Sleeper’s Louise Wener talks ‘The It Girl’ ahead of the 25th Anniversary Tour

Benjamin Forrest on 21 April 2022

Formed in London in 1992, Sleeper quickly became one of the biggest British bands of the nineties – with eight top 40 singles in the UK and three top 10 albums across the decade. After reforming in 2017, the group are now set to tour their 1996 platinum-selling album The It Girl, including a date at the O2 Academy here in Leeds on the 22nd of April. Ahead of the tour, I spoke to songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener to get more of an insight into the history of the group and their current tour.

The tour is primarily to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the groups most successful album The It Girl, the follow-up to the incredibly successful debut Smart. Louise described how The It Girl differed to their debut, saying, “We’d had success with Smart and we loved that, but I think we felt like this the one that was really gonna break us through to a different level”. The album certainly did break the band through to the mainstream, achieving four Top 20 singles in ‘Statuesque’, ‘Sale of the Century’, ‘Nice Guy Eddie’ and ‘What Do I Do Now?’. The band, though, were seemingly unaware of the extent of their success at the time; Louise recalled, “We were very much living in the moment in those days, but it was great! When you get asked to go on Top of the Pops and stuff like that, that’s when your parents go ‘my kids doing something proper’, but even when you’re in the middle of it you’re always looking over your shoulder to see what everyone else is doing – it was a very hypercompetitive environment”. 

It is easy to see why that would have been the case, the mid-90s is viewed as a sort of golden age in British rock and indie music – with incredible bands like Pulp, Elastica, Oasis, Blur and Suede rising to prominence (among countless others). Asked about what that period in musical history was like to be a part of, Louise explained, “You have a much broader sense of that retrospectively but what was present was that feeling of…it felt very celebratory, like it was an explosion of guitar music and indie music – there was a feeling that anything could happen at that point – it was very joyful, I suppose”. Many music historians cite the rise of British guitar music, or what has been divisively referred to as ‘Britpop’, as a reaction to the grunge scene of the early 90s.  “The demographic had shifted, people getting played on the radio that hadn’t previously”, Louise said of the rise in indie bands at the time, “Radio 1, specifically, opened up to guitar music. It’s the same with all movements, it’s just something that grows and catches and divides and becomes something”. 

Due to the fact that Sleeper had supported Blur on their Parklife tour, as well as the fact they were making predominantly guitar music in the mid-90s, Sleeper have always been tagged with the Britpop label. The term ‘Britpop’ has divided opinions, with bands like Suede being quick to distance themselves from the term, “I couldn’t give a shit about it, it’s just something some journalist came up with”, said Louise of the ‘Britpop’ label, “I don’t know if like new romantic bands get asked the same question – how does it feel being new romantic? or how did it feel being grunge? It seems so specific to Britpop, it’s very strange to me. I don’t think any of us really care”. 

One of the singles from The It Girl, ‘Statuesque’, in addition to a cover of Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ featured on the soundtrack to the iconic film Trainspotting (1996). The soundtrack is often hailed as a gold standard for indie film soundtracks – featuring the likes of Lou Reed, New Order, Iggy Pop, Pulp and, of course, Sleeper. According to Louise, though, it didn’t feel like such a momentous occasion at the time: “It was just a bit of fun and then obviously became this sort of cultural moment, I guess”. The film undoubtedly brough more attention to the band, and the track ‘Statuesque’ peaked at number 17 in the UK singles chart in 1996.

Now, 26 years later, Sleeper are back performing tracks from The It Girl to audiences across the country, “They take on a new life and a different kind of meaning because of the intervening years – the interval has made it something different so that’s what makes it feel wonderful to play them again”, explained Louise. 

Sleeper are set to perform at the O2 Academy in Leeds on the 22nd April, tickets are available for purchase here.

‘As I Was’ shows this is Harry Styles’ world and we are living in it

Elsie Oulton on 21 April 2022

A moment of silence for the ‘Fine Line’ era please. Harry Styles’ sophomore album, released just months before the pandemic, has flourished and thrived over the last two and a half years – sustaining us fans sufficiently, whilst garnering an even bigger audience for the star (a seemingly impossible feat). There were Grammys, feather boas, music videos of him… running?, along with many other glorious moments, however it’s time to bid farewell to this iconic album’s life, as Styles releases ‘As It Was’: the lead single from his upcoming album, ‘Harry’s House’.

At only 2 minutes 46 seconds, ‘As It Was’ is a shimmering ode to 80s pop, with wistful melancholic vocals dancing over a glistening synth. Styles contemplates, mourns and comes to terms with various forms of change, repeatedly declaring in the pre-chorus that ‘in this world, it’s just us, you know it’s not the same as it was’, through luscious vocal layering. Lyrically, it’s dark, and hyper-personal: the second verse alludes to a concerned phone call to Styles, asking ‘why are you sitting alone on the floor?’, and ‘what kind of pills are you on?’. 

