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randomvarious · 4 years

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Chicane - “Don’t Give Up” CMJ New Music Monthly, Volume 84: August 2000 2000 Balearic Trance / Balearic House

Honestly, the incoming graf I'm about to quote serves perfectly for this post. It's short, it's biographical, and it stresses and contextualizes the importance of a song like "Don't Give Up" within Chicane's own career.

From the "About" section of his website:

Often seen as one of, if not the seminal Trance originator [okay, that's pouring it on a little thick there, bud. Trance was pretty well-established before you came along.]. With the track Offshore he refined cool in the dance genre, the name Chicane became synonymous with Ibiza and sunsets, and quality music, an aural security blanket. Saltwater followed on and became a UK top five hit. Worldwide success was sealed with a collaboration between Chicane and Bryan Adams, Don't Give Up from the hit album Behind the Sun. The track has reached the number one spot on the UK Singles Chart, indeed it was number one globally. Now recognised as a dancefloor classic, it was one of the first dance collaboration tracks to reach such heights. In addition to his work as Chicane the artist, he has worked with and produced music with Cher, Sir Tom Jones, William Orbit, Natasha Bedingfield and composed for TV and film.

I don't think anyone has ever pieced this together before, but if you rearrange the letters in Chicane's real name, which is Nicholas Bracegirdle (don't be mean, now), you can get "Chicane Grills Boars." Isn't that interesting? What could it mean? Hmmm... 🤔🤔🤔

Anyway, the sound and spirit of Ibiza is something that's been coursing through Chicane's veins for decades now. It's a place he's been to countless times, but it was where he and his family would go on holiday (don't I sound British?) every summer when he was a kid. The memories of both the island's warmth and its ecstatically chill atmosphere appear to have greatly rubbed off on him, and with that bit of nostalgia forever implanted in his brain, he's managed to channel that blissful feeling through much of his own productions.

From a 2000 interview in DJ Times Magazine:

A lot of my tracks try to capture the essence and atmosphere of summer...When I'm writing music, I will think of a place in memory and have a visual reference in my mind. Ibiza is about escapism, a little bit of magic. Everyone goes there for summer holidays. The clubs are beautiful. Balearic/Ibiza anthems are very euphoric.

What I've always loved about the UK music landscape is that dance songs — house, techno, trance, breaks, big beat — were always heavily embraced on a mainstream level. Sure, you've got your Radioheads and your Coldplays and your Oasises and your Spice Girlses and all of that pop and rock stuff, but there were also songs like the absolutely strange "Born Slippy" by Underworld and the stone-cold summer-chilled "Don't Give Up" by Chicane that were just about every bit as commercially viable as any other UK-made single. The playing field between genres was just so much more level and the official charts were way more diverse than they were in America at the time.

Since his 1996 debut with "Offshore," Chicane's singles managed to consistently roam around the UK's Top 40 charts. His first huge break though would come in 1999 with "Saltwater, " featuring Maíre Brennan of Clannad, which would peak at #6. His follow-up, 2000's "Don't Give Up," featuring Bryan Adams, would then come in at #1. A crowning achievement for both men (it was Adams' first UK #1 in nearly a decade), to say the least.

But how did this combination happen? A budding, nationally recognized dance music star joining forces with a veteran pop-rocker who has a natural penchant for wetting lady boomers' panties? Can someone say "oil and water?" Surely, this was some big time record exec's doing, attempting to mix new with not so new, right? Nope. Actually, Chicane and Adams' team-up was quite organic. Adams, who had moved from his native Canada to the UK, heard a Chicane track on a compilation and liked the song so much that he called Chicane and asked him to do a remix of one of his own songs, "Cloud Number Nine." Chicane agreed and Adams then chose his mix as the single's official radio edit, which enabled it to peak at #6 on the UK charts.

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Chicane then wrote "Don't Give Up," and while looking for someone to provide vocals for the song, Adams obliged. The track ended up being completed at the end of 1999. Chicane then passed it along to Pete Tong, who, during his new year's eve show on BBC radio, immediately deemed it as his first essential track of the new millennium. A few months later, the single was officially released and it then went to #1 in the UK, along with a bunch of other countries, as well as #3 on the US dance charts. The song was the first certified global dance hit of the 2000s.

Upon its release though, neither Chicane nor Adams revealed who the song's vocalist was. And unless you had a super keen ear and could hear through all of that vocal processing, you weren't going to figure it out. The secret was apparently held onto for a while for a couple of reasons. One is that it was Chicane's track. A track listed as "Chicane feat. Bryan Adams" would've naturally stolen a lot of the spotlight from Chicane. UK music publications of all stripes would've printed headlines to the effect of, "Bryan Adams is suddenly an electronica guy now? *Tim Allen grunt of surprise and confusion*".

The other reason why they didn't immediately reveal who the singer was on "Don't Give Up" was that "Chicane feat. Bryan Adams" sort of naturally sounds like a gimmick when you read it; like a transparent "pop-rock meets dance music" cash grab attempt; both artists taking advantage of each other's fame to attract each other's fan bases and selling double or more because of it. And, ultimately, the single did sell incredibly well, but it wasn't initially off of Bryan Adams' own name recognition. It was because Chicane crafted a fantastic song.

Okay, so on to the song itself. "Don't Give Up," as it turns out, was a tremendous piece of foreshadowing. It was one of the first songs to achieve that definitively warm, yet also chill and euphoric Ibiza vibe that ended up dominating the summer club charts for much of the following decade. Of course, that's a format of dance tune that's absolutely been beaten to death by now, but one has to be cognizant of the fact that a song that sounded like "Don't Give Up" was pretty unique in the year 2000. All in all, the song's greatness is belied by the fact that you can slot it seamlessly into just about any 2010s summer dance mix. But who knew it would also be a blueprint for such monotony?

