Feature Photo: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com
There was a time before MTV emerged in the early 1980s when the only music seen on television came from late-night talk show performances or live performances on programs like The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, and occasional rock concerts or other late-night music shows. However, perhaps the most exciting music performances on television were the live appearances by the hottest bands of the time on Saturday Night Live. NBC is preparing to spotlight Saturday Night Live‘s five-decade legacy with a unique tribute, Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music.
Premiering on January 27, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and streaming the next day on Peacock, this three-hour documentary celebrates the show’s unparalleled history of live musical performances. Directed by Grammy and Academy Award winner Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Oz Rodriguez, the special will explore the synergy of music and comedy that has defined SNL since its inception in 1975. Produced by Two One Five Entertainment, RadicalMedia, and Broadway Video, the documentary promises a behind-the-scenes look at how iconic performances came to life.
Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music will feature interviews with over 50 key figures, including music legends like Paul Simon, Billie Eilish, Mick Jagger, and Jack White, alongside show alumni such as Eddie Murphy, Maya Rudolph, and Kenan Thompson. These voices will share the untold stories behind unforgettable performances and the creative process that elevated SNL into a cultural institution. Questlove expressed his excitement, saying, “Exploring the archives felt like a journey through time. The energy, the stories, and the moments we uncovered were incredible. I’m thrilled to bring this to audiences.”
The celebration doesn’t stop with this documentary. Ahead of the premiere, Peacock will launch SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, a four-part series streaming from January 16, offering an inside look at the show’s production and cultural impact. The festivities will culminate in a live primetime event on February 16, uniting music, comedy, and nostalgia for an unforgettable celebration of SNL’s enduring influence.
Executive producers Lorne Michaels, Questlove, and an esteemed team of creatives have shaped this retrospective to honor the show’s iconic musical legacy. Combining unseen footage, compelling interviews, and moments that defined generations, Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music is poised to capture the magic of the intersection of music and comedy like never before.
Feature Photo: Mikey Brown, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Under the Dublin sky in 1976, a group of ambitious teenagers answered a call for musicians that would forever change the face of rock music. This was the beginning of U2, an iconic band formed by Bono (Paul Hewson), The Edge (David Evans), Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. Hailing from Ireland, they channeled their youthful energy into creating a sound that was equal parts raw emotion and innovative artistry, setting the stage for a career that would span decades.
From their debut album Boy in 1980 to their most recent release, U2 has produced fifteen studio albums, carving out a legacy of both critical acclaim and commercial success. Albums like The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby became cultural touchstones, featuring hits that topped charts worldwide and earned the band a staggering 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other rock group in history. With over 170 million records sold, U2’s influence transcends music, touching on themes of social justice and human rights in both their lyrics and activism.
Known for their groundbreaking live performances, including the unforgettable Zoo TV Tour and 360° Tour, U2 redefined what it meant to connect with audiences, blending spectacle with sincerity. As pioneers in the MTV era, their visually arresting music videos and anthemic tracks like “With or Without You” and “One” cemented their status as global superstars. Their music continues to resonate with fans of all generations, embodying a spirit of reinvention and timelessness.
This introduction serves as a gateway to an exhaustive A-to-Z list of U2’s songs, a testament to their enduring creativity and the profound mark they’ve left on the rock music landscape.
Brian Kachejian was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of ClassicRockHistory.com. He has spent thirty years in the music business often working with many of the people who have appeared on this site. Brian Kachejian also holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Stony Brook University along with New York State Public School Education Certifications in Music and Social Studies. Brian Kachejian is also an active member of the New York Press.
Swedish melodic metallers Cyhra have checked in with the following update:
“We are thrilled to announce that we have officially signed with Reigning Phoenix Music! This marks an exciting new chapter in our journey, and we couldn’t be prouder to join a family that shares our passion for music and artistry.
Reigning Phoenix Music is home to a roster of incredible talent and a team of dedicated professionals, many of whom we’re had the pleasure of working with earlier in our career. Reuniting with such familiar faces feels like coming home, and we’re confident that this partnership will allow us to reach new heights together. We’re already hard at work with new music, and with Reigning Phoenix Music by our side, we’re more inspired than ever to create something truly unforgettable for our fans. Thank you for your continued support – it means the world to us. Stay tuned for updates, as we can’t wait to share what’s coming next!”
