Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax

A song perhaps as famous for it's controversy than for it's... well, being a song. Banned by the BBC after a radio DJ pulled the song off from his playlist, Relax began a steady climb to the top of the charts, becomming THE song of 1983. The band's open homosexuality and sexual edge was a key point in the advertising and promotion, and this song's quite obvious sexual theme entered (ooh err) musical legend. But despite all of the controversy and press, was this song good?

Relax starts with some dreamy electro chords and a throbbing rhythm, before comming to the chorus. We get a dancing beat, the chorus repeats, and we get that funky bass lick. Holly Johnson's singing is on top form throughout. We get some more instrumental sections which focus on the beat and rhythm, the vocals basically repeating the chorus. The synth sounds are very eighties, yet work with the music, which while keeping the same beat, is keen to frequently change the melody and has quite advanced dynamics for a pop song. Indeed, the music holds this up really well as a solid track worth listening to.

Track two, One September Monday, opens with general chitchat, stylistically recalling The Beatles, when a beat emerges over the top. It stays this way, effects occasionally effecting the vocal sound of the conversation. Aparently it was recorded while Paul and Holly were resting after a hard day in the studio. Making it a very interesting and weird track to feature on such a popular single. There's also something of Throbbing Gristle in this as well, how it creates this sickly other world and creates a sense of voyerism, in that we're listening in to a conversation we perhaps shouldn't be.

All in all, this is a good single, a classic A Side, and a unique B Side. It surpasses any media circus caused by the controversy, and survives on it's own as a little piece of music history. A good buy.

Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know?

 Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for the lack of updates recently, I've got some serious personal matters to deal with, and so naturally, the blog has taken a back seat, but I figured I need to get back on with it so...

Duran Duran, one of the most successful pop groups of the 80's, achieved a constant string of chart toppers, and even managed to sing the music for that James Bond movie, A View To A Kill. All while being named after a character from Barbarella. They're a stylish bunch of guys who managed to outlive the eighties and carry on, still writting good tunes. Is There Something I Should Know? jumped straight into the charts on release, but popularity is one thing, what about quality?

A synthy echoey eighties drum and chorus introduce is to the track, we're then taken for a ride via guitar and rhthym. We get some nice fat synth chords during the chorus, lyrically it's fluff, but it's kinda fun fluff, though Simon Le Bon carries it well. It's very very eighties, but you can tell it's influence on modern pop groups. The instrumental break slows the track down a bit, but carries on with the usual sounds, the chorus returns with more added synth goodness. As you can imagine, it fades to silence at the end. All in all, a fun pop track, nothing more.

More echoey drums take us into the instrumental track Faith In This Colour. It's a pretty damn cool track, a heavier synth focus, elements of Kraftwerk are brought in, and we get a kinda haunting sound mixed with dance sensibilities. One of the great things about these synth pop groups as that they would do lots of instrumental numbers, it was afterall, totally new music. We get lots of textures played over the repetative electric snare beat. It's a really good track.

So yeah, it's a neat little single and worth picking up.

David Bowie - Low

Low was a real watershed moment for popular music, would electronic music really work on a mainstream audience? Critics were confused, even his record company refused to let it count as part of his contractual obligation, yet it caused a storm on it's release, and ushered in a new age of a new kind of music, electronic pop. Low is one of the greatest and most important albums ever released, born out of desperation and alienation, it is Bowie's definitive artistic statement, and although many people consider it's follow up, Heroes, to be the better album, they're wrong. Heroes expands on what Bowie achieved on Low, and combined it with his more familiar sound, songs were fuller and more formed, but on Low, we had pure emotion. Snippets of information presented to us, lyrics presenting us with the essential facts and nothing more. A sense of bravery and experimentation flows throughout. This is the start of Bowie's 'Berlin Trilogy', and what a way to kick it off!

