David Byrne loves to collaborate. His last full-length release was a collaboration with Brian Eno (their second together), he collaborated with The Dirty Projectors on their song “Knotty Pine” for last year’s Dark Was The Night charity compilation and he is reportedly currently working on new material with St. Vincent. On this project he shares the credit with Fatboy Slim, who apparently made “musical contributions” to the album and it features no fewer than 21guest vocalists over its 22 tracks. The subject of this ambitious double concept album is Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines and her rags-to-riches life story. It was originally performed and conceived as a stage show by Byrne in 2006 and although this studio recording has an all-star cast of musicians adding to it, it does not entirely step out of the shadow of the stage and into a fully-fledged album.
On this project Byrne is intent on telling a story about “what drives a powerful person.” And although often the focus on telling the story overwhelms certain songs so much that they lose any sort of notability in terms of tune, the tale overall is lost unless you sit and read the notes that go along with it. As a music critic it’s not my place to discuss historical inaccuracies but a reference to 50 Cent in “American Troglodytes” does seem like an odd inclusion considering this is a story that took place a good twenty years before Fiddy’s rise to fame.
Each song on the album is sung by a different “character” and this insistence upon telling a story often detracts from the album. The opening gambit has all the hallmarks of a show tune; a fanfare of strings and woodwinds, verses detailing the origins of our leading lady and a chorus that triumphantly projects the title of the album “Here Lies Love.” The vocal performance by Florence Welch (of ‘-and the Machine’ fame) is powerful and different enough from a typical Broadway performer to rescue the song from being a completely over the top cringe-fest. Other songs on the album have varying degrees of success at shaking free of these shackles.
The song most guilty of this is “A Perfect Hand” which is so deeply embedded in the story arc and occupied with relating a crucial part of the story (Ferdinand Marcos spotting his wife-to-be on the cover of a magazine and deciding he must marry her) that it falls foul of many of many of the “don’ts” of modern alternative music, such as extended obvious metaphors. On this occasion that means comparing love to a game of cards and the music is not interesting enough to save us from hackneyed lines like “it’s a winning combination if the lady understands / that the King and the Queen of Hearts could be a perfect hand.” Other offenders are the overdramatic telling of the destruction of the Philippino slums in “Order 1081” and the theatrical “7 Years” which is about the release of the opposition leader from prison.
Story aside, this is a collection of solid yet unremarkable pop songs with a handful of standouts which can be identified on the first listen. The guests all put in fine performances, most notably Róisín Murphy on the blues-tinged “Don’t You Agree” and Sharon Jones on the funky “Dancing Together.” Blame must be placed on Byrne and Cook for not producing an interesting enough musical backing to make full use of the stellar cast at their disposal. There are exceptions to this, namely “Every Drop of Rain” and “Please Don’t.” The former is a flamenco-infused number that has such seductive rhythm and melody that the details of the lyrics become irrelevant; the latter features an undeniably addictive disco-groove and a brilliant performance from Santigold.
Here Lies Love clocks in at 90 minutes, which is far too long, and even when divided into its two halves rarely will anyone feel the desire to listen to either disc in its entirety. The album is bloated by a number of clunking “plot drivers” and the inescapable feeling that this should never have been heard outside of the theatre; at least not in its full incarnation. On the bright side the highlights of the album show that there is plenty of potential in the Byrne-Fatboy Slim partnership; let’s just hope that next time around they keep it simple.
