That Crap Danny Listens To

What was the number one song on your birthday? You can find out here. Mine was "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince & the Revolution from the motion picture soundtrack to the movie Purple Rain. Do I remember this? Of course not.


"Prince is lame," cried the world when I was growing up and I believed it. Perhaps he was everywhere in 1984, but by the early '90s when my memory began he was nowhere to be found. I didn't consciously listen to a Prince song again until freshman year in college.

Now I listen to a Prince song nearly every day.

"Prince is lame?" But we were perfect together. As an infant did I subconsciously absorb the then ubiquitous Purple Rain soundtrack over FM radio, only to have it repressed during my childhood?

Innocent unconscious > repression > rediscovery > guilty pleasure > unrepentant conscious celebration.

A few years later I discovered that Jonathem Lethem's Tourettic private eye, Lionel Essrog, was a kindred spirit. He hears "Kiss" on the radio for the first time:

... twitching and throbbing within obsessively delineated bounds, alternately silent and plosive. It so pulsed with Tourettic energies that I could surrender to its tormented, squeaky beat and let my syndrome live outside my brain for once, live in the air instead.
"Turn that shit down," Minna said.
"I like it," I said.
"That's that crap Danny listens to," said Minna. Danny was code for too black.

Too black but too powerful to be ignored and Lionel tracks the record down. His reaction to what he finds makes perfect sense to me:

Prince's music calmed me as much as masturbation or a cheeseburger. When I listened to him I was exempt from my symptoms. So I began collecting his records, especially those elaborated and frenetic remixes tucked away on the CD singles. The way he worried forty-five minutes of variations out of a lone musical or verbal phrase is, as far as I know, the nearest thing in art to my condition.

Faced with the absurdity of rational life in the modern world? Let's go crazy indeed. Zizek must have had Prince in mind when he advised us to enjoy our symptoms. Simultaneously unrepentant and devout, there is no line between prayer and orgasm. Horror movie screams live side by side with trite romantic couplets; wanton dominatrices masturbate in public, luring unsuspecting innocents back to their castle for a night of mind blowing pleasure; the drives and desires are looped ad infinitum, endless variations on endless themes.

A throbbing, twitching world, exulting in exhaustive repetition. Nothing is complicated.

One week later, "I Just Called to Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder was number one ...

Continued Greatness

Apropos of the question of Genius, three damn fine recording artists have all released new records within the last few months: Stephen Malkmus, Will Oldham, and Mikael Akerfeldt.

The records are as follows:

Real Emotional Trash by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Lie Down In The Light by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Watershed by Opeth

The last five to six years of my life have been in many ways guided and stunted by the consistent output of these artists. More than anything, I hope to hear others' thoughts on the latest from these vets.

My $0.02 -

The solo output of Malkmus is, so it seems to me, much maligned and for the worst reason: it's not Pavement. Bollocks. I thought Pig Lib was outstanding, "It Kills" is one of the best singles ever, and his s/t record was better than solid. That said, I still expected him to start declining a little. I was completely wrong, as Real Emotional Trash might be his best shit since disbanding Pavement. He's always been a strong guitar player with a wry sense of non-performance, but I think his true strength has always been his songwriting, not his style, and I think that is just getting better and better. His lyrics and delivery are still a hurdle for a lot of people, and the fact that he records in his basement in suburbia between raising his kids and having dinner with his wife, makes some people scoff. I think he's brilliant.
Will Oldham has been one of my favorite songwriters since I heard Days In The Wake. His obsession with the Light/Dark dichotomy has come full circle with his latest, Lie Down In The Light. A far more optimistic record than its brooding sister, I See A Darkness, Lie Down In The Light shows Oldham aging but losing none of his trademark wit and quirky delivery, not to mention the songs and performances are terrific. I'd say this is his best since I See A Darkness.
When Martin Lopez left Opeth, I was downcast. When Peter Lindgren left, I was crestfallen. However, Mikael Akerfeldt has proven that he has always been and always will be the heart and soul of Opeth. Watershed is a fucking watershed of an album, and it proves that Ghost Reveries was no fluke; Opeth has synthesized Deliverance and Damnation, the Light and the Dark. "The Lotus Eaters" KILLS!!!!!

In other news, I think In Rainbows is one of the most disappointing records I've ever heard. I was once (and still am I guess) an enormous Radiohead fan, but the newest just doesn't do it for me. 40-year-old Brits making pristine records and giving them away (only to have their entire back catalog raped by Capitol records a few months later) doesn't make me excited.