How Holly Foster Wells, Granddaughter of Peggy Lee, Keeps the Iconic Singer-Songwriter’s Legacy Alive

Photo Credit: Christopher Mortenson

It was 1988, and Peggy Lee was finally going to take a stand. She was representing no one but herself, but she nonetheless was determined to face off against one of the largest media conglomerates in the country — Walt Disney Productions. In one corner, there was Lee, singer, songwriter, and actress. In the other, home of Mickey Mouse, numerous classic films, a cable network, and ever-expanding theme parks. David, meet Goliath.

At issue was the release of Disney’s 1955 animated feature, The Lady and the Tramp, on videocassette in 1987. Peggy Lee had co-written all of the film’s songs with Sonny Burke, in addition to voicing a number of the characters, including a Pekingese named after her, Peg, who sings the song “He’s a Tramp.” Peggy contended that she wasn’t being properly compensated for the VHS release. “I think it’s shameful that artists can’t share financially from the success of their work,” she told the New York Times at the time. “That’s the only way we can make our living.”

She would eventually win her case, which established new standards for how artists would be compensated for such releases in the future. It just might be the most important part of her legacy; something that will benefit performing artists for years to come. Yet a lawsuit is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Peggy Lee. You’re more like to think of the songs she’s most associated with, which, in addition to those Lady and the Tramp numbers, include “I’m a Woman,” “Is That All there Is?” and, of course, “Fever.” But again — how many people know that Lee not only wrote new lyrics for “Fever,” she was also responsible for its distinctive arrangement?

One could say that in spite of all her achievements — the hit records and films, the sold out tours, the awards and honors — the full breadth of Peggy Lee’s accomplishments has tended to be overlooked. Look to some new releases and events this year to offer a fresh perspective. The concert “Tribute to Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra,” set for July 27 at the Hollywood Bowl, matches the timeless work of these two iconic artists with performers like Billie Eilish, Bettye LaVette, Seth MacFarlane, and Debbie Harry, among others, backed by the Count Basie Orchestra. LA’s GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles is currently hosting the exhibit “100 Years of Peggy Lee,” running through September 5, featuring a wealth of personal items, including Lee’s paintings and drawings, scrapbook clippings, and her fabulous jewelry collection. Finally, there’s the reissue of Miss Peggy Lee: An Autobiography in an expanded edition that updates Lee’s story since the book’s first publication in 1987 (in the UK; US publication followed in 1989).

Overseeing all this is Holly Foster Wells, Lee’s granddaughter and president of Peggy Lee Associates. “I always kind of laugh at that title of ‘president,’ because really the title is ‘granddaughter,’” she says. It’s a job she began preparing for as a child, when she began traveling with her grandmother, laying out her makeup before shows and keeping her company backstage or in the recording studio. Now she works to keep Peggy Lee’s music alive for subsequent generations, overseeing record releases, licensing deals, publishing, and keeping up with new developments in communications, like streaming and social media.

“My grandmother told me when I was six years old that I was going to be doing this job,” she says. “I didn’t understand it; I didn’t even know what she was talking about. And as I got older she started giving me little nuggets of information along the way; my whole childhood growing up, she was teaching me what she wanted. And what I did understand was that her music was so important. And the fact that she was entrusting it to me felt amazing; I mean, that she would trust me that much. She had a lot of business people around her, but she wanted to know that someone who knew her and understood her and cared about her would keep it going in the way that she created it. So I think that’s why she picked me, because I was her flesh and blood, and a lot like her. She trained me.”

Holly as a toddler with her iconic grandmother

Lee loved keeping her family close, though her own upbringing had been difficult. Born Norma Delores Egstrom on May 26, 1920, she grew up in rural North Dakota; the former train depot where her father worked in Wimbledon is now a museum with a permanent Peggy Lee exhibit. Her mother died when she was four, and her stepmother proved to be monstrously abusive. The music on the radio and the glamourous worlds seen in the movies provided a mental escape before she could engineer a physical one.

She started out singing with a local dance band, and performed extensively on radio; it was during her time on the air at WDAY that she was rechristened “Peggy Lee.” There were subsequently trips to California, where she worked variously as a waitress and a carnival barker while gaining a foothold in area clubs and eventually performing more widely. While performing at the Buttery Room at the Ambassador Hotel West in Chicago, she was spotted by Benny Goodman, who hired her as the “girl singer” for the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941.

Her first recording with the Orchestra, “Elmer’s Tune,” was released soon after, a lively number with the kind of lyrics (“What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose?”) that matched Lee’s own playful sent of humor. After a rough start with the critics (one photo of her was captioned “Sweet sixteen and will never be missed”), the hits began to arrive the following year. Following her marriage to Benny Goodman Orchestra guitarist Dave Barbour in 1943, she tried to quit show business — “tried,” because offers of work continued to come in. With the encouragement of her husband (who thought she may regret not taking advantage of the opportunities before her) she signed with Capitol Records, as well as developing a new talent: songwriting.

It was an atypical move for the era. “Back then, there were not singer-songwriters,” Wells explains. “There were songwriters and there were singers. So it was really unusual that she was doing this. That has been one of my missions, talking about her songwriting and how she was one of the first contemporary female — or not even female, just one of the first singer-songwriters. And she then had the foresight to start her own publishing company, which is the company that I run to this day. She had a head for business on top of being an artist, which is kind of unusual.”

Peggy’s first collaborator was Barbour. “I Don’t Know Enough About You” is a teasing tune about trying to figure out one’s partner (in the promo film, Peggy looks like she’s interviewing a job applicant). “It’s a Good Day” makes something as mundane as paying your bills sound like lots of fun. “Golden Earrings” was the hit song for the film of the same name, and she went on to provide songs for such films as Johnny Guitar (the only Western to star Joan Crawford), Anatomy of a Murder, and the Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! Over the years, she collaborated on songs with such notable names as Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, Cy Coleman, and Harold Arlen.

“She wrote around 270 songs,” says Wells. “And I keep finding more, so that number just keeps going up. It’s kind of crazy, because I just keep going through boxes of things and I’ll find lyrics. And then I go through tapes that she made and I find demos that she’s recorded. It’s really astounding, but I have learned not to be surprised.” Given that only 1989’s The Peggy Lee Songbook: There’ll Be Another Spring focused on Lee’s songs (and a mere thirteen of them at that), a collection devoted to her songwriting seems long overdue.

In addition to her songs, Peggy also wrote poetry, and the updated autobiography features all the poems that appeared in her book Softly — With Feeling: A Collection of Verse by Peggy Lee, which she had privately published in 1953 (the title refers to her understated style of singing). The poems of nature and relationships reveal Lee’s more contemplative side; it would’ve been wonderful if she’d done a recording of, say “For People Who Are Not Sentimental,” an extraordinary look at how childhood disappointments lead people to build emotional walls around themselves.

