Bulldog

So, seeing as I haven't actually bothering thinking about anything of much substance for this thread after all, here are a couple more random(ish) tunes I've been listening to a lot of lately...

Artist: David Bowie
Tuneage: Your Turn To Drive


You know what I think my problem is, and that's that I don't talk about this guy enough

So, yeah, I'm a colossal Bowie fan. I guess it goes to show that no matter how much one's taste in music can evolve over the space of about a decade (i.e. since I first bought Low and started listening to him), there are some parts of it that'll remain totally untouched by the fickle nature of anyone's listening habits. In this case, the Bowie-centric portion of my music collection's just been so invaluable to me down the years that I don't think I'll ever grow out of it.

This here's the one in particular I've been getting a load of lately, and that's one of the rarer songs in the man's back-catalogue. Re-recorded in something like the year 2000 or 2001 from an old, unused demo of Bowie's from the 60s, this song was offered as a free download to any lucky soul who ordered his Reality album a few years later from HMV's website. For years then, along with a similarly-rare song called Fun, it was kinda like the holy grail for me. Like that one bottle of pink champagne that's been sitting on the supermarket shelf for years and keeps you going back to it, looking at it for a bit and saying to yourself 'one day, when I've got my hands on some hardcore dough-ra-mi, I'm gonna buy that bottle, pour it over a pyramid of about 25 glasses and chug them all one-by-one at my own sezy party'...

Erm, anyway, this song's worth that kinda fuss. It's just got this really, effortlessly cool and laid-back funky vibe to it. And it's about the only Bowie song I can think of that has a trumpet in it (from the mighty Cuong Vu, no less), so go figure.

Artist: Yann Tiersen
Tuneage: La Rupture


And then there's Yann! Man, if I had 20p for every time I've banged on about how amazing this guy is to random friends, or chicks at some bar downtown who keep nervously looking over their shoulder for their mates a few times before making a quick beeline for the door, I'd probably be about 20p richer...maybe even 10p (I once referred to him as Mr Tiersen to a beleaguered mate this one time...do I get money for that?).

The weirdest thing is, that I didn't get into this guy via the Amelie soundtrack (which he composed and recorded) either. I thought it was an ok film by the way...maybe I just wasn't in the frame of mind for it, but I kept finding myself wanting to yell 'JUST FUCKING TALK TO THE GUY!!! sheesh' all the time. It's up for a re-watch then.

There are very few musical experiences I can think of like a Yann Tiersen album, in any case. First of all, each of the ones I have (a good 4 or 5 of them by now) are of a brain-meltingly consistent quality (even if I do have a slight preference for his instrumental stuff over the vocalised), and secondly it all just sounds so alien to me...stylistically I mean. I'm sure there's plenty of other music just like this out there, but for me it's all about making an impact if you want me to rate an artist highly and, Yann Tiersen, you've got that in buckets! I may even go over one of his albums here in future. I guess we'll see.

If I can work around the uni work I've got left to do, expect another album to rear its head in this post very soon...