Róisín Murphy releases new album “Hit Parade” in collaboration with DJ Koze
Introduction
We sat down with music legend, Róisín Murphy to talk all about her brand new album “Hit Parade” – her sixth solo venture, produced in collaboration with DJ Koze. The album could very much be Róisín’s best solo work to date and stood as one of the best albums of last year. Now in 2024, Murphy is getting ready to embark on live shows, and a new remix album, “Hit Parade” Remixes on the way in May of this year.
Interview
TTM: We saw you recently singing, “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From such a young age, singing a massive show tune like that, to then being where you are now, selling out stadiums and performing all across the world, that must feel amazing.
Róisín Murphy: Yeah, it was really good to get across South America last year, and to America, which I don’t always do on every album tour. And I’ve never, I’ve never played in Argentina, and so that was special. You know, as the years go by, my fan base kind of spreads, and they’re always ever so lovely. And my shows are always really exuberant and joyful because of who’s there just as much as what’s on the stage.
TTM: What’s it like being a woman in the industry today? How have you found it? How have you found navigating in the industry in comparison to the past?
Róisín Murphy: I don’t really think about that. Don’t tend to look for misogyny in people. I try to avoid becoming a victim of anything. I grew up with a lot of very interesting men around me, so I’m well able for men. Starting with my father, who was terrible ladies man, and very charismatic and probably a bit sexist, but not when it came to me. He always thought I could do anything, and so I don’t judge people that harshly.
Maybe I’m the wrong person to ask, but I was very safe and secure in Sheffield for all those years in Moloko too. We were quite far away from the industry. We had our own studio. We had our own setup, up there, and we didn’t really have to intermingle too much with the industry, industry. We’d actually make our records and deliver them finished, and I’m kind of still that way now. And so I don’t have any interference with the creative side. I have a great female assistant with me all the time these days, but most of the people around me are men that work in this business. I try not to think about that too much. I just take people as they are.
TTM: One of the big releases from this album was “Freewill”, what were the inspirations going behind this single?
Róisín Murphy:
TTM: You also got to collaborate with Jessie Ware, I would say you’re pretty much kindred spirits, how was that experience?
Róisín Murphy: I met her on her podcast. She invited me onto her podcast. So I met her with her mommy, and they fed me. And that was lovely. Then she asked me to do something on this track, and it was really quite simple to do. She sent me the fully formed track and it just had a gap in it, and she said, “fill the gap”. Which I did here remotely, and sent it over and it all fit together perfectly. What we did do together was shoot that lovely pop video, and it was quite chaotic because we arrived on the day and there was like, literally, two mountains of clothes. We had to work that one out together. But it was fun. It was nice to do it with someone else for a change, to be honest.
TTM: Where would you say you get your sense of style from?
Róisín Murphy: Well I wouldn’t call it a sense of style… it’s a sense of fun, a sense of adventure. It’s really frivolous and pointless. It’s not necessary. You know? What is necessary is that the music’s great, and I can kind of do anything visual after I’ve got good music, I can throw any old visual on it, and it’ll sing. You know, the music’s the main thing. But as long as I’m enjoying it, I’ll be doing it and it is fun to me, you know, I’ve been like that since I was a child. I used to dress up as things, I suppose you call it cosplay. Now, my daughter’s the very same and she’s goes out into the world, as characters and or dressed completely from a specific era or whatever. My mom was an antique dealer, so I spent a lot of time on car boot sales and jumble sales and charity shops as a teenager. I loved it.
I’m an entertainer. I’m an exhibitionist. Sounds bad, doesn’t it, being an exhibitionist, but I think the real meaning of being an exhibitionist is that you put an exhibition on, for the delight of other people. And I’ve sort of born to that. I tried to use clothes to accentuate the performance rather than cover it up. You know, I’m not pretending to be anything. I’m not, as far as I’m concerned, anyway, it’s just like an accentuation of the performance. It’s supposed to amplify the meaning of the song and the truth of the performance. And I say the biggest influence for me on that has to be Grace Jones. She accentuates the truth. She’s not hiding. And once it becomes too much hiding, then I think it gets bit boring.
TTM: Have you enjoyed making social media content on Tik Tok and Instagram?
Róisín Murphy: Oh god. It was a whole new world for me and a whole new way of expressing. Initially on Instagram, it’s a great place to experiment visually and make little films and think about different ways of doing performances that go direct to the audience. Particularly over the period of the pandemic, I made all these little performances that were very simple to do, but quite intimate and a different way of seeing me and a different way to perform. And I made a full length performance film with the band called the Róisín Machine film. And that’s on YouTube. That was actually streamed during the pandemic and it’s a beautiful thing. Also, I get to connect with people through social media. So I connect with fashion designers, they can connect with me. And I might find a graphic designer or a lighting man or woman in that way, and you cut out a lot of middlemen. So I tried to use it in as creative a way as possible.
TTM: What can we expect from a Róisín Murphy performance today?
Róisín Murphy: I’m a born performer. I throw myself completely into it. No holds barred. I’m utterly committed to my performance. I’m very lucky in that I’ve worked with the same musical director for all these years. I make these electronic records, or studio based records, and it’s not easy to translate it into something live. It’ll be all the lights, it’ll be all the content. It’ll be all the costumes. It’ll be all the band, be all the songs. It’ll be all the fun dancing, lots of dancing and personal with my wonderful fan base.
TTM: What would you say is your proudest moment so far?
Róisín Murphy: It might be when I get to stand on that stage at Ally Pally, because that’s the biggest show that I’ve ever sold with my own name. And do you know it’s like 10,000 people? And I still have to pinch myself. It sold out few weeks ago, and I could not believe it. So it might very well be that, but overall, it’s looking back at the entire catalogue that makes me the most proud, not in a super big headed way, because I’m actually, genuinely super surprised that I can look at it and go, “well pretty much all those records are good in one way or another.” I’m very proud of that, and I’ve done the way I’ve done that is by treating it all like a big adventure rather than a very ambitious sort of job. It’s really been a massive adventure. I’ve allowed it to happen to me, in a sense.