(no subject)
I think one of the reasons I like disco is that so many of its songs are about robots. There's something about the repetitive beats, strange synth noises, studio trickery, and drugged-up vocals that mean disco and robots go together like hard rock and fast cars, heavy metal and Satan, or folk music and coal mining disasters.
The best ever robot disco song is Dee D Jackson Automatic Lover, and it's no surprise to find Kraftwerk intoning "we are the robots" in The Robots, but the trend persists even today with tracks like Robot Song by Margaret Berger (whose video for Samantha is set in space, though the song is robot-free). Master of electronic disco Giorgio Moroder took on a similar subject with the mechanical Phil Oakley in Together In Electric Dreams, which is strictly speaking about a computer. But even disco songs not literally about robots evoke an aura of mass-production and automatism like Cristina's Disco Clone (fan video). See also Buggles' (I Love You) Miss Robot, if you're really desperate Anouschka Renzi's Robot Love, or Aaliyah's More Than A Woman which at least implies she's an android. Taking on Aaliyah's mantle of inhuman synth-pop, Britney Spears' Radar, about a microwave detection and ranging technique, is both brilliant and beep-heavy.
There are plenty of great indie tracks (e.g. Kenickie's Robot Song and Futureheads' Robot) and a tonne of prog rock about robots too, so I'm not sure where this is going, other than some futuristic prison ruled over by Mr Roboto.
Speaking of leading British tennis players being replaced by automatons, I've recently noticed how many Half Man Half Biscuit songs are about mental illness. Depressed Beyond Tablets would make any top five songs about depression, lines like "your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead", but references are everywhere with titles alone: He Who Would Valium Take, This Leaden Pall, and Reasons To Be Miserable Part 10.
The enigmatically-titled San Antonio Foam Party begins "If I had claustrophobia / and if I had agoraphobia / trapped inside my porch / things would be bleak" then sees the singer attempt to out-pessimise the government spokesman who writes "reservoirs may be colder and deeper than you think" signs, shout about suicide pacts, and complain of people who think weird dreams are interesting. The chorus (and not all HMHB songs have choruses) goes "I see the chips and wires / I see the circuit boards", originally referring to Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski. Gubba Lookalikes has an even more disturbing paranoid delusion.
Putting aside their hatred of conventional life and numerous revenge fantasies - 24 Hour Garage People ends with a brutal murder, PRS Yearbook (Quick The Drawbridge) sees a comedy hypnotist himself mesmerised and sent to play in traffic, Breaking News has most of the population interned as part of "Operation Less Pricks" - the band has a macabre imagination, from the kindergarten violence of Trumpton Riots on. Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years, See That My Bike's Kept Clean, and Dead Men Don't Need Season Tickets take an unsentimental approach to mortality.
Bottleneck on Capel Curig speculates on how a sad childhood spent largely in Welsh traffic jams leads to a sad adulthood and passion for indie music, but many of the band's songs delineate depression from breakups and your girlfriend moving to London, as in The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train) or What's Chatteris. She's In Broadstairs is about attempting to return some of your ex's possessions and finding she's in a secure mental hospital, and also mentions jumping in a river.
Used To Be In Evil Gazebo interviews a rock musician who pretends to be mentally ill to further his career. It's possible that Nigel and the boys are covering up their deep mental disorders through humour, but equally likely that they're veining their songs with references to madness in an attempt to be the next Nick Drake.
I noticed this morning that Sudafed aren't vegetarian. Hydrolysed animal collagen.
The best ever robot disco song is Dee D Jackson Automatic Lover, and it's no surprise to find Kraftwerk intoning "we are the robots" in The Robots, but the trend persists even today with tracks like Robot Song by Margaret Berger (whose video for Samantha is set in space, though the song is robot-free). Master of electronic disco Giorgio Moroder took on a similar subject with the mechanical Phil Oakley in Together In Electric Dreams, which is strictly speaking about a computer. But even disco songs not literally about robots evoke an aura of mass-production and automatism like Cristina's Disco Clone (fan video). See also Buggles' (I Love You) Miss Robot, if you're really desperate Anouschka Renzi's Robot Love, or Aaliyah's More Than A Woman which at least implies she's an android. Taking on Aaliyah's mantle of inhuman synth-pop, Britney Spears' Radar, about a microwave detection and ranging technique, is both brilliant and beep-heavy.
There are plenty of great indie tracks (e.g. Kenickie's Robot Song and Futureheads' Robot) and a tonne of prog rock about robots too, so I'm not sure where this is going, other than some futuristic prison ruled over by Mr Roboto.
Speaking of leading British tennis players being replaced by automatons, I've recently noticed how many Half Man Half Biscuit songs are about mental illness. Depressed Beyond Tablets would make any top five songs about depression, lines like "your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead", but references are everywhere with titles alone: He Who Would Valium Take, This Leaden Pall, and Reasons To Be Miserable Part 10.
The enigmatically-titled San Antonio Foam Party begins "If I had claustrophobia / and if I had agoraphobia / trapped inside my porch / things would be bleak" then sees the singer attempt to out-pessimise the government spokesman who writes "reservoirs may be colder and deeper than you think" signs, shout about suicide pacts, and complain of people who think weird dreams are interesting. The chorus (and not all HMHB songs have choruses) goes "I see the chips and wires / I see the circuit boards", originally referring to Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski. Gubba Lookalikes has an even more disturbing paranoid delusion.
Putting aside their hatred of conventional life and numerous revenge fantasies - 24 Hour Garage People ends with a brutal murder, PRS Yearbook (Quick The Drawbridge) sees a comedy hypnotist himself mesmerised and sent to play in traffic, Breaking News has most of the population interned as part of "Operation Less Pricks" - the band has a macabre imagination, from the kindergarten violence of Trumpton Riots on. Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years, See That My Bike's Kept Clean, and Dead Men Don't Need Season Tickets take an unsentimental approach to mortality.
Bottleneck on Capel Curig speculates on how a sad childhood spent largely in Welsh traffic jams leads to a sad adulthood and passion for indie music, but many of the band's songs delineate depression from breakups and your girlfriend moving to London, as in The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train) or What's Chatteris. She's In Broadstairs is about attempting to return some of your ex's possessions and finding she's in a secure mental hospital, and also mentions jumping in a river.
Used To Be In Evil Gazebo interviews a rock musician who pretends to be mentally ill to further his career. It's possible that Nigel and the boys are covering up their deep mental disorders through humour, but equally likely that they're veining their songs with references to madness in an attempt to be the next Nick Drake.
I noticed this morning that Sudafed aren't vegetarian. Hydrolysed animal collagen.