Monday, March 31, 2008
Time Out
Because of the recent death of my friend Eoghan, final exam time pressure and just a general need to take stock of things and sort myself out, I am abandoning this blog. I may return at some point, and use it as an mp3 blog. There again I may not. Should you wish to contact me, I suggest you send me an email. Thanks for reading. Ciarán xx
Friday, March 07, 2008
"Dazzle Ships" and Comercial Suicide
Bob Stanley has written a very interesting piece on OMD's recently re-issued "Dazzle Ships" in today's The Guardian. He also discusses the maverick spirit of the New Pop acts, people like ABC and Dexys, who followed up mega-selling albums with decidedly challenging work. Here's the full article...
How To Lose 3 Million Fans In One Easy Step
With just one album, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark more or less destroyed their career. And they weren't the only ones: the early 1980s were littered with commercial suicides. Bob Stanley finds out how it all went wrong
Friday March 7, 2008
The Guardian
Guy Hands wouldn't allow it these days - what are these "artists" trying to do? Bankrupt the company? - but in 1983, no one batted an eyelid when a major chart band followed a multimillion selling pop album with something extremely obtuse. An album, even, that contained no obvious hits and soundtracked the cold war at its coldest. No one bought it, mind you, so Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's Dazzle Ships came to be viewed as a heroic failure - the ultimate commercial suicide.
"Every year we'd visit American Forces Network [the broadcaster for US troops] in Germany," remembers OMD's Andy McCluskey. "There were almost a million people at [the US] Frankfurt base, it was like a colony. And we'd see the same guy every year when we went there to do an interview. So we gave him Dazzle Ships and he said, 'Wow! Gee, what a weird album. Radio Prague? Let's play it! They'll think the commies have invaded!'"
Architecture and Morality, OMD's third album, had been a monster hit following its release in 1981, with any number of potential singles. Souvenir was first out of the block and made No 3. When Joan of Arc got rave reviews ahead of the album's release, McCluskey told Smash Hits: "That's nothing. Wait until you hear the next single - it's our Mull of Kintyre." Maid of Orleans duly became another huge hit in the UK, and Germany's best-selling single of 1982.
"It sounds strange, I know, but we had been trying to change the world," says McCluskey. "It was the naive confidence of youth, the idea that music is that important. The music we made had to be interesting and different. And somehow we believed that would change the world, the way people think. So when we sold 3m albums and the world didn't change, we were scared."
The result was a bout of writers' block. It wasn't as though OMD wrote conventional love songs to start with - Enola Gay was famously about Hiroshima, Stanlow about a power station - yet Dazzle Ships took off what McCluskey calls "the sweet wrapper". For starters, the first single was called Genetic Engineering. "I was very positive about the subject! I didn't expect someone like Monsanto to come along and say, 'Fuck it, we can make money out of cross-pollination.'"
However, when Dave Lee Travis played the single on Radio 1, he said - with some gravitas - that it was about time someone in the music world stood up to the evils of tinkering with nature. "People didn't listen to the lyrics," McCluskey recalls. "I think they automatically assumed it would be anti. Generally, I was pretty dark and pessimistic. Very precious and strong-minded."
The song is still one of Dazzle Ships' more overtly commercial moments. Disembodied voices from the eastern bloc sit over recordings of time signal pips, speak-and-spell machines, wartime submarines. "It all made sense to us. We wanted to be Abba and Stockhausen. The machinery, bones and humanity were juxtaposed."
Dazzle Ships entered the charts at No 5, then dropped like a stone. Architecture and Morality sold 3m; Dazzle Ships sold 300,000. With one record, Orchestral Manoeuvres lost 90% of their audience.
"I was the ideas man, Paul Humphreys made it happen. It was a symbiotic relationship. But I'm the one who took us right to the edge of the plank. When people heard Dazzle Ships, they obviously preferred our music with the sweet wrapper on. Not a song about someone's hand being cut off by a totalitarian regime. After that, there was a conscious and unconscious reeling-in of our experimental side. We got more ... conservative."
As, of course, did the whole country. Dazzle Ships, falling between the Falklands war and the Tories' emphatic
re-election, sounded the bell for the new pop playground that the charts had become. An almost forgotten era, now lumped in with the ephemera that succeeded it- the likes of Johnny Hates Jazz - new pop was an attempt in 1981 and 82 to marry chart music to the avant garde. Incredibly, it succeeded. There was no manifesto, but the new generation - OMD, ABC, Soft Cell, the Teardrop Explodes, Dexys Midnight Runners - had lived through punk, understood its situationist leanings, and understood the real value of music. While OMD name-dropped Dancing Queen, Ian Curtis and Mies van der Rohe, ABC claimed they existed to write "a soundtrack for the 80s".
At the turn of the decade, ABC had been Vice Versa, a Sheffield post-punk unit who leaned more towards the atonal than to Abba. They were interviewed for a fanzine called Modern Drugs by Martin Fry, and got on with him so well they asked him to become their singer. After changing their name to the perfectly minimalist ABC, they sat down to write some perfectly modernist love songs: Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look of Love, All of My Heart. All Top 20 hits; all soulful, well-dressed pop. Their parent album, The Lexicon of Love, defined the charts of 1982.
ABC predated OMD in their attempt to take on the preconceptions of their fanbase, and their second album, Beauty Stab, did not define the charts of 1983. The strings were gone, replaced by some tough guitars that sounded weirdly dated - sometimes like Low-era Bowie, sometimes closer to Led Zeppelin. Had it been released two years later, when guitars were voguish once more, it would have kept the ABC boat afloat. Instead, it just sounded confusing.
Like Genetic Engineering, the first single from Beauty Stab - That Was Then But This Is Now - was exhilarating and shrill, and made the top 20. The cause wouldn't have been entirely hopeless but for one line: "Can't complain, mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of crumble." It had perhaps been meant as a joke - it was followed by a cheesy sax break - but Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera lambasted it in an interview as embodying all that was bad in modern pop. Suddenly, the emperor's new pop clothes were revealed. The line has been a fixture in "worst lyrics" polls for 25 years, attaining the top slot in one conducted last year by BBC 6Music. Beauty Stab, like Dazzle Ships, died a quick death.
Which leads you to wonder what the hell happened in 1983. It was almost as if the country was tired of mavericks, had heard enough about unemployment figures and ghost towns and nuclear threat. They wanted glamour, in a Seaside Special way. Duran Duran had their first No 1 in 1983. Paul Young, Wham! and Howard Jones - considerably more pliable and predictable than OMD or ABC - were the year's new stars. Waiting around the corner, jacket sleeves already rolled up, was Nik Kershaw.
According to Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners, the music industry had started to become "incredibly conservative. I was dealing with people who were much more careerist. At Mercury, by 1985, there were loads of public-school people - millions of them."
Dexys had already crashed once when, following the No 1 hit Geno, they recorded the super-intense single Keep It Part Two (Inferiority Part One). It received no airplay and failed to crack even the top 75.
"I just had something to say," says Rowland. "I was disappointed with success - we were still cramped in a minibus on hot summer days. I did not think, in any way, that Keep It was difficult. It was truthful, 100% truthful. Geno had been a No 1; I thought, if you like that amount of emotion, try this amount of emotion."
Dexys, though, had a second wind, and fought back with the million-selling Celtic soul of Too-Rye-Ay in 1982. Come On Eileen became an international No 1. They had survived and prospered. Too Rye Ay's follow-up, Don't Stand Me Down, was an astonishingly personal and beautiful record, but it became Dexys' equivalent of Dazzle Ships. The problem was it came out three years after Too-Rye-Ay.
Rowland is understandably proud. "I don't want to think about it too much because I want to think about what I'm doing now, but I remember coming out of the studio thinking, 'That's the best I can do.'"
Don't Stand Me Down emerged in a far less adventurous era than the one Too Rye Ay was released into. New mavericks on the block such as the Smiths and the Jesus and Mary Chain were entirely ignored by Radio 1. The same happened to Dexys, though it was their own fault - no single was released from the album.
"It was a stupid mistake," Rowland says. "I wanted This Is What She's Like to be the single, a 10-minute single. The manager said, 'Good idea ... or no single at all.' It was a chance to be like the groups of the early 70s, like Led Zeppelin. I thought that would be great, but I wasn't sure. There was a new guy at Mercury and he was like, 'What?' That was it. I said, we're definitely not releasing one. They [the label] went with Don't Stand Me Down for about a fortnight. Then they moved on to something else."
British eccentricity may well play a role in these crash-and-burn albums - a willingness to be contrary. Some Americans have followed gold albums with zero-sellers, but not many. Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson contained the original lung-busting power ballad, Without You, and made him a rich man. Never one for the obvious, he gave its sequel the misleading title Son of Schmilsson and filled it with raggedly sung novelties. It contained no obvious hits, though You're Breaking My Heart, a song for his ex-wife, did stand out: ABC's "apple crumble" line hardly holds a candle to "you're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart, so fuck you".
