Customer Reviews

Va Va Voom

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

a perfect album...wonderful, cutting, romantic, adulterous lyrics...catchy, catchy melodies...if you like clever pop with a bit of brit thrown in...this is for you...if you like the wedding present...well, imagine the wedding present buffed to a high gloss...lovely...one of my all time favorites...

This is delicious pop, heartbreaking relationship music. The opening answering machine sample is a heartbreaker. The album rules. Gentle sounds that tear your heart and lift your soul. You'll hate the lyrics 'cause you'll have to clean the tears off your ascot. "Comedienne" is great. "Me Next" is lounge cool. The rest is apple pie.

Although it took me a month after it's release date to get Cinerama's album, it was well worth the wait. The Wedding Present is definately my alltime favorite band, and the only thing that slightly irritated me about TWP's music was that it was choppy at times, don't get me wrong, they are all beautiful songs, but Cinerama is incredibly solid and smooth. Gedge's voice sounds better than on any TWP album and the variety of instruments only compliments. The album has a massive sound to it, like an orchestra. Gedge's lyrics continue on the romantic path, just as convincing and honest as TWP lyrics. This album is fantastic and is recommended to anyone who has emotions.

I always look through the Wedding Present section whenever I'm browsing in a record store. Yesterday while shopping at Other Music in NYC I did just that. I noticed Cinerama in there (import) and figured it was probably just out of place and had nothing to do with my favorite band but then I checked the back of the CD and noticed that all songs were written by none other than David Gedge! The band is basically Gedge and Sally Murrell with an assortment of additional players including Marty Wilson-Piper of The Church. It sounds essentially like some of The Wedding Present's latest (mellower) stuff. I've listened to it 4 times today and have grown quite fond of it already. My favorite is Hate (track #3) which is a beautiful song with very funny lyrics ("Almost everything about you makes me wish that we'd never met...") Same is true of Maniac (track #1) Great stuff. Highly recommended even if you haven't even heard of The Wedding Present!

This is one of those perfect albums that comes along every once in awhile. When I first heard it in 1999 (within a year of its release) I had no idea who David Gedge was, and when I explored Gedge's other work (as leader of the Wedding Present) I didn't like it nearly as much as Cinerama.

Va Va Voom was Cinerama's first album, and in my opinion, by far their best. The style is romantic indie-pop that combines elements of the 60s and the 80s. It is essential that Gedge is English, because this sort of aching yet very adult romanticism just wouldn't work for an American. Like Morrissey, Gedge uses his British accent to devastating effect, putting across lyrics that are equal parts passion and irony--not an easy thing to do!

Right from the opening lines, the game is on:

And when I made that stupid oath

About how I was going to

Pay for someone to kill you both

It was just my way of showing you

That I wasn't playing

Yeah, you're right I sounded like a maniac...

He never actually admits that he's a maniac, though, and it turns out that he just wants the girl to come back. The songs are mostly midtempo or uptempo, but the slow songs are just as bitter and comical. "Hate" is working in Morrissey's back yard by virtue of its title alone, and the lyrics do not disappoint. To the sound of acoustic guitars, brushed drums, and gently tapped marimbas, Gedge intones:

We're so wrong for each other

That it's hard for me to understand

How I ever wanted you for a lover

I hate your country, your continent and

I hate your lies, and the guys you call friends...

The musicianship and the production are a big part of the album's appeal. For starters, the drum sound is wonderful: full-bodied, but not overpowering. Strings, woodwinds, and various keyboards are expertly employed to flesh out the sound. Gedge's bandmate Sally Murrell provides backing vocals throughout, and Emma Pollock of the Delgadoes duets with Gedge on one of the album's standout tracks, "Ears," in which the humble narrator describes what it is like to hear his ex-girlfriend having sex with another man in the next room. This is Leonard Cohen territory, but in Gedge's hands this sort of material is as funny as it is sad. Every song on Va Va Voom hits its mark, and if the album has any flaw, it's that the two bonus tracks ("Love" and "Au Pair") make it a bit overlong at 47 minutes, even though they are also great songs.

Unfortunately, Cinerama's best days would not last long. They did put out a bunch of excellent singles, most of which can be found on the This Is Cinerama compilation, but within a couple of years Sally Murrell's influence would fade and producer Steve Albini would be brought in, introducing a soft/loud aesthetic and buzz saw guitars that did not suit the songs. From there, it was only a matter of time until Cinerama morphed back into the Wedding Present. But it was a good run while it lasted. One pop masterpiece is more than enough for most bands.

If the Kinks had gone a more torch lit folk direction in the 1960s, they may have sounded as Cinerama sounded in 1998. Come to think of it, the singer's voice in Cinerama reminds me of Ray Davies.

Nothing wrong with that. And nothing wrong with Va Va Voom having light orchestration like Love's Forever Changes. Yet the band maintain and open, clean sound, derived from if not sounding like the Byrds.

Nothing wrong with that, either. Nothing wrong at all with Cinerama. And nothing wrong with Va Va Voom.

I sat and listened to this chamber folk rock 60sThingamajig for a while, trying to figure out who they reminded me of most, and then it hit me: Cinerama remind me of all these bands, and none of them.

Actually, they remind me more of Belle and Sabastian, Eric Matthew's, Richard Davies, countless people who have taken the higher elements of 1960s orchestral rock and ran past the goal line with it.

All the elements of music like this were cultivated back when, but it took smart bands like Cinerama thirty or so years to take all these amazing 1960s musicians, all these amazing 1960s directions, and glue them all together. Chamber pop is not a totally new invention, but if you aged Pet Sounds Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Forever Changes until 60s babies were having 90s babies, then stewed them all in a pot, you would get music like Va Va Voom

And there is nothing wrong with that, either

I definately prefer TWP albums, but supreme goddess of Chicago Lisa Prodromo's answering machine message intro to "Maniac" is more than worth the price of the CD.