Honeyburst
Encyclopedia
Honeyburst is the second studio album by Danish singer-songwriter Tim Christensen
, released on 1 September 2003 on CD
and vinyl
.
for two weeks, and selling over 130,000 copies in total. For the album, Christensen received three ZULU
Awards and three Danish Music Awards
for Danish album, singer and producer of the year, respectively.
The cover was designed by Christensen and his father, Dan Christensen. It was based on a collage Dan Christensen made in 1966, before he went to art school
. He used faces of models from the fashion magazines that belonged to his then-girlfriend, who was a fashion designer. The collage had hung at various places in the house where Christensen grew up.
winning DR1
drama series Nikolaj og Julie that was aired in 2002-2003. It became a national hit in 2002, a year ahead of Honeybursts release. Christensen explains the match was made quickly: "The producer of the show called me, he said they liked what I was doing and wanted to know if I had a song they could use. At the time we had made demos one of which was "Right Next To the Right One". He told me what the series were about, and I said, 'I believe I have a good bid.' I think it fits well with the series, but it's important for me to tell that it is not their song; it wasn't taken from the series and used on my record, but it was taken from the record and used in the series." It was later also covered by several artists. Mei Chi Chiang covered it in 2004 as "Ni Bu Gong Ping" (Chinese
for "Unfair to you") for her album Beautiful But Lonely (2004). In 2007, Celine Dion
recorded it for her album Taking Chances
, for which Christensen provided all instrument tracks. It has not been released as a single, but has entered the Danish Singles Chart on 23 November 2007 at number 13, due to strong digital downloads
. An Italian
version titled "Giorni d'Estate" ("Summer days") was recorded for Dolcenera
's fourth album, Dolcenera nel paese delle meraviglie
("Dolcenera in Wonderland"). Although this was a lucrative deal for Christensen, it also gave people the impression that he made soft music. Christensen has also received many invites to play this song at weddings, which Christensen finds ironic because the line he started from was: "A pretty face can take you places you don't want to go."
The second single, "Whispering at the Top of my Lungs", received heavy airplay on DR P3
in the summer of 2003. About the genesis of this song, Christensen explains that this was originally written as a heavy song, but it didn't really work. This version is frequently played as the shorter song "Screaming At the Top of My Lungs". The song was then recorded as a quiet ballad, but this too did not feel right. The final result was a bit of both, where quiet verses are dynamically alternated with strong choruses with full band. Live, Christensen plays this song entirely on electric guitar, but he uses an L.R. Baggs X-Bridge that allows him to make his guitar sound like an acoustic guitar.
The third single, "Jump the Gun", is the only song on the album that has no Mellotron
on it. It is an older song that Christensen could not fit in anywhere before. "Lay Down Your Arms" is about not living for your own sake. It is written in a tradition taking after Christensen's great example The Beatles
, especially the style of Paul McCartney
, in such a straight way that it is nearly a nursery rhyme. "Isolation Here I Come" is about Christensen's tendency to flee when things get piles up. The isolation in this song is something negative, describing a state of being unable to deal with reality, even though it doesn't have to be so." "No Easy Key" is one of Christensen's favorites, in which he feels he stepped over his own limits as a songwriter. The lyrics "hint to the whole Popstars
thing, or rather the people behind it." "Close the Door" contains guitar parties akin to those of George Harrison
. The lyrics to "Don't Leave Me but Leave Me Alone" describe "the somewhat unnecessary distance I involuntarily experience with some of my audience. It is almost like the more established [the artist], the greater the distance. I notice that people are looking at me, but don't dare to come over, and this has gotten worse." "How Far You Go" is the only hidden track
ever to appear on an album by Dizzy Mizz Lizzy
or Tim Christensen because it was not added out of Christensen's free will: "It was a demo I had made, but I did not want to put it on the record because it was a little too heavy on the sentimental side, but the record company had not forgotten about it." It has a Don McLean
like feel to it.
Additional musicians
Production
Tim Christensen
Tim Christensen is a Danish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass guitar, drums, Mellotron, harmonium, keyboard, piano and organ...
, released on 1 September 2003 on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
and vinyl
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
.
