Pop Music Review Thread!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I love Mylène Farmer. Though, I can't say I was very impressed with Point de suture

[EricMontreal22]

The problem with Point de Suture is... It was Mylene by numbers. (Laurent Boutonnant, who does most of the music and all the production is to blame too of course, though at the same time I don't agree with fans who want tsee her try new producers, to me her sound *is* his ond--he essentially created her back in the 80s anyway when he gave up his bizarre horror film career to focus on music with her). Usually we get a progression with each album of hers, we didn't this time (her accompanying concert tour though was as always amazing). The fact that Alizee's album sucked so badly when she dropped Mylene and Laurent as songwriters/producers, though makes me think even more Mylene maybe should stick to what se does well.

That said, I think after a year or two, I've decided it's a stronger collection of tunes than her previous album, Avant Que L'Ombre... (Which was an underwhelming album as well). Also, since she's often compared with Madonna, in a way I'm relieved she's NOT trying hip hop or something but seems content to do what she does well).

And, unlike Madonna, Mylene is still doing wonderful videos (though I wish Laurent would direct them again--the ones he directed for her through the mid 90s are iconic--bizarre, creepy, and oh so french)

My fave of the ones he did for her (though one of the less controversial, far less nudity than some of her earlier ones) from '91 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HFqQ9U1c8I

And my fave from her last album, Si J'aivais au moins

(But I'm a sucker for stories with animals being tested on being released )

[EricMontreal22]

Really interesting (well to me, lol) interview with Brian Higgins, the man behind one of my fave production groups, Xenomania. They haven't had much success in North America, mainly as their "house band" Girls Aloud have never been released there, and it's interesting to read him admit why some of the other house acts they've tried to create have flopped recently, and the process in general. Since their first work on Dannii Minogue's obscure, but great, Girl album (and their first top 5 with her biggest hit All I Wanna Do) in 1997, I've followed their work pretty closely. Higgins has no small ego, but his throughts on music, the shift in pop, etc, are interesting (if a long read).

4/14/2010

The Pop Don't Stop.

by Andreas Soteriou

Fridays, apparently, are usually one of the quieter days at the headquarters of Xenomania – the pop production powerhouse, which has dominated the music charts over the last decade and helped to shape the careers of household names such as Girls Aloud and the Sugababes. Xenomania operates from within a large country house in a leafy, tranquil corner of Kent.

On the edges of the village green outside, tea rooms nestle among shops selling second-hand books and pastel-coloured pyjamas. In the centre, an imposing statue of Winston Churchill sits opposite the Xenomania gates, looking on approvingly, while keeping an eye on the comings and goings of any pop stars who might be visiting.

Today, he would have witnessed the arrival of Annie, the Norwegian singer who is working on new material with producer Brian Higgins, who, alongside writing partner Miranda Cooper, is the public face of Xenomania and the man I am here to meet.

Annie smiles a shy hello before turning back to her laptop at the edge of a dining table in the room that serves as the house’s reception-cum-library. Churchill’s presence is apparent here also – though a book about his life and times is only half-visible behind a photographic history of punk. While the biographies of John Peel and Gary Barlow share shelf space with numerous travel guides and a Popjustice award that honours Girls Aloud’s 2005 single “Wake Me Up” for being “a [!@#$%^&*] brilliant pop song”.

It would be fair to say that Brian Higgins knows a thing or two about brilliant pop songs. The Xenomania back catalogue is full to the brim. From the unconventional door-kicking stompers that helped to put Girls Aloud on the map to the retro-tinged numbers penned for Alesha Dixon and Gabriella Cilmi that sound like standards long before the arrival of the chorus. In his 1990s guise as a programmer in dance outfit Motiv-8, Brian remixed singles for acts such as Pulp and Saint Etienne before establishing his reputation as a hit songwriter by working with Dannii Minogue on her album “Girl”. The record that was to change his fortunes completely was Cher's “Believe”, the international pop behemoth that he had written seven years before its release. The success of that release and his flourishing partnership with Cooper enabled Brian to establish the blueprint for the Xenomania brand and its present-day operations.