The RPM Team adds: “We are are excited to welcome Cyhra to our family and for the opportunity to work with them again. Their talent, passion, and energy align perfectly with our vision of elevating artistry to new heights. Together, we’re setting the stage for an incredible journey, and we can’t wait to share what’s next with the world.”
Cyhra’s new single, “Superman”, will be released on January 8th, 2025. Stay tuned for updates.
Full Metal Jackie has checked in with the following updatre:
“This week we are excited to have the endlessly creative Devin Townsend on the show! Known for his ability to blend genres, emotions, and pure genius into everything he touches, Devin will talk about his brand-new album, PowerNerd, his deeply personal book Overexposed + Underdeveloped, and so much more.
While selecting photos for inclusion in his illustrated memoir, Overexposed + Underdeveloped, Devin Towensend couldn’t help but notice how much his hairstyles had changed over the years. Now he’s “bald guy”, but from his teen years on he modeled a range of styles that would fit neatly into any bad hair day calendar.
Townsend takes you through his hair history in the Rocket 88 clip below.
The previously unpublished personal photos and professionally taken studio and live shots in Overexposed + Underdeveloped are captioned by Devin in his unique way. The results trace the development of his musical ventures from before Steve Vai, through Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsend Band, Devin Townsend Project, Ziltoid and all points between, up to and including the present day.
“When the idea for this photo book came across my desk, I admit that I didn’t think too much about it. I shrugged and said, “Sure… if there’s an interest in that sort of thing, I can get behind it. It should be easy enough…” Through this experience, I ended up in a place where I could say, “Man… what a life. This was you… this was the story of someone named ‘Devin Townsend’ who lived on a tiny little planet in the middle of nowhere,” and I enjoyed it tremendously.” – Devin Townsend
The successor and companion to Only Half There, Devin’s collection of personal and professional photographs in Overexposed + Underdeveloped traces his journey from childhood in Canada through teen years in different bedrooms, on to his professional career and beyond parenthood. Captions written by Devin recall memories and details of people, places, haircuts, and strange happenings. The vast majority of the photos in overexposed + underdeveloped have never been published before.
See below for a sneak peek inside Overexposed + Underdeveloped:
Solid Rock Revival, the debut album from Rock For Children, is out now. Featuring 13 tracks with legends like Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, Slash, and more, this album has something for everyone.
Today, Rock For Children release the animated music video for the track “My Christmas List”, featuring Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, and Brandon Jenner. Watch below:
The full-length Solid Rock Revival studio album features performances and song remakes geared towards subject matter for children such as education, friendship, playing sports, etc. Artists include legendary rockers Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, Run DMC’s Daryl McDaniels and others. Proceeds from the sale of the album, as well as live concerts and special events, will benefit the Norelli Foundation as well as Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation.
The Norelli Family Foundation provides support and assistance to children and young adults in need. Since its inception in 2013, the Foundation has worked tirelessly to help improve the lives of those most in need through partnerships with St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Solid Rock Foundation, New Hope for Kids, Florida USA VB, The Colton Society, The Steve Azar St. Cecila Foundation and the Sunshine State Kids.
Executive Producer/Producer Joe Norelli teamed up with Grammy winner Ruben Salas and Producer/Artist and Studio owner, Dana Kamide to co-write, produce and record the album’s tracks. Norelli, along with the in-house production duo, oversaw the re-creation of several classic rock and 80’s remakes as well as brand new originals written by the production duo for the album.
Salas is credited with multiple Grammy wins and nominations in several different music genres including the Music for Children category. He also holds 2017 production credits with a Guiness Record for Longest Song.
In addition to being a Producer/artist and studio owner, Kamide is founder of Berliner Microphones and chief engineer of the highly acclaimed Berliner U77 Tube microphone. The U77 was hailed as one of the “Best New Microphones” and landed on the front cover of Pro Audio Review that same year. His wife, Guitarist/Violinist Gee Lo, 2NE1) Sharon Aguilar Kamide appears throughout the album on several tracks performing guitar and violin.
