Since I’m now communicating exclusively via the medium of pop music, I can legitimise with a high-falutin’ conceptual scaffold the posting of brilliant songs like this. (High-falutin’ conceptual scaffold precis: art, language, self-expression, reason, high-falutin’ conceptual scaffolds, wotnot – they’re all discredited. Feelings and pop music are the only tenets of truth, The Delightenment, self-something-or-other, and wotnot.) I heard a snatch of it on Radio 1 last night during a 2manydjs (or however they punctuate themselves these days) mix of cut-up intros on Rob da Bank’s show. (Yes, contrary to previous vicious attacks, I do listen to Radio 1 – but only at night and only Nihal’s Asian music show, Rob da Bank, and Annie Mac if she does DJing and not talking.) I really enjoyed the mix for half an hour and then I started posting Ritalin tablets into my stereo which it gobbled up insatiably on its little CD drawer tongue. But still, the mix had some Neil Young in it and it’s not often that gets sneaked past the Radio 1 despots. And some Sophie B. Hawkins too (”forever and ever and eveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . r!’). But they really ought to have stopped dicking around with the cut-up tools when they got to En Vogue’s Don’t Let Go.

Best. R&B. Song. Ever. (Or at least from the past 20 years in which R&B has come to be defined as it now is.)

I once went to the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. It wasn’t as good as this. That’s cuz Vincent was doing painting and not pop music. A fact he found intolerable; famously cutting his ear off to cease the torment of listening to spiteful Gauguin writing R&B classics on his lute whilst silly Vincent stood in a field daubing some more crows over yet another swirly sky. Silly Vinny.

I been caught speeding. Doing 37mph on a road that is classified as 30mph zone. I didn’t classify it as such. It int nat’ral. And as such I don’t recognise it as a valid taxonomy. Not valid enough to justify a £60 fine anyway.

Also: I’m agin laws.

Evidently I considered 37mph to be a reasonable speed to be travelling down that road at at that particular time given the specfics of the situation. Also: I could appraise those bestest cuz I was driving the car and not sitting in the back of a transit van with a camera aimed at a traipse of asphalt while I talked in malapropism and witless feckless idiocy about things which I’m uninformed and read in The Sun and desire only to continuously fool myself that I’m not living an illusion and hope that my obesity and stupidity kills me with enough haste that I don’t lay on my deathbed like Ivan Illyich. Seriously. Likewise I have no truck with a law which doesn’t take into consideration specifics and blankets every moment of everybody’s lives with the same universal. I shall take no part in that. It’s an infringement of me human rights. And it’ll only lead to people becoming disillusioned and disconnected from each other and society and will result in more vandalised bus shelters and, you know, a probably a bloody great CREDIT CRUNCH!

It’s ok though. I intend to plead mitigating circumstances like the following: I was in pursuit of magic, thus aribirariness and quotidianess and jobsworthness are anathema to me and in fact directly deleterious to the spiritual and emotional sustenance of my being. Also: it was my duty to disregard and indeed willingly flout such a law because of the tenets of civil disobedience, which, since you saps need laws to measure your actions against, is the only maifesto worth abiding by. And too: the law is wrong!!  It oughtn’t be a 30mph zone. When I drove down that road at 30mph people threatened me by shaking their fists and copies of The Sun at me. Such a law is holding people up and preventing them getting to work quickly enough to stand in the breech of the onslaught of the BBC’s CREDIT CRUNCH!! See what a circular conundrum cul-de-sac of meaninglessness you’ve led us into. Again. And since the very point of monitoring speeding is just to circulate money and give The Stupid jobs and make use of technology that is only made in order to circulate money, it is pretty contrary and self-defeating to disallow other people from getting to work by trapping them with the fruits of their own souless silicon labour. And, oh yeah: I answer to higher laws. One’s that are enforced by my freewill and duty to my self and society and nature and magic; ones that are unencumbered by science and cameras and faux-objectivity and stupided racists reading The Sun in the back of police vans getting a thrill out of monitoring traffic at the behest of something which they speciously reason is goodness or rightness or something nebulous and spurious like that.

