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Articles by Lisa Wright
High Court’s Emma Sleep Judgment Offers Insights Into Misleading Reference Prices
SM Slaughter & May More Slaughter and May is regarded as one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. We advise on high profile and groundbreaking international transactions and have an excellent and varied international client list. We have a diverse and extensive international practice providing a full range of legal services. Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate and Commercial and Financing represent our core practice areas.
Paris Paloma on fighting the manosphere and AI with new album ‘The Fatal Flaw’
As far as wise elders blessing the spirit of your record go, they don’t come much more inspirational than legendary stage and screen actor Emma Thompson. Thompson can be found intoning the opening lines on ‘Good Boy’, Paris Paloma’s no-holds-barred takedown of the most toxic and ultimately futile elements of manosphere culture.
Body Type are learning to be soft but not palatable: “The uglier the better”
Lychees, milk, oats, pineapple and peas. If you were wondering what the recipe for a convincingly disgusting quota of prop vomit would be, then, according to Body Type vocalist and guitarist Sophie McComish, these five ingredients should do the trick. She would know.
Body Type are learning to be soft but not palatable: “The uglier the better”
5 hours ago Australian regulators are taking Telegram to court over its alleged failure to remove terror-related content, with a fine of up to $38 million on the line. The case comes just one day after Russia charged founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism. CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie hosts "CoinDesk Daily."
Julia Jacklin has stopped trying to be understood
Julia Jacklin Julia Jacklin has never sounded more certain of uncertainty. As she returns with fourth album ‘The Gem’, the Australian songwriter talks fame, freedom, and why she’s finally stopped trying to be special. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Eva Pentel.
TREMORS// On video game-inspired debut ‘Heartcore’, Au/Ra is on her own hero’s journey
At the peak of their powers, a pop star can often seem like an otherworldly thing: a being operating on a slightly different frequency to the rest of us mere mortals. Under her musical guise of Au/Ra, however, Jamie Lou Stenzel might be the only modern pop girl leaning into the fantasy quite so specifically. She describes the character of Au/Ra as “definitely not human”.
Towa Bird: “When the world is in a place of crisis, that’s when you lean in”
Towa Bird Six years after first becoming a TikTok guitar hero, Towa Bird is leaning into every side of herself on second album ‘Gentleman’. We meet a star finding power in the grey areas. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Katie Stratton.
The New MC Escher Retrospective Will Warp Your Perspective
According to a quote adorning the wall at the start of Somerset House’s new exhibition – a retrospective dedicated to perception-altering Dutch artist MC Escher, running until September 6 – his work is “a game, a very serious game”. It’s a mixture of earnestness and play that could also be said for the show itself. Curated by leading expert and MC Escher Foundation president Federico Giudiceandrea, a walk through MC Escher. The Exhibition is both intellectually stimulating and all sorts of fun.
Jena Malone is not interested in your traditional actor to pop star pivot
Over the past few decades, the pipeline between actor and musician has become an increasingly busy one. Right now, you can’t move for pop stars – from Charli to Dua to Twigs – taking prime positions on the big screen, meanwhile the opposite trajectory has created some of the world’s biggest artists (Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo), as well as acclaimed side hustles for some of cinema’s more alternatively-minded stars.
Charlotte Cornfield on new album ‘Hurts Like Hell’ and combining music and new motherhood
If you can tell a lot about a person by the circles they keep around them, then Toronto’s Charlotte Cornfield clearly must be onto a winner. A seasoned purveyor of acutely observed, often gut-wrenchingly personal slices of everyday life, for sixth album ‘Hurts Like Hell’, Cornfield found herself looking outwards and inviting more people in. Enter… well, half of the US and Canadian indie inner circle.
2026 is Chloe Slater's year
If the classic saying goes to put your money where your mouth is, then perhaps in the modern world it’s just as important to put your mouth where the money is. Such was the case at least for Chloe Slater, who wound up dropping last winter’s ‘War Crimes’ – a furious protest song about the failings of the current Labour government – just as she was about to embark on her most high-profile tour dates yet, supporting everyone’s favourite Sally-lover, Role Model.
