When is a new Prefab\u2019s album not a new Prefab\u2019s album?\u00a0 When it was written and recorded in 1992-93, and isn\u2019t played on by anyone other than Paddy McAloon.\u00a0 And therein, perhaps, lies the problem.<\/p>\n
McAloon is incapable of writing a bad song.\u00a0 He also has that touch of the truly great songwriter in that the songs appear to be delivered by characters even when they seem to be most autobiographical.\u00a0 And McAloon has never been afraid of reaching out to the big verities.\u00a0 This album starts with the words, \u2018In the beginning was a mighty bang\u2019 and continues, \u2018The sky was silent.\/God was moved.\/He made a choice.\/ He said \u2018let music be my voice!\u2019, although the absconded God is a permanent presence(!) in McAloon\u2019s pantheon.\u00a0 And tilts at organised Christianity come thick and fast throughout his back catalogue.\u00a0 Here, the jaunty \u2018Ride\u2019 fiercely ironises fundamentalism.\u00a0 But other songs are equally far reaching. \u2018Meet the New Mozart\u2019 starts \u2018Meet the new Mozart, he\u2019s in the bed where commerce sleeps with art.\u00a0 Who can blame him? No pauper\u2019s grave, this time around, will claim him.\u2019<\/p>\n
The problem with this album isn\u2019t the quality of song, in particular,\u00a0 the lovely \u2018Earth: The Story so Far\u2019 is as good as anything that he\u2019s written.\u00a0 But to listen to this after its \u2018predecessor\u2019 Jordan, The Comeback<\/em> is to realise what\u2019s missing here \u2013 the dialogue with the band:\u00a0 Thomas Dolby\u2019s cleanliness and depth of production, its deft trajectories, a banjo break here, two bars of cinema organ there;\u00a0 the ethereal precision of Wendy Smith\u2019s backing vocals, Neal Conti\u2019s muscular artistry on drums, brother Martin\u2019s loving bass lines.\u00a0 The surface of Let\u2019s Change the World with Music<\/em> is dulled by McAloon\u2019s reliance on synths, however capable a pianist and guitarist he is. The recording comes across as a set of very fine demos.<\/p>\n A picture of Paddy McAloon shows him in country-squire-does-ZZTop mode, and an essay he\u2019s written for the liner notes compares his frustrations over this album with the reassembly of Shine <\/em>by Brian Wilson.\u00a0 But Wilson reworked that music with a bunch of live musicians.\u00a0 McAloon\u2019s last real project, the almost flawless I Trawl the Megahertz,<\/em> was realised with other arrangers and real strings.\u00a0 Not so long ago, the Prefabs even did a tour.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope the McAloon brothers haven\u2019t done a Gallacher\u2019s on us, and that Let\u2019s Change the World with Music<\/em> is just an aperitif for something more fully realised.<\/p>\n Ian Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When is a new Prefab\u2019s album not a new Prefab\u2019s album?\u00a0 When it was written and recorded in 1992-93, and isn\u2019t played on by anyone other than Paddy McAloon.\u00a0 And therein, perhaps, lies the problem. McAloon is incapable of writing a bad song.\u00a0 He also has that touch of the truly great songwriter in that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n