Author: Nick Levine

NME

The title of St. Vincent‘s seventh album, ‘All Born Screaming’, is intended to be life-affirming on several levels. “We’re all born in some ways against our will,” the artist Annie Clark says with a laugh. “But at the same time, if you’re born screaming, it’s a great sign – it’s a sign you’re alive. We’re all born in protest, so screaming is what it means to be alive.”

Out today, the thrillingly visceral LP slinks between rampaging industrial rock (‘Broken Man’, which features Dave Grohl on drums) and marauding muscular funk (‘Big Time Nothing’). It also includes ‘Sweetest Fruit’, a tender tribute to late electronic pioneer SOPHIE. If ‘All Born Screaming’ feels like an album of two halves, with the closing stretch offering melodic bolts of big-hearted optimism, that’s entirely by design. “Life is so weird and hard for everybody in unique ways and universal ways,” St. Vincent says. “But the flipside is that we just have one of them, so, like, let’s really live it. There’s kind of a beautiful contradiction there.”

Since she grabbed our attention with her 2007 debut ‘Marry Me’, a striking collection of orchestral indie-pop, St. Vincent has built a reputation as a musical shapeshifter who can ping from spangly glam-rock (2017’s ‘Masseduction’) to psychedelic ’70s funk (2021’s ‘Daddy’s Home’). The Oklahoma-born, Texas-raised musician is also known as a brilliant guitarist and riveting live performer. When Kate Bush was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last  November, St. Vincent was asked to perform ‘Running Up That Hill’ in her honour. ‘All Born Screaming’ is another firm step forward: the first St. Vincent album she has produced entirely by herself. “I figured that I just needed to really, really hone my lexicon as a producer – I’ve co-produced everything I’ve ever done and I’ve been recording myself since I was 14,” she says.

Though St. Vincent is a fierce and revered talent – her sparkling discography also includes collaborations with Paul McCartney and David Byrne – this doesn’t mean she’s remote or unapproachable. Quite the opposite – this In Conversation begins with a fun discussion of Pret a Manger porridge (much better in London than New York, apparently) before we delve into her fascinating creative process. Of course, we also find time to talk about ‘Cruel Summer’, the Taylor Swift bop she co-wrote that became a surprise Number One last year.

NME: What was the genesis of this album? How did it take shape?

St. Vincent: “The genesis was more or less me playing around with modular synthesisers and drum machines in my studio alone. Like, it’d be eight in the morning and I’d have a little coffee – a little microdose – and then just go in and turn on all the machines and turn knobs and, like, make a little industrial dance party for myself for hours and hours. And then later on, I would comb back through that stuff and go, ‘OK, what’s here that feels like lightning in a bottle that I can make a whole song around?’ Truth be told, probably 3% of the music I made in the past two-and-a-half years is what’s on the album. There’s hours and hours and hours – I’m not saying it’s good! – of me just jamming on synths, drum machines and modulars.”

You obviously had the first and final say on each track, but were there people you brought in as a sounding board?

“God yeah. I’m so lucky to have great friends who also are great rippers. Dave Grohl is a buddy and he came into my studio and, like, everything they say is true: he’s the nicest guy in rock and the most fun hang. Like, he just drives over in his truck and because he’s so musical, he’s heard the song a few times and knows every twist and turn. So you just hang and smoke some Parliaments; he tells war stories, you drink some coffee and smoke more Parliaments, and then he’s like: ‘Cool, let’s go!’ And he goes in there and it’s Dave Fucking Grohl on the drums and he plays it perfectly. Man, it just lights you up to hear him play.

“[I also brought in] Cate Le Bon, who’s an incredible producer in her own right. There’s music you love and then there’s music you love that you also listen to all the time. Cate is somebody I listen to all the time, especially her last record ‘Pompeii’. We’ve been good friends for a long time and she played bass and sang on [the title track] ‘All Born Screaming’. She really held my hand at a moment when I wanted to drown that baby in the bathwater – like, not throw it out, just drown it! And then we had Mark Guiliana on drums. Josh Freese on drums, Stella Mogzawa on drums. Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass and David Ralicke on horns. It was a tight little wrecking crew.”

The song ‘Big Time Nothing’ just roars out of the speakers with such sonic confidence. How did it take shape?

“That song was a result of one of the many hours spent with modular synths. The first thing that came about is the bassline, [which is sort of] acid-y and early ’90s. I was like, ‘That’s it – that’s tough’, so I wrote the song ‘Big Time Nothing’ around it. I don’t want to give too much of the song away because I would never want my point of view or what it means to me to diminish what it means to someone else. It’s absolutely for the listener. That said, I will say that to me the song was just like what depression says to you. Like, this anxious roiling: the sound of the inside of my head that every day [says]: ‘Go go go, you stupid bitch. You think you’re something and you’re fucking nothing, you idiot!’ How’s that for a slogan?!”

Do you think – not just with this album, but generally – that as an artist you can kind of over-explain a song?

“I think it’s kind of celebrated now to be very specific or very autobiographical – or not to be autobiographical [per se], but to make it about a specific moment in the artist’s life and have all things kind of lead you back to the artist.  And when I think about music that I love, I don’t give a shit what the artist was thinking. I don’t give a shit if [the song] is about their kid or a breakup – I don’t fucking care; I hear what it means to me. And I realise that I’ve erred in the past for sure [in that respect]. So now I really want to protect what it means for other people in their lives. It’s for them, it’s not for me.”

Back in November, you sang ‘Running Up That Hill’ when Kate Bush was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. How did that come about?

“I don’t know how it came about, they asked me to do it! One of the things I realised and learned when I dug deep into not just singing along with Kate Bush on record, but actually singing the song and finding the grooves is just how amazing her voice is [in being] able to feel totally urgent and totally effortless. Like, [when she sings] “it doesn’t hurt me”, it’s not pushed, she’s not straining, but everything about her voice is completely urgent. It’s just like watching a flame across the skies. So I found that fascinating and, I don’t know, then I blacked out and sang her song. I don’t fucking know [how], nobody should cover Kate Bush!”

Another amazing thing happened last year: ‘Cruel Summer’, a Taylor Swift song you co-wrote and played on from 2019’s ‘Lover’ album, became a belated Number One hit.

“That was crazy. I mean, I always thought in the context of that record, like, ‘That should be a single, it’s a great song.’ And I don’t even think it was a single; it just was a fan favourite. And it’s like the fans just decided: ‘No, this is your hit song.’ Which is so wild and so modern, you know. That was just a real bonus Jonas there. And I mean, that’s one hell of a fanbase.”

It’s amazing: they turned a non-single into a Number One.

“I mean, changing world economies, let’s go!”

Taylor has obviously given us ‘The Eras Tour’, and beyond that, music fans often talk about an artist’s latest “era”. But is that how you think about your career?

“I don’t. I think of my life in terms of ‘Wait, where was I on tour?’ Like, there’s a whole chunk of life, especially from my second record [2009’s ‘Actor] to [2017]’s ‘Masseduction’ where it’s just a blur of touring. It was crazy – I would finish a year-and-a-half long, gruelling tour and then start writing a record the next day. I just was ‘on one’ as they say, and some parts are blurrier than others if I’m very honest. But it’s not that I think of my life in specific eras. It’s more like I look back and try to figure out what was happening in my life by which record I was doing. That’s how I trace life and death and relationships, you know.”

‘All Born Screaming’ is out now via Total Pleasure and VMG

The post St. Vincent: “When I think about music that I love, I don’t give a shit what the artist was thinking” appeared first on NME.

NME

Though Amy Winehouse‘s music was rooted in ’50s jazz and ’60s girl-groups like The Shangri-Las, she was also an artist ahead of her time. Long before everyone began stressing their ‘authentic’ and ‘unapologetic’ qualities, Winehouse really was an unfiltered breath of fresh air. When a hapless interviewer tried to compare her to Dido, Winehouse could barely hide her disdain – and TikTok still can’t get enough of it 20 years later.

But the trouble with playing someone as distinctive and idiosyncratic as Winehouse, who died of accidental alcohol poisoning in July 2011, is that it’s easy to appear mannered. For the first few minutes of this biopic, actress Marisa Abela looks like she might fall into that trap. An early scene in which a teenage Amy sings for her family at their north London home is a bit stilted and reminiscent of a cheap British TV movie.

Thankfully, she (and Back To Black) quickly find a compelling groove. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson, whose previous credits include 2015’s Fifty Shades Of Grey, but also 2009’s excellent John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, confidently tracks the singer’s rise from Southgate to Ronnie Scott’s, then Camden to the Grammys. Scenes set at The Good Mixer, the grungy pub where Winehouse meets future husband Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), are particularly evocative. There’s also a genuinely hilarious moment where Winehouse is appalled to be compared to sappy singer Katie Melua.

Abela, so good in banking drama Industry, captures Winehouse’s fascinating mix of self-belief and frailty. She also takes on her songs, pretty remarkably, instead of lip-syncing to the familiar versions of ‘Valerie’, ‘Rehab’ and ‘Stronger Than Me’. Most affecting are her scenes with Winehouse’s grandmother Cynthia (Lesley Manville), whom the singer adored and celebrated with her retro dress sense. Winehouse’s mother Janis (Juliet Cowan) also gets some screen time, but is left a bit undeveloped as a character.

Amy’s less shy and retiring father Mitch (Eddie Marsan) is presented more sympathetically than in Amy, Asif Kapadia’s revealing 2015 documentary film. Fielder-Civil, meanwhile, is more flawed chancer than evil schemer here. If Back To Black has a villain, it’s the unrelenting glare of the media spotlight, which made life even more intense and unbearable for a woman already struggling with addiction, bulimia, grief and fame. This film was always going to face accusations of being exploitative – given the way Winehouse was scrutinised when she was alive – but the naysayers needn’t have worried. Taylor-Johnson’s film (particularly the ending) is impressively deft and delicate.

Obviously, it was going to be tough for Back To Black to surpass Winehouse’s 2006 album of the same name – what could? – but Taylor-Johnson’s film is more than deserving of your time. It offers a welcome reminder of Winehouse’s plucky spirit – something that often gets lost when her life is reduced to a hackneyed tale of talent and tragedy. There’s also a cracking score by Bad Seeds Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – complete with an original tune by Cave, ‘Song For Amy’, which unfurls beautifully over the opening credits. “You say that it’s time for us to call it a day,” he sings huskily over twinkly wind chimes and elegant strings, “but I will love you anyway.” It serves as a moving bookend to a worthy biopic – and you’ll come away wanting to take a deeper dive into the remarkable artist that inspired it.

