenage international, Smith has played in America twice and for Arsenal Ladies three times. Like her hero Ryan Giggs she straddles the eras, and the pair made the Olympic squad for their respective teams for London 2012. The Ladies Team kicked off the Games and current team captain Steph Houghton scored the free kick that ensured positive back-page coverage. Playing their final group game in front of over 70,000 people at Wembley, Smith had achieved her dream, which had been so distant in the 1990s when there was no professional football available for women. Now there are two leagues and women play on better pitches in matches supported by both BT Sport and the BBC. In the 2000s the England team was mostly made up of players from Arsenal, coached by Vic Akers, the men’s team’s kitman. Smith admits that the team spirit of the international team came about from players being familiar with other players’ movements and habits from the domestic game. Through more big tournament experience, the core group of players stayed together from 2005 to 2011, through two World Cups and European Championships. I hope that the men’s team, if not made up of players from the top six clubs, is at least formed from those who moved up the age groups together, with senior players like Wayne Rooney and James Milner passing the baton on to Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane. It is a shame that there is no Team GB football team going to Rio for Great Britain in 2016, but the silver lining is that the BBC have lined up impressive coverage of the World Cup 2015. The coverage, which is on iPlayer, social media and radio, is fronted by Jacqui Oatley and Tina Daheley. Rachel Yankey and Rachel Brown-Finnis (the former England goalkeeper) are on punditry duty; Sue Smith, with the great hairstyle and Scouse burr, is co-commentator with Jonathan Pearce. England play France on Tuesday 9 June, with an exciting Saturday evening (in the UK) game on the 13th against Mexico and then the third group game against Colombia at the stadium used in the Montreal Olympic Games. France were the team who defeated England on penalties in the 2011 World Cup, so revenge would be sweet and decisive. It seems the winner of the all-European tie will advance as Group F winners to play Spain or South Korea, the likely Group E runners-up providing Brazil do not take lessons from their men and collapse when it matters. Not likely with Marta, the world’s best player, in their team. Second place in Group F will take on the runners-up from Group B, probably Norway unless Germany have a particularly awful tournament. Holders Japan have an easy group, and Canada is not too hot in June and will welcome every nation from June 6, where the host

nation plays China.

I wish England Ladies the best for the World Cup. The men’s team lost two and drew one of their three games in Brazil 2014, so any victory would see their popularity soar. In spite of the men having games in Ireland and Slovenia in June, the real focus should be on the

ladies.

Watch out for the Women’s World Cup and prepare to cheer for some talented professionals. Even without the recent problems suffered by , the women’s game has its biggest international platform in a country where girls play football from a

young age.

So can England win the world cup? If Germany, Brazil and Sweden suffer, I think England will be in line to spring a deserving surprise. Fifty years of hurt may find a cure in Bardsley, A.ain!! _The FA are promoting Women’s Sport Week, June 1-7. Details of free coaching sessions can be found here: http://www.thefa.com/news/2015/may/the-fa-launches-free-month-of-girl-football-sessions-310515_ _http://www.thefa.com/england/womens-seniors is the __place for any official news and reaction from the England camp. Look out for a piece on _Bend It Like Beckham_, now previewing at London’s Phoenix Theatre, in June._ This entry was posted in Sport and tagged england ladies

, eni aluko

, hope powell

, kelly smith

, steph houghton

, women’s world

cup on May 31,

2015 by Admin

.

JOHNNY CASH, THE MAN IN BLACK VINYL

All six of Johnny Cash’s American series of album are now available on vinyl in a box set. The Man in Black can now be played on black vinyl, should you so wish. True fans of the man will already own all the recordings from the last decade of Johnny’s eventful life, so this set is aimed at completists or those who want to hear Cash as he was heard in his pomp: on 33-and-a-thirds. I remember when the fifth volume emerged, a couple of years after Johnny’s death, around the time Joaquin Phoenix gave such an immense portrayal of a man whose outlaw spirit defined that sort of American man. It is amazing to think that before producer Rick Rubin started to get the most out of Cash’s voice, a stunning instrument, Cash was in the literal and musical wilderness. In fact, his daughter Rosanne was more successful in the early 1990s, while father John R. Cash was playing to disinterested folk bussed in by promoters. The first American Recordings LP was Johnny and his six-string, the better to hear his growl. Later on, joined by an array of guests (assorted Eagles, country heroines) and guru-producer Rick Rubin pressing ‘record’, Cash knew that he was not making these records to make money or have something to sing on TV. Elvis Presley, dead at 42, never had the opportunity to grow old, while other rock’n’roll heroes keep on trucking. Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner and Chuck Berry became as famous for their private lives as much as their melding of rhythm and blues and rockabilly, which in a pre-Beatle era defined American musical culture. I remember being addicted to God’s Gonna Cut You Down (from volume V), the folk song borrowed by Moby in Run On. I was attracted to the slave-driver rhythm and Johnny’s speak-song voice. I also liked, at various times in the last decade, his acoustic versions of Soundgarden’s Rusty Cage (II), Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus (IV), Tom Petty’s Southern Accents (II) and I Won’t Back Down (III) and U2’s One (III). The greatest songs are the ones which work with voice and as little accompaniment as possible, highlighting words, melody and message. Johnny’s treatment of One, in particular, is shimmering, as is his interpretation of U2’s Wayfaring Stranger

