Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Fiona Apple
Extraordinary Machine
(Epic/Clean Slate, 2005)
Apple’s much-anticipated third album. When the online hoo-hah died down it turned out it was brilliant.
If Fiona Apple’s reputation as a Maya Angelou-quoting, self-help-bible-bashing Women In Rock cover star saw her unfairly ghettoised (and it certainly had - what male songwriter of similar breadth and appeal would be dismissed as a “kook”? Hello, Anthony?!) Then the rumours surrounding the delay of her third album didn’t help. Suppressed by her record label? At loggerheads with her producer? The subject of an online pressure group and apparently on the verge of packing it in to explore the therapeutic benefits of farm animals. Whatever. See wikipedia for the full poop. When it was finally released in Extraordinary Machine was, happily, strong enough to disassociate her from the Lilith Fair stereotype forever. It’s not that her obvious eccentricities and willingness to draw on personal trauma are absent, but they are tempered. Extraordinary Machine is an evolutionary step on from the piano-pounding grit of her debut, Tidal, and the baroque artfulness of The Pawn (here’s the full 90-word title). The elaborate arrangements on the opening title track offer a clue to the original sessions, with pizzicato strings, marimba and dramatic flourishes propelling it to centre stage. It’s a masterpiece, but a whole album might leave you uncomfortably full. Instead we get roomier piano-driven arrangements and familiar failed relationships on Window (“Better that I broke the window than him / Or her / Or me.”) or Not About Love (“I miss that stupid ape”), plus an insistent chorus and Beach Boys-ready theremin on the knowing Please Please Please (“Please, please, please / No more melodies / They lack impact, they're petty / They've been made up already”). It’s moody, oddly funny, self-aware and crucially, transcends the hype.
Jenny Bulley
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 17/11/2008
Further Listening
Antony & The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now (Rough Trade)
Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch (WEA)
PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love (Island)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Ache not ape! As in "I miss that stupid ache!"
Posted by Amy at 8:08 PM GMT 17/11/2008 Report Abuse
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