Product Description

Sophomore album from Australian Luke Steele follows up his 2003 debut 'Lovers'. Whilst on that album classic pop, country-rock and electronica were combined with mixed results, on'Personality' the synthesis of styles is much more successfully realized. The result is an album of lush, expansive popmusic informed as much by the spirits of the Beach Boys andPhil Spector as by modern psychedelic travellers like the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev.

Track Listing

1. You Needed More
2. Devil Was In My Yard
3. God Lead Your Soul
4. Work Alone
5. God Knows
6. I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree
7. Miles Away
8. Higher Than Hell
9. Play A Little Bit For Love
10. Don't Say
11. You Won't Bring People Down In My Town
12. Dream On
13. How Was I Supposed To Know

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52280 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-24
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Seemingly on a mission to make rehabilitate the vision of the crazed pop auteur, on Personality - One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird, Luke Steele--the mascara-smeared, born-again Christian Antipodean that is, to all intents and purposes, The Sleepy Jackson--is truly reaching for the stars. A suite of ambitious pop songs that vibrate with multi-part gospel harmonies and simmer with orchestral trimmings, Steele leaves no stone unturned in his mission to make the Big Music. As well as the clear influence of The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson that runs through God-fearing pop symphonies like "How Was I Supposed To Know" and "Higher Than Hell", there's a melodic subtlety reminiscent of George Harrison that runs through quieter tracks like "Miles Away". Meanwhile, glam rock and strung out cosmic country also sneak into the design on "Work Alone" and the slide guitar-laden "Devil Was In My Yard". Although sometimes you feel the more bombastic songs struggle to fill out their lavish arrangements, there's an unfettered joy and seam of optimism that runs through Personality that ought to see it mentioned alongside work from other modern choral rock luminaries from the Flaming Lips to the Polyphonic Spree. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

An ambitious near masterpiece
OK, so debut album 'Lovers' was always going to be a hard act to follow but maverick songwriter Luke Steele has pretty much succeeded. `Personality...' is certainly no carbon copy of the first album and has very much its own sound so those expecting 'Lovers' Mark II may be disappointed. However, treat this album as a work in its own right and it is hard not to be impressed by the lush, multi layered hooks and melodies which never let up from start to finish. I have to admire Steele for what he has tried to achieve here, attempting to make the ultimate 'melodic' record bursting with harmonies, string sections, et al. It is an ambitious concept and sound that could easily have fallen flat on its face.

Admittedly, there are a couple of tracks which just do not work and the production is overdone. Also, lyrically the album is a bit below par in places and perhaps suffers for it. BUT despite these criticisms, `Personality...' is a collection of excellent songs which gel together to from one of the albums of the year.

Buy `Personality...' and give it several listens with open ears and you may be pleasantly surprised. Don't expect it to be an instantly easy listen, it definitely requires repeated plays to pick through the vast musical activity but the rewards are well worth it.

Patchy second album
Even before you've heard the first glacial notes of The Sleepy Jackson's second album, it is clear they are no longer the quirky outfit of 2003's 'Lovers'. The ghastly cover art and cryptic name are already miles away from that album's messy sleeve scribbles and snappy title. In the actual music, though, this new-found indulgence helps create a few moments of utter brilliance (and, thankfully, there are no extreme delves into pretentiousness here). The album's opening clutch of songs are beautiful, string-laden gems which hit the perfect mark for a follow-up album: grander, denser, but also catchier. Gorgeous opener 'You Needed More' may occasionally hint of that dullest of second-album subject matter - life on tour ("we play the same songs in every town"), but they've taken the winning songwriting formula of 'Lovers' but turned it into an uplifting orchestral pop beauty: hushed strums give way to strings which sweep its chorus to new heights.

First single 'God Lead Your Soul' continues the good streak, its stop-start chorus fanfared by a grand brass section. It's adventurous, engaging and very, very pretty, with Beach Boys 'oohs' and 'aahs' everywhere. In fact, one of 'Personality''s main downfalls is that this overt influence can get tiring. Tracks like 'Higher Than Hell' and 'You Won't Bring People Down In My Town' seem to disguise their lack of ideas by being comprised solely of said ooh-ing. As the album detaches itself from the head-rush of the opening tracks, these more unmemorable songs seem to merge into one big blob of falsetto 'n' strings, only saved by the memorable choruses of 'Work Alone' and 'God Knows'. It's hard not to listen to in one go without getting bored, and though the new sound is a new step for the band, the album lacks the variety of its predecessor. You begin to long for the country twang of 'Lovers'' 'Come To This', which only pop up once on the sweet highlight 'Miles Away'.

