Execs and artists pick their top tracks and albums of 2017 so far

What are the best albums and tracks of the past six months? Sit back, and enjoy the music.. Dipesh Parmar, MD, Ministry Of Sound RecordingsTrack: Parcels - Overnight“Two words: Daft Punk.”ALBUM: J Hus - Common Sense“This album is bang on trend and hugely diverse. It feels like J Hus is on the cusp of greatness” Andy Varley, president,Insanity RecordsTRACK: Stormzy - Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2 (feat. MNEK)ALBUM: Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer“On this tune [and the album it’s taken from], Stormzy proved he has become a bona fide global superstar and a formidable songwriting talent.”Henry Village, Co-president, BlackButter recordsTRACK: Anne Marie - Ciao Adios“This is an incredible single and a perfect pop song.”ALBUM: Calvin Harris - Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1“For me, here, Calvin Harris has clocked the feature game, yet again, and has proved to be the king of collaboration whilst switching lanes in a fresh, consistent and relevant way.” Julie Weir, label head, Music For NationsTRACK: Zeal And Ardor - Devil Is Fine“Swampy blues meets black metal soundscapes shouldn’t work but, both live and recorded, it does. This is a haunting chant with an almost ceremonial feel to it. It’s one of the most atmospheric releases of the last few years with an accessible yet avant-garde stance. It belongs in a genre of one.”ALBUM: Lower Than Atlantis - Safe In Sound“I met Mike Duce in a pub a long time ago as a bundle of chaos, and it has been a privilege to see him grow into the considered and engaging frontman that he is now. Add in phenomenal songwriting talent, amazing lyrics and I would say he’s the millennial Morrissey. The band management, the marketing campaign around the record, its chart position and the fantastic show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton just go to show the amount of warmth, love and great feeling towards this band. It’s great to see a young UK act who really have been slogging their guts out on the live circuit and earning their stripes in clubs, getting the success and reception they deserve. Success stories are rarer than ever and this really is one. The boys done good.” DJ Semtex, A&R consultant, Sony MusicALBUM: Jay Z - 4:44“Jay Z’s 13th album is a genre-defining classic that once again proves beyond reasonable doubt that ‘Hall Of Fame Hov’ is the undisputed greatest rapper of all time.”Paul Heaton, ArtistTRACK: Jonwayne - TED Talk “I love hip-hop when it’s full of references, quite often stuff I don’t fully understand, and Jonwayne is full of them. From TV host Merv Griffin to wrestler Ric Flair, TED Talk takes you on a little flight to America for just the price of a download!”ALBUM: Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life“This is narrowly beating the Rex Orange County album for this year’s favourite record so far. The pure sadness of Courtney’s voice carries the songs, and ones like Not The End, Only In My Mind and the title-track itself will stay with me for a long time.”Joe Gossa, co-president, Black Butter recordsTRACK: Julia Michaels - Issues “Anyone that opens a song with the line “I’m jealous, I’m overzealous”, is a winner in my book.”ALBUM: Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer“This is a solid UK album, and it has [Black Butter rapper] J Hus on it.”Ben Cooper, controller, BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra and Asian NetworkTRACK: Stormzy - Big For Your Boots“For me, Stormzy’s exciting - he’s what being young and rebellious and energetic is all about. It just feels like a moment in time and seeing him at Glastonbury and Radio 1’s Big Weekend, watching that crowd moshing to his records was incredible. It’s just the raw energy...”ALBUM: London Grammar - Truth Is A Beautiful Thing“This is to my personal music taste. Their first album was very much like Portishead’s Dummy, which I loved growing up, and the second seems to have matured even more. They’ve grown into the production and the sound is lovely to just wallow in.” Peter Leathem, Chief Executive, PPLTRACK: Ed Sheeran - Galway Girl“Galway Girl is a great pop song - simple as that. I also think it is great how Ed has collaborated with the folk band Beoga to introduce elements of traditional Irish folk to the song.” ALBUM: The xx - I See You“It is simply a fantastic album and body of work. It is still unmistakably The xx but they have really come of age on this third album.”Jamie Oborne, founder, All On Red/Dirty HitTRACK: Kendrick Lamar - Fear“On the one hand, it embraces all the rules of hip-hop and, on the