10 of the Best for 2020

Jeeni Blog

Helping the next generation of talent to build a global fanbase

10 of the Best for 2020

/ By Andie Jeenius

It’s that time of year, when we all start to look back and take stock of the offerings of 2020. Pandemic and lockdowns dominated but music was the tonic. Having checked in with various sites and bloggers, there is definitely a small group of albums in which at least one, has cropped up in almost everyone’s ‘Best of 2020’ lists. In no particular order, are 10 albums which got many of through lockdown, isolation, Black Lives Matter and political marches, election fatigue, uncertainty, love and loss. It’s an eclectic mix, offering view points from varied angles and experiences, including disagreement, hope and ultimately, acceptance.

Any of these make your list? Let us know your thoughts and favourites in the comments below.

Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

After ditching her demons, her angst and finding sobriety, Katie Crutchfield moved herself and her partner Kevin Morby back to Kansas City, USA and created a brand new sound which focuses on her newfound optimism whilst reaffirming her roots in Birmingham, Alabama and her years of being on tour around the world. What she serves up on 'Saint Cloud' is a gentle alt. folk catalogue, which many are claiming is her best writing yet.

Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Well known for her reclusive tendencies, Fiona Apple had created and recorded ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’, her masterpiece lockdown album on her own at her Venice Beach home, before we’d even stock piled our bog roll! However, the tracks cry of liberation rather than confinement and they include a menagerie of ambient sounds, snarls, harmonies and even a dog bark, but still meet the brutality of life, head on. Featuring in many of the top music industry bloggers ‘Best of 2020’ selections, this album must be doing something right?

Run the Jewels – RTJ4

Two years in the making, Run the Jewels album RTJ4 came as a gift and it’s timing was perfect. Offered up for free (as they do with all their albums) two days before it’s official release, it quickly became the Hip-Hop album of the year. 2020 has been a mind-fuck and this album brings all of that to one place, not because or in spite of, the Black Lives Matter movement, but alongside it. Killer Mike and El-P, known for their hardcore, revolutionary lyrics telling you not just how it is, but how it should and will be.

Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher

Following on from the huge success of her first album, this busy gal has pitched it perfectly. Clever lyrics from Phoebe Bridgers, mean her release of ‘Punisher’ offers up tracks which are specific, but have individual and solid stories. This twentysomething offers her peers some solace with her funny, dreamy, sometimes dark take on the world but is relevant and appealing.

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia

Taking the influences of previous Pop Goddesses, Madonna and Kylie Minogue, with the production skills of amongst others, Mark Ronson, creating an album which ‘feels like a dance class’ was a certainty with Future Nostalgia. Flavours of disco, funk, new wave and house bring nothing but fun from the past, into the present and onto the future.

Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) has placed ‘Set My Heart on Fire Immediately’ firmly in the alt-pop camp, but blends it with synth-pop, hefty guitar rifts and baroque harpsichord flounces. Hadreas vocal range is fabulous and leaves the listener eager for his next project.

Deftones – Ohms

The Deftones have brought back some hard-rocking guitar and bass riffs on their new album ‘Ohms’. After a 10-year hiatus, this will please the fans of their 2000 album White Pony. Their constant evolving and experimenting brings a revitalised sound to this new album, which will garner them new fans and satisfy their existing devotees.

Thundercat – It Is What It Is

Following on from his successful 2017 album ‘Drunk’, Stephen Bruner’s (aka Thundercat) fourth album brings an impressive cast of collaborators including Childish Gambino, Ty Dolla $ign and Kamasi Washington adding to the fun, jazz fusion vibes but also remembering the loss of his close friend Mac Miller is 2018 in the track ‘Fair Chance’.

The Weeknd – After Hours

Following on from 2016’s ‘Starboy’ and his 2018 EP ‘My Dear Melancholy’, The Weekend’s new album is a tiny swerve in a different direction and not what many people were expecting from the talented Canadian. Offering introspection and an open spirit, you can’t help but be wrapped in the adventure.

Lil Uzi Vert – Eternal Atake

Lil Uzi Vert’s highly anticipated follow up to his 2017 debut album ‘Luv is Rage 2’ is here. ‘Eternal Lake’ offers witty punchlines, cosmic beats, rythyms, melodies and hooks which cleverly stay with you even after the track has finished. Old themes with new ideas, make this album exciting, familiar and a definite classic.

