T’Pau’s back for 25th Anniversary Trek.

 Listening to the excitement in Carol Decker’s voice as she describes how she will play the Isle of Wight Festival this year, it is easy to understand how that same voice took T’Pau’s third single to number one in 1987, where it stayed for five weeks.

 

Still possessing the powerful voice that took her to the top, Decker is taking T’Pau (famously named after a Vulcan high priestess from Star Trek) on its first headline tour in 15 year to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the band’s debut album- the quadruple-platinum ‘Bridge of Spies’. 

 

“I thought I would mark our anniversary in some way and come out and sing a few tunes… hopefully some people will come and see me”, she laughs. “Of course I will play hits, but also classic album tracks. I’m thinking of having a little acoustic set in the middle.”

 

In the late 80’s, T’Pau seemed to permanently reside on Top of the Pops. ‘Bridge of Spies’ sold over five million copies, and ‘China in Your Hand’ was the biggest-selling single of 1987. Carol, 55, holds the rare honour of having a number one album and single at the same time.

 

 

Their next two albums, ‘Rage’ and ‘The Promise’, also made the top 10 in the UK.

Other hit singles include ‘Heart and Soul’ and ‘Valentine’.

 

However, Decker, once the flame-haired temptress pin-up for so many teenagers, has a very modest recollection of these memories.

 

She describes the scene of a male crew member wearing a red wig to distract the crowd outside the stage door at her shows as “…my 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol would say. I couldn’t get out of the stage door at the Hammersmith Odeon for the fans and press. Our roadie just put on this red wig, leather jacket and shades and jumped into the back of the limo and everybody sped after him. He had better legs than me as I recall!”

 

After 1991, the original line-up of T’Pau disintegrated. As Carol describes it, “It’s ancient history now, but we were just arguing over creative differences. Also, the music-scene had changed. By the time we came out with ‘The Promise’, it was all club music and groove-orientated. We lost our footing.” 

 

Decker kept performing and recording as ‘T’Pau’. In recent years, she has been participating in 80’s package shows, playing arenas and festivals with the likes of The Human League and The Bangles.

 

She has occasionally collaborated with former boyfriend, guitarist and co-writer, Ron Rogers, and he will appear at some shows. “He can’t do the whole tour with me, which is a shame, but he’s going to do as many as he can.”

 

Decker is determined to make a new album. “It won’t be in time for this tour, but I’m going to get on with it. I want to see if I can push this forward and maybe start touring every couple of years. It’s a bit of an experiment, to be honest.” 

 

News on T’Pau’s tour can be found on its official website.

 

All photographs copyright Carol Decker. Used with full permission.

Things to save up for so far…

Two days into 2013, and there are already things you should be getting excited about. Five Grand Dames certainly are, and here’s why…

1. Stevie Nicks is hitting the road with Fleetwood Mac again for a world tour… and they are releasing new songs for the first time in 10 years!
2. Goldfrapp are set to release another album.

3. Sheryl Crow is releasing a new album- a country album, so a departure and something to keep an eye out for.

4. T’Pau’s Carol Decker is going on tour as a solo act for the first time in over 10 years to celebrate 25 years since the release of the quadruple platinum album, ‘Bridge of Spies.’ 

5. Bonnie Raitt is on tour promoting her new album, ‘Slipstream’. 

Happy Birthday, Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull, 1979 (Image from Facebook)

Marianne Faithfull, the archetypal fallen angel of the 1960’s turns 66 today.

Famed for being the bad girl of the 60’s. 70’s and 80’s, Faithfull’s music career began as virginal and innocent as her convent school education. When she was 18, she scored her first British hit with ‘As Tears Go By’. Equally innocent songs typical of the era followed, such as ‘Come and Stay With Me’ and ‘This Little Bird’.

However, by the end of the decade, Faithfull had been tempted by the devil. Her relationship with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger began during the mid 1960’s. Along with fellow-Stone, Keith Richards, Mick had written ‘As Tears Go By’ for Marianne and had spent every-waking-moment pursuing her.

Therein followed countless allegations of drug and sex scandals; not forgetting the rather, uhm, risque allegation of a badly-placed Mars bar- an allegation denied by Keith Richards: “That was thrown in by some journalist… we were right out of Mars bars.’ She went from the convent girl to Mick Jagger’s permanent arm candy.

When Faithfull’s relationship with Jagger ended she found herself on the streets, addicted to heroin.

