TOTALLY UNSUCCESSFUL Pop News Round Up

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I was going to link to the Lex's piece on MINIMAL in the Graun, but the swines seem not to have put it on their website so you'll have to just imagine it. It was a good read anyway. OH OK it's here: http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/story/0,,2178449,00.html

So instead maybe we'll have to talk about MADONNA in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Anyone? No? Actually has anybody ever met anybody (even online!) who cares about the R&RHOF?

Maybe we'll just have to talk about her new record, "Candy Shop". It's a bit rub. :( EVEN THAT is not news, it's just a demo apparently. It's still a bit rub tho.

Any other pop news out there activating yr prefrontal cortexes?

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Patti Smith cares! :( (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/opinion/12smith.html?ex=1331352000&en=258f2817a39fec96&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

THE INTERNETS IS THEIR CBGBS!!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Unsigned hopefuls Radiohead releasing their new album on their website and causing certain royalty collecting companies a HUGE HEADACHE. You didn't hear this from me, right.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i liked lex's piece too (well done lex :)), although wtf is up with the layout of film & music today??? both the minimal piece and the film bit after it chopped over two pages with those ridic sjm tour adverts (clearly formatted for full page in a mag) slapped in the middle, well ugly.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

candy shop isn't her new record

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What is it then?

[datura800.livejournal.com]

it's a leaked demo which, according to rumour, isn't even going to end up on the album.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Good!

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I know. Sigh of relief.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yeah I'm trying to ignore its existence entirely really. have to repeat what Popjustice told us all to do - TRUST MADGE.

LEX PIECE HERE

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

http://music.guardian.co.uk/electronic/story/0,,2178449,00.html

don't know why it's not on the music front page, but first result for "minimal" in music search

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yay!

A 37 minute hungarian folk song you say? Does the M in Minimal stand for M-erson Lake and Palmer?!?!

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

clever wording, cheers.

also do you maybe want to take this post down and just start again? ;)

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i read most of that piece this morning (on the slowest bus in the world i was)

i have only heard that gabriel ananda track (ihre glucken thing), and it just sort of bimbles along. i'm guessing drugs are the bit i'm missing.

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

IPG so does not just bimble along! It's like...the dance equivalent of a pop song with three choruses, it's so melodic and banging! I may not be best placed to argue this point but I really don't think you need drugs to get it either.

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

hmm. its nice enough, so i get the melodic thing, but def not feeling any bangingness. i'm having problems imagining dancing to something so unenergetic. obv this is a failure of my imagination :-(

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I can't hear how it could be unenergetic - I mean I CAN with some mnml tracks, but really not with this! The 4/4 beat is more pounding than usual in mnml, it's a really physical track - the moment where the acid bass comes in for the last time is just a total FISTS POUNDING AIR moment. Maybe this can be demonstrated at Kat's tomorrow...

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Two kids dancing around the room to it - http://youtube.com/watch?v=7SnubPrh8ZQ

I am 99% sure that it is the SAME Hungarian folk song that Tori Amos covered as a b-side in 1996.

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

also Tom I hope you saw my bigging up 'Early Winter' in the f&m playlist!

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

No mention of La Monte Young at all. What on earth do ppl mean by minimal these days anyway ect ect?

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Now, "minimal" is an umbrella term covering a massive swathe of house and techno - much to the annoyance of dance connoisseur"

Or rather:

Now "minimal" is an umbrella term

once you've removed the superfluous comma.

Re: LEX PIECE HERE

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

Beside the fact that its only a term anyways there is, in classical music, a difference between minimal and minimalist -- mainly to do with straightforwardly repetitive motifs in the latter and material that sounds very pared down in the former, more of a complexity within simplicity.

La Monte kinda of is neither and both; I think he has such a strong relationship with partic strands in Indian classical music that its difficult to say.

All of this is, again, something else to what is being talked about here...would have to listen to more of dance-minimal.

And funnily enough there is a strand in classical, which is basically incredibly pared down -- very few notes, plenty of silences -- so as to exist on the edges of existence that has come about in the last 15 years or so, being around the time when Basic Channel started (?). I'd have to do a bit of homework to date all of this.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Shoot the subs: "samples minimal's biggest 2005 hit, M.A.N.D.Y., and Booka Shade's Body Language"

Should be "M.A.N.D.Y. and Booka Shade's Body Language" without the comma I reckon, given that M.A.N.D.Y. is the name of an act rather than a song.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

it should be! it should technically be M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade. not sure why they got confused...

RRHOF

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

I actually kinda do care about the RRHOF in the same way I care about who wins the Pazz & Jop Jackin' Pop poll: it's a little silly (but fun) to gaze into the results too deeply, but I would prefer it if rockcritical barometers tilted in good/interesting directions rather than bad/boring ones.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm quite proud of this piece really! In a way it's a pity that I got a rare interview with R Villalobos for what amounts to like two quotes - it was orig going to be a feature on him alone, which would have really worked b/c he is MENTAL and AMAZING, but at least I got the afterparty quote in.

one thing I do wish I'd done was mention beatport.com - am guessing that casual Grau readers won't know where to buy this stuff, the best of which tends not to come on handy album formats, and won't be into buying 12"s - buying an mp3 or several off beatport is the ideal starting point...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Excellent stuff, Lex :) It makes me want to go out clubbing RITE NOW

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

come to Fabric bday weekend (20 Oct I think?) - Cobblestone Jazz, Black Devil Disco Club, Ellen Allien &c &c...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Seeing Underworld at the Roundhouse the day before - which should be all the awesome :)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

There should be an RRHOF poll under canon rules, where you can only pick the 1/3 of the best artists. At least then something fun would come of it. As it is, yeah, I know nobody who cares about it, though occassionally I will watch the induction ceremonies to hear the performances, which are almost always rub.