All ingredients for an objective opinion and giving it some necessary context are present and correct. I received Vampire Weekend’s second in my mailbox the other day, thanks to a speedy Ebay transaction and trustworthy British and Dutch Mail. I’ve managed to listen to it about a handful of times so far, on the bus to and from work, cleaning the bunnies’ residence, and just before going to sleep. Some songs have stood out, some haven’t, comparisons with their debut have been attempted, and the overall conclusion is that while there isn’t a song quite as good as “M79″, it’s one I’ll be playing a lot more often in the coming months.
One song in particular has been striking all the right chords: “White Sky”. It reminds me of a record in my dad’s collection, Paul Simon’s Graceland, and also it’s got that “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” element going for it. I’ve been walking around the house, singing along in the highest possible pitch I can hit, much to the annoyance of wife and pets.
Another immediate highlight is “Giving Up The Gun”, which deals with the joys of masturbation from the perspective of an ageing man. We start with a narrator, confronting the protagonist of the song with his sword’s having grown “old and rusty”, before there’s a shift in perspective. “When I was 17 I had wrists of steel and I felt complete”, our ambidextrous hero laments. It’s a very touching and impressive piece of work, a kind of Love in the Times of Cholera in five minutes of pop.
Some songs haven’t been fully processed yet, and it’s difficult to know what to think of them. The most I’ll remember about “Holiday” half an hour after listening to the record is that it’s not a cover of the Madonna song, to give one example. Still, there’s one thing for sure, and that’s that Contra will prove most ideal for playing during the warm and sunny months of the year, which are quite a while away unfortunately. Unless you’re listening from Australia of course.
It’s no Sign O’The Times. It’s not even Around The World In A Day. It is, however, the most satisfying batch of songs Prince had released since The Gold Experience.
There are some lesser moments. A huge Prince fan I used to know, who can listen to all three discs of Emancipation in a row, confessed to me that “Get On The Boat” is, in his view, the man’s worst song ever, and although I wouldn’t quite go that far it’s pretty bad all the same. There are also a few ballads that don’t bear listening to too much. But this is one of those glass-half-full records for me. Just listen to brilliant songs such as “Lolita”, “Black Sweat”, “The Dance”, “Fury”… quality songs, every one of them. My favourite, though, is “Beautiful, Loved & Blessed”, a duet between Prince and his then protégé Támar (whatever happened with her?) that’s close to being the purple one’s most uplifting song. It is, as I experienced yesterday, really good to hang up the laundry to as well.
I bought my copy during a lunch break on the day it was released at FNAC on Avenue des Ternes in Paris. I rushed back to work to see if there was a “purple ticket” in there. There wasn’t, and so I hadn’t won a free trip to Prince’s place in Los Angeles for a small performance. But I had just added a fine new album to my collection.
Filed under: Guns N' Roses | Tags: Guns N' Roses, Use Your Illusion, You Could Be Mine, 1991
With the release of Live At Reading and the reissue of Bleach we have been spoiled again with the history of how Nirvana changed the mainstream, and of course it’s difficult to deny their importance, but the way I see it that trio from Seattle wouldn’t have had the impact they did if it weren’t for Guns N’ Roses. “Paradise City” prepared a whole generation of new music lovers, kids that until then were listening to S’Express, Tiffany and Taylor Dane, for guitar music. When “You Could Be Mine” was shown on television for the first time the school playground was alive the next day. Football, for once, wasn’t the discussion. “Did you hear that new Guns N’ Roses song? It’s the loudest thing I ever heard!”. It wasn’t the loudest thing for long, of course, because most went on to explore and listen to Pearl Jam and Faith No More, and then Metallica and Slayer. And then to Death and Pestilence. Without Guns N’ Roses, come 1993, Ace Of Base would’ve been the kids’ choice.
It was early 1992 when I’d saved enough money to buy a Guns N’ Roses CD. The village where I lived didn’t have a record store, but a guy selling electronic equipment always had a few on stock. I had to choose between the yellow and blue versions of Guns N’ Roses’ latest. I knew “You Could Be Mine”, “Don’t Cry and “Live And Let Die” by that time, and since “Don’t Cry” was on both albums it was my not liking “Live And Let Die” that much that pulled me towards Use Your Illusion II. I bought it, jumped on my bike and cycled to my grandmother’s house. “Look what I got!”, I exclaimed breathlessly, before treating my gran to Axl and the others. “That sounds nice”, she said. “I can make you a copy if you have a tape for me, grandmother. You and grandad can listen in the car when you go to church”.
