Goldfrapp/Alison Goldfrapp S/D

Destroy: Alison's grating speaking voice, which damn near ruined everything.

Nonetheless, search: her on Tricky's "Pumpkin," her on Peter Gabriel's "Time of the Turning (reprise)"

Still interested to hear if they've developed at all on the new album, but.

Destroy - The instrumentals on Felt Mountain. I'm also hoping the new record will be far more electronic-based.

Why is Felt Mountain so great in theory, so brilliantly executed, and yet ... so unlistenably dull that you never get round to playing it more than about once a year?

and whats the problem with only listening to it once a year anyway? thats how most albums go for me in fact

i'm just sick of the word 'dull' or 'bland' being applied to anything that sits in that 'chillout/ambient' niche...i can't defend Zero 7 for it maybe, or even Royksopp...but the uniqueness of Alison's voice along with the super-polished Barryesue production create a powerful concoction that doesnt strike me as dull at all

Compare Portishead:. I don't play this much now either, but when I do I still feel "WOW! This was so fresh, so radical!" I'm reminded of how much I was blown away by it when it first came out. (Remember there was NOTHING like Portishead at the time (except Massive Attack who were more pop in those days)

Compare Moloko : Do You Like My Tight Sweater is one of my favourite albums. Yeah, the zany, childishness, toytown nature of it really appeals. Whenever I hear it I'm transported into a world of delight.

Compare Leila Arab : It isn't the instrumentals I don't like. Some of the tends towards the Leila Arab stuff. But I prefer Leila's overall mix of voices and willingness to use crazier / hevier / dirtier sounds.

The point is that I don't want Goldfrapp to just copy one of these bands, I appreciate them doing their own thing. And I know on some level they are unique, and as "good" as Portishead or Moloko or Leila (ie. not just A.N.Other trip-hop rip-off like Lamb or Morcheeba) but I still ... I just don't feel like listening to that record very much.

i was thinking about Boards Of Canada as well and how their music just pirouettes on the fine line between beauty and dullness constantly...you could say (there must have been some strong arguments about that when 'MHTRTC' was released - i'd be amazed if no-one else had a problem with them at first, like i did). its something that would just come down to the perspective of the listener. perhaps BOC are different because although their production is so seemingly lo-fi (deliberately perhaps) they offer so many ideas and after-thoughts as a result...or the listener just finds those thru having to 'work harder' as it were to understand what they're about, or what they/the music could be about. obviously Goldfrapp and co do not rely on that abstraction method so much.

but aesthetic, sopisticated, mannered emotion is surely just as valid - surely the essence of pop music itself. you could argue that Alison Goldfrapp DOES combine these two methods but perhaps it just doesnt come off as well, caught between two stools as it were - and people dont retain the interest as a result.

does that make sense? i'm not sure if its really true but its an interesting though

"A much wiser man than me once said that “singing isn’t about hitting notes; it’s about pulling strings.” On both sides of the Atlantic right now we seem beset with ‘vocalists’ rather than singers, practitioners of a precise science, physicists of the larynx, where the held note and the octave-range are Holy Grails and where personality and character are shied. Mariah Carey, high priestess of vocalists, finally demonstrates a degree of personality by coming dangerously close to an emotional breakdown, and her career freefalls, an album flops, and her malaise deepens. As soon as she sheds the vestiges of real, panicked, terrifying emotion and re-embraces the precision-engineering of her particular brand of commercial nu-soul dance-pop balladry, she is accepted into the welcoming bosom once again, where the hyper real falsification and spectacle of emotion is craved, but the dirty, unpredictable business of reality is shunned.

In the UK, we have this year been force-fed a continual diet of televisual-gauntlet-running vocalists who are forced to sing for their survival in front of an audience baying for success and the Xeroxed semblance of safe emotion, muppets who can hold a note and occasionally span an octave but whose real range extends fully from fake to false. Entertainers. Real emotion, actual feeling, is a scary, frightening prospect, because it might summon in us great feelings, terrific sensations and overwhelming passions that demand of us responsibility, maturity, intelligence, control, astuteness and commitment – things that most of us are both unwilling and unable to supply.

