Do the Continental

Year after year, the British public are fed the same tired, slightly xenophobic line about the Eurovision Song Contest: we’re far too sophisticated to treat something so ridiculous with any respect but Johnny Foreigner clearly laps this rubbish up. We’re the land of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, how could we possibly enjoy this carnival of the grotesque. It’s probably what daytime radio sounds like in Eastern Europe anyway!

If we do watch the show, it must be with a knowing, ironic detachment. We celebrate the kitsch aspect by hosting themed, fancy dress parties and the whole event is treated with as the most snobbish phrase in the English language: “a guilty pleasure.”

It’s baffling why we’re not allowed to enjoy Eurovision for the spectacle it is. After all, the UK has a rich tradition of talent shows and end-of-the-pier entertainment, and a population which laps up The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent.

That said, my sub-three hour stint in front of the finest music in Europe didn’t get off to a great start. The interaction between the hosts is never the high point and this year was no exception. It’s never easy to keep the funnies going in at least two languages, but some of the material was fist-bitingly bad. It was the same story when we were taken round the continent for the scores; forced bonhomie with each nation’s representative is very wearing, but forty-three countries later, my eyelids felt weighted down with bags of sugar.

However, when it came to the music, it was fast-paced, slick, professional, and there really was something for everyone. You’d struggle to find a radio station producingso much variety across two hours. Sure, there was the rubbish your prejudices expected: the Italian entry was pitched at the terrifying point where Harry Connick Jr. and Jamie Cullum meet; Georgia appears to have fully embraced nu-metal a decade after the rest of the world and Azerbaijan’s song was so bland, I forgot how it went halfway through. It still emerged victorious at the night’s climax.

Yet amongst the chaff, we had Moldova’s wonderfully bizarre performance featuring musicians with giant conical hats and a unicyclist. There was a French tenor singing in Corsican. We watched a retro girl-group chic from Serbia and a Ukrainian vocalist accompanied by a live sand artist (though, as Caitlin Moran correctly pointed out on Twitter, she’d have been in trouble had she sneezed). We even saw, er… Jedward!

Jedward genuinely are a curio. While decades of research may suggest identical twins have an almost telepathic connection due to their genetic and environmental similarities, Jedward display all the coordination of two drunks who have never met. Nevertheless they turned in the most entertaining performance of the show, aided in no small part by an extremely strong song, ‘Lipstick’ - a cross between early Depeche Mode and latter-day Take That.

Possibly because of poor results in recent years, the UK selection committee decided to put a bit more thought into our own representatives. Blue may be more famous for displaying their staggering ignorance in interviews than their pop stylings, but they were extremely popular in their heyday and undertook an extensive promotional tour across Europe before the weekend’s festivities. Their song was one of the better efforts too; a sleek, toe-tapping slice of contemporary R&B. Treating Eurovision with a bit more respect paid some dividends – Blue finished eleventh with a century of points, a far cry from the measly dix points of last year.

Of course Eurovision has its faults. While trying so hard to appeal to the largest possible demographic, it can end up throwing its faux jollity in your face. However, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be seen in the UK as it is viewed by the rest of Europe: accomplished primetime entertainment. It might be counter-intuitive, but the more seriously you treat Eurovision, the more fun it becomes.

Overlooked Albums - Lewis II

The story of the bright, young thing having their career prematurely ended is all too common. Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse and your name liveth forever more, as the posthumous deification of Jeff Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain et al demonstrate. Lewis Taylor’s career ended abruptly in 2006; no guns, drug overdoses or death shrouded in mystery for him, he just… quit.

It’s difficult to believe that someone could just sever all ties with music and leave the industry in such a fashion, but that’s exactly what Lewis Taylor did. No grand announcement or farewell tour, he simply slipped out the back door when no-one was looking. On the evidence of his body of work, second album Lewis II in particular, his departure is very much our loss.

Following a chequered decade or so on the periphery of the music industry, Lewis Taylor signed to Island in the mid-90s and was immediately heralded as the future of music. Tipped for the top by names as illustrious as David Bowie and Elton John, it seemed he couldn’t fail. Yet, fail he did - relatively speaking - as his first two albums didn’t sell as well as Island would’ve liked, who promptly dropped him. Taylor then self-released three more full-length records before his abrupt decampment.

Lewis Taylor’s work is impassioned, thrilling, heady and beautiful. It’s an admirably cohesive mix of rock, soul, pop and contemporary R&B which displays a seldom heard understanding of how music fits together and a keen eye for detail. If you had to compartmentalise it, you could probably describe it as neo-soul; in fact, Taylor’s music is not all that dissimilar to that of D’Angelo or Erykah Badu, but with a harder edge.

