Artists you like that hardly anyone else on OTF does

[Gert from the Well]

Whilst not a completist, I have a lot of time for Coil

[BallochSonsFan]

I was listening to New York Tendaberry this morning and realised how much Laura Nyro's music has woven its way through my life. Her voice, at times just a half note from being harsh or off key, has fascinated me forever. Her music and lyrics with their echoes of Gershwin and Goffin/King were an evocation of New York (mostly) that somehow covered the twenties through the seventies. On stage I found her hypnotic, a large but slightly nervous presence in her floor length black velvet dress and single red rose. Like her voice, in person, she was devastatingly beautiful but also slightly awkward on the verge of clumsy. Janis Ian, who was at school with her, says she was nicknamed Morticia Addams. An immensely talented eccentric loner she always stood out.

Here's her live version of Poverty Train at Monterey. It didn't go down particularly well, she was just 18 but didn't really fit in with "the Love Crowd" as Otis aptly put it. What did they know, both the song, singer and writer were profoundly gorgeous.

I like Laura Nyro.

I've got a copy of Eli on vinyl that I found a few years ago.

[Amor de Cosmos]

A marvellous record. In fact her first five albums, until her short-lived "retirement" at 24 are, for me, as good an opening run as I'm aware of by any artist, including Dylan and the Beatles.

[Satchmo Distel]

So how many other OTFers enjoy The Carpenters?

When they're good, they are very, very good. For example, their version of 'A Song For You' is a gem:

[Cal Alamein]

Grew up w/ The Carpenters, will always be a fan.

[diggedy derek]

Surely most people enjoy a bit of The Carpenters. Bathe in the silken luxury

[Sits]

Goodbye To Love still makes my Desert Island playlist.

[Jah Womble]

If it weren’t for the occasional unnecessarily OTT saccharine production, they would be far more regularly played here.

Some good songs, however, and Karen of course had a great voice.

[Amor de Cosmos]

She absolutely did, but it was practically inaudible without mic-ing apparently.

[Jah Womble]

Well, I guess that’s what they’re there for.

Her recordings do rather sound like there’s a bit of ‘gain’ added to Karen’s voice - some tracks sound like she’s right in your ear. Which of course is no bad thing.

[diggedy derek]

Talking about Rick Astley, I like a small but significant slice of the Stock Aitken Waterman catalogue. Astley's much-derided "Never Gonna Give You Up" sounds to me like a sophisticated New York garage track. It's a decent song, he's got a superlative voice, and they do it justice with their production.

Mel & Kim's work with SAW sounded incredible for the first year or so. "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)" is quite an unusual song I think, kind of a bit like one of Chic's disco chants, but it's sort of austere and minor key. And obviously "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" is absolutely remarkable.

I keep on thinking I should listen back to their catalogue as a whole, despite how cheesy it eventually got.

[hobbes]

The thing about SAW is that they were relatively interesting to start with. Right up until 1987 they were doing stuff that was pretty good and sometimes quite radical. Showing Out and FLM by Mel &Kim, Bananarama's Venus, some of the Hazel Dean stuff. I mean, this is just mad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jet7bnbN1bc-
It was when they did "I should Be So Lucky" and realised they could make ultra fortunes from newly cash-rich pre-teens by crimping out the same by-the-numbers aural turds over and over again with a different Australian soap star on the cover that they stopped bothering. Why be inventive when you own the publishing rights, the artist is already well-known so you don't have to spend on marketing and young kids like shiny and repetitive?

I've nothing against disposable pop - lord knows it often makes for the best listening. It's just SAW hit on a formula and that formula was deeply unpleasant. Like 5 years of listening to Crazy Frog on repeat.

[gjw100]

Talking about Rick Astley, I like a small but significant slice of the Stock Aitken Waterman catalogue. Astley's much-derided "Never Gonna Give You Up" sounds to me like a sophisticated New York garage track. It's a decent song, he's got a superlative voice, and they do it justice with their production.

Mel & Kim's work with SAW sounded incredible for the first year or so. "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)" is quite an unusual song I think, kind of a bit like one of Chic's disco chants, but it's sort of austere and minor key. And obviously "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" is absolutely remarkable.

