Entertainment For Lively Minds
Suddenly You Love Me: Slow-Burns From Your Record Collection
Although she's not a recent discovery - in fact I even saw her live once but it kind of washed over me - I now can't get enough of Aimee Mann.
She has THE most beautiful voice and her songs get me right there like no one else has done since I discovered the Thompsons in 1997.
I'm not sure why it's taken me so long. I loved her song Save Me that came on an freebie Empire CD years ago, but never really took it any further until I found 31 Today on (might have been a Word) CD that also came free. It captured my imagination and I had to find out more, so suddenly I find I've got all her albums and I can't stop listening to her.
It's like realising you're in love with your best female friend. They've been there for years and you've not taken much notice. Purely platonic. Then a thunderbolt hits you and the girl of your dreams has been right under your nose all along. The rest is history.
Your slow burns please.
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Aimee is wonderful.
Bachelor No. 2 is such a great album, in particular, but I can completely see how she could slip under the radar. There's nothing showy about her music: she just writes really, really excellent pop-rock songs that aren't particularly innovative or trendy - just beautifully crafted. And the guitar solo on Deathly makes the hairs on my neck stand up every time.
For me, as many of you will know, it was the Beatles. Under my nose the whole time. Never got them. Now I love them - not unconditionally, but a lot. I couldn't live without pretty regular top-ups of Revolver, Pepper, Help!, A Hard Day's Night and Abbey Road, and the rest get a decent number of outings too.
Bachelor No 2
That's my favourite Aimee Mann album too.
The song You Do hath charms to calm the wildest beast, but it just makes me melt although the lyric, in contrast to the melody, is rather bleak.
Another vote for Bachelor No 2
...although Whatever runs it a very close second.
She's fab. Absolutely wonderful.
Suede
I've been aware of Suede since they first came onto the scene in the early 90s but never paid them much attention. I thought some of the singles were ok, but it never went further than that.
Then last year, I saw their self-titled debut in a second-hand shop for £3 and though, "Why not?" I then played hardly anything else for about three months - it's fantastic! Wonderful, weaving guitar lines, beautiful melodies and compelling, druggy glamour.
Since then, I've also bought Dog Man Star and Coming Up; neither of which are as good, but still great albums. I feel like I missed out and, looking back, I've no idea why.
That first Suede record...
...is just staggering. I've never heard anyone play guitar the way Bernard does - the only word I can ever think of that describes it is "snakey". It coils itself around the rhythm section and Brett's voice and never stops moving. And that lovely bit of piano towards the end of "So Young" that finishes up in that scale run in octaves to sort of explode into the last chorus *still* makes me go all shivery after all these years.
I love Dog Man Star, too, but nothing they ever did subsequently hit me the way "Suede" did. I ordered it from Britannia Music Club, on cassette, as part of my introductory five-album offer. Also included were "Ten Summoners Tales" by Sting and Eric Clapton's "Unplugged". Don't judge me: I'd only just turned 15 and believed Q.
I wouldn't beat yourself up too much about it
When I was that age, I took a copy of Badly Drawn Boy's, The Hour of Bewilderbeest back (to Asda) to exchange it for a copy of Limp Bizkit's Significant Other.
Limp Bizkit
I saw the video to Rollin' the other day, which features a verse in which Fred Durst slams other rappers (in time honoured hip-hop fashion) in one of the lamest raps ever. And they say Americans don't do irony.
You wanna mess with Limp Bizkit? (Yeah)
You can't mess with Limp Bizkit (why?)
Because we get it on (when?)
Every day and every night (oh)
See this platinum thing right here? (uh huh)
Well we're doing it all the time (what?)
So you'd better get some better beats
And uh, get some better rhymes (d'oh!)
I bet Rakim is quaking in his boots.
The most Limp Bizkit-ish
Limp Bizkit lyric is from My Generation (no, thankfully not that one):
We don't, don't give a fuck and
We won't ever give a fuck 'til
You give, you give a fuck about me
And my generation
Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?
"P-p-people try to put us d-down...
...just because I'm a big assclown."
Another Bizkit classic...
also from My Generation.
'Hey kids, take my advice. You don't wanna step on a big pile of shit.'
He's right you know.
Limp Bizkit
Rockin' the set, like Russian Roulette. Coming from a band whose name sounds like it should be on that other thread about childhood games...
Mind you, I saw Linkin' Park once and they were utterly fantastic live.
Really?
You only discovered the Thompson Twins in '97?
Ahem. Anyway, I trust you have also treated yourself to the Glorious 'Til Tuesday, whose second album (Welcome Home) I love even more than Aimee's solo stuff.