Wells’ favorite is an untitled piece that begins, “I give my will to life and let it live me/All my mistakes to love/Love will forgive me…” “It says so much about her,” she says. “This shows her spiritual side and really what she believed; she was always telling me to let things go, turn things over to a higher power, or the universe. She was always talking about the light. When you think something negative, she would say, ‘Don’t give power to that; send white light to that thought.’ She was very much about positive thinking. She had a lot of hardship in her life. A lot of hardship. And back in the day, you didn’t go to therapy and go to rehab or workshops and work through your trauma. So her outlet was poetry, songwriting, music, singing, and spirituality.”

Lee didn’t write “Fever,” but her final touches shaped it into a classic. Written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell (under the pseudonym John Davenport), the song was originally recorded by Little Willie John in 1956. Whereas that version is an uptempo blues with a decided swing, Lee chose to make her own version, released in 1958, a study in minimalism, insisting on having only bass, light percussion, and finger snaps backing her, the better to highlight her “softly with feeling” delivery. She also wrote new lyrics for the song.

Yet not only did she receive no credit for being a lyricist, the song’s Grammy Award nomination for Best Arrangement credited the session’s orchestrator, Jack Marshall, and not Lee (“Fever” was also nominated for Best Female Vocal Performance and Record of the Year). Capitol Records executives told her not to make a fuss about it; did she want to be seen as a troublemaker? So Lee kept quiet — then.

But she didn’t hesitate to push back just over a decade later, when the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller brought her “Is That All There Is?” The song is a meditation on the meaning of existence, with the narrator left unmoved by a series of life events: the tragedy of a house fire, the antics at the circus, the sorrow of heartbreak, even the inevitability of death itself. “If that’s all there is, let’s keep on dancing,” the song concludes with a weary sigh, “Let’s break out the booze and have a ball….”

“I will kill you if you give this song to anyone but me,” Lee told the songwriters. “This is my song. This is the story of my life.” Leiber and Stoller were agreeable, but Lee’s memoir recalls “resistance everywhere” about her recording the song, which was seen as too much of a downer. Even after its recording, the label didn’t want to release it. Lee finally forced Capitol’s hand when she promised to make an arranged television appearance if the label agreed to release the song. Lee had the last laugh; “Is That All There Is?” became her first Top 20 twenty hit since “Fever.” And she also won her own Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

Peggy Lee was proud of her work and no longer hesitated to speak up if she felt she wasn’t getting her due. She’d been happy to help promote The Lady and the Tramp when it was reissued in the 1980s. “She imagined that she would be getting a nice big royalty check, because here was this new way that people could see old films,” Wells explains. “And when they didn’t give her the royalty check, and she saw how much money they made, she was furious — not just for herself, but for other artists, because she just felt that artists should be paid for their contribution. And by that time in her life, let me tell you, she was a strong woman, and there was no part of her that was going to be quiet. So she was not at all afraid to sue.

“It was a very intimidating situation and it took years and it was intense and grueling,” she continues. “But I never saw her be meek or worried. She was just, ‘This is wrong, and I need to fix it.’ The one thing I did see is it took a huge toll on her health. She was not in the best of health at that time, and it was a lot of meetings, and depositions, and it went on for years and years. And then it went to trial. And for her to get up every day, looking like a star and getting to downtown LA was a huge effort. And I went with her to court several times. It was hard on her. But she was so proud when she won and again, not just for her, but for all artists. It was a precedent setting case. And so she was really proud of that, that she had fought for the rights of other artists and really redefined home video rights. And when you see certain language in contracts now, it stems back to that case, about technology now created or created in the future.”

After spending her childhood accompanying her grandmother as she worked, Wells took some time off when she was in her late teens. “I told her that I didn’t want to work for her anymore; I just wanted to be her granddaughter. I felt like I needed to do my own thing. She said she understood, but that she just needed to know that I would look after her affairs when she was gone. And I said, ‘Absolutely, I promise you.’ It really mattered to her.” Wells pursued a career in television, until signing on at Peggy Lee Associates in the late 1990s. By then, Lee had stopped performing, and she’d released her last new album in 1993. But there were always projects to oversee, like new compilation and box set releases or organizing her voluminous archives.

Photo Credit: Christopher Mortenson

Peggy Lee died in 2002, at the age of 81. “When she died, I will never forget walking through her house and thinking, ‘What am I going to do with all this?’” says Wells. “It was overwhelming. I’m still sorting through all her things.” Among the many boxes, she found a number of timelines her grandmother had put together of her life and career, one in particular singled out with a note, “Most Important Timeline — Save!” “I was amazed,” Wells recalls. “Like, who is she saying this to? And it was all in caps, typed. And then she had handwritten something on the top of it, like ‘Save!’ And it was in plastic. I swear to you, when I go through these boxes sometimes, I feel like she’s left me a treasure map. It’s like breadcrumbs that she’s left in the forest that I’m following. Like she knew that I would probably be the one that would be looking through all of this, and that she wouldn’t be here to tell me certain things. And she left me all of these notes and signs and recordings and it blows my mind every time. And, you know, even though I’m running a business, this is my grandmother. So it’s very personal to me. And I sometimes have to stop and just breathe and think. I cry. I’m grateful. It’s like, wow. And I wish I could ask her things now that I just didn’t have the foresight to do back then.”

Along with the records and the licensing deals, other Lee-related projects are currently on what Wells calls “my Peggy Lee bucket list:” a coffee table book, a documentary, and a feature film, set to star Michelle Williams and directed by Todd Haynes. Peggy Lee has proved to be the kind of legacy artist whose work is constantly being rediscovered, as when the use of her 1949 song “Similau (See-Me-Lo)” in a commercial for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 phone led to its unexpected appearance in Billboard’s Jazz Digital Song Sales chart. And now Wells is the one telling her own sons that they’ll be carrying on that legacy.

“I’ve explained to both of them, ‘So, when I’m gone, you will be the keepers of the flame.’ I’m starting to look to at, what happens when I’m not here? Because it’s going to live on beyond me, and the next generation doesn’t have that direct connection to her. So I now feel this responsibility to keep it going. I’m getting the stories out so that they don’t go with me.”

Follow Peggy Lee on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for ongoing updates.

AF 2021 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums & Singles of The Year

If you went into 2021 with high expectations, you weren’t alone. Even if it was hard to feel optimistic this time last year, it certainly seemed as if things could get no worse. Live music did return, after all – though with the appearance of Delta, and now Omicron, the joyful noise comes with a caveat. After sixteen months of having to livestream shows (fun, but not the same) little could stop me from attending shows in person; wearing a mask as an extra precaution felt like no big deal, even if no one else was doing it. But luck (and vaccines) feel like the real reason I emerged unscathed from dozens of risky experiences, and with performances on the horizon canceled once again, maybe it’s wise to enter 2022 with slightly lower expectations.

