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Music Reviews

James Blunt calls ‘All The Lost Souls’

Poor James, he’s had a tough life. At the posh Harrow School he was called a rude word that rhymes with “Blunt”. After training at Sandhurst (the very same academy that would later welcome Princes Willy and Harry) he was sent to keep the peace in Kosovo – virtually single-handedly – as every press release is sure to remind us. And even when the singing soldier’s debut album ‘Back To Bedlam’ was bought by 11 million people (allowing him to buy a villa in Ibiza), he was derided and ridiculed by millions more.

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Music Reviews

Bruce Springsteen creates ‘Magic’

There are two Bruce Springsteens. One, let’s call him Bombastic Bruce, went through 15 months and marathon 16-hour recording sessions to produce just eight overblown rock tracks. The other, Bare-Bones Bruce if you will, made some bitter, morose songs at home with just a guitar, harmonica and his old tape recorder before bunging them on an album as is.

Both Springsteens are hugely talented – ‘Born To Run’ and ‘Nebraska’ aren’t considered rock classics for nothing. But you only need two fingers to count the number of times they’ve actually met up to share a bottle of whisky. There was ‘The River’. And now there’s ‘Magic’.

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Music Reviews

Tori Amos forms the ‘American Doll Posse’

Twenty-three songs. Four alter-egos. One batty musician. But for all its multiple personalities, bizarre high-brow concepts, and sheer overkill, the new Tori Amos effort adds up to one of the singer-songwriter’s best.

Staying true to the concept album format she’s favoured recently — so far we’ve had cover songs performed by different female personae, a woman’s journey through America, and something about bees and hives — ‘American Doll Posse’ finds the wacky woman getting political through four characters each representing different traits of her character.

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Music Reviews

It’s ‘The Best Of What’s Around’

Over the course of six albums, Dave Matthews has achieved so much more than success. The South African born singer has proved that an average-looking, everyday-kinda guy can compete with the image obsessed waifs on the charts. He’s brought back the improvisational jam band after the demise of The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. He’s introduced the world to Vusi Mahlasela. And he’s given the flute its rightful place on the top 40.

But while the mainstream popularity of Matthews’ folk-jazz-blues-rock might still be surprising to some, ‘The Best Of What’s Around’ reveals just why the Durban boy has hit it so big: he and his band have produced some genuinely good songs — musically ambitious but irresistibly appealing.

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Music Reviews

Depeche Mode at their best

Four weedy boys from Basildon (England’s answer to Poffadder) burst onto the charts — decked out in shirts, ties and suspenders — with a cheesy, irrepressibly bouncy synth-pop song about nothing really, ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’. Who’d have thought that a little over ten years later their band would be one of the biggest in the world; their tattooed, heroin-addicted lead singer would resemble an emaciated Jesus; and their dark songs would be about sex, death, religion.

It’s a transformation that can be heard on ‘The Best Of Volume 1’ and that began, gradually, after that first hit song back in 1981. Chief songwriter Vince Clarke left the group — to continue his brand of cheesy, irrepressibly bouncy synth-pop with Yazoo and Erasure — leaving the far more cynical, nihilistic Martin L. Gore to come up with the tunes.

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Music Reviews

U2 pick the hits

The video for U2’s ‘Window in the Skies’ is a montage of vintage clips, cleverly edited so that veritable icons like Bob Marley, Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, The Clash and Johnny Cash appear to be singing the words. Cheeky maybe, but take one listen to ‘U218 Singles’ and it’s easy to hear why these four Irishmen have joined that pantheon of rock royalty.

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Movies Reviews

‘Casino Royale’ takes a gamble

“Gimme a martini,” demands a flustered James Bond.

“Shaken or stirred?” asks the barman.

“Do I look like I care?” Bond snaps back.

It’s hardly what we’ve come to expect from the debonair super spy – but, then again, ‘Casino Royale’ is hardly what we’ve come to expect from the 007 franchise.

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Music Reviews

The Killers go in search of ‘Sam’s Town’

They appeared as if from nowhere (the cultural wasteland that is Las Vegas) to became the brightest young things of 2005. Their irrepressible songs that nicked the best of Duran Duran, New Order, Depeche Mode and vintage U2 became so ubiquitous that their lyrics “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” even infiltrated Robbie Willams’ Live8 set.

Some bands cope with such early success by repeating the formula, recording a difficult fuck you album to kill off the fan base, or just imploding. But these four boys from Sin City did the only thing they know how: go bigger. In every way.

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Movies Reviews

‘Match Point’ serves for victory

It’s back. After battling for more than a decade to make even a halfway decent film, Woody Allen has stumbled across his talent again. And for the New Yorker who has made his career, and slowly undone it over the past ten years, with New York films about New York people, it was lurking in the most unlikely of places – London.

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Music Reviews

David Gilmour is on an island

While Bob Geldof was convincing David Gilmour to regroup with the rest of Pink Floyd for Live 8, the guitarist played him the music he was working on. Geldof’s typically blunt response: take some speed, man.

Now, just about a year later, some of those songs appear on ‘On An Island’, an album as tranquil as the title — and Geldof’s appraisal — suggest. But like those classic blues albums that make ideal Sunday morning listening, this 10-track collection is anything but bland, forgettable background muzak. Being quieter and more personal than anything in the Pink Floyd canon only makes it more arresting than such mass consumption bombast as ‘Another Brick In The Wall’.

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