#Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redcarpetview · 2 years

Text

Recording Academy To Honor Music Luminaries With 2023 Special Merit Awards During GRAMMY Week

The Supremes

The Recording Academy®'s Special Merit Awards Ceremony celebrating the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award, Technical GRAMMY® Award, and Best Song For Social Change Award recipients will return for the first time since 2020 during GRAMMY® Week on Feb. 4, 2023, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. Bobby McFerrin, Nirvana, Ma Rainey, Nile Rodgers, Slick Rick "The Ruler," The Supremes, and Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson of Heart are the 2023 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipients; Henry Diltz, Ellis Marsalis and Jim Stewart are the Trustees Award recipients; and the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and Dr. Andy Hildebrand are the Technical GRAMMY Award honorees. The Best Song For Social Change honoree will be announced at a later date.

"The Academy is proud to celebrate this diverse slate of influential music people spanning numerous genres and crafts as our 2023 Special Merit Awards honorees," said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. "Each creator on this list has made an impact on our industry — from technical to creative achievements — representing the breadth of music's diverse community. We're excited to celebrate this group of legends next month that continues to inspire and shape the music world."

Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees: This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers* who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. See past recipients here (*through 1972, recipients included non-performers).

Ten-time GRAMMY Award winner Bobby McFerrin has blurred the distinction between pop music and fine art, exploring uncharted vocal territory and inspiring a whole new generation of a cappella singers and the beatbox movement. From his trailblazing, solo a cappella performances to his inspired collaborations with Chick Corea and Yo-Yo Ma, his iconic global No. 1 hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and his work conducting top-tier orchestras, McFerrin's calling has always been to connect people through the unlimited possibilities of music. McFerrin has redefined the role of the human voice with his experiments in multi-tracking, his collaborations, his improvising choir Voicestra, and his legendary solo performances.

Formed in 1987 by Kurt Cobain* and Krist Novoselic, Nirvana emerged from the Pacific Northwest onto the world stage with the 1989 release of its debut album Bleach. Two years later Nirvana's sophomore album Nevermind would spark a seismic shift in global youth culture. Rising to No. 1 worldwide and featuring GRAMMY Hall of Fame® single "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nevermind‘s impact would transform Cobain, Novoselic and Dave Grohl into one of the most successful and influential musical entities of all time. Nirvana's third and ultimately final studio album, In Utero, was released in 1993, completing an indelible run that returned rock 'n' roll integrity and passion to the top of the charts. With a 2014 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and more than 75 million records sold, Nirvana continues to be a singular inspiration for generations of fans and musicians the world over.

Often called the "Mother of the Blues," Ma Rainey* (Gertrude Pridgett Rainey) was known for her deep voice and mesmerizing stage presence that drew packed audiences in the early twentieth century. A songwriter as well as a performer, her lyrics and melodies reflected her experiences as an independent, openly bisexual African-American woman. Rainey signed a recording contract with Paramount Records in 1923, making her one of the earliest recorded blues musicians. Between 1923 and 1928, she recorded almost 100 records, many of them national hits that are now part of the American musical canon. Her 1924 recording of "See See Rider Blues" (for which she was accompanied by a young Louis Armstrong) was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2004.

Nile Rodgers is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee and a multiple GRAMMY Award-winning songwriter, composer, producer, arranger, and guitarist. As the co-founder of CHIC, Rodgers pioneered a musical language that generated chart-topping hits like "Le Freak," the biggest-selling single in the history of Atlantic Records, and sparked the advent of hip-hop with "Good Times." His work in the CHIC Organization including "We Are Family" with Sister Sledge and "I'm Coming Out" with Diana Ross and his productions for artists like David Bowie ("Let's Dance"), Madonna ("Like A Virgin") and Duran Duran ("The Reflex") have sold over 500 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide while his innovative, trendsetting collaborations with Daft Punk, Daddy Yankee and Beyoncé reflect the vanguard of contemporary hits.

Renowned as "THE most sampled hip-hop artist in history" and "hip-hop's greatest storyteller," Slick Rick "The Ruler" has set the pace for rap's past, present, and future. The Ruler's catalog, which includes the anthems "La-Di-Da-Di" and "The Show," boasts over 850 samples, ranging from Snoop Dogg's "Lodi Dodi" through Beyoncé and J. Cole's "Party." Noted as "the third artist signed to Def Jam Recordings" and "the most successful British-American rapper," his multiplatinum discography encompasses The Great Adventures of Slick Rick [1988], The Ruler's Back [1991], Behind Bars [1994], and The Art of Storytelling [1999]. VH1 Hip Hop Honors celebrated him in 2008, and The Source ranked him among the Top 3 of its "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time."

Two-time GRAMMY Award nominees The Supremes were the leading act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded by Diana Ross, Mary Wilson* and Florence Ballard*, The Supremes were trailblazers in the history of music, transcending all genres as the first female group that defined a generation. They were leaders at a pivotal time during the American Civil Rights movement by bringing together audiences that had racial and cultural differences through their style and music. Named the No. 1 female recording group of all time by Billboard in 2017, the group achieved an unprecedented 12 No. 1 hits and five consecutive No. 1s from 1964-1965 with "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "Stop! In the Name of Love," and "Back in My Arms Again." The Supremes were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 with The Beatles, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.

Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson are being recognized as Lifetime Achievement Award honorees for their creative work with the rock band Heart. Heart was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, sold over 35 million records, garnered four GRAMMY Award nominations, landed 10 Top 10 albums, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, had several No. 1 hits, and achieved "the longest span of top 10 albums on the Billboard charts by a female-led band." Heart's influence can be palpably felt everywhere from rock and heavy metal to hip-hop and pop. As a result, their music resonates in nearly every corner of pop culture.

Trustees Award Honorees: This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance*, to the field of recording. See past recipients here (*through 1983, recipients included performers).

Music photographer Henry Diltz photographed more than 250 album covers and thousands of publicity shots in the 1960s and 1970s, including the iconic Morrison Hotel cover for the Doors. Other artists, whose fly-on-the-wall style portraits he's known for, include musical legends such as the Eagles, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, America, Steppenwolf, James Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, The Monkees, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and David Cassidy. He was the official photographer at the Woodstock festival in August 1969. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, LIFE, People, Rolling Stone, High Times, and Billboard.

Ellis Marsalis

Jazz pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis* was regarded by many as the premier modern jazz pianist in New Orleans. He began formal music studies at the Xavier University Junior School of Music at age 11 and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in music education from Dillard University in 1955. In 1986, Marsalis accepted the position of commonwealth professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., where he spent two of the three years as coordinator of jazz studies before returning to New Orleans to become the University of New Orleans' first occupant of the Coca-Cola-endowed chair of jazz studies. In 2008 he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, and in 2011, he was honored with the NEA Jazz Masters Award, along with his sons Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason, given to the Marsalis family.

Stax Records founder Jim Stewart* produced some of the greatest rhythm and blues (R&B) records of the 1960s. He was instrumental in launching the careers of Otis Redding, the Bar-Kays, Isaac Hayes, Eddie Floyd, Booker T. & the M.G.s, the Staple Singers, Johnnie Taylor, Albert King, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and hundreds of others. With Stewart at the helm, Stax moved some 800 singles and 300 albums, placing more than 167 hit songs in the Top 100 on the pop charts, and a staggering 243 hits in the Top 100 R&B charts. Stewart was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 by Steve Cropper of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and Sam Moore of Sam & Dave. In 2012, he was also among the first class of inductees to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

Technical GRAMMY Award Honorees: This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Producers & Engineers Wing® Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and ratification by the Recording Academy's National Trustees to individuals and/or companies/organizations/institutions who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. See past recipients here.

The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is the only professional society devoted exclusively to advancing audio technology. Founded in 1948 with the key goals of collecting, collating and disseminating knowledge of audio science and its application, AES facilitates communication and collaboration that unites audio engineers, creative artists, scientists, and students, with hundreds of local sections worldwide. 75 years on, AES's members continue to set precedents and standards wherever sound and technology meet, from recording and entertainment to scientific research in emerging fields such as Spatial and Game Audio, Networking and Streaming, and Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality.

Dr. Andy Hildebrand graduated with a Ph.D. EE from the University of Illinois in 1976, specializing in stochastic processes and estimation theory. After studying music composition at Rice's Shepard School of Music, Hildebrand developed an interest in audio data processing and founded Antares Audio Technology in 1990. At Antares, Hildebrand created the groundbreaking Auto-Tune software program, which was first released in 1997. In 2011, Hildebrand was inducted into the TEC Foundation's "Technology Hall of Fame" for the invention of Auto-Tune.

*Denotes posthumous honoree.

1 note · View note

1ddotdhq · 4 years

Text

🍌Wed 2 Dec ‘20💚

Harry Styles Reacts to Banana Innuendo Rumors by Making EVEN MORE Banana Innuendos part TWO

Good morning/evening/night to Harry’s post and Harry’s post ONLY! (Okay that’s not true but it was definitely a highlight of my day). In case people haven’t seen it yet, it’s Harry in a light blue custom made suit putting a penis banana in his mouth. The picture is captioned “Bring Back Manly Men” so take a suck on THAT Candace Owens! It was only one of many great pictures in his variety shoot (including another, um, fruity picture of him biting into a pomegranate okay Persephone we get it), but Harry did indeed choose That One to post on This, the day after banana necklace dickscourse, BLESS. Harry’s interview was a little more in depth than they have been in the past, touching upon his feelings on race (“Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music. There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change”), as well as his tattoos (the only time he regrets them is in the DWD makeup chair), his love of reading, fashion and art, his exercise routine (Kid Harpoon couldn’t keep up!), and his feelings on success and acclaim (“It’s never why I do anything...it's always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff...Fans are the best A&R”).

The problems arose - as they so often do - when One Direction was mentioned. The article said that “The proof [of the band’s benefits] is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members- Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles- each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond”. Leaving aside the bad math (that's 4 people!) one name, of course, is notably missing: Louis has in fact enjoyed quite a lot of success both with Walls (remember when his album went #1 on iTunes in the UK AND the US literally 2 months ago?) and his pre-Walls singles like “Back To You” and “Just Hold On”. It got worse because the author tried to back up her claim with Harry’s quote, “When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band...but we loved being in the band...I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it”. By linking her own words with Harry's quote she made it seem as though Harry said it to agree with her biased take, which we'd know he didn't even if we hadn't heard him say this exact quote without that slant multiple times before. Fans were quick to point out both to the author and to Variety that they were wrong (to describe the reaction mildly), and the author rather than fixing the mistake, doubled down and began blocking fans. Plenty of people were quick to say that of course HSHQ and Harry had approved this content, despite more knowledgeable fans trying to be heard protesting that that is not how it works. (Remember how just recently Vogue got Harry’s whole ass FAMILY situation wrong and it was not corrected until after print, for example?) In fact, even the magazine didn't really proofread this- the print version of the article is different and says, “The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members - Styles, Malik and Horan”, effectively erasing both Louis AND Liam. It's an annoying take either way, but it's one the author more than likely picked up by doing her research on harrie twitter, not on orders from Jeff.

