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| Date |
September 19 2003 |
| Type |
Interview |
| Source |
The Boston Globe |
| Title |
Glamour girl |
| Country |
US |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Christopher Muther |
| Text |
For her duo's new album, Alison Goldfrapp eschewed light French pop to fashion a sexier, disco sound
Since its release in 2000, Goldfrapp's debut album, "Felt Mountain," has functioned beautifully as a soundtrack for dinner parties, ambient restaurants, and Pottery Barn. More romantic than Portishead, more dramatic than Dido, it is the kind of CD that goes into rotation when mom and dad drop in for dinner.
Three years later, Goldfrapp's new album, "Black Cherry," is the kind of CD that gets hidden away when mom and dad come over. "Black Cherry" is a musical smoothie of Donna Summer, the Human League, and
Kraftwerk pureed to the point of concupiscence. Gone are the lovely and light French pop and cinematic swirls. Instead, the duo of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory has swapped them for throbbing electro-sleaze, which hangs heavy over lyrics thick with double entendre. To seal the deal, the pair recently remixed Marilyn Manson's new single "This Is the New [Expletive]" ("By far the most creative remix anyone has done for me," the goth king gushes on the band's website), plus recorded a cover version of the underrated and overtly sexual disco chestnut "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie." Let the booty-shaking begin. The band performs at the Paradise Rock Club tomorrow night. "We certainly risked alienating quite a few fans," says Alison Goldfrapp on the phone from England. "And we have. That's the chance you take, isn't it? It was something we were quite scared of, but it felt natural to make that move. There was never any question as to what we should do."
There was never any question because Goldfrapp says she and Gregory never set out to be like the legion of other chill-out bands. There was no plan to become the next Zero 7 when "Felt Mountain" was recorded -- it was essentially a collection of musical thoughts.
"I'm really not interested in what's fashionable and what's not fashionable," she says. "People often said that `Felt Mountain' was a coffee table album and frankly, I like coffee table albums. I think they somehow thought that they were insulting us, but I don't really take notice of things like that. It's either good or it's bad. The rest is just silly fashion labels."
The dramatic musical shift of "Black Cherry" is a direct result of touring for more than a year behind the nine songs from the debut album. Goldfrapp felt she needed rhythm onstage, and songs such as "Train" and "Twist" give her plenty of opportunity to strut about like a millennial Marlene Dietrich in fishnets.
"We were eager to introduce other things as not to get pigeonholed into a particular sound," she says. "And for us, it's never been about a formula, it's about new things and using any kind of sound or image to express whatever it is we want to express. To me, that's the creative process."
It was clear on the duo's last tour that Goldfrapp was no demure pop ingenue. Instead she demonstrated a dramatic flair and a keen sense of humor, even covering Olivia Newton John's "Physical" with cabaret panache.
The change in musical style also feels better suited to her personality. Goldfrapp has the kind of reputation that gives journalists nightmares. There are well-documented, prickly encounters with the songstress. But on this morning, she laughs away her notoriety.
"I'm just a sweet English rose," she says. "I'm not really difficult at all. I just say what I think, and some people don't like that. They ask for your opinion, you give it, and they don't like it. I'm actually quite sensitive."
She seems more than happy to give her opinion, except for questions involving her pre-Goldfrapp days and her personal life. In these instances, her speech pattern shifts from quick and opinionated to slow and measured.
The 31-year-old grew up in the suburban setting of Hampshire with an appreciation of both Ennio Morricone and disco, and began her music career singing in an "avant-garde, classically oriented" dance project in Belgium. She made her first foray into the pop world providing vocals for electronic acts such as Orbital and Tricky.
"He's pretty hard-core," she says of Tricky. "I toured with him for two years, and after that I felt like I could do anything, or rather, handle anything. . . . I'm not going to say any more than that. I was really worn out by the end of it."
By the time she met Gregory, who was scoring films on the West Coast, Goldfrapp was ready for a retreat from beat-obsessed projects. The result was the hallucinatory sounds of "Felt Mountain."
But with "Black Cherry," Goldfrapp isn't afraid to wear her Studio 54 influences on her sleeve once again. "It was all a matter of getting comfortable with my position as a singer, performer, and writer, and my personal life as well," she says. "My confidence is much stronger. I'm now ready to have a good time." |
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