If music is going to achieve any sort of result it has to move me. Sometimes this movement can be physical - primarily dancing - but likewise it can be some sort of emotional engagement. The new single from Hurts, Redemption certainly achieves the later. Hurts has always been a divisive and somewhat misunderstood band; from the moment they first emerged a decade ago coming in the top 5 of the BBC Sound of 2010 and playing an incredible show at Wiltons Music Hall that featured an opera singer and Theo combing his hair on stage, some people struggled with the idea of a duo who displayed big ideas alongside a slight cheesiness. This was I believe primarily because Hurts didn’t fit with the staid clichés that help influence and form the judgements we make about music. There are so many preconceived ideas around pretension, authenticity and naffness. Yet what is perceived as over sentimental songwriting that makes the skin crawl to one person is a thing of huge power to another. “You've made all our hidden pain inside just cry out and shake what we really are,” comments one person on You tube about this song. “You saved my life in 2010 and you keep on changing me with everything you do,” says another. People from Russia in particular seem to get Hurts and connect with them. Most Brits and Americans less so. Yet some people will press play on Redemption and vomit. If the idea of Hurts structuring a song like Lewis Capaldi whilst singing of never feeling this far from God make your dark cynical heart feel a bit queasy then get the bucket because you’re going to be very sick. But even if that’s your reaction, stick with it because something quite amazing happens towards the end of Redemption. In a classic Hurts moment, they go the whole hog; orchestras, choirs, a cinematic piece that the word epic was 100% designed for. You might hate it. You might love it. But I defy anyone not to be moved by this. And that’s a good thing. Music is at its best when it’s a force. The new Hurts album, suitably titled Faith is released on September 4th. Hurts - Redemption
Hurts, the 5th most blogged about band on Breaking More Waves have just released a video for their new quite poptatstic single Some Kind Of Heaven, to follow on from the previously released You Tube audio stream. Imagine if a band just popped the video up online and didn’t bother with a staged release campaign - who knows maybe they’d save some money on their marketing budget? But of course that's not the way things work these days. Anyway, the video is suitably weird and beautifully shot, with an almost David Lynch like feel to it. What’s it all about we hear you ask? We have no idea. Our interpretation is that Theo is attempting to escape from ‘some kind of heaven’ that may or may not be death, and that there’s no escape, he’s always going to end up back there. Watch out for the clapping on the thighs bit, it’s the most sinister thing you'll see all day. This is worth watching even to just enjoy another popstar besides Ellie Goulding running, probably something you wouldn’t expect of the usually stationary Hurts, although in Theo’s case he isn’t wearing Nikes and sportswear - he still keeps a shirt on. Hurts - Some Kind Of Heaven
We have a quite simple history with Hurts. It goes something like this: Album 1: Pop brilliance. One of those bands that we named as Ones to Watch (back in 2009) and then 12 months later Happiness found itself at number 2 in our favourite Album of the Year list. Some people disliked Hurts because they thought they were too cheesy / pretentious / ostentatious, but of course THEY WERE WRONG. Album 2: It all started perfectly. The early signs were that Hurts were going down a darker path, ‘doing a Depeche Mode’ perhaps – but on release something just didn’t quite connect. Maybe it was just as simple as the songs not being quite as good. That’s our analysis of things anyway. If you want in depth journalistic consideration and thought, you've come to the wrong place. And now we’re coming up to album 3. Do you remember how lots of people who know lots of things about music had suggested that Hurts would be the perfect band to represent the UK in the Eurovision song contest? After all Theo and Adam seem to connect with European audiences outside of the UK in a way that many people don't understand, in the same way that the UK doesn't really get Eurovision and seems to treat it as a bit of a joke. Well, if Hurts did do it, the first song from album 3 would be perfect. Some Kind Of Heaven is far less murky than album 2 material (even the white suit and turtle neck clothing in the promo shot suggest so). In fact, despite maintaining the sense of drama that makes Hurts what they are, this one sounds positively radio friendly, filled as it is with hooks galore. This one could have been up there with Sweden, Russia and Italy last weekend. Hurts - Some Kind Of Heaven
So what do we all think of the new Hurts single then?
A few days ago we suggested that the first taster from their new record Exile positioned them on a rather exciting path to the world of darkness.
Now we have Miracle.
It is quite obviously a ‘big’ song.
It has a throw your arms out around the world vastness that makes the path turn into a bid wide road. A motorway even.
It sounds a lot like Simple Minds circa 1985-1990 (The Once Upon A Time and Street Fighting Years period). This is not a bad thing. Hurts have always sounded ambitious and Miracle seems to possess an even greater sense of scale and drama ready for arenas. Shut your eyes and imagine thousands of people hollering along to the “woah-oh-oh” segments. See we’ve done well so far; we haven’t mentioned Coldplay.
So, whilst Miracle is undeniably still Hurts, it’s a development.
We suspect they’ll lose a few of their electronic-head fans with this one, (the picture above gives the clue why) but they could easily replace them with the sort of person who will happily pay £65 to stand in a huge soulless shed and drink warm lager from a plastic pint after having consumed a piss poor burger in a stale bread roll and 'experience' a gig.
Here is the new video from Hurts. After refuelling it marks their return into the journey of pop. The track is called The Road. It’s been online for a week or so now. Here are our thoughts on their travels in music so far.
1. Some people who liked the very first Hurts song to be released (Wonderful Life) feel let down by the band. This divisive piece by Mike at The Recommender (read the comments section below as well for some opinions) is an example of how some people made a judgement about what the band were going to be and then when they didn’t meet that expectation got a bit narked by it.