And because we DO NOT STAND FOR LILO ERASURE ON THIS BLOG, let’s talk about Liam’s Web Summit panel! It was 25 minutes of Liam and Marian Dicus (VP of Spotify) being interviewed about the current and future state of the music industry. Both of them, of course, noted that things had changed very quickly in their careers back at the beginning of lockdown, and how it had seemed surreal, at first, but that Liam had found that the way he was operating now (with Veeps and Tik Tok and Instagram lives) had made his platform a two way interaction with his fans. “For a long time I've been living in a dream world where I thought I was speaking with my fans but really I was just talking at them whereas we as artists ask a lot of rhetorical questions... I wanted to start a conversation”. Marian discussed how engaging fans differently WAS one of the most difficult things to puzzle out at the beginning, but that as months have passed, it seems artists like Liam have found a viable virtual future in the music industry (Liam tells us that he's been doing “stadium size shows” on Veeps which is an exciting clue about the mystery of how many tickets they're selling). They also went into the way music trends change as a response to social and political occurrences, how comfort songs gave way to protest songs this summer. Liam said, “People want their artists to have an opinion nowadays it's not that we can stay out of the conversation anymore-- and nor do we feel that we should in many places-- but for me it's a fine line because I realize what I do for people is an escape, people don't want things rammed down their throats every day and news messages from me about things that they don't want to hear about if they've come to listen to music, so its a real fine line that we kind of teeter on”. And about his opening acts, he acknowledges that his fanbase are mostly young women (based on the data breakdowns he gets from his team), and so he feels a responsibility to mentor young female artists in the industry so that more people like his fans have a voice. In an interview full of really fascinating music and technical discussions, this remained my favorite moment from Liam. Just like we won’t erase HIM, he refuses to erase US! And let's not forget our Liam alarm of the day-- it starts out absolutely adorable (“good moooorning!”), is hilarious in that apparently he just rambled completely unscripted and then they awkwardly cut it into 25 parts, but today's installment is frankly not relaxing! “only 23 sleeps til christmas have you done your shopping are you prepared” excuse me Liam YOU ARE STRESSING ME OUT. The promised relaxing sleep story affirmations are still 'coming soon'-- hurry up please I need them to decompress after that alarm!

Now for a lightning round of epic proportions: DWD darling pictures and vids keep comin’ and Harry and Florence are both looking GORGEOUS as Jack and Alice, after the Variety shoot dropped ‘THE CAPTION’, ‘BRING BACK MANLY MEN’, and ‘LOUIS IS SUCCESSFUL’ trended worldwide on twitter, Tan France said “yes please” to Harry's banana post, Harry reiterated that London was home and he didn’t want to be in LA for longer than he needed to,Variety has its virtual show tomorrow at 5 pm PST so see you there! Veeps is sending out emails promoting Louis’ show to people who bought LP show tickets, fans have already started to receive their Louis Tomlinson Live From London merch, Trinity College in Dublin’s Law society presented Niall with an award for, uh, his Irishness, I guess? (Just kidding, it’s for “his incredible talent and work ethics which is famously underscored by a distinct humility despite unthinkable success”). It looks like he will be giving a talk when he’s presented with it, and I’m honestly really interested to see what it’s all about - is he...gonna be talking to law students? Idk but tune in on December 7th at 12 pm GMT to find out!

#harry styles #liam payne #louis tomlinson #niall horan #also i am seeing discourse about H's COOP and how he loves the Manchester music scene #but that this stadium will be changing it irrevocably #i mean it will be adding jobs (4000 of them!) but it will also be pushing out the small music scenes that benefits small independent artists #who are trying to break through into the indusrty #*industry #and i think thats a really interesting and important convo #of which i dont have any knowledge but i did want to shine some light on it #also!! tumblr has finally recced me something that i like! a store called 28cultures.com #and its NOT larry merch but it COULD BE its SO COOL!!!!#this isnt spon con i just thought it was so funny!#anyways!#song of the day~#savior complex by phoebe bridgers #(and rob moose!)

199 notes · View notes

thesims4blogger · 3 years

Text

The Sims 4: Sims Sessions Official Details and Web Page

The Sims team has announced Sims Sessions, a social media and in-game experience that will be free for players who own The Sims 4. Maxis has launched the Sims Sessions web page with details and information on the music artists featured in the event.

Sims Sessions (Key Features)

Light up your summer with the hottest tracks from your favorite artists. Experience Bebe Rexha, Glass Animals, and Joy Oladokun for the first time all over again—in Simlish! Catch the live event from June 29 at 10 a.m. PT to July 7 at 10 p.m. PT.

Shop the Festival – Buy artist-themed merchandise, run your own craft sales table, or snack like a rockstar at a food stand!

Camp Out – Festivals are fun but exhausting! Get some sleep in one of the tents—or Woohoo to the music.

Enjoy the Show – Gather around the stage to watch, dance, and cheer on the performances!

Perform on Stage – After the performances, go on stage and keep the tunes flowing. Jam on the piano and sing your heart out.

Sims Sessions (Featured Artists)

Bebe Rexha

Diamond-selling and two-time GRAMMY®-nominated New York City native Bebe Rexha is a musical force to be reckoned with. Her RIAA Platinum-certified debut album Expectations (released June 2018 on Warner Records) contained the Platinum single “I’m a Mess” and the global chart-topping smash “Meant to Be” (featuring Florida Georgia Line), now RIAA Certified Diamond. “Meant to Be” held the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for a record-setting 50 straight weeks, the longest reign ever by a female lead artist, and won Top Country Song at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards and Best Collaboration at the 2018 iHeart Radio Music Awards. It was subsequently nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 61st annual GRAMMY Awards® in February 2019, where Bebe was also nominated for Best New Artist.

Early in her career, Bebe won the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences’ Best Teen Songwriter Award, and then formally burst onto the scene when she wrote “The Monster,” a worldwide hit for Eminem and Rihanna that was certified 6x Platinum by the RIAA. Bebe went on to co-write and carry the instantly recognizable hook for the 3x Platinum “Hey Mama,” by David Guetta, which was nominated for a Billboard Music Award for Top Dance/Electronic Song. Bebe also hit #1 on the Billboard Pop and Rap charts with her 5x Platinum “Me, Myself & I” with G-Eazy. In 2017, Bebe released the critically acclaimed EPs, All Your Fault: Part 1 (with the Platinum single “I Got You”) and All Your Fault: Part 2 (with “Meant to Be”). In conjunction with GRAMMY® Week 2019, Bebe launched the GRAMMY® Music Education Coalition’s (GMEC) national campaign on behalf of its new All-Star Ambassador program. Better Mistakes, her new album, includes the hit singles “Baby, I’m Jealous” feat. Doja Cat and “Sacrifice.” To date, Bebe has amassed over four billion YouTube views and over 12 billion total global streams.

Glass Animals

Since 2010, Glass Animals have redefined alternative pop with their experimental sounds, cinematic visuals, and narrative lyrics. The Platinum-Certified UK quartet—Dave Bayley [lead vocals, guitar], Drew MacFarlane [guitar, keys, backing vocals], Ed Irwin-Singer [bass, keys, backing vocals], and Joe Seaward [drums, backing vocals]—first presented their signature style on their 2014 breakout debut, ZABA. It yielded the Platinum single “Gooey” and elevated the band into the global spotlight. 2016’s How To Be A Human Being notably garnered a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Prize. However, Glass Animals lifted off to a new stratosphere with Dreamland in 2020. It marked their first Top 10 debut on the Billboard Top 200, while their global smash hit “Heat Waves” has amassed millions of streams to date, went Platinum in numerous countries, gave the band their first #1 on the U.S. Alternative Radio Chart, Top 15 at Top 40 Radio, and hit Top 10 on Spotify’s US Chart. Skyrocketing to the forefront of popular culture, they garnered nominations in the categories of “Top Rock Song” and “Top Rock Album” at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards, delivered knockout performances on Billboard Music Awards, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Ellen, and lined up global headline dates for the 2021 Dreamland Tour everywhere from legendary amphitheaters such as Red Rocks to Bonnaroo, Life Is Beautiful, Outside Lands, and more. The band sold over 130,000 tickets in three days for their 2021-2022 North American tour, with the majority of the tickets selling out instantly. All the while maintaining their unique connection to their fans by creating their open sourced website where fans can create artwork based on the world of Dreamland, putting on a “Live In The Internet” concert that sold 25,000 tickets worldwide, and more. They created unique music videos during the 2020 pandemic by DIY-shooting solo in Dave Bayley’s apartment directed solely over Zoom (“Dreamland”), asking neighbors to shoot on their iPhones while Dave walked down the street (“Heat Waves”), and inviting fans to take 3D scans of their heads (“Tangerine”). Racking up billions of streams across their catalogue, they even made history as “the first UK band to capture #1 on Triple J’s Hottest 100 since 2009” with “Heat Waves” down under in Australia, leading to the longest run at #1 in 2021 on the ARIA Official Singles Chart. Ultimately, Glass Animals continue to redefine what alternative can be, while they quietly overtake the mainstream.

Joy Oladokun

With a guitar in hand, baseball cap over her eyes, and hooded sweatshirt loose, a woman sings with all of the poetry, pain, passion, and power her soul can muster. She is a new kind of American troubadour. She is Joy Oladokun. The Delaware-born, Arizona-raised, and Nashville-based Nigerian-American singer, songwriter, and producer projects unfiltered spirit over stark piano and delicate guitar. Her music and story galvanized a growing fan base as she completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to release her independent debut, Carry. Her song “No Turning Back” soundtracked a viral baby announcement by Ciara and Russell Wilson, opening up the floodgates. She landed a string of high-profile syncs, including NBC’s This Is Us, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, and Showtime’s The L Word: Generation Q. On the heels of in defense of my own happiness (the beginnings), she garnered unanimous critical praise. Billboard touted the album as one of the “Top 10 Best LGBTQ Albums of 2020,” while NPR included “i see america” among the “100 Best Songs of 2020.” Predicted as on the verge of a massive breakthrough, she emerged on various tastemaker lists, including Spotify’s RADAR Artists to Watch 2021, YouTube “Black Voices Class of 2021,” NPR’s 2021 “Artists To Watch,” and Amazon Music’s “Artist To Watch 2021.” Not to mention, Vogue crowned her #1 “LBTQ+ Musician To Listen To.” She kicked off the new year by making her television debut on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon with a stunning and stirring performance of “breathe again.”After attracting acclaim from Vogue, NPR, and American Songwriter, her words arrive at a time right when we need them the most.

