Ginger Wildheart

Downloading "Yoni" now from Amazon for 7.99

So of course Amazon wants me to spend more money so they recommended "Market Harbour" at the same price.

How is that one?

Smindas wrote:

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to fund a lot of his solo stuff off the back of shadow-writing. The guy has a knack for hooks.

As for Yoni, that's got to be one of my favourite Ginger solo records. Lots of really catchy songs and some quite fun experimenting throughout it. 'When She Comes' and 'Holiday' are particular highlights for me.

As an aside, the annual Ginger birthday show is on Monday - this year, The Wildhearts have reformed to do a headline set with Ginger's solo band supporting! Absolutely stoked.

Lucky bastard.

And yes, Yoni has some really great tunes. "Black Windows" is my favorite. I love the 80s AOR style intro before it turns into a reggae/alt-rock song. It shouldn't work, but somehow Ginger makes is work fantastically.

I also love "Can't Drink You Pretty."

The guy can definitely write a catchy hook.

The other tendency I've noticed in his songwriting is that sometimes he tends to go on too long. THe ending to "Internal Radio" is a prime example.

But give him an "editor" and I have no doubt the guy could write top 10 pop songs constantly if he wanted to.

tohostudios wrote:

So of course Amazon wants me to spend more money so they recommended "Market Harbour" at the same price.

How is that one?

Pretty experimental. It's fairly mellow, lots of Beatles-esque tunes, but again with a a bit of experimentation of sounds mixed in.

I like it, but it was the hardest album for me to get into. It's not so immediate, you know.

Do you have A Break In The Weather and Valor del Corazon? Those are the two most like Wildhearts stuff, especially Valor.

I have Valor but not the other one. Guess I'll pass on Market Harbour because I'm not a Beatles fan at all.

tohostudios wrote:

The other tendency I've noticed in his songwriting is that sometimes he tends to go on too long. THe ending to "Internal Radio" is a prime example.

A fair point, but I actually quite like the fact that he often goes on a bit too much and in odd directions. Makes the music a bit more interesting, a lot of the time. However, Hey! Hello! is very much an exercise in Ginger editing himself - all the songs are around 3 mins each.

I wouldn't hugely recommend A Break In The Weather personally - find it a little hit and miss, although there are some good tracks there. Valor is pretty great though. If you're looking for another Ginger solo record, I'd check out the Silver Ginger 5 album, Black Leather Mojo. Really good hard rock album, although the production takes a little getting used to.

Smindas wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

The other tendency I've noticed in his songwriting is that sometimes he tends to go on too long. THe ending to "Internal Radio" is a prime example.

A fair point, but I actually quite like the fact that he often goes on a bit too much and in odd directions. Makes the music a bit more interesting, a lot of the time. However, Hey! Hello! is very much an exercise in Ginger editing himself - all the songs are around 3 mins each.

I wouldn't hugely recommend A Break In The Weather personally - find it a little hit and miss, although there are some good tracks there. Valor is pretty great though. If you're looking for another Ginger solo record, I'd check out the Silver Ginger 5 album, Black Leather Mojo. Really good hard rock album, although the production takes a little getting used to.

Oh yeah, the Silver Ginger 5 album is really good. Definitely way more of a Wildhearts style.

As for A Break In The Weather, it's probably not best to be taken as an album as that's not the way it was envisioned. It was released as singles initially. Or most of it was. Was it the label that folded or something before all the singles were out?

Either way, it's probably more of a cohesive album stylistically if you listened to it in chunks of three, as it was intended.

Can't remember what happened - either the label folded or the project didn't really take off very well so they canned it. I get that it's not a cohesive album, which is fine, but I find a fair amount of the material on it a bit second rate. Also a lot of it just sounds a little sloppily recorded. There are some great tracks on it, though.

Started spinning "Yoni". Man, I can't get past "When She Comes"; I keep backing up and replaying it. Ginger sure can write a memorable melody. I heard this song for the first time today and now I walk around the house singing it.

Can't say I'm really looking forward to the Mutation albums.



Has some great moments, but they don't last long.

Yeah, that was a bit odd. Not terrible, but a bit of a mess. Shame, as I'm actually quite fond of the two singers' bands (Exit_International and The Loyalties).

I have a suspicion the Mutation albums will be a bit of a mixed bag. I'm not sure extreme metal is quite Ginger's forte.

I guess Ginger wanted to stretch his boundaries as an artist but when you can pen a melodic hook the way he can, I think he's wasting his talent on stuff like this Mutation music.

tohostudios wrote:

I guess Ginger wanted to stretch his boundaries as an artist but when you can pen a melodic hook the way he can, I think he's wasting his talent on stuff like this Mutation music.

I get the feeling this is something he'd have probably never completed if it weren't for these crowd-funding sites like PledgeMusic. So I get why he's doing it. Strike while the iron's hot, you know.

The backlash could be, however, that these albums aren't that good and people then lose faith in blindly funding music they have no chance of hearing first. That's the biggest hurdle in doing this sort of things: Fans have to have faith in the musician/band.

To be fair, though, I don't think this sounds any different than what Ginger described it to be. Either way, I was definitely hoping for something a bit more cohesive.

Eyesore wrote:

Can't say I'm really looking forward to the Mutation albums.



Has some great moments, but they don't last long.

Wow! That was crap!

Eyesore wrote:

The backlash could be, however, that these albums aren't that good and people then lose faith in blindly funding music they have no chance of hearing first. That's the biggest hurdle in doing this sort of things: Fans have to have faith in the musician/band.

To be honest, whilst this is a very possible scenario, I'd doubt it'd happen with Ginger. Especially considering the roaring support behind 555% and Hey! Hello!, I wouldn't be surprised if the hugely dedicated fanbase just see the Mutation albums as a blip. That or force themselves to like it - it's a rabid fanbase, ha.

So this first Mutation album is actually pretty good. They released it for download this morning, and while it'll never go down as my favorite Ginger album, I'm definitely enjoying it.

It's like the weirder, crazier but strangely far easier to like cousin of The Wildhearts' Endless, Nameless.

I see what you mean about it being a little like Endless. Nameless. It's certainly not a bad album and some of it is genuinely awesome, but it's not up to G's usual standard. Still, definitely an interesting one - the little slips of traditional Ginger melodies that creep up make it pretty unique.

So there is now going to be a commercial release of the Hey! Hello! album, which was originally meant to be an exclusive to pledgers. It's a wise move, I think, and the band basically asked permission first.

Now, however, the exclusive is going to be a CD single for "Black Valentine," with two exclusive bonus tracks.



So if you're a fan and want the single, preorder the album (i.e. pledge) by March 1. It's a fantastic album. One of Ginger's best, I think.

Guess what the #1 Rock album in the UK is?



 

Eyesore wrote:

Guess what the #1 Rock album in the UK is?



 

This album is great. Ginger's ability to come up with memorable melodies never ceases to amaze me. This guy could make a career out of penning pop hits if he wanted to. Fortunately for us, he likes creating his own music.

It has a truly timeless sound to it. Pure hook. Quite unique, actually. Time to listen to more...

corplhicks wrote:

It has a truly timeless sound to it. Pure hook. Quite unique, actually. Time to listen to more...

"Pure hook" describes pretty much every song Ginger has ever written, and according to my Ginger playlist, that's at least 485. And I don't even have every album he's put out.

Eyesore wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

It has a truly timeless sound to it. Pure hook. Quite unique, actually. Time to listen to more...

"Pure hook" describes pretty much every song Ginger has ever written, and according to my Ginger playlist, that's at least 485. And I don't even have every album he's put out.

Good Lord. I've never heard of this guy before, just now wiki'd him. That's an impressive body of work. So I guess the obvious question is where to start...? Wildhearts?

corplhicks wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

It has a truly timeless sound to it. Pure hook. Quite unique, actually. Time to listen to more...

"Pure hook" describes pretty much every song Ginger has ever written, and according to my Ginger playlist, that's at least 485. And I don't even have every album he's put out.

Good Lord. I've never heard of this guy before, just now wiki'd him. That's an impressive body of work. So I guess the obvious question is where to start...? Wildhearts?

Sure. The debut, Earth vs. The Wildhearts.