Gigi's Maintenant is another fantastic record. Seems almost as if another appears every single day. The Rose Melberg track is gorgeous.

Update: You wake up oen day, in a rush, a start, you've been told you are in the Who. Fright, and then football and angina and tedium, same as always. It's a dreadful way to start a day, to learn you are rock dinosaur number 11. That Keith Moon's last slough in the corner, we honor the fire. There are all different sorts of "indie" types on this record. I am not familiar with most. I recognize Dear Nora and Rose Melberg and Mirah. Oh and Final Fantasy appears too. I haven't yet made it to his track yet so we will discover it together. A clear theme emerges and it is that while there are some nice female voices in indie rock(well these would be indie pop girls theoretically) their male counterparts come up lacking. Brunettes fans, I mightn't still be one, I sorta, kinda actually almost liked the new one, might think this their dream Brunettes album. No emo posturing, no "synth" escapades just dreamy, bubblegum music. There must have been a list of the most desirables and when they feigned superiority to the cause (Canadians?) they decided on a list of more probably alternates. Here then are the second division chancers. Who knows, they could be famous. Are they famous? First one is cheerleaders in space, next is one of the fellas. I don't know where he is from, he is pleasingly generic and content apparently to remain so and so he doesn't in any manner attempt to make the song his own. Stephin Merrit had sense enough to treat the vocals on his Sixths records to bleed away the bloodlessness of the performances and replace their humanity with texture. This is a beautiful song, it's basic, a drum beat and some slow burn accomopaniment that plays anonymously in the background during most of the duration but stirs nostalgic bones even still. The cheerleaders join in precisely and it's marvelous. "Nore More Twee"(Update: it was in fact "Fire eSCAPE tALKING") has stolen my thunder by comparing this to God Help the Girl. His idea is that this is better. His idea is correct. Stuart Murdoch lives in this isolated perpetually teenage night composed and directed by his increasingly unreal flights of fancy. He's old. I'm old. We should sing old things, we should not imitate Sting in any manner except for the fact that Sting always seemingly is aware that he is old. He was old when the Police started and he's only become older and so has his music. Stuart Murdoch made the unfortunate foray into jazz the same as Sting but he's still singing fairy tales and darters and laments for the 1970s. Gigi is more generically timeless. The music is nostalgic sure, but it is in service to a more univrsal application of romance. Next track. One of my favorites. Another generic indie rock person. Who is this Zac? No idea. Should I know? He doesn't sound particularly Canadian actually. Is he? There is a soft tenderness to his voice and little of the slack filled nasal indie whine. "Showed up early for your costume party dressed up like a pharaoh", that's a pleasant image and then the aching trumpet spotlighted and the chorus comes in and it's dramatic and kind and decent. All things "good" indie rawkers are meant to eschew. Correct? I think he should have possibly had the singer from Stars sing on this record. He's possibly a neighbour. There could have been a role for a Marion Tarwater character bellowing some sweet cynical ode to cigarettes and motor oil. Now Rose Melberg. I would never place Rose Melberg in the list of second division chancers not because I love her, though some do, but because she takes the nicest photographs and they radiate cheerfulness and warmth. How could you rate her as anything other than top of the league tables? Oh and that duet with Dustin Reske once upon a time, before he was the the fried egg and was the frying pan instead. This is very Brunettes but whereas the Brunettes could manage this chorus they've never actually managed a chorus like this. A chorus of cheerleaders join Rose and the words are free from uninteresting pop culture ruminations and so in 15 years time we won't cringe at the lack of sophistication. Sometimes not being sui generis is sui generis. Wonderful song. I love this album. Next track, woops, the weakest track on the album. Not wise to place it after two of the best then. But, do remember, you are in the Who, dreadful songs are what you are all about. Short of indie rawk males who will thrill us with a lazy indie drawl we draft, instead, a young woman to attempt a simulacrum. Joined on chorus by some nasal fella boosting her spirits in stereo. This is very the Brunettes circa 2008. Is that something to aspire to? Not necessarily. Is this a woman? "Joey". "Joey" is singing about being a woman. Hmmm...at the moment it sounds like a male. I dunno, gender is very confusing. On my dream team of indie rock vocalists I would include all six Mitford sisters. I am just now finishing a biography of them and am fascinated by them. How one family could produce such a diversity of lunatic is inspiring. How many families such as this occur more recently? They seemed to have been produced from unimpressive stock even. I could have six daughters some day in the near future and they could all be brilliant and shame me as I lay in the shadows shrouded in mediocrity. Perhaps I should not breed. Next song. Cheerleaders in the chorus sounding like a space filler in the Senior class production written by some vaguely aspirational gym teacher. I like it. Very simple. A chorus saps the emotion from the vocals so we are dependent on the emotional propulsion of the music but it is a Spector preset button on your SK-1. A space filler. A Who song. God, the Who! I seem to remember that the video for Eminence Front is the worst video of all time, I always imagined it was filmed at the Pontiac Silverdome in between heats of the motocross race. Aiiee!!! Next song, more cheerleaders in love, very Dixie Cups. Wonderful. See where Stuart Murdoch was concerned about advancing his uninteresting musical narrative these are just blasts of energetic youthfulness, for the most part, Rose Melberg may be older than I am, perhaps as old as Stuart Murdoch. Older than Tarwater's creator even. At least Nicole Kidman is not on this record. She's old. She's in pseudo serious pieces like Margot at the Wedding now, belying her ancientness. She should, by rights, have been in Away We Go. These "serious" movies about awful people are a menace. Stacey Hamilton deserves better. Really, what was the point of "Away We Go"? It certainly was not entertainment. Now to a crooner. A very Saturday Looks Good to Me performance here. Very good. "None More Twee" was meant ot sing on a Saturday Looks Good to Me