Once upon a time (okay, late last summer), three great British musicians–Damon Albarn (vocals, Blur & Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (bass, The Clash), Simon Tong (keyboards and guitars, The Verve), and Nigerian-born Tony Allen (drums, Africa 70) formed a supergroup. Our guess is that they had a hard time naming it; one possible theory is that, since “The Super Friends” was already the name of an American cartoon series, the supergroup decided to go with something a little more English. Six months later, their album was set to drop in the States…with one minor glitch. Sam and Christine, two obscure contemporary American poets who happen to write reviews for Superstarcastic, BOTH wanted to review it. Instead of writing two reviews, they decided to review it together. What follows is a transcript of their conversation.

Christine: So, um, has England gotten collectively depressed since the last time I was there? Because Damon Albarn has said that The Good The Bad and The Queen’s new self-titled album (set to hit U.S. stores on Tuesday) is “a very English record,” and all these minor piano chords, coupled with the slower drone Albarn used to reserve for the really bummed songs in the Blur catalogue (since Albarn compares the sentiments of this record to Parklife, I’m thinking “This Is A Low”) have me a little worried. Or maybe it’s that, as I experience them, the songs feel front-loaded: the sweet, open intros draw me in and then, through the gradual descent into minor sound, the scattering of the blips in the background, and the sudden shifts in production, I feel gradually shut out.

Sam E.: But then again, during the past thirty years, few things have been more British in the musical world than an obsession with dub (everyone from Public Image, Ltd. to New Order has tried their hand at it), and what I first thought when I heard this album is “wow! so this is what a dub remix of Blur would sound like.” (Take a listen to “Behind the Sun” and tell me if you don’t agree.) I think that’s a Paul Simonon thing, actually — he was always the guy in The Clash who was writing vaguely dub-sounding tunes like “The Guns of Brixton,” and I get the sense that he’s the one driving the band in that direction. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not depends on how high your tolerance for little production clicks and gallons and gallons of echo is. I think it sounds interesting, especially on the tracks with more rather than less guitar, but I also think I prefer my Albarn a little punchier.

Christine: I agree. I think “The Guns of Brixton” (which I just threw on my speakers for comparison’s sake, since I’m a dork like that) works well because it manages to be dub-sounding (as you say) and punchy at the same time.

It’s interesting that you think that The Good The Bad and The Queen are what a dub remix of Blur would sound like, and that you place this record firmly in the dub tradition, because Albarn seems to think TGTBTQ represents a new and unique sound for him and the other collaborators. That, and a few years ago when his former Blur bandmate Graham Coxon put out Happiness in Magazines, Albarn accused Coxon of stealing Blur’s sound, particularly on guitar. Pot calling the kettle black, much? I think Albarn and Co.’s current efforts were foreshadowed ten years ago, albeit in punchier form, by that song “Death of a Party”: if Coxon stole the upbeat nature of Blur’s guitars on Parklife and 13 for Happiness in Magazines, Albarn’s taken away the dark underbelly that was showcased on, say, Blur and put it in front of a steamroller driven by Paul Simonon and Guided by Voic–err, guided by the other dudes.

Sam E.: That’s a fair assessment, I think. Although, one of the most interesting things about this record is the way that it only seems to use half of the band. Albarn and Simonon, of course, are strongly and distinctively present, but if you didn’t know going into it that the rest of the band was the guy who played the keyboards and the other guitars for The Verve (Simon Tong) and the drummer from Africa 70 (Tony Allen), there’s no way you could possibly guess. There’s not even the barest hint of The Verve’s sweeping neopsychedelia, and no way to tell that anyone in the band has ever even heard of Afrobeat, let alone invented it. (Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t have guessed that the drummer turns 67 this year either.) But at any rate, I think that’s a great loss; the pairing of Albarn-mope and Simonon-dub is fine as far as it goes, but can you imagine this record if it had some swooping backwards string parts and some jungle-style Afro-breakbeats? Isn’t the whole point of having a supergroup being able to use the unique contributions of each bandmember?

Christine: Yeah, and from the opening track (which I’m listening to as I type, again), it would seem like no one in this band has even heard of drums, let alone played them… oh wait, here’s a little at the end of the track… oh, and some keyboards coming in too, right at the end. Damn, that’s almost… gratuitous. But you’re right, not a whole lotta psychedelica. And the disturbing thing about that is: if this album is so “England,” where is the love for or influence of the North?? Okay, so of course Albarn isn’t gonna do any breathy, earnest Northern-style crooning, and it’s certainly not his fault than I’m a complete and total Mancophile, but if you’re gonna invite a North Country Boy (like Simon Tong) to the party, you’ve gotta let him kick a little ass. And that would involve not just neopsychedelica but soul influence, maybe a little scritch-scratching that accidentally made it onto the record when that one exotic dancer did a line off your Hammond organ… yeah. I’m not hearing a lot of that, except for maybe in the penultimate “The Green Fields.”

Wait… no, I’ve got it… maybe the English thing about TGTBTQBBQ is some sort of North-South animosity that’s going on behind the music? Maybe the keyboard sound on much of this album is a result of Albarn and Simonon kidnapping Tong, throwing him into a cage, and poking at him with sticks while forcing him to bang on the toy piano from Peanuts. What do you think, Sam?

Sam E.: Hmm…I like the image, but that almost implies more involvement, at least emotionally, than I’m hearing. I more see Albarn in the studio screaming at the engineer over how much EQ is on the track while Simonon adjusts a bunch of knobs, and there, over in the corner, Tong is playing the keyboard with one hand, while using the other to turn pages in his magazine, or maybe crack open a beer. Allen’s probably asleep on a couch, waiting for someone to wake him up and tell him he has to play eight bars of something for the end of the track. Or maybe he’s just hanging on in quiet desperation. That is the English way, you know, while we’re on that kick.

Eh, maybe that makes the record sound worse than it is. It isn’t bad, you know, it’s just that it’s less than the sum of its parts. Or maybe, more precisely, it’s the sum of the wrong parts. I want punchy Albarn, punky Simonon, Northern psycho-soul Tong and funky Allen, and instead I get morose Albarn, rasta-Simonon, bored Tong, and somnolescent Allen. Does it have moments? Sure, but I wanted excellence, and the best I got was “it’s okay, if you like that sort of thing…but it’s English, you know?” Well you know what? So were Herman’s Hermits.

Label: EMI
Release date: January 23, 2007

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