Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants

Stevie Wonder
1979

Curate's egg of an album nevertheless proves that, pre-1982, there really was no such thing as a bad Stevie Wonder album.

Is this a proper Stevie Wonder album? It was originally a soundtrack to a long-forgotten slice of pseudo-scientific nonsense but, thanks to Wonder's fame, the music has long since outgrown the association. In fact, the instrumental sections illustrate the images rather well (remarkably so given that Stevie obviously couldn't see any of them), and they are never dull; but taken on their own they are a little aimless.

I much prefer the songs with more traditional lyrics and structure, and one of the good things about this album is that it contains some lesser-known examples of Wonder's songs that are new to me. "Race Babbling" is a nicely funky groove, although it's a bit too long. "A Seed's A Star" has a great tune and driving beat, and wouldn't be out of the place on Songs In The Key Of Life, nor would "Outside My Window".

There's quite a lot of what sounds like early digital synth technology, which now sounds more much dated than the analogue synthesizers used on earlier classic albums like Talking Book - what are classified in my mind as Casiotone sounds, although I'm sure that in 1979 it took a lot of expensive technology to sound like that.

Nevertheless, there is more good than bad here and it's great to find some Stevie Wonder material that hasn't been played to death.

Before And After Science

Brian Eno
1977

I'm finding Before And After Science to be a more interesting album than Here Come The Warm Jets, but it's still a patchy affair.

Much of the first side reminds me of something else - and usually something better. "No One Receiving" sounds like Station To Station-era white funk, only less convincing. "Energy Fools The Magician" sounds a bit like a cross between Jaco Pastorius' first solo album and Miles Davis circa Decoy or Tutu, which is no bad thing, but it's a bit directionless. "Kings Lead Hat" is obviously Talking Heads (in anagram and sound) - scratchy, antsy and funky, just not quite as good. It's fitting that Eno should then go on and produce them though.

The second side is more relaxed and less derivative and better for it. None of the songs stand out particularly, but are nicer in mood and sound and provide a more rounded listening experience. Again, none seem to go anywhere much but it's easier to forgive here.

To be charitable to Brian Eno, I think much of Before And After Science would be classed as experimental, which from what I know of the great man is more likely to be what he was aiming for than popular, polished or commercial. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for something that rewards me for repeated listens.

Introducing ... (Selected Works)

UNKLE
2006

Introducing ... looks like a promo-only album, since it appears in no UNKLE discographies (and it says "for promotional use only, not for resale" inside ...). I found it secondhand in our Berwick Street trawl earlier this year. UNKLE has been on my radar for a long time but what particularly sparked my interest was that they made a track with Alice Temple (of Eg & Alice, um, "fame". Well famous in my head for their peerless album 24 Years Of Hunger - but that's another review).

Sadly that track doesn't appear here. This album is a selection from their work up to 2006 and consists of two disks. The first contains UNKLE originals and is pretty good. My current favourite? I'm torn between "Reign", featuring Ian Brown, a first cousin of his track "F.E.A.R.", which features string parts over a good beat; and "Eye For An Eye", a nicely apocalyptic. spooky mix of spoken word samples and the sung refrain from The Temptations' "Ball Of Confusion" - "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, run run run but you sure can't hide". "Blackout" is heavily reminiscent Massive Attack circa Mezzanine - no bad thing, of course. Another Ian Brown collaboration, "Be There", is good too.

Other tracks feature Richard Ashcroft and Thom Yorke and, in each case, sound like their respective bands with some more beat-oriented production. Overall, I like all this material. Time to get the released albums, probably.

The second disk is made up of UNKLE remixes of various artists, including Massive Attack, Robert Plant, QOTSA and Ian Brown's aforementioned "F.E.A.R." Generally I'm no fan of remixes, regarding them as unnecessary arsing around with perfectly good songs that do nothing to improve on the originals. There are some notable exceptions, of course, but none of these songs feature in that list. Disposable.

British Steel

Judas Priest
1980

From what little I know about Judas Priest (and I tried not to prejudice myself before listening by reading lots), they mark a junction between "rock" and "metal". Certainly you can hear both in the music on British Steel. "Living After Midnight", for example, could be Whitesnake - a big, stadium-friendly anthem about staying up all night (like a proper grown up and everything!), with big chorused guitars and a medium widdly but forgettable solo. On the other hand, opener "Rapid Fire" is, appropriately, a very fast metal chug, and much more interesting.

