Customer Reviews

Short Album About Love

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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A Short Album About Love describes itself perfectly. Neil Hannon gives away in only seven songs all the complexity of love of any kind. Friendship and passion,bliss and pain, feelings are expressed just as well with words and music. With the usual baroque arrangements, and a modest arrogance, the bnad prooves that a pop song is not always a easy-to-write or easy-to-remember song, even if it's a love song. To those who liked Casanova more than to those who preferred Fin De Siecle, A Short Album About Love is a typic Divine Comedy album.

My current copy of this album is the third one I bought. I lent my first two to friends and they liked it so much I just had to let them have it.

"If you were a horse, I would clean the crap out of your stable, and never once complain."

A perfect hommage to Scott Walker- big ballads, big production, but no imitation - Neil Hannon has found his own voice, and exercises it quite exquisitely across 7 beautiful love songs- in a concept album worthy of Sinatra and Nelson Riddle. The ideal antidote to those of you who feared that Mr Hannon might be a misogynist - a grave misreading of the excellent "Casanova".

Truly moving~

The Divine Comedy - A Short Album About Love (Setanta)
Recorded last year at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, with an orchestra (The Brunel Ensemble) in tow, The Divine Comedy's "A Short Album About Love" is a seven track collection of songs they were unable to place onto their three previous outings.

Neil Hannon has a wonderful gift of bringing late `60s classic easy listening pop chic into the `90s without making it sound twee or in any way forced. Comparable to Scott Walker or Harry Nilsson in feel, neither sang lyrics as funny as those on "If...", though the latter came close on a couple of occasions.

"A Short Album About Love" is a genuinely impressive collection and anyone who enjoyed the previous record ("Casanova") should do themselves a huge service and invest promptly. It comes in a nice box and it'll make your day.

Neil Hannon (er, I mean, The Divine Comedy) is the Dr. House of pop music; he's arch, sardonic, witty, smug, vaguely indignant, in love with his own cleverness, misanthropic, and in secret possession of a big, soft, cuddly human heart. It's sort of a reverse Steely Dan thing. You think he's dismissing you with an articulate sneer and an impeccable 60s art film reference, but that's just because you're not listening closely enough. Well... okay, half the time he really is dismissing you, but it's always in a loving sort of way.

Which is what makes A Short Album About Love such a smashing success. Mr. Comedy spins his little tales of pursuit, folly, and passion with a deliriously skewed camera eye. Even though every lyric is written in the first person, you can never quite tell where his sympathies lie. Is the protagonist of "Everybody Knows (Except You)" a whiny fawning twerp or a starry-eyed romantic? Is the speaker of "If..." endlessly devoted or just plain creepy? Could the curmudgeonly hero of "Someone" be Hannon himself? The fun of this album- and the thing that makes it so genuinely touching- lies in questions like that.

The underlying idea seems to be that everybody, even those who are as cerebral as Hannon, gets a little bit silly when they fall in love. This album's triumph is that it embraces that silliness, that it channels it and transforms it into a sort of grandiose comic affirmation. It reminds us that love, even when it makes us miserable and lonely and psychotic, feels pretty damn good. It also offers up this gorgeous, grandiose wall of orchestral pop awesomeness (Scott Walker was the Jacques Brel to Neil Hannon's Scott Walker). And it does all that in like thirty minutes! You can have an epiphany while waiting for your pizza to be delivered! Beat that, all other music!

And so we're given a set of perfect pop songs, with all the brains and the beauty and the gushing innocence and the endearing cynicism that you can possibly want. "Everybody Knows (Except You)" captures the giddiness of new love, the desire to rush out and sing your feelings to the world, even when you know damn well that nobody really cares. It sounds like springtime gushing through the airvents, with a protagonist who wafts through life in gleeful and infectious ignorance of everything but the girl who's got his heart: "I told all of my friends/ Again and again and again/ I drove them round the bend/ So now you're my only friend/ I told the passers-by/ I made a small boy cry." That last line is particularly hilarious, especially when Hannon belts it out in deadpan operatic style.

