Though I guess Peter Doherty's Eritrean maiden is a spiritual relation of M.I.A.'s China girl

[petronia]

The Libertines - Death on the Stairs: like I said on poptimists*, one benefit of quaint canon-building exercises like playing an album from beginning to end on the radio is that they allow you to figure out when you've, uh, got the wrong mp3 of a song. As sometimes happens when 75% of an album washed up piecemeal on the shores of one's harddrive and one has no idea when or where the tracks were sourced... For the record we did buy it, okay. Eventually. This is an alternate Bernard Butler-produced version, released as one of those Japan-only deals; IIRC subdee thought it was rather... airless? The drums don't get dragged pell-mell by the guitars like in the album version, at least. XD;;

When people rep for this band's lyrics I generally get the urge to play devil's advocate and point out that they make no actual sense unless you internalize an elaborate system of assigned meaning, which OTOH makes them sound like Ezra Pound. Or something.

The Libertines - What Katie Did: came across a Muxtape where this was followed by Camera Obscura's "Books Written for Girls", an unsung act of mixmaking genius if ever there was one. XD Though I didn't know What Katie Did was a book until subdee reviewed it at bibliophages. By virtue of the Flow it cropped up directly afterward in an Angela Carter story I was reading, as part of the contents of Lizzie Borden's bookshelf. XD; From the writeup one can see why.

There are musical leitmotivs, as well. The album version of the song serves principally as a record of its disintegration, but the shoop-de-lang-de-langs** march on in lockstep, imbued with a kamikaze gaiety that the ghostly rendition of same in "Back from the Dead" echoes to truly creepy effect (okay I know minor key it's not rocket science but still). New Order, "Love Vigilantes": I've got to go home / I've been so alone you see.

DANGIT I HAVE ZOMBIES ON THE BRANE APPARENTLY



* Unless it was an imaginary comment; this happens more often than you'd think. >_>

** "Friscajoly" is the technical term provided by Foyle's Philavery (the other I found essential to discussion was 'kallipygian').

Comments

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I hadn't actually heard this Bernard Butler song; I think I was talking about one of the other ones, or something.* The nice thing about the controlled tempo and polite guitars is that they give Pete and Carl more time to play around with the vocals, and you can hear the delivery better -- kind of like a scientific experiment where you keep all the other variables constant? XD I still like the album version better though.

*Like one of the ones Andew Kendall had up where the guitars and vocals are straight.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The way the tempo goes out of wack is actually one of the things that drives me nuts about this band. XD; I mean, coming from someone whose ideal rhythm section is Joy Division's Stephen "Steely Android" Morris and Peter "Melodic Lead" Hook, the whole all-over-the-place-plus-cowbell drumming and permanently-AWOL-in-the-mix bass was the diametric opposite of my preferred aesthetics. Like I honestly think this was why I couldn't get into them in '04.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Whereas just before I got into the Libertines (music), I'd moved on from Green Day and Blink-182 and I was listening to a lot of Skate Punk. ^^;

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

I...am glad you linked to poptimists because somehow I was unaware of its existence.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

^_^v

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Funny, I always conceived of it as Carl's Eritrean maiden.
- Lucinda, using yr laptop