“Music is a powerful tool for inspiration and learning,” says Norelli, “and we wanted to create an album that not only entertains children but also helps drive a positive and uplifting message. We believe that Rock for Children will do just that, and we’re excited to share it with families everywhere.”
Alice Cooper, one of the main featured artists to perform on the album, is lending an exclusive remake of his classic 70’s hit “No More Mr. Nice Guy” to the album. Cooper has re-penned the lyrics with an anti-bullying message and is calling it “Now I’m Mr. Nice Guy”. The song is about a young boy who suddenly rethinks carrying on as a bully and transforms himself into a real ‘Mr Nice Guy’”, explains the legendary shock rocker.
Rock For Children is available in various formats, including Vinyl, CD, digital download, and streaming services. Get it here.
Tracklisting:
“Now I’m Mr. Nice Guy” (feat. Alice Cooper) “Pleasant Dreams” (feat. Rob Halford) “Freewheelin'” (feat. Slash, Alice Cooper & Calico Cooper) “Vamos Mis Amigos” (feat. 123 Andrés) “School’s Out, No Bummer” (feat. Alice Cooper) “Our Castle Is Your Home” (feat. Steve Azar) “Sugarrush” (feat. Radio Nube) “In The Midday Hour” (feat. Darryl “DMC” McDaniels) “Girls Come Together” (feat. Calico Cooper & Alicia Chase) “Jump In The Water” “Monster Mash” (feat. Alice Cooper) “My Christmas List” (feat. Rob Halford, Alice Cooper & Brandon Jenner) “I’m Thirteen” (feat. Alice Cooper)
The era of physical records gave way to an unstoppable wave of digitalization, altering the music landscape forever. This revolution opened doors for artists worldwide, democratizing access to audiences without the need for traditional record labels. File-sharing platforms laid the groundwork, and soon streaming services became the ubiquitous choice for music consumers.
From the comfort of their homes, artists can now release music directly to a global audience. This shift hasn’t just created opportunities; it’s sparked a new age of creativity and music distribution. The digital frontier has transformed how music is marketed, consumed, and understood, fostering an ever-evolving industry that challenges tradition.
Uploading Your Track: What You Need to Know
Before you hit that upload button, ensure your track is polished and mixed to perfection. Check your audio file’s format—often, WAV or FLAC is preferred for its high quality. Album artwork should be ready, meeting platform specifications. These elements are pivotal in making a professional first impression.
Next, be prepared to input vital metadata, like the track title, artist name, and genre. Accurate and detailed metadata is crucial; it not only helps listeners find your music but also ensures you receive rightful royalties. Think of metadata as your track’s digital footprint—well-crafted, it leads the way to discovery.
The Role of Music Distributors in Streaming
Music distributors act as the crucial link inside the music distribution process: from upload to streaming. They bridge artists with platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, ensuring tracks are not only uploaded but also marketed efficiently. Through curated playlists and strategic partnerships, distributors amplify reach, enhancing the likelihood of an artist’s success.
Moreover, music distributors handle vital backend operations. They process payments, manage rights, and ensure proper metadata input—key for discoverability. By negotiating deals with streaming services, they often secure favorable terms for artists. In this digital era, their role is indispensable for breaking into the global streaming market, transforming how artists connect with audiences.
Metadata Magic: Why Details Matter
Imagine your track as a beautifully wrapped gift. Metadata acts as the tag, ensuring it reaches the right recipients. This digital information—song title, artist name, genre, and more—guides streaming platforms in categorizing and serving your music to listeners who are likely to appreciate it, enhancing discoverability and potential plays.
While the music itself captivates, metadata powers the behind-the-scenes mechanics. It ensures accurate royalty payments and influences algorithmic recommendations. Poor or incomplete metadata is akin to a mislabeled package, reducing your track’s chances of reaching a wider audience. Just as each brushstroke matters in a painting, every metadata detail plays a crucial role in your music’s success.
