The Post-Punk Pendulum, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Labels
Post-punk is the best label! Not just because it applies to pretty much every band I like, but because except for those short periods where it’s in style, it’s an easy way to say, “Hey - this doesn’t sound like random band X that I heard in the background while I played Madden 2010/watched Jersey Shore!”
(I include Jersey Shore in the ‘radio is dead’ dig because there’s still that 5% of people 18-34 out there who don’t play video games).
Last one (promise!)
Unfortunately she cancelled her show at the Middle East in Boston (sadface) but my work travel next week in San Francisco happens to coincide with her concert at the Fillmore (yay!).
Love love love this - more pop stars should be playing instruments in their videos:
Hmm.. wonder what album I’m obsessed with right now:
Just played:
- Friendly Fires / Paris (Aeroplane Remix)
- The Futureheads / Hounds of Love (Phones’ Wolves at the Door Remix)
- Holy Ghost / Hold On
- Martin Dupont / Just Because
- Kate Bush / Wuthering Heights
Coming up soon:
- Rinocerose (sorry, I’m too lazy to get the accents right)
- Annie
- Franz Ferdinand
- The Faint
- and…. more Kate Bush (yay!)
Listen live online via wmbr.org (88.1FM in Boston & Cambridge, MA), tonight from 10PM to midnight, Eastern!
Obsessions be DAMNED! We're live and on the air at WMBR.org and 88.1FM!
Listen live online via wmbr.org (88.1FM in Boston & Cambridge, MA), tonight from 10PM to midnight, Eastern!
Choose yer speed: Lo / Med / Hi
Follow along with the live playlist via @deathdisco, Facebook, or MySpace
Tonight: an eclectic mix for our first show of the Spring semester. We’re going to stretch the definition of postpunk to breaking!
Featuring: Nitzer Ebb, Kate Bush, Sparks, Kate Bush, and Kate Bush! (and others, of course)
By the way, who are you and what would you like to hear?
A Post Punk Tumblr: The Top 35 Or So Songs of the 80’s
I was reminded of this list recently. I’ve never been one for top ## lists, as I just don’t organize my likes and loves that way, but I followed it avidly as it was originally posted. It’s a great summary of a time that means a whole lot more to me now then it did when I lived through it.
All you 80’s/90’s born that follow the site, do yourselves a favor and check it out, maybe re-think the whole 80’s retro thing you might’ve been into (or hated) when it was in style last year.
All you 70’s born, please, put away the Journey, and check this out. I promise - there’s some long hair, bad bangs, and denim jeans in here for you.
I think the version of O Superman I’m going to play tonight will anger some (no, it’s not that ‘Boyz Noiz’ version on YouTube that I truly hope is a fake).
For those that want the original, the video was posted previously and this is courtesy of Tristn from postpunk:
The Top 35 Or So Songs of the 80’s
#25: Laurie Anderson - O Superman (For Massenet)
“O Superman” is an eight-minute performance-art piece that became a John Peel-boosted #2 fluke hit single in the UK. The music consists of the syllables “ha ha” repeated over and over, some saxophone and synth flourishes, a sample of birds chirping, and Laurie Anderson’s vocodered monologue. It was a total “novelty” single in the purist sense of the term, and there’s still something very novel and prescient about the song today. Indeed, upon wrapping up his nine-disc boxset of 1981 music, Ian at Musicophilia called the song “perhaps 1981’s most timeless and compelling contribution of all”. (Sidenote: I hope you’re recovering well and feeling better, Ian! This blog and this list owes a lot to you!)
What is it about this song that keeps it interesting today? An often cited example is the new-found resonance of the song’s “planes” following 9/11, but this is not quite a 9/11 song. How does Anderson’s impersonation of a mother on an answering machine still connect with us? You can point to the Information Age—“I’ve got a message for you” and “Okay, who is this really?”—and the fractured voices and masked quotations play into a theme of technological awe and apprehension; Devo and Talking Heads are kindred spirits in this respect. But the stakes here are much higher than mere information overload.
What gives me pause every time I hear this song are the “arms”: “So hold me, Mom, in your long arms, your petrochemical arms, your military arms, in your electronic arms”. Wikipedia cites an author who sees the arms of “O Superman” as an allusion to Massenet’s 1902 Le jongleur de Notre-Dame where a dying character is held by the Virgin Mary. A religious allegory strikes me as dubious, but the crisis for comfort is quite salient. Anderson herself says the song is a “cover” of an 1885 Massenet aria called “O Souverain, o juge, o père”. The original title translates to “O Sovereign, O Judge, O Father” but Anderson swaps “Sovereign” for Superman and “Father” for Mom and Dad. All of this information about Massenet was news to me this morning, but the details cohere nicely with what I find central to the song’s enduring “novelty”; namely, the increasing importance of a private, domestic space (Mom) in a society where technological and military might (Superman) out-runs, supersedes and even threatens our system of checks and balances, safe-guards and fail-safes (Judge):
‘Cause when love is gone, there’s always justice
And when justice is gone, there’s always force
And when force is gone, there’s always MomAs I said above, the anxiety here is not simple technophobia: Think Torture or #Iran, not spam or txtspeak.
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz