Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, known together as Goldfrapp, are about to release what is sure to be one of my fave albums of 2010, Head First. Unlike the mostly down-tempo, beautiful music on their last disc, Seventh Tree, Head First is diving into 80s synth and picking up the beat to make it joyous and "jubilant". Here is their interview with Pitchfork.Pitchfork: On your last album, Seventh Tree, there's a somewhat cynical song called "Happiness" that pokes fun at the idea of happiness. But Head First sounds genuinely happy. Did something happen in between to change your outlook?
Alison Goldfrapp: A whole bunch of stuff, which I won't go into-- do you know we've been through three managers in the last year? Anyway. With this album we definitely wanted to get back to the synths and drums, and do something jubilant. At the beginning we did some ballad-y songs, and I thought, "That's just not what we want to hear. Let's not pussyfoot around."
Pitchfork: A lot of the new songs sound like they would work well in 80s movies like Top Gun.
Will Gregory: Top Gun! [laughs] I don't like Top Gun. But I like the music of it-- it's got that great synth sound [hums a bar of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away"]. That sound is so uncool it's cool.
AG: Someone else said St. Elmo's Fire and American Gigolo.
Pitchfork: Do you guys like any of those movies?
AG: I don't know those movies.
Pitchfork: Musically and lyrically, this album is more direct than your others, which were sometimes undercut with irony or dread. Why did you feel comfortable being more direct this time?
WG: When we started out we had a hell of a lot of rules and regulations about what we could and couldn't do. There were no breakbeats, no guitars, no samples. But all the rules are gone now. It's just whatever sounds good at the moment. We don't like the idea of pulling punches by being cool. Like, if it's going in a certain direction, let's go there as far as some people who were very uncool-- like Billy Joel and ABBA-- went [laughs]. Those people really understand how a song works. That's something to learn from.
AG: And it's just bloody fun, isn't it? You start going [mimics opening synth riff of "Rocket"], "Dah! Dah! Dah!" and you just go, "Hey! Yeah, Van Halen! Let's do that!" You can't deny it. You want the drummer to come out and there will be water and glitter on his snare and huge reverb and, all of a sudden, it's like instant joy [laughs]. In my fantasy mind I'm wearing pink spandex and doing star jumps, but I just can't do star jumps. I'd have a serious fucking injury if I attempted a star jump.
Pitchfork: Well, if you start practicing now...
AG: Yeah. I need something behind the drummer that I could jump off of and go boing-- just hurling out into the audience. That girl from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs dives into the audience. But, really, I would just never ever have the balls to do that. I mean, what if the crowd just parted?
WG: They do, sometimes.
AG: Do they? Fuck!
Pitchfork: I remember reading about how Bono jumped onto a crowd from a 15 foot balcony early in U2's career. But when a fan tried to do the same thing right after him, the crowd didn't catch him because...
AG: ...he's not Bono! [laughs] Shit. That's awful. I heard Macy Gray threw a microphone out into the audience and it hit this little girl on the head once and the parents sued her. Apparently, it took a whole year and a huge amount of money to get them off her case. So you've gotta be careful what you do out there with the audience [laughs].
Alison Goldfrapp: A whole bunch of stuff, which I won't go into-- do you know we've been through three managers in the last year? Anyway. With this album we definitely wanted to get back to the synths and drums, and do something jubilant. At the beginning we did some ballad-y songs, and I thought, "That's just not what we want to hear. Let's not pussyfoot around."
Pitchfork: A lot of the new songs sound like they would work well in 80s movies like Top Gun.
Will Gregory: Top Gun! [laughs] I don't like Top Gun. But I like the music of it-- it's got that great synth sound [hums a bar of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away"]. That sound is so uncool it's cool.
AG: Someone else said St. Elmo's Fire and American Gigolo.
Pitchfork: Do you guys like any of those movies?
AG: I don't know those movies.
Pitchfork: Musically and lyrically, this album is more direct than your others, which were sometimes undercut with irony or dread. Why did you feel comfortable being more direct this time?
WG: When we started out we had a hell of a lot of rules and regulations about what we could and couldn't do. There were no breakbeats, no guitars, no samples. But all the rules are gone now. It's just whatever sounds good at the moment. We don't like the idea of pulling punches by being cool. Like, if it's going in a certain direction, let's go there as far as some people who were very uncool-- like Billy Joel and ABBA-- went [laughs]. Those people really understand how a song works. That's something to learn from.
AG: And it's just bloody fun, isn't it? You start going [mimics opening synth riff of "Rocket"], "Dah! Dah! Dah!" and you just go, "Hey! Yeah, Van Halen! Let's do that!" You can't deny it. You want the drummer to come out and there will be water and glitter on his snare and huge reverb and, all of a sudden, it's like instant joy [laughs]. In my fantasy mind I'm wearing pink spandex and doing star jumps, but I just can't do star jumps. I'd have a serious fucking injury if I attempted a star jump.
Pitchfork: Well, if you start practicing now...
AG: Yeah. I need something behind the drummer that I could jump off of and go boing-- just hurling out into the audience. That girl from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs dives into the audience. But, really, I would just never ever have the balls to do that. I mean, what if the crowd just parted?
WG: They do, sometimes.
AG: Do they? Fuck!
Pitchfork: I remember reading about how Bono jumped onto a crowd from a 15 foot balcony early in U2's career. But when a fan tried to do the same thing right after him, the crowd didn't catch him because...
AG: ...he's not Bono! [laughs] Shit. That's awful. I heard Macy Gray threw a microphone out into the audience and it hit this little girl on the head once and the parents sued her. Apparently, it took a whole year and a huge amount of money to get them off her case. So you've gotta be careful what you do out there with the audience [laughs].
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