Posts from October 2002
30
Oct 02
What’s A Girl Like Me Doing At A Rink Like This?
What’s A Girl Like Me Doing At A Rink Like This? asks new FT writer Stripey in a look at the everyday life of the roller-rink. Meanwhile Ned suffers a crisis of faith in pop, and Playgroup are an inspiration to me.
29
Oct 02
Hahaha! Fabrizio turns out to be
Hahaha! Fabrizio turns out to be a member of the Strokes! I don’t know why that amuses me so much, probably because I’m now in the mood for pasta. He’s second coolest. DUDE! NME readers minus minus!
Here is my TOP TEN COOL PEOPLE list (Tom is not the only person who can do Top Tens).
1. Any demon from Buffy who tries to kill TinyShinyMcWhiny ie DAWN (ok the Breeders covering the Buffy theme)
2. Andrew WK!
3. Whoever did the theme tune to Cagney and Lacey
4. Mike Skinner (ok ok NME readers can have some sense – Streets Scene = HEARTBREAK marry me O Mike)
5. British Sea Power (ooh yes I must remember they are playing… argh!! TONIGHT! Sorry British Sea Power but I am too broke, sigh, how about you send me a free cd instead?)
6. SCOOTER (hyper! hyper!)
7. Kate Bush in the Hammer Horror video
8. Actually KATE BUSH KATE BUSH KATE BUSH
9. Whoever did the theme to SKI SUNDAY
10. Andrew WK again.
You think that was stupid? It’s not as bad as YET ANOTHER NEW ORDER BOX SET!!! But with remixes! And live tracks! Nyaaarrrg.
HOLY SHIT IT’S POP-EYE 27/10/02
With Spizzazz on half-term break here’s Pop-Eye, back with its slippered-feet up in the Dad Chair and a mug of hot cocoa by its side as we grumble over the top forty. Is it a boy or a girl? Well at No.1 it’s both of course – Nelly ‘n’ Kelly whose “Dilemma” provided your beer-monster correspondents with many a singalong laugh. Most imitate-able hook = biggest hit, says chart logic. I’ve not listened hard enough to work out what the dilemma is exactly but the influx of hearts-on-hoodies thug-love rap is definitely a Good Thing: the tenderness of pre-cyborg R&B with added verbal range.
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MIS-TEEQ’S – MIS-TAKE
Consider, if you will, the plight of being Britain’s premiere Destiny’s Child cover band and their trial in love. On “All I Want”, they tell quite clearly that “all I want, is to be with you“. Which is fine and dandy but it appears that their romeo’s (or actual Romeo) is running at a speed of knots to get away from the garage bandwagon jumpin’ jumpin’ threesome. Which is why they then had to change their tune (twice) – if not precisely the meaning – with B With Me where they say “What I want is for you – to be with me.” Sorry girls – he obviously doesn’t want to be with you and frankly you would be better off stopping obsessing and writing songs which say something more. Like Independant Woman Part 3?
Wish I’d Thought Of This
Wish I’d Thought Of This: The UK’s Top 10 albums reviewed by sleeve art!
Foster Sylvers – “Misdemeanor”
So musically this comes over like a ’99 era Irv Gotti/Ja Rule track (you know, when they were good): stop-start rhythm, lotsa chimes, pizzicato xylophone(?). Only the dippy-dippy-do funk bass maroons it in the 70s. It’s fucking great. I must have listened to it 20 times on the bus ride home Friday night. (That last bit of sunlight-at-night before the creeping horror that is Daylight Savings.)
My pal Arthur (who tipped me off to the song in the first place) had this to say: “The song is Foster Sylvers’ ‘Misdemeanor.’ He was the youngest (I think) of family group, the Sylvers, who also did ‘Boogie Fever.’ They were supposed to be a southern Jackson Five; they were from Memphis. And they tried to make him their Michael. I think it’s better than any Michael solo single from the pre-Off the Wall era.”
It’s probably too short to make it onto pop radio today (just a hair over 2:30), and we don’t give hits to fey pre-pubescent pop stars these days anyway. But the vocal style is so great – laconic, ebullient – and the groove so invisibly springheeled, I’d pay cash money to hear this covered by, say, Amerie today. (And in this day and age of mp3, that’s the highest compliment I can give.)
28
Oct 02
JONI – “Learned Ways”
JONI – “Learned Ways” (via Gabba.Net)
A just-the-facts description: this is U2’s “New Year’s Day” using nothing but early-80s synths and vox treatments, and set to a dry but regular beat. The FX are laid on so thickly that only the melody line identifies the song – the vocals and sounds rub and blur and soak into one another. So much so that you feel surrounded by a bathful of sound-sponges, and warmed and lulled and slightly saddened – it’s a world away from U2’s expansive urgencies and I love it. But of course a trace of Bono remains – a swab of the man’s absurd confidence and his band’s clanging brashness. Applied in these minute doses it vaccinates “Yearned Ways” against the potential foolishness of its own nostalgic sonics, and the listener can approach without risk.
power, music, electric revival
power, music, electric revival – music weblog walking a by-now happily familiar beat i.e. Liberty X one post, Smiths the next, but not updated since October 9th which is a shame.