|
|
Post by tannis on Sept 3, 2009 23:27:35 GMT
School of rock: X is for X factor
Musicians now seem doomed to be second-rate versions of someone else. Have we really run out of charisma? Who has the most musical magnetism in 2009?
Case study two: Kate Bush
Kate Bush has a genuinely unsettling weirdness that, for some, lends itself to extreme dislike. Yet she had the pop chops to become a household name for many years, encompassing diversions into pioneering early samplers and Bulgarian vocal groups. But now we've got to the stage of blandness where those being compared to her for otherworldly kookiness are in fact closer to Fleetwood Mac and All About bloody Eve. Perhaps Björk is the only mainstream artist who has embodied Bush's spirit of experiment, oddity and intelligence.
Where is the charisma allied to the intelligence, musicality and talent? Who are the bearers of the X factor in 2009?www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/26/school-rock-x-factorQ. What’s with all the Kate Bush comparisons you’re getting for this new album?
A. Well, I love Kate Bush, but I feel like I loved her when I was younger and she kind of seeped into my DNA. When I was 12, I was listening to “Hounds of Love’’ a lot. It was almost like my schooling in sounds, in some ways. But I equally was listening to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna and then getting really into Nirvana and grunge. I’m sure there are [Bush comparisons] because we’re both English women. We’re both into mystical, beautiful things. But I don’t think she more than anyone else has influenced me. I was obsessed with Steve Reich for three years. I just hope that people see my music as my own thing. (Bat For Lashes)
www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2009/08/11/bat_for_lashes_a_full_spectrum_artist/
You've got to hear it, treasure it, and tell everyone about it until they're singing it in their sleep because... there aren't enough songs out there that are both radio-friendly and downright weird. You'll be humming along to Florence Welch's hook-heavy, Kate Bush-esque vocals and then all of a sudden you'll be all like, "Wait, was that a harp?!"
www.dose.ca/features/backtoschool09/story.html?id=1821ab89-e4f9-4a10-a4fb-c5ce50fc8b82
She looks sensational, her album Lungs has been nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize (to be announced on 8 September) and she has a voice loud enough to smash chandeliers from a distance. But most of all she has an eerie presence – ‘like Kate Bush on Red Bull,’ I wrote in my notes at that gig – that makes her seem just a little bit special.
www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1208710/Florence-Welch-An-insiders-guide-offbeat-darling-British-music.html
Far is piano pop chanteuse REGINA SPEKTOR’s (pictured right) third album, although it is the first I have heard. Reviewers are often negative about her “weird” and “ultra-quirky” style, but at the end of the day she delivers catchy and tuneful indie folk rock in one of the most beautiful voices since Kate Bush at her best. AP * * * *
www.thetimes.co.za/Entertainment/Article.aspx?id=1054213
Elsewhere, you can hear Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, or Waters & Gilmour-era Pink Floyd – or rather, you can imagine Tara Busch looking out much the same windows they did, and trying to see Pilfershire Lane (the actual place) the way the name sounds (retro, English, sampler-delic). Yes, "she grew up in the hills of Simsbury, Connecticut" but you can feel the same green and drizzly countryside surrounding. Shorthand for all of the above: Kate Bush, on The Dreaming… or the tradition of over-educated English eccentrics lying before her, with very few traces of what came after. An impressive debut, of course. If Tara ever produces the next Meat Loaf (like Todd Rundgren), or the next Kate Bush (like David Gilmour), we’ll be listening, but until then, she remains an acquired taste.
drownedinsound.com/releases/14567/reviews/4137555?ticker
The same stage proves its ecclecticism by following this with Marina And The Diamonds. The Kate Bush comparisons are warranted on '17' but Marina proves she isn't a one trick pony as she and her versatile band pull off a charming set of ambitious, bright-eyed pop.
