it's close to midnight

For some reason, yesterday I was thinking about Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (the song, not the album), and wondering whether it really contained a line about "the thing with the forty eyes". And yeah, checking the lyrics, it does. Funny how that's the bit that's always stuck with me - and this is a song that has stuck with me: one of the first songs I remember being genuinely obsessed with and listening to repeatedly. Being driven to a school which was a foreboding prospect more mornings than not, somehow it was always the perfect soundtrack, especially on those bitterly cold, near-dark mornings in the depths of winter. Today, I find it harder to think of a song which I was into at an equally early age which I still stand by so passionately (even while the shadow of the artist himself languishes in his own personal circle of hell).

I think the explanation for my younger self's fascination has to be connected to the context in which I was raised: happy-clappy Evangelical Christian, casual reader! There was something undeniably apocalyptic about 'Thriller'. Something that promised judgment and damnation, something with the same fantastical imagery as the Book of Revelations. The Thing With The Forty Eyes, that shall appear in the last days and be worshipped by all nations... It sent chills down my spine. But what kind of chills? Not fear, exactly.

There's this weird tension between the idea of impending damnation, and the urgent excitement not only of the adrenaline and the chase but also of corruption itself - the high that comes from being Bad, even from being Devilish. Jacko's zombie fantasy fits very well with the vampire fantasies of something like The Lost Boys (I always thought that ending, if not a large chunk of the film, was a cop out, a betrayal for anyone else who remembers seeing those posters and thinking "yeah, I bet it IS fun to be a vampire!"). 'Thriller''s thrill feels like the same transgressive kick that informs the slasher/horror movies of the time: a harsh, Victorian morality crossed with an undisguised obsession with the same sins that are being punished - primarily sex, naturally. I found myself wondering whether Jackson was tapping into the idea of dancing as sin, the Devil as the real Lord of the Dance, Kevin Bacon, 'Once More With Feeling', yada yada yada.

But then I took another look at the lyrics to Vincent Price's contribution and realised that in fact, I had it twisted. It's not the people who dance who are going to be pulled into the Hellmouth. It's the people who won't dance, the ones who are "holding the wall" as Outkast would have it. The sheep will be separated from the goats:

"...And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell..."

In other words, it's dance or die. Spooky.

My admiration for Luke Jenner, lead vocalist for The Rapture, is rapidly increasing based on his ability to survive being interviewed by an idiot, for a magazine aimed solely at wankers, and still come across well.

Your newer material is more dancey than your early punk songs. How did that happen?
I've lived in New York since 1999, and it’s a groovy place. You have to groove, or you end up getting flattened. It’s dance or die.

By no means the dumbest question, but the best answer. All of a sudden I have a new motto.

(There was also a great quip from Jenner buried in the News section of the last-but-one NME - something along the lines of "we're here to teach the youth of Great Britain that contrary to what they may have heard, disco doesn't suck, disco fucking rocks." Preach it!)

So I reckon Jefe de Jefelaces is trying to provoke me into posting some kind of 'Best Of 2003' albums list, but I'm not gonna go for it - not yet. Instead, here's a list of this year's albums which I don't own, and want to either own or hear in enough detail to make a decision about, in roughly descending order:

1. The Fiery Furnaces, Gallowsbird's Bark
2. Bubba Sparxxx, Deliverance
3. The Twilight Singers, Blackberry Belle
4. Dizzee Rascal, Boy In Da Corner
5. Ludacris, Chicken & Beer
6. The Distillers, Coral Fang

One last thing for today: you should go read skykicking on 'Stand Up' by Ludacris, just because whenever I try to think of something clever to say about that song, all I get is "He feels like a MIDGET is hanging from his NECKLACE!" again and again and again and again, world without end.

Okay, so I realised that I didn't say enough about The Empty Show below. I wanted to talk about some other specific visuals I love on the top floor: the skull/star motifs on pillows, the brilliantly simple addition of the word 'HEY' above 'LADIES' on a toilet door, the trail of sinister blood-red fluffy clouds leading from a sink, across the wall and down into a hole in the floorboards...

To be honest, I just go nuts for walk-through art of this kind in general. Londoners may remember the Museum of the Unknown on the South Bank: I think this was my favourite example ever, and maybe it's no coincidence that this too was a temporary zone. And yes, smarty pants, all museums and galleries are walk-through... But I'm talking the ones that make you feel like you're really exploring a place. Discovering something that maybe not many people know about. Places that remind you of haunted houses, or adventure playgrounds... That kind of structure.

And here's an extract from the background info blurb on the site to let you know why the Empty Show rocks so hard, exactly:

The Brittania sits tucked into the corner of a block occupied by a Department of Defence logistics office and facility: complete with barbed-wire perimeter walls, large satellite dishes and hazardous warnings of high radiation levels. A Land Title search finds the Brittania’s owners to be Tenix Defence Ltd, the largest private contractors to the Australian military.

...

Fourteen stencillers, steel-painters, posterers and muralists pulled together to make a stealthy effort of painting the Brittania’s inside anew... [A]lthough such intervention is essentially political (particularly when considering Tenix!), it’s also about having a muck-about play and a helluva lot of fun.

Best of all is the promise that there will be more Empty Shows. Excellent.

Blog head not working very well this week. Will this do?

Outkast - 'Last Call'

I feel I ought to stick to the format I've established, so everything I have to say about this song will form five more out of 100 Reasons Why Speakerboxxx/The Love Below is Album Of The Year* (1-12, 13-20).

21. For ages, I thought this was the weakest track on Speakerboxxx, now I'm obsessed with its raucous rowdiness. Songs that start out as the one you don't like on an album and then win you over are grrrrreat.

22. You have to love the fact that it's basically about how people who just stand around by the walls in clubs are shit, and need to come dance. If you're "holding the wall", fuck y'all!

23. The matter-of-fact way Big Boi announces at the beginning of his verse that he is going to get his hair cut, and then he is going to get laid.

24. The line "The dirty doctor has informed me, the drought has ended today" is also one of Big Boi's best.

25. Last but not least, the phrase "Haitious the Haitian from Hateville", which I love a) because I love spins on 'hater', whethr it be "hateration" or "The Hatrix", and b) it reminds me of Haitious the sweet, past-his-prime boxer from Paul Pope's 100%.

*Have decided that Basement Jaxx comes close, Jay-Z turns out to be the guy who nearly steals it, and sadly the Chicks On Speed album is probably in the top ten but not the top five.

Also brightening my day: The Empty Show.

(I had posted this particular image here 'cos I like it so much, but it's a little too big, so: "Good Gosh! Opium!")

no, this really is a music blog

Someone on I Love Music just referred to Patti Smith's 'Redondo Beach' as "cod-reggae". Blasphemy! There's nothing 'cod' about it.

The good news is I now have that tune stuck in my head and it's making me forget the grimness of Britain in December (goodbye, sunshine). We're talking about a tune that can almost fool me into thinking it might be good to smoke marijuana and drink red wine, two forms of intoxicant that I've learnt are really not for me. There's just something about that rhythm, the bob of that beat, like someone floating in surf. "Late afternoon..."

You and me, all we want to be, is lazy.