October 1, 2024 • 40 mins
When a musician dies and leaves behind unfinished music, what should happen to it? Shelved forever? Released in its current state? Completed by someone else?
On this week's episode Greg and Stu get into when posthumous albums are a good idea and when they most certainly aren't, from last week's SOPHIE album, to work from Michael Jackson, Tupac, Biggie Smalls and Elliott Smith. But not before sharing the week's headlines about Radiohead going Shakespeare, Tears For Fears going AI, and Green Day going anti-Vegas.
You can watch clips of the podcast online now, just give us a follow on Instagram @midnightchatspod.
Further reading/listening/viewing
Listen to our new Beat the Algorithm Spotify playlist
Hamlet Hail to the Thief tickets
Credits:
Editing by Stuart Stubbs
Mixing and mastering by Flo Lines
Artwork by Kate Prior
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochran, Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs.
We are a couple of journalists who've been working in
independent music since the days of MySpace. One night a week,
we become your guides through the week in music, because,
let's face it, the algorithms have stop working for most
of us, so we're here to share the best new
underground music and the news that you might have missed,
(00:22):
as well as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing
you interviews with some of our favorite alternative artists. The
show is called Midnight Chats. Good evening, Stuart, do you
have the birthday blues or do you have the birthday glow?
After last week's one hundred and fifty episodes of Midnight Chats, Well,
(00:44):
this is just another birthday, isn't it? This week one
hundred and fifty one? How we congratulations? What are we
going to do to celebrate? I got one of those
notes through my letterbox that said that I'd missed the delivery,
So obviously you sent me something I should have Probably
I should have got you something shod. Actually I should
have probably bought you. What would you have liked? Well?
(01:04):
From one hundred and fiftieth Midnight Chat's birthday. Yeah, just
a check just for one hundred fifty quid. That would
have been nice. That have been nice. We got some
very nice responses from last week's podcast. Did one Yeah? One?
One person got in touch with us on our socials
and asked what this piece of music that we played
(01:25):
on the podcast was. That was a little callback for
all of the completists out there. That was a clip
of the very first piece of theme music that was
(01:45):
the Midnight Chat's theme music, and it was it was
made originally for the show by Ghost Poet, the musician
Ghost Poet, So thank you to ghost Poet. And I
just put that in there as a little easter egg
to break things up in quite a wobbly, spooky tune.
I think our brief to ghost Poet was probably very loose,
(02:06):
and it was like, we want something that means that
feels like midnight. We got into this last We got
into the you know, the the problems with the name
last week. So if you did miss last week's episode
and you do want to know why this show's called
Midnight Chats and get some clarity on that, then please
listen back to that let's not get into it again. Well, listen, tonight,
we're gonna take a breeze through the big headlines happening
(02:28):
in the music world and stuff that we think that
you should know about. We are also we're going to
talk posthumous albums. So what happens when an artist leaves
us and music of theirs get shared. It's one that
we's got us thinking in the past week because Sophie
the Well, in my view, incredible songwriter, artists and producer,
(02:51):
had now released in the last few days posthumously, and
so we want to get into talking about all of that.
And also, Stu, I've got a banger of a top
three for you, and we're going to leave everybody with
some recommendations and some music that we hope that you
might enjoy it. I've got a great I've got a
great recommendation this week, have you. I think a lot
of our listeners might already know it, but it's something
(03:12):
that I'm obsessed with, so I'm putting it in there
before it becomes a point where I can't recommend it
anymore because everyone really does know it. But I'm looking
forward to sharing it. Okay, brilliant that sounds good. Let's
start with Radiohead because radio headed back, is that right?
That's sort of fact, that's step back in theater form.
(03:32):
I think it's it's mainly Tom York. Tom York has
announced that there is going to be a new Shakespeare
a version of Hamlet that is going to incorporate the
music of Hail to the Fief, the sixth album by Radiohead.
This is a new theater production that is going to
open in Manchester. I'm going to run from the twenty
(03:54):
seventh of April of next year to the eighteenth of May.
Then it's going to move to Stratford upon a even
from the fourth of June to the twenty eighth of
June twenty twenty five. Tickets go on sale in a
couple of days on the second of October, depending when
your listens to is, they're obviously going to go very quickly.
We will put a link in the show notes to
where you can buy them. This is something that when
(04:16):
I first heard, I thought, I don't I don't care
about this because originally because I don't really like Shakespeare,
and right, I know that what's he done to you?
Though that might upset It's a shame because he loves me.
But I studied theater. Yeah, some listeners will not know, Darling,
(04:37):
do tell us my degree is in theater, and my
A levels are in theater, and my jeez, and my
life is in theater. Actually very dramatic. So I've seen
a lot of it and I just think, I just think, like,
do we need any more Shakespeare in place? I really
hate the ones where they think they've made it like
(04:59):
different by everyone's wearing jeans. Do you know what I mean?
They've gone, They've gone contemporary spin on the classic. Yeah.
I think this is infinitely more interesting than Radiohead just
going and playing Hell to the Thief. Yes, finished though, right,
this is to be honest, and this is a bit different.
This isn't just Hamlet and Jeans with Fief playing in
(05:20):
the background. Tom Milk has actually he has reworked these songs,
so it's not just going to be the albums on
and Hamlets going on as well. It's made by an
incredible company called Frantic Assembly, who are well, actually it's not.
One of the producers is a guy called Stephen Hoggart,
who was a founder of a company called Frantic Assembly.
(05:42):
Frantic Assembly are a theater group who are incredible. They
I suppose the most famous big crossover thing that they've
done is the theatre production of the Curate Incident of
the Dog in the Nighttime, which won Hella Awards like
incredible production. So he's involved with it. Tom York has
reworked the music. There's gonna be a lie. It's live.
(06:04):
They're not just it's not just gonna be soundtracked. It's
going to be played live every night. So I think
there probably is something to this that is enough for
me to actually be maybe quite excited by it. And
also I think Hail to the Thief is one of
Radioheads sort of forgotten records in a weird way. Yeah,
it was a little bit, isn't it. And also I
(06:26):
think Radiohead will turn up on the first night and
just and play all the music. That'd be really exciting.
Do you think that will happen? Yeah? Why not? Because
I mean so basically i've heard practicing recently, so they've
been playing the old songs recently. Yeah, So Colin Greenwood
has said that they got back together a couple of
months ago and started playing some of those old songs.
(06:46):
And yet I've heard whispers and rumors that Radiohead will
be active as a project next year. Yeah, so I'm
quite I'm excited about this. I think it's an alternative
spin on things, isn't it, rather than just like trucking
out something that has been done. And I think, like
you know, Tom York's a busy guy, does not like
sitting still. Is the new Smile record come in this autumn?
(07:08):
He's done this. There's clearly sort of a few parts
of the Radiohead machines starting to move. So I'm curious.
I do think they've missed a trick because they've called
it Hamlet Hail to the Thief, and it surely should
have just been called Hamlet to the Thief, right, I
think he should have just been called ham Thief. Hey,
that's happening. We'll put the link to the tickets in
(07:29):
the in the show notes. Did you see this thing
from this is a story about Tears for Fears, Right,
They have announced the new albums coming out this autumn,
and the album cover for it has been part one
of the tools used for it is ai right, and
this cause a bit of a stir is about a
week or so ago now where people were suggesting they
(07:52):
were like, is a ive been used in this because
they sort of followed the link to who the artist was,
and the artists and the team of artists that works
on it say that in the artistic process they use
AI to help create these to create their works. Right.
People that haven't seen this, like have a Google of it.
The actual image that's going to be the front cover
of this album is an astronaut stood in a field
(08:13):
of sunflowers. And the band basically responded to the comments,
some of them more critical than others, about the fact
that AI have been used in the creation of this
piece of artwork. What do we think, Like, it's created
a few waves. First off, what do you think of
the artwork? It's not very good, is it? I think right,
(08:35):
I think the artwork was a really big tell. You
can just tell that it is an AI generated image,
Like it's not even a retouched you know, when you
can tell that photograph's been retouched. This is beyond that.
