Oh yeah, one more to make sure the boom-boom room is working!

Guess this hardly goes without saying... but just saw "Jamiriquois" on channel 4 special. Frenetic rather than exciting, busy rather than funky, mannerist rather than stylish. and that ridiculous vocal sound from JK! The grooves were so THIN, man. I mean the opposite of PHAT. My top sounds of 2006 were The Neville Brothers (saw em live, deep grooves, sublime vocals, acres of 'space' in the music, Lucinda Williams - great songs and band(simplicity and feel) and .....that's about it! Scissor sisters sound like Leo Sayer, Razorlight, after a promising start have opted for anodyne pop, and the Killers are just meaningless..... sorry folks. If you think I've missed something, please let me know your views on this forum.... Chris

Music Criticism. Are you aware of presenter and DJ Mark Lamarr? I disagree with some of his views, but I applaud his willingness to assert his personal prejudices. All too often you hear someone (in defence of a piece of tawdry rubbish that you loathe), saying that "such-and-such an artist has sold x-million records". This has no bearing whatsoever on the matter. Plenty of hamburgers sells millions - doesn't make 'em good! Apart from the obvious candidates such as James Blunt - who is an utter travesty, purveying his feeble brand of weak, pathetic, bleating, insulting sub-pop tosh - there are other iconic 'stars' who receive blanket media coverage till we get set to vomit. What puzzles to me is how many people I thought had some shred of intelligence go along with it all. Anyway, as I was saying. Partly due to the media's insatiable hunger for current 'content' but mostly to do with the filthy stratatgems of the avaricious and all-consuming whores of the record company world, we are subjected to Mr. bloody Robbie Williams in concert, his new single on heavy rotation on MTV, in interview, behind the scenes in the studio, and on a talk-show. I kid you not. Surfing the aiwaves one insomniac night I found him on 6 channels simultaneously. And he is SO shit. Zero talent. (Oh, but he's such a cheeky chappie! - Piss off!) Hot on his heels come .... the Eurhythmics. Mercifully quiet for a couple of years (we prayed they'd disappeared), on the release of their new product and re-packaged 'greatest hits', we are force-fed that dreadful woman with her lavatory brush haircut and her arid, empty, cold, soulless voice using all the mannerisms (but none of the essence) of gospel and soul music to deliver her meaningless and pointless message. Their omnipresence and ubiquity are eloquent reminders of the machinatiions of the vile 666 that is the foul maw of the media beast.

Saw George Clinton last night, folks! Possibly the most interesting thing about the evening was studying the audience. The demographic was 99.9% white - mostly 35 -55. Maybe 15% were younger in their 20's or so. The black audience has forgotten this chapter in the history of its music. And maybe we can see and hear why. The 'songs' were 20 minute jams usually 4-on-the-floor one chorders. Sometimes accompanied by unison rabble-rousing chants. This was cleverly laced with clever interludes of riffing and bits of arrangement to tie things up here and there. Our George knows a trick or two. Individually some of the musicianship was superb, notably the bass player. Of course all the stuff was ludicrously over the top and bombastic but after 2 hours the joke started to wear a little thin. As the band shuffled onstage for the first number, things started to coalesce. Then this black guy with a large pot belly, dreadlkocks and nothing but a dayglo lime green star spangled nappy came on and strapped on a headless green guitar. He seemed to be in charge of proceedings and I assumed that this was the Man himself! Not so! After an hour of this stuff with singers and musicians wandering on and offstage willy-nilly, a grey-haired, bearded man of ample proportions entered, wearing multi-coloured hair extensions and a patchwork coat of many colours. This was George Clinton. He proceeded to wring as many ovations as he could from a rapturous crowd. The high priest of funk was dispensing the sacrament from on high. While not nearly as mechanical and hollow as James Brown's show has become, there was a humourless irony in George's funky exhortations to a crowd devoid of black people. By the end of the evening he was dry humping a few girls that had been invited onstage from the audience. This tiresome demonstration of a disgusting old man's vile proclivities was enough to persuade a very weary and by now thoroughly bored punter to turn towards the car park and head home.

Hi Chris,

thanks a lot for replying to my rather short, booming question... I partially grew up within the bluesy corner myself (good times rolling and stuff...). However, my thoughts on this are that especially the electro music of today has quite interesting, new angles and approaches to offer that can open up doors to a much different type of creation in music. I think, developement doesn't always only go brilliant ways. Some of the recreated music sounds crap to me. Like, 'no thanks, keep it from my ears, please' (is that then down to individual perception or just because it's really crap? Haha...). But I can't go that far and slag off everything one person re- or creates just because some of their stuff is annoying to me. Developement in music (and in things anyhow perhaps) to me seems to be a concoction of creating something new and drawing from what is already there. I used to bind myself to just one kind of music, and after a little while it felt wrong to me. So I waded out and about and took everything into consideration - and found out that musical gems are very much to be found in different approaches to music. What I personally find really annoying is the commerciality - money overshadowing art.

Music... :-)

I wish you a good one,

Christine

I'm curious, Chris: what ->exactly<- do you find so dreadful about Moby's approach to music?

Boom boom boom boom...

Christine

Rants and Hates - number 1 in an occasional series.
He's dull. He's tuneless. He's pretentious. And what is that round pink thing sticking out of his shirt? My oh my, it's his head! Yes, folks, this weeks Emperor's New Clothes award goes to... Moby! (It makes Elton's wig look like the decent thing to do) He's so quirky and wierd! And all so utterly pointless.