WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE
Mark Robertson peels away the facade of GOLDFRAPP‘S glittering third album to find out what makes great pop.
op stars are never quite what they seem.
Some are remarkably short (Rachel
Stevens). some ttnusttally tall (Damon .-\lbam). some just downright plain (too many to tnention). But they create and we perpetuate the notion that they are special. They‘re not. Well. not really. It’s their music that is special. Alison (ioldfrapp is the kind of person who has allowed her music to speak for itself and it's been embraced for what it is: great pop.
The whole pop facade is wonderfully shallow and the conceit of strapping any degree of depth to it only sullies the notion. ()asis were great because their songs made you feel good. Michael Jackson‘s songs make you want to dance like a rubbery-limbed fool. (ioldfrapp at their best incite similar moments of mania. Pete l)oherty may desire to be Keith Richards and .\lick .lagger in one raggedy body. but Alison wants to be the lovechild of Madonna and Alvin Stardust. And despite her fetish for trash Americana Olivia Newton-John covers. disco obsessions she has developed into a quintessential British pop star: a precocious talent who expresses frivolous catnpery with unashamed abandon yet who presents it with a perfect poker face. The result is a welcome antidote to the misguided notion that any chip shop worker can be a star if suitably polished.
But the trip to superstardom for so many British artists goes via a place more unsavoury than the junkie’s hovel. and more tawdry than the down-at-heel strip club: the coffee table. The line between populist (Morcheeba. Dido) and popular tl’ortishead. Air) is a fine one and (ioldfrapp have managed to stay on the right side of it. They broke into popular consciousness with the same mellow mix (‘Ds that kept Moby m loftt.
They have transcended these origins to become something altogether tnore loveable. Maybe it‘s her charm and unthreatening sauciness‘. maybe it's her lack of desire to wrestle with the big boys or to engage in debates with underground music snubs about her validity but we have taken (ioltlft'app to our collective bosom. lf pop music gets a bad name it's only because so much of it is ill thought out and painful. When it works. it really works. Those freak moments when common denominator pop photo-fits accidentally turn up with a gem ((iirls Aloud's ‘Sound of the l'nderground' was one) are joyous
20 THE LIST .1? fitrt. Hill/'5';
freaks. Goldfrapp is such a freak. but a slightly different beast. one that is as at home on C1): UK as it is on heavy rotation in a club.
For the video of ‘()h La La'. Goldfrapp rides around on a pony made of mirrors while her band — a motley melange of Roxy and Bowie babes — thud along in the background. The result is Studio 54 meets Robin '3' Nest. The music may be projected from Venus or Jupiter but the style
is straight from UK Gold. The cover of
Supernature has her posing in the buff with nothing but star-crossed foam phalluses for company (it‘s not just me who spotted that. surely? They‘re supposed to be mushrooms. you say‘.’ Aye. right).
She gleefully blends retro with the silly and surreal and. unlike the hordes of backward peering punkfunk enthusiasts who think a skinny tie and trebly guitar or antique keyboard is a one- way trip to musical salvation. she doesn’t appear to take herself too seriously. In a sea of earnest singer/songwriters. Goldfrapp is an ice-cream milkshake to their fizzy water.
But to be totally frank. (ioldfrapp‘s latest album .S'upw'naturc isn‘t a huge improvement on either of their first two. A development in places.
ALISON GOLDFRAPP WANTS TO BE THE LOVECHILD 0F MADONNA
AND ALVIN
ST ARDUST
it's tnore of the same in others but ultimately feels like a consolidation of half a decade‘s work. Goldfrapp herself chided her own debut for its need to ‘include everything. even the kitchen sink'. In retrospect. given the cut and thrust of the two that succeeded it. the languid serenity that swathed her 2000 debut Felt Mountain could be mistaken for torpor. The trippy. whistling solos and the chiming organs were Bacharach and David meeting Lalo Schifrin on a skiing holiday in Switzerland with John Bany and Shirley Bassey in the next chalet.
‘l.ovely Head‘ introduced a vocal style that wasn‘t so much breathy as just plain breathless. while ‘Human’ reminded us why Tricky picked her tip from relative obscurity to sing on Maxinqiaiye. Felt Mountain was truly special. though occasionally it felt like a band with sounds in their heads in search of songs. It took until 2003 to find an album full of them.
Behind every good pop star there‘s a collaborator bringing it all together. The role of Will Gregory. Goldfrapp‘s musical partner in
crime. is to help make flesh the pair‘s musical fantasies. a Wizard happy to spin out dreams in Alison‘s lyrical ()2. If their debut was a widescreen celluloid indulgence. then their second. 2003‘s Black Cherry: was a VHS sold under the counter. It was out with the whistling solos and in with sleazy grind-a-long dancefloor teasers. topped by the remarkable ‘Strict Machine‘. .S'u/m'naturc continues in the environs established there. creating a world where ‘the children of Venus roam‘. ‘gold shimmers‘ and ‘glitter lust’ is a very good thing.
‘Ride a White Horse' is a homage to Bianca Jagger's adventures atop such a beast. and craves the disco age. ‘At the disco/l want blisters/l want to ride a white horse.‘ she whispers. while musically it has more in common with the Thompson Twins than Chic. ‘Hy Me Away‘ harks back to the airy (if not Airy) ambience of Felt Mountain. reminding us that she is an emotive. if not overly showy. singer. ‘Lovely to See You‘ and 'Satin (‘hic' bring into focus just how much of a musical debt Scissor Sisters and Kylie owe to (ioldfrapp. while ‘Number I' and ‘Koko’ just make you want to dig out those old Depeche Mode albums you‘d forgotten about.
While it lacks some of its predecessor‘s rasp. .S'u/n'rnature is an accomplished. polished pop record. And if ‘()h [.21 La‘ sounds familiar. that‘s because pop music at its very best is a formula. and one that enjoys a make-up of very unstable molecules. Despite adding the right elements of pomp. pathos. fever and sex. the result may not come out exactly right. Just ask anyone who never managed to replicate their initial successes. (ioldfrapp have done so with style.
Their live debut in Scotland five years ago at Glasgow‘s (‘ottier Theatre gave us a first view of the diminutive (ioldfrapp in the flesh. her rigid stance only broken to berate a photographer who persisted in flash photographing her for the entire show. Goldfrapp gigs are now suitably lavish affairs. While keen to push her art school origins in interviews. she is able fully to indulge them on stage. When you know this is a person who once milked a cow for an. her version of an Amazonian woman roaming the stage sporting horses‘ tails seems almost commonplace.
This is the stuff of (ioldfrapp: fantastical. frivolous and suggestive. We don‘t want our pop stars to live next door. We want them to be unreal. Thank God then for Alison and her scorching hotpants. spaneg equines and seemingly uncontrollable asthma.
Goldfrapp play as part of a special Coca Cola Centrestage show at the Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, Thu 8 Sep. Visit www.coca-colacentrestage.com for tickets. They also play Carling Academy, Glasgow, Wed 12 Oct. Supernature is out now on Mute.