Emeli Sandé announced on Twitter that she is writing with Miranda Cooper this week. Last year, Miranda Cooper talked to Red Magazine about Emeli. Miranda said: «She's part of an exciting new generation of producers and writers, and I am always hearing great things about her.»
Emeli Sandé is a 23-year-old Scottish singer and songwriter who has been writing songs since she was 11. A former medical student, she has achieved two top 10 singles in the UK, by collaborating with rapper Chipmunk on "Diamond Rings" (2009), and then with Wiley on "Never Be Your Woman" (2010).
She also sings on Professor Green's "Kids That Love To Dance", and on Tinie Tempah's "Let Go" and is working on her debut album.
Starsmith revealed in an interview that he has been working with Miranda Cooper. He said: «I have a couple of people that I've worked with extensively on other projects. I called them, and they were interested, so I got to work with Alan Braxe, Miranda Cooper from Xenomania whom is just amazing. I've found a really big musical bond with her! You’ll have to see when the album comes out. Anything can happen by then».
Starsmith (real name Finlay Dow-Smith) is a 22-year-old electronic remixer, composer, producer and musician. He has created remixes for Katy Perry, Little Boots, Private, Lady Gaga, Frankmusik and many others, and also produced tracks for Ellie Goulding's debut album Lights and Diana Vickers' debut album Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree.
He has also been working with Cheryl Tweedy and is currently getting ready to release his own debut solo album. A song titled "28 Days", written by Miranda Cooper, Starsmith and Rob Davis was recently added to the Warner/Chappell database.
ALEX GARDNER's "I'm Not Mad" debuted in the UK Singles Chart this week at number 44.
As Chart Rigger puts it, "'I'm Not Mad' will go down as another sadly lost gem that was touted in the blogosphere — and one that truly deserved the hype! — but overlooked by the general record-buying/music downloading public".
Someone went through the trouble of transcribing every single word of the articles that were published on the latest issue of the PET SHOP BOYS fanclub magazine Literally:
MIRANDA COOPER is in the latest issue of Red Magazine talking about new singer/songwriter Emeli Sandé. Miranda says: «She's part of an exciting new generation of producers and writers, and I am always hearing great things about her.» Emeli Sandé wrote Chipmunk's "Diamond Rings" and also appears on Wiley's "Never Be Your Woman".
New Xenomania protégée BROOKE X has been finishing her debut album, so it won't be long until there's new music out there. Meanwhile, here's the top 3 Brooke X tweets from the past week:
-- "If I like my record anymore I'd marry it, have lots of song babies together and live happily ever after in the rock and roll hall of fame." -- "Holy shit, we are KILLING this album! I'm on aural pleasure overload!" -- "I've just heard the sound of love, and it's on my goddamn album."
Through some intensive Twitter investigation, Popjustice discovered that there is a GIRLS ALOUD cover of The Go-Go's' "Our Lips Are Sealed" hidden somewhere in the Xenomania vaults.
MINI VIVAtalk about the pressure of working with/for Xenomania:
«There’s always that little bit of pressure because they’re well known for the Girls Aloud stuff and it’s always in the top ten. We just wanna have the same success if you know what I mean. We just wanna do well for them and we want people to love ‘em [the songs] as much as they love Girls Aloud songs.»
"Jump Off" by the BANNED OF ST TRINIAN'S has been remixed and re-recorded by Almighty and J.K. The track has been released as a download, CD-R and is now on the compilation Almighty: Definitive Collection: Volume 8. Listen to clips and buy it here.
Miranda Cooper, the co-owner and main lyricist at Xenomania, will participate in one of the seminars at the Industry Takeover All-Day Seminar & Showcase 2010, which takes place this Saturday, 6th March, in London.
Industry Takeover strives to help young aspiring artists in the music business. Its aim is to push the next generation of musical talent by organising seminars and activities.
