Normally a mail telling me how "anti-American" I am is beneath mention. But if "Jericho Jim Jeremiah" is to be believed in five pages copied to several people I know and some I don't, you could take my writings of the past years as he did, interspersed with some dire Biblical quotes, to prove I'm a "malicious enemy of the American people".
Well, I was kind of flattered, JJJ. You must have spent ages lifting stuff to give it a new structure out of context like your own prophetic warnings! A couple of friends have been equally entertained: one thinks you're a smart joker, the other -- like me -- suspects you may even be serious.
I mention this nigh on fortnight-old piece of nonsense because it came to mind when Géraldine Serratia, a reviewer in 'Les Inrocks', raised a query on hearing those 'Confessions on a Dance Floor', asking "Could Madonna have definitively given up on America?"
 No idea, but I like the 'Confessions' and agree with Géraldine there's a sense to Madonna's "dancing queen" glam reprise coming after 'American Life'.
A good album that was -- but it's Madonna's perspective. Maybe she's less reason than others I know to stay in the United States; for her, it was always a love-hate relationship. She seems settled in London and has given two fingers to the clique in Washington, not the whole country; it's a regime I also find so poisonous the sooner it's puked its way to its death bed the happier I'll be. The trouble is that's unlikely to be an imminent prospect, but I've bulk-mailed everyone JJJ did to say thanks for some quickies to me, but just let him rot if he wants.
What I loathe is a "my country, right or wrong" attitude to any nation, and this makes me think of Iceland. Sigur Rós are all over the current French music press, telling journalists they love London but wouldn't dream of living there, they find the city too cold, emotionally frosty and far too fast for them.
They've also pointed out that while they, with 'Takk', Björk and Múm (Random Summer home) have made the place trendy, Iceland has its own "pop stars and Britney Spears".
Sigur Rós are proud of Iceland's maintained isolation in a "globalised" world, call it a "young nation". They know this can't last, their own music is attracting attention, and see a new generation of youths trying out the fads and fashions of the rest of the world. I've not cited quotes because the whole band puts out the same message, which is one of strength, taking plenty of time on each album without pressure.
As has Björk (who "couldn't wait to turn 40 last month" - ContactMusic). It takes courage to be experimental and risk the new. Solitude has its virtues -- as Goldfrapp creatively find.
You've been promised a write-up of 'Supernature' for some time. Now it comes to it, I realise frequent visitors have already had one. The elements are scattered, true, but all that really needs saying is the album is one of the year's finest in taking the expectations raised of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory by their very different first best-sellers and failing to meet them in a wonderful way.
 I don't find 'Supernature' better than its predecessors, simply different, just as rich in textures and layers, and indeed the "classy excursion into Goldfrappian gothic dance-pop" a good Amazon reviewer describes. But the key word there is "Goldfrappian": the couple's own take on "glam noir" or just "glam rock" as it was in its day, given a revisit and 21st century revision with electronica.
The music succeeds, like the lyrics, in being both explicit and enigmatic, which is a real achievement and that's the Goldfrapp sound, I guess. It stands on its own merits, but paying the extra for the DVD bonus edition is worth it for the insights into how this couple live and work, very laid-back and rigourous at once.
For anyone who doubts electro-dream music can be very sexy, 'Supernature' is a fast track to bed with that idea. Alison is a natural, as Madonna is in her own way, for 'Erotica' (which means Will must be too). Both women dress up sensuality for the fun of it, they take pride in their bodies, keep them in shape, make this abundantly clear but know it for a part of life's game.
A self-declared non-fan at Amazon has to "admit a grudging and (whisper it) liking for this album" and titles the comment with a line I'd never have imagined: 'The best soundtrack for a thinking woman's erotic film ever?'
I'm not sure about that when I can hear a few others, while have I already said it was good news to me when Madonna decided to deal with the iTMS? One of those odd iMixes I'm still working on would be the worse without her. But why particularly a "thinking woman's erotic film"?
