1212

Barbara Manning | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 10, 1997)
• Original Release Date: June 10, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Matador Records
• ASIN: B0000036X1
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,270 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barbara's, and Barbara's alone, February 5, 2000

By 

Mark (Hillsborough, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1212 (Audio CD)

Having been a fan of Ms. Manning's for ten or eleven years now, and having met her several times, I must say she is an an absolute sweetey, though very much in her own way.She has a cat-like sense of individuality and going her own direction which has emphatically served her well musically though not commercially. 1212 is a perfect example of this. It is a cohesive, highly personal record from someone who is the template for all the lesser, but better-known, copies like Morrisette, Phair and Mclachlan. Barbara was, and is, the real thing. 1212 is a record by someone who has a real record collection, and is intimately familiar with it, and grafts her own experiences onto the best of it. This record also is a showcase for someone who is has an unparalleled ability to make care- fully-chosen covers sound like her own writing. Maybe someday the world at large will discover Ms. Manning's body of work, and maybe that's too much to expect (is it even desirable for anyone except Barbara?) but for now , it's the world's loss.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine example of Kiwi pop-rock transplanted to Golden Gate, July 8, 2005

By 

John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1212 (Audio CD)

Added to the other reviews below, which convey the feel of this album, one of my top ten from the 90s, is the craft Manning and her mates bring to the sounds as well as the lyrics and vocals. The extended guitar riffs crest and swell and shimmer, like those of Graeme Downes' in his NZ band the Verlaines. Her next work, the "In New Zealand" e.p., less well-known than "1212" due to its distribution on a smaller label than Matador, was recorded with Downes and other luminaries of the Kiwi/Flying Nun constellation.

For those seeking a less treacly, creepier female singer than her more famous counterparts, Manning's almost innocent style may seem coy at first (compare Mary Timony), but careful listens to this, her best effort of her career, show an appropriately almost hesitant, deceptively disguised to be as if off-hand, haunted campfire aura. This could lead to novelty tunes, but even "Rickity Tikity Tin" (barely) avoids this by counterpointing to the cartoonish percussion a crying, faintly sorrowing violin and a sprightly, insistent beat that carries the tune. Her version of "End of the Rainbow" by Richard & Linda Thompson after her own four-part Arsonist Story again shows how confident she turns her own songs out, pitted against the two of the best songwriters that precede her.

The songs here progress rather stately and saunter rather than rush or rock, but the melancholy pacing of this record, as on many NZ albums of the same period that have influenced her, show that her arranging abilities match her musical savvy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rock on the Edge, November 20, 2000

By 

James Carragher (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 1212 (Audio CD)

With the mini-rock opera "The Arsonist Story" that opens this CD, Barbara Manning shows a daring too rarely seen in rock. The 20 minute suite carries the listener inside the crackling fires, the family, the room and the head of a young arsonist apparently bent on destroying himself as well as what he brings down in flames. "Our Son" in particular nails the heart of any parent whose fear of their child in trouble is unmistakably confirmed. This work is as intense, scary, and impressive as anything I've ever heard put to record or disc. It immediately renders pathetically laughable or pretentious the shock lyrics, rote protest and elaborate image manufacturing that passes for radical in rock today. A re-rendering of the Joan of Arc legend in "Marcus Leid" and three Manning originals "Blood of Feeling," "Isn't Lonely Lovely," and "That Kid" are the best of the rest. My only quibble, and it drops this CD to four stars, is that a couple of covers -- "Stain on the Sun" and especially "Rickity, Tikity Tin" add nothing. The bottom line, though, is this: Manning is comparable to no other female artist recording today, and the way she goes to the edge with "Arsonist Story" makes this a CD to be remembered.