Music review 2006

The Newcomers

In a peculiar hybrid of geek and cool, it seems like the techno-wizzes have had the last laugh in 2006. The intriguing Lily Allen (Alright, Still) and the slightly less intriguing Sandi Thom (Smile…It Confuses People) have jumped on the Internet bandwagon which boomed with the Arctic Monkeys. The phenomena of myspace/music combined with the possibility of broadcasting your own gigs on YouTube have sparked a boom in the Internet almost-industry.

Allen revels in the banality of everything; from her urban surroundings in ‘Ldn’ to the smiling cattiness of a former lover in ‘Not Big’. Allen infuses exceptionally bitchy London lyrics with soft vocals which, when live, are almost indistinguishable from her ska-influenced backing band. The nature of the music, comprising chiefly of skipping ska/reggae, allows the album to form a kind of ‘life soundtrack’ highly fitting with the current gritty perception of the real. (The Streets, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living; Plan B, Who Needs Actions When You Got Words).

Certainly on mainstream radio, Allen will have made regular summer listening alongside The Kooks. Despite earlier releases and the appearance of Inside In/Inside Out in January, it was only at the beginning of the festival season that this band moved markedly beyond the pages of NME and onto mainstream radio. Even the majority of Warwick’s scenesters failed to attend their early gig in the Student Union while only 6 months later, they played to a packed NME tent at the Carling festivals. Lacking the live frenetic energy of other such Warwick-loved bands the Subways, the Kooks’ success has not gone unquestioned. An unambitious mix of irresistibly sing-along tunes (‘Naïve’) with pleasant foot-tapping acoustic guitar (‘Ooh La’) makes this band a winner. Whether the Kooks are capable, as a band, of developing musically and innovatively remains to be seen.

The Fratellis provided the soundtrack to the shift between summer and autumn with Costello Music. The anti-Kooks camp will shun yet another skinny-jeaned ,big-haired NME favourite, and no doubt the Fratellis are characterised by the same themes. Yet both differ from the sexdrugsrocknroll of their blueprint, the Libertines, downplaying the world weariness in favour of youthful playfulness. What makes Costello Music so appealing is the constant undercutting of this youth with elements of 70’s city rock.

While Rihanna provides a fresher sound and versatility on the R&B scene than Beyoncé with A Girl Like Me (featuring the brilliant mashup of Softcell’s ‘Tainted Love’ in ‘S.O.S’ – a club favourite), 2006 has undoubtedly been the year of Indie glam. The less said about Kasabian’s Empire, the better.

The Sellouts

2006 saw a strawberries-and-pepper collaboration halfway through the year with Nelly Furtado’s joint effort with Timbaland, resulting in Loose. Like said combination of foodstuffs, the two complement each other surprisingly well. (No, really). Despite being one of the few strong female figures in popular/folk music without resorting to the mainstream machine of self-promotion, Furtado’s Folklore flopped in 2003. The result has been a move away from the ‘ethnic’ roots of Whoa, Nelly! towards a total embrace of the MTV culture, even featuring Justin Timberlake in the sexualised ‘Promiscuous’ video. While the relaxed panpipes of ‘All Good Things’ (featuring Coldplay frontman Chris Martin) offer a brief respite from the almost satirically inappropriate club beats of ‘Maneater’, Furtado has lost the musical innocence which characterised her earlier releases.

Higher up on the mainstream machine is Beyoncé with the wonderfully entitled B’day (so called because the album was produced in a record three weeks, just before the singer’s birthday). With such a glaringly obvious publicity oversight, Beyoncé’s fans might wonder if she puts as little thought into her music. Well…yes and no. ‘Crazy In Love’ found Beyoncé the winning song formula of powerful diva vocals plus occasional guest rapper (Jay Z, who has returned from an official retirement lasting 2 years with Kingdom Come). Beyoncé has proved beyond all doubt that she has sterling abilities in both her vocal performance and showmanship, yet current mock-ballad release ‘Irreplaceable’ could easily have been a number from Survivor by Destiny’s Child. Coupled with the angry ‘Ring the Alarm’ (complete with fire alarm effects), this is nothing fans haven’t heard before. Previous album Dangerously In Love largely perfects Beyoncé’s established Independent Woman image, and fans who want more of the same will not be disappointed.

Rather darker in tone is Muse’s fifth album Black Holes And Revelations. Performing their most ambitious tour yet, Matt Bellamy and co. have perfected a seamless live act filled with musical fireworks to delight everyone from Indie ravers to metalheads. This all-inclusive sound is achieved by Bellamy experimenting with his earlier, endearingly geeky obsession with the electric and distortion sound effects first heard in Origin Of Symmetry. Black Holes is a more accessible album and Muse seem to have commendably retained their original fan base. However, a less chaotic sound is achieved at the expense of Bellamy’s blinding piano solos. Throughout the previous albums the classical and the electric intertwine to form the sound which is particularly unique to the band and perfected in Absolution. Black Holes may appeal to the thousands Muse will perform to in Wembley Arena, but it lacks the soul and depth the band is capable of achieving.

Improvers and Shakers

In the Spears/Aguilera teen pop playoff of 1999, it seemed like Britney had it all. Justin Timberlake, money, better hair and Justin Timberlake. With the dawn of 2007, it’s Aguilera who has established herself as the superior both in vocals and dignity. Moving from the awakening that is Christina Aguilera towards dodgy duets with Ricky Martin on Mi Refejo, Aguilera has stayed constant while the Latin American boom has faded like a badly-applied tan. Aguilera’s progress between the albums is so neatly divided it could be presented in boxes. From the gritty seduction of Stripped, Back to Basics is a vocally mature album, this time in the persona of a soul diva. Aguilera however, is not a soul diva and this starlet pose is not entirely convincing. It is nonetheless an impressive and jazzy effort from an artist finally established in herself. Moving entirely away from the jagged edges of 1998 debut Songs For Polar Bears is Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open. Maintaining the melodic melancholy of Final Straw, the band have constructed an exceptionally thoughtful and, on occasion, dark album. Their overt focus on sentimentality and a sound so subtle it is in danger of being bland weaken the album. Subtlety, however, is what characterises earlier, groundbreaking single ‘Run’ and the same compelling element in Eyes Open demands a second listen.