The post ‘Back To Black’ review: Marisa Abela makes a worthy Amy Winehouse appeared first on NME.

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Knowing hyperbole is the language of the internet, but when fans post that “Sydney Sweeney is the moment”, it’s barely an exaggeration. Her breakthrough role in Euphoria, as the deeply damaged people-pleaser Cassie Howard, made her a Gen Z icon when the bleakly brilliant teen drama debuted in 2019.

“As an actor, she’s a dream to play because she goes through so much,” Sweeney says. It’s a fair assessment of a character whose storyline checklist over two seasons (so far) includes revenge porn, abortion, abandonment trauma and more. “And she has unlocked so much for me,” Sweeney adds. “She’s made me more confident as an actor, but also as a person.”

In 2021, Sweeney scored another TV triumph when she played smart, snarky rich girl Olivia Mossbacher in the first season of The White Lotus. It was another pivotal role, Sweeney says, because it changed “everyone’s opinions of me just being Cassie”. When NME says that Olivia feels like a girl we all went to school with, she replies: “That is exactly how I got into the mindset. I knew a few people that I drew from, but also [creator] Mike White’s writing is so flawless that he somehow can speak the language of every character he’s writing for.”

Since then, Sweeney has levelled up again. Last year, she earned rave reviews for her captivating performance in the intimate true-crime film Reality; she played Reality Winner, a translator interrogated by the FBI after leaking documents pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. She also starred in The Rolling Stones‘ ‘Angry’ music video. “The moment I saw the car and they told me that I’d be doing whatever I wanted standing on top of a car driving down Sunset [Boulevard], I was like, ‘I am in,'” she says.

But perhaps most impressively of all, she is now producing her own movies including last year’s blockbuster romcom Anyone But You and Immaculate, a nerve-shredding psychological horror film which comes out on Friday (March 22). “I really love being part of the entire process – from conceptualising the project to building the team, putting it together for production, then editing and releasing it,” the 26-year-old says. Immaculate‘s director Michael Mohan says the reason Sweeney seems so “in touch with what people want” is because “she makes the kinds of movies she herself wants to see”.

Ahead of this interview, Sweeney has been pinging between her LA home and promo trips to New York, Paris and Austin, where Immaculate premiered at beleaguered arts festival South By Southwest on March 12. But she doesn’t seem remotely frazzled when she appears on Zoom, dressed casually in front of pretty floral wallpaper while her “rescue mutt” Tank plays off camera.

Quite the opposite: she has a calm confidence and clearly knows how to speak teasingly about projects she can’t give concrete updates on. She recently said Euphoria is “like home when I go back to it” but won’t be drawn today on when her home visit for season three might begin. “Um, I don’t know how soon I’m going home,” she says with a playful cadence in her voice. “I’m just doing all the press for Immaculate right now and then we’ll see.”

She’s also funny within seconds of the interview kicking off. When we say her schedule has been “wild” the last couple of weeks, she replies quick as a flash: “It’s been wild the last couple of years.” Sweeney also showed her sense of humour earlier this month when she hosted Saturday Night Live and poked fun at Madame Web, the drubbed and unloved superhero movie released in February that she has a supporting role in. It’s a rare flop on her CV but at this point hardly seems likely to halt her forward momentum.

“I’m never nervous. If I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it 100 per cent”

“You might have seen me in Anyone But You or Euphoria,” Sweeney said in her SNL monologue, before adding with a smile: “You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.” Was she nervous before delivering that line? “No… I’m never nervous. If I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it 100 per cent,” she says.

She definitely goes in 100 per cent on Immaculate, a twisty chiller that showcases the electrifying intensity of her acting – especially at its climax, when Sweeney’s gaslit nun makes a gut-churning decision – and her growing clout as a producer. Sweeney first auditioned for the film when she was 16, didn’t get the role, but couldn’t get it out of her head even as the project stalled in development hell.

“The character’s journey was just such a wild stretch of an arc that I hadn’t read and still didn’t read in the last 10 years [since the initial audition],” she says. “She finds layers in herself that she didn’t even know she was capable of. As an actor, it’s really cool to find those places [that] you don’t know if you’re capable of either.”

When the film begins, Sweeney’s character Sister Cecilia is a pious but slightly passive American nun trying to adapt to a new life at an opulent but spooky Italian convent. When Cecilia falls pregnant even though she’s still a virgin, the nuns’ leader Father Sal (Money Heist‘s Álvaro Morte) declares it an immaculate conception. Cecilia becomes the convent’s prize asset, but the supposed miracle soon turns nightmarish in ways that will make viewers wince.

Sweeney, a “huge fan” of the genre, says she was also determined to get Immaculate made because she liked the way it “paid homage to old horror films from the ’70s”. So, she acquired the rights to the script, teamed up with The White Lotus producer David Bernad, and brought in a director she had worked with before: Michael Mohan.

