The Art of Longevity

If one of the secrets to longevity in the music industry is simply taking your time, then Danish alternative rock band Mew are grand masters. Formed in 1995, the band took eight years before a major label deal came along, and with it, international success (the superb breakthrough album Frengers). It did not lead to a rush. Some 26 years into the band’s career, Mew has released just seven studio albums - one every four years. That’s not something Spotify would advocate as an operating model for bands these days, is it? It’s rare for a European rock band to breakthrough to an international audience and to have a career of real longevity (count them on one hand), but it is even rarer to be so damned cool about it!

Yet Jonas Bjerre is unfazed by any concept of FOMO - or the creator equivalent ‘FOBF’ - fear of being forgotten. In fact, when the band released their last LP ‘Visuals’ in 2017 just two years after the 2015 album ‘+ -’, Jonas’s overwhelming instinct was that fans were not expecting it.
Visuals plays from beginning to end like a stage musical, something I put to Mew singer Jonas Bjerre on the Art of Longevity. It may well have been the influence of Prefab Sprout and Paddy McAloon. When it comes to influences, Mew are true musical alchemists. While many ‘rock’ (as in guitar rock) bands have eclectic and ‘classic pop’ influences, very few can meld them successfully into their own sound. Perhaps it’s because of the restrictive formulas of rock, or not wanting to upset fans. Not so with Mew. One minute they’re all off-kilter time signatures and dissonant guitar noises, the next, soaring, beautiful and catchy pop - nicely topped off with Jonas’ angelic vocals.
Listen in to hear a truly unique way of working. Jonas and Mew don't rush anything, but the results are often sublime. It is good to hear that the band is talking about another project - even if it is early days and Jonas would also like a break before. Sometimes as a music fan, patience is a virtue and the rewards are all the sweeter.

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Like many women creators in the (still) white, male dominated music industry, the Staveley-Taylor sisters aka The Staves, bring a sense of humbleness to everything they have achieved, how they are positioned today and indeed, what the future holds. Is it possible that The Staves are better than they think they are? It seems so. Originally signed to a major label of some reverence (Atlantic, just before the hypergrowth of Spotify, social media and TikTok), it is likely that their major label A&Rs saw in them a modern version of a classic rock band of old - the golden years of CSN, Carole King, Joni Mitchell et al.
And why not? Back in the golden age of music, all bands started raw, and didn’t truly hit their stride until album three or four. Back then, they were given time to develop by the infrastructure that was the music industry. Now that’s all gone but by the skin of their teeth, The Staves are out on the other side - in control of their own destiny - and progressing steadily from album to album (second album If I Was set the bar high, but Good Woman was a revelation that took the band to a different level).
Even so, as they prepare to release their 4th LP All Now as an independent band, The Staves still need to reach the audience their music deserves. So would they rather write a hit song or make a classic album?
“We’ve never had a hit record hanging over us. It’s an incredible thing to have a song that outlasts you, for your music to become bigger than you are”. But the album - the body of work - is something that will endure more. It’s the album that becomes a significant soundtrack to a part of someone's life”.
In a sense then, the job is half done, even if the masterpiece is still to come. In whatever form the band takes moving forward, the potential to build their own quiet legend is very much in full force for The Staves.

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On The Art of Longevity, Fin Greenhall explained the ideas behind Fink's new project IIUII: an acoustic retrospective of some of the band's (and fans) favourite, biggest songs.
“I’m a better singer now than I was in 2005, so I feel I can do a better job of singing these songs. As a band we are much more loose, grounded and subtle than we used to be - comfortable with who we are”. As such, the idea behind the project is to do a better job of those songs by bringing experience to bear as the songs are revisited and reinterpreted. “I love the fact that when you write a song, that song exists, but then over time it can be dressed many different ways”.

Indeed, we discuss one of the most intriguing concepts in music today - that of making a song something more than simply finite recording. A song should never be set in stone, something Fink seems to understand acutely. Their last studio album, ‘Bloom Innocent’, is a case in point - the band has since released two further versions of the record - an acoustic work and a “Horizontalism” edition (Fink has even sub-branded it’s remix versions under the Horizontalism concept). The IIUII album is the first acoustic retrospective of the whole catalogue, yet already there has been some orchestral versions of some of these songs, in the superb 2013 release ‘Fink Meets The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’.

