Elisabeth Kaplan

Singer & Songwriter

Sunday 30 November 2014

Band Aid 30 - Do They Know It’s Christmas?

Ugh, Uncle Bob has dug out some leftover Christmas fruitcake from last year – no, wait, from 1984 – and thought it would be okay to serve if he just sticks in some new raisins and slaps on some fresh frosting.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure  in 1984, is currently in its fourth incarnation. The song itself is mediocre at best. Sure, we’ve heard it so often by now that of course we can hum along, but the melody is actually kind of clumsy in its construction. It also doesn’t give singers a whole lot to work with, which is what makes it so hard for them to hit the right tone. Either they go for a simple, “honest” interpretation, in which case they tend to come off as bland and rather unfeeling; or they go over the top, seeking an “emotional” approach, and ending up with totally overwrought performances that just come across as insincere and show-offy.

In comparison: Just months after the initial “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” came out, USA for Africa followed the UK’s example and recorded “We Are The World”. It may be cheesy, but it is a perfect cheese. Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, it is doubtless the superior song. You can tell it was authored by singers, because it gives the vocalists enough substance to work with and allows each of the many guests to truly shine and deliver ultimately legendary performances.

But back to Band Aid. These are the four versions you can choose from (although the 1989 version flopped and is, to my knowledge, no longer available):
BandAid (1984); BandAid II (1989); BandAid 20 (2004); BandAid 30 (2014)

THE ULTIMATE BAND AID AWARDS

To help you choose your favourite, here are my personal awards in six categories:

* Best vocal performance:
Chris Rea in Band Aid II: With his voice, which sounds like the vocal personification of a hot toddy in front of a log fire, he really doesn’t have to make any sort of effort to sound fabulous.

* Most OTT vocal performance:
Without doubt, this one goes to Sinéad O’Connor in the 2014 version. Maybe she's having some kind of seizure brought on by her extreme embarrassment at having to sing these lyrics. On the up side, she is practically unintelligible, preventing us from having to actually understand the lyrics at this point.

* Singer who looks most pissed off about being there:
Although with his do-gooder image today he would never admit it, the 33-year-old Sting of 1984 looks like he couldn’t care less. He’s probably just mortified to be singing those lyrics (he even has to sing the line with the word “sting” in it. Ouch).
Second place in this category goes to Angélique Kidjo, “Africa’s premier diva”, in this year’s version. Boy, would I love to see a thought bubble over her head. It would probably be filled with words this sweet lady would never actually utter. Apparently, she wanted to change the lyrics and did in fact sing various versions, none of which made it past Sir Bob’s censorship.

* Most boring vocal performance:
1984: Paul Weller. Sorry, dude, but even if you’re hating every second, you have to at least pretend to be making an effort.
1989: Big Fun. Who’s that, you’ll most likely be asking. Well, this trio was one of the less successful acts from the Stock Aitken Waterman flock. They got half a line to sing – “… we can spread a smile of joy”. It’s depressing to think that what we hear in the final version must have been their best take …
2004: Sugababes. My oh my. Do these three girls really not have a shred of personality? Yawn.
2014: One Direction. Yikes. Maybe they went straight from a party to the studio. These boys sure seem to be half asleep when they’re singing the critical first line.

* Best production:
For me the most cohesive version in terms of production has to be the Stock Aitken Waterman version of 1989 – yup, the one that flopped. Unfortunately, it has an awkwardly inappropriate party vibe going on. Besides, SAW’s star wasn’t waning at this point, it was crashing.

* Least embarrassing lyrics:
Dear me, where to begin. For me, the most mortifying line in the song is “The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life”. (This year the line was replaced by “A song of hope where there’s no hope tonight” – not much of an improvement to be honest.)
As for the least embarrassing, maybe “At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade”. As clichéd as it may be, it’s possibly the only line that isn’t either somehow objectionable, nonsensical or simply clumsily crafted.
The line that understandably caused the most uproar through the years, “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”, was changed in the current version. I’m thinking Bono finally got his way. Apparently, he already objected to it 30 years ago.

And that wraps up my personal Band Aid Awards. Maybe now you’re so curious, you’ll get straight on iTunes and buy all the versions! (Except 2004 – I wouldn’t want you to have to hear that perplexing “we-need-to-attract-hip-young-buyers” rap section).



You can read the German version of this blog post at www.zartbitter.co.at


Monday 22 September 2014

Thriller – Michael Jackson

Did you know …
… that “Thriller” went through quite a bit of trial and error and quite a few rewrites before it became the song that was finally presented to the public in late 1982? If you listen to one of the previous versions of the song, a demo called “Starlight” (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_kimWJ7128), you’ll appreciate why Rod Temperton (a song-writing veteran who has written for all the greats, including Donna Summer, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey) decided to scrap his initial lyrics, which were rather generic and lacked a clear central message, in favour of something more unique.