The event will feature guest seminars who will give tips and secrets in finding success in the industry and share their own personal experiences. Other activities include various workshops involving vocal and live performance, DJ-ing and songwriting masterclasses, a fashion show, showcases and performances.
Miranda Cooper will be one of the panellists in the seminar "Underground to Overground", along with Chantelle Fiddy, Ras Kwame, Griminal and Terror Danjah:
SEMINAR 1: UNDERGROUND TO OVERGROUND Many fans feel that artists ‘change up’ their style to go mainstream. We ask if breaking through is about evolution, revolution or just plain selling out.
Panellists: Ras Kwame – DJ (BBC Radio 1/1Xtra) Chantelle Fiddy - journalist (Editor Ctrl.Alt.Shift, contributing editor RWD, writer The Guardian, Mixmag, SuperSuper) Griminal – artist Terror Danjah – producer (Kano, Roll Deep, Mz Bratt) Miranda Cooper - co-owner of Xenomania / songwriter for Girls Aloud, Kylie, Sugababes, Alesha Dixon and Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Info: Date: Saturday, March 6th 2010 Venue: Rich Mix Address: 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA Tickets: £5 adv / £7 on door Time: 12pm – 9pm (registration closes at 4pm) Info: urbandevelopment.co.uk/industrytakeover | Timetable
Whatever situation you might be in, here is a list of songs for Valentine's Day, all of them written and produced by Xenomania:
SONGS ABOUT LOVE
Girls Aloud - It's Magic (2005) Key lyric: "With you, only you, I know that I can be myself / Funny how I could find love with you and nobody else"
Sophie Ellis-Bextor - If You Go (2007) Key lyric: "I've got my summer sun, I'll take my love and run, I got you babe"
Pet Shop Boys - Love etc. (2009) Key lyric: "I believe, call me naive, but love is for free"
Natacha Atlas - When I Close My Eyes (feat. Myra Boyle) (2003) Key lyric: "You're shining in my eyes, walking on my ocean, sailing in my skies every time I see you there"
Girls Aloud - Untouchable (2008) Key lyric: "Without any meaning we're just skin and bone, like beautiful robots dancing alone"
SONGS ABOUT LUST
Dannii Minogue - All I Wanna Do (1997) Key lyric: "All I wanna do is touch you"
Vagabond - I've Been Wanting You (2009) Key lyric: "Keep it going baby, you know I don't need no sleep / 'Cos the urge is getting stronger, more of you is what I need"
Girls Aloud - Graffiti My Soul (2004) Key lyric: "Out the bedroom, down the stairs, along the carpet, no one cares / On the table, on to the floor, it's procreation - and nothing more"
Girls Aloud - Watch Me Go (2005) Key lyric: "I wanna feel that funky fever, baby I'm at the door / Got the keys, got the gasoline / Pour it on, I'm ready to blow - ow!"
Girls Aloud - Money (2006) Key lyric: "Getting deep-deep-deep and then I'm gonna... gonna beep your beep-beep and then I'm gonna... jump on that man!"
Girls Aloud - Fling (2007) Key lyric: "Nothing more than a fling, baby, fling, baby / Just a bit of ding-a-ling baby, bling baby / Don't want relationships, so swing, baby"
SONGS FOR BROKEN HEARTS
Alexis Strum Nothing Good About This Goodbye (2003) Key lyric: "Tell me, will you miss me when I'm in your history? / Baby, there ain't nothing good about this goodbye"
Mini Viva - I Wish (2009) Key lyric: "And I go oh-oh no, he could be the one who hits the light inside my soul"
Girls Aloud - Whole Lotta History (2005) Key lyric: "Baby, I miss you, so tell me, is she really that beautiful? / Each time she's kissed you, tell me, is it really that good for you?"
