Friday 11 April 2025

So much going on this week. Let's start with the news that the absolute queen, legend, icon, Skin of Skunk Anansie fame, will be joining me at The Great Escape conference in Brighton next month for a keynote talk. Held on Friday 16 May, the conversation will see Skin discussing the tumultuous period that shaped Skunk Anansie's brilliant new album, The Painful Truth, which is out the following week on 23 May, as well as offering her views on the music industry today. Later that evening, you'll catch them headlining The Independent's stage in a rare intimate performance. See you there?!

More big news, I'm beyond thrilled that we're teaming up for the third consecutive year with Montreux Jazz Festival, who revealed their spectacular 2025 programme yesterday. Diana Ross! RAYE! Lionel Richie! Pulp! Brandi Carlile! Ezra Collective! Sam Fender! It just goes on and on, absolutely incredible. 

Music Box continues with the sensational Brooke Combe, whose debut album Dancing at the Edge of the World came out earlier this year. We're still filming new episodes so do give me a shout if there's anyone you'd like to see in there, whether it's a new or established artist - and be as ambitious as you like.

The usual breeze through my favourite new music of the week: Bon Iver, back with SABLE, fABLE (read Helen Brown's review), and Lana Del Rey going country as promised, y'all, with the tenderly wrought "Henry, come on" from her forthcoming new album. I'm getting more Americana from this track than pure country (which is fine, love), with the sweeping violins giving it that sprawling, dusty landscape, underpinned by soft ripples of steel guitar as she sings: "It's last call, 'Hey, y'all'/ Hang his hat up on the wall/ Tell him that his cowgirl is gone/ Come on and giddy up/ Soft leather, blue jeans/ Don't you get it? That's the thing/ You can't chase a ghost when it's gone." Lovely. 

Few other bits: the Kingfishr lads, who I was hanging out with in Tipperary and Cork last week, have a new one, the rousing "Gloria", having just sold out one 3Arena in Dublin and being well on their way to filling the second night. Loyle Carner is back with "all i need", Turnstile sound epic on "NEVER ENOUGH", and Pulp have also returned with their first single in yonks, "Spike Island". Another single from The Painful Truth by Skunk Anansie, "Lost and Found", and Man/Woman/Chainsaw killing it on "Adam & Steve".  

Last but very certainly not least: you might have spotted The One and Only Chesney Hawkes on the new series of Celebrity Big Brother. Well, Chesney joined me for what turned out to be a very emotional conversation on my Good Vibrations podcast, where he opened up for the first time about a trauma he experienced during childhood. He also spoke about the impact of the extraordinary level of fame he experienced when he was just 19 years old, and how he's doing now, having just released his first new album in over a decade, Living Arrows. The full episode is available now wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch his recent Music Box session here.

Written by Roisin O'Connor

Pulp have announced the forthcoming release of their first album in almost 24 years, and shared the lead single "Spike Island".

Frontman Jarvis Cocker said that ideas for the new record, titled More, began back in 2023, when the band embarked on a reunion tour of a number of arenas around the UK.

He explained that they started with a new song, "Hymn of the North", during soundchecks before debuting it live at the end of their second night at Sheffield Arena.

"This seemed to open the floodgates," he said, "[and] we came up with the rest of the songs on this album during the first half of 2024.

"A couple are revivals of ideas from the last century. The music for one song was written by Richard Hawley. The music for another was written by Jason Buckle. The Eno family sing backing vocals on a song. There are string arrangements written by Richard Jones and played by the Elysian Collective."

FULL STORY.

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ON THE RECORD

We were used to people who stood still when they performed. All the young people were amazed, and everybody was tapping their feet. Of course, the police weren't happy and they were scared there would be riots

Wham!'s onstage presenter Kan Lijun on their China tour

Men should tell each other how pretty they are

Teddy Swims to The Independent, March 2025

I was trying to marry my upbringing with the jazz hands with poetry, which was my true love, and that's being a singer-songwriter

Samia to The Independent, April 2025

Spotlight on... Grace Davies

Hello! Tell me about yourself

I'm Grace Davies and I'm an independent singer, songwriter & producer from Lancashire. I've been making music since I was a teenager and taught myself piano and production too. When I'm not annoying my housemates by singing and playing the piano at 2am, I watch F1, play The Sims, drink Pepsi Max and listen to Robbie Williams :)

What are your inspirations and influences?

Releasing three EPs before being able to produce an album definitely grounded me, particularly as an independent artist. It gave me the time to learn and the confidence to trust my own gut and vision. I learnt what I didn't enjoy from my previous projects, what I wanted to do more of... and I perfected my songwriting craft so that by the time I started making an album I knew exactly who I was and what dialogue I wanted the world to hear from me.

Essentially this led me to start making music for my younger self - the one I was before I even knew I wanted to do music. I thought 'what got me into this job in the first place and why?' It was real instruments, analogue production, brass, strings, five-minute songs, instrumental sections, musical theatre, story telling, harmonies, and the passion that goes into creation.

My recent releases (and upcoming ones) are inspired by the songs and artists I grew up listening to in the car: ELO, ABBA, Robbie, Earth Wind & Fire, The Beautiful South, The Carpenters... I was so lucky to be brought up around such great, iconic music, so to make songs with lyrics that feel relevant to me and then pair them with nostalgic melodies and carefully crafted production, taking inspiration from the Seventies and Eighties, feels really special.

What do you have lined up for 2025?

2025 already feels like a special year. We've released two singles that have gone down an absolute treat and I'm incredibly grateful - with so much more planned. This year I will be releasing my debut album, which feels like a dream to say. It's something I've been wanting to do since I was a little girl and I pinch myself that after years in the industry, both signed and now unsigned, I've been able to make that happen for myself. Summer 2025 is shaping up to be incredibly exciting.

Don't miss out on a rare £40 saving on Apple AirPods pro 2 earbuds.

'The police were scared there would be riots': When Wham! took Western pop to China 

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