THE LEGEND
SIR PAUL
MCCARTNEY
ON BEING A PAPERBACK WRITER
SEPT E M BE R 2 0 1 9
I S S UE 0 6
BILLIE EILISH From “creepy weird scary girl” to being described as the future of pop
MABEL
HAS HIGH EXPECTATIONS!
FIVE MINUTES WITH
GARY BARLOW Travis’ FRAN HEALY Latin Music is more popular than ever GETTING OVER SONGWRITER’S BLOCK
CAMILA CABELLO, YOUR MUSIC MOVES US. We celebrate your talent, value your music and champion your rights. To all of our songwriters and composers, your passion is ours.
with the thing that you feel is the most you.
“
Screw whatever’s ‘going to “work’ — you just have to go
CAMILA CABELLO
BMI SONGWRITER SINCE 2013
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DECEMBER 2018
HEYMUSIC.COM
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UPFRONT
PUBLISHER Hey Music
EDITOR’S LETTER “Everybody’s talking ‘bout the new kid in town.” No! I’m not referring to me - I’m just deputising the editor’s role for this issue - I’m talking about the United Arab Emirates as a live music destination for big international acts.
EDITOR & MARKETING DIRECTOR Darren Haynes darren@heymusic.com DESIGNER Aiez Mirza CONTRIBUTORS Decca Aitkenhead Alex O’Connell Lucy Mapstone Aaron Slater Nick Stephenson Cliff Goldmacher Natalia Hagen
@heymusicofficial @heymusictweets @heymusicofficial @heymusicofficial www.heymusic.com
To read previous issues go to www.heymags.com
LOCATION: London
Hey Mag is published by Hey Music. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. The publisher regrets that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views within this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. All credits are accurate at the time of writing but may be subject to change.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai have hosted some incredible crowd-pullers. Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, The Eagles, George Ezra, Coldplay, Rihanna, Bryan Adams, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, Sia, Pink and even the 500-mile walking Proclaimers have performed for eager expat crowds. The problem is; there’s only a short season in terms of being able to play outdoor venues. The heat makes it unbearable for the musicians … and the audience. In 2012, Madonna famously kept her Abu Dhabi audience waiting for 90 minutes before she came on stage. It was, she claimed, “too hot”. June? Outdoors? Hot? In a desert? No shit! Until recently, there were only a few indoor arenas that could accommodate big-names. Dubai’s World Trade Centre could be converted into a concert venue with a standing capacity of around 11,000. The stylish Dubai Opera (opened in 2016) has 2,000 seats and has hosted artists as diverse as Plácido Domingo, James Morrison and Rag’n’Bone Man. Yes, you read that correctly, it’s not only used for opera, ballet or classical. ‘Bums on seats’ are valuable to any venue, anywhere in the world. The ‘new kid’ on Dubai music’s scene is a shiny new 17,000 seater venue; the Cola-Cola Arena. With corporate boxes around the perimeter, it’s reminiscent of London’s O2. It’s the largest climate-controlled arena in the region and is the only arena of its kind between Istanbul and Singapore. Since its opening in June, Maroon 5, The 1975 and Westlife have performed to sell-out crowds. The UAE is no longer ‘just’ a stopover on the way to, or from, a tour Down Under; it’s now a specific destination and part of the touring schedule. There are major music venues, and some avid music lovers, of all ages and nationalities, ready to pay top Dirham to see their favourite artists. The Middle East is ready for music tourism; it’s ready to dance and sing-along. Enjoy the issue!
Darren Haynes HEYMUSIC.COM
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CONTENTS UPFRONT
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6 NEWS What’s in the music news across the UK and around the world
FEATURES 10 TEENAGE KICKS 17-year old, Billie Eilish wanted a pair of Nikes, now she can afford hundreds
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16 HEY GRANDUDE! Paul McCartney writes a children’s book 22 MABEL HAS HIGH EXPECTATIONS Making it on her own without the help of her famous parents 26 ALBUM APPRECIATION For lovers of the long player
42 MEDELLÍN MAN Meet the Colombian Reggaetón artist
30 HOW I WROTE... Why does it always rain on Fran Healy?
44 MORE THAN PANPIPES Five Peruvian musicians for your playlist
34 ON THE RECORD BMI’s insider tips for songwriters
48 BLOCKED! Getting over songwriter’s block
34 HOW I WROTE... Friedman & Rich run to Whitney
50 CAMPBELL’S SUPERWOMAN Steps’ stomping songwriter
38 FROM LATIN AMERICA WITH LOVE Is Latin music more popular than ever?
54 TOP QUOTES FROM MUSICIANS Philosophical musician musings
41 THE DESPACITO EFFECT Examining the most successful Spanish language song in pop music history
56 INTRODUCING LEAH DEPALA Dubai’s unsigned singing sensation 58 FIVE MINUTES WITH... Take That’s Gary Barlow gives us five 60 MUSIC BY NUMBERS Stats and facts behind PRS for Music
BACKSTAGE 62 GET IT ON! Unstoppable Carter talks about his career in the music biz
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UPFRONT AROUND THE UK
DISCOVER: Miss June Bad Luck Party (Frenchkiss Records, 2019) Raised in the embers of punk rock and described as “some unholy union between Sonic Youth and Le Tigre,” the Auckland four-piece harness jagged, noisy guitars. The band has built a reputation for fierce, formidable and head-spinning live shows which have caught the attention of acts such as The Foo Fighters and Wolf Alice. Combining elements of post-punk, no-wave and rock, Miss June hold close to their DIY roots while creating a blistering, reckless sound full of melodic hooks and overdriven riffs.
MERCURY PRIZE 2019 LATIN AMAS – VOTE The nominees for the 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize were announced back in July, with Slowthai, Dave and The 1975 all up for the title. It’s great to be nominated but even better to win. The prize will be awarded during a ceremony at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith London on 19 September and broadcast on BBC Four at 9pm.
Mercury facts •
•
PJ Harvey is the only artist to have won the Mercury Prize twice, having won with Let England Shake in 2011 and Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea in 2001. Radiohead have the most nominations ever with five, having never won, followed by Arctic Monkeys (one win) and PJ Harvey (two) with four in the 27 years the contest has been running.
Mercury Prize nominees 2019 Anna Calvi - Hunter Black Midi - Schlagenheim Cate Le Bon - Reward Dave - Psychodrama Foals - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1 Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance Little Simz - Grey Area NAO - Saturn SEED Ensemble - Driftglass Slowthai - Nothing Great About Britain The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships
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NOW!
The nominees for the 2019 Latin American Music Awards have been revealed. Ozuna leads the pack for the second consecutive year with nine nominations. The Puerto Rican artist is followed by Bad Bunny and Romeo Santos (8), Anuel AA (7) and Banda MS (5). The 2019 Latin AMAs nominees are based on key fan interactions with music, including sales, streaming and social activity. Sech, Lunay and Daddy Yanke posted on their social media to thank the fans for their support and to encourage them to vote. The awards will be broadcast live on Telemundo from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood on 17 October, 8pm (ET).
ELLIE GETS HITCHED Ellie Goulding has married art dealer Caspar Jopling. The 32-year-old arrived at York Minster in a blue Volkswagen camper van, where she was greeted by cheering fans. Celebrity friends and A-listers among the congregation included Katy Perry and her fiancé Orlando Bloom, Ed Sheeran, James Blunt, comedian Jimmy Carr, as well as Sarah, Duchess of York and her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
FACE IT, BLONDIE! Iconic Blondie frontwoman, Debbie Harry, will release her first ever authorised memoir on 1 October 2019. The memoir entitled “FACE IT” will include Harry’s own personal, previously unseen photos as well as a curated section of fan art. It promises wild stories from the New York underground of the 1970s, to global superstardom and the creation of some of the most beloved pop songs of all-time.
BILLIE EILISH BLASTS GERMAN MAG FOR PHOTOSHOPPED SNAP 17-year-old singer, Billie Eilish, didn’t hold back on Instagram as she criticised a German magazine for posting a photoshopped image of her without permission. The Instagram post - which has since been deleted showed her without any hair from the shoulders up, and with her skin looking metallic. Responding to the photo, Billie wrote: “What the f**k is this s**t. 1. i was never approached by nylon about this piece whatever. i did not know it was happening nor did anyone on my team. 2. this is not even a real picture of me. i had absolutely no creative input. 3. youre gonna make a picture of me shirtless?? thats not real?? at 17? and make it the cover??? even if the picture was supposed to look like some robot version of me... i did not consent in any way. 4. ANNNDDD YOU’RE GONNA REMOVE ALL MY F***IN HAIR? booooooooooo to you (sic)” The US branch of the magazine has posted a statement apologising to Eilish. Taking to Twitter, they wrote: “Nylon America is a different company than Nylon Germany and we strongly disagree with their decision to appropriate Billie Eilish’s image without her consent. Nylon America is very sorry to Billie and her fans. We love Billie and everything she stands for. Her message to young women is important and we vow to continue to help spread it appropriately.”