There’s always recorded music, anyhow. Maybe the tumult of the year just has me personally feeling a bit unfocused, but it seems as though I barely scaled the mountain of this year’s musical offerings without getting a bit buried in the avalanche of releases – ones that had been pushed back, ones that were created in lockdown. I’ll be playing catch up well into the new year, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t gems I connected with almost immediately, and very deeply. And that’s what I’ve heard across the board, from those in the industry as well as casual music fans – is that our favorites this year stayed on heavy rotation, as we latched onto music that accurately reflected our moods, which evolved moment to moment and of course happened to be different for all of us at any given time. What does that mean for year-end lists? Audiofemme has always compiled an eclectic list, including favorites from each of our contributors without overall rank – consider any repeats to be the best of the best. But this year, the list seems even more diverse, meaning there’s a wealth of weird and wonderful music below to discover, dear reader. Thanks for sticking with us through another wild year.

EDITOR LISTS

  • Marianne White (Executive Director)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) PinkPantheress – to hell with it
      2) Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
      3) Low – Hey What
      4) Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales
      5) Julien Baker – Little Oblivions
      6) Dawn Richard – Second Line: An Electro Revival
      7) Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take
      8) aya – im hole
      9) Flock of Dimes – Head of Roses
      10) Tyler, the Creator – CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
    • Top 5 Singles:
      1) Japanese Breakfast – “Be Sweet”
      2) Loraine James (feat. Eden Samara) – “Running Like That”
      3) Hand Habits – “More Than Love”
      4) Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen – “Like I Used To”
      5) Julien Baker – “Faith Healer (Half Waif Remix)”

  • Lindsey Rhoades (Editor-in-Chief)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) Low – Hey What
      2) Tirzah – Colourgrade
      3) Nana Yamato – Before Sunrise
      4) Emma Ruth Rundle – Engine of Hell
      5) Jane Weaver – Flock
      6) Tonstartssbandht – Petunia
      7) Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
      8) Squirrel Flower – Planet (i)
      9) Veik – Surrounding Structures
      10) Cassandra Jenkins – An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
    • Top 10 Singles:
      1) Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen – “Like I Used To”
      2) Special Interest – “All Tomorrow’s Carry”
      3) Squid – “G.S.K.”
      4) Julien Baker – “Bloodshot”
      5) Mandy, Indiana – “Bottle Episode”
      6) Remember Sports – “Pinky Ring”
      7) Cedric Noel – “Comuu”
      8) Gustaf – “Mine”
      9) June Jones – “Therapy”
      10) MAN ON MAN – “Stohner”

  • Mandy Brownholtz (Marketing Director)
    • Top 5 Albums (in no particular order):
      Spellling – The Turning Wheel
      King Woman – Celestial Blues
      Macy Rodman – Unbelievable Animals
      Marissa Nadler – The Path of the Clouds
      Kinlaw – The Tipping Scale
    • Top 3 Singles (in no particular order):
      Often – “Deep Sleep”
      Mannequin Pussy – “Control”
      Spice – “A Better Treatment”

STAFF LISTS

  • Alexa Peters (Playing Seattle)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) Wye Oak – Cut All The Wires: 2009-2011
      2) Dori Freeman – Ten Thousand Roses
      3) Isaiah Rashad – The House Is Burning
      4) Fawn Wood – Kåkike
      5) Carmen Q. Rothwell – Don’t Get Comfy / Nowhere
    • Honorable Mention: Mike Gebhart – Co-Pilot 
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Doja Cat (feat. SZA) – “Kiss Me More”
      2) Mitski – “Working for the Knife”
      3) DoNormaal – “Baby May”

  • Cat Woods (Playing Melbourne)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Deap Vally – Marriage
      2) Mod Con – Modern Condition
      3) Laura Stevenson – Laura Stevenson
      4) Joan As Police Woman – The Solution is Restless
      5) Black Country, New Road – For the first time
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Black Country, New Road – “Sunglasses”
      2) Lana Del Rey – “Dealer”
      3) jennylee – “Tickles”

  • Liz Ohanesian (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Hackedepicciotto — The Silver Threshold
      2) Saint Etienne — I’ve Been Trying to Tell You
      3) L’impératrice — Take Tsubo
      4) Pearl and the Oysters— Flowerland
      5) Nuovo Testamento — New Earth
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Midnight Magic – “Beam Me Up” 
      2) Jessie Ware – “Please”
      3) Gabriels – “Love and Hate in a Different Time (Kerri Chandler Remix)”  

  • Gillian G. Gaar (Musique Boutique)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Dolphin Midwives — Body of Water
      2) Sarah McQuaid — The St. Buryan Sessions
      3) Low — Hey What 
      4) Witch Camp — I’ve Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be 
      5) Full Bush — Movie Night
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Maggie Herron — “Sweet Lullaby”
      2) Sleater-Kinney — “High in the Grass”
      3) ONETWOTHREE — “Give Paw” 

  • Jason Scott (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Jetty Bones – Push Back
      2) M.A.G.S. – Say Things That Matter
      3) Lyndsay Ellyn – Queen of Nothing
      4) Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed
      5) Christian Lopez – The Other Side
    • Top 5 Singles:
      1) Hayes Carll – “Help Me Remember”
      2) Jake Wesley Rogers – “Middle of Love”
      3) Adele – “To Be Loved”
      4) Carly Pearce – “What He Didn’t Do”
      5) Kacey Musgraves – “what doesn’t kill me”

  • Michelle Rose (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Alex Orange Drink – Everything Is Broken, Maybe That’s O​.​K.
      2) Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever
      3) Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed
      4) Magdalena Bay – Mercurial World
      5) Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Blonder – “Ice Cream Girl” 
      2) Mitski – “The Only Heartbreaker”
      3) Kristiane – “Better On Your Own”  

  • Victoria Moorwood (Playing Cincy)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Polo G – Hall of Fame
      2) Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud – The Plugs I Met 2
      3) Megan Thee Stallion – Something For Thee Hotties
      4) Pooh Shiesty – Shiesty Sessions
      5) blackbear – misery lake
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud – “Thanksgiving”
      2) Lil Nas X (feat. Jack Harlow)  – “INDUSTRY BABY”
      3) 24kGoldn (feat. Future) – “Company”

  • Jamila Aboushaca (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed
      2) Snoh Aalegra – Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies 
      3) Lil Nas X – Montero
      4) Darkside – Spiral
      5) Blu DeTiger – How Did We Get Here EP
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Kaytranada (feat. H.E.R.) – “Intimidated”
      2) Kacey Musgraves – “simple times”
      3) Snoh Aalegra – “In Your Eyes”