Today, Brian emerges from his office in an upbeat mood, offering a friendly greeting and a guided tour of the house. One of his team takes a break from “lyricing” in her notebook to a backing track and introduces me to Florrie, the 20-year old drummer in the Xenomania house band who has been working with Brian and Miranda on her own tracks as part of a plan to launch her as a solo act over the coming months. Jason and Kieran, the Australian members of the house band – the men responsible for the conception of several Xenomania classics, including “The Promise” – are tucked away in one of the many upstairs rooms that function as mini-recording studios. Today, they are playing on an instrumental track that is yet to be assigned to any particular artist, and, judging from what I am able to hear, their laid-back enthusiasm for the work-in-progress seems entirely justified.

Outside, the Xenomania ducks, having recently returned from their winter migration, wander the grounds of the house. The enormous garden, which houses a swimming pool with an adjoining pool house serving as a makeshift rehearsal space, was put to good use last year as the setting for the inaugural Xenofest. The one-day, mini-musical festival served as a showcase for the roster of new acts currently working with Xenomania. The line-up included the female duo Mini Viva, who went on to provide the team with their last top ten hit of the decade with the infectious “Left My Heart In Tokyo”, Scottish solo artist Alex Gardner and electropop duo NiteVisions. Also on the bill were Vagabond, a group that released their Xenomania-produced album last autumn, but disbanded despite a positive critical reception which failed to translate into significant sales. This rare commercial mis-judgment has lead Brian to reconsider Xenomania's role within an increasingly struggling record industry. As he sits down in the house's grand drawing room, with its purple walls and framed portraits of Serge Gainsbourg and Xenomania acts past and present, the ducks reappear outside the patio window to look on while he dispenses his words of wisdom.

Andreas Soteriou: What is the current set-up at Xenomania?

Brian Higgins: We're a fairly small group of people here. If ever we feel that there is a lot of thinking to be done, we contract people. In 2006, Xenomania was four people. Writing “Sweet About Me”, “Call the Shots”, “Something Kinda Ooooh”. Then we sold a load of records and expanded, signed some acts and expanded again. It is a bit like a squeezebox. It opens and contracts accordingly, it doesn't show off by its size. There are eight people and some specialists that come in every now and again. I think we need to be that size.

AS: What lead you to this particular location?

BH: I’ve had my own company since 1996 and it was originally just over a shop on a high street, a one-room studio. That was around the time that I wrote my first top five hit and therefore was able to get a publishing deal. That allowed me to buy my own house and that had a big garage at the bottom of the garden that we were able to into a decent-sized studio space. “Believe” happened in that house, in terms of its success, but it had been written many years before then. This was where Miranda and I met up and where we created what was a blueprint for Girls Aloud in the late ‘90s. Then “Believe” was successful and that paid for me to move into the vicarage over the road – a big house. That was in 2001 and when we met the Sugababes and made the Girls Aloud records. We were there until the end of 2006. So all of the hits that were produced in that house then paid for this house, which I’d always seen but never realised had such an enormous garden. This part of it was up for sale and the other part where I live wasn’t; the family that owned it had sold it off and broken it up a few years ago. So I came and saw this room and thought I definitely wanted this house. So I bought it. The day I took possession of it, the next-door neighbours asked if I wanted to buy their half of the house, and more importantly, put the garden back together. So, that was just an incredible stroke of luck. Theoretically there could still be somebody living there. So God knows what it would have been like trying to make music there.

AS: It might be a surprise to some people to find you tucked away in a quiet town. Does the environment suit your way of working?

BH: I am from the very far North of England, the Lake District. I guess I‘ve just moved around the bottom of the M25. I’ve never lived in London and never wanted to. Although, I‘m probably closer to feeling more comfortable living there than I have ever done before because of the place we have in Shoreditch. There is a big studio there and a big flat so I‘m going to probably live there maybe a few days a week and here for the rest of the time. I like Shoreditch because it is like a Northern town, very industrial. I don’t feel like I am in a city and I like that, because I don’t like cities very much. I’m not a city type. We would never have had a set-up in London like here, and the fact that people can’t just pop in to this place is just a coincidence.

AS: What is your take on the current state of pop music?

BH: We’re in a new decade now, so the conversation I have with you now would be different from the one I would have had with you two years ago. I am pleased that decade’s over. It was an amazing 10 years, an incredible period, but I think it is over. And I think the fact that we were able to end the decade with a hit that was very like us in “I Left My Heart in Tokyo” is fine, a really good thing. I think music’s changing a lot. I think the way the label system is interacting with the public is very precarious at this moment in time. I say that with no pleasure, because the major label system has made me, made my company and everything else. We are an independent company with an very independent attitude but ultimately we were suppliers to the major label system so if they have difficulties it is inevitable that they will hit us to a degree as well.

