My Magical Music Tour
Welcome to the Musical of My Life .
. .
(Warning! Concise was a word I never
learned at school)
Welcome to my record collection. Like most people,
I couldn't live without my music - especially those particular
albums one of my friends described as "soulfood". During
terrible times, often enough it was this "soulfood"
that pulled me through. So I owe music a lot.
By the time I was three, I was allowed to use the record player
alone. They were great years, my first favourite album was a yellow
Sesame Street record that coming from
the mid Seventies that (I realised in hindsight) found most of
its inspiration in hallucigens. It was seriously trippy but as
a child it helped me create my own special world while I pretended
I was in the jungle with Big Bird or,
my favourite, finding the giant cookie with Cookie
Monster (not that I managed to share any of it). At the same
time I was also cultivating a career as Beatles
groupie. And so continued this way of things until I was about
seven when I started having friends who had older siblings who
were into music, so I got introduced to the world of ABBA,
KISS, and Iron
Maiden. Strangely enough this did not turn me off the Beatles,
in fact the dag teasing my best friend gave me only increased
my stubborness.
It wasn't until I was nine that very belatedly discovered the
perfection that was John Taylor of Duran Duran. That started a one and a half
year obssession. It still scares the hell out of me that I would
have anything to have been the mother of Simon LeBon's children.
AHHHHHHH!!! (Did you SEE him in that concert with Pavarotti
for Bosnia?). Fortunately, despite jumping on the DD bandwagon
a few years too late, I at least started hearing stuff that was
happening at the time, right bang in the middle of the 80s.
I am an eighties child and damn proud of it!
I remember a time when pop was actually cool to people over
the age of twelve and trendy was a good word. That ended in 1987
with the Stock Aiken Waterhouse successes
(I love you Kylie but you did spell
the end). Suddenly, "teenybopper" became a misnomer
as the candidates were invariably under thirteen.
At twelve, it was back to the Beatles and I discovered Rhythm and Blues, Aretha,
Sam Cooke, Otis,
Sam and Dave along with stuff like Carole King, Warren Zevon,
Bob Dylan, and the 1950s thing that started
a while back when Stand By Me came out (mind
you I was also a soft metal fan at the time, I even went to see
Bon Jovi and Metallica stood for all that was subversive...).
The most profound change was around turning fourteen when I
went back to Hong Kong for a holiday and the nightclubs were playing
music that I'd never heard properly before. When I was younger,
I knew and loved songs by the Cure, the
Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order blah blah but the independent snobism
wasn't as general. These bands were on the charts, I liked them
but I did not differentiate between them and Aha
or Mel and Kim. This time I did, and I listened
hard. So began my years of being indie queen ending with the mass
discovery of grunge c.Nirvarna/Pearl Jam in the early nineties.
It wasn't the huge and sudden idolation of all that gave meaning
to my life then (sad but true) that was annoying, it was more
people who had only discovered it maybe one year ago (I thought
I was new to things but I realised that having liked this stuff
before the start of the nineties meant I was way experienced)
prancing round treating it as if the thing was their property
and belittling others to mask their own insecurities. I remember
buying Nevermind cause I found it second hand. I hated Nirvana
when Teen Spirit was played to death but I had since rediscovered
the genius that was Kurt Cobain ironically enough because it was
played to death at the end of high school parties and it made
me feel nostalgic. I brought my little bag of used CD purchases
to uni and over lunch a girl I knew asked to see them. She took
out Nevermind, ignoring the two other obscure early 80s gothic
CDs that she clearly knew nothing of, and grimaced without any
facetiousness, only saying "As if you would". Realising
this was not a rare attitude, I soon hung up my hat as indie (now
relagated to) princess and stopped buying CDs for a few years.
That is then. This is now. I have found music again, most of
my past loves remain, old ones have developed, and I do now and
then come out of my nostalgia closet and like something recent,
but I can't say I actively go looking, there's too much out to
discover outside chart music or indepedent pop to slowly discover.
Like jazz, the variety that is world music, chart music from other
countries, even modern classical, and those strange tidbits you
find at one am on the radio.
