A Symphony of British Music: Music For The Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games (Album Review)

As with my review of the double-CD set of the opening ceremony - http://wavgoodbye.blogspot.com/2012/08/isles-of-wonder-music-for-opening.html - the CD of the closing ceremony is a great memento of the evening and, aside from a few bits here and there, is a top collection of music from the event and an improvement on what is included over the previous collection.

Firstly, even though the vast majority of the tracks on this two CD set are live, there is no crowd sound so there is a certain level of atmosphere missing, which is a real shame.

On the fourteen track CD-One we get the atmospheric openings from the ceremony, which give the ceremony the grandiose opening you’d hope for and include the Stomp and Winston Churchill sections, and then the live renditions of the key opening songs, including ‘Our House’ by Madness, which actually sounds better than I remember it watching it on television, to the band version of Blur’s ‘Parklife’ which is a style I’d like to hear the track performed in again – though it’s only just over a minute it’s a cracking interpretation.

The Pet Shop Boys are on top form on ‘West End Girls’, you can tell it’s live but Neil Tennant’s live voice is excellent, and Ray Davies’ version of ‘Waterloo Sunset’ completes a quartet of well adapted songs for the live environment. Thankfully, unlike live, we don’t have to listen to them all again on loop.

‘One Direction’ are conspicuous in their absence on the CD – surely this would have been one “for the kids” – but we do get Emile Sande’s hauntingly touching live take on ‘Read All About It (Part Three)’.

After David Arnold’s ‘Parade of Athletes’ we get the two well-composed Elbow tracks in full and the Kate Bush remix of her ‘Running Up The Hill’ track. Though the remix is not a million miles away from the original version it’s nice to hear such a good track on here, though why we get a studio recording over, say, One Direction’s live version of their track I don’t know. I’m not saying I’m a massive fan of 1D – I’m anything but – but it seems an usual stylistic choice. Especially when we get the inferior Annie Lennox track on the next disc, but more on that shortly.

The disc comes to an end with the collaboration on ‘Here Comes The Sun’, a stylistic highlight of the ceremony with a nicely constructed range of music styles and influences, a piece by David Arnold and then a small and welcome but a little bit pointless excerpt from Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

Disc two is really where it earns its right to be a worthwhile purchase. Kicking off with a nicely adapted version of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ – the original with a choir stuck under it, but stuck in an enjoyable way – the CD decides to skip past the fun ‘Freedom ‘90’ sung by George Michael and giving us ‘White Light’ instead. Though this version is twice as good as the questionable single release, with a much more satisfying electronic feel, it doesn’t help the cause of Michael denying he sang this song to fit the mood rather than boost the single sales. Hearing back to the lyrics make it seem even more self-centered than before. Strange.

We do get the great cover of The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’ by the Kaiser Chiefs and, like I felt at the actual viewing, we should have got more from them. Their cover here is spirited and captures the mood and would have loved to have heard one more song by them, especially when George Michael got two bites at the cherry, the Who practically did their whole discography and Jessie J appeared on more songs than a cowbell at an indie concert.

In this second half, in the absence of ‘Freedom 90’ we get the studio version of David Bowie’s ‘Fashion’, just one of the many songs played by Bowie and probably the least interesting especially when the fashion model visuals aren’t included with it. At least it’s better to hear than Annie Lennox’s tedious ‘Little Bird’.

The CD is more consistent with the track order now as we get the Ed Sheeran and Pink Floyd ‘Wish You Were Here’ collaboration, which isn’t really my cup of tea, but it’s a fun ensemble version.

Even Russell Brand and Bond’s collaboration on the Beatles’ ‘I Am The Walrus’ has actually grown on me and though ‘Pure Imagination’ that precedes it I can give or take, the cover is actually a fun version and Brand’s enthusiasm is energetic. It’s not a million miles away from the original but it’s spirited and enjoyable live.

After some shortened version of two Fatboy Slim classics – no real difference from the originals other than they’re cut down from the single releases but nice to hear nonetheless – we do get to the best bit of the gig with the cracking well-crafted mash-up montage of ‘Price Tag’,’ Written In The Stars’ and ‘Dynamite’ by Jessie J, Tinie Tempah and Taio Cruz, which are all well sung and mashed-up together, even if Jessie does mysteriously sing ‘Can you fold that chair’ on the piece. I think. Possibly.

