12 February 2007

here's to finally knowing who...

Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you know you have heard before but have no idea who it is from? Any suggestions for how you overcame this handicap?

Oh usually if it is a new song or something you just wait for it to be played again (assuming like me you tend to miss the moments where the information is generously provided) and hope eventually it sticks somewhere in your consciousness long enough to resurface the next time you are browsing the isles at your local big box music, books and coffee house. But what are you to do when it is a slightly older song that any radio station worth their salt would be embarrassed to suddenly throw into heavy rotation (in spite of only recently discovering it)??? WhAT Do yOU dO THeN???

Well, thanks to the age of information we are supposed to be in many radio outlets around this modest country (and others like it) have set up various tools to help you find your way back to musical nirvana (wait, maybe that isn't quite right but once it slips out, there is no going back).

So you have a song you want to "discover" and your radio station of choice has a web page with a search function. What next? Well you need to know WHEN you heard it too! Lucky for me I knew it was sometime during my shift and then I remembered turning up the radio so I could hear the bass which means that it had to be while I was in my car on my lunch break! That narrowed it down to sometime before 410 am. Point. Click. Wait. Eureka!

So my song, much to my surprise, is by an artist known as St Germain. A quick click on www.elbo.ws reveals that only one person has ever blogged it anywhere and that was almost a year ago. Not currently hosted on their server. My hopes are dashed once again.

I suppose I could go out and buy the album. I could also go rejoin one of those file sharing portals and buck the law a little more. All I know is I have downloaded some of St Germain's works in the past and came up disappointed in most of them. My chief complaint lies in their tendency to stray from true artistry toward the rather formulaic dance club format of faster beats and ubber repetitiveness that ruins many a good electronica musician.

Perhaps this is why some have given way to producing music under multiple aliases simultaneously. I mean, when was the last time you thought Moby was cool? I haven't since I saw him trying to perform "live" on television once and it just wasn't working for me. He looked like an idiot running around on an oversized stage trying to show off his versatility by playing various instruments and synthesizers set up in different parts of the stage... all during the same song! He had a few musicians backing him up looking much more relaxed about the whole thing. It was almost as painful as watching Jamie Cullum try to make playing the piano look cool on Austin City Limits. Look, the piano is a sit-down instrument. It will never be as sultry as the sax or as macho as a bass guitar and it will certainly never have the sex-appeal of a fender strat. Do what all the great pianists do and sing better songs!

On that note, I leave you with Tom Waits. Enjoy!

Brian

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