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Bulldog · 12-20-2010, 07:48 AM

Before, in the timeless words of Sir Bobby Gillespie, I get right down to the real nitty gritty, I'm gonna take you on a quick detour...

Artist: David Bowie
Tunage: Never Let Me Down

Just so you're not under any false impressions, let me just say that the album this song's culled from sucks. It sucks so hard that whenever (for whatever weird reason) the notion of one of my favourites releasing a truly shitty album comes about, 1987's Never Let Me Down is always the first one I think of. Wanna hear how badly this album sucks? Knock yourself out, just don't say I didn't warn you

Putting it another way, I don't know how many of us bought the EMI reissues of Bowie's back-catalogue in the late 90s, but they always came with a card featuring little thumbnail pictures of each re-released album, including this one. Both before and after I'd heard this abomination of an album, I knew what its sleeve art looked like, and as such it came to embody all that is evil about crap music to me.

'But wait a minute,' I hear either you or the voices in my head that taunt me relentlessly day and night saying; 'what's a track from that very album doing here?' It's simple - I fucking love this song. I love it so much that it was well worth forking out a tenner on an otherwise worthless piece of crap like the album it shares a title with. I love it so much that it's one of my ten favourite Bowie songs ever. Coming from someone who's made such a big deal out of collecting his music for almost a decade now, that's saying something.

Have a listen to one of my favourite ever lovesongs and, once you've wrapped your laughing gear around it, have a look at the latest album I've dug up from the bowels of my cumbersome, RAM-draining iTunes library...

Hooverphonic
The Magnificent Tree
2000

genre: trip-hop, downtempo, pop
1. Autoharp - 4:21
2. Mad About You - 3:43
3. Waves - 4:01
4. Jacky Cane - 4:20
5. The Magnificent Tree - 3:55
6. Vinegar and Salt - 3:20
7. Frosted Flake Wood - 3:17
8. Everytime We Live Together We Die a Bit More - 3:35
9. Out Of Sight - 3:55
10. Pink Fluffy Dinosaurs - 3:50
11. L'Odeur Animale - 4:31

You know those moments when you finish listening to an album like Ella Fitzgerald's Lullaby Of Birdland for about the 800th time and think to yourself 'gee, wouldn't it be swell if I checked out the RYM charts and looked for more stuff like this?' It was on a flight of fancy not exactly unlike that that I found myself getting hold of this album, except that the artist in question was one I can't quite recall (either Massive Attack or Thievery Corporation) and the genre was call that trip-hop/downtempto hunk of loveliness we've all crossed paths with in one way or another...at least as people like myself who actively seek out new music and don't just sit on what they've already got as if it's a particularly cozy waterbed or something.

Anyway, I digress - that's how I came across this album. I say this album, because I'm sure I'd heard of the Belgian trio Hooverphonic somewhere before. Kinda like how you feel when you see a face on TV and know that something about it rings a bell and you're just not sure what it is. Wherever or whenever I'd heard the name Hooverphonic before, the first time I actively sought them out was on one of those occasions when I choose to consciously diversify into a genre I'd never really bothered with before. That was 2, maybe even 3 years ago, and it must have been a while since I last listened to this as I'd forgotten I even had it, only thinking it'd be a good idea to type something up about it sometime this morning, when I was rubbing my chin over what to fill some more journal space with. I mean, it's a drawback of having all this music at our fingertips, ain't it? There's so much available to jammy sods like us that it's so easy to just get carried away and download something like 30 albums in a week, get distracted before listening to them more than once and then just having them get buried under even newer acquisitions. I won't kid around, I'm no different - off the top of my head, I can think of albums by David McComb, Lyle Lovett, Jarboe and Steve Roach which I've been meaning to listen to for what seems like years but just haven't got round to it.

So, getting sharply back on track, what's this album sounding like? Well, so far as trip-hop and downtempo go, I wouldn't say it sounds anything like either of the artists I mentioned that drove me to getting this album. It's kinda like trip-hop-lite if that makes any sense, and if you wanna compare it to other chick-fronted trip-hop acts, it's a lot more glossy, accessible and therefore nowhere near as experimental as the mighty Lamb. I guess that in the slower, more percussion-driven tracks, while the basslines are nowhere near as off the wall, there's the germ of a Thievery Corporation...well...ish sound, given a new dimension by Geike Arnaert's vocal. It's true that Arnaert here's a perfectly capable vocalist and does a good job on the whole, but there's not really an awful lot that's particularly unqiue to her style, as in you feel like you could just as easily be listening to any other chillout electronica group when you hear her voice.

Such is the major bone I have to pick with this album. For all that it seems to try to be something unqiue, what with the expansion of the group's core trip-hop sound into more melodic and conventional rock music areas, it doesn't really leave much of a lasting impression on me. I do find it interesting how layers of strings kinda glide over one of the songs in the video clips below, which gives off a very quirky vibe, but the flipside of that coin is the incredibly corny Out Of Sight track.

In the interests of keeping this as short as I possibly can, if you're looking for a decent album you can stick on and put your feet on the desk to after a hard day's doing, well, whatever, get hold of this album. Just don't expect anything particularly mindblowing from it though.

