_{Take me out tonight
Where there’s music and there’s people
And they’re young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home}

Dagene har vært ganske innholdsrike, i grunn. Jeg liker høsten, jeg gjør det, men det er litt mørkt og litt regnfullt, så jeg gleder meg til lysere tider og julete tider før den tid. Dagene har vært bestående av en del jobbing, en del skole, tilfeldig oppblåsing av ballonger hos tilfeldig valgt tredjeklassing som tok det hele med et smil, skriking og feiring på døra hos bursdagsbarn med ballonger, gaver og blåseting som lager masse lyd, rare scrabblespill, gaver fra København og fin musikk som vekker meg fra lørdagens nattesøvn. Nå skal jeg skrive foredrag mens jeg hører på fin musikk og drikker noe varmt fra en fin julestarbuckskopp som jeg fikk som det står mange fine ord på.

Live at the Hacienda, Manchester, 6 July 1983.

The best album cover ever?

Last night on VH1 Europe they did a countdown of the top 25 albums of all time.  Prince made no. 3, and, inevitably, I guess, Thriller made no. 1.  But REM’s automatic for the people made no. 2.  What I found very weird about this, is that people since about the mid 90s have been intentionally forgetting that, between the period 1977-1995, ‘mainstream’ rock, or ‘establishment’ rock, was cosidered by the listening public to be entirely different from ‘alternative’ rock.  At least, that was the case in the US.  In britain, they always seemed to blur the line more, and ‘alternative’ acts often scored top 10 hits, which in the US happened much more infrequently.  But there was still a clear idea that alternative was alternative, and mainstream was mainstream.  And today, people realize this when shopping for music on Amazon:  i.e., “the killers” and DCFC are known to be ‘alternative,’ with ‘emo’ in the latter’s case being a subgenre of alternative:  and everyone has always known that Prince belongs in an entirely different category (of its own–file under ‘weird.’) 

So why are people conflating alternative and ‘pop’ music, to the point where I often hear people lump together alternative with ‘pop,’ so as to distinguish it from ‘R&B’ and ’Dance?’  To do so, I argue, is to entirely miss the point of the ‘altnertive’ movement.  In its heyday, every single person who listened to alternative was aware that it was ‘counter-cultural.’  In essence, alternative contiued the 1960s and 70s trend, which was anti-establishment, and went along with, in some form or another, the popular marxism of the day, which was highly suspicious of corporations, and thus, the record industry.  This of course, presupposes that its listeners have the mental apparatus to appreciate social complexity–to understand society as a system, and/or who are concerned to be articulate about their interation with the world.  Pop music proper, is therefore ‘for the masses,’, i.e., for the majority of people, who, unfortunately, do not have either the will or the IQ power to grapple with complex responses to their environment.  That’s why pop music, e.g. Elvis and Michael Jackson, is generally lyrically incredibly banal.  Both the 60s protest stuff, and, punk, and alternative, and now, things like emo, are thus distinguished by their more sophisticated lyrics.  So, what we are talking about here, then, is music for those who are fortunate enough to have the apparatus and desire to engage with lyrics.  Unfortunately, after 1995, lyrics went out of style (see below) and the entire culture’s level of articulateness, I would argue, has suffered since then.   

By the time that alternative came of age, however, I would argue that it had become much more personal.  While the 60s and 70s Woodstock stuff was decidedly public music – to be performed live, e.g., the doors–and often had impersonal lyrics (e.g. Bob Marley– cryin’ lion zion…. what the hey is that all about?), by the 80s, the goth movement brought music into the bedroom, i.e., into the personal minds of the listener.  Morrissey of course puts it best:  ’When I lay in awe on my bedroom floor,” etc. 

Many people put punk together with alternative, but I see a divergence from the beginning.  Groups like Joy Division and the Cure and Souxsie were always much more cerebral, sensitive, and appealed more to the introspective person, rather than punk, which was often so absurd as to be a simple testosterone fest, despite it’s often radical-marxist lyrics.  In short, I think that punk sucks, becasue though it was perhaps good that someone was doing it, i.e., being socially aware in their music, I believe that their methods, which were essentially violent and anarchist, are inherently self-defeating.  Thus I have never been drawn to it. 