record apparently, once, he did not, Matthew Smith took his place. More records should have multiple singers. Most "indie" types, male or female, can't sing, so to mix in variety in contempt of quality would be a blessing for we, the meek listeners. The nice thing about this record is there isn't a Who cover. It has turned into a duet, very nice. The problem with the serious movies about people who are not serious like say Margot at the Wedding is that along with not being serious they are also dull. When John Krasinski pretends to be a salesman on the road we don't believe him because he's part of this new entitled generation that doesn't really know anything about the struggles that we as the generation immediately preceding them had to endure. Wonder Bread, Simon & Simon, my beloved Cimarron always lingering in my dreams of unattainable poshness and Jim Blanchard. Oh, the agony or reminiscence still sears. The thing is that the dopes that write these movies are roughly my contemporaries. No? Did I misremember life as not one unending patch of miserabilia? I must have. Life now, humorless and so accepting. The polite tone struck here is more shocking now than it would have been in my prime. I'm old now. I keep saying that. I am. Next track, Strolling Past the Old Graveyard. More Saturday Looks Good to Me-ness mixed with a bit of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Nice. The singer can't sing, but I don't much mind. The song is basic, filler. The charm of the Sixths of course is the milquetost personality less singers singing witty barbs and jabs to the air. Even pseudo intellectual Momus has the tables turned on him with a deceivingly sincere take. I don't know, I haven't seen the Magnetic Fields documentary yet. Stephin Merrit doesn't mean it, I know, we are all fools for taking his words at face value, it is a grand delusion, a marvelous farce, and we are too simple to realize. But more on that in the Magnetic Fields entry. If I was a real reviewer I would denigrate the lyrics but I have foggy ears and I might mistranscribe and accidentally ascribe greatness. I have just finished the biogrsaphy of the Mitford sisters. Fascinating that a group of people that didn't do a whole lot aside from being charming, attractive and semi-upper class had such brilliant lives. Well apart from Nancy. And Decca. I am curious to read a Nancy Mitford novel, is it really the female equivalent of Evelyn Waugh? I've cooled slightly on Evelyn Waugh because it seems his writing is very insular and for the "class" and not really as brilliant as he might think it is. Or Terry Teachout. Nancy Mitford is meant to be mocking the same exact people in her novels. Bruce Russel is also an apparent Waughite! Hmm...but the book The Sisters is marvelous so do be a sweet angel and read it. Apparently the impersonal compliment inserted in every line is a sign of refinement in London society. Who knew? I could inject vapid compliments in every other line at work and then be thought of as their betters. Perhaps. Which of these songs would be Nancy Mitford's favorite? Hmmm...I don't think she'd much like any of them to be honest, nor Diana or Unity really, but Decca and Debo would surely be game. Decca is a communist. Sad, these sorts who are ture believers, they are by most accounts joyless and overly serious but I suspect that Mary Lovell is extremely sympathetic to her way of thinking as Decca comes off most splendidly. Really I'd have loved to meet Decca, and Debo too. No to Diana and no to Nancy. Maybe the song playing now is a tribute to the Mitfords? It isn't. It is one of the Cheerleader chorus tracks, with anonymous voices mouthing anonymous platitudes. It sounds better in the car, on the freeway, in a snowstorm cursing the winter that never ends around here. Impossible Love, would be top five Brunettes song material. Is the chorus differently composed on each chorus song? I don't know. Now the Jens Lekman-esque song. Jens Lekman without the terrible jokes is a wonderful thing. It is Barry Manilow without a budget, earnest and respectable, blue collar. Most indiepop is terribly middle class and free of real emotion or suffering and I don't mind really, see the comments about the real believers, see Thom Yorke and his bag full of tedium. This track is utterly lovely. Earlier I had lamented the male singers, I may be coming aroudn to the opposite position. Especially now that Zac Parese is my new favorite hockey player. Did you watch the Gold medal final? Even though hockey's equivalent to Thom Yorke scored the game winning goal it was a marvelous display. What a contrast to the prima donnas in the NBA, the NHL'ers didn't leave anything in the locker rooms and played til their hearts exploded and it was wonderful. Now another wonderful song, Someone Tell Me Please. This record could be the ideal companion to the School's forthcoming long player. This one is very the School. Imagine if Camera Obscura knew how to have a good time instead of being the good northern socialist dourmongers that they are. You would have the School. I am quite different from my own brothers but I don't think I've ever mentioned in a casual aside to my brother that I would not have any compunction against murdering his wife if the final battle between Fascism and Communism came and she happened to be on the wrong side. I don't find Diana Mosley all that attractive really. I much prefer Debo. The Owen Pallet song now, still semi-Jens Lekman, owing to his effete phrasing, much better than anything he's produced on his own. All of his greatest work appears to be in a complementary role. This record would have been really terrific shorn of a few numbers but that is the beauty of not being sentimental with possesions. I'll delete the dreadful ones and we'll never speak of them again and our hearts won't have holes to be filled because of it because our sentimentality lies in the memory of a laugh or a elbow to the ribs or a tear hanging for eternity at a final farewell to a dear friend. Last track, Neathe the Streetlights, beautiful, the cheerleaders in the background, sadness mixed with triumph and a tribute to all of the loves to be discovered today tomorrow and next week. And now...the snow.

I am certain that it will be despised by most but I quite like the new Pipettes song.

Today I met someone with the same name as me. Not Ron Powlus. I also had an eye exam and they questioned my cataract diagnosis from a previous visit. Maybe all of the chicken korma that I've been eating lately has cleared my condition? I have a pretty large storehouse of posts ready to go. Really. Prepare to be amazed at my prolificness in the coming days. Snow in 49 out of 50 states. Brrrr...just think if global warming wasn't rampant! Oh and the Brunettes album is really crap.