I shall address all of these issues and more I can’t be bothered to write about here. And then I shall pay the fine.

*Blender magazine.

So. After a Stereogum post entitled ‘Is “Queen of the Supermarket” the worst Springsteen song ever?’  I give you the definitive objective answer: I Dunno. But it did make me snicker in an appropriately guileless way. It’s funny!! I think I can file it under my old chestnut Things I Like The Idea Of Better Than The Thing Itself. I’m sure there is the kernel of an interesting idea (or just good, since the idea of an interesting idea has connotations of its unknowing euphemistic usage in art as ‘a paucity of idea, but I think I ought to like the idea, since there is nothing else to like but I wish not to disclose to myself or anyone else that art is an irrelevant sham, lest I reveal myself and them to be meaningless stupid matter engaged in a ridiculous charade and desperate grope for meaning and validation’, and thus has been discredited around here) in there about The American Dream, facades, appearances, capitalism, emotional repression, everyday suppression, and, you know, the specfics of universal quotidian magic and wotnot. But, you know: not like this! Bruce has even been moved to justify it, uh, I mean, explain it in here. Perhaps he protests too much. It still sounds like a Springsteen parody, and it’s only a few word changes away from being a bona fide comedy song. I might do that later, but in the meantime, these are the actual lyrics: 

There’s a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you’ve longed for is at your fingertips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air
At the end of each working day she’s waiting there

I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
As the evening sky turns blue
A dream awaits in aisle number two

With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they’re in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secret remains hers
As she bags the groceries her eyes so bored
And sure she’s unobserved

I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
There’s nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away
And I drift away

Items from my ___
At night I pray for the strength to tell her
When I love I love I love I love her so
Take my place in the check-out line
For one moment her eyes meet mine
I’m lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted up

I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
Though her company cap covers her hair
Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there
The beauty waiting there

I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket

As I lift my groceries in to my car
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart

I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket
I’m in love with the Queen of the Supermarket

Good, huh?!

‘As the evening sky turns blue/A dream awaits in aisle number two’. Yeah, yeah, I can see what you’re doing there, Bruce. But, really? And it get’s even betterer with the music. And if you listen till the end you can hear the chimes of a checkout scanner’s beeps! Brilliant! Oh the line between the absurd and the profound is so very fickle and fine. If you listen through then you’ll hear too a ludicrously incongruous and unconvincing deployment of ‘fucking’ (or ‘furking’ as Bruce intones it, perhaps to make it sound a bit like gherkin). It’s the sound of a man groping in the dark, if you will, in the earnestness aisle and clinging hopefully to a box which he believes contains the ingredients requisite to feeding and sustaining an earthy song of SERIOUS emotional bombast and integrity and import and wotnot, but is in fact nothing but a box of Emoticos – “New Emoticos – for when there’s no time in the middle-eight to have proper emotional nutrition – snack on a reconstituted flavourless new Emotico! …As seen on TV! (Nourishment and sustenance not included)”. Does that mean ‘Queen of the Supermarket’ is overflowing with some sort of brilliant conceptual allegorical sublimity like the shelves down Wal-Mart are? Nope, that’s a discredited idea, I’m afraid. 

That video up there isn’t official, lest anyone doubt it. Someone did it on YouTube. I could probabaly file that in Things I Like The Idea Of Better Than The Thing Itself too, though it’s pretty funny. 

I’m with Bruce on the checkout girl thing and the thing about the specifics of universal quotidian magic though. Ah, the beauty and nobility of the fragile and precious human spirit crushed and homogenised and flatlined by the malversation and mudanity of – and oh the irony - an economic system that promises abundance but subjugates the will and hope of so much finery and magic to furnish profits for the rich and stupid and ugly to skim off at the behest of nought but the stupidity and the… Oh, nevermind…

Don’t talk; I will listen.