When you look at it, it just looks strange. But
the reason it's upset people isn't actually because it's not
(08:55):
very good. It's because they've used AI, right, And there's
this whole discourse around is AI about to replace all
our jobs. I know that you are much more sort
of plugged into the AI journey than me. I personally
find the all the commentary about AI really boring, and
(09:17):
I think maybe it's because we've actually gone through a
lull of not talking about AI, haven't we as a culture?
There's too many other horrible things going on to be
worried about it. But there was a period where every
single article you read was is AI going to kill music?
Is AI going to kill creativity? What I would say
is that we could probably make about a dozen of
(09:39):
these podcasts in discussing the role of AI in not
just art, but like how it's emerging in our societies.
I just I don't know if I can. Yeah, I
basically don't think we've fully worked out whether it's okay
or not, because on one hand, you've got tears for
Fears going like, yeah, that's fine. Why not I like
(10:00):
that and that's fine, And then on the other hand,
you've got a tears for fears group of fans or
people looking at it going absolutely not so, like there
is this ongoing transition, this discussion right in a way
that brave for doing it, I think, because it's going
to happen, and I think maybe in a few years time,
(10:21):
nobody will be thinking twice about it. Maybe Now listen, Stu,
where's the worst place you've ever played a gig? Or?
I mean, I've not played that many other than my
theater days. This is because Green Day have been banned
from the playlists of two radio stations in Las Vegas
(10:44):
after Billy Joe Armstrong said during a show that the
city was a shithle. So basically, you've got green Day
sort of semi going to war with Las Vegas. And
the context is that he was speaking on stage about
the fact that his favorite baseball team, the Oakland A's,
are reportedly going to move to the city of Las Vegas,
(11:04):
and he said on stage, I hate Las Vegas. It's
the worst shit old in America. We don't know whether
he was joking or not, but basically, two radio stations
have come back at green Day and said quite funny things.
One one said, We've pulled all the music of Green
Day from our playlist. It's not us, Billy, it's you
(11:26):
Vegas forever. Hashtag Vegas Forever, Oh dear. That made me chuckle,
and then another one X one oh seven point five
what a radio Yeah, I mean, I love the names
of American radio stations. We need to know that. Yeah. Yeah,
Then they've written on the website, well since City heard
him loud and clear and X one oh seven point
(11:48):
five is not having it. And then they said, yeah, exactly,
they said the station is banning all Green Day music
effective immediately. Bill Joe, you've gone too far now, So
Billy Joe and Green Day fallen out with last Vegaue
(12:10):
City of Vegas. Listen, let's get some lovely adverts, and
then we talk about big news in the album world,
and we want to talk about posthumous releases, the albums
that come out after artists have left us basically, and
we'll get into that all next. Welcome back to episode
(12:30):
one hundred and fifty one, one hundred and fifty one
of Midnight Chats podcast. Student's been quite a lot of discussion,
a lot of talk the last week or so about
posthumous albums, those albums bodies of material released by artists
but after they they've died. Why have we been talking
(12:51):
about this? Why have we had lots of people in
our world talking about Well, this is resurfaced because on
Friday last Friday, there was a posthumous and reported final
album by the experimental electronic musician Sophie advertising Suberminal, Nonimal Love, Every.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Single em Everybody of a little.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Descape of the End music. Who died very suddenly and
tragically in twenty twenty one after she fell three stories
in Athens off of the balcony, very shocking news to
the pop world, the experimental electronic world. She was very
much a trailblazer in how pop music sounds now really
(13:39):
credited is being a huge pioneer in hyper pop, which
we spoke a bit about on the ag Cook episode
a few months ago. Ag on that episode spoke a
bit about Sophie because his label PC Music was very
much involved in the way she sort of came up
through the ranks. But by the end of her career
she was making music with Madonna and Vince State Pause
(14:00):
and producing Charlie XCX, and really you can trace Sophie's
influence back to without Sophie, there's not there's an argument
for there's not really Bratt or Bratt wouldn't sound the
way Brat sounds like. Lots of people might not necessarily
know Sophie because there was only one record, one album
before she died until this new posthumous one, but the
(14:24):
influence of her is very far, far reaching. So this
new record has come out on Friday. It's called Sophie
and it was completed by her brother Benny Long, who's
also a producer and a long time collaborator of her.
And this record was reportedly pretty much finished by the
(14:46):
time that Sophie died, and Benny Long has finished it
off in the way that he knows his sister would
have wanted it to be, right. So that's why people
are something talking about postumus records. Should they be allowed?
Not allowed? But you know, are they okay? Is it
okay to do that once somebody dies, all the music
(15:07):
that they have on a hard drive or are they
been working on should that just be shelved and considered.
Let's not listen to this or put this out because
it's either unfinished or not released. And maybe the artist
didn't want that released. It's hard to know where you
know what they would have wanted for that music, right,
How do you feel personally about like posthumous records being released,
(15:30):
and like when do you think it's a good idea
and when do you think it's like a terrible idea,
because I think I think there's definitely some reasons when
it's a good idea and some reasons when it's a
really cynical and bad approach. Yeah, you're absolutely right, And
I think sometimes it's great and sometimes it feels very
(15:51):
extractive and exploitative. And I think the main thing is
the context, right, I think it's the context. I think
it's who is ultimately who are the sort of stewards
of that release, and what are their intentions and motivations. So,
like you said, Sophie family were involved, close collaborators, presumably
(16:15):
all of the guests that beer on the album of all, Like, okay,
the inclusion the album was almost finished, so there was
like a sort of intent to it. It was there
was already this sense that it was like a body
of work that was almost ready to go. Plus Sophie, well,
Sophie died three years ago, so there's this sort of
there's been a sensitivity about the fact that like they've
(16:38):
spent time obviously thinking about this and like discussing it,
and it's and she's continued to work with the label
that was working with her and things like that, and
so yeah, when things are done respectfully and sort of
properly and thoughtfully, I think it can be brilliant. And so,
for example, like I absolutely love the Elliott Smith album
(16:59):
From a Basement on the Hill, which came out in
two thousand and four. That was almost a year to
the day since Elliot Smith died. But again, he'd been
working on this big body of work wanted to create
this double album. It didn't end up being a double
album that was released, but it was just the most
incredible amount of music that I can't even imagine. It
makes me incredibly sad to think that that music wouldn't
(17:21):
have been shared. I mean, don't get me wrong, every
time I put it on, it does sort of take
me back to the sort of the tragedy and the
sadness that I felt around the loss of Elliot Smith.
But I love that album but didn't feel exploitative. Yeah,
I think the examples were really candy. Do you remember
that album Michael by Michael Jackson in twenty ten or
(17:44):
did that pass you by? It completely passed me by.
You mentioned this earlier, just before we started recording. I
say no, yeah, exactly. So Michael Jackson died in two
thousand and nine, right just over a year later, this
collection of songs Michael emerges, and it's material that Michael
Jackson had been working on on and off for twenty
(18:06):
eight years, So a whole sort of riddle of material,
most of it unfinished, quite sort of patchy ideas, and
basically a whole bunch of people got involved. They were
like guests on it, from an Acon to fifty cent
and they kind of smoothed this puzzle of music together,
(18:26):
which just sounded as incoherent as I'm suggesting there. And
it was this collection Michael, like his posthumous album, and
I went to go and listen to it. I remember
what I was invited to, like a listening party for it,
and it was the first time that had my phone
taken off me at a listening party. And you go
in and you should just explain it. So a listening party,
this is where you've been a preview. Yeah, because the label,
(18:50):
as a music journalist, the label don't want to necessarily
send you the record. I'm probably worried it's going to leak,
so they will say we're going to put a bunch
of journalists in a room and you're going to come
and you can hear the record, but we're just going
to play it to you. You can't take it away.
And sometimes when it's really high profile, when you get there,
they will say, right, we need to take your phone
off you in case you're doing a sneaky pocket record
(19:11):
of the record, so you can take it away exactly.