AS: Where does that leave the future of Xenomania’s role within that system?

BH: I just think that you just need to redefine what it is. I personally think that we were probably, in terms of producers on this side of the Atlantic, the last entity that made the best of the CD times before it finally tailed off, which is where I think it’s at now. I think that with new music – if it’s not coming from a television platform – to say it’s struggling, is an understatement. We’ve always been about new music or working with acts through a period of time where we’d consistently try to push some sort of cutting edge idea. My commitment to those sort of things remains very much the same. But I think that the medium of pop music was always television and now television is no longer relevant – except for the X-Factor thing. That isn’t a world that I necessarily understand too well or particularly welcome. I think that the powers-that-be behind that show have got a very clear idea of how they want the music to be done.

AS: It is impossible to ignore the influence of X-Factor on the charts and the state of music television in general. Not only is it a dominant force, but Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue, two artists that you have had a working relationship with, also play a prominent part. Does that leave you with mixed feelings?

BH: I think TV is still incredibly powerful, but in many ways, X-Factor is pop music – and then there is everything else. It defines pop music, it is on TV for 16 weeks a year. And the press and the buzz surrounding the acts that come off it probably bridges the gap between the show ending and the show starting again. So, you’re never free of it. Although you may be free of Simon, Dannii, Cheryl and Louis and their faces for a large period of time, you’re never free of X-Factor. I think that everything else fits in between that, which is fine because every decade throws up new challenges. X-Factor is its own world and is representative of pop in this country, which is fine, I don’t have a problem with that at all. Society allows Simon to dominate in the way he does, so he does and that’s great. I was saying to someone the other day, that if there were 15 bands with the quality and charisma of Franz Ferdinand around the corner, all with tracks the quality of Take Me Out, there’d be no need for X-Factor. It would push it out. But there isn’t. So Simon just fills the space, which is fine. It needs people more charismatic than him to push him out of the way. Until that emerges, that’s not going to happen.

AS: Does that make it harder to break new acts?

BH: I think that if you want to be successful, you have to embark on a long road, with that in mind from the minute you start it. I think that anyone looking to turn anything round in anything less than an 18-month period I would suspect will probably be very disappointed. I just don’t believe that all the bits that you need to connect up do that in the short-term any more. They just don’t do it, it seems to me. Otherwise, the major labels would have broken more than one act beyond platinum last year, and there’s only one, which is Florence and The Machine. You can’t count Lady Gaga, I’m talking about a UK act. Only one, and I think there probably won’t be one this year that isn’t TV-related. I think the amount of work you have to do with a new artist before you even go near a record company is enormous, so that their money is injected into something that is already full of life. It’s no surprise that Ellie Goulding has got off to the quickest start this year, because she did the most work online last year – all the pre-label work, if you like. Whether Ellie has got the actual star power and star quality to actually turn that into a career, I don’t know at this stage. But, ultimately, I think she is a very good example of what needs to happen before you go on, you have to build it properly. The artist needs to be hands-on in doing that.

AS: Are you applying that long-term strategy with the launch of your new artists?

BH: Well, Florrie is certainly different, Alex and all the others are with a major label. I felt my criteria was to deliver a star with hits and a live performance. That’s what I felt my responsibility was. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have added a full online presence with Alex – any number of different releases out into the marketplace prior to going anywhere near a label – so that there was a very healthy underground aspect and online presence for that artist. I didn’t do that, because I didn’t believe I needed to. But, at the same time, I don’t think that the labels believed that was what was required. It’s only really by looking at the shocking results of trying to break new music in the last 12 months, that I think everyone’s accepted that that’s the way it’s got to be. If you service a record to Radio 1, the minute you go in with it, they’re on Google, looking to see what the online presence is. They are now using that as a determination of how hip or cool something is. Regardless of the quality of the record or the act, if that presence isn’t there, they will not play the record. It is basically making it clear that if you haven’t built up the online work through blogging, Facebook and Twitter then you can forget about it, unfortunately.

AS: The changes in the industry that you’ve mentioned, along with the importance of reality television are reflected to some degree in the career of Girls Aloud and their history with Xenomania.

