Aural Fixation- Gavin B.'s Music Blog

Gavin B. · 08-13-2010, 02:34 PM

My Favorite Musical Eccentric

Neil Hannon frontman and director of the Divine Comedy, a musical orchestra specializing campy Bacharach style Sixties pop.

Neil Hannon is a pop star that I'm at a rare loss of words to adequately describe. The 39 year old Irish musician has been a mainstay on the fringe of the British indie pop music scene for two decades and I still don't know what to make of his campy musical project, the Divine Comedy. I became aquainted with the Divine Comedy with the release of the album Casanova in 1996. Neil Hannon has also involved himself in projects with other avant garde & electronica artists primarily as a featured vocalist. As of late the Divine Comedy has become a bit less campy and plays a highly polished version of Britpop that has influences in the baroque orchestral music of the Beatles, Brian Wilson and Love.

The first Neil Hannon song that caught my ear on Casanova was Becoming More Like Alfie which was a campy response to Burt Bacharach's song Alfie which he wrote for the sountrack of the 1966 movie with the same name. The Oscar nominated movie strarring a young Michael Caine was about an unrepentant ladies man in swinging London who is forced to come to grips with the consequences of his lifestyle choices. Neil Hannon's Alfie themed song is his own tongue-in-cheek rebuttal to original Bacharach song. This performace of Becoming More Like Alfie features Hannon in a live performance with his Divine Comedy orchestra backing him.

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My second selection is live performance of Hannon with the Yann Tiersen Orchestra. The song is from Tiersen's brilliant score to the French film Amelie. Those familiar the music of Amelie will recognize Les Jours Tristes as the breathtaking main theme played by the Tiersen Orchestra in the film score. The addition of Neil Hannon's lyrics and his vocals are icing on the cake. Unfortunely the copyright police won't allow the visual portion of this live performance on YouTube

Hannon's secret musical weapon is his multi-octave tenor which soars to the upper reaches of the musical scale. His voice had made a featured singer on albums by Air, Yann Tierson, Charlotte Gainsbourgh, God Help the Girl & Scott Walker, a British singer with whom Hannon's voice is frequently compared to.

In my final embedded video Neil performs a show stopping version of David Bowie's Life on Mars as a featured vocialist with the orchestra of French musical icon Yann Tiersen. Tiersen is a kindred spirit and close musical associate of Neil Hannon. Tiersen's thematic noodlings on a pair of toy pianos is the perfect counterpoint to Hannon's expressive voice. I was stunned by Hannon's effortless mastery of the operatic upper register scale and he sings every note without once using falsetto. By some good fortune both the audio and video portion of this live performance was available on YouTube.

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Divine Comedy- A Complete Discography

Fanfare for the Comic Muse – July 1990
Liberation – August 1993
Promenade – March 1994
Casanova – April 1996
A Short Album About Love – February 1997
Fin de Siècle – August 1998
A Secret History... The Best of the Divine Comedy – August 1999
Regeneration – March 2001
Absent Friends – March 2004
Victory for the Comic Muse – June 2006
Bang Goes the Knighthood - May 2010

Thanks to Right Track, Urban Hatemonger, Loathsome Pete & Freebase Dali for their able assistance in helping me get the YouTube embeds fully functional on my blog again.

08-13-2010, 02:34 PM	#11 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	My Favorite Musical Eccentric Neil Hannon frontman and director of the Divine Comedy, a musical orchestra specializing campy Bacharach style Sixties pop. Neil Hannon is a pop star that I'm at a rare loss of words to adequately describe. The 39 year old Irish musician has been a mainstay on the fringe of the British indie pop music scene for two decades and I still don't know what to make of his campy musical project, the Divine Comedy. I became aquainted with the Divine Comedy with the release of the album Casanova in 1996. Neil Hannon has also involved himself in projects with other avant garde & electronica artists primarily as a featured vocalist. As of late the Divine Comedy has become a bit less campy and plays a highly polished version of Britpop that has influences in the baroque orchestral music of the Beatles, Brian Wilson and Love. The first Neil Hannon song that caught my ear on Casanova was Becoming More Like Alfie which was a campy response to Burt Bacharach's song Alfie which he wrote for the sountrack of the 1966 movie with the same name. The Oscar nominated movie strarring a young Michael Caine was about an unrepentant ladies man in swinging London who is forced to come to grips with the consequences of his lifestyle choices. Neil Hannon's Alfie themed song is his own tongue-in-cheek rebuttal to original Bacharach song. This performace of Becoming More Like Alfie features Hannon in a live performance with his Divine Comedy orchestra backing him. ============================= My second selection is live performance of Hannon with the Yann Tiersen Orchestra. The song is from Tiersen's brilliant score to the French film Amelie. Those familiar the music of Amelie will recognize Les Jours Tristes as the breathtaking main theme played by the Tiersen Orchestra in the film score. The addition of Neil Hannon's lyrics and his vocals are icing on the cake. Unfortunely the copyright police won't allow the visual portion of this live performance on YouTube Hannon's secret musical weapon is his multi-octave tenor which soars to the upper reaches of the musical scale. His voice had made a featured singer on albums by Air, Yann Tierson, Charlotte Gainsbourgh, God Help the Girl & Scott Walker, a British singer with whom Hannon's voice is frequently compared to. In my final embedded video Neil performs a show stopping version of David Bowie's Life on Mars as a featured vocialist with the orchestra of French musical icon Yann Tiersen. Tiersen is a kindred spirit and close musical associate of Neil Hannon. Tiersen's thematic noodlings on a pair of toy pianos is the perfect counterpoint to Hannon's expressive voice. I was stunned by Hannon's effortless mastery of the operatic upper register scale and he sings every note without once using falsetto. By some good fortune both the audio and video portion of this live performance was available on YouTube. ========================== Divine Comedy- A Complete Discography Fanfare for the Comic Muse – July 1990 Liberation – August 1993 Promenade – March 1994 Casanova – April 1996 A Short Album About Love – February 1997 Fin de Siècle – August 1998 A Secret History... The Best of the Divine Comedy – August 1999 Regeneration – March 2001 Absent Friends – March 2004 Victory for the Comic Muse – June 2006 Bang Goes the Knighthood - May 2010 Thanks to Right Track, Urban Hatemonger, Loathsome Pete & Freebase Dali for their able assistance in helping me get the YouTube embeds fully functional on my blog again. Last edited by Gavin B.; 08-26-2010 at 11:28 AM.