This bleeds into a jazzy and welcome cover of the Bee Gees’ ‘You Should Be Dancing’, with a welcome new rap from Tinie Tempah, and then the much anticipated medley from the Spice Girls with a hilarious car-horn opening to ‘Wannabe’, but listening back both tracks sound suspiciously like the single versions and with so much mixing in place it’s clear that they’ve got a lot of support from backing discs. But the mash-up is a great bit of mixing and I’d love to hear more of their hits given this treatment.

It goes without saying that I’m glad ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’ is included as it’s a stonking version of it but the absence of Beady Eye’s ‘Wonderwall’ is a disappointment.

Muse’s live version of ‘Survival’ sounds great and is included, as is the double-hit of Queen with Freddie back from the dead with ‘Day-O’ and Jessie J joining May and Taylor for ‘We Will Rock You’.

The disc reaches its conclusion with two more pieces of incidental music from the extinguishing of the flame and other necessary bits before we get the beautiful live version of ‘Rule The World’ by Take That with some great piano work, and then the triple-end from ‘The Who’, all sounding great and show they still have it, though I’m not sure why they get so many bites of the cherry. And, yes, they do, drop out the words ‘I Hope I Die Before I Get Old’.

Overall, this collection is a vast improvement on the opening ceremony one and covers far more that appeared in the ceremony than the first did and, with a bigger focus on pop and rock hits over instrumental music, it’s much more enjoyable to hear as a collection without the attached imagery.

The decision to drop some songs like ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘One Direction’ must be down to running time and / or licensing but the inclusion of ‘Whit Light’ over ‘Freedom 90’ is the most questionable decision. But these are minor gripes in what is a fun double CD collection.

If you are going to get either CD collection I’d definitely suggest this one just for the bigger focus on live music, covers and adaptations of songs. With an inclusion of crowd noise and a few tracklist tweaks this would be an essential purchase, but even without there’s still much to enjoy on here and will add some great interpretations of classic and modern British music to your library.

(8/10)

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The London 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony

And so the Olympics came to an end with a ceremony of British music, wrapped up as three-and-half-hour trip through the ages of the UK’s artists, thankfully without an out of tune Paul McCartney in sight.

Though not as arresting or visual effective as the marvellous opening ceremony, the closing one was still very much worth seeing, thankfully not having the long and tedious parade of Olympians as part of it even if they did make a nod towards that.

The set piece was a fun design decision, looking like London wrapped up like a fish and chip supper. There was me half expecting the Lancashire Hotpots turning up to give us a rendition of ‘Chippy Tea’ but – silly me! – why would we get something as eccentric as that. Instead we got Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill sticking his head out of a model Big Ben next to an out of scale and small London Eye. There, far more serious.

Once more opting to create a spectacle, but one that was probably incomprehensible to anyone not sharing the British in-joke, the opening was pretty fun to watch. Spall did a good job as Churchill but I still think Ian McNeice, as seen as him on-stage and in Doctor Who, would have made a better one.

Emile Sande’s singing of her version of Professor Green’s ‘Read All About It’ was beautifully sung, even if she appeared dressed as a Blackpool landlady and has better solo hits of her own, and an appearance by Stomp were welcome and it was interesting to see the Queen was replaced by Prince Harry for this ceremony. Perhaps being thrown out of a plane with Daniel Craig sixteen days earlier had done it for her. Or maybe she feared Elton John would perform again.

Perhaps the most in-jokey of everything we’ve had – and, boy, have both ceremonies had these, was the appearance of the ‘Only Fools and Horses’ three-wheeled van out of which emerged actors pretending to be David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst as Del Boy and Rodney as Batman and Rodney, before the van then exploded and Michael Caine announced ‘You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off’. Honestly. I’ve not been taking drugs. That actually happened. What foreign countries must have made of that I’m not sure, with one episode of a television show from fifteen years ago mixed in with the Italian Job. Actually, we don’t need to imagine, NBC commentators (for what quality they have been) said that the characters were, and I transpose, ‘Folk heroes like Robin Hood’. No, NBC. They were two actors playing two other actors playing two characters playing two other fictional characters from a camp sixties comic adaptation. So that clears things up there. It was funny though.