Genius last-minute lyrics
The lyrics he then came up with for “Thriller” are full of strong imagery, immediately conjuring a vivid picture in the listeners’ minds. Temperton puts us right in the middle of this horror scenario (using direct address, “you”), and waits until the 3rd verse to let on that we are in fact just watching a horror film (“I’ll save you from the terror on the screen”). The directness of the lyrics is what makes them so accessible. Temperton doesn’t challenge us with hidden meaning, allegory, juxtaposition, metaphor or the like. He doesn’t try to make the song more than it is – with a satisfying result.

If I could be so bold as to voice one minor gripe (how dare I?): The bridge section (“Night creatures call …”) stands out musically – the harmonies suddenly shift, the triplets in the vocal melody make this part smoother and more lyrical compared to the rhythmic verse and chorus. Which is why the horror imagery (“night creatures”, “dead”, “jaws of the alien”) doesn’t feel right to me in this part. I’d have seen this bridge as an opportunity to introduce the idea of cuddling in front of the TV screen. In fact, I quite like the lines from Starlight: “Light up the world / Let the love start / Take charge of this masquerade”. As it stands, the music in this section gives the creepy lyrics a kind of sweetness, effectively rendering them harmless. Then again, perhaps it was Temperton’s intention to tone down the scariness here – to prepare us for the subsequent revelation that it’s all just happening on the screen?

THAT iconic bass hook
Musically, being intrigued by songs that have long, virtually unchanging sections, I wanted to find out how much of the song is made up of the famous bass hook that characterises the entire song. If you take just the main body of the song – Intro/ Verse 1/ Chorus/ Verse 2/ Chorus/ Bridge/ Verse 3/ Chorus (excluding the coda with Vincent Price’s legendary “rap”) – which makes up 117 bars, and count the number of bars built on the bass hook, you’ll find they make up 77% of the song! But thanks to the harmonic and melodic development, we don’t feel that the song ever gets boring or monotonous. Also, thanks to Quincy Jones and the world-class musicians playing on the track (I especially love David Williams’s tastefully restrained guitar lick, which adds so much density and rhythmic depth in all the right places), “Thriller” is a prime example of when to add and when to leave out small details that can make all the difference.

Conclusion
Back to “Starlight”: If I look at my copy of “Thriller” (the album) and mentally replace the song “Thriller” with “Starlight”, it changes the entire feel of the album. “Starlight” would have been no more than a catchy, but inconsequential interlude on an album whose makers intended it to be edgy. But in a moment of sheer brilliance, Temperton came up with a title that would go on to define an album, a year, a decade, a generation, the artist himself. 


German version here: http://zartbitter.co.at/kultur/unter-der-lupe-thriller-von-michael-jackson/

Sunday 14 September 2014

U2: Uninvited guests

Mom taught me to always say please and thank you. Dad taught me that you never look a gift horse in the mouth. But Granddad always said, if it doesn’t cost anything, it’s not worth anything. And Vergil warned us to beware of gifts – they may not be what they seem.



U2 have certainly caused a stir with their new album, “Songs of Innocence” – not so much because of the music, but rather because of the distribution method. Personally, I don’t feel inspired to write about the musical content of the album. Despite the best of intentions, I never managed to warm to U2 and “Songs of Innocence” will definitely not win me over. U2 is a band you either love or hate. So it can be assumed that a large share of the 500 million iTunes users who were “gifted” with this album do not want the music. And even among the other, pro-U2 faction there are many who are appalled at the way the album “appeared” on their devices. U2 and Apple are calling it a “gift”, but let’s be honest, it’s actually more like the silent, unexpected attack of a stealth aircraft.

In a business that constantly needs to come up with new ways of getting people to spend their money on music, the publicity stunts are taking on new forms. Last year, for example, Jay Z teamed up with Samsung and gave away his album “Magna Carta Holy Grail” to owners of certain Galaxy devices. Users had to register for an app to claim the album, and downloads were limited to 1 million. That campaign had more of a “gift” feeling, because after all, only Jay Z fans would have taken advantage of the offer and I’m sure they appreciated belonging to this exclusive group and being among the first to own this album, which went on to become very successful.

U2/Apple’s ambush-style attack, however, makes me feel decidedly uncomfortable. There are so many questions, the first of which being: why? U2 and Apple throw their arms in the air and jubilantly proclaim: “It’s a gift!” But there is no such thing in the world of commerce – not without any ulterior motives, that is. U2’s benefits are clear: Apple paid them for their work, the sales of their past albums have seen a sudden boost, they again have the attention of the media, and they’ve used the opportunity to announce their follow-up album, “Songs of Experience”. What Apple stand to gain isn’t as clear to me, which increases my unease. They wouldn’t spend that kind of money without expecting some kind of ROI.


