power, music, electric revival

2003-06-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

The reason for Tatu's appeal (primarily to indieboys and recovering indieboys) -

It took until I saw Tatu's astonishing appearance at the MTV Movie Awards for me to really Get It. Approaching the stage via two separate aisles and singing the opening lines of "All The Things She Said" to eachother across a channel of seated audience, Lena & Julia are clearly making no attempt to mask their distinction of "Them" and "Us". On this evidence, it's of course the 'ordinary folk' that get in the way of their being together.

Then suddenly -

DRUMS!!

and we are catapulted into the intro of "Not Gonna Get Us" - which could possibly be the best single I have heard released in my lifetime - and Tatu in a flash are onstage, cueing a barrage of school-uniformed teenage girls to flood every aisle in the auditorium, all converging before the stage in what could only be described (and think about that combination of 'only' and 'described') as Anthony Easton did on <"New York London Paris Munich">

as a "grand sapphic revolution...a bacchanal".

But on reflection it appears less of a bold statement of sexual liberation, or of another brash (groan) "fuck-you" to the straight-edgers, or other any kind of sexual expressive device. In fact I see it as an almost complete reversal. It finally struck home to me why "Not Gonna Get Us" was able to pierce straight through me every time I heard it - Tatu are not about sexual liberation but inversion. Why put 137 girls on stage instead of just two? Clearly the event organisers had not thought much of their performance as a duo and felt it needed reinforcing. But why, if we are to be convinced by the strength of the girl's love for one another, should there not be sufficient intensity to constitute a 'performance'? If the White Stripes could convince with less of a powerful connection, why not Tatu? Maybe the distance between them during the opening bars is not symbolic of "Them" and "Us", but instead signifying the distance they feel between eachother within the relationship itself?

In this sense the bacchanalia is all about strength in numbers - that the girls' own reciprocal doubts over themselves and eachother are being placated and shrugged off their consciences by a wall of schoolgirls following their example. They've passed the point of no return, the decision made - to back out now is unthinkable. "Look, LOOK what we've achieved! Look at what effect we're making!" The stunt is symbolic of the aversion, rather than expulsion, of doubts concerning their relationship and sexuality - a necessity for the sake of the girls' consciences, since they are now too scared to go BACK into the mediocrity of the heterosexual world that turned them away. Their sense of rejection so great that they will not allow themselves to be supplicated no matter what level their doubt gets to, because to be misunderstood in a socially-discarded relationship is more comforting than to attempt to permeate a whole world that you feel has already deserted you.

The next day I finally felt coerced into buying the album, something I had put off for months for various preposterous reasons, and it is by the lyrical indication on it that I refer to "doubt" and "decisions". For although it is titled "200 Km/H in the Wrong Lane", it sounds more like they've blown their engine and are coasting over to the hard shoulder, silently debating with each of their individual consciences whether to get out and try to hitch a ride once they reach the road's edge. Embodying this sense of detached despair is "Not Gonna Get Us", the album's breathtaking opener. A sampled aeroplane engine precedes Julia's repeated cries of the title lyric in the chorus, rasping it out as if the plan(e)'s fuel tank has blown and they're about to crash without any hope of survival (if only that this is surely the only way Julia can be certain of her claim?) and she's echoing the phrase in desperate hope of comfort and distraction from the inevitable rather than as an assertive boast of her/their elusion of the discrimation its supposed to connote.

The first instance of a longing for simplicity and acceptance occurs in "All The Things She Said", embodied by Lena's nails-on-chalkboard wail of a confession - "THIS IS NOT ENOUGH!". Given that the context of the song's narrative concerns the perceptions of the outside world make of the couple in question, this shrieked revelation of Lena's implies that no matter how euphoric it may feel to be with Julia, she feels that she needs the security of being accepted and loved by everyone else as well.

"Show Me Love" starts with a telephone conversation between the two girls in which their Russian utterances are preceded by a vacuous gap - the speaker's timidity or reluctance to reply. An obvious and quite superficial instance of 'distance' I know, but relevent nonetheless and certainly lacking no poignancy. The underlining of the distance and doubt between the two is their reciprocal inquiry - "Do you still have doubts/that us having faith makes any sense?". They are still wrestling with the decision to openly refute convention for the sake of their still undefined sexuality, as reinforced similarly in the following track "30 Minutes" - "30 Minutes of bliss, thirty lies/30 Minutes to finally decide". Surely a sexual attraction entails no decision?

"Malchik Gay" is one song that betrays the subversive, brooding tone of the album with its perky hooks and linear, seemingly one-dimensional lyrical format. But, like "Show Me Love", this Euro-Pop sheen is irrelevent, and gives way to the underlying doubt of the protagonist. The appearance of a male Other ("I long to hold you/like your...boyfriend does") in the context of this album - these girls - is indicative of further uncertainty, where the possibility of a U-turn in sexuality for either girl is clearly still a prominent concern - and it scares them both.

But is it a possibility that either girl could be straying back to hetero-territory? Consider the minimal contribution of Lena's vocals on the magnificent cover of "How Soon Is Now?" at Track Five - there is not one line that she sings the lead on. It is, effectively, a monologuous account of Julia's subjective frustration. What makes this doubly significant is that it is the single cover version the pair attempt, and therefore the message of the song is thoroughly received and understood by Tatu's controlling svengalis before it is even recorded. The fact that there has been a conscious choice to have Julia sing all the lead vocal on the track inevitably prompts this listener to think that they have moulded her persona on the record, the role she plays as such, around this widely regarded anthem for the suppressed homosexual.

Consider now the photographs on the sleeve of the record, and particularly how Julia dominates all of them. This can (as my brother suggested) be simply because she is more photogenic, just as it can be taken that she has sung "How Soon Is Now?" because her vocals suited the track more. But I am convinced that her public image has been intended from the outset to be the embodiment of the stereotype of the "indie-unattainable" female. What clinches this is the watermark pictures set on the inside of the sleeve behind the lyrics. Julia is posed blowing a sardonic, disdainful and knowingly ironic kiss at the camera, whilst Lena regards her from across the page, laughing. Whilst Julia entices, teases the unwitting indieboy, Lena is more than willing to take the back seat and allow her lover to represent their combined public persona of 'Tatu'.

This is all summised by the track "Stars", which is the last on the album before the perfunctory space-fillers (remixes and Russian versions, making "Stars" the concluding track in earnest). In effect this is Lena's concluding monologue, as Julia is only present in the mumbled Russian-language inserts, of which of course I cannot understand. Lena yearns to the listener - "Do we belong/Someplace where no one calls it wrong?" - note the prominence of the question mark in that sentence, and parallel it to her final unflinching impugnation of "Are We In Love?". ARE THEY IN LOVE?!?!? Striking home the reality of Lena's personal despair, she even feels she can doubt whether they love each other at all, and the proposal in "Not Gonna Get Us" and "All The Things She Said" of fleeing from all their problems becomes conclusively desolate - they will never belong in either the utopian world they dreamt of nor the 'real' world of rejection and disillusionment.

And we are left hanging on the sublimely empathetic catharsis - "Like the night we camouflage/Denial" - and I can only conclude this is Lena's personal denial. A denial of the outside world, a denial of her conscience, a denial of her identity, a denial towards her lover's affection. Finally, a denial of her own ability to love - whether same sex or otherwise.

2003-05-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

weird unquantifiable things: when the record you're listening to as you walk around in the rain makes rain noises itself, and the traffic between the two...

I was trying to think what to listen to as it was raining and gravitated to this one record and didn't realise the link was as obvious as it was until after I got back in. oh my.

tom waits, rain dogs: songs for losers, i guess. Half of what happens happens to other people and the other half is stuff you're making up or allowing yourself to believe about other people in the hopes that it makes life more interesting. ("I heard he has a mistress. I heard she's Puerto Rican. I heard she has a wooden leg.") I think I've listened to this as much as anything else I've heard in the past two years or so and I'd been wondering why the lyrics never stuck to me, and I think that's why, this one-step-away-from-everything vibe.

Of course there are songs which imply things actually happening, though. I don't know. Maybe the key thought is: the narrator of 'Downtown Train' doesn't seem to have any reason at all to assume the girl he wants to see will be there, but that hardly seems to make any difference. But this might just be the effect of having a Big Chorus.

2003-05-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

They were playing videos on The Box earlier today without the station logo in the top right, or any of the other usual rigmarole of phone lines scrolling or whatever else, and for a minute or so I felt disoriented like one of the walls or the ceiling had vanished, but the room was somehow still there, still standing

A Probably Incomplete List Of CDs The Author Owns He Has Yet To Listen To All The Way Through, Largely For Personal Reference, With Parenthetical Comments Which Attempt Humour And/Or Lightness Of Touch And Mostly Fail

barry adamson, the king of nothing hill (don't even start) (actually after hearing superfly i think i get the joke; however it does not appear to be funny)
at the drive-in, vaya (well. yeah.)
biff bang pow!, songs for the sad eyed girl (bought out of morbid curiosity. cheap. surprisingly actually rather good. well. heart-in-right-place.)
black sabbath, the very best of (it would be like eating several steaks at one sitting, or the same steak, over and over again, for two hours)
handsome boy modelling school, so... how's your girl? (can't believe i haven't, i like this a LOT, in fact i'm going to listen to it right now---)
dire straits, money for nothing (ihavenoideahowthisgotuphereitmustbemydads)
manic street preachers, this is my truth tell me yours (ihavenoideahowthisgotuphereitmustbemydads)
gorky's zygotic mynci, bwyd time (bought, mislaid, just found) (would appear to be in welsh)
pavement, slanted and enchanted (like eating several IRONIC steaks at one sitting) (i don't know. it's late.)

'f course, the really worrying ones are the ones i think i've never listened to and then realise i have. hullo, the eels

This is because in the past couple days I have listened to The Kick Inside and Marquee Moon, both of which had been laying around rather a long time, and realised I rather love both.

The Kick Inside: songs written at ages thirteen to sixteen, I think, displaying all the weird honesty and innocent self-obsession and sincerity of that age, and these songs end up utterly in conflict with the TASTEFUL and MUSICIANLY studio arrangements, imprisoned, and nevertheless it adds up to something quite lovely.

"A good life means fighting to be human under growing difficulties. A lot of young folk know this and fight very hard, but after a few years life gets easier for them and they think they've become completely human when they've only stopped trying."
-alasdair gray, lanark

Marquee Moon: one of those records made to EVADE punk, to find a mindset actually capable of allowing you to reach another human being -- cf. dexy's, and john lydon through 'holidays in the sun' to p.i.l.'s 'rise': "anger is an energy" really means realising THERE ARE OTHERS --but marquee moon, it seems like an attempt to find something, a moment of beauty i guess, in the way of whatever might be in the way ("punk" maybe), and the music is all grooves and attempts to burst out of them, like right at the end of 'marquee moon' more or less. i think "honesty" is a part of it, much as i might hate to admit it. the photo on the cover they look like they've dressed from thrift stores, and not like how people usually look when that's said, the kind of magpie cool that's usually implied, but rather they look like the kind of people you actually SEE in thrift stores: they're dressed like that.

well actually they're not. not quite. but:

AND RICHARD SAID hey man let's dress up like punks think of what we could do
BUT SOMETHING, SOMETHING, SAID you'd better not

(well actually i misheard this. but ~~wouldn't it be great?~~ why shouldn't it be right?)

(and at this point, please, go and listen to the above two records, and everything else released in the period 1977-1978, and also read lester bangs' january 1978 essay on richard hell, please and thank you and GOODBYE)

2003-04-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

ainslie, again: "I'm a sort of anti-popstar"

2003-04-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

I thought - way back - that no one would buy the first Hear'Say record - that the people would recognise PopStars as the manufactured sham it was and STICK IT TO THE MAN &c. &c.; I wasn't exactly right, you may recall. So Hear'Say did their thing and vanished.

I was watching the Fame Academy documentary earlier- Ainslie: "I find the whole notion of celebrity pathetic and ridiculous." And there was a shot of him posing with a flower and he looked like Richey Manic or something, and then he ate the flower, which was funnier than anything Richey evah did..

But okay, I thought at age fourteen or whatever that the thing about the reality pop thing was that it would spoil whatever reality the charts had left (would reveal fake pop as fake and get people back to THE RIGHTEOUS FORCES OF INDIE ROCK ahem hem) but that didn't work. I like a lot more music now than I did then, I like music a lot more now than I did then.

Ainslie again: "A number one single, what is that? that's, you know, Mister Blobby.."

hear'Say imploded, didn't they, and one of them spoke out against the notion in interview? Liberty X are still going, and are playing with the idea- what reality pop does is open up the charts to, uh, manufactured pop stars who then must MAKE AN ISSUE OF their manufactured-ness..

Another part of this authenticity thing would I suppose have to be the current spate of rock bands - I saw the White Stripes last week and I thought Jack White was the most punchable person I've seen in aaaaaaaages, you know - and he is very obviously playing a part; so is Karen O, I suppose; the Strokes? I dunno. who are they, again? this is pop, two years is a long time. But take this as a backlash - on the part of consumers, not the bands, I doubt anyone from new york cares about this - and it's interesting that it's the biggest purveyors of image (jack white THANKED THE AUDIENCE FOR MAKING HIM NUMBER ONE) who get the prize..

What I think I'm arguing for is that there's some sort of new pop paradigm emerging. Daniel Bedingfield, Mike Skinner, and Ainslie Henderson are all in their own way on the front lines. I'm not sure what I mean here.

Bedingfield is fascinating, isn't he? thirty and unattractive and capable of making himself into a pop star. Could this have happened five years ago? he'd have fronted some crap late-britpop act, I suppose.. Not a singer-songwriter. ie. that to get himself on top of the pops was maybe a more valid self-expression. Well. What do you make of that?

2003-04-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

junior senior

d-d-don't stop the beat of a beating heart our luv is number one in the chart oh if you can't shake my brother if you can't shake my sister let me be your tambourine man c'mon shake me c'mon we'll be white trash YEAH

some records it feels like dancing is the only rational kind of criticism

2003-04-03T16:14:00.000-08:00

teen spirit/it's the 90s scene

I was going to write something about Nevermind but after spending the day listening to St. Etienne and Junior Senior I'm finding that particular record a fair bit harder to care about.

(oh well)

2003-04-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

[sung:] I've come a long way. / [spoken:] I've come a long, long way since the day you walked into my life. [sung:] You walked into my life. / [spoken:] You smoothed out all the rough edges with your sweet love and devotion. [sung:] I was tired, / in love like a fool. / [spoken:] I was tired of living the life of a fool, I was wondering where I'd gone wrong. [sung:] But I know / it's gonna work out fine. / [spoken:] But I know it's gonna work out fine, when I see that look in your eyes. [sung:] Yeah!

2003-04-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

(written longhand whilst actually listening to the record, hence possibly less coherent than usual)

I'm not sure I entirely get the deal with Foxbase Alpha. The only other St. Etienne I've heard is Smash The System, which some days Hug My Soul or Hobart Paving or He's On The Phone works and connects and just HITS YOU but most days doesn't. More so since I went looking for interviews and found the band themselves don't like half those songs - correction - that Stanley and Wiggs don't like half those songs. That's something important, maybe. The back cover of Foxbase Alpha has Ms. Cracknell looking not the opposite of the indie-unattainable thing but something maybe at right-angles to it, and Stanley and Wiggs behind her - she's looking at the camera, and they look like they're trying to avoid eye contact, or like they're trying to make it not-obvious they're looking at her - look left out of the loop. This might be key.

So the record. It feels sort of foreign to me; so English its foreign, I guess. "Get ready for today's countdown conundrum!": I recognised that one, and the French radio thing I get because I read an explanation of it somewhere, but there are all these bits of sound from films or radio or television or something and possibly maybe if I'd grown up twenty years earlier and been living in London in 1991 I would but I don't know what these bits of sound are supposed to MEAN

(and I'm listening to this as it finishes and oh god Like The Swallow is gorgeous and for the life of me I cannot explain why)

Cracknell's vocals. Stanley and Wiggs - I remember it being Stanley and Wiggs saying this, in some interview - Stanley and Wiggs think that Join Our Club is corny nonsense but the way its sung it seems harder to believe Cracknell does: we all want to - kiss the sky - join our club - WE'RE GOING TO TRY - and, you know, YES - you do know - right?

Cracknell's vocals on Foxbase Alpha - there's a lot of the switching between singing and talking thing, Nothing Can Stop Us Now being the best example - which I think was maybe intended as oh-look-how-corny-this-is but (THANK FUCKING GOD) doesn't come across that way at all. I've come a long way since the day you walked into my life ... I've never felt so good - I've never felt so right - nothing can stop us now - and those horns or woodwinds or synths (who cares?) are spitting in the face of everyone who wouldn't want to feel like that. or wouldn't want a record to feel like that. who'd WANT it to be ironic, whatever that means. I think.

2003-04-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

nas - i can

what sets off the jollity of that piano, that children's choir - yes, a CHILDREN'S CHOIR - is that this advice, good or not, meant or not, hypocritical or not, is so horridly ill-phrased: when she leans in for hugs people hold they' breath / becuz she smells of corrosion and death: well, would you leave your kids with him? you don't have to be gangstas or hos he claims, and well, what do you make of it? you can hear in his voice an awareness of every difficulty and limitation of the other route, surely? well you CAN, can't you? aren't you LISTENING?

and that last shot of the video - I AM THE AMERICAN DREAM, his shirt says - is the most powerfully ambiguous image i've seen in music video since earth song..

god's son is about - amongst other things - trying to make sense of where a life of being a gangsta will get you - there's a curious sense of banality (like, Beckett or something) to all of nas's more regular boasts, and if what's haunting i can is the knowledge of every time the violent route was taken, the most gangsta moments are haunted by the awareness of every missed opportunity: career resumé last real nigga alive ("last thoughts on shawn carter" maybe, except, obviously, not) finishes a verse with there's more shit than this wanting to be king of new york shit and it doesn't sound like he's just talking about the past.

more thoughts on this when i've heard the whole thing, maybe.

2003-03-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

gareth cunting gates and the fuckarsing wankstain kumars
bad pop song AND scary moral vacuum! this makes me want to listen to 50cent.

2003-03-16T16:42:00.000-08:00

(I haven't seen Adaptation, but he's right about everything else..)

2003-03-16T16:32:00.000-08:00

"I know that someone - no idea who, but I can think of a few specific people who are among the likely ones - will link to this post. Some will regard it as stupid or laughable. Some will look at it with mild bemusement. Maybe a few people will see something wonderful in it. I don't know. Right now, I know I'm scared of what people will think." God, don't be.

I (heart) Dan Emerson.

2003-03-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

Being Nobody: I find it easy enough to get enthusiastic about this, but it's hard to actually like it. Yes, it's the Freak Like Me trick over Being Boiled, and yes that's cool, and yes the video is theoretically quite clever, and yes, liberty-x-girl-#3 gets to say the are-we-ready? bit Phil Oakey does but SEXAY, and these are all theoretically quite nice. But all of these are things to like which aren't actually things to like about the record, see, and the thing itself just sits there, frankly.

I like manufactured pop mostly because of the sort of fundamentally honest emotional level it's designed to appeal on. Most of the 'proper' music I find myself thinking about most, if not listening to most - 69 Love Songs, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Eminem - are making some kind of effort to locate emotion behind whatever idea might get in the way. I'm trying to avoid the word "irony"; I think possibly the idea is "received aesthetics", of which "irony" is a part, I suppose. And the manufactured (I'd try and avoid this word, too, but in the video they are being ASSEMBLED in a FACTORY do you SEE? etc) pop I like is stuff which, I suppose because it's, y'know, for kids, is able to avoid the whole question of received aesthetics - hi Avril! - and just try and be whatever it is.

Meanwhile Being Nobody turns into a parlour game. I heard it for the first time and thought hey-I-recognise-that. Hey-what-is-that? hey-that's-the-Human-League! I can't help feeling Nick Hornby would like this record. I think that's maybe a sad thing for pop to be.

2003-03-15T07:14:00.000-08:00

OH OKAY NOW IT MAKES SENSE well sorta

(incidentally: Adam Powell, your ideas about the role of art are completely wrong and worthless, and your grasp of written english is tenuous at best. thank you.)

2003-03-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

Think ELI CASH Thom

2003-03-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Danny I have no idea what you're talking about.

2003-03-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

I think the conclusion I'm drawing is that Kubrick makes films deliberately obsure and melodramatic so that they take take the guise of 'Being Misunderstood'. 'Being Misunderstood' is different from 'Hard to Understand' because to be misunderstood puts Kubrick into some saintly world of the elite, where he is seemingly joined by those who think they understand him, and who regard those who don't understand as either ignorant or as a philistine.

Kubrick does nothing to discourage this and, in my view, appears to revel in it. This is the height of arrogance and needs people to curb their reverence of it.

2003-03-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

I have two Captain Beefheart albums, and I've been thinking lately that he's kind of like the musical equivalent of Stanley Kubrick. Despite their passing physical resemblance, listening to a Beefheart album bemuses me in the same kind of way as watching a Kubrick film, that is to say that it seems like a lot of bluster for the sake of 'art'.

The recordings I own are 'Clear Spot' and 'The Spotlight Kid'. The latter is probably the better example of my comparison since it employs a loose, almost free-form style in its arrangement, whereas 'Clear Spot' is much more commercial sounding. Beefheart produces 'The Spotlight Kid', so I consider this to be more of an indication of him being a musical 'auteur'. It starts quite promisingly - "I'm Gonna Booglarise You, Baby" displaying a gloriously liquidous tremolo guitar - but he fails to build on it. The engaging feature of Beefheart's work for me is the guitars, but Beefheart mixes them very low, to a hardly audible point for much of the album - the title track showing them give way to hollow-sounding - almost incidental - percussion. A very deliberate act, seemingly, without a clear purpose (which is often my main criticism of Kubrick). The irony of this, whether intentional or not, comes in lyrical form - "If you keep beatin' round the bush/You're gonna lose you're push".