#the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims sessions

22 notes · View notes

funknrolll · 4 years

Text

FOCUSING ON JANET JACKSON: THE STORY OF THE ICONIC LEGEND, THE HIGHLIGHTS OF HER SUCCESSFUL CAREER, THE FIERCE AND INSIPIRING MESSAGE DELIVERED THROUGH HER TIMELESS ART

Hi music lovers, today I’m focusing on Janet Jackson, I tried to cover as much as I could with this article. Just know that I will write other articles about her, therefore if you do not find some particulars in this essay, just know that they will be in another future article!! I hope you enjoy this article💜

For 54 years the music icon “Miss Jackson” has and still is paving the path for many artists and inspiring us all with her legacy, talent, grace, and beauty, being the role model everyone should look up to. Today I am focusing on the highlights of Janet Jacksons extraordinary career.

Born Janet Damita Jo Jackson on May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana, the artist, was the youngest of ten children, but undoubtedly not the least talented. Indeed, at the young age of 10, she got the part of Penny Gordon on the tv show Good Times and her acting skills were already showing. The young child prodigy also made a few memorable appearances on the tv show Diff’rent Strokes as Charlene Dupree and soon got her role on the renown show Fame as Cleo Hewitt. Though the show business was not all flowers and roses for young Janet, who, even at the age of 10, was already showing her iron will to achieve the very much desired success. Indeed, as the artist recalled, “‘I would set my alarm clock for 5.30am, get myself dressed, and get myself out of the door for work five days a week,’ she says. ‘And for a 10-year-old to have that kind of discipline – there’s a lot to be said for that.’.

Then Janet decided to pursue the music career in the 80s, establishing herself as a singing star of the first order. At the age of 16, she dropped her first self-titled album. The pop, funk-influenced, fresh, and danceable record was the beginning of a glorious and remarkable career. Young Love even reached number six on Billboard’s R&B chart. The following year the artist issued Dream Street. The exquisitely pop album was entirely in the fashion of good 80s tunes. Not to mention the surprise guest artist who lent his signature voice in Don’t Stand Another Chance and All My Love To You.

However, in 1986 came Janet’s commercial, and most importantly, creative breakthrough. The artist teamed up with none other than Minneapolis-based producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to create Control, the game-changing, legendary R&B-pop masterpiece that paved the way for the new emerging sounds of the late 80s. Through the empowering lyrics, the artist declared her independence with passion and grace as she affirmed in the title track, “this time, I’m gonna do it my way,” and she really did it. Moreover, the pure brilliance of this work lies in the extremely self-assured vocals and sleek slamming beat combo that presented Janet as a confident tough-minded artist who is in charge of her life and her choices. In support of her brand-new persona, Jam and Lewis crafted a set of gleamy, computerized hip-hop-nuanced funk and urban R&B backing tracks. The album eventually sold over 5 million copies, establishing Janet as a new influential pop star and role model. With this album, the artist was already showing her immense talent.

In 1989 the artist teamed up again with producers Jam and Lewis and released the hotly anticipated follow-up concept album: Rhythm Nation 1814. With this work, the artist became more overtly political, exploring socially conscious themes and issues, which were the whole fulcrum of the album. The singer took some risks with this Rhythm Nation as protest songs were quite uncommon in R&B, but making those risks paid off as the masterpiece not only assured Janet an even higher artist plateau, but it also had wildly successful results. As the artist sang in the title track “Join voices in protest to social injustice” or “A generation full of courage, come forth with me,” in this work, Janet explores themes such as racism, sexism, and feminism and flourishing as a person and artist in an environment ruled by both issues. However, some nonpolitical songs could not miss, ranging from smooth and silky ballads such as Someday Is Tonight, Alone and Come Back to Me to the pop rock influenced Black Cat, to the funk-influenced Miss You Much and Alright to the bright and romantically-themed Love Will Never Do (Without You) and Escapade. The album was a triumph and was accepted enthusiastically by the audience. In support of this masterpiece, Janet undertook her first tour, and it was a smashing success.

In 1992 the artist, along with rapper Tupac Shakur starred in John Singleton’s all-time classic, Poetic Justice. Janet gave proof one more time of her extraordinary acting skills taking up the role of Justice, a hairdresser, grieving over her boyfriend’s death, who writes poems to get through the sorrow of her bereavement.

Subsequently, 1993 saw the artist fully embracing her sexuality, which was crowned with her breakthrough homonymous album: Janet. The new image was trumpeted with a strikingly iconic Rolling Stone cover picture: an uncropped photo with the artist topless covered by two hands. The picture was then used as the album cover. One more time, Janet teamed up with the iconic duo Jam-Lewis and the outcome churned out did not leave the audience disappointed at all. The powerful trio left the synthesized funk in favor of warm, gently, inviting undulating grooves. The 28 tracked album is the product of the artist’s groundbreaking eclecticism. This masterpiece is a perfect mix of whooping cuts sprawling a sonic extravaganza where only 12 were proper songs, and the rest short interludes. The new quirky sounds were aligned perfectly with the brand-new public persona the artist created. The album shifts from the old school shuffle-beat-pop of Whoops Now to the New Jack Swing of You Want This. The leading guitar of What’ll I Do is a 60s flavored old school-rock hit with a bit of Janet’s signature sound. The danceable grooves of Funky Big Band are spiced up with old-jazz samples, while the erotic moans in Throb are a clear nod to Donna Summer’s Love to love you, baby, with some electro-trance influences I must say. A major sociopolitical hit could not miss on this masterpiece. The pop song New Agenda featuring a noteworthy cameo from rap Public Enemy’s head MC. Chuck D is indeed touching some relevant themes such as gendered racism and sexism, which issues were and still are much present in today’s society. The album is also featuring some enjoyable ballads such as the major hit and R&B Again, which appeared at the end of the movie mentioned Poetic Justice. With The Body that Loves you, Janet shifts to some jazzier, smooth, and silky sounds, while the slow R&B-nuanced Any Time Any Place is a groovy erotic jam. The angry This Time is a successful experiment in mixing rocky inflections with lyrical singing. The centerpiece was the album’s first single, the groovy alluring infectious ballad That’s The Way Love Goes. Not only is the collection a groundbreaking masterpiece sprinkled with revolutionary sounds, but what is striking most about this work is the intention with which it was produced. Indeed, Janet is a clear statement and frank celebration of female sexual liberation, which was and still is considered a taboo topic. Through this album, Janet explores black sexuality and lust, which is something black women have always been stereotyped about. Hence, with the explicit lyrics, the mellow and groovy sounds, the artist unveils these relevant topics making a monument to black lust, ultimately taking the power of her own sexuality back, which is portrayed as a beautiful, liberating act. With this masterpiece, Janet was baptized as one of the first real trailblazers and role models who paved the path for multiple African American female artists in addressing and embracing their sexuality fully. Additionally, the video of If was praised for being a beautiful, uplifting celebration and portrait of interracial lust.

Furthermore, how can we forget when Janet introduced her legendary brother Michael at the 35th Grammy Legend Awards on February 24, 1993? The artist wearing a gorgeous total white look and matching high heels matched Michael’s nestled pearls jacket. Not to mention her iconic, memorable hairstyle: beautiful box braids slicked-back into a high ponytail topped off with a had-band turned ponytail-holder matching the whole outfit. The jewelry was also in harmony with the outfit, as the artist opted for silver medium hoops (which went gorgeously with the hairstyle), a classy silver chained necklace, and of course, a couple of silver rings. Janet stepped on stage with the biggest, brightest, and most gorgeous smile to introduce her brother with one of the most touching speeches ever, beginning with “Before he won 12 Grammy Awards before he dazzled millions of fans around the world with his amazing talent as a performer. Before, he impacted millions of lives with his ongoing humanitarian efforts. Before all of that, he was one other thing, he was my brother”. Then she presented the audience an enlightening book of the instructions on how to become a legend choosing Michael as a guide. But the best part was yet to come. Indeed, Janet expressed her love and gratitude for her brother, and honestly, she had us crying the ugliest tears ever and Michael too “I just want to say one thing, seriously. I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you and how much you’ve inspired me and how proud I am to be your sister. And how much I love you, I do”. It was lovely seeing Janet and Michael sharing a beautiful moment on stage and joking with each other. It was indeed a beautiful, heartwarming moment to witness.

In 1995 Janet’s came in support of her brother Michael in Scream, the lead single contained on the album HIStory. The duet between the younger sister and Michael finds the pair spitting out tightly wound lines railing against tabloids. The industrial beats and clattering percussions encased an incredible one of the most mind-blowing vocal performances ever. The sense of frustration and rage makes it one of the most vivid and enduring songs. Not to mention the iconic video directed by Mark Romanek housing the siblings in their own hyper-modern spaceship complete with an indoor zen garden, remote-controlled art gallery, and futuristic squash court. The iconic video came in black and white, with the spacecraft flying over the earth and Michael standing in his distress capsule. Then the tv screen flickers and Janet closes her eyes in the distress capsule. A deafening noise reverberates through their headphones, and the siblings scream in pain. An anime comes on tv, and Michael breaks the glass of the capsule. With this intro, the legendary duo begins a mesmerizing and extremely arduous choreography in unbelievable perfect sync with each other. Not to mention the iconic outfits consisting of black and silver PVC pants, silver bikini for Janet, and black or grey spiked shibori crop-tops styled by David Bradshaw.

In 1997 came Janet’s follow-up album, The Velvet Rope, representing the product of her artistic revolution. With this album, the artist is summarizing the essence of the three previous works: the self-empowering messages from Control, the skin-deep social consciousness of Rhythm Nation, and the sexual liberation of Janet. Through the mature and experimental new sounds, the artist takes the listeners on a journey through the exploration of her psyche and sexuality: the outcome leads us to a darker path than the previous works released. Indeed, the singer sought to combine the sensuality of the last record to some more socially conscious parts such as domestic abuse, AIDS, and homophobia. Indeed, Vanessa-Mae’s prog-rock violin solo on the title track is setting the tone for profoundly spiritual work. The bass-heavy house track Together Again was an elegy for AIDS victims, which showcased a poignant vocal and lyric. Furthermore, from the raw and extremely vivid words of What About “What about the times you hit my face?../What about the times you said you didn’t fuck her; she only gave you head?” it is quite clear what the song is dealing with. And the anti-homophobia song par-excellence Free Xone shifts the moods and tempos segueing from a Prince’s Love Symbol (if you know what album I am talking about) like jam to an intriguing masterful sample from Archie Bell and the Drells’: Tighten Up. Extremely popular on the radio was Got ‘Til It’s Gone featuring the rapper Q-Tip and a reggae-crafted beat of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. I Get Lonely featuring Blackstreet was another tremendous hit that traversed the dark side of desire. Then Every Time is a melancholic piano-based touching ballad (not going to lie this song had me crying ugly tears!!). The edgy rhythms and he drum-and-and-bass lite in Empty are enhanced by Janet’s delivery racing in a staccato. Then the smooth groovy slippery Go Deep is worthy of some of the best Michael Jackson’s jams (can you notice the resemblance with some of Michael’s songs?). Special is another fabulous piano-based ballad drenched in meaningful lyrics, a true anthem of self-worth-discovery delivering an essential lesson “You see? You can’t run away from your pain. Because wherever you’ll run, there you will be. You have to learn to water your spiritual garden. Then you will be free.”. The idyllic song is abruptly stopped halfway by Janet saying “work in progress,” because after all, we are all a work in progress in our journeys through self-discovery and self-love, right? In the second part of the song, the hidden track “Can’t Be Stopped” is a monumental celebration of being Black where the artist is encouraging other African-Americans to have the same pride “You were born with blood of Kings and Queens and can’t be stopped.” Furthermore, through interludes such as Sad and Memory, the artist explores her deepest emotions and grief. For instance with the few words of the album opener Twisted Elegance “It is my belief that we have the need to feel special/And its this need that can bring out the best in us/Yet the worst in us/This need created the velvet rope” Janet is putting into a small number of words the whole purpose and meaning of this monumental masterpiece. The Velvet Rope is, in fact, a metaphor for a place deep inside. We all strive to protect where all our feelings and thoughts lay. Janet, with this album, is courageously unveiling her Velvet Rope, letting herself firstly and the listener beyond it directly into her sacred “spiritual garden.” Indeed, it is not a mystery that the singer chose the symbol of the Sankofa ( which is also the symbol of the Adinkra tribe in West Africa) to represent the album. Indeed, its paraphrase means “You must learn from your past to move forward,” and this is again the whole concept of The Velvet Rope.

