Sunday 1 August 2010

Rhodesia

I don't know if it lowers yer blog stock price if you start embedding YouTube music video uploads to it a bit too often for comfort, but it seems to me that if your blog stock price (BSP) is already in negative territory, it really doesn't matter. You can see from my profile description what I'm mainly up to on this blog - the democratic assassination of that menace to British and world politics that is the Labour party, by any means and with extreme prejudice. But I do have other interests.

One of them is music, and rather odd music at that. I, for instance, still hark back to the late-70s/early 80s less commercial bands who disappeared without trace pretty fast but had a far bigger influence on serious modern music - and on society generally - that anyone cares to mention, especially if they're in the industry trying to market the next vacuous girl/boy "band". (I put the word "band" in inverted commas because, even during those dark days of Duran Duran, "bands" were people with some kind of instrumental, musical ability and who somehow joined together on that basis. The "Beatle Model", you might call it, rather than the "Take That" mutation).

Speaking of which, here's one of those weird 70s "bands": Japan. Now I know that its lead singer thought that his musical outflow smelt far better than his peers' (hence the flowery meaningless crap he's came up with since he broke up the band), but there was some stuff in the early days that really was challenging.

I've chosen one such example for this post, although I could have chosen a number of equally challenging others. How they're challenging is a damn good question. Politically, naturally, they are challenging. And they duly challenged and intrigued me in formative years, which is probably why I spout in this way in this place through this easy electronic mass medium now. But that music, among many other forms, was the start of my inspiration. (Learning to cope with real, working life was the rest of it!)



My only request is this: if anyone has the slightest idea what these lyrics actually mean I'd love to hear from you. It sounds so meaningful, but it could be a load of sh...

Anyway, thanks for your input in anticipation of it.

PS: This is even more fantastic, and basically incomprehensible. Maybe you can work it out, because I can't:


It's a warning to all bloggers, that's what it is...

2 comments:

  1. Amazing that I didn't know Japan had produced such up-tempo tunes. I think my experience of their stuff was limited to a couple of their TOTP appearances and a quite memorable OGWT which was quite dirge-like, but obviously saturated with meaning and depth. Good stuff.

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  2. Yeah, it is strange. Mind you, they were a strange group led by a strange man in Sylvian, who never liked any of this early stuff. Which is a shame, because I did!

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Any thoughts?