Musing

Someone needs to tell Delta that precision is the soul of art. The principle is that the expression is perfect, that you couldn't change a word. Someone needs to tell Delta that you "cut like a knife" but you do not "get cut like a knife". You could get cut like a pack of cards, but that is the wrong metaphor. You could get cut like a pat of butter with a hot knife if you insisted, but that would need a whole new melody. You can get cut as though by a knife but, see, that wouldn't scan. Delta goes for the first impression, the idea that seemed good to her.

But art needs more. Delta thinks that the metaphor of "mistaken identity" is good for capturing the idea that she has changed. But, Delta, it would be good if the idea was that your ex looked at you and mistook you for the same person. But you are not trying to express that idea at all.

Delta is supposed to be a singer-songwriter. We know this because she has serious hair in her videos and plays the piano. Instead of indulging herself in spunky pop like other soap stars, she inflicts on us maudlin ballads that she warbles with conviction (which is good) but no real heart (which is not).

But, Delta? Delta, this: "The sun likes to rise and the moon likes to fall and that's kinda like my life" is fucking nonsense. I'd be ashamed to put my name to that, and so should you be. If music be the food of love, that's vomit.

***

Why did no one tell me that Embrace were back? And not just back, but storming the charts. And not just back and storming the charts, but brilliant again, after some years of being, erm, not brilliant.

I had one of the greatest hours of my life just after dawn on a train to Chennai, watching the fields, empty, flat and bare, run by, soundtracked by The good will out:

"There must be a time between the well meaning when the good will come out and start the healing."

When you are feeling "How the hell did he know I felt like that?", you know it's right.

***

Hotly awaited in the Zen household is Bloc Party (IE only). On first listen, I switched off, yelling "Not another fucking chapter of the Gang of Four fan club", but I gave it another go and I'm converted. Imagine that Wire had written tunes. Imagine that Gang of Four weren't a band you had to pretend to like but were actually half decent.

Bloc Party have been very heavily hyped. The temptation for those who like to plough their own furrow and not be told what to like by the NME is to hate anything hyped on principle. Often it turns out to be a good move: for instance, you know that Franz Ferdinand are shit months before everyone else cottons on, you don't have a bar of the assorted bollocks that infests the Zane Lowe show (I'm listening to it now but why escapes me: who hired that fucking idiot? He's Smashee for the txt generation I tell you) and nothing on God's green earth would provoke you to go near the Libertines' dreary pub rock.

But Bloc Party are almost danceable (I can see young Zen in his student bedroom, jigging uncomfortably after a night on the tequila slammers), tense headache rock that sneaks up on you, forcing you to sing along (and what's worse, earworming you so that you squeak out the words at inappropriate times and in inappropriate places, which confuses and perhaps amuses the bus queue but has mothers clutching their kids close to their bosom).

Lucky people in the UK can already buy it but, of course, we follow rather than lead, so it will be Monday before I have a copy. Zenita and Naughtyman will be word perfect ("They say you're just as boring as everyone else When you tut and you squeal And you squeal and you squelch"} by March.

posted by Dr Zen @ 1:17 pm