I found the Uncut compilation CD that Lou sent to me. It was mixed-up with some program disks that i had sitting on the desk when re-installing drivers, trying to troubleshoot the modem porblem. (By the way, the new Zoom one sucks compared to my old US Robotics.) Anyway, these Uncut comps are great, more like the quality one used to expect from the CMJ compilations. Uncut is always throwing in ringers though, so they are a cut above even the old CMJ disks. With the Softboys “I Wanna Destroy You” (that still does not sound like “jangle-pop”) Lush’s “Sweetness and Light” and a live version of the Pixies “Vamos”, you know that they are cheating. I have to aplogize to Paul for my immediate ambivalence about Clem Snide, as i rather like “African Friend”, and even though Hamell on Trial seems to be purely novelty material, the goodfella monologue makes me think of Mike, who has yet to put up his webpage for his tennis team. Captain Soul is pretty good, not as good as i had hoped, but a grand middle-finger to you knobs who keep dismissing the Divine Comedy. I love reading those pro-pop music pages sometimes, but after awhile, their intellectualizing of booty music gets damned tiresome. In the recent Divine Comedy review of Uncut, the reviewer threw in the question, “Why is it such a crime to be literate in ‘rock’?” What the fuck is so damned clever about things like “The Thong Song”? Neil Hannon is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is, or at least as clever as some of these reviewers think, but why is insipid “social commentary” from the likes of Le Tigre and the Manic Street Preachers okay, but anything that goes for a lighter touch, with a real handle for melody, is regarded as posh and pretentious?
Some of these people are going through such predictable phases in their tastes of music that either that they will be pathetically trying to keep up with pop, after they miss the point, like Chuck Eddy, will become VH-1 VJs, or most likely, lower their expectations to become the narrators of the next High Fidelity, with sad, pointles little rules that no one but themselves understand, while they smirk knowingly anytime anyonme breaks these sophomoric rules.
Incidentally, this Kristen Hersh track “Listerine” is awesome. It’s a pretty damning song for the ex-Throwing Muses. Heartbreaking if you read the interview with her in that same issue of Uncut. Am eager to hear the rest of the album, and reassemble the Throwing Muses collection that i lost over the years (actually stuff taped from Damien’s collection.) Hersch should have been on my Top 40 of expectations, but i always forget her, as I’m a misogynist. One self-proclaimed “very sensitive” guy at work said it, so it must be true. Of course, this guy also says that he cannot watch “The League of Gentlemen” because it depicts cruelty to children and animals, but is a huge fan of movies like “Kids” and “Requiem for a Dream”. You figure it out.
Considering that I’m been “revealed” as a “misogynist”, I’d like to point out that I really, really hate Madonna, and Debbie Harry can mop the floor with her, in any interpretation of the concept of “mop.” In a fit of boredom, i drove home listening to a retro-’80s station, and “Rapture” came on. It’s an awful song for my ears, but even in the video, they had Basquait doing grafitti. Damn. i bet that i spelled his name wrong. I always want to call him Bisquick.
Oh yeah… back to lyrics in pop music. It’s hard to validate that I even have anything to write about that, as tangents are so seductive, and the desire to follow where they might go seems stronger than any desire to complete a single thought. Anyway, back to the High Fidelity mentality… a lot of these pop-brats seemingly have never been down and out, or bombed out of their mind of strange drugs. Take a handful of Zoloft, acid, or just a nasty rotgut bottle of hard liquor, get as isolated from everyone and everything you know as you can get (aside from your precious Top 40 radio,) listen to those lyrics and think. Depending on what part of your brain those chemicals are waging war upon, I’ll wager quite a bit of money that it’s not comfortable to sit there listening to Top 40.
You wanna talk about heartbreak, buddy?
It’s just stating the obvious, but it’s hard to believe that music is just about how popular it can be and how high it can climb in the charts. Music can be deeply personal, your only consolation, the sense of enlightment, the doorway to another reality. If someone cannot accept this, they are most likely trying to hide something quite scary from their conscious mind, or just hollow as a discount chocolate bunny.
mmm…. chocolate bunny.
NIMA is a agency of the Department of Defense. Apparently it’s been aiding NASA in looking for the lost Mars Polar Lander since December 1999. Apparently, they suspect that they might have found it. They even think that it have landed safely, and deployed its landing system. Very curious. Does NASA and the Department of Defense really want to reveal that they can discern such details on the surface of Mars, yet refuses to address so many anomalous features aside from saying, it must be weird geology?
Luke Martin posted a Nick Cave article on Raindogs.