Tuesday was the anniversary of Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” reaching number one in the UK charts (1985). Falco died in a car crash in 1998. By way of honouring him, here are the lyrics to possibly the biggest hit ever recorded by an Austrian: Ooo rock me Amadeus Rock me Amadeus… Rock rock rock rock […]
Read MoreYou can thank Judith for this shocking example of US cultural insensitivity: “the almost unthinkable personification of everything the people we’re fighting hate: hot blond Christian white girls, not too smart and seductively dressed, ready to dispense justice and the American spirit while leading a sexy attack, thus confusing the enemy into masturbating instead of […]
Read MoreFurther to my iPod-bothering post about content freedom, read about Friday’s US Federal appeals court ruling against media industry requirements for built-in hardware anti-piracy technology and marvel at this rant today against the iPod’s DRM (Digital Rights Management) from Hilary Rosen, a woman who took the music industry dollar for years.
Read MoreI have an iRiver. It’s fugly. Even its name is an aesthetically displeasing admission that the sole reason for its existence is to divert market share from the mighty iPod family. You buy an iPod from a smiley, smart-casual white person in an authorized Mac dealership where the shelves are cleaner and brighter than those […]
Read MoreJust over a week ago, I pointed out (again) that, amongst others, Bob Dylan was overrated. My observation provoked this response from a Professor Geras of Manchester, a long-time admirer of the recordings of Mr Dylan: Sock it to ’em, Damian. Next it’ll be that Bradman, Sobers and Warne are overrated as cricketers and J.S. […]
Read MoreFrank Sinatra is in my big book of overrated singers alongside Bob Dylan and Elvis. So it’s all the more surprising that I am about to rave about someone who started his performing career impersonating Presley and Sinatra. On the evidence of his latest album, It’s Time, Michael Bublé is going to be huge. More […]
Read MorePerhaps you have heard those George Gershwin player piano recordings, rendered from rolls of his original performances. Much as I admire Gershwin, his showy, overworked playing hasn’t, to my ears, dated well, even when recreated live by modern human mimics who are a more sensitive to contemporary tastes. It’s like listening to a blousey old […]
Read MoreWhile I’m on the subject of accomplished corporate music monsters, this 10-year-old review of Def Leppard by Andrew Mueller is entertaining, if perhaps a little long and squintily typeset to be read from the screen all in one go. It’s clear that, like me, Mr Mueller can’t help but admire the band—for all their over-produced […]
Read MoreThe Anonymous Economist lent me a copy of the most recent album from Anastacia (or Shouty Woman, as my officemate Jo calls her). The main producer credited is Glen Ballard. Having listened to the tracks [if I still had dreadlocks they would have trailed back from my head horizontally while I sat in front of […]
Read More“Good Scottish Pop / Bad Scottish Pop” has it about right, pointing up the unrecognized greatness of Del Amitri and the inexplicably ignored uselessness of Belle and Sebastian. Despite some dithering about the exact status of Simple Minds, only one artiste makes into both the Good and Bad categories: Laird Rodney of the Clan Stewart. […]
Read MoreI had some superb birthday presents this year. I’d especially like to thank Judith for Keane’s Hopes And Fears, Leasey for Ultraviolet, and the Anonymous Economist for the Pierre Marcolini chocolates. Despite the cliché title, Hopes And Fears is a real delight. It’s indie rock descended from the Radiohead-Coldplay line, but without the guitars. She […]
Read MoreEffra, the first commenter on this story at Harry’s Place says most of the things I’ve felt about punk for the past twenty-plus years. She does so as she compares that musical movement of late seventies to this Web movement of the mid-noughties. She’s right about punk, but her assessment of ‘Blogging is about as […]
Read MoreThis evening I tuned into a new radio station called Chill. Apparently the music I make belongs to the chill-out sub-genre. And apparently this accidental “movement” is now big enough to be a genre in itself. I am accidentally fashionable—or rather I am accidentally a few years behind the curve, because it’s mainstream now. The […]
Read MoreI tune to Radio 2 in the bathroom, having run through the local stations (“all Bedingfield—all the time”), Virgin (“all REM—all the time”), and Radio 1 (“old people pretending to be young, playing music to young people pretending to be old”). Instead of the usual rambling from Terry Wogan, Johnnie Walker is at the mic […]
