Trevor Horn’s Echoes: Ancient & Modern finds the veteran musician and producer attempting to recontextualize some of the biggest pop hits of the past 40 years within the sounds of contemporary pop and electronic music. At best the results are bland, and at worst they exemplify Gen-x nostalgia at its most saccharine.
The album opens, rather unexpectedly, with a cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools (Drank),” featuring a characteristically impassioned vocal performance by Tori Amos. The arrangement and production, however, are so sanitized, so slick and gussied up with melodramatic strings and synths, that the point of the song—its central irony and message about the dangers of generational alcoholism—is swallowed whole.
Horn imbues the album’s 11 songs with a grandiosity that quickly becomes flatulent, with big orchestral swells and heart-tugging keyboards. By the halfway point, the material all starts to blur together, as the majority of the songs...
The album opens, rather unexpectedly, with a cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools (Drank),” featuring a characteristically impassioned vocal performance by Tori Amos. The arrangement and production, however, are so sanitized, so slick and gussied up with melodramatic strings and synths, that the point of the song—its central irony and message about the dangers of generational alcoholism—is swallowed whole.
Horn imbues the album’s 11 songs with a grandiosity that quickly becomes flatulent, with big orchestral swells and heart-tugging keyboards. By the halfway point, the material all starts to blur together, as the majority of the songs...
- 1/14/2024
- by Thomas Bedenbaugh
- Slant Magazine
Tori Amos and The Buggles’ Trevor Horn have teamed up for a cover of Kendrick Lamar’s 2012 single, “Swimming Pools (Drank),” reimagining it as a moody, modern piano ballad.
Amos and Horn’s take on the song arrives as the opening track on Horn’s new covers album, Echoes: Ancient & Modern. Built around a subdued piano and colored with silky strings, Amos’ multi-layered vocals lead the tune, placing Lamar’s lyricism in a new context. In the liner notes for the new album, Horn explained: “I thought of it as a kind of literate, modern American standard, a rap song open to reinterpretation. I wanted something distinctly 21st-century with original, eloquent lyrics, and my longtime engineer Tim Weidner suggested this.”
Continuing, Horn praised Amos’ creative contributions. “Tori Amos took the idea of adapting Kendrick Lamar’s psyched-up swagger in her stride and made it intensely cinematic,” he said. “I listened...
Amos and Horn’s take on the song arrives as the opening track on Horn’s new covers album, Echoes: Ancient & Modern. Built around a subdued piano and colored with silky strings, Amos’ multi-layered vocals lead the tune, placing Lamar’s lyricism in a new context. In the liner notes for the new album, Horn explained: “I thought of it as a kind of literate, modern American standard, a rap song open to reinterpretation. I wanted something distinctly 21st-century with original, eloquent lyrics, and my longtime engineer Tim Weidner suggested this.”
Continuing, Horn praised Amos’ creative contributions. “Tori Amos took the idea of adapting Kendrick Lamar’s psyched-up swagger in her stride and made it intensely cinematic,” he said. “I listened...
- 12/1/2023
- by Jo Vito
- Consequence - Music
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.