Guns N’ Roses became my favourite band, and that year I bought their other three albums, and while I liked those a lot, with the exception of Use Your Illusion I, it was songs as strong as “Civil War”, “Estranged”, “Locomotive” (even now I get a chill when those opening drums kick in), “Breakdown”, “So Fine” and of course “You Could Be Mine” that kept me returning to Use Your Illusion II, despite it also containing the worst song in the band’s catalogue (the wretched “My World”).
It’s no longer my favourite Guns N’ Roses album, as the almighty Appetite For Destruction has taken its place, but with so many great songs it deserves the occasional spin in the CD player. Use Your Illusion I ended up being sold to fund the purchase of a Gorefest record.
Filed under: The Libertines | Tags: 2004, Carl Barat, Pete Doherty, The Libertines
“The end result is so fucking exciting it makes you wonder what you ever saw in much lesser albums such as Definitely Maybe, Parklife or Nevermind”, I wrote on reviewing The Libertines’ second, and so far last, album. “You must be out of your mind”, Pete Doherty replied towards the end of 2004. Not to me, but to a music journalist after being asked whether he’d consider rejoining the band. It looks like he’s softened a little since then, and so have I. The Libertines is certainly not better than Parklife.
It really hit the spot, though. These songs of self-abuse and destructive friendships were great in itself, but damn, these guys meant it! There’s blood on these tracks, literally if the stories of Carl Barât smashing his head into a sink out of pure frustration with Pete Doherty’s behaviour are to be believed. And despite the boys’ penchant for self-mythologising there was never reason not to believe them. “No no, I haven’t got a problem”, Doherty sings on the amazing “The Saga”. ”It’s you with the problem”. And then he lets go a scream that shouldn’t leave any doubt. Yes, he means it.
The whole album seems to be about The Libertines. Being in and out The Libertines. Thieving and going to jail, coming back, and falling back into the bad old ways. The band are in trouble, and Carl blames Pete. “Your light fingers threw the dark that shattered the lamp and into darkness you cast us”, with which Pete obviously can’t agree. “No, you’ve got it the wrong way round, you shut me up and blamed it on the brown”. They can’t stand each other now, and it’s as if you’re present at one of the last bitter fights of a couple that’s about to realise that divorce is the only option left. “All the highs and the lows, and all the to’s and the fro’s have left me dizzy”, Pete admits. “I no longer hear the music”. Carl, fully realising the potential that’s about to be wasted, gives it one last try. “We’re thick as thieves, you know, if that’s important to you”, hoping to get through his partner’s thick skull. “Yes, it’s important to me”, we hear Pete reply, but he doesn’t mean it.
They fell apart within a few months after releasing their eponymous second album, leaving us with some of the greatest music of the past fifteen years.
Filed under: Placebo | Tags: Placebo, Battle For The Sun, 2009, contest, Ashtray Heart, Kink FM
I never win anything. Any time I get a lottery ticket I’m happy if I can collect a fraction of what I paid for it. Every month I have a letter of resignation ready, but I haven’t had to send it to my printer and employer yet. I can lower my expectations, and enter a contest to win the complete remastered Beatles collection, but alas, I’ve had to buy them. Alright, I have to admit I won a Jeff Buckley t-shirt in 1994, but I wanted to win Oasis promo CD’s at the time, so even though I liked Jeff it still felt like a consolation prize.
My sister has been luckier. She won a horse in the eighties. My wife, too, has won something wonderful. Last year a Dutch radio station ran a contest: guess the titles of three Placebo songs, and you can win a super deluxe version of Battle For The Sun. She had been a fan from the start, so the guessing part wasn’t too difficult. Sending an sms with the answers wasn’t either. She sent about twenty, in fact. Working in an office with crap Vodafone connection, on the other hand, was a bit of an obstacle. On Wednesday she was called that she had given the correct answers and that she’d be asked to give those answers on the show. Great! Then the line got interrupted, they couldn’t get hold of her again, and the prize was given to someone else.
The next day is a day off work, so we’re both listening to the radio again. Three songs. Easy. “Every You Every Me”, “Infra-Red” and “Battle For The Sun”. Cue the sending of another twenty text messages. The phone rings. “We felt bad about yesterday, so here’s a new chance”, the voice says.
Only two days later a huge package arrives. It looks gorgeous. It’s got two vinyls. It’s got two CD’s and two DVD’s. Two bonus tracks. Two books too. It’s a right Noah’s ark. Even though I hadn’t really been impressed with a new Placebo album since Black Market Music I’m pleased, and the thing isn’t even mine.
