My night in with... Glee

from www.wordmagazine.co.uk and published in the May 2010 edition of The Word magazine...

What's it called?:

Glee

What It Sounds Like:

Autotune and teenagers with annoying inflections, unfortunately, but to dismiss it on account of that would be a mistake. Life is hard in the strictly regimented world of American high school where you're either a football player, a cheerleader or a social outcast. Luckily, for those with a desire to perform, there's the Glee club - led by the Panglossian Mr. Schuester - where no-one will judge you. On top of the fantastically choreographed routines, there are fake pregnancies, unwanted weddings, genuine laugh out loud moments and the inimitable cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester. It has all the hallmarks of a show adored by the kind of people who use the phrase, "OMG!", without a hint of irony, but it doesn't take itself too seriously and, though not exactly demanding television, it's utterly absorbing.

What Does It All "Mean"?:

It means that it's ok to be different. It means that you should embrace your individuality. It means that sometimes there's nothing better than dressing up for a good old song-and-dance. Basically, it's the Lady Gaga of TV shows.

Goes well with...:

A cosy night in on the sofa after a hard day at work. Glass of Chilean Merlot optional.

Might Suit People Who Like...:

American high school dramas, pop music and fun.

Romance Is Boring

Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring

released 1 February 2010 on Wichita

Growing up is rubbish, isn’t it? You finish school with no idea of the adult world and the belief that anything is possible. You think your dreams could come true, though you’ve no idea how you’re going to make it happen, but hey, you’re young and responsibility doesn’t exist for you. Then, capitalism bites and you have to start paying your way and guess what, before you know it you’ve got an office job for a multi-national corporation and your dreams get relegated to weekends. Then, you get a house and kids and your weekends are all about wallpapering and taking your offspring to jelly and ice cream laden parties where all the other parents look at tired and world-weary as you. Well, something resembling that at least…

So where do your dreams go? If you never actually sold your soul to rock n’ roll, then the time is ripe for a bit of vicarious living. Rock stars are the eternal children, the Peter Pans who never grew up and in the case of Los Campesinos!’ début album, Hold On Now, Youngster…, they were living the dream just for you. HONY… was a beautifully giddy collection of tracks, hastily thrown together and recorded by a group of people who clearly couldn’t believe they were being allowed to make an album and were worried they were going to be thrown out of the studio at any minute. Sure, it was a little rough around the edges, but it was so full of charm it won them an army of fans, something which carried on with follow-up We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed.

So, surely now the Welsh septet are feeling the harsh realities of life? Apparently there’s some sort of recession on, everyone’s finding it tough and Los Campesinos! themselves are a handful of years older. Does this mean they’ve grown up? The answer is simple: yes and no.

Luckily, you get the best of both worlds, because while Romance Is Boring still contains the youthful exuberance that set LC! apart from their peers, the lyrics show an acceptance that actions actually have consequences and they’re coupled with a more mature, even polished, sound.

Don’t worry, they haven’t turned into Coldplay. In fact, far from it. But the best example of a more grown-up song from LC! is probably the album opener, In Media Res. It’s unmistakeably Los Campesinos!, but rather than celebrating irresponsible behaviour, it’s about the negative effects of over-indulgence and not only that, there are sweeping strings to really lift it to the next level. It’s less self-consciously quirky and though not necessarily the most enjoyable song they’ve ever written, it’s certainly the best-crafted and gives a good indication of what they’re capable of achieving.

That’s the “yes” covered, now for the “no”. Los Campesinos! are known for rushing through songs at breakneck speed, and having both a male and female vocalist certainly adds to the playground call and response nature of their songs. A marked maturity pervades but they certainly haven’t forgotten where they came from, and those fantastically perky moments remain. Straight In At 101 is the frustrated cousin of first album single You! Me! Dancing! and is incredibly lyrically sharp with its first-person account of awkward teenage fumbling that never quite goes to plan. It also contains the best opening line you’ll have heard for a while, “I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock”.

Los Campesinos! aren’t afraid of experimentation either, and mix discordance, emo riffs, glockenspiels and crashing cymbals to great effect. The chanted chorus on the title track is rousing and listening to the bleeps and almost prog-like timing of We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)(sample lyric: “I’ve learnt more from toilet walls than I’ve learnt from these words of yours”) is like listening to a band shedding their skin and growing into themselves.

Occasionally, the well of inspiration runs a little dry, but that’s probably to be expected when you record three albums is two years. Plan A is, to these ears at least, little more than noise, and the album does tend to peter out with little of particular note - the stellar This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind excepted. Mind you, you’d be a fool not to fall for a song that’s opening line is an impassioned chant of “Can’t we all please just calm the fuck down?!”.

