Home by The Ting Tings
I haven't been quite this excited about an album since the last one.
A missile arrived in my DMs on Monday evening. The circle indicating The Ting Tings had posted a new story suddenly went green. This communicates the message that I am one of their close friends. I most assuredly amn't. What was happening? Had Katie been at the sangria? What appalling manifestation was about to illuminate my phone? Could it be an error, the sort that can only happen after an afternoon on the razz in Benidorm?
Others have shared the post. It went to 500 people only. That sounds like a lot perhaps, but The Ting Tings were and are internationally famous. To be one of their 500 is a special thing. So special that I decline to share the post with you other than to say it contained a totally free link to their entire unreleased album, Home, which is out today. In a world where everyone over-shares the bollocks off everything (and no doubt some do indeed share their bollocks, or at least their container) there is something arresting about being one out of 500 globally to experience something. Suddenly the stakes were a notch higher. Somehow, I have to beat the profile I wrote a few weeks ago when I first came across Home on Spotify.
PAUL DETTMANN
I want to say that I object to classifying this gem as yacht rock. I used to love yacht rock before we called it yacht rock, in the days when it was simply popular music. Duran Duran's Rio was my first ever LP in the days before CDs existed. I played that record to destruction, it being my only one for the best part of a year. I couldn't believe that lady's voice on Hungry Like the Wolf. Was she giggling, or... could it be... something more somehow? I have it on again now. It's a classic. That is yacht rock and it is a little dated now. Mainly because nobody can afford a good-sized yacht. In the 1980s every teenager got one for their seventeenth birthday. I agree with the Ting Tings about everything else.
It was recorded in a wooden decked analogue studio and is an easy breezy yacht rock album committed to traditional songwriting inspired by their all-time favourites, Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, The Eagles, The Carpenters, Crosby Stills & Nash, Supertramp, Christopher Cross, best heard in a car, preferably with the sea in view and the windows down.
When I discovered that The Ting Tings loved Fleetwood Mac possibly even more than I did, I vowed to listen again to all their stuff, even the stuff I lost track of the first time around. They basically listen to the same music I do, and I'm sure they have some Tom Petty too. I wonder if The Tings were at that Mac show in Manchester, the day Lindsey had to stop the music to break up a fight in December 2003? It was at a venue I (still) know as the NYNEX, but was in those days the MEN Arena and is now so pale you cannot see it, due to the arrival of a fancier venue. I do still have the ticket, in the days when tickets were made of paper and card.
And have they visited the Record Plant in Sausalito, the venue which hosted the Mac while those very songs off of Rumours were being invented? I remember standing outside those hallowed portals with Amber Valletta, our mouths agape, on Obama's inauguration day in 2009 but that is very much another story.
If The Ting Tings have not seen the Record Plant then they have not seen the naked razor blade on the carpet floor of vocal Booth B, the one Stevie used that day in 1976. I am very happy to announce that the building is in use as a recording studio once again after a time in the wilderness as a yoga centre. It's a shame because even today Studio B at the Record Plant is a wooden-decked analogue studio of the kind that would have fitted well with Home. [I didn't think you could bring that paragraph back. Props. Ed.]
And so to the matter in hand. It was May 13th when Katie first slipped into my DMs and my admiration has grown and grown in the days since. I have written about the singles previously, see above. This article is for the album tracks, which are at least as good, truth be told. This leaves six songs to cover, and I want to properly consider three here. This leaves three for you to discover for yourself. My favourite three of those six are: the title track, Home; the chugging driving song, Winning; and the wonderful duet Song for Meadow. Goodbye Song is too sad to contemplate, especially after listening for weeks to Danced On The Wire.
Winning is both a 1970s classic and something of the current moment. "Why do you always have to play those games?" is a repeated refrain. Admittedly I thought at first he was asking about memes rather than games but they haven't modernised to that extent. I think he is saying to her that she is faaaaaaarrrrrrr too competitive all the time. Can't she slow down once in a while? Why is everything a slightly negative and not fun competition between them? The dance music heritage is never far from the surface on this record. I feel like Katie's voice is sometimes another instrument contributing to the tune. This song showcases absolutely everything that is brilliant about this edition of the Tings. It's catchy as fuck. It's modern. It's old traditional. It is absolute gold.
Home is more considered. The sound and the subject are very much deeper than Winning, which perhaps does deserve a yacht rock hashtag on reflection. Home has a groove. It starts like a true cowboy / Western song. Then Katie pops up and it changes into something else, just when you're thinking we're going all Rawhide. They sound like they're on horseback this time. It clip clops at a good lick without being too quick. It builds in a similar way to the instrumental version of Not My Name builds, brilliantly. I really do enjoy this title track. A lot.
And so Song For Meadow. This is a proper duet. But the most important piece of information I can share is that Meadow is the third Ting Ting, being their daughter, and she must be almost five. It is worth remembering that Katie used to be the lead vocalist of this "two man girl band" so it is always refreshing to hear Jules singing. It is the harmonies and duets that brought me closer to Fleetwood Mac in the months after Tango in the Night came out. I think that must be why I chose Meadow. It's a happy tune, although there is a nostalgic whimsicality to the lyrics. Regular readers will know that I am drawn to the lyrics and the origin story of each artist at least as much as the music, and probably more so.
Katie told Spin magazine: Even now, we’re a bit floaty. We don’t seem to settle that well. Now that we have a child, we try really hard to be more settled. But we still have this instinct, like three months ago, we were like, “Let’s move to Nashville.”
It sounds like they've been writing and recording in Nashville anyway. Many artists struggle with the music machine of Nashville, and I think Ibiza does have that sort of desert sunshine vibe and rocky highways. I wonder if it was a shrewd move not to move to Music City in the end. They're certainly closer to the UK for gigs.
They also told Spin that they tried to make the new record for a thousand dollars, because constraints can help creativity flourish. David Lynch once mentioned that kind of sentiment: that unbounded studio resources can sometimes induce paralysis. Well, did the million dollars and a year of bickering actually improve Tusk, Lindsey? But making a black and white movie in your garage using found props and friends as crew, as Lynch sort of did with Eraserhead, can lead to greatness.
It has been such a privilege to be brought behind the curtain on the release cycle for Home. I want to thank Katie and Jules for not only sending me this album on Monday but for all the good times they gave us in 2008 and in the years since.
The Ting Tings are playing shows in Manchester on Friday 13th June and in London on Sunday 28th September and when I checked this morning tickets were still available. And yes, I will be writing about the rest of the album later on. It is wall to wall quality and deserves every word I can think up.
