YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

Gaga, you know I love you, but how did you confuse recreation with homage? What made you think this version of Don't Give Up, led by Mr Pasty-Face McFlatvoice, was anything but a defiantly second-rate low-toner photocopy of the original? Why did you waste your time and energy? You know how to reinterpret, and it's not by upping the BPM and adding cheesy synth strings. I mean, it's no travesty of Noll-Bassingthwaighte (the owner of this journal takes no responsibility for brain damage caused by external links) proportions, but surely we can all agree it's ultimately utterly pointless?

As a palate cleanser:

Saturday night RAGE ran a chronological Michael Jackson retrospective (which is at the same time of course a crash course in the history and evolution of the music video and pop music and Australian music journalism) and to see all that in one go is a confusing and confronting experience, is like a tour through the life of a fucked-up person who existed entirely through this ephemera. How can you think about Michael Jackson without summing up his life in terms of his body? How does he exist outside of the transformation of his skin and his baby voice and a disco bass line? How impossible is it to watch this person's work without seeing his tragedy as physical deformation out there in the open for all to see? (Watch the final concert footage from that Madison Square thing and you get a very similar thing.)

( cut )
Something else to notice is that as he ages, his default facial expression goes from a wide, appeasing smile to a narrow-eyed grimace. Is there any other person on the planet more suited to a chronologically ordered retrospective? Is there any other celebrity whose troublesome mesh of infantalisation and choreographed sexuality is so indelibly and loudly played out across their high pop-royalty body?

Via lydia_petze, oh god, just you know the greatest thing ever: Spinal Tap have recorded Saucy Jack.

oh my god, I am so over these retro fucking indie garage revival thrashed-to-death-by-Triple-J starting-with-"the" bands. Friday night Rage is such a waste of time. These twenty-something whiteboys need to listen to some Kate Bush and get an idea of what originality means.

Okay, so lastrega posted about songs for this day and it made me want to post Archie Roach's powerful Took the Children Away. It's thematic and poignant and so on and so forth.

But then when I was looking it up on youtube I found that some GOD, some divine creature in human form, had uploaded my absolute favourite song of Roach's, so I'm embedding that instead. I don't think it even has a title, I don't think it's on any albums. But it's in Rolf de Heer's The Tracker, one of the finest ever Australian movies, which features one of Australia's greatest ever actors, David Gulpilil. This song is fucking awesome, and y'all should see the movie if you can find it.

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As much as I love the idea of Triple J, it is best consumed in six-month cycles and I haven't been paying that much attention to it lately, even when I put it on because I'm just not up to Classic FM. But having just listened to the Cold War Kids' Robbers & Cowards, it appears that I know almost every song intimately and am already a fan. Thanks, Triple J! Normally your thrashing to death of every song makes me hate it but you've worked your subtle ways on me this time!

Expatriate (who are a stranger to me) have put together a fucking awesome playlist for Rage tonight. Right now Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine is on, and so far they've played Smog (SMOG!), Bjork (I would have chosen All is Full of Love or Hunter over Joga though), Massive Attack, Iggy and the Stooges, Air, The Presets, and Radiohead. Coming up are some Manchester and 80s classics.

One day I will programme Rage. One day, sonny. Let me have my dream. You know what would be awesome to include? Janis Joplin's Woodstock performance of Work Me Lord. Blow their fucking minds!

ETA: Oh my god, Stevie Nicks' hair is the size of a fucking bus!

ETA: The only thing that would make Rage better was if they put dates next to the song titles. There's some truly amazing codpiece action happening now and I wish I could assign it an era. But it's so big and red, perhaps it transcends time?

ETA: Oh god Morrissey, drop the gladiolus and TAKE ME AWAY FROM ALL THIS! I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE HAIR! MARR CAN COME TOO!

Two weeks ago bumface and I went to see Gotye (pronounced Gore-tee-yeah) at the Gov Hindmarsh and he and his mini orchestra were so much fun, and he is so young and cute and talented I thought I would evangelise a bit. He is somewhat obscure in Australia and so I imagine he's unheard of outside of Aust but he certainly deserves wider exposure.

Heart's A Mess is the song he's best known for. It's catchy and haunting and has some great bass sounds and people went nuts when he started playing it. I love the film clip.

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Learnalilgivinanlovin has also gotten some radio play, it's a fun Mowtowny number.
( live at Triple J. Pls to note hilarious white-boy dancing by Robbie Buck. )
As you can see, when live he chooses to drum and sing. Bumface almost had an orgasm when she realised this.

Out Here in The Cold is from his first album, so I hadn't heard it, but the six-minute live version was entrancing. He introduced it as the song with too much B-flat, heh.
( Three-minute video version. Lots of Melbourne. )

For the tour he commissioned local artists to make film to be projected behind the stage. I put this here not because the visuals are especially stunning (although they're lovely) but because the song it's for, The Only Way, is a personal favourite and he opened with it and it ROCKED.
( version with extended intro )

This concert footage doesn't have the best sound quality but the waltzy, fun song, Coming Back, is another personal fav, and god! he is so! cute! with his little Cher microphone!
( and it has a flute too! )

Nessun Dorma is one of those songs where, if it's sung by someone capable of doing it justice, it never fails to send shivers up my spine. Even when it's had the guts edited out of it, like in the below clip.

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D'awwww, isn't he a sweetie?

OH GOD I LOVE YOU MORRISSEY.

mmmmmmooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!