To Listen to in 2008 - Part 4

While you might think it perhaps just more of the usual fare I have to admit that I've had very considerable help here.
Thanks to Beki, who happens to have provided most of the trans-Atlantic input including several artists of which, if I had ever even heard of them before, I have no recollection of whatsoever. [I'm getting old you see...]
This first I was aware of; A Fine Frenzy is the alter ego of Los Angeleno singer-songwriter Alison Sudhol but it is not my place to attempt to even paraphrase the comment so I haven't:

"The singer has a great voice but I think I would end up seriously depressed if I listened to a whole album in one go."

Three more were mentioned and the artist that, as of now, I haven't investigated further is Tyler Hilton. The other two were these, again in her own words:

• Kate Voegele's album 'Don't look away' is actually rather good, she reminds me a bit of Michelle Branch.
• Colbie Caillat's album 'Coco' has also found it's way onto my laptop and I wasn't too sure at first but she's really growing on me... it's coffee shop music :)

Now these are two that had completely passed me by although, by virtue of being older I suppose, the name Caillat rang distant bells and, after some on-line investigations, this is why. Her father, Kenneth Caillat, was co-producer of one of the biggest selling pop albums of all time, Fleetwood Mac Rumors (1977) and also the, often maligned, Lindsey Buckingham-inspired follow-up double album Tusk (1979).

This was regarded as a failure, at least commercially, but it has now sold rather more than four million copies and for most that would be an heroic achievement - that it is not is comparative and simply because Rumors is now past the thirty million mark! The fact remains that almost everyone knows of Rumors, at least in passing, while Tusk is also a very good album but largely forgotten. I don't know where all the other copies are languishing but here is one that remains both loved and listened-to:

Warner Brothers K66088 in all its original vinyl glory.

This has proven very interesting and not just because I've discovered perhaps rather obviously that I'm not the only one willing to experiment by listening to things that can, in so far as they are discernible as a category, at best be lumped together as being 'beneath UK radar defences'. Some may in time become household names while others will doubtless disappear without trace, but equally that can happen to home-grown acts too and there is certainly no shortage of those either, in any flavour you might desire.

OK. I admit that I've gone a bit off-message here and so the ramblings will have to be continued in another post soon. This is why it is fun, not merely just another job.