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!
