Random Music Trivia

By: Eeleen Lee on 8:50 pm

"Take Me Home " - Sophie Ellis-Bextor (original lyrics sung by Cher)
"She" - Charles Azanour (covered by Elvis Costello)
"(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais" - The Clash
"Mack the Knife" - Bobby Darin
"Work It Out" - Beyonce
"All I Want Is You" - U2
"It's A Mug's Game" - Soft Cell
"Fake Plastic Trees" - Radiohead

Question: What do these songs have in common?
Answer: All of them do not have choruses.

(You're welcome....)

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SoShy

By: Eeleen Lee on 2:27 pm

Face like Angelina Jolie, voice like Amy Winehouse, tattoos like LA Ink.
Which begs the question - why isn't SoShy more famous outside France? Apart from 'Morning After Dark' with Timbaland and Nelly Furtado and two World Cup themed songs, 'Dorothy' and 'The Way I am'.
I am blogging my enthusiasm and await her debut album with utmost impatience.

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This Is Really Not A Love Song.

By: Eeleen Lee on 10:22 am

Bruce Springsteen sang in 'No Retreat No Surrender'  that you can learn more from a three minute record than you can ever learn in school. Track down that old form teacher who confiscated your walkman/ discman/ mp3 player and show him/her the following list! Who said popular songs are all vacuous fluff and confection?

1. 'Being Boiled' (1981) The Human League
Phil Oakey and company stand up for animal rights and protests against the mass exploitation of silkworms.
Vocabulary enriching lyric: "sericulture" (The cultivation of silkworms for silk)


2. 'Free Your Mind' (1992) En Vogue
Don't judge by appearances! Down with damaging stereotypes! These four ladies rap and roar their polemic, although their leather and lace costumes in the video does dent their credibility.
Vocabulary enriching lyric: "synecdoche"  (Using a small part, such as an individual, to judge a whole group, i.e race or culture in the case of this song)


3. "Remembrance Day" (1987) Bryan Adams
Everything he does is not just MOR rock and aweshucks love balladry. Here's a restrained tribute to the role of Canadian soldiers in World War I.
Interesting Fact written into song lyrics: "By October 1918, Cambrai had fallen"  Surely the only reference to the 1918 Hundred Days Offensive by the Allied Powers, in rock music?


4. "Wuthering Heights" (1979) Kate Bush
It doesn't get more literary than this tune. The haunting refrain of 'Heathcliff! Its me, Cathy! I've come home, let me into your window!" evokes and distills the essence of Emily Bronte's classic novel more effectively than a dozen Yorknotes study guides.


5. "One Week" (1998) Barenaked Ladies
There has to be one pop-culture referencing song on this list. Jason Mraz has based his entire career around this song and with good reason, the references fly in, in a relentless stream:, Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa, Harrison Ford and Aquaman are namechecked.


6. "Enola Gay" (1984) Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark
More history, now its World War 2, or to be more specific, the end of WW2. OMD sing about the plane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.
Interesting fact worked into song title: The name of the plane! Genius!


7. "Invisible Sun" (1981) The Police
A dark song about the political tensions in Northern Ireland, but not difficult to listen to. Banned by the BBC upon release - how rock and roll is that?
Vocabulary enriching lyric: 'armalite'. aka the AR-18 assault rifle.


8. "Cemetry Gates" (1987) The Smiths
Smart lyrics from Morissey, the Ocasr Wilde-o-phile. Apparantly about poetry battles and questions of attribution that take place in the titular graveyard.
Educational advice written into lyrics : A warning against plagiarism: "Always someone somewhere, with a big nose  who knows!"


9. "Once In a Lifetime" (1980) Talking Heads
You may have first heard this song used in the trailer for 'The Truman Show' It combines existentialism and fears of looming mid-life crisis with a beautiful chorus that, once heard, may never leave your brain.
Educational note on music video: Incorporates footage of tribal dancing and sign language (and I'm not referring to David Byrne's dancing and hand gestures..)


10. "MLK" (1984) U2
"Pride In the Name of Love" maybe the more obvious song about Martin Luther King, but 'MLK" is the shorter and more subtle piece.


Do you have any examples of smart pop(ular) songs? Post them in Comments please.

