Just in case you hadn't noticed, I have updated my 'Performance' photo album with 22 pictures from Cyrano de Bergerac in Paris (of course, Performance actually means 'Curtain call').
The photos are mediocre in their quality, but for me, they capture a little of the essence of the ovation, which helps to preserve a little memory of the performance. Although nothing, not even DVD can fully capture his wonderfulness!
Some of the photos are a bit blurry. Some are marred by other people getting between me and the Stage. I could remedy both by using my elbows and pushing to the front. At 5'2" (155 cm) I could maybe even get away with that. But I wouldn't like the person I would become.
Also, in case you missed the link, here is L'arena's Photogallery from Friday's washed-out Carmen in Verona, amusingly (for those of us not there!) titled Carmen in Arena, vip e tanta tanta acqua.
Lots of photos of people caught in torrential rain in summer clothes (I did look for my colleague who was due to be attending but didn't spot him!) , but at the beginning of the gallery several rather nice ones.
Somewhat at a tangent, but not wholly, on Friday I was watching on TV Leonard Cohen live in concert in London last year (I think this was an edited down version of the DVD which is currently winging its way to me!). I got in to Leonard twenty years ago. Not in a massive big way, but enough to have bought three albums over the years, and I find I appreciate him more as I get older. I did try and get tickets for that concert last year but they were sold out by the time I got up (although many were magically already available on Ticketmaster Marketplace, well above face value, which annoys me). Bear in mind that Leonard is 75. What struck me watching was that in between songs, he did look like some elderly chap, perhaps someone you bump into in the park or pub and don't give a second thought to. But when he was singing, he looked youthful and attractive, and had the audience in the palm of his hand. Made me think.
From time to time I peruse the log of referrals to this site. The overwhelming majority are sensible, a few silly, a small number surprising eg Rebekah Elmaloglou naked - like, when did I ever mention Rebekah Elmaloglou.
As soon as one introduces a 'celebrity' for the first time, one notices that people are searching for that cleb.
So, loads of searches for Faryl Smith, all of a sudden. Not surprising. What I wasn't expecting, so soon, was Faryl Smith naked. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised; there are plenty enough perverts out there. But how likely is that to happen, when anybody who published a photo of a 13 year old naked would, quite rightly, be prosecuted.
What are those pushy parents thinking about, pushing their child - who ought to be concentrating on school work? Hope they can sleep well at night - after counting the monetary awards of their child exploitation - knowing that out there are perverts who want nothing more than to wank her over naked pictures. Obviously she's got a bit of a voice, if YouTube is any guide, but wouldn't she be better working on elimnating the wobble, transitioning between different registers and developing a vocal personality, plus studying, rather than being whored around low rent telly?
Once upon a time, five rather middle-class lads from Dublin got together and pretended to be bad boy rockers. They produced some rather good singles, some of which I bought on vinyl.
Then we had the Geldof-Yates saga and the incredibly silly names for their daughters.
We had Sir Saint Bob saving the world.
We had Gert buying this album
And now we have two of the hilariously-named daughters behaving like pointless vacuous spoilt brats in the downmarket media. What is that they do? Would there be anybody who would declare "I'm a big fan of/I really admire P. Geldof"?
I have to say that I am a major sucker for celebrity, I like hobnobbing with famous people, name dropping and the rest. But I like celebrities who have achieved something and excelled in their field. Logically there is no reason to lionise someone who has sold many pop records rather than somebody who delivers good prompt honest customer service. But that's the way it is.
Talking of pop records The Best of the Boomtown Rats contains several items of dross; would have benefited from reducing the number of tracks from 19. Despite some smash hit number ones they were never the greatest band around, and even though two of the tracks are from 1984, the rest span just four years. Perhaps 12 would be a better number.
The packaging is really nothing special. A standard jewel case with a twelve-page inlay booklet. The final page contains a track-listing. The remainder of the pages contain poor quality photos and an essay entitled Banana Republic: Memories of a Suburban Irish Childhood by someone called Joseph O'Connor. I suppose I could read it, but the print is very small, and two pages of it are white type on black background. If they can't be bothered to make it legible, I won't be bothered to read it. I like my Greatest Hits albums to have song lyrics and maybe some facts and figures on chart positions. this doesn't.
Still, it was worth getting the turkeys on this 19-track CD for the jewels. I am playing it on random and the noteworthy tracks are
Drag Me Down, a 1984 track I don't think I had heard before I got this album - great harmonies
Diamond Smiles, probably my favourite Rats track, tells a story, has a decent melody and harmonies
Rat Trap, the track that got me into the Rats, another great story and an edgy pulsating track - yeah, there was edgy in 1978, it's not a new thing. And I can sing along word perfect, the product of a Suburban English Childhood, by Gert Blog
Like Clockwork - Johnny Fingers' second finest hour on keyboards
I Don't Like Mondays, their most famous and probbaly greatest song, with some fantastic piano work. An excellent narration of a story, one of those songs that remind one just how crap modern pop music is
Someone's Looking at You - perhaps their most under-rated song, perhaps because it's a bit abstract and philosophical for the three minute pop market, although also more relevant to the present day than to 1980 when it charted.
When the Night Comes: this was the 'B' side to either Diamond or Someone. It's actually a pretty good song, but, in general, if you put B sides on your 'Best of' album, shouldn't it be a sign that the album is too long!
Banana Republic - just strange and not in a bad way. Innovative and different.
Most of the rest are not unpleasant but do seem to be taken from the handbook on how to write a soft rock song for 1970s middle class boys.
Except for (I Never Loved) Eva Braun, which is neither pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi, but sounds like some immature attempt to be thought-provoking, without there actually having any thought process going on. Basically, a bit of pretentious tosh with no intrinsic value
This is a revival of my attempt to blog my entire record collection by 40, which, considering I abandoned it at 39½ has been mysteriously renamed Blog My Record Collection As and When.
When I was younger and used to go football matches we often used to sing 'What a Waste of Money', to the tune in this blogpost's title.
I received an email from Classic FM this morning, to be filed under 'You couldn't make it up'
Songs Without Words is the latest stunning album form Classic FM.
Featuring 12 great songs played in a classical style, this is truly an
album of beautiful music as you've never heard before.
Songs include Fields of Gold, Closest Thing to Crazy, With or Without
You, Yellow and You Raise Me Up.
Maybe I'm being obtuse, but who in their right mind would waste their money on dross like this? Played in the classical style - what on earth does this actually mean? Super-syrupy-schmaltzy strings? God preserve us. And what is the point of songs without words*? If I wanted to listen to Fields of Gold, I've got Eva Cassidy and Sting. I've got U2 singing With or Without You. I actually wouldn't mind hearing it performed in the Baroque Style (with words, of course). Once.
Clearly there is a market for this crap or else Classic For Morons wouldn't go to the bother of creating, packaging and promoting it. I can only assume that it's aimed at Musical Snobs - the sort of people who think that rock and pop is too common for the likes of them, and get the vapours at all that horse-scaring passion in art music. It's a bit of an insult to the writers to say 'actually, we can do it better without your stupid words'.
Full tracklisting below. I don't claim to know all of them but the ones I do know strike me as being particularly strong on words, indeed 'Something Inside So Strong' is one of my most favourite songs of all time, and I remember hearing some DJ say it had won the Grammy for the Best Song Musically and Lyrically, and thinking that never had an award been so well titled and so aptly awarded. Considering it is an anthem against apartheid in particular and oppression and bigotry in general, it is, in my opinion, worse than insulting to deprive it of its words. I would go so far as to say it's an act of unthinking racism, pandering to small-minded bigotry, and anybody who buys this is not only a fool and a snob but probably a racist bigot, too.