Mohan co-created the underrated 2018 Netflix teen series Everything Sucks!, which gave Sweeney her first major TV role a year before Euphoria, and also directed her in the 2021 erotic thriller film The Voyeurs. Together, they reworked Immaculate‘s script to make Cecilia a twentysomething nun instead of a convent schoolgirl. “That way we got the full landscape of what Sydney’s capable of,” he explains. “She begins so meek and mild-mannered and we watch her turn into this, like, feral creature covered in blood.”

“I like to play characters who have a lot of baggage”

Sweeney’s creative vision also drove forward Anyone But You, the charmingly old-school romcom which has grossed $212million globally since it opened in December. She and Top Gun: Maverick‘s Glen Powell play characters who pretend to be a couple at a destination wedding, then end up falling for each other in a way that hits the genre’s familiar beats flawlessly. The film’s unexpected success could be a game-changer for the genre, which in recent years has been relegated to cheap streaming fodder.

As the movie’s executive producer, Sweeney hired romcom veteran Will Gluck (Friends With Benefits) to direct, which got the studio “really excited”, but found it “really hard” to cast her co-star. “A lot of male actors don’t want to do a romcom,” she says. “Glenn was down – he loves romcoms and does such a great job in it. And so it was my job as a producer to get the studio on board to hire him.” Were other male actors put off by the genre’s reduced reputation? “I think so, but now everyone wants to do a romcom,” she says with a laugh.

Sweeney flew to Australia to shoot Anyone But You the day after wrapping Immaculate in Rome. It sounds like a potential headfuck, but Sweeney says she has always been able to “shut out” a character as soon as the director calls cut. “I’ve had to because I like to play characters who have a lot of baggage,” she says matter-of-factly.

Sweeney seems to possess a winning combination of perspective – “this industry isn’t real life, it’s work,” she says – and focus. She grew up in a small town near Spokane, Washington, and persuaded her professional parents (who worked in law and medicine respectively) to let her audition for acting roles as a teenager by presenting them with a five-point business-plan.

Most stars like to present themselves as relatively unaffected by fame, but few are spotted at a Wetherspoons pub in the sleepy Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds, as Sweeney was last year. It turns out she was visiting her brother, a US Air Force officer stationed nearby. “He and a couple of friends from the base took me pub-crawling in their little town. It was fun,” she says.

Aside from the odd selfie request, could she fly under the radar? “I mean, in one [pub], there were only a couple of people,” she recalls, “but in another there was, like, a circle and everybody started dancing. It was just good energy, I loved it.”

“There’s not anything I can do [about online attention]”

Sweeney’s ability to see the bigger picture must have been helpful on several occasions in the last couple of years when American right-wing commentators have tried to use her to forward their agenda. When she hosted SNL this month wearing something less shapeless than a nun’s habit, conservative commentator Richard Hanania posted a clip of Sweeney with the sexist message: “Wokeness is dead.”

When we ask how she deals with this ludicrous strain of attention, she replies matter-of-factly: “There’s not anything I can do.” Does it make her want to stay off the internet? “Um, no, I think it’s important to be aware of everything and then use that information however I may well. But I’m just being me, that’s all.”

Creepy conservatives certainly won’t be tweeting about her love of Jane Fonda, one of Hollywood’s most stalwart liberal voices, whom Sweeney describes as “an incredible person and actor”. Sweeney is currently developing a remake of Barbarella, the cult 1968 sci-fi film starring Fonda that was adapted from a quirky French comic book.

Today, Sweeney says she can’t say much other than that the project is “moving along”, but adds: “I would love and be totally open to having Jane Fonda involved in whatever way she would like.” She says she took on the ambitious remake for multiple reasons. “It’s such a cool, campy, fun film and I love Jane Fonda,” she says. “And it’s fun to [take] a comic book and find more story within it and build a bigger world. I’m always trying to discover worlds I can build that are not even in the realm of reality.”

Going forward, Sweeney wants to continue being a hands-on producer, and keep making bold swings from glossy romcoms to the brutal horror of Immaculate. “I like to switch it up and kind of confuse people with what genre I’m doing,” she says with a laugh. “I kind of like that I’m throwing people off.

‘Immaculate’ is in cinemas from March 22

IMAGE CREDITS:
Featured and third:
Photographer: Elias Tahan
Styling: Molly Dickson
Hair: Bobby Eliot
Make-up: Melissa Hernandez
Nails: Zola Ganzorigt
Lighting assist: Gray Hamner

Second image:
Photographer: Elias Tahan
Styling: Jordan Shilee
Hair: Bobby Eliot
Make-up: Melissa Hernandez
Nails: Zola Ganzorigt
Lighting assist: Ryne Belanger

The post Sydney Sweeney doesn’t get why you’re obsessed with her: “I’m just being me” appeared first on NME.

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Three years ago, Ghostbusters: Afterlife resuscitated this beloved ‘80s franchise after a slightly misguided 2016 reboot starring Melissa McCarthy. Instead of introducing a totally new crew of spook-nukers – the 2016 film’s fatal flaw – director Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan cleverly concocted a direct sequel to the ’80s movies centred on relatives of OG ghostbuster Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis). The result was funny, touching and filled with nostalgic nods to the past including deftly used archive footage of Ramis. It also did pretty well at the box office.