Alternative, on the other hand, foregrounded the individal emotional and (crucially) intellectual response to the world, and thus, can be seen as a re-visioning of the eighteenth-century Cult of Sensibility, which was spearheaded by Goethe, and was then brought to fruition by authors such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Jane Austen, and Keats, who, for the first time in history, asserted that the experience of the individual (particularly of the sensitive individual) truly mattered.  The artist figure, the thinker, the solitary philosopher, was worth listening to, they argued, and this could be anyone–not simply the great.  This encouraged reading and thinking and sensitive people everywhere to stop being deferent to their social superiors, and to really take their own inner dialogue seriously.  This is arguably a very crucial step on the way towards mass democracy. 

And this is why I’m interested in alternative music, from the point of view of this site.  I belive that the 1970s and 80s saw a massive increase in the sensibilities of young thinking people–they grew up in households with more money, for one, and they had more opportunities to travel and to interact with other cultures than ever before.  And they had leisure, and many of them, in Britain and the US, studied the arts, even just in high school, this was done seriously, with an emphasis on text, on poetry and literature, and this encouraged many people once again to take this inner dialogue seriously.  Arguably, the 80s bedroom revolution was quite similar to the romantic revolution which emerged after the french revolution:  a public revolution went bust, and so artist figures, who had been so engaged and so inspired by the public’s prospects, now retreated into their own minds, and continued to hold the ideals of the revolution there, in their own private spheres, until such a time as they might once again find public times propitious for their goals of reform, and remaking. 

This is precisely what the 80s bedroom revolutionaries did, and more.  They saw that the 60s and 70s had failed in many ways to produce anything lasting and concrete, besides a welcome liberalization of society–which should not be underestimated.  But they saw instinctually (I did as a high schooler, and I know my alternative friends did), that the political aims of the hippie revolution were largely unfulfilled, swallowed up by the wave of conservativism brought about by reagan (and thatcher).  And so, we moved inward.  We still had ideals, we still cherished the idea of reform–very much so.  But we also began to realize, through introspecton, that our own selves really truly mattered:  our own emotions, thoughts, etc.  But what made the alternative age different from today, ‘the post alternative age,’ is that today’s emo people, I think, have grown up in an entirely self-serving society, which is almost devoid of the ideal of social reform.  In the 80s, there was still some of that public idealism left.  And it made us idealistic, in the best possible way.  We believed that, by reforming ourselves, we could reform the world, make it better.  (see this website–it’s basically proof that i’m still working in that mode). 

I believe that, after about 1995, these ideals basically died, in a big way, in popular culture, and what we’ve been left with is a culture devoid of public ideals.  It’s therefore all been about the desires of the individual, and thus, is essentially unsophisticated:  it’s all egotism.  Emo people are the intelligent version of the ‘gimme’ school.  But their lyrics are still essentially whining–with no underlying vision.  If you have no social dimension to what you do and think, it’s very difficult for this to be progressive–it is inherently centrifugal, I think.  And then, the less articulate version of this has been the triumph of hip hop, which, for reasons we’ll have to leave for elsewhere, has been almost entirely egotistical and self serving, especially after the few attempts in the 80s to make it political (in which case it was tied to the alternative music ethic– NWA and Public Enemy, e.g., did have much that was political in them–but after about ‘93, any impetus to put the political into music fell away, and hip hop returned to simple braggadocio, and glorification of violence, and domination of women–which, when one loses idealism, is all that’s left).

So, to put a time scale on it: i’d say

1950s:  rock invented, in US and britain.

1960s-early 70s:  protest rock– the first ‘alternative rock.’

1977-present.  Punk.  Angry marxist progressiveness.  Ultimately self-defeating.

1977-1995.  Golden Age of Alternative.  Lyrics were foregrounded, personal experience was foregrounded, but enough idealism remained from the 70s age of popular Marxism, that people genuinely wanted to make the world a better place.

