The Good Gatsby

When it comes to trying to find a film director who can harness a sense of mad abandon in one of the most hedonistic periods of American history, you’d be hard pressed to think of someone better suited for the job than Baz Luhrmann, surely? After all, he’s got form. Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom were so unique,  creatively stimulating, and off-the-wall bonkers that the idea of someone else being chosen to create a sense of devil-may-care party antics seems almost absurd. Added to this, he can do tragedy too. Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is, in my opinion, the best Shakespeare adaptation ever made. I’m not just saying that because I’m an English teacher either, although I’m professionally grateful to Luhrmann for giving a young generation a new way into a classic. That being said, I’m equally professionally annoyed at him for giving me (admittedly not personally) an awful lot of essays that discuss Shakespeare’s use of language in ‘the petrol station scene’. Still, it trumps any other Shakespeare adaptation I’ve ever seen.

So, instead of Shakespeare’s classic, which (thanks to the fact it’s a play) gives an awful lot of narrative scope to a director to one of America’s most beloved novels, which doesn’t. How does he do? It’s not an easy question to answer.

Like all Luhrmann’s films, the real star is Baz Luhrmann. There’s nothing wrong with a director being the real star, (see Reservoir Dogs, Duel, Jaws, The Godfather, etc) but when you’re up against stylised repetition, the shine is lost somewhat (see Django Unchained, Face/Off, Transformers etc) and it begins to impede one’s enjoyment of the story. And in Gatsby, the story and the characters who make it breathe, are everything. So it’s not a good idea to take the focus from them.

That being said, there are chances for Luhrmann to shine, and at least he doesn’t disappoint for the most part. The film looks beautiful. Even if you see it in 3D, which adds nothing but a sense of detatchment from characters you’re supposed to get close to, there’s no denying the HD uber-gloss that dominates the entire pallet of the film. It’s basically everything turned up to 12 (from Baz Luhrmann? Who would have guessed) with the colours primary and vivid, the sounds bold and swirling, the costumes absolutely gorgeous, and the thematic imagery about as subtle as a brick to the face. Considering this is a tale of woe, there is certainly no sense of impending doom for the first third of the film. There isn’t time or room for any, because they’re too busy cutting a nifty rug at 1920s parties, and here is where the first of the problems kick in. Now, we know that Luhrmann knows how to film a party, because we’ve seen it before. And therein lies the rub. We’ve seen it before. Deja Vu is one thing, but there’s a certain sense of having deja-vued every single moment of every single party before, which becomes problematic a lot quicker than I was expecting. In an era where the clichéd soirees involved an almost gluttonous degree of bacchanalian debauchery, surface sheen with no moral scaffolding, the film seems to be determined to follow suit. And like those parties, ultimately there’s no satisfaction come closing time.

With so much surface glitz and glamour, it’s a wonder that there’s any character depth at all, and this is where we have the actors to thank for occasionally solid, mostly quietly spectacular performances. Although all the main cast underplay their roles, in so far as you never feel like you’re watching the kind of genre-defining performance that John Leguizamo and Harold Perrineau gave in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, it’s a nice balance to the feel and look of the film to have some class and depth added by the human element. Leonardo DiCaprio, although not given the kind of emotional journey he had in his last outing with the director is excellent as always, and is ably supported by everyone with whom he finds himself sharing West Egg. There isn’t a single let-down in terms of performance here, even Isla Fisher (not known for her dramatic chops) does a fine job as Myrtle. It’s these performances that keep the film on something of an even keel and avoid it becoming less style-over-substance and just pure style.