And now we get into the music and first up was Madness. Now I’m a big fan of Suggs and the gang but I have to say that they were a little bit flat in this performance of ‘Our House’, which is a shame as I know they can sing live. Must have been an off-day for Suggs but it was nice to see the ambassadors for ska represented here, a band that still release quality music as 2009’s ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’ shows.

A band version of ‘Parklife’ followed which was a fun interpretation. Of course Blur, one of the main bands of the era we know as BritPop, couldn’t perform it live as they were performing at a rival concert at the same time in one of the daftest scheduling decisions since the finale of ‘One Foot In The Grave’ was run against the first millionaire winner on ITV’s flagship Chris Tarrant-hosted gameshow, but that had at least been unforeseeable... ish.

The Pet Shop Boys appeared for a spirited version of ‘West End Girls’ and One Direction’s two-song medley was well done but I’d hardly utter them in the same breath as Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe in the annals of British Music. As I noted on Twitter, which of course was alight during the ceremony, the only direction I’d really want them to go in was out of the stadium on the back of the lorry they were on.

We then got the winners of Britain’s Got Talent 2010, ‘Spellbound’ performing some admittedly impressive dance work, and Ray Davies giving us a welcome rendition of the Kinks classic ‘Waterloo Sunset’, which was well done even if he looked out of it. One of my friends at this point asked who ‘The Kinks’ were. I promptly evicted him from my flat and told him to come back when he’d heard of bands earlier than Steps.

Emeli Sande then re-appeared to perform a longer version of part three of ‘Read All About It’ (I still to this day am not sure where part two went) and, concluding the new music for the moment, Elbow appeared for the classic and anthemic ‘One Day Like This’, plus the equally fun ‘Open Arms’.

Next somebody slipped the iPod connected to the PA back to replay mode and we got all the songs we’d just heard, albeit in studio form, again. Now I’m all for hearing some songs twice in a short space of time, but we have over sixty years of music to draw from – surely we could have found time to throw in some music from some other British bands that have been influential over the years to fill the gap? Franz Ferdinand. The Sex Pistols. The Automatic. There. Covering three countries. That would have done it and that’s just three names off the top of my head whilst drinking cider. Imagine what acts you could come up with after seven years of planning.

Declining the invitation to appear in person, we couldn’t avoid the music of Kate Bush but at least they picked the enjoyable ‘Running Up That Hill’ while a nice display of boxes was put up with the meaning lost on me until I just read the Wikipedia page. Either I missed the explanation because me and my friends were enjoying the music and making our conversation or the commentators had been told to tone it down after the opening ceremony. I’m not sure. We then got the final medal ceremony of the Olympics which must have been a big honour for those athletes.

Back to the music and the classic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was a much welcome inclusion, as was John Lennon’s image being created out of individual elements on stage, even if it was as creepy as it was impressive. We then got George Michael – surely a dodgy choice for a sporting event trying to avoid accusations of drugs taking (and, presumably crashing your car into buildings) – performing an impressive version of ‘Freedom’ and then, not so impressively, ‘White Light’ which is an OK track and genius and annoying in equal measure, but more importantly released as a single on that day. Whilst every other act got lumbered with a classic or thematically important song, Michael got a second song that many didn’t get and should have got, to plug his new single over, I don’t know, ‘Club Tropicana’ or ‘Careless Whisper’. Not fun.

Moving on, we got an impressive display of Mods and Rockers with Yorkshire’s own Kaiser Chiefs, complete with lead singer Ricky Wilson singing whilst riding pillion, performing The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’. Now it was a great rendition and the band nailed it, but it would have been great to have heard some original material from the band, especially when the original singers were to appear later. According to a post-event interview with Wilson they were originally lined up to perform ‘I Predict A Riot’ (I could have told the organisers a year ago this was a bad idea) but it was changed for the cover. Surely they could have done ‘Ruby’. Or ‘Never Miss A Beat’. Or even ‘The 100 Metres Is Not A Competition (But I’m Winning)’, but I may have made that last one up.

