The League Of Pop Week 11 NOMINATIONS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Quick thinking required this week as bank holidays mean there's only a four-day turnaround. In the Pop Prem dubdobdee is aiming for a play-off place at least, whereas in the Chart Championship epicharmus gets the chance to play kingmaker. And you get the chance to play Kingmaker at him.

: dubdobdee says: "hullo i am dubdobdee: i will soon be 47! i work in magazine production; i am a sub editor, proofing editor and now and then a writer and reviewer -- places i have written for lots include nme (in the 80s), sight and sound (early 90s to date) and the wire (which i edited 1992-94) -- also ilx hurrah boo! i am not sure if i actually LIKE music but i am endlessly fascinated by it -- i like the way it works differently from (in particular) writing; i like the way it slips out from under the utilitarian rationalisation of life-as-we-know-it, viz that it is VERY EXTREMELY HARD to explain why we "need" music, let alone why there is so INCREDIBLY MUCH OF IT in the world today; i like that it is so unremittingly, swirlingly social; i like perverse arguments and music seems to be good at stirring them up

in particular i like

-- music that gives me glee, in its energy or absurdity or sass (joan jett, dragonforce, kando bongo man)
-- music that surprises me, is strange or subtly unexpected, startling (chopin, john cage, pee-wee russell)
-- music with economy (bach, webern, aqua, television, jeff mills, derek bailey)
-- music that gives me something interesting to write about (louis armstrong, the beatles, the pistols, glam, amm, haha wagner)
-- music that in some key way evades being written about (or that has not yet found its writers): to me this includes a LOT of soul, R&B and jazz and funk and dance music -- some which have been written about a ton obv, but not (to my eyes) necessarily in a way that is "about" them; and anyway is strangely unrelated (in my mind anyway) to what is GOOD or BAD in these genres -- and of course there is loads of awesome "non-western" music (cf IRANIAN POP *mad cheering*) which may well have been written about brilliantly, but it's all in languages i don't understand :("

epicharmus sez: "My name is Michael Daddino. I was born in 1971, a year of magic and wonder. I grew up in Long Island, New York; while I now live in New York City, I am still suburban to the bone. I have been a music obsessive since January 26, 1984, the date of my first record purchases: Thriller, "Every Breath You Take," and some recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. (This is also the date Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial. I will be celebrating my tenth anniversary as an online music criticker this summer. Joined ILx really really early on. I was also there at the birth of the blogger revolution: my first was Cultural Artifacts of the Moment, the 1,942nd blogger.com blog; also contributed to New York, London, Paris, Munich; and with The Pornography of Semiotics, I *may* have invented live-blogging. Used to write things for the Seattle Weekly. Now I review all the Billboard #1 singles since 1950 very very slowly at Land of a Thousand Dances. I have presented papers on Muzak and the National Review for the EMP Pop Conference (they're on my site, epicharmus.com, but don't read them, they suck). I don't contribute much to Poptimists because I am incorrigibly lazy.

Hmm. I didn't really want this to be a bunch of sad careerist resume padding but I'm not sure what else y'all *really* need to know.

Anyway...currently reading: Jon Savage's Teenage and Shakespeare's King Richard III. Last album purchased: Thomas Mapfumo, Spirits to Bite Our Ears. Last movie seen: The Music Box (didn't laugh once).

I like:

-- music that dissolves contradictions between man and culture, man and society, man and man, man and God.
-- science fiction emotions, imaginary pasts, prophecies of eclipsed futures, roads not taken.
-- music to fall asleep to (but don't send me any of that, it never registers in short-form).
-- weedy strings.
-- for further reference: www.myspace.com/epicharmus

I dislike:
-- moralizing.
-- tiny-voiced women and wimpy-voiced boys playing their instruments just well enough to get their ideas across and just poorly enough to provide that *frisson* of the cutes. The infantilization of indie rock is the fruit of such an over-complicated hydraulic system of desire and denial that it flat-out repulses me.
-- anything from the last twenty-five years with chiming piano chord intros or anthemic wordless choruses from the lead singer.
-- anything from the last thirty years that could be described as "Beatlesque," "Dylanesque," or "Stones-y."
-- music that (implicitly or explicitly) calls attention to the difficulty or ease of its construction (unless it's in an some kinda Brechtian/Godardian distancing way, and even then...)"

Chew on that, submit yr tracks, get them to me by Friday if poss, leagueofpop@gmail.com, erm that's it.

[Poll #980780]

Comments

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

haha having now read through Mike's "musical autobiography" on his site I am convinced there is NO music he has not heard

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That's a reputation I'm only too glad to ruin. Fer example I've been VERY LAME about hip-hop and indie rock for the longest time, and I'd like to know things about "world music" and classical beyond the obvious stars, and to my amusement/chagrin I've managed to fool people into thinking I've got comprehensive knowledge about certain contemporary musics that shall remain nameless. Based on the other LOP tracks I've sampled so far, I feel pretty positive all of you will easily find stuff I haven't heard before.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Stranger than strange. Apparently Michael and I were both at the same Yo La Tengo show in 1994 -- I remember that day very well.