gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (The Rev. Thinning Weasel Foliage) (07/18/85)
What is this breathy twerp singing about, anyway? Trying to
sound like Michael Jackson, no doubt. Right? Well...partly.
This is one of those albums that you will most assuredly
*not* like if your idea of subversion in the pop marketplace
is a group of youths with funny haircuts and power tools.
Ditto if your notion of subversion is either Binky Bush or
TSOL (for those who have ears, don't say I didn't warn you).
Living in a geographical area in which Ideological rectitude
is prized above nearly everything else, it is sometimes hard
to actually speak favourably of "things that do not toe the
line." Like the most recent Robert Plant album, for example.
The old guy has cut back on his sexist caterwauling, is
actually taking chances and has made a very good album, but
we ain't supposed to like it. Well, here's the same thing: a
furiously poppy album made by a couple of people who are
"smart enough to know better." The record occupies the same
sort of conceptual niche as Umberto Eco's "Name of the
Rose"...a very clever bit of work which is almost completely
successful at disguising itself as an innocent piece of
genre work.
I have a very old Scrits single from the late seventies (in
a Rough Trade compilation that I bought for Stiff Little
Fingers' "Alternative Ulster" and the Slits. I wound up get-
ting hooked on the Young Marble Giants and SP instead) The
boys could barely play their instruments, but it had a kind
of reggae inflected chaos about it that I really liked,
whether the instruments were in tune or not. The next time
they came round, they had a *hit* single in Britain which
featured Robert Wyatt playing keyboards. The thing swung
back and forth between love and politics with a peculiar
sort of skank, backed by a cheesy rhythm box. Great stuff.
'S a looong way from "The 'Sweetest Girl'" (note the quotes
inside the title. They'rethere on purposes) to Cupid and
Psyche. A few changes in personnel, as well.
Singer/theorist Green has looted two Americans-Fred Maher
(the ex drummer for Nueva York avant-funk/experimental unit
Material) and David Gamson (NYC session person-see "No Turn
on Red" from "Sex, Sweat, and Blood: the New Danceability",
if you can find it), a master at the electronic dancefloor
single. They conned Aretha Franklin's old producer Arif Mar-
din into doing most of the mixing, and even got Robert Quine
to sit in on guitar. You getting the drift of all this?
Lotsa NYC experimentalists and R&B producers working with a
postpunk Brit. A Brit who claims to be a serious post-
Marxist Derridian, at that.
And it holds together marvelously. I guess my only complaint
is that the vocals are occasionally buried unintelligibly in
the mix (which a good Barthes fan *would* do, eh? Gotta
*work* for understanding.....). The lyrics have a fairly
good shot of Elvis Costello-like transpositions in them (Now
I know to love you/is not to know you), but they differ in
refusing to be the focus of things and bask in their own
cleverness. The cassette version features a really nice
toast over their most recent single "The Word Girl" ("Word"
being used in the sacramental sense). It's also good reggae,
though) on the subject of self-determination, and three
remixes of other material-all of which are unaccountably on
the same side as the originals. That seems peculiar. And it
is *furiously* commercial, having spawned three hit singles
before release here. If for no other reason, it's nice to
have recordings like this that make us aware of our own
biases.
A note here: If you're *really* interested in language, pol-
itics, and popular music/culture, go out and find a copy of
"Sound Affects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n
Roll" by Simon Frith (*yes* is *is* Fred Frith's brother who
wrote this!). It's even out in paper. I'll give you dimes to
dollars that everybody in Scritti Politti already *has* read
it.
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Once I was young:once I was smart:now I'm living on the edge of my nerves:-Japan
Gregory Alan Taylor:162 Clark Hall:Cornell University:Ithaca,NY 14850:USA
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