Record Club:
WEEK 275 — May 5-11, 2024
Şehir Rehberi
by Pamela
LISTEN:
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PICKED BY JOE
I was already aware of the fact that my three daughters' first names match up with the mononymous names of non-obscure (I would argue) musicians. That's what started my gears turnings. And then I realize that there was a '90s R&B dude named Joe. But we'll start with the only one out of the first five that I actively had to search for. There are no musicians named just "Pam" as far as I could tell. Here's a pop rock artist from Turkey named Pamela. I have no idea what this is going to sound like. I would have never heard of her if I hadn't purposefully googled for any artists with this name.
Pam's album goes first because she's the oldest (and because I was afraid that Joe's music was going to be too similar to last week's Boyz II Men). There is 0% chance that PoYB's Pam will write a review. There is a close to 0% chance that she'll even know this is happening. I going to try not to talk to her about Record Club anymore. But maybe she'll see her name in the subject line of the Sunday email and get confused and click to find out more. We'll see.
(It's also not on Spotify. Who gives a shit about Spotify? If you want to listen to it, there are ways, linked above).
(It's also not on Spotify. Who gives a shit about Spotify? If you want to listen to it, there are ways, linked above).
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ALBUM DETAILS
LANGUAGE: Turkish. The title of the album in English is City Guide. I used Google Translate, and translated for song titles in brackets next to their official Turkish titles. I cannot vouch for accuracy.
GENRE: Pop rock
RELEASED: November 23, 2004
LENGTH: 47:44
TRACKLIST:
- Ben Şimdi N'apıcam? [What Do I Do Now?]
- İstanbul [Istanbul]
- Çok Güçlü Olmak Lazım [You Have to Be Very Strong]
- Mavi Cinayet [Blue Murder]
- Ölüme Hasret [Longing for Death]
- Yaralı Gönlüm [My Wounded Heart]
- Aşk Sevgiden Beter [Love Is Worse Than Love]
- Bir Tek Aşk İçin [For One Love]
- Fırtınalar [Storms]
- Hayat (Artık Bana da Güler) [Life (Now It Laughs at Me Too)]
- Geçmiş Olsun [Get Well Soon]
- Yaptın Yaptın Yapmadın Gittin [You Did It, You Did It, You Didn't Do It, You Left]
- Ufak Birkaç Cevap [A Few Small Answers]
TRACKLIST NOTES: A) "Ufak Birkaç Cevap" was originally a hidden track, but there really isn't such a thing anymore. I don't know if it's necessary. Find out for yourself! B) The YouTube playlist found above combines the first two tracks, for whatever reason. The first track is a 40-second intro anyway, so it's not that big of a deal.
LYRICS: Two songs have lyrics on Genius, but that's it
LYRICS: Two songs have lyrics on Genius, but that's it
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ARTIST DETAILS
PRONOUNS: she/her/hers
ABOUT: The artist known as Pamela was born Pamela Aslı Spence, on February 25, 1973. She was born to an English father and a Turkish mother (in Germany, though Germany doesn't figure into any of the rest of her story). She learned to speak Turkish at age fifteen, and attended the Ankara State Conservatory at Hacettepe University in Turkey. She is also a Turkish actor, appearing in various films and TV shows. Though the Wikipedia page doesn't make a comparison, it feels to me like she's more well-known as an actor than as a musician.
DISCOGRAPHY: Five albums listed in the discography, starting with Eğer Dinlersen in 2002, and most recently with Yara in 2018. Şehir Rehberi, her second album, is noted to have more of a rock sound than pop. It also appears to be her most popular album, possibly based on the relative popularity of its single, "İstanbul." There are five singles listed separately as well, all released from 2020-2022, though it's unclear whether she is still currently recording music or those were one-offs in between acting gigs.
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: Couldn't find much! Here's... the IMDB page for Pamela's most recent film?
WATCHING SOME SHIT: music video for the aforementioned single "İstanbul"
PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: As you can imagine, there are no musical connections. No strong connections anyway. "İstanbul" apparently features an uncredited sample of "Ocean Spray" by Manic Street Preachers, whose member Richey Edwards went missing and is presumed dead, which means that this is the second RC album to feature music from an artist who went completely and mysteriously missing (shoutout Connie Converse, never forget).
To stretch the "Previously On" section even more thinly, how about we name all the RC albums whose title or artist's name requires an alt-key combo to type? It doesn't look like Ş is able to be typed on a qwerty keyboard, even with alt strokes, and anything beyond that is above my paygrade. But you know what I'm talking about here. Characters that aren't A-Z or 0-9 or standard punctuation marks. Those albums/artists: Пушка (of course), Beyoncé (everyone wants to constantly write about Beyoncé on this blog, and no one wants type alt+0233), Amadou Balaké (everyone wants to constantly write about Amadou Balaké on this blog, and no one wants type alt+0233), PERSONⒶ (as the artist discussed, "Person(a)" is also acceptable), and Janelle Monáe (I try to remember the alt code every time I type Janelle's name in this space—which is often!—but can never retain it).
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RC CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Every week from now on, we're giving a quick re-listen to the RC album we covered five years ago exactly. Check out the quick reevaluation every Friday morning, before the regular reviews. Reevaluation, reflection, something like that.
Every week from now on, we're giving a quick re-listen to the RC album we covered five years ago exactly. Check out the quick reevaluation every Friday morning, before the regular reviews. Reevaluation, reflection, something like that.
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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
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