Sugababes - Never Gonna Dance Again (2007) Key lyric: "I lost the rhythm when you said it's over / And as the final record starts to fade / I feel the dancefloor turning colder"
Jessie Malakouti - Standing Up For The Lonely (2009) Key lyric: "I saw the warning signs from the start but I never thought you'd break my heart / I'm standing up for the lonely and the lovers that you left behind"
SONGS FOR MOVING ON
Sugababes - Hole In The Head (2003) Key lyric: "Seven hours since you went away, 11 coffees, Ricky Lake on play / But late at night up when I'm feeling blue, I'd sell my ass before I think of you"
Rachel Stevens - Funny How (2005) Key lyric: "My heart got tired, it's way past three, take these fools away from me"
Frank - Complicated (2006) Key lyric: "Don't, I'm better on my own, just leave me all alone 'cos I feel suffocated"
Mania - DNA (2004) Key lyric: "I'm no maniac, don't want you back, I won't retract - no way"
Saint Etienne - Lightning Strikes Twice (2005) Key lyric: "Everyone should have a reason to believe, so I still believe that lightning could strike twice for me"
Moonbaby - I'm Thru With Love (2000) Key lyric: "Had it up to here, I'll take a running jump if any boy comes near / I'm thru with love, it didn't do much for me"
Miranda Cooper received the "Creative" award yesterday at the first Red's Hot Women Awards. The awards were created by Red Magazine to celebrate women's achievements in their workplace. The "Creative" category specifically celebrates achievements in the arts.
Upon receiving the award, Miranda thanked "the amazing artists" that she's worked with and "the amazing team" Xenomania, who are "a huge family down in Kent".
View the complete list of winners of the Red's Hot Women Awards 2009. You can also watch coverage of the ceremony on this link - Miranda Cooper receives her award at around 17 minutes of the video.
CREATIVE: teaching the world to sing Winner: Miranda Cooper, Xenomania
«Miranda Cooper is one of the most powerful women in the UK music industry – not that you’ll have heard of her (although you’ve probably hummed her tunes). As co-owner of writing and producing pop-factory Xenomania, the 34-year-old is the driving force behind Girls Aloud, and has also written for Kylie and the Sugababes.
‘At Xenomania, we’re a one-stop-shop,’ says Cooper. ‘You used to be able to make a fantastic living out of just making records, but that’s not the case any more. We become partners with an artist in their brand, because our songs fuel a sizeable income for them, from modelling to sponsorship deals to private gigs in Russia. I’m involved in everything from styling to choreography.
‘Writing songs is an amazing form of escapism, but also intimate. We sit around with dictaphones and sing our hearts out. It’s like being naked in front of people – you worry everyone’s going to laugh at you.’ Sniggers are unlikely when the songs you’re singing are hits like Girls Aloud’s Call The Shots.»
What the judges said:
Amanda Ross: ‘It’s easy to be creative within a niche, much harder to do it so successfully with mass appeal.’
Jane Shepherdson: ‘It was important to award someone creative themselves. People might not know Miranda, but show them something she’s done, and they’ll recognise it.’
Written by: Johnny Davis Published: Q (October 2009)
In a Kent country house, Britain's pop factory cranks out hits for Girls Aloud, Kylie, and many, many more. Clock on at Xenomania - the "21st-century Motown"...
A Xenomania meeting in progress
Radio 1's Head of Music, George Ergatoudis, calls it "one of the most exciting pop records I've heard all year." Former Spice Girls manager and American idol impresario Simon Fuller was so taken with it he now manages the group. Even the Daily Star has declared it "nuts", in a good way. The general consensus is that Left My Heart In Tokyo is heading to Number 1 when it's released this month. For Mini Viva, the duo responsible for the striking disco-funk debut of pummelling strings, cheesy oriental synth motif, ridiculous rapping and indescribably great chorus, the journey from the North-west of England to the Radio 1 A-list has been a curious one.
Mini Viva rehearsing at Xenomania
"It was a bit weird," confirms 20-year-old Frankee Connolly, one half of Mini Viva. "They told us we were being taken to a studio, but when we got there it was just a big house". "We could", suggests her partner Britt Love, also 20, darkly, "have been going to anyone's house, really."