Navigating Streaming Platforms: Getting Your Music Heard
Emerging artists often feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of streaming platforms available today. Yet mastering these channels is essential. Each platform has its own unique ecosystem and audience, requiring targeted strategies for effective reach. Crafting personalized promotional efforts is crucial, as they cater to the specific algorithms and user behaviors of each service.
In this ever-evolving digital landscape, leveraging playlists, curators, and direct fan engagement can significantly amplify your track’s visibility. Building relationships with industry influencers and tapping into niche market segments are essential techniques. By actively engaging with these dynamic platforms, artists can maximize their potential to reach a global audience and cultivate a loyal fan base.
Analyzing the Metrics: Understanding Your Audience
Peering inside the music distribution process: from upload to streaming, metrics are your guiding stars. These numbers tell the story of when, where, and how listeners engage with your music. By focusing on metrics like stream count, listener demographics, and engagement rates, artists can uncover invaluable insights about their audience’s preferences.
Interpreting these analytics empowers musicians to tailor their promotional strategies effectively. For instance, identifying peak listening times can direct targeted social media ads or schedule live performances to match audience availability. Ultimately, mastering this digital dance between data and creativity enhances artists’ ability to forge deeper connections with their audience, fostering loyal and engaged fan bases.
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“Ivo didn’t let me hear the song before I went to the studio,” says Cinder Sharp, the singer of This Mortal Coil’s 1984 single, Kangaroo. “I walked into the studio, Ivo put it on, said, ‘This is the song I want you to sing,’ and I immediately went: ‘This is shit! This is a shit song!’”
“I mean, I’ve completely changed my mind,” she says. “I love the original version much more than my own. But I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand the kangaroo part.”
40 years ago, This Mortal Coil’s debut album It’ll End In Tears went to number one in the UK Independent Charts and the album’s lead single – that ‘shit song’ – Kangaroo, went to no.2 and stayed in the charts for 20 weeks. Over the years, Kangaroo has been over-shadowed by another song on the album – Elizabeth Fraser’s haunting cover of Tim Buckley’s Song To The Siren – but This Mortal Coil’s Kangaroo remains an astonishing take on a song that’s had multiple lives.
The impact
(Image credit: 4AD)
Comments under the official video for Kangaroo on YouTube show the sort of esteem in which it’s held:
“I genuinely don’t think I would have made it to this point in my life had it not been for this project.”
“I can safely say that this gorgeous piece of music – so beautiful, so sad, so reverent – is among my ten favorite songs of all time.”
“This song made me cry at first hearing, hauntingly beautiful…”
“One of the best singing performances ever.”
Initially written by Alex Chilton for what’s known as Third – the unfinished third album by Big Star – Kangaroo was resurrected by This Mortal Coil in 1984, covered by Jeff Buckley at live shows throughout the 90s, and was most recently sampled/interpolated by Jamie T on his 2022 single 90sCars.
Cinder, known back then as Gordon Sharp, was the lead voice on It’ll End In Tears – the voice that opened the album, and closed it, and is on the song that gives the album its title. “Technically, the album had its title first,” says Cinder, “and I just stole it. Do you know what? It never occurred to me that Ivo might have been a bit pissed off with me for doing that!”
A loose collective of musicians from the 4AD label, led by Ivo Watts-Russell, the owner of 4AD, This Mortal Coil included members of the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Colourbox, and like-minded collaborators like Howard Devoto (formerly of Magazine and the Buzzcocks) and Cinder, then as now, the frontperson for Cindytalk.
This Mortal Coil – Kangaroo (Official Video) – YouTube
Cinder was from Linlithgo in the east of Scotland, between Grangemouth and Edinburgh, and knew the Cocteau Twins from the scene around the Grangemouth International Hotel. Robin Guthrie’s older brother Brian booked bands there, and Robin could often be found hanging around, Djing and checking out everyone’s guitar pedals. Elizabeth Fraser would always be at the gigs, says Cinder, whose band at that time was The Freeze. “She was this little skinhead punk girl who would be like a whirling dervish in front of the bands that were playing, including us.”
