CD TITLE: "Weight of the World"
ARTIST: LEMON
WEBSITE: www.lemoncentral.com/
RELEASE DATE: September 2003
There is a particular moment in every artist's career when they arrive at a unique sound, where their creative output is confident in the messages it means to convey, and the tools it uses to deliver them. No matter how many influences or genres have served as blueprints in the past, something entirely new emerges. With the new album, "Weight of the World", the voice of LEMON has emerged.
LEMON is the result of the pairing of New York vocalist and songwriter Roger Smith, and Danish production guru Thor Madsen. Together they have crafted a sound which evokes the legendary soul virtuosity of the likes of Marvin Gaye, Al Green, and the expansive sound of 70's Motown, laid over modern R&B production, and held together by mature, intelligent songcraft. "I'm a songwriter, and I pay obsessive attention to melody, form, arrangement and lyric," says Smith. "Production value is key, but like a movie with special effects masquerading as the plot, it can leave you emotionless, and it definitely won't guarantee longevity. This is what I love about great pop of the last 30 years, it sounds as relevant today as it did the day it was recorded."
Central to the duo's sound is the vocal prowess of Smith. "I grew up on a collection of artists and groups where great vocals were just par for the course. People like Mick Hucknall of Simply Red, or Freddy Mercury of Queen, or George Michael. These were people who could ply an audience's emotions with the finesse of their voices, and their vocal talent allowed them to do nearly any kind of material, or at least incorporate any kind of material. That's what makes it interesting to me." True to form, LEMON's material incorporates pop, soul, dance, jazz, and rock, into a hybrid which is at once artistically credible and infectious for radio.
"It's encouraging to see the extraordinary success of a Norah Jones, or a John Mayer. It tends to make me believe that melodic, song-based pop can find an audience, regardless of trend, or corporate radio's chokehold on what new music sees the light of day. Something that sounds beautiful and fills the soul is never pedestrian or out of style."
NEW CD: WEIGHT OF THE WORLD
"I chose this title because that which constitutes the "weight of the world" for any one person is a relative reflection of their stage in life and the individual experiences and traumas that have led them to this point. 'The weight' as it related to my life came into focus in getting slightly older and realizing that life is not infinite -- that the choices we make, and people we choose to become, do matter. This collection of songs is ultimately about the emotional complexity of human interactions as you get older, and an attempt to come to peace with the fact that there are many more grays than absolutes in our relationships."
TRACK LIST:
1. SMILE IN YOUR EYES (4:37) by Roger Smith (BMI): A dance hall contemplation of the choices one makes to be famous, and what is gained and lost in the ensuing struggle.
2. WEIGHT OF THE WORLD (4:26) by Roger Smith (BMI): The title track is a haunting, soulful inquiry into the way two people grow apart, and lose the love that once bound them together.
3. DAYDREAMS (4:25) by Roger Smith (BMI): A metaphor for the unnerving ability of some people to create, believe, and live within realities which exist only in their heads.
4. HURT INSIDE (4:23) by Roger Smith (BMI): A pulsing, gritty admission that we see what we choose to see in regard to affairs of the heart, rarely learn from our mistakes, and consequently live private inner lives of significant pain.
5. LANDSLIDE (3:57) by Roger Smith (BMI): Captures the feelings of melancholy and disaffection that sometimes sets in, when everything around us loses vibrancy and real meaning, as if we were moderately anesthetized.
6. OLD MAN (5:01) by Roger Smith (BMI): A series of questions asked to an older man from a younger man attempting to avoid the pitfalls and missteps that he instinctually knows lie ahead.
7. NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (5:18) by Roger Smith (BMI): It has always been a closet desire of mine to write a JAMES BOND THEME that would incorporate the kitschy grandeur of the venerable themes from the series like "Thunderball", but also stand as a contemporary to some of the great modern themes like "View to a Kill" and "The Living Daylights". What has resulted is a kind of twisted love song produced on an epic scale, but a song that stands on it's own nonetheless.
8. YOU SAY (4:09) by Roger Smith (BMI): Sometimes what goes unsaid between people is crippling.
9. MY BABY SAYS (4:30) by Roger Smith (BMI): The recurring cycle of intimacy as a band-aid to a relationship that is slowly dying.
10. YOU'VE GOT A WAY (3:45) by Roger Smith (BMI): A love/hate song about how callous words and actions can simply cut through to the bone.
11. TOO LATE (4:10) by Roger Smith (BMI): Blissful freedom from the crippling judgments of others through the realization that, in the end, you cannot be other than who you are.
SONGWRITING AWARDS
Lemon has been collecting songwriting awards for the past two years including Semi-Finalist in 2002 Songlounge.com for "Daydreams", Finalist in the Hard Rock
Cafe's "Road to Town Fair IV, a Nationwide contest in Philadelphia and a current contender in the first round of the 2003 Coca Cola New Music Award.
HISTORY
Roger Smith, vocalist and songwriter for the band Lemon, started his music career in Boston with a well-loved pop group, Frankly Scarlett (http://www.mp3.com/franklyscarlett). Frankly Scarlett performed in venues throughout Boston, Cambridge, and greater New England, including Avalon, Venus De Milo, TT the bears, The Rathskellar, Local 186, Toad, The Plough and Stars. They also played extensively throughout the college circuit including Boston University, Emerson, Tufts, Brandeis, and Boston College.
Smith relocated to New York in the summer of 1995 and fronted several New York bands in the ensuing years, releasing two CDs of material from those efforts. In early 1999, Smith teamed with producer/arranger/guitarist Thor Madsen, and from these collaborations, LEMON was born. In addition to the new release, "Weight of the World", Lemon has released two volumes: The debut EP, "Strangedays", and the sophomore effort, "NUMB".
The members of LEMON have shared the stage with a far ranging collection of great artists including Morphine, Letters to Cleo, The Mighty Bosstones, and Wax Poetic to mention a few.
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