Retrospective - Starsailor

The new acoustic movement was hailed as the next big thing, and the left overs are a bunch of bands with albums that at the time were monumental to the listening public but today seem to have been left languishing at the bottom of the late 1990s early 2000s pile, forgotten about when comparing genres.

A few survived, some spectacularly, some less so. Coldplay are the forever eminent, becoming the superstars they probably were never supposed to be had they released the albums outwith this rather amazing moment in UK rock.

One band that today can still make me smile while listening to their records is Starsailor, a missing member of the Acoustic movement. The debut is stunning, beautiful, and acoustic beauty with the warm vocals from James Walsh and the little guitars licks really light up an rather depressing album. Love Is Here has not only one of my favourite vocals, but one of my favourite songs as well, and probably will be for a long time to come. The massive choruses were tamed by the crowds, and the emotion heard in some of the tracks can be at times of weakness overwhelming.

The follow-up might be one of the best 2nd albums of all time, with the same intimate tracks, such as Shark Food and Fidelity, but adding the stadium fillers that their counter parts Coldplay mastered. The stadium fillers don’t sit so well, but the song Four to the Floor is a great tune, with a rhythm that will get you taping your feet, especially it being book ended in an album of intricate music and lightly played chords that seem to exaggerate the rockiness of a track that is stand-out on this record.

The reason for this misty eyed feeling is that while I know the first two records very well, the third, On The Outside, is less well known to me – in fact, I don’t think I had it properly. Later this year I hope Starsailor return with an album that they deserve, and the commercial success that they deserve too – but the scene has moved on, and other misfits from that period, like Turin Brakes and Elbow, are having to deal with that fact too. I wonder what the years have done to the voice and music of the band – I am awaiting their fourth album with mild anticipation.

Alcoholic
Fever

Retrospective - Weezer - The Blue Album

Weezer have been around for a long time. Since I was 7 actually, which is quite a scary thought. I've enjoyed their catchy beats and memorable lyrics since they released the album commonly dubbed "The Green Album" a number of years ago and I've been hooked ever since. As I do with lots of bands, I browsed through their back catalogue after listening to the Green album and was delighted with what I found. With "The Blue Album" every song flows prefectly into the next, from the catchy "My Name is Jonas" into the nice but forgettable "No One Else". The album also includes what could be regarded as one of their biggest hits "Buddy Holly", a powerful pop/rock anthem.

There's something about Weezer that makes it very hard not to like this album. It is accessible as a pop record yet has the solid guitar parts that make it acceptable to be a rock record too. I strongly suggest you try it out if you enjoy some of their later hits such as Dope Nose, Take Control and Island In The Sun. A few songs for you to sample:

Buddy Holly
Say It Ain't So
Surf Wax America

Retrospective - Pulp / Different Class / 1995

So I missed Pulp. I don’t mean emotionally, but I think I was steered away from them. I am not exactly sure why, but it might have something to with the same reason I also had to force the hand to even begin to listen to Jamiroquai. My father is a muso, and only listens to music by Chris Rea or other blues artists. Occasionally his tastes get wider and excompass something slightly more new, like Keane or Muse, or even (rather shockingly) Lostprophets.

Pulp, then, was a bit of an enigma, and only last year did I get a hold of Different Class. I suppose this might be a proper review, or even a discovery, but it is with out a doubt a good album. I notice how great the lyrics are, how different the music itself, and how annoying it must have been to be Jarvis Cocker at a time when Britpop ruled the charts and bundled in with those louts.

Blur and Oasis were the south and the north, whereas Plup were the outsiders. The underdogs, or even, the alternative. They are alternative in everyway possible way – especially with the album of tracks about Disco 2000 (the great pop song) and the rather ludicrous I Spy, which changes halfway through, starting as a ditty about girls and that, until… well, her husband walks in. Oops.

To be frank I don’t think I would have got the lyrics back then – they are similar to Morrissey in the meandering way that they mimick real conversations but have that poetic charm, that slight subersvion and that mad but unhinged but also perfectly real feel about them

But, mixed in with the fantastic lyrics, is the brilliant music which takes the songs to the air and the radio. It is an album for summer evenings, after having a bottle of wine and sitting back in the patio, with a beer and the sun slowly burning away, the heat cooling down and that brilliant summer smell of a garden that has just been hosed down.

These memories should be from my childhood when I listened to this album, but as an adult I get the songs, and you should to. Here is Disco 2000and I Spy. Two of the best on the album which give you a good look at the style of the album.