I'd really love to mess around with the way this blog looks and have more control over the whole thing but I feel like I'd need to have a degree in well...something computer-y to understand how to do that. I do have a few links at least; maybe eventually I'll figure out how to put headings on them and group them and stuff...anyway...
I haven't really talked about music enough...I suppose it really should be a separate blog altogether but I guess maybe I'll just color code posts that are purely (or mostly) music-related how 'bout that...Now I'll start writing in blue to designate a music post. Ok lets get cynical!
My sometimes blogging friend Maxwell Von Bismarck (his blog is HERE) has turned me onto this music blog The Church Of Me. This thing is a great read and this guy clearly knows his stuff indeed...Nonetheless, he, like many before him, love ABC's "The Look Of Love." What is it about that friggin' song that so many people think is so great? I need some input on this please! Even as a young pre-teen I thought this song was positively cringeworthy...those horrible lyrics!...the sense of fashion's triumph over musicality!...the whole thing is just so banal ISN'T IT? Is it a witty send-up of new romantic cliches as even as it helped make them into cliches? What am I missing???? When people say that the 80's was a crap decade for music I usually say "well just the second half and even then the UNDERGROUND was great!" and if they persist I assume they must be thinking of "The Look Of Love."
Maybe I project onto that ABC guy (Martin Fry) all the fashion-snobbery and aloofness of that My Favorite guy who obviously models his image after him. A lot of people seem to think that fashion is important and that there has needed to be more fashion in indie rock and well...I hope they're happy now with fashion's triumph over music in the indie world today. It seems like every band wants to be from the 80's and that's not necessarily bad but once again people take the wrong things: in this case fashion and not passion.
How many Pavement influenced bands really succeeded in emulating the things that made Pavement great? They just made some half-assed recordings is all...All those Nirvana wannbees who did the four-chords-with-dynamics thing forgot that it was real passion that made Nirvana so affecting! They had GREAT SONGS not just pseudo-angst...
People think Interpol's the greatest thing going. I do think they'd like to be Joy Division probably ("we can find new ways of living" they say-perhaps to make us think of Joy Division's An Ideal For Living??). The music's at its best when it sounds like Bedhead and when you ignore the lyrics. Basically they sound like a shoegazer band (more on shoegazers in a subsequent post). They're not BAD and there are some great moments ("Hands Away" is my favorite song on the CD).
The thing is does anyone remember the Ropers? They recorded on the wonderful Slumberland label that brought us Black Tambourine, Velocity Girl, and Henry's Dress among others...really Interpol sounds more like the Ropers than anyone else. Does anyone else hear this or even REMEMBER The Ropers???? Why does everyone love Interpol and not care about the Ropers? Pretty much the Ropers were Interpol with better songs and tunes (and non-embarassing lyrics). The Ropers never ripped off "This Charming Man" note-for-note either.
Perhaps Interpol's not all about fashion but they certainly seem to care an awful lot about it with their lovely suits. Perhaps not as much as The Make-Up but then who does...I guess I care too much but it seems to me that the best music is usually made with no regard for fashion at all. I didn't even know what New Order LOOKED like really...When I finally saw pictures of them their clothes didn't make any impression. Their MUSIC affected me! Would Stereolab be an even better live band if they dressed up more? To me, people should take more interest in music and less interest in the fashion of their music's makers. Next time: the Shoegazer thing.
8:00:00 PM 
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