BACK

22
Jul

New Survey Reveals How Music Helped the UK Through Lockdown

UK Music has published a new survey that reveals the crucial role music played in helping people through Covid-19 lockdowns - and how the public are craving the return of live music. The survey is the largest of its kind since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which decimated large parts of the music industry across most of the planet in 2020. The key findings of the survey revealed: 57% of adults said music had helped them cope with lockdownAround one million adults say they have taken up an instrument during lockdown71% think music makes them more productive at work/studying Additionally, the survey reveals how the public are keen to flock back to live music and believe music helps them cope with stress and anxiety. “Music has been vital not only in helping the public cope with the impact of the Covid-19 lockdowns and improving mental health and wellbeing, but also in making people more productive while they work. Combined with the huge economic contribution the music industry made pre-Covid-19, this is further evidence that the UK music industry is a key national asset that should be protected and supported by Government. With the right support, music can continue to play a vital role in improving people’s health and wellbeing in the months ahead as we look to recover from this pandemic." Said UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin. The findings are a huge boost to the UK music industry, which has been devastated by the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The sector contributed £5.8 billion to the UK economy pre-Covid-19 and supports around 200,000 jobs. Furthermore, it clearly shows how music has helped the UK through lockdown and proves the importance of the national music industry. Artists should be supported during these turbulent times, and Jeeni does that, by supporting creative talent using an ethical approach. On Jeeni, artists and creatives keep 100% of everything they earn, and thousands of performers are already on board, with an audience outreach that has grown to over two million. The growth of Jeeni has been so fast that they marked Government promises by turning to crowdfunding to expand their capacity to meet demand, raising over £46,000 in a few hours. Check out their campaign HERE and join the list of supporters and celebrities who are flocking to the cause.