Bowie was at his end, having just starred in The Man Who Fell To Earth, he was addicted to cocaine and alcohol, he was empty and stressed, his marriage was in ruins and his career was over. Moving to Berlin with Iggy Pop in tow, to escape from his vices and renew himself, Bowie fully submerged himself in the Krautrock scene, Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and so forth, and this was to inform his last chance, creating an album that's natural yet synthetic, inwardly depressive yet optimistic. With weird stories involving conflicts and confusion with his band, and a collaboration with the artistic Brian Eno, this album really shines and is in some respect a miracle. Mojo magazine has done numerous articles on the creation of and background to Low(including one in this month's issue!), so I'll leave it at that, and go just review the album. As you may have already guessed, I really like it!

Side A is mostly conventional music, starting with the instrumental Speed Of Life,  a motorik beat, repetitive rhythm, and a lead guitar really take us into alien territory, the lead synth gives us a hopeful melody. This is a decent upbeat song, combining Bowie's pop sensibilities with a noticeable Krautrock influence. The short and sweet nature really contrasts with the opening song of his previous album, Station To Station. A funky yet robotic bass guitar and an almost out of tune guitar take us into the second track, Breaking Glass, with lyrics inspired by a fight Bowie got himself in, we're told a story in snippets, and an acknowledgement of his own flaws. We get a neat synth sound throughout in places. It's a great, short, well written song which fades out, taking us into What In The World. With lyrics about 'a little world with grey eyes', this sounds the most 'Bowie' track on the album, with some great guitar, and the repetitive motorik beat still carrying on. The lyrics tell a story, yet still feel somewhat abstracted, and some occasionally out of time singing overlapped works brilliantly.

The hit single Sound And Vision takes us in with a pleasant guitar riff, funky bass and the same motorik drum beat. In true Krautrock style, it opens with an extended instrumental section, synth patterns and so on. It's a very upbeat piece involving sometimes undecipherable lyrics. He starts singling with the chorus and we're treated to some true abstract lyrics, this song is perhaps the true turning point on how the music is lifting out of his solitude and into a new world of colour and optimism. The next song is Always Crashing In The Same Car, which like Breaking Glass, is a very straightforward lyrical theme. Again, the same motorik beat, and some nice lead guitar work, some bubbling synths in the background over an instrumental section. Bowie really lets the groove work itself out here, the upbeat music contrasting his rather subdued and melancholy singing, but it just really works out. The solo is excellent in the psychedelic/prog style, really fitting into place. Next Bowie asks someone to Be My Wife, a cry for help during his fractious marriage which is disintegrating before his very eyes. The guitar is distorted and out of tune, the beat the same as before, the music dramatic. Our man's isolation and loneliness really comes out here, showing a search for belonging, a quest for love. A romantic way of dealing with a gruelling divorce case.  Again the guitar solo really kicks it in the bag, with equal melancholy and upbeatness. The first side ends with the instrumental A New Career In New Town, opening up with a sombre beat, and ghostly synth chords, it then kicks it up a not, bringing back the motorik beat from before, an upbeat melody and a true uplifting feel, Bowie is crawling up from the depths of desperation. As the title suggests, this instrumental track represents the new found hope he felt during his move to Berlin, and his adoption of a more electric style, free from the excesses of conventional rock. There's hints of Kraftwerk and Neu! on this track. Notably, the studio this album was recorded in was situated opposite Kraftwerk's legendary Kling Klang studio. The track fades out into upbeatness. A thoroughly enjoyable first side, nice upbeat music, and a real solid drumbeat throughout.

Side B opens with Warszawa, a track which inspired Joy Division so much that they were initially called Warsaw (Spandau Ballet were also so enamoured with this album that their name comes from an area of Berlin). starting with a moody piano beating over a subtle synth, the track opens up with a haunting melody reminiscent of Wendy/Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange soundtrack. The piano beat becomes more synthy, emphasising a sense of isolation and yet wonder at the newly developing futuristic landscape, it's exploration not just of music, but of this brave new world. It's a sad track, and it allows itself to fully develop and emotional feeling throughout. Yes, it's sad, but it's a bittersweet sadness, one laced with silent hope. This side of the album is the one which really changed popular music, combining Brian Eno's idea of musical soundtracks for visions, with Bowie's amazing writing abilities, music of the most experimental nature! The track cools down, leading Bowie into some tribal style chanting over this haunting beat, suggesting a future world. The melody slows right down before returning to it's main motif, that of exploration. I close my eyes and this track brings forth visions of steel and glass, a clinical clean world of magic. The next track is Art Decade, featuring a moving synth melody, somehow playful yet haunting over a steady beat. Futuristic sound effects flow around, but this track really feels like isolation, loneliness, walking alone in the futuristic world and taking in the sights, sounds, atmosphere. a total synth track, this serves as the counterpoint to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, the fun of driving slows down, and we are now in a place to take in all the details of the surrounding view. The chords build up, and overtake the melody as the track fades away.

