Casanova

Product Information

When Scott Walker died in 2019, I honestly felt despair over losing an artist like I had felt for no other before. I listen and content myself knowing that someone out there is still carrying the mantle of Walker’s style.

The Walker style is arguably at its most obvious on Casanova – which makes it all the more enjoyable for me to listen to. But one thing that has thankfully been unwavering through the decades is my love of the music from the show. The CD comes with a booklet of photos, credits and extensive liner notes written by Neil covering the context and inspiration behind the album and its songs. It was certified Gold in the UK in July 1997, aided by the release of the album's first single, " Something for the Weekend", which reached No. Casanova is the fourth studio album and features the singles: Something For The Weekend, The Frog Princess and Becoming More Like Alfie, plus Songs Of Love (the theme from Father Ted).The rest of the album is not at all like that, and has definite echoes of Bonzo Dog Doodah Band wackiness about it. T. Bossenger wrote that, with Casanova, Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon "started going for a more straightforward pop tone as the base for his songwriting", resulting in the album having a more Britpop flow to it.

L'épreuve de force pour le délicat Neil Hannon : recentrer son délirant opéra comique sur sa petite personne, retrouver au cœur du maëlstrom paranoïaque qui lui sert de dispositif guerrier un peu de la vérité d'une jeunesse ordinaire. The Divine Comedy's Casanova - a collection of songs for bass baritone and ensemble, inspired by the writings of the eighteenth century Venetian gambler, eroticist and spy; and performed for us there by the composer, Neil Hannon. For some, the lyrics might not make for easy listening (even though a lot is left to innuendo and imagination), but it also speaks to Hannon’s skill at painting characters with depth and arcs over the course of just a song.

The CD release consists of 2 discs: the original remastered album, with a second CD of B-sides, demos and alternate versions lovingly curated by Neil Hannon, much of which has never been heard before. The breadth of quality is wide here, every moment given due consideration from the band and worth a thesis of critical analysis. The album's sixth track, "Songs of Love", made its debut on the popular Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted, [5] officially remaining the show's theme song, as heard in its opening titles and end credits. When the bass gets slinky and busy during passages on “Charge” and “A Woman of the World” there are echoes of Climate of Hunter to be heard.

The rubber brass, marimba, and wide-spanning orchestration on “Middle-Class Heroes” makes it feel like it could fit onto Scott 2 all too perfectly.

No doubt the fame from Father Ted helped make the album a commercial success (making it a gold record as well as boasting two Top 20 singles in the UK charts), but the strength of Casanova is earned in its own right – something all the more obvious in hindsight. The gloomy neo-swing jaunt of “A Woman of the World” (which is a reworked rejected first iteration of the Father Ted theme) casually ambles into cavernous depths as the Hannon explores the origin of feelings of love and hate (“Maybe I love her ’cause I’m jealous of her…Maybe I hate her ’cause I didn’t create her).

In 2014, NME included the album in its list of "30 Glorious Britpop Albums That Deserve a Reissue Pronto," saying "Gawky Neil Hannon as smooth loverman was a conceit that actually worked and it produced two of Britpop's least obvious classics in the hilarious Cold Comfort Farm-inspired tale of 'Something for the Weekend' and the movie fantasy of 'Becoming More Like Alfie'. To mark the release, The Divine Comedy play five nights at the Barbican in London in early September and then later the same month, five nights at the Cite de la Musique in Paris. The LP release consists of the original remastered album, cut at Abbey Road, packaged with a download code for the album and bonus tracks. The LP is heavyweight black vinyl in a gatefold sleeve accompanied with photos, credits and Neil's liner notes.Two other singles released from the album, "Becoming More Like Alfie" and "The Frog Princess", charted at No. Also a scratch right at the beginning of the side to dead wax that creates a nasty pop for the first five or six seconds. I may be ready to leave Father Ted behind in the vault of nostalgia in my mind, but Casanova I will keep coming back to – and not just for “Songs of Love”. The remastering work, on my copy, really does make such a huge difference in the definition of the sound, when compared to the OG pressing. That’s the guy who does the Father Ted theme,” I thought to myself, knowing little else of his musical output at that point.