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This thread is started in a mixed spirit of bitterness and joy. Joy, because I've just bought his new solo album "Unshattered", and bitterness because apparently he played London a couple of weeks ago AND NOBODY TOLD ME.
Anyway.
I'm hoping there's not too much disagreement on the fact (FACT) that Bauhaus were ACE, but what does anyone think of Mr Murphy's solo stuff? From Should The World Fail To Fall Apart, which contained the definitive version of Final Solution, to his latest, Unshattered, with which I'm as yet unfamiliar, The Voice has always been in evidence.
I've been undergoing something of a Murphy renaissance in the last few days, having picked up the Wild Birds compilation the other night while looking for something to listen to at work, and my God, it's still as good as ever.
Love Hysteria's probably his "classic" album, having both his version of Funtime and the wonderful All Night Long (of which more later), as well as the poptastic Indigo Eyes, but my personal favourite is probably Holy Smoke- Marlene Dietrich's Favourite Poem, for example, is yet another song that always makes me cry, while A Strange Kind Of Love is so glorious that it led to me to a particularly embarrassing evening when I was at university about twelve years ago when I and another guy decided to book ourselves in to play, the worst point of which was when we attempted that song with me singularly failing to match The Voice while the guy on guitar vainly attempted to stand up.
But by far his best song, in my opinion, is the aforementioned All Night Long, which is just beautiful on so many levels. I get the shivers AND the shiteating grin every single time I hear him burst into
Can you feel the light
The air is wild, open
Oh you see the light, it's coming through
Ah, no hundred men now
Would dare cut into us
We'll go on and see it through
It's just ace. Well, that and ace, obviously. On an initial listen, the new one sounds fairly fucking splendid too...
Like Bowie (an obvious reference point, I guess) he seems to have gone, in his solo stuff, into the realm of Big Music- sometimes this works better than others (Cascade, for example, often finds him lost in a sea of sessioners), but he's not afraid to fuck with it- previous album Dust was great- very mellow, very Eastern, but suffering slightly from a lack of Murphy- he was too chilled, not edgy enough for my liking. Still a great album, though.
Is anyone else a fan? And... has anyone seen his recent tour (I promise I won't hit you too hard...) |
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