FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
PHOTO CREDIT: Ben Meadows
Part Twenty-Three: The Divine Comedy
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NEXT week will see me move out a bit…
and feature on a female artist and, also, go back to a more traditional format. I was keen to include The Divine Comedy in this feature, as they are a group I really love and, even though it essential consists Neil Hannon, he has worked with an array of musicians and singers through the years. I am not including a book for The Divine Comedy, as I cannot see one listed, but I have recommended the four albums you’ll want to own; one that is underrated and I think warrants closer examination, in addition to the latest one from a songwriting treasure. If you are not overly-familiar with Neil Hannon’s music and the brilliant force that is The Divine Comedy, then this guide should steer you towards the albums that…
YOU’LL want to own.
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The Four Essential Albums
Liberation
Release Date: 16th August, 1993
Label: Setanta
Producers: Neil Hannon/Darren Allison
Standout Tracks: Bernice Bobs Her Hair/Europop/Lucy
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Liberation/master/43809
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2LkPsyWPYhVMpvhgfR6kv8?si=fmdOyWcsTn2ZxfCYpcdwmw
Review:
“Hannon's masterstroke is forsaking traditional rock'n'roll posturing in favour of a melancholic approach which is underpinned by a full string section and a lone French Horn player who parps away so frantically that you can't help but wonder what sort of divilment these classical types get up to when they're not blowing, plucking or banging things.
Yer man is not, it has to be said, the happiest of campers. In fact, the likes of 'Death Of A Supernaturalist' and 'I Was Born Yesterday' are downright miserable but unfurl their tales of woe with such eloquence that Morrissey and Marc Almond comparisons are, I'm afraid, unavoidable.
'Bernice Bobs Her Hair', meanwhile, documents that most traumatic of adolescent experiences - a truly crap haircut: "Her hair was long, her hair was dark, her hair fell down her back and now it's on the floor/ The mirror tells of her mistake, her heart is fit to break." We were so distraught here in H.P. Central that we nearly chipped in to buy the poor lass Gazza-style hair extensions but, hey, why add to her problems?
'Europop' is laced with not entirely bitter irony, a Casio-driven ode to the pros and cons of Smash Hits stardom which has already gatecrashed into the indie top 10 and, with a bit more promotional zeal, could do the same in the grown-ups chart.
Hannon isn't adverse to a spot of constructive plagiarism either - 'Timewatching' is a gloriously flamboyant re-write of 'When I Fall In Love' while 'Lucy' takes Wordsworth's 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Steal' and turns it into the lushest of love songs. The moral here, I think, is that if you're going to rip something off, do it with a sense of panache!
'Europe By Train' is one of the few occasions when Liberation abandons its quasi-Englishness, a cheeky Zorba The Greek parody which is redolent of sunkissed Mediterranean islands and a severe overdose of Ouzo.
It might be argued - and I'm sure many of my colleagues will - that The Divine Comedy are a little too weighty and intellectual for current tastes but artistry shouldn't be limited by the marketplace and if this LP only sells half-a-dozen copies, it'll still be a triumph.