2. A lot of those people in 1 above were from the early adopter crowd in the UK. (We include ourselves in this crowd, but we were most definitely not let down by what came next – Happiness ended up as our second favourite record of 2010).
3. Whilst some struggled with the concept of what the group were about and where their music sat in terms of a market / audience, Hurts just got on with the job of being bloody brilliant. Central and Eastern Europe in particular took them to their hearts. It explains why the band's new tour in March 2013 contains more dates in Germany than anywhere else and why those dates have already sold out.
4. The Road continues Hurts ability of being bloody brilliant. For nearly the first minute they do everything that their detractors would expect them to do. Words like ‘boy band’ ‘bland’ and ‘mid-market’ could be hurled at them again. Then BOOM. The Road explodes into a melee of dark noisy chaos. It even sounds a bit like Muse. Did we mention the words bloody brilliant? Well it bloody well is.
5. Whilst not sonically identical we see a strong parallel between Hurts and Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode was ridiculed in the UK at the start of their career in the 80’s by the indie / cool kids for being too pop. Yet the band went on to be huge in Europe and their sound became gradually darker. Whilst Depeche Mode’s transition took a number of albums, modern day music fans and the industry have such short attention spans that if, as it appears, Hurts are going down the ‘darker’ route, they will need to make that journey a little quicker – more like travelling down a motorway than a B Road. Basically their new album Exile probably needs to be their Black Celebration.
6. The Road gives us the shivers every time we watch the video. Our interest for Exile (out next year) has been duly raised. We’ll say it once more. Bloody brilliant.
If you caught any of the media coverage of Glastonbury 2011 you could easily be forgiven for thinking that there are only three or four stages at the festival that feature music, that Beyoncé was the only good act playing on Sunday, that amongst 177,000 people (in a time scale of 5 days) the death of a man of natural causes was a surprising event, and that direct action tax protests during U2’s set was highly visible to everyone watching Bono & co.
Yet the Breaking More Waves experience was very different. Glastonbury is not necessarily about one off high profile media led sensationalist stories or individual performances, but the greater sum of the parts that creates a festival that is vast in its spectacle, is at times brutally tiring and is both epic beyond all words and intimately beautiful at the same time – even in thick sticky mud.
Here’s our round up of some of the key points.
Tickets
If you’re lucky enough to secure one – they normally sell out within hours – you needed to pay £195 + a small booking fee.
Weather
Glastonbury seems to only do extremes. Heavy rain on the days leading up to and at the start of the festival meant that the majority of the site was quickly turned into a huge thick, slimy mud bath (the picture above, shot on Saturday morning in the dance village says it all), making walking anywhere a physically testing and exhausting experience, particularly if you were intent on visiting every corner of the site. Yet on Sunday the sun made a welcome appearance, temperatures in the mid 20’s drying out the mud rapidly in most places leading to the bizarre sight of revellers dressed in shorts, t shirts, shades and sun hats yet still accompanied by wellies.
Site
Glastonbury is huge – there’s 1,100 acres of the place and within that space there’s something for everyone. From the Pyramid Stage with its huge names to smaller stages such as our favourite The Crow’s Nest situated high up on the hill away from the masses in The Park area. However it really is true that you could spend all weekend at the festival and never see any music at all; theatre, circus, healing areas, permaculture, oddball art, green displays, the kids fields and the pre-apocalyptic freakiness of Shangri La. Even in the 5 days we were on site we didn’t have time to visit it all.
The Punters
A mix of young fresh faced Glasto virgins to a number who have been going for years. Those who have been doing it for years will have noted some marked differences in those who now attend; no longer is your typical Glastonbury punter a security-fence-jumping dreadlocked alternative member of society, but a generally average (possibly middle class) punter who cares little for much of the more radical and political roots that the festival has embraced in its past and is there only for a weekend of escapism. Festival founder Michael Eavis recently lamented the appearance of The Wombles at the 2011 festival (who we caught in a packed and sweaty Avalon Tent – see below) and suggested that the event had become too much about having a good time and could become more political again in the future. Yet when Green Party MP Caroline Lucas was asked to address the crowd waiting for Wu Tang Clan on the Pyramid Stage a significant portion of the crowd booed and shouted abuse such as off “F*ck off you hippy, this is a music festival,” not realising the irony of their anger. Eavis may have some work to do to convince his credit card wielding me-me-me audience of his vision.
The Toilets
The famous Glastonbury ‘long-drop’ toilets may hardly be the most salubrious of places and you certainly won’t want to spend that much time in them, but to Glastonbury’s credit there were plenty of them, they seemed to be cleaned reasonably regularly and we’ve certainly seen a lot worse at some other major festivals. There were certainly no mountains of poo which there have been in the past.
Queues
With 177,000 people trying to get onto a farm it’s inevitable that there is going to be some waiting around. Our experience on Wednesday morning was about an hour of traffic queues, which for a festival of this size was very reasonable. However once at the car park it took us three hours to walk a mile to the ticket / wristband exchange due to a massive queue backlog – this was the demoralising low point of our Glastonbury, particularly as much of this time was spent in the pouring rain. It seems that in a bid to get the better camping spots on site a huge proportion of festival goers arrived early and the entry system wasn’t fully able to cope. However once inside the gates these issues were soon forgotten and very few queues were witnessed after that – just minor ones for food ( a few minutes) and at peak times at busier stages there were queues for the ladies toilets, which seemed to be moving relatively quickly.
