Intelligence Records Bureau - Part 5

The IRB bloggers have been a tad diverted again by...oh anything that stops them having to get round to writing albums reviews mostly. In fact one of them still hasn't managed to write his, and it's his album suggestion that we are supposed to be reviewing! Yes it's you Tony D!!!

Named and suitably shamed. Right...here we go with The Stranglers 2nd album No More Heroes from 1977. And a varied set of responses it received...

Ian F

My first thought on re-familiarising myself with the opening tracks of ‘No More Heroes’ were that it is ok.  That is the sort of damned by weak praise reaction I wouldn’t have expected to throw at The Stranglers back in the day.  I’m also surprised by how muddy the Martin Rushent’s production is but that’s Punk as is the shock tactic value in having a taboo word in the name of the opening track. 

The title ‘I feel Like A Wog’, other jolts to prescribed decencies, and a rattling quick pace help to decorate this pub rock album in punk colours.  ‘Wog’ and its opening compatriots ‘Bitching’ and ‘Dagenham Dave’ clatter along quite nicely, thank you, and all had me tapping a toe in appreciation. 

Conspicuous in their emperors’ new strides The Stranglers were always punk and disorderly by design but at least, as the three tracks mentioned confirm they did capture the spirit if not the ideals, of 77.  There’s also an attitude of sorts to these tracks that is lacking, in such as ‘Dead Ringer’ the Dave Greenfield song that breaks the sequence of those openers and also deficient in ‘English Towns’ which comes later, starts well enough but turns into bin-liner punk of the Hazel O’ Conner variety. 

But, a good beginning, then?  Three decent songs out of four openers ain’t bad and in a similar format, further into the album, comes ‘Burning Up Time’ which does exactly what it says in the title.  These are the sort of formulised new wave much enjoyed by both the pot smoking greatcoats congregated at the back of Trog Bar and the cider supping punks populating the entrance area.

Unfortunately, the formula to all these songs – perhaps punks biggest musical selling point and failing, and the reason the music burnt brightly but dimmed died quickly - and the vocals which are neither impressive or expressive except in a card carrying, one dimensional, show of anger don’t make you want to play this album over and over.

Yet, if the rest of the album was on par with these tracks we would have a decent album, apposite of its time, and worth re-visiting every once in a while if only for nostalgia purposes.   

Instead the remaining tracks show the best and worst of The Stranglers.  The best being positioned slap bang in the middle of this the bands second LP.  ‘Something Better Change’ and ‘No More heroes’ were both singles and each prove what a good pop-punk band the future MenInBlack were.   

These tracks work because they stick to their sixties psych-pop sensibilities.  They don’t try to be punk or rock, or even modern.  Ok, so once again the vocals at best demonstrate a carefree attitude to quality but the lyrics are interesting in an oblique way but are once again propelled by the fire and pace demanded by the times.    

Unfortunately, any affection I have for the singles and this album as a whole is wiped out by ‘Bring On The Nubiles’ possibly the worst three minutes ever committed to recorded history.  It’s shit!  The horrible vocoder vocals that try to add pre-Nuuman futurism on to the track are merely irritating. It would be easy just to dismiss the ‘Bring On The Nubiles’ for that reason but much has to be said about the song because of the groups cheap, nasty, puerile and pathetic word play.  We can all be immature (can’t we?).  Everyone at some point has come up with silly and infantile rhymes that we giggle at when drunk and amongst friends.  These are soon and easily forgotten.  Totally different and totally unforgivable is the fact that four grown can go into a studio and record lines like.  “I’ll kiss your zones erogenous / there’s plenty to explore / I’ve got to lick your little puss/ and nail you to the floor.”  I won’t even bother to quote the excruciating and embarrassing main refrain.

In my imagination I try to picture the stranglers listening to a play back to this recording and then coming to a consensus that it should be released for public consumption.   Are the Stranglers really that ignorant and stupid?  Unfortunately, as this is the group who also recorded ‘T*ts’ on the give-away ep with the next album not to mention the final track on this album – which I’ll come to – the answer is almost certainly yes.   

I think even my 16 year old self, who unfortunately liked cock rock songs as much as the next spotty and hormonally motivated kid, wanted more meaning to his shagging songs and cringed on hearing this track.  No wonder the Hippies, and progsters dismissed punk.  Let’s face it how could we talk about social conscious when even David Coverdale fans would find such lyric childishly banal.  Even the Damned were above such sexism.

Another dud although much less angst inducing is ‘Peasant in the big Shitty’ again the lyrics are clichéd comic punk, it once again has (mis) treated vocals and the whole thing is the sort of track ITV would that same year stick in the first series of ‘Rock Follies’ to try to give it sign of the times street cred.        .

The album ends ‘School Mam’ the sort of kiss off that reminds you not to play this album again.  Like most of this collection it does show the potential inherent in the backroom Doors rock of this most chance grabbing band.  It builds like something that Mark E Smith might have mustered from The Fall circa DraGnet.  There is a menace in the sound and a seeming intent in the lyric but soon ends up as another infantile sexual fantasy with an ending that is pure nonsense and continues as if the the band were told to keep playing until they had reached 38 – 40 minutes.  Good job they’d paid their dues doing blues dirges down the local. 

