Here Lies Love, David Byrne's song-cycle collaboration with Fatboy Slim (a.k.a. Norman Cook) "is a fountain of funk and dance music that's entirely accessible, great fun and can easily be enjoyed a song at a time," says the Wall Street Journal in a feature on the album. "Loyal Byrne fans will find its precedent in early '80s Talking Heads' funk works as well as in Mr. Cook's electronic dance hits."
Here Lies Love, David Byrne's song-cycle collaboration with Fatboy Slim (a.k.a. Norman Cook) on the life of former Phillipine first lady Imelda Marcos, is the subject of a feature article in the Wall Street Journal. Music critic Jim Fusilli talks to Byrne the project and the controversial figure at its core. While Fusilli expresses some concern that audiences might be wary of the subject matter, he finds the end result to be more than the story it tells.
"Here Lies Love is a fountain of funk and dance music that's entirely accessible, great fun and can easily be enjoyed a song at a time," Fusilli writes. "Loyal Byrne fans will find its precedent in early '80s Talking Heads' funk works as well as in Mr. Cook's electronic dance hits."
Fusilli goes on the credit the many guest vocalists on the album, including Natalie Merchant, Sharon Jones, Nellie McKay, Steve Earle, Tori Amos, and Cyndi Lauper, with providing "much of the magic" heard therein. "They seem the ideal choices, their voices and attack matching the lyrics and environment." He cites Róisín Murphy's performance on one track in particular as "spectacular," and says of the album-closing duet between Amos and Lauper: "The subtle differences in their reading of Mr. Byrne's lyrics indicate how the two characters share an emotional core forged when Mrs. Marcos was a child."
There's much more, including a discussion with Byrne on the roots of the project and where he hopes it will go from here, at wsj.com.
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The album has also grabbed the attention of a rather different source: Justin Timberlake's web site. While the author of the story, Rae Alexandra, claims the folks at justintimberlake.com were initially perplexed by the idea of the album's concept, after a first listen to the Santigold-sung track, "Please Don't," they realized "it's also pretty darn awesome." Alexandra goes on to describe the album's other participants as "a host of other great (and fiercely individual) artists" and concludes: "We have no idea how they came up with all this, but we sure are glad they did." Read more at justintimberlake.com.
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