Popular Music - August 2015

Tori Amos

• Strange Little Girls
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin
• Unrepentant Geraldines

Baby Animals - Baby Animals
James Blake - Overgrown
Incubus - If Not Now, When?
Nik Kershaw

• Human Racing
• The Riddle
• Radio Musicola
• The Works

Wendy Matthews - Cafe Naturale
John Mayer - Heavier Things
Joni Mitchell - For the Roses
Katie Noonan and the Captains - Emperor's Box
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Sting - The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
Wilco - Star Wars

The revival of my interest in pop music led to another purchase, Wendy Matthews' Cafe Naturale. I also finally unearthed something I purchased very cheaply a while ago, the Baby Animals' self-titled debut album.

A small rant: the latter is a re-release with their second album (not yet listened to), and is missing one track compared to the original CD release. Why? Why do record companies do things like that? It makes absolutely no sense to perform that kind of alteration.

However, what really needs to be talked about is the fierce revival of my interest in Nik Kershaw. The interest has always been there, in fact he was one of the very first musicians that I became a fan of at a young age. I still remember listening to "Wouldn't It Be Good" and thinking how much I liked it. It's perhaps the first time I ever heard a song and thought it was clever.

It was also very successful. What's striking about listening to that song, though, and to Human Racing as a whole is how unlikely that success was in some ways. Sure, Nik Kershaw had the looks to be a pop idol in 1984, but his music was quirky and unconventional by the standards of mainstream pop. When there aren't surprising harmonic or rhythmic twists, there are things like background yelps or chipmunk voices.

And lyrically, the album is highly dystopian. The songs are filled with people dissatisfied with their lot, dreaming of a better life, suspicious of authority, or just giving up on the world. Opening track "Dancing Girls"starts with: Cold and lonely and tired and bored, just like the day before.

I don't remember enough about what was going on in 1984 culturally to know whether this tapped into the zeitgeist (other than being aware that it was the era of Thatcher in Kershaw's native UK), but listening to Human Racing now it's slightly surprising that something like this was rather popular.

The Riddle was released only 9 months later and is basically more of the same, only better - probably the best of his 1980s albums (yes, did you even know there were albums after the 1980s?). Whereas on Human Racing it's clear that the singles are the strongest songs, The Riddle is a lot more consistent. There are fewer attempts at being quirky just for the sake of it, and more of Kershaw's innovations are at the service of the song. (Note: the first 95 seconds of this video are NOT part of the song, which is a strange decision given that they edited out about 96 seconds of the original music to create this single.)

Thematically, it's much the same, although this time there's perhaps more of an emphasis on people that are not just disillusioned but delusional, and a more overt concern for the environment (hard to miss with a song called "Save the Whale", but "Roses" is also along those lines).

When Radio Musicola followed a couple of years later, Kershaw was also producing. The album is just a little grander, with longer songs; on the first 2 albums, at least half of the songs are under 4 minutes, whereas on Radio Musicola half the songs are over 5 minutes.

The degree to which it succeeds is... just a tiny, tiny bit variable. The album was nowhere as big a success as its predecessors, and personally I'm not sure whether the singles were chosen well (although any of the longer tracks would inevitably have been edited down). The only song I ever saw on music shows was "Nobody Knows", which is a song I'd describe as pretty good but not memorable, which is a description for a couple of others as well. And yet, there are also wonderful moments. One I'm always amazed by is the bridge of "Life Goes On", a miracle of compression where on 2 occasions Kershaw makes the end of one line into the start of the next one, both lyrically and musically.

And then, in 1989 came The Works. Kershaw went to America to make his 4th album, and it ends up sounding exactly like what you would expect when a quirky Englishman goes to America to make an album. Everything is smoothed and flattened and made nice, and frequently rather dull.

It's not all bad. The opening track (and first single) "One Step Ahead" is a fine example of Kershaw's qualities, with seamless harmonic changes.