1. Yellow
2. My Heart Will Go On
3. The Closest Thing To Crazy
4. You Raise Me Up
5. Fields Of Gold
6. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
7. Somewhere Only We Know
8. Save The Best For Last
9. With Or Without You
10. Something Inside So Strong
11. Right Here Waiting
12. Life On Mars
* yes, I know there are several works called 'Songs without words' but that's how they were written
One of my favourite perennial blog events is the voting and associated commenting on Which Decade was the best for Top of the Pops. Pitching the decades against each other. Each of the top ten, slot by slot, will be over at Troubled Diva. Ten and Nine are already up
Having kept my blog reading up to date all year, I started to fall behind this weekend, so I might not get stuck in until nearer the weekend. But as the numbers get smaller and the hits get bigger, my adrenaline rises. I vow that only force majeure will prevent me from giving my considered opinion on every single one of the 50 singles.
I made a vow to play and blog all my records by the time I reach forty. Frankly I don't believe I am going to achieve this challenging target but I'm not going to give up just because I am staring failure in the face. Sadly, this means that I really have to play all items in my record collection, and reveal to the world that I actually spent money on garbage.
Blur. There was a week once when the marketing brain-washers devised a rivalry between Blur and Oasis. Sadly, that was for Oasis's third album which was dire. But there again, Blur's Parklife is perhaps even more dire. The songs are not songs. The vocals are obnoxiously annoying. The best thing that can be said about this album is that it makes Oasis's third album look reasonable, and I give thanks for Pulp, who are just a Different Class (even though I tend to think of their lead singer as Jarvis Tosser).
Basically, "Blondie's Greatest Hits and lots of mediocre fillers"
Sorry, but that is a fact. I have liked Blondie for almost thirty years now, and I think they are as ace as when I first encountered them in Junior 3. Amusingly, I put this CD on 'Random' and the first track that came on was Denis, which I think was the first song of theirs that I was aware of.
Thirty years on, their sound is as fresh as it was then. We won't see their likes again. Although, checking their site, Blondie and Deborah Harry are still touring. I really ought to catch them sometime. She was no spring chicken when they burst on the UK pop scene way back when, and I think she is still as cool now as she was then. I suspect that as a pre-teen I had a bit of a girlie-crush on her. I remember when she appeared on programmes such as Swap Shop she came over as pleasant and down-to-earth, a great contrast with the 'attitude' in the songs. Such a shame, then, that the hagiography in the CD liner notes is so full of pretentious tosh.
In my view, Debbie Harry is a cultural icon, beyond famous. And yet, I wouldn't recognise her if I saw her in the street. I firmly believe that I am far from alone in this. I suppose it is a symptom of my boredom at the media-driven cult of celebrity. I would far rather read about Debbie than many of the so-called, plastic, transitory so-called 'celebrities' (most of whom won't endure 30 years - or longer, if you include the pre-commercial success era) that dominate the mass media. although, on the other hand, I wouldn't want to think that I was invading the privacy of someone who has always seemed to handle the fame well
If the truth be told, I think a double CD of 47 tracks is overkill. Inevitably, some of the songs are better than others, and, on the whole, the 'singles' are better than the non-singles. That having been said, I could have sat down and ranked my preferences for Blondie singles on the basis of how much I liked them when they were charting, but that would not necessarily accord with my current views. For example, I wasn't that keen on Dreaming back then, but listening to it today, I am struck by the subtle complexities of the harmonies.
I have never really accepted the label of 'Punk' as applied to Blondie. For example, Sunday Girl is fundamentally poppy. But not banal pop. Pop with a hard edge to the music, and even though the melody, lyrics and, at times, her voice, are really quite girly, at other times it is as hard as steel. By chance, and unconnected to me alphabetically playing my CD collection, this song came on my mp3 player and suddenly I was bopping merrily down Millbank and Horseferry Road, a big smile on my face.
Heart of Glass is obviously a classic pop song. As soon as it begins I want to get on the dance floor. This is the sort of incessant dance beat I like, created by humans and in sympathy with human heartbeat and aspiration. And a nice tune. I also expect that the words are good, too. Although I have to admit I do play 'misheard lyrics' a lot with Blondie. My early exposure to them was over Medium Wave radio - a small batter operated transistor - which does not aid clarity - and even though I am playing a CD on a reasonably good hi-fi set up, and the internet gives me access to the real lyrics, I want to carry on mishearing 'you're teeth are in the desert'.
If my feelings about Debbie had been anything stronger than 'Girlie Crush', I think In the Flesh would have got me going. It's slinky and sensual, tantalising close to steamy and sexual.
Picture This is wonderful! The rapidly descending scales on the guitar, the raucous middle-section. The words are wonderful when sung by a woman - they'd be freaky if sung by a man. And there is something specific and indescribable in the overall tone which is immensely evocative to me of a very particular time and place. Hanging on the Telephone is wild and fun.
I think I appreciate Atomic much more than I did back then. It is really quite a sophisticated piece of music, notwithstanding the steady disco beat. So many different elements, such as the repeating almost strident guitar riff combined with a legato vocal line. As the song progresses it gets more intimate and sensual. I can imagine myself shimmering away on an empty dance floor in a crowded venue wrapped up in my own physicality oblivious to the strangers who may or may not be watching. Of course, in RL, I wouldn't. A change of key intensifies the progress to the almost-erotic. I wonder how it would sound without the passé disco beat.
I also find Call Me to be deeply sensual.
The Tide is High is truly lovely. There is something going on in it,something to do with the key, I think, which gives it an air of melancholy which provides a perfect ironic contrast with the optimistic but ultimately hopeless lyrics.
If i was a total music anorak, I suspect what I ought to do is compile my own 'highlights' version of this album, culling about half the content, the fillers, and I would then have a supremely excellent album of timeless songs. But I am not a music anorak. And, if necessary, I have a fast forward button
I'm doing quite well playing my tapes alphabetically. Last week Pink Floyd, this week The Police.
I saw Sting at Live8. I didn't like The Police at first. In First Year at secondary school., there was thing. Siobhan was into Gary Numan, I was into the Boomtown Rats and Catherine was in to the Police - she had pictures of Sting on her bedroom wall.
Then Catherine left.
Then I got into the Police.
I was so naive as a teenager. I considered that they had a 'comeback' in 1983.
I bought this album circa 1990. Hit after hit.
Pretty much good song after good song. Best ones - Message in A Bottle; Walking on the Moon; Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic...one of those songs that has me bopping round the room expressing gratitude I don't have one of those webcam things people put on their blogs; Don't Stand So Close To Me. Specifically the '86 version. It has a different sound to it, a more surroundish-type-sound*. And more unfinished (or unresolved) cadences. I think we've all experienced the 'crush-on-teacher' syndrome. It mattered at the time.
I seem to be involved in along conversation about Every Breath You Take. My interlocutor, of whose identity I am no longer sure, was quite dogged in stating that because it was a song about stalking it was creepy and unpleasant. It had not struck me that way previously, and for a while I did consider this element, but on listening to it just now, I'm not convinced. It sounds more like a man who is bitter and full of hatred at the break-up of the relationship. Not Big Not Clever but Perfectly Understandable. Yes, he's obsessed, and he'll be watching her, wanting to prove that she's untrustworthy. It's too simple to label it an anthem to stalking.
And from the Department of Misheard Lyrics "Sue Lawley"
Least favourite - De Do Do Do De Da Da Da.
It struck me listening to this album that it must be a bit disappointing being a member of a rock band like The Police. Admittedly Sting is rich beyond one's wildest imagination and I don't suppose the other two suffer the penury of Church mice. But there you are, not exactly in Youth's First Flush, writing songs full of philosophical thoughts and literary references, hoping that you will be taken seriously by the college crowd; instead you become the pin-up od pre-teens who - thankfully - don't have a clue about the meaning of 'that famous book by Nabokov'. Life sucks sometimes.
