Those Dreamhouse Heartaches

Taking inspiration from the great Kiran, I am inclined to let me obsession with music spill over into this interweb document; thoughts and lists and all the things the separate those who read Pitchfork from those who don’t. Or, as Kiran so articulately puts it, “Bitchdork.”

A word about Pitchfork then. Pitchfork is like smoking. You pick it up in your late teens because it makes you look and because (shhh don’t tell anyone) you find you actually quite like it. Those art-wank reviews of the latest Fiery Furnaces EP? The pop ups for obscure festivals headlines by bands you’ve never heard of? Brilliant,right? Eventually, most indie kids, at least partly weaned on Pitchfork’s diet of Godspeed! your Black Emperor and Pavement (and no doubt acquired some cred and a girlfriend or two in the process) decide to cut the apron strings. This brings up to the inevitable anti-Pitchfork stage, which appears to be mandatory for every Mighty Mighty-inhabiting, stovepipe-wearing so and so. Kids suddenly begin to sneer at the pretentious reviews, the endless Bowie references. They adopt a sudden vengeance against The Arcade Fire ask with a sneer if anyone remembers when they thought The Strokes were cool.

This is where I sigh and try to offer an explanation. These kids, with their ego boosts and their Camel cigarettes have NOT successfully renounced Pitchfork. Instead, they have BECOME Pitchfork, for it is only when one is so drunk on a diet of themselves and overpriced vinyl that they think they can truly believe that their music taste surpasses that everything that has got them there in the first place.

I am not saying that Pitchfork is gospel; far from it. It is unashamedly ostentatious (although, ironically, anyone who uses that word probably is), and you can argue till the gazelles come home whether album X should have been placed a few places higher on the top 50. But the bottom line is this; If one disowns Pitchfork, where are they going for their next musical fix? Not Rolling Stone, stuck in the Seventies and constantly on the lookout for the next AC/DC. Not Q Magazine, who tend to give five stars to the album FOLLOWING a classic and in the last decade, have named both Coldplay and Keane as band of the year, TWICE. And surely not NME, which, once a respectably eclectic publication, has pissed its credible pants in order to keep the spirit of working class British Rock alive, and helped launch the inane careers of The Libertines, The Arctic Monkeys and all those that slid down the pile after them.

Pitchfork needs to be taken with a few tablespoons of salt and god knows I disagree with a lot of their musical de jours. As much as I’ve tried, I hate Pavement. I can’t stand Sonic Youth, Fiery Furnaces, Modest Mouse, or Broken Social Scene and am bored to tears by TV on the Radio. But that won’t stop me trawling through their top 100 albums of the Seventies every few weeks and picking a few to try on. If it wasn’t for Pitchfork, I doubt I would know about Godspeed! your Black Emperor or Panda Bear. People still care about which album Pitchfork puts as number one, because, although it may not be the best, it might just be the most interesting. And most importantly, I think Pitchfork shows you that when their top five singles for a year has Kelly Clarkson and Justin Timberlake rubbing shoulders with Animal Collective and Joanna Newsom, that they really don’t give shit who’s cool or who you think is cool. They have no pretensions. If they think an American Idol contestant has a great tune, they’ll shout about it; fuck the indie kids.

This is my favourite thing about Pitchfork. It taught me not to be ashamed of what I have on my ipod, and that Britney Spears and Gang of Four can happily co-exist in the same hemisphere, if you want them to.

I think more self-confessed musos need to learn that.

So anyway, musical thoughts. Well, at least one.


Roxy Music: For your Pleasure (1973)



Is Bryan Ferry for real? Roxy Music, with their glam-tastic saxophones and Eno's shimmering synths are a lot sexier than any band with two members called Brian (at this point anyway) deserves to be. Listening to For your Pleasure is like having the best sex of your life, and partway through they pull out a gimp mask. It turns you on in all the wrong places. ‘The Bogus Man’ is a gloriously spooky nine minute Zappa-esque prog anthem with pervy lyrics whispered too close to the microphone. ‘Grey Lagoons’ slides effortlessly between a gorgeous gospel piece (and quite clearly the inspiration for entire Antony & the Johnson franchise) and a piece of air guitar-worthy cock’n’roll. ‘Editions of You’ is Franz Ferdinand if they knew how to pout and had more sex.

But it’s ‘In Every Dream home A Heartache’ that keeps me coming back. Somehow, Ferry has a taken an ode to a blow up doll and turned it into a sexy, claustrophobic masterpiece. It must be the most fucked up love song ever written. And yet after three minutes of teasing, when he purrs “I blew up your body...and you blew my mind!” and that guitar comes in, you realize what life is really all about. The only way I can describe it is as a cross between Led Zeppelin and Eyes Wide Shut.

A dream album then, and a perfect antidote to the new ‘sexy’ era U2. Shudder.