I agree with the guy who said the thing about the albums — I’m such a one-hit ho now! Entire albums? That’s a commitment! But in the spirit of lists, I give you my top 5 favorites, kind of. I agree with some of the ones other people posted, but since have opted for some of my other favorites just to mix it up. I can’t even get into honorable mentions or we’ll be here all day; I will try to append those later.

Topping my list (in no particular order):

PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
I am SO glad this just made it into the ’00s (‘00 to be exact). Granted, it’s a little more puff and fluff than some of her other albums, but as a whole, it’s one that I can actually listen to the entire thing and not get bored.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell

The Black Keys: Magic Potion
Call it home-town pride or the fact that I’m still a little shocked every time I hear Dan’s voice — it does not align with my high school impression of him whatsoever — but I think they’re a great band. Actually, the hardest decision for me here was which album I was going to select. It was really a toss up between “Rubber City,” “Thickfreakness” and “Magic Potion.”

Wu-Tang Clan: Chamber Music
Really, just great, beginning to end. The album as a whole hits all the right peaks and valleys and is perfectly paced.

Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
This tornado loves you? It sure does.

much too long since i’ve been here…and now off the birded wings of thanksgiving eve…i bring you. me.

this whole adam lambert thing. hm. i was watching the american music awards and thought they were alright. really enjoyed a lot of the performances…i grew up on tori amos, pj harvey and bjork, so honestly lady gaga sparks no interest in me whatsoever…the overly dramatic live shows (of which i’ve seen on awards shows) leaves just a whole host of dramatics and not enough sound pleasure for me. i liked jay z and alicia keys, whitney houston’s slow comeback…not feeling green day and wish they could go back to the rare beauty of their earlier punk…the album ‘dookie.’ i wish kings of leon would have performed. liked the eminem performance and i think that carrie underwood is a very talented artist…odd that taylor swift won so many and didn’t show up because of rehearsal in london but who am i? the thing that gets me the most and is getting the most publicity is american idol, adam lambert’s (a very gorgeous young man…btw) performance. i consider myself open minded however for me it was entirely out of place, way too over the top and repulsive. i really don’t wanna see oral sex simulation during a dick clark american music awards broadcast. silly me? he’s apparently unapologetic about it…and wants to equate it to janet jackson’s (who was incredibly awesome) crotch grab on a male dancer. or wants to equate it the mads and britney kiss…well, adam the networks didn’t air your kiss. and ok, janet did like six songs in a row…it was quick and she wasn’t really like…sexualizing her 1 second much as 3 minutes of his performance. lambert held a dude’s head to his crotch and continued to move his pelvis with the dude’s head. not only that he tugged between the legs of a female dancer, repeatedly…i wasn’t sure if something was supposed to pop out or what. it was too much. even for me…it was way too much. the saddest thing however is that if lambert had been akon or 50 cent or lil wayne or little richard. we have insane double standards in this country. take the janet and justin superbowl show…the media and we (not i) went crazy. you would have thought janet jackson murdered someone or had sex on air…her nip popped out. we see the nip as infants. big freakin deal. he nor she ever licked or fondled the nip…it just showed up for like a half second. you also would have thought justin timberlake was on mars during the performance, he was the garment revealer or ripper…the press hate fest focused on jackson…but justin…he was right there. insert any ethnic entertainer gay or straight…fines and talking heads would be going crazier than the electronics line will be at wal-mart tomorrow morning. we have such a bias way of thinking in this country and it’s quite sad…but true as metallica would say.

and as much as i promise i won’t watch ‘dancing with the stars’ ever again…i watch only to see it repeat a catastrophe. there’s no way that donny osmond was a better dancer than mya or kelly osborne…so i wish they’d stop letting the producers dictate the results. also, lil kim was absolutely robbed last year…mya and her top performing all season self was robbed as well. i’d feel much better if kelly osborne would have won…oh well.

on that somber note…happy thanksgiving.

here’s a new favorite video and song by p. diddy.

peace&eat!!

Cover of Björk's Homogenic (One Little Indian, 1997); image courtesy of slantmagazine.com

Cover for Björk's Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001); image courtesy of harmony-korine.com

When I began conceptualizing this blog in the ol’ brainspace, one of the first sections I came up with was “Records That Made Me a Feminist.” I knew Björk was going to get at least one entry. Homogenic and Vespertine each played a vital part of shaping my politics. So, I figured out I’d probably have to write about them together.

Pairing albums for this section of the blog is something I originally wanted to do this when covering Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, which I started listening to around the same time as PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. I liked the idea of dialoguing seemingly dissimilar work by female artists with one another, but I feared covering those two albums together would short-shrift the artists who made them. However, talking about two distinct pieces of work by one woman seemed easier. And essential. So here we go.