In 2000 the artist appeared in Eddie Murphy’s comedy The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps as professor Denise Gaines.

The next year, on March 12, 2001, the artist was honored with the MTV Icon Award, where the glittery talent roster included Beyonce and Destiny’s Child, Stevie Wonder, Aaliyah, ‘Nsync and Macy Gray, to pay their tribute to the legendary icon. To keep the hype of her new upcoming album release, Janet performed All For You the title track of her next album due on April 24, 2001. The singer ascended the stage in a gorgeous stylish all-white outfit and blew the audience away with her enchanting voice and impeccable choreography. After the performance was over, the artist thanked her dancers and her fans, saying, “It’s such a special night in my Life. An amazing night. Thank you so much. Because of you guys, I’m here. Thank you. I love you.”. Needless to say that we love our beautiful, humble queen more.

Moreover, after the super-personal and provocative Velvet Rope, Janet teamed up again with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to produce the sparkling danceable 70s/80s-influenced All For You. Come On Get Up (one of my favorite tracks in the album) breaks into a frenzy dance upbeat tempo and synth followed by some joyous and impeccable vocals. When We Oooo is an R&B downtempo percussive-based groovy alluring ballad that takes us to another dimension. The R&B ballad China Love is characterized by an extremely neat yet unique instrumental. The sounds of traditional Oriental chimes delve into the past love connections and other new age ambiguities. The glossy, silky slow ballad Love Scene is a sensual jam, perhaps one of Janet’s sexiest song in the album. Trust A Try is the product of a collaboration with hip-hop producer Rockwilder. The monumentally theatrical vocals are accompanied by a reinvention of the opera-genre rearranged into the rock key with electric guitars and cinematic strings. You Ain’t Right is a brutal attack on a gossipy friend characterized by a groovy upbeat tempo and some prominent vocals. The optimistic and hopeful ballad Better Days is entirely in harmony with the whole theme of the album (such an uplifting gem). The complete instrumentation with the guitar solo and striking strings are having us daydreaming of beautiful and distant places. The album is featuring singer Carly Simon in Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You), which is mashed-up with Carly Simon’s song You’re So Vain. Another track containing a sample from America’s Ventura Highway is the upbeat synth-based ballad Someone to Call My Lover, such a well-crafted reinvention of the original song. The extra-slow groovy Truth is a typical Janet’s ballad in the fashion of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get it On. Feels So Right is another sparkling glossy R&B lo-fi track characterized by a prominent beat and some almost whispered sensual, charming vocals. Lastly, the title track, All For You, is a clear nod to the most memorable 70s funk masterpieces. The alluring upbeat and funk-influenced sound is having the listener daydreaming of the dancefloor at the Studio 54.

In 2004 Janet released her 8th album: Damita Jo again produced by the iconic duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The highly anticipated work is another groovy, sensual, erotic, and unapologetic masterpiece, where the artist explores the crucial role of sex in a new relationship. The preponderance to slow-tempo, sensual grooves, sexual imageries, and spoken interludes are now Janet’s trademark. It’s Janet, and she’s unapologetically sexy. The R&B ping-pong rhythms of the title track accompany the sampled bells, the rap inflected scratches, and the mellow vocals perfectly. Sexhibition is alluring the listener with its infectious stuttering beats and the sampled groovy electro R&B chug, along with Janet’s intermittent vocal bubbles. The sensual vocals in Strawberry Bounce are mixed into an effervescent loop over which, if you listen attentively, you can hear elements of Jay-Z’s Can I Get A and Deon Jackson’s Love’s Make the World Go Round. The next track, My Baby, featuring Kanye West, is a regular R&B laidback slow-jam with on-point beats. Spending Time With You is yet another slow R&B groovy jam that sounds exceptionally familiar (of course, if you are familiar with Michael Jackson’s music). Indeed, the prominent beats, the sampled bells, and the mellow and sensual-almost whispered vocals are clearly drawing inspiration from Janet’s older brother Michael. Segueing the slow-tunes mentioned above, All Nite (Don’t Stop) is a pumping electro-funk whose infectious beats allure the listeners to the dancefloor. Yet R&B Junkie keeps the retro 70s funk vibe high with some well-crafted catchy upbeat synths and characteristic inflected vinyl scratching having us daydreaming of the 70s dancefloors. The album shifts into ’60s retro dazzle with I Want You. The squeaky-clean sugary puff sounds in the verve of the best ’60s classics are a clear homage to the glory of Berry Gordy’s Motown Records. With Like You Don’t Love Me, we are taken back to modern R&B, nodding to new soul stylings with its catchy production, the infectious beats, subtle guitars, and keyboard accompanied by the sensual girly crooning. Thinkin’ Bout My Ex is another slow downtempo jam where the artist explores the emotional consequences of heartbreaks. Following Thinkin’ Bout My Ex, the extra-slow Warmth is a swirling erotic jam. Moist is the sequel of Warmth, another down-tempo piano-based track. The next track, Truly, is leaning towards a new soul genre. With its luscious harmonies and silky vocals, the song is such a sublime masterpiece. Slolove is another in-the-verve-of 70s up-tempo jam characterized by meticulous funk beats. Closing the album Just A Little While is an apparent salute to Prince’s Dirty Mind (precisely When You Were Mine) combining effervescent elements of 80s Prince’ inspired guitars and keyboards. The wide variety of music genres and 60’, 70’, and 80s influences on the album are the product of Janet’s revolutionary and eclectic vision showing the artist flexing her musicology muscle.

In 2006 Janet was a 40 years old woman feeling half her age. Her 40th birthday also conveys with her breakthrough as a music icon and legend 1986. Hence, she released her new album, 20 Y.O. The collection is one more time featuring 5 interludes, all of them titled 20. The first interlude is, however, the most relevant one as the singer gives a clear explanation of the purpose and the meaning of this work: “Well, there’s something to... Are you recording?/ There’s something to be said for not saying anything/I’ve talked about racism, spousal abuse, empowering women, children/I’ve talked about a lot of things/What do I talk about this time?/ I’ve covered a lot in my 20 years/, And I’ve uncovered a lot in my 20 years/, But I wanna keep it light/I don’t wanna be serious/I wanna have fun/I know/I don’t know/That’s what I do know”. The first track opening the album boasts a collaboration with rapper Khia. If you listen attentively, you’d also realize that the song is a masterful sample of Rockit by Herbie Hancock. The outcome is an urban R&B synth-based with prominent on-point-beats. The next three songs present some other masterful samples, such as Show Me complemented with Kraftwerk’s Boing Boom Tschak, Get It Out Me with Afrika Bambaataa’s Planet Rock and Do It 2 Me with Brenda Russell’s If Only for One Night. The threads that relate to all these tracks are the playful prominent danceable and sharp beats and grooves. Segueing the steamy rocky-R&B erotic This Body in which the artist adds some sensual vocals that match perfectly the whole theme of the track: the reversal of female objectification. Therefore, the music and the vocals match the intensity of the narrative, and the manic electric guitar replete with steel drum rimshots. After the second interlude, the artist is back again to a classic R&B string-based downtempo mellow jam. Next track Call On Me, boasts another collaboration with rapper Nelly. The song is yet another well-crafted sample with S.O.S Band’s 1983 major hit Tell Me If You Still Care. The sparkle of the sampled bells in Daybreak glides like Escapade and Runaway. The next track, the neo-soul with a touch of retro vibes Enjoy, is a total breath of positivity and fresh air. The ambiance-neo-soul Take Care is a classic silky dazzling ballad in the verve of Come Back To Me. Love 2 Love is yet another sensual slow jam. In the 5th interlude closing the album, the artist states the fugacity of the 20 years, and ultimately she thanks God for the sense of humor. Then she starts joking with one of her old friends “Twenty years/Time flashes by like lightning in the sky/Twenty years of questions come down to ‘Who am I?’/Thank you God for giving us all a sense of humor”… “All right, it’s ten to six/You’ve gotta go, ’cause I’ve gotta go/Oh, now she’s throwin’ me out now that she had her little say/We have some lovely parting gifts for you, Lynette/Thanks for coming down/Haha, oh, she tryin’ to shut me up/ Do do duh do do do..”

The next year we find Janet in Tyler Perry’s movie Why Did I Get Married? The film set in a Rocky Mountain resort follows four couples who meet each year for a therapeutic vacation. The 8 friends converge to discuss their relationships and address their issues. In the movie, we see Janet play the role of Patricia, a well-meaning psychiatrist and writer who helps her friends to solve their marital problems. The sequel of the movie, Why Did I Get Married Too?, came in 2010, but this time it includes a lengthy section set at the Bahamas. The film is one more time an amid portrait of four couples dealing with marital crises. With these movies, Janet is showing one more time her never-ending acting talents, especially in the second one, when she had to bring to Life Patricia’s painful past. It is indeed, that hurtful past with the broad range of emotions that Janet managed to bring to life amazingly well, making the movie even more credible and touching.

In 2011 Janet released her book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself, in which she recounters her struggle with weight and confidence. The book is as well featuring letters from her fans. True You topped the new York time’s bestseller list in the following month. The same year Janet was the first female artist to ever perform at the I.M. Pei glass pyramid at the Louvre Museum, raising contributions for the restoration of artworks.

