so tell me, why is Kaputt better or worse than Let England Shake?

its woozy small hours music, too much coke, walled into yourself. i want you to love me, you send me a coffin of roses. i guess avalon is a fair reference, but it misses something. its music influence by avalon in the same way that life sometimes feel like its being refracted through movies. it feels cinematic inasmuch as sometimes it feels like you get lost in being somebody else in the dark. bringing a cigarette to your lips, watching the smoke billow up through the lights in the club. this is it though, the glassy surfaces. everything is an image. how hard it is to feel things sometimes. its not empty though, its just half numb, playing itself playing at someone else.

This is really spot on.

It's not so much that Bejar could never write "More Than This", it's more that he could never write a song from the perspective of the singer of "More Than This", only from the perspective of someone sitting in the audience watching Ferry sing it and wishing for a moment that that could be him, and at the same time knowing it's an impossibility.

destroyer simply sounds magnificent, full stop. i could compare and argue all day long but i think i'll just chill with my eight month old and spin the 'kaputt' vinyl....just...one more time today.

just one more time.

or someone whose sensibility isn't very close to Ferry's but sympathizes with his yearning.

xpost

Yeah that's a really good way to put it.

looool omar

Bejar isn't interested in direct expression; his singing voice, by nature and design, isn't designed for it. Like a lot of songwriters he's stumbled into a host of deflectionary techniques.

Ferry's rather different. Even during high Roxy he always convinced me that he cared, which is a little different than convincing me that he wanted to care.

suicide demo for kara walker is the result of a weird experiment w/ kara walker where she wrote the lyrics

there you go then. w/e the source, though, those lyrics don't square with the overall themes you describe. placing it as the album's centerpiece and ending with two tracks that suggest a wrestling with america and history does give kaputt a strange spin overall. bejar invites attempts to read the whole as having concerns in common let england shake, but doesn't seem to deliver on that score. don't intend that as a slam.

Strange that Destroyer's cover of "Leave Me Alone" is a misfire -- the sentiment is so Bejar-esque but something about the straightforwardness of the lyric and chords unsettles him enough to produce a tentative performance.

the score bejar delivers on is smooth epic sounds to which i can vibe

"Smooth epic sounds to which I can vibe/Melody Maker, Smash Hits, all sounds like a dream to meeee..."

guys i'm listening to the new frankie rose and it kind of sounds like both of these albums put together

clear contender for ilm's 2012 album of the year

maybe the new order cover is bad because he could only reflect a good song through his prism of hesitant yearning and his wistful worship of more talented songwriters.

hahaha, just kidding.

and as much as i love new order - and boy did i ever love new order - i'm not gonna make a huge case for their rhyme schemes or vocal prowess.

what is is with 30+ ilxors and New Order

what is it with 30+ people and the printing press

well, you know, joy division/new order. i was a child of the 80's. they kept me going. JD probably still my 2nd fave band of all time.

and yr fave?

bananarama!

classic algerian goalkeeper

Bananarama recorded some fantastic singles!

i own 30 bananarama singles and lps on vinyl. at least. but no, first would be black sabbath. then joy division. then felt. then whatever.

what is it with 30+ people and the printing press

LOL

actually, FB3/Bananarama would be near the top for me too. bow wow wow as well. all top twenty in my book.

you even like S/A/W era Bananarama? That's when I went off them.

"I Heard a Rumour" is fantastic.

would like to say the things judith has said in this thread are super great

what abt wang chung

Re. Al Stewart + Neil Tennant equation, am listening to "On the Border" right now and wondering if Neil Tennant did not have a little Al Stewart in him anyway?

"wondering if Neil Tennant did not have a little Al Stewart in him anyway?"

those are just rumors.

Year of the Cat has Spanish guitar instead of saxophone.

Oh wait, there's sax too!

Co-written by Peter Wood, "Year of the Cat" is a narrative song written in the second person whose protagonist is a tourist in an exotic market where a mysterious silk-clad woman appears to carry him away for a gauzy romantic adventure.

would like to say the things judith has said in this thread are super great

"These days," she says, "I feel modern life just like a river runnin' thru

I listened to "Time Passages" ten minutes ago!

more like gayzy romantic adventure.

Hey guys, both these albums are alright, but we should really be having a 500 post argument about whether On a Mission or 4 is better instead.

that's easy

"Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME... all sounds like a dream to me..." is like some weird inversion of what Kevin Rowland's doing on Too-Rye-Ay; Rowland's literally singing about being in the band, on stage performing or writing / jamming / creating the song, exhorting the musicians to find something pure, etc etc, and Bejar's fantasising, watching bands (in his imagination, based on the music press), wondering what it's like. Perhaps.

That's an interesting comparison - Bejar to Neil Tennant / Kevin Rowland to Geno Washington

Bejar's also writing very much from the perspective of someone who is NOT a famous successful mega rich musician; he's not chasing cocaine in the back rooms of the world, nor, I suspect, has he ever - he's a low level indie musician who's been plugging away for 15 years on idiosyncratic records which are acclaimed but which have never crossed over. Whereas Rowland actually was as successful as the people he idolised, if not even more successful in some ways.

new pornographers have crossed over, no? they play them on all those npr-ish radio stations. sales-wise, they aren't nearly as big, but they seem to have an audience beyond indie-rock.

"Whereas Rowland actually was as successful as the people he idolised"

one-hit wonder in the states. but remembered fondly for that one hit. NOBODY here knows the name of the singer from dexy's.

i've certainly never seen a low level indie musician chasing cocaine

yeah even in the UK Kevin is idolised more than genuinely massive

OK, maybe Rowland's not famous as an individual, but Eileen and Geno were MASSIVE hits, both #1 in the UK, and Eileen #1 in the US too; Dexys sold a LOT of records. I'd wager as many as Geno Washington and then some.

And yes, low-level indie musicians can be found chasing cocaine, of course, but I get the sense that Bejar's more writing about the kind of people who fly to gigs on learjets than half a squiff in the toilets of Camden Electric Ballroom.

xxpost But then he was idolising all these Northern Soul artists who probably didn't make a huge mark in the US and only had a narrow cult following in the UK. Not that that's important.