The Album Club: "Casanova" by the Divine Comedy
 

The Divine Comedy - Casanova (1996)

http://www.mojo4music.com/media/2014...ova.jpg?9ab822

I don't enjoy the caroony vocal delivery. He constantly sounds as if he's forcing his voice to sound deeper and more Roy Orbison-like than it really is. Like he's doing a parody of said singer.
It has the unfortunate side effect of making it all sound like a comedy album (no pun intended).

Too much of a Tom Jones/Las Vegas entertainer vibe to this. I feel like this should be playing to a crowd of tasteless rich people on a cruise ship.
The strings sound phony and sterile and the music is in general just too bloodless to leave any impact on me.

It's not the type of music that bothers me, it's specifically how lacking in personality and flavor this album is. I find it generally agreeable, but I hope the artist has some other albums that demonstrate his creative vision and skills better.

I feel a bit bad for crapping all over this album, but it hits several pet peeves of mine in a bad way. It kind of exemplifies an artistic sensibility that I'm very
much looking for the opposite of.



Further silly nitpicks
- In one track, he's whistling out of tune.
- In some tracks, he's sort of acting out lines while half-singing, and it doesn't work at all. Especially not where he's sort of affecting a fake laugh.
- I've complained about the fake sounding strings already, but I hate them so much by the end of the album that I'm complaining about them again.
- Both the drums and the bass are so utilitarian in nature that they do almost nothing to add to the experience.
- Due to the prancing and posturing and occasional attempts at a seductive sort of persona, I feel like he's a poor man's Bryan Ferry at times.
- The generally overproduced, flat vibe of the music really makes the 50+ minute run time drag.
- His falsetto is allright. The deeper he tries to sing, the more unconvincing it sounds.
- Spoken word passage around the 41:00 mark is not funny or interesting.
- Said spoken word passage is followed by a track that sounds like the intro to a boring British soap opera.



Listened to: 1.0 times. I can't stand another round of this. It makes me miss previous week's album.

Rating: 3/10, which makes me realize I was way too hard on the Hiatus Kaiyote album.

http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/files/...2/PM225001.jpg
:(

Didn't know it was your pick! I have to go with my first reaction and damn, I wanted to like it, but it just really started grating on me as it went along.

If it's any consolation, I'm finding much more to like in your music journals. It annoys me that I lost the link to a specific one that the Batlord referred med to a while ago. It had reviews of AOR and other very 80's sounding rock/glam. I was going through it page by page, but now I can't find it again and as it turns out... you have like a million+ journals! :laughing:

You mean this?

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...r-journal.html

And can we please shoot our search function in the head? I'm sick of it telling me that it excludes short words (LIKE ****ING "AOR"!) from any search. What even the **** is the point?

No, but I'm going to find it useful anyways.

It turns out it was this one:

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...reviews-2.html

There's more than AOR in there, but I just remembered some of the 80's cheese cover art. I had to go through the journal index, manually searching on Trollheart's name until something rang a bell.

It's not the first time I end up having difficulties or even being unable to find a thread again on this site :laughing:

That's ok: at least you listened to it. It would be a dull club indeed if we all liked every album selected. Hannon uses that kind of affectation a lot; I guess it's something you either like or don't like. You should still check out his previous two albums, Liberation and Promenade, which you might enjoy more. Also A Short Album About Love, though it does follow the same kind of pattern as Casanova...
Thanks. Glad you're enjoying them.
yeah, I used to carry a link to all my journals in my sig, but then I stopped doing them completely so took the link out. The index also has not been updated in a while, but if you need it here it is
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...something.html


Very much agreed. It doesn't even matter if you put them in quotes, as far as I remember. Stupid system, however don't expect anyone who can do anything to listen.
Ah yes: one of my favourites. You should have just PM'd me. If you're looking for something in future that I wrote and you can't find it, let me know.

I'll try checking them out, but there's definetely no guarantee I would like them any more than the one I heard. If it's at least something a little different, there's always a chance.