But enough about emotion and hyper reality, I’m here to talk about singers. Gareth Gates ran through an Elvis medley at the British Royal Variety Performance last week, trying his hardest, bless him, throwing shapes and trying to carry songs that, in actual fact, carried him and his weak, insipid larynx so obviously that the fear was apparent in his eyes to anyone looking closely enough. Chris Martin, fat lad from Starsailor, Fran Healy, through to Robbie Williams, Will Young, Charlotte Church, a peculiarly British list of vocalists but you could add any number of Americans, Australians, products of any Western capitalist culture industry system, all are vocalists before being singers and entertainers before being performers, all work resolutely and comfortably within the realm of modern expectations and allowances. They are not allowed to sing and to perform and be successful on the meta-scale of 21st century achievement at the same time. The real purpose and essence of performance is emotion, to convey emotion, whether through open expression of actual subjective inner feelings or through method immersion, artistic and stylist remove. Often the two are closely linked (always, should we view the world as non-dualistic, which I’m favouring more and more) and difficult to distinguish. Cobain’s animalistic holler or Buckley’s looping vocal arc, Tricky’s asthmatic growl or Morrissey’s mannered anguish, would I state the former in each duality as subjective catharsis and the latter as stylised method? Possibly, but the end result is the same; the conveyance of emotion through performance. It is the antithesis of the production of the semblance of emotion through entertainment, which is where the line is drawn between those who are vocalists who entertain and those who are singers who perform, those possessed of character and artistic awareness be it studied or innate, from Louis Armstrong to Nina Simone to Tim Buckley to Kate Bush to Mark Hollis to Bjork. Singers who use their voices as instruments, who realise the potential scope and range of the voice, who imbue it with character whether by necessity or by choice, from the wild to the mannered."

It's very much unformed and just an excuse for a rant really, but I'm thinkign that this touches ont eh area we were discussign yesterday with tom vis a vis ballads. Is there something uncomfortably near to schadenfreude in an overtly emotional display of emotion? Why are some displays more acceptable than others? Why are some mannered semblances more acceptable than others, ie; Beth Gibbons croaking like a dying old woman more acceptable than Mariah squawking like a wronged bitch?

That'd be me. I'm willing to go on record and defend something like that. Here's a list of things I think make music interesting :

- garish colour

- energy

- good choon

- weird

- spooky / scary

- excessively noisy

- excessively quiet

- sad

- happy

- funny

- angry

Really, there's so much music around with these qualities, there really isn't a need to listen to music that lacks them, just because it has one of the following qualities :

- technical competence

- musicianly competence

- fine production values

- subtlety

- sheen

- genre similarity to other good music

the range of emotion is more recognisable with Beth Gibbons. yes you could say she sings all her songs the same way too i guess (well you get the distinction between melancholic poignancy and bitter anguish at least!), but i defy you to say that 'NOBODY LOVES MEEEEHHHH!' doesnt dwarf Carey's attempts (was she even trying though?) at genuine pain...it just seems REALER to me. i could probably demonstrate this better though to be honest.

No, Royksopp (which is the only one that I'm listening to a lot) has good choons. That I can whistle!

I suppose this criticism could be applied to Goldfrapp as well, but I think that her best tracks and the sheer presence of her voice transcend that. An artist doing something 'obvious' doesn't particularly bother me if they do it well enough.

Why can't it be both?

Dull...well, it's not really a word that can be associated with Goldfrapp really, is it?

'Deer Stop'.... how amazing is this track?

It is BRILLIANT ... and yet I still don't think I'll listen to it again in a hurry.

And I can't understand why not on any checklist of criteria (innovative, beautiful, interesting mix of instruments, powerful voice,
weird sounds etc.) What's WRONG with it?

Except it lacks that something ...

Personally I do dislike alot of the stuff being mentioned and I guess the reason it seems dull is that while it's pleasant to listen to I can never imagine loving it, or really wanting to put it on. I think Massive Attack et al are something my generation just have no use for, I mean I probably used to pay them lip service but I heard alot of their stuff in a relative's over Christmas and it really just didn't work for me at all. I have absolutely no interest in what they're doing now. I have no doubt people find alot of the house stuff I like just as dull and throwaway as Massive Attack et al, and I do mean people who are into dance music aswell.

http://s9.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=12O54067CAKJA2OBWZM5907LDQ

Great stuff.

http://blackcherrytv5.free.fr/oohlala/ooh_la_la_goldfrapp.wmv

She makes me happier and happier. Maybe this time I will buy the album instead of just picking up the singles.

listening to felt mountain for the first time in ages. yes, i always thought it was dull in that intangible, can't-put-my-finger-on-it kind of way. but 'utopia' really is a firecracker of a song. i'd forgotten how sublime it sounds.