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Later, after she moved from Edinburgh to London, Cinder sang back-up with the Cocteau Twins. “I did a Peel session with them in early ‘83,” she says. “I’d only been in London a year and they came and stayed with me. We did quite a few gigs together as well. That was where Ivo saw me and invited me to participate in the Mortal Coil thing. He’d seen me on stage with the Cocteaus, doing just pure improvisation.”
Ivo was looking for singers for a project. 4AD had started life as an off-shoot of Beggar’s Banquet records. By 1984, it had developed a signature look, thanks to the designs of Vaughan Oliver, and its proudly post-punk and defiantly progressive music was reinventing art-rock for the 80s. Ivo had co-produced artists like the Cocteaus and worked with Xmal Deutschland but he wanted a project of his own.
“I wasn’t a producer,” he told the Melody Maker at the time. “I was just someone with ideas for sound. It was always their material, so why should I be interfering? This Mortal Coil became a method of being the person who had the final say.” A non-musician, he surrounded himself with artists and worked with fragments of songs. He was trying to capture, he said, “the beauty of despair”.
At best, the original version of Kangaroo (or Kanga Roo as it was called then) written and recorded by Alex Chilton captures exactly that – a drug-drenched fever-dream – at its worst, it’s the sound of a man having a late-night meltdown. “It’s like a cross between the Velvet Underground and Syd Barrett on heroin,” said Ivo. “Alex Chilton must have been in a very dark, despairing frame of mind and, shit, I’m moved by that in music.”
The Big Star track
(Image credit: Amazon)
Colin Meloy of The Decemberists has done an in depth breakdown of the Chilton version. Referring to the track logs, he says the story goes that Chilton went into the studio very late at night, with his girlfriend Lesa Aldridge, and recorded the song with a 12-string guitar. (Big Star drummer Jody Stephens was dating Lesa’s sister, which is where “Sisters Lovers” comes from – there is some confusion as to whether it was suggested as the name of the album or the band.) In the morning, Chilton played it to producer Jim Dickinson. Dickinson asked him what he wanted him to do and Chilton said, “Well, why don’t you produce it, Mr. Producer?” All the other instruments on the track are by Dickinson.
The cult of Third (also known as Sister Lovers, a mooted name for the band) has grown over the last few decades. As the entry on Alex Chilton in Britannica points out, “songs such as Kangaroo offered a glimpse of the noise-pop sound that would emerge in the 1980s with groups such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine”. But in 1984, pre-internet, way before CD reissues, let alone streaming, Third was a pretty difficult album to find.
Cocteau Twins bassist Simon Raymonde hadn’t heard the song until the day he played it. “I arrived at the studio at 11am and my first ‘job’ was to listen to Kangaroo by Big Star’s Alex Chilton which Ivo wanted to cover,” Raymonde recalled in his book from this year, In One Ear. “He wanted a minimal take. The main instrument was to be bass. Ivo may well have given me a cassette of it a few days in advance I am not sure, but I know that I hadn’t had a chance to listen to it until I arrived.”
He played an Ibanez Musician eight-string bass and added “a kinda flute sound” using a Yamaha DX7. Martin McCarrick from Marc Almond’s band the Mambas (later of Siouxsie and the Banshees) added cello. And that was the only instrumentation – no guitars, no drums.
Next up: Cinder. Ivo gave her the lyrics on a piece of paper as she listened to the song for the very first time.“I didn’t get it back then,” she says. “I didn’t understand the ‘kangaroo’ part. So I had to think about it. I had to figure out a way to perform it, genuinely, with heart and soul.
“I doubt very much if I listened to it more than three times on the day that I sang it,” she says, “and probably only twice before actually performing it. What you’re hearing on the record is pretty much my instant response.”
And what you hear is incredible. “In that moment, I changed the whole dynamic of the song,” she says. “God knows how I managed that. That’s just sink or swim, isn’t it? You’re thrown into a studio, you’re given a sort of diagram of what you have to do, and you’ve got to just make it work.