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Make It 'So'!

By: Eeleen Lee on 10:39 pm

Title: So
Artist: Peter Gabriel
Release Year: 1986
Tracklisting


Red Rain
Sledgehammer
Don’t Give Up
That Voice Again
Mercy Street
Big Time
We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)
This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)
In Your Eyes

# Why should this album soundtrack my writing process?

Bored? Has the creative font in your head dried up? Need fresh inspiration?  If dunking your head in a bucketful of cold water is too messy, try water in the sonic sense. The theme of water runs through this album: Samples of hi-hats that sound like drizzling rain, looped triangles that resemble trickling streams and Prophet keyboards emissions like breaking waves. Gabriel extends the water theme in 1992's 'Us' but 'So' is more accessible, danceable,and fun.


Which albums do you play/ blast through earphones when you write?

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The Wedding Whinger

By: Eeleen Lee on 8:43 pm

Urghhh! I've had it up to here with well-meaning (how can it mean well?) people who suggest that I get married and settle down soon.

How utterly rude and obnoxious...but fret not my fellow bloggies, if you find yourselves in a similar situation. Console and justify your irritation and disillusion with the proponents of the matrimonial institution with the following list of The Worst Songs To Play At A Wedding. Not merely the annoying or overplayed songs , but tunes so inappropriate that you are guaranteed to get ejected (and shot) by both sides. (Feel free to suggest more songs when you leave a comment):

1.'Love Will Tear Us Apart' : Joy Division

Sounds like four funerals at a wedding. Including your own funeral, if the relatives ever catch you cranking this dirge up.

2. '25 Minutes': Michael Learns To Rock.

A mawkish and inappropriate double whammy of a pop song. "25 minutes! I was 25 minutes too late!" wails the singer to the newlywed bride in the song. The title also refers to the window of time you have to escape, before the bridal party hunts you down.

3. 'The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow): The Jam

Most likely to get you into a jam at the wedding, because of the possible blowback: Depending on your sex, you either identify with Paul Weller's betrayed lover persona or the object of his vitriol, walking down the aisle at the beginning of the song. Blame this tune if the best man's drunken speech suddenly turns (ahem!) bitter.

4.'Imperial March, from The Empire Strikes Back' OST : John Williams

Do not attempt to play this for the couple's entrance, unless both bride and groom are hardcore Star Wars fans. Even then, you may unleash everyone's inner Rancor.

5. Stalker Songs

'Every Breath You Take' by The Police is the obvious culprit. Also try, 'If You're Not The One' by Daniel Bedingfield, Sinead O' Connor's version of 'Nothing Compares 2 U",or "You Could Be Mine",by Guns N' Roses. With that last song, you will get your share of actual guns and funerary roses.

6.'The James Bond Theme': Monty Norman

Hey you, the best man! You may feel smart and rakish when suited up, and it may have been your idea to include this theme tune in the wedding playlist, but do not invoke the presence of 007, secret agent and ladies man, at a wedding. For your ears only.

7. 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E': Tammy Wynnette

You may get lynched for playing this song but don't stop let the country theme stop there, pardner! Also try, 'Before He Cheats': Carrie Underwood and 'Achey Breaky Heart': Billy Rae Cyrus. YEEE- HAWWW!

8. The Smiths

Do not invoke the hoary 'irony/tongue-in-cheek' excuse if you want The Smiths played at a wedding. Bet your bridal bouquet that Morissey will sing and ruin the mood like the Pope Of Mope. I recommend, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", "I Know Its Over" and "Girlfriend In A Coma". Top it off with "How Soon Is Now",  and you should clear the hall in seconds.

9. 'Sex Dwarf': Soft Cell

You will turn faces red with this salacious song. The sleazy synth riffs, squealy sound effects and blatant lyrics about bondage and exhibitionism! If the couple are open-minded enough, they may find this tune amusing, as it maybe soundtracking their wedding night. I wouldn't vouch for their relatives, though.

10. 'Girlfriend' Avril Lavigne

Run for cover! This song sounds like a bitchy chorus of all the groom's ex-girlfriends gatecrashing the wedding. Hang on, that is exactly what they are doing.

11. 'Weird' Al Yankovic

His better-known pop song parodies and polka-medley covers will only provide mildly amusing diversions during the dinner and dance. For guaranteed mayhem, turn to 'Weird' Al's original songs. They are hilarious twists on the cliched love ballad, such as 'I Was Only Kidding' and 'One More Minute', which contains the unforgettable lyrics:"You left me at the gas-station of love and now I have to use the self-service pumps"!

12. 'This Is Not A Love Song'/ 'Death Disco', Public Image Limited

Former Sex Pistol John Lydon does dub, sampling, and dance, all accompanied by Jah Wobble's seismic bass and Keith Levene's distress-call electric guitar. Lydon is not strictly a singer; his vocals are more like 2 parts attitude mixed with 1 part banshee, with generous lashings of paint-stripper. These two songs should get those emo teenage cousins who never wanted to attend in the first place, dancing before the cake is cut.

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"Grab-Bag"- Results of Record Shop Impulse-Buying Spree.

By: Eeleen Lee on 4:50 am

"Never buy things you don't need on impulse."
"Always go shopping with a list."
"Set a budget before you go shopping."

Repeat after me: The above rules of accepted wisdom do not apply to buying music.
And this does not include downloading (legally or illegally). Just as vinyl and the analogue cassette still endure, the record shop remains. Buying your music off the Net tends to diminish the pleasure of drifting into a shop and thumbing through the racks of CDs, asking the assistant, "Hey, what's playing now?" and testing the CDs.
To hell with browsing and testing, some consumers may say, that's why we prefer to download, and skip going to the noisy shop, getting ripped off and ripping off our fingernails while trying to unwrap CDs when we get home. We like it fast, easy, cheap (or gratis) and straight into our Ipods.

Well, before you turn into a complete Pod-person, i.e develop potato-like 'eyes', rhizomes and put down roots in front of your PC, try the following experiment: Walk into the record shop and buy 5 records that quickly (within 10 minutes) catch your attention. 'What if I don't like the records?' well, you don't know until you've listened to them, right?


Here are my findings:
1. The Complete Adventures of The Style Council (1998-boxset)
I could not resist the glossy white embossed cardboard packaging, it resembles the posh packaging of gloves or ties from a high-end haberdasher or menswear shop. On paper, The Style Council should suck like one of Stephen Hawkins' theoretical mega-blackholes: ex-Jam frontman and Rickenbacker aficionado Paul Weller doing politically-tinged soul, jazz, funk and more soul? The music is stellar, and after all that new-wave shouting and mod guitar-crunching of The Jam, who knew that Paul Weller could really sing lovely haunting summertime ballads such as 'You're The Best Thing.' and 'Long Hot Summer'?


2. James-The Best Of (1998)
The quasi hippie/kindergarten class coverart intrigued me. James are best known for their Student Union jukebox staple 'Sit Down', and this compilation of 18 tracks spans their career from Smiths jingle-jangle contemporaries to baggy marginalised indie group. For an impulse buy, sheer value for money.



3. Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Trip The Light Fantastic (2007)
Say what you like about Sophie Ellis-Bextor, but eight years is a long time to have lasted in dance-pop. It may surprise you that I don't already own this. Don't let the pseudo-Tamara Lempicka artwork put you off, it is not a case of style over substance with her latest album.






4. Gotan Project
La Revancha Del Tango (2001)

The album cover seemed like a most cringeworthy visual pun, (puh-lease! 'Go tan' project? Tattooed on some model's chest!) then I realised that this was the debut album of the French trio's tango dance/ambient hybrid. You get ten eclectic tracks, which will put you in the mood for a sensual pas de deux along Pont Neuf, without getting arrested by any passing gendarmes.

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Deprival Symptoms

By: Eeleen Lee on 5:51 pm

I did a wee musical experiment over the last month- I removed all tracks by Madonna, Elvis Costello, Depeche Mode, Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Peter Gabriel and Aztec Camera/ Roddy Frame from my Ipod, and did not listen to them for four weeks.
Of course, you may ask, what did I listen to in the meantime? Lots of 90s grunge, Britpop, techno, baroque and film soundtracks .

The aim of my experiment was to see how I fared( in body,mind and soul) without my favourites, and here are my findings-

1) *I will never do that again*.
2) *Nothing* (no matter how good) will ever replace your favourites.
3) I have forgotten some of the lyrics to the tracks on 'The Queen Is Dead' (sacrilege!)
4) In the pub discussion of 'Greatest Guitarist Ever?', I have moderated my stance on Johnny Marr (blasphemy!)
5) I momentarily failed to recognize the intro of 'Somewhere In My Heart', when played on 'Red FM' (She's lost control!)
6) During the fourth week, I developed a raging viral fever and was in bed for 3 days.
7) Not listening to the music that sountracked your teenage angst and growing pains is a sign of deep denial and non-reflection and should never be mistaken for new-found maturity.
8) Your favourites got you through life, to jettison them is to lose your bearings.

This writer is currently doing penance- by watching videos of her favourites on Youtube, for a start.

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That's Entertainment

By: Eeleen Lee on 9:09 am

Chinese New Year-Day 2

Greetings to all faithful blog readers- how is your holiday so far? Did you wake up ready to greet the Year of the Rat with a laugh, a smile and a merry quip? Those who did are the fortunate ones- I was rudely awakened from a blissful dream involving Alex Kapranos and light gauge electric-guitar strings (sorry, too much information...) by a horrid wailing that issued from the living-room. I stumbled to the source, unsure if my previous dream had segued into a nightmare state. No such luck-reality proved to be much worse.

The source of the infernal caterwauling was a cheong-sammed female songstress on a Chinese variety show, belting out oldies in a paint-stripping falsletto. Now, before certain parties level charges of cultural bias and prejudice at me due to the language barrier ("You were born in London and don't understand Mandarin/ ! Of course you don't like Chinese songs!"), let me categorically state that the singer was singing an English song. I recognised it as, "I Left My Heart In San Francisco". (Pity she didn't leave her voice over there as well) Bad singing requires no language to make itself understood, and by extension finds a very wide and captive audience. Something which is supported by the proliferation of numerous reality shows and boy-bands.

The same audience of Chinese variety shows are intractable in their ardour. My attempts to lower the volume were met with an instant backlash- "Oy! We are watching that!", "It's an old song!", and "Let us watch, it's Chinese New Year!". As the banshee in a cheong-sam vacated the TV stage for the next act (a chorus of garland-waving schoolchildren), I told myself that if this be nostalgia, then give me neuralgia at any time of the year.

The vehemence that my volume-reducing efforts met with only confirms that violence lurks beneath the festive veneer. Movies shown on TV during Chinese New Year are of the Kung Fu pugilistic type such as, Jackie Chan in,"Police Story: Mr. Nice Guy Drunken Master's First Strike" or Jet Li in, "Once Upon A Fearless Time In China The Fist of Legend Fong Sai Yuk Must Die." Parallels are found in the British Boxing Day James Bond movie TV screening, " You Only Live and Let Die Another Spy Who Loved Me From Russia With A View To Her Majesty's Secret Golden Gun For Your Living Daylights Only." Why are action movies staple holiday viewing? Do we enjoy abit of vicarious violence when surrounded by our nearest and dearest? ("IF AUNTIE SO_AND_SO ASKS ME ABOUT MY SINGLETON STATUS AGAIN I SWEAR I'LL EAGLE-CLAW PUNCH THIS WHOLE STACK OF EMPTY ANG POW PACKETS DOWN HER LAYER CAKEHOLE...!") Or hemmed in by the confines of the filial home or visiting other people's homes, and lacking any emotional space we are grateful for any semblence of activity and assertion? The answer is both, according to Adorno and Horkheimer:


'The enjoyment of the violence suffered by the movie character turns into violence against the spectator, and distraction into exertion.'
(The Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkeiheimer, 1944)


I wholly agree with Adorno and Horkheimer, as my interrupted dream turned out to have a satisfyingly rousing climax last night. (No, not in that way, all of you with gutter-mentalities...) After comparing types of electric guitar strings with AK, I joined him, a youthful Elvis Costello and a militant Joe Strummer onstage during a Chinese variety program. We proceeded to punk up and new wave traditional festive songs, smash our guitars onstage to the horror of the audience and made cheong-sammed banshees and rosy-cheeked schoolchildren quake in their dressing rooms. 

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen and goodnight

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