Monday morning music

[petronia]

I was a bit disturbed by the people who commented the other day saying that they'd never heard Franz Ferdinand. Crap-quality acoustic demos are good for interested fans and completists, not if you're going to test-listen a band. But I can't quite bring myself to put up "Take Me Out" or "Michael" or "The Dark of the Matinee" anymore, so in a gesture of stellar unhelpfulness I uploaded electro house remixes.

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (FakeID's Taken It Too Far Mix)
Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To (Erol Alkan's Glam Racket Mix)

There is a sort of logic. Many of the songs on You Could Have It So Much Better... were an exercise in frustration at first, because IMHO the very best part of Franz Ferdinand is their rarissime (in a guitar band) ability to write killer grooves - which they then proceed to DROP after 1:30 in order to hare off after some indie-strumming shouty bit in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT TIME SIGNATURE, just as I'm starting to think Vitalic or Black Strobe could take that funk guitar line and let it rise for nine whole minutes until it hit stratospheric ozone - I mean it worked for "Take Me Out" but they gave that one time to breathe, yanno? Then I got used to it. But that's why the best songs on the album are really the slow ones that sidestep the dance-indie dialectic altogether in favour of an early-70s it's-Paul-McCartney-no-wait-it's-David-Bowie vibe. I don't think I'd've given a song like "Eleanor Put Your Boots Back On" a chance if it had reached me in some other format, but most of the album is so maximalist borderline-annoying in-your-face glam that a track 7 breather comes as exquisitely welcome. And "Walk Away" is my second favorite after "The Fallen".

So yeah. Electro house remixes that sample the good bits and just sort of play them over and over.

Low - Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me: by request of phantomwise, who wanted to hear the really sad song. Actually all of Low sort of sounds like this, the band is named that way for a reason. ^^;

Stars - This Charming Man: on the continuing theme of Smiths covers. (canis_m, this is the sort of thing on the Ishida Uryuu mix. It may well be background music for sewing projects, although I was more thinking faux midnight convenience store runs.)

Baxendale - I Built This City (Michael Mayer Mix): not representative of Kompakt Total 6 as a whole. Nor can one really abuse it on repeat, if only because it builts so gradually, like a faulty pressure cooker that will, in fact, explode on you. You have to imagine the effect it has when played out on the dancefloor at the proper time of night. On the other hand, it has proper lyrics.

Comments

[fantabulous.livejournal.com]

Funny you should sorta compare Franz to the Beatles, cos on one of the tracks on You Could Have It, I noticed that the lead singer sounded quite a lot like George ... and the song itself had a bit of a While My Guitar Gently Weeps vibe too. ;-)

Just got the album yesterday, though, and was only listening to it while out walking; haven't listened to it on my Compy yet ... which means I don't remember what the title or track # of the song was. :-P Crap.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I bet it was "Eleanor" at that. XD It's the real BEATLES WHUT track on the album.

Normally I tend to take "sounds like the Beatles" as a synonym for "boring" but maybe sounding-like-the-Beatles is just rarely done well. (Probable.)

[fantabulous.livejournal.com]

After listening to it on the Compy ... yep, it was "Eleanor".

The thing about "sounds like the Beatles" being synonymous with "boring" is that especially when it comes to guitar bands, EVERYBODY AND THEIR DOG usually draws from the Beatles as an influence. *ahem*Oasisyesthat'srightI'mlookingatYOU*ahem* So it does very often get tired. :-/ It has to be done well in order for it to stand out.

[serendip.livejournal.com]

When Mayer spun the Baxendale track while clubbing with h-kun in Tokyo, I think she almost had a heart attack, and then proceeded to text other Mayerites. Yoof! I was sort of like "Whu?" and regreted not wearing sneakers to the club, cos my toesies were in PAIN XD Mayer live btw is a MACHINE. He spun for 5 hours and so would have kept going had there not been a mysterious call that caused him to leave the stage for a good 5-10 minutes. Other dj tried to sub in, but there was a reason he used his laptop and not rekkids XDDDDDDDDDDDD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

HA I totally replicated that experience in Fabric (had to bow out at 5AM, still recovering feeling in both my big toes, but they've gone from 1/2 numb to 1/5 numb so at least I know the damage isn't permanent XDDD). But twas otherwise ace, Smagghe played bit of my favorite Tiefschwarz remix... next time (ha) I visit London I will forget about this "looking good" business and bring sneakers and a decent-sized carry bag.

Actually the Baxendale was the Very First Thing h-kun played for me when I arrived at her house so now I have this paradoxical association with English-style milk tea. XD XD XD My blurb for it doesn't convey the total wins-at-life-ness but I'm scared of "spoilering" the effect. XD

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

oh man, I have always marveled at Low's abtiliy to make everything sound like the saddest thing in the world.

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

! Props to Ishida, then. <3