12-20-2010, 07:48 AM	#32 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	Before, in the timeless words of Sir Bobby Gillespie, I get right down to the real nitty gritty, I'm gonna take you on a quick detour... Artist: David Bowie Tunage: Never Let Me Down Just so you're not under any false impressions, let me just say that the album this song's culled from sucks. It sucks so hard that whenever (for whatever weird reason) the notion of one of my favourites releasing a truly shitty album comes about, 1987's Never Let Me Down is always the first one I think of. Wanna hear how badly this album sucks? Knock yourself out, just don't say I didn't warn you Putting it another way, I don't know how many of us bought the EMI reissues of Bowie's back-catalogue in the late 90s, but they always came with a card featuring little thumbnail pictures of each re-released album, including this one. Both before and after I'd heard this abomination of an album, I knew what its sleeve art looked like, and as such it came to embody all that is evil about crap music to me. 'But wait a minute,' I hear either you or the voices in my head that taunt me relentlessly day and night saying; 'what's a track from that very album doing here?' It's simple - I fucking love this song. I love it so much that it was well worth forking out a tenner on an otherwise worthless piece of crap like the album it shares a title with. I love it so much that it's one of my ten favourite Bowie songs ever. Coming from someone who's made such a big deal out of collecting his music for almost a decade now, that's saying something. Have a listen to one of my favourite ever lovesongs and, once you've wrapped your laughing gear around it, have a look at the latest album I've dug up from the bowels of my cumbersome, RAM-draining iTunes library... Hooverphonic The Magnificent Tree 2000 genre: trip-hop, downtempo, pop 1. Autoharp - 4:21 2. Mad About You - 3:43 3. Waves - 4:01 4. Jacky Cane - 4:20 5. The Magnificent Tree - 3:55 6. Vinegar and Salt - 3:20 7. Frosted Flake Wood - 3:17 8. Everytime We Live Together We Die a Bit More - 3:35 9. Out Of Sight - 3:55 10. Pink Fluffy Dinosaurs - 3:50 11. L'Odeur Animale - 4:31 You know those moments when you finish listening to an album like Ella Fitzgerald's Lullaby Of Birdland for about the 800th time and think to yourself 'gee, wouldn't it be swell if I checked out the RYM charts and looked for more stuff like this?' It was on a flight of fancy not exactly unlike that that I found myself getting hold of this album, except that the artist in question was one I can't quite recall (either Massive Attack or Thievery Corporation) and the genre was call that trip-hop/downtempto hunk of loveliness we've all crossed paths with in one way or another...at least as people like myself who actively seek out new music and don't just sit on what they've already got as if it's a particularly cozy waterbed or something. Anyway, I digress - that's how I came across this album. I say this album, because I'm sure I'd heard of the Belgian trio Hooverphonic somewhere before. Kinda like how you feel when you see a face on TV and know that something about it rings a bell and you're just not sure what it is. Wherever or whenever I'd heard the name Hooverphonic before, the first time I actively sought them out was on one of those occasions when I choose to consciously diversify into a genre I'd never really bothered with before. That was 2, maybe even 3 years ago, and it must have been a while since I last listened to this as I'd forgotten I even had it, only thinking it'd be a good idea to type something up about it sometime this morning, when I was rubbing my chin over what to fill some more journal space with. I mean, it's a drawback of having all this music at our fingertips, ain't it? There's so much available to jammy sods like us that it's so easy to just get carried away and download something like 30 albums in a week, get distracted before listening to them more than once and then just having them get buried under even newer acquisitions. I won't kid around, I'm no different - off the top of my head, I can think of albums by David McComb, Lyle Lovett, Jarboe and Steve Roach which I've been meaning to listen to for what seems like years but just haven't got round to it. So, getting sharply back on track, what's this album sounding like? Well, so far as trip-hop and downtempo go, I wouldn't say it sounds anything like either of the artists I mentioned that drove me to getting this album. It's kinda like trip-hop-lite if that makes any sense, and if you wanna compare it to other chick-fronted trip-hop acts, it's a lot more glossy, accessible and therefore nowhere near as experimental as the mighty Lamb. I guess that in the slower, more percussion-driven tracks, while the basslines are nowhere near as off the wall, there's the germ of a Thievery Corporation...well...ish sound, given a new dimension by Geike Arnaert's vocal. It's true that Arnaert here's a perfectly capable vocalist and does a good job on the whole, but there's not really an awful lot that's particularly unqiue to her style, as in you feel like you could just as easily be listening to any other chillout electronica group when you hear her voice. Such is the major bone I have to pick with this album. For all that it seems to try to be something unqiue, what with the expansion of the group's core trip-hop sound into more melodic and conventional rock music areas, it doesn't really leave much of a lasting impression on me. I do find it interesting how layers of strings kinda glide over one of the songs in the video clips below, which gives off a very quirky vibe, but the flipside of that coin is the incredibly corny Out Of Sight track. In the interests of keeping this as short as I possibly can, if you're looking for a decent album you can stick on and put your feet on the desk to after a hard day's doing, well, whatever, get hold of this album. Just don't expect anything particularly mindblowing from it though.