kostasmusings

Indie mixtapes reloaded

2009-03-21T14:16:00.000Z

My view of the riots in Greece

2008-12-10T03:18:00.017Z

openDemocracy has asked me to publish the commentary that originally appeared in this page. The updated version can be found here.

The Manhattan Love Suicides - Live

2008-11-16T19:11:00.003Z

I went to see the Manhattan Love Suicides last night, a group from Leeds who plays pop songs with fuzzed up guitars a la Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. I was checking out their latest single and I saw that they were playing in a pub in Stoke, along with some other local and aspiring acts. It was quite an experience if you consider that the pub was genuinely decadent in a Stoke-on-Trent fashion. It also had a totally cheap PA system which further distorted the already fuzzy sound and made all the vocals sound ridiculously raw. Apart from the Suicides who played their usual 'hits' in a hit and run fashion (and scared off the remaining aunties in the pub), of the other bands, two had interesting indie pop tunes and the fourth sounded like a Primal Scream album messed up in waves of distortion and tape echo. Not bad an outing, plus I picked up their latest 7 inch a few days before the official release!

My special thanks to Kimani and Yoke who tolerated all the guitar feedback (half of which was originally intended).

Indie mixes

2008-11-01T19:14:00.004Z

The past October has been particularly musical with the listening parties we have been organising at the Keele Postgraduate Association. (John) Peel Slowly and See (double pun intended) is the name of the ongoing series of parties. I find them particularly fun because we get to play all sorts of weird music on the turntables such as the brand new Manhattan Love Suicides 7 inch single, 'Veronica'. According to their label, it sounds like a crossover between Jesus and Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground. They couldn't be more accurate!

For those who cannot make it to the fun Wednesday nights, I have compiled yet another mixtape of songs that have, or will be, featured in my sets. All legally streamable and downloadable! The virtual tape features fourteen tracks of old and new indie listening goodness, including Sonic Youth, The Apples In Stereo, The Manhattan Love Suicides, and others. Enjoy!

It's all Greeklish to me

2008-10-31T19:09:00.011Z

I recently had a look at some sites documenting the use of 'Chinglish', i.e. Chinese-influenced (often incorrectly) written English. The similarity to the term 'Greeklish' immediately came to mind. However, the term Greeklish refers to writing Greek using the Latin alphabet and, therefore, does not imply badly spelled or otherwise misused English. Tourists have been flocking to Greece for the past fifty years or so, and as the sign says, we do speak English. Nevertheless, if one considers the abuse of written and spoken English in tourist areas in Greece, then the above claim becomes quite dubious.

A classic example is the translation of menus in restaurants. The picture to the right gives a classic example. Octopus is misspelled as 'octapus', squid is both mistranslated and misspelled as 'cattlefish', and in both cases the 'translator' uses Greek syntax in English. The use of the word 'vinegar' after 'octapus' and 'cattlefish' implies that 'octapus' and 'cattlefish' are two different brands or variants of vinegar. The translation should be 'Octopus in vinegar', 'Squid in vinegar', and for the red peppers it's Florina not florina. The next one is even more hilarious. I cannot see the Greek text but from the translation it seems that you can order things such as 'Garbage salad' (really?), 'Beetroots' (note the plural), 'Greens' (Cécile Duflot salad?) or 'Brokolo' and 'Politiki' salad (can't be bothered to translate brokolo to broccoli).

The best, however, comes when the locals are trying to 'spice' things up a bit. British tourists are often known for going on drinking and sex sprees when on holiday. It is not unusual then to see bars offering all sorts of things that sound, at least, dodgy (see the photo on the right).

Last, but not least, there are the awesome translations of road signs. 'Holy Monastery of Our Lady of the Door'. Surprisingly, the translation is correct, but who cares?
The best remain simply transliterated: 'Grias kolos beach' is really 'The Old Lady's Ass Beach'. It does not really matter what you translate as long as you smile, as one sign advised the locals, 'it helps tourism'.

