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Theft (or as we call it friends borrowing and not returning)

The average number of CD’s owned in the UK is 126. The average number of those CD’s which have had to be replaced due to theft, loss or accidental melting because they fell down the back of the radiator is 36.

What a wasteful society we live in, this report suggests. It also puts much credence to the idea that you should never lend CD’s to anyone, and that these things probably never happened with vinyl (this conclusion is wholly my own).

I assume the actual conclusion, since the research was commissioned by Napster, is that mp3’s rule because people can’t steal them, or drop them down the back of the radiator. However an interesting comparison might be how many tracks have you lost due to file corruption, a computer dying or dropping your i-Pod?

Afternoon radio research - Pt 1

Today I was listening to Radio 1 on the web — research purposes only, of course — and a caller managed to break through the hurried sheen of the Colin and Edith program with a heartfelt message to her boyfriend, who not only made her feel like a queen, taking her out constantly, etc., but — and here the caller’s voice cracked a little, stumbled, collected itself and went on stronger — had stood with her during family troubles, and his support meant the world. That the caller sounded like the kind of superficial babbler you might avoid at a party made the sincerity in her voice the more striking. It’s a common phenomenon — that, talking blindly down the phone to an audience of thousands of absolute strangers, people find something noble inside they never realized they had — and DJs and program directors are only too eager to tap into it, especially since it’s free minus the cost of the phone banks. Colin appreciated it too — “That was a good ‘Lunchtime Lovers’, Sarah,” he said, collegially referring to the name of the segment. And we moved on.

What A Difference A Lyric Makes

ABBA’s “The Day Before You Came” has a superb lyric. If you don’t know it, it’s a haunting song* detailing a totally ordinary day in the life of a single woman - getting up, going to work, eating lunch, coming home, going to bed. She’s vague on the details, because after all it was an ordinary day. It was also “the day before you came”, and we never learn any more about the “you”, but that’s not the point right now.

One of the reasons it’s such a great lyric is that it makes Andersson and Ulvaeus slightly pernickety grasp of English work in their favour. Sung in the voice of someone no more than averagely articulate, their grammatical exactness gives dimension to a life that seems exact, routine and slightly dull. Another reason is that it’s full of delightful little details, like this from when the singer goes to bed:

“I must have read a while, the latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style”

Offhand, vague, and the choice of author is perfect - intellectual but still quite populist, exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a serious-minded European woman to be reading in 1982. (Plus as a writer best-known for studying the history and effects of patriarchy, she’s resonant with the song, whose dread-laden music makes it ambiguous to say the least about the benefits of coupledom.)

The single was not a hit, and a couple of years later Blancmange covered it. They changed very little of the lyric, which is mostly gender-neutral and worked just as well for a gruff male voice. But they did change that particular line, probably because Marilyn French wasn’t that well known in the UK. (Although The Woman’s Room was a bestseller.) What did they change it to? Well -

“I must have read a while, the latest one by Barbara Cartland or someone in that style.”

Sorry?

There are several reasons why this totally misfires:

i) It has at least one more syllable, two more when you hear how the original squeezes “Marilyn”.
ii) There are perhaps slight ideological differences between Ms.French and Ms.Cartland.
iii) You find yourself unavoidably thinking, “Why on EARTH was he reading a Barbara Cartland novel?”

Great example all in all of how a song can be made or lost by a tiny detail.

*(A-Ha’s “Stay On These Roads” has just come on my iPod - why are these Nordics so damn good at this?)

Heartbeats (Sensitive-guy commercial money-grab mix)

Acoustic cover versions are often as annoying as 80s-pop/00s-rap mashups (yes I’m looking at you Frente), but I couldn’t but help to go O WOW OMG!!!eleven at an ad (for a telly and on telly) that had an acoustic cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats”. See the ad on the ad makers website (click through Work > Sony Bravia). The cover is by Jose Gonzales and there’s one guy on soulseek with the song, but he’s never around, worst luck. No idea about this chap, but top marks for both covering a terrific song and, well, making a pretty good go of it.

Here’s hoping Rex teh Dog (whoever the sodding ARSE he turns out to be) does a remix soon.