For their follow-up, Kenan and Reitman have swapped roles: the former directs while the latter is his credited co-writer. Original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, Jason’s father who died in 2022, gets a posthumous producer credit and a poignant final frame dedication: “For Ivan.” Perhaps inevitably, they’ve decided to return Ghostbusters to its (ahem) spiritual home, New York City, after setting Afterlife in a sleepy Oklahoma nowheresville that gave it a slightly out-of-time feel. That, of course, seemed entirely apt for a franchise that began in a different, less tech-dependent era.

Fans will be glad to know that the iconic firehouse is back after being purchased by another OG ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), now a successful businessman. And it still has its old-school fireman’s pole, which Kenan milks for a neat visual gag. But now, the firehouse serves as the home-slash-headquarters of the new ghostbusting crew introduced in Afterlife: Spengler’s daughter Callie (Carrie Coon), her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), plus new partner Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd). Trevor’s friend Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) and Phoebe’s pal Podcast (Logan Kim) are also now living in NYC, though it’s best not to think too closely about the how and why.

The convoluted plot is best left un-interrogated, too, though it does all make (sort of) sense in the end. This time around, the Big Apple is threatened by a malignant spirit trapped inside a family heirloom flogged by forty-something drifter (Kumail Nanjiani) to OG ghostbuster Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), who is now moonlighting as a YouTube creator and curiosity shop owner. Even in Ghostbusters‘ slightly folksy, spectre-infested New York City, everyone needs a side hustle. Bill Murray’s sardonic parapsychologist Peter Venkman and Annie Potts’ super-secretary Janine Melnitz get involved, too. When the latter finally gets her own ghostbuster suit, it’s a prime example of the satisfying way this film, like Afterlife, brings the franchise gently into the 21st century.

Wolfhard’s Trevor is underused, but Grace’s Phoebe, now 15, gets to double down on her teenage rebellion after making a friend from another dimension. At times, there are too many characters vying for screen time – British comedian James Acaster is a random new addition as a suitably deadpan parabiologist – but Kenan makes everyone earn their keep plot-wise. Like Afterlife, Frozen Empire ultimately succeeds because it’s so much fun to watch. The writers are so comfortable in this world that they get away with poking fun at Ray Parker Jr.’s ludicrous ’80s theme tune, then cranking it out unabashedly at the climax. And guess what, like Ghostbusters as a whole, it’s still a banger.

The post ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ review: nostalgic return to the old neighbourhood appeared first on NME.

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Djo‘s synth-pop banger ‘End Of Beginning’ isn’t just one of this year’s biggest hits; it’s also one of the most evocative. “And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it – another version of me, I was in it,” he sings on the blissfully wistful chorus. Before he shot to fame as Stranger Things‘ complex jock bro Steve Harington, actor and musician Joe Keery – he records as Djo, which is pronounced exactly the same as his first name – really threw himself into Chicago’s vibrant indie music scene.

Watching bands like Whitney and Twin Peaks hone their sound lit a fire in Djo, who had moved to Chicago from Newburyport, Massachusetts to study acting.  “I was just a fanboy for a long time,” he recalls today. “Everybody was really hustling and to see people being so creative and inventive was really inspiring to me with my own music.” For several years, he was a member of Chicago psych-rock outfit Post Animal, but he left the band on good terms in 2019 after Stranger Things massively levelled up his acting career. That year, he released his first solo album as Djo, the trippy, Tame Impala-esque ‘Twenty Twenty’.

‘End Of Beginning’ originally appeared on Djo’s second album, 2022’s offbeat synth-pop opus ‘Decide’. But now, thanks to a TikTok trend rooted in the song’s ineffable nostalgic quality, it has become a mainstream chart hit all over the world. “Obviously people are using it [to show] their connection to Chicago, but other people are also connecting it to their version of that city or that time in their life,” Djo says. “That’s really the whole point of making music: that people take your song and apply it to their own life and make it their own.”

Because his acting career has continued to skyrocket – he also appeared in the 2021 Ryan Reynolds blockbuster Free Guy and last year’s fifth season of Fargo – Djo’s only live shows came back in 2022. “It’d be really nice to have a proper amount of time to really focus on [touring],” he says. “Obviously it’s just difficult with scheduling stuff for me at the moment. But eventually I’d love to do it, especially with some of these new songs that we’re doing.”

However, this doesn’t mean his songwriting well has run dry – far from it. In a laid-back and revealing interview, Djo discusses the origins of his breakthrough hit, plans to release new music this year, and the inspiration he finds in British pop alchemist Charli XCX.

What were you feeling when you wrote ‘End Of Beginning’?

“Basically it’s a reflection on my time in my early twenties living in Chicago, where I went to college and graduated and played in a few bands. I was kind of in the music scene [but also] waiting tables and auditioning for commercials and stuff…. And I guess it’s about how I was on the precipice of a big change in my life, but I was so anxious to live out my future that maybe I didn’t realise what a special time I was in. So in a lot of ways, it’s a song about a kind of nostalgia – you know [for] another version of me. But it’s also kind of a self-declaration to try to appreciate your present [and be aware that] your past will always stay with you and inform who you are.”

The song really captures that pang of nostalgia for something you can never get back.

