Welcome back to Bleeding Lovely! Hello and welcome to the new Bleeding Lovely Magazine. There hasn’t been an issue out for quite some time due to personal commitments. However, now that Leona is back, we thought this should come back bigger and better than before. We do need your help though. If you are good with writing, finding information, designing or anything else, let us know at bleedinglovelymagazine@gmail.com and you could become part of the team.
Bleeding Lovely Magazine Team Chloe Leadbeater
John Messenbird
Contents News 4-5 Thunder in The USA 6 In Depth: I Am 7-8 Fire Under My Feet 9-11
News I Am We’re less than a month away from Leona’s next album and probably one of her most anticipated since Spirit. We’ve already heard snippets of some songs and of course the singles Fire Under My Feet, Thunder and I Am. I can’t wait to be able to hear it all. You can preorder yours through leonalewismusic.com
Thunder Thunder is the 1st US single and what a single it is. Leona has done a radio/media tour in the US to promote it and the album. I hope the album does well in the US and well done to all the bunnies who have been able to meet Leona. Maybe she will do a US tour sometime or even an international tour for all you international bunnies out there
Empower Month June saw Leona doing #EmpowerMonth in which she shared quotes and stories in order to empower us all. The stories were really interesting to read. Sometimes it makes you realise how lucky you are. It may be over but could this turn in a regular feature? I would like to see more of it. You can see some of the quotes on leonalewismusic.com
New record! Leona has become the first artist in history to have 2 videos of the same song (in the same language) become Vevo Certified (have 100m+ views). Huge congratulations to Leona and great to see Bleeding Love having an impact 8 years on from it’s release.
Thunder in the USA
Leona has been busy in America promoting her single Thunder, and to the delight of Bunnies worldwide the evidence has been recorded on YouTube. She has been touring various radio stations across the U.S. And judging by the response that love, with the atmosphere in the studios being fun and playful. As well as performing on various local and national radio stations in the U.S. Leona has been appearing on iHeart, an American internet based radio network with stations across America, Canada and Dubai. It really seems like Leona is starting to get the publicity that she deserves. Previously the only marketing she was getting was from the Bunnies promoting her and from her Instagraming. Now she Island Records is starting to get her to tour radio stations and are posting professional quality photos and videos of her in the studio making the I Am album. During the build up to Fire Under My Feet release appearances on primetime TV & radio in the UK, on shows like Graham Norton and John Bishop. Leona had been promoting on the Continent as well. It looks like Island has realised they got something to sell, which her previous label never acknowledged.
In Depth: I Am This is the album we’ve all been waiting for. However, there’s a bigger back story to it. Leona signed with Island Records in June last year then in September, Leona shared an open letter. She talked about leaving Syco and her depression. Not many people are so open about that but she was and it was refreshing to see. Many people may seem happy on the outside but on the inside, they could be sad and fighting something which they just don’t want to share. It was also lovely to see how we all came together and supported Leona. A special mention must go to Stevie Nicks whom Leona met whilst making I Am. Stevie gave an inspirational pep talk to Leona and told her that the world needed to hear her voice. Thank you Stevie. Let’s now fast forward to December when we finally got to hear new music. On December 19th, she released a clip of her singing Fire Under My Feet. Everybody went crazy over this, including me. It sounded totally different to what we’ve heard before. She then teased us even more in February with a clip of her in the studio. The clip ended with the lyric “Just when you thought you dropped me, I gotta drop the news”.
This is a reference to SYCO and how they threatened her with saying that if she left, they would tell the media that she was dropped. We now know this song to be I Am. In April, she did an album showcase for the media and some lucky bunnies. She sung I Am, I Got You (a new one), Ladders, Thank You and Fire Under My Feet. No recording was allowed in that event. Leona also later tweeted a photo which indicated that she had signed for Def Jam in the US. Island (UK) and Def Jam (US) are both owned by Universal Music Group. She then posted yet another teaser for the album. We got to hear more of Fire Under My Feet. In May, Fire Under My Feet was premiered on Radio 2 and the music video came out the same day. The video showcases people who have overcome an obstacle so they could do something they are passionate about. Then during a Twitter chat, Leona announced that the album, I Am, was to come out on September 11th. June signalled the start of Empower Month. This was a month within which Leona shared stories from fans and quotes. It was all about empowering each other and being more positive. I wish there could be maybe an Empower Year or maybe one day each week in which we share our ex-
Fire Under My Feet, Leona on my mind By John Messenbird Find yourself in what looks like a Victorian Ballroom, a grand piano and full drum-kit with just two people. Leona Lewis is one of them and she sings ‘I got fire under my feet......’ then she strums the tune on the piano and cue the drums then a raw and powerful brilliant old school sound blast out of the video. A truly refreshing break from a lot of today’s auto-tuned sound the same hits. The only thing I don’t like about this video is you only get around 30 seconds. Too short for Bunnies starved of their Leona fix! This track scream turn those Marshalls (Speaker/amp systems all rockstars use) up to 11! Even me not even a heavy metal fan wants this at full blast. In the piece we get to see on You Tube unfortunately you don’t get guitar riffs so no ‘air guitaring bunnies’. But seriously this is Leona Lewis showing her Rock Chick side. I hope she does release this as a single in time for the summer. This could be the killer opening to the next album, you need a explosive song to blast the album onto the radio and this could be a killer shows her vocal range, just like Bleeding Love was.
Leona you need to get casual listeners on board in their tens of thousands. Now this has been released, they decided to make a new video. This time you see Leona with a full band in a recording studio resembling a 1970’s band promo film/rockumentry film, plus light leakage effects that are always present on 70’s Super 8 film, but to the sound, what you get is something that is truly alive like a gig. This is not the highly polished and edited music video from the digital age but more like something from the band sessions done by the like of Beatles or Beach Boys, you get people talking and cueing studio and performers, it just seems so raw and alive which is really refreshing to the ears. I love it! And for you fan of electronic dance music there are remixes of Fire Under My Feet so you can live out your Leona in the club dreams and these can stand out on their own, because for fantastic dance music to work you have to have strong hook vocals with a catchy tune and you get that with Leona on these remixes. If the rest of the album is going to follow in the same way as Fire Under My Feet, it will truly be a classic with a timeless quality.
It is timeless because you can’t put a date on it. It starts with an acapella, like 50’s Doo Wop, has the beat of 60’s soul with a bit of 80’s power ballad from Leona’s vocals. It is a mash up of different styles from different decades and this really work due to it showing how good Leona Lewis with music.