With David Bowie joining Kate Bush in the event decliners, we got a medley of his music which was fun enough, but would have been great to hear him live, before getting ‘Little Bird’ by Annie Lennox. Clearly whoever planned this event was too concerned with not upsetting the youth of London by dropping ‘I Predict A Riot’ from the song list to have heard the Jubilee concert and realise that Lennox is not the ideal candidate for a celebration of music, being that she’s not exactly on top form. And even if they must have had her, surely some big Eurythmics song would have been the call?

We did get a ship appearing on stage, though, which I can only assume was the Somalian team arriving late.

At least we could rely on the closing ceremony to tick off some boxes as we reached some interesting collaborations. Ed Sheeran joining the drummer from Pink Floyd on their hit ‘Wish You Were Here’ was interesting on paper and performed well enough but not a particular highlight for me, and the same could be said for Russell Brand performing the Beatles’ ‘I Am The Walrus’ dressed as ‘Gene Wilder’, alongside orchestra ‘Bond’ which was visually stimulating but it was like asking Huw Edwards to perform ‘Paint It Black’ by the Rolling Stones, that is a fun suggestion but musically questionable.

At least the appearance of Fatboy Slim in a giant octopus playing the radio edits of two of his big hits, whilst pretending to mix on a pair of CD-Js, was welcome. (Remember, I’m not making any of this up, and the cider has worn off).

The triple-act of Jessie “I look naked – is this suitable for a family audience” J; Tinie “Shades are cool” Tempah and Taio “What? He’s actually not American?” Cruz was a highlight of the ceremony for me. Jessie’s ‘Price Tag’ was fun even if it sadly lacked some BOB action like the concert was put together by Radio 2’s Programme Controller and the theme of the song, set aside the fiscal extravagance of London 2012, was an usual juxtaposition, but her work on ‘Written With The Stars’ alongside Tinie, Cruz’s ‘Dynamite’ and then the triple-play on the Bee Gees’ classic ‘You Should Be Dancing’, was all fun and a brilliant set of mash-ups.

The much anticipated ‘Spice Girls’ reunion was up next and was actually very much fun and they handled the songs brilliantly, even if Victoria seemed to be keeping her distance from the rest of the group and it looked like at one point girl power would be extinguished as Mel B looked to be getting run over by a minicab. Ah, well it is London.

Then it got strange. Noel Gallagher appeared on stage with his band with the drum proudly declaring ‘Beady Eye’. Surely we wouldn’t be getting a hit from the band otherwise known as ‘The less successful sibling band next to ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’? No, we got a little-known track called ‘Wonderwall’. Actually, it was a great rendition of the Noel-less track but it was a little like Paul Simon arriving on stage singing a Simon and Garfunkel song with a new backing band and doing the audio equivalent of a middle finger towards his old song-writing partner. They should have got Blur.

Oh, sorry, Damon Albarn was wailing depressingly in Earl’s Court whilst this spectacular was going on.

Perhaps they couldn’t have Oasis on the drumkit as the only drink they could promote would be Coca Cola?

After a welcome interlude of ELO’s amazing ‘Mr Blue Sky’ we got another highlight of the event. It might not be quite up to another Mr. Bean or James Bond moment, but Eric Idle’s spirited version of the Monty Python classic ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’ was great and he even got away with the word ‘shit’ and some casual racism, so those family friendly boxes ticked there. Oh, and there were morris dancers too so thumbs up again.

Moving on we got Muse camping it up to do their, admittedly well done, live version of their oompah-loompah Queen-knock-off ‘Survival’ before we got the genuine article. Well, Freddie on a large screen doing his fun, live vocal harmony crowd-engagement thing from beyond the grave, before we got a decidedly greying Brian May doing some more impressive guitar work alongside drummer Roger Taylor, before Jessie J decided she’d come back for another bite of the cherry in a less revealing dress to contribute to a cover of ‘We Will Rock You’. She’s been criticised for her performance of this but I actually think it worked really well.