Where the original is wasted and sleazy, Cinder’s Kangaroo is strong and defiant and pure. “I knew I couldn’t do it like the original,” she says. “It sounds like it’s drug-induced, like it’s very destructive. It’s falling apart, falling over itself. And I didn’t feel any of those things in that moment. I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t on drugs. I wasn’t sort of devastated in a relationship. So it was like, ‘How the hell?’
“So I’ve always wondered if there was something else I was communicating,” she says. “Some other emotions, some deeper things that came directly from me, that were all about how I saw it, rather than the song or even the lyrics. Because I remember thinking: the lyric doesn’t mean anything to me.”
It’s one of This Mortal Coil’s most notable achievements. At best, Chilton’s lyrics are bland (“I first saw you/You had on blue jeans”), at worst they’re the language of a sex pest. Kangaroo appears to be about a guy perving over a girl at a party and unapologetically rubbing one out: “Thought you was a queen/Oh so flirty/I came against/Didn’t say excuse/Knew what I was doing”. He puns on it later: He was doing a “cool, cool jerk,” he says. (Cool Jerk is a song from 1966 by The Capitols.) And then there’s the payoff: “I want you/Like a kangaroo”. Like a wha-? It’s surreal and a bit daft.
In This Mortal Coil’s version, Cinder subtly changes the lyrics, although she says it wasn’t deliberate, just Ivo writing them down wrong. Some sources have her as singing, “Thought you was uncool/Oh so floaty”, “I came again”, with “cool jerk” becoming “cool joke” but it’s not how she remembers it.
“I definitely sang, ‘Thought you was uncool/Oh so flirty’ and ‘I came against’ – it’s a big line in the song and I think if you listen closely as I hold the note it fades out with the ‘st’ very quietly at the end. It does sound as though in the mix they were fading that down as the note diminishes.”
Later, she says, “I’m singing ‘That same jolt, doing a cool cool jerk’.” The Chilton line is “That Saint Joan”. The demo of the song was originally called Like Saint Joan. “I’d forgotten about the Saint Joan reference,” she says. “That was definitely not on the lyrics that Ivo gave me, I was already interested in the historical figure by that point and would have leaned into that for sure.”
Saint Joan
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The original title of Big Star’s Kanga Roo was Like St. Joan. “Saint Joan” was Joan Of Arc: a teenage girl who transcended gender roles, led men into battle and was tried, amongst other things, for the ‘blasphemy’ of wearing men’s clothes. She was burned at the stake.
Either way, This Mortal Coil’s version loses all sense of sleaze, and elevates mundane language to something else. Somehow, this song – this sleazy old wreck of a tune, transformed with bass and cello – sounds heartbreaking. It lacks literal lyrical meaning but somehow it sounds profound. A singer armed with empty words yet singing for his/her life.
“It’s the emotions,” she says. “I always had a really shit memory. So, rather than making an arse of myself forgetting lyrics, I just learned to improvise and use the voice as an instrument.
“By this point, I was doing that all the time. I recorded the first Cindytalk album at the same time as we were doing This Mortal Coil.” To date, Cindytalk have had over a dozen albums of abstract and experimental noise-rock, with Cinder using her “voice as instrument”. “So I was in the studio, making this kind of raw energy record – it’s not like songs are being written, it’s just emotional content that’s being shared in some sort of weirdly abstract but powerful way.”
It was a technique that found kinship in Elizabeth Fraser. “I mean, how the hell do you sing along with Elizabeth? The only thing you can do is play her at her own game,” she says. “Purely instinctively, you just throw your voice in, and move it around in the same space. If you sing along with her, then you’re buggered. So you really have to be as daft as she was. So I had all of that inside of me.”
Cindytalk’s debut album was a primal scream – abrasive and brutal. “I didn’t want to do anything too harsh with This Mortal Coil. I made a choice to go down a different path, to be more orthodox. But it probably still contains that raw emotion.
“It’s a human voice,” she says, “dealing with contours that they don’t really understand – which, actually, is life itself. That’s how we get by. We move through life, dealing with things. We don’t quite know what’s happening, and we have to figure out how to do it. So I guess that must have been deep inside when I recorded Kangaroo. Because the emotion works.”
