For months and right up to the end, the record company had been doing a somewhat crazy thing about “An Evening with Silk Sonic”, the joint album of Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak: lots of sensational collaboration superlatives, gigantic gatherings, album-of-the-year attitude. In addition, a secrecy boom on the level of military attack plans on friendly states. It’s a bit of a shame. The album is not that (!) Good. Which by no means means that it is bad. Because it is not. Not at all. How good you find something in the end unfortunately also depends on how much you expected at the beginning. And after all the booze, at least one cure for Corona was expected, compliance with the 1.5-degree global warming target, free beer, overtime compensation and ever-small kittens for everyone. Therefore a bit of expectation management. The collaboration of the two American R’n’B superstars brings all of that: not. Instead, there is simply an extremely sovereign, hip-loose and very smooth funk-and-soul album. Lively drums, wonderfully springy grooves, fluttering guitars, beach-warm late summer keyboards – and Bootsy Collins and Thundercat. Which would also clarify any questions about the bass. In addition, choirs and synths as well as lovingly staged soft porn with backlight settings and lots of cuddling before and after. No longer. But: not even a tiny bit less.
Of the Rammstein-Gitarist Richard Zven Kruspe has under the name Emigrate recorded a new solo album. “The Persistence Of Memory” (Emigrate Production / Sony Music Entertainment) is his fourth. And it’s definitely fantastic and brilliant on some level (the guitar sound, which, like the main band, is supposed to be industrially hard and clinically exact at the same time, but this time unfortunately sounds a bit like muddy-thumping home recording, it’s just not ; and neither do the Casio Klingelingeling synths). Unfortunately, at least in Germany, nobody will ever be able to listen closely enough to recognize any musical genius. One is simply too preoccupied with the question of why – in God’s name – someone who speaks (and sings!) Such a radical English would want to speak (or sing! Or text !!) English. Everything, absolutely everything about this album sounds as if a humorous East Coast American would want to rap the words “Thuringian Bratwurst” over a waltz – just from a German.
Therefore a small addendum to the question of how one should deal with oversized song models – and only because the fantastic Dave Gahan has just covered “Always On My Mind”, known from Elvis, among others, and really irritatingly beautiful: Just like Kruspe does it together with Rammstein singer Till Lindemann (as if a humorless Texan wanted to syncopate the words “Scharfe Spreewaldgurken” over a feverish dancehall beat ), you could very well leave it.
You have to get the British from Elbow of course love. For the candlelight festivity of their songs. For their big, enchantingly small chamber music pop. For singer Guy Garvey’s commitment to Peter Gabriel. The fine instrumentation. The clever, circus-chaotic arrangements. The crude, but at the end of the day always drifting home melody arcs. And for the fact that they can actually, actually even, hymns. Her song “One Day Like This”, for example, ran often in England and was always absolutely fitting when Olympic sports or football games from the Premier League had to be summarized in shimmering action pictures. Fine pathos, little embarrassment. Great trick. Unfortunately the song is now 13 years old again. And since then the band has withdrawn further and further to a somewhat aimless meandering. Too many verses, too few choruses. It is no different on the album “Flying Dream 1” (Polydor / Universal), which will be released on Friday. You drift and stroll and stray, you deceive, hit hooks and do some very enchanting pirouettes. Everything is very nice. Only a really, really good song (at least in the sense of a hit) will not succeed.
Which is maybe not really necessary – at least if you look at the current German album charts. The comeback marvel “Voyage” by Degradation Breaking a lot of records right now: According to GfK Entertainment, the album sold 200,000 times in the first week – more often than the remaining top 100 combined. Second place: Helene Fischer. Third place: The dead pants – with the special edition of a 30 year old record. By the way, it’s called “Learning English Lesson 1”. But only marginally.