Frankie If I Had You Album

[Helen Francke]

YoFrankie is an album by the American musician Dion, released in 1989.[2][3][4] The album marked a popular comeback for Dion, who had spent much of the 1980s recording Christian music.[5][6] Lou Reed, who had inducted Dion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a couple of months prior to the release of Yo Frankie, was one of the many musicians who made guest appearances on the album.[7][8]

The album peaked at No. 130 on the Billboard 200.[9] The lead single was "King of the New York Streets", which peaked at No. 74 on the UK Singles Chart in May 1989.[10][11] "Written on the Subway Wall"/"Little Star" (featuring Paul Simon) peaked at No. 97 in October 1990.[12]

The album was produced by Dave Edmunds.[13] Dion cowrote many of its songs with the lyricist Bill Tuohy.[14] Bryan Adams cowrote and produced "Drive All Night".[15] A music video for "And the Night Stood Still" and "Written on the Subway Wall" (with Paul Simon) aired on MTV and VH1.[16][17]

Frankie Rose has a great new album out, it's called Love as Projection. I've enjoyed her music throughout the years and, if you've been reading the newsletter for a while, you know I love checking in with indie artists that blew up in the 2007-2015 span to see how things are going, what they think of the past, etc. Frankie is always a blast to talk to, I think we had a good convo here that you're all going to enjoy.

Being a salon apprentice is not cool. They expect you to be an apprentice before you can be on the floor any place as an actual stylist. They just want you to wash tons of hair, sweep tons of hair, and be demeaned by everyone. I think there's some cultural hazing, and I threw in the towel. It's too much for me!

I feel like, for a lot of people who weren't thinking about this previously, the pandemic was this moment where a lot of people were like, "You know what? I'm not gonna put up with being treated like shit anymore."

I feel like I did the opposite. "You know what? I feel like being treated like shit." [Laughs]

I like this record a lot, by the way.

Great! I worked really hard on it. It's weird to have it out, it's like a time capsule and I don't know how I even feel about it anymore. Since I finished it, I worked on a side project, and some songs for another record, so it just feels older to me now.

Help me trace the overall gestation of the album.

We definitely wrapped it up...see, I feel like I'm gonna give false information. I know everyone says this, but doesn't it feel like time was so weird during COVID?

I feel like one thing that's happening is that everything is really fucked up when it comes to musicians making and releasing music. Even the act of playing and promoting it is really broken now.

Oh, most definitely. I have so much to say. It's a different world from even five or six years ago. What aspect should I even talk about? It's really insane.

That did happen. It's been a thing. The Billie Eilish vinyl orders too.

Yeah, and I'm on a small label, so Slumberland only gets a certain number of spots. His schedule was immediately pushed, and I didn't even believe this record was going to come out. I was like, "Yeah, right." I didn't even believe it was gonna happen because I was in line for so long, and two and a half years later it's all happening! But it was really frustrating, and that's why I was like, "This is just not happening anymore. I need to figure out something else to do with my life." Become a drug and alcohol counselor or something, I don't know. Beauty school, ugh. I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't think I would do well there, personally. But I definitely understand that impulse. I feel that every goddamn day that I'm alive. You mentioned wanting to get back on the road and tour. What was your relationship like with touring pre-pandemic?

I love touring. If I could just be touring all the time, I would. I love it. Any opportunity to do it, I will. I'll open for anyone, I don't give a shit. I don't care. Let's do it. I like support slots. I am doing a headlining tour, which I feel bittersweet about. I mean, I'll do it, but. I'm going out with SRSQ, who I'm a big fan of, so we're gonna team up and do that this summer, and I'm excited. But promotion stuff is crazy. I'm pretty sure you just have to go viral on TikTok, and I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna talk to the camera, sorry. I'm too old! [Laughs]

The ease of which young people talk to the camera...I'm like, "How the fuck is this natural for you?"

It's so natural. I am on TikTok, but merely as a creepy observer, and it's so amazing to me. People write TikToks about "the millenial pause" or the "shake and talk," and it's so natural for these kids to pick up the camera and talk at it like it's another person. I never thought about that in my life, mostly because I don't pick up the camera and just start talking to it. I don't know, I got my first computer when I was 25.

What's been the strangest change you've had to navigate? I feel like no one wants to talk about it, but everything feels really fucked up and strange still.

It is fucked up and strange! And it's really fucked up for working class people, and I'm gonna put myself in that category, because I am very much a working class person. I don't have money coming in! Eggs, blah blah blah, can't afford to live, nobody's tipping, if you're a service person, forget it. I feel like we're all being forced to eat shit for whatever reason. I mean, I have theories, but. That's the problem. I know I'm gonna be called a doomer for this, but it feels like everything is disintegrating really fast, right?

Yeah. As soon as we all got the vaccine, it did feel like society wanted to speed things up and do some really crazy shit, even as we were all like, "No, no, no!"

"You know what? We've decided you need to eat shit even more, just to make everything so much worse for you." I'm sure some people are doing great! Maybe?

I was thinking about that...who's coming out of this doing great, and why? I feel like the people who are doing great are either assholes or fucked up, if I'm being real.

Did much change for the professional managerial class? They always seem to be making the same amount of money. I only have my own experience, but maybe shit rolls downhill for them too and they're being forced to work 20 hours a day.

I did, yeah.

You know when they're sitting at the table and they ask if [Aubrey Plaza] is having children and she's like, "No, everything is so fucked," and they're like, "What are you talking about?" [Laughs] I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people that just live in that space. Bless their hearts.

When your first few records came out, the landscape for "indie" music and coverage of music was a lot different.

Oh my God, Pitchfork could make you or break you! It's insane! I also feel like that's a terrible thing. [Laughs]

It's funny how "indie-pop" is a commonly used term in music writing now. People call Harry Styles indie-pop, and I'm like, "What the fuck are we even talking about here?"

That's every definition of every genre of music now. I'm sure to young people, the idea of "indie" has a totally different meaning now. "Alt" too. If you grew up in the '90s, that had its own meaning, but it's completely changed now. I think they're wrong, and I've seen some pretty funny stuff about it. I've been put in a lot of "indie" playlists on Spotify, and I'm pretty shocked by it.

The last time someone asked me this, I said, "I don't know." When I call things "indie" at this point, I feel like I'm describing...something that's making somebody money somewhere?

Indie is?

Like, when I talk about musicians who are making music with complete independence, I'll usually say "They're releasing music independently." But if I call something "indie" I'm usually thinking of, like, Phoebe Bridgers, or Tame Impala. Very successful, huge bands. "Indie" is a sales term now I think, the way it's always been in the UK. But, look, my brain has atrophied from working in all of this.

Same. I wish I had my own answer for you, because it would probably be wrong.

One more thing I wanted to ask you is about your full-length cover of the Cure's Seventeen Seconds. I actually said to a friend about the new record, "It sounds a little like the Cure to me," and she said, "I thought that too, actually." I feel like the Cure are especially timeless at this point. Why is that?

They have tracks! They have songs! They are amazing, and it is such a mood. It's such a vibe, a complete vision. That's what makes the Cure timeless. Obviously, they're one of my favorite bands in the world. In the end, it's really just about the songs. They're timeless.

Next Thing comes as the latest installment of what can only be called a prolific artistic output; there have been 21 releases under the name of Frankie Cosmos, in addition to the previously mentioned works. While not offering anything wildly different from her previous albums, Next Thing seems slated to be Frankie Cosmos most popular work to date.

as far as heartland rock goes i think wild ones the album kip moore put out last year is a much better example el rio is a straight up rock record with slight country instrumentation and a few good songs and a few really bad ones i do like the bob seger cover but as a whole i found the album pretty forgettable

The difficulty with reviewing an album like this is that Frankie Ballard is not entirely a country artist. The same problem happens with reviewing Kip Moore. I love Kip Moore, but I must apply a different standard with different expectations, both musically and lyrically. I think this album has much to commend, which this review does not highlight enough. However, I completely agree that Frankie needs greater artistic integrity and less Nashville corporate pressure.

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