"Confide in Me"

Kylie Minogue - "Confide in Me" (1994)

One of the biggest stars in the world. In the US, she's damn near a one hit wonder, and this isn't it.



The strings kind of have a Middle East/Indian sound, as understood and transcribed by Western ears. The guitars sound like a mix of guitar and sitar, and are in fact from The Doors "The End". The drums are a murky mix of bass drum, snare drum and rarely used cymbals. There is no drummer or percussionist listed in the liner notes, so we have to assume that it's all a drum machine programmed by songwriters and producers Steve Anderson and Dave Seaman. Owain Barton is listed as a songwriter on the track, because he write a song called "It's a Fine Day" for a band called Jane in 1983. The song was covered by Opus III in 1992 and became a top 5 hit in the U.K. and a #1 US Dance Club hit. Barton complained that the string parts on "Confide in Me" sounded like the melody of "It's a Fine Day" and so his name was added.

The piano opening, and Minogue's voice kind of make the song a breathy torch number. Combining all of the elements, I think the song sounds like a perfect Bond theme song. Listen to "Goldeneye" (1995), "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), and "Die another Day" (2002) and tell me that if they turned the vocals up just a touch on Kylie Minogue that "Confide in Me" wouldn't have made a better theme song than any of them.

7 Seconds

Youssou N'Dour featuring Neneh Cherry - 7 Seconds (1994)



Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what genre this is. Wikipedia says Trip-Hop and Darkwave. N'Dour sings this song in three different languages, French, English and Wolof which is the Senegalese language. Without lyrics, the song could be background music, very forgettable. The lyrics are apparently about the seven seconds after a child is born, before they are aware of everything. It's a little pretentious, and the tone is very downer. N'Dour sings very passionately, and Cherry has a nice voice, but the real thrill is the unexpected violin solo that starts in at 2:45. Immediately made me think of early Dummy era Portishead. In fact, now that I've listened to a few songs off of Dummy (also 1994) and re read this write up, I realized a few things.
1. That I have described the perfect Trip-Hop song without meaning too.
2. It's been a while since I've heard any Trip-Hop, and
3. I need to go back and listen to some more Portishead.