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An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 2, 1982 -

Started by jamiefairlie, January 20, 2021, 05:43:47 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on September 21, 2021, 01:49:40 PM
My ex got off with Erland before she started seeing me and said that when she kissed him, she could feel his hard on through his jeans. Every time I see mention of him or his tedious fucking band, I think of that. Thanks.

You're welcome. For what it's worth I can't be arsed with his drippy band either, I just like that version of the Hazlewood song.

Every now and then people on this forum argue about the difference between subjective and objective arts criticism. Some refuse to accept that their can be such a thing as objective arts criticism, since liking or disliking a piece music, they suppose, is surely a matter of taste, and must always be subjective. For my part, I have always maintained that when we talk about objectivity in arts criticism we are not talking about anything as rigorously factual as the natural sciences, just that reviewers suspend their own personal circumstances on listening to a piece, and instead judge a piece in a way that is likely to be relevant to other listeners.  I am very grateful to hzj's comment above, for it provides us with a perfect example of truly subjective music criticism.

I have to say that a song that might well have sounded a mite drippy to my ears is suffused with masculine vigour and virility now.

Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez aka Nina: Too Street for TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVgj5Z-yxa4
A last gasp of the G-funk sound from the unreleased LP that former TLC superstar Left Eye was going to put out on Death Row Records before her untimely death in 2002. 

Tweet- Smoking Cigarettes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavrRte5Wng

Best known for her paean to self-satisfaction, "Oops", Tweet's "Southern Hummingbird" LP features this mellow lament to late nights thinking about someone who isn't there. Anyone concerned that we'd moved onto just talking about contemporary music should note that no singer would call themself "Tweet" nowadays, and I think  no-one would do an r and b song about smoking fags anymore.

Brundle-Fly

Alzheimer's - Joy Zipper.   Released on 13amp in 2002.





WARNING: As the title suggests, an affecting song that reflects on living with loved ones who suffer from this treacherous condition.

Joy Zipper is an American indie pop duo from Long Island, New York, made up of Tabitha Tindale and Vincent Cafiso, who are also a married couple. The duo has been playing dream pop since the late 1990s. The band is named after Tindale's mother.

Their songs are underpinned with darker scarred lyrics (suggested in interviews to have been inspired by the death of Cafiso's father) causing them to be famously compared to, 'a candy apple with a razor blade inside'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8deZ5Sd2g0

Retinend

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on September 21, 2021, 01:49:40 PM
My ex got off with Erland before she started seeing me and said that when she kissed him, she could feel his hard on through his jeans. Every time I see mention of him or his tedious fucking band, I think of that. Thanks.

Why would she tell you that?! Were you denying her ability to stiffen willies?

jamiefairlie

Alrighty, time to close off 2002 I think, 2003 will open later on Sunday, so get those late entries in now.

DrGreggles

McLusky - Gareth Brown Says
[Falkous/Chapple/Harding] {Too Pure}
(taken from the Mclusky Do Dallas album)



Taken from Mclusky Do Dallas, their 2nd album, Gareth Brown Says is a short rocky bastard with a terrific opening line.
Reminds me a bit of Wire.

Brundle-Fly

Pursed Lips Reply - Daedelus. Released on Plug Research in 2002.



Hell, it's the opening gambit here. Knock yourself out, Norman. Another underrated chap.

Daedelus AKA Alfred Darlington (born Alfred Weisberg-Roberts, October 31, 1977), is an American record producer based in Los Angeles, California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr6HcMSa9jU

Brundle-Fly

The Mind Is  Evil - Clearlake.  Released on Domino in 2002.






Clearlake was an indie rock band, based in Brighton, England. They released three albums between 2001 and 2006. The band has been inactive since 2009. Have to say, Jason Pegg is an unsung musical hero of mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozZAIad3Bks

Brundle-Fly

Who's That Calling? - Blue Apple Boy.  Released on Soma Sound in 2002.





Good old Tiny!

Blue Apple Boy (sometimes also known as Sleepy People) are a British psychedelic rock band known for eccentric, energetic songs and live performances, as well as for incubating several future members of Britpop band Ultrasound.

The band have an eclectic musical approach which blends psychedelic rock, New Wave pop, punk and progressive rock (other ingredients have included noise-rock, nursery rhymes, ska, Muzak, bossa nova, circus/fairground music, tango and anything else which the band members find inspiring). They are strongly influenced by other theatrical British psychedelic bands such as Cardiacs and The Monochrome Set, with their lyrics varying from cheerful or sinister nonsense to surreal representations of everyday life and hallucinatory twists on eccentric stories from tabloid newspapers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smcjji9-VsY

Brundle-Fly

Brandy and Xanax - esQuire.  Released on Red Rex in 2002.





