In the 6-12 months before we finally get a new album from her, what better time to get cracking onto showcasing Dana International's unreleased material of which there is many many gems than now? One of which is a cover of the Donna Summer flop I Feel Love. Whilst Summer did at least try to make this become one of disco's most recogniseable anthems, it is not until Israel's most recogniseable tranny gives it a go that the song finally sounds as if it might become vaguely iconic. Dana's timid ethnic version was so superior the Diva singer felt more guilt about it than the night she chose to tell her parents her penis was in a London rubbish bin, so much so that it was decided not to release it until Donna Summer dies of natural causes of rumoured internal-homophobia. However, Diva Incarnate says 'hell no' to that.
Okay, puns aside, 1995's The Rapture gets a bad rap. The final Siouxsie & The Banshees studio album's biggest crime is that it is split in two and didn't innovate their sound forward as they had done on their 'masterpiece' Peepshow (1988) and the big pop of Superstition (1991). It sold poorly, their American alternative 'relevance' had vanished, having previously toured with Lollapalooza in the 90s and scored a #23 US Billboard Hot 100 hit single to boot, and they lost their record deal after Siouxsie was quoted in Time Out saying 'I wouldn't piss on Polydor Records if they were on fire', and called it quits ironically just as the Sex Pistols reformed.
However, I must admit that I prefer Cale's production on this record even if the effect never reached the allergic reaction one might hope for. They create their own fireworks on Love Out Me, the album's bitterest tour-de-force purge, and on second and final single Stargazer, which is crying out to be as good as the Stephen Hague productions on Superstition (Cyndi Lauper fans might note her Sisters of Avalon producer Mark Saunders produces a particularly emphatic remix). Instead, it sounds like a rehearsal between the band themselves. Siouxsie's cumulative chorus explodes and evaporates in successive throaty Siouxsie-isms intentionally simulating the appearance of shooting stars - she's clever like that. The production just kills me though - it should take you around the solar system, instead they sound like they are playing in Nick Cave's dining room. At least she's still trying where her vocals suggest she's able to communicate to animals in the African plains.
The stoic and seductive resignation of Fall From Grace is impressively stuborn, when the weight of age seeks its final defence of experience. There is something heartbreaking about 40 somethings-or-nearly's singing candidly about admitting they might not be all that after all. It's bassist Steven Severin's lyric and not Siouxsie's so it's not as if you have to feel sorry for her autobiographically. Tender and defiant, a stunning backing vocal reveals it was there all along right at the sprawling finish.
The forebodingly bruised and brusque Not Forgotten is more like a Peepshow track. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's clearly like it as they pretty much wrote their own cover version, Honeybear (the similarity is painful). Featured in the film Showgirls, yet pitifully not included on the soundtrack, you might want to check your ribs haven't been crushed once it's ended.
Glum low point Sick Child is a rare self-penned song that came from Budgie. It's hook is subtle and the lyrics are 6th form akward. This song just never would have made it on any other Banshees record.
The rather hurried Falling Down is a wonderfully spitefull turn from Siouxsie, but it's a skidmark of punk and perhaps - again - might have benefited from Stephen Hague's interpretation. It just doesn't work using these settings. Another missfire. And it's a Cale track, surprisingly for me. It just sounds rather ... reluctant. The pain just isn't worth the cruelty, apotheosizing their checkered past, she's out of juice here.
The final collaboration with him, the rippling exotica Forever is a smouldering to-the-boil torch ballad, musky and in despair. It sets Siouxsie up for what would be her ace-card on her solo album, an after-hours affair (Say meets Heaven & Alchemy before they even existed).
Siouxsie goes a bit Enya on The Rapture, the title track bravely attempts their own Lord's Prayer of Bohemian Rhapsody perhaps. Indulgent, yes, but Siouxise fans surely will love the safety of her voice no matter what she is singing. Ethereal. Rewards the concentration it demands or simply frustrates the concentration you don't have.
Dodgy spoken word verses aside, muddy The Double Life actually boasts a chorus that's broody enough to suggests they might even be having fun here. A homosexual radio DJ confesses his extra-marital habits. Siouxsie is authentically happy to tell the camp and cynical tale - another Severin lyric.