(III).

Johnny Cash released hundreds of tracks, from his own hand and from others’ hands, in his heyday between 1955 and 1971. His live performances at San Quentin and Folsom Prison show him as the outlaw’s favourite bard – this was the man who wrote “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” – but he could also be patriotic, as on Ragged Old Flag, about the Stars and Stripes. In his twenties and thirties his voice was sharp and strong; in his sixties, when he recorded this series of tracks, he was wiser, more morose, breathier and sometimes right up against the microphone for maximum intensity. He never twangs or yodels; that was never his vocal

style.

Robert Hilburn’s biography includes a section devoted to his American Recordings period where he compares the relationship of Cash and the man he called “a hippie”, Rick Rubin, to that of Scorsese and De Niro. Recording the American collection of songs, Cash overcame family issues and apathetic audiences. Indeed, Cash told Hilburn, Rick made him think that he “had a legacy after all…and even add to

it.”

The key to the American series was to update Cash, not just for a contemporary audience of grunge and indie-rock fans, but for his own legacy. This was, after all, the man who became one of country music’s biggest stars, marrying June Carter of the renowned Carter Family of singers, and who made it onto the pop charts with songs about railroads and walking the line. Trains run through the six volumes in the set: Like the 309 (V) is a Cash composition on which he sings “take me to the depot, put me to bed…load my box on the 309”; Let the Train Blow the Whistle is another original, which has the familiar ‘train on the track’ rhythm. On the first volume he de-gravels the Tom Waits song Down There By the Train. Country themes of loss and heartbreak are omnipresent too: The One Rose (That’s Left in my Heart) and Sea of Heartbreak (both II, the latter written by Hal David including the opening line “the lights in the harbour don’t shine for me”) are both rootin’-tootin’ country tunes full of mournful chords. Volume II, titled Unchained, won the Best Country Grammy award, and was the last of the four volumes recorded and released in Cash’s lifetime. Volumes III and IV were recorded when Cash’s health was failing; he was losing the feeling in his fingers and had to wear orthopaedics to help him walk. He is unsurprisingly consumed by mortality here: Will Oldham’s modern hymn I See a Darkness and Nick Cave’s The Mercy Seat are great choices by Rubin. On Volume VI, he faithfully records Sheryl Crow’s Redemption Day. His own Meet Me in Heaven (II) is tender and worthy of being a Cash standard, while Ain’t No Grave, the title of Volume VI which was released posthumously, is underscored by chainmail percussion and a

banjo.

Some self-penned songs had been deliberately left off past albums by Cash, whose 1980s output was lost amid the din of music made, among others, by acts produced by Rubin himself. Another successful act, Tom Petty, worked on the second volume, and expressed surprise when Rubin offered up Addicted to Love and Rusty Cage; the former was shouted down, the latter eventually accepted. There are around fifteen Cash originals loitering among the standards, including the title track of volume IV, The Man Comes Around; the phrase “kick against the pricks” rolls round Johnny’s mouth like Bourbon. Robert Hilburn records how many drafts and redrafts Cash had of his ‘modern gospel’ tune. Some songs reflect old-style Johnny, Country Boy (II) is rollicking, and is a pastiche of songs like Get Rhythm where Cash crams a lot of syllables into one line; Mean Eyed Cat is about a woman who abused Johnny’s trust, left and set Johnny on a two-minute-thirty-four long quest to win her back. Before My Time is about songwriters who used to write the same topics he has chosen: “What the old time masters had is what I feel for you.” It is even more wrenching to know that his wife, June Carter, pre-deceased Johnny by mere weeks. It is the cover versions that most intrigue, of course. With amazing instrumental backing from top musicians, Johnny interprets songs by his contemporaries and successors, taking on Tom Paxton, Beck (a song called Rowboat where the singer calls for alcohol and a truck) and John Lennon, where he gives gravitas to In My Life, written by a twenty-four-year-old. Johnny’s interpretation of Bridge Over Troubled Water (IV) is a duet with Fiona Apple – a sort of female Cash in her refusal to play by industry rules – with added accordions to bring out the tissues and tears. The Beast in Me was written for Cash by his one-time son-in-law Nick Lowe, and is pitched very low in Johnny’s range so that he growls it rather than sings

it.

