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Pif Magazine
ISSN: 1094-2726
Published by:
Pif, LLC
PMB 248
4820 Yelm Hwy SE
Suite B
Lacey, WA 98503-4903
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| PAST MUSIC REVIEWS | MORE REVIEWS |
Even Better Than The Real Thing
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Give me one more chance and you'll be satisfied. |
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- Mr. Vox |
If someone had told me fifteen years ago that I'd be reviewing a techno-neo-lounge CD with great enthusiasm and genuine appreciation, I would have probably called him a fag. If it wasn't rock and roll, then it was gay. My record collection was all part of my cool facade and listening to stuff that didn't rock was like wearing a pink button-down shirt, or a v-neck pullover sweater, or loafers, or those wack top-sider boat shoes.
But before my music became a public badge, a prop, something that made me cool, I listened to and loved all sorts of non-rock. I probably listened to the Starland Vocal Band's self-titled debut album (featuring the hit single, "Afternoon Delight") more than any individual in the Southeast proper. I remember having the chicken pox (3rd grade?) and just sitting in my room staring at the posters on my ceiling while that album looped and looped. I'd leave it repeating and go downstairs to eat a PB&J. Then I'd head straight back up to my room to listen some more and stare at the posters. I'd leave that album playing while I slept. "My motto's always been, 'When It's right, It's right.' Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night." Don't pretend you don't know the lyric because you're humming the tune to yourself right now. Let's get real here, people.
Currently, I spend all day at work listening to music. I make and maintain integritymusic.com. It's actually a lot like when I had the chicken pox. I sit there with headphones on listening to CD's loop all day long while staring at a screen. I take a break halfway through to go eat bar-b-q pizza or spring rolls, and then it's back to the looping music and the screen.
No one else can hear my music. No one checks out my CD's. There's no one to impress. So instead of listening to what I think might make people think I'm cool, now I just listen to what I like. And I like the new Stereolab CD.
Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night
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My college girlfriend, God bless her soul, was very taken with Dave Brubeck. Now that I know a bit about jazz, if you're going to listen to jazz, why waste your time on Dave Brubeck? But it was just the sort of affected, so-uncool-I'm-cool type of thing that she was able to pull off so convincingly. She really did seem to like this clean white cheezy jazz pianist. She also liked lounge music before it was cool to like lounge music. She and her gay friend (who was himself actually gay) once threw a lounge party complete with all the circa-Breakfast at Tiffany paraphernalia they could muster. The best I could manage at said function was a sort of beatnik/hippy look and that only with great effort. What a heavy metal lout I was. I didn't and still don't like authentic early '60s lounge music. It's soulless, as is so much retro-schlock. Why listen to passionless music here on earth when you can listen to it forever in Hell? But there is always some diamond hiding in every musical rough. It just takes someone with enough patience and freaky conviction to find it, clean it up, and re-present it. Stereolab's re-tooled lounge music is, as the man says, even better than the real thing. Which isn't too surprising, since the real thing was never very real (or very good) to begin with. |
 Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night ~ Stereolab Audio CD - $12.99 Released - Spetember 1999 Wea/Elektra |
