Just listened to Out of the Woods for the first time in a while. What an album. I think Raise the Roof might be my favourite song she's ever done. The whole album is great though.
Think I'm going to spend the day listening to Everything But the Girl now.
― Kitchen Person, Monday, 7 April 2014 15:26 (ten years ago) link
This remix of a remix has been floating about for a few years but I've been coming back to it loads over spring. The backing vocals are by Cortney Tidwell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcTfT40yQOM
― boxedjoy, Monday, 7 April 2014 21:22 (ten years ago) link
Also feeling pretty enthusiastic about her new regular column in New Statesman
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/04/i-wonder-what-my-younger-self-would-ve-made-house-lords-and-its-hairdryers
― boxedjoy, Monday, 7 April 2014 21:24 (ten years ago) link
She's too good for us. New single/video, "Queen"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVw7fdB8gXM
Album, Record, out on March 2 -- my birthday!
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 15:00 (six years ago) link
This song is wonderful!
― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 15:40 (six years ago) link
wow, that's great!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 17 January 2018 16:31 (six years ago) link
I've enjoyed Ewan P's Instagram series this week outlining who participated, where they recorded, what equipment they used etc.
― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 16:44 (six years ago) link
oh fuck yes
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 January 2018 16:46 (six years ago) link
like that.all we need now is for ben to revive buzzin fly ..(i never was interested in his post electronic acoustic/guitar material)
― mark e, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 16:57 (six years ago) link
This is just what I needed today. Out Of The Woods has become one of my favourite albums ever. Hopefully this will be close to that. The single is very promising.
― kitchen person, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 17:26 (six years ago) link
Here's some PR guff
Describing Queen, Tracey says: “It’s a great opener for the album - driven along by Ewan Pearson’s unashamedly glittering electro-pop production, drums and bass from Warpaint’s Stella and Jenny, it features me playing electric guitar for the first time in a while, and singing my heart out.”As ever the personal has often been political in Tracey Thorn’s work. “Nine feminist bangers,” Tracey Thorn jokes when asked to describe ‘Record.’ If this album is in part about freedom and disenthrallment, new single ‘Queen’ is the opening broadside, all personal fire and desire. Her voice, self-assured and richly-textured, yet confessional and affecting, spits out the lyrics on ‘Record’ with a fresh compelling drive and remains one of the finest female pop voices of the last four decades.”I think I’ve always written songs which chronicle the milestones of a woman’s life.” she says. “Different ages and stages, different realities, not often discussed in pop lyrics. If 2010’s Love and Its Opposite was my mid-life album - full of divorce and hormones - then ‘Record’ represents that sense of liberation that comes in the aftermath, from embarking on a whole new 'no fucks given' phase of life."On Record, the synth-driven tracks arrive and leave with a punchy sub-three-minute directness. “I wanted it to be a record you’d listen to in the daytime,” Tracey says. “On your headphones or on the move. Not necessarily in the evening, or in your bedroom.” For all its no-fuss pop brevity, the album rotates around Sister, a dubby nine-minute Compass Point-style disco jam where Tracey is joined again by Warpaint’s rhythm section and glorious backing vocals from Corinne Bailey Rae.Across four decades Tracey’s songs and writing have offered up a clear-eyed woman’s view of the immediate world around her; from the acerbic teen love songs of her first early-eighties band Marine Girls, through sixteen years as one half of articulate multi-million-selling duo Everything But The Girl to her recent acclaimed memoirs and journalism."
As ever the personal has often been political in Tracey Thorn’s work. “Nine feminist bangers,” Tracey Thorn jokes when asked to describe ‘Record.’ If this album is in part about freedom and disenthrallment, new single ‘Queen’ is the opening broadside, all personal fire and desire. Her voice, self-assured and richly-textured, yet confessional and affecting, spits out the lyrics on ‘Record’ with a fresh compelling drive and remains one of the finest female pop voices of the last four decades.
”I think I’ve always written songs which chronicle the milestones of a woman’s life.” she says. “Different ages and stages, different realities, not often discussed in pop lyrics. If 2010’s Love and Its Opposite was my mid-life album - full of divorce and hormones - then ‘Record’ represents that sense of liberation that comes in the aftermath, from embarking on a whole new 'no fucks given' phase of life."
On Record, the synth-driven tracks arrive and leave with a punchy sub-three-minute directness. “I wanted it to be a record you’d listen to in the daytime,” Tracey says. “On your headphones or on the move. Not necessarily in the evening, or in your bedroom.” For all its no-fuss pop brevity, the album rotates around Sister, a dubby nine-minute Compass Point-style disco jam where Tracey is joined again by Warpaint’s rhythm section and glorious backing vocals from Corinne Bailey Rae.
Across four decades Tracey’s songs and writing have offered up a clear-eyed woman’s view of the immediate world around her; from the acerbic teen love songs of her first early-eighties band Marine Girls, through sixteen years as one half of articulate multi-million-selling duo Everything But The Girl to her recent acclaimed memoirs and journalism."
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 17:42 (six years ago) link
I've now gotten ahold of this record and boy oh boy is it good.
― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 1 February 2018 03:33 (six years ago) link
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)
― etc, Thursday, 1 February 2018 03:54 (six years ago) link
― Johnny Fever
Yeah, I just heard this for the first time too. It's the first great album I've heard this year.
― kitchen person, Thursday, 1 February 2018 04:35 (six years ago) link
I... don't know how I feel about this album
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 12 February 2018 20:40 (six years ago) link
I think I just don't like "Guitar"
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, 12 February 2018 21:53 (six years ago) link
We thought it was absolutely wonderful, start to stop.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 17:41 (six years ago) link
is that the royal we, Ned? are you implying that you are queen?
