An inconsistent and oftentimes unintentional exploration into the quantum nature of obscurity, partially obfuscated itself with fits of periphrastic circumlocution and all manner of quixotic delicacies, thereby rendering it perhaps less than optimally twitter-friendly (though I suppose pith too craves context).
Like me, you may simply prefer to softly gaze at the pretty pictures as the sounds and the words parade through your head.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Hey hi,
I haven’t posted for a good long while, and for most of that time I doubted I would ever post again; yet, now I am here posting, and thinking that I’ll be doing a lot more of it.
One of the things I’ve been up to in the interim has been creating “expert playlists” for Songza. I like Songza quite a lot, especially when I’m wanting someone who isn’t me to DJ for a bit. And it’s been fun making the playlists as well. They’re presented on a shuffle play (to spread the plays/royalties equally among the artists on the playlist), which makes the curating process more challenging in some ways, and much easier in others. Each of the playlists I’ve created for Songza has between 80 and 120 songs, with, in my opinion, no filler. These are them: give them a spin and let me know how you feel.
I Am Pop/Rock, Vol. 1 2 3 4 5 6
This was my most recent project, a massive six-part series. We were going for a “timeless classics” thing here, but I’m not sure that’s how it turned out. A sizable percentage of the tunes here are definitely “of their time,” especially the punk/new wave contingency, but they were of a quality too high to be excluded. Also, I tended to pick my own favorites, which oftentimes meant excluding great songs that I couldn’t bear to hear for the gabillionth time. So it ends up with this nice eclectic flow, the flow coming from the simple fact that you most likely know and love the vast majority of these beauties.
“New wave, post-punk, synth pop, proto-goth, new romantic, mod and ska revival cuts from 1978-1984. No disco.”
“Collecting the great tracks from 1967 that were not released as a single in the US or UK, this playlist recalls the most important year in rock album history; to this day, any reputable top-albums-ever list will feature a staggering number of LPs from ‘67.”
“Take a trip from Haight on down to Sunset with these acoustic-centric songs by California artists from the late ’60s and early ’70s. Singer-songwriter, folk rock, country rock, soft rock. Lots of harmony, and plenty of mellow.”
“Late-’60s-to-early-’70s bubblegum, with a touch of breezy AM pop and a few Saturday morning favorites added in for good measure.”
“‘80-‘87 Prince, Prince’s side projects and protégés, and Prince’s influences and like-minded contemporaries at their most Prince-esque, all swirled in a dirty electro-funky grind and insert double entendre here. Purple.”
Bob Dorough – “Three Is A Magic Number”
This is a magic song. No more; no less.
This is one of the most disorienting things I’ve ever seen. Simply because I never heard about this clip before, my image of a video for this song is rather different than this, and now it’s impossible to divorce from other contexts.
Eleven goddamned years and I had no idea.
This is so amazing, the landmark aside
It’s nice to remember those buildings when they were just another video shoot location, and not an immensely spectacular one at that – although this ought to be notable for it’s sheer rarity. This song and it’s official (and rightfully iconic) Anton Corbijn video were both big favorites of mine when they were taking over MTV’s 120 Minutes during my senior spring, but I’ve never before laid eyes upon this French TV promo, which comes off as a bit lifeless.
The original clip, via YouTube:
(Source: youtube.com)
what kind of monster are you? .. slant 6
my fav slant 6 tune.. maybe..
Press play. This sounds nothing like what you’re imagining.
whatyoureallywant:Daft Beatles - Heart of Glass (Blondie & Philip Glass Mash-Up)
that hit the spot..
Simple Minds - Premonition - live at Hurrah’s, New York City, (1979)
Currently one of my favourite things. For five-and-a-half minutes we can completely forget about ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ (ironically enough). Six years before they would achieve massive fame and success with one poppy soundtrack, we have this gem. Here we have a set of five excellent musicians whose abilities and potential transcend what they would ultimately be known for, a pop/stadium-rock crossover, most famous from 1984/85 onwards. It’s a real shame that their early stuff isn’t so well-appreciated, they do a distinctive post-punk in a similar vein to Ultravox!, Magazine and other of their contemporaries. A brilliant performance.
Beaky Forbes is cracking on that bassline
Already starting to play it as if it belonged on Empires and Dance..
(Source: dandymackay)
The Big Apple Band “Get Away” (Pre-CHIC) (by NileRodgersTV) —Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards, Tony Thompson and Bobby Cotter doing an Earth, Wind and Fire song in 1976. I’m always in awe of Rodgers’ guitar playing.
Jon Brion explains the differences between a great recording and a great song. Kind of amazing to hear.
From an episode of 99% Invisible.
Jon Brion is the best musician on Earth
sounds like a song is being defined here as an abstract structure whose components are limited to melody, the chord progression “backdrop” which emotionally contextualizes the melody, and the lyric, which to varying degrees grounds the structure into a life experience context – so aspects like sound choices, the part each chosen sound plays, groove, dynamics and tension, these are all considered not-song – so then a song becomes simply an abstract performance structure whose malleability to a diversity of performances is more readily apparent (and, according to brion, has more vertical movement in its melody and less predictable chord changes) – there’s something inherently biased (and certainly not punk) about that definition, especially in its dismissal of groove’s ascendence and melody’s deconstruction in western music over the last century, which has brought western music closer to other musics in its balancing of aspects – my assumption had been that “tomorrow never knows” had blown that definition up pretty thoroughly, but i guess waves of neo-classicism pop up in anything that has an aesthetic/ideology aspect to it – i’d certainly appreciate hearing brian eno weigh in at this juncture..
Glaxo Babies – “This Is Your Life”
This is Glaxo Babies, post-punkers from Bristol, at probably their most directly accessible, occupying a very-interesting-but-not-quite-captivatingly motorik-ish space betwixt Metal Box PiL and Chairs Missing Wire on this, their 1979 debut EP, also titled This Is Your Life. Later releases delved more deeply into dub, funk, jazz, and general Faust/Beefheart-inspired weirdness.
Fresh Maggots – “Rosemary Hill”
Mick Burgoyne and Leigh Dolphin were the nineteen-year-old folk duo Fresh Maggots, who released their s/t debut, after many delays, in 1971. The record did not sell, perhaps because the off-putting name was a poor match for the delicate sound within (particularly this standout track), and it fell out of print.
Brian Eno – “The Fat Lady of Limbourg”
1974 live BBC Session with The Winkies
Does the somewhat low quality of this recording, which includes a whole lot of the sound of the crowd talking over a 1974 Brian Eno show (what?!!), actually add to the awesome vibe of the performance?
Atlas Genius - Back Seat
Can data predict hits?
My friends at social music analytics company Next Big Sound think so. They wrote a post about trend data on this song, and how the numbers predict it’s hot enough to hype. I’ve thought a lot about this, and how a lot of services are working on predictive analytics that might take the music biz in the direction of Moneyball. On the one hand, it seems that they’re simply interpreting wildly far-flung play stats that grow organically on their own. If it worked, we’d likely see more home-grown success stories. But on the other, my jaded side thinks that what’s more likely is that these sorts of analytics only reenforce the industry status quo. The players with the money will always dominate the playlists because they have the PR power to get their artists up on P4K, Vevo, Spin, Rolling Stone and the like on a regular basis.
What do you think?
This Adelaide, Australian band’s new Through the Glass EP comes out on June 12th.
To the extent that it is remembered that “moneyball” is not about numbers, but about identifying an overvalued or undervalued trait, that is the extent to which a song’s relative success might be better guesstimated. How much better? It’s hard for me to believe that sample size will be able to keep up with the anfractuous nature of music aesthetics. Maybe the numbers’ true utility will be to at least partially neutralize the power of the arbitrary narrative.
Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” single came out June 3, 1982. Here’s the original promo video. What a brilliant arrangement!
Nerf Herder – Buffy The Vampire Slayer Theme (v2)
Simply the best piece of television theme music ever. As my friend Dustin once noted “Pick slides are devil horns. That is all.” Seriously, the drums in particular could not be any more on.
There are actually two different versions of this tune, though they sound almost exactly the same. This second version began with season three.
