Monthly Archives: June 2010

Album Review – Kelis

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Kelis -‘Flesh Tone.’ (Will.I.Am/Interscope)

Ten years after she appeared, out of nowhere onto daytime radio yelling ‘I Hate You So Much Right Now!’ on her first hit ‘Caught Out there’ Kelis Rogers has been a force to be reckoned with. Her profile has been up and down over ensuing the decade (her second album wasn’t even released in the U.S. and it performed poorly here) but she’s been responsible for some great tracks -‘Milkshake’ ‘Good Stuff’ ‘Bossy’ and her collaboration with Ol’ Dirty Bastard on ‘Got Your Money.’ As well as O.D.B. she’s worked with a huge collection of the Great (N.E.R.D, Andre 3000) the good (Moby) and a few ‘what the hell…? (Enrique Iglesias).

This is album number five and I find myself making the strange comparison with Teenage Fanclub. Whilst it might be argued that the only thing she and TFC have in common is making some great music, that’s the point of it. Both acts have produced some utterly brilliant stuff over the years, that has been classic and proved the soundtrack to myself and other people’s lives. Yet both have also produced strong stuff of their own -and yet at times seem to be losing momentum when they ape other people too much. In the case of TFC they lost momentum when they started to ape Neil Young too much over Dinosaur Jr. In Kelis’ case, it’s wondering why she’s trying to copy the poppier sounds of the last year (Lady Gaga, la Roux).

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with this album. There isn’t -and there’s some really cool, fun tunes on here – single ‘Acapella’ you’ve probably heard by now, and I don’t doubt that both ‘Home’ and ‘4th of July (Fireworks)’ will follow it into the charts too. Who she works with his decision, and if she decided that she wasn’t going to work with the Neptunes, but instead the likes of Benny Benassi, Will.I.Am and David Guetta that’s her business. This is much more dancey and poppy than the Hip-Hop/Urban slant of her earlier work, and maybe that’s why I feel a bit miffed. She’s perfectly at liberty not to remake Tasty and Kaleidoscope.

But I just feel that there’s not an awful lot of Kelis in here.

*** (***1/2 if it was anyone else).

Flesh Tone is out now.

Kelis -‘Acapella (Friends Electirc remix).’ mp3

Album review – Teenage Fanclub

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Teenage Fanclub -‘Shadows’ (Pema)

This year marks twenty years since the release of Teenage Fanclub’s seminal debut single ‘Everything Flows.’ At the time they were seen as being the bright young things; and famous fans included none other than Kurt Cobain. They’ve tasted chart success and critical adulation -but how are things as we find them on their latest LP?

Well, Teenage Fanclub started off as a marriage of Dinosuar Jr. and Big Star, but from 1995’s Grand Prix onwards, they substituted Dinosaur Jr for Neil Young. The days of the band rocking out or producing a song as insane as ‘Satan’ (from 1991’s awesome Bandwagonesque) seem to be long behind them. That’s not to say that their best days are behind them; they still pack a mighty punch live and I’d be willing to bet that the aforementioned Kurt Cobain would not be rewriting ‘Teen Spirit’ nineteen years later, were he still with us today (sigh).

By now you’ve probably (or at least hopefully) heard ‘Baby Lee’ which has been doing the rounds for a few months across the blogs. It’s classic Fanclub and another worthy addition to their cannon, and there’s certainly quite a few more great songs on here, like opener ‘Sometimes I Don’t Need To believe In Anything.’ But the feeling persists that whilst this is certainly a fine collection of songs, and they do deserve their status in not only the scottish music scene and beyond…that this isn’t quite worthy of the heights they have scaled in the past.

Is it worth hearing? Most definitely. Is it worth owning? If you’re a Fanclub fan, sure. It is perhaps unlikely to win them legions of new fans.

***1/2

Shadows is out now on PeMa.

Teenage Fanclub -‘Baby Lee.’ mp3

Album Review -Sean Jackson

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Sean Jackson -‘Slots’ (Poppydisc)

Sean Jackson was the frontman of 18 Wheeler, who seemed to be sadly destined to be perceived as also-rans in 1990s’ indie pop. They were headlining the night their support band Oasis got signed at King Tut’s in 1993; they were introduced by Tony Blair (unfortunately as ‘Wheeler 18)’ and that breakthrough hit always eluded them. (I always thought it was going to come with a song called ‘Crabs’ sadly, it didn’t). They were big in Japan and Sean Jackson has been described by Alan McGee as the most underrated songwriter of his generation.

Post-split and a spell teaching in Russia, Sean is back with his first album in thirteen years. The results are a mixed bag. Whilst overall this gets the thumbs up, the problem is that while it’s a nice, pleasant album, there’s very little here that isn’t being done elsewhere. Opener ‘I Wanna Fuk (It Up)’ is loud and good, and ‘Song For The Dead’ is Teenage-Fanclub like in a good way. The final track ‘Run, Hans Holbein, Run’ sounds like latter-day Cast, and that’s never been a good thing.

Sean Jackson will be supporting Teenage Fanclub later on this year, and Norman Blake has been covering Sean jackson’s songs in his solo sets, apparently. It’s a pleasant enough album – but I’m not sure if it’s strong enough to win over people who aren’t fans already.

***

Slots is out now on Poppydisc

Sean Jackson -‘Song For The Dead.’ mp3