54 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 7 2019
BOOKS&CULTURE
I
n April, Kiwi producer, musician and
Grammy-winning songwriter Joel
Little was tweeting his welcome to
Navvy, the latest arrival at his Dryden
Street label. Navvy is Phoebe Lee Jasper,
an Aucklander with a background in
classical and musical theatre and a spring-
board into the more sophisticated end of
pop music via her role playing keys for
Thomston, another of Little’s projects.
Given that he helped chart the strato-
spheric voyage of Lorde from small gigs
in Devonport to global stardom, Little’s
stamp of approval spells great potential
for Navvy. After all, that’s what he does,
right? That’s the Little story: the former
frontman of Auckland punk-pop band
Goodnight Nurse founds his own studio,
works with Lorde, then launches a string
of other artists, such as Broods and Khalid.
But just a couple of weeks after his
Navvy tweet came a much larger
announcement (“I’ve been waiting
to shout this from the rooftops for
so long!”he tweeted). ME!, the first
single off Taylor Swift’s new album,
Lover, was a song he had co-written
and produced with the Queen of
Pop.
Of course, Little has
been called on by big
names in the past –
Grammy success
brought a string
of co-writes and
production credits
with the likes of
Ellie Goulding, Sam
Smith and ImagineDragons – but, still, Taylor Swift.
ME! arrived as a giant candyfloss-stand
of a song, far removed from Royals, Tennis
Court and Yellow Flicker Beat. With its duet
between Swift and Panic! at the Disco’s
Brendon Urie, its kitsch
marching-band beat and
brass chorus and its pastel
explosion of a video, it
became YouTube’s fastest
video to 100 million views.T
wo months later, a
second single, Yo u
Need to Calm Down,
appeared, which also bore
Little’s co-writing and produc-
tion credits. When Lover finally
emerged in late August, four of
the 18 tracks had Little’s name
on them, making him the
album’s third most credited
individual after Swift and Jack
Antonoff (the producer who also
has the lion’s share of the
credits on Lorde’s second
album, Melodrama).
Little told Billboard
magazine he first met
Swift at a Broods gig in
LA and they connected
again last year when
she played in Auckland.
Despite his success, it seemsThe Queen
of Pop comes
calling
Joel Little makes
his mark on one of
2019’s biggest pop
blockbusters.
MUSIC
by James Belfieldthe 36-year-old was still nervous about
working on one of 2019’s biggest pop
blockbusters.
“A lot of my success in the past has
been with helping new artists figure out
their sound, like with Lorde
and Khalid early on before
they became huge,” he told
Billboard. “Working with
an artist like Taylor, who
already has so many bona
fide classic songs, was a
bit of a ‘mom’s spaghetti’
moment for me, just like,
‘Don’t f--- this up, man.’”
And he certainly doesn’t.
At 18 tracks, Lover has the odd misstep
(her tribute to new British beau Joe Alwyn
in London Boy is terrible), but none of
them are Little’s. Instead, You Need to Calm
Down, The Man and Miss Americana &
the Heartbreak Prince help add a touch of
political nuance, social awareness and pop
refinement to what’s otherwise a glorious
bubblegum backlash to Swift’s punchier
previous album, Reputation.
Undoubtedly, Little will always be
there to guide his Dryden Street stable
of young upstarts such as Navvy, but his
starring role on Lover shows he’s now
firmly entrenched as a go-to writer and
producer at the highest altitudes of A-list
pop stardom. l
LOVER, Taylor Swift (Republic)Taylor Swift and Kiwi co-writer
Joel Little, below: Lover is an
18-track bubblegum backlash to
her punchier previous album.G
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