Overview
Christensen explains about the album: "It goes in a different direction from the previous albums. The music has gotten quieter as I get older and more mature. Occasionally songs will explode, but overall Honeyburst is more folkish, and has a little twinge of country." It contains quite a few ballads, about which Tim says, "they are far from trendy, and I don't mean that in a negative way. They are more classic and timeless and could just as well have been written 30 years ago, and will certainly also be written again 20 years from now."Reception
Honeyburst was well-received in Denmark, being the best selling album in the Danish ChartsTracklisten
Tracklisten is a Danish top 40 record chart that is presented every Thursday midnight at .The weekly Danish Singles Chart also known as Track Top-40 combines the 40 best selling tracks from legal music downloads and the sales of music singles on either CD or vinyl...
for two weeks, and selling over 130,000 copies in total. For the album, Christensen received three ZULU
TV 2 Zulu
TV 2 Zulu is a Danish television station which started broadcasting on 15 October 2000. It is primarily aimed at viewers between 15 and 30 years of age....
Awards and three Danish Music Awards
Danish Music Awards
The Danish Music Awards is a Danish award show. The show has been arranged by IFPI since 1989, and was originally called IFPI-prisen until 1991, when it changed its name to Dansk Grammy . The current name was given in 2001, after the American Grammy Awards took copyright on the name Grammy....
for Danish album, singer and producer of the year, respectively.
Overview
All instruments were played by Christensen, except for some drums by Olaf Olsen or Laust Sonne and several bass tracks by Nicolai Munch-Hansen. Nina Forsberg sang backing vocals for Right Next To the Right One.The cover was designed by Christensen and his father, Dan Christensen. It was based on a collage Dan Christensen made in 1966, before he went to art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
. He used faces of models from the fashion magazines that belonged to his then-girlfriend, who was a fashion designer. The collage had hung at various places in the house where Christensen grew up.
Songs
The song "Right Next To the Right One" was used as the title song for the Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winning DR1
DR1
DR1 is a Danish national television channel, produced by the public service broadcaster, DR. It was the first television station to be established in Denmark, and began broadcasting in 1951 – at first only for an hour a day three times a week....
drama series Nikolaj og Julie that was aired in 2002-2003. It became a national hit in 2002, a year ahead of Honeybursts release. Christensen explains the match was made quickly: "The producer of the show called me, he said they liked what I was doing and wanted to know if I had a song they could use. At the time we had made demos one of which was "Right Next To the Right One". He told me what the series were about, and I said, 'I believe I have a good bid.' I think it fits well with the series, but it's important for me to tell that it is not their song; it wasn't taken from the series and used on my record, but it was taken from the record and used in the series." It was later also covered by several artists. Mei Chi Chiang covered it in 2004 as "Ni Bu Gong Ping" (Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
for "Unfair to you") for her album Beautiful But Lonely (2004). In 2007, Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
recorded it for her album Taking Chances
Taking Chances
Taking Chances is an English language studio album by Canadian singer Céline Dion, released on November 7, 2007 on CD and CD/DVD. It is her 13th English album and 36th in total. The album was released physically worldwide during the month of November 2007 in CD edition. The album was also released...
, for which Christensen provided all instrument tracks. It has not been released as a single, but has entered the Danish Singles Chart on 23 November 2007 at number 13, due to strong digital downloads
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
. An Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
version titled "Giorni d'Estate" ("Summer days") was recorded for Dolcenera
Dolcenera
Dolcenera is an Italian singer, songwriter and actress.Among other recognitions, Dolcenera was awarded to the Venice Music Award for Best Voice and served as a spokesperson for UNICEF's global campaign "Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS".- Early life :Emanuela Trane was born in Galatina and...
's fourth album, Dolcenera nel paese delle meraviglie
Dolcenera nel paese delle meraviglie
Dolcenera nel paese delle meraviglie is the fourth studio album by Italian singer Dolcenera, released on 18 February 2009. It is her first album released on Sony Music Italy...
("Dolcenera in Wonderland"). Although this was a lucrative deal for Christensen, it also gave people the impression that he made soft music. Christensen has also received many invites to play this song at weddings, which Christensen finds ironic because the line he started from was: "A pretty face can take you places you don't want to go."
