Ideas on the visible attraction of musical waveforms. Recollections of the late Quincy Jones. Debate over the position of peer stress within the reputation of New Youngsters on the Block. These had been among the many factors of pre-roundtable chitchat on a latest afternoon in West Hollywood when The Occasions gathered 5 musicians nominated for prizes at February’s 67th Grammy Awards.
Our panelists:
• Songwriter Amy Allen, 32, who’s nominated for songwriter of the yr for her work with Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Koe Wetzel; tune of the yr for Carpenter’s “Please Please Please”; album of the yr for Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet”; and tune written for visible media for “Better Place,” from “Trolls Band Together.”
• Musician, songwriter and producer Annie Clark, 42, who performs as St. Vincent and who has nods for various music album with “All Born Screaming,” various rock efficiency with “Flea” and rock tune and rock efficiency with “Broken Man.”
• Musician and songwriter John Legend, 45, who’s up for kids’s music album for “My Favorite Dream” and an association award for a rendition of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” he recorded with Jacob Collier and Tori Kelly.
• Producer and songwriter Daniel Nigro, 42, who’s nominated for producer of the yr for his work with Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, album of the yr for Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” report and tune of the yr for Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and tune written for visible media for “Can’t Catch Me Now,” from “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.”
• Musician, songwriter and producer Willow, 24, whose final identify is Smith and who’s up for an association prize with “Big Feelings,” from her album “Empathogen,” which acquired a nomination for engineered album, non-classical.
A number of of the artists had been assembly for the primary time; some went method again, together with Nigro and Allen, who co-wrote a tune on Rodrigo’s 2023 “Guts” LP, and Clark and Legend, who as soon as teamed as much as cowl Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You” with assist — for some purpose — from Zach Galifianakis. (The latter two additionally share a good friend and collaborator in Sufjan Stevens, who produced Legend’s “My Favorite Dream.”) But all of them agreed that in a music trade fueled by gossip, they’d heard solely good issues concerning the others.
“There’s plenty of people I’ve heard bad things about,” Legend famous with fun. “Not this crew.”
Willow
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
1. ‘Obsessive about the sounds’
You all come from completely different backgrounds and signify completely different traditions. However one factor that unites the 5 of you, I believe, is an actual devotion to craft. Put one other method: You all have a contact of music nerd about you. Is that truthful?
Legend: I’ve all the time been a nerd. I used to be a 16-year-old going to school.
Clark: You went to school at 16?
Legend: And I used to be homeschooled earlier than that.
Smith: Me too! Shout-out to homeschool youngsters.
Legend: We made it.
What does it imply to be a music nerd?
Smith: You research.
Legend: You care concerning the particulars and about understanding the historical past and the legacy that you simply’re carrying ahead.
Allen: And determining why your favourite issues are your favourite issues. That’s how I geek out: What’s truly occurring on this Dolly tune or this Tom Petty tune?
Smith: Is it the chord development? Is it the phrases they’re utilizing? Like, what precisely?
What’s a element in a tune by every of you that individuals won’t acknowledge however that you simply love? For me, an instance is the bridge in “Good Luck, Babe!” the place you’ll be able to hear Chappell panting within the background.
Nigro: That’s actually what I used to be fascinated about. I needed individuals to note that it seems like she’s getting out of breath.
Smith: It provides to the sensation.
Legend: I’ve this tune known as “Safe,” and there’s this one second once I do that run and Sufjan has this arpeggio going the wrong way. It’s simply this easy factor, nevertheless it’s my favourite second on the album.
Smith: Each album I make, I attempt to come to the songs with one thing completely different about my vocal method. For this album, I used to be listening to a whole lot of Indigenous music, and there’s one thing that a whole lot of Native American singers do — this sort of ancestral name. I do it on “Big Feelings.”
Annie, you produced your album your self, which I assume means you had been particularly attentive to the sounds.
Clark: Very attentive to the sounds — obsessive concerning the sounds. On the tune “Broken Man,” I had my good friend and nice drummer, Mark Guiliana, come over and mess around on that tune at my studio, and he performed this fill that was so sick. Later, we recorded some drums and bass at Electrical Audio in Chicago —
Steve Albini’s studio.