I think the real point here is that this album significantly pre-dates both the stadium rock of Bon Jovi or any other hair metal bands, and the more thrashy bands like Megadeath, Anthrax and so on. So although this album might sound slightly dated now, it was clearly very influential. And if that's so, I'm just grateful that it was tracks like these that proved so, rather than the, frankly, over-pompous "Red, White & Blue" or the comedy lyrics of "The Rage" (no surprise to find that singer Rob Halford came out many years later).

I'm no expert on all these micro-genres, because I find metal in general a bit juvenile. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of loud guitars, but metal's posturing, "attitude" and shrieking puts me off. British Steel, though, is surprisingly listenable. The songs mostly have memorable tunes you can sing along with, and Halford mostly stays in a lower range (although he can hit the high notes too), which I definitely prefer. The twin guitars of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing are big, crunchy and wild. Good fun for a while, but probably superseded by later artists.

A Donny Hathaway Collection

Donny Hathaway
1990

I'm a bit of a snob about compilation albums¹. Most artists recording after about 1970 conceived their albums as complete artistic statements, or at least they aspired to, and a compilation tramples all over that. It's like taking your favourite bits from all of Picasso's paintings and making a collage of them. It might be striking, but it won't be a coherent whole.

Of course, my view is probably hopelessly outdated in this era of downloading individual tracks. The kids are busy creating their own unique compilations and not giving a monkey's about the artistic compromise involved. And, truth to tell, compilations have always had a place. My first Bowie album was ChangesOneBowie, on cassette, and the 13 year old me loved it without worrying about what sense it made. I have all the proper albums now, of course, but it served a purpose as an introduction.

I heard about Donny Hathaway on the Great Album Showdown, when Martin Freeman and Danny Baker competed to out-enthuse each other over one of Hathaway's albums. I'm pretty well read about music (albeit less so about black music), but his name wasn't one that instantly rang a bell. So when I came across this compilation for pennies on our shopping trip, it seemed a good opportunity.

As it turned out, I already owned some of these songs: "Where Is The Love" and "Back Together Again", wonderfully harmonised duets with Roberta Flack, both appear on Flack's Softly With These Songs (yes, yes, a compilation), which I've owned for years. Hathaway's solo material is generally much slower and deliciously moody: I particularly like "Giving Up" and "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know", both of which have a real late night, soulful, mournfulness that you can just wallow in. His voice is a classic soul/gospel instrument, reminiscent at times of Stevie Wonder ("The Ghetto" in particular reminds me of Wonder's "Living In The City" - no bad thing).

Donny Hathaway only recorded four albums, including one of duets with Roberta Flack, and so having had my introduction - and thoroughly appreciated it, too - I will definitely be going for the proper albums now. Anyone want a third hand compilation?


¹ Note for non-British English speakers: in this context, "a bit" means "a lot". For further education about understanding British English phrasing, see this handy guide.

Sail Away

Randy Newman
1972

One of the things I really like about listening to albums from the seventies is that they are so short. None of that fifteen songs, 75 minutes of "value" that we were cursed with from the mid-nineties on. Sail Away is half an hour of excellent songwriting that hasn't taken me several weeks to get to grips with.

Randy Newman has a number of similarities with Bob Dylan: both known for their songwriting skills, and frequently covered by other artsists; both possessed of, um, unusual singing voices; and both lyrically some way away from "moon/June" lyrical laziness. (Not that I really care about lyrics, as I've said a number of times before.) However, unlike Dylan (who I can't stand), Newman hasn't made the mistake of assuming that good lyrics (for some definition of "good") can carry a poor song. Newman is an accomplished musician and all the tracks here have good tunes, superb arrangements and distinct identities. I also rather like his singing voice, despite its obvious limitations.

I'm surprised by the number of songs I recognise - in particular "You Can Leave Your Hat On", which I only knew from The Full Monty (I know, a pop anorak really should be better informed), but is better here. Alan Price covered "Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear" and "Political Science", is on an Old Grey Whistle Test DVD. All are good. I also rather like "Last Night I Had A Dream", mainly for its tune and atmosphere.

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

The Kinks
1968

For rock music, I think the key decade since the birth of rock'n'roll is the seventies. The developments in style and recording techniques during that time mean that while anything prior to it sounds irrevocably dated, anything post about 1977 (stylistic considerations aside) sounds almost, if not actually, modern.