Vinyl versus CD versus mp3

2008-06-10T00:17:00.004+01:00

When I first started buying music in 1991, the record shops were still literally record shops. The CDs have been around for some years but there largely unpopular for two reasons. Firstly, most people lacked facilities to play them. CD players were still expensive for most people. Secondly, serious record collectors had amassed large amounts of records and were unwilling to switch to CDs. When CD players became inexpensive and companies released the entire back catalogues of popular artists under the 'nice price' scheme, many people switched to CDs. It was not uncommon for the mid 1990s for record stores to sell off their vinyl stock in incredible (for the times) low prices. Around the same time many collectors sold their vinyl collections in bulk and building them anew in CD format. That was medium revolution number one.

The second revolution came about in the late 1990s when CD-Rs replaced cassettes as recordable medium. Cassettes have been the most popular format for copying music from vinyl (and later CDs) for more than twenty years. In addition, they were very portable (playable in walkmans) and they have been instrumental in consolidating the mixtape culture among pop music enthusiasts. The record companies, however, became a bit worried when this second revolution came about. The fact that the copied product could sound (at least to the ears of the common folk) as good as the original from which it was copied, opened many possibilities for piracy.

When music lovers realized that computer geeks had something for them, the third revolution came about. Music from CDs could be transformed to digital formats (such as mp3) and, with the help of the internet thingy, shared over with people from around the world. Now that totally scared the record companies off. The fact that companies would not be able to convince tens of millions people to buy the latest CD from an artist of questionable quality they wanted to promote (strictly for money making reasons)... well that was not right! Even though that academic scholarship had dismissed the idea that the decline in CD sales was due to music-file sharing, the companies were unabatted. They decided that they prosecute every single person who shared their music over the internet. When the whole idea proved totally ludicrous, they calmed down and figured out the following:

1. Some people were willing to buy the latest music releases on mp3 format. Because mp3s are inexpensive to make (no factories needed to produce the discs and cover art) and trade (no shipping costs incur), they realized that the internet and mp3s was, potentially, a big money-making opportunity.

2. Additionally, the collectors were unwilling to invest on either the CD or digital format. They would still rather buy vinyl. Companies realized that collectors are a niche market, but a market nonetheless.

3. Mixtape enthusiasts were not happy with CD-Rs as a recordable format (the term mixCD never replaced mixtape). They nonetheless liked the fact that music-file sharing gave them access to much music and that they could share their 'tapes' over the internet. Some companies decided that they could even make money out of this... check this out: a ridiculously priced (£20!!!) 64MB USB stick in a cassette-like box.

The artists on the other hand were confused. What should they release their music in? Vinyl, CD, or mp3?

A. The big names/mainstream approach: Stick to the CD format and also make available the album as song per song download ($0.99 per song, thank you).

B. The not mainstream/independent label approach: give away the mp3s for free, ditch the CD format and go straight to release limited edition vinyls for the collectors.

The biggest name to do this so far has been Radiohead. Their latest album In rainbows was released as a free mp3 download (but you probably already know that). They also made a special limited boxset vinyl version of In rainbows available, priced at £40.

Some independent record companies (such as Kids Records) have their releases almost exclusively on vinyl, and when you buy the vinyl, you get the mp3s for free (my Assembly Now clear vinyl 7 inch with the piece of paper giving you instructions of how to claim your free mp3s pictured left). Its funny to see that the Kids Records latest release, a 7-inch vinyl single, is by a band of 13-year-olds whom I doubt they ever listened to a vinyl record before.

Nevertheless, giving away free mp3s means that artists get to promote themselves more efficiently. Artists discovered that their concert tickets and merchandise sales go up when they release their music for free. On the other hand, music lovers get access to much good music, quickly and without the mediation of big companies that could otherwise put restrictions on what 'should' be released. In fact there is so much good free music out there that I was able to put together a virtual mixtape of 16 songs with 60s retro feeling by 16 different new bands. All of the songs are available legally for free from the bands' or bands companies' websites. You can see the list of songs here or hear the whole tape by clicking the virtual tape below.