1992- Grunge makes its debut.  Mixes alternative with testosterone rock.  Beginning of the end of alternative music.  After this, sensitive artists begin to avoid lyrics.

mid-1990s.  Age of ‘acid jazz’ ‘house’ – etc.  Club music draws the best and the brighest.  But it is a-lyrical, and so, essentially, the age of social engagement fizzles, quite rapidly.  And with it, idealism.  Idealistic music is no longer fashionable.  The only alternative bands who are still producing major albums are some of what we used to call B-quality bands:  i.e., Radiohead and Bjork.  They sucked compared with the giants of the alternative era, but their manneristic squeaking and shapeless music went well with the new anti-lyrical fashion, and so they became huge.

2000-present.  With internet, a great variety of musical styles, but, it’s still true that, when the lyric comes back into fashion, it is now almost entirely personal.  Political, social, progressive agendas are entirely out, and so the music never rises above the purely juvenile.  Whereas Morrissey and Ian Curtis’ poetry has the power of Wordsworth to engage us, and incite us, to think idealistically, the (admittedly good) lyrics of Death Cab for Cutie, or worse, the banal lyrics of the White Stripes, and the Yeah yeah yeahs, never rise above the purely personal of the high school student’s poetry:

‘yesterday i saw a couple/kissing by the train platform/they were so beautiful/i wondered where they were going.’

Etc.  This is drivel–because it’s purely of personal interest.  It has no idealism, thus, no universalism, and that is the essence of good poetry.

So, my argument, then, is that grunge killed alternative, and after that, we hear people talking of ‘rock being in the shitter’ (trent reznor, 1999–unfortunately his album of that year did nothing to rescue it–the inspiration had died–the age of idealism was largely over).  And until the culture once again recovers idealism, it will continue to stay in the shitter.  Read around on this site, and you’ll see how idealism and moving, real, gripping, engaging art have always been entirely intertwined with one another. 

Thus, all of the following albums, from 1977 to about the grunge era (let’s say 1995–though i do include some grunge), are filled with idealism, even if their lyrics do not explicitly sound that way at all.  And a few albums that come after this time have managed to keep some of that idealism, and so they are included here as well.  Even the industrial music which was a subgenre of alternative in the latter part of this period was not anything like ‘white zombie’ or ’tool’ which came later, and which are genuinely antisocial, antihumanist, and violent–and thus antidemocratic.  I would argue, then, that Skinny Puppy is highly idealistic and progressive, while Maynard what’s-his-name’s “Tool”, which dominated the 90s niche formerly held by bands like Skinny Puppy, replaced it with an entirely anti-idealistic, self-destructive, even psychotic atmosphere, which I argue, still holds the dominant position in our society today (see my post on violence condoning torture for more on this).   Ok, then without further ado (and knowing that we’ll have to discuss these choices at a future time):  here would be my top 25 alternative/industrial albums of all time (and it’s basically ridiculous to put them in order, I think):

Dead Can Dance-  Serpent’s Egg, or Spiritchaser; 10,000 Maniacs – Our Time in Eden; The Cure- The Top; Joy Division- Substance; New Order – Substance; Belle & Sebastian – Tigermilk; Depeche Mode – Violator; Pixies – Doolittle; Loreena McKennitt – The Visit; Smashing Pumpkins – Gish; Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes; The Smiths- Louder than Bombs; Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs; The National – The National; REM – Document or Automatic for the People; Skinny Puppy – Mind:  The Perpetual Intercourse; Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas; Sundays – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic; Ministry - Live:  In case you didn’t feel like showing up;  Moby – Play; St. Germain-St. Germain (a-lyrical, but idealistic); Coldplay – Rush of Blood to the Head; Death Cab for Cutie – Plans; Enya – Watermark; Sarah McLachlan – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy; Nine Inch Nails – Downward Spiral or Pretty Hate Machine.  Lisa Gerard – The Mirror Pool.