BH: I guess Girls Aloud is ultimately a study in determination in many ways. There are lots of groups that have launched, had lots of hits and then disappeared. What myself and Miranda brought to it – apart from the music – was the attitude that if we didn’t give everything to it and throw everything we had at it, then it was going to fail. We always felt that, going into every single record. We felt that if we throw our heart and soul and lives at it, then it would succeed. I guess, we’re lucky in the sense that we met a group that had various voices within it that could really inspire excellent records. And they met people that were obsessed about wanting to have an expression through pop music that was as avant-garde as it was commercial, looking to combine those two things.

AS: Did you find that difficult?

BH; No, because that was the way we thought about pop music then, a desire to do that. I hated everything that was going on prior to us being successful, pre-“Round Round”, or in the gap between “Believe” and “Round Round”. That was a gap of three years, so despite having, well, the truth of it is the biggest hit in the world, three years later, I still hadn’t put another record out. I think that’s because, after the success of “Believe”, I’d pretty much disconnected from the pop scene as it was. This was because it was so urban R’n’B-based, when all I’d really come from was a dance / pop background, a club background. Prior to that it was all punk music and independent outsider music. So, in the three years between “Believe” being successful and “Round Round” hitting number one, we were trying to fashion a sound that was nothing remotely like anything that was going on, but still being very commercial, obviously, because I love melody. I can’t resist it. I was trying to fashion a way of doing it that wasn’t so predictable. I wanted to make statements within the records, using pop as some sort of way to blur the edges between commercial music and so-called indie music. I felt that I existed in the middle of that world and loved blurring it. I loved NME saying that “No Good Advice” was amazing, because I thought I was getting it right because I’m switching it all around. They were a reality group and meant to be killing indie music. No-one asked them to take to Girls Aloud, they decided to, and that was really good.

AS: Was that level of critical acclaim important to you?

BH; Ultimately, we were trying to make music that pleased ourselves. We had a very clear vision as to what it was about. I guess, serious journalism in this country is about picking out the level of sincerity, originality and dedication within something and, probably, dismissing the music that doesn’t have those qualities. Ultimately, that level of support is sort of what kept the group going, because they certainly weren’t being supported by radio. By the time we did the last album, it was different. They were so big then. They were ready to sell a million albums immediately, so they didn’t need “Biology” or “The Show” or something a bit highbrow. They needed something that would hit you right between the eyes, really, and that was “The Promise” that’s why we did that. The group has moved more and more into the mainstream, because that was what was required.

AS: It is interesting that you were able to shape their career through the music and that Xenomania's influence grew as they became more successful, when it could have easily been the opposite. Do you think that your instincts are always right?

BH; Well, I am very philosophical about our success and where we fit. The world is pop mad now. If you look at the charts, there are no bands. The American urban tempo is all up at European club tempo and then you've got European club records anyway, so it's all a mish-mash of stuff. It is a lot harder now for us to stand out, so we have to re-appraise where we go sonically, which is fine. You can't go on for years and years without having to review your artistry. In 2001, when we emerged, pop music was on its backside and indie music was about to rise, through The Strokes and everything else. We were an independent company and as indie as the other bands around us. The guitar riff on “No Good Advice” is very very similar to the riff on the track “Michael” by Franz Ferdinand. The difference is that it came out eight months before the Franz Ferdinand track. We were of the same mentality as the bands that were part of that group. The difference was that we didn't sing our own songs and loved female vocals. It was easy for us to stand out. We hooked up with the only cool group in the country, which was Sugababes making that step-up commercially through “Round Round”, which was a fascinating pop record in its own right. Then we met Girls Aloud. There was only Sugababes, Girls Aloud and Busted, maybe, and that was it. It was easy for us to dominate and dictate. All we had to do was make sure that every time we worked with either of the two girl groups that we didn't ruin it or cock it up. We took it so seriously. It was life or death because we knew that if we let it go with either Sugababes or Girls Aloud, there wasn't an obvious replacement because we were surrounded by a sea of bands.

AS: Girls Aloud were significant in that they were the first act that approached Xenomania with the brief of producing an entire album.

BH: We were lucky in the sense that the A&R director, the president of Polydor had the view, that it was better to have projects with one vision. Those were the projects that he'd generally been successful with in the past, where one producer made a record. We initially only did two songs on the original Girls Aloud album; “Sound of the Underground” and “No Good Advice”, then I heard the other 10 tracks and I phoned him and said, “This is a disaster”.

AS: Was that because you had a clear vision of the direction that they should have taken?

