Tracey Thorn
Okay, I give in then. The rest of the world has swooned in very small numbers to The Marine Girls; early Tracey Thorn solo stuff; Ben Watt (especially Ben Watt in terms of the numbers) and early Everything But The Girl. The rest of the world swooned in rather silly large numbers to latter day chilled out tasteful dance music connoisseurs Everything But The Girl. It has all, for the most part, passed me by – until now. Sadly I fear that may be the fate of this fine album also. Tracey has her audience. They are small and dedicated and they will rightly buy this. The trouble is, how to persuade the rest of the music buying public that this ought to be near the top of their must have recordings of 2010?
I suspect there just isn’t a big market, or indeed any market, for a record by a recently happily married middle aged women with kids about being a middle aged woman. I’m not even sure her own family will take to it once they’ve heard “Long White Dress” or “Hormones”. Now that’s confronting your audience!
The truth is that this is a lyrically honest and musically stripped down album about middle age. The musical setting is decidedly middle aged and unlikely to appeal much to the millions who bought “Missing”. There isn’t anything here for the dance floor. This is music to sit down and listen to. Equally I suspect the very middle aged people to whom this album speaks, or at least ought to, will be too busy addressing the very real nature of its content to want to hear it spat back at them however acceptable and tasteful the format. Yes Tracey, on paper at least, no one is going to want this. It’s almost a very polite career suicide note in some ways.
Still, whilst the rest of the world ignores it, I can console myself with an opening trio of songs as good as anything else I’ve heard in any year and if the album never rises to those heights again until maybe “Singles Bar” in its latter half then no matter for what lies between is subtle and heartfelt and all the better for taking time to grow. You may gather that I like this.
“Oh, The Divorces” steps into view quietly contemplating the hard truth that divorce happens and at a certain age it’s not just about the kids, it’s also about a group of people growing up and growing apart and doing so in an unstructured and unpredictable way “That one was his fault. This one is her fault” as it’s put so eloquently. Accompanied by a waltzing piano and a quiet wash of strings it’s actually a powerful statement making opener that leads you to sadly wonder whether anything else on the album can match it. It can.
“Long White Dress” is equally powerful in its own way via an honest appraisal of the fear and incomprehension of marriage that starts in childhood and sometimes never goes away. Again, it’s simple in execution and honest and powerful. What more could you want?
How about “Hormones” a song to a daughter who must be cringing to know this is addressed to her. “Mine are just checking out whilst yours are just checking in”! Indeed. It’s not hard to see why this level of lyrical honesty is going to be a hard sell within her own four walls let alone the wider world. However, that kind of misses the point. “Hormones” is one of those lovely light, hand clap accompanied pop songs of a type that we hear all to rarely nowadays. It’s probably the highlight of the album and yet that affords it a significance its three minutes plus a few seconds might struggle to accommodate. That it does so and puts a rather stupid grin of uncomfortable recognition on your face is perhaps the achievement of the album.
Things darken with “Kentish Town” and stay pretty dark even through the lighter tones of “Singles Bar” and the dreaminess of half a dozen other tracks with a lyrical bite harder than their musical bark.
If it seems like I’m suddenly accelerating through everything after that opening trio then maybe so but I’m not sure that’s a reflection in any drop in quality. More that the opening trio lull you into thinking this is a light pop album with a dark lyrical bent when that really isn’t the full story at all. I suspect it’s more that I’ve read enough reviews of fairly dark songs like these that suggest they’re all about mood.
Mood is a word that can be used as shorthand for lack of melody or indeed lack of anything to hold onto. Certainly songs like “Swimming” or “Come On Home To Me” are more about fairly monochromatic washes of sound than the ringing melodies of that opening trio but in this case it doesn’t imply a drop in quality. More a change of mood and lyrical style but ultimately occupying the same space.
I suspect that’s a long hand way of saying this is an album with instant impact that withholds all it’s charms and achieves longevity as a consequence. The sort of album you will love; tuck away after a while and come back to some time later to be surprised at just how great it was.
You may gather that I do indeed like this.