www.clickmusic.com/articles/12001/Reading-Festival-2009---Saturday.html
“Zola Jesus hearkens back to sounds of that diverse SF label from way underground. A German online rag slotted her between Lydia Lunch and Kate Bush. Fair enough, but I don’t know how much Lydia was concerned with dancing and Kate would wither under the “Sturm und Drang” of Zola Jesus.”-Die Stasiwww.last.fm/music/Zola+Jesus/+wikiBat For Lashes - Siren Song
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Y-mtihWiI
Eet (Official Video) - Regina Spektor
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBEAaKcnNRg&feature=related
Tara Busch - Pilfershire Lane
www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7f8ZJt0NZY
Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfBY96qxVRQ
Marina And The Diamonds "Seventeen"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAqUmEVwBQ
Zola Jesus : The Spoilswww.youtube.com/watch?v=RMgHv9c2acY
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Sept 17, 2009 13:27:31 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Sept 18, 2009 2:27:11 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Sept 22, 2009 19:27:08 GMT
Kate Bush-on-helium...Having already solidified her position at the forefront of music in her native Norway, Sissy Wish is bringing her innovative style of indie pop to American shores. She will tour in support of her first US release, "Beauties Never Die" ... "Beauties Never Die," which was produced by Scandinavian super-producer Jorgen Traen (Sondre Lerche, Jazzkammer, Kayzers Orchestra, The Golden Serenades,) has already been wildly well-received in the US. "Beauties Never Die balances maturity and wonder," said Pitchfork in an eight-star review, going on to say, "Bolstering her charming eccentricities is an eclecticism that makes Beauties wide-ranging yet surprisingly cohesive." NYLON raved "sixties pop-goes-synth has never sounded better, with Wish's Kate Bush-on-helium voice breaking beautifully over the catchy hooks of songs like 'Float' and 'Dwts'."
Sissy Wish Announces US Tourwww.pluginmusic.com/news/article/sissy-wish-announces-us-tourSissy Wish - Floatwww.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGsiMTV5Ps
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Sept 24, 2009 7:27:07 GMT
Memoirs is for Mariah what Aerial was for Kate BushIn ways, Memoirs is for Mariah what Aerial was for Kate Bush: an epic thinkpiece. In one regard, the lyrics all appear uniformly clunky. But upon closer inspection, that is part of this post-pop revolution to which Mariah Carey is Eva Perón (sorry, Madge!) It’s as if she adapted the charm of spoken-word honesty and then found a way to make spoken-word listenable. Hence the bulk of this album being highly relatable, too. Further proof: the line “I wanna be all on your lips like gelato,” in “More Than Just Friends.” Another track, “H.A.T.E.U.” pushes post-pop just a little further. You see, the five letters spell out a secret message. One which may or may not be “having a typical emotional upset,” although a competing argument contends it’s “hold and tenderly embrace u.”
Ultimately, this is one of those mysteries that time and flack will reveal as this track may be the record’s next single.
But the most post-pop moment here comes in the serene jam “Up Out of My Face.” In it, Mariah belts, “If we were two Lego blocks even the Harvard University graduating class of 2010 couldn’t put us back together again.”
More remarkable here is her commitment to avoid singing outright. Throughout Memoirs, Mariah’s voice exists in three vocal extremes: whispers, moans, and yells. She doesn’t need to concern herself with all those octaves in between one and eight. Basically, this is an album that, like spoiled apples for compost aficionados, gets better with time. But if you are the sort who needs letter grades or gold stars to determine how great this record is, the most I can offer are three words: Better than Whitney’s.www.mariahconnection.com/is-mariah-carey%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98memoirs-of-an-imperfect-angel%E2%80%99-a-genius-breakthroughMariah Carey Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel Preview HQwww.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaqE3iwjYs
|
|
|
|
Post by thediscobot on Oct 13, 2009 19:40:29 GMT
I'm a massive fan of Regina Spektor, Florence and the Machine and Bat for Lashes, will definitely check out the rest of the artists you posted. Can't really compare them to Kate but they're all good in their own right.
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Oct 15, 2009 8:27:12 GMT
Welcome discobot  Yes, there are lots of pop artists being compared to KaTe these days, even though they're mostly all good in their own right. I guess they do come from the same musical territory, or maybe it's down to google hits or nostalgia on the part of reviewers. Or maybe KB really has been a marked influence in the development of their talent.Few people can pull off the tousled hair and billowing-caped flower-power look these days. Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, however, looks at home being all twitchy fingers and spiralling wrists, resplendent in some sort of diaphanous chiton. She is majestic, like John William Waterhouse's Circe, with the awestruck audience as her swine... There have been several comparisons already with Kate Bush, and Welch is certainly as weird, witchy and wistful as that other Babooshka, but she has an energy and vitality that other stage sirens in the indie category often lack...
Bewitched by a true siren www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/florence--the-machine-shepherds-bush-empire-london-1795016.htmlPallot has more talent than is decent for one individual. A gifted singer, pianist and songwriter, she’s from the same musical territory as Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Kate Bush, with a strong streak of independence and perfectionism. Her comments may have been witty, but this girl wanted to get things right, and it showed off in a well-judged and executed set. Songs from her new record, The Graduate, were played alongside tunes from her superb Fires album, including the anthemic Everybody’s Gone To War...
Review: Nerina Pallot
www.yorkpress.co.uk/whatson/music/4680763.Review__Nerina_Pallot__The_Duchess__York/
Nerina Pallot - Everybody's Gone to Warwww.youtube.com/watch?v=9F3JH-e2zs4
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Oct 23, 2009 11:27:14 GMT
From The Times
October 23, 2009
Bjork's shows make Brit singers look pitiful
The trouble with La Roux, Little Boots, Speech Debelle and Pixie Lott is, they just can't (or won't) put on a decent show
Malcolm Mackenzie
If you don't have a ticket to one of La Roux's sell-out shows next month, don't worry, you're not missing much. This year has given us a bumper crop of British female singers, including La Roux and Little Boots, Speech Debelle and Pixie Lott. On record these women are terrific, but live on stage they haven't a clue. No, that's not right. They can't be bothered - zero effort or planning, no artistic vision, zilch.
A "show" by any of those artists - or, indeed, by Lily Allen, Duffy, Adele or Amy Winehouse - will involve the singer coming on stage, saying a little something ("Hello, how are you?") and singing a couple of songs while slowly wandering up and down as if she is retracing her steps looking for lost keys. There may be some more awkward banter, more singing and, if the song demands it, a shuffle of foot, pop of the hip and the sway of an arm. More walking back and forth, a few more embarrassed words, and eventually after singing the final song, which is not actually the final song, she will walk off.
After a little backstage sit-down and, if you're lucky, a change of top, the singer will re-emerge, perhaps do a cover version of someone else's song and finish with an encore of one or two big hits before she walks off, this time in earnest, waving and thanking everyone. Not worth leaving the sofa for really - her or you.
Every week contestants on The X Factor gush: "This is my dream." But what exactly is that dream? The dream is to sing - they are not lying about that - but eyes bulge with tears at the thought of escaping the nine-to-five slog, being violently wealthy and famous. Creating a jaw-dropping stage performance doesn't really figure.
Sheer force of personality (Lily Allen) can keep a gig interesting for a while, and there is an awful lot to be said for witnessing huge voices such as Amy's and Adele's at breathing distance, but the synth-driven pop of Little Boots and La Roux gains nothing in the flesh. The La Roux album transports you to the outer nebulae of a glittery world where heartbroken computers and drum machines attend to shrieking siren songs of lust and longing, but on stage La Roux's Elly Jackson is a surly Saturday girl. A one-woman Pinter production in which nothing much happens, but you get the distinct feeling that she'd rather be somewhere else.
It doesn't have to be this way. Of course, the Britneys and Beyoncés of this world can afford a grand travelling spectacular of circus folk, megascreens, staircases and spinning hoojamaflips, but you don't have to spend a fortune to pull off an engaging, thought-out show.
Björk catapults herself feet first into every live performance that she undertakes and this is a woman twice the age of most of the aforementioned. Yes, she livens up proceedings with lasers, lights and a choir of backing singers but strip away the bunting and you're still left with a passion-filled artist who realises that her job in the studio and her job in front of an audience is vastly different. The same is true of Grace Jones, who gives the performance of a lifetime every time.
Whatever you think of her, Lady GaGa is making an effort. Whether she's performing in a moving metal dress of concentric hoops that orbit her tiny frame like aluminium atoms, rising from a pod like Miss Uranus 1979, or simply brandishing her disco stick, the 23-year-old and her dedicated team of technicians and designers (the Haus of GaGa) always delight and surprise.
The British trailblazer not getting by with the bare minimum is the Mercury nominated, Brit-winning Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine. Her thunderclap pipes and dramatic pop songs transport brilliantly to a live setting. Backlit in washes of red, green and gold on a stage cluttered with bouquets and birdcages, Welch's performances are exuberantly intuitive and physical, her natural spontaneity matched by a rare attention to detail.
Bat for Lashes and Paloma Faith have got some catching up to do, but they too are on the right path, adding drama to their affecting shows with backdrops, props and a reverence for the performance. Even the X Factor whelp Alexandra Burke gives it a bit more than her peers, chucking in actual choreography.
This year is the 30th anniversary of Kate Bush's one and only tour. Now would be a good time to plug the extended remastered DVD of one of the most influential and inspirational pop concerts of all time. But it doesn't exist. A heavily edited version was available on VHS, but now you have to make do with excerpts on YouTube. One user comments: "I would do anything to go back to 1979 and see her shows! I would gladly sell my soul to do it! Why can't someone invent a time machine?"
Unless they knuckle down and give their live shows as much thought as their records, it's unlikely that anyone will be saying this about Little Boots and La Roux in three years' time, let alone three decades.
