Robert Altman’s The Player may not be the director’s best-known film, but it’s a revered piece of cinema, especially among film critics – which is perhaps ironic, given the film’s story. Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is an influential studio executive who becomes embroiled in the darker side of Hollywood when he ends up murdering a screenwriter; incidentally, this happens not long after Mill jokingly suggests that writers aren’t necessary for the creative process of making a movie.
Mill’s anxieties surrounding his work become heightened when he fears that the authorities are on to him, but the film explores his woes with a decent measure of humor and satire. By the end of the film, viewers will feel more connected to cinema, thanks to the film’s clever writing and the story’s apparent self-awareness.
Though the film is a satirical examination of the film industry, it also juggles crime, thriller, suspense, and romance. While it subverts the audience’s expectations about Hollywood, it also fulfills them – The Player is, after all, a Hollywood production.
While Altman is known primarily for projects like Nashville, MASH, and The Long Goodbye, films like The Player and his earlier California Split are among his somewhat underappreciated works. Here are ten of the most memorable quotes from The Player.
Griffin Mill: “Actually, we’re doing a movie right now, called Lonely Room, and Scott Glenn plays a detective much like yourself.” Detective Susan Avery: “Is he a black woman?”
Griffin Mill: “I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we’ve got something here.”
Griffin Mill: “This is a red wine glass. Can I have my water in a water glass?”
June: “What took you so long?” Griffin Mill: “Traffic was a b**ch.”
Griffin Mill: “No stars, just talent.”
Tim Oakley: “If I’m perfectly honest, if I think about this, this isn’t even an American film.”
Griffin Mill: “Can we talk about something other than Hollywood for a change?”
Griffin Mill: “Stop all the postcards.” David Kahane: “I don’t write postcards! I write scripts!”
Griffin Mill: “I would hate to get the wrong person arrested.” Detective Susan Avery: “Oh, please! This is Pasadena. We do not arrest the wrong person. That’s L.A.!”
Malcolm McDowell: “Griffin? Griffin! Hi, how are you? Listen, the next time you wanna badmouth me, have the courage to do it to my face. You guys are all the same.”
Place has always been important to Ailsa Tully, who grew up singing in a church choir in the Welsh countryside before moving to South London to study music. The singer-songwriter finds subtle ways of evoking elements from her childhood in her music, particularly on her new EP, Holy Isle, released last week via Dalliance Recordings (Gia Margaret, Francis of Delirium), which follows her 2018 EP Feuds as well as a string of promisingsingles. There’s a nostalgic, self-reflective quality to how she incorporates both lush vocal harmonies and field recordings into her brand of warm indie folk, whether capturing scenes of nature – gale-force winds, birdsong – or using the rumble of a washing machine to hint at a sense of domestic stress on ‘Sheets’. But even in this quietly mesmerizing, 17-minute project, everything in Tully’s work – from her vulnerable lyricism to her string arrangements and wonderful production flourishes – contributes not only to a distinct sense of atmosphere, but also serves to advance the emotional narrative that is woven throughout. Holy Isle is centered around a breakup, but it’s everything around it that gives the music its own sense of identity – one that can only grow with each subsequent release.
We caught up with Ailsa Tully for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her songwriting journey, how she approached Holy Isle, and more.
How do you look back on your upbringing?
I grew up in South Wales. My dad was a musician, and he was really successful – he played with John Martin and had lots of his own projects, and he won the Eurovision Song Contest and did the music for a film called Gregory’s Girl, which at the time was a big deal. I think having him as a parent completely made me want to do it – I wouldn’t have chosen to make music if it hadn’t been for him. We played a lot together, and that really shaped my childhood because it was so much music, all the time – him playing in different projects and kind of pushing me to make stuff and to be involved.
What kind of memories come to mind when you think of playing together or the kind of music that you were exposed to?
We played like all the time in the house. And he would sing a lot to me when I was growing up – my first memory is of him singing to me in a bath. I can remember it so clearly – I must have been about three. And I think I quickly realized it made me use my ear a lot to kind of form melodies and to remember melodies, because later on in my musical life, I went more through a classical system of reading music and stuff, and I was like, “No, I can just listen to my dad.” Like he’ll sing it to me and then I’ll go, “Oh, great.” So you kind of get around things if you’re bad at them, and that shaped a lot to do with how I then approached music and why I was so terrible at reading music. But yeah, a lot of my childhood I was just playing kind of naturally together with him, and then getting more involved in classical music in my A-level years, and then turning away from that, which, you know, had to happen [laughs].
