Old South Jamboree - Chip Hanna & The Berlin Three

Advantages: Plenty of good pop/dance numbers and one classic
Disadvantages: One or two dull ones

...Dad Marty was one of rock'n'roll's most accomplished performers of the pre-Beatles era, and daughter Kim proved herself a chip off the old block with a career that started in 1981 and has flourished, albeit with ups and downs, ever since. Good songs and good hooks have kept her riding high, and as her albums tended to be two or three goodies and too many fillers, a 'Best of' is the answer. From her early days on the RAK label, "Kids in America" and "Chequered Love" still sound glorious, and after her move to MCA she shone again with the effervescent "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (a good example of how to cover a Supremes track properly, unlike Bananarama's pallid "Nathan Jones" three years later), her duet with Junior Giscombe, "Another Step (Closer To You)", the lovely "You Came", and the Hi-NRG "Never Trust A Stranger". "If I Can't Have... Read review

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Advantages: A most powerful and unique work in the annals of music
Disadvantages: Will not appeal to the cutesy-cutesy people

...in A minor, starting in a fairly similar way as the first movement did. But the Scherzo features rhythmic dissentions from the beginning. As the basses play the repeated A's quite regularly, the timpani insists on a THREE-one-two, THREE-one-two rhythm. This creates a lot of tension that remains as a permanent feature of the Scherzo. This music, although very similar to the opening movement, is more like a grotesque and horrible variant of the earlier music. The Trio appears twice in the Scherzo, once in F major and then in D major, and is metrically very irregular. Deliberately nostalgic, Mahler marks it "old-fashioned." Alma heard in it "the arhythmical play of little children." In the coda, where the "old-fashioned" music is reintroduced by a sinister cock-crow, Alma heard "the childish voices become more and more tragic, finally to die out... Read review

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Advantages: Clever, catchy pop
Disadvantages: A bit nerdy and twee at times

...in "Don't marry her" that lifts it above a soppy love song or that Heaton himself had drink problems, which probably helped when he came to write "Old red eyes is back", the Sinatra-inspired image of the title at odds with the lyrics. "Soup" was released just in time for Christmas (07) and is available on cd, cd/dvd and an exclusive custom made tin designed by long-term Beautiful South and Housemartins collaborators Ryan Art and David Cutter. This will include a T-shirt, mug and cd / dvd. Whoo hoo.... Read review

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