Liverpool - Tate - The Cavern

2008-03-10T19:03:00.005Z

On the occasion of Liverpool being the European Capital of Culture for 2008, we paid a visit to the city two weeks ago. This time the day trip was carefully planned with visits to St. George's Hall, Walker Art Gallery and the Roman Catholic (pictured left) and Anglican Cathedrals. Incidentally both cathedrals are very interesting architecturally, with their, respectively, Gothic revival and modern designs. Most interesting, however, was Tate Liverpool which hosted a well curated exhibition on 20th Century art: 'The Twentieth Century: how it looked & how it felt'. As with the trip to Manchester we did not miss to explore the city's contribution to modern pop music. Liverpool is the birthplace of The Beatles after all! For that reason we went to the National Conservation Centre to see The Beatles photographic exhibition 'Now These Days Are Gone'. We went also past the famous Matthew Street, down 'The Cavern' club (immortalized by, again, The Beatles who played there numerous times) and The Cavern 'Wall of Fame' (pictured right).

Orthodoxy or death

2008-02-16T18:12:00.006Z

I was browsing a depository of funny images from Greece when I spotted the picture on the left. For the uninitiated, it just shows a coach. Upon closer inspection, however you can see that the driver added his personal motto on top of the destination sign. The motto reads (in Greek) 'Orthodoxy or death'. For most people this would simply sound funny (i.e. Greece its own version of religious fundamentalists) or just bizarre (what is the use of putting that on the coach?). For me, however, there is a personal story behind this picture.

Believe it or not, this was the coach that took me to Chalcidice (the destination printed below the motto) in August 2000. I was invited by friends to spend a weekend at the camping installations operated by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. I can therefore tell you that riding this coach was quite an experience. The space around the driver's seat was ornated with what looked like two dozens crucifixes and icons. A flag of the Byzantine Empire was hoisted over the back windscreen. The mastermind behind all this, the driver himself, sported a huge beard that made him look like an Islamic fundamentalist in his secular clothes. My rotten luck had it that the coach was packed and I had to sit right behind the driver's seat. It was rotten because I had to put up with his uncontrollable rants and conspiracy theories about religion.

According to his theory the deposed king of Greece, is in fact the direct descendant of the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire, and according to a legend, the hexadactylus who is going to free Greece from the infidels and restore the Byzantine Empire. (When somebody argued that the deposed king does not appear to have six fingers in any of his hands and hence cannot be a hexadactylus, the driver argued that the deposed king has six toes). What a load of horseshit!

The person sitting next to me was an engineering PhD student from India. He seemed indifferent to what was happening. Blessed are the lost in translation: for they shall have their peace of mind.

My dangerous kitchen

2008-01-13T16:58:00.000Z

I usually keep my kitchen tidy. Sometimes when I come home, however, I find that I left my kitchen in a mess. This is the time when I appreciate Frank Zappa's lyrical genius. Who else could possibly have written these lyrics:

'The dangerous kitchen
If it aint't one thing it's another
In the middle of the night when you get home
The bread things are all dry 'n' scratchy
The meat thing
Where the cats ate trough the paper
The can things with the sharp little edges
That can cut your fingers when you're not looking
The soft little things on the floor that you step on
They can all be dangerous

Sometimes
The milk can hurt you
(If you put it on your cereal
Before you smell the plastic container)
And the stuff in the strainer
Has a mind of its own
So be very careful
In the dangerous kitchen
When the night time has fallen,
And the roaches are crawlin'
In the kitchen of danger
You can feel like a stranger

The bananaes are black
The got flies in the back
And also the chicken
In the dish with the foil
Where the cream is all clabbered
And the salad is frightful
Your return in the evening
Can be less than delightful

You must walk very careful
You must not lean against it
It can get on you clothing
It can follow you in
As you walk to the bedroom
And you take all your clothes off
While you're sleeping
It crawls off
It gets in your bed
It could get on your face then
It could eat your complexion
You could die from the danger
Of the dangerous kitchen

Who the fuck wants to clean it?