Lewis II is Lewis Taylor’s party record. It even opens with a track called Party, a six-minute slab of raw funk which slithers and slinks its way into your subconscious. Heavy, sporadic bass give the track an animal, sexual feel and although it’s ostensibly seduction music, it’s a million miles away from the unimaginative bedroom-eyed soul of R Kelly and his ilk.

Unappreciative ears could dismiss Lewis II as self-indulgent. Most of the tracks clock in at over five minutes, but that’s just testament to the sheer breadth of what’s going on: sultry vocals, squalling guitar solos, jazz piano and even the odd well-judged key change. It’s the kind of music that could easily descend into parody or schmaltz, but Lewis Taylor’s quality control ensures we’re always comfortably on the right side of the line.

Perhaps the most eye-catching of the eleven songs is Satisfied. Power ballads generally have a bad reputation (and, often, deservingly so), but this tears up the rule book. It’s a gorgeous, emotion-packed track that could easily be taken to the top of the charts by a Simon Cowell protégé. Note: this is very much a compliment.

Lewis Taylor could be called the soul Jeff Buckley (their vocal styles are somewhat similar) and Lewis II closes with a Buckley cover: Everybody Here Wants You from the unfinished Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. It’s perhaps an obvious choice of Buckley song, a paean to his partner of the time, Joan Wasser (aka Joan As Police Woman), but it’s tackled masterfully by Taylor. The restraint, longing and feeling of respect are just as poignant as in the original, and it’s gratifying to see it as part of a fully-realised album.

Truth be told, any of Lewis Taylor’s studio LPs could be considered an overlooked album, in the same way that Lewis Taylor is an overlooked artist. Everybody has artists they love that they wish more people were aware of, and Lewis Taylor is mine. The story of Lewis Taylor is a cautionary tale on the destructive nature of the music business and although it left him unfulfilled, we’re lucky to have his back catalogue - especially Lewis II - available to us.

I’d be fascinated to know what Lewis Taylor is up to these days. Perhaps he’s working as a session musician, maybe he’s a plumber, or he could live in the Bermuda Triangle with Richey Edwards and Shergar. Whatever he’s doing, we can only hope his life now provides him with the stability and happiness he couldn’t find previously. We may never know, but Lewis II remains; 55 minutes that documents the astonishing abilities and wonderful mind of the man who used to be Lewis Taylor.

Do we need rock and roll?

Recently, No Ripcord ran an article about whether there was a future for rock and roll, and asked whether it was even important. The full article can be found here, but below is my side of the argument.

Whether your definition of the birth of rock n’ roll has Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Lonnie Donegan or anyone else as the creator, the music itself was heavily steeped in the idea of rebellion. Post-World War II, teenagers were fed up and in need of something to distance themselves from their past. A shake of the hips, a curl of the lip and a chord ringing out on an electric guitar were their ticket out of the doldrums. Whereas their parents would listen to jazz, Rat Pack crooners or musical standards, these children of the revolution were getting their kicks elsewhere.

 

So far, nothing you didn’t already know, but in 2011 we’re still being fed the line that rock n’ roll is the anti-establishment music of the underground and it’s simply not true. If anything, rock n’ roll has become the establishment itself. That generation gap doesn’t exist and, when developing music tastes, a large part of becoming your own person is listening to precisely the kind of music your parents wouldn’t approve of. If a 15-year-old today attempted to rebel by listening to The Vaccines, their Dad would likely pop his head round the corner, ask who this band ripping off The Ramones were, and promptly lend their offspring a copy of End Of The Century.

 

Does this mean rock n’ roll can limp on when its raison d’être no longer exists? Well, for better or worse, we’re always going to have guitar/bass/drum/vocal combos banging out three-minute songs. You could argue it’s the true form of the latter day pop group, but the question isn’t will there be rock bands, it’s whether we should care.

 

Since The Beatles split, there have been few bands that have truly shaken up the rock n’ roll paradigm. You’ll probably have your own favourites that aren’t included here, but as a back-of-a-fag-packet-list, let’s say: Pink Floyd, The Ramones, The Clash, Black Sabbath, Joy Division, The Smiths, Nirvana, Radiohead and The Strokes. Sure, that list could be debated all day, and there are probably inclusions you strongly disagree with, but the main point is this: you’ll be hard pushed to find anyone in the last decade who’s pushed rock n’ roll forward.

