Daddy I've fallen for a monster

Joe writes: Loving bad men has been the theme of some of the biggest and best songs of recent times including Stooshe's current UK hit Black Heart with its wonderful lyric "Daddy I've fallen for a monster".

See also the biggest hit of 2010, Love The Way You Lie by Eminem feat. Rihanna.

And one of the biggest albums of recent years, Back to Black by Amy Winehouse.

And if you haven't heard Lying Lips (Words I Should Have Said) by Tanya Stephens before, you must.

Bob Seger

Joe writes: Writing about Tonight by Tanya Stephens below reminded me of We Got Tonite by Bob Seger - one could almost be an answer record to the other.

Like John Mellencamp, Bob Seger is sometimes denigrated as being a poor man's Bruce Springsteen, which is a bit like denigrating The Kinks for not being as good as The Beatles.

Here's another Seger favourite, Still The Same. I must have heard my dad sing this a hundred times before I ever heard Bob Seger's version (I think my dad had lost his copy), but in the internet era Bob's version is of course at my fingertips. I love the internet.

Tanya Stephens' Sintoxicated album

Joe writes: Around the turn of the millennium, Jamaican dancehall star Tanya Stephens made a Macy Gray-style pop album with two Swedish producers, Emil Gotthard and Peter Cartiers, and released it on Warner Sweden. The songwriting on the album was brilliant but the campaign ended in tears. I raved about the music to a Warner US executive; he said the meeting he had with Tanya was one of the worst he'd ever had with an artist.

The album's thank-you list is the best I've ever seen, and makes me think Tanya's searing anger could somehow have been turned into an angle:

There are two songs on the album that are crying out to covered.

Lying Lips (Words I Should Have Said) is such a brilliant lyric and melody - imagine if Amy or Adele did it.

Tonight is great too:

I really recommend buying the Tanya Stephens album on iTunes. And if anyone is still in the CD era, I have a spare copy.

Finally, there's a kind of EPK here which might have set a few alarm bells ringing

Tanya Stephens - Sintoxicated

Joe writes: This blog is about to take a short break but before we do, one of my favourite lost albums of the last decade.

Around the turn of the millennium, Jamaican dancehall artist Tanya Stephens decamped to Sweden and made a singer-songwriter album for Warner that's closer to Tracy Chapman and Macy Gray than Lady Saw.

This excellent review says that Tanya had some reservations about the production style. I too have reservations about the production, but the songwriting is incredible throughout. The lyrics are savage in places, but not as savage as the thank-you list which is really more of a "fuck you" list. Two of the songs in particular are crying out to be covered - Lying Lips and Tonight - both ballads on a similar theme. Such good songs - clever yet emotive.

Oh, and here's my favourite Lady Saw track. Another really good song and an intriguing arrangement with the fiddle player playing in the next room. I'm pretty sure Lady Saw wrote the song, which was later covered by Linda Ronstadt.

Tanya Stephens - Lying Lips (iTunes)




Tanya Stephens - Tonight (iTunes)




Lady Saw - Give Me A Reason (iTunes)