Eventually in 1979, after living on the wall of a bombed-out building, Faithfull got back into the studio to record one of the most ground-breaking underground albums of the decade. ‘Broken English’ was a very different album to anything Faithfull, or indeeed, a woman had ever recorded before. Dark and hard-hitting, it reaffirmed that Marianne was nobody’s fool. Her once sultry and posh singing voice was now a nicotine-stained growl, often cutting out on the album because she could not get the words out- it just added to the ambiance. The album’s final track ‘Why D’ya Do It’, was the personification of her new image. Written by Heathcote Williams, only Faithfull could spit the line “Every time I see your d*** I see her c*** in my bed” with such conviction.

She finally kicked her habit in 1985, but Faithfull has consistently kept creating dark albums. ‘Before the Poison’, ‘Blazing Away’ and ‘A Secret Life’ are just a few of Faithfull’s finest work since the iconic ‘Broken English’.

She’s also stuck to her convictions. Commenting on a Rolling Stones documentary in 2004, Marianne commented that the rules about drugs “…were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.”

Last year she released ‘Horses and High Heels‘, much to critical acclaim. 2013 sees a deluxe edition of Broken English being released. Now 66 Marianne Faithfull shows no sign of stopping… she may be 66, but that’s only two third’s of the devil’s number…

 

 

New Releases… I don’t claim to be an opera buff, but…

Joyce DiDonato- Drama Queens

Joyce DiDonato’s charismatic and powerful voice presents a remarkable revival of arias from the 17th and 18th century.

Aptly named Drama Queens is the very personification of her talent. Her soprano voice pierces through every corner of the album.

‘Lasciami piangere’ by Reinhard Keiser is without a doubt, the finest version ever committed to record. DiDonato operatic voice effortlessly projects these sensational 13 tracks with ease.

The quickness with which DiDonato weaves ‘Disprezzata regina’ is exquisitely flawless, and the II Complesso Barocco ensemble’s accompaniment is first rate.

 Released on Virgin, this may be considered a stocking filler for the more discerning and cultured family member, and a must-have for any opera fan.

Drama Queens

Faceless Female Gems

1. Seasons on Earth by Meg Baird

Espers’ vocalist and guitarist, Meg Baird, has released three solo albums.

Her latest one, 2011’s Seasons on Earth is by far and away her strongest effort.

Baird’s voice is as soft as it is authoritative. Featuring just a guitar and her voice throughout this 10 track acoustic folk album, the highlight is arguably ‘Friends’, a song not penned by Baird herself, but by Marianne Faithfull’s old arranger, Jon Mark, a song that features on Mark-Almond’s second album.

This is the perfect album for winter contemplation. It’s an after-the-after-party album. Poppy overtones of ‘The Finder’, combined with the six-minute long extravaganza, ‘Share’, make for an excellent showcase of Baird’s vocal ability.

2. Girlschool- Demolition

Once one of the biggest names on the British 80’s rock scene, Girlschool have now been sidelined into the annex of history as something as a non-band.

What most seem to forget is that they managed to gain enough respect to tour with the likes of AC/DC, Motorhead, The Damned, and more recently, Alice Cooper. Not to mention headlining Reading Festival in 1981.

Their first album is foot-stomping, collection of electric guitar anthems. Opening with the ear-crashing ‘Demolition Boys’, Kim McAuliffe’s chugging guitar and raunchy vocals, which still provide the band’s lead vocals to this day, set the tone for the rest of the album and the rest of the band’s career.

Drummer Denise Dufort and McAuliffe are the only constants throughout the band’s 35 year career, making them the longest-running all-girl band.

‘Nothing to Lose’, t best defines the band’s bad girl image, beginning with ‘Who cares what anyone says, we’re gonna do it anyway.’

Apart from new releases, Girlschool albums today can be more faceless than the invisible man when it comes to purchasing them. However, 2013 sees a special ‘Bronze Years’ box set release of Girlschool’s first four albums: Demolition, Hit and Run, Screaming Blue Murder and Play Dirty; remastered with bonus tracks, this is the first time the album has been released in nearly 10 years.

3. Sonja Kristina- Sonja Kristina

Curved Air’s front woman, Sonja Kristina, released a solo album in 1980 after the prog super-group disintegrated.

This low-key comeback happened four years after the band’s final studio album.

However, unlike the violin-infused, medieval sound that permeated Curved Air albums like Phantasmagoria and Air Conditioning, the eponymous release in 1980 was a shift towards the more new-wave sound just breaking out at the time.

Sonja Kristina swaps melodic violin parts for funky electric bass guitar riffs and pounding drums.

Despite critical acclaim, the album achieved no more than something of a cult following among the veteran ‘air heads’.

