The Waitresses

I was watching that Simpsons episode where Lisa cross-dresses so she can get into the boys' math class (good episode), and someone, probably a super-hip chick or a feminist dude, decided it'd be a good idea to play a song clearly entitled "I Know What Boys Like" while Lisa outwardly becomes a boy. (it definitely was a good idea)

So naturally I find the song and see that it's from a 1982 album called "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful?" by a band called The Waitresses, brainchild of Chris Butler, with Patty Donahue, a waitress/pro-am vocalist on the pro side here, as frontwoman:

Every critic and reviewer laments likewise: "They're so much more than their singles; why the obscurity??"

There is a reason for this. There are a few misses here and there, but there is no weak track, and no clear winner (although there is a clear single). Much like buying London Calling for the apocalyptic title track and realizing a collection of gorgeous, lively-if-lyrically-striking pop gems makes for a much better album, here you find the single (youtube), with its ennui & snarl, is much unlike the rest of the bouncy, supremely catchy, feminist tracks.

Buy it and shove its greatness in every friend & acquaintance's face.

Secret Pleasures

This little album's been with me since high school. Instead of becoming interesting and knowledgable, not to mention cool, through listening to Broken Social Scene or Conor Oberst or somesuch others, I alienated myself entirely by getting into heavy metal, a subgenre of rock so militant its press and the rest of the world's do not at all meet, except for the latter to poke fun at the former. Emperor, Mayhem, Burzum--these motherfuckers burn churches & slit their wrists & aren't even that gifted (but they sure as hell are principled).

But Electric Wizard, well, these dudes just rock. At the time of Dopethrone, the fine album I'm pitching today, it was three late-20-somethings, apparently super-stoners, using a detuned, fuzzy bass, a detuned, almost superfluous guitar, and a most-likely-detuned drumset to make very heavy, very slow rock. The lyrics are best explained by the album cover:

Ah yes.

Anyways I don't expect people to like this album, or even be interested by it. Nor am I claiming that Jus Onborn, the sole songwriter/singer/guitarist, has all that much in terms of musical talent or even ideas, at least no more than, say, a rabid lover of Black Sabbath muck might gain by taking said sound to its natural limits. So as an experiment in heavy rock haze, this is the fucking cat's pajamas. Get it now and listen to it at once.

Check out these track lengths:

There's a 3' opener which feels like pop in comparison to the rest. The second track is nine minutes long and it's worth the entire wait just to hear the same riff get faster & faster & heavier & heavier. The third is 15', split up conveniently into a 5 minute song, a 5 minute riff, and 5 minutes worth of feedback fuzz named 'Altar of Melektaus' (I suggest splitting up the song in GarageBand, these latter two really press the patience).

Then there's a 6'30" standard fare riff-rocker, an 11' snoozer, a 0:47 bass riff w/guitar-accompaniment that is the very highlight of this entire genre & mood, another 5' standard riffer, and finally a 10' closer featuring the title (and heaviest) riff, followed by another 10 minutes of silence before a hilarious radio encounter in hushed Satanic tones. I transcribed it a while ago cuz I felt like it:

- That's terrifying, and that's.. no, look, if this happens to your kids, or if you look at this and you have children and you say, 'Could this happen to my child, out of some kind of rebellion?' how would a parent be aware?

- Many youngsters are into it, uh, teenagers and younger, and the..the..the clues are there, the satanic symbols, 6-6-6, if you see that written on your child's notebook, if they're into heavy metal music, if they're associating with strange characters or drifting off to ceremonies and not explaining where they're at, it's well worth it for parents to look deeper and ask, 'What exactly are you up to?'

- And with whom!

- Because this is serious...

- It could be harmless. It could just be a diversion. But it could also be DEADLY serious.

The phrase "drifting off to ceremonies" never fails to crack me up.

Cripple Creek Ferry

A while back I kinda really liked Neil Young's second (or third?) album, After the Gold Rush..



It's a real peculiar album, even peculiar in why it's peculiar, cuz it is, after all, kinda conventional (I guess?) It's a strange sort of somber. It's slow, but not in that complacent way, rather slow but still going strong. It's mighty pretty, but it doesn't connect like it is, cold-like.

Now I'm not saying all this as if it's a bad thing, I'm saying it like it's an interesting thing. But there is one song which continually hits me, viscerally, the "you feel no pain" kind of hit Marley's talking about, Cripple Creek Ferry. I think the only way I can accurately describe it is, it's like the Beatles wrote it. You know how the Beatles basically do no wrong and you don't even question it at some point? Where just about every album they did is among your all-time favorites but you don't even need to include them cuz it goes without saying?

