Beverley Knight is back with her latest single, Systematic Overload, lifted from her new album, ‘The Fifth Chapter’.
The track is the second to be released from the British soul sensation’s forthcoming LP and the follow-up to her recent release, Last One On My Mind.
An ’80s-inspired gem with funk and R&B influences, the single continues Beverley’s return to pop, having juggled successful careers on stage and in soul.
Listen to Systematic Overload below.
Due September 29, the album follows Knight’s 50th birthday celebrations earlier this year and, speaking in RETROPOP’s September issue, the vocal powerhouse admits it’s important for her to embrace the milestone.
“I’m in an industry which has always frowned on women who get to this age,” she says. “Christ, they frown on women who get to 35, let alone 50. It’s like you’re over or you’re plateauing or you’re falling off. This is an industry that has traditionally been crueller to people who are older but particularly to women.”
Having staged an intimate show at London’s Lafayette in March, she’s going all out heading into the tail end of 2023 with a massive UK tour and got fans buzzing with Last One On My Mind, the first taste of her new music.
So much for playing down her age, but then as Knight defiantly declares: “So much of what is expected of a woman is to be forever young, forever useful, forever beautiful, whatever that means. But I’m like, ‘You can be you exactly as you are. Be fucking beautiful and fabulous and own it.’ Who decreed that at 50 it’s a wrap for you?”
On her confidence in embarking on a new era, Beverley beams: “This is the most settled and optimistic I’ve ever felt. I’m a joyful person naturally and it takes a lot to get me down, so I’m naturally that person who is always looking up.
“But now I feel like I’m looking into the stratosphere. I feel as though the big take-off that everybody, God bless them, is hoping for me is right here now. It’s ready to go and ready to happen. I’ve never felt so sure of it and I’ve got a great collection of songs with which to do it.”