I must admit that covering Björk’s 1997 and 2000 full-length releases present its own political challenges that makes me think critically about how I understand and practice feminism. Both of these albums made me a feminist largely because of the boys I was preoccupied with at the time.

But while my initial reception and resulting connections to them were tied up with potentially normative feelings around romantic angst and heterosexual coupling, I feel the albums speak to my development at the time as well as transcend it. In other words, Homogenic and Vespertine may remind me of boys I used to date, but they speak to larger, more overtly feminist issues as well.

Of course, being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t like boys or be hung up on them from time to time, so long as you don’t let them run your life. Which I don’t think Björk endorses in either of these records, even though she herself has an ambivalent relationship with feminism (though not with calling out the music industry’s sexist practices of attributing male engineers and instrumental songwriters).

Importantly, as both albums were prescient to my development, they also went over my head when I first listened to them. Debut and Post were more accessible and, as a result, I liked them almost immediately. It was hard for 10-year-old me not to fall for the girl dancing through New York City on a flatbed in the music video for “Big Time Sensuality.”

But Björk’s next two albums took more time to process. Both albums mark advances in the artist’s production sensibilities, approaches to music-making, and interest in electronic instrumentation. Thus, just as Björk had to evolve as a musician before creating these albums, I had to mature a bit as a person before liking them as a fan.

So, Homogenic came out just as I was starting high school. I don’t exactly remember when I bought it, but I think it was sometime toward the end of junior year. I completely ignored it at the time. Or rather, I listened to it once, went “ooh, so angry!” and put Post back on.

The particulars I’ll keep to myself for the sake of decorum. Suffice it to say that I dated someone for a little while, fell in love, we broke up, and I spent a little over a year trying to get us back together. It didn’t work out. Eventually I got over him and whatever I thought we were, but not without some pain and denial and then serious personal re-evaluation. The healing process involved some righteous anger, loud parties, several bottles of wine and other goodies, and burgeoning feminist development. After a rough start, 19 turned out to be a pretty okay year. Homogenic was its soundtrack.

Now, I have no problem acknowledging that this guy was a total jerk to me. But feminism isn’t only about recognizing and calling out chauvinistic bullshit. It’s also about self-empowerment, personal accountability, and un-learning heteronormativity and patriarchal co-dependence. It isn’t always just the guy’s fault, even when it is.

Thus, I also have to own up to being really needy and delusional at the time. I pinned my worth on whoever I was dating without questioning whether being with them was actually good for me. So I projected my own big feelings and insecurities on someone who clearly didn’t want to be with me. I was ignoring the reality of the situation and, as a result, my own well-being. I finally recognized what I was doing when confronted with the lyric “How could I be so immature to think he could replace the missing elements in me — how extremely lazy of me.” 

Kinda appropriate that a break-up record got me over mine, no? Apparently, Björk made the album after breaking up with drum’n'bass musician Goldie while they were working on their own project. Hence lines like “So you left me on my own to complete the mission, but now I’m leaving it all behind.” But it pretty much hit all the right notes of melancholy, indignation, rage, and feisty recovery for me. I’m a quarter Norwegian on my mother’s side, so even the line ”I thought I could organize freedom — how Scandinavian of me” in “Hunter” applied.

Attention must be paid to the album’s sound and how it marked a musical departure for Björk. Post was an eclectic mix that boasted songs like “Army of Me,” “Enjoy,” and “Headphones,” that opened up her sound to include state-of-the-art aggressive digital distortion and serene electronic minimalism.

While this was evident in the production work Tricky and 808 State’s Graham Massey did on Post, it wasn’t the focus. It would come to define the artistic work she began doing with producers like Mark Bell on Homogenic and would continue to do with Matmos on Vespertine. But I’d hedge that most casual listeners just remember Post’s ”It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was produced by Björk’s then-mainstay, Nellee Hooper, the man responsible for all the production on her breakthrough Debut. He was also responsible for “Hyperballad,” which I’d argue suggests the artist’s shift, which is fully evident on her next album.

Man, I wish I could post the music video, but WMG has apparently disabled the audio. All the more reason to check out Michel Gondry’s Directors Label DVD, or any of the other myriad DVD titles that have documented her videography.

So Homogenic marks a transition from being a pop star to an artist who challenges her listeners’ ears and expectations with each release. By 1997, we also heard alternative pop stars like Beck and Radiohead establish themselves similarly with Odelay and OK Computer. We would hear Radiohead do it again in 2000 with the mind-blowing Kid A, where they really demonstrated their love for electronic instrumentation and experimental production techniques.

