Description

Black Box Recorder's third album, Passionoia, is an explicit reflection of their founding belief that they're here to teach us a lesson. Opening track "The School Song", sets out the syllabus, Sarah Nixey's signature hauteur and sarcasm invested in the persona of a martinette-ish headmistress: "You're late again," she informs the listener, "thank you so much for gracing us with your presence." The chorus demands "Destroy your record collection... it's for your own protection." This wish for an apocalyptic cleansing that will return art to Year Zero is a recurring theme in the works of Luke Hainesmore…, one of Black Box Recorder's two songwriters (one Auteurs song, "Tombstone", fantasised about blowing up London's rock & roll flophouse, the Columbia; Haines' solo albums are essentially a series of foam-flecked fatwas against his contemporaries). The idea is revisited here on "Being Number One", a jaundiced view from inside the maelstrom of fatuity that is the Popstars/Pop Idol phenomenon. Elsewhere, Passionoia revisits several of Black Box Recorder's favourite irritations. The closing track, "I Ran All the Way Home", is a mordantly funny recollection of childhood that could almost be a sequel to their debut single, "Child Psychology". "These Are the Things" is a brutally unsentimental dissection of relationships to file alongside "The Facts of Life". "The New Diana" is a scornful personification of the silliness of English popular culture, cut from the same cloth as "England Made Me". It's not that Black Box Recorder have run out of ideas--it's that, as they see it, the rest of us just won't learn. Like "The School Song" says: "You lot need a bit of toughening up... you're weak and spoiled, look at you." Harsh, but fair. --Andrew Mueller

Tracks

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Info:

Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

Comments:

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Cover Info:

Title:

Black Box Recorder - Passionoia (2003) Retail CD

Part:

CD

Dimensions:

751 x 758 px

Size:

233 KB

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61 (0 today)

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Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

28/08/07 by Sarge!

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