The Art of Longevity Season 6, Episode 2: Blancmange

The Art of Longevity Season 6, Episode 2: Blancmange

Author: The Song Sommelier November 27, 2022 Duration: 41:22
In this episode, Fenner Pearson chats to Neil Arthur about his writing process and how he works on the Blancmange albums, with Benge acting as his foil and producer, and his collaborations with Fader and Near Future. Arthur touches on the number of ideas “buzzing and fizzing” around his head that has led to him recording sixteen albums in eight years. This in turn provides an interesting insight into the whole process of releasing an album in 2022 compared with 1982! Perhaps what comes across...

The Art of Longevity, hosted by The Song Sommelier, sits at the crossroads of music, history, and the often-unseen business behind it. This isn't a typical interview podcast; it's a series of candid, in-depth dialogues with artists who have built careers spanning decades. Each conversation explores the real journey-how these musicians have weathered the industry's constant shifts, creative droughts, and commercial pressures to not just survive, but to continue evolving and connecting with audiences. We get into the specifics: the collaboration that saved a career, the business decision that changed everything, the fanbase that grew quietly over years. The discussions move fluidly between past triumphs, current projects, and future ambitions, always grounded in the artist's personal definition of success. It's about the resilience required to make art for a lifetime. Tune in for these uniquely honest reflections on what it truly means to last.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 93

The Art of Longevity
Podcast Episodes
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 6: The Wombats [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:08
The Wombats have defied all UK press scepticism (and cynicism) to become one of the country’s biggest indie pop bands. Big streaming audiences, huge social media followings and a multi-generational fanbase now pretty muc…
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 5: Sea Power, with Yan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:42
In a warm and whimsical conversation with Yan (Scott Wilkinson) of Sea Power, I learned to appreciate just what this unique band has achieved. With the recent name change, I might suggest the band wears its status as Nat…
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 4: Tears For Fears [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:51
From the earliest beginnings of 1983’s The Hurting to the band’s huge 1985 LP Songs From The Big Chair, Tears For Fears songs captured sadness, ambition, pain - confessional levels of emotional honesty. All this conveyed…
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 3: Spoon, with Britt Daniel [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:46
After the release of a ‘best of’ collection Everything Hits at Once in 2019, Spoon are back at long last with brand new material - the album Lucifer On The Sofa - a raw, rollicking rock album (complete with new players o…
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 2: Feeder [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:56
When it comes to longevity, Feeder keeps coming back around, and the guitar-rock scene is all the better for it. It was back in January 2001 that “Buck Rogers” reached number five on the UK chart (the song remains a radi…
The Art of Longevity Season 3, Episode 1: Suzanne Vega [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:42
When Suzanne Vega played a short residency at New York’s exclusive, super high-end Cafe Carlisle in 2019 (for the second time in her career) she wanted to put on a show, something special: “I thought, let’s make a show o…
The Art of Longevity Season 2, Episode 6: Portico Quartet [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:07
Discovering a band all to yourself is the best type of music discovery there is. One day in the mid 2000s as my wife and I wandered along London’s South Bank, we were stopped in our tracks by music the likes of which we’…
The Art of Longevity Season 2, Episode 5: Mew [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:18
If one of the secrets to longevity in the music industry is simply taking your time, then Danish alternative rock band Mew are grand masters. Formed in 1995, the band took eight years before a major label deal came along…
The Art of Longevity Season 2, Episode 4: Los Lobos [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:28
When I sat down with Steve Berlin, the Los Lobos sax player and de facto spokesperson, I was a little more than intrigued. To most people around the world - outside of North America anyways - Los Lobos remain the La Bamb…
The Art of Longevity Season 2, Episode 3: Fink [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:06
On The Art of Longevity, Fin Greenhall explained the ideas behind Fink's new project IIUII: an acoustic retrospective of some of the band's (and fans) favourite, biggest songs. “I’m a better singer now than I was in 2005…