16th October - Paul Simon's The Rhythm of the Saints

Artist – Album: Paul Simon – The Rhythm of the Saints
Released: 16^th October 1990
Sounds Like: Less samba, more Black Mamba

 
After Graceland, Paul Simon was pretty much duty bound to release a similarly exotic follow up. Rather than book flights back to South Africa, however, Simon turned his attention to Brazil, the pumping, groove-heavy heart of the sometimes dark and violent South America. In a way, the music herein demonstrates a change in tone that is reflective of the difference between the two continents – both are percussion led and largely engaging, but where Graceland seemed to have an exuberant naivety to it, some of the sounds in The Rhythm of the Saints are shifty and stand off-ish, like those Colombian drug lords in Scarface.
 
‘The Obvious Child’ is by far the most open and accessible song in the set, propelled by outstanding drums recorded live in Bahia, Brazil. Within Simon ponders ageing (as he often does) in some of his most exquisite lyrics ever (“Sonny’s yearbook from high school comes down from the shelf, and he idly thumbs through the pages: some have died, some have fled from themselves, or struggled from here to get there”).
 
Thereafter, the rhythms calm down and Simon’s delivery becomes more hushed and disconnected. ‘Can’t Run But’ snakes like the great Amazon river; ‘Further to Fly’ and ‘She Moves On’ have the terrible majesty of an Incan sacrificial temple. Despite the triumphant release at the end of ‘The Cool, Cool River’, the verses beforehand are as anxious and tense as a crucial Superclásico derby. Still, a couple of rays of light do penetrate in the gorgeous chorus of ‘The Coast’ and in Milton Nascimento’s contributions to ‘Spirit Voices’, and no one can deny The Rhythm of the Saints’ overall underlying beauty.
 
Albumaday... rating: 7/10
 

1.       The Obvious Child – 4:10

2.       Can’t Run But – 3:36

3.       The Coast – 5:04

4.       Proof – 4:39

5.       Further to Fly – 5:36

6.       She Moves On – 5:03

7.       Born at the Right Time – 3:48

8.       The Cool, Cool River – 4:33

9.       Spirit Voices – 3:56

10.   The Rhythm of the Saints – 4:12

 
Listen to ‘The Coast’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V__mhwbQ6w
  

Also released on 16^th October:

1989: The Blue Nile - Hats

8th October - Talking Heads' Remain in Light

Artist – Album: Talking Heads – Remain in Light

Released: 8^th October 1980

Sounds Like: Well, how did I get here?

Talking Heads were once known as a punk band. Admittedly, they were associated with the much more melodic and aptitude-based New York punk scene, rather than the gob in your face, can’t-play-their-own-instruments UK punk scene, but it’s startling nonetheless. In three short years since 1977 (a.k.a the dawn of punk) Talking Heads had morphed into a wildly inventive art rock collective, and their creativity reached an apex with 1980’s Remain in Light. The three chord simplicity of the Ramones’ debut it is not.

The Heads had found themselves obsessed with Afrobeat – particularly the stylings of the king of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti – and endeavoured to replicate the sound of their polyrhythms, fed through a Brian Eno produced filter. Guitars that don’t always sound like guitars are layered over the top of each other, and frequently season the album with random quirks. Husband and wife rhythm section Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth are typically prominent, supplementing their elastic playing with the frenetic beats synonymous with both Africa and their new home in the Caribbean. On top of it all, David Byrne spins wildly, churning out disparate disconnected images and struggling in vain to keep it all together.

It’s hard to pick individual moments from the dense, almost uniform body of the album, with one exception: the stunning ‘Once in a Lifetime’, with Byrne stealing the show as a preacher/marionette. The song, and album that went with it, is a fascinatingly singular effort from a band breaking far beyond the confines of the restrictive punk scene and with all members right at the top of their game. Once in a lifetime stuff indeed.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) – 5:49

2.       Crosseyed and Painless – 4:48

3.       The Great Curve – 6:28

4.       Once in a Lifetime – 4:23

5.       Houses in Motion – 4:33

6.       Seen and Not Seen – 3:25

7.       Listening Wind – 4:43

8.       The Overload – 6:02

Listen to ‘Once in a Lifetime’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98AJUj-qxHI

Also released on 8^th October:

1980: Prince – Dirty Mind

Also released on 8^th October:

1971: John Lennon - Imagine

Also released on 8^th October:

2001: Royksopp – Melody A.M.

12th August - Paul Simon's Graceland

Artist – Album: Paul Simon - Graceland

Released:  12^th August 1986

Sounds Like: Music for the world, by the world

There are some albums that, for all their failings, controversies and cheese, you just can’t help but love. Paul Simon’s Graceland is the Holy Grail for me, perfect in its imperfections, the most enjoyable and fresh album of the musical hinterland that is the Eighties.

