The Importance Of The White Album

The Beatles, or the White Album, is turning 50th. There's is going to be a 6 CD deluxe pack with remastered versions, a lot of demos, sessions, never before released songs, etc. A treasure for Beatles fans.

I see The White Album a little bit different from what i actually read in the news.
By this time, the band had reached the climax of their psychedelic transformation with the release of Sgt. Peppers just after the lunatic Magical Mystery Tour. Their transformation really begun with the release of Rubber Soul. They become a more complex band, and left a side their "shaking" tunes. However, their success never fell, and they continued to be the world's most famous band.

As I said, this album just after their climax, and after a climax the only way is down. Which can be a very good thing actually. Did we really wanted The Beatles to become stranger and stranger? I don't think it would sound that good so, in my opinion, they did well when they tried to conciliate their new sound with their rock n' roll roots.

The result was a very long, funny, enjoyable album.
Back In The USSR brings some California vibes, Ob-La-Di is a masterful pop song with one of the best bass lines ever and there some comic great and a little forgotten songs like "Bungalow Bill", "Piggies", "Rocky Raccoon" or "Cry Baby Cry".

Then, there is space for typical McCartney ballads. "Martha My Dear", "I Will", "Honey Pie" and, probably, one of the most important Beatles songs "Blackbird" stand among those genious little "granny" songs from Paul. However, the songwriter also let his wild persona take over when he wrote authentic adrenaline songs like the superb "Helter Skelter" or "Why Don't We Do It In The Road". Mainly, the influence of "Helter Skelter" on most of the modern music is undeniable. You can hear its influence on Metal, Hard-Rock, Pop, Rock, Punk, almost every listenable style of music today. The song is incredible, a starting point for anyone who has ever picked a guitar.


Also, I think that during this time, Lennon started to become the revolutionary artist that would define his solo career. "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", "Revolution I" and "I'm So Tired" are songs on the same lines of his Imagine album. The, both of the albums end with cheesy ballads from John and, more amazingly, one of them "Good Night" is sung by Ringo, and it gives it a very paternal feeling.

After writing marvellous things about the songwriting of John and Paul, I choose my favourite song from the album the mythical "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from George (and Eric, of course). This is a very inner song. I think that you can listen the sadness of Harrison during this time on the song. It's a dark melody, with ramping guitar riff, from a man who wanted his songs to be taken more seriously. Fucking brilliant, a moment of history. Actually, I think that it is because of this that George is my favourite Beatle. He was standing there, waiting for his time to come, on the shadow of John and Paul and, in the end, he wrote a lot of my favourite Beatles songs and my favourite solo album by any of them.

Well, 50 years after, The White Album is still a modern very well balanced rock album, made by the most important band of the world. An essential listen to any music fan.

20 Years Of "This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours"

Manic Street Preachers are going to do a full celebration pack for the 20th anniversary of their fifth album, "This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours".
The album, that was released in 1998, will be re-released, with a lot of demos and mixes, and the Manics will play 13 concerts around the UK during next year's Spring.
The reissue will have 3 CDs, the first is the full album, the second alternative versions of the album, and the third disc will include remixes and b-sides.
Maybe the funniest and strangest thing of this release is that the band decided to leave out "Nobody Loved You" from the main album and replace it with "Prologue To History".
Speaking to the NME, lyricist Nicky Wire told:

“James [Dean Bradfield, frontman] has remastered it, I found all the demos. They’re amazing – all on cassettes, recorded in someone’s front room. We’ve put [fan favourite B-side] ‘Prologue To History’ on the album now and kicked off ‘Nobody Loved You’. We’ve moved that onto disc two with a great demo that we’ve found. It’s packed full of really interesting and intimate stuff, as well as us in the studio and off the leash on certain songs like ‘Tsunami’ that are much more raw.
“There are some amazing remixes too – by people like Mogwai, Massive Attack and Cornelius. It was a great period where people would take your work and transform it into something really special.”

"This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours" is the band's most successful album and the only one to have reached the number 1 in the official UK charts. It includes as well, probably, the Manics most famous song "If Your Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next" (it was a period for long titles, wasn't it?). This was a golden era for British music and this work represents it very well. Legendary songs like "Tsunami", "The Everlasting" or, a personal favourite, "You Stole The Sun From My Heart" were recorded for this album.


You can expect also a remastered vinyl edition.
The tracklist is:

CD 1 – Remastered original album

1 The Everlasting
2 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
3 You Stole the Sun from My Heart
4 Ready for Drowning
5 Tsunami
6 My Little Empire
7 I’m Not Working
8 You’re Tender and You’re Tired
9 Born a Girl
10 Be Natural
11 Black Dog On My Shoulder
12 Prologue To History
13 S.Y.M.M.

CD 2 – Demos & Live Rehearsals

1 The Everlasting
2 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (Dave Bascombe Mix)
3 You Stole the Sun from My Heart
4 Ready for Drowning
5 Tsunami
6 My Little Empire
7 I’m Not Working
8 You’re Tender and You’re Tired
9 Born A Girl
10 Be Natural
11 Black Dog On My Shoulder
12 Prologue To History
13 S.Y.M.M.
14 Nobody Loved You

CD3 – Remixes & B Sides

1 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (Massive Attack Remix)
2 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (David Holmes Remix)
3 The Everlasting (Deadly Avenger’s Psalm 315)
4 The Everlasting (Stealth Sonic Orchestra Remix)
5 You Stole the Sun from My Heart (David Holmes Remix)
6 You Stole the Sun from My Heart (Mogwai Remix)
7 Tsunami (Cornelius Remix)
8 Tsunami (Stereolab Remix)
9 Montana/ Autumn/78
10 Black Holes For The Young
11 Valley Boy
12 Socialist Serenade
13 Buildings For Dead People


 

Brett Anderson Is Writing a New Book

After the success of his autobiography, Brett Anderson, the lead singer of Suede is writing the second volume of the story of his life.
"Coal Black Mornings" covered the time since he was born until Suede signed their first professional contract in 1992.
We can assume now that the next book, "Afternoons With The Blinds Drawn" will cover Anderson's mid-90's life, probably until somewhere Suede's break up or maybe even further. It will be interesting to see Brett write about the departure of Bernard Butler from Suede, his relationship with his then girlfriend, Sam, the come back of Justine Frischmann, his vision of the new Suede with Richard Oakes and Neil Codling.
Well, personally, my favourite period of Suede (not counting with the current era) was the Coming Up times, where the band was just like a gang, full of confidence.

Brett's first book was very well received by the fans and the critics and, hopefully, his new work will have the same effect.

We can expect it in the Autumn of 2019. That's a long time, but as we know, Brett has been very busy, recording and touring Suede's spectacular new album "The Blue Hour" 

Always Ascending By Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand are, in my opinion, one of the most interesting bands in the world today.
They released 3 super acclaimed albums, then, I think they lost a bit of media attention with "Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action" and then did the supergroup FFS with The Sparks, which kinda divided the fans and the critics (and Alex Kapranos also formed BNQT).
With Always Ascending we can see the band, again (and again and again) trying to develop their sound and trying to make something fresh and new, and that's something we should really praise. It would be easy for them to do a new "Take Me Out" with a frontal indie-rock sound, but the band
really wants to get further and achieve new sonorities.
Always Ascending is, basically a mature indie/rock/electronic record.
If I were in a band, I would select the best song of the album (excluding long melancholic emotional or experimental songs) as the first single. I do think that big part of the artists do it, and Franz Ferdinand selected the title-song of the album as their opening and as first single and I understand why. It is the best song of the album. An electronic, dreamy song about viewing life as a Shepard Tone, always directly facing our path, and moving forward, and it is what the band is always doing, renovating their sound with amazing songs, without forgetting their own style. Always Ascending is a very complex song with lot of different parts but complex as the album is, so it's its right representation.
The second song, Lazy Boy is a danceable song, with a catchy bass riff, and a direct guitar chorus. Again, Kapranos likes to write about simple things in life, without getting too much poetic about the subjects. The songs is not about how love will change your life, or how war screws up the world, it's only about a lazy boy that doesn't like to get out of the bed, and loves his girlfriend. Simple, direct and smart. Franz Ferdinand's lyrics has always been much more practical than most of the bands. Something like a modern Jarvis Cocker poem, it describes the world has it is, without a story-line.
Then we have Paper Cages, a song that, at the beginning I didn't like that much, but now I think it is one of the best from the album. Catchy and melodic. It's something that Metronomy could have written during their most inspiring moments (far superior, but you get the point).
Finally is what I describe like a normal song of the album. Not the best, not the worst, just a nice song that fills good in the album. A song, probably about social integration.
The Academy Award is my least favourite song. It looks like an American ballad, like a modern western/Scottish song.
Track number 6 is Lois Lane. The song, with the name of the partner of Superman, sonorously, really reminds me of the 80's. I think it has a lot of inspiring from the instrumental song of Depeche Mode "Nothing To Fear" from their 1982 album "A Broken Frame". The riff of the chorus, and the middle keyboard solo really seems taken from there. Nothing against, I love Depeche Mode, and actually in a lot of moments from this album you can feel their influence.
Huck And Jim is a strange song. The intro of the song is great but then you get into dark areas. The pre-chorus is like a rap/reggae sound that, really doesn't fit well with Franz Ferdinand. I said that The Academy Awards was the lowest moment of the album, but I'm reconsidering now that this song might be worse. It's not bad, it's only not as good as the other songs.
Gimpse Of Love is another 80's renovated song. Catchy, funny, with a nice keyboard line, nice backing choruses. I very decent song.
The second single from the album was Feel The Love Go. Again, with Always Ascending it is the most electronic/industrial song. Hard, aggressive and addicted. The song is very intense and has (as Always Ascending) nice "lalala" creepy backing vocals, that really helps you to memorise the song. A hit song, without any doubt.   
The last song is, as typical, a beautiful ballad. Slow, Don't Kill Me Slow is a electronic ballad, very sweet and very (emotionally) moving. You could say it's a sad song that you can happily dance to it. Also, the outro is very dreamy and very travelling. After 9 aggressive electronic indie rock songs, this is the perfect song for you to make peace with the album. One of my favourite songs. Last week I was listen to it every single morning on the way to work.