And the context being that, like this was the height
of like illegal file sharing, right, so it's scared to
death that basically somebody's going to leak the record, so
phone gets taken off me. I think it was playing
out from like a sort of average sound system. I
think there was a few sandwiches with like curly curly corners,
and it was just like weird vibes would have wanted.
(19:33):
It was a bunch of you know, music journalists and
the British music industry all just kind of like, you know,
awkwardly sort of like tapping their foot and looking at
each other. These are these are awkward by the way
listening parties. I don't suggest that they're not glamorous, horrible,
and but that that album was a mess. And I
(19:53):
think all of the reviews were just like basically major
on the fact that it felt like extractive and exploitative. Well,
the the obvious argument there, right, is it twenty eight
years you know, is the oldest piece of music on it,
and he was a lot like that hadn't been released
for a reason, right, so that you know, the cynical
alarm bells are sounding there. He'd made something twenty eight
(20:15):
years ago if he hadn't put it out at that point,
he obviously didn't want to put that out right. The
two that really jumped to mind when people start talking
about posthumous records are the obvious two, which are Biggie
small than two. Here's here's the numbers on Biggie. So
Biggie actually only released one record whilst he was alive.
His debut album Ready to Die in nineteen ninety four,
(20:37):
Life After Death, was released sixteen days after he died.
But it was complete, you know, it was a complete record.
It completely finished nineteen ninety seven, so it came out
after he was murdered. There were then two records after that.
One was called Born Again two years later in ninety nine,
which was basically made up of some off cuts, a
(21:03):
few bits and pieces, had lots of more guests on it,
sort of filling in the gaps a little bit, and
at that point people are thinking, Okay, well, maybe let
this one slide. And the final Biggie record came out
in two thousand and five and it's called Duets, the
Final Chapter, and Duets is a record that features some
(21:25):
recycled material that's already was already out, some unreleased versus
a lot. But there was so much heavy lifting from
the guest artists, like including Tupac. Tupac was one of
the duets who was also dead at that point and
was the man at the heart of the feud that
essentially led to Biggie Small's murder. So that was like
(21:48):
a very I think, on the nose narrative move. Yeah,
Bob Marley was on it, of course, dead for many
years before before this point, and it upset a lot
of people with particular upset method man from Wu Tang
who did just point out that essentially he was the
only I mean, this was a bit of self promotion
(22:09):
from himself saying on Biggie's debut album, there's one guest
on it and it's him. And suddenly there's this record
called Duet where it's an imagined duet and I don't
think you can, in good conscience think that Biggie would
have necessarily wanted a record where he's dueting with all
(22:30):
of these people, like you just can't. I don't think
you can. You can just level that way and be
like no, no, he would have. He always he always
spoke about singing with Bob Marley, so he loved he
would love this. So that was a particular cynical one.
But but but two packs numbers are even even bolder. Yeah,
so go on to Twupac released four records in his lifetime,
(22:54):
six six post death. Prolific, very prolific in depth. But
the craziest story, and that I think is when when
Eminem heard the fourth posthumous record, he got in touch
with Tupac's mother to ask if he could produce tupacs
next album, which he did, which was called Loyal to
(23:16):
the Game. But imagine that you you hear a fourth
album from an artist who is dead, and you get
in touch with the estate and say, can I do
the Can I do the next one please? Because you're
so sure that there is going to be more of them,
and you then get the gig. I mean, I think
that's why Biggie and Tupac are the two that you
(23:37):
know that always come up on this. But here are
a couple of records that I didn't realize were postumers on.
One was Life After Death. I didn't realize just how
close to be his death. That was that that came out.
Nirvana Unplugged came out post in that Yeah, and Closer
came out two months after Ian Kurtis Stared Joy Division.
(23:59):
I think, though, those are different because they are completed records, right,
so they are posthumous records. You've got like posthumous records
that are just records that were completely done, but then
an artist dies and the records finished and it comes out.
Then you've got something like this Sophie record, for example,
where a lot of it's finished, it's not quite over
the line. They die, and then somebody works on it
(24:22):
later day and puts it out, and then you've got
the Biggies of the World and the Michael Jackson's of
the World, which it really does just feel like there's
so much music that people are like, there's an opportunity here,
or here's another idea. Are we being a bit too
precious about this? And is it better to just have
(24:44):
the music out there instead of it sat on a
hard drive. Because one of the things that I think
people talk about a lot with this posthumous stuff is legacy.
They're worried about it damaging the legacy of an artist,
you know, like that, like it's cluttering up a perfect
run that an artist had and you're putting out all
this shit all of a sudden that they wouldn't want.
(25:06):
I personally don't think it does affect legacy, even those terrible,
you know, those late tu Pack posthumous records, because I
think it gives you a free pass right if you can.
As a fan, you can just be like, well, they're
not real because they're not really two Pac records. The
four two Pac records and everything after that was were
cash in, So it's not going to affect it that way.
(25:27):
And then if the record's great, if somebody brings out
Poscuma's record and it's brilliant, then it's win win because
you're like, well that, actually, that just proves them to
be even more of a genius. So I think as
a fan you can take or leave it in terms
of that legacy question. You know, yeah, I think you're right,
And it goes back to that point I made right
at the top of being about like context as well.
I think sometimes there's like a real sensitivity around what
(25:48):
should be done right. So with Sophie, there is a
sensitivity because she died in a tragic incident at an
age where she was on an assent and a sort
of career in an artistic journey. Elliot Smith, you know,
and artists who took his own life, was incredibly sort
of troubled by problems with addiction and things like that,
(26:10):
and so there's a sensitivity there that is I think
it's about like vulnerability as well, which is why we
all feel like this is quite a sort of hot
button issue because we just don't want to when we
know that somebody might have been vulnerable. Again, another example
be Amy Winehouse, you just sort of you. I think
a lot of us feel like the stewardship of that
(26:32):
stuff just has to be right because they were clearly
having a very difficult time in life, and so I
always think that's quite I think that's a big thing
that figures in this. But I do want to say
something on this too. I think that like we're talking
now about posthumous album releases, what we think about it,
whether it's okay, whether it affects legacy and things like that.
(26:54):
But I think we're like entering like maximum posthumous music era.
I think we're at the start of that. The reason
for that is that we've seen this big trend, haven't
we the last few years of music catalogs being sold
by artists. So basically, you know Sting like has just
recently sold catalog loads of artists have done it. They've
(27:16):
basically said, you're hundreds of millions of dollars, this is
exactly and then and they're often go into these sort
of collectives of investors that are buying it as an asset,
so basically to either do something with it, you know,
find ways of making money for it, or sitting on
it in order to then sell it on it at
a date when it's when it's worth a lot more money.
(27:36):
And the reason they're doing that is it's seen as
a real kind of bankable idea. Right in the age
of streaming, when you know, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, et cetera,
et cetera, is just going to go on and on
and on in terms of like the availability of that
music and people wanting to listen to it. It's seen
as quite a safe investment. And I think what's going
to be really interesting is that, let's call it, like
(27:59):
the first wave of modern music legends are all and
I don't want to sound morbid here. And this is
particularly on the day when like Chris Christofferson has died
age at eight. You've got a lot of music legends
who are now, let's say, entering their autumn years. So
you've got Paul McCartney's eighty two, They're going to die,
(28:22):
going to die, Bob Dylan's eighty three, Dolly Parton's seventy eight,
Mick Jagger's eighty one, Keith Rich's eighty, Stevie Nicks is
seventy six, Spring Scenes seventy five, Mick Jagger's eighty one.
Mick Jagger is eighty one. He looks older, doesn't he?
But what is going to happen to the catalogs of
these these artists once they're gone? You know, like, is
(28:45):
there going to be more posthumous releases? Have there been
saut on music? Like there's this sort of slightly whiffy,
slightly cynical thing in my mind thinking like, Okay, you
know what I think we are entering an era where
music catalogs have gone from being these things that sat
in dusty basements of record labels into being seen as
(29:07):
these like really exploitable assets that can make people money.
