Booze and cigs would be mad cheap (interview with Nicole Atkins)
I used to write for a site called Paper Thin Walls, which stopped publishing last year, and subsequently the server with its archives melted down, apparently; in any event, its content is no longer online. So I'm going to post a couple of my reviews here, the first being this review of and email interview with Nicole Atkins, her responses being something special, I think:
NICOLE ATKINS - "The Way It Is"
from Neptune City (Columbia)
Peggy And Darlene In The Goth Lounge // Out June 26, 2007
7.5
"The Way It Is" starts off as Peggy Lee at the goth cabaret, or maybe at the dominant-submissive lounge. The touches of modern darkness get in the way of its late '50s-early '60s heart, and this detachment puts it at a distance from my own dark heart. But this is powerful stuff, and gets stronger as it goes on, as the ghostly girls in the background give it a Spectorian glory. The song is attempting the impossible: to combine a yearning sweetness that belongs to the Ghost Of Girl Groups Past with a later sensibility that thinks it knows better than the sweetness and wishes it didn't. The struggle in the music matches the struggle in the lyrics, which are about trying to trust one's own confused heart. Nicole is overstylized and she compensates by oversinging, as if she could break through the stylization with mighty blasts from her smoke-filled lungs. Fascinating. Wonder what comes next.
Nicole Atkins on "The Way It Is"
Let's say "The Way It Is" were just declared the national anthem of a new country. What do you imagine such a country would be like?
I guess in regards to the nature of the song, the country would be like this: it would always look like nighttime on land but if you look up at the sky, way up high, it would be bright. Sunshine up above but it would never shine on the land so it would be like television light. The roadways would be ridiculously windy like that scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and all telephones would instantly stop working after 11pm to preemptively avoid drunken phone calls. This country would probably be poor but the people would put a bunch of false hope in the government, just like they put false hope in everything else. Probably not a place you want to live but the ocean views would be fantastic and booze and cigs would be mad cheap.
The song goes, "He's the only one I've ever wanted/I suppose that's just the way it is," which sounds fatalistic, but to me the song sounds defiantly assertive. Would you describe yourself as defiantly fatalistic? Fatalistically assertive?
I guess fatalistically assertive would be best. I mean, in most things I always expect the worst and when they turn out to be awesome or at least better than the worst, then it's a happy bonus. I guess the assertion in this song would be me telling another person that bad decisions are mine alone to make and I'm trying to mature enough to accept my fate either way it goes.
On your MySpace page you quote someone calling you "roy orbison as a chick fronting a band of elves." In his chronicles Bob Dylan writes that Roy Orbison "sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice would jar a corpse." What profession other than "singer" would you compare your singing to?
Hmmm, maybe a waitress or a hairdresser. There are always two people in one shift, the one who is eager to please and [the one who is] constantly complaining. Haha.
--FRANK KOGAN, MARCH 21, 2007
NICOLE ATKINS - "The Way It Is"
from Neptune City (Columbia)
Peggy And Darlene In The Goth Lounge // Out June 26, 2007
7.5
"The Way It Is" starts off as Peggy Lee at the goth cabaret, or maybe at the dominant-submissive lounge. The touches of modern darkness get in the way of its late '50s-early '60s heart, and this detachment puts it at a distance from my own dark heart. But this is powerful stuff, and gets stronger as it goes on, as the ghostly girls in the background give it a Spectorian glory. The song is attempting the impossible: to combine a yearning sweetness that belongs to the Ghost Of Girl Groups Past with a later sensibility that thinks it knows better than the sweetness and wishes it didn't. The struggle in the music matches the struggle in the lyrics, which are about trying to trust one's own confused heart. Nicole is overstylized and she compensates by oversinging, as if she could break through the stylization with mighty blasts from her smoke-filled lungs. Fascinating. Wonder what comes next.
Nicole Atkins on "The Way It Is"
Let's say "The Way It Is" were just declared the national anthem of a new country. What do you imagine such a country would be like?
I guess in regards to the nature of the song, the country would be like this: it would always look like nighttime on land but if you look up at the sky, way up high, it would be bright. Sunshine up above but it would never shine on the land so it would be like television light. The roadways would be ridiculously windy like that scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and all telephones would instantly stop working after 11pm to preemptively avoid drunken phone calls. This country would probably be poor but the people would put a bunch of false hope in the government, just like they put false hope in everything else. Probably not a place you want to live but the ocean views would be fantastic and booze and cigs would be mad cheap.
The song goes, "He's the only one I've ever wanted/I suppose that's just the way it is," which sounds fatalistic, but to me the song sounds defiantly assertive. Would you describe yourself as defiantly fatalistic? Fatalistically assertive?
I guess fatalistically assertive would be best. I mean, in most things I always expect the worst and when they turn out to be awesome or at least better than the worst, then it's a happy bonus. I guess the assertion in this song would be me telling another person that bad decisions are mine alone to make and I'm trying to mature enough to accept my fate either way it goes.
On your MySpace page you quote someone calling you "roy orbison as a chick fronting a band of elves." In his chronicles Bob Dylan writes that Roy Orbison "sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice would jar a corpse." What profession other than "singer" would you compare your singing to?
Hmmm, maybe a waitress or a hairdresser. There are always two people in one shift, the one who is eager to please and [the one who is] constantly complaining. Haha.
--FRANK KOGAN, MARCH 21, 2007
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