The pair met in 2007 at an audition held by a record label calling itself Select Music UK. Connolly had been targeted via her MySpace; Love showed up "after I'd seen a flyer". Soon they were driven to a house in Kent. "We came in and we were, like, Oh My God," recalls Connolly. "Seeing all the gold records on the wall!"
They spent the next two years training to be pop stars. This May they found themselves in the seventh-floor boardroom of Universal Music Group International's base in London. Their audience: Lucian Grainge, Universal's chairman and CEO, and arguably the most powerful executive in the British music industry. It was 11am and Grainge was eating muesli. But they stormed through Left My Heart In Tokyo and Mini Viva had a deal confirmed before Grainge had time to down his spoon.
Six weeks later Mini Viva are sitting in the garden of that same Kent house. It belongs to Brian Higgins, co-director of Xenomania, the most successful songwriting and production house Britain has produced in 20 years. From here Xenomania have written, recorded and produced 20 of Girls Aloud's record-breaking run of 21 singles. They have proved hitmakers for the Sugababes, Kylie, Pet Shop Boys and more, shifting some 25 million records in their 12-year history. Their songs are defined by a compulsion to corral pop music down ever more thrilling and creative avenues. Sugababes' Round Round or Girls Aloud's The Promise crossed dancefloor electronics with rock club guitars, classic '60s songwriting and sparkling '00s production.
Lyrically, too, Xenomania patented their own lines in winningly impenetrable silliness ("Something kinda ooh/Jumping on my tutu"), so much so that one journalist was compelled to ask Cheryl Cole whether 2004 hit The Show was about anal sex (it wasn't). Aided by five winning personalities, it was songcraft that escorted Girls Aloud from the nadir of credibility (winners of 2002 proto-X-Factor, Popstars: The Rivals) to somewhere near its zenith (two 2009 Brit Award nominations, Wembley Stadium gigs with Jay-Z and Coldplay).
Xenomania: Nick Coler, Miranda Cooper and Brian Higgins
Higgins acts as musical director, steering a seven-strong team that includes Xenomania co-director Miranda Cooper, best regarded for her lyric writing and now the most successful female songwriter ever (Madonna, Carole King and the Brill Building's Cynthia Well have trumped her elsewhere); Nick Coler, who programmed all The KLF's indelible hits; Tim Powell who started out in 1989 "doing hardcore rave stuff"; and Matt Gray, whose early platinum sellers include Pogo Stick Olympics and Space Station Oblivion - he wrote music for Commodore 64 video games.
Xenomania wall
Reliably dazzling yet never the same, Xenomania's services are understandably in demand. Their autumn schedule includes Cheryl Cole's solo album (co-produced with Will.i.am), Kylie's latest and the first material from Magistrates, the fashionably tipped Essex four-piece signed to The White Stripes' label XL. "At the moment there are 17 named artists we are being asked to consider," says the 42-year-old Higgins. "For us to accept any of them, it's really got to excite us a hell of a lot. We must not be caught putting out bad records."
The way Xenomania work is unusual. Based 45 minutes outside London "to avoid all the distractions", the team would never do anything as straightforward as sit down to write "a song". Instead they each work on backing tracks, chords or beats, Higgins choosing the best bits and building up songs like jigsaws. Xenomania believes that for a song to be "sincere", the artist must always be involved, so melodies and lyrics are always collaborative. Higgins: "The melodic side, which is about life, is the essence of songwriting. There's not many 17-year-olds who have Number 1 hits. If you're giving a melody to them to tell their life story through that melody, you've effectively given them the experience of the older person."
Higgins and Xenomania have already achieved success that would seem more than enough for most people. But it would be a terrible mistake to consider Higgins and Xenomania most people. "Presidents of labels go, Why haven't you retired yet?", he barks. "You think, is that what you're in it for? That's surely indicative of what they themselves are chasing. It's not someone who loves music. It's someone who wants overnight success. Well, I don't want to work with people like that. If you're searching fr overnight success, then get the fuck out of the business."