Lime Garden's 'Brat'-inspired second album celebrates the messiness of life in your twenties
If you’ve ever wondered what ‘Brat’ might have sounded like if it was written by a bunch of skint twenty-somethings with a penchant for indie sleaze, then wonder no longer: Brighton quartet Lime Garden are back with second album ‘Maybe Not Tonight’, and it’s a hedonistic, reckless, banger-filled wet dream.
Conversations with Friends: Jenny on Holiday in conversation with producer Steph Marziano
Following three critically-acclaimed albums as one half of symbiotic synth-pop duo Let’s Eat Grandma, Jenny Hollingworth is taking a sojourn with fittingly-named solo project Jenny On Holiday.
Musicians and Londoners Band Together To Save Moth Club
Hackney venue Moth Club is a special place. It’s named after the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH), and opened in 1972 as a social club for ex-servicepeople. But over the last decade it’s also become a go-to destination for rising artists and global superstars alike. Moth hosted early shows from the likes of Amyl and the Sniffers and The Last Dinner Party, but it’s also had Lady Gaga and Dave Grohl play surprise sets on its gold glittery stage.
Lily Allen's West End Girl is an unflinching reclamation of her narrative
‘There’s a scene at the start of Lily Allen’s 2011 documentary From Riches To Rags when the newly-’retired’ musician is seen completing one last pop star duty before she gives up her mic.
‘From The Pyre’ finds The Last Dinner Party playing the long game
When The Last Dinner Party were launched into the public eye with debut single ‘Nothing Matters’ in the spring of 2023, it was as a band that already possessed the whole package: a sound, aesthetic, confidence and ambition so cohesive that the internet –predictably – began crying ‘plant’. In reality, they’d just done the prep.
Gorillaz – House of Kong review: Damon Albarn's exhibition is magical, musical alchemy
It’s easy to forget, in this modern world of AI and deep fakes; personalised algorithms and Chat GPT and access to everything, everywhere, all at once, not just how revolutionary Gorillaz were when they first emerged back in 1998, but the sheer scale of imagination it took to create the world’s first fully operational, multi-dimensional virtual band.
Finneas and Ashe on new project The Favors: “Write a great melody with great lyrics and it’ll never go away”
For a man with 10 Grammy Award wins, including a 2020 statue for Producer of the Year that, then-aged just 23, made him the youngest ever recipient of the title, Finneas talks an awful lot about failure. Calling in from Los Angeles, he recalls his early days working with sister Billie Eilish, and the acute sense of doom that would come from what he describes as “not only imposter syndrome, but imposter reality”.
NOS Alive 2025: CMAT, Olivia Rodrigo and Amy Taylor prove women rule festival season
At this year’s Glastonbury festival there was a notable, righteous feeling that, for once, the correct people were coming out on top – that the artists who’d truly carved out their own lanes, drenched in creativity, character and personality, were the ones who were pulling the big crowds, the five stars and the headlines.
Charli xcx at LIDO Festival: A raucous ride that’s as much about the crowd as it is the star
Undeniably the most omnipresent, inescapable cultural phenomenon of the decade (and quite possibly, the century), it seems almost unfathomable to think that ‘Brat’ was only released a year and a matter of days before Lido Festival. Countless awards, a lime green takeover, a presidential campaign and a Collins Dictionary word of the year later, its currency has morphed and changed from last summer’s hot girl hedonism to part of the mainstream lexicon: even your nan knows who Charli XCX is now.
Blondshell interview: "Misogyny takes a different form now that I’m a musician"
It’s not that Sabrina Teitelbaum ever intentionally set out to put a razor-sharp scalpel to the pitfalls and perversions of modern dating on her debut self-titled outing as Blondshell. But, as she reflects, sipping on a mint tea a couple of days into her London trip (she’s particularly been loving the Sunday roast culture that is lacking from her home town of Los Angeles), back then in the trenches, there was little she could do to stop it.
