Author: jprobichaud

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Spiritualized “Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Spiritualized
Album Title: Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
Year released: 1997
Year reissued: 2010
Details: 2 x 180 gram

The skinny: Big fans of Jason Pierce’s space rock outfit, Spiritualized, that might be following along as I’ve been travelling backwards through my collection of their records will likely have been watching out for this one. The third record, “Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space” is largely and widely considered their best and I am definitely not one to disagree. It came in at number one when I counted down my favourite albums of 1997, a stacked year that also included seminal albums by Radiohead and The Verve. This double album of gospel, noise rock, and free jazz, tells the dual and intertwining tales of a breakup and a psychedelic trip and it is near perfection in its beautiful and pain. The 180 gram reissue I have from 2010 faithfully reproduces original album art that was modelled after medicinal packaging, right down to the wrapper-like album sleeves, instructional insert that includes Qs & As, and the expiry date and storage instructions on the back cover. This was a must have for my album collection and the first one from this particular ‘Vinyl love’ series that I purchased.

Standout track: “Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #22 Say Hi “And then some miniature golfing”

<< #23    |    #21>>

I had never heard, nor heard of, Say Hi prior to 2020 but this album called “Diamonds & donuts” came across my radar in the early days of the pandemic and it hit all the right notes with me. As it turned out, I would spend many hours listening to it over my headphones, while working away at my dining room table, while my lovely wife was doing the same across from me*. And this track, “And then some miniature golfing” was the album’s opening number.

Eric Elbogen started this project, originally called Say Hi to Your Mom, in Brooklyn back in 2002 and then, relocated operations to Seattle in 2006. He is the main creative force and its only real full-time member, though he has sometimes enlisted musicians to help realize his work in a live context. He has recorded and mixed pretty much all of the project’s 13 (!) albums (including this one) from the comfort of his home studio**, performing it all by himself. Word has it that a fourteenth album is due to be released later in 2023 and I would hazard that it would continue the trend as a real DIY bedroom pop project.

According to Elbogen himself, “Diamonds & donuts” was influenced by the idea of a series of psychological focus group tests, with each of the thirteen synth pop songs on the album representing a different experiment. “And then some miniature golf” posits the theory that “the saddest experience achievable by a human being is to be jolted awake from the false belief that you’ve truly found your soulmate.”

Oh, you even met her parents
And talked about traveling the world
‘Til she said “No matter what you think
I will never ever be your girl”

It’s 80s synth new wave with layers upon layers of hurt and pain, like they stuck Duckie Dale in the friend zone, but rather than at the prom, OMD is performing at a downtown New York punk club and the vocalist is channelling Joe Cocker and the Boss. It’s nostalgic and wistful with sidelong and knowing glances. Elbogen knows this kind of hurt and knows the only cure is more synths.

*Minus the earphones and the Say Hi album

**A laptop on a small desk in a bedroom

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #50 The Beautiful South “Everybody’s talkin'”

<< #51    |    #49 >>

The Beautiful South were one of my favourite groups in the first few years of the 1990s. I’ve already written on these pages a number of times about how I wrote all my first year university papers to their third record, 1992’s “0898”. So of course when their fourth album hit the shelves here in Canada in 1994, I was right there to purchase a copy of the CD. I noticed a big difference in the sound right away. Gone were the shrill, childlike backup vocals of Brianna Corrigan, who I later learned left the group before recording sessions began, and these were replaced by the richer hued voice of Jacqui Abbott.

This change was most evident on track four, “Miaow”’s second single, a cover of “Everybody’s talkin’”, on which she took on lead vocals and the inimitable Paul Heaton slid to backup duties. I recognized the track from the first listen because it was super faithful, in sound and in feeling, to one my father enjoyed and that would see the volume pumped up in the car whenever it made the appearance on oldies radio. I’m talking about Harry Nilsson’s version, of course, which I thought until recently was the original. It was his cover that made the song what it is, its appearance on the “Midnight cowboy” soundtrack giving Nilsson his biggest hit. It was a jangling and rambling yearning to be somewhere, anywhere but there, exhausted but hopeful, not letting all the talking heads get you down. It’s the kind of song that rings true with musicians and songwriters, which is likely why it’s been covered by hundreds* of artists.

I only learned that it was originally written and recorded by folk singer/songwriter Fred Neil a few years before Nilsson did it when I sat down to write this post a week or so ago. I had to change tack for obvious reasons but I loved learning about how this songwriter I’d never heard of wrote this classic tune and recorded it in only one take just so that he could finally go home. His original is austere, hints at plucking and strumming, a shadow and inference of the fuller sound we are used to with the many covers. It’s good, perhaps even great, it’s just not what I’m used to.

In closing, I’m realizing that I may not have made such a strong case for The Beautiful South version but I do very much love it. It’s always made me happy. So I can’t in conscience pick the original here but I’m definitely curious to check out Fred Neil’s other work.

Cover:

The original:

*One of these was the lovely, mellow rendition by Luna, which I also considered including on this list.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.