Fiona Apple is back! Almost…

Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple has been absent from the music scene for far too long (almost seven years!) However, after years of scattered appearances, speculations, and a riot, Fiona is finally back — almost. According to Twitter and Perez Hilton, Epic chair L.A. Reid confirmed last week that Fiona Apple will definitely be releasing an album later in the year.  Speculation about the singer’s next album has been swirling for a few years, since the controversial release of her 2005 album - Extraordinary Machine. Complications and personal problems seem to plague the singer. In 2000, she suffered a meltdown on stage in New York's Roseland Ballroom due to rattled nerves and on-going stress. In 1998, she confessed in an interview with the Rolling Stone that she was a victim of child abuse and then aforementioned riot occurred, so a prolonged break between albums seems understandable.  When she did a surprise show with Jon Brion late last year, she said, “I can’t remember any of my new songs because they’ve been done for a fucking year.” to which Brion added, "Not her fault!"

Fiona has clearly been dissatisfied with Reid’s management of her material so his "welcome back" tweet might be more of a "welcome back to Epic!" peace offering rather than "welcome back to music" In any case, Fiona Apple was an artist than was sorely missed by her fans. Her debut – Tidal, was released in 1996. Tidal is a spectacular debut, featuring the melancholic and sultry "Shadowboxer", and bitter and angsty song "Sleep to Dream" and "Criminal" – Fiona’s breakthrough single that won a 1998 Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance". “Criminal” also featured one of the sexiest music videos of that decade.  

Her second album (released 1999) – When the Pawn…(album title too long and pretentious to type out fully). Despite the name, this is a stunning album; featuring the singles “As Fast As You Can” and “Paper Bag” with its infectious, lilting melody and topped with wistful but ultimately dashed hopes for finding a new love "whose reality I knew, was a hopeless to be had."

Her last album - Extraordinary Machine was expected to be released in 2003 but was delayed several times by the record label without explanation. Extraordinary Machine was named the 49th best album of the 2000s by Rolling Stone. It features the singes "O' Sailor", “Not About Love” and "Red Red Red" Extraordinary Machine also won "best new album of the year" in Entertainment Weekly's 'Best of 2005.

Since the release of her last album, Apple has made quite a few public appearances; she featured on Iconoclasts -Sundance TV show with Quentin Tarantino back in 2006.  She had occasional guest performances with Brion, collaborations with Andrew Bird and Margaret Cho, and has done Buddy Holly covers, indicating that she not off the completely off the radar yet. Fiona Apple has released four magnificent albums; so her impending album release this year is certainly something to get excited about.

Back to the Future, the musical? GREAT SCOTT!

With the American Psycho musical currently in the works, another musical of another quality film – Back To the Future, is apparently going to be made. Director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Bob Gale and composer Alan Silvestri are all on board for a Broadway transfer. Exciting as it sounds; I’m sceptical about the whole idea. I mean - how the hell will they get the DeLorean up to 88mph on stage? And how are they going to do the car-chasing scenes with the skateboard? Anyone who loves Back to the Future as much as I do might feel slightly aggrieved by the idea of the best ever film getting the Ghost treatment and turned into a musical. But we aficionados are open-minded types, wise to the surprises of the space-time continuum. We've been raised on a story that teaches you responsible libertarianism; that every action (such as bumping into your dad after you've accidentally travelled 30 years into the past) has a consequence, but also that free will is always an ally (perhaps that mad scientist can return you to 1985 if the DeLorean going at 88mph hits the bolt of lightning that strikes the clock tower at 10.04pm precisely).

The music was already a driving force through the movie, from the Huey Lewis theme tune “The Power of Love” to Marty McFly's hair-metal rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode”. But the original compositions should be something to look forward to. Will Biff's goons sing barbershop harmonies? Will they be able to find a rhyme for "jiggawatts"?