  • Sophia Vaccaro (Playing the Bay)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Aly & AJ – A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun
      2) Julia Wolf – Girls in Purgatory (Full Moon Edition)
      3) Megan Thee Stallion – Something For Thee Hotties
      4) Lil Mariko – Lil Mariko
      5) Destroy Boys – Open Mouth, Open Heart
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) daine – “dainecore”
      2) Julia Wolf – “Villain”
      3) Doja Cat – “Need To Know”

  • Sam Weisenthal (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take
      2) Katy Kirby – Cool Dry Place
      3) Mega Bog – Life, and Another
      4) Ada Lea – one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden
      5) Olivia Kaplan – Tonight Turns to Nothing
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Charlotte Cornfield – “Drunk For You” 
      2) Dora Jar – “Multiply”
      3) Joe Taylor Sutkowski, Dirt Buyer – “What Luck, Goodbye”  

  • Sara Barron (Playing Detroit)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) PinkPantheress – to hell with it
      2) Summer Walker – Still Over It
      3) Erika de Casier – Sensational
      4) Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales
      5) Adele – 30
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Lana Del Rey – “Dealer”
      2) Liv.e – “Bout It”
      3) SZA – “I Hate U”

  • Eleanor Forrest (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
      2) CL – ALPHA
      3) My Life As Ali Thomas – Peppermint Town
      4) Halsey – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power
      5) Remember Sports – Like a Stone
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) FKA twigs (feat. Central Cee) – “Measure of a Man”
      2) Sabriel – “Pulse”
      3) Lexie Liu – “有吗炒面 ALGTR”

AF 2020 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums & Singles of The Year

In a year that’s been like no other for the music industry, it feels a bit weird to make a best of 2020 list – there have been no tours, venues and clubs across the globe are in danger of closing their doors for good, release schedules were shuffled beyond recognition, and musicians have had to find other ways to make ends meet while those in the U.S. await the next round of paltry stimulus checks. With a situation so dire, the metrics have changed – should we ascribe arbitrary value to the skill of producers, songwriters, performers, and the execution of their finished projects, or simply celebrate records that made us feel like the whole world wasn’t crumbling?

Definitively ranking releases has never been the Audiofemme model for looking back on the year in music. Instead, our writers each share a short list of what moved them most, in the hopes that our readers will find something that moves them, too. Whether you spent the lockdown voraciously listening to more new music this year than ever before, or fell back on comforting favorites, or didn’t have the headspace to absorb the wealth of music inspired by the pandemic, the variety here emphasizes how truly essential music can be to our well-being. If you’re in the position to do so, support your favorite artists and venues by buying merch, and check out the National Independent Venue Association to stay updated on what’s happening with the Save Our Stages act. Here’s to a brighter 2021.

EDITOR LISTS

  • Marianne White (Executive Director)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders
      2) the Microphones – Microphones in 2020
      3) Soccer Mommy – Color Theory
      4) Megan Thee Stallion – Good News
      5) Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
      6) Amaarae – The Angel You Don’t Know
      7) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
      8) Adrianne Lenker – songs/instrumentals
      9) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
      10) Lomelda – Hannah
    • Top 5 Singles:
      1) Kinlaw – “Permissions”
      2) Billie Eilish – “Therefore I Am”
      3) Little Dragon & Moses Sumney – “The Other Lover”
      4) Yves Tumor – “Kerosene!”
      5) Megan Thee Stallion – “Shots Fired”

  • Lindsey Rhoades (Editor-in-Chief)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) Land of Talk – Indistinct Conversations
      2) Dehd – Flower of Devotion
      3) SAULT – Untitled (Black Is)/Untitled (Rise)
      4) Public Practice – Gentle Grip
      5) Cindy Lee – What’s Tonight to Eternity
      6) Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters
      7) Benny Yurco – You Are My Dreams
      8) Eve Owen – Don’t Let the Ink Dry
      9) Porridge Radio – Every Bad
      10) Jess Cornelius – Distance
    • Top 10 Singles:
      1) Little Hag – “Tetris”
      2) Elizabeth Moen – “Creature of Habit”
      3) Yo La Tengo – “Bleeding”
      4) Caribou – “Home”
      5) Jess Williamson – “Pictures of Flowers”
      6) Adrianne Lenker – “anything”
      7) Nicolás Jaar – “Mud”
      8) Soccer Mommy – “Circle the Drain”
      9) New Fries – “Ploce”
      10) El Perro Del Mar – “The Bells”

STAFF LISTS

  • Alexa Peters (Playing Seattle)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Deep Sea Diver – Impossible Weight
      2) Blimes and Gab – Talk About It
      3) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
      4) Tomo Nakayama – Melonday
      5) Matt Gold – Imagined Sky
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Stevie Wonder – “Can’t Put it in the Hands of Fate”
      2) Tomo Nakayama – “Get To Know You”
      3) Ariana Grande – “Positions”

  • Amanda Silberling (Playing Philly)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Frances Quinlan – Likewise
      2) Bartees Strange – Live Forever
      3) Told Slant – Point the Flashlight and Walk
      4) Diet Cig – Do You Wonder About Me?
      5) Shamir – Shamir
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Kississippi – “Around Your Room”
      2) Sad13 – “Hysterical”
      3) The Garages – “Mike Townsend (Is a Disappointment)”

  • Ashley Prillaman (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
      2) Lasse Passage – Sunwards
      3) Megan Thee Stallion – Good News
      4) Grimes – Miss Anthropocene
      5) Yves Tumor – Heaven To A Tortured Mind
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Megan Thee Stallion – “B.I.T.C.H.”
      2) Perfume Genius – “On the Floor”
      3) SG Lewis & Robyn – “Impact” (feat. Robyn & Channel Tres)

  • Cat Woods (Playing Melbourne)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Jarvis Cocker – Beyond the Pale
      2) Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine
      3) Run the Jewels – RTJ4
      4) Emma Donovan & The Putbacks – Crossover
      5) Various Artists – Deadly Hearts: Walking Together
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Emma Donovan & The Putbacks – “Mob March”
      2) Laura Veirs – “Freedom Feeling”
      3) Miley Cyrus – “Never Be Me”

  • Chaka V. Grier (Playing Toronto)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas
      2) Joya Mooi – Blossom Carefully
      3) Lady Gaga – Chromatica
      4) Witch Prophet – DNA Activation
      5) Tremendum – Winter
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Lianne La Havas – “Green Papaya”
      2) Lady Gaga – “Free Woman”
      3) Allie X – “Susie Save Your Love”