That was calculated self-destruction. Neil Young, having tasted fame and fortune with After the Goldrush and Harvest, famously said he would rather head for the ditch than stay in the middle of the road. And that's just what he did with Time Fades Away. Young recorded the stoned, muddy, hard-rocking album on a stadium tour to confused audiences who had never heard the songs before. No atmosphere, no acoustic balladry, just memories of getting a kicking in the schoolyard and an extended moan about LA. Young's profile duly disappeared.
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours had been recorded in trying circumstances. The sequel had the even more onerous task of following what was then the bestselling American album ever. Lindsey Buckingham assumed control of 1979's Tusk. Though it cost £1m to make - a figure that even today seems barely plausible - much of it sounded clattery, half-formed, with strange rhythmic leaps and offbeat tics. Hotel California it wasn't.
It later emerged in his girlfriend's memoirs that Buckingham had become obsessed with Talking Heads, and was desperate to make Mac relevant to a post-punk world. The problem was that even though Rumours had been all about break-ups and unfaithful lovers, it still sounded as though the roof was down and you were heading up the highway in the sunshine. Tusk was unleavened weirdness, as close to its predecessor as the Beach Boys' lo-fi Smiley Smile had been to Pet Sounds. It simply didn't cut the midwest mustard. However, like Dazzle Ships, Tusk makes a lot more sense to 2008 ears.
"The album that almost completely killed our career seems to have become a work of dysfunctional genius," says Andy McCluskey with a grin. "The reality is that it's taken Paul [Humphreys] 25 years to forgive me for Dazzle Ships. But some people always hold it up as what we were all about, why they thought we were great."
· The remastered edition of Dazzle Ships is out now on EMI
How To Lose 3 Million Fans In One Easy Step
With just one album, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark more or less destroyed their career. And they weren't the only ones: the early 1980s were littered with commercial suicides. Bob Stanley finds out how it all went wrong
Friday March 7, 2008
The Guardian
Guy Hands wouldn't allow it these days - what are these "artists" trying to do? Bankrupt the company? - but in 1983, no one batted an eyelid when a major chart band followed a multimillion selling pop album with something extremely obtuse. An album, even, that contained no obvious hits and soundtracked the cold war at its coldest. No one bought it, mind you, so Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's Dazzle Ships came to be viewed as a heroic failure - the ultimate commercial suicide.
"Every year we'd visit American Forces Network [the broadcaster for US troops] in Germany," remembers OMD's Andy McCluskey. "There were almost a million people at [the US] Frankfurt base, it was like a colony. And we'd see the same guy every year when we went there to do an interview. So we gave him Dazzle Ships and he said, 'Wow! Gee, what a weird album. Radio Prague? Let's play it! They'll think the commies have invaded!'"
Architecture and Morality, OMD's third album, had been a monster hit following its release in 1981, with any number of potential singles. Souvenir was first out of the block and made No 3. When Joan of Arc got rave reviews ahead of the album's release, McCluskey told Smash Hits: "That's nothing. Wait until you hear the next single - it's our Mull of Kintyre." Maid of Orleans duly became another huge hit in the UK, and Germany's best-selling single of 1982.
"It sounds strange, I know, but we had been trying to change the world," says McCluskey. "It was the naive confidence of youth, the idea that music is that important. The music we made had to be interesting and different. And somehow we believed that would change the world, the way people think. So when we sold 3m albums and the world didn't change, we were scared."
The result was a bout of writers' block. It wasn't as though OMD wrote conventional love songs to start with - Enola Gay was famously about Hiroshima, Stanlow about a power station - yet Dazzle Ships took off what McCluskey calls "the sweet wrapper". For starters, the first single was called Genetic Engineering. "I was very positive about the subject! I didn't expect someone like Monsanto to come along and say, 'Fuck it, we can make money out of cross-pollination.'"
However, when Dave Lee Travis played the single on Radio 1, he said - with some gravitas - that it was about time someone in the music world stood up to the evils of tinkering with nature. "People didn't listen to the lyrics," McCluskey recalls. "I think they automatically assumed it would be anti. Generally, I was pretty dark and pessimistic. Very precious and strong-minded."
The song is still one of Dazzle Ships' more overtly commercial moments. Disembodied voices from the eastern bloc sit over recordings of time signal pips, speak-and-spell machines, wartime submarines. "It all made sense to us. We wanted to be Abba and Stockhausen. The machinery, bones and humanity were juxtaposed."
Dazzle Ships entered the charts at No 5, then dropped like a stone. Architecture and Morality sold 3m; Dazzle Ships sold 300,000. With one record, Orchestral Manoeuvres lost 90% of their audience.
"I was the ideas man, Paul Humphreys made it happen. It was a symbiotic relationship. But I'm the one who took us right to the edge of the plank. When people heard Dazzle Ships, they obviously preferred our music with the sweet wrapper on. Not a song about someone's hand being cut off by a totalitarian regime. After that, there was a conscious and unconscious reeling-in of our experimental side. We got more ... conservative."
As, of course, did the whole country. Dazzle Ships, falling between the Falklands war and the Tories' emphatic
re-election, sounded the bell for the new pop playground that the charts had become. An almost forgotten era, now lumped in with the ephemera that succeeded it- the likes of Johnny Hates Jazz - new pop was an attempt in 1981 and 82 to marry chart music to the avant garde. Incredibly, it succeeded. There was no manifesto, but the new generation - OMD, ABC, Soft Cell, the Teardrop Explodes, Dexys Midnight Runners - had lived through punk, understood its situationist leanings, and understood the real value of music. While OMD name-dropped Dancing Queen, Ian Curtis and Mies van der Rohe, ABC claimed they existed to write "a soundtrack for the 80s".
At the turn of the decade, ABC had been Vice Versa, a Sheffield post-punk unit who leaned more towards the atonal than to Abba. They were interviewed for a fanzine called Modern Drugs by Martin Fry, and got on with him so well they asked him to become their singer. After changing their name to the perfectly minimalist ABC, they sat down to write some perfectly modernist love songs: Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow, The Look of Love, All of My Heart. All Top 20 hits; all soulful, well-dressed pop. Their parent album, The Lexicon of Love, defined the charts of 1982.
ABC predated OMD in their attempt to take on the preconceptions of their fanbase, and their second album, Beauty Stab, did not define the charts of 1983. The strings were gone, replaced by some tough guitars that sounded weirdly dated - sometimes like Low-era Bowie, sometimes closer to Led Zeppelin. Had it been released two years later, when guitars were voguish once more, it would have kept the ABC boat afloat. Instead, it just sounded confusing.
Like Genetic Engineering, the first single from Beauty Stab - That Was Then But This Is Now - was exhilarating and shrill, and made the top 20. The cause wouldn't have been entirely hopeless but for one line: "Can't complain, mustn't grumble, help yourself to another piece of crumble." It had perhaps been meant as a joke - it was followed by a cheesy sax break - but Roddy Frame of Aztec Camera lambasted it in an interview as embodying all that was bad in modern pop. Suddenly, the emperor's new pop clothes were revealed. The line has been a fixture in "worst lyrics" polls for 25 years, attaining the top slot in one conducted last year by BBC 6Music. Beauty Stab, like Dazzle Ships, died a quick death.
Which leads you to wonder what the hell happened in 1983. It was almost as if the country was tired of mavericks, had heard enough about unemployment figures and ghost towns and nuclear threat. They wanted glamour, in a Seaside Special way. Duran Duran had their first No 1 in 1983. Paul Young, Wham! and Howard Jones - considerably more pliable and predictable than OMD or ABC - were the year's new stars. Waiting around the corner, jacket sleeves already rolled up, was Nik Kershaw.
According to Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners, the music industry had started to become "incredibly conservative. I was dealing with people who were much more careerist. At Mercury, by 1985, there were loads of public-school people - millions of them."
Dexys had already crashed once when, following the No 1 hit Geno, they recorded the super-intense single Keep It Part Two (Inferiority Part One). It received no airplay and failed to crack even the top 75.
"I just had something to say," says Rowland. "I was disappointed with success - we were still cramped in a minibus on hot summer days. I did not think, in any way, that Keep It was difficult. It was truthful, 100% truthful. Geno had been a No 1; I thought, if you like that amount of emotion, try this amount of emotion."
Dexys, though, had a second wind, and fought back with the million-selling Celtic soul of Too-Rye-Ay in 1982. Come On Eileen became an international No 1. They had survived and prospered. Too Rye Ay's follow-up, Don't Stand Me Down, was an astonishingly personal and beautiful record, but it became Dexys' equivalent of Dazzle Ships. The problem was it came out three years after Too-Rye-Ay.
