One thing I couldn’t mention in my last post, without breaking the meme rules, was that I’d been listening to a certain amount of funky house, too; because, obviously, I can hardly use the word “funky” without registering my disgust. Indeed, I’d previously dismissed the genre entirely just on that basis. But then I read a post on blissblog describing funky house as “like Musical Mobb and Jon E Cash if they’d tried to do broken beat,” which sounds pretty great. I haven’t actually found anything that sounds that good, though this track by DJ NG is pleasingly sinister (and it’s good to see that funky house shares bassline’s predeliction for producer names that sound like serial numbers), and Kyla’s “Do You Mind,” as mentioned on blissblog, is good, though I’m not sure the funky house version is better than the bassline original (the crossover between the two genres seems kind of interesting; a geographical division of labor?). Actually, the funky house version would be better, if it weren’t for the most obviously funky house part, the shitty drums. On which point this guy seems to be doing better.
If one takes leave of the book with a cautious reserve about everything that has so far attained honor and even worship under the name of morality, this in no way contradicts the fact that the whole book contains no negative word, no attack, no spite—that it lies in the sun, round, happy, like some sea animal basking among rocks. (Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, III IV, §1)
Infinite Thought has demanded, according to the rules of her new Dogmeme, that I write a post containing no criticism of anything; conveniently, today I have been behaving very much like a Nietzschean sea animal, sitting out on my deck (which is like a balcony but, being American, bigger) on a perfect Berkeley day, reading Etienne Balibar and listening to bassline records. Read more↴
I had no desire to see Mamma Mia! which in a way is odd as I like both Abba and musicals. But a friend prevailed on me to see it last week, and it turns out my initial instincts were correct; it’s not a very good film. Indeed, being a musical and using Abba songs are precisely where the film doesn’t work.
All the reviews I’ve seen have mentioned Pierce Brosnan’s terrible singing, but I haven’t seen much criticism of Meryl Streep’s performance, which is much worse, and also does more to explain what’s wrong with the film. Read more↴
I hadn’t realized that late-90s pop-R&B producers Stargate—responsible for such classics as “S Club Party” and Brandy’s version of “Another Day in Paradise”—were still in business. Actually, they’ve been keeping quite busy, but I only noticed when they turned up on Nas’s new album, producing anti-American anthem “America.” Not what I would have immediately expected from them, but you can hear a hint of S Club in the production.
I do think my “hip-hop is dead” theory gains some support from the move from S Club to Nas via Rihanna and Beyoncé (two great tracks I hadn’t realized were Stargate productions). The rest of the Nas album doesn’t so much, although I’m so attached to the “Harry Connick Jr of gangsta rap” punchline I’m unlikely to let it be refuted by any mere empirical evidence. Read more↴
A while back, last.fm repeatedly played me Calvin Harris’s “The Girls.” So I downloaded the album and promptly forgot about it; but I remembered it, and started listening to it, a couple of days ago. It’s pretty good; but it is odd to hear what is basically Fat Harry White doing Audio Bullys covers.
Still, it does mean that, as a bonus to remembering Calvin Harris, I also remembered the Audio Bullys. In fact, listening to the Audio Bullys in the context of Calvin Harris makes hear something I think I missed the first time around, which is the nostalgia that pervades their records; they don’t so much make dance music as make records about a certain relation to dance music, a relation that I’m not sure exists any longer. It seemed an odd connection when it first occoured to me, but the more I think about it the more plausible it seems: weren’t the Audio Bullys doing something rather similar to Burial?
You can tell, because KRS-One made a record saying that it wasn’t.The funny thing about KRS’s track, and (even more) the video, is that it’s all about the past.