Clark: Relaxation in energy. And I’d gotten so hooked up to that fill that I had Mark replay it however with sounds from Electrical Audio.
Allen: I keep in mind when Jack [Antonoff] did the important thing change in “Please Please Please.” We had been all actually enthusiastic about it within the room. I don’t know if the widespread listener would know there’s a key change within the second verse. However I’ve had a whole lot of household and associates be like, “There’s something that happens halfway through that song that just lifts me.” Having the ability to actually lean into the musicality of pop proper now could be so thrilling.
I’d name “Please Please Please” the important thing change of the yr, however that may counsel I can consider a bunch of others.
Allen: Not a whole lot of competitors.
Clark: If Shania was within the room you might need some. Shania loves a key change.
Smith: Simply retains going up and up and up.
Allen: Identical with Beyoncé in “Love on Top.”
Legend: “Love on Top” is the important thing change of the last decade.
Anybody silly sufficient to strive “Love on Top” at karaoke?
Smith: Solely the Speaking Heads at karaoke. That’s my go-to.
Legend: I used to cowl “Burning Down the House” in my early demo days.
Smith: For a singer, I really feel like doing karaoke —
Allen: It’s a entice.
Legend: It’s not for professionals.
Allen: It’s lose-lose as a result of when you kill it, all people’s like, “F— that guy.” And when you underplay it, they’re like, “John, why didn’t you go harder?”
Nigro: I did karaoke for the primary time at like 34 as a result of I used to be so intimidated. Though I do keep in mind at my cousin’s marriage ceremony — that is 10, 12 years in the past — they’d a timbale participant together with the DJ, and I used to be so smashed that I stole the timbales at one level and began enjoying them. My dad was like, “You know, for a musician, you really suck.”
Annie Clark, a.okay.a. St. Vincent
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
2. ‘Unruly in a good way’
What’s a musical period you want you’d been round for?
Smith: Earth, Wind & Fireplace, Ohio Gamers, that complete period.
Legend: The sequence of Stevie Surprise albums within the mid-’70s when he received three album of the yr Grammys — I want I had been alive when these had been being made. These had been in all probability probably the most inspiring albums for me developing.
Clark: It reveals.
Allen: I take into consideration vocalists again then — how locked in you needed to be from the leap. Watching individuals report harmonies in actual time, everybody on one mic, having to match the tonality of all people else.
Legend: A pc permits you to take action a lot manipulation. They needed to are available and simply ship a take.
Nigro: It’s attention-grabbing how our ears have turn into so adjusted to every little thing sounding good now. In my 20s I used to be actually into Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” — listened to it on a regular basis. I hadn’t listened to it in years, after which I put it on the opposite day and I used to be like, I can’t imagine how out of tune this guitar is. For the primary time, it was driving me loopy. And I didn’t need it to drive me loopy.
How’d you cope with that want for perfection on the Chappell album? It doesn’t sound —
Legend: It feels unruly in a great way.
Nigro: For me, it’s time — sitting with the tune, listening to it, what it makes me really feel like. I’ll hear, then I’ll stroll away and are available again: “Oh, that vocal’s rushing — I’m gonna move the vocal.” It’s pure, however there’s undoubtedly enhancing being completed.
Legend: Are you writing on these songs too?
Nigro: Yeah.
Legend: Once you’re in your songwriter second versus your producer second, what’s the distinction?
Nigro: I by no means care about any manufacturing once we’re writing. I’m fortunate sufficient that once I work with Olivia or with Chappell, they don’t care both — they simply need to get a tune. Generally with Chappell, we’ll put a beat on so we all know what tempo we’re writing to.
Smith: That’s so cool. So that you report the entire tune with no manufacturing?
Nigro: “Good Luck, Babe!” was only a kick, a snare, a vocal and a synth — not even any chord modifications. The chords are the identical within the verse and the refrain.
Is that dishonest?
Clark: I used to be simply each Madonna hit from the ’80s — simply finding out chord progressions for enjoyable — and it’s a basic transfer.
Legend: We’re not nerds in any respect.
