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Meltdown 2023

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I have just been informed by the South Bank Centre that the curator of next year’s Meltdown festival will be…

*drum roll*

Christine and the Queens.

This, I know from nothing. Anyone care to enlighten me?

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Comments

  3. Christine & the Queens? Old hat. He is now known as Redcar, perhaps without any awareness of the metropolis of delights, of the same name.
    A slightly annoying dancing singer/tortured artist, with a somewhat pretentious MO. I fell for the PR around the time of the first record, which gets seldom played. Think Bowie at his most arts lab pretentious. Critics love her, um, him.
    Although, as ever, OOAA

  4. Just listen on Spotify or Youtube and make up your own mind. Save us the over the top vitriol. There are some good songs, entertaining performances with a troup of great dancers. They are pretty successful, well known and acclaimed. Nothing like arts lab Bowie. Plenty of talent.

  5. I’m with Diddley here.

    I saw them at Roskilde and they put on a very exciting show where the imaginative choreography was an integral part of the experience.

    Alex Patridis in the Guardian found the new album to be something of a curate’s egg.

    • Yep, and the video was good, as was the Glastonbury performance. She, er, he certainly knows about choreography an’ that.

      Mrs F’s French rellies bought me the album one Christmas so I’ve never heard the English version. My French is patchy at best, so I haven’t a clue what the lyrics mean.

      • I really like the ‘Chris’ album that came as a double CD – English and French. I only listen to the French version – much better singing in her / his first language.

  7. Thanks for the info everyone. I’ve investigated according to your suggestions and I think it’s perhaps a little too arch and knowing for my tastes. Could still prove to be a good choice as curator, though.

      • Back in the Britpop days he hosted a show on Radio X. In the course of two hours he didn’t play a single ****ing song I hadn’t heard at least 100 times before.

        Actually, on reflection, I may be being unfair to Noel these days. The last record LP he released to promote his latest round of interviews was at least trying to do something different. It’s not as different as he thinks it is, but he is trying in the face of an audience demanding more of “the same old pub rock bollocks” and I’ve got to give him credit for that.

  9. Just for a bit of contrast, I think he’s great and I’ve heard he’s excellent live. Probably helps to enjoy pop music a bit, but I reckon he’ll curate an interesting Meltdown either way.

    Couple of tunes below. People, I’ve Been Sad absolutely slaps.

    Comme Si

    People, I’ve Been Sad

    New album hasn’t really grabbed me, but the last couple before that were excellent.

    • It’s definitely a good thing that Christine/Redcar exists as an artist, seeming to do the Laurie Anderson performance artist thing of singing and dancing and using body and voices and setting/surroundings as part of a complete package. Watching that first video did make me wonder how many Christophe Lambert films C/R had watched as there’s something of his camera-gazing deadpan physicality in the performance. I really like the bilinguality, as well. More of this for all artists, s’il vous plait!

      Oh, and Tilted is absolutely brilliant, insanely catchy, and I can completely see my two daughter’s dancing jaggedly to it (with their Dad dad-dancing alongside them, of course).

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