Nine years later, Janet is back with Unbreakable, a profound and insightful masterpiece. In this album, we find a brand-new Janet with brand new sounds more new-soul oriented. The themes of the collection are as well different from the previous ones. In the title track is the artist expresses her gratitude over a relaxed and longing groove. The intensity increases with the dance uptempo song BURNITUP featuring hip-hop icon Missy Elliot. The mood changes with the probing synths and booming bass in Dammn Baby. The next two tracks, The Great Forever, and Broken Hearts Heal, are a tribute to her brother Michael who passed in June 2009. What is mesmerizing about The Great Forever is that Janet sounds almost like Michael. While Broken Hearts Heal is a poignant uptempo ballad with a retro touch that brings us back to the glorious Michael’s 1978 Off The Wall. The subtle crystal beat is exactly giving the vibe of Workin’ Day and Night. The lyrics as well are giving hints that the song is dedicated to Michael “It was a long, long time ago/But I remember it like yesterday/Amazing times while we were growing/’Round all the brightest stars the world had seen/ We made-up songs to do our chores to/And harmonized while we all did our part/Danced and sang our way through most anything/Always felt safe in each others’ love/It was in summer that you left me/The fall and winter never felt so cold/, And Lord knows words can never express it/Life feels so empty I miss you much/Painful tears like never before/We can’t laugh together till we cry/But our love’s ain’t no material thing/ Inshaallah, see you in the next life”. The social-message-song Shoulda Known Better rides on an electro-dance sound and synths to reach euphoria, which is perfectly aligned with the hopeful message of revolution and social change. With After You Fall, Janet lets the listener into her deep thoughts, showing her fragility. The neat and simple arrangement and the gorgeous vocals are flawlessly completing the whole theme and purpose of the song, putting the vulnerability and the grief into sound. The sparkling infectious electro-disco Night is a clear nod to sturdy Minneapolis funk, more precisely Prince’s Sexy Dance (Prince self-titled album 1978). Segueing the effervescent rhythms of Night, No Sleeep is a more relaxed hypnotic downtempo jam. Then Dream Maker/Euphoria kicks in with a Michael-like cry hitting high notes, then settling into a luscious psychedelic groove. 2 Be Loved and Take Me Away are two classic fresh danceable pop songs. The dark nuanced Promise sets the tone for the touching performance of Lessons Learned, where one more time, the singer lets the listener into her deepest fragilities. The dark-tinged new soul Black Eagle keeps the moods sober, unraveling a poignant, beautiful message. The gospel-flavored Gon B’ Alright, is a prominent link to the past in the verve of Sly and The Family Stone and Larry Graham Central Station with a touch of Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Starting Something.

After the release of Unbreakable, Janet began The State Of The World Tour, which was launched in 2017. The title of the tour set the record straight on the themes addressed during the shows. Indeed, some testimonies from some lucky fans who attended the concerts recall the opening video making perfectly clear the message Janet wanted to deliver. A blood-red clip that flashed the names of unarmed black men shot and killed by police, denouncing white supremacy and ending in a chant of “We Want Justice.” Subsequentially, a giant portrait of the singer filled the screen, her image covered by the slogans “We will not be silent. LGBTQ rights. Black Lives Matter. Immigrants are welcome. Liberty and Justice for all”. Through the concert, the artist highlighted the importance of information with the lyrics from Rhythm Nation “information keeps us strong” and “if you want to be in control you gotta get yourself in the know.” The show featured as well lighter topics, and Janet did not spare herself some slick choreographers.

And how can we possibly forget Janet’s ICONIC performance and INSPIRING speech while accepting the Billboard Icon Award in 2018? The artist took the stage, offering the audience one of the fiercest and most impeccable performances ever of Nasty meshed up with When We Ooo (at the end of the song) and Throb. The singer also sought inclusivity not just with words; indeed, the performance featured a collective of dancers of all sizes, colors, and shapes. Eventually, Janet, introduced by Bruno Mars, graced the audience with an incredibly inspiring and beautiful acceptance speech: “I am deeply humbled and grateful for this award. I believe that for all the challenges, for all our challenges, we live at a glorious moment in history. It’s a moment when at long last, women have made it clear that we will no longer be controlled, manipulated, or abused. I stand with those women and with those men equally outraged by discrimination who support us in heart and mind. This is also a moment when our public discourse is loud and harsh.”. What a beautiful, stunning, inspiring queen!!

Furthermore, this summer 2020, the artist was supposed to start her Black Diamond world tour, but unfortunately, it has been postponed.

With this said, through her extraordinary career, Janet has proved so much and has achieved so much. Her unbelievable work ethic and talent have brought her to become one of the best artists on earth, and this is a fact. Her inspiring music celebrating women, especially African American women, impeccable choreographies, the iconic music videos celebrating, and uplifting black people have paved the path for many artists. With her vast contribution not just in the music business, Janet has become a legendary icon to many women and men. All hail to the queen.

Thank you for your attention💜 G.✨

159 notes · View notes

bangwoolofbangtan · 4 years

Text

Thank You, Kim Namjoon, for Inventing Suits

Alexa, play “Whatta Man."

What did we do in a previous life to earn the privilege of living in the same timeline as Kim Namjoon?

If my editor would let me, I could easily write 50,000 words about my ultimate bias, the leader of global pop supergroup BTS, Kim Namjoon. While I wasn’t granted quite that high of a word count, I have been given permission to gush over the idol from Ilsan-gu for his birthday.

Kim Namjoon, also known by his stage name, RM, is many things. He’s an incredibly talented composer and lyricist, equally gifted at creating ballads that will wreck you with their soul-baring loneliness and adrenaline-charged bangers that are so deftly written and velvet-voice performed that you don’t even realize he’s rapping about socio-economic inequality. He’s an environmentalist, a money-where-his-mouth is champion of justice, a humanitarian who has spoken at the United Nations and has been awarded the Hwagwan Order of Cultural Merit, a museum-hopping art lover, and a brilliant orator who can switch from one of multiple languages he speaks fluently with the ease of a crab skittering across a beach.

As if that list of spectacular attributes weren’t enough for one person to embody, he’s also a genetically blessed individual who can wear the hell out of a suit. Broad-shouldered and armed with a dimple-bracketed smile that (I suspect) could ruin your life if aimed directly at you, RM is so dashing in a suit that I’m pretty sure he invented them. And so, for my birthday tribute to my bias, here is a love letter to my favorite natty Namjoon moments.

The 2019 Grammys Appearance

When BTS hit the red carpet for their very first Grammys in 2019, you could practically hear the collective gasp from ARMY around the world. Why? Four devastating words: RM. In. A. Tux.

With his silver hair shining like the moon(child), he eschewed the traditional bow tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his crisply starched shirt as if to remind us all that, yes: he’s still a crushingly sexy idol.

BTS ended up presenting the award for Best R&B Album that year (the first K-pop group to ever present a Grammy in the awards’ 60+ year history, by the way) and Namjoon slid in a subtle flex while on stage, promising, “we’ll be back,” making ARMY’s hearts flutter at the possibility. He made good on that promise and Bangtan returned in 2020 to perform part of a medley of Old Town Road remixes with Lil Nas X.

2021 Grammys: Your move. I’d like to humbly request a nomination for Map of the Soul: 7 and a full, BTS-only stage performance.

The Black Swan Music Video

No one was ready for Namjoon in "Black Swan."

The music video, which has more beautiful cinematography than most Oscar-winning films, is a gorgeous visual twin to an equally sublime song. It also blessed us with three-and-a-half minutes of RM smoldering in not one, but two suits! That jawline, that fading purple hair, that devastating gaze — I’ll never recover.

Speaking at the United Nations in 2018

One of RM’s most iconic suit moments didn’t happen on stage performing, but instead at the UN.

Yes, that UN.

BTS visited the United Nations in partnership with UNICEF’s End Violence campaign in 2018, and Namjoon stood front and center delivering a beautifully vulnerable speech (while looking completely dashing, of course). Listening to the full speech is a shortcut to turning any bad day into a good one. It’s filled with RM’s trademark sincerity and empathy, qualities that are so nakedly endearing it’s hard not to fall in love: “Today, I am who I am, with all of my faults and my mistakes. Tomorrow, I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that'll be me too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was, and for who I hope to become.”

Performing at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards

In 2020, we now refer to Kim Namjoon as a "Billboard Hot 100 Chart #1 singer" (for 2 weeks in a row!).

Back in 2019, though, BTS hit the Billboard stage to perform “Boy With Luv” with Halsey, and my eyes turned into little cartoon hearts when Namjoon appeared in a pastel suit. The song is forever a bop — the musical version of a dose of serotonin — and the added visual of RM hitting that choreo while looking that suave is pure heaven.

Performing at Jingle Ball in 2019

RM performed in California for the annual Jingle Ball in a three piece white tuxedo looking fresher than the first snowfall of winter. While his performance alone is crush-worthy, the thing that stays in my heart from that day was a brief, behind the scenes moment. As J-Hope nervously fretted backstage about remembering his English lines on the teleprompter-less stage, Namjoon assured him, "I'll cover for you if you mess up. Don't worry." Nothing but respect for my president!

MC-ing at KCON in 2016

RM became the sexiest thing to ever happen to Newark, N.J. when BTS headlined KCON in 2016. That fluffy blonde hair, the cooly casual blazer, the general boyfriend aesthetic vibe — come on! He’s adorable!

Oh, and those glasses. Namjoon in glasses just hits differently.

©instyle.com

#bts #kim namjoon #Namjoon #knj #RM #namjoon's birthday #instyle #black swan #un speech #jingle ball #kcon #grammys #Billboard music awards

26 notes · View notes

thekotaroo · 3 years

Text

Profiles of Pride: June 16th! 🏳️‍🌈Peppermint🏳️‍🌈

Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint, is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist from New York City. She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. In 2018 Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role. She does not use her birth name, and asks that publications not deadname her.

Peppermint started performing as a child in youth theatre, playing roles at Opera Delaware, Delaware Children's Theatre, and The Brandywiners Community Theatre. She continued performing at Wilmington High School where she was also on the cheerleading team.

Peppermint moved to New York City to study musical theatre at AMDA. While in college she got a job at the nightclub Tunnel's Kurfew parties, ultimately becoming a fixture in New York City nightlife. She started recording music in 2005 for Jonny McGovern's mixtape Jonny McGovern Presents: This is NYC, Bitch! The East Village Mixtape. She contributed the song "Servin' It Up", which was produced by Adam Joseph. The song was later released as Peppermint's debut single in 2006.

Peppermint was featured in the web series Queens of Drag: NYC by gay.com in 2010. The series featured fellow New York drag queens Bianca Del Rio, Dallas DuBois, Hedda Lettuce, Lady Bunny, Mimi Imfurst, and Sherry Vine. She also appeared as a drag-version of Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model Cycle 14, Episode 5: "Smile and Pose" introducing a drag-theme runway challenge at Lucky Chengs in New York City.

Peppermint talked about being trans publicly for the first time on an episode of The Daily Show called "The Trans Panic Epidemic" in April 2016.

On February 2, 2017, Peppermint was announced as one of the fourteen contestants on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Though other transgender women have competed on RuPaul's Drag Race, she was the first to have come out prior to the show airing, having come out in 2012.

She won the Roast Challenge in episode 8. She placed in the bottom two in two challenges, lip-synching to Madonna's "Music" and the Village People's "Macho Man", winning both. Her performances earned her the favorable nickname "Lip Sync Assassin". Ultimately, she finished in second place after winner Sasha Velour, after they both lip-synced to Whitney Houston's "It's Not Right but It's Okay".

