Tag Archives: British music

Jan23

Heaven 17 Play “Temptation”

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Heaven 17 Play “Temptation”

Listen to this track by Sheffieldian one-time Human League splinter group, and sonically ambitious hitmakers in their own right, Heaven 17. It’s their smash UK single “Temptation” as taken from their 1983 album The Luxury Gap.

One of the features here is guest vocalist Carol Kenyon, who sings in a Northern Soul influenced style, contrasting the synth-pop groove. The tune would also incorporate a full orchestra, creating even more textural contrast, and producing a high-charting single that year for the band, reaching number 2 in the UK pop charts.

The Luxury Gap was the group’s second record, after 1981′s Penthouse and Pavement. The band had been one of the most prominent proponents of Northern synth pop, although initially split off from the Human League, a project that was abandoned by keyboardists Ian Craig-Marsh and Martyn Ware. They’d left the band in the hands of vocalist Phil Oakey. That version of the Human League under Oakey’s leadership would become an international success with a new line-up.

But, Craig-Marsh and Ware had pop smarts of their own to draw from. Read the rest of this entry →

Jan9

David Bowie Sings “The Jean Genie”

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David Bowie Sings “The Jean Genie”

Here’s a clip of androgynous musical brushfire-starting alien pin up David Bowie, and his soon-to-be-erstwhile Spiders From Mars. It’s the recently discovered clip of his 1973 performance of “The Jean Genie” on the British music program Top of the Pops.

The song is taken from the album Aladdin Sane, a record released that very year in April. This song was the lead single, actually released earlier in November of 1972.  This was the height of the glam-rock period, when colourful costuming and gender-bending stage personas met the vintage Chess blues ‘n’ boogie sound.

This particular clip was discovered recently, and broadcast on the Top of the Pops 2011 Christmas special. Bowie and TOTPs go hand in hand, particularly in this phase of his career. His performance of “Starman” in the summer of 1972 galvanized rock fans all over the country and kick-started the seeds of British punk, post-punk, and New Romanticism. But despite all that, Bowie had his own preoccupations, namely making sense out of America, the fascination and disorientation he felt about it, and then putting it into his work.

So, how is that revealed in this tune? Read the rest of this entry →

Oct3

Spearmint Play “Isn’t It Great To Be Alive?”

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Spearmint Play “Isn’t It Great To Be Alive?”

Spearmint at Bush Hall, London. (Photo: Andrew Bulhak)

Listen to this track by British jangle popsters by way of Northern Soul influences meeting the London bedsit, Spearmint. It’s “Isn’t It Great To Be Alive?”, a sardonic sentiment as stuck inside a tale of hopeless longing, and taken from the band’s 1999 debut A Week Away.

The subject of unrequited love, and often the cruelties that simple missed cues can cause, have been fodder for the pop writer for generations.  In more recent times, even more so, when the idea of the swaggering rock n roll singer had given way to a more sensitive side, when the hero did not always get the girl. In fact, more drama surrounds those songs when the girl is so close, yet so far away, a trusted friend who doesn’t know that she is the object of passionate love at all.

That’s what we’ve got in this song, with a man who is otherwise unseen by the one he loves as anything other than someone she hangs out with. But, what makes this tale of unrequited love different? Read the rest of this entry →

Sep26

Richard Hawley Sings “Coles Corner”

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Richard Hawley Sings “Coles Corner”

Richard Hawley Coles CornerListen to this track by Sheffieldian musical journeyman, neo-balladeer, ex-Longpigs member, sought-after session guitarist (Nancy Sinatra, Elbow, All Saints, Robbie Williams, and many others), and latter-day Pulp member Richard Hawley. It’s “Coles Corner”, the title track from his acclaimed 2005 solo album of the same name, Coles Corner.

The record, his fourth as a solo artist, was nominated  in 2006 for the coveted Mercury Prize, hooking into chamber pop, orchestral pop, and classic pop balladry.  As you can tell, the word ‘pop’ plays in pretty solidly, although the sunshiny late-60s vibe hides some pretty stormy rainclouds.

This particular song evokes some of the singers Hawley admires from the past, and in their prime – Scott Walker,  Charlie Rich, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, In the Wee Small Hours-era Frank Sinatra, and others. Yet at the same time, it’s Hawley’s economy and attention to detail as a songwriter which makes his work shine.

But, what about this song? What’s it really about? Read the rest of this entry →

Sep1

Jarvis Cocker Sings “Running The World”

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Jarvis Cocker Sings “Running The World”
Jarvis Cocker

Photo: Jeremy M Farmer

Here’s a clip of erstwhile Pulp singer and frontman, and Sheffieldian folk hero Jarvis Cocker. It’s “Running the World”, a political song in an era when such things are disturbingly rare, that contains a chorus that is equal parts catchy-and-NSFW.  The song is featured on his 2006 solo record Jarvis. On that record, it’s added on the CD version as a hidden track, while on the vinyl release, it was added on a separate 45RPM single disc.

A notable instance of this tune in pop culture was the use of it in the closing credits of the film Children of Men, a movie based on a novel by P.D James about a dystopic future where humanity has become sterile. Britain has become the last bastion of civilization, stemming the flow of the rising desperation by placing incoming refugees into concentration camps, including a single woman who happens to be, against all odds, pregnant.

The world in this movie is viciously stark, giving us a vision of what might happen were we to be thrust into the jaws of our own mortality as a species. It shows us what happens when we divide ourselves into us and them, hand over compassion by trading it for false security, and hoard resources in times of crisis instead of sharing them. We find out that these impulses do not keep us safe, and actually become our undoing. Ultimately, I think this is what this tune is about. But, why’s Jarvis Cocker so angry about it? And more importantly, does it really matter? Read the rest of this entry →

Jul7

Ringo Starr Sings ‘Early 1970′

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Ringo Starr Sings ‘Early 1970′

Here’s a clip featuring Liverpudlian tubthumper, singer, compulsive peace-sign flasher, and birthday boy Beatle (he’s 71 today!) Ringo Starr. It’s his 1971 B-Side (to his smash hit single “It Don’t Come Easy”) dedicated, even then, and in the midst of legal wrangling in some cases, to his former bandmates in the Beatles.

The song reveals a couple of things about Ringo. First, that his love for rockabilly and country music was absolutely ingrained in his approach. And second, that he was, even early on, the keeper of the flame where spirit of the Beatles is concerned.

He was seemingly above all of the squabbling even at its worst. He  always seemed to know best among all four men, that they had created something bigger than all of them. It certainly appeared that he felt it was bigger than their differences at the time.

This song is a clear call to friendship, aimed at each band member, with a verse dedicated to each (and one that pokes fun at his own musical limitations). But, there is a point of view that is more cynical where this track is concerned. Read the rest of this entry →

Jun30

Ben & Jason Perform “Widow’s Walk”

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Ben & Jason Perform “Widow’s Walk”

Listen to this track by melancholic British acoustic pop duo Ben & Jason. It’s “Widow’s Walk”, the lead track off of their 1999 record Emoticons. If you’re detecting that classic, Nick Drake vibe coming off of this track, it might be because Drake string-arranger and schoolfriend Robert Kirby was called upon to write up the charts for the strings on this song.

Of course it helps that Ben & Jason worked well together to take that Nick Drake sound, and mix it with a late ’90s British rock sound. Ben Parker (vocals and guitar) and Jason Hazeley (keyboards) had put out a record in 1998, Hello, which locked into that moodier rock space that seemed to follow the chirpy irony of Brit-pop.  The duo’s acoustic pop and chamber pop leanings created the same sort of overcast atmosphere as, say “No Surprises”, or “Lucky” from Radiohead, yet with enough pop elements to invite less gravity.

Yet, there was more to this collaboration than met the eye, stylistically speaking. Read the rest of this entry →

Jun13

Badly Drawn Boy Sings “Something To Talk About”

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Badly Drawn Boy Sings “Something To Talk About”

Listen to this song by indie songwriter-turned-soundtrack composer Damon Gough, better known as Badly Drawn Boy.  It’s “Something to Talk About” as taken from the 2002 soundtrack album from the film About A Boy, originally a novel by Nick Hornby about a guy living off the royalties of a children’s song his dad wrote, yet finds himself unable to connect with children himself, or in fact with anyone, until – well, see the movie, or read the book.

But, for our purposes here, Badly Drawn Boy’s tune is a recurring musical theme that runs along side of the action, sort of as a bird’s eye-view to what’s going on the lives of the characters, which is what songs in a movie should do.

What also makes a truly exceptional song that appears in a film is that it also takes on a life of its own outside of the context of the film. In this case, author Nick Hornby, clearly a music fan (see High Fidelity), was a fan of Gough from early on, making him a perfect choice to compose music and develop songs for the soundtrack. Luckily, filmmakers Chris and Paul Weitz agreed.

Read the rest of this entry →

Jun6

Billy Bragg Sings “Levi Stubbs’ Tears”

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Billy Bragg Sings “Levi Stubbs’ Tears”

Listen to this track by the celebrated Bard of Barking and one-time One-Man Clash, Billy Bragg. It’s “Levi Stubbs’ Tears”, a story of a young marriage, loneliness, violence and tragedy; perfect subject matter for a folk song, then. The song is taken from Billy’s 1986 album Talking to the Taxman About Poetry.

Where Bragg is well-known for his politically-oriented material, particularly around this time at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s era as British Prime Minister, this song proves that what Billy Bragg does best is to use songwriting as a means of telling stories. This is certainly one of his best, a song about a downtrodden woman, having married young, and finding herself alone after her ex-husband attempts to kill her, before abandoning her.

But, Bragg hasn’t set up a cardboard cut-out figure so that he can talk about abused and abandoned women; he lets the story of the woman in this song do that for him.This is a woman worn down by her miserable situation. But, she’s also a person reaching out to the hope of a new life, mostly through the songs on the radio, and through the contents of a Four Tops cassette. We identify with her, which leads me into what’s really at the heart of this song. Read the rest of this entry →

May12

Lotte Mullan Sings “Would You Be So Kind?”

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Lotte Mullan Sings “Would You Be So Kind?”

Here’s a clip of roots ‘n’ country siren from Suffolk, England, Lotte Mullan. It’s “Would You Be So Kind” as taken from her debut record Plain Jane. For fans of Emmylou Harris circa Wrecking Ball, this song may be right up your alley, with Mullan’s delicate vocal against echoey guitar, and shimmering Lanois-esque production.

Lotte Mullan embraced her own natural singing voice after an experimental period emulating the textures of Tom Waits’ gravelly voice of experience. Yet, Mullan is no stranger to the harsh realities of being a singer-songwriter in a cut-throat industry in her own right, putting herself forward as an opening act while acting as a tour manager, and gleaning an important base of knowledge of the recording industry while in a Work Experience program.

Reviewed extensively in Britain by MOJO magazine, Q Magazine, the Guardian newspaper, and beyond, Mullan is ready to bring her debut album, and her brand of singer-songwriterly prowess, to North America, the spiritual home of her sound.

I chatted with Lotte via email on the subjects of rural and urban states of mind, of the split between British and North American cultures and how it affects songwriting, and about what it takes to be an artist and a label owner all at the same time.

*** Read the rest of this entry →