Xenomania are playing a long game, the next stage of which is to "bypass the nonsense" of the industry by launching their own record label. Aiming to become, as the team's head of A&R Sheila Burgel puts it, "a Motown of the 21st-century", Higgins's team have spent the last two years scouring the world for acts to develop. Turning the traditional pop producer's role on its head, Xenomania won't wait for record companies to bring them artists to work with. Instead, they'll sell record companies the artists they've discovered and developed.
That means presenting them "99 per cent complete", with a finished album with its first three singles earmarked, pre-style, rigorously drilled in performing live (50 shows for all new acts is now a ballpark figure) and, in Mini Viva's case, with their own brand of so-bad-it's-brilliant synchronised dancing. "I don't think record labels have the skill set to develop acts any more", says Higgins. "You need to be outside of it."
And if Xenomania's USP has thus far largely been girl pop, the next six months will see them comprehensively edging out of whatever remaining comfort zone they have left. Following Mini Viva, there'll be Vagabond (lusty soul-rock band), Pageboy (Pink-esque pop), Alex Gardner (groove-based blue-eyed rock), Nite Visions (the sons of Duran Duran's Andy and Roger Taylor, and sounding like it) and Gerard O'Connell (who'll release his music, a sort of four-to-the-floor Coldplay, under the name of Goldmark). This comes at a time when pop is once again in the ascendant; the days of Dizzee Rascal's Holiday and Lady GaGa's Paparazzi.
"Pop was a dirty word", says Radio 1's George Ergatoudis, whose swap of indie Jo Whiley for poppy Fearne Cotton perhaps signals a subtle station repositioning." But quality, exciting pop music sounds fresh now. Xenomania are doing it."
The Xenomania house
Arriving at Xenomania HQ, you could be forgiven for thinking you had entered a cult. Or at least a commune. The sprawling 16th-century mansion edges onto a village green, complete with Tudor tea rooms and statue of Sir Winston Churchill. "Girls Aloud used to stay at the local pub," says Miranda Cooper, 34. "Brian got the guy from the gym, Nigel, to take them out on the green running at 7.30am. They weren't happy."
Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, used to live here. A team of gardeners are attending to the not-insubstantial garden. There's a stream, and ducks everywhere. "There only used to be two", notes Florrie Arnold, one of two impossibly beautiful girls who float to greet Q, "Now they're breeding like rabbits."
At 20, Arnold turns out to be one of the grizzled old hands - a member of Xenomania's house band. Elsewhere teenagers sit around a wooden hall table, playing back music on MacBooks, writing lyrics in notebooks, and generally being so good-looking you feel like running screaming out the back door.
The house is a hive of activity. An east wing is off-bounds - Higgins's living quarters, with long-term partner Sarah ("I've no idea why it says 'danger' on the door," notes Arnold.) "We're churning out ideas all the time," says Nick Coler, who is currently "trying to get some beats together" for an undetermined artist for the St Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold soundtrack. "You're trying to sell someone a feeling, and that's the feeling you're trying to get," he says. "It's easy to make something catchy. To be able to listen to it a thousand times, and still have that feeling - that's hard."
Boys in the attic: Jason Resch & Kieran Jones
Elsewhere, house band members Jason Resch, 20, and Kieran Jones, 19, also known as JFK, are working on potential backing tracks for the same song, Tim Powell is tweaking mixes of Alex Gardner's music and Fred Falke, the noted Parisian remixer, is tackling a song by 2008 X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke. (Q stumbles across Burke at one point, before being shooed away by Higgins.) Falke divides his time between his own Toulouse studio and here. "The couch is very comfortable", he says admiringly. "Ikea."
Given all this, it's perhaps no coincidence one of Girls Aloud's albums was called What Will The Neighbours Say?." The villagers have generally got used to it," says Kieran Jones. "Though some do stand on the green and just stare at the house. That's a bit disconcerting."
