In my head, every one of those was a Top Ten hit, yet in reality only the first two troubled the UK charts (9 To 5 got to #47... can you believe that?). Despite that, Dolly is one of the few artists I've come across to have a separate discography page for Albums and Singles on iffypedia... so I doubt she worried much about her British record sales.
Dolly defined country music glamour.
Dolly had her own bridge and theme park.
Dolly single-handedly cured Covid. (Well, she did a hell of a lot more than most politicians.)
Like Tina Turner before her, I thought Dolly would go on forever.
Usually it's Ben who informs me of the latest candidates for this feature, but yesterday morning it was Sam who announced that Kevin Keegan was no longer with us.
When I was growing up, I paid very little attention to sport, so I knew very few sporting celebrities. Ian Botham. Steve Davis. John McEnroe, obviously. But as football was the sport I liked the least (let's be honest: I actively hated it), my knowledge of footballers was worst of all. I went out of my way to not know who they were.
All that said, I knew Kevin Keegan. And not because of this...
I've been watching Inspector Morse again recently. I was always a big fan back in the day, both of the John Thaw / Kevin Whately double act of Morse and Lewis, and of Colin Dexter's clever novels with a melancholic tone. I've never watched either the sequel show, Lewis, or the prequel, Endeavour... but I may give them a go once I recover from the trauma of the final episode.
I've written before about how watching old TV shows, like listening to old music, is providing me a lot of comfort lately. An escape from the horrors of the modern world. And Morse definitely fits that bill. In one episode I watched recently, Lewis is horrified when he orders a couple of pints and gets charged £2!
The show's theme tune, written by Barrington Pheloung, spelled out the character's surname using Morse code. While never a chart hit, it did shift a fair few soundtrack albums back in the late 80s...
Here are some songs that mention the Inspector, starting with Paul and Jacqui... and a video that features Brookside's Ron & Bev Dixon, TV fans!
Another duo, Patrick & Eugene, have drawn comparison to both Monty Python and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. This is how they spend their Saturday nights...
I don't have to go out drinking, could stay in of course
Next, a Scottish punk band who have been cussing up a storm since 1981. Fair to say they don't think that TV cops are true representations of the UK police force...
It struck me that I haven’t yet marked the passing of the last of the original rock n rollers, Jerry Lee Lewis. Chuck, Buddy, Gene, Eddie, Elvis… all the rest are long gone. Some died very young (I often find myself wondering what Buddy Holly would have done next), but only Jerry Lee got to really grow old disgracefully. A controversial figure, to be sure, but there’s no denying the power of his music.
For songs that mention Jerry Lee by name, we need look no further than Jerry Lee himself. Here are just a few…
Well, I’ve took enough pills for big Memphis town Ol’ Jerry Lee's drank enough whiskey to lift any ship off the ground I’ll be the first to admit Sure do wish these people would quit it You know it’s tough enough To straighten up When these idiots won’t leave you alone Jerry Lee Lewis’s life would make a damned good country song
Jerry Lee is going to spend his vacation in Heaven With loved ones gone on before Jerry Lee It’ll be Jesus, my saviour Forever and ever Please spend your vacation with me
See? He’s not really gone. Just taking an extended vacation.
What about other songwriters? What do they have to say about Jerry Lee?
He digs Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion and The Belmonts, And Johnny and The Hurricanes.
In case you’re keeping score, Johnny Paris died in 2006. Dion DiMucci, on the other hand, is still with us. I guess he might be the last man standing now. (Unless we count Willie Nelson, 6 years older than Dion and still going strong.)
The late Ian Dury also placed Jerry Lee in some very fine company…
From Rosemary Clooney to Jerry Lee Lewis From Debussy to Thelonious Monk It’s the modern art of the human heart The shape of things to funk, funk, funk
And here’s a song that name-drops everyone from Creedence to Otis to Missy Elliott to Korn. Chances are this one will pop up again.
Jerry Lee Lewis had a child bride Only thirteen, but he said he's justified
Indie rocker Ike Reilly writes lyrics more suited to a rap song, but though he’s been described as “rude, crude and lewd”, he also has something to say, and does so in quite a clever way.
