Album review: Martina Topley-Bird - ‘The Blue God’

Martina Topley-Bird has been around a while. She’s been Tricky’s partner in crime, sang with John Spencer Blues Explosion, Gorillaz and David Holmes. On the strength of her newest long player, ‘The Blue God’, she shouldn’t have bothered as she’s clearly at her best when creating sumptuous, adventurous pop music with Dangermouse.

From LP opener to closer, ‘The Blue God’ is one of the finest pop albums these ears have ever had the pleasure of functioning near. A lot of pop music… and I’m talking unashamed pop music here… is vacuous and bubblegum. It’s okay for a couple of chews, but the flavour is gone too quickly. Not the case with MTB. Hell no. This is an album that’s going to sound great in 20 years time. 50 years time. Forever. Can you tell I’m a bit enthused by it?
What’s so great about this album is that it isn’t afraid of being smart. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s clever-clever and wants to ram it down your throat. Topley-Bird and Dangermouse, between them, are musical magpies and weave a huge amount of influences in the tunes. Dub, jazz, rock, electronica, dance, soul… it’s all there. However, not for a second does it sound forced or even eclectic. This is a beautiful and well made… coherent LP that knocks you for six from the word go.
Lead single ‘Carnies’ is pure sunshine pop with a sinister edge. ‘Baby Blue’ is one of the finest pop songs I’ve heard in my life. The wurlitzer organ of Snowman is odd, exciting and most importantly, great to listen to. This is an album that deserves a huge audience and hopefully, this review will go some way to addressing that. This is an album sweet and catchy enough for the pop fan but also, weird and interesting enough to make the most stubborn record collector start taking notes. ‘The Blue God’ might just be the best pop release of the last ten years. Buy it.

Martina Topley-Bird’s ‘The Blue God’ is released through Independiente on May 12th 2008