  • Cillea Houghton (Playing Nashville)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Chris Stapleton  – Starting Over
      2) Brett Eldredge – Sunday Drive
      3) Little Big Town – Nightfall
      4) Ingrid Andress – Lady Like
      5) Ruston Kelly – Shape & Destroy
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) The Weeknd – “Blinding Lights”
      2) Billie Eilish – “Therefore I Am”
      3) Remi Wolf  – “Hello Hello Hello”

  • Eleanor Forrest (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Grimes – Miss Anthropocene
      2) Rina Sawayama – SAWAYAMA
      3) Allie X – Cape Cod
      4) LEXXE – Meet Me in the Shadows
      5) Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle – The Last of Us Part II (Original Soundtrack)
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) CL – “+5 STAR+”
      2) Yves Tumor & Kelsey Lu – “let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out”
      3)  Stephan Moccio – “Freddie’s Theme”

  • Gillian G. Gaar (Musique Boutique)
    • Top 10 Albums:
      1) Dust Bowl Faeries – Plague Garden
      2) Ganser – Just Look At That Sky
      3) Oceanator – Things I Never Said
      4) Loma – Don’t Shy Away
      5) Maggie Herron – Your Refrain
      6) Pretenders – Hate for Sale
      7) The Bird and the Bee – Put up the Lights
      8) Partner – Never Give Up
      9) Bully – Sugaregg
      10) Olivia Awbrey – Dishonorable Harvest

  • Jason Scott (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Mickey Guyton – Bridges EP
      2) Katie Pruitt – Expectations
      3) Mandy Moore – Silver Landings
      4) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
      5) Cf Watkins – Babygirl
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Mickey Guyton – “Black Like Me”
      2) Ashley McBryde – “Stone”
      3) Lori McKenna feat. Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose – “When You’re My Age”

  • Jamila Aboushaca (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Tame Impala – The Slow Rush
      2) Khruangbin – Mordechai
      3) Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon III: The Chosen
      4) Tycho – Simulcast
      5) Run the Jewels – RTJ4
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Tame Impala – “Lost In Yesterday”
      2) Phoebe Bridgers – “Kyoto”
      3) Halsey – “You should be sad”

  • Liz Ohanesian (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine
      2) Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure?
      3) Phenomenal Handclap Band – PHB
      4) Khruangbin – Mordechai
      5) TootArd – Migrant Birds
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Anoraak – “Gang” 
      2) Kylie Minogue – “Magic”
      3) Horsemeat Disco feat. Phenomenal Handclap Band – “Sanctuary”  

  • Michelle Rose (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
      2) Taylor Swift – folklore
      3) Shamir – Shamir
      4) Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure?
      5) HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Porches – “I Miss That” 
      2) Annabel Jones – “Spiritual Violence”
      3) Wolf – “High Waist Jeans”  

  • Sara Barron (Playing Detroit)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Summer Walker – Over It
      2) Yaeji – WHAT WE DREW
      3) Liv.e – Couldn’t Wait to Tell You
      4) Ojerime – B4 I Breakdown
      5) KeiyaA – Forever, Ya Girl
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Yves Tumor – “Kerosene!”
      2) Kali Uchis, Jhay Cortez – “la luz (fin)”
      3) fleet.dreams – “Selph Love”

  • Sophia Vaccaro (Playing the Bay)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Charli XCX – how i’m feeling now
      2) The Front Bottoms – In Sickness & In Flames
      3) Zheani – Zheani Sparkes EP
      4) Various Artists – Save Stereogum: A ’00s Covers Comp
      5) Halsey – Manic
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Charli XCX – “forever”
      2) Doja Cat – “Boss Bitch”
      3) Wolf – “Hoops”

  • Suzannah Weiss (Contributor)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Galantis – Church
      2) Best Coast – Always Tomorrow
      3) Overcoats – The Fight
      4) Holy Motors – Horse
      5) Suzanne Vallie – Love Lives Where Rules Die
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) CAMÍNA – “Cinnamon”
      2) Naïka – “African Sun”
      3) Edoheart – “Original Sufferhead”

  • Tarra Thiessen (RSVP Here, Check the Spreadsheet)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network – Ballet of Apes
      2) Ganser – Just Look At That Sky
      3) Death Valley Girls – Under The Spell of Joy
      4) The Koreatown Oddity – Little Dominiques Nosebleed
      5) Ghost Funk Orchestra – An Ode To Escapism
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Miss Eaves – “Belly Bounce”
      2) Purple Witch of Culver – “Trig”
      3) Shilpa Ray – “Heteronormative Horseshit Blues”

  • Victoria Moorwood (Playing Cincy)
    • Top 5 Albums:
      1) Lil Baby – My Turn
      2) A$AP Ferg – Floor Seats II
      3) Polo G – The Goat
      4) The Weeknd – After Hours
      5) Teyana Taylor – The Album
    • Top 3 Singles:
      1) Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion – “WAP”
      2) Roddy Ricch  – “The Box”
      3) Big Sean & Nipsey Hussle – “Deep Reverence”

RSVP HERE: Hayley and The Crushers livestream via T1 Fest + More!

If you can picture Joan Jett fronting The Ramones while drinking a cola-flavored Slurpee at a record shop you’ll have an idea what to expect from Hayley and The Crushers. The power-pop surf-punk trio hail from San Louis Obispo, California and are fronted by Haley “Crusher” Cain alongside her bassist/husband Dr. Cain “Crusher” Cain and drummer Dougie Tangent. Their music is the perfect soundtrack for the intro credits of an early ’00s teen movie that takes place in the ’50s. This year they released their third record Vintage Millennial and a 7″ single titled “Jacaranda.” In 2019 they played 100+ shows touring cross-country while living exclusively out of their van. They put on an energetic live show; and you can watch them live on Saturday October 24th via the T1 Fest- a benefit for JDRF, who fund research and advocate for people suffering from Type 1 Diabetes.

We chatted with Hayley “Crusher” Cain about the making of their most recent record, what their band’s tiki drink would be, and her podcast Sparkle and Destroy.

AF: How was the process of writing and recording your third record?

HCC: Making our new album Vintage Millennial was kind of a blur. We were touring and playing live a bunch in 2019, so the songs came pretty quickly and with a lot of urgency. Our home drummer here in San Luis Obispo, Benjamin Cabreana, is very high energy and eager to learn new songs, so we just kept feeding the beast till we had a whole set finished. I wrote “Gabbie is a Domme,” about an old friend who had become a dominatrix, in one sitting, without a ton of drama or overthinking. I remember being surprised by that, and knowing in my head that there would be glockenspiel. It was almost creepy how quickly some songs came to be, just me and the guitar. There’s something really freeing about knowing you have to get a record done quickly, between tour dates or a deadline you’ve set yourself. You just make decisions. Ideas that might have languished for years, rotting in my notebook (“I Don’t Wanna be like Johnny Ramone” and “Shoulda Been Shangela,” which was about a drag queen that the band loved on Ru Paul’s Drag Race) just kind of leapt off the page and into life. For that reason, I think this album is a real time capsule of our lives at the moment, right now. Then there are songs like “Kiss Me so I Can,” which my husband/bass player, Dr. Cain, and I wrote together. It was a little labored but in a good way. We were tasked with making a groovy sort of Crushers-style love song that still felt universal. We wrote it in real-time as we faced the reality of what constant van-living and ambition was doing to our relationship. I think anyone can relate to the idea of never feeling like you have enough time for your loved one (even if you live in a van/apartment/house with them), or feeling split between two lives and desires. Honestly, it felt quite exposing, but like a natural next step. “Poison Box” was also a collaboration between us – I was in Berlin for the holidays with my sister, and I was inspired by the GDR museum, which showed life in Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. My husband sent me a few guitar riffs over voice memo one night and I wrote the song at my sister’s Berlin apartment after a night of drinking. Everything felt urgent and crazy in 2019. We also tried to write a bit more for production than on Cool/Lame, which is basically a representation of what we do live. We tried to keep spots open for organ, additional drums, claps, and general weirdness, which I think add a lot to our sound, and we’d like to keep that going. Dr. Cain’s sly surf song “Forever Grom” is one of my favorite tunes on the album, even if it truly is a quick interlude and just a total wild card. Fun fact: all the waves and seagulls you hear on that track were created by either Dr. Cain’s amazing vocal abilities or a steel tube being rubbed against the nether regions of my Gretsch guitar. I feel really lucky we were able to do vinyl in 2020, despite all the issues happening in the record pressing world and the wider world in general. Travis Woods from Eccentric Pop Records believed in Vintage Millennial, even if it might be the weirdest album on his label to date. All you need is one person to believe in you and you just decide it’s a good idea. That’s a little known secret of the business!

AF: What are jacarandas, and what do they mean to you?

HCC: Wikipedia says: “Jacaranda mimosifolia is a sub-tropical tree native to south-central South America that has been widely planted elsewhere because of its attractive and long-lasting pale indigo flowers.” I can confirm this is true! In my town of San Luis Obispo, California, these purple trees start blooming in May and continue through the summer. In the summer, everything is brown (burnt by literal wildfires) or just dried by the sun, so these insane purple trees really stand out. I wrote the song as I was longing for the road. We spent 100 days on the road in 2019 with two Midwest Tours and a few West Coast tours and I started writing this song between dates, when we had come home briefly to tie up loose ends. Dr. Cain was selling his comic book shop of nine years and I had quit a column I had written for the local alt weekly for about five years. The color of the trees inspired me and I loved the idea of a song that’s a wake up call. Maybe I just hadn’t been home in a while, so the trees seemed even more technicolor than usual. I felt like they were a cosmic sign, that they were speaking to me and letting me know it was okay to get the hell out. Of course, now I am back at home and have had to completely eat every single word of that song. It’s been humbling. I am grateful to live where I do and to have my friends and family and dogs here.

AF: How has quarantine affected your creative process/routine?

HCC: I just feel like I am always working at 30%. The battery in my soul is low. I don’t have the boundless energy to write demos and I certainly don’t have that urgent feeling that comes with preparing for/booking the next tour. I feel sort of like I am swimming through peanut butter. I continue to write my song ideas down in my notebook, but they take longer to come together. Band practice has helped. Making demos has helped. But everything is slower, less fluid, clunky. That’s got to be part of the underlying and ongoing trauma of 2020. I am not into “victim mentality” at all, but we need to realize we are all in a slowly boiling pot and that is going to have real consequences on our mental health over time. Someone said this recently and it really stuck with me: “It’s like we’re all in a fire. And it’s slow burning. And it’s invisible.” This is stress, anxiety and depression compounded and stretched out like we’ve never seen before. All I know is I am writing down the freaky stuff that I have seen during COVID (a guy wearing a gas mask at the grocery store; a lonely hopscotch created in chalk by kids on my street surrounded by positive affirmations) and I know it will all go into a song, a book or something. Dr. Cain has been surfing a lot, Ben has been skating, and I have been doing yoga in my backyard. You have to find something that completely takes your mind off the election, the state of our country, COVID. You just have to.

AF: If Hayley and the Crushers were a tiki drink, what would it be?

HCC: A super sweet, surprisingly strong Madonna Rum Punch from Madonna Inn, the late ’50s pink palace of a hotel located down the street from my house! It has multiple rums, a maraschino cherry, an orange slice and a cute little skewer.

AF: If you were to do a Halloween-themed cover, what would it be? 

HCC: Our song “Neurotica” is about a teen witch, so that is as spooky as we have gotten! The only horror movie I can really watch without peeing my pants is Gremlins, and I’m pretty sure that’s actually a Christmas movie and a teen comedy and not at all supposed to be scary. But it is! It’s so scary. An instrumental surf punk version of the Gremlins theme song would actually be pretty frightening (on many levels). 

AF: Have you had any paranormal experiences?

HCC: As for paranormal experiences, I wish I could say I have had some. I always wanted to see an alien or communicate with a forlorn ghost in a Victorian nightgown. Maybe it’s because I grew up with atheists, but boring old science has literally ruined my sense of otherworldly fun. Kim Wilde, who we cover on Vintage Millennial with our song “Water on Glass” is always talking about aliens and stuff. Her latest album is called Here Come the Aliens. It’s funny when you Google someone you admire from the ’80s and you realize that they now go on talk shows recounting their paranormal experiences. I’m jealous, really. I can only hope to be that eccentric one day.

AF: Tell us a little about your podcast Sparkle and Destroy. Who would be your dream guest? 

HCC: It’s like an audio zine, and it’s not supposed to be fancy by any means. It’s half interview and half just me rambling about art and my life. I worked as a journalist for about 10 years and I loved the experience of being able to walk right up to someone you found interesting or cool. It’s powerful stuff, to be able to interview them and just pick their brains (as you know). I also had a real paper zine for a few years, which was super fun if not insanely time consuming. When I quit all that so I could focus more on music, I really craved being an interviewer again. I was meeting all these rad women on the road or elsewhere. A sound woman here, a guitarist there. So now I have my own excuse to walk up to some stranger and say, “Can I interview you?” Funny that people will usually say yes. I couldn’t believe that Alice Bag said yes. My dream guest, Josie Cotton, has already been on the show. Guess I should pack it up and go home!

AF: When it is safe to have shows and tours again, are there any structural changes you would like to see in how they are run and in the music scene as a whole? 

HCC: Considering we book all own tours, make all our own fliers, chase down all our own press, send out all our own advances, and promote all our own shows on our own dime—sure. I’d love to see a return of dedicated, professional venue bookers in the United States who are paid well enough to help with some of this crucial work. I find myself doing the job of the venue when it comes to promotion and even organizing what times the bands will play, because more often than not, you don’t even get an email confirming the gig. We create and print fliers and literally send the paper versions to venues, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but think about doing that for every show on tour. Then there is contacting local press/radio etc. We buy our own ads to promote the shows we play, even as we are spending a lot of money to travel across the country to be there. This work helps all the bands on the bill and the venue, not just us. Of course, some venues do have good promotion, but, in general, I think the money isn’t there anymore. These jobs are just going away or not paying well enough to attract the right people. I know they used to exist, because older music people tell me about those glory days when a venue would actually tell the local paper about a show. Of course, papers are going away too. Venues are closing down left and right during COVID so I feel bad saying anything critical. They will be so weak and needing of support when and if they reopen that all I can hope for is an open door and a few drink tickets.

AF: What are your plans for the rest of 2020 and beyond?

HCC: We have a new album we are working on! Stay tuned. It should come out next year if all goes to plan. We are also doing a live stream on Saturday Oct. 24. T1 Fest supports funding and research for folks suffering from Type 1 Diabetes, which is a big issue for our former drummer, who had to quit the band due to medical reasons.

We have a new single coming out this winter that I think will surprise and delight y’all. The song is about one of my first punk loves, Black Flag. I used to sit in the barn and play Black Flag and Ramones songs over and over, trying to sing as snotty as possible. Now I am ancient, in my 30s, and still feel that sense of excitement about punk. It’s an homage of sorts! We’ve been filming a music video for the song and I have to say it’s pretty silly. It has been a morale boost for sure. There will be a new shirt and cassette associated with the new single, so watch for that. We are supposed to head to Europe in summer 2021, but we will see if that happens. Our band has already voted by mail and we encourage everyone to do so! We thank our Crushers worldwide for all the love and support during these “uncertain times.”

RSVP HERE for Hayley and The Crushers via T1 Fest 2020 with Dan Vapid of Dan Vapid & The Cheats and The Methadones, Jen Pop and Poli Van Dam of The Bombpops, The Radio Buzzkills, Death and Memphis, The Usuals, Capgun Heroes, and The Lettermans on Saturday 10/24 6pm ET.

More great livestreams this week…

10/23 PUP via NoonChorus. $13, 9pm ET RSVP HERE

10/23 Jason Isbell, The Killers, Stevie Nicks, Kurt Vile and more via SiriusXM (Tom Petty Birthday Bash). 4:30pm ET RSVP HERE

10/23 Teenage Halloween via The New Colossus Festival YouTube (live from Rockaway Beach). 9pm ET RSVP HERE

10/24 Chance The Rapper, Questlove, Shaquille O’Neal, LL COOL J and more via Facebook (Black Entrepreneurs Day). 7pm ET RSVP HERE

10/24 Billie Eilish via The Internet. 6pm ET RSVP HERE

10/25 Angel Olsen, Bright Eyes, Brittany Howard, Eyes Blood, Mac DeMarco & more via Lively (Village of Love for Planned Parenthood). 9pm ET RSVP HERE

10/26 Thick, Haybaby, Brain Don, Niteowl, Adrian Is Hungry via Venue Pilot (live from Our Wicked Lady). $5, 7pm ET RSVP HERE

10/27 Native Sun, Pure Adult via Venue Pilot (live from The Broadway). $5, 7pm ET RSVP HERE

LIVE REVIEW: The Best New Artist Nominees Perform at Spotify’s Grammy Party

Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus perform their smash hit “Old Town Road” at Spotify’s pre-Grammy party showcasing Best New Artist nominees. Photo by Suzannah Weiss.

On Sunday, January 26, 18-year-old singer-songwriter Billie Eilish took home an impressive five Grammy awards: best new artist, album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, and best pop vocal album. The week before, I had the chance to attend Spotify’s official Grammy party, which included performances by Eilish and the other Best New Artist nominees. 

The party was held at the Lot Studios in West Hollywood, and getting into the venue was an adventure in and of itself. After standing in a line to get on a line to get on another line, I’d unfortunately missed the first act, hip-hop sensation Lizzo, but I did get inside in time to catch Eilish’s performance.

Only at an LA music industry event could there be such an unfazed crowd in front of an artist who is about to win a Grammy. Acknowledging how many people were talking, eating, and otherwise failing to give their full attention, Eilish joked, “I’m sorry to make you be quiet for this.” 

The audience’s ostensible lack of enthusiasm didn’t reflect the quality of the act, though. Accompanied by her brother Finneas O’Connell on keyboard, Eilish played a mini-set consisting of “I Don’t Wanna Be You Anymore,” “Everything I Wanted,” and, of course, the haunting “Ocean Eyes.” The highlight, though, was their rhythmic yet mellow acoustic rendition of “Bad Guy.”

Next came a very different nominee, funk and soul duo the Black Pumas, who delivered an eclectic meld of rock and R&B on tracks like “Fire,” which was a bit reminiscent of The Black Keys, “Know You Better,” which contained gospel-like harmonies, and the soulful, catchy “Colors,” which featured an animated keyboard solo. 

Singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers then took the stage, giving the night’s most energetic performance. She jumped up and down and danced almost nonstop as she cycled through hits like “Give a Little,” with its gorgeous closing harmonies, and “The Knife,” to which she added a classical piano intro. Singing poppy tracks like “Say It” and “Love You for a Long Time,” Rogers came off like she was genuinely enjoying herself, bending down at one point to give audience members high fives. 

The audience favorite, however, seemed to be Lil Nas X, who opened with his second single “Panini.” Afterward, he accidentally called out to the audience, “What’s up, New York?” Everyone cheered nonetheless. He followed with “Rodeo,” then brought out Billy Ray Cyrus for an infectious performance of “Old Town Road,” leading audience members to sway and sing along to “I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road and ride ‘til I can’t no more.”

Spanish pop artist Rosalía came on next, appearing alongside dancers in Flamenco-like garb for a show that was visually stunning as well as musically catchy. I left before I got the chance to see the other two nominees, English singer-songwriter Yola and funk group Tank and the Bangas. 

While Eilish was the one to take home the award, it’s clear that none of the other varied nominees will be fading from the public eye (or ear) any time soon. The Black Pumas are speaking to a variety of audiences with music that’s poetic and catchy, oldies-inspired and modern at the same time; Rogers is taking over the radio by adding her own original flavor to pop music; Lil Nas X has released several chart-topping songs at the tender age of 20; and Rosalía has a unique sound that’s catching attention worldwide. It’ll be exciting to see what each of them has done by the time the 2021 Grammys air. I’m betting it’ll be quite a bit. 

ONLY NOISE: Playlist for a Schoolgirl Crush

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Erin Lyndal Martin shares a selection of songs that bring back the rush of a schoolgirl crush.

