The Blue Nile - Let's Go Out Tonight - this song has everything - Paul Buchanan's classic vocal, wonderful developing melody, poignant lyric, exquisite arrangement, and for me the added bonus of a deep personal connection. It's a classic vignette of the timeless tragedy of a failing relationship.
If, in the event that some heartbreaking soulful female asked me out on a Saturday night by singing this, and if I actually wanted a good time and not a metaphysical experience, I might just say no.
Make sure look up more from Paul Buchanan the Scots singer. He's one of the best singers I've ever heard. The images are by American artist Edward Hopper, 1882 - 1967.
From Get Satisfaction, to Quora and back again, Spotify's failure to implement gapless playback - aka listening to music as intended by artists and producers, without audio gaps introduced which disrupt the listening experience - continues to fan the flames of infamy.
Spotifards: Ever asked yourselves why your premium offering isn't more popular? If, instead of frittering months of effort developing failtastic Me2 sub-Facebook social tosspottery which NO-ONE WANTS, you had bothered to identify your most likely premium account holders you would have implemented gapless two years ago when people first started bitching about this. Green Day fans don't give a toss about adverts or track gaps or low rates. They also don't pay for their music - ever. (No disrespect to Green Day fans: I wouldn't pay for that crap either.) Serious music enthusiasts - be they fans of Bowie, Beefheart, Yes, Prince, Wagner, Mahler, Zappa, &c whatever - these are the people who wil pony up hard cash for their streaming music. These people expect - DEMAND - sonic excellence. They will NOT spend £10 per month for the benefit of listening to Das Rheingold or Tubular Bells splintered into 44 bits. It's the equivalent of trying to sell them a Linn turntable with peanut butter smeared over the platter. I understand you want to break into the States? Classical music is kind of big there, you know, and they don't have anything like the equivalent of Radio 3. A streaming classical music library should make a MINT in the States! Unless you go and totally tool it up by putting gaps in the music. Which you, uh, did. Oh dear... Refusal to implement gapless (and refusal is what it is) is unbelievably dumb and short-sighted. A music service that does not recognise gapless streaming is important is a service run by people who don't like music and don't understand people who do. Spotify will (sadly) fail for a whole bunch of reasons but one of the biggest and plum specimen reasons will be your wilful disinterest in and ignorance of consumers of music.
Don't bother to reply. I know you're not reading this anyway.
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Ouch!
Daniel Ek has replied on Twitter and Quora, but still, no murmur of this basic functionality being implemented, just excuses.
If you don't know the peerless music of Donny Hathaway, I suggest you amend this hole in your musical world as soon as possible. I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know has a beautiful, tender lyric which shines out from the glut of macho posturing, and Donny's sincerety is a touchstone for all serious vocalists.
I wish contemporary R&B and soul singers would study his delivery, not only for the emotional sincerety he imparts, but for his use of space. The pauses he leaves in this minor key number are delicious, bitter-sweet, poignant, and lend an entirely saccharine-free profundity to the song.
I love the "shreds" phenomenon, where good performances are carefully ruined. Shredding fullfils me in several ways, both as anti-art, and perverse appreciation. Distorting expectations, shreds mock both skillful artists and their worshipping audiences; if it's done well, meaning, with sensitivity to the original, it can be side-splittingly funny and cause me to cry tears of laughter. This Kraftwerk Shreds is a beautiful case in point.
Conlon Nancarrow's Canon X is a classic canon with a conceptual twist, and it is quite remarkable in several ways.
The first time you hear this 3 minute piece, it's difficult to physically process what is happening to your ears, and to understand how this composition so bends our perception of time. Musically, we hear the slowing down and speeding up of two lines as from opposite beginning points they move in pitch and speed towards one other, to cross in the middle - hence Canon X. Working with piano rolls in the 1940s, decades before modern computing had developed, Nancarrow created humanly unplayable music, using mathematics and drawing out compositions on large graphs, finally creating the "song file" by physically punching holes in lengths of piano roll paper.
Conlon Nancarrow composed in exile in Mexico where he lived after the US State confiscated his passport, on his return from fighting fascism in Spain. When asked why he went to Mexico, he explained that there were only two countries he could go to without a passport, and on balance, he preferred the sun of Mexico to the snow of Canada.
One Saturday afternoon, I sat in an audience with Conlon Nancarrow at the Almeida theatre in Islington, London, we listened to Canon X and several other pieces, and we enjoyed a lengthy session of interview, questions and discourse afterwards.
Mr Nancarrow seemed to me to be a delightful man, with a sublime, intellectually rigorous and acutely aesthetic sensibility. He came across as honest, warm, well-mannered, mentally independent, modest, but at the same time, clearly aware of his contribution to modernism; a true American, compassionate and brave, and a composer of unique, unforgettable music.
It's OK - seen it, done it, but you know, I didn't yawn. I recognised the music was by Travis (splendidly credited as "kindly provided") - so I went on the great Tube of You to find the original video, and lo and behold, it's rather excellent.
Four years ago in 2006 I wrote this song and made this video for Mr John Otto Cleese to coincide with the World Cup. You know - THE World Cup - the FIFA World Cup. Football. The game played with the feet. By the whole world.
Didn't do too badly. Astonishingly, now England are playing Germany, we're even shifting some more copies of this neatly non-xenophobic number. iTunes: http://bit.ly/dontmentionthewar
Song written by Dean Whitbread, Ashley Slater. Oh yes, and John Cleese nabbed himself a credit too.
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