So, what’s not to like? Well, like so many cinematic adaptations of novels, if you’re a hardcore fan of the novel the chances are you’re going to hate this. That’s not to say it isn’t good, but when was the last time you saw an adaptation of a book you loved and liked it? One of the great touches in Gatsby lies in Fitzgerald’s prose, describing some aspects of life in West Egg as well as anyone has ever described anything, and of course that’s lost in the film, despite Luhrmann’s best efforts to use the original text where he can. The 3D is a waste of time, which adds more to your ticket price while adding nothing to your experience, and there are several moments where the sheer force of the film feels somewhat oppressive. It is literally such a sensory blitzkrieg that it occasionally feels like it’s taken you to a speakeasy, forced your throat open and poured itself down you. That might be thematically relevant, given the subject matter, but it doesn’t help you really experience the more emotionally fraught moments of the film, which are what give it such a timeless quality. Some people have complained about Carey Mulligan’s accent, although I thought she was great, and there will be those who feel the film is simply too polished to look at, and there’s certainly an argument that at time you feel like you’re watching a cartoon. Finally, there is a sense that at times you’re watching a rehash of some old films, namely Moulin Rouge, Romeo and Juliet, The Aviator, and Citizen Kane, with an occasional scene from Bugsy Malone thrown in.

So, does the good outweigh the bad? Well, yes it does, but the problems with it are numerous enough that whether you love Luhrmann’s other work (I do) or the beauty of the original story (I do) you will find enough wrong here to stop you feeling as though you have truly been immersed in The great American cautionary tale.

Is it The Great Gatsby? No, but it’s certainly a decent effort, and for you English teachers out there, at least the scenes at the petrol station actually take place in a petrol station this time.

Between Me and You: How The Beatles aged.

 The qualities of truly great pop music are as constant as the laws of physics, and just as complex. It seems that some songs, artists, albums or even moments in musical history are destined to be elevated to the realm of legend, when some are not – but in fact music that was great in the 1700s is still great today, as is the best music from every generation since up to about 1999 when music became rubbish and then Justin Bieber and collapse of civilisation and all that.

So, why does some music age well, and some not so well? It’s hard to say but there doesn’t fundamentally need to be an anecdotal reason for a song to become legendary, and there doesn’t need to be a direct tap into the listener’s deepest psychological corridors. It helps, but it’s not a necessity. But it’s there, somehow. Legend seeps into the sounds, and flows back out in droves. The ominous foreshadowing of Mozart’s Requiem, or the emotional passion of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony are there for all to see, and their legend is cemented. This also applies to rock and roll and pop. Who can listen to Otis Redding’s ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’ without adding to it a tragedy that Redding could never have felt as he sang it? Or in a more subtle way, is it possible to listen to the grinding sneer of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ without hearing the roots of the social uproar of the 1960s leave its calling card? Songs like Elvis’ Sun Records albums, or Buddy Holly’s best moments survive with a kind of archaic charm that conjures up nostalgia even in the minds of those who were born long after, and far from the “golden age” of late 1950s America. They are basic, primitive even, but what they lack in technical gloss, they more than make up for with crackling energy and raw power. And therein lies the secret. For art that transcends the moment in which it was created must truly capture the essence of that moment, without relying on it for its fundamental merit. Bohemian Rhapsody has elevated itself to legendary, game-changing status, but it’s not the only 5-minute-plus, heavily guitarred operatic genre-mixing smorgasbord that Queen released. It’s not even the only one on that album. But, it’s the one that doesn’t sound like it’s still stuck in 1975 when you listen in 2013. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ may be the biggest selling album of all time, but it’s hard to hear it as a piece of work that would stand up in today’s charts, so saturated is it in the musical, lyrical and studio production tropes of the early 1980s. Except, of course, for the songs that have truly stood the test of time. Billie Jean, Thriller and Beat It don’t sound out of date. Yes, there are touches of the decade that bore them, but the songs sound as alive and fresh today as they did then. Can anyone really say that about PYT? I recently bought some “Hits of the 90s” in a mad nostalgia rush, but was left disappointed in the end. The songs hadn’t aged at all well, and I struggled to really marry my memories of the songs with the tired old generic cliché that seemed to be squirming out of my iPod. That doesn’t happen when I revisit ‘Definitely Maybe’, parts of ‘Nevermind’ (not least the incredible opening of ‘Teen Spirit’) and the better moments of U2’s late 80s/early 90s output.