His last hit of sorts was Hurt, helped by an amazing music video shot at the House of Cash ‘living museum’. “What have I become, my sweetest friend?” sings Johnny on Hurt, borrowing Trent Reznor’s self-harm anthem and enabling his own problems, including alcoholism, incarceration and drug addiction, to be reflected through his own voice. For those who know the original, with its screeds of noise, this version brings humanity to the song. It was a brilliant choice of song (which Rubin pushed for John to record), made more poignant because Johnny knew he was due up to heaven, or down to hell, soon after the fourth volume emerged. As pivotal a figure in American music as Elvis Presley or Eminem, Johnny Cash inspired, enlightened and, in the last ten years of his life, enthralled newer listeners. The American recordings merit the new vinyl release, and satisfy a record buyer’s desire for true

Americana.

This entry was posted in Music and tagged hurt , johnny cash

, rick rubin

on May 30, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

THE BLASTOCYST.ORG.UK MAY 7 ELECTION DAY RADIOTHON

Welcome to the Blastocyst.org.uk May 7 Election Day Radiothon!!! If you’re going out to vote, enjoy your democracy. Rarer than leap years, this is a once-in-five-year chance to try and influence the politics of Great Britain. The team at Blastocyst.org.uk have put together mixes and shows that seek to entertain you and in some cases (but not all) to provide a break from the chatter about MPs and PMQs and the lack of AV and all

that.

Here is the schedule, kicking off at 9am: 9am: The New Music Show, with JP – Two hours and 32 of the latest and greatest tunes, hosted by Jon Parker aka JP 11am: PressPlayOK Radio Show, hosted by Adeel Amini – Top new songs with some chatter in between from the editor of PressPlayOK.com 12noon: Ed Bond Rocks – An hour of tunes from the 60s and 70s, all intent on rocking your world, curated by Ed Bond 1pm: Hollerin Franklin’s Political Mix – Anarchic pieces of music put together in a mix by Hollerin Franklin, MC of New Urban Frontier 2pm: HERO BLOB 7D: Rise of the Jive Turkeys, by Schedel Luitjen – A half-hour of dramatic power starring everyone’s most loveable

superhero

2.30pm: The Fixed Term Act LP – A Listening Party which airs Jonny Brick’s LP, recorded on behalf of Blastocyst.org.uk, available in full at soundcloud.com/jonny_brick for free and to share 3pm: Quiz Hour – Jonny Brick plays host, JP the contestant. Four rounds, one with a political theme 4.15pm: Daniel Buckley presents The Sea – A mix put together by Blastocyst.org.uk Screens Editor Daniel Buckley with tracks inspired

by the water

5pm: The Cellar Door, with Chris Imlach – Blastocyst.org.uk’s Head of Music curates an hour of songs, including Three for Free and a great new cover of Buddy Holly’s ‘Maybe Baby’ 6pm: America’s Hits: Hidden Gems – Two hours of songs presented by Amanda McWhorter, including covers, rarities and songs you really

oughta know

8pm: Hustings, hosted by Jonny Brick – Rounding off the broadcast, the site’s founding editor presents an hour of musings based on today’s election. Includes Al Murray, Russell Brand, the voice of Peter Dickson from The X Factor and some tracks from The Fixed Term

Act LP

All podcasts will go out ‘as live’ at the scheduled time, and will be uploaded to www.mixcloud.com/blastocast. They will stay there in perpetuity, so if you missed a show because you were out voting then you can still catch it. Throughout the day Jonny Brick will be on Twitter @jonnybrick promoting the day’s schedule. Please say hello, and let me know if and, if you want to, how you voted. Whatever happens, it’s fun to find out! Thanks and enjoy the broadcast, Jonny Brick, Founding Editor, Blastocyst.org.uk This entry was posted in Arts and tagged election day

on May 7, 2015

by Jonathan Brick

.

TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER RISE TO THE TOP OF THE POPS

Taylor Swift, the subject of this essay from Blastocyst.org.uk, which is available in audio form at mixcloud.com/blastocast seems to be the happiest woman on Earth. In 2014 she released the only album that sold enough copies to be certified Platinum in the same year it came out. That album, 1989, was a step forward from both the FM radio pop of Red, the country-pop of Speak Now and her self-titled pure country debut, which came out aeons

ago in 2006.

—

Back then the Swift story was already important. She had convinced her parents to move from the East Coast to Nashville, where songs were made and when she could make connections in the music business. I remember hearing ‘Teardrops on my Guitar’ and thinking, Goodness this is pretty good. Did she write this? She did write it. It’s one of her best songs and set the tone for her early songwriting attempts. The first track on her first album Tim McGraw is self-explanatory when you know the subject is a country star, while Our Song was a glorious ode to turning up the radio in the car to hear ‘our song’. Taylor was not yet 18 when the song became a huge hit, cracking the top 20 of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. In the first few years of her career, she supported big country stars on their tours: George Strait is one of the kings of the genre, while Rascal Flatts (despite having a song included in Pixar’s film Cars) are a renowned country group who are now signed to the same label that Taylor Swift released her first albums on. (Their hit song What Hurts the Most was a 2006 country number one and Top 10 Hot 100 hit; a dance-pop cover by Cascada was a hit the following year, and the song has become a modern country music standard.) A few years after opening for Rascal Flatts, another standard emerged, from Swift’s pen and mouth. Love Story was, and is, a simple pop song with a killer key change. Swift’s trajectory changed when the song got a pop remix; it had been number one in the US country chart for several months in 2009 and got a UK release too. She was still mainly known in the red bits of America, where they shoot the things they eat and drink beer while sitting on a pickup truck. (That’s not racist; it’s true.) When Speak Now came out, I heard more of her music. Typically US country stars are huge in the US but are unable to break into the UK market unless they put out a ballad. Carrie Underwood, for instance, is loved by a few people, in the country where she won a TV talent contest. Kelly Clarkson won the same contest, but went pop, or pop-rock, with her first releases. Underwood, whose Greatest Hits emerged in 2014, has done similar, but in a very country-rock-pop way: Undo It, Cowboy Casanova and new song Something in the Water have all gained UK radio play; the last of these made the A list on Radio 2’s playlist, as part of their campaign to make country music popular in the UK. After all, the greatest pop tunes today come out of Nashville. The greatest writers are making music over there, and record companies on Music Row, in Nashville, are primed to sell the choicest cuts to radio. A song that hits the country chart, like Need You Now by Lady Antebellum, can be covered by Cheryl Cole and Gary Barlow on British TV and send music fans flocking to pop-country albums by the great US band who are now in the odd position of being too big for the country chart, but not big enough to top the pop charts. And this is the part where we re-introduce the lady whom Lady Antebellum beat for the 2012 Country Album of the Year at the Grammies, their second consecutive win.

—

Fearless was Taylor Swift’s 2008 album, following her self-titled debut. Fearless won the 2010 Grammy for Album of the Year, in any genre, beating Beyonce, The Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga and, of course, Dave Matthews Band. The album was executive produced by a man called Scott Borchetta, whose name will mean nothing to you until you realise he is Mr Music Row. He discovered Taylor Swift and ran the label that put out Fearless called, haha, Big Machine. Fearless’s third single, You Belong with Me, was nominated for Record and Song of the Year (two awards, don’t ask me why), while pretty ballad White Horse won the Best Country Song award. Another song that was a single, Fifteen, seems to nail down Taylor’s target market: teenage girls who, quoting the protagonists from her song Love Story, are young and after their Romeos to take them ‘some place to

be alone’.

Taylor Swift is the first true pop star of the social media age. She is capable of being profiled in pop magazines, business titles and broadsheet newspapers. She has millions of people following and discussing her on social media, which are the metrics of the current era, but significantly she has sold physical music, be it CDs or tickets to her live shows. Since her album Red, released in 2012, Swift has gone front-and-centre for the pop market, a clever thing to do if you look like a pop star, sound like a pop star and have recently moved to New York like a pop star. 2015 will see her headline Hyde Park in summer, supported by Ellie Goulding, as part of the British Summer Time series of gigs; Kylie Minogue is headlining one of the other ones on a bill that

includes Chic.