Elton John and Brandi Carlile: Who Believes in Angels? review - a true meeting of minds
In the twilight years of his career, Elton John has been anointing the next generation with a keener ear than most, championing new stars from Chappell Roan to Wet Leg via his Rocket Hour radio show and collaborating with artists as genre-diverse as Britney Spears, Gorillaz and Young Thug. Who Believes in Angels?, however, feels like a genuine meeting of minds.
Ichiko Aoba: Luminescent Creatures review - nurturing music for bleak times
In a recent interview with the Guardian, Kyoto-raised Ichiko Aoba stated that she saw herself less as a conventional musician and more like a conduit of textures and atmospheres: “I just love sound.” Across the immersive, celestial landscape of the hugely prolific Aoba’s eighth studio album (she has also released numerous live records, soundtracks and more), it’s this enveloping quality that is its quiet power.
Heartworms - 'Glutton For Punishment' review: world-building goth-rock
In the modern alternative landscape, there are few artists these days embracing true darkness – not just of the furious, half-spoken-half-ranted political kind, but of the sort that comes from somewhere deeper within, armed with an arsenal of industrial and gothic references and insisting that their press shots be universally monochrome because, frankly, it would be insane to print a picture of a woman locked inside a torture device in brilliant colour.
The enduring spirit of live music is in the hands of our venues
Providing a much-needed bolster of good news within a sea of headlines that can often feel doomed from the start, the initiative acts as both a ray of positivity and a call to action: proof that the love and support for these most pivotal places is as strong as ever and - most importantly - that people are making tangible efforts and constantly creating new ways to keep them alive.
One to watch: Heartworms
If you were on the hunt for Heartworms, you’d be just as likely to find Jojo Orme – the 26-year-old south London-based artist who records under that name – volunteering at Hendon’s Royal Air Force Museum as you would on stage, supporting the likes of St Vincent and Jack White. The Venn diagram overlap of hotly tipped post-punk singer and military history aficionado might be an unusual meeting point, but for Heartworms it makes complete sense.
Victoria Canal: Slowly, It Dawns review - a musical promise fulfilled
With two Ivor Novello awards for songwriting and a mentorship from Chris Martin that landed her on the Pyramid stage last year during Coldplay’s record-breaking Glastonbury set, Victoria Canal’s inaugural steps have come co-signed to the hilt. Her debut is an accomplished justification of the early praise – an album that pitches the Spanish American Canal as neither out-and-out pop star nor radio-friendly balladeer but something altogether more fluid.
Chloe Qisha is the fully-formed popstar everyone will be talking about this year
From Wet Leg to The Last Dinner Party, the most successful breakout artists of the last couple of years have been the ones who’ve seemingly arrived fully formed; who’ve done the work behind the scenes, writing and rewriting, plotting and planning their visual identities and the things that make them tick to burst out of the traps in an immediate blaze of glory. Since dropping her debut single just six months ago, Malaysia-born, London-based Chloe Qisha seems prepped for such a pipeline.
Jasmine.4.t is making tender, boygenius-produced indie-pop
As the first UK artist to sign to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory label, Manchester-based jasmine.4.t is already keeping top tier company; with her imminent debut album – this month’s raw and resilient ‘You Are The Morning’ – produced not only by Phoebs but the whole of boygenius, the singer has essentially earned herself the golden ticket in the indie lottery.
"I was worried that I'd left it too late" – Chvrches' Lauren Mayberry on going solo
“When I started thinking about writing my own stuff, I definitely remember being in a tourbus and Googling, ‘How old was Gwen Stefani?’ ‘How old was Annie Lennox?’,” recalls Lauren Mayberry. “I was worried at the age of 35 that I’d left it too late. It’s quite dark and quite sinister. I remember growing up in the era of media when they were fucking disgusting to Madonna, like ’Look at this old hag and what she’s wearing’ and she was fucking 40 years old.