The Rapture grows immeasurably over the years - it never threatens to change your opinion or even solidify your impression of who they were, but it's definately not the run-of-the-mill trash many reviews might want you to believe. Slightly uneven, the stylistic unity of Siouxsie's catty growl is enough to marvel in itself. The prodction pigeonholes aside, they're no longer hell bent on the big time (if ever they were), the thirst is gone and at their age would be fools to pretend otherwise - the mistake is to complain when your idols get old, and The Rapture simply owns up to it, which if you can come to terms with is its strength.
Sometimes when I comment on other people's blogs I end up writing an essay and making it all about ME, so I thought I might spare humanity and let the world know how I feel about Shakira's new single Gypsy (Sandcastle Disco Part II) right here as Brandy might plead to the jury.
Shirley's sado/maso phrases didn't have to always be smart as well ('I fall down just to give you a thrill, prop me up with another pill' plays dead on the album's best single I Think I'm Paranoid), but it would work well if they were. There's not much nostalgia either - even the beautiful moments feel like slowmotion pornography, albeit with aliens. With no need to cheer up, Hammering In My Head gives you body burns, Push It anihilates you, anchored by Manson's glum dominatrix hosting duties, your free pass is at your own peril. Synthesizers? Probably - 12 years later I am still identifying new sounds and voltages.
You'll have fun with this album - the jangly H-bomb dropper Special tosses a lover off, off a plane that is - 'do you have an opinion' isn't even a threat, there's real venting intention in her voice that suggests her mind's already made up. The full-speed abstraction of Temptation Waits smoothes the edges, the singer having evolved into simulating motions whether they are human or not. Even if her often clumsy lyrics aren't always arresting, the production always turns it into an incident with scathing observations. The dreamlike ballads The Trick Is To Keep Breathing and You Look So Fine, or the lapsing withdrawl 'co-dependent' cold-turkey middle-8 on Medication are incredibly lonely and insatiable, with the odd phoney stuff about 'if we sleep together will you like me better' as if we believe by now that she doesn't know any better herself.
Blondie, The Pretenders and Siouxsie & The Banshees are the obvious idols being ripped off, but this music is rendered by such exceedingly skillfull deployment their eurodisco post-punk butcherings are hyperaware and they make it their own design. Shirley craves yet more skin on Sleep Together, which is the most blatant attempt to cultivate the persona and a bit of a placebo if I'm honest. 
We know she doesn't play the 'stupid girl' but mutates her weaknesses on the play-loud Dumb and Wicked Ways, pumping her bad behaviour in suitably grotesque salivation. Cashing in on self-dramatizing teenagers, When I Grow Up sounds like an actual-hit, cheerfully going on about 'golden showers' as you do.
I've been out of it for a few days, so when I finally had a quick flick, through my 2 day old newspaper of course, I was delighted to see one of my favourite pop stars, French Canadian Myléne Farmer falling over and finally getting the British exposure she deserves.
Also-was 90s dance diva Alison Limerick is famous for one song only, Where Love Lives. 1998's Spirit Rising album teamed her up with some big name producers such as Brian Taylor and Livin' Joy's Visnadi making it an interesting proposition for the one hit wonder to turn things around.
That is, until you press play. The title track is the first Metro offering and starts off promisingly: gospel wailing worthy of Dana Dawson and mild house beats splashing in yo' face. Alison's vocal is flawless, gorgeously digging so deep you would probably check for an adam's apple if you ever met her. 7/10
Never Knew is a sturdy mood peice with a groaning bass and suitably deep vocal massage from Limerick. It lacks a truly inspiring chorus, but the style is impeccable even if things never quite leave the ground. 7/10
Acoustic strummer How Happy has its melody shoplifted from Starbucks, riffing and ripping off Everyday People and Janet's Got Till It's Gone. 6/10
Drum N' Bass stodger Stronger Love is an ambient flush of tranquil and earie sounds and vocal distortions - she remembered to pack everything in that's for sure, just not a fucking melody. 6/10
At this point I'd give anything for a Kylie cover, but the jazzy Dangerous Game is more No No No (You Don't Love Me And I Know Now) or Blue Bell's Remember Me but with dementia. Also think of the Levi's Ad from the 90s, Underwater Love. 6/10
With a phat bass, Take It Easy doesn't quite pick up the pace, but her backing singers will certainly be choreographed to click their fingers for it. Polished and all the rest, it just sounds like an M People outtake. 6/10
It's Getting Better (This Could Be Good) - I think the parenthesis is what the album should have been called. The talent she is hiring here do not 'rise' to the occaision, with only the reportedly 'asshole-ish' Visnadi living up to his hype for poor baldie Alison. You can't ever fault her vocals, which certainly keep the exercise afloat, and this album is definately a fine showcase for their lush prowress, but lacks the proper impact she deserves - neither dance, nor jazzz, nor singer-songwriter, she really should have chosen direction more affirmatively. Put the album on and fall asleep, but fall asleep feeling really quite good and satisfied about it. 6/10
The sheer momentous opulence of Gina G's iconic Fresh! album was impossible to top. The fact that the strawberry blonde singer never got her shot to try is besides the point - combining coquetish glamour with radiant femininity and serving it with rampant, frothy Hi-NRG signified a unique liberation. Hook subsiding meaning notwithstanding, Gina's girly but never quite trite delivery always expressing erotic longing, an insatiable appetite for admiring hot boys, energetic distress and hair-tossing abandon Rita Hayworth style.