Soon, housekeeper Pilar has lunch ready. Catering for 36, it's a feast comprising roast pork, cod mignon, hazelnut and vegetable salad, cabbage, beetroot and roast potatoes. There's a minor surge kitchen-wards. "Can you wait till Brian comes in first?" advises his PA Claire, in a tone that suggests it would be a good idea.
Lean and gym-fit, in his leather jacket Brian Higgins might bear physical resemblance to a Formula 1-era Damon Hill, but in temperament he's more Sir Alan Sugar: famously hard to please. A "work obsessive-compulsive" he's made no bones about packing pop stars he can't get along with on the train back to London, expects 12-hour days from his team and cheerfully admits to "binning 90 per cent" of Xenomania's work in his quest for the perfect pop song.
Franz Ferdinand excitedly proclaimed working with Xenomania on their recent Tonight: Franz Ferdinand album would be "a music marriage made in heaven" only to abandon the sessions three months later. "It didn't really work," said singer Alex Kapranos.
"I think Brian liked Franz Ferdinand... on a personal level," says Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant, whose 2009 collaborative Xenomania album Yes proved more successful. "But he works you very hard. He's very headmaster-ly. The first time I worked with, Miranda [Cooper] said, Right, now we'll try that with a different melody. And write some new words. I was like, What?"
"And you get marked," notes Tennant's partner, Chris Lowe. "He puts stars by your work, and comments. It's ruthless. It's fantastic!"
His self-belief is certainly impressive. In February, he had the first six acts signed to Xenomania perform for an audience of music business heavyweights that included six label presidents, two chairmen, 10 Radio 1 producers and key journalists. "One of the presidents said to me afterwards, If you'd fucked that up, you would have been fucked, Brian," he says. "But to me it was logical: the quality was there. And," he grins, "everyone left wanting to buy something."
Higgins was born in Whitehaven, Cumbria, the second eldest of five siblings. His father was a GP, his mother an actress. Aged 20, he co-wrote the song that would become Cher's Believe. At that stage he was a sales director at magazine publishers Reed. At night, he'd start his second job, writing and remixing pop songs into the small hours.
Along with Tim Powell and Matt Gray, he wrote All I Wanna Do, a Number 4 hit in 1997 for Dannii Minogue. "That was my entry fee," Higgins says. Executives at Warners asked if he had anything good for Cher, then hankering after a pop-dance direction. He'd spent eight years sitting on just the thing. Believe went to Number 1 in 23 countries, sold 10 million copies and ensured Higgins would never have to do a day's work again - an unlikely scenario.
Miranda Cooper & Brian Higgins
He set up Xenomania - the opposite of xenophobia, apparently - recruiting Cooper with what would become a trademark, a "talent in spotting winners" in the strangest places. Cooper, daughter of a former director of royal jewellers Asprey, was employed as a backing dancer for Eurovision hopeful Gina G. Later, Higgins would recruit A&R Burgel from US publication Bust ("the magazine for women with something to get off their chests") after bonding with her over the finer points of Simone Jackson and Anita Harris on the Here Come The Girls: British Girl Singers Of The '60s compilation. "We agreed that we're on a mission to destroy mediocrity," Burgel says. "Those 'alright' records. Throw them in the bad category. It has to be brilliant, or nothing."
Xenomania set about mastering pop. "As far as songwriting's concerned, we're fucking scientists", says Higgins. "I went through the whole of The Beatles songbook once, playing the chords on my left hand and working out all the melodies on my right. I just don't think there's that level of analysis of melody and chordal structure anywhere else."
«Wake Me Up was a fucking brilliant pop record» - Popjustice £20 music prize on Xenomania's wall
They struck gold with Girls Aloud. "I can still remember the girls' faces when we gave them [drum'n'bass/ surf guitar debut single]Sound Of The Underground," says Colin Barlow, now president of Geffen Records, then overseeing their label Polydor. "But coming from that TV show format, we wouldn't have got anywhere unless we'd taken a risk."
