Hack at work
David Cameron is right: Dark Side of the Moon is a masterpiece
May 15th
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is a masterpiece, and the Prime Minister is to be commended for his taste. It is one of the indisputably great albums of British pop culture: dark, seductive, mesmerising, spacious, dynamic, weird and wonderful, composed on a vast musical canvas by a brilliant group of bold, adventurous musicians and superb lyricists operating at the height of their powers. Critics may take pot-shots at it now, because some of its power has been lost with the over-familiarity and the crust of venerability that forms around things held in high esteem for so long, but it is worth dismissing such cynicism and listening to it with open ears. Try and turn back the clock to the very first time you ever heard it, perhaps in a cloud of suspicious smoke. It is a recording that unfolds itself before you, carrying you in a seamless flow from the heartbeats of Speak To Me via the hypnotic weave of Breathe to the rapturous climax of The Great Gig In The Sky, through the cash-register-sampling, seductively satirical groove of Money, to the spectacular whimsy of Brain Damage and the mad, all-embracing descent of Eclipse. Really pay attention to what is arguably Pink Floyd’s finest accomplishment, and by the time you reach the fading heartbeat in the play-out grooves, you will have been through an emotional and aesthetic wringer. Of course, it probably helps if you have inhaled. Maybe someone could ask Dave about that?
read more via Telegraph Blogs.
Les Reed: The man behind the hits of Engelbert & Tom
“I decided to write songs so simple it was almost embarrassing”
16 May 2012
‘And they say pop’s a young man’s game,” jokes 76-year-old Les Reed OBE.
Next week, Engelbert Humperdinck – also 76 – will represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile, Tom Jones (71) is starring on top-rated BBC talent show The Voice, with a new album, Spirit in the Room, out on Monday.
The man who unites them is Les Reed, songwriter and arranger of their classic Sixties hits. “To my mind they are the finest artists to have come out of Great Britain,” says Reed. “Really, talent doesn’t have an age limit.”
Back in 1965, Reed composed I Belong for Kathy Kirby, which gave Britain second place in the Eurovision. “I hope Engelbert can go one better and win,” says Reed. “He’s got a beautiful song (Love Will Set You Free) with the kind of simple arrangement that doesn’t date at all. Most big artists refrain from entering the Eurovision for fear of ridicule. Engelbert’s been around too long to worry about silly things like that.”
read more via - Telegraph.
Shirley Manson: “Women in pop have been defanged”
Shirley Manson tells me why Garbage had to return.
15 May 2012
‘I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they’re just meant to look pretty and sing pretty,” announces Shirley Manson. “You don’t really hear a female perspective on the radio, because so many of the songs are being written by men. The girls are out there doing the streetwalking, but the pimp daddy is at home, living the life, collecting the royalties.”
Warming to her theme, Manson dismisses the current commercial dominance of women in pop music as a hollow victory. “Where is the alternative voice? I want to hear from the creature who isn’t blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl.”
It’s good to have Manson back. Funny, fierce and feisty, the outspoken, red-haired, pale-skinned Scottish frontwoman for American electronic rock superstars Garbage seems to be enjoying her return to the pop front line. Discussing what she missed most during a seven-year hiatus, she says: “People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that’s not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.”
read more via Telegraph.
Willie Nelson: “the weed is getting stronger”
Willie Nelson, Heroes, album review, 11 May 2012
If you’ve ever wondered what Snoop Dogg would sound like singing country, you can find the answer here. The rapper just about stays in tune with old cowboys Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson on a fast-picking paean to their vice of choice, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die. It is a typical example of Nelson’s anti-authoritarian bravado, since he still has court proceedings for a 2010 marijuana bust in El Paso hanging over his head, with a local judge threatening jail. But can you imagine the outcry if they locked up Shotgun Willie?
With Johnny Cash gone, Nelson seems to have assumed the status of living repository of country values. Indeed, his latest album has the kind of last-will-and-testament quality that made Cash’s late work so compelling. It is at once ruminative and defiant, framing Nelson’s trembling vocal in an elegant, richly textured country soundscape of weeping pedal steel guitars and groaning harmonicas. “Well, the road ain’t getting shorter,” he sings with weary wisdom on his son Lukas’s beautifully tailored No Place to Fly, before cocking a snook at convention with the follow up line: “I think the weed is getting stronger.”
read more via Willie Nelson, Heroes, review – Telegraph.
