Xenomania - Work Ethic

Work Ethic

Higgins told The Telegraph in August 2009, "Pop is where the cutting edge of music is but it needs to be done with total sincerity and an incredible amount of skill, otherwise it doesn't warrant its own existence. There is a science to it, but there's magic too. You have to find the space where art and commerce truly meet in the middle, with genuine feeling and sentiment." He has also said, "pop music is maths."

Xenomania are notable for their abnormal writing process. According to an article in Q magazine's October 2009 issue, "they each work on backing tracks, chords or beats, Higgins choosing the best bits and building up songs like jigsaws." The various pieces of music are discussed at daily meetings and the best become the basis of songs. Higgins "separate music, melody, lyric" and strives to preserve "high level of originality, excitement and dynamism in the writing." He also has "the final say on everything establish the creative direction projects will take". If a piece of music "sounds enticing before a vocal has gone anywhere near it," then Higgins and Cooper will "sketch out" the melody and lyrics. Xenomania may also create multiple melodies over the same backing track and then select the best. Higgins said "we're just not interested in the way other people do things. I've trained not just me but myself, Miranda, Tim, we've trained our minds to think that way". Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys said that the process "reminded me of working at Smash Hits 'cos you've got this house full of people and they're all totally into music. They all have comments to make. A truly great atmosphere."

Higgins also insists that artists are involved to an extent. Referring to Girls Aloud in a 2004 interview with The Observer, Higgins said, "We don't let them out of the room till they've given every ounce of melodic instinct that they've got in them, at the end, you find they've contributed really well." Neil Tennant noted that Higgins "works you very hard. He's very headmaster-ly." Tennant's partner, Chris Lowe, said Higgins "puts stars by your work, and comments. It's ruthless. It's fantastic!" Norwegian singer Annie said of Higgins, "he's making music all the time and he's really creative and has a lot of good ideas. Serious and ambitious. It gave me an extra punch to work really hard and that was exactly what I needed."

On Xenomania's relatively low output (compared to a group like Stock, Aitken & Waterman), Higgins says, "If you're a production house, you're supposed to work with anyone and everyone: that's the rule...but if we don't feel excited by the prospect of the artist, then the record's going to be shit." Higgins refuses to work "purely for the fee" for the same reasons. He says, "People are coming to me already with a quality idea in mind, because they've heard it. But people need to understand that when they hear something that we've done on the radio, a process has been followed to achieve that." Xenomania have reportedly turned away Atomic Kitten and Gareth Gates.

Xenomania work from a large English country house located in Kent, where Higgins also lives, and a flat in Shoreditch. The country home formerly belonged to Alice Liddell, the inspiration behind Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.