It’s a very good album, actually. Drafting a new drummer had brought out the best in Placebo before on Without You I’m Nothing, and they repeat the trick here. I’m not too fond of the first track, “Kitty Litter”, but it’s followed by the most interesting songs I’ve heard from Molko and the boys since the turn of the century. “Ashtray Heart”, in particular, is catchy as hell, easily the band’s best single since “Special K”, and worth the price of purchase alone (though you could just buy the single too if that song’s all you wanted). “Come Undone” and “Happy You’re Gone” are simply gorgeous.
The two DVD’s contain the customary documentary about the making of the record (fun to watch just the once) and a registration of the group’s 2008 Angkor Wat show respectively, while the second CD is blank, which is, of course, some people’s idea of the perfect Placebo record.
Filed under: David Bowie | Tags: David Bowie, Diamond Dogs, Sweet Thing, cleaning, 1974, 2004
Corpses, fleas the size of rats, confused sexuality, fuck-me pumps, rape, oppression, Nineteen Eighty-Four, death, drugs, suicide, Rock ‘n’ Roll, defecating ecstacy, illegal acts in cars and cellars (with doors ajar). It shouldn’t be surprising that Diamond Dogs is a personal favourite to listen to during domestic chores.
Music may be more about what the listener associates it with than what the performer intended it all to mean. It’s difficult to imagine David, stuck in a studio in Hilversum, thinking, “that line about les tricoteuses, someone’s going to have a whale of a time dusting the bookshelves to that”, but any time I hear Diamond Dogs the memories of tidying that room come back.
July, 2004. The room on the sixth floor of a Neuilly sur Seine building is messy, to say the least. The sheets haven’t been changed in ages, and nothing that was dropped on the floor in the past six months has been picked up. I don’t mind my living space a little untidy, but this is starting to resemble a right slimy thoroughfare. I pop the only CD within reach, Diamond Dogs, into the CD tray, and begin. At first it’s just background music. I pick up a little “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and my dirty socks. The title track couldn’t possibly stand out on accounts of having been played to death. Then “Sweet Thing” comes on. David sings in the lower registers of his voice, which happen to be the only registers of mine. I sing along. “It’s safe in the city to love in a doorway”. I take the sheets off the bed. “Will you see that I’m scared and I’m lonely”. I’m shrieking now as Bowie goes somewhere over the rainbow, and the downstairs neighbours probably think there are rats the size of cats in the rooms upstairs. I don’t care, there’s chewing gum stuck in the carpet.
“Bro-bro-bro-bro-bro”.
I’ve regained several cubic metres of space and become reacquainted with Bowie’s first masterpiece. To celebrate I go out and buy another copy of it. Not just any copy, of course, but the thirtieth anniversary reissue. It has a load of nonsense on the bonus disc (edits of songs that aren’t long enough in their original versions, a wretched remake of “Rebel Rebel”), but also a fun cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Growin’ Up” and a wildly different version of “Candidate” that is utterly essential.
Last year, meanwhile, I’ve begun selling albums that I own twice (or more), and in the process of tidying up my record collection my non-anniversary version was sold on Ebay.
Filed under: Manic Street Preachers | Tags: 2001, Know Your Enemy, Manic Street Preachers
Their previous works had been either sublime (The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go), pretty bad (Gold Against The Soul) or indifferent (the other two), but Know Your Enemy is the first (and so far only) Manic Street Preachers album that’s utterly inconsistent. In fact, it’s so inconsistent that there are songs that are brilliant and crap at the same time. If you want to buy your granny the definitive Manics album, and you are of the opinion that compilations are a cop out, look no further.
They were in a funny place at the turn of the century, James, Nicky and Sean. Commercially and critically they’d reached a peak, huge shows and tours were sold out, while at the same time their last album had been a disappointment and they were in danger of losing what made them special. A new single, “The Masses Against The Classes”, had been seen as a return to their more aggressive roots and despite being forgettable at best still got to the top of the charts. Confusion and contradiction all around. I was beginning to lose interest, but not so much that I wasn’t going to buy a new album.
The week it was released I had it on repeat. Since then I haven’t listened to it all the way through even once. It doesn’t have the remotest chance, since opener “Found That Soul” immediately gets skipped to get to the gorgeous “Ocean Spray” quicker. The tone’s been set for the rest of the album: “Intravenous Agnostic”, no thanks. “So Why So Sad”, yes please. Along the bumpy road we get treated to an extraorinarily inoffensive R.E.M. clone (“The Year Of Purification”), a disco anthem about how shit clubs are (“Miss Europa Disco Dancer”) which is actually quite good until Nicky Wire opens his mouth, and several songs that quite rightly, with the exception of the solid “His Last Painting”, nobody ever mentions.