Unlike 'Lovers', which had a number of styles with a high success rate, the most notable strays from the template on 'Personality' are commendable but often unbearable. The horriblly cheesy 'Play A Little Bit For Love' and 'I Understand What You Mean But I Just Don't Agree' are the worst offenders, with its disco-lite basslines drifting uncomfortably into overblown MOR territory. At worst, it sounds like a serious Scissor Sisters. Luckily, these two are the only times when the album's main problems really turn unpleasant, but for an album so overtly willing to step it up a notch, it's annoyingly samey. Luke Steele and his ever-rotating band may soon turn in their fully coherent masterpiece but, for all its pomp, 'Personality' is often devoid of the charm which made 'Lovers' such a treat, the flashes of magic only making it more frustrating.

Too much spider , not enough bird.
Based upon the many reviews I've read , their previous album the excellent "Lovers" , and quite possibly my own warped dreams and perceptions I was expecting the new Sleepy Jackson album to be some sort of heavenly , halcyon inducing trip to aural nirvana. Dream pop if you like, a cross between "Pet Sounds", "Revolver" and Wins "Uh Tears Baby" (one of the greatest pop albums ever folks). Imagine my surprise to discover that "Personality " to give it an abridged name, is more like a wander through the "Magic Kingdom" at "Pleasure Island" than a heart skipping twirl at light speed round planet pop.
On the surface it's all gaudy colours and plump marshmallow facades but peel back that pristine eye catching epidermis and it's just spindly framework and frantic head less chicken activity effectively creating a mirage of opulent beauty and glistening Shangri La. Enough with the metaphors now, what I'm saying is that while "Personality "may boast a cast list as long as "Spartacus", including an orchestra, the end result is often disappointingly prosaic. Luke Steele may have had the tools at his mercurial disposal but far too often on the album there is nothing for then to get their collective teeth into. Too many songs drift by in a perplexing diaphanous haze of cloying strings, plucked notes on guitar, gauzy keyboard/piano. Backing vocals drift in and out and maybe back in again but fail to wrap a hook into the synapses. Too much of "Personality "fails to lodge itself in the brain, in short "Personality" lacks a significant personality.
On first listen absolutely nothing stands out. The whole album meanders by in a gossamer melange of cloying arrangements and Steele's acute high range vocals. Further listens reveal that some of the songs do offer a vicarious pop thrill, but these thrills are still too few and far between and no where near vivid enough. "Work Alone", an ironic title given Steele's cast of thousands approach is typical, all lustrous shiny arrangement but with no depth or irreducible melody to get your teeth into. "You Needed More" which opens the album should have heeded its title as it floats wispily (but pleasantly enough) by. "Play A little Bit For Love" is so sugar coated I put on three pounds just listening to it. "Dream On " sounds like New Seekers or Brotherhood Of Man, so oleaginous it leaves a trail as it gloops out of the speakers. " You Won't Bring People To My Town" is another sticky confection devoid of a decent tune.
Yet for all that stick with the album and there is enough on "Personality" to make it worthwhile sifting through the less palatable fare. The albums middle section is superb with "God Knows" (nod to the Beach Boys there) the brilliant Prince like "I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree", the lilting "Miles Away" and the gleefully harmonic "Higher Than Hell" justifying Steele's vision alone. Furthermore there are the sumptuous Eastern flavoured strings of "Devil Was In My Yard" and the euphoric harmonies and sashaying strings Of "God Lead Your Soul". The relatively stripped back final track "How Was I Supposed To Know" benefits from a more self-possessed string arrangement.
The fact remains that nothing on "Personality" approaches the brilliance of a track like "Acid In My Heart" from "Lovers" for effortless pop magnificence. Too much if this album, as I've intimated is over egged and mired with over produced indulgence. It seems out the two personalities on show here, the spider too often has triumphed, holding the songs earthbound with tacky tangles of webbing instead of letting them take flight and really soar.