Kristina’s new band, Escape, were soon becoming one of the most renowned groups on the club circuit in Britain. None the less, the marketing men clearly knew that Sonja Kristina’s name was where the success lay, so when the album came out, it credited her as a solo artist.

The treble-heavy sound of electric bass pulses throughout the 10 track album. Kristina penning half of the album, highlights include a blistering cover of Spirit’s ‘Mr Skin’, adding a new funky and raunchy element the original lacked; Kristina’s own ‘Roller-Coaster, the album’s opener, the spacey ‘Street Run’ and the chirpy ‘Breaking Out in Smiles’ is very much like Joe Jackson’s ‘Steppin’ Out’, a hit single in 1982.

A clear, defining sound, Sonja Kristina is much more coherent than Curved Air’s last album, showing Kristina as a true artist, not just a 70’s prog queen.

The album is a defining example of the light-keyboard, heavy bass combination that made new-wave so popular.

It was finally released on CD in 2007 with three bonus tracks, and can be purchased here.

Presently, Kristina is working with Marvin Ayres on her side project, MASK. She is also back with a new line-up of the band that made her a star, and on tour once again with Curved Air, who released a new live album last year.

Sonja Kristina

New Releases

 Lana Del Ray- Born to Die (Special Edition) 

Lana Del Rey’s attempt at becoming the next Marianne Faithfull-eseque fallen angel of 2012 was, on the whole, achieved. Unfortunately, this was not so much to do with material as it was to do with image.

The femme fatale image Del Rey has established herself is largely through ‘Video Games’, the best song on ‘Born to Die’, but also through her modelling contract. Before the public heard any material, her face was in every music and fashion magazine worth buying, portraying her as she had intended- the mysterious and singer with an invisible ‘damaged goods’ sign around her neck.

‘Born to Die’ is what the public expected her debut album to sound like- with one fatal flaw. Despite ‘Diet Mountain Dew’, the rest of the album’s material, whilst all sultry, sensual and damaged, does not match the quality of ‘Video Games.’ In fact, most of the album sounds like a lesser ‘Video Game’, presumably trying to cash-in on the initial success of the song.

The three extra tracks on the deluxe edition face the same issue.

Having commented that she only wanted to make one album, Del Rey has released a mini album, Paradise. Presumably an attempt to prove to the critics she can deliver consistently and cohesively.

Born To Die

Rihanna- Unapologetic

 When Rihanna commented in an interview that sometimes she was unable to sing the lyrics during the recording of this album, commenting on how deep they were, she presumably was not thinking of the album’s opener, containing the lines: “My bitches don’t know, f*ck with ’em out these here and drip to the f*cking floor.”

It seems that November is becoming Christmas come early for Rihanna fans. ‘Unapologetic’ being the fourth album she has released in this month.

 Her smorgasbord of songwriters have produced a somewhat more melancholy album than last years ‘Talk That Talk’. However, Rihanna’s attitude is ever present; from the ever-present half-naked shot of her on the albums cover, to the ballsy yet vulnerable quality in her singing.

There is a certain 80’s quality to ‘Unapologetic’, although it maintains a fresh contemporary feel.

Unapologetic

New Releases

Mary Wells- Something New: Lost and Found

Released 4th December

Mary Wells was one of the artists to sign to the Motown label.

Her voice shaped the way many women still sing to this day. Unfortunately, she left the label in 1964, leaving behind an enormous collection of unreleased songs. Songs that were unreleased until now.

‘Something New’ showcases 47 of Wells’ songs, almost half of which have never been previously heard. A fine combination of soul, ballad and of course her signature Motown sound, this is a must-have for any Wells fan or fan of Motown.

Something New: Mary Wells

Paloma Faith- Fall to Grace

Faith’s second album is almost as polished as her first, which was a result of more than 10 different producers putting their spin on her songs.

On the whole, a rather strong second album, although one feels that Faith is yet to find her voice somewhat. The song Black and Blue comes across a little too melancholy for an artist who prides herself on being an extrovert in style and voice.

Apart from one or two shaky moments, Fall to Grace is a decent attempt at coming back after the success of her debut.

Fall to Grace

 

Top 3 New Releases

Kate Earl: Stronger- Released 20th November

The Alaskan-born singer/songwriter’s third album, Stronger, finds her somewhat returning to the mellow and gentle head-nodding calmness of her first album, 2005’s Fate Is the Hunter.

None the less, Stronger is certainly Earl’s strongest album yet. The albums first single, One Woman Army, is arguably the stand-out trac1k. Ballsy yet vulnerable. More intriguing is questioning whether she’s saying ‘I’ll be your “protector” or “potato”.

