ich bin ein auslander

Is somewhat lame. Not the concept - again, it’s just more stretching the my media, whenever i want it concept, which I’m a big fan of. But a whole term for it.. really, it’s a bit over the top. Now if this was just a little widget you attached to your ipod and you were getting your subscriptions wirelessly while out and about, that would be worthy of a whole new term.

But just downloading mp3s from a website and then transferring them to your ipod, and giving it a funky name… well, that’s just being precious now, isn’t it?

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to listening to Left, Right and Center today at the gym, courtesy of KCRW’s “podcasts”. I’m assuming it’ll have the commercials included… which just means that the next version of the iPod needs a TIVO style quick 30 second skip hack.

(EDITED - no commercials! extended crap jazz music, true, but no commercials! surely that can’t last…)

I’m most excited that it’s Friday because it means I can go to the grocery store later tonight and it won’t be crowded.

Yesterday was Ghost in the Machine… definately my favorite. Good enough, in fact, that I think I need to revisit my top 10 albums of all time. It’s really dark and deep… the recording quality has the great dark airyness about it that is really intense. Opens up with Spirits in the Material World, fantastic… Every Little Thing She Does is Magic is a gorgeous pop song, still a bit melancholy… Invisible Sun, fantastic. A bit of a drop off in quality for the next few tracks, but none so hideous I’d get rid of them. Hungry for You and Demolition Man are pretty throwaway but fit the vibe of the album… Too Much Information musically kind of blows but I like the lyrics… Rehumanize Yourself, much the same, but a bit weaker. One World (Not Three) is a little too strident and certainly points the way to future Sting excesses… but all is forgiven as we head into the final three, Omegaman, Secret Journey and Darkness. I could listen to just those three on repeat forever, as the world crashes around me. Awesome.

Today was Synchronicity, which is probably one of the biggest albums ever. Somehow I made it through while putting a new exercise plan into play courtesy of my trainer… in between the tears of pain and agony, I gave it a listen. It’s certainly good… but the hits were so huge it’s hard not to feel you’ve heard them a few too many times. Sting has the songwriting thing down at this point, top of his game. It’s a shame about Mother… a nod back to the wretched filler tracks of the past, this never should have been on the album. Miss Gradenko is one of my favorite album tracks they’ve done though… and then you’re stomping right into the hits, heavily weighted at the end of the album. Every Breath You Take to King of Pain to Wrapped Around Your Finger. Classic songs, each and every one of them, and really… they’re pretty fucking dark and deep for a hit song. You won’t hear Britney or Avril singing lines like those anytime soon. After being beat over the head by those three, you get Tea in the Sahara, which is breathtakingly beautful, and you end on a bit of a flat note with Murder by Numbers. Oh well.

What have I learned? That the Police were a really, really dark group. Existential lonliness and anxiety pervade most of their songs. No wonder I liked them so much.

Think I’m a bit over-stung at the moment though… going to take the weekend off before delving into the solo stuff.

think i’m going to take the weekend off

Yesterday’s listening was Zenyetta Mondatta… the last of the silly names albums. Thus begins the serious alienation and darkness, and when I start to like the “filler” over the singles. Opens up with Don’t Stand So Close to Me, which is a great song, and then just starts getting really depressing. In a good way. Driven to Tears, When The World is Running Down… even the more upbeat musically songs like Canary in a Coalmine have pretty dark lyrical content. Check out these lyrics:

The President looks in the mirror and speaks
His shirts are clean but his country reeks
Unpaid bills
In Afghanistan hills

Written in 2005? No, from “Bombs Away”, 1980. Some things never change.

Anyway… a few grips when listening straight through. De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da was a big hit, and it’s a fun song… but it sounds like it’s beamed in from another planet compared to the rest of the album, and it’s sequencing just throws off the whole vibe. Behind My Camel is a really crap instrumental and never should have seen the light of day - the only reason I can see for it being there is a transition from “De Do..” back into the general bleakness of the rest of the album, but that’s not quite what happens - we go into “Man in a Suitcase”, which is another throwaway song that probably shouldn’t have been in there. Finally, we get Shadows in the Rain, which is good but Sting did a much better version of solo a few years on… and the Other Way of Stopping, which is a pretty kick ass instrumental. I would have dropped that right after De Do and ended with Shadows, but that’s just me.

Yesterday was album 2, Regatta de Blanc.. white reggae. oh dear. not the biggest fan of reggae music but the album really is incredible. opens up with message in a bottle, probably one of my favorite songs of all time. main thing i noticed listening to the whole album is stewart copeland’s drumming… he’s simply amazing. boom boom de whap boom boom whap. all over the place. stunning, really… hard not to focus on it. Bring on the night, another great song… i used to love it so much i named a bbs i ran when i was twelve after it. Now, twenty years on, i’m being paid to build very similar community sites for bands. If we had gotten the sting site, that would have been a full circle. strange.

Walking on the moon… bed’s too big without you. great songs, really moving away from any lingering punk impact and embracing straight forward pop/rock songwriting. No Time This Time is killer, Does Everyone Stare could be a bauhaus b-side. Still a lot of throwaway filler tracks, but listening to it now, you can hear almost every major indie band of the late 80s and 90s in them.