I’m a man of peculiar taste when it comes to music. Much like my film watching, I’m less concerned about the genre, or anything external and more concerned with whether something is actually good. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 listens to an album before it clicks. (And I do listen to entire albums. Despite being part the digitally connected generation that can pick music ala carte through every channel imaginable, I believe there is a place in the marketplace for deliberate and meaningful albums. Nine Inch Nails “Year Zero” comes to mind.)
Not surprisingly, I’ve been wearing my quirky hat as of late and I’ve been listening to things across the spectrum. Here’s my list of music which I will playing through the holidays as I travel.
5. Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth
Thomas Dolby hit it really big in 1982 with The Golden Age of Wireless and the chart topping single “She Blinded Me With Science.” Dolby’s folllow-up The Flat Earth failed to glow white-hot like Wireless, but it was a strong second outing and contains some of my favorite Dolby tracks. Favorite tracks: “I Scare Myself” is a great down-tempo calypso-like track with muted trumpets and loose fluid piano noodling. The title track, “The Flat Earth” is a great chill track with prominent backing vocals, perfect for long stretches of road at night. By far my favorite track is “Hyperactive!” partly because of its great music video, and partly because of the playful energy of the song - you can get really caught up in it.
4. Daft Punk - Alive
I said 5 months ago that “electronic and synth music has always held a dear spot in my heart, I love the complexity of sound, which is often complemented by less complex lyrics.” Alive is a live album that plays out more like a DJ Tiesto set, than traditional album. In fact, each track features anywhere from 2 to 4 different Daft Punk songs as bleed, cut, scratch and meld into one another. Add a healthy dose of enthusiastic audience members who cheer, chant and clap and you have an engaging, epic live album.
3. Emmerson, Lake & Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery
Most people pick up Brain Salad Surgery because of its cover. Rendered by H.R. Giger, the imagery packs a punch as an easily memorable cover. I, however, did it backwards. I listened to the album without ever seeing its fantastical cover. (Not only that, but I was really late to the Emmerson, Lake & Palmer game. When the album came out in 1973 and I wasn’t even born yet.) What actually inspired me to track down and listen to ELP was my interest in prolific Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu. He names ELP (along with other Western acts) as chiefly responsible for his influence. The centerpiece Brain Salad Surgery is a 3 act opus “Karn Evil 9″ which runs over a half an hour. Sit in a room with headphones on and loose yourself.
2. Various - A Colbert Christmas
The Comedy Central special “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All” has really been a gem of holiday comedy this year. The television special plays out like an early episode of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” with special guests dropping by to move the story along. You can listen to an engaging Fresh Air interview about the special over at NPR. Every track on the album is toe-tapping, sing-along fun, (save for the Toby Keith track which is excruciatingly painful to listen to.) Despite being a comedy album, the music is actually well produced, making it perfect to sneak into the playlist at Mom and Dad’s.
1. Sam Sparro - Self Titled
Watch out folks, Sam Sparro is going to be big. Still a relative unknown in the U.S., he’s already taken Europe like a wild fire. Last January I was listening to BBC Radio 1’s “Annie Mac’s Mash up” when the I caught the hook for the absolutely infective “Black and Gold.” The eponymous first album from Australian born Sparro is a home-run. Infectious, Phat hooks complement a frolicking and fun attitude that glows through the entire album. The awesomely retro second single “21st Century Life” goes down easy, while the sythn-tastic “Sally” makes me long for 1989. A great album to groove to while hanging out with some friends back home.
It seems that music listeners have been bemoaning the lack of music videos on MTV since the mid-1990’s. A subject many-a-person has waxed poetic about. So it comes as an interesting footnote to “MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore, and thus has become obsolete as waves of people go to places like youtube” debate is the new music video website MTV Music.
The site is pushing hard with that “remember when we played these music videos” and the featured video page is peppered with the likes of Genesis, A-Ha, Dire Straits, Duran Duran, and Michael Jackson. The site itself takes some cues from NBC’s HULU, and it looks like the same proprietary video streaming technology.
ArsTechnica has a nice article about the service, which claims “MTV smacks YouTube, posts almost every music video ever.” And while the current Viacom lawsuit against Google/Youtube is not lost on me, the article overzealously states the actual number of videos that are actualy featured on the service. For example, Hikaru Utada, an international household name, whose album “First Love” is the #1 Best Selling album of all time in Japan is no where to be found. Her 2007 single “Flavor of Life“, the #2 digital song of 2007, reached 7.2 million worldwide downloads.
Even stranger, is a relatively less high-profile band The Polysics, do appear on the service. The Polysics owe a lot of their style to Devo, and their song “I my me mine” is quirky and fun.
The jury is still out whether MTV will be able to supplant Youtube as the “King of all Music Videos” - it’s been almost 15 years since it’s worn that hat comfortably.
Edit: It appears the site is having problems with embedding video. I’m going to leave this embedded video in the post, I’m curious if it will work for others. It isn’t working for me.
Hello. I’m actually very good at keeping up on other blogs I maintain. It’s just this one I can’t seem to update. Oh and pardon the post title - StrangeLove has been running through my head all day.
So what’s going on?
Work:
I’m in the thick of producing a web-tv show - it’s a small operation, but I’m truly enjoying the work right now. We’re getting good bit of traffic on youtube, and the aforementioned blog. It is busy, the studio also has outside clients, so on any given day I’m working on everything from web and video production for nude women to high fashion women’s shoes.
On the art side recently interviewed a fine art photographer friend, Sid Ceaser, for a post and just today I was shooting interviews at a Gallery in SoHo. I still haven’t seen much of the city, but that’s ok right now.
Play:
To address my insatiable need to play something with keys I recently picked up a Yamaha Cs1x synth on the cheap. There are some great sounds in it, but it could be a little bit before I can use them the way I’d like. I’m still learning how to program it. I’m also digging the tactile knobs. It gives the board a great analog feel.
Here’s a quick snapshot - as you can see, I was in a hurry to try it out. [For those wondering, that's an M-audio FastTrack Pro in the background]
With this purchase, I’ve given up on buying a Yamaha DX7. Though the DX7 is a great synth, it is heavy, and notoriously difficult to program. Instead I picked up FM8, a full featured software synthesizer, that supposedly does a good job of emulating the DX7. We’ll see - up until I’ve been mostly using Reason as my primary software synth.
When I do sit down to compose, I find myself creating landscapes that sound like they belong in an episode of The X-Files. Coincidentally, I’ve been watching quite a bit of X-Files lately. Maybe I’ll gush about Mark Snow in a different post…
Somewhere in between:
My screen writing endeavor is ongoing. It is slow, but I hope to have a completed draft before January. I’m encouraged by the responses that I’ve received from people so far. When I described the opening shots of the film, one friend said it was “brilliant.” I believe she was drunk and well meaning! I don’t think this is “brilliant” material - at least not yet. I suppose at some point I should register my work with the Writers Guild.
Other projects are not faring so well. One of the casualties of moving to New York is a podcast I’d been producing since 2006. It was my first foray into podcasting and focused on Japanese Culture, specifically anime and manga. I’m still very much interested in those things - but I just don’t have the time to work on something I essentially started as a lark. I’ve learned lots of great lessons on producing serial audio though.
I put my MIDI controllers and my upright piano into storage before heading to New York and I’m hurting now. I’m in a temporary living situation and I wasn’t about to bring the whole calvary.
And in true Merrel fashion, I’m scattered as usual! Entrenched in multiple creative endeavors, but now I feel like I need to write some music. I have the opportunity to do some fun music for a web-tv show I’m working on. I’d like just to fire up Reason and pop-out a couple tracks - but I need a new keyboard. I was looking at the something like the M-Audio Oxygen-49 to hold me over, but I don’t really like only having 49 keys. I need those extra octaves when I’m playing. Still, I’m ok with having less keys, after all a while back I said I wanted a Little Phatty, along with some other “toys” - all of which I still can’t afford.
The New York City Craigslist is chock full of good deals on this type of equip, even saw a great deal on a Yamaha DX7 II. But I’ll have to wait. I’ve got to bring some of my current projects to a close before I begin buying equipment for new ones.
I’ve got to stay focused! Does anyone else have this kind-of creative scatter brain?
I’m a bit of a music junky, and I rotate what I listen to in phases. Usually, it is a guarantee I am listening to something you’ve never heard of. Recently, I was in a synthpop phase. Now I’ve inexplicably found myself listening in a wispy pop-rock from Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland. (Lise Westzynthius, Stina Nordenstam/Anna Ternheim and Hera Hjartardóttir respectively). Not to mention, I always find myself coming back to popular music of Japanese origin, lately the strangley catchy techno-pop of Perfume.
I thought it would be interesting to take look at my most listened to music. It got a little out of hand, and I couldn’t address all 40, so I’m just taking choice selections. To give you an idea, when I began writing this post last month I had . At this rate, it is almost time to upgrade my iPod.