BH: “Sound of the Underground” and “No Good Advice” was the sound of Girls Aloud. They'd sent them off to these other Swedish guys and different people in the UK who were about to be rubbed out by what was coming – the rise of indie and our sort of pop. I heard this stuff coming back and I said, "There are two completely separate groups on this record. We need to get rid of six tracks and I'll replace them". We did that and allowed the album to stand up as a body of work. It did alright. It sold about 350,000 copies. Not amazing, but it was platinum so it made the label money. When the second album came round, the label said, “Listen, we're not going to do this group any more if you don't do it". I think my initial reaction was to do a few tracks and he said I had to do this because he thought I was the only person who understood exactly what it was. So, that's how we took it on. So my first reaction was not to say yes to it and I don't know why that was, because it was probably everything I'd ever wanted, really. But I just remember him saying it and thinking that maybe he wasn't telling the truth. I don't know what it was. We were given a deal to make the whole record and that was “What Will the Neighbours Say?”

AS: Is your working relationship with them on hold while they pursue their solo projects?

BH: I don't really know. I don't think about it, to be honest. I think obviously that the rise of Cheryl Cole as a superstar is a phenomenon in itself, which is great for her. I think that everyone's got to wait and see where that takes Cheryl because it is obviously profoundly altering her life. If she goes to America and does X-Factor and everything, then that is going to create a situation. They are all creating solo records, therefore they're all working with lots of other producers and stuff. It would be foolish for me to sit here and say that in a year's time, they'll definitely come back to us.

AS: They might not come back together at all.

BH: If they do come back, they may well want to work with other people, or the alternative is that they say we're wedded to Brian and Miranda and come back automatically. So, I guess there's three options. I have a completely open mind to the way that is. I certainly don't think that we have any ownership over them. I don't see it like that. I am just enormously grateful for what we were able to do. I think that the body of work in terms of released songs is 110 or 120 songs now. It is very rare that that will ever happen again that any group, coming from any scene, will release five or six albums and a whole slew of b-sides and bonus tracks, because careers just don't last that long. If the band continues, it will be a small miracle, but then, every album was for me anyway. That's why we put so much into it, because we couldn't believe that they'd come back to us. We never assumed they would, ever.

AS: Do you think that it would be possible to achieve a similar longevity with your new acts?

BH: I just feel that it's changing, I genuinely do. Obviously, we tried to break Vagabond and that didn't work. We half-broke Mini Viva, who have got a fantastic third single coming. I think Alex Gardner has got a good presence but is going at the pace as other new acts who are trying to break. I see it as a very, very slow process. I am trying to work out what is the right way to fit in with that and be successful. Because we have to be successful, or be underground. It has to be one or the other.

AS: Would you ever consider choosing the underground option?

BH; Our job is to provide hit records. We want our records to be huge successes. If they're not, then I think that we need to go back to our own drawing board and not be afraid to do that. The alternative is to say, we will never ever stop being successful – which is ridiculous. If you think that our first top five hit was in 1997 – a breakbeat record with a heavy metal guitar break in the middle of it – a Dannii Minogue record, the blueprint of what we were trying to do was there alive and kicking in our first hit 13 years ago. For 10 or 11 of those 13 years, we've been at the top of the pile, really. So, I think it figures that every now and then you need to reinvent your sound. Particularly as now we are in a world that is predominantly pop. That is very different from the world we've thrived in, which was anti-pop. I am not saying that I need to wait for anti-pop to come around again, but I do need to make sure that my records are connecting.

AS: How will you try to maintain that connection in the future?

BH; I probably think that everything needs to be 30 per cent better now if you want to even consider having a similar level of success. I think for myself and Miranda, that our average songwriting has to increase by 30 per cent within the next five years. We have to get back to audacity within our records and making statements – all the things that we are used to doing. Challenging things.

AS: What do you think that people look for in a Xenomania record?

BH: I guess whenever we have stepped outside of whatever people consider to be our sound – uptempo, electronic, exciting, imaginative and enthusiastic. Let's say that those are the qualities of a Xenomania record. Something lyrically interesting, original, with a shock in it somewhere, something you won't know what is going to sound like before you put it on. If ever we have stepped outside of that, it hasn't worked. “Sweet About Me” wasn't your typical Xenomania record, and that was a huge worldwide hit. But I think that if you take the Rexola sound away from it, then it isn't successful. It needed that sort of thing to allow it to sink in to people's psyche and then they were able to judge it as a record as opposed to a Xenomania record first. I think that Vagabond was way outside what we would normally do because the guy's voice led me into that particular area. I think that the truth of it is that it's a lesson in everybody sticking to what they're really good at, as opposed to doing things competently, because “competently” isn't going to get you anywhere. We're lucky in that we've found an area of music that we excel in, or call our own. I guess that's where we should stay. Naturally, sometimes we go outside of that, but it doesn't seem to work very often.

