The Apple iPod stands to revolutionise everyone's personal stereo experience. But not this blogger yet. He's not yet sold on the way that iTunes catalogues tunes on his hard disk, nor with the proprietary format that Apple uses for music files - he's still on mp3 and prefers it that way. aac doesn't really allow for file sharing, which is today's version of lending your CD out to your friends so that they can have a listen.
Also, I think that there is more to follow on the solid state memory front - a hard disk means moving parts, and it is this blogger's view that as flash memory gets better and better, the need to carry round a hard disk drive - for that is what the iPod is, essentially, will get less and less.
In the meantime, however, the fact that CD stackers are now redundant is a plus. This ties in well with my post.
I went and saw Simple Minds, INXS and Arrested Development recently.
Not really my choice of gig, but having said that, I enjoyed myself immensely.
Arrested Development were good, and Speech sings a mean rendition of 'Redemption song', however, without crucial early member, Headliner, I felt a bit cheated.
INXS did quite well, even though it was clear that singer JD Fortune was about to lose his voice. Fortune has a voice that is quite close to the late Michael Hutchence's and they did reasonably well. My complaints from their set mainly centres around the fact that apart from 'Don't change' (off Shabooh Shoobah) and 'Original sin' (off The Swing) they didn't do any more earlier stuff.
But Simple Minds.
You know, I wasn't really a Simple Minds fan back in the day. I remember thinking that 'Love song' was pretty cool, and also 'Someone somewhere in summertime', but I wasn't really prepared for the ripsnorter of a live set that these guys put in.
I told my travelling companions that they would start with 'Love song' and finish with 'Waterfront', and sure enough they did, although, I checked their set list online, which had them doing 'Alive and kicking' last which I'm sure isn't right. Also, I was a bit surprised to find them leaving off 'Promised you a miracle' and 'Someone somewhere in summertime'.
But all that aside, what I remember of Simpler Minds was largely of their earlier New Wave period where they were largely synth heavy. Live they're still a very much ROCK!! proposition.
And even though only Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill remain from the original line-up - although drummer Mel Gaynor pretty much qualifies as he was in the 'classic' line-up - I still thought they were the real deal.
Incidentally, Burchill has aged disgracefully.
So I went back through the bargain bins and picked myself up a copy of The Best of Simple Minds together with Early Gold - a compilation from their first 6 albums.
It's really quite revealing the change that happened to this band.
Early Gold starts with two songs from their first album - Life in a Day, and these songs suggest both a punk and glam rock influence as well as an underlying suspicion that this band should not have been in the studio at this point in their careers.
Reel to Real Cacophony is represented by three tracks - and these show a darker edge, most notably a heavy Joy Division influence in the tracks 'Changeling' and 'Premonition'.
Empires and Dance appears to have a huge almost industrial feel - and given that this was the heyday for bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, this is hardly so very surprising. the 3 tracks represented give a great idea of what this album must sound like.
Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call were recorded and released at the same time, and are well represented by 3 tracks on Early Gold. The Best of includes a fourth track - 'Theme for great cities' (from Sister Feelings Call) which is an instrumental. There appears to still be a proto-industrial influence here, although it's waning. The overall feel is terribly typical New Wave, which is really where audiences started noticing this band. 'Love song' and the almost funky 'Sweat in bullet' are off Sons and Fascination and are pretty good examples of the work of this period.
The last album represented by the early compilation is New Gold Dream - which appears to be pretty much pure New Romantic. There is a fairly obvious Cure influence showing itself here, as well as an overt Roxy Music one, and the more polished stadium rock sound that they ended up with over the late 80s is starting to exert itself - notably on 'New gold dream (81-82-83-84)' and 'Glittering prize'.
The Best of is divided into two disks. The second one is pretty much the nineties onwards, which is kinda interesting, as it shows quite well how the band managed to completely lose their way.
The first disk has some overlap with Early Gold, but given that Early Gold includes album cuts, and not the hated single edits of The Best of, this is not too bad. It isn't in chronological order, though.
