An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 3, 2004 -

[jamiefairlie]

Asobi Seksu - Goodbye

https://youtu.be/3EzW5x3KYIc



Formed in New York in 2001 by Yuki Chikudate (vocals, keyboards) and James Hanna (guitar, vocals). This is from their second album "Citrus"

[jamiefairlie]

Astrid Williamson - Reach

https://youtu.be/1i0JiF_WluA



Astrid Williamson (born 28 November 1968) is a Scottish (born in Shetland) musician, composer, and songwriter. This is from her third album "Day Of The Lone Wolf"

[Smeraldina Rima]

Jake Thackray - Country Boy



From the 2006 box set, Jake in a Box. The box set includes the 4 studio albums, the singles and lots of previously unheard extras: an alternative mono acoustic version of the whole first album, outtakes, demos, another album's worth of unreleased songs and a few songs that were included on the 2003 CD The Jake Thackray Collection. This is a different version of a song that was released as a single in 1972.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Welle: Erdball － Bill Gates, komm f*** mit mir

Methinks the time has come for some Welle: Erdball. For in the year of our Lord, 2006, the pioneers of bitpop, renowned for making music with their trusted Commodore 64 and sundry 1980s video games, released their seminal album, Chaos Total. 'Bill Gates, come and fuck me' was only one of the many quirky gems contained in this wonderful plethora of ironic retro-pop-electronica.



A Welle: Erdball performance is really quite something, replete with paper planes, balloons and 'dance music for robots'; in short, the full FM radio, Volkswagen Beetle, Super 8 analogue film experience. I truly deem them the most remarkable German band of the last thirty years.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Astrid Williamson - Reach

I'm getting 'video unavailable' on this one.

Edit: and the Asobi Seksu one.

[Butchers Blind]

The Long Winters - The Commander Thinks Aloud

"The Commander Thinks Aloud" is about the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia was disintegrated while re-entering the atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed instantly.

Great choice of topic, but that alone is not what makes "The Commander Thinks Aloud" special. How this story is told by song writer John Roderick is very important. It might be a trite thing to say, but "The Commander Thinks Aloud" is a poem. A deliberate effort has been made not to make the song overly obvious or focused on actions and events, but instead the focus is on emotions and thoughts.

What Roderick wanted to accomplish in this song was capturing what must pass through someone's mind when they are aware their end is unavoidably approaching. The seven astronauts who perished onboard the Columbia knew they were not going to make it. There are many disasters which unfold in such a way, where the victims can see the end coming well before it arrives, and these moments of stillness swarmed around Roderick's mind until this poem rushed out of him.

The opening verse is nothing more then a quick list of memories of little things that pass the mind. All the moments of tranquil peace or mundane basic existence flash pass by the Captain's thinking as he faces down his own death.

"Boys and girls in cars.
Dogs and birds on lawns.
From here I can touch the sun."

All the verses that follow are flat observations about the situation; putting their jackets on, passing the Tropic of Capricorn and the North Pole, feeling the returning influence of gravity, and radioing Houston. This poem comes forward like a stream of consciousness, exactly as the song title describes, the Commander says what he is observing. I think this is particularly gripping because that is how I imagine most people, myself included, would react to the situation. Every little detail in both situation and surroundings would suddenly stand out with tremendous significance, knowing it was the last time I would see or do anything. These intense feelings of dread and acceptance must be the objective of Roderick's poem.

Then the outro hits:

"The crew compartment is breaking up."

This line is repeated eight times. It is a raw statement of fact, from the observing thoughts of the commander, as he sees the rushing annihilation instantly upon them.

"The crew compartment is breaking up."

I think the repetition adds the final something special to this song. The commander is thinking aloud, and this is it. This is what is happening:

"The crew compartment is breaking up."

Heavy final thoughts. Very possibly the final thoughts, maybe even the final words, of Commander Rick D. Husband.

https://youtu.be/kdtIjnpeolE

[jamiefairlie]

I'm getting 'video unavailable' on this one.

Edit: and the Asobi Seksu one.

Must be a regional rights thing as they work in Canada. Replacement for Asobi Seksu:

https://youtu.be/2YATbwSmt5w

There seems to only be one choice for the Astrid Williamson one sadly.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Jarvis Cocker - Running the World



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahzNnXex5fY

And nothing has changed. And nothing ever will. In the dismal wake of Johnson's mob winning the 2019 general election, this hidden track - a billious, brilliant protest song - from Jarv's first solo album was re-released and almost became Christmas # 1. A valiant effort.

[Astronaut Omens]

Ellen Allien and Apparat- Way Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzjUi2h7gw4

Berlin techno person Ellen Allien has already featured on these pages, and she is joined here by another Berliner known for running the charmingly-named Shitkatapult record label on a very poppy tune. "Way out" is an ambiguous phrase that could mean 'exit' and could mean 'outlandish and unusual', but in this case I think it's the former that's meant, since the lyrics seem to be about being mired in indolence and unable to reach the front door.