Peppermint's debut studio album Hardcore Glamour was self-released in 2009 and preceded by the singles "Servin' It Up" and "Thought Ya Knew". In 2011, Sherry Vine and Peppermint released a parody of the Lady Gaga and Beyoncé song "Telephone" titled "Make Me Moan". Following the viral success of the music video, Peppermint later released other parody songs, including a parody of Azealia Banks' song "212", titled "21/12". Her song "If I Steal Your Boyfriend" was used in the 2011 film Eating Out 5: The Open Weekend.

On April 3, 2017, Peppermint released a six-track EP of remixes of various songs she had released up to that point, including the single "Dolla in My Titty". Her second studio album Black Pepper was released in June of the same year. A three-song EP with producer Cazwell called Blend was released in 2018. In 2019, Peppermint appeared on fellow Drag Race alum Trinity The Tuck's single "I Call Shade", which charted at number 13 on the Billboard Comedy Digital Tracks chart.

On February 11, 2020, it was announced that Peppermint was working on a new album, and the lead single "What You're Looking For" was released on February 14, 2020. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight on August 28, 2020, Peppermint stated that the album would in fact be a trilogy of EPs, and that a full studio album was previously planned for a May 2020 release, but was delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The first of these EPs, A Girl Like Me: Letters to My Lovers, will be released on October 16, 2020, with the lead single "Best Sex" being released on October 2. Of the project, she said "it really does focus on my life -- who I am as a trans woman -- and everything that's happening right now [with] Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter and a lot of the issues that we are dealing with socially." She also confirmed that the project would feature collaborations with Laith Ashley, Jerome Bell, Daniel Shevlin of Well-Strung, Matt Katz-Bohen of Blondie, Corey Tut and Adam Joseph.

The EP garnered Peppermint a nomination for Outstanding Music Artist at the 2021 GLAAD Media Awards.

Peppermint made her Broadway debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels using the songs of The Go-Go's. The plot of the show is somewhat based on The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia written by Sir Philip Sidney in the 16th century. The show began previews in June 2018 and officially opened July 2018, at the Hudson Theatre; playing the role of Pythio, Peppermint became the first trans woman to originate a principal role on Broadway.

Peppermint has had appearances on Pose and Saturday Night Live, and in October 2019 played the role of Pastor Olivia, "the [transgender] leader of an LGBTQ-friendly congregation", in a two-episode arc of God Friended Me.

From 2019-2020, she co-hosted It's a Mess podcast with Cazwell.

Peppermint is a co-founder of Black Queer Town Hall along with Bob The Drag Queen. The inaugural event featured speakers such as Laverne Cox and Angela Davis and raised over $270,000 for The Okra Project.

On June 2, 2021, Peppermint was announced as a cast member of OUTtv's Call Me Mother, where her and fellow "Drag Mothers" Crystal and Barbada adopt and mentor up-and-coming drag talent over an 8-week journey as they compete to win the title of “First Child Of Drag” and a $50,000 prize package. In the show, Peppermint will be representing the House of Dulcet.

#Peppermint #Miss Peppermint #Pride #June Pride #Pride Month #June 16th #LGBTQIA+#LGBTQIA+ Pride

2 notes · View notes

alwaysdowntohidewithyou · 4 years

Text

Florence Welch Interview

Transcript of Florence Welch’s interview with John Seabrook for the New Yorker Festival.

October 11th, 2019.

New York, NY.

Edited for clarity.

John Seabrook: I’m going to properly introduce you because I think a woman this accomplished needs a proper introduction. For those of you who read the New Yorker this week, let me assure you that I wrote this myself, no machine helping me. In ten years as a band, Florence and the Machine have released four chart topping, award winning studio albums. Lungs, 2009, Ceremonials, 2011, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, 2015, and High as Hope last year. These many-layered works weave together a range of different styles, from the bands punky first single “Kiss With a Fist,” to the rich choral and percussive tapestries of songs like “Shake It Out,” to Neo-Soul such as “Where Is the Love” (sic), and to the startlingly honest lyrics of “Hunger.” Heartbreak and loneliness rarely feel as delightful and inviting as in a Florence Welch song. The music performs the very rare trick of remaining true to its indie roots while at the same time, sounding expansive and monumental. While British listeners sometimes look to Kate Bush as a musical antecedent, here in New York, we are maybe more inclined to think of Patti Smith, in her path-finding career as a poet who found a way to address the big issues of literature, death, love loneliness, and beauty in the idiom popular song. And we are especially inclined to think of you as following Patti tonight because you are literally sitting in the seat that Patti was warming only an hour ago.

The band has also released two live albums that established themselves as major festival headliners, with a sound big enough to fill the green fields of Glastonbury and deserts of Coachella—where the artist broke her foot performing in 2015. With lyrics intimate enough to touch each individual heart in the crowd of 100,000, Florence lent her extraordinary vocal talents to Calvin Harris’ “Sweet Nothing,” and her eye for clothes and visual imagery to the band’s 29 music videos. She has also recorded several outstanding covers including “Stand By Me,” “Tiny Dancer,” and Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” And finally, and most relevant to the discussion tonight, Florence is the author of this book, “Useless Magic,” which is a 2018 collection of her lyrics, poems, journal entries, and sketches, which will serve as our primary text for this evening. Here ends the introduction.

Florence Welch: (Laughs) Thank you so much for having me. Oh, British people find it really hard to hear the things that they’ve done.

J: I know, you’re so modest. It’s hard to hear all that.

F: Everyone’s cheering and I’m like, “Oh no.” This is my nightmare.

J: Let’s take a deep breath and not talk about your accomplishments any more.

F: Okay, good. That’s done, that’s done. (Laughs)

J: Let’s talk about—you’re on a bit of a hiatus at the present from touring. Can we start there? Talk about how that happened, where that came from.

F: Yeah, of course. Well, I definitely wanted to do the New Yorker, because I love the New Yorker so much. So, this was the last thing that I said yes to. I’m very glad I did, you guys are very loud! Yeah, the last—well, I’ve been touring, oh my gosh, I’ve been touring since I was twenty-one? And it is kind of a cycle of two years of—actually we did not stop touring between Lungs and Ceremonials, because we booked a U2 tour somewhere in the middle when we were supposed to be making the next record, and they were like, “You’ve got to do this. This is pretty big.” Like, oh. Okay. And you know, that was a big thing that helped get us going in America. But I was trying to make Ceremonials as well, so yeah, Lungs and Ceremonials was just sort of one—ugh, I don’t know how long that was. Like five years of touring?

And then I had a break. And it was also kind of a breakdown (laughs). Which is what happens when you don’t stop touring for five years. But actually, I don’t know. I don’t think that was because of the touring, I think it was then when the touring stopped, all the structures that I’d been using...with touring you’re kind of very taken care of, so you can be quite a high functioning fuck-up, which is what I was. Very high functioning, but so self-destructive and with such a lack of any will to take care of myself. People take care of you on tour. Like, if you show up and do the show, people get you dressed, and you ripped all your clothes, and they’ll carry you to a plane. The thing is that I never messed up any shows, which was weird. Like I would mess up hotel rooms, and my whole life, and my relationships, and blah blah blah. But never the shows, so, I don’t know what that was about (laughs).

Then I went back on tour for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, after my break slash breakdown, and that was the first tour that I’d done sober and...yeah, it was amazing. The whole process of that record and kind of how heartbroken I was not just over a relationship, but also the breakdown of my relationship with partying and how those things that I thought defined me didn’t work anymore.

And this person really didn’t want to go out with me. Which now, in hindsight, I really don’t blame them for because I don’t know if you want to date someone who shows up at your house with a bottle of vodka shouting, “Why will you not go out with me?” And they’re like, “Because of this. All of this.” And I’m like, “I don’t understand!” Now I kind of really respect them for that. Like, “Oh wow, ‘cause like you had a sense of self, and you had self-respect, I get it!” But yeah, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, was a huge healing process, and when I came to the end of it, I did this thing where I dove straight into making High as Hope. I think I’m a person who works in extremes, so again, I didn’t stop working for...I just didn’t stop. I don’t know how to relax. I think that’s probably clear, so I started making High as Hope immediately and that meant that the next tour came around really fast. Although I would say that these shows that I’ve just done have been my favorite I’ve ever done, I loved them.

J: Where were they?

F: Well, all over the world. They were in loads of different places. But it was again, like a year and a half of travel and I’m not a natural traveler. Like I’m not—

J: You don’t like flying I think? F: Oh my god, I’m so scared of flying. It’s the worst! I had hypnotism on it and it wore off (laughs). Nobody told me that hypnotism wears off! Or I just think my anxiety is so powerful that it destroyed the hypnotism. It like, defeated it. I remember reading that the lead singer of The Liars is also really afraid of flying. I think it could be a lead singer thing as well, ‘cause you think that you are the center of the universe and if something really dramatic and catastrophic is going to happen, it should happen to you. So I think there’s a level of ego involved with the fear of flying that I’m hoping in time, I will dismantle.

I find travel in itself, and being away—especially without kind of the crutch of, you know, partying—I get lonely and it’s hard. Although I love the shows and performing, it’s such a big part of me, I...after this tour, I was just worn out by the travel. I was like, I just need to not get on planes for awhile, and I really need to just stay in one place, and try and be like, a human, because although performing runs in my veins, touring is so monotonous, and it starts to feel like you’re losing your mind—and I don’t have much left to lose. So I need it.

J: And there really isn’t any better way to do it probably, right?

F: I keep wondering. I was like, to my manager, “I’m thirty-three, I can’t sleep on a bus anymore!” She’s like, “This is how it is.” You know, I keep trying to think of ways to make it more holistic, but we’ve tried everything and there’s just no getting around the travel because people want to see you, and I’m so lucky to have the fan base in so many places that I do, and I appreciate people and I want to see them. But it means you’re going to have to sleep on a moving vehicle. Which is fucking weird (laughs). When you’re not passed out drunk it’s weird.

J: It’s not like, you curl up in your bunk and the bus takes off and you wake up in the next place the next morning?

F: I don’t know, my brain is so juttery anyway, like sleeping on something that is juttery is a nightmare for me. When I’m trying to sleep on a bus, I’m already someone who tends to get really stuck in their head, and my head is a place that rattles around, so to be in the actual physical representation of that every night, is like a nightmare. I’ve always had a hard time sleeping since I was a kid, and I’m a really light sleeper, always kind of dreaming. I don’t know if I ever get that deep, so yeah. Some things are easier when you can just pass out drunk.

J: Right. We’ll get to that part. Let’s jump back to the beginning of your career. We’re talking about a decade here, so it’s really not a great deal of time but you hit the ground running. I thought we would sort of go through your life by talking about a few songs and your professional life. We’re gonna start with “Dog Days Are Over,” which isn’t the first single I think from the album. I think—

F: “Kiss With a Fist,” yeah.