No matter how old you get, there’s something that stays dreamy about teenaged crushes. I call these my schoolgirl crushes, remembering the flush of excitement every time my crush asked to borrow a pencil. As we get older, schoolgirl crushes seem so much more innocent. We never worried about the bad things our crushes had done or why they’d been divorced twice or if their time management skills were lacking. We just wanted to lie on our beds and listen to songs that reminded us of their dimples.

These songs go back to those dreamy crushes. They all have an element of escape to them — slipping away from parents, from responsibility, from a place that holds you back, from anything that isn’t basking in your lover’s presence.

“The Ghost In You” by The Psychedelic Furs (Mirror Moves)
Formed in 1977, the Psychedelic Furs have explored a number of rock genres, including post-punk and New Wave.

“Ghost In You” could well be the theme song of this whole collection. “Inside you the time moves/She don’t fade,” Richard Butler sings, his thick British accent making the song all the more charming. And he’s right. When I remember my high school crush, the boy with the beautiful dimples, I remember him not as a teenager but as a man, the two of us always on the brink of a great romance.

“ocean eyes” by Billie Eilish (don’t smile at me)
Billie Eilish is a 17 year-old singer/model/dancer from Los Angeles.

The power in this song is its slow, sensual flow. Listening to it brings back how mind-blowing it was when making out was new, when every breath on your neck made you tremble on the brink of a new world. Eilish’s soprano mimics the intoxication of touching someone for the first time.

“Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene (You Forgot It In People)
Broken Social Scene is a Canadian musical collective comprised of members of other bands, mostly based in Toronto.

This song balances innocence and obsession in a perfectly winsome way. Emily Haines’s vocals are breathless, smeared slightly with distortion, and stay quiet even as the song intensifies. Every lyric in the song is repeated several times, building up to a single line (“Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me”) being repeated 13 times. Meanwhile, the instrumentation builds from sparse banjo strummed to an ecstatic violin and percussion. While the song is more about nostalgia than love, its giddy take on fixation speaks to the 17 year-old girl in all of us.

“I Know Places” by Lykke Li (Wounded Rhymes)
Lykke Li is a Swedish singer, songwriter, and model who blends folk and electropop.

This is a song for the schoolgirl crushes I feel as an adult. For the rush of first getting intimate with someone and wanting only to be together, to ignore the world. “The high won’t fade here, babe,” she promises. Ambiguity is part of why the song is so captivating. Maybe they’re seeking literal places to escape, or maybe getting intoxicated on one another in bed, or off in a forest or on a beach.

“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
Bruce Springsteen is a legendary singer-songwriter from New Jersey known for writing about working class struggles.

“Thunder Road” has to be a contender for one of the best songs ever written, and it’s all in the incredible imagery, the swell of the music, and even in the way Springsteen mumbles divine lyrics. However old you are, whatever your situation was growing up, he brings to life the glory of a brief escape from town where Mary’s past lovers haunt her from “the skeleton frames of burnt-out Chevrolets,” her graduation gown long tossed to these boys. The narrator sings about putting out to win from a town full of losers, and you get the sense there’s really no hope of it, but in the moment, you believe in that love, and any young love that’s made it seem possible to escape the limitations of your current life.

“XO” by Beyoncé (Beyoncé)
Beyoncé Knowles is one of the most acclaimed singers and performers of the day, and was ranked most powerful female in entertainment by Forbes in 2015 and 2017.

“XO” manages to be both intimate and urgent, full of both love and lust. The song takes place in a crowded room where the lights will be turned out soon. The driving beat reinforces the urgency of finding each other in the impending darkness, but the soaring chorus and backing vocals create atmosphere. The lights going out take on different meanings, mostly with Beyoncé begging “baby love me lights out.” The immediacy of the song brings back the thirsty makeout sessions of adolescence, all the more urgent because a curfew was usually involved.

“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths (The Queen is Dead)
The Smiths are a Britpop band known for melodramatic but highly melodic songs.

For me, and for many of my friends, this song inspires the same feeling in us now as when we were 16 and first listening to it. The synthesizers swirl like ribbons, and lead singer Morrissey pouts in his falsetto, and it’s so triumphant. Like “Thunder Road,” this song celebrates an escape from real life (“Take me out tonight/I need to see people and I need to see light”) and the magic of finding escape velocity with a lover. So much magic that it becomes romantic to think about dying in a crash with a ten-ton truck. That’s some seriously potent escapism.

“All Through the Night” by Cyndi Lauper (She’s So Unusual)
Cyndi Lauper is best known as a pop singer who rose to fame in the 1980’s.

Originally a folksy song by Jules Shear, Cyndi Lauper’s twinkly synthesizer and sweetly pouting voice made it her own song. She includes details from the real world, like stray cats crying, but the real world is irrelevant. “We have no past/We won’t reach back,” she sings in the chorus as the music swells. “Keep with me forward all through the night,” she sings, another way of saying “We’re in this together. It’s only us now.”

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Cardi B “Bartier Cardi” & More

Photographer turned fashion star turned director Petra Collins is a perfect artistic match for stripper turned reality TV star turned music tycoon Cardi B. The two internet sensations have risen to the top of their male dominated industries, and their latest collaboration on Cardi’s new single “Bartier Cardi” is the perfect female response to how the world of art is changing, and how the feminine perspective is beginning to take hold at the upper echelon of pop culture.

Cardi and Collins first collaborated in January, on the cover of CR Fashion Book Issue 12. Collins’ identifiable style, which has become renowned in the world of fashion and art photography, is a soft, glowing, diamond studded take on the female gaze. When in front of Collins’ lens, Cardi herself takes on a softer look, without sacrificing her strength as a powerhouse performer. It’s a side of Cardi her fans may not have seen before. And with her much-anticipated debut album Invasion of Privacy dropping tomorrow, April 6th, there are sure to be many sides of Cardi we have yet to see.

In a brand new video for “Broken Clocks,” off last year’s Ctrl, SZA reminds us that it’s still summer somewhere, even though we’re currently stuck in the longest winter of all time. Follow through with your viewing for a plot twist end to the woozy joint.

A Vacation in Hell, the latest album from Flatbush Zombies, comes out April 6th. The crew created a medley video for the album’s release, which chronicles each being visited by their own worst fan.

Yep! They’re back. The indie-rock favorites, who haven’t released an album since 2015, will release 7 on May 11th via Sub Pop and Bella Union. “Dark Spring” is the third single from the record, following “Lemon Glow” and “Dive;” the abstract compilation of black and white images that accompanies it creates a textured ride through chaos and form.

Billie Eilish collaborates with the YouTube channel Colors on this stripped down video. The minimal aesthetic Colors maintains across their platform allows the young singer-songwriter to truly shine in the absence of an embellished production.