Though a lot of people who are more "discriminating"
will find some or more of the stuff I listen to in bad taste (sometimes
rightly so, other times not), I think one thing can be said, given
my musical history, I do have wide tastes. At ten, my father sat
me down and made me listen to snippets from the hundred of records
we owned until practically dawn as my "musical education"
and while I found a few things embarrassing, I loved most of it
(70s Bowie, Lou Reed, Buddy Holly, the Stones and
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) though I never admitted
it to him then. I just groaned and said Madonna was better. But
I never believed in better types of music, sure better bands (Velvet
Underground being better than The Wedding Present say, or Leonard
Cohen is better than Michael Bolton...) and although I said I
hated it (how embarrassing to tell my father he was right!) I
loved the fact that it was good and difference dissolves when
that's the case.
For me, Sweet Jane is just as beautiful
as the Ode to Joy and vice versa. There are
a few types of music I cannot tolerate, a lot of hardcore be it
metal or techno, but that usually has something to do with having
sensitive hearing and a preference rather than not for beat and
melody (or at least rhythm that the seemingly just noise of punk
bands possess).
Like I said, you might find some of my tastes repulsive but
they are wide and I've always been able to introduce people I
know to something they've never heard of before and find they
like it.
So look in the sections you're used to and better still
the ones you don't.
Pretend you're on a mystical Sesame Street musical
tour and lose yourself.
"Alternative"
Music
What this means anymore I have no idea but at least it provides
a guide
- The Cure: I've had three
favourite bands in my life, The Beatles (twice), Duran Duran,
and the Cure. If you ask me now what they've done in the past
few years I would not have a clue. I think after Disintegration
(despite a couple of good songs since) the time had come for
them to hang up the old microfilm and do something dignified
like. . . oh I don't know, raise aid for Africa with a 24hr concert?
Maybe not. Still, vintage Cure has not lost the ability to send
shivers up my spine. I can't say I have a favourite Cure album
- they all suit different moods. I think anyone would certainly
be deprived if they had never heard: Seventeen Seconds, Boys
Don't Cry (who could not fall in love with Three Imaginary
Boys?), Head on the Door, The Top, Kiss
Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and of course Disintegration. Yes,
I still do love the Cure, it reminds me of sitting outside an
underground Hong Kong "western" nightclub in the dying
days of the eighties, seeing wanabee punks around me and hearing
the final chords of A Forest infiltrating out. My favourite
song is on the B-sides of Standing on a Beach (only on
the tape unfortunately, oh why aren't they on CD? Heaven knows
I've ruined my tape from continual rewinds) called A Few Hours
After This - the perfect love song, so unrequited and so
perfect. Anyway here are some links
- The Velvet Underground:
did they just not define cool? Like most people who did not live
through their heyday or were too young, I came to the VU through
an interest in Lou Reed which started I think with my father
but crystalised when at 11 a Portuguese friend of mine used to
play Walk on the Wild Side all the time. Of course, I
had no idea what the lyrics were - not having the best of ears
then (I won't even tell you what I thought the chorus of The
Cure's LoveCats was) all the same I recently found its garbled
lyrics scrawled over my Usbourne Kid's Guide to Britain. I really
don't know when I first knew about VU, I think that they were
so tangled up with Andy Warhol's pop culture, that subliminally
you know them before you even realise you do. I had already begun
to like them when a friend of mine put Femme Fatale and
All Tommorows Parties on a tape for me and that was my
introduction to Nico. I'd like to say it changed my life. . .
but it probably didn't. As for my all- time-favourite VU song
there's no contest - Sweet Jane. At 1am in the morning
when you feel like you're about to burst, there is NOTHING better.
Strangely enough, the first time I heard the song, it wasn't
Lou but the Cowboy Junkies singing it which is so beautiful and
better than a lot of VU live versions but nothing compares to
the original single version (and of course I only have live versions
as the CD I had with it on it has been borrowed for over five
years, the tragedy of it).