This track aside, the whole album is a strong effort. The title track is a strong opener, and I Don’t Want to Be Alone sounds like it was torn straight from a Sheryl Crow songbook.

Buy Stronger

Keyisha Cole- Woman to Woman

Not that much of a departure from 2010’s Calling All Hearts, right down to the blue lipstick on the album cover, Keyshia Cole’s fifth studio effort is another R&B collection of anthems.

Woman to Woman’s opener, Enough of No Love, sounds like it could be a James Bond movie theme song.

Overall, it has quite a warm and celebratory vibe. Hey Sexy, rather unsurprisingly from the title, provides the standard sex-appeal song.

Woman to Woman

Amy Winehouse: At the BBC- Amy Winehouse- Released 13th November

From the earliest performance at the BBC Radio Sessions, to rare gems, covers and rarities, this three DVD, one CD box-set chronicles the painfully short career of Amy Winehouse.

The box-set offers a smorgasbord of songs. Sixties covers are mixed in with Winehouse’s own unique brand of reggae/jazz and rap fusion in her own compositions. A must have for any fan of this truly one-of-a-kind artist.

Amy Winehouse at the BBC

Most influential albums created by women

5.Joni Mitchell- Blue

Awards this album has not won are not worth winning. Released in 1971 it was one of the defining albums of the early 70’s.

Mostly acoustic and always soulful, Mitchell lets her voice get carried along by the simple guitar riffs. All I Want is a perfect example of this.

Purchase the album here.

4. Kate Bush- Hounds of Love

Released in 1985 the music business were not setting high hopes on Bush’s first recording since The Dreaming, released to lukewarm reviews three years earlier… they were shocked.

From the second that distinctive whirring sound at the beginning of Running Up That Hill plays you are captivated for the rest of the album.

The childlike simplicity of songs like Cloudbursting, The Big Sky and Mother Stands For Comfort compared to the eeriness of Under Ice and Waking the Witch ironically compliment each other. A trait few artists could achieve.

Purchase the album here.

3. Big Brother & the Holding Company- Cheap Thrills

Janis Joplin’s first album featured the iconic songs Ball and Chain, Piece of My Heart and Summertime. This sentence alone should be enough to explain why this album is number 3 in the list.

Who could watch the footage of her performing Ball and Chain at Monterey Pop Festival and not remain captivated as she screamed and warbled her way through this seven minute powder keg of a song?

Purchase the album here.

2. Carole King- Tapestry

Much like Blue, Tapestry is another crucial album in marking the early 70’s transition.

King’s piano bubbles along with the ballads one after the other. I Feel the Earth Move is one of the greatest ever opening tracks to an album. The classic It’s Too Late is also accompanied by the epics You’ve Got a Friend and A Natural Woman.

The highlight of the album is arguably the track Smackwater Jack, a song depicting a small-town massacre and it’s resolution.

Purchase the album here.

1. Patti Smith- Horses

When NME awards you with the best debut album award, you know you’ve done something right.

The prototype for punk as we know it, only Patti Smith could open an album with the line ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.’

The album is a roller coaster of 9 minute epics like Land of a Thousand Dances and Birdland, mixed in with rockers such as Break it Up and Free Money, along with a few middle of the road easy listeners, Redondo Beach being one of them… perfect.

Purchase the album here.

Top 5 Most Innovative Women…

5. Sheryl Crow

Okay, so she might not be as ground-breaking as Janis, as quirky as Alison Goldfrapp or as tough as Suzi Quatro, but Sheryl Crow is a force to be reckoned with.

‘Sheryl Crow’ and ‘The Globe Sessions’ were two of the defining albums of the 1990’s. Playing guitar, piano, bass, percussion, accordion and God know what else, Crow has become one of the biggest selling artists on the planet.

4. Annie Lennox

What more needs to be said? Moving from the Eurythmics to a solo artist, Lennox has proved that the underdog can take it to the top and stay there.

3. Kate Bush

Weird, wonderful and warbling… everyone is a fan of either Running Up That Hill or Wuthering Heights, and if they say they’re not, they’re lying.

A one-off tour in the 70’s, and her shying away from the public gaze outside of a recording studio adds to Bush’s mysterious reputation.

2. Debbie Harry

Possibly the most striking front woman in music history. Even Madonna, a trashy version of Harry, lacks the ability to be so effortlessly cool.

Know what makes her even cooler? She’s not really blonde! Gasp.

1. Janis Joplin

Every woman that came down after Joplin owes something to this woman. Although not a musician, she really did break the mold.

Singing multiple chords all at once, Joplin released three phenomenal albums before her induction to the 27 Club in 1970.