Here are the rules I set for myself:
No playlists, just the raw library of music.
No Podcasts, videos, streams or self made projects.
No cheating! Any embarrassing songs I’ve listened to must stay and be acknowledged.
Here are some choice cuts from my list, a little bit about them, and why they appear on my top 40.
How I got into them: I was at a party with one of those hokey “Let’s Pump IT UP!” DJ’s emceeing. Ya know, the kind usually only found at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs where the DJ tires to get everyone to play silly games with props to win a prize. I begrudgingly participated, I think I won the “freeze dance” competition. My prize was the four track single for “Around the World” I was enthralled; The way the bass thundered in, building slowly then exploding at 24 seconds. I was hooked.
Why they are on my top 40:
Discovery is one of those “every-time” albums. You’d feel at home listening to it in your car, or while you were cleaning your house. Certainly on the dance floor. The album is chock full of awesome grooves to dance to. Electronic music and synth music has always held a dear spot in my heart, I love the complexity of sound, which is often complemented by less complex lyrics.
I love deconstructed music, it acts as a great counter measure to the complex and multi-layered. A great example is the Still disc of Nine Inch Nails “And All That Could Have Been” which features stripped down and descontructed versions of songs such as “The Fragile”.
Last night around 3:30 am, I was listening to Radio Paradise, a great little internet radio station. The station has a well balanced playlist. If they aren’t playing something I dig now, they will in 15 minutes. On came one of my favorite Aphex Twin tracks “Film” - a melodious electronic piano track painted with rapid light drum loops. Only I didn’t recognize the version. It sounded much more organic.
In fact, it was a jazzy cover by The Bad Plus, a band that has an impressive groove and some great tracks. I could go on, but instead:
For your enjoyment here is the Aphex Twin Original
Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona and I’m quite sure I’m in the wrong song.
Yeah, Tori. I know how you feel. It seems whenever life gets a little weighty, my Tori Amos playlist goes into heavy rotation. She’s my audio equivalent of comfort food and at my rate of consumption I’ll be a 500 pound music listener in no time.
It’s been a busy and tiring last two weeks. I’m suffering fitful nights of insomnia and indigestion. Heh, I mean after all I am writing this at 20 minutes past midnight. (I tried going to bed, but it just didn’t work.) As of this writing, I only have three more days at my old job. I moved a large percentage of my belongings in a storage unit this weekend, including my beloved piano. It was utterly stressful as the moving company was woefully inept and overcharged me by some $400. The whole ordeal was exacerbated by an apparent language barrier. So much so, that I wished I was on a tech-support call with DELL.
With my last day at the old job this Thursday, I’ll finish packing my belonging and head up to New York on Saturday. I begin work in Manhattan on Monday July 21st. No rest for me! I’ll also be working double shifts come August on a Beijing Olympics related project. But, more on that in a later post.
All the sudden people are coming out of the woodwork and want to see me before I leave the area. I’ll have to split my time between Maryland and Virginia the next couple of weekends as I travel back to clean my condo and give over the keys to the land-lord.
I’ve been working remotely for the new job. This weekend I put up a new blog for one of the websites we are launching soon. (Maybe I’ll plug it here at a later date.) The creative dynamic and dialog I’m having, even remotely, is greatly refreshing and I’m looking forward to achieving some great synergy once I get into the studio.
That about does it for yet another fruitless “life update” post. I have some other content I’m working on to add some variety here and I think you’ll enjoy it once I can find the time to complete it between changing jobs and moving.
Man, have I been on an 80’s synthpop kick! I recently picked up the Les Rythmes Digitales album “Darkdancer” and though it was produced in the late 1990’s it owes much of its groove to 80’s synthpop. The music echoes bands like The Human League and Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Listening to these artists got me thinking. As a keyboardist, I’ve always wanted a Yamaha DX7 (the above pictured is the DX7 II Centennial - only 100 ever made). I don’t think many people use them today, as bigger and better synths have come along, but there is an endearing quality about the DX7. It was the staple digital synth of the 80’s, and quick google search shows a treasure trove of specialty DX7 websites and some interesting youtube videos.
Alas, this item will be relegated to my wish list of audio and video gear which surprisingly is getting out of hand. Ya know, maybe it’s time I just write them out…
Hi! I'm Merrel Davis. I'm a video editor by trade, and an aspiring screen writer at heart. I came to New York City to realize my creative dreams. This blog serves as a travelogue of sorts in my personal journey.
. At this rate, it is almost time to upgrade my iPod.