Food
A good range of all types of festival food and drink at standard festival prices (£ 4.50 - £7.50 a meal). Our favourite drinks were the hot spiced cider from the Cider Bus and the incredibly reviving peppermint and liquorice tea from the Crow’s Nest. Both in their own special ways were out of this world.
The Music
Amongst the madness and the mud there was some music. We still managed to see quite a lot of it, catching 26 full performances. Only 4 of the sets we witnessed were on the Pyramid Stage and we didn’t watch anything at all on the second main stage – the Other Stage - these spaces seeming so huge that to feel any real true sense of involvement with the performance you had to be near the front which wasn’t always easy to achieve, otherwise you ended up watching tiny ants on a stage – or even worse just watching the whole thing on big screens – there’s then a strong argument for just watching it on the telly at home with a can of chilled Brothers cider next to you.
“Well, you didn't think we'd let you down, did you?” announced Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker at the bands not so ‘secret’ show at The Park stage –and they didn’t. Playing a different set to that which they performed at Primavera and the Isle of Wight festival, this was as good, if not better than their defining last minute headline slot at Glastonbury 1995. Disco 2000, Mis-shapes (complete with Cocker handing out mis-shaped sweets to the audience), Sunrise (played as the sun set), Babies and Acrylic Afternoons were all gloriously celebratory and by the time they reached Common People with Cocker revisiting his ‘anybody can achieve what they want to achieve’ speech from the 1995 there was a real sense of emotion hanging happily in the air.
U2’s headline set on the Pyramid stage was always going to be divisive, and the bleak constant of rain did the band no favours, but by starting their set with a barrage of their most popular songs, front loading the likes of Even Better Than The Real Thing, The Fly, One and Where The Streets Have No Name before you’d even had a moment to take a breath, they could hardly be criticised of not trying to please the neutrals. Old school fans also got a treat as they revisited Live Aid, playing Sunday Bloody Sunday and Bad together followed by Pride the track that they were due to play as their final song at Wembley Stadium in 1985. The Edge’s guitar sounded intense and punishing, Bono’s vocals held out reasonably well (apart from a poorly sung and ill-advised a cappella take on Jerusalem) and the mass audience sing along on I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For washed the rain out the mind for a few moments. A curious encore that included Moment of Surrender and debut single Out of Control lost a lot of the crowd, but overall U2 can be satisfied that they didn’t let themselves down although they won't have convinced the naysayers.
At the other end of the spectrum on Saturday night, whilst Coldplay headlined the main stage Caitlin Rose and The Bees both charmed in equal measure with nostalgic takes on country music (Rose) and psychedelic soul / folk (The Bees) in the tiny Crow’s Nest to an assembled audience of about 40 or 50 people. Rose’s drawl was so natural and self-assured that we had to check there wasn’t a CD player hidden behind the stage, whilst The Bees stripped down versions of Chicken Payback and Wash In The Rain were so delightfully groovy that we’re sure we saw the very hills of Glastonbury having a little shake to them.
Other musical highs came from relatively new acts – Isobel Anderson’scover version of Glory Box by Portishead was simply stunning and much of her other material oozed quality, capturing the original’s haunting spirit but placing it in a folk context, whilst the electronic pop of Hurts suddenly seemed designed to fill stadiums, sounding darker, more passionate and fuller than ever before with more guitars and strings taking Hurts away from just being a synth pop duo.
But ultimately, irrespective of what music you see at Glastonbury, the cliché holds true; the festival is bigger than any act. It really is about the whole experience.
Now for your listening pleasure, here’s some music from some of the performers we enjoyed the most.
Look. It’s Hurts with (left to right) Marina and the Diamonds larger elder sister, Amy Winehouse and Little Boots. Possibly.
Tuesday’s NME awards certainly proved two points. First that for all the subtle shifts the magazine has made since Krissi Murison became editor back in 2009, the publication and the majority of its readership are still incredibly conservative in their musical tastes. With Dave Grohl, My Chemical Romance, Muse, Biffy Clyro and Arcade Fire all being announced as winners (full list here) the magazine is hardly giving out a message of being that in touch with what is ‘new’. Secondly with awards such as Best TV Show, Hottest Man and Most Stylish it seems to be placing itself as being more than just a music magazine. After a long history maybe it’s time for a re-brand – New Musical Express seems to be a less relevant title these days.
Whilst physical magazine sales of all sorts are dropping worldwide NME was the only title in the sector to report a double-digit year-on-year fall, having a circulation of 32,166 in the second half of last year, a 5% fall on the previous six months, so maybe a re-brand needs to go even further – possibly merging with another magazine to give a wider content base to a greater audience?
Thankfully though the NME awards did throw up a shock or two, probably the biggest being that the much derided (but Breaking More Waves favourites) Hurts picked up best new band over the more ‘typical’ indie guitar sounds of Everything Everything, The Drums, Beady Eye and Two Door Cinema Club. A victory for pop. Whatever your thoughts on Hurts, it felt a little fresh and brave to give the award to a band who last year stood out as doing something different from the norm, even if they wound a great number of people up in the process, particularly in the UK.
So whilst Hurts celebrate and continue their commercial success in Europe, Germany being particularly kind with 2 top 5 singles (Stay and Wonderful Life) plus an album that has sold well and recently re-entered the top 5, they have also issued the video for their next single Sunday. The UK in the main will probably ignore it, although the song has been A-listed on Radio 2, but in our world this is absolutely perfect pop. NME, we’re with you on this one.
For six years now the superbly intelligent and literate Sweeping The Nation blog has been running the UK Bloggers Album of the Year poll, with each blog submitting (or in some cases Sweeping The Nation filching) their top ten LP’s of the year for some sort of points scoring contest that smooths out any idiosyncrasies of potential and arguable ‘poor taste.' For examplethe Breaking More Waves choice of Ellie Goulding in the top 10 was hardly likely to be replicated by the rest of the blogosphere – mainstream commercial female fronted pop music albums have nearly always received short change in end of year polls from anything outside ‘true pop’ blogs.
The poll gives us a good aggregation of what LP’s have been collectively floating UK bloggers boats over the past 12 months. The list shows some of the differences in UK bloggers tastes to our American cousins over the pond – for example there is very little hip hop on the list – but then maybe that’s because of the sample of blogs chosen to compile the list.
From the Breaking More Waves perspective it’s also interesting to see where we fall in line with our UK music blog peer group and it seems there’s a fair degree of commonality (Ellie Goulding being an exception) with 7 of our 10 albums of the year featuring in the Top 75 and 3 of our 10 being in the Top 10. The full list of 75 albums can be found at Sweeping the Nation – the link is below. We raised a little cheer when we saw that Hurts came above Crystal Castles and Gorillaz in the poll, were a little disappointed to find that Stornoway haven’t picked up the love from bloggers that we hoped they would and are startled to see that Midlake’s preposterous sleep inducing dirge of prog-folk got any votes at all, but that is the beauty of opinion and taste.
Here’s a summary of our top ten which we voted for with links to each individual blog, followed by a couple of tracks from Sweeping The Nation’s own number 1 album of the year (and number 10 in the poll) Romance Is Boring by Los Campesinos!
We said “In a world where 'alternative' often means recording some fuzzy guitar and wailing vocals and doing a blurred photo shoot, by doing something so uncool and opposite to what most music fans expect, Hurts are in an odd way a real alternative.”
There are two sorts of end of year list. The first is decided by aggregation – the panel vote. It’s the consensus that keeps everyone reasonably happy, but no one fully satisfied. It irons out the quirks and idiosyncrasies that sometimes can make a list interesting or controversial.
The second type of list is a personal one. A personal list never suffers from smoothing of the peaks and troughs. All of the quirks, the foibles and the oddities hold their heads up proudly and shout “I really don’t care what anyone else thinks, this is my list, representing my taste, so it’s pointless disagreeing with my choices, because saying I’m wrong misses the point. Yes my taste isn’t the same as yours, but that doesn’t mean it’s incorrect.”
This is why we are proud to place Happiness by Hurts as our no.2 album of the year. It’s a very personal choice.
It’s a pop album. It’s full of simple human themes of love, sadness, loss and yearning. Yet despite ‘just’ being a pop album, we’ve found it one of the most emotional listens of the year. This emotion is not formed from any intellectual analysis, but simply from the heart. When Theo Hutchcraft sings “Swim with your sorrows, and try delusion for a while, it’s such a beautiful lie,” on Illuminated he captures the essence of inhibition through the use of another medium (drugs, music, sex?) so simply that it’s easy to identify with. And when on Unspoken he sings “And nothing you can say can save us this time, I’d rather be lonely,” the words are desperately double-edged sad. But in pop music emotional lyrics don’t carry without the tunes – and Hurts have plenty of them. Big soaring ballads, grandiose electronic arrangements, weighty echoing drums and colossal climaxes suit the mood perfectly, recalling 80’s acts such as Tears For Fears, Double, Black, Alphaville, OMD, A-Ha, and Ultravox – a seam of music not often touched, often seen as being ‘uncool’. But we all know that being cool is just transient and false. Better to follow your heart and stick to what you believe in.
Whilst commercially in the UK Hurts may have not fully delivered on initial promise, elsewhere in Europe they have. Breaking More Waves may be based in England, but right now we’re agreeing with music lovers in the likes of Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Poland. According to one internet forum we read, in Poland they're the biggest UK band since Depeche Mode. Happiness by Hurts is one of our favourite albums of the year, and we really don’t care what anyone else thinks. In a world where 'alternative' often means recording some fuzzy guitar and wailing vocals and doing a blurred photo shoot, by doing something so uncool and opposite to what most music fans expect, Hurts are in an odd way a real alternative.
“No one cares about your 'best of 2010' list,” Josh Weller recently tweeted. He may be correct, but that won’t stop hundreds of the things appearing throughout December and Breaking More Waves isn’t going to be any different. We’ll be running down our top ten albums of 2010 from the middle of December – but before that, at the start of the month we’re looking forward and posting our annual 10 Ones to Watch for 2011.
Prior to looking forward, here’s a recap of our 2010 selections from last year.
Ellie Goulding
We said
“With her quivering girlish vocal, an acoustic guitar, neat lyrical phrasing and stuttering laptop electro beats, Goulding could deliver commercially.”
What happened?
Goulding delivered commercially. A number one album in the UK, two top five hits and two further songs that went top thirty, sold out tours - it’s been a highly successful year for Ellie Goulding.
“….threaten to bring an ostentatious, stern, eastern European look back into fashion for bands.”
What happened?