Chuck Berry, Cadillac, Ludacris, Cadillac Jerry Lee Lewis with his balls on fire In the back of a Rocket 88 With an out-of-state plate and an underage date Cars and girls and drinks and songs Leave that shit in the middle of the road What about love and what about trust?
And that’s not the only trouble Jerry Lee got into. Remember the time he shot his bass player? (It was an accident, apparently, but he still got sued.)
"Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world So there was only one thing that I could do Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long"
Then again, you could argue that’s what made him interesting! More interesting than a lot of young rock stars these days…
But this is the song I chose to close with today. Because Frank Turner understands the spirit of rock n roll that Jerry embodied. And just like I do, Frank still believes…
And I still believe In the saints Yeah, in Jerry Lee and in Johnny And all the greats
On Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr.’s tombstone, the inscription
reads “The Best of the Bad”. Van Cleef played a hell of a lot of bad guys in
his 38 year acting career after refusing to have his nose fixed for his debut
role in High Noon. The producers offered him a more heroic part if he had the
operation, Lee declined and was cast largely as bad guys from then on.
Throughout the 50s he made his living getting shot in TV Western shows before
hitting the big time when Sergio Leone cast him in For A Few Dollars More and
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, leading to a long and lucrative career in
Spaghetti Westerns.
When searching for songs about Lee Van Cleef, I had to watch
out that I wasn’t confusing him with Reggae star Devon Perkins, aka Lee Van
Cleef, Le Van Cliff, Lee Vancliff, Lee V And Cliff and Cleevan Cliff, among
other variations on that theme. Last week, I said that country music was second
only to rap for name-dropping other artists, but Reggae must come second when it
comes to bigging your own name up in song. Here he is, rub-a-dub style, with
the Reggae Sunsplash…
Don’t need to teeth to eat my beef
I’m tender-hearted, ain’t no Lee Van Cleef
It strikes me that most times Lee gets mentioned in songs,
it’s for his bad guy status, so it’s nice that weirdo funk-rock band Primus
have a more positive take…
There ain’t never been one quite like Clint
There’s really only one Clint
But I really did like Lee Van Cleef
I sure did like Lee Van Cleef
Whatever happened to Lee Van Cleef?
Whatever happened to Lee?
Lee Van Cleef died in 1989, aged just 64, from a heart
attack and throat cancer. His gravestone reads: The Best of the Bad.
Ben: This came up on my Google news feed. I really don't understand this. What were they expecting with that road being so close?
There's a really really nice house near us that we keep seeing but it's next door to a pub. When restrictions are lifted, that is going to be very noisy because I know it is next to a pub.
Rol: I like the sound of the double-deckers going past out house. Especially at night.
The busses that used to go past my old place I liked. It kept the timing of things. But if you buy a new build that is clearly next to an A road. Surely. Surely. You know what you're in for.
Having lived in a new build (albeit one that someone else had lived in for 18 months from new and we then lived in for 18 months and I suspect the new people won't last that long), I can confirm that nobody should ever buy a new built because the companies that build them don't give a shit about quality, durability, location et al. Bunch of crooks.
Even though we don't really speak or have much affinity, my dad is a joiner and a bloody good one. I used to labour during summers from uni for him and his crew. Quantity surveyors don't even bother checking his roofs, they just trust him. I remember times as a kid where he wasn't happy with stuff and went back out, like a time I was 8 and he went back out at 9pm because he'd done something slightly wrong at a property and it ate at him so he went back to fix it before it had time to set. And he hates the idea of new builds because of the people who work on them.
My dad was a joiner too. You speak to the older generation of tradesmen and they are shocked by what goes on these days. No integrity.
It's almost like things were better in the past...
Ben sends this in reply...
I don't like it when I'm photographed without my consent.
That's why I recorded you instead.
You used the magic camera box. Probably stole my soul while you were at it.
I tried but nothing came out.
It's long gone.
Ben replies with a link to this video...
Relevance?
That's you and your soul duetting.
My soul is Mel C?
No.
You're Mel C.
Surely I'm crinkly old Bryan. I don't feel like Mel C. I've never once been sporty.
And neither has my soul.
I can't help the truth. This is the way.
Mel C was always my favourite Spice Girl. She was the most real, least cartoon.
These guys?They're not really cartoons but I can see your mix-up.
The punchline to that should have been, "No, that was All Saints."
All Saints were something special. They made a RHCP song sound good.
I thought I'd share my tea with you. Made a wild mushroom bulgogi.
With pickled cucumber.
Well, not quite a bulgogi as I used gochujang as the base sauce.
That looks like something out of the food section of the Grauniad, which Louise has quit reading in horror.
I'll buy in some chicken dippers and oven chips for tomorrow.
Send you a picture of them.
And before you say, yes, they do vegan ones.
My sister has some vegan chickens. They won't even eat worms.
That's a Tim Vine style joke. I'm very disappointed.
It's a true statement. I can't help if it offends your Ben Elton right on alt-comedy sensibilities.
Alright, Lee Mack.
I like Lee Mack. He's old school without being old school. And very sharp.
I knew you wouldn't like him though.
Little bit of politics, as Ben Elton used to say.
Everything is politics.
Name me something, I'll show you the politics.
Snails.
Ben sends me a 21 page report entitled "Snails, Mining & Climate Change: The Politics of Biodiversity In New Zealand". (I'll spare you the link.)
"Name me something, I'll show you something you're totally not interested in. 21 pages of it."
It's not an area I'm familiar with but the underlying argument is that politics encompasses everything in its exploitation. Also, whilst I'm boring you, in relation to our conversation the other day, Springer released this a few years ago and it was very good. Crude for academia but a good read and outlines why I am not neoliberal.
Is that Frank Springer?
Simon Springer.
And his amazing dancing bear.
Sadly, they broke up.
Political differences, I bet.
I always smile when I remember Paul Heaton saying The Beautiful South broke up because of musical similarities.
I like Paul Heaton.
Well, of course. He's a Marxist. He made sure every member of the band got equal royalties.
I like that he still lives in a terraced house.
And didn't he buy the whole street and give away the rest of the houses?
I'm not sure on that, I just know about having a house. He lived round the corner from some mates at uni. And he writes a cracking pop song.
No argument there. Though he's gone off the boil a bit lately.
Every time my phone buzzes with a text, I think it's you with another Marxist rant.
I think I've only ever done two or three Marxist rants at you. To be critical of the state isn't exclusively a Marxist endeavour.
Are you still putting my witticisms on your blog? Do you call it "Rol over Benthoven"? That's very bad if you do and I'd expect better wordplay from you.
I call it Conversations With Ben. Like Conversations With God, the dark side.
Most people seem to believe I make you up.
By most people, I mean 3 out of the 4 people in the world with nothing better to do with their lives.
I think we've covered the fact that I am definitely a person you manifested into existence to cope with COVID. You did know a Ben in Barnsley but he died 30 years ago.
And only I know where the body is.
Now you're beginning to remember.
I need a Sharpie to write it on my arm so I don't forget again.
When you're doing a PhD you get people try and impress you at weddings and other places of bigger gatherings.
Like they're trying to prove their intelligence and interests to you.
But it's like, I like comics and watching cartoons.
Mainly from older people as well.
Weird you should say that, because I was just typing that the older I get, the less time I have for intellectual snobbery.
But then I guess I've never been an intellectual.
Most of the time it's ok as I try to instantly move onto hobbies instead to steer it away but then sometimes you get those "university of life, me, mate" people.
The last 60 seconds of this is my answer to anyone who claims high art is better than dumb fun... I can't believe they edited it from the single version. It's the best 60 seconds Jon Bon Jovi ever recorded.
(Sometimes Ben's silence speaks volumes.)
I don't care your education level, I can still talk to you, They try and like prove themselves, like Ricky Gervais and his best mate in the Office.
Ricky Gervais is actually like that in real life though.
Start reeling off facts. Like, why would I give a shit about the capital cities of the world or the scientific name of something? It has very little relation to anything in my life. I'm awful at geography and I'm comfortable and happy to say that.
It's OK if you're a 7 year old. Sam knows all the capital cities. But he'll grow out of it.
Then again, what about pop trivia...?
I know what I know, pop trivia wise.
It doesn't make me better or worse in intelligence but there's a lot of people out there who think that's a marker of intelligence.
I'm not sure. I think they cling to it because they don't know much else. I certainly do.
The most famous of all murdered pop stars. The Cranberries give a voice to his killer, Mark David Chapman, but their sympathies remain with the Walrus.
I never quite got Chumbawamba's message here, other than that - in their opinion - famous pop stars are hypocrites for getting involved in charity appeals. (By their calculations, Live Aid, Band Aid and Sport Aid raised less than half of Michael Jackson's "personal amassed fortune", "or about the same as the world spends on arms every two hours, forty minutes".
Most of the lyrics just do what it says in the title, but they do nail Cliff Richard to a cross towards the end... and there's another version where they do the same to John Lydon, for balance.
Poor old Rick Astley. Back in the late 80s, I hated him in his role as SAW poster-boy, but I've developed a weird respect for him over the years. Even Nick Lowe feels bad about writing these lines in All Men Are Liars now...
Well do you remember Rick Astley?
He had a big fat hit it was ghastly
He said I’m never gonna give you up or let you down
Here's Leonard turning the gun on himself... in reaction to his own critics.
"This song is for my critics and for my judges and for those who give marks to us everywhere, who evaluate our performance whether it is in the courtroom or the cloakroom or the bedroom. This is for the judges."
Paul Heaton's trick is to get someone with a much sweeter voice to sing his most poisonous lines, hence Jacqui Abbott's the one who gives voice to this hugely topical song (even more so today than when it was written 5 years ago) about the perils of Little Britain's fake-nostalgic jingoism which ends up making a figurehead of Mr. Collins, esquire.
Simon & Julia don't actually want the notorious Libertine to drop dead. This is more a comment on media vultures and a public over-obsessed with celebrity death. Apparently.
1. Chris T-T - Dreaming Of Injured Pop Stars
A similar sentiment powers Chris T-T's somewhat dated (pop-reference wise) yet still ESSENTIAL Number One (sorry, CC). Always raises a smile in this house anyway...
The bit about the Stereophonics is my favourite. Poor old Kelly Jones.
Got any pop star hit lists of your own? Share with the group.
We lost an important member of our family yesterday. Molly the cat... silky ears, twitching whiskers, inquisitive meow (not to mention a full-on demanding MOWRRRR at meal times).
I loved how you thought you were a human, not a silly cat. How you'd talk back. How you'd show workmen round the house and offer your opinion. How you'd never quite settle down, and if you did, that's when the claws would come out, milking us for warmth. How sometimes you'd sit with your tongue peeping out. How loud you could purr.
There are so many Molly stories I could tell. You were such an incredible character. The time you reached out through a barely open bedroom window and pulled in a bird. (That jingling collar we had to buy you must have sounded like the Jaws theme to the local avian gangs.) The way you just had to find a carpeted area to puke furballs onto: a nice, easy to clean kitchen floor was never good enough. The way you made me feel welcome in Louise's house the first time I visited. You were one of the friendliest cats I ever met. It was amusing watching neighbours and schoolkids stop outside the house to give you a stroke on their way home.
Many more stories, but I'm filling up at the typewriter so... another time, Mols.
I'll especially miss going out last thing at night to find you (usually scavenging round the back door of the nearby hotel, where you'd managed to sweet-talk the kitchen staff into feeding you scraps), then carrying you home on my shoulder, purring, claws catching in my jumper.
I love you baby yeah, you're superfine A-claw me down, too A purring, whirring, fuzzy like today Switching sunlight I chase you kitten, catch you every time Funny how it flies
So, here comes the second in a new feature I'll call "Songs My 3 Year Old Son Can Sing". I've been listening to this old Housemartins b-side a couple of times in the car last week. Imagine my surprise when, after putting Sam to bed on Friday night, we heard him singing over the baby monitor...