Rowland is understandably proud. "I don't want to think about it too much because I want to think about what I'm doing now, but I remember coming out of the studio thinking, 'That's the best I can do.'"
Don't Stand Me Down emerged in a far less adventurous era than the one Too Rye Ay was released into. New mavericks on the block such as the Smiths and the Jesus and Mary Chain were entirely ignored by Radio 1. The same happened to Dexys, though it was their own fault - no single was released from the album.
"It was a stupid mistake," Rowland says. "I wanted This Is What She's Like to be the single, a 10-minute single. The manager said, 'Good idea ... or no single at all.' It was a chance to be like the groups of the early 70s, like Led Zeppelin. I thought that would be great, but I wasn't sure. There was a new guy at Mercury and he was like, 'What?' That was it. I said, we're definitely not releasing one. They [the label] went with Don't Stand Me Down for about a fortnight. Then they moved on to something else."
British eccentricity may well play a role in these crash-and-burn albums - a willingness to be contrary. Some Americans have followed gold albums with zero-sellers, but not many. Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson contained the original lung-busting power ballad, Without You, and made him a rich man. Never one for the obvious, he gave its sequel the misleading title Son of Schmilsson and filled it with raggedly sung novelties. It contained no obvious hits, though You're Breaking My Heart, a song for his ex-wife, did stand out: ABC's "apple crumble" line hardly holds a candle to "you're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart, so fuck you".
That was calculated self-destruction. Neil Young, having tasted fame and fortune with After the Goldrush and Harvest, famously said he would rather head for the ditch than stay in the middle of the road. And that's just what he did with Time Fades Away. Young recorded the stoned, muddy, hard-rocking album on a stadium tour to confused audiences who had never heard the songs before. No atmosphere, no acoustic balladry, just memories of getting a kicking in the schoolyard and an extended moan about LA. Young's profile duly disappeared.
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours had been recorded in trying circumstances. The sequel had the even more onerous task of following what was then the bestselling American album ever. Lindsey Buckingham assumed control of 1979's Tusk. Though it cost £1m to make - a figure that even today seems barely plausible - much of it sounded clattery, half-formed, with strange rhythmic leaps and offbeat tics. Hotel California it wasn't.
It later emerged in his girlfriend's memoirs that Buckingham had become obsessed with Talking Heads, and was desperate to make Mac relevant to a post-punk world. The problem was that even though Rumours had been all about break-ups and unfaithful lovers, it still sounded as though the roof was down and you were heading up the highway in the sunshine. Tusk was unleavened weirdness, as close to its predecessor as the Beach Boys' lo-fi Smiley Smile had been to Pet Sounds. It simply didn't cut the midwest mustard. However, like Dazzle Ships, Tusk makes a lot more sense to 2008 ears.
"The album that almost completely killed our career seems to have become a work of dysfunctional genius," says Andy McCluskey with a grin. "The reality is that it's taken Paul [Humphreys] 25 years to forgive me for Dazzle Ships. But some people always hold it up as what we were all about, why they thought we were great."
· The remastered edition of Dazzle Ships is out now on EMI
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Exciting Annie-related News
Annie, wonderful Annie, whose last album "Anniemal" is one of the Seven Wonders Of Modern Pop (or something) is back. Back! BACK! To celebrate, she has put her new single up on her MySpace page.
Annie on MySpace
Her forthcoming album features collaborations with Brian Higgins, Richard X, Girls Aloud and Franz Ferdinand. I for one, cannot wait.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
REVIEW: ALBUMS
Goldfrapp "Seventh Tree" (Mute)
With this currently number two (two!) in the UK Album Chart, it seems almost redundant to be reviewing it now. But I wasn't one of those cheeky sods who downloaded the album when it leaked in November. Not that I'm overly concerned about the "damage this sort of thing does to the artist" you understand. It's more to do with my still present juvenile excitement at buying a record on the first day it's out in the shops. I like to swoon over the lyrics before I get to hear the songs in question. Imagine my surprised expression as I sat on the bus back home as I encountered the now immortal line "Roasting, roasting, roast indeed, mahogany titties that live on and on" ("Clowns"). Goldfrapp have always revelled in bizarre imagery, and lyrical curveballs like the one just referred to are part of what make them such an exciting, unpredictable pop group. Much has been made of their current joke-folk-opus (as Roy Harper once almost had it), but for all the acoustic sounds on offer it's still a pop album. It's stuffed with melodies. So long as they don't lose their talent for cooking up truly corking tunes, I don't care if their next album is an exploration of the musical possibilities of the Bulgarian noseflute. "A&E" is the lead single here - already a top 10 hit - and it's not even the catchiest thing on the album. That award goes to "Happiness", a sarcastic Beatles-y thing which evokes some scary alternative version of the Salvation Army, doling out cynical advice to the downhearted. It goes: "Join our club and you will find/ Harmony and piece of mind...Donate all your money, we'll make it better". On tracks such as "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" or "Little Bird", Alison does sound remarkably like a cross between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Frazer. Perfect for one of those spring/summer days when the trees are dappled in glorious golden sunshine (and we get a lot of those in Ireland don't we), "Seventh Tree" leaves the impression that Goldfrapp have a whole lot further to go before they run out of ideas. God knows what they'll do next, and that's the most brilliant thing about them in a way. (9 out of 10)
Magnetic Fields "Distortion" (Nonesuch)
It's hard to escape the feeling that this album - a sort of tribute to the sqwalling feedback of The Jesus and Mary Chain apparently - is slightly hamstrung by the noisy arrangement. Stephin Merritt contends that the last original or interesting development to take place in rock music was the release of JAMC's "Psychocandy" LP in 1985. I'm looking at a copy of Smash Hits here from July 1986, brothers Jim and William Reid are peeping out at me from the centrepages and declaring "To get in the Top 10 you've got to write a nauseating, obnoxious record, something like The Housemartins or Dr and the Medics..." JAMC would have a top ten hit 10 months later with "April Skies", but Magnetic Fields will have to wait a while yet before they reach such lofty heights. It's not that Merritt hasn't written some really good songs again, songs which display once again his knack for wordplay and melody. It's just the feedback sounds like a dull joke, a gimmick. Nothing wrong with gimmicks per se, but here it does get in the way. A bit. "Distortion" also harks back to early Magnetic Fields albums "The Wayward Bus" and "Distant Plastic Trees". Even the sprightliest songs here like "California Girls", "Please Stop Dancing" and "The Nun's Litany" sound decidedly lo-fi. It's the more subtle, gentle tracks which ultimately prove most rewarding; "I'll Dream Alone" and "Drive On Driver" being particularly pretty. "Too Drunk To Dream" wins the award for best opening line. It begins "Sober, life is a prison/ Shit-faced, it is a blessing". In conclusion then, was "Psychocandy" that good an album? No. So why bother? But you can't keep a genuine songwriting genius down. (7 out of 10)
Hot Chip "Made In The Dark" (EMI)
Not the hoped-for world-beating triumph to capitalise on the chart success of recent single "Ready For The Floor". This finds Hot Chip add to their repetoire of interesting-and-all-that, but still-slightly-annoying, technopop. The in-jokes can be a bit tiresome - this features an unwelcome spoken word bit from Todd Rundgren in the middle of "Bendable Poseable" - but when Hot Chip reign in their wackier tendencies they are quite affecting. "We're Looking For A Lot Of Love" is a gorgeous ballad, rather calling to mind New Order's "Thieves Like Us". "One Pure Thought" is just a smidgin, a remix perhaps, away from being a surefire hit. And "Ready For The Floor" is of course a great single, but you already know that. There's nothing bad here, it's just hard not to feel slightly disappointed that this isn't BLOODY GREAT when it feels like it could/should have been. (7 out of 10)
Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend" (XL Recordings)
What do they call this kind of thing? Mathrock or something silly like that? Sometimes labels aren't that helpful. This does sound rather like Paul Simon's "Graceland" in places though, and it's no wonder as Vampire Weekend are well to do college-going types from New York who just so happen to be into West African music. And good on them too, for they seem to be part of a new indieband mindset that has broader musical horizons than the dreary old Smiths/Oasis/Radiohead followers we've become so immune to. And if "Vampire Weekend" leads to a youngster buying Bhundu Boys or Hugh Masakela record, then all's well and good. The standouts are; "Oxford Comma" (ultra-pretty tune, swearing), "A-Punk" (something to dance to) and "Campus" (the rather touching moment). (8 out of 10)
The Orb "...The Dream" (Dragonfly)
Here's something of a surprise. After 12 years distancing themselves from the classic ambient dub sound of their brilliant "Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld" and "U.F.Orb" albums, The Orb don't just revisit similar territory but practically offer us "U.F.Orb II". Turns out the Mike Oldfield influence ran deeper than remixing "Tubular Bells" for him after all... Well, this isn't quite as great as "U.F.Orb" of course, but it does throw in a similar array of beguiling samples; I spotted Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man in there somewhere at one point. And "Lost and Found" is to this album what "Towers Of Dub" was to the "U.F.Orb" LP - that is, a dub reggae track with farty noises over the top, and lots of echo. Unlike their 1992 career-highpoint, this album is a bit lightweight in the tunes department. Only "Vuja De" and "The Truth Is..." threaten to burst into something resembling "song" at any point. But it's good to have them back, sounding just a bit like their old selves, and they've even put a tiny little picture of Battersea Power Station on the back to remind us of "Orb Live 93". Aw. (6 out of 10)
Billy Bragg "Mr Love & Justice" (Cooking Vinyl)
First album in six years, in which time he's written a book on the subject of Englishness - a very good book it was too. But perhaps it took something of his zest for creativity out of him. This album struggles to reach the great heights of the Bragg of "yore". "I Keep Faith" features a guest appearance from Robert Wyatt (one which WON'T scare everyone out of the pub I might add) and it'd sound right on Radio 2 but that's ok. Elsewhere not many songs make a huge impression initially, but "O Freedom" is a good old attack on the so-called war on terror, and "The Johnny Carcinogenic Show" is a strident attack on the tabacco and advertising industries. So while old-age may indeed have "mellowed" him, it's nice to hear Bragg have a good rant now and then. Initial copies come with a version of the album without Bragg's backing band The Blokes, so it all works out rather well in the end. It's no "Don't Try This At Home" or even a "Brewing Up With Billy Bragg" for that matter, but it'll do.