Read MoreLast Friday I went to the Cambridge Union Society to watch the Town versus Gown boxing. I should explain to non-Brits that the Cambridge Union is Cambridge University students’ debating chamber and cross-college social focus. Several members of the various Thatcher cabinets were elected officers at the Union when they were undergraduates. Friday night’s event […]
Read MoreAt lunch yesterday afternoon we were discussing infinite swimming pools. This led to a debate on how one might construct an infinite waterfall. I said I was going to make an infinite dance record and call it “DJ Counsell versus MC Escher”. The ensuing silence was so complete that the vapour rising up from my […]
Read MoreToday the undeniably charismatic CEO of Apple Computer Inc., Steve Jobs, gave his keynote address to the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. As often he announced some new shiny things for people with roll-neck sweaters (and Backword Dave) to buy, including the iPod Shuffle—an iPod for runners. It has no moving parts, no […]
Read MoreShockingly, according to the BBC, fears of exposure to over 3 000 “fuck”s didn’t seem to reduce people’s willingness to watch the big broadcast: “More than 1.7 million viewers watched Jerry Springer – The Opera on BBC Two on Saturday, despite the objections of protesters. At least 45,000 people had contacted the BBC to complain about […]
Read MoreSocialism In An Age Of Waiting links to a story about the legend of “Midgetville” today. It opens by saying that the likeliest candidate is a place called Jefferson Township. I couldn’t concentrate on the rest because all I could think of was a bunch superannuated hippies singing: “Don’t you remem-ber? We built this city, […]
Read MoreWhen the first reports came in we had no inkling of how bad things were going to get. Now the full horror can be revealed: “Some of the UK’s biggest musical stars have pledged their support to a new charity single aimed at raising funds for victims of the Asian tsunami disaster. ‘Grief Never Grows […]
Read MoreBetter post this one before it’s next year here. From The Guardian in January, children under eight years of age review classic rock: Jimi Hendrix: Crosstown Traffic (1968) What the grown-ups say: “In a sense, Jimi’s Stratocaster is more articulate and speaks with more poetic beauty than he, or almost any other singer, possibly could… […]
Read MoreFollowing online discussion with the Anonymous Economist, who is a PC-based iPod addict, I should point out that the main problem I had with the Windows version of the iTunes software that accompanied my sister’s iPod Mini was her not being broadbanded up. It didn’t help that the program kept trying to dial out to […]
Read MoreChapomatic links to Skippy the Goth Kangaroo. [Requires Flash player.]
Read MoreI used to have reservations about Ute Lemper as a singer, but on Radio 3 this afternoon, performing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, she was stunning. I’m sad that I missed the Hebrew and Arabic songs she began her show with. Apart from an abortive attempt to read Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone—I gave […]
Read MoreLeasey will only have to read the arithmetic expression “BadgerBadgerBadger + Christmas” to understand what’s at the other end Maoi’s link for the day.
Read MoreHello, loonies of Libertarianism. This is good irony. It is funny, sharp, and original. It has a serious underlying point to make. This is bad irony. It is flat, smug, and tired. Somehow it doesn’t score a hit against crap British celebs making crap records for charidee. David Carr, you win this week’s Prêt-à-Porter Award […]
Read MoreAs if timed to illustrate my entry two days ago, the Jerusalem Post reports an update in a story Judith has been following from her home within the Zionist Entity. She wrote to me at the end of November expressing her discomfort, even as a very close friend of Israel (and a Jewish one at […]
Read MorexXx: he’s meant to be the USA’s hip-and-happening answer to Britain’s 007. Problem is, you can’t afford Vin Diesel for the sequel and you’ve blown most of the budget on Samuel L Jackson, Willem Defoe, and exploding helicopters. So who do you get to play the last hope of freedom and democracy? A short, fat, […]
Read MoreAt number 15 in the UK singles chart the United Uniting Nations are “Out of Touch”.
Read MoreWhen my friend Leasey took me out clubbing in Cambridge with her friends recently, they made a point of avoiding “Ballare”. I now know why. Like many other passengers on the sinking ship that was the Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre, a lovely Swedish girl is leaving it next week. I am with her, […]
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