Someone Great...and Tuktuyuktuk to Timbuktu

I think figure-skating rules have been applied to the new release by LCD Soundsystem.

That is, the judges (critics) were so pre-disposed to love it that they graded it higher than it actually should have been. Unlike a lot of music writers, overall I think the CD is a disappointment, and it leaves me a bit flat.

But having said that, is does have one fantastic song: "Someone Great". It really is terrific, and here's why: it's not ironic, humorous, or self-deprecrating, like most of the other songs on "The Sound of Silver". And as a result you can really feel the emotion of the singer directly... there's no filter, or veil, of wit, and it has more impact. (But of course I'm a sucker for sad songs; see Mrs. Major Tom by K.I.A.

The good thing about digital distribution is that you can buy a single song. So you could buy just that one song. The bad thing about DD is that you can buy a single song. It's always so much better to experience a work in a fuller context (a painting in an exhibition, a chapter in a book) because the multiple connections to it's surroundings can lead to a broader understanding.

Since I make music with multiple-vocalists (from rappers to Japanese cheerleaders to opera singers) and with cross-genre elements (from dancehall to squaredance to dance-rock,) at first my own CDs might sound like a collection of individual songs, but they definitely work better in the context of a full release. For example from my "Various Chimeras" CD, when the female character in Coal Coal Black by Shinjuku Zulu sings "...my love, my liar/ run back to me" she is actually refering to the male character in the song Dirty Liar . And both songs use a similar lyric; she sings "Coal, coal black/or a flawless cut diamond/they shine the same/since you're no longer mine ," and in his song he raps "A rock, a diamond/they both got the same shine/since I been gone and you're not mine". Those two songs are separated by 12 tracks, so the song-linkage might not be noticed, but it's there, and it opens up both songs if you do happen to pick up on it...

As well, a few other songs on the Various Chimeras CD are thematically linked: My Man, Amen , Scarborough Fair (A True Dub of Mine) , and The Way You Move are all about lost-love; and another, lighter theme is an internationalist, name-dropping of different locations around the world: Tuktuyuktuk, Timbuktu, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kamchatka. The first of those two show up multiple times (as a sort-of running-joke to myself) in the disco-punk Da Riddim Griffin , the dance-rap Shanghai Masai , the title of the electo-chant Tuktuyuktuk to Timbuktu , and the second two get dropped in a few times throughout as well... So while I think each song from VC works completely on it's own, I think each one works even better when listened to in and around the other songs around it...

So back to the "Sound of Silver" CD: even though "Someone Great" is probably the only track I'll continue to listen to months from now, I'm glad I got the whole release. Because having heard the track in the context of the music that surrounds it does add to the experience and enjoyment of listening to just that one song.

Context is all. Probably even in regards to say, Nelly Furtado's ouevre. (Nelly Furtado's what? No, not that I mean her body of work. Take off that veil of wit!)

Final thought: pre-mp3, I always wanted to release an album/CD where you somehow programmed into the disc that each time you listened to it, there was one song you wouldn't get to hear. So the first time you heard it, you wouldn't hear track 5, and the second time you listened to it, you wouldn't hear track 9, and the next time, no track 1, etc...each time you listened to the CD it would be a brand new experience, with a slightly different context for each track each time. If you wanted to hear the song that had been dropped out, you'd have to play the entire CD again. Now with Shuffle buttons on iPods, etc. you can almost do that, you can randomly reorder the tracks, and it does change your experience of the CD, but it's not quite the same thing... Maybe future mp3 players will add a 'drop out a random song' play option...

Tuktuyuktuk to Timbuktu by Shinjuku Zulu