If I was reviewing this album as a double ‘A’ side single with ‘No More Heroes’ / ‘Something Better Change’.  It would have garnered an 80 from 100.  If this was a mini album with the singles plus the first three tracks and ‘Burning Up Time’ it would have earned a 60.  As it is it is an album that contains both ‘Bring On The Nubiles’ and ‘School Mam’ and therefore can only be given a 

40/100.

Dave C

First of all – Royksopp, I’m sorry it’s not you, it’s me. I should have tried harder.

Well, actually I should have tried less hard, but more often. I ended up doing that leaning forward trying too hard to pick out bits of the album to write about, when it’s an album that should be engaged with gently and allowed to blossom in your ear. It’s an album that I shall almost certainly like more in six months than now, and in that, it is perhaps unique amongst the albums we’ve reviewed so far.

Anyway, onto The Stranglers. Unfortunately it is not possible for me to review this album properly. The Stranglers are too central to my character. My favourite band at the age when music becomes a more important guiding force than teachers and parents could ever be. I’m still friends today with those I bonded with over The Stranglers. So, if you’re seeking a balanced critique, I’ll stick my fingers right up your nose.

An odd collection they were. A semi-pro drummer who owned an off-licence and ran several ice cream vans; a biology graduate guitarist recently returned from Sweden; a cocky half-French bassist classically trained in Spanish finger picking guitar playing, and a Jon Lord-loving, hippyish keyboard player. They were the new wave band for those with catholic music taste, they actually could play, and solid gigging honed them as a band. Their aggression, intelligence and wit were brought more to the fore as they caught the zeitgeist. Consider JJ Burnel’s quote of the time “Rock & roll is about cocks and jiving, and about people like us talking seriously about the social order.”   - Rebellion, sex, nascent political awareness, faux intellect, and music that could be danced to with no compromising of one’s masculinity? That’s the 13 year old me signed up then.

No More Heroes was their second album, released only six months after their first (and was followed eight months later by Black & White). Keyboard player Dave Greenfield was the last to join the band. He is a more confident, central figure here than on the preceding Rattus Norvegicus, contributing lead vocals on two tracks (ranging from slightly creepy on Dead Ringer to really creepy on Peasant In The Big Shitty), and some memorable, melodic playing. The title track with the arpeggio-tastic keyboard line floating atop is one of two great ‘punk anthems’. The other, “Something Better Change,” is musically and lyrically basic, a perfect expression of the punk movement’s attitude. Which is odd when you consider that they used odd time signatures and had songs with distinct separate parts. They had songs which were seven minutes long, inspired by acid trips, and some that featured swirly keyboard solo. That could be ELP or Genesis couldn’t it? Well no, not when you heard them, not when you felt the menace of the bass riffs.

Whilst they didn’t fit the punk mould, the subject of bands changing their politics and lifestyle in order to jump aboard the bandwagon is tackled on Dead Ringer. Other topics include alienation and racism in “I Feel Like A Wog” (possibly one of the most misrepresented songs of the last fifty years) the death of a stalwart supporter in “Dagenham Dave”. Seedy sexual matters are tackled in a juvenile, ‘let’s see what we can get away with” fashion on Bring On The Nubiles and more interestingly in the frustrated uptight title character of School Mam. These are counterpointed by the underrated “English Towns” which laments the emptiness of promiscuity, and to my mind backs up Pete Waterman’s claim that they were writers of terrific straightforward pop songs. This straight forwardness is wholly absent from Peasant In The Big Shitty which in keeping with its lyrical expression of altered reality druginess, rotates through three different time signatures adding to the feeling of being off balance.

So straight forward pop, weird shit, introspection, bellicose bawling they were a mass of contradictions. They introduced me to Ozymandias, Lenny Bruce and Yukio Mishima, and embarrassed me with some lazy sexism, but what a fucking bass sound.

80/100

PS Shamefully I’ve got to the end without mentioning the splendid production work of Martin Rushent and Alan Winstanley.  

Andy D

Have you watched the Young Ones recently? You should – and not only because it’s briefly topical, with the off-screen antagonist Fatcha all-pervading. Watch it instead as an example of something that has dated quite horribly. Some things just do. You can sense it was probably once very good, to a certain type of viewer at certain time in history. You can readily see why it was attained cult status. But still…committing an entire thirty minutes of your life to an episode…hm. You probably wouldn’t.

Alas, The Young Ones seems fresh and vibrant compared to No More Heroes. And yet you can see why, perhaps, it was great at the time. There’s swearing. That’s ostentatious discordancy. It strives to be edgy, and maybe it once was. But like so many things, the passing of time and of fashions has sadly eroded its appeal. To first-time ears, it’s not great.

Which is a pity. It may predate this writer, but hey, I know music! I know the 70s! I have the single No More Heroes! Stranglers, yeah! That would probably have been my dismally naff view a month ago. I know better now. No More Heroes is the highpoint, and also serves to explain why the rest is so turgid.

Okay, I’m being unkind. There are, the title track aside, good bits. Bring on the Nubiles is a bit of self-aware sleaziness which oughtn’t work, but does. Something Better Change is also good – the album does actually become improves strongly midway through, so it’s unfair to suggest it’s wholly without merit. When No More Heroes and Peasant in the Big Shitty follow, you hope it’s building up to a crescendo after a bad start.

But it isn’t. It just fizzles out. Everything begins to the sound the same. Riffs are repeated. A dull, chugging mid-tempo dirge starts to dominate. Frankly I couldn’t wait for it to finish, and every time I re-started, it was with a heavy heart. It sounded old and tired, ironically the opposite effect to the one intended.

