April 21, 2009 Earworm

The weather in Atlanta has been so bizarre that I can't help but think that we're a small, head nodding, scene in b-grade sitcom that ends with a cliched "wom, wom, wommmm". The forecast suggests high winds in the afternoon with storms in the evening and, within minutes, the morning sun and a few potted plants get blown away by a puppy melting downfall and then, as I am closing the last window, the sun sticks out it's tongue and all is calm.

All of these mixed messages remind me of OMD's "Crush", right down to the horns. While I know we need the moisture, I still can't stand this rain and its dark irony.

September 05, 2008 Earworm

Slithering slowly back to the future, I leave the eighties without letting it out of my sight with Orchestral Manoeuevres In The Dark's, "Stand Above Me", from their 1993 album, "Liberator" Actually, there was no "their" there by that time, with Paul Humphreys having bowed out in '89, Andrew McCluskey was left as sole proprietor of the franchise. While "Stand Above Me" couldn't quite match the success of "Pandora's Box" from two years earlier it wasn't for lack of trying; it's another sad tale of disillusion surrounded by deceptively festive sounds. This time, a trashy glitter-esque gallop replaces the cinematic sweeps of "Pandora's Box", suggesting that everyone is having fun at the moment but they'll be paying for it later.

While the music made me delirious on the dance floor or drive my car faster-faster to maximize the wind in my hair, the lesson of unity simply for the comfort of saying we are a we, even when no one is quite truthful with their words and goals, lingers long after the movement ended.



And who doesn't like to look at Louise Brooks?