- Tori Amos: I don't think
that anything she's done since Little Earthquakes compares
- sure there are great bits, especially on In the Pink but
you can't improve on genius. I got into Tori, sadly enough, through
her connection to a comic called "Sandman" and its
creator Neil Gaiman (see track 10 on Little Earthquakes)
but it wasn't until a particularly disturbing time in my life
that I actually bonded with the album. I had loved it before
but this time it felt like she was singing my thoughts, my angst
- not just something that I could understand or relate to but
something I was living- it was very different. For a month, emotionally
comatose from the intensity, all I listened to was this, Achtung
Baby and a few tracks of Edie Brickell's album with Circle (don't
ask me about the choice) and it did help me through the time
(thanks Tori...). It was clear the day I was ok again - I just
woke up and played her and bang! Suddenly, I was spectator again
and my life started falling back into place. I did see her live
on the In the Pink tour, great girl, she walks in and
apologises for being late but she was in the ladies room then
uses this to introduce Icicle (use your imagination).
The only thing that marred it was sitting in front (ha! better
seats) of the biggest and slimiest misogynist in existence (perhaps
slight but not gross exageration). I so much wanted to turn round
and tell him that he had no place there, but seeing that he had
some of my dad's stuff I shut up and just pretended I didn't
see him (if it was my own believe me I would have let it rip).
End of Tori story...
- All
of Kevin's Tori Pointers"This is a page basically of
pointers to everything that is Tori out there on the 'Net, at
least that I can find. There's a lot of stuff, so I figured someone
should try to keep it all straight!" This took forever to
load (I fortunately had other things to do) but it IS EXTENSIVE.
First place to start for some serious idolising.
-
- Really
Deep ThoughtsThis is the official Tori Amos Fanzine in web
form and supplies "Breaking Tori News", her tour dates
and media appearances, how to subscribe to RDT and purchase Tori
merchandise (is it just me or are there other people out there
who hate seeing people wearing band T-shirts?). They have a handful
of articles from unavailable back issues posted up which struck
me as somewhat stingy (why not all of the back issues?). Not
the most interesting page, maybe it will grow.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
- Leonard Cohen: I once
read that everybody has a story about when they first heard him,
so profound the meeting. Perhaps this is because unlike Dylan
or the Velvet Underground, many people (surprisingly) have yet
to hear of the man so there's a feeling at the time that you've
discovered something very unique. And unique is what the man
is, maybe he did change my life a bit. It was mid 1991 and I
went to see Pump Up the Volume at this brilliantly crappy theatre
called the Valhalla. Ok it's dated and Christian Slater is no
longer the definition of lovegod but at fifteen it was just the
perfect expression of teenage angst and that song... just like
Catcher in the Rye though it's unreadable to a twenty five year
old who is even just slightly adjusted. His tape collection had
stuff like Jesus and Mary Chain, the Smiths, New York Dolls,
Velvet Underground - tres cool but it was the theme song that
keep on playing that really encapsulated everything. It was Leonard
singing Everybody Knows only I didn't know it at the time,
I just heard the voice and died right away. Only finding the
song was a wee bit difficult seeing on the soundtrack it was
Concrete Blonde doing a cover, bummer. Oh well, I got it in the
end and as they say the rest is history. I could do a whole page
on Leonard but I'll just give you links to others who have done
it much better. Just one thing, does anyone find that I'm
your man (song not album) reminds them of "Variations
of a Theme by William Carlos Williams" by the American Kenneth
Koch? Let
me know. There's just the same sense of insidious possessiveness.
Ugh.
-
- Bird
on the Wire - The Leonard Cohen HomepagePretty much the first
place to start looking for anything on the man, heaps and heaps
of stuff and very cool.
- Official LC
Site This is the Official Sony site and is pretty good as
far as his music is concerned, it gives his official discography
with full track listings, lyrics and sound clips along with bio
and a chat page, it's quite well done.
- Paul's
Leonard Cohen Hompage Personal page dedicated to Mr Cohen,
heaps of links too including those to bootleg stuff.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
- The Smiths: what adolescence
is complete without them? If you haven't heard of them I forgive
you but if you hate them, well then we will never get on... I'm
joking but there's a little bit of truth it that. Morrissey can
give me the s@#$s but when he sings it's completely different.
I don't really want to go into why his and the Smiths' songs
are so damn brilliant, how they've been able to say things in
a way that NO ONE has managed to pull off. You either see it
or you don't. Admittedly it takes a while to get into their less
poppy songs, but once you've listened to them about ten or fifteen
times they crawl under your skin and are impossible to get out.
They have the ability to slowly grow on you, so one day you wake
up and realise, say, Reel around the Fountain is your
favourite song even if it's for only one stanza that's never
repeated. So wait until a time that you feel really miserable
(just after breaking up is a good time, but after being alone
for ages is even better) start on How Soon is Now or the
Strangeways album, listen to The Queen is Dead album
afterwards and if you're not hooked listen to Morrissey's Everyday
is like Sunday (Bona Drag) and if you're still cold
go away, you're obviously too well adjusted. If you like it then
get something like Louder than Bombs and use it as background
music until you can actually enjoy the whole album.
- Cemetry Gates- "The
first WWW site dedicated to the Smiths and Morrissey." Apparently...
A lot of stuff and links.
- The
Smiths 1982-1987 Lyric database with a complete discography
by Earl Grey.
- To
Die by Your Side Maybe my favourite Smiths song (along with
a couple of others, choosing is so hard...). "And if a ten
ton truck kills the both of us to die by your side the pleasure
and the privilege is mine" - only Morrissey could have written
that, Bless his soul. Here are photo galleries and stories. Check
it out.
- The
Smiths Chord Archive You too can sound just like Johnny Marr...
just don't do it in public.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
- RIDE: If only I could
have had Mark's children. Beautiful, beautiful boy. There's a
line in a play called Away about golden shining boys and if only
they could stay like that forever. I saw them in concert (1992)
and now and then there would be a golden light shining on the
lead singer and well... you just had to be there. He looks much
better in the flesh, the girl I took hated them and thought he
was ugly before and hated their music - complete reversal afterwards
though.
- RIDE
Discography, sound clips and bio.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
- Obviously I like a whole lot more alternative bands than
this but "yeah they're really great" gets tedious after
a while especially if I only like one song or an album, so for
more recommendations go to my cdshop for my (I think) essential
albums and tracks. Meanwhile here's a list of miscellaneous links:
The Eighties
Probably my favourite decade because it is the one that I grew
up in. It was so nice being able to be "trendy" without
being a fashion victim (or least everyone else was so it didn't
matter), the 90s are so snobbish comparatively. In a generation
where the individual has been stifled everyone wants to believe
that they are one. Well, I guess wearing neon spotted (odd coloured)
socks you couldn't take yourself so very seriously could you?
Ah such a quaint little decade. . .
I've separated it from "Alternative" Music
but at the time I knew of no separation, I would be watching Top
of the Pops and I'd hear the Cure/Smiths/Sisters of Mercy and
then next they would be playing Bon Jovi or Tiffany.
- Duran Duran: oh high
priests of The New Romantics. How we used to swoon over John
Taylor (and wasn't Rene a cow?) and to this day I have no idea
how I didn't find Nick Rhodes' makeup just a little too much.
Well people may slag them off but they did turn out album after
album of rather nifty little ditties. Girls on Film, Rio
are perfect pop songs whatever anyone says. I think I loved the
fantasy of the eighties, video was a new thing, special effects
were new. I don't think the nineties has much fantasy at all
(thank you very much). As for videos, when was the last truely
cool video you saw?
- Culture Club: what 80s
list is complete without them?
- Aha: I had a sort of
crush on Maggs (at the time I also liked a guy called Matthew
Maggs), excuse me if a spelt it wrong, it's years since. I still
have my vinyl record of their first (and obviously best) album.
I've loved Norway ever since. Yet, there must be a reason why
all the sites are European.
- Assorted 80s links:
Oldies but Goodies
I hate that expression! But, my imagination is running pretty
low at this moment.
- The Beatles: they were
my favourite band since the age of two or three so I am told,
they were also my favourite band in my first teenage years. The
first time round my favourite was John, the second time round
it was Paul (my father always said I had better taste as a child).
I prefer the earlier Beatles, they looked so perfect in their
suits and moptops. As for people who say the Stones are better,
they had their first big hit with a Beatles cover. Even if you
don't like the Beatles you should check out their video "A
Hard Day's Night", the director was David Lean? and it is
just off-the-wall and brilliantly funny. From memory "Help"
was crap. If I find any links that are any good I'll stick them
here:
- Bob Dylan: I like Dylan,
I know that they say his tunes have been pinched from Irish folksongs
and some of his lyrics as well but I still like my Dylan. I saw
him at the State Theatre quite a few years ago, I often think
that the young Dylan of "Don't Look Back" (the rocumentary
that created the genre practically) would have killed himself
to see the end product of continuous drug abuse and age, he was
so bitingly sharp and cutting then. Brilliant, also he was such
a beautiful, beautiful boy standing there in leather with his
stunning Semitic features and curly dark locks (I'll die and
go to heaven now). But, my Dylan moment (that time that I KNEW.
. . ) was listening to Girl from the North Country on
his eponypous album. I had long hair at the time.
- ???Apparently the only link you'll
ever need according my personal Bobophile, it connects to everything.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
- Joan Baez: Like Dylan,
she was so beautiful when she was young, she was his lover for
many years and carried the flame for ages after (though who knows
what she thinks of him now). She has one of my favourite female
voices and although she has sung a lot crap when she's given
a good song she sure does it justice. I have two favourite albums
of hers The Queen of Hearts which is the best collection
of her folk songs I've heard, her voice is just stunning. Unfortunately
my father lost the CD so I have to find another one, some tracks
just made your heart stop, the other is Diamonds and Rust
which sounds tacky but it rather good, it is a later album with
some tracks she wrote for Dylan and "LoveSong to a Stranger"
which is quite beautiful (but then I like these unrequited love,
stranger themes). If anyone has any links please let me know.
- Donovan: My father said
that he'd have killed me at birth if he knew I'd grow up to like
Donovan, what can I say, the Butthole Surfers did a cover of
Hurdy Gurdy Man so he must be credible. . . (hmmmm) He
used to be called the Poorman's Dylan and there's some truth
in that but there is one Best-Of (beware of imitations, he has
done multiple versions of songs) of his (check out Favourites
) that is simply bliss. It is very mellow and great "happy"
music for the days when that's all you want to listen to. On
it there is a version of Catch The Wind that has to be
one of the most divine ballads ever written. It's even close
in my favourite song stakes to Sweet Jane and that's saying something.
The Seventies
Oh wonderful decade where (as the myth goes) anything went.
So it was the selfish generation and the beginning
of our moral degeneration (oh sorry, that was the sixties) but
you have to admit they sure knew how to write a damn fine dance
tune.
Jazz/Blues/Standards
I was not the biggest fan of jazz, sometimes it is a little too
cerebral or just downright boring for me anyway. But there are
many types of jazz, needless to say I try and stay away from the
stuff that's too intellectual, you know poseurs jazz where you
wonder how others can appreciate it.
Maybe on heroin or cocaine. . .
I'm getting it though (jazz that is). Maybe it started
with a love for that swinging New Orleans street music but it
became an interest when my dad brought home the bestest-westest
album called Somethin' Else (the sexiest version of Autumn
Leaves I have ever heard, and I am talking pure sex) by Cannonball
Adderley with Miles Davies, Hank Jones, Sam Jones and Art Blakey
- how could you go wrong? Later it become a small passion starting
from the Standards and ending, well time will tell. . . I'm still
learning so I won't even try to pretend to be an expert
- Jazzy Links:
- Blossom Dearie: the little
jazz bird, a great pianist in her own right it's definitely her
rather unique voice that is so damn addictive. However, you're
probably going to hate or love her, she's not to all people's
tastes.
- Ella Fitzgerald: The
First Lady and far more regal than most. Unlike many of her contempory
female singers, she led a private life and didn't indulge in
all of life's exciting vices - she had a kind of dignity that's
pretty hard to find. She really was a lady and that made her
perfect for elegance of the 1950s. However hard she may have
tried in Love for Sale she was completely incapable of
sounding like a whore (compare with Billie Holiday's version
which is to my mind the best).
- Billie Holiday: pain
and hope twisted together in one haunting package. I could never
listen to her when I was younger, it just hurt too much, she
was so intense. As I became older and more masochistic, the ability
to see beauty in pain developed with my love for Lady Day. Read
the Frank O'Hara poem "The Day Lady Died", I can't
say much more, gush just does not do her justice.
- Gershwin: It's funny
how Gershwin always refers to George not Ira, even though the
later was responsible for the lyrics which are often what makes
a nice tune into something that sticks with you all your life.
Imagine how memorable A Foggy Day in London would have
been if it was called "A Bogged-Up Stay in Boston"?
When I first heard of Ira I actually assumed that it was a woman
and hence George's wife, embarrassing but true. George lived
intensely and died young in his thirties. I find it almost impossible
to listen to "Love is Here to Stay" knowing that Ira
wrote the words after George's death as a tribute to his brother.
When I think out of all songwriters of the period, even Cole
Porter, I prefer Gershwin. I don't think there is such a thing
as a bad Gershwin tune and Ira's lyrics had a feminine sensitivity
to them that I think only Lorenz Hart (Rogers and Hart) was able
to match.
- Cole Porter: I'm glad
that the Red Hot Blue album came out earlier this decade,
Cole Porter is perhaps the most accessible of all the earlier
songwriters because he was so damn provocative and modern as
well as the king of the double-entendre and dubious innuendo,
but being associated with 50s musicals is hardly the stuff that
alternative credibility is made of. His lyrics were intellectually
and humourously brilliant. I mean who else would rhyme "Ghandi"
with "Napolean Brandy", likewise his love of beauty
and of things that are the essence of life gave his songs a particular
imagery that is stunningly exquisite and an energy that is well,
brilliantly alive.
Classical Music
If you needed a reason to listen to it, surely men
like this is enough?
Yes, I am joking. Most musicians are prats. I was warned
once by a music lecturer, never date musicians - there's only
one thing on their minds
. . . their music
Fair enough, if I could play as well as Rostropovich,
you wouldn't be able to tear me away from my cello (while now
I get quite a lot of help being removed from my piano).
I've never understood people who couldn't listen to
popular music, I've been irritated by those who insist that Western
classical music is the superior form (culminating in the Symphony),
but the strangest fellows I've ever met are those who will not
touch classical music. Okay, Symphonies are often pompous and
contain tedious space fillers, likewise, most Operas only contain
one or two arias worth listening to (if they are lucky), some
Classical tunes (Eine Kleine Natch Musik, Fur Elise)
have just been played to death or have dubious connections ("oh
yes that was on a toilet paper ad" - pure class), but anyone
who listens to Gorecki's Third Symphony, the arias of La
Boheme, or Massenet's Meditation and still thinks that
classical music is boring lacks imagination and any appreciation
of subtle beauty. I mean even metal stars are mesmerised by the
stuff (ok maybe that's not such a bizarre thought given the Sex
Pistols used hyped up Chuck Berry riffs).
I never really learned musical theory, what I picked
up was in drips and drabs and usually found myself. In the same
way that I learnt Art, if I found something I liked I would chase
it up. My CD collection is fairly small, good classical records
are invariably full price so I leave them to my father to buy,
though I do splurge quite happily on the budget Naxos range. When
I was a young child, I was made to go to see every great orchestra,
artist that set foot in the Hong Kong Arts Festival including
the aforementioned Rostropovich. Not a good experience, I'd get
pins and needles and aches in my legs and given the time would
also be trying desperately to fall asleep but not being allowed.
Consequently, seeing live concerts as such never really interested
me, if I can buy the CD instead I will (cultural pagan that I
am). Ballet and Opera on the other hand are rather different.
I've always loved the ballet as young girls do and have subscribed
to the Australian Opera since I was introduced to it at thirteen.
Unlike concerts, video does not do it justice and visually it
gives you more to do than checking out that flautist with the
light brown hair. . . though I have been known to look in the
pit now and then to see if there was anyone "interesting".
They also place memories and context within the music that cannot
be placed by CD alone.
It's hard to talk about classical without sounding
like a pretentious prat so I'll quit.
World Music
I don't know too much about it but I enjoy what I hear.
There are conficts with this and the next section,
I'm trying not to stress about it.
- World Music Links
- Radio National play world
music each day at 3:15 and 11:15 for two hours. Some times it
is crap (yodelling even) and sometimes it is brilliant. If you
hear something stunning and chances are that you will their playlists
are posted here: Radio
National - The Planet - Playlist Index
- You can also check this out The
New Age Voices All-Music Guide This is run by John Storm
Roberts, author of Black Music of Two Worlds (ok I don't know
what that is but I'm just quoting to sound knowledgeable) and
has heaps of links as well as a database of thousands of CDs
sorted by region, artist and artistic style. Really very good.
