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Daniel Wylie - The High Cost of Happiness
TETRA 008
"Pop Album of the Year"
Mark Whitfield Americana UK - Rating: 10/10
Listen to, download or buy THCOH here
Utterly gorgeous. Beautiful summery jangly pop with lyrics that manage to be profound without being cliched. To be honest it took me about 10 plays to get past the first five tracks – every one of them a single in my book. Define Love is probably my song of the year so far.
Dominik Diamond XFM Scotland
Having jumped ship from the Cosmic Rough Riders after leading them to the verge of rightful superstardom, Glasgow's Wylie has honed his Byrdsian melodies and Jeff Lynne-like harmonies on solo debut Ramshackle Beauty and now releases his masterpiece on his own label, full of jangly shimmering summery songs like Tell them the Truth, That was the Day and Define Love. A shamefully under-rated singer-songwriter who should now be recognised on a wider scale.
David Esson, The Daily Express
He used to make lovely tunes with the Cosmic Rough Riders then he left - but the rest stays the same. Daniel Wylie continues his knack of knocking out chunks of shimmmering aural sunshine with his second solo album. Lovely. Just buy it..
Best Buy, 5/5 Daily Record Saturday Magazine
Daniel Wylie “Let’s Go Surfing” EP
Go on Dan - surprise us and make a shite record.
No? Oh alright then...
Former Cosmic Rough Rider Daniel Wylie’s ability to write a good pop song is second to none, which is pretty impressive when you look at the speed of his output these days. Not even a year after his last full length record which featured in Americana UK’s albums of the year for 2006, Wylie is back with a five track EP which consolidates all his strengths into just under sixteen minutes. The EP kicks off with the title track “Let’s Go Surfing” which cleverly contrasts the Beach Boys optimism of the music and suggestive care-free title with a story of drug abuse and downward spirals. Next is “Never Fall Apart” which is fine in its own right but feels more like a glue to stick the first song to the third, “Keep it to Yourself,” one of the best songs Wylie has written to date with chord changes that echo the Mamas and the Papas on top of bitingly satirical lyrics. “If Anyone Can Change Me” features a sentiment most people can relate to along the lines of the barriers people put around themselves when they start getting close to people – it’s a really beautiful song with a sweet melody, but then nothing compared to the climax “Together Forever” which manages to involve the opposite sentiment along with a chorus you feel like you could sing out on demonstrations about anything that’s close to your heart. As with his last full length album, Wylie manages to drag you through real stories and emotions in the most convincing way possible before leaving you on a grounded plateau. As unsurprisingly impressive as ever.
Mark Whitfield - Reviewers Rating: 8 out of 10
Listen to, or download Let's Go Surfing here
The former Cosmic Rough Riders frontman now runs Neon Tetra Records. This is his follow up to Ramshackle Beauty and it's a glorious, well crafted album bursting with summer melodies. Think the Bryds, The Beach Boys and there's a hint of Burt Baccarach in there as well. From the gentle opener That was the Day to the wistful finale of Can you feel the Love? it's an album to make the world seem a brighter place. But like the title suggests, there are dark moments too. The main theme is love and of course it's a bumpy ride. Throughout Wylie shows himself to be an intelligent and much underrated songwriter and Define Love is an amazing stand out track.
Avril Cadden, The Sunday Mail - Rating 5/5
DANIEL WYLIE - The high cost of happiness (Neon Tetra; 2006) Second solo album by ex-Cosmic Rough Rider-in-chief, still finds him chasing the West Coast sun, this time around coming up with what might as well be the best of soundtracks to it. Most of the album, has the significant Neil Young-ish fragility and Stills-less Buffalo Springfield delivery (“That was the day”, “Tell them the truth”, “Broadcast news”, “Can you feel the love” ...), that he keeps reminding us why “Enjoy the melodic sunshine” is still the best Cosmic Rough Riders album, and you’ll also soon come to realise that this is actually the best “cosmic rough ride” that you’re likely to have. It’s actually when he adds an extra hook or two that he shines the most, such as with the jazzy flavoured “The sound of children”, the Bacharachian “Define love”, and there’s also “Move in with me” with a kind of a softish blue eyed soul vibe to it, and the slightlydelic harmony-pop sound of “Where the time goes”, is worthy of the sunshiniest vocal arrangements by the likes of The Association or Millennium, and while we’re at it, “Rainbow city” might’ve pass for a long lost Yellow Balloon track.
I’m not sure about the actual meaning of the album title, but Daniel’s one of those who DID pay quite a price for happiness, having been forced into abandoning the rights for the Cosmics’ name and early output, but considering his latest release, he still has a lot to offer and he seems quite happy about it.
Goran Obradovic / POPISM
"Anyone who reckons pop's finest hour happened when THE BEATLES, THE BYRDS, and THE BEACH BOYS were at their mid-1960's peak, simply must listen to Daniel Wylie". The Sunday Times
Classic Rock review above.
