{"id":208,"date":"2005-11-01T11:14:21","date_gmt":"2005-11-01T18:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2005\/11\/01\/im-listening-to\/"},"modified":"2005-11-01T11:21:25","modified_gmt":"2005-11-01T18:21:25","slug":"im-listening-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2005\/11\/01\/im-listening-to\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Listening To"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. "Whatever It Takes"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Go to: http:\/\/www.orangerecordlabel.com\/<\/a>
Turn up your speakers.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait for the radio station to start.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to this
song.\u00c2\u00a0 If it doesn’t make you feel good all over, if it doesn’t make you want
to jump up and throw your arms in the air, you’re an inhibited fuck who’d
better not ever come to my house because every once in a while we like to cut
loose, like to throw off the inhibitions when something cuts right to our core.\u00c2\u00a0
We don’t worry about what’s hip, we don’t worry about what’s cool, we just
revel in the SOUND!<\/p>\n

One thing about Canadians.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re better educated than we are.\u00c2\u00a0 They know
more than we do.\u00c2\u00a0 But because they live north of the border, deep down inside
they tend not to believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe it’s that so few people live in Canada
that it’s a giant high school.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean Puff Daddy\/Diddy wouldn’t be revered in
Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d just be another guy you went to high school with putting on
airs, with an attitude, you wouldn’t let him get away with it.<\/p>\n

I know this TV show is made in the Great White North.\u00c2\u00a0 I assume the track was
cut there too.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they tend to use their own.<\/p>\n

Now when writing TV themes one doesn’t strive for art, one strives for what
works.\u00c2\u00a0 But what works in Canada is oftentimes art.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one puts up
with bullshit and everybody is thrilled to be employed.\u00c2\u00a0 And they take their work
very seriously.<\/p>\n

It’s that synth intro straight from the Tubes’ "She’s A Beauty".\u00c2\u00a0 Lukather
should sue for copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

And then there are the kids.\u00c2\u00a0 Straight off of Pink Floyd’s "The Wall".\u00c2\u00a0 Or
"Fame".<\/p>\n

I don’t know if "Fame" is a teenage ritual.\u00c2\u00a0 But the flick made a big
impression on me, even though it debuted when I was in my twenties.\u00c2\u00a0
I went with my friend Tony in the afternoon at the Avco on Wilshire.\u00c2\u00a0
Before they split the downstairs theatre in two.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t have a great desire,
but since he was playing hooky from work, he got to make the choice.<\/p>\n

I liked the story.\u00c2\u00a0 Had a thing for one of the girls.\u00c2\u00a0 Liked the pathos.\u00c2\u00a0 But
what stunned me was this music written ESPECIALLY for the movie was GOOD!\u00c2\u00a0 I
downloaded most of it as soon as I fired up Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I’ve got the vinyl
album.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not about to buy it over again.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you COULDN’T buy it over
again.\u00c2\u00a0 Fuck, I don’t want to have this download argument with you pricks one
more time.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not the point.\u00c2\u00a0 The point is I NEEDED this music.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was
suddenly easy to get.\u00c2\u00a0 What I needed primarily was "I Sing The Body Electric".
\u00c2\u00a0The final song on the record, the closing scene of the flick if I remember
correctly.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it starts with a classical flourish.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after the solos, the
whole SCHOOL seems to be singing.\u00c2\u00a0 And then it explodes in a rave up rock
ending.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so SATISFYING!\u00c2\u00a0 Because control has been thrown out the window,
it’s pure ELATION!\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, it was co-written by Lesley Gore’s BROTHER!\u00c2\u00a0 A
heretofore blip on the radar screen!<\/p>\n

Times have changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Twenty five years have elapsed.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t have a theme
song without rapping.<\/p>\n

But you’ve got to know.\u00c2\u00a0 If this were an American TV show.\u00c2\u00a0 If U.S. citizens
had cut the track.\u00c2\u00a0 It would get some respect.\u00c2\u00a0 It would have been a HIT!<\/p>\n

You see hits just don’t happen down here.\u00c2\u00a0 Tracks need to be priorities.\u00c2\u00a0
Money has to be spent.\u00c2\u00a0 So if a track doesn’t break through today that doesn’t
mean it’s not good, that just means some fuck in an office decided not to push
the button.<\/p>\n

