More music blogs: The Same Mistakes

[Sleeper]

Full article at
http://weheartmusic.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/more-music-blogs-the-same-mistakes.html

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A couple of years ago I wrote an article about other music blogs on
the VOX platform. Since VOX is no more, this article will be more
general.

When I have written articles here, sometimes I go beyond the press
releases, biographies, and other information I am given directly, and
explore what is being said elsewhere, including articles at other
music blogs. Sometimes this research is about the artist or group,
and sometimes it's concerning the genre of music. I found The Same
Mistakes ( samemistakesmusic.blogspot.com ), however, just wandering
around YouTube. It covers post-punk, new wave, and minimal synth,
which is quite to my taste.

Be forewarned: this blog is at Blogger/Blogspot. We don't favor that
platform as the look is just awful. If you haven't noticed, I will
say look is important to Vu (he favors the Vimeo player over
YouTube). I have to give him credit for that because he's made a lot
of my articles look much better than I could have ever done alone with
some slick HTML coding and careful formatting, which I just can't do.
But I have to break ranks and say that I think content is king.
There's no doubt that content in a good package is more appealing,
just like good frosting compliments a cake or beautiful wrapping makes
a gift more exciting. But I doubt anyone wants just wrapping or to
eat straight frosting, and if the cake or the gift is already really
bad, even the best covers or toppings won't hide that. (The cake
analogy will make even more sense in a moment.)

So I came to this blog to an article about David Byrne's involvement
with the B-52's, which resulted in the EP Mesopotamia. It explains
that most fans didn't receive the recording well, and that should
explain why I got my cassette copy in the bargain bin. What really
grabbed my attention, however, was the explanation of the sound of
that EP. I almost decided to go into musicology when I was a music
student, and I really like that sort of analysis about where a certain
sort of music comes from and where it's going.

The B-52's are usually described as a party band, but I think "Crash
The Driver" (the article's author) is correct in placing their
beginnings with the New Wave movement of the late 1970's. Although
New Wave is closely associated with punk, this was not the harsh,
pounding sound of music labeled as punk (Sex Pistols, Ramones, etc.)
It certainly shared the do-it-yourself ethic of its progenitor, but
was more characterized by a kitschy, twitchy, danceable pop sound.
Consider R.E.M., which came out of Athens, Georgia, as the B-52's did,
and note their beginnings in the punk circuit; perhaps you'll see what
I mean. But the new decade of the '80s brought another response to
punk, simply called "post-punk". Although most media associates the
beginning of MTV with New Wave acts, I'd say that these music videos
are better identified with post-punk, which was in some ways an
antithesis to the harsh, aggro sound of punk. Think Visage, David
Bowie, Siouxsie and the Banshees; and devotion to Art Deco and pop and
performance art (not to mention Andy Warhol appearing on MTV, as
well). More on point, the B-52's hired David Byrne to help them
explore a post-punk sound, and Crash suggests it was with the hope
that Byrne would bring them the same sort of success Brian Eno had
brought to the Talking Heads.

But it was not to be. "It was adventurous, challenging music," Crash
writes, "but perhaps more reflective of Byrne's private preoccupations
of the time than the interests of the band or its record company."
The recording sessions were abandoned, but six of the most fully
formed tracks became Mesopotamia to recoup costs. All were remixed
eventually to remove Byrne's influence, but some initial copies
survived on the Island Records label in the UK and Europe. I grabbed
these tracks to listen for myself.

I think Crash put it kindly. I could see why the group was
dissatisfied and I certainly did not agree that Byrne's mixes of
"Cake" and "Throw That Beat In The Garbage Can" were superior, as the
article suggested. Generally, I thought the Byrne versions wandered
like jam sessions reminscient of '60s acid rock. I could hear a few
seams in the edits, which in Byrne's defense, would probably have been
fixed had he been allowed to stay on. But the cartoony sound effects
of "Throw That Beat" were just too much. If I were a producer, I
think these mixes might have been okay for 12" and other singles
releases, where longer dance mixes and edits are usually placed
anyways.

Obviously, the B-52's did go on to mainstream success with Nile
Rodgers (of Chic) and Don Was (Was Not Was), who produced Cosmic Thing
and Good Stuff. And of course, I'll note they are still going strong
today. Last Christmas, I picked up an offering on Amazon from Fred
Schneider's side group The Superions, which was an amusing song about
fruitcake.

Anyways, if you can forgive and overlook the jarring look of Blogger/
Blogspot, The Same Mistakes is a fun, thoughtful, and retrospective
look at a genre of music close to my heart.