Oh. My. God.

When I sign in to my blog these days, it automatically takes me to a page with a link to Google Analytics, which, naturally, I check. When I signed in this morning to post about Rachel and Napoleon, I checked my blog and found that someone had found it with a search on the topic "percy bysshe shelley jervis [sic] cocker quote." Intrigued, I did some research and discovered that this happened. Well, thank you for your help, random Slovakian! Sorry I did not know this before you did, though!

More Music Video Reviews

Given the fact that I spent my entire high school career procrastinating by watching music videos, it's weird how boring I find most of them now that I have the internet to procrastinate with. This is especially tragic when it's my current favorite band's videos that I'm being bored by. of Montreal has made a couple of really awesome videos - "Heimdelsgate Like a Promethean Curse" is fascinating, and I actually once spent an entire evening repeatedly playing "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" and sobbing - but most of their videos I watch only one time, can barely focus at all, and then never care to see again. So with their most recent video - "L'Age D'or". Just boring.

I don't know what it was about the music videos of my adolescence that made at least some of them far more interesting to me - but I guess I have some idea of what I like about certain videos. For example, I definitely know that I approve of videos with charismatic performers, just as I approve of live performances with charismatic performers. I know Kevin Barnes tries really hard to make an aesthetically interesting performance, but I'm not sure he really has that raw charisma. It's definitely something that's different from musical quality. But, whatever it is, it can really make a video. Let me list some examples:

-Save Ferris: "Come On Eileen" - I am far more likely to find male performers charismatic than female ones, but I think Monique Powell is really appealing in this video - I fell in love with their cover when I was a teenager just because she was so attractive in the video. It's hard to sum up what it is that makes her performance work so well for me, but I think her facial expression is a key part of it. She looks simultaneously so happy and kind of knowing. It's an intriguing combination that makes her much more interesting to watch than most singers. I'm able to stay focused and keep paying attention to the video because I want to see more of her expressions.

-Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Under the Bridge" - I don't even particularly like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on the whole - occasionally I get curious about some of their other songs because I like the video for "Under the Bridge" so much, but none of them has ever worked for me the way this one does. But the reason for that is very clear in this case - in this video, Anthony Kiedis is an attractive man with long, straight hair and no shirt (well, at least for large portions of the video he has no shirt) who occasionally makes rather facetious-looking gestures. He spends the second half of the video running with no shirt on and his long, straight hair blowing in the wind (imagery that is so appealing to me that my best friend has actually recommended a movie to me purely on the basis of its including a scene with similar imagery). I really need say no more.

-David Bowie - "New Killer Star (live)" - Now, of course, as you may have noticed, I do in fact particularly like David Bowie. What's more, more or less everyone I know finds Bowie to be a particularly charismatic and attractive performer. It's therefore slightly embarrassing to me that I never find the younger Bowie particularly attractive, unlike everyone else and despite the way that I love his music. Somehow, though, I get over this problem with the older Bowie. Maybe it's because this 2003 Reality Tour was the only time I ever saw Bowie live myself. I usually really don't enjoy the kinds of concerts where you have to sit all that much (I feel like the point of live music is to get really into the music and dance around to it), but Bowie's concert was an exception. Just because he was that good a performer, that he was still inspiring even when he was tiny.

-Pulp - "His N Hers (live)" - When last I wanted to post this on my blog, I couldn't find it anywhere - now there are actually two versions up on youTube! This one, though cut short, is still worth watching, because, well, it's amazing, but the one I linked to first is the full song and is possibly the paradigmatic example of what artists who want to please me should be doing. The wasp bit! The way he ends the wasp bit! I have to be honest and admit that it's hard to pick apart how much it's true that what Jarvis Cocker does is perfect for my tastes from how much it simply is that Jarvis Cocker was the formative influence on my performance aesthetic, but man. I am not kidding when I say this is what all artists who want me to actually watch their videos should be doing! That little hand wave - "anyway, I'm getting away from the subject here." How do you even come up with such genius?