Still, I contend that Boy Bands back then, back in the Golden Age™, they had something about them. It might actually have been because pre-teens were a bit more sophisticated, could handle pretentious philosophical ramblings in a sophisticated way. We'll Never See Their Likes Again.
Bloody hell, looks like they're back together and touring, hitting Twickenham next week. Twickers? Plenty of tickets up on ebay. Tempting but not that tempting, not sure I would be trendy enough to go to such a gig. Oh wait, it's 2007, they're in their fifties and sixties, their fans are in their forties. I think I'm trendy enough for that, but I don't think I'm that motivated, although, it's tempting, the concerts are at the weekend, so it's not like I'd be out late on a work night. Amd Twickers is well served by public transport - change at Clapham Junction. Nice, safe, suburban and middle-class. (I wonder how white middle-class middle-aged and elitist will that audience be - frighteningly so, I would imagine).
A brilliant title for an album, and a brilliant album by a brilliant band.
I was introduced to the Pogues at University by Dave, Mike and Andrew, and I have liked them ever since. Good grief, I even went out and bought this on vinyl. The Wikipedia article has taught me quite a lot, as has some of the links thrown up in it
One of the most attractive aspects of this album is the folk-rock fusion. I actually really like folk music - up to a point. I like it when it's proletarian and urban, hate it when it's tiptoe-through-the-tulips cowpat music. I like the ethnic Irish sound, and I like the fact that it's not Misty-Eyed-Old-Farts music, but Angry.
Every track on this album is worth listening to its own right, each is quite different from the rest. For example, the Wild Cats of Kilkenny has a wonderful combination of Bodhrán and penny whistle, a combination which ought to make one vomit, but the banshee howling and strident electric guitar - maybe it shouldn't work, but it does! And Cait O'Riordan's vocals on "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Everyday".
There is a good mix of original material by Shane McGowan and intelligent cover versions. It so happens that my two favourite tracks are cover versions, but that shouldn't be seen as diminishing the immense talent of Shane MacGowan - there's something about Shane MacGowan - born in Tunbridge Wells, attended Westminster School - which makes him just perfect to be 'considered one of the most important and poetic Irish songwriters of the last thirty years'.
I have always known Dirty Old Town as a song, but for about 15 years I thought it was a twee tiptoe-through-the-tulips song. Yes, I know that isn't the tradition of the Very Great Ewan MacColl, but it wasn't until I was actually in Salford*, with the Pogues' Dirty Old Town in my ears that its evocation of a very industrial city suddenly struck me - Ewan MacColl was still alive at this point. Of course Salford has changed beyond recognition now and will change more, especially round the Quays and near the Lowry.
However, sometimes an album contains a song so powerful that owning the album is mandatory simply because of that song. I realise that my recent record reviews are becoming increasingly autocratic in insisting that no record collection can be considered proper without certain works.
And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda' is simply one of the greatest songs ever written. The tune is compelling but even more powerful are the words,words made more poignant by the banjo, accordion** and brass. One word of warning - do not listen late at night. I never cry at audio-only performances of music, but listening to this at half past midnight a few days ago, I was in total floods. Even in the light of early afternoon, it is sending a shiver through me. And it makes me angry. Everything about World War 1 makes me angry. Utter waste, sheer evil and completely without any point. Why on earth did Australians end up fighting Turks in Gallipoli, dying and being maimed, just because of posturing by the immoral powerful and unaccountable. I don't know if huge conscript armies could be mustered nowadays, without extreme coercion, but the damage inflicted on an entire generation is incalculable. There are still people alive who fought in that war, we're still fighting it today in Iraq and elsewhere and if pointlessness and near-century long consequences is brought into the reckoning, it must count as one of the greatest evils of human history.
* en route for The Cliff, then Manchester United's training ground
** and how rarely do I praise the accordion, which if it wasn't for bagpipes, ought to be considered the spawn of Satan
I am a very late convert to Beautiful South. They have been around almost for ever, certainly since I was a student (or perhaps I am thinking more about the wonderful Housemartins) and recently split up because of 'musical similarities'. I only ever bought this one. Typical me to really get into a band nearly two decades after they formed and just as they split. And I have decided that I would really like to see them live.
I have always enjoyed their songs in a sort of passive way, but it's only since I put them on my mp3 player that I have realised just how much I like them. All of the songs on this album have nice tunes, which may seem like damning with faint praise, but it is a sine qua non of songwriting. I don't actually know much about them, but I have never got the sense of them being manufactured.
If the tunes are nice, the lyrics are brilliant. I have nothing but admiration for the poetry evident in every song.
This is most definitely an album that is worth playing over and again. That's the problem with trying to blog my entire record collection by forty. I am not sure there is any great benefit in listing all the songs on this album, and trying to rank them in order of preference. There are plenty of sources on the internet that have the track listing. However, I am trying to establish a list of my top one hundred pop songs ever. Maybe. Ish.
Some of the songs are memorable for lyrics such as
Albert Steptoe in 'Gone with the Breeze'
Mother played by Peter Beardsley, father by John Cleese
Whereas One Last Love Song has fairly banal lyrics, a deceptively simple melody, and moving harmonies. The unconventionally nasal lyricism of the male singer turn this into a special song.
A Little Time uses contrast between the soft male voice and the female voice coming in as if at cross-purposes. Very apt.
Bell Bottomed Tear is poignant. The words are profound, I think, the tune delightfully simple, the orchestration sophisticated, the voices real and idiosyncratic. I really like her voice. In fact thinking about it, in pop I tend to prefer female voices to male; in classical, I prefer male voices to female. Discuss...!
In fact this is incredibly difficult to write. I have decided that this has to be right up there as one my very favourite pop albums in my entire collection. I don't want to be a position.
Song for Whoever is quirky and satirical and yet not really cynical. Wonderful song.
I'll Sail This Ship Alone. Wonderful Song.
Prettiest Eyes. Wonderful Song.
Aaaaagh! Aaaaagh. Aaaaagh. I am going to have play this album over and over again over the next few months just so that I can determine how many of those songs mentioned above are actually not merely very good but quite possibly great.
I am the newest mad keen fan of the Beautiful South. Believe me, I am now an expert. They are utterly wonderful and this album ought to be in the collection of everybody who calls themself a music lover.
Well, it's not really crap, but it's obviously a compilation put together for a 'mood'. Lots of non-threatening music with a variety of singers with a diverse range of talents.
I like to put these things on random to cock a snook at the compiler. Especially when the compiler is marketer not a musician.
Bland. Let's pick some singers that people like, and find their blandest songs - Madonna, Alanis, Joan Armatrading. Let's ignore the fact that they are liked partly for their attitude. Well, I suppose Better Midler isn't bland. Sentimental schmultz can never be described as bland. On a record with sentimental schmulz, bland suddenly seems attractive.
I have never been able to take Natalia Imbruglia seriously since I heard she dated Liam Fox; I hadn't heard of her prior to learning that fact. Apparently, she was in Neighbours, in the days I used to watch it. Her presence clearly entirely passed me by.
On the plus side, there's some Sinead, but it's hardly her best song. Bonnie Raitt - now there's a woman with a voice. I always liked stuff by her I've heard. But never enough to rush out and buy an album.
The above was written after playing Disc 1. Fortunately Disc 2 is considerably better - or my mood and more ears more open to the selection.
Morcheeba. Not bad. I used to almost know Morcheeba very well. But that's a whole other story...! On the second disc are some very good tracks, by kd lang, Pretenders, Shakespear's Sister, Everything But The girl etc etc.
But the original draft of this is dated 19/5/2005 and it's now 19/8/2007. You calculate...it's not as if I have exactly been drawn to this CD in the past two years and three months.
Although, listening to it this evening, I have discovered a rather nice song I was not previously aware of - Where Have All The Cowboys Gone by Paula Cole, of whom I have never heard.
On the other hand, it also includes The Corrs. I mean, that should be against the law shouldn't it. I think buying this CD was the final stage of aversion therapy and I have never bought a pop compilation CD since. I don't think. In fact, I don't remember buying it. I supposed I might have shoplifted it in a drug-induced trance. But, somehow, I doubt it...
My copy says £15.99; Amazon has it available at its market value of a whole 97p. Gahhhh.
No, not the book. The album by Tasmin Archer. I look at the packaging and realised that it was produced in 1992. I have no memory of actually buying it, although I had not forgotten it was in my record collection. I expect I mosied along Streatham High Road one Saturday afternoon, and found myself perusing the racks in Woolies or Virgin and bought this on the basis of what seemed at the time to be a reasonably good single, Sleeping Satellite, I guess.
Taking this out of the case i immediately take a dislike to the packaging. An inlay card that contains lyrics. Generally, including of lyrics with a CD is there to aid understanding and thus enjoyment. I have nearly perfect vision, with my spectacles it is perfect. I really can't be bothered to read these, though. Tiny pitch, faint ink and worst of all total absence of capital letters. Pretentious tosh. Why write something and then make it difficult to read? Rudeness.
So, onto the music. Well, it's harmless and non-irritating. There are tunes. Not great or memorable tunes, but tunes. Too much computer-generated instrumentation and mindless dull repetitive drumbeat. She has a voice. A weak insipid voice but one that basically holds a tune.
I expect I shall play this again in about five years time, but I can't say that buying it, possessing it, or playing it has improved my life in any sense. Actually, it's quite irritating. I vowed when I started this nonsense all those years ago that I would play every record in my collection. No avoiding skipping or missing. And it is a matter of honour and integrity that I do so. It has struck me that - being fair and balanced - she has written these songs as a very personal outpouring of her emotions and experiences. I suppose for people that share those experiences this a very touching record, and I acknowledge that often music is a very constructive way of working through issues. But if one doesn't have those experiences or emotions it can be very alienating. Too harsh to say 'so what'. If it were great music and/or great poetry, the greatness would transcend the individual. But they're not so they don't. But maybe they hold meaning for other people. And that's good. Perhaps at the time I bought I was wanting to understand other people's lives and thought that disposable pop music was the key. And now I know it's not. Unless it's my life I need to understand. In which case there are more suitable pop artists.
In case you had forgotten exactly who Paul Potts is - and lord knows, I wish I had, but he keeps coming up in my Katherine Jenkins Google Alerts. He is the pub crooner of little talent who spluttered and warbled his way through almost a minute and a half of Nessun Dorma, sending the audience of musical ignorami into pant-wetting at their shock of hearing a tune (from the orchestra, well it wasn't an orchestra, it was a backing track of an orchestra). After one-and-a-half minutes of utter mediocrity, these people felt fit to declare on YouTube that Paul Potts has done more for opera than anyone and that he is the greatest opera singer of all time.
Incidentally, he marketed himself on this talent show as being shy and lacking in confidence, which seems bizarre for someone who stood as candidate for Bath City Council in 1995 (aged just 24) and again in 1999, getting elected for the Liberal Democrats.
In typical Lib Dim style, wanting to be all things to all people, in his CV for Bath Opera (by all accounts an amateur outfit for people prepared to pay to sing, much like a Sunday football team), he claimed to have studied for six months in Italy under Pavarotti. When it was suggested that this made him less of an untrained amateur than he had previously claimed, it quickly became that he had attended a masterclass held by Pav. Which was a good thing, because six months studying in Italy is six months not representing the electors of Bath. And as someone said on Facebook "Shy and humble my arse. I met him when he lurched up to London to sing for a certain North London opera company a few years back..."
Anyway, all that aside, the boy wonder, the best thing that has happened to opera since,oh well, you know, since somebody worked out how to hack gonads off choirboys, has released an album, filled with opera arias such as:
Nessun Dorma from Puccini's Turandot,
Time to Say Goodbye (Con te partiro) from some opera or other;
Amapola, made famous by the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra;
Everybody Hurts (Ognuno Soffre) - that is an Italian (cos opera's Italian, innit) of REM's Everybody Hurts (Jesus Wept);
Caruso - oh that's about a famous singer, so it's opera innit;
Nella Fantasia, previously made famous by Dame Warbling Barbie of Neath Port Talbot;
You Raise Me Up, also in foreign to be more sophistica'ed;
My Way, in Italian, because it's a crap song in English that no one likes whether it be by Frank Sinatra or Sid Vicious;
Cavatina, presumably from that well-known opera The Deer Hunter, and
Music of the Night, made famous by Frank 'Ooh Betty' Spencer.
Sadly - or maybe not so sadly - I cannot find any excerpts online. It is my experience that new CDs usually include a track or two, or a promotional video, or 30 second excerpts of each track. However, despite searching Amazon, SonyBMG, PP's official website, PP's MySpace, I can't find a note of it. Perhaps it is so truly bad that they hope it will shift half a million to the thickos (by definition...), and he can fade back into the obscurity of 9-5. I suppose I could walk round to the Carphone Warehouse and buy a copy, but I think having to walk past past the newsagent and chemist makes it more of an effort than it's worth.
Although I am quite happy to pimp my ass to any mega media moduls for a consideration.
As my quest to play - and blog - my entire record collection, alphabetically* by the age of 40, I next come to Tori Amos.
I was rather dreading the playing of this CD. I bought it at a time when I would wander into bricks-and-mortar record shops and just hoover stuff up. Which of course means that I have a lot of stuff which was once fashionable but being not very good, has failed to outlive its essential faddishness.
I had put Tori Amos into this category, because each time one of her tracks come onto my mp3 I fast forward. Yet, I played the CD three times in the past week. I have puzzled over this seeming contradiction.
I have now concluded that the music is sufficiently bland to act as wallpaper and thus actually be ignored when I'm doing else, but when forced into my lug-holes her voice is grating and yet otherwise without any colour as to be unlistenable at this proximity.
Some of the songs have quite thoughtful words but there's a limit to the angst one can take when one is approaching middle-age with angst-free equilibrium.
So, I expect when I re-do this as 'all the records by 50', I shall play this again. In the meantime it will sit in the nylon Case Logic CD case as a lasting testament to the thoughtlessness of my CD splurging in the early 90s. I am glad I have grown out of such trifles.
* perversely, with rock/pop CDs I started at Jones, so having gone to Z(ish) I'm back at A.
Onwards with blogging my record collection. Armed again with a cassette deck, I play the next scheduled cassette, containing Pet Shop Boys first two albums, Please and Actually. Not a great deal to say. And certainly no point digitising these well-played somewhat damaged TDK cassettes, (nor thinking - but turntable, seek out vinyl albums).
I suppose this is a concept album, which was, in itself, quite a strange concept when it appeared in 1991. I suppose that makes it one of the earliest CDs I ever got.
Even stranger is the fact that it's an album of two halves. The first five tracks are Marc Almond-written songs; the second half is the "Tenement Symphony". I'm not entirely sure of the concept, but I kind of like it.
One of the best tracks is Jacky, a Jaques Brel song. I had never heard of Jaques Brel until this album, and I do like this song, but it has never really inspired me to find out a great deal more. Indeed, this version has an incessant disco beat, which I suspect was not as Jaques Brel intended. In general, I don't like incessant computer-generated disco beats, but this is an example of where it works, because it's just part of an intelligent arrangement/orchestration.
I can't really make my mind up about this album. Whenever a track pops up on random on my mp3 player, I smile and enjoy the track. And, knowing that it was the next pop album scheduled alphabetically, I permitted myself a sense of anticipation.
Sadly, the playing of the album as a whole does not fulfil my expectations. I think it's an intelligent album, I think it's far from formulaic. It consists of good songs well performed. So, what is there not to like?
My problem is that, ultimately, there is no real variety. Perhaps that says more about me, and more about the fact that in 2007, I listen far too much to music on random. A whole album has to have something extra to make me want to enjoy it for three quarters of an hour. And I suppose the downfall of this album is the lack of variety in Marc's voice. I have a lot of respect and affection for Marc Almond, who has been delivering the goods in a creative way since the early 80s. I think he is a musician, I like his voice, because of, rather than despite the fact that it's thin and wavery. But in the end, an entire album with no real change in vocal colour is aurally tiring. I am glad I have this album. I would not contemplate removing it from my mp3 player, it has some fabulous songs on it, especially Meet Me In My Dream and The Days of Pearly Spencer.
Perhaps, ironically, it's downfall for me is the attempt to be a concept album. If it was presented as a collection of commercially-oriented standalone five minute pop songs for the radio, I would like it much more. I suppose I find it a tad pretentious. Marc Almond is a good pop writer and a pleasant pop singer. But that's it. Like Elvis Costello, he's at his best when keeping it simple.
If it isn't in your collection, you really ought to get it. Especially at the price it's currently going for at Amazon, a fraction of what I originally paid sigh
My previous entry in this category will show the casual reader that I am a devoted fan of Adam Ant.
However, I have to say this album is a misnomer. I have very little good to say about it; I removed it from my mp3 player pretty quickly, and realised that I had barely played it since buying it in 1995. If I'm feeling charitable, I would say that artists bring out dreadful 'Comeback' albums because they are so caught up and too close to the material, and no one has the common sense or guts to say "Woah! This is really bad, it's so bad it risks jeopardising your reputation and integrity that you strived so hard to establish." If I was less charitable, I would say it was a deliberate ploy by the record company, with or without the artist's connivance to take advantage of the gullibility loyalty of long term fans. It leaves a bad sound in the ear and a bad taste in the mouth.
I went through a period of two or three years when I didn't play music. Well, that's not strictly true, I just got into a rut playing a small number of compilation albums, ignoring all else. I then decided to be a bit more systematic and all-embracing, and I put this CD on with trepidation. I was aware by then of the familiarity/nostalgia school of musical appreciation. Just because I knew the songs inside out and they brought back memories of a time of my life, didn't actually make them any good.
I realised then, and I realise again today that the biggest criticisms of this album are
the packaging is low rent - an eight page booklet with a bit of hagiography, a track listing and pictures of the singles - hey, I've got the majority of the singles, on 7" vinyl, with their exciting full colour full picture cases
it isn't on vinyl. I'm not a big fan of vinyl. What with broken needles, jumping needles, pieces of fluff that ruin an entire section, well, I'm definitely a CD girl. But Adam and the Ants demand to be played on vinyl, I think, to reflect the raw passion inherent in the music
Adam and the Ants exemplify more than any other pop band how percussion can be musical in itself. I got into Adam and the Ants in that difficult teen stage of my life. 16 October 1980, to be precise. Yes, I still know the date on which they first appeared on Top of the Pops. Without having to look it up. They were my band of my teenage years. And thus, it is difficult to be objective.
But I still think that lyrically, melodically and drumly, they are a cut above everything else in the poposhere*. This is me listening objectively. This is me already wanting to play the whole album again even before it has finished.
As any Antperson knows, there came a point where Adam (reverse D, please) and the Ants became Adam Ant. At the time it seemed important, but in retrospect it is less important than the hiatus. Basically those ℗ 1978 - 1983 are sheer genius. Those from 1985-1989 are, to be honest, forgettable.
So the good ones. Prince Charming. The acoustic guitar, the grinding sound, the fact the song deliberately seems to take ages to get started, then we have that wonderful chorus "Ridicule is nothing to be scared of..." and the howling, followed by a change of key, before reverting for the chorus And no, I can't do the Prince Charming dance, but then I couldn't back then, either. And I'm still word perfect in singalong.
Kings of the Wild Frontier: Perfect example of how powerful the double drumkit is. I was watching the Marie Antoinette film the other day and this proved to be a surprisingly perfect soundtrack for a pre-Revolutionary masqued ball. Who'd have known! (Actually, any real Ants fan will know that the classic jacket was researched by Adam on a visit to Les Invalides...so everything connects...)
Apollo 9 is very good for post-hiatus Adam. Loud and raucous, but, ultimately, not as satisfying as the earlier stuff. And really quite nonsense, I think.
Dog Eat Dog is for me the weakest of the singles from 'Kings' album. That doesn't make it a bad song, far from it.
On YouTube someone has commented
Thank God i was a teenager when these boys were around it was a magical time in music history and wouldn't change that for anything in the world
. A sentiment I share wholeheartedly. Although, I wonder how different it would have been to have been me then, and them then, but with t'internet, downloads, YouTube, MTV, PVRs etc. Would I have been even more obsessed?
Puss 'N Boots. What I like most about this is the staccato rhythm. And the way it pauses and then changes key. Marco Pirroni had more music in his little finger than most of today's manufactured crap have in their entire group and entourage combined...
Goody Two Shoes reminds me so much of the long hot summer of 1982, lying awake trying to get to sleep listening to the radio.Furious drumbeat, but a great melodic line, and funky brass. For a few weeks I even followed the advice "Don't drink, don't smoke". It didn't last, obviously, after all I was fourteen. A very shrewd critique of the celebrity culture, and an attack on the media. I didn't fully understand it then, but it certainly made me think.
Strip isn't the best song off that album - an album I discuss in more depth in the post linked above. At the time I was Guardian Woman and I did question this song, and this album from a radical militant feminist viewpoint. I decided - with all the wisdom of a 15 year old virgin - that it was okay, because it did not objectify women, or if it did, it was part of a mutually pleasing sexual game where both participants had equal validity. I concluded I would never become Andrea Dworkin!
Young Parisians pre-dates all the chart success and the loud drums and rock and roll, pre-dates the radical change in line-up, IIRC the A&tA line-up then was later to form the backbones of Bow Wow Wow. The style is entirely different, a ballad-like style that somehow conjures up smoke-filled bars of the Left Bank (although my time in Paris has never extended beyond half a day changing trains en route back from Geneve). Deutscher Girls is similar, but much darker. Is there a music genre called Pop Noir?
Cartrouble, with the immortal line "Have you ever had to push?".There is also the "other" Cartrouble which is not on this album, but I do have on vinyl...I might have to get a record player one of these days. I always felt uncomfortable about the lyrics of that. Best not dwell too much...
Physical (You're So) is among the sexiest songs ever recorded. Pure Sex (isn't that what the tattoo said...?). Even as a fifteen year old virgin, I was able to grasp that, especially the grinding. I always felt that Adam's songs about sex were the expression of a man who really loved women. If I had gone down the Andrea Dworkin role I would have felt uncomfortable, instead I decided to go down the Libertine road of saying that adult consenting sex is great, and as liberated woman, I am quite capable of determining whether to give consent and knowing whether or not I did.
Friend or Foe is energetic, with the characteristic drumming, and with added brass. There was a short period in the early eighties when quite a few pop bands, whether the 'real instrument' bands such as Adam, or the synthesised electronic bands (who, in retrospect, are responsible for killing music - nothome taping) experimented with brass, and according to the bombastic pseudo-authoritarian know-all know-nothings that postured as presenters on Radio 1, this was the arrival of jazz funk. Hmm, it was short lived, and like so much music, it was derivative sampling fusion. Good if it's done well, tired if it's done thoughtlessly
Ant Rap is my karaoke track. Or it would be if a) I did karaoke and b) this was included in standard karaoke sets. So much more satisfying that "Feelings..." or "Eye of the Tiger". For a while I actually believed I could rap. I then realised that I didn't especially want to be a rapper. I think of my performance of AntRap as being a cross between reciting and singing. A mesmeric rhythm, very sophisticated. Somewhat in the style of minimalists such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Actually, I was quite a Steve Reich fan back then, but I've only just noticed the connection
The anthemic, epoch-making, eponymous track. And you know, from that day to this, I have never consciously tread on an ant. I love the latest comment left on YouTube to this - "he was so f'ing hot!!!!!!!!" Oh yes!
And finally, the greatest Adam and the Ants song, and a definite contender for my all-time best songs album: Stand and Deliver. Of course, we all remember the Da Diddly Qua Qua. And the innovative use of drumsticks as actual percussion instruments. And the guitar. And the video. What can I say? Straight in at number one and hitting and holding for five weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong. I ought to know - I salvaged my file of the entire 1980s Top Twenties from my mother's house the other week. They are dangerously close at hand. I refuse to fact-check.
SwapShop interview from 1981 - I wonder, did somebody record it on video back then, and recently digitise it to upload to YouTube?
You know,when I started "All the records by 40" Project, it crossed my mind that it would be nice to provide actual musical links, but didn't really know how. How fast t'internet moves... so many videos are available on YouTube, but if not, I could have uploaded audio tracks to Yahoo Groups, or audio or video to Rapidshare. I also have this album on video, but until this weekend I didn't have the means to digitise it. Yet when I were a lass, it was a matter of some regret to have to miss an airing of an Ant video on TOTP or Swap Shop or whatever.
Until my dying day, I will always be a devoted Adam and the Ants fan. Sex music for Ant people, Ant music for Sex people.
Go to the back of the class anyone who thought that Abba would be followed by Adam and the Ants. First, we have ABC
I think that they are one of the forgotten bands of the New Romantic era. Probably deservedly.
I never really got into them in the Eighties. I sort of liked them in that undiscriminating adolescent way of liking anything in the Charts now, that isn't actually crud or uncool.
I suppose the difficult thing about ABC is Martin Fry. Let's not beat about the bush. I really don't like his voice. It's too strident, almost to the point of aggression, which is not really appropriate for what are, effectively, bland mushy love songs. And I doubt he was on many walls of teenage girls back in the early-to mid Eighties. I certainly don't recall any of my contemporaries fancying him. Although one of my classmate's Mum went to cookery classes with his Dad. Oh yes, we were well connected to the pop world back then.
I'm playing this album, but I'm not especially enjoying it. It's not making me run round in a state of agitation or anything like that, but I can't help thinking: mediocre songs, over-produced, with unconvincing faux emotion, crooned by someone who can sing, sort of, but has an ugly voice, and backing vocals of the 'phone-it-in' school. The worst thing about this sort of 'Greatest Hits' retrospective of Never-Weres is the concept of 'Added Value'. The true fans will already have all the singles, and, in any case, the paltry array of hit singles is insufficient to fill a CD past the crucial 45 minute mark. So they put on additional bonus tracks, which are remixes of the garbage that has gone before, but with extra stuttering - because that 'scratching' was so cutting edge in the years before 1990, the date of this release.
Still, I shouldn't be too negative. I did, after all, buy it, and almost certainly for more real cash money than it is available now.
I seem to have gone into hiatus on my "All the records by 40" Project. It's not that I haven't been playing music, quite the opposite. If I travel anywhere on my tod, I always have my mp3 player with me, and at 4629 tracks it has a reasonable cross-section of my music collection.
So I take the project up again with a pop CD. I am not quite sure what to do about cassettes. I shall be without cassette playing capacity until I can be arsed to buy a cassette deck to plug into my amp.
And quite fittingly, the first album that comes up is by Abba (quite shocking that the HTML-writing community hasn't come up with the code for the trademark Abba reverse 'B'. Fittingly, because, although I originally randomly began pop/rock CDs at 'Jones', Abba is alphabetically apt, and in keeping with the fact that Abba were almost certainly the first group that I really liked. I mean apart from The Wombles etc, and they don't really count. I even had an "Abba Songs for the Recorder" book. Okay, I admit it, I've still got it.
That was when I was a child. As a cool teenager I entirely repudiated Abba, which later proved to me how stupid the adoption of cool is. Abba's legend goes on. And why? Because, pretty consistently, they wrote fabulous songs, and performed them ably. It's easy to sneer at poppy tunes, much harder to emulate them. And it wasn't as if they were all bright and shallow. On this, effectively their Greatest Hits Album . Supertrouper, for example, has a dark sound to it, and the mood as expressed in the lyrics is ambiguous. Facing 20,000 of your fans, how can anyone be so lonely. But at least 'you're in the crowd tonight'. I suppose performers the world over have similar fixed feelings. and it was this song that first made me realise that the showbiz life wasn't all glamour. Billy Bragg also does it splendidly.
I find it fascinating to follow the trajectories of their private lives through the chronology of their songs. The Winner Takes It All is really quite weird - written by the blokes, sung by Agnetha, I think in the aftermath of her break up with, Benny or Bjorn, I used to know who was married to whom. Heck, I saw Abba the Movie at Sale Odeon. I was that big a fan. And I tell you what, if they played the Dome for £500 quid a ticket, I'd be there! It ain't gonna happen. One of Us is in much the same vein.
My absolutely favourite Abba song is "Thank You For the Music", and, let me tell you, I love nothing more than bopping round belting it out loud, using the remote control as a pretend microphone. but I can't right now. I have my earphones on; Jimmy's watching a film in the next room, and he thinks that a whole album of Abba is too much. It's only a single album, I protest. But singing with headphones with witnesses (think of my poor neighbour...) is a no-no.
All of the rest of the world thinks Dancing Queen is the best Abba song. It comes on pub juke-boxes a lot and I can rarely resist the temptation to get up and dance. I think just about anybody can dance to it.
We bought my father Take A Chance on Me for his fiftieth birthday. I am not sure he particularly appreciated it!
Another of my favourites is I Have A Dream, another of the break-up songs, very melancholy.
Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight, the anthem of every* single woman and many a not so single one. Musically, another departure from the stereotypical sunny happy Abba. And had a Sitcom named after it. As did, of course, Knowing Me Knowing You aha...
Fernando is damned hard to play on the recorder, I can tell you.
And then there is the difficultDoes Your Mother Know? At the time (Junior 4 - or Year 6 to you youngsters) I thought it was cool that Abba had gone all punk with heavy guitar riffs and I wanted to buy it with pocket money. But my parents put their foot down with a lame you already have too many Abba records... I can't believe that Radio 1 played it without batting an eyelid. Does it ever get any radio in these less innocent days?
I love the Housemartins, in the sense that I can think of precisely two songs by them, only one of which is in my record collection in any form at all, and that is Caravan of Love on a TDK 'taped-off-the-radio' twenty years ago practically to the day.
Their other song that I adore I only need to carry in my head, but nevertheless it's great to find it on YouTube, in a wonderful clip filmed in, of all places, Farnworth. Obviously a much cherished tape that somebody's played a million times before uploading onto YT. Still sounds fabulous, however flat it is...
Although I have only been nightclubbing about five times in my life (and hated each time), I did a lot of discos in my first couple of terms at University and no disco was complete without Happy Hour. Or Don't Leave Me This Way, Walk This Way and In the Mood. Nottingham University, at the cutting edge of Indy. Not.
The album opens with (Quello Che Faro) Sara Per Te (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, an ill-conceived cover version of Bryan Adams' Robin Hood theme that spent a seemingly forever at number one in the UK charts half a lifetime ago. The highlight of this is definitely Adams' guitar playing. Orchestral arrangement syrupy and over lush. Diction poor. Not possible to tell a word of the Italian in which she is singing. Why bother? I can only assume that by taking a middle-of-the-road rock anthem and translating the words into Italian, she will convince Middle England she is an opera singer. I don't see what's wrong with letting rock music be rock. It can be bloody good.
We then move onto Nella Fantasia. The opening phrase is sung like a small child, then the rest is done in that false voice that children - and some adults - adopt, often for comedy effect, to make themselves sound as though they can sing like a proper singer. It's basically the theme music from The Mission film. The orchestra sounds pretty much like it did in the previous track. In fairness Barbie doesn't sound bad on this, except that high note which she takes a big leap up to, and still has to approach from under pitch. I wonder how many takes it took in the studio to get even to that approximation.
Then we have Chanson Boheme (Carmen). It is almost impossible to murder Carmen's music, and it sounds as though the orchestra are much more comfortable playing this, with a crisp introduction, then the Carmen bursts in. I think someone must have suggested she needs to alter her tone a bit more in this, because we get a random selection of tones, from sweet simpering girl, to angry matriarch, to posh Sloane, to something that might be an attempt to do Edith Piaf (French, you see...). Certainly novel interpretations of the fiery promiscuous Carmen.I love the way that she can sound different even in the same phrase or even the same bar. Interesting it is, Callas it isn't. But the orchestral is magnificent, especially the percussion.
Green Green Grass of Home. Now, I love this song...as sung by Tom Jones, who, in my opinion, has one of the great voices, or certainly did at his peak. When he recorded this there was the full richness of his voice, and a sensitive edge of emotion. She sings most of this in her upper register and she is clearly struggling. but I find it difficult to tell what she's singing, even though it's supposedly in English. I think there's one bit where she sings Oak Tree but it sounds more like 'uck tregh'. If you have arrived here after doing a Google for her version of this, you absolutely have to watch - or at least listen to - Tom Jones singing this on You Tube. I have to say, he does look kind of naff with that enormous great big cross round his neck, but boy, can he sing. Jenkins' version isn't fit to be mentioned in the same blogpost.
I have three albums by the Alan Parsons Project, all of them taped off my brother-in-law and I have to say they are much of a muchness. I think I probably appreciated them more in my Twenties when I had this thing of sitting and listening to stuff that aspired to have a deeper meaning, and attempting to fathom the deeper meaning. But I'm not so sure now.
The tunes are mainly rather pleasant and bland and rather instantly forgettable. I've had these albums the best part of twenty years and you know, they don't exactly form earworms. It never occurs to me to consider Alan Parsons among my favourite artists, and yet, I can't think of anything really bad to say in criticism. I think Alan is most famous for being a producer for an impressive line-up of stars at Abbey Road, but ultimately the 'Project' albums are concept albums, and you know, I have an irrational antipathy to concept albums. Conceptually wrong wrong wrong.
Of the three, Eye in the Sky stands out as being nearly very good indeed. I like the atmosphere of the album as a whole. There's a crystal-clarity in the wall of sound, even though this is a very old and often-played-on-dodgy-equipment cassette. The title track has a certain anthemic quality. Silence and I is good enough to be short-listed for my top hundred songs of pop-all-time, and Old and Wise is a wistful ballad, providing a interesting contrast at the end of the album.
At the end of the day it's pleasant enough aural wallpaper, but I want a bit more for my two hours of listening. The voices in particular are formulaic, lacking any sort of personality, colour or drama, except for the times when they sound nasal, hoarse and ugly.
I was thinking of opening this post by saying "Anybody who says they don't like Robbie Williams is either a liar or has cloth ears" but I decided that that is far too confrontational, so instead I would welcome comments from people who don't like him saying why.
He was one of the real highlights of Live8. "Let me entertain you" he said, and boy, he entertained us. One of the three best performers I saw live in 2005 (and he's half the age of the other two...). After I had seen Neil Diamond, I thought ''there aren't many pop stars around now who will be doing in thirty years what Neil did that night, but Robbie might". It's up to me whether or not you believe me, because I didn't include it in my review, and you'll just think I pinched the thought from Mike T-D.
I wasn't a Take That fan - I was way too old for Boy Bands, although I do have their Greatest Hits. But Robbie is in an elite group with George Michael and not very many more people.
To be honest, this album is better than the sum of its parts. It contains no turkeys but there are a good few tracks that I'm indifferent to. I'm not in any hurry to wipe them off my mp3 player but if and when space becomes critical, they may be on a long list.
But at least one song on this album - Heaven From Here is a dead cert for my Top 100 pop songs of all time, and She's the One is a contender.
Heaven From Here is everything a good pop song should be. (I try to distinguish between 'pop' and 'rock' but don't really get bogged on genre beyond that). A tuneful tune, intelligently written. I don't know what key it's in, but listen to the music, and it's a sunny bright key. Nice poppy acoustic guitar. The words are nice too, surely words we can all identify with: saying that relationships aren't perfect, but that love conquers all.
And I've been caught with nothing but Love on my mind
We are love don't let it fall on deaf ears
Now it's clear we have seen heaven from here
I can play it over and again.
She's the One has similar characteristics. Perhaps not as tuneful, that piano is heavily influenced by John Lennon's Imagine. The key is more melancholy, or wistful. I think the middle passage lets it down a bit, but it's nevertheless a fine song.
And all of them feature Robbie's voice. Which I like. The boy can sing, he can vary the colours in what he's singing. Any hesitations I have about him are not really to do with his music, but about the whole PR/tabloid stuff, which is tedious and I would not be surprised if it poses a barrier to his music for more people than just me.
And then I play Life thru A Lens, and to be honest, there are an awful lot of fillers on this album and it must qualify as a waste of money on my part - which I'm sorely tempted to say is a cynical rip-off by the record company.
Old Before I Die is okay; an attempt to reply to The Who - but you know, The Who's opening salvo was much better - and I'm not a Who fan.
Let Me Entertain You actually has little going for it objectively. Crappy song, indifferent lyrics, but it works because of the energy in it. And Angels, well, it's one of those songs. It will not be played at my wedding or funeral or any other occasion because it's a soppy sentimental superficial pop song. However, I do find it quite pleasant to listen to. All together now, light your cigarette lighters. Or in these post-Puritan times, wave your mobile phone around, making sure the screen is illuminated. It's not quite the same...!
The rest is rubbish and not fit to go on my mp3 player.
ELO's 1976 single Livin' Thing has topped a Q magazine list of uncool records it is okay to love.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone's perfectly entitled to release a compilation CD, call it what they like, and the punter can take it or leave it. And indeed, this bloke did do so two years ago, too
Today covered the story this morning, and I turned away in disgust. A series of vox pops of men decreeing what people should or should not like. It came over as adolescent willy-waving. And dogmatic. Surely, anybody's entitled to like whatever they like. And why be embarrassed about it? You can't be particularly secure in yourself if you fear that people will judge you for liking a particular song, or even a handful of songs. The sad thing is that the type of bloke who was on the radio telling us what we should dislike are probably the same ones who twenty years ago were telling us that to be hip and cutting edge it was imperative to like that certain song or band. Which says nothing about musical taste and everything about a desperate need to project an image. Most blokes get over it by about age twenty.
I am careful in using the word 'like'. Like is intensely personal and subjective. It's not the same as saying 'greatest' or 'better than'. Just because something's popular doesn't make it good. Or bad. Although sustained enduring popularity with a wide range of people, including those with expertise or experience is probably the closest we can get to an objective standard for matters of personal taste. But if you like something, enjoy it and don't be ashamed of it, and don't be afraid of saying "I like this because it reminds me of a time and a place or there's something about that tune". But don't tell me that I have to accept it to be a great song. And don't tell me what I shouldn't like, on the basis that it isn't cool to like it. Cool - in that context - is generally doing what some self-appointed opinionator has deemed to be worthy of attention.
A while ago I presented you with 25 lines selected at random from tracks residing on my computer, omitting non-verbal, non-English and songs where the first line is or acts as first line.
Just to tidy up:
1. You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life: Dancing Queen - Abba. Magpie got the artist; Rullsenberg added the track
2. After all these years after all these tears between us: All I really need is you - Neil Diamond. Answered by Alice
3. From the very first time I rest my eyes on you, boy. Daisy said Annie Lennox: I don't wanna wait in vain for your love (actually, Waiting in Vain, but why nit-pick?)
4. Back in '68 in a sweaty club: Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners Robin
5. 1.2.3.4 Heaven loves ya The clouds part for ya: Boys Keep Swingin - David Bowie. Robin, again.
6. She said it was just a figment of speech: Walk Away Renee -Billy Bragg. Daisy got the artist, Alice,
7. There you go Flashing fever from your eyes: Show Me Heaven - Maria McKee. Alice got the song, but guessed a couple of alternative artists.
8. Only you, you're the only thing I'll see forever: Tonight from West Side Story said Alan. It's been recorded by so many people it would have been unfair to expect you to guess the artists that happened to appear on this random play. But only a bit of effort would actually have been required - Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming
9. I love you from the bottom of my pencil case: Song for Whoever - Beautiful South - Rullsenberg
10. The telephone is ringin' in the middle of the night I pull the bed clothes higher: Nanci Griffith - It's just another morning here: Alice
11. My breath smells of a thousand fags And when I'm drunk I dance like me Dad. Robbie Williams's Strong - artist guessed by Skuds, song by Will
12. I blame you for the moonlit sky and the dream that died: sleeping Satellite, Tasmin Archer: Alan
13. If you take me straight to heaven I could never fall: In All the Right Places - Lisa Stansfield - Alice
14. Last night you talked about leaving - Too Many Broken Hearts - Jason Donovan. Will
15. Baby I've been here before I know this room, I walked this floor. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen. Daisy (well, loads of artists to choose from...)
16. Don't you think it's funny that nothing's what it seems when you're not looking forward? - snagged by JonnyB
17. Coyote, oh coyote can you tell me why: Full Moon full of Love - kd lang , thanks Lyle
18. Punctured bicycle On a hillside desolate. This Charming Man - the Smiths, guessed by Rullsenberg
19. the wind's whistling my mind's twisting: Not so manic now - Dubstar (Rullsenberg)
20. My baby drives a car he calls me when he wants: Some Girls Rachel Stevens - artist guessed by Gordon, song by Alice.
21. I want you to be the strong one: You do -McAlmont and Butler. I'm really shocked no one got it because it is such a wonderful OTT song - now uploaded to my yahoo group - non-members can apply for membership here (you won't be refused
22. I'm flying high on something beautiful and aimless: Sense - Lightning Seeds - identified by Carol
23. With the heartbreak open So much you cant hide: Goody Two Shoes, Adam Ant identified by Daisy
24. Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he will open the door - Wives and Lovers Dionne Warwick. Rullsenberg guessed the song; it's been recorded by very many.
25. I'm nothing special in fact I'm a bit of a bore: Abba's glorious Thank You for the Music. Rullsenberg, again...
It's been fun. And it might be fun to stick the occasional '10 First Lines' in another time when I'm proscrastinating...!
I stick my music on random. When a song comes up, I write the first line. You guess the song and answer in the comments. (I have omitted ones that come up where the first line is the title)
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life - snagged by Rullsenberg and Magpie (sort of...)
After all these years after all these tears between us
From the very first time I rest my eyes on you,boy - snagged by Daisy
Back in '68 in a sweaty club - snagged by Robin
1.2.3.4 Heaven loves ya The clouds part for ya - snagged by Robin
She said it was just a figment of speech - artist snagged by Daisy, track as yet unguessed
There you go Flashing fever from your eyes
Only you, you're the only thing I'll see forever - snagged by Alan
I love you from the bottom of my pencil case - snagged by Rullsenberg
The telephone is ringin' in the middle of the night I pull the bed clothes higher
My breath smells of a thousand fags And when I'm drunk I dance like me Dad - artist snagged by Skuds, song by Will
I blame you for the moonlit sky and the dream that died - snagged by Alan
If you take me straight to heaven I could never fall
Last night you talked about leaving - snagged by Will
Baby I've been here before I know this room, I walked this floor - snagged by Daisy
Don't you think it's funny that nothing's what it seems when you're not looking forward? - snagged by JonnyB
Coyote, oh coyote can you tell me why - snagged by Lyle
Punctured bicycle On a hillside desolate - snagged by Rullsenberg
the wind's whistling my mind's twisting - - snagged by Rullsenberg
My baby drives a car he calls me when he wants- artist snagged by Gordon
I want you to be the strong one
I'm flying high on something beautiful and aimless - snagged by Carol
With the heartbreak open So much you cant hide - snagged by Daisy
Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he will open the door - - snagged by Rullsenberg
I'm nothing special in fact I'm a bit of a bore - - snagged by Rullsenberg
That final one came up when I was walking from the coffee shop to work the other day. A fantastic track with which to start the working day and indisputedly one of my favourite pop songs of all time!
This is difficult. Some cracking and irrelevant tracks from my favourite singers are coming up: Granada, Laudate dominum, Why do the nations so furiously rage together? I can't just skip them...!
Or as they were very early on OMITD. Very popular they were in the Eighties. And I am very much a product of the Eighties. Everyone seemed to like OMD, but I do not recall anyone having teenage crushes on OMD. I don't remember any letters to Smash Hits or Just Seventeen from people angsting in their tormented teenaged bedrooms over OMD.
But I think most of us liked OMD.
I bought quite a few of their singles. In fact I would say of all the singles I own, Joan of Arc has the most satisfying cover. Not necessarily the most exciting, but it has a sleek beauty about it.
In the early, 1990s when Smash hits was de rigeur reading among many of my twenty-something colleagues (not least myself) we were somehow horrified and disappointed that they were back in the charts and back in Smash Hits. It didn't seem right, it was as if they had somehow lost their integrity. They were never a plastic manufactured band, they were artists.
It turns out they are due to tour with Joy Division. Ooh, guess the average age of the audience. 41, I reckon. And now, I don't see it as a loss of integrity or anything such. I would imagine it would be a good night out, some good tunes. I hope some youngsters do go, learn why old folks like me have such indifference to modern commercialised pop. No dates yet.
Every song on the album is good, but if the truth be told, the highlight of the album comes in a sequence of four tracks: Enola Gay, Souvenir, Joan of Arc and Maid Orleans. As for the rest, they would probably induce a smile of nostalgia if heard on the radio or a compilation album, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Of these Joan of Arc is the only one for consideration in my Top 100 pop sings of all time. It reached number five in the autumn of 1981. 1981 is undisoutedly the best year for pop music, and the autumn was extraordinary.
I have this album on vinyl (which I have recorded onto cassette) but even at £3.33 - probably less than half of what I paid for the original vinyl) I am not over-tempted to take this into my digital collection.
Of the three, Eye in the Sky stands out as being nearly very good indeed. I like the atmosphere of the album as a whole. There's a crystal-clarity in the wall of sound, even though this is a very old and often-played-on-dodgy-equipment cassette. The title track has a certain anthemic quality. Silence and I is good enough to be short-listed for my top hundred songs of pop-all-time, and Old and Wise is a wistful ballad, providing a interesting contrast at the end of the album.
And then I play Life thru A Lens, and to be honest, there are an awful lot of fillers on this album and it must qualify as a waste of money on my part - which I'm sorely tempted to say is a cynical rip-off by the record company. 
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