They are definitely a love âem or hate âem band but in recent years Iâve moved firmly from the second camp to the first.
I listened to them a fair bit over the years because people kept saying how bands I loved (eg Prefab Sprout) were influenced by them. I just couldnât hear anything apart from the surface gloss and I read the archness as insincerity. Both of those things were a real turn off.
One day they just clicked for me. I think the best way in is definitely Aja - an album that is perfectly formed, beautifully played, exquisitely produced but also packed from start to finish with superb songs. Once Iâd fallen for that record the earlier ones suddenly made sense to me and I became a bit obsessed with them. Those six albums up to and including Aja are all absolutely brilliant.
I think context helps in understanding them - two smartarse New York hipsters (in the original meaning of that word), obsessed with jazz and R and B (in the original meaning of those words), lost in an L.A. full of plastic sentiment, ace session players and cocaine, their whole career built from the uneasy alliance of those two worlds.
They exist in a weird space for me now - a band I love but absolutely understand why other people I respect might still hate. I just hope those people will one day see the light like I did.
My school music teacher had quite an influence on me. He played Bass in a band who had a song that reached like number 38 or something like that in the early 70âs I wish I could remember the name of the band but I canât. Anyway. In the school music room there was a record player and maybe 5 or 6 vinyl LPâs these were records that belonged to my music teacher. We were allowed to use the record player in our break etc.
I remember one of the records being Variations by Julian Lloyd Webber (south bank show theme)!? And the only other record I remember was pretzel logic by Steely Dan. This was my music teachers favourite band. He would talk about them a lot. So I would play it and I too loved them. A few years later I investigated their other stuff partly due to the De La Soul sample and partly through my love of Pretzel logic.
Their songwriting is exceptional but their musicianship is equally exceptional. What a tight sounding band. So many layers. A very influential band.
