Vehicles & Animals

Vehicles & Animals is the debut studio album by British indie rock band Athlete. It was released on 7 April 2003.

This album has been released with the Copy Control protection system in some regions.

Critical reception

Critical reaction to Vehicles & Animals was generally positive. Review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a normalised score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, awarded the album a rating of 63 based on 17 reviews, suggesting "generally favorable reviews".Time Out called the album a "gloriously understated and wonderfully consistent debut".Playlouder gave the record four out of five, hailing the tracks as "impeccably polished radio-friendly gems" – The Times similarly labelled the album a "British pop gem". Ben Gilbert of Dotmusic gave the album seven out of ten, describing the album as a "promising debut".

Awards and accolades

In 2003 the album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, an annual award honouring the year's best albums from the UK and Ireland – the prize was ultimately won by Boy in Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal. In December, British music magazine Q named Vehicles & Animals as the 32nd best album released that year, calling it "the year's best wobbly indie-rock album". In April 2005, the album was awarded platinum certification by the British Phonographic Industry for having sold over 300,000 units in the UK.

Beautiful (Enrique Iglesias song)

"Beautiful" is a song by Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias from his tenth studio album, Sex and Love. It features Australian recording artist Kylie Minogue and was also on her Kiss Me Once album. "Beautiful" was written by Iglesias, Mark Taylor, Alex Smith, and Samuel Preston, and it was produced by Taylor and Smith. The song was released as promotional single in Australia and New Zealand on 14 March 2014.

Track listing

Charts

Release history

References

Beautiful (Carole King song)

"Beautiful" is a song written by Carole King that was first released on her 1971 award-winning album Tapestry. It has also been covered by other artists, such as Barbra Streisand and Richard Marx, and included on several of King's live albums. It was also used as the title song of the 2014 Broadway musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

Lyrics and music

According to King, she did not consciously attempt to write "Beautiful" but it came to her spontaneously. It stemmed from her realization while riding the New York City Subway that the way she perceived others reflected how she herself felt. She has also stated that because it came to her spontaneously, she initially didn't realize some of the professional details of the song, such as the lack of rhyme in the refrain, which if she was writing the song consciously she would have included.

Rolling Stone Magazine critic Jon Landau describes "Beautiful" as an "uptempo song." The lyrics reflect themes present throughout the Tapestry album, such as the importance of self-esteem and positive outlook. Within the song, beauty is defined not as an attractive outward appearance but as inner beauty. In the verses of the song, the singer sings about the unhappy people she sees around her. The message is emphasized by setting the verses in a minor key and to a straightforward rhythm and singing at a relatively low pitch. The refrain, describes the need for optimism and self-esteem in order to be successful, and is reinforced by being set in a major key and to a syncopated rhythm and at a higher pitch.

Man (Middle-earth)

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books, such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the terms Man and Men refer to humankind – in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other humanoid races – and does not denote gender.

The Elves call the race of Men Atani in Quenya, literally meaning "Second People" (the Elves being the First), but also Hildor (Followers), Apanónar (After-born), and Fírimar or Firyar (Mortals). Less charitably they were called Engwar (The Sickly), owing to their susceptibility to disease and old age, and their generally unlovely appearance in the Elves' eyes. The name Atani becomes Edain in Sindarin, but this term is later applied only to those tribes of Men who are friendly to the Elves. Other names appear in Sindarin as Aphadrim, Eboennin, and Firebrim or Firiath.

Origins

The race of Men is the second race of beings created by the One God, Ilúvatar. Because they awoke at the start of the Years of the Sun, while the Elves awoke at the start of the First Age during the Years of the Trees, they are called the Afterborn by the Elves.

Manfred Gnädinger

Manfred Gnädinger (Dresden 1940 – Camelle, 28 December 2002) a.k.a. Man or O Alemán was a German hermit and sculptor who lived in the village of Camelle, on the Costa da Morte, in Galicia (Spain). He lived a very simple and natural life, building sculptures on the beach where he lived and tending to his small garden. In November 2002, when the oil spill of the Prestige destroyed his sculptures and the ecosystem of the area he lived in, it is thought that Man let himself die of melancholy and sadness, thus becoming a symbol of the destruction unleashed by the oil spill.

Hermit and sculptor

Man arrived in the small village of Camelle in 1962, from Boehringen in the south of Germany. His whereabouts before this period are unknown, although he was described as having been well-dressed and educated when he arrived. It is said that he went mad after falling in love with the teacher of the village and being refused. A few years later, after becoming sensitized to ecological issues, he built himself a small hut on the beach of the village, next to the Atlantic Ocean, and spent the next forty years in this place, where he quickly became a curiosity of the village. Inhabitants referred to him in Galician as O Alemán (the German), then just "Man", a name he eagerly accepted for its symbolism. Tall, with a long beard, and dressed only with a loincloth in any weather, he would swim out in the Ocean, even after he was fifty years old. He had no electricity or running water in his hut, and was a strict vegetarian, eating only from the small organic garden he had created.

Man (Man album)

Man is the third studio album by the Welsh psychedelic/progressive rock band Man and was released March 1971. It was the first album by this line-up, Terry Williams having replaced Jeff Jones on drums, while Martin Ace replaced Ray Williams on bass.

As well as a change in personnel, the album also represented a change in record label from Pye to United Artists (released under the UA stable "Liberty" imprint) with whom the band would remain until 1976. Reviews were mixed, particularly regarding the long tracks "Would the Christians...." and "Alchemist" which were an attempt to recreate some of the longer improvised jams that the band performed on stage, but which did not have the same impact on vinyl.

The album contained three shorter tunes: "Country Girl" that showed a clash of direction but showcases some fine Welsh harmonies. "Daughter of the Fireplace", a Leonard-penned rocker, which became a stage favourite (and highlight of Man's 1972 live LP Live at the Padget Rooms, Penarth) while "Romain", a bluesy-shuffle, was written as a reaction to Martin Ace's treatment by a Belgian police officer of the same name when he attempted to intervene in a situation at a music festival; the song remains in the Man live set to the present day.