[daf]

Simple Kid ‎– Lil' King Kong



Opening track from the album '2' - released in October 2006.

Before becoming Simple Kid, Irish-born musician Ciarán McFeely was a member of The Young Offenders. Forming when he was 17, the band was composed of a group of friends from Cork. The group attempted to release an album in America but met with failure and broke up.

Simple Kid's approach to recording involved recording to an 8-track cassette player then fed into his computer where he applied more modern techniques to create finished songs. He released his first single, "I Am Rock" in March 2002, followed in August 2002 by "Truck On", which was featured on his debut album '1', released in 2003.
 


His second album, 2, was released by Country Gentleman Recordings in October 2006 in the UK. The track "Lil' King Kong" from the album was featured in a Saturn automobile advertisement in the US, as well as in an advertisement in the UK for the mobile phone operator Orange.

[Brundle-Fly]

F**king Boyfriend - The Bird And The Bee.   Released on regal in 2006.





Delicious sweary swoon pop. Top album all round.

Indie/Synthpop/Alternative musician duo from Los Angeles, composed of vocalist Inara George "The Bird" and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin "The Bee".

[Astronaut Omens]

Joy Denalane- Soweto '76-'06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AAT2rgb-00

Joy Denalane is a German soul singer who became from Schöneberg, Berlin, who first became known through her collaborations with the groups Tiefschwarz and Freundeskreis, with whom she had a big hit called 'Mit Dir'. This song, musically based on a 1998 track by Brooklyn's fake-Afrobeat band The Daktaris comes from her first English-language LP. In interviews at the time of this record, Denalane spoke about her feelings regarding her half-German, half-South African identity, and this song, reminiscent of narrative-folk-drama songs like Bob Dylan's 'Hurricane' depicts three different violent scenes from Soweto from the Apartheid era to the present.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Must be a regional rights thing as they work in Canada. Replacement for Asobi Seksu:

https://youtu.be/2YATbwSmt5w

There seems to only be one choice for the Astrid Williamson one sadly.

Cheers. I've added a UK link for the Astrid Williamson one here:

https://youtu.be/c-3g3YVOzF4

[Brundle-Fly]

Joy Denalane- Soweto '76-'06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AAT2rgb-00

FONKY!

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Howling Bells - Low Happening

Howling Bells evolved out of a band called Waikiki who were formed in Sydney around the turn of the millennium by siblings Juanita Stein (vocals/bass and, later, rhythm guitar) and Joel Stein (guitar). This track is from their self-titled 2006 debut album and Wikipedia tells me that it soared to no. 115 in the UK singles chart when re-released in 2007.

Both Stein siblings have released solo albums after the band's demise, with Juanita's latest, Snapshot, released in 2020.

[Greg Torso]

Asian Mae - Downtown

Asian Mae is the pseudonym of Colleen Kinsella who was part of the droning space rock band Cerberus Shoal and then later started making psychotic blood majick country music with her husband in the duo Big Blood.
This mostly solo album is sort of a subdued precursor to BB, and features contributions from her bandmates and bffs. Smell of creek water and hum of mosquito.

[Greg Torso]

Starless & Bible Black - 016-013

Starless & Bible Black are a band that if you Google them you get 1000 hits about King Crimson from Manchester who, apparently, "draw musical lines between torch song, bluesy chanson, vintage folk-jazz and early electronic music", thanks.
A nice, folky tune for lonely people who can't sleep.

[jamiefairlie]

Audrey - Mecklenburg

https://youtu.be/dZTjwI3Q96Y

alternative



Formed in Gothenburg in 2003, this is from their debut album 'Visible Forms".

[jamiefairlie]

Band of Horses - The Funeral

https://youtu.be/cMFWFhTFohk

https://youtu.be/Ao8FIszjKZg



Formed in Seattle in 2004 by Ben Bridwell. This is their debut single.

[DrGreggles]

Peeping Tom - Kill The DJ
[Patton] {Ipecac}
(from the Peeping Tom album)



Peeping Tom was a project conceived by Mike Patton in 2000, after the demise of Faith No More and Mr Bungle.
The concept was to collaborate with a different artist on each track with a view to making a pop album or, as Patton said said, "my idea of pop music".
Due to the process of working with multiple other acts and finding time between other projects, notorious workaholic Patton spent 6 years recording and producing before the album was finally released in 2006.
Mojo featuring Rahzel and Dan the Automator was issued as a lead-off single (complete with a video starring Patton's unlikely real-life friend, Danny DeVito), and other tracks feature Norah Jones, Dub Trio and, on Kill the DJ, Massive Attack.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Astroladies － The Management Has Failed 2Day

Good old-fashioned new wave from Belgium. Astroladies were a band from Sint-Niklaas who won a contest organised by Humo magazine, which allowed them to record an album, Neon Tokyo, in 2006. They never released another. They were founded by singer Vincent Stevens and bass guitarist Frederik Kusendila, incidentally the only Congolese new-wave musician I know of (why are there so few African new wavers?).

This is straightforward, back-to-the-eighties, reverb guitar stuff, and I love it.

[DrGreggles]

Sparks - (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country
[Mael/Mael/Key] {Gut Records}
(from the Hello Young Lovers album)



Taken from Hello Young Lovers, the 20th(!) album by Sparks, (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country (in an edited form) was also the b-side to Perfume - the first single taken from the album (reached #80 in the UK).
Francis Scott Key gets a co-credit due to the use of some lines from The Star-Spangled Banner.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Lee Hazlewood & Lula - Nothing



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Gr30-95l8

This is the opening track from the ornery old goat's final album, Cake Or Death. It's a duet with German singer Lula. Hazlewood knew that this album would be his last, as he'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He went out with typically wry wit and grit.

Even the Eddie Izzard-referencing album title - Hazlewood was a big fan of our Eddie - laughs in the face of mortality.

[DrGreggles]

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Don't Download This Song
[Yankovic] {Volcano Records}
(from the Straight Outta Lynwood album)



Straight Outta Lynwood was "Weird Al" Yankovic's 12th album and Don't Download This Song was made available (as a download only) to promote the album.
It's a very tongue-in-cheek reaction to the numerous millionaire pop stars who had been complaining about internet piracy, delivered in the style of We Are the World, Hands Across America and Doctor in Distress.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Sibylle Baier - William




Surprising credit to J. Mascis for getting the album released. Unless you already know that, then not surprising. I think it would be acceptable to choose any of the songs on Colour Green, depending what mood you're in. The most played songs have a more depressed feeling which can give a one-sided idea of the light and shade on the album, so the shade side. This song could be compared with Joni Mitchell as an encouragement to listen and since the songs were recorded between 1970 and 1973, I wonder if Baier had heard "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac in 1969, but that's only a slight thing about the chords played in the introduction. I forgot to nominate The Durutti Column's reworking of "Albatross" as "Pigeon" in 1998 and have squeezed it in like this.

[jamiefairlie]

Barbara Morgenstern - The Operator

https://youtu.be/EhKEAhiQl4M

https://youtu.be/Qr5cn-O9AHc



Barbara Morgenstern (born March 19, 1971) is a German electronic musician and singer. This is from her fifth album "The Grass Is Always Greener".

[jamiefairlie]

Beth Orton - Pieces of Sky

https://youtu.be/7mThoJVRjzw



Elizabeth Caroline Orton (born 14 December 1970) is an English singer-songwriter, known for her "folktronica" sound, which mixes elements of folk and electronica. This from her fourth album "Comfort of Strangers".

[chocolate teapot]

Sibylle Baier - William




Surprising credit to J. Mascis for getting the album released. Unless you already know that, then not surprising. I think it would be acceptable to choose any of the songs on Colour Green, depending what mood you're in. The most played songs have a more depressed feeling which can give a one-sided idea of the light and shade on the album, so the shade side. This song could be compared with Joni Mitchell as an encouragement to listen and since the songs were recorded between 1970 and 1973, I wonder if Baier had heard "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac in 1969, but that's only a slight thing about the chords played in the introduction. I forgot to nominate The Durutti Column's reworking of "Albatross" as "Pigeon" in 1998 and have squeezed it in like this.

I love this album, my nephew also liked one of the songs I linked to on Facebook, I was pretty proud of that.

[daf]

Phoenix  ‎– Consolation Prizes



Released in September 2006 - did not chart

After their Alphabetical tour, Phoenix spent time in Berlin during the summer of 2005, making use of Planet Roc studios to produce their third album. On 8 May 2006, the band released the lead single from the album, titled "Long Distance Call", which reached #49 in Italy. Phoenix's third studio album, 'It's Never Been Like That', was released in May 2006.



To promote the release of the album, Phoenix toured the United States and Europe in 2006. On 11 September 2006, the track "Consolation Prizes" was announced to be the second single from the album.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Panda Bear - Bro's



The second single of Panda Bear's third solo album, Person Pitch, which came out the following year. It uses samples from:

The Tornados - "Red Roses and a Sky of Blue" (written by Joe Meek)
Yusuf / Cat Stevens - "I've Found a Love"
The Equals - "Rub a Dub Dub"

The samples are used in the first part, bridge, and second part of the song.

Person Pitch Samples Part 1
Person Pitch Samples Part 2

Similar Animal Collective song from a radio session in 2005 with crossing vocal parts: What I Do

Agnes Montgomery did the collage album covers for Person Pitch and its four singles.

I used to mishear 'drink Coca-Cola' in 'and may you may you may you may find that we're alright'.