AS: You've achieved success by adapting your style in the past, though. If you take the list of Girls Aloud singles as an example, they've had almost twenty top ten hits, and hardly any two songs sound alike.

BH: But if you look at Vagabond in the context of the single “Don't Wanna Run No More”, it's a good song, a very good song and a decent record and everything else. But it's not brilliant. It's not vital or unique or standalone. When we were looking at the record and seeing that it was going to struggle, it didn't sound remotely like anything else around it at that time, but it certainly wasn't leading anything else. As a result of that, it was a record that didn't make a connection with anybody. We have to accept that part of our job here is to connect with people. And if we're not doing that, it doesn't matter how good the record is, then we're not doing it right. Our other choice is to blame everyone else that the records aren't connecting and I think that 's a waste of time.

AS: You've also worked with established acts, such as St Etienne, Kylie Minogue and Texas, where it has been a case of coming up with a hit song without having to worry about creating a new fanbase. Have you enjoyed those collaborations?

BH: I am not against it, I just need to be able to do my thing with it. I need to feel inspired enough by the artist to think in that way. I don't wake up thinking like that. An artist coming into my line of vision makes me think in a particular way about how they need to be. I do say no to a lot of that sort of stuff because I don't think that I would be able to do anything particularly interesting with it.

AS: You didn't say yes to the Pet Shop Boys initially.

BH: That was more because I thought that they would be hard work. I won't compromise on what I'm doing. I won't water it down and I won't dilute it, because that defeats the object of working with me in the first place, really. I don't like collaborating unless I am in charge of the collaboration.

AS: There seemed to be a mutual respect there. Chris admired your ruthlessness, while Neil even contemplated the idea of becoming a full-time member of your writing team.

BH: I said to them that was how I needed it to be and they went away and decided that they wanted that as well. They totally expressed themselves within the whole thing. I was like the referee. Neil told me that they very wilfully checked their egos in every morning they came into the studio because they decided that they were going to trust me to do it. I would say that 98 per cent of the time that worked and the two per cent that it didn't were natural creative debates between me and Neil, with Chris acting as mediator, "Break it up, lads. Break it up!" That was fine. Neil is ever so bright and visionary. We worked out the rules of engagement before we made the record and then were able to make it well. And they came in with a lot of really good material that I liked, as well.

AS: Do you find it easy to come up with a hit song?

BH: I like creating bodies of work, because it is interesting and engaging. It allows you to go to all points without immediately thinking we need a hit here. I think often that hits, or the best hits, come out of a bodies of work as opposed to saying, "Right, we need to write a hit single today". I think that my experience of hits is that they are fairly random collisions of ideas.

AS: That definitely seemed to be the case with 'Believe'. It was unlike anything that Cher had done before and would have taken a lot of people by surprise...

BH: She is the only person that could have sung that song. That song was sitting there waiting for her to run into it. I was gravitating towards her for years without realising it. The guy that A&R-ed that record was Rob Dickins. He was the person that I handed the demo tape of “Believe” to. It is no surprise to me that in 1986 – 12 years before it came out, five years before I wrote it – I was at school and watching the Brits and looking at this guy, Rob Dickins, who was the chairman, and wondering who he was. As I ended up at Warners as an in-house producer, I was just gravitating towards that and people that I'd identified many years before. But, I guess that's what happens in life and in music – you gravitate unknowingly towards things. That song was just waiting for her.

AS: What are your thoughts on the future of the industry?

BH: I'm very positive about the future but I also think that it needs addressing. I think you're seeing a cultural shift, not just a bad year or two, but a change in the way that human beings interact with music. There is so much of it that it loses its scarcity value, which creates an issue. Secondly there is the question of building that emotional connection. And thirdly, how to attract charismatic people to the business. The number of charismatic males within the music business is so minimal and I don't know why that is. There is something that isn't attracting them. They are still out there, our country produces them and always has done, but they're not finding their way to the business. They're not there on the outside, knocking, trying to get in, because they'd walk in.

