Quick Hits for a Holiday Week

Steady Shock - Girl Talk (mp3)

Bob and I are both somewhat distracted and occupied this week, so I’m just throwing out a collection of quick hits.

Girl Talk On Long Play

Those of you in your mid-30s or older likely have this instant and unavoidable nausea that gurgles inside you when you hear the words “Stars On Long Play.” For younger folks, this was a creation that mashed together about 100 songs -- many of them Beatles’ songs, but some disco faves thrown in -- to a single disco beat, thus allowing the bell-bottomed, feathered-back masses dance dance til the boogie night turned to downer day. (YouTube clip of SOLP for the sadomasochistic)

The strange musician/technician known as Girl Talk (his real name is Gregg, but who cares?) released his latest mishmash of law-breaking music last week. His musical creations are Stars On Long Play on steroids, with more powerful technology at his fingertips.

To be sure, better technology doesn’t always make something better. One need only view the evolution of six Star Wars movies to know this. With Girl Talk, however, the improvement is undeniable and significant. When his second “official” album, Feed the Animals, made #4 on my 2008 best of list, I noted the meaninglessness of the mash as the one detraction. But in all of his music, the meaning is this: only someone who really really loves music, lots of music and lots of genres, could do what he does as well as he does it. The meaning of Girl Talk is the ultimate musical expression of vague and widespread fandom.

Even juicier, Girl Talk mostly gives away his music. It could be because he breaks more copyright laws and is guilty of more DMCA violations in a single song than a music blog could commit in a year. Or it could be because he makes enough money on residual rewards than he does for his central product. He’s somehow managed to avoid the wrath of lawyers and CEOs, so bully for him.

Check out his album for free here. If you want my best breakdown between the two most recent collections, the latest delves much deeper into the ‘80s and ‘70s for its background pop and rock, where Feed is much more heavily focused on the ‘90s and ‘00s.

Discovery of the Year

By April it was clear that 2010 would be the best year in music since the birth of BOTG in 2008. As we close out November, it’s possible this is the best music year of this nascent 21st Century. I’m so blown away by the number of great albums released this year that the idea of compiling a Top Ten list saddens me a little. Can’t make a list like that without leaving off someone who, a month or two later, I regretted overlooking.

But one award is in the bag: Discovery of the Year -- The New Pornographers.

It started with my purchase of their newest album, Together, and continued with eMusic purchases of both their debut 2000 album (Mass Romantic) and 2004’s Twin Cinema. By the end of 2011 I’ll own their whole collection. A new one every three or four months is a good pace.

Oddly, I bought A.C. Newman’s first post-New Pornographers solo work, “The Slow Wonder,” in CD format on sale right after it was released. But that was back before the total demise of Tower Records and test driving CDs in the store before purchase. How I could totally miss the news on a band whose style and attitude is almost perfectly designed to give me giddy musical moments is a mystery, but a good one. Finding bands you didn’t previously know and catching up to others who love them is what makes this hobby so splendid.

Beatles on iTunes

The main home page at iTunes is currently awash in Beatle shit. There’s Beatle shit on my football commercials. There’s Beatle shit on NPR and all over the news.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out why any of this is a big deal.

Nothing here is new. Nothing has been re-re-remastered especially for these versions that somehow allow the listener to actually hear John Lennon speak from the grave during these songs. It’s like marketing coffee as being “Now With CAFFEINE!” Or like Volkswagen, instead of redesigning the VW Bug (or, ahem, Beatle), just re-releasing the same damn car they originated 80 years ago.

I mean no respect to the Beatles. But dudes, it’s really time to step aside and let some other folks play the damn game, mmkay?

As for Apple, they could market iTurds and the damn things would sell.

Girl Talk's Steady Shock is included to either impress or horrify the Bruce Springsteen fans amongst our readers.

The Lost 80's

The dB's--"Molly Says" (mp3)
Chris Stamey--"Cara Lee" (mp3)
House of Freaks--"When The Hammer Came Down" (mp3)
Guadalcanal Diary--"Trail Of Tears" (mp3)

Yeah, we were young, we were newlyweds, and we had MTV. It made us extremely popular with the teenager who lived in the apartment next door; her parents would not subscribe t0 such a stupid cable channel. So in the afternoons and early evenings, we often got a healthy dose of Duran Duran (her favorite), Culture Club, U2, and all of the other pioneers of 80's pop music whose careers were largely made by MTV and the rise of the video. Had we not actually been able to see Bono's anguished suffering during a live "Sunday Bloody Sunday," breath fogging from his nostrils like Cúchulainn after battle, would we know him as the hero of all mankind that he is today?

But there was more to the 80's than that, wasn't there?

The thing I hate about oldies stations is that they reduce musical years of my life to their least common denominators--the hits. Those 1960's years of the transitor radio under the pillow listening to KQV certainly had their share of hits, but the endless cycle of songs on AM radio back then included plenty of others that were trying to be hits, but were not getting quite there. And now, plenty of those seem to be lost, even to me, unless someone sneaks one into a movie or something as an I'm-hip-enough-to-remember-this-even-though-you-didn't kind of cultural memento. I do like those, though they force me to admit to those hipper than me. Alas.

Two decades beyond, the 80's have become the same way--a limited offering of "She Blinded Me With Science," "The Heat Is On," "Take On Me," and other songs whose sheer silliness is fun if you're drunk and feeling nostalgic, but whose depth, or lack thereof, is such that the songs carry no emotional weight at all. I except, as always, "Come On, Eileen." In the early years of Entertainment Weekly, when you bought your subscription, you'd get a box set of some kinds of hits or classics. So, yeah, we've had the 80's in a box for over ten years now, "Life In A Northern Town," the Outfield, all of that.

But there was more, and I feel it slipping away from me, except on those occasions when the shuffle function on my Ipod treats me to a forgotten 80's fav.

Even among the part of the 80's I was slow to come to and quick to embrace--the Athens, GA scene--a wealth of great bands have been reduced to, basically, just R.E.M. and the B-52's. And even the B-52's themselves have been further filtered down to not much more than "Love Shack." Lest we forget, their original punky craziness arrived much earlier with "Rock Lobster" and "Private Idaho" and other great songs about nothing. Am I contradicting myself here? You remember, don't you, all of the other stuff pouring out of there? The other artists sprouted from the same fertile ground as R.E.M. and paid equal homage to Alex Chilton and Big Star. Yes, their songs were jangly, poppy, minor-key affairs, interested in girls like everyone else, but sometimes slipping off for a bit of Southern gothic a la R.E.M's "Swan Swan H."

I'm teaching Brave New World right now, and, of course, one of the sources of entertainment for the citizens in that novel are the feelies, those full-sensory movies Huxley dreamed up. But as we read about them, I remembered, wait, the Feelies were band in the 80's, the one where you couldn't hear the singer's vocals, and John had their best cd but, yeah, he said he lost it in a move.

I guess it's hard to hold on to the decade as you remember it.


The Db's and Chris Stamey are out of print, at least the cds that the above songs come from. You can find the Guadalcanal and House of Freaks tracks at Itunes.