Cole was joking about album title Standards
Maybe one day, Standards will contain a few standards.
Lloyd Cole titled his last studio album Standards, but, rather than a record of cover versions akin to the ghastly Rod Stewart American Songbook series, it’s a record of Cole originals accompanied by New York compadres Fred Maher and Matthew Sweet.
Possibly, songs such as John Hartford’s California Earthquake or his own Women’s Studies will be Cole standards, but right now Standards is an example of his sense of humour.
“I was kind of joking,” Cole admits. “It’s definitely not a title to be taken seriously. I am the guy, after all, who called an album Mainstream.”
That was back in the mid-1980s when Cole still fronted the Commotions, and before their dissolution and Cole’s move to New York in 1989.
Standards was recorded in 2012, so is it reasonable to expect a new album from Cole? No. He’s supervised a boxed set of Commotions tracks and has embarked on a tour tellingly called My Retrospective Year. Armed solely with an acoustic guitar, Cole links his career from the beginning, Forest Fire, to Standards’ California Earthquake.
“The tour I’m doing this year is not about new music. I’ve been spending so much time looking backward, it’s natural.
“It’s an opportunity to revisit songs that I did. Some songs might be put to bed after this. The show is for the audience, not for me.”
Standards is a return to form, or at least the form established by The Commotions and his first few solo albums. More recent albums or live projects have gone far afield from folk trio, The Negatives, to a collaboration with German instrumentalist, Hans Roedelius. Although these have appeared on small independent labels, Cole has no beef with the few surviving majors, such as the defunct Poly-Gram that signed the Commotions.
“They are only the record I felt like making,” he says of his diverse recordings. “When I was with a major label, I was focused on making rock ‘n’ roll, but, if I wanted to do an album of instrumentals, they still would put it out.”
Cole is 55 years old and ready to take stock of his career. The tour can be read as the end of one phase and the beginning of another.
“When you get to a certain age, you’ve got more years behind you than in front of you,” he says. “It’s only natural.
“There is a certain point where you find your own voice. You can hear your own voice as it’s forming. You have to know to trust it.”