So who knows what's going to happen with that. By
the way, I should say that the new Sophie record
I really like it. Me too. I was really moved by. Actually,
I think there's two songs that I particularly love. There's
one called the Domes Protection, which features Nina Kravitz, and
it's this sort of like other worldly kind of spoken
(29:31):
world space like atmospheric. The other one is the Kim
Petras song, which is called reason Why, which is an
absolute jam that is so good. Yeah, that Kim Petra
track's my favorite track. And that is a point where
the record changes, because this album is split into fours.
(29:51):
So the first four tracks are like ominous ambient spoken
word tracks. Then you've got four of club cutty club tracks.
Then it goes into pretty hardcore techno, and then it
ends on just straight up pop music. It's a great record,
and I think it's a really good example of how
all of this posthumous stuff can be done with feeling
(30:13):
and empathy and just sensitively, and we've got a great,
great record out of it. So I think it's a
I think it's a good thing. Now, Stu. In a minute,
I'm going to ask you to embrace your inner curmudgeon
for this week's Top three. But first let's get to
these adverts. Welcome back to the final part of this
(30:38):
week's midnight Chats. Let's get into Top three times, Stu.
This is the part of the podcast every week where
we set each other a little challenge to rate our
top three of something in the music world. Now, Stu,
I know that you are generally known as very cheerful,
(31:00):
very buoyant, very positive young man, but I would like
you to ask I would like you to visit your
inner curmudgeon for a moment, because I'd like to see
you to tell me the top three things that people
do to annoy you at gigs. Oh, I felt you
were just going to leave the sentence there because annoy you.
(31:21):
I was like, that's a whole podcast. That's so you're
opening your desk there to take out your list? Yeah
at gigs? Yeah, what are the things that really get
under your skin? Okay? At gigs in particular, I I'm
very tall. I'm six foot five. I say I'm six
foot four because I think it's more modest. I'm six '
(31:43):
five and it annoys people when I stand in front
of them, and I fully understand it. I'm very, very
conscious of it. But sometimes people do not control the
volume of their voice when they're slacking me off, or
they think they are but they're not, and I'm just
stood there thinking, I know I'm in the way, and
(32:05):
I do genuinely have a rule, which is I will
not stand. If I'm late at a gig, I will
stand as far back I'm not. I don't push forward, basically,
but if I get to a gig early and I
want to stand as close as I can at that point,
I will, And the only one that stands behind me,
that's up to you. You're not going to stand behind
the tree at the pyramid stage and be of fucking
(32:26):
tree in front of don't stand behind the tree. Okay.
So the number one is then things annoy you are
people slagging you off. Yes, Number two. Number two is farting.
I mean that's got to be everybody's, hasn't it. I
(32:47):
don't think anyone's going on beautiful kick. There was an
incredible fart about halfway through, which was just really really
it put a tear to my eye into given. I'm
going to say, I don't love it when the this
(33:07):
is one for the artists. I don't like it when
they don't when they don't say anything, you know, when
they just play and they literally don't say anything. I
don't know that. I like a little bit of chat.
There's a line. Obviously, I don't want to just hear
them talking the whole time, but I think you need
a little bit of crowd interaction. And the other thing
I'll go again for some I'll go again for like
(33:27):
just people in the crowd, and I'm will number three gone.
Number three is again it's a standing thing. And it's
when the person in front of you, especially if they've
got a backpack on, which I think is a criminal charge.
But let's let's for this say they don't have a
packpack on. They start leaning back to you. They're not
(33:48):
aware that you're behind them, as if that as if
they think they're the last person in the room and
there's no one behind them, and they just start creeping
back onto your toes. And I also hate it when
somebody comes in contact with you. It's fine if you're
right down the front right, but if you're if there's
space around you and someone starts resting on you like
that arm starts touching your arm, and they don't instantly
(34:11):
go just move it away. I'm not expecting an apology,
but you know when someone just rests their arm on you,
and I'm thinking, you must be aware of the fact
that a minute ago your arm wasn't touching anyone and
now it's touching something and it happens to be me,
So don't just move away, Just instantly move away, like
(34:33):
and like that's a reflex reaction, isn't it. Like, Oh,
I'm leaning on something, now I'll stop leaning on that.
Unless you think you're next to a wall and I
am not a wall or a tree, so stop leaning on.
Maybe it's because I'm so I think I'm a post
business I really have opened that worms with that one,
don't I. Yeah, this could go on for hours now, Yeah,
(34:57):
do you need anymore? No? No, So remind me be
sensitive around Stuart next time we go to a gig together,
and do not sit behind you on any aircraft. Don't
get me and started on planes. Okay, let's not go there. Listen.
We've obviously been talking in this podcast about how much
we love this posthumous album released in the past week
(35:20):
by Sophie. It's called Sophie, so do go and check
it out. But also this week's beat the Algorithm. We
want to leave you with a recommendation because we want
to be useful, right and the Algorithm it's just not
doing the business for most of us. So, Stuart, is
there anything you want to share with listeners that you
recoony should go away and check out this week? Yeah,
it's a particular song actually, and as I said at
the beginning of nine US two this episode, I think
(35:42):
people might know this, but if you don't, you're in
for a real tree. M J. Linderman Wristwatch is the
name of the song. It's off of an album that
was released maybe about three or four weeks ago now
called Manning Fireworks. Great album. The whole album is really great,
but this one song in particular, I I'm obsessed with.
And because I am, you know, a music journalist and
(36:05):
I hear so much music, it doesn't happen that often
that there's one song that I just want to like,
repeat play, But this song I do m J. Lenderman
we spoke about on the wax A Hatchy episode of
the of the podcast, because he is young, twenty five
year old old rock folk artist in the States from Ashville,
(36:26):
North Carolina, and he worked on her ALM with her,
was on the whole record with her, and she was
absolutely just loving that man, and she spoke very fondly
of him. I was a fan of him before. We
did some things with him in the magazine before. But
this new record, Burning Fireworks, is flying. It's doing great
numbers at the moment, but it's one track. Wristwatch is
(36:50):
the one.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well, hello, what have you got?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I feel like my what I'm offering up to listeners
this week is actually speaks to the essence of Beat
the Algorithm because I saw a friend at the weekend, Stuart,
a human friend, and they said, I think you might
like this song and shared with mere song and I said,
you are right, I like it. The song is called
Changes and it's by Antoine and Kerry McCoy and this
(37:37):
isn't new, this is an oldie. So this comes from
twenty sixteen and basically Kerry McCoy is the guitarist from
that band Deaf Heaven and Antoine is like a rapper
and producer, but they both grew up in the Bay
Area basically gone off, did very different things, made very
different kind of music, but both had their roots still
in the sort of Bay Area diy punk scene that's
(37:59):
become you know, very notable, produced loads of amazing artists
over the years, and they got together and made this
fit of a little known seven split seven inch together
and it's called the twenty fifth Street Sessions. And this
song Changes is on that split seven inch. You can
find it on all the streaming services. But it's just
one of those occasions where somebody goes, I think you
might like this song, and you go, I really like this,
(38:20):
and I've just kind of been ever since, like loading it,
reloading it, listening to it loads a bit like you
were just saying about Mjlnderman there. It's catchy, it's kind
(38:55):
of lo fi, it's really gravelly vocal. Reminds me of
sort of the early production on artists like Future Is
Lends that I really love And we'll make sure that
we add that to the playlist so you can listen
to all these recommendations that stew and I dig out
each week, put them together and you can go away
and have a lovely listen. Yeah, we'll link to that
playlist in the show notes of this episode and in
all future episodes if you ever need to find it,
(39:17):
but it's on Spotify. It's called beat the Algorithm, so
you can always find it that way as well. Beat
the Algorithm out. Okay, thank you for listening to episode
one hundred and fifty one of the podcast. We're going
to have some more guests coming up shortly on the podcast.
(39:39):
We could maybe do a few ideas on that. Actually,
if there's somebody that we've not featured on this podcast
that you're like, I'd like I'd like one of them
to talk to this person, then do let us know.
You can drop us a line. Email is info at
loudon quiet dot com. Socials is on Instagram, Midnight Chats pod.