But things go downhill after that. The music is always reasonably competent, and frequently displays his gift for melody, but rarely does it have distinctive qualities - for me "Cowboys & Indians" is probably the only other track that I'd label as something only Kershaw could have done.

And the lyrics... well the lyrics get pretty bad, frankly. "Elisabeth's Eyes" is a very sweet song with a nice sentimental melody, but it's also the most inappropriately jaunty song about being on death row you've ever heard. The absolute nadir is "Don't Ask Me", an uninspired list of random lines which are supposedly things that Nik would like to know, but doesn't. Let's just take a look at the second verse, shall we?

The origin of species
The date of Waterloo
Oppenheimer's shoe size
And the latitude of Timbuktu
The square root of thrity-eight
Why they call he-goats billy
The weight of Colonel Sanders
And the whereabouts of Chile

When he sings in the chorus "I just don't know what to do", it sounds like a sincere confession of his helplessness as he witnessed what was emerging from the recording sessions. The album deservedly bombed, and Nik retreated to writing songs for other people for about a decade...

Classical Music - July 2015

Bach, J.S - Wo soll ich fliehen hin (Where shall I flee)
Beethoven - Piano Trio No.7 (op.97)
Chopin

• 4 Mazurkas, op.33
• 3 Waltzes, op.34
• Variation for 'Hexameron'

Faure - String Quartet
Haydn - Symphonies 85, 91 and 97
Haydn - 6 String Quartets, Op.76 (the 'Erdődy' quartets)
Holmboe - Sonatina for oboe and piano
Janacek - Violin Sonata
Schubert - Piano Sonata in B, D.575
Schumann - Humoreske in B flat
Shostakovich - String Quartet No.12
Sibelius - Pohjola's Daughter
Szymanowski - Fantasy for piano, op.14
Vine - String Quartet No.4

The shift in my listening in July towards popular music is shown by the shortness of this list compared to the classical lists for May and June. It should be pointed out, though, that those lists were sometimes inflated by listening to many smaller works. Most of the entries for this month are relatively substantial pieces.

The Beethoven piano trio, often known as the 'Archduke', was definitely a highlight. I think it was one of those pieces I knew about without having necessarily ever heard it. I was glad to make its acquaintance and will be reaching for it again when I want a bit of sunshine in my Beethoven.

Vine's string quartet is also worth a mention, because when I first listened to the Goldner Quartet's recording of the quartets it was No.3 that jumped out and grabbed me by the throat. Now, however, as I listen to each quartet quite separately from its fellows, I have found No.4 quite impressive as well. I have Vine's symphonies on my shopping list (and at some point I need to choose a recording of his completely fantastic first piano sonata, which is how I knew of him in the first place).

But the most substantial thing on this list is the entry for Haydn's op.76 quartets, which I inevitably listened to in full before lending the CDs to a friend. Some of the first classical music I ever bought on my own instead of listening to my father's record collection. First purchased on cassette, and then upgraded many years later. Still some very fine music indeed.

Popular Music - July 2015

Tori Amos

• Boys for Pele
• Scarlet's Walk
• Unrepentant Geraldines
• Bliss (single)

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
James Blake - Overgrown
David Bowie - "Heroes"
dc Talk - Jesus Freak
Gomez - In Our Gun
Patty Griffin - Downtown Church
Incubus - Make Yourself
Incubus - If Not Now, When?
Level 42 - Running In The Family
Wendy Matthews - The Witness Tree
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Katie Noonan and the Captains - Emperor's Box
Seal - Seal (II)
Sting - ...Nothing Like the Sun
Megan Washington - There There

At some point in July, my listening shifted strongly in favour of popular music over classical. Most of the time I'm not quite sure why these pendulum shifts occur. This time, I did have a bit of a sense that I was slightly tired of working through so much classical music, but also a sense that it was time to consciously freshen the popular music listening.