I'm tossing these out there before we hit 2003. Not much info on this or Brandy Rapper, but it's the most enjoyably camp 10" I own. Oo-er missus...etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJtDlXkV5A&t=2s

Brundle-Fly

The Galaxial Pharmaceutical - Amorphous Androgynous   Released on FSOL Recordings in 2002.





Dedicated to purlieu. I wish he still posted on this thread. Taking Dukes Of Stratosphear alter ego Nu- popsike to the next level.

Amorphous Androgynous are one of the Future Sound Of London's most well-known aliases. Used for their early-1990's album Tales Of Ephidrina and their more recent releases The Isness (2002), Alice In Ultraland (2005) and The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds Of Superconsciousness (2008). The later psychedelic releases generally add a 'The' to the name to differentiate from the '90s electronic material.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ppX3ClWgFw&t=49m8s


jamiefairlie

Film School - P.S.

https://youtu.be/P3QD9-ud4x4



Formed in LA in 1998 by lead singer Greg Bertens. This is from their second EP "Alwaysnever" and it's a gorgeous little tune, probably my favourite of the year.

DrGreggles

They Might Be Giants - Metal Detector (Live)
[They Might Be Giants] {Idlewild Recordings}
(free download from theymightbegiants.com)



Live (and vastly superior) version of Metal Detector - a John Linnell song which originally appeared on 1996's Factory Showroom album.
This version was recorded with a full brass section at the Coney Island Museum for Studio 360 on 7/5/2003 (which is probably July - CRAZY YANKS!) and was originally only available via the TMBG Dial-a-Song.
It was eventually included on 2007's Cast Your Pod to the Wind - a collection of their online-only releases.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Concretes - You Can't Hurry Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw8y8uDrgR4



Not the Supremes/Phil Collins song.

The Concretes are an indie-pop band from Sweden. This is taken from their debut album.

Ellen Allien- Sehnsucht
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGjTPZTFSs

Ellen Allien is a German techno DJ that runs the Bpitch Control label. This is from her album Berlinette. The concept of "Sehnsucht", closest to the english word "longing" has been an inspiration for many German poets.

Brundle-Fly

The Age Of Aquariums - Adventure Time.  Released on Plug Research in 2003.





Something sonically a bit life aquatic for your delectation.

Adventure Time is the duo of sonic explorers Daedelus and Frosty.  Having met in the music-geek haven of the University of Southern California's student radio station in the mid 1990's, they quickly forged a friendship.  These pals carried on their companionship past college and helped found the non-profit Internet radio station dublab.com in 1999.  After many years of shared moments seeking vinyl gems in vast secondhand record bins, they started to collaboratively create collages from excavated records.  Their musical experiments were based on out-there audio affinities grounded in beauty, humor and rhythm.  Adventure Time's mission has always been focused on the creative recycling of found sounds into newly formed moments of action-packed audio delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNaIOE1Hm8c&t=

boki

Deckard - Holy Rolling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSHd5fj3IeM



Deckard was basically a continuation of Glasgow rockers Baby Chaos, although they would lean more towards the poppier element of the BC sound, especially on the 2000 debut album Stereodreamscene, which also benefited from having a major label budget.  The self-released 2003 followup Dreams Of Dynamite & Divinity, from which this song is taken, is a bit more stripped back, allowing Chris Gordon's heavy power-pop chops to come to the fore.  As much as they were often compared to their friends in The Wildhearts, they've always struck me as being closer to a Scottish Smashing Pumpkins.

The original Baby Chaos lineup reunited in 2015 and have put out a couple of cracking albums since.

Gregory Torso

The Petals - Sarsparilla



Unashamedly throwback psych hippy rock from The Petals from Milkwaukee, USA. This was their third album, despite forming in 1988, the lazy bastards. Eat some wild mushrooms and lie down in a meadow. The Man is most unrighteous!

daf

Neulander – Sex God and Money



Released in 2003 - did not chart

QuoteNeulander were a New York-based Electro/Synth Pop duo formed by Adam Peters from England, and Austrian-born Korinna Knoll. The duo made minimal electronic pop with a detached, Teutonic feel. 2003's "Sex, God + Money" single was followed in March 2004 by debut LP, "Smoke + Fire". Both records were issued in Germany by the Disko B label of Munich. It is not clear whether the outfit released any further recordings.

On 22 July 2003, John Peel described how he drove into London earlier that day, listening to new music as was his custom. The Neulander EP was "the one that I liked the most" and so was added to that evening's programme. The title track from the EP proved to be popular with Peel and the listeners - it was voted into that year's Festive Fifty at #33 - and so received several plays over the summer.



