From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #366 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, October 3 2003 Volume 12 : Number 366 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: John "Oscar" Mayer & Sting [Miles Goosens ] so full of Sting [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Selling like Hot Hot Heatcakes ["Rex.Broome" ] Mmmm... bear grease! [Elizabeth Brion ] RE: John "Oscar" Mayer & Sting ["Iosso, Ken" ] The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) ["Rex.Bro] Re: 40 UK [Miles Goosens ] Re: VCR Alert Sting [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: Sting [Eb ] Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) [Tom ] Re: 40 UK [Aaron Mandel ] Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) [Eb <] Police, Guardian [Christopher Gross ] Re: Mmmm... bear grease! [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: Sting [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) [Jeff] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:43:33 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: John "Oscar" Mayer & Sting At 10:51 AM 10/3/2003 -0700, Jeff Dwarf wrote: >"Your Body is a Wonderland" also, as one of my co-workers >pointed out to me one morning, sounds mysteriously like >Extreme's "More Than Words," if not in production, that >surely in pseudo-edgy blandness. Mayer is the musical guest on SNL tomorrow night, and the guest host is Jack Black. In less sanguine times I might have suggested detonating a bomb on the premises (and who'd miss the SNL cast? Maybe Tina Fey would be spared on grounds of babe-itude), but these days, I'll simply suggest that Black and Mayer be whisked off the set and taken to preserves in remote areas of the nation, where their fans can visit them and still have them to enjoy (and perhaps also spend the rest of their time within the confines of said preserves), but they would never be heard or seen by the rest of us ever again. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:00:24 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Christ, Rex, join the Verlaine list already! Carrie: >>let's do a feg gathering and take some fotos so we can send them to Unca' Nick >>and prove that fegs are everywhere - and a lot of fun too! Is that page still ongoing? Many are the current feglisters who can't be visually located there. Cool resource, though. Tom C: >>I have two words for you my friend: TiVO >>Those who haven't used it can't grasp the concept. Those who use it once >>can't live without it. We know. We have friends who have crossed over. We just sorta lack the necessary capital for the startup. Sigh. >>And don't tell the MPAA or whatever fascist group looks after TV, but I save >>all the episodes of certain children's programs and burn compilation DVDs of >>them for my daughter. But... that could be really worthwhile. Because while you can find shows for the kids that you can deal with as parents, too, you can only watch the same *episodes* of those shows so many times. Not to give you a Blue's Clues flashback or anything... _____ Nat: >>I was just remembering one of the last coherent things my grandmother said >>to me before she died a few years ago... I told her it was my birthday and >>she said, "I wish I could bake you a cake." *sigh* Sniff. One of the last things my maternal grandfather said to me was similarly heartbreaking... he told me I looked almost exactly like his father. It was a real "big wheel keeps on turning" moment. >>I would kill to see Television - I don't care if they're not as good as the >>"good old days." Maybe they'll tour to support these new re-releases... That's what they're doing right now. I guess it wouldn't surprise you to know that I have hells of bootlegs from the "good old days", and, having seen them twice (same show in '92 as Eb, I think, and at All Tomorrow's Parties last year) they are just as good now, really. Perhaps not as well-oiled, but Richard Lloyd's playing is *so* much better now. And he was no slouch back then. >>Recently there was a really good article about Television in Mojo, in which >>Tom Verlaine appeared to be a massive asshole. Possible. I've never been able to determine this to my own satisfaction. Eb: >>I asked Lloyd's ex what she knew about a new TV album, and she just said >>something vague like "They are in discussion." Heh... I was assuming Llyod's ex was a guy. FWIW, Lloyd's the only one who's said anything in the press about a new record and even he acknowledged that they had no record deal, but that they might record anyway. Verlaine was sorta semi-signed to Smells Like a few years back... supposed to do an instrumental record that never materialized. - -Rex "and one of the new songs is called Squaggle, apparently" Broome ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:01:11 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Sting >Of all the many howlers in that film (post-Brunswick Who _LPs_ at mod >parties supposedly set in 1963/4?) the casting of Sting as a 17-year-old >was one of the most ludicrous. Bleh. This is music-geek stuff. >PS I always assumed that "selling like hot cakes" referred to the fact >that they cool off quickly, so you want to buy and eat them while they are >still hot. Yeah? I wondered if it's because hotcakes are one of the few non-snack foods eaten in *quantity*. And "selling like fried shrimp" doesn't really have much pizzazz. But maybe you're right. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:15:59 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: so full of Sting Quoting Eb : > >Of all the many howlers in that film (post-Brunswick Who _LPs_ > at mod > >parties supposedly set in 1963/4?) the casting of Sting as a > 17-year-old > >was one of the most ludicrous. > > Bleh. This is music-geek stuff. And this is what sort of list again? So, who wants to make lists of their top ten all-time favorite brand of guitar strings? We'll need to break them down into electric, acoustic, acoustic 12-string, electric 12-string, and nylon string. But no bass strings - geez, *as if* a bass is the same thing as a guitar. You clearly know nothing. - --Larry Groznic ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: it's not your meat :: --Mr. Toad ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:36:23 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Selling like Hot Hot Heatcakes JeFFrey: >>>>For those of us living outside LA and KROQ's broadcast area, please >>>>elucidate... Eb: >>You know what's popular. The Good Charlottes. All that harmless >>teen-punk sh*t which sounds/looks so much alike that I can't imagine >>how people even form distinct opinions from act to act. I still hear the KROQ morning show from time to time and you're actually describing maybe a third of their playlist. There's still a lot of "nu-metal" (Lihnkkiln Pahrcke and all the other name-spelled-wrong bands) which is worse than the above, and a smattering of neo-garage and related stuff (White Stripes etc.) which, to damn it with faint praise, is better, plus the occasional wild cards like QOTSA, Interpol, and Hot Hot Heat sitting there suffering by association. Dreadful times. There seems to be a similar station in every other city I visit, too, although some of them seem to toss in a little matchbox-20 shit to soften it up a bit. Ken: >>It's hard to put a finger on why I switch the station every time a Sting or >>John Mayer song comes on the radio, but I think it's because it's bland and >>accessible. I never hear either on the radio, and didn't know anything about Mayer other than his name until very recently, but since I just admitted to occasionally listening to a station that plays, like, Staind and Evanescence, I hope I'm not coming off as too faux-hip or faux-indie, as that appears to be Jeffrey's scene. (SEHIIUT)* >>One other music note: I LOVE that new REM song - I think it's "Bad Day." It's called "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Or at least it's a rewrite of an outtake from Lifes Rich Pageant that was already rewritten as that song. Odd move, although the song is okay. >>Eb, currently pondering the meaning of "selling like hotcakes" I went through that a few months back, and never got a satisfactory answer. When precisely did hotcakes (pancacks? flapjacks?) outsell all their competition to the point where it was anecdote-worthy? I can only imagine at, like, a World's Fair or something where some new hotcake-production machine was introduced to the astonishment and delight of all. - -Rex *finally got tired of writing out "smiley emoticon here if I used them" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:31:04 -0700 From: Eb Subject: 40 UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/page/0,10607,1053415,00.html An interesting list, in that I'm not even familiar with a large number of the names. No Hitch, but that's no surprise. Might gripe more about the missing Costello, Orton, Supergrass, Badly Drawn Boy, Black Box Recorder.... Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:34:38 -0700 From: Elizabeth Brion Subject: Mmmm... bear grease! On Friday, October 3, 2003, at 12:36 PM, Rex.Broome wrote: > > I went through that a few months back, and never got a satisfactory > answer. > When precisely did hotcakes (pancacks? flapjacks?) outsell all their > competition to the point where it was anecdote-worthy? I can only > imagine > at, like, a World's Fair or something where some new hotcake-production > machine was introduced to the astonishment and delight of all. From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins: "Hot cakes cooked in bear grease or pork lard were popular from earliest times in America. First made of cornmeal, the griddle cakes or pancakes were of course best when served piping hot and were often sold at church benefits, fairs, and other functions. So popular were they that by the beginning of the 19th century to sell like hot cakes was a familiar expression for anything that sold very quickly, effortlessly, and in quantity." How unexpectedly literal. E ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:09:53 -0500 From: "Iosso, Ken" Subject: RE: John "Oscar" Mayer & Sting Sounds like it. Ken Iosso - -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Dwarf [mailto:munki1972@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 12:51 PM To: fgz Subject: RE: John "Oscar" Mayer & Sting "Iosso, Ken" wrote: > It's hard to put a finger on why I switch the station > every time a Sting or John Mayer song comes on the radio, > but I think it's because it's bland and accessible. Both > can be used as sort of elevator music for sophisticated > people. Smooth jazzy flourishes, breathy voices, warm > images, yuk. Cool! They're playing "I'm Into Something > Good" on the oldies station. "Your Body is a Wonderland" also, as one of my co-workers pointed out to me one morning, sounds mysteriously like Extreme's "More Than Words," if not in production, that surely in pseudo-edgy blandness. > One other music note: I LOVE that new REM song - I think > it's "Bad Day." Is that the one that based on a half-written song from 1986 that was also mutated into "It's the End of the WOrld...?" ===== "Pentagon officials says Americanizing Iraq is difficult because Iraqis have had little to no reliable information for the past 35 years, and have lived on a diet of innuendo, rumor, conspiracy theories, fear, and propaganda. Sounds like the problem is they're too Americanized." -- Bill Maher "Being accused of hating America by people like Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham is like being accused of hating children by Michael Jackson or (Cardinal) Bernard Law." -- anonymous . __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 13:37:24 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? I'm not talking about punk roots or street cred or anything in comparison to solo Sting... just, do you like to listen to them? I've never found them especially interesting or exciting. Sting solo, then, is just kind of more of the same but more boring and calculated. I dunno. I don't hate him but I don't think about him much. > The guy gets real songs in the top 40, played by real musicians. And > his lyrics aren't generic. That can only be encouraging to me. Jeff already asked, sort of, but by "real musicians" do you mean "human beings as opposed to machines" or "like really accomplished slick pro semi jazz guys with big time chops instead of self-taught hacks", or something else? Because I don't see either of those definitions as being virtues by definition or in and of themselves, although both were frequently put forward as such in the '80's. The idea of "real songs" interests me, too, having a similar vintage feel to it. I'm guessing you mean traditionally constructed in the lyrical and melodic sense, but I don't want to assume to much. So forthwith, Ladies and Hooded Ones, I present something that strikes me as truly odd and alien... the Top 20 singles of this week: 1 Baby Boy, Beyonce Featuring Sean Paul 2 Shake Ya Tailfeather, Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee 3 Get Low, Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz Featuring Ying Yang Twins 4 Right Thurr, Chingy 5 Frontin', Pharrell Featuring Jay-Z 6 Damn!, YoungBloodZ Featuring Lil Jon 7 P.I.M.P., 50 Cent 8 Into You, Fabolous Featuring Tamia Or Ashanti 9 Stand Up, Ludacris Featuring Shawnna 10 Where Is The Love?, Black Eyed Peas 11 Unwell, matchbox twenty 12 Why Don't You & I, Santana Featuring Alex Band Or Chad Kroeger 13 Here Without You, 3 Doors Down 14 Crazy In Love, Beyonce Featuring Jay-Z 15 Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Young Gunz 16 Rain On Me, Ashanti 17 Thoia Thoing, R. Kelly 18 Can't Hold Us Down, Christina Aguilera Featuring Lil' Kim 19 My Love Is Like... Wo, Mya 20 The Remedy (I Won't Worry), Jason Mraz Firstly, I must admit I don't think I've heard a *damn* thing on this list, but I would be curious as to what exactly makes any of these songs less "real" than, say, "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free". Since they're obviously popular it should be easy to get ahold of one and compare and contrast. I would guess that if you're talking about traditional pop tropes, the matchbox 20 and 3 Doors Down songs would fit the qualifications just as well as any Sting song, but does that make them good? It's rank speculation on my part, but I'd guess that they're among the worst stuff here. Unless of course by some miracle the 3 Doors Down track is a cover of the Byrds tune, in which case it's probably the