Ok, that’s 27.  But what most of these have in common, is that they are beautiful, sublime, epic, and/or highly idealistic.  They are not essentially violent (even Ministry-I’d argue), but essentially the opposite–egalitarian, democratic, progressive, empathetic.  They strive for the good, the beautiful, the just.  And so they receive the Platonist’s seal of approval.

The Smiths -  Compilation(1992)

The Smiths, How soon is now:

I am the son

and the heir

of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way

I am human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does

I am the son

and the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way

I am human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does

There’s a club, if you’d like to go

You could meet somebody who really loves you

So you go, and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home

And you cry

And you want to die

When you say it’s gonna happen now,

Well, when exactly do you mean?

See I’ve already waited too long

And all my hope is gone

I am human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does  

Burn down the disco

Hang the blessed DJ

Because the music that they constantly play

it says nothing to me about my life

 

Ontem estava passando a garota de rosa shocking no telecine cult, e por sinal é um dos meus filmes favoritos! Lembro de quando eu era bem pequena e ele passava sempre na sessão da tarde, porem  para minha tristeza parou de passar, eu passei anos tentando pelo menos alugar esse filme e num achava! Por isso quase morri de felicidade quando vi na programação do telecine!

A garota de rosa shocking conta a história de Andie, a menina pobre, que é toda new wave, não popular, que estuda na  escola de pessoas ricas e tem um crush por um dos  plaboyzinhos da escola! Andie trabalha em uma loja de discos (que tem um poster lindo dos Smiths, com o Morrissey novinho), tem um melhor amigo incrível, engraçadissímo e que gosta dela, o Duckie, e uma amiga mais velha a Iona!

A confusão começa quando Blane, (o playboyzinho que ela gosta), chama ela para sair e tanto os amigos dele, como os amigos dela, não aceitam muito bem o relacionamento dos dois, devido a extrema diferença entre seus mundos!

Além do filme ter um figurino 80’s incrível, ele tem uma trilha sonora de matar!

• • “Pretty In Pink” - The Psychedelic Furs
• “Wouldn’t It Be Good” -  Nik Kershaw
• “What’s It Going To Be” -  Maggie Lee
• “Love” –  John Lennon
• “Round, Round” - Belouis Some
• “Pursuit” – Winston Sharples
• “Rave-Up/Shut-Up” – The Rave-Ups
• “Positively Lost Me”- The Rave-Ups
• “Copacabana (At The Copa)” – Barry Manilow
• “Thieves Like Us” – New Order
• “Elegia” – New Order
• “If You Leave” – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
• “Whisper / Touch” – Code Blue
• “Bring On The Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
• “Do Wot You Do” – INXS
• “Shell-Shock” – New Order
• “Try a Little Tenderness” – Otis Redding
• “Cherish” – The Association
• “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” – The Smiths
• “Rudy” – Talk Back
• “Left of Center” – Suzanne Vega
• “Get to Know Ya” – Jesse Johnson

Uma das melhores cenas do filme:

Se você nunca assistiu esse super clássico de 1986, pelo amor assista djá!

“Shredding, to me, is akin to having a incredibly overblown vocabulary at your disposal and saying very, very little”   “Well, it appears to be tasteless and aesthetically pretty corny, I think.”

Johnny Marr

here’s a link to the article

Couldn’t have said it better myself, I hereby declare Gorehound’s Roots Guitar Tips a NO SHREDDING ZONE!

Anyone using fuzz, wah-wahs or a long delay while they are learning to play is just fooling themselves. Of course everything sounds good with fuzz, you also lose all your dynamics. You can’t hear the notes clearly and most importantly, you will sound like almost every other electric Guitarist on the planet.

If you like to sound like you are playing  a 100 watt kazoo as fast as you can, go ahead. An experienced player doesn’t need to rush.