(6 out of 10)
With this currently number two (two!) in the UK Album Chart, it seems almost redundant to be reviewing it now. But I wasn't one of those cheeky sods who downloaded the album when it leaked in November. Not that I'm overly concerned about the "damage this sort of thing does to the artist" you understand. It's more to do with my still present juvenile excitement at buying a record on the first day it's out in the shops. I like to swoon over the lyrics before I get to hear the songs in question. Imagine my surprised expression as I sat on the bus back home as I encountered the now immortal line "Roasting, roasting, roast indeed, mahogany titties that live on and on" ("Clowns"). Goldfrapp have always revelled in bizarre imagery, and lyrical curveballs like the one just referred to are part of what make them such an exciting, unpredictable pop group. Much has been made of their current joke-folk-opus (as Roy Harper once almost had it), but for all the acoustic sounds on offer it's still a pop album. It's stuffed with melodies. So long as they don't lose their talent for cooking up truly corking tunes, I don't care if their next album is an exploration of the musical possibilities of the Bulgarian noseflute. "A&E" is the lead single here - already a top 10 hit - and it's not even the catchiest thing on the album. That award goes to "Happiness", a sarcastic Beatles-y thing which evokes some scary alternative version of the Salvation Army, doling out cynical advice to the downhearted. It goes: "Join our club and you will find/ Harmony and piece of mind...Donate all your money, we'll make it better". On tracks such as "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" or "Little Bird", Alison does sound remarkably like a cross between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Frazer. Perfect for one of those spring/summer days when the trees are dappled in glorious golden sunshine (and we get a lot of those in Ireland don't we), "Seventh Tree" leaves the impression that Goldfrapp have a whole lot further to go before they run out of ideas. God knows what they'll do next, and that's the most brilliant thing about them in a way. (9 out of 10)
Magnetic Fields "Distortion" (Nonesuch)
It's hard to escape the feeling that this album - a sort of tribute to the sqwalling feedback of The Jesus and Mary Chain apparently - is slightly hamstrung by the noisy arrangement. Stephin Merritt contends that the last original or interesting development to take place in rock music was the release of JAMC's "Psychocandy" LP in 1985. I'm looking at a copy of Smash Hits here from July 1986, brothers Jim and William Reid are peeping out at me from the centrepages and declaring "To get in the Top 10 you've got to write a nauseating, obnoxious record, something like The Housemartins or Dr and the Medics..." JAMC would have a top ten hit 10 months later with "April Skies", but Magnetic Fields will have to wait a while yet before they reach such lofty heights. It's not that Merritt hasn't written some really good songs again, songs which display once again his knack for wordplay and melody. It's just the feedback sounds like a dull joke, a gimmick. Nothing wrong with gimmicks per se, but here it does get in the way. A bit. "Distortion" also harks back to early Magnetic Fields albums "The Wayward Bus" and "Distant Plastic Trees". Even the sprightliest songs here like "California Girls", "Please Stop Dancing" and "The Nun's Litany" sound decidedly lo-fi. It's the more subtle, gentle tracks which ultimately prove most rewarding; "I'll Dream Alone" and "Drive On Driver" being particularly pretty. "Too Drunk To Dream" wins the award for best opening line. It begins "Sober, life is a prison/ Shit-faced, it is a blessing". In conclusion then, was "Psychocandy" that good an album? No. So why bother? But you can't keep a genuine songwriting genius down. (7 out of 10)
Hot Chip "Made In The Dark" (EMI)
Not the hoped-for world-beating triumph to capitalise on the chart success of recent single "Ready For The Floor". This finds Hot Chip add to their repetoire of interesting-and-all-that, but still-slightly-annoying, technopop. The in-jokes can be a bit tiresome - this features an unwelcome spoken word bit from Todd Rundgren in the middle of "Bendable Poseable" - but when Hot Chip reign in their wackier tendencies they are quite affecting. "We're Looking For A Lot Of Love" is a gorgeous ballad, rather calling to mind New Order's "Thieves Like Us". "One Pure Thought" is just a smidgin, a remix perhaps, away from being a surefire hit. And "Ready For The Floor" is of course a great single, but you already know that. There's nothing bad here, it's just hard not to feel slightly disappointed that this isn't BLOODY GREAT when it feels like it could/should have been. (7 out of 10)
Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend" (XL Recordings)
What do they call this kind of thing? Mathrock or something silly like that? Sometimes labels aren't that helpful. This does sound rather like Paul Simon's "Graceland" in places though, and it's no wonder as Vampire Weekend are well to do college-going types from New York who just so happen to be into West African music. And good on them too, for they seem to be part of a new indieband mindset that has broader musical horizons than the dreary old Smiths/Oasis/Radiohead followers we've become so immune to. And if "Vampire Weekend" leads to a youngster buying Bhundu Boys or Hugh Masakela record, then all's well and good. The standouts are; "Oxford Comma" (ultra-pretty tune, swearing), "A-Punk" (something to dance to) and "Campus" (the rather touching moment). (8 out of 10)
The Orb "...The Dream" (Dragonfly)
Here's something of a surprise. After 12 years distancing themselves from the classic ambient dub sound of their brilliant "Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld" and "U.F.Orb" albums, The Orb don't just revisit similar territory but practically offer us "U.F.Orb II". Turns out the Mike Oldfield influence ran deeper than remixing "Tubular Bells" for him after all... Well, this isn't quite as great as "U.F.Orb" of course, but it does throw in a similar array of beguiling samples; I spotted Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man in there somewhere at one point. And "Lost and Found" is to this album what "Towers Of Dub" was to the "U.F.Orb" LP - that is, a dub reggae track with farty noises over the top, and lots of echo. Unlike their 1992 career-highpoint, this album is a bit lightweight in the tunes department. Only "Vuja De" and "The Truth Is..." threaten to burst into something resembling "song" at any point. But it's good to have them back, sounding just a bit like their old selves, and they've even put a tiny little picture of Battersea Power Station on the back to remind us of "Orb Live 93". Aw. (6 out of 10)
Billy Bragg "Mr Love & Justice" (Cooking Vinyl)
First album in six years, in which time he's written a book on the subject of Englishness - a very good book it was too. But perhaps it took something of his zest for creativity out of him. This album struggles to reach the great heights of the Bragg of "yore". "I Keep Faith" features a guest appearance from Robert Wyatt (one which WON'T scare everyone out of the pub I might add) and it'd sound right on Radio 2 but that's ok. Elsewhere not many songs make a huge impression initially, but "O Freedom" is a good old attack on the so-called war on terror, and "The Johnny Carcinogenic Show" is a strident attack on the tabacco and advertising industries. So while old-age may indeed have "mellowed" him, it's nice to hear Bragg have a good rant now and then. Initial copies come with a version of the album without Bragg's backing band The Blokes, so it all works out rather well in the end. It's no "Don't Try This At Home" or even a "Brewing Up With Billy Bragg" for that matter, but it'll do.
(6 out of 10)
"I Love You, Tomorrow - You're Only 34 Days Awaaaaay!"
Yes, I got a bit side-tracked by my dissertation there. But that's done and dusted now and we can plough on. Okay? Okay.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
I'm Back. Back In Denim. And Denim Put The Soul In Yer Rock n' Roll.