It's disgusting and dirty
The sponge on the drainer
Is stinky and squirty
If you squeeze it when you wipe up
What you get on your hands then
Could un-balance your glands and
Make you blind or whatever
In the dangerous kitchen
At my house tonight'

From The man from Utopia (1983)

The political compass

2007-12-16T18:09:00.000Z

I recently registered with facebook and, although I do not take it seriously (it's a great tool for networking or perhaps notworking), I did find a few seriously cool widgets. One of these is the Political Compass which supposedly maps your ideology in two dimensions: an economic left-right and a social libertarian-authoritarian. It is basically a test where you have to answer 62 questions with answers in a four-point ordinal scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree). The application has been around a few years now, but the application on facebook added the option of having your friends' scores spatially placed alongside with yours (pictured right). The result I got after taking the test is -3.5 (on a -10 to 10 scale) on the economic dimension and -7.13 (again on a -10 to 10 scale) on the social dimension (that's the spot the arrow points at).

Now my friends know that I love spatial models in political science (although I recognize that they do have limitations). So I was interested in seeing how valid the political compass results are. I thus took two additional politics tests in facebook regarding the 2008 US primaries: the 2008 Election Quiz and Itsmycandidate. The goal of these two tests is to show which candidate is closer to your views. Each has 25 questions ranging across several different issues (abortion, health care, war in Iraq, immigration, global warming, etc). Unlike the Political Compass, however, the answers in the 2008 Election Quiz are binary (support/oppose with a 'don't know' option'). In Itsmycandidate, the answers are on ordinal scale, but it the range differs from question to question.

The first one showed that my views are 100% similar to those of Democratic candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel. My match to other candidates ranged from 80% (Obama) to 5% (Hunter, Tancredo). The second test showed a 61.4% match to Kucinich and 59.6% match to both Gravel and Obama. My match to the others ranged from 56.1% (Clinton) to 1.8% (Hunter, Tancredo). How well these correlate to my Political Compass score? In the Political Compass website we can find how these candidates are mapped (pictured left). According to this, Kucinich and Gravel are the closest candidates to my placement although they are far from being a perfect match. It seems that the more nuanced scaling of Itsmycandidate managed to capture the imperfect nature of the matching (my highest matching score was only 59.6%) but again it matched me fairly well to some candidates (like Obama) who were placed far from me by the Political Compass. In all three tests, however, I was consistently mismatched to the far right candidates.

In any case this shows you that political science can really be fun. I must be really lucky...

Manchester - Urbis - The Hacienda

2007-11-27T19:26:00.000Z

Last week I took my friends to see Hacienda 25 The Exhibition: Fac 491 at Urbis in Manchester (the fancy building pictured left). For those who have no clue of what I am talking about: The Haçienda (1982-1997) was one of the most famous nightclubs (ever!). This is where Madonna made her debut gig in the UK, where the music of Joy Division, New Order and the like was popularized and where the dance scene of the early 1990s begun… Quite a heavy history for a nightclub that was constantly in debt (I now found out that this was due to the managers’ numerous eccentricities rather than problems in the demand side). Anyway, the exhibition was quite cool crammed with period film footage and sound recordings and exhibits like posters, flyers, t-shirts and even things like the vintage karaoke machine (pictured right). The fact that you could take pictures of whatever in the exhibition (one of those rare occasions) was a treat too!

