Pop music
1 hank you, me
Marcus Berkmann
Again, the question looms. As you buy ountless copies of Robbie Williams's Greatest Hits on Amazon for all your deadbeat friends and relatives (who in turn are all buying the Keane album for you), what should you Add To Shopping Basket for yourself? I am a strong believer in the notion that you should get at least one thing for Christmas that you actually want: you could even wrap it up and give it to yourself on Christmas Day so that, for one present at least, your spontaneous expression of delight can be wholly sincere. 'Thank you, me,' you say with a chuckle, as everyone else looks on with blinding hatred.
So here are a few suggestions. As usual, these reflect my own particular tastes, which is to say prejudices, which may not coincide with yours. So, if you don't like some or any of these, don't blame me: just wrap them up again and give them to someone else. Then watch their spontaneous expression of delight as they unwrap them....
My dinner-party album of the year is Bebel Gilberto (East West). (We're not supposed to admit that 'dinner-party albums' exist, lest the cool-police crash our doors in and mow us down in cold blood. But they do, and good examples are hard to find.) Gilberto is the daughter of the Brazilian songwriter and bossa nova pioneer Joao Gilberto; this is her second English-language album and remarkably pleasing it is, in a low-key, almost worryingly tasteful kind of way. A few tracks will slip by unnoticed, but there are also four or five beautiful tunes that insinuate themselves into your head with viral efficiency. It's cleverly and sensitively produced by Marius de Vries, who has worked with Annie Lennox and BjOrk and brings a bit of both to this. Perfect for the fish course.
My slightly off-centre rock album is Self Help Serenade by an American band called Marjorie Fair. Though signed to a major (EMI), they have been shamefully undermarketed in this country, and I don't think the album has even been released in the US. It was given to me for my birthday by a friend who chanced upon it, and it's a joyous little gem, masterminded by a young hairy called Evan Slamka who has listened to too much Pink Floyd and The Beatles. Imagine if Coldplay were as good as they think they are, and less pompous and more tuneful and not actually English at all but American.. . . I think what I am trying to say is that Slamka's music sounds like a delirious synthesis of several generations of British music, with added American sheen. Spotting the influences is nearly as much fun as listening to the songs: nearly, but not quite.
My comeback of the year is J.J. Cale's To Tulsa And Back (Blue Note/Capitol). Cale's was the sound that Eric Clapton borrowed for a few years in the 1970s — along with some of his songs, like 'Cocaine' and 'After Midnight' — before passing it on to Mark Knopfler for Dire Straits's first (and best) two albums. It's a distinctive way of making music, which has hardly changed in 30 years. Often the songs don't sound like anything much — bluesy little shuffles with nifty guitar licks poured on top — and whatever has been in fashion at the time, they generally haven't. But the albums, especially the early ones, bear up extraordinarily well. His last album, 1996's Guitar Man, which he recorded at home by himself, was his strongest set in years. Then, I read somewhere, he had retired. Decades of indifference had clearly worn him down. Now, a mere eight years later, he turns up on yet another new label with an even better record than Guitar Man. This is the sort of retirement we should all be aiming at.
My album of the year, though, remains Air's Talkie Walkie (Source/Virgin). I do like a record that repays many, many, many listens: this one draws you in immediately and keeps you going for months. There is a prog-rock sensibility here, which emerged first on their previous release, 10,000 Hz Legend. This one has the same ambition, but with a richness of texture and melody you rarely find on a pop
record, and with all self-indulgence excised. In short, it's the album on which their immense promise has been fulfilled. Because of Air, I have recently invested heavily in French pop music Daft Punk, Phoenix, Tahiti 80 — but Nicolas Whatnot and Jean-Benoit Thingummy are in a different league. Talkie Walkie is the perfect Christmas present, and you definitely deserve it.
Previous page
