2004 List: 9 Songs To Thank MP3 Blogs For

9 great songs I’d never have heard and wouldn’t currently be trying to purchase, if some of my favourite mp3 blogs hadn’t committed copyright violations for the love of music: (Links are to corresponding entries at the relevant hosting blog where possible. The songs probably can’t be downloaded there any more, but I’m sure you can find them elsewhere if you’re resourceful enough.)

  • The Bug Speaks (The Song Corporation) (from said the gramophone)
    The best pop song about totalitarianism, ever. “The nobility of suffering was foremost in my mind / When I said that I feel that sacrifice has been too much maligned / I have a great respect for those who suffered for their race / And my policy will be that lots of suffering take place.”
  • lugu lugu kan-ibi (Bunun Tribe / David Darling) (from said the gramophone)
    A beautiful Taiwanese tribal song, accompanied by cello.
  • Freaks (Lil Vicious featuring Doug E.Fresh) (from gabba/POD)
    Human beatboxing as dancehall riddim!
  • What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont remix) (from Laces)
    I barely noticed the original despite its media saturation, but Lu Cont’s divinely exuberant synthy version totally brings out the fag hag in me.
  • Rok One’s Crazy (Rok One) (from Laces)
    I bet you thought Vanilla Ice spoiled that Under Pressure sample for all rappers forevermore, but Rok One does a new tongue-in-cheek take on things.
  • Ghost White Flowers (The Tease) (from Fluxblog)
    It’s like Idioteque, except it isn’t like it at all.
  • The Trumpet (George Atkins and Hank Levine) (from Fluxblog)
    If you haven’t already heard this, I guarantee you’ve never heard a song like it. JFK giving a speech about tyranny and poverty becomes the leader of a pop band on helium.
  • In The Belly (Other Passengers) (from Music For Robots)
    I’m a sucker for drama and distortion. Think Mogwai with vocals by Interpol.
  • Avminnast (Nils Økland) (from Music For Robots)
    Austere Norwegian fiddle music, a soundtrack to movies of ice and snow that don’t exist except in my imagination.

2004 List: Top 5 Singles Of Shamelessness

Top 5 mainstream pop singles which should only have been guilty pleasures for a snob like me but which I actually shamelessly adore:

  1. She Will Be Loved (Maroon 5): It’s just sho shweet! My pop ballad of the year, because there always is one which I love despite my hopes of better judgment. (If I’d made a list last year, you can bet Daniel Bedingfield’s If You’re Not The One would have been on it.)

  2. Somebody Told Me (The Killers): I’m sure this band is the new big thing among people who think they’re hip but really aren’t, and the album has received lukewarm reviews from sources I trust, but this single reached out and grabbed me when the more highly regarded efforts of Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters etc. did not. There is a mythical status attached to the Album As Art Form, but sometimes all you need to make someone’s day is a catchy song.

  3. Fuck It (Eamon): When I first heard this song on the Internet several months before it was released as a single, I never thought it would ever get played on the radio. I also find the radio version bizarrely amusing; what with all the censorship it almost sounds like it’s been remixed by Aphex Twin. Despite the obvious novelty value of the song, it does appeal to me beyond the “Dude, he’s saying fuck a lot! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh” sense. I really like the melody, and when Eamon’s voice quavers upwards on the last “ba-a-ack” of the chorus? Little heart flutter.

  4. Numb (Linkin Park): Unlike Limp Bizkit and all the other nu-metal whatevers, there are actually no Linkin Park singles I actively dislike. I’m fairly indifferent to most of them, but at least I never feel the need to change the channel in disgust when they come on. There’s a chimey, dramatic bombast to this one which I really enjoy when it kicks in at the beginning of the song. The lyrics are same-old same-old, of course, as is the accompanying video – there’s this girl! She has dark hair and wears black and draws! The cool kids shun her ‘cos she’s different! But all she wants is to be “more like [her] and less like [them]!” So she runs into a church inexplicably! – but that’s all part of the fun.

