Tanita Tikaram has a new album?

Each of her albums has a different hue, but it's mostly the same jazz/folk hybrid with occasional leans toward a more pop sound (often with horns). I like them all, but I listen to them so infrequently now that I couldn't tell you which songs I like are on which albums (except "I Love the Heaven's Solo" from Everybody's Angel, a great great song).

Cool, I'd never seen this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOxl-9rEVTU

I mostly remember Tanita Tikaram because she was such a straw man for the uk press. Like, the worst thing a band or singer could do was be compared to her. The hate seemed disproportionate.

I know the UK press loved her initially, or else "Twist" never would've even made it the US. I guess they turned on her rapidly?

seems like an odd straw (wo)man - was she - god forbid - considered too tasteful?

it's that she made a big splash with her first London gigs at the Mean Fiddler - I think the hype on her was just high enough in the wake of those to generate lots of haters

you know what Ancient Heart kinda feels like is a Nick Drake Only Born Later kinda record, to me. Nick Drake's a great lyricist obv while Tanita's lyrics are kinda "if you love her, you end up loving her lyrics" deal but the vibe & the impulses seem similar

New one out August 27th!

xpost (long time)

there's a bunch of girls with guitars that are influenced by Nick Drake, but the guy was a great lyricist, guitar player and singer. And had an excellent understanding of music apart from that.

TT wrote great lyrics, but blimey her performance was scary: her eyes would go up to the top of her skull like she was abs petrified!

Presumably, she doesn't do that now..

her new single is FANTASTIC.

Can't wait to check that out!

Here is the video for said single:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15nw1rgHNY

Love this version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXdpWni7L1M

the opening track on the new one is 1) pretty dated in a weird '01 style way and 2) FUCKING RAD.

you know just because I know everybody demanded it I'm gonna break down the Tanita Tikaram discography for yall so you know where this new one stands in the catalog

Ancient Heart - the debut; huge worldwide success, two hits in the US ("Twist in My Sobriety" and "From the Cathedral") plus I think a couple more in England (Didn't "Good Tradition" chart?). VH1 could not get enough of its introspective midtempo style and neither could I; like a heavily medicated Tori Amos

The Sweet Keeper - A masterpiece, but also my gateway to TT, and an album that played such an essential role in a certain period of my life that I can't really get too clear a view of it. Largely the same band & sound as Ancient Heart but the tempos vary more widely and the songs are more ambitious - more grown-up in a good way. Even more inward-looking and increasingly cryptic - are these lyrics sometimes quite bad or are they just in a weird personal language that can only allow you halfway in? Very emotional record that seems to be about staving off loss a lot of the time, but loss of what? Youth? Innocence? Never clear.

Everybody's Angel

Abruptly, the wheels come off. She'll never have a bad lead-off track but there's not much left besides the atmosphere after that. Lyrics get pretty confusing ("I Love the Heaven's Solo," "Hot Pork Sandwiches"). How does such a great album get followed by such a directionless mess?

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

A little better, but still pretty lost. "You Make the Whole World Cry" - again, the lead-off - is real good, and "Out on the Town" is an unexpected return to playful-but-sad form, but the feeling here is that the well is fairly dry.

Lovers in the City

Shockingly good; probably her best album. Established-personality-trying-to-cope-with-changes-in-pop-style stuff is in effect here but everything works, there's only one song on it I don't like. That song is called "The Yodelling Song." Vocally she's found a great balance between the lightness that made the best songs on The Sweet Keeper so special and the muted desperation of something like "Out on the Town." Just a wonderful album from somebody who was a little famous for a minute and is now nearly invisible - the process is audible; this is somebody who spent a year or two on big stages, but who's she singing to now?

The Cappuccino Songs

Three years passed and I no longer lived where there was a record store and I couldn't find this online for less than twenty dollars and in 1998 I did not have twenty dollars to spare, and I was in a pretty different place, and I never got it. Never heard it! I listened to samples on Amazon and it sounded really good and someday I will get it and go completely nuts about it I bet.

Sentimental

Seven years passed, and I did get this one, because I ran across it somewhere, and it was kind of a mess. I had high hopes but it was just unmemorable.

Can't Go Back

The new one; the first three songs are so good that a longstanding TTFC member starts to get pretty heated up, but then the fourth song is called "Rock and Roll," usually a bad sign. In the second half of the album there's a number of songs in duet; I don't get it. But the lead single is great, and "All Things to You" and "Make the Day" are also present the surprised-you-with-sadness calling card that makes her special, and she's always known how to close an album and "If the World Should Want for Love" doesn't disappoint there, so even if there's a dropoff after those opening three, four great songs in a field of ten where the other six are pleasant enough from an artist nearly forgotten by the world: well, I'll take it, anyway, and I'll be pretty damn grateful about it too

I can't thank you enough for this!

"Twist in My Sobriety" brought me up short today.

I adore it.

An unexpected cover, given the source. (But the reason for its existence is a understandable though sad one: it's dedicated to his lifelong partner. He died earlier this year from cancer and loved this song dearly.)

https://leaetherstrip.bandcamp.com/album/twist-in-my-sobriety-tanita-tikaram-cover-version

Wow, love it, and it makes me want to listen to more Leather Strip and Tanita Tikaram.