best song and worst performance all in one. Black Eyed Peas are about the only artists here whose records I can even imagine owning. But, uh what the hell is a "Thoia Thoing", and what's the deal with songs "featuring someone *or* someone else"... multiple mixes for different markets? Weird. - -Rex Broome, featuring RobN Hitch-Kok or Chingy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 15:26:05 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: 40 UK At 12:31 PM 10/3/2003 -0700, Eb wrote: >http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/page/0,10607,1053415,00.html > >An interesting list, in that I'm not even familiar with a large >number of the names. Wow, I've enhanced my fogey credentials mightily -- I have only heard of 19, and have knowingly heard music by only 15. In fact, I'm clueless about their #1 pick (the Libertines). later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:35:05 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: VCR Alert Sting Quoting Tom Clark : > on 10/3/03 2:30 AM, Matt Sewell at matt_sewell@hotmail.com > wrote: > > > Sting in A&E? If only! I hope it was from a poison blowdart, > from an > > indigenous rainforest dweller... Next time I see Sting I'm > going to slap > > him and say "What about the rainforests, Gordon? And your > > environmentalism? And the vegetarianism?" (he did an ad for > Jaguar - a > > car which uses gallons of fuel just getting out of the > driveway, has a > > dashboard made of rainforest hardwood and has leather seats*) > > > > > > *The bit about the leather seats is perhaps unfair - I know > many veggies > > wear leather. > > I'm a veggie who owns one pair of leather shoes, reluctantly. > However, I > spend so much time in my car that I couldn't fathom sitting on > cloth seats. > Believe me, I hate the hypocrisy, but you've got to pick your > battles in > this world. Reluctant though I am to defend Sting in any way, fact is holding vegetarians, or environmentalists, etc., to absolute standards of behavior is just the slightest bit hypocritical...unless you hold everyone else to the same standard (including yourself, in which case you're probably walking around flogging yourself with barbed wire. Unless yr Jesus). As Tom implies, perfection is impossible in this world: we choose which battles to fight, which compromises to make. Re leather: maybe I'm naive, but are cows killed to make leather, or does one just wait for the appropriate cow to have died from some other cause...even if that other cause is, uh, cheeseburgers? At any rate, it would be *possible* to make leather only from naturally dying cows - in a way that's probably not true of meat, not to mention the resource usage issue. But what do I know - I'm not even a vegetarian, although I try to buy organically raised meats etc. rather than megacorporate farm products. And those absolutist vegans really shouldn't use anything with glues, or photographic film, or... ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: we make everything you need, and you need everything we make np: Clinic - Peel Sessions deal from online ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 13:42:45 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Sting >Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? I still have a secondhand copy of the debut. That one connects with me more than any of the others. More direct or something. More grrrrrr. Not too motivated to buy any other Police albums, though I might try a cheapie copy of Regatta de Blanc, just because I don't think I've ever heard it all the way through. >The idea of "real songs" interests me, too, having a similar vintage feel to >it. I'm guessing you mean traditionally constructed in the lyrical and >melodic sense, but I don't want to assume to much. I guess by a "real" song, I mean a combination of lyrics, melody and chords which can be adequately captured on paper as sheet music, and doesn't bank its appeal on production tricks, decorative arrangements, vocal embellishments, improv, spontaneous band chemistry, etc. And having a point of view doesn't hurt either. Eb, half-engaged ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:45:21 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) on 10/3/03 1:37 PM, Rex.Broome at Rex.Broome@preferredmedia.com wrote: > Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? I'm not talking > about punk roots or street cred or anything in comparison to solo Sting... > just, do you like to listen to them? I've never found them especially > interesting or exciting. > I like their first two albums. That's about it. > The idea of "real songs" interests me, too, having a similar vintage feel to > it. I'm guessing you mean traditionally constructed in the lyrical and > melodic sense, but I don't want to assume to much. So forthwith, Ladies and > Hooded Ones, I present something