Web exclusive samples to download:
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That Was The Day That Was
Broadcast News
Move In With Me
Biography:
Singer / songwriter Daniel Wylie was born and brought up in Glasgow, Scotland. He spent time writing and performing in numerous local bands, before going solo and subsequently founding the group Cosmic Rough Riders as a showcase for his work.
The self-released the albums Deliverance (1999) and Panorama (2000), both having been recorded in a community-funded recording studio located in Glasgow's notorious Castlemilk housing scheme. The albums received outstanding reviews in the popular music press, generating excitement around the independent music scene.
The Cosmics were quickly snapped up Alan McGee’s Poptones label in early 2000. As writer and producer of the material on the debut album for the label Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine, Daniel gained recognition when it sold over 60,000 in the UK and went on to sell more another 100,000-plus copies world-wide. It immediately caught the imagination of the press, citing one journalist to proclaim them "the best band on earth right now". It was also named in several 'end of year' type polls, most notably as one of Q magazine's “50 Albums of the Year”.
Single releases in 2001 earned them increasing numbers of fans in the press and public alike, and ensured the band's growth through word-of-mouth. Their efforts paid off when the single "Revolution (In The Summertime?]" was released and went straight into the UK charts, scoring them their first top 40 hit and debut appearance on Top Of The Pops. This was immediately followed into the charts by "The Pain Inside", giving them back-to-back top 40 hit singles success..
In 2002, Wylie parted ways with the Cosmic Rough Riders as he began to feel that the project was no longer working for him in a creative capacity and took two years out to write new material before re-launching himself as a solo artist with 2004’s critically acclaimed Ramshackle Beauty, which went straight into the UK's Independent Top 20, prompting Mark Edwards of The Sunday Times, to compare it to “the best work of The Beatles, The Byrds and The Beach Boys - but with a contemporary edge”, and Postcards followed in 2005.
During this same period, Daniel set up the Glasgow-based Neon Tetra Records label with David Wells. “It's grown quickly - we've got seven artists already. It came out of me finding these people without record contracts, thinking, ‘These guys deserve to be heard’".
Daniel’s latest album release is The High Cost of Happiness , a collection of instantly memorable tunes, beautiful harmonies and a sunny vibe that would not be out of place among the music which emanated from west coast America in the 1960s. He is already back in the studio, writing and recording songs for his next album.
Visit Daniel's Myspace site here
Read the Subba-culcha interview here
PRESS REVIEWS FOR DANIEL WYLIE
Ex Cosmics Frontman Records the Pop Album of the Year
Regular viewers may wonder why most AUK reviewers’ average score awarded for albums hovers around the 5 or 6 mark while the occasional albums that get reviewed by myself, the editor, tend to almost uniformly get a 9 or a 10, and the answer to that’s easy – I nick all the best ones (although to be fair to our staff before they lynch me, this does very rarely happen – any anyway, it’s subjective! Honest…) That said, there does come the rare occasion where you’ve had so much time to spend with an album before the review that you can be more or less certain your feelings about it are warranted and not fleeting. In the case of the second solo album proper by ex Cosmics frontman Daniel Wylie, it’s been in our offices in one form or another for the best part of six months, and now finally on the verge of its release date in its final form, it’s safe to say that Wylie really has recorded one of the stand out albums of the year. Stand out because there’s not a weak track on it. Stand out because the structures of the songs are so finely tuned and conceived that they feel like classics in the making. And stand out because the songs themselves sound easily as good as anything the Cosmics have ever done, even taking into account the giddy heights of “The Pain Inside” or “The Loser.”
Opener “That Was the Day” actually sets a deceptively lowkey beginning for the record with its gentle chord changes and understated optimism, but then “Tell Them the Truth” kicks in with its soaring chorus and harmonies as good as anything Jeff Lynne, master of the one man harmony, could have ever come up with. Further in “Define Love” has to be one of the most straightforward but intelligent songs ever written about the subject – linguistically and musically spiralling so you’re never quite sure which way the song’s going until the chorus hits you with a rush and you realise that sometimes for all his bluster, Christ, this man is a genius. “The Sound of Children” later on evokes Wicker Man-esque psychedelia and “Move in With Me” with its ELO vibe backing vocals (the comparative reference point does pervade the album but all in a good way…) and chorus that always feels on the brink of delirious joy is perhaps the stand out track amongst many on the record. The album climaxes with the wistful “Can You Feel the Love?” which shows off Wylie’s skill for making something sound as emotive as you could imagine without being superficially emotional. Love is, of course, the common theme throughout the record but in acknowledging “the high cost of happiness,” it’s not without reference to its heartwrenching pitfalls, and in making such an optimistic but realistic collection of songs on the subject, Wylie has recorded one of the most definitive pop albums of the year – absolutely riveting.
Mark Whitfield Americana UK - Rating: 10/10
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