  5. Toxic (Britney): So far, my top pop single of the 21st century. Britney has very little to do with what is great about this song, although she is central to the greatness of the video. Mad props go to producers Bloodshy and Avant for this masterpiece, which is, amazingly, only one among many other sublime pop joys which Scandinavia has given the world this year. (The others will feature in another list if I get around to making it.) Maybe it’s something in their water.

And Then There Were Nine

The music lists still aren’t going well, and it’s really not helping that Music Junction at Parkway Parade is having a 3 for $10 sale which actually features decent albums. So I bought 9.

  • Bjork: Vespertine
  • Daft Punk: Discovery
  • Ladytron: Light And Magic
  • Mos Def and Talib Kweli: Black Star
  • Bubba Sparxxx: Dark Days, Bright Nights
  • Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
  • Philip Glass: Songs From The Trilogy
  • The Essential Sibelius (2 CDs)
  • Gabriel Fauré: Requiem / Cantique de Jean Racine / Messe Basse (Arte Nova recording)

Yay. :)

Rahzel Who?

Ever seen anyone beatboxing and playing latin jazz guitar at the same time? Well, now you can (a scissorkick exclusive). Before this, the most impressive beatboxing I’d seen was Killa Kela doing I’m A Slave 4 U complete with beats and breathy Britney vocals but this guy sure gives Kela a run for his money.

Cover Girl

I don’t actually agree with a lot of the Telegraph’s 50 best cover versions ever recorded, but it’s inspired me to chase some leads down all the same. I have high hopes for Johnny Cash doing One, and don’t quite know what to expect for The Bangles doing Hazy Shade Of Winter. While I’m trying to find those, here are my random thoughts about some cover versions I like and some cover versions I don’t. I see them as falling into three main categories, namely:

Paying Homage:
Indie bands like covering classic indie songs because it gives both the band and pretentious wankers like me in the audience the opportunity to show how we’re, like, totally in touch with Where It All Started by cheering in recognition and conspicuously mouthing all the lyrics. The problem is that unless you’re actually able to do something interesting with the song, there is no fucking point. Grandaddy’s cover of Pavement’s Here is a case in point, as is Death Cab For Cutie’s attempt at Bjork’s All Is Full Of Love. Neil Young gets covered a lot, but while I like the idea of Emmylou Harris doing Wrecking Ball and the Pixies doing Winterlong, the covers don’t sound like much more than people singing very pretty songs very prettily. The most successful one I can think of in this category (although I’d love to be told about anything I’ve missed) is Nirvana doing Lake Of Fire. There’s something about Kurt Cobain’s guttural “Where do bad folks go when they DIEEEEEEE” and “Don’t see ’em again till the fourth of Ju-LAAAAIIIII” which suits the song better than the pleasant harmonies of the Meat Puppets’ original.

Ironic:
This is the cover version where the artist says “I’m totally secure with my existing amount of cred, so I’m gonna sing something incredibly uncool now because I’m subversive that way.” I have to admit that I never find it that hard to enjoy ironic cover versions, because quite often I love the original song too. Travis did Hit Me Baby One More Time as a staple in their live shows at some point, but I prefer Richard Thompson’s Oops I Did It Again because his voice is so much more authoritative than Fran Healy’s and he puts in all these great acoustic guitar solos. My favourite ironic cover of the past year has been Ben Gibbard’s cover of Complicated. Ben Gibbard’s voice gets on my nerves sometimes, but here its winsome, almost overly-earnest quality sounds absolutely perfect. Also, the idea of him singing “Trying to be cool, you look like a fool to me” to a room full of trucker-capped, thrift-store-T-shirted, vintage-Converse-sneakered indie clones amuses me.

