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Rockferry
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List Price: $13.98
Our Price: $7.99
Your Save: $ 5.99 ( 43% )
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Manufacturer: Mercury
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0602517629769
Label: Mercury
Manufacturer: Mercury
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Mercury
Release Date: 2008-05-13
Studio: Mercury
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Editorial Reviews:
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The most hotly anticipated album release of this New Year comes not from someone rammed into the collective consciousness by their media ubiquity. Duffy is an unknown quantity at this point, having performed but a small number of gigs, mostly in support of The Magic Numbers, and having only just begun to be seen on TV, most notably with recent appearances on Jools Holland's Later and New Year Hootenanny.
Yet her soulful voice has already beguiled many of the nation's musical tastemakers and news of its beauty and of the strength of her songs is spreading by word of mouth even as you read these words. Radio One's Jo Whiley chose Duffy's title track and album taster `Rockferry' as her Single of the Week in late November, further adding to the momentum. Now, as the comparisons fly (Dusty Springfield has emerged as the favourite), it's time to discover her for yourself.
Duffy was born and spent her childhood years in the north Wales coastal community of Nefyn, a place too remote to be driven by style wars or opposing music factions (the nearest record counter was a bus ride away and only stocked the Top 40). The upbringing she describes is one in which everyone had to rub along together, making do and mending, accepting each other and their tastes without prejudice.
Having no CD collection of her own, her first real musical memory is of walking into the kitchen unannounced to find her mother and stepfather dancing to Rod Stewart. The first steps she took towards defining her own personal identity came when she borrowed one of her dad's VHS tapes of the `60s TV show `Ready, Steady, Go!'. "It had The Beatles, the Stones, the Walker Brothers, Sandie Shaw and Millie singing `My Boy Lollipop'. So sexy and exciting! I played it again and again until finally it disintegrated." Says former Suede guitarist and record producer Bernard Butler of this artlessness, "Duffy managed to grow up without any concept of what was cool or current, what she should or shouldn't like, how to behave or even how to sing. For her, coming to London at all was the stuff of fairytales."
"And to come here to write songs with some random bloke who'd been recommended to her, me? It meant taking two buses and then two trains and took all day. Then she'd do the same in reverse to get home, playing the music she'd just made to old ladies she encountered on the journey. It's hard for cynical music industry types to get their heads around just how far removed she was from our world, geographically and in every other way. But what you've got as a result is someone who acts and sings completely and unselfconsciously from the heart. That's a rare and magical thing."
Butler was introduced to Duffy by Rough Trade's Jeannette Lee who,in August 2004 and after hearing demos recorded in this or that mate's home, became the singer's mentor and manager. For Duffy, to have not just a friend but also point of both safety and reference in the strange new world she found herself in was crucial to her own musical development and sense of self.
"People keep saying to me, `You've made a great record' but I can't take that in because I didn't do it on my own. Jeannette and I made `Rockferry' together and she's been with me every step of the way, broadening my horizons, introducing me to people I can trust." Butler was just one of them: having written the glorious, chorus-free, utterly hypnotic `Rockferry' together at the beginning of the project, they then worked on a further three of the ten tracks on what is already being talked about as 2008's most important debut release. Jimmy Hogarth & Steve Booker are the other collaborators on this classic-in-waiting.
What can you expect to hear? The title track and album opener, as atmospheric, slow-building and idiosyncratic song as you could hope for, leads into a collection of original material that some might call retro in feel (those Dusty flavours, that girl group vibe) but which Duffy herself prefers to identify as classic. You'll find arrangements as sparsely effective as those against which Dionne Warwick told her Bacharach & David-wrought tales of heartbreak in the early 1960s. You'll find lush choruses and swooning hooks (as perfected by the late Miss Springfield and various distinguished others). But this is far from pastiche.
What you'll find instead is irrefutable evidence of a significant new talent, and one that has developed in splendid isolation, not in reaction to market forces or the input of focus groups and industry experts. Duffy is the real, unspoiled original deal. "People keep asking me where my voice comes from and the fact is I don't know," says the brightest new star of 2008. "Why are your eyes the colour they are? It's no answer at all but it's the only one I have." Duffy Photos
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Get off your duffy and buy this!!!