To my knowledge, Beefheart is considered to be somewhat of a pioneer to his fans, a man who took the traits of musical Americana of southern forms of blues and country, cut them up and pasted them onto a kind of Doors-ish background of West Coast psychedelia (I hold that the Doors would have turned into Beefheart had Jim Morrison been ugly). And while a range of influences like this is evident, there is no instance where they blend comfortably. Instead its like a mish-mash, where you can identify each part, but none seem to contribute to the whole sound. Again, I often accuse Kubrick of doing similar things with his cinematic technique. Taking Clockwork Orange as an example, the scene where Alex is flicking through records and the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack just happens to be there. Intertextualising for its own sake.

I'm not really sure what conclusion I'm drawing here, mainly because I think there are redeeming features of both men's work, which I'm not going to elaborate upon now. Most of this idea is reliant on possibilities and interpretation, and so I do not hold that this is a solid, strongly-argued belief, but more of a general pondering.

2003-03-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

naturalistic? NATURALISTIC?

talk to me here

2003-03-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

"He put his disease in me"

Reading the liner notes for the DVD of the David Lynch film 'Blue Velvet', it implies that Lynch conceived of the film as a reflection on everyday life having dark and seedy undertones, that its strength is its realism, which is the complete opposite of the way it seems to me.

It is the un-realness of 'Blue Velvet' that makes it the film it is. This film is meant to HEIGHTEN and INTENSIFY all the underlying emotions, the point being to bring to the fore what would normally be hidden, and the only way to do this is to exaggerate the circumstances. This is why the small-town setting is so essential. The localised trap of sickness and sleaze and disorder everywhere Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan's protagonist) looks is of such immediacy and magnitude that he cannot possibly escape or evade it, it is all-encompassing when in reality it would be subdued and suppressed.

The scene that really embodies this is the one where Jeffrey takes a naked, shivering and mentally unstable Dorothy (a nightclub singer played by Isabella Rosselini who is beaten around by Dennis Hopper and looks to Jeffrey for sexual comfort) to the safe haven of the local Police Detective's house, whose daughter happens to be Jeffrey's beau, Laura Dern's Sandy.

"He put his disease in me"

...Dorothy emotes to Sandy, causing the latter to screw up her face in horror. Dorothy tells Jeffrey she loves him, and the camera swings back to Sandy's crazily mangled, mortified face. The expression of utterly raw, gushing and uncontrollable emotion is entirely out-of-character, Sandy up until this point being portrayed as the naive, innocent and untampered schoolgirl trying to induce at least some caution to Jeffrey's scheming. The scene continues, violently swooshing between Jeffrey's desperate attempts to maintain Dorothy's sanity as he glances in hope of reconciliation at Sandy's hysterical state. He is utterly trapped between the two. Forget the severed ear. Forget Frank Booth. The exaggeration of the two women's emotional states tearing Jeffrey apart make this the most intense and gut-wrenching scene in the entire film, the viewer being swirled around in the cauldron of confusion.

The genius of the film is that Lynch manages to house this melee in the cliche of the murder mystery. This, I presume, is the reason why the writer of the liner notes confuse it for being realistic. But how can he dismiss the crude, almost venal extremity of the emotional states of the characters? THAT is what sets it apart from other murder mysteries.

2003-02-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

Yes, this comes down to "I don't like nihilism". but some of the songs Johnny Cash did are brilliant in a way I don't think I can articulate right now, but THEY STILL ARE.

2003-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

oh, fuck. KUBRICK IN LACK OF HUMAN FEELING SHOCKER

also, a quote: "when you're buried up to your neck in shit, there's nothing to do but sing."

kubrick never sings and means it

2003-02-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

I really liked Dr. Strangelove at age eleven or twelve or so: it was funny. it had comedy Nazi jokes.

I still find the jokes funny, I guess. The comedy is (deliberately?) inept: the jokes are of the kind where you're meant to groan before you laugh: "You can't fight in here! this is the War Room!". The thing is, you know how it's going to end. You do, you've seen it before. It ends - the punchline to an hour and a half of vaudeville - with the death, more or less, of the human race. So every cheap joke, every detail that makes you giggle, is tied to that. You end up looking at yourself and feeling fairly naeseous: what are you laughing at, exactly?

This maybe was more of a political statement of the time. I don't know. The nihilism of it - totally punk, I suppose, but all my favorite punks' records have been about their performers realising the uselessness of being punk - seems to stem from not wanting to come down to bein anti-nuke, to affirming the right to not care, to laughing at the wreckage. It ends (although I haven't been able to bear to watch this, not tonight) with We'll Meet Again played over the stock film of the bombs going off. Not Kubrick's ending. Ade already suggested that what I'm kinda sorta thinking about above isn't really what Kubrick intended, he just wanted wacky comedy for its own sake, but that doesn't mean that his cameraman and set designers did.

I ran into We'll Meet Again last year at the end of Johnny Cash's American IV. The record starts with a statement of faith, Cash original about the biblical apocalypse, death and salvation, together - "the whirlwind is in the thorn tree", the chorus goes: the image comes from I can't remember what bit of the bible, but it's God amongst human corruption..

Hurt is a single now. It's the most commented-on of the covers, but I'm going to avoid mentioning even who its by, because the whole hipster-novelty aspect attached to Cash's records of the last decade, reducing them to some kind of mildly amusing diversion, is something I really deeply fucking detest, frankly, but never mind that. Hurt is about drug addiction, and about wanting to hurt others - human corruption, then - but Cash is able to invest it with a dignity that suggests that even the offer offered here: "you could have it all / my empire of dirt ... I will make you hurt" could be, somehow, a route to healing..

And Hurt, and all the other songs inbetween the first and the last, are covers, mostly, about people, and what you do to other people, and about death and salvation, but on a more human level. And Cash has never been a better performer than this, when it works. God is largely absent, save as a rhetorical device: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Personal Jesus are both secular songs of devotion, and Cash sings them perfectly, stripping whatever irony there might have been away from the latter song: "reach out and touch faith" sung as if its the last thing to hold onto in the world: the ruling idea being that god help us we need people to hold onto.

Which reads banal. Banality is what this record keeps threatening to slip into. In My Life isn't invested with any real significance, for instance: it's a song about people and their meaning to you, and here it sounds little like it means anything. The last track is We'll Meet Again, which of itself surely has to be about the most banal thing ever written. The reference has to be intentional. What if we didn't get to anything more than this? What if we were only pretending salvation?

Bridge Over Troubled Water is a song I'd never thought I'd like. I thought it was meaningless half-poetic drivel and Simon and Garfunkel weren't ever the sort of singers to work hard enough to convince me otherwise. And here, with a distorted male choir sampled in the background, and with Cash and Fiona Apple wailing away at it, I heard it last year and was amazed that it had the power to actually, truly convince: an offer of help, of devotion, which sounded like it meant it.

And if this record comes to the same conclusion as Kubrick's film does, then because that faith in salvation, human or religious, has been there, it redeems things: "what if we were only pretending salvation?", a question, something we can move within and around, even deny, whereas formulated in Dr Strangelove it's a statement: there isn't a single instance of real human closeness in the film, and wherever there might be Kubrick makes sure to hit hard on whatever ironic distance can be used to ensure that there is no offer of salvation in the film. Commander Ripper tells us he believes he can account for his actions in the next life before shooting himself, and it's just another instance of the same punchline. What the film suggests comes down to a state where no real humanity even exists, where attempts to save and destroy it alike come down to cheap jokes. and i can't watch it without feeling pretty fucking sick.

2003-02-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

maybe mostly I just don't want to let an album Uncut described as a grower grow on me.

2003-02-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

but:

"oh baby just admit
if both my wrists were slit
you'd bandage them with style and grace"

2003-02-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

Listening to the new Ed Harcourt album and, I don't know, Ed was one of my favourite new things of last year (or, I think, the year before) and it's kinda disappointing that I can't think of more to say about this. I like it. I guess.

There's nothing as perky as the poppy songs from before here: the woozyness of it sounds like the Maplewood demos album, or Something in my Eye from the first album proper, extended to an ethos: a couple of the tracks approach having grooves, but don't, not really. It's like a deliberate decision was made to take the bits that didn't work before and do whatever could be done with them. It works, I suppose. I keep adding qualifiers. This is the kind of record I can only bring myself to like with qualifiers. I guess.

It's a winter record. There are songs about death. There are more than two songs about death. Ed ends the album muttering "then .. slowly.. die... then.. slowly.. die.."

February is not really the best month to bring out a winter record.

2003-02-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

Actually there's a trajectory, isn't there: from Uncle Arthur and Laughing Gnome through to the glam phase, there's something of the same portraiture done: Station to Station keeps a lot of the same theatricality in performance, but doesn't need to work in snapshots in the same way as lots of other stuff does; I suppose it's more cinematic, but I hate using that word of music, because, you know, it isn't film.

by Low this thing is totally gone, whatever it is - I'm not in the mood for in-depth listening (ugh, sounds dirty) - and anyway I'm missing half a dozen of the albums in question..

2003-02-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

Have been listening to lots of Bowie lately: something that comes across is his marvellous sense of character, not as normally reported - who IS the thin white duke, exactly? is he something like the Goblin King? - but in inhabiting people for the space of a track - Cracked Actor's past-it Hollywood star breaking down into "sta-ay, please sta-ay.." is more or less exactly right, and Ziggy Stardust works because Ziggy himself isn't being heard but this unknown washup is: actually the songs which work least well on The Rise And Fall Of.. are the ones where the singer's role isn't actually deformed at all..

(typo: DEFINED at all, but i think the other way works, maybe)

2003-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

try harder, danny

2003-02-15T15:50:00.000-08:00

I think it is probably appropriate to report the total u-turn of my opinion towards Tatu. I recommend to anyone who has managed to perform the miracle feat of not seeing the hideous wank-fest video by now to never see it (talk about clouding judgements - it's so much BETTER that they're FAKE LESBIANS!) and listen intently to the first fifteen seconds of this record and DARE to tell me it's not absolutely brilliant.

Or in short:

Trevor Horn = better than being given The Horn (!)

2003-02-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

(hi, theoretical readers!!)

2003-02-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

kieron i spoke to once and he said "fuck thom with hammers". charity sent me a hat with FIRE CHIEF written on it. ewing took about a month to fix our NYLPM link, the sod. dan i always meant to email back about dexy's and never did. marcello i have never had any contact with but his blog is the best i have ever seen and everyone should go read it.

(What is the etiquette for this sort of thing? is there one? i mean if anyone, theoretically, was reading this, these theoretical readers would be much better off going to any of the above than they would reading this, but linking to people without some kind of context feels sort of scary and intrusive: apologies)

2003-02-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

I should see more films. I could write about films. Or Ade could. Hey Ade. Write something about films.