Red was 65 minutes long – far too long, but then most pop records are too long – and includes a total of eight producers excluding Taylor herself. One producer is Jeff Bhaskar, who has worked with Kanye West and Mark Ronson, while another is U2’s producer Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee, who helped make Snow Patrol sound radio-friendly. Chasing Cars is one of his. Red, meanwhile, had seven singles taken from it, almost as many as Katy Perry or Rihanna release from their albums. Non-filler tracks on Red included the Max Martin co-write and lead single We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, I Knew You Were Trouble, 22, the title track and Ed Sheeran duet Everything Has Changed. Sheeran, who slept on her couch in Nashville, is reaping the benefits from supporting her on the Red tour, and a similar piece could be written about him, the man whose songwriting talents helped him shift many, many copies of his

art.

Swift, in February 2015, won the Best International Female award at the BRITs. That same week, she attended America’s version, the GRAMMYs, on behalf of her huge song Shake It off, where she was beaten by Sam Smith’s song Stay With Me. She wasn’t so fussed: in her career so far, Swift has won 7 of the 25 Grammy Awards for which she has been nominated, 20 of 44 Billboard Music Awards, 11 of 21 CMA Awards and 16 of 18 AMAs (American Music Awards). She has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, and been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, at an age before many songwriters have had

their first hit.

She must be pretty good, if the industry thinks so. Yes, some awards are given because of sales and airplay and getting the music out to as many people as possible, but to win the Album of the Year Grammy at the age of 20 is something. In 2015, three of the five nominees are women. The 2014 winner was Kacey Musgraves, who beat…Red, and whose voice is a gentler version of Taylor’s. But with songs like Follow Your Arrow, Musgraves does not write traditional country songs about the usual things, and it is worth watching to see if she follows Taylor into the pop market.

—

In 2014, Taylor Swift turned 25 (she’s a Sagittarius, for those who care, and was born on December 13, 1989). By that age, Paul McCartney had already written Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby, and Ray Davies had written Waterloo Sunset. Amy Winehouse had recorded Back to Black and Adele, of course, had become a reclusive mother-megastar. We’re waiting for her album, rumoured to be called 25, which may sell a million copies within two weeks just as 1989 did. Only McCartney had released at least five huge albums that crossed over from one genre – in his case rock’n’roll – to another. The Beatles defined Pop Music in 1964-6, before they invented the concept of pop stars growing up and becoming smoking, drinking, girlfriend-on-the-side rock stars. Taylor Swift did the modern Pop Thing and started her latest album with a (quite dull) track called Welcome to New York. In 1965, Paul McCartney played bass and sung on a song called Taxman (written by a 22-year-old George Harrison) all about how most of his earnings went to the Exchequer, in exchange for a nice MBE award from the Queen. All this is contextual. Taylor Swift’s 1989 is the best pop album, for many people, released this decade. It is the product of an artistic vision and a craft honed through being surrounded by good people, and a talent nurtured by Scott Borchetta; think of him as a sensible, music-loving version of the talent magnet Scooter Braun, who directs the careers of Justin Bieber and Arianna Grande, and signed up PSY after Gangnam Style. For 1989 Swift holed up with Max Martin and a man called Shellback, the killer writing-and-production team behind much great pop music of the last 20 years. A large chunk of the album is credited as Swift-Martin-Shellback, but other writers pop up. Jack Antonoff is the fiancé of Lena Dunham, another famous New York resident, who co-wrote Out of the Woods with Swift and Martin; Antonoff also wrote We Are Young, fun.’s massive hit from 2010. Antonoff and Greg Kurstin, who wrote The Fear with Lily Allen, worked on I Wish You Would, a fun track that recalls songs by Haim; I wonder if Swift had given their Days Are Gone album several spins while writing the record. The three Haim girls are now great friends of Taylor’s. The song is driven by a funky guitar buried low in the mix (an expert decision) and spacious drums which don’t interfere with the chorus. It’s musically one of the best tracks on 1989, and deserves to be a hit soon. Ryan Tedder, who also co-wrote Ghost with Ella Henderson, co-wrote I Know Places and Welcome to New York with Swift and his songwriting partner Noel Zancanella. The two men wrote Counting Stars for OneRepublic, Tedder’s band, as well as Maroon 5’s Maps. Like those last two, the two on 1989 are poppy and catchy, following the template set by Swift throughout her career. Whether all of this was planned or not, it seems that 2015 will be the year Taylor Swift takes over pop. Signed at 14 years old, her self-titled album was written by a teenager for teenagers to hear. After a few listens my favourite track is Picture to Burn, which references pick-up trucks and sounds in places like a playground jeer. The image is great: “You’re just another picture to burn”…You can’t burn Instagram pics; at least not in the old definition of

burn.

