Are Trends Eclectic Vol. 5

Although I thought this one would be quick to toss off, it was actually long and hard, and frankly took an age to come out right. In all honesty, my focus was flagging at times, but, by thinking of you, I managed to keep it up long enough to go the distance. It was then just a question of blowing my wad at the Post Office and waiting for the postman to ease my small packet through your mailbox. Now, of course, it’s in your hands, to do with as you will. I hope this compilation will bring you off the path more trodden, and open your eyes to new experiences.

Don’t just stand there, get it on, pig!

Duran Duran Notorious
Blondie Hanging on the telephone
Girls Aloud Love machine (Lionel Vinyl Jet Edit)
Elvis Presley Walk a mile in my shoes
Perez Prado Almendra
Dave Barbour Mambo jambo
Shaggy Mr Boombastic
SL2 On a ragga tip
Teddy Pendergrass Only you
Merle Travis 16 tons
Bo Diddley Crackin’ up
10CC Dreadlock holiday
Specials Ghost town
Fugees How many mics
Goodie Mob Cell therapy
Overton Berry Trio Hey Jude
Breeders Cannonball
Al Green I want to hold your hand
Kim Weston Eleanor Rigby
Johnny “Guitar” Watson & Larry Williams Too late
Dusty Springfield Am I the same girl?
Klaus Wunderlich Tuxedo junction

Are Trends Eclectic: Vol. 2

Aim
To see how many genres will fit on to one CD, without compromising aural pleasure (the sequel).

Method
Pink Martini – Let’s never stop falling in love
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Can’t we be friends?
Benny Goodman – It’s tight like that
Rosemary Clooney – Sway
Manu DiBango – Lily
Fontella Bass – Rescue Me
Marilyn Barbarin & The Soul Finders – Reborn
Johnnie Morisette – I’m hungry
The Dave Pike Set – Mathar
Lucy Pearl – Don’t mess with my man
Barry White – It’s ecstasy when you lay down next to me
Ghostface Killah – Cherchez la Ghost
Louis Rankin – The Typewriter
Max Romeo & The Upsetters – Chase the Devil
Muddy Waters – I’m your Hoochie Coochie Man
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Crosstown Traffic
Cast – Desert Drought
Mantronix – Got to have your love
Tim Deluxe – It just won’t do
Boogie Down Productions vs. Mark Pritchard – Necessary
Goldfrapp – Crystalline Green
The Greenhornes & Holly Golightly – There is an end
The Andrews Sisters – Rum & Coca-Cola
Quincy Jones – Desafinado
The Double Six of Paris – French Rat Race

Discussion
It is said that one shouldn’t blow one’s own trumpet but, frankly, if you’re proud of your handiwork and can coldly & objectively assess it as being dope, then I say blow it. After all, who else is going to do it? Those pezzanovante in Washington? Fat chance. Which leads me to my first confession: I really like this CD. I wouldn’t call it a ‘chef-d’oeuvre’ because, despite loving the term, it just sounds pretentious. And it’s not my Sergeant Pepper either, as I’ve made better compilations. However, it comfortably meets the criteria laid down by the ‘Are Trends Eclectic?’ mission statement and is a blatantly good listen. Whether it works is down to the individual listener but to the ears of this individual, it does.

Commencing with a classical piece to further increase diversity is a nice ploy but creates the problem of finding something to follow it (see Eclectic 3). This was cleverly avoided (while still retaining a slight classical flavour) by kicking off with the swirling strings of Pink Martini – a track which might best be described as ‘Cuban orchestral’. Or perhaps ‘latin lounge symphonica’.

Trad jazz, cool jazz, latin jazz, modal jazz, fusion, bebop – an aficionado could probably eek out an entire ‘eclectic’ CD from the many guises of jazz. Whilst I am not an expert, I am reasonably well acquainted with the genre (I know, for example, that Miles Davis is better than Kenny G) and felt that the swing of the ‘King of Swing’ Benny Goodman was sufficiently older and different-er from the plain frickin’ jazz jazz of Ella & Louis to warrant inclusion. And, as we all know, jazz (8th use in this paragraph) has its roots in Africa and Latin America, which was a tenuous enough link for me to follow-up with some latin flavour (courtesy of George Clooney’s aunt) and some Manu DiBango before settling in to a soul/funk groove.

