I think I first heard Gary Jules' cover of "Mad World" in the movie Donny Darko, and was convinced that R.E.M. or Michael Stype were responsible for this rather pleasant interpretation of the song. I still think the vocals are incredibly typical of Stype, but the effect was even bigger and more confusing before understanding that it actually wasn't Stype. (I couldn't find anything on the internet when searching for "mad world stype".)
My father and I spent an evening trying to convince my younger brother of 12 years that jazz once was what punk came to be many years later: a combination of new sonic landscapes and a "FUCK YOU" attitude.
Iggy Pop seems to have made that connection. This is his and Francois Hardy's interpretation of jazz classic "I'll be seeing you".
The song was originally written for a musical, but came to a wider audience through Bing Crosby in 1944. It can be downloaded here, but isn't available on YouTube. Instead, I give you Billy Holiday.
The Amen Break has been sampled more than 400 times since the 80's, mostly in hip-hop, jungle and drum & bass. You may have hummed, danced or even rapped to it thousands of times, but neither the drummer or composer ever got a dime.
Could be that this a good thing. Sharing is a powerful force and a prerequisite for innovation.
PS Thanks, Eyvind.
PPS Even though I agree with the arguments in this film, I still think end consumers should pay for the music they consume.
It's taken a while for me to write this post. Partly, I've been busy. But mostly, I think it has to do with the emotions I associate with growing up in Manila and some of the friends I had at the time.
When I came to the International School of Manila (ISM) as a 14 year old I was very into music, and very much into pop. I liked some alternative pop, but I wasn't a big fan of rock. In fact, I remember how some "bad boys" hanging around a juke box with torn jeans jackets (with Rolling Stones markings) had hassled me in Geneva before leaving for Manila. (I think they stared at me when I went in to a café to buy gum.) Obviously, rock was for bad people.
At ISM, I quickly became friends with Jerome, a Dutch chap in my home room who also shared a few of my classes. At ISM (and many other schools I attended), your identity was to a certain extent based upon where you came from. Jerome's gang was made up of a few Germans, two Norwegians, one Australian, a few Filipinos and a hand full of Americans. In this gang there was a continuous battle between the Europeans and the Americans about politics, cars, food, history and - music.
I hardly need to point out that European music was better than American music...
I realize now that Jerome was into quite advanced music for his (our) age. Apart from introducing me to the Smiths and the Cult I remember him playing Anne Clark:
Jerome also shared my interest for lyrics and we could spend a lot of time (mostly during our Economics class) discussing the angst in Morrissey's lyrics or imagery in Bono's. I may have missed out on the exact explanation behind the kinked demand curve but excelled att text analysis... Also, we thought we were very cool.
One big step I took holding Jeromes hand was towards guitars. U2 and the Cult were big steps, and when the Cult released their third album Electric they moved from alternative rock to more 70's inspired hard rock, a step I initially was uncomfortable with. But the lyrics helped me find my footing and soon I was singing along to Peace Dog and Lil' Devil.
I haven't met Jerome since 1988. I wonder if he still listens to music. I do, partly thanks to him.
Listening to the radio last night I all of a sudden found myself singing along to a song I couldn't remember ever having heard, even though I knew parts of the lyrics by heart.
Turns out the song was a hit by An Emotional Fish - "Celebrate".
Great song by a band that either couldn't handle living in the shadow of U2, or were set up in some kind of a scandal with the BBC - my googling didn't bring much clarity.
When I get home I'm going to have to dig through my old singles and see what worms I find.
The most common comment I got as a DJ was "You suck. Can't you play something that we can dance to?".
The fact that the dance floor often was full of moving bodies didn't seem to influence the overall picture; I sucked.
Most of the time I didn't mind. Obviously, the people who enjoyed the music were too busy dancing to chat with me. And anyway, life isn't a popularity contest. At least that's what I try to convince myself.
Appart from paying my bills while I "studied" at university, being a DJ gave me time to listen to a lot of music, and also gave me a legitimate reason to buy music. (We actually payed for music back then. In fact, I still do.)
Most of the clubs I played at had a more or less explicit alternative flavour, which made life easy for me. But I still needed to figure out what worked and what didn't. And I also needed to weave in 70's disco and 80's pop and even (this hurts) 90's euro-techno.
As I became more and more experienced I learned I few tricks:
Don't try to fill the floor early in the evening with the latest hits unless you're prepared to use them again.
Always have one long, mainstream song prepared incase you need to go to the bathroom.
The right choice of songs is more important than perfect mixing.
It's OK to loose one third of the floor when you switch genre - just make sure you stick to that genre for at least three more songs and you'll be fine.
The best floorfiller, early on in the evening in a club with lot's of girls (ladies?) at the bar: Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams".
One interesting reflection is that most of the DJ's I hung out with at the time played various types of music as DJ's, but all hade similar tastes off the dance floor. We played Black Box ("Ride on time") on the dance floor, but listened to the Pixies at our after parties.... In other words, we were prostitutes.
Ultimatly though, being a DJ just gave me a reason to be a huge prick! I still remember telling one of my best friend's sisters that she couldn't choose what music to dance to at her own party. Since I got payed to play music, I new what was right, and what was wrong, and she could go to hell.
I used to be quite the ornithologist and could go off for walks with close friend J. to enjoy nature, silence and friendship.
In Swedish, the Kite is called "glada" which is near to the Swedish word "glad": happy. Since we are such crazy and unpredictable funny guys, we would start singing "Shiny happy people" every time we saw a Kite.
After helping launch the indie music movement and putting out some 4 or 5 incredible albums, R.E.M. lost some (all?) of their initial momentum but developed an uncanny talent for creating songs that were so brilliantly likable that they could make me cry.
Bur after having heard the song 3 times I would be bored, and after three more I needed to cry again.
After spending some time with Radiohead's "The King of Limbs" I realize that they are the exact opposite of the R.E.M. of today. It takes time to understand and appreciate their music - but it lasts.
In fact, the first single, "Lotus Flower", has grown so much on me that I can't even begin to understand how I didn't come to love it from the start.
I wonder what happened, Michelle! Where did you go?
By coincidence, one band that was much more interesting live than on record is Eggstone. And they had an unproportionally large fanbase in Japan. Did you research that, Michelle?
