VMP Magazine

On the morning of February 23, 2009, the French indie pop band Phoenix did what very few non-Radiohead bands were doing at the time: They gave away the lead single to their upcoming album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, for free. In the world before streaming, when 99-cent iTunes downloads were the currency of the land, this move was radical. Handing over the lead single of your upcoming album to anyone who wanted a copy, free and clear?

But it paid off. Listeners were immediately left rapt by the glitzy, fuzz-filled vibe of the new track that sounded something like a perfect marriage between the shiny pop sensibilities of groups like Of Montreal and the scuzzy, rock aesthetic of the Strokes. “We had been gone for something like three years, so we didn't really have high hopes,” Phoenix’s frontman Thomas Mars said recently via phone, speaking on behalf of the band, which now lives around the world. “We thought people might've forgotten us a little bit.”

The conversation wasn’t an easy one. Last year, Brittany Howard, the mighty lead singer and guitarist for Alabama Shakes got together with the members of her band and dropped a bomb. Any plans they had to work on and record a follow-up to their Grammy Award-winning 2015 album Sound & Color would have to be put on hold. Indefinitely. A frustrating spate of writer’s block combined with a yearning to try out new musical ideas under her own named compelled her to follow a different path. “We spent hours talking things through and I think at the end they all got it,” she said. “We had been in a bit of a creative slump and while it was really a tough decision they have been very supportive of me doing this which I really appreciate.”