Ray Davies, I suspect, would wholeheartedly approve” – Hot Press
Choice Cut: The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count
Promenade
Release Date: 28th March, 1994
Label: Setanta
Producers: Neil Hannon/Darren Allison
Standout Tracks: Going Downhill Fast/Don't Look Down/Neptune’s Daughter
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Promenade/master/43821
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4MY1E61exkrdDyr28tMPcZ
Review:
“While in appearance, it seems like a sequel to Liberation -- a similar cover shot down to the typeface that is on the front, in this case showing Hannon in front of the IM Pei-designed entrance to the Louvre, while the back shows a similarly Rococo piece of decoration -- Promenade is in fact even more extremely and defiantly non-rock than its predecessor. With a larger number of string performers to accompany him, not to mention someone on oboe, sax, and cor anglais (English horn), Hannon retains only drummer/co-producer Darren Allison from the previous record to make what remains his most self-conscious art release to date. The opening "Bath" sets the course, with seacoast sounds and a brief spoken word bit that turns into a minimalist Michael Nyman homage before slamming into the song proper, where the guitars and bass take a back seat to the choir, strings, and woodwinds, all the while driven along by Allison's solid percussion. From there all kinds of twists and turns emerge in an alternate universe where classical instrumentation offers as much pop as a guitar strum. The extreme archness of "Going Downhill Fast" is also a pub singalong, while "Don't Look Down" builds to a dramatic, striking ending. Hannon's wickedly sharp wit informs almost everything; "The Booklovers" is the clear winner on that count, as Hannon tremulously recites a number of authors' names (with an appropriate accompanying sample or aside, often quite hilarious) over a stately arrangement. "A Seafood Song" and "A Drinking Song" celebrate exactly what they say they do, the latter offering up the great line "All my lovers will be pink and elephantine!" At the same time, the tender side of Hannon, which has sometimes been ignored, surfaces more than once, with "The Summerhouse," a nostalgic, wonderfully gentle piece on a lost season of love. This turns out to be one of Hannon's best songs ever” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: When the Lights Go Out All Over Europe
Casanova
Release Date: 29th April, 1996
Label: Setana
Producers: Neil Hannon/Darren Allison
Standout Tracks: Becoming More Like Alfie/In & Out of Paris & London/The Frog Princess
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Casanova/master/43787
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5zhKAcWDyjCIDk2yqxsHmV
Review:
“Finally, The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon has got the budget he deserves and has made the record that validates his past pretensions. The Barry White parody in the Jacques Brel-style tango Change aside, Hannon's vision of Scott Walker singing Noel Coward, arranged by Bacharach & Sondheim (and, in Casanova's case, "inspired by the writings of the 18th Century Venetian gambler, eroticist and spy"), is less concerned with parody than the realisation of a maverick vision. Something For The Weekend, Becoming More Like Alfie and Middle Class Heroes make for a terrific, pop-centred opening, there is an oasis of acoustic calm in Songs Of Love, while The Frog Princess and A Woman Of The World lead the way toward the big-ballad climax of the 40-piece-orchestra-at-Abbey-Road scenario, The Dogs And The Horses. With strong melodies and a lyrical treatise on love that smoulders with knowingly arch comedy, this is music to appeal across all pop tastes” – Q
Choice Cut: Something for the Weekend
Absent Friends
Release Date: 29th March, 2004 (U.K. & Europe)/4th May, 2004 (U.S.)
Labels: Parlophone (U.K. & Europe)/Nettwerk (U.S.)
Producer: Neil Hannon
Standout Tracks: Absent Friends/My Imaginary Friend/Our Mutual Friend
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Absent-Friends/master/43777
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6sJTXExBj2yCPRSukicLYz
Review:
“The title track could be the theme from High Chaparral that got left on the cutting room floor and features namechecks to Oscar Wilde, Steve McQueen and Willie Woodbine (whoever he is).
"Sticks And Stones", with its tense, stabbing strings is another song straight out of the movies - while "Charmed Life" is an epic string ballad that could have been written for Sinatra.
Essentially, Absent Friends is the soundtrack of a man who's never been happier, yet is keen to remember the bad times to put things in perspective. New single "Come Home Billy Bird" - with gorgeous backing vocals from Lauren Laverne - is the tale of an over-worked businessman who overcomes a series of obstacles to make his boy's first football match.
"The Wreck Of The Beautiful" follows the haunting last rites of a once-great battleship and "Our Mutual Friend" recalls the pal who introduced Hannon to a woman, then took her for himself. The cad. Light relief comes in the shape of "My Imaginary Friend" - Bowie's "Laughing Gnome" dragged into the 21st century - but the laughs are generally few and far between.