Meanwhile, "If..." offers some hilarious variations on the old "I will continue to love you even under various extenuating circumstances" format, "Someone" bustles with film-score drama, and "In Pursuit Of Happiness" is swooning and Spanish and soulful and funny and touching and epic and so, so, so gosh darned gorgeous that even references to the death of civilization, the apocalypse, and "happy burgers" fit into a grand vision of undying affection.

The album takes a darker turn as it hits the home stretch. "If I Were You (I'd Be Through With Me)" has some pretty, almost loungy, music, but the lyrics are a bit more complex. In a double-edged performance, Hannon becomes an abusive boyfriend, mocking his lover for putting up with him, but also confessing his own need for her, silently thanking his lucky stars that she doesn't indeed walk out. Perhaps love makes us a bit more than just silly- perhaps it also has the power to nudge us toward self-destruction. In any case, there are several layers of reflexive irony here. The slow, meditative "Timewatching" pulls the album to legitimately somber depths.

But then the stunning cinematic soul of "I'm All You Need" comes bellowing into focus from stage right, with organs and strings and a chugging rhythm underpinning another wonderful lyrical affirmation. And then the album's over. And so I play it again. Good times.

while not my favorite Divine Comedy, it still holds a special place because it's the first collection of Neil Hannon's songs that utilizes a full orchestra. and it sounds absolutely splendid. the orchestral touches are the perfect fit to Neil's crooning beautiful voice and his perfect songs. opening track "The Pursuit Of Happiness" was never one of my favorite songs, but as i listen this short album more and more, it gets better and better with each spin. since the theme of this album is love, then you can't get much better of a lovely love song than "Everybody Knows (Except You). with it's heartfelt and beautifully tender lyrics set to an irresistable musical backdrop of pure undilluted pop. i think that song has made it to countless compilation cd's made for friends years ago. the song "Somebody" sounds like something that Portishead might have sampled. it's smoky rainy day atmosphere fills up the room and i always imagine a cold dreary night sky when i hear it. The Divine Comedy has a knack for writing those kinds of songs that are both charming and quite funny and "If I Were You (I'd Be Through With Me" and "If..." are both stunningly good examples of this craft. the final cuts here are "Timewatching" (which also shows up as a different version on the style-shifting Regeneration album), and the delightful romp of "I'm All You Need." yes, these are all love songs...but sometimes love hurts and sometimes love is funny. all bases covered here, then.

With just seven tracks, this is more of an EP release, but that doesn't take away from the importance of these seven tracks in the anals of divine comedy. It is the one divine comedy album that is consistent within itself - and each song is beautifully composed, sung and orchestrated. as lush and lavish a production one can hope for - neil hannon really does write music that, quite simply, makes you glad to be alive, whether you're hurting or loving. a must have!

This album is so much more than only to please. It is written to be loved!

This album was my first introduction to Divine Comedy and it just completely amazed me. I had finally found an answer to all my misery caused by the stuff that was playing on the radio. Divine Comedy is pop like it should be. On top of that, the lyrics are really intelligent (in other albums maybe a little too pretentious). But "A short album about love" is not ladden with sappy love songs. "If" is actually really funny and I just cracked up when I heard it the first time. There are sincere ones on the album like "I'm all you need" (my favorite), "everybody knows" and "someone". The band's leader Neil Hannon has a beautiful clear voice (and a beautiful face, i might add) and a great talent for orchestrating everything to perfection. I'm lucky to have found a copy with several bonus tracks that include "birds of paradise" and "road to damascus" (where Hannon sings so sexy).

Neil Hannon has out done himself, with this album. Small but perfectly formed, 'A Short Album.. ' is inspirational. The songs are beautiful and extremely well written. The orchestra makes this album to be a perfect blend of instrimental songs with popular music. Yet This album is not at all slushy (Thankfully).