other, smashes them all to pieces. It’s just fucking amazing. Imagine working with an artist like that, how much you’d learn from them!” ALBUM: Kendrick Lamar - Damn“I love that it’s a progressive, hip-hop record that’s smashing stereotypes about what a hip-hop record can and can’t be. He’s made a really important album. It absolutely blew my mind.”Peter Loraine, MD, Fascination ManagementTRACK: Katy Perry - Chained To The Rhythm “When I first heard it I knew immediately it would be my song of the year! I love the mixture of modern and ‘80s vibes and when the outro hook kicks in it’s just sheer genius. Pop music at its total best!” Nitin Sawhney, ArtistTRACK: Sampha - (No-One Knows Me) Like The Piano“I love the emotional rawness of this track. The lyrics immediately reminded me of years practising piano at my mum’s house. The piano was always a great teacher, companion and sanctuary. Sampha has a beautiful voice.”ALBUM: Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark?“A great comeback on this second album. I’m really into how two musicians can create such an epic, high-octane sound with just drums, bass and voice. These are some of the most visceral and stripped back riff earworms since The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. A white knuckle ride.” John Woolf, DIrector, A-list Management ALBUM: Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer“With this album, Stormzy has truly arrived as a special artist and figurehead for grime and music in general in the UK. I love the mix of songs, from Cold which is a big club record, to a great ballad in Blinded By Your Grace.” Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, president, Columbia Records UKTRACK: J Hus - Did You See “It’s just a fantastic pop record, bringing Afrobeat to the masses.” ALBUM: Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog“I really like this album. I love Mac Demarco, and he added [more] synth to the programme which is no bad thing. My other contenders for album of 2017 so far are Alt-J and Kendrick Lamar.” Paul Reed, gm, aifTRACK: The National - The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness“Everything I love about this band distilled into just under four minutes - Matt Berninger’s brooding baritone, intriguing lyrics and (I think) their first recorded guitar solo combine to thrilling effect. It bodes well for the album, they are essentially our generation’s R.E.M.” ALBUM: Ryan Adams - Prisoner “It’s a tough one between this and the new Vince Staples album, but I went for this as it’s quite simply a great rock record - amazing songwriting and a strangely uplifting listen despite the desolate lyrical themes. It helps that I was lucky enough to see him play the entire thing acoustically, stripped down, Nebraska style, in Rough Trade East earlier this year.”Paul Rodgers, Head of BBC Radio 6 MusicTRACK: Kiki Hitomi - Yellow Story “This has been out there a while, but I only recently found it via Lauren Laverne [who found it] via Gilles Peterson…”ALBUM: Jane Weaver - Modern Kosmology “This is the new album I’m really enjoying, I first heard her on Marc Riley’s show.”Becky Blomfield, Milk TeethALBUM: Charly Bliss - Guppy“Her voice is just incredible, and I love her writing style… and the guitar! It’s just one of those records that makes you think, I wish I’d written that!”Matt Hancock MP, Minister of State for Digital & CultureTRACK: Ed Sheeran - Galway GirlALBUM: Ed Sheeran - ÷“Ed Sheeran has been amazing for the music industry this year and the whole album is fantastic, but Galway Girl is probably my favourite song from it.” James Bay, ArtistTRACK: Arcade Fire - Everything Now“I’m still working out how to be a fan of Arcade Fire. I’m not quite there, but the disco one, Everything Now, I love that. That’s up there as my favourite song of the moment.”ALBUM: Laura Marling - Semper Femina“It’s great. I was less into her early stuff because it was particularly English-folky, but then I got into it and went on a journey through her music. This new album is brilliant, I really like it. The first track, Soothing, is one of my favourites of the year - it’s three intertwining bass parts, a bit of percussion, and her voice.”Saul Galpern, founder, Nude RecordsTRACK: Aldous Harding - Imagining My Man“Every once in a while a song stops you in your tracks with a strong emotional connection. The first time I heard this made me feel that way, [with Aldous] coming across like a gothic folk chanteuse.” ALBUM: Gorillaz - Human“Although it feels a bit incoherent at times, this record has some big moments on it. Then again we do live in a playlist world for such austerity times!”Story By: Music Week Staff