Having played the single a handful of times, Peel was subsequently slightly piqued to find the band being described as "Peel show favourites" in promotional material:

John Peel : "Every once in a while I get catalogues from record distribution companies and I'm often rather taken aback to discover that certain records that they're selling / distributing, are favourites of this programme. Sometimes we've only played like, one track, and it seems to be a slight exaggeration. This is a case in point. We played you a record by Neulander a few times and it was described as a Peel show favourite. I felt kind of compromised and reluctant to play any more from it. But that would be unfair to Neulander, so from the LP which is called "Smoke + Fire", this is "If You Could"."

Gregory Torso

Mu - Let's Get Sick



Jittery percussion-heavy dancefloor whatthefuckery from the husband and wife duo of Mu (aka Mutsumi Kanamori) and Maurice Fulton. Don't ask what she's singing about, something about rolling a big fat spliff. Air raid sirens, liquid dance patterns. Weird shit. I live for it.

Gregory Torso

Barbara Morgenstern - Aus Heiterem Himmel (Dntel Mix)



Barbara Morgenstern is a German electronic music artist who makes bleeps go blip.
Dntel is an American electronic music artist who makes blips go bleep.
One beautiful sunkisst day in 2003 they put all their blips and bleeps in a little bag and gave it a shake, and this is what came out.

Trivia

"Aus heiterem himmel" means "out of the blue" in German.

Dntel, aka Jimmy Tamborello, is probably best known for being one half of The Postal Service with Ben Gibbard.

Sufjan Stevens - Romulus

https://youtu.be/judf3aTnvOU

Sufjan Stevens famously claimed that his plan was to record an album based around each state of the USA, but, to date, his discography features only two such albums. 2003's 'Michigan'[nb]I'm too lazy to type the full title[/nb] is probably overlooked slightly in favour of the later, all-singing, all-dancing 'Come on! Feel the Illinoise!', so I thought I'd go for this track from Michigan, which is the sort of song that music critics call things like 'hushed' and 'quietly devastating'.


Gregory Torso

Quote from: daf on September 27, 2021, 11:36:33 PM
Neulander – Sex God and Money

I remember this from one of the many John Peel tapes I used to have. Great song!

I was a big Ellen Allien fan back the day, as well. Not sure a lot of that BPitch/Berlin/electro stuff holds up today, but she was always great.

Brundle-Fly

#2817
Cry Baby - Jemini. (the humiliating live TV version)  Released in Integral in 2003.



Right, I'm going place my neck on the block now. This single actually got to No.15 in the UK charts but famously Jemini scored 'nul points' at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest. This wonky live version should have been released as a single, because I genuinely believe it is an atonal work of outsider art.

Jemini
AKA Chris Cromby and Gemma Abbey (born 1982) met in 1995 at Liverpool's Starlight Stage School and toured Liverpool's pubs and clubs with the academy's kids' roadshow. At 16, after leaving college, they formed Tricity, named after the brand of electrical appliances. They changed their name to Jemini ("Gem-and-I") at the age of 19. They spent the next two and a half years touring pubs and clubs in the UK performing Stevie Wonder, Randy Crawford and Motown covers and ABBA medleys, as well as their own compositions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu5kgSeZHfw

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on September 28, 2021, 12:23:13 AM
Sufjan Stevens - Romulus

https://youtu.be/judf3aTnvOU

Sufjan Stevens famously claimed that his plan was to record an album based around each state of the USA, but, to date, his discography features only two such albums. 2003's 'Michigan'[nb]I'm too lazy to type the full title[/nb] is probably overlooked slightly in favour of the later, all-singing, all-dancing 'Come on! Feel the Illinoise!', so I thought I'd go for this track from Michigan, which is the sort of song that music critics call things like 'hushed' and 'quietly devastating'.



This year he also released the third of his Christmas collections "Ding! Dong! Songs for Christmas, Vol.III", which contained this 'cracker' ha ha.



Sufjan Stevens - All the King's Horns

https://youtu.be/611Q3nNjZMY

His style really suits Christmas songs for some reason, that kind of ancient pagan sound works so well.

DrGreggles

OutKast - Ghetto Musick (Live)
[Benjamin/Patton/Gamble/Sigler] {LaFace/Arista}
(UK single, reached #55)



4th single release from Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, OutKast's fifth album(s), Ghetto Musick is a ridiculously fast techno-based song, which essentially served as the opening track on Speakerboxxx.
Samples Patti LaBelle's Love, Need and Want You.
Despite this being OutKast in 2003, Ghetto Musick only reached #55. But I suppose everyone already owned the album(s) by then.