The Graduate (Nerina Pallot album)
| The Graduate | ||||
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| Studio album by Nerina Pallot | ||||
| Released | 5 October 2009 | |||
| Recorded | 2008–2009 London, United Kingdom |
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| Label | Idaho, Echo | |||
| Producer | Nerina Pallot, The Chatterleys | |||
| Nerina Pallot chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Graduate | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Daily Express | |
| The Music Fix |   |
The Graduate is the third studio album by London-born singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot, which was released in the United Kingdom on October 5, 2009. The album title refers to Pallot's 2009 graduation from university with a first-class honours English Literature degree.
The album was released more than three years after the gold-selling Fires and marks a change in the musical genre for Pallot. According to her biography on her official MySpace page: "The Graduate has piano-driven songs high on happy pills, woozy electronics and beefed up bass. Where guitars would once have swooned, now they swagger and there is a new-found feistiness to Pallot’s emotive vocals."
The album was self-produced and recorded in the North London studio she shares with her husband, Grammy-nominated producer Andrew Chatterley.
Pallot's record label had originally sent her to the States to work with Linda Perry. The pair recorded two songs together before Pallot returned home. Then came sessions with Rob Davis and Rick Nowels with whom Pallot wrote 15 songs, none of which appear on The Graduate.
Pallot recalls: "I finally realised that, on my own, I was more honest and less self-conscious, and wrote my best songs."
At the same time, Pallot returned to Birmingham City University to complete the English degree she had started while making Fires: "I found the routine of studying literature and writing about it cleared my head and at the same time it was a real inspiration when it came to writing lyrics. It also required a lot of discipline – something I had seldom applied to other areas of my life!"
A major shift in Pallot's sound was down to the music she was listening to: "My tastes have definitely changed," she says. "I've come to really love good pop music. Like everyone else, I was bored stiff of singer/songwriters and wanted to find something fresh. The band I became obsessed with was MGMT. I was inspired by their attitude to making music. It's so creative. They just throw out lots of ideas, try out lots of mad sounds and have a laugh, but with the basis of really strong songs. I didn't want to think about what would get on the radio or what’s the trendy sound right now. I just went for it and had fun."
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