How did you decide to venture out into your own songwriting?
I was doing classical music and it just wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. And one day my dad said, “I think you should start writing songs, because I was about your age when I started writing songs.” And I was like, “Okay!” So I just did. [laughs] I wrote my first song, and it was really complicated. It had like three different sections, and it was about Dido and Aeneas because I was studying classics at the time. It was the most pretentious thing I’ve possibly ever written. And that was my first song.
Why do you think that was the kind of song you wanted to write?
I don’t know, I think I didn’t really understand then about writing about personal stuff. I’d been very much in the classical world, I hadn’t done any singer-songwriter stuff when I was about 16. I kind of wanted to, but I didn’t really know how to approach it, and so I needed to write about something else. I suppose it’s quite an emotional story, but I still didn’t really know how to make might make something of my own yet.
How did you open up into a more personal kind of songwriting?
That’s been a very long process for me. I feel like only recently, like in the last year, I’ve been able to be really honest in a clear way. Because I started writing and I was like, “I’ll just disguise everything with really flowery language and people won’t really know what’s going on.” Because I didn’t feel that comfortable, I suppose, with expressing myself in such an honest way. I think I was still trying to work out my voice as a musician and I was listening to a lot of people like Joanna Newsom, and her lyrics are incredibly intricate and complicated. And I think I was trying to go down that path because I was scared – I didn’t want to reveal my emotional self at that point.
That’s interesting, because another artist I interviewed recently also brought up Joanna Newsom in a similar context. So I’m wondering if, for you, there were any songwriters that showed you that it was okay to write in a more diaristic kind of way.
I was very influenced by Laura Marling, but I think she’s also one to use poetry and other experiences to create. I think maybe someone like Marika Hackman in her most recent work has been very direct and honest, and I suppose there were a few artists at the time that were making a transition from very folky to maybe a bit more like, “No, this is what I’m feeling,” more direct.
What was your approach going into your new EP, Holy Isle?
I suppose it is a breakup EP – which I never felt like it was, but it is, and it’s very transitional. Some of the songs, like ‘Sheets’ and ‘Holy Isle’ and even ‘Your Mess’, they’re really quite old, and it’s taken me a long time to get them finished. ‘Greedy’ is much more recent and it was quite a different experience creating that, because all the other songs I’ve been very much mindful of how they’re gonna sound in a live setting. I didn’t want to overcomplicate everything, but with ‘Greedy’, because we were not performing and I didn’t do it with the band and we had to do everything remotely, it was really fun to play with. And I felt like that process really informed how we’re going to think about production for the EP, and it’s going to be creating more of a soundworld than just thinking about how it’d be live.
Why do you say it didn’t feel like a breakup EP at first?
I mean, in hindsight, I can really see that it is, but some of the songs, they’re about my relationship, but there’s only one song that really is about letting someone go, and I think that’s ‘Holy Isle’. And weirdly, with ‘Holy Isle’, I wrote the song ages ago, about the relationship that I was in then. And then I just felt like it was never finished. And then when I went through my breakup a few months afterwards, I came back to ‘Holy Isle’ when we were going to record it, and all the lyrics just came about the breakup. And it was like I needed to break up to have this verse so that the song felt finished, and I think that’s why I felt like, “Oh, it’s a breakup EP.” You know, the song wasn’t about my breakup before but it was never finished until I had the breakup, and it was like all the pain that had been in the song before, it just made sense. Sometimes you have to go through that emotion and through that stuff in your life to make a song complete.
I wanted to ask you about that song specifically, because I kept listening to it and I kind of realized that shift. And it’s a bit surprising because there’s this slow progression to the song and it starts out really gentle and affectionate, and then just as the strings come in, there’s this tension. I was wondering, besides the realization that made you want to add that verse in, what was your thought process for having the tone shift like that, as opposed to maybe letting the song be what it is in the beginning and then writing another song about what happened afterward?
I probably will write loads more songs about what’s happened, but that song, it was very much about my relationship at the time and what we were going through, but like two years before, about being in this place. We were on holiday in [the Isle of] Arran and we had this conversation, looking over the bay, and Holy Isle is there – it’s like a Buddhist’s island where you go and have a retreat from the world. We weren’t there for that reason, but we were on the island, looking over the other island, and the place is really important to me because my family’s been returning to Arran my whole life, and my dad’s family were returning to Arran before that. I’m also named after an island off of Arran, the Ailsa Craig.
