Let The Music Play

In the case of Jordin Sparks, I've always had a soft spot for 'Battlefield'. The lyrics are so emotional and hyperbole, in a way reminiscent of everything good Phil Spector did. And the mid-tempo, yet euphoric nature of the song is actually pretty similar to most of Florence and the Machine's album. By disguising good music as shitty R'n'B, Jordin's doing really well. I don't know where the hell she's come from, I'm guessing it's an American talent show competition...

There we go. I just wikipediad (sp?!) her, and she's the winner of the sixth American Idol and looks a fair bit like America Ferrera.

I've recently become partial to latin freestyle music, starting with Nayobe's 'Please Don't Go'. Not only do I like the idea of going to Mexico in the 1980's to score, I really like women with strong voices barking on about their weak souls and wildly romantic dispositions. When I discovered that Jordin's 'S.O.S. Let the Music Play' uses a sample of Shannon's 'Let the Music Play', I jumped up out of my seat. I've been a fan of Shannon's 'Give me Tonight' for a while, but apparently it was nowhere near as commercially successful as her debut single, 'Let the Music Play'. The latter pushed dance music to a new place, and is a credited as a revolutionary song, putting dance music back in the mainstream, when so many had shunned disco that it had spent the past couple of years hidden away in the exclusive gay clubs of the big cities (Paradise Garage, Chicago Warehouse etc).

Shannon - Let The Music Play

A little more exploration has informed me that there are loads of remixes of Shannon's 1983 hit, but they are all abominations to the ears, and are most probably heard in the less glamorous Mediterranean holiday resorts. Jordin's sampling is very splendid, though. Just like old-school Xenomania, the producers and writers have crammed in a brilliant middle 8, and as many melodies as they can get their grubby mitts on. Embedding is disabled by request, so there you go.

Disco makes your money go further.

These disco tracks really need to be played from start to finish, despite all being around 8 minutes long. The length of the songs is a brilliant thing, however. There are two reasons why these songs, and many others of the 1970's, were so long.

1. In the 1970's people did not have last.fm, itunes or spotify (in the case of the latter, still no-one uses it). This meant the only way people could arrange playlists would be to use a live DJ, and even Isaac Hayes, at the height of his resplendent decadence and overspending, probably wouldn't have employed someone to mix next to the bed as he got his jig on. In the 1970's, people would have to shag to an album, or an 8minute single. A pre-coital selection of a three-minute punk song could have serious consequences for a man attempting to ensure his partner could expect at least something half-decent in the sack.

2. In the 1970's, someone predicted that the quality of albums would deterioriate and that people would like to buy singles individually from online resources. This oracle of music realised that people would want to get their money's worth for 79p, so would prefer long songs than slow songs.

music #677

get down to some vicious love

My dissertation is coming along beautifully. The structuring just fell into place today. I've put everything nicely into its context, I like to think. And instead of disagreeing or agreeing with one critic, I'm analysing the two texts (Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Apartment) and picking and choosing critics to agree with me. I feel confident and smarmy about it. Here's what's helped me along tonight to get to the 1100 mark:



and this is more of a surprise but again confirms my hopes/desires that rap has got a soul to it:



You see, last week at fuel4life, at 1.58am, I whacked on this:



After a good two hours of bassline, fidget and dubstep, the crowd didn't falter. I usually whack on a soul track so as to clear the dancefloor, but everyone stayed on, proving how fucking good soul can be.

ALSO. Bangers&Tash are playing Beach Break Live on the 16th-19th June. I don't really know who reads this, if anyone. But come along.