Mr. Watson...

A new playlist has debuted on Puck & Baedeker's Live365 radio station. One of the tracks on this playlist will be the subject of Monday's post. Click here to be taken to Puck & Baedeker Radio.

morsel:

Bee Gees' 'Tragedy' calls to mind Casey Kasem and American Top 40. That radio show epitomizes his relationship with pop music throughout his childhood up until high school. He remembers rushing his family home from church each Sunday in order to catch AT40 from the opening recap of the previous week's top three all the way through to the revelation of that week's number one. In later years he taped the show (admittedly clipping out much of the talk) and listened to the ranked songs again throughout the week.

At that time the Billboard Top 40 (and, transitively, United States' taste) was enthusiastically inclusive, regularly accepting all kinds of rock, R&B, country, power pop, new wave and singer/songwriter acts into its fold. He learned about a lot of different music, and also learned that keeping his tastes broad only meant having more music to enjoy. Casey was incredibly helpful, too, dispensing information about songs and acts that wasn't as readily available in those days.

But 'Tragedy' is not about the noble side of AT40; it's about the banal side. In its desire to connect with listeners on a human interest level, AT40 indulged in the maudlin Long Distance Dedications, during which listeners' letters were read, then their corresponding requests played. On rare occasions they were touching; more often they were cringe-inducing, particularly being read by a voice eerily similar to Shaggy from Scooby Doo...

So there was a woman who had always been afraid of thunder. She just hated it. Dreaded the moment storm clouds rolled in. Couldn't shake the phobia. Plagued by her irrational fear. But one day she heard 'Tragedy' with its crashing sound effects that really do not sound like thunder in the least. And she realized that if she could enjoy this song, with a perceived cameo appearance by her mortal enemy, thunder must not be that bad. Casey's voice trembled with empathy, and then the second rate Bee Gees song took its bow.

Even as a child, he remembers thinking, 'Are you kidding?' But that's the whole truth about pop: for every 'Billie Jean' there's a 'Pac-Man fever'. For every 'Hit me with your best shot' there's a 'Mr. Roboto'. Someone out there probably had an epiphany to 'I've never been to me', too...

Half-gifts

I'm fond of saying that no one sounded like Cocteau Twins before they did, and no one has sounded like them since. Of course that's an extreme statement; plenty have tried, but it's rare to find a track that captures Cocteau Twins' singular aesthetic and succeeds as a song in its own right. As a devoted Cocteau Twins fan, though, any discovery of other music that shares DNA with them is a treasure.

I got excited about Delays' 'Wanderlust' back in 2003; Greg Gilbert's reedy falsetto definitely reminds one of Elizabeth Fraser, and the guitars shimmer in the dreamiest dream pop way. It could fit comfortably on Love's Easy Tears. 'Wanderlust' seems to be a case of convergent evolution, though; the rest of Faded Seaside Glamour, while lovely, uses other palettes.

Then in 2005 I was blown away by Tegan Northwood's 'Close' from Self-Raising Flower. Musically it fits in the same Cocteau time period as 'Wanderlust', maybe on Blue Bell Knoll. The minimal synthesized percussion and processed strummed acoustic guitar are perfect, and Tegan's voice, facility with odd intervals and largely unintelligible elocution are a brilliant match. I think it's intentional, since she references Cocteau Twins in her profile, though the rest of her provocative experimental album pushes in other directions.

Now I've found Annie Barker, though it seems Mountains And Tumult has been around for a year already. She actually got Robin Guthrie to produce the album for her, after a chance meeting. First track 'Kissed me' really got my hopes up because everything is right: the Victorialand-esque twangy guitar washes, the diminishing chord progressions, the restrained drum track. And Annie is doing her best to channel Elizabeth: mannerisms, alto/soprano toggling, harmonies and tone. It really works, and it's really lovely, but unfortunately the rest of the album never quite delivers on the promise of 'Kissed me'.

It's foolish to attempt a cover of a Cocteau Twins song, unless you plan to rework it radically, but I can't help but admire artists who pay homage to them, knowingly or not. It's not fun if the homage falls a little flat, but on the rare occasions when it works, it's the next best thing to having new Cocteau material.

Cocteau Twins official website
Delays official website
[at the time of this posting Tegan Northwood does not have an official website, but she can be found on Endgame Records]
Annie Barker official website

E.M. Forster

Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually.

A Passage To India, p. 25

SUGARCUBES - BLUE-EYED POP

In 1988 Billboard Magazine established the Modern Rock chart, reflecting some kind of critical mass in that genre. It was a red carpet of sorts for Sugarcubes, who burst onto the scene that year. Possibly because of the relative isolation Iceland provided, they had a fresh perspective on the traditional elements of pop and rock, taking so much that was familiar and putting a new spin on it.

Even though its landmark tracks - 'Birthday', 'Coldsweat', 'Deus' - didn't make the Modern Rock chart, Life's Too Good was an instant Modern Rock milestone, helping to carve out room in that category for music that wasn't immediately accessible, or even radio-friendly, but that won an audience through its undeniable accomplishment.

To this day I am mystified that 'Blue-eyed pop', another track from that abum, is not heralded as a retrospective classic. I rediscovered the song a few years ago, and twenty years later, it's an astonishing little tour de force. Barely two and a half minutes long, it takes a blender full of disparate musical influences and somehow makes a delicious synergy out of it.

At the start, 'Blue-eyed pop' is a Gang Of Four reference (think 'Damaged goods') with a angular guitar riff and the kind of bass line that shows how rock learned most of what it knows from R&B. Then Einar starts talk-singing and Bjork does dissonantly harmonized back-ups, all in the manner of B-52's. The electronic percussion added in the first bridge is taken from Joy Division's toolkit. In the second bridge, the whole instrumental scheme shifts to David Bowie's 'Let's dance', which is to say, Nile Rogers disco funk. Bjork takes over the lead vocal, wailing like some muscular cross between Samantha Fox and Yoko Ono.

How on earth does all that come together? Scrutinizing the song too closely almost makes it disappear. One's attention is better spent on the lyrics, a willfully naive jumble that makes a self-conscious circle around the traditional pop song without ever really going inside. 'Blue-eyed pop' is an unedited love letter to pop music; but instead of just being one, it fleshes out the way pop music inflects the rest of our lives.

Einar and Bjork go out for the evening, and like space aliens they are drawn to and captivated by the pop music they hear in a disco. They thrill in their visceral response to it, and they indulge in all the behavior it provokes: dancing, eating street food, throwing it up, and going home to hook up. 'It's just fabulous.'

Bjork waxes philosophical about this experience, noting how its immediacy is contagious, giving the listener a heightened sense of the potent friction between present and future. 'Something wonderful is about to happen / I feel perfectly ready.' 'Everyone is close to laughing,' she sings, making a beautiful metaphor for the latent energy in pop music that goes along with all its more obvious energies.

This is expressionism along the lines of Frank Stella's massive enameled confections; it uses the vocabulary of pop to comment on pop itself. 'Blue-eyed pop' takes us back to the exhileration of our first dionysian experience of pop, with its most sacred and its most profane elements bundled into one. It's just fabulous.

[at the time of this post, Sugarcubes do not have an official website]