Björk was already on this path in 1997, but while Radiohead looked outward toward the fallabilities of modern life, Björk looked inward at the seductive pleasures and wobbly peculiarities of domestic life and partnership on her next record, rapturing at her voice’s clicks and finding percussive possibilities out of shuffled decks of cards. I don’t think these innovations went unnoticed when Radiohead went to work on In Rainbows. To me, Vespertine’s influence is all over a song like “Nude,” which was originally an outtake from OK Computer. This is further confirmed by the band’s rendition of Homogenic’s ”Unravel” as a tip of the hat. As if lead singer Thom Yorke’s backing vocals on “Náttúra” aren’t enough.

Hmmm. Maybe at some point, I’ll consider Yorke’s duets with Björk and PJ Harvey. Yorke is one of my favorite vocalists, a fact confirmed by a recent revisit of Hail to the Thief. If one of my friends ran a blog on male masculinity and music culture, I’d pen a guest entry in a second.

But I was afflicted with a troubled mind when Vespertine first came out. In addition to boy heartache, I was going through some considerable familial strife. I was also starting my first semester of college, so a tackier person might blame 9/11.

After seeing the music video for “Hidden Place,” I dutifully bought the album, along with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, another at-the-time inscrutable release, at the Tower Records by campus. I listened to the album a few times, but my head was not in the right place for it. It was too contented and quiet. I couldn’t hear it. And then for a little while all I could hear was Homogenic at full volume.

Stills from the video that convinced me to buy "Vespertine"; image courtesy of unit.bjork.com

To be blunt, Vespertine didn’t really make sense to me until I started having sex. Critics like Ryan Dombal would seem to concur. I remember seeing her performance of ”Cocoon” on Jay Leno and thinking that it was really quiet, but totally not getting how micro-embodied intimacy is the song’s entire purpose. While I had a good understanding of mechanics and had engaged in related activities before going into my first listen, I don’t think a song like “Cocoon” makes sense to a person unless they’ve experienced it, to speak euphemistically, in a corporeal sense.

BTW, yes that is Bill O’Reilly adjusting his tie. If he was actually listening to the song, I’m sure he’d be appalled by how delightfully, defiantly sexual this song is and that it was performed uncensored on network television. Watching it now, I can’t believe I wasn’t really listening. Maybe I should have been leaning into the television.  

Again, the particulars here aren’t really important. I was a week or so into being 20 and, frankly,  didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. The guy was someone willing, it was fun, and didn’t last very long.

In short, the romanticism and emotional connectedness that is often built into such an experience was not there, nor do I regret that it wasn’t. I would find that later, which would make my understanding of those aspects of Vespertine more profound and further develop my feminist principles.

I bring sex into the discussion because I, to borrow briefly from Arrested Development’s George Michael Bluth, find Vespertine’s complex eroticism one of its most key contributions to what made me a feminist. Though perhaps a stretch and certainly not without its own distinctions, I tend to think of this album in accord with Audre Lorde’s wonderful essay “Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power.”

And while I don’t know if this entry’s subject has read the essay, something tells me that the same woman who identifies as bisexual and recognizes the erotic potential in mundane activities would concur with much of the theorist’s thesis.

Of course, feminists must also have the wherewithal to recognize that eroticism, even ephemeral evidence like orgasms, are luxuries to some women and girls. Not everyone is given a space, a country, or a political system that allows them the safety and freedom to enjoy and explore these possibilities.

But eroticism isn’t about cataloging who did what to whom for Björk. As David Fricke gestured toward in his review of the album for Rolling Stone, it might be everywhere, at once tangible and theoretical.

This is where I think it’s important to consider the album’s production sensibilities and Björk’s particular uses of her voice. In addition to non-conventional practices like sampling and turning seemingly non-musical domestic items into instruments, the singer’s voice is the album’s real focus. Because of how closely she’s miked, you can hear every tic, breath, whispered turn of phrase, and any other sound coming out of her mouth. As a result, her voice becomes a varied and vital instrument, an idea she has continued to develop and that has continued to stay with me.

Realmente bueno el album de los Strokes, recuerdo que en el cch era la sensanción...

Todos conocemos el semanario musical NME, que se dedica a promocionar a la música Indie en Gran Bretaña, comúnmente siempre al día de todo el entorno musical tanto local como mundial. Esta vez la publicación inglesa nos proporciona la lista de los 100 mejores discos de la década. ¿En que se basaron? Bueno, realizaron una encuesta hace como 2 semanas (no recuerdo bien cuando vote) y el resultado completo se puede ver aquí. Yo solo les dejo la lista de los primeros 10 con su respectivo link de descarga ;D.

Me gusto el resultado, realmente se le hace mucha justicia a bandas que han marcado la década, como los Yeah Yeah Yeahs aunque me hubiera gustado que salieran The Hives…pero no se puede obtener todo en la vida xD! Me deprime que el Absolution de Muse este en el lugar 49 pero creo es algo a comparación de Coldplay que esta vez, apesar de estar en la lista de votación, ni siquiera aparecio entre los 100… Ni modo nos quedaremos con la mención en el 2002 -w-u.

La gran mayoria esta en MU solo dos en RS. Diviertanse escuchando musica =3

1. The Strokes – Is This It
2. Libertines – Up The Bracket
3. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
4. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say That’s What I’m Not
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
6. Pj Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
7. Arcade Fire – Funeral
8. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
9. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows

Un saludo cordial a todos los lectores de los oídos vírgenes, gracias por sus comentarios y visitas.

Dejando de lado el lo-fi y sin los miembros originales, la británica Polly Jean Harvey (a.k.a PJ Harvey) en 1995 lanza su tercer disco, el To Bring You My Love, cuya característica principal es que las canciones tienen aires más cercanos al blues y al rock, pero conserva el sonido crudo de sus trabajos anteriores y sobre todo el talente de PJ Harvey se mantiene a lo largo de este, las guitarras duras con fuertes distorsiones así como la voz ronca y potente de la artista, junto a letras desgarradoras, directas y sin tapujos típicas en ella; el trabajo de la producción esta ves estuvo a manos de John Pairs (que más tarde sacaría un disco en conjunto con PJ Harvey), Flood (que ya había trabajado con Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, etc) y de la misma PJ Harvey.

Sólidas guitarras, bien trabajadas, junto a un ambiente algo oscuro, forman la escénica de este disco, que quizás sea el mejor trabajo de la “bruja”, disco que catapultó a las grandes lijas a una de las rokceras más importantes de los 90’s.

TRACK LIST
1. “To Bring You My Love” – 5:32
2. “Meet ze Monsta” – 3:29
3. “Working for the Man” – 4:45
4. “C’mon Billy” – 2:47
5. “Teclo” – 4:57
6. “Long Snake Moan” – 5:17
7. “Down by the Water” – 3:14
8. “I Think I’m a Mother” – 4:00
9. “Send His Love to Me” – 4:20
10. “The Dancer” – 4:06

VIDEOS
C’mon Billy
Down by the Water
Send His Love to Me

DESCARGA
PASS: oidosvirgenes
Hasta la próxima entrega

Just because I’m in the mood, okay?

Hace un tiempo en el blog posteamos las listas de los mejores discos de la década según Uncut y Pitchfork. Esta vez la que se pronunció al respecto fue la prestigosa revista musical NME, que confeccionó una lista de 100 álbumes.

El disco que ocupó el primer lugar fue Is This It, de los neoyorquinos The Strokes, que había quedado 5º en la lista de Uncut y 7º en la de Pitchfork.

Portada de la edición británica de Is This It

Esta es la lista hasta el puesto 50. El resto, disponible acá.

01. The Strokes – Is This It
02. The Libertines – Up The Bracket
03. Primal Scream – Xtrmntr
04. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
05. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
06. PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
07. Arcade Fire – Funeral
08. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
09. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows
11. At The Drive In – Relationship Of Command
12. LCD Soundsystem – The Sound Of Silver
13. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away
14. Radiohead – Kid A
15. Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf’
16. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
17. Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
18. The White Stripes – Elephant
19. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
20. Blur – Think Tank
21. The Coral – The Coral
22. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
23. Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future
24. The Libertines – The Libertines
25. The Rapture – Echoes
26. Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
27. Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
28. Johnny Cash – Man Comes Around
29. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around The World
30. Elbow – Asleep In The Back
31. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
32. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
33. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
34. Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump
35. Babyshambles – Down In Albion
36. Spirtualized – Let it Come Down
37. The Knife – Silent Shout
38. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
39. Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
40. Ryan Adams – Gold
41. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
42. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
43. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
44. Outkast – Loveboxxx/The Love Below
45. Avalanches – Since I Left You
46. The Delgados – The Great Eastern
47. Brendan Benson – Lapalco
48. The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
49. Muse – Absolution
50. MIA – Arular

The Strokes

What a day! Not that this is relevant to what to do in Sydney, but I just can’t resist not publishing NME’s hot-off-the-press top 100 albums of the decade list. The list, which is made of albums released between January 2000 and December 2009, was voted for by NME staff, and a selection of musicians and industry figures. Here are the first 50, but for the full list and more detail, head to NME. While I love the fact that two amazing ladies, Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing at Hordern Pavilion on Friday 8 January) and Polly Jean Harvey, are in the top 10, I’m a little disappointed only two Australian albums have made it in. At number 45 are the Avalanches with their 2000 debut Since I Left You and at number 92 sits Sleepy Jackson with the beautiful 2003 album Lovers. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds anyone?