Comment: I am hypnotized by this Duffy. Not in a hypnotize by biggie kind of way, but in a 60's downtown gretna way. This CD is pure as snow before people drive on it and make it dirty or relieve themselves on it. I was introduced to Duffy, like most others, when I heard the song Mercy. I go to the gym four days a week (six when I have a date) and Mercy is a great song to go 14 miles on the treadmill to. I just put it on repeat and go. My favorite track though is not Mercy, which probably surprises you after what I just said about it. I like Rockferry. That track takes me back to Gretna in the 60s when double decker buses drove people around and dropped them off at the bowling for a night of shenanigans and tomfoolery.
I'm a really good bowler. Our team took 4 games out of a possible 4 last night. That's 100%!!!! We did the same thing last week. Can I pick up a 7-10 split? Are kids with syrup on their faces annoying? We had a bowling duel for the ages that Duffy might as well be the soundtrack four. Burns, Kroll, J-abs and I were bowling in the Eastern Nebraska Kind of Professional Bowling league for Gretna. We called ourselves Asschowder (big surprise). We bowled Ashland and let me tell you that Burns just didn't like Ashland. He called it trashland (that's ice cold). We all bowled over 250 and beat them by 435 pins. We let them bowl three balls at a time in the last game just to try and keep it close. Don't let your kids see that ever again! Let's just say average bowled for Trashland.
Get Rockferry now!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: great voice, great production, beginner songwriting
Comment: Duffy does have a great voice, and the production is like the best of Dusty Springfield's albums. But I wish she'd had a little more help with the songwriting. Some of the ideas are great, but just don't satisfy lyrically. And she does make up for a lot with her gutsy approach, and supercool vibe.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Uniqueness Combined with Musical Shades of Past Decades
Comment: This album was basically a unique voice, experiencing so much pain, but doing it in a lovely manner.
The title song was not ideal for a starting song. It was a little annoying and bland. Warwick Avenue is a strong song, despite it's somewhat depressing tone. It's like a song you'd find at a pivotal moment in a musical. The message is gorgeously portrayed. Serious is kind of like a dreamlike or trancelike song. It's kind of light at first. It probably would have been a better first song than Rockferry.
Stepping Stone kind of echoes the sounds of the great Carole King. Very good message to girls, and it's a good girl power song without being bubblegum. Syrup and Honey starts off kind of with a sing-song sound. It was cute, but it still continues the blues sound. Not as strong of a character built by Stepping Stone. It sounds cute, but the message is lacking. Hanging On Too Long is another song about a girl who is clingy. A little bit stronger than the previous track, and focuses on the strength and range of her voice.
Mercy is upbeat. It is clear why this was chosen as the first single, but does not represent the album at all. It's fun and clearly written and performed. It is an interesting blend of pop and blues, and sounds like it could have come from the 50's, 60's, and today because of the mixture of sounds. Delayed Devotion is another song that seems to have a hint of Carole King in it. It's kind of like stepping into a sad moment in a 70's sitcom or comedic movie. It's pretty, but a bit unoriginal soundwise. The lyrics are cute, though.
I'm Scared sounds like it comes from the 60's. It's kind of lilty, though; while simultaneously being a bit sad. It sounds like more of the classic clinginess that is present on this album. It makes me wonder if she has self-esteem issues. She sounds like she gets too attached. Distant Dreamer sounds like it comes from a 60's or 70's musical. It's pretty and very open-spirited, but it is too beautiful to be on the album. It doesn't fit with the sad tone of most of the songs. It's very optimistic for an album of pessimism.
The songs sound great, but it's too much of a mixture of messages. She seems to be skipping from clingy to hopeful to independent and back to clingy. The album makes her sound too flighty as a person.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is why people burn CDs instead of buying them
Comment: I'm so disapointed in the fact that I paid for this CD and she received a portion of what i spent on it. I love all types of music but this was just plan bad. She has a LOVELY voice but what was on the producers mind when this album was put together?!?!? It's not her voice, it not her lyrics, it just seems like this was album was thrown together. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire thing was put together in 1 day. It's horrible.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mixed on Duffy
Comment: We recently purchased Duffys CD....Loved Mercy, however the entire CD is very slow and sad bluesy...not quite what we had expected. But she is a VERY talented young lady with a beautiful voice.
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