Julee Cruise – The Art Of Being A Girl
It’s been a long time since we heard anything out of Julee Cruise – too long. More like a decade, really. Okay, she’s done a few guest appearances, some soundtrack one-offs, and stuff like that, but ten years is a long time between solo projects – long enough for everyone except the most ardent fans to forget. Fortunately, Julee’s got plenty of those – her big exposure came along with a little show called Twin Peaks, something which it seems had nothing but ardent fans.
The Art Of Being A Girl owes less to the ethereal, dreamy style of Twin Peaks or her two previous solo albums than it does to that more recent work. Moby, Hybrid and numerous other acts have engaged Julee’s vocal services in recent years, and she’s become something of a known quantity in techno and especially lounge music circles. It’s that genre that she’s exploring in Art, and that genre from which she draws guests and producers of her own.
To be fair, it’s not the total culture shock that longtime Julee fans might expect. Despite being a bit funky, Art evokes the same smoky feel as Floating Into The Night, but in a slightly more modern sonic setting. It’s not as different as you might think. Truthfully, her Scream soundtrack selection (“If I Survive”) with Hybrid was more of a jarring change than this is.
And yet, there are some major shifts – the little monologues between songs are new (her ruminations on a superficial party crowd leading up to the opening strains of “You’re Staring At Me” are hilarious), and the kind of torchy jazz that made her a hit with Twin Peaks fans is now filtered through some decidedly modern influences – as the label on the shrinkwrap puts it, this CD falls into the categories of “lounge,” “chill-out” and “downtempo” all at the same time (quite a feat). Some of the new directions explored here include almost Siouxsie-ish vocals on “Falling In Love” amd “Three Jack Swing”, and giving any modern R&B diva you care to name a run for their money with the silky “The Fire In Me” (which, unannounced on the track list, also features a modernized take on “Falling”, Julee’s Twin Peaks theme song). At the heart of 
many of the songs, though, it’s still the sparing, alluring sound that dates back to her earlier works.
I highly recommend this one to Julee’s old fans, and to the listeners who may not have dug her earlier works – she might just reel you in with this one.
… Read more
- You’re Staring At Me (3:42)
- The Orbiting Beatnik (4:28)
- Falling In Love… (5:56)
- The Art Of Being A Girl (4:57)
- Everybody Knows (3:11)
- 9th Ave. Limbo (5:05)
- Slow Hot Wind (3:57)
- Cha Cha In The Dark (4:15)
- Shine (4:16)
- Beachcomber Voodoo (4:49)
- Three Jack Swing (3:53)
- The Fire In Me + bonus track Falling (15:27)
Released by: Water Music
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 63:56
Y’know, when she started out in the mid-1990s, I used to defend Jewel against the popular “Hippie Spice” insult that was often hurled her way, as I really liked that first album of hers, and even liked the second. A couple of years ago, I was a bit more ambivalent about her third album. And now?
I have no problem with artists reinventing themselves – hell, Madonna started working with William Orbit and came up with my favorite stuff from her in years – but something’s rotten in the state of Denmark here. I really hope Jewel’s “club music epiphany” is short-lived. Not that I don’t like that style of music, but there are people out there doing it so much better than she is.
Fleetwood Mac is back in the studio – it must be the end times after all! Sadly, they’re back in the studio as a quartet, minus the divinely classy Christine McVie, and it’s just not the same.
Hmmmmm.
Originally devised as a band that would “pick up where the ‘Beatles’ I Am The Walrus’ left off,” the Electric Light Orchestra was well on its way to carving out its own admittedly unconventional niche when the band’s leadership was split down the middle. Stunned by the sudden defection of founding member Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and company regrouped, brought in a few more players, and kept the band’s original mandate – a rock group with its own live string section – intact. The result, in 1972, was two vinyl sides of beauty running the gamut from heavy metal to near-classical rock to ballads. Now, some 31 years later, the result is two full-length CDs of that same beauty and then some.
So, Blue Man Group’s going to do an album with lyrics, eh? A rock album no less! But fear not – the Blues haven’t sold out. If anything, The Complex expands their repertoire in a way that keeps even their seasoned, long-time fans on their toes, and demonstrates that their distinctive instrumental sound can serve as the core of some great rock music.
A nice package, though I might have been just as happy buying a single CD of the score and leaving the songtrack half of this collection to those who were more inclined toward that style of music – though it’s hard to complain at the single-CD price, and it has convinced me to check out Rob Dougan’s Furious Angels album. Ahhh…the power of cross-marketing.
It was almost inevitable that Pete Yorn would suffer a bit of a sophomore slump with Day I Forgot, his followup to musicforthemorningafter – if I started raving about Day I Forgot as much as I did about the last album, you’d probably suspect me of being on the Yorn payroll. But “not being as good as one of Dave’s Damn Near Perfect albums” is not all that penetrating a review, so I feel compelled to say a little bit more on behalf of what is, in its own right, a fine musical achievement.
So, according to the press blurb, the Afro Celt Sound System shed the “sound system” portion of its name because the band is refocusing on a more organic, acoustic sound. Yes, that’s why their new album opens with a vocoder-and-synth solo, because they want to sound more natural. In all seriousness, though, the “more acoustic” claims aren’t entirely unfounded. What they’re talking about is a more audible presence for some excellent and decidedly non-electric guitar in many of the ten new songs. It may not seem like this would make a huge difference, but you’d be surprised.