Rod Stewart: "If We Fall in Love
Tonight"
Warner, 46467 (74 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1861
Rod Stewart's version of Have I Told You Lately was probably one of the worst musical abominations of recent years. On this album, which is subtitled Greatest Hits: Ballads, we have the "studio version remix"; and it's worse. Not only is it sung without the slightest apparent respect being paid to the original melodic line, Stewart also manages to reduce to drivel a lyric that was originally a prayer. In the re recording of his own relatively raw and emotional 1970s hit I Don't Want To Talk About It, he coasts along the lyric as if reading out a list of pizza shops. And as for You're in My Heart, what can one say about a lyricist who dares to deliver a line like "the big bosom'd lady/with the Dutch accent"? Sadly, nothing redeems this positively tacky collection, which is clearly aimed at the Christmas market: karaoke without the craic.
Marianne Faithfull: "20th Century Blues"
BMG, 386562. (54 mins)
Dial a track code: 1971
Marianne Faithfull, on the other hand, has the magical ability to take you inside the deepest crack in the human psyche, with even the opening line of the first song on this chillingly beautiful collection. "Show me the way to the next whiskey bar," she sings, and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill both smile from the grave knowing that their composition, Alabama Song, has found a voice as richly resonant as their best work together.
The creative union between Faithfull and playwright Frank McGuinness is equally blessed, and in full flight on Frank's translation of Brecht/Weill's Pirate Jenny. There really is more power and poetry in even this single song than most pop music could probably withstand these days. And if that doesn't stir the kind of atavistic feelings we rarely dare to feel, then listen to her reading of Brecht/Weill's The Ballad Of The Soldier's Wife and try to remain unmoved.
Though this album is a live recording of An Evening In The Weimar Republic, and focuses mostly on Brecht and Weill, the songs of Harry Nilsson, Friedrich Hollander and Noel Coward also fit easily into this wonderful ribbon of shadows, with Coward's 20th Century Blues specifically chosen by Faithfull to assert her "own Englishness". The accompaniment throughout is by the perfectly named Paul Trueblood, on piano. A minimalist evening in the Weimar Republic. Sublime. Though one would have loved to hear Marianne, in particular, wrap those ambivalent tones around Brecht/Weil's The Ballad Of Sexual Obsession. Maybe next time.
Beth Orton: "Trailer Park" - Heavenly, HVNLP17CD. (59 mins) Dial-a-truck code: 2081
If it is obsession you long to hear set to music, check out newcomer Beth Orton. Yes, the guitar lines on this album's opening salvo, She Cries Your Name, and the eerie orchestral lines are reminiscent of Bobby Gentry's magnificent Ode To Billie Joe, but that's hardly a complaint. Besides, despite her obvious debt to singer songwriters from Gentry's era, such as Carole King and Laura Nyro, Ms Orton has also been listening to the likes of Radiohead. And it shows.
She has recruited, to produce this album, Victor Van Vught, whose moody soundscapes for Tindersticks plus Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, find their musical mirror image here. Likewise, the band which includes Mid Friend, Wildcat Will, Ted Barnes and Lee Spencer, takes these songs way beyond the narrow ambit normally explored by female singer songwriters these days. The group's seemingly organic playing on tracks like Don't Need A Reason, clearly belies the fact that they've been backing Beth Orton for less than a year.
Apart from that, Orton previously worked with the Chemical Brothers, providing the perfect voice for the last track on their debut album, Exit Planet Dust. Chemical Brother Ed Simmons even claims she "has the voice of an angel", a line that is usually more a turn off than an attraction. If she has it's a black angel, and all the more interesting because of that. A beautiful debut. Beth Orton plays Trinity College tonight, so give yourself a double treat; buy the album, see the show.