And we had this moment when we were looking over this other island, we were talking a lot about our relationship and what we were going through at the time, and that felt like it was was just so meaningful. I didn’t want to write a song that was all about, you know, we broke up and I’m really angry with you, because that’s not how it was. It felt like it was really nice to capture that moment and be like, the love you feel for somebody and how much they mean to you, that still exists when you break up with somebody. That can still exist as much as the pain. And I think that’s why it felt like it was important to have an overarching feeling, and it wasn’t just going to be like, “I’m pissed off, argh!” Because it is nuanced, what you go through in a breakup, and anything you go through in your life is nuanced – there’s not just one emotion. And I think that’s why ‘Holy Isle’ I felt so important, because it had all that meaning for me anyway, about the place, and then that part of our relationship, it kind of moved forward into this moment where I was like, “We’ve been through so much and it’s so hard that we have to break up, but I’m so grateful for what you’ve given me in my life.” And the cellos were like this big explosion of gratitude.
I really wanted to use the cellos because I’m cellist originally, and I wanted to make it kind of catching you off because it’s intense, you know, what you go through, and I wanted to evoke the intensity after that brooding kind of conversation. Because you go through that in a breakup, lots of conversations and things that feel quite like you’re kind of going ebbing and flowing through it all, and then there can just be these big [makes whoosh sound] moments. And that’s why it felt like I had to bring it all together in one.
I was thinking of the line “I wish I could make a mess/ And feel from my chest,” which is such a powerful sentiment to have at the start of the EP. What does that mean for you, to feel something from your chest?
I think being in a really long-term relationship, you have lots of expectations, and you become someone from being with someone else. And I think sometimes, you try to grow out of that, and you can’t. And when I broke up, it was like this moment where I was like, I can do whatever I want. It is like a kind of release, but also it’s quite painful – well, it’s very painful, but the other side of it is, rather than thinking, you’re leading with your emotions. And that’s what it meant to me at the time, just that raw, impulsive movement to your life.
But there’s also something kind of holding you back at the same time, right, because you’re imagining it – you’re wishing.
Yeah. So that was like the kind of brink of moving into that stage where you’re trying to weigh, Is this something that I can actually do? Can I actually break something to start again? So there’s a lot of tension in it, for sure, especially in the beginning.
And then with the final track, ‘Your Mess’, you’re kind of returning to that idea, but instead of making a mess, it’s more in the sense of being someone else’s mess.
Yeah. I’m just obsessed with mess. So, I wrote ‘Greedy’ after, because ‘Your Mess’ is quite old, and I was like, “Why am I always talking about this?” [laughs] I was at a point where I felt like, “Why am I always the one that has something wrong with me? Why am I always this problem that you have to solve?” And it’s not at all a slight on them. I think some people might think that I’m like “your mess,” you know, like you’ve made a mess, but it was like, “I’m a mess.” That’s kind of what it was about.
When it comes to the field recordings that you use throughout the EP, how conscious were you of wanting to include a certain recording when writing a song, or are you the kind of person who just records a lot in general, without necessarily knowing how it may be useful in the future?
Kind of both. I normally know with a song, if it’s been in a certain place, I’ll know what kind of sounds I want. But I do record a lot – I’ve made like the millionth recording of wind on the black mountains where I live, and where my parents live in Wales. I’m always collecting sounds, and that’s very useful because you can build up a bit of a library, but normally it’s because the song is in a place, and I really like thinking about like, when did I do this, what did it mean at the time, where was I? And I think that that feels really emotionally important to the song. I don’t know if that comes through to anyone else – obviously to someone else it’s like, “Oh, there’s a wave,” [laughs] but for me, it’s pretty important.
Do you mind sharing what some of your most recent recordings are that you might use in the future?
Yeah, well, this is a bit tricky, but my dad’s recently passed away from cancer. And I’ve been recording him – just like recording him talking or recording him playing. So, I think I’m going to use that in a body of work in the future, because he’s, you know, was such an amazing musician. We’ve done lots of little low-key recordings together, but that was very difficult, recording him trying to play again, and like practicing again, when he was losing the ability to do that. So yeah, very, very painful, but that’s my most recent recording.
I’m really sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
Have you found yourself revisiting memories from that relationship and the music that you shared together in your current work?
