Electroclash, Epiphanies & Elders

I have returned to my synthetic roots recently. It's been sparked by the "The 20 Best..." feature in FACT. Usually they round up the top 20 records of a particular sub-genre of which I have little to no knowledge, through the fact that it happened a long time before I saw Firestarter on TOTP and decided that electronic music was my bag.

This month they did the The 20 Best Electroclash Records. I suddenly felt very old. I remember these tunes. I realised that there were kids out there that had their epiphany after Emerge. I regressed, digging out Felix Da Housecat's Kittenz And Thee Glitz album. One of the many highlights (and #9 in FACT's list) is the rumblin' tumblin' cracked glamour of Silver Screen (Shower Scene). Time to pop on my slippers, light my pipe and pose.

*mp3---> Felix Da Housecat - Silver Screen (Shower Scene)

*Removed by request.

Beer & Blah

Guitar music for the second half of this decade has been dominated, for better or for worse, by matter-of-fact rock. A celebration and critique of the everyday, it may be argued that Friday-night-fight indie is a continuation of Britpop’s island view.

This music, though a brazen view of the now, is strangely apolitical. Perhaps I view the past through a kaleidoscope of affirmation but popular music seemed to have a message in times past.

They say to write what you know and to apportion blame to musicians for the general political apathy seems unfair. Up until the summer of 2008 these were boom times. It is hard to foster anger with food in your belly and money in your pocket.

Maybe we will see a return to music with bite and cause over the course of the year but, for the mean time, it seems that scene-of-the-street reporting is infiltrating the burgeoning synth-pop realm. The influence of The Streets as well as the streets should also be noted.

To pick Man Like Me as an example in this overall negative post is quite harsh as “9 Lives” is still a ruddy catchy pop tune with wit and swagger that lingers in the mind for an age.

mp3 ---> Man Like Me – 9 Lives (via box.net)

Stretching Metaphors

Pop is a snake. A snake lost in the desert. With nothing to eat, it eats itself, from the tip of the tail up. But what happens when the snake reaches it's own head?

Pop has always kept growing ahead of itself, keeping a decent gap between the music it is influenced by and consumes (the tip of tail) and the music it produces (the neck). But it feels like that gap is shrinking. Pop Will Eat Itself.

Or maybe I'm getting to the age where I remember the music that is now being consumed...

Whatever I just hope we have a summer of music that is consuming this rather than late 90's trance.

mp3---> Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea (via box...less pop-ups and stuff)

I love you, you big dummy!

Seeing that this is a blog about post-punk amongst other things, I think it’s about time I actually posted some.

Magazine are often held aloft with Joy Division, The Fall and Buzzcocks as the cream of the north-west regiment of post-punk, but I was always left a little cold by them. That was until I heard “I Love You, You Big Dummy”.

Taking a few quintessential elements of what became the post-punk sound, the scratchy guitars, the saw-like bass and the whirling organs, “I Love You, You Big Dummy” is a propulsive, repulsive love song, angry at itself, angry at being tricked into falling in love (perhaps the most un-punk thing imaginable) and builds to a climax of resented triumph, because love always eventually triumphs…BLEURGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like the MP3 of Magazine – I Love You, You Big Dummy has been removed so here's it on YouTube...