Father John Misty: Mahashmashana review - a superb chronicler of life’s perverseness
There’s always been a grandiosity to Father John Misty; an eye for life’s Big Topics – religion, the self, an existential questioning of what any of it really means anyway – that’s evolved in tandem with the growth of Josh Tillman, the man behind it all.
We tried the ‘best Indian restaurant in London’ – here’s what it was like | Flipboard
World's richest royal family worth more than Elon Musk and Bill Gates combined The British Royal family's wealth is estimated to be around £69 billion ($88 billion), as per Forbes. Their wealth stems from tangible assets such as …
Dolly Parton & Family: Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith and Fables review - Dolly digs deep
Less an album, more an aural family scrapbook, Smoky Mountain DNA attempts to catalogue five generations of the Owens-Parton clan via a hefty 37-track collection of mostly duets between Dolly and her extended family on both sides, past and present.
45s of the week: the best new tracks to add to your playlist
Four months on from its original drop and the lime green supremacy of ‘Brat’ is still serving at the rate of a top seeded Wimbledon champ. Not content with gathering an entire Met Gala’s worth of stars for ‘Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat’, now comes a bonus chaser that doubles up (drinking puns intended) as one of the record’s most fitting collabs yet. “Me and Charli, we’re the party girl gods,” intones Kesha, before instructing the haters to “suck [her] dick”.
I was alone in my grief when my parents died - but missing them gave me the answer
‘Without a sibling to compare myself to, I had no barometer to measure what I was really feeling’: Lisa Wright.Photograph: Michael Wharley/The Observer Turning 36 isn’t much of a milestone for most, but for me it marks a decade since the year that will always divide my life into a “before” and “after”. I was 26 when my dad died of cancer. Three months later, my mum died of a brain aneurysm.
"I ride for you Charli": How Lorde and Charli XCX just proved being a Main Pop Girl can be a team sport
Amongst a landscape of diss tracks and beefs, petty feuds and vicious undercutting, this week Charli XCX and Lorde checkmated their peers with the ultimate in classy moves: a response remix that chose vulnerability over venom, startling honesty over sly digs. If you’ve not listened to ‘The girl, so confusing version with lorde’, take four minutes out and now come back to us. Feeling a little winded? Of course you are.
"I ride for you Charli": How Lorde and Charli XCX just proved being a Main Pop Girl can be a team sport
Justin Timberlake 2 days ago The Truth About Whether Justin Timberlake Actually Took Poppers Before His DWI Arrest stylecaster.com - Lea Veloso • 2d I mean it is a Brat summer... Don’t believe everything you see. Justin Timberlake is currently a hot topic after his DWI, and the internet is having … entertainment news 2 days ago Did Charli XCX just write a song about Chloe Bennet?
The UK festivals you have to be at this summer
After what has felt like a very long winter, spring is here and we can almost smell the cider on the wind. In 2024, we plan to cram in as many festivals as our wallets can afford and our bodies can stand. So to help you work out where to spend your hard-earned cash, here’s The Forty-Five’s guide to the best music festivals happening in the UK this summer. See you in the fields. When? 26-30 June 2024 Why go?
CSS' Lovefoxxx: "“I wanted to fuck and travel and then god made me an indie pop star!”
We’re only a few months into 2024, and already it’s proving a vintage year for those still worshipping at the altar of ‘00s lycra-clad hedonism. First, Beth Ditto’s storming dance-punks Gossip announced their comeback album, and now CSS – Nu Rave’s sexy, sparkly, Brazilian good-time gang – are getting the band back together for a 20th anniversary tour.
Sheer Mag: "We all love rock music unironically"
If you thought the extended live music-less void of the COVID years was bad, try being in Sheer Mag. A band who, from their buzziest early days nearly a decade ago, have exuded the spirit of heady, unfettered rock’n’roll in its most life-giving form, Tina Halladay and her group of Philadelphia-based cohorts are a unit that don’t make sense without the sweat and sawdust of a live room.
