Tune of the week: Air France - No Excuses

Perfect track to perk-up a sleepy lethargic morning. Pure pop headiness with handclaps, breathless/atmospheric vocals and synth anthem riffs. I don't really know much about this Swedish band, but I do think that Pitchfork's review of the EP is spot-on. The word they use to describe Air France's sound is "Balearic" - named after the anthemic brand of disco/dance that emerged from the Mediterranean islands of Ibiza, Corsica, Marjorca, etc. Despite the fact that my musical tastes have developed rather eclectically throughout the years, I have a real soft spot for individuals who are able to craft blissful pop gems. Perhaps it's a sign of my age, but the over-produced synth goodness of pop from the 80s and 90s are sounds that still appeal to my ears these days.

Speaking of nostalgia, Serene and I were lamenting the demise of Chris Ho's column "Pop Life" in The Straits Times. If you are like me, and grew up in the shadow of Chris' music recommendations, you might want to read his swan song article if you haven't. I've reproduced his eloquently written, dignified but rather bittersweet farewell below.

====

The Straits Times (Singapore)

July 25, 2008 Friday

My musical send-off;
Singer Joni Mitchell will always be in my blood, even as I mark the end of this column next month

BYLINE: Chris Ho, poplife

SECTION: LIFE! - LIFE MUSIC

LENGTH: 794 words

T.S. ELIOT may claim that April is the cruellest month of the year but, to me, the cruellest is August. Come next month, this column of mine will cease to exist.

No big deal I know, but for a sentimentalist like me, it marks the end of this column's 25-year run, a long time for something as ephemeral as pop.

I remember when I first started this column, David Bowie was just crossing over to the mainstream with Let's Dance and Eurythmics were creating waves with Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This.

It was a time when my somewhat academic approach towards writing pop was deemed suitably edifying a perspective to lend credence to the subject, which was rather undervalued at the time. I was just thankful that studying literature in university gave me good background mileage in 'practical criticism' to appreciate poetic words.

It is no secret that my principal love has always been singer-songwriter music. After all, it was Joni Mitchell who gave me my 'great rock 'n' roll send-off'.

With her powerful lyricism and brave experimental style in the mid-1970s as primary influence, I felt I had connected with the very core of what rock 'n' roll is. Very simply, it is about being free with an eye on redemption. It is somewhat inexplicable a vibe, because you really have to feel it in order to know it.

With Mitchell's musical blessing, I felt I could ride with the bravado of Bowie, the punk of Iggy Pop, the decadence of Lou Reed and still take on the wild wonders of New Wave-dance-alternative-hardcore and whatever left-field noise or extreme metal there was.

To this day, I still live and breathe Mitchell (at least, all of her great work till 1979) for she is 'in my blood like holy wine', along with Jackson Brown, Tim Buckley and not a few others.

If my taste in music had, through the years, appeared esoteric or unfathomable, it is only because I am as much a 'trainspotter' as I am a dedicated supporter of great substance.

For what good is following the ever- changing tide of fashion or flavours-of-the- month if one is not blissfully grounded by the subliminal wow of true heavyweights?

Simply put, I follow trends to know what not to follow or buy into, and by 'true heavyweights', I do not mean what the collective consensus deems critically essential for the average consumer.

I have always prided myself in seeing what slipped through the cracks. For instance, I still uphold that Jhelisa's Language Electric is the 1990s' feminine equivalent of Marvin Gaye's masterpiece What's Goin' On. And that Billie Ray Martin's Deadline For My Memories is the unique Joni Mitchell-meets-Donna Summer foray into Studio 54's shuttered VIP-room of dire romantics.

By the way, did I ever tell you my self-propounded theory that Mitchell lost her greatest muse the day she stopped working with bassist Jaco Pastorius?

If all that seems insignificant, I am proud to recall that way before any big-time music rag (read: Rolling Stone, New Musical Express, the like) raved about REM, this column had called attention to the then-unknown band by way of their indie debut Chronic Town.

Not to mention Red Hot Chili Peppers, Los Lobos, U2... Some readers may remember more, but 25 years is too long to now capture in one breath.

And if all the Mitchell-talk renders me limited in outlook, I assure you I have ventured into a spectrum far wider than expected: from Judy Garland to Judas Priest, DJ Hell to Darkthrone, Johnny Cash to Butthole Surfers, Peggy Lee to Dick Lee.

In fact, I am guilty of being a stylistic scavenger hunting down all in search of that X-factor called great music.

Blame me for sounding egotistical, but my biggest regret in not being able to write this column anymore is the thought that from here on, no one is going to bother much about Rickie Lee Jones and Emmylou Harris. These artists, I believe, are now the true torchbearers of the Mitchell legacy.

Or, what if no one here recognises the great music of our own local players - from the late Michael Isaac to the new Max Shanti? Perhaps the world has changed, especially when John Mayer is now 'God' and Tori Amos seems to be the singer-songwriter goddess of them all.