23
Feb

A Legendary NME Journo, his New Book and Other Tales

About to release his third book, a novel entitled 'The Unstable Boys', legendary NME journo Nick Kent, is interviewed by his stable-mate, Kevin EG Perry about his new book and other tales from his extraordinary career. The Unstable Boys - Nick Kent's new novel Nick Kent started writing for NME in 1972, which was a good year to be a rock’n’roll writer. And no writer in Britain was more rock’n’roll than Kent, who was soon as notorious for wearing a perpetually ripped pair of leather trousers and dating Chrissie Hynde as he was for writing novelistic profiles of enigmatic figures such as Syd Barrett and Lou Reed. Even now, almost half a century on, stories of Kent’s escapades and expenses-claims get passed down like lore at NME. There’s a good one about the time he flew to LA to profile Jethro Tull in 1975 and somehow wound up on a bender with Iggy Pop. Holed up in the Continental Hyatt House hotel on Sunset Boulevard, they hit upon the cunning wheeze of telling visiting drug dealers that they could help themselves to whatever they wanted from the luxury shops in the lobby and charge it to Kent’s room – leaving poor old Jethro Tull to pick up the tab. Truly, a grift for the ages. NIck Kent - Legendary NME Journalist Kent published the best of his collected rock writing in 1994 as The Dark Stuff and followed that essential tome in 2010 with his ‘70s memoir Apathy For The Devil. He’s just published his third book – his first novel – The Unstable Boys, which concerns the unhinged frontman of a mostly-forgotten ‘60s band appearing on the doorstop of his biggest fan after many years in obscurity. Over a video call from his home in Paris, Kent – 69 and just as louche as ever – discussed the book’s origins and held court about a life spent at the unforgiving coalface of rock’n’roll. On his no-fucks-given style Things weren’t looking good for NME when Kent first slouched through its doors in ‘72. Sales were so bad that the editors had been given just 12 issues to save the magazine. They hired Kent and other new writers such as Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald from the alternative press. The magazine then saw a huge jump in sales – but not for the reason Kent wanted to believe. “The assistant editor Nick Logan called me into his office at the end of the year and said, ‘Well, we’ve got great news – we’re outselling the Melody Maker’, which was a big deal at the time,’” remembers Kent. “He said: ‘In fact, we’re the biggest selling music weekly in the world!’ Pats on the back all round! I was standing there thinking he was gonna say: ‘It’s all you, Murray and MacDonald, you wonderful, beautiful people!’ “Not at all. He said: ‘We’ve done a survey of new readers to ask them why they buy the thing. They don’t buy it for the articles. They don’t read the articles, except for the quotes. They might look for a David Bowie quote, but they’re not interested in what the writers are writing. The only thing they actually read is the gossip column on the last page.’ What they really wanted to know was: What did Bowie’s latest haircut look like? And were Led Zeppelin playing a gig near where they lived? “After I picked my wounded ego up off the floor, I came to the very quick conclusion that I was writing for an audience with an extremely short attention span. I realised I had to go to extremes, because I would not be ignored! 300,000 people were buying the NME and the idiots weren’t reading it! That affected the way I wrote. You’ve got to grab them with the first sentence and say: ‘The action starts here’ you cannot not read this.’ I’m living proof that going to extremes gets results. The problem is that they may not be the exact results that you set out to attain.” Access all areas Kent went to extremes on the page and off it, where he found that the road of excess led not to the palace of wisdom but to a debilitating heroin addiction. His best work included an epic feature about the tortured genius of Brian Wilson, which ran to 10,000 words and was published across three issues of NME. He was also granted unprecedented access to a Rolling Stones tour and wrote memorably about the strange, distant atmosphere backstage and the darkness lurking in Jagger and Richards’ “numb, burned-out cool”. “There’s this whole idea that the writers of that time were the reason why the NME was so successful,” he says, “and that’s partly true, but the main reason was that we had more access back then to Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and the other big names of the ‘70s. There was a kind of give-and-take there, and I was lucky enough to get into that.” That time he was a Sex Pistol Kent first met punk impresario Malcolm McLaren in December 1973, when he went to France to interview the New York Dolls and found McLaren among their entourage. The pair became close and regularly dined together – along with their partners, Vivienne Westwood and Hynde – at what the writer describes “the only Indian restaurant in Clapham South”. When McLaren sacked guitarist Wally Nightingale from an early line-up of The Sex Pistols because he didn’t think he fit the band’s look, he asked Kent to replace him. Kent spent three months playing with guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook, but says he never quite matched the Sex Pistol temperament. “What I learned from playing with The Sex Pistols was that there’s a big difference between a middle-class guitar player and a working-class guitar player,” says Kent. “For a working-class guitar player, it’s all about repetition. It’s like that Johnny Ramone thing of playing the same chords over and over again. If you’re a guy like me, I’ll play a three chord riff like ‘Louie Louie’ for a minute but then I’ll get bored and throw something a bit jazzy in, and immediately that’s like going into Radiohead-land! My Sex Pistols experience taught me that I’m a middle-class guitar player.” On the rocker who reminds him Trump Kent’s new novel The Unstable Boys centres around the titular band’s grotesque, narcissistic frontman, known as ‘The Boy’. Given his abrasive personality traits, it’s no surprise that The Boy idolises Donald Trump – and Kent says he noticed plenty of parallels between the former President and some of the more self-absorbed rock stars he’s encountered over the years. “The rock star that really reminded me of Trump is Axl Rose,” says Kent. “I went out to America in 1991 at the height of Guns N’ Roses mania. They were the biggest group in America at that time. At almost every gig they played there would be a riot. Axl would usually be late, and then he’d come on stage and spend 10 minutes putting down whatever celebrity had said something in the press about him. I saw him once put down Warren Beatty because Warren Beatty had dated his girlfriend. “We got 10 minutes of: ‘What an arsehole!’ He was using the stage as a forum for his own narcissistic shit fits, just like Trump. At least Axl Rose could perform and could sing well, whereas Trump has neither talent. He doesn’t have any talent! He’s the ultimate huckster.” And the horror story behind The Unstable Boys In The Unstable Boys, things take a turn for the worse when ‘The Boy’ turns up at the home of a wealthy crime writer who also happens to be his band’s biggest fan. Kent says he was inspired by a real tale involving the British rock’n’roller Vince Taylor, who sang the 1959 hit ‘Brand New Cadillac’. “He was one of the best early British rock singers – one of the only ones, actually,” says Kent. “He’s probably best-known now because he became the inspiration for Ziggy Stardust. Bowie had met him in the ‘60s and became fascinated by him. By the ‘70s, Taylor had gone from bad to worse and he was basically penniless. He would just turn up on the doorsteps of people that he imagined were fans of his. He turned up on the doorstep of his fan club president in Switzerland and of course the guy invited him in – this was his hero! Things didn’t go well. Before long his wife left him, his dog disappeared and his pub burnt down." Kent adds that he’s been working on the novel in some form or another since his wife Laurence first told him Taylor’s story back in 1990, so he’s delighted to finally see the story in print three decades on. “When I’d finished it, for about two or three hours afterwards I felt really, really good,” says Kent. “High in a way that eclipsed all the drug highs I’ve ever had.” – Nick Kent’s The Unstable Boys is out now via Constable www.jeeni.com www.nme.com

05
Jun

Can Twitch ‘Change the Economics’ for Artists?