BBC RADIO 2 POP-UP TO CELEBRATE ABBEY ROAD’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY Gary Barlow and Dave Grohl are among the stars who will front programmes on a special pop-up DAB radio station celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album. The Beatles will be honoured as a group, as individual artists, and as songwriters. The four-day pop-up on BBC Radio 2, entitled Radio 2 Beatles, will be broadcast from September 26 to 29 from London’s Abbey Road Studios. HEYMUSIC.COM
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UPFRONT INTERNATIONAL NEWS
LATER WITH PINK FLOYD On 29 November 2019, Pink Floyd Records will release Pink Floyd The Later Years, an ultimate 16-disc set (5xCDs, 6xBlu-Rays, 5xDVDs) covering the material created by David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright from 1987 onwards. The period generated record sales of over 40 million worldwide and included three studio albums: A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, The Division Bell and The Endless River as well as two live albums: Delicate Sound Of Thunder and Pulse. Throughout 1987 and 1988 the band’s live shows became the largestgrossing concert tour ever to that date and produced the critically acclaimed, Grammy Award nominated, Delicate Sound Of Thunder. The audio-visual package includes over 13 hours of unreleased material, including the sought-after 1989 Venice Concert, performed on a floating stage in front of St Mark’s Square and the 1990 Knebworth concerts.
SHAKIRA ON THE BIG SCREEN Shakira’s In Concert: El Dorado World Tour will be brought to cinemas worldwide for a one-night event on November 13. The film is due to be shown in more than 2,000 theatres in over 60 countries, underlining Shakira’s status as a truly global icon. The film relives the show on the big screen, and through documentary footage and Shakira’s own words, highlights what it took to bring the career-highlight show to 22 countries and nearly a million fans, after having to postpone the entire tour due to a vocal cord injury in 2017. The Colombian singer-songwriter has sold over 60 million records worldwide and has won numerous awards including three Grammys and eleven Latin Grammys, to name a few. She is the only artist from South America to have a number one song in the US and has had four of the 20 top-selling hits of the last decade. Tickets are on-sale at Shakira.film 8
SEPTEMBER 2019
RITA ORA AND ADAM LAMBERT TO HONOUR AVICII IN TRIBUTE CONCERT Avicii is to be honoured with a star-studded tribute concert in his hometown of Stockholm, Sweden, on 5 December. The 28-year-old musician, real name Tim Bergling, was found dead in Muscat, Oman on 20 April 2018, with his family later confirming he had taken his own life. According to Variety some of his most famous collaborators including Rita Ora, Aloe Blacc and Adam Lambert will celebrate the late dance star’s music with a tribute concert. All profits will go to organisations helping those with mental health needs and suicide prevention.
NEW BON JOVI ALBUM IN 2020
KATHERINE JENKINS TO PERFORM AT DUBAI OPERA
Jon Bon Jovi has been working on a new album and said that it will be called “Bon Jovi: 2020”.
Katherine Jenkins OBE, will perform at Dubai Opera for one night only on 22 February 2020. Cherished as one of Britain’s all-time favourite singers, last year Katherine was officially crowned The No.1 selling ‘Classical Music Artist of the Last 25 Years’ by Classic FM. She has embarked upon numerous sold out tours and duetted with such names as Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, amongst others.
Variety reported that he told fans during an intimate show on board his Runaway to Paradise Mediterranean cruise that its contents will carry “socially conscious” themes, inspired by today’s headlines. “It’s an election year, so why not?” he said. “I couldn’t do any worse.” During a Q&A session, a fan asked him which songs he wished he’d written. He said every tune by the Beatles, Born to Run’ by Bruce Springsteen, The Boys of Summer by Don Henley and Pride (In the Name of Love) by U2.
REDISCOVER: Stevie Nicks Bella Donna (Modern, 1981) The 10-song, 42-minute album - Bella Donna - was released in the summer of 1981. It was the Fleetwood Mac singer’s first release as a solo performer and, to date, is her most successful album. The album has sold over four million copies in the US alone and spent nearly three years on the Billboard 200 from July 1981 to June 1984. For her debut solo effort, she teamed up with producer, Jimmy Iovine … in more ways than one. In the re-issued album’s liner notes, she says “Within half an hour, I knew: there was something happening between us. I knew that this was going to be a relationship, and this went way beyond any record we were going to make.” Don Henley, the E-Street Band’s Roy Bittan, Tom Petty and his Heartbreaker band mates, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench were all drafted in to the project. The album spawned four singles, including a duet with Tom Petty (Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around) and the stand out track that would also become her signature song, Edge of Seventeen. Bella Donna reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and number eleven in the UK Album Chart. The album was also included in the “Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums.” The name of the cockatoo on the front cover? Maxwellington. The bird belonged to her brother, Christopher, and also appeared with her on the Rolling Stones magazine cover when she was crowned “The Reigning Queen of Rock & Roll.”
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FEATURE BILLIE EILISH
TEENA
Photo_Justin Higuchi / Words_Decca Aitkenhead / The Sunday Times / The Interview People
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AGE KICKS Billie Eilish, the teen star, talks about therapy, her boyfriend and how sudden fame has altered her life — for better and for worse Words_Decca Aitkenhead
all waiting for Billie Eilish, the singer We’re breathlessly described as the future of pop by everyone from The Wall Street Journal to The New
Yorker, Rolling Stone to The Washington Post. Currently the third most streamed artist on Spotify, her debut album shot straight to the top of the Billboard 100, with 12 of its songs among the 14 she has in the US singles charts — an all-time record for a female artist. Its big hit, Bad Guy, reached No 1 in more than a dozen countries, her 2017 debut EP has now been in the charts for more than 18 months and she has more than 25m Instagram followers. Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer, likens the buzz around her to “what was happening with Nirvana in 1991”. Her last world tour sold out, her current one soon will too. In June, she headlined Glastonbury. Eilish knows this is the stuff of teenage dreams, because she is all of 17 years old. Everything about her sounds fantastical — even her full name, Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell. The homeschooled daughter of jobbing LA actors began writing music at 11, and was 13 when she posted a recording on SoundCloud of herself singing Ocean Eyes, a haunting ballad written by her big brother, Finneas. Within weeks she’d been signed by professional management; by 14 she was signed to a record label. In the words of The New York Times, her debut album — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? — “redefines teen pop stardom”. She sings about Xanax, unrequited love and adolescent envy in a husky slur of a voice, her genre-defying music looping effortlessly from ethereal acoustic to explosive electronica. She co-writes all her songs with Finneas,
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FEATURE BILLIE EILISH now 21, who records and produces them in his childhood bedroom in the modest twobed LA home Eilish still shares with her mum and dad. She designs her own merchandise, controls her own styling, curates her own videos — but is still technically a child. At an awards ceremony earlier this year, a camera caught her sucking on a lollipop.
Has her internal world altered along with her external reality? She laughs. “Something people say is, ‘I’m still the same me.’ I feel like, no, you’re not. You really are not. Not at all. How could you be? I honestly feel like I’m a different person. You know when you see stories about little kids who’ve had past lives? I feel like that. I remember everything about who I was, but I don’t recognise that person any more. Around when I turned 16, I died, and I got reincarnated as Billie Eilish.”
Eilish is by a long way the coolest human being I have ever met. The simultaneous nonchalance and polish with which she poses for the camera is breathtaking; she What makes her meteoric rise so remarkable is its defiance of the orthodoxy about has that mysterious quality of otherness that makes stardom look less like ambition mainstream musical tastes. The music than destiny. She is clever, self-aware and industry operates on the assumption that socially conscious, fortified by a self-belief children want shiny bubblegum pop and commodified sex appeal too impregnable to be mistaken for conceit. — but Eilish’s work is Yet she can also be borderline arthouse, charmingly naive and often dark and always When I turned 16, singular. How did she contradictory, just like any other child, and know that was what they I died, and I got really wanted? “I wasn’t at lunch sits gawkily reincarnated as cross-legged on a creating ‘my brand’ or trying to break the rules. sofa, burping loudly, Billie Eilish and accidentally drops I wasn’t doing something to make kids like me. I a diamond into her scrambled tofu. just literally did what I wanted. That’s the only reason it worked.” She still hasn’t got used to the thrill of getting Her appeal extends far beyond her teen stuff free. “It’s crazy. Jewellery, clothes, shoes, nails — you can just get it. That’s f****** fanbase; everywhere I travelled in the week after we met, people kept telling me how dope! If I knew that when I was 11?” Her much they loved her. To be equally popular eyes widen. “All I wanted was a pair of Nikes, with a middle-aged Jamaican estate agent, a and I couldn’t afford them. And now I have Swedish logistics manager and a Wall Street hundreds in my house. Unreal.” Yet she can’t banker, without trying to please anyone, is nip out for groceries without being mobbed, and needs a security team to go anywhere in a feat beyond the wildest dreams of most marketing professionals, and Eilish pulled it public. off without compromise. I wonder if she’d be a Billie Eilish fan too, were she someone else, and she grins. “I spend so much time thinking about that. If I saw me I’d think, oh my God, she’s dope. Like, look at her outfit, dude! I think I would think I was so cool. But I would also think I was really annoying.” Because? “I have always hated people who are like me. Whenever I meet someone with a similar personality to me, I think, ‘Eeww, shut up!’ I just always wanted to be the only one doing me.” Does she ever doubt her own creative judgment? She shakes her head. “I’ve always just known what I wanted. Always. The only time it was different was when I was 11 and 12,
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Photo_MTV International
What do you expect from a 15-year-old’s mouth? To not say a bunch of dumb shit?
when I tried to be like everyone else. I tried to fit in. I remember shopping at the stores where other people shop, I started talking different, I tried to change my laugh, because I always had a deeper voice. It was the worst year ever. It made me miserable, and it also made me annoying, because it wasn’t authentic. But that year I thought, oh my God, I have to be someone else, because I am the worst.” I’m fascinated by how her fame must have altered the family dynamic. The four are so close that until Finneas turned 10, they all used to share one bed — but he is now her producer, her dad is her stage lighting director and her mum is her assistant. In other words, they all work for the youngest in the family — so who is in charge? “I’m in charge,” she says firmly. “But then I’ve always been in charge. That sounds annoying, but I was just bossy as f***. I’ve always been the boss.” The prospect of turning 18 in December and assuming full legal control of her career doesn’t faze her one bit. “Now I think I could handle it. I can’t do this for ever with my family, and I wouldn’t want to, and I don’t think they would want to.” Control matters so much, and success has come at such a pace, that Eilish is already chafing against the constraints of the public image she herself created. She used to enjoy people finding her intimidating, “But over time it’s kind of become a thing, ‘Billie Eilish, the creepy, weird, scary girl.’ And I don’t like that. It’s lame. I just don’t want to stay one thing.”