Jazz, Metal and Classical players rarely look like they are having fun. They usually look like those people in the movie “Scanners”, right before their heads explode. Just because music involves math, doesn’t mean it should be “mathematical”

While shredding may be technically impressive, it’s  playing scales with tons of distortion. It’s about as un-musical as you can get! But if you’re one of those long-haired sheep, wank-on! The world needs it’s low common-denominator stereotypes

“ Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity. -Plato

“Frankly, Mr. Shankly, I’m a sickening wreck/I’ve got the 21st century breathing down my neck”

This is something I’ve been planning on doing for a while.  By this, I mean I have been looking for a way to release the stream of frustration that had its humble beginnings as simple teen angst and has now turned into a full blown quarter-life crisis. I’ve been fed up for a long time–sick and tired of bottling up the inane boredom of my life that casts constant waves of stress and restlessness in my psyche day in and out. Hopefully, my newly created space on the “blogosphere” will allow me to vent every once in a while and allow me to manage some of the crazy in my head.

I’m a college student in my final year of studies. I have done absurdly well for the total lack of academic integrity found in my moral system, and somehow managed to pull off an honors roll. When I should be studying and doing required work, I’m usually drinking, smoking, watching movies, or generally wasting away my full academic potential. I’ll be going into graduate school, and I truly hope that I’ll finally be found out for the fraud I am and can do something I want with my life instead of being a productive member of society.

I’d honestly rather spend my days working at a grocery store, then going home and doing absolutely nothing with my time. To me this is fulfilling and a completely acceptable form of life. Why does everyone need to work a high paying, high stress job just because they have the general intellect to do such a thing? As I hope will be seen by all in future posts, my life behavior is a shining example as to why you don’t actually need to be intelligent to do well in life.

“Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I’ve held/it pays my bills and it corrodes my soul”

If I realize the futility of what I’m doing with my life, why even bother? Why not just drop out of school and live the way I’d like to live? Unfortunately for me, I’m a product of the “American Dream” age, and thus am forced by an invisible, yet highly powerful moral imperative to make a shit ton of money, knock up a chick and proceed to pamper her with gifts, buy us a house, and give copious amounts of my seed to impregnate her with further children. On top of that, this flawless dream gives the added benefit of allowing me to spiral further and further into debt, despite the fact that I am killing any last shred of humanity I have left in me by working to pay off said debt. It’s a beautiful cycle, and one that I just can’t wait to partake in.

Simply put, this is my life. It is not going to change. Idealism died for me about a year ago and was replaced with a brutal yet pragmatic realism. Maybe one day it will raise again in my hardened heart, but until then I will continue to use a variety of ill-conceived techniques to act as a crutch as I drift throughout the final year of my college life and possibly beyond. Maybe this wordpress will help me figure things out for myself and provide some new insight. Maybe I can find a way back to the golden age that was the senior year of high school and first year college. If not, oh well. At least I’ll have some decent stories to tell and somebody out there will finally get who I am outside my quiet exterior.

We’ve reviewed the movie, it’s perfectly apt to make a review of the music. (500) days of summer’s soundtrack contributes greatly to the movie’s atmosphere. It has only just to peek into it. The soundtrack is set almost in the same sequence as it appeared in the movie. It perfectly starts with the simple narration “this is the story of boy meets girl…”, which brings you back to the film. Followed by Regina Spektor’s Us, which is nostalgic almost and is the introduction to the every so familiar countdown in the film. I like how Spektor’s voice rises above the piano.  How can the soundtrack not have a song by the The Smiths, when the connection between our protagonists supposedly begun.  There is A Light never goes out and Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I want are the two tracks by The Smiths showcased in the Soundtrack. I love how the music takes you over and makes you want to get lost in the music. The inclusion of Hall and Oates You Make My Dreams is a source of guilty pleasure on my part. It’s place in the movie added an element of Broadway and animation, but it seriously makes you want to dance silly. I’ve played it so many times for the simple fact that there is something incredibly alive about it. The Doves’ song There Goes the Fear has the ability to bring stills and collages of pictures in my head. I have to be honest I’ve never heard of the Doves, but they are vital piece of music in the soundtrack and transitions you smoothly from Please, Please, Please…to Track Seven by Hall and Oates. The latter is seamlessly followed by Sweet Disposition By Temple Trap which begins with the steady riff and by this haunting vocals, it’s exhilarating music. It reminds me of starting your car and speeding through an empty highway.

