FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Feist – The Reminder
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I have not featured…
a Feist solo album in Vinyl Corner before. I want to induct The Reminder, as it is one of my favourites of hers. Released in April 2007, it contains one of her best-known own songs, 1234. The entire album is brilliant! One of the best albums of 2007, The Reminder debuted on the US Billboard 200 at number sixteen. It debuted at number two in Canada, selling just over 18,000 copies. I would encourage people to buy The Reminder on vinyl. Canadian-born Feist continues to produce stunning music. Her latest album, Pleasure (her fifth), was released on 2018. Although not her best-reviewed album, I think The Reminder is her most interesting. It did get a lot of acclaim when it was released. Her vocals are so extraordinary and beautiful. Her songwriting is unique and engrossing. Across thirteen track, The Reminder is a wonderful listen. I am going to bring together a couple of reviews for The Reminder. In their review, this is what Entertainment Weekly wrote in 2007:
“Like her 2005 breakthrough Let It Die, Leslie Feist’s latest shows how this critics’ darling also woos regular folks. She has a sexy, slyly powerful, charmingly imperfect voice. She crafts deliciously catchy, acoustic-based songs with motifs recalling ’80s radio hits (from Springsteen to Soft Cell) as much as the ’00s Toronto indie-rock scene she began in. And her simple lyrics both seduce (”On milky skin my tongue is sand”) and court singalongs (”1, 2, 3, 4/Tell me that you love me more”). In short: The Reminder is another multifaceted gem. A”.
I might actually quote a couple of other reviews, just to get different perspectives on the album. Before then, I wanted to focus on the huge track, 1234. In 2017, NPR interviewed Feist. She was asked about the reaction to the success of The Reminder and 1234:
“You achieved huge success in 2007 with your album The Reminder, but you've said your goal since then was to "descend the ladder with dignity and go back to the altitude that [you] can breathe at." Does that mean that you'd leave music altogether — or at least the way you've been doing it, the tours and the limelight?
No, I think it meant — before The Reminder sort of took on a life of its own, I had been playing for so long where I felt that any of my own effort would be — I could feel the response. Like, if I worked hard, then A, B or C; there would be a response that I could sense had come from me. And it made me feel like my hands were on the steering wheel.
"1234," off [The Reminder], kind of took on a life of its own. It sort of pulled me along with it. But I actually enjoy playing smaller venues, and I enjoy that rarefied air of a smaller group of people being in a room together and passing those two hours together. There's a synergy that can happen that can't happen at the Hollywood Bowl, for instance — or at least it can't happen for me, because I really enjoy and feel invested in the quieter side of things. So yeah, I basically just meant going back to a place that would be sustainable, that I can imagine enjoying when I'm 90”.
I have listened to The Reminder a lot. It is a great album from an artist who I think remains underrated. Maybe Feist is a bit more underground than some artists; not someone who yearns for the spotlight and fame. She is an artist that everyone should know about. This is what the BBC observed in their review:
“In nearly ten years, Feist has rarely paused for breath. That is until now. Holed up in a 19th century château on the outskirts of Paris in 2006, Feist set about recording this, her third full-length release. With Jamie Lidell, Dominic “Mocky” Salole, and Eirik Glambek Boe (Kings Of Convenience) all contributing, The Reminder was recorded in a two-week spell of concentrated creativity.
It shows, too. The Reminder is easily the most focused thing Feist has released to date. True, it isn't quite as eclectic as Let It Die, but in the first four tracks alone there's plenty to showcase the breadth of her talent. On gentle opener “So Sorry”, she lays graceful Joni Mitchell tones over an acoustic groove, before letting her hair down on the Rilo Kiley-esque “I Feel It All”, one of the album's many gems.
Piano-driven first single “My Moon My Man” struts along like a Goldfrapp number, showing off the singer's sassy side, while “The Park” takes things down to grass roots level, literally: it's a beautiful tale of London parklife, accompanied by the sound of birdsong. With her understated and melancholy folk strum, Feist comes across like the big sister of Conor Oberst, the song evoking Bright Eyes' drunken lullaby, “Lua”. Later, there's an infectious and spirited version of the rootsy classic “Sea Lion Woman”, with more than its fair share of hand claps (see also: “Past In Present”).
It's hard to choose, but “1 2 3 4” is probably the record's stand-out track, and it looks destined to be The Reminder's second single. It's three minutes of summery euphoria that will almost certainly be the soundtrack to an advert for mobile phones before long; after all, what else brings a bunch of terribly good-looking people together like the sound of a banjo?
In short: the girl done good, yet again. Do yourself a favour and buy this record; it's really rather lovely”.
I am going to round up with a review from Pitchfork (or some of it). Among other things, they discussed Feist’s songwriting and why she is a step above many of her peers:
“Unlike the half-covers/half-original split of Let It Die, every song but one was at least co-written by Feist on The Reminder. (And her buzzing take on the traditional playground sing-along "Sea Lion Woman" makes it distinctively Feist-ian anyway.) Whereas her last album's smoothed-out eclecticism could be both daunting and empty, The Reminder is equally diverse yet more full-blooded. From the indie pop of "I Feel It All" to the creeping electro-ballad "Honey Honey", the album ambles effortlessly; its musical palette is wide enough to stave off repetition yet innate enough to offer an intense cohesiveness. The record's keen combination of off-the-cuff production and no-fat songwriting is likely linked to its method: With several songs whittled down over years of performances, Feist-- aided by her usual one-named conspirators Gonzales and Mocky, along with Jamie Lidell and others-- recorded them in less than a week in a manor outside Paris. Fleeting touches from horns, glockenspiels, makeshift choirs, and other subtle accoutrements never announce themselves ostentatiously. Instead, the LP relies on a modest refinement that breaks with current singer-songwriter trends that promote infinite ambition in lieu of the basics-- melody, arrangement, feeling.
Hardly the first singer-songwriter to love, live, lose, and emote, Feist once again elevates herself above countless other diary-keeping tunesmiths with a voice that could make even Dick Cheney weep. Marked by specks of Dusty Springfield's soul, Björk's confrontational adventurousness, and Joni Mitchell's warmth, the singular allure of Feist's vocals is difficult to deny or overstate. You might hear her over cappuccino-machine hisses in Starbucks, but her direct-line moans easily cut through the biscotti muzak. And on The Reminder, her whisper-to-wail control-- exemplified by stark heart-tuggers "The Water" and "Intuition"-- is even more striking than before.
"With sadness so real that it populates the city and leaves you homeless again," coos Feist on "The Park", a desolate, lovelorn lament. The song-- with its references to a relationship torn by distance, omnipotent nature (a carefree bird can be heard mocking Feist's sadness in the background), and a hazy "past" that offers partly-forgotten flickers and flashes-- is a fitting summary of The Reminder's wounded pleas. Leery of a sixth sense, the songstress concludes "Intuition" with a question, "Did I miss out on you?"-- its insolubility packing more ache than a hundred clear-cut break-up songs. Such eternally spotty "what if?" queries needn't always strike such dour chords. On the shaggy, Broken Social Scene-esque romp "Past to Present", the refrain ("There's so much past inside my present") has the singer embracing yesteryear with a proud vitality. But no matter where she sits on love's teeter-totter-- down on the after-the-fact apology of "I'm Sorry" or aloft in heady infatuation on "Brandy Alexander"-- her philosophy-of-self is sound”.
Go and get Feist’s The Reminder on vinyl if you can. It is a wonderful album with so many standout songs. One of the very best albums of 2007, I think that every record lover should go and out and get themselves a copy…
OF The Reminder.