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Underground > Radio & Music >

'Come And Get It' by Rachel Stevens

  
 
Dxncxn
11:54 / 10.12.05
What first struck me about it is that it has no bad tracks. This is pretty rare in any genre, and particularly for pop music, where the second half of many albums contain songs so forgettable I often wonder how the singers managed to remember the tunes long enough to record them. (There are also no ballads, which may be a related point). So I started off by arguing that it’s the best album in its genre for many years, before realising that that’s (a) damning it with faint praise, and (b) perhaps beside the point, when judging pop groups on their albums could be said to be as relevant as judging, say, indie bands on their videos. So, doing away with caveats: it’s my favourite album of this year in any genre.

It’s what (I imagine) St. Etienne wish they sounded like; it’s the album the Pet Shop Boys would’ve made for Patsy Kensit to follow up "I’m Not Scared": moody, electronic pop music which is absolutely not aimed at kids, and yet which somehow manages to elude all the problems that that usually entails (which is to say that it’s not oppressively grown up or deflatingly, smugly clever). It has eight different songs which have been my favourite track at some point since I got it. Oh, and it bombed completely, selling less than 10,000 copies in its first week and only reaching number 28. Barring an (I would think extremely unlikely) 'Life Thru A Lens'/"Angels"-sized turnaround, it’s going to get her dropped, and is therefore a good bet for irritating ‘Mojo’-style ‘undiscovered classic’ status in fifteen years time*. And even this knowledge doesn’t stop me loving it.

I have more... about how "Je M’Appelle" is the best Timbaland rip-off I’ve ever heard; about how "Secret Garden" reminds me of Julee Cruise; about how "Some Girls" transcends it’s vaguely smug Beautiful-South-esque lyrics to become the best single of the last three years, and so on. But I’m going to stop - (hopefully) before I get too silly (unlike the reviewer for the Observer, who rather mortifyingly compared "Je M’Appelle" to Big Black - no, really - in, I assume, a well-intentioned but kind of ridiculous attempt to get through to the sort of people who wouldn’t normally give this kind of thing the time of day). But (a) if you’re interested in such things, it’s really worth a listen; and (b) has anyone else heard it?


_________________
* Maybe.
 
 
Ganesh
11:59 / 10.12.05
I agree that it's technically superb - but they're something weirdly empty about a lot of it, and it took me a few listens to work out what. It's Rachel Stevens herself. She really sounds rent-a-vocal. In some cases, this works in the music's favour (when it's styled as cool Ladytronesque detachment); other times, her soullnessness just seems like a lack of conviction. Compare/contrast with Girls Aloud, say.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:10 / 12.12.05
I've listened to it a couple of times and I too am a huge fan. I heard "I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)" on Fluxblog and that compelled me to get the whole thing. I love the fact that it's sort of 80s throwback, but not self consciously, it's like mixing 70s glam, 80s synth and 90s club to make something completely new.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:22 / 06.01.06
Holy shit, this album is good.

I'm surprised by it even as I'm kicking myself for being surprised, and for having taken this long to get round to hearing the whole thing. No bad tracks is right. I listen to it and wonder why this album hasn't been either a massive commercial success or else lauded the way people laud the Arcade Fire - sure, I get that Rachel Stevens in 2005 is like Annie without the continental cache, she falls between two stools, people just aren't quite read - but it's still frustrating. And then I realise, in one of those sickening moments of realisation of one's own complicity, that it's partly my fault - that I didn't buy the album, I waited until someone gave me it as MP3s, because somehow I didn't trust that a Rachel Stevens album could be that great. This despite the fact that her singles output over the last year and more has been consistently great.

I really don't get the thing about her blankness, certainly not when compared to, say, Alison Goldfrapp's calculated blankness (and the latter's insistence in interviews that she is "nothing like Rachel Stevens", that it's an insult to be even compared to her, explains why there's been a bit of a Frapplash in some circles this year, despite how good Goldfrapp's music has also been).

There are also no ballads

'Nothing Good About This Goodbye' is a ballad, it's just a very good, anthemic one! But I wonder if the term 'ballad' is very well defined these days...

Right, I'll have to say more about this album in another thread - guess which one?
 
 
PatrickMM
18:51 / 26.08.06
I listened to the album again yesterday and was just marvelling at how great every track was. I think it surpasses Annie and is right up there with Goldfrapp's Supernature in terms of electropop greatness. There is literally no bad track on here, my favorites now are "So Good" and "I Will Be There," which mines that same really poignant territory as Goldfrapp's "No. 1." I can't believe this was a flop in the UK, it's such a perfect piece of pop. I hope the bad sales don't mean she decides to stop exploring this direction on her next album.
 
 
Jackie Susann
22:27 / 26.08.06
The ballad-hating must stop!
 
 
Dxncxn
12:50 / 30.08.06
The ballad-hating must stop!

How could you accuse me of that! Some of my best friends are ballads! And so on. Additionally, although I don't know if I’d agree on “Nothing Good About This Goodbye”, I’m not exactly sure how I managed to explain away the really-quite-ballad-like “I Will Be There” when I first made the claim. But, to defend the initial point, the ballads on most pop records are the worst tracks. Not always (particularly in the cases of the Sugababes or golden-age Madonna). But mostly.

To answer Ganesh’s point (and only eight and a half months late!), I prefer RS’s voice to that of any of Girls Aloud, since she manages to avoid the (again, I say) Mariah-esque over-singing which seems to be so prevalent these days (and which Cheryl & Nadine are both irritatingly fond of). It’s been suggested to me that this is peculiarly myopic, but I find that, once I can check the boxes in my head marked ‘Competent’ and ‘Not overdoing it’, it’s not about the singer anymore. It’s like with actors: you’re there to service the script, not to show how talented you are. Rachel is never about showing how talented she is.*

And, to add something marginally more on-topic, ‘Come & Get It’ fans of a nerdy and pedantic nature may be excited to learn that the initial promo had the tracks in a different, far more attractive, order, like so:

So Good
Crazy Boys
Je M'Appelle
I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)
Nothing Good About This Goodbye
Some Girls
Every Little Thing
Dumb Dumb
Funny How
Negotiate With Love
Secret Garden
All About Me
I Will Be There


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*And yes, I see the obvious retort, but that isn’t what I’m saying. I’d certainly accept that she may have limitations as a vocalist - there was a constant stream of rumours floating around during the S Club days - but the fact that she (maybe) isn’t capable of doing the overblown-emoting-thing works in her favour, as far as I’m concerned.
 
  
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