I'm starting my pop CDs at Norah Jones, bought last year. I'm not sure about it. Cutesy, easy listening and pleasant, but I think I was rather put off by Jimmy asking me to take it off the CD player: he was annoyed by her twangy voice singing songs that were too similar. I'm not sure I would want to defend that position in an argument with a Norah Jones fanatic, but it's a notion I can't quite shake from my mind. It's the sort of thing that I can imagine that people would put on at a dinner party. Only not the sort of dinner party I attend. At one, a Thanksgiving dinner, a throwaway remark by me about the Poet Laureate led to one person screaming "Typical American feminist" and another yelling "Typical gay man", before the Typical American Feminist took the Typical Gay Man off to the bedroom to liberally dose his fingernails with Stop 'n' Gro. After the opening track, Don't Know Why, I'm tempted to say that "Is that it?"
Especially knowing that there are 9 kd lang, a Kirsty MacColl and a Madonna to follow.
And next up is Tom Jones's Reload, an interesting compilation featuring duets with other singers. Another 21st Century purchase. During my mini-pre-mid-life crisis I worked in a pub, where this featured on the jukebox. The sort of pub where people don't listen passively, but dance and sing along. The atmosphere's lively, but lary...One great favourite was 'Sexbomb', and it always made me laugh. The actual words are
Sexbomb sexbomb you're my sexbomb. And baby you can turn me onTerry Mc, whose song this was, used to sing, with no sense of irony or self-awareness 'I'm a sexbomb' - he isn't.
A compilation like this is almost guaranteed to be a curate's egg. Tom Jones, of course, does what he does best: singing (but is it really singing or merely tuneful-ish shouting?). Some of the collaborations are masterful, notably Sometimes We Cry with Van Morrison when he's good, he's bloody amazing but I've never been tempted to explore him further), and, surprisingly, Natalie Imbruglia on Never Tear Us Apart. My overall favourite track is I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone with James Dean Bradfield, especially its anthemic mood and ear-bleeding screeching guitar, which kind of contradict the words.
I did try listening to this in my Walkman on the journey to and from work. It's years since I used a Walkman just to commute. I don't like it - there are too many changes on the journey, and I find it strangely disorienting. It would make more sense if I was travelling door-to-door by bus.