Complete Re-Imagining (but in a good, non-Planet-Of-The-Apes-2001 way):
How can Tricky’s Black Steel only be 29 in the Telegraph list? I’m too lousy at writing about music to think up a new way of describing how and why I love this song, but I stand by every word of my past gushing. The Slits’ post-punk I Heard It Through The Grapevine kills me every time with its crazy vibrato on the high notes, and every note of The Darkness’s Street Spirit is basically a crazily vibrating high note. If you haven’t heard Christopher O’Riley’s piano adaptations of Radiohead songs, Fake Plastic Trees is a great place to start. (And Jamie Fucking Cullum’s attempt at High And Dry, now advertised every five minutes on Singapore TV, makes me want to stuff his grand piano up his arse.) Will Young doing Hey Ya and Nick Cave doing Disco 2000 may seem like they should be in the Ironic category, but I’ve decided they belong here because both these covers actually make you realize how melancholy the original party classic songs actually are. You haven’t heard pathetic pleading until Nick Cave’s begging “What do you do on a Sunday, baby? Would you like to come and meet me, maybe? You can even bring your baby…”

Meeting People Isn’t Easy

I envy people with great stories about meeting people they admire. Benny has his about meeting DJ Shadow in a London newsagent. Jordan at said the gramophone has this lovely two–part tale about his odyssey to see Cat Power at a festival somewhere in Switzerland (he didn’t actually know where in Switzerland, though, which is what makes the story even cooler).

I, on the other hand, am unable to interact with people I admire without appearing like a complete idiot. I chickened out of saying hello to Zadie Smith the time I saw her on Torrington Place on my way home from the supermarket. I stammered something excruciatingly inane to Malcolm McLaren when he came to speak at a UCL Debating Society event the time he was considering running for London Mayor. In front of Neil Gaiman my mind went blank, and it didn’t help that he was drawing me a rat because then all I could think was NEIL GAIMAN IS DRAWING ME A RAT OH MY GOD.

Even my brushes with almost unknown indie musicians descend into humiliation the moment I try to tell them (sincerely) that I like what they do. I am aided along this expressway to embarrassment by Alec, who either makes things worse or laughs at me.

Take, for example, the time we went to the Arts Cafe for a Ladybug Transistor gig, and were extremely impressed by the (unadvertised) opening act, Bart Davenport. Emboldened by alcohol, we approached him later to buy his CD. Alec, whose memory for names leaves much to be desired, had forgotten the guy’s name but inexplicably decided to try and address him as something anyway.

Glancing quickly at the CDs on the merchandise table as he extended his hand in greeting, my favourite Alzheimer’s patient saw “BART DAVENPORT” but only the first four letters of the surname registered. Hence – “Dave!” said Alec enthusiastically to Bart Davenport, “Great performance Dave, I really enjoyed it!” etc. and with every “Dave!” more and more bits of my composure crumbled into a little mortified pile on the floor. Luckily, “Dave” was so sloshed that I’m not even sure he noticed he was talking to a pair of nimrods, and thank God for that.

I accomplished the next indignity all by myself, and this still smarts so much I’m not even going to name the band. It was the first time we went to the Water Rats, and I was really impressed by one of the opening bands. They looked really young – they were wearing the sort of clothes I associate with teens who desperately want to scream their indieness to the world – but they had catchy songs, strong vocals and lots of energy. Sadly, only about 15 people were watching them, and most of the people who weren’t us looked like their friends from school. This upset me a bit, as it always does when people don’t get the appreciation I think they deserve, or the credit they’re due. I thought they had real promise, and I was hoping they weren’t discouraged by the tiny audience. I wanted to tell them I thought they were great. I didn’t want them to give up on music.

So later on, when I was on the way to the bar to get my third Snakebite (you see the problem already) and saw the band hanging around, of course I went up to them and started a conversation.

Me: Hey, I really enjoyed your set.
Band (different members each time, we’ll just call them Band): Thanks very much!
Me: You sound great, how long has your band been around?
Band: About three or four years.
Me: Cool, no wonder you sound so good. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you guys?
Band, giving me the first of many strange looks: Late twenties, mostly.

(This is where it all started to go pear-shaped for me. Late twenties??! Their dressing screamed 17!)