Yeah, I feel like the Beatles wrote Cripple Creek Ferry. It does no wrong you see--I can always sing along. It grooves. Slowly, but it grooves. I've munched it up 22 times over a couple of weeks, in 5-6 song bursts I think. You should partake instantly.

The Replacements - Let It Be

It started with Androgynous—piano and voice with spacy production and a sound so pained you’d think Westerberg was talking about himself. Of all the way-acclaimed albums the ‘Mats had (as it goes, the critics love them all), only “Let It Be” remained, due to this one song.

A year of that, and I guess “Sixteen Blue” must’ve come on shuffle one day, cuz there’s no reason I would’ve been tinkering around with this album otherwise. A gorgeous mess of notes, that song, and a dozen or so listens afterwards, I put the whole album on and noticed its entirety is a gorgeous mess of notes.

On the second run-through, I was finally hooked for good with the end of “Seen Your Video.” I guess albums don’t usually have climaxes, but this one’s is marvelous. “We don’t wanna know, We don’t wanna know, We don’t wanna know”—it’s about music videos but basically he’s shouting “We don’t give a shit,” in context (and out). There is no punk out there more pissed off, defiant, and somehow at the same time so anthemic.

And so give or take 30 plays into the album, I’m still not tired of it. I hope it’s got the longevity of others that have taken me so by storm, or maybe it’s just a raucous mood I’m in (key point: these drunks fucked up their chance at success because, well, they got drunk too often). If no song is like another; if the notes are so interesting they belie the simple chords changes; if the playing is so loose-perfect you wonder what side of the pro-am fence these dudes are on; how can I get tired of the sound?

I can’t encompass something this good. I can only hope someone else feels it the way I do. And so to help with that, let me just say, “Gary’s Got a Boner” works best in sequence, between the climax and the sweetest song on the album; don’t forget “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” has more mock-snarl attitude than anything else on the album; and a Kiss cover remains a Kiss song, no matter who performs it.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Bob Dylan (1963)

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you anymore
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)

the first track on each of the album's two discs references Daft Punk. of course this is a great album.



this is one of the few albums (up there with the White Album, Drukqs, etc.) that i think truly deserves to be two discs long. like the Beatles and Aphex Twin, James Murphy (he basically is LCD Soundsystem) just had too many things to do. the Beatles wanted to do surf rock, punk rock, folk rock, and even weird sound experiments. Richard D. James wanted drum & bass, eerie minimal piano pieces, ambient techno, and even a 30-second sample of his parents wishing him a happy birthday.

what does Murphy want? he wants to make you dance. there's slow stuff, fast stuff, soft stuff, hard stuff. something for everyone, as long as everyone likes to dance. an acid disco garage house pop psychedelic punk rock medley, LCD Soundsystem's debut/self-titled album is an electronic dance music masterpiece, still the best LCD five years later.

i'm not going to say anything about the music though. i'm not really going to say much anything actually. i just want to share some of this album's amazing lyrics, usually the least important factor of any music to me.

i'm really easy to please lyrics-wise. you can repeat "ooh baby the music sounds better with you, love might bring us back together" for seven minutes and i'll be in ecstasy. this doesn't mean i can't tell the difference between that kind of trite (though strangely elegant) couplet and, say, the poetry of Bob Dylan.

Murphy's lyrics fall everywhere between the two extremes. the lyrics for the song "Yeah" are pretty much just "yeah yeah yeah yeahyeahyeahyeah yeah. yeah hey hey hey hey" and "everybody keeps on talking about, no one's getting it done" (what the fuck is it?). the first track gets a little more complex. here's the first verse:

well Daft Punk is playing at my house, at my house
i'll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes
i got a bus and a trailer at my house, at my house
i'll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes

it's a song about Daft Punk playing at his house. what more would you expect? you gotta PA the house, Sarah's girlfriend is working the door, the robots descend from the bus, etc. etc. oh yeah Murphy loves singing about music, though he usually takes it a step further:

beats on repeat, beating on me
from every car in the street
there's constant repeat on repeat
of your paranoid, heartbreaking beats
on repeat

it's a five song repeat, beating on me
your favorite band helps you sleep
and here comes the new stylish creep
from every car in the street
on repeat
on repeat