Well having moved house a couple of times in the last couple of months, I've settled down a bit now and can continue to "blog" to my heart's content. Will post more tomorrow. For now, have a look at two of the best videos of 2008 so far...
Toodle-pip!
Toodle-pip!
Monday, November 26, 2007
Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly
In the meantime, a little "light" music...
Frazier Chorus "Typical" (1989)
Frazier Chorus "Typical" (1989)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
No Music Day
Will anyone observe the third "No Music Day" today? I must admit, I forgot all about it until just now... I haven't listened to any music thus far so I may follow Bill Drummond's advice to see if I feel any different having spent a completely music free day. Here's what Drummond has to say about in on his Guardian blog today...
I feel shit. It has just gone 6.30am and this is when I usually feel my best, when my mind is at its sharpest, when the ideas start tumbling into place and I am eager for the day ahead. But this morning I feel shit.
I've no right to claim this state; I mean I'm not living in cyclone-hit Bangladesh or stuck down a mine in the Ukraine or wherever it is.
Now that I have got that out the way I'm feeling better already. First thing to be done is this 600-word blog for the Guardian, then get emails sent before the others get to their Macs and PCs.
The reason that I got invited to do this blog is because Wednesday November 21 is No Music Day. Now in its third year, No Music Day was something I made up. I didn't go to any authority to have it sanctioned. I do not know if there is anywhere one is supposed to go to anyway. I made it up just for me, a way of addressing my jaded relationship with music amongst other things, but it seems to have been catching on. Last year the London-based cult radio station Resonance FM decided to embrace it. This year BBC Radio Scotland, a national radio station with several million regular listeners, has elected to observe it. This I feel good about and to this end I will be catching the sleeper up from Euston tonight, arriving in Glasgow bright and early on Wednesday morning. The day will be spent at the radio station being a guest on a number of the shows, fielding calls, making my case and placating doubters. Of course I will have to defend myself against those that think it all some sort of publicity stunt, prank or even worse - a cynical scam. If you want to know why I felt the need to have a No Music Day and why that day is on the November 21 click here to read what I wrote last year for the Observer's Music Monthly.
The major thing that has changed since writing that piece is that I've decided to limit it to just five years. I do not want to spend every November, for the rest of my life, trying to breathe new life into a concept, that should have been left alone years ago.
So this year being the third, I'm already half way through. Next year I would like to focus No Music Day on film. With so many films I feel that the soundtrack music just gets in the way. It is used to lend drama and emotion but so often it just cheapens and allows for lazy film-making. For the final No Music Day, on November 21 2009, I would love iTunes to shut up shop for the day. Hang the closed sign in their window for 24 hours. Give the world a break and themselves a day off.
But all that is some time away. Between now and catching the sleeper up to Glasgow tomorrow night, I've got to spend today typing up the last chapter in a book entitled 17. I've been working on this over the last 12 months and the final draft was supposed to be with the publishers last Friday. If the book has a central theme, it is about our culture's evolving relationship with music. How, as we delve deeper into the 21st century, the primacy of recorded music is beginning to look more and more like a hangover from another era, we will start developing ways of making, consuming and thinking about music in vastly different ways to what we have been used to for the past 50 odd years. All big stuff, and not something that I can even start on in a 600-word blog, but lying in bed this morning I had an idea. It was for the closing lines of the book; I wanted to use the quote "Say bye-bye, Sooty. Say bye-bye, Sweep". I got myself very excited about it, but couldn't work out why. The quote has no relevance to the rest of the book and anyway how many people would know it?
Last night I presented a performance of The17 at the Seventeen Gallery in London. The17 is a choir, which I have been developing over the past couple of years and will not be going overground with for some months.
Today will be spent working with Mark Lawson, putting together a feature for this evening's edition of Front Row on BBC Radio 4. We are going to be interviewing various people involved with music making and business, about the idea of No Music Day.
And now that I have got this blog done, I will make myself some porridge and walk my youngest son to school.
- Bill Drummond, the Guardian, Nov 21st 2007.
I feel shit. It has just gone 6.30am and this is when I usually feel my best, when my mind is at its sharpest, when the ideas start tumbling into place and I am eager for the day ahead. But this morning I feel shit.
I've no right to claim this state; I mean I'm not living in cyclone-hit Bangladesh or stuck down a mine in the Ukraine or wherever it is.
Now that I have got that out the way I'm feeling better already. First thing to be done is this 600-word blog for the Guardian, then get emails sent before the others get to their Macs and PCs.
The reason that I got invited to do this blog is because Wednesday November 21 is No Music Day. Now in its third year, No Music Day was something I made up. I didn't go to any authority to have it sanctioned. I do not know if there is anywhere one is supposed to go to anyway. I made it up just for me, a way of addressing my jaded relationship with music amongst other things, but it seems to have been catching on. Last year the London-based cult radio station Resonance FM decided to embrace it. This year BBC Radio Scotland, a national radio station with several million regular listeners, has elected to observe it. This I feel good about and to this end I will be catching the sleeper up from Euston tonight, arriving in Glasgow bright and early on Wednesday morning. The day will be spent at the radio station being a guest on a number of the shows, fielding calls, making my case and placating doubters. Of course I will have to defend myself against those that think it all some sort of publicity stunt, prank or even worse - a cynical scam. If you want to know why I felt the need to have a No Music Day and why that day is on the November 21 click here to read what I wrote last year for the Observer's Music Monthly.
The major thing that has changed since writing that piece is that I've decided to limit it to just five years. I do not want to spend every November, for the rest of my life, trying to breathe new life into a concept, that should have been left alone years ago.
So this year being the third, I'm already half way through. Next year I would like to focus No Music Day on film. With so many films I feel that the soundtrack music just gets in the way. It is used to lend drama and emotion but so often it just cheapens and allows for lazy film-making. For the final No Music Day, on November 21 2009, I would love iTunes to shut up shop for the day. Hang the closed sign in their window for 24 hours. Give the world a break and themselves a day off.
But all that is some time away. Between now and catching the sleeper up to Glasgow tomorrow night, I've got to spend today typing up the last chapter in a book entitled 17. I've been working on this over the last 12 months and the final draft was supposed to be with the publishers last Friday. If the book has a central theme, it is about our culture's evolving relationship with music. How, as we delve deeper into the 21st century, the primacy of recorded music is beginning to look more and more like a hangover from another era, we will start developing ways of making, consuming and thinking about music in vastly different ways to what we have been used to for the past 50 odd years. All big stuff, and not something that I can even start on in a 600-word blog, but lying in bed this morning I had an idea. It was for the closing lines of the book; I wanted to use the quote "Say bye-bye, Sooty. Say bye-bye, Sweep". I got myself very excited about it, but couldn't work out why. The quote has no relevance to the rest of the book and anyway how many people would know it?
Last night I presented a performance of The17 at the Seventeen Gallery in London. The17 is a choir, which I have been developing over the past couple of years and will not be going overground with for some months.
Today will be spent working with Mark Lawson, putting together a feature for this evening's edition of Front Row on BBC Radio 4. We are going to be interviewing various people involved with music making and business, about the idea of No Music Day.
And now that I have got this blog done, I will make myself some porridge and walk my youngest son to school.
- Bill Drummond, the Guardian, Nov 21st 2007.
Friday, November 16, 2007
You May Have Missed...
Recently, I whiled away an evening by taking Garry Mulholland's excellent book "This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco" down from the shelf and reading as much as my tired eyes could take in one sitting. While I did so, I played as many of the records he mentioned as I could put my hands on (i.e. whatever I could find on my iPod). After a couple of hours, I realised I had only managed to get as far as listening to the entries he chooses for the years 1977 and 1978. It's incredible how many great singles were released over the winter of '77/'78. The book is a real treasure, it has me gagging to track down singles I haven't heard, and re-discovering singles I'd neglected to listen to for a long time. There are (rare) occasions where I don't think he writes enough on a single (his treatment of Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky" is a bit lazy, but I suppose I should be happy he chose to include it at all). One of the best things about the book is the reproductions of single sleeves inside. The author is obviously passionate about artwork as well as the records in question, so the thrill of pop oozes from every page. If you haven't read it, make it a Christmas present for someone and have a sneaky read of it yourself. His follow-up book, "Fear of Music", which follows a similar format, and applies it to 261 (?) albums is also worth a look, but not as good as "This Is Uncool". One small gripe: this is a book about "important" singles, which necesserily neglects the detritus that makes pop music so exciting and ridiculous. So no mention of "The Lone Ranger" by Quantum Jump, or Haysi Fantayzee's "John Wayne Is Big Leggy". Maybe some of the best singles just defy any kind of logic you could try and apply to them.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: How Great Is The New Girls Aloud Album...?