Throughout the first album Taylor sings in a high alto voice all about boys and growing up. Most of the songs are mid-tempo, but Shoulda Said No is a poppy tune with a great hook. Fearless trod a similar musical path to her debut, with more songs by a girl written with girls in mind. With the release of that record she matured to the main event, headlining big venues around America. The key single was the one which was number one in the country charts the week Fearless was released. A sophisticated key change and a lyric inspired by Shakespeare, Love Story was streets ahead of most of her first album. I was unimpressed with a lot of Fearless, but then it wasn’t aimed at me. The title track was another single, with Taylor’s voice floating over mandolin and drum before the chorus kicks in.

—

Another writer may go on about how Taylor is a paragon of Modern Womanhood, about how she empowers a listener by singing about herself, a modern woman, in a world of glass ceilings and Florida Georgia Line. Instead of all that, I’ll just say that as a woman working in the arts, I admire how Taylor has piloted the course of her career. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, in comedy, and Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win the Best Director Academy Award, share plaudits for being great at what they do and happening to be female. Fearless was made by an eighteen-year-old woman. It occurred to me the other day that most 18-year-old girls who were high achievers were enrolling at college, but Swift was about to embark on her first tour to support Fearless. The album was another mix of quickies and slowies, the latter including the single ‘White Horse’ and a couple of neat album tracks including The Way I Loved You and The Best

Day.

On White Horse, Taylor is vulnerable, “naïve…I didn’t know to be in love you had to fight to have the upper hand”. Confused, learning about the world, figuring out that she isn’t a princess. “This is a small town, I was a dreamer…and I let you down.” It’s tender, and elegiac with the strings and brushed drums. As with the title track of the album White Horse becomes more emphatic briefly in what’s called the Middle 8, the change in melodic shape just before the final chorus. No man on his white horse (or woman, I suppose, if gender is equal) can “catch” Taylor. Life is real and gritty and disappointing… A lot of the production is clear, giving space to every instrument and coating Taylor’s voice in pleasant harmonies. The Best Day is a gentle tale about tough teenage lives being remedied by being curled up with friends and family. It’s very country and somewhat saccharine, but it’s a comforting song for a Swift fan. Musically The Way I Loved You (also from Fearless) is excellent – banjo, snare drums, string section, guitar solo, and another strong chorus complete with Beatles-y minor chords. There is a great vocal too, and a lyric about a boy and the “rollercoaster kinda rush” of

being in love.

Without hyperbole, only Paul McCartney and possibly Elvis Costello can rival Taylor’s album-to-album consistency. David Bowie, too, is another act who surprises his followers and fans. The difference between these acts is the era they found themselves in. McCartney played the game because Brian Epstein worked him hard, Costello followed his muse and Bowie could afford to kill off Ziggy Stardust and spend the rest of the 1970s making weird arthouse rock music or ‘plastic soul’ (as he did on Young Americans). Taylor Swift’s version of arthouse is moving to Brooklyn, in New York, and partying with her friend Lena Dunham. Taylor is a Millennial, the generation who overshares, shares online links and is presumed missing if they don’t send out a social media missive every few hours or so. Almost 25m people await her next Instagram post: a recent one starred Haim and Ellie Goulding to celebrate International Women’s Day, another was with DJ Nick Grimshaw and popstar and friend Ed Sheeran in a photo booth. Stunningly 55m people or robots await her musings on Twitter. She has just thanked her fans for her third straight number one in the pop chart, Style, and reminded the world that 50 days from March 16 her 1989 Tour begins. She’ll be on the road playing the new hits for the first time all year, starting in May, including Style (already a hit) and Bad Blood, which is an expected future hit. Attending pop and style awards shows, Taylor has been photographed with Kanye West and his wife Kim, crooner Sam Smith and chart-bothering friends Hozier and Ed Sheeran. And yet she takes time to do humanitarian work making her fans’ lives better. Buzzfeed ran a piece which listed (of course it did…) 21 occasions that she changed their lives. She shut a toy store to ensure every kid could choose one toy as a thank you for being in the video for Mine (the shoot took 18 hours). Ed Sheeran has said that she paints guitars for terminally ill children who write her letters. Last year she famously donated 1989 dollars to a fan to assist her student loan bill; caught on camera, the fan broke down in tears. She has also invited fans to her house for pizza and to award shows, and also to be in the Shake it

Off music video.