Unfortunately, the makers of the musical don’t have use of a real flux capacitor, so if they fuck up; there’s no going back. The Back to the Future saga is one of the best in movie history so hopefully, if the musical goes ahead, it will be a roaring success. And one wonders, since most of it is set in the ’50s, how similar is this musical going to be in comparison to Grease?  Also, if you’re going to see American Psycho or Back to the Future the musicals – do you have to like Huey Lewis and the News? 

Goldfrapp Retrospective

Goldfrapp Retrospective

After thirteen years and five albums, the genre-smashing pioneers Goldfrapp are set to release The Singles album. The album is a career-spanning overview featuring tracks from their five critically acclaimed albums, alongside two brand new songs written especially for this release: “Yellow Halo” a slow building synth-pop track, and the introspective, new wave ballad “Melancholy Sky”.

The duo have explored a wide range of musical styles in their songs, although many songs are characterized by Alison Goldfrapp's breathy, soft soprano vocals and Will Gregory's multi-layered synthesizer and string arrangements. 

 Goldfrapp's debut album Felt Mountain was released in September 2000 and featured the singles "Lovely Head", "Utopia", "Pilots (On a Star)" and "Human". The album featured Alison's synthesized vocals over cinematic soundscapes and was influenced by a variety of music styles including cabaret, folk and electronic music.  Felt Mountain is considered their ‘trip-hop’ album.

Black Cherry:  In April 2003, Goldfrapp released their second album Black Cherry which included the singles: “Strict Machine”, “Train” and “Twist”.  This time, the band adopted a more electro-pop style. Alison Goldfrapp commented that the album differed from Felt Mountain because the band "felt that we really didn't want to repeat what we had done...we kind of wanted to do something that felt equally as fresh to us as the first one felt fresh to us.” This album received great reviews and did relatively well in the charts.

Goldfrapp's third album –Supernature- was released in August 2005. It includes the singles “Ride on a White Horse”, “Number  1” and their most famous song “Ooh La La”. Supernature is a more synth-pop/ glam-rock influenced album and sold over one million copies worldwide.

Their fourth album – Seventh Tree, was released in February 2008 which features the singles “A & E”, “Clowns” and “Happiness”. This time, the band abandoned their electro-pop roots and adopted a more folky sound and features ambient and downtempo music. Goldfrapp described the album as a "sensual counterpoint to the glitterball glamour of Supernature".  They claimed that the inspiration came from paganism and surreal English children's books. The album received rave reviews and became the band's most critically acclaimed album since Felt Mountain.

Head First was released March 2010. In this album, Goldfrapp go back to their electro-pop roots and adopted an 80’s synth style. The album received a nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album at the 2011 Grammy Awards.

The band have composed the soundtrack for “Nowhere Boy”, also Hans Zimmer has reportedly been listening to a lot of Goldfrapp during the composition of The Dark Knight Rises. Goldfrapp: The Singles is a stunning collection of songs that brings together some of their best work in one neat package. The Singles doesn’t represent the end but just one milestone in their glittering career.  The Singles album is released from February 6th.

Singles Tracklist:

01. Ooh La La

02. Number 1

03. Strict Machine (Single Mix)

04. Lovely Head

05. Utopia (Genetically Enriched)

06. A&E

07. Happiness (Single Version)

08. Train

09. Ride a White Horse (Single Version)

10. Rocket

11. Believer

12. Black Cherry

13. Yellow Halo

14. Melancholy Sky

Thirty-Eight years of Tom Waits

“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" were the words slurred by Mr Tom Waits on the “Fernwood Tonight” Show back in 1977 after playing his classic “The Piano has been Drinking”. This live performance reflected his alcohol-induced state and alcohol-induced musical style.  Even while trashed, Tom Waits still managed to entertain and charm the audience with his ingenious song-writing and dry wit. Three decades on and with his seventeenth studio album out, Tom Waits is still going strong and is still as innovative and as influential as ever.  