The list goes on; Billy Joel’s greatest hits are those that don’t depend on the lyrical minefields of the singer-songwriter genre, Carole King’s Tapestry album is at its finest when dealing with themes that go beyond the San Franciscan haze of the late 60s, and the Rolling Stones stopped making great records the day that they decided to adapt their style to the times, not the other way around. Prince’s finest achievements sound now like homages to their genre, not slaves to it, and as a final piece of proof, look at how many bands who seemed to represent the times in which they operated still get airplay in today’s market. Anything that piggybacks on a zeitgeist is going to be dropped in the sandbox when the generation who “loved” it move on.

So, what’s the point of this? Well, it’s the song “From Me To You” by those Beatles that I like. One of the reasons I appreciate their contribution to music so much is that when you listen back to so many of those songs, you don’t feel as though you have to make allowances for the era in which they were produced. Abbey Road is a particularly strong piece of evidence for this. ‘Come Together’ doesn’t sound like a record stuck in the 60s. The intricacies of the interplay between the guitars and the other-worldly stream of consciousness lyrics don’t sound hackneyed after 40 years, nor do the harmonies of ‘Because’ become any less spine-tingling with the passing of time. Even Sgt Pepper, the album that (to many people) defined the entire decade, doesn’t sound (for the most part) like it’s trapped there, the occasional acid-drenched moment notwithstanding.

The Beatles, though, do represent to many the definitive sound of the 1960s in British music. This, of course, is a remarkably myopic view of a decade that had as much variety and high quality output as it did badly dressed tree-hugging flower children. But, somehow, in our collective consciousness, the sound of 60s Britain came from Liverpool. Some of their earlier output does manage to get away from the clichés they helped to create, (‘In My Life’, ‘Yesterday’, ‘Norwegian Wood’) but it takes until 1965 and ‘Rubber Soul’ before you can start to say the band created truly great music. Many songs before that album have got touches of genius in their fabric, but it’s hard to think of a Beatles song released before 1965 that doesn’t sound heavily entrenched in the generic stylings of ‘60s music’. Maybe there’s a case to be made for ‘Not a Second Time’ from ‘With The Beatles’, perhaps ‘Baby’s in Black’ but it’s tenuous at best. So how come their early 60s songs have reached the highest echelons of people’s consciousness? No matter what your personal feelings about The Beatles, it’s still hard to reach the age of 10 without having been made aware, somehow, of who they were and the songs they sang. So why are they still so present, and do they deserve it? Well, for me (as detailed in an earlier couple of blogs about ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Twist and Shout’) the key is in the power and energy of those early songs.

The best early Beatles songs are the ones that have that frenetic pace and energy that drives them along so wonderfully. These are the songs that rise above the pitfalls of recording in 1960s Britain. For example, shoddy quality of the recording (particularly evident on b-side songs like ‘Thank You Girl’ or ‘I’ll Get You’) or the poor technical musicianship (hear the guitar tunings on ‘I’m Down’ or ‘Don’t Bother Me, not to mention McCartney’s questionable handling of some of the low vocals on ‘Hold Me Tight’) or just the lack of quality in the songwriting (‘PS I Love You’ and ‘Love Me Do’ amongst others). Many songs from those early albums fall into at least one, and in some cases more, of these traps, but their best work escapes them because of its consistent energy, enthusiasm and power. See ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, and many others for examples of how good songs are elevated to greatness by the conviction of their delivery. And, of course, The Beatles were a great singles band. Look at the list of singles they put out in their first 5 years alone – it’s almost the Bhagavad Gita of genius pop songwriting. Except, for me, their 1963 mis-step, ‘From Me To You’.

Only their second number 1 hit, it’s hard to escape a feeling that the song was ensnared by some of their other failings, while simultaneously benefitting from their burgeoning popularity, therefore entering the folklore of great Beatles songs somewhat unconvincingly, almost shuffling to the back, knowing full well it doesn’t quite merit its place on that particular pedestal. The harmonica (never John Lennon’s forte) is unimpressive, the melody, while not unpalatable, isn’t much to write home about, the lyrics are functional and the chords are unimaginative for the most part. There’s a nice change to Gm7 in the middle 8, which is enjoyable, although not prominent enough on the record, and it’s a good natured sort of romp, but when you stand it up against their other ‘great’ work from that era, it doesn’t come anywhere near the musical sophistication of ‘This Boy’ or ‘Ask Me Why’, the lyrical intrigue of ‘If I Fell’ or ‘Not a Second Time’, the harmonic triumph of ‘Tell me Why’ or ‘She Loves You’, or the sheer steam-train excitement of ‘Boys’ or ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, or countless others. It just sits there in the Beatles canon as the runt of the litter. It’s charming, but its greatest strength is simultaneously its biggest weakness, which is that it harks back to a time of innocent charm, collarless suits, moptop haircuts and holding hands with a girl, and it singularly fails to thrill, sneer, seduce or threaten in the way that the Beatles could do so comprehensively. It’s not that there aren’t other songs from this time that suffer from the same problems, but this is the most high-profile, and in a career that was based on innovation and invention, it stands out as something of a blot on an otherwise seemingly immaculate canvas.

