Customer Reviews

Antenna

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With every new release of a Jay-Jay album, comes an entirely new sound. Obviously moving more into an electronic, techno sound, many of the melodies feel like they could be layed out onto the beats and moods of the last album. Replace those old dusty drums and the scratchy vinyl hiss from "Poison" with a cleaner electronic beat, and you've got "Antenna". An additional dash of jay jay flavor on top, makes this album well worth the purchase.

Well, they sure do grow some cool kids in Sweden, and this one goes by the handle Jay-Jay Johanson, a silky-voiced songwriter whose latest release, Antenna, sent all sorts of shockwaves through me. To be totally truthful, the CD stayed in my player for a week straight and I was humming the songs incessantly - pretty fabulous. Antenna is filled with off-beat, unexpectedly pretty songs that are quite haunting, due in large part to Johanson's weirdly ethereal voice. The deliberately 80's-esque arrangements of songs like `On The Radio' and `Déjà Vu' showcase massively catchy lyrics that are sing-able at exactly the right tempo. Perhaps because Johanson is not a native English speaker (I presume), the cadence of his delivery is fittingly unusual, and the overall effect is one of poignancy and fragility. `Kate' is really lovely, the beats providing a nice edge and making the overlaying tones even more graceful, Johanson's vocals plaintive, but never whiny. It's obvious too, that Johanson's tastes range far and wide when one listens to the experimental scratch and dub of `Open Up,' the super cool bluesy jazz trumpet and heavier acoustics of `I Want Some Fun,' and the liquid sexiness of `Cookie,' which has the slow, measured pace of a Portishead song, beats and vibe tones falling together easily, string samples providing a pretty backdrop. Antenna is an experience one doesn't soon forget - we'll all be hearing more from Jay-Jay Johanson in the coming months, and whatever it is, it's going to be inspiring.

I have to give him all the credits. This album still has the smooth, touchy aspects as in Poison (which I resemble to Portishead), but now it's more fun as well (more of the "hop" part maybe). It takes you from routines to your desire to be saved out of your boredom.

It's like a close friend on your CD rack. You can both cry with it, or dance to it.. I sure feel lucky to have it :)

My personal favorites are Deja Vu ( ... It seems I stand up in the same place... It's playing the trick on me. I don't know...) I Want Some Fun (... I would like to enjoy the moment for once.. I'm tired of being bored... I want some fun..) and On the Radio (... I know you're strong, I know you'll make it on your own without my help, but please make sure you won't be by yourself... take it from the start and try again... you probably will fail no matter how you try, it's not enough... ... everytime I hear my song on the radio, I keep moving closer and closer to you...) Though there's no way I can describe how they sound with Jay-Jay's hypnotic voice and radiant music.

All the songs are so beatiful and soothing.. I LOVE it and hope you'll enjoy it soon too..

I wind up finding the best music when I'm overseas. Stuck in a Paris hotel on a rainy day, the video for'On The Radio' kept playing. I felt it immediately - ran out to buy his cd but unfortunately it hadn't come out yet. Had to wait two months in the states to get a copy - and I love just about every track.
'Kate' is one I can't stop playing, so haunting, yet so heartfelt. Jay-Jay's voice is just in a catorgory of it's own.

Come to find out that he's on another cd I loved 'Queer as Folk, First Season Soundtrack' with 'Suffering'-another haunting track. After listening to his cd, it clicked for me - same voice, same style.

Get this albumn, you won't be dissapointed.

Wow, I just bought this album and I'm really surprised with my strong reactions to it .... I really think I hate it ... a lot. I first recently bought Jay-Jay's 'Tattoo' CD and really enjoy it and can sincerely recommend it, but with this one I feel like I've been somehow tricked into buying a bad joke. It's almost 'something' but it's grip is incredibly tenuous and it threatens to slide into the giant abyss of utter tedious and monotonous crap ... the entire way through the CD. I can appreciate the obscure and difficult to define genre that Jay-Jay Johanson inhabits but really this one is pushing it. It reminds me of what i hated about the early eighties. Listen well to someone else's copy before you put out for this one ... you might get more satisfaction buying your own crappy casio keyboard. I think you need to have spent a really severe Swedish winter snowed in with no sensory stimulation for six months to be inspired by this one. Yeah, I'm listening to it again and it's just making me feel angry and irritable.I really hope I regret writing this harsh review, but at this point I really don't think I could get through a third play of this CD without smashing it to smithereens and using the razor sharp little shards to slash my wrists.

Maybe is not his best work, because for me Poison and Rush are amazing albums, but this is an example of good tracks, always mellancollic, with a acid sense of humor, only comprehensible for the european audience. There are ballads and dance songs "très bien chantées". A hope see him very soon in barcelona in concert!!