Album Review: Lianne La Havas
October 8, 2020
Photos: Bruno Major
“I think I had to realize, while I was doing [the album], that I was in the driving seat. Because, I had been so used to relying on my label, for example, to introduce me to a bunch of producers, or people who I saw in positions of authority – kind of relied on them to sort things out for me, and I found that I was happiest when I arranged things myself; when I found the people I wanted to work with myself, and I paid for a lot of it myself as well. Just kind of going wherever my heart wanted to go.” – Lianne La Havas
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The history of music is littered with self-titled albums, albums that are at once introductory and declarative. For many artists, their self-titled album comes early in their careers. Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, The Doors, Seal, Curtis, Brandy, Van Halen, and countless others, came out the proverbial gate with albums carrying their names. These albums aren’t always indicative of who an artist will become, but they are a snapshot of them at particular point in time. In hindsight, many of these albums might not be the album we remember them for, or even representative of their best work. Plus, artists rarely have the creative control they desire at this point, but there is an endearing quality to these early self-titled albums.
Other artists have dipped into the eponymous waters multiple times throughout their careers: Seal (1991, 1994, 2003), Aretha Franklin (1961, 1980, 1986), Duran Duran (1981, 1993), and Fleetwood Mac (1968, 1975) come to mind in this regard. (Or if you’re Chicago, you just make every album a self-titled album). It can be said that each album represented the aforementioned artists, in their fullness, at a particular point in time. Consider Aretha Franklin: her 1961 eponymous album was her ostensible introduction. Her 1980 self-titled album, 19 years later, can be viewed as a reintroduction of sorts, following her departure from Atlantic Records, for which she arguably had her most memorable stint, and signing with Arista Records. And 1986 self-titled album is the bearer of her last #1 Pop single and featured cover art from Andy Warhol. Undeniably, these were three distinctly different Aretha’s!
The introductory-eponymous album is fresh and often unassuming; idealistic and adventurous in some cases. In a different way, artists that have multiple self-titled albums can be seen as some mix between reintroduction and reinvention. But, what’s less common is self-titled albums that come later in an artist’s career. Beyoncé’s 2013 stands out in this regard. Beyoncé’s eponymous album came well into her personal discography (5th studio album), when many already knew who she was, so it certainly wasn’t an introduction. But, it was an interesting snapshot of who she was in that moment. By the release of her self-titled album, Beyonce had become a mother for the first time, was bolder and taking more risks, and developing a new, and more refined, voice as an artist.
Whether an artist’s self-titled album comes early or later in their career, or if they have multiple self-titled albums, what does it mean for an artist to simply name their art after themselves? Do self-titled albums tell us anything about the artist? What do these albums tell us about how the artist wants to be viewed?
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Lianne La Havas first came onto the scene in 2011 with her EP, Lost and Found, presenting herself as an artist committed to the craft of songwriting, and steeped in the Black music traditions Soul, Folk, and Blues. La Havas, born and raised in South London to a Greek father and Jamaican mother, learned the rudimentary elements of guitar and piano from her father, and has cited their musical tastes as foundational for her eclectic approach.
La Havas’s debut album, Is Your Love Big Enough, released in 2012, was met with adoration, praising her abilities, at the seemingly young age of 22. Similarly, La Havas’s sophomore project, Blood released in 2015, received much praise as well, earning her a Grammy nomination.
On July 17th, Lianne La Havas released her self-titled, and 3rd studio album. In the five years since the release of Blood, La Havas collaborated with, and befriended, Prince, who she describes as an influential figure in the making of her new album, Jacob Collier, and contributed to the Loving Vincent soundtrack. But, for the most part, La Havas has spent time away from the spotlight, and in the contemporary landscape where artists are asked (or maybe even required by some standards (not the good standards)) to mass produce content, a five-year gap in between albums can seem like an eternity.
As such, the five years in between albums for La Havas weren’t always easy but presented her with time to traverse a journey of self-discovery, heartbreak, and finding her voice. Through these 10 songs on her new album, La Havas, now 30 years old, offers herself in the most incisive, organic, and honest manner to date.
La Havas begins her album with, Bittersweet, a slow building tune, that effectively walks through the frustrations of what appears to be the beginning of the end of a [failed] relationship. Musically, Bittersweet relies on a sample of Isaac Hayes’s, Medley: Ike's Rap III/ Your Love Is So Doggone Good, an influence La Havas has cited as critical to her musical development. The beauty in Bittersweet, and a theme throughout the album, is La Havas’s ability to build dynamically powerful songs that never show their hand too early, but always remain patient. This dynamic approach can be seen in the final verse the song where it urgently kicks into high gear with La Havas showing her vocal range, powerfully belting out the lyrics: No more hanging around, Oh/My sun’s going down.
