The Art of Longevity

• The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 6: Suede (Revisited)

  “I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.” Those words were spoken at one time by David Bowie, and thus are gospel to us here on The Art of Longevity podcast. Fortunately, some bands still live by that same philosophy. For evidence, we revisit the world of Suede. Suede has refused to become boring. Somehow, this band of 40 years have gone the other way - more exciting and visceral than ever. Suede are not hanging about to become their own echo! Albums like Autofiction and now, its immediate follow-up Antidepressants are not just the proverbial ‘return to form’ type records. They are nothing short of a reinvention. Mat Osman, co-founder member with Brett Anderson and bass player, shares his views on the new Suede record:“It feels like Autofiction on steroids. If Autofication was a TV show, Antidepressants is the film version. We took everything more widescreen with this record”. However, for Osman - you can forget about that old cliche of a band making music for themselves and hoping the world will agree (that’s what Rick Rubin has been telling us with The Creative Act: A Way of Being and to be fair, more than a few artists have told me it works for them. It's not for Suede. Instead, the band’s creative mission has been guided by their fans - their reactions at live shows, to the band directly, but also the band’s own interpretation of what a Suede audience really wants. “A band without an audience isn’t a band. It’s a hobby,” Osman declares. That emotional connection is Mat’s affirmation - fan tattoos of favourite songs, tears at gigs, and stories about Suede songs at weddings. This fan connection is Suede’s compass in the band’s 4th career phase. And so we return to a key central theme of longevity; usefulness to people. “As I get older, those moments where someone says, ‘That song helped me,’ mean everything,” he reflects. “That’s what I’m proud of. There’s a community feel [between the band and the fans] that becomes more and more important. It’s evident from this ‘Revisited’ episode, that Mat Osman and Brett Anderson have a fair degree of telepathy on many things - a shared vision that no doubt has added focus to Suede’s current run of creative form. They even agree on the most ironic thing about where Suede has arrived; that they were the least likely band to survive in the first place. “Longevity is not something we strived for, it just happened as a side effect of our bloody mindedness and passion for making music”.They still have it. Season 12 of The Art of Longevity is Powered by Bang & Olufsen. Long copy can be found on www.songsommelier.com.Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

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• The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 5: Tom Odell

  Now well over a decade in the music industry, Tom Odell is motoring through a successful second phase as an independent artist. His recent albums have leaned into more introspective, personal material that has resonated so much that he now attracts bigger audiences to bigger shows (an arena tour is forthcoming), and continues to grow a very large base of listeners on the streaming platforms. Indeed, he sits comfortably (and ironically) within Spotify’s elite of Top 200 streaming artists. He is in the 0.01% of working artists, the “Billions Club”, a place he never set out to be but nevertheless, belongs. Odell broke free of the major label system (not his choice at the time but transformational as it turned out) three albums ago, to find a whole new level of creative and commercial success. Most of all, with his seventh studio album A Wonderful Life on the horizon, the singer-songwriter has found a renewed sense of purpose. His time touring with artists like Billie Eilish and the Lumineers has given him a first-hand glimpse of the very top tier of success in a changed industry, a secret sauce that may well rub off on him more as a result of those experiences. Odell is a hopeful soul. In a world of quantity over quality, 100,000 songs a day and AI about to increase that number ad infinitum, he has a strong idea about where a solution may lie to all the madness. “I really have faith in the listener. I believe people will find the good stuff. And when I look at what’s big right now, most of the time I go, ‘Yeah, that’s really good, that’s why it's big”. As A Wonderful Life gets closer to release, Odell isn’t looking to chase the numbers, or meet any industry expectations. He’s following the music. “I didn’t get into this to be big,” he says. “I got into it because I love it. And I still do.” His Spotify biog says it all. No flowery press copy, no AI generated summary, no self-penned promo, just 33 million monthly listeners and a simple keyboard smile emoji. One wonders how far he will go. Season 12 of The Art of Longevity is Powered by Bang & Olufsen. Long copy can be found on www.songsommelier.com.Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

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• The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 4: Amy Macdonald

  Singer-songwriter Amy MacDonald has never been one to chase trends - an impressive show of resistance for an artist whose music journey began with teenage stardom (the streaming monster hit “This Is The Life” was all over the radio when she was just 19). Macdonald could be forgiven for trying to stay in the spotlight, but she was never that bothered about industry fuss in the first place, protected as she is by a finely tuned bullshit detector, a birthright for anyone born in the vicinity of Glasgow.  That said, as her career has developed (she is now on her sixth album), MacDonald admits to worrying more…about mostly everything. New album Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For? is a cheeky dig at years of being asked when new music was coming, yet it comes with a certain anxiety about how it will go down, about how the world sees her now. “I keep myself up at night just thinking about shite basically, it's ingrained in me - I just want it to be good for everybody involved”. Staying grounded matters to Macdonald. When asked what she’s most proud of, her answer is modest but telling: “That I’m still doing this. There were so many times I thought I was going to sack it all in. But here I am, album six, and people still seem to be interested.”It's easy to forget how much responsibility falls on the shoulders of solo musicians. It’s as if the strength of her songwriting might not be enough. But it is. Season 12 of The Art of Longevity is Powered by Bang & Olufsen. Long copy can be found on www.songsommelier.com.Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

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• The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 3: Turin Brakes - revisited

  In the intervening four years since Olly Knights first joined me, the band has been on something of a creative roll; two fine albums, a successful acoustic tour and something of a collective raising of the game. To my mind, this is how established bands of longevity should operate; to hell with the mainstream and gatekeepers, just do the very best work you can and keep those fans happy. The new Turin Brakes album Spacehopper saw the band going back to the start - recording the album at Konk, the recording studio founded by The Kinks in 1973 and where Turin Brakes recorded their classic debut The Optimist. This of course, was in contrast to the homely recording of post-pandemic Wide Eyed Nowhere, still a fine record but very different in character to Spacehopper. This time around too, the lead single from the new album, “The Message”, had some much deserved radio play on BBC Radio 2. But still, no hits to speak of, and the album reached the UK chart for just a fleeting moment. A hit would be nice for this band, but Ollie Knights remains more philosophical than ever:“You take the wins where you can. Our happiness levels are less influenced by “success” in the mainstream areas. We’ve finally learned after decades of smashing up against the wall. We get over it very quickly if something is disappointing in the mainstream realm. That’s the bit you were not thinking about when you were dreaming about a career in music as a kid”. Indeed. For bands of Quiet Legend, still making excellent records and blowing the roof off venues live - it’s time to build your own momentum. There’s a lot to learn from Turin Brakes. To be contrarian for a moment though, this band may still get their moment. When you consider that those early classic hits (remember “Pain Killer” was a top five UK hit in the summer of 2003, whilst the band’s first chart single “The Underdog (Save Me)” has become an evergreen classic) are still relatively understreamed. The band’s biggest song on Spotify remains the 2016 ballad Save You with just over seven million streams. Sooner or later, that is bound to change, but until it does, the band continues to thrive organically, with or without the accolades. Their momentum is such that they are back in a place where it's still exciting after 25 years. “There is always something on the workbench. The chemistry between me and Gale and between the four of us - without those relationships, forget it. We look forward to getting together and playing, we’re excited about it. And when people come to see us live it's as if they want to come and watch the relationships happen”. Turin Brakes are the indie folk band that rocks. Good luck to them.Season 12 of The Art of Longevity is Powered by Bang & Olufsen. Long copy can be found on www.songsommelier.com.Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

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• The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 2: Estelle

  Estelle is old school. With a modern twist yes, but nonetheless, if this most eclectic of artists leans in any particular direction it is towards ‘classic’. She even says it in one her own songs; "I'm not of-the-moment. I am a classic, yeah, I live at the MoMA” (The Life, opening track of her 2012 album All of Me). She is quite the proverbial eclectic artist - edgy but not (un)necessarily shocking, traditional but modern enough to make her point in the era of precision-tool song production, and forever flitting between a dozen sub-genres (across hip hop, R&B, pop, reggae and soul). Classify Estelle at your peril. New album Stay Alta has throwback quality to it that is extremely welcome in the current climate. Although it was conceived as a post-pandemic record, it works effectively as a tonic for the turbulent times we are living through right now. It channels Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Stevie Wonder and…Melba Moore. Like records by those artists, Stay Alta is an organic listen and auto-tune is strictly off limits. But somehow, it is modern. Stay Alta themes include gratitude, celebration, joy and defiance but not the migraine-inducing platitudinal kind - just the straightforward take it or leave it kind. You should take it. It is album number six across a career of two decades, so Estelle does not subscribe to FOBF, the “fear of being forgotten” that is the scourge of many modern pop artists in today’s fast-flowing pop scene. Instead, she is happy to take her time. There is something to note in her approach about time, longevity, and lineage. Estelle seems acutely aware of whose shoulders she stands on. It’s not unconnected to the fact that The Estelle Show (her 5-days a week Apple Music radio show, which won an esteemed Gracie Award for Women In Media) provides a platform to put her fellow peers and new artists in context alongside legendary artists. Classics and new classics sit side by side - why can’t broadcast radio pull that off? Anyhow, credit to Estelle. It was her idea, her pitch to Apple, and now it's her show. And that is how Estelle rolls. At this stage, she is a serious artist living outside of the mainstream and not really in need of a hit anyhow. But yes, she is a songwriter and an artist with the potential to strike at any time. She knows where she is from and how to reach deep into that well. “I see credit and beauty in artists who know where they come from because you then have a well to pull from. If I know funk and I’m a new era funk artist I know where to find that bassline. If I’m a drum & bass artist I can go to that Roni Size beat and sample it or repurpose it. Nothing’s new under the sun”. Damn right. Season 12 of The Art of Longevity is Powered by Bang & Olufsen. Long copy can be found on www.songsommelier.com.Support the showGet more related content at: https://www.songsommelier.com/

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