BLOODY great is the answer you're looking for. Or to put it another way...
ALBUMS IT IS NOT AS GOOD AS; The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds", The Beatles "Revolver", ABBA "Gold", that sort of thing.
ALBUMS IT IS BETTER THAN; Kylie Minogue "X", Britney Spears "Blackout", Sugababes "Change", all of the previous Girls aloud albums.
ALBUMS IT IS ABOUT AS GOOD AS; Pet Shop Boys "Please", Betty Boo "Boomania!", Pulp "Different Class", TLC "CrazySexyCool", Goldfrapp "Black Cherry", Annie "Anniemal", Madonna "Confessions On A Dancefloor", Róisín Murphy "Overpowered"...
Alright, I'll review it properly. And in lieu of an image of the album sleeve popping up on google search, another pic of ver 'Girls.
GIRLS ALOUD "Tangled Up" (Polydor/Fascination)
What comes to mind when you think of Girls Aloud? Popstars: The Rivals, Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh? The phrase "Wives and Girlfriends"? Generic daytime radio blandpop? Fake tans? Very well, but only a buffoon would deny that Girls Aloud's best singles are among the most memorable and exciting British pop has provided us with in recent times. They've been lumbered with some iffy cover versions from time to time, but hopefully they're a big enough prospect to ditch the overwrought run-throughs of other people's hits. This album (their fourth, excluding last year's compilation "The Sound Of Girls Aloud") gives them the chance to step up a gear and, brilliantly, they do so.
This is not just a Girls Aloud album of course. It is also a Xenomania album. For the first time, every track on a Girls Aloud album has been written and produced by Xenomania (i.e. the production team which comprises all or some of the following; Brian Higgins, Miranda Cooper, Nick Coler, Gisele Somerville, Matt Gray, Toby Scott, Tim Powell and Lisa Cowling). Xenomania have been responsible for a lot of the greatest British pop music of the last decade. In Girls Aloud's "Biology", they produced what The Observer called (rightly, in my view) the Single Of The Decade. In other words, expectations are high here, and "Tangled Up" it resolutely NOT a let-down.
It kicks off with "Call The Shots" (last week's Single Of The Week here, see below) which is as good as anything Girls Aloud have released so far. A lovely contemporary synth pop tune, it is great in the way "Love Comes Quickly" or "Love Action" are great. It is the first in a run of six absolutely great tracks - potential singles all of them - on what in the old days we would have called "Tangled Up"'s side one. "Close To Love" and "Girl Overboard" are brisk and sparkly. The former is reminiscent of early Duran Duran, the latter is a wonderful minor-key marvel. Both sound machine-driven but not overly icy or distant. Something for Kylie's (or indeed Britney's) "people" to consider next time out. "Sexy! No No No" exemplifies Girls Aloud's trademark sound, rawk guitars, stomping beats...quite difficult to dance to, or indeed to sing along with for the most part, but then the chorus sqauts in your brain and refuses to leave. "Can't Speak French" is particularly impressive" - witty lyrics "I can't speak French, so I'll let the funky music do the talking...", set to an odd honky tonk type rhythm. It calls to mind Goldfrapp's "Satin Chic". From this point on, all sorts of styles are thrown into the album's musical palette; drum 'n' bass ("What You Cryin' For"), house-y reggae ("Control Of The Knife"), disco ("Damn") and yet more mean-rockin' riffs ("Fling", "I'm Falling"). If the album is missing anything, it's a killer-ballad. Closer "Crocodile Tears" is as close as we get, but it's still mid-tempo, harking back slightly to the brilliant 2003 single "Life Got Cold".
Undoubtedly, "Tangled Up" is a "result". (9 out of 10)
ALBUMS IT IS NOT AS GOOD AS; The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds", The Beatles "Revolver", ABBA "Gold", that sort of thing.
ALBUMS IT IS BETTER THAN; Kylie Minogue "X", Britney Spears "Blackout", Sugababes "Change", all of the previous Girls aloud albums.
ALBUMS IT IS ABOUT AS GOOD AS; Pet Shop Boys "Please", Betty Boo "Boomania!", Pulp "Different Class", TLC "CrazySexyCool", Goldfrapp "Black Cherry", Annie "Anniemal", Madonna "Confessions On A Dancefloor", Róisín Murphy "Overpowered"...
Alright, I'll review it properly. And in lieu of an image of the album sleeve popping up on google search, another pic of ver 'Girls.
GIRLS ALOUD "Tangled Up" (Polydor/Fascination)
What comes to mind when you think of Girls Aloud? Popstars: The Rivals, Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh? The phrase "Wives and Girlfriends"? Generic daytime radio blandpop? Fake tans? Very well, but only a buffoon would deny that Girls Aloud's best singles are among the most memorable and exciting British pop has provided us with in recent times. They've been lumbered with some iffy cover versions from time to time, but hopefully they're a big enough prospect to ditch the overwrought run-throughs of other people's hits. This album (their fourth, excluding last year's compilation "The Sound Of Girls Aloud") gives them the chance to step up a gear and, brilliantly, they do so.
This is not just a Girls Aloud album of course. It is also a Xenomania album. For the first time, every track on a Girls Aloud album has been written and produced by Xenomania (i.e. the production team which comprises all or some of the following; Brian Higgins, Miranda Cooper, Nick Coler, Gisele Somerville, Matt Gray, Toby Scott, Tim Powell and Lisa Cowling). Xenomania have been responsible for a lot of the greatest British pop music of the last decade. In Girls Aloud's "Biology", they produced what The Observer called (rightly, in my view) the Single Of The Decade. In other words, expectations are high here, and "Tangled Up" it resolutely NOT a let-down.
It kicks off with "Call The Shots" (last week's Single Of The Week here, see below) which is as good as anything Girls Aloud have released so far. A lovely contemporary synth pop tune, it is great in the way "Love Comes Quickly" or "Love Action" are great. It is the first in a run of six absolutely great tracks - potential singles all of them - on what in the old days we would have called "Tangled Up"'s side one. "Close To Love" and "Girl Overboard" are brisk and sparkly. The former is reminiscent of early Duran Duran, the latter is a wonderful minor-key marvel. Both sound machine-driven but not overly icy or distant. Something for Kylie's (or indeed Britney's) "people" to consider next time out. "Sexy! No No No" exemplifies Girls Aloud's trademark sound, rawk guitars, stomping beats...quite difficult to dance to, or indeed to sing along with for the most part, but then the chorus sqauts in your brain and refuses to leave. "Can't Speak French" is particularly impressive" - witty lyrics "I can't speak French, so I'll let the funky music do the talking...", set to an odd honky tonk type rhythm. It calls to mind Goldfrapp's "Satin Chic". From this point on, all sorts of styles are thrown into the album's musical palette; drum 'n' bass ("What You Cryin' For"), house-y reggae ("Control Of The Knife"), disco ("Damn") and yet more mean-rockin' riffs ("Fling", "I'm Falling"). If the album is missing anything, it's a killer-ballad. Closer "Crocodile Tears" is as close as we get, but it's still mid-tempo, harking back slightly to the brilliant 2003 single "Life Got Cold".
Undoubtedly, "Tangled Up" is a "result". (9 out of 10)
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
ESTELLE "Wait A Minute (Just A Touch)" (Atlantic)
"1980" feels like a long time ago doesn't it. Since that we haven't heard much from Estelle but now she's back! Back! BACK! She's enlisted John Legend and Will.I.Am from Black Eyed Peas to concoct a terrific comeback single, which could see her achieve her biggest hit yet. It's Brit-soul with a shuffly rhythm, a smidgin of brassy stabs and a killer chorus. Oh, and what can only be described as belchy noises. Lyrically it reverses the rampant misogyny of that other Will.I.Am collaboration, The Pussycat Dolls' "Beep". This single has more in common with, er, Common (whose "I Want You" is another excellent Will.I.Am aided hit from earlier this year). "Wait A Minute (Just A Touch)", happily, makes the winter feel like summer, so listen to it throughout the forthcoming cold, frosty mornings and be thankful.
YouTube:
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Because Six Months Is Too Long To Wait For Another Fix Of Eurovision...
In 1973, ABBA entered the Swedish "melodifestivalen", which is their Song For Europe, with the song "Ring Ring". They came third, and would have to wait another year for Euro-glory. Here is the song which won that 1973 competition, "You're Summer" by Nova. It contains the legendary line "Oh your breasts are like swallows nesting". Let's face it, that's why I'm posting it here.
(Ireland gave it five points in the '73 Eurovision Contest proper, by the way...)
(Ireland gave it five points in the '73 Eurovision Contest proper, by the way...)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
ALBUM REVIEW
Snigger all you like, student indie-snobs, one day you'll have a mortgage to pay too.
