I Blame Coco – ‘Self Machine’
I love a good metaphor, don’t you? When people describe a thing they find hard to define, using the characteristics of another thing that everyone understands? It’s an oven in here! She looked daggers at me! I can’t quite grasp what you’re on about!
The classic metaphor is far more subtle than a simile – which is a type of metaphor – in that a simile is a picture that carries its own frame.
Sorry, that should say a simile is LIKE a picture that carries its own frame. That LIKE is very important, because it allows you, the person who is talking, to explain that just because you have stopped talking about how greedy your brother is, and starting talking about truffle-pigs, it doesn’t mean you think that he has grown an actual snout.
But metaphors, because they don’t have that signpost, are a little bit harder to spot, they’re the Where’s Wally of words.
And yes, that was another one.
(Here’s the video. It uses an empty swimming pool as a metaphor for the blackness of the human soul in a concrete wilderness because it looks cool.)
Coco has a good metaphor going on here about being a robot. Where Marina took great pains to point out that she isn’t one, because she can feel and think and things, Coco claims that she IS, because she can think about isolation and feel lonely, and things. This might seem a little confusing, but don’t worry too much. Pop isn’t supposed to make sense.
(Also, did you know her dad – Sting – once had an album out called ‘Ghost In The Machine’, when he was with the Police? A title based on Arthur Koestler’s novel of the same name. This humans and robots thing must be genetic.)
Anyway, when Coco says she’s got hinges, or sings about having a motor for a heart, or being inhuman if you say so, she’s trying to nail those 3am thoughts where there seems to be a massive black wall between you and everyone you love. She does it pretty well too.
I know I’ve banged on about her voice before, but it really is a lovely instrument. That sandpaper-and-honey delivery, delivering these cold (and let’s face it, slightly silly) words of self-doubt…well it’s something rather brilliant.
Especially when set to those spiralling pianos in the chorus, and that chirruping electropop (there’s a rather good La Roux remix doing the rounds too).
What else would suit her metallic metaphor?
Download: Out now
www.iblamecoco.co.uk
BBC Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
PS: Lisa Scott Lee once did a song in which she tried to use electricity as a metaphor for the act of love. There was lots of stuff about sockets and plugging things in, which is kind of mechanical but still technically works. Then there was the brilliant bit where she had to sing “it’s all over, warranty expired” WITH A STRAIGHT FACE. And it is for this reason, and this reason alone, that Lisa Scott Lee deserves some kind of knighthood.
Crack In The Road says: “Promises that Coco Sumner’s career can take on an infinitely more interesting path than that of her more famous father.”
The CS Perspective says: “Self Machine’ is an electronic/alternative mix with a killer melody, ding ding, an instant winner.”
Hard Candy says: “There is something so intriguing about her and I can’t wait to hear more stuff!”
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