Tim Burgess’ Atypical Music
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While beginning the process for his sixth solo album, Typical Music, Tim Burgess fell in love with the world again. Granted, this was in the midst of the pandemic, which cut short Burgess’ support run for his 2020 album, I Love the New Sky. But in between both albums, and in a time where virtual concerts and events were unavoidable, Burgess found a way to connect fans, artists, and himself — Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties.
You may have caught a glimpse of one of his listening parties throughout the last couple of years, which have featured dozens of artists across all eras and genres, including Oasis, IDLES, Duran Duran, and Wolf Alice. The format has been simple — Burgess commences a virtual listening party at a certain hour, and he and the band represented will share anecdotes, photos, and general thoughts on the record in real time as people listen at home.
“I thought the pandemic was gonna last for three weeks, so I thought we were gonna have a pretty strong lineup,” Burgess tells Consequence of the listening parties. “And of course, it went on and on… but people really responded to it. It became a way for bands who were releasing music to still be able to connect with an audience.” The unifying nature of these listening parties gave Burgess a much-needed boost to craft his own experiment, and now, he arrives with the dazzling, ambitious double album, Typical Music (out this Friday, September 23rd).
Rest assured, there isn’t much about Typical Music that is typical. Burgess, who has fronted alternative quartet The Charlatans since the late ’80s, has always had an ear for expansive rock music, and on Typical Music, he doubles down on the word “expansive:” across 22 songs, Burgess moves seamlessly through funk, crisp rock and roll, and cinematic, dreamy, psychedelic pop, with hi-fi arrangements, choirs, strings, and all the rest.
Though Burgess claims that double albums “get a bad rap for being indulgent,” he feels that it’s actually less indulgent to “give people everything that you had.” With this idea in mind, Burgess shaped all 22 songs tirelessly to make them the best that they could be, alongside producer and arranger Daniel O’Sullivan and multi-instrumentalist Thighpaulsandra. The resulting album is one of Burgess’ most fully realized concepts, and features a bright sense of love and adoration that reverberates in each song.
Ahead of the release of Typical Music, Consequence spoke to Burgess about the album’s ambitious concept, being inspired by The Cure and Brian Wilson, celebrating two years of Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties, and much more. Check out the full Q&A below.
Your last album, I Love the New Sky, came out in May 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. What was the transition like from ending that album cycle early and beginning the new one?
Yeah, we were all set to launch the record at South by Southwest. And obviously, it got canceled or postponed. But, New Colossus Festival in New York was still going ahead, so we thought, “What the hell, we’ll just go.” We didn’t know how long this COVID thing was going to last or whether it was even affecting New York at all. And we got there and we played lots of clubs. And, you know, they were being very cautious by handing out hand sanitizer, but the mask thing hadn’t quite actually come in yet. But we played all five shows at New Colossus and had one filming session for Paste magazine, and that was the only bit of footage that we had of that whole album, the Paste session in New York, we did four songs. And that’s the only thing that we had to promote it, because everything else after that, as you know, just stopped.
Then during the pandemic, I had a conversation with Simon Raymonde, who runs Bella Union. And he said, “Well, you could always record another album.” And I said, “Yes, but there’s nothing in between the last one… there’s no new things that I’ve learned, I’ve not been out, I’ve not met any new people, I’m not working with any new people, these are the same people.” So that was an obstacle at first. And then the listening parties came along and I fell in love with the world again through music.
There are 22 songs total on Typical Music. Did every song you wrote and recorded for it make the album? Or are there other B-sides that didn’t make the cut?
No, there’s 22 total. I was always referring to Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by The Cure and there’s 16 tracks on that record, and I thought, “If I get 16, that’d be a really good number.” So I asked the people that I was working with to let me know when we got to that number and they said, “Oh, you’re way past that, you have 25 songs,” or something like that. And we counted them up and there were 22. They were all my pencil sketches and demos, but I just thought that it would be amazing if we could just color them all in and make them as beautiful and as really beautifully finished as they possibly could be. That was the aim, and we did the best we could, and then we passed the music on to Dave Fridmann, and he’s phenomenal at coloring things in.
There are also some really beautiful, tender love songs on the album, like “When I See You” and “The Center of Me is a Symphony of You.” After 35 years of songwriting, how has writing love songs in particular changed for you?
Well, as I said earlier, I kind of fell in love with the world again. It felt like it was a big world, a world that had been connected for a long time only by fear, and I just wanted to bring love back into the picture. So, the idea was that the three of us — me, Thighpaulsandra, and Daniel O’Sullivan — would go into the studio, and we would build ourselves an imaginary spaceship that we would transcend the world in, and it was hermetically sealed, full of beautiful colors and great, great ideas. And it had a minimal crew. It was just to make life a little bit better.
