Why I Love the Art of Noise in 1999
--
excerpt from theartofnoise.com
ART OF NOISE* FACTS OF THE MONTH - JUNE
1. the video for metaforce, the first art of noise single for something like
quite a while, has been directed by john
bland. art of noise are in love with the idea of handing out their promotional
videos to directors so that they can
see how they are interpreted, to see how others see them. in the past other
video directors have seen them as
cool, scary, right, anonymous, wrong, serious, funny, wired, elegant, angry.
art of noise have been interpreted as
terrorists, prophets, idiots, men in black, small girls with axes, ice skaters,
animals, dentists, dancers,
super-heroes, hallucinations, conveyor belts, passers by, creatures, cars and
cartoons. (as a group who made
tunes out of cars, we have always fancied ourselves as cartoon characters. )
john bland's interpretation of the group is as
a/ a japanese female punk rock group.
b/ a group of walking talking living dolls animated by an eel-like mobility
flexing and writhing in a dance of
whiplash nimbleness
c/ a bunch of flowers with a life of their own
d/ aliens in season dancing in primitive streak formation
e/ four cartoon characters called place, face, space and embrace who've come to
life and are finding a way to 'fit
in' to society. 'be focussed,' they appear to be saying. 'psyche yourself up.'
ok ! we applaud john bland for seeing
art of noise this way. in many ways he is completely correct. fact !
2/ an interesting fact emerged while members of art of noise were spaced out in
manhattan promoting their first
album in approaching a length of time, the seduction of claude debussy. the
fact that came to life is this : lol
creme, the new dylan, ex member of yes, ex-wife of trevor horn, former video
game, recently won an oscar for
designing the costumes for 'four weddings and a funeral.' fact!
3/ art of noise are not fans of the new gillette mach 3, although they are
willing to be proved wrong. fact !
4/ ewan mcgregor's hair cut in star wars is not a good or clever thing. fact !
5/ art of noise are increasingly lol creme on time, anne dudley on form, trevor
horn on digital, and paul morley on
xylophone. fact !
6/ the selling equation is getting more and more complicated. in the seventies,
a product simply had to offer
quality and value for money. in the eighties, it also had to offer status. in
the nineties, lifestyle has become key.
now we have reached a point where a product has to embrace quality, service,
value, status, lifestyle, pedigree
and lately a new sense of soul. fact !
7/ there is a questionairre circulating the webnetworldthing asking people to
vote for among other things their
favourite past present or future art of noise members. trevor ? anne ? jj ?
gary ? lol ? paul ? monica ? jude ? all
members current and void are wishing that the result is a tie. a low number of
votes could result in serious
damage to a past present or future member's heart and soul and self-confidence.
i mean, we all know you have
favoured members, but it might help us to keep quiet about it . . . for the
sake of harmony and humanity and
heaven above. fact !
8/ a massively succesful american group with letters for a name - and we do
mean letters - has apparently
sampled an art of noise track for use in a song included on their multi million
selling album. they didn't ask
prodigy type permission. anybody help us with this alarming and yet strangely
comforting rumour ? fact-ish !
9/ a selection of members of the group wearing masks in the shape of their own
faces will be appearing/have
appeared (depending on where you stand vis a vis time) on the big breakfast
(08/06/99) . . . see what happens
when someone starts to ask who are the favourite members in a group ? an
anonymous group starts appearing
on tv to canvas votes ! we'll be kissing babies next. anything to avoid being
the art of noise equivalent of the ugly
one in boyzone. fact !
10/ ideas of karma - what goes around comes around - should influence all
aspects of professional and
emotional life. That's a fact, and that's why it's in the list of this months
top ten facts. Next month, something
else, for some reason. factual !
Weather report: sunny and warm, with a chill to come towards evening.
Emotional report: love is a dream.