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Letters To Cleo

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Letters To Cleo "Cleo-ize" The Holidays On The Limited-Edition 'OK Christmas' EP

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"'Ok Christmas' is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans," Kay Hanley, lead singer of the Boston alt-rock troupe, tells the Recording Academy
Will Hodge
GRAMMYs
Nov 25, 2019 - 12:29 pm

"Every year we joke about doing a Christmas record," laughs Letters To Cleo lead singer Kay Hanley, "but this year we decided to get serious and finally do it." Since reuniting in 2016, the beloved Boston alt-rockers have been playing a year-end run of shows where they like to have a surprise or two up their sleeves. "For the last couple of years, it’s been a bit of a tradition for us to tour in November," says Hanley. "When you only go on tour once a year, you can’t go out empty-handed. So, Ok Christmas is this year’s annual holiday gift to our fans."

Comprised of three holiday covers and a newly penned original, the Ok Christmas EP finds the band mining the often-overlooked corners of the Christmas canon for some left-of-center chestnuts through which to celebrate their seasonal spirit. Where some bands stumble when it comes to covering other artists' material, Letters To Cleo have been showcasing their unique talent for reinterpretation since their original run in the 1990s. They memorably became soundtrack/compilation phenoms with covers of The Cars' "Dangerous Type” (from cult classic "The Craft"), Fleetwood Mac’s "Dreams" (from the Spirit Of '73: Rock For Choice album) and their double-dipped entry of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" and Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind" from the soundtrack to the high school rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You (a film in which they also make multiple on-screen appearances).

For Ok Christmas, Letters To Cleo bypassed the well-worn holiday fare for a trio of Christmas covers from The Kinks, Elvis Presley and The Dogmatics, a fellow Boston rock band that was active in the early-to-mid 1980s. However, even when they start off with another band’s material, Hanley and her bandmates can always find the right avenue through which to properly "Cleo-ize" their bouncy, buzzy, cranked-to-11 interpolations. There are no kids' choirs, church organs, "Jingle Bells" motifs or any other seasonal saccharine to be found here—not even in the EP's title. "We went through all the schmaltzy titles like Cleo For The Holidays or Cleo Does Christmas, but none of that was working. I suggested Ok Christmas because it’s a play on Radiohead's OK Computer, which is a phrase I’ve been using a lot in the last few years when responding to bots on Twitter," laughs Hanley.

To get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Ok Christmas, the Recording Academy chatted with Hanley about her own connection to holiday music, the band's song selection process and the inspiration behind each of the four tracks.

Kay Hanley: Once we finally decided to record a Christmas EP, everything came together pretty quickly. We did a little deep dive into potential songs and democratically chose which ones we were going to do. However, as with most holiday albums, we had to record it in the least Christmas-like atmosphere you could imagine: 90 degrees in July in Los Angeles in a little studio over in Koreatown. But we had a good time and just went for it. Even the artwork process turned out simple enough. Our graphic designer, Nicole Anguish of Daykamp Creative, came up with the cover on her very first pass. She only showed us one thing and we were immediately blown away!

During the recording sessions for Ok Christmas, the band didn't try to manufacture any fake holiday spirit by stringing lights all over the studio or by putting up a Christmas tree in the corner of the control room. Instead, Hanley felt that she and her bandmates were able to stir up the exact inspiration they needed from their own nostalgic memories and their personal connections to the holiday music of their childhood.

Kay Hanley: I grew up in a very devout Catholic family and my parents listened to a lot of Elvis and a lot of religious music around the holidays. So, I was a big fan of Christmas music, especially the big dramatic church songs like "O Holy Night." In fact, we almost did "O Holy Night," but it was really hard to figure out how to get the right Cleo vibe on it, so we didn't push it. Even though I'm a Catholic atheist, I love the holiday and everything about it. I haven't been to a Christmas mass since moving to Los Angeles. However, there's a church right across the street from us, so maybe I’ll take the kids this year because the place is really beautiful.

One of the potential tracks that all of the band members immediately agreed on was The Kinks' 1977 holiday single "Father Christmas." While the original has long been an anchor of power-pop holiday playlists thanks to its roaring guitars and propulsive drumming, Letters To Cleo managed to further the song's intensity through their amped-up romp that serves as the door-busting opener to Ok Christmas.

Kay Hanley: There was never going to be a Cleo Christmas album without The Kinks on it. "Father Christmas" was just automatically going to be on there. It was the first one we chose and we just all knew it was going to happen. We all love The Kinks and it was such a blast to record. I hope the fun we had really comes through in the recording.

However, hidden away in Ray Davies' satirical lyrics about a department store Santa getting roughed up by an unruly gang of kids was one specific line—"But if you've got one, I'll take a machine gun/So I can scare all the kids on the street"—that didn’t sit quite well with the band in light of America's ongoing gun violence epidemic.

Kay Hanley: We had just finished tracking all of the music for our version of "Father Christmas" when the mass shooting in El Paso happened. Our guitarist, Greg McKenna, texted the band on our group chat and asked if we should change the machine gun lyric. My first instinct was to leave it intact, just because I’m a songwriting purist. To be honest with you, the machine gun line had always just floated over my head because the whole song is just so tongue-in-cheek in the way it’s commenting on class and the haves vs. the have-nots. But it only took a few minutes for me to be like, "Oh no, we can't use that lyric." It just seemed really tone-deaf in the face of the gun violence crisis that our country is going through. I went to Twitter and slid up into The Kinks' mentions, told them that we were recording the song, and explained why we wanted to change the machine gun lyric. We didn't hear back from them, but our fans saw it and offered up some ideas on how to switch it up. One of our fans, Eric Reiberg, made a suggestion that I ended up modifying a little into a new couplet —"Can you meltdown all the machine guns/So the kids are safe on the street." It feels so much better now. Hopefully, Ray Davies won't be mad at us.    

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For their next cover in the Ok Christmas tracklist, Letters To Cleo pulled out another '70s seasonal singalong. "If I Get Home On Christmas Day" was originally recorded by Elvis Presley for his 1971 album Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas. While the maudlin mid-tempo ballad may have shared a release decade with the spunky "Father Christmas," it certainly didn't share the same level of enthusiasm from the band during the Ok Christmas song selection discussions. At least, not until McKenna reworked the overly sentimental arrangement into the charming, twangy shuffle that eventually won Hanley over.

