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Friday, December 10, 2004
So, where do you London bitches go dancing on Saturday nights these days?
'Cos this middle-aged swinger fancies shaking his freshly tanned bits about. I can still do it, you know!
(Just stick me in a darkened corner somewhere and deny all knowledge. I'll be no trouble.)
Haw haw haw.
 You know: if I was going to send one of Meg & Dave's 'tis the season cards...
...and I might, I very well might...
...then it would have to be the third second one from the end.
Boring technical question.
Could someone please explain why my favicon doesn't show up on the Bloglines directory for my RSS feed? This is bugging the hell out of me.
Update, hopefully to make the question marginally less boring:
This is my favicon, 16 pixels square, displayed here as a GIF so that it will show up in a browser. I've uploaded it to my root directory as http://troubled-diva.com/favicon.ico.
Pretty little thing, isn't it?
(Since all the other cool kids are getting them, I didn't want to be left behind. Because in our little hot-house micro-environment, these things matter. After all, I want to hold my head up high at tomorrow's Blogmeet, rather than being sent to sit in a dark corner with the other faviconless dweebs.)
Anyway. I know that I've done something right, because when I add this site to my Favourites and then access it again, I see the favicon in my Address bar:
So far, so good. But when I look in Bloglines...
 
...nothing shows up.
Why? Why why why why WHY?
Second update: I think I might have fixed it, by placing the following code in my main blog template:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.troubled-diva.com/favicon.ico"> Fingers crossed...
Third update: Pffft. No such luck. Totally stumped again.
Fourth update: It turns out that Bloglines saves its icons to its own server before displaying them. Which means that the situation is out of my control, and so I'm no longer going to stress about it. Thanks to all who pitched in and offered advice. (No, you can't have any free CDs. Those days are gone!)
Thursday, December 09, 2004
A visual clue.
For those of you who will be attending Saturday's London blogmeet, this is what I look like these days. Or last week in Thailand, at least.
Update: Photo now touched-up, de-red-eyed, and generally de-scarified by Mister Chig. Thanks, pet!
Note 1: I am IN THE NUDE on this photo. Yes! Contain yourselves!
Note 2: Although on Saturday, my shoulders will be modestly draped in the customary Nice Shirt. (I'm currently thinking stripes.)
Note 3: No, it's not a toupee. But I can see where you're coming from.
Note 4: They follow you round the room, don't they?
Battle of the Band Aids.
With the 1984 version, there's a sense that everyone involved - Geldof and Ure included - is more or less openly aware that, as a song, "Do They Know It's Christmas" ain't all that. Knocked up in a day; a means to an end; so let's not pretend we're working on some sort of future classic here. You can hear it in the vocal delivery, and see it in the performance, both of which retain a faintly desultory, singing-it-off-the-school-hymn-sheet quality.
Whereas with the 2004 version there's a certain reverence at work; a feeling amongst the participants that they are honoured to lend their interpretations to such a hallowed item in the pop canon. This time round, the lyric is treated not as greetings-card doggerel, but as something approaching a sacred text.
One point to 1984 for honesty (even if it's cynical).
One point to 2004 for sincerity (even if it's naive).
 1  1
As a piece of music, Nigel Godrich's 2004 production is more considered, layered, fleshed out, fully worked. Compare and contrast with the thin, synthetic rush-job of Trevor Horn's original; in particular that lumpen, monotonous synth-disco/Hi-NRG-lite chuggity-chug bassline that runs all the way through, bashing out the block chords, sounding for all the world like a preset which came with the machine.
One point to 2004 for production values.
1 2
On the other hand: the 1984 drumming is just great, driving the song along at a thumping old pace. But then, if I may be so bold as to point it out, Phil Collins was always capable of being a bloody good drummer when he wanted to be.
(This may not be generally admitted in polite society, but IT'S TRUE.)
One point to 1984 for The Collins Thump.
2 2
1984 stays much on the same level all the way through. 2004's episodic nature holds your interest throughout, in the fine old Bohemian Rhapsody tradition.
One point to 2004 for skilful deployment of the episodic tradition.
2 3
1984 kicks more or