On the way home from work I loaded up some vintage U2 on the mp3 player and it tripped a memory from being back at uni, just newly arrived in the big city (Brisbane not Sydney) and cruising the back streets of Tarragindi in my friend’s mother’s light brown Mitsubishi Magna with the windows down and volume up. We were so damn cool. My friend used to stage mock interviews with Rolling Stone magazine: Oh you know, we’ve been working on the new album, Matt’s been experimenting with some new sounds, coming up with riffs and I’m just pulling in song ideas based around what comes out of that.
I think that might’ve been the day we blew a tire and realised neither of us knew how to change it. Sometime between then and now I grew up.
As many who’ve visited my house know, I have a PC connected to my TV which I use to record and play TV like a video recorder. It’s similar to the PVRs and TiVos that are becoming popular now but because it’s a PC running linux I can do more with it (not that I ever have the time or motivation)
As well as being plugged into the TV, this media centre PC is plugged into my stereo. Once upon a time, I had all of my mp3s on there and could play them using the TV remote however I found the interface too cumbersome. I wanted to be able to use it like I use iTunes. I also like to log music I listen to on http://last.fm/ which is a musical social networking site but the linux music player that comes with mythtv (the software that runs the media centre stuff) is hard to get working with the last.fm scrobbler (which uploads your playlists to the site).
I found the solution last night: airfoil. It’s a piece of software that I can run on my Mac that plugs into iTunes on my Mac and sends the music to my linux PC. The PC is running a thing called airfoilspeakers which receives the connection from airfoil and plays the music through the speakers of the PC. This way I get better quality sound through my slightly nicer stereo (it’s cheap but does the job), scrobbling to last.fm and the convenience of iTunes. Because I run it on the laptop and I usually have the laptop within a short distance of whatever I’m doing (so I can obsessively check twitter) I don’t have far to go to get the music going.
As with all things linux, there was some mucking about so I recommend checking the help site if you’re going to try this at home.
I don’t post much about Flossy’s interests like I did with Sol. I’m not sure if this is gender bias or a second child been-there-done-that attitude. So to address this problem, here is Flossy’s current favourite song The Wiggles, Shimmy Shake in which they do a rather amusing Beatles tribute.
Flossy really loves dancing to all kinds of music and has a good sense of rhythm.
I’ve noticed on twitter a bit of voting going on against the #hottest100women hashtag and to a @hottest100women user who is apparently going to compile a list of the most highly voted female artists as a counterpoint to Triple J’s recent hottest 100 of all time list that had next to no female artists. Actually there were women hidden in some of the bands and some guest artists on the Massive Attack songs but compared to the amount of cock-rock on that list it was pretty saddening.
I really enjoy the feminine voice (both literal and literary) and would like to see just a little more encouragement for women to get out there and sling their guitars (or their keyboards or microphone stands or whatever else makes a noise).
I also realise that in other genres there are plenty of women: my Dad is a fan of country music and at one stage his MySpace page was embarrassingly overloaded with women singers (which he assured me was a coincidence). I think that’s just how country (and folk) music is: women have more of a voice.
And don’t get me started on the soul-delling (a combination of soul and yodelling according to Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock) pop idols that dominate mainstream radio.
So without further ado and to help “restore the balance” here’s my top ten list gals that sing and play in the order that they came into my head which would change if I wrote the list tomorrow or yesterday.
Delerium: Silence. I first heard this in Broke Down Palace and then obtained it on a mix disc that some record shop gave me (called Beat Me ‘Till It Feels Good). The guest vocal is by Sarah McLachlan who actually does kind of yodel in the chorus but in this case it works.
Wicked Beat Sound System: I Don’t Wanna Know. Inna Styles was my favourite album for a couple of years after I bought it. I love the way it blends the flute with the drum and bass and Linda Janssen’s wonderful voice. In this song I love the way she pours the emotion into the line “The world and all that’s beyond, I can’t conceive how it goes on forever / this earth, this life, how can it be taken away so easily?”
Jill Sobule: Supermodel. I have this from the Clueless soundtrack. Apart from her lyrics “I didn’t eat yesterday and I didn’t eat today and I’m not going to eat tomorrow!” I also like the ferocious out of control guitars. I might have also included “I Kissed a Girl” for the line “dumb as a box of hammers but he’s such a handsome guy”. I suppose I should listen to one of her albums some day.
Goldfrapp: Human. I loved felt mountain from the day Richard Kingsmill featured it on his Sunday afternoon show where he plays new stuff. The mix of operatic vocals and epic sounding strings with samples and beats really grabbed me. I also bought Black Cherry and Seventh Tree which are great but I’ll always go back to Felt Mountain because the music just transports you.