Inviting friends over for dinner

2007-11-17T18:58:00.000Z

I like having friends over for dinner. Until a few years ago I would just throw a frozen pizza in the over and then concentrate on the drinking side of the dinner equation (how many six-packs of beer we need?). Things have gotten much more complicated recently. The latest challenge has been to cook vegan (no meat, eggs or dairy) and make it thematic at the same time. A few weeks ago it was Austrian (sadly no pictures survive) whereas last week the theme was Mediterranean food. Clockwise from top left, the antipasti, green beans with potatoes and carrots (organic) and Greek salad (yeah I can see that some canapés are missing, I just could not help myself) and halva (the semolina variety). Right... I better stop here, or otherwise this will begin to sound like one of these pretentious Jamie Oliver rants.

(Re) visit to New York City

2007-10-28T19:16:00.000Z

Some things never change. I've taken this picture five and a half years ago. I visited New York City a week ago and still found it crowded, dirty but intriguing at the same time.

The person on both pictures on the left is my colleague Elias, compañero in searching for indie places in Brooklyn.

By the way, the first picture was taken with a dirt cheap vintage Soviet rangefinder camera and the second with a brand new digital Panasonic. Am I the only one that thinks that the 35mm film still looks much better?

2007 Greek election candidate

2007-09-12T20:04:00.000+01:00

Quite unbelievable, but sadly true, the lady you see on the left, is a candidate for the 2007 Greek election. Even more surprising is that she is contesting with LA.O.S. (or Popular Orthodox Rally), a far right party. Her name is Efi Sarri and she sings pop/orientalish songs of admittedly questionable quality.

No kidding here, her name is in the party ticket at the second constituency in Athens and the chances of her actually getting to be an MP are quite good. She even made a promotional video which she posted on youtube. I've taken the link from her official website. For those who cannot understand the rhyming message, I have provided a translation:

"I thought about it well, I couldn't wait no more

we got to save our Greece again this time once more

I thought about it well, to run for the Greek Chamber

and all together hand in hand to ascent a step further

Vote me in! Vote me in!

Up your arms raise me in!

So if you want to save yourself, or just to make a plea

Then you should really vote me in, and then you'll see...

So if you want a voice, so true, I guarantee

Cast a vote for LA.O.S., for Efi Sarri

Vote me in! Vote me in!

Up your arms raise me in!

And I will undoubtedly fight, to get things right

Since I believe in Greece, as well in Jesus Christ

Especially the youth, if they wish to be cool

should altogether come with me and let the light rule

Vote me in! Vote me in!
Up your arms raise me in!

Our Chamber must be fun

Vote Efi in, and it's done!

vote Efi in... vote Efi in... vote Efi in...

Vote me in! Vote me in!

Up your arms raise me in!"

Tired out of history

2007-09-06T11:09:00.000+01:00

Upon my re-reading Richard Clogg's, now classic, A concise history of Greece I came up with the following quiz:

Question: which is the country that, during the last 180 years:

a) had four plebiscites to decide about the type of government and two of them, for which the vote was in favour of constitutional monarchy, are widely considered to be rigged,

b) twice had its head of state assasinated,

c) had one prime minister that commited suicide while in office and a King dying due to a monkey bite,

d) all its Kings had to abdicate or flee to exile at some point,

e) experienced five succesful and another three unsuccesful military coups,

f) was under military dictatorships three times,

g) fought wars against its own people, two neighbours, two invaders and went as far as Russia, Cyprus and Korea to fight for others,

h) was occupied twice by the military of five different countries,

i) and, finally, occupied at some point two neighbour countries?

Answer: Greece (plebiscites in 1920, 1924, 1935, 1974, assasinations of President Capo d'Istria in 1831, King George I in 1913, suicide of Koryzis in 1941, monkey bite of King Alexander I 1920, abdication King Otto 1862, in exile King Constantine I 1917 and 1922, King George II 1923 and 1941, King Constantine II 1967, military coups 1843, 1862, 1909, 1922, 1933, 1935, 1967, 1973, dictatorships 1925-1926, 1936-1941, 1967-1974, civil war 1946-1949, wars against Ottoman Empire 1897, Turkey 1919-1922, Bulgaria 1913, Italy 1940, Germany 1941 and in Russia 1917, Korea 1950, Cyprus 1974, occupied by UK and France 1885-1886 and 1916, Italy 1941-1943, Germany and Bulgaria 1941-1944, occupied parts of the Ottoman Empire 1919-1922 and Albania 1940).