That’s unfortunate, as I wanted to like it. But then, young people today probably want to like the Young Ones too.

32/100

Rich C

They polarised opinion from day one did the Stranglers. The young punks viewed them suspiciously due to the fact that they were older, could play their instruments pretty well and didn’t appear to conform to the left leaning politics of the time. They were seen as bandwagon jumpers as well…although oddly certain other older artists who clearly had “careers” of some sort pre-punk and who had spruced up their act and their fashion sense since hearing/seeing the Sex Pistols, didn’t get anywhere near as vilified as the meninblack. Messrs Costello, Dury and Strummer, for example.

The thing with me and The Stranglers was that I sympathised with much of the above school of thought, but the fact that they would go and make a debut album as fundamentally bloody good as Rattus Norvegicus got me all confused. They sounded quite incredibly like The Doors on the opening track of that first album, Sometimes, but with a 70’s punk sharpness and aggression that was quite irresistible to a 16 year old lad.

But then…yes this is supposed to be a review of No More Heroes. So here we go. Maybe it was because it was rushed (released just 6 months after the debut), or maybe they weren’t really that great anyway, but there are bits of No More Heroes that utterly stink to high heaven.

I Feel Like A Wog. No matter in what way I try and listen to this, over the years I have honestly never “got” what they were aiming to achieve with it.  I guess in the end it was just them trying to be controversial. But it is a really shit song.

Bring On The Nubiles. It’s about shagging and more than hints at underage shagging as well. Again, controversy for the sake of it. And in the form of a really shit song.

School Mam. About shagging again. But with teachers and pupils this time. Song just as shit as previously mentioned ones.

Dead Ringer. A very lazy re-write musically of Peaches from the first album. Quite shit.

But on the other hand they have the capability to give us two of their best songs…in Something Better Change and the title track. Really cracking punk singles of their time, that still impress after all these years. They are sharp, vicious, aggressive, and absolutely on the top of their form with Cornwell’s vocals epitomising something that was great about punk with the anger he generates, and Dave Greenfield’s keyboards weaving throughout in a way that was utterly not punk but worked quite brilliantly– but in just these two songs.

Dagenham Dave is a lazy rewrite of the aforementioned title track.

Peasant In The Big Shitty has some abysmal lyrics and a non-standard time signature. Bloody musos.

Burning Up Time, English Towns and Bitching – again sound like rejected outtakes from the first album.

So 2 classics, 3 abominations and 6 distinctly average numbers mean I can’t possibly score this more than…40 out of 100.

They would go on to make what for me was their best album, the follow up to this – Black And White. So they weren’t as bad as No More Heroes makes them out to be but they almost certainly were dodgy careerists who changed their music and image to suit the times. Can’t vilify them for that but...The Stranglers were bloody hard to love.

Kev B

The late 70 s album took me down memory lane back to younger days when I lived through the punk rock scene and was lucky enough  to see punk bands such as the Skids, the Rezillos , the Damned and the Buzzcocks to name a few.

The aggressive, vibrant and blood racing tones these bands kicked out made life exhllarating at this time.

Im not sure whether this album would fit into modern society with some of the tracks somewhat risqué

And I doubt whether the first track I feel like a wog would be acceptable at all .

Anyway with the volume cranked up the aggressive tones of this album kicked in and  I sped down the motorway out of town and out of sight.

Dagenham Dave is  a great track to listen to followed by the two timeless classics  No more heroes and something better change which I found myself bouncing up and down on the seat at high speed.

Some classic air guitar work through 5 minutes which I believe was an extra track which for me reached new

aggressive heights

They just don’t make music like this now

80/100.

Right so add that lot up and you get an average score of around 54/100. Punk rock eh? Phew!

Till next time...

Intelligence Records Bureau - Part 4.

Crikey it's nearly the end of February and yet only now are we getting round to reviewing the Royksopp album. It's poor, I know, But wait, it gets worse. Some members of the IRB haven't bothered to write their reviews yet, even after all this time. Shocking. A thorough thrashing with the Daily Mail is the only answer. One suggestion is that the album is a little on the bland side and thus some of us found it hard to summon the creative energy to write about it. One of our correspondents Ian, didn't actually write about it...but submitted a review of...errr something! Enjoy.

Roksopp - Melody AM.

Ian F
Please excuse the partial disregard I am about to show for this music club’s aims and values.  However, as we strive for an honesty and true evaluation of the music presented to us we can only write what we truly feel and, unfortunately, during a month when I should have been listening to the Soppers called Royk frequently I instead rediscovered the primal urge and splurge of the Stooges.  The rare, raw, vitality of that groups debut platter got me hooked up and strung out all over again.  I was sixteen once more.  I couldn’t stop playing their seminal first record.  I’m older, possible wiser, and hopefully more cultured than in times past when I frequently became addicted to certain bands, or certain sounds. But, just as in those hedonistic times of yore - many full moons, and a lot of howling ago, when Iggy first punctured my senses - I got excited all over (and all over) again.  The years haven’t dulled the pure power of ‘The Stooges’.  They command and demand you listen.  So, I did.  Its energy was inspirational, and forty years on still is.
 To be honest with you I played Stooge music over and over and over again because I wanted to.  I didn’t want to play ‘Melody A.M.’   Yet, for you dear readers (are there any readers out there?) and my fellow club critics I have made some sort of effort, and while I would rather prattle on about the guy they call the Iggster, honey, I will instead divert my auditory  attention and subsequent penmanship to Roysopps’ not unlistenable music.
 Iggy and his Stooges weren’t musicians and they certainly weren’t clever lyrically (“Last year I was twenty one / I didn’t have a lot of fun/ now I’m gonna be twenty two / I say ‘oh my’ and ‘boo-hoo’.” Is either the greatest or most puerile couplet in rock?) but you get off on the energy and the feel.   The same could probably be argued in favour of the the less than rocky Royksters producing a certain feel that sustains constant listens.  Also, Stooges could hardly string two notes together and it could be argued – not necessarily by me, but stick with it, will ya - that twiddling a few knobs and utilizing auto-tune does not proficient musicians make.  Royksopps don’t write lyrics or not many so, perhaps, 43 years after ‘The Stooges’ is  ‘Melody AM’ it’s natural DIY consequence.  Perhaps.