The next track is Weeping Wall, vibes enter the scene, creating a constant beat, as a harsh synth takes the lead, the beat dictated by synth. The lead melody is playful yet again somewhat haunting, but the beat ups the pace compared to the previous two tracks. A distorted guitar emanates a sense of melancholy, while the rest of the track is upbeat. Is this our man bowie coming to terms with himself? chanting returns, crying, while then repeated by the synth melody. It's a track which feels lonely, yet also feels alive. It's got concealed hope, like most tracks on this album. The melody is utterly sublime, and at the end some heavy chords take over before it fades into silence. The album closes with Subterraneans, which greets us with some more alien chords, and some reversed sounds, it's a melancholy sound, describing again this strange futuristic world. To a man coming out of isolation/addiction, the world around him must have seemed strange and alien. The melody is haunting, based upon swells of sound, heavenly yet haunting. Bowie's chanting makes a return, following the melody, and suddenly the chord swells feel less melancholic, the melody less haunting, yet the track is still ghostly. A saxophone now comes in, an almost filmic sound, playing over the backing , flowing like liquid into Bowie's chants which're again both upbeat and downbeat, the track brings back the sax as it draws to it's close, Sax over chanting over synth, it's that sense of bittersweetness, that carries the album onwards, with more melodies overlapping, building a sensation before fading into silence forever.

To say this album is a MUST HAVE is a total understatement, it is truly one of the most amazing experiences that your ears can receive. A totally new world unleashed on an unsuspecting public. I think that everyone should get a copy of this album, regardless of taste, you'll find something amazing inside. A mixture of conflicting emotions, new sensations and unbeatable writing. I first heard this album at the age of seventeen, and seven years on and hundreds of listens later, I am still finding new things, new sounds, new feelings. This isn't just Bowie's finest hour, but popular music's finest hour!

I have Low on CD and Vinyl, as well as the single Sound And Vision on vinyl, and I do have to say, the CD version has more clarity of the sounds, it is very precise, yet lacks the air and volume of the vinyl release, which feels far more spacious. The CD is like a high definition photograph, highly detailed yet flattened, while listening to it on Vinyl is like being there and taking it all in. Both are of high quality, and so I'll leave it to you to make your mind up, I prefer the vinyl LP due to it's sense of space and density.

The deal with genres/classification

What's the deal with it all? I know that it's useful to find a way to separate different things. Miles Davis is jazz, Queen are rock, Kraftwerk are electronica... But what about Davis' funky fusion, Queen's pop ballads or Kraftwerk's earlier avant garde jazz? And what about those artists who defy genres, like Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart?
If sorting through genres, should we seperate an artist up into lumps, or keep them at what they're more recognised for? So Steve Hillage would sit firmly as Psychedelic rock, even though he's a key figure in spacerock and electronica. See what I mean?

In recent years, since music stores have been in serious decline due to lazy Itunes users, so much music has been lumped together. Afrobeat, Jazz, Classical, french songwriter, New Age etc are often all lumped into the catagory of 'World Music'. The catch all term of 'Rock & Pop' covers everything from Duran Duran to Robert Wyatt, Frank Zappa to The Spice Girls. Yet 'Metal' and 'Urban' music get their own sections, despite there being very little difference between them and many of the 'Rock & Pop' scene. Where does funk end and hip hop begin? How is Jay Z more 'urban' than Sly And The Family Stone?