The second single, "Whispering at the Top of my Lungs", received heavy airplay on DR P3
DR P3
DR P3 is the third of the four national radio networks operated by the Danish public broadcaster DR...
in the summer of 2003. About the genesis of this song, Christensen explains that this was originally written as a heavy song, but it didn't really work. This version is frequently played as the shorter song "Screaming At the Top of My Lungs". The song was then recorded as a quiet ballad, but this too did not feel right. The final result was a bit of both, where quiet verses are dynamically alternated with strong choruses with full band. Live, Christensen plays this song entirely on electric guitar, but he uses an L.R. Baggs X-Bridge that allows him to make his guitar sound like an acoustic guitar.
The third single, "Jump the Gun", is the only song on the album that has no Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
on it. It is an older song that Christensen could not fit in anywhere before. "Lay Down Your Arms" is about not living for your own sake. It is written in a tradition taking after Christensen's great example The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, especially the style of Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, in such a straight way that it is nearly a nursery rhyme. "Isolation Here I Come" is about Christensen's tendency to flee when things get piles up. The isolation in this song is something negative, describing a state of being unable to deal with reality, even though it doesn't have to be so." "No Easy Key" is one of Christensen's favorites, in which he feels he stepped over his own limits as a songwriter. The lyrics "hint to the whole Popstars
Popstars
Popstars is an international reality television franchise and a precursor to the Idol series. The series first began in New Zealand in 1999 when producer Jonathan Dowling formed the five member all-girl group TrueBliss...
thing, or rather the people behind it." "Close the Door" contains guitar parties akin to those of George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
. The lyrics to "Don't Leave Me but Leave Me Alone" describe "the somewhat unnecessary distance I involuntarily experience with some of my audience. It is almost like the more established [the artist], the greater the distance. I notice that people are looking at me, but don't dare to come over, and this has gotten worse." "How Far You Go" is the only hidden track
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...
ever to appear on an album by Dizzy Mizz Lizzy
Dizzy Mizz Lizzy
Dizzy Mizz Lizzy was an alternative rock band from Denmark that started in 1988. Between 1994 and 1997, they were highly successful in Denmark and Japan, heading the early 1990s rock revival in Denmark. The trio consisted of Tim Christensen , Martin Nielsen and Søren Friis...
or Tim Christensen because it was not added out of Christensen's free will: "It was a demo I had made, but I did not want to put it on the record because it was a little too heavy on the sentimental side, but the record company had not forgotten about it." It has a Don McLean
Don McLean
Donald "Don" McLean is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".-Musical roots:...
like feel to it.
Track listing
All lyrics by Tim Christensen, except where noted.Personnel
- Tim ChristensenTim ChristensenTim Christensen is a Danish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass guitar, drums, Mellotron, harmonium, keyboard, piano and organ...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, MellotronMellotronThe Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
, producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, graphic designDesignerA designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...
Additional instruments: Fender RhodesRhodes pianoThe Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....
Piano Bass, HohnerHohnerHohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments. Founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner , Hohner is identified especially with harmonicas and accordions. The Hohner company has invented and produced many different styles, and most of the...
clavinet, Roland Jupiter-4Roland Jupiter-4The Roland Jupiter 4 was an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation of Japan between 1978 and 1981. It was notable as the company's first self-contained polyphonic synthesizer, and for containing digital control of analog circuits , allowing for such features as programmable...
, CrumarCrumarCrumar is an Italian company which manufactured synthesizers and keyboards in the 60's, 70s and 80s. Its name is taken from that of its founder, Mario Crucianelli...
Stringer, OptiganOptiganThe Optigan was an electronic keyboard instrument designed for the consumer market. The name stems from the instrument's reliance on pre-recorded optical soundtracks to reproduce sound...
, Drilldo guitar
Additional musicians
- Nicolai Munch-Hansen – bass (on tracks 4, 6, 10, 11, and 12)
- Olaf Olsen – drums (on tracks 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12)
- Laust Sonne – drums (on track 8)
- Nina Forsberg – background vocals (on track 7)
Production
- Rune Nissen-Petersen – producer, engineer, mixerMix engineerA mix engineer, also referred to as "mixing engineer", is a person who, once all instruments, voices, and sounds, etc., have been recorded, creates what is called the final version of a song, hence the term "mix engineer"...
- Nick Foss – executive producerExecutive producerAn executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
- Finn Jansen – basic-track consultancy
- Nikolaj Vinten – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
- Dan Christensen – graphic design, collageCollageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
- Gitte Gammelgaard – photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...