Home / Reviews / Singles /
Goldfrapp: Ride A White Horse
Oh, Goldfrapp. What happened? You made an uncommon, captivating dream-popera record, and we all sighed. You made a disco record, machinated with robotic erotica and blissed-out, retro euphoria, and we not only swooned, but marvelled at the ease with which you'd slipped 'cross genre boundaries. And then you released Supernature, and we slumped.
'Ride A White Horse' is symptomatic of everything that disappoints about present-day Goldfrapp. Alison's vocals slide sensuously down its spine while pin-prick beats pump away... it's all so competent and factual, step-by-step sex, so empty of the thrilling, bizarre spirit that put Goldfrapp head and shoulders above the competition.
It sounds like Madonna. Not dancing-round-burning-crucifixes Madonna or squeaking-pouting-Daddy's-girl Madonna, nor thrusting-her-chest-like-a-piston 'Ray Of Light' Madonna either. Not even the breathy, Erotica-era Madonna, Goldfrapp's sultry imitations of whom may have caused Oldfrapp's reputed ire towards them. No, 'Ride A White Horse' sounds like the conspicuously leotard-clad, somewhat eye-bleeding Madge who points her crotch persistently at us today. It's repetitive, reedy, namechecking a disco era that Goldfrapp have squeezed dry ...please, just stop, stop already. Move on - again. Goldfrapp's glistening, copulating robots have long since ceased production, replaced by a bored-sounding, chrome-clad human whose only concern is getting a timecard punched before leaving. Ugh. How disappointing. The DFA remix on its flipside performs better but still goes on far too long without making any real impact.
Alison Goldfrapp is undebatably one of the cleverest, most inventive musical forces to make a dent on the charts in recent years - thus, 'Ride A White Horse' is well below par. Can, and MUST, try harder.
-
spot on
Goldfrapp were such a breath of fresh air, now they're just preaching to the converted.
-
Dunno
I agree about supernature being underwhelming, but I fancy this as quite an ace pop single
-
i agree
totally
-
-
Sometimes
bands have to repeat their critically acclaimed albums for the rest of the world to get excited about. hence supernature is the new album which will be stocked in tesco's for people to buy whose cooler mates have told them about Goldfrapp - or something.
There are other examples of this - Oasis (cool album Definitly Maybe, supermarket album- Whats the Story) and others Im sure...
The next album will probably go all KidA on our asses and then we can say that they've lost it.
-
The Madgefrapp Agenda
Am I sensing an agenda here?
The "leotard clad" Madonna observation is just ludicrous considering Confessions (her leotard clad relaunch) was released long *AFTER* Supernatural -- which contained the first glimpse of Ride a White Horse (six/seven months ago?). What's more, the more astute reviewers out there deservedly branded Confessions "Madgefrapp" because -- quite obviously -- the mimickry was the other way around. (Madonna even ripped off Alison's pose from the Supernatural sleeve for one of her shoots.)
Granted, RAWH has been bowdlerized somewhat for chart consumption, but to write off a track which retains Alison's core French 60s Pop inspiration (you did watch the Bardot-esque video and notice the accent right?), which continues the white horse myth set forth in Ooh La La, and which she uses as a vehicle to explore trash culture via installation art, just seems very short sighted in my opinion.
Kylie, Britney, Madonna, this is not. But it sounds like the Drowned in Sound reviewers are drowning so much in their own sounds that the only sounds they hear are their own. Well done!
-
Odd site
Found this site by accident whilst searching for Goldfrapp reviews and chuckled whilst reading the review of RAWH from the muso snob above.
Looking through the site, I wonder if a similar fate awaits the other more obscure acts covered if they hit the big time?Can't stand this kind of musical snobbery and Drowned In Sound have provided the only poor review of Ride A White Horse that I have come across (most agree that it is infact divine pop).
Gem must have some right old crap in her CD collection....
-
haha.
it's gen, thanks.
i like good pop music lots. i don't like bad pop music.
goldfrapp used to make GREAT pop music. now they are veering towards bad pop music. this saddens me, as they can do better. no snobbery round here.
-
Goldfrapp
Hi Gen,
If the single was so bad then you really wouldn't have bothered covering this 'mainstream' single considering how obscure most of the other acts are on this site.
What is the point?
Looking at all the other Goldfrapp mentions in the site - they all seem to be having digs at Alison.
Question is: why bother especially when you are a lone voice compared to the critical acclaim already given to Supernature and this single in particular?-
Because not everyone's a sheep?
You've got to admit that Goldfrapp's standard is slipping, especially as this is treading the same ground as the last album but with less gusto or flair.