It was Europe that really warmed to Hurts, with the band enjoying charts success in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Sweden and Finland and even an appearance on German X Factor. In the UK the band took a little longer to find their true audience, but by the time their album Happiness was released it achieved a very respectable chart placing of number four with mixed critical reaction (8/10 in the NME, 2/5 in the Guardian, 5/10 in Drowned In Sound, 3/5 in the Independent and most tellingly 9/10 by Popmatters), they also played one of our favourite gigs of the year way back in February at Wiltons Music Hall in London (here). By the end of the year they were playing sold out gigs, supporting the Scissor Sisters on their UK tour and next year are playing a tour of larger concert halls.
Beth Jeans Houghton
We said
“Quite where Beth Jeans Houghton will fit in 2010 we’re not exactly sure, but she has the voice and the songs to ensure that she can carve out her own space”
What happened?
Houghton toured with another of our Ones to Watch – Stornoway and played a string of UK festival dates. However she didn’t release any material. With her Ben Hillier (Blur, The Maccabees, Elbow) produced album now in the bag ready for release next year, Houghton can continue to carve her space in 2011.
Unicorn Kid
We said
“To the uneducated ears of an over twenty five year old or a solemn indie rock purist, the sounds of Unicorn Kid will just be considered bad music, but for his growing army of fans his electronic urgency is simply something that makes you happy.”
What happened?
In April Unicorn Kid released Dream Catcher a stunningly dirty, glitchy and energetic piece of work that became one of our favourite tracks of the year then followed it up in October with another track – Wild Life. An album is due in 2011 – it’s likely to make his growing army of hyperactive fans very happy indeed.
“It is for this reason we have selected them for our ones to watch list. Not because of musical uniqueness or commercial crossover, but because we can imagine Delphic creating a perfect indie dance summer vibe in fields across the UK.”
What happened?
Delphic didn’t achieve massive commercial success – their album charted at number 8 in the UK, but then quickly disappeared. However as we predicted their moment really came in the summer – their storming set at Bestival hit all the right spots (see our review here).
If a 2010 release from Clare Maguire arrives and it comes anywhere near the quality of those demos, we predict she could win a lot of fans.
What happened?
It took a while but finally in October Maguire released her thunderous debut single Ain’t Nobody, that found extra love through the heavily spacious Breakage Remix. Having played Latitude this summer and supported Hurts and Plan B on tour this autumn, Clare Maguire will release an album in 2011.
When Stornoway appeared on our ones to watch list they were still unsigned. After significant label interest they inked a deal with 4AD allowing them to open their suitcase and share their wonderful songs, releasing their debut album Beachcomber’s Windowsill. The album surprised many (but not us) by sneaking into the UK top 20 album chart. They ended the year selling out the 2,000 capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London, a far cry from when we first saw them perform to a small crowd at the Wychwood Festival in 2009. On a more personal note, Zorbing and I Saw You Blink are two of our favourite songs this year.
Mirrors
We said
"The dense ambient pulse-pop of the Mirrors reflects the sounds of early OMD"
What happened?
Having signed a deal with their hometown label of Skint, Mirrors released the singles Ways to an End and Hide and Seek and played a number of gigs including support slots with OMD themselves on their 2010 European tour. The band will release an album next year and in the meantime have packaged up their early singles into a mini album which is available to purchase directly from Skints website.
“Her dreamily atmospheric guitar based songs are certainly not the kind of tunes that are going to infiltrate the pop charts, but provide for a smouldering and sleepy listening experience.”
What happened?
Miranda’s David Sitek produced album The Magician’s Private Library was seductively warm and as sleepy as a pillow and duvet set with titles such as Sweet Dreams, Every time I Go To Sleep and Sleep On Fire combined with even more shut eye lyrical content such as “Dreamt of you again last night,” from the slow burning trumpet laden Joints and “Wake up and you’re next to nothing,” from Slow Burn Treason.
Clock Opera
We said
"We love Clock Opera more than our own children."
What happened?
Clock Opera released a number of low key singles during the year including the transcendent Once and for All, toured with Marina & The Diamonds and hope to release an album in 2011. They remain one to watch.
Thank you for being a great pop band throughout the year. Thank you for being a duo that has promoted debate and argument on the blogs, in the pub and at gigs. Thank you for bringing pretention and suits into the arena and showing that there are different ways to do things – even if ultimately nearly everything has been done before. Thank you for playing one of our favourite gigs of the year. Thank you for making our grey world seem a little brighter. Thank you for looking amazing. Thank you for making one of our favourite albums of 2010. Thank you for your clear vision and understanding of pop music as an intellectual and emotional concept. Thank you for turning out exactly as we hoped. Thank you Hurts for just being. You gave us Happiness, and sometimes that is all music can do.
There’s a certain irony that whilst millions gawp at their TV screens, getting their only fix of weekly music from the X-Factor, Britain’s best new voice is treading the boards away from eyes of the masses. Clare Maguire may currently only be the support act to melodramatic electronic pop duo Hurts in a 550 capacity club on Brighton seafront, but on the evidence of this performance it won’t be long before she’s headlining much bigger venues.
Garbed in red tassels, flowery headdress and long boots Maguire looks like some scary sexy sorceress about to cast her spell. Backed by a slick four piece band in black jackets and ties she stares moodily at the crowd before flinging her arms wide open and opening her mouth. That’s when the power hits. Huge, soulful and potently expressive her voice booms across the space; Maguire makes the likes of Florence and the Machine seem weedy. Forget the leftfield coolness that the recent Breakage remix of her debut single Ain’t Nobody implies, Maguire has the potential to appeal to the widest of audiences. Last Dance is a crampons breaking mountainous pop song, whilst Life After Dark with its rave like synths and heavy bruising drums is epic in its proportions. Her cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love is delivered with unnerving confidence, her vocal presence taking full ownership of the song. “The best support act I’ve ever seen,” one member of the audience is overheard saying. He could well be right. Absolutely incredible.
