Any Other Business: Part LXVI

As the title suggests, so forth.

The Sound of 2001…

I recently rediscovered a cassette tape from the 2004/5 academic year, and what a nostalgic blast it was listening to it. But along with the expected Morrissey, Killers, Franz Ferdinand, U2, Auf Der Maur, and Gwen Stefani tracks there was also a clutch of Smiths songs and Simon & Garfunkel tunes. Because discovering those albums were equally a part of my experience, musically speaking, of that year. Which led me to thinking about 2001, and how my musical memories of that year are largely the latter kind of listening: the Pixies B-Sides being released was really the only ‘new’ music that connected. The rest was finally listening to Bowie’s Scary Monsters and U2’s Rattle and Hum, rediscovering Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, David Byrne’s Uh-Oh and the Doors’ first album. Because… in a world of Limp Bizkit rollin’ rollin’ rollin’, where the White Stripes and the Strokes were being feted for doing not very much of anything at all, it has to be said that 2001 was a pretty bad year for music. As it was, as has been noted previously hereabouts, also a pretty bad year for film. 2001 – what the hell was that all about? Some sort of psychic collapse or exhaustion from the anticipation of the new millennium?

St Vincent: Fear the Producer

Only three months to go until St Vincent releases a new album! And yet I am not doing the dance of joy, because I fear that bad production may have mangled outstanding songs. Listening to Masseduction and MassEducation in the last few days, along with a YouTube performance of ‘Savior’ and my DVR recordings of her appearances on Later… with Jools Holland with piano and band for ‘Los Ageless’, ‘New York’, ‘Masseduction’, and ‘Slow Fast Disco’, it has become apparent to me that the finest version of all of these twice-recorded tracks are actually the live ones. Annie Clark had produced Masseduction alongside Jack Antonoff, and MassEducation alongside pianist Thomas Bartlett, so I am at a loss as to what exactly went on that allowed drama and emotion to be swamped. But I still remember the dismay and shock I had when, after her appearance on Later… in late 2017, I heard ‘Los Ageless’ on the car radio, and didn’t recognise it till I made out familiar words in the chorus.

Any Other Business: Part LXIV

As the title suggests, so forth.

As You Were!

And so back to level 3 (plus) lockdown, but the schools stay open. You see the fact that the very noticeable spike in numbers during the level 5 lockdown just happened to coincide with the return of the schools after the mid-term break is just noise not the signal. The signal is that wet pubs are to blame for everything. That’s what compelling evidence, which hasn’t been independently parsed, tells the neo-prohibitionists in the government. And furthermore you, yes you, are to blame: once again you, yes you, got complacent. Indeed this time around the complacency, and the letting down of the guard, and all the other irritating chiding clichés, took on even more magical properties; because, when this line of attack from NPHET voices started, it had not actually been 2 weeks since the announcement of the vaccine, which would mean that people had …  relaxed in anticipation of the announcement? Yes, clearly that makes more sense than not: Bad people!

Here’s my playlist… Give it a listen when you’re ready to take things a bit more seriously…

Spotify these 60 songs for a 00s mood

Metric – Help I’m Alive // Snow Patrol – Spitting Games // Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For? // Red Hot Chili Peppers – By the Way // Morrissey – Last of the Gang to Die // The Postal Service –The District Sleeps Alone Tonight // Moby – Porcelain // Clint Mansell – Lux Aeterna // Metric – Stadium Love // Interpol – Mammoth // Auf Der Maur – Followed the Waves // Arcade Fire – Neighbourhood 3 (Power Out) // Modest Mouse – Float On // Madison Avenue – Don’t Call Me Baby // Gwen Stefani – Rich Girl // Gnarls Barkley – Crazy // Regina Spektor – Fidelity // Coldplay – Trouble // Metric – Poster of a Girl // The Postal Service – Such Great Heights // Auf Der Maur – Skin Receiver // Muse – Supermassive Black Hole // Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl // Lady Gaga – Bad Romance // Muse – Time is Running Out // Modest Mouse – Ocean Breathes Salty // Temper Trap –Sweet Disposition // Muse – Starlight // The Killers – Mr Brightside // The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It // Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) // Coldplay – In My Place // Muse – Stockholm Syndrome // Broken Social Scene – Lover’s Spit // Garbage – Bleed Like Me // Morrissey – Life is a Pigsty // Coldplay – The Scientist // The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done // Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles // REM –Imitation of Life // Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbag // Modest Mouse – Fire It Up // Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around // Arcade Fire – Black Mirror // Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard – Why So Serious? // Auf Der Maur – Real A Lie // Moby – Natural Blues // The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army // Tomoyasu Hotei – Battle without Honour or Humanity // Morrissey – Irish Blood, English Heart // Interpol – Evil // Linkin Park – In the End // Moby – Extreme Ways // Red Hot Chili Peppers – Venice Queen // The Postal Service – Nothing Better // David Holmes – Gritty Shaker // Interpol – Obstacle 1 // Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero // Red Hot Chili Peppers – Zephyr Song //Howard Shore – The Fellowship of the Ring theme

Top 5 Muse Soundtracked Film Scenes

(5) New Moon
‘I Belong to You’ is a great song, and Matt Bellamy even re-worked some elements of it for the purposes of this movie, but of all the films to waste it on… I don’t think I could ever stomach re-watching New Moon; with its endless moping by Kristen Stewart and its failure by Taylor Lautner to make any impression despite an ocean of screen time because his dialogue is so poorly written; even to enjoy hearing it.
 