So then what distinguishes the refrain from the verse?
Legend: Generally simply altering the melody over the identical chords could make it really feel utterly completely different.
Nigro: Though there’s numerous hit songs the place even the melody for the verse is similar because the refrain melody. Calvin Harris and Rihanna, “We Found Love” — similar chords, similar melody. The entire thing by no means modifications. However the tune feels prefer it’s propelling.
Allen: Story as previous as time, that trick. However it’s actually onerous to do.
John Legend
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
3. ‘The best version of herself’
Final yr, Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” — which Annie co-wrote — topped the Scorching 100 4 years after it got here out as a result of individuals on the web determined it needs to be a success. It is a factor that occurs now.
Smith: I put out “Wait a Minute!” years in the past after which TikTok was like, “Oh, we love this song.” Yo, I’ve put out three albums since then!
Nigro: “Pink Pony Club” did that. It’s going now, and it got here out virtually 5 years in the past.
When an previous tune takes off, you ever hear one thing in it you want you might change?
Nigro: The loopy factor is you can. Chappell and I modified “Femininomenon” six months after it got here out. I’m probably not a dance producer, and the drums [on the original recording] simply didn’t hit the way in which I needed them to. Each time I heard it, I used to be like, “The fricking snare’s just not right.” I hated it an increasing number of as time went on. So once we had been set to place the report out for actual, I known as a good friend: “Can you please change the kick and snare in this for me? I have like a week before we have to hand in the vinyl.” And we ended up swapping it out.
Annie, you simply remade your newest album in a Spanish-language model.
Clark: Sí.
Why?
Clark: I’ve been fortunate sufficient to play loads in Mexico and in South America and Spain, and I used to be all the time blown away by the truth that individuals will sing alongside to my songs in what is perhaps their second or third or fourth language. So I believed if they’ll do this for me, perhaps I can meet them midway of their language.
Legend: How a lot did you end up revising the lyric to make it sing higher in Spanish?
Clark: It’s wildly completely different — type of a full rewrite.
Once you’re writing with an artist, Amy, do you suppose by way of absorbing their language?
Allen: After I was actually stepping into songwriting like six years in the past, I’d hear what an artist needs to speak about after which attempt to put myself of their mind and write the tune from their perspective. However I had this pivotal second two or three years in the past the place I spotted I used to be making it a lot more durable than it wanted to be. Why don’t I simply, after they’re venting about one thing, determine the closest factor I’ve inside me after which write in a parallel line with them? Sabrina is a particular case as a result of I’ve a lot chemistry together with her.
Legend: It looks as if y’all had enjoyable. My daughter is admittedly into Sabrina proper now, so I hear her within the automotive loads.
Allen: We are able to hit the ball forwards and backwards, and it’s unlocked one thing for her to turn into the perfect model of herself. My dream job is just not having to take a seat there and provide you with the funniest line. It’s permitting a chemistry to develop the place these strains are simply second nature.
Smith: It’s coming from the connection that you simply guys have created with one another.
Legend: I really like that.
Allen: It took me a very long time as a songwriter to get there with an artist.
Amy Allen
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
4. ‘The vision is clear’
Chappell, Sabrina, Charli XCX: Artists who’ve been working for a very long time lastly made it occur in a giant method this yr. Is that this a narrative about artist improvement? Ought to the music trade be patting itself on the again?
Legend: I don’t really feel like that’s what’s occurring.
Clark: Can they attain their backs with these wads of money of their fingers? Is that attainable?
Legend: What’s occurring with labels is that they’re probably not in cost anymore. They’re not the gatekeepers as a lot as they was. The viewers has a lot energy.
Smith: Social media is a large a part of this. And I really feel prefer it’s a stability: There are conditions the place the creation of the artwork is pinnacle, and there are conditions the place that’s actually, actually not the case. Everyone knows what it’s prefer to really feel that straitjacket of opinions about what’s gonna make a success report.
Nigro: Each artist says they don’t care. However there are artists that need to appease all people and there are artists that basically simply do regardless of the hell they need to do. I believe the reality is that the artists have the ability, but when they’re unsure about what they need, then they’ll simply get wrapped up within the major-label —
Smith: Rigmarole.
