There’s a brilliant and droll line in the film Trouble in Paradise where Kay Francis says to Edward Everett Horton, “Marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together.” Given that La Roux’s founding members Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid parted ways prior to the recording of their second album (though Langmaid co-wrote six of the nine tracks), it’s conceivable that the follow-up to their eponymous debut shares more than just its title with Ernst Lubitsch’s 1932 romantic comedy. Five years on from La Roux, Jackson has made an album that dispenses with the tinny electro synthpop in favour of a warmer and more tactile sound. It’s a record that feels immediate, urgent and sure of itself, while at the same time stays loose enough to be sexy, cheeky and sublime.
Opener ‘Uptight Downtown’ combines Nile Rodgers-esque funky scratch guitar with a melody reminiscent of Kate Bush circa Hounds of Love. ‘Kiss and Not Tell’ sounds like it was spawned from an ecstasy-fuelled threesome between Bowie’s ‘Sound and Vision’, Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’, and has one of those wonderfully suggestive pop lyrics that sticks in your head the moment you hear it: “You like the elegance but it’s weighing you down/And sometimes you just need a night on the town.”
With its hypnagogic vocals and a funky slap bass line that recalls early Chaka Khan, ‘Cruel Sexuality’ reveals a greater sense of purpose in Elly Jackson’s songwriting, which has seen her mature without losing the instinct for a catchy pop melody that made hit singles of ‘In for the Kill’ and ‘Bulletproof’. There’s a timeless quality to many of the songs on Trouble in Paradise that even the intricate musical arrangements and modernity of the production can’t obscure. Over a gorgeous descending piano part on ‘Paradise Is You’, Jackson sings a couplet that has the beautiful simplicity of something Gerry Goffin might have written for Carole King: “When all the roads ahead of me stop looking new/My paradise is you, my paradise is you.”
While it’s highly unlikely that a song named ‘Sexotheque’ would have emerged from the Brill Building with its title intact, it’s nevertheless a great example of Jackson’s ability to combine the attitude of rave and the spirit of disco with well-honed pop sensibilities. Despite the terrible pun in its title, ‘Tropical Chancer’ is a fine slice of balearic-tinged pop that manages to sound both sprightly and mournful in a similar way to Saint Etienne’s cover of ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart.’ In fact, the lower tempo tunes are a revelation: ‘Let Me Down Gently’ begins sans drums and has the atmospheric air of a torch song: “I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m young, foolish and green/Let me in for a minute, you’re not my life but I want you in it.”
It may have been five years in the making, but with Trouble in Paradise Elly Jackson has surpassed her debut and made a record that sounds as chic as it does Chic. If you’re looking for an album of perfect pop for the summer, this is it.
Paul Sng
@sng_paul
Paul Sng
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