Here’s how far I’ve fallen as a Duranie: I didn’t know there was a controversy surrounding the expanded reissue of Duran Duran’s self-titled album.
Yes, I thought it was odd the camera clicks at the start of "Girls on Film" cut out, and I thought I just made a faulty rip to my computer, until I discovered it was actually on the recording itself. I shrugged it off as a bad pressing but didn’t think too much of it.
I still have the remastered version of this album from 2004, and my aim in purchasing this reissue were for the extras — demos and videos.
Then I read EMI’s statement admitting to the glitch and standing by it. Andy Taylor, who left the band twice, gave his indignant reaction, and given what I know about Duranies, I didn’t bother to comb any Internet fan communities to gauge the consumer outrage.
Me? I’ve bought this damn album multiple times, and I have no shortage of versions to which I can listen. I’m not lacking in "Girls on Film" or "Planet Earth".
When I was studying music in college, the history course emphasized the evolution of harmonic language, from the dominance of the perfect fifth in the Middle Ages to the unresolved cadences of Richard Wagner.
Then in the 20th Century, the harmonic language broke down. Dissonance was in, and at the time, it seemed that history would be rebooted to chart the evolution of dissonance.
It’s ten years into a new century, and it’s too soon the determine what the 20th Century really contributed to that continuum. The general sense seems to indicate dissonance was a dead end. If the 20th Century rebooted anything, it was the approach to rhythm.
Alarm Will Sound understands this idea, and the ensemble dedicated an entire album exploring it. a/rhythmia sounds like a total mess, and yet, the musicianship required to navigate through its rhythmic right angles is supernatural.
As far back as her days with 10,000 Manaics, Natalie Merchant sought a more catholic (note the small "c") approach to her writing. But within the confines of her alt-rock star persona, these gestures tended to come off as awkward.
(You can’t convince me "Jealousy" is a convincing soul performance.)
But on her first album in seven years, Merchant finally does what she should have to achieve that more eclectic sound — ditch rock entirely.
Leave Your Sleep is a sprawling collection of poems set to Merchant’s music, which veers from reggae to klezmer to Celtic music and beyond. Employing more than 100 musicians, Merchant lets the needs of the verses dictate the direction of the music, not the other way around.
This site achieved something of a milestone this past Tuesday (Sept. 21, 2010).
It was the 10-year anniversary of my registering the domain name Musicwhore.org.
It’s probably the most definitive birth date I can muster for the site, mainly because the content here evolved from numerous sources in the past. Back in 1997, I published two issues of a print zine called The Soloist’s Notebook. In 1998, I moved that zine online. In 1999, I merged it with my online journal. In 2000, I relaunched the journal/zine combo as Greg’s Music Reviews, till I later that year, I registered the Musicwhore.org domain name.
Go to the archive, and you just might find reviews dating back to 1999, before Musicwhore.org actually launched.
I registered Musicwhore.org right around the time I started listening to music from Japan. A trip back home to Honolulu in February 2000 introduced me to Utada Hikaru, Shiina Ringo, L’Arc~en~Ciel and the brilliant green. I had already been listening to Cocco since 1998 and wanted to hear something similar. I spent the summer exploring music by NUMBER GIRL, eX-Girl and m-flo.
When Musicwhore.org launched, Japanese music became my “beat”.
For the first time in its 20+ year existence, Waterloo Records laid off eight of its employees. When I worked there, the Internet was just starting to ravage the recorded music industry, but Waterloo managed to stem the tide by offering remarkable customer service.
Well, it’s hard to provide that service when your customers are dwindling. I number myself among the dwindling.
Digital downloads have made it easier for me to be a choosier CD buyer. My modus operandi now is to download albums from eMusic for a fraction of the full CD price. If I feel passionately enough about an album to want it in a physical format, I’ll buy it.
As I get older, the bar gets set higher. In the past, I would gamble on those purchases I could imagine selling back to the store after a year. (I still have to do that with EMI and Universal titles, since they’re not carried on eMusic.) I’m not a betting man these days. It’s also harder finding albums that really grab me.
In essence, I’m following the consumer pattern of an older listener — someone not as willing to gamble on new artists. (But are you really new if I heard you the first time under the name Duran Duran?) And yet I think my consumption has Increased.
I’ve also migrated mostly to listening on my computer, where I am most during the day. My car is the last outpost where the CD reigns, and my commute is a lot shorter with the new job.
I didn’t know what to expect of Renée Fleming’s indie rock album, Dark Hope. First, I know of Fleming by name only — I don’t listen to opera to gauge how she compares to, say, Dawn Upshaw. Also, I’m familiar with only a few the songs on Dark Hope.
So I’m approaching Fleming and the material with a fairly blank slate, and I have to say — I’ve really taken a liking to the album. Fleming actually does a good job adjusting her voice to the material, sounding like a pop singer, not an opera singer slumming with the pop. (I heard only a snippet of Luciano Pavarotti dueting with Bono. Pavarotti was doing it wrong.)
I have no idea how bankable another Fleming indie rock album would be, but should she venture down this path again, I have a few suggestions for repertoire. Next time, she should try:
So much news kept popping up on Bounce and other places, I couldn’t even squeeze the time to post them on the Facebook page.
My new job is really kicking my butt but in a good way.
Still, I feel self-conscious for letting so much time pass between entries. So many albums I’ve overplayed on my playlist but too much inertia to let you know about them. When will I accept the backlog will never be cleared out?
New releases are only going to compound the problem. What else is new?
On Monday, I posted on the Facebook page news of Utada Hikaru’s hiatus. I don’t follow any fan forums, but I can imagine lots of hand wringing and rending of clothing at the news.
Utada was interviewed by Time magazine back in 2001 or so, and she mentioned she would like to retire by 28, which would be next year. The blog post on the U3 Music site states this break is not a retirement, but it sure seems like a dress rehearsal for it.
I’d certainly miss Utada if she didn’t return from her break, and I would still love to see her localize her albums into English. But if this break reached Kate Bush or Sade proportions — it’s been five years since Bush released Aerial, by the way — it wouldn’t be so bad.
She’d be leaving at a creative high, and a break would insure that level would be maintained. I’m probably in the minority that thinks this news is good.
I was glued to my TV set when [adult swim] aired Death Note and Serei no Moribito, and I’ve since acquired both series on DVD. After watching them again — multiple times in the case of Moribito — I developed a hankering to listen to the music.
The Evil Sharing Networks provided, and for most of the month of June, my playlist was dominated by Kawai Kenji, Taniuchi Hideki and Hirano Hirohisa. I barely paid attention to anything else.
And honestly — I think they’ll continue to dominate so long as new releases in 2010 continue to be a wash.
I know I make all sorts of excuses for why I don’t update, but this one is pretty major.
I started a new job a week and a half ago.
It’s a web development job similar to what I was doing before but different enough to consume a lot of mental energy. I’m going through a lot of training right now, and unlike my previous job — where I could sneak in quite a bit of writing — I barely have time to keep up with the news, let alone get through reviews.
I don’t know if it will level off because the new office is staffed by eight people, with four developers including myself. And the plate, it is full. I get the sense that once I get up to speed, I’ll have more than enough to keep me occupied. (By comparison, my previous job employed 4,000 worldwide.)
I tend not to write on the weekends because that’s when I do stuff with Eponymous 4, but I may have to reconsider. The change in work schedule alone has forced me to rearrange a lot of things.
Of course, I’ll pop up on the Facebook page if I run across something interesting, so please consider becoming a fan. (Yes, that’s antiquated Facebook terminology now, but I refuse to use "like" as an action verb.)