It was 50 years ago today...

Please Please Me - and its greatest moment.

People adore The Beatles, and even the people who don't adore them mostly don't seem to have a problem admitting their influence and legacy on world music. Since some point in late 1963/early 1964 they have basically reached Apotheosis and been made Gods in the eyes of men, and let's be honest, I'm just as guilty of worshipping them as anyone, and I don't care.

But, 50 years ago to the day, they weren't "The Beatles - musical game-changing most successful band in the history of all time". They were just four young friends coming off the back of a near tortuous regime of playing soul-shredding shifts of rock and roll in a German red light district. Four boys who kept getting told they had no future in music.They were really, some would say, in their own version (albeit not a fully understood one) of the last chance saloon.

So, they recorded their album in 585 minutes on February 11th, 1963. It's been described as a "charming start" rather than a clear sign that the musical landscape was about to be re-shaped, and I think that's right. There are only really three truly "stand-out" moments in my opinion. The first track, the incomparably energetic "I Saw Her Standing There", the hit single, the catchy "Please Please Me" and the genre redefining final scream of "Twist and Shout". The other songs range from charmingly delivered (Anna), catchy but substanceless originals (Misery, Do You Want to Know a Secret, Ask Me Why) through to fairly dire renditions of clumsily chosen covers (A Taste of Honey, Baby It's You) and finally, their first "hit", a slightly bored sounding skiffle dirge in 'Love Me Do', which hasn't aged at all well.. It's solid, if unspectacular.

My love for the Beatles isn't one that knows no bounds, and nor is it unconditional, but it is huge and all encompassing. My favourite aspect of The Beatles story though is not all that musical development, amazing though some of it was, it's not the Shea stadium gig, groundbreaking though it was, it's not the films, charming though they are (mostly) and it's not the cool-dude, bohemian drug taking 60s icons that they became.

No. What I love about The Beatles is that for all their sharp-suit wearing moptoppage once they broke onto the scene, they knew how to knock out rock and roll so powerfully it could leave people breathless. The stories you hear about their times at the Cavern and in Hamburg are thrilling, powerful, youthful, raw, dirty and magical.

Proper rock and roll has always enthralled me ever since I was a kid and heard The Beatles music mixed with Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and all of the great names in the genre. The same feeling came over me when I first heard Oasis in the early 90s. It was something almost primeval that spoke to a part of me I didn't understand. Growing up in a nice middle-class house in a nice part of Leeds in a relatively economically prosperous historical period, going to an expensive and not always particularly eye-opening school doesn't exactly prep you to truly understand the real guts behind a rock and roll band. Still, if music was my church, rock and roll was my denomination, and The Beatles were my prophets.

When I listen to the Beatles later work, I can always appreciate the genius in it. It's beautiful, but in the same way that I love listening to Rachmaninov or Beethoven. When I REALLY love The Beatles is when they are playing something that sounds like it was produced by the grime of northern England mixed with the excitement of a dawning sexual revolution in America. Dizzy Miss Lizzy, Long Tall Sally, Kansas City, Slow Down, Money, there are so many recordings that make my hair stand on end, and they are always the true rock and roll numbers.

So I do love the Please Please Me album, in part because there's nothing truly awful on there, well, except for Love Me Do, PS I Love You, and Baby It's You, which I've never cared for. But mostly, I love it because of the energy and raw power of the songs which do hit the note. And, capturing a special place in the heart of all Beatles fans, and particularly this one, is Twist and Shout.

