Album review: Goldfrapp, Head First

Published on Sunday 21 March 2010 20:42

GOLDFRAPP: HEAD FIRST *** MUTE, £12.99

AS MUSICAL chameleons go, Goldfrapp are not quite up there with David Bowie for huge leaps in style, content and image but at least this acclaimed duo like to keep the fans on their toes by changing direction from album to album, often kicking quite radically against what they have done before.

To date, their most successful incarnation – in terms of commercial reach, at any rate – was the 70s glam disco stomping of their third album Supernature, which, thanks to the hummable throb of lead single Ooh La La, catapulted them from ubiquitous caf bar soundtrack into mainstream pop consciousness and firmly established frontwoman Alison Goldfrapp as a performance artist in whom visual and musical identity are symbiotically linked. Now it feels quite natural to see her as a leftfield prototype Lady Gaga, as much as a trailblazer for the current crop of electro pop chanteuses.

Goldfrapp's next turn was the blissful pastoral waft of 2008's Seventh Tree, a far less in-your-face effort which appealed to their cult following but not the wider pop-guzzling masses. So, changing lanes again, they have returned to blatant chartsville with Head First, another typically cohesive and sensual body of work which Goldfrapp and studio sidekick Will Gregory recorded in a six-month burst of activity, around which they also contributed to the score of young Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy and wrote a song for possible inclusion on Christina Aguilera's new album.

More significantly for their own work, Goldfrapp "got happy", so she and Gregory subsequently rejected the ballads they had written for the album in favour of something more "jubilant". At the time, they were gearing themselves up by listening to Abba and ELO – now that we hear the polished result, it seems clear that Goldfrapp are in Xanadu. The maypoles, Harlequin suits and pervading Wicker Man atmosphere of Seventh Tree have been supplanted by mid-Eighties synth rock and Brat Pack movies. Pastel-coloured floaty linen is out and hot pink jumpsuits are in. Exhibit A: the sleeve of current single Rocket.

Rocket also neatly sums up where the duo are at musically with this record – it's catchy, throwaway and knowingly cheesy. From the opening sound of an aircraft taking off, through the Eighties Fairlight synth sound (think Steve Winwood's Valerie, around which Eric Prydz built his hit Call On Me), its underlying AOR vibe, and references to winners, losers, danger and heartache – everything points towards the Top Gun soundtrack as a primary influence. Although ostensibly about ejecting someone from your life, Goldfrapp has some nudge-wink fun with the suggestive imagery of the chorus "oh-oh-oh, I got a rocket, oh-oh-oh, you're going on it" before delivering the kiss-off of "you're never coming back". It could be their biggest hit to date, but at the cost of some substance.

The Top Gun references continue, hopefully unwittingly, on Believer, which disturbingly evokes memories of Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone and other AOR horrors you hoped you'd never have to confront again. Having dispensed with the bad egg in her life, Goldfrapp finds herself surprised by love again, expressing much the same sentiment as The Monkees' I'm A Believer. Alive continues her newfound ecstasy with shooting starbursts of synthesiser and Van Halen-style guitar riffs occasionally jumping out of the traps. According to Goldfrapp, Shiny And Warm was inspired by Suicide's sublime electro punk ballad Cheree but, with its stripped-down electro backing and car imagery, it's actually closer in spirit to Warm Leatherette by The Normal, aka Daniel Miller, the man who went on to helm Goldfrapp's label, Mute Records.

Dreaming is sultry, breathy and brooding, like one of Mika's periodic downbeat creations. One for the love montage. The title track is cut from similar cloth, with Goldfrapp swooning around in rapture at the top end of her vocal range about "my whole world in light, head first in love" and keyboards lifted straight from a Trevor Horn production.

But she saves her most ethereal, blissful delivery for one of the album's most scornful lyrics on Hunt – "all you love you destroy, everyone is your toy," she flutters.

It has been a while since Goldfrapp has really flexed her remarkable voice on a challenging melody. The album's ambient coda, Voicething, doesn't so much stretch her as multiply her, with Gregory sculpting a chorus of cooing Alisons out of her looped vocals. The results are more interesting than affecting.

As for the rest of the album, once you are done playing spot the reference, there is not much else to take away from what is ultimately just an exquisitely crafted pastiche.