Tuesday, October 26, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 5
Entertainment
Secret History relives group's past
By Chris Eckert
Kansan music critic
There's always something suspicious about an unknown band releasing a greatest hits album. Usually it's a joke or parody of some sort, but in the case of The Divine Comedy's Secret History, it's an accurately titled album from a band only recently achieving fame in Europe and still waiting for a break in America.
The Divine Comedy is primarily Neil Hannon, who formed a fourpiece rock band in the early 1990s and promptly disowned it. He kept the name, and released a string of five albums in the United Kingdom, eventually finding his niche with collaborator and conductor Joby Talbot. The sound of the album is lush orchestral pop with a dry British bent to the lyrics, bordering on show tunes. After some success with Casanova and A Short Album About Love, counterpoints of contempt and adoration of romance, the Divine Comedy had its break with "National Express" off the album Fin de Siecle, a top ten hit in the United Kingdom.
The track listing of the album is confusing, in that it appears to follow in vague order the popularity of a given single, from greatest to least. This gives the album a disjointed feeling, mixing newer, more confident arrangements next to older, weaker tunes.
"National Express" opens the
business, proclaiming the joys of the
country.
al bus service with ironic glee and a tune that you can hardly imagine people not performing a dance routine to. It's followed by two other big Un i t e d Kingdom hits, "Something
CD facts
Artist: The Divine Comedy
Title: Secret History
Grade: A-
for the Weekend," a rolling tune about libido and noises from the woodshed, and "Everybody Knows (Except You)," an endearingly sappy ode to unrequited love.
While all three are deserving hits, Hannon sometimes displays his wry affection too prominently, such as
in the bombast and pomp of "The Certainty of Chance." Other times he revels in his bookish side in ways that the American pop market is never going to tolerate "Lucy" is a Wordsworth poem set to music, and "Becoming More Like Alife," though charming, is based on a Michael Caine movie from the 1960s.
At other points, though, the Divine Comedy shines. It is an unjust world in which songs like "In Pursuit of Happiness," "Tonight We Fly" and "Songs of Love" aren't staples of wedding DJs. But perhaps having swooning chorus lesues like, "You don't really love me / but I don't really mind / because I don't love anybody / that stuff is just a waste of time / your place or mine" ("Frog Princess") consigns a band away from blockbuster success and appearances on Slow Jams compilations. The Divine Comedy is often too sentimental and soft to appeal to rock fans, but too acidic to appeal to the pop demographic.
And with any greatest hits package, there is bonus material to snare hard core fans. Of the two new songs, "Too Young to Die" is at best average, while "Gin Saoke Boy" is a wonderfully catchy list song, starting with nonsensical metaphors ("I'm the shortness in the long / I'm the rightness in the wrong") and deteriorating from there, to beautiful effect. One song, "The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count," is rec ordered in a more assured, rounded arrangement, but falls short of the charm of the original. Another rarity is a Cole Porter cover, "I've Been to a Marvelous Party," a mix of cabaret piano and Eurandurance that somehow meshes.
While not formatted ideally and exhibiting some early excesses and flaws, A Secret History is an effective primer to the career of The Divine Comedy, which deserves attention.
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