1. The Strokes – Is This It
2. The Libertines – Up The Bracket
3. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
4. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
6. PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
7. Arcade Fire – Funeral
8. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
9. The Streets – Original Pirate Material
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows
11. At The Drive In – Relationship Of Command
12. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
13. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away
14. Radiohead – Kid A
15. Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
16. The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
17. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
18. The White Stripes – Elephant
19. The White Stripes – White Blood Cells
20. Blur – Think Tank
21. The Coral – The Coral
22. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
23. Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future
24. The Libertines – The Libertines
25. The Rapture – Echoes
26. Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
27. Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
28. Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around
29. Super Furry Animals – Rings Around The World
30. Elbow – Asleep In The Back
31. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
32. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
33. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
34. Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump
35. Babyshambles – Down In Albion
36. Spirtualized – Let it Come Down
37. The Knife – Silent Shout
38. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
39. Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
40. Ryan Adams – Gold
41. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
42. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
43. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
44. Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
45. Avalanches – Since I Left You
46. The Delgados – The Great Eastern
47. Brendan Benson – Lapalco
48. The Walkmen – Bows and Arrows
49. Muse – Absolution
50. MIA – Arular

Vapt! Os primeiros 10 anos do milênio voaram. Já pipocam listas de melhores da década, especialmente na Inglaterra. O Times de Londres publicou a de 100 melhores filmes. E o NME, de melhores álbuns. Para o semanário musical, o ganhador é…

1. The Strokes, com Is This It, de 2001. No Top 10, entraram ainda:
2. The Libertines, “Up the Bracket”;
3. Primal Scream, “XTRMNTR”;
4. Arctic Monkeys, “Whatever People Say I Am, That´s What I´m Not”
5. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Fever to Tell”
6. PJ Harvey, “Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea”
7. Arcade Fire, “Funeral”
8. Interpol, “Turn On the Bright Lights”
9. The Streets, “Original Pirate Material”
10. Radiohead, “In Rainbows”

Eu acho que o top 10 é forte, embora em alguns casos os ingleses tenham puxado a sardinha demais pro lado deles. Como sempre acontece em qualquer enquete do tipo. É lógico que a Kerrang! vai ter outra lista, assim como a Classic Rock, a Rolling Stone, a Mojo…

Você pode ver a lista completa dos 100 mais do NME aqui, com direito a clips.

Breve, o semanário divulga sua lista das 100 melhores canções da década!

A tradicional revista britânica NME elegeu os 100 álbuns que marcaram a primeira década do século 21 com a ajuda de músicos e figurões da indústria como Arctic Monkeys, Carl Barat, The Killers, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Doherty, Elbow, Johnny Marr, MGMT, Ian Brown, The Big Pink, Snoop Dogg, Alan McGee, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Michael Eavis e muitos, muitos outros.

Os 10 primeiros lugares seguem abaixo:

1. The Strokes – Is This It (2001)
2. The Libertines – Up The Bracket (2002)
3. Primal Scream – XTRMNTR (2000)
4. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006)
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell (2003)
6. PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea (2000)
7. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)
8. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights (2002)
9. The Streets – Original Pirate Material (2002)
10. Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007)

O que achou? Foi um top 10 justo? Confira toda a lista aqui.

1. Radiohead. Kid A
2. Sigur Rós. Ágætis Byrjun
3. The Hives. Veni Vidi Vicious
4. Primal Scream. XTRMNTR \
5. PJ Harvey. Stories from the City … from the Sea

…

Extra. TOP USA. Albume. 2000

• A Perfect Circle. Mer de Noms
• Deftones. White Pony
• Queens of the Stone Age. Rated R

Autor: Eddie Better

… in which “cool” is defined as any music enjoyed by self-confessed music-fascist, Scar.

It’s probably going to contain guitars and sad men with messy hair and scruffy jeans.  Disclaimer: this is purely a style choice, not a gender-political one.  Scar is and always has been very cheerful about having a vagina.

When it’s not suicidally morbid, or even rather emo, it tends to be grunge, surfer punk and in some cases, things like Metallica and Nine Inch Nails.  Mostly, however, it tends to be stuff like Nick Cave, Mark Lanegan or a bunch of foppish looking young brits with floppy fringes.  Scar has never quite managed to shake off the nineties.

Scar is not a complete gender traitor, in fact she is sometimes known to sing tonelessly along with Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Ani Difranco and the like.  Yup, there’s a pattern there too.

In order to fake some kind of cool factor, Scar hangs out at spinner.com and stereogum.com and downloads obscure music by bands with whimsical names.  The ones she keeps are generally the ones that remind her of nineties bands.  Her inverted snobbery is a prominent factor in her musical choices and if she admits to enjoying something mainstream, the admission is always prefaced by the muttered words, “Don’t tell anyone, but …”

Despite all of this, her favourite band since the mid-eighties has been R.E.M. and she reacts to 21st century descriptions of them as “grandad rock” with sincere distress.  She is also the only known lesbian on earth with a crush on Kurt Cobain.