It resonated. Jeff Buckley and Elizabeth Fraser were romantically involved in the 90s, but he was already a fan of her work and would doubtless have known about This Mortal Coil. He turned Kangaroo into a 14 minute epic he would play at live shows.
In 2022, indie rocker Jamie T used the music and the ‘chorus’ on his song 90s Cars. “That Jamie T thing,” she says. “He’s attempting to put that same emotion into what he’s singing. So it works. It’s carried through over all the years. Crazy. I was taking a song, which had a destroyed sort of aspect about it, and bringing a whole another emotion.”
In a promo video, little seen in the days before MTV, let alone YouTube, Cinder/Gordon is dressed in black clothes, sometimes rock star cool in Raybans – a ‘young man’. During the middle eight, he’s cocooned in lace, and comes out more femme: dressed in white, hair down and long, holding flowers. It occasionally cuts back to the guy in black.
It’s like Cinder/Gordon is both of the characters in Chilton’s song: the guy singing it and the object of his desire, the whole thing blurring so that they’re the same and it’s one male-female cry of yearning.
“I am pretty sure that I wasn’t playing out some kind of masculin/feminin switch play,” Cinder wrote by email, “although there does seem to be some weird subtext going on that dovetails with my own personal transgender narrative. I have heard it say that my voice appears to flicker between male and female. That has to be some kind of superpower…”
The single sleeve for This Mortal Coil’s Kangaroo (Image credit: 4AD)
Back in 1984, I first heard Kangaroo not long after it came out, on a homemade cassette of the album. I thought it was sung by a woman. When I bought the single, I saw the credit to ‘Gordon Sharp’ and this androgynous figure on the sleeve…
“I was just about to say, ‘You were kind of right,’” she says. “I’ve always had that. I would say ‘non-binary’ because it doesn’t force you down one path or the other, it allows you to be sort of fluid and shift about and, you know, do your own thing and be unique, rather than sort of fitting into any sort of categories.
“I’ve had people come up to me and ask who the female singer is in Cindytalk, because they hear a male voice and a female voice. It’s the same person, just shifting between the two – it’s natural for me to do that.”
I wondered if that’s what you were expressing on Kangaroo, I say. When you say that it’s a mystery even to you what you were expressing – it sounds to me like this great showcase for a strong female-male voice. A voice that’s not one thing or the other, it’s both.
“It could be,” she says. “Maybe, deep down, I just wanted to share that. It’s all pure instinct. I think the best music is.”
We had been talking about about Stuart Adamson and the Skids. Cinder’s band The Freeze supported the Skids around Fife in the late 70s. “If you go back to Stuart and his connection to the guitar in the early days of both the Skids and Big Country – that sort of earthiness – it’s pure nature to us.
“You have no choice – but you don’t really think too much. It’s the thing that you express. We create our own little language. And if we’re lucky it connects or if we’re unlucky, then it remains, you know, just a sound.”
Scott is the Content Director of Music at Future plc, responsible for the editorial strategy of online and print brands like Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Prog, Guitarist, Guitar World, Guitar Player, Total Guitar etc. He was Editor in Chief of Classic Rock magazine for 10 years and Editor of Total Guitar for 4 years and has contributed to The Big Issue, Esquire and more. Scott wrote chapters for two of legendary sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson‘s books (For The Love Of Vinyl, 2009, and Gathering Storm, 2015). He regularly appears on Classic Rock’s podcast, The 20 Million Club, and was the writer/researcher on 2017’s Mick Ronson documentary Beside Bowie.
“Our label said, ‘You guys will be the next Metallica’, and that bummed me out.” Stoner rock legend Brant Bjork on why he didn’t want Kyuss to be megastars
(Image credit: Brant Bjork: Richard Sibbald, Metallica: Getty Images)
Stoner rock icon Brant Bjork has discussed the unique legacy of Kyuss in a new interview with Metal Hammer. Speaking to Hammer in their latest issue, Bjork explains that Kyuss – widely considered one of the pioneering forces in the stoner rock and stoner metal genres – were saddled with high expectations as their status began to grow in the 90s.
