Duffy - 'Warwick Avenue'
If you were to try and piece together a history of the last 18 months of popular music history, with special regard to female vocalists, it would be tempting to draw the following conclusions:
Conclusion 1: It's all Amy Winehouse's fault. Before her, nobody was interested in '60s soul. Now they ALL are.
Conclusion 2: The explosion of interest in women who sing like they used to in the olden days is a reaction to years of X-Factor-related pop, where the singers and producers have mistakenly equated whispering and croaking with actual vocal ability. The general public have finally seen through this obvious money-grabbing ploy, and have chosen REAL TALENT over MANUFACTURED CACK.
The only real problem with these two arguments is that they are based on making two plus two equal twotwo.
For starters, people are always harking back to '60 soul. Beyonce did it with 'Crazy In Love', which is over five years old, for gawdsake. Beverley Knight's last album was a love letter to the entire era. And the thing with Amy Winehouse is her songs are incredibly modern, what with all the swearing and bad behaviour. Anyone who aims to nick a few breaks and beats from the Temptations is sort of missing the point.
And not only that, by going over well-trodden ground in this way, all anyone is doing is an artistic re-tread of one of the X-Factor's theme nights. New songs are created from the bones of older, better songs, so can they really be said to be doing anything which is morally superior to anything Simon Cowell has had a hand in?*
This song, for example, has a backing track which is entirely based on 'My Girl', by the Four Tops. 'My Girl' is a great, great song, and this can only suffer by comparison, even though it's perfectly fine in its own way. And it seems a shame, given that Duffy does have a distinctive, passionate voice, that she hasn't been given the chance to make something which sounds a bit more NOW.
Would it be too hard to try and bring the pop and retro camps together again? Jools Holland isn't right about EVERYTHING, y'know...
Download: Out now
CD Released: May 26th
(Fraser McAlpine)
*Don't go there, pop pervs, it's disgusting
Comment number 1.
At 20th May 2008, kookie25 wrote:hmmm.. I kind of agree.. Although Texas' music had been influenced by 60's kind of stuff all those years ago.
And now that Sharleen has gone solo.. she just looks like she's jumping on the 60's soul bandwagon, when in fact, i reckon if she'd made a solo record now, or 10 years ago, it still would have sounded like it does because those are her influences in the most part. (i take this info from the episdoe of 'all back to mine' that she did many years ago)
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Comment number 2.
At 26th May 2008, JeanieMcA wrote:I don't see what's wrong wrong with a girl embracing her vocal qualities and making music that fits. If I was a little Welsh girl who sounded like Esther Phillips, I'd probably take a similar route. We can't expect every musician to come around and redefine popular music.
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