October 2008
Try some buy some... →
A new tumblr I’ve started.
Shattered Dreams
I am horrified to learn that the single version of “Atomic” misses out a) the Three Blind Mice intro and b) the bass solo bit where a robot comes up on stage and body-pops with binliner-clad Debs. IS NOTHING SACRED?
Emphasis mine
“Once upon a time, I adored these yearly anthologies, studying them eagerly to determine what I needed to improve in my own writings, wanting to reach that level where my work would be deemed worthy of inclusion in this almighty compilation. Now, years later, I realize that there’s no meritocracy to making it into a “Best Music Writing” edition. It’s all about who the...
New Order Notes
Because I’ve been reading a book on football tactics (Inverting the Pyramid) at the same time as trying to get my head round the New Order reissues, I’m drawn to thinking about NO in footballing terms - tempted to phrase what they do as “Total Pop” - the way all the components of a New Order song can switch up to create the hook: you never know going in whether the...
Bob again
Also it’s a measure of how successful Greil Marcus has been in re-routing critical opinion on Dylan that on about 5 tracks here my first reaction has been “OMG Greil Marcus will love this one”.
(Though I think - not that I’m sure GM wanted to do this - it’s bogus making too much of a distinction between “The Old, Weird America” and whatever the non-old...
Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs
This won’t make it into my P4K review, but the things I keep thinking of when listening to this record are comics - Alan Moore’s Brought To Light and Alex Ross’ Uncle Sam. Different aspects of the record remind me of each, but what the two comics share is that they’re about a character who’s an incarnation of America, or of an aspect of America in the Moore case. With...
Fate worse than death →
(via offnotesnotes)
Arf Arf. Also please tell me Stereolab actually were singing “There’s only millions who lose their jobs their homes and sometimes accents”.
Notes on a bubble
The deregulation of rock writing in the early 00s allowed cheap critical credit to flood the sub-prime, or ”indie”, market, allowing bands to obtain careers despite not remotely having the talent to sustain them past the initial repayments. Rockonomists such as Harvell who issued warnings to this effect were labelled Jeremiahs by Blog St.
