![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jan. 21st, 2005
I've just got an email, inviting me to visit a website to confirm my log-in details for my internet banking.
( In an only slightly unconvincing manner )
( In an only slightly unconvincing manner )
It's Friday! It's about three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!
( You what? )
Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:
Adam Green - Emily
(This is a legit, streamable video download - the link goes to a high-quality Windows Media file. There are also links to a low-quality one, or Real player files in high and low flavours. The video is worksafe, and features an nice, furry cat.)
This track isn't an out-and-out bounce-in-your-seat boogie, more of a gentle, sway-from-side-to-side boogie. Swing At Your Desk, maybe.
A few years ago, Adam Green was one of the leading lights of the New York Antifolk scene (if it means anything to you, he was one half of The Moldy Peaches). Antifolk is what happens When Folk Singers Go Bad. They throw away their fol-de-rols, stop going a-walking out on May mornings, and start writing rambling acoustic songs about subjects you can't write songs about. Antifolk albums are near-universally lo-fi, home-made-looking affairs, usually with sleevenotes that seem to have been knocked up on a geriatric Xerox machine.
Adam Green's first album is, I'm told, a very good antifolk album. I've borrowed a copy and am listening to it today, but am not up to full reviewing-speed yet.
In 2003, his second album was released, and something was clearly Up. The sleevnotes were glossy! They were printed in colour! There was a small string section involved! There seemed to have been... production! A small group of people screamed "Sell Out!" in unison, and I enter the story at this point.
The second album, if, you weren't comparing it to the first, is great. It has gently catchy tunes, and a sort of lounge-singer ambience to it. The strings swoop around, and the whole album has a lush, melodic feel. There is only one thing linking Adam Green to his Antifolk past: the lyrics. They remain by turns unexpected, random, nonsensical, shocking, and childishly obscene. The juxtaposition of the easy-listening, parent-friendly sound and the soft-voiced uttering of Very Rude Words is something I find constantly delightful. If you're likely to be offended by a song which begins "There's no wrong way to fuck a girl with no legs", you might not like this album - though the same song also contains the beautifully expressed "Loving you are the two best things in a world that's skipping town".
This week's track is a single from his new album, Gemstones, which is released in the UK next week. I think Emily probably only scores around 0.3 Debasers of Impenetrability which, for Adam Green, is pretty good going.
[*] OK, it's a Grateful Dead song. But the interweb says Aerosmith covered it, and that's good enough for me :)
( You what? )
Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:
Adam Green - Emily
(This is a legit, streamable video download - the link goes to a high-quality Windows Media file. There are also links to a low-quality one, or Real player files in high and low flavours. The video is worksafe, and features an nice, furry cat.)
This track isn't an out-and-out bounce-in-your-seat boogie, more of a gentle, sway-from-side-to-side boogie. Swing At Your Desk, maybe.
A few years ago, Adam Green was one of the leading lights of the New York Antifolk scene (if it means anything to you, he was one half of The Moldy Peaches). Antifolk is what happens When Folk Singers Go Bad. They throw away their fol-de-rols, stop going a-walking out on May mornings, and start writing rambling acoustic songs about subjects you can't write songs about. Antifolk albums are near-universally lo-fi, home-made-looking affairs, usually with sleevenotes that seem to have been knocked up on a geriatric Xerox machine.
Adam Green's first album is, I'm told, a very good antifolk album. I've borrowed a copy and am listening to it today, but am not up to full reviewing-speed yet.
In 2003, his second album was released, and something was clearly Up. The sleevnotes were glossy! They were printed in colour! There was a small string section involved! There seemed to have been... production! A small group of people screamed "Sell Out!" in unison, and I enter the story at this point.
The second album, if, you weren't comparing it to the first, is great. It has gently catchy tunes, and a sort of lounge-singer ambience to it. The strings swoop around, and the whole album has a lush, melodic feel. There is only one thing linking Adam Green to his Antifolk past: the lyrics. They remain by turns unexpected, random, nonsensical, shocking, and childishly obscene. The juxtaposition of the easy-listening, parent-friendly sound and the soft-voiced uttering of Very Rude Words is something I find constantly delightful. If you're likely to be offended by a song which begins "There's no wrong way to fuck a girl with no legs", you might not like this album - though the same song also contains the beautifully expressed "Loving you are the two best things in a world that's skipping town".
This week's track is a single from his new album, Gemstones, which is released in the UK next week. I think Emily probably only scores around 0.3 Debasers of Impenetrability which, for Adam Green, is pretty good going.
[*] OK, it's a Grateful Dead song. But the interweb says Aerosmith covered it, and that's good enough for me :)