Wednesday, September 19, 2001

As the only table in my apartment continues to fill up with piles of CD's, I've been taking the time to stop and reflect on this years' amazing releases. It's no surprise that I should do this, because that's "normality" for me, and therefore it provides the perfect escape from the events of last week. What I wrote on September 10 now seems rather eerie, but those words don't disturb me as much as they probably should.

It's somewhat disturbing that Drugstore have this habit of putting the best songs at the end of their albums. "Accelerate" -- maybe the best song of the 1990's, and a B-side to boot! "Everything a Girl Should Have" recalls the delicate moments of their debut, and comes as a welcome bit of stripped down tranquility after the frequent overproductions which slightly marred the tunes that transpired before it. "More Than Friends" is a fragile, quivering lullaby, it's hardly even there, much like the Beatles' "Julia". It was probably written in ten minutes and recorded in a half-assed fashion on one take, how do they do it? How can they succeed like this when the rest of us would kill for five seconds of such genius? Fear them.

The Super Furries "Rings Around the World" has been come under criticism as being an overproduced mess due to the scores of Sony money that were on hand to record it. Do not believe these people. SFA didn't tone down their chaotic tendencies to make room for major label gloss. Their new record sounds just like 1999's "Guerrilla", which is part of the problem, because they've tried write a by-the-numbers sequel to that album, much like Blur did when they followed up "Parklife" with "The Great Escape". They've succeeded in writing some brilliant songs but there's really no progression from the breakneck pacings and unpredictablility of "Guerrilla". On the other hand, "Juxtapozed With U" is the best single they've ever done, and if it's not given strong consideration for the Single of the Year then we'll have to give it the full Donna Summer disco remix treatment and then try again next year.

What's more, two of the best groups of the 90's, Pulp and Spiritualized, will be releasing their first albums in a combined 7.5 years within a few weeks of each other. I need to keep reminding myself to not get too caught up with the old guard.

Monday, September 10, 2001

A couple of weeks ago, a famous R&B star died in a plan crash along with eight other people. You may have heard of her, she was Tricky's first choice to sing lead on his "Broken Homes" single, but she wasn't able to do it so he had to get PJ Harvey instead. Hopefully, enough time has passed to allow people to return to thinking rationally about her career and the manner of her death. With regard to the former, she is experiencing a post-mortem canonization similar to the case of Jeff Buckley. As with Buckley, she was certainly a considerable talent but hardly a top level star. She was nowhere near the level of popularity of Mary J. Blige or Toni Braxton, nowhere near as beautiful as Destiny's Child, and nowhere near as outragious as Li'l Kim, although she seems to have become all of those things since she died.

And her death was not a tragedy. I've been waiting to write this piece for two weeks, waiting to hear facts from the crash investigation. Now that I have, I can declare it to be a preposterously dumb error in judgement by arrogant music industry people. We've learned that the plane had been booked for five passengers, because that was the maximum number it could safely transport. Eight people showed up for boarding. Thus, the plane became "substantially overloaded". Otherwise, it was in perfect mechanical condition before takeoff. Except that the plane itself was not registered to operate commercial charter flights in the Bahamas.

If these findings hold true, then the decision to board the plane was equally stupid and asinine as eight teenagers packing into a stolen five person car and joyriding down the highway. The deaths are sad, very very sad, but people who die as a result of their own piss-poor judgement are not worthy of the word "tragedy" to describe their actions. For example, JFK Jr.'s death was not a tragedy either, no matter how many tribute issues are devoted to it by People magazine. John John was a spoiled arrogant playboy who had absolutely no business flying that plane under those conditions, with a foot injury and with his limited flying experience. His passengers are less to blame, but no more so than people who willingly get into a car with an obviously drunk driver. Tragedies should describe instances in which people die through absolutely no fault of their own, just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eight people dying and hundreds more sick in Walkerton, Ontario as the result of E.coli poisoning because the local officials didn't even know what bacteria were -- that's a tragedy. Fourteen people getting blown up in downtown Jerusalem because they dared to have pizza for lunch -- that's a tragedy. A bunch of music industry types piling themselves and their hordes of luggage into a tiny unregistered plane is not a tragedy, it's just a dumb mistake on the part of many, many people. Let's not candy coat it, let's say what really happened. People educate their children to recognize dangerous situations. Such education is always simple and direct: don't use drugs, don't carry guns, don't drink and drive, and if you know somebody who is, stop and tell somebody about it. Unfortunately, people still die by these methods, but if there is a positive side, sometimes it takes a persons' death to make people realise how wrong they were when they died. But only if they truly understand why that person died in the first place. RIP.

Friday, September 07, 2001

Thoughts on the MTV Music Awards (from what I saw):

Michael Jackson must be a genius after all because appearing onstage with NSYNC was the single greatest career move he could have possibly made. To anyone under 20 who doesn't remember the '80's, MJ is a plastic-faced freak who sleeps with animals and little boys (actually, it's the same for everyone over 20, but at least the over 20's will still remember "Thriller" as well). He hasn't released an album in six years, the guy is forgotten, he has NO cred. All of a sudden, you've got the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" in the same sightlines at the present-day Kings of "Pop", and even a two-year old could see that connection, and it smacks positive of a bona fide musical "event". Even I marked out for it, and I hate all of them.

What's with all the obvious screw-ups? The power outage right before U2's performance, Jamie Fox introducing Jay-Z instead of Moby and Gwen Stefani. Should we be expecting these proceedural unpredictabilities instead of the increasingly predictable unpredictablility of the show as a whole? Then again, the most predictable thing was the steady stream of presenters who were using their air time as a vehicle for pimping their upcoming albums, boosting the shows' running time from "too long" to "insanely f***ing long" in the process.

Britney wore next to nothing and put on a performance that inspired descriptions such as "alluring" to "unrationally extravegant prog-pop". Come on -- snakes? dry ice? jungle and wild animal motif? Maybe ELO should have asked her to tour with them this fall, THAT would have rescued the tour for sure and they could have split on the production costs. Incidentally, there have now been two ELO reunion tours cancelled due to embarrassingly low ticket sales. One, maybe, but TWO -- is that some sort of record? I actually feel a bit sorry for them, but then again, ELO kinda suck, so the feeling is fleeting.

Finally, allow me to re-stir the Britney vs Christina pot. You just KNOW that Christina had to be FUMING throughout the show because Britney had the prestigious final performing slot of the evening, along with the incessant hyping of said performance that comes with such an "honour", not to mention how she was on camera every ten seconds because of the 392 awards won by NSYNC. Christina had to feel like the #1 Queen Bitch when she got to on stage at the bitter end for winning Video of the Year. Oh, and then she got to act like it because she thanked Patti Labelle for letting them cover "Lady Marmalade", when in fact she should have thanked All Saints, who gave Christina + friends the template for that success by covering the same song in the exact same manner only three years ago. Luckily, her fans have short memories, which of course bodes ironic for the future longevity of her career.