Artist: Montt Mardie
Title: Introducing (The Best Of)
Label: Ruffa Lane
Genre: Indie
Bitrate: 188kbit av.
Time: 01:03:39
Size: 90.16 mb
Rip Date: 2009-02-03
Str Date: 2008-09-08
1. Modesy Blaise 3:35
2. Set Sail Tomorrow 3:09
3. Names Not Forgotten 3:57
4. How I Won The War 3:29
5. Huckleberry Friend 2:59
6. 1969 4:21
7. Prom Night 2:37
8. Smile Charlie 4:24
9. Too Many Songs Unwritten 3:36
10. Travellers 1:52
11. Paddy (You Won't Get What You Deserve) 4:02
12. Birthday Boy 2:56
13. How To Kill A Mockingbird 2:54
14. Pretenders 2:59
15. The Windmill Turns All The Same 3:28
16. Castle In The Sky 4:52
17. Phone Call Drama 8:29
Release Notes:
At first glance 24-year-old Montt Mardie (stage name of
singer-songwriter David Pagmar) seems to have chosen a rather
contradictory title to launch his debut album in the UK:
Introducing' The Best Of. After all, aren't Introducing'
albums supposed to be debuts, and Best Of' discs meant to be
compilations, released after years of chart success? Well,
Mardi┌'s album does tick both boxes in some ways. With two
albums already under his belt in his Swedish homeland, the
singer's first album released to the British pop-buying public
is largely made up of tracks from his Swedish debut and
sophomore LPs, Drama and Clocks / Pretender.
The album kicks off with a bouncy track named after 60s comic
strip character Modesty Blaise and recalls the sounds of 80s
band, Prefab Sprout, the Style Council's Shout To The Top, and
the ''Saturday, Saturday'' refrain from Elton John's Saturday
Night's Alright.
Pop culture references abound throughout the album: Breakfast
At Tiffany's Holly Golightly (Set Sail Tomorrow), Mark Twain
(Huckleberry Friend), the Apollo 11 space mission (1969,
complete with clips from John F. Kennedy's speech), Harper Lee
(How To Kill A Mockingbird), Meat Loaf and Prefab Sprout
frontman Paddy McAloon (Paddy, You Won't Get What You
Deserve), all providing inspiration for Mardi┌'s lyrics.
With seventeen tracks, there's no shortage of ballads or
upbeat songs, and there's even a mixed-tempo number (Smile
Charlie). But it's the wealth of incredibly catchy tunes such
as Birthday Boy, Prom Night, and Phone Call Drama to name but
a few, which really shine through, lending the album the
enjoyably bright sound of summer.
Tracks like Too Many Songs Unwritten and The Windmill Turns
All The Same show that Mardie is at his best performing
soft-voiced 80s-esque pop rather than Prince or Smokey
Robinson-inspired falsettos.
Whether Mardie will enjoy the longevity of his song-writing
heroes Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney and see the prayer
answered that he voices in the lively Names Not Forgotten (''I
pray so hard that my name is not forgotten'') is another
matter. But while we're waiting to find out, there's plenty to
enjoy in the Swedish singer's catalogue so far.