The middle third of this CD crams in more genres than a genre factory. Disco cuddles up with hip-hop, reggae, blues, rock & indie and they all seem to get along fairly well although, admittedly, this is not as seamless as the preceding section. But if you’ve listened this far, tuning out now would be, at best, disloyal and, at worst, an act of aggression.

At this point, I was facing a difficult leap to old school dance followed three tracks later by an even more difficult leap from drum & bass to mellow electronica. Luckily, an elegant solution presented itself, which was almost beautiful in its simplicity: make the pauses between tracks fractionally longer. Genius! This cheap trick would never fool the panel of the Mercury Music Prize or stand up to the scrutiny of an industrial tribunal, but might just go unnoticed by the more inebriated guests at a dinner party, rendered immobile by too much stilton and six generous glasses of port.

It all ends rather nicely, with a 60s pastiche, a slice of easy listening, a small portion of calypso and a morsel of…er…vocalese. For those who don’t know, vocalese is “a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation”. So there.

Conclusion
A couple of provocative (i.e. awkward) segues aside, this CD hangs together well. It is truly eclectic and, as an added bonus, contains tracks from every decade since the 30s. Plus all of the tracks are damn good and it smells nice.

Are Trends Eclectic: Part 3

Aim
To see how many genres will fit onto one CD, without compromising aural pleasure (third time lucky).

Method
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries
Perez Prado: Besame mucho
Klaus Wunderlich: Summertime
Smoke City: Underwater love
Nas: Hip hop is dead
First choice: Armed and extremely dangerous
Loleatta Holloway: Love sensation
Som Tres: Homenagem a mongo
[Don’t know]: Theme from spider-man
The Creators: Astrology
Dudley Manlove Quartet: Wonder Woman
Pharoahe Monch: Body baby
Bo Diddley: You can’t judge a book by looking at the cover
Abbot Lighthouse Choir, Rose Stone & The Venice Four: Trouble of this world
Elvis Presley: Never been to Spain
El Lele de Los Van Van: High and dry
Robin Thicke: Lost without you
BB King: The thrill is gone
Arlean Brown: Impeach me baby
Labi Siffre: I got the…
Raffaella Carra: Presentazione orchestra
112-key mortier dance organ: Paris

Discussion
I’ll be the first to admit that shoving Wagner in there was cheap (not to mention overlong) but I’d like to think it serves as a bombastic intro, after the manner of cack-handled hip hop skits, but with more orchestra and fewer Uzis. Frankly I’d start on track 2, for a much more easy vibe.

Summertime is perhaps my all-time favourite bit of Klaus ‘Mr Hammond’ Wunderlich, one of the few items of note in my grandfather’s vinyl stash (more on which another time). Wunderlich is an ideal figurehead for this compilation, as one can but admire his indiscriminate openness to different music styles – playing classical, operetta, musicals and pop music all on the one side of an LP, attacking each with the frenzied hedonism of a serial killer. He also played the accordion, owned a VW diesel Golf and had 13 gold discs and a gold cassette to his credit. He returned several times to the Caister Keyboard Cavalcade Festival, and anecdotal evidence suggests he liked visiting the newsagents in Yarmouth.

From here, the ride is generally smooth, accelerating slightly to a distinctly camp middle act. You and I both know that if we had more time for disco and super-heroes in our daily grind, the world would be all the better for it. Think of this as my gift to the world.

I’m not convinced by the addition of BB King. I used to love this tune when I was a kid; now it just makes me think of Gary Moore, or perhaps my father playing air guitar. My father doesn’t play air guitar, but if he did, it’d be excruciating. This isn’t excruciating, but it covers some questionable grounds.

In fact, Labi Siffre aside, the CD suffers compilation fatigue in general subsequent to BB King. Impeach me baby is technically the final song – from here it’s curtain call and the floor-clearer (in this instance from my grandfather’s collection of mechanical organs).

Conclusion
Despite the tail-off at the end, and the questionable start, the bit in the middle is all right. At the very least, it’s better than Eclectic 1.