Thursday 19 September 2019

2019 Contenders: The Edited Version


Office Politics, the latest album by The Divine Comedy, is a great 12 track album.

Unfortunately, it's 16 tracks long.

I read an interview with Neil Hannon where he said that after the success of his last record (my favourite album of 2106), he was emboldened to experiment a bit more with this record and add the "mucking about songs" (my words, not his... I can't quite remember how he described them) that normally get cut. He should have left them cut.

Tracks like Philip & Steve's Furniture Removal Company (imagining a world where Philip Glass and Steve Reich run a... well, you can guess the rest... which apparently they did before becoming famous composers, but really, there's a better song to be written about this subject than the repetitive nonsense here... although that's probably the point) and The Synthesizer Service Centre Super Summer Sale (I abhor alliteration) really should have ended up on the cutting room floor. They work as mildly amusing skits, but after two or three (or less) plays become annoying disruptions to an otherwise witty and musically fabulous album.

I guess in this era of streaming and downloads we can all easily edit albums to the size and shape we prefer, but us old fogies who still buy the records are stuck with the CD skip button or the lever arm on the record player.

I don't think Office Politics will be my favourite record of 2019. Still, 12 great tracks on one record is better than a lot of artists manage these days.

10 comments:

  1. I heard Neil Hannon on quite a few radio shows when this album came out - What a lovely chap. I do like the Divine Comedy as I love orchestral pop and that apparently is their genre.

    This song struck a cord with me as I had couple friends called Norma and Norman - We went to their wedding but they sadly are no more, it's now Norma and Nigel!

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  2. That song is now stuck in my head - I was wavering buying this, no more now. Duly ordered (and I will keep in mind your "bloat warning")

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    1. Yeah, just prune it a bit and you'll love it.

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  3. You can never be accused of living in the past Rol!

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    1. Shh. Nobody else noticed.

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    2. We did, but I “pointed something out” on last weeks Saturday Snapshots so didn’t want to go there again! Duly amended I see.

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  4. Glad you found 12 great tracks. Did you know there's a deluxe 31 track edition?

    Based on the artwork, I was hoping for some fun office anecdotes and banter and there really wasn't any. There's fun word play and witty critique of society, but the LP probably needed to be more personalized and character-based (like Norman and Norma) for me to fall in love with it. A theme seemed to be nostalgia, most evident in "Dark Days Are Here Again". My favorite is "Working Day Is Done".

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    1. I've got the 2 CD version. The second disc is piano demos of a musical Hannon wrote based on Swallows & Amazons. It's interesting, though I would be more interesting in hearing a full production of the songs.

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