I’ve always loved that idea. Yeah, yeah, it’s a song about alcoholism and abusive relationships and other stuff that I don’t love very much. At all. But that line without that context. Or in a different context. Like the context of poetry, or magic, or beauty, or laughter, or love, or anything  intangibly ineffably extant. Like pop music or something. In the context of ‘There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light get’s in’.  You know, I think I’ll now denounce language as a dead artform. Or maybe not right now since I’m typing in it, and using it to communicate something about an utterance. I didn’t think this through… But what the utterance communicates is between the words. It’s the shapeless space around them and their meaning that is created by their presence. Or something.

Ok, I think, basically, like, what I mean is that language is as dead as visual art. And that it’s irrelevant. And, you know, I for one intend to cease using it. At least for a while. The important bit is the lacuna; the space between, the divine and the quasi-supernatural. I shall express myself purely through pop music.

Ahem, I need to caesura all this thinking:

Fernhill – Fi-Wela

I was going to write a post on great pop songs that are wordless. Or pop songs where the best bits are wordless. Or something like that. But there’d be a idiotic irony in writing about that. It’s the kind of irrelevant, conceited, self-important idea trussed up in fripperous language as a breakthrough grasp towards the sublime enlightenment of mankind that they teach in art schools. Or they did when I was in them anyway. Oh yeah, visual art – or all art really! – is a dead artform. But everyone knows that now. But they don’t know – because by it’s very nature it can’t be known – is that the idea of the artform is dead. And all other ideas. And non sequiturs too. Oh oh. See where language is leading us? A conceptual cul-de-sac conundrum. And that sounds aa lot like a new art movement. The conceptual cul-de-sac conundrumists. A movement of unprecedended influence on the high streets of Britain in these times of mass daytime tv-watching, state-sponsored and BBC-patronised (ahem) CREDIT CRUUUUUNCH!!!

But anyway. Those things are all dead because there are better things. Too much expression, cognition, intellectualisation, and wotnot. Not enough magic. For the next indefinate period of time starting when I say so – oh, look at how bafflingly difficult this is! – I shall not be communicating. Or I will be, but just not in a self-conscious way. It’ll be like the animals do. But with pop music. Which they don’t understand. Apparently.

That paragraph was as pointless as an art school, since I ought only to communicate and not pre-emptively flag-up communication as communication. That’s the kind of charmless snark that even in these days of CATASTROPHE people have got jobs teaching. Oh yeah, teaching’s dead too. As an idea and an actual happening. It’s cuz of the CREDIT CRUUUUNCH!! Or cuz it’s irrelevant to the kids, man.

Oh dear. I’m not sure where the irony ends in this stuff I write and where the genius begins. But the sincerity and lucent and decisive brilliance definately starts when I drop this MP3. I’ll post this again because it’s got a the best wordless coda ever. Subjective fact, back reference watchers. In fact it’s the best pop song ever, even though the words are a bit flimsy. (Or just true and assimilated with time into our universal consciousness so much that they’re not even words anymore, just something we know to be veracious and essential, and wotnot. Or something a bit like what I just wrote, but different and without words and a better coda and more magic and stuff that’d be called ’great’ if it was in an Innocent food commercial.). And that is why it is the perfect  theme tune to The New Delightenment. Go figure. Or don’t. Listen. Or don’t. Just feel – it and everything; or be – it and you and us; or wotnot. I’ll also post it cuz I feel like it and that’s the best reason there is. The only reason there is. I don’t think; therefore I am. As I believe is the edict that is carved with an indomitable scythe into the heart of all living things. Not in language though. Or actually carved in a living thing’s heart. Those would both be terribly ironic. Tragic even. In a proper sense of the word. Not the way it’s malapropped around these  days. And anyway irony probably shouldn’t exist anymore in this Delightenment of mine. And I think tragedy is a dead art form, so to speak. 

Because I want  to. That’s the reasoning that I believe was expertly non-communicated in Billie Piper’s 1998 pop musical smash that was entitled ‘Because We Want To’ back when language was relevant. And if none of that makes sense then you are literally stupid. Or I am. And even this won’t:

Ladyhawke – Love Don’t Live Here

Righto, cuz of the machinations of WordPress / MySpace / AOL / Americans / capitalism / wotnot, I can’t post what I was going to. Even a damn good thrashing hasn’t helped. But when I can be bothered I’ll likely beat the system via some arcane bodgery, wotnot, black magic, and making up some betterer HTML code. It’s not a big deal because it gives me a chance to use the mean time to be thankful that I don’t need to daily hold up a lassitude-shaped mirror to my good taste and cleverness and understanding of the culturally-encoded personal significance of stuff and wotnot. Still, that aside, it’s a bit of shame, I suppose.

