These were great, OJN. I especially loved Grimes' one: the more I listen to "Oblivion" the more I love it. Music is the most complex, abstract, emotional art there is so writing about it is impossibly challenging. These two examples though were great pieces of journalism that opened a little window to the minds of two of modern pop's biggest names, and that's of course really valuable to understand the music they make.
So, the article on Grimes' made a passing reference to this "KLF Manual" thing about writing a number one pop song the easy way. I was intrigued, so I googled it and voilà,
here it is. It's a long read but a fantastic one. The KLF was just a couple of sonic terrorists/trolls that inexplicably got to the top of the UK Singles list with some
Doctor Who remix crap that rips off Gary Glitter (it was a different time). The book tries to guide a potential pop star through the entire process of writing, recording and more importantly, selling a song, whatever it takes. Some fun excerpts:
The “cool cats” and hipsters of the early sixties might have thought modern jazz was going to finally break through when “Take Five” made the Hit Parade. The blue rinse brigade feared the downfall of decent society when The Pistols made Number One with “God Save The Queen” or the musos predicted real music was about to die because of the 1988 rash of DJ records. Had you played some free jazz to ninety five per cent of the people who had made “Take Five” a smash, they would have run for cover behind the latest release by Pat Boone. The Pistols might have been swearing on T.V. inciting a generation of kids to “Get pissed! Destroy!” but if “God Save The Queen” had not stuck rigidly to The Golden Rules* (*THESE WILL BE EXPLAINED LATER), The Pistols would never have seen the inside of the Top Ten.
You will find engineers everywhere trying to impress you with the fact that “Sergeant Pepper” was recorded on a four track. This is of course is as relevant as the fact that no JCB’s were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.
We have just taken a coffee break from writing this lot and while in the cafe have come up with the ultimate Stock Aitkin and Waterman chorus never written. It’s called “Live In Lover”, either performed by Sinitta or ideally by a Dagenham blonde called Sharon:
“Live in lover I want you to be My live in lover for eternity”
Either use it for yourselves or we will go and blow what last vestiges of credibility we have and do it ourselves. We can see it now: we’d call the act “Sharon Meets the KLF” and of course the b-side would have to be “Sharon Joins The JAMS”. If there are any good looking Sharons out there that want to be pop stars please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We have been doing all this writing in a county library in an old English market town. The place is crammed with dirty great books. Loads of them with more than five hundred pages in. All written properly. People must have sweated for years to write some of these books and we can’t be bothered with finishing this skimpy thing properly.
We found a book this morning. “A Dictionary of Similes”. Printed in 1807. Thought there might be something in it to spice up our writing style. Every page is a winner. We shall let it fall open. It’s page two hundred and sixty five. MONEY TO MOTIONLESS and what do we read:
"Monotonous as the dress of charity children. (Anon). Moody as a poet. (Thomas Shadwell) Mope like birds that are changing feather. (Longfellow) I am as mopish as if I were married and lived in a provincial town. (G.H. Lewis) Moral as a peppermint. (Anon)"
Moral as a peppermint! Moral as a peppermint? Moral as a sodding peppermint???
Obviously the word peppermint had some unusual connotation back in 1807 that has been lost down through the intervening years.
Really funny, insightful, angry and kinda inspiring, actually. Take a couple hours to read this, you won't regret it (and by you I guess I mean OJN, I'm not sure who else is reading this).