The trouble is, people take everything she says for some sort of fixed ideological position. “People are like, ‘Oh, Billie Eilish, she said this and now she says this.’ I’m like, bro! I was 13 when all this started. What do you expect from a 15-year-old’s mouth? To not say a bunch of dumb shit?” Everyone inferred from the Vanity Fair videos that fame had already ruined her. “And I’m like, bro, no! The first one was shot on a day when I had a photoshoot, I had glam hair, I had just eaten. The second one, I had just woken up, so looked tired. It wasn’t like, I was happy and now the industry has destroyed me. No, the industry is great! This is all I ever wanted to do.” Of course, success is not uncomplicated. She’s had no time to write anything new since November — and knows it’s going to be hard to keep writing relatable songs when “literally nothing about my life is normal any more”. Eighteen months ago she would have said she had at least 15 truly close friends. “Maybe more. Dude, I used to have friends on friends on friends on friends. I was popular as hell.” And now? The smile fades. “One. Two.” I ask what happened. Her voice drops unhappily. “I don’t know. People don’t like my job. I can’t tell anyone about it. Because either it sounds like I’m bragging, or it sounds like I’m being ungrateful. I’ve started going to therapy, because it’s the only person I can talk to.” Has trust become a problem? “A huge one. Some really close friends last year that I thought I could trust completely just used the f*** out of my name. And then complained about it. I was like, what are y’all doing? I don’t know who to trust any more.” For a while she worried, too, about how to know if a boy was really interested in her or ‘Billie Eilish’. “But I think I nailed that,” she grins. “I know I’ve got somebody who is not like that.” She has a boyfriend? “Mm-hmm,” she nods happily. “But no one else knows that.”
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FEATURE BILLIE EILISH
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Photo_ Raph_PH / Words_Alex O’Connell / The Times / The Interview People
FEATURE PAUL MCCARTNEY
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HEY GRANDUDE! The musician talks about being a grandfather to eight, the impact of knife crime in London — and his new children’s book, Hey Grandude! Words_Alex O’Connell
McCartney is a grandude Paul on a mission. Now 77, he has just finished a tour of North
America, is back writing songs and busy turning the film It’s a Wonderful Life into his first Broadway musical. More surprisingly, he has written a bedtime story, Hey Grandude!, a picture book about a magical grandad who takes his grandchildren on adventures. After a day’s work in the studio in London, he calls me as he’s driving along the Thames, apologising for the poor reception. “Yeah, this is Paul,” he says, the fuzz on the line like the distortion you get when a whammy bar is placed next to an amplifier. “I hope the signal holds. So let’s get going!” he says. Why write books for babes when your own children are grown up? Heather, the daughter of Linda — and Paul’s adopted daughter — is 56. Mary, Stella and James, his children with Linda, are 49, 47 and 41, and even his youngest child, Beatrice, with his former wife, Heather Mills, is 15. “I’ve got eight grandchildren of my own,” says McCartney. Mary and Stella have four children each, whose ages range from 7 to 20. “One day one of them just said, ‘Grandude, can you do this?’ and
it kind of stuck — the kids started calling me that for a joke and I thought, ‘Well, it is kind of funny.’ It’s a nice old thing, so I wrote some stories about the character Grandude.” Scribbling a children’s book is a different process to songwriting and McCartney, who has written more than 500 songs in his lifetime, felt somewhat liberated. “It’s different because with lyrics you are thinking of fitting them to music, they’re more like poetry,” he says. “In this case, you are just telling a yarn, so there are not so many structural constrictions, you can go anywhere you want.” In the 32-page book, illustrated by Kathryn Durst, Grandude, a twinklyeyed adventurer with a white beard and sandals, takes the grandchildren — “the Chillers” — on epic voyages with the help of a magic compass. “It’s really just a little bedtime book kinda thing.” McCartney has form as the king of understatement having famously calling the Beatles a “great little band”. What sort of a grandad is he? The sort who parachutes in when there’s a childcare crisis? “Er, no,” he says. “The main time I am with them is on holiday. We have a couple of
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FEATURE PAUL MCCARTNEY
Photo_ Kubacheck
holidays every year with them.” Earlier in the month he was in the Hamptons, where McCartney has a family house and Stella has a cottage. “That is mainly when I read to them.” One of the reasons he wrote the book, he says, was to have something to read to the grandchildren. “I’m not stuffed with kids’ books, I did all of that. So now, when the kids come to stay, I have grown-up books, you know?” One evening when the grandchildren were over he was so desperate that he turned to poetry.“I had to read to the kids that night so I looked for a suitable poem and hoped that it was suitable for bedtime.” He chose an E.E. Cummings anthology and started on May I Feel Said He. 18
McCartney chuckles. “But as I went through it, it became more and more inappropriate. It was a little raunchy, you know, and the kids loved it, of course. And I thought, ‘I don’t know this poem!’ — well, I knew it, but I didn’t know exactly how it went. It’s kind of a boy and a girl talking. It’s this little romantic, flirting thing going on. The kids were giggling as I was digging a hole for myself. It was fun and the joke is that they keep asking for it every year. ‘Grandude, read the poem!’ they say. That’s why I did the book, I haven’t got many kids’ books left any more.” McCartney does not recall being read to as a child, growing up in Liverpool with his mother, Mary, a maternity nurse, and father, James, a
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cotton salesman and jazz pianist. “I didn’t know my grandparents, they died before I was born, either on my mum’s side or my dad’s side,” he says. “My mum and dad weren’t the reading-to-children type, my dad had fixed up headphones in the bedroom which went to the radio so we listened to the radio instead of reading a book.” Radio Luxembourg was his Enid Blyton. “It was only when I grew up and had kids of my own that I thought to read to them, and they loved it, things like Narnia [The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis], the famous ones... Harry Potter was too late, Lord of the Rings was too heavy and complicated,
Once he could read, McCartney remembers tucking in to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (“I was given that as a kid”) and Anna Sewell’s classic Black Beauty, “which was lovely”. “I was also given [John Bunyan’s] The Pilgrim’s Progress, which I didn’t get on with. It was one of my aunties who was trying to educate me and cleanse my soul,” he says with a laugh. Not much chance of that.
‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to get too serious about this.’ I am not a children’s author, I am a songwriter and a performer kinda thing.” Kinda thing? “I just wanted it to remain loose.” The grandchildren have given their seal of approval. “They have read it themselves. They like it, I am very glad to say.” He is not reinventing himself as a children’s author, however. “I don’t want to become the eyeball of David Walliams,” he says, archly. “It’s too much like work.” Parenting, he says, is far harder than grandparenting. “You are less responsible. The parents are going to say how much screen time they can have and see to it that they go to bed on time. You [as a grandparent] don’t have to bother with that. I like the babysitting
Photo_Oli Gill
more like How to Catch a Star [a picture book by Oliver Jeffers].
good for their physical wellbeing. I think if you are too mollycoddled then it can be dangerous because if you are in a situation where you need to react quickly you’re not ready for it. So I gave them quite a bit of physical freedom.”
