Music
There are fewer moments of genius than usual on Beck’s new album, while Dolly Parton sings for the kids
Album reviews, plus Jim Gilchrist on Findlay Napier
An anticipatory hush descends whenever Beck releases a new album. Which of the many moods of Beck Hansen will he favour this time? Hansen has made us wait since the exquisite Morning
Phase won the Album of the Year Grammy in 2014, beating the sainted Beyoncé, much to Kanye West’s consternation. But the impish psych pop of Dreams and low-slung R&B jam Wow, released in the interim, suggested that he was looking for some buoyancy after its wistfulness, something to sound good live.
Colors has been co-written, played and produced by the ubiquitous Greg Kurstin, who has recently helmed the Foo Fighters and Liam Gallagher albums. Kurstin was actually a member of Beck’s touring band in the early 2000s before his producing/ songwriting career took off, so there’s residual chemistry there. But the danger that Beck’s latest might just end up sounding like everyone else is partially confirmed by the streamlined funk pop of the title track and feelgood indie blandness of
Seventh Heaven.
Thankfully, he sounds more like himself on the rap funk rock mash-up
I’m So Free, but coming from one who rates the song so highly, Colors isnota stellar collection.
Dear Life is a blatantly Beatley appeal for a lifeline, with loose boogie-woogie piano and a lysergic chorus. Like Arcade Fire’s Everything
Now, No Distraction explores the information overload of the social media age to the pop reggae twang of guitar. Up All Night is instantly catchy and completely throwaway in the vein of recent works by Justin Timberlake. The freewheeling 80s pop feel of Square One has the more enduring hook but overall the man who wrote the rulebook for white boys playing funky music now too often sounds like he is following it.
Veteran songsmiths Squeeze continue to revel in the diverse stylings of their earworm pop melodies, confident that they can follow a soulful lament on the abuse of young footballers (Final
Score) with a number on erectile dysfunction (Please Be Upstanding) which they treat with their winning mix of pathos and humour. The
Knowledge affectionately chronicles their south London beat with wistful insight, from the baroque country of
Patchouli to the operatic disco funk of Rough Road (“either it’s rough or you’re rich”), which strikes a resonant note following the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Findlay Napier also celebrates the rough and tumble of city life on Glasgow, a paean to his adopted home told with a mix of original and
cover songs (see interview, right). In the latter camp, Napier captures the rich and varied character of Hamish Imlach’s Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice, Michael Marra’s King Kong’s Visit to Glasgow, The Blue Nile’s Walk
Across the Rooftops and a new Emma Pollock song Marchtown. But Napier is no slouch with his own affectionate remembrance of Young Goths in the Necropolis, the finger-picking saunter
of Wire Burners and the Caledonian chanson The Blue Lagoon.
Having seduced the adult listening population with her wholesome, downhome ditties, the blessed Dolly
Parton now releases her first album for children. I Believe In You will raise proceeds for her children’s literacy programme, the Imagination Library, and her sugary kids’ songs are similarly well-intentioned, from the cutesy finger-pointing of Makin’
Fun Ain’t Funny to the oddly jolly Chemo Hero (“lost my hair and I don’t
care”).
Unlike the anarchy of They Might Be Giants’ kids’ albums, Parton’s message is more about positive reinforcement than firing the imagination – but ultimately the kids will be the judge of that.
Parton’s message for kids is more about positive reinforcement than firing the imagination