Biography
Since the 1970s Vivien Goldman has participated in punk, post-punk/new wave, and reggae circles as a distinguished author, performer, and instructor. Her recordings and articles helped fuse punk and new wave elements with African and Caribbean rhythms while she documented many musical genres and worked alongside artists extending from reggae legend Prince Far I to Soft Machine co-founder Robert Wyatt. Issued in 1981, the single "Launderette" emerged as a defining illustration of post-punk’s dub-oriented dimension, and Goldman returned in 2021 with Next Is Now—her first solo album in decades—while serving as both an underground-culture figure and an NYU professor.
Born in London in 1954, she spent part of the 1970s employed by Island Records as a public-relations officer for acts that included Bob Marley & the Wailers. She later wrote for British weeklies including NME, Sounds, and Melody Maker, chronicling the rise of punk and reggae before turning to new wave and hip-hop in the following decade. On the musical side she supplied backing vocals for Adrian Sherwood-produced reggae sessions, appeared on the Flying Lizards’ 1979 debut, and contributed to both albums by experimental collective the 49 Americans. In 1981 she issued the EP Dirty Washing on New York City’s 99 Records; trimmed to a 7-inch whose A-side, "Launderette," was co-produced by Public Image Ltd.’s John Lydon and Keith Levene, the single appeared on the U.K. label Window and via Virgin Records in France. That year she also published Bob Marley, Soul Rebel – Natural Mystic, the first book devoted to the late reggae figure.
Goldman relocated to Paris for eighteen months and formed the duo Chantage with singer Eve Blouin. Carrying a stronger Afro-pop accent than her earlier work, the Chantage single "It’s Only Money" came out on Celluloid in 1982. She devoted most of the 1980s to writing rather than recording; her second book, released in 1984, examined Kid Creole & the Coconuts. During the 1990s she settled in Manhattan, co-wrote material for Massive Attack and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and completed The Black Chord: Visions of the Groove: Connections Between Afro-Beats, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, and More. In the 2000s she began offering courses at New York University’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. Concentrating on subjects such as punk, Jamaican music, and Fela Kuti, she acquired the nickname "Punk Professor." In 2006 she produced another volume on Marley, this one centered on the album Exodus.
By then "Launderette" had attained cult status on several post-punk anthologies. Gomma placed it on 2001’s Anti NY, Chicks on Speed Records featured it in their 2006 three-CD Girl Monster set, and it surfaced again on Strut’s 2008 compilation Disco Not Disco: Post Punk, Electro & Leftfield Disco Classics 1974-1986. Goldman contributed vocals to a 2010 remix of New York house DJ Dennis Ferrer’s club track "Hey Hey." She also supplied liner notes for compilations and reissues that encompassed Luaka Bop’s William Onyeabor anthology and Light in the Attic’s Lizzy Mercier Descloux series. In 2016 the German experimental label Staubgold released Resolutionary (Songs 1979-1982), a collection that gathered her solo EP, the Chantage single, and both of her contributions to the first Flying Lizards album.
Goldman returned in 2020 with the politically charged single "I Have a Voice," her first new music under her own name in a considerable span. The track opened the full-length album Next Is Now, issued in 2021 and produced by Youth, previously known for work with Paul McCartney and Killing Joke.
Born in London in 1954, she spent part of the 1970s employed by Island Records as a public-relations officer for acts that included Bob Marley & the Wailers. She later wrote for British weeklies including NME, Sounds, and Melody Maker, chronicling the rise of punk and reggae before turning to new wave and hip-hop in the following decade. On the musical side she supplied backing vocals for Adrian Sherwood-produced reggae sessions, appeared on the Flying Lizards’ 1979 debut, and contributed to both albums by experimental collective the 49 Americans. In 1981 she issued the EP Dirty Washing on New York City’s 99 Records; trimmed to a 7-inch whose A-side, "Launderette," was co-produced by Public Image Ltd.’s John Lydon and Keith Levene, the single appeared on the U.K. label Window and via Virgin Records in France. That year she also published Bob Marley, Soul Rebel – Natural Mystic, the first book devoted to the late reggae figure.
Goldman relocated to Paris for eighteen months and formed the duo Chantage with singer Eve Blouin. Carrying a stronger Afro-pop accent than her earlier work, the Chantage single "It’s Only Money" came out on Celluloid in 1982. She devoted most of the 1980s to writing rather than recording; her second book, released in 1984, examined Kid Creole & the Coconuts. During the 1990s she settled in Manhattan, co-wrote material for Massive Attack and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and completed The Black Chord: Visions of the Groove: Connections Between Afro-Beats, Rhythm and Blues, Hip Hop, and More. In the 2000s she began offering courses at New York University’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. Concentrating on subjects such as punk, Jamaican music, and Fela Kuti, she acquired the nickname "Punk Professor." In 2006 she produced another volume on Marley, this one centered on the album Exodus.
By then "Launderette" had attained cult status on several post-punk anthologies. Gomma placed it on 2001’s Anti NY, Chicks on Speed Records featured it in their 2006 three-CD Girl Monster set, and it surfaced again on Strut’s 2008 compilation Disco Not Disco: Post Punk, Electro & Leftfield Disco Classics 1974-1986. Goldman contributed vocals to a 2010 remix of New York house DJ Dennis Ferrer’s club track "Hey Hey." She also supplied liner notes for compilations and reissues that encompassed Luaka Bop’s William Onyeabor anthology and Light in the Attic’s Lizzy Mercier Descloux series. In 2016 the German experimental label Staubgold released Resolutionary (Songs 1979-1982), a collection that gathered her solo EP, the Chantage single, and both of her contributions to the first Flying Lizards album.
Goldman returned in 2020 with the politically charged single "I Have a Voice," her first new music under her own name in a considerable span. The track opened the full-length album Next Is Now, issued in 2021 and produced by Youth, previously known for work with Paul McCartney and Killing Joke.
Albums
Singles