Kay Hanley: Greg brought this one to the band because he was the only one daring enough to look for the unknown songs that no one really covers. Initially, I wasn't into that approach at all and wanted stuff that people would immediately recognize. So when Greg first showed us this Elvis song, I was like "Hell no, absolutely not!" However, he worked up a different arrangement on guitar and sent me over a demo and I was like "Yes, this is fantastic now!" Our sound lends itself nicely to that sort of soft rockabilly vibe. So, even though it’s kind of twangy, I still feel like it’s very Cleo. It was surprisingly hard to sing though! 

For the final cover of the four-song EP, the band tipped their hat (a Red Sox cap, naturally) to their Boston roots by tackling the surly "X'mas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It)" by the Boston garage-rock band The Dogmatics. Originally appearing on the hard-to-find 1984 holiday compilation A Midnight Christmas Mess alongside Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Droogs and The Cheepskates, "X’mas Time" paints a dour picture of the snowswept city during the holidays, while shouting out a few of the "less touristy" local landmarks.

Kay Hanley: This song was actually our manager’s idea. I think he’s been trying to pawn this one off on us for years. I have to admit, even as a huge Boston music fan, I wasn't familiar with the song at all. At first, we ignored him, because that's what you do with managers, but we eventually came around to it. Musically, it's kind of long and doesn't go anywhere, but the vibe of it is absolutely perfect. It’s very defeated, very Boston—it doesn’t get more true-to-type than this song. I like that the lyrics are so visual for me. Filene’s Basement was my grandmother’s favorite department store. It was downtown, right at the edge of the Combat Zone, with a lot of seedy characters around there. Pine Street Inn is a homeless shelter in the South End. At the time this song was written in the early 1980s, it was in a very desolate, very bleak area. Now, the South End is one of the most gentrified areas in Boston. Pine Street Inn is currently in the middle of total opulence. The difference from then to now is absolutely nuts.

As nostalgically warm as the thick Boston threads that run through "X'mas Time" may be, the most personal musical moment on Ok Christmas lies within the band’s newly penned original, "Miss You This Christmas." Throughout the holiday heartbreaker, melancholy lyrics like "I'm not used to stringing lights alone" and "There's no cheer if you're not here" contrast smartly against the upbeat Spector-esque production touches of ringing guitars, clanging chimes and a bubbly bassline.

Kay Hanley: We really wanted to write an original for this record, so Michael Eisenstein and I made an appointment to sit down with a guitar and give it a shot. Writing a Christmas song can be really daunting because it feels like no one can bring anything new to the subject; like everything that could be said about Christmas has already been said. So I started trying to think about my boyfriend who tours a lot and is going to be gone through the holidays. I've also got two young family members who are serving overseas and I was thinking about how soldiers' partners must feel during deployment. So it all came together around hoping that your loved one will come home safe and sound for the holidays.

From the charming album artwork to the merry-making covers and the heart-warming original, Letters To Cleo have managed to craft an authentic, grade-A seasonal souvenir with Ok Christmas. They even pressed up the vinyl version of the EP on "holiday candy"-colored vinyl. Free of commercialized schmaltz and full of signature Cleo, Ok Christmas manages to find its own sonic space in the Christmas canon without just adding to all the Noel-hyped noise. However, according to Hanley, putting out a Christmas release isn’t exactly going to become a yearly tradition for the band.  

Kay Hanley: As fun as this was, we are one-and-done on the holiday EPs. A part of our annual gift is that we’re always going to try and do something different each year. However, we are hoping to have another regular, non-holiday, full-length album out sometime next year. We’ve already got like five or six songs ready to go, so that’s our plan.

The limited-edition "holiday candy" vinyl version of Letter’s to Cleo's Ok Christmas EP can be ordered directly from the band here.

Meet Armageddon Records, The Record Store-Turned-Label For Punks And Metalheads

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Jacob Collier

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Jacob Collier Decodes The Magic Behind 'Djesse Vol. 3,' Talks Working With Tori Kelly, Daniel Caesar & More

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The GRAMMY winner dives deep into the latest piece of his ambitious and awe-inspiring quadruple-album puzzle
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Sep 17, 2020 - 6:03 pm

Anyone who knows anything about him, knows: Jacob Collier is on another level. The prodigious British musician, composer and arranger extraordinaire has notched tens of millions of YouTube views and four GRAMMYs with his effortless command of the medium of music. And even though, traditionally, transparent geniuses are hard to come by, Collier shares his heart and mind for music quite openly, leading in-depth workshops and Logic session breakdowns of his songs and his process. Yet, in speaking with him – even for all of the gobsmacking talent and insanely cool theory wizardry – his dominant trait manages to be his reverence for human instincts.

"The thing about when I make music," Collier told GRAMMY.com, "is that a lot of the decisions that may feel quite technical are basically based in feelings. It's based in an emotional decision."

Most recently, Collier has been channeling those decisions into an epic quadruple album, releasing its latest puzzle piece, Djesse Vol. 3, just last month complete with top-notch features from the likes of Tori Kelly, Kiana Ledé, Tank And The Bangas, Daniel Caesar, Jessie Reyez, T-Pain and more. The album shows off not only Collier's approachable, but his remarkable vision for what music can do and how it can connect people across the world, even during a pandemic. Feeling all of this from an artist who just turned 26 years old last month produces a hope we need more than ever right now.

We tapped into Collier's fascinating world, catching him over the phone from his increasingly famous music room in his home in North London to talk about Djesse Vol. 3 and its stunning collaborations, what he's learned during lockdown, his process of sharing his abundant musical knowledge and even what he does to unwind. Enjoy...

A quadruple album is an ambitious undertaking, and I read somewhere you said you're treating it like a big puzzle. How does Djesse Vol. 3 fit into that puzzle for you?

So this whole quadruple album thing was something I dreamed up about three years ago, two or three years ago now, I suppose. The goal was how can I build bridges between all these different musical faculties that I've been listening to and loving for all these years, and get them all to make sense within each other's contexts? I've been an avid listener of all these different kinds of music for so long. I was brought up on Bartok meets Beck meets the Beatles. And then you've got Björk, and you've got Joni Mitchell and you've got Stevie Wonder and Prince and Earth, Wind & Fire. All these styles and different languages and different parts of the world and different histories converged for me as a teenager.

I just became fascinated with the idea of making it all make sense with each other, so combining different elements. I made this album, I suppose, about five years ago called In My Room, which is my first album. I made it in this room I'm currently in, in my home in North London. And that was really the first time I'd ever written songs. It was good fun.