Well, perhaps not.  Stooges couldn’t play but made the only music they could because they wanted to.  They had fun doing it.  Royksopp and a plethora of bands, over the last two decades especially, make music because they want to be rich, be famous and / or critically appraised.  Royksopp don’t seem to be doing this music thang  for the pure passion of performing.  They are from the new(ish) pop intake who make experimental music (now conventional) that fits with the guidelines laid down for success.  With Royksopp, and their breed, as far as reaching out and affecting people it seems Skypes the limit.

It’s not that music made for the masses, or for tragically hip trendy middle mass majorities, can’t be fun and enjoyable.  It doesn’t mean it has to be sans credibility.   The kind of easy listening evidenced on ‘Melody AM’ has it’s place.  I like the Carpenters as much as the next in-denial, grown-up and still groovin’, post punk adolescent, but for musical satisfaction I sometimes just want some two note guitar caterwauling to fuck it’s way outta the mix and into my ears, or for a singer to try to free himself from lumpen emptiness of his existence, slashing through the niceties, to scream that he wants to be my dog!  Those sort ofsounds on this CD would have stirred me from a tranquilised by technology abstraction and made me want to play Royksopp some more.
 Instead this album reminded me of my school days, well, in fact my school holidays.  This as you may well know was back in the days before digital and day-time telly.  In that long lost past, when me and the majority of fellow reviewers, were larky lads and Bowie was a boy, there used to be what they called Trade Test Transmissions.  The Test Card as it was better known.  There was a girl at her blackboard and in the background while customers in shops browsed new televisions nice music played continuously for the TV’s displayed.  The music was inoffensive and was chosen so it wouldn’t distract from the sharp picture, lines and colours on the screen.  That music sounded every bit like ‘Melody AM.’
 So, are Royksopp merely the new James Last?  I’m not sure whether I look on my experience of listening to this album as relaxing or soporific.  I have the feeling that if my Iugs hadn’t still been yearning the sandpapering ‘The Stooges’ had been applying recently while I tried to pay attention to ‘Melody AM’ I would have said the former.  Now, having thought about this, after just writing the above , I’m not sure.  I do believe that if I hadn’t been reviewing this album and therefore thinking about what I would be writing it is possible that the album would have sent me to sleep.
 That is not to say I was bored.  I wasn’t.  Royksopp is not boring.  Well, not totally.  ‘M A.M.’ is an album that does what it is supposed to do. It makes me feel laid back, happy and carefree. Well, I think it does.  As is now obvious to you I’m undecided about this album, and as I’ve mentioned previously this is music that has a place it’s just not that its’ place is not at my dirty, stained, and Stooge encrusted table.
 Yet, just as sulphates and phetamines encouraged my head first lunge into the Stooges maelstrom first time around I’m sure a contemporary stimulants of choice would enhance my appreciation of Roy. k. Sopp and his band.  We all need something  to hang our hats on.  You probably need the right drug, the right mood or to be in the right place at the right time with the right person to benefit from for ‘Melody AM’.
 It’s either that or the summer!  I believe the sun rather than the recent snow would have increased my enjoyment.  While listening I kept on imagining sun, sand, and a deep blue sea when listening.  I was imagining me and sexy girl, thighs entwined with mine, on a white sand beach, with only the deep blue ocean for company, no one else in sight just us and Melody AM playing and me poised, panting at her portals….  but, I digress again.  In fact I seem to have been digressing all over the place….
 Melody AM can be fun.  It can be enjoyable and there’s more happening than you notice on first listens.  It isn’t ‘The Stooges’.  Instead there’s happy, sweeping melodies.  There’s also the synthesized sax that comes in, and then takes over on ‘She’s So’, that attracts the ear, and there’s the whispers and vocalised moans that are subtly introduced at other moments.  At times funky beats threaten to take over but don’t unfortunately, instead they remain in their place, well contained, and user friendly. 
 In the end just as Like ‘Ane’ on ‘The Stooges’ the track ‘Royksopp’s Night Out’ explains much.  There’s a distinct change of pace.  The Royksters almost rock out on this one.   They almost get down and dirty.  They at last seemed prepared to give it some welly and break free of their constraints but then do so only in a playful way and definitely within their self defined limits.
 For me the problem with this album apart from it not being Iggy is as I tried to outline at the beginning of this piece is that there are a lot of reasons I should not like this record, and another load of reasons why I haven’t enjoyed as much as it appears others have.   So, I could carry on knocking ‘Melody AM’ until it tumbles and falls but in the end it is an album I have quite liked.  It’s an album that has remained in my collection for quite a few years now just waiting for that moment that might be right to play it.  That moment hasn’t been over the last month.  So, in the meantime, while we wait, just leave me to James Osterberg with his opening gambit,  “Alright!  It’s 1969 OK, all across the USA, Another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do!”