I tell him that I like how his Grandude is not afraid to put the kids in challenging situations; a two-fingers up to risk-averse culture. McCartney pauses to consider. “I agree with you,” he says, “but it wasn’t conscious. I didn’t really I congratulate him on his worry about adult children whether it was and their PC or not. They achievements: just had fun. Heather, the It’s a rainy day, “Wait a minute, I don’t want to artist; Mary, the they are bored photographer; get too serious about this.’ I am and grumpy, Stella, the they discover not a children’s author, I am a fashion that Grandude is designer; songwriter and a performer” magic and has and James, this compass the musician. where he can They appear take them to grounded — no all the places mean feat. “Well that’s nice on the postcard. The other thing because you can spoil of you to say that, thanks,” important thing for me was the kids a bit. I picked up a he says. “We certainly tried that it wasn’t too long, rug in America, that says: to not have spoilt brats because some of these ‘Grandchildren spoilt here!’ ” and tried to treat them like stories go on for ever and most of their schoolmates. you are asleep before the He says he was always I remember asking the kids are. And I wanted it to pretty laid-back about a bit other parents, ‘What do end with the kids going to of rough and tumble. “My you give the kids for pocket bed to get them nice and kids always used to climb money?’ I didn’t want to go sleepy.” over the sofa and jump any higher than they were. behind and off, sometimes Our kids weren’t Little Lord He says he was never going they would fall, but you Fauntleroys. [He puts on to produce a dystopian just cross your fingers and a toffee-nosed voice] “Oh, door-stopper. “When I think, ‘I hope they don’t I get £20!” They are great started writing it, it fell off hurt themselves.’ By and kids, they have their feet on the end of the pencil, I was large they didn’t and they the ground, so that’s nice.” just having fun. I thought, learnt how to fall, it was HEYMUSIC.COM
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FEATURE PAUL MCCARTNEY I ask him about his grandchildren’s generation and the challenges they face. McCartney is optimistic. “I think you have to take it as it comes. When we were kids it was a different set of dangers. You know, internationally, Suez was happening when I was a kid and you would hear the parents talking about it, but I didn’t care at all. I thought, ‘It is nothing to do with me.’ He’s more concerned about environmental issues and knife crime, although he thinks young people are managing. “The situation in the big cities is more dangerous. While there are more reports of tragedies happening, the kids I know just kind of get on with it.” He tells me that one of his grandchildren, he won’t say which, was mugged at knifepoint recently. “In London, one of my grandkids, one of my older grandkids, was mugged and got his phone taken. That takes me back to my childhood when I was mugged in Liverpool, so I am able to talk to him. He was saying the worst thing was that he should have just thumped the guy; he came back and felt a coward. I said, ‘No, no, no, no! The guy had a knife and you don’t know, the guy might be able to use that knife.’ So it is scary these days.”
to be on my own, bigger kids came along and it was the same feeling. [I thought at the time] ‘I have got to learn karate and be a black belt — and then I’ll get ’em!’ It was the worst thing.” McCartney is reluctant to say that the world has become more perilous. “Each generation has their own set of dangers so you do your best, and hopefully come through it, and show them kindness and love and try to show them the good things in life and” — he pauses, ever the pro, pulling the subject back to the book — “and reading to kids at bedtime is part of it.”
days I’d be the same. What I notice is that some parents limit the amount of time. ‘OK, you can have two hours on a Saturday morning and that’s it.’ The kids have been upset, but that is too bad. It’s like when I was “Each generation has their a kid, you can’t own set of dangers so you do stay out till 11pm your best, and hopefully come playing football, you have to come through it in and go to bed. It’s a whole different world — I think that is what everyone is dealing Yet books must compete with — it’s just a new set of with screen time. McCartney challenges.” He puts on a understands this and says mock-advertiser’s voice. “So he would have been a I suggest that you just get gamer if he was growing up hold of Hey Grandude! and now. “There’s no ignoring read it instead! them, they are here to stay,” he says. “Once kids have got great video games they are gonna want to play them. If I was a kid these
He explains what happened to him in Liverpool, all those years ago. “When I was a kid it was four guys and they nicked my watch. I was of a similar age. I just happened
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SMASH THROUGH CEILINGS SPEAK FOR YOURSELF DREAM BIGGER JOIN THE IVORS ACADEMY For more than 70 years, we have represented songwriters and composers, but since 25 March 2019, BASCA has become The Ivors Academy. Find out more about how we support, protect and represent music creators in the UK, and join us today. ivorsacademy.com HEYMUSIC.COM
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FEATURE MABEL
Mabel is having the kind of career that most young stars could only dream of, with a clutch of top 10 hits, a Brit nomination and a major US TV performance already under her belt. The British singer-songwriter talks about releasing her hotly-anticipated debut album after years of hard work, how she made it on her own without the help of her famous music star parents and why she relishes feeling nervous. Words_ Lucy Mapstone
MABEL HAS HIGH EXPECTATIONS Wearing
a Calvin Klein crop top and matching cycling shorts with a cardigan slung over the top, Mabel laughs at the suggestion that style is important to her.
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I’ve just asked her how much her appearance means to her as a music artist, because she’s clearly got a defined image just a brief glance over her Instagram feed shows she favours a 90s-inspired look of colourful tracksuits with a feminine glam
“You know what, though, it is important to me,” she adds, confirming that she loves the idea of boyish sexiness and is inspired by the likes of 90s urban icons Aaliyah and TLC. She laughs and smiles genuinely, talking at an excitable speed as we sit in Peckham Levels, a former multi-storey car park in south-east London that was converted into an event space. The uber-trendy but casually cool venue seems the ideal setting for a chat with one of this country’s hottest rising young stars.
Photo_ Harald Krichel / Words_Lucy Mapstone / PA / The Interview People
“I know all of the things that are making me tired are paying off”
edge while rocking what appears to be a different hairstyle every day. Almost make-up free yet enviably glowing, she jokes: “I mean, looking down at my very, very raggedy outfit right now, I’m like, errrr!?”
The 23-year-old singer-songwriter has made waves in the music industry since dropping her debut single Know Me Better in 2015, before bursting onto the mainstream with breakout hit Finders Keepers in 2017. The R&B and pop artist with a voice like honey - the daughter of Swedish singer Neneh Cherry and British record producer Cameron McVey (her full name is Mabel McVey) - has seen her star rise since the release of her debut EP Bedroom and mixtape Ivy To Roses in 2017. She’s already got a handful of hit singles and collaborations under her belt, she has nearly 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and earlier this year she bagged a Brit nomination for British Breakthrough Act. But her tropical house-inspired single Don’t Call Me Up, released earlier this year, is perhaps her biggest triumph yet. The catchy track debuted at number 11 before climbing to number three, making it HEYMUSIC.COM
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FEATURE MABEL her highest-charting song to date. It was recently certified by the Official Charts Company as the sixth biggest-selling single of 2019 so far, and the biggest single by a British female artist. We’re speaking the day after she heard the good news and she’s still stunned about it, wide-eyed and animated. She reveals she was exhausted and in the middle of a busy work day when her manager showed it to her. “I was like, that’s how I’m getting through today because that’s an incredible achievement and I’m going think about that any time I feel really tired,” she explains. “It’s the best thing, because then you know all of these things that are making me tired are paying off.” Following years of hard work, growing success and tiring schedules, Mabel has unleashed her long-awaited debut album on the world, High Expectations. “It’s been a two-year process making this record - I’ve really put everything into it,” she says. “Some of the songs are old to me now and I’ve been performing them live for a while, but I can’t wait for people to sing them back to me. It is nerve-racking and quite emotional because I’m really attached to it; it’s been my identity in many ways for the last few years. It’s been my purpose.” Mabel reckons the record was the making of her, both as an artist and as a young woman.
“I always say it took a day to write the song, but the actual process was longer than the making of the whole album, because it’s about me actually coming to terms with my anxiety.” Having addressed her issues, she acknowledges she is in a better place now but still has to deal with nerves, particularly before a live performance. However, she considers that sick-to-thestomach feeling to be a positive. “I get nervous but that’s because I care,” she notes. “Nerves are really good; I just love every single person that’s out in the crowd so much and I just want to give them the best show possible, so I hope the nerves never leave me.”
Writing it encouraged her to delve deep into her psyche, as well as confront her battle with anxiety, something that has plagued her for years.
However, as nerve-racking as a gig might be, nothing compares to performing on television in front of an audience of millions.
“It was really difficult for me to write my song OK (Anxiety Anthem) because it was about dealing with my anxiety and looking at it in a positive light,” she says.
Mabel shakes her head, smiling as she recalls making her debut on US TV earlier this year on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
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“It was the most nervous I have ever been in my life,” she confesses, adding that her stint on Graham Norton’s UK show earlier this year was another real pinch-me moment. “It’s scary because I’ve watched both of those shows and like, when you have watched something and then you’re standing somewhere where a big artist has stood, and it’s your turn, those things live forever. “And I have a tendency to catastrophise and be like, ‘this could happen or that’, and what’s crazy is that when they actually start, I’m like, ‘Of course I can do this. I spent two days spooking myself but here I am standing here and doing it.’” She says she was “having a meltdown” before going on Fallon’s show, though, because she thought she would embarrass herself in front of “the whole world”.
“It’s been a two-year process making this record - I’ve really put everything into it.” “But at the same time, I’m really proud of what they’ve accomplished, and I’ve got to a point with it where it’s not embarrassing to talk about and it’s not going to take away from me as an artist, because they’re amazing people that have accomplished incredible things.” She adds: “With the confidence I have now, it doesn’t bother me as much. “I feel confident in what I’m making and what I’m doing, and I know that it’s not because of them.”
“Sometimes it’s easy to get impostor syndrome and think, ‘Oh my God I am not supposed to be here, everybody can see that, blah blah blah.’ But it’s important to have those moments when you stress, because it then makes the highs feel so much higher.” Clearly driven and ambitious to her core with a work ethic to rival any pop star who has been in the game for decades, Mabel is keen to make it known that she got to this point by herself - she did not use her parents as a step-up into the industry, although she says they do offer her all the support she needs to make her career her own. “I used to be really afraid that my parents were the only thing that people were going to care about and, to be honest, I’ve just spent years at interviews going, ‘Shall we just call in my mum?’” she laughs. “It’s frustrating when you’re making good music and you’re working hard. You’re just like, why are we talking about this?