2003-02-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

(meta)

"the rarely-updated electric revival", wrote Dan Emerson, and I thought hey, I updated that about the second week of January, and then I thought, oh yeah, that's actually quite a while ago now. It's a fair cop, guv. I'm lazy with regards to many things but writing most of all, and a lesson I don't see myself being likely to learn is that starting something like this is not in itself something that counts as making more writing: in fact the safety net of it-is-only-an-internet-blog isn't really a safety net at all: I'm not sure even that it's not a reason to try harder, because there's a million other fuckers out there and at least some of them are trying pretty fucking hard and are pretty fucking good at it too. Start with reading the people linked on NYLPM, and then start reading all the people they've linked, and read them all, or try to read them all, and then try and write, and then give up reading them all because it's too much time (for the internet!!), and then remember that people more honest and less self-obsessed are already writing and then and then etc etc excuses etc

"those who can't, blog", someone quipped - I mean this in some new sense of the word which doesn't imply any actual humour, of course - in an email to danny l: well, whatthefuckever. try again when you display some indication of having talent.

things i meant to write about: an actual real defense of tatu, which would have used the word "punctum"; why justin timberlake is the perfect pop star for ex-wannabe-indie-kids; top twenty six things I started listening to in 2002, of which five actually were released in 2002, and one came out in 03; why i (heart) avril levigne; the libertines and britishness. going to attempt the latter as soon as i remember to borrow the streets album from someone again: queen boadicea's children's children vs 45th generation romans FITE!!

2003-02-11T16:20:00.000-08:00

Going from Baby's On Fire to Babe I'm On Fire was totally accidental and I didn't even realise until I clicked post, but I still feel I should apologise.

2003-02-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

My favorite surprise of last year, musically, was downloading the new Nick Cave album pre-release and finding out that he'd got good again: it's weird to see the Seeds finally meshing with Cave's singer-songwriter pose, being able to play these songs fluidly, sounding like an actual band, not just the concept of one, and yes this sounds like I'm blaming them when if there's anyone to blame for No More Shall We Part it's totally Nick, I think.

Anyway.

Should I have any real genuine thoughts about the album - unlikely - I'll share: right now I would like to point out that the final track, Babe I'm On Fire, is a totally loud and over the top; is forty-three verses long, each of which consists of a list of people who would, in fact, agree that Nick Cave is indeed on fire; sounds like the narrator from From Her To Eternity actually got with the girl; is the noisiest thing the band has done since Tender Prey; has good jokes; has bad jokes; has Blixa Bargeld making atonal noisy atonal guitar noises; has B-movie organ riffs; has the most melodramatic piano ever; has the Bad Seeds SOMEHOW holding it all together; has Nick Cave returning to the Old Testament inflections he'd been hiding and this time finding a way for them to MEAN something; is the most terrifyingly devotional lovesong I've ever heard, or at least feels that way right now.

2003-02-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

brian eno - baby's on fire
I think listening to pop music purely for instant gratification, which is what I do a lot of the time, is kind of insufficient because there's this vast brew of potent signifiers behind it and they're at least worth paying attention to: as you can tell I was sufficiently moralized by the sheer badness of the first half of this sentence to bother trying to write it to a full stop: look, colons!
Well, whatever. This is a song I hate. I think part of (all of) why I hate this record (mp3) is because it seems to buy into the idea that an artfully (ha) skewed (ha) take on pop is in some way superior: it's seriously one of my least favorite things ever. it doesn't have a fucking tune. it's like a five-minute sneer. made of synthezisers. it isn't even good at being clever, which is anyway a shitty thing to be good at being.

2003-01-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

Anyway the reason I've not posted anything here lately is because i) my computer died, and I lost everything on the hard drive ii) I have exams ii) this is a fairly accurate representation of the mental level I've been operating at lately:

thom jesus west: now listening to ROCKNROLL MOTHERFUCKER, by the D4
thom jesus west: It's possibly the most mediocre song ever recorded.
Harry Lime ARL: dillinger four?
thom jesus west: cover just sez D4.
thom jesus west: they're on my sister's record label haha
thom jesus west: = "record label she works as an accountant or whatevah for"
thom jesus west: They'e gonna give it to me like a rock and roll motherfucker, apparently, and there's nothing I can do.
thom jesus west: They're born to rock and roll, and there's nothing I can do, nothing I can do, oh no.
thom jesus west: Well, at least it finished quickly.
Harry Lime ARL: haha.
thom jesus west: the next track is called 'Party'.
Harry Lime ARL: allmusic
thom jesus west: "it's the weekend / come on / alright / party! / party!" this is the chorus.
thom jesus west: "party! (riff) party! (riff) par-ar-ty! (other riff)"
thom jesus west: God, I wish I had this kind of natural ease in songwriting.
Harry Lime ARL: I like how that implies that you already have a songwriting style. thom writes teh poetry
thom jesus west: haha the middle eight goes "party! (different riff) party! (riff)" then they go into the chorus.
thom jesus west: yes, thom = teh emo
thom jesus west: duh
Harry Lime ARL: TEEMO
thom jesus west: Yes, that D4. No dub versions, though. videos.
thom jesus west: This one is called "Come On!". I don't wanna.
thom jesus west: Oh god.
thom jesus west: let's see if you can guess how the chorus goes.
Harry Lime ARL: LIKE MA BELL
Harry Lime ARL: MA BELL!
Harry Lime ARL: LIKE MA BELL, I GOT THE ILL COMMUNICATION!
thom jesus west: No. Good guess, though.
Harry Lime ARL: MA BELL!
Harry Lime ARL: ILL COMMUNICATION!
thom jesus west: So singing "ma bell!" whenever they sing "Come on!" now.
thom jesus west: the next song is called PIRATE LOVE, and so has to be an improvement.
Harry Lime ARL: i should send you Get It Together by teh beasties.
thom jesus west: no you fucking shouldn't.
Harry Lime ARL: This one's actually good!
Harry Lime ARL: sorta.
Harry Lime ARL: no, really, it's good.
thom jesus west: Pirate Love has a nice swagger to it.
thom jesus west: amazon
thom jesus west: Apparently he wasn't going to give it to me like a rocknroll motherfucker, but to my sister and my brother.
thom jesus west: There must have been some misunderstanding.
thom jesus west: The chorus to Pirate Love does in fact include them yelling "Pirate Love!", which isn't so bad, because I'm so thinking of Peter Pan here.
thom jesus west: It's a Johnny Thunders song.
Harry Lime ARL: I think my mom banged Johnny Thunders.
thom jesus west: Dude.
Harry Lime ARL: okay, i don't want to think about it.
thom jesus west: I'm so making you a tee shirt with MY MOM BANGED JOHNNY THUNDERS on it for your next birthday.

2003-01-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

Tatu - All The Things She Said
OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT

2003-01-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

Tatu - All The Things She Said

The problem I have with this song (despite the fact that my younger 16-year-old sister plays it to represent her 'grunge phase') is that not only is the lesbian thing slammed in your face with the video, but they seem to find some cringeworthy compulsion to include the line "Coming over my face". Granted, its in reference to rain, but jeez, anyone can guess the ambiguity. Is it really necessary?

The difference between this and say, "Hitting my spot"/"Break down those walls" in 'Just A Little' is that the latter lines are delivered in a tongue-in-cheek, nod-nod-wink-wink way, whereas the lesbian song sounds like an enforced eroticism added by bigwigs, sniggering like pimply schoolkids at the girls' sexuality and marketing them like a modern-day, disposable 'Venus In Furs'.

2002-12-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

Below I certainly sound like I'm lumping my dad in with the chimeric musical-wallpaper people, so I went downstairs and asked him how many times he'd heard Dock of the Bay (hundreds) and whether he thought it was happy or sad (sad) and also "was it a new record to you at some point?" and he said, well, in his lifetime there had been about three great (he said "definitive" but lets avoid that word for now) new versions. So in the past (taking my dad as the average classic rock radio listener) he's already been able to confront these records as new things, and listening to Classic Gold (which - in case I haven't explained anywhere - is a radio station) isn't laziness in any way: I think what I'm coming to see is that even people who listen to Classic Gold like what they're listening to, and honestly people listen to music BECAUSE THEY ENJOY IT, and that the people that in my more indie-git moments I dislike don't really exist.

Or at least, I'm pretty certain I haven't met any.

2002-12-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

I once saw a student play with a song in it; they hadn't written it, I forget who, it was called Road.

This song. The thing was when these guys - playing working class people of fluctuatingly Northern accent - were talking about sitting around listening to soul, and the point was for these unemployed and destitute young people, this was what little road of escape they had, and they put on this song, and it was 'Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay'. They put this song on, and half the audience immediately stopped paying attention.

- and this is what growing up with a dad who listens to Classic Gold AND NOTHING ELSE does to you: there are certain songs which seem to lose all meaning, which as soon as they come on are a case of it's-THAT-song and then it's physically difficult to pay attention, because it's a song you've heard 10^293865428076 times, and - and this is important - a record which has maybe never had the shock of hearing something new to you?

but OK this record just clicked for me last night, on about the hundred-and-eighth time I heard it, and I can't really say why. (I'd bought a second hand copy of one of those TV-advertised CLASSIC [x] complilations, where [x] = soul in this case, but can also equal 80s, or heavy metal, or rock.) I think it must have been the first time I'd consciously chosen to listen to the record - is this it? is this what little conclusion i have here?

In my most indie-git phase (which would be, uh, about 18 months ago) I would sneer at someone for buying something like this, in the same spirit as I might sneer at someone buying best-ofs instead of the actual albums, man, because it meant they didn't care, man; the assumption would be that people who did this didn't care enough to actually want music for anything other than backgroud effect: the clichéd term for it is "aural wallpaper", I think..

And at the same time I would listen to, say, Blood On The Tracks, and just tune out, but still tell people it was a great album (which it is, but I didn't pay much attention to that then), because of some perceived consensus that it was, rather than actually hearing the thing.

I like to think I have good taste, which means being willing to listen to everything and judge it on its own merits and not on whatever else people would like to read into it; this is the only definition of good taste I can stomach, I think. and stuff like this reminds me that sometimes I do judge and don't notice it, and makes me wonder how often that happens.

2002-12-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

Outkast - "So Fresh, So Clean"

...is probably the best song in reaction to 'Urrrrrrrrrgh'-th, Wind & Fire. The hyperextended 'dig this beat motherfucker' intro. The icy keyboard swooshes providing the perfect tongue-in-cheek shallow bling, anti- velour backing. The croaky-voiced Dre leading the incongruous harmony, quote -

"You're So Anne Frank...We are the coolest muthafuckas on the planet"

unquote.

2002-12-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

Earth, Wind & Fire - "After The Love Has Gone'

So, me ~~a white teenager from England~~, getting into soul and reggae and stuff (you know, BLACK music), and I'm honing my mapreading, which inevitably means I'll probably try to get my hands on Under Construction sometime soon, but whatever.

