Good pop songs from the last 30 years
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:24 am
Half of the last Rachel Stevens album was tremendous, particularly 'Negotiate With Love'.
Cass grew up in North London as the only daughter in a large working-class Irish family. From her lyrics you can tell this wasn't the easiest childhood with her only escape being music. From an early age she sang in Irish pubs and won talent contests but when choosing a career, she didn't see singing as something which she could be successful in. Along with a friend from school, she went into nursery nursing. She went through a series of dead-end jobs, finally servicing fruit machines so she could get a company car. She recalls how she felt, "Even though I wasn’t being honest with myself about what I really wanted to do, I always knew it was all temporary. When I worked in offices, I was always the girl asking if anyone wanted a tea or coffee. Then I’d go hide in the toilet, doodling or day-dreaming or writing songs."[1] She lived for the weekend, during these jobs, when she would go across the country with her friends to popular large clubs such as Cream, Gatecrasher and Miss Moneypenny's. At 4am one morning she nearly crashed her car into the central reservation. This made her re-asses her life. "I suddenly thought, ‘What am I doing? I’ve got a voice, I can write songs, and I’m just doing these crappy jobs. It’s time for me to be brave. No more messing about.’" She said "I had no money, no car, but from that day I started making music."[1]
She quit her job and started singing in clubs, bars, and on the street. Rui Da Silva saw her performing with some buskers in the West End and he invited her to start hanging out at his studio. It was there she wrote the lyrics to Touch Me over one of Rui's old demos. This became her first success. The single topped the UK charts early in 2001, selling some 300,000 copies. Cass decided though to walk away and start again. "I knew from the start that dance music wasn’t the direction I wanted," she says. "I thought having a hit would open doors, but that’s not how it worked out." She wanted success, but on her own terms. "If I do something, I have to do it 100 per cent,"[1]
She stopped working with Da Silva, due to her desire to work in other genres, and began working with a friend, eventually finding a musical style that felt her own. 'Army Of One' is about her frustration with record companies and was the first song she felt was hers and hers alone. "I felt, 'This is it. This is what I want to do."[1] She played the song to Rollo Armstrong at his studio and he immediately wanted to work with her. Unfortunately he had commitments with his sister Dido and band Faithless, so while waiting Cass worked with Craig Dodds (Sugababes), writing three songs with him. "That was brilliant, it was like a therapy session - getting all my angst out."[1] When she eventually worked with Rollo, he helped her add a splash of colour to her music, find her sexier and sassier side.
You can hear the influence she draws on her debut album Come Here from people such as her childhood heroine Dolly Parton, Annie Lennox, Tracy Chapman or Kate Bush. She has even drawn comparisons to Eminem due to her lyrics describing family strife.
er..okay then.