68/100 Andy DI picked this album because, some years ago, I’d somehow loaded So Easy onto my iPod. I don’t remember how or why; but the shuffle function delivered it to me a few months ago, and having not heard it for years, I remembered how much I used to like it.
 Brilliant: that was the record club album sorted.
 It’s not a genre of music I ordinarily gravitate towards – mainly because it’s usually a bit crap. The scope for pretentious, self-indulgent bobbins within ambient/trip-hop/whatever is virtually limitless, with all irritation that can cause. But if it was all like this, maybe I’d like the whole genre a bit more.
 Straight away it launches into So Easy, and that song establishes a running theme of slow, downtempo beats, a dreamy layer of synth on top and lyrics that can never quite be discerned, but which always seem to fit. What IS being said in So Easy? I’ve never worked it out. I don’t think you’re supposed to.
 Throughout, a whiff of slight navelgazing pervades (Sparks is a notable example); while In Space oddly reminded me of Children by Robert Miles, one of my favourite ever tracks – the main difference being that In Space fails to hit those heights and is the album’s first real dud. There’s occasional levity, with Poor Leno featuring more ethereal lyrics but being studded by what sounds strangely like steel drums – perhaps the last thing I expected to hear, but it works beautifully.
 It rarely labours, as so many albums do. The instrumental-only Röyksopp’s Night Out introduces the first hint of urgency as the album nears its end, before the simply gorgeous Remind Me, featuring – really – identifiable lyrics, which is a sudden, strange and clever surprise.
 She’s So tries to be clever in a different way, providing an aching sax interlude – I liked the idea more than the execution. Fitting, perhaps, to end with the quirkiest track of all: the fragmented, troubled 40 Years Back. It makes no sense. Not all of this album does, but every listen unearths something new, and despite its downbeat nature, it lifts the spirits on each occasion. A simply beautiful album.
 88/100 Tony DA Norwegian band,  hmmm death metal. Unfortunately not. Although that was a bit hopeful on my part.
So to the music, and straight into track 1.
So Easy- the opener is instantly recognisable. It was used by T-Mobile for some ads and also on channel 4 for bits and pieces.  I like this song, it has a haunting background coupled with a great bass-line. A great opener that chugs  along and gives you a great uplifting feeling. You find after perhaps only as many as 2 plays you are humming along with a warm glow.
Eple- continues both the themes of jollification and tv ads. This track being used by Apple. It's an electronic foot tapper.
Sparks-sees the mood slow down with the first real use of vocals. The strong bass sound keeps the song rolling along and the strange, almost distant vocals keep you hooked.
In Space- Has a slow start before what will become the obligatory boppy  electro nondescript drivel.
Poor Leno- Sees the tempo step up, and for me one of the stand out tracks finding me wanting to sing along. The vocals just seem to roll off the tongue and it has you humming.
A higher place- starts with the feel of  "once in a lifetime" by talking heads, before again drifting into oblivion with some strangely haunting vocal sounds.
Royksopp's night out- has an electro western movie type sound to it. You can just see the cowboys riding into town on their horses to this tune. 7 minutes though!?
Remind me- is another track that was used in an advert. For an insurance company I think. It's a song that is not un pleasing on the ear.
She's so- starts off with a saxophone, or at least an electronic version of one, and sounds like it could be used for some seedy scene in a movie. Then that all too familiar drum machine comes in to give it "that" feel again.
40 years back/come- Reminded me a little of the opening track "so easy". Then it just drifts into nothing ness, and so ends the album.
On the whole this is probably an easy to forget album.
It reminds me of the sort of music that you would come across being played in the supermarket, or in perhaps a lift. Not an album I will really go back to.
45/100

Kev B

After listening to the album several times over it became infectious mainly due to the diversity of the tunes played out by the Norwegian pair making it pleasant on the ear drums.  Not an instant success and consigned at first to a lazy Sunday afternoon but as stated earlier most of the tracks won me

over due to variety in the use of keyboard electronics  and the synthesisers.

So Easy and Eple are classic examples of easy listening with a fine beat and good use of the electronic keyboard. In Sparks there was a distinct lack of !  This was one of the tracks I was disappointed with describing it as lacking character .

In Space picks up the tempo  building up to my favourite track which is Poor Leno , this track is a fast paced dance track pouring energy and one to bounce along in the car to.

This debut album by the Norwegian pair returned  to the down beat tempo with A Higher Place and Royksopp s Night Out.

Overall an album to chill to whilst enjoying the various tempos.

60/100

So....despite the apparent lack of interest Melody AM still scored a respectable average of 65.(or 43 if the assumption is our 2 correspondents who couldn't be arsed scored it zero!)

Anyway, there is good news afoot. Tony D has chosen the next month's album...and it is No More Heroes by The Stranglers. Something to really get our teeth into I am sure you will agree. Reviews will be in...sometime. We hope.

Intelligence Records Bureau - Part 3

Happy New Year all you TTID readers. Full as we are with food and alcohol, we are signing off the old year with reviews of a Christmas album, to get it all out of our system in one huge festive purging. I know, I feel a bit sick now as well.