After that album came out and I toured it about, and I really wanted to do something a little more epic. I set about this four album process delegating my musical ideas as they came out into these different rooms, different boxes. So Djesse Vol. 1 is the birth of the whole thing, the gestation of the sound world. And it's very large. It's a big, expensive work. There's an orchestra present, they are choirs present, the acoustic space taken to great heights, that was the space. And I collaborated with the incredible called the Metropole Orchestra on that record. Djesse Vol. 2 is still acoustic, it's still in the real acoustic sounds world, but it's a much smaller space. So more about songwriting and folk music, world music, a little bit of jazz thrown in, and some music from Portugal, music from Mali, Africa, all sorts of things. So that was a smaller acoustic space.

And Djesse Vol. 3 was always the one I was most excited about because it enabled me the space to explore a lot of the negative space type sounds, sounds made in the digital sphere, electronic stuff, which I suppose lends itself to hip-hop and R&B, and you've got soul music in there, and you've got funky music in there. And pop as well. I always wanted to explore those things.

And the fun thing for me was bringing the aesthetics that I've have been creating and I've been fascinated by for the last 20 years and trying to invent these sounds that I loved listening to in my own terms. And then Djesse Vol. 4 it's going to be the culmination of all these different ingredients thus far.

There are so many great collaborations on Djesse Vol. 3. Does your ability to be so self-sufficient and play every instrument yourself help you when you work with someone?

Well, it's a blessing and a curse because on the one hand, when you've done things yourself for a long time I think it's easier to fall into your own habits and to come into any situation with a preconceived notion of how you'd like it to go and how you'd imagine it could go. In my brain... For example, walking into the room with Tori Kelly, it's like, well, I could go many directions with a voice like Tori's, because Tori's voice is like this kind of music acrobatic machine. It can do so many wonderful things, emotive things.

And so in some ways that stuff is not helpful baggage because it just gets in the way of the present moment. And so with Tori, it was one of the first times really in my musical life where I walked into a room, and I discarded all of my previous ideas. I didn't have a song that I'd written for her. I didn't have an idea, a framework for something I wanted her to be a part of. We walked into them cold and we just started jamming. And so that process to me has proven to be really quite fantastic. And actually, sometimes more effective than when I walk into a room feeling like this is the entire song, can you just sing the melody? Which also can work quite well.

I think for me, it's always about trying to make room for somebody else's musical intelligence and not let my own experience of creating stuff just get in the way, because everyone has their own standpoint. And I think the thing I'm most interested in with all these different collaborators is that some of their standpoints are crazily different from mine. Someone like Jesse Reyez or T-Pain, both of whom are on a song on Djesse Vol. 3 called "Count the People." They come from really different times, different generations of music making. And they have very different reaches in terms of who listens to their music and have very different experiences. And they have totally different voices, but for me I was pretty excited by the idea that these two different musical entities could exist within the same breath.

And same goes, for example, on Djesse Vol. 2. There's a song where Steve Vai, the rock guitarist, is playing in harmony with Kathryn Tickell, who's a Northumbrian pipes player from the North of England, and some of the language is quite similar. I love finding these ways of joining these flavors together. So the Daniel Caesar song was another example where I hadn't planned too much of it and we walked into the room, and Daniel's very natural process of coming up with words, lyrics just fell right into the pocket of this groove that I've been working on. We ran with it and that felt really cool.

Wow. What strikes me about your approach to all this is your awareness. You're not short on talent or ideas, but your awareness is really the missing link. In this last six months, where we've all been on lockdown, can you tell us a couple of things that you've discovered or maybe even rediscovered about yourself musically?

Yeah. I think it goes without saying this is a time where a lot of people have gone back to square one or even pre square one. And it's like, "what is a square?" [laughs] And for me, I was so busy with touring and I was so busy with just scampering around the world, doing mad stuff. And if I wasn't touring I was trying to finish something or directing a music video or editing a music video, or trying to keep up with the social stuff or whatever. There's all these different elements. I think when a lot of these things slowed down, the cool thing was we had to take stock of what the hell is going on and actually what's important.

A lot of people that I spoke to, friends and musicians, I think realized that a lot of the stuff that feels really important is not important. And one of those things maybe is rushing and doing things fast and things having to be done now. And if it's not done now, it's going to be too late. It's always urgent. I really think urgency a massive construct. And I think it's been really nice in the last, couple of weeks since Djesse Vol. 3 has come out to remember that actually it's nice to not rush stuff. I finished Djesse Vol. 3 by the end of March, I was ready to go with my 10-week tour, which got thrown out the window when the pandemic hit. And I then spent four months making the album just so much better than it would have been otherwise. It's so much deeper and so much more sonically satisfying.

I'm really grateful for the time, but honestly, I haven't really stopped in quarantine because I've been challenging myself to all these different kinds of things. I mean I've been teaching master classes from home. I performed on TED. I did a Tiny Desk from home. I made a video for Jimmy Kimmel Live. I made a video for Jools Holland in the UK. I made a video for Stephen Colbert. And on top of that, I was mixing my album and producing that. I was directing the videos and I was editing the videos and all this stuff too.

I think for me, it's been a really interesting period of time. Without being able to actually be with people, how do you get stuff done that's collaborative at all? And one fun solution I found is best explained through a song on Djesse Vol. 3 called "In Too Deep," which featured Kiana Ledé. I actually mailed Kiana a mic and I installed this program called Source Connect on her computer, which meant that I could move her mouse around on her laptop. So far as to install Logic Pro. I taught her how to put the mic in and stuff, and she was super brilliant at that. She sang her tracks and I could hear what she was singing in real time, and printed the tracks into her computer. And then I sent those tracks to myself at the Dropbox here. I continued mixing my song.

That was a really amazing moment where you think actually collaboration is completely enabled by the tech that is existing, but you have to be courageous enough to follow these things through and to be determined to find solutions to things that might feel weird. I think I've enjoyed being a bit of a problem solver in the last six months or so.

You mentioned the workshops. There's so much of what many people would call genius in your process, but there's also so much transparency. Can you talk about what the process means to you versus the result?

Yeah, it's funny because finishing stuff was something I was really bad at. For the whole of my teenage years I was really bad at finishing things. I wanted to get good at it. So the best way to get good at it was just to practice it. So I practiced finishing stuff. The four-album project was like, this is going to make me shed finishing stuff. I'm going to have to get good at this because otherwise I'm going to suck. The fun thing I think for me is learning how to step away from your ideas when you can. But the last year, or four or five months or so, I rediscovered the joys of going right to the very deepest corners of your process having officially finished the song. It's like, how do you get the song to spring off the page, as it were, and feel alive?