Uranya (review)

2007-07-31T19:23:00.001+01:00

Uranya is Kostas Kapakas' long-awaited sophomore effort in film-making. Long-awaited because his directorial debut, the award-winning Peppermint was released in 1999, but... let me be clear: Uranya just confirms the rule about the 'difficult sophomore' efforts.

But let's take first things first. The synopsis: Summer of 1969 in a Greek small town. A bunch of twelve-year-old boys collect money to visit the local prostitute (Uranya) and thus become 'men'. One of them, dreams of becoming an astronaut and tries to convince his friends to use the collected money to buy a TV set instead, so they can see the landing of Apollo to the moon.

Hmm, sounds familiar? Let's see, how many Greek coming-of-age films taking place during the colonels' dictatorship (1967-1974) we have seen lately? Tseberopoulos' Backdoor (2000), Dimas' The cistern (2001), Panayotopoulou's Hard goodbyes: my father (2002)... The latter also uses Apollo 1969 landing as its backdrop. Let's face it, Kapakas hardly scores any originality marks for his script.

Yet the similarities turn to blatant plagiarism when Kapakas decides to use Maria Grazia Cucinotta (of the Il postino fame) as Uranya. Tornatore tried exactly the same formula in Malena (group of boys, political background, summer of sensual awakening, a hot actress, this time with Monica Bellucci) in 2000. Now, if Kapakas was able to get Bellucci for the role, I would give him some credit for that. But Cucinotta... OK she's hot, but her acting in the movie sucks. Big time! Her role literally consisted of a couple of sequences where she just stood there in front of the drooling boys while she delivered about five one-liners like: 'What do I want to buy? ... ehm (in a deep sexy voice) I want... I want... Yes, I want a can of squids'. Actually she didn't even deliver the one-liners. She couldn't learn her five lines in Greek and the scenes were dubbed. And she got credited as having the leading role in the movie.

I still can't believe that it took Kapakas seven years to write this script and direct the movie. It seems that he was too busy enjoying his fame after Peppermint when he remembered that he had to write and direct another movie. So what did he do? Copy-pasted the central idea from his previous movie (Peppermint was another coming-of-age movie where a boy dreamed of becoming a pilot. Change pilot to astronaut and...), then add the basic idea of Tornatore's Malena (with Cucinotta/Uranya as Bellucci/Malena), set the movie during the colonel's junta (hardly original as I mentioned), get some famous Greek actors to deliver some so-so performances on caricature roles (clumsy/funny authoritarian gendarmes, priests, parents and the like) and then sprinkle all this with some Felliniesque surrealism (fat ladies coming directly out of Fellini's Amarcord).

Nice try Kostas (but definitely no cigar, not even a cheap Albanian fag).

Top 2006 albums

2007-06-03T16:30:00.001+01:00

Well, not the top 2006 albums by any objective standards. Be warned, this is a personal list of my top 4 albums released in 2006. Why top 4? I just have four albums from 2006 I believe they should make it to a list. As far as I am concerned this could be a top 16, top 34, top whatever list. There is nothing magical about number 5, 10, or 20 (mathematicians are kindly invited to debunk this).

In order of appearance (to my various cassette, vinyl, CD and most obviously mp3 players) first comes Josh Rouse's Subtitulo (I am sure the title takes has some Spanish accent somewhere but I am not sure how to do this in blogger). Now I confess I had no idea about who Rouse was until I came across this album of his. An American folk singer-songwriter, who recently moved to Spain (cherchez la femme here) of whom I must definitely check the prior recordings. The album is primarily acoustic and definitely laid back, as if Rouse is taking his time with siestas and aimless wanderings (which I am quite sure he must did if we are to consider the lyrics of songs such as 'Quiet town'). Nice lyrics all around, quite catchy tunes, high production values, ehm, what else? This is the perfect album to play on your car stereo during a (hot) summer evening when there is no reason to rush. At least that's what I did.