The Big Interview: All On Red/Dirty Hit's Jamie Oborne

Jamie Oborne is at the Parklife Festival in Heaton Park, Manchester. On stage are The 1975, the band that he has steered, as both manager and record label boss, to their status as one of the UK’s biggest breakout successes of the decade, despite pretty much everyone telling him they were going nowhere. In the crowd are 80,000 Mancunians losing their minds. And, side of stage, Oborne is enjoying a revelatory moment. “On the first album, The 1975 became the biggest cult band in the UK,” he says in his West London office, sat beneath framed posters for releases by New Order and The Smiths. “On the second, we became the biggest cult band in the world. I was looking out and you couldn’t get any more people in that place. I looked at Matthew [Healy, 1975 frontman], he looked at me and I thought to myself, They’re going to be the biggest band in the world. You could feel it coming. And it was amazing…” Oborne has had more than his fair share of amazing moments with Healy, guitarist Adam Hann, bassist Ross MacDonald and drummer George Daniel, since taking them on back when they were still called Drive Like I Do. Indeed, having been “right there in the trenches with them”, as he puts it, Oborne has an empathy with the band to compare with the relationship between the members themselves. But then he’s been on a similar journey before. A hip-hop obsessive in his youth, his parents would banish him to listen to his Public Enemy records in the car outside their house in Barnet. One day, a passer-by was so outraged by the noise that he walked up to the teenage Oborne and punched him in the face. “At that moment, I knew I wanted to be in a band,” he grins. And he was, up to the point of being signed (“A prize to whoever can find out which band I was in,” he laughs). But Oborne headed back to university after the group imploded, where a chance conversation about where his musical career had gone wrong made him realise the importance of good management. He and a friend spontaneously started their own management company and had some success before Oborne went it alone with All On Red Management. Amongst others, he looked after One Night Only, who signed to Mercury and had a Top 10 hit in 2008 with Just For Tonight (ONO guitarist Mark Hayton now works with Oborne at All On Red). But, when his clients signed record deals, Oborne found the “loss of control” exasperating, and started thinking about forming his own record company. His hand was forced when, having met and become manager of The 1975 through a One Night Only fan recommending their MySpace profile, he was unable to secure them a record deal (“Everyone passed on them,” he says, ruefully, “And I mean everyone”). So, having already put out a record by another management charge, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Dirty Hit was born in 2010. Oborne soon secured a licensing JV deal for The 1975 with Universal-owned Polydor (Oborne has huge praise for both Joe Munns and Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, at the major when the deal was done, and the current Tom March/Ben Mortimer axis, as well as Universal UK chief David Joseph), but Dirty Hit remains a completely independent label. Oborne’s backing of The 1975 came through spectacularly (second album I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It hit No.1 on both sides of the Atlantic and has now sold 269,569 copies, according to the Official Charts Company). Dirty Hit is also home to indie rock stars Wolf Alice (“Their new album is a classic alternative rock record, it’s up there with Bossanova by the Pixies”), while across label and management Oborne has an interest in some of 2017’s hottest new acts, including The Japanese House, Pale Waves and Ben Khan. Furthermore, like the labels whose artwork he sits beneath, Dirty Hit has cultivated an aesthetic that makes it much more than just another independent record company. Oborne himself, a rather more emotional fish than the cricket bat-wielding top manager stereotype (“This is like therapy,” he notes at one point, “You should come around once a week”), is clearly a man who cares deeply about what his artists want, even if it’s not necessarily the best thing for his companies’ finances. His methods, however, undoubtedly work. His Music Week Awards triumph is described as “new territory for me – I’ve never been particularly good at taking praise so it blindsided me in the truest way – I felt humbled by it”. And, as The 1975’s epic world tour finally comes to an end when they headline Latitude on July 14, he’s already planning their next moves. “Procrastination is harder than doing something,” he says. “When I wake up, I get out of bed. If the sun’s up, I’m waking up and I do things. I can’t not be doing something. I’m constantly trying to move forward.” And right now, that involves grabbing a cup of tea, sitting back on the couch and telling Music Week everything about Matthew Healy, duplicitous A&R men and why he’ll never do