J: In a way, this is the second single, but perhaps ultimately the bigger hit from the album. I’m not sure, but I feel like this is a song where you first discovered your sound? Or at least for me, I feel like this is where I first heard your sound. Maybe for a lot of us. So I wondered if you could talk about how this song happened, and the lyrics are up here. We can talk about a few of those too. But talk a little, generally, about where this song came from, and how it fit into what work you’d been doing at the time.

F: Ehm, what was I doing? I think I was still at art college, and I—or maybe I’d dropped out?

J: You were at Camberwell College of the Arts, for one year.

F: I wasn’t a very committed art student. I made a lot of installations. I already loved patterns and fabrics and fake flowers and I’d make these big installations, and then kind of sleep in them, and pretend it was an art piece—I was just really hungover. Like, “It’s art! It’s definitely art. Don’t touch it!” I was making flyers for the first Florence and the Machine shows using the photocopier. So I’m sorry for the use of supplies and then not handing anything in.

I’d met Isa of “Isa Machine” fame. She is amazing and we kind of grew up together. She used to babysit my cousin, and then we kind of lost touch. So in South London, for awhile there was a big art collective that squatted the buildings that I lived really near, so when I was a teenager I used to break into all the squat parties, and they would bring all these christmas trees, and everyone would be wearing like, bin bags and crazy outfits, and I was like, “Oh I found them! I found my people!” I was at one of those parties and Isa was there. She was the DJ. She called herself “Laydee Isa,” but it had like seven E’s and seven Z’s. She was like “Oh, I used to babysit your cousin!” And I was like, “Heeey!” I was kind of out of it, I think. She said she had a studio, and that I should come down and make a song.

At the time, there were so many boys in bands. It was around that time of The Libertines, and The White Stripes, and The Strokes—it was a very band oriented time. So I had been writing some songs but because everything was on guitar, and I didn’t know how to play guitar, I just assumed that I would be a singer in someone else’s band, or I’d be a front-woman. I think there was a kind of internalized self-doubt as well. I know I’m not a trained musician. I didn’t have the attention span to sit and learn the piano, or the focus. I was good at singing. I think my attention span doesn’t work...I was like, “I’m already good at this thing.” I could never focus enough to properly learn, which I really regret, actually. I really regret that. So I didn’t have the sort of—I didn’t have the idea that I could make my own band basically. I thought I would be a front-person for someone else’s, but then I started writing songs, and there were so many guitarists about, and that’s how I wrote “Kiss With a Fist.”

They were kind of little gothic fairytales. There’s so much guilt and drama involved—I don’t know what I was. It was kind of like, I think I was already trying to process...I just think from an early age, I felt so much shame, and I don’t really know why. I don’t know where that came from. I think those songs were a way of trying to process what I felt was wrong about me, and through these metaphors—like, this idea that you’d done something terrible, but a bird has seen you do it. So you get the bird, and kill the bird and you eat it so that it can’t tell anybody what you did. I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. But then, you go to sleep, and you’re like, “It’s fine, I got the guy, I’m good.” But when you wake up, you try to speak, and all that comes out of your mouth is the bird singing what you did, and that’s the only thing you can say—which is so dark for a nineteen year old. I think I was just snogging people I wasn’t supposed to or something. But even before, I always felt sort of sensitive as a kid, and I don’t know. I felt like other people had a ticket to kind of get through life that I didn’t know. And how did you get that thing? And everyone seems to have a map, and I don’t. I think these songs were a way of trying to express through these little metaphors how it felt. I was already really obsessed with death in the way that you are as a teenager, and kind of imagining my own funeral all the time. I put these songs with guitars, ‘cause that’s what was around, so that would be like “Birdsong,” in which I wrote with Dev Hynes of Blood Orange. ‘Cause there were so many musicians about—like Kid Harpoon was around, Dev was playing with the Test Icicles at the time, and you could kind of play with anyone. Me and Dev were just sitting in the top room of a pub, and we kind of came up with that song just before we did a show together. That’s kind of how I would make the songs with whoever was around. Isa was sort of the first person who gave me the instrument, who was like, “Why don’t you just try and do something on this?” We called it the “shit keyboard,” it cost like 100 pounds, it was a Yamaha. It burned in a fire!

J: Before or after you used it?

F: After! It burned in a fire. She was the first person who—I think as well because she was another young woman, I think, as a female songwriter...I don’t know if this comes from, like—I had to kind of unlearn deference. I had to really stop deferring. That’s something that’s quite hard, especially when most of the people I was writing with were male. I was instinctively deferring because I was a young woman. I think with Isa, we were kind of the same age, and we kind of bossed each other around! There wasn’t any sort of power imbalance or anything. So she handed me this keyboard and she’s like, “Just do what you want.” The first song that I actually wrote, which you can tell because it’s just an ascending scale, was “Between Two Lungs,” and that was kind of the first thing that sort of felt like it really came truly from me. I was so excited by that, then that the next song we wrote was “Dog Days.” That was like, the first two. They’re not the most complicated chords, but because I never fucking played anything, I thought they were amazing! I was just like, “I’m making this sound? Can you hear this?” Like yeah, it’s fucking piano. It makes that sound for everybody. But because I was the one getting to put them in order and stuff, I just thought like, “This sounds incredible.” She only had like a little...it was in Crystal Palace, which is in South London, we didn’t really have any equipment. We stole drums from someone. The sound of the drums—which I now realize is the same beat as “People Have the Power” (Claps hands to “Dog Days'' percussive rhythm). Which is what we were doing in Patti’s show. We used pens and stuff, and it was kind of, the feeling of that song just came from a lot of enthusiasm, but not really any skill or equipment. So, that’s how it came about.

J: Can I ask you a little bit about the words in the song? “Happiness hit her like a train on a track,” and then later, “happiness hits her like a bullet in the back.” Is it happiness that’s chasing her here? Because it sounds like a celebratory song. Like, the dog days are over and now we’re gonna have some fun! But then it seems like happiness is the thing that’s after her.

F: Well it kind of always was in my mind because I would have such extreme feelings of joy but then I would end up staying out for like three days, so the happiness would always come back down to just terror and panic. I also think that my joy and excitement switch is very close to my panic switch, and I sometimes I don’t know which one is going to go. I think somehow I also equated—I was very mistrustful of happiness, and I think already by the time I was writing the song, I was a very messy person. Not like, untidy, but kind of messy emotionally. I think I’d already done quite a lot of damage to myself and others by that time. We start young in England. By the time I wrote this song, I think I was already, like...yeah, happiness hit her, like a bullet in the back, struck from a great height, by someone who should’ve known better than that. It was sort of like, I didn’t deserve this. You should know better, and I also knew I wanted to be a singer and a performer, and there is this sense that you’ve been struck from a great height, but you are the fucking wrong person (laughs).

J: Huh… okay (laughs). Let’s go from there into writing songs versus writing poetry, because the book is mainly songs, but actually there are poems in the back, and the preface has this interesting line, which I will read. “The act of singing gives the most mundane words and phrases reverence and glory, you can make a shrine out of anything.” I was just wondering, are there certain poems that don’t become songs, and why? Is there something that makes it a song, and something that makes it a poem?

F: I think the first things that I ever started writing when I was a kid was poetry. I mean it wasn’t good, but when I was seven or eight, I was writing poetry. Then I think when I started to think about actually writing my own poetry—like High as Hope is actually an album formed out of poems to begin with. It was a friend of mine called Robert Montgomery who was...he’s a poet, but also a visual artist, and he takes his poems and he turns them into big art pieces with neon lights, and he had said to me, “I think you’re a poet, and I think you should try and write some poetry.” So with that encouragement, I was like, “Okay, okay. I’ll try.” The first thing that I wrote, that wasn’t consciously in mind as a song, but it was a poem, was just a list of things that I thought I couldn’t put into a song.

J: That’s in here! That’s very interesting.

F: Yeah, it’s about getting kicked out of Topshop for drinking Rosé in the changing rooms. I was like, “I don’t know. It doesn’t sing well. So I guess it’s going here.”

J: But you also said in this poem that is not a song, “I’m not sure I can put these things into a song, these muddy trinkets, not beautiful enough. Too bloody and ragged. I always felt the songs should transcend the swamp.” F: Yeah, I think there was a way that I could use metaphor and my imagination to kind of beautify the things that had happened to me, or that I’d done, and in a way kind of own them. Like, when I talk about giving things reverence, I never wanted to actually have the songs written down because I thought that if you saw how sometimes ordinary some of the words are—like the word “kitchen sink” is in “Dog Days,” but when you’re singing something you’re turning it into a hymn almost. You’re giving it a spiritual quality, so I was worried that if the songs were written down, they would maybe lose that. So when I was writing, and I know it’s a song, I feel as if there’s a character or something that’s coming through me that’s bigger than me, and has very big ideas. It’s quite clear on things, kind of understands the bigger questions and I just have to let it happen. So when I was writing poetry, it was a different voice, and it felt like it was almost an even more personal voice because these things were just going to stay on the page. They weren’t going to be viewed with the grandeur of song. They were just going to live there, and who is that person? The drunk Topshop person?

J: You even talked about that—“This new voice, this me voice, is it conversational? Confessional?” Actually there is a poem (New York Poem (for Polly)) I put up here. This is one of the poems from the book. It’s a beautiful poem and it also has your parents and New York in it. So I thought it would give us a jumping off point for your parents. Your mother and father both appear in several of your songs, and have been part of your life. Your mother is a renaissance scholar...

F: Yeah, she is. She’s very smart.

J: And what’s her focus? What’s her specialty?

F: Her focus is the renaissance, above all else. I think even in our childhood her focus was definitely the renaissance (laughs). She’s written four or five books on renaissance studies. It’s funny, she’s always having...she’s always horrified by my exquisitiveness (sic), and how much I love clothes, and bags. But I’m like, “You write books on renaissance shopping, and when we go to museums, I have to stop you from touching things. You love stuff too! Just stuff in the past.” So she’s very interested in what people wore, and textiles, and how people shopped, so she’s read a lot of books about that. And I love shopping too, mom!

J: Didn’t she say to you, when you said you could remember every single outfit you wore, “What a horrible waste of a brain?”

F: (Laughs). I was like, “Oh, you know how I remember things mom? I remember things by what outfit I wore.” She went, “Oh what a waste of your brain.” I was dyslexic as a kid, and she’s worked so hard to get into the upper echelons of academia, and she just keeps getting more and more titles that I can’t even remember now.

J: She’s a provost.

F: Oh, she’s a provost! She’s a provost, yeah, but it just keeps going up. So I don’t know—

J: Dean?

F: No, she’s been that, yup. But I think it’s higher now.

J: So what’s next, chancellor?