A lot of the purpose of doing that is, for me, even more interesting than what some of it ends up sounding like… And also, I love explaining it because I think by explaining it to others, I explain it to myself, and I've realized the connections that maybe I don't realize just by sitting and doing it all day long.

I fell in love with that process a couple of years ago. And I've since really enjoyed just taking apart my Logic session. So I did one for this track called "All I Need," and I did one for "Sleeping On My Dreams." And in the past I did one for "Moon River," which was the arrangement that won a GRAMMY, I guess earlier this year, which is weird that things are still in this year. Also, "All Night Long."

It was fun just to think about, how do I present this as something that people can maybe understand at a broken down level? The thing about when I make music and how it feels to me is that a lot of the decisions that may feel quite technical are basically based in feelings, it's based in an emotional decision. I want gravity to come here or I want it to feel like you're twisting here, or deepening here, or some unconscious awareness that a breath will lead to another breath, or whatever. And these things I think, they're fun to take apart and think about in active terms.

Can you give us any clue on maybe what's to come for Djesse Vol. 4?

Djesse Vol. 4 is something I've almost deliberately not planned too much. But one thing I will say for sure is that I think it's going to be very centralized around the human voice. It's my favorite instrument of all instruments, my voice. I started as a singer, really. I started singing all the instruments before I could even play instruments, like the piano or the bass or the guitar. I was singing all those parts. I want to come back to my roots in that way. I want to do that, but obviously with human voice there's so many directions you can go.

One idea I have for the album, that is if I can go on tour within the next two years so I really hope I can, is to begin to use some of my audiences as instruments even more than I have been. In the last year or so I've been... When I was on the road last year I really enjoyed the concept of the audience singing harmony. I would split my audience into three or four or five parts and get them singing these notes, and we'd improvise these chords. So up and down arrows spontaneously dictates it to different parts of the room and it would be this ever changing chords, omnichords. It really inspired me to think about the voices.

I think maybe somewhere between the audiences of my live shows and the choirs that I love so much around the world and have built relationships with, and also some of my favorite musicians and artists in the world, who I guess I can't reveal too much of right now, but there was some extraordinary singers, vocalists, and people who I've been in touch with for a long, long time who are going to be involved in Djesse Vol. 4. I think it's really a celebration of all these different languages. Because for me, I think at this point with Vol. 1, 2 and 3, I've covered a fair few genres, but I think that it's about bringing it home to where it all started for me, which is the voice, and is the voices of the world.

And I think it's such an important time for people to use their voices in so many ways, right? As people and politics in the world and musically, I think a lot of people feel like their voice sometimes is not important, or that it's difficult to use their voice or raise their voice in certain situations. But I think for me it's like the keys to the castle. If you're able to sing, if you're able to speak, and you're able to be honest within that space, it feels like a really good starting point for the whole world of expression. And to me, I think if there's one thing Djesse Vol. 4, it's definitely intended to be, right now, it's to celebrate that, celebrate the voices that make us human.

That's beautiful, Jacob. It's high concept, but it's also rooted in basic human connection... I know that it's a tough time to be planning a tour, but maybe you could tell us a little bit about what you have in mind for the next time you hit the road?

Yeah, so this is a whole new idea that I was talking to this amazing company called Lyte about recently. We've unveiled this thing, which is kind of a new concept, but it makes sense to me. The idea is, I'm saying I'm going to go to these 91 cities, minimum of 91 cities, at some point in the coming years, and fans can RSVP to these gigs. They can basically reserve their place on the wait list for tickets. So no venue are announced, there's no dates announced because nobody knows when it's going even to be possible, but the moment that things are possible the gigs will go on sale and the people who've reserved tickets will get their tickets.

The coolest thing to me as an artist is that, that means whenever I do go on tour that the fans can dictate the sizes of the venues that we play, which is actually a foreign concept, because normally as a musician, you say, "Oh, I'm going to go play a gig out at the Wilton and I just hope it sells out. But it might not. Or maybe it will be way too small and there'll be way more people, but we all got to squeeze it in. And it's difficult to move other gigs around on the tour because they're all confirm." So the cool thing now is that however many tickets we reserved in these markets over the next year or so, even if we're not on the road, we can still be planning and thinking and building relationships with venues and thinking how does it make sense to route this and stuff? So, yeah, obviously the exciting thing is the people can go on jacobcollier.com and they can reserve tickets to those gigs, even though we don't know when they're going to happen, there's still something that I can look forward to.

Definitely. Ok, last question. What are some of your interests outside of music?

Good question. Right before you called for this interview I was really deep on YouTube watching videos about Fourier transform and quantum mechanics, which actually is not something I'd normally do just to chill out. I like going deep on some of the concepts that make up our universe. That makes me happy and quite excited. And on a completely different axis, I also enjoy a good game of badminton.

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Joan Osborne

Photo by Jeff Fasano

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Joan Osborne Talks Getting Political On 'Trouble And Strife,' Singing Jerry Garcia Songs With Phil & Friends And More

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The GRAMMY-nominated "One Of Us" singer opens up about the "all-hands-on-deck moment" that led her to address current events on her latest LP
Will Schube
GRAMMYs
Sep 17, 2020 - 9:18 am

Joan Osborne is one of those artists you’ve heard before even if you’ve never actively searched for her music. Her song, "One Of Us," written by collaborator Eric Bazilian, is one of those songs that transcends time, space, and individuals. It’s catchy and powerful, and landed Osborne three GRAMMY nominations. Not bad for her first single from her debut LP. Though Osborne, born in Kentucky but residing in New York, has never penned a song as culturally captivating as "One Of Us," her career is a sterling example of craftsmanship and dedication to superior songwriting.

Osborne plays with a number of genres, and on her new LP, Trouble and Strife, she bounces from Americana to bar rock to pop with ease and style. Though the album is her boldest political statement to date, she wanted to blend the serious moments, like the powerful immigration tale, "What’s That You Say," with moments of optimism and celebration. "I really wanted to make this record a fun and joyful album and something you could dance to," she explained to GRAMMY.com. "It's about staying connected with your joy and allowing that to lift you up," she added. As the world continues to crack and we fall under the weight of it, Osborne hopes to be a source of positivity and hope. Though songs like "Hands Off" deal with the prevalent corruption of our modern era, "Never Get Tired (Of Loving You)" is a heartwarming ode to her daughter, and "Boy Don’t You Know" wraps themes of female empowerment and misogyny in society around warm piano chords and silky guitar runs.

