Blair Cowan (musician)
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Blair Cowan (musician)
Blair Cowan is a Scottish musician, formerly a member of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Following the breakup of that band, he continued to collaborate with Lloyd Cole early in the singer's solo career, playing and co-writing on 1990's ''Lloyd Cole'' and 1991's ''Don't Get Weird on Me Babe''. He has since performed on other artists' recordings, including Del Amitri, Texas, the Hot Rod Cadets, the Kevin McDermott Orchestra, and Alisdair Robertson. His collaboration with Robertson resulted in the album ''Confessions of a Justified Singer''. He plays piano, keyboards, accordion, and melodica. In the 1990s, Cowan was a member and co-producer of Paul Quinn and the Independent Group on the revived Postcard Records. In 2007, Cowan played in Kevin McDermott's album, ''Wise to the Fade''. In 2010, Cowan collaborated on Lloyd Cole's ''Broken Record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog ...
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Pop Music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. ''Rock'' and ''pop'' music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which ''pop'' became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles ...
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Don't Get Weird On Me Babe
''Don't Get Weird on Me Babe'' is the second solo album by the English musician Lloyd Cole, released in 1991. The title comes from a Raymond Carver expression. Unlike the original release, the American version of the album leads with the "rock" half and ends with the orchestral songs. The album peaked at No. 40 on ''Billboards Heatseekers Albums chart. It peaked at No. 21 on the UK Albums Chart. Cole promoted the album by touring with Robert Forster and Grant McLennan. Production The album was produced by Cole, Fred Maher, and Paul Hardiman. The string parts were arranged by Paul Buckmaster. Robert Quine, Matthew Sweet, and Maher joined Cole on the "rock" half of the album. Critical reception Upon its release, Jon Wilde of ''Melody Maker'' felt the album provided "reason enough for some kind of modest assessment" of Cole's work, commenting, "Divided between orchestral arrangements and more familiar chastened rockers, it somewhat surprisingly offers some of his sharpest, ...
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Living People
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Neil Clark (musician)
Neil Clark (born 3 July 1958, in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a Scottish guitarist, known for his work with Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. He has regularly worked and toured with Lloyd Cole post-Commotions including playing on and touring in support of Cole's 2006 album, ''Antidepressant''. He also worked on Cole's albums ''Bad Vibes'', ''Love Story'', ''Etc'', ''Music in a Foreign Language'', and ''Guesswork''. Clark was a member of Bloomsday with Stephen Irvine of the Commotions and Chris Thomson of The Bathers. Clark features on the Bathers' 1993 album, ''Lagoon Blues''. He collaborated with Canadian singer Mae Moore on her album ''Dragonfly'' - his guitar playing featured on her single "Genuine", which reached No. 6 on the RPM "Top 100" singles chart in Canada. In 1995 and 1998 he worked on two albums with French singer Axelle Renoir. Two songs, co-written by Clark for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, have been covered by other artists: "Rattlesnakes", by Tori Am ...
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Guesswork (album)
''Guesswork'' is the eleventh studio album by English musician Lloyd Cole, released on 26 July 2019 through Edel Music. It includes contributions from his former Commotions bandmates Blair Cowan and Neil Clark, and was produced by Chris Hughes and Olaf Opal. Critical reception ''Guesswork'' received a score of 75 out of 100 based on nine critics' reviews on review aggregator Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable" reception. '' Q'' felt that "A couple of other tracks veer too close to pastiche, but taken as a whole, this is a rich, brave, eloquent piece of work", while ''Uncut'' pointed to the length of the songs (three of the eight being under five minutes) as making them "a little ponderous, but clearly, our expectations are of little concern". Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote that the album provides "a little bit of both" Cole's types of solo work, "literate and well-crafted pop songs" and "experimental synthesizer projects", and Cole is "writing and singing near th ...
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Broken Record (album)
''Broken Record'' is the eighth solo studio album by English musician Lloyd Cole, released on 10 September 2010 through Tapete Records. The album was partly financed by Cole's fans, and includes collaborations with Cole's former Commotions bandmate, keyboardist Blair Cowan, as well as Fred Maher, who co-produced Cole's self-titled album in 1990. Critical reception Thom Jurek of AllMusic found ''Broken Record'' to be "small in scope, but full of crafty hooks, wry, self deprecating humor, and genuine irony. Cole's lyric panache is enhanced by this solid meld of classic singer/songwriter-ish pop, country-tinged acoustic rock, and crystalline production". Jurek concluded that it is the "most consistent upbeat record Cole's released in a dog's age". '' The Line of Best Fit'' described the album as a "fine collection" as well as "a concerted attempt to reconnect with his audience. It is accessible and melodic, relatively brief at a little over 35 minutes, feeling country with pe ...