Tracey Thorn - Tinsel And Lights

Dave C

I was determined after two current albums, we should dig up some old classic. But December’s choice falling to me just as one of my favourite singers (Tracey Thorn) taking on one of the most soppy cheese producing of subjects (Christmas) was ‘unpassupable’

An interesting(ish) counterpoint, on the last album we reviewed, we had a song entitled Misery which was rather jolly, and this one starts with one entitled “Joy” which, on first hearing, seems rather lacking in said emotion.  However further listens reveal that, over the delicate bass, slightly tremulous picked guitar and sensitive but surefooted piano, it expresses that (for the non-religious), after the unfettered excitement of childhood and the riotous celebration of young adulthood, the sentimentality and family based traditions of Christmas evoke the simple but deep seated emption of joy. And that joy offers, not merely a refuge from, but also a base from which to fight back against, life’s vicissitudes.  It is one of two original compositions and the best track on the album by some distance. The XX would do well to listen to the singing here.

The other Thorn composition throws up another counterpoint “Tinsel & Lights” lyrically and musically being the expression of what the more genteel, well-heeled types were doing in the big apple whilst “The Fairytale Of New York” was unfolding. It’s the most upbeat, musically free and joyous track on the album.

The rest of the songs are wide range of covers, which generally showcase Tracey’s voice well and make most of the original vocals seem somewhat pale. The one Christmas standard “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is done with subtle rather than lavish strings and sung splendidly with that tone of warmth with slight underlying sadness that no one else does quite as well.  Joni Mitchell’s “River” whilst not a standard has been covered many times but again suits Tracey’s voice very well. Unfortunately the same can’t really be said of the White Stripes “In The Cold Cold Night”  I think Poison Ivy from The Cramps would do this well, but the line “When my skin turns into goo” seems particularly incongruous here.  Hard Candy Christmas works better and seems more personal here than in its multi-person original in “The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas”.  Ron Sexsmith, Sufjan Stevens, Randy Newman and Green Gartside make this a far cry from your average Christmas album (indeed it’s more seasonal than specifically  about Christmas). The remaining highlight being the duet with Green Gartside on Low’s “Taking Down The Tree”.

Overall, it’s hard to argue that this is an essential epoch-making album. But it will certainly become a part of the joy of my future Christmasses.

75/100

Rich C

I have been a fan of Tracey Thorn’s music since the Marine Girls. I loved her early acoustic/indie solo album A Distant Shore and like many people from Hull I enjoyed her and Ben Watt’s rise to success as Everything But The Girl, taking their name as they did from a furniture shop that was opposite the pub that gave it’s name to a legendary “crawl” in the 80’s called the Zoological. Their Hull University student days, coincided with my first days out and about as a young man finding his way in the world, and in many ways they provided the soundtrack to a lot of that.

There were times when EBTG’s music didn’t quite do it for me though. Mostly when they seemed to run out of ideas after their initial albums. Those soulful, mournful ,completely English jazz tinged ballads got a bit boring quite frankly. But that was OK, as Ben and Tracey realised this too and changed their approach based on the influence of the new dance music of the late 80’s/early 90’s that permeated just about every strand of music in one way or another.

The albums they released in the 1990’s like Walking Wounded and Temperamental were, for me, even better than their initial output and saw them develop a style of music that whilst being incredibly redolent of it’s time in musical history, also saw them create what I believe to be their finest and most timeless work.

On listening to Tinsel and Lights my first thought, rather oddly, was what would it be like to be Ben and Tracey’s kids? Mum, quietly getting the Christmas shopping done and preparing the nut roast etc, while Dad is out, again (!), DJ’ing at some incredibly hip club into the early hours.  On Christmas Day they will all be communicating via iPad, whilst each recording their own tunes on Garageband. Kinda the polar opposite in England to the Royle family.

Anyway – to the album. Based on all of the above, I really wanted to like it. Tracey’s voice is, let’s not beat around the bush, an English treasure. Tinsel And Lights is an album mostly of covers with a couple of self-written festive tunes thrown in, including the title track, which along with Joy and Hard Candy Christmas have just the right amount of nostalgia and fond memories mixed with a certain sorrow that we all experience at this time of year. Indeed the title track is clearly a bid at outdoing Fairytale Of New York in a sense. It fails, but it’s close.

Where I struggle with the album is with it’s inability to keep up the quality levels throughout. It’s just too inconsistent in that respect. Joni Mitchell’s River is a very decent attempt, but The White Stripes In The Cold, Cold Night is I’m afraid, bloody awful. Tracey, it’s a blues song, you can’t sing the blues. Randy Newman’s Snow is dull, dull, dull but Taking Down The Tree is livened up by Green Gartside’s amazing voice (I have to confess to binning this off for Scritti Politti’s Songs To Remember the first time I played it; now there’s an album). Sufjan Stevens’ Sister Winter and the standard Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas are nice enough, but it just doesn’t make me want to dive into it as a warm, homely, chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire kinda thing.

My Christmas album last year was Kate Bush’s 50 Words For Snow (reviewed here on TTID) and I couldn’t help but compare the two, perhaps unfairly, as Ms Bush I’m sure will have spent several zillion more hours on her work than Tracey will have done. But I think it shows that more is needed, even from “just” a Christmas album, to cut the cranberry these days.