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HEY UPFRONT FEATURE ALBUM APPRECIATION
MORE IS MORE
ALBUM APPRECIATION
2018 witnessed the 70th anniversary of the LP, the ‘long player’, also known as the album. For people of a certain age and for vinyl junkies, the album is everything. takes a look at the music format that is making a comeback. Words_Darren Haynes
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Long
before the days of streaming, people of a certain age (me included) would buy an album and listen to it, in its entirety, only pausing to flip the black vinyl and drop the stylus on to the second side. The introduction of tape cassettes and CDs meant that we didn’t even need to do that. Play, listen and connect to the artist through their music. No cherry picking favourite tracks or skipping the filler songs: simple, passive aural pleasure. But when is an album considered an album? In the pre-digital era, an album was classified as such by its physical limitations. Vinyl LPs (long players) became popular in the 1950s. Before this, 10” singles on shellac or
7” singles on vinyl, with one song on each side were the norm. The standard album length was around 30-45 minutes, simply because that’s how much music could be etched into the grooves on the vinyl. Cassette tapes allowed more time for music (up to 45 minutes on each side) but cassettes were only an alternative format to their vinyl counterpart. It wasn’t until the introduction of the compact disc in the 1980s that the game changed. The CD allowed 74+ minutes of recorded audio. The advent of CD technology also allowed for album tracks to be selected out of sequence … or even skipped altogether.
Elbow
“Some artists see the album as a collection of short stories, we see the album as a novel. Songs are often included or omitted on account of the balance of the overall record rather than on their individual merits. We looked forward to our B-sides album from the day we wrote our first B-side and we had its title, Dead in the Boot, very soon after we titled the first album Asleep in the Back.
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FEATURE ALBUM APPRECIATION Lewis Capaldi: “Unreal to have finally released my debut album this year & find out that not everyone hates it! On the whole I’m very proud of it, although I won’t lie there’s probably a few stinkers on there, but I’m only human. Hope you don’t hate it but if you do don’t worry, it’s only my life’s work.”
UK album 300X30: My Life As A Playlist, released on 22 March 2019. Albums remain popular in the UK. In 2018, 143m albums were either streamed, purchased or downloaded, representing a 6 percent rise on the year before.
Technology changed the ingrained music culture of listening to an album in its entirety and our attention spans got shorter. According to Apple Music, the criteria for the body of work to be considered an album, is seven or more tracks OR one to six tracks with a running time in excess of 30 minutes. Compare Kanye West’s Ye album with seven tracks, 23m 41s in length versus Drake’s lengthy 89m 73s double album, Scorpion, with 25 tracks. Both albums sold well on both sides of the Atlantic. There could be a case for saying that less is more. The Guinness World Records website reports that the digital album with the most songs is a bloated 298 tracks, and was achieved by The Pocket Gods with their
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To prove the point, the UK’s second National Album Day will be honoured with events and activities on Saturday 12 October 2019 to “celebrate the UK’s love for the album and the craft that goes into making this culturally significant body of work”. The theme, Don’t Skip, follows the notion that to truly discover the joy of an album both new and classic - you need to listen to an album, as a complete body of work. In the old days of album creation, track sequencing was a serious matter, taking the listener on an aural ‘journey’. If it wasn’t the artist as part of their own artistic storytelling (or contract), it would be the record exec who would decide the order of the songs. Whether you’re a cherry-picker or a full length long-player listener, one element holds true. Each track has involved, creativity, skill, technique and a thought process; it deserves the chance to be heard, again and again. Don’t skip it.
Top 10 best-selling albums of all time Source: Wikipedia
Mahalia
“I’ve been an ‘album girl’ ever since I was a kid. I’ve always been more interested in a 40 minute listen over a 4 minute one. I think it came from the way my parents used to play music around the house and put on different albums at dinner, when I really got into listening to full projects whilst eating together and talking about our days. I found it comforting then and I still do now. “I see myself as an ‘album artist, which in my world means timeless music that you don’t skip past. I want to make whole pieces of work that other little girls like me find comfort in listening to; a 40 to 60 minute dreamland where they can be away from the world. Streaming has changed everything. I want the kids younger than me to feel about albums how I did.”
Mark Ronson
“The other day I was feeling down, wandering through Brooklyn with no direction home, and I happened across the WFMU record fair. I spent A LOT of my 20’s in record fairs, but hadn’t been to one in a while. Instantly the sight of all the records, mostly in bins, some tacked onto make-shift cardboard dividers, lifted my entire mood. The infinite possibility of stumbling across some random 60’s psych record or a rare soul record I had never heard of felt so invigorating. All the dealers with their crazy, wildly nerdy knowledge. This community of people who existed around this one thing – the album. I was so happy to be a part of that. The album has brought me pure joy since I was old enough to remember. I don’t think it will ever stop doing that.”
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Photo_ Alterna2
FEATURE FRAN CHILDREN OF ZEUS FEATURE HEALY
HOW I WROTE... ‘ W H Y D O E S I T A LWAY S R A I N O N M E ’ B Y T R AV I S ’ F R A N H E A LY 30
SEPTEMBER 2019
The Glaswegian frontman talks about piecing together their precipitative breakthrough hit single in the arid climes of the Middle East and Spain. Words_Aaron Slater
in Glasgow in 1990, Travis are a Scottish rock band comprising singer-songwriter Fran Healy, bassist Dougie Payne, lead guitarist Andy Dunlop and drummer Neil Primrose. The group is widely claimed as having paved the way for other bands such as Keane and Coldplay to go on to achieve worldwide success throughout the 2000s, particularly through the band’s second studio album, The Man Who.
Formed
“The other songs just came along… you’re just dropping things everywhere, you put in your bag and don’t think about it, and move on… I remember going on holiday and writing the verse Why Does It Always Rain On Me?, which ended up being the chorus but I didn’t know it at the time… Then we came to record the record and everyone had a big reaction to Why Does It Always Rain On Me? People really liked that immediately – the demo of it.
Four tracks were released from that influential record, but it was arguably Why Does It Always Rain On Me? that proved to be their international breakthrough single, fueled in part by a triumphant appearance at the 1999 Glastonbury Festival, where the song dramatically coincided with a change in the weather.
“I got [to the Middle East] and it was pissing with rain! It’s supposed to be sunny because I met our accountant and said I wanted to go away on holiday and he said, ‘You’ve got to go to Eilat, it’s going to be really sunny there.’ So I went and it was pissing with rain! I sat in the hotel room and sung that; just made it up to myself to be funny, or something, and cheer myself up. And I thought, ‘Oh that’s good.’
Almost two decades on from its release, the group’s affable frontman recalls when, where and how the rhetorically titled song was made… “The first song that was written for The Man Who was written half an hour after I wrote The Line Is Fine for [previous album] Good Feeling, and that was Writing To Reach You. I can’t think of two more different songs and yet they happened within 20 minutes of each other. It didn’t fit with all those other rocky songs… So I was writing songs for The Man Who and I didn’t even know what The Man Who was!
“Then, later on, about three months after that, we were in Madrid – I think it was a promo trip or we were doing a little gig or something. I was in a hotel room and Good Feeling had come out, but it didn’t really sell many records and everyone was a bit dejected. I’d just come off a phone call with my manager who was trying to cheer me up, and then I wrote the verse. But I didn’t connect it with the other ‘Why does it always rain on me’ thing. I wrote the ‘I can’t sleep tonight…’ based on that phone call and my state of mind, and I remember finishing it HE EY YM MU US SIIC C..C CO OM M H
3 231 91
FEATURE FRAN HEALY and thinking, ‘Oh I’m sure I wrote something…’ and I remembered that thing I thought was a verse – I found it in the archives of my brain – and stuck the two things together. And it was like, ‘Wow!’ They lyrically and melodically went perfect together. But the verse wasn’t written with the thing I’d written in the Middle East in mind – it was just a moment. I never think, ‘Oh this is a chorus or a verse,’ it’s just a thing that you write. “The bridge part came in Madrid. It was like two o’clock in the morning, I wrote the verse and I think I got the chorus, and then I wrote the bridge to connect the two. I think that was the only bit that was kind of manufactured, and it came very quickly. I think the middle eight also came quickly. The song was definitely finished within 20 minutes or something, it was very fast. It was so random, even the writing of it then, that I wasn’t aware that it was anything special – it was just another idea. It was written on the same Kimbara acoustic guitar that I write all my songs on. There’s something about the tone of it that goes with my voice. “After Madrid, we went on to Beth Orton’s tour and I remember leaning against a pillar in some university, between soundchecks, and strumming it to myself going, ‘That’s a solid song.’ Then I made a demo of it. There was a big thunderstorm in 32
“I never think, ‘Oh this is a chorus or a verse,’ it’s just a thing that you write” London and I recorded the thunder and then the song starts. Then I played the demo to Andy Macdonald and he was like, ‘That’s fucking great. Good, now… next!’ That was it. Then I played it to the band and I remember it was a little bit faster at first, almost the same tempo as Tied To The 90s – more jaunty and upbeat. Then we did it and I was like, ‘Oh that sounds shit, let’s slow it right down,’ and I remember we all went, ‘Oh no they’re going to love that, that’s going to be the one that people like!’ “Then we sort of had a record, but it wasn’t until we were cutting it at Abbey Road with [sound engineer] Chris Blair that I remember hearing it all put together going, ‘Shit! This really hangs well,’ but it was very quiet and subdued, and completely in opposition to everything that was happening in the charts and on the radio at the time. So I think we all thought we were doomed. Then we had an interview with Mark Beaumont from the NME
SEPTEMBER 2019
who said, off-record at the end of the interview, ‘Looks guys, I really like this record, but it’s commercial suicide,’ and we were like, ‘Oh f**k!’ And, of course, all the reviews came out and they were just shit, they were the worst reviews we’ve ever had. But we managed to get one of the songs on the radio, and they hammered it, and that was Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
Released: 2 August 1999 Artist: Travis Label: Independiente Songwriter: Fran Healy UK chart position: 10
First published in Songwriting Magazine, August 2019. Reproduced with permission.