What do I know? Except that this is a given directive of an exit for me in view of life's many changes. In particular, this one you are holding with a capital L and the exclamation suffix.

Well, this Pop Life has no big exclamation to end but a sad goodbye and a trite rationalisation that all pleasurable things do desist.

Relieved of the trite, I shall revel in my treasure trove of pop, punk, metal, country, folk, dance, ambient, jazz and rock to light the rest of my days.

May you be touched by your own Mitchell to seek a pop-life that is both gratifying and redeeming.

Best wishes always from me, an ardent music fan.

Hellboy flashback

Jude and I really enjoyed Hellboy- he almost never watches a movie twice at the theatres but he did with this one. It's a very different superhero movie from The Dark Knight- a happy hodgepodge of a whole bunch of genres, witty dialogue (who knew a Barry Manilow song could be so funny? Oh wait...), and a lovable grotesquery of creatures that could only have sprung from the imagination of the gifted Guillermo del Toro- in other words, all-round rambunctious good fun :)

So as we were watching the credits roll, the name "Luke Goss" jumped out at me. He plays Prince Nuada in the movie and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where I've heard the name before. Plus, it's not like I could recognize the actor behind all that make-up. It bugged me for a while and then I promptly forgot all about it until a couple of days ago when I decided to revist it again. And that's when I discovered why the name rings a bell. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Luke Goss circa 1988, a.k.a. one-third of the now defunct British boy-band (of sorts...), Bros!! I kid you not! To prove that this is all for real, check out what I found on YouTube- their incongruous "When Will I Be Famous" video:



Talk about aging gracefully (so rare for '80s stars...)- how did the dude get from this:

to this:

to this??

Tunes of the week - Very 80s

I decided to try out muxtape to share my music online. Check out my very first effort below:

Gong - Love Is How You Make It

Cut Copy - Unforgettable Season

M83 - You, Appearing

Portishead - Threads

The Clash - Lost In The Supermarket

Scritti Politti - Absolute

Titus Andronicus - Upon Viewing Brueghel's "Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus"

It just so happens that the music I am listening to happens to be from the 80s or very inspired by it. Can't help it ... it's the era that I spent my formative years in :) Also, it just so happens that the indie kids these days are in love with all things 80s. So I can't complain. Anyway, to listen to the above tracks, just head on to this URL:

http://jyew.muxtape.com

Tune of the week: M83 - Graveyard Girl

OMG you don't know how much this track is hitting the spot right now! I've been tracking French musician, M83 (aka Anthony Gonzalez), through his past two albums (Before the Dawn Heals Us & Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts). Before, his music were dense noisy pieces that owed a lot to the synthesizer pop of the 1980s. But with his new album, Gonzalez lightens up a whole lot and takes on a different side of the 80s - the side that John Hughes teen dramas inhabit. I really connected with this description of the album offered up by Pitchfork:

The album has the same nostalgic sparkle as Hughes' films, a soft-focused mythology of eternal summers and young love. In the liner notes, Gonzalez dedicates it to "all the friends, music, movies, joints, and crazy teachers that made my teenage years so great!"

As much as I hate to admit it, I used to love John Hughes' movies. Especially Some Kind of Wonderful - it had all the right elements of teen angst, first loves and the "I want to be taken seriously but I don't know why I am doing these stupid things" theme so characteristic of teenhood. I know that Hughes' movies can sometimes be cheesy and predictable and that I might be waxing lyrically and being a tad bit too nostalgic. But you have to admit that this M83 song and video transports you back to the era when Hughes' movies reigned. And this song is something that would have been so playing on my Sony Walkman ;)

Some Kind of Wonderful trailer (and with all the classic lines no less):

Tune of the week: Marcel King - Reach for love

I recently got my hands on the compilation set Palatine: The Factory Story 1979 - 1990. One of the tracks that has stood out for me is the above track by Marcel King. It's a track that should have been a hit in the '80s - '90s and seems a little incongruent with Factory Records' other acts.

Marcello Carlin, who maintains the brit music blog "The Church of Me", articulates this incongruence more explicitly by saying:

Produced by Bernard Sumner, it received enthusiastic, if slightly baffled, notices in the music press but sold minimally, even though it filled the floor of the Haçienda regularly; to this day [Happy Mondays lead singer] Shaun Ryder regards it as the best record Factory ever released...

Listening to "Reach For Love" now, it seems like a pop single just slightly out of its time - it should have been a huge hit, but Factory's legendarily crap distribution and marketing facilities militated against that, as did lack of radio play. There is also the question of whether "Reach For Love" was slightly too intense a song and performance to become that huge a hit.

I got the video quote above from the excellent BBC america blog "Anglophenia".