(4) Eclipse
The throwaway nature of this usage of Muse is rather hilarious and is what makes it noteworthy. Director David Slade (former music videos lenser) puts the soaring track ‘Neutron Star Collision’ on a stereo in the background of a party scene so that Anna Kendrick can excitedly say ‘Oh, I love this song’, before the camera pans away from her to follow other characters away from the music and towards the actual dramatic purpose of the scene. Delightful.
 
(3) Southland Tales
Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales is a fascinating mess but it does have any number of memorable moments, and many of the best involve music: The Rock running scared to the surf version of the Pixies’ ‘Wave of Mutilation’, Justin Timberlake showily performing The Killers’ ‘All These Things That I Have Done’, and Muse’s magisterial ‘Blackout’ providing a suitably odd soundtrack to a scene where The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mandy Moore clash at an opulent mansion.
 
(2) Twilight
The greatest cinematic game of baseball ever played sees the Cullen family take advantage of an approaching thunderstorm to hide the tremendous cracking sound made when a super-strong vampire batter hits a baseball thrown by a super-strong vampire pitcher. Thirteen director Catherine Hardwicke’s gritty films may make her appear miserable but soundtracking this with Muse’s incredibly funky (and allegedly a parodic attempt at doing a Britney Spears song) ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ shows a well cultivated sense of fun.
 
(1) Switchblade Romance
Alexandre Aja’s French shocker from 2003 has, for me, made the best use of any movie of Muse’s unique sound. Cecile de France, having been scared out of her wits while stealthily hiding from the psychotic trucker who has slain her friend’s family and kidnapped her friend, is reborn as an avenging fury when she roars off after him in a yellow sports car to the sound of ‘Newborn’ by Muse; escalating in as the car-chase proceeds.

Jennifer’s Body

Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody’s second feature script was expected to be a subversive feminist horror film, but it’s merely standard shlock with good gags.

The opening shot is very Evil Dead but turns out to be the first of many odd structural decisions as it bafflingly leads us into a lengthy spoiler-tastic prologue in a lunatic asylum. The patient is our narrator and heroine Anna ‘Needy’ Lesnicki. Ignore the posters and top billing, this is Amanda Seyfried’s film rather than Megan Fox’s. Seyfried plays a dork (Cody disappointingly conveys this thru her wearing glasses and writing for the school newspaper) who is best friends forever with mean cheerleader Jennifer (Fox). Jennifer bullies Needy into attending a concert by indie band Low Shoulder at the town bar and after an inferno rips thru the venue Needy discovers that her BFF has changed from high school evil to actual evil…

Juno was a good film enlivened by a great lead performance but neither Seyfried nor Fox are in Ellen Page’s league, and the structure of this film is far less logical. There are two incredibly creepy images, of Jennifer smiling at Needy while dripping blood, and crouching spider-like over a dead body in a sequence inter-cut with Needy having sex, but many of the scares are too well signposted. There are some subversive touches – neither lead actually appears naked (despite the marketing of the film around Fox’s hotness) and the link between virginity and survival is reversed – but given the teenage characters’ pop culture reference points surely they’d know that that’s been done before (and better) by Scream. Even the feminist angle is underdeveloped apart from a few good lines. Compared to last year’s Teeth where violently misogynist males got castrated by a rampaging feminist there’s no vicious justice served up here by the choice of male victims.

JK Simmons, almost unrecognisable in a curly wig, is rather good in another subdued outing in a Cody script but supporting honours are stolen by Adam Brody’s cameo. Brody is awesome as the lead singer of indie band Low Shoulder, and this is not just my Seth Cohen obsession speaking. His turn could best be described as a Satanic version of Brandon Flowers. Indeed the bizarre scene where the action stops near the end of the film so that Jennifer can explain to Needy what actually happened near the start of the film between Low Shoulder and Jennifer is the best of the movie as the flashback is pitch-perfect comedy-horror, dripping with blood but eminently quotable. It is baffling why Cody didn’t go with that gory comedy-horror formula for the whole movie rather than just occasionally enliven routine shlock with her flair for bitchy comedic dialogue like this three-way repartee: “She can fly?!” “She’s just hovering, it’s not that impressive” “God, do you have to undercut everything I do?!”

This is fine Hallowe’en fare, with a satisfyingly vindictive super-powered final fight between humans and demons, but Juno fans should lower their expectations.

3/5