I think I will, but maybe a bit later down the line. Because the music for us was like a big bond. I think I need a bit more time before I can go back there again. But I will, and I’m going to hopefully use a lot of those little samples in future work, because it’s going to be – I feel I probably need to write an album about this. [laughs] I guess it’s a way of still playing with him, but not being able to. So yeah, we’ll come to that.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Baby Keem has announced that his new album The Melodic Blue will be released this Friday, September 10 via pgLang in partnership with Columbia. Keem previewed the record with the Kendrick Lamar collaboration ‘Family Ties’ last month, and has now shared another piece of music to accompany the announcement. Check it out below.
The Melodic Blue will follow Baby Keem’s 2019 project Die for My Bitch. In addition to ‘Family Ties’, the album will include the Travis Scott collaboration ‘Durag Activity’, which came out back in April.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this segment.
On this week’s list, we have the brand new single from Charli XCX, ‘Good Ones’, an infectious pop banger that sees her deviating from the experimental sonics of how i’m feeling now to embrace a more mainstream pop-leaning sound; Little Simz’ groovy, Afropop-inflected ‘Point and Kill’, the fifth and final single from her outstanding new LP, featuring Nigeria-born, London-based singer Obongjayar; Montreal band SUUNS’ patiently unfolding and expansive ‘The Trilogy’, from their new album The Witness; Silverbacks’ dynamic and propulsive new single ‘Wear My Medal’, their first for new label home Full Time Hobby; Thyla’s glossy and euphoric ‘Gum’, which leads their forthcoming self-titled debut; and a new song from Melina Duterte and Ellen Kempner’s Bachelor, the hushed and subtly unnerving ‘I See It Now’.
Kanye West‘s new album Donda has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It marks the biggest first-week sales total of 2021 with 309,000 equivalent album units, surpassing Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, which started with 295,000 units in June.
With Donda, Kanye has tied Eminem for most consecutive No. 1 debuts on the Billboard 200. West has also become one of only seven artists in chart history to have 10 chart-topping albums, joining the Beatles (19), Jay-Z (14), Bruce Springsteen (11), Barbra Streisand (11), Eminem (10), and Elvis Presley (10). (Drake, whose newly released Certified Lover Boy will be eligible for next week’s chart, has had 9 No. 1 albums.) Halsey’s new LP If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power debuted behind Donda at No. 2 with 98,000 equivalent album units.
After multiple delays and three listenings events, Donda arrived on Sunday, August 29. West has since shared a video for album track ‘Come to Life’, which features footage from the third Donda listening event at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Drake‘s new album Certified Lover Boy, which arrived on Friday (September 3), features guest contributions from JAY-Z, Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Travis Scott, and many more. The credits for the album also list R. Kelly as a co-lyricist on a song called ‘TSU’. Now, longtime Drake producer Noah “40” Shebib has offered an explanation regarding the R. Kelly credit in an Instagram comment.
“At the beginning is a sample of OG Ron C talking,” Shebib wrote earlier today, responding to a photo of an Independent headline that reads: “Certified Lover Boy: Drake album credits R. Kelly as co-lyricist.” “Behind that faintly which you can’t even hear is an r Kelly song playing in the background. It has no significance no lyrics are present, r kelly’s voice isn’t even present but if we wanted to use Ron c talking we were forced to license it. Doesn’t sit well with me let me say that. And I’m not here to defend drakes lyrics, but I thought I would clear up that there is no actual r Kelly present and it’s a bit misleading to call him a co-lyricist.”
“It’s kinda wild because I was just reading ‘Baby Girl’ by Kathy Iandoli and the recounts of some of that stuff is horrific and disgusting,” Shebib continued, referring to the recently published Aaliyah biography. “Then I saw this post and just had to say something because to think we would stand beside that guy or write with him is just incredibly disgusting.”
Shebib added in some replies: “I dont think we even knew about it until the final hours when through clearance we discovered it. At that point it’s about the integrity of the art for the artist and that’s not my place to mess with it. I’m an engineer ultimately my job is to help an artist deliver their vision. There’s lots I don’t agree with and I voice my opinion but I definitely don’t subscribe to all the lyrics. I’m worried about sound and sonics melodies and progressions that’s my place.”
Sarah Harding, from the UK pop group Girls Aloud, has died at the age of 39. The singer revealed in August 2020 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Harding’s mother Marie announced Sarah’s death in an Instagram post earlier today (September 5).
“It’s with deep heartbreak that today I’m sharing the news that my beautiful daughter Sarah has sadly passed away,” she wrote in her post. “Many of you will know of Sarah’s battle with cancer and that she fought so strongly from her diagnosis until her last day. She slipped away peacefully this morning. I’d like to thank everyone for their kind support over the past year.”