La Roux's tour begins in Leeds on Nov 13. Lily Allen's tour starts on Nov 16 in Sheffield. Florence and the Machine play Mencap's Little Noise Sessions at Union Chapel, London N1 on Nov 22. Little Boots' tour starts in Liverpool on Tuesentertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6885898.ece#
|
|
|
|
Post by tannis on Feb 12, 2010 0:27:21 GMT
Compared with Kate BushLeafy suburbs, £4,000-a-term schools and stockbroker fathers... the VERY middle-class girls storming the Brits
By Alison Boshoff
Last updated at 10:38 PM on 11th February 2010
They call Elly Jackson, better known as La Roux, 'the falsetto from the ghetto'. It turns out, though, that she hails from a smart and leafy part of Herne Hill, a suburb of South-East London that is not a ghetto by any stretch of the imagination.
What's more, she attended a prestigious feepaying school that set her actor parents back an eye-watering £4,430 a term. Apparently she sang beautifully in the choir.
And when she attends the Brit awards next Tuesday - she is nominated for two awards - she will be in the company of a group of similarly impeccably middle-class pop talents. Pixie Lott, Marina Diamandis, Florence Welch and Natasha Khan are all, like La Roux, young women who have had the benefit of the best schooling.
Here, we take a look at the crowd of nice girls who are set to shine this year.
LA ROUX, 21 (real name: Eleanor Kate Jackson)
PARENTS: Trudie Goodwin played June Ackland in The Bill for 489 episodes, while Kit Jackson, also an actor, has been in Heartbeat and Morse.
HOME: A large terrace home in Herne Hill, South-East London, with her parents and sister Jessica.
SCHOOL: Royal Russell, in Croydon, which cost £4,430 a term and was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales in 1859. She used to sing in the choir at lunchtimes in the historic chapel. She calls it a 'Right-wing, Nazi school'.
RISE TO FAME: Started writing her own music as a teenager. She met Ben Langmaid, her musical collaborator, in 2006, and he gave her music a synth makeover.
Her dad helped her to get her deal with Polydor by passing her demos to a friend with industry connections. She and Langmaid signed a deal in 2007 and had their first hit, In For The Kill, last year. The debut album, La Roux, has sold more than 350,000 copies in the UK.
STYLE: Like a younger Tilda Swinton with a Flock Of Seagulls fringe. Her icons are Annie Lennox and Grace Jones.
SHE SAYS: 'I went to an incredibly strict, religious private school, and it sucked the life out of me. I was big, fat, ginger, had size nine feet and looked like a boy. Nothing was really working in my favour, was it?'
THEY SAY: She is nicknamed 'Danny La Roux' because of her diva attitude. No one at Royal Russell would comment.
NOMINATED FOR: British Breakthrough Act, British Single.
PIXIE LOTT, 19 (real name: Victoria Louise Lott)
PARENTS: Stephen and Beverley Lott, who were married in 1987. He is a stockbroker and she is a housewife. Her mum nicknamed her Pixie as a baby because she was so cute and tiny.
HOME: A detached house in Brentwood, Essex, shared with her sister Charlie-Ann and brother Stephen.
SCHOOL: London's Italia Conti Academy Of Theatre Arts, Britain's oldest independent theatre arts training school. It costs £3,545 a term. Alumni include Patsy Kensit and Martine McCutcheon.
RISE TO FAME: She started writing her own songs when she was 14. She went for a lot of jobs in music and theatre and was interviewed to be a presenter of the revamped Basil Brush show for ITV.
Her break came when she saw an advert in The Stage looking for 'the next pop diva' aged between 16 and 21. She was 14, told her school that she had a dental appointment, and persuaded her mother to take her to New York to try out.
She sang a Mariah Carey song to David Sonenberg, a music manager who represents the Black Eyed Peas - he signed her.
Her debut single Mama Do went to No1 in the UK and top 40 in 14 other countries. She still lives at home, where her mum does her washing, but hopes to buy a place of her own in London this year.
STYLE: Fluffy blonde hair and panda eyes. A younger, kookier Duffy.
SHE SAYS: 'I definitely couldn't be doing this if I'd got the Basil Brush job because that would have marked me for life.'
THEY SAY: 'She really is one of the loveliest girls you could meet,' says Anne Sherward, Italia Conti principal. 'She comes from a very ordinary background and had a partial scholarship because she was very talented and could not have afforded to study here without one. Her mum is very supportive and she remains down to earth and in touch almost on a weekly basis.'
NOMINATED FOR: British Female Solo Artist, British Single.
FLORENCE WELCH, 23 (real name: Florence Leontine Mary Welch) Florence and The Machine
PARENTS: American academic Evelyn Welch, a Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, who is a renowned author, and Nick Welch, an advertising executive.