I know the devil doesn't like it But it's down in my heart Down in my heart Down in my heart!
Joy Joy Joy (Joy) - the fourth Joy was left off the track listing, poor thing - was one of a few a cappella gospel covers the Housemartins recorded back in the day. It was originally released on the Think For A Minute EP, but more recently reissued on the deluxe edition of their debut album London 0 Hull 4. There's another cracking (yet VERY different) track from that EP I may well feature here soon...
It's hard to think of any other "indie" band - then, or now - who would or could record such a thing, but that's what made the Housemartins so unique. And great singers all: listen to those harmonies!
Surely you can spare one minute and forty three seconds to let a little Joy into your heart?
Don't Paul, Stan, Norman and Dave look so young in that photo? Remember when we were all that young?
Oops, sorry. this post was supposed to bring you Joy...
It's the time of year when everybody has to compile lists... for once, it's not just me.
2015 has been a fine year in music... if you know where to look. I've no idea what's happening in the mainstream anymore, and I've no idea what the musos will pick for their end of year lists. But it was easy enough to work out My Top Ten Albums of 2015.
Before I get onto those, here are a few also rans. Many fine records, worthy of note, if you're into this kind of thing...
Paul Heaton's long-awaited reunion with his former Beautiful South chanteuse easily made my Top Ten last year, so I'm not really sure why its follow-up barely scraped into this year's Twenty. I've been a Heato fan since the Housemartins, and while he rarely puts a foot wrong, this one didn't quite do it for me. He's long made a career contrasting catchy, upbeat, Radio 2 friendly melodies with arch, cynically caustic lyrics... that's exactly why I love him. However, Wisdom, Laughter & Lines occasionally felt like a step too far: the tunes just a little too perky, the lyrics just a little too wilfully obnoxious. It's most noticeable on Heatongrad, which frankly sounds like Chas 'n' Dave singing NWA. Ironically, the best song on here is the mock-Morrissey tune, Horse & Groom. Well, if Moz is too busy writing crap novels and sacking his record company to put out a new record, perhaps Heato can fill his old rival's shoes...
I still need to listen to this one a bit more, but what I've heard so far has convinced me this Elastica-esque four piece have a bright future. If indie guitar bands have any future at all, that is. Reminds me very much of the music I listened to twenty years ago, without being too derivative. A lot will be written about them by the cooler sections of the music press in the year end lists, so go read those guys if you want to know more. I'm just gonna turn them up and party like it's 1993.
Now that Taylor Swift's gone all pop, Nashville needed another young female singer songwriter to carry her baton, and Kacey Musgraves seems made to order. Although this is her second mainstream album, she had self-released three before signing to a major label and at 27, she's actually 2 years older than Taylor. She's also much more of a rebel - her songs tend to be more outspoken, referencing drugs and teenage pregnancy while taking potshots at beauty pageants and the male-dominated music industry. She also sounds a lot more traditional country than many of her peers, with steel guitar, banjo and mandolin to the forefront.
Top Track: Family Is Family 17. Idlewild - Everything Ever Written
Idlewild were always one of my favourite post-Britpop guitar bands, but I'd long since given up hope of hearing anything new from Roddy Woomble and the boys.
Their first album in six years then was a welcome surprise, filled with the kind of tuneful and heartfelt Scottish indie anthems that made them 'famous' (and more of Woomble's fascinatingly evocative lyrics). The stand-out track was the album closer, Utopia, a haunting piano-based melody that promises much for the future path of this band... if they choose to follow it.
16. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
The second full PSB record is an elegy to the space race, and if anything is going to bring home to you how much of that is now ancient history - in an era where the most interstellar excitement we can get is the Mars Rover - this will do it.
As on their previous releases, PSB have raided the archives of the British Film Institute to provide the "lyrics" of their tracks. Rather than the old Public Information Films that made up much of the their last LP, they've used instead old news reports and actual recordings from the NASA control room.