Pretenders: Brass In Pocket. This is the Pretender’s big hit but they have written tonnes of other rocking songs and Chrissie Hynde’s sardonic delivery is perfect. I would also put in a vote for “Precious”, “Up the Neck” (for the line “I rubbed my face in the sweat that ran down his chest / it was all very … run of the mill”) and “Pack it Up” (“I may be a skunk, but you’re a piece of junk / and furthermore, I don’t like your trousers…”)
Regina Spektor: Fidelity. (“and it breaks my har har har har har har har har har heart…”) This is pretty new to me, but I’m digging Regina’s music more and more and will probably buy her new album
Garbage: Vow. I can give or take Garbage but their music’s fun (in a dark way) and it rocks. And yes I know there’s that Curve band that is apparently way better but you must remember that prior to 1995 I only listened to Dire Straits and Eric Clapton.
Massive Attack: Teardrop. This is just a wonderful artful song. The guest vocal is Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. Actually I own a Cocteau Twins song: Alice from the Stealing Beauty soundtrack which is also a wonderful haunting song.
Portishead: Glory Box. Also on the Stealing Beauty soundtrack and I realise this list is a little heavy on the acid jazz side of things. But I had to pick a Portishead song and this is the most popular.
Nina Simone: Love me or Leave Me. Maybe Nina doesn’t count as rock/pop but I think she rocks.
And there are heaps more now I look through my record collection like there are heaps of little eighties pop songs that I’m a fan of: Blondie, Divinyls, Eurythmics, even Cyndi Lauper (The eighties was a great time for girl-pop before the age of soul-delling). Also one-off stuff that I only have because it’s on a soundtrack like The Muffs version of Kids in America on the Clueless soundtrack. And then I enjoy the occasional listen to Sinead O’Conner and PJ Harvey that might have made the list on another day.
Note I have kind of broken the hottest100women rules by including bands/songs where only the guest vocal is a woman.
I have a lot of trouble choosing real musical favourites because so much of what I enjoy listening to at a given time is due to the mood I’m in and changes over time and repeated listening. Most of the time I just like a whole album so I’ve just chosen singles when in doubt to make it easier for myself.
Discussion of the absence of female artists in the recent Triple J Hottest 100 poll seems to just keep going and going. Maybe it is being kept alive on twitter by all the people who keep tweeting how dumb it is that people keep tweeting about it. Every few hours I see a tweet come through on the #hottest100 twitter tag along the lines of “judging by that #hottest100 of all time, straight white males. Not sure how I feel about govt $ indulging such an audience.” ref and converse replies “I picked MY best 10 in @triplej #hottest100, so what if none by women? What a lot of patronising, pseudointellectual rubbish some ppl write.” ref. Then there’s the proliferation of “all-vagina” rock lists: “my sister’s attempt at a #Hottest100 of vaginas… RT @bettydee ALL-FEMALE #Hottest100 of all time: http://bit.ly/xwL1F” ref and “My response to the ‘JJJ cockfest’ = ladies only play list #hottest100 http://bit.ly/2lxvWy” ref (These tweets are just from the most recent page-full of tweets that loaded in my client)
The first observation here is what an echo chamber Twitter can be. If not for twitter I wonder whether this issue would be so talked about, sure the usual blogs would have picked up on it and the usual readers of those blogs would have commented but those who follow the #hottest100 twitter tag are more diverse that readers of those blogs so a greater response has been provoked, even a special on Triple J Hack (mp3) to discuss the issue.
Some of you who have a greater emotional distance from this discussion may be asking what’s it all about? Who cares?. In answer to that, keep in mind that Triple J is Australia’s only national youth radio station that explicitly aims to engage young Australian culture. A poll like this gives an indication of what young Australians are into so a lot of different groups pay attention apart from the youth themselves: me I’m just an old fogey clinging to fond memories of my early twenties and the dream I had of being a rock star. A lot of us stale old onlookers have an interest in perpetuating a certain culture that once had an ideal of equality between the sexes. Other groups include various stakeholders in the music industry: artists themselves, producers, record label decision makers (whatever they’re called) who will be deciding where they’re going to spend money (or not) in the next few years. Then there’s Triple J itself getting valuable feedback on what their audience or potential audience want to hear.
