There are some free MP3s of Betty Davis over at download.com and they're awesome. Funky and full of sexy attitude. Go check 'em out.
Oh and her albums are also available on eMusic. Yowsers!
This will (hopefully) be a series of posts remembering great albums that have been ignored since they were released or have since fallen out of favour. We're talking mostly mainstream commercial releases here, not weird obscurities. Go straight to the bottom of this post to hear the music.
Who? Goya Dress were a three piece fronted by the singer and multi-instrumentalist Astrid Williamson. Blessed with a distinctive voice and good looks, as well as the backing of Nude records, success seemed to be a no brainer. Having John Cale produce your debut album can't hurt either.
What's it like? This is a real gem and criminally neglected. Mostly we're talking Kate Bush and Tori Amos territory here with some concessions to the Indie sound of the time. Some beautiful string and piano arrangements sit comfortably with washes of distorted guitars.
What happened? Nobody bought it. I can only speculate but I think that Astrid's gentler, folksier tunes just couldn't be heard amongst the brasher sounds of Britpop. Sad.
What next? They split up. Nude tried hard to hype Astrid's follow-up solo album, but again, it failed to press the buttons of the public. She's still out there doing the solo thing. The other two joined Cinerama.
Where to buy? It seems to be unavailable now but Astrid has plans to re-release it in the future.
Additionally, here's a video I found on YouTube for the single Crush. Not terribly representative of the sound of the album but it's fun nonetheless.