The stories are famous now. The band played for about 10 hours, and had to record one more song. Lennon's voice was ruined, having already been suffering from a cold (very audible on some of the songs) and having been sung into the ground almost, so George Martin knew they wouldn't get many takes. The idea of the four Beatles putting their tired voices, and bodies to one side to give everything one last time to a song that was so familiar to them it must have felt like an old friend is a thing of beauty to me. Lennon, in an act of rebellion against Brian Epstein's "cleaning up" of the band, took his shirt off, slung his guitar on, and got on with it.

One take. Live.

At the end, it's reported that the engineers said that nothing like that had ever been recorded in a British studio before, and it's not hard to believe. The effect is unbelievable. You can tell they all know it is their one shot at this song, and Lennon's vocal sums it up perfectly. He has no voice left. There's no technical brilliance on display, no vibrato, no training, no incredible breath control, just a raw shell of a man still somehow brimming with power, ambition and (in this author's humble opinion) a desire to set the record straight.

He must have known. Nobody was more proud of the band's early work than Lennon. He publicly stated on more than one occasion that their best work was never recorded, the nights on Preludin in Hamburg, reaching places they didn't realise they had, rocking and rolling at full speed, reaching extremes other bands didn't reach, achieving a tightness that other bands didn't achieve. Lennon once said that "when we played straight rock and roll, there was nobody to touch us. Not in Liverpool, not in London, not anywhere." This song is the only really true remaining evidence that he probably had a point.

Up to this point in the recording, this kind of spirit, this kind of raw, sticking your fingers up to everyone, passionate, blood-curdling rock and roll just hadn't been present. Lennon MUST have known it, and he must have realised that in the heat of trying to fit one more song onto the record, here was the band's chance to show what they were really made of. For me, the song is the musical equivalent of a shot from the half-way line in the 90th minute, or the half-court shot, hail mary in basketball that sinks through the net with no hint of backboard and sends the crowd into a frenzy. You're not just listening to a band play a song. You're listening to four people throw everything at the wall...and it all sticks. You can hear Lennon cough at the end, as McCartney almost cheers a job well done, and they were finished. How could they have topped that?

After this album, things got considerably more user-friendly. Head shaking, suit wearing, hand-shaking, balcony waving, smiling politely, charming press conferences and the rest. Nothing wrong with that, but for me it doesn't come close to explaning why I love The Beatles.

I know I go on about things, and have a tendency to assign more meaning, depth, emotion and analysis to things that don't always need them, but listening to Twist and Shout still sends shivers down my spine. I would go so far as to say those two and a half minutes or so are perhaps the most important in the Beatles' entire career, if not the musical landscape of this country in the 1960s.

Listen to it again. It's less than three minutes of your life, after all. Hear it. Hear Lennon's 22 year old voice summon up depth and power and rawness like you've never heard before. Hear rock and roll.

Enjoy.

Ready for Lift Off...or something

How terrible am I at keeping this blog up? I don’t know, I do keep telling myself that I will write something for it, but then I start and to be honest I think to myself, ‘how boring and egomaniacal of you to think that someone would want to know whether or not you like the White Album, or what your thoughts are on silly social situations.’ It just strikes me that it would not make for particularly interesting reading. Having said that, why do people in shops insist on giving you change back in such an awkward way? Note on the bottom, coins on the top. So you can’t possibly put everything back in your wallet because your hand has become immobilised by having to balance coins on a note. It does my head in. Also, I have a renewed enthusiasm for the While Album. It’s good, in parts.

Right, why a blog now? Well, to be honest the main reason is that I’m sitting with my computer with absolutely nothing to do while my new album tracks upload to the distribution company for the fourth time. Yes, the FOURTH time. There were three other times before this. I wonder whether or not it’s a good sign that the system rejected my album three times; perhaps I should take the hint? Still, musicians are not by nature talented at things like ‘taking the hint’, so bear-like I have stayed the course and am on my 4th attempt to get ‘Since Last Time’ made available to people.

