Billy Bragg – Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy

 

Political singer-songwriters are nothing new (think Dylan and Guthrie), but for me no-one quite exudes such Britishness as Billy Bragg. That roaring Barking drawl spitting it out songs which at times were romantic, other times highly political, and almost always with clever lyrical details and wit.

1983’s EP/Mini Album ‘Life’s a Riot With Spy vs Spy’ showcases both Bragg’s political and sentimental sides brilliantly. With guitar firmly set to ‘jangle’, ‘Milkman of Human Kindness’ sets us off, with sentimentality bordering on the cloying (yet somehow getting away with it), throwing lines such as ‘I love you, I’m the milkman of human kindness, I’ll leave you an extra pint’

‘To Have and To Have Not’ bemoans the difficulties of getting employment in the early 1980s, spitting vitriolic statements every which way (‘Qualifications once the golden rule are now just pieces of paper’). 

Other personal highlights include the seminal and much loved ‘A New England’ (which has been Bragg’s clarion call and live show staple for the last 25 years), ‘The Busy Girl Buys Beauty’ (a scathing critique about girl’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan), and the all too brief ‘Lovers Town Revisited’

This album is a rarity in Billy Bragg’s back catalogue in that the politicism and socialist views are kept to a minimum, allowing him instead to focus on issues such as love, relationships, as well as cutting social observations.  As previously mentioned, its the articulate, eloquent, detailed lyrics that stand this album out from other releases of the period, a trend which was to be carried forward throughout subsequent albums).

The true measure of just how good I find this album comes from personal experience. Having once set off in an annoyed manner from Nuneaton to Worcester (the exact details as to why are unimportant), I doscovered that in my haste to get going the CD left in the player was the album reviewed above. Lasting only 16 minutes, and my journey lasting about 70-odd miles, the CD player must have looped the album a good 6 or 7 times by the time I’d arrived at my destination. Yet I can still gladly sit down and listen to it in full to this day. I can think of few other records in my collection (if any), where that would hold true.

7.9

Neon Neon – Stainless Style

 

 

2008 has seen an influx of 80’s-influenced material (OK, i know my posts currenty have some form of 80s theme, I’ll try and address that in future)…we’ve had M83 (more on that later), Mystery Jets, We Are Scientists, and Keane (!) all releasing albums seemingly indebted to what many consider the nadir of popular culture in recent years.

But to me, one of the most successful attempts at an 80s-derived album came from Neon Neon. The brainchild of SFA’s Gruff Rhys, the project to create a concept album based on the life of John Delorean (and his DMC 12 self designed car) accrued a Mercury nomination and widespread acclaim. It’s not especially hard to see why.

Throughout the album, 2 things strike you – the shimmering, rich production, and the intuitive, tuneful pop nouse that seems to be ever-present throughout the record.

Opening instrumental ‘Neon Theme’ sounds like a period piece (or a C64 game theme song, depending on your point of view), the layered synths and clattering drums coming together to make what can only be described as a rather accurate imitation of something such as, say, the Miami Vice soundtrack.

The next 3 songs form what I feel is one of the finest trifecta (god I love that word) of the year. ‘Dream Cars’ bounces along, its staccato shuffle and bouncing synth lines making a brilliantly danceable pop song, while the vocal harmonies inject some more of that pop nouse we mentioned earlier onto what is already a rather accomplished effort. My personal album highlight is the next track, ‘I Told Her on Alderaan’, which is not only a brilliant pop song in its own right, but also mimics rich, harmonic American FM-friendly music of the period fantastically, thundering along for 3:45 with catchy verses and a euphoric, anthemic chorus. Quite why this wasnt a big hit single is beyond me. But moving on, the third song of our triefcta is Raquel (said to be about DeLorean’s affair with actress Raquel Welch), which, to be frank, is just like all the above, a solid gold pop song with fabulous detailing and brillant production.

Further highlights include ‘Steel Your Girl’ (think diet ‘The Cars’), ‘Belfast’, and ‘Michael Douglas’ (some filthy electro never heart anyone). However, the album does suffer from some filler – most notably in the form of ‘Trick or Treat’, ‘Sweat Shop’ and ‘Luxury Pool’ (though the latter does boast some great lyrics), where the pop sensibility is gone and instead we’re left with tunelesselectro/rap crossovers.

In short, this ablum deserved its Mercury nomination. A brilliant concept, brilliantly executed. If you don’t already have it, I recommend you purchase it. Along with The Breakfast Club on DVD. Oh and possibly some M83……

8.8

The Clash – Sandinista!

 

In keeping with my previous post. I thought I’d start with an album ‘from the archives’, so to speak. Let’s start with a bit of scene setting. You are The Clash. You’ve just released an album lauded by critics and fans alike in the shape of London calling, it’s time for a follow up. A 36-track, 2-and-a-half hour marathon across 3 LP’s throwing every influence you’ve ever had into a giant melting pot probably isnt on the agenda, am I right? Well, come 1980 that’s exactly what The Clash did.