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FEATURE SUCCESSFUL SONGWRITING
ON THE RECORD What’s your top tip for aspiring songwriters to become successful? Every songwriter wants to know what they should be doing to advance their careers. asked two members of BMI’s Creative team and Rita Campbell for their top tips. Here’s what they said:
Mary Nelly Russe, NY Creative (Latin), bmi.com I think it really comes down to: don’t copy others, don’t imitate. Look for your own voice, your own words, your own story, your own sound. It’s ok to have influences from admiring other songs, but so many songwriters want to be like one artist or another and they end up being just a copy of the original. There is nothing more refreshing than to hear a song that is different and crafted with soul. Don’t be afraid to get together with other writers
and fuse styles, twist, experiment. Also, listen to other people’s feedback to help you grow. Know the difference between negative and positive criticism and dedicate time into creating something that moves you, that represents you, that you are proud to call your own. Don’t settle, be meticulous and trust in you. When you believe in your work, those energies are captured in recordings and transmitted when played. Spread the right ones.
Tim Pattison, NY Creative (Pop), bmi.com The thing I stress the most for aspiring songwriters is to have patience, which isn’t what they want to hear. But it really is taking the time to hone your craft and evolve as a songwriter. Work with other people and figure out what your strengths are in writing sessions and work outside your comfort zone to allow for growth. Also, keep in mind that this is a job. Yes, while it’s exciting and creative, it is still a job and you have to put in hard work and be professional in order to be successful. Being a songwriter is owning your own business, and I believe that means learning about the things that make up the business of songwriting. The more informed you are about PROs, publishers, record labels and how they relate to you as a songwriter the better.
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Rita Campbell, UK, Songwriter My best advice to anyone who wants to become a successful songwriter is to co-write. Write with as many different people, in as many different genres as you can. Don’t be precious with your songs because you need to let people hear your work. The more you do it and the more people you write with, the better you become. If you’re insular and you write alone because you want to keep everything to yourself, you don’t grow. When you’re co-writing with other people, you share their experiences and their knowledge, just by chatting about life.
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HEY UPFRONT FEATURE HOW I WROTE...
HOW I WROTE
WHITNEY HOUSTON’S ‘RUN TO YOU’ BY JUD FRIEDMAN & ALLAN RICH 36
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How one of the lucky few original songs to appear on The Bodyguard soundtrack was inspired by a real break-up. Words_Aaron Slater
In
the late 80s, Whitney Houston rose to international prominence as an exceptional vocal talent and was already on her way to becoming one of the bestselling music artists of alltime. But by 1992, the soul diva from New Jersey made her screen acting debut starring alongside Kevin Costner in the romantic thriller, The Bodyguard, and took her career to dizzying new heights. The film’s Original Soundtrack Album won numerous awards, topped charts the world over and broke records – it remains the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, selling over 42 million copies worldwide. The LP spawned a number of massive hit singles, including the cover of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, but the fourth single would be the original song, Run To You. Despite only achieving relatively moderate chart success, it became one of Houston’s most recognised songs, and was nominated for a 1993 Academy Award for Best Original Song. The songwriting duo of Jud Friedman and Allan Rich had previously scored a No 1 with I Don’t Have The Heart for James Ingram, but that didn’t mean the pair were a shoo-in for The Bodyguard soundtrack. As we discover, it was a miracle Run To You got selected at all…
Jud: “In those days I worked in a studio at Peer Music in the Hollywood Hills – Allan lived close by – and virtually every day of the week we would show up and work all day long. Everyone had heard that Whitney Houston was doing her first movie, which was going to be a huge deal, but we were hearing conflicting reports about how much music was going to be in it. By the time we got involved, all the songwriters in the world had been receiving breakdowns saying they needed four songs. They didn’t know, but it turned
“Holy shit, this is actually really good.” out that virtually all of those would be ‘inside’ songs, mainly covers. There ended up being just one ‘outside’ song written by songwriters who had nothing to do with the project, directly. When we got a breakdown from our publishers we thought, ‘Well, this is worth a shot. It’s going to get killed by the critics, but it’s going to be huge.’”
songs, and I’m an emotional person. So it was a happy coincidence, if you want to call it that, that they were looking for a Whitney song when I was raw – it worked very well.” Jud: “Allan put in this lyric idea and then I sat down and started playing stuff, singing and showing him ideas. We actually wrote two pieces of music and then went home; I wasn’t sure if either one of them was any good. Then we came back the next day and thought one of them – the version that ended up sending to Whitney – was like, ‘Holy shit, this is actually really good.’ The lyric happened pretty quickly, probably a day or two, then we recorded a bare-bones version. I played it as we were writing it, and I liked the feel so much that I kept the out-oftime version and layered stuff on top – we did it as piano, vocal and some strings…”
Released: 21 June 1993
Allan: “I had a verse and a chorus, and gave it to Jud, who wrote the most beautiful music and helped me with the lyric. I did write it specifically for Whitney, but it coincided with a 10year break-up in my life. Jud and I like to move and touch people, that’s the goal for our
Artist: Whitney Houston Label: Arista Songwriter(s): Friedman, Rich Producer: David Foster UK chart position: 15 US chart position: 31
First published in Songwriting Magazine, September 2018. Reproduced with permission.
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FEATURE LATIN MUSIC
WELCOME TO THE LATIN MUSIC EXPLOSION: IS LATIN MUSIC MORE POPULAR THAN EVER BEFORE? It’s been called the ‘Despacito Effect’ by industry observers but is it true that Latin Music is more popular than ever before? With increasing numbers of Latin artists, releasing more and more tracks each year and then topping the charts, not just in Latin America, but around the world, one has to assume … Sí. investigates. Words_Darren Haynes
The
headlines speak for themselves:
Latin Music Is Reaching More Listeners Than Ever – Rolling Stone (11/18) Latin Music Is Now More Popular Than Country & EDM In America – Forbes (01/19) Latin Music Streams Jumped 37 Percent in 2018, Thanks to Video’s Dominance & Gains in Listening – Billboard (01/19)
The IFPI, in their Global Music Report 2018, announced that “Latin America’s positive growth story is no secret, with a 17.7% growth in music revenue. Overall, the region showed the highest level of growth globally, driven largely by a 48.9% increase in streaming revenues. Growth was seen across the whole region, but most notably in Peru (21.7%), Brazil (17.9%), Chile (14.3%), Colombia (10.5%) and Mexico (7.9%).
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While it’s interesting to see that music consumption is on the increase in Latin American countries, it’s even more interesting to see the continent’s artists and repertoire crossing over into the global musical mainstream. Latin America’s breakout hit of 2017 was, of course, Despacito by Luis Fonsi which topped the chart of more than 40 countries. This was the first time in 20+ years that a song played in Spanish had reached number one in the Billboard Hot 100. The last time? The annoyingly catchy La Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix) in 1996. Since 2017, the music industry has been building on the success of Despacito with the aim of surpassing the very high bar that it set. There have been a spate of strategic bilingual collaborations between Latin and non-Latin artists, with some artists fusing their musical styles into
catchy Spanglish tracks. Spanglish? A song with Spanish and English lyrics, of course.
Photo_ Andrew Solioacebook
These Spanish-English collaborations have brought Latin stars to the fore in the Englishspeaking world as well as in their native countries. In recent times, CNCO teamed up with Little Mix for Reggaeton Lento (Remix); Ozuna joined DJ Snake, Cardi B and Selena Gomez on Taki Taki; Latin reggaeton icon, Maluma featured on Madonna’s ‘Medellín’; Pedro Capó featured on the remix of Alicia Keys’ track Calma; Demi Lovato and Luis Fonsi (Despacito’s writer) worked together on Echame la Culpa; Beyoncé lent her voice to J Balvin
and Willy William’s remix of Mi Gente and 2018 saw Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin collaborate on I Like It. Between 2016 and 2017, the number of Spanish-language entries on the Billboard Hot 100 jumped from a mere four to 19. In 2018, 24 Spanish language songs hit the Billboard Hot 100, not including more hybrid, English-dominant such as I Like It, or the salsa-inspired sound of Camila Cabello’s Havana. It is widely agreed that Despacito opened the global door to not only Latin pop songs but also to reggaeton and Latin urban pop. Unfortunately, the Anglo market tends to lump together Latin music under one massive umbrella and this goes some way to explaining why ‘Latin music’ is the fifth-most popular genre in the USA. Data company, BuzzAngle, stated that in
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terms of album consumption, Latin took a 9.4% share of the US market in 2018. Hip-hop led the way (with 21.7% of all album consumption) and was followed by pop, rock and R&B. The report confirmed that Latin music now ranks ahead of country music, which has a 8.7% share of the market. When it comes to talking about the Latin music market stats, one word keeps popping up: ‘streaming’. Technology is enabling geographic and cultural crossover. It is now easier for new grassroots artists to be featured in genre playlists and build an audience. For example, flagship playlists such as Spotify’s Baila Reggaeton and Viva Latino! can almost single-handedly create hits around the world.