- Favourites
Go to album suggestions
Non English Pop Culture
I watched a film called Song of the Siren and Isreali film
and one of my favourites -the music in it was brilliant but the
credits being in Hebrew were impossible to work out. So my quest
for pop songs in other languages started. If you are from a non
English country and are into your own country's music, contact
me please.
- India: India has one
of the most prolific film industries - the popular films are
often termed Bollywood (check out Shashi Tharoor's novel) and
resemble animated Mills and Boons novels set to music. Not that
that's necessarily bad, infact the better Bollywood films are
indeed quite brilliant expressions of popular Indian culture.
Above all, they're fun and sing-a-long-y.
- The Villain (Khal Nayak):
ok, so far this is the only Bollywood film I've seen in entirity,
unfortunately (like most foreign films) we only get to see the
"critically aclaimed stuff" which usually means serious,
so most of my exposure to Bollywood has come from documentaries.
Khal Nayak is a superb example of Bollywood at its best, the
dodgy villian, the unfit hero (classic scene, he shows his chest
to show off his police body and displays a pot belly, totally
without intended irony), the beautiful heroine at the mercy of
fate but most of all the luscious colour. And the heart of a
Bollywood, the soundtrack is pure sex. As for dance music some
of this stuff is better than the best of Hot Chocolate. : )
- Isreal: I love Middle
Eastern languages and Hebrew is no exception. Oh how those gutteral
tones stroke my ears. . . yum!
- Song of the Siren: the
only Isrealian film I've watched I think, it was on cable one
day and I caught it. The blurb said "love in the Gulf War",
yes well. . . maybe not. Apathy made me stay even though I'd
missed the first twenty minutes, and suddenly this little movie
walked in and changed my life. I've seen it about four times
since, stuffed up taping it twice so there that figures stays
for a while, and like the Visiteurs (french movie) I could see
it many times more and not start having homicidal tendencies.
What I loved about the movie was the great 1960s Hebrew tunes
our heroine (to the bewilderment of friends and family) bops
along to. There was one band in particular, The High Windows
Trio that was brilliant, but I have yet to find them on disc,
so if there are any Isrealis out there, please
mail me!
- France: I've put Patricia
Kaas here even though I could have put her in Jazz/Blues because
of her cabaret style but she was extremely popular in France
amongst the younger set (I have to thank a french friend who
kindly made me a tape many years ago) and I wanted to demonstrate
that I didn't just mean really exotic stuff, but anything that
was different from the usual Anglo American stuff.
- Patricia Kaas: Elle voulait
jouer le cabaret... My favourite song is souvenirs de l'est
from the mademoiselle chante. . . album. At the time I
thought that the only things that came out of France were crap
- when I heard Mlle Kaas I had to backtrack a little (just a
little, Europop is still mostly crap). Great voice and she dedicates
her album to her maman.
- Germany: I like Germans
singing, they sound so cute.
- Die Arzte: "the
doctors" When I was fourteen, this oh so cool German girl
called Saskia (who wears Chanel Red lipstick at that age? And
gets away with it. . . ) used to listened to this band called
Die Arzte. She also had an all black room with a large window
overlooking the harbour, in white various people had painted
S+M figures and scrawled obscure lyrics and poetry over the walls.
Hell, it was pretty cool at the time! Anyway she translated the
lyrics of one of the songs (Why don't you come ? Warum comst
du nicht? please I've never even tried learning German) and
it was just beautiful. This guy sits on a park bench and thinks
about this girl. A couple of years later a German friend made
a tape for me on my request, but as she got it off a friend's
tape who got it off someone else I had no idea which albums they
came from. The year after, a close friend went to Germany on
exchange and brought me back what she could find. Unfortunately
they were 90s dodgy remixes (like the difference between the
Cure's Mixed Up and the originals) and I am without anything
on CD. Happily my old tape still remains. I suppose they're a
punk/goth band with a sense of humour (but I think most punk
bands do).
- Favourites
Go to album suggestion
Also look out for my essential list of albums,
coming soon to a computer screen in
front of you
(the Old Ce De Shop below)
Home
Record
Collection Ye
Olde Ce De Shoppe Cathy's
Cool Tapes Mail
Me (please)