The Art of Longevity

Jesca Hoop describes her new record as "a vote of confidence...an investment in myself as an artist and authority over my vocation and life's path." Asked to unpack that, she goes straight to the unsettling fear beneath creating anew each time in the album cycle: starting a new chapter with "no songs, perhaps no solution for a release," just a blank slate with a big questi...

I caught up with Kurt for the Art of Longevity at his home in the leafy, trail-threaded neighbourhood of Mount Airy ("there's like one coffee shop, one grocery store kind of thing"), where, if you're a local dad with a creative streak and a guilty conscience, you too might one day hand him something strange and wonderful.  Philadelphia's Been Good To Me is Kurt’s tenth alb...

There’s a point in every long music career where survival becomes more interesting than success. Not survival in the purely commercial sense. Not chart positions, algorithmic reach or streaming milestones. But survival of identity. Survival of friendship. Survival of purpose. The good stuff that can easily get buried away in the cut & thrust of a fickle business like music.  That’s where Kevin...

After seven years between records, The Twilight Sad have returned with It’s the Long Goodbye , an album forged through grief, survival and renewal. Was it all worth it? Well, listen for yourselves. And do keep in mind that the album ranks 4th so far on the Album of the Year 2026 best-of league. Not that we advocate music as a competition. Just saying, some albums are clearly worth the work.  Speak...

From his early days with proto-punk pop band Slik, through his tenure with ex-Sex Pistol Glen Matlock’s Rich Kids, the creation of Visage, and touring with Thin Lizzy, to his major league success with Ultravox, and then his pivotal musical role in Band Aid and Live Aid, Midge Ure was a constant and significant force in the evolving music scene of the late seventies and eighties. 2026 sees his firs...

Ladytron have never followed a conventional path to longevity. That’s good, because there isn’t one. This band has worked through cycles - creative surges, enforced pauses, patches of momentum, a hiatus, and reinvention. The unglamorous realities of sustaining a working band across decades. Daniel Hunt has been through these cycles a few times and knows how to press reset. “Every record has its ow...

Ólafur Arnalds reflects on creativity, the changing music landscape, and the deeper emotional connection we risk losing in a hyper-digital world. This conversation unfolds less like a traditional interview and more like a meditation on what music is—and what it could still become. Arnalds speaks candidly about the role of streaming platforms in his career. Algorithms have elevated his genre (neo-c...

In an era dominated by playlists, TikTok, Reels and Shorts, reduced attention spans and endless content, Karnivool doubled down on the album as a complete statement - the album as the antidote. As Drew Goddard says. “In the age of content, I thought it was even more important to release an album.” For Karnivool, the album remains more than a collection of tracks. It is a long-form quest (in this c...

I gave Sean Rowley a call after writing up an article on “Unguilty Pleasures” (see Chill Gonzales episode 64) - Gonzales' campaign against music snobbery and treatise on the pleasures of Enya's music. It became clear that the story of Rowley's own creation, Guilty Pleasures , was very much a candidate for the Art of Longevity.  Guilty Pleasures became that wonderful thing - a conten...

Emerging from Edinburgh’s music scene in the mid-1990s, Idlewild carved out their place in a British rock scene choc-a-bloc with guitar bands (the halo of Britpop) through a combination of emotional intensity and literary edge. All of this is present in the band still, right down to new song “Back Then You Found Me” name checking Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood .  Their 1998 debut album, Hope Is Im...

I’ve been trying to get Tim Burgess to join me on The Art of Longevity for at least 10 seasons. Ultimately, a new Charlatans album, We Are Love , seemed like the right reason to finally do it.  I’ve said it before, but I’m genuinely amazed and thrilled about how many ‘old bands’ have put out a recent album that is up there with their very best work. Suede, The Manics, Nada Surf, Tindersticks et. a...

“I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.” Those words were spoken at one time by David Bowie, and thus are gospel to us here on The Art of Longevity podcast. Fortunately, some bands still live by that same philosophy. For evidence, we revisit the world of Suede.  Suede has refused to become boring. Somehow, this band of 40 years have gone the other...

