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Album Review
by SashaS
10-1-2005
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| Goldfrapp: Wonderfully electrifying in L |
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Goldfrapp: 'Wonderful Electric - Live in London'
(MuteFilms)
Subvertainment #2: Funk.Rock.Electro.Fun.Punk.
Wow-man! Woman! Sometime during the show - featured on this DVD - an ancestry of strong female performers start to emerge: Madonna gets all the inch-columns she can wish for, having learnt her lesson from another babe of the 1970s - Deborah (formerly Debbie) Harry, the heart of Blondie, whose role models must have been Cher and Marianne Faithfull. Of course we shouldn’t forget Patti Smith and Cyndi Lauper…
It all originates in the jazz-age when ‘Mama Gob’ – Mae West - came to notoriety. There has never been a woman like her and every female since has only been a fluffier edition. The ‘Material Mum’ will never be convicted for obscenity like the woman whose good points caused a vest to be named after. All Maddy’s attempts to undermine socio-moral codes – ‘Sex’ book, onstage shag-simulations, Britney’n’Christina kissing antics – have been surpassed by Janet Jackson’s ‘dropped-out’ embonpoint.
Maddy’s smart and yet strangely bon-motless but still made the best use of obvious limitations: not a great voice, dubious talent but stubbornly ambitious. Well, less of a ‘dirty blonde’ and more of a stained-by-manipulation one.
The new generation of liberated-femmes, in spite of all braggadocio, such as Courtney Love and Brody Dalle, are somehow grotesquely diluted: it ain’t clever, it ain’t new and far from sexy… As if we’ve been trying to get kitsch to go up; there’s no doubt we’ve succeeded or… There are still strong women out there but public appears to prefer homely sexy Nat Bedingfield rather than utterly gorgeous Client babes or that delicious enigma who fronts Goldfrapp, Alison.
Titled 'Wonderful Electric - Live In London' the DVD features two very different sold out live London shows, one from the dates surrounding the latest album 'Black Cherry' [at London’s most beautiful courtyard, inside Somerset House] and one from the time of the debut disc, 'Felt Mountain', at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. And what two facets…
This DVD lets one see the show from the best seat in the house and allows to view it, despite being there, from a completely different perspective and make Ms Goldfrapp appear even more femme fatalistic. But, as in the most cases, it is an act, a public image, an artistic projection - what should be of our main interest and not Alison’s privacy which, by the way, she’s managing to keep under wraps.
‘Wonderful Electric’ instructs on creative, inventive, spiritual mindsets as well as Will Gregory and Alison’s development between the discs. Still, all performed with panache, easy-teasie sex-appeal and some f**king great songs. Apart two covers - Olivia Newton John’s ‘(Let’s Get) Physical’ is turned into ‘UK Girls (Physical)’ and Baccarat’s ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’, there are also two rare tracks from around the time of the Shepherd's Bush Empire show: 'Little Death' (which has never been released in any form) and 'Sartorious'. With added bonus of two documentaries made around the time of the tours.
The greatest underrated female artist in the UK today.
9.8/10
SashaS
23-5-2005
Goldfrapp’s DVD ‘Wonderful Electric - Live in London’ is available now on MuteFilms
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