MY LIFE STORY
JOINED UP TALKING
(IT)
OUT FEB 21 4.5 stars
One of the worst bands ever to exist, My Life Story. Just another smug, little, niche-hugging nonentity, ploughing their little, sparkly field in front of their little sparkly fans and making no difference to anyone’s life, bar glitter-sellers and boa-threaders. Until now, that is.
If getting dropped does this to a band, expect every act once
on Creation to come back with their own "The Queen is Dead" by the end of the year, because this must be one of the most beautiful records I've ever heard.
Beautiful, because Jake Shillingford’s trashed that diamanté pretension and started shooting poisoned arrows straight to your heart instead. Because 12-piece orchestras are out and the brutal simplicity of breathless synthesisers are in.
"Neverland", for instance, is the song Noel Gallagher keeps refusing to write; "It’s A Girl Thing" the song the Pet Shop Boys dream of; the unspeakably sublime "Walk
Don’t Walk" everything Motown legend Smokey Robinson used to sing and "Two Stars" the sinisterly seedy Pulp you fell head over heels for.
But it’s "Sunday Tongue" that really stands out, sadness tumbling out of a whirl of exhaustion, the line "He’s half your age" sighed like Elvis Costello remembering his youth as harps twinkle endless hope in blue. A landmark song. A landmark album. You will adore it. ROB BRESNARK
JAKE SHILLINGFORD'S VERDICT
"It's a popular misconception
that we've murdered our orchestra in a French chateau,
They're still on six and a half of
the tracks. But we have changed the way we approach music, In the past we have been criticised for throwing too much into the songs. On this album, we wanted the songs to be judged on their own merit, But we're not dissing our previous work. We still use the strings live when we need to." Melody Maker - Feb 16th-22nd 2000
MY LIFE STORY
Joined Up Talking
IT RECORDS
OUT 14 FEB
Third album from the fruity
Essex troupe now signed to a label funded by Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Singer Jake Shillingford was recently immortalised by Cynthia Plastercaster, the woman famed for her mouldings of rock star’s members.
"Nobody in this band cares what people say about us" claimed Jake Shillingford last year. "It just makes us more determined. We're never going to give up." As a statement ot intent it's hardly "We will fight them on the beaches", but therein lies the real charm of My Life Story. They secretly know they'll never see the inside of an arena headline dressing-room, but battle gamely on.
Never ones to confound expectation, 'Joined Up Talking’ finds MLS back in ’80s camp-posturing mode, veering through piano ballads more Squeeze than Squeeze themselves and breezy trumpet-centric trinkets like ‘I Don’t Selieve In Love', a record to rank alongside the theme tune to The Golden Girls.
There are occasional moves toward listenable music – as with the featherlite 'Why Aren't You Dead Yet?' and the - true! - Beck-like ‘Nothing For Nobody’. But even MLS’ unwitting comic content can’t sustain interest. The final track is called, optimistically, 'Two Stars’. Sorry lads, wrong again... * - STUART MUIRHEAD - Select Magazine March 2000
My Life Story
Joined Up Talking IT RECORDS ITRCD3
Third album from Essex campaigners. Now with vastly reduced line-up.
On discovering that his l2-strong outfit had been dropped by Parlophone aFter two albums, My Life Story frontman Jake Shillingford wisely reduced his overheads by slimming the line-up down to four. Fun though they could be, the original My Life Story were a less convincing version of The Divine Comedy, and while Joined Up Talking suggests that Shillingford has sharpened his songwriting nib, there are still echoes of other acts. Current single Empire Line could be The Lightning Seeds, but notwithstanding the electronic rush of Nothing For Nobody, it's clear that Shillingford hasn't kicked the Britpop spirit into touch. Walk Don't Walk could have been written for Sandy Shaw while Elvis Costello's melodic metre, phrasing and playful couplets reign heavy throughout. Disappointingly, given both singles' modest chart ratings, it seems unlikely that My Life Story's fortunes will change along with their image. *** Q Magazine - January 2000
My Life Story
Joined Up Talking IT ***
My Life Story’s Jake Shillingford is so desperate to be famous, he makes Gail Porter seem camera-shy. So having tried (and failed) to make hit records with an 11-piece orchestra, he's now trekking the conventional pop route. It's actually OK, especially the Costello-pastiche of It’s A Girl Thing, but it still reminds you of a five-year-old screaming ‘Look at me!’ www.virtual-pc.com/mls/ A potted history of the foppish favourites, plus press, news and pictures. The Net Magazine - December 1999
My Life Story
Joined Up Talking
When My Life Story were dropped by their record label Parlophone, after their second album 'The Golden Mile' and a 50-date national tour, many people thought that it was over for the band. "Five singles, five top 40 hits and we were dropped", vocalist Jake Shillingford said, and he had a right to feel upset. You see, way back in 1994 MLS were big, one of the new wave of indie bands that erupted with the birth of Britpop and it seemed as though they were heading for a glorious career. That they're back shows the commitment and drive behind the band, and with their new record, it's like they've never been away. In fact it seems as though they've actually regressed. 'Joined Up Talking' is a diverse record with stomping rock numbers, saccharine ballads, bittersweet lyrics and a poignant sarcasm that seems to have it's roots stuck in the 80's. But saying that, it still feels right, and whilst they're better live than on record, tracks such as 'If You Can't Live Without Me, Then Why Aren't You Dead?' and 'I Don't Believe In Love' will be swimming around your head for days.
8/10 Staffordshire University Student Newspaper
(It Records ITRCD3)
The morning after the night before...
Ah ! The smell of the Fromagerie. No, that remark does not pertain to the cabaret cheesiness of Jake Shillingford's orchestral-pop fops (though there is that as well). It's just that the My Life Story's last album, 'The Golden Mile', made you feel like shining your shoes, donning a flash jacket and hitting Paris (or, if you could afford it, Blackpool) with a baguette under your left arm. All in anticipation of some champagne-soaked soiree beneath the neon at the Moulin Rouge, wastefully spent in the arms of several Mademoiselles from Armentiers. Or something .Whatever, it's hard to imagine having an equally good time to The Divine Comedy.
Anyhow, next day you wake up with a headache. And sure enough 'Joined Up Talking' is, save the spring-heeled pop of 'It's a Girl Thing', a glum, baggy-eyed Sunday-morning hangover postscript to the Saturday night tomfoolery of 'The Golden Mile'; a record populated by chilly, early '80s synthesisers and sub-Costello vocalising and lyrical cold-shouldering. And degradation. Lots of it. Washed-up coke-headed former catwalkers, crap former girlfriends, lonely strolls along the motorway, suicide and the contents of the medicine cabinet (legally prescribed or otherwise.) Boy, what a downer. Almost.
Naturally, in such circumstances, we must mourn the passing of string-arrangements previously so excessively 'bouffant', they made even ELO's nutrasweet 'Diary Of Horace Wimp' sound as sombre as 'Nimrod' by Elgar. What is left, however, does resemble a satisfactory but not earth-shattering mongrelisation of early, breadline Duran Duran, Pulp, the horn-rimmed NHS bespectacled one they call Declan and Brett Anderson's notebook. It's just a shame that 'Neverland', with it's 'nothing's-real-until-it's-gone' type sentiments cannot aspire to the glory of 'San Diego Serenade' by Tom Waits. And that two of the album's final three tracks are called 'Stalemate' and 'Two Stars'. Oh well then, two stars it is. **
Kevin Maidment music365.com
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