What fascinates me about this track is how little known it is despite it's awesomeness. I would have surely hit the dance floor with my "side punk" hairdo when I was a teenager ;) I see some parallels between this track by Marcel King and Lee Osler's "Back to Ypsilanti" that I raised in a previous blogpost. Both are tracks that have a very obvious pop/dance appeal and in my opinion should have been much popular. But for one reason or another, both tracks and their performers have faded into pop obscurity.

I did a little investigation into Marcel King and apparently he was the lead singer for a motown-esque band called Sweet Sensation that had a number 1 hit with a song called Sad Sweet Dreamer. I am sure you've heard it before. I've attached the youTube video below for good measure.

Tragically, Marcel King has since passed away. The result of a brain hemorrhage, as stated on the "Find a grave" website (???).

Tune of the week: Camera Obscura responds to Lloyd Cole

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions challenged the listeners in 1984 by asking them, not unseriously, "Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?". 22 years later, Camera Obscura, also from Glasgow, responds with the track "Lloyd, I Am Ready to be Heartbroken" below ... Love the intertextuality and the conversation between 2 very different bands across time :)

Tune of the week: This is the day - The The

Uncharacteristic track from Matt Johnson - i.e. it's not a song of despair and a Thatcher-esque Armageddon - that has now become the soundtrack for the latest M&M ad.

Posting this video got me thinking about how the music of your youth has become associated with commercials and advertisments. Check out this hilarious post on identitytheory.com that ruminates on the co-option of music from youth culture for commercial ends:

It’s clear to me now that many of the pop songs of my youth will be turned into commercial jingles. Sometimes this is a shocking process, but oftentimes it’s just disconcerting. Iggy Pop selling the cruise liner life? Nick Drake selling cars? I lose my bearings when I hear these things.

And now a song I associate with all manner of psychic dead ends is trying to sell me pants.

Trousers.

With pleats.

While we are on the subject of music/icons of one's youth being disconcertingly associated with products and goods, Eric Cook has alerted me to an ad featuring Blixa Bargeld, lead singer of Industrial music outfit Einstürzende Neubauten. I am unsure whether it is a masterful stroke of genius to cast Bargeld in a commercial where he reads from a product catalogue as though it were performance poetry. Did Bargeld sellout? Or is Bargeld making turning the whole "celebrity" endorsement on its head? Watch below and judge for yourself:

Do you hear what I hear?

I've never really liked this song. I love what it stands for though. It was a big deal in 1984- celebrities then didn't ubiquitously adopt "world causes" like they do today- save the rain forests, anti-landmine campaigns, stop industrial waste pollution, dolphin-free tuna, etc. There wasn't a need to wear a social conscience on your sleeve as part of the "I'm-a-famous-person-now-so-I-need-to-represent-something" package. And so when some of the biggest names in the music industry came together to record a song for charity, people actually sat up, listened and bought. "Do They Know it's Christmas" went on to become a U.K., U.S. and international hit, and together with Live Aid- a series of concerts all over the world, it raised more than US$70 million for Africa.



The thing is, these days, it's eveywhere! You hear it incessantly for 2 whole months- from every radio station, every corner of the mall; you even half expect to hear it when you open your presents on Christmas morning. We get it! You guys were great! You saved all these starving children in Ethiopia! But spare us that song!!

So it was interesting that when I heard that some of today's biggest stars have recorded a remake, I was actually a little outraged at their audacity. The song's a Christmas institution- ok, so it's really annoying- but it's an institution no less. It's like trying to re-upholster an embarassingly ugly couch which you've kind of gotten used to over the years... I love most of the people on the new version- Chris Martin/ Coldplay and Travis are great of course- but I'm not sure how it will go down with the generation of listeners so devoted to George Michael, Bananarama et al. The next thing you know, they'll be remaking "We Are The World" with Justin Timberlake in place of Lionel Ritchie.

I wanted to download the new version on the sly just to listen, but my enlightened husband reminded me, it's a charity single, pay for it. And so for those of you who are 1) too lazy to go to the stores to buy the single; or 2) lucky enough to own an IPod (or any mp3 player I guess), here's the official link. People are starving out there as we stuff oursevles over Thanksgiving and Christmas- do a little something.

I'm having a Cocteau Twins moment!!!!

It has been some time since I last thought about music or even my extensive, now non-existent, vinyl collection (which I SOLD for a seriously paltry sum when I came over here...). However, I must admit to having an extended moment when I came across the Cocteau Twins website. I literally spent hours perusing through the files and reliving the days when their brand of atmospheric, dreamy pop (dare I say ambient?) reigned for the self declared indie types. Perhaps some people may still remember tracks like Ice blink Luck or Blue Bell knoll. I can still put on the Heaven or Las Vegas Album and it doesn't seem a day old to me.

What amazes me is that there is still a community of fans that gather every year at an event called CocteauFest. Let the '80s reign!

/jude/