Why channel subscriptions and “tipping” on the Amazon-owned platform could open up a significant new revenue stream for artists in the future. ByTim Ingham The explosion of music live-streaming during lockdown means most of the music business is now au fait with Twitch, but just for the newcomers: Twitch is an online platform that allows “creators” to host live video channels on its service. Fans can subscribe to these channels for three distinct price points: $4.99 a month, $9.99 a month, or $24.99 per month. Viewers of a channel can also tip (“Cheer”) creators using the platform’s fake money (Bits) that, obviously, actually costs real money ($1.40 for 100 Bits). Revenue paid for those subscriptions is split 50/50 (minus tax and processing fees) between Twitch and the creator, while the money fans Cheer is split approximately 70/30 in favor of the creator. A less-than-well-known fact: If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can opt-in to Twitch Prime, which then supplies you with a cost-free subscription to any Twitch channel of your choosing. Or to put it another way: If an artist you love has a channel on Twitch, opting in to Twitch Prime allows you to pay them $2.50 per month, out of your existing Amazon Prime membership. Quarantine has brought more musicians flocking to Twitch than ever before, including the likes of Charlie Puth, Diplo and John Legend — who all appeared on Twitch’s Stream Aid in March to raise money for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. Twitch avoids the problematic “begging bowl” undertone that can plague artists on other direct subscription services like Patreon by offering fans something in return — an exclusive, interactive live video experience — that Olson believes has an immediate premium value in the mind of the audience. Twitch comments: “Ultimately the future of entertainment is live, interactive and community driven. It’s where anyone can play a role in creating a moment, and where the audience likes to participate and actually engage in the entertainment.” Twitch is particularly enthused about the idea of Gifted Subs, which enable someone to buy another fan of a Creator a subscription to their channel. “If you want to demonstrate your fandom and support an artist, right now there’s only so much you can pay for that Spotify subscription, only so much you can pay for a meet-and-greet, only so much you can pay for merchandise. We take the top off; you could contribute as many gift subscriptions as you want for that artist, you can Cheer as many Bits as you want for that artist.” Facebook Live and YouTube have presented their fair share of popular artist-to-camera performances of late, while Instagram has hosted arguably music’s most memorable recent live-stream series, the Verzuz battles (including RZA vs. DJ Premier, Swizz Beats vs. Timbaland, Babyface vs. Teddy Riley, and Erykah Badu vs. Jill Scott). Facebook last month announced that it will soon introduce the ability for live-streamers to charge fans for access to “events,” but made no mention of matching Twitch’s direct subscription offering. Twitch argues that its monetization options, which also include ad revenue sharing tools, set it apart from rival platforms. Even when physical venues are back to full strength, Twitch believes it will establish itself as a significant way for artists to generate money outside of their recorded music catalog, their publishing catalog and their ticketed live appearances. “We know artists make the vast majority of their take home revenue from live events, and we believe Twitch can be additive to that. Where it gets interesting is when you start to think about things you can do in a digital world that you couldn’t do in the [live] space. You couldn’t allow millions of fans into an intimate setting during a creative session, or [hold] an Ask Me Anything kind of Q&A roundtable. That feeling of VIP access is something we’re seeing a lot of artists leverage.” DJ/producer Illenium and rapper T-Pain, have both recently invited their Twitch fanbase to contribute to writing sessions, via the service’s in-built chat mechanic. It is certainly early days for Twitch as a significant player in music. According to one recent report, Twitch welcomed 17 million hours of watch-time on “Music & Performing Arts” channels in April, up 385% year-on-year; but that 17 million figure made up just 1% of total viewing hours on Twitch in the month, dwarfed by the hundreds of hours of watch-time on video games-related channels. Another big challenge: Prominent songwriter and music publisher advocates have voiced concern over elements of Twitch’s licensing. David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, the D.C-based body that is currently threatening to sue TikTok for an alleged lack of licensing, says: “While some portions of Twitch’s platform are licensed properly, there are other large segments that contain massive infringement of musical works and it is disappointing Twitch does not do more to license its content properly. All social media sites and digital streaming services need to realize that music has value.” Twitch’s in-built karaoke service for its Creators, Twitch Sings, has been licensed by over 180 music publishers worldwide. “We have been working very directly with rights-holders as music evolves on Twitch.” However many artists Twitch attracts to its platform in future — and however many music licensing deals it signs — the company is clearly making an effort to establish its name in music circles during the current COVID-hit period. Twitch recently built a music directory that Olson says was “a real investment for us as a company”, and also launched a dedicated on-boarding area for artists. Tim Ingham is the founder and publisher of Music Business Worldwide, which has serviced the global industry with news, analysis, and jobs since 2015. He writes a weekly column for Rolling Stone. Here at Jeeni HQ, we think that Tim is a brilliant writer and clearly knows his stuff so we will be curating his work for all our members. #jeeni #unsigned #musicians #performers #timingham #musicbusinessworldwide #twitch

Jeeni Blog