Acoustic music plagues you as a French song by Carla Bruni follows at Track 9 and then by Feists’ Mushaboom. Heavy on the acoustic guitar and quiet vocals, this music takes you to summer in a field. Bruni’s song reminds me so much of that little song sung by Julie Delpy at the end of Before Sunset. Could it be a French thing? Tracks 11 to 13 lead you to the denouement with Hero (Spektor), Bookends (Simon and Garfunkel) and Vagabond (Wolfmother). The Latter allows to go to the ‘happy’ end with knowing you’ve been through the dumps. Track 14 is another guilty pleasure for me. I love hearing She’s Got you High by Mumm-ra, no matter what I do it just makes me want to run. The lyrics of the song capture Tom’s, the male protagonist, disposition well.

The soundtrack also offers a few bonus tracks. At the latter part of the album you get to hear the singing of the actors as they sang in the karaoke scenes in the film. I have to say Joseph Gordon’s Levitt’s rendition of Here Comes Your Man was good and I prefer it from Meaghan’s Smith rendition, which is part of the Album. I suppose I liked the ‘rock’ rendition more than the quiet rendition. Also Levitt’s slur (his character was supposedly drank when he sang this) added something interesting to the song.

I’ve listened to this whole album while working, studying, sleeping and walking. The best time to listen to it is when you are walking early morning or in the evening. It’s like a portable soundtrack to your life. It affects your mood and in general makes you either calm or happy. Also, I think the album is a great introduction to this genre of music. For people who love mainstream pop music (am I being redundant), but loved the film this album can change your music taste. It introduces you to a whole range of artist and simple good music.

I’m not much of a musician or a music critic, but sometimes good music is just that, it’s good. And if you liked the movie, then its impossible you didn’t like the music.

Hope you enjoyed this semi-review of the soundtrack.

Timmy usually includes a star rating, so for this album its 5 out of 5 stars.

Until tomorrow, see you.

Radiohead – The Headmaster Ritual (The Smiths)

Gingerbread cookies.
Wife and kid.
Tree swing.

Inevitably in life, there are good days and bad.  The latter was in attendance today.

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I’ve held
It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul
I want to leave, you will not miss me
I want to go down in musical history

…

But sometimes I’d feel more fulfilled
Making Christmas cards with the mentally ill
I want to live and I want to Love
I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of

Oh, give us your money !

Thankfully, tomorrow is another day.

i would go out tonight
but i haven’t got a stitch to wear
this man said “it’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care.”
///
(…)
///
we know so much about these things.
///
(nice smiths’ cover)

-

Le souffle du vent sur la plaine, un piano solennel extirpé d’un souvenir lointain, des notes s’enroulant, ricochant entre elles, puis le Verbe, la voix de Moz, expirante et immuable : « Sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep ». Quelque chose se passe, beauté et mal-être se confondent. Plus tard, après une brève histoire d’amour impossible, « There is another world, there is a better world, Well, It must be… » (Asleep). La voix se fait fantomatique, emportée par les clochettes dérisoires d’un jeu d’enfant.

-

Le fan des Smiths, c’est bien connu, peut être étroit, obsessionnel, quelque peu autiste à certains égards. C’est pourquoi je ne prendrai même pas la peine de présenter ce groupe à ceux qui ne connaissent pas. Aimer les Smiths, c’est une pathologie sérieuse et incurable. Dans Panic, Morrissey s’exclame « Burn down the disco, Hang the blessed DJ, Because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life ». C’est justement ça qui est en jeu : comme quelques rares groupes de génie, il ne s’agit plus de produire une musique destinée à sa seule consommation esthétique, il s’agit de parler de la vie, et pour de vrai cette fois. Écouter The Smiths sans en comprendre les paroles n’est même pas envisageable. Comme tout œuvre d’art supérieure, le sens reste indéterminé, caché au regard du profane tel un mystère religieux. Et chacun de reconstruire un puzzle mental à l’aulne de sa propre sensibilité et de sa propre histoire.