The accompanying music video is unsurprisingly, wonderful: clad in a sparkly, red two-piece, Harry prances and leaps around The Barbican in London (as a fan on twitter neatly summed it up: ‘If The Joker was yassified’). Despite some aesthetic incoherence, it serves as an effective visualisation of the song, with the images and production aligning gloriously after the bridge, as church bells elevate the final chorus and Harry’s dancing intensifies in a satisfying conclusion to the track.

The song is a subtle introduction to the star’s third album; not the boldest lead single, in comparison to 2017’s ‘Sign of the Times’, (when he kick-started his solo career with a lengthy piano ballad), or 2019’s ‘Lights Up’. It could perhaps be more suited to being an album track, considering its length and minimalism, however, it does serve as an indication of what’s to come from ‘Harry’s House’ in May, giving us a taste of the nature of the record.

Having broken multiple streaming records on Spotify and Apple Music, it is set to be the singer’s second UK number one this week on The Official Charts. Styles will debut ‘As it was’ live at Coachella in the upcoming weeks, where he is headlining the festival, and will kick off the second leg of ‘Love on Tour’ in June in Glasgow, which includes two sold out nights at Wembley Stadium. Additionally, Styles has two films set to be released this autumn: Olivia Wilde’s ‘Don’t Worry Darling’, and Michael Grandage’s ‘My Policeman’. To put it simply: in 2022, it’s Harry’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Cover image: BBC

Nigo makes grand return to music with star-studded sophomore album ‘I Know NIGO!’

Charlie Lake on 21 April 2022

‘I Know NIGO’…Fashion designer and Teriyaki Boyz DJ Nigo’s new collaborative album is relaying a statement beneath the crisp production and sampling by Pharrell and a bevy of others. Following his debut KENZO collection, as well as varied projects with Human Made, the fashion and music mogul’s sophomore album ‘I Know NIGO!’ dropped last week, stacked with features benefitting its communal title. Releasing under Steven Victor’s Universal-owned record label Victor Victor, it stands as his second musical output after his first album ‘Ape Sounds’ came out over two decades ago, which differs entirely in sound and scale.

With lead singles featuring A$AP Rocky, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Lil Uzi Vert and even Japanese hip-hop group Teriyaki Boyz, it was clear that the 25th March would bring an eclectic album like no other, infusing various eras of hip-hop, R&B, drill, and pop elements, fine-tuned to Nigo’s specific taste. Other snippets of songs starring the late Pop Smoke, Pharrell, A$AP Ferg and Tyler the Creator, were previewed during his F/W ’22 KENZO show at Paris Fashion Week in January, giving us a glimpse of just how extensive the feature list would be.

‘Lost & Found’ by WANG$AP starts things off with A$AP Rocky on top of a sampled beat from ‘Three Kings’ by Slim Thug, prior to switching up into a sample of ‘Like a Boss’ for Tyler, The Creator to spit some signature braggadocio over. Track three, ‘Punch Bowl’, sees the return of legendary 90’s hip-hop duo Clipse, who folded just prior to member Pusha T’s solo career took off in 2010. Here, they reflect on their careers and touch on life as parents, “It’s baby seats back of the Cullinans”. The song ‘Remember’ by Pop Smoke has a clever sample flip of ‘Sound of a Woman’ by Kiesza, serving as the foundation for late New York rapper’s vocals. This is arguably one of his best posthumously released songs to date. Other standouts are Tyler, the Creator’s ‘Come On, Let’s Go’, which would fit perfectly on his recent rap-heavy album Call Me If You Get Lost, Pusha-T’s ‘Hear Me Clearly’ produced by Ye and ‘Arya’ by A$AP Rocky.

The eleven-track record isn’t without its faults, however. ‘Functional Addict’ by Pharrell, featuring Gunna is simultaneously strange and boring, and the guest feature brings absolutely nothing to the table. The Kid Cudi and Teriyaki Boyz songs aren’t bad, but they stick out like sore thumbs in the track list, sounding like extras they had left lying in vaults rather than tracks that were actually conceived in the framework of a collaborative project. ‘Paper Planes’, whilst having a punchy 808 melody and catchy hook from Pharrell is let down hugely by three lacklustre verses from A$AP Ferg, with weird one-liners like “God, I’m sicker than syphilis” scattered throughout.

Interestingly, the CD release of ‘I Know NIGO!’ has been promoted massively by Victor Victor, with the CD pre-order bundles selling out in their thousands on his site. This is possibly a nod to Nigo’s home country Japan, whose people consume 70% of their music via CDs, with streaming services only accounting for 20% of music sales, much opposed to Western countries who over time have gradually abandoned the physical disc for streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer etc.

Overall, I Know NIGO! is a fun mixtape-Esque DJ compilation album that isn’t much more than that. “Fun” normally isn’t the best way to describe an album but that is all this really is and that’s fine for what this album is trying to be. ‘I Know NIGO’ is a collection of tracks that express Nigo’s prominence in Hip-Hop culture as he curates a soundtrack that delivers on the message: “I Know Nigo,” even when some songs don’t land.

Cover image via Sneaker Spirit