Though Osborne's songwriting is subtler and more nuanced than her defining hit, her voice continues to be a revelation. From her days of singing Jerry Garcia songs in the Grateful Dead after the legend passed away to her Bob Dylan covers album from 2017, Osborne continually displays why her vocals are some of the most iconic in modern rock ‘n’ roll. Trouble And Strife is another example of her power and dexterity, a beautiful encapsulation of our times, warts and all.

What is it like releasing a political (and fun) album in this particular cultural climate?

Because of the pandemic, the process that we would normally be going through to release a record and support a record is, of course, different because we can't do any live shows. We can't go to any radio stations in person, and we're limited with the amount of stuff that we can do to promote the record. We're, of course, doing a lot of phone interviews and Zoom interviews and things like that remotely to be safe, but it's not the same as going on a tour and playing your songs in front of audiences and stuff like that. It feels a little weird, a little abstract in that way.

This is not a good thing, but I feel like the record, being a very political record or at least the most political record that I've ever released, it feels like there's an audience that's going to be receptive to it. That's the response that we're getting. People are saying that they're happy to have music that is addressing what's going on in the world. It makes them feel less alone and it can be a useful thing to help to navigate this particular moment. That's gratifying. I'm not happy for the reasons behind it being so relevant, but I'm happy that people are responding to it in that way.

When you are interacting with moments to inspire your songs, like "Hands Off," is it draining being inundated by negativity and awful things happening all around us?

It can be very difficult to navigate a time like this. Every day seems to bring some new crisis and some new disaster. If you have kids, you're thinking about the world that you're going to leave to them. That's a difficult thing just as a person and as a citizen. But as a writer, it lights a fire under you and gives you a lot of energy to put the things that you're thinking and feeling into your music. There's a real urgency that I've felt about having songs like this that address this current moment. It gives you a real push in that direction of trying to wrestle with this moment in a creative way.

Having the platform to be able to illuminate a story like on "What's That You Say," is so important, too. Can you talk about how that song came about?

I'm dismayed by the immigration conversation that's going on in this country right now. I believe that America is great because it's a country of immigrants and because of the mix of all the different cultures and artistic traditions that different groups of immigrants have brought with them. That's why American culture is so fascinating. People bring their different traditions with them and then those different traditions and styles have mixed together and created brand-new forms of art in this country. I think that's part of what makes us an amazing country.

I wanted to write something about a person who has come here and brought the best of themselves to this country and really contributed. And so I wrote this song, "What's That You Say," about this character. There were these moments in the song that were instrumental passages that didn't have lyrics and there wasn't singing. I kept hearing a spoken voice in those passages. I thought, well, why don't I turn the mic over, so to speak, to someone who has actually lived this immigrant journey? That's another thing that frustrates me so much about this issue, is that we talk a lot about immigrants and immigration, but I don't hear a lot of people listening to actual immigrants. I don't hear their stories that much. That's very frustrating for me.

I felt like this would be an opportunity to allow somebody to talk about their experience, someone who's actually lived this experience. I can come at it from an artistic perspective and try to have some connection to someone else's story, but no one's going to tell it like someone who's lived it. That's when I approached this organization called RAICES. I've been aware of the work that they're doing at the southern border, trying to help people who are attempting to immigrate to the U.S. from Central America and Mexico and people who are trying to navigate this really dehumanizing system that is in place at the border and helping them with their legal applications for asylum and things like that.

I called them up and I said, "I'm really a fan of the work that you're doing," and I told them about the song and I asked them if they knew someone who might be interested in telling their story to become a part of this song. They introduced me to Ana Maria Rea-Ventre. She is very much the kind of person that this song is written about. She's someone who came to America as a child and has lived the rest of her life here and has been someone who's contributed to her community. She's this shining light to the people around her. She agreed to tell her story.

When your songs began to take a political angle, did you watch what was happening in the world and think to yourself, "I need to make my next album a certain way"? Or had you already started writing and that's just the way that the songs were taking shape?

It's a little bit of both. I wrote these songs in a big rush in 2018. It was before the most recent disasters, but this has certainly been a rough four years. These things were on my mind and a lot of ideas for songs about the current state of our country and of the world kept coming to me. I feel a responsibility as a citizen, a parent, and an artist to try to do what I can to effect some positive change. As they say, "It's an all-hands-on-deck moment." None of us, I don't think, have the luxury to just sit back and watch it unfold. We have to participate.

There’s a cautious optimism that prevails over the entire album. Is that something you really had to work towards? Or is that your MO as a person?

I've been reading a lot of this writer, Sarah Kendzior. She was one of the people who believed that Donald Trump was going to win the presidency. She's an expert on authoritarian governments and she's brilliant. I don't think I can quote her directly, but she said something about, "I'm not an optimist and I'm not a pessimist. I believe that we have to do the work that we have to do, whether we know what the outcome is going to be or not. There's no guarantee that the work that we have to do is going to bring about the change that we want, but we have to do it anyway."

With the revitalization of the Grateful Dead in this modern era, your time playing with Phil & Friends is particularly relevant. Do you have any fond memories from that era?

I was able to work with the Dead after Jerry Garcia passed away and went on a big tour with them. Then I went on a bunch of tours with Phil Lesh & Friends since then and have a real lengthy connection with those guys and with that music. It's a really interesting phenomenon because you have the Grateful Dead and you have their fan base and then you have this larger jam band scene that has spun off from the Dead and from that world.

I have so many memories. I think I was very nervous before my first handful of shows because I sang a lot of the Jerry songs and I felt like, "Wow, is this audience going to accept me? This girl singer doing these songs or are they not going to accept me?" But the audience was very welcoming. I remember it was my birthday and we were playing part of a five-night stand at Red Rocks in Colorado. I got to sing "Stella Blue" in that beautiful setting. There was this gorgeous moon and it was a clear night and it was just one of those moments where you could have heard a pin drop. The song is so delicate and so emotional and it was this moment that's now frozen in my mind. It's this pure, beautiful moment of being on stage with those guys and performing that song in front of that audience in that beautiful space. It was really transcendent.

"Hack The Planet!" An Oral History Of Hackers' Soundtrack & Score

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Future Islands

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Future Islands Can't Quit You

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Ahead of their sixth studio album release, the Baltimore synth-pop favorites open up about creating 'As Long As You Are'—and coming to terms with the legacy of that "Letterman" performance
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Sep 15, 2020 - 8:23 am

One of the most painful losses of the COVID-19 era has undoubtedly been the total and complete shutdown of live music—something synth-soul kingpins Future Islands, who are arguably best known for their hyper-vigorous, electrifying shows, mourn at their core. For years, since their 2006 inception, touring was practically all the Baltimore four-piece did—a cycle that only intensified after their 2014 network television debut on "The Late Show With David Letterman," where they made headlines with a stunning, viral performance of their breakout single, "Seasons (Waiting On You)." 

