The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

POP & ROCK

CLASSICAL

ALBUM

OF THE

WEEK

Hey Noel, he’s back

Liam Gallagher

C’mon You Know HHHH

Warner

The Beatles,

the Stones,

T. Rex, David

Bowie, solo

Lennon,

Slade: that’s an accurate

summation of the influences

that Noel Gallagher drew on

for the songs that made

Oasis huge. His younger

brother has stuck to the

formula in his solo career,

nowhere more so than on

his third album. The lovely

Too Good for Giving Up

is the sonic spit

of Imagine, the

swaggering title

track channels

Mick’n’Keef and Marc

Bolan circa 1971, the

More Ravel

from the

French

period-

instrument

specialists, this time an

intriguing juxtaposition

between the two piano

concertos interleaved with

some lovely renditions by

Ravel

Concertos pour piano;

Mélodies HHHH

Cédric Tiberghien (piano),

Stéphane Degout (baritone),

Les Siècles, cond François-

Xavier Roth

Harmonia Mundi

Bruce Hornsby

Flicted HHH

Thirty Tigers

Thirty-six years on from

The Way It Is, a huge hit that

proved to be an inaccurate

pointer to his subsequent

career, Bruce Hornsby

continues to experiment,

once again building on his

film scores for Spike Lee to

work up a set of beguiling

songs, aided here by Danielle

Haim and Ezra Koenig of

Vampire Weekend. DC

Wilco

Cruel Country HHH

dBpm

Twenty-one songs and

76 minutes of music is a lot

of Wilco, however much of

a fan of the band you feel

yourself to be. Indulge it,

though, for Cruel Country

slowly unwraps its gems:

songs such as the

heart-tugging Ambulance

and the careworn Story to

Tell are works of fragile and

haunting beauty. DC

closing Oh Sweet Children

ends with a Hey Jude-like

holler, and Diamond in the

Dark sails even closer to

the wind with a direct lyrical

lift from A Day in the Life.

Yet it is not all as you might

expect: It Was Not Meant to

Be and the spittle-flecked,

Arthur Brown-conjuring

I’m Free swerve into dub,

while Moscow Rules is a

flute-tastic, chamber-pop

curveball. When Gallagher

performs at Knebworth

next week, most of the

audience will be turning

up for the old Oasis classics,

but this accomplished

album shows that

old motormouth

isn’t content to

be a mere

heritage act.

Dan Cairns

Degout of a selection of

the composer’s vocal works.

The Concerto in G major,

playful but comparatively

lightweight, alludes to

Ravel’s Basque heritage,

but is pleasingly wide-

ranging, allowing Tiberghien

to shine in passages that

are one minute subtle and

elegant, the next blowsy

and ribald. The Concerto

for the Left Hand in

D major is altogether more

complex and profound,

Tiberghien navigating

the work’s daunting

bottom-to-top scope

with impressive ease. DC

W

hat is your favourite

moment of a pop star

playing live on television?

That era-defining time

Blur won the chart battle

with Oasis and rattled

through Country House on Top of the

Pops? Nirvana’s anarchic debut on The

Word? Or the power of Amy Winehouse

doing Rehab on Later?

For Nigel Godrich, 51, one of the

most sought-after producers of his

generation, it is New Order doing Blue

Monday on Top of the Pops or Bill With-

ers singing Ain’t No Sunshine on The Old

Grey Whistle Test. Yet there are count-

less others he could have picked.

However, anyone under 30 might

struggle to have a favourite moment;

music on television largely disappeared

along with shows such as TOTP and The

Tube. Godrich wants to change this.

“I’m part grumpy old man, part strate-

gic new media terrorist,” he says, grin-

ning. At the heart of his plan is From the

Basement, the show he started in 2006,

which is back for a six-part series on

YouTube. The idea is simple. In a studio

space, artists play songs without an

audience. Guests have included Radio-

head, Beck and PJ Harvey.

This series starts with the Bristol

punks Idles, who sound better than

ever. It feels immediate and creates

moments fans can rewatch for years. Its

success proves there is an appetite for

watching music, even if networks have

little desire to film anything new.

“When I was a kid, there was so

much more diversity,” Godrich says.

“Nowadays it’s the illusion of choice.

Back in the day, you would watch the

news, turn over and watch The Tube

by accident. That punched a hole in

people’s consciousness with music that

was not just designed to be commer-

cially successful.”

From the Basement has marked new

releases by artists such as the Fall, who

would struggle to get on one of the few

remaining music outlets, those few

minutes in between the chat on the

BBC’s Graham Norton Show. One Radio-

head session has had 3.8 million views.

And this is just Godrich’s side hustle.

A three-times Grammy-winner, he pro-

duced Paul McCartney after George

Martin recommended him. When we

met last week, the Arcade Fire album he

has just produced was at No 1. He had

an aborted session with the Strokes

after their debut, but his clean ear for

detail has made him the man to call if

you need a subtle reinvention.

He is best known for Radiohead,

being called the band’s “sixth member”

after working on all of their albums

since The Bends in 1995. This month

Radiohead’s key members Thom Yorke

and Jonny Greenwood released an

album under the name the Smile, with

Godrich producing. Nobody is sure

what is going on with the band. Would

Godrich be surprised if there were

another Radiohead album? “I can’t pos-

sibly know the answer,” he says, diplo-

matically. “And the last time we worked

on a Radiohead album was about seven

years ago.” What is different about

working on this project? “This is actu-

ally happening.”

Certainly the Smile feeds into every-

thing Godrich is passionate about. It is

essentially a Radiohead album, but

charted only at 19. “People don’t know

the Smile exists unless they really look

out,” Godrich says. He is right: with no

TV appearances or interviews, it is

essentially a new band launched off a

few live streams and Instagram posts.

And if Yorke cannot break through,

which new musicians can in a world

where algorithms are our musical auto-

pilot? Or, as Godrich puts it, when

“every bit of music that has ever been

made” is competition. With endless

choice it’s a miracle any new stuff is

heard — which explains why we need

TV shows to watch it on.

“I thought, ‘What performances are

people going to watch in the future?’”

Godrich says about his show. “I felt a

responsibility.” c

The new series of From the Basement is

on YouTube from Wednesday

The Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich wants to revive the

buzz of Whistle Test and The Tube, he tells Jonathan Dean

Tune in

Thom Yorke

with Nigel

Godrich

PUT POP BACK ON TV

DANIEL DESLOVER/ALAMY

ON RECORD | MUSIC

22 29 May 2022