finished listening to 'the blagger's guide' in the car, easily the best show about music maybe ever. i said no one else would like it but me & then the last 4 eps were 'the blagger's guide to the classics', all about classical music. which i know jack fuck about! so it was cool AND i think a couple of you might actually enjoy it. the funniest bit to me was the audience members yelling 'tune' at one of the composers. that's a funny thing that happens in real life at clubs & elsewhere in england when a good song comes on. people yell TUNE! that has always cracked me up, so to hear it in a sketch about classical composers... well... well done, david quantick.
started listening to an almost identical program, 'paul morley's guide to musical genres', which was a six part series covering recent musical developments such as 'twee', uhhh 'glitch', and 'emo'. paul morley is usually one of my favorite people, since he was a music journo in the 80s, uhhhh was responsible for a lot of the non-musical aspects of frankie goes to hollywood, he was the non-musician in Art Of Noise, i usually agree with everything he says. but his series, after listening to 'blagger's guide' is just......annoying. it's not funny and worst of all it doesn't even explain why something like 'emo' exists now, let alone defining what it actually is. so i've just been getting increasingly annoyed... but... then... he saved the best for last, the final episode of the series is called 'perfect pop' & it's kicking my ass. he uncovers a lot of opinions & tries to get to the heart of what perfect pop is & without getting too specific, kind of rekindled my interest (however briefly) in the possibilities of music-making. where this will lead (nowhere, probably) remains to be seen. or heard. or not. probably not.
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watched '
emotional arithmetic' last night, a moody doomer of a film, kind of almost on a 'schindler's list' kind of tip. but not. the music was pretty fucking awesome and the scenery - eastern canada in autumn - was gorgeous. it kind of continued the mental/internal/creative wellspring i was pondering from the 'perfect pop' show earlier & just thinking about how music, coupled with images, can have still have so much impact. the movie was quite depressing in many ways, i'm not sure if i'd recommend it or watch it again. but it was also beautiful and mature in its way.
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quick postscript to the paul morley thing, after writing the above, i heard the conclusion of the perfect pop episode (accidentally typo'ed 'perfect poop' there, shoulda left it), which included an absolutely astonishing interview with CATHY DENNIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! who cowrote kylie's big 2001 comeback hit, which paul morley hinted might be his favorite pop song ever. I've never heard Cathy Dennis talk about music before. Her voice, her giggle, her tone, the things she talks about, she's incredible. I'm in re-lust with Cathy Dennis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! w00t.