As for my slow burns, I'd say it was Tori Amos, specifically her fourth album, From The Choirgirl Hotel. I bought it because I was a big fan, and for the first few listens I really couldn't make much of it. It was dense and opaque; in fact if it had been anyone else I wouldn't have bothered. And then one evening I listened to it in the dark, it high volume, and I remember thinking "this is really brilliant." Now I think about it, It's been a longtime since I heard it, time to drag it out again.
I am Christopher Columbus's rubbish brother
Last year, I finally discovered Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and HMHB (after a couple of years of prompting) along with Deaf School and XTC. A mere twenty-odd years after most people. Still, when you're young (and in love), having a few decades worth of music to explore in the archives is always going to provide something interesting.
In regards to the slow burning records though, I'll admit Regina Spektor didn't really do anything for me at first, but now she stirs my musical loins. And, in attempt to acquaint myself with the , I bought the 'Echoes' best of in 2001(?), only to return it a few days later because I thought it was naff. I did go back to it a few years down the line, and proceeded to buy 'Piper', 'Meddle' 'DSOTM', 'Wish You Were Here', 'Animals' and 'The Wall'.
The Divine Comedy
Not quite the same as F-C’s slow burn, as I didn’t have any Divine Comedy in my collection, but I suddenly discovered them last year, and now they’re my new favourite group. (All right, I know it’s really just Neil Hannon, but if he wants to use a nom de band, I’m happy to humour him.)
I’d heard and enjoyed the odd single over the years without ever investigating further. But the slow drip of posts on this blog, the occasional track on Word CDs and the positive reviews for Bang Goes The Knighthood persuaded me to take a punt on the greatest hits album, and I discovered to my surprise that I loved pretty much every track. The witty lyrics, the dry delivery, the fabulously catchy melodies, the glorious arrangements - how had I missed all this before?
So I decided to go back to the start and savour the DC’s output, album by album - only to discover that the first few are out of print, remarkably. So now I’m working my way backwards instead.
Which reminds me, it’s about time I investigated the album before Bang Goes The Knighthood. Amazon beckons...
Jackson Browne
I had a girlfriend in the 70s who was a huge JB fan, but I couldn't stand him. However fast forward some 15 years or so and I was converted by Mrs P who is also a huge JB fan.
The breakthrough song was In The Shape Of A Heart.
I only recently got into him
entry method four songs:
1. Falling in love with Fountain Of Sorrow through Joan Baez's version
2. Going crazy for Somebody's Baby
3. Remembering he wrote Take It Easy
4. Remembering he wrote These Days.
That's a lovely little CV there in itself.
Strangely I have rediscovered JB
It was seeing him at Glastonbury last year (on the TV rather than at the event itself). I was a big fan (as a teenager) of 'Late for the Sky', 'The Pretender' and 'Running on Empty' but he lost me in the 80's. Then I saw him play 'The Barricades of Heaven' at Glasto and then bought the wonderful live collection 'Love is Strange'. I can really recommend this double album of performances at venues in Spain which came out last year, with long time colleague David Lindley - it got me hooked all over again.
Two Tracks In Particular
F Hole by Squeeze from their East Side Story album took me ages to get now one of my favourite tracks and Jungle by ELO from Out Of The Blue also didn't like at first now I think it's great
The National
Only discovered The National last year after reading a great deal of praise for their High Violet album - which I love - on this very site.
Have since bought Alligator and Boxer as well, which I had owned before but got rid off. Now like them as well!
Not quite the same slow burn
I've always loved Saint Etienne, but it was only recently that I realised I'd been listening to them for over 20 years and that I owned more music by them than any other band. They've kind of snuck in under the radar to be my favourite band of all time somehow. And I'm not quite sure how it happened.
And talking of Aimee Mann
this is still one of my favourite uses of a song in a film.
yes, it's quite brilliant
even taken like that, but as a climactic moment of the movie as whole it was even more powerful.
Kirsty MacColl
Was a slow burner for me. At the time her music was released I wasn't that interested and not particularly taken with her backing vocals on various artists' music either. Probably just a bit too young for it, never a great fan of female singers, and too concerned with being into more 'alternative' stuff. But over the years it just started to grow on me, particularly with songs like Don't come the cowboy with me Sunny Jim and Soho Square. Maybe I just started to appreciate the lyrics more. I'd just about bought up everything by the time she died and then really felt her death keenly - just the awful nature of it still makes me very sad.
Too slow a burner
I've just done this with Lewis Taylor. Had a few tracks on my iPod from some freebie CDs. Quite liked them then heard "Send Me An Angel", fell in love with it bought some more and was so sad to find out he'd quit music. Felt a bit like it was my fault.