The Album Review Club - Week #138 - (page 1790) - 1956 - Soul-Junk

[RobMCFC]

Also forgot to mention that @Coatigan has kindly agreed to step in to collect the points this week and manage the changeover next Wednesday whilst I'm away.

 

[Coatigan]

Also forgot to mention that @Coatigan has kindly agreed to step in to collect the points this week and manage the changeover next Wednesday whilst I'm away.

Yeah although on my watch lack of guessing won't be tolerated.

no clues - no album!

Jk;)

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

The Album Review Club – Week #136

Chappell Roan -- The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess (2023)

Selected by FogBlueInSanFran



I’m not taking the piss. Really.

I’ve mused about this out loud here, though originally I was kidding.

But you know what?

Fuck it.

This will be like sticking a dildo in a hornet’s nest.

The audience here couldn’t be more wrong for this record or this artist.

But after plodding ancient metal, ambient trip-hop drudgery, more British no-BPM mopery with that other band, yet another few dozen pages about Oasis (like the world needs any more, and it’s going to be endless now that they’re on-again), a record I love but one we already reviewed that's a movie soundtrack, and @RobMCFC craftily trying to knee me in the balls with fucking Thom fucking Yorke, I am fucking irritated with many of you.

Well, I'm not really irritated . . . but you lot did in fact bring this on yourselves.

I’m shifting the narrative.

I’m forcing you lot of FOCs out of your comfort zone.

This is the best pop album I’ve heard (so far) in the 21st century, by a woman who’s on a rocket to Pluto. This is the only music that matters to an awful lot of people in my country right now – and yours, where it was #1 last week.

And now you have a chance to get in your thoughts about it just after the rocket has launched, not 20, 30, 40 or 50+ years hence like we always do.

You can read all about her background – and you should (real name: Kayleigh Rose Amstutz). She claims “Chappell Roan” is her “drag persona” and an “art project.” She’s from a poor family in Missouri, an ex-cheerleader and Starbucks barrista, and Tik-Tokked her way up the ladder a song at a time before, some how some way, catching fire this year with this record, her debut LP released in late 2023, with songs written over five years.

How did I encounter this, you ask? It’s so obviously not what I – nor any of you -- listen to.

Well, my wife played it for me a few months ago. She said, “Hey, I’m going to play something you’ll like.” Afterwards, I asked, rather incredulously, “How in the world did you know that I’d like this?”

And she said, “Because everyone does. It’s irresistible.”

I told her "I think I know a crowd who can resist it."

As for me, I can’t resist it. Somehow Chappell Roan has tapped 80s pop in the vein of Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Annie Lennox, Toni Basil and countless others, mixed it with techno, country and a LOT of LGBTQ (mostly L, B and T) iconography, and made it sound original . . . and very, very frank.

And for all of you who like great singers – and kept telling me how important they are to bands – well, you fuckers better not woman about this, because she’s amazingly talented.

I am guessing some of you are going to be uncomfortable with her very direct lyrics about sex. I was. I’d ask you to think about Prince and whether you had the same reaction to his music. Both Chappell and Prince would pretty much fuck anyone. And they aren’t shy about letting you know it.

Songs:

“Feminomenon” is the opener. And it sets the tone for where this is going. She’s off boys and onto girls for much of the rest of the record, though the occasional boy pops up now and again.

I know I said I’m tired of Oasis. That’s too bad, cuz the next song is called “Red Wine Supernova.” And I think it’s great. FYI she likes girls with no bras. She’s wants to fuck them. “I heard you like magic / I’ve got a wand and a rabbit.” That’s genius. Write THAT, Gallagher brothers.

“After Midnight” turns up the competent if pedestrian funk.

But her voice-forward ballads like “Coffee” (almost a Tom T. Hall song) and “Casual” (juxtaposing getting eaten out in a car with visiting a guy’s mom in Long Beach) are I think quite beautiful.

Then there’s SGUMG – very Madonna-esque – and then what is already a classic, “HOT TO GO!” which is rapidly becoming the “YMCA” of the lesbian community.

“My Kink Is Karma” is particularly good – a song about orgasming to the thought of an ex-lover’s misery. Given we all seem to orgasm when the rags are humiliated, I am sure all of us can relate.

Eventually we get to “Pink Pony Club”, about a drag queen leaving home. Before you recoil, you should read comments on YouTube from 63 year-old straight white men bawling their eyes out because of the universal it taps – breaking away from your parents to do what you love while they cry in shock and disappointment.

And the techno-closers don’t disappoint me either, especially “Naked in Manhattan” and “Guilty Pleasure.”

It’s not perfect – I don’t love “Picture You” or “Kaleidoscope”, and “Pink Pony Club” needs a better fade out (it’s sort of abrupt) – but those are quibbles.

