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Wednesday 8 October 2008

Sugar rush

Marcus Berkmann buys a Take That album

As with so many pop albums down the years, the singles are the only songs worth hearing. The others are lavished with the same rich, syrupy production, which I now realise is compulsory for all aspiring pop acts. At least they sound like Take That rather than The Feeling or Amy Winehouse — the only other two pop templates currently allowed — but I’m already starting to think of other vital uses that £4.98 might have been put to.

Some flavours, though, become less satisfying as we get older, if you can still eat them at all. The sweets of our youth always seemed so much more appetising, somehow. These days, by contrast, we have become conscious that our favourite puddings and chocolate bars are full of appalling additives and hydrogenated vegetable fat. What you want is something sweet but not actually life-threatening. I think I’ve found this recently in Ben Taylor, the little-known son of Carly Simon and James Taylor, who released a solo album a year or so ago. Again I bought it cheap, having heard one track (this time on a magazine compilation). Ben has a voice very much like his dad’s and has clearly ingested his parents’ music since the womb: indeed Another Run Around the Sun (Independiente) sounds as though it was made in the mid-70s in California, as opposed to the mid-noughties in RAK Studios in London. But what tunes! There are half a dozen absolute belters on this album, songs that actually grow with repeated listening, with all the usual pop tricks added, but sparingly, as though sensitive to the listener’s digestive system. So, lots of acoustic guitars, strategic use of backing vocals, light and shade in the songs — a bowl of strawberries rather than a bucket of butterscotch-flavoured Angel Delight. Hmm, haven’t tasted that for a while...

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