‘You associate it with metal, not flares’: will the West Midlands embrace disco-pop?

The Black Country, AKA the area of the West Midlands that incorporates the four boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, does not immediately spring to mind when you think of pop. Or, as singer-songwriter and Wolverhampton native Tom Aspaul puts it: “You associate it with coal, steel, and metal bands, not flares, sequins and Studio 54.” That has not stopped him from channelling his homeland’s heritage on his forthcoming album, Black Country Disco, a pop project that’s being drip-fed via monthly singles, with December’s being a cover of Everyday, a song by Wolverhampton’s very own Slade.

In fact, the region’s rock heritage runs through the heart of the album, not least in its visual identity, which pays tribute to the logos of some of the area’s more hirsute bands (think: ELO and Black Sabbath), all jagged, blood red metallic lettering. Musically, the album playfully incorporates the genres of its title, but forges a more symbolic link back to the Black Country via a rush of nostalgia. It was brought on by moving back home from London following the end of a five-year relationship. “Sonically, I listened to a whole raft of disco from the mid 70s to the mid 80s; music I’d imagine my mom dancing to at the Lafayette club in Wolverhampton when she was young,” he explains.

While rock and rap revel in civic pride, with artists from Arctic Monkeys to Slowthai repping their postcodes, big pop – especially now in its more globalised state – favours generalised subjects delivered with non-specific blankness. Aspaul, who has worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue, MNEK and, well, Louise Redknapp, says he has felt that pressure to soften his identity. “Coming from Wolverhampton has shaped who I am and how I understand the world,” he says. “But I’d always felt a sense of ‘imposter syndrome’, glossing over where I was from to make life smoother.”

Black Country Disco is not just about correcting that via accents or nods to local landmarks (one song, WM, is about long hours spent on the stretch of the M6 that pierces through Wolverhampton), it is also about something more ephemeral. “[The album] is melancholic and wistful – like the bleak landscapes here,” he says. “It’s got a good heart and knows how to have a good time, just like Black Country folk!”

Aside from Katy Perry’s California Gurls and more recently AJ Tracey’s Ladbroke Grove, there haven’t been many hits shouting out an artist’s home patch of late. Aspaul is keen to change that. And, anything he can do to improve Wolverhampton’s pop credentials the better: “Legendary Beverley Knight aside, we can’t have everyone thinking Liam Payne is the best we have to offer.”