"I'll take all of that you got!!" exclaimed the talk show host after Future Islands' groundbreaking set, which featured frontman Samuel T. Herring's now-famous head-bobbing shuffle, chest thumps and Sam Cooke-meets-Tom Waits growl. And so would the rest of the world: Following their network television debut, the band embarked on 22 straight months of touring. They dove in so hard, Future Islands (a.k.a. Herring, keyboardist Gerrit Welters, guitarist William Cashion and drummer Michael Lowry) barely had time to asses the changes their group had undergone in such a short amount of time. On their follow-up to Singles, 2017's The Far Field, the band wrote and recorded quickly and aimed to stick to a peppy Singles formula they knew worked. "I had misgivings about the release of that record," Herring tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom. "Going into The Far Field, we tried to act like nothing had changed. We were like, 'Let's not think about how everything has changed and just try to be the same band.' But really what we should have done was be like, 'Everything has changed and this is weird and we should write about it.'"

Today, Future Islands are doing exactly that on their sixth studio album, As Long As You Are (out on Oct. 9 via 4AD), which finds them honestly processing their evolution as a band—and as individuals—in the way they might have liked to do on The Far Field. Synth-laden lead single "For Sure" breathes a sigh of relief at being able to truly lean on a partner ("When you say 'us' / You make me trust"), while opener "Glada" ponders new beginnings and whether or not Herring is worthy of love ("Who am I? / Do I deserve the sea again?"). 

Meanwhile, from an arrangements perspective, while The Far Field made a point of sticking to the pop-minded Singles blueprint, As Long As You Are frequently shifts to a more meditative, atmospheric mood, not unlike their third release, 2011's underrated On The Water.

Calling GRAMMY.com from Sweden, where his partner lives, Herring joined the rest of the group from their respective Baltimore homes to talk about the life-changing events leading up to As Long As You Are, being unable to perform in the Covid-19 era and the emotional catharsis Future Islands want to create in their music.

Sam, how long have you been in Sweden now?

Samuel T. Herring: I've just been here for four weeks on this trip. Me and my partner were separated for the first five months of the pandemic as far as the March lockdown because of borders closures and stuff. Then a loophole opened and I was able to get back here, but I have to travel back in a week to do the album release. So, I'm hoping that I can travel back without issue when it's time. It was hard to be apart for that long with everything happening in the world.

Of course. Putting aside the pandemic release timing, when did you start thinking about writing As Long As You Are?

Herring: We were already talking about this album when The Far Field came out and we were on tour. I had misgivings about the release of that record and definitely my contribution, I felt that I didn't work hard enough and I was a bit unhappy with that record. When we did Singles, the album before The Far Field, there was, we were on tour for 22 months. And then when we got off the road...we took ourselves off the road. We had offers that we left on the table because we're like, “We've been on the road 22 months for this record. If we don't get off, then we're just going to keep touring. And then we don't, how long will it be until we write the next record?”

But we never really had too many conversations about what happened to us in that 22 months with the exposure and the growth of the band. We hadn't adapted. We were still adapting to how big this thing had gotten for us. Something that was our baby, that we had slowly seen grow over time and worked so hard to get there... it just like exploded through Singles. The stages were bigger, the shows were bigger, the crowds were bigger. There were just more things, more responsibilities. And going into The Far Field, we tried to, I think, act like nothing had changed. We're just like, “Let's not think about how everything's changed and try to be the same band.” But really what we should have done was be like, “Everything has changed and this is weird and we should write about it.”

I think when we released [The Far Field], it was like, “Oh no, this is the wrong record or at this time.” Because I still think that record, in time, will be a classic part of our oeuvre. It's an important step for us and this album we had to make. Because sometimes you just have to release, you just have to put out what comes. But at the same time, I felt that we could have dug a little bit deeper and I, personally, could have dug a lot deeper.

So, we were already having this conversation in 2017. And then in 2018, still touring on The Far Field, we started to write on the road for the very first time. We would set up for sound checks and we were pretty streamlined at that point.

The thing is, when you're writing a record, it's the creative process. And when you're on tour, it's the business—a machine cycle, you know what I mean? Touring is the business: get to work, be on time, knock it out and then, do it again and do it again. So, you're constantly going from this tour cycle, which is machine work to then creative work and it's really difficult. And in the old days, we didn't have time to cut off between records. We couldn't afford to do that.

So, we would do two months of touring. We'd have two weeks off and we'd write a song or two, and then we'd take it out on the next two months’ [tour]. And if it survived, then it stayed in the set. And then once we had five or six songs after a year, a year and a half of touring constantly, then we would record an album and then keep touring, in between tours and then keep going.

We did that for five years, 2008 to 2012, until we wrote Singles. And what happens when you write songs like that, as we capture these tensions that are happening in [our] life at the moment. Not so much with Singles, but with The Far Field, I felt like we got off this turbulent tour, this long tour, we were just burnt out and we start writing. And the first three or four songs were just filled with so much emotion because of all of what we've just been through.

So really, As Long As You Are was... We just wanted to take our time and create a more balanced record.

Yeah, I can’t really begin to imagine the explosion of opportunities that must have hit you all after the "David Letterman" performance. And if you’re a band that hasn’t really seen that level of opportunity yet, maybe you just go has hard as you can, while you can. And you have to mindfully, intentionally make yourselves stop and reflect, or else you burn out. Do you remember if or when that moment came for you?

Herring: Definitely for me. But I felt that at the end of 2012—at the end of five years of touring—I felt burnout, and like, I don't know if I can keep doing this. And then we write our most accomplished record at the time after that, and then we do it again and then it's like, Oh, I don't know if I can do this. And then you do it again because the fact is you can't, I can't quit you.

It's a great love in a sense, this thing. Our friendship as a band that we've seen the world together and been through so many things in our lives together. Me and William and Gerrit have been playing since the beginning of 2003. So, it's like, 17 and a half years playing shows and being in vans and backstages. All of these cycles and becoming a part of people's lives, the audience, the people that have supported us. There's not a big difference between the people that have been there since 2006 and the people that have been there since 2016. The people that support what we do, they're a huge part of the equation that allows us to live our lives and to make this art.

And that's part of what the performance is about every time. Giving people what they came to see. That's what, that's a big thing about what Future Islands is about. It's about sweating for it.