-

-

L’autre soir, un ami me dit avec justesse : écouter The Smiths, c’est un peu comme assister à la naissance du monde, remonter à l’apparition première des choses (« Nature is a langage can’t you read ?» Ask). Et moi de lui rétorquer, oui, mais c’est pourtant terriblement ironique et triste, désabusé dans sa peinture d’un monde désenchanté (The boy with the horn in his side). Or, c’est dans cette tension entre la rêverie d’un état originel et pur du monde et la contemplation d’un présent historique plongé dans l’angoisse que peut se jouer le prodige smithien.

La vision d’un paradis à la mesure de l’homme, paradis qui lui est pourtant refusé. Cette même thématique se retrouve dans un univers dont la bipolarité peut recouvrir plusieurs formes antinomiques : l’enclin naturel à la jouissance face à son inhibition par les codes de la morale (Stretch out and wait : «What’s at the back of your mind ?…Let your juvenile imposes its way… Let your puny body lie down, lie down… »), la tendresse ironique et prosaïque face à la révélation sourde d’une vérité traumatisante (I Won’t Share you « Has the Perrier gone straight to my head or Is life sick and cruel instead ? » – vers immortel) l’amour pur et éternel du charbonnier face aux menaces haineuse du quotidien (The Hand that rocks the cradle et le rayonnement d’un amour inéxorable au sein des ténèbres : « A piano plays in an empty room, There’ll be blood on the cleaver tonight… I’ll still be by your side, I’ll love you till the day I die »), ou encore, l’innocence du cœur enfantin face aux à la scabreure du monde adulte (Reel around the Fountain « It’s time the tale were told, of how you took a child and you made him old »). Qu’on aime ou pas, il faut bien voir qu’hormis Dylan et Lou Reed, on a rien écrit de meilleur, de plus “vital”.

Aimer les Smiths, c’est respirer un air que tout homme doit pouvoir respirer au moins une fois dans sa vie, le parfum terriblement romantique d’un monde tel qu’il devrait exister mais tel qu’il ne peut pas ou plus l’être. C’est vivre une des incarnations modernes les plus réussies du grand mythe occidental, Eros et Thanatos, indéfectiblement liés. C’est voir que peut-être les choses belles sont celles qui finissent mal.

Aimer les Smiths, c’est enfin réécouter la sentence, « Il n’y a d’Eden que perdu », vérité qui nous empêchera peut-être d’être jamais heureux, mais dont les affres rendront pour toujours à la vie, la peine d’être vécue.

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ps: pour ceux qui connaissent déjà, ne vous arrêtez pas aux plus connus comme Hatful of Hollow, The Queen is dead ou Meat is Murder, revenez à la source avec The Smiths, The World Won’t Listen ou le dernier, Strangeways, Here we come. Et lisez les paroles, infâmes francophones!

]]> http://boysmustdance.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/500-days-of-summer-soundtrack/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:07:57 +0000 boysmustdance http://boysmustdance.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/500-days-of-summer-soundtrack/

Adoro trilha sonoras. Sou viciada, tenho várias. E agora estou TREMENDAMENTE apaixonada pela do “500 days of summer” porque parece assim que fui eu que fiz. Assisti o filme ontem e me apaixonei. Não há palavras que descrevam você estar no cinema e tocar The Smiths. Admiro que ainda existam produtores de cinema hoje em dia que apreciam a boa música. Combinação perfeita.

Recomeeendo demaaaaais. Tanto o filme, quanto a soundtrack.

Aqui vai algumas ( ou quase todas) das músicas:

Acho que eu já citei The Temper Trap aqui. Se não, irei fazer isso. Quando tocou “Sweet Disposition”, gente… quem não conhece, por favor:

Morro de amores!!! Pago pau mesmo.

Enfim, voltando, outra música que eu morri horrooooores foi Doves – There Goes the Fear. Gente, essa música é uma obra prima do Doves, e o videoclipe é um caso á parte também, né? Adoro o final quando a musica encerra no clima samba no pé, surge uma belíssima Sapucaí. Amazing. Amazing.