The best is saved for last: in “Freedom Of Speech Won’t Feed My Children” we are served a dish of snipes at the Beastie Boys and Richard Gere on a bed of wonderful lines about being “free to fuck from Paris to Beijing”. It reminds me of what I really like about this band: not the aggression or the emotional scope of their various songs, nor the lyrics that are well thought out, but the sense of humour and willingness to appear rediculous that’s at the heart of most of what they do.
If your granny loves this album, don’t forget to look up “Ballad Of The Bankok Novotel”, an excellent b-side that should have been on the album, for her. It makes for a better encore than the hideous hidden track that makes a mockery of the statement that they saved the best for last.
When Britpop really started happening in the summer of ‘95 I thought practically any group with guitars and floppy fringes to come from England were obviously the best in the world. Shed Seven, amazing. Gene, better than The Smiths, whoever they were. Supergrass, probably one hit wonders but great for now. Menswear… okay, now you’re pushing it. My Take That loving sister and her Ant & Dec obsessed best friend loved them, so I was suspicious. They were analysing guitarist Chris Gentry’s facial hair on Smash Hits posters, for crying out loud.
“Daydreamer” was a solid single, I had to give them that, but “Stardust” and “I’ll Manage Somehow” were just awful. And that song about growing tomatoes in New York on that tape that came free with an issue of Select was bland. Still, we lived in a small house and if I got to play Olympian on the family stereo I had to tolerate Nuisance.
There is plenty of fuel to substantiate the prejudice I held (“Little Miss Pinpoint Eyes” is one of the most atrocious songs to come out of the nineties, up there with classics by Whigfield and Zig & Zag), but listening back it’s striking how beautiful some of the songs are too. Not a single band of the time would have been ashamed of the likes of “Hollywood Girl” or “Sleeping In”, and “Being Brave” is better than any ballad Oasis were doing that year, and that includes “Wonderwall” and “The Masterplan”. Tracks hidden at the end of a record after at least fifteen minutes of silence were getting tired already four years after “Endless, Nameless”, but try to find a better one than “Bones And Red Meat”.
Time has been kind to some of my sister’s obsessions.
Filed under: Pet Shop Boys | Tags: 1987, actually, it's a sin, king's cross, Pet Shop Boys
The Pet Shop Boys were responsible for a few firsts: Montage was, in 2002, the first DVD I bought. My first LP was Please, and for my ninth birthday I got a copy of Actually, not only my first cassette, but the first album by anyone I owned. A Dutch chart show called Countdown and the grandparents on my mother’s side were to thank to this wonderful introduction into the world of pop music.
One Wednesday afternoon, after Seabert, a cartoon about a cute little seal, I didn’t change the channel to one of the other three we had at the time. A freaky little video came on. There was fire, and chains, and a curly haired fellow on his knees. I didn’t notice the other more surly guy yet. I was scared, I was intruiged, but most of all, by the time the chorus came on for the second time I was singing along, phonetically: “Itsap-itsap-itsap-itsuhsin”.
My grandparents were members of a bookclub called E.C.I., and one uneventful day (if there is such a thing when you’re not yet ten years of age) I was browsing their magazine, probably to see if they also sold LEGO. In the music section I was immediately struck by a photograph of two odd men. One looked grumpy, and the other was yawning and had curly hair. Familiar curly hair. I stared for a while at the picture, and noticed the songs on the album were listed. I may as well have been reading Chinese, except that one stood out: “It’s A Sin”. It all added up. “I want this for my birthday!”.
I spent many an hour with that tape. Rewinding and fast forwarding to get to my favourite songs, which basically were the hits and that moody number at the end, “King’s Cross”. Because of the Boys’ music I’d also begun to buy music magazines Hitkrant (which I read as well as bought) and the German Popcorn (which I looked at pictures in), and in the formed I’d read something about the Boys being clairvoyant. A fire at some metro station or other. I wasn’t that smart yet, so I remember hoping they wouldn’t be arrested on suspicions of arson.
Listening to the album now it’s striking how perfect it is. Every song’s a winner, and every song’s different from the next. There’s the odd opener “One More Chance” which throws you into the record with no melodic references for a full ninety seconds (a long time when you’re a kid). “Hit Music”, a favourite of Johnny Marr’s, is just dying to be covered by someone like Arctic Monkeys. On “It Couldn’t Happen Here” Ennio Morricone adds an arrangement as sad yet uplifting as Neil’s lyrics while on “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” we hear Dusty Springfield. “Heart” (which was intended for Madonna) and “I Want To Wake Up” are the purest of pop songs.
I bought Actually another two times. My tape got worn out and I replaced it with a vinyl copy in the early nineties, and when it was reissued on CD in 2001 with a bonus disc containing b-sides and the like I couldn’t resist. Every time it was money well spent.
