Lykke Li’s our prostitute
Why hello again, Lykke Li. I like this 60s, tribal thing you’ve got goin’ on…
Lykke Li – “Get Some”Lykke Li’s our prostitute
Why hello again, Lykke Li. I like this 60s, tribal thing you’ve got goin’ on…
Lykke Li – “Get Some”Mirror Mirror on Diana Ross’ Wall
An underrated gem from the Diana Ross catalog. I have a clear memory of being very young and rolling skating to this. I think that says everything.
Diana Ross – “Mirror, Mirror”Diana’s on my mind because I just watched 1975’s Mahogany. Melodramatic and campy and oozing with diva-appropriate narcissim, it lurches from one setup to the next, defying all emotional logic. It’s soapy good fun though — even if it’s sexual politics are completely jacked up.
As a clearly coded “gay/psycho,” Anthony Perkins is on-hand as the photographer who makes Diana a STAR and keeps things interesting/cringe-worthy.
Sufjan official video
So there’s an official video for Sufjan’s new single. Something I’m not sure he’s ever done.
It’s basically the video projection that was playing in his concert.
With this and his network TV debut last week, he’s doing things he apparently said he’d never do.
But he probably said he’d never wear neon either.
I say go for it, young squire!
Klaxon Mindbender
Holy hell. Is this a music video or The Human Centipede?
Klaxons – “Twin Flames”updated link: http://www.fubiz.net/2010/11/25/klaxons-twin-flames/
rihanna and guetta
And speaking of Rihanna….here’s her new collaboration with David Guetta, which is to be part of his deluxe re-release of One Love.
David Guetta f/Rihanna – “Who’s That Chick” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdmf4N5aPE
Rihanna highlights – S&M, Cheers, Complicated
Can’t deny that Rihanna’s album is fun, fun, fun.
The red hair-dye job seemed to do the trick!
“Cheers (Drink to That)” “Complicated” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USVynyq_Y1A
Sufjan Stevens Lands at NYC’s Beacon Theater
Wow. What to even say about Sufjan Stevens’ recent NYC show.
The pitchfork intelligencia has been gaga over him ever since 2005’s Illinoise. I saw him in concert once before when his BQE piece, commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was performed here a few years ago. The BQE portion was a little frustrating (with its accompanying film project and hula-hooping extras) but he performed a more conventional concert afterwards and I was completely knocked out. Accompanied by a full orchestra, his performance of “Majesty, Snowbird” is perhaps one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
Other than BQE, he hasn’t really released any ‘new’ work and the blogs were growing restless. And then he suddenly spat out an EP and full-length album in short succession.
I had heard the album, The Age of Adz, was ‘challenging’ and I admit that I still hadn’t delved into it before going to see the concert. Sufjan’s music is known for being twangy and intellectual and uber earneast and wildly over-arranged. He’s like Rufus Wainwright if he were a straight, crunchy, Christian hipster. Adz is a marked departure from his past successes and a total stylistic shift. The music is buried in a nutso bed of blips and bleeps and defiantly rejects the normal verse/chorus/verse structure for something much more obtuse. In an interview he said that working on the orchestral pieces for BQE blew open his idea of what a song should be. And in a digital age where music is no longer confined to the 40 minutes of an LP or the 80 minutes of a CD, what is the album anymore and what is a song? Should songs be 30 seconds or 25 minutes? Does it matter?
The show itself was like watching a P-Funk concert of white, straight-edge Brooklynites. Sufjan was adorned in neon tribal paint (tape?) that made him look like Ke$ha’s goofy older brother. During the course of the evening, he danced amidst “Ray of Light” projections, and a spaceship literally landed onstage. It was nothing short of bonkers. And I was endlessly fascinated.
He spoke at length about his inspiration for the album: a crazy New Orleans preacher who shunned his family and posted all sorts of nutty billboards on his house before degenerating into schizophrenia and a world of religiously freaky comic book drawings.
The concert drew mainly from the new album. The lyrics are grandiose and inscrutable, but his trademark vulnerability still pops through in passages that pierce through the clutter of all the dense instrumentation with absolute clarity. The band was AMAZING: multiple drummers, backing vocalists, vocoders (*gasp*), horns, drum machines, ribbon-twirlers. This guy had everything.
Listening to the new music was like falling down a rabbit hole. The beats, at times, purposely fighting the songs as if to represent a tumultuous mind. Is this a breakup album? An ode to psychosis? Is he struggling with his sanity? Or just referencing the New Orleans dude (Royal Robertson)? Is this representative of some sort of religious meltdown? And where’s all his twee acoustic guitar?…..What interplanetary FREAKSHOW descended into the Beacon theater and why am I so GOSH DARN into it?
The title song, “The Age of Adz”, crashed through the theater like some insane apocalyptic reckoning. It’s very difficult to ascertain the ‘point of view’. Is it being sung from this crazy preacher’s perspective? Or is it about the end of a love affair? This is going to sound strange but the closest artistic correlation for this concert to me was Prince. Prince always mixes the sacred with the profane and there’s a definite tension and anger in Sufjan’s new work that causes lots of the same kind of friction. Grim euphoria.
“When I die, I’ll rot.
But when I live, I’ll give it all I’ve got.”
There are other videos on Youtube that give you a better sense of the visuals. But this one sounds the best:
“Age of Adz” –
“Impossible Soul”, another track from AoA, was perfromed towards the end of the night. A 25 minute suite, enough to test the patience of any audience, but at about the 15 minute mark the song turns surprisingly perky – “it’s a long life. could it get much better? do you want to dance?” and before you know it the contemplative audience is on their feet as a sea of balloons drifts from the rafters. “Boy, we can do much more together.” Positively surreal.
Here’s the happy portion:
balloon drop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UByH8RZE8Qg&feature=related
refrain : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-lJ3qA-zBE&NR=1
The encores, fittingly, were from Illinoise and everyone sung along gleefully to “Chicago” and watched rapt as he performed “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” I left the theater utterly impressed. Since the concert….I can’t stop listening to the record. It feels personal and global and vulnerable and angry and completely surprising and I’m totally in love with it.
Check it out. If the whole album is too intimidating, try “Age of Adz” and the two more commercial songs, “Too Much” and “I Walked.”
Today in Kanye History
So Kanye’s new record is supposed to be absolutely brilliant which I don’t think is really a surprise to anyone.
This clip though details some of his more prized outbursts and it really is a wonderful summation of some his other, more ‘foot in mouth’, talents. http://jezebel.com/5688773/kanye-wests-most-ridiculous-on+air-moments
They-Say, Come back Res and Kina!
Kina. Res. There were a bunch of rockerblackgirls from earlier this century that came and went far too quickly.
This remix below is absolutely ACES. It totally holds up years later and improves on the original version. And if I may refer to an earlier Simply Red post, SR’s “Perfect Love” Remix totally rips this off…Res – “They-Say Vision” (Roger Sanchez Remix)
Kina is so damn amazing I resist even mentioning her I love some of her tracks so much. Her self-titled album came out on DreamWorks and had modest hits with “Me” and “Girl From The Gutter” (which is amazing in it’s upfront vitriol). But for me, the album cuts were even deeper and richer. Lyrically, you can’t get much more vulnerable or straight forward. If you’re unfamiliar with this lady, you MUST check her out. “I Love You” And this track…which I have probably listened to zillions of times and sung at the top of my lungs more times than I care to mention. “Have A Cry”
SWIZZLSTICK 