Listen to this track by London denizen, anti-Katy Perry pop songstress, and mum Lily Allen. It’s her 2009 song “The Fear” as taken from her second record to follow up 2006′s Alright, Still, and cheekily titled it is too, It’s Not Me, It’s You.
Despite the fashionable retro-electro musical style, this song is about a culture that celebrates the ephemeral, the lavish, and the self-serving, the incredibly shallow, laced as it is with irony, and not just a little bit of disgust at the attitudes pervasive in pop star circles.
Iconoclastic lyrics against a smooth electro-pop backdrop and all, Allen scored number ones in the UK, and here in Canada, too. The album went triple-platinum in the UK, with “The Fear” scoring best track at the 2009 Q Awards. The record was nominated for the Mercury Prize that year, too. The song was her second entry in the US Billboard Hot 100.
All of this is quite an irony in some ways, given that she was taking pot shots at the very characteristics that pop stardom appears to represent. But who specifically is this song aimed at?
Listen to this track by Scottish post-punk and eventual stadia-ready music proponents Simple Minds. It’s “Up on the Catwalk”, the third single from their last-of-its-kind 1984 album Sparkle In The Rain, the band’s sixth record.
This would be one of the songs for which the band is most associated in the first chapter of their career. It was put out near the end of an era for the band, and before a new direction would carry them into the second half of the decade, which included a top 40 mainstream hit in “Don’t You Forget About Me”.
That tune’s smash success was helped along by its inclusion in the era-defining John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club. This was the song that placed them in a pure rock/pop top 40 sphere, and in the record collections of those who’d perhaps not been familiar with them in their earlier incarnation as dark and spiky post punk purveyors.
Yet before that more mainstream success, “Up On The Catwalk”, would capture the band at the height of their post-punk roots, and perhaps at the tail end of that era for many bands contemporary to them. Read the rest of this entry →
Listen to this track by spiky new wave piano man and skillful pop composer Joe Jackson. It’s “Home Town”, a track originally taken from his 1986 album Big World, with this versionrecorded live in New York City in 1999 and featured on the album Live in New York: Summer In the City.
The original is a bright, effervescent pop song full of buoyant guitar. Yet, the song holds a certain world-weariness that the original version masks. Ordinarily, this is a welcome contrast.
But, as good as the original is, something entirely new came out of it when he rearranged it for a new musical context. When it came time to get together in the summer of 1999 to perform some of his tunes in a casual series of club dates “just for the hell of it”, the songs were reinterpreted for a trio; himself on piano and singing, backed up by stalwart sidemen Graham Maby on bass, and Gary Burke on drums.
Yet on this song, it’s all Jackson, a middle part of a suite of songs (“Be My Number Two” and “It’s Different For Girls” bookend it) played solo. Instead of the irony that can be picked up in the original, here the solo version reveals an entire country of emotions waiting for the listener underneath.
You might think that Jackson had removed his signature element of surprise to be found in his music up until this point by interpreting this song as a straight up ballad, rather than a poppy guiter driven tune that hides some melancholic undercurrents. But, you’d be wrong. Here’s why.
Here’s a clip of 21st century folk-rock meets post-punk London five-piece Dry The River. It’s their single “The Chambers & The Valves”, the third release from the band’s 2012 record Shallow Bed, their first full length. The group released this song on an EP of the same name in 2009, during a time when they were building up momentum to their debut.
The band formed that year, then consisting of Peter Liddle (Vocals, Guitar), Will Harvey (Violin) and Jon Warren (Drums), later to be joined by Matt Taylor (Guitar) and Scott Miller (Bass). They’ve since signed to Sony, and Shallow Bed was released in North America on April 17 of this year. Despite being a London-based band, and having built up an audience by way of appearances at key European festivals, the band recorded this song and the rest of the record in Bridgeport, Connecticut under the watchful eye of producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National).
The band also garnered attention starting off as a completely self-contained entity, releasing their initial EPs on their own, and making their own videos. It was one of these that caught the attention of Sony. Here’s an excerpt from an interview on NPR, talking about how YouTube led to being signed by Sony. Read the rest of this entry →
Here’s a clip from multimedia technology boffin and pop song tinkerer Thomas Dolby. It’s “Oceanea” as taken from his 2011 album A Map of The Floating City, his long-awaited full-length release after a long hiatus as a recording artist. Dolby’s last traditional studio album was 1992′s Astronauts & Heretics, put out just before he delved into other commercial avenues.