After some impressive orchestral work and Rio’s four-year-hint towards what we’ll get over there in 2016 (no Duran Duran performing ‘Rio’ here), including an appearance by Pele, there was just time to extinguish the flame which, though impressive, could well have been the opening ceremony played backwards, before Take That appeared to perform ‘Rule The World’. For Gary to appear mere days after his personal tragedy was spirited of him and they performed the track flawlessly. It would have been nice to have seen Robbie join them but he didn’t appear on the original version of the track and, possibly, may have done something outrageous. I’m not sure that a song called ‘Rule The World’ was the most sane of choices for a country that, er, once ruled the world under questionable means, but it was an enjoyable rendition. We then got three tracks by ‘The Who’ to round things off, giving them four songs in one form or another during the closing ceremony. I wonder who they had to sleep with for that?

(Apparently they omitted the line ‘I hope I die before I get old’ from ‘My Generation’. I didn’t notice this but the change was appropriate as they’re all now pensioners.)

And that, over half-an-hour longer than I expected, was the closing ceremony. It couldn’t quite hold a candle – sorry, Olympic torch – to the bonkers and visually impressive opening ceremony but it also didn’t have the budget. It covered lots of eras of British music and it’s hard to pick fault with their musical choices but there were a few strange omissions such as ‘The Rolling Stones’ and a few unusual inclusions such as Russell Brand, and perhaps a few dubious song choices – George Michael and the under-used Kaiser Chiefs – being two examples, but they were never going to please everyone.

The vast majority of the music performances sounded great, which is more than could be said for the nearest similar event of the Jubilee concert, and there were also enough visual elements to keep it interesting.

A great musical round-up to an Olympics dominated by the best of British music with just a few dodgy decisions to let it down. Mash this up with the best bits of the Jubilee concert – i.e. more Robbie, less Elton, Paul and George – and it would have been a winner!

(7/10)

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Bank Holiday Special: My Top Ten Favourite Albums

For something a bit different today I'm going to reveal - in no particular order - my ten favourite albums of all time, ones that I can guarantee you will enjoy to listen to all the way through. Obviously, due to my age, most are from the last fifteen years, but I'm not going to apologise for that!

Marina and the Diamonds - The Family Jewels (2010)
An album chock full of pop hits and catchy hooks. 'Hollywood' was the song of the year' 'I Am A Robot' a touching hit and 'Oh No!' fully singable. Looking forward to album two this year.



Electric Six - Senor Smoke (2005)
It would be easy for me to put all of E6's album in the countdown but I'll just settle for this one. An album that flows for one track to another and contains some of their best material. A more varied album you'll find hard to find.



Darren Hayes - This Delicate Thing We've Made (2007)
A beautiful concept album about family and time travel. It's two discs and there's hardly a duff track among it. If you enjoy albums with a story then grab this. The singles are brilliant but even better as part of the whole album.



Queen - Greatest Hits 2 (1991)
I know in a way it's cheating to put a greatest hits album on but this is my favourite era of Queen. From absolute classics such as 'Radio Ga Ga' and 'Under Pressure' to the emotional 'Who Wants To Live Forever' it might not have all their big hits on it but it's certainly got a lot of them.



Robbie Williams - Reality Killed The Video Star (2009)
Robbie has had some great albums but his most recent is probably the best, though it fights with 'Intensive Care' so you could substitute either. Some cracking ballads and more uptempo tracks and the production from Buggles frontman Trevor Horn really brings it to life.



The Automatic - Tear The Signs Down (2010)
The first two albums from the Welsh group were great, sparking hits such as 'Recover', 'Monster' and 'Steve McQueen', but this third released last year is a better album as a package, but still threw out some cracking singles.



Sparks - Hello Young Lovers (2006)
The album that re-introduced me to the band, lead single 'Dick Around' with its driving guitars and singable lyrics is all you need to know about it, but it's other tracks back it up to make a good mix of tunes.



Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Make a Scene (2011)
The first full album properly heard by her, it could be seen as a concept album about love, sex and relationships and works well as a full piece. 'Bittersweet' is a storming track.



The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch (2011)
Again, an album from this year, but with five fantastic singles and other tracks that could equally be singles, you have to pick this one up.



...and be done with it - Pasta of Muppets (2011)
OK... here's a bit of shameless self-promotion for my final entry. Go on you know you want to get a copy if we could release it!

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