Let us know if there's anyone you think we should
(39:59):
be gone for. Everybody wants to come on, so you know,
really just go for it, like it doesn't matter, how,
it doesn't matter, how the stars. Please give us a subscribe,
a follow, or tell a friend, tell a friends probably
the best thing, make them listen to this podcast until
next Time, good Night, Greg good night'st Midnight Chats is
(40:24):
a joint production between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios
for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochrane,
mixed and mastered by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochran, Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs.
We are a couple of journalists who've been working in
independent music since the days of MySpace. One night a week,
we become your guides through the week in music, because,
let's face it, the algorithms have stop working for most
of us, so we're here to share the best new
underground music and the news that you might have missed,
(00:22):
as well as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing
you interviews with some of our favorite alternative artists. The
show is called Midnight Chats. Good evening, Stuart, do you
have the birthday blues or do you have the birthday glow?
After last week's one hundred and fifty episodes of Midnight Chats, Well,
(00:44):
this is just another birthday, isn't it? This week one
hundred and fifty one? How we congratulations? What are we
going to do to celebrate? I got one of those
notes through my letterbox that said that I'd missed the delivery,
So obviously you sent me something I should have Probably
I should have got you something shod. Actually I should
have probably bought you. What would you have liked? Well?
(01:04):
From one hundred and fiftieth Midnight Chat's birthday. Yeah, just
a check just for one hundred fifty quid. That would
have been nice. That have been nice. We got some
very nice responses from last week's podcast. Did one Yeah? One?
One person got in touch with us on our socials
and asked what this piece of music that we played
(01:25):
on the podcast was. That was a little callback for
all of the completists out there. That was a clip
of the very first piece of theme music that was
(01:45):
the Midnight Chat's theme music, and it was it was
made originally for the show by Ghost Poet, the musician
Ghost Poet, So thank you to ghost Poet. And I
just put that in there as a little easter egg
to break things up in quite a wobbly, spooky tune.
I think our brief to ghost Poet was probably very loose,
(02:06):
and it was like, we want something that means that
feels like midnight. We got into this last We got
into the you know, the the problems with the name
last week. So if you did miss last week's episode
and you do want to know why this show's called
Midnight Chats and get some clarity on that, then please
listen back to that let's not get into it again. Well, listen, tonight,
we're gonna take a breeze through the big headlines happening
(02:28):
in the music world and stuff that we think that
you should know about. We are also we're going to
talk posthumous albums. So what happens when an artist leaves
us and music of theirs get shared. It's one that
we's got us thinking in the past week because Sophie
the Well, in my view, incredible songwriter, artists and producer,
(02:51):
had now released in the last few days posthumously, and
so we want to get into talking about all of that.
And also, Stu, I've got a banger of a top
three for you, and we're going to leave everybody with
some recommendations and some music that we hope that you
might enjoy it. I've got a great I've got a
great recommendation this week, have you. I think a lot
of our listeners might already know it, but it's something
(03:12):
that I'm obsessed with, so I'm putting it in there
before it becomes a point where I can't recommend it
anymore because everyone really does know it. But I'm looking
forward to sharing it. Okay, brilliant that sounds good. Let's
start with Radiohead because radio headed back, is that right?
That's sort of fact, that's step back in theater form.
(03:32):
I think it's it's mainly Tom York. Tom York has
announced that there is going to be a new Shakespeare
a version of Hamlet that is going to incorporate the
music of Hail to the Fief, the sixth album by Radiohead.
This is a new theater production that is going to
open in Manchester. I'm going to run from the twenty
(03:54):
seventh of April of next year to the eighteenth of May.
Then it's going to move to Stratford upon a even
from the fourth of June to the twenty eighth of
June twenty twenty five. Tickets go on sale in a
couple of days on the second of October, depending when
your listens to is, they're obviously going to go very quickly.
We will put a link in the show notes to
where you can buy them. This is something that when
(04:16):
I first heard, I thought, I don't I don't care
about this because originally because I don't really like Shakespeare,
and right, I know that what's he done to you?
Though that might upset It's a shame because he loves me.
But I studied theater. Yeah, some listeners will not know, Darling,
(04:37):
do tell us my degree is in theater, and my
A levels are in theater, and my jeez, and my
life is in theater. Actually very dramatic. So I've seen
a lot of it and I just think, I just think, like,
do we need any more Shakespeare in place? I really
hate the ones where they think they've made it like
(04:59):
different by everyone's wearing jeans. Do you know what I mean?
They've gone, They've gone contemporary spin on the classic. Yeah.
I think this is infinitely more interesting than Radiohead just
going and playing Hell to the Thief. Yes, finished though, right,
this is to be honest, and this is a bit different.
This isn't just Hamlet and Jeans with Fief playing in
(05:20):
the background. Tom Milk has actually he has reworked these songs,
so it's not just going to be the albums on
and Hamlets going on as well. It's made by an
incredible company called Frantic Assembly, who are well, actually it's not.
One of the producers is a guy called Stephen Hoggart,
who was a founder of a company called Frantic Assembly.
(05:42):
Frantic Assembly are a theater group who are incredible. They
I suppose the most famous big crossover thing that they've
done is the theatre production of the Curate Incident of
the Dog in the Nighttime, which won Hella Awards like
incredible production. So he's involved with it. Tom York has
reworked the music. There's gonna be a lie. It's live.
(06:04):
They're not just it's not just gonna be soundtracked. It's
going to be played live every night. So I think
there probably is something to this that is enough for
me to actually be maybe quite excited by it. And
also I think Hail to the Thief is one of
Radioheads sort of forgotten records in a weird way. Yeah,
it was a little bit, isn't it. And also I
(06:26):
think Radiohead will turn up on the first night and
just and play all the music. That'd be really exciting.
Do you think that will happen? Yeah? Why not? Because
I mean so basically i've heard practicing recently, so they've
been playing the old songs recently. Yeah, So Colin Greenwood
has said that they got back together a couple of
months ago and started playing some of those old songs.
(06:46):
And yet I've heard whispers and rumors that Radiohead will
be active as a project next year. Yeah, so I'm
quite I'm excited about this. I think it's an alternative
spin on things, isn't it, rather than just like trucking
out something that has been done. And I think, like
you know, Tom York's a busy guy, does not like
sitting still. Is the new Smile record come in this autumn?
(07:08):
He's done this. There's clearly sort of a few parts
of the Radiohead machines starting to move. So I'm curious.
I do think they've missed a trick because they've called
it Hamlet Hail to the Thief, and it surely should
have just been called Hamlet to the Thief, right, I
think he should have just been called ham Thief. Hey,
that's happening. We'll put the link to the tickets in
(07:29):
the in the show notes. Did you see this thing
from this is a story about Tears for Fears, Right,
They have announced the new albums coming out this autumn,
and the album cover for it has been part one
of the tools used for it is ai right, and
this cause a bit of a stir is about a
week or so ago now where people were suggesting they
(07:52):
were like, is a ive been used in this because
they sort of followed the link to who the artist was,
and the artists and the team of artists that works
on it say that in the artistic process they use
AI to help create these to create their works. Right.
People that haven't seen this, like have a Google of it.
The actual image that's going to be the front cover
of this album is an astronaut stood in a field
(08:13):
of sunflowers. And the band basically responded to the comments,
some of them more critical than others, about the fact
that AI have been used in the creation of this
piece of artwork. What do we think, Like, it's created
a few waves. First off, what do you think of
the artwork? It's not very good, is it? I think right,
(08:35):
I think the artwork was a really big tell. You
can just tell that it is an AI generated image,
Like it's not even a retouched you know, when you
can tell that photograph's been retouched. This is beyond that.
When you look at it, it just looks strange. But
the reason it's upset people isn't actually because it's not
(08:55):
very good. It's because they've used AI, right, And there's
this whole discourse around is AI about to replace all
our jobs. I know that you are much more sort
of plugged into the AI journey than me. I personally
find the all the commentary about AI really boring, and
(09:17):
I think maybe it's because we've actually gone through a
lull of not talking about AI, haven't we as a culture?
