Hot City Tracks 5 ,6 and 7
5. Sgt Fury
Chris: I think I can predict this one will stay more or less the same - with more brass.
Ted: Right down to the drumbeat... but it really had to be like that.
Chris: Mind you, changed phrasing again. Especially on when Alex comes in with "I wanna be..." - he starts on a different beat. And it sounds like Zal doing backing vocals here.
Ted: There was an actual ending to the song. It ended with "I wanna be rich and famous - like you," and then a run and finish. But we've gone for the fade out again.
6. The Tomahawk Kid
Ted: I really like this
Chris: I love Alex doing the woo-woo-woo thing. It really helps the song. Did you know Hans Zimmer says he was inspired by this song when he was writing the music for Pirates of the Caribbean?
Ted: It's different chords, but the same vocal melody, which brings out different contrasts.
Chris: Alex seems much more relaxed during this one, compared with some of the performances. The middle of the song is quite different.
Ted: The slow section sounds great at that tempo. That guitar sounds like someone's sanding down a table while we're recording. And it sounds like we're trying too hard to find a rhythm for it.
Chris: Nearly prog rock in the middle, which is very contemporary for its time.
Ted: But again, nothing like how we thought we should sound. But you keep noticing the vocals are clear and well-recorded. We always had problems with that, but Shel really managed to grab it.
7. Ace in the Hole
Chris: There's nothing to compare this to, because of course we didn't use it, but its presence is interesting. It sounds like an early-Alex throwback, especially with the Soul Band and musical theatre stylings. It shows you we were falling back on ideas we knew would work. We knew Alex could do a song from his past and we could play it in the style of the Framed album. You can tell the album was cobbled together from various sources. When in doubt revert to what you know.
Ted: It's a bit straight-laced for us. We didn't do anything this straight - remember what we'd done with Framed. But you had the pressure of time. Shel was always having to hurry us up. Then the brass was in and it would be up in the mix because they'd paid for the brass so they wanted it to be heard. Anyone could have done this song, because it's a good song played well, and that's what we were trying to push away from.
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