And so you see on this list some albums I hadn't listened to for quite a long time, and also some that I'd never heard before. James Blake's Overgrown was a new purchase. The album is of course a couple of years old, but in fact James Blake has been hovering on my radar since around 2011, the time of his first full album (he's also released a considerable number of EPs). At some point I was introduced to his version of a song called "Limit To Your Love" and it held my attention.

However, when I tried the first album during July (and not, I think, for the first time) I didn't find it very satisfying. It was too fragmentary - too many of the songs felt like sketches, not fully formed ideas. It was perhaps telling that "Limit To Your Love" was a cover. The impression I came away with was that Blake had production skills in abundance, and the ability to use them to match his plaintive voice, but was lacking as a songwriter.

When I listened to Overgrown for the first time, it was immediately apparent that his songwriting skills had improved considerably. While in truth some tracks still rely more on atmospherics than anything else, and the song structures tend to be fairly simple, they do actually sound like complete songs rather than undeveloped ideas. And the other strengths are still there - Blake's voice is haunting, and he knows how to shape the rest of the music to enhance that quality. It only took that one listen to add Overgrown to my shopping list and duly purchase it the next time I was near a CD shop (yes, I know I am quaint).

The other brand new entry here is Incubus' If Not Now, When?. I purchased the album in April on my travels, partly for the sheer novelty of where I bought it from (along with several other discs I've yet to listen to), but also because I quite liked the other 2 Incubus albums I already owned.

Subsequently, and before listening to the album, I read some fairly negative things about it. And I understand why the reviews were not positive, yet at the same time I think the reviews were a bit wrong. What we have here is yet another example of a music act deciding to do something different, and not taking all of its 'native' audience with it.

Because essentially, Incubus is known as an alternative rock band, with even a dash of metal, and If Not Now, When? is an album with a strong pop or adult contemporary flavour. There are plenty of signs that the band were well aware of what they were doing, consciously keeping the songs simple. The album also has a very warm, relaxed and intensely melodic feel to it. None of these are qualities you're likely to expect from an "alternative metal" band.

It's worth mentioning that there is some precedent for warm, happy-sounding songs on Incubus albums. But nevertheless If Not Now, When? takes that aspect of the band a lot further.

The shock of the different sound is heightened by the order of the songs, because it seems entirely intentional that the simpler songs come first. That's one of the the more intriguing things about the record. The opening title track is a slow, grand number with a soaring melody line, and it's followed by "Promises, Promises", which is about as blatant a singalong pop song as you could wish for.

"Friends and Lovers" comes next and is equally unthreatening apart from one verse where the music underneath changes. From there the album darkens by degrees - it could never be said to become truly dark, but the shift in tone to something a little closer to "regular" Incubus is clear and was remarked on in many reviews (usually along the lines of how some tracks in the second half saved the album from total disaster).

But is the album even a partial disaster? I would say no. It's true that some of the lyrics end up being a little too trite, but in musical terms the warm, relaxed, open-hearted approach works so long as you let it. So long as you don't demand that Incubus deliver the same thing that they previously delivered. But of course many people do demand that. The name of their favourite artist is a brand, with expectations attached.

For me, though, after a few listens it actually became really enjoyable to put some music on and relax into it. As much as anything, listening to the album became about enjoying Brandon Boyd's voice, which is a pretty magnificent instrument by the standards of male rock/pop singers.

Classical Music - June 2015

Bach, J.S.

• Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A mighty fortress is our God)
• Herr Christ, der einige Gottesshon (Lord Christ, the only Son of God)
• Das neugeborne Kindelein (The newborn little child)

Beethoven

• Violin Concerto
• Piano Trios 5 and 6 (op.70)
• Violin Sonata No.9 (two versions)
• String Quartet No.16 

Brahms - Violin Sonatas 2 and 3
Brahms - Piano Trio No.3
Bridge

• Berceuse (instrumental piece - orchestral version)
• Berceuse (song)
• Chant d'espérance (Song of Hope)
• Serenade (orchestral version)
• Adoration
• The Pageant of London
• Where She Lies Asleep
• Love Went A-Riding
• Thy Hand In Mine
• Mantle of Blue
• Blow Out, You Bugles
• 2 Songs of Rabindranath Tagore  (orchestral versions)
• A Royal Night of Variety