The album starts with a machine gun blast of snare drum, heralding ‘The Magnificent Seven’, a song widely believed to be the first attempt by a white group to do a ‘rap’ song (the scene was only just in its infancy in New York, which The Clash observed and loved when they did their Bonds residency). Strummer’s lyrics range from the brilliant (‘It’s no good for men to work in cages, he hits the town, he drinks his wages’), to the nonsensical (‘italian mobster shoots a lobster, seafood restaurant gets ouuta hand!’), all adding a certain charm to proceedings, while Paul Simonon fires a seamless yet utterly brilliant bassline over the whole lot.

Due to the album’s length, I’m merely going to llok at some personal highlights.  ‘Ivan Meets G.I Joe’ is a brilliant creative concept, a dance rock track depicting the cold war as a dance-off (see liner notes for a hilarious cartoon strip depicting events), ‘The Leader’ is a short, sharp rockabilly-fused kick, coming in at barely 1:50, while songs such as ‘Somebody Got Murdered’ and a cover of The Equals’ ‘Police on My Back’ hark back to the ‘Clash of old’ many would have been used to on the first 2 albums. 

Surreal moments include ‘Rebel Waltz’ (yes, the Clash did actually do a Waltz), and ‘Look Here’, which borders on speed-jazz lunacy. The funk-driven, New York-esque ‘Lightning Strikes (Not once But Twice)’ harks back to the ‘Magnificent Seven’, while ‘Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)’ is a tuneful ode to life in London high rise tower blocks.  ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ is pure calypso, steel drums and all, and the result is a highly joyous affair towards the end of the 1st CD (the CD version, thankfully, is only 2 discs rather than the 6 sides of vinyl I eluded to earlier).

Quiet moments are peppered throughout the album, whether it’s the rather lovely ‘Corner Soul’, the epic, building ‘Broadway’ or album closing instrumental, ‘Sheperd’s Delight’. So far so good. But what with this being a triple album, and the group not having enough material (band member’s have since inferred this over the many years since the album’s release), there is an amazing amount of filler.

Where to start? The versions of ‘Career Opportunities’ and ‘Guns of Brixton’ sung by children? The endless dub versions of songs (presumably there to pad out the album), ‘Mensforth Hill’ – ‘Something about England’ played backwards? I could go on. Guest contributions do little to help. Ellen Foley singing ‘Hitsville UK’ and Tymon Dogg’s ‘Los This Skin’, are disposble (the former), and toe curlingly bad (the latter)

There’s 2 schools of thought used when assessing ‘Sandinista!’ The first is that in this triple album is an amazing single album when you throw away the dross. The second is that as a concept, Sandinista is a brilliant idea, a group wearing its heart on its sleeve and throwing in every infulence they had to make a truly diverse and eclectic album. As a result, to disect it into its parts would defeat the object of it.

Me? I’m sat somewhere on the fence. Depending on what sort of day I’m having, the diverse lunacy can either be brilliant, all of it great, the crap numbers just adding to its charms.  On a bad day, you really do want to just take it all apart and create your own mini-Sandinista, with certain tracks ceasing to be charming and instead frustrating.  Yet, for all its faults, Sandinista will always have a soft spot in my heart, simply for the fact it was a group pushing the boundaries, and the end result is something you just can’t imagine being released as a mainstream album today.

7.8

Why? – Alopecia

Released: 2008 – Label: anticon.

Why? is an “indie hip-hop” from Oakland, and part of the anticon. collective, a group of artists who release albums that they define as “avante-garde hip-hop”, so basically hip-hop that doesn’t sound like hip-hop but still has the makings of it. Very complicated stuff. Well, at least I made it sound that way. Why? is made up of Yoni Wolf (previously in cLOUDDEAD), Doug McDiarmid, Austin Brown, and Yoni’s brother Josiah Wolf, and they create a sound that is very unique. As stated above, they mix indie-rock with Yoni’s unique style of “rapping”, which is more sung than actually rapped. It’s very hard to describe Why?, but I’ll give it a go.

Alopecia is one of those rare occurances that happens once every so often, in which the album does not have a bad song on it, and that every song is accessible, no matter what type of music you like. Yoni has a unique way of writing, combining direct, confrontational lyrics with his own (and I hate myself for saying this) quirky metaphors, as well as the subjects he writes about. Combined with the perfectly fitting music, created with a mix of guitars, pianos, drums, keyboards, various different percussion instruments, household objects, xylophones and at one point even a bell, they are as much indie as they are hip-hop. All the sound is created by the band, which is fairly unheard of in hip-hop these days. There’s some rock tracks, there’s some hip-hop tracks, there’s some heartwrenching tracks. And it’s wonderful, from start to finish.

The album opens up with The Vowels Pt. 2, a twinkling piano, a mix of rhythmic percussion and lots of guitar. On first listening, this is the furthest thing from hip-hop, until Yoni kicks in with his unique voice, so distinctive. After the first line“I’m not a ladies man, I’m a landmine” you’re completely hooked. By now I couldn’t care less about genre, this just works. It’s hip-hop without guns and bitches, it’s hip-hop you can sing along to. Not only that, but it’s incredibly indie. Which isn’t a bad thing, I assure you. There’s catchy choruses, hell, this is stuff you can play in clubs. By the time the third track, These Few Presidents, kicks in there’s shivers down my spine. Yoni’s voice echoes alongside a gentle organ and some heavy drum beats, and then the chorus kicks in and I’m singing along. It’s brilliant stuff.

The next track, The Hollows is by far the most accessible track on the album.  Distorted guitars gently strummed with the occasional heavy riff, pianos and organs to keep the track together with a simple drum beat that just fits. This song just works on so many levels. I feel this song also epitomises Yoni’s writing style, in that it mixes really direct lyrics that conjures up some pretty grim imagery, and some odd lyrics that you have to go back to to attempt to understand the meaning. There’s some elements of cLOUDDEAD shining through, but the lyrics are a lot less surreal and manageable.

I could go on about every song on this album, because I can’t honestly find one that I don’t find some sort of enjoyment in. Fatalist Palmistry is wonderful and upbeat, and contrasts with the previous tracks, as they are more emotional and somewhat broody. It’s just a really happy song. The Fall Of Mr. Fifths is yet another different song, revolving around minimal drums and odd jingles, with Yoni doing what he does best, until towards the end as the song escalates into a wonderful, lovely, cheery melody that would put a lot of post-rock bands to shame. Finally, I want to talk about By Torpedo or Chron’s, which is by far my favourite song on the album. Straight away the song kicks into a simple yet haunting piano riff, with some minimal drums and Yoni rapping along. But he is rapping about real things, relatable subjects, normal life. The way he describes objects and provokes imagery is outstanding. “My neighbour walks by/High heels click dry/Like half a proud horse down brook” and is consistent throughout the song, and the album for that matter. And then the chorus, which, without sounding too enthusiastic, takes my breath away. It’s fantastic.

So yes, as you can probably tell, I am a massive fan of this album, and Why? for that matter. The great thing about them is that they have fans from all sorts of backgrounds and social groups. Hell, I know people who are heavily into death metal who enjoy some songs. There’s something in it for everyone, it’s incredibly accessible. Which is a good thing, as Yoni’s talent of describing the world is a talent too good to waste. I highly recommend you get this album when possible. You will not regret it.

The Hollows

9.4/10

Is it time to Rip It Up (and start again?)

Ok, so I’m meant to be writing reviewing albums out of my own record collection for this blog, but I’ve never really been able to stick to a brief for a particularly long time, plus this is an article I’ve been wanting to write for a while now anyway.  So here goes…..

What would you say was the greatest period in British music? The 1960s maybe, the 1990s Britpop movement perhaps? For me, without question, it has to be 1977-1985, the period where punk quietly shuffled away, to be replaced for a brief period by one of the widest array of musical styles I think we will see for a long time. Not only were there a lot of highly varied musical styles and genres coming to the fore amongst music fans and the specialist press, but these acts were frequently permeating the mainstream and charts as well.  Allow me to elaborate.

If we go back to 1977, everyone was raving about the Sex Pistols, for both the right and the wrong reasons. But at the same time The Jam went and released a remarkable record (‘In the City’) which successfully fused the punk mentality and style with mod-influenced pop sensibility. The success of the group (through subsequent albums In the City, Setting Sons, All Mod Cons etc) led to a brief mod revival in the late 1970s and early 1980s, allowing groups like the Lambrettas and The Chords to both have top 20 hits. At the same time a musical style dubbed ‘Power Pop’ was also becoming quite popular, with acts such as The Jags and Elvis Costello producing cracking pop tunes with a bit more oomph than usual mainstream artists.

Elsewhere, Stiff records, with acts such as Madness and The Specials started bringing ska and reggae back into the public domain. ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials perfectly encapsulated 1981’s ’summer of hate’ (which was typified by the Brixton race riots), while the band themselves transcended racial barriers by having both white and black members in the line up.