These avenues included software production for delivering music over the Internet (Beatnik), the founding of a company to produce it (Headspace) , multimedia projects like Gate To the Mind’s Eye, and, incredibly, his pioneering work with cellphone ringtones of all things.This is not to mention his frequent involvement in TED conferences, being as he is a proponent of technology, progressive ideas, and how one affects the other.
But, Dolby had always been interested in making records even if the gap between them had become pretty wide by the 21st Century. So, by the mid-2000s, he set to work in returning as a recording artist, and with this record. That’s a long gestation period, maybe.
But, Dolby had a number of projects attached to the creation of this album. One was the design and construction of the studio in which the album was made; a refurbished 1930s-era lifeboat, powered by solar and wind power, christened The Nutmeg. Another was a move with his wife and kids from the United States, where he’d lived for many years, and back to England. And that’s where this song,”Oceanea” comes in. Read the rest of this entry →
Listen to this track by serious-minded R&B figureheads from Newcastle The Animals. It’s their 1965 hit song “We’ve Got To Get Out Of This Place”, a single released in July of that year, and used subsequently in seemingly every single movie about Vietnam ever (I think it must be a rule).
Up until this point, the Animals hadn’t quite reached the screaming heights of the Beatles or the Stones. But, they were established on the scene with those bands from the early to mid 1960s, and were known as being as close to the “real thing” as any band working in the London rhythm & blues scenes. They were respected.
They also had a hit or two under their belts, pretty much owning “The House of the Rising Sun”, even if it was something of a well-travelled folk tune before they recorded it. But, “We’ve Got To Get Out Of This Place” was perfectly matched to Eric Burdon’s old-man-living-in-a-young man’s-body vocal delivery. This is a tale of worldly wisdom before one’s time, aware of the cruelties of life, the pointlessness of toil, and the fleeting nature of beauty and innocence; heavy stuff.
The irony that this tune, a stalwart anthem of so many war movies about Americans in far away countries, is more closely associated with sentiments much closer to home.
Listen to this track by 21st century art-rock purveyors, and progressive Bristolian collective Hi-Fiction Science. It’s their Krautrock meets Afrobeat meets post-punk 2011 track “Kosmonaut” as taken from their self-titled album Hi-Fiction Science, released on their own imprint Negative Drive.
The band arose “out of the ashes” of another band, Suncoil Sect, in the late 2000s. It’s comprised of Maria Charles (Vocal), Jeff Green (Bass/Keyboards/Percussion), James McKeown (Guitar/Keyboards/Percussion), Matt Rich (Keyboards/Samples), and Aidan Searle (Drums/Percusssion).
The Bristol-based band manages to fuse influences as diverse as Public Image, Ltd. with Can and Neu!, while throwing in some groove-oriented jams for good measure.
This is an art-rock approach that seeks a wider audience, gaining airplay via Stuart Maconie on BBC6 . And more recently, the band tied themselves into a continuum of progressive British music by providing a cover version of The Pretty Things’ “Private Sorrow” on the Fruits De Mer compilation album Sorrow’s Children.
“Kosmonaut” came out of a single drum pattern, growing into a groove, and with added spoken-word material added later on.On hearing it, I was interested in the amalgam of art-rock textures against what is clearly a groove-oriented approach to composition. So, I asked drummer Aidan Searle about what inspired this track. Talking it over with his bandmates, Searle said,
‘The track was initially born out of collective improvisation triggered by the afrobeat drum pattern. Inspiration from Can and Metal Box-era PIL both fed into the track’s subsequent evolution. The spoken word passages were developed at a later point to give a sense of narrative that reflected the atmosphre of the music’.
Where did that spoken-word section come from?
The initial inspiration for words came from Hunter S Thompson’s early ’70s lament in Fear and Loathing for the failure of the ’60s to fundamentally change the nature of society.
Which is all very well and good. But, Searle mentions that this tune is a band favourite in a live setting. What makes it so fun to play?
“Kosmonaut” is one of our earliest compositions and is a consistent feature of our live set - it’s great to lock in on the ‘Death Disco’ four to floor beat in the first half of the track.
Here’s a clip of Southport quintet, and former Mercury-prize winners Gomez. It’s “Rhythm & Blues Alibi”, a key track as taken from their second album, 1999′s Liquid Skin. This record was the follow-up to their universally praised debut Bring It On, which placed quite a bit of pressure on the young band to come up with something great. And that’s what they did, with this song as something of a sonic reference point to their approach, mixing subtle electronics, folk-rock, blues, and classic British guitar-rock.
The band stood out on their debut as not quite fitting in with what other bands of their strain were doing at the time. Gomez referenced rootsier sources, while also using treated sounds and supplemental beats to offset traditional rock expectations. But on this record, they left some of their lo-fi sensibilities that were so prominent on their debut behind them and embraced a fuller sound.
And despite success of the singles off of the record, and the platinum sales figures, rock snobbery in some quarters decreed that they had had their time in the sun with Bring It On, and that it was all ‘diminishing returns’ from Gomez.
The band couldn’t have been unaware of this tendency of British critics to write off the follow-ups to critically acclaimed albums. And it’s this that makes me think that these kinds of criticisms are worked into the lines of this song. Read the rest of this entry →
Listen to this song by former ’60s British pop pin-up turned ’70s bearded folky hit-maker Cat Stevens. It’s “The Boy With The Moon & Star On His Head” a spiritual parable positioned as a traditional English folk song. The tune is taken from 1972′s Catch Bull At Four album, his follow-up to the immense Teaser & the Firecat record. Because of the momentum created by that previous release, Catch Bull At Four was his best-selling record.
Cat Stevens had enjoyed some success previous even to his celebrated early ’70s albums as a pop star. He’d changed his name from Steven Georgiou to Cat Stevens in the ’60s, enjoying some success with respectably charting songs in the UK, like “Matthew & Son”, “I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun”, and “I Love My Dog”.
He also would score some success as a songwriter of material for other people, including “The First Cut Is The Deepest”, a hit initially for P.P Arnold, and then for others down the decades (Sheryl Crow, Rod Stewart). Yet, it would be in the next decade where he’d forge his musical path, with a sort of baroque-flavoured folk style infused with a sense of the spiritual.
This tune is certainly one of those, starting off with a scene of ’60s free-love, and eventually turning to a less carnal, and more mystically informed theme of spiritual wisdom, with a prescription for love and connectedness as a pay-off.
In some ways this wasn’t just a song, but it was Stevens’ story as an artist, too. But, how?
Listen to this track by British folk dynasty progeny, and superlative singer-songwriter besides, Teddy Thompson. It’s “Take Care Of Yourself”, a gem of a tune from his 2011 album Bella.
The album traces the episodes in meeting someone, falling in love, and then being faced with the reality of having to say goodbye. The music here on this track can be described as a sort of country-folk torch song along the lines of a Chris Isaak, k.d lang, and Rufus Wainwright. Teddy Thompson and Rufus Wainwright are well acquainted as friends and artistic collaborators, too. The commonalities between the two are notable,with both artists forging their own paths, and being the offspring of folk-singing families albeit on either sides of the Atlantic.
Teddy was born in 1976 while his parents Richard & Linda Thompson had been living in a Sufi community outside of London. This was around the time when they were creating some of their most celebrated work as a duo in I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and Pour Down Like Silver, among others.
As such, his pedigree as a musician and songwriter is well-established, and the melancholy found in his own work is come by honestly. Since he established himself as a musician, he’s played a part in the creation of his parents’ solo records, including as co-producer on his mother’s Fashionably Late album, and has been the opening act for father Richard in the 1990s. But, in 2000, he struck out on his own with his own recording career apart from his work with his parents.
And with this song, he brings maturity and subtlety to one of the more bittersweet chapters in the span of a love affair; the mutually agreed upon break-up. Thompson treats his subject matter seriously, and accentuates his writing with an emotionally infused vocal delivery, helped along by twangy guitar, and swelling strings, the latter inspired by the strings Buddy Holly used on his records, and arranged in this case by producer David Kahne. His soaring vocals towards the end is a real treat, evoking yet another style; a sort of Bobby Hatfield-like soul-pop.
What comes out of all of that is a song that sounds as though it could have been written in any era, perhaps because the ecstasies and sorrows of love are just as timeless.
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