[edit/update...]

OK, so first off, i meant Frente were guilty of questionable acoustic cover syndrome. obv. Second, to make up for NYLPM being so apparently behind the times, here is a MASH UP of the original Knife version and this acoustic version that’s doing the rounds on better informed mp3 blogs.

Third and finally Mr Gonzales is an Swede, hence compatriot of Teh Knife, who has many an acoustic cover under his belt it would seem.

The first ever ironic cover version?

Julie London - “Mickey Mouse March” (it’s a YSI, sorry readers from the future).

This song is tucked away at the end of London’s Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast album, and is indeed a sultry version of the M-I-C-K-E-Y Mouse theme. It’s odd, and not necessarily good, but it seems quite an early example of i) a ‘classy’ performer reaching out for a ‘trash’ artefact and ii) a style or genre being self-conscious of itself as a style, and hence able to apply that style to ‘unlikely’ material.

(This is 1967 though, which is later than I originally thought, so quite possibly the novelty cover version was already popular as a move.)

WTF Did Wedding DJs play before 1978?

1978 hits include:

- Youre The One That I Want (& all other Grease)
- Take a Chance on Me
- Wuthering Heights
- 3 Times A Lady
- YMCA
- Rivers Of Babylon

Wed-tastic!

What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back

The Jimmy Castor Bunch - “Troglodyte”

I can’t remember who introduced me to this song - Mike Daddino, most likely! - but it’s been a perennial playlist favourite ever since. It’s outrageously simple - lecherous caveman monologue, driving groove - but effective and leaves you wanting a lot more. I can’t believe I hadn’t played it out before the last Poptimism, but I hadn’t, and when I did I was gratified at the ‘wtf’ reaction. Yours now to hear and enjoy - all together now, “CAVEmen…caveWOMEN….TROGlodytes!”

(Several more sounds to be found, as ever, on top LJ community Poptimists)

THE FT TOP 100 SONGS No.74

Urban Cookie Collective - “The Key: The Secret”

‘The Key, The Secret’ is a cracking example of the 1992/1993 Golden Europop era. What’s that? U.C.C. are English? Blimey. With verses consisting of “Ah ah ah ah ah ah/A ha a ha/Ah ah ah ah/I’ve got the key” (courtesy of Lyricz.net) and a soaring chorus it scores highly in the Singalonga category and indeed also in the Thumping 4/4 Beat stakes. It is almost impossible to listen to this song without doing the turny-head nose-pointing dance. Yep, it’s a corking little bit of Euro-bop that somehow sprung from the pancreas of Manchester.

Good Ride Cowboy–Garth Brooks

Memorial Tribute to Chris LeDoux and really interesting for a few reasons
1) It’s the second reference to chewing tobacco in the recent chart (Skoal Ring), that and the NY times quoting Bobby Bare about it…Which needs to be forgiven, because of documentary details (not that there is anything that needs to be forgiven here)
2) The theme of the song is really about how cowboy music is different from country, or to put it a different way, how what is played at rodeos is not the same as what is on the radio–the question of purity, or what is really country (ie the western swing here and what Brooks calls here: “the western underground”) is often argued b/w the Americana crowd and the radio crowd–and I mean Brooks can be nothing but a radio populist, but here he does hint at that difference, and I don’t think it has been talked about before…
3) He has for a long time had a really heavy hand for extended metaphor–this time, its a few words, and subtle ones at that–but it defines the western ethos as one not of independence or bullying, but of tenacity “when she starts to twist, hold on tight”
4) he says good ride cowboy–and reading Jane Dark’s blog, she points out that this sentiment needs to be uncoded by people who have spent time at rodeos:” though the loveliest part of this song is how the titular compliment stores its rodeo admiration not in the praise (you gotta say “good ride” to everybody, after all) but in the honorific. Not everyone gets to be a cowboy”
5) II’m glad that he is back.

THE FT TOP 100 SONGS OF ALL TIME No. 75

Art Garfunkel- “Bright Eyes”

*If I am on my own, feeling a bit down and adequately hydrated. I don’t burst into tears all the time.