But these are just 2 examples. You had the soul of Dexys Midnight Runners (Too-Rye-Aye still sounds utterly unique today, and must have come as an even bigger shock to those listening to Joy Division all day in the early 1980s), the dark, moody, atmospheric post punk musings by the likes of PiL, Joy Division and Wire, and The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen produced epic soundscapes edgy enough for the miserablists, yet accesible enough for the casual ‘pop kid’ listener. Even Motorhead got in on the act, scoring a top 15 with Ace of Spades in 1980. Billy Bragg, meanwhile, was proving that a man with a cheap guitar and amp and a way with words could produce great music without the need for big band, and the Jesus and Mary Chain were busy blowing out everyone’s eardrums out with fuzzy guitar’d, feedback drenched pop songs. There really was something for everyone.

Teenage Kicks (The Undertones), Brass in pocket (The Pretenders), Turning Japanese (The Vapors), Antmusic (Adam and the Ants), all examples of some great pop tunes from an era where ‘experimental’ ceased to be a dirty word, where ‘alternative’, ‘commercial’, ‘underground’ and ‘accessible’ weren’t contradictions in terms. It wasn’t just confined to the music, either, you had Mods, Teddy Boys, Skinheads, the leftover Punks, the long overcoated miserablists that followed the likes Joy Divison all represented in the fashion of the young music listener at that time.

I think the track that best encapsulates the musical diversity and freedom that the era afforded is ‘Golden Brown’ by the Stranglers. A harpsichord driven, off-beat pop nugget. Brilliant, yes, but conventional? Not in the slightest. You just can’t imagine a track like that reaching number 2, as it did in Janurary 1982 upon its release, in the current musical climate.

So there we have it. My personal ‘best’ era of british music. You may agree, you may not. But personally I feel that this era is oft-overlooked, and even derided. With regard to these misconceptions (as I see them), is it time to, as Orange Juice implored us to do in 1983, rip it up and start again? Absolutely.

Recommended listening:

Teenage Kicks/Going Underground (I’m usually against big label compilations, on this occasion they’re a great introduction, mixing the well known with the obscure)
Psychocandy – Jesus and Mary Chain
Billy Bragg Boxset Vol. 1
All Mod Cons/Setting Sons – The Jam
Unknown Pleasures – Joy Division
Searching for the Young Soul Rebels/Too Rye Aye – Dexys Midnight Runners (buy the deluxe version of Too Rye Aye and you get a 2nd disc with a live gig/session tracks, which are also brilliant)

BARR – Summary

Released: 2007 – Label: 5RC

BARR is the project of Brendan Fowler, a Los Angeles based editor of an arts and culture magazine based there. Summary is his third album, which defers in style to his previous work. This time, he has formed a band to play alongside his trademark spoken word style.

As Summary begins with the opening track First, it immediately becomes impossible to relate this to anything else released under the BARR moniker. A moody piano melody drearily accompanied by some slight drumming, this is something for a small corner jazz café. After the band appears to have gotten comfortable with the melody, Fowler begins his monologue, and he seems to have managed a balance of creating a sort of atmosphere with the music, but it’s not distracting from the message, and leaves you lingering onto every word. As BARR isn’t about the music, it’s about the lyrics, which are carefully chosen to create relatable situations and metaphors.

Next up comes The Song Is The Single, which takes on another immediate rhythm change. This one is a lot more upbeat, and straight away you can tell just how personal this record is. It’s almost like he’s trying to converse with the listener using a mix of direct and subtle meanings behind his words. However, this song is a massive contradiction. The song is anti-pop , but compared to everything else on the album, this is by far the nearest to pop BARR has ever come. Maybe it was intended that way? I can’t tell. I really like it though. Fowler seems to have gone away and learnt to sing a little bit, as there are now a handful of lyrics that are sung, if only to emphasise the message.

I just want to talk briefly about a few more songs that really stick out on this album for me. Half of Two Times Two (Newer Version) is fantastic. Fowler really hits home with this, in a sincere message about politics, philosophies on social exclusion and parenthood. I feel this song sort of encompasses a naive look at the world. Of course, it’s open to interpretation. Piled on Piles on Head is an odd one, as it’s unlike anything else on the album. About halfway through, there is just an eruption of sound and lyrics. Half of the song is sung too. The closing track, Context Ender, is an emotional song which appears to be Fowler with an ex-girlfriend. It’s a very interesting way to end the album, and I think it does a pretty good job of summarising the album.

Although not to everyone’s taste, he chooses his words well and writes about real people. It is a very relatable album, and if it’s your thing, I’m sure you’ll find something in it for you, be it about boredom, drugs, STD checks, social groups or even ex-partners. I’ve heard BARR being described as “pretentious”, and “rap”, both of which are far from true. Summary is an emotional, spoken-word outlook of life, and does a great job of creating an atmosphere to allow Fowler to project his monologues onto the listener. Definitely check out Half of Two Times Two (Newer Version), and if you like that check out the rest of the album. If you find it to be your thing, you will find great joy in this album.

Half of Two Times Two (Newer Version)

8.7/10