Trying to study
In between writing a music post, or perhaps vice-versa. It's hard to tell. XD;
Babyshambles, Shotter's Nation: liked this better than I'd expected, to a degree in fact that sororial unit found alarming. XD; The mp3s are ripped at 256kbps because I popped the CD in the proper soundsystem and the production totally blew my mind. It was two weeks before it occurred to me that the contrast with the 1,887,060 early-mp3-era-quality Libertines bootlegs I'd been listening to previously had something to do with it. Still: it sounds so good. The way Perlon techno sounds, with a little bit of empty space around every note. Like that LJ icon-making trick of doubling tiny text in black or white and gaussian-blurring the bottom layer to make the top one pop (now you know). I SORT OF ♥ STEPHEN STREET? Yeah.
All this constitutes a broader revelation because I'd never thought of rock production as something that mattered, except in specific cases where the producer may as well have been a member of the band (Joy Division) or was a member of the band (Garbage). Then I thought about it more and went back and listened to things, and came to the conclusion that rock production mattered to me a whole lot, I just never realized it did. I mean, I always just assumed the guitars on the Smiths' songs sounded like that because that was how Johnny Marr played. XD; From another perspective production (or sound engineering) probably has a lot to do with why a lot of rock turns me off - I can't stand how everything sounds quadruple-tracked and compressed together without any sense of breathing room. But this is as much a problem with radio pop and country, if not more.
Babyshambles - Baddie's Boogie: OH YEAH AND THERE ARE SONGS AND WHATEVER. Christgau (who sweats over getting adjectives exactly right) calls the melodies "endearing". I particularly like this one because it's not about Peter Doherty and his Well-Publicized Problems(tm). For a change, like. XD; It also doesn't sound at all like the 90s, which was something that really unnerved me about the album as a whole.
Babyshambles - Lost Art Of Murder: Bert Jansch plays on this, i.e. acoustic guitar that's actually worth listening to. XD Pretty, mellow, and not as depressing as "Needle of Death" (or for that matter "Tears in Heaven", which is really what the latter reminds me of) - no one dies, just ponders going to rehab.
Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: I'd never heard of her before someone posted a live vid on poptimists the other week, which shows how in touch I am beyond the Global Indie Ghetto (for those of you outside of North America, this album went U.S. double platinum). The original tracklisting of this runs from "Tim McGraw" to "Our Song", and it seems reasonable to assume that I won't be hearing a better pop album for the rest of the year. Not all that many come along where every track sounds like a massive single. P.S. and it's not over-produced either, funny that.
Basically it's Babyshambles, then this, in the same way as I alternated the official Libertines albums with the Pipettes (inherent tonality of Taylor Swift's voice being rather Pipette-like). It alloys the boy-ness of the other thing, which I actually find quite oppressive. I've seen people in emo bandom mentioning this too, though there you get Maja Sounds and, er. Ashlee Simpson? ._. Secretly I like the earliest Babyshambles lineup best because of Gemma, she was so cute. NOTE TO ALL BRITINDIE IF YOU'RE GOING TO RIP OFF THE LIBERTINES HAVE THE DECENCY TO KEEP A TOKENIST DRUMMER IN FOR THOSE OF US WHO ENJOY SUCH THINGS. They looked like a made-up band from an Emma Bull urban fantasy novel. Meanwhile the current Babyshambles lineup looks like they're one phone-call-from-the-past away from the British equivalent of a Johnny To shoot'em-up. ...There're parallels as well as contrasts: both are focussed, filler-free albums that create a sustained mood, a self-contained universe as it were. Which is how I like it, because otherwise I'd listen to singles. XD Both are polished but not cluttered, as aforementioned. Taylor Swift's world is as alien to me as Pete Doherty's, but it's not alienating, because I like her. I can't believe I'm about to write this but she seems like a great role model for young girls (apart from being born to a freakishly unattainable standard of physical beauty as well as talent, which it seems churlish to blame her for, as some people are just put on this earth to make the rest of us feel like clods. See: Natalie Portman).
Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw: for instance, this is a song in which Taylor's boyfriend goes off to college, and she's down about it because it means they have to break up. She doesn't really have any illusions about the fact that it's a stupid high school relationship and not TROO LUV 4EVR, but she wants to make sure that, yanno, he remembers her. Because she deserves to be remembered.
Taylor Swift - Stay Beautiful: Taylor is also unconcerned with whether the boys she crushes on think she's pretty. (She's objectively gorgeous but that's never stopped anyone from feeling insecure.) Actually, she's not too bothered over whether they like her back or not, though it'd be nice if they did. She thinks they're beautiful, though, and has no problem telling them so.
Taylor Swift - Tied Together With A Smile: I guess it's true that love was all you wanted / cause you give it away like it's extra change / hoping it will end up in his pocket / but he leaves you out like a penny in the rain / oh, cause it's not his price to pay <-- KIND OF AMAZING LYRICS?
It's all so refreshingly well-adjusted. XD
m-flo, Electricolor: m-flo remix albums are a series in and of themselves, like Pet Shop Boys' Disco compilations - there're at least two versions of everything, feel free to pick the one you like best. Mostly they have moments of brilliance but don't hit it out of the ballpark in comparison with the originals. This one comes pretty close, though. Apparently (and surprisingly) it's the first album of what they consider to be proper remixes, i.e. built for the dancefloor. Also apparently they've put an end to the "m-flo loves" project, though one somehow suspects this doesn't mean the end of guest collabs. At any rate last.FM should thank them for it. XD
m-flo loves MINMI - Lotta Love (-yasutaka nakata capsule mix-): I like how this is three tracks - reverb-y 90s globe-stylee rave-up, PROPER ELECTRO ZOMG, and FPM-like funky house - and that was just the first two minutes and a half.
m-flo loves Chara - Love To Live By (-FPM eclectic electric mix-): speaking of Fantastic Plastic Machine. XD The pingpong-ball bass bounce with the snare snap makes it - sounds like nothing so much as a Booka Shade sample.
m-flo loves STAR TREK - Love Long And Prosper (-diplo's love guns and foster children remix-): that Diplo, yes. And that Star Trek.
Assorted other tracks:
Teddy Thompson - The Future: cover of Leonard Cohen, from I'm Your Man - remember this performance from the film, should really get the soundtrack. It is SMOKING. helvetius upped this with the original and I've been playing it lots, because there's nothing like a fire-and-brimstone screed against moral relativism to wash off the post-modern grossness. It's very... Republican, this song. XD Which is fair, because the other party stole "Democracy", and "Anthem" blows both of them away.
Linda Thompson feat. Antony - Beauty: Teddy Thompson is best friends with Rufus Wainwright, supposedly, which makes sense as he's basically Rufus's direct counterpart in English folk, genetically speaking. Man, it's a relief that Rufus Wainwright is gay, because sometimes I worry we're unintentionally breeding our folk singers into an evolved race capable of MASS MIND CONTROL THROUGH THE BEAUTY OF THEIR VOICES. Anyway, this is a song that Rufus Wainwright wrote for Linda Thompson to sing, as a present. It's very Rufus, both lyrically and melodically, one of his best.
I really love what I've heard of the Linda Thompson album, and will be buying it properly (before or after the Khaled best-of). Yes, I'm stuck in the seventies.
In the interest of looping the loop, here is a Youtube of Teddy Thompson and his sister Kamila singing a song Linda Thompson wrote... about Pete Doherty. FOR REALS. It's a good song - that is, it's Linda Thompson. XD; I find it as logical as anything that it's old-school folkies who're bothered about him.
(Linda Thompson's gloss on the thing being something along the lines of, yes it's sad he's such a mess, but on the other hand she used to sort-of date Tim Buckley. And Nick Drake. XD; Meanwhile other indiebois are the ones to write love songs about Carl Ashley Raphael Barât, but don't get me started.)