Danny Ocean
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FEATURE LATIN MUSIC
Eight of YouTube’s top 10 most viewed videos worldwide in 2018 were songs played in Spanish - interestingly enough - with Puerto Rican singer, Ozuna, appearing in four of them. According to Nielsen Music’s 2018 year-end numbers for the US, Latin (defined as “music whose lyrics are more than half in Spanish”) saw a 57.1 percent upturn in total audio streams, from 16.1 billion in 2017 to 25.3 billion in 2018. As for video, there were 44.5 billion streams in 2018, accounting for 18.4 percent of the total video streaming market. Latin Music is gaining in popularity. Fact. We are seemingly in Latin music’s big moment in terms of dynamism in the market and fan engagement with the music. Latin music’s growth is only making better business for everyone: for the industry, for the artists and for the music lovers around the world. Vamos!
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J Balvin
Photo_Ralph Arvesen Facebook
For example, Venezuelan artist, Danny Ocean, broke the record for the longest running entry in the Spotify Global Top 50 with his song Me Rehúso. J Balvin, Ozuna and Bad Bunny were amongst Spotify’s most listened to artists in 2018.
FROM LATIN AMERICA TO THE WORLD: DESPACITO
In 2017, a Spanish language urban-pop track from a Puerto Rican artist who was relatively unknown outside Spain and Latin America topped the charts in 47 countries worldwide and reached the top 10 of six others. Despacito was written by Luis Fonsi, Erika Ender and Daddy Yankee with the accompanying music video shot in La Perla neighbourhood of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico and in a local bar, La Factoría. Three months after the release of the original version and after seeing how people reacted to the song in a Colombian nightclub, Justin Bieber expressed interest in recording a remix of the song. The proposal was accepted and Bieber sang in Spanish, for the first time in his career, with the help of Colombian musician and Latin Grammy Award-nominee, Juan Felipe Samper. The original version combined with the Bieber-remix has been streamed 7.5 billion times, including 1.9 billion times on Spotify
and 6 billion views on YouTube … and counting. Before Despacito, Luis Fonsi had a successful career that delivered several number one albums in Latin American territories and on Billboard’s Latin chart. However, ‘Despacitio’ was a total game changer. Fonsi followed Despacito with Echame La Culpa, a duet with Demi Lovato. It went to number one in 14 markets. Despacito has received Latin Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Urban Fusion/Performance, and Best Short Form Music Video at the 18th Latin Grammy Awards. The remix version has received three Grammy Awards nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 60th Grammy Awards. It is, without doubt, the most successful Spanish-language track in pop music history.
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FEATURE JUANDA LOTERO
THE MAN FROM MEDELLÍN JuanDa Lotero is a Colombian Reggaetón artist. He has officially released 20 singles as a solo artist; more if you include his work as a featured artist. His collaboration with Dani y Magneto (Ve y Dile) has received 1.4M views on YouTube. He is something of a local sensation with fans in the United States, Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, in his home country and further afield. Words_Nick Stephenson
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Tell us something about Latin American music that we might not know Where to start? Latin America is very diverse in its culture. I know that for many people, we are seen as if we’re from the same country. You know what I mean? The Mexican stereotype with a hat and moustache. In reality, there is ethnological diversity as well as its music. Personally, I love Afro-Antillean music, el son Cubano, la salsa and all the rhythms that merged to form Reggaetón.
I used that talent in my favour. I remember doing shows in class and writing songs for my teachers to pass the subjects. Tell us about your songwriting process
How would you describe your music?
The truth is that I don’t have a step-bystep that I always follow. It depends on what comes first. I have had songs that were born from a simple looped bit, or some that were born from dreams that I had. When I woke up, I’d write fragments of them. Once you have the idea of what you want to write, it is good to start by having a melodic base and keep working.
It is 100% Colombian Reggaetón which has a lot of differences from the Reggaetón made in Puerto Rico. Reggaetón was born in Puerto Rico but in Colombia we make it in our own distinctive way.
What motivates or inspires you?
When did you first discover your love for music?
Without any doubt, Medellín, my home town! If you sing Reggaetón, you will surely need the Paisa audience supporting you. It’s a very demanding audience, but they are always open to new artists. I will always enjoy performing in Medellín because it connects me with my beginnings. They saw my career from scratch.
I really get inspired by other people’s situations or by listening to someone talk about their problems. I don’t want to make music that only talks about me, music “Who cares if a musician must identify us all. Which of your It’s nice to know that tracks best doesn’t like your music? your music crosses represents If people like it, that’s borders. Receiving your sound? what matters.” a message from someone saying that La Invitacion. I they heard your music; remember that that motivates you to make more music. I had to make more than 30 recordings because it had to sound perfect. It was Which is your favourite city to perform in? my commercial single for that year.
I think it was at a party with my family. I was quite small and I began to play with some congas as if I knew how to do it. After that my parents noticed my interest in music and enrolled me in percussion classes. That was the best decision. I am grateful to my parents for doing it. When did you write your first song? When I was at school, I used my notebooks exclusively to write my songs, so I came back to my house without any lesson notes.
What’s the best piece of musical advice you’ve ever been given? Don’t make music for musicians, make music for people. Who cares if a musician doesn’t like your music? If people like it, that’s what matters.
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FEATURE COUNTRY FOCUS: PERU
FIVE PERUVIAN MUSICIANS FOR YOUR PLAYLIST Like me, I’ve bet you’ve been caught out at the local pop quiz for not being able to name any Peruvian musicians. Just to ensure this never happens again, here’s a list of musicians from Peru who, over the years, have created the country’s most toetapping sounds. Research_Nick Stephenson
Dengue Dengue Dengue When the Peruvian duo from Lima, Dengue Dengue Dengue, first broke onto the club scene, local music fans quickly lapped up their unique hybrid cocktail of traditional cumbia with the modern electronic rhythms of dub, techno and dancehall sounds. Felipe Salmón and Rafael Pereira are the men behind the music, and the masks, which they started wearing in 2010. They are best known for putting on impeccable audio-visual shows that involve amazing visuals, neon colours, geometrical patterns, allusions to shamanistic tradition and those ever present masks. Their name derives from the slang definition of the word “dengue,” which means an urge to party. If you want to go out, get drunk and party, you have to say that you have “dengue,” according to the band. The word also comes from Cuban rhythm, also called “dengue.”
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FEATURE COUNTRY FOCUS: PERU
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FEATURE HOW TO...
Four Tips For Getting Over Writer’s Block Writer’s block. The mythical beast that plagues writers of all stripes. While songwriting is a somewhat unpredictable activity, I happen to believe that there are ways to hedge against freezing up when it comes time to write. To that end, I’ve put together a few ways to get you past writer’s block that require nothing more than taking your craft seriously and paying attention to what’s going on in your creative process. Words_Cliff Goldmacher
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CO-WRITE Two - or more - heads are better than one when it comes to dipping into the creative pool. If you’re finding yourself low on inspiration, scheduling a co-write can have a few benefits. Sometimes just the mere act of working with someone else can spark a fresh round of creativity. But, even if you still find yourself struggling, leaning on a co-writer’s inspiration for a while will go a long way towards rekindling your own.
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STOCKPILE BITS OF SONGS Just like squirrels put away their nuts and berries for the upcoming winter, stockpiling title ideas, lyrical and melodic snippets, can save you from having to stare at a blank page at a time when that’s the last thing you want to see. Knowing you can go to your notebook of song titles or a file on your smartphone with melodic ideas, will go a long way towards giving you a jumpstart when your creative momentum flags
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STOP SQUEEZING SO HARD Part of the origin of writer’s block is the desire to write something as good as what you’ve written in the past. Putting that kind of pressure on yourself is almost guaranteed to put the brakes on your songwriting. There’s a decent chance that when you wrote that earlier song you’re trying to measure up to, you were just writing and not comparing it to anything. It might be better to relax and write something “good enough” instead of pressuring yourself to write something “perfect” knowing you can always revisit the song once it’s done and revise and edit it until it really is great.