So, just know, "Whatever It Takes", the theme song from "Degrassi: The Next
Generation", by the Degrassi Junior Strings, is a hit by the old definition.\u00c2\u00a0 A
song you get in your brain, that changes your mood, your life, that you want
to hear over and over and over again because you just want to FEEL THIS WAY!\u00c2\u00a0
FOREVER!!<\/p>\n

\n

2. "Mystery Wind"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Major labels don’t even make these kinds of records anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Record
companies don’t even embrace the same CONCEPT!\u00c2\u00a0 You see record companies
used to be just that, RECORDING COMPANIES!\u00c2\u00a0 Not hit machines.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think Edison thought of HITS?\u00c2\u00a0 No, he wanted everybody to be able to enjoy music, whenever they had the desire.<\/p>\n

And what is music?<\/p>\n

It’s something that gets inside you.\u00c2\u00a0 Fucks you up.\u00c2\u00a0 Takes you to another
place.<\/p>\n

That’s not the kind of music purveyed by major companies today.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why
sales are down.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why movie grosses have slipped.\u00c2\u00a0 People don’t even
EXPECT either of them to be good anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, there are good records and good
movies, but the soul of the experience, that’s been trashed.\u00c2\u00a0 By greedy
purveyors.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean how many movies can one person see?\u00c2\u00a0 With a different MUST SEE flick opening every weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 TWO OR THREE!\u00c2\u00a0 And then you go and they’re lowest common denominator tripe.\u00c2\u00a0 Not even good for feeling up your girlfriend.\u00c2\u00a0 You get to the point where you don’t want to give the companies any more of your
money, because you’re PISSED!\u00c2\u00a0 The same thing happened in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that anybody other than the consumer will acknowledge this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s worse than
only one good track per album.\u00c2\u00a0 You see that one track is in your face.\u00c2\u00a0 All
the subtlety is gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, they’ve drained all the subtlety from sex in
society.\u00c2\u00a0 The media says it’s all how Madonna and Britney do it.\u00c2\u00a0 But their
lives don’t correspond with yours.\u00c2\u00a0 And why look up to these uneducated twits
anyway?\u00c2\u00a0 What did Madonna do to merit all our attention?\u00c2\u00a0 Show her tits?\u00c2\u00a0 Hire
some talented people to write her songs?\u00c2\u00a0 And now what she says MATTERS?\u00c2\u00a0 God,
if I wanted to know how to invest my nest egg, how to sell a mediocre
product, I’d look up Madonna, a business savant, a marketing whiz.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not
art.\u00c2\u00a0 And, at best she’s selling spectacle.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like they took one of those
giant wooden wands from the craps table in Vegas and wiped the landscape clean
of anybody with talent who is only playing what feels good in his heart.\u00c2\u00a0 Those
chumps are now under the table.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s so disillusioning, and so
confusing, that you move on, uninterested in foraging in the darkness, trying to find
what’s good.<\/p>\n

And that’s why filters are important.\u00c2\u00a0 People who will stand between us and
the purveyors, PROTECTING us from the reams of bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 Standing up for
what’s good.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike Marrone spun this Richard Thompson track last night at midnight
and it changed my life.\u00c2\u00a0 Driving up PCH.\u00c2\u00a0 With the road to myself.\u00c2\u00a0 Try it.<\/p>\n

\n

3. "Diary"<\/strong><\/p>\n

And when I pulled up to the drugstore, the song changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I was gonna turn
the radio off, but there was something intriguing about the number.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t
want to sell you on the Low Millions’ "Diary", but I’ll tell you there’s an
amazing change, an amazing interlude.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what we’re living for, those brief
moments of greatness.\u00c2\u00a0 They mean more to us than those endless riffs driven into
our brain through endless repetition on those Top Forty tracks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. "Whatever It Takes" Go to: http:\/\/www.orangerecordlabel.com\/Turn up your speakers.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait for the radio station to start.\u00c2\u00a0 Listen to this song.\u00c2\u00a0 If it doesn’t make you feel good all over, if it doesn’t make you want to jump up and throw your arms in the air, you’re an inhibited fuck who’d better not ever come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-3m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}