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National Album Day announces 2021 ambassadors

By | Published on Tuesday 17 August 2021

National Album Day

National Album Day has announced its four ambassadors for this year’s event, which will take place in October. They are Sharleen Spiteri, Laura Mvula, Ray BLK and Joy Crookes.

“With albums, you go on a journey with the writer”, reckons Spiteri. “The moment when the songs become yours, the people and places, the heartaches and nights out in your life, merge into that album and forever stick with you. The album is one of the most important artforms that exist in our times, that is why we need to protect and celebrate it”.

Mvula adds: “The feeling of physically holding an album and listening to an artist paint a full technicolour picture through music and lyrics is magic and unlike anything else. I can credit so many amazing women whose albums have been integral in my life, not just as an artist but as a human being”.

And BLK says: “My favourite albums have been the soundtrack to moments in my life. They’ve made me think, healed me and inspired me as a writer. Hearing a body of work from an artist is an opportunity to see inside their mind and their life, and so to be releasing my own album and sharing my innermost thoughts with my supporters means everything”.

“In an era of viral singles”, she adds, “of which we rarely know the creators, protecting and supporting albums is so necessary because it’s how we truly connect to an artist and emotionally invest in them, and without that attachment there’s no incentive to buy a ticket to their shows or follow their journey – which ultimately leads to the demise of artists, and a soulless industry”.

Meanwhile, Crookes comments: “Albums are bodies of work. Journeys, immortalising memories of an artist and packaging it chapter by chapter into a sonic book. I have always been besotted by the adventure of an album. The use of voice notes from people’s family members, the atmospheric sounds that never made it to radio mixes to paint a picture, and the orchestras nurturing a rapper’s poetry to form a song”.

“Ever since I was a child, my favourite possession was an album”, she goes on. “My Wednesday evening trips to HMV, cursing at the man at the till for not knowing whether he liked James Blake’s voice, slipping an extra three Trojan collection albums – 40 songs for a tenner – into my basket and drooling over Grace Jones’ artwork has made me the ‘body of work’ artist I am today. It is important we protect the album artform as removing it and over saturating our industry with singles removes the stage for musicians to tell their story”.

So, that’s a whole lot of ambassadoring done, isn’t it? And this is just the beginning! They’ve all got until 16 Oct to keep on ambassadoring away, which is when National Album Day actually happens. On the day, they will be joined by loads of other people generally rambling on about how great albums are and all that, and various exclusive releases will be made available for sale. Enjoy!



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