And will Derren be taking the bows later on?

What an entertainer! What a diva! WHAT A GAL!!!!

Now, as for Weather Report’s “Birdland” versus 1977’s Actual Most Important/Influential/Punkish Album, viz. Dancing In Your Head…

that’s a good point about rawness — but the steering clear is what i’m getting really: that there’s (harold bloomism alert) an AGON here between craft suppleness as elaboration (which is the MT fancy) and areas the “kid’s” form could reach which the suppleness maybe couldn’t (or anyway these supple-teers FELT it couldn’t, felt it as a territory they couldn’t move about in; tho i think the broader argt of glam is that there was something, a lot in fact, to be explored in the collision)

“art’s for art’s sake” (haha walter paterism alert) is another line within pop we don’t see much of, and when it does emerge, i think it’s quite hard (if it’s not yr favoured art-style) not to respond to as if it’s irony: we touched on this discussin the swingle singers i think

Of course, it’s natural for a group of people who get their kicks from creating complex harmonies together to steer clear of a musical genre which eschewed that sort of thing in favour of raw simplicity.

And let me repeat vinylscot’s praise for Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” - when the time comes I’m going to praise another of their songs…

(oh, and meanwhile in the US Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen” is #1)

I fear that such an undertaking would now have been superseded by the Mike Flowers Pops’ excellent “Velvet Underground Medley.”

“Walk In Love” reached a respectable #12.

I could mean (on some days) that they’re affecting the everything SuXoR mask rather than the nothing matters mask to hide basic fear of not understanding/losing grasp/dying (or maybe I’m confusing postmodernists with Radio 2 listeners heheh).

Although I think ex-Bette Midler and the Harlettes musical director Barry Manilow grasped the glam logic far more securely than MT since he is pretty much exactly halfway between Chet Baker and Jobriath.

But heavens, everything Manny Tranny ever did oozes camp. It is, it’s true, the far opposite end of the gay spectrum from the hot, dark, sweaty dives playing supercharged dance music (I use the phrase in its most general sense) as the aural equivalent of amyl nitrite. In another life I used to patronise a bar in the Fulham Road that was all louche Manhattan piano bar, smooth and silky, the sort of place where Manny Tranny would fit perfectly. And then one night it was all change - nobody was coming in not clad in leather and nails, and the noise emanating from within mitigated the disappointment.

(i am just rereadin tons of samuel delany — “the mad man”, erk — so i currently am a bit out of synch with the “swish” end of the continuum; clearly i will need to balance it up with some noël coward when i am done)

http://home.hiwaay.net/~emilyj/reviewsx4.html