The album sets its stall with JFK's inspirational speech about going into space "not because <it's> easy but because <it's> hard". After that we cross to the Soviet Union where the signal from Sputnik is used as the basis for a powerful piece of electronica, followed by a jazzy celebration of the world's first superstar cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
There's a massive shift in tone on track 4, built around a news report on the death of the Apollo 1 crew and backed by static and moody Vangelis-synths. It's a moving piece, so hard to listen to the band have refused to play it live, but it seems necessary to remember the lows as well as the high of the quest for space.
It's fair to say the second half of the record isn't quite as strong - though I have to applaud PSB for not going the obvious route and using Neil Armstrong's famous moon landing speech (or maybe they just couldn't afford it). However, while the first PSB record felt like a greatest hits collection with its magpie's eye and eclectic subject matter, here I found one subject (even one as vast as space travel) struggled to fill a whole album. It's still an extremely inspiring, affecting and, ultimately, sad listening experience... one that makes you long for the new hopes JFK outlined in his speech... while wondering whether we'll ever see those days again.
My love affair with contemporary country grew deeper this year, even though none of my favourites (Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Lucinda Williams) released any new material. The one album I listened to more than probably any other this year was Shelton's ultra-catchy Bringing Back The Sunshine, but as that was released in 2014 it was ineligible for consideration in this list.
Anyway, I'd just about given up on anyone but Kacey Musgraves representing country here (there is, arguably, a country record in my Top Ten... but I'm the one arguing it's more a rock album) when Eric Church popped up with The Outsiders. I'd encountered Church before when he brought out his heart-punchingly catchy Springsteen tribute in 2011, but this was the first time he won me over with an entire album. He very much sees himself as the bad boy of 21st Century Nashville, and that's something he plays up more than ever before on this record, which - like Johnny and Waylon - finds the down 'n' and dirty ditch where country meets rock 'n' roll... and then kicks up a dust storm there. Especially on tracks like The Outsiders, Devil Devil and Dark Side. Most impressive of all though is his mission statement song, That's Damned Rock 'n' Roll, wherein he name-drops Hendrix, Joplin, The Clash and Nirvana...
It ain't a needle in a vein
It ain't backstage sex
It ain't lines of cocaine on a private jet
It ain't havin' a posse full of hangers-on following you around
It ain't long hair, tattoos, playin' too loud
Naw
It ain't a middle finger on a T-shirt, the establishment's tryin' to sell
It's a guy with the balls to tell the establishment to go to hell
It ain't about the money you make, when a record gets sold
It's about doin' it for nothin', 'cause it lives in your soul
That's damn rock and roll
Elsewhere, Church wants to have his cake and eat it. Roller Coaster Ride is as shamelessly poppy as anything Shelton's put out, while Talladega recalls the sweet sunset nostalgia of Springsteen (the song, if not the artist). Both are great songs, but they feel a little out of place on a record that's otherwise trying so hard to build a rebellious reputation.
There's no denying the fact that Brandon Flowers really, really, really wants to be a pop star. It's not enough being the lead singer of one of the biggest alt-pop bands of the 21st Century, he wants to be Bruce Springsteen too. Not the young and hip Born To Run Bruce or the old, respected Statesman of Rock Bruce we know today. No, Brandon wants to be Born In The USA-era Bruce. With a bit of Raspberry Beret-era Prince and True Blue-era Madonna thrown in. He wants to be a global megastar, a household name, a pop star of the kind they don't make any more... hell, the kind they haven't really made since 1985.
That's why he released his second solo album album, a record accompanied by the boast that "every song is a single". And to a large extent, he's telling the truth. Every track here is as shamelessly insincere and gloriously overblown and ridiculously catchy as the very best pop songs of my youth (though it turns out Brandon is 9 years younger than me, so why exactly he's so enamoured of my 13th year on the planet - when he would only have been 4 - I have no idea). But time has moved on, and the days of the global megastar are gone (Adele excepted), so The Desired Effect probably didn't have the desired effect for Brandon. For me, it worked just fine. Even the track where he steals the tune of Jimmy Sommerville's Smalltown Boy, almost as though he's being forced to admit his own failures. Still, while most of today's pop stars are lying in the gutters... Brandon keeps reaching for the stars.