― how to diss a peer completely (unregistered), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 18:04 (six years ago) link
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine),
a Prince cover?
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 18:48 (six years ago) link
xpost -- 'We' meaning myself and my girlfriend, thank you.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 19:27 (six years ago) link
if only; instead it's a colorless perky '80s thing
"Sister" is fantastic though
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Tuesday, 13 February 2018 19:35 (six years ago) link
he is also queen, we had a vote and liz is out
― mark s, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 19:36 (six years ago) link
Greetings my loyal subjects.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 19:41 (six years ago) link
This album rocks. More albums about a woman in late middle age who's social media savvy and still anticipates a few turbulent love affairs.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 March 2018 11:57 (six years ago) link
Check out @tracey_thorn played on #iggyconfidential last Friday. Lady does not disappoint! #iggypop— Iggy Pop (@IggyPop) March 4, 2018
― groovypanda, Sunday, 4 March 2018 20:41 (six years ago) link
I'm in love with "Guitar" and "Air."
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 4 March 2018 20:43 (six years ago) link
Love this album. Played it twice in a row yesterday and woke up wanting to hear it again
― brotherlovesdub, Sunday, 4 March 2018 20:49 (six years ago) link
In love with "Guitar" and "Dancefloor", me.
― dorsalstop, Sunday, 4 March 2018 21:05 (six years ago) link
Loving the album too. I think it's one of the best things she's ever done. My current favourite is Air as it would fit nicely on the Shura album. Dancefloor is such a brilliant closer, I just wish it was a bit longer. Kind of has a Pop Kids vibe to it.
― kitchen person, Sunday, 4 March 2018 22:25 (six years ago) link
Video for Sister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A-XyMzTSWc
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 08:27 (six years ago) link
the beats on the new album are really cheap. and the songs are not very good either. it all sounds pretty much like mainstream. i love tracey thorn but this is very dispensable.
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 15:24 (six years ago) link
why aren't they very good? "Guitar" and "Babies" present points of view we don't often hear in songs, and their melodies are delectable. I don't treat as a dance record – it's a singer-songwriter record with dance colorings, in the same way Bill Callahan would use strings or John Darnielle a brass section.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 15:41 (six years ago) link
it all sounds pretty much like mainstream.
Judging by this comment I'm not sure how much mainstream pop you listen to. This is much better produced than both a lot of mainstream 80s-inflected pop and the sort of shambahla stuff that's popular here. A lesser producer than Ewan Pearson would be tempted to really max out every sound, he allows every sound (especially the voice) the space it needs. He and Tracey are excellent foils for one another
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:04 (six years ago) link
I love this, I love her voice
I love how effortless and shimmery the music is
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:06 (six years ago) link
This sounds like Drake, Cardi B, and Post Malone.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:08 (six years ago) link
I mean, I can see what they are getting at, particularly "Guitar," the production of which sounds like everything I hated about the Paramore album and parts of the last Carly Rae Jepsen record
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:13 (six years ago) link
this is really great i think
it's funny how the decline of the music biz makes for strange fellows, imagine thinking oh yeah tracey thorn will be on superchunk's label 20 years ago
i don't think it sounds cheap at all, it's very well engineered and mastered
― It's not delivery, it's Adorno! (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:20 (six years ago) link
"Go" is just tremendous, cheap-esque drum sounds included
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:21 (six years ago) link
but it's fascinating how both albums were disappointments or outright flops – they were failed crossovers.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:31 (six years ago) link
Both of those albums are over-compressed to hell in the way that you'd expect from artists gunning for maximum radio play in 2018, that's notably not the case here. I can see how the sound palette and other production choices might be similar (and offputting) but the treatment of them is completely different.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 16:50 (six years ago) link
Yes agreed
I will probably always be a total, melty mess for these big, clear, generous alto female voices over 80s inspired synths - Alison Moyet the other obvious example of this
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 17:14 (six years ago) link
The lyrics and themes in this album are incredible. I don’t gaf if the sounds are cheap. The emotions and depth of thought overwhelm any blandness of the production.
― brotherlovesdub, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 18:11 (six years ago) link
lol do you really think it sounds bland
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 18:21 (six years ago) link
like i guess i don't associate EBTG or her w/super edgy experimental stuff, more literate well mannered electronic stuff w good songwriting
― It's not delivery, it's Adorno! (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 18:28 (six years ago) link
Its brevity is something my girlfriend and I loved as well -- it does the business quickly but does so in a way that feels like a big scope of a record, perhaps even more so lyrically than musically.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 18:51 (six years ago) link
I really love Tracey Thorn, EBTG and solo, I just cannot deal at all, ever, from anyone, with that chintzy canned "Take on Me" sound
― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 19:48 (six years ago) link
take on me is a very good song
― It's not delivery, it's Adorno! (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 19:55 (six years ago) link
it all sounds pretty much like mainstream.Judging by this comment I'm not sure how much mainstream pop you listen to
Judging by this comment I'm not sure how much mainstream pop you listen to
― Ich bin kein Berliner (alex in mainhattan), Wednesday, 7 March 2018 20:57 (six years ago) link
‘Computer beats’, Stella Mozgawa will love that.
― Dan Worsley, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 21:30 (six years ago) link
I just cannot deal at all, ever, from anyone, with that chintzy canned "Take on Me" sound
whathuh?
― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 7 March 2018 22:23 (six years ago) link