MARCH 3. 2006 JU stout 35
music
On Their Own
Queer vocalists from Erasure, 4 Non Blondes go solo
by Jim Thompson
Electric Blue
Andy Bell • Sanctuary Records
Last May I traveled to San Francisco to check
out synth-pop veterans Erasure. The show was
predictably mind-blowing, musically and visually.
Frontman Andy Bell paraded flamboyantly around
in a number of bright, heavily sequined outfits,
singing his heart out to the adoring masses while
Vince Clarke occasionally strummed an acoustic
guitar or fiddled with his keyboards. I don’t think
he could have looked any more glum. At the time
I thought Clarke.was just trying to deflect attention
from himself, but now I know that he was just
incredibly depressed that Bell was releasing a solo
effort more consistently joyous than almost every
thing Erasure has released in the past decade.
Erasure’s recent music has increasingly been
the ideal soundtrack to sad afternoons and
evenings spent alone in the bedroom. Electric Blue
clearly signals Bell shaking off his typical lovelorn
blues and moving the party to the dance club.
Twelve of the 14 songs sound ready-made to be
pumping from speakers and getting bodies moving;
the other two are perfect for toweling off and
collecting digits before going home.
The supremely buoyant “Shaking My Soul”
offers the best use of horns since the heyday of the
Mighty Mighty Bosstones. “Delicious” is an awe
somely bitchy bad-relationship duet with Claudia
Brucken (formerly of Propaganda), who also ele
vates “hove Oneself,” which dispenses sage advice
from the HIV-positive Bell: “We only have one
life/This is not a rehearsal.” Also in the duet
department: Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears plays cas-
trato choirboy on the high-energy “1 Thought It
Was You.”
Melancholy-loving Erasure fans scared away
by the sheer ebullience of Electric Blue needn’t
worry. Spring promises the release of a new album
featuring Erasure classics rehashed acoustically.
In Flight
4 Non Blondes like last year’s cell phone model and
released 1995’s In Flight, a solo disc that, commer
cially speaking, never even left the ground.
Fast-forward 10 years and that same album has
been rereleased. Maybe Perry deserves a little self
indulgence since she has not exactly been idle since
her initial fadeout. In fact, she’s been a one-woman
hit songwriting and producing machine for Christina
Aguilera, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love and
others. In addition, she helped Juliette Lewis kick
start her musical career, wrote songs for a Gina
Gershon movie and created her own record label, to
which she signed rising British talent James Blunt.
However, Perry’s establishment of her own
mini-entertainment empire hardly warrants this
vanity project being dropped on an unsuspecting
public again. The original cover featured a hot air
balloon, an appropriate metaphor for the album
itself, which features 12 overlong, mostly acoustic
songs dominated by Perry’s abrasively bombastic
voice spouting lyrics that would resonate most with
chemical adventurers.
Whether she’s questioning Jesus’ love for her
(“Uninvited”), wondering if fame will change her for
the worse (“Success”) or asking whether she was
totally obnoxious at a party where she imbibed a bit
too heavily (“Fill Me Up”), it’s safe to say that few of
the people for whom she’s written songs would’ve
accepted any of this batch, except maybe Courtney
Love. “Knock Me Out” is notable only for backup
vocals from Jefferson Airplane/Starship belter Grace
Slick, but you immediately find yourself wishing
Slick would bust into “White Rabbit” or even “We
Built This City” just to break the monotony.
It was almost impossible to turn on the radio in
the early ’90s without being aurally assaulted by
one-hit wonder 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s .Up.”
Once this ubiquitous song ran its predictable
course, lesbian lead singer Linda Perry abandoned
I
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To be fair, there are a couple of winners here in
the form of the moody, haunting, Concrete
Blonde-esque “Life in a Bottle” and the homeless
stoner fantasy “Fruitloop Daydream,” which is mer
cifully brief and contains memorably hummable,
Soft Cell-quoting lyrics: “The drag queens, the
speed freaks, all the homo boys say ‘touch me baby,
tainted love.’ ” Minimal positives aside, 1 wouldn’t
look for the deluxe reissue of In Flight in 2015. ©
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