Something Else

Release: 28 April 2017
Label: BMG Rights Management
Format: Double 12″ Vinyl, CD, Digital downloads

TRACKLIST

1.     Linger (Acoustic Version) (4:55)
2.     The Glory (5:14)
3.     Dreams (Acoustic Version) (4:24)
4.     When You’re Gone (Acoustic Version) (4:10)
5.     Zombie (Acoustic Version) (4:01)
6.     Ridiculous Thoughts (Acoustic Version) (3:07)
7.     Rupture (4:16)
8.     Ode To My Family (Acoustic Version) (4:43)
9.     Free To Decide (Acoustic Version) (3:17)
10.   Just My Imagination (Acoustic Version) (4:02)
11.   Animal Instinct (Acoustic Version) (3:39)
12.   You And Me (Acoustic Version) (3:33)
13.   Why (5:01)

RECORDING SESSIONS

  • Irish Chamber Orchestra Building
    University of Limerick, Ireland – 2016

CREDIT INFORMATION

Dolores O’Riordan – Lead vocals, guitar
Noel Hogan – Lead guitar
Mike Hogan – Bass guitar
Fergal Lawler – Drums and percussion

String arrangements by Kenneth Rice

Produce by The Cranberries
Engineered by Tim Martin
Mixed by Cenzo Townsend at Decoy Studios, Woodbrige, Suffolk, UK

Vocals on all tracks except “Why?” and “Rupture” engineered by Oleg Koretsky
Vocals, guitar and drums on “Why?” and “Rupture” engineered by Dan Brodbeck
Additional engineering by:
Mike Gavin
Dave Keary

Mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, London, UK

Photography: Andy Earl (andyearl.com)
Graphic design: Cally (antar.ee)
Sleeve notes : Eoin Devereux

BAND’S SPECIAL THANKS

Fergal Lawler whishes to thank: dw drums, Zildjian cymbals, Evans drumheads, ProMarl sticks, LP percussion and Universal Audio.

 

 

NOTES

  • According to the official album press release, the idea to release an acoustic album with chords germinated on New Year’s Eve 2014 : “In the autumn of 2013, as [Dolores] hometown of Limerick was preparing to open its tenure as Irish City of Culture in 2014, The Cranberries singer-songwriter Dolores O’Riordan was approached by the city to play a special gig. On New Year’s Eve, she would perform with a quartet from the Irish Chamber Orchestra, playing four songs from her starred back catalogue – three Cranberries, one solo – on a stage erected outside city hall. ‘It was a beautiful night,’ she recalls. At that moment, singing songs that have endured a generation, punctuating pleasingly diverse points of the cultural graph, from glossy high-end car ads to Mission:Impossible soundtracks to becoming time-honoured radio staples, immediately identifiable from the tender fury of Dolores’ vocal phrasing, she realised an anniversary was coming up.
    The following year, 2015, was to mark 25 years since the beginning of The Cranberries, the Irish band that would dominate a particular corner of the 90s.”
    Later in 2015, the press release explains that “an unusual request from The Bachelorette, the US TV show for competing girls to win the hand of a handsome, eligible young man was the touchstone putting Dolores back in touch with Cranberries co-writer Noel Hogan after the band’s hiatus since 2012. The show producers asked them to serenade the couple on their last date for the season finale, filmed in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. Though she has been based between Canada, New York and Ireland over the past few years, it is the latter that will influence forever the singer, the band, the soul of The Cranberries. With The Bachelorette airing to almost 10million US viewers, a new generation was keen to find out more.
    Touched by the orchestral re-evaluation of a selection of her greatest hits, with the anniversary clock ticking in the back of her mind, a new audience hungry to flesh out the details of a band apt to be left out of the great 90s rock cannon, the idea of an acoustic, orchestral rendering of the greatest moments from the Cranberries first four records began to ferment. ‘It felt like something old and something new to commemorate what we’d achieved,’ says Dolores. ‘With the Irish Chamber Orchestra, similar to what we’d done on the New Year’s Eve show.’”
  • Album was recorded at the home of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Dolores laid down vocals as small booths were created to record the instruments as if live.
  • Asked about how she feels towards the new recordings of old songs, Dolores says “I prefer them like this, with a little bit more experience behind them, with a new lease of life. They sound fresh again.”
  • Official press release also features great info about the artwork, as it mentions that “it was the return to South America [early 2017 in Cancun, MX] that gave Dolores an idea for the record jacket, to fly over iconic rock image-maker Andy Earl, the photographer who had shot them way back when for the cover of Everybody Else Is Doing It… ‘I said, shall we see if Andy’s available? Literally two days later he flew out. He was brilliant. It was good to see him again. We sat in the same place and took the shots.’ The past and present were coalescing.”
  • Asked if she is proud of the new songs Dolores explains “Yes, I am. I do allow myself a moment of that. But life’s so hectic you don’t get much chance to. I guess that was what this new record was about.”
  • The meaning behind the album’s title is revealed in the press release too : “When they began finalising details for the record, they decided on Something Else, a nod to the first record’s Everybody Else…, a title neither riven with the promise of future endeavours or locked into the past. ‘It’s not a certain title,’ says Dolores. ‘It’s not saying that there’s going to be more and it’s not saying this is a grand finale, either, it’s who knows if there’s going to be more? I think it ties back to the first record quite nicely. I don’t have any idea what’s in store for us. It’s not the nineties anymore, that’s for sure. And neither would I want it to be. Hopefully, there is more to come. Hopefully the fans will like what we’ve done with the songs here. I suppose you wonder how long your songs will live for. I think ours have been very lucky’.”

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