 

Why is this? Well, as we’ve established, rock n’ roll is getting on a bit. Of course, not everything that can possibly be done has been done, but we’re starting to repeat ourselves more and more. Rock n’ roll leaves me jaded and I feel like there’s no originality out there. I’m not some seasoned hack; I’m 24 – I shouldn’t feel this way, at least, not yet. If we’re going to strip rock n’ roll back to its first principles and concentrate on it in its purest form, then we reached the zenith in the 1990s with Weezer’s first record and Lemonhead’s It’s A Shame About Ray; two records which can’t be improved upon. And what are the rock n’ rollers of today doing? It’s been ten years since Is This It and it would appear that it, in fact, was it. The Strokes are holding onto former glories and other guitar bands simply re-hash the music of their heroes or look farther afield for their influences.

 

Aha, farther afield. This is why we shouldn’t care about the future of rock n’ roll. Why get hung up about it when there are so many fresh sounds if you cast your net a little wider? Pop has embraced technology and is racing forward at an alarming speed, electronic music is more exciting than ever before and the relative youthfulness of hip-hop means there are still plenty of places to go. That’s before you’ve even thought about fusions of styles, bedroom experimentalists, dubstep, chillwave and any other new genre you care to mention.

 

On a personal note, my three favourite albums of the past twelve months are in no way in thrall to the traditions of rock n’ roll: Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid, Katy B’s On A Mission, and James Blake’s eponymous debut. While they might not be your idea of fun, you’ll struggle to find a guitar-based record that shows the level of invention and intrigue of any of those records. Who are the hot, young gunslingers supposed to lead the charge in this brave new world? Brother? Glasvegas? Noah and the Whale? Give me a break.

 

There have always been fallow periods in rock n’ roll and a ground-breaking artist could be just around the corner. But while there are ideas in abundance elsewhere, there’s no point in getting too hung up about it. Right now, I’d rather listen to Rihanna than the Foo Fighters, and that’s the truth.

 

Only time will tell, but maybe the sad reality is that rock n’ roll really is past its best.

Femme Fatale

Britney Spears - Femme Fatale
released 28 March 2011 on Jive

There’s a danger of sounding pretentious by describing modern-day pop music as “post-Gaga,” but there’s no denying that since Miss Germanotta burst onto the scene over two years ago, a whole raft of female solo artists have had to sit up and take notice. Britney Spears is now something of a veteran at 29, and Femme Fatale is her seventh album. The songs featured on the record follow the template Gaga set when she changed the game; they’re brash and they’re made for dancing. However, whereas Gaga gets her message across through force of personality, Spears just doesn’t seem to have one.

Femme Fatale is full of pulsing Balearic beats and clumsy euphemisms. In fact, Spears comes across as if she’s constantly on heat, though confusingly, her lines are delivered with an almost disinterested, robotic tone. While she may be aiming for the icy aloofness of Robyn, she gives the impression of someone completely devoid of character whatsoever. The sad fact is, it could be anyone fronting the majority of these songs.

She’s still got an impressive songwriting team behind her though. The first track, Till The World Ends, is by far the best track on show, and it’s no surprise that Max Martin, Baby One More Time cowriter, is involved. Spears coos, “DJ, what you waiting for?” before a huge stuttering chorus explodes into life – perfect club music. The exhilarating bassline and heavy breakdown of the following song, Hold It Against Me, are great too, but after that, Femme Fatale is just failed attempts to recreate a winning formula.

The longer the album goes on, the more desperate the attention-grabbing tactics become. On How I Roll, Spears sings, “you can be my fuck tonight,” but she sounds less convincing than even the most dead-eyed, drug-addled porn actress. Things really reach a nadir on the will.i.am-penned Big Fat Bass, where the Black Eyed Peas man demonstrates he’s got the exact opposite of the Midas Touch; everything he touches turns to trash. Big Fat Bass is a horrible song, with a facile melody and sexual metaphors a child would dismiss as unimaginative.

There are interesting things going on in the background from time to time, but the insistence on pushing Spears vocals – the worst component of all the songs – front and centre ruins any potential the album might have. Rather than doing the best for the track, the production makes it clear that this is the Britney Spears show, and the music is there to serve her. Gaga has stolen her crown, and on the evidence of Femme Fatale, Britney Spears may be destined for the pop scrapheap.

Eurovision 2011: LIVE BLOG

After running a live blog for No Ripcord during The BRIT Awards 2011, I did the same thing for this year's Eurovision Song contest. Fighting ever-increasing levels of tiredness, I stayed awake long enough to make it to the end. To re-live the evening, click here.