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The road of a biographic album is one that is seldom travelled. The fact that the inherent complexities associated with mapping out a person’s life makes this a gruelling prospect and it is little wonder that we do not see more of these. The fact that ex-Talking Head’s member David Byrne has teamed up with Norman Cook (whose Fatboy Slim alias hasn’t been seen since 2004’s Palookaville) have decided to construct a two-disc album around the much-reviled Imelda Marcos, using the absolute cream of contemporary female talent, creates an almost unique listening opportunity.
Before the album get’s reviewed there needs to be a quick history lesson; given that The Yorker is a university publication, many readers are likely too young to know who Imelda Marcos actually is. In a nutshell, Imelda Marcos (aka ‘The Iron Butterfly’) was the former first-lady of the Philippines who has become world famous as the pin-up of corruption. Her time as Governor of Manila, as well as the influential position of First Lady, saw the spending of public funds on needless vanity arts projects as well as her now infamous collection of shoes.
The big surprise about Here Lies Love is that it is able to so seamlessly paint a portrait of this woman, obviously using a lot of artistic license, whilst creating a series of well crafted and memorable pop tracks. It may be true that there are a few missteps along the way, with 22 songs on a two-side album it was probably inevitable, but overall this is a strangely gripping album. The way they do it? The answer is sheer variation of genre and vocalists (with only two of the guests making a return performance).
Here Lies Love opens abominably strong with the first five songs, all documenting a young Imelda Marcos, with the disco-infused opener starring Florence Welch (‘Here Lies Love’), the Latin-inspired moments with Nellie McKay (‘How Are You?’) and a duet between St. Vincent and Candie Payne (‘Every Drop of Rain’) as well as Martha Wainwright’s input of a fairytale-like meditation on Marcos’ beauty (‘The Rose of Tacloban’). The rest of the album then monitors the rise of Imelda Marcos from her humble background as she changes herself so that she can lure a man (‘Walk Like A Woman’), to her seduction of future leader Ferdinand Marcos (‘Dancing Together’ and ‘Men Will Do Anything’). After these are the songs marking their time in government where corruption soared leading to the imposition of martial law (‘Order 1081’) and at no point do these songs feel like a history lesson since at all points they maintain individual hooks which somehow maintain interest.
With a cast of female singers that any Lilith Fair would kill for, with Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper, Nicole Atkins, Róisín Murphy, Sia Furler and Santigold to name but a selection, Here Lies Love stands as the ultimate supports on which to build the next big musical. If the right person gets a hold of this material it could be the next Evita. Who cares if it embellishes history slightly, it would be one hell of a West End show.
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