Anyone expecting a return ticket for the National Express is going to be disappointed. Persevere, though, and you'll find it's the smoothest ride you've had in ages” - BBC
Choice Cut: Come Home Billy Bird
The Underrated Gem
Bang Goes the Knighthood
Release Date: 31st May, 2010
Label: Divine Comedy
Producer: Neil Hannon
Standout Tracks: Down in the Street Below/Bang Goes the Knighthood/I Like
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Bang-Goes-The-Knighthood/master/254740
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/71aizAHZJTH9fH2T0y2F5O
Review:
“Elsewhere, any trace of disdain for the National Trustafarians seeking stately homes to visit in "Assume The Perpendicular" ("Lavinia loves the lintels, Anna the architraves/Ben's impressed by the buttresses thrust up the chapel nave", etc) is conveyed solely by the way the banjo punctures the pomposity of the brass arrangement. Something similar happens with the prancing music-hall piano of "The Complete Banker", though as the title suggests, even Hannon can't resist a gentle tilt at this most deserving modern Aunt Sally. Most skillfully of all, with "Neapolitan Girl" he returns to the Eurotrash territory previously visited in "A Lady Of A Certain Age", employing a jolly, lightly chugging Europop setting for a really rather dark song about Italian girls selling sex to feed themselves in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War: in Hannon's hands, their plight is varnished with a Riviera Touch of empathic glamour that is implicitly forgiving.
It's not an entirely successful collection : "Can You Stand Upon One Leg" is a silly, throwaway kids song – Hannon's Sesame Street moment, maybe – and "The Lost Art Of Conversation", his Beatlesque pop piece about the delights of discourse, is little more than an excuse to string together ludicrously literate lists of subjects for discussion.
But like The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, when Hannon keeps his inner show-off restrained, he can lay waste to one's emotions. Here, it's his poignant analysis in "When A Man Cries" of the difference between childish tears and adult tears – the one so public and profuse, the other so private and piercingly intense – that cuts to the quick in a manner made all the more intense in coming from one best known as a social satirist” - Belfast Telegraph
Choice Cut: At the Indie Disco (ft. Cathy Davey)
The Latest Album
Office Politics
Release Date: 7th June, 2019
Label: Divine Comedy
Producer: Neil Hannon
Standout Tracks: Queuejumper/Norman and Norma/Philip and Steve's Furniture Removal Company
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/The-Divine-Comedy-Office-Politics/master/1560254
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5BrYBrnS8Lp9AzzECZASKd
Review:
“However, at times, Office Politics seems a little too aware of its joke, not unlike like the disco-dope of “The Life and Soul of the Party,” showing off drunken dance moves and rambling to co-workers who do not care. The punchline—that he’s alone and no one likes him—is obvious from the song’s opening line: we get it, office and suburban life are dull, but by this point in the album, it’s a cliche.
“Phillip and Steve’s Furniture Removal Company,” goes on a little too long; it’s supposed to be the theme song for an imaginary show (as explained in the skit that precedes it) and although I would absolutely watch 30 seasons of it, I would skip the 4 minutes and 51 seconds theme song—the longest track on the album—nine times out of then. The other semi-skit piece, “Psychological Evaluation,” which lays heavier on the synths than “The Synthesizer Service Center Super Summer Sale,” is obnoxious and immensely unpleasant to listen to, a hard recovery as the album starts to lose momentum.
The songs that are sincere, such as the domestic drama “Norman and Norma,” and the brokenhearted lover’s lament, “A Feather in Your Cap” are surprisingly so, so much so that I waited for a punchline that never quite came. In the case of the former, I’m actually happy that Norman and Norma—who we’ve seen raise their children and fall into romantic complacency—find their bliss in battle reenactments. “I’m a Stranger Here,” a simple piano-based melodic operetta, punctuated by sweetly swirling strings, about a time traveler trying to navigate his new surroundings, plays similarly. A sweet plea for assistance as he realizes the life and home he knows is gone, he sings, “If you ask where I come from, I’ll say ‘the past’ and wander on” - PASTE
Choice Cut: Infernal Machines