I ask an acquaintance of mine, aged 46, to introduce me to some REAL SOUL MUSIC YEAH BROTHER. Evidently I placed far too much trust in the taste of this person, since she returns after two or three days with clutch of CD's and tapes - predominantly those dour bargain-bin-at-the-car-boot-sale-compilations. You know, the kind that are entirely made up of the hit singles of the time and are purely designed to offer old fans the convenience of listening to them on CD rather than haul out all their vinyls.

But I take them anyway, in the vain hope of that old adage about sifting through shit etc would apply and it does to a small amount.

Then I arrive at track 19 of a 20 track CD, the one titled above and my superficial knowledge of the song (that of most peoples attitude towards Come On Eileen) obliges me to listen deeper into it, making me wonder whether this was ever used for a commercial. I'm sure it was, so I listen to it several more times trying to establish what advert. I ask everyone in my house - no response. I research - nothing comes up.

Surely it isn't supposed to sound like this? Surely I'm just attributing memories of an awful advertisement onto its unwitting soundtrack? I delude myself it must have been devised this way, but it doesn't last long.

I have never known music to sound so...so...noxious! The writing credits insist it pre-dates 1980 but it has that horrible velour texture in its tonal arrangement that just makes me sick to my stomach after so many (however forced) listens. The Bridge - "Something happened along the way..." - is the harmonic embodiment of the typical 'Bisto' advertising campaign.

I don't think I'll ever going to be able to listen to this song again.

And if I do I'll always think of GRAVY -

"MMMMM Bisto!!! But why does it smell like slurry, mother?"

"Sorry, I forgot to turn the stereo off."

2002-11-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

it amuses me to no end to note that the teletext subtitles for the missy elliott performance on TOTP said "it's your fremme neppe venette".

2002-11-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

some more maps:

the rough trade electronic01 complilation is great, because it consists of two CDs of people striking out in different directions. the rough trade rockandroll01 compilation is much worse, because it consists of two CDs of basically the exact same idea.

my dad on the joe meek collection i have: "it's like they couldn't get anything big so they have the entire B-list of the sixties on an album." my response: "but that's better!"

2002-11-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

under construction

this is a map, isn't it? i know fuck all about hip hop - i'm white! i'm catholic! - but it still seems like one, never mind my needing to have where the sample at the end of 'work it' came from pointed out to me..

There's all this about backintheday and backtotheroots but it sounds modern - although i'm hardly the best judge of that - but the incrediblysupermegabrilliant touch is missy's interruptions of her own record for these spoken word bits about dancing in your videos instead of trying to look hard, or about her right to be foulmouthed, and at the start this state-of-hip-hop thing.. things under construction: 1) missy 2) hip hop's reputation 3) the hip hop community..

it's FRIENDLY! even jay z sounds friendly!

"so you gots to chill, cuz i kill at will, like solid water dude
y'all niggaz dont' get it? kill at will? solid water? ice cube!"

the point is there's the joke, and then there's the explanation of the joke to revel in. and there's names and names and more names: i am tempted to make notes. there's nothing so linear-seeming as any of the past-fetishising of Britpop, or of the nu-garage-rock acts - again, it sounds like something modern, it's not old school at the expense of the new, and ..i'm not sure what i'm trying to say here. it's a GREAT record and you should BUY it! i haven't even finished listening to the thing yet.

"i ain't turnin' into the Reverend Elliott on y'all. I just love music and if you don't like it I don't give a shit. aight? basically... I love ya. god bless. goodnight."

and then work it, again, to play out.

2002-11-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

sgt. peppers

first thought: that it sounds dated; second thought: that it doesn't. what does dated mean, anyhow? it sounds like 1967, it sounds like the idea of 1967 that i am used to but since you can hear (in other records) a progression that goes through this, or i have wasted enough time reading Q to believe you can, this isn't something that would be held up as "dated": the essence of dated is that you hear a noise that wouldn't be attempted by anyone today..

maybe what is meant by "dated" is things that have aged sideways: anything that fits on a line (~~the canon~~ ARGH NO) is never called dated, and anything that followed ideas that turned out to be dead ends sounds "dated" because we wouldn't do that these days, and so, say, if electroclash hits it big suddenly Visage (say) will be far less dated than they were a few years ago..

eddie campbell, from an ALEC comic: "The map of the history of Art is like any other map. There are main roads and side streets; old masters and lesser masters. But there are also backyards, middens, coal bunkers, and rhubarb patches ... no map remains for long an accuracte representation of the locale. Favour ebbs and flows. The crossroads is turned into a flyover or an underpass. The disused road was once a thoroughfare. The Via Roman underneath it all is nowhere indicated."

"Access roads closed. One way systems introduced."

2002-11-14T18:08:00.000-08:00

lazy update.

thom jesus west: {link}
thom jesus west: "Q: Do you consider yourself a feminist? A: I don't really know. What exactly is that? " best quote ever.
Harry Lime ARL: good GOD. SEE THAT FUCKISNGOIASHGOIEWGS SEE!!! THAT IS WHY I HATE HER. THAT RIGHT THERE FOR FUCKS SAKE
thom jesus west: what right where?
Harry Lime ARL: YOU FUCKING DORK
Harry Lime ARL: "Q: Do you consider yourself a feminist? A: I don't really know. What exactly is that? "
YOU CANNOT USE AVRIL TO MAKE A POINT!!!! SHE REALLY IS JUST A GENUINELY STUPID PERSON!!!!!!
thom jesus west: are you sure?
Harry Lime ARL: Oh, yes.
thom jesus west: isn't "feminist" an utterly devalued term at this point?
Harry Lime ARL: See, this is what I'm saying.
thom jesus west: isn't the stupid answer actually a far better answer to give?
Harry Lime ARL: But she's giving a stupid answer BECAUSE SHE *IS* STUPID!!!
thom jesus west: hullo do you KNOW THAT?
Harry Lime ARL: I see your point, but you're wildly projecting...
Harry Lime ARL: FUCKING CONTEXT YOU TOOL
thom jesus west: "I'm not going to call myself punk" this is a great interview.
thom jesus west: (nb. the songs are still really bad, but)
Harry Lime ARL: haha, funny because she HAS called herself punk before, but has to rescind that now that she's in the public eye. But I'll give her credit for that at least. But she also goes on to say that she's popular because she 'keeps it real' and is a breath of fresh air in our current (OH NO HOW AWFUL) pop climate.
Harry Lime ARL: she's even derided Britney Spears for being "fake"!!
Harry Lime ARL: Also, her spaghetti strand hair really infuriates me, but that's a minor thing.

[later]

Harry Lime ARL: Look, I've seen her on TV - she did a thing where she talked about being better than Britney. when asked about the success of Complicated, she talks about how different and "honest" it is. it's a very carefully calculated pop thing, it's pink meets blink, WHATEVER. none of that bothers me conceptually. what bothers me is that they've taken HONEST STUPIDITY and turned it around into something to market. i guess. The commercialism doesn't bother me as much either - it's the fucking dishonesty of this girl who KEEPS IT REAL and is ONE OF THE BOYS and DOESNT CARE ABOUT FASHION (yet sets fucking trends) being A FUCKING POP STAR. it's insulting to real pop stars!!!
Harry Lime ARL: " it's insulting to real pop stars!!!"

after much half assed keyboard whinging, I think this is basically my point.

thom jesus west: that's the most delightfully perverse argument i've ever read.
Harry Lime ARL: I'm going to go take a very punk rock shit.
Harry Lime ARL: ON THE ESTABLISHMENT

or the toilet

2002-11-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

a note for later (maybe): vocal mannerisms of britney spears, circa first album = vocal mannerisms of ari up on 'heard it thru the grapevine'

2002-11-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

dammit i need to start writing regular posts here which aren't crap already.

2002-11-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

mp3s:
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Plan B
Dexy's Midnight Runners - I'll Show You

2002-11-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

{i was going to write that thing about dexy's but this makes a far far better job of it than i would have}

2002-11-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

top of the pops

MADHOUSE are responsible for a dance routine almost as terrible as their pun. I don't like this all that much in the real version, but hey up next is..

MADONNA! .. shit, it's the video. I'd never realised beforehand that TOTP films the audience watching the videos for the acts they don't have in. It seems really redundant, actually. ace things about this record: stuttering, strings, Sigmund Freud.

TOM JONES INTERNATIONAL: oh dear. Wyclef co-wrote this, apparently.

"five six, better lock up yo' chicks, seven eight, before it's too late" pretty much displaces "i've never thrown my knickers at you / and i don't come from wales" as line in a tom jones-related record i most didn't need to hear. oh god this is wretched. doesn't even have the laugh value of that version of Pussycat they did on the TOTP anniversary show. or a tune.

SHAGGY - "Hey Sexy Lady"

he looks like one of the scousers from the Harry Enfield Show. or possibly the Fast Show. well. Shaggy's wearing a transparent shirt and it's pretty much open and you can see his gut: he keeps making these records but really he sounds like he'd rather find someone and settle down, and looks it too. it's a little bit sad.

ROMEO / CHRISTINA MILIAN

"hold up while i turn the page / (pause ) / and continue to verbally burn the page"

CRAIG DAVID - "What's Ya Flava?"

Three acts I hated in high school in a row! wow. (ok, you need to take Romeo as being the same as So Solid Crew. and I actually kinda like So Solid Crew.) uh. this isn't really about oral sex, is it? (scroll down) ... "met this chick named walnut whip / nearly made me sick to the point of throwing up / ... / i wonder if i can peel your wrapper .. " ew?

ROBBIE WILLIAMS - "Feel"

four!!!

there was a period when i was reading the NME where every mention of the name Robbie Williams was followed by "the poppy piece of shite". which gets it exactly wrong: if he really sounded pop, he'd be likable but he sounds like the same old Beatles moves over and over a bloody gain. he's almost as bad as Oasis. (nb. his songs which aren't him being SERIOUS BALLADEER are always always better) oh god, it's a black and white video..

DJ SAMMY - "Heaven"

this sounds like live vocals, which would explain why it isn't working as well as the record, since the record is one of the occasional records which makes me understand why people do the whole Ibiza thing.. having another terrible dance routine attached doesn't make it any better.

2002-11-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

Ha ha bloody ha. I'm sure everyone aware of this joke is currently splitting their sides and if they aren't I hope they do and I hope they bleed to death from it.

Anyway -

"There's a FIRE ON THE MOON!!!"

Sometimes things just gotta be LOUD!!!

2002-11-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

OH SHIT OH SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT THE LIVE STUFF

(maybe this week i will actually write something about why i like dexy's midnight runners and why i think they are a band people should listen to)

2002-11-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

actually, the Ten Best Dexy's Midnight Runners Albums are these:

don't stand me down
searching for the young soul rebels
too rye ay
too rye ay
too rye ay
don't stand me down
too rye ay
too rye ay
searching for the young soul rebels
don't stand me down

2002-11-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

wait, no, that's all wrong. top ten dexy's midnight runners albums of all time, as of right now:

don't stand me down
too rye ay
too rye ay
searching for the young soul rebels
don't stand me down
searching for the young soul rebels
too rye ay
too rye ay
don't stand me down
searching for the young soul rebels

2002-11-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

sigh. top ten dexy's midnight runners albums:

too rye ay
don't stand me down
searching for the young soul rebels
don't stand me down
too rye ay
too rye ay
searching for the young soul rebels
too rye ay
don't stand me down
searching for the young soul rebels

2002-11-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

My brother asked me for a 'Top Ten Albums of All Time' list the other night. Devising said list has confused me a little because I'm not sure what direction things like lists are putting my listening in. I'm not sure whether, like my interest in films, I am aiming at a specific canon and enjoying the fruits of the accomplished art, or whether I should renounce this train of thought and look to specialise and dig deeper into little-known bands and indie snobbery.

The list I made certainly suggests the former, but this is only because I have an uncontrollable instinct to apply technical, 'objective' criteria, in order to make sure that my list includes albums which CAN be generally justified by any music listener as great without me having to explain why I like them. Having an affinity with records never gets them into the ten alone, it can only make one record out-rank another (nb. these are all subconscious mental stages I go through, not physically practise them) and so I don't include records like 'The Stone Roses'. Most of the albums I include I rarely listen to any more, but recognise that these are the best albums I have heard, hence the abundance of obvious choices.

Note that newly-introduced works (eg 69 Love Songs {edit: that tom w. so KINDLY burned me a copy of last week and i am so GRATEFUL for ahem hem} ) are ignored, due to me not having enough time to develop an all-encompassing opinion on them. Also I currently have big respect for twee sixties pop (I've been listening to the Zombies' 'Time Of The Season' a whole lot).

1/ Scott Walker - Scott 4
2/ The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
3/ Tricky - Maxinquaye
4/ Talking Heads - Remain In Light
5/ My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
6/ The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
7/ Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
8/ PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me
9/ Wire - Pink Flag
10/ The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

joshblog provoked this awful post through his ability to combine both indie snob bands and a universally accepted/respected canon. It also blasts my list into total inadequacy, whilst also explaining half of my logic behind my top ten better than I could.

2002-10-28T17:08:00.000-08:00

metroid fusion

let's talk about videogames:

They are, foremost, a guy thing. This is probably the one demographic assumption i feel safe making about them. This means that we get developers making a certain set of assumptions: this set of assumptions differs somewhat on different sides of the Pacific, but can be said to result in Lara Croft on one side and Tifa Lockhart on the other. This is oversimplification but will do.

Nintendo - as developers, not publishers - don't have a very good track record when it comes to female characters. Pauline, whose role was to stand at the top of the levels in Donkey Kong and go HELP HELP; Princess Mushroom (or possibly Toadstool), who was much the same only blonde; Princess Zelda (see: Princess Mushroom).

And Samus Aran, from the Metroid games, who was more or less an unkillable asexual cyborg, and who, unlike the others, is the character controlled by the player.

(and who nintendo has initiated a woeful tradition of showing in less clothing, the better the player gets at the game. this is not good. when someone completes Mario Sunshine in under two hours they do not get a picture of Mario in a thong.)

so, Metroid Fusion, out for GBA sometime soon: I won't summarise the plot, but at the end of the game it transpires that without the remote guidance of another character, Adam, Samus would have ended up killing herself and being responsible for the likely death of humanity.

Which means that the one female Nintendo character who isn't a princess in need of rescue (you could bring up mario 2 US to argue but please don't) is in fact useless without the control of a remote (male) presence, and this is horribly reductive, but i'm tired, dammit: if the player of the game is assumed by the game to be male, the presence of the character 'Adam' signifies that the viewpoint of the player is not Samus, but the man in control. And if the player does well enough, the reward is, sadly: cheesecake!

{and now, a review: the game plays exactly like super metroid, although littler, and with slightly better graphics, and is the reason i have got nothing done in the last four days. draw your own conclusions.}

2002-10-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

ha ha

posts on electricrevival represent solely the views of their authors and should not be taken to represent those of the site as a whole.

2002-10-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Notes on Liberty X -

I love both the songs I've heard so far, the two singles 'Just A Little' and 'Got To Have Your Love'. Yes, the second one as well. Having not watched the original Popstars series they were built from, all I get is the perspective of them as you see them on TOTP and such, but knowing that they are derived from the TV series is what confirms them as anti-popstars.

"How do you have an anti-popstar?" I hear you cry. Well, Liberty X (or 'the X' as i shall refer to them from now on) aren't exactly 'star material' are they? They look like common people, act like common people and they certainly DANCE like common people (badly, that is). This is the key to their greatness because they work the overtly-sheened-production vehicle so that they come at the listener from a 'cheap and sleazy' angle.

The X (!) are the sound of a lairy, drink-fuelled post-club ejaculation in the back of a common male person's Corsa. If the slow songs on the album are the sigh of the unsatisfied female concerned in the liaison clambering out the door then I'm sold.

2002-10-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Destiny's Child's peak was of course "Say My Name", the anthemic tale of male uselessness that got women everywhere 'realising' how their man was such a shithead. But the reason I love this single (and I've only heard DC's singles so that's what I'm judging 'peak' on) is that it successfully combines the two faces of/in Beyonce's narratives.

The singles I remember from first album 'The Writing's On The Wall' are mostly accounts of the belligerent cementing of a strong female persona in a relationship. Men are constantly inadequate, and this is what makes them (the singles) brilliant. 'Bills Bills Bills' is a definition of the 'scrub' (shiver), a man so pathetic that he has to rely on his GYALFREN for money and transport etc, something that clearly angers Beyonce, so she threatens that if nothing changes "You an' me are through!". But while Beyonce clearly has little respect for them, she shows an underlying need for her man to take care of her financially, that she shouldn't be relied upon for cash since this is evidently the male role. And in 'Jumpin' Jumpin'' she purports - "Ladies leave your men at home/the club is full of bawlers and their pockets full grown" - indicating that a man's priniciple attraction is his wallet. This unveils Beyonce's complex that her man must pay her way in the relationship, however much she may claim that she depends on herself in 'Independent Woman'.

'Survivor''s singles show how this independent woman has fared now that she has made her mark. Whether they are about coping with being a woman in a man's world ("I'm gonna work harder" - suggesting she feels she needs to impress within the community of grey-haired, wrinkly white men running major record labels) or the rallying of women to feel better about themselves (a proposition far too caring and sensitive to be included in 'Writings...' singles, and also the basic message of 'Bootylicious'), or a sympathetic ice-cream tub on that sorrowful night in when your man leaves you ('Emotions' - the barren egg that could never have floated down 'Writing's...''s fallopian tube), the songs are more contemplastive, and lack the vitriol of 'Bills Bills Bills' or 'Bug A Boo', because Beyonce's world is no longer populated by scrubs but by the scrubbed-up, clean shaven hacks of the music industry.

'Say My Name' links the two albums' intentions since it simultaneously says "arent' guys shitheads?" (cf. the contempt for the male's actions during the songs verses) and "I need him to need me"( the chorus). The latter reveals Beyonce's inner control freak. She has to be totally controlling over her man's actions, she NEEDS him to say he loves her, however inadequate he is or however much he drains her credit cards and gas tanks. If he's seeing someone else, this means he can't love her, and her power over him is surrendered. This scares 'Say My Name''s female protaganist because she can't exploit HIS wallet if and when she needs to anymore, or even moan about how bad a boyfriend he is (which she obviously loves doing) if he leaves her.

'Say My Name' is a horrible, bitter, resentful and wonderful record. If it were made by a man, it would be mysogynistic, but its description of the femme fatale finally being flummoxed strikes the collective chord within its audience. It becomes a rabble-rousing anthem for emotionally weak teenage girls, who subconsciously wish to be the bitchy manipulative mistress who was often presented beneath the veil of 'the strong female' in the previous singles.

And, of course, they also get to accuse men of being cheating bastard shitheads.

2002-10-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

and now i want a hairband with cat ears on it.

2002-10-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking I should give up on trying to learn piano. at seventeen I have all the ability of your average gifted six year old, or your average mediocre ten year old; it's worse when you consider I was once that mediocre ten year old.

I keep persevering - these are very loose definitions of "keep" and "persevere" - because I like the idea of picking up a new set of ears. The way I listen to pop music is one set of ears; the ears I have to use to listen to radio three or to try and pick out all these beginners piano pieces I can't even play, are another. And right now it feels, more often than not, like my attempts at a new set of ears are like this hairband with cat ears on it:

and every time I think about playing piano music I have to convincingly impersonate a cat.

but, although I have no aspirations of ever being a concert pianist - I do not wish to inflict upon anyone a new voice, because my old one is painful enough - I continue (this being a better word than "persevere") with piano, because sometimes I can almost hear with these new ears (and I am hating this metaphor already) and things don't sound better but different, and sometimes I can briefly hear all the old things I listen to with new ears (this does not yet work with morrissey, cf. below), and because, you know, fuck it: hitting keys is fun, and sometimes it is fun to wear the daft cat ears and look like an idiot.

2002-10-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

morrissey charging £30 for brixton academy tickets has suddenly provided me with the motivation to not bother! hurrah!

2002-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

"why is acoustic guitar a signifier for "songwriter"?"

Thom this is the point I was making.

2002-10-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

[full disclosure: i am seventeen]

notes towards an essay on the Smiths:

panic

This is the first single they released after The Queen is Dead; the secret meaning of that record is that it doesn't want to be anti-royalist – Morrissey longs for a world where we could look up to the Royals, where you could say take me back to dear old Blighty and mean it – but in the real world the options are nine-year-old toughs peddling drugs or the church or going down the pub and the Royals are just tabloid-fodder. "her very lowness with her head in a sling " – sometimes you have to kill the things you love.

And this is where you go when you don't want to live in the real world: the Radio. The normal line with this song is that it's about Morrissey hating black music, but as a Morrissey-worshipping fifteen year old (yesyesshutupshutUP) it seemed to apply perfectly well to the manufactured pop I hated (or claimed to). But these songs were of course saying a whole lot to a whole lot of people who bought them; sometimes "hang the blessed DJ / because the music that they constantly play / it says nothing to me about my life" just means that "this music doesn't give me quite the particular fantasy image of my life I would like", and so putting this song on the radio is a rational response to that, because it is a fantasy.

This is perhaps the ultimate Smiths song – Morrissey's All-English Apocalypse, the death of everything he mourned in 'The Queen Is Dead', isn't explained here – "panic on the streets of carlisle / dublin, dundee, humberside" – and in Morrisseyland a song you don't like coming on the radio effectively is the apocalypse. And so "hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ.." is the response Morrissey would like, his listeners up in arms. And if you listen to the record whatever your private apocalypse is – personal or political or even if you just have nothing else to worry about but what is played on the radio - is part of this, because there is nothing here to tell you otherwise. Morrisseyland is open to all comers.

ask

And here the personal becomes the political – "if it's not Love, then it's the Bomb / the Bomb, the Bomb, the Bomb / that will bring us together.." the realisation that however byzantine the world of personal obsessions and heroic reference becomes (and it was, and god knows how Shelagh Delaney feels), the real world will always begin to infringe: Steven Wells (I think) said he hated the Smiths because they weren't political (although he made 'Panic' single of the week because he thought it was), but the thing is that Morrissey avoided the political because he could, because outsiders had no place in it..

