Spoiler Spice

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Since the column's actually called "Poptimist", I feel I can pimp it here.

This month's column was inspired by an episode of top radio show Freaky Trigger And The Lollards Of Pop, incidentally.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

I like this re-title ;-)

Also remember the episode of Lollards where the no story, no spoiler music of WEBERN ws also played.

Various slaggings

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

[Benny Hill's] deserved British No. 1

This is a BLATANT attempt to sell out to the American audience :)

(actually part of the reason I still dislike it is that when I went to look for it, I went of course first to YouTube, and the video is as terrible as I remembered).

exposing the horny itch under the Beach Boys' spring break innocence.

Yeah, but surely a lot of people's first exposure to this song was David Lee Roth's version, which is 90% horny itch.

More fool you for listeneing to Patti Smith. Was it on Poptimists that I read about her misgivings about being inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame? "Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution?" (http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0312-31.htm)

A just-the-facts approach feels like a missed opportunity: I want spoilers replaced by a babble of voices, bustling, fighting, joking, and jockeying to get their angle on a record across.

Which is why you've written a 1300-word article with no comment box :)

PS I really liked it!

Re: Various slaggings

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Obviously I think P4K *should* have a comments box! But I can understand why they don't - for one thing their ex cathedra authority is a big part of their branding, for another the moderation issues would be eye-bleeding.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Odd example of plot-style spoiler effects in music, for me: Roy Orbison's titanic 'Running Scared', where he fears what will happen if her great previous love reappears - and then in the last verse he does, and we build up to the last line, the denouement, and he slows it down and goes for the big operatic finish on "My heart was breaking, which one would it be? / You turned around and walked... away..." and I won't tell you whether it finishes "from me" or "with me". It's one of my favourite moments in music, and one that still feels tense, having heard it hundreds of times, as if this time he might sing the other option. I always wished there were a vinyl version with that gimmicky double-spiral trick, so there could be two versions and you would never know which one was playing until the penultimate word.

(I have a live version where he does the big ending and gets rapturous applause, so he does the last couplet again, and again - six times in total, going bigger and more OTT each time.)

[koganbot]

(Reposted 'cause I originally botched the link)
About a year ago on Rolling Teenpop I demanded that anyone who didn't know what Ashlee Simpson's "Shadow" was about had to go listen to it right away because I wanted to write about it and didn't want to ruin the surprise (as it had been ruined for me). And then I never really got around to writing about "Shadow" (which turns out to be about a whole lot of things). [Note to self: write about "Shadow" already!] Also wished I'd manage to come upon Ashlee without having read her being - fairly accurately - compared to [singer of '90s band]. But then, I might not have been so eager to listen if I hadn't read the comparison. I would have eventually, anyway, since what finally got me to actually listen was Rob Sheffield sending me his P&J ballot for 2004 with "La La" on his singles list. And 11 months later, after having reviewed the second Ashlee album and of course heard all the singles from the first, I finally got the first album and my jaw still managed to drop to the floor when I heard the first track, "Autobiography" (a surprise I then subsequently gave away on the Real Punks and Rolling Teenpop threads).

Sometimes when I put early Stones tracks on my all-time best-ofs, I wonder if I'm voting for my memory of being surprised, though the surprise is long gone. And interestingly, the Stones surprise wasn't hearing the tracks for the first time or even the tenth time, but slowly having it dawn on me that so many of the songs weren't about what they seemed to be about. And so by analyzing how the Stones' songs work, I might be ruining other people's joy in figuring it out for themselves. But that's true of all discovery. By writing down my discoveries, I might make it easier for someone to discover what I haven't yet discovered, while I'm still hung up - 40 years later - on the initial discovery.

(If there's anyone out there who's not heard or heard about "Shadow," here's a link to the "Shadow" vid (not sure if the link is Brit compatible), though I think the visuals get in the way, so I recommend you turn off the screen and just listen.)