P.S. there has been a mysterious friending matsuri this past couple of weeks. The flist is now up to 350, which is my cue to ask new people to introduce themselves - you don't have to, that is, I won't be defriending you, but it would be nice. XD Why now, when there are fewer updates than ever, and the mp3 posts are unlocked? Did I make it seem like I'd gone friends-only? XD;;
Babyshambles, Shotter's Nation: liked this better than I'd expected, to a degree in fact that sororial unit found alarming. XD; The mp3s are ripped at 256kbps because I popped the CD in the proper soundsystem and the production totally blew my mind. It was two weeks before it occurred to me that the contrast with the 1,887,060 early-mp3-era-quality Libertines bootlegs I'd been listening to previously had something to do with it. Still: it sounds so good. The way Perlon techno sounds, with a little bit of empty space around every note. Like that LJ icon-making trick of doubling tiny text in black or white and gaussian-blurring the bottom layer to make the top one pop (now you know). I SORT OF ♥ STEPHEN STREET? Yeah.
All this constitutes a broader revelation because I'd never thought of rock production as something that mattered, except in specific cases where the producer may as well have been a member of the band (Joy Division) or was a member of the band (Garbage). Then I thought about it more and went back and listened to things, and came to the conclusion that rock production mattered to me a whole lot, I just never realized it did. I mean, I always just assumed the guitars on the Smiths' songs sounded like that because that was how Johnny Marr played. XD; From another perspective production (or sound engineering) probably has a lot to do with why a lot of rock turns me off - I can't stand how everything sounds quadruple-tracked and compressed together without any sense of breathing room. But this is as much a problem with radio pop and country, if not more.
Babyshambles - Baddie's Boogie: OH YEAH AND THERE ARE SONGS AND WHATEVER. Christgau (who sweats over getting adjectives exactly right) calls the melodies "endearing". I particularly like this one because it's not about Peter Doherty and his Well-Publicized Problems(tm). For a change, like. XD; It also doesn't sound at all like the 90s, which was something that really unnerved me about the album as a whole.
Babyshambles - Lost Art Of Murder: Bert Jansch plays on this, i.e. acoustic guitar that's actually worth listening to. XD Pretty, mellow, and not as depressing as "Needle of Death" (or for that matter "Tears in Heaven", which is really what the latter reminds me of) - no one dies, just ponders going to rehab.
Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: I'd never heard of her before someone posted a live vid on poptimists the other week, which shows how in touch I am beyond the Global Indie Ghetto (for those of you outside of North America, this album went U.S. double platinum). The original tracklisting of this runs from "Tim McGraw" to "Our Song", and it seems reasonable to assume that I won't be hearing a better pop album for the rest of the year. Not all that many come along where every track sounds like a massive single. P.S. and it's not over-produced either, funny that.
Basically it's Babyshambles, then this, in the same way as I alternated the official Libertines albums with the Pipettes (inherent tonality of Taylor Swift's voice being rather Pipette-like). It alloys the boy-ness of the other thing, which I actually find quite oppressive. I've seen people in emo bandom mentioning this too, though there you get Maja Sounds and, er. Ashlee Simpson? ._. Secretly I like the earliest Babyshambles lineup best because of Gemma, she was so cute. NOTE TO ALL BRITINDIE IF YOU'RE GOING TO RIP OFF THE LIBERTINES HAVE THE DECENCY TO KEEP A TOKENIST DRUMMER IN FOR THOSE OF US WHO ENJOY SUCH THINGS. They looked like a made-up band from an Emma Bull urban fantasy novel. Meanwhile the current Babyshambles lineup looks like they're one phone-call-from-the-past away from the British equivalent of a Johnny To shoot'em-up. ...There're parallels as well as contrasts: both are focussed, filler-free albums that create a sustained mood, a self-contained universe as it were. Which is how I like it, because otherwise I'd listen to singles. XD Both are polished but not cluttered, as aforementioned. Taylor Swift's world is as alien to me as Pete Doherty's, but it's not alienating, because I like her. I can't believe I'm about to write this but she seems like a great role model for young girls (apart from being born to a freakishly unattainable standard of physical beauty as well as talent, which it seems churlish to blame her for, as some people are just put on this earth to make the rest of us feel like clods. See: Natalie Portman).
Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw: for instance, this is a song in which Taylor's boyfriend goes off to college, and she's down about it because it means they have to break up. She doesn't really have any illusions about the fact that it's a stupid high school relationship and not TROO LUV 4EVR, but she wants to make sure that, yanno, he remembers her. Because she deserves to be remembered.
Taylor Swift - Stay Beautiful: Taylor is also unconcerned with whether the boys she crushes on think she's pretty. (She's objectively gorgeous but that's never stopped anyone from feeling insecure.) Actually, she's not too bothered over whether they like her back or not, though it'd be nice if they did. She thinks they're beautiful, though, and has no problem telling them so.
Taylor Swift - Tied Together With A Smile: I guess it's true that love was all you wanted / cause you give it away like it's extra change / hoping it will end up in his pocket / but he leaves you out like a penny in the rain / oh, cause it's not his price to pay <-- KIND OF AMAZING LYRICS?
It's all so refreshingly well-adjusted. XD
m-flo, Electricolor: m-flo remix albums are a series in and of themselves, like Pet Shop Boys' Disco compilations - there're at least two versions of everything, feel free to pick the one you like best. Mostly they have moments of brilliance but don't hit it out of the ballpark in comparison with the originals. This one comes pretty close, though. Apparently (and surprisingly) it's the first album of what they consider to be proper remixes, i.e. built for the dancefloor. Also apparently they've put an end to the "m-flo loves" project, though one somehow suspects this doesn't mean the end of guest collabs. At any rate last.FM should thank them for it. XD
m-flo loves MINMI - Lotta Love (-yasutaka nakata capsule mix-): I like how this is three tracks - reverb-y 90s globe-stylee rave-up, PROPER ELECTRO ZOMG, and FPM-like funky house - and that was just the first two minutes and a half.
m-flo loves Chara - Love To Live By (-FPM eclectic electric mix-): speaking of Fantastic Plastic Machine. XD The pingpong-ball bass bounce with the snare snap makes it - sounds like nothing so much as a Booka Shade sample.
m-flo loves STAR TREK - Love Long And Prosper (-diplo's love guns and foster children remix-): that Diplo, yes. And that Star Trek.
Assorted other tracks:
Teddy Thompson - The Future: cover of Leonard Cohen, from I'm Your Man - remember this performance from the film, should really get the soundtrack. It is SMOKING. helvetius upped this with the original and I've been playing it lots, because there's nothing like a fire-and-brimstone screed against moral relativism to wash off the post-modern grossness. It's very... Republican, this song. XD Which is fair, because the other party stole "Democracy", and "Anthem" blows both of them away.
Linda Thompson feat. Antony - Beauty: Teddy Thompson is best friends with Rufus Wainwright, supposedly, which makes sense as he's basically Rufus's direct counterpart in English folk, genetically speaking. Man, it's a relief that Rufus Wainwright is gay, because sometimes I worry we're unintentionally breeding our folk singers into an evolved race capable of MASS MIND CONTROL THROUGH THE BEAUTY OF THEIR VOICES. Anyway, this is a song that Rufus Wainwright wrote for Linda Thompson to sing, as a present. It's very Rufus, both lyrically and melodically, one of his best.
I really love what I've heard of the Linda Thompson album, and will be buying it properly (before or after the Khaled best-of). Yes, I'm stuck in the seventies.
In the interest of looping the loop, here is a Youtube of Teddy Thompson and his sister Kamila singing a song Linda Thompson wrote... about Pete Doherty. FOR REALS. It's a good song - that is, it's Linda Thompson. XD; I find it as logical as anything that it's old-school folkies who're bothered about him.
(Linda Thompson's gloss on the thing being something along the lines of, yes it's sad he's such a mess, but on the other hand she used to sort-of date Tim Buckley. And Nick Drake. XD; Meanwhile other indiebois are the ones to write love songs about Carl Ashley Raphael Barât, but don't get me started.)
P.S. there has been a mysterious friending matsuri this past couple of weeks. The flist is now up to 350, which is my cue to ask new people to introduce themselves - you don't have to, that is, I won't be defriending you, but it would be nice. XD Why now, when there are fewer updates than ever, and the mp3 posts are unlocked? Did I make it seem like I'd gone friends-only? XD;;