Just a couple of old swingers
Rod and Jools team up to tackle big band classics with unabashed joy
MGMT: Loss Of Life (Mom + Pop) Verdict: Not dead yet
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HE TURNED 79 in January, but Rod Stewart is going about his business with the energy and swagger of a man half his age. As well as fixing potholes in Essex, supporting his wife Penny Lancaster’s Menopause Mandate campaign and housing a family of Ukrainian refugees, he’s gearing up for a world tour and the final dates of his 13-year residency in Las Vegas.
Last week, he sold the rights to his song catalogue for a cool €92m.
He’s also, somehow, found time to make a new album, hooking up with Jools Holland and the latter’s superb Rhythm & Blues Orchestra to celebrate the big band sounds of the 1930s and 1940s. Made in pianist and TV presenter Holland’s studio, Swing Fever is a breezier, more spontaneous version of the five-part Great American Songbook series Rod made between 2002 and 2010.
Work on the album had already begun when he contacted Jools. Even though the pair hadn’t talked at length before, Stewart felt that Holland, 66, had the vision to steer the project away from romantic ballads to something more upbeat, and Jools jumped at the chance. ‘For me, Rod can sing anything,’ he says. ‘There’s only a handful of people who can do that.’
The pair — who bonded over a mutual love of model railways — haven’t gone for too many obscure songs here. The tracks selected, some produced by Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, others by composer Nitin Sawhney, would be ideal for a karaoke night. But Stewart, singing with a mischievous twinkle and a real feel for the material, sounds like he’s having a blast.
‘Swing it now!,’ he exclaims on Lullaby Of Broadway, which won an Oscar after featuring in the Hollywood musical Gold Diggers Of 1935. Ad-libbing on Oh Marie, he launches into a convincing re-creation of American jazz trumpeter Louis Prima’s scat vocals. The 13 tracks rattle along, but he resists the temptation to over-sing.
Unsurprisingly, he’s particularly strong on the late 1940s swing tunes that overlapped with 1950s rock and roll. Good Rockin’ Tonight, a 1947 blues song covered by Elvis in 1954, features scorching rockabilly guitar and reconnects Rod with the unpretentious style of his 1970s solo records.
Swing Fever is kitsch in places. Fats Waller’s Broadway show tune Ain’t Misbehavin’ feels twee, but murder ballad Frankie And Johnny is powerfully performed, with Jools’s boogie-woogie piano to the fore: it’s to his credit that, a few virtuoso piano runs aside, his tickling of the ivories never overshadows the songs.
If the pair ever get around to a second volume — and, given Rod’s fondness for covers, that’s surely a possibility — they could be bolder in their song choices. But there’s an unabashed joy to Swing Fever that’s a credit to both parties.
DESPITE a six-year silence since their 2018 album Little Dark Age, American band MGMT have remained hard to avoid. Two years ago, Little Dark Age’s title track became an inescapable TikTok meme. And, over Christmas, their classic synth-pop single, Time To Pretend, saw a dramatic streaming boost after featuring prominently in the film Saltburn.
All of which sets the New England duo up nicely for comeback album Loss Of Life, their first independent release after four LPs on major label Columbia.
The group, whose name is pronounced M-G-M-T rather than ‘management’, broke through shortly after leaving Wesleyan University with the arty but accessible Oracular Spectacular — and the good news is that Loss Of Life sees a return to the tuneful warmth of that 2008 debut.
Singer-guitarist Andrew VanWyngarden and keyboardist Ben Goldwasser, both 41, have revamped their sound, with guitar and piano now to the fore, electronics less prominent and lyrics of a mid-life persuasion. Mother Nature is a wry paean to domesticity with an Oasis worthy chorus. The harmony-driven pop of Dancing In Babylon features French singer Héloïse Letissier, of Christine And The Queens.
The band say their music is now ‘20 per cent adult contemporary’, a droll reference to their love of radiofriendly pop from the 1970s and 1980s. I’d put the figure closer to 50 per cent. There are hints of Cyndi Lauper and Hall & Oates on Dancing In Babylon, and theatrical nods to Queen on Bubblegum Dog.
Loss Of Life gets better the more you play it, too; suggesting that any reports of MGMT’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
■ Both albums out today. Rod Stewart plays Royal Hospital Kilmainham on May 26 (ticketmaster.ie)