 Waits is described as one of the last beatniks of contemporary music. Extraordinarily, he never produced a major hit but has earned a cult following all over the world. Waits has a distinctive voice has been described as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his fusion of blues, jazz, rockabilly and vaudeville blending with his own experimental tendencies, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona over the last thirty-eight years

He taught himself how to play the piano at a neighbour's house and then learned the guitar on a Gibson when he was a teenager. A fan of Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Howlin' Wolf, and Charles Bukowski, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style. His first LP – Closing Time was released in 1973, an experimental mix of folk and jazz. This is the soundtrack written by and for the lonely drifter. Waits then toured with the legendary Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention where he later made a name for himself. Waits then went on a creative streak and released an album annually until 1978 - The Heart of Saturday Night (1974); Nighthawks at the Diner (1975); Small Change (1976); Foreign Affairs (1977); and Blue Valentine 1978.

In 1983, Waits took a new musical direction with Swordfishtrombones, where he steers away from the piano and string orchestra arrangements of the late 1970s, replacing them with strange instrumentation and a more abstract song-writing approach.

Probably Waits’ crowing jewel would be Rain Dogs, released in 1985. Rain Dogs exhibits Waits at his most experimental phase; fusing jazz, blues, rockabilly and folk in this album and he even tries his hand at country music with the song "Blind Love". Rain Dogs was ranked #21 on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s." In 2003, the album was ranked #397 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". 

Another triumph for Waits has to be Bone Machine, released in 1992 which features his classic song “Going Out West”. The album is often noted for its dark lyrical themes of death and murder, and for its rough, stripped-down, percussion-heavy, blues-rock style. Waits won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album for it and features guest appearances by Keith Richards and Les Claypool from Primus.

Waits took a more folky approach with the album Mule Variations, winning a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and was nominated for Best Male Rock Performance for the track "Hold On". 

Don't Just Look At It - Read It!

Don’t Just Look At It – Read it!

Cult classic American Psycho is apparently being made into a remake. Lionsgate have given the nod to Noble Jones (a fairly new filmmaker, as his only previous credit is as a second unit director on David Fincher's The Social Network)to pen a remake of the film which was only made in 2000.

The original, based on Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel, follows the story of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy Wall Street banker whose suave, slick exterior hides a deranged, monstrous killer and megalomaniac. The film also offers a pitch-black satire on the yuppie lifestyle in the 1980’s. The remake, however, will be set in modern times and will concentrate more on the gory aspects of the story.

Ellis’s tweeted “have warned Lionsgate that I will not approve a new version of 'American Psycho' unless it stars SCOTT DISICK (Kourtney Kardashian’s boyfriend) or MILES FISHER!” then later tweeted “I am waiting for Scott Disick to ask: 'Who in the hell is is Bret Easton Ellis?” apparently unfazed that Disick has no acting experience what so ever. Ellis must be taking the piss here.  

Why this is a terrible idea: Mary Harron adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho is phenomenal and Christian Bale’s portrayal of Patrick Bateman is fantastic, they couldn’t have found a better actor to suit the role. Harron's movie successfully tones the graphic scenes from the novel, from the sickening violence yet it maintains the satirical edge. You can’t improve on this adaptation; it’s simply impossible.  The remake will be set in modern times rather than the eighties so it instantly loses the satirical edge of the yuppie lifestyle and the Bateman’s musical taste is obviously going to be omitted. They seem to only be making a remake for the sake of making a gory movie rather than having a thriller with any real aesthetic. Although American Psycho did relatively poorly at the box office - making just $15 million at the US Box Office but it it gained a massive cult status worldwide. Lionsgate is clearly only on board with making a remake in order to make a profit. Not to mention that Harron’s adaptation is only eleven years old and there any many other Bret Easton Ellis novels out there that would make great adaptations such as Glamorama or remake Less Than Zero (in fairness, that adaptation was fairly poor). The Rules of Attraction was also a noteworthy film adaptation of the book. Hopefully this plan won’t go into motion and they might concentrate on making another Ellis novel into a movie.