AS: What about new female artists?

BH: Florrie is interesting. I took her out of our group. She is not signed to a major label. She has got the majors trying to sign her, but I think that we have to build her world online. We're not signing her to a label, which I think is really important. Because the minute she is signed, someone on high will say, "Right, ready or not, let's get her on a schedule". And that isn't working. I think she is amazing. Ahe has got a great story. She is only 20, was a fantastic session drummer for us, and then there was her emergence as a singer. She has got amazing things going on in her life.

AS: What song are you the proudest of?

BH: “Biology”, I guess. I think that's really good. “Round Round” is a brilliant record. I like “Sweet About Me” a lot, because it took me so long to make it and you'll find something different every time you listen to it. On a creative level, I love “Call The Shots”. We had to write that on-the-go and we knew that the girls were ready to have a record like that, a more sophisticated, mature track. We only had the chorus when were in Los Angeles recording the vocals with Nadine. So, Miranda and I sat in our hotel room and wrote the verses and bridges in the morning and Nadine sang them in the afternoon and it all worked. Our backs were against the wall, writing that to a certain degree. That was their first number one airplay hit as well, so they completely turned a corner at that point. It followed “Sexy! No, No, No”, which sounded ridiculously challenging because we thought that radio wasn't going to play them anyway. It was like two fingers up to everybody. You're not going to play them on the radio, anyway, so we'll give you something that you couldn't play.

AS: What did the group think of that approach?

BH: They loved it. The girls had had a hard time. They'd been selling a decent number of records. They were making money but it's a hard grind where you have to spend a lot of money to stay the entity you are. It was difficult for them until they released their greatest hits. After that, they seemed to become enormous and then “Call the Shots” stepped it up a level. The girls knew that they were doing something very special. They knew they weren't accepted by the mainstream and saw it as a gradual movement into that. They loved the hostility that was in all their records because they realised that they weren't accepted. At TV studios, always treated really badly, unmanaged for years, having to do it all themselves. There is a great book in the Girls Aloud story, really. There is so much that people just don't know, about how much they were shunned at the start. We loved working with them, loved them as girls and their voices. They met a group of people that wanted to make a statement musically more than they wanted to make money. If we made the right statement and it was melodically as good as possible, then something good would come from that.

AS: Do you always look for that level of understanding between yourself and the artists that you're working with?

BH: A new act is singing songs that they haven't written. So, what you are listening for is a connection between their voices and your song catalogue. 'Tokyo' was the only song we had with Mini Viva that could have broken them. It didn't sound like anything that we'd ever done, which was very important. It didn't sound like anything else out there, but it sounded relevant and current. That's what you're looking for if you want to break a group. Then, you start to think where do they go as people now. But you need to have something that will kick the door in. I guess we're always looking for those kind of records. It feels like we've come back to how we started in a way. Putting remixes out and watching them go up the charts. It feels like I'm back there again in a funny sort of way. I've been working with Kylie, Alesha. Nadine's been coming in. So its not like I'm not active in the world of trying to create mainstream hits. It's just that I feel like I need challenges and I find them in tough situations. Looking for adversity, in a way.

AS: Do you think that you'll manage to find that in the future?

BH: If I didn't feel optimistic, then I would definitely stop doing it. I do think we set out what to achieve in 2001. I am not saying that we had the best record ever, or the best song, but I think that we released more excellent records than anyone else.

[bellcurve]

Not really pop, but I'm listening to the album right now. Will post my thoughts later.

http://www.nme.com/reviews/crystal-castles/11267

Album Review: Crystal Castles - 'Crystal Castles' (Fiction)

Radio playlisted, exploring their spiritual side – have the digipunk pinups gone soft? No fear...

May 3, 2010 | 0 Comments

Polarising is what copyright infringers, fan-bottlers and surly bastards Crystal Castles do best. So it was only a matter of time before they polarised themselves. Recorded in a church in Iceland, a garage in Detroit and a log cabin in Ontario, it seems disparate environments have seeped into the bipolar sounds of their second album. The moments of calm beauty that studded their debut are more frequent, while the digipunk shriekfests are harder, colder and scarier.

