March 23rd, 2009 |
Posted in La Pelota de la Muerte!!! by mache
I am sorry, I’m late again with this, I could blame it on White Lies, but I won’t. How bad is it to not have anything to say about a song when your job is writing about music? But this song, “To loose my life”, doesn’t say anything to me. Although it’s a nice track and I wouldn’t be negatively affected if I heard it at a party, it seems like just one of the thousands of songs I’ve heard that haven’t really caught my attention. Maybe live, if the band are good performers; but the song alone feels almost transparent to me.
I am listening to it again, just because I have to get something out of it. The voice is nice, as a whole it seems something like Depeche Mode meets Franz Ferdinand, but weaker than both of them: so again still nothing to rescue it. If White Lies is really one of the greatest bands out of the U.K. we’ll hear during 2009, maybe this is not the track that best reflects them, or maybe 2009 will just be a very bad year for British rock. Besides this, sadly I have anything else to say about it, Ed.
So, let’s move on and back to China, our dear home country. This is a record from 2004, when EMI had the “very creative” idea of interfering with history by taking some Shanghainese oldies and transforming them into lounge tracks. Let’s see what Mike says about this one from the great Chinese-Japanese Li Xian Ian, her “Plum Blossom”, altered with electronics.
Li Xiang Ian “Plum Blossom”
March 10th, 2009 |
Posted in La Pelota de la Muerte!!! by ed
So, basic info first: Mache sent me the video to “Soulless”, from the album of the same name by Swedish death metal band Grave (formerly Corpse, formerly Putrefaction). It is possible that this music is so beyond my aesthetic horizon I am unable to appreciate it, and equally plausible that the video is a masterpiece of minimalist cinema. On the other hand… well, I won’t tell you what the other hand is: just watch it*.
The video is mildly confusing at first. Clearly, to all outward appearances these guys hope to give the impression that they are bad-arse satanic baby-eaters whose main aim in life is to harass the world’s daughters. But this is complicated by the fact that the only discernible lyric seemed to be “in my opinion,” and by the singer’s mannerism of nervously wringing his hands in front of him. Instead of cursing my soul to oblivion, perhaps Grave are trying to persuade me to reduce my carbon footprint, or similar.
Sadly, the real lyrics (easily found on the internet) to “Soulless” are predictable stuff about eating babies or being Satan or something. They convey (or pander to) the emotions of an unpopular and troubled 15 year-old, and could well have been written by a 15 year-old. The track’s title is clearly self-referential, and I couldn’t agree more (about this song, if not the band). Also clear is the fact that Marcela considers Aaron Kwok to be utterly soulless. Musically, I’m suspicious that I could have written the track’s three-chord progression myself, and I’m not even sure how many strings a guitar has (although apparently I could get away with only three, and a couple of effects pedals). Maybe they should have called it “Tedium”.
Mind you, Grave may well be the answer to all those bored by Swedish music acts in Shanghai being confined to solitary guys and their guitars, noodling away and sounding somewhat… “flat.” Someone from the Swedish Consulate book these dudes to play in Glamour Bar! The venue’s appalling acoustics will cease to be an issue: these guys are incomprehensible anyway!
I’m changing tack. I have no desire to be sent metal by Mache anymore, so instead of forcing her to listen to something repugnant; this week I seek her genuine and considered opinion. The track I am posting is by a new British band called White Lies. Their debut album To Lose My Life was released recently, and I read a piece (now lost) hyping of them as the best new band of 2009 and comparing them to Editors and The Killers. To me that’s somewhat tautological. Mache, what do you think of these guys?
White Lies “To Lose My Life”
* If you can’t be bothered, I’ll summarise: sinisterly-lit long-haired dudes sulking, wearing black and bellowing nonsense. There’s even a shot of someone’s lame tattoo. What the fuck?! Who doesn’t have a tattoo?!
tags: New Music
February 28th, 2009 |
Posted in La Pelota de la Muerte!!! by mache
I am late on this Pelota de la MUERTE!!!–I haven’t been able to go all the way through to that ugh! video. I put it off for days, now I can’t escape and I have to watch it all the way through. It’s part of the idea of this dangerous game, to actually go through the experience of a whole song, risking your innocence and love for music, and life even, in this case.
Aaron Kwok (even writing his name is painful)! This guy is what every girl needs whenever in need to express the frustration of crashing against the childish and arrogant male ego; this and two bottles of whiskey and some pain killers to go through the pain to have to use such a toxic example. Can you believe this guy?!
