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Ray LaMontagne - Gossip
In The Grain
Finally, we've caught
up with Ray LaMontagne. His first two albums
both came out really before he made an impact
over here with hit single Trouble, so his
British fans have had a slightly staggered
run through his catalogue, but third album
Gossip In The Grain will be released a day
earlier over here than in America, so we've
finally stopped playing catch-up. If you're
still behind, here's a summary. LaMontagne
is a very intense performer with a stunning
voice that has echoes of Otis Redding -
that's a real compliment of course - whose
first album Trouble found him lacking the
quality songs to best use his remarkable
talent, though its highlights showed that
he was destined for greatness. Second album
Till The Sun Turns Black was less immediate
than its predecessor, with the sound largely
stripped down and his vocals usually a throaty
whisper rather than the powerhouse roar
that had made him famous. And it was fantastic,
one of the best albums of the last few years,
with songs that were breathtakingly intimate
and emotional, leading to a couple of shows
at the Apollo that must rate amongst the
quietest that venue has ever known. The
opening Stax horns blast of You Are The
Best Thing is certainly a bit of a shock
then, harking back to Trouble more than
anything off his second album, but it's
a slightly misleading start for Gossip In
The Grain, which isn't that much of a departure
overall from Till The Sun Turns Black. One
of the highlights is the stark and lovely
Let It Be Me, a track full of yearning and
love, though perhaps not quite so much as
the unusually light-hearted ode to Meg White
(called, erm, Meg White) from The White
Stripes: "Baby you're the bomb. Oh Jack
is great, don't get me wrong. But this is
your song." For someone as intense and serious
as LaMontagne seems, that's a very unusual
track, but he's more on message elsewhere,
with some beautiful and memorable tracks,
not least the album closer and title track
Gossip In The Grain, which ends proceedings
with class and trembling emotion, just the
way he does it best.
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Buena Vista Social
Club - At The Carnegie Hall
Ten years ago, the lives of a bunch of impoverished and unknown Cuban musicians were changed completely by a documentary made by Wim Wenders called Buena Vista Social Club, and the subsequent album produced by Ry Cooder. It was named after a Havana son music club in the 40s and Wenders and Cooder gathered a collection of talented son musicians, mostly old enough to have been in their prime at the time of the Social Club, and brought them all to world acclaim and affection. This live album was recorded at the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Buena Vista Social Club collective's second-ever performance outside of Cuba, and it already tells a tale of lost talent. The brand still tours with many of the original musicians still involved, but some of the most recognisible and important members have died in the decade since, including Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez and the incredible Ibrahim Ferrer. Given their advanced years at the time of their rise to fame, it is hardly surprising these three and three other Buena Vista musicians did not get to enjoy their new status for very long, but it's still quite sad to hear them basking in the glow of popular acclaim in New York on this recording. Needless to say, the music contained in this two-CD set is astonishing stuff, with the looseness of a live performance helping bring out some extra flavour in the material from the original album, and the extra material certainly a bonus for fans of these incredible musicians, their story and of Cuban music in general.
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Radio 1's Live Lounge Volume 3
Radio 1's Live Lounge series of CDs all come from segments on Jo Whiley's show, and they are usually interesting albums because they offer a slight twist on the usual chart fare compilations. They feature all the big names and big hits, but mixed up so that the artists and the songs don't always match up because they're largely doing cover versions of other people's hits. Strangely, the Live Lounge albums don't focus entirely on these, throwing in the odd straightforward track like the one that kicks things off on Volume 3, Mercy by Duffy. But at least it's an unusual version, stripped down and sounding quite different from the overplayed original, so it justifies its inclusion. Others aren't quite so deserving, but in general the non-covers are largely alright, it's some of the cover versions that let Live Lounge Volume 3 down. The Ting-Tings at least offer something different in the production of their version of Gossip's Standing In The Way Of Control, but are outdone for novelty value by Dizzee Rascal's entertaining rewrite of their own That's Not My Name. Amongst the othet positives are Girls Aloud's piano-led With Every Heartbeat, R.E.M.'s better-than-the-original Munich and a live version of Keep The Car Running by Foo Fighters, while Sweet Dreams sounds like it was almost written for Bat For Lashes. However, the problem with Live Lounge in general is that there's so many mediocre Radio 1-fodder bands and songs on here, like The Wombats, The Kooks, The Automatic, The Pigeon Detectives, etc, and unless you actually like listening to Radio 1, you'll find yourself skipping most of this album. Is it worth it for the nuggets of quality buried within, or the novelty of hearing popular acts playing songs by other popular acts? Not really, no.
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Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Tour DVD
Avril Lavigne isn't a teenager anymore, she's a 23-year-old married millionaire who has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. She's a punky rock chick, but she's also a pop star with a legion of teen and tweenie fans who want to go to her gigs and wave glow sticks at her. She's a decent singer and talented musician, but she also has backing dancers and costume changes in her shows. All of these contradictions come to the fore in The Best Damn Tour DVD, a show recorded in Toronto earlier this year as she toured her The Best Damn Thing album, which looked like it would be quite a big deal when it was released off the back of the hit single Girlfriend, but it's mostly disappeared and has sold less than her first two. However, in front of a passionate crowd in her home country, there's no hint of any sense of disappointment, but neither is it quite the triumph you might expect. For a start, Girlfriend is a surprisingly tame opening number, with the backing dancers and singers not really giving it the kind of kick that it could probably have. Another new track, I Can Do Better fares a little better, but it isn't until Complicated that things liven up a bit. Amusingly, Lavigne introduces it by saying that "me and this song go way back", like she's Mick Jagger introducing Satisfaction. One thing you can say about her is that she's already garnered plenty of hits to fill out a show like this, despite having released just three albums. Even so, she needs filler material like 'Best Damn Dance Break' and 'Bad Reputation Video Montage' to give her time for her costume changes, and they drag a bit. Of course, she's not Kylie, and a costume change only means putting on some jeans and a jacket, but you do wonder if it's really worth the interruption to the show. The highlight of the night is When You're Gone, which sees her playing on the piano and convincing as a real artist, giving signs that she does have the potential to develop and mature when she grows out of the bratty persona of tracks like I Always Get What I Want. Things get a little bit flabby towards the end of the show, before the inevitable Sk8er Boi finale, by which time she's changed into a pink hoody, and so a decent show comes to a decent end, but without ever really hitting any kind of heights. As for the DVD, it's a decent memento of the tour, but that's it, because there's no special features whatsoever...
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