It has been known since the invention of the first bone flute by the cavemen that music is a great addition to sex. It can make one go faster, slower, get in the mood and of course fake a headache using the loud noise as an excuse for avoiding intercourse. I for one prefer songs that make me more aware of all my senses.

With that thought in mind, I searched my I-pod for the best songs to feel more sensual when having sex. Here’s my list:

• The xx – Crystalised
• Bat for Lashes – Daniel
• Coco – Drain You
• PJ Harvey – Catherine
• La Roux – Cover My Eyes
• Cut Copy – Saturdays

Here’s the video for Crystalised:

The list is given. If you’re ever having sex with me, you know how to proceed.

sanger som får meg gjennom hverdagene. kan det blir bedre?

The title of the post today is from a track brought to you by Generation X in the late 70’s on their self-titled album. I decided to play some old punk early in the show and peppered later on due to an exhibit I just saw at the MoMA called “Looking at Music: Side 2″. Here’s an article about it if you want to check it out: Bob Gruen’s Journey to MoMA.

Listen in tonight on KRUI 89.7 fm from 8 to 10 pm. You can listen in online here.

Here’s some of the set:

1. Generation X, Generation X (1978), Ready Steady Go
2. Frumpies, Frumpie One-Piece (God I love this title), Duvet Ta
This is a CD collection which assembled all of the band’s previous singles, created around 1996.

3. Half Japanese, Half Japanese Greatest Hits (1995), Put Some Sugar On It
4. The Clash, The Clash (1977), Garageland
5. Dead Boys, We Have Come for Your Children (1978), I Don’t Wanna Be No Catholic Boy
6. Radio Birdman, The Essential Radio Birdman (1974-1978), Do the Pop
7. Patti Smith, Horses (2005, album originally came out in 1975), Redondo Beach
8. Thurston Moore, Psychic Hearts (1995), Patti Smith Math Scratch
9. Belly, Star (1993), Angel
10. Slant 6, Soda Pop * Rip Off (1994 on Dischord Records), Blue Angel
11. Film School, Film School (2006), Eleven-Eleven
12. The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia (2000), The Gospel
(I’m sorry but this album is POP brilliance, I don’t care what you say.)
13. The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective, If Love Is The Drug
This was a compilation put out by these guys in 2004 spanning their entire career except for the album Strung Out in Heaven.
14. Built To Spill, Time Trap Sampler (1994-2006), The Plan
15. Aveo, Battery (2004), Haley
16. Chapterhouse, Sunburst-EP (1990), Rain
17. Slowdive, Morningrise-EP (1991), Losing Today
18. Stella Luna, Stargazer-EP (2002), Stargazer
19. New Order, Power Corruption & Lies (1983), Age of Consent
20. My Bloody Valentine, Tremolo-EP (1991), Honey Power

21. Fleeting Joys, Despondent Transponder (2006), Go and Come Back
22. Pinback, Some Voices-EP (2002), June
23. PJ Harvey & John Parish, A Woman A Man Walked By (2009), Black Hearted Love
24. Unwound, New Plastic Ideas (1993), Hexenzsense
25. Guided By Voices, Isolation Drills (2001), The Enemy
26. Morrissey, Bona Drag (compilation album released in 1990), The Last of the Famous International Playboys
Morrissey recently walked off a stage in Liverpool Echo Arena after being hit in the head with a drink. So this track goes out to you Morrissey, I want to know what dumb ass would throw a drink at you? You can read more about it here.

Ju mer jag funderar över vilka musikvideos jag ska ha med på den här högst personliga topp 20-listan, desto mer blickar jag tillbaka över olika perioder av såväl mitt liv som de senaste tjugo årens musikhistoria. Jag vet inte hur det skulle vara att se PJ Harveys “Down by the water” för första gången 2009 (om nu någon som läser detta gör det – berätta gärna hur det är). Men tänk dig att du är en fjortonårig tonårskille, året är 1995, och du sitter framför MTV och ser den här videon efter, säg, Shaggys “Boombastic”. Inget ont om “Boombastic” – men OH SHIT!!!! VEM är den där fatala amazonen som dyker runt i smutsvatten iförd långklänning, utan att läppstiften bleknar en millimeter? Jag hade aldrig hört talas om PJ Harvey innan dess, och ärligt talat – hon är en sådan där artist som jag alltid respekterat men aldrig lyssnat på (Nick Cave-syndromet). Men vårt första möte var i alla fall speciellt. Som i en Axe-reklam. Också något som känns väldigt 1995.
PJ Harvey – Down by the water
(För övrigt finns det en särskild plats i helvetet för de som inte tillåter att man embeddar youtube-videos.)

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles.

