Melodie Nelson album review
I reviewed To the Dollhouse by Melodie Nelson for Mess+Noise this week. One of the best Australian albums I heard it all year, this.
Lia Tsamoglou takes her Melodie Nelson pseudonym from the Serge Gainsbourg concept record Histoire de Melody Nelson, in which that creepy old goat Gainsbourg bangs a teenager over the course of seven songs. On that album the Melody character gets to sing her name a few times and that’s basically it. Her voice is less important as an instrument than the swelling strings or the pulsing sex-bass. But Tsamoglou’s Melodie has a lot to say. She sings from the point of view of women who often don’t get their side of the story told, or – if they do – only as the falsetto half of a duet. Here, they get to be the viewpoint rather than the focus.