I can only speak with certainty for myself, but reckon it's a big, frequent mistake to overestimate and generalise the differences about what women and men really want out of sex and also, in my view, what turns both sexes on.
'Supernature' is a reminder of this, while even a cursory look at Madonna's fan appeal tells a similar story.
Ah, misconceptions!
Of course I've not given up on listening to the men. One of this year's delights is Eels. I've acquired 'Blinking Lights' of late and couldn't write about women if I were oblivious to what the fellers are doing and have some sharp words to bung in The Orchard soon because another twit has revived a remark to which I took slight exception: "Your harem."
In 'Whoa', the admirable American I've got into this week has a word or two for the ladies among the blinking city lights:
"Hike up your skirt
Tighten up the laces
Nobody will notice you
So many pretty faces
Blend into the billboards as they
walk along the avenue
Time rolls by in taxi cabs
Staring at you
Laughing though the rear view
Clear view
of what it's like to be you (...)."
Cindy Alexander's right, like the people from Iceland. Fashions come and go, but if you're hooked on them, you "blend into the billboards" just as you can if you ignore them completely. 'Angels and Demons' (US -- why's Amazon waiting till Dec 6 when the iTMS didn't?) takes up another theme where I left off with different voices:
"Who are you
Where'd he go
Your's so much colder than the man I used to know
Out of line
Out of luck
Do you wanna talk or do you wanna
Forget about it? (...)"
Since she's sad and funny in 'Unavailable Billy', it's probably apparent from those opening lines there's a snag where you'd expect one from Cindy after the "luck": "Do you wanna talk or do you wanna [musical pause] forget about it?"
It's fringe material for the front page, but a friend asked me the other day one of the questions I've had before from men who know it was a part of my own story to be told I'm a man who often happens to "think like a woman", that's on my file.
My mate's a father who can't understand what his very smart, creative and great-looking daughter sees in the bloke she's shacked up with when he's "an idle bastard" with a huge ego, full of vacuous recommendations for others on how to live life when he goes out of his way to avoid doing so himself.
This led me down a dangerous path I've not risked before.
Feeling I had a notion or two about the "why" of it but also interested in what others might say, I ran the dilemma through a search engine or two to wind up wishing I hadn't. That the Net is full of people's opinions on "right" and "wrong" in relationships and "dating issues" is hardly unexpected, I've been no exception. But what sorely depressed me was discovering how many men and women who think they know the answers offer you a few of their own with the sole aim of trying to sell you a "how-to" book!
There are scores of them and may well be thousands. I don't know since it made for such miserable reading I packed it in. If you feel concerned enough about your own "failures" or "successes" with the opposite sex to try searching for yourself, you need a strong stomach and a head for confusion. Man or woman, intelligent or dumb, happy with your looks or otherwise, you're likely to find you are doomed to trouble you could sort out so easily ... if you'd just pay an expert or two.
I'd rather spend my money on musicians with stories to tell -- or be told about by writers who enjoy it like me -- and my friend does the same: not the writing but the listening. I know he can't ask his daughter, he doesn't want to upset her, but he could try asking other women, just as girls who get stuck might try asking a man if they know one they trust.
Musicians of both sexes who tell it straight add a dimension you just won't find in the books, I call that "magic", there's no explaining it. What I've yet to say in The Orchard is how I'm happy to have achieved something I wouldn't have tried if it weren't partly for the women here and a singular way many have of telling me I know my own answers.
As one of Cindy's best numbers puts it, 'Better When I'm Broken' than breaking the bank! Those "how-to" books are expensive frauds when most of the online teasers, irrespective of gender, say "I used to be a failure like you, but now that's changed and I keep on fast-tracking the most attractive people into bed." Well do they now? Bully for them. That's a disturbing plural.
For most people, certainly in our own culture, I'd have thought one is enough. The right one.
11:56:48 PM link 
|
|
postbox