45 of the best songs about friendship
If we’ve learnt anything from the beloved sitcom of the same name, it’s that friends can come in many different forms but – at their finest – they can occupy the absolute best spaces in our lives.
The Future Five - Penelope Scott: "My music goes from acoustic to buck-wild"
California-born Penelope Scott may not technically be as new as some of the other artists featured in The Future Five; she’s self-released a couple of records already and built up a solid cult fanbase that temporarily went overground when 2020 single ‘The Rät’ scored a viral TikTok moment (it’s currently been streamed more than 243 million times on Spotify).
2024’s most exciting pop stars are embracing unapologetic melodrama
There’s an intrinsic irony to the fact that a large portion of the words historically twisted and turned against women – ‘loud’, ‘emotional’, ‘dramatic’ – are the exact qualities that make for a really brilliant pop star. Melodrama, specifically, is the biggest tale of two halves. In everyday life, it’s a word weaponised to signify acting too over the top, too ridiculously, too much; in its original context on the stage, it was literally designed to excite and stir up a bit of enjoyable sensation.
How to be a radio presenter by Jamz Supernova
Having made her first inroads into radio as a teen, Jamz Supernova has since turned that passion into a formidable career: becoming a regular voice of BBC 1Xtra and BBC 6Music, DJing around the world and starting her own label, Future Bounce. She’s a new music champion and an encyclopedia of knowledge in her field, with experience of working her way to the top of the broadcasting game and pushing that expertise into pastures new.
”Till och med en vanlig pub känns som Disneyland”
Om man vänder blicken upp mot en klippig kulle i den lilla franska kuststaden Étretat, kan det hända att den landar på en lång figur i trilbyhatt som lunkar efter två enorma hundar. Han är klädd i badshorts och gummistövlar, har en ansenlig mustasch och t-shirten ut och in – märkeslappen från Marks & Spencer sticker ut från ena sidan – och ser snarare ut som en excentrisk bonde än en av 2000-talets mest omskrivna rockstjärnor.
Poppy - 'Zig' album review: missing some of the zag of old
Since launching her surreal YouTube channel back in the mid-’10s – a bemusing collection of robot-voiced videos that granted her cult internet status, performed alongside her ‘friends’, a basil plant and a mannequin called Charlotte – Poppy’s career has taken more twists and turns than a series of Love Island.
Meet Fat Dog, the genre-spanning South Londoners with a love of the silly and surreal
Home Music Music Features By Lisa Wright Fat Dog (Picture: Dylan Coates) Fat Dog are all about the vibe. The latest group to emerge from South London’s fruitful alternative hub, their chaotic live show – a rabble-rousing cacophony of dance, punk, klezmer and just about everything else, designed for maximum madness and kept in time by a drummer in a latex dog mask – has built them one of the most excitable word-of-mouth reputations since the pandemic.
Corinne Bailey Rae Interview: Welcome To The Rae-naissance
Corinne Bailey Rae Corinne Bailey Rae no longer cares about writing a hit. But with this new-found freedom has come some of her most exhilarating and powerful work to date. Lisa Wright meets an artist reborn. On a September evening in Harlem, 86-year-old Audrey Smaltz is standing on stage at the National Jazz Museum, giving the crowd a small window into her storied past.
Peter Doherty: ‘Even at the height of my addiction, I was still creative’
Cast your eye up to a craggy hilltop in the small French coastal town of Étretat and it might land upon a tall, trilby-hatted figure ambling around after two giant dogs. Clad in swim shorts and wellies, with a sizeable moustache and his T-shirt on inside out — M&S label poking merrily from the side — he looks more like an eccentric farmer than one of the most written-about rock stars of the 21st century. But these days, Peter Doherty — he’s not ‘Pete’ any more — is embracing the simple life.
I’m an award-winning music publicist. Here are my top career tips
Publicists are the vital connectors between the artists you love and music publications like The Forty-Five. They’re the people who facilitate all the shoots and interviews that you see on this site and beyond, whilst also providing an all-important bedrock to help an artist tell their story and get their music out to the wider world.
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