“Our guy at the label would always say, ‘You guys will be the next Metallica’, and that bummed me out,” Bjork says now. “I wanted to be this Kyuss! I felt like we fucking rocked and had hit the peak of our chemistry at the time, and Metallica were super-cool guys and really supportive, but seeing it all on that scale, it was just like, ‘This isn’t for me.’ If that’s the epitome of success in a rock band, it just seemed unrewarding. They got up and played the same things every night, said the same things… I could tell it’d become a travelling circus, a machine. I was still 20 years old, more attracted to what we were doing in terms of improvising onstage and being loose. I wanted Kyuss to go more in that direction.”
As it happened, Kyuss would get to see how Metallica did business up close and personal when they supported the metal giants on tour in Australia in 1993. By that point, Bjork was already growing disillusioned with things in the band, and seeing metal taken to its arena-filling excesses didn’t improve his attitude to it all.
“Supporting Metallica [in 1993] was fucking bananas,” he recalls. “It was weird; by the time our management told us about the offer, I’d already decided I didn’t want to be in Kyuss anymore. I felt like I was no longer jiving with the guys and whatever we’d had that was magical, it was gone. I didn’t want to stick around to watch this really magical ship sink into the sea.”
Ultimately, Bjork would leave Kyuss following the recording of their classic third album, 1993’s Welcome To Sky Valley, with fellow Kyuss alumni Josh Homme eventually going on to form Queens Of The Stone Age.
Read more from Brant Bjork in Metal Hammer‘s end of year special, out now.
(Image credit: Future)
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Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.
In 2020, Prog decided to brave Chris De Burgh’s back catalogue to see if there was any truth in the suggestion that he had some prog leanings, at least in his early days. The results were convincing.
On the Prog Magazine Readers group on Facebook, someone asked if anyone else agreed that Chris De Burgh had, on occasion, dabbled with prog. As one might expect, the self-righteous and indignant puffed up their chests and began shouting loudly, but gradually those less fond of the sound of their own voices began pointing out that yes, on occasion, there were more than a few moments.
The merest snippet of Lady In Red – De Burgh’s ubiquitous 1986 No.1 hit – will have most of us reaching for the sick bucket. Some press reports have suggested he’s not quite the housewife’s choice he’s often painted. However, there’s simply no denying that if you dip into his back catalogue at any point from his 1974 debut, Far Beyond These Castle Walls, to 1984’s Man On the Line, you’ll find something more than worthy to listen to.
There’s Spanish Train, The Traveller, Eastern Wind, Don’t Pay The Ferryman, to name but a few. Even the tongue-in-cheek ribaldry of Patricia The Stripper and his earnest Christmas contribution A Spaceman Came Travelling aren’t without merit if you’re the kind of prog fan who enjoys a bit of Al Stewart and The Alan Parsons Project. He also supported Supertramp on their 1974 Crime Of The Century tour.
The Parsons connection is largely the reason we’ve chosen De Burgh’s 1979 offering Crusader. It features then-members Ian Bairnson, David Paton and Stuart Elliott – all of whom were discovered by Parsons in Pilot – plus composer and arranger Andrew Powell, as well as Sky’s Francis Monkman on harpsichord.
True, De Burgh always had propensity for crooning balladry, typified here by the syrupy I Had The Love In My Eyes and The Girl With April In Her Eyes.
But elsewhere Crusader offers much, not least the four-part title track, which clocks in at nearly nine minutes and highlights De Burgh’s talent as a musical storyteller unafraid of the grandiose gesture.
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Opening cut Carry On, reprised at the end of what would have been side one of the vinyl edition, is a typical fist-pumping rocker akin to later, more popular efforts The Ecstasy Of Flight (I Love The Night) and High On Emotion – both from 1984’s Man On The Line – while the macabre rush of The Devil’s Eye references his own Spanish Train from ’75.
The overbearing schmaltz of Lady In Red means this writer actually never bothered investigating whether De Burgh ever got his mojo back and did anything musically interesting after 1986; although one or two posts suggested there are a few more things worth seeking out. Maybe writing this means I’ll go back and explore.
But as far as the music Chris De Burgh created in his first decade, there’s a host of delights awaiting the curious prog fan.