Essentially such ways of catagorising are just useless, while some such as Zheul and Canterbury Scene are quite their own isolated scenes, what about Gong? the spacerock band which has featured members from both genres and merged them into it's own entity? And of course, Hawkwind, who have featured and inspired most genres around. Can we really classify in this way anymore?

 My top CD shelf is all Frank Zappa, but then afterwards it goes astray, with shelves featuring a variety of genres, except metal, but even that includes many non-metal content. Where does metal end and prog begins?



So currently, I have them in rough groups. Zheul, Spacerock, Japanese Psyche and Krautrock all being close to each other (with their associated bands, so P.M's Gong is with Gong as opposed to with the fusion stuff). This isn't an ideal situation, but makes the most sense to me so far, and it's quite easy to know where everything is, which is useful when you own several hundred albums. Though I still think there could be a better way, it's just, finding it...


Another suggestion is organising stuff A-Z, but that means that Acid Mothers Gong, Daevid Allen, Mother Gong and Pierre Morelan's Gong would be seperate from Gong. Space Ritual would be kept seperate from Hawkwind despite being virtually the same band. It seems simpler yet also more confusing.



Essentially, everything is linked. Most rock comes from blues origins, Jazz comes from combining European brass bands with blues. Electronica comes from both the psychedelic and avant garde scenes, but it's further than that, electronica also owes itself to jazz, spacerock, orchestrial... everything owes itself to everything that comes before it, and any atempts to try and create strict genres is ultimately detrimental to music, and creates a narrow minded audience. Many people ONLY listen to punk, many people ONLY listen to metal, many people ONLY listen to hip hop etc etc. For example, Guys like Wynton Marsalis are creating a strict sense of jazz, referring only to a specific time and type of jazz, and ignoring anything that falls outside of those narrow parameters, so the inspiring work of Miles Davis' fusion, or Sun Ra's extra terrestrial experimentation, are not, in their eyes, jazz. Just think about it, and then see how dumb genres are.

Not a review, but I just wanted to rant for a bit. :)

Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets

 Steve Vai is one of that motley band of guitarists who emerged in the eighties and rewrote guitar playing rules with speed, insane licks and gimmickry. However unlike the rest of them, Mr. Vai is not boring. Steve graduated from the school of Zappa after about two or so years in his band before working with Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, and then busting out on his own properly with the groundbreaking Passion And Warfare. Vai showed us that you can have insane chops with delicate ideas and passionate emotive playing. Whilst my own guitar style could be no further from Vai's, I always look back to his work for inspiration and ideas, and when I want to learn some new techniques. Even my guitar (Ibanez Jem) and distortion pedal (Jemini) are his signiture series. Needless to say, his music has had a profound impact on my life, and is a man I respect greatly.

So, this album, Alien Love Secrets, was also released on VHS at the same time, contains some great tracks, let's run it down. Vai's wailing guitar and horse sound effects take us into the first track, Bad Horsie. A chugging train like riff with some deep distortion and a slick guitar melody showing insanely precise harmonics. It's a proper heavy steamengine track, plowing down all in it's path. Vai's use of the wah pedal here is to give total control of the tone and uses it to sculpt out his sound perfectly, as opposed to Hendrix's more experimental and freeform use of the pedal, indeed Vai's signiture wah pedal is known as the 'Bad Horsie' due to this song. Before the main solo we get some nice overdubbing, but the solo is standard Vai fare, not any of his emotive playing, but then this track is a hard rocker, so does it need it? Also nice flanger comming in. Juice is the title of the next track, a short little stunt guitar piece, fast and audatious, keeping some high octane action going, it's an all american rocker. Again this is more of a showoff piece, getting some feelgood energy going, some usual shred soloing and some unusual rhthym playing here. Die To Live is a softer more emotive track, with a distinctly nostalgic feeling to it. It sounds like a celebration and rememberance of life. It's still got a technical element to it, but this doesn't get in it's way, it's also quite fun to play, though bit of a guitar tongue-twister. The solo is delightfully beautiful, the rhythm is forward moving and all fun.