So, I thought I would chronicle my musical plans for the year, and then in 12 months we can all look back and laugh at how wrong I was. The first step is the release of ‘Since Last Time’, which is a totally different album and approach to what Various States of Undress felt like this time last year. That was a hugely collaborative process, on 12 songs that had little in common other than their author, inspired by different things, all written at different times, from ‘Not Tonight’ which I first dabbled with in 2002, right through to ‘Talk No More’ which was written in London after recording had first begun in July 2011. These are different because they are of a mood, of a feeling, and of a time. They were written in a fit of acoustic jollity, not all on the same night or anything, but during a ‘downtime’ period that allowed me to relax in my songwriting a bit and actually just enjoy the songs, rather than trying to create sonic soundscapes that would engage an eclectic audience. I’m tempted to say these songs are more ‘me’ than ‘Various States’ ever was, although perhaps that’s not true. I would say they are a reflection of another side of me, because there was an awful lot of creative ambition and personal feeling on ‘Various States’. These songs are somewhat more distant, more objective almost. They are not about deep meaningful personal issues, (well, mostly) and I haven’t used them for therapy. Those of you who know me well will be both surprised and relieved to hear that this batch is not just my version of saving £40 a week on a shrink. They are fun, light hearted, enjoyable and indicative of a shift in mood as I turn 30.

Turning 30 is odd, except it’s not really because I’m happy. I think that the worries about getting old and past it are probably a lot harder if your 20s were wild, crazy, happy and you’re concerned that you’re in a bad place with your job/love life/personal life as you reach this particular hilltop. Well, I was miserable for a lot of my 20s, so I won’t miss that, career wise it was a wilderness until I turned 27, so it’s not as though I gave up my life dream of sitting in an office doing nothing for a job I now hate. Also, I married my best friend, and that’s got to count for something! So all in all, I’m a happier bunny than I was certainly at 20, when I was no good to man nor beast, and at 25 too. I think it’s reflected in the songs. I hope you like them!

So, the plan is to release Since Last Time on Saturday (if they will let me) and following that, release another EP in February some time. This hasn’t got a title yet, although there are several ideas floating around, and is a more traditional set of songs in their sound and feel, but lyrically more varied than I’ve attempted for a while. I like the songs very much, especially ‘I Read Your Book’, which in some ways details one of the most tortuous and personally traumatic mental battles I’ve ever engaged in. There’s also a rock and roll song, and a song about fancying someone, so it’s not all introspection and navel gazing, don’t worry!

I’m also in discussions with Newcastle Cancer Research to release one of my favourite songs of mine ‘Green Bridge On The River’ as a charity single, and donate all the funds to them. I hope this goes ahead, as I love the song, and the song loves Newcastle, and if there’s anything I can do to contribute to a noble fight against a vicious and unforgiving enemy, I really want to do it. That will hopefully happen between the two EPs, the sooner the better in my view. Don’t worry, I will shamelessly guilt you into buying it.

After that, I’ll be retreating into my studio at home and producing my second full length album for the summer. There are about 24 songs that have either been written or nearly written ready for this project, although none of them have been started yet in terms of recording. There may even be a throwback song to the very first CD I ever made, with my friend Jon back in Leeds. I wrote a song for that called ‘When We’re Sleeping’, and I’ve always wanted to do it again. I don’t usually like re-recording songs, and normally I would never dream of it, but that was 1999 and it’s now 2012, so I’ve probably left it for long enough. The album has got a title, and it will hopefully be out for the start of summer 2013. Of those 24 songs, I imagine I will put 12 onto the album, and then maybe release 6 on another EP at the end of summer, and then the others will probably either never get finished, or won’t be good enough to release. To be honest, at current rate, I’ll probably write another 12 between now and summer anyway, so who knows? It might end up being a double!

Crikey, that’s going to be the best part of 26 new songs from me in the next 12 months...I hope they’re good! (I'm only joking, I know they're good. I just hope you think so too!)

It’s a lot of fun making music. I can still honestly say that I do it for myself more than anything else, but if you do know 25 million people who would like to buy my new EP, please send them my way, it would be ever so nice of you!

I will get better at this bloggage. I (sort of) promise!
Lots of love
Paulo x

Album Credits!

