Musical Jamboree with linkage

I can’t remember a time that I’ve ever asked someone "what’s your favourite music?" and actually paid attention to what they’ve said.  The answer is invariably given as a lists of bands or arbitrary classifications of obscure musical genres and once I hear the words "James Blunt" or "Pussy Cat Dolls"…. my eyes start to go all blank.    Besides, who’ even asks that question anymore?  I mean, since we finished high school?

So after saying that, here for the theme of the week is a long-winded exploration of my admittedly shitty all-over-the-place mostly above-ground favourite musics, the majority of which are confined to the period between 1994 and 2003 when I actually could keep up with popular culture. To answer the question "how has it changed since you were young" the answer is "um… it hasn’t much…"

 I don’t link any song twice, fyi.

"Tu dis les chose qui font fermer mes yeux"

Inb4 Saving Private Ryan:  If there’s anything my Year 9 French teacher ever did for me, it was introduce me to Edith Piaf.  Thanks Mme … whatever you name was.   That up there is a lyric from a song she sings called "Tu Es Partout"… it means "You say the things that make my eyes close".  I like music that does that.

For some reason I really love music in different languages more than I think I would if it were in English.  Like J-pop, or French hip hop, or Spanish punk.  <– the last one i discovered in high school when I used kazaa a lot and you could look through some randoms’ music collections & download their tracks. Even earlier than that still I had an internet email-pal from Milan who sent me a mix tape that had a Articolo 31 song that sampled Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone.  Classic.

Of course, it doesn’t have to have words at all.  Bjork sang in Joga about "emotional landscapes" and that’s how I think of some songs, both instrumental and with lyrics.    ***choke** yeah I can’t believe I just said something that wanky either.  Whatever, moving on.

  "So came the night, its obsidian light, is a master whom disaster suck upon like concubines."

But sometimes lyrics do help.  Cradle of Filth produces music of questionable quality… inspired by Mozart, supposedly but … yeah…     I have mixed feelings about them.   They’re a relic of teenage folly  and some of their songs seem like a gothic gore version of a Pepsi commerical.    But the lyrics on Cruelty & the Beast…. I just can’t keep myself away from it:     "So with windows flung wide to the menstrual sky…"     Absurd, yes?  That’s what goth/black metal should be, otherwise it’s pointless.  It should be Spinal Tap’s Stone Henge meets Cannibal Corpse meets Jane Austen. All of us secretly wish we could don period costumes, cover ourselves in blood and get melodramatic all over the place. You just haven’t admitted it yet.

"When there are no goals there is nothing human"

^ The Amenta, one of the few Australian bands I like.  I don’t just listen to metal as self-parody – I like serious metal too.  Meshuggah, for example, I can not laugh at.   They have time signatures that require a 2nd year university level understanding of maths.    I close my eyes when I listen to this because I feel like I’m being crushed in the gears of some big factory, or surrounded by robots at war.  And I have to add Gojira in here too, particularly for From Mars to Sirius.  I’m such a sucker for concept albums.

)))))))) ——- oooooo <><><><><><> 0000000 ———– {{{{{{{

Speaking of robots at war, I once listened to some of Jones’ dark drum ‘n’ bass while on some pills that had a nasty hallucinogenicsurprise in them of some unknown identity (say no, kids).  It really fucked with my head. I believed I was listening to computers communicating with each other through sounds… kind of like binary. I tried to draw what I was conceptualising but it most was just lines like ||||||||\\————-(((((((( .   Pfft.   Anyway, I think it was Technical Itch I was listening to. 

But sometimes I just to want to turn my brain off, close my eyes, and flail about, without robots or vampires or the duality of man coming into it. That’s where dub step comes in.  At the moment I’m listening to Rinse mixed by Skream.  If clubs always played dubstep then life would be sweet.

But clubs don’t play dubstep much.  They play house, my least favourite.  Funky house, progressive house, hard house, I don’t give a shit.   It’s boring and it does my head in.  I used to think that certain psychotropic drugs were the reason I couldn’t take it, but I’ve been sober a fair while now, and I still don’t want to hear that doof doof unimaginative tripe.   GTFO.  No, not you, Hocus Pocus.  I’m going to count you as gabba.  You can stay, you’re cool.  

"If you got a tight puss me dick will search it, find out how hard I gotta work it"

No, not Missy Elliott.  It’s Beenie Man.  I love to listen to the dancehall/ragga shows on FBi radio.  I’ve learnt this about dancehall: if you’re a dude, you should sing explicitly about sex, if you’re a chick you should sing about how a man should love you or getting revenge for him cheating on you or about sex.  You must be this rampantly homophobic and sexist to ride.    

I went to a Diplo gig this year because a friend had a spare ticket, and it wasn’t billed as a Major Lazer show but suddenly there he was with all these amazonian Jamaican chicks in army outfits crumping like their lives depended on it and making angry faces while they did it.  It was fantastic.  Saved me at that gig, I swear.

"Two pills I pop till my pupils swell up like two pennies.."

Speaking of graphicly misogynistic homophobic lyrics, I like Eminem.  There, I said it.  I’ve liked him ever since the Slim Shady LP.  His beats are sometimes pretty tacky but his lyrics are amazing.  After growing up  in a time where you were either a Kurt Cobain groupie or a Tupac groupie, and never both,  Eminem forced me to admit that maybe I like hip hop.  Which lead me eventually on to other quality artists such as…

"KRS-one be driving them thugs crazy"

I can’t fucking stand listening to idiots rap about wasting money on over-priced cars, over-priced jewellery and watches and over-priced "bitches’.  I’m so over it.  That’s why I like KRS-one:  he’s got more than half a brain.

"If I could make a list of my mistakes and regrets, I’d put you at the top and every line after that."

I think I might need to put some more typical North Shore white girl "indie" music here.  And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – I listened to them at Utopia records once because I thought they might be a metal band.  They really really aren’t.  It’s all very almost-emo slow-then-fast art-punk-rock stuff, but it’s lovely.  Such memories.

Speaking of indie regrets, one time on holidays at the Surfers Paradise Marriott (when my parents paid for holidays) I saw a bunch of guys standing around in the foyer, wearing double denim with big Afros and talking to a Channel [V] presenter.  I thought "I wonder who those guys are" and continued on up to the room.  About an hour later I suddenly realised…  I had been standing about a foot away from At The Drive-In.   God I’m lame. 

"Now she’s a little boy in Spain playing pianos filled with flames"

I downloaded Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea because the internet suggested I might like it.  I didn’t.  I thought it was terrible.  But I ended up having to listen to it because it was on my MP3 player when I went on long walks.  It grew on me, and now I think it is wonderful.  It’s a concept album inspired partly by Anne Frank, and partly by the singers intense recurring dreams about a Jewish family fleeing the Nazis.  All the tracks are great, but the title track especially. 

"You’ll find a note, then you’ll see my silhouette."

I do admit that if Mike Patton recorded 12 tracks of him in the bathroom taking a shit, I’d think it was the greatest album of our times, butI still don’t understand how anyone could not like Mr Bungle, especially California.  Chakchakchakchakachakachakachakachakachakachakachaka!

Last but not least I have to throw a plug in for Spod.  Best live performer I’ve ever seen.  He seems to like cats.
 
Whoa… so fucking long and … stupid.  Anyway, it’d sure be nice if other people talked about their musics so we could all share and laugh and remember and discover and chew up lots of bandwidth.