that strikes me as truly odd and alien... > the Top 20 singles of this week: > > 1 Baby Boy, Beyonce Featuring Sean Paul > 2 Shake Ya Tailfeather, Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee > 3 Get Low, Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz Featuring Ying Yang Twins > 4 Right Thurr, Chingy > 5 Frontin', Pharrell Featuring Jay-Z > 6 Damn!, YoungBloodZ Featuring Lil Jon > 7 P.I.M.P., 50 Cent > 8 Into You, Fabolous Featuring Tamia Or Ashanti > 9 Stand Up, Ludacris Featuring Shawnna > 10 Where Is The Love?, Black Eyed Peas > 11 Unwell, matchbox twenty > 12 Why Don't You & I, Santana Featuring Alex Band Or Chad Kroeger > 13 Here Without You, 3 Doors Down > 14 Crazy In Love, Beyonce Featuring Jay-Z > 15 Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Young Gunz > 16 Rain On Me, Ashanti > 17 Thoia Thoing, R. Kelly > 18 Can't Hold Us Down, Christina Aguilera Featuring Lil' Kim > 19 My Love Is Like... Wo, Mya > 20 The Remedy (I Won't Worry), Jason Mraz > Hey, a good week for intentional misspellings though! 45%! - -t, featuring c ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:47:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: 40 UK On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Miles Goosens wrote: > Wow, I've enhanced my fogey credentials mightily -- I have only heard of > 19, and have knowingly heard music by only 15. In fact, I'm clueless > about their #1 pick (the Libertines). I've heard of 26, heard 23, and also never heard of the Libertines. Nice to see Roots Manuva get his propers, though. a ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 13:54:19 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) >Hey, a good week for intentional misspellings though! 45%! Good catch. :) Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" has gotta be my guilty-pleasure hit of the year. Still not sick of it. Work it, girl! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:52:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Police, Guardian On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Rex.Broome wrote: > Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? I'm not talking > about punk roots or street cred or anything in comparison to solo Sting... > just, do you like to listen to them? I've never found them especially > interesting or exciting. I'll hold my hand halfway up. I ostentatiously hated them for a while in my teens, mainly because my sister loved them; then reluctantly realized that I had come to like them by the time I started college; then liked them a whole lot for a year or two because a girl I had a crush on listened to them; then settled back into just kinda sorta liking them. Nowadays I throw some Police songs into my 80s mixes, but rarely if ever listen to them on their own. I actually saw Sting live once, in September or October 1988. I don't remember much about the show, aside from noticing that he rocked out a bit more than he did on his solo albums. But going to this show did allow me to hang out with the abovementioned girl, which was the important thing. Re: the Guardian's Top 40 list, I've only definitely heard of 12, but there are two or three more maybes. With a name as generic as Muse, for instance, how can I be sure? - --Chris np: Gotta Let This Hen Out!, on my beautiful new 40 GB iPod ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:00:36 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: Mmmm... bear grease! Quoting Elizabeth Brion : > This message was written in a character set other than your own. If > it is not displayed correctly, click here to open it in a new > window. Goddamnit, I spent a *lot* of time developing that character set. It's *my* computer, and I don't see why I should have to put up with other people who insist on using *other* character sets. What's so cool about them anyway? Does *your* character set include Mr. Floppy, the anatomically correct Viagra-selling walrus? Or Lord High Demon Foulmaster, the multi-dimensional entity that farts on buses and creates public mistrust of their seatmates? (Soon, I'll make a twenty-hour film-opera about him!) Or Princess Cinnamuffin, whose perky smile, winning teeth, and barbarously enhanced kung fu gripping toes make her the bestest, cutest acrobat ever? No, they do not. Hmmph. ..Jeff, three years old at heart J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: This album is dedicated to anyone who started out as an animal and :: winds up as a processing unit. :: --Soft Boys, note, _Can of Bees_ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 23:09:26 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Sting - -- Eb is rumored to have mumbled on Freitag, 3. Oktober 2003 13:42 Uhr -0700 regarding Re: Sting: >> Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? > > I still have a secondhand copy of the debut. That one connects with me > more than any of the others. More direct or something. More grrrrrr. Not > too motivated to buy any other Police albums, though I might try a > cheapie copy of Regatta de Blanc, just because I don't think I've ever > heard it all the way through. I've got the "Message In A Box" collection, but don't listen to it very often. I also prefer the earlier stuff, although I have favorites on all their albums. Back in school in the mid-80s the crowd I hung out with was very much into the Police (as well as U2, Chris Rea, Dire Straits), so I listened to it a lot. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156, 50823 Kvln, Germany http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:32:42 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: The Sting Thing (and an frightening journey thru alien terrain) Quoting "Rex.Broome" : > Show of hands: who here even really likes the Police? Well, at one time I liked them, when the albums were released, and I liked enough of their stuff to buy the box set w/everything on it. But increasingly, I find even their better material tainted by dated production and incipient Sting-ness. > Ladies and > Hooded Ones, I present something that strikes me as truly odd and > alien... > the Top 20 singles of this week: > > 1 Baby Boy, Beyonce Featuring Sean Paul > 2 Shake Ya Tailfeather, Nelly, P. Diddy & Murphy Lee > 3 Get Low, Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz Featuring Ying Yang Twins > 4 Right Thurr, Chingy > 5 Frontin', Pharrell Featuring Jay-Z > 6 Damn!, YoungBloodZ Featuring Lil Jon > 7 P.I.M.P., 50 Cent > 8 Into You, Fabolous Featuring Tamia Or Ashanti > 9 Stand Up, Ludacris Featuring Shawnna > 10 Where Is The Love?, Black Eyed Peas > 11 Unwell, matchbox twenty > 12 Why Don't You & I, Santana Featuring Alex Band Or Chad Kroeger > 13 Here Without You, 3 Doors Down > 14 Crazy In Love, Beyonce Featuring Jay-Z > 15 Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Young Gunz > 16 Rain On Me, Ashanti > 17 Thoia Thoing, R. Kelly > 18 Can't Hold Us Down, Christina Aguilera Featuring Lil' Kim > 19 My Love Is Like... Wo, Mya > 20 The Remedy (I Won't Worry), Jason Mraz Okay, you're right: this is weird. I hadn't realized just how far outside the mainstream I'd gone. If you'd've asked, I'd've said that I'd maybe know only four or five songs in the top 20. But geez: of the 30 or so named people or acts mentioned above (I can't count accurately, because I have no idea whether "Wo, Mya" is one person, two people, or a band), I've even *heard of* only Beyonce (who's lost her surname), Nelly, P. Diddy, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Ashanti, Ludacris, Black Eyed Peas (the only act I've heard anything about that might make me want to check them out), Matchbox Our Shift Key's Broken, Santana, 3 Doors Down, R. Kelly, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, and Jason Mraz - that's about half that I haven't a clue about. What strikes me about this list is the sheer paucity of ideas, at least as indicated by the titles, which are utterly generic phrases consisting of the most ultra-basic vocabulary in the language (or not in the language, as the case may be...). A good half of them seem designed around, or intended as, catchphrases, as if some marketing consultant insisted on the importance of a simple, basic verbal hook that people would repeat for punchlines, like those of SNL characters or something. This is why, btw, I'm rather mystified that anyone would confuse me for a hipster - even ironically - since to me, a hipster at least knows what's popular, even if only enough to disdain it. Apparently, I've gone beyond that, and have disdained the whole apparatus, figuring that anything worthwhile will eventually filter its way down to me via the channels I actually do pay attention to (like, uh, here. Sorry - "herre," per Chingy, whom I just know realize I must have read about, although I couldn't remember the name). As for the other list of obscurities, the Guardian's list: I fare a little better there, I think. Let's see....Lone Pigeon, Topley-Bird (although only w/Tricky), Spiritualized, British Sea Power (heard *of*), Richard X, Belle & Sebastian, Pet Shop Boys, David Holmes, Broadcast, Beth Gibbons, Coldplay (whose appeal I do not get), Wyatt, Goldfrapp, Basement Jaxx, Chemical Bros., Super Furry Animals, David Jones, Streets, Blur, Roots Manuva, PJ...and who the hell is this "Radiohead" band? Own: Pigeon Spir. B&S Wyatt Chem SFA Bowie Blur Radiohead. Would consider buying: BSP, Broadcast, Gibbons, Goldfrapp, and maybe a few others. ..Jeff, scribbling a fine line between hipness and hopelessly out of touch J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: we make everything you need, and you need everything we make ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #366 ********************************