BritPopCornucopia #9: St. Johnny-be-good

Kate St. John is amazing. No one has ever looked sexier wielding an accordion:





I know, it looks like she's barely playing it. But Kate St. John is the real deal. Plus, her backup vocals remind me a lot of Prefab Sprout's Wendy Smith. I'll probably do something on them later.

Ever since I heard the dulcet tones of her oboe on Blur's song "Starshaped" I have loved her. I have loved her before I knew it was her too:



I didn't figure it out til YT put this as related, but when St. John was in The Dream Academy, they did a cover of the Smiths "Please Please Please let me get what I want" and this instrumental version was used in "Ferris Bueller", as you just saw. I remember thinking that tune was so pretty. I love me some oboe (and cor anglais). What an underrated and underused instrument!

Here's another favorite song of mine that also features oboe. Aside from this tune (Jordan Knight?! Really? Yeah, the beats are hawt, there's time signature changes, and Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis production. Almost enough to forgive the sexist lyrics...) and this aural beauty (Wiki says they were an influence on Knight, go figure), I can't think of many others that have employed it so well in pop, except maybe David McCallum's instrumental work with David Axelrod (Again, more musical genius to be addressed later). Anyone else have any good double reed pop examples to shell out?

Watch this interview with The Dream Academy. Nick Laird-Clowes is a bit of a self-indulgent pedant, but the love of music is quite nicely articulated by all of them. In fact, I realize dream pop is a bit of a pansyish thing to like, but their explanation of the new romantics as a reaction to punk makes a lot of sense. The same way Cool Britannia was a reaction to American grunge.

For more on Kate, the Queen of all double reed popstars, go to her website to see all the people she's worked with, including several other Britpop artists.