Chopin

• Scherzo No.2
• Etudes, op.25
• Nocturnes, opp. 27 and 32
• 4 Mazurkas, op.30
• Impromptu No.1

Dvorak - The Noon Witch
Dvorak - The Golden Spinning Wheel 
Faure - Violin Sonata No.2
Haumann - Blomster fra de kejserlige haver (Flowers from the Imperial Gardens)
Haydn - Symphonies 82, 92, 95, 100 and 102
Holmboe

• Concertos 3 (for clarinet), 6 (for violin), 9 (for violin and viola), 12 (for trombone) and 13 (for oboe and viola)
• Epilog
• Piano Suite
• Small piano pieces
• Two Sarvig Psalms
• Speravi in Domino
• Simeon's Song of Praise
• Arrangement of Ólavur Riddararós

Janacek - Pohádka (Fairy Tale)
Koppel - Four Love Songs from Song of Solomon
Koppel - Epitaph
Mortensen - Sonata for Oboe and Piano
Nielsen - Piano Trio
Nordentoft - Three Studies for Brass Quintet
Nørgård - Spell
Nørholm - From the Merry Life of  a Spy
Rovsing Olsen - Two Lagerkvist Songs
Schubert - Piano Sonatas in A minor and E flat D.537 and 568
Schubert - Symphony No.5
Schumann - Carnaval
Schumann - Symphonic Etudes 
Shostakovich - String Quartet No.3
Shostakovich - 24 Preludes and Fugues
Sibelius

• Symphony No.2
• The Dryad
• Dance-Intermezzo

Szymanowski - Four etudes for piano, op.4
Vine - String Quartet No.3
Whitwell

• Loopy Lady
• The Birds
• Some World Far From Ours
• In the Deep Heart's Core
• Warm Where Snowflakes Lie
• Flatworm's Heaven
• A Hundred Thousand Birds
• Echo
• Flying
• She Walks In Beauty
• Starlight Steeple
• To Your Shore
• Winter Love
• Road Trip
• The Insomnia Waltz

The general program of classical listening in June was much the same as it was in May, with new recordings of Holmboe and other Danish composers, newish Beethoven, and bits of my ongoing listening projects for Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Dvorak and Haydn. I also revived plans to listen to Bridge (done), Shostakovich (nearly done), Sibelius and Vine, and decided to thrown in some listening plans for Schubert, Schumann, Janacek and Szymanowski for good measure.

There's no rush with any of this...

The things I specifically want to mention in amongst this bounty are twofold.

The first is my first encounter with the music of Per Nørgård, his piece Spell for piano trio (apparently there's actually an original version with clarinet rather than violin, but the 'regular' piano trio version appears to be popular). I've no idea how it relates to the rest of his work, but on the basis of this one piece I definitely want to hear more. I found it riveting, with all the best potential of minimalism without the boredom I experience in some cases. I enjoyed it so much the first time that I played the CD again straight away.

The other thing to highlight is the music of Sally Whitwell. I believe she's recorded 3 albums of other composers' piano music (focusing on, ahem, minimalists), but now has an album of her own music. This recording is actually dominated by vocal and choral works (and also has some other instrumental groupings), but Whitwell's clear, crystalline piano playing is a feature throughout. The idiom is thoroughly tonal, and I suppose it would be labelled as "light" classical, but it is none the worse for that. It is highly enjoyable.

Here's a sample. Literally in the first case.

Popular Music - June 2015

Tori Amos - To Venus and Back (Venus Orbiting disc)
Tori Amos - The Beekeeper
Gomez - How We Operate
Jars of Clay - Who We Are Instead
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
Thrice

• The Alchemy Index
• Beggars
• Major/Minor

It looks like it might be time to talk about Thrice again...I purchased Beggars several months ago, but for some odd reason I didn't manage to get through the whole album in one sitting (my basic criterion for an entry in this blog/my spreadsheet) until June.