The first single from Taylor’s first pop album, 1989, was a global smash hit. Notwithstanding that she took out copyright over the phrase “This. Sick. Beat.”, and that the record did not stream with Spotify because she could earn more money if people bought the album (which has just come out with extra tracks in a deluxe edition), it’s brilliant. Three chords, a percussive rhythm and a killer chorus with an uplifting message (“Haters gonna hate..I’m just gonna shake it off!”) It’s hardly Tim McGraw, the first track on her first record: “When you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think of me.” Taylor’s catalogue includes lots of positive tracks, including Stay Beautiful and a Place

in this World.

Dear John is a fascinating track, coming midway through third album Speak Now. It’s got a scorching guitar part played by Nathan Chapman, her producer, and a biting lyric about being messed around and reduced to tears, set to a 6/8 ballad feel. “You’re an expert in sorry, and keeping lines blurry”, she sings, ultimately triumphant: “I took your matches before fire could catch me”. The track was part of her set for her second big tour, which came to London’s O2 arena in March 2011 and went on to fill LA’s Staples Center for four nights in August. In total she played to over 1.5m fans, some of whom had surely seen her show more than once. Taylor was 21 and headlining huge arenas in America essentially as a country star. Songs like Mean and Last Kiss were played in the American shows (but omitted in the shorter European set), the former a song about how Taylor will “some day be living in a big old city”; as mentioned, in 2014 she moved to New York. Taylor ended her set with Love Story and began with another great pop song, Sparks Fly. Sparks Fly is a better song than the weak The Story of Us, which tried too hard to be thudding country-pop for my liking, and was nowhere near as good as Love Story. Fifteen is another formulaic song, although I won’t pour too much scorn over it because it’s a song for and about 15-year-old kids at school trying to be liked and the reference to “a redhead named Abigail” is because Taylor Swift really did have a friend of that name at school. She “gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind/ And we both cried”. There’s a whole story in that stanza, and Swift’s genius is to set that to melody and get to the nub of the emotion in the line. Fifteen is one of seven solo Swift-penned songs on Fearless, while others were co-written with songwriters like Liz Rose, who helped write Teardrops on my Guitar and six other tracks on her first

record.

—

Amazingly, on Speak Now, nobody is credited with the songs apart from Taylor. Some would say this is to the detriment of the quality of songs, but hardly any musician – I can only think of Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Todd Rundgren, Prince, Stevie Wonder and forgotten pop maestro Emitt Rhodes, though I am sure there are more – has been trusted to write every note of music on their third album. Speak Now was the ninth biggest-selling album of any genre in 2010, the second biggest-seller in 2011 and in 2012, the year fourth record Red was released, it was still among the top 50. And yet it was still classed as a Country album, being in that genre the best-seller of 2011 and third-best-seller of 2010. I should reiterate that usually these Audio Essays have a Spotify playlist to accompany them, but Taylor Swift pulled all her music from the streaming service. Some writers noted that she did so around the time Google launched their new service, but this was coincidental. Writing in the Wall Street Journal in July 2014, Taylor wrote: “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue

their art.”

At the end of March 2015, Jay-Z launched a service called TIDAL which costs 20 dollars a month and provides higher-quality fidelity in sound files. Along with Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna and Beyonce, Taylor Swift has put her music on there. Neil Young’s PONO service offers high-quality audio at a fee and perhaps every artist will one day stream their own music from a dedicated online boutique store or service, the true 360-degree experience. Finally, people can hear 1989 in a way that doesn’t mean they have to boringly go out and buy a CD, or lazily click the BUY button in a download store so that Taylor is remunerated, albeit scantily after all the reductions and advances to pay off, for creating at least two of the finest pop songs of the last few years. You have to include We Are Never Ever Getting Back Togther and Blank Space in any discussion of Taylor Swift. Both songs were written with Max Martin, a sort of Swedish Paul McCartney who will one day get as many plaudits as McCartney or Taylor. McCartney would kill for the chorus of either of those songs, had he not written some nice ones

himself.