Josh Tillman isn't the only singing drummer to make my end of year list in 2015, though he certainly is the strangest. Plus, he's written probably my favourite opening verse this year on the eponymously crafty Top Track below...
Oh, I just love the kind of woman who can walk over a man
I mean like a god damn marching band
She says, like literally, music is the air she breathes
And the malaprops make me want to fucking scream
I wonder if she even knows what that word means
Well, it's literally not that...
That's the kind of distinctively sarcastic lyric you'll find me praising very soon on this year's winning album, so I'm not sure exactly why Father John only made it to Number 13... except that I didn't fall for I Love You, Honeybear quite as much as I did for its predecessor, Fear Fun. And it didn't stay with me in the car as long as any of the records that follow. Maybe it's one to revisit in the New Year...
For the first time in forever I laid the needle down inside the groove For the first time in forever I held my breath, waiting for side two...
I'd just about given up on Mercury Rev. In fact, I didn't think I'd even bought their last album, 2008's Snowflake Midnight, although it turns out it did make its way into my collection somehow. Listening to it now, it confirms my growing problem with the band: they'd just become too twee. Too mystical and airy-fairy hippy-shit. Too bollocks.
Bands crash and people cry,
Everyone here is really shook
Trying hard, the kids can't shake it
You can't fool ol' Peter Hook
They really want to but they just can't fake it,
Trying hard to look old and worn
Facebook butterflies flap their wings and
Suddenly a Brooklyn band is born
So I wasn't holding out much hope for The Light In You, and with a track-list including Queen of Swans, Amelie, Sunflower and Moth Light, it seemed my prejudices were about to be confirmed. What a relief then to find them returning to form with the kind of upbeat, singalong, life-affirming alt-pop songs that made Deserter's Songs and All Is Dream such wonderful records.
A new Indelicates album is always a source of great excitement in this house. This is the band who, with their debut single, created - if not my favourite song of the 21st Century, then certainly the one against which I measure all others. "I love it... but do I love it as much as We Hate The Kids?" The answer is invariably no.
Five albums in and things have changed a lot for Simon and Julia Indelicate. They're no longer the darlings of the blogosphere, as they were back in 2006/7. Those kids they hate won't ever hear their music nowadays... and neither will many other people, save the devoted few. They're not cool anymore (where they ever?) and despite running their own record label, and recently becoming parents, you get the feeling time has passed The Indelicates by. Which is one of the greatest tragedies in "popular" music, if you ask me. But you didn't, did you?
All that said, there's really nothing to stop them making their latest album another (totally unhip) concept album, based around a mind-stretching sci-fi story about "the singularity, virtual realities and the generation stuck between space ages". If nobody's listening, you can be true to yourself and do whatever you like: and thus is true art born.
Anyway, I've listened to this record quite a bit and while I don't quite agree with the band's pronouncement that it's their best yet (if I did, it'd be Number 1, not Number 11), it's certainly their most varied and experimental (the video below is "an immersive 360 degree spherical video" - which is kind of like watching a pop video on google earth... and just as annoying). While their last concept album, 2011's excellent David Koresh Superstar, shared Trey Parker and Matt Stone's unabashed loved of huge American musicals (along with a splash of the South Park boys' irreverent humour), this one goes for broke with earthy folk songs, lush piano instrumentals and (as on previous records) huge rock numbers that sit firmly in the Venn diagram intersection between Bertolt Brecht, Carter USM and Jim Steinman. Beyond the moments which echo Public Service Broadcasting's lamentation for the death of the space race, I've no idea what any of this is truly about, but it is the most honest and individual record you'll hear all year, completely unconcerned with the vagaries of fashion. A lot is written these days about the death of indie, but that's just hogwash. The true spirit of indie will live on as long as the Indelicates are making their own music their own way.
So, those were the records that would have been my favourites this year... if not for ten other, slightly better releases. I'll begin revealing what they were in just a couple of days...