"Black Magic" by Jarvis Cocker

I woke up in the morning
and all the bells were ringing
My eyes could see the glory
Baby

Could hear the song they're singing
You only get to see the light
just one time in your life
Oh, black magic
that blows your mind away
and takes you somewhere that you wanna stay
You only get to stay one day
Oh, that cold black magic

Is there anything more wretched
than to just have caught one sight?
The eyes that saw the glory have been
have been blinded by the light

And it's the true believers that crash and burn
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna learn
Black magic
that blows your mind away
and takes you somewhere that you wanna stay
Oh, you only get to stay one day
Oh, that cold black magic
Ow

We can't escape; we're born to die
But I'm gonna give it a real good try
because nothing comes close and nothing can compare
to black magic
Yeah yeah yeah

Black magic
Yeah yeah yeah

Really Depressed Schizophrenia

Also, this is the best thing ever. I saw that it was Jarvis Cocker interviewing David Bowie and was like, this is going to be the best thing ever! And then it turned out to be all about cigarettes and I was like, meh. But then I read it and it turned out to be the best thing ever after all! Probably because when you get Jarvis and Bowie together in a room, they are going to be talking about the Jarvis and Bowie things. Even cigarettes cannot stop them!

I should have faith in my boys.

Nothing at All to Do with God

I am not sure what is a more bizarre thing - that there exists a genre of Germanic-language literature focused on people getting sick in Italy, or that it is a completely amazing genre! Seriously, if you told me, here is a book originally written in Swedish or Frisian about someone getting sick in Italy, I would be like, "Oh, wow, I have to read that!"

Halcyon Days of My Youth

Just watched some Britpop videos from Oasis, Blur, and Pulp. Oddly enough, although the only one of those bands from which I never bought an album is Oasis, it was actually Oasis that first got me into contemporary pop back in high school - I had recently read an article in Newsweek about how they were copying the Beatles, which intrigued me, and then, whilst flipping through channels on the TV, I ran into the "Wonderwall" video on VH1, which did look as though it was copying the Beatles. I liked it enough to continue watching music videos, eventually wound up seeing the "Common People" video on the Canadian music video channel a year or two later, and the rest is history.

Anyway, it's funny to watch a bunch of different videos from the different bands and compare. The Gallagher brothers tend to look as though they're copying the Beatles. Damon Albarn has a tendency to look completely ridiculous (I mean, clearly intentionally so, but still - maybe it's a preview of the aesthetic of something like "Clint Eastwood"?). And Jarvis. . . it's hard to explain, but regardless of what he's doing, he just seems to be doing it with vast quantities of charisma. Watching the "Common People" video again, I can still remember the feeling of seeing him for the first time and falling in love almost immediately. He's just as ridiculous as Damon, if not more so, but he takes it to another level. It's like the opposite of bathos - what is the opposite of bathos? And I still think that "This Is Hardcore" is a fabulous video. Jarvis is still awesome, but in a pretty different way.

Brief Comments on Jarvis Cocker

It is not the case that I have never been attracted to a man with a beard. That having been said, this is NOT a good fashion choice, Jarvis!

Apparently, Jarvis also recently did a lecture on song lyrics: notes here. It doesn't dovetail neatly with my own musings on this topic (the things we agree on are more or less commonplace), but the examples of bad song lyrics are funny. And I really liked this quotation from some guy called Alan Watts: "The task and delight of poetry is to say what cannot be said, to eff the ineffable, and to unscrew the inscrutable."

Bah-Bah-Bah BAH BAH

Last night, I saw a friend of mine playing keyboards in a band. I've never seen a rock performance by any of my friends before; it was fun. For one song, my friend basically got to play a waltz by Bach (I think he said), so that was one of the most enjoyable.

I have to admit, I really like synths, and I'm glad that when I went to see this performance from a friend of mine, he happenened to play the keyboards. Sometimes, I have trouble figuring out exactly what the guitar part is in a song, but I'm usually able to recognize the synth part really easily. Of course, the part of any song that catches my attention the most tends to be the vocals (hence my fondness for pop music over classical), but, next to that, the synths make a big difference for me.

Coincidentally, after my friend's band played, the venue happened to play "Common People." It was extremely exciting for me; "Common People," after all, is the first contemporary song I ever really fell in love with, way back in eleventh grade. Furthermore, I would say that Candida Doyle's synth playing is one of the key elements of Pulp's style (and something I really miss on Jarvis's solo release). Pulp went through different stages and never only performed one style of song. Candida was good throughout all of this, but I have to say that the swirly synth sound (that's how I think of it) that she produces on "Common People" and similar tracks (the short, poppy, disco-y 90s Pulp tracks) seems to be fundamental to my idea of Pulp. When I think of what makes Pulp Pulp, next to Jarvis's singing, it's Candida's swirly synths.



Bonus Completely Unrelated Pulp Video:



Everyone should watch the spoken word version of "Babies!" Even though it is completely unrelated!