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Hopefully, the above tips will take some of the pressure off and help you out the next time the writer’s block wolf is at your door. Good luck! Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, music producer and educator with recording studios in Nashville, TN and Sonoma, CA. Through his studios, Cliff provides songwriters outside of Nashville with virtual, live access to Nashville’s best session musicians and demo singers for their songwriting demos - www.CliffGoldmacher.com
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FEATURE RITA CAMPBELL
THE SONGWRITING STUNTWOMAN Rita Campbell is one of the hardest working people in the music industry. Having started writing songs at the age of 14, she learned her trade as a backing singer on the live music circuit. Her vocals and live performances made her famous in Russia and her songwriting skills took her to number one in the UK. The success of being top of the charts should have been sweet but the unfortunate coincidence of life turned the experience bitter-sweet. caught up with Rita in London Words_Darren Haynes
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of the top
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FEATURE RITA CAMPBELL
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FEATURE TOP QUOTES
“No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.”
“Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”
John Lennon
Taylor Swift
“Never stop fighting no matter what anyone says. If it’s in your gut, your soul, there’s nothing, no worldly possession that should come between you and your expression.”
Kanye West “Everything is scary if you look at it. So you just got to live it.”
Mary J. Blige
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“And, in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Paul McCartney
“You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.”
Bruno Mars
“Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.”
Prince
“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.”
Cher HEYMUSIC.COM
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FEATURE LEAH DEPALA
Leah Depala is a 14-year-old BritishIndian singer-songwriter, based in Dubai. Her first single, Cold, has been streamed across all international music platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify. A&R scouts, take note, she’s still unsigned… Words__Darren Haynes
INTRODUCING …
L E A H D E PA L A You released your debut single, Cold, in September 2018. Tell us a little bit about the songwriting process.
notes on my phone, until the song was complete. It took me a few hours to finish the song. I was incredibly proud of the outcome.
Cold was the first full song I’d ever written. It’s about a hypothetical failed relationship. Once I’d finished it, I knew instantly that I wanted to release it. When I came up with the idea for the song, I sat down at my piano and played around to see what I could come up with and attempted to match it to some lyrics. I progressively added more and more to the song, while recording it on my voice
Cold was produced by Ayham Homsi (aka AY) and you have been working with Iranian singer, Layla Kardan. How did a 13-year old - as you were then - manage to set up such amazing collaborations?
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Layla is a friend of my parents. She mentored me and guided me throughout the whole writing and recording process. She also put me in contact with Ayham. He did
How many songs have you written so far? I’ve written about eight songs in total, some of which have been completed, some of which have only been written to about halfway. Whenever I get inspiration for a song, the first thing I do is turn to my piano and match the lyrics to a tune. How would you describe the music that you make? I would say the music I create is more ‘chill’ and mellow as opposed to ‘poppy’ - similar to Lorde, Lana Del Rey or Jorja Smith.
an amazing job of producing and putting together the song, in only two recording sessions, each lasting about 3-4 hours. Who would you like to collaborate with, or work with in the future? My dream would be to work with artists like Lana Del Rey, Khalid, A$AP Rocky or The Weeknd, as I feel their music styles complement mine and our voices would work nicely together.
My biggest inspirations and my favourite artists would definitely be Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd and Lewis Capaldi. I’ve been listening to these artists for years because I love each of their styles individually and they never fail to come out with such amazing music. What are your plans for the future? I’m currently working on my next single but I’m hoping to release an EP, and an album after that. I want to develop my style and find my sound as an artist. Long term, I’d love to be able to have to the opportunity to perform and sing at my own concerts; singing is just what I love doing. HEYMUSIC.COM
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FEATURE GARY BARLOW
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Barlow is an English producer, musician, songwriter and singer. He is best known as the lead singer of the British pop group Take That.
When you’re on the road, do you still manage to find time to write songs? Where do you record? What’s your portable setup?
He is one of Britain’s most successful songwriters, having written fourteen number one singles and twenty-four top 10 hits. As a solo artist he has had three number one singles, six top 10 singles and two number one albums, and has additionally had seventeen top 5 hits, twelve number one singles and eight number one albums with Take That.
On the laptop! It’s all on our laptop. I mean, when we’re on a flight, you need to just walk around and Mark’s tapping away on his, Howard’s making beats on his, I’m on mine, it’s just a constant flow of music being made in a mobile environment. It’s amazing what you can do now.
And that’s not to mention his multiple BRIT Awards, six Ivor Novello Awards and an OBE. What are the main differences from when you first started out compared to now? Well … it was a different time. I was 19 when the band started. I’d never experienced success and fame and traveling; being screamed at, playing in front of thousands of people. It was a very surreal experience. I found that I spent most of the 90s just worrying, just thinking … oh, you know … you’ve got to make the right decision. I look back now and I think that’s the biggest difference for me; I actually enjoy it now. When you see me on stage, I’m in the moment, I’m present, enjoying that night. In the 90s, I’d have been worried about where the next gig is; Are we gonna get there in time? Is the set gonna arrive in time? You know, I spent a lot of time worrying and I regret that a bit.
A recording studio is essentially a laptop now, if you look around at the people who are out there on the road. I don’t think artists have time anymore to come off the road and think, right, let me just deliberate for six months. It doesn’t work like that anymore because audiences, they want it now… they want you to come off tour and… right… where’s our next album? You are constantly trying to keep up. There’s a musical running that features your Take That songs [currently running in Berlin, Germany]. How’s that going? You know, it’s been amazing to have been able to tour, make records and now there’s a musical that features our music. It’s our repertoire, our music, but it’s made to mean a completely different thing in this show, which has got a story to it. It’s just changed it completely. It’s amazing to see your music being put emotionally into a piece that’s in front of an audience on stage and we’re not on stage… that’s what’s crazy!
What about touring? You know, it’s funny, one of the things I’ve noticed over the years that we’ve been doing this, is that live performance has never been more important. I think that it’s about experiences. People want experiences; things that you can’t just order online … you’ve got to be there to be a part of it, you know. We were obviously a big live act in the 90s but our live shows are bigger than they’ve ever been … and that’s 20 odd years on!
For the full interview with Gary Barlow and Take That, go to Hey Music’s YouTube channel. Search “HeyMusicOfficial”
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FEATURE MUSIC BY NUMBERS
PRS for Music PRS for Music represents the rights of songwriters, composers and music publishers in the UK and around the world. As a membership organisation it works to ensure that creators are paid whenever their musical compositions and songs are streamed, downloaded, broadcast, performed and played in public. With over 100 representation agreements in place globally, PRS for Music’s network represents over two million music creators worldwide. PRS for Music can only collect money and pay royalties for work that has been registered. To find out how to register your songs, have a look at their website www.prsformusic.com
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The Performing Right Society was founded in 1914 In 2009, PRS and MCPS-PRS Alliance realigned their brands and became PRS for Music PRS for Music administers the performance rights and mechanical rights of 25.7 million musical works on behalf of their members Over 500,000 musical works were registered in 2018 alone There are 140,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members In 2018, 11.2 trillion performances of music were reported to PRS for Music In 2018, £746 million was collected on behalf of its members, making it one of the world’s leading music collective management organisations 27.8% of PRS for Music’s UK membership is in Greater London Membership gender split = Male 83% / Female 17% 40% of the top 10 highest earning female songwriters are under the age of 35 Around 350,000 UK businesses have paid and are licensed to play music under a PRS for Music licence
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BACKSTAGE
Get It On! Super well-connected, Jason Carter, has worked as an artist agent, promoter and commissioner of live music and events for broadcast. After 20 years in high-level jobs at the BBC, delivering shows with artists such as Madonna, Elton John, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Eminem and Lady Gaga, he left to start his own agency. He has the legendary DJs Annie Mac and Pete Tong, among others, on speed dial. This is his story… “I had 20 wonderful years at the BBC, and was privileged to lead some awesome projects, but like anything, we all need change and being a public servant for so many years, I felt it was well overdue for me to try my hand in the commercial sector and set myself some new ambitious challenges. For the past three years, I’ve been the Managing Director of Get On Music Media which is a London-based music agency that works with brands, broadcast, talent and events. We work with a range of clients including the BBC, Spotify, AWAL and Yamaha. It’s still early days but we are making great strides with a growing client list. I started out as a music promoter in small live music venues in central London whilst at City University. I’d advertise for new bands in the NME when social media didn’t even exist. My timing was fortunate. This was just at the point of the Brit Pop explosion of the early 90’s. From picking up some decent bands, I began hiring music venues and hosting shows. This led to a role at the Mean Fiddler Organisation (now Festival Republic), working as a promoter of major UK festivals. Then I joined BBC Radio 1. 62
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I became Head Of BBC Events across the radio division, then Head Of International and Commercial; delivering major BBC Concerts for the London 2012 Olympics and the Commonwealth Games. Two career highlights spring to mind. The first was being the BBC Festival Director for Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend. I produced the show as part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012, with 100,000 people in attendance and had Jay-Z and Rihanna headlining. The other was my role in the creation of BBC Music Introducing which has benefited thousands of musicians and helped discover artists such as Florence & The Machine, The 1975 and Ed Sheeran. At the moment, I’m working on BBC Music Introducing Live 2019, which we produce for the BBC. It focuses on helping and supporting the future music industry - from artists to people looking for a career in the music industry. To achieve in our business, you should not assume that a qualification in the sector is the route to success, it helps, but passion, networking, visibility and being prepared to do anything, always helps. Be recognised for being someone that always delivers whatever the task.” BBC MUSIC INTRODUCING LIVE 2019 takes place 31 October – 2 November: www.introducinglive.co.uk
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