It’s been a slow build for Hurts (the static Chris Lowe like Adam pictured) in 2010, taking some time to establish their true audience, but with a sold out tour and their debut album Happiness being the fastest selling debut by a British band this year, the Hurts trajectory is veering upwards. Whilst Hurts may very much be a pop band, their world is not one of neon technicolour - Hurts find glory in greyness. “It’s a beautiful rainy day,” singer Theo states with a sense of satisfaction to the audience. Yet despite their monochrome outlook their music is anything but grey. Hurts bring a gravitas and lavishness to pop music in every aspect of their detail. Collars and cuffs, stern motionless opera singers, atmospheric back lighting, composed stage presence – everything Hurts do is thought out and calculated, but it never seems cold. There’s a sense of humour in their personalities, even if they are very serious about the music, evidence of which is displayed when Theo mocks at their suits – “It’s hot isn’t it? I should have worn my shorts and T shirt.”
The music of Hurts is grandly magnificent – the likes of the boy band cool Blood Tears and Gold eliciting screams from girls (and a few boys) in its quiet moments, whilst Stay has the same Christmas number 1 potential as the East 17 song of the same name. “We say goodbye in the pouring rain and I break down as you walk away” is the most obvious sad Hollywood movie lyric ever, but for anyone who understands loss and its part in pop music, goose bumps will also be present. The group also tip their hats to Kylie Minogue, covering Confide In Me following her recent Radio 1 Live Lounge version of their own hit Wonderful Life. Ending with Better Than Love – electronic uplifting stadium pop at its best, they leave with no return - despite calls for an encore. Emotional pop music of the highest order.
One of the greatest things about Bestival (besides the Women’s Institute Tea Tent, Forum Campsite and Fancy Dress day on Saturday) is the music. With rain clouds and mud making an appearance it was the music more than anything that did its very best to blow the grey clouds away.
Berkshire 4 piece Worship was the first band to grace the poorly named Rock N Roll stage on Saturday (a stage that during the weekend would feature pop, dance and acoustic folk - hardly Rock N Roll). Worship were the embodiment of a modern rock band - laptops set to melancholy, guitars tuned to atmospheric, like Radiohead and Delphic twisted in a suffocating wrapper. Collateral is a grinding steel beast of a song and the closing In Our Blood has a ghostly throb that could quite easily darken arenas.
As a DJ played It’s Raining Men from the main stage (just after a mini dance off in the audience - see video below), the skies opened and Stornoway should have really considered changing their name to Storm-away. Stornoway’s songs sounded lovelier than they have ever sounded, simmering with banjo, acoustic guitar and occasional fiddle, lead singer Brian’s vocal full of sweet sweet earnestness. Brian chatted to the audience about ghosts and the zoological attractions of the Isle of Wight, bringing a unique serious factual charm to the stage that engaged in the same way that songs such as the thoughtful We Are the Battery Human and the delightful acoustic pop of Zorbing did. It may have poured throughout their set but the enthusiastic audience remained, happy to be soaked in the beauty of it all.
“Sorry I couldn’t come in fancy dress, our ideal fancy is a businessman,” joked Theo from Hurts in the Big Top. If you don’t know the Hurts sound / image by now, where have you been? Suits. Hands clasped in prayer. Opera singers. Head bowed with hand behind back poses. Big electronic passionate pop ballads. Hurts seem to divide opinion. Yet at Bestival there were very few critics in the large audience, which was bolstered by those taking shelter from the rain. Rain suits Hurts. With a lyrical stock of “Clouds go back and thunder rolls,” and “I see the lights through the rain,” Hurts take epic solemnity and push it higher. Yet although they’ve been criticised for taking themselves too seriously, there’s another side to Hurts which was displayed as Theo laughed at the man dressed as a Health and Safety inspector in the audience, who held up a clipboard with the words “Danger - Good music,” written on it. Better than Love and Blood Tears & Gold were received with hands in the air worship and Hurts won a surprising victory at Bestival. “Best festival of the summer,” Theo said with a big smile on his face - it seemed that Hurts had just stepped up a level.
Out at the smaller Bimble Inn three up and coming bands / acts all delivered excellent sets in different ways.
“Sorry about the delay, we were having costume change issues,” announced Lulu and the Lampshades. Flanked by two dancing girls with lampshades on their heads, the groups alt-folk harmonies, plucked violins and use of unusual objects such as clattering typewriters or overturned cups gave the group an enjoyable quirkiness that got the clowns, fairies, garden elves, Snow Whites, superheroes and parrots in the audience on their feet and dancing. “An hour ago I was sat feeling f*ckin’ miserable in a car, now I’m so happy,” one of the band gleefully announced.
Spark was an altogether different proposition. She may have played to the smallest audience of the whole weekend, but her confident stage manner and strong pop voice suggested that it may not be long before that all changes. Dressed in an animal print hoodie and backed by just bass, drums and a laptop, songs such as the energetic “Woah-oh-oh” call of Blow and the classy elegance of Revolving hinted that Spark is getting ready to light up the radio.
Next up in the Bimble Inn Visions of Trees created a vibey slo-mo electronic atmosphere awash with ambient gentleness and ethereal splendour. Carefully contained by rhythmic beats created from natural and electronic based instrumentation, this London based duo worked together perfectly in unison - Joni with his head lowered, layering soundscapes, Sara fixing her gaze on the audience with unnerving confidence. Transcendent and hypnotic, Visions of Trees produced dreamy perfection that got the welly shod crowd dancing.
