hissyfit: Albums for Life: 27: Lloyd Cole: Don't Get Weird on Me Babe

Friday, 5 April 2013

Albums for Life: 27: Lloyd Cole: Don't Get Weird on Me Babe

I know, I screwed up by putting 'Rattlesnakes' in the 100s.
It should be a top 30 album.
I listened to it recently and it still shines brightly.
But what of Lloyds's solo output? He's been a prolific boy, but that generosity has led to some questionable quality control.
I really thought that it was going to be 'Don't Get Weird On Me Babe'...
I played it a couple of days ago to confirm this.
It was all going so well; the first side is a sumptuous thing; faultless and quite beautiful; the Buckmaster orchestrations are... masterful. But then the 2nd 'band' side kicks in and it all became a bit 'Lloyd by Numbers' for me.

I turned to 'Love Story' instead and I'm surprised to say that that left me a little underwhelmed also, there were fine moments but where was the consistency?

We are talking Top 30 here...

So I then I went back to this solo debut from 1990 and I just loved the whole thing. You can still hear the ghost of The Commotions with the retention of keyboard player Blair Cowan but, now in league with a couple of Lou Reed's side men (Fred Maher/drums & Robert Quine/guitar) and pop magpie Mathew Sweet on bass; there's the confident reach of a man unfettered and strutting his stuff, most obvious in the rawness of the 'up' tunes.

That Lloyd's a contrary fellow: He's a little bit Lou, a little bit Scott. He's a cynic, he's a tortured soul, he's a romantic. I guess it depends on your mood to help you decide on your favourite.

And guess what? I'm back from work, slightly knackered; Di's just run me a bath and poured me a glass of 'The Full Fifteen', a 15% Australian red that's sure to see me in bed by 9pm.

And here I am, soaking in the suds, re-reading Carver's 'Cathedral' and my soundtrack is just perfect...

It's 'Don't Get Weird On Me Babe'.

Romantic for sure, with just the right blend of vinegar to balance the saccharine strings. The string side was originally the 'B' side; unsure why they changed that for the CD. I resequenced things and it really works better that way; the rockers see the return of Quine, Maher and Sweet and their cocky twang sets the quieter stuff up really well; it's like a heavenly double act where Lloyd switches from jeans and t shirt at half time and dons a tuxedo to front the wondrous orchestrations of what was the original side two.
So there you are; it was never in doubt folks... DGWOM is Cole's finest by a mile.
Isn't it?
I'll probably wake up with a slight twinge after 'The Full Fifteen', reach for the quieter more reflective 'Love Story' and have to rewrite this whole pigging piece...
Until then, here's my favourite solo song of Lloyd's followed by some fine live performances.

8 comments:

Anonymous5 April 2013 at 10:45
you see - it always should have been the side 2 for the strings!
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Hissyfit5 April 2013 at 10:53
It makes much better sense musically. Strange decision by someone.
Maybe they thought that the strings would panic the horses....
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Issyg5 April 2013 at 19:48
I was sincerely hoping that you would have a Lloyd Cole album at some point, and could appreciate that you felt you could not use Rattlesnakes, but for me the choice would have to be Mainstream. What a box of amazing crackers that album is, the Jennifer, She Said bringing it all hoe to roost!
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Tim Patrick6 April 2013 at 06:02
"You know just as well as I
He's a better man than I --- could ever be..."

I can't imagine how 'Don't Get Weird On Me' could close any other way? Blasphemy! Order a US copy!!!

Nice write-up on LC. I like what you said about his contrary nature. He's mellowed a lot, but there's still an edge there. I think he deliberately avoids pulling heart-strings directly. One of the smartest writers around...

I've read quotes on Lloyd's weblog, where he says he regrets that the entire album wasn't recorded as an entirely orchestral affair. As much as I enjoy the "band" side, the "other" side is exquisite... I wish he'd done it.

PS: You don't need to apologize for Rattlesnakes. You are forgiven. It was early in the evolution of "The List" and we were all greenhorns adapting. I've blundered horribly, missing a dozen that deserved slots. I've come to accept that it ain't rocket science, just having a lot of fun with it. I don't think David is grading us, is he?

'Bus Stop" playing on TV... I'm off for an ogle!
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Hissyfit6 April 2013 at 09:08
We should make a list of the things that were omitted TT.
'Bus Stop'?
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Anonymous6 April 2013 at 09:23
Marilyn Munroe?
TT
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Hissyfit6 April 2013 at 09:30
But of course!
Funny, we were watching a documentary on her last night. The press were disgustingly intrusive around the Joe D M fall out...
She was a stunner though...
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times