Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

I listened to a lot of holiday music over Christmas weekend.  Binging on Spotify playlists, I found myself surprisingly moved by the Bing Crosby-style pre-RnR era songs, and pleasantly surprised by some of the modern songs by artists like Kelly Clarkson and Sia.  I still don't get the big deal about Mariah Carey's ubiquitous song, but after hitting the Christmas #1 spot on the Billboard chart for three straight years, you can't deny its place as one of the biggest and most enduring songs of its type in music history.  I can't help but notice that religious themed tracks are being phased out (I never hear the "Mary and the baby"-style caroling that I grew up with) and it's all about vaguely holiday themed love and togetherness.  Add some sleigh bells to the mix to make it crystal clear that you've recorded a holiday song and hope for regular airplay each December. 

I am not a push-button cancel culture type of person, but "Do They Know Its Christmas?" gets more disturbing to me each year.  The controversy surrounding this track (and the remakes) are not new.  The genesis of the track (well meaning pop stars record a charity song on very short notice) still makes for a wonderful story, and the repeated "feed the world" chorus can still get me choked up on occasion.  But it's gotten to the point where the smug, condescending tone of the lyrics is rapidly eroding my enjoyment of the song.  

The first verse starts innocently enough. Throw your arms around the world, spread the joy this time of year, and so on.  Then it all transforms into grim death -- literally -- and post-colonialist condescension.  The idea that Christmas should be the aspiration to save poor people from misery is absolutely soaked through with the stench of white man's burden.  As if the fact that Christmas isn't on the radar of people in a completely different part of the world -- regardless of their socio-economic condition -- is the saddest, most tragic fact imaginable and must be corrected without delay.  If the famine had been in, say, Saudi Arabia then perhaps more people would hear these lyrics for what they really are?

I have always liked the song and the Christmas season wouldn't be the same without hearing it a few times.  But I couldn't, in good conscience, oppose phasing it out of holiday playlists if a serious movement to do so arose.   

Future Sound of London, "Dead Cities"

This would be the eighth in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years, since the start of this blog in January 2020.  Except that's not exactly true in this case, because I don't think I ever heard "Dead Cities" in its entirely.  I was a fan of FSOL from "Papua New Guinea" onward, had "Lifeforms" and the Amorphous Androgynous albums in heavy rotation, but by 1996 I felt that they were following trends rather than leading them, and the trends they were following weren't the trends I was the least bit interested in.  Since I'd rather not repeat artists in this series, and seeing as I never heard the album to begin with, I'm reluctant to count this one.  On the other hand, it is a fairly notable album by a legendary act, and I just bought the beautiful limited edition that comes with a book and some amazing artwork ...

A few thoughts on this album:

"Herd Killing" utilizes the same sonic palate as "Lifeforms", clearly it's the same band that recorded that dreamy ambient/modern classical (two of the adjectives applied to "Lifeforms" at the time) album, except that the dreaded 1996 big beat sounds are seeping in.

"Her Fact Forms in Summertime".  This is more like it, a proto-Burial epic in miniature, featuring rainy nights stepping through flooded gutters in an urban hellscape crossed with chopped up b-boy street music.

"We Have Explosives".  The single owes an obvious debt to what the Chemical Brothers were doing at the time, but also shows glimpses of the rhythmic noise that would become popular in completely different circles in a few years time.  

"Everyone in the World Is Doing Something Without Me" radiates a starry eyed ambience with ethereal layered voices, but also carries the overwhelmingly horrifying feeling that everything is falling apart.  That's a combination of sounds and emotions that you almost never hear, but somehow they pulled it off.    

"Quagmire" is true to its name, a chaotic, messy soup of skittering beats, jazz samples, and futuristic noises, jazz samples.  That track bleeds into "In a State of Permanent Abyss" (the best title on the album IMO), which is an early 70's Kraftwerk-ian throwback of twinkling, bubbling synths.  This kicks off the more abstract second half of the album.    

"Yage" shines through as a centerpiece track, with a long ambient intro and outro bookending a kitchen sink collage of quaking bass, warped sitar-like drone, wall of sound dub effects, and face-smashing beats.   

Overall, "Dead Cities" sounds a lot better now than it probably did when it was first released.  Far removed from the fleeting trends that firmly date this album to the late 90's, there's an adventurous mixture of sounds to sink one's teeth into.  There are also a few forward thinking moments, showing that FSOL still had innovative trump cards up their sleeves.