Duffy - Rockferry
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CD Details
Artist: DuffyEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2008-05-13
Music Label: Mercury
Product features:
- DUFFY ROCKFERRY
- Rockferry
- Warwick Avenue
- Serious
- Stepping Stone
- Syrup & Honey
- Hanging On Too Long
- Mercy
- Delayed Devotion
- Scared
- Distant Dreamer
Music reviews of Rockferry
Music Review: Just when you think you've found the next big thing...
Rating: 4 Stars
...something better comes along. Duffy is such a marvelous find, honestly, a great voice with a great vision. Her debut album `Rockferry' beautifully builds anticipation for her growth as an artist and leaves the listener very, very satisfied. The album is not perfect, and I do have a few issues with some tracks, but as a whole it cannot be denied the talent this young singer possesses. She reminds me of a more soothing Amy Winehouse; maybe even slightly better. I love la'Winehouse, and it must be noted that collectively `Back to Black' is a finer album that `Rockferry', but I can't help but feel in my gut that Duffy has the superior vocals.
In my humble opinion this album really kicks itself off with the fantastic `Serious', a track that plays off of Duffy's smooth vocals, the lyrics shimmering down on us like a silky rainstorm. On `I'm Scared' she reaches new heights of brilliance, perfectly capturing the mood and essence of the ballad. Her vocal progression towards the stunning chorus lines is essential to the power of the song, and she astounds me every time I listen to this track. The way her voice hits the word "scared" sends chills down my spine, the subtle crack in her voice as she peaks right before our ears. `Hanging on too Long' is a beautiful example of subtlety and restrained working out for greatness. It's a sincere song that touches the listener.
Just listen to her construction of `Syrup & Honey', which calls to mind another vocal favorite of mine; country singer Julie Roberts. The guitar work and the microphone effects just blow me away here; adding yet another layer to this masterful talent. Her vocals on the words "baby, baby, baby" just swarm my heart.
`Delayed Devotion' has such an infectious beat, such a driving force behind Duffy's beautiful vocals. This has almost a Motown sound to it; and I totally dig that. And then of course you have the brilliant `Mercy'; her single which has garnered her immense hype; rightfully so since `Mercy' is a flawless single. Her voice sounds the most Winehouse-like on this track, and she nails it marvelously. The nasally delivery is intriguing and quite sensual. The track is the most fun on the album, and it shows in her impeccable delivery. You can tell she is having a blast singing this, and I for one have a blast listening to it.
And this brings me to my favorite track here; `Stepping Stone'. This was actually the first track I heard off this album. Everyone I know was telling me that I would love this girl based on her single `Mercy' but I hardly listen to the radio and thus had yet to hear the song. I looked her up regardless and had a chance to listen to `Stepping Stone', and her voice just took me to another place. Her voice is very mature on this track; reminding me of Joss Stone almost. Joss is still, in my humble opinion, the better singer, but she reaches Joss levels of control and maturity on this beautiful track. The song is just effortlessly inviting, complete and constructed masterfully. It is a perfect track; utterly perfect.
Now, like I said, I have a few issues with some of the tracks here. The first two tracks on the album (`Rockferry' and `Warwick Avenue') are a little too bland for my liking. Her voice is impeccable on both tracks, but the tracks in general are a little redundant (especially `Warwick Avenue') and a little boring. I also don't care for the closing track `Distant Dreamer', which just sounds off when compared to the balance of the album. She sounds great, but the song just isn't. It sounds like an 80's pop ballad to me; very not cool.
In the end, this is definitely an album to pick up for it is very satisfying. The bulk of the album is flawless; especially tracks like `I'm Scared', `Syrup & Honey', `Mercy' and `Stepping Stone'; those four being more than enough reason to invest the money. Duffy has a long career ahead of her. She is coming out in a time when this breed of music is being openly embraced, and her beautiful vocals will insure her acceptance into our ears, homes and hearts. Between Duffy, Joss, la'Winehouse and my current obsession Leela James I am beside myself with the amazing music infiltrating my eardrums.
Isn't it nice to be bombarded by talent as apposed to the endless cascades of trash that is so often forced upon us?
Description of Rockferry
The most hotly anticipated album release of this New Year comes not from someone rammed into the collective consciousness by their media ubiquity. Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point, having performed but a small number of gigs, mostly in support of The Magic Numbers, and having only just begun to be seen on TV, most notably with recent appearances on Jools Holland's Later and New Year Hootenanny.Yet her soulful voice has already beguiled many of the nation's musical tastemakers and news of its beauty and of the strength of her songs is spreading by word of mouth even as you read these words. Radio One's Jo Whiley chose Duffy's title track and album taster `Rockferry' as her Single of the Week in late November, further adding to the momentum. Now, as the comparisons fly (Dusty Springfield has emerged as the favourite), it's time to discover her for yourself.
Duffy was born and spent her childhood years in the north Wales coastal community of Nefyn, a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions (the nearest record counter was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40). The upbringing she describes is one in which everyone had to rub along together, making do and mending, accepting each other and their tastes without prejudice.
