{"id":323125,"date":"2025-08-06T18:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T18:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323125\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T18:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T18:03:12","slug":"the-odd-yet-perfect-collaboration-of-mark-lanegan-and-isobel-campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/323125\/","title":{"rendered":"The odd yet perfect collaboration of Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mark<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ V2)<\/p>\n

Wed 6 August 2025 12:00, UK <\/p>\n

If you were listening to a late-night college radio station in 1996, it\u2019s not entirely impossible that you might have heard a track from Belle and Sebastian<\/a>\u2019s debut album, Tigermilk, within the same hour as a new song from what would be Screaming Trees\u2019 last proper album, Dust. <\/p>\n

Apart from that loose connection, though, any idea of Trees frontman Mark Lanegan collaborating with a member of Belle and Sebastian would have seemed slightly comical\u2014a grunge-twee collision akin to Oscar the Grouch palling around with Elmo.<\/p>\n

However, another song from 1996 might have given us a clue of things to come. Nick Cave\u2019s \u2018Where the Wild Roses Grow\u2019, a duet with Kylie Minogue that blew everyone\u2019s minds, was a helpful reminder of an old tradition in popular music: a grizzled baritone cowboy pairs well with a classy soprano from the city. <\/p>\n

Former Belle & Sebastian cellist and singer Isobel Campbell was already a fan of the classic version of this dynamic\u2014the 1960s crooner duo of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra<\/a>\u2014but it was only after venturing out on her solo career in the early 2000s that she realised she might benefit from a Hazlewood or Cave of her own. Unlike most of the beauty-and-the-beast pairings of the past, though, this wouldn\u2019t be a case of a male songwriter casting a complementary role for a female muse. Instead, Campbell needed a world-weary male voice to better capture the spirit of some of the new songs she was writing, ones that didn\u2019t sound quite right in her own soft and whispery Glaswegian lilt.<\/p>\n

This led her to Lanegan<\/a>, who was a free agent of sorts after the demise of Screaming Trees, having already joined forces with the likes of Greg Dulli (as the Gutter Twins) and Josh Homme (with Queens of the Stone Age).<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ V2)<\/p>\n

\u201cMark\u2019s voice inspires me to the point of obsession,\u201d Campbell told The Guardian in 2010, following the release of Hawk, her third and final album with Lanegan, \u201cThe first time I saw him perform, I was shocked by how much pain there was in his voice; it was so moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collaboration, which also included 2006\u2019s Ballad of the Broken Seas (which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize) and 2008\u2019s Sunday at Devil Dirt, produced a brand of shadowy, wind-whipped folk-rock that felt closer to Lanegan\u2019s past work than anything Belle & Sebastian did. And yet, it was the only project in Lanegan\u2019s career, who died in 2022, in which he didn\u2019t play a role in the songwriting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unique in my body of work,\u201d Lanegan told The Guardian, \u201cHere, my only job is to inhabit these songs, relate to them, to express them. It\u2019s a learning process, a journey of discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the eye-candy,\u201d Campbell joked. \u201cMy songs are drawn from my life, but his voice is perfect at narrating them\u2026 Sometimes, we\u2019ll be onstage, and he\u2019s singing \u2018The Circus is Leaving Town\u2019, and it sounds so sad, so true, I want to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell admitted being \u201ca little scared\u201d of Lanegan in the beginning, which would make sense considering his well-documented history as one of grunge rock\u2019s wilder, more self-destructive characters. Over time, though, the classically trained Scot and the rough-and-tumble American found even ground. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I don\u2019t still think he\u2019s the bee\u2019s knees,\u201d Campbell said, using a phrase Lanegan probably never used in his life, \u201cbut I know what I can do now. I know I can go head-to-head with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, the perfectly mismatched duo never got a chance to record together again. Campbell\u2019s latest solo album, Bow to Love, was released in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ V2) Wed 6 August 2025 12:00, UK If you were listening to a late-night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[116798,77,116799,269,116800,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-323125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-belle-sebastian","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-mark-lanegan","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-screaming-trees","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114983141705881160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}