Wine and Cheese: The Perfect Alternative Pairing, Jade Bird and Hozier

Hozier and Jade Bird are indie rock icons. If they were to collaborate, the results would be legendary.

It’s your dream collab. The artists you add back-to-back to the queue. The pairing you can’t get enough of. You know they sound good together, but why? Welcome to Wine and Cheese, a series investigating the why and telling you all about it.

Written by Kris Maxymillian

Photos courtesy of Guitar Center and SunFest

In life, there are many great pairings: popcorn and movies, Tom and Jerry, blankets and pillows, but most importantly: wine and cheese. Wine and cheese go together because they balance each other out, which is what you see when you pair Hozier and Jade Bird.

I first discovered Hozier’s powerful song “Take Me to Church” and could not stop pressing the repeat button. That then led me to branch out and discover his self-titled album Hozier, and my life was complete. From the biblical references to the amazing bass of Hozier’s voice, I listened to the debut album like it was my religion.

Photo courtesy of Brittany Chang

In 2018, I stumbled across Jade Bird’s “Cathedral” from her Something American album. The complexity of her voice and her raw talent compelled me to listen to everything she had out at that moment. Each of her songs starts out rather simply, but at the end of the song the listener is captivated by her range and depth.

Photo courtesy of Jade Bird

Hozier and Jade Bird are both alternative music legends. Within the alternative genre, there are subtle differences between the artists that make this pairing even better. Hozier is associated with alternative soul, folk, blues, and rock, while Jade Bird is considered more americana and indie.  

Earlier this fall, Hozier released the EP Nina Cried Power. The album is reminiscent of his first album with the elements of blues, rock, and folk shining through the bass and guitar work. The EP contained four songs that each held an element Hozier’s known for. “Shrike” brings back Hozier’s beloved folk sound, while “Nina Cried Power” showcases his bluesy-rock vibe.

Jade Bird has previously released the singles “Uh Huh” and “Furious,” capitalizing on the momentum from her debut album Something American. “Uh Huh” holds her americana and indie rock sound, while more of her folk sound is found in “Furious.”

Images courtesy of Glassnote Records and Columbia Records

Jade Bird and Hozier both showcase a massive amount of talent. They are both singer/songwriters who have an interesting scope on the world when writing music. Besides their amazing instrumental sound, their lyrics have a unique way of telling a story. Jade Bird reveals little bits of her past and her feelings with these elements to draw the story. In Something American, Bird paints the picture of a girl missing someone she used to date in high school. The lover from high school has now moved on to someone new and sometimes she gets nostalgic, but she remembers all the things that led to her lost lover picking the new girl. Listeners are drawn into Jade Bird’s sound because of the evocative vulnerability in her lyrics, which we also hear in Hozier.

When Hozier writes music, he sings about people and emotions through metaphor. In the song “Sedated” off of his debut album, he sings about drugs to escape the reality set before him, but he is also telling his lover to stay away from the drugs he does because he does not want to drag her down too. He paints this picture of addiction and how it must be to be on the other side of reality through allusions to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. He hides so much meaning in his songs that you don’t realize what he’s truly saying until you stop singing along and just listen.

A collaboration between Hozier and Jade Bird would marry some of the two best sounds in the alternative music scene. With Hozier’s bass and Jade’s guitar and the magnificent range of their voices, we would get an alternative masterpiece. However, once we include both of their amazing songwriting abilities, we would have a piece of literary work that could bring the house down and make you cry.