HOME: A bohemian set-up in South London. When she was 13, her mother ran off with the next-door neighbour and moved in with him, and Florence found herself with four new step-siblings.
SCHOOL: The historic Alleyn's School in lpswich, motto 'God's Gift', fees £4,479 per term.
RISE TO FAME: She always had a Gothic sensibility and loved reading Victorian murder mysteries. She was a punk aged and started to play in bands.
She met Mairead Nash, of Queens Of Noize, in a pub while studying illustration at Camberwell College Of Arts. She cornered Nash in a loo and sang her Etta James's Something's Got A Hold On Me.
Nash was impressed and asked her to play at a club a week later, which she did as Florence and The Machine.
By then she had already written some of the songs on Lungs. The album was released in July last year and went to No 1 in the UK.
STYLE: She is 6ft tall and affects a Gothic Stevie Nicks-inspired wardrobe.
SHE SAYS: 'My mum would much rather that I was doing something else. She wishes I was just at university.'
THEY SAY: She has been hailed by The Times as 'the most peculiar and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment' and won the Critics' Choice Brit Award last year.
NOMINATED FOR: British Female Solo Act, British Breakthrough Act, Mastercard British Album.
MARINA DIAMANDIS, 24 (real name: Marina Lambrini Diamandis) Marina And The Diamonds
PARENTS: Dimos and Esther met at university in Newcastle - her mother is Welsh, her father a Greek academic. They separated when she was young. She has a younger sister, who is a doctor.
HOME: Marina Lambrini Diamandis grew up in the village of Pandy, near Abergavenny in Wales. Her mother now lives in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire.
SCHOOL: Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls, one of the UK's leading girls' schools. Fees for day girls are £10,902 a year. 'I sort of found my talent there,' she concedes.
RISE TO FAME: At the age of 14 she decided that she wanted to be a singer. 'It probably sounds lame, but I had a strange feeling inside me that I was going to do this.' The turning point came when she started making music with a laptop, recording and producing her own distinctive sound, which has been compared with Kate Bush. Her debut single, Mowgli's Road, gained critical acclaim.
STYLE: Quirkily individual, quieter than the rest of the Brits girls.
SHE SAYS: 'All I want is to be someone who does my job that everyone says is amazing and then I can go home to bed.'
THEY SAY: 'She joined the school at 11 and from the start she showed real potential as a singer and performer,' says her old teacher Mario Conway, head of instrumental music and music technology.
NOMINATED FOR: Critics' Choice.
NATASHA KHAN, 30 (real name: Natasha Khan) Bat For Lashes
PARENTS: Her father is Rahmat, a member of the Khan squash-playing dynasty who moved to the UK from Pakistan in
1970. He met her mother, Josie, when she was working as a receptionist at the squash centre in Wembley, where he coached players.
HOME: A high-rise flat in Wembley, later a home in leafy Rickmansworth, Herts, with her younger sister Surriya and brother Tariq.
SCHOOL: St Clement Danes in Chorleywood, a leading and sought-after voluntary-aided comprehensive which was founded in 1862. Alumni include dramatist Dennis Potter, MP Frank Field and the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock.
RISE TO FAME: Her parents split when she was 11, which strengthened her desire to play and write music. After a period of teenage rebellion, she studied for a degree in music and visual arts at the University of Brighton, and then worked as a nursery teacher for three years.
In 2004 she started Bat For Lashes, her band named simply because she liked the way the words sounded together.
She built up a following in Brighton and was picked up by a small label, and went on to be picked up by Parlophone. She was nominated for a Mercury Music Award in 2007.
STYLE: Gorgeous, a Princess in a glitter headband.
SHE SAYS: 'I was an outsider at school. It got quite lonely.'
THEY SAY: Bjork thinks she is brilliant and Radiohead's Thom Yorke raved about her debut album Fur And Gold, saying it was like Grimms' Fairy Tales.
NOMINATED FOR: British Female Solo Artist.www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1250342/Leafy-suburbs--4-000-term-schools-stockbroker-fathers--VERY-middle-class-girls-storming-Brits.html
|
|
|
|
Post by Adey on Mar 1, 2010 18:49:04 GMT
I understand Lilly Allen is to give up music.
Odd. I wasn't aware that she'd taken it up..
There are so many hugely talented female artists around now. It's almost overwhelming actually, and in the work of so many of them you feel you can trace a line back to Kate herself.
Perhaps this is her true legacy.
|
|
Yes, there are lots of pop artists being compared to KaTe these days, even though they're mostly all good in their own right. I guess they do come from the same musical territory, or maybe it's down to google hits or nostalgia on the part of reviewers. Or maybe KB really has been a marked influence in the development of their talent.
