Blue Lines Revisited

National Banger Week

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:57:19 +0000

It’s tracks of 2009 consideration time - tell me something you think I might have missed out on. My taste in modern popular music is generally fairly straightforward viz.

beats
amazing noises
unfettered capitalism
monster hooks

but I am happy for only some of these to be represented. Any ideas?

Big Bird, Meet Dick And Jane

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:38:11 +0000

Big Bird, Meet Dick And Jane:

Criticism of Sesame Street from The Atlantic, 1971 (via brokenbottleboy). This piece now feels wrong, of course, because Sesame Street is so beloved and so manifestly successful - and also because the piece is rather dry and dour and suspicious of the show’s easy charm.

But I still liked this paragraph:

we could make clear to children that writing is an extension of powers they already have, and that they got for themselves: namely, the powers of speech. We should constantly remind them that they figured out for themselves how to understand and talk like all the bigger people around them, and that learning to write and to read writing is easy. Writing is a kind of magic or deep-frozen speech, which the writer can use, day after day, to say to everyone who looks at it whatever he wants to say. It is an extension of the voice of the speaker, and since children sense their littleness and want to be larger and more potent, the idea that through writing they can make their voices reach much further could be very exciting to them.

"Psycho-acoustic recording techniques"

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:23:32 +0000

"Psycho-acoustic recording techniques":

“Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on the merits because Defendants’ website markets and sells an entirely different sound recording than that copyrighted by Plaintiffs.”

BlueBeat says it “independently developed [its] own original sounds” that consist of “entirely different sound recording[s]”through a technical process it calls “psycho-acoustic simulation.” BlueBeat even says it obtained copyright registrations on such “new” recordings (which, as the plaintiffs point out, are exactly the same as the original recordings).

Amazing! I wonder if they’re Borges fans.

existentializzy: Dear Moro Islamic Liberation Front: You really...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:51:32 +0000

existentializzy:

Dear Moro Islamic Liberation Front: You really really really need to do something about your name.

(thanks to @runefrancisco for the picture)

JAY-Z ft ALICIA KEYS - "Empire State Of Mind" (Best New Track)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:47:47 +0000

JAY-Z ft ALICIA KEYS - "Empire State Of Mind" (Best New Track):

“What makes “Empire State of Mind” so undeniable is its innate magnetism— we can’t help but drool over a big hook and even bigger ego, regardless of metropolitan affiliation. Maybe there’s something about the whole concept of the “New York City anthem” that’s always going to resonate with and, to borrow a word, inspire us. It’s not that there’s even anything terribly out-of-the-ordinary going on here: Keys’ hook swings for the upper decks and subsequently the gut, working that “bright lights, big city” angle that appeals to the bridge-and-tunnel set as effectively as it does to people who’ve never actually visited NYC.”

This interested me, because I had really enjoyed this track while back home in London, and then felt enormously self-conscious whenever it came on my MP3 player when I was in the US last week (tho Chicago, not NYC). Even though obviously nobody knew - or cared! - it was playing, I felt over-manipulated by it, like I was walking around carrying a snowglobe or a tourist T-Shirt.

And then as soon as I was back in Heathrow I really liked it again, so it was just me being silly after all.

The song it reminds me of, actually, is Prefab Sprout’s “Hey Manhattan!” which obvious IS explicitly from a non-native perspective.

"If you imitate a person you admire, the best you can possibly hope for is to become a bad imitation..."

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:12:13 +0000

“If you imitate a person you admire, the best you can possibly hope for is to become a bad imitation of the person you admire. What you need to do instead is to locate the same level of inventiveness as the person you admire, and apply it to a new domain.”

- Nice quote from Donald Judd via the Jonathan Harris lecture that’s floating around.

Jonathan Harris . World Building in a Crazy World . Imitation

(via heyitsnoah)

And what’s the best way of “locating the inventiveness”? - almost certainly through the trial and error of imitation. There’s a reason guitarists, say, mostly learn by playing other people’s songs or playing along to records.

(I love Harris’ web work, as a creator he’s magnificent, but as a thinker this whole lecture was disappointingly weak: that whole tangle of contradiction around simplicity, homogenity, ‘special effects’ etc. Of course he put the obligatory “boo sucks to cynicism” bit at the end too.)

Billy MacKenzie, piano and strings, “Breakfast” live...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:38:58 +0000

Billy MacKenzie, piano and strings, “Breakfast” live in 1984. I don’t usually post live YouTube clips - they require too many feats of imagination - but this is very fine.

"Pop, or at least the sort of pop that gets written about, exists in a state of permanent yearning to..."

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:19:06 +0000

“Pop, or at least the sort of pop that gets written about, exists in a state of permanent yearning to be more than it is. It speaks to the infatuated so well because it is itself infatuated – with the street or with the academy, it makes no difference. Preposterous to think now that the Beatles ever seemed raw or real (to these ears they always come across as narcissistic craftsmen) but in 1966 Lennon’s quoting the Tibetan Book of the Dead and McCartney’s borrowing of kitchen-sink drama tropes probably did seem like a blow for Art and realism in pop.”