Sparkle in the Rain is the next album represented by these compilations. The tracks chosen for The Best of - 'Waterfront', 'Up on the catwalk' and 'Speed your love to me' - show a very much rock edge where the stadium rock feel is starting to gain traction. It appears that this was the last album where Kerr sounded like a strangled cat, as by the next album, his voice had been cleaned up immeasurably.
It's probably Keith Forsey's fault that the band went into free- fall, quality wise from about this point. On the soundtrack to the movie, The Breakfast Club, their contribution, produced and co-written by Forsey, 'Don't you (forget about me)' changed their sound to production line stadium rock and led to the first of many unfavourable U2 comparisons.
Their next album, Once Upon A Time was really them milking this teat and probably the only redeeming tracks, 'Sanctify yourself' and 'Ghostdancing' really give an idea of what the band were really capable of during this period.
After this, the band's stuff is a mixed hotchpotch of ideas half-baked and not really properly realised. Although, I am reliably informed that their two most recent albums are a return to form of some sort.
The good thing about all of this, is that you can take Early Gold and The Best Of and create a bitching playlist for your iPod.
Showing posts with label michael hutchence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label michael hutchence. Show all posts
20 April 2007
07 December 2006
Kylie meets Hutch (Kylie the showgirl princess? - Part three)
This is part 3.
Part 2 is here.
Part 1 is here.
Around the turn of the 90's, Kylie Minogue began making greater demands on her producers, Stock, Aitken and Waterman.
One of her demands was to create a more 'adult' sound to go along with her newer, more adult image. She was, understandably, miffed that the kiddies who were buying her records now were going to be completely disowning her in another year or so, just like so many other disposable pop stars.
She had to revise her image and sound, and fast.
SAW did their best - but Minogue wasn't taking any chances. She roped in (then) big-name producers such as Teddy Riley and Stephen Bray to assist with her third album.
In normal circumstances, this all could have sunk like a stone.
But Minogue had an ace up her sleeve. Just prior to the release of her third album, she began a very public and very messy affair with probably the one person no one expected - the then INXS frontman, Michael Hutchence. At the time, INXS were probably the second biggest band on the planet.
Hutchence was a typical lead singer who had had scores of affairs mainly with supermodels, singers and actresses and was rumoured to be into all sorts of nocturnal activities ranging from merely suggestive through to bizarre.
In fact, rumours persist to this day that suggest that his suicide in 1997 (which was what the coroner's finding officially said) was a peculiar accident instead. The day of his death I was told this:
Anyway, the fact that this is even remotely plausible should give you an idea about the quirks of this bloke.
So Minogue started seeing Hutchence, and because INXS' star was at its zenith and Minogue's was in the ascendant, the media went absolutely wild for it.
The media, incidentally, had a picnic painting Hutchence as this lecherous rockstar and Minogue as the innocent ingenue. Hutchence was even quoted once as saying that one of his favourite hobbies was 'corrupting' the young Minogue. It is now obvious, ironically, that the roles were reversed, and it was the ambitious Minogue who chewed the fragile Hutchence up and spat him out.
Needless to say, Minogue's third album was a smash hit and her extreme image makeover worked like a publicist's dream.
(Incidentally, the hit song, Better the devil you know was on this album. Nick Cave once claimed that this song had the saddest song lyrics he knew. The fact that he meant sad-sad and not pathetic is testament to the brain-sapping combination of a lengthy heroin addiction and the pretence of a Byron complex)
Minogue quickly threw her efforts into milking this sudden rush of mature respect by recording a fourth album. It was to be her last with SAW.
It wasn't a hit. Apart from the track Word is out, she just couldn't latch on to the record-buying public with this work.
Unsurprisingly, she sacked SAW, and left PWL - her contractual obligations were over.
She was now a free agent. And she was still a marketable commodity. A wonderful spot for a musician, or 'artist' as Minogue would prefer to be described, to be in.
What she craved, however, was cred. Not just any cred, mind you, it had to come with sales attached.
At about this time, a label called Deconstruction Records had just struck 24 carat gold with two acts - D:Ream and M People.
Minogue's people knew that this wave was breaking and also that new owners BMG were throwing a lot of money at the label.
