It's Not Me, Its You...

I got myself in a kind of loop this week hence the lack of posts.
I like to think that I have a good memory and that this is a good thing. It is but very occasionally it has a downside and one manifestation is that most of the music I can remember suddenly doesn't seem so interesting at all! This has happened before and I know it is only a temporary thing, so nothing really to worry about, but now I have realised it might have a benefit - or perhaps be more of an excuse! It is not my fault and so, if I have enough albums, surely there will come a point at which I can't possibly even remember them all, let alone whether I like them or not? My tastes change anyway, as I mentioned recently, so that should help too. It is possible that I have enough already but I'm not going to take any chances...

This evening I even got bored with the radio, but there are some current singles I should mention, and thus went to explore my collection in some detail. I created a small stack of things that made me curious - some of which you'll probably be glad that I rejected - and finally settled on this one for starters.

It's Not Me, It's You - The Free French.

It did the trick, hence this post and its title. Listening to it now, twice this evening, it strikes me that it fits current UK pop sensitivity well in many ways. What I find interesting about this is that it was released, as hitBACK Records 25CD, in 2003. If you are curious too it is happily still readily available. The Free French is essentially South London-based singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Rhodri Marsden aided by any (variable) number of collaborators for the performance aspects. The music is good and the lyrics can at times be even better still, if slightly strange. And track 5 Metaphorically contains a reference to Ribena (a blackcurrant soft drink seemingly largely confined to the UK) thus proving that (another Londoner) Estelle's current single featuring Kanye West is not the first song to mention it!

There was an earlier album, Running On Batteries (2002) that I also have and a later one, A Place Of Our Own (2005) that I don't. They are both readily available and I've just ordered the latter to complete my collection. I am currently unaware if The Free French is still a going concern but only because I haven't yet attempted to investigate.

This is the week this is...

'That Was the Week That Was' was a BBC radio production featuring many of the great names of radio in its time, which was about that when The Beatles were heading for domination of the music world in a way previously unimaginable but, some 46 years later, this is the week that has created some, admittedly 'red-top', newspaper headlines that echo through the decades:

• Sir Paul McCartney (a certified "National Treasure", as several of the cast of the BBC radio show were, or later became) was finally divorced from Heather Mills.

• Carla Bruni-Sarkozy made a state trip to Britain and she was of course accompanied by her husband Nicolas, who just happens to be the President of France. Truth to tell they both played their parts brilliantly: Gordon Brown talked about a new political entente formidable and the next morning, while on a boat trip down the Thames, the newly-weds played the UK media thing to perfection with an entente à deux as they shrugged off the fact that one UK tabloid paper had reprised an old picture of Mme. Bruni-Sarkozy, sans vêtements and taken on a modelling shoot in the early 1990s, by sharing a snog in front of the media cameras. She has also recorded two albums (one in French and one in English) that have had some critical acclaim. French politics has had its fair share of scandal but never has it been quite so honest, transparent and legal!

• This week UK music has done a remarkable thing. To paraphrase the 1988 single by Sting (and without any mercy on my part) West Londoner in New York, Estelle, displaced Duffy at the top of the UK single chart with the single 'American Boy', sung with Kanye West. That is not very remarkable but simultaneously East Londoner, and winner of X-Factor 2006, Leona Lewis is at #1 in the US singles chart with the single 'Bleeding Love' - and she only the third UK solo female artist to take a début single to #1 in the US.