Dumb synthpop for your pleasure and edification

[petronia]

I guess I should make it clear that I'm not very annoyed by thebookyoucrew. Sort of head-scratchingly bemused and... embarrassed for the people involved? XD I mean, they don't seem to realise how gauche the concept is. It's like being proud of wearing really expensive clothes, or something. It doesn't matter if your fortune is self-made (i.e. you tracked down and read all these books because you're determined to be "well-read") or you're a trust-fund baby (i.e. you just enjoy "literature" and your parents had a gigantic library), going around showing off your bling is tacky. Arriviste.

(What's the equivalent of being a successful rapper, in this analogy?)

On a completely different note, what's this scuttlebutt going around re Ender's Game being a rewrite of the Book of Mormon? :O I'd be surprised if it were. I've read the Book of Mormon - own a copy as souvenir from Salt Lake City, actually - and I totally don't see it. If conspiracy theories are what's wanted, I'll posit quite readily that whoever wrote Songmaster was eaten by the pod-person that currently occupies Card's body. At least that would make sense.

***

Animotion - Obsession

This kind of has to do with Girls Aloud's "The Show", which is wonderful BTW; produced pop for pop-producer connoisseurs (that's not a diss XD). It's one devastating hook after another after another - four measures of En Vogue, three of the Human League, a backing vocal ripped from Garbage - and every trick in the book pulled out to string them together. And one of the things about said song is that it starts off brilliantly with an iteration of the chorus, but it has a moment of boredom when the vocals in the first proper verse comes in, where you just kind of go "uhuh" and look forward to the next melodic idea. And when the next one comes in, sure enough it hooks you solid.

That special something
That they are hunting
They're always wanting
More and more

The first few times I heard "The Show" that passage bugged me, because it reminded me of something but I couldn't remember what. Eventually I figured it out: Animotion's "Obsession" sped up, which is why I'm posting it now. XD Now the thing about "Obsession" is that for the longest time I never knew it was a real song. I used to watch the after-school Fashion TV show on CTV regularly when I was younger, and they used an instrumental version of it as the ending theme. So when I hear it - or a vaguely similar musical phrase - I see smoky-lidded Lagerfeld models strutting down the catwalk, and blinding photoflashes going off. Which is actually involuntary genius, with regard to the Girls Aloud song.

Another thing about "Obsession":

***

Obsession

You are an obsession
I cannot sleep
I am your possession
Unopened at your feet
There's no balance
No equality
Be still I will not accept defeat

I will have you
Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly
A wild butterfly
I will collect you and capture you

CHORUS:
You are an obsession
You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be
To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession
You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be
To make you sleep with me

I feed you I drink you
My day and my night
I need you I need you
By sun or candlelight
You protest
You want to leave
Stay
Oh, there's no alternative

Your face appears again
I see the beauty there
But I see danger
Stranger beware
A circumstance
In your naked dreams
Your affection is not what it seems

CHORUS

My fantasy has turned to madness
And all my goodness
Has turned to badness
My need to possess you
Has consumed my soul
My life is trembling
I have no control

I will have you
Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly
A wild butterfly
I will collect you and capture you

CHORUS

***

I mean, it's the ultimate psychotic seme song, or would be if it weren't so eighties (leaving aside T's theory that psychotic semes are part of an 80s aesthetic anyway, like power suits and jagged glass furniture). Perfect eighties vocals, the guy singing like he's wearing a white lounge suit and the girl singing like even cocaine bores her. So - I would like someone "authentic"(ally gloomy and scary) to cover this song. Nick Cave, maybe. NYLPM to the despite, it would have to be slow and mostly acoustic, or maybe filled with industrial creaks and clangs. Then I will, I don't know, wait and see how many people put the cover version on their FSTs.

Comments

[luxetumbra.livejournal.com]

Ender's Game being a rewrite of the Book of Mormon?

Really? Hadn't heard that one. His Homecoming (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/series/-/70/paperback/ref=pd_serl_books/103-4843346-5672660) series definitely is a rewrite of the Book of Mormon (http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-bookofmormon.html) though.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's where the rumour came from, and got mixed up along the way. (I haven't read much Card. He depresses me too much. XD)

[nyahnyah.livejournal.com]

I heard that rumor through my friend Tarja (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=sword_chucks), [who hasn't read either Ender's Game nor the Book of Mormon] and sine I hadn't read the book since high school, I believed her. Having read Ender's Game, "hey that's nothing like it!" and asked her again, she doesn't remember the source.

Confused rumor I guess. :D Homecoming DOES sound like it'd be a rewrite.

[corneredangel.livejournal.com]

Ugh. People tend to forget that Ender's Game is but one of Card's novels. There are plenty that are *far* more explicitly religious, and yet people who have only read the former then go on screaming about how dare he bring ::gasp:: religion (...and at that, Mormon religion!) into his works.

*Ugh* indeed.

(...one title, The Folk on the Fringe, ONE TITLE!!! is all it would take!)

[dipping_sauce]

I've read the Book of Mormon - own a copy as souvenir from Salt Lake City, actually - and I totally don't see it.

Yanno, Mike Allred (of X-Force) is doing an adaptation of the Book of Mormon in comic book form. Is the BoM the one where Jesus is reborn in South America and has (wacky) adventures with the Apostles?

I read Ender's Game last year, and I was sort of ...meh about it. It wasn't awful or badly written, I just knew the ending going in, and I felt that the impact was lessened because of that. (And the bad guys were called 'Buggers' and I spent the whole novel thinking, "Dude, that does not mean what you think it means.")

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Yes, ironically, it is exceedingly vulgaire to go around displaying oneself in that manner. Of course people are human and will have snobby thoughts, but to set up a whole comm to flog volunteers/celebrate yourself (especially because of the nature of taste, which to be cool, needs to be indiv) just comes off as a bit self-indulgent, and thus tacky.

Successful rapper? Probably being an artist/writer yourself and behaving this way.

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

How come when people like me post dumb synthpop, it is dumb, but when you post it, it looks smart? You cheat. Somehow. Cheater!

p.s. had it, on about 5 of my huge stack of compilation CDs titled things like "Back To The '80s," "More Totally '80s," "'80s Ate My Baby," "My '80s Can Beat Up Your '80s," etc., all of which were legally purchased prior to the advent of online file sharing, alas.