And "Horse Tears" is still beautiful. :-)

And I still haven't survived from my interview with her.

hee. sorry to hear that.

new album is amazing

felt mountainy?

new thread surely?

it's more like felt mountain than the others, but it still has a lot of pretty pop melodies. it has more of a mid-60s vibe than anything else they've done. people love the 60's, don't they?

wouldn't wanna live there

I was hoping this was gonna be their 'Twin Peaks' album.

didn't want to be the one to start the new thread because i don't have much to say except i really like the new one. very minimal, sparse, arrangements, very nice...

it's totally not what i expected!

it sounds like a gauzy, summery 60s album so far

bad form alert: where are you getting these fresh new recordings these days?

im wondering the same, stmusic turned out to be a washout.

didn't get random waffles invite yet :(

Another amazing album. Goldfrapp are one of the few artists where I listen to the album all the way through.

a&e is sooooo good

title?

Seventh Tree

is the rest of Black Cherry as good as "Strict Machine"? (which I only know courtesy of Miami Vice)

yes

'The singles' deluxe box edition

To coincide with the release of 'the singles' collection, Goldfrapp will release a special deluxe limited edition. The deluxe edition features a 12 inch, circular, lift-off lid, rigid box edged in black velvet.

Two pieces of 180gsm 12 inch vinyl containing the album and a collection of the band's b-sides. This will be the only pressing on vinyl and is unique to this edition. A previously unreleased track, exclusive to this edition. The edition houses 11 rare and specially created images from the band's visual archive. An individually numbered certificate signed by Alison and Will.

Product specifications:
Box
- a 12 inch diameter, circular, lift off lid, rigid box edged in black velvet, lined with black with full colour print to lid and base.

Inserts
- the 6 inserts are 300mm in diameter, printed full colour to both faces and gloss varnished. The insert panels are printed on 400gsm coated card stock and are edge gilded in black.

Interleaving panels
- the three interleaving panels are 300mm in diameter and foil blocked to one face with a common design.

Certificate

The certificate is single colour printed on 300gsm uncoated art board. Each certificate is individually numbered and signed. Access to the contents is by means of a black satin ribbon pull.
-

Yours for £99.99!

http://www.goldfrapp.com/

oh for fucks sake

I quite like Goldfrapp but come the fuck on. Not even Liberace would package an album like that.

tbh i can't blame any band for rinsing whatever obsessive, wealthy fans they might have these days

i mean yeah £99.99 is a bit lol but it's not like the music isn't being downloaded for free every day - overpriced live tickets are far more egregious imo

It's the same problem I had with the deluxe vinyl release of Bowie's 'Station To Station' (although that package had even more bumpf in the form of extra tracks that you'd only be interested in hearing if you were on as much cocaine as DB was at the time).
Heavyweight vinyl. Fine.
Bonus tracks that only appear on the LP version. Fine.
A bit of velvet, pics of Alison and Will looking grumpy, and what sounds like one of Dame Barbara Cartland's hat boxes? No. Thanks.

By coincidence I just jumped from the 2 Bears thread to this and was wondering whether the former's deluxe box set (with tea towel and ping pong bats) was supposed to be a joke at the expense of the ludicrousness of everything coming in a deluxe box.

If I was ever successful enough to have a 'singles/greatest hits' collection then I'd include a kitchen sink in the deluxe edition. Then I'd retire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9L0jD35TKI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_exjjrVCws

That Strict Machine performance is fantastic.

Essential b-sides: "White Soft Rope" and Pale 3 feat. Goldfrapp - "Bodo".

periodic reminder that tales of us is a masterpiece

I just played Tales Of Us last week. It really is a stunning record that's perfect for this time of year. I'm more than ready for a follow up.

true say, still one of my favourite albums this century.

btw all of the 5 films that were made to accompany 'Tales.. ' are on YouTube on GoldfrappTV and are very lovely. Originally they were a mini-movie (shown only once on a big screen and for some reason never released as a separate film on DVD).

to replicate the experience of the film, the clips should be watched in this order; Stranger, Laurel, Jo, Drew and Annabel.
it's worth doing if you like the record!

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoldfrappTV

I hope their next one is a synthpop record a la Supernature

I tried to write about the minimovie, failed

the collab with dave gahan was pretty cool

Cannot muster any enthusiasm for this solo album. First single is utterly forgettable

trying to explain the difference between "Goldfrapp" and "Alison Goldfrapp" is going to be a fun few weeks

New single does remind me of 'Somewhere Near Marseilles'

Came here to say how pleasant I found So Hot So Hard (even if the first seconds soound like a McCartney sample) despite never really being a big fan of Goldfrapp.

Probably because it’s more dancefloor friendly than the band ever was and more my thing.

I'd missed that this was happening, but listening now it sounds like the goal here is to be Róisín Murphy with none of the risk or effort.