.
.
.

i wish i could complain more about the rich but then
all their children would line the streets,
come to every show,
no one wants that

i wish i could complain more about the rich but then
all their children would flee the schools,
come to every show,
drugged and unwashed

i wish i could complain more about the rich but then
all their children would line the streets,
come to every show,
unwashed and drugged and
beats on repeat, beating on me
on the radio
on your radio
on your radio

music about music! "Daft Punk is Playing at My House," "On Repeat," "Disco Infiltrator," "Beat Connection," LCD Soundsystem is all about dancing yourself clean and being hyperaware of it.

the best example of Murphy's clever lyrics and super self-conscious irony comes on the first track of the second disc, "Losing My Edge." the song starts with a miminal thumping bass line backed by a couple snares and hi-hats. then comes Murphy's nasally singing. then come more hi-hats and a little flickering guitar. the vocals start whacking out, echoing like there are two James Murphys in the room. the guitar starts creaking like an electronic insect, still minimal. when we hit around 2.5 minutes, cymbals crash announcing a less restrained, more potent bassline, still playing the same old minimal phrase though. it won't stop until the song ends. the drums pick up a little more. the guitar gets a little whackier. slowly, always slowly building to a paranoid, anxiety-ridden, frustrated cry for help at the end: "look at all the good music i know!" here are the lyrics, in full:

yeah, i'm losing my edge.
i'm losing my edge.
the kids are coming up from behind.
i'm losing my edge.
i'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London.
but i was there.

i was there in 1968.
i was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
i'm losing my edge.
i'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps i hear when they get on the decks.
i'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978.
i'm losing my edge.

to all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin.
i'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.

but i'm losing my edge.
i'm losing my edge, but i was there.
i was there.
but i was there.

i'm losing my edge.
i'm losing my edge.
i can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
but i was there.
i was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City.
i was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
i was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band.
i told him, "don't do it that way. you'll never make a dime."
i was there.
i was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
i played it at CBGB's.
everybody thought i was crazy.
we all know.
i was there.
i was there.
i've never been wrong.

i used to work in the record store.
i had everything before anyone.
i was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan.
i was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes.
i woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.

but i'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
and they're actually really, really nice.

i'm losing my edge.

i heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.
every great song by the Beach Boys.
all the underground hits.
all the Modern Lovers tracks.
i heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import.
i heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
i heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
i hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real.
you want to make a Yaz record.
i hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
i hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.
i hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that i know.

But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra, Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra, Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc, Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.

you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.
you don't know what you really want.

i know i want to listen to every one of those artists now.

Music Sounds Better With You - Stardust (1998)

i found this classic at a tiny record store in San Francisco today.



it's one-sided. one 6:50 track of French disco house dance perfection. etched into the opposite side are the song's main lyrics:

MUSIC SOUNDS BETTER WITH YOU
LOVE MIGHT BRING US BACK TOGETHER

i don't even know what to say about the actual song.

four on the floor with a thump of a bass we now expect from Daft Punk.
delicious guitar/synth sample from a 1981 Chaka Khan hit.
liquid lyrics, straight to the point.
a decade later, on Alive 2007, it still killed.

dance/download/listen.

Zombie - Fela Kuti (1977)

everything Fela Anikulapo Kuti touches turns to gold. such is my analysis after listening to seven of his albums from the 70s. but there's one album in particular that flows, breaks, and crashes with the unmatchable fury of an unfathomable diamond ocean.



Fela Kuti's twenty-somethingth album, Zombie (1977), as far as i know, is afrobeat perfection. what is afrobeat? well, according to the infinite wisdom of Wikipedia, "Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularized in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who used it to revolutionise musical structure as well as the political context in his native Nigeria. It was Kuti who coined the term 'afrobeat,' which features chants, call-and-response vocals, and complex, interacting rhythms."

holy shit. you know how James Brown essentially invented funk? well, the JBs were famously floored when they took a little trip down to Nigeria in the 1970s. recalls bassist William 'Bootsy' Collins, "[Fela] had a club in Lagos, and we came to the club and they were treating us like kings. We were telling them they're the funkiest cats we ever heard in our life. I mean, this is the James Brown band, but we were totally wiped out! That was one trip I wouldn't trade for anything in the world."

we all have weaknesses. for some, it might be genre invention. here's mine:

1. Zombie (12:26)
2. Mister Folllow Follow (12:58)
3. Observation Is No Crime (13:26)
4. Mistake [Live] (14:47)

this album is four tracks long and none of them fall under the ten minute mark. holy shit x2. and don't think this is Fela's exception. i performed a little calculation with my seven Kuti albums from the 70s and it turns out the average song length is 14 minutes. the longest is 25 minutes (Confusion) and the shortest is 8:08 (Igbe (Na Shit) from Gentleman).

long songs rule. the vocals on the title track start at about 5:30. the vocals on the second track start at about 7:30. that's usually how it goes with Fela. epic, epic jazz jams that slowly, surely, so surely build up to Fela's scathing lyrics of political protest and ideological expression.

oh yeah, that's the other thing. this music might be relaxing, brilliantly composed, amazing to dance to, and joyous to jam to, but Fela ain't fucking around. if you want to hear a real story about polygamy, revolution, and the power of music, check out this Guardian article. here's an excerpt:

You could make a case for 1976's most revolutionary record being not 'Anarchy In The UK' but ['Zombie'], perfectly conceived slice of pop subversion, with its killer groove sounding like no one else, thunderous brass with wonderful trumpet from Lester Bowie and lyrics in pidgin English attacking the mindlessness of the Nigerian military ('Zombie no go turn unless you tell am to turn/Zombie no go think unless you tell to think...').

Fela's robotic stage moves had been copied by protesters in riots against the government he was banned from Ghana for being 'liable to cause a breach of the peace' and this song provoked an attack on his new commune, named by Fela the Kalakuta ('Rascal') Republic. Indeed, Fela had declared independence from the repressive Nigerian state. On 18 February 1977, more than 1,000 armed soldiers surrounded the compound, set fire to the generator, and brutalised the occupants. Fela alleged he was dragged by his genitals from the main house, beaten, and only escaped death following the intervention of a commanding officer. Many women were raped and the 78-year-old Funmilayo [Fela's mother, a political activist, and a feminist] was thrown through a window. She subsequently died.

the Nigerian government killed Fela's mother because his music was just too damn good. you're basically the enemy if you don't like this album.

download.

Why - Carly Simon (1982)

maybe it's just lust, but whatever. this blog needs an update.



listen.

Thee Oh Sees: Live

they certainly have some sick albums, eps, singles, etc, but make no mistake: Thee Oh Sees is a band best served live.



i spent my last two nights seeing them: the first, at a dirty garage show in Los Angeles, and the second, at a tiny classroom trailer on UC Irvine's campus.

jumping, headbanging, sweat, pushing, pulling, falling, rising, spinning, turning, punching, being, being, being, being: it's better than ice cream and liquor.

every time i've seen them, they open the set with Enemy Destruct, the first track off of Help. of course, it's considerably sped up and, like a firecracker, the previously still pond of people leaps into a torrent of raging rock & roll-induced madness.

their songs, though bursts, just explosions of energy that don't last very long, make up for their shortness in sheer intensity. when you're gasping for air and limb a minute in, you're happy to be able to breathe when they finish at minute two. that said, i have yet to see them live without experiencing one of their songs drawn out to its extremities, stretched minutes upon minutes into infinity, a brutal chant of rhythm and melody that possesses your feet, makes you think it's punk rock disco night across the universe.

the rest of the band fucking rocks, but it's clear that the lead guitarist, John Dwyer, is the general in this war. like a sun, all our energy we owe to him. and, like a good military superior, he's always dicking around. whether eating his microphone like in the above photo, forcing the head of his guitar into the ground, or hopping like an lsd leprechaun, Dwyer attracts all eyes in the room. (that is, if you don't have hair or fists in your face already.) at one point last night, he shoved his microphone against the head of one of the drummer's toms and started guitar-humping the amp to draw as much fucked up feedback from it as possible. keep in mind, this is halfway through a 10-minute epic of a jam whose only recognizable lyric (to me) is "all you need is the summertime oh oh," repeated over and over. eventually Dwyer gave up (or was fulfilled) and the drummer somehow mustered up the energy to bust out some cracked out drum solo that had one kid in front of me convulsing until he collapsed on the floor, where he continued to shake his arms, legs, and head anyway.

this band is why i have long hair.

Sonic Youth

I need to say something about Sonic Youth, anything. It's hard to be at all concise about a band this great, but let me try.

