Music
Crash even more slowly
This has got to be the only “inspired by Vienna-era Ultravox” pop single in my catalogue of music, from the Swedish band Strasse. All they need is the shit-eating grin of Midge Ure and a triangulated, downplayed drum machine and you’ve got a crossover hit!
Emergency! Paging Dr. Beat!
I finally got around to creating a new mixtape — one that I have actually planned off and on for over a year now. I didn’t exactly put much thought into it, at least not compared to some previous efforts. But it’s still a good representation of disco, italo disco, new wave, industrial, […]
Here Comes A Saturday
For the first Saturday of a new year (and new decade, as well), I give you a song from 3 decades prior, in 1979. Yet it is just as relevant and just as lovely as ever.
Cowboys International — Here Comes A Saturday (1979)
Fin de siècle: a mini mixtape
Here is an ad hoc, interim mixtape that follows very little rhyme or reason — it’s just a collection of what I’ve been listening to lately. Goodbye 2009, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Eddie & Sunshine — People Talk
Bagarre — For Your Pleasure
Nathalie — Mon cœur qui craque
Munich Machine — It’s […]
Disco Future / Disco Past
I’ve been on a big Donna Summer kick lately, paying harder attention to overlooked gems stuck in the middle of her ‘classic’ albums. There was a time in musical history where the vanguard was the mainstream, where the biggest star was also part of the biggest paradigm shift in popular music, and the story […]
Jona Lewie sounds like everything (even Erasure)
Jona Lewie. Most people my age or of any age have no clue who he is, and those who do know him know him for one song, “You Will Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties”. His one or two hit wonder status obfuscates the fact that he churned out several years worth […]
Dumb waiters
Isn’t this album cover pop art at its finest?
And while I wouldn’t say the album’s contents itself are perfect, it has a brilliant production value that is something akin to the Beatles and Spector in the synthpop age. Listen to “Perfect Hostess”, for example:
The Korgis — Perfect Hostess
Junction music
Some of my favorite songs have been used for junction music on BBC, or even sometimes as the theme song.
In the late 1970’s, they occasionally used David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” to announce upcoming programs. The venerable documentary show “Arena” is something else, though, it is simply a work of art, both visually and musically. […]