Rumer: this album was a bloodbath
09 May 2012
The honey-toned soul singer Rumer has just attended the first meeting of her new “ladies group”, which involved “drinking wine and gossiping. What girls do, really”. Sandy Shaw was hostess, Joss Stone and Duffy dropped in, along with various female producers and songwriters.
“It came out of the idea that women in music should connect and support each other, ’cause it’s a very male-dominated industry, and there’s still a lot of sexism. It helps to be able to compare experiences. You can feel quite isolated in this job.
“There’s not many people in ordinary life you can ask: ‘When you are standing on stage and somebody yawns, how do you feel about that?’ It was nice to talk. We’ll have the next one at Duffy’s house and invite more people.”
It is such a funny image, these female superstars gathering in each other’s living rooms to have a moan about the music business. When I first met Rumer, in 2004, things were a bit different. I watched her perform solo with acoustic guitar at an open mic night in Shepherd’s Bush, her pure, liquid voice gliding across poetic material with a hint of Joni Mitchell.
Afterwards, in the bar, she complained about holding down day jobs and struggling to be heard, boldly insisting “the world needs my songs”. “I’d probably drunk too much,” she laughs, with a tinge of embarrassment. “Now the world has heard the songs, and thank God for that.
read more via – Telegraph.
Alabama Shakes: Come on, Brittany!
Alabama Shakes, Electric Brixton, review
04 May 2012
“Come on, Brittany!” is the cry that galvanises the room, coming from the stage not the audience. Brittany Howard’s soulful holler to herself inspires everyone present to join in, exhorting 1,700 people to tell her to “ho-o-o-o-o-ld on!” On this evidence, the 23-year-old rip-roaring, foot-stomping, soul-baring talisman of the hottest band on the planet is holding on just fine.
Alabama Shakes are experiencing one of those meteoric rises that takes the music business by surprise yet seems paradoxically inevitable, when everyone suddenly agrees that something is utterly fantastic, usually because it is.
Last year, they were just a rumour on hipster blogs, slogging around the American circuit. This year, their debut album is top ten on both sides of the Atlantic,
read more via Telegraph.
Duran Duran are a Bronze medal choice for Olympic concert
02 May 2012
There has been so much abuse heaped on to Duran Duran on these pages and others since the announcement of their headline slot at the opening Olympic concert, I am uncharacteristically reluctant to stick my own well-scuffed boot in. If England is to have its world beating music scene represented by a group of middle aged playboys synonymous with shoulder pads and supermodels who last had a hit in 1990 … then so be it. Some people like them. And anyway, I’m Irish.
The Olympic musical strategy (if one can call it that) is slowly becoming clear. We have an opening concert with artists representing all the nations of the United Kingdom: Duran Duran (England), Stereophonics (Wales); Snow Patrol (Northern Ireland) and Paolo Nutini (Scotland). It is a cute idea that presumably came unstuck when organisers failed to persuade any of England’s leading contemporary artists to participate. It’s a bronze medal line-up at best but, frankly, I have yet to see a convincing suggestion about a Gold winning one.
Even if Adele or Coldplay had grasped England’s poisoned chalice, do you think critics would have been assuaged by the appearance of mainstream idols?
read more via – Telegraph.
Danny O’Donoghue’s advice to wannabe pop stars
The Voice judge offers his top five tips for aspiring pop stars.
28 Apr 2012
1. “Be nice to people. Give everybody time, shake everybody’s hand, from the guy on the door to the CEO. The tea boys today are going to be the CEOs of tomorrow. The way you conduct yourself is important. U2, Paul McCartney, Take That, they all treated us with nothing but respect when The Script were just a lowly support band. You don’t have to be an asshole to make it in the industry. You don’t have to be a diva in order to be perceived as the world’s best singer. People like to work with people they like. When there is no difference in talent, they will go with likeability.”
2. “Practise. You would like to think that is a given. You’ve got to be ready for your moment. ‘Luck is where the crossroads of opportunity and preparation meet’. My band mate Mark Sheehan told me that and it blew my mind. It’s from Roman philosopher Seneca.”