Having no CD collection of her own, her first real musical memory is of walking into the kitchen unannounced to find her mother and stepfather dancing to Rod Stewart. The first steps she took towards defining her own personal identity came when she borrowed one of her dad's VHS tapes of the `60s TV show `Ready, Steady, Go!'. "It had The Beatles, the Stones, the Walker Brothers, Sandie Shaw and Millie singing `My Boy Lollipop'. So sexy and exciting! I played it again and again until finally it disintegrated." Says former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler of this artlessness, "Duffy managed to grow up without any concept of what was cool or current, what she should or shouldn't like, how to behave or even how to sing. For her, coming to London at all was the stuff of fairytales."
"And to come here to write songs with some random bloke who'd been recommended to her, me? It meant taking two buses and then two trains and took all day. Then she'd do the same in reverse to get home, playing the music she'd just made to old ladies she encountered on the journey. It's hard for cynical music industry types to get their heads around just how far removed she was from our world, geographically and in every other way. But what you've got as a result is someone who acts and sings completely and unselfconsciously from the heart. That's a rare and magical thing."
Butler was introduced to Duffy by Rough Trade's Jeannette Lee who,in August 2004 and after hearing demos recorded in this or that mate's home, became the singer's mentor and manager. For Duffy, to have not just a friend but also point of both safety and reference in the strange new world she found herself in was crucial to her own musical development and sense of self.
"People keep saying to me, `You've made a great record' but I can't take that in because I didn't do it on my own. Jeannette and I made `Rockferry' together and she's been with me every step of the way, broadening my horizons, introducing me to people I can trust." Butler was just one of them: having written the glorious, chorus-free, utterly hypnotic `Rockferry' together at the beginning of the project, they then worked on a further three of the ten tracks on what is already being talked about as 2008's most important debut release. Jimmy Hogarth & Steve Booker are the other collaborators on this classic-in-waiting.
What can you expect to hear? The title track and album opener, as atmospheric, slow-building and idiosyncratic song as you could hope for, leads into a collection of original material that some might call retro in feel (those Dusty flavours, that girl group vibe) but which Duffy herself prefers to identify as classic. You'll find arrangements as sparsely effective as those against which Dionne Warwick told her Bacharach & David-wrought tales of heartbreak in the early 1960s. You'll find lush choruses and swooning hooks (as perfected by the late Miss Springfield and various distinguished others). But this is far from pastiche.
What you'll find instead is irrefutable evidence of a significant new talent, and one that has developed in splendid isolation, not in reaction to market forces or the input of focus groups and industry experts. Duffy is the real, unspoiled original deal. "People keep asking me where my voice comes from and the fact is I don't know," says the brightest new star of 2008. "Why are your eyes the colour they are? It's no answer at all but it's the only one I have."
Duffy Photos
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Rockferry, the Welsh singer's lovingly constructed debut album, has already succeeded beyond expectations, and although Duffy may not quite be the ingénue portrayed by a clever press campaign (she nearly won a local television talent show a few years back while a single credited to Aimee Duffy is still available on iTunes) she is surely the most appealing of the current flood of young soul sirens. The astonishing title track, co-written by Bernard Butler, sounded like a lost transmission that had taken decades to get through as soon as it hit radio last year. But the gently rolling soul ballad "Stepping Stone", that strapping, inescapable monster hit "Mercy", the ice cool "Serious" (the one time she really does channel the spirit of Dusty Springfield) and the wistful, elegant "Warwick Avenue" are similarly effective. Suggestions by some that Rockferry is little more than sixties pastiche are churlish. Butler's previous work with David McAlmont (featured here as a backing singer) showed his skill at writing and arranging the dramatic, while her other collaborators such as Steve Booker and the team of Jimmy Hogarth and Eg White are hardly lightweights. But despite some wonderful orchestral settings, it's Duffy's terrific voice that makes this so satisfying, even overpowering Butler's exquisitely underplayed guitar work on "Rockferry" itself. Growling the blues on "Syrup & Honey" or belting it out over his lovingly arranged wall of sound on "Distant Dreamer", she sets the tone throughout, several of her songs dealing with escape, both physical and romantic. The sound of someone singing herself to stardom, Rockferry is at times genuinely amazing. --Steve Jelbert People en Español
La música soul ha invadido Inglaterra en los últimos años, el país que nos ha entregado a algunas de las cantantes más interesantes del género como Amy Winehouse o Joss Stone. Hoy llega Duffy con Rockferry, un disco fantástico en el que la inglesa demuestra que una buena voz y personalidad son más que suficientes en el mundo de la música, sin necesidad de causar escándalos o contonear las caderas esta chica ha ido conquistando poco a poco los mercados de todo el mundo. En este álbum encontrará canciones como "Mercy" con un claro sonido sesentero, pero que se coló sin problemas en las listas de hits de la música pop. Además está "Warwick Avenue," una balada sencilla pero que le hará estremecer, también hay que destacar canciones como "Stepping Stone" o "Hanging On Too Long." La voz de Duffy es una de las más interesantes del mundo de la música, y aunque se le clasifica dentro del pop, no por esto su música es superflua o sólo para niñas de 15 años. Si le gusta la buena música déle una oportunidad a este disco. --Ernesto Sánchez (People en Español
)
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