Simon Says

For 16 April session, here are five interview nuggets (SR himself being the respondent) from that ReynoldsRetro blog (for some reason, #2 and #3 have swapped places but the order isn't crucial here anyway). Plus, we'll have another blind test of not-so-obvious tracks.

Blind test tracklist, 9 April

Clear Creek Missionary Baptist Church Congregation - Prayer/I Love The Lord (excerpt) (1987), available on Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 [CHECKED AND CORRECTED THE DATE OF RECORDING, IT'S 1987 ACTUALLY - NO MAJOR DIFFERENCE; JUST IN CASE YOU MIGHT EVER NEED TO QUOTE IT SOMEWHERE]

David Tuhmanov feat. Mehrdad Badi - Good Night (1975), available on Po volne moej pamyati

Tuljak - Ninur kimbus sitturiga (1995-97), publicly unavailable (but you can get most of their other stuff from here)

Pairoj - Khor Tan Gor Mee Hua Jai (The Beggar Has a Heart), aka The Night Chicago Died, available on Thai Pop Spectacular: 1960s-1980s

The New Year - My Bleeding Wound (1974), available on Personal Space: Electronic Soul 1974-1984 (and on the latest Mojo Magazine freebie)

Geordie - Electric Lady (1973) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_Cnlwo5LY

Have chair will travel

In our next session (9 April), I'll raise some issues from Reynolds' essay on David Toop and play a few more off-the-wall tracks as a blind test. Also, your feedback is welcome in the blog as well as in the session to Karl-Gerhard's entry below (here's the album)

The Bell Tolls for Sacred Cows: AC/DC’s Back in Black (1980)

So many copies, highest-selling this and that, all-time flotsam and jetsam. AC/DC’s renown Back in Black is unjustly hallowed for the milestones it consecrated and the levees it decimated, not justly exposed for its contents. Well, is it not? I have no particular aversion to hard rock, rather an affinity, but nothing of AC/DC’s output has thus far resonated with me. I cannot help but regard the group, especially the album Back in Black, as decidedly mediocre – as neither good nor bad, but as a lame dog that refuses to die. This album stands precisely on an obscure divide, evocations of good emotions on the one hand, bad emotions on the other – a destitute abyss of ambivalence and irrelevance.

I wish my dispassion for the album was a conundrum but it is not. Back in Black has undoubtedly infiltrated a the expansive canon of popular hard-rock albums, alongside the likes of Led Zeppelin IV, Van Halen, Paranoid and even Who’s Next. I find no redemption in an album which provides me no inlet to its composition, concept, lyrics or disposition. The aforementioned milestones are entirely detached from any form of veritable or noteworthy merit. To me, the commercially successful hard rock albums are, in general, exceedingly concerned with appeasing popular, or dull, taste. Therefore I am especially beset by the non-descript character of Back in Black, a collection of simple songs that imitate one another. I cannot discern any semblance of artistic innovation or daring, of true spirit and ambition. The album exists outside its own self – it is suitable as background noise, as a live rendition or as a musical cue during sports matches. My intent listening of the album marred me with an imprint of acute tediousness.

The Young brothers, incorrigible 'riffmongers'. © Thomas Weschler

How does this simplicity manifest itself? On its most basic level it is a function of opposition to complexity. The title track has a whopping three guitar riffs, two pentatonic solos and a bridge lick some ten seconds in duration. Hells Bells has an astonishing two guitar riffs, a bridge and an outro lick and the mandatory pentatonic solo. You Shook Me All Night Long has a dazzling three riffs and a solo. Critics and fans alike laud the apparently exorbitant proficiency of the guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young, whose “riffmongering” somehow lends credence the band’s musical variety, feigned or not. Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone magazine wrote in 2005 about the reissue: “Synergistically soused brothers Angus and Malcolm Young conceived the songs' riffs first, defining each track with adrenalized blues blurts so archetypal that the sheet music ought to be chiseled on stone tablets.” Seen from my vantage point, this is a concise critical remark, not unabashed praise, which was Hoard’s intention. This album is indeed so unsophisticated that it might have well been fashioned by primeval cavemen.

The crux of Back in Black is roaring rhythm, a musical MacGuffin. If it does not appeal to instrumental substance then it sure does to man’s innate militancy. Those hoping for profound political, social or philosophical reflections by way of the lyrics are bound for disappointment, because lines such as “Back in the back / of a Cadillac. / Number one with a bullet / I'm a power pack. / Yes, I'm in a bang / with a gang.” abound throughout this exceptional album. When the extraneous musical layers and components are cast aside, what is left is nothing but a discharge of chest-thumping to arouse and pique the simple mind – a universal and timeless message for the uninitiated. The barbaric howling of vocalist Brian Johnson only serves to assert such a hollow message, something not a message at all.

            It confounds me that something so wearisome has been lavished with such acclaim. I have given AC/DC numerous chances but they have not yet captured me and I doubt they ever will. Naturally it is related to tastes, expectations and standards but it is not that Back in Black is a simple album. ‘Simple’ in form can still yield much emotion, response and content. It is that Back in Black is so simplistic that I feel personally insulted. And I am helpless to regard it as something else than a one-track album for a one-track mind. So much brilliance in dimness.

Visually enhanced radio

...rather than film - not much action, just listening to records and commenting on them. As you do. But what records (or, in some cases, recordings)... not much here you'd hear anywhere else. And for all his taciturn manners, David Toop is one of the most intriguing and thoroughgoing writers on how the constant search for different sounds constitutes one's identity. I'll screen it on the coming Wednesday (and most likely in room 307).

No comments. Next question, please!

So, here are some music interviews for our 26 March session:

Guardian's highlights 2013

Village Voice's little flop catalogue

Lou Reed special (no getting round him here)

And don't mention the war: Mojo vs Siouxsie in one of my all time favourite interviews-gone-wrong

Overrated? Take 2

For 19 March, the reviews/records for discussion are here

Privileged!

A change of plan for 12 March... While our last week's star St. Vincent is merrily sounding "more like herself" now, my ongoing cold is making me sound less and less like myself and more like a creaky old piece of furniture (or maybe that is my true identity, how would I know?) Anyway, I'm unlikely to hold prolonged conversation. However, as I'm still up and about, I might as well do something useful - so, tomorrow, I'll screen the recently previewed Privilege (1967) in full - yes, it's also on YouTube in case you choose to stay home but I've got the DVD and the subtitles. And it's an appropriate introduction to the 'Sacred Cows' theme on which I hope to elaborate with you on 19 March (menu as announced).

PS A reminder - you're welcome to submit your reviews to the blog already now!

Overrated?

For 12 March, some horn shaking and tail twisting from NME blog’s ’Sacred Cows’ series:

The Beatles 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'
Full album


Bob Dylan
(This is an artist profile rather than a record review, but HERE you can test the statement that his songs are better when covered)


Nirvana 'Nevermind'
Full album


Radiohead 'OK Computer'
Full album

Art Brut

There's just bad design and there's outsider art. I'm not much of a metalhead but I sure dig those album covers - right up there with italo disco. Or down there.