DAVID GRAY “Greatest Hits” (East West)
There are lots of people out there who seem to dislike David Gray intensely. For some it’s because he brought busking into the charts. Some people dislike him because they doubt his sincerity, others because his voice seems affected. Yet more people dislike his apparent wetness, and to some he’s a villain because he paved the way for the even less fondly regarded James Blunt. Gray’s rise to popularity seemed to usher in the age of what some commentators are fond of calling “mortgage rock”; a clearly dismissive term which puts paid to having to write anything at all sensible or thoughtful about bands such as Keane, Coldplay and Snow Patrol. A listen to this Greatest Hits album, does not reveal the blandorama Gray’s critics accuse him of cooking up. His reworking of “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” is not included here, which will be either a blessing or a swizz depending on where you stand the David Gray “issue”. However, the memorable, gentle piano ballad “This Year’s Love” is present and correct, as is the really quite excellent single “Sail Away”. The admittedly overplayed, but really-not-as-ropey-as-you-might-remember-it “Babylon” is also included. Elsewhere, lesser known singles such as “The Other Side” reveal some surprisingly dark lyrics. Fans will own everything here bar two tracks, one of which is recent single “You’re The World To Me”, but there are pleasant surprises in store for the open-minded. (8 out of 10)
Saturday, November 10, 2007
"Avoid Rock and Roll. Really. There's no money in it."
Irish indie hopefuls The Immediate split up this week. Helplines have been set up to console their weeping fans (music journalists, most of them) so as we bid a fond farewell to the band who Could Have Been Bigger Than An Emotional Fish, I present an interview I did with their bassist Peter Toomey earlier this year. It was intended for publication in a student paper but a cock up meant the music section never got printed. (Ciarán accepts no responsibility whatsoever for The Immediate splitting up).
HOW’S THE SECOND ALBUM COMING ALONG? We’ve recorded demos in Donegal and they’re sounding good. We’ve played a few new songs live and they’ve gone down really well. We played at Whelan’s last night actually.
WHAT HAS THE RESPONSE TO YOUR MUSIC BEEN LIKE IN ENGLAND? Gigs have been really good there, but it’s a tough place to crack. We played in Brighton and Sheffield and toured with The Young Knives. It’s tougher in London. The audiences are more cynical and jaded there, they’ve seen it all before and they can be hard to please. But we’re going back to Brighton in the summer to play a festival.
IS DANCE MUSIC REALLY MAKING A COMEBACK? I don’t know about this New Rave. All these bands like Enter Shikari…they’re all shouty guitars and squelchy noises over the top. Slightly folky stuff like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom…that seems to be more where things are going now. So, I’m not sure about this NME New Rave scene, no. I suppose it’s all about getting your music out there.
AND THREE PEOPLE STANDING IN A TELEPHONE BOX CONSTITUTES A “SCENE” AT THE NME, DOESN’T IT? Yeah…
HAVE THE NME IN IRELAND HELPED YOU AT ALL? Well, they mention us a bit but they’ve so many bands to cover. Yes, it’s a difficult one to break into really.
WHAT’S THE BEST BAND YOU’VE SUPPORTED OR BEEN SUPPORTED BY ON TOUR? The Young Knives…or Doves. I didn’t want to like The Young Knives but they won me over, they were so good. I was already a big fan of Doves, we got to play a few shows with them down the country and at The Olympia. Also there’s this U.S. band called Dios Malos, they were great too.
YOU USED TO WORK IN A RECORD SHOP. DID YOU EVER GET TO SELL A COPY OF YOUR OWN RECORD TO A CUSTOMER? Yeah! Before Christmas I sold a few copies of it. I just grinned. Some of them knew I was in the band, others didn’t.
DID ANYONE EVER TAKE THE RECORD BACK AND ASK TO EXCHANGE IT FOR SOMETHING ELSE? No, not in my presence anyway. If they had done would I have allowed their refund? Oh yeah! Of course…
WHAT WAS THE LAST ALBUM YOU BOUGHT? A compilation of stuff by Tim Hardin. I’d heard covers of his stuff by people like Scott Walker and The Small Faces. Also I bought a record by Au Revoir Simone. They’re three girls, really good…
SHOULD MORRISSEY HAVE ENTERED THE EUROVISION? I think so. He’s a big fan of sixties and seventies Euro-pop. He knows his stuff. But maybe he was just joking about actually entering himself. I think he would have done well, he’d have looked slick in front of the Eurovision viewers around Europe. Yes, I think they’re ready for something like that at Eurovision.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH POP MUSIC AT THE MOMENT? Too many bands are trying to be The Arctic Monkeys! Too many bands sound the same. You don’t get the weird one-hit wonders like you did in the seventies. It’s not as much fun now. You used to get things in the charts like (daft 1972 number one) “Mouldy Old Dough” by Lieutenant Pigeon. The guy had his mother on piano! And things like that would sit alongside stuff like The Sweet and T Rex. You don’t get that kind of thing now.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACHIEVE IN 2007? Just to get the record out and about a bit more here. People don’t know us well enough yet. We want to release the album (i.e last year’s superb “In Towers and Clouds”) in France. That’s it really. I’m looking forward to going to France…
DO YOU STILL HAVE TO GO TO LONDON TO ACHIEVE BIG SUCCESS OR IS IT POSSIBLE TO STAY IN DUBLIN? I suppose you do in a way have to go to London. But Europe is good too. It all filters down anyway. A lot of the bands from the sixties and seventies that I like are English bands but these days most of the bands I like come from the U.S. People like Wilco. But it’s good to do well in places like France, Germany and Scandinavia too, so we might concentrate on there a bit.
BONO : “YAY” OR “NAY”? (Not much hesitation…) Yay. It’s begrudgery isn’t it, all of these people putting him down. He must be doing something right. I wouldn’t mind being as successful as him.
WILL YOU VOTE IN THE UPCOMING GENERAL ELECTION? I think so, yes. I’ve got to get my voting card though! Should rock be political? (Thinks for rather a bit…) Nah. I don’t like when it gets too political. I like story songs, that’s what I try to write anyway.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR THE BUSINESS STUDENTS OF TRINITY COLLEGE? (Appears rather stumped…) Advice? Do I have any advice for them? (Thinks for about five years…) Um, keep your bus tickets, recycle them… Career advice? Oh. Er, apply for lots of jobs. Should they give it all up for rock and roll? Oh no. Avoid rock and roll. Really, there’s no money in it.
DID YOU CARE ABOUT IRELAND DOING WELL IN THE CRICKET WORLD CUP? I didn’t know we were in it! It gets a hard time of it in Ireland, cricket. I used to listen to it in the background while I studied. There was just something very relaxing about it. I didn’t really understand the rules, no.
WERE YOU A HAPPY TEENAGER? Like any teenager really, I was moody sometimes but I was happy. Did I ever write a song about my moodiness? I tried to write songs, yeah. They were a bit rubbish though.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST SONG YOU EVER WROTE? I just wrote some lyrics and gave them to Conor in the band (Conor O’Brien, The Immediate’s guitarist/ drummer/ singer!). He spent ages putting music to my lyrics. That was it really. I don’t really write songs by myself.
THE IMMEDIATE ARE RENOWNED FOR THEIR KNACK FOR SWAPPING INSTRUMENTS. IS THERE ANY INSTRUMENT WHICH YOU’VE TRIED – AND FAILED – TO MASTER? The guitar! I play drums and bass, but I never managed the guitar. There’s no competition among us over who’s the best guitarist, no. We’re all good at our instruments in different ways. We have different styles. We each bring our own thing to it.
WHAT’S THE MOST ANNOYING QUESTION YOU GET ASKED IN INTERVIEWS? “What do you think of the Irish music scene? Aren’t Irish bands doing well?” That’s because there are lots of bands in Ireland! Once this journalist tried to get us to slag off another Irish band. He was comparing our sales with theirs, things like that, trying to create competition or something. Yes, it was a bit nasty.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SO NERVOUS BEFORE A GIG THAT YOU WERE SICK ON YOUR AMPLIFIERS? I get very anxious before a show but it gives you adrenalin. I’ve never actually been sick, no. You get a better performance out of it really, so nerves are a good thing. I don’t really mind having to come out from behind my drum-kit to sing. It just gives me the right frame of mind.
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO DO: (A) GO DOWN THE BOOZER WITH AMY WINEHOUSE; (B) GO TO A VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT WITH CHRIS MARTIN OR (C) DISCUSS GUITAR TECHNIQUE WITH GLEN HANSARD OF THE FRAMES? (Thinks for several aeons…) I can only pick one, can I? Go drinking with Amy, probably. Failing that, guitar technique with Glen Hansard. I could probably learn a thing or two off him. What if Amy got drunk and started causing trouble? Well, I’d walk away at that point I think…
THANKS, PETER OF THE IMMEDIATE. Thanks! (Click! Brrrrrr…..)