So, you take a Yorkshire wurzel who loves to write songs but hasn't got the equipment, patience or actual ability to record them well. Then, you need to add the North East's answer to Miles Davis (in trumpeting ability, not in terms of serious intravenous drug abuse) who has equipment, and patience, and bucketloads of ability to record songs, but isn't as keen on writing them. You stick them together, add ridiculous amounts of laughter, and quite a lot of playing FIFA and swearing at the computer for giving ridiculous free kicks against you and what do you come out with? Various States of Undress, that's what! Recorded in Newcastle over the summer of 2011, the album really brings together the best of both Pauls, and basically if you enjoy this album even half as much as we do, then we enjoy the album twice as much as you! Hang on, that doesn't sound right.

It says on here that I have to tell you as much as I want about my music. I don't know what to put, really. I've been told it really fuses all my influences, which mainly revolve around The Beatles, Queen, Beach Boys, and Billy Joel. But they're not the only artists I've ever listened to, or been inspired by. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas, always trying to push my own creative boundaries while echoing the music I loved as a kid and grew up with. I think I've achieved that on this album, and it also ties in with the first time in my life I've felt comfortable enough to write happy, laid back and high-spirited songs. So now, what I want is to share them with, well, you! So...you know...what are you waiting for? Buy my album! I only need six or seven million people to buy it before I can jack in my day job and call it a day...why not make a humble northern yokel's dream come true?! :-) Hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording it - cheers for dropping by!
Paul

All songs written by Paul Staveley
All songs produced by Paul Riley-Gledhill

All guitars, pianos, basses, woodblock solos, triangle quartets and Didgeridoo symphonies played by Paul Staveley.
Dirty Trumpet on Desire by Paul Riley-Gledhill.
All drums programmed by Paul Staveley and Paul Riley-Gledhill. (Mostly Paul Riley-Gledhill. Like, 95% him.)
All vocals (even the high bits) by Paul Staveley.

Special Thanks to:
Sarah – raison d’etre.
Paul RG – Patience and genius personified.
Steph – Liebowitz’s day is done.
Sandy Z – distant relative, Twitter buddy, album name inventor.
Mum - I literally couldn't have done this without you!
John, Paul, George, Ringo - Apotheosis.
Billy Joel - You may be right, I may be crazy.

Thanks to:
The nice people at CD baby for distributing this
Hal Stewart for his incredible beard
Ian Dolamore: satisfactory, but odd.
My hilarious, awful, wonderful and terrible primate of a sister, I love you despite your face
My nephew Sammy (look at what your daft Uncle Paul did!)
Olympic Florence
Silk and Tugboat
The Diplodocus. What a dinosaur.

Why I would sell out...probably.

I started off writing a blog about something else. I’ve got an album coming out, and someone asked me what I would consider a “success” for it. I don’t really know how to answer that, and my first instinct was to say that I already consider it a success, because I’ve recorded an album and I’m releasing it on itunes for people to listen to, and hopefully enjoy. Regardless of how many copies it sells, I will have actually recorded and released a proper album, instead of the home-spun charming, but amateurish stuff that’s currently available online. That is success, to me – and I’m delighted about it. I’m also bulletproof in terms of how it’s received, because even if everyone who buys it thinks it’s rubbish, I don’t. Of course it would be a shame to work so hard on something and then have everybody who heard it think it was awful, but it would be even worse to compromise and sell it out, and STILL have everyone hate it. I looked at what some people consider success, and had a think about it.

Justin Bieber has 14 million followers on Twitter, Rebecca Black had 167 million views on YouTube, Westlife had 14 number one singles, Ke$ha has sold more singles than The Beatles did in the USA and yet I wouldn’t want to be any of them, not for all the tea in China. I don’t drink tea, actually, but you get my point. I would gladly have their money, and more than gladly have the chance to have that many people listen to my work, but I wouldn’t want it at the price that they have paid, ie people like me having the opinion I have of them. I wouldn’t sell out to get fame and riches. I thought.