Another American entry here. The Essex Green's Cannibal sea is filled with some neo/quasi psychedelic pop gems (or whatever you want to call them, I have the impression you already know what I mean). It offers a nice combination of slow and uplifting songs but nevertheless, this album is definitely a 'grower'. You have to listen to it quite a few times in order to appreciate it, but still, a few songs such as 'Rue de lis' and 'Slope song' got me from the first listening.

Next comes Cold War Kids' debut album Robbers & cowards (a few EP's having been previously released). Cold War Kids looks like one of the most promising (to hit the mainstream) American indie bands, although, judging from their debut, they do whatever possible to avoid that. Songs like 'Tell me in the morning' and 'Hang me up to dry' have some of the simplest (see catchiest) riffs I heard recently, but the boys load them with some notoriously dissonant pianos and percussion that can easily scare the easy-listening audiences away. Likewise, 'God make up your mind' is based around some cool melody of falsetto singing that Chris Martin (from Coldplay) would love to have written, only if the song didn't brake into some cacophonous piano tramping up. And then we have the lyrics. Although I appreciate the vivid imagery of some songs ('Passing the hat', 'Hospital beds') what's up with all those references to religion? Surely they do not look like they have graduated from some respectable Sunday school. Their music gets me confused and I have an intuition that something special is going to happen.

Last, but not least, I have a British entry. Badly Drawn Boy's Born in the U.K. (now that really sounds British!). Unlike the previous three entries, I have been well acquainted with Damon Gough's skills as a singer and songwriter since 2002 with his soundtrack for About a boy. I will not go into detail here about what Badly Drawn Boy sounds like. The sound should be familiar and Born in the U.K. makes no major departures from the Badly Drawn Boy we all loved. Well crafted pop songs, with this special touch of spice that renders them special compared to the middle of the road ones.

With Born in the U.K. it seems to me that Gough managed to come very close to the recipe of the perfect pop song. You can hear this at 'A journey from A to B' where he delivers a song with practically no chorus, but still with some of the most addictive melodies. You know, the ones that put a stupid grin on your face. 'Nothing's gonna change your mind', the album's lead single, is a great ballad too (with a surprisingly very well polished production). The album has some great songs all around, although there are a couple of let-downs as well ('Walk you home tonight' sounds like bad Style Council), and, of course, as it is always the case with Badly Drawn Boy albums, there are a few songs that sound incomplete or filler, but again they sound to good to be dismissed as filler and let you wonder whether it was a deliberate attempt to... or... Think of The Beatles eponymous (white) album: would you dismiss some of the white album's songs as filler? Exactly!

Queen - II (review)

2007-06-01T17:42:00.000+01:00

It was a few months ago that a friend suggested that I should have a better listen to Queen's sophomore effort II. It's been something like fifteen years since I bought the album, and to be honest, I never got to play it much. My friend was adamant however. He too had dismissed the album as a flop but somehow he decided to give it another chance. Upon rehearing it, he was convinced that II was Queen's long lost 'dark masterpiece', especially side B, composed in its entirety by the late Freddie Mercury. This got me nonetheless curious and, in a due course, the album made its way to my mp3 player.

The truth is that Queen II is one of the band's least known albums. It is lacking a hit single and Queen is invariably known as a hit-singles group. Despite this, the album has attained a quasi-cult status sometimes as a prog and sometimes as a glam album. Recorded in just over a month in August 1973 at Trident studios in London (where the band had an agreement to use the studios' downtime), it was released about a year later by Trident studios' label when Queen's third album was already underway.

