{"id":19918,"date":"2021-01-13T05:30:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T10:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19918"},"modified":"2020-12-07T16:56:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T21:56:07","slug":"kevin-godley-the-consequences-of-remote-collaboration-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/13\/kevin-godley-the-consequences-of-remote-collaboration-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Godley: The Consequences of Remote Collaboration (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

Submissions took the form of rough instrumental audio mixes. Each time Godley came across one with potential, he took things to the next step. \u201cIf I liked it, I’d just pull it on to GarageBand [digital audio workstation software], and sing over the top of it, straight into a computer.\u201d That done, he\u2019d send that combined audio file \u2013 a demo, not a finished track \u2013 back to his potential collaborator, seeking creative feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in every single case,\u201d Godley says, \u201cthey were really pleased with what I’d done, and said, ‘That’s great. We like that. Carry on.’\u201d After receiving the stems (individual audio components) for the selected tracks, Godley set about making proper, polished recordings of the collaborative songs.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Muscle Memory<\/i> is the debut solo release from an artist who\u2019s been making records for 50 years. In his earliest days, Godley worked with Lol Creme in an obscure duo called Frabjoy and Runcible Spoon. Later, the two joined forces with hit songwriters Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart as Hotlegs; that group soon changed its name to 10cc, going on to release a string of critically and commercially successful albums and singles.<\/p>\n

Godley and Lol Creme left 10cc after 1976\u2019s How Dare You!<\/i>, relaunching their career as a duo. Godley & Creme released six albums through the \u201880\u2019s, beginning with the highly idiosyncratic cult classic, Consequences<\/i>. After the duo split, Godley continued his work as a highly sought-after music video director, working with artists including U2, Boyzone, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, Eric Clapton, Jean-Michel Jarre, Phil Collins, Band Aid 2 (\u201cDo They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u201d) and the Beatles (\u201cReal Love\u201d).<\/p>\n

Kevin Godley \u2013 who as a songwriter has always worked in one or another collaborative format \u2013 says that in many ways, making his solo album wasn\u2019t all that different from how he\u2019s always worked. \u201cIt was like sitting opposite someone who plays an instrument,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause that\u2019s what I usually do: just write and mumble whilst somebody plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Godley found the Muscle Memory<\/i> project a liberating experience as well. He says that a \u201cnormal\u201d collaborative writing session features interaction along these lines: \u201cWell, I like that. Why don’t you try this chord? That doesn’t fit. Let’s switch that bit and put it there.\u201d And while that back-and-forth can yield good results, there\u2019s a downside. \u201cIt can go on for fucking days or weeks!\u201d Godley says. \u201cThe discipline of not<\/i> doing that \u2013 and also not having anybody looking over my shoulder at what I was writing down in notebooks, and not having to answer to somebody until I had something that I thought was worthwhile sharing \u2013 was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 11 songs that make up Muscle Memory<\/i> are a varied and eclectic collection, but Godley emphasizes that he didn\u2019t consciously set out to make that the case. \u201cThe material dictated it,\u201d he explains. \u201cThere were so many different styles of music coming my way: country, blues, electronica, punk. You name it, it came.\u201d Yet the new songs all have the signature blend of melody and weirdness that characterized Godley\u2019s work with Lol Creme on \u201cUnder Your Thumb\u201d and \u201cWedding Bells\u201d \u2013 both hits in their native UK and throughout Europe \u2013 and the MTV-era worldwide smash \u201cCry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, as good as the individual songs on Muscle Memory<\/i> are, Godley admits that initially, he wasn\u2019t at all sure they would hang together as a whole. \u201cI didn’t really know if it would function as an album until I recorded and mixed everything and we started putting it into some kind of order,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Sequencing is an often overlooked part of making an album. Godley likens sequencing album tracks to constructing a sentence. \u201cIt’s a bad sentence if you put the \u2018the\u2019 over there, and the \u2018all\u2019 here,\u201d he says. \u201cIt may make no sense whatsoever. But move a few words around and it could become beautiful. Or shit, depending on what the words are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overall lyrical tone of Muscle Memory<\/i> is a bit dark, as titles like \u201cThe Ghosts of the Living\u201d and \u201cSong of Hate\u201d would suggest. \u201cI think the things that are maybe somewhat darker than usual are because the world we live in today is very much darker than it was,\u201d Godley suggests. His lyrics must meet a standard he set for himself long ago. \u201cYou want to say something, but have you said it well enough? Have you said it subtly enough? Are you beating people over the head, or does it work? And does it match that original thought you had about this track and what it could be?\u201d<\/p>\n

The cohesion of the Muscle Memory<\/i> tracks owes itself to more than just the song order and the common thread of Godley\u2019s vocals. \u201cI think there’s something else going on,\u201d he says. \u201cI maybe gravitated toward a certain sound, a certain set of chords. I don’t know if it’s just my taste buds or my memory working in a certain way, but it does<\/i> feel like an album to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than release an entire album at once, Godley is taking a different path. Beginning in July with the debut of \u201cExpecting a Message,\u201d he released a new track one at a time, about twice a month. The eleventh track, \u201cBulletholes in the Sky,\u201d was scheduled for release on December 3, with the full album \u2013 on CD, vinyl and in digital format \u2013 becoming available in mid-December.<\/p>\n

It happens that Muscle Memory<\/i>\u2019s measured rollout wasn\u2019t Godley\u2019s idea at all. \u201cThis was the label’s idea,\u201d he says, admitting that while the idea confused him at first, he\u2019s on board with the strategy. \u201cIt’s not throwing the full package at you from the word go, and bracketing it, shutting doors behind you and in front of you,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt’s saying, you know, \u2018Here’s some stuff. Get used to it. There may be something in here you like. And if you do, here’s a full thing.\u2019\u201d Godley has faith in the people at State 51 Conspiracy. \u201cThis is the business side, which I can’t really argue with,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I’m going with their plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Muscle Memory<\/i>, Godley has only scratched the surface of the solid material submitted by potential collaborators. \u201cThere’s enough material there to probably make another dozen albums,\u201d he says. \u201cBut whether I want to or not, I don’t know. I at least have to see if Experiment One worked before trying Experiment Two.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Submissions took the form of rough instrumental audio mixes. Each time Godley came across one with potential, he took things to the next step. \u201cIf I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51,62],"tags":[4358],"class_list":["post-19918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","tag-kevin-godley","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19918"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19925,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19918\/revisions\/19925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}