Back over in the Rock N Roll tent Mount Kimbie displayed their credentials as pioneers of new-electronica. With an expansive post-dubstep sound, their down-tempo clicks, beats and loops created a mellow fragmented journey of faceless brilliance. As they left the stage shouts of “One more tune,” rang throughout the venue.
Dancing of a different type continued with Canada’s Think About Life. From the moment that their playful and edgy pop sound, typified by their funky party jam Havin’ My Baby, blasted out - a mix of TV on the Radio and Kele from Bloc Party - disco feet moved. The band seemed a little phased at the whole spectacle of the mud, fancy dress and groovy party people at Bestival, explaining that they only stepped off a plane a few hours ago, arrived at the festival and went “What the...?” Unfortunately their set was cut cruelly short due to a power cut three quarters of the way through, and despite shouts for “Drum solo,” and “Acoustic,” Think About Life left with the audience definitely wanting more.
Saturday’s headliners The Flaming Lips know how to put on a show. There were videos of hallucinogenic naked space ladies giving birth to the band, ticker tape explosions, glitter cannons, huge colourful balloons, Wayne Coyne singing a song atop the shoulders of a man dressed as a bear, tangerine coloured crowds bouncing either side of the stage, lasers and of course the now infamous zorbing ball with a stumbling Coyne inside rolling over the audience. A Flaming Lips show really is like no other. However sometimes the visual treatment distracted from the music, which ranged from the brilliant, such as the beautiful Do You Realize and the trippy Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Part 1), to the comedic, to turgid psychedelic prog-rock nonsense that should have remained in the recording studio locked in a double bolted cupboard. Coyne himself was the worlds greatest mad uncle, or the lord of freaks depending on your perspective, singing “I can be a lion,” and getting the audience to roar in unison. He then continued asking them to also impersonate monkeys, helicopters and sneezes. We can’t imagine many other headline acts having such fun. Praising the crowd for being “beautiful freaks,” it was clear that Coyne was enjoying Bestival immensely, and didn’t want to leave.
What is pop music? It’s an almost impossible word to define. Everyone’s idea is different.
But whatever your idea, there’s no argument that Manchester duo Hurts are trying to make pop music. Grandiose overtly dramatic electronic pop music, populated with orchestral flushes, smooth holler-a-long emotional choruses, lush synthetic arrangements, classy ballads and a fleeting appearance by Kylie Minogue. Even if their heavily 80’s influenced sound may not necessarily be ‘popular’ with everyone, their attempts at making pop largely succeed.
Much has been made of the Hurts image, style, supposed seriousness and back story. In his review of Happiness for the Guardian Alexis ‘Petridish’ Petridis spent more time describing this than he actually did the music. Other commentators have criticised Hurts for being pretentious and trying too hard to be cool - even though the genre of music they create has long been considered preposterously cheesy. These criticisms and comments come in the post-modern age we now live in, where it’s simply not possible to accept something at face value, we’re all too knowing, everything has a past reference point. There are only so many sounds, so many fashions, with a limited number of notes and ideas. Once we’ve constructed our perfect back catalogue in our heads and decided the right and wrong way for a band to be we tend to decide if a new album / artist is good or bad by those constructs we have created. It’s easy to believe that the days of musical innocence are long gone, killed by the beast of music journalism, the internet and time.
Yet throw away the constructs as well as the big record deal, the stylised videos and the ostentatious appearance of Hurts - things that in some peoples heads immediately destroy the notion of liking the band - and you will find that Happiness is a surprisingly melancholy and innocent album. Happiness is an album that after repeated listens finds a place in the heart through a simple core of romantic emotions and cohesive songs. The references are very 80’s New Wave synth - Tears For Fears, Double, Black, Alphaville, OMD, A-Ha, early Thomas Dolby and Ultravox, plus in songs such as Blood Tears & Gold and Stay there’s more than a significant smattering of early 90’s boy bands Take That and Westlife. If these bands do not make you squirm awkwardly then there’s a high chance that you will find great pleasure from Happiness. Happiness is a very European album - with its towering synths and echoing drum sounds. This European sound may explain why many in the increasingly Americanised Great Britain haven’t taken to the Hurts sound fully so far. We suspect this is a band that wouldn’t use phrases such as “awesome,” and “next level shit.” They’re even less likely to wheel out “party jams.” They probably don’t even know what such things are.
Happiness is a great thinking man (or womans) pop album, an album that’s full of simple emotions and surprising power. Unlike much pop music it isn’t constructed from a few radio friendly singles and a clutch of filler, instead being a cohesive piece of work full of detail and with very few weak spots. The only slight disappointment is Devotion - the song that features Kylie - which sounds like a plodding second rate amalgamation of all of the other songs on the album. Otherwise from the cinematic string and piano power ballad (there are a lot of ballads on the record) of The Water to Sunday, a strangely uplifting song about loneliness Happiness is a highly accomplished album. Single Better Than Love may have failed to chart but its Simple Minds-gone-electro pulses and cinematic rave polish is gloriously uplifting. With its lyrics of rockets kissing the sky, the penultimate track Unspoken is an epic pop victory full of Tears For Fears Songs from the Big Chair cascading pianos and a surging orchestra that reaches for perfection.