As a case in point, here's The Village Green Preservation Society; all tinkly, faintly awkward English sub-psychedelia, it could not have come from any other time than the late sixties. It was even released in mono, for goodness sake! A mere nine years later and you can choose from the air-brushed, silken sheen of, say, Rumours or Aja, either of which sound like they could have been released last year, or the professional punch of Never Mind The Bollocks or News Of The World, guitar rock that has been constantly referenced since.

Anyway, this is an album of its time, then, and very reminiscent of others of its era. "Do You Remember Walter" sounds like the more whimsical bits of early Floyd. "Big Sky", probably my favourite track, could have come off Ogden's Nut Gone Flake or Jack Bruce's Songs For A Tailor. As  you'd expect from Ray Davies, decent tunes are in good supply, although a few sound somewhat contrived. The Village Green Preservation Society is a concept album, clearly (anything titled "<band name> are <something else>" can't be anything but) but I'm struggling to detect the concept. Musically, it sounds like a collection of pop songs - nothing more, nothing less.

As you might gather, I haven't been blown away. Nice enough, very evocative of a certain period, but I'd rather listen to Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

Here Come The Warm Jets

Brian Eno
1974

Somehow I have managed to avoid hearing Eno's debut album before, although several friends have mentioned how much they like it. I'm not so convinced. It has a certain playful and whimsical charm in places, but it's a dated curiosity, full of self-consciously quirky songs, singing, playing and subjects.

I like the title track, which is a Neu-esque blast with harmonising fuzz guitars, and was clearly an inspiration for one of my favourite instrumentals, Teenage Fanclub's "Is This Music?". Other tracks have some pleasant melodies, some silly lyrics and some ear-catching moments, but nothing that really stands out.

Hymns Of The 49th Parallel

k.d. lang
2004

This is, I think, k.d. lang's second album consisting primarily of covers, the first being Drag (1997). Such an undertaking strikes me as unusual these days, where much value is put on originality, and harks back to past times, when Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra earned their reputations as interpreters of classics. Given lang's ability to transform an established song - "So In Love" on Red Hot + Blue is a masterpiece - and the incredible control and power of her voice, it makes absolute sense that she should choose this route.

The theme here is Canadian writers. In some cases, the songs are very well known, such as Neil Young's "Helpless", or Leonard Cohen's "Bird On A Wire". Covers of classics are always going to suffer from comparisons. In the first case, CSN&Y's original version is (almost) definitive; in the second, there are already superb recordings to compete with. And anyone who covers a Joni Mitchell song ("A Case Of You") does so at their own risk.

Risky it may be, but in all cases, she claims the tracks for herself. Perhaps we could have done without yet another version of "Hallelujah", to which she can add little (or improve on Jeff Buckley's recording), but "After The Gold Rush" is a much improved listening experience over the original. The ebb and flow on "Fallen" (Ron Sexsmith) is immaculately executed. The touch of desperation as she sings "you're chickening out, aren't you?" on Jane Siberry's "Love Is Everything" brings tears to my eyes.

Hymns Of The 49th Parallel is a masterful, beautiful album, understated and tasteful. It develops gradually over repeated listens (it's taken a solid two weeks for me to really appreciate it); the layers of orchestration and arrangement reveal themselves slowly. It is a very grown up, controlled record, and some would probably consider it the epitome of supper club blandness. I think the perfectly judged accompaniment raises it above this; but most of all, the supreme majesty of k.d. lang's superlative phrasing astonishes anew each time through - her performance is in a league apart.

Roots

Curtis Mayfield
1971

This is a grower, a tasteful, impeccably played and produced soul/funk delight. It didn't grab me straight away - I thought it was a bit too polite. In this respect it reminds me of the classic Steely Dan albums such as The Royal Scam, Katy Lied, or Gaucho, all of which I was non-committal about on the first few listens. Eventually, the sheer quality of the musicianship and melodies sunk in, just as it has with Roots.

However, it still doesn't really do it for me, even though I like it. I think this might be partly to do with Curtis Mayfield's voice, which is light and pleasant, but lacking the kind of emotional phrasing that Stevie Wonder has made his own (say, on "Living In The City") or the basso growl of Issac Hayes. Mayfield just doesn't put the songs across with the same force, and so the tracks are in danger of being background music.

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Wu-Tang Clan
1993

I've said before that I rarely listen to lyrics. So something that is all words is not my ideal kind of music. My normal osmotic listening approach (have it on in the background, try to absorb it) doesn't work with rap and hip-hop because it's so word-heavy. And anyway, I haven't listened to nearly enough hip-hop to understand the nuances.

This is twenty years old and in hip-hop terms is probably like early fifties rock 'n' roll to someone who is properly immersed in it: influential at the time but now hopelessly primitive and outdated. As someone who knows very little of it, and who isn't listening in the right way anyway, I'm a little unsure what to make of it. What I can decipher of lyrics is of no interest to me - I can't relate to it, even as a fantasy - while the musical aspects are appealing, but very, very repetitive. It's got a good beat which I do enjoy tapping along with but harmonically it is neolithic. And it goes on for aaaaaages. Back on the shelf it goes. Next!

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan
1963

David Hepworth once wrote that if you're under 50, you probably don't get Bob Dylan.^{[citation needed]} I think his point was that the way Dylan approached music making was more influential - on both musicians and listeners - than the music itself. If you are old enough to have been influenced directly, then you are more likely to appreciate it. On the other hand, a younger person will - can - only judge him by his musical legacy.

I think this is very plausible and goes some way to explaining why I've always considered Dylan to be really overrated. For me, the music does not stand up by itself. I've never been interested in lyrics, particularly any that are cryptic or pretentious. It's supposed to be pop music, not pop poetry (and yes, Bob Dylan is pop). Musically, Dylan can be really tiresome: his voice is an acquired taste at best (infernally grating at worst), the harmonica playing is horrible and most of the instrumentation sounds like an afterthought.

The more I learn about Dylan, the less I like. He is such a fake. The whole persona is a construction. The protest singer who made his name in New York isn't any more genuine than the folk rock revolutionary of the mid-sixties or the hillbilly from Nashville Skyline. Not that this should matter at all: I rather like Nashville Skyline, as it happens, because it has good tunes and decent musicians; and Bowie made his career out of alternative identities. What rankles is that at no point does Dylan admit that it is a construct. Sure, the mystique clearly works for him. It just annoys me.

Anyway, this is his second album. The best songs have a proper tune, even if Dylan's voice is only barely up to carrying it: "Masters Of War", "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (I think it's significant that, uniquely, covers of Bob Dylan songs tend to be better than the originals.) However, too much is affected, "rootsy" folk: "Bob Dylan's Blues", "Down The Highway" and "Talkin' World War III Blues" are all rambling tedium over rudimentary backing. It's probably good of its type but it's not enjoyable music.

Despite all this, I like Freewheelin'. I only bought it this year but I've known it since I was sixteen or seventeen, when my friend Josh got a copy on second-hand vinyl. He played it to death, and listening to it now takes me straight back to those winter evenings spent smoking dope, talking pretentious bollocks and writing our own songs. Even the rubbish tracks are evocative and heavily influenced Josh's own writing and performances, which, for personal reasons, I love. It does mean that I won't listen to this album very often. Those memories are among my most precious; I don't want to risk losing the ability to summon them.

Almost Blue

Elvis Costello & The Attractions
1981

Country music is and has always been unfashionable in the UK, but it doesn't sound like inverse cultural one-upmanship was the driving factor in Elvis's choice to record an album consisting entirely of covers of country songs. All the cliches are present and correct: the swooping pedal steel, the sweet background vocals, the two-step rhythm; but it all seems to be done with genuine feeling, and I can understand the attraction, for a songwriter, of the classic melodies and story telling tradition in the music.

Costello's thin, reedy voice is unexpectedly suited to the slower ballads; the prime example being the peerless "A Good Year For The Roses", but also heard to good effect on "Sweet Dreams", "I'm Your Toy" and "How Much I Lied". He's less convincing on the rockier songs. "Honey Hush" is particularly anodyne compared to Johnny Burnette's version (and, as a prototype rockabilly tune, it's an odd inclusion here), while the opener "Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)" is mercifully short. Why someone capable of a track as powerful as "Pump It Up" should falter on the harder-edged tracks here I don't know.

Country music isn't my favourite but any album that includes something as superb as "A Good Year For The Roses" can't be all bad, it has some very memorable tunes (often the way with country), and it hangs together better as an album than Armed Forces. And it has a wonderful cover, even if it is a (deliberate) rip-off of Reid Miles's seminal sixties work for Blue Note.

Armed Forces

Elvis Costello & The Attractions
1979

I've found this a little hard to get into, despite the presence of heavy-weight Costello classics "Accidents Will Happen", "Oliver's Army" and "Green Shirt" (plus CD bonus track "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding"). It's very close in feel and sound to the previous album, the excellent This Year's Model, except not quite so memorable.