3. “Be yourself. Having a unique sonic thumbprint is crucial. If you sound like another band, if someone hears it they’ll probably assume it is that other band. The voices I have on the show are really unique and you will know Bo, Bruce, Max, Alex and Hannah when you hear them on the radio. I’m not there to tell anyone what to do, I’m asking ‘what do you want to do? Where do you see yourself in the market place after this?’ I will use my experience to help you make decisions, but if you want to ignore my advice, that’s your decision. I don’t want anyone to fall on my sword, going ‘well, he made me, I didn’t wanna do it’. Every one of my acts has songs they are chomping at the bit to do. I’m giving them a sense that they own it, they’re standing on stage thinking ‘this is my chance to shine’. “
4. “Song is king. This is the big one. Songs are incredible things: they can change an idea, they can make people cry, they can put clothes on your children’s backs. They are thoughts and ideas and imagination in action. None of this industry would exist without songs. What’s Elvis without songs? Who’s Michael Jackson without songs? They’re just normal, average people who can sing. If you don’t have songs, you don’t have anything. If you look after the songs, they’ll look after you.”
5. “This shit is all going to go away. The fame, the hysteria, it’s all going to stop. This is happening to the contestants for the first time, they’ve gone from working in Tescos to having half a million followers on Twitter, so they don’t really understand that yet. That’s for me to teach them. There is going to be a time when The Voice next year is happening, and it’ll all be about someone else. You need to rise above all that and ride it like a wave, and have your own plan, have a great single out at that time. Are you in the studio writing those singles now? Are you ready? You need to have your shit on the boat ready to float as soon as this show ends. That’s what I’m here to do, to prepare them for all that stuff. And when they get lost at the end of the show into the big realm of record companies, and when I’m not in the room, maybe one or two things will have stuck. Maybe they did shake the guys hand on the way in the door. And maybe in four years’ time that guy is going to remember and he’s going to be the one who makes it all happen.”
via Danny O’Donoghue’s advice to wannabe pop stars – Telegraph.
Danny O’Donoghue: ‘Kids kicked off The Voice are better singers than I am’
26 Apr 2012
“If The Voice was around when I was starting out, I’d go on the show, without a shadow of a doubt,” declares Danny O’Donoghue.
“I don’t want to get into a war with anyone but there was a certain amount of musicality missing from the acts and judging of other TV talent shows. Most of the artists on The Voice p— all over the UK pop scene. You’ve got kids being kicked off our show who are actually better singers than I am, and I’m supposed to be judging! I just hope fans go, ‘Where the heck have all these people been?’ Seriously. Why are we watching R’n’B singers out of breath and miming on Saturday morning TV? It should give the whole UK industry a kick up the ass.”
O’Donoghue delivers this in a breathless, excited torrent, words gushing forth in a lilting Dublin accent, ideas spilling over each other, shooting off in conversational tangents and tributaries. O’Donoghue talks about three times as fast as anyone else, with an upbeat, almost hippy ebullience that effortlessly disarms cynicism.
read more via ’ – Telegraph.
Keane: we’re not excited by macho guitar music
25 Apr 2012
Polegate on a wet, grey day is probably not a place you would expect to find a rock star. With Blue Nile playing on the car stereo, singer Tom Chaplin drives down puddle-strewn country roads in his 4×4, rhapsodising about the Sussex coastal area where the three founding members of multi-million-selling Keane were born and raised.
“For all the glitz and the glamour of being a successful band, for all the friends that you make along the way, nothing really competes with the people and things you grew up with, because they are so entrenched in your psyche and your soul. This is where the dreams began. It’s where I belong.”
A song on Keane’s new album Strangeland celebrates a local landmark of their youth, the Sovereign Light Café. “My favourite line is ‘You can get a big house and a faster car / You can run away, boy, but you won’t go far’. I never moved away from this place but I left it mentally.”
He grimaces, acknowledging a past that saw him caught up in partying, drug abuse and, eventually, rehab. “People think going somewhere else will change the way they feel inside, but it won’t. External changes can’t do that for you, you have to do it for yourself. Being rooted in this area, driving the roads and feeling that familiarity, being able to drop in and see my mum and dad at any time, it is quite a powerful thing. I think a community spirit is at the heart of being human.”
read more via – Telegraph.