Easily my favorite track of the (rather impressive) new Bobby Womack album, “Jubilee” mixes an old-school spiritual vocal format with an especially inorganic backing – Part of me thought, at first, that this was definitely one of the Damon Albarn-produced tracks, because of the clear “cheap drum machine” aesthetic in the backing, but as we get the synth cymbals at the end, I’m not so sure – to create something that feels timeless and universal, bringing generations together with some kind of hymn to self-belief and humanity. Even if the structure of this was not so compelling, though, Womack’s voice would still stop me in my tracks. The man sounds incredible; this song does, too.
366 Songs 080: Jubilee
The summer before Britpop was about to take over the world – well, the country and my life at the time, at least – and Parklife was still just a successful album instead of being named as ground zero for any kind of movement. I was still a Blur-skeptic at the time, and it was my older sister who owned the album, even if I’d steal it from her and listen to certain tracks over and over again, with this being one of the ones getting repeat performances. Summer stillness and lack of wind outside, lying on the floor next to the CD player, closing my eyes and thinking about the weirdness of what lay ahead in art school (I’d just finished my first year), the welcome emptiness of the weeks ahead and the sound effects that took over what would’ve otherwise been some kind of instrumental break of this song, I’d try not to wonder if I empathized a little too much with the “He dresses incorrectly/No-one told him how to do it” outsider aspect of the whole thing.