FLAMING LIPS – She Don’t Use Jelly / Turn It On (Warner Brothers 18131 1994)
Simple and surreal, “She Don’t Use Jelly” was Coyne and cos first singalong song which, unlike many, never seems to pall with repeated listenings. It’s just gleefully absurd, simple fun.

POP GROUP – She Is Beyond Good and Evil / 3.38 (Radar 29 1979)
Perhaps the Pop Group’s most accessible song, this is still evil sounding Faustian funk that lies somewhere between Chic and free jazz. They were a band whose tension between deep dub-funk and stellar jazz was stretched to breaking point, and topped with the borderline madness of Mark Stewart’s paranoid vocals, created a distopian soundtrack to societal, political and personal breakdown. The tension that drove them inevitably destroyed them as the group was pulled in too many conflicting directions, but their small ouevre is a truly great legacy.

PJ HARVEY – Sheela-na-gig / Joe / Hair (Too Pure 8 1992)
Part Pixies part riot girl, Polly Harvey stripped out the fat and fancy from her music, but still sounded a world away from the basic rock template. She infuriated and thrilled people in equal measure for her steadfast refusal to be labelled, or dragged into ’scenes’, and still does. Her secret is a paradoxical combination of self-doubt and self-confidence that leaves her restless and continually inventive, but at the same time, never capriciously flitting from style to style.

RAMONES – Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / Commando / I Don’t Care (Sire 746 1977)
They sounded dumb but were never stupid. The first three albums fire off crackers like this every couple of minutes without ever sounding weary. That they ultimately became a cliché was inevitable. They either progressed and lost the raw simplicity, or stayed the same and became a self-parody.

HALL & OATES – She’s Gone / I’m Just a Kid (Atlantic 3332 1974)
In the eighties they became pop giants, but their music became plastic and soulless. In the seventies they couldn’t get arrested, but came out with some amazing Philly soul-drenched pop. “She’s Gone” is a powerhouse of impassioned vocal interplay.

YELLO – She’s Got a Gun / The Evening’s Young (Do It 18 1982)
While a lot of Yello’s early music was fairly brash, electro-influenced synth pop, my favourite side to the duo was always the atmospheric noir-ish stories relayed in tracks like “Lost Again” and this one. Dieter Meyer’s image fits the world of darkened railway stations, femmes fatales with guns and the fading decadence of a Europe living under the burden of its own catastrophic history.

HOUSE OF LOVE – Shine On / Love / Flow (Creation 43 1987)
About as good as indie guitar music gets. The House of Love’s first single was emotional, exciting, crisp and concise. It sold diddly squat, despite being on a fashionable label. Some things are just unfathomable. Over the last two decades, they’re a band I’ve introduced to people more than any other I think, and the reaction is always glowing. And I’ve met other people who rate the band’s short tenure at Creation as highly as I do.

ROBERT WYATT – Shipbuilding / Memories of You (Rough Trade 115 1982)
Elvis Costello’s brilliant response to the Falklands War isn’t a angry polemic, but a confused reflection of a character whose livelihood has been secured by it, and feels guilty about that fact. I have no problem with Costello as a singer, but he has a rather sarcastic tone that really can’t carry off the emotional conflicts of the song. Robert Wyatt, however, has the right mixture of pathos, vulnerability and deep unease to convey it perfectly. A masterpiece.

BOYS NEXT DOOR – Shivers / Dive Position (Mushroom 7492 1979)
Before they discovered their true mettle as the Birthday Party, the band’s previous incarnation peddled a kind of jerky, spiky pop. This Rowland Howard song sounded nothing like either. It’s a brooding ballad that oddly has far more in common with some of Nick Cave’s later work even though it wasn’t his song. It’s appearance in the film Dogs in Space is a perfect cinematic moment.

MIRACLES – Shop Around / Who’s Loving You (Tamla 54030 1960)
Along with Barrett Strong’s “Money”, “Shop Around” is one of the two major hits of Motown’s first year that has one foot in doo wop and rock ‘n’ roll, and the other in the future, world-dominating Motown sound.

MAGAZINE – Shot By Both Sides / My Mind Ain’t So Open (Virgin 200 1978)
With a riff so good that former Buzzcocks partners Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley both used it (see “Lipstick” by the Buzzcocks), “Shot By Both Sides” introduced Magazine with a bang. It was a winning combination punk’s excitement and sharpness and the more expansive, almost prog, sound of bands like Roxy Music.

JUNIOR WALKER & THE ALL STARS – Shotgun / Hot Cha (Soul 35008 1965)
Motown anomalies in that they owed as much to Booker T & the MGs and James Brown as they did to the sound of the Motor City, Walker’s All Stars were a funky rhythm and blues outfit who were as much about the groove as they were about the song. “Shotgun” is a blast (sorry).