Me, thrown off now, clearly gobsmacked: Oh, right, right.
Band: You look surprised.
Me: Oh, er, no, I, uh, thought you looked a bit younger than that.
Band: Oh, really?
Me, gabbling stupidly while I tried and failed to move on: Oh, er, it’s nothing, I must have been mistaken. I was, uh, just noticing the people watching just now looked really young, I thought maybe they might have been your mates. (Inner monologue: What the fuck are you saying, Michelle? WALK AWAY NOW.)
Band, giving me the second of many strange looks: No, we don’t know them.
Me: Oh, right. Heh. Hmm. But anyway, you guys sounded really great!
Band, smiling tentatively: Thanks, we’re glad you enjoyed it.
Me, clearly possessed by some demon of dorkness: Do you have a good sound guy, or is the venue sound system just really good? (Inner monologue: WHAT THE FUCK??! WHAT THE FUCK?! Ground, swallow me up now, I mean motherfucking NOW!)
Band, giving me the fuckteenth strange look: Well, the venue system’s pretty good.
Me, now completely in bits: Right, right. Okay, gotta go deliver the drinks. Best of luck and all! (Walking away rapidly, not daring to look back.)

So I walked back into the other room, plonked the drinks down, grabbed Alec and started banging my head repeatedly on his chest.

Every day I thank every deity that could possibly exist in this world and the next that I haven’t met Sonic Youth or Salman Rushdie yet, and I hope I never do.

This Is KNN

My Civil Procedure paper was wild. Two fiendishly long questions and 40 short questions in 3 hours, each one of which involved frenetic flipping and re-flipping through voluminous notes and statutes, with an exhausted mind that had gone completely blank. I don’t know why anyone even bothers with extreme sports when they could be getting their adrenaline rushes from doing death-defying examinations in Civil Procedure.

So anyway, after an indulgent dinner at Michelangelo (Me: This panna cotta is so wonderful, it’s solid cream! Everyone else: Michelle, that just sounds really gross), I was reading IS on the bus home and found finally, finally, a DJ at Zouk who I’d bother leaving the house for! Meat Katie! He was there last Saturday. Kan ni na.¹

I have to echo Laces’ plea for Zouk to bring in some interesting DJs and stop being so goddamn pedestrian. I want Diplo and Michael Mayer too. Also DJ/Rupture. Also Akufen. Amon Tobin. The Scratch Perverts. And world peace.

As I do every now and then, I was surfing around to find out how London is, and found out that DJ/Rupture was at 93 Feet East with Supersoul on Sunday, Ty is at Cargo tomorrow, and Eclectic Method are doing weekly video mashups at Herbal.

Again I am reminded of my grim theory that if the amount I saw and did over four years in London is anything to go by, the amount I’ll have missed this past year and over the next six is just…depressing. Then why, you shriek in aggravation, do you keep CHECKING UP ON WHAT YOU’RE MISSING, MASOCHIST? The answer is: because one of my biggest fears is ignorance. I would rather know what’s going on where things actually happen, even as it makes me chafe at my limited options here, than escape back to London years from now and be completely out of touch with everything that used to excite me so much.

In the meantime, I’m sitting at my computer listening to Amon’s Solid Steel Presents and shouting KAN NI NA to a funky beat.

¹ Definition here

Big It Up For The Small Towns

I was listening to Lamacq Live (show of November 15th, available here but not for much longer I reckon), where Lady Sovereign was presenting a special report about MCs from the countryside. As they put it, “Can you be street if you live in a lane?” Let me just say that if you’re one of those hataz who can’t take UK hip-hop seriously because of the funny accents, you ain’t heard nuffin (well, nothing quite as funny) until you’ve heard a Scottish MC freestyling to grime.

It was a sweet little program, but a little depressing. There were a lot of exchanges like this:
Lady Sovereign: So wot do you rap about?
Random Cornish/Welsh/Scottish MC: About life and stuff.
Lady Sovereign: Yeah, so, like wot?
Random Cornish/Welsh/Scottish MC: Dunno, really. Not much happens round here.

At least I’ve finally found a watertight argument against Alec ever moving me to the countryside. My future career as a top MC would clearly be jeopardized.

You Realize You’re Getting Old When…

…Gangsta’s Paradise is on the radio, you start rapping along with it in glee (you are studying and very bored), you get to the line “I’m twenny-three now, but will I live to see twenny-fo’?” and you realize that THE LAST TIME YOU RAPPED THAT LINE YOU WERE FIFTEEN AND NOW YOU ARE TWENNY-FO’.