"Don't Give Up" isn't all that flashy or showy and Chicane doesn't really do anything that should blow you away in any kind of technical sense, but it's a song that does a great job of marrying simple trance melodies with a house backbeat while supplying a super catchy vocal, resulting in something that goes down exceedingly smooth. It's really just a dope, signature Balearic, feelgood vibe. It has the sound of summer and it's one of the first songs to have that sound. The plucking synths that formulate the trance melody share lead duties with Bryan Adams' processed vocals, which end up reducing (or perhaps enhancing) his voice down to an atmospherically lingering, paradoxical yelling whisper. And despite all of that modulation to his voice, Adams' trademark rasp still manages to come through a little bit. But while those plucks and Adams’ voice dominate the track in the foreground, there's another element that gives the song some subtle depth and lends to its house quality: a short, quiet, and filtered, lo-fi disco-funk guitar loop with an equally lo-fi hand clap appended to its end. Without that piece snaking around at the track's bottom, "Don't Give Up" doesn't have an adequate breakdown/bridge that links its soft, initial build to its pumping chorus. And that guitar and clap plays an integral part in the chorus, too.

A Balearic trance and house tune that achieved the rare feat of going all the way to #1 in the UK at the beginning of the new millennium; an earworm that predates that ubiquitous, chilled out Ibiza dance sound that ruled the clubs and dance charts in the 2010s by around a decade; Chicane’s greatest commercial triumph.

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embodyingthecharacter · 4 years

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Tracing a history of costume design...

Love for Love (1695)

A comedy by William Congreve, produced and published in 1695. Thomas Betterton and Anne Bracegirdle played the parts of Valentine and Angelica.

Valentine is a fashionable man-about-town whose extravagance has led him into debt. His father, Sir SampsonLegend, agrees to pay the debts only if Valentine will sign his inheritance away to his younger brother, Ben, a sailor. Valentine has to agree but, realizing that he faces ruin, pleads and even feigns madness to avoid signing the bond. Angelica, whom he has been unsuccessfully courting, intervenes. She uses her charms to extract a proposal of marriage from Sir Sampson, and gets possession of the bond. Valentine, believing that she will marry his father, despairs and declares himself willing to sign. Angelica then reveals her plot, declares her love for Valentine and tears up the bond. Meanwhile, the independent-minded Ben has baulked at Sir Sampson's plan to marry him to Miss Prue, a foolish country girl. The plot involves some diverting minor characters, including Valentine's resourceful servant Jeremy and the amorous Mrs Frail. (reference)

Meet the characters...

Mr. Foresight is Angelica’s uncle. He is a blowhard obsessed with astrological omens and other such pseudoscience. From the second act on, he interprets everyone’s comments as veiled knowledge about Mrs. Foresight’s infidelities. His name is clearly ironic: all of his astrological readings and divinations are aimed at providing him with foresight, or a knowledge of the future, but he is probably the least perceptive character in the play.

1. Costume design for Mr. Foresight by Jeanetta Cochrane. Production date unknown. Image courtesy of CSM Museum & Study Collection.

2. Michael Thomas as Mr. Foresight Swan Theatre (2015/16).

3. Aidan O’Reilly as Mr. Foresight, American Shakespeare Centre (2016).

Mrs. Frail is Mrs. Foresight’s sister. She is unmarried and in the market for a husband, and, before the play opens, she has already had an affair with Tattle. However, Mrs. Foresight feels that she behaves much too promiscuously to land a worthy husband. As a result, the two of them hatch a plan to land Ben as a husband for Mrs. Frail. Their plan fails, however, and Mrs. Frail ends up married to Tattle. She is hardly “frail”; she is a calculating and headstrong woman who is not timid about going after what she wants: Ben’s fortune.

4. Costume design for Yvonne Arnaud as Mrs. Frail by Jeanetta Cochrane (1940s). Image courtesy of CSM Museum & Study Collection.

5. Ginna Hoben as Mrs. Frail, American Shakespeare Center (2016).

6. Zoe Waites as Mrs. Frail, Swan Theatre (2015/16).

Sir Sampson is Benjamin and Valentine’s father. He has a considerable amount of money and resents the fact that Valentine has been running through his estate with his fast living. In response, he offers Valentine a deal: sign over his future inheritance to his brother and Sir Sampson will give him four thousand pounds on the spot. Valentine takes the four thousand pounds in advance but feigns insanity to avoid signing the papers, which infuriates Sir Sampson.

7. Costume design for Sir Sampson by Jeanetta Cochrane (1940s). Image courtesy of CSM Museum & Study Collection.

8. Alan Horsfield as Sir Sampson (1989).

9. Nicholas Le Prevost as Sir Sampson, Swan Theatre (2015/16).

Costume design by Jeanetta Cochrane (1943). Image courtesy of CSM Museum & Study Collection.

Scandal is Valentine’s closest friend. He is a rake like Valentine but less coldhearted than Valentine at first is. When Valentine expresses disgust that the mother of one of his children did not smother the child, Scandal merely expresses his best wishes for his “Godchild” and sends money. Scandal helps Valentine appear insane for the purpose of winning Angelica. His function is to provide a mellowing influence on Valentine, who, without the presence of Scandal, would be a truly reprehensible character until the final scene of the play. Like most of the other names in the play, his is ironic; of the two friends, Scandal and Valentine, Scandal is by far the less scandalous.

Robert Cavanah as Scandal, Swan Theater (2015/2016).

#theater #historical costume #historic costume #william congreve #Love for Love #costume

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