Over the last two years Higgins has "sunk hundreds of thousands of pounds" of his own money into the next stage - establishing Xenomania as a label.
After lunch, there are rehearsals, in 72 hours, Xenomania will host a room at the iTunes Live London Festival '09 in Camden. Alex Gardner's album isn't out until at least January 2010, but it's all part of a long-lead build up to launching Xenomania's acts; and generating as much industry and media anticipation as possible while simultaneously honing their live performance. Backed by the Xenomania house band, Pageboy's singer Brooke X romps through Heartbreak and Red Wine - a sultry pop-rock tune that lodges itself in your head.
The next day Q return to find Danish pop types Alphabeat in the hallway. Later Gerard O'Connell, Mini Viva and Jason Resch perform. Cooper and Higgins look on, the former bouncing on her hands, while Higgins stares ahead inscrutably.
"With this job, it's your life more than your job," says 19-year-old Alex Gardner, who'd come to London from Edinburgh to model before being earmarked by Burgel. "Everyone wants to make it work as best as possible for each other. It's like a big family." He's recently signed to Duffy's label A&M, with whom he's already drawing similarly "potentially massive" comparisons.
Pageboy rehearsal
Brooke X, on the other hand, caught Burgel's eye performing in a New York all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band - Lez Zeppelin. "Sheila emailed and asked if I wanted to come over to England," she explains. "I was, like, What's this? Who are Girls Aloud? Cher? OK, cool. But it's made me see how creative pop can be."
Can Xenomania become a Motown for the 21st century? In attempting to do so, they're diverging from their success with girl pop - which has upset some of their faithful fanbase.
"The hardcore Xenomania fans have been, What the hell is going on?", says Vagabond's singer Alex Vargas. "What is this Vagabond?"
In fact Higgins has already spent three years steering Vargas from dreams of becoming Robert Plant, into a more soulful direction. "That was a blow, but good in the long run. I was 18; slightly arrogant. Brian showed me that melody is the key to everything. I'm glad he pointed that out".
"What Brian is attempting is a big task," says Colin Barlow. "But I can't think of anyone else who could create something like that. With that work ethic, talent and passion, he has every chance."
Two days later, Alex Gardner is onstage at the iTunes night. It's a compelling four-song performance. Cooper, Burgel and Higgins stand directly in front of the stage, two of them dancing, Higgins standing stock still and mouthing every lyric. Afterwards Fred Falke is effusive. "How can you not enjoy it?", he beams. "You have to be deaf, dead or drunk."
Higgins is more cautious. "I'm standing here thinking of all the things that can be done better," he says. "But it's only his 25th performance."
Twenty-five more to go? "Something like that," he says. "We'll get there." Don't doubt it.
Now here's something you don't see everyday. Xenomania's Miranda Cooper is featured in Show Me Your Wardrobe, a blog that takes a peak into the wardrobes of "today's creative talent".
Pet Shop Boys are the guests on this week's Guardian Music Weekly podcast. Click here to download or listen to the podcast.
In the interview, Neil Tennant says that with Xenomania «it's the most unusual way of working». He describes Xenomania's headquarters as being a bit "chaotic" sometimes and gives a rundown of some of the things that happen inside the house:
- all the rooms upstairs have a different studio setup - in the attic there's "two young Australian guys" playing guitars and keyboards (Jason Resch and Kieran Jones) - in other room there's "people working with mixing and lots of programming" (among them are Tim Powell and Nick Coler - who used to work with The KLF in the early '90s). - there's "a french guy" (Fred Falke) - in another room, a guy who records the vocals mainly and who's "a very good engineer" (Matt Tait?) - «people keep coming in and handing him memory sticks with a new bit of a song on and he listens to it and grades it»
With this setup, the Pet Shop Boys had to keep taking turns from one bedroom to another: «Sometimes we might be in different bedrooms. I might be doing vocals with Matt in one room, and on the other end of the corridor Chris is with Tim working on programming or something.» Neil revealed that every now and then «there's a meeting downstairs where they go through all the different projects». «When we were there, Girls Aloud's album was being finished and that was the priority, 'cos it was coming out that year. They also had their own bands developing and Alesha's album», Neil explained in the interview.
