T
he musical equivalent of the
stylish cameo in a Hollywood
feature film, it’s only recently
that acknowledging the featured
artist has actually been allowed.
Back in the 60s, musicians
were rarely allowed to record
for another label, let alone be
credited as doing so. But they
did, of course, they just went under
pseudonyms or took no credit at all.
Eric Clapton played anonymously on
The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently
Weeps. And when George Harrison
appeared on Cream’s Badge it was as
L’Angelo Misterioso.
In the 80s, the feature had evolved.
Take June’s cover stars, Bananarama.
Their arrival on the charts was a
masterstroke of the featured artists
approach. After the No.92 false start of
debut single Aie a Mwana in 1981, the
trio hit No.4 with It Ain’t What You Do
(It’s The Way That You Do It), released as
“The Fun Boy Three with Bananarama”,
coming off of the former’s eponymous
debut album.
Bananarama instantly gained the
cool of FB3, and FB3 instantly gained
a bigger pop audience. And what
better way to return the favour than to
switch roles: three months later both
groups were back in the Top 5 with
Really Saying Something, released as
“Bananarama & Fun Boy Three”, this time
pulling a track from the Bananas’ debut
album Deep Sea Skiving.
Skip forward to 2017 and, at any
given time, a third of the singles in
the Top 40 – both in the UK and the
US – might include a featured artist.
It’s become the default platform for
launching new talent.
Just look at two of the biggest singer/
songwriters of the moment. Sam Smith
broke through guesting on NaughtyBoy’s La La La, and Jess Glynne from a
rapid fire of two features: Route 94’s
My Love followed by Clean Bandit’s
Rather Be.
It’s all a long way since the first
bona fide cross-over feature of the 90s.
We don’t have much to thank Glenn
Medeiros for, but when he tried to
recapture the surprise sales of 1987’s
Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for
Yo u in 1990, he went about it by adding- and this was game-changing at the time
- a rap interlude from a hip hip-hop star.
The result was She Ain’t Worth It,
credited to “Glenn Medeiros featuring
Bobby Brown”. Together they forged
the template for modern dance/ rap
crossovers and pulled a Bananarama/
FB3-style masterstroke, getting Glenn his
only US No.1, and giving Bobby an
out-and-out pop follow-up to his previous
hit My Prerogative.
But for every great artist that emerges
off the back of a feature, another 10
disappear. It’s now become a way for
record labels to test the validity of a new
signing: give them a guest slot; piggy
back off an existing dance track or
group, and see how they fare.
So, does the featured artist launchpad
really build a lasting career?
You could say no. “Given this
proliferation of collaborations and the
propensity for modern pop music to
draw on similar sounds and structures,”
Music Week recently asked: “Is it any
wonder that the public occasionally
struggles to truly connect with artists who
seem to lack the confidence to put their
own vision across?”
You could say yes. I mentioned Paigey
Cakey in a recent A To Z and she would
surely argue against Music Week. To
quote the lyrics of her 2016 track
Pattern: “I was nobody, now they say
they wanna meet me. I hollered couple
artists for features, they aired me, it’s
crazy, now they need me.”21IAN PEEL’S A TO Z
of
F IS FOR... FEATURES
THE FEATURED ARTIST IS ONE OF THE
CORNERSTONES OF THE POP PROCESS,
AS IMPORTANT TO MUSICAL CREATIVITY AS
IT IS TO BREAKING NEW TALENT.CP30.IanPeel.print.indd 21 07/06/2017 17:02