However, this year has been a bleak one in terms of my finances, so I haven't bought half as much new music as usual. Neither have I listened to that much new music - partly through time constraints, and partly because it may finally be happening... middle-aged ennui: as Eddie Argos put it, "popular culture no longer applies to me". There's no Eminem album in my countdown this year to keep me Radio One friendly and the Lana Del Rey record I'd pinned my hopes on fell flat when I grew tired of her sleazy shock shtick. As a result, the majority of this list will be comprised of the usual suspects, mostly artists even older than me. (I had a look through the NME year end Top 50 earlier this week and only recognised about 7 names. Though a few of the ones I didn't recognise did sound quite interesting...)
Still, of the records I have heard, there have been some corkers. Here's the first...
10. Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott - What Have We Become?
Since breaking up The Beautiful South due to "musical similarities" back in 2007, Paul Heaton has released a series of acerbic, amusing and always socially aware solo albums - plus one bizarre musical, The 8th, roping in everybody from Cherry Ghost to Reg E. Cathey from The Wire. But though each record was entertaining in its own way, none has quite scaled the heights of 0898, Blue Is The Colour or Miaow. There was always something missing.
Jacqui Abbott was the second of three female singers to perform in The Beautiful South alongside Heaton and third vocalist Dave Hemingway. She followed Brianna (You Keep It All In) Corrigan and preceded Alison (Stars In Their Eyes) Wheeler who joined when Abbott left to look after her young son. Although some fans preferred Corrigan's feisty Kirsty MacColl style, the band enjoyed the height of its success during Abbott's time. When she was suckered out of retirement to take part in The 8th, many fans wondered whether a full-on BS reunion would result. But sadly, Heaton's co-songwriter Dave Rotheray seems unlikely to return while Hemingway, Wheeler and the rest of the old band are plugging away on the tour circuit as The South (no longer Beautiful).
All of which brings us to the Heaton / Abbott reunion, a resounding success and Heaton's best album in any guise since 1998's Quench. It's wrong to label Abbott his muse, but as the man himself explained in interviews, sometimes it helps if his sharper lyrics are sung by someone other than himself. Particularly when that someone has the angelic tones of Abbott.
It's 11am It's blue upon blue in the sky But everyone around agrees Phil Collins, Phil Collins must die
White t-shirt and faded jeans Just an ordinary guy But prisoner to his tax returns Phil Collins, Phil Collins must die He must die, he must die
Let's face it, if Heaton had sung the above verse (from state-of-the-nation closer When I Get Back To Blighty), it would have come across as just another socialist rant. Abbott's vocals give it an entirely different texture. Like if Morrissey wrote Life Is A Pigsty and then handed it to Rumer to perform. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
But the record's success isn't purely down to Abbott. Even on the tracks Heaton performs solo, he brings his A-game, most notably on the blistering I Am Not A Muse in which he takes aim at the daft and pretentious shit "serious" rock stars often say when getting interviewed...
I am not in a band Because daddy didn't understand I did not gain from others' pain And then sell it back to them again I'm not mad or insane I'm not into early Miles Davis or John Coltrane I'm not a muse
...as well as bursting a few of the myths about his own "leg end".
I am not a northern star I do not greet my friends 'Aye ups' and 'alright la's' I don't sit outside Italian style bars And talk about The La's and The La's and The La's
Elsewhere, it's business as usual. Twisted duet love songs comparing relationships to overgrown gardens, bad DIY and fading romance on the 'Costa Del Sombre'. (The latter would have been a Top 10 hit for the old band in the late 90s, but those days are gone.) Savage digs at people whose lives are ruled by car adverts, outlet malls and twitter. Anger, pathos and resignation. Loadsa laughs.
Sadly, I only bought the standard edition of the album (it was very cheap and so am I)... now Heato's released one of the tracks from the Special Edition as a single, and damn if it I'm probably going to have to save up for another copy. These bloody pop stars - even the socialist ones are out to bankrupt me!
Coming next, at number 9... an Englishman in New York. (No, I promise, it's not Sting.)
