The Lightning Seeds Album: “Tilt”

Just like the Cure epitomized the darker sides of life, Lightning Seeds have taken upon themselves to make the world a happier place. The joy of life is the central theme in all their songs and Tilt carries on that tradition beautifully. From instantly classic songs like "Life's too short" with one of the best production on an electronic track ever, to sublime songs such as "Get it right" and "If only" you can't help but feel better, if not good, about yourself. Although the ballads are skipable to a casual listener, they add a completeness to the album which generates a very fulfilling listening experience. On the flip side, metaphorically speaking, you will be hard pressed to find happier songs than (surprise!) "Happy satellite" and "Crowdpleaser." Dance, Top40, RandB, Adult Contemporary listeners will equally find songs to their liking in this gem of an album. Even though, I am not a die-hard Lightning Seeds fan, Tilt was (is) my favorite album of the last 12 months.

I wanted to blurb this as it's one of my favorite albums of all time, and -- because it's almost unknown except to Lightning Seeds fans -- seriously under-blurbed. Tilt was Ian Broudie's last Lightning Seeds album and probably one the most unexpected-sounding albums of the decade, at least for people who thought Broudie's style was epitomized by "Three Lions" or even "Pure". Tilt is breathtakingly authentic and consistent in its sadness, a meditation on loss buttressed by a conviction that that sadness is no excuse for moping or even for affectation. It's about coping, about turning yourself inside out and pushing through, stiff upper lip and heart on sleeve. Danceable and dark, disposable and dignified, Tilt is, in every sense, full of pop music's deepest contradictions, from the seriously unhappy lyrics to "Happy Satelite" to the Al Green sample channeling romantic authenticity on the deceptively pouty "Sweetest Soul Sensations". Album highlight is "If Only", in which Broudie sings "If I could feel it/ If only, If I could mean it / If only" over a sublime piano hook and a female backing vocal going "oooh-whooo-whoo", somehow conjuring up more sadness and restlessness in its conventionality than any number of new-wavish bands who've spent their careers trafficking in sadness and restlessness and passing it off as unconventional. The album moves gradually from the personal to the political in its second half before ending, in what might be Tilt's first ironic moment, with "All the Things", a song that could easily have showed up on any of the Seeds' earlier, less memorable, albums, with all Broudie's starry-eyed, calculated, romantic optimism on full display. Make of it what you will.

The happy joy stuff is gone. More moody deeper tracks, with highly developed lyrics.