I’m not inclined to go in to the hullabaloo that surrounds the album as: a) being only six years old when the apartheid in South Africa was finally lifted, I don’t have the requisite understanding of the intricacies and finer details and wouldn’t want to pretend that I fully understand both sides of the argument, b) that could make a bloody boring blog and c) because I don’t want to take anything away from the music. All that you really need to know is that when Simon enlisted the help of African musicians (including Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Youssou N’Dour, alongside well known Western artists such as The Everly Brothers and Linda Ronstadt) he brought to the attention of the world at large the beautiful, pure sounds of the Dark Continent. In turn, they gave him a new lease of life and granted his always exemplary lyrics with a vividly colourful background on which to rest. The gorgeous acapella of ‘Homeless’, the wonderfully evocative ‘Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes’, the playful ‘I Know What I Know’, the locomotive title track and the portrayal of an ever shrinking world in ‘The Boy in the Bubble’ are all stone cold classics, and they are songs that it is impossible to imagine could have existed without the help of his scouted companions.

The biggest hit was ‘You Can Call Me Al’, an exuberant pop rock anthem (with a killer Chevy Chase fronted video) that featured only smatterings of the African influence, save the bass-led instrumental breakdown (slappa da bass) and the Ladysmith backing vocals. But the song sets the scene for his journey to South Africa, as Simon wittily questions the direction his life was taking (“Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard”) before he finds himself on a “street in a strange world, maybe it’s the Third World”. His denouement of “angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, he says Amen, Hallelujah” suggest an epiphany; that Simon has realised that this is where he’s supposed to be. After listening to this resulting gem of an album, it’s hard to argue that he was wrong.

Albumaday... rating: 10/10

1.       The Boy in the Bubble – 3:59

2.       Graceland – 4:48

3.       I Know What I Know – 3:13

4.       Gumboots – 2:44

5.       Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes – 5:45

6.       You Can Call Me Al – 4:39

7.       Under African Skies – 3:37

8.       Homeless – 3:48

9.       Crazy Love, Vol. II – 4:18

10.   That Was Your Mother – 2:52

11.   All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints – 3:15

Listen to ‘You Can Call Me Al’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-gYOrU8bA

Also released on the 12^th August:

1991: Metallica – Metallica

20th March - Kirsty MacColl's Tropical Brainstorm

Artist – Album: Kirsty MacColl – Tropical Brainstorm

Released:  20^th March 2000

Sounds Like: A Fiesta!

I grew up listening to the wonderful Kirsty MacColl. When I was seven, MacColl released a best of named Galore, which was promptly snapped up by my mom. She adored her excellent alternative pop/rock tunes, her pristine voice, which could flit between angelic and earthy at the drop of a hat, and the fact that she just looked like a lovely lady. MacColl’s songs had a brilliant sense of humour to them – they were often about failed romantic encounters, but there was a lack of bitterness and more of a tongue in cheek, your loss attitude. Next to the Lightning Seeds’ Jollyfication and Crowded Houses’ Woodface, Galore must have been the most played album in our house during my formative years.

And then, in 2000 she died. She was killed in a speedboating accident in Mexico, heroically sacrificing her own life to save that of her partner. And I didn’t hear the album as much anymore.

A decade later I visited a friend I’d met at university in her plush new flat in Zurich. She was showing off her favourite songs on Youtube when she put ‘In These Shoes?’ on. I was taken aback. This was MacColl again! I recognised her stunning vocals, her jokey lyrics, the uptempo music. But I didn’t know the song. I didn’t know that she had released this great album just months before she died, and it made me happy to have rediscovered her.

There are plenty of high points here, including the aforementioned ‘In These Shoes?’. ‘England 2 Columbia 0’ culminates with the immortal rhyming couplet “Now it's England 2 Colombia 0, And I know just how those Colombians feel”, and ‘Us Amazonians’ has the Vampire Weekend sound years before they were on the scene. ‘Autumngirlsoup’ is a lovely showcase for her voice, although not really representative of the album’s South American influenced mambo style.

This is an ecstatic party album for you; a blessing for me.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       Mambo De La Luna – 4:38

2.       In These Shoes? – 3:39

3.       Treachery – 3:51

4.       Here Comes That Man Again – 4:49

5.       Autumngirlsoup – 3:54

6.       Celestine – 3:35

7.       England 2 Columbia 0 – 3:45

8.       Não Esperando – 4:04

9.       Alegria – 2:01

10.   Us Amazonians – 4:09

11.   Wrong Again – 4:16

12.   Designer Life – 2:35

13.   Head – 3:56

14.   Golden Heart – 3:24

15.   Things Happen – 2:58

16.   Good For Me – 4:10

Listen to ‘Us Amazonians’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZh9ayEmKHY

Also released on the 20^th March:

2007: Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank