Product Description
-------------------
ARE YOU LOOKIN AT ME? is Colin Hay's first new studio
album in six years, and is a stunningly tuneful meditation on
life, love, sobriety, maturity and perseverance. As a writer, he
has been more masterful: finding intriguing new angles on
instantly relatable scenarios, skewering and savoring in equal
measure. With musical backdrops ranging from electronic textures
to plaintive acoustic balladry to classic guitar driven pop, ARE
YOU LOOKIN AT ME? is a welcome reintroduction to one of modern
pop's most enduring and ingenious songsmiths.
About the Artist
----------------
Close of day, Los Angeles. Colin Hay emerges from his
basement studio, where the entirety of his new album Are You
Lookin' At Me? was recorded. "I like working," he says,
matter-of-factly. "I love being in the studio, writing songs, and
just being in that environment - and I enjoy it more and more as
I become more self-reliant in the studio. There's a lot of
messing around with ideas, not being really sure what the day is
going to bring...being on your own, able to work through the
ideas and work the machines, is quite liberating."
Are You Lookin' at Me? is Colin Hay's first studio album of new
material in over five years. A tuneful, inful meditation on
life, love, sobriety, maturity and perseverance, the album finds
Hay at the absolute peak of his craft. As a writer and vocalist,
he has never been more masterful: finding intriguing new angles
on instantly relatable scenarios, skewering and savoring in equal
measure. His less accled but no less formidable skills as
arranger, engineer and bandleader insure that each song is
supported by evocative musical backdrops ranging from electronic
textures to plaintive acoustic balladry to classic guitar-driven
pop. Are You Lookin' at Me? is unified by Hay's immediately
identifiable voice, relentless curiosity, wonder and a decidedly
uncluttered sound which has its roots in Hay's consistently busy
tour schedule.
"Since my last album Company of Strangers in 2002," Hay explains,
"I've been pretty much either on the road or in the studio...when
I'm not on the road, I'm working on songs and trying to make them
as good as possible. When I was working on these, I had my road
band in mind, and in a way tried to limit the arrangements to
match our live sound." Songs like the refreshing, buoyant "Lose
to Win" and the disarmingly direct, horn-spiked "Pure Love"
reflect this commitment to, in Hay's words, "avoid
over-." Hay also performs regularly as a solo acoustic
artist, weaving new and old songs with touchingly hilarious tales
of his experiences. These solo tours have left him unafraid to
strip his music to its bare essentials, such as on the
bittersweet "Up In Smoke".
Throughout Are You Lookin' at Me?, Hay's perspective is one of an
observer, an outsider. "A lot of people feel like outsiders: for
me, it's not a problem," he reflects. "Being born in Scotland and
growing up there for 14 years, I felt a particular way. Then my
family moved to Australia, we were instantly in a very different
place. But I quickly learned to adapt. When you look closely, you
find more similarities than differences."
Hay first landed on American shores as the frontman and principal
songwriter of the pop sensation Men at Work. With Hay's wry songs
and burnished vocals leading the way, they were responsible for a
series of massive hits, such as "Down Under," "Who Can It Be
Now?" and "Overkill," that defined pop music of the early
eighties. Men at Work were also one of the first pop icons of the
video era, with Hay's distinct visage gracing a number of
intriguing, humorous videos that aired endlessly in the early
days of MTV. He stared down at the world from the most extreme
heights of pop stardom, and yet stardom is not something he
yearns for today. "When you have commercial success, it takes a
while for the effects of that to leave you. But after a while you
stop asking `Is that gonna get on the radio?' over and over. Now
I just want to try to write cool songs that people will get
something out of - the rest really doesn't matter."
As the eighties gave way to the nineties, Hay continued to write
and perform, parlaying his gifts as a performer and storyteller
into such varied enterprises as a narrative television special
and a one-man stage show entitled Colin Hay: Man at Work. His
music made the migration from commercial radio to the world of
film and television, gaining prominent placements in the hit
television show Scrubs and the accled film Garden State.
"Having my music out there like that opened up a new younger
audience to me," Hay explains, "which is fantastic."
The appearance of this new audience is indicative both of the
timeless quality of Hay's craft and also of his honest,
refreshingly slanted perspective - both of which are readily
apparent on Are You Lookin' at Me?. Musically, what gives the
album coherence is Hay's clear-headed willingness to let the
songs shine through, his warmly conversational singing, and the
steady presence of Hay's wife, vocalist and songwriter Cecilia
Noel, whose strong but subtle contributions are felt throughout.
"Cecilia has a certain color to her voice," Hay explains, "and it
gives the album continuity."
Nowhere is Hay's gift for touching, relatable songwriting more
immediate than the title track of Are You Lookin' at Me?, which
opens the album. What at first seems an autobiographical litany
unfolds, over the course of four minutes, into a gripping
reflection on dreams, aging, and maturity. "Yes," Hay admits,
"it's my story. But it could be anyone's story." Beginning with a
litany of childhood fantasy (first cowboys, then rock'n'roll), it
follows Hay through the whirlwind of his success and the
subsequent hard truths that emerged because of it. "Basically, if
you hang on to one idea too long, it will kill you...you can't be
a cowboy or a rock star forever - well, you can, but it's not as
glamorous as people make it out to be...the dream of living some
kind of pastoral existence in whatever way shape or form it is
gets down all of the time. You have to roll with the
punches. You have learn to weave and move out of the way..."
Few have endured and survived the way Hay has, from an
unimaginable pinnacle of success to forging new roads as a
working artist and songsmith. Avoiding the pitfalls that have
cled so many of his peers (drugs, depression, delusion), he
continues to ply his craft. The rewards, he knows now, are
greater than something as fleeting as fame and notoriety. Are You
Lookin' at Me? is the next chapter in a story that is still
unfolding - on his terms. "I feel really great about this
record," Hay reflects, "because I feel close to it. I don't
listen to it and think `Oh, that's not me' or `I'm trying to do
something weird here.' That's what's different...I have a great
band and a great group of people to work with. It's fun now. But
not in a light way - it's got some weight to it. But," he says
smiling, "it's not like I have to please anybody. Well, maybe my
wife."
