Category: Tunes

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2011: #20 Florence and the Machine “Shake it out”

<< #21    |    #19 >>

I’m pretty sure I came to Florence and the Machine’s debut album “Lungs” late. I don’t remember exactly when it was but I feel like it may have been around Christmas time, possibly in 2010, because I was definitely in Toronto visiting my mother-in-law with my wife and up late at night, playing around on YouTube. There were a number of videos already available there and I was completely taken in by frontwoman, Florence Welch, and that incredible voice of hers. I got a copy of the album soon after and became quite enamoured with it as well, picking up the comparisons to Kate Bush and Annie Lennox completely on my own. So when sophomore album “Ceremonials” came out in 2011, I was definitely keen to check it out.

What I didn’t realize then and didn’t quite put together until recently is that Florence and the Machine is an actual band. I always thought Florence Welch was a solo artist and that the moniker was just that, a name. But no, Welch formed the band with her friend, Isabella “Machine” Summers, back in 2007 and it was fleshed out to a five piece with Robert Ackroyd, Tom Monger, and Christopher Lloyd Hayden. There has been a few shuffles in and out over the years, the ranks expanding to nine, most of the original band members remaining. With so many hands, it’s no wonder their sound is so big and dramatic, a perfect vehicle to fly with Welch’s aforementioned angelic vocals.

Not counting the promotional teaser, “What the water gave me”, “Shake it out” was the first single to be released from “Ceremonials”, and it’s awesome. I feel like she’s more Annie Lennox here than Kate Bush. It’s old sounding but not at all delicate. No, decadent would definitely be the better word. More Marie Antoinette than Emily Brontë. It’s thumping and clapping drum rhythms and big wall of noise organs above it. It’s glorious singing, both soft and bold, and Florence Welch dancing all over the stage in a big period piece costume, while coquettish ladies in waiting sing behind fluttering fans. The words, too, are just as invigorating, empowering us all to shake off our demons and dance.

Not bad for a song purportedly written while hung over.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #5 The Strokes “Last nite”

<< #6    |    #4 >>

At number five on this Best tunes of 2001 list is the second single off The Strokes’ debut album “Is this it?”. Arguably, this song, the band, and this album were instrumental in plotting the ultimate direction of indie and alternative rock for the new millennium.

The Strokes formed in New York City in 1998. The five piece led by frontman Julian Casablancas recorded a raw and energetic EP in 2001 that started a bidding war amongst the majors. They ended up landing with RCA, who released the debut LP referred to above, a ten song juggernaut that was recorded with the same producer and same DIY ethos as the EP. To say that “Is this it?” generated a buzz is putting it mildly. There was unanimous acclaim. It appeared on everyone’s best of the year list and the band’s name was on everyone’s lips.

I remember them still being a hot item even a year later. It sticks out to me because I made a special trip to Peterborough in 2002 to visit my friends from university. On the morning-slash-early-afternoon after I arrived, the load of us walked down to The Only Cafe for brunch. This meal was particularly memorable, first of all, because it was a unique experience, given the socialist, trust-based business plan of the establishment and its mixed bag clientele, and second, due to “Is this it?” being played whilst we chewed on egg, toast, and crunchy coffee. Pretty much all of my friends recognized the album, despite the varied tastes, liked it and were effusive in their praise of the sound and the excitement with which it polluted the air all around.

“Last nite” is representative of the raw, driven energy, and the immediacy of the album. The production is purposefully not crisp, giving the impression (which is actually correct) that it was recorded live in one take, a loud broadcast from a shambolic garage. Indeed, it succeeds in presenting the band as from another age, finding itself lost in the present day, a time traveller from the past informing the present of its mistakes. Casablancas is a lounge singing Lou Reed, half-heartedly trying to keep up with the song’s pace, and the band is keeping it simple, like pop music, if said pop music were roughly hewn from a rusty old carving knife.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #6 James “Getting away with it (all messed up)”

<< #7    |    #5 >>

For James and their ninth album, “Pleased to meet you”, the story is similar, almost word for word, to that of Pulp’s “We love life”, whose song “The night that Minnie Timperley died” appeared at number eight on this list.

Like Pulp, James was one of my very favourite bands in the latter half of the 1990s. Both bands found great success as part of the Britpop phenomenon after having toiled for many years prior, but in my case, I happened upon them both before I even knew what that there was such a thing. Both bands were coming off an album that, while excellent, did not chart or perform as well commercially as their previous albums, probably resulting from changes in musical direction as well as the waning Britpop movement.

In the case of James, I went out of my way to buy 1999’s “Millionaires”, picking up an ‘import’ copy of the CD at HMV for an exorbitant sum and though I enjoyed it, it took a while for the love to take hold. Of course, that was back when I was still living the bachelor life in Toronto and making a mockery of my financial situation. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, my finances were quite different after moving to Ottawa with Victoria in 2001. I didn’t have the money to lavish on CDs, especially on ones that I had never heard before, so I didn’t buy “Pleased to meet you” upon its release. It was years before I finally picked it up used and got to hear the whole album in full, well after the band had called it quits, frontman Tim Booth having announced his intentions to throw his hat into the solo ring. And it might even have been after the band decided to finally get back together for some reunion gigs in 2007, shows that would eventually result in full reactivation of the band. Of course, you all know that James is still slogging it out today, their most recent release being this year’s very fine, “Living in extraordinary times”.

But back in 2001, there was no way of knowing that there would be a reunion so I did my best to hear parts of this ‘final’ album. “Getting away with it (all messed up)” was one of the songs I had no problem locating on the internet, being the only single to be released off the album, and I listened to it quite a bit back then. It starts off all slow and jangling arpeggios against an acoustic strum, Tim Booth whispers and soothes the thrum of the bass and ushers in a temperate beat. The song builds as all good James songs do, layer by layer, energy upon energy, until each of the band’s six members (seven, if you count Brian Eno’s production work) has joined the party. And a party it is, a final (or not quite final) bow, depending on at what point in time from which you were listening.

Lovely James music, gets me everytime.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.