“We kind of did it in this way that felt like an older way of recording: just writing in the studio quick and dirty and trying not to be complicated or overthink it.  I think that has a lot to do with why the song feels the way it feels. I guess what I learned through that [way of working] is that sometimes over-baking things isn’t necessarily the best. Going detail-focused and really getting in the weeds can be fun and get great results. But [making ‘End Of Beginning’] has kind of informed the way that I’m trying to make stuff now, which is really capturing the inspiration for ideas as they happen naturally.

“With [‘End Of Beginning’], I felt like I was able to trick myself because I sort of knew what the song was going to be. I knew the structure and what I wanted it to be about. So once we got to the studio, it just, like, happened really quickly. And I think that that’s maybe why it has the directness that it has.”

You’ve mentioned that Charli XCX was one of the influences on your album ‘Decide’. What is it about her that you find inspiring?

“I feel like what she’s really good at is writing a song that is really about a specific thing. A great example is this song from her most recent album [‘2022’s ‘Crash’] called ‘Yuck’. It’s a great song about such a funny thing: her being over-stifled by a romantic partner, a boy who’s really obsessed with her. I feel like that’s such a cool concept for a song and she just nails it. And I feel like she does that pretty consistently with a lot of her music. I also love the production of her songs. I just think she’s really cool and doing her own thing and not afraid to be herself. Which is kind of the whole point.”

‘End Of Beginning’ obviously comes from an album that you put out in 2022. How far along are you with new material?

“Pretty far. I’ve got a lot of songs – probably more than I’ve had before to pick from. I had a lot of [acting] work last year – I went from job to job to job for pretty much a year. With acting, you kind of move to a new city and don’t have a community other than the people that you’re working with. So generally you have a lot of downtime, and in that downtime I chose to really buckle down and get back into playing acoustic guitar [with a focus] on songwriting. If a song sounds good on just a guitar or piano and [someone] singing, then I think generally it’s a pretty good song. So I was trying to just focus on that.”

Is it hard to make a release plan for your new music because ‘End Of Beginning’ is really taking off? I mean, who knows where it might go next?

“Oh I mean, I have no idea. I think we’re just gonna plough ahead [with] releasing new stuff because I wouldn’t want to hold out any longer. But definitely let [that song] live its life. It’s kind of doing its own thing at this point; I’m just watching it go and enjoying it.”

Is there anyone in particular you’d love to collaborate with in the future – an artist or even a producer? 

“Oh man, so many. Jeff Lynne, I guess, is my top guy. I love all of his music and the way that he created it, and all the people he’s worked with… But you know, I haven’t really collaborated in that way with people who are outside of my direct friend group, because it’s a sensitive thing to do. But I do think that [going forward] it’s about putting yourself in these uncomfortable situations… I’ve kind of learned in acting that it’s really good to make yourself kind of uncomfortable because that way you find something new. And so I understand that it’s the right thing to do, but I haven’t quite put myself there in the music space yet.”

‘Decide’ is out now via Djo Music

 

The post Djo on his TikTok smash ‘End Of Beginning’: “It’s about a time when I was on the precipice of a big change in my life.” appeared first on NME.

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Justin Timberlake‘s sixth album begins with hints of an existential crisis. “I mean, what’s better than having everything that you dreamed of? / Long as they need you, you don’t need love,” he croons over woozy, The Weeknd-esque beats. Named after the Tennessee city where he was born and raised, melancholy bop ‘Memphis’ chronicles the immense pressure he felt to succeed – “just be great – put on for your city, for your state” – and the inevitable collateral damage. “Who cares if there’s too much on your plate?  Don’t make no mistakes and hide your pain,” he sings in a suitably disassociated tone.

‘Memphis’ is Timberlake at his most reflective, but it’s a misleading opening song. ‘Everything I Thought It Was’, the singer’s first album since 2018’s ‘Man Of The Woods’, on which he incorporated a smattering of country and Americana into his slinky nu-disco sound, generally cleaves to his musical comfort zone. ‘Liar’ is an effective foray into Afrobeats territory with a verse from Nigerian star Fireboy DML and ‘Sanctified’ offers an audacious conflation of rock and gospel. But most of this album gives us vintage – or at least typical – JT, which means shameless sex jams and funky club bangers.

‘Fuckin’ Up The Disco’, one of three tracks co-produced by Calvin Harris, offers a glossy modern update of Michael Jackson‘s ‘Off The Wall’ sound. ‘Play’ sounds a bit like Prince riffing on David Bowie‘s ‘Fame’, only with lyrics about sipping “that bougie rosé“– presumably Echo Falls doesn’t make the grade chez Timberlake. ‘No Angels’, another club strut co-produced by Harris, proves Timberlake hasn’t lost his penchant for cheesy chat-up lines. “‘Cause you’re lookin’ like gas and I’m lookin’ for mileage,” he purrs, perhaps cosplaying as a horny petrol station attendant.

‘Infinity Sex’, one of several tracks co-produced by Timbaland, a mainstay on every Timberlake album since his 2002 solo debut ‘Justified’, features equally questionable come-ons. “Soon as all your clothes hit the floor, pray this hotel room is insured,” he sings in a sultry staccato before delivering a less than reassuring platitude: “The future is a mess, but your present is the best.” Let’s hope his lover wasn’t sharing her crippling climate change anxiety as they checked into the room.

