Andy Bell‘s brand-new single, “Don’t Cha Know,” is making waves following its exclusive premiere on BBC Radio 2’s The Scott Mills Breakfast Show. Released on February 18th from his forthcoming album Ten Crowns, the track is now available on all major streaming platforms. The cinematic video—shot by Stephano Barberis on the Jamestown Movie Set in Vancouver—has been gaining traction, featured across MTV Classic channels in both the US and UK/Int’l feeds and spinning all week on MTV Classic’s Pop block in the US.
‘Don’t Cha Know’ was one of the first tracks to be written for the album, and, according to Andy, it marks “the beginning of the expedition” that would become Ten Crowns. Hinting at the emotional journey Andy has been on – “It’s so very hard to say hello / When your whole world comes crashing down.”
The new album is the result of Andy embracing a milestone in his life: Ten Crowns – 10 tracks of dazzling, joyous pop, produced and polished in Nashville, inspired by the dancefloor and gospel – was completed in the year he turned 60 and marks a majestic moment in his career.
No stranger to collaboration – his four decades of writing and recording with Vince Clarke as Erasure are still going strong – Bell threw himself into writing with close friend Dave Audé, the Grammy award-winning producer, remixer and DJ. Their work together is euphoric, and to top the celebrations, they invited Andy’s ultimate pop heroine, Debbie Harry, to join Andy on vocals for ‘Hearts A Liar’.
The new single follows the cosmic flash of ‘Breaking Thru The Interstellar‘, where Andy dances us “towards another paradise… ready for a new dimension / On our galactic journey”. Inspired by his love of reading BBC science magazines and the possible existence of wormholes that allow travel through space, he explains, “It’s on first because I wanted to let people know we’re going to go for a ride now!”
Andy and Dave had previously collaborated on two US dance chart number ones together: 2014’s ‘Aftermath (Here We Go)’ and 2016’s ‘True Original’, and after those dance tracks, the pair “just kind of carried on writing as an exercise”, Andy explains, “and after that, Dave moved his family to Nashville because LA was so expensive, and so our writing took this kind of gospel-tinged Nashville twist.”
He describes how in Nashville there’s a church on every corner (“it reminded me of singing in choirs and cathedral school as a child, where the spirit of the church is imbued in the music”). Not that Ten Crowns is a sombre, spiritual set. It’s propulsive, electronic, passionate, driven by the need to encounter new emotions and experiences as life races on. “I mean, I’ve got everything I could possibly wish for, you know, I really have, but that’s not to say I’m always fulfilled,” Andy adds. “This album’s about picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, embracing life – and about taking that feeling on even when you’re fighting demons in the world, like homophobia, and fighting demons in yourself. It’s about being celebratory and uplifting.”
Ten Crowns marks a magisterial moment in Andy Bell’s forty-year career. His joy about what that holds, and where it can go, clearly excites him. “It’s my third (sort of) solo record [following 2005’s Electric Blue and 2010’s Non-Stop] and in Erasure, our third album was our most successful out of all that we’ve done, so I’m taking that spirit with me!”
Travelling into new dimensions and possibilities with gospel in the heart and dancing in the soul clearly suits him. Ten Crowns is Andy Bell imperial, gleaming, ready for his coronation
