Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, dancing on a Friday night

[Originally posted 10/06/05, accidentally deleted, and now restored. Sadly, I don't thinks it's possible to restore the original, with comments :(].

It's Friday! It's three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

( You what? )

Today you are invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

Ash - Kung Fu

In general, most of the tracks I post here on a Friday are hoping to introduce a few people to something new.

This one, obviously, is not. Is there anyone there who doesn't already know Kung Fu? Be honest. If you weren't a student in the mid-late 90s you might just have an excuse.

But... when was the last time you heard it ? At one time you could barely put your nose within half a mile of an indie club without encountering it. I don't remember when I last heard it on a dancefloor, though. But I did hear it on a compilation the other day, and remembered that it is a great song, and deserves to be dug out now and again. More songs should clock in at less than 2 1/2 minutes, dammit.

Sadly, this is the album version of Kung Fu which doesn't have the "Gary Glitter, Scooby Doo..." vocal in it. Bonus points, by the way, to anyone who can assure me that they worked out all the lyrics (correctly!) without looking them up.

Obviously, the CD I'm recommending for purchase here is 1977. I'm sure you're all discerning types who own it already. It remains, in my mind, Ash's high point. And I suspect that if you don't boogie to Kung Fu and Girl From Mars you're very probably dead.

But tonight I think I'd rather just go dancing

It's Friday! It's three o'clock! It's time to Boogie At Your Desk!

( You what? )

Today you were invited to Boogie At Your Desk to:

The Magnetic Fields - The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side

Before anyone asks, the strange squelchy noise is not an artefact of poor mp3-ing on my part. It really does sound like that on the original.

Yesterday, I was expounding to wimble my theory that a 2 or 3 disk album is a bad introduction to a band. It's too large, it's too daunting, and the recomendee will probably never bother with it. This theory is true in absolutely every case.

Except this one.

69 Love Songs is a work of utter genius, and is utterly delightful from beginning to end. It's the first Magnetic Fields album I listened to, and it won me over from about .35 seconds into Disc 1. I later decided the best way of describing them was "lo-fi Divine Comedy". Better descriptions in six words or under welcomed.

I heard a few Magnetic Fields tracks on Launchcast, then heard zotz loudly recommending them. By that time, I couldn't track down 69 Love Songs in the UK, and ordered it direct from the American label. Shortly after, a reissued version appeared over here for about three times the price. Fortunately, it is now down to (on Amazon) a remarkably likeable £10.99.

Now, 69 songs for eleven quid. You can't say fairer than that.

You see, 69 Love Songs is a descriptive title[*]. Three disks, 23 love songs per disk. It surprises you that a hardbitten cynic like me can stomach so many as 23 love songs, let alone 69 ?

Well.. they're not quite your ordinary love songs. They're the sort you can live with. Some are happy, some less so. Some are bitter, cynical, unrequited or sad. Some tackle particular aspects of a relationship (like, say, wanting to murder the other half, or acknowledging that your husband can't remember the fact you married). Some drip with a saccharine sincerity, or explode with the exuberance of being happy with someone. Others are simply surreal. The songs are also delievered with a pleasing absence of attention to the gender of the singer(s), meaning that overall the collection of songs is neither gay nor straight.

Incidentally, The Luckiest Guy... sounds very little like the other 68. Quite a lot of the songs sound unlike the other 68. Most musical styles and song-forms get a look-in somewhere - blues, jazz, (very) light opera, minuet, Motown, folk, ... The Magnetic Fields play with form and pastiche like they play with words, and they make it look so easy.

Some songs (Love is Like Jazz, Experimental Music Love) are, frankly, just wanking around. But I'm prepared to forgive them that - hell, I'm even prepared to forgive them their banjo. I'll forgive some people anything if they invent a word like "prowesslessnesslessness" and sing it in cold blood.

Am I gushing yet ? Er, sorry. I think I'd rate this as "best album bought in 2004".

And the Magnetic Fields can have a Tom Lehrer award for truly excruciating rhymes. I'm sure they wrote Reno Dakota and Death of Ferdinand de Saussure just to prove that yes, thank you, they really could think of quite a lot of things that rhymed with Dakota and Saussure, respectively. Also a prize for the best song ever to mention a zebra.

Incidentally, a question for existing Magnetic Fields fans: I'm curious to know what song might you have picked to BAYD to ? Fine as 69 Love Songs is, few tracks strike me as immediately boogieworthy. In fact, Stephen Merritt would probably be quite offended that I even suggested boogying. You're allowed to choose off that, off i, or off Holiday, because those are the albums I own.

I was tempted by I Thought You Were My Boyfriend, but was disconcerted by the knowledge that if I used that as an introduction to the band, verlaine would come round my house and kick me in. Even if he is on another continent.

[*] Like The Caesars' 39 Minutes of Bliss (In an Otherwise Meaningless World). Are there any more ?