Cringe lyrics aren’t the only familiar part of the package. ‘Technicolor’, one of several tracks co-produced by Timberlake’s longtime collaborator Timbaland, is a two-part epic that begins as a sultry R&B ballad before morphing into a percolating midtempo. It’s accomplished but less striking than the song suites Timberlake and Timbaland constructed on 2006’s ‘FutureSex/LoveSounds’, the singer’s excellent second album that remains his career’s best. ‘Flame’, an emotional slowie about a dying relationship, feels like an attempt to recreate the sophisti-pop grandeur of  ‘What Goes Around… Comes Around’, a standout ‘FutureSex/LoveSounds’ single.

It doesn’t help that most of these songs and the album as a whole are slightly too long. Clocking in at a slither under 77 minutes, ‘Everything I Thought It Was’ is a slog enlivened by some surprising moments. One of these comes on penultimate track ‘Paradise’, when Timberlake reunites with his NSYNC bandmates for what is essentially a contemporary version of a Y2K-era boyband ballad. It’s a bit drippy but also unexpectedly touching, not least because Timberlake generously shares lead vocals with former bandmate JC Chasez.

But in a way, ‘Paradise’ points to a larger problem: a prevailing lack of vulnerability and warmth that his career would benefit from at this point. In recent years, Timberlake’s reputation has been dented by a timely reappraisal of the way he emerged relatively unscathed from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show controversy while his duet partner Janet Jackson was scapegoated.

Meanwhile, Britney Spears‘ fans have pointed out compellingly that Timberlake treated the singer less than chivalrously in the wake of their 2002 breakup. At a recent gig in New York, Timberlake told the audience before singing ‘Cry Me A River’, his 2002 hit widely presumed to be about Spears: “I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to absolutely fucking nobody.”

Because of this, Timberlake is a less beloved pop superstar than he probably should be 25 years after he sang “It’s gonna be may” on an era-defining NSYNC banger. ‘Everything I Thought It Was’ shows he hasn’t lost his vocal chops or ability to work a groove, but it doesn’t do enough to make you block out past misdemeanours. For now, Timberlake’s problematic fave era will have to wait.

Details

• Record label: RCA Records
• Release date: March 15

The post Justin Timberlake – ‘Everything I Thought It Was’ review: sullied superstar gets trapped in the typical appeared first on NME.

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The first album I bought

Maroon 5 – ‘Songs About Jane’

“This is a bit embarrassing but I can remember this album so viscerally. Like, my childhood was going to school discos and hearing Maroon 5 and James Blunt on repeat. I bought the album from HMV and I can still see the cover so clearly – it had this, like, divine goddess-like figure on it. But there were a lot of big songs on this album; it was definitely a banger.”

The first gig I went to

Oasis at Wembley Stadium, 2009

“Me and my mate were in the pit and we were so small that these lovely lads from the East End chucked us over their shoulders so we could see. It was around the time that Liam and Noel were very much falling out and as a kid the drama of their relationship was really fascinating to observe. I remember thinking, ‘Why has Liam gone backstage for some of the songs?’ I appreciated Noel a lot more when I was younger, but now I’m older I can really appreciate all of Liam’s swagger and bravado.”

The first song I fell in love with

Jeff Buckley – ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’

“I was really lucky growing up because my sister was three years older than me and would introduce me to so much great music. I remember this song – and the whole ‘Grace’ album, really – affected me on quite a cerebral level when I was in my early teens. I think all the heartbreak around his passing made it hit even deeper for me.”

The song that reminds me of home

Natasa Theodoridou and Paschalis Terzis – ‘Den Thelo Tetious Filous’

“There are so many beautiful Greek folk songs that I love because it’s part of my heritage. This song is by an iconic Greek artist and the title translates as ‘I don’t want these kind of friends’. It has that bouzouki [a traditional stringed Greek instrument] sound that is so present in Greek culture and it takes me back to Greece as a child – just being with my family on the islands. We always play it when we get together as a family and have a Greek dance around the kitchen.”

The song that makes me want to dance

Jamie xx – ‘Gosh’

“I was going to say a disco song, but actually it’s got to be ‘Gosh’. It just really reminds of me of a time when I was going out a lot and it would always be playing at all these Shoreditch clubs. Anything by The xx takes me back to my later teenage years, and I feel like anyone who grew up around me would say the same.”

The song I do at karaoke

Bonnie Tyler – ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’

“My serious choice is ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac, which is such a beautiful song, but my not so serious choice is ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’. When I was making [2023 comedy] Bottoms it was in the script that I had to do an improvised dance sequence. I gave them ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ not thinking that they’d ever be able to get the rights to it, but somehow they managed to blag it and it made it into the film. So I kind of feel very connected to this song now as a cultural moment.”

The song I wish I’d written

Elton John – ‘Candle In The Wind’

“My parents are big Elton John fans, so his music was on a lot when I was growing up. But it wasn’t until a lot later that I went back to his work and really listened to it properly. He wrote so many beautiful songs in this era with his partner [Bernie Taupin] but ‘Candle In The Wind’ is pure poetry.”