Other than the singles, tracks I've enjoyed are, um ... well, there was the one that sounded a bit like "Night Rally" ("Goon Squad") ... oh, and I quite liked the song that reminded me of "Alison" crossed with Abbey Road's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ("Party Girl"). The only track I can remember the name of is "Moods For Moderns", which is a decent melody.

This being Costello, I'm sure the lyrics have some meaning but none that I can penetrate. Not a classic.

Update: I've just listened to This Year's Model again and it is so much better than Armed Forces.

American Beauty

Grateful Dead
1970

So, what do I know about Grateful Dead? Not much. They were going for ages (still are, in some incarnations); they played extended, heavily improvised rock; they were best live; and they were one of the world's biggest cult bands ("a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac"). So far, so hoopy, and therefore, armed with my minimal knowledge, I wasn't expecting this: a hokey, countrified, ballad-heavy album, with gentle, mostly acoustic instrumentation and camp-fire harmonies.

My first impressions of this album were that it was a poor copy of Crosby, Stills & Nash's first album (from 1968); the harmonies aren't quite as precise, the playing a little more sloppy. This is thrown into even more sharp contrast by side-by-side listens with CSNY's far superior 1970 album Déjà Vu. It's just not as accomplished.

Perhaps that's an unfair comparison. Déjà Vu is a timeless classic, whereas American Beauty sits very much in the late-sixties, combining a "hello clouds, hello sky" kind of hippy-ness with a bluegrass feel that I guess was becoming very current, what with the Byrds and Gram Parsons. This could be a bit wearing but thankfully it has plenty of pleasant tunes, and after a few plays they've started becoming memorable. Opener "Box Of Rain" has a slow, plaintive melody and keening guitar that reminds me a little of that in Richard & Linda Thompson's wonderful "When I Get To The Border". "Operator" reminds me of a Monkees song, unexpectedly, although I can't place which one right now. "Sugar Magnolia sounds a bit like Little Feat.

All of these things I'm reminded of are, for me, better than this. I'm a bit lukewarm about American Beauty. Another album whose place in the list of "greatest" is not justified, in my opinion.

Supernature

Cerrone
1977

This is an odd mixture, an album of two halves.

The first is dominated by the reputation-forming title track, which is worth the money all by itself. It's ground-breaking synthesized proto-house, in the mould of Georgio Morodor's classic productions for Donna Summer - more machine-like than the standard disco template of Philly soul strings and four-on-the-floor beat, but more human than Kraftwerk. It's a fantastic groove. Fun fact: the eco-aware lyrics were by Lena Lovich!

The following two tracks, "Sweet Drums" and "In The Smoke" (sometimes included as part of the "extended version" of "Supernature") both remind me of Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygène (from the same year and country as Cerrone); analogue synthesis in excelsis. It all sounds futuristic and surprisingly undated.

The second half is very different, being much more typical disco in the Salsoul vein; strings, prominent bass groove, female chorus, songs about love. Fun in a cheesy way (it's very well executed, and I do love disco), but it puts me strangely in mind of half-remembered Seaside Special performances, particularly "Love Is Here".

Happy Sad

Tim Buckley
1969

Almost twenty years ago I came across Jeff Buckley's incomparable Grace in a secondhand record shop in Manchester and it's been one of my favourite albums ever since. Inevitably, any fan of Jeff is going to want to hear more, and that is bound to lead to his father Tim. The result is that I now have quite a few more albums by Buckley Senior than by Buckley Junior; the irony is that, so far, I've never really connected with any of them. I quite like Sefronia (which includes "Dolphins", my favourite Tim Buckley song so far) but that's about it.

Happy Sad is from a few years earlier and I think the most I can say about it is, again, I quite like it. Not loads, just some. As a whole, is has a lazy, hazy late-summer, late-sixties feel which I find appealing. Although notionally "folky" and primarily based on acoustic instruments, it has electric touches here and there, and there's a jazzy influence hovering over most of the tracks too. It's only six songs long, although two of them are over 10 minutes long, so it isn't a short record.

If I had to choose a favourite, it would be "Love From Room 109 At The Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway)", which is a deliciously languorous, melancholic lament for a lost love. I also like the opener, "Strange Feelin'" which reminds me oddly of the "Stairway To Heaven" theme from A Matter Of Life And Death, while "Buzzin' Fly" has a nice little rhythm going. Unfortunately, "Gypsy Woman" is grossly over-indulgent and, at 12 minutes long, dominates and spoils the album for me.