Whereas tracks like ‘Magic Spells’ felt like brief pauses for breath between fits of rage, here CC attain a more contemplative space, leading us to suspect the leather-clad enfants terrible may have souls that crave saving. ‘Baptism’ remembers the essential link between hands-in-the-air rave and hands-together church music, Messiah Chorus-layered synths raising praise to the heavens while evil Alice dances a squealing sacrilege across the altar. Or take single ‘Celestica’, whose naked, unashamed gym-trance rush (Radio 1 playlisted, ye gods) borrows a trick from Delerium’s ‘Silence’, Alice singing (yes, really) softly, “Do you pray with your eyes closed… When it’s cold outside, hold me tight, hold me”.

Not that Crystal Castles have found chillout, or anything. For every moment of beatification, there’s another where they throw the listener into the pit. ‘Doe Deer’ is distilled CC; that serrated ground-Glass shriek, the itchy, nervy beats, the nagging riff. It makes you want to fight, [!@#$%^&*] or flee, to jump on the nearest table and start ape-grimacing and throwing things, possibly your own faeces. ‘Fainting Spells’ opens the album with a scratchy nest of hisses and gasps, fear inducing, panic attack-y, like a last fuzzily recorded plea for help.

What’s to become of CC’s restless souls, forever torn between frenzy and transcendence? Standout ‘Empathy’ finds a balance, an edgily rippling electro pulse and Knife-ish distorted vocals soothed by amniotic synths and Alice’s cooed promises of “synergy” and “symmetry”. It’s closer ‘I Am Made Of Chalk’, though, that really knits the two sides of their being. Alice sounds like a dolphin trapped in a car-crusher below Orbital-like heavenly washes of fuzzy brightness; a muddy and malformed creature in supplication to some celestial power.

It’s a late resolution; like their debut, ‘Crystal Castles’ feels long; not too long for comfort but too long for coherence. An album that erred definitely to one side or the other (or that left off pleasant but inessential tracks such as ‘Not In Love’) would be a clearer statement. But that’s Crystal Castles; awkward, intractable, occasionally brilliant, always human.

Emily Mackay

[EricMontreal22]

I saw them in Toronto a few years back, but did't know they had anything new out. Sounds, well, worth checking out anyway Thanks.

[bellcurve]

Oh they actually showed up to see you?!

A friend and I drove eight hours to Dallas to see them, only to have them cancel on the line of over 1000 people at the Granada that paid money to see them and waited outside(some as early as 6 or 7PM for a 9PM show). We salvaged the night as much as we could despite all that. And hell, I was like, "Thank God I didn't actually buy the album or that I wasn't a HUGE fan." My friend was crushed, even moreso after we read all the blogs about how they were too hung over/coked up/dramatic to perform there. At least Ethan Kath took a picture with my friend(who was talking to fans after they all canceled because they lied and said "then venue" didn't want them to perform).

[EricMontreal22]

I think we saw them before they quite had that reputation. Ugh, I dunno if I could ever support them after that (well I guess it depends--I saw The Bravery in Montreal and the lead singer would go backstage after each song to do, I'm positive, lines, then started leaving mid song then they cut the set at about 20 mins. Was really weak--but if I liked their new music I suppose I'd still buy their album, just never bother seeing them live again). Their attitudes are kinda funny--I mean this is the band that performed TWICE on Skins...

[bellcurve]

I'd definitely go to see Crystal Castles again with my friend anywhere as long as the city had a good gay district. The hotel where we stayed was on a street next to all these gay bars and shops and that was megafun.

It'd be more for the experience of seeing if they actually perform again than anything else.

Love this track, "Baptism."

[Sylph]

Has anyone here listened to Robyn's Body Talk Pt. 1:

http://www.popmatter...body-talk-pt.-1

Strings by Arvinder (Agnes' guy).

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

[EricMontreal22]

I adore Dancing on my Own. I think the rest is crap, it pains me to admit--fake "edgy" pop, that really isn't. Especially disappointing is the Royksopp collaboration, after how good her Girl and the Robot was on their album last year.

[Sylph]

I adore Dancing too.

So when is part 2 coming?

[EricMontreal22]

Wow, something we agree on? LOL

I heard three parts (!) are set to be released this year.

[Sylph]

Too bad for you that the critics seem to love her and this album.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah she's been a critic's darling for the last five years, I don't think she's ever lived up to the hype though--despite a few *great* singles.

[cct]

The video is a little too on-the-nose for me. I was bored after the first minute.

The song was good though.

There were a couple good tracks on the album.