Camp emergency siren Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit is every bit as gushing as I'm In The Mood For Dancing or Kelly Marie's Feels Like I'm In Love especially, but far more exuberant than both those acts would have found imaginable. Like those other singles, the song is uncoverable - the singers heartbeat-skipping theme tune whether she likes that we like it or not. The electric production travels fast, the beats violating your right for consent. The frolicsome, speedy carnage wouldn't mean a thing without Gina sucking us right in: 'you're my love, you're my sweetest thing' is delivered before you can catch your breath.
The scintilating Fresh! with aquatic male panting and rippling guitar riff, all deliberately echoing a jingle with 1950s catchprasing, conveying bathing suit glamour in heels. The funky Bayside Boys remix yanks the Macarena bassline from under your feet and it's a perfect fit for those revolving 'whoooh-oh-oh-whoah-oh-oh' bits.
Flemenco flutterer Ti Amo bats its lashes in the direction of La Isla Bonita, applying an extra layer of pining fantasia. The more bombastic Bayside Boys, more fiesty Basstown, and more better Metro 'Summer of Love' Edits infinitely indulge the sense of unrestricted romance. This is the song that evolved into Enrique Iglesias' solo career when Gina's record contract bound her to work with Motiv8 producer Steve Roadway and she refused, giving Metro free reign to spoil the Latin heart-throb with numerous scintilating soundalikes (Rhythm Divine, Be With You, Hero - just imagine if Gina had recorded them, and she didn't even have a mole).
The helpless Everytime I Fall (think Madonna's Pray For Spanish Eyes) assumes passive dependence into a lovers gaze. The Todd Terry and Metro remixes offer the song's definative experiences.
Emitting a cryptic and redemptive quality, Follow The Light is an arm wrestle between a ballad and a extravaganza, ruefully celebrating her music's escapist ideals.
The immodest hormonal desperation Gimme Some Love is standard fare gear-shifting Hi-NRG, no more no less, but the Eurobeat single edit remedies this with a flush of sweeping whoooshing disco lubrication. The perfect vehicle for a swift vocal style that craves a fast melody so you don't have to think about it too much. Gina effortlessly sustains her mortified giddiness, of which overcomes the paranoia of her not-so-quiet request.
Above: finishing 6th, Gina certainly never 'failed' at Eurovision, she got a UK #1, huge Japanese success and narrowly missed the US Billboard top ten peaking at #11)
Soggy tampon soaker Missing You Like Crazy is the only deadweight and has no place on the album where she sounds a bit too accepting of her lovers absence to ring properly true. A prudish toilet flush - she might get it all out but doesn't half leave a big stink behind her and why should we all suffer?
The sumptuous I Belong To You treacles with glossy production wherein her unquenchable desire accommodates Roadways surfing electronica, as she blushes, 'like a river to the sea'. Like nature, you'd best not interrupt her and instead marvel at the breathtaking outcome no matter who dies from it. The telegraphic precision of the lyrics, usurping jaccuzzi of eurodance, and Gina's heartwarming reassureance all equal a nervous overload of vanishing point euphoria.
