Review David Byrne 1994 album
So Im a little late...what can a say about this album? Best to let it speak for itself... "If I don't make no decisions/ well I can't make no mistakes/but through all those tiny holes/ well the lights still getting in" (back in the box, D. Byrne) "I'm primitive & selfish/I'm childlike & I'm helpless/ well I got that way because of/ my love for you" (D.Byrne) "There are those who are happy/there are those who are wise/but it's the truly sad people/who get the most out of life" (D. Byrne) "I can hardly touch myself/how can I touch someone else?/I'm just a walking advertisement/for a version of myself" D. Byrne
Imagine a man singing winsomely about his most personal, deep, and ephemeral feelings...then skipping onto the most insidious sicknesses of the society in which he lives...Then imagine it all backed up by music which creates dreamscapes, like a layered day dream of acid jazz truncated before it goes too far...some funky guitar that hangs unresolved, a carribean sounding drum beat, and repetitions that sound easy at first, even predictable, but become suddenly alive with syncopation, the introduction of a xylophone riff atop an off beat bass... There is also an ironic nod to lounge music, cheesy disco/predictable funk, and of course his classic integration of steel-drum, "tropical" sounds...but the very best juxtaposition running throughout the album is the feel-good big band sound, overlain with disturbing and deeply sardonic lyrics... It is like, feed them consciousness through lite-fm, but somehow it works, and the music, carrying Byrnes' happy go-lucky rhapsodies, of "the mentally unfit" "sometimes your an asshole too", never winds up cliche, or without it's own authentic soul... Byrne mixes existentialist absurdity with self relevatory indulgence, and somehow the country western yodeling atop the Zydeco beats...trail off into the sunset with his lyrics about the inescapable pain and absurdity of existence trailing lightly in the listener's consciousness... Yeah, david Fuckin' Byrne...we need more authentic artists, telling us it's not only fun but strangely freeing to be a tortured soul :)
Disclaimer: In case it wasn't obvious I'm not exactly a music expert, I don't know all the correct names for the genres I mentioned
Imagine a man singing winsomely about his most personal, deep, and ephemeral feelings...then skipping onto the most insidious sicknesses of the society in which he lives...Then imagine it all backed up by music which creates dreamscapes, like a layered day dream of acid jazz truncated before it goes too far...some funky guitar that hangs unresolved, a carribean sounding drum beat, and repetitions that sound easy at first, even predictable, but become suddenly alive with syncopation, the introduction of a xylophone riff atop an off beat bass... There is also an ironic nod to lounge music, cheesy disco/predictable funk, and of course his classic integration of steel-drum, "tropical" sounds...but the very best juxtaposition running throughout the album is the feel-good big band sound, overlain with disturbing and deeply sardonic lyrics... It is like, feed them consciousness through lite-fm, but somehow it works, and the music, carrying Byrnes' happy go-lucky rhapsodies, of "the mentally unfit" "sometimes your an asshole too", never winds up cliche, or without it's own authentic soul... Byrne mixes existentialist absurdity with self relevatory indulgence, and somehow the country western yodeling atop the Zydeco beats...trail off into the sunset with his lyrics about the inescapable pain and absurdity of existence trailing lightly in the listener's consciousness... Yeah, david Fuckin' Byrne...we need more authentic artists, telling us it's not only fun but strangely freeing to be a tortured soul :)
Disclaimer: In case it wasn't obvious I'm not exactly a music expert, I don't know all the correct names for the genres I mentioned
posted by slave to my amygdala at 7:17 PM
1 Comments:
Get a job, and stop listening to music like a teenager...
-The punishing voices in my head
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