I keep on thinking I should listen back to their catalogue as a whole, despite how cheesy it eventually got.

There are certainly some gems to be found in the SAW back catalogue dd, especially in those early years. This, the original version of 'Whenever You Need Somebody' by O'Chi Brown, a song repurposed a few years later for Rick Astley (who made a pretty good fist of it) could have come straight out of that New York garage scene that you refer to.

[Jah Womble]

WYNS was easily Astley’s best moment - almost certainly for the above reason.

To the ‘good’ SAW pile above (almost all with which I’d concur), I’d add their own Roadblock, which was a very decent club track. Otherwise, I’m pretty much down with what hobbes said…

[gjw100]

I seem to recall that 'Roadblock' was anonymously 'pre-released' as a fake bootleg, and picked up by a number of hip club DJ's who mistakenly thought it was a rare slice of 70's funk and played it to death before its true provenance was revealed..

[diggedy derek]

Thanks for all the above, great knowledge!

I completely forgot another early Rick Astley thing, not produced by SAW I think, but I think associates, in 1987 he was on some straight up Chicago house-type sides

As Hobbes observes SAW became boring as hell but they were simply going where the audience and the money were.

By the 90s pwl had a sidelabel Black Diamond that was releasing (or at least licensing) some decent rave songs

[Auntie Beryl]

The first Princess album (1986) - Say I'm Your Number One, Tell Me Tomorrow, After The Love Has Gone, etc - was very decent, SAW looking across at early Jam & Lewis productions and doing something similar.

Their innovations tended to be of the "what's that over there? Let's lift it" nature, but not everybody can be at the cutting edge and they certainly knew what a hit was, even if post-1987 it mostly went a bit Big Fun & Sonia.

[diggedy derek]

Their innovations tended to be of the "what's that over there? Let's lift it" nature

Totally

[Jah Womble]

I hadn’t realised until now that SAW produced Princess.

So, yeah, that too.

[WOM]

And obviously "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" is absolutely remarkable.

Never got the fuss over YSMR. I always thought Brand New Lover was the better track.

[johnr]

The thing about SAW is that they were relatively interesting to start with. Right up until 1987 they were doing stuff that was pretty good and sometimes quite radical. Showing Out and FLM by Mel &Kim, Bananarama's Venus, some of the Hazel Dean stuff. I mean, this is just mad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jet7bnbN1bc-
It was when they did "I should Be So Lucky" and realised they could make ultra fortunes from newly cash-rich pre-teens by crimping out the same by-the-numbers aural turds over and over again with a different Australian soap star on the cover that they stopped bothering. Why be inventive when you own the publishing rights, the artist is already well-known so you don't have to spend on marketing and young kids like shiny and repetitive?

I've nothing against disposable pop - lord knows it often makes for the best listening. It's just SAW hit on a formula and that formula was deeply unpleasant. Like 5 years of listening to Crazy Frog on repeat.

They were doing the same in a studio in Charlton some years before that - first time I met Matt Aitken (he was sharing a flat with a good friend at the time, and she recorded the original Spin Me Round demo) he was at the mixing desk killing himself laughing at the woman in the booth who had paid him and Stock a pretty penny to layer her voice over some generic pop pap. They'd advertised it in the local paper.

They were skilled at what they did, but were also a couple of complete knobheads. This observation is in no way connected to the fact that it was Aitken who suggested to the guitarist in my band that they get rid of me, the drummer. The guitarist obliged, but I'm not bitter...

[DPDPDPDP]

I went right back to the start of this thread, not realising that I had already posted. Looking at some of the artists mentioned by others. I Love:

Lloyd Cole (both with and post Commotions)
Big Country
Tom Petty
Nick Cave (but only his ballad stuff)
Paul Heaton & Jacqueline Abbot.

I already posted that I love some not so well known bands such as Friends Again and then The Bathers, and The Orchids. Another big favourite of mine are Trembling Blue Stars (with Bobby Wratten, ex-Field Mice the main man, and the brilliant melancholic, melodic songs are mainly about Bobby’s relationship with TBS band member AnnMarie Davies and then their subsequent break up)