Chronologically, the album belongs in between the other two Thrice albums that I bought earlier. In some ways it also fits between them stylistically, with less variety than the deliberate split personality of The Alchemy Index (which I know I still haven't discussed properly) but slightly more variety than what I've previously described as the "straightforward rock" of Major/Minor. The main characteristic of Beggars, though, is that it usually has a rawer, less polished sound. It's also a bleaker album, particularly the title track which appears at the end. (Well, come to think of it much of the The Alchemy Index is quite bleak...)

I'm making it sound like Thrice are a bit miserable, which is exactly the wrong impression. They are often in fact quite inspiring and uplifting, a reaction inspired partly by the Christian ethos behind many lyrics. It's just that on Beggars the emphasis tends to be on the broken nature of people, and on our need for redemption and rescue. There's a sense of catharsis, of giving expression to some of life's difficulties to help make them more bearable.

At this stage, I find it more difficult to select particular highlights from Beggars than from the other two albums. But I think that's a good thing; it's an album that is a satisfying experience as a whole. Still, in an effort to encourage any readers to sample what's on offer... let's go with "Doublespeak".

Classical Music - May 2015

Beethoven

• Violin Sonatas 6 to 8 (two versions of each)
• String Quartets 7 to 9
• Serenade for flute, violin and viola

Bentzon - Two pieces for oboe and piano
Brahms - Cello Sonata No.2
Chopin

• Piano Concerto No.1
• Krakowiak
• Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante

Dvorak - The Water Goblin
Haydn - Symphonies 83, 88 and 96
Holmboe

• Requiem for Nietzsche
• Concertos 1 (for piano), 2 (for flute and violin), 4 (for piano trio), 5 (for viola), 7 (for oboe), 8 ("Sinfonia Concertante), 10 ("Wood-Brass-Gut") and 11 (for trumpet)
• Brass Quintets 1 and 2
• Piano Trio
• Nuigen 
• Moya (7 Japanese Songs)
• Sange mod Vårdybet (Songs Towards the Deep of Spring)
• Jeg ved en urt så dejlig og bold (I know a plant so lovely and fine)
• Two Border Ballads (two versions of each)
• Romanian Suite for piano
• Sonatina Briosa

Langgaard

• Lokkende toner (Enchanting music)
• Sæterjenten (The dairy maid)
• Høstfuglen (The harvest bird)

Nielsen - Two Fantasy Pieces for oboe and piano
Nielsen, T. - Fields and Meadows
Schierbeck - The Chinese Flute
Snider - Penelope
Syberg - Prelude, Intermezzo and Fugato for organ

My travels in April took me, among other places, to a major source of Holmboe discs. And you can see the results here in May. Every recording here was a first listen, although for some of the concertos I already have another recording.

The Requiem for Nietzsche demanded to be listed first because it is both a large-scale work (at just over 50 minutes, it's one of Holmboe's longest) and a very fine one. It's very "modern" sounding by Holmboe's standards, coming from a period in the 1960s when he was experimenting more. The choir often speaks rather than sings, in some places to stunning effect.

This time the Holmboe love spilled out to other Danish composers, as a number of the discs I bought were Danish anthologies rather than being devoted to his music. I finally acquired some (Carl) Nielsen - perhaps I will one day not mystify people by passing over Denmark's most widely celebrated composer. Of the material I listened to in May, however, the highlight was Poul Schierbeck's song cycle The Chinese Flute (or more properly Den kinesiske fløjte), really marvellous and evocative music that makes me interested in hearing more of this particular composer.

A few non-Danes did get a listen as well, guys you might have heard of such as Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Haydn and Dvorak, and Sarah Kirkland Snider again. Perhaps the most notable thing here was my 'official' introduction to Beethoven's "Razumovsky" string quartets. All of them are up to his exalted standards.