Album number four, Red, came out in October 2012, so there was only half a year between the Speak Now tour finishing and the process for Red starting. In fact, the first single came out in August, and soundtracked summer 2012. Because she had written Speak Now by herself, she went back to co-writing (probably backed up by the finance of Sony and Big Machine) and in the end put out what I still call a too-long album. It sold a million in a week, which albums never do any more because of streaming, yet was still billed as a country album, though the only ‘country’ thing about Back Together is the guitar loop that begins and runs through the song. Thanks to the success of that tune, Taylor got her much-deserved UK breakthrough, only four years after I’d heard Our Song on the BBC radio show America’s Greatest Hits with Paul Gambaccini. The song went top five, blocked in its path to number one by Ne-Yo, Adele, One Direction, The Script, Pink and of course Gangnam Style. Back Together was one of the finest pop tunes of 2012, thanks to its bounce, its lyric, the attitude of its performer, the fact that it sounds like a jingle, and of course because it’s another strong anthem for the

young woman.

—

The credits for Red are amazing. Max Martin, Dan Wilson (who co-wrote Someone Like You for Adele), Liz Rose, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Jeff Bhasker who co-produced the new Mark Ronson album and Butch Walker, who produced the Ed-Taylor duet Everything Has Changed. Butch has his sonic fingers over albums by Weezer, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup and Katy Perry, but the Ed Sheeran song is, to be quite critical of it, treacly and bland. Still bland, but blandness sells. Ed Sheeran got his US break, in part, by supporting Taylor on her Red tour which, oddly, featured additional support from Florida Georgia Line, an act on the border of country music and hiphop. She played most of the new record, peppered with older songs You Belong with Me, Mean, Sparks Fly and Love Story thrown in too. A fifteen-month tour played to 1.7m people, with the Australian gigs supported by great pop act Neon Trees and Australia’s 2015 Eurovision Song Content entry (don’t ask) Guy Sebastian, whom I’m led to believe is very big down there. Her shows at the O2 arena, all five of them, were opened by The Vamps, very much a guitar-pop band whose fanbase is tweenagers between eight and eighteen. Taylor Swift is hitting that demographic with brilliant

pop songs.

She’s just bought a place in New York, and already has one in Rhode Island. In fact, the Taylor Swift tax is so-called because the state of Rhode Island is putting up rates on anyone who owns additional property (ie, second homes) which has a market value over a million pounds. Need I restate that most 25-year-old women cannot afford even to make rent on a cardboard box, but Taylor Swift is not most 25-year-old women… Following on from 15, Red contained 22, the best single released from the album, which makes reference to hipsters and friendship and being “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”. Again, Taylor condenses a demographic into one line – stuck in the bridge of the song! In 2013, I was 25, but knew some 22-year-olds just graduating into the world of work and competing for jobs with the class of 2011 and 2012. I went back to school for no reason (well, freelance work was fallow that year) and had an idea for a book about why footballers, some of whom are my age, earn so much money even though they don’t have university degrees. I do have one; Taylor Swift doesn’t. Guess who owns their own house? As of the end of March 2015, Taylor has put out 34 singles from her five albums. Teardrops on my Guitar went three times platinum, Our Song four times, Love Story & You Belong With Me seven times. Thanks to the movie The Hunger Games two of her tracks, Safe & Sound and Eyes Open, charted, but she had to wait until Back Together to have her first Billboard Hot 100 number one. Not bad at all for a country artist, only Shania Twain does that! Ask anyone what they think Taylor Swift represents, people may point to her Instagram page, her great radio-friendly hits or that when she won a Grammy Kanye West got upset on Beyonce’s behalf. Beyonce is now part of the Jay-Z industry, which is a crass way to treat an artist who is innovative and released an album at the very end of 2013, a year before 1989 dropped.

—

As a final track on the first edition of 1989, having Imogen Heap co-write Clean is a great artistic step. Heap is not an easy artist but her work is very beautiful. It is hard to think that Taylor can top the pop anthems of Shake it Off, Blank Space or I Wish You Would. She’s friends with artists as diverse as Haim, Ed Sheeran and Jack Antonoff from Fun. It helps to have Max Martin and Mr Nashville Scott Borchetta on speed dial, and to be a bankable star on record and in the live sphere – the 1989 tour cycle kicks off soon. I am excited to hear what Taylor does next. My mum, who is older even than me, is seeing her play a gig in Hyde Park over summer, doing all the hits. They say it takes ten years to become an overnight sensation, and it has now been a decade since Taylor moved to Nashville. Now in New York, and with millions of fans all around the world, it is not putting it too mildly that there is no bigger female popstar – including Madonna – on planet Earth than Taylor Swift. This entry was posted in Arts and tagged max martin , shake it off , taylor

swift on April 12,

2015 by Jonathan Brick

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