Peppermint Radio is the 4th album from angsty folk singer Kate Walsh consisting of 11 covers of various popular artists from the 80’s through to the 00’s. Covers are generally dangerous territory for any artist to enter, yet somehow Walsh’s honesty excuses her from this minefield. The idea behind Peppermint Radio is a return to childhood musical loves and Kate Walsh the child behind a knitting machine radio station and Kate Walsh the artist returning to musical simplicity are fused together to give us an album that is as fun as it is charming.
The first single is a cover of Erasure’s A Little Respect. This song alone says all that needs to be said about the album as a whole. Rather than being an album of ‘covers’, it is an album of re-imaginings of songs that inspired Walsh’s impressive career over the last decade. A Little Respect is a song which has been done to death both by artists and drunken people at karaoke bars. Somehow Walsh makes it her own, stripping the track down to its musical bones, removing its status as motivational anthem of previous versions and leaves us with the deep melodic depression of a protagonist on the precipice of hope, begging for respect.
The tracks all follow a similar formula, mixing soulful piano melodies with Walsh’s drawling vocals, but each song carries its own message and its own piece of the artist. We have a wide variety of tracks, taken from their statuses as musical Holy Grails and gifting them with a new identity.
For me, Walsh’s version of The Cure’s Lullaby is the stand-out track, it takes a great artist to change such a perfect track even remotely, and yet here it is effortlessly pulled-off. Here, Lullaby is more a Tim Burton-esque vocal invitation to the Mad Hatter’s tea party and less the creeping haunt of The Cure. Walsh’s charmingly breathy over-enunciation is beautiful here, and the track is addictive to the point of remaining on permanent repeat in my car for the past week.
Walsh moves effortlessly from artists like Blur to The Eurythmics, each track is unrecognisable from the original. Blur’s Beetlebum becomes less drawling indie and more frighteningly creeping building horror whilst The Eurythmics’ Who’s That Girl becomes less angry and more lilting ballad. Duran Duran’s Save A Prayer walks down a more folk-pop street and is the happiest toe-tapper on an album choc-full of drawl and gorgeous arrangements.
Radiohead’s Subterranean Homesick Alien is probably the weakest track as it is identical to the original, something Walsh herself admits to, saying that she wasn’t “trying to be anything other than Kate Walsh doing Radiohead.”
Walsh has herself said that she is struggling to re-learn her song-writing craft now that she is less angst-ridden and happier in the world, with this album there is nothing brand new or inspirational to be found. Yet there is a certain spark, a certain charm to be found in witnessing an artist return to the roots of song-writing. Peppermint Radio is set for release on September 10th, and whilst its charm lies in its simplicity, it's an enjoyable journey of self-discovery. Here we can cut the artist some slack, let her be self-indulgent and have fun with her own musical roots. When Walsh returns to her own music, we are sure to witness something truly spectacular.
Ciara O’Brien
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