Sam Taylor-Wood: "(I'm In Love With A) German Film Star"

Sam Taylor-Wood came from the same school of art brats as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, a cloyingly self-assured spate of self-aggrandizing bar-hoppers who partied with the Britpop heroes in the mid ’90s, showering the art world with their lazy, one-dimensional, pun-riddled pap. So far from that world we have only had one successful collaboration in the form of Fat Les, formed—by Damien Hirst, he of the pickled sharks, Alex James, the now portly ex-bassist from Blur, and Keith Allen, actor-slash-bon-viveur (read: drunk who is now more famous for siring the irrepressible Lily)—to record an anthem for some soccer championship or other. Admittedly, they did produce “Vindaloo,” which in its drink-fueled bullishness is probably the most precise analysis of the British psyche since Noel Coward.

Unfortunately, they tried to comb that beer-swilling camaraderie over the bald patch of British pride with a pompous take on “Jerusalem” and a novelty Christmas single. Their venture was understandable; snowblind from coke and possessing a golden touch, it seemed churlish for the blue-eyed boys of the London bar scene to not have a crack at the music industry. All of which makes Sam Taylor-Wood’s outing all the more remarkable. Firstly, its her timing. We’re well into the 21st century and her once alternative stance has now been reassessed following a series of high-profile installations, music videos, and a much-publicized battle with cancer. She is part of the art-scene glitterati now, a mainstayer in her 40s with no place in the superficialities of pop. Secondly, this is a very adult song—not in subject matter but in its restraint.

“(I’m In Love With A) German Film Star” sees Taylor-Wood collaborating with those dour masters of ennui, the Pet Shop Boys. A cover of the one and only hit by dream-pop couldabeens the Passions, it has been mostly forgotten, save for the recent reissue of their debut album Thirty Thousand Feet Over China on Cherry Red. Almost in respect of the song’s innate fragility (as part novelty hit and part glimmer of a career that could have been) the Pet Shop Boys turn in a respectful production job built upon washes and one-finger piano lines that echo the original’s statuesque simplicity and their own masterpiece “West End Girls.” In sympathy, Taylor-Wood submits a deadpan performance. Whether this is down to a lack of technical ability or in fear of rendering the song a pastiche her vocals are monochrome and distant, treating the song’s themes of fame, infatuation, and hopelessness with a dry cinematic eye.