Popular Music - May 2015

Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel
Beyonce - Beyonce
Eurovision - Join Us (Copenhagen 2014)
Nik Kershaw - Radio Musicola
John Mayer - Paradise Valley
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Moloko - Catalogue

Eurovision was on during May. So what did I do? After this year's competition, I pulled out the official album from last year's competition and finally listened to the whole thing, allowing it to meet the criterion for entry to this blog.

This year there were complaints that there wasn't anything terribly wacky about Eurovision. Too many acts were trying to have normal songs, they said. Well, that's partly true, but it reflects how the competition has been influenced by having professional judges again. Your crazy novelty act might win a fair amount of the popular vote, but it won't do well with the people familiar with the music business.

Or with me. Personally, I don't watch Eurovision for the bizarre acts, I watch it for the ones who have mastered the art of the 3-minute pop song.

And it most definitely is an art. It takes genuine skill to find the right mix of songwriting, staging and performance to do well at Eurovision. In 2015, I felt that there was a fairly clear gap between the best performances and the rest, and found myself pretty well in sync with the scoring.

In 2014, on the other hand, I thought there were a lot of fine songs, which is why I was motivated to buy the album. And I found myself all over the place with regards to the scoring.

Of course, listening now, I'm missing one genuinely crucial element of the equation, which is the live performance aspect. Stage presence can really elevate a song and lack of it can kill one... which might possibly explain why some quite good songs on the discs didn't even make it to the 2014 final. I mean yes, there are some genuine duds ("Cake to Bake" from Latvia, ugh) but there are also some songs like the entries from Albania, Estonia and Macedonia which I would have personally given a respectable mid-table position.

And I would have happily used them to replace a few songs in the final. One can't help the stupid "Moustache" from France because of the rules giving them direct entry (but at least the voters gave it the last place it deserved). I would easily dump Greece's "Rise Up", but then the target demographic was young partygoers who are more excited than I by young men jumping on trampolines.

The greatest mystery to me, in terms of songs being overrated, was the major popularity of "Not Alone" from the badly named Armenian act Aram mp3. Two-thirds of the song is absurdly repetitive to my ears. I have a vague memory he might have been a young heartthrob type.

But to turn to the good stuff... first of all, let me say that Conchita Wurst thoroughly deserved to win for Austria with "Rise Like a Phoenix". A decent song with a fine melody, but just as importantly a performer with a very good voice and truly massive stage presence. I was also perfectly satisfied with the Netherlands coming second with the understated "Calm After the Storm".

But some of the songs I enjoyed the most ended up doing quite poorly. I remember that on the night, I really enjoyed Malta's "Coming Home", an infectious toe-tapper with one really nice harmonic twist in the bridge...23rd place.

But now, listening to the studio versions, there are two songs that stand out to me as having been unjustly shunned. All in my opinion of course.

The first is from Italy. Emma (Marrone) only managed 21st place with "La mia città". Perhaps that's partly due to the live performance not being quite at the top level, but also partly because in the live performance, everyone ended up so distracted by the shortness of her dress that they forgot about the music. 

Because it's a fabulously tight and catchy pop-rock song. Best of all is the little coda on the end of each chorus. Here it is... studio version. I don't want you distracted by that dress.

The second song, the one that I remember being fairly enchanted by on the night, and the one that I simply couldn't get out of my head after listening to the 2014 album, is "Start a Fire" from Azerbaijan's Dilara Kazimova. Equal 21st place with Italy.

People just didn't like it much. I suppose it's positioning (3rd in a sequence of 26 songs) was a disadvantage. Maybe people didn't like the staging, though I thought it suited the song well. Reviewing the live performance, there's the occasional off note in a quite difficult melody.

But it is that melody that penetrates me so deeply. It's utterly beautiful, and haunting, and the use of the instrument that Wikipedia tells me is called a balaban is nigh on perfect for the tinge of melancholy that's already present.

In the world of Europop, a bit of a failure. But for me, this is something to treasure.