We’ve heard this before, and it’s usually a recipe for disaster: British fashion model (the face of Marks and Spencer, no less) turns singer and makes dance-pop album. The difference with Travelling Like the Light is that V.V. Brown’s idea of dance pop comes from the late fifties and early sixties, as run through early Roxy Music and updated with modern dance production. If this doesn’t end up the pop album of the year then this is going to be one amazing year. These two tracks barely scratch the surface. Complete album stream available here.
Archive for the ‘albums’ Category
More than recommended
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010Finally
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010After seven years, the new Cornershop, Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast, arrives next week (it’s been out in the UK since July). Here’s a sample. Sounds pretty much the same as always, but who cares? They’re great.
Recommended
Friday, March 12th, 2010Titus Andronicus’s The Monitor. At their worst, which is rarely, they’re Bon Jovi with teeth. At their best they’re The Replacements singing about (the) civil war. As someone who’s almost given up on guitar and punk bands, I need this more than I realized.
90%
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010A couple of days ago, Michaelangelo put up a note on his Tumblr blog, quoting a wonderfully pretentious line from the new Ted Leo and the Pharmacists album, The Brutalist Bricks. Sometimes I find myself in the mood for a good piece of pretentious nonsense, so I gave the album a spin on Rhapsody (yes, I know that’s an anachronism–sue me). It more than met any expectations Michael had created. It’s just about the funniest collection of late ’70s new wave cliches I’ve heard since, oh, the late ’70s. I was especially fond of the song that shifts from a Nick Lowe rip into an Elvis Costello rip and then back again. The Jam rip may be even better, since it not only lifts their music, but their overwrought political phrase slinging as well. All that’s missing is a cod reggae track. It’s all so intensely sincere. I haven’t laughed so hard at a record in months.
But then, tonight, I’m looking at The AV Club, and I see they’ve reviewed the album and given it a B+. Hmm. Fair enough, I think, but what kind of B+? An honorable B+, or a somewhat cynical, this gets a fairly high grade because it’s so wonderfully ridiculous B+? I was expecting the latter, but surprisingly, what I got was the former. The reviewer, who I’m not familiar with, considers it a good, if not great album. Even more surprising was the comments section. The AV Club has some the snootiest, most cynical commenters on the web, and in the case of this particular piece of flapdoodle I thought they would deliver their best. Instead I got oodles of Ted Leo love, including sincere comparisons to The Drive-By Truckers (huh?), Yo Lo Tengo (as if), and The Clash (oh, fuck you). I expected cynics, and found fanboys—fanboys who can’t tell the difference between Ted Leo and The Clash.
I’m not upset or surprised by this so much as confused. Actually, I’m not even confused, just stunned once again by further evidence that whoever it was that said 90% of everything is crap was referring to the audience, as well. 90% of the audience is crap. There. I’ve said it, and I’m glad.
(Oh, and critics, too. Don’t forget the critics.)
How else you gonna make eggnog?
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009Last weekend Jaq and I threw a Christmas party, and of course it was my job to put together some music. I was short on time and most of my Christmas music is on vinyl, so I decided to use my Rhapsody account and slap together a quick Christmas playlist. I picked a few obvious favorites—Dylan’s insane new Christmas album, Phil Spector, Charles Brown, etc—but then I decided it would be fun to put together a jazz playlist. I was happy to discover that there was quite a lot, except, that is, when I did a search for Louis Armstrong. I had assumed that since he recorded in the heyday of classic Christmas pop music, there must be quite a few Armstrong renditions of seasonal favorites. I was wrong. There are plenty of Armstrong Christmas albums, but not a single one that isn’t supplemented with either tracks by other artists or Armstrong cuts that can barely be stretched into the holiday tradition. He just didn’t care for Christmas music, I guess.
