The Upgrade podcast from Lifehacker recently asked “What Non-Kid Songs Do You Listen to With Your Kids?” and I sent them some commentary, based on my own personal experience. I’m pleased to say that my recommendation of ‘Karma Chameleon’ by Culture Club was included in the round-up!
You can listen to the episode via the player below, or on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher. My smirking voice (can voices smirk?) may be heard brielfy in the segment that starts at about 29 mins.
Continue reading “Recommending Non-Kids Songs for Kids on the Lifehacker Upgrade Podcast”
Pop Pairs
I was listening Magic 105.4 earlier. They played Papa Don’t Preach by Madonna. The girl in the song pleads with her Dad to let her see someone he disapproves of.
Next in the playlist was Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. A young man laments that the woman he has fallen for is from a different social class.
It occurs to me that these two songs are Pop Pairs. They could be two views on the same relationship.
My sense is that you could probably make a Pop Pair out of any two songs where the singer declares their love for someone else. But the really great pop pairs will be two songs that present two sides of a less conventional relationship. For example, Young Girl by Gary Puckett, paired with Born Too Late by the Poni-Tails; or Money Money Money by ABBA, paired with Gold Digger by Kanye West.
Alternatively, where the sentiment is quite specific: The particular question asked by the Shirelles in Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is answered quite specifically by the Waterboys in How Long Will I Love You?
Eternal Flame by the Bangles paired with Firestarter by Prodigy.
#Britawards vs #BBCFolkAwards
How to describe the particular type of nausea induced by last might’s Brit Awards? It was not so much the music itself – bands like Bastille and Rudimental are producing catchy, modern pop, and I loved the choreography in Bruno Mars’ performance of ‘Treasure’. Rather, it was everything else about the event itself: The arrogant, cursory acceptance speech by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner; Harry Styles’ joke “what did we win” when he arrived late on stage to collect an award; and presenter James Corden’s constant references to people taking cocaine in the loos. The entire programme seemed to be channelling a drug bore, who thinks he is being the life of the party when in fact he is rambling and obnoxious.
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Why video games will never be 'culture'
Listening to the Overthinkers over-think video game culture (last week) and films (this week), I have begun to worry that video games will never be ‘culture’. More generously, I am concerned that video games will never attain the same cultural currency as other art forms.
This is because people do not absorb the culturally significant video games of the past, as they do with significant literature, film, and music. Continue reading “Why video games will never be 'culture'”
Two Great Pieces of Collaborative Internet Art
Ever since my intimate involvement with Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden, Internet-only art has been one of my recurring interests. Most recently, I noted the delightful xkcd cartoon that only really works properly online, using features available in computers. Art that is not simply a recording of a performance that took place in some place and time. Art that is not simply a scan or representation of something that exists on a wall or street corner somewhere. Art that you cannot experience anywhere but on a connected device. Art that could not have been created before the twenty-first century.
Here are two more examples, both extremely simple, both aesthetically pleasing on the surface, and both with an added beauty because of the collaboration that is inherent in their creation.
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