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Postcard Records
Postcard Records is a British, Glasgow-based, independent record label founded by Alan Horne in 1979, as a vehicle for releases by Orange Juice and Josef K. The label's motto was "The Sound of Young Scotland", a parody/tribute to the Motown motto; its logo featured a cartoon cat beating a drum. Although short-lived, Postcard was a key influence on the C81 and the later C86 indie-pop movements. The label's first release, in spring 1980, was Orange Juice's, " Falling and Laughing", which was jointly financed by Horne and band members Edwyn Collins and bass guitarist David McClymont. The label went on to sign such bands as Aztec Camera and The Go-Betweens, before winding down in 1981 shortly after Orange Juice left to sign a major deal with Polydor. In 1984 Horne then started a new label as part of a deal with London Records, called Swamplands, releasing a handful of singles before folding. He then resuscitated Postcard in 1992, releasing various new albums and retrospectives unt ...
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Kevin McDermott Orchestra
Kevin Francis McDermott (born 10 February 1962 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter. Early life Kevin Francis McDermott was born 10 February 1962, to Evelyn and Frank McDermott. He has two younger brothers, Paul, and Jim. When his family emigrated to Canada for a period, he attended the Holy Name School in Toronto. Upon their return to Glasgow, he attended Our Lady of the Assumption School, in Ruchill, and then St Charles School, and St Columba of Iona School, in Maryhill. The first album McDermott bought was Buddy Holly Lives. He was influenced by both ''Buddy Holly'', and ''The Beatles''. He was given an acoustic guitar by his Uncle Joe, at age 14, and taught himself to play by ear. McDermott joined Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited in 1978, when he was sixteen years old, working as a ship draughtsman. Inspired, after attending the farewell concert of The Rezillos at The Apollo (Glasgow), McDermott started to write and perform live, both solo, and wi ...
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Texas (band)
Texas are a Scottish alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ... band from Glasgow. They were founded in 1986 by Johnny McElhone (formerly of the bands Altered Images and Hipsway) and Sharleen Spiteri on lead vocals. Texas made their performing debut in March 1988 at the University of Dundee. They took their name from the 1984 Wim Wenders movie ''Paris, Texas (film), Paris, Texas''. The band released their debut album ''Southside (Texas album), Southside'' in 1989, along with the debut single "I Don't Want a Lover", which was a top-ten hit on the UK Singles Chart and peaked within the top ten of the charts in many other European countries. ''Southside'' entered at number three on the UK Albums Chart and number 88 on the Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 albu ...
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Del Amitri
Del Amitri are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in Glasgow in 1980. Between 1985 and 2002, the band released six studio albums. Their 1995 single " Roll to Me" reached number 10 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Five Del Amitri albums have reached the Top 10 in the UK. Globally, Del Amitri have sold six million albums. History Band name Del Amitri's founding member and main songwriter, Justin Currie, explained in 2010 that the band's name "was invented to be meaningless – basically a corruption of the Greek name 'Dimitri'." In 2018, Currie clarified that 'Del Amitri' is a bastardisation of the name of a film producer who appeared in the closing credits of a film he saw in 1979 – "probably Dimitri-something, but we couldn't remember... so eventually through osmosis or maybe Chinese Whispers 'Dimitri' became 'Del Amitri'." Many sources have repeated a claim that the name was chosen because it is Greek for "from the womb", but this is untrue. Formation and early years ...
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Lloyd Cole (album)
''Lloyd Cole'', also known as ''The X Album'', is the debut solo album by English singer, songwriter and musician Lloyd Cole released on February 21, 1990 by Polydor and Capitol. Previously Cole was best known for his work with The Commotions but this album marked a departure from their signature sound and an opportunity for him to collaborate with other musicians and explore new ideas. Background Following the release of ''Mainstream'', and limited touring and promotion in support of it, Cole left the Commotions. The chance to write and record new types of songs was the motivating factor. He also believed that the group had reached a natural conclusion and he no longer wanted the pressure and responsibility of managing a band. His self-titled debut album was written and recorded in New York, where, following the demise of the Commotions and a long-term relationship, he resided permanently. ''I left London, because I was only there for two reasons,'' said Cole. ''It was wher ...
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Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ...
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