To me, this is so kinetic, so fun, so celebratory of the liberated individual, so derivative of the mid-80s dance groove I like, sometimes very funny, so direct (it’s jarring for me to hear women talk so freely about sex despite hearing guys do it for decades) – and yet there are spots where it’s quite emotional and even beautiful because her voice is so good.

At the very least, it makes me feel a little younger.

But I am pretty sure none of you will agree. I expect you lot to sharpen keyboards for a right slagging off because this is music that doesn’t directly speak to any us – not remotely – on its face.

So here’s your chance to criticiz(s)e the younger generation, to bemoan what music has become, to write a review chock-full of FOCness.

But it’s about time we shook things up.

As I waded my way through some of our most recent offerings, I kept being reminded of how Chappell’s backup singer puts it on the opening tune:

“Ummmmm, can you play a song with FUCKING BEAT?”

And whatever you think of it, make no mistake – she’s coming for your daughters and your granddaughters – whether you like it or not.

She’s not just a cheerleader for her gender or sexual partner set – she’s a cheerleader for humanity.

You go, girl.

Happy listening!

PS. I’ll do Taylor Swift next go.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Also forgot to mention that @Coatigan has kindly agreed to step in to collect the points this week and manage the changeover next Wednesday whilst I'm away.

As I doubt this will crack the 7 or 8 barrier in total points, your job will be an easy one.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Interesting that Rush should get a mention at the end because their record of having 23 people cast a vote for Moving Pictures remains in tact ..... just.

Stop Making Sense (Live) by Talking Heads pulled in 22 voters at a very healthy average of 7.25. Thanks to @LGWIO for a great nomination that got lots of people talking, although how much of it was sense is still open to debate :)

Next up is @FogBlueInSanFran, who is no doubt about to nominate an album with an average bpm of 189. Get ready to sharpen those pitchforks because he's threatened to just post it without any clues!

out of interest, what score would it be if Bimbo didn't give it 1/10 ?

 

[Saddleworth2]

Nail firmly hit on Head.
40 years on you are getting what I got back then, only I was probably caught even more cold.
I knew Psycho Killer and little else. Some ‘cool guys’ had started to get the ‘DJay’ to play it at a Rock School Disco I used to go to (TheGrove) at the end of the seventies and it had that post punk feel that I hadn’t yet embraced totally.
Some people are saying that this movie version of it more or less set their mood for the album and Byrne strangles it.

For me it was the opposite. That was the point. He goes out on his own at the start of the concert and bares his soul to the audience. He’s no ‘singer’ in the conventional use of the word but they couldn’t have a better vehicle as a band to get their brand of music across.
The same goes for Tina when she comes out and they sing ‘Heaven’.

Quite a few on here hate it, but it transfixed me from the start and held me all concert. Considering I knew nothing of the music before I went to the show, I feel that is why I came out of that first screening wondering, what just happened?

The repeated weekly routine that I got into with it when they movie took up residency a few years later is a different story and cemented the cherished memories I have of it now, in my heart and brain.

I went to see David Byrne here in Dublin a number of years back and he did all the TH stuff. It was every bit as innovative a concert as SMS. The stage was a lit cube of vertical string blinds/curtains. You could make out shapes outside the cube, in the dark, but inside is all that was lit.
Instruments and people came in and out onto stage at different points, depending on whether they were needed for that song.
It was very dynamic, people shooting in and out. Hard to describe, but every bit as artistic and visual as SMS.

There is no doubt I wouldn’t score this album as highly without the movie. I openly admitted that from the start. But to me I can’t separate them. To me SMS is the whole experience. You don’t get that on the original album. That’s for sure.

That's it. It was a total experience. I said to Mrs S at one point, this is as much a theatre performance as a music ones. It's not sensible to separate the music from the visuals - you wouldn't do that to a play. I wonder if Byrne thinks of himself as a musician or a performance artist? I was a little sad when I read the break-up of TH was a little acrimonious as they looked as together and as joyful as any band I've seen. Then you remember it was a performance.
His background in art school clearly had a significant influence on his future career. The other thing I hadn't appreciated is that he is..........................Scottish!!

 

[BlueHammer85]

My only interest in Oasis, is the possibility of hiring my back garden out for the ‘sound, no vision’ tour when they hit Dublin in August.

When are you releasing Garden tickets?

 

[Saddleworth2]

out of interest, what score would it be if Bimbo didn't give it 1/10 ?

(22x7.25-1)/21

simples.

 

[Saddleworth2]

My only interest in Oasis, is the possibility of hiring my back garden out for the ‘sound, no vision’ tour when they hit Dublin in August.

There’s a band that I think are over-hyped.
By themselves mostly. They really do think a lot of themselves. But hey, they’re from Manchester. They support City. Of course they’ll get hyped in here.

as you were our kid.

I'm in the ballot for pre sales. Yippee.

 

[RobMCFC]

out of interest, what score would it be if Bimbo didn't give it 1/10 ?

7.55