The album opens with 'Procession', an one-minute instrumental of forgettable guitar noodling. Press 'skip' and we get to 'Father to son'. Now that sounds a lot better! Penned by Brian May, this mid tempo song features some extraordinary multi-tracked electric guitars and backing vocals which would be Queen's trademark sound throughout the 1970s. 'White queen (as it begun)' written, again, by May repeats the same formula in the ballad form. This time Mercury handles all the overdubbed backing vocals to an astonishing effect. Next is 'Some day one day' a ballad with a lead vocal by May. Of particular interest is the introspective nostalgia of the lyrics, a theme which May would revisit several times in the following Queen albums ('Dear friends', ' '39', 'Long away', 'All dead, all dead', 'Leaving home ain't easy', 'Save me'). Side A closes with a straightforward rocker written and sung by drummer Roger Taylor, where he easily tackles his favourite topic (wayward youth with fast cars listening to rock 'n' roll and having fun). May and bassist John Deacon take on the task of playing several acoustic and electric guitar parts here. Not the album's highlight but definitely one of the most listenable songs penned by Taylor.

Side B, or 'The Black Side', kicks off with 'Ogre battle', a hard rocker. Mercury's versatility as a songwriter is showcased here as the next number, 'The fairy feller's master-stroke' with Mercury on piano and harpsichord, introduces a sort of 1930s feel songwriting (later reincarnations include 'Bring back that Leroy Brown', 'Lazing on a Sunday afternoon' and 'Seaside rendezvous'). Next comes the short piano ballad 'Nevermore', a little melodic gem to which Mercury will turn back on later albums (with 'Lily of the valley', 'Love of my life' and 'Take my breath away'). 'The march of the black queen' is quite unarguably side B's (and perhaps the whole album's) highlight. It is a grandiose multi part and multi rhythm composition. A close listen to the last few bars before the chorus reprise will bear out the similarities with 1975's 'Bohemian rhapsody' to which 'The march...' looks like it served as the prototype. 'The march' segues into 'Funny how love is', one of the album's weakest compositions. The Phil Spectoresque production does not help much either. The album closes with 'Seven seas of Rhye', another tale of imaginary lands of kings and monsters (despite his compositional skills, Mercury wasn't much of a lyricist I'm afraid) which became the album's single (but did not chart very well).

What do I make of all this then? First of all, the production seems too poor for Queen (and Trident studios') standards. I used to think this was a problem of my tattered vinyl copy of the album, but it seems this is not the case. Some instruments are notoriously buried in the mix (Taylor's cymbals in 'White queen' and 'Some day one day', Deacon's bass guitar in most of the songs), and the piano sounds too thin. I mean, we know that Trident studios worked with a wonderful grand piano (as heard in Elton John's 'Your song' for example) and I can't believe the engineer managed to get this cheap thin sound out of the instrument. Perhaps they had to make room (in the 8-track machine) for the multi layered electric guitars and vocals, but again the engineer's (and co-producer's) experiments with the 'wall of sound' in 'Funny how love is' reveal that this might have been a deliberate choice.

Second, Queen II showcases that Queen was neither a glam nor a prog band but had a sound of their own: a quite eclectic sound which was the result of the band members' different but largely complementary (although sometimes conflicting) songwriting and performing talents and personalities. With the benefit of hindsight, I would say that Queen II was really a preview of the band's next three critically acclaimed albums: Sheer heart attack (1974), A night at the opera (1975) and A day at the races (1976). Although in a hurried and rather poor production, the elements that made Queen famous during the mid 1970s are omnipresent in this album.

Kostas has a blog?

2007-05-30T16:11:00.000+01:00

I always maintained that bloggers are pretentious twits, notoriously filling the cyberspace with their pointless bubbling. This is all about to change now... or not? I thought I should give it a try anyway. Sort of build a vehicle for all the music, film and book reviews or the occasional grumbling I often share with friends.