Annie

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Tim F

Well-known member
I don't find <i>Anniemal</i> to be particularly "knowing" actually - if anything Annie and her producers don't seem to have really worked out what they want to do and so the album sort of lurches all over the place, with the exception of the four singles which are also the four best tracks! In a funny way <i>Arular</i> is actually much more "slick" (in the sense of being an exact execution of a pre-ordained concept and neither more nor less)

Xenomania stuff or Rachel Stevens' singles are more "knowing" than Annie I think, but then I find this works well for both of them, and doesn't hinder or obscure their impact. The first three Saint Etienne albums get progressively more "knowing" and get progressively better as well.

Overall I'm very reluctant to endorse a binary of knowing/innocent that maps onto bad/good so easily.
 
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owen

Well-known member
i second that, last line in particular...no-one read my post downthread did they? (skulks off into corner)
 
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captain easychord

Guest
i think the vinyl 'dance' remixes of the annie singles have all been wicked.
 
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Tim F

Well-known member
"i second that, last line in particular...no-one read my post downthread did they? (skulks off into corner)"

I did Owen! I should have noted that I agreed with it.

Re the remixes - if you play the Royksopp remix of "Heartbeat" at 45rpm instead of 33rpm it sounds like a bizarre 'ardkore track, "Lord of the Null Lines" or "Finest Illusion" or something...
 
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Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
perhaps the fact that annie started the album with her boyfriend, and then her boyfriend died at 23, and then she couldn't face doing anything more with it for four years, might have something to do with the album's "lurching" nature.

hasn't anybody listened to the last track?

it's really got a lot to do with bigging up the tamil tigers isn't it?
 
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Melchior

Taking History Too Far
I finally got this yesterday, after meaning to pick it up for the last year or so. I really, really like the singles. The rest of it is a bit patchy. Basically, Tim F summed it up. Glad I got it, and I think I need to give it a proper listen, rather than a bit one the way home last night and a bit in the car today.
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
it is not a knowing record. it's simple, touching, genuine and fantastic. if making great pop that does exactly what it is supposed to do is being viewed as knowing i'd say the people making those evaluations are getting the fact that it's a quality record confused with it having some kind of arch agenda.
not eveything needs to sound like it's recorded at the bottom of a dustbin to be good, not all talent is raw and "fresh from road", nor does it need to be wilfully cloistered in the halls of academe or the avant garde—sometimes good music is finely wrought and pretty and sweet, stuff that can be part of your life, not make huge demands of you as a listener but still *give* you equally as much as the latest grime dvd or a classic bit of ornette coleman.
a lot of this record actually reminds me of scritti's cupid and psyche 85 (because it's damned near prefect pop, obviously) and saint ettiene WITHOUT the feelings of knowingness you get from either of those. there's a whole tragic love story lurking behind the scenes of these glossy, lovely tunes, too, which gives it a whole other layer of substance, transparency and *honesty*.
needless to say it is absolutely NOTHING like MIA and anyone who says it is has gone temporarily mental.
and even though i stayed away from that utterly insane thread, i'll say this now: there is a shitload that's good about pop and if you can't see that, then there's really not a lot of hope...
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
aw shucks - there's really no end to my talents (or your pedantry!)

nice to see ya around again btw, jwd.
 
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martin

----
I prefer MIA to Annie. Annie just sounds like wimp pop, another emotional and human failure ploughing her own personal catharsis into the 'sacred' grove of electropop. I was never a massive fan of Stina Nordenstam (a more credible comparison), but to give her credit, Stina didn't strike some sanctimonious pose while trying to imitate a forerunner from 2 years before (in Annie's case, Miss Kitten, albeit minus the humour and class). I find the track 'Just Friends' quite offensive in the smug demands it makes of the listener. No, actually, I don't want to look into the future, I just want you to shut your gob.
 
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Melchior

Taking History Too Far
Where as I prefer Annie to MIA because her voice doesn't annnoy me, and I don't listen to every track thinking that it needs to be 20 bpm faster.
 
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Tim F

Well-known member
"I prefer MIA to Annie. Annie just sounds like wimp pop, another emotional and human failure ploughing her own personal catharsis into the 'sacred' grove of electropop. I was never a massive fan of Stina Nordenstam (a more credible comparison), but to give her credit, Stina didn't strike some sanctimonious pose while trying to imitate a forerunner from 2 years before (in Annie's case, Miss Kitten, albeit minus the humour and class). I find the track 'Just Friends' quite offensive in the smug demands it makes of the listener. No, actually, I don't want to look into the future, I just want you to shut your gob."

Martin have you heard the actual Annie album? It sounds so far away from Stina Nordenstam <i>or</i> Miss Kittin that I find it difficult to believe you'd choose them as points of comparison if you had. "Just Friends" is totally a one-off; I wouldn't be surprised if the entire idea for it was Richard X's.

The closest point of comparison between Annie and Miss Kittin might be "The Greatest Hit" versus Antonelli Electr's "The Vogue", in which case Annie wins by a mile (although the M. Mayer mix of the latter helps even up the balance a bit).

Also I love Stina much more than Annie, but I'm not sure what it is about Stina that renders her more "credible".
 
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Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Do also try Bertine Zetlitz' "Fake your beauty" if you like Annie,
maybe not as "knowing" as Annie, but good pop (or maybe it is knowing - "fake your beauty").
(streaming track on the front page of http://www.bertine.com
As for Røyksopp's new. Mixed reviews, but I quite like it - "Alpha Male" is
Tangerine Dream for the noughties and there is also a track referencing "Popcorn"
(a tune not even listed in a recent "Top 100" important electronic tracks ever -
it is easily in the top twenty in terms of getting electronic music to the masses).
 
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henrymiller

Well-known member
er, how did MIA get involved in this discussion? other than a low-level hipster cache, they have nothing in common.

another emotional and human failure ploughing her own personal catharsis
Click to expand...

this just seems like a dickish line to me. show me an emotional success!
 
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sweetfred

New member
different

I think MIA has nothing to do with Annie, except gender and popularity at the same time.
Their music is not even remotely similar.

BTW, Annie was making (different sort of) waves already back in 2002 with the dub of Greatest Hit that came out (first) on the flip of the 7". I remember playing it out then and know that the then hot Germans were also (Alex in Jazzanova etc). It is totaly based on the dub of Holiday 12" - Madonna that Diplo plays now.

With Annie it is the vocals and her Norwegian looks, I think. I even had the poster from her second 7" (I will get on, after her boyfriends death) on the wall in my record room; I haven't done that for 20 yrs!
 
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