[sherer]

Just found out she's back with a solo album. not seen any promo for it apart from in one free London paper.

No vids on MTV either

has anyone heard it yet and know if it's any good

have to say i always used to fancy her when I was younger

[3V17C]

i think its on the radio 2 playlist - have heard it on there once or twice....its kinda ok and she doesn't seem to warble quite as much as she used to!

peace

c

[Mart F]

The hatchet job Taylor Parkes and Everett True did on Dolores and The Cranberries in an old Melody Maker review was one of my favourite reviews ever. They tore her/them to pieces.

A REAL TURKEY
Some people like THE CRANBERRIES. EVERETT TRUE and TAYLOR PARKES don’t.

THE CRANBERRIES
TO THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED


Reasons to hate The Cranberries.

1) Dolores O’Riordan. Her arrogance. Her petty small-mindedness. Her redneck worldview. Her incessant preaching. The fact you can actually see the mean-spiritedness of her thoughts imprinted on her pinched little face. Those American flag jumpsuits. Her cold love of money. The way she’s Sinead O’Connor for people who can’t confront even elementary contradictions. Her anti-abortion stance. Her absolute lack of self-irony. The way she makes even the most fundamental and wonderful emotions sound trite. The way America loves her cliched, stereotypical take on Ireland. Her reduction of serious political issues to 10-second sound-nibbles. Her dress sense. The obscene way she made legions of students slow-dance to the most crushingly banal political lyric (“And their tanks and their bombs and their tanks and their guns…”) since Paul McCartney’s “Give Ireland Back To The Irish”. That wedding.

2) Dolores O’Riordan. Her smug conceit masquerading as concern for all mankind.

3) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. The fact that no one in her obviously highly technological camp has bothered to buy her anything more than a Second Year rhyming dictionary. The fact that she sees fit to write a song about John Lennon – a bigoted, misogynistic, self-loathing, tantrum-prone asshole who also happened to write some great songs – 15 years after the event, and gloss over all his faults. The fact that she does so by writing the infantile lines, “It was a fearful night of December 8th/He was returning home from the studio late/He had perceptively known that it wouldn’t be nice/Because in 1980 he paid the price…With a Smith & Wesson 38/John Lennon’s life was no longer a debate.” The fact that every person in her camp is clearly so in awe of her (temper? Power? Capacity for retribution? Fragile ego?) that they didn’t take her gently to one side and go, “Er, Dolores, perhaps it’d be better if someone else wrote the lyrics…”

4) Dolores O’Riordan. Her videos. You know how much Dolores hates to be typecast as a “thick Paddy”? Has she actually watched any of her own videos? The way they reinforce received notions of Ireland as a backwards country populated entirely by broken-toothed, bowl-headed, crying schoolkids in grey V-neck jumpers dancing around streets lit by the occasional Armalite flare? And the odd horse – y’know.

5) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. Guess whose only contact with “real life” has been MTV news and the occasional venture onto the street outside the Four Seasons? Check “War Child”: “I spent last winter in New York and came upon a man/He was sleeping in the streets and homeless, he said ‘I fought in Vietnam’…” You ****ing patronising, prematurely middle-aged cow.

6) Dolores O’Riordan. Her music. The opening song here (“Hollywood”) starts like Stiltskin. Only not as good. Then we’re onto Foreigner territory. With the odd mandolin thrown in, for “local” colour.

7) Dolores O’Riordan. Her lyrics. Check “I’m Still Remembering”: “They say the cream will always rise to the top/They say that good people are always the first to drop/What of Kurt Cobain, will his presence still remain?/Remember JFK, ever saintly in a way….” (Yeah, and an adulterous ego-maniac who started the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, in another way.) Check: “Bosnia” (no, seriously, folks) – “Bosnia was so unkind, Sarajevo changed my mind…Rummmpatitum, rummmpatitum/Traboo, traboo, traboo…” (We’re quoting from the official lyric sheet.) The theremin and musical box used (spookily!) to spice up the music have the unfortunate effect of making the song sound like something from “The Twilight Zone”.
The situation in the former Yugoslavia seems to have particularly troubled Dolores while she was writing the songs for this album (what’s wrong, dearie? Nothing better on TV?). After all, as she helpfully points out in the heady, emotive (all right: we’re lying) “Free To Decide”, “You must have nothing more with your time to do/There’s a war in Russia and Sarajevo too.” This is, incidentally, the most perceptive insight she offers throughout. (Who are the people who take this woman seriously? Where do they live? Where do they go to at night? Please don’t invite us.)

8) Dolores O’Riordan. Her voice. The way she turned what was a dazzling, intoxicating gift into an atonal corncrake skree by infusing it with her personality. Now it emparts no emotion of any kind, save for pettiness, bitterness, self-righteousness. She tries to suggest such broad sweeps of emotion with her songs but, somehow, they always end up sounding so ****ing small.

Not that we’d want to belittle her.

Originally printed in the Melody Maker, April 27, 1996

[stud u like]

oooooooooooooooooooooh thats a stinker! Poor Dolores.

[Deep Purple]

Originally Posted by Mart F

The hatchet job Taylor Parkes and Everett True did on Dolores and The Cranberries in an old Melody Maker review was one of my favourite reviews ever. They tore her/them to pieces.

I think critics are a waste of space. What is the point of that kind of review other than promote their own ego.

Their views on anything are no better than anyone elses, but they can affect people greatly for their own fun.

[sherer]

Originally Posted by Deep Purple

I think critics are a waste of space. What is the point of that kind of review other than promote their own ego.

Their views on anything are no better than anyone elses, but they can affect people greatly for their own fun.

it wasn't really a review just an attack on someone they didn't like.. no real mention of the music at all

sure To The Faithfully Departed had a few weak tracks but it was still a good album

[puzz]

Originally Posted by Deep Purple

I think critics are a waste of space. What is the point of that kind of review other than promote their own ego.

yeah i agree, I have only heard the first single and it is good enough, The album can't be that bad!!! (Can it? )

As for the Cranberries, They were one of the best bands of the 90's imo

[Mart F]

Pfffft, luddites.

That review is great, completely on point and it does mention the music :

6) Dolores O’Riordan. Her music. The opening song here (“Hollywood”) starts like Stiltskin. Only not as good. Then we’re onto Foreigner territory. With the odd mandolin thrown in, for “local” colour.

Some critics are/were as important as the music they wrote about and were intrisicaly linked to it ie. Lester Bangs, Paul Morley, Simon Reynolds, Elliot Wilson, Neil Kulkarni.

[Deep Purple]

Originally Posted by Mart F

Pfffft, luddites.

That review is great, completely on point and it does mention the music :



Some critics are/were as important as the music they wrote about and were intrisicaly linked to it ie. Lester Bangs, Paul Morley, Simon Reynolds, Elliot Wilson, Neil Kulkarni.

I cant see how they are. There writings are going to be based on personal opinions, and theirs are no better than anyone elses. What they can do is write about it better than most. Doesn't mean they're right though.

[Mart F]

Well, then you obviously don't understand and, to be truthful, i doubt you even know the instances i'm refering to (Bangs and garage-punk/Velvet Underground/Stooges/the 70 NY punk scene; Morley and Joy Division etc) or even the writers i mentioned anyway.

[Deep Purple]

Originally Posted by Mart F

Well, then you obviously don't understand and, to be truthful, i doubt you even know the instances i'm refering to (Bangs and garage-punk/Velvet Underground/Stooges/the 70 NY punk scene; Morley and Joy Division etc) or even the writers i mentioned anyway.

I'm aware of Bangs, but not the others.

I'm sure there are some who have a positive influence, but in general I'm not a fan, especially when they take the tone of your earlier example.

[Mart F]

I personally think that review is 100000000 times more entertaining than any of the music The Cranberries made.

[Masquerade]

Look where Melody Maker ended up! Reviewers like them probably helped.

Anyway I heard the new song on radio 2 a cuple of times and it's okay.

[Supervixen]

Do you think he liked it?