Jarvis Cocker once said that being on the dole was the best thing that could happen to a band, giving them time to be creative. Hurts thank the Department of Work and Pensions in the sleeve notes of Happiness and so one can only draw the conclusion that having been attempting, but failing, to achieve success for some time with bands such as Daggers, Theo and Adam of Hurts also agree with Cocker.
Happiness won’t appeal to everyone. Indie snobs will detest it because of the constructs and barriers they have created. But listen with an open mind and heart and you may just discover that you’re listening to the pop album of the year. Of course pop music doesn’t necessarily last, but that doesn’t matter. Enjoy the here and now, even if in this case that here and now has both legs in the past.
After some very light early morning rain, by lunchtime Camp Bestival 2010 was experiencing unfaultable festival weather – sunny, but with some cloud and breeze to keep temperatures comfortable, especially for the thousands who garbed up in fairy tale costumes for the annual Camp Bestival fancy dress parade. It was like Snow Whites and the seventy dwarfs, a hood of Little Red Riding Hoods and although there weren’t quite 101 dalmations, there were certainly a good twenty or so.
Lucky Elephant was also perfect for the weather, their laid back Anglo-French grooves designed for days such as this. Asking the crowd to sing happy birthday to one of their children who was four that day, Lucky Elephant tapped into the family atmosphere of the festival, but also give food for thought with their song The Pier, the sad tale of the loss of a town’s landmark and identity.
Following the cancellation of Chipmunk, the grandiose pop of Breaking More Waves favourites Hurts (pictured) found themselves moved from the Big Top to the Castle Stage and introduced by the stage announcer as “next up – The Hurts,” missing the point that the lack of ‘The’ in the bands name is important. Dropping the ‘The’ gives a group a fashionable vagueness and emotional resonance that the gang mentality use of ‘The’ just doesn’t do. Hurts are the musical version of architecture. Carefully designed and with meticulous thought put into every grandiose expression or minimalist moment, it was difficult to see how such a band could succeed on an outdoor stage at a festival, stripped of atmospheric lighting or any sort of context to the space in which they are performing. Yet even if their form was incorrectly placed their basic function still worked - just. Theo’s calculated and suited posing – the outstretched upturned hand, the nervous playing with the microphone lead, the stance of one arm behind the back were all present, but the songs such as the pulsing electropop of Better Than Love or the Albert Hall sized Illuminated, complete with opera singer, were strangely passionate and euphoric. “This song is called Stay – remember that because you might need to use it,” suggested Theo strangely and certainly most of the audience did – Hurts even adding a few more onlookers by the end. They’re not for everyone and festivals may not be their design specialism, but Hurts still delivered.
Ellie Goulding’s late Saturday afternoon slot showed just how popular the lady has become – this was true crossover appeal. With her sun-blazed hair seeming all the more golden, Ellie squinted out at a big Castle Stage crowd of all ages – mums, dads, teenagers, kids; everybody seemed to want a bit of her. Racing through tracks from her album Lights plus a cover version of the Midlake song Roscoe this was an easy win for Goulding. It was a shame that she had to rely on so many pre-recorded backing vocal tracks to flesh out her sound – her rasping girlish voice was strong and distinctive enough to carry a set without polishing. A little more rawness would have been preferred.
Back in 2009 when Ellie Goulding was breaking through, Max McElligott aka Wolf Gang was bolting out of the same pop stable (Neon Gold Records) with his debut release. Pop success is a game, and with winners there have to be losers. Whilst Goulding played to the masses, Wolf Gang found themselves playing to a small mainly disinterested audience on the smaller bandstand stage. Whilst songs such as The King & All of His Men and the Talking Heads referencing Pieces of You still sounded like hooky pop anthems in the making, you have to wonder if Wolf Gang had drawn a raffle ticket with the word ‘lose’ on it. His guitar and keyboard led tunes were good, but not remarkable. The hot under the collar buzz generated by bloggers and industry types last year for Wolf Gang seems, for the time being, to smack a little of slightly exaggerated hype.
But brilliance shouldn’t just be judged by audience numbers. Sound Of Rum may have played one of their many sets at the festival to a smallish crowd, but were inspiring, creative and in Kate Tempest had a uniquely charming front woman. Hypnotic skittering rhythms, building layers of guitar and Kate’s street-wise poems were delivered over jazzy and rock sounds that were completely unaffected, natural and compelling to listen to, each track drawing you in. “True story, 22 seconds ago I was asleep,” Kate laughed before spitting out an incredible flow of lyrics, getting the crowd to come closer to the bandstand. “That’s nice innit,” she smiled. “A proper gig.” When there was a pause in between songs she rapped out poetry acappella and got the audience to create a vocal rhythm for her to rhyme over. Astonishingly good. “It’s all about the substance not about the image,” she rapped, and certainly Sound of Rum have giddying substance. They will never infiltrate the mainstream, but the leftfield is just fine.
Mass adoration is reserved for Madness, who draw the biggest crowd of the whole festival. Starting with One Step Beyond the Nutty Boys set saw huge giant white letters spelling the words Madness being wheeled out at the back of the crowd by men wearing glowing fez’s, and the bands name in sparkling lights to the backdrop of the stage. After indulging in some lesser known mid set-material and jokes with the audience “Ok parents cover your childrens ears, this one has a sexy guitar solo,” they really took flight at the end with a nostalgic, sentimental runway of greatest hits - Baggy Trousers, the tropical Wings of a Dove and many more, leaving mums, dads, kids and in-betweeners all happy, with a ska’d up frenzy of dancing and skanking.