So there's this guy, right, and he's in love with this girl (or another guy; pop music is blurry around these lines), and he wants to ask her out, but he can't. He's too shy. So he persuades himself that she'll see they're made for each other. She will ask him out. Then she doesn't. So he starts to persuade himself that it's her that's being coy and she's being shy, and tries to think he can fix her of that: "Shyness is nice," he starts, but before long all he can do is be insulting and incomprensible: "Nature is a Language / can't you Read?" and then it's over before it began.

I'm not sure if fifteen-year-old-me "got" this record, but I can't say I liked it. Possibly I recognised myself in it too much.

shoplifters of the world unite

Section 28 might well mark the point where it became impossible for the Smiths to stay out of politics -

my only weakness is a listed crime
but last night the plans for a future war
were all i saw on channel four

- the point being that the real England's uncaringness in the face of a law basically designed to keep homosexuality from becoming perceived as normal is both a refutation of half of what makes up Morriseyland, and a horrible affirmation of the other half - those obsessions I haven't touched on of his: 'Skinhead', thuggishness, hypermasculinity. and the Falklands War is the point where 1,000 people are killed over an island with a population of 2,400..

Here the only hope is revolution: the armies mobilising to burn down discos and lynch DJs here face their last recourse, uniting to do nothing less than take over the world, but whatever is needed to make this song make sense isn't there. The thing linking shoplifting to homosexuality is apparently a quote from a film but on all of google I can't find what film; in the record where Morrissey reaching the point of asking people to DO IT his own personal reference universe reaches the point where most of them can barely understand.

Shoplifters is a magnificent admission of defeat, the point at which Morrissey admits that his little universe does not, can not work..

i tried living in the real world
instead of a shell
..i was bored before I even began

Morrisseyland is a nice place to visit but like all fantasies is not healthy to maintain. This is why so many listeners have (or need to) grow out of the band.

And so we go from the last verse of this song, being arrested for ahem "shoplifting" to Strangeways, Here We Come: the walls of Morrisseyland are crumbling, and this is what the record is about. "I Won't Share You" is an obvious farewell, but 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' is another, and a new beginning: the start of the process of self-mythology which replaced the inclusivity of the Smiths: from Viva Hate onwards the cover stars were gone. Morrissey was on the front of his records and Morrissey was his records and he wasn't writing for you anymore.

And really I Won't Share You is the ending: "this is my time". not Paint A Vulgar Picture:

they can never taint you in my eyes
they can never touch you now

it's a pretty lie and a miserable one, because Morrissey isn't the dead star he pretends to mourn, he's still around and last year the ninth compilation of Smiths material came out, meaning more than two for each actual album ; he's touring this year and if he comes to England I'll go see him ; he's looking for another record contract and if a record comes out I'll buy it. And as much as I would like to draw a neat line under this period of what I listened to, and claim I have grown out of the band, I can't, and I guess I can live with that.

2002-10-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

scary thought: the gormless looking one in the new S Club 7 video is wearing the same outfit I am.

danny: "contestants who presented themselves as songwriters were shot in fields with acoustic guitars. While viewers should really expect this, it seemed like a case of "Oh, this one's a songwriter" "Chuck a guitar on his shoulder, then". They CAN play it, HONEST!!"

I don't really care about whether they can play guitar or not but why is acoustic guitar a signifier for "songwriter"? grr. Craig David and Mike Skinner are songwriters (avoid scarey quotes avoid scarey quotes) and no one chooses to pose them with a guitar. George Michael had an acoustic guitar explode in his video about a decade ago to say, you know, fuck this noise. is Academy thing a BBC show? it seems to be horribly out of date imagery. the only ACTUAL REAL POP STAR i've seen pose with an acoustic guitar to indicate authenticity is cough cough Liam Gallagher.

2002-10-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

fame academy

At first I was mortified at this - the introductory performance (can't remember what song) was nothing better than a glorified school talent contest. The backing music consisted of cheap-sounding karaoke Casio beats, and the dance routines were dishearteningly poor. If it were a school talent contest, these would be the kids who stood onstage looking bored and waiting for their line cues.

Another gripe was that when the compulsory 'contestants at home' video montages were shown, those contestants who presented themselves as songwriters were shot in fields with acoustic guitars. While viewers should really expect this, it seemed like a case of "Oh, this one's a songwriter" "Chuck a guitar on his shoulder, then". They CAN play it, HONEST!!

Also, a good number of them were outside the age bracket the ITV reality pop shows set, so this obviously triggers theories that would contain the words "Popstars cast-offs".

Its the concept of the programme that interests me, though. The prize seems dubious (a year in the life of a popstar? Does this not crush the dream and condemn the winner to Hear'Say country immediately?) but the whole idea is that the fame academy goes better and beyond 'Popstars'. In trying to convey this, the judges have chosen people whom everyone will be convinced have the kind of talent that could get them into the industry by itself (hence the songwriter angle - a more 'honest' or, more aptly, 'genuine' popstar than the ITV variety) and the academy is just a shortcut. This is perhaps why they offer the year in the life prize, so that it seems that the academy has done more for them than simply training.

But will this training actually BENEFIT the contestants, particularly those who don't win? Of course, they've all entered for the recording contract but I wonder whether they buy into the fact that the songwriting teachers will try to alter all their songwriting styles so they can adapt to a mass market. The teacher categorically stated that she will teach 'How To Write A Hit Record' to the pupils, so any hopes they may have of 'pouring their heart out on tape' like many fledgling songwriters have can be effectively erased.

My point is that the Fame Academy will inevitably draw some of its students away from their field of expertise in music. Two that spring to mind are Katie, a classical opera singer, who will be trained to sing pop, and Marli, a piano teacher with a quite beautiful female jazz voice, which, if in the right band with the right songs, I think could make great music according to their own personal style and taste. Ultimately, I think the Fame Academy will deny these two poor souls their opportunity (or perhaps their right?) to do this.

2002-09-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

FA BARCLAYCARD PREMIERSHIP - an era where we are aware that everything is corporate, yes, but can accept it, can look at things as they are.

FA CARLING PREMIERSHIP - an era where the money side of things has to be disguised with ideas of "authenticity", where "alcohol" is assumed to have some intrinsic importance to football.

nb. i do not actually know what i am talking about.

2002-09-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

FA CARLING PREMIERSHIP = of an era where football was more indicative of grass roots (more loutish?)

FA BARCLAYCARD PREMIERSHIP = of an era where financing/footballer's wages are the first thing anyone thinks about the sport.

Coincidence? I dunno, just a thought

2002-09-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

We should probably take this to mail or something. I'm sure it's fascinating for all of the no people whatsoever who read this.

and now, AC/DC:

BACK in BLACK!
uh- hit the SAAAACK!
been too long ah'm GLAD TO BE BAACK!
I got NINE LIVES
CATS EYES

2002-09-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

Depth = being able to understand why you like something and discuss it in a more opinionated way than "Oh, I like that song".

Aging = not ref. to all worthwhile musicians. I was talking about those musicians whose mentality for making their music at point X in time (ie current Ashcroft) is all about expressing that they are getting older and understanding life more. This mentality inevitably forces them to forget about ploughing any musical field they have yet to plunder, and fortify their musical palate, instead relaying these feelings of 'comfort' and 'wisdom' in the same, time-honoured fashion as they have done before.

Obviously there are examples of people who have managed to do this credibly, (Elvis Costello, Tom Waits etc), but the difference is they are able to convey PERSONALITY in doing it, whereas Ashcroft is relying on things like the salsa trumpet in SFTL (probably not his idea, either) to add some kind of extravagance to songs which have little (the video's toilet humour also does this). My point really is that the people would see Ashcroft in a completely different, belittled light if they would only bother to listen to less obvious examples (Conor Oberst springs to mind). Cue "Indie snob" criticism blah blah blah.

2002-09-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

What does "depth" have to do with it? how does one listen with depth without submerging oneself in some handy nearby pool of liquid?

What does "aging" have to do with it? are all worthwhile musicians eternally young?

"bland, irrelevant, ... , sentimental, ..., no buzz, no spark, no genius"; there is no specific reference to his music here. you could throw these charges at any pop song whatsover. (Noel Coward was fond of throwing these charges at all of them, simultaneously.) ie. now demonstrate precisely how Ashcroft is bland, irrelevant with recourse to the salsa trumpet on the outro of Song To The Lovers.

2002-09-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

OR - SHAMBOLIC AGING ROCKSTARS = GRATE
'REFLECTIVE' AGING ROCKSTARS = DUD

2002-09-21T15:05:00.000-07:00

"The Ashcroft fan should be capable of judging musicians on the level of depth they make their music with" - this is why he can't see Ashcroft is shite. Ashcroft is shite because he makes the same kind of bland, irrelevant music that countless others have made (e.g late Stones), in a sentimental way, which takes all the interesting facets of his personality out of the music. John Squire is also guilty of this. The Stones, however, kept their personal lives as flamboyant as ever, so however turgid the music was, it was always presented in an amusing way, therefore keeping the buzz about them. Ashcroft has no buzz, no spark, no genius.

2002-09-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

you use too many words, Danny.

"someone told me the other day Richard Ashcroft is a genius. bastards. bastards. BASTARDS."

2002-09-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

I am finding it damn near impossible to get casual music fans to start listening with depth. I was part of a conversation/argument the other day which was started by someone telling me "Richard Ashcroft is a genius" or something to that extent. While that statement is, in my eyes, self-evidently wrong, this is a person likes to think he has a superior music taste to others, almost rockist, so of course he argued to the hilt and gained support from the others around at the time. The Ashcroft fan should be capable of judging musicians on the level of depth they make their music with, and realise that everything on record is deliberate etc, for him to make a statement like "Ashcroft is a genius", but I was completely unable to convey why Ashcroft is the shored-up, shacked-up bore that he is in a way that might get this person to realise that depth of listening proves it. This explains my POV on the matter pretty much.

2002-09-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

the new Oxide + Neutrino single is called "dem girlz". but in the record the guy actually sings "these girls". and he's white and everything. bastards. bastards. BASTARDS.

2002-09-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

Last year I thought "Hallelujah" was a perfect song. This year i think "Like a Prayer" is a perfect song, or at least a perfect record...

A sign i've been listening to stephin merritt too much: I was going to put a paragraph about how the line "let the choir sing" and the religious metaphor context subverts and satirizes the cliché of using a hire-choir to add 'soulfulness'. Which got me thinking how I'd like Spiritualized to cover this.

There are enough bad covers of Madonna songs.