Oh yeah, VV Brown! I’d forgotten about her, until I saw her in last weekend’s Observer in a sounds of 2009 feature or something like that. When you’ve your faculties tuned into the etherworld of talent like I appear to sometimes have, it’s easy to forget about someone or a certain style of shoe until the real world catches up six months later and hypes them up like they’re a whopping great credit crunch that can be whipped up into a mass hysteria by the droids down the BBC.

But I digress. As even the BBC are probably now aware, VV is about the realest deal it’s possible to be in pop music. Which is about as real as is. Or it’s magic or something. Either way it’s terrific. I’d write something clever and insightful, but it’d only pale in this company. You want everything a pop star should be? All in one implausibly beautiful person? You want inventive, vital, effervescent songs? Exuberant charisma, charm, personality? Wit, spirit, zany fashions and a silly hairdo made cool? Gushing appraisals and future of pop assertions? Ok then:

VV Brown – Quick Fix

www.myspace.com/vvbrown

Yuh huh.

A song from her latest record, which is merely really good. As opposed to her first two which are the best records of the Anthropocene. And probably ever.

That is all.

www.kathleenedwards.com

In a breakthrough twist on my normal theme, here’s an idea I don’t much like, but a delivery I quite do. Tim Minchin. Ah, the comedy song.  Done by an Aussie. Oh, oh. A crass and boorish Fosters-fuelled gang-bang in the back of a ute? No, perplexingly not. And not just because it’s only the crass and boorish English who drink Fosters. But wouldn’t it just be that if the protagonist wasn’t kohled up and a bit backcombed and barefoot? Nope, not even then. Though those things differentiate him from the spitting, tyre- and sheep- and Aboriginal-kicking Aussie bloke, which can only be a good thing. And necessary since laughter needs sympathy. 

But, it’s still better when he’s not ostensibly doing a song:

Yes, yes, as well as being a graticule to coordinate the perpetual prodding of a virtual carbuncle, Insidious Lassitude is a music blog. Ergo, at this time of year I can preen narcissistic with all the other hipsters and draw up lists of self-validation. Boring! But here’s one just below this obligatory bit of exordium writing that fills in the space between the cat and the actual content of the post. It’s some songs, from some records that were released this year. I made a mix-record out of it, with a proper running order and due consideration to the tracks segues. Like John Cusack tells us to in the narrator bits of High Fidelity which are intoned a bit like this bit of writing. So, they’re not necessarily the bestest tracks of the year, just some good uns that fit together in a way that agreeably connotes something or other. I’ll give record of the year to Ladyhawke, because I like it. And, because I’m populist and can’t be bothered to think very long about it, I’ll give single of the year to the Ting Tings for that shouty THAT’S NOT MY NAME number. I could doubtless think of something obscure, but that’d be silly since I’m choosing a pop single. Though choosing the Ting Tings post-summer 08 is quite self-consciously anti-hipster and – as previously discussed - I like the idea better than the actual music, which is quite a hipster sort of ethos. Oh, how confusing. Nevermind. I’ll give best use of the TopShop dressing-up box to that Ting Ting lassie with all the chutzpah, because like all people with opinions I’m essentially shallow and in thrall to simpler and more sparkly things and use music merely as trope to beat people and fawn at myself in the mirror with. And here are the songs!