Allright, duly noted :) It's all bookmarked in my MB folder now so I know where to find it again.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...C_Casanova.jpg
My first selection for the club was very well received, but it was something of a hollow victory, as it were, for me, as the album was not my own choice and had been suggested to me by bob, so I was unable to react to all the positive comments with a knowing smile and a smug grin. Whether this will happen with this, my second choice, is anyone's guess (probably everyone will hate it) but at least this time this is an album I was listening to before even joining here. Originally I had no idea who or what The Divine Comedy was, outside of Dante of course, but a workmate got me interested when she told me “It has the song from Father Ted on it.” Now, I had enjoyed that show and liked the music, so I thought hell, it'll probably be that one song and the rest crap, but I'll give it a go. About seven spins later I was in love with the album.

Certainly among my favourite DC albums, Casanova plumbs the depths of human emotion from top to bottom, from the bright and breezy silliness of “Something for the weekend” and “A woman of the world” to the sweet innocence of “Songs of love” right down to the bitter humour of “The Frog Princess”, and on into the incandescent fury of “Through a long and sleepless night”, finally ending with the resigned and melancholic acceptance of death in “The dogs and the horses”. It's not a perfect album by any means, and there are songs on it I don't care for, but as a cohesive work it's certainly at the top of the tree. Neil Hannon, for those who don't know, is The Divine Comedy: he writes, composes, arranges, performs and produces all his music, using band members and session players for each album. This, and the followup A Short Album About Love saw Neil enjoy some brief, if deserved, chart success, but he's not really about the singles, and you have to dig deeper to get to the real music of the man who is The Divine Comedy.

Note: as I know this album well, some of the questions in the matrix will be superfluous for me, so I'll be ignoring any that don't apply.

1. What were your VERY FIRST impressions on listening to the album, say from the first five minutes in?
n/a
2. What did you think of the opening track?
Love it: you think it sets the scene, and it kind of does, but the album gets much deeper and more emotional. It's a good opener though.
3. What did you think of the next track?
Not crazy about this. A bit weak I feel, even if it was chosen as a single.
4. Did you like the vocalist? Hate him/her? Any impressions? (see note 1)
I love Neil's cultured, pretentious-sounding voice. He has a way about him that just draws you into the songs.
5. Did the music (only) generally appeal to you, or not? (see note 2)
Yes, I like the music, and also the fact that there are so many styles used here
6. Did the album get better or worse as you listened to it (first time)?
n/a
7. What did you think of the lyrical content?
Mostly quite clever, plays on words and so on (“The casualties of casual sex”) but sometimes I feel he tries to be a little too clever (“Charge”) and it doesn't quite work.
8. Did you like the instrumental parts? (see note 3)
Mostly, yes
9. What did you think of the production?
Insert answer here
10. Did you know of this artiste prior to listening to the album, and if so, did that foreknowledge colour your perception of this album?
Originally, no: as mentioned above, this was the first DC album I listened to, and beyond knowing he did the music for Father Ted I knew nothing of him. Now, of course, I'm very familiar with all his work, both post and prior to this album
11. Is this, generally, the kind of music you listen to or not?
Kind of not really, but I really do like it. It's quite poppy in places, orchestral in others, with as I said a lot of different styles used
12. Assuming you listened to the album more than once, on repeated listens, did you find you liked the album more, or less?
n/a

13. What would you class as your favourite track(s), if you have any?
“The dogs and the horses”, “Through a long and sleepless night”, “Songs of love”, “A woman of the world”, “Something for the weekend”
14. And the one(s) you liked least?
“Charge”, “In and out in Paris and London”, “Becoming more like Alfie”
15. If the album in question is a debut, did that fact allow it, in your mind, any leeway, and if so, was that decision justified or vindicated? (see note 4)
n/a
16. Are you now looking forward to hearing more from this artiste, if you have not heard any of their other material?
n/a
17. Were you surprised by your reaction - positive or negative - to the album?
n/a
18. Did the album end well?

Beautifully. You couldn't have a better closer than the sumptuous orchestration of “The dogs and the horses”, and the fact that the album opens with the word “Hello” and ends with “Goodbye” is perfect symmetry.
19. Do you see any way the album could have been improved?[/B]
No
20. Do you think the album hung together well, ie was a fully cohesive unit, or was it a bit hit-and-miss?
I feel it hung together very well, following the various human emotions and exploring love and sex and commitment from every angle.

A solid 9/10 for me.

Oops. I thought the name of the artist was Casanova and the name of the album The Divine Comedy.

I actually really expected this album to be appealing to me to some degree, just based on the cover artwork. Turned out to be the one thing I did like :/

No comment?

I can't wait to **** all over this album.