Sometimes literally!

Herring: Yeah, very literally. But yeah, the burnout comes just because... I've said this in a few interviews, it's like you don't eat for a few years and then when you're in front of a buffet, you don't stop eating when you're full. You keep stuffing your mouth until you're sick and then you shove food in your pockets for later. And that's part of what you will always do. It's hard to go against that human instinct, but I think, we're getting older.

There's a maturing process, which I think is a big part of taking a step back and looking at what we've accomplished in a positive way. I used to worry that the “Letterman” performance put us into too much of a box, that it would make people think about us a certain way forever. But maybe its lasting legacy will be positive in that it makes people think about us at all.

"You don't find truth when you're writing that for someone else, you find truth when you're writing for yourself." — Samuel T. Herring

What would that box look like, you think?

Herring: Well, part of it is sound. I remember when we put out our third record, On The Water, I was like, “This record's going to be great because it's not going to allow anybody to generalize or think that they know what we sound like. Because In Evening Air, which is still such a great record to me, was a little bit more propulsive. And then On The Water was a reaction to that. It's like beautiful and ambient and swelling sounds and slow sounds. And so it was like, yeah, this will allow us to do whatever we want. I feel like The Far Field was us writing for the person that loves “Seasons,” like writing a record for them. Here's some other songs that are like “Seasons” that we wrote for you, unwittingly.

I just think we were writing great songs that were like, “Oh, people dig this vibe, we can do that.” You don't find truth when you're writing for someone else, you find truth when you're writing for yourself. That's the stuff that is going to resonate with people. When you're finding truth in yourself and sharing that truth in your art. That's what's going to resonate with people. And it may resonate with fewer people than if you're trying to reach a bunch of people, but if it resonates, but it's going to resonate very deeply with those fewer people. And that's more important than trying to reach a larger a crowd with something that could ring hollow in time.

To me, As Long As You Are kind of sounds like a nice mix of more ambient On The Water energy, and then also there are a few fast-paced Singles-esque songs. Was striking a career-overview balance something you were thinking about?

William Cashion: I think we just wanted to make the record have a more varied sound than The Far Field did. And then I go back to some of the ghost and the dust that we had on records like In Evening Air or On The Water. These little experimental, weird, distorting sounds. We wanted to experiment in the studio. Just kind of push the edges of what we do. And part of that is the approach to the songwriting. From The Far Field, every song on that record was written with me, Sam and Gerrit in a room jamming. And that was something I remember we talked about. “Seasons” was written like that.

That song really did something special. We [thought], that's a good formula. Let's not mess with that. But in doing that, we kind of ignored other aspects of our writing. So, we have songs on this record that were written with all of us in a room, like “The Painter” and “Hit the Coast” and “I Knew You.” But then there's a song like “Thrill.” That's a song that Gerrit brought forth to the band, and then “Born In A War,” that came from me, and Mike worked on an idea and brought it to the guys. And then there was a couple of old ideas that I brought to the band back in 2015, like “City's Face.” But the version that's on the album is nothing like the original demo of that song.

I’m sure you’re going to be asked many times, so I apologize in advance for the repetition. But as a band that has built such a huge following around your live performance, how is the prospect of not touring this record sitting with you—aside from the "A Stream Of You And Me" show in October?

Cashion: Well, we're trying to figure out new ways to get out there. Because that's really what we understand the best: touring. And so, if we can't do that, we're talking about starting to write the next record. After this record comes out, we've already got a couple of songs that were recorded for As Long As You Are, and at least one of them we think might be on the next record. But who knows what the next batch of songs will sound like. We keep talking about it, but we can't really focus on it, I don't think, until after October 9 when the record comes out. So once it's out, then we'll try to think about writing and performing again, because it's looking like it might be another year before we can tour again.

It would be nice if we had another release [by then]. I don't want to put pressure on ourselves by saying we're going to [release something else]. We don't want to pressure ourselves by forcing ourselves to do another record in a year. But that would be nice, or maybe an EP. But our records have this pattern, starting with In Evening Air, when we took all the time in the world. On The Water was made really quick, in like a year. And then we took our time with Singles and then The Far Field was really quick, like in a year. And so As Long As You Are, we're continuing the pattern. We took our time with this record, and I'm really hoping that we don't inadvertently continue the trend and make the next record really fast simply because we want to get the record out in time for whenever we tour next fall or whatever. If we tour then.

Herring: Do you guys, do Gerrit and Mike, do you want to talk on that? Being off the road?

Mike Lowry: It's a huge bummer. I'm all about being on the road and playing shows and I feel like I still hadn't really accepted the reality of our situation until a couple months ago. Still, every day is an exercise in accepting that it's just not going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it. And that's definitely been a challenge because, for me, performing live is a big part of how I, especially being a drummer, share my art with people. It's extremely disheartening. I'm kept up at night sometimes thinking about, “Maybe we could do this,” and there's just no way around. The whole world is going through this thing. It is just f**king driving me crazy, honestly. But I'm trying to use the time wisely and try to work out some things in some other areas, musically.

Do you guys remember Dan Deacon’s Baltimore Round Robin shows? Maybe it’s time to get a livestream going with every still-active Baltimore band.

Herring: At Le Poisson Rouge! I'll text Dan Deacon right now about it.

We only have time for one more question, so I’ll leave you with this: All of your records, in their own way, thoughtfully blend themes of internal pain and optimism. As Long As You Are is certainly no different. How do you all stay hopeful in 2020?

Herring: Well, I've been asked about optimism in the new album and then talking about optimism in our past songs, even in darkness. And I think as much as it's something that I personally, lyrically and emotionally, as a performer, want to share with an audience, it's also something I want for them, for the audience to be able to feel strength in vulnerability, to be able to be emotional and open with the people around them, the people that they know, their friends and family, but also the people they don't know. The way we lack empathy in our society at times, the way we misunderstand or mischaracterize one another... But I think some of the optimism that's inborn in Future Islands' music is my own hope for myself and my hope for the guys and their families and my own fears. My own fears of what my dark mind creates, like my own battles with depression and my own understanding that I also need to hear it.

I need to speak it because that gives me hope too. It's inborn of something that I need to hear, and that I need to tell myself to keep me going. Because I think it's really easy to forget about all the people who care about us in our lives, especially at a time like this, where we're so overcome. And I think even going through being away from my partner in this beginning of the pandemic, I didn't feel personally slighted because I knew the whole world is affected by this. So I'm like, well, at least I'm not alone in that. But, I have friends also say, "Yeah, but you can still feel that." I think it's just important to look out for one another.