But there are a few big problems with the data from this poll. The first is that we don’t know who voted. We can guess that the bulk of the 500,000 ish votes came from under fourties. We can guess that it was mostly middle class people with access to the internet. From the result we might surmise that more men voted than women. Others have speculated that a large contingent of “Bogans” ie working class males flooded the poll to produce the result. But the truth is that we don’t know and we never will.
Having said that, there is a little bit of evidence that a different demographic voted and that is the results of the yearly hottest 100s from earlier in the year and previous years which have plenty of female artists.
Another problem is that we don’t know why people voted the way they did. Again there has been speculation that a lot of the voting was along the lines of what people thought they should be voting for based on results of polls in other settings. This might account for a greater number of baby-boomer staples such as The Beatles, The Beachboys and Bob Dylan in the result. As for the gender exclusion in the result, we could speculate that it was a conscious choice of the voters on one extreme or that it was mere coincidence on the other. The truth is likely to be somewhere in between but again we can only speculate.
There’s a saying I’ve picked up somewhere along the way that goes “never attribute to malice what can be explained by misunderstanding”. There has been a fair few defensive comments both on Twitter and on the radio defending any misogynist agenda. I tend to agree that voters were not consciously excluding women when they voted. Even the fact that Triple J’s original history of rock was all male is atypical of Triple J who in my mind have promoted many female artists and have lots of intelligent women DJs. So I think the accusations of misogyny or neglect of feminist ideals are unfounded.
To me the most convincing speculation as to the result is that the demographic who voted was different to the one that usually comprises the Triple J audience and that this demographic doesn’t consider female artists to be worthy of “hottest of all time” status even through they may on average enjoy female rock. Why is anyone’s guess but mine is that there is a growing culture in Australia of associating rock with male aggression and a growing privileging of male aggression over the last ten years. This stands to reason as we look at a revival of aggressive male nationalism on Australia day coupled with awakened xenophobia in the wake of 9/11.
See also Where Were all the Sisters on The Memes of Production for commentary from real cultural studies people.
UPDATE; On further reflection, another explanation is that the trend towards excluding female artists from the hottest 100 over the last twenty years is due to the changing place of the Internet. Maybe all this proves is that the educated middle and upper classes (who used to be the only ones on the internet) were more into women rockers than society as a whole who now have greater internet use – at least amongst rock fans. And mixed in with this is John’s idea from Memes Of Production that it is also due to the mainstreaming of what used to be alternative rock.
I’ve been feeling really bored with my record collection lately and part of the problem is that I seem to have accumulated a lot of depressing introspective navel gazing music from the nineties: yeah I’m talking about you Counting Crows, Nirvana and Radiohead. As Ben Folds said “You all don’t know what it’s like being male, middle class and white” (Rocking the Suburbs, 2001)
So I was really happy today to rediscover R.E.M’s Lifes Rich Pageant in which Michael Stipe proves that it’s possible to rock out without the self hatred. In fact Lifes Rich Pageant has an activist feel to it: A hopeful, making a change for the better kind of vibe.
Here’s the track listing with my commentary. The lyrics to the songs don’t make all that much sense as Michael seems to have written from a stream of consciousness but they still tell a story.
Begin the Begin has the killer opening riff for the record which lets you know that you are in for a lot of rocking out. As the feedback dies down, Michael’s lyrics meander on a political theme to do with a need for political reform. He talks about politicians playing follow the leader. He mentions Miles Standish one of the first leaders in America.
Michaels lyrics are full of humour and sometimes self referential:
Answer me a question – I can’t itemise – I can’t think clearly – look to me for answers – it’s not there / I can’t even rhyme! (verse 3)
These Days continues the rocking pace with more opening guitar goodness followed by some weird lyrics about losing a hat. To me this song is about the gift of music, Michael talks about the enthusiasm of singing music and how it can energise us.
Fly to carry each his burden / We are young despite the years we are concern / We are hope despite the times / All of the sudden, these days / Happy throngs, take this joy wherever, wherever you go (R.E.M. These Days via lyricsfreak)
Fall on Me backs off the pace a bit but still punches you in the ribs with the bassline. It is apparently about acid rain but can easily also be about climate change. It talks about the lack of political will to protect the environment.
