Archive for June 10, 2008
Who says MySpace is useless?
Like a lot of people these days, I find myself bearish on MySpace. Often it’s not much more than huge pile of remarkably ugly web pages that look like they were built with Microsoft FrontPage back in 1996. In so many ways, the web has moved ahead, and then there’s MySpace, mired in its aesthetically questionable past, frequently about half broken functionally, and lacking much in the way of substance.
But also like a lot of people these days, I find myself still using MySpace. Despite what it is or isn’t, I add friends, and use it as a platform to learn the basics about musical artists. Once in awhile, I manage to stumble across an artist I wasn’t familiar with while browsing other peoples’ friends lists, etc. That happened in a good way late last year, when I came across the MySpace page of German artist, eto.
I recently gained access to his record company’s promos, and while I’d seen the video for his single, Bicurious, and had heard samples of the song, being able to listen to his entire album Plastic Poetry was one of the most pleasant musical surprises I’ve had in a very, very long time.
To start, eto’s vocals are amazing. I’m a sucker for accented English, but that aside, his voice is smooth, on-pitch, and warm, and it’s coupled with solid production work, solid both because his vocals shine through the mix brilliantly, but also in terms of the arrangements, which are perfectly balanced and emphasize artistry and songwriting over merely piling-on sample after sample, layer after layer.
In addition to Bicurious, eto’s record label has released Hideaway as a single, and both songs are supported by a range of remixes that run the gamut from housey to edgy. I can see why both were selected for single release, but an equally strong track that wasn’t is Another Night. The stock album version of the song is dance-floor-friendly, and has actually been the track of eto’s I’ve been playing the most.
I think one of the things that surprised me the most about the album is the amount of territory it manages to cover, and yet manages to do so with continuity. From Another Night‘s clear dance vibe, to a guitar-rich ballad in Nobody Knows, to the very 80s-new-wave-sounding Alien Lover and Taste the Difference that stir memories of Gary Numan or perhaps Depeche Mode, to Falling which sort of reminds me of Ultravox, the album seems to go all over the place and yet pulls it off. I can’t quite put my finger on the common thread with Plastic Poetry, but it might be the well-written lyrics that are at times whimsical (Alien Lover) and at others remarkably “heart-worn-on-the-shirtsleeve” (Nobody Knows).
In an age where the full-length album seems to be a dying breed, it’s nice to know that an artist (and his record company) can still manage to construct one at all, let alone one that is artfully produced and a sheer pleasure to listen to, end-to-end, over-and-over.
Check it out on iTunes worldwide, and at http://www.etomusik.de.
