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Singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading has announced her 21st studio album, How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean. The follow-up to 2021's Top 10 release Consequences, it'll be released on November 22 via BMG.
The album, which was written, produced, programmed and engineered by Armatrading at her own Bumpkin Studio, is preceded by the single I'm Not Moving, which was inspired by an encounter with a young person engaged in "alarmingly confrontational" public behaviour.
"He was like 'I'm going to kill everybody! I'm not moving! You can get the police! You can't move me!'" reports Armatrading. "All the lyrics just flowed, in one, and I knew it had to have an aggression, because that's how he was. I did a version of it that was a little bit milder, but you could tell that wasn't it."
Armatrading describes How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean as, "observational, and yes, very direct", which suggests that this isn't the heavy metal album she hinted at making back in 2020.
"I love hard rock!” she told The Guardian. “I always tell myself, ‘One day I’ll make a heavy metal album.’ With lots of guitar shredding! And I will.”
Armatrading has always experimented with different genres including the hard rock of 1983's The Key, while 2007's Into The Blues was a blues album, 2010's This Charming Life was rooted in "guitar based rock" and 2012's Starlight was a pure jazz album.
Earlier this year she announced the launch of the Joan Armatrading Scholarship, which provides full three-year tuition fees at the BIMM Music Institute for candidates from low-income households and/or groups that are under-represented in higher education.
