Guided by instruments.In 2000, Goldfrapp appeared on the scene with Lovely Head, a song that, along with Utopia, also from 2000's Felt Mountain, featured on a number of club chill-out compilations, yet they failed to trouble the UK charts in any way until around 2005's Supernature, when they made it high up in both the singles and albums charts. Certainly, I didn't help them any, though I was aware of them thanks to being, at the time, developing interests in different types of music thanks to magazine cover discs and compilation albums, long before the Internet became my primary source of music journalism and I lost all touch with what was current and became unable to participate in conversations with friends about what's going on now as it all seems to have happened so long ago to me. Ignorance in a case like this would be bliss for many, except for the fact that I really enjoy hearing a wealth of different things and very occasionally I hit upon something really very special.
This album is not one of those things, but remains my favourite of Goldfrapp's works to date. This is generally due to my own F.A.B. (First Awareness Bias) which means that in almost all cases the first few songs, or album, I hear by a particular artist or group become my favourites, most likely due to the feelings of excitement that surround that first exposure, but there is a chance it is down to these songs actually being their best works. I cannot argue this case with Goldfrapp so much, as I've not heard much of their later work. I am aware that the bloggers out there are in two minds about the latest, Seventh Tree. Pitchfork didn't rate it at all, Song, by Toad considered it "shopping music" and Marcy of Lost in Your Inbox concurred, in spite of wanting it to be better. On the other hand, Van - who commented on Marcy's entry - gave it the title of best album of 2008 so far, as did Alex of Quiet Color, whilst ÜberDrivel's Roland - though seeming unconvinced on the whole - thought it a bold change in direction.
If I were feeling up it right now I would offer my own appraisal of the songs that have been made available through the blogs and give an opinion of my own, but, as implied by the opening word of this sentence, I don't. I shall leave you with this instrumental track from their debut, and the video of that first single that seemed to so allude everybody at the time.
Download: Goldfrapp - Oompa Radar
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