Mia Riddle – Hurricane

Ani DiFranco – Alla This

Jenny Lewis – Jack Killed Mom

Laura Marling – Night Terror

Nick Cave – Jesus Of The Moon

Bob Dylan – Born In Time

Thea Gilmore – Icarus Wind

Chatham County Line – Birmingham Jail

Little Boots – Mathematics

Martha Wainwright – Comin Tonight

Kanye West – Love Lockdown

Ryan Adams – Crossed Out Name

Kathleen Edwards – Scared At Night

Ladyhawke – Love Don’t Live Here

Whiskeytown – Wither, I’m A Flower

Yes, yes, Ryan Adams is in there twice which contravenes the entirely arbitrary unspoken rule of the hipster list. I was, like, being ironic, or, like, subverting the idea of the hipster list, man. First rule of hipster lists is we don’t talk about hipster lists. Else they’re not hip. If the BBC aspired to this ideal then there wouldn’t be a credit crunch. Or in fact any news. And people would be cleverer. And paradoxically they might be better informed of the idea and more inclined to flaneur down there and overthrow Alagiah and his supercillious ludo buddies. Oh, how confusing. And also, the gawps down at television centre might dress better too, and manipulate their brains into engaging with their true nature rather than than specious and stupided duplicity.  But I digress. Yes, Magick was the best song on Ryan’s new record by a zillion or so miles and was the only one which he was really convincing in. But: I’m terribly fond of solipcism, and, you know, mawk, and it’s curiously piquant to hear another solipicist fretting about the universe. But I like the idea of it better. See alse my inclusion of Kanye West. I like the mythology and rhetoric that promulgated Kanye’s record as hip hop’s Blood on the Tracks - or his Heartbreaker, since we’re discussing Ryan Adams again. But, you know, I also like the actual song. I think. And if I think I like it, therefore I do. I think. Anyway, I have an opinion, and that’s all that matters. That is all!

For the love of life. This is this man’s life. His actual existence. Way to go, as I believe they say in America. Viva la Vida!

To save you the trouble of watching it, it’s a ‘musical analysis’ of the Coldplay/Satriani fight. I’d guess that Satriani would win an actual fisticuffs fight with Chris Martin, but they may just stand around mewling at each other, Martin making flouncy hand gestures and emoting bouncily and Satriani using facial expressions that have absolutely no relevance to the emotional context of the situation. But they’re a couple of strutting alleycats compared to that square up there in the video. Personal abuse is terribly unbecoming, but I’m bored. I have, after all, just watched that video. Boredom follows, as REM might’ve been moved to sing had they had YouTube at their fingertips during the recording of Automatic for the People. Or had they taken music classes with him up there. But they didn’t. REM made a record instead. As we say in England: Those who can’t, teach. For a simlar reason I can’t be bothered to write in this blog very often. It’s a bit like when I had to sit in PhD art classes. Things – thoughts! – would go through my mind, and then I’d let go of them and let some more happen. I didn’t feel the need to bring them up and vomit them into the discussion however slight, tangential or self-indulgent they were. When you’re a kid you do art in art classes. When you’re a grown up you do talking about it. Though you do learn how stupid clever people are. It’s unbecoming to keep blathering on about things in a blog. When I’d sit in those PhD classes the vocodered chorus refrain from a Britney Spears song would Jezzball around my head like the specious halitosised arguments of the loathsome PhD squares would Jezzball around the soporific atmosphere of the fusty classroom. That robotic refrain would grind ‘DOOO SOMETHIN’!!’ She had a mental breakdown, but at least she didn’t have to sit in any PhD classes and discuss what Theodor Adorno would make of the bleeding obvious. Or analyse a mental breakdown; because she was living it, man. I always needed pop music when I left that classroom. It was like an antidote. But now the twain have met and been mediated by the inanity of YouTube. One thing leads to another. Progress follows. 

Here he goes. Let’s see if our ears can be validated. If they can’t then we’re really in trouble because we shan’t be able  to believe anything we think we’ve ever heard before. As a corollary to this our entire existence will be questioned. Oh God, I mean, him up there, deliver me some truth. I wonder what he has to say. I’ll digest it so we don’t have to watch it again.

“Sound kinda familar to the Coldplay tune maybe?”

No it sounds similar. I’ve no idea if it’s familar to Viva la Vida. Why don’t you ask it. Good look getting an answer from it. Lordy, you Americans and your English language.

“That is actually the concept of diatonic chord substitution…”

Yuh huh. So it’s the same song, yeah?

