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Detour

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:10 pm
by Blair N. Cummings
Let`s all take a breather and enjoy this brand new John Cale single/video:

Trust me, it`s a beautiful song.

Re: Detour

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:30 am
by GehVorbei
Oh dear, that's pretty awful, a dirty old man discovering the vocoder. Is there any Bacharach connection I am missing?

Re: Detour

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:21 am
by Blair N. Cummings
No connection at all; that`s why I labeled it "Detour".
Apologies to those who didn`t get it or like it.

Re: Detour

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 11:13 am
by GehVorbei
I'm still confused. I always thought Velvet Underground played a key role in ending that great period in American music where Burt and Hal and their Brill Building peers ruled and in the unfortunate transition to the rock era.

And after all your venomous attacks on Dionne and her new product you now want to detour the "boring" conversation on Warwick by promoting the new vocoder-enhanced single of the 70 year old former vocalist of Velvet Underground?

Now that's funny.

Re: Detour

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:03 pm
by Blair N. Cummings
You`ll have to remind me -via quotation-of anything I have ever posted about DW that could be considered "venomous". I have asserted that much of her later work is plainly inferior to the B/D years, but also acknowledged that others have different tastes. I have very recently stated that DW has earned her exalted place in music history. (Ouch! Feel that venom!)
I consider rock to be a dumbed-down version of pop in the same sense that pop was a dumbed-down version of opera. Mind you, I`m not an opera afficianado, but I know that Donizetti was a better composer than Barry Manilow who was a better composer than Kid Rock. Rock and roll ascended after the classic American Pop era decayed (with "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window?" often serving as a tombstone). Nevertheless, most rock bands wrote slow, pretty songs along with the heavier stuff and I intended "Face to the Sky" as a new example of that. Each genre has its legitimate pleasures and, in my view, Cale has provided many (including classical compositions of some repute).
I wonder if you even paid attention to this song. It has a lovely melody, a poignant lyric about a desperate and conflicted woman - is her face to the sky out of bafflement? resignation to a deity? - and a second-level meaning in the visual contrast between the woman`s artful self-expression and the Cale-figure`s control by unseen puppeteers (who ultimately leave him a marionette).
Honestly, I didn`t think this would be controversial. I just thought it was a very smart, very moving song.