And yes, Supernture may have received 'critical acclaim' but it doesn't mean that they're completely shielded against criticism by anyone once a few of the posh papers have said they're good.i'm afraid your argument is full of holes. And i had to restrain myself from bleating saying it.
-
So highlight the holes.
Supernature is hardly treading the same ground as Black Cherry. The tracks are stylistically different (even the guitar made its first appearance in Supernature) give or take the odd exception (the baseline similarities of Ooh La La and Strict Machine for example). But Goldfrapp's experimental exploration is still glaringly obvious -- whether in the binaural beats of Ooh La La (the video is a play on the mind altering aspect of these), or the Theremin 'plonking' of Satin Chic -- so vacuous pop this is not. Why those confronted with poppish, synthetic beats are unprepared to look beyond the surface is beyond me, but if they open their eyes (yes, eyes), they might just see the expressionist nature of the form beneath.
-
Ill-informed, faux pas
Goldfrapp have never really made pop music prior to this album. You might consider two or three tracks from Black Cherry "dance orientated", but pop? No. It's too meaningful, too expressionist, to be considered pop.
And I'm sorry, but it was a reviewing faux-pas of the highest order to claim any track from Supernature could be a "surly immitation" of anything from Confessions. Given that Confessions came months after Supernature, you might as well accuse The Beatles of ripping off Oasis.
I notice Madonna even cited Goldfrapp as one of her favourite bands at the Brit Awards last week. Quelle surprise!
-
You use your eyes to listen with?
Don't be silly.
This is a fair review.
It's not a good song. It's okay, nothing to get too irate over, but hardly up to Goldfrapp standards of late. Including the previous Supernature singles. None of which are particularly experimental, by the way, unless you've spent 30-odd years listening to nothing but The Rolling Stones.
Quit with the fanboy justifications: this isn't a good song. Factoid.
NB: DiS doesn't cover 'obscure' acts. It covers 'good' acts. Goldfrapp are a good act. This is not a good song. Yup, end of.
-
Who is Getting Irate?
I'm not being silly, nor irate. And a review claiming a song "immitates" songs that were released *after* it, is not a good review. Perhaps you don't think illogical detail should be questioned? I do. I also think critics should be prepared to accept criticism. But hey, that's me.
As for the "fanboy justification," I now see why the issue of musical snobbery has turned up. In actual fact, unlike you, I'm backing up my opinion with solid information. Like details of binaural activity and instruments you won't find on any Rolling Stones album...or indeed many singles that enter the British chart. Oh, and I'm not calling names, "fanboy".
But "this isn't a good song. Factoid," says everything really. If that's the sort of groundwork expected of DiS reviewers, then I'm not surprised at the ridiculous error exposed in this one.
-
Listening with your eyes...
...and yes, re the subject, that's what I said. You might want to brush up on your musical references because it's a very common term. And do consider the synaesthetic intention of much electronic music. (In reference to Ooh La La, consider the binaural beats at the base of the track, their function reflected in the lyrics ("switch me on, turn me up"), and the concept is even explored visually in the video when Alison suddenly 'snaps' into a Tron-like world (she rides a white horse through a visual representation of sound).
Some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThereminGoldfrapp mentioned in the second.
-
Oh gosh
-
-
-
It's pop music.
It is. Really. i checked.
-
SUCH a stupid thing to say.
how d'you define pop? [say it with me! c'mon, it's ok... it's not a dirty word...]
the modern use of the word pop, surely, refers merely to music that is accessible and has a good chance of being liked by the mainstream.
goldfrapp are, surely, liked by the mainstream. was that them i saw on top of the pops the other night? no? whoops. silly me. arguably felt mountain is not a pop record, but black cherry absolutely is.
meaningful/expressionist or not, these days they are a pop band. it used to be good pop - clever, unusual and instant. goldfrapp are a talented entity, so i daresay they're capable of making good pop music once more if they start pushing boundaries again.
i just wish they'd pull their collective finger out and do it.
by the by, i don't remember saying at any point that goldfrapp had ripped off madonna's new record. did you read it properly, or just see the word "madonna" and start fuming? i said they sound like today's madonna - i.e. dull, hackneyed, uninspired. if we go with your assertion that she's ripped off their sound, then she's caught up with them - if it's theirs, they should be fucking streets ahead. are they? no. they're on about the same creative level these days (though i'll grant you goldfrapp lead slightly on account of alison's faultless vocals - madge's make me want to go apple-bobbing in a cement-mixer).
and if you wanna pull up this site's hatred of goldfrapp, check my old review of black cherry, alice dream's train review, and stephs's assessment of strict machine - all up on that list over there on your right. there's really no agenda. we get records, we review them. cope with it.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Comments
Post a new comment on this review