Theres the progress we have found / A way to talk around the problem / Building towered foresight / Isn’t anything at all. / Buy the sky and sell the sky and bleed the sky and tell the sky / Don’t fall on me (verse 2 via lyricsfreak)
Cuyahoga is a pretty dark track about the Cuyahoga river which famously caught fire due to pollution however to me this song is about the indigenous people displaced by colonisation and the loss of their culture. It has a reconcilliation theme that works with the story of Australia’s Aboriginal people. (lyrics via lyricsfreak)
Lets put our heads together and start a new country up / Our fathers fathers father tried, erased the parts he didnt like (verse 1)
and
This is where we walked, this is where we swam / Take a picture here, take a souvenir (recurring bridge)
and
Rewrite the book and rule the pages, saving face, secured in faith / Bury, burn the waste behind you (variation bridge)
Hyena is just a fun rocking song to pick up the pace again. I think it’s based on African mythology. (lyrics)
Underneath the Bunker is mostly instrumental.
The Flowers of Guatemala seems like a sweet song about flowers with an uplifting guitar solo. Peter Buck’s guitar playing really features on this album. Actually, the flower mentioned is a beautiful but deadly mushroom which is probably a reference to Guatemala’s bloody history. The country had it’s first free election in 1986 when Lifes Rich Pageant was Released. (lyrics)
I Believe seems to be about idealism or a spiritual experience had during a feverish hallucination. He talks about having a mission in life but also how ideals contradict each other and can cause a kind of stalemate.
Trust in your calling, make sure your calling’s true /
Think of others, before the others think of you (lyrics)
What If We Give It Away? Seems to be about doubting what you’re doing and thinking about giving up on trying to change things. (lyrics)
Just a Touch is yet another rocking wild song and I have no idea what it’s about. I can’t even hear the lyrics except for the “Kevin heard it on the radio” line.
Superman is an awesome album finisher (complete with a sound byte from a toy Godzilla). Even though I have bonus tracks on the CD I bought, I usually stop listening at this song. I like the way this song plays on Superman’s super powers.
You don’t really love that guy you make it with now do you / I know you don’t love that guy ‘cause I can see right through you (lyrics)
Anyway, I really love this album and I hope that you will give it a listen if you get the chance or if you already have it, tell me your thoughts on it in the comments.
Thom Yorke tells me we are all just chemical reactions, hysterical and useless *. We might feel that way sometimes, more keenly when we are sick like I’ve been this week: A background virus, sleep deprivation and a couple of migraines have left me feeling a little sorry for myself. We might also ponder the meaning of our bodies when we face more serious illness like hearing of a friend’s wife receiving a terminal diagnosis, remembering an acquaintance who died from skin cancer or even finding out that a close relative is doing the cancer thing. Why is it that our wonderful minds, our selves in all their glory are housed in fragile physical systems which degrade with time, even systems as marvellous as the human body. When I get a bad migraine I feel especially out of control of my body, and I imagine I can feel it going wrong and out of balance. It alarms me how much my physical well-being can affect the way I think. Othertimes, I notice the little effects of ageing like how I don’t like having to bend down and pick things up off the floor or how I think the staircase in my house is a bit of a chore. A few years back, I wouldn’t have noticed any of those things. I worry about getting old and what it must feel like as your body degrades.
Charles Darwin turned 200 this week. He tells me that we are all descended from apes. But then Jonathan Marks tells me that we are not merely apes:
we are in fact quite different from apes, I mean we’re sitting here talking and Boo-boo and Bam-bam simply aren’t doing that. Not only that but we are cutting our hair, we are pulling our wisdom teeth, we’re dressed, we walk, we cry—these are all things that apes don’t do. And more importantly we threaten one another by brandishing our lawyers rather than our canine teeth. So we are in fact quite different from apes, which is not to say that we are not very closely related to apes, but to ignore the ways in which we are different I think is to ignore the fact of evolution. And if you want to say that we are just apes and not really different, it seems to me that’s the person that’s denying evolution. – Jonathan Marks, The Philosopher’s Zone 14/2/09
To deny that we are different from apes, not only denies that evolution leads to new species but stops us from imagining that we could ever be more than apes. Afterall, evolution didn’t stop back in prehistory, it continues and it continues at a very rapid pace in the human species as the selection pressures of our society shape us.
Just as saying that humans are merely apes denies us our transcendence, I wonder if thinking that we are just chemical reactions in a body made of meat denies us a transcendence as well. Even as our physical selves plunge towards their inevitable limits, instead of dwelling on the meaninglessness of death, some of us find meaning in becoming more than what our nature makes us: in reaching out to God as we understand him/her/it and as we do so, reaching out to each other. Who knows, maybe someday we really will grow wings.
UPDATE: Please forgive this blog post, I really don’t know what I’m trying to say but I’m pretty sure that the last two sentences are not it. Just imagine that I wrote a profound insight about mechanism as reductionism and science vs meaning as experience and imagination and remind me not to listen to Ok Computer and get all depressed.