In summary, what I’m saying is , I want a new Everything But The Girl album. Get those Garageband mixes together and get in a proper studio with himself!

52/100

Tony D

Well, I'm not a fan of Christmas so the thought of having to sit through an album full of Christmas songs filled me with dread to say the least. I vaguely remember Tracey Thorn at her best all those years ago so was willing to give this album a fair go. I've listened to the album probably more than I wanted to, so much so that I even started to sing along to the odd track!

I'm not sure if this was a genuine album or a money making exercise. Not all the songs are full of the cheer of the season. "Hard Candy Christmas" isn't really about Christmas either but probably one of the best songs getting me to tap me stubby little toes.

There are only 2 self penned tracks on the album, "Joy" and the title track "Tinsel and Lights" both looking back on times that really didn't, ironically seem to fill her life with joy.

`Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas', the only traditional Christmas song on the album......well that I recognised anyway, was done in a way that wasn't too annoying.

"Snow" was another sad song but good nevertheless.

There are a few electronic based songs on the album, "Taking Down The Tree" , featuring Green Gartside from Scritti Politti. "Sister Winter" and "Snow In The Sun" also lean towards the electronic side.

I really wanted to hate this album when i was first presented with it but found that no matter how hard I tried I really couldn't. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's my favourite album ever and I probably won't listen to it much ever again but it's not the worst in the world.

60/100

Andy D

I wanted to like this album as soon as it began. I wanted to like it for quite a few reasons. It was so far removed from the typical Christmas album you felt it deserved a chance of success. No slick commercialism. No cheesy festive melodies tainted it, whether they were knowingly ironical or simply brainless Xmas-by-numbers. It wasn’t afraid of looking at the more sombre side of Christmas, a time of year that isn’t always a picture-postcard riot of festive merrymaking or an Albert Square-esque carnival of despair and low farce, but rather a quiet, sometimes dull, maybe sorrowful time of year.

A noble idea indeed, hence one’s quiet rooting for the album to succeed. However we’ve all had lofty dreams that didn’t work. I never became an astronaut, or the first man to score 10,000 Test runs for England. I didn’t even get to play centre-forward for City, despite most able-bodied citizens in East Yorkshire seemingly having been in with a chance at some stage. So dealing with vaunting ambition meeting respectable but not giddying attainment is something we must all do, and it’s something this album must similarly cope with.

Huge ambition is to be respected, of course. And this isn’t a failure; far from it. The voice is impeccable throughout, an aching, wistful note that works particularly well on Joy, Maybe This Christmas and the signature song Tinsel and Lights. The mood of the album works – it seeks a reflective note and urges similar introspection of its listeners, and that too is a triumph. Where it’s let down is with a pretty stodgy cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (not because it’s a cover, as most of the songs were) but because it jars. Why, when seeking low-key pondering, insert this? A poor choice. With twelve tracks, it felt a couple too long and the quality sagged occasionally.

Lyrically it’s up and down - Hard Candy Christmas and Taking Down The Tree were my favourites, the latter being perhaps the best song on the album. However, musically it’s very average. Yes, it’s supposed to be unobtrusive, but to the point of being wholly unmemorable? Perhaps that’s me missing the point, and maybe it’s not meant to compete with Thorn’s excellent voice, but it doesn’t feel as though it complements it either, and leaves her carrying the whole album through the depth of her voice and the originality and scope of her idea.

Luckily she does, but it’s a close call.

55/100

Ian F

“I wish it could be Christmas everyday!” sang Roy Wood.  He wasn’t speaking for me.  Bah! Humbug! An all that.  Not being a fan of Christmas means that I have generally steered clear of recordings celebrating the season since somewhere around 1974.  I was less than grateful, therefore, to be invited to Tracey Thorn’s latest song gathering.   

The singer offers little in the way of Christmas cheer when welcoming us with the words “When someone very dear / calls you with the words everything is all clear/ that’s what you want to hear / but you know it might be different in the New year.”

Given that these lyrics are from a song titled ‘Joy’ I was a little happier.  The less than celebratory sentiments encouraged me to stow my hat and coat and to give the lady a chance to impress with her festive fare.

This is Tracey Thorn so I wasn’t really expecting frolicsome and frivolous seasonal fodder anyway.  My most lucid memories of Tracey and Ben Watt, apart from two or three excellent early to mid career albums, were of them as miserable looking couple with long coats to match long faces as they paraded around Hull when at the university and starting out as Everything But The Girl. 

I’ve followed our erstwhile adopted local lasses career from a distance since then and have always been interested, If not completely enraptured, by her her output. Given that her most recent efforts have taken a more electronic direction this, is almost, for the most part, a return to strummed strings and/or piano mid paced EBTG - and it does feature Watt on guitar. 

So, this brings us back to those opening lines.  They possibly refer to the life threatening illness her partner suffered a little while back but the song as a whole has more to do with the singer attempting to make the most of what joy the world only occasionally offers. 

Not a glad-tidings start to this ‘Tinsel and Lights’ party.  But, then, the  52 year has always been best when her voice is given is allowed to envelope true melancholy and that is certainly true with this album.

