I have chosen 11 artists / performers / composers for my top
11 in 2011 list of sounds – some just one piece of music or a song, others more
than one. Each artist reflects a mood or a moment and each song or piece of
music was one that was incredibly special to me this year at either one precise
moment (Pink Floyd on top of the Swiss Alps on a motorcycle in the rain for
example) or is an artist which just keeps on grabbing me all year long (The
Raconteurs are a good example).
I have put links for each of the pieces of music so if you
don’t know them you can find them on YouTube together with a brief attempt to
explain what each song / piece of music triggers.
Russian Piano Virtuoso Eduard Kunz once said: “I truly
believe that music was written about passion . . .about love, about grieving.
The music I am going to play is about life.”
And so this musical selection is about anger, pain or love
–in other words, it's about life. . .
1. J.S. Bach
Three pieces from Bach, by far my favourite classical composer.
My first choice is the first part of the Goldberg Variations – the Aria. I have
chosen this because it is sublimely beautiful. I wish this piece to be played
at my funeral as I believe there should be some beauty with death but it is
also a piece I listen to often when feeling tender. I have used it for a small
film I am making about my father and it is a piece that I discussed this year
with a fellow Bach fan. It is lovely. I defy anyone to listen to this without a
tear in the eye.
Listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcXXkcZ2jWM
(Barenboim - this video is really marvellous as you see how delicately and beautifully his fingers move across the keyboard and also the expression of deep connection on his face. Wonderful.)
Second – Cantata 147
– Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. Very well known, but for a good reason. This
is such a beautiful figure on the violins and oboe that it could only be from
the devotional music that Bach was so skilled at composing. Also a contender for the music to be played at my funeral. (TIP: whether you liked me in life much or not, come to my funeral - the music will be great and I won't be there to spoil it by talking!)
Third – the Prelude
to Cello Suite #1. This for me is the most erotic piece of music. And for
me the cello one of the most erotic instruments. I’m quite sure this was not
what was in Bach’s mind when he composed this, but nevertheless its intimacy,
warmth, and passion is purely erotic.
2. The Waterboys - A
Bang On The Ear
This was a song I loved when I was at the peak of my
interest in folk music and used to play a lot. It was always popular at my
university (Edinburgh) in the student folk clubs and I had it on my playlist constantly
during the summer odyssey.
A tale of a man’s various loves from his teenage years to
his current relationship – the phrase a “bang” on the ear is an Irish
expression which means “kiss”.
I defy anyone not to tap their foot and sing along to this
song.
3. Adele
Adele is simply a colossal talent and one of the best female
vocalists singing today. For someone so very young she has an enormous maturity
in terms of both her sound and her lyric writing.
Her last album – 21 – was produced by Rick Rubin who managed
to bring out the richness, depth and breadth of her voice as well as create
superb arrangements which support the voice and are very evocative.
These two songs for me stand out on the album.
Set Fire to The Rain
– One of the best songs on the album with a really catchy chorus that infected
me from the first time I heard it…
Someone Like You –
a break-up song full of tenderness and pain . . . poignant lyrics and that
voice, my God, that voice. . .
4. Jose Padilla –
Adios Ayer
I am quite a big fan of ambient music (and have created two
albums of my own ambient music) and this track stuck to me like glue this year.
Listened to it watching the sun go down in Greece on many evenings. The lyrics
were co-written with Seal.
Goodbye yesterday . . .
Thinking of tomorrow
With the sunset in your eyes
I feel everything and sorrow
So I have to say goodbye
5. Tom Waits
No list of favourite music of virtually any period would be
complete without Tom Waits – beat poet, jazz man and troubadour extraordinaire.
. .
Three songs from the early period:
The Heart of Saturday
Night
One of my all time favourites - evocative, sentimental and
romantic in equal measure. Great lyrics, great tune. I simply love this song.
Martha
One of my favourites from my favourite Tom Waits album –
“Closing Time”.
A desperately sad tale told in the narrative device of a
telephone call as the tragedy of the song is revealed verse by verse. Wonderful
and moving.
This is a song I have adored forever and which I listened to
endlessly during the summer as I relived all my Tom Waits albums again.