But then I thought again. Wouldn’t I? Believe me, I have a very strong sense of my artistic identity and what I want to achieve. I also have a very strong personality when it comes to being challenged and having my vision questioned. I have a huge ego, mixed with occasionally crippling crises of self-confidence. I feel artist-y. I feel like I wouldn’t make sacrifices to achieve financial gain while losing my personal integrity. There are definitely songs that I wouldn’t be caught dead singing. Yes, Justin Bieber has had a lot of success but Jesus Christ, the kid’s a tool. I mean, come on, he is. And the songs are awful. I checked, just to be sure. I didn’t want to be one of these people who just hated him without having actually listened to the songs I professed to hate. But yeah, they’re terrible. My immediate instinct is to say that I would have too strong a moral code to ever lower myself to singing bilge like that. But would that moral code really cause me to turn down commercial success, at that kind of level, if all I had to do was sell out a bit?

It’s a difficult thing to say for sure. I think that absolute refusal to sell out under any circumstances is nice and easy for people to say once they’re already rich and famous, but really, how many struggling musicians who have an audience of about 40 wouldn’t rather be playing to thousands of people and making absolute sack loads of money? It’s all well and good sticking to your guns and gallantly failing, staying in obscurity for the rest of your life cuddling up to the fact that at least you never sold your integrity even a little bit, but does it really make it alright?

I’m 29 now, and I really don’t have any illusions about the avenues that exist for me in the music industry. They are few, and far between. It’s also hard to properly balance reality with your dreams. It’s extremely easy for me to play the card of “well, I know I won’t sell a million copies of my album, but what really matters to me is that the people who do buy it like it” – and that’s true. From the bottom of my heart, I would much prefer it to be 20 people’s favourite album of the year than a million people’s 20th favourite album of the year. But of course I still have that little part of me that wants word to somehow spread enough that I sell loads more copies than I ever thought I could. It’s not financial either – well, not primarily. I want more people to hear it, because then maybe more people will like it. Maybe people will want me to make another album, and maybe I will be able to. Obviously, the financial side of it would matter too, the more copies I sell, the more money I make, but fundamentally the money is secondary.

But what if I could cash in? What if somehow, someone offered me the chance to release an album that brought me financial security? Would I really be able to turn it down? You don’t hear much from Ashanti these days, for example, but when she turfed up with those bloody awful songs, she sold over 10 million records. If I’m lucky, I will make approximately £1.20 from every £5 album sold. Extrapolate that to the usual retail price of an album, and she is looking at the best part of $25m. Wouldn’t it be worth being terrible for that? If I had that much money, I could make all the albums I wanted, preserve all the artistic integrity I needed for the rest of my life. Justin Bieber is apparently worth $80m and he’s not even 18 yet. Couldn’t he call it a day and work on turning himself into a proper artist? You look at some of the most artistically appreciated musicians to have ever walked the earth, and a massive number of them started out singing songs that weren’t their greatest musical achievements. Listen to “Love Me Do”, or “Great King Rat”, or “Why, Judy, Why?”. Look at how Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix got started. The hardest thing about any of this is definitely getting your foot in the door. I have a high enough opinion of myself to believe that if I ever did get a foot in the door, and make some kind of name for myself, I could stay there. My passion for music is all-consuming, I’ve never yet run out of ideas for songs to write, and I love performing and playing. But how do you start? START?! It’s so frustrating, and if a way out was offered to me, if someone rang me up to say, “Hey, I loved that rubbish song you wrote, would you fancy giving it to Justin Bieber, or some other such bloody disaster of a musician, so he can take it and ruin it but you get 20% of the royalties,” what possible part of me could say no?

Fundamentally, the question is, Would I be willing to accept commercial success for something that I was not only not proud of, but actually despised myself for? My worry would be...could I afford not to? I hope that people like the album, I really do – and I’m so proud of it because I haven’t compromised my vision for it in any way. I hope I never do, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and the songs I’ve written, but if you are a very rich and successful record producer and you need me to churn out a two and a half minute piece of utterly awful but nevertheless commercially acceptable pop disaster, please give me a chance.

Mozart: on form.

Admirer: Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started?

Mozart: A symphony is a very complex musical form. Maybe start with some simple songs and work your way up to a symphony.

Admirer: But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8!

Mozart: Yes, but I never had to ask anyone how.