Speaking of your collaborators Typical Music features some complicated arrangements and large sections of layered harmonies. Did the arrangements for this album turn out the way you pictured them in your head? How natural is that process when working with others?
Yeah, it does happen naturally. I’ve worked with Daniel and Thighpaulsandra before on my last album [I Love the New Sky], and I know what they’re good at. I also wanted to raise the bar a little bit, so we pushed each other quite a lot. And I just did with minimal crew we wanted to sound like an orchestra. And eventually, we did bring more people in, but certainly for the first part, it was just the three of us. I wrote the songs on an acoustic guitar, and I figured that if they sounded as brilliant and had as much movement and skill in the early craft of writing, then Daniel would have a field day with the arrangements.
You mentioned Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by The Cure as an inspiration point, but the album also calls to mind the work of the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds. What were some of the other inspirations behind Typical Music?
Definitely Coil — Thighpaulsandra is in a band called Coil. The Beach Boys, of course, and Jonathan Richmond, who I just love a lot. Lou Reed and Nico and all the classics, too. Panda Bear as well, I’m a big fan of Panda Bear and a lot of the electronic, kind of rolling stuff. There’s an Irish song, but it’s made out of synthesizers only, and I thought that’d be quite a interesting reference point — it ends up sounding Panda Bear or Christmas, depending on which way you look at it.
Fugazi, too — I’d even say “L.O.S.T.” on the album is part Fugazi, part Brian Wilson. And why not? The double album gets a bad rap for being “indulgent,” but I actually think it’s less indulgent to give people everything that you had. And for the most part, all the songs are around three minutes, so it’s just a double pop album, really.
Tell me about the title track, “Typical Music.” It feels a little pandemic related, but also kind of zeroes into personal struggles and epiphanies. What made you decide to make that title of the album?
Well, as far as the name “Typical Music,” I really liked that as a title for the album. The track, “Typical Music,” was initially just called “A Typical Day,” as it says in the song, but nothing is typical about the album and nothing is typical about the song or any day. Nothing’s typical, isn’t it? And so for the song I wanted to make it like a surf song. I was thinking Kim Fowley or Joe Meek, but really colorful, with guitar lines that are like Will Sergeant from Echo & The Bunnymen or even Brian Jones, like “Ruby Tuesday” and the early Rolling Stones stuff.
It’s been a pleasure to see Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties grow so much in the last couple years. How has the strategy and process evolved since the very beginning of the pandemic?
When we first started out, it was Bonehead, Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand, The Chemical Brothers, Dave Rowntree from Blur, Wendy Smith from Prefab Sprout, people that I knew and people that were friends of mine on Twitter. I thought the pandemic was gonna last for three weeks, so I thought we were gonna have a pretty strong lineup. And of course, it went on and on, but there’s been lots of press on it and people have really responded to it. I knew people would like it because I’ve done it with The Charlatans and my solo albums. So I knew people liked it, but I think it was the idea that people really needed a connection. There were all the other bands are getting involved too, on their side.
So it being my platform, their platform, their fans, and the fact that there was a pandemic just meant that it really took off. Everybody wanted to be a part of it. So, once we’d got it established, I wanted people like Sofie Royer on there, and Julia Holter, and We Are KING… artists that are maybe not so well known. And at the time, not many bands were getting reviewed because of the pandemic and people got furloughed, so there were not as many writers. It became a way for bands who were releasing music to still be able to connect with an audience. And I think I was probably proudest of that the most.
Were you a little bit surprised at the way this connection was being fostered virtually versus in-person, as you’ve done throughout most of your career?
It was interesting, it became just a new way of listening to music with people. I mean, I’m a meditator. I meditate on my own every day, twice a day. I’ve done it with 10 people, and it’s way more powerful when you just close your eyes, and you obviously can’t see anybody, but you can just feel the 10 people around you. I’ve done it with 100 people. And it’s mad, the feeling is just incredible. And that’s how it felt to me, just listening with thousands of people all over the world that you can’t see, but you’re all focusing on one thing, and it’s this amazing record.
Are there any dream guests that you’d love to host a listening party for?
Lawrence from Go-Kart Mozart, Denim, and Felt. Well, when he was in Felt, he did 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years. I want Lawrence to be able to do 10 albums in 10 days or something like that, or 10 singles in 10 days… regardless, it’s gonna take time to set up because he’s kind of quite hard to find on a daily basis, but he really wants to do it. Obviously, I would love Peter Gabriel. I would love RZA. I would love Kate Bush — who wouldn’t? Any of them!
Typical Music Artwork:
Tim Burgess’ Atypical Music
Paolo Ragusa
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