Kelly Osbourne: Quite possibly unlistenable without the video (it has Incubus on it, after all) but the video is interesting: in the original version of Papa Don't Preach Madonna comes off as being quite capable of dealing with the situation, but the cover version's video, with accompanying Material Girl-riffing video manages to turn "help me out, dad" into "awww, dad, quit it"; it's something in the way she looks at the camera. Maybe.

Madhouse! is there any truth in the idea that they're doing legitimate versions of tracks that were originally bootlegs? the new Holiday has a backing that sounds almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Music Sounds Better With You, so.. I don't know. They have an album, which is a little too far to go for a group whose raison d'etré was a bad pun. [insert here note on how in their Like A Prayer moving the line about the choir a verse before the choir comes in further subverts that thing. no actually don't.]

2002-09-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

2002-09-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna talk The Teardrop Explodes, unfashionable in the sense that no one takes LSD anymore and even if they did they would call this stuff dated. Mind you, The Coral have recently cited being influenced by them but whether that is a good thing I'll leave for you to decide. Their pair of albums, 'Kilimanjaro' and 'Wilder' serve as an excellent account of leader Julian Cope's character, and how it can change so drastically in such a short period of time.

Yeah, so the actual music, then. The opener of 'Kilimanjaro', 'Ha Ha I'm Drowning' has this wonderful part where the band return from the wig-out middle eight into a repetition of the verse, and it just strolls back into the rhythm nonchalantly, and you just get this image of Julian Cope grinning at you as you hear it, more smug and loathesome than Paul Weller has ever been, because you were at the mercy of this snowballing sound, exactly how he wanted you to be.

Anyone reading should know for the record - I love arrogance ;-)

The two obvious singles are 'Sleeping Gas' and 'Treason'. They fulfill their purposes of course. The lyric "I wander around" in 'Sleeping Gas' is onomatopoeic, since it is repeated several times over circular guitar/keyboard patterns (This IS funny, I tell you. Listen to it) while 'Treason' is one of the most gloriously half-camp songs i have ever heard, Cope's delivery is just simply DIVINE, darling. There's this skippy rhythm to it and it's just so gloriously girly and macho at the same time ( the second line being "I could swing for you", the lyrics in general being deliberately threatening/provocative). The song also benefits from a French version included in the additional tracks on my reissue.

'Second Head' has the best title on the album and also a thrillingly hypnotic organ. It just slams down during the bridge and holds the chord, eventually tremolo-ing off as if buckling under too much pressure.

'Poppies In the Field' is my favourite track on the album, mostly due to the ridiculously repetitive lyrics which appear as if they could only ever have been written simply to be meaningless and disposable - "Poppies are in the field/Don't ask me what that means". However, the subtext is of Cope as the frustrated geeky kid, a personality that suits him perfectly of course. Yes I am aware that 98.2359574% of indie is about these personalities, too. Who has expressed this as plainly and open to ridicule as ""Comics insult" you said/But comics are all I read", though? The delivery is chest-out, nose in the air snootyness, contrasting the downbeat, sulky connotation of a snivelling "B-b-b...but comics are all I read?!".

The whole album is basically a Julian Cope romp. Unsurprising if you know his future exploits ( a seven foot alter-ego giant named Sqwubbsy for instance), but its the flashy, brassy presentation of the band leader that carries most Teardrop material, and in particular these five tracks. All this coming from turn-of-the-eighties Liverpool, a place I can't imagine was as brimming with bravado as Cope is on Kilimanjaro. So its a reactionary revolt against his current situation/upbringing, whatever. Kilimanjaro is best listened to if you imagine it as the friend everyone has who argues every point all night in the most outrageous way possible in order to make an impression on the people s/he doesn't know in the room.

Second album 'Wilder', despite being released only a year after 'Kilimanjaro', is almost polemic in its portrayal of Cope's personality. The first two tracks are vintage Teardrop and could have wandered on to the first album, but by the time 'Seven Views of Jerusalem' fades in you realise this is going to be a more considered, socially aware record, setting the tone for Cope's subsequent solo work (and possibly the reason they/he never matched 'Kilimajaro'). The tinny drums of the intro sound like rain pattering on a window, symbolising a more bitter, morose Cope. He is moody, and he's gonna tell you about it - "Haven't you seen all the lines round my eyes?"

It appears Cope's downbeat attitude is someone else's fault, and is revealed on the track "The Culture Bunker" during which he groans - "Waiting for the Crucial Three/ Wondering what went wrong...I stormed out of the culture bunker". As a former member of The Crucial Three with Ian McCullough and Pete Wiley, this can be taken as a direct insult at his current band members. Cope is using this and the term 'culture bunker' as a metaphorical microcosm for Britain at the time (1981 under the Thatcher government), expressing that he is tired of things as they are, and feels as though he should just walk out but doesnt out of sense of duty, he "wonders" instead.

"Like Leila Khaled Said" is inevitably also an attempt to undermine authority, but is also one of my favourite of all TE tracks. Token hit single "Passionate Friend" aside, "Like..."'s bouncy rhythm is the only indication since the first two tracks of the shimmering, playful tones that composed 'Kilimanjaro' and is heartily welcomed. This contrasts well with the social comment of the lyrics, which are also a reminder of how slyly Cope can present himself and his ideas, as his abstraction of theme, metaphors and tongue-in-cheek indirectness shows. "You can smother me with kisses/You can smother me with dreams/You can always be the mistress of my schemes...Bringing friends around for dinner/I showed an empty crisp packet and said "Christo was here"", where "mistress" is a euphemism for Thatcher, Cope is reiterating that old adage of the dishonest politician. The reference to Christo makes this obvious, as a suggestion of the unveiling of a concealed character.

But the social theme of the record is most evident in the track 'Falling Down Around Me'. Occuring at the mid-point of the album, the track contains the lines "Workers laughed and fired their pistols/ Shout hip hip hooray/ But some of us and me especially/Want to walk away/ They are falling down around me". It's not that Cope wants to subvert the system, its that he wants there to be a system to subvert.

2002-09-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

more 24
{after watching hours sixteen to twentyfour dear god i need to get a life}

the subtext, if you like, is that the american dream is there and does work but that with the caveat that you'll end up an unhappy fuckup and push away those you have loved. it's this subtle. check the used up union flag decorations Palmer is walking on in the hall as he tells his wife they have to split up.

alternatively, it's about SPIES GUNFIGHTS TOM CLANCY GRR but I need pretentious reasons to justify spending most of a weekend watching TV and that doesn't cut it.

you could argue it as a classical tragedy. hell. dramatic unities and so forth. it's a single day, after all..

the real time thing works where it doesn't: because they need to make the times work there's all these little gaps everywhere, pauses, significant glances, deep breaths; it makes the show work, sometimes, showing off how good the actors were, and it makes the show work a lot worse, sometimes, showing off how badly the actors coped although frankly i think anyone would have trouble trying to make eg. the amnesia thing work. and they needed, sometimes, to take a step back from the gimmicks, since the bits of the first episode at the ending are mostly just there to... to.. mostly just there.

that's an interestingly evil ending, really: the last half hour pretty much implies that everything you thought you knew about the plot was in fact wrong. and the last two minutes is the biggest fuck-you-viewers I've ever seen on television, but there you go.

the gimmick (and yes it was a gimmick really now shush i'm tired) the gimmick was odd in that it justified an ongoing plot for 24 episodes, without having to resort to this-week's-plots. now i want a series that does this without some gimmick as its justification.

..goodnight.

2002-09-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

24

{after watching hours ten to fifteen or thereabouts}

so it's about hrm hrm "terrorists" and it originates from america in 2002 and weirdly enough, it's actually really rather good.

what seems strange is that the two main characters, Bauer and Palmer, they're both pretty much all-american-dream-people, the ones who have fought to make themselves what they are instead of submitting to corrupt authority and et cetera and yet, given what i hear of the ending, they both end up pretty much fucked. which is, you know, atypical at least.

there are two important black female characters, thus far, shown to be rather manipulative and corrupt and et cetera. of the other female characters the one shown least often as "weak" turns out to be a traitor. oy vey.

also: the Drazens, not caring about public reaction, are in no way "terrorists". wanting to kill someone != "terrorism". weirdly the piracy warning on the video, which I really hope comes from America, says "music and video piracy funds terrorism. stay away from the hot stuff: copyright is cool." that the voiceover doesn't sound much concerned here only adds to the convincingness.

Keifer Sutherland has a funny face. it's like watching a widescreen signal of the face of a fatter man on a regular size tv.

it's weird about violence. you see say someone get their arm broken and it actually feels like violence, not stylized, you just see a twist and a crack and hear and you flinch. but when cool sniper guy alexis drazen is introduced there's a bit where he blows up a building, then has to kill one survivor, and on the way over to do so he puts on sunglasses, takes out gun, strikes pose, cut back to long shot, fires, scene change, and it feels not a part of this, almost like a parody of what "cool" violence looks like onscreen.

but y'know, for a show which flashes up a clock every five minutes to remind you that this. is. realtime, it's clever. there's one moment - into the second half, so scripted after the response to the first episodes are pretty much known - Palmer and Bauer are working together, and Palmer stops in what he's doing for a moment and says some stuff ending "... you know, what's really amazing is that this all has nothing to do with the fact that I'm black." and the two of them just halt for a few seconds, just sit there staring into space, and never quite turn towards the camera and grin like you're expecting them to.

well, I laughed.

there's all these spaces in the thing, people pausing in their dialogue, like real conversation, or like stage play conversation, I can't tell which. it seems to operate at a different level of realism from most television, almost.

were all these touching family moments done by scriptwriters who hadn't been informed of the ending?

there are other things, but I still have nine episodes to watch and would like to keep something to add.

2002-08-10T03:57:00.000-07:00

..and if that isn't a scary prospect I don't know what is.

2002-08-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

one step behind the drum style

dance to Le Tigre on your own and a whole world of indie kids dances spazzily with you.

2002-08-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

current reading is Thomas Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon', Daniel Handler's 'The Basic Eight', John Crowley's 'Little, Big'. the Handler book has my favorite postmodernist device EVAH!: it includes its own study questions. rock rock rock rock rock. Thomas Pynchon, if I ever meet, I will punch. and then buy a drink. the John Crowley book I like but it has fairies in it and makes me feel entirely too much like the sort of person who plays tabletop RPGs.

(apologies to those of my friends who play tabletop RPGs).

2002-08-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

a one line review of ryan adams' gold ( I bet no one has done this joke before { sorry } )

there really is just the one letter seperating him from bryan, isn't there?

2002-07-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

{ and to think I never thought they had a sense of humour }

2002-07-31T21:04:00.000-07:00

i shouldn't be up at this time

right now I'm listening to wake up boo! by the boo radleys and right now sice is singing about the death of a great summer, a last beautiful morning, i know i've been up all night, i can do anything anything ANYTHING, and right now it's dawning a miserable morning outside, it's the start of another summer, i've been up all night and i don't feel capable. of anything. sometimes a song you love can do nothing for you.