Music

"I wonder when you'll realize there's more to this life than your music!"

I'm fed up with these words that come knocking on my eardrums several times a week. It's obvious there's more to life than just music but as far as I'm concerned, without the music, there is not much worth around here. And somehow it's what drives me around and amazes me everyday. But she won't even try to understand that. She'll only blame me for the money waste and state that she won't give me a hand whenever I run short on funds in the future because she refuses to help someone who'd waste all of their money on such futile things.

Of course I've been won over by the materialism trend but I do have savings and I don't see the point of being an old rich person not having lived at all compared to being less rich but having seen the world and purchased all kinds of records along the years. Because in the end, that's how my memory works. I link events of my life with songs. And I strongly believe it'll always be so. As long as people will keep on supporting independent music and fight the commercial stuff away.

Sun comes up...

...paradox. [full line ©Gert Bettens of K's Choice]

I've been writing blog entries in my head for a while now and no matter how much I put into them, they never made it here. But I feel like posting something anyway so it'll be some kind of "this is what I like these days" entry.

Katzenjammer Kabarett :
The one proof that French people can make great music, too. With a clever mix of cabaret, post-punk and death-rock Katz Kab builds a brand new style of their very own. Within the first times you listen to their songs, you're taken to some strange world, first a sweet melody that'd make you think they are going to sing a lullaby to a child before they fall asleep but soon enough death-rock riffs and rhythm kick in and have you hooked. I have something for Mary Komplicated's voice, too. It's somewhat low, full and playful. An interesting band, really. [For The Dresden Dolls fans among us, you might recognize Mary as the kissing booth girl from the DD's DVD Paradise]

• Official website
• Myspace

Pretty Balanced :
A girl singing and playing the piano teamed up with a guy drummer with an old-fashioned hat. Recognize the definition? Saying they are some copy of The Dresden Dolls would be very reductive for this Columbus, OH based duo. They have their own musical universe, sometimes Forest leaves the drumsticks aside for violin which gives Judith's texts and melodies a more dramatic dimension. Their demos are online and free for you to grab on their website, don't hesitate!

• Official website
• Myspace

Butterfly Boucher :

Yes, that's her real name! Native of Australia, living in the USA, making pop/rock and doing it all good. I had heard about her years ago because she was opening for Tegan and Sara on some point of their tour. Many diverse opinions about her and her music, my laziness making the rest of the job for me to only fall for her debut album, Flutterby a little late. But better late than never, as they say. A clever songwriting and perfect demos on which she's playing all the instruments made her get her contract, it can't be bad, I assure you. And once again, I have something for her voice. [yes, I tend to obsess over the same details at certain times]

• Official website
• Myspace

Grey's Anatomy :

I'm not a real TV fan. I tend to avoid the object because I strongly believe it makes people only more stupid than they already are. But sometimes there are good things in the box. This series is one example, it's about half way between ER and Scrubs so it's both dramatic and funny. I got attached to some of the characters right away because it's well written, well driven and well interpreted. And moreover, the soundtrack is amazing! A must-see, definitely.

The 4400 [season 3] :

After complaining the series was running slow for season 2, I was to say season 3 totally won me over. Either it be the Isabelle plot, some main characters falling into oblivion, the new powers we see in the 4400, the double episode with Maia or the presence of Karina Lombard in the regular cast, it gained interest in many ways. While some series get boring after a while, The 4400 are getting better each time. No need to remind me to get the new episode each Monday.

My Summer Of Love :

A fantastic English movie it took me too long to get to watch. Plot Outline [off imdb.com] : "In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tasmin. Over the summer season, the two young women discover they have much to teach one another, and much to explore together." The accent is hard to get used to at first [especially without subtitles] but it adds to the whole movie. You smile, you get sad, you're surprised, it's just full emotionally. Loved it.

Finding Neverland :

Or the story of the man who wrote Peter Pan. Another movie I shouldn't have waited so long to watch. Johnny Depp is great, as usual [he can make any crappy movie look decent], Kate Winslet is convincing and the rest of the cast is solid just as the storyline. You may look at it with grow-up eyes but you'll end up finding the child in you back with this one. Lovely.

Ich spreche kein Deutsch

[part of my CD collection : favourites off the whole lot]

Some weeks ago, I was browsing through the shelves of my favourite CD shop. At my biggest surprise I found a Wir Sind Helden CD. As their name implies, they're German and they chose to sing in German, too. Which is the main reason for my surprise seeing that LP up there for sale in France. But as I grabbed the item to take a closer look at it, it appeared to be a compilation of songs off the first two LPs and, most important point, French versions of some songs with original German versions as bonus tracks. There was the reason why it made it over the border.

I don't quite understand why things tend to always go this way. Having artists remodel their songs with a language they may not even understand or have them change their solo song into a duet so that someone directly out of the local Pop Idol edition can pretend to be an artist and have their name glued to a real band's. There probably are artists willingly doing that but I suspect major labels to be behind it all. For a country as France where most people don't speak any foreign language quite correctly, it may come as understandable but that's not helping anyone really.

And do French people really care about lyrics, after all? Strangely enough, I doubt it. When you look at the latest best sales for singles, you'd be stumped to see how many crappy lyrics reached the top. I'm not going to name artists or songs here, that'd be too much advertising for them while they don't need any and actually don't even deserve to be known.

Money rules the world, that's the whole point, anyway. Good artists always have to work harder than the whole commercial pre-formated unoriginal guys and often battle years before finding some obscure independent label to publish their art. In a perfect world, diversity would be a strength, not something to work against.

"we are all polylingual
but some of us pretend
there's virtue in relying
on not trying to understand"

[Ani DiFranco - Work Your Way Out
I'm aware the quote is way off from the main topic of the song, don't sue me for that]