While the music industry is littered with ex-musicians and creatives now working on the management side, Fin Greenhall did the opposite - spending nearly half a decade in the offices of labels (hence ‘Biscuits’), figuring out how the industry worked (and working his way up from office skivvy to marketing manager). He flipped from being an executive to a creator - but seems to have picked up on some clever marketing angles along the way. Along with these reworked versions, the 2015 short film “Less Alone” was one of the first examples of an artist manifesto I’d ever seen expressed through the short documentary format. It’s a nice exercise in artistic branding. That might just have something to do with Fin’s thought processes.
Another example is the track selection for IIUII. Fin told The Art of Longevity that: “we went back over the streaming stats and thought about our live shows over the years and picked the songs that the fans feel really represent us”. Savvy indeed, now that is how creatives can use industry data simply and effectively.

Considered decisions have been part of the band's two decade career, along with a close knit musical understanding between the three members, Fin, Guy Whittaker (bass) and Tim Thornton (drums). The benign dictatorship is a famous formula for some bands but Fink works a very democratic system. The band still enjoys the shared experiences of touring, recording and creating their unique sound. The way Fink works is what most bands would wish for, so tune in to Fin and co's guide to longevity.

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On the Art of Longevity Series II, Episode One, KT Tunstall tells me that albums can feel like a ‘flash in the pan’ despite all the work that goes into them. But albums like Wax (her latest, from 2018) will stick around in the ears for a long time to come.
KT Tunstall was the classic ‘overnight success’ i.e. ten years in the making, having busked her way around the St Andrews and Fife scenes since the mid 90s. It all ‘began’ with that performance of ‘Black Horse & The Cherry Tree’ on Jools Holland (2004) - an old fashioned breakthrough moment. As remarkable as she came across working with just the guitar and the delay pedal, she was simply doing what she had been for the previous 18 months - busking her way through it. Except this time, it was on UK national television on the only music show that mattered.
What followed was a version of the classic Art of Longevity career curve: the stratospheric rise, the pressure drop and the years of wrestling between her own creative instincts and the commercial demands of the industry. But through it all KT understood that the record labels' job is business, while what she does is make art, and that attitude has seen her navigate the industry mangle to come out the other side stronger, more rounded as an artist and, if you listen to Wax, still making platinum grade pop-rock. Meanwhile, KT will always be on the music scene thanks to those immortal songs from her debut. She has come a long way from the rainy streets of St Andrews to the arid canyons of Topanga. It seems like she has much further to go.

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After 25 years in the music business, both as a major label priority artist and as a jobbing musician, Ed Harcourt still has big ambitions.

“My greatest achievement would be to write a song I would never get bored of singing”.
Cards on the table, Ed Harcourt’s two instrumental albums made between 2018 and 2020 (Beyond the End and Monochrome to Colour) got me through the pandemic. Well, they certainly helped. But Ed didn’t sing on either, so it comes as something of a relief to have Ed Harcourt back in the world of songs. Not only that, but his best batch of songs for a while - held together on a cracker of a new album El Magnifico. It is quite possibly the best album he has ever made. The question is, will enough people get to hear it?
Harcourt was first signed to Heavenly Records, which was subsumed into the EMI empire of old, where he was a priority UK artist for a while - thrust into the eye of the needle. But the chart positions never came, the pressure mounted, and, inevitably, Harcourt moved on into the second phase of his career as an independent artist. These days, his view of ‘the industry’ is understandably jaded.
“I went a bit mad. I had been institutionalised. I felt done. It still feels like a rollercoaster, but I can’t do anything else”.
His solo albums as an independent artist have impressed critics and fans - especially Furnaces (2016) - but commercial success has been elusive, and Furnaces left him burnt out and in need of a change (hence the ‘neo classical phase’ that followed).
Harcourt remains an active collaborator, however, producing albums for Kathryn Williams and Sophie Ellis Bexter, whom with Ed co-wrote on her last three albums. He is now working with emerging artist Roxanne De Bastion. In many ways, it is surprising he is not more in demand as a producer, although by his own admission, he will never be motivated to do anything within a million miles of what you might call a trend. Meanwhile, he tours with cult Ohio indie band The Afghan Whigs and is waiting for some film score projects to drop. But, for an ambitious artist, is that success?
“Success is working. Just making music all the time. I am proud but dismissive. Something will come, but I just don’t know what, yet...”
Harcourt now makes music with the battle scars of an artist who has been through the mangle. He rode the hype cycle - signing a five album deal to a major, experiencing the fallout from that, and steadily rebuilding to a place where he can always make music for himself.
In particular on El Magnifico, there is a bouncy, upbeat ‘single’ in Strange Beauty, while Deathless is a throwback to the classic days of album songs - a centrepiece if you will. Broken Keys is reminiscent of Elvis Costello during his 70s heyday, while Into The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy may well be Harcourt’s best song so far.
In fact, it might be the song Ed Harcourt never gets bored of singing.

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