Nigro: It’s straightforward to get misplaced in that. Everybody needs to achieve success.
Appears price declaring that Sabrina broke by way of together with her sixth studio album.
Clark: That’s her sixth album?!
What does that inform you a couple of profession in pop?
Clark: It’s telling me I acquired a shot [laughs]. I imply, theoretically, when you do one thing loads, you get higher. A health care provider on their sixth surgical procedure is healthier than a physician who’s on their first. For some purpose, music is the one place the place individuals are like, “No, that first surgery was the best.”
Legend: However generally it’s true — generally the primary one is the perfect one.
Clark: And generally you pierce any individual’s trachea.
Willow, your debut single got here out while you had been 10 years previous. Do you’re feeling linked now to that earliest occasion of your musical life?
Smith: What I’ll say is that the message of my music has all the time been to like your self and to like others and to reside loud with your whole gusto. So “Whip My Hair” undoubtedly doesn’t go in opposition to something that I stand for now — it truly suits the journey that I’ve had. I look again at my first album and I’m like, I undoubtedly wouldn’t do this now. However like Annie mentioned, the extra you do one thing, the extra you refine it.
Legend: And it may possibly take some time to determine your voice. I’m fascinated about the six albums for Sabrina, as a result of now it looks like, OK, she discovered it. Not saying the opposite ones weren’t nice, however they felt just a little extra unsettled so far as who she was as an artist. Then I hear these songs they usually sound like that is her persona. The imaginative and prescient is evident.
Allen: Additionally, the world must be prepared. There’s so many dominoes that have to fall for one thing like “Good Luck, Babe!” or “Please Please Please” to have the influence we wish it to have.
Nigro: We wrote “Good Luck, Babe!” whereas we had been writing Chappell’s album. But when we’d put it out when the album got here out, I don’t suppose it could have completed what it did.
Smith: Timing is so vital.
Nigro: And I really feel like Sabrina wanted “Nonsense” to occur for the subsequent iteration to happen.
Allen: It was all stepping stones.
Daniel Nigro
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Occasions)
5. ‘I wish I made this song’
Current firm excluded, what’s a tune or an album that you simply beloved this yr?
Legend: Tyler, the Creator’s album. I really like his mother speaking by way of each monitor and the storytelling and the non-public journey.
Smith: Esperanza Spalding and Milton Nascimento put an album out, and I simply sat in my room with the lights off and was like, I have to ingest this into each cell of my physique.
Nigro: The primary time I heard “Million Dollar Baby,” I used to be like, Oh man, I want I made this tune.
Allen: I beloved this new Adrianne Lenker album that got here out this yr. She’s defying each rule that I as a pop author really feel is floating round.
Clark: I’ve been listening to the brand new MJ Lenderman report, “Manning Fireworks.” It’s so inventive and intelligent, nevertheless it doesn’t lose its coronary heart within the cleverness.
’Tis the season for vacation music. You’ve made a Christmas album, John, and also you’re on a Christmas tour as we converse.
Legend: Name me Father Christmas.
Have any of the remainder of you tried to jot down a Christmas tune?
Nigro: Yearly, I name up the artists that I work with and I say, “Hey, let’s write a Christmas song,” they usually’re like, “Yeah, sure.” After which we by no means do.
Legend: I mentioned that yearly for 14 years till I lastly made one.
Clark: I wrote a Christmas tune — form of. It’s on my final report, and it’s known as “… At the Holiday Party.” It’s unhappy and miserable.
Allen: That undoubtedly counts.
Smith: If I ever made a Christmas tune, I really feel prefer it must be from the darkish aspect. Or perhaps like a pagan perspective.
Clark: It’s best to completely write that.
Are Christmas songs onerous to jot down?
Legend: The factor about Christmas songs that endure is that they endure. So there’s a whole lot of stress on any new tune to make it stand as much as all those which have lasted for 50 years. They usually’ve lasted for 50 years for a purpose — individuals nonetheless love them. To attempt to make your new factor stand as much as that canon is kind of a problem.
Clark: Eat s—, Bing Crosby.