THE CARDINALS – Shouldn’t I Know / Please Don’t Leave Me (Atlantic 938 1951)
The Cardinals were one of the great proto-doo wop ballad groups, but one who seem to have fallen through the cracks of history. The only available compilation is a stingy 10 song collection that appeared on the Collectables label in 2006 and is only available on import from the US for a silly price.

STEELY DAN – Showbiz Kids / Razor Boy (ABC 11382 1973)
“Showbiz Kids” is another one of those great Steely Dan tunes that subverts the kind of smooth, self-regarding, nouveau riche types who probably listed the band as one of their favourites. Only this time they did it with a brazenness that only an idiot could fail to see: “They got the house on the corner, with the rug inside / They got the booze they need, all that money can buy / They got the shapely bodies, they got the Steely Dan T-shirts…” and as a final coup de grace: “Show bus’ness kids makin’ movies of themselves / You know they don’t give a fuck about anybody else“

More soon

After a very busy week, I’ve finally noticed the onset of dirty winter in Manchester. This time last week, I was wandering around Islington in a t-shirt and leggings, accessorised with a natty pair of Ray Bans (but that’s another story). Today, back in Manchester, I wandered outside in a duffle coat and scarf for a crafty smoke and had to scuttle back into the office because I was STILL cold. It’s a lovely crisp autumnal day, but I can’t help craving the warmth and late night sunlight that made sitting outside the pub until ten not just an option, but a necessity.It certainly beats freezing your bits off anyway.

At this time every year, I start to think about traveling. It might be the fact that it goes dark at four o’clock, or the fact that all my friends are away at Uni, but I start to feel bogged down by being in the same place all the time and long to see new places. With this epic wanderlust in mind….

Five Songs for Running Away

1. This Land Used To Be My Land, But Now I Hate This Land – Pomegranates: I love Pomegranates. I love them to the point that I can’t find the words to review their latest album, and it’s starting to really annoy me. Anyway. This song is the soundtrack to my life at the moment; it’s all about how you know and love somewhere so well, but you eventually get sick of it and need to explore. Indeed, it’s a running theme throughout their second album Everybody, Come Outside! and I would heartily recommend that you give it a listen.

2. Good Fortune – PJ Harvey: I bought PJ Harvey’s excellent Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea album when I was 13, on a school trip to New York. The man in the Times Square Virgin Megastore waxed lyrical on how good an album it was, and he was SO right. This song basically transports me back to walking around Manhattan in complete awe of everything; the subway, the way everything was massive, the complete romance I felt at being in a place I’d always wanted to go to. More than anything, it makes me want to go back there so badly, and actually walk around Chinatown hungover with a boy that makes me crazy. Of course I can do this in Manchester, but it’s never as glossy that way is it? So if anyone wants to donate a Virgin Atlantic ticket and a suite in the Thirty Thirty, that would be lovely.

3. More Of This – Vetiver: This is one of those songs where the words make you fizz with happiness. And it will get stuck in your head forever. Sentiments like ‘Our love is more than enough/To calm my troubled mind’ and ‘I could use more time alone with you/That just might carry me through’ make me miss the days of being able to visit places and do things on a whim with someone I love, because my free time seems to have become a lot more of a luxury these days. Plus I don’t have the frankly useful commodity of a boyfriend with a car anymore. Dammit! I should post the words actually, because they’re so sweet they make me teary. Let’s go for a walk in a country or something.

4. Let’s Go Surfing – The Drums: This is another one that makes me do a big goofy smile every time I hear it. For me, this song will always be In The City 2009 set to music, where I decided that the last night was the right time to finally get blasted and heckle a band into playing a song twice, as well as sneaking a crate of beer into one of Manchester’s more expensive venues. Never let it be said that I’m not crafty. The only problem with it is that it sounds so bloody summery, and it makes me want to dash to Brighton and make an arse of myself on the beach.

5. You Should Have Called – The Answering Machine: Yes, I am very aware that I’ve waxed lyrical about The Answering Machine’s album on this blog, but it’s fabulous. ‘You Should Have Called’ is probably my favourite song on there, if only because it emphasises the fact that you should ALWAYS, always tell someone how you feel about them, and that you should always return their calls and texts. The refrain on this song is in one of my top five ever too- it just sounds so dreamy and removed, like the girl telling the boy he should have called has given up.  Not that it’s a bit close to home or anything.. but yeah, it makes me want to run away, because I’m buggered sometimes when it comes to telling people how I really feel- and when I do it usually lands me in seven shades of deep trouble.

I started this on Monday afternoon, It is now nearly 11.00pm on Tuesday night. And my sleep pattern is slightly up the spout after trying to catch up on last week’s lack of,  so it looks like tomorrow will be a write-off. Perhaps I should spend it daydreaming about moving away instead of denting  my pile of coursework…

POLLY JEAN!!!