F: I think that’s next! But she’s such an impressive person; she would tell me that when I was a baby she was trying to finish papers, or finish books, and she would rest me on a photocopier—it seems like me and my mum both love photocopiers. She just kept working, but I think...none of her children went into academia, and she’s a huge advocate for higher education. That was something that...I was really dyslexic when I was in school, and I couldn’t spell and I struggled at school. I mean, I still don’t think I can do my times tables. Numbers is like a foreign language to me. She’s very staunch; she’s so within herself. She’s incredibly strong, she’s been through so much. I always felt like I was unacademic, emotional, and creative, and sometimes she would look at me as if she had given birth to an octopus. Like, “What is this thing?” I always really looked up to her though, for her drive and her work ethic, and how much she...we’re both very hard workers, I think. I definitely got that from her. And obviously her love of the renaissance has affected me (laughs).

J: And your father comes from, well a journalism family, right? His father was the editor of The Spectator?

F: He was the editor of The Telegraph. I think maybe and The Spectator. I think maybe both, yeah.

J: Okay. And he was a frustrated writer? Or a wishy was-writer, became an advertising guy?

F: Yeah, I think my father is incredibly charming and charismatic and he should have been a performer, really. He is a sort of poet as well, and he was always so imaginative, and would tell me stories when I was a kid that he would then...he was like, “I’m writing a book now!” He moved to Russia when I was fourteen to write a Russian crime novel that my mother tries to pin all my therapy on. Like, I think there’s other stuff. Like not just Dad moving to Russia to write a spy novel, I think there’s other things at play.

J: Did that in fact have a big effect on you?

F: I don’t think it was just that (laughs). I think she’s deflecting slightly. He’s a really creative person and actually he was much more encouraging of me going into the arts. My mother was so desperate for me to go to university. She just didn’t see music. She saw music as a dangerous career, it wasn’t a “forever” career, she was worried I was going to get hurt. She was like, “Get a degree, get some stability, and then do your music thing.” She would, every time I got paid, be like, “It’s not forever money. Put that away.”

But my father, he was always—I mean they’re divorced, so they were like two sides of, you know—they had very different opinions about lots of things. So they didn’t work together. He’s a true bohemian at heart, and he tour-managed us for our whole tour that we did with MGMT around Europe, and England. He did it in his camper-van! MGMT offered us this tour, and it was the first tour we’d ever got. It was a huge break for us actually. We didn’t have any money, and we couldn’t afford a tour bus, so my dad took his sundance camper-van, and we drove all the way around Europe! I mean, MGMT are out there, but I think they thought we were really crazy. So we would just show up there, pots and pans clanking, like, “We’re here!” The first show we did—I mean, I did the show as an early, pre-Lungs era shows where I’d be wearing one of Rob’s t-shirts, drunk and screaming and that was the show. It was excellent (laughs). Then I fell off some speaker stacks. We all had to share a dressing room, as well. That was really cute. Then MGMT came off stage after that show, and they all came off stage, and they’re all like, “Oh my god. The ghost Andy Worhol was in the fucking audience.” Then my dad walked in.

J: Oh, that was your dad? F: It was my dad! Because he had this grey hair, and he kind of dressed as an Andy Worhol, and was right up front. I was like, “Yeah, this is my father, who is managing us.” Then I moved from the tour bus, and then I brought my girlfriend on tour with me. I was like, “Yeah, just come with us!” We got banned from MGMT’s tour bus for being a bad influence (laughs). Which, if you know MGMT, that’s a big achievement.

J: Yeah, that’s a big achievement. Congratulations! Well that gets me into the next subject, which is drinking. Which we both have in common.

F: (Laughs) J: So after the success of Lungs, you were thrown into the world of success and fashion. In particular, you became a darling of fashion. You did the costume ball—anyway, when you read your interviews from that time, you bragfully...in interviews you’re falling apart! You’re drinking at your hotel—you set your hotel room at the Bowery hotel on fire? But the bar bill was more than the hotel damage cost!

F: Yeah, it is (laughs).

J: Anyway, I guess it’s not surprising that with this life came drinking, but it got to a point where it was not manageable.

F: Yeah, I remember waking up and I mean, when you wake up and there’s a huge flame mark on the side of your room, but you’ve been asleep in that room, and you’ve got to figure out where it came from, you’re like, “Was there a fire? And I slept through it? Dope.” Like that is really...I called my publicist at the time, and was like, “Something’s happened!” He was like, “Oh my god, yes, ‘cause there’s a huge bill on my credit card.” I was like, “I think it was the fire.” That was the bar tab. The fire was cheaper than the bar tab.

It was hard. I’ve grown up in South London, and that whole scene is like punk on a pirate ship, it’s sort of pirate folk, and everyone fends for themselves, and the whole gig is like an extended drinking game where you just have to play in the middle. And the game carries on. It was just like an interlude. That is the scene that I grew up in, and I was kind of insecure, I think, about singing pop music.

J: In your family? F: Just in general, and I kind of thought as a way to subvert that, I would just party the hardest. I think as it was a very kind of male dominated scene—like the indie scene that I came up in—it was also a way to kind of outdo everyone. I was very proud of the fact that I could drink as much—and more—than all of the guys. I was the only woman on the first NME tour, and we were opening and they were fucking terrified of me. I think I came into the second show with a black eye, dressed as a bat, jumping off things. I think that’s kind of what I understood, that that was rock and roll, and if you couldn’t go the hardest, you were letting rock and roll down. You were letting these legendary people down.

I was someone who struggled with hangovers, just because I could go...I had insane endurance, but also people would come up to me who I thought were the craziest drinkers and drug-takers I’d ever met, and be like, “Woah. You go harder than anyone I’ve ever met!” I was like, “Oh my god.” But I’ve always had a lot of energy, but I think really why I would stay out for so long is my...you know that sense of shame I spoke about in the beginning? That was there before any of the drinking and the drugs. I already had that. Then to escape that, you know, it would give me an escape from that, but the things I did, or the things I would say, or the way I would treat people just confirmed the way that I felt as a kid. It was just like, you are bad. There is something wrong with you, and then I would carry on trying to escape it in that way, but it would just keep getting worse.

My psyche is pretty fragile; I’m not actually someone who should have a lot of stimulants. They gave me a vitamin shot today, and I’m like, “I’m fucked. I’m high on vitamins! I’m going to have to go to hospital for vitamin overdose!” That’s from a b12 shot. So I don’t know what I thought I was doing when I was partying. Some people are tough, I’m kind of a fragile person. I have a fragile sense of self. The hangovers that I had didn’t seem normal, they were like, “I’m dying. I can’t think, I can’t breathe, like I feel like my skin is—” Maybe it’s ‘cause I drank more than everyone else? I don’t know, but it’s a particular quality that was telling me this does not work for me, but I kept doing it, again and again, and it was always the same feeling. You’ve been doing that in whatever way since you were fourteen, and by the time you get to 27, it’s just—ugh. I didn’t want to feel that way anymore, and it was so repetitive. At some point, the fun bit had gone. As much as I tried to get it back, I just couldn’t. When the fun goes, I’m sorry to tell you if any of you are umming and ahhing, it does not come back. The first year that I stopped, I felt like I’d really lost a really big part of who I was, and how I understood myself. I also felt like I was letting down rock and roll history ‘cause I couldn’t cope. I had to kind of rebuild from scratch a little bit. The thing is that now, I don’t know, it’s almost like the idea of rock and roll that we had...we’ve seen it so many times, it doesn’t end well. I don’t want to be part of that story. J: The 27 year old story.

F: Yeah, I was 27 when I stopped and my mum, literally the speech she gave at my party, where I’d arrived already out of my mind drunk; like I was on the table and she was trying to make a speech. She was like, “Please, just keep her alive. Please.” I laughed about it at the time, but if I think about it now it makes me feel so sad for my mum and how scared she must have been. I feel like at that point there’s...this poem is kind of about that, because I felt like there was a split, there is the person who carried on partying, and didn’t come back. So there’s this ghost version of me. Then there was the person who got to carry on living, and doing the things that I’ve done. It really feels much more rock and roll than anything I ever did when I was drinking. I was doing shows, and connecting with people, and that to me—especially with everything going on in the world—to be conscious and to be present and to really feel what’s going on, even though it’s painful, it feels much more like a truly reborn spirit of rock and roll. It feels like that’s what it should be about right now.

J: The last album was sober, and this song is a remarkable song. It’s maybe not specifically about drinking, but it’s confessional nature I think is what’s a part of whatever transformation you went through. So could you have written [Hunger] as a drinking person? Or do you feel something changed in your songwriting?

F: Oh my god, no. I could have never, ever. I don’t think I could have written this song. I couldn’t have even written this for How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. In the recording of How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, I was sober but a lot of the songs weren’t sober because I’d written them when I was drinking, so it was like trying to pull things that were just a big mess. Like, “Okay.” I was in a terrible state. In your first year of your sobriety you’re just insane. So I definitely couldn’t have written it then, but sort of four years down the line, what started to happen was I decided to see underneath—’cause when you’re out there drinking there’s so much surface chaos. You literally can’t see beyond what you did last night as you’re trying to clean that up, and make sure nobody finds out what happened, and who saw? And was there a camera phone? You’re just living in this constant...you can’t ever get any further than the drama that just happened yesterday. So after some time, and some time getting to re-know myself, I started looking at the stuff that was underneath that, that was at the core of it. That’s when I felt able to write this song. I think also I just wasn’t so ashamed of myself at the time. When you’re drinking like I was, you carry around so much shame, and so much of that has lifted that I felt able to say and be honest about things that I just never, ever would have.

When I was really in disordered eating, I would make pacts to myself every night that I will never tell anyone. That was the thing. You can carry on what you’re doing, but you can never tell. Living with that kind of—

J: You kept that promise, because I think when your sister saw this song, she read the first lines, and said she never knew.

F: No, she didn’t. Like, my mum didn’t know. My sister was like, “You better tell mom. You’re putting this out as a big pop song.” I was terrified. I was so scared. I luckily had really good people around. I had my manager, Hannah Giannoulis; she heard this song, and she… I was doing it as a thought experiment. I was never going to release it. I was like, “This is an experiment. This is not for public consumption.” And she heard it, and was like, “This is a really important song.” I was really scared. I was so scared of anger. I’m really bad with anger anyway, but I think it’s because I have so many years of internalized anger against myself for what I was doing, or the way I was behaving that to say it, I expected anger. I expected people to be furious with me for putting something like this out there in a song. I tried to put it off, I pushed back the whole touring schedule. Actually when it was released, people were so kind. I don’t think I gave people enough credit. It was so liberating and it changed me as a performer actually, because once you’ve said your most shameful thing, it’s almost like you’ve got nothing left to lose. So the performances just became so much more open and free, and also when the people who listen to your music accept you at your worst, it is the most beautiful thing. I felt so connected with people on this tour. I’m so grateful to everyone.

#florence welch #florence + the machine #fatm #edited for clarity aka removing florence's adorable rambling that she always does while she collects her thoughts #i love this interview so so much but the quality is pretty poor and therefore pretty inaccessible to non-fluent engl speakers and hoh people #so i put my typing skills to work #if there are any other interviews you'd like transcribed let me know!#this is how i'm putting off writing oof oof oof #also really cant tell if she's saying mom or mum? it sounds like when shes referring to her she says mum #but then if shes speaking to her its mom

20 notes · View notes