Future Islands has always been about that catharsis. We've always wanted to create that in our music and in our live shows, which unfortunately we can't do right now. But we are about keeping people moving, whether their hearts or their feet.

Yeah. "Balance" in particular has always, well, balanced me out when I’m stressed.

Herring: It just takes time.

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Kate Bush in 1985

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How 'Hounds Of Love' Finally Gave Kate Bush Her Deserved U.S. Breakthrough

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GRAMMY.com looks back at the reclusive, art-pop performer's groundbreaking fifth studio album
Jon O'Brien
GRAMMYs
Sep 14, 2020 - 8:30 am

Cliched it may be to describe Kate Bush as otherworldly. But the singer/songwriter truly appeared to have been beamed in from another planet in 1978 with her swooping, shrieking take on Emily Brontë’s only finished novel.

Of course, Bush actually hailed from Bexleyheath, a London town not exactly renowned for its transcendent qualities, which perhaps explains why Britain was so quick to embrace her idiosyncratic talents. By the age of 19 she’d become the first ever female solo artist to score a self-penned U.K. number one, with "Wuthering Heights" also propelling debut LP The Kick Inside to more than a million domestic sales. 

America, on the other hand, was a little more wary of this incredibly precocious enigma whose literate blend of art-pop, prog-rock and folk often needed its own CliffsNotes. Although second single "The Man with the Child In His Eyes" briefly graced the lower reaches of the US Hot 100, audiences weren’t convinced enough to pick up its parent album. And by her mid-20s she’d essentially been consigned to the status of minor one-hit wonder.

By this point, even Bush’s homeland appeared to have cooled toward her increasingly complex singular vision: 1982’s self-produced The Dreaming, once self-described as the "she’s gone mad" record, sold barely a fraction of its three predecessors and the NME would later run a slightly embarrassing piece asking "Where Are They Now?"

Whereas many of her peers would have panickingly roped in a hit-making team to restore their former commercial glories, Bush doubled down on the D.I.Y. approach for album number five. She built a 48-track studio at the 17th century Kent farmhouse she shared with musician partner Del Palmer. She further utilized the Fairlight CMI, the beast of a synthesizer that she’d first dabbled with on 1980's Never For Ever. And she reportedly presented EMI with the finished product before execs had even heard a single note. This was unarguably Bush at her most autonomous, her most liberated, her purest.

You perhaps might not have expected Hounds of Love, therefore, to reverse her chart fortunes on either side of the Atlantic. Even more so considering its ambitious two-suite concept, with the titular radio-friendlier first soon giving way to a nightmarish tale of survival dubbed "The Ninth Wave." However, the record not only returned Bush to the top of the U.K. charts, it also peaked at a then-career high of No.30 in the States, spawning a bona fide hit single in the process. 

Bush had to fight tooth and nail to launch Hounds of Love with "Running Up That Hill" instead of the much-preferred "Cloudbusting." However, she did make a rare concession to her label. The battle of the sexes had originally been titled "A Deal with God" before EMI bosses convinced the singer that its religious connotations would scare off the bible belt. It was the first of several signs that Bush wanted as many people to hear the fruits of her labor as possible.

Indeed, Bush has since garnered a reputation for being so reclusive she makes Howard Hughes look like a social butterfly. But in the fall of 1985 you couldn’t turn on late-night cable TV without hearing her softly spoken English tones answering a variety of inane questions about her anything-but-inane career: she has to work overtime to hide her disdain during this particularly awkward interview on USA Network’s Night Flight.

There were also several radio appearances and, even more remarkably, a signing session at Greenwich Village’s Tower Records store. Yet it was Bush’s embracing of the music video that truly helped her connect with U.S. audiences beyond the fringes of the art-rock scene.   

Bush was no stranger to the art form, of course. The theatrical videos for early hits "Wuthering Heights" and "Babooshka" were undoubtedly just as memorable as the songs they promoted. But the Hounds of Love campaign was the first time Bush had the budget to match her visual flair and subsequently the ability to court the vital network that had only been in its infancy last time around.

Not that MTV were initially on board, though. According to the star’s brother Paddy, the beautifully choreographed promo for "Running Up That Hill"—which sees Bush and Michael Hervieu perform an interpretive dance in a shadowy loft studio—was a little too abstract for a station defined by straight-to-camera performances.

Yet they couldn’t ignore the cinematic follow-up. "Cloudbusting" boasted a bona fide Hollywood star, Donald Sutherland, who’d been accosted by Bush at his Oxfordshire hotel room in another bid to raise her Stateside profile. And its depiction of the touching relationship between misunderstood scientist Wilhelm Reich and his young son Peter proved once and for all that artists didn’t need to lip-sync for their life to make a music video compelling.

By the time the promo for fourth single "The Big Sky," a self-directed blend of cosplay, sci-fi imagery and flamboyant stage performance, dropped, MTV was a fully signed-up member of the Bush fan club. They even went on to gift her consecutive Best Female Video nominations at the VMAs.

The critical response, in general, had been much kinder, too. Indeed, while Rolling Stone dismissed Hounds of Love as an album that both “dazzles and bores,” the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times were far more complimentary, with the latter describing it as "a dark and dreamy masterpiece."

Given the relatively commercial appeal of the album's four singles, it’s easy to forget just how disorienting "The Ninth Wave" gets. "Waking the Witch" finds the youngster in trouble visualize being burned at the stake amidst some demonic growls and unnerving tumbling percussion. Equally disconcerting is "And Dream of Sheep," a stark piano ballad in which she drifts in and out of consciousness as her body succumbs to hypothermia. And just as you become accustomed to the solemn tone, along comes "Jig of Life," which sounds like the kind of traditional Irish ditty you’d expect to hear blaring out of a pub on St. Patrick’s Day.

Lulling so many Americans into such a false sense of security may well be one of Bush's most impressive feats. But what’s almost as remarkable is how many stuck around: her next three LPs all went Top 50 (1993’s The Red Shoes even charted two places higher). And her status as an icon has since been cemented by several GRAMMY nods, her obvious influence on the likes of Tori Amos, Regina Spektor and Anohni and the sheer number of fans who traveled across the Atlantic to witness her first tour in 35 years.   

Interestingly, Bush dedicated half of her Before the Dawn London residency setlist to Hounds of Love, performing the second suite in its entirety as well as its three biggest hits. This time around, Rolling Stone recognized that one term you can never throw at Bush is boring.

mxmtoon Prepares For An Autumn Of Reflection