«It was exciting because while we were there "The Promise" was on the radio, Alesha's single "The Boy Does Nothing" was ALL OVER the radio, and they were having a big hit at the time with Gabriella Cilmi. So Brian Higgins would be looking at radio charts and things». At this point, Paul MacInnes (the Guardian interviewer) asked whether Brian Higgins looked triumphant. Neil replied: «He looks quietly satisfied, he doesn't really do triumphant».
Chris Lowe said that they were looking forward to writing songs with Xenomania: «It's quite interesting seeing how other people write the songs, we were really up for that. It's quite an interesting challenge. It was fascinating really, 'cos they write songs in such a different way than we do, and we've taken quite an awful lot away from it. They will keep on working the song, trying more melodies and trying more lyrical ideas, switching them around the song, and they'll just keep on pushing, and pushing, and pushing, until they've tried everything that can go there».
There's a a funny part in the interview when Neil Tennant is talking about the song "More than a dream" and starts singing various different bits. «It was originally a song called "Where the wild things are" and it had a spoken intro and a whole chorus that was based on the dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee [Neil starts singing the main melody riff]. That melody is still on the record but Miranda Cooper thought it was crap - because it was, it was a bit corny. We were going to scrap this song and then Chris wrote a bit of a melody (...), and suddenly Brian loved the savage contrast between the optimistic riff and this very European-sounding melody. The PSB melodies are more lugubrious, they've got more nerve and a bigger range, whereas Xenomania really got the pop riffs».
«With their songs, the song isn't really totally evident until the record is 70% made. I can wake up in the morning and finding myself singing something and then think "oh... it's 'The next big thing', the song we wrote with Xenomania that's never been recorded, that's lurking around on various memory sticks down in Kent. I quite like that song [laugh]».
The Pet Shop Boys consider Yes to be «a bit like a greatest hits record», with a sort of a «and the beat goes on concept»: «We wanted to have very, very, very strong melodic songs with strong ideas one after the other, and we wanted Xenomania because we wanted it to be electro-pop all the way through. So there's a linking sound, this album really hangs together».
-- she is the daughter of a former director of royal jewellers Asprey; -- she is married; -- her sister Rebecca is an opera singer; -- back when she was a dancer she was spotted by Dannii Minogue at a dance studio. Then she was in the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest as a backing dancer for Gina G; -- after she stopped dancing, she went into TV presenting and then met Brian Higgins; -- when Radio 1 saw her photos (as Moonbaby), in a jacuzzi with a bottle of champagne, they said: "Oh, she's some dolly bird, she hasn't written the stuff"; -- "Call The Shots" was written in Hôtel Costes in Paris and the Mondrian in LA; -- Miranda says that Girls Aloud are Xenomania's muses: "We've covered practically every genre. I think they've had a musical education through us"; -- the "Xenomania ducks" are mallards. A few months ago there were only two: Edmund and Josephine. They have since multiplied.
Xenomania is a songwriting and production house based in Kent, England. It was founded by songwriter and producer Brian Higgins.
Since 1996, Xenomania have written, produced and remixed tracks for a string of successful artists including Girls Aloud, Pet Shop Boys, Sugababes, Dannii and Kylie Minogue, Saint Etienne, Cher, Gabriella Cilmi and many others.
SoundGirl, the new girl group launched by Mercury Records, said on Twitter today that they are "nailing another track in the studio" with Miranda.
Jodie Connor has revealed through Twitter that she has been in the studio with Miranda Cooper and David Dawood.
.jpg)
.jpg)