I Want You
I didn’t know this song until this summer when someone
introduced me to it. It’s perfect. 1 minute and 23 seconds of perfection.
6. Pink Floyd –
Comfortably Numb
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is a song
that belongs to a very specific moment this year – although I listened to the
song dozens of times.
I had ridden across four countries in one day on my return
journey from Greece and was riding up a mountain in Switzerland in the late
afternoon as the heavens opened and rain poured down on me and the road.
The
music played full volume inside my ears in the helmet and I was on top of the
mountain, riding without thinking around sweeping bends looking down at the
incredibly green valley below, thinking of a million things and one . . . the
cold mountain air in my face and the faint rumble of the motorcycle’s exhausts
behind me and the music . . .
“And I have become . .
. comfortably numb . . .” – and cue
David Gilmour for one of the greatest guitar solos of all time.
A perfect motorcycle and music moment.
7. The Raconteurs
After the White Stripes, Jack White formed the Raconteurs
with Brendan Benson.
Jack White is one of the few truly innovative and fearless
musicians today – and a true eccentric. The Raconteurs album “Consolers of the
Lonely” is a proto-punk blues & country masterpiece with a huge variety of
genres, great lyrics and a ton and a half of musicianship. It’s an album I kept
going back to again and again this year and I love it.
Two songs from the album which showcase its diversity are
the title track punk / rock “Consolers
of the Lonely” and the soulful, almost Beatle-esque “You Don’t Understand Me” – a slightly paranoid psychotic love
song…
Consolers of the
Lonely – manic, harsh, frenetic and amazing (double track that, as Jack
says at the beginning)
Listen:
You Don’t Understand
Me – nice piano lick, and Beatles style builds and middle eight section . .
.classy stuff.
Listen:
8. Ed Sheeran – Kiss
Me
If Adele is the greatest young female vocal and songwriting
talent out there today, then Ed Sheeran might be vying for the top spot for
male singer songwriters. His debut album came out this year and he took no prisoners
with the record label and did it his way. According to friends his live concerts are apparently
excellent.
This song is delightfully simple, and much like Adele,
displays a maturity of lyric writing which is astonishing when you think that
he is just 20 years old.
9. Snow Patrol
Two nice songs:
Chasing Cars
This got a lot of play this year starting in Cape Town and later on with one of the bands I play in and is just a great song. I
wish I could write something as simple and good as this.
You Could Be Happy
Apparently it took the band ages to get around to recording
this song as they couldn’t find an arrangement they liked. In the end this
beautifully simple arrangement using a kid's glockenspiel suits the tenderness of the lyrics perfectly.
Lovely song, lovely lyrics, lovely arrangement.
10. Bob Dylan
Another of my all time musical heroes . . . I picked three
songs from his early period – all from 1965. Every one has to have a Dylan
period in their life and I relived a large chunk of mine this year . . .
A trippy poem about the decay of society - Gates of Eden – which contains one of
my favourite lyrics of all time (based on its weirdness alone!):
“The motorcycle black
madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream”
Classic Dylan and one of my favourites of all time.
The archetypal protest song: It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) – very appropriate for all the
protesting of 2011 from Arab Spring to Greece to Occupy Wall Street . . .But
It’s alright ma . . .it’s life and life only . . .
And the love song: It’s
All Over Now Baby Blue – a song which I have covered myself and which is
another song I wish I was good enough to have written. . .
11. Noora Kassem &
Dave Robinson – I Am Close & Mountains
"I Am Close" is one of the songs I wrote and recorded with Noora this year.
We wrote it together in around an hour or two. Noora on vocals and me on
guitar. Noora wrote most of the lyrics with me pitching in one or two ideas. We
played on the steps of my house while smoking cigarettes and then went into the
studio upstairs and recorded it pretty much in one or two takes.
"Mountains" was recorded earlier and the duties divided on this more classically with Noora writing all the lyrics and the vocal melody while I took care of the music, arrangements and so on and played the guitars - although the middle eight was something Noora suggested in terms of arrangement. Whenever I listen to this song the hairs on my arms stand-up - I find it hauntingly beautiful. Especially the harmonies after the break in the middle.
Hope you like the two songs – I’m proud of them and as usual, her voice sounds incredible. Watch out Adele.