HOW’S THE SECOND ALBUM COMING ALONG? We’ve recorded demos in Donegal and they’re sounding good. We’ve played a few new songs live and they’ve gone down really well. We played at Whelan’s last night actually.
WHAT HAS THE RESPONSE TO YOUR MUSIC BEEN LIKE IN ENGLAND? Gigs have been really good there, but it’s a tough place to crack. We played in Brighton and Sheffield and toured with The Young Knives. It’s tougher in London. The audiences are more cynical and jaded there, they’ve seen it all before and they can be hard to please. But we’re going back to Brighton in the summer to play a festival.
IS DANCE MUSIC REALLY MAKING A COMEBACK? I don’t know about this New Rave. All these bands like Enter Shikari…they’re all shouty guitars and squelchy noises over the top. Slightly folky stuff like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom…that seems to be more where things are going now. So, I’m not sure about this NME New Rave scene, no. I suppose it’s all about getting your music out there.
AND THREE PEOPLE STANDING IN A TELEPHONE BOX CONSTITUTES A “SCENE” AT THE NME, DOESN’T IT? Yeah…
HAVE THE NME IN IRELAND HELPED YOU AT ALL? Well, they mention us a bit but they’ve so many bands to cover. Yes, it’s a difficult one to break into really.
WHAT’S THE BEST BAND YOU’VE SUPPORTED OR BEEN SUPPORTED BY ON TOUR? The Young Knives…or Doves. I didn’t want to like The Young Knives but they won me over, they were so good. I was already a big fan of Doves, we got to play a few shows with them down the country and at The Olympia. Also there’s this U.S. band called Dios Malos, they were great too.
YOU USED TO WORK IN A RECORD SHOP. DID YOU EVER GET TO SELL A COPY OF YOUR OWN RECORD TO A CUSTOMER? Yeah! Before Christmas I sold a few copies of it. I just grinned. Some of them knew I was in the band, others didn’t.
DID ANYONE EVER TAKE THE RECORD BACK AND ASK TO EXCHANGE IT FOR SOMETHING ELSE? No, not in my presence anyway. If they had done would I have allowed their refund? Oh yeah! Of course…
WHAT WAS THE LAST ALBUM YOU BOUGHT? A compilation of stuff by Tim Hardin. I’d heard covers of his stuff by people like Scott Walker and The Small Faces. Also I bought a record by Au Revoir Simone. They’re three girls, really good…
SHOULD MORRISSEY HAVE ENTERED THE EUROVISION? I think so. He’s a big fan of sixties and seventies Euro-pop. He knows his stuff. But maybe he was just joking about actually entering himself. I think he would have done well, he’d have looked slick in front of the Eurovision viewers around Europe. Yes, I think they’re ready for something like that at Eurovision.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH POP MUSIC AT THE MOMENT? Too many bands are trying to be The Arctic Monkeys! Too many bands sound the same. You don’t get the weird one-hit wonders like you did in the seventies. It’s not as much fun now. You used to get things in the charts like (daft 1972 number one) “Mouldy Old Dough” by Lieutenant Pigeon. The guy had his mother on piano! And things like that would sit alongside stuff like The Sweet and T Rex. You don’t get that kind of thing now.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACHIEVE IN 2007? Just to get the record out and about a bit more here. People don’t know us well enough yet. We want to release the album (i.e last year’s superb “In Towers and Clouds”) in France. That’s it really. I’m looking forward to going to France…
DO YOU STILL HAVE TO GO TO LONDON TO ACHIEVE BIG SUCCESS OR IS IT POSSIBLE TO STAY IN DUBLIN? I suppose you do in a way have to go to London. But Europe is good too. It all filters down anyway. A lot of the bands from the sixties and seventies that I like are English bands but these days most of the bands I like come from the U.S. People like Wilco. But it’s good to do well in places like France, Germany and Scandinavia too, so we might concentrate on there a bit.
BONO : “YAY” OR “NAY”? (Not much hesitation…) Yay. It’s begrudgery isn’t it, all of these people putting him down. He must be doing something right. I wouldn’t mind being as successful as him.
WILL YOU VOTE IN THE UPCOMING GENERAL ELECTION? I think so, yes. I’ve got to get my voting card though! Should rock be political? (Thinks for rather a bit…) Nah. I don’t like when it gets too political. I like story songs, that’s what I try to write anyway.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR THE BUSINESS STUDENTS OF TRINITY COLLEGE? (Appears rather stumped…) Advice? Do I have any advice for them? (Thinks for about five years…) Um, keep your bus tickets, recycle them… Career advice? Oh. Er, apply for lots of jobs. Should they give it all up for rock and roll? Oh no. Avoid rock and roll. Really, there’s no money in it.
DID YOU CARE ABOUT IRELAND DOING WELL IN THE CRICKET WORLD CUP? I didn’t know we were in it! It gets a hard time of it in Ireland, cricket. I used to listen to it in the background while I studied. There was just something very relaxing about it. I didn’t really understand the rules, no.
WERE YOU A HAPPY TEENAGER? Like any teenager really, I was moody sometimes but I was happy. Did I ever write a song about my moodiness? I tried to write songs, yeah. They were a bit rubbish though.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST SONG YOU EVER WROTE? I just wrote some lyrics and gave them to Conor in the band (Conor O’Brien, The Immediate’s guitarist/ drummer/ singer!). He spent ages putting music to my lyrics. That was it really. I don’t really write songs by myself.
THE IMMEDIATE ARE RENOWNED FOR THEIR KNACK FOR SWAPPING INSTRUMENTS. IS THERE ANY INSTRUMENT WHICH YOU’VE TRIED – AND FAILED – TO MASTER? The guitar! I play drums and bass, but I never managed the guitar. There’s no competition among us over who’s the best guitarist, no. We’re all good at our instruments in different ways. We have different styles. We each bring our own thing to it.
WHAT’S THE MOST ANNOYING QUESTION YOU GET ASKED IN INTERVIEWS? “What do you think of the Irish music scene? Aren’t Irish bands doing well?” That’s because there are lots of bands in Ireland! Once this journalist tried to get us to slag off another Irish band. He was comparing our sales with theirs, things like that, trying to create competition or something. Yes, it was a bit nasty.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN SO NERVOUS BEFORE A GIG THAT YOU WERE SICK ON YOUR AMPLIFIERS? I get very anxious before a show but it gives you adrenalin. I’ve never actually been sick, no. You get a better performance out of it really, so nerves are a good thing. I don’t really mind having to come out from behind my drum-kit to sing. It just gives me the right frame of mind.
WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO DO: (A) GO DOWN THE BOOZER WITH AMY WINEHOUSE; (B) GO TO A VEGETARIAN RESTAURANT WITH CHRIS MARTIN OR (C) DISCUSS GUITAR TECHNIQUE WITH GLEN HANSARD OF THE FRAMES? (Thinks for several aeons…) I can only pick one, can I? Go drinking with Amy, probably. Failing that, guitar technique with Glen Hansard. I could probably learn a thing or two off him. What if Amy got drunk and started causing trouble? Well, I’d walk away at that point I think…
THANKS, PETER OF THE IMMEDIATE. Thanks! (Click! Brrrrrr…..)
Thursday, November 08, 2007
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Girls Aloud "Call The Shots" (Polydor/Fascination)
After the disappointment of the Sugababes' below-par album and The Spice Girls' comeback - a damp squib of a single if ever there was one - it's left to Girls Aloud to rescue British girlpop once again. Happy to report then, that "Call The Shots" is their best single since "Biology". We're talking triumphant mid-paced synthpop, wistful midwinter disco. It seems that Brian Higgins and his Xenomania pals are incapable of writing a bad tune, and they seem to save their very best ones for GA. If this doesn't whizz into the Top 5 next week, there really is no justice in the world. It is simply one of the most charming pop releases of the year and bodes very well for their imminent album "Tangled Up". Their guest appearance on X Factor next week will hopefully give it an added sales boost. Hurrah!
YouTube:
After the disappointment of the Sugababes' below-par album and The Spice Girls' comeback - a damp squib of a single if ever there was one - it's left to Girls Aloud to rescue British girlpop once again. Happy to report then, that "Call The Shots" is their best single since "Biology". We're talking triumphant mid-paced synthpop, wistful midwinter disco. It seems that Brian Higgins and his Xenomania pals are incapable of writing a bad tune, and they seem to save their very best ones for GA. If this doesn't whizz into the Top 5 next week, there really is no justice in the world. It is simply one of the most charming pop releases of the year and bodes very well for their imminent album "Tangled Up". Their guest appearance on X Factor next week will hopefully give it an added sales boost. Hurrah!
YouTube:
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