Now well over a decade in the music industry, Tom Odell is motoring through a successful second phase as an independent artist. His recent albums have leaned into more introspective, personal material that has resonated so much that he now attracts bigger audiences to bigger shows (an arena tour is forthcoming), and continues to grow a very large base of listeners on the streaming platforms.  Inde...

Singer-songwriter Amy MacDonald has never been one to chase trends - an impressive show of resistance for an artist whose music journey began with teenage stardom (the streaming monster hit “This Is The Life” was all over the radio when she was just 19). Macdonald could be forgiven for trying to stay in the spotlight, but she was never that bothered about industry fuss in the first place, protecte...

In the intervening four years since Olly Knights first joined me, the band has been on something of a creative roll; two fine albums, a successful acoustic tour and something of a collective raising of the game. To my mind, this is how established bands of longevity should operate; to hell with the mainstream and gatekeepers, just do the very best work you can and keep those fans happy.  The new T...

Estelle is old school. With a modern twist yes, but nonetheless, if this most eclectic of artists leans in any particular direction it is towards ‘classic’. She even says it in one her own songs; "I'm not of-the-moment. I am a classic, yeah, I live at the MoMA” ( The Life , opening track of her 2012 album All of Me ). She is quite the proverbial eclectic artist - edgy but not (un)necessa...

During our live interview with Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey of Morcheeba, I found myself at one stage scrolling through my notes to find a description of the band’s sound I’d queried using Chat GPT. I couldn’t find it at the time but here is what it said: “Morcheeba’s signature rich, mellow music became the soundtrack of the suburban homes and chillout rooms of the late 90s and early 00s”. That’s...

Light, fire, water, fruit, and worms; “just the basics”, are Matt Berninger’s recurring themes, and these emerge again on his second solo album Get Sunk . One of life’s sponges, Berninger is constantly observing and recording the world around him - on paper scraps, whiteboards, garageband files, notes-to-self via text messages and even on baseballs . The sketches of songs ideas, lyrics and poems a...

Valerie June’s journey to what we might call ‘cult stardom’ hasn’t been easy.  “I was cleaning houses while playing bars & clubs at night. And I had a vision that I would not make it - my music wouldn't reach its audience through regular means - it would reach its audience through musicians. My friends would help me. I’m a musician’s musician”.  Working through a talented community of mus...

With the album’s reduced commercial clout and declining role in music consumption, a dilemma crops up for all long-established bands involved in the endeavour of making a new LP record. Put simply, why bother? Why toil for four years on a body of work that distils 100 song ideas into ten tracks, spending a fortune in the process, only to see it flash across the charts and then evaporate into the m...

A new album release by your favourite band is an important event. Thank god for this. A new album is a reprieve, an escape, a comfort and a joy. Of course, to experience all these emotions you do have to take the time to really listen. I particularly love that a record has the power to be your own personal time machine. When I first played back the new My Morning Jacket album, simply titled is , I...

Great bands and great records shouldn't come down to a competition, but by way of bringing it to your attention, Tindersticks’ Soft Tissue was my choice of 5th best album of 2024. I’m touched that Stuart Staples seems genuinely pleased to be on the list.  Alexi Petridis’ review of that record in the Guardian was so good I read it a few times.  “If the overall message seems to be about noticin...

Doves have yet to have a big 'moment', but in the music business of 2025, those moments no longer even exist. Instead, bands of ‘modest success’ must crack on, do their best work, put it out in the world and hope people take some notice. If, as a result, they can reconnect with fans, get out on the road, and make another record, then that is what counts as success. Carrying on regardless...

If the route to longevity is to be bendable into the music industry’s rules for success, The Lumineers really shouldn’t be here at all. It makes no sense. Their stripped back, rootsy ‘Americana’ (if that’s what we can call it) took hold for reasons not usually listed in the music industry rulebook. Instead, their unlikely ascendancy into the realms of being a major league band, by any measure, has...

This episode is brought to you in collaboration with War Child .  This is a special episode of The Art of Longevity celebrating vinyl and the ongoing importance of vinyl and the album form to artists and to music fans.  In this short audio documentary you’ll hear some thoughts and stories from renowned musicians like Ben Folds, Gaz Coombes, Interpol, Laura Veirs, Alela Diane, Crowded House, Eels,...