While Bittersweet carried a pensive, emotional weight, the following song, Read My Mind is decidedly both erotic and fantastical. Set against the backdrop of a simple kick drum and snare beat, and La Havas’s pitched-altered guitar, she zealously sings: So right/Could make a baby tonight/Throw my life away/Oh I’ll die another day. The beauty in this song is the space and reserved bass playing of Yves Fernandez, a sense of space that allows the story to be filled with the spontaneity of La Havas’s lyrics, while still creating an inescapable groove.
With the just the sound of her solo guitar, La Havas follows Read My Mind with the slow burning, Green Papaya. Green Papaya is a song of desire and hope in the face of uncertainty yet embodying a will to persist. In the song, La Havas isn’t interested in selling a fairytale of love, or that she’s certain in knowing what will come next (This place I don't know, no yellow brick road to follow) and is clear that uncharted territory has been embarked upon. Musically, Green Papaya carries with it La Havas’s dynamic compositional abilities – both musically and in the arc of its narrative. There aren’t any drums, yet the song packs a punch. In part, this is in thanks to keyboardist Sam Crowe’s touch on the piano and Moog synthesizers pushing the music forward where necessary, setting up La Havas crescendos into the hook: Take me home, let's make real love, real love.
Can’t Fight, the following song after Green Papaya, is situated as a sequential and thematic carry over from the previous song. But, in Can’t Fight La Havas’s uncertainty is evolved into a frustration of knowing (I raged like a woman scorned/But something about you got me gone); knowing what may be best yet rejecting it. La Havas’s resolve of the tension is apparent in the refrain: I tried to run but got my heart stuck/I can't fight away this love.
Set to the sound of slow simmering drums, bass, and guitar, La Havas offers a song of care, vulnerability, and comfort in Paper Thin. Paper Thin reads as a letter, rejecting the expected form of a song. The beauty in the song is that the lyrics can be read at once as comfort for someone else as much as it is for the writer. Midway through the song, La Havas begins breaking away from time and melody, and begins to feel much more like a stream of consciousness, singing: Paper-thin/You understand the pain I'm in/Slipping in and out/Of such confidence/And overwhelming doubt/But if I love myself/I know I can't be no one else, oh no.
At the 2016 Grammy’s, La Havas’s album, Blood was nominated for Best Urban Contemporary Album – a now defunct category – an accomplishment by some standards. But, the efforts of the Academy, and record labels alike, to categorize music is often steeped in a history and present reality of racism. More, Black music has regularly been discarded, undervalued, or worse, for its musical contributions. When asked in an interview with Apple Music about how she felt about such categorization, she responded by pointing to the wide canopy of music she pulls from, most of which is Black music. La Havas’s wide-ranging palette of influences can been felt on the B-Side of her eponymous album, influences that have been critical to her trajectory as an artist.
After a brief interlude, La Havas moves into a cover of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes, a noteworthy tribute to a band she’s cited as one of her primary influences. Though a cover, La Havas imbued her own compositional approach to the song. La Havas’s version is noticeably more dynamic and builds slower, making the crescendo that much more gratifying when the song enters its final movement. Following Weird Fishes, La Havas moves into Please Don’t Make Me Cry, a song co-written with singer-songwriter, Nick Hakim. Unlike the other songs on the album, Please Don’t Make Me Cry employs more noticeably obvious elements of Hip-Hop, backed by a strong 4-bar drum loop, and a synthesizer-filled bass line.
In a podcast interview with Pitchfork, La Havas spoke glowingly about her love for Brazilian music, in particular Milton Nascimento’s music, an Afro-Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist. The influence of his music is most readily heard on Seven Times, a song composed on La Havas’s nylon stringed guitar that tells the story of persistent shortcomings, and the necessity of realizing such shortcomings. In the next song, Courage, La Havas grapples with the emotional weight of Seven Times, and the desire to resolve the seeming contradiction of knowing something, a relationship perhaps, is not good. , La Havas instead sings: I can't resist your spell/I just lose my head/Mmh, I lose my head/Every time we speak/So, I sing instead/All of these melodies.
Throughout the album, La Havas presents the ebbs and flows, and sometimes contradictions, of relationship, but in the last song, Sour Flower, La Havas presents a resolution to these seeming contradictions. Set to the sound of birds chirping and La Havas’s nylon stringed guitar, Sour Flower feels like an awakening and liberation of self. In total, this album feels like much of the awakening and liberation La Havas had been looking for, presenting her story, her influences, and her music in the most vulnerable of ways, and ultimately showing who she is at this point in time.
