No Sugar Added

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共12首歌曲

艺人: Valentine
语种: 英语
厂牌: Universal / Frontiers
发行时间: 1998年08月25日
专辑类别: 录音室专辑

专辑介绍

In the beginning of ’98 I started recording No Sugar Added. Initially rather inspired to do something slightly different. A bit edgier, less ‘bombast’ and less orchestrated than the general feel on the previous albums , New songs, like ‘The Forces Of Secrecy’, ‘Train Against The Grain’, ‘Reincarnated Virtually’’, ‘It’s All About..’ came quickly. While I wanted to take that new approach much further I got blocked. Usually I would wait, sometimes for months, to get the inspiration back. But I wanted this album to come out quickly.

So decided to record some ‘old’ songs, some of them very dear to me but never saw the light of day on a Valentine album . I figured that would be a much better solution than to record the lame ‘fillers’ I could come up with on such a short notice.

I always planned to do ‘Love Never Dies’ again. A very personal tribute to Liesbeth who took her own life back in ’89. With Zinatra I already recorded the song but I was far from pleased with that sloppy version.

‘Blinded By Love’ was a song we sometimes played live on the first Valentine tour. I recorded a complete new version except for some harmonies Arthur and I did back then on the old demo and the guitar solo Rob Winter did on that. I took it from the 8-track tape and sampled it in.

That was such a great solo, played with his unique ‘feel’, on this tiny little amp he had, that looked like a transistor radio. Because of solo’s like this I called him ‘Singing Fingers’.

Another song with Rob : “The Sulky shuffle” I also put on this album. Thought it’s a shame it only was a b-side. I loved that song. Did the drums, piano and bass again, but took everything else from my old 16 track tape, including the lead and harmonic guitar parts Rob played back in ’92.

Going back even further I dug up ‘Back To Mars’. That used to be called ‘Help Me Get Through The Night’. We played that live sometimes with 1st Avenue. Also recorded another 1st Avenue song, one of my favourites : Never Too Late to Live. Though I did like our 1st Avenue version , I wanted to take this opportunity to do my own.

End of December ’97 I was asked to do the leader track of a Dutch Drama-series called Combat. But the song I wrote for it was dismissed and they went with someone else’s. People around me persuaded me to put my ‘Combat’ on this album. I changed the title into ‘Kombat’.

The ballad ‘My Only 1’ I wrote most of it before, in Osaka, finished it later.

Another new song was ‘Captain Eagle’. That’s almost like some sort of an apology in the chorus, that I didn’t write a complete new album.

And in the verses an explanation why I was kind of lost in finding a new direction. Same as in “Reincarnated Virtually”. With a very arrogant statement it seems in the chorus’ : “I am Mozart can’t you see, reincarnated virtually…” meaning I felt very unappreciated and ignored by the music business.

Disappointed with that and with other things, I wrote ‘Train Against The Grain’. Felt hurt for not getting the support I needed from some people very dear to me, after my father passed away. So I put that frustration in the song.

Oh yeah, I stole the album title from a pineapple tin.