Singleversity #7

Audiversity’s weekly column on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 134.

(Ed. - Originally this was called Threeversity, but in the spirit of simplicity we've decided to retroactively relabel all of these posts. The content remains unchanged.)

MA:
(#134 of a random playlist generated from my ever-changing database of 12,500+ songs)



I was admittedly a latecomer to the quirky world of Mark Linkous, but the dreamy bubbling pop of 2006’s Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain was just too hard to ignore. Tracks like "Shade and Honey" are the exact reason adjectives like--well bubbling--jump to mind when talking about Sparklehorse’s music. I mean just listen to that keyboard; the fucker is practically effervescing. And that bassline teeters and totters with subdued playfulness as Linkous’s voice rides that very thin line between creepy and cute. Oh, and those wavering synth nodes and the delicate xylophone tapping and the soothing cello coo… this is the exact definition of dream pop. Yes, the song is relatively straightforward and not really that challenging, but I have enough to compete with while I’m awake.

JR:



Italo disco to the max! I live for this shit. Its fun to see results of America's cultural hegemony, in this case our lock on global music initiative, disco being hurled by a giant red-white-n-blue laser catapult over to Italia, a land ready to receive the total decadence of cocaine-fueled dance marathons. Italo disco is such a sparkling example of filtered American culture, its familiar signifiers just a little off; instead of Donna Summer, we have Valerie Dore. Forget the Bee-Gees, Paul Sharada struts around in a suit so "none more white" that he is visible from space as a luminescent dot broadcasting live from Miami's swankest discos. Florida (Move Your Feet) is about the passion of dance, Sharada expounding in wonderfully-broken English all the ties that bind.

PM:









Not too much education this week unless you’re one of those kids always flipping off people behind their backs after they tell you to “respect your elders:” Public Image Ltd. was post-punk genesis and a detailed depiction, better than any I could write, is provided in the book “Rip it Up and Start Again.” Aside from one of last year’s much-heralded Canadian super-groups (not to mention a legendary Tchaikovsky ballet), “Swan Lake” is the third track from 1979’s impenetrable Metal Box. When speaking of post-punk, it’s easy to yap about Gang of Four, Joy Division or even Wire, the British Big Three… But overshadowing them all is the true giant among giants, PiL. “Swan Lake” is a personal favorite: Screeching guitar, hyperdub basslines, a warbling John Lydon. The final great revolution in music? Well...