There's too many other horrible things going on to be
worried about it. But there was a period where every
single article you read was is AI going to kill music?
Is AI going to kill creativity? What I would say
is that we could probably make about a dozen of
(09:39):
these podcasts in discussing the role of AI in not
just art, but like how it's emerging in our societies.
I just I don't know if I can. Yeah, I
basically don't think we've fully worked out whether it's okay
or not, because on one hand, you've got tears for
Fears going like, yeah, that's fine. Why not I like
(10:00):
that and that's fine, And then on the other hand,
you've got a tears for fears group of fans or
people looking at it going absolutely not so, like there
is this ongoing transition, this discussion right in a way
that brave for doing it, I think, because it's going
to happen, and I think maybe in a few years time,
(10:21):
nobody will be thinking twice about it. Maybe Now listen, Stu,
where's the worst place you've ever played a gig? Or?
I mean, I've not played that many other than my
theater days. This is because Green Day have been banned
from the playlists of two radio stations in Las Vegas
(10:44):
after Billy Joe Armstrong said during a show that the
city was a shithle. So basically, you've got green Day
sort of semi going to war with Las Vegas. And
the context is that he was speaking on stage about
the fact that his favorite baseball team, the Oakland A's,
are reportedly going to move to the city of Las Vegas,
(11:04):
and he said on stage, I hate Las Vegas. It's
the worst shit old in America. We don't know whether
he was joking or not, but basically, two radio stations
have come back at green Day and said quite funny things.
One one said, We've pulled all the music of Green
Day from our playlist. It's not us, Billy, it's you
(11:26):
Vegas forever. Hashtag Vegas Forever, Oh dear. That made me chuckle,
and then another one X one oh seven point five
what a radio Yeah, I mean, I love the names
of American radio stations. We need to know that. Yeah. Yeah,
Then they've written on the website, well since City heard
him loud and clear and X one oh seven point
(11:48):
five is not having it. And then they said, yeah, exactly,
they said the station is banning all Green Day music
effective immediately. Bill Joe, you've gone too far now, So
Billy Joe and Green Day fallen out with last Vegaue
(12:10):
City of Vegas. Listen, let's get some lovely adverts, and
then we talk about big news in the album world,
and we want to talk about posthumous releases, the albums
that come out after artists have left us basically, and
we'll get into that all next. Welcome back to episode
(12:30):
one hundred and fifty one, one hundred and fifty one
of Midnight Chats podcast. Student's been quite a lot of discussion,
a lot of talk the last week or so about
posthumous albums, those albums bodies of material released by artists
but after they they've died. Why have we been talking
(12:51):
about this? Why have we had lots of people in
our world talking about Well, this is resurfaced because on
Friday last Friday, there was a posthumous and reported final
album by the experimental electronic musician Sophie advertising Suberminal, Nonimal Love, Every.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Single em Everybody of a little.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Descape of the End music. Who died very suddenly and
tragically in twenty twenty one after she fell three stories
in Athens off of the balcony, very shocking news to
the pop world, the experimental electronic world. She was very
much a trailblazer in how pop music sounds now really
(13:39):
credited is being a huge pioneer in hyper pop, which
we spoke a bit about on the ag Cook episode
a few months ago. Ag on that episode spoke a
bit about Sophie because his label PC Music was very
much involved in the way she sort of came up
through the ranks. But by the end of her career
she was making music with Madonna and Vince State Pause
(14:00):
and producing Charlie XCX, and really you can trace Sophie's
influence back to without Sophie, there's not there's an argument
for there's not really Bratt or Bratt wouldn't sound the
way Brat sounds like. Lots of people might not necessarily
know Sophie because there was only one record, one album
before she died until this new posthumous one, but the
(14:24):
influence of her is very far, far reaching. So this
new record has come out on Friday. It's called Sophie
and it was completed by her brother Benny Long, who's
also a producer and a long time collaborator of her.
And this record was reportedly pretty much finished by the
(14:46):
time that Sophie died, and Benny Long has finished it
off in the way that he knows his sister would
have wanted it to be, right. So that's why people
are something talking about postumus records. Should they be allowed?
Not allowed? But you know, are they okay? Is it
okay to do that once somebody dies, all the music
(15:07):
that they have on a hard drive or are they
been working on should that just be shelved and considered.
Let's not listen to this or put this out because
it's either unfinished or not released. And maybe the artist
didn't want that released. It's hard to know where you
know what they would have wanted for that music, right,
How do you feel personally about like posthumous records being released,
(15:30):
and like when do you think it's a good idea
and when do you think it's like a terrible idea,
because I think I think there's definitely some reasons when
it's a good idea and some reasons when it's a
really cynical and bad approach. Yeah, you're absolutely right, And
I think sometimes it's great and sometimes it feels very
(15:51):
extractive and exploitative. And I think the main thing is
the context, right, I think it's the context. I think
it's who is ultimately who are the sort of stewards
of that release, and what are their intentions and motivations. So,
like you said, Sophie family were involved, close collaborators, presumably
(16:15):
all of the guests that beer on the album of all, Like, okay,
the inclusion the album was almost finished, so there was
like a sort of intent to it. It was there
was already this sense that it was like a body
of work that was almost ready to go. Plus Sophie, well,
Sophie died three years ago, so there's this sort of
there's been a sensitivity about the fact that like they've
(16:38):
spent time obviously thinking about this and like discussing it,
and it's and she's continued to work with the label
that was working with her and things like that, and
so yeah, when things are done respectfully and sort of
properly and thoughtfully, I think it can be brilliant. And so,
for example, like I absolutely love the Elliott Smith album
(16:59):
From a Basement on the Hill, which came out in
two thousand and four. That was almost a year to
the day since Elliot Smith died. But again, he'd been
working on this big body of work wanted to create
this double album. It didn't end up being a double
album that was released, but it was just the most
incredible amount of music that I can't even imagine. It
makes me incredibly sad to think that that music wouldn't
(17:21):
have been shared. I mean, don't get me wrong, every
time I put it on, it does sort of take
me back to the sort of the tragedy and the
sadness that I felt around the loss of Elliot Smith.
But I love that album but didn't feel exploitative. Yeah,
I think the examples were really candy. Do you remember
that album Michael by Michael Jackson in twenty ten or
(17:44):
did that pass you by? It completely passed me by.
You mentioned this earlier, just before we started recording. I
say no, yeah, exactly. So Michael Jackson died in two
thousand and nine, right just over a year later, this
collection of songs Michael emerges, and it's material that Michael
Jackson had been working on on and off for twenty
(18:06):
eight years, So a whole sort of riddle of material,
most of it unfinished, quite sort of patchy ideas, and
basically a whole bunch of people got involved. They were
like guests on it, from an Acon to fifty cent
and they kind of smoothed this puzzle of music together,
(18:26):
which just sounded as incoherent as I'm suggesting there. And
it was this collection Michael, like his posthumous album, and
I went to go and listen to it. I remember
what I was invited to, like a listening party for it,
and it was the first time that had my phone
taken off me at a listening party. And you go
in and you should just explain it. So a listening party,
this is where you've been a preview. Yeah, because the label,
(18:50):
as a music journalist, the label don't want to necessarily
send you the record. I'm probably worried it's going to leak,
so they will say we're going to put a bunch
of journalists in a room and you're going to come
and you can hear the record, but we're just going
to play it to you. You can't take it away.
And sometimes when it's really high profile, when you get there,
they will say, right, we need to take your phone
off you in case you're doing a sneaky pocket record
(19:11):
of the record, so you can take it away exactly.
And the context being that, like this was the height
of like illegal file sharing, right, so it's scared to
death that basically somebody's going to leak the record, so
phone gets taken off me. I think it was playing
out from like a sort of average sound system. I
think there was a few sandwiches with like curly curly corners,
and it was just like weird vibes would have wanted.
