Hi Robert. Which album do you want to discuss this week?
‘Absolute midnights (20 songs, ★★★★☆) by Taylor Swift. What I like about Swift is that she has gone through so many different phases in her artistry. Whether you’re a big fan or not, I feel like almost everyone has a favorite Swift album. For me that is red, a country pop record. During the corona pandemic she made more quiet, acoustic indie and folk, and now a new pop record, but completely different from, for example reputation.
‘Midnights is all electronic, with mostly analog synthesizers and Swift’s voice. You hear that voice a lot, by the way: you sometimes hear her sing a hundred times at the same time, like an inner choir. Other than reputationwhich was sometimes an electronic funfair, is midnights very modest, full of calm, somewhat gloomy synthesizers. I do wonder if this will become the favorite record of a new generation of Swift fans. I don’t actually think so. The plate is full of beautiful, calm pop songs, such as bejeweled and maroon, but there are no gigantic hits on it either, on Anti-Hero after maybe.
‘All in all it’s a nice pop album, but not a masterpiece either. Yet we must not forget that this is the best listened album worldwide at the moment, as reviewer Gijsbert Kamer already writes. And that commands admiration. With this album, Taylor Swift is stepping out of her indie phase of the corona time, back into pop music. I’ll be buying it at the record store soon. midnights belongs in your vinyl cabinet.’
And then something completely different: Jean-Michel Jarre.
Jarre probably won’t say anything to younger people, but all my aunts and uncles used to have his records in the closet, next to Abba and Queen. The composer has a complicated academic background: he studied the musique concrete, a modernist French movement from the 1950s. For that music, everyday sounds were recorded and distorted, from voices to nature sounds and cars. Electronic compositions were then made from that.
‘Jarre then made accessible synthesizer albums and tried to hook up with dance in recent years, but on Oxymore (11 songs, ★★★★☆) 74-year-old Jarre celebrates the musique concrete from its early days, after the death five years ago of its great mentor, Pierre Henry. With this record Jarre honors his legacy, and he does it very well.
‘Oxymore’ is a hurricane of funny sounds, they shoot from left to right. That means you really have to listen to it on headphones. It sometimes seems as if you are listening with four ears at the same time. Very tiring on your living room speakers, but very nice on your headphones. Then you discover all the recorded sounds and you can trace where they come from. Jarre finds inspiration in history, you notice that immediately. I think this is his best record in years.’
Also worth listening to this week:
on I exist forever as long as you think of me (14 songs, ★★★☆☆) S10 is hypothermic and yet emotional, writes Gijsbert Kamer. She immediately evokes tension, but because of the sometimes too saucy arrangements, she doesn’t always keep it.