The song that makes me cry

Brian Eno – ‘The Big Ship’

“Brian Eno is an icon in the music world and this song was used in a film I really love called Me, Earl And The Dying Girl, so I always feel quite emotional when I listen to it. I think film scores tend to make me more emotional [than songs with vocals] because they’re not performed in the same way, which kind of allows your mind to wander to someplace else.”

The song that reminds me of making Mary & George

The Stone Roses – ‘I Wanna Be Adored’

“I make playlists for each of my characters, but when it’s a period show [like Mary & George], in a way you don’t have a lot to draw on. ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ was perfect because there’s something kind of grungy about the way we shoot this show and my character George definitely wants to be adored. That’s sort of his seduction technique. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t play it every morning on set, but it was a song that I kept going back to.”

‘Mary & George’ is available now on Sky Atlantic and NOW

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“How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? Aren’t you supposed to really know that shit?” Ariana Grande asks at the start of ‘Eternal Sunshine’, her seventh studio album. The answer seems to come on final track ‘Ordinary Things’, courtesy of some sage advice from the singer’s Nonna. “Never go to bed without kissing goodnight – it’s the worst thing to do,” Marjorie Grande tells her granddaughter as the music fades out. “And if you can’t, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you’re in the wrong place. Get out.”

These intimate moments act as bookends for ‘Eternal Sunshine’, a quasi-breakup album on which Grande doesn’t so much paint a portrait of a relationship as piece together an impressionistic mosaic. In a recent interview on the Zach Sang Show, Grande described ‘Eternal Sunshine’ as a “kind of concept album” exploring “different, heightened pieces of the same story”. That story, presumably, is the breakdown of her marriage to real estate agent Dalton Gomez, whom she divorced last October around two years after they tied the knot. Tabloids and stans have since attempted to piece together a timeline around her rumoured romance with Wicked costar Ethan Slater.

Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t interpret this lush, lightly psychedelic album too literally. The singer has already made it abundantly clear how she feels about public consumption of her love life: “Why do you care so much whose… I ride?” she asks pointedly on ‘Yes, And?‘, the album’s giddy, house-inspired lead single. Certainly, a decade after she vaulted onto pop’s A-list with her excellent second album, 2014’s ‘My Everything’, Grande seems acutely aware that judgement will follow everything she does. On ‘Ordinary Things’, she tells a paramour knowingly: “You hit like my biggest fan when I hear what the critiques says.”

Besides, it feels equally revealing that this album is named after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the trippy 2004 movie about a couple who erase all traces of their relationship from their respective memories. The ‘Yes, And?’ video even features a business card listing the geographical coordinates of Montauk, New York, where stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet shot much of the cult film. Grande references its plot on the glistening title track when she sings: “So I try to wipe my mind / Just so I feel less insane.”

Elsewhere, her homages are less overt and more vibey. ‘Imperfect For You’ rides a clanging tuneless guitar line into an offbeat, queasy-sounding chorus; it’s perhaps the freakiest track Grande has ever recorded. The balmy ‘Saturn Returns Interlude’ is built around a spoken word sample from YouTube astrologer Diana Garland, who explains that a powerful planetary cycle can make a person “wake up and smell the coffee” every 29 years or so. For reference, Grande turned 30 last June.

These leftfield flourishes add texture to an album clearly conceived as a mood piece. Grande, who co-writes and co-produces every track, mainly with Swedish pop don Max Martin and his regular collaborator Ilya Salmanzadeh, continues to finesse her glistening pop-R&B sound. ‘Don’t Wanna Break Up Again’ has the lithe glide of ’90s Janet Jackson, while ‘Eternal Sunshine’ winks at the skittering Y2K-era productions of The Neptunes

Meanwhile, there are echoes of Mariah Carey – whom Grande hailed as a “lifelong inspiration” when she jumped on a ‘Yes, And?’ remix – on the cleverly self-referential ‘True Story’. “I’ll play the bad girl if you need me to,” Grande sings before delivering thrilling vocal runs over a chunky G-funk beat. Is she singing about her reputation in the press, or accepting the villain role in a breakup? Either way, it’s a spiky album highlight.

But crucially, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ avoids the sonic saminess of Grande’s last album, 2020’s horny but slightly boring ‘Positions’, by including more uptempo cuts. In addition to the ballroom bounce of ‘Yes, And?’, Grande plays disco diva on ‘Bye’ and nods to Robyn on ‘We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)’. Though it’s hardly the first song to channel the Swede’s incredibly influential 2010 banger ‘Dancing On My Own’, Grande offers a fresh spin by sounding less desolate on the dance floor, and more serene. “Wait till you like me again,” she sings beatifically over a throbbing beat.

Given that Grande challenges us to “say that shit with your chest” on ‘Yes, And?’, it’s only fair to deliver a clear overall verdict. So, here goes: on the one hand, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is a spacey but relatable break-up album defined by its emotional maturity. “We both know I couldn’t change you – I guess you could say the same,” she sings on the title track. On the other, it’s the most sophisticated project yet from a preternaturally talented vocalist who keeps getting better. Whatever you take away from it, ‘Eternal Sunshine’ definitely isn’t an album you’ll want to wipe from memory.

Details

• Release date: March 8, 2024
• Record label: Republic Records

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