Resuming, I cannot place Always Ascending in a rank in Franz Ferdinad's career. The album is, undoubtedly, a step forward from their work, but it goes along their career, it's nothing revolutionary. The band's line up changed from their last work to this one, but, honestly, you cannot feel that on their sound, which says that the new members adaptation was very easy and natural, and the band could keep their identity exactly as it was.
I love this band, and I think that, not only they are one of the best performs of today's music but also they are one of the most creative bands around. They should be really on the top, which they are not, and it's a pity. If you have the opportunity you should see them live. 

Skeleton Tree Review

Firstly, an album is much more than a set of songs. An album is a creative process, that take months of writing and of improvement. It's a trip to a time and an era of the writer's life. When people are commenting albums they should be aware of the environment in which it was created. What was the purpose that lead the artist to choose a darker sound, or a commercial one, or an instrumental album.

When you are one of the best lyricists of the last decades, this sentence takes a whole new level. Every Nick Cave album is an experience, a story, a group of songs that make much more sense together.
Although the death of Arthur (Cave's son) happened after most of the lyrics of Skeleton Tree were completed, you simply can't separate this event to this album.
The songs are much darker, sadder and more melancholic than Cave's previous work.
Most of the songs are stripped down performances of poems (not stories) accompanied by surrounding ambient sounds. Simple, beautiful, and sad.
I do believe that the death of Arthur, made a huge impact on the sound of the album, on the structure of it. Eight ballads, as dark as they could be. The artwork follows the same lines. Everything black.

Some of the lyrics are a lot prophetic, knowing that they were written prior to Cave's son death. The opening lines of the album are "You feel from the sky, crash landed in a field". Could be Jesus, or could be Arthur.
In "Jesus Alone" you have one of the most descriptive songs of the album, talking about a figure of Jesus, that could be a million of different people, and, in a distance, Nick tries to call that person, with his voice. The drums are irregular, and the main sound in loop made in some synthesizer. "Rings Of Saturn" is a rare moment of joy and happiness, an appreciation of a feminine figure, a beautiful moment. "Girl In Amber" is, probably my favourite song so far. Probably the most dramatic part of the album, with an almost religious and holy sound mixed up with a desperate way of singing. "Magneto" is a key track. It's the one that gave the title to the documentary that was made for the album. Quoting Cave:
"In love, in love, in love you laugh
In love you move, I move
And one more time with feeling
For love, you love, I laugh, you love
Saw you in half
And the stars are splashed across the ceiling"
One of the best moments of the album.
"Anthrocene" is a more a narrative song, with angels voices in the background. Just some kind of a cello sound, piano, backing voices and poetry. Do you really need much more than that?
"I Need You" looks like the goodbye song of Cave to his son. A mix of a declaration of loss and some old memories. Cave's voice sounds fragile, almost breaking. "I'll miss you when you're gone away forever". As it is "Distant Sky". This time, Nick sounds more resigned to what happened and is carrying is life, although he will miss forever his "darling companion". The chorus is sung by Else Torp, giving it more an angelical and biblical melody.
The album ends with the title track "Skeleton Tree" that is the most bright song. A funny way of ending such a depressive album, is with a song that gives you hope and will to continue living and being strong to face our problems and depressions. A moment full of fresh air after a hard time.

In resume, Skeleton Tree is a very very hard album. That's because it expresses so well the feelings of the musicians that you almost to start feel like them. And this is the true value of music. Feeling the authors through their work. Cave really did that, exhaustively, and all of his pain and suffer are present on every song. It's like reading a 500-page book, but in a form of 8 songs.

Cave passed through a very hard time and, as a true master of the art of writing he expressed it amazingly.

It's sad, but sad is beautiful and so is the album, truly honest and beautiful.

With no surprise it got universal acclaim. It will be remembered as of the most honest albums ever recorded.

Dolores O'Riordan From The Cranberries Has Died

The legendary Irish singer, Dolores O'Riordan, most famous for being the lead singer of The Cranberries has, suddenly, passed away today.
The singer, was in London in a recording session and there is not public cause for her dead.
Aged 46, she had a remarkable voice and she and her band, along with some bands from the early 90's, a new perspective of women leading rock bands.
The Cranberries were still active, after their first hiatus and had release new material in 2017. Dolores had also a solo career with two albums and some other side projects.
She will be missed.