'Antidepresant'
Yes, he’s still going. In fact I saw him playing with just his acoustic only five months ago. Pretty good gig, very mellow, neat re-inventions of some of his older stuff… Anyway, I found his last album for £5 while I was looking for Xmas presents online (so this is really an xmas present to myself. Another one – to go with the 8 megapixel Fuji camera I just had to have. Yeah, 8Mp isn’t huge these days, but it was only £50 so I couldn’t really say no, could I?). I should have bought this album before the gig, really, but I was somehow worried that I wasn’t going to like it. I have no idea why – it’s a Lloyd Cole album, he’s not let me down yet. I can just put this on and know that:
- He has bothered to write proper words. Literate you might say
- There is a tune
- He can play his instrument(s)
- He’s not writing songs about taking drugs like it’s fucking cool or something
- I’ll feel vaguely stupid for doubting him and not buying this CD when it came out
He seems to be recording his recent albums himself on his laptop, and that somehow comes across in that when listening to this stuff you don’t visualise a hairy sweaty rock band playing. Which has to be a good thing.
(…This reminds me of the Blue Nile story. When the god-like ‘Hats’ came out, people had a go at the drum sound, claiming that it was so tinny that it was obviously a drum machine, etc… the band claimed that they had deliberately treated the real snare so that it didn’t sound ROCK. They felt that their music didn’t need the mental image of a fat sweaty drummer in a stained t-shirt, it might even detract from the appreciation of the music. See my previous post for more stereotypical and abusive writing about drummers.)
What? Why Bother? 