“I’m gonna play you through the two chord progressions…”

Yeah, no need, they’re on the records. I heard them with my ears… Oh you’re going to do it anyway… Yeah those are, you know, very similar to the ones I heard on the records that I just mentioned… in fact they’re, you know, the same as those one’s I think!

“I guess overall…  the way I look at it … we’ve melody, rhythm, and harmony”

Oh the perspicacity.

“…  and these songs are… they’re very, similar… they’re …the same…”

Yes, that’s what I thought when I listened to them with my ears. Well it’s good to know I don’t have to question the veracity of my perception of existence. Phew. Science, eh? I wasn’t questioning it, and then science made me question it, and now science has solved that question that I didn’t have. Hurray!

“Coldplay has a vocal melody and Satriani has created an instrumental out of this… so, uh, those are different”

No, really? I hadn’t picked that up with my ears. It’s a good job you had scientific apparatus to determine that. Well, that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons. What can this mean for humanity?

“I hope you got something out of it”

Science has told me I’m really here and by extension I think I can probably not have a mental breakdown. But I think you probably should have one.

“I’m doing a second follow-up video”

No, no you’re not. You’re doing a second video. It’s a follow-up video. It’s the first follow up video.

“I didn’t see any similarity. I realised afterwards that there is… uh, that the the relevancy is between the Coldplay verse and the Joe Satriani chorus, so, uh, I guess I was rushed and didn’t pay attention to that”

Yes you did see a similarity. You said they were ‘very similar’ and ‘the same’. You didn’t realise which parts of the songs we were comparing? You should’ve used your ears, like I did. You didn’t pay attention to what you were discussing? Oh that’s ok. It’s probably not relevant. It’s definately not relevant in PhD discussions.

“I’ve got a lot of people asking me where I went to school”

I refer you to your previous quote for a hint to why they might be asking this. Oh, it’s too subtle for you. Right, it’s because you’re an idiot and you can barely construct sentences in a way that makes sense to people who can.

“I’ve never done anything else in my life except play guitar for a living”

No, really?

“They’re very similar which is why they sound so, you know, so similar to one another”

No, really?

“I hope I can give you guys something more to think about”

I hope so too. That nonsense about the Coldplay song was boring. I’m glad you’ve got something else brewing in your brain. Let’s have it. I hope it’s about monkeys or something. Oh, I see: you’re finishing up but using the future tense to talk about the past. Cosmic. So what you mean is you hope you have given us something more to think about? No. No, you haven’t. Oh hang on, I’m thinking about making something to eat. Yes, you have. Well done. I’m thinking about more than that rubbish about Coldplay.

“Send me comments”

No, really? I’m not sure you’ll like them…

*****

That was boring. Now for the pop music antidote! Am I just as bad as him up there because I like the idea of the Ting Tings better than the actuality? I like the idea of the duo, the rough and vital simplicity, the DIY aesthetic of their artwork, the immediacy of their songs, the energy, the colour, the self-awreness, her wacky fashion sense, her shouty voice, her rudimentary guitar playing, her… I do, I like it all. I even like the tunes. But I like the idea of it more. Oh God, I think I’m having a mental breakdown thinking about it. I ought to do some analysis and discussion to see if I am. Where’s my metronome? The very utterance of which is of course quantifiably indicative of actual madness - using a metronome to determine and measure and validate the efficacy of pop music or the brain.

You see that? Quick get a metronome on it before it gets away into the ether! Embedding has been ‘disabled by request’. Not by my request. I’d guess not by that perpertually-sunglassed drummer and that loopy girl. I don’t know what the point in disabling it would be. Especially since it would be antithetical to their quasi-renegade image and their internet-phenomenon-ness. I think it was probably disabled by Sony BMI’s request. Those squares. Remember the old adage: Those who can’t, disable. Is there a tasteless joke in there? Or is it already a tasteless joke? Let’s analyse it and discuss it to see! Or… pop music! (Of course it’s ‘Shut Up and Let Me Go’. Which is what I was thinking watching that square up there. And is possibly what anybody still reading this post is thinking too. ['Normal quality' is rubbish; 'High quality' is ok. And there we have everything in a nutshell.])