(19:33):
It was a bunch of you know, music journalists and
the British music industry all just kind of like, you know,
awkwardly sort of like tapping their foot and looking at
each other. These are these are awkward by the way
listening parties. I don't suggest that they're not glamorous, horrible,
and but that that album was a mess. And I
(19:53):
think all of the reviews were just like basically major
on the fact that it felt like extractive and exploitative. Well,
the the obvious argument there, right, is it twenty eight
years you know, is the oldest piece of music on it,
and he was a lot like that hadn't been released
for a reason, right, so that you know, the cynical
alarm bells are sounding there. He'd made something twenty eight
(20:15):
years ago if he hadn't put it out at that point,
he obviously didn't want to put that out right. The
two that really jumped to mind when people start talking
about posthumous records are the obvious two, which are Biggie
small than two. Here's here's the numbers on Biggie. So
Biggie actually only released one record whilst he was alive.
His debut album Ready to Die in nineteen ninety four,
(20:37):
Life After Death, was released sixteen days after he died.
But it was complete, you know, it was a complete record.
It completely finished nineteen ninety seven, so it came out
after he was murdered. There were then two records after that.
One was called Born Again two years later in ninety nine,
which was basically made up of some off cuts, a
(21:03):
few bits and pieces, had lots of more guests on it,
sort of filling in the gaps a little bit, and
at that point people are thinking, Okay, well, maybe let
this one slide. And the final Biggie record came out
in two thousand and five and it's called Duets, the
Final Chapter, and Duets is a record that features some
(21:25):
recycled material that's already was already out, some unreleased versus
a lot. But there was so much heavy lifting from
the guest artists, like including Tupac. Tupac was one of
the duets who was also dead at that point and
was the man at the heart of the feud that
essentially led to Biggie Small's murder. So that was like
(21:48):
a very I think, on the nose narrative move. Yeah,
Bob Marley was on it, of course, dead for many
years before before this point, and it upset a lot
of people with particular upset method man from Wu Tang
who did just point out that essentially he was the
only I mean, this was a bit of self promotion
(22:09):
from himself saying on Biggie's debut album, there's one guest
on it and it's him. And suddenly there's this record
called Duet where it's an imagined duet and I don't
think you can, in good conscience think that Biggie would
have necessarily wanted a record where he's dueting with all
(22:30):
of these people, like you just can't. I don't think
you can. You can just level that way and be
like no, no, he would have. He always he always
spoke about singing with Bob Marley, so he loved he
would love this. So that was a particular cynical one.
But but but two packs numbers are even even bolder. Yeah,
so go on to Twupac released four records in his lifetime,
(22:54):
six six post death. Prolific, very prolific in depth. But
the craziest story, and that I think is when when
Eminem heard the fourth posthumous record, he got in touch
with Tupac's mother to ask if he could produce tupacs
next album, which he did, which was called Loyal to
(23:16):
the Game. But imagine that you you hear a fourth
album from an artist who is dead, and you get
in touch with the estate and say, can I do
the Can I do the next one please? Because you're
so sure that there is going to be more of them,
and you then get the gig. I mean, I think
that's why Biggie and Tupac are the two that you
(23:37):
know that always come up on this. But here are
a couple of records that I didn't realize were postumers on.
One was Life After Death. I didn't realize just how
close to be his death. That was that that came out.
Nirvana Unplugged came out post in that Yeah, and Closer
came out two months after Ian Kurtis Stared Joy Division.
(23:59):
I think, though, those are different because they are completed records, right,
so they are posthumous records. You've got like posthumous records
that are just records that were completely done, but then
an artist dies and the records finished and it comes out.
Then you've got something like this Sophie record, for example,
where a lot of it's finished, it's not quite over
the line. They die, and then somebody works on it
(24:22):
later day and puts it out, and then you've got
the Biggies of the World and the Michael Jackson's of
the World, which it really does just feel like there's
so much music that people are like, there's an opportunity here,
or here's another idea. Are we being a bit too
precious about this? And is it better to just have
(24:44):
the music out there instead of it sat on a
hard drive. Because one of the things that I think
people talk about a lot with this posthumous stuff is legacy.
They're worried about it damaging the legacy of an artist,
you know, like that, like it's cluttering up a perfect
run that an artist had and you're putting out all
this shit all of a sudden that they wouldn't want.
(25:06):
I personally don't think it does affect legacy, even those terrible,
you know, those late tu Pack posthumous records, because I
think it gives you a free pass right if you can.
As a fan, you can just be like, well, they're
not real because they're not really two Pac records. The
four two Pac records and everything after that was were
cash in, So it's not going to affect it that way.
(25:27):
And then if the record's great, if somebody brings out
Poscuma's record and it's brilliant, then it's win win because
you're like, well that, actually, that just proves them to
be even more of a genius. So I think as
a fan you can take or leave it in terms
of that legacy question. You know, yeah, I think you're right,
And it goes back to that point I made right
at the top of being about like context as well.
I think sometimes there's like a real sensitivity around what
(25:48):
should be done right. So with Sophie, there is a
sensitivity because she died in a tragic incident at an
age where she was on an assent and a sort
of career in an artistic journey. Elliot Smith, you know,
and artists who took his own life, was incredibly sort
of troubled by problems with addiction and things like that,
(26:10):
and so there's a sensitivity there that is I think
it's about like vulnerability as well, which is why we
all feel like this is quite a sort of hot
button issue because we just don't want to when we
know that somebody might have been vulnerable. Again, another example
be Amy Winehouse, you just sort of you. I think
a lot of us feel like the stewardship of that
(26:32):
stuff just has to be right because they were clearly
having a very difficult time in life, and so I
always think that's quite I think that's a big thing
that figures in this. But I do want to say
something on this too. I think that like we're talking
now about posthumous album releases, what we think about it,
whether it's okay, whether it affects legacy and things like that.
(26:54):
But I think we're like entering like maximum posthumous music era.
I think we're at the start of that. The reason
for that is that we've seen this big trend, haven't
we the last few years of music catalogs being sold
by artists. So basically, you know Sting like has just
recently sold catalog loads of artists have done it. They've
(27:16):
basically said, you're hundreds of millions of dollars, this is
exactly and then and they're often go into these sort
of collectives of investors that are buying it as an asset,
so basically to either do something with it, you know,
find ways of making money for it, or sitting on
it in order to then sell it on it at
a date when it's when it's worth a lot more money.
(27:36):
And the reason they're doing that is it's seen as
a real kind of bankable idea. Right in the age
of streaming, when you know, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, et cetera,
et cetera, is just going to go on and on
and on in terms of like the availability of that
music and people wanting to listen to it. It's seen
as quite a safe investment. And I think what's going
to be really interesting is that, let's call it, like
(27:59):
the first wave of modern music legends are all and
I don't want to sound morbid here. And this is
particularly on the day when like Chris Christofferson has died
age at eight. You've got a lot of music legends
who are now, let's say, entering their autumn years. So
you've got Paul McCartney's eighty two, They're going to die,
(28:22):
going to die, Bob Dylan's eighty three, Dolly Parton's seventy eight,
Mick Jagger's eighty one, Keith Rich's eighty, Stevie Nicks is
seventy six, Spring Scenes seventy five, Mick Jagger's eighty one.
Mick Jagger is eighty one. He looks older, doesn't he?
But what is going to happen to the catalogs of
these these artists once they're gone? You know, like, is
(28:45):
there going to be more posthumous releases? Have there been
saut on music? Like there's this sort of slightly whiffy,
slightly cynical thing in my mind thinking like, Okay, you
know what I think we are entering an era where
music catalogs have gone from being these things that sat
in dusty basements of record labels into being seen as
(29:07):
these like really exploitable assets that can make people money.
So who knows what's going to happen with that. By
the way, I should say that the new Sophie record
I really like it. Me too. I was really moved by. Actually,
I think there's two songs that I particularly love. There's
one called the Domes Protection, which features Nina Kravitz, and
it's this sort of like other worldly kind of spoken
(29:31):
world space like atmospheric. The other one is the Kim
Petras song, which is called reason Why, which is an
absolute jam that is so good. Yeah, that Kim Petra
track's my favorite track. And that is a point where
the record changes, because this album is split into fours.
(29:51):
So the first four tracks are like ominous ambient spoken
word tracks. Then you've got four of club cutty club tracks.
Then it goes into pretty hardcore techno, and then it
ends on just straight up pop music. It's a great record,
and I think it's a really good example of how
all of this posthumous stuff can be done with feeling
(30:13):
and empathy and just sensitively, and we've got a great,
great record out of it. So I think it's a
I think it's a good thing. Now, Stu. In a minute,
I'm going to ask you to embrace your inner curmudgeon
for this week's Top three. But first let's get to
these adverts. Welcome back to the final part of this
(30:38):
week's midnight Chats. Let's get into Top three times, Stu.
This is the part of the podcast every week where
we set each other a little challenge to rate our
top three of something in the music world. Now, Stu,
I know that you are generally known as very cheerful,
(31:00):
very buoyant, very positive young man, but I would like
you to ask I would like you to visit your
inner curmudgeon for a moment, because I'd like to see
you to tell me the top three things that people
do to annoy you at gigs. Oh, I felt you
were just going to leave the sentence there because annoy you.
(31:21):
I was like, that's a whole podcast. That's so you're
opening your desk there to take out your list? Yeah
at gigs? Yeah, what are the things that really get
under your skin? Okay? At gigs in particular, I I'm
very tall. I'm six foot five. I say I'm six
foot four because I think it's more modest. I'm six '
(31:43):
five and it annoys people when I stand in front
of them, and I fully understand it. I'm very, very
conscious of it. But sometimes people do not control the
volume of their voice when they're slacking me off, or
they think they are but they're not, and I'm just
stood there thinking, I know I'm in the way, and
(32:05):
I do genuinely have a rule, which is I will
not stand. If I'm late at a gig, I will
stand as far back I'm not. I don't push forward, basically,
but if I get to a gig early and I
want to stand as close as I can at that point,
I will, And the only one that stands behind me,
that's up to you. You're not going to stand behind
the tree at the pyramid stage and be of fucking
(32:26):
tree in front of don't stand behind the tree. Okay.
So the number one is then things annoy you are
people slagging you off. Yes, Number two. Number two is farting.
I mean that's got to be everybody's, hasn't it. I
(32:47):
don't think anyone's going on beautiful kick. There was an
incredible fart about halfway through, which was just really really
it put a tear to my eye into given. I'm
going to say, I don't love it when the this
(33:07):
is one for the artists. I don't like it when
they don't when they don't say anything, you know, when
they just play and they literally don't say anything. I
don't know that. I like a little bit of chat.
There's a line. Obviously, I don't want to just hear
them talking the whole time, but I think you need
a little bit of crowd interaction. And the other thing
I'll go again for some I'll go again for like
(33:27):
just people in the crowd, and I'm will number three gone.
Number three is again it's a standing thing. And it's
when the person in front of you, especially if they've
got a backpack on, which I think is a criminal charge.
But let's let's for this say they don't have a
packpack on. They start leaning back to you. They're not
(33:48):
aware that you're behind them, as if that as if
they think they're the last person in the room and
there's no one behind them, and they just start creeping
back onto your toes. And I also hate it when
somebody comes in contact with you. It's fine if you're
right down the front right, but if you're if there's
space around you and someone starts resting on you like
that arm starts touching your arm, and they don't instantly
(34:11):
go just move it away. I'm not expecting an apology,
but you know when someone just rests their arm on you,
and I'm thinking, you must be aware of the fact
that a minute ago your arm wasn't touching anyone and
now it's touching something and it happens to be me,
So don't just move away, Just instantly move away, like
(34:33):
and like that's a reflex reaction, isn't it. Like, Oh,
I'm leaning on something, now I'll stop leaning on that.
Unless you think you're next to a wall and I
am not a wall or a tree, so stop leaning on.
Maybe it's because I'm so I think I'm a post
business I really have opened that worms with that one,
don't I. Yeah, this could go on for hours now, Yeah,
(34:57):
do you need anymore? No? No, So remind me be
sensitive around Stuart next time we go to a gig together,
and do not sit behind you on any aircraft. Don't
get me and started on planes. Okay, let's not go there. Listen.
We've obviously been talking in this podcast about how much
we love this posthumous album released in the past week
(35:20):
by Sophie. It's called Sophie, so do go and check
it out. But also this week's beat the Algorithm. We
want to leave you with a recommendation because we want
to be useful, right and the Algorithm it's just not
doing the business for most of us. So, Stuart, is
there anything you want to share with listeners that you
recoony should go away and check out this week? Yeah,
it's a particular song actually, and as I said at
the beginning of nine US two this episode, I think
(35:42):
people might know this, but if you don't, you're in
for a real tree. M J. Linderman Wristwatch is the
name of the song. It's off of an album that
was released maybe about three or four weeks ago now
called Manning Fireworks. Great album. The whole album is really great,
but this one song in particular, I I'm obsessed with.
And because I am, you know, a music journalist and
(36:05):
I hear so much music, it doesn't happen that often
that there's one song that I just want to like,
repeat play, But this song I do m J. Lenderman
we spoke about on the wax A Hatchy episode of
the of the podcast, because he is young, twenty five
year old old rock folk artist in the States from Ashville,
(36:26):
North Carolina, and he worked on her ALM with her,
was on the whole record with her, and she was
absolutely just loving that man, and she spoke very fondly
of him. I was a fan of him before. We
did some things with him in the magazine before. But
this new record, Burning Fireworks, is flying. It's doing great
numbers at the moment, but it's one track. Wristwatch is
(36:50):
the one.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well, hello, what have you got?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
I feel like my what I'm offering up to listeners
this week is actually speaks to the essence of Beat
the Algorithm because I saw a friend at the weekend, Stuart,
a human friend, and they said, I think you might
like this song and shared with mere song and I said,
you are right, I like it. The song is called
Changes and it's by Antoine and Kerry McCoy and this
(37:37):
isn't new, this is an oldie. So this comes from
twenty sixteen and basically Kerry McCoy is the guitarist from
that band Deaf Heaven and Antoine is like a rapper
and producer, but they both grew up in the Bay
Area basically gone off, did very different things, made very
different kind of music, but both had their roots still
in the sort of Bay Area diy punk scene that's
(37:59):
become you know, very notable, produced loads of amazing artists
over the years, and they got together and made this
fit of a little known seven split seven inch together
and it's called the twenty fifth Street Sessions. And this
song Changes is on that split seven inch. You can
find it on all the streaming services. But it's just
one of those occasions where somebody goes, I think you
might like this song, and you go, I really like this,
(38:20):
and I've just kind of been ever since, like loading it,
reloading it, listening to it loads a bit like you
were just saying about Mjlnderman there. It's catchy, it's kind
(38:55):
of lo fi, it's really gravelly vocal. Reminds me of
sort of the early production on artists like Future Is
Lends that I really love And we'll make sure that
we add that to the playlist so you can listen
to all these recommendations that stew and I dig out
each week, put them together and you can go away
and have a lovely listen. Yeah, we'll link to that
playlist in the show notes of this episode and in
all future episodes if you ever need to find it,
(39:17):
but it's on Spotify. It's called beat the Algorithm, so
you can always find it that way as well. Beat
the Algorithm out. Okay, thank you for listening to episode
one hundred and fifty one of the podcast. We're going
to have some more guests coming up shortly on the podcast.
(39:39):
We could maybe do a few ideas on that. Actually,
if there's somebody that we've not featured on this podcast
that you're like, I'd like I'd like one of them
to talk to this person, then do let us know.
You can drop us a line. Email is info at
loudon quiet dot com. Socials is on Instagram, Midnight Chats pod.
Let us know if there's anyone you think we should
(39:59):
be gone for. Everybody wants to come on, so you know,
really just go for it, like it doesn't matter, how,
it doesn't matter, how the stars. Please give us a subscribe,
a follow, or tell a friend, tell a friends probably
the best thing, make them listen to this podcast until
next Time, good Night, Greg good night'st Midnight Chats is
(40:24):
a joint production between Loud and Quiet and Atomized Studios
for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs and Greg Cochrane,
mixed and mastered by Flow Lines, and edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
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