The opening track is only one of two Thorn originals.  It settles us into a run of four successive heart rending songs.  ‘Hard Candy Christmas’ - most famously recorded by Dolly Parton- follows ‘Joy’ and although not a great song it is carried by the always emotive yet warm Thorne vocals and perfectly compliments this opening serving of songs

The mood continues with the voice and piano dominated ‘Like a snowman’ which again like ‘Joy’ appears to suggest that you take whatever happiness you can get because it won’t last forever. It is followed by jaunty paced, jingly, ‘Maybe this Christmas’.  It has a happier feel and is faster than what has gone before and brings to a finish a fine first course of tunes.

We are now nicely settled in the comfy armchair of melancholy and looking forward to more songs sung with satisfyingly serious intent.  However, this is where Miss Thorn decides to liven up proceedings with Jack White’s ‘In The Cold, Cold Night’ and misses the spot.   The track injects a harder feel into the festivities.  A change may well have been needed and although it does add life to the party and I don’t dislike the song or its interpretation but it doesn’t really work and is the first track here where you feel something is missing.   The problem is that it’s not really a song that Miss T should be singing.  It is where she is least convincing.  For all her vocal qualities she doesn’t have the teasing timber in her voice to deliver lines like “I don’t care what people say/ I’m going to love you anyway” or it’s refrain “Come to me again in the cold cold night.”  Thorn simply can’t do cougar.  Her voice can be sensuous but isn’t sexually seductive.  Therefore the song doesn’t go anywhere.  It merely serves purpose as a toe-tapper. 

Happily, Immediately following this dip in quality we are treated to Randy Newman’s poignant and emotional ‘Snow’ which is a simple song sung with just piano accompaniment. It is achingly beautiful and the best this collection has to offer.   .

But, what could possibly be served up following that gem?  It would be difficult to offer anything as substantial. So, thorn doesn’t try.  Instead she covers Green Gartside’s middling pop trifle ‘Snow in The Sun’. This is another for those who prefer to just tap their toes rather than get into the mood or narrative of a track.

Unfortunately, now as we should be getting stuck into the meat of the album we seem to get the stuck into the fat in the middle. The traditional ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ is obviously a plate filler.  Does anyone really need another version even if our host does do one of the better ones by conveying its unassuming message with conversational pace and tone that showcases it best?  There are no vocal band histrionics and the backing doesn’t intrude making it a lot preferable to many versions but I still find myself asking why? 

A second helping of Tracey Thorn’s own composing skill comes next ‘Tinsel and Lights’ is lifts this flabby underbelly of the album slightly.  It has one or two good lines and has a nice feel about it does still pale compared the better songs here.  At least it references Mary Margaret O’ Hara with the line ‘we played Miss America again and over and over again’ A often ignored album that would, perhaps, perfect for the committee to review at some point.

Up there with ‘Snow’ as the best song here is Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’.  I’ll be very interested to know what the other reviewers make of this track.  I’m perhaps, being overly precious about this song as it is a very personal song from the singer song-writers cathartic album ‘Blue’.  Much like ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ but for very different reasons I can’t see any reason for covering this song.  Mitchell has always been an inward looking writer and no-one could hope to do a better version than the originators raw original and as this song is part of a song cycle explaining the singers life and career disappointments, predominantly her recent relationship failures, and with  ‘River’ itself detailing with a particular love and stupid loss and the fact that Mitchell is stuck, making a name for herself, in the Californian sunshine while pinning for the winters of her Canadian home, and for a lake she where she could just skate away from her problems.  So, how does this apply to Tracey Thorn?  How can she hope to interpret this song to any level of understanding?  No wonder the emotion of the song has dried. 

And, with that the festive feast of salient sentiment is nearly at its close. The penultimate track ‘Taking Down The Tree’ is a return to Tracey’s more recent electronica.  It is interesting track but spoilt for me by Green Garside’s vocals gate-crashing half way through. Thorne has one of the finest voices around and although Green’s vocals are good why bring him in especially if you are going to then add treatments to the voice which make it sound like he is gargling.  Still the track adds another bit of diversity to the album and does so without it jolting out of shape.   

Then, to finish off, comes coffee and another slice of electronic cake.  ‘Sister Winter’ is a Sufjan Stevens song that begins as a bitter warning but soon has us all singing its seasonal refrain. 

So, this is an album I didn’t really expect to like but have quite warmed to.  I think the fact that it isn’t a Christmas album as such more an album that features Christmas in life scenarios.  It could have been a collection of covers done in a Rumor style and aimed at the MOR market. It isn’t.  It is an album that I will play again – probably next year – and it could be an album that wins new listeners each year until in becomes a seasonal classic. 

77/100

Kev B

I am sure it is in ignorance but admit to have never heard of this artist nor to any of her music. But eh a Christmas album, what can go wrong !

I decided I wanted to be open and more importantly positive even before I listened to any of the tracks, however  I really struggled with the tone of the music. In the main  it was bland and at times on the dreary side and this is not how I want to remember Christmas. 

Anyway,  in my opinion the only two tracks which came out with any degree of merit and appeared to catch some of the spirit of Christmas were In The Cold Cold Night  and Sister Winter.

A short review but to be honest I was unimpressed with the lack of festive fare on offer.

30/100

Well that was the widest ranging bunch of scores we've had so far. I reckon it averages 58, making it the lowest scoring album so far as well. However if we do something statistically interesting and ignore the highest and lowest scores it comes in at 60, which is very nearly the same thus proving that statistical jiggery pokery is boring, dull and pretty pointless.

What will most definitely not be boring, dull or pointless will be next month's album choice, from Andy D, Royksopp's Melody A.M.

Have a great January!