Romance Is Boring is fun, knowing, astute, energetic and packed with vignettes of youth and love lost. Whereas Hold On Now, Youngster… was, perhaps in retrospect, a little too naïve with any slower portions feeling as if they were there just for a breather rather than to add to the overall ambience,Romance Is Boring is a proper album from a band who have grown and know what they’re doing. Listen to it while selecting ceiling paint in your local hardware store, or while driving your middle child to piano practice or maybe, just maybe, listen to it while doing whatever the hell you want to do.

IRM

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

released 25 January on Because Music

You may know her as Serge’s little girl. Or perhaps you’re more familiar with her acting and have seen her in Antichrist… or The Science of Sleep… or Ma Femme Est Une Actrice. Or maybe to you she’s Jane Birkin’s daughter. Hey, possibly you only know her for her music and fell in love with her ethereal 2006 album, 5:55. But with so many fingers in so many pies, who actually is Charlotte Gainsbourg?

Well, musically at least, it would seem she isn’t too sure either. Début album, Charlotte For Ever, from 1986, was written by her father, French perv-pop legend, Serge, and 5:55 was primarily the work of Air and Jarvis Cocker, with a bit of Neil Hannon thrown in for good measure. Now, IRM has all songs bar one written and produced by everyone’s favourite Danish Scientologist, Beck. This career trajectory alone could mean Gainsbourg struggles to be taken seriously as a recording artist. However, she appears to act as a muse for a variety of people and as such, gets the breaks many singers would give their right arm for. Mind you, Daddy being so highly revered throughout the music world can’t exactly hurt.

That’s not meant to sound bitter, misogynist or conceited because as long as no animals are harmed during the process, who cares about anything so long as the tunes are good? Life’s too short for hipsterish concerns of authenticity and meaningfulness. It’s a subjective medium; that’s how it goes.

Having said all that, it’s unfortunate that IRM is a bloated, self-congratulatory, directionless mess of an album. The mechanics and the back-story aren’t everything, but it’s preferable to believe our singers aren’t just puppets on strings and actually have some say in what goes on their records. Gainsbourg’s level of involvement in IRM is unknown, of course, and any viewpoint held by the listener is speculative at best, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if a press release came out stating that Gainsbourg just turned up on recording day and sang Beck’s words off an autocue.

It makes the task of the reviewer somewhat more complex to report that, for an awful lot of the record, IRMis just dull. 5:55 may have been laid-back, but this just sounds disinterested. La Collectionneuse is atonal,Time of the Assassins has Gainsbourg’s voice buried so deep in the mix it’s barely audible and, weirdly, on Me and Jane Doe, her voice sounds noticeably flat. Lyrically, Beck appears otherwise engaged, tossing away a bunch of clichés and half-phrases, sometimes with a nod to The Beatles (“find happiness from a gun”) or, on one occasion, just blatantly copying The Fab Four (“looking through a glass onion”).

The more listenable tracks on IRM tend to be more interesting than enjoyable, but there are a handful worthy of further investigation. Heaven Can Wait (a duet with Beck) was an obvious candidate for lead single and is certainly a toe-tapper while Le Chat du Café des Artistes (the only song not penned by Beck) would fit snugly on 5:55. The title track is the most alluring of the collection and sounds not dissimilar to Portishead’s powerful Machine Gun. "IRM" is the French initialism for an MRI scanner and the album is so-called due to Gainsbourg’s recent health scare (she suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2007). The title track apes the sounds of hospitals and machines to great effect, capturing the feeling of fear and claustrophobia perfectly.

What stands out most about IRM, though, is the lack of focus. Beck, or possibly Gainsbourg, herself, can’t seem to work out which path to follow and what the album should sound like. Thus, we have quasi-5:55 tracks, songs that sound a bit like Beck, wheezing country, French traditional chanteuse-style numbers and, most bafflingly of all, an ill-advised two-song excursion into garage rock. Sounding like a second-rate Kills or a Raveonettes without the fun, Gainsbourg embarrassingly postures her way throughTrick Pony and Greenwich Mean Time. It may give IRM a much-needed kick up the backside, but it’s unconvincing, tinny, and when Gainsbourg sings the word “chou-fleur” in an English accent, it’s pretty much time to pack up and go home.

It’s fair to say that “underwhelmed” is the word that most springs to mind with IRM. It’s not a completely futile exercise - there are some decent tracks - but it falls far short of the quality of its predecessor. After discussing accusations of nepotism earlier, it now sounds hypocritical to say you’d expect better from someone with such heritage, but that’s how it feels. There’s a fantastic album inside Charlotte Gainsbourg, or, given her discography, perhaps it would be more accurate to say there’s a fantastic Charlotte Gainsbourg album inside someone else. Here’s hoping it’s found soon.