First, they are the greatest band in the universe. They join The Beatles, who've mastered pop, Pavement, who've mastered their own style of suburban pop, the Stones, who've mastered rock (and its ego), and certainly others you can come up with, bands which never disappoint, which always do something new but discernible.

Second, in a 30 year existence, there is no weak album. Some I admit I haven't fully "gotten" yet, but it's obvious the potential is there. I've heard the usual love-of-dichotomy "SY is split on a continuum between artsy noise and hard-rock songs," but there is so much more than that. There is always ambience, and there is always some kind of melody. The rhythms are pronounced (sometimes the rhythms are the melodies), and there's almost always some kind of "noise," an all-encompassing term if ever there was one.


Mostly what I would like is for others to notice how fucking amazing this band can be, a hard task, admittedly. Their discography is huge, and ambient noise isn't always the easiest thing to notice, even if sometimes the songs are clearly in the pop form or the melodies are highly pronounced (Teenage Riot, anyone?) And while every album is indeed unique, at distant listens they all sound the same. And consider that every critic and fan out there has their own opinions about which is the best album. How diverse is their discography?

2000's NYC Ghosts & Flowers is pure ambient, while 1992's Dirty is a Butch Vig-produced noise/grunge fest (they're both wonderful). Their first 1982 album is no-wave. Their second, 1983, is ambient noise rock (check out the Stooges cover and the lyrics to Confusion is Next). 1988's Daydream Nation is about as catchy as they can get, while 1998's A Thousand Leaves is about as laid-back as they can get. I could go on. I used to think Thousand Leaves was my favorite, but really it's just my first vinyl fetish and the first SY that I truly got into, opening up this wonderful world. I could always go for parts of Washing Machine, Confusion is Next, Dirty, and of course, shuffling through the entire discography.


And so to close, if there is any doubt about the ever-constant strength of this band, listen to a song from each album:

1982 S/T: I Dreamed I Dream
1983 Confusion is Next: Freezer Burn/I Wanna Be Your Dog
1985 Bad Moon Rising: Death Valley '69
1986 EVOL: Shadow of a Doubt
1987 Sister: Schizophrenia
1988 Daydream Nation: Teenage Riot
1990 Goo: Kool Thing
1992 Dirty: JC
1994 Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star: Sweet Shine
1995 Washing Machine: Little Trouble Girl (or Unwind...)
1998 A Thousand Leaves: Snare, Girl
2000 NYC Ghosts & Flowers: Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)
2002 Murray Street: Sympathy for Strawberry
2004 Sonic Nurse: I Love You Golden Blue
2006 Rather Ripped: Jams Run Free
2009 The Eternal: Massage the History

Etude No. 1 in C major - Chopin (1830)

Chopin was born two hundred years and one day ago and this is the first classical music post on 6stars? for shame.

if scales make you see stars, please listen to this sublime piece that could last from now until the end of time, but instead stops at just under two minutes.

I Feel Love - Donna Summer (1977)

ooh... it's so good
it's so good
it's so good
it's so good
it's so good

ooh... i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love
i'm in love

i feel loooo
ooooooooo
ooooooooo
ooooooove

i feel loooo
ooooooooo
ooooooooo
ooooooove



listen.

We Tigers - Animal Collective (2004)

my favorite song off of Sung Tongs and one of the most memorable Animal Collective songs ever!

prepare to dance!
prepare to jump!
prepare to scream!
prepare to sing!

prepare to dance!

listen.

We Share Our Mother's Health - The Knife (2006)

please excuse the awful resolution of this awesome album art.

stereo makes anything possible!

have you ever felt like a song sucked you in? not grabbed your attention, but actually grabbed you and threw you into its purply blue world?

this is pop music, i feel it in my bones, it feels electric, but this is pop music. the vocals don't begin until the song is already a fourth over, but no matter.

it's this enchantress. wizard? daemon. amoeba. its voice, chameleon, morphs and blends from highs to lows, chickenscratch frequencies unleashed.

duets. we've heard robot duets before. robot trios. robot quartets. robot symphony!

am i supposed to dance? am i supposed to think? am i supposed to listen?
do i dance? do i think? do i listen?

fuzzy me lean spleen a bottle of air and a wisp just like that.

listen.