She hardly needed much more convincing to sign on the dotted line. For a very short window, she had an opportunity to receive both a ridiculously lucrative deal funded by a major label, but with the cred and cachet of a minor label, which just happened to be the hottest dance music label in the world.
Deal out of the way, she proceeded to celebrate this new phase of her life by recording a new eponymously titled album with new songwriters, producers and money and also by dumping Hutchence.
Her first album with Deconstruction was a moderate success. Hutchence and INXS, however, never had the same level of success again.
Part 2 is here.
Part 1 is here.
Around the turn of the 90's, Kylie Minogue began making greater demands on her producers, Stock, Aitken and Waterman.
One of her demands was to create a more 'adult' sound to go along with her newer, more adult image. She was, understandably, miffed that the kiddies who were buying her records now were going to be completely disowning her in another year or so, just like so many other disposable pop stars.
She had to revise her image and sound, and fast.
SAW did their best - but Minogue wasn't taking any chances. She roped in (then) big-name producers such as Teddy Riley and Stephen Bray to assist with her third album.
In normal circumstances, this all could have sunk like a stone.
But Minogue had an ace up her sleeve. Just prior to the release of her third album, she began a very public and very messy affair with probably the one person no one expected - the then INXS frontman, Michael Hutchence. At the time, INXS were probably the second biggest band on the planet.
Hutchence was a typical lead singer who had had scores of affairs mainly with supermodels, singers and actresses and was rumoured to be into all sorts of nocturnal activities ranging from merely suggestive through to bizarre.
In fact, rumours persist to this day that suggest that his suicide in 1997 (which was what the coroner's finding officially said) was a peculiar accident instead. The day of his death I was told this:
"Apparently, he had a belt around his neck that he had closed in the doorway between the top of the door and the doorjamb. He then had a bit of a thrash and, unfortunately, slipped in a pool of his own semen and accidentally hung himself."
Anyway, the fact that this is even remotely plausible should give you an idea about the quirks of this bloke.
So Minogue started seeing Hutchence, and because INXS' star was at its zenith and Minogue's was in the ascendant, the media went absolutely wild for it.
The media, incidentally, had a picnic painting Hutchence as this lecherous rockstar and Minogue as the innocent ingenue. Hutchence was even quoted once as saying that one of his favourite hobbies was 'corrupting' the young Minogue. It is now obvious, ironically, that the roles were reversed, and it was the ambitious Minogue who chewed the fragile Hutchence up and spat him out.
Needless to say, Minogue's third album was a smash hit and her extreme image makeover worked like a publicist's dream.
(Incidentally, the hit song, Better the devil you know was on this album. Nick Cave once claimed that this song had the saddest song lyrics he knew. The fact that he meant sad-sad and not pathetic is testament to the brain-sapping combination of a lengthy heroin addiction and the pretence of a Byron complex)
Minogue quickly threw her efforts into milking this sudden rush of mature respect by recording a fourth album. It was to be her last with SAW.
It wasn't a hit. Apart from the track Word is out, she just couldn't latch on to the record-buying public with this work.
Unsurprisingly, she sacked SAW, and left PWL - her contractual obligations were over.
She was now a free agent. And she was still a marketable commodity. A wonderful spot for a musician, or 'artist' as Minogue would prefer to be described, to be in.
What she craved, however, was cred. Not just any cred, mind you, it had to come with sales attached.
At about this time, a label called Deconstruction Records had just struck 24 carat gold with two acts - D:Ream and M People.
Minogue's people knew that this wave was breaking and also that new owners BMG were throwing a lot of money at the label.
She hardly needed much more convincing to sign on the dotted line. For a very short window, she had an opportunity to receive both a ridiculously lucrative deal funded by a major label, but with the cred and cachet of a minor label, which just happened to be the hottest dance music label in the world.
Deal out of the way, she proceeded to celebrate this new phase of her life by recording a new eponymously titled album with new songwriters, producers and money and also by dumping Hutchence.
Her first album with Deconstruction was a moderate success. Hutchence and INXS, however, never had the same level of success again.
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