 Beth Orton This one had all the ingredients to be my favorite album ever: British female vocalist, folk stylings, all sorts of British music magazine hype … well, the British can't get everything right (see Oasis). For the most part an engaging, pleasant listen, Trailer Park suffers a lot from Beth Orton's annoying monotone and some outright bad lyrics (well, "sheep" does rhyme with "sleep"). "She Cries Your Name" ("again," "remain," "same") is a (too) slow-brewing Eastern-flavored tune reminiscent of "Tomorrow Never Knows." I appreciate sonic space, but not a warehouse full. Orton's affected vocal style recalls Nick Drake, but seems more self-consciously "hip," and besides, you'd never get Nick Drake near a drum machine ("I'm hideous" he screams, beating his fins against the walls of the studio). "Tangent" is pretty much that, but perhaps not the best choice for track 2. The synth twiddles are going to sound really stupid in about three years. "Don't Need a Reason" is a touching (fairly unmemorable) ballad that benefits from staying the hell away from the synths. Lyrics straight out of the rhyming dictionary, once more, but affecting nonetheless. "Live as You Dream" follows, easily the album's best track and in fact a great song (must be a single; if not, should be), full of hooks and not too dissimilar to Natalie Merchant's "Wonder." Would have been better with Merchant singing it, though. "Sugar Boy" tweaks the annoyance factor but is redeemed by a great melody at the end of the chorus (not worth sitting through the rest, though). "Touch Me With Your Love" mines the "spacey music/spoken word" idea with little satisfaction resulting; by the time the singing starts I've already written the song off as having been written and recorded on a Commodore 64 (that's not a compliment). Seems more like a studio experiment. "Whenever" follows, enabling me to skip forward "Whenever" I want. "How Far" finally provides a little tempo, but not much past mid. Fairly good song, I probably would have loved it about 6 years ago. Handclaps are always welcome, though. "Someone's Daughter" stands out a little from the sameness, even though I think its drum pattern is used on two other songs on the album. Not memorable, really. "I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine" is like really light Nick Drake or lower-tier Big Star (that's not a huge compliment), another one that would have been an anthem for me back when I was young and foolish and primed for the next big "120 Minutes" thing. Nowadays I have trouble with melodies that take nearly a minute to resolve. I mean, if you're doing pop, do pop, for pop's sake. Album closes with another "spacey" twiddle-fest, "Galaxy of Emptiness." Could only have saved the album had it been straight-ahead metal, but in fact it is more of the same. Ten and a half minutes more of the same, to be exact. Critics will want to believe this is a groundbreaking fusion of folk and trance, but as far as I can tell it's closer to Annette Peacock's clueless electronic jazz-pop, but without the hystrionic release. Beth Orton sounds as though she couldn't scream if I were driving golf tees through her shins. Trailer Park is decent background music for midnight porn viewing or coin collecting, but overall not recommended. You'd have to have a lot of patience (or be 35) to really enjoy the album in and of itself. Beth Orton would do well to learn to be more concise, and for god's sake, rock out already! This pallid introspective stuff is going the way of Blind Melon. Don't believe the hype, as that colored fellow once said.
Review by Big Ho' |