Gina's cool and enticing vocals hyperventalate once more on the anthemic elevation of the jerky kangaroo beat-driven Higher Than Love. One of the many opportunities for a single, the fact that she has this as a spare defies belief. Whereas her contemporaries (Kristine W, Ultra Nate, Tina Cousins) were swamped with filler, Gina simply elminates this concern, going too fast to get bogged down. The risky adrenaline makes it sounds like a breeze.
On an album largely consumed by an inability to control one's emotions, Gina's cautious guard on the galacial mild tempo ballad It Doesn't Mean Goodbye is the only song where she seems to reveal a genuine human being beyond the killer hook and killer heels. Not merely pretty (which it most definately is), the singer's inner turmoil is illuminated by beaming synths sharply ignited with a tender melancholy. It's an ironic send off, and whenever I hear Gina's final whispered 'it doesn't mean goodbye' my inner gay stereotype can't help but repeat out loud 'oh but it did Gina'. The track plays on her best qualities - her perfumy voice creates a genuine mist of pathos, severed romance, spirituality and antagonised sexuality searching for answers. This song only deepens my intense admiration for her gloss, artifice, sophistication, realness, intensity and fast-lane cravings. A smouldering come down.
The encore Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit (Vintage Honey Edit) caramalises the song into a more wistful current. The outstanding campness of the original is relieved in favour of a simple and spaced out but lush groove.
Every track bar one executed as a sure shot dancefloor classic (or pretty floral petal-plucking ballad), the strength of Fresh! is never extinguished (bar the tempoaray dampner Missing You Like Crazy). Her pulsating rhythms could give a corpse a nervous breakdown - you'd better dance, you'd better be gay and you'd better be ready for album number two. If you are man enough to be 'gay' enough, Gina skimming the cream for intoxicatingly exuberant beatwise hooks is the sound of life itself with each song (bar one) circulating like fresh heroine into a junkie. And when 3 out of 4 ballads of lust and ineptitude are good enough to ignite tempestuous holiday romance memories you don't even have, it surely is worth it. Her only album, so just as well it surpasses most greatest hits collections.
Yes, this is not a good week to be a Sharleen Spiteri fan so thank heavens I have never found her remotely appealing beyond the sheer city lights euphoria of Halo (put that in your love blender and smoke it, Beyonce) and the goose-bumps ad libs found on Inner Smile (the best Cyndi Lauper song that never was). I always try and stay low key about my disdain for someone if they are Scottish and successful as often one just reaks of rotten jealousy. And she has a really annoying Scottish accent.
When Shaz Bags promoted her solo album it felt like she couldn't stress enough that it was her break up record, even without being asked - the singer had in actual fact divorced her partner, but it's unfair to state so candidly 'these are the sad, miserable, how-dare-you-try-and-ruin-me songs about how person X made me feel like a washed up slag', it's just arrogant. Take Alanis - the million selling Candadian was famously dumped for a much younger actress and subsequently made the best album of her career, but she was hardly bursting to articulate the obvious subject matter of a collection of songs that were about the struggle to find inner strength to overcome heartache and the pensive understanding that these feelings need not be permanent. Yes, I'm going off on an incoherent rant. Where is my point?
Spiteri has failed to sustain her fame and soon will release a horridly calculated selection of songs crudely called Songs From The Movies You Already Know So Please Buy As I Promise You Are Going To Love These Songs You Already Know And If You Don't Know Them You Might Recognise A Few From Off The Telly Anyway, Plus Your Mum Might Like It For Mothers Day, Ken? Fan I might not be, but this is not a good state affairs for a singer with a stunning voice that requires a certain flair that kareoke simply curdles into shlock (seek out her intimate fingers-through-his-hair album track Saint and realize what a technique this woman has).
This is the wrong area of the music industry for singers of her type to operate in - it's basically making music for people who are not passionate about music at all, who see buying albums as scary (you know the scenario when you hear someone proudly tell you they bought so-and-so's album as if it was somehow heroic and weirdly embarassing for them, and then shyly confess 'it is actually quite good' the poor souls meekishly asking you to give them your approval). I might not like her (maybe I haven't mentioned this yet) but I'm open to liking her music. In the words of Mr Cruz: 'c'mon girl, c'mon girl, c'mon girl', get back to work and stop diminishing your diminishing returns. Worst album of the year I am likely to hear.
