I could’ve sworn I’d written about this before, but apparently not. Sean Lennon’s Friendly Fire was the album that got me really paying attention to him after years of his showing up on other people’s albums (Handsome Boy Modeling School! Deltron 3030!) out of nowhere. It’s the album in which his arch, hipsterness gave way to something that was more similar in sound to Elliott Smith (whose music was, of course, heavily influenced by Lennon’s father), and the result is rather lovely in places. Like “Dead Meat,” for example, a song that sweetly threatens and cajoles, disguising its bile behind a toy melody and sweeping strings (That moment at 3:40, when the strings come in for one last flourish? Man, I love that), making “You get what you deserve” sound less mean and more… what? Pleasant, happy karma? Perhaps.
366 Songs 273: A Little Less Conversation
Ignore the remixed version from a decade or so ago; the (two different, oddly) 1968 versions by the King are far more fun, far more exciting to listen to than anything that could be recreated after the fact by producers and DJs. Elvis’ own contributions to both versions are the least of what’s on offer, especially when you consider that spectacular drum intro and the call and response from the horns in both (They’re essentially the same, but slightly different). This is a weird Elvis track, informed by the music of the time – especially soul music, which is weirdly fitting in some way, considering Elvis is one of the most well-known white appropriators of black music – and yet somehow outside of it, leaving it timeless and somewhat contemporary decades later in a way that most Elvis songs just… aren’t.
And Welcome To Our Show Tonight
Yes, I accidentally took the weekend off. Or, at least, took the weekend off from here; the reason for that was actually that I had real, paying work to do instead, and it was one of those “Sorry, blog, I don’t want to spend any more time in front of a computer screen than I absolutely have to” things for the last few days. I will try harder from now on, honest.
Oh! And it’s October, officially the best month of the year because I have a birthday in a few days. So, there’s that.
Hello again.
366 Songs 272: September Gurls
It’s Kate’s birthday today, and so she gets this love song from Big Star’s second album, Radio City, about women born during September.
I say “love song,” but it’s such a wonderfully… macho song, lyrically. “I was your butch/And you were touched,” Alex Chilton sings at one point, later going on to struggle with that whole feelings thing (“I don’t know why/How can I deny/What’s inside?”) and boast that, of course, it’s all about the sex really (“Ooh, when she makes love to me”). But the posturing of the lyrics is at odds with the performance, all jangly guitars and harmonies and something more… soft, perhaps? Something more inviting than bravado? There’s a tension there, and it’s that tension that brings me back to this song so often, just as much as the melody and ease in singing along.
Anyway. Happy birthday to my very own September girl. I love you, you know.
“Originality Is Elusive Today”
Originality is elusive today in every place that people write – not just in journalism, but in academia, professional writing, book publishing, speech writing and politics.
In our panic to keep up with a changing world, we’ve failed to identify new methods for originality. We need to look to the writer-editor relationship, to the community of writers and thinkers, and to the very process that writers use to go from nothing to something.
From here.
It has to be said; my relationship with my editor at Time’s Entertainment vertical – who pushes me beyond the first pitches for a story, and then offers and suggests edits to the first draft that always make it a far stronger story – is something that I really treasure. It makes me a better writer, definitely, but so does having the time to take three days or so to get the Time story done. I agree that there needs to be more push towards original thinking in modern writing, but the sheer pace of most online writing works against that, in my experience.
366 Songs 271: Overload
The first time I saw this song was on MTV at a friend’s house, before its release; the captioning was missed, so I didn’t know who it was or what the song was called, but just the guitar solo at 2:34 and bridge at 2:49 made me weirdly convinced that I had to find out who and what I’d just listened to. The truth turned out to be a girl band so manufactured that the members of the band these days contain none of these original members, and everything I liked in this song came from Massive Attack producer Nellie Hooper. That, in many ways, feels like the true pop experience.
“It’s An Investment In Myself”
Oh, how I wish that I found this strip funny for reasons other than nodding to myself and going “Yup, that’s my life right there.”
(From here.)
Best Response Ever?
If Andy Williams hadn’t died, my Time piece would’ve been the most popular article on the Entertainment vertical today. Another reason to be sad about Mr. Williams’ passing, dammit! As it is, it did generate this spectacular response: “I really enjoyed your ST:TNG piece. It could have been shorter.” Thanks, I guess?
Here it is, for those of you know need convincing that Star Trek: The Next Generation actually predicted the future.
366 Songs 270: The King Is Half-Undressed
The album this song came from – Bellybutton – came out in… 1991, perhaps? And it was the soundtrack to my last year of high school, discovered via a tape-cassette given to me by a friend. This was my introduction to power-pop, I think, and this song was my introduction to Jellyfish. It’s got everything that I would end up loving about the band, from the humor in the lyrics (“She dots her ‘I’s with a smiley face/A work of art, in all but taste”) to the four-part harmonies and the jangly guitars, and I remember that I was hooked within seconds of hearing it for the first time. Maybe I heard it on the radio at first? I heard it and wanted to listen again, immediately, and then again and again and again. To this day, I want to be able to sing like the band sounds like in this song. I want to be able to make music like this all the time.
This Is Why I Don’t Write Books (Not Really)
The fact that Penguin is suing authors for neither writing a book nor returning the advance they were given to do said writing is a weirdly entertaining concept to me, for some reason (Despite the fact that one of the authors being sued is Ana Marie Cox, whom I happen to enjoy as a writer more than a little bit). What makes it especially interesting to me is that all of the authors being sued are non-fiction writers; is it just that non-fiction writers flake so badly on contractual agreements, or is there something else happening here?
Part of me really likes the idea of one day writing a book, but then I see this and I just imagine myself being one of those non-fiction writers who’d end up having to hand back payments after missing the deadline or two.