a streaming exclusive again…You had a lot of experience managing bands that never quite made it. Did that come in handy when it came to managing one that did? Absolutely. I learned a lot from that. One Night Only was a really hyped deal. It was crazy. Everyone wanted to sign them. I’ve never been in that position before, and I was influenced by the people I was working alongside about what was the right way to handle it. What I learned mostly is that a good deal is a deal where everyone walks away feeling respected. A good deal is not a deal where seven people lose and hate you and one person wins and feels great. I learned that the hard way. And then you had The 1975, which was the opposite of that… Yeah. I had a very formed idea of how I wanted the band to be worked. I didn’t want to release singles to get a deal with a band of that quality. That felt mental, to sort of debase what they were doing by trying to get a deal. I wanted to release a series of EPs so we could create a proper build. We caught people’s attention, but for some reason it always fell apart. It happened three different times. The last person passed on them after we had a rehearsal and a chat [where he said], I want to sign you, I’ll send you an offer tomorrow. He was trying to call this really famous producer while he was with us. Then the next day he calls and he’s like, I’ve had a think and I’m not going to move forward with it. I just started laughing, and he’s like, Why are you laughing? I said, Because yesterday you told the band you wanted to sign them, that you were going to send the paperwork, and you started calling fucking producers and shit in front of them. You made them believe that it was going to happen. Now you’re saying that we need to go away and release a single, and yet you’re a record company. I remember vividly what I said to him: The thing is, we both know that you know they like Talking Heads. But you think Talking Heads made one album, when I know they made eight. How do you come back from a frustrating experience like that? It was very obvious to me that these experiences were actually really damaging to the band individually. As artists, it was almost like we were looking for people to validate what we already knew. I remember one day just saying to them, Your work will be validated. You don’t need to worry about it. It was weird because, from that day, things started falling into place. And thank God, because [that deal] would’ve been too early and it wouldn’t have been the right fit. It would’ve been a disaster. That was the catalyst that made Matthew [Healy] and I decide to put everything into Dirty Hit. So I’m always really philosophical about these things. Everything happens for a reason, and you make your own luck. As long as every day we’re moving a step forward, over a year, we can travel a long way.Did you or the band ever come close to giving up? No, never. It only made my resolve stronger to be honest with you. I can be quite bloody-minded. It only made me more determined to show people what unbelievably special British artists they are.The label’s not just about The 1975. Did you want to build a label identity, like the classic ‘80s indies did?Definitely. I always say, We’re not selling music. What we’re actually selling is our identity. It’s about your company’s culture and how that informs everything. I’ve become quite obsessed with how different elements within my business inform the other elements. How the artists inform me, how my experiences with the artist inform how I engage with my staff. It’s about amplifying what’s already there.For most people, managing The 1975 would be a full-time job. How difficult is it to balance with running a label as well? The two things are intrinsically linked and symbiotic. A good manager should understand the label, in the same way that a label should understand the manager. I know that what we do isn’t the standard, but we have an amazing rhythm. Our goals are all the same. So it doesn’t impact anything in a negative way and, rightly or wrongly, I am always on the side of the artist. It’s just the way I’m built. I’ve got people around me who I trust implicitly, and who are brilliant. And the artists want to be part of this culture. We signed an artist the other day. She didn’t meet with another label, she already knew she wanted to sign. When I started the label it was really important to me that the artists knew that I think royalty deals are fucked. I haven’t done a record deal in 10 years because the numbers don’t add up. So all of our deals are 50/50 profit splits. Some people might think I’m too much of an idealist. But I want it to be a partnership.Is there ever a conflict of interest when you’re the label and manager for an act? I have a very deep, special relationship with The 1975. That’s been created over a decade. I hope the other artists aspire to that as well. I couldn’t manage too many things because I’m quite emotionally invested in this. I take my ethical duty as a manager and my emotional commitment to people really seriously. I’ve been offered some really big managing gigs, but it’s a people thing. I need to connect with someone, share ideas and feel like it’s a relationship of mutual respect. I don’t think anyone sees a problem with it, because I don’t really manage that many people.Is it difficult to manage someone you’re that close to? No, it’s easy. They know I am the only person who’s going to tell them the truth. And I am pretty sure they look to me for that. It’s a very special relationship, it’s been nurtured for many years. Within that relationship, we’ve had personal things happen that have brought us closer. It’s not just work. It’s our lives.What happens if you disagree about something? We have a rule, Matthew and I. We have, like, a code word. If one of us feels super strongly about something, to the point where we have to say that to each other, then that thing has to be left alone. If it doesn’t feel like what The 1975 would do, then it’s gone. But we don’t argue about anything. I love him. I mean, I really do. My wife says he’s my other wife.What’s your general management philosophy? It’s the same, whether it’s label or management. It’s to empower artists, to amplify them, to try and keep in mind at all times what their vision is for the project. If we execute that, that is us being successful. Money aside, success is staying true to their vision and giving them a career. Are there different challenges for you as a manager and you as a label head? Well, I’m sleeping good! But the challenges are the same. Most people see them from two different vantage points, whereas we have a better overview. I definitely believe in this [streaming] model. If you’re Universal, Warner or Sony with your massive catalogues, that’s suddenly monetised. For independents, the upward curve is maybe not quite as steep. I don’t have tens of millions of pounds coming in every month because of my catalogue, offsetting my mistakes. So we do have to be more cautious. But I’m optimistic, based on the artists alone.Why did you choose to do an Apple Music streaming exclusive on The 1975’s second album? The 1975 are a band that broke over the internet, which is a global market. I wanted a launch event that was global in order to position the band as a global artist. It’s very unusual that you have a band of that size that’s never been on a TV show in the UK, never been on the front of a magazine. They’d never even had much press at that point. They hadn’t had a radio hit in America but, at that point, we were already half a million records deep. So I wanted an event that demonstrated the scale of what we’d built today. And doing it with Zane [Lowe] and the [Apple/Beats 1] team just felt like a natural fit. In truth, I would rather have not windowed it at all, because I don’t think it’s a good consumer choice. But the objective was to have a No.1 record in America and the UK at the same time, and that was achieved. I do think that rooftop gig in LA was a contributing factor to that, and I’ll always be grateful to them for their support. Would you do it again? I would never window a record again, no. Because I don’t think a lack of consumer choices is ever a good experience. It was a moment in time. The market’s changed so much, even in the last 18 months. Spotify were incredibly gracious. We had had conversations about doing something with them. It was just about doing something that was available at that point.If The 1975 become the biggest band in the world does that mean Dirty Hit can become the biggest indie label in the world? I hope so. I would be lying if I said otherwise. I’m not the type to have 50 management clients, it’s not my vibe. But with the label, I want to be independent but I want it to be a business of scale. I want it to break artists. I feel like I’m always living in the future. I’m never really living in the moment. When I was at the BRITs I was thinking about our American tour. I’m always looking six, 12, 18 months ahead, making sure that the road is properly surfaced so that, when we get there, the surface is smooth. That’s great for people’s careers, if not great for my mental health! Ultimately, I just want to build a big, secure, artist-friendly label, that people want to be part of.

The Big Interview: Because Music's Jane Third

Last year, when the entire music biz appeared to have forgotten how to break new artists, one label seemed to have all the answers. Not content with ending ...

Interviews

subscribers only

The XCX factor: Various Artists' David Bianchi on the art of management

The seismic shifts in consumer habits and release strategies caused by music’s digital boom have reached every nook and cranny of the industry. But it’s the artist manager ...

Interviews

subscribers only

Natalie Merchant: Inside three decades of song

Asong is never truly finished. Not really. Just ask Natalie Merchant. “Songs are different every time you perform them,” she tells Music Week over the phone. “My songs ...

Interviews

subscribers only