5.11.00
men, men, men, why do i love men so much?
lately i reached critical mass on the girls and guitars phenomenon and had to expand into Whiny Boy Singer territory in a big way (if my taste for female driven music must be stereotyped as such, then why can't the boys?) my loves, in discovery order, have been: RADIOHEAD, an old friend. i liked ok computer well enough when i first heard it, but forgot it for a year. now they're definitely back in my heart in a big way. yay genius. i think it was all the modern fiction i've been reading for class, i learned to appreciate the sad sound of industrial exploitation. other industrial blues friends i made this year include kraftwerk and science park. science park's new 7" is called "ascension island" is too kool and his new undone one sounds like new order, yay! depressed and whining boy #2 is NICK DRAKE. i'm not qualified to categorize his work, he's too chilling, mmm i heard rose polenzani, queen of her own creepy aesthetic sometimes, picking out "black eyed dog", which is the creepiest of nick's stuff i think, as ominous symbolically as the oresteia, but she went into another song. i think it's pretty sick VW made a suicide song into a car commercial. but it's pretty typical; some ironic bloke like the radioheads could write a song about this. or so could morrissey... which leads me to whiny boy band #3 THE SMITHS. as usual, i'm 15 years too late. i find the lyrics delicious and the music propulsive but everything to be said about them was said long before i stopped listening to new age (not wave) "whale songs" & "songs of the pleaides". whiny boy band #4 is NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL, with whom i fell into gradual love. initially put off by the grating noise of nasal singing, i never let the lack of a good voice keep me away long from good music (which is why i learned to like VIC CHESNUTT in '97, but not enough to buy a second album than "drunk") #5, my newest boyfriend is PEDRO THE LION. wasn't that a disney cartoon? no, that might be "lambert the sheepish lion". i have a personal theory never shared that Lambert was a Flamer, which explains why he hasn't entered the Cartoon Canon. an early fave, and a touchstone. speaking of cartoons, i've fallen hard for another peculiar whiny very white male called spaceghost coast to coast. he's all about exactly what i mean. pedro is my friend; he has a nice persona, and i've become so wonderfully open-minded (pffh!) that christian allusions don't send me screaming in the other direction whiny boy #6 (there are so many, aren't there?) is stephen merrit of MAGNETIC FIELDS. wit and whine for supper, in a love sauce of horseradish.