I've lost my trumpet

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I can't work out whether this is a) the worst kind of smug anti-rockist sneering* b) actually quite amusing. The song definitely hasn't got any better though.

*What do I even MEAN here?

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Who was the sort of baggy band that did a terrible cover of this that LOADS of people suddenly did a bit SQUEEEE at and ran to the dancefloor at that Poptimism one time and me and the Lex nearly drowned in a vale of our own agonised tears? Well, this is exactly the same and the fact that it's being done for the SECOND time...! Not amusing, possibly smug in the "we dare to take on such an epic song but in a more light hearted manner" (?), sneering - nah he's just got a mingy face...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That's Mark Ronson, and either this IS that version (which Carsmile loves) and the idea of the video is that they've faked a band to do it, or it's a band carefully replicating that version! The beat is exactly the same.

Like a lot of the Ronson stuff this has grown on me - I don't think it's sneering, cos the epicness and angst is surely still intact, and the 80s soulboy funkin' approach to the instrumental bits kind of works (gives the whole thing an even-a-hipster-can-cry vibe). Ronson is very close to becoming yer actual guilty pleasure for me I think.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I think the idea is nicked from Hey Ya, IE all the people in the video are different facets of Mr Ronson?

I would need to hear the original played out a few times in Poptimism before I'd be particuarly happy with hearing this there.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha i am right just this SECOND "revisiting" an "80s soulboy classic" (fsvo)* with a very OOHOO TIME TO REASSESS hat on!

*ie i wd be a bit astonished if anyone here except MAYBE macarratala know it (there is even WELLER LINKAGE)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

this î tho is a VERY weird mix of clumsiness and care -- given i have no animus against 60s white kids "doing" soul qwuite badly (bcz what they can't do moves off into something the black originals DON'T do) (it became the psych "freakout" kinda, a music playing off dodgy assumption that "being black" is being wild and uncontrolled -- exactly misreading j.brown and j.hendrix and free jazz -- as necessary permission actually to BE WILD in a curiously unprecedented way), er given all that, i am interested in the species "doing [xx] badly" as permission to end up "doing y which is new" --> but i'm not sure this reaches y (whatever it would be)

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about something like this watching Foals on the Culture Show yesterday, talking about their African influences, which obviously just end up as trebly indie band sound. On the one hand, it would serve little purpose if they actually did do a passable impression a Congolese band, on the other it would be nice if some new was created in the gap whether through accident or design (in the way I think Talking Heads actually did do, in their moment).

You're right about 60s British music and the misreading of black pop (the downside, I'd argue, would be Joe Cocker).

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

and the downside of joe cocker being (correctly) acknowledged as a downside is paul weller!

[koganbot]

Er, Hendrix was reading the Brits rather than vice versa and reading 'em pretty accurately (i.e., was closer to them than to J.B. or to Coleman). Where do McLaughlin and Miles fit in? Miles' trumpet from Bitches Brew through Agharta made a strange negotiation between ebullient and sullen, and if you think of the Brit boys as doing the r&b/soul but with a jazz personality I'm not so sure they were getting it wrong. That is, I think some bop and postbop have their punk impulses, even if the impulses were steered in different directions from, say, the Electric Eels or the Sex Pistols, that is, into dauntingly angry competence rather than throwing lye in your eyes.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Awful pointless cover (still), obviously, but the video is funny.

[koganbot]

I had to go to YouTube to find who did the original, which I'd never heard.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

eesh, this is still as terrible as ever. it's so pale and lifeless. be thankful you haven't heard Ronson's take on 'Toxic' innit!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

also he's getting a bit bloated, wouldn't even hatefuck him any more

I wrote this comment last night, then LJ ate it and I got in a strop.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

To clarify, my quandary was referring to the video. Ronson can cover whatever he likes as far as I'm concerned.

The video however - "ooooh look at us, we're being all subversive and ironic!" but is Ronson actually doing this on purpose or is he just having a laugh? And why do I find this particular homage insufferable when I'm perfectly happy to have countless retreads of Thriller formation dancing or Robert Palmer's model band or Bob Dylan dropping bits of paper? Why is this pissing me off so much?

I don't get it (neither the video nor your complaints about it)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Please elaborate. What's being subverted in the video, exactly? (I think knowledge that I don't have is being assumed here.)

Re: I don't get it (neither the video nor your complaints about it)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Ah - the original video is fairly 'acclaimed' by the people who make video lists, but has remained curiously untainted by pisstakes (unlike eg Thriller).

I have no TV and don't know much R****h***

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

erm...OK... still trying to fill in the blanks here... so this is something to do with a Radiohead video then, is it? In covering the song, Ronson has also "covered" the video? Sorry to be slow.

Re: I have no TV and don't know much R****h***

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes. In a big old 'Do You See' way. The vid is something of a Mystical Legend to Radiohead fans (see vid number 5 here (http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/stylus-magazines-top-100-music-videos-of-all-time4.htm)).