My favorite, by far, is Wonderful Christmas, which has both the cheesiest cover and the most bizarre song selection. Its fourteen tracks include three actual Christmas songs, two songs that are often performed as if they were holiday related, even though they’re not (“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “Moonlight In Vermont”), and nine cuts that have no relation to Christmas or wintertime whatsoever. These include “Hello Dolly” (well, it was a hit), “Jeepers Creepers”, “New Orleans Stomp”, and the woeful blues of “St James Infirmary”. The two eyebrow raisers, though, are “Just A Gigolo” (is he a present?) and “I Want A Butter and Egg Man”, which, as you might have guessed, is not about dairy products. It is, however, about a sneaky guy who makes special deliveries. That’s close enough to Christmas, I guess.
History is hard
Thursday, November 26th, 2009As anyone who cares already knows, today is the day Billboard changes the rules for its album charts and allows releases older than 18 months to appear on the Top 200. Considering the season, it’s no surprise that a large number of those older LPs are Christmas records. There seem to be some problems with the historical numbers, though. Michael Jackson’s Thriller is correctly shown with a peak position of 1. Oddly enough, though, The Beatle’s remasters, all of which also went to number one in their original release, show totally different peak postions. The White Album, for instance, shows a peak position of 152, it’s current position on the chart, despite being number 1 for nine weeks in 1968. The listing for Abbey Road is even more confusing. It was number 1 for 11 weeks, but Billboard shows its peak as 69, a number that makes no sense since its current position is 118 and it wasn’t on the chart last week. The remaster also made top ten on the old Comprehensive chart, so they can’t be referring to that, either. Perhaps not coincidentally, however, 69 does match up with the year of Abbey Road’s original release. It’s enough to make you wonder if they’re still doing these things by hand.
Update (11/30/09): The numbers are correct in the print edition, but are still wrong in both online versions of the chart. Guess nobody proofs the web sites.
Indie Pop–So Easy Even the French Can Do It
Friday, May 15th, 2009I’m finding it difficult to understand all the blog fuss over Phoenix. The singles are catchy enough, but they’re also limp and twee, and the album drags. To me they sound like Spoon without the brashness, as if Britt Daniel had decided to ape The Cowsills instead of Motown. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, though, until the Rhapsody blog posted this tracklist of a mixtape the band put together. Has there ever been a more cliched indie mix? You’ve got your ironic pop-metal band (Kiss) leading off, followed by all the usual suspects: your mid-sixties punk, your ’60s soul (The Impressions sure, but no Motown at all?), your glam, your ambient electronic, your new wave (but, really, Costello’s version of “Shipbuilding” over Robert Wyatt’s?), punk uncles Iggy and Lou, some power-pop, your semi-pop avant-gardests like Red Crayola and Dirty Projectors, and the newest entry in the indie pantheon, early ’70s Brazilian psychedelic. Plus the required Dusty Springfield and Beach Boys related stuff (I love them both, but the indie genuflection has been too much to take for a while now). The closest thing to modern R&B or hip-hop is D’Angelo. All that’s missing is Bollywood and lounge. Well, besides African, rap, J-Pop, and any form of techno or synth-pop (and no, Tangerine Dream doesn’t count). Great records all, I suppose, but in indie terms safe and predictable. Indie may still not be mainstream, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a mainstream of it’s own, and Phoenix sails right down the middle of it. Even Disney pop is wilder than this.
Just as a postscript, the thought of French artists imitating British and American pop music made me think of one of my favorite French pop records: Michel Polnareff’s “Tout, Tout Pour Ma Cherie” (at least Polnareff had the good taste to sing in French–which reminds me, why isn’t there any Abba on that mixtape?). The video, which unfortunately isn’t embeddable, is actually a TV performance of France Gall’s “Les sucettes” (the original is here) with Polnareff’s track laid over it, but its oral suggestiveness fits perfectly with Polnareff’s catchy little ditty. If nothing else, I’d like to thank Phoenix for leading me to this bizarre gem (and lots of others). So merci beaucoups, guys, I could be lost for hours watching stuff like this:
Lotusflow3er
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Nothing really to say about this, though I would suggest a more descriptive title: Prince: In a Psychedoodlin’ Mood