The next track is The Boy From Seattle, a softer more strummy upbeat guitar with a sense of the previous two tracks mixed into one feeling. It's upbeat and kinda fun with some decent melodic elements. A talkwah occasionally makes an appearance, with a line of daddadadaaddada, before the track starts to get quiet, and the guitaring goes into Hendrix mode, which is alright as this song is a tribute to Hendrix. We also get some nifty Vai trickery with delays and such creating a layered sound. Ya-Yo Gakk is a really fun tune, heavy metal guitar mixed with babytalk. His son would say something, and then Vai replicates it on guitar. We get some usual heavy metal soloing and riffing, but let's face it, this track is Vai just having fun, so he's allowed to. After this little diversion, we get to the real meat of the album, Kill The Guy With the Ball-The God Eaters. Some rolling drums and talkbox trickery takes us propelling forward into a really heavy riffage-filled track. It's speedy and thrashy and contains some great funk guitar (though played in metal style). It's full of menacing energy, and the drumming is almost computerised in it's precision. We get the usual Vai licks and some heavy sections we can only assume are left over from his previous album (the metal-tastic Sex And Religion) The track goes into screeching alien orgasm mode and then we enter the angelic second section, The God Eaters, a beautiful gentle guitar melody accentuated with some heavenly synth chords. It builds up and has some great releaving spirity feelings in it, kinda gentling the listener down and raising us up at the same time in preperation for the next track, the highlight of the album (and one of the highlights of his career), Tender Surrender. A sharp chord introduces us to a quiet kinda lounge jazz fusion, we have a soft silky melody and a rhythm based on a Hendrix song. The percussion just helps us plod forward, we get to the soloing section, first off a more bluesey solo, gentle and sweet, and goes for a section before hitting the proper solo, Vai's most impossible and orgiastic solo, which exudes such pleasure and passion. It's technically complex as well as emotionally complex, the speedy notes here given a smooth liquid texture as they just roll into your ears, it gets more passionate and more, until we get to the repeated shred section, the pleasure zone. The passion dies down, and we return to the tender embrace of the main melody, and the song ends  playfully and wah-filled. We have surrendered.

This is by no means Vai's best album, however it includes Die To Live, and Tender Surrender, so it's definately worth picking up.  As a major fan of his, the more purist approach to this album makes a neat break from his usual experimentation and on Tender Surrender, really lets the passion of his playing shine through. It's a good CD.

Kylie Minogue - Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi

Generally speaking, a singer is judged by their voice. Kylie on the other hand is judged mainly on her bottom and her good looks, which is a shame, as she is one of the better bubblegum pop singers. She does sexy in a way Rhianna can only dream of. Though back in the eighties, this was different, her songs were more playful, and have this quirky eighties charm which throughout the nineties, lost it's character, and evolved into the kinda bland electro beat which plagues modern pop music, though Kylie still somehow shines. In contrast to most singers, Kylie has shown a level of determination in her craft that can stagger belief, back into the studio/touring straight after recovering from breast cancer, and taking in a variety of influences, her modern sexual edge giving her something of artistic credibility in a genre not renowned for it..

Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi takes a nice arp section and then comes into a christmassy sounding chord/plonky section. Kylie's singing is allright, high pitched and sweet. Lyrically it's fluff, harmless love pop, and her voice hits the note but has the level of emotion you'd expect from this music, which is to be expected, it's harmless music to dance to. The beat is allright, plods along a bit. We get a small instrumental break before returning to the verse/chorus then ending. All in all, it's like the Ronseal of music. Does what it says.

Made In Heaven is the B Side, and it is total 'gay disco'. A more lively dancing tune than the previous song, cheesy eighties string effect synths and plinky plonkyness. The vocals come in constantly with little breaks, the typical 'girl next door'pop. There's nothing else to really say about it. Like literally.

If you like pop music, then get this. If you don't like pop, don't get this. This kinda music can't really be judged on the same criteria as The Specials or Miles Davis, and so I'm not going to critique it on that level. It is just very average, it is a singer finding her footsteps and while not really getting there yet, it's still dancable pop music, which is all it needs to be.