Don't Assume
It makes an ass out of U and Me
Seona Dancing: More To Lose
from More To Lose 7"
Seona Dancing: More To Lose (War Of The Indies Remix)
from More To Lose 12"
Seona Dancing: Tell Her (Extended Remix)
from Bitter Heart 12"
If you're smart like me you know that the best that television had to offer in the way of comedy writing came and went in a scant 12 episodes and a Christmas special. And now the man behind the creation of that show, Ricky Gervais has his new show Extras playing on HBO (for American viewers). So I thought now would be as good a time as any to break out the mp3's of Ricky's old musical group Seona Dancing (pronounced Shawna ala Sade).
The songs themselves aren't that great, though an article like this one would have you believing that they're the second coming of Duran Duran. Each song is sopped with enough synths, likable melodies and overbearing, pretentious lyrics that it almost sounds like they've hit on the correct formula for your typical 80's new wave hit, so it comes as a surprise that the group (comprised of Ricky Gervais on vocals and Bill Macrae with the music) never made it big; forget charting, they never even released an album.
There best known song, More To Lose, is actually not a bad song if you enjoy keyboards that battle for listening time with the lead vocals ( vocals that have that pre-emo, faux poet whine down pat) and slow stabbing synthesizers, if you could tolerate that, then you are treated to lyrics that have the affectation of something designed to impress but instead turn out to be laughably amusing. When they drop lines like the ones below, you know you're in for a treat:
A thousand tortured lives have fallen/ Wounded dying cut down by the/ Questions that we've sharpened/ Just to save our losing days/ We thought we'd nothing more to lose/ We'd tear our hearts with jagged truths/ And everything we'd hung to for so long/ Just slipped away
The War Of The Indies mix just doubles up on everything, so if you find the original song enjoyable, you'll probably enjoy even more the remix.
The other song Tell Her is more of the same but the Extended Mix, presented here, opens with a nice disco tempo break with a wailing bass line and that gives way at first to sporadic drum rolls and then the ubiquitous synths kick in. This extends for what seems like half of the song, because it almost literally is, before the vocals come in, in fact the song is probably 3/4 instrumentation and 1/4 vocals. The one great redeeming aspect of these songs is that they're very melodically driven and the melodies are very catchy.
While the group didn't capture the fame that they aspired to, the song More To Lose was a big hit in the Philippines, where the New Wave scene was in full effect in the 80's. According to The Wily Filipino the song More To Lose was released there but was titled Fade and the group was billed as Medium in order for the radio station that popularized it to keep exclusivity rights to the song (brings to mind the old school Hip Hop dj's like Bambaataa who would tear off the labels of popular breaks in order to hide the song and title). I asked my sister in law who was born and raised there about the song and she said she recognized it because her sister used to record it off the radio back in the days. It just goes to show for all you aspiring artists, that no matter how unappreciated your endeavors may be, somewhere out there someone will be able to appreciate your artistic output. If you're at all interested in learning more about the group, visit Tania's cool website dedicated to all things Seona.
posted by Merv at 1:20 PM
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