Born in 1981 in Berkshire and raised in Stockport, Harding rose to promise through the British reality show Popstars: The Rivals, which led to the formation of Girls Aloud. The girl group’s first single ‘Sound of the Underground’ became the first of four UK chart-toppers. Girls Aloud were together for six years in total and released five full-length albums. Their last record, Out of Control, came out in 2008.
After Girls Aloud went on hiatus, Harding went on to focus on her acting and solo music career. She became a Celebrity Big Brother winner in 2017 and released some solo material, including her 2015 debut Threads EP. Girls Aloud would reunite in 2012 for their 10th anniversary before officially disbanding the following year.
“It meant the world to Sarah and it gave her great strength and comfort to know she was loved,” Harding’s mother wrote in her message. “I know she won’t want to be remembered for her fight against this terrible disease—she was a bright shining star and I hope that’s how she can be remembered instead.”
André 3000 has issued a statement about ‘Life of the Party’, an unreleased Kanye West track that Drake played during a SiriusXM broadcast on September 3, and which features a rare appearance from Andre 3000. In the statement, the rapper expresses his disappointment at the song being shared as part of a feud between “two artists that [he] love[s].” The full statement reads:
A few weeks ago Kanye reached out about me being a part of the Donda album. I was inspired by his idea to make a musical tribute to his mom. It felt appropriate to me to support the Donda concept by referencing my own mother, who passed away in 2013. We both share that loss. I thought it was a beautiful choice to make a clean album but, unfortunately, I didn’t know that was the plan before I wrote and recorded my verse. It was clear to me that an edited ‘clean’ format of the verse would not work without having the raw, original also available. So, sadly, I had to be omitted from the original album release.
The track I received and wrote to didn’t have the diss verse on it and we were hoping to make a more focused offering for the Donda album but I guess things happen like they are supposed to. It’s unfortunate that it was released in this way and two artists that I love are going back and forth. I wanted to be on Certified Lover Boy too. I just want to work with people that inspire me. Hopefully I can work with Kendrick on his album. I’d love to work with Lil’ Baby, Tyler and Jay-Z. I respect them all.
Drake leaked an unreleased Kanye West track, the Andre 3000-featuring Donda outtake ‘Life of the Party’, during his guest DJ mix on SiriusXM’s Sound 42 last night following the release of his new album Certified Lover Boy. West’s verse on the song addresses the long-simmering feud between the two rappers, which Drake reignited with a guest feature on Trippie Redd’s ‘Betrayal’ last month.
‘Life of the Party’ was previously previewed at West’s private album listening event in Las Vegas but was cut from the tracklist ahead of his stadium events in Atlanta and Chicago. The version that aired on SiriusXM, however, was studio quality.
“I put Virgil and Drake on the same text, and it wasn’t about the matching Arc’teryx or Kid Cudi dress/ Just told these grown men stop it with the funny shit,” Ye raps on the track. “I might hire the whole team from ACG/ So don’t text me like I’m Juanita JCV.” Near the end of the song, he adds: “Told Drake don’t play with me on GD/And he sent that message to everybody/So if I hit you with a ‘WYD’/You better hit me with, ‘Yes sir, I’m writing everything you need’.”
The track also features a guest verse from Andre 3000, who is heard asking West’s late mother, Dr. Donda West, to share his messages of love to his own mother, Sharon Benjamin Hodo, who died in 2013. “Miss Donda, if you see my mama, tell her I’m lost/ You see, she’d always light a cigarette, we talk, I would cough/ Exaggeratin’ a little bit so she get the point/ Tryna get her to stop smokin’, I would leave and fire up a joint/ Till I quit, started back up again, 20 years later,” he raps.
James Blake has pushed back the release date of his upcoming album Friends That Break Your Heart. Originally due for release on September 10, the LP is now set to arrive on October 8, a change attributed to COVID-19-related delays at vinyl pressing plants.
“The release of ‘Friends That Break Your Heart’ will unfortunately be pushed back to October 8 as a result of vinyl factory delays caused by COVID,” Blake wrote on Instagram. “It was super important to me to have vinyl day and date for my fans as I have never had that before and so many of you have requested it.That being said, I am excited to release a new song soon and start playing the new music for those of you coming out to the US tour which kicks off September 16th in San Diego. Appreciate your understanding and can’t wait for you to hear the full album.”
Friends That Break Your Heart, the follow-up to 2019’s Assume Form, was announced in July with the release of the lead single ‘Say What You Will’. Last month, Blake shared another single called ‘Life Is Not the Same’.
that’s my place.”