Alive 2007 - Daft Punk (2007)

i can honestly say that i love Homework, Discovery, Alive 1997, Human After All, and Alive 2007 equally (yes, expect at least five more posts in the coming eternity). so when Daft Punk releases an album that seamlessly, expertly, brilliantly, sublimely, mixes everything they've ever touched into a 1.3 hour epic medley of a concert, i find myself tempted to claim that it represents the epitome of the artist's music.

but it doesn't. it lacks one key feature of Daft Punk music: mind-numbing repetition.

where everything from "Around the World" to "One More Time" to "Human After All" recycles the same four bar argument for their entire existence, Alive 2007 evolves, morphs, trips, skips, falls, flies, destabilizes, stabilizes, hovers, sinks, and rises. and in under a minute? this is not normal Daft Punk.

on more than one occasion, i've played this album for friends who previously had no interest in Daft Punk... but they found something here.

i'm starting to think that to appreciate Daft Punk studio albums, you have to have a particular kind of insanity. you either have to a) love dancing, or b) love being, though the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. you either get up and just move, because that's all that four-on-the-floor is commanding you to do, or you stare off into space and let the waves of existence wash over you in a stormy confusion of awe. the repetition lends itself to this experience. why do Christians repeat the Hail Mary?

but for the non-believers, Daft Punk have created something new altogether, something still danceable and full of life: Alive 2007. Bangalter and that other French dude deconstruct, reconstruct, sack and pillage their old pieces to create a masterful compilation of their own forays into house, techno, acid, funk, disco, and synth pop, jumping from 1997 to 2001 to 2005 to 1997 to 2005 to 2001 to 1997 like it's nothing at all. this is not just an epic artist retrospective, but a world-class dance party, the best there ever was, the only kind there has ever been, the party that is life.

the encore isn't even fair. besides mixing the title track of Human After All with "Together," our beloved robot djs decide it timely to combine "One More Time" with "Music Sounds Better With You," probably the two greatest dance songs from the 90s and two of the greatest dance songs of all time. i don't understand how the law of physics allow them to coexist in one space of time without our legs stretching into dancing black holes that worm their way across the universe.

Wikipedia fun time!

audio:

The Alive 2007 set used Ableton Live software on "custom made super-computers" for the show. Daft Punk accessed the hardware remotely with Behringer BCR2000 MIDI controllers and JazzMutant Lemur touchscreen pads within the central pyramid. Minimoog Voyager RME units were also implemented for the live performances. The four Voyager units and two Behringer mixers allowed Daft Punk to "mix, shuffle, trigger loops, filter, distort samples, EQ in and out, transpose or destroy and deconstruct synth lines."

video:

The visuals of the 2006 and Alive 2007 tour were set up by XL Video. The company provided eight-core Mac Pro units running Catalyst v4 and Final Cut Pro. Daft Punk approached the company with their visual concept for the shows. "They came to us with a pretty fixed idea of what they wanted," said head of XL Video, Richard Burford. "They wanted to mix live video with effects. Using the eight-core Mac Pros, we were able to take in eight digital sources and treat them as video streams. Then they could use Catalyst to coordinate the video with lighting effects and add their own effects in on the fly. The final digital video streams ran to LED screens."

wow. i always find technical stuff enjoyable to read, even if i don't understand half of it.

I DIDN'T EVEN MENTION THE VISUALS!



ok it's not going to matter to listeners of the album alone, unless you're a lucky bastard and attended one of the shows and have all the spinning flashes and pyramidal shine ingrained in your neural passageways, but the visuals from this tour we're otherworldly. check it out sometime.

i really can't believe this is my first Daft Punk post.

download. purchase.

The Message - Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (1982)

the person that first played this track for me introduced it by saying something along the lines of "hey guys, hip hop and rap isn't all about 40s and blunts."

now, i'm not one to talk down 40s and blunts, but let me just say that the era of rapping solely about 40s and blunts wouldn't even come until the early 90s, a decade after Grandmaster Flash got his message out.



while most rap tracks rarely exceed 5min in length (notably, 2Pac's "California Love" goes for 6.5 min), "The Message" hits seven minutes and twelve seconds, an epic for the genre.

but the length is necessary.

the beat is so tight that everyone wants to rap over it: Ice Cube, Puff Daddy...
the lyrics are so fucking brutal that everyone wants to repeat them: Andre Nickatina, Snoop Dogg, Immortal Technique...

and the message?

the message is the Message: it's about how fucked up life is in the ghetto, it's about frustration, and you feel it:

don't
push
me
cause
i'm
close
to
the
edge

i'm
try
ing
not
to
lose
my
head

it's like a jungle sometimes. it makes me wonder how i keep from going under.

such a fucking badass.