- Tom Ewing (via 67752)

Good grief, where did that get dredged up from? (rhetorical qn: it’s on my site somewhere) I still agree with the cultural cringe stuff but the specific example of Beatleness wasn’t well thought out.

One of the things that’s interesting about the Beatles is that they were really aspirational in this way - there’s often a role model or ideal behind what they’re doing - but very unusually their aspirationalism was quite far-sighted and they were very good at meeting their models halfway (both of which are probably as near as things get to “being original” anyway). So yes, once you know about AMM or Fluxus or Hamburg Exis or the Tibetan BOTD you “get” the Beatles more but what’s hard to recapture is exactly how far ahead of their audience they were.

Pet Shop Boys - “Two Divided By Zero”: Just got to...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:48:27 +0000

Pet Shop Boys - “Two Divided By Zero”: Just got to the first entry by my (equal) all-time-favourite-band on Popular so here’s this, the first track from their debut album.

Cookie Monster - “C Is For Cookie (Larry Levan...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:12:00 +0000

Cookie Monster - “C Is For Cookie (Larry Levan Mix)”

Postpunk posted the sleeve of this earlier, and Treblekicker requested this mix. So, yes, here we are.

Does “DISCO COOKIES!” translate to “disco biscuits” I wonder?

desnoise: douglasmartini: matthewedwards: scottrothman: bethl...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:42:36 +0000

desnoise:

douglasmartini:

matthewedwards:

scottrothman:

bethlehems:

(via synecdoche)

I don’t care how shallow it sounds, it’s the fucking truth. I love that book.

Favorite Novel of All-Time reblog.

I’m pretty sure the whole point of the novel is this ISN’T true.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. The kind of people who believe it often are better off with the kind of people who also believe it, though music taste has very little to do with that.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-25)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:03:52 +0000

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-25):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

I am off to CHICAGO today, until Friday. Here is a record made...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:02:52 +0000

I am off to CHICAGO today, until Friday. Here is a record made by Mr Frankie Knuckles of that fair city. It’s called “Your Love”.

"I feel like that Fisher-Price record player was the defining thing of my life."

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:50:55 +0100

“I feel like that Fisher-Price record player was the defining thing of my life.”

- Pitchfork: Guest Lists: Memory Tapes

So jealous he had that and all I had was the lously Fisher-Price cassette player. On the other hand, I could make my own a cappella songs. I was really into MC Hammer and r&b.

(via desnoise)

Oh wow, he likes The Book Of The New Sun - good for him! (There are loads of robots and spaceships in it, though). I have never actually heard the Memory Tapes but I will look more fondly on them now.

brokenbottleboy: Don’t Think Twice (Messengers remix) –...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:48:06 +0100

brokenbottleboy:

Don’t Think Twice (Messengers remix) – J.Period & K’NAAN

The hardcore Dylan fans will be disgusted by J.Period and K’Naan’s Bob Dylan remix album but I think it’s a brilliant collision of hip-hop beats and Dylan’s best songs. The choice of interview clips is also genius.

The Messengers have also done whole remix albums dedicted to Fela Kuti and Bob Marley but Bob Dylan is the biggest distance to leap for them and that’s what makes it the best of the three. Hop over here and you can download them for free.

Definitely this is more worthy folkster than wild mercury sound, but this hardcore-ish Dylan fan likes it well enough. The beats, at least: matching the grain of your voice against Dylan’s is a fool’s errand. Will download the free mixtape.

To those of you who work with music on

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:05:58 +0100

What music improves your productivity the most?

Pandora And Authentic Taste

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:42:21 +0100

Pandora And Authentic Taste:

I was still contriving a narrative about my tastes, even if I didn’t necessarily share it with anyone. Still it is a very seductive idea, that our taste is like a fingerprint, a snowflake, and that when we find out fully what it really is, we see at last, concretely, how ineffable our soul is. We listen to Pandora, click the thumbs up or down to approve songs, let the formulas work their magic, and continue to attenuate our authentic self in pure isolation.

Good Popmatters piece on Pandora and the “ideological fiction” of music taste. A whole bunch of my Poptimist columns in Pitchfork have touched on this - without mentioning Zizek, I must admit.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-18)

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:54:00 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-10-18):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

EDIT: This is my Pitchfork review doing a number on my last.fm stats :) Not that DD don’t deserve a 40-play session every once in a while.

abbyjean: and ding! already been called humorless and over-analytical. i may need to pull out a...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:21:42 +0100

abbyjean:

and ding! already been called humorless and over-analytical. i may need to pull out a bingo card for this.

It’s the stuff that “doesn’t need to be analysed” that’s ALWAYS the most interesting anyway!

charmian: Tove Jansson’s illustrations for Alice in...

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:34:42 +0100

charmian:

Tove Jansson’s illustrations for Alice in Wonderland

Automatic Tove reblog - also the click through takes you to a whole compendium of stuff, including her lovely Hobbit illos.