All in all, another mixed bag as far as I'm concerned.

One Day Remains

Alter Bridge
2004

Last year, one of my most played albums was Blackbird, Alter Bridge's second album (I think accepted critical practice is to describe it as their "sophomore effort", but I eschew such pretension). On the strength of that, I decided to give this, their debut, a try. Given the reputation of Creed and Mark Tremonti, I had expected it to be full of pedal-to-the-metal, foot-on-the-monitor rawk; hair flying, guitars crunching, voices shrieking and solos shredding and squealing.

There's some of that in evidence, the title track being a particularly enjoyable example, while "Metalingus", unsurprisingly, has some nicely muscular guitar action. However, the album overall is mostly one of two speeds - full volume, albeit mid-paced, stadium-friendly rock like "Open Your Eyes", and hand-wringing balladry, such as "Broken Wings". Some of the songs combine both, using the classic template of a quiet start with loud chorus ("Shed My Skin" is probably my favourite of these).

Myles Kennedy has a classic rock voice that works better at lower registers than the excruciating screech of Bruce Dickenson or balls-in-a-vice squeak of Waxl, and therefore lends itself to the ballads. However, it does get a bit doomy and depressive at this speed ("In Loving Memory" in particular, which is no doubt heartfelt but also downright maudlin). Guitar work throughout is an exemplar demonstration of modern rock technique and feel, while particular mention should be made of the drumming which is outstanding throughout and has me thumping in time on my desk, leg, head or anything else close to hand.

On the whole, it's a good album, albeit not quite up to the standard of Blackbird. The songs aren't quite as memorable, the recording quality and production a touch muddier and the clichés slightly more in evidence.

McLemore Avenue

Booker T & The M.G.s
1970

This is a bit of an oddity. An album consisting entirely of the songs from Abbey Road, all done as instrumentals (bar the fifteen words of "The End") and covered in a wonderfully cool and relaxed way. Nowadays it would be a tribute to a classic album, but since this was recorded barely six months after The Beatles released the original, this was perhaps a sign of a lack of inspiration?

It's organised as three medleys, not in the original order of songs at all, apart from "Something" which is for reason given its own track. It's lovely, smooth background music, beautifully played and gently funky, if occasionally a bit too lounge - probably because the organ is just that kind of sound - but no less enjoyable for that. If it lacks some of the brilliance and force of the originals, perhaps that's just an indication of how good the original album is.

La Roux

La Roux
2009

I don't follow new music any more (and yes, 2009 does count as "new" for this old fart) but I'm vaguely aware that there have been a number of what I can only call kids around recently who have been inspired by early 80s synthpop. La Roux was what happened to come up in my recent second hand trawl. For them, listening to Yazoo is probably like rediscovering Frank Sinatra's fifties' classics would be for me - this music created ages before they were born and therefore having a retro-cool not apparent to those of us who lived through it the first time.

But actually, the idea of revisiting synthpop appeals to me. Firstly because it's the sound of my youth. Not just the obvious reference points - early Depeche Mode, Human League, Yazoo - but a host of lesser lights, like Howard Jones, Bronski Beat, OMD and many more were my listening as I entered adolescence and they still evoke a wonderful sense of potential. Secondly though, although it might be sacrilege to say it, a genre is often better the second time around. I think a canonical example of this is Oasis. Everyone says they're massively derivative; maybe so, but find me a Beatles or a Faces track that actually sounds as massive as "Slide Away". This is probably because any such revival is not usually a slavish reproduction of the sound of that era (unless you're Denim); it's inevitably informed by more recent innovations, in both subsequent musical genres (house in particular) and technology (all of Oasis' records are much better recorded than most 70s rock - Led Zeppelin's albums are particularly poor).

So it proves with La Roux. It's choc-full of early 80s Casiotone goodness, with some lovely crunchy sawtooth tones, great singing and, most importantly, plenty of superb tunes. My favourite song has changed several times over the two weeks I've had this album and, as has been observed before, this is a sign of a good album. Currently my favourite is "Cover My Eyes", a lovely tune and sweet, sad lyric. I can hear this being covered as a clichéd acoustic guitar version on X-Factor, but here the tinkly electro background (very Vince Clark) adds to the pathos, I think. But at other times my favourite has been variously "In For The Kill", "Bulletproof" and "Tigerlilly". A great find.