Pra deixar a trilha mais fofa, eles fizeram o FAVOR de pôr Feist- Mushaboom e Regina Spektor- Us e Hero.

Eles ainda ressuscitaram uma banda dos anos 70/80 chamada Hall & Oates que meu pai  nega mas ele cuuuuurte, com ” You Make my Dreams come True”. Adoro esses achados assim.

Já deu pra sentir porque eu estou tão feliz.

Pra fechar, Wolfmother – Vagabond, Black Lips – Bad Kids, e A MELHOR BANDA DO MUNDO como diz minha amiga Roberta, The Smiths, com Please Please Please Let me Get What I want e There is a Light that Never Goes Out.

“Take me out tonigght, take me anywhere I don’t care I don’t care I don’t caaaare“

morri.

Hay… ¿falsas esperanzas?

Suele ocurrir que cuando el titular de un artículo es una citación tan clara como “No cierrro la puerta a una reunión con los Smiths” uno ya no se lo cree, y lee el texto entero para situar la frase en su contexto. Pero es que estas palabras de Johny Marr, del que ya dijimos que esta con The Cribs, no tienen trampa ni cartón, es más, la frase entera sigue con “los que me escuchan no son idiotas y saben que muchas cosas disparatadas acaban sucediendo”. Ahora que cada uno se haga las ilusiones que crea convenientes, porque en question de reuniones-realmente-esperadas, vamos curados de espanto.

Todo ano um filme independente rouba os holofotes. Aconteceu com Pequena Miss Sunshine, aconteceu com Juno. São aquelas pequenas joias que não contam necessariamente com os atores mais famosos do mundo, mas que tem uma história adorável para todos os públicos – e, de quebra, uma trilha sonora bem legal! Esse é o caso de (500) Dias Com Ela, que não é nem tão independente assim (20th Century Fox não é nenhuma produtora/distribuidora de fundo de quintal, né?), mas tem lá seus ares e conta com a mais nova queridinha dos amantes de indie: Zooey Deschanel (ela é o ‘She’ do She & Him – aparentemente a sra. Ben Gibbard gosta de pronomes, já que no título brasileiro, Zooey também é o ‘ela’ do título).

Detalhes linguísticos à parte, quem faz o par com Zooey é Joseph Gordon-Levitt, que muitos da minha geração conhecem como o Tommy de 3rd Rock From The Sun, série com John Lithgow que o Sony reprisou. Hoje Joseph está crescido e é considerado um dos jovens atores mais promissores. Para completar o elenco, temos Clark Gregg, que dirigiu Choke e faz o ex-marido de The New Adventures of Old Christine, série da Warner. Digamos, então, que não estamos lidando com um bando de desconhecidos.

Não que isso importasse. A espinha dorsal do filme é a história, que não é de amor. Logo no início do filme, somos avisados de que não se trata do que se imagina, e sim de uma história sobre o amor. Há uma grande diferença, acredite. Tanto que nos vemos dentro de um conto às avessas: o rapaz é romântico, a moça não se apega. Mas, nessa história-que-não-é-de-amor, há momentos adoráveis, singelos, românticos, que não te deixam opção a não ser torcer pelo final feliz. Para que o casal tão improvável seja feliz para sempre.

Para saber se isso de fato acontece, você terá de conferir o filme. A questão que fica é: a história é bonitinha, os atores também, mas vale a pena ou é apenas hype? Será que o filme é tão bom quanto todo mundo diz?

Eu diria que sim. Não é todo filme que toca Regina Spektor, The Smiths, Doves, Spoon, The Clash, Wolfmother e Feist. E não é todo filme de amor sobre o amor que te prende até o final simplesmente porque se importa com aqueles personagens e quer saber o que acontece com eles – aliás, a maioria dos filmes do gênero é previsível. Um filme que te faz contemplar duas possibilidades distintas, sem conseguir prever o final, é uma raridade. Só isso faz valer o ingresso.

i think you’ll risk it so you do

it’s not as bad as you think

the rain falls down on a humdrum town