It may be true that there is no such thing as negative publicity, but taking away my freedom of choosing whether I want to click on the “download” button or not is more than questionable. It’s an invasion. But maybe Apple have, in a way, done us a service with their very public display of an unwanted, unsanctioned intrusion into our digital devices: they have raised awareness of just how easily they can tamper with our devices and how they can manipulate what we see and hear in our own homes. Perhaps we should see that as the actual gift.



Die deutsche Version dieses Blogeintrags findet ihr unter http://zartbitter.co.at/allgemein/u2-ein-ungebetener-gast/

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Dancer - Gin Ga

PART 6 - AUSTRIA SERIES

Photo credit: Petra Benovsky
For their track “Dancer”, it seems to me that the Viennese band Gin Ga – made up of Alex Konrad, Klemens Wihlidal, Emanuel Donner and Matias Meno – took their inspiration from the new wave of the early 80s. For those who are not familiar with new wave or are simply too young to remember, new wave was a style that emerged from punk in the late 70s/early 80s in England, but strived to be more accessible than its predecessor. It was, essentially, punk-inspired pop. I had loads of fun fun tracking down the new wave references in “Dancer” and I’ll show you what I found further down.

International connections
Gin Ga is yet another example of an Austrian band that has gained more recognition internationally than locally. What certainly worked to Gin Ga’s advantage was the fact that they have a Belgian manager who managed to get them not only gigs abroad, but also airplay in Poland, Spain, France and, of course, in Belgium. Also, for a while Gin Ga collaborated with James Stelfox, a British bassist they’d met at a gig in Brussels. These international connections helped them to get out of the confinement of the Austrian pop scene and also gave them the international endorsement needed in order to be taken seriously in Austria.  

Their second album, “Yes/No”, was released with Monkey Music late last year. The album exudes self-confidence and energy and is full of memorable songs that often give me flashbacks of post-punk England. “Dancer”, however, is the song that immediately grabbed my attention (click here to watch their homemade-style video!).

New wave from Austria
So what exactly are the main ingredients needed to qualify a song as new wave? 
Item 1: An attitude and energy clearly derived from punk. Check.
Item 2: Elements reminiscent of the era, namely late 70s to mid-80s. Check.
Item 3: Greater attention to songwriting and melodies than is the case in punk, as well as use of synth sounds. Check!

“Dancer” starts off with octaves in the bass that just scream 80s. Think New Order’s “Blue Monday” (1983), Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” (1984) or Visage’s “Fade to Grey” (1980). After a short intro frontman Alex Konrad takes centre stage with the first verse. He clearly belongs to the long line of such punk and post-punk performers as Joe Strummer (The Clash), Billy Idol or Robert Smith (The Cure), all of whom are not “good” singers in the classical sense, but whose vocals are chock-full of drama and raw emotion.

In the third line of each verse background shouts are employed for emphasis (e.g. “And with my first breath” in the 1st verse). Yelling vocals were common in punk and were then often adopted in new wave, e.g. in “Burning down the House” (1983) by Talking Heads. Another element that characterises the verses is the rhythmic motif played by a variety of industrial-sounding percussion instruments like those used by Depeche Mode in “People are People” (1984). This motif also has a similarly defining function as the one in Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” (1981). 

“To the left, to the right!”
The lyrics could well be just a load of mumbo-jumbo or, alternatively, so profound that my shallow mind cannot fathom them. Gin Ga chose a clever, stable structure for the lyrics (starting every verse with “I was a dancer before I was born/before I could walk/before I could speak/before I was sold”) that allows them to say almost anything and lets it sound extremely meaningful.

The chorus is just plain fun: “To the left, to the right / To the left, to the right / D-d-d-dancer, dancer!” Although the chorus suddenly gets more of a 90s trip-hop vibe with Massive Attack-style strings, I still found a new wave reference: the “d-d-d-dancer” reminds me of “M(-m-m-m)y Sharona” (The Knack, 1979)!

Conclusion
In truth, this song would be predestined to become something of an indie party anthem. The band even invented a little dance to go with it. How great is that?! A group of friends in England obviously had great fun making their own reconstruction of the“Dancer” video. What I’d love to see is an entire audience doing the moves. It would certainly be a way of showing the guys that they’re also appreciated at home and not just abroad …


Their website: www.thisisginga.com


Read the German version of this blog post at http://zartbitter.co.at/kultur/unter-der-lupe-dancer-gin-ga/.


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