She seems to have been the talk of the town, and well, pretty much most corners of the globe over the last few months.
Whether it be alpha males getting hilariously triggered by the fact that she has been watching a lot of American Football recently (and so the tv coverage occasionally moves away from their ability to watch other big, burly men smash each other up) - or the reasonable questioning of the number of flights she was taking - or just because people naturally seem to distrust pretty much anyone who becomes successful - it feels like everyone has been talking about Taylor Swift.
So, we thought we'd jump on the bandwagon and use Ms Swift as the jumping off point for this edition of Six Degrees of Kevin Shields.
Taylor Swift was apparently named after 70s easy listening legend, James Taylor, and was writing her own songs from a very young age. In fact she was effectively a professional songwriter by the age of 14, and had signed for Big Machine Records in 2005, aged just 15. Her first, eponymously titled, album came out the following year, full of country-pop tunes with country-pop names, like Teardrops On My Guitar.
Since then, to the amazement of some and disappointment of others, she has blazed her way through multiple genres, including synth pop, folk and rock. There was the electro pop of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, and with 2014's 1989, country had been left well behind for full on pop. In 2009 she had ventured into the film world, co-writing You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home with singer-songwriter Martin Johnson, for Miley Cyrus to sing in the Hannah Montana movie (and in which, Swift also had a cameo appearance). Her tv debut was in a 2010 episode of CSI, where she portrayed a rebellious teen - she also got to host Saturday Night Live that year too.
Taylor Swift: We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - here
(Official music video)
Also on the Hannah Montana soundtrack was the song Butterfly Fly Away, which was written by songwriting / producing guru Glen Ballard (with Alan Silvestri on this occasion). He is perhaps best known for co-writing and producing Alanis Morrissette's 1995 smash hit Jagged Little Pill. But prior to that, he had also been part of the writing and production team on Michael Jackson's Thriller (and later Bad and Dangerous).
Alanis Morissette: Hand In My Pocket - here
(Official music video)
Ballard also worked with Silvestri on a musical version of hit film, Back To The Future - and over the years has worked with many more pop stars including Paula Abdul, Wilson Phillips, No Doubt and Shakira.
Thriller, which was released in November 1982, was Michael Jackson's sixth album - a follow up to 1979s Off The Wall. Produced by Quincey Jones, Jackson couldn't really understand the concept of having stand out singles and album tracks - he wanted it to have "every song a killer." The album contained no less than seven singles - The Girl Is Mine (with Paul McCartney), Billie Jean, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Human Nature, PYT (Pretty Young Thing) and Thriller.
It was an album all about the numbers. All seven of those singles made the US Top10, with numbers two and three hitting the top spot. The record had sold 32 million copies by the end of the following year (it is now well past 70 million in total), and at the 1984 Grammy's, Jackson won an unprecedented eight awards. Despite the pop sensibilities of the album, it reflected Jackson's personal feelings of unhappiness and loneliness at the time, and also a degree of paranoia about his fame. Beat It was a song that met his urge to record a proper rock song - it featured Steve Lukather (Toto) on rhythm guitar and Eddie Van Halen doing the solo.
Michael Jackson: Beat It - here
(Official video - if guitar solos are your thing, it's worth it for EVH's epic solo)
Also appearing on three of Thriller's tracks was trombonist Bill Reichenbach (he also played on Off The Wall). His dad had been a drummer in the 1960s with Charlie Byrd's band - and the list of who else he has worked with is a veritable who's who of pop, country and easy listening: Dolly Parton, Cher, Al Jareau, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Michael Buble and many, many more. One collaboration that stands out, being a little more offbeat, was that Reichenbach also played on two songs on Tom Waits 1983 album, Swordfishtrombones.
Tom Waits had made a bit of a name through, well aside from that voice, making piano centred works. But this one, his eighth record, veered into more experimental rock - and was also the first that he produced himself. AllMusic noted that the record, "Can be primitive, moving to odd time signatures, while Waits alternately howls and wheezes in is gravelly bass voice."
Tom Waits: In The Neighbourhood - here
(Audio only)
Although best known as the highest grossing box office star of all time, Scarlett Johansson has other strings to her bow, including music. Born in 1984 in Manhattan, she is granddaughter of noted Danish art historian Ejnar Johansson, and made her screen debut as John Ritter's daughter in 1994s fantasy movie, North (Rob Reiner). Her star gradually rose over the decades through films including Lost In Translation, Girl With A Pearl Earring and then starring as Black Widow in the Marvel series.
But on the musical front, her first release was Anywhere I Lay My Head in 2008, which interestingly is predominantly a Tom Waits covers album. Produced by Dave Sitek (TV On The Radio), it contains four Waits tunes, six more by Waits and his wife, Kathleen Brennan, plus one original Johansson song. Various members of TV On The Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs assisted, and David Bowie also sang on two tracks.
Scarlett Johansson: Falling Down - here
(Live, AOL Sessions)
One of Johansson's early films was as an injured teenager in 1998s The Horse Whisperer, directed by and starring Robert Redford, along with Sam Neill and Kristin Scott Thomas. That soundtrack contained a feast of country and alt-country stars, like Dwight Yoakam, The Flatlanders, Emmylou Harris, Iris DeMent, Gillian Welch and Steve Earle.
Meltdown Festival is an annual event at London's South Bank, with a host of music, art, performance and film, each year curated / directed by someone different. Over the years, directors have included Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, David Bowie and Morrissey. In 2005, the honour went to punk poet Patti Smith, over to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of her seminal album, Horses. On 19th June that year, she shared a stage at the Royal Festival Hall with Steve Earle. Then, three days later, she recreated her album The Coral Sea - an ode to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, which put the words of her 1994 poem of the same name, over guitar sounds laid down by KEVIN SHIELDS.
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