To begin the shredding let’s go for the video itself, the only original thing Kwok does on this video is to use his own thumb to point at himself. … Oh! no! …I am sorry. I remember now there’s that huge sign of the funny cowboy of Las Vegas, right? But that iron-made cowboy, is way more human and warm than Aaron. Also, I wonder who thought about the idea to make him dance, not very good idea for mr. Kwok’s pride. There is not one single step on the choreography that is new, there’s not step he does better than the dancers around him, and the chorus dancers are never coordinated. Besides, Kwok has not dancing style at all. I am happy I will never have to dance with this guy. And those plastic looking six packs, they really make me nostalgic of those beer-made bellies. And I am not saying I don’t like strong and muscle guys, I am saying the Aaron Kwok effect is so very negative in me, that once I see him I don’t want to be near anything that could remind me of him. Hopefully, I would find a different planet to not have to share mine with him. This guy is annoying, more than a mosquito buzzing on your ear when you are almost aseep. And, by the way, I believe that mosquitos are the worst creature in all of animal-kind.
Am I over reacting? … … Well. Of course I am. What do you expect? You didn’t have to live with this video every day for a week. And I had no way to escape. I thought about faking some illness, and telling Mike and Ed, ‘you will have to do this one for me’. But, I know if I had done that, their very evil minds would have managed to find something even worse than Aaron Kwok. … I-AM-AAAARON-KWOK … The only hope for Kwok after listening to this song is to believe that underneath that image there is a human being who realizes he is doing this only for money, and who understands there’s a whole world where nobody knows who Aaron Kwok is. Can I believe he is a smart dude making a living? …. …. … No! I can’t! I’m sorry, I just can’t, no one can do such thing and be innocent. Ok, I’m breathing. Wait. Ok. So. To be fair, and to show I do have some hope in humankind, if I ever find out Aaron Kwok actually is innocent of music- and soul-murdering, I will do my own I-AM-MACHE, and I will accept the humiliation after that, without one complaint.
To finish, let me mention the flowing silk pajama doing a Michael Jackson from Dirty Diana, I can literally see Mike laughing on his dark side of the force while I’m watching that. And that ridiculous angled style of his cap, really. I am even beginning to have fun ridiculing Aaron Kwok. This dude can really take the worst out of me. And I refuse to talk about the soundtrack of this video, because it’s not even worth of my time. I refuse to dedicate any more time of my life to Mr. Kwok.
This was so infamous a move by Mike, I think I should publicly announce: that was the first goal on La Pelota de la MUERTE!!! I am sorry if I’m not yelling it, I’m still a bit sick after the pass.
I’m seriously worrying where are we going to end up with this game, and in thinking what to send to Ed, I just have to repeat again, this dude Kwok, seriously takes the darkest part of you out. Here. (now, I am scared of myself)
[youtube width="450" height="300"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M62HHGQv94&feature=channel[/youtube]
February 21st, 2009 |
Posted in La Pelota de la Muerte!!! by mike
The Velvet Underground was the official band of Andy Warhol and The Factory, but it was 80’s bands like Kraftwerk and Talking Heads that really captured his thing of being so superficial that it’s impossible to believe it’s entirely without irony, but at the same time strenuously insisting that it’s not irony. The result is a beguiling combination of the despair of untethered, undirected irony, and the naive pleasure of simple rhythms and simple melodies. I guess before you kicked this song over to me I never mentioned my 80s cover band wedding gig from the fall and how Kraftwerk’s “Das Model” was my favorite tune we did. I had a love/hate relationship with the fucking Rick Astley song and its preposterous bass line, but with “Das Model” it was all love. With “Autobahn,” though, you have me stumped. No matter how hard I try I can’t pretend not to be bored stupid by this song. The craft that went into the timbres of the synths and the use of stereo space is apparent, and by trying to pay attention mostly to that I could have kept the desire to strangle myself out of the front of my mind for eight, ten, maybe even twelve minutes, but over twenty-two minutes? The most tragic part is the false ending at about 15:51, where the poison gas clears only to reveal an out-of-tune vocal break down? That’s just cruel. All the same, it clearly wasn’t something that wasn’t just dashed off, and even as I hate it and long to put on something stimulating to clear my mind (luckily Kurt Rosenwinkel comes after Kraftwerk in my iTunes) there is something captivating about it, like, dare I say it, a car wreck. You never know if the in the next moment you are going to think “hmm, that was kind of nice,” or shake your fists at the heavens and cry “Noooooo!!!!! Not that cursed melody.”
The same cannot be said of the track I pass to you, Marcela. To these ears there is nothing suggesting the practice of a well-learned craft and nothing at all captivating in Aaron Kwok’s “I Am Aaron Kwok,” though his voice sounds okay. Actually, I am sort of fascinated by the musical illogic in so much Chinese pop. The bass line in this tune, for example, sounds like it was written by a tone-deaf four-year-old. Might that be an instance of differing musical approaches East and West? I don’t know, but I am warm and cozy in the knowledge that you will find his voice disgustingly lacking in masculinity and that the abs and pecs on display will somehow leave you unmoved.
It’s kind of cheating, because you have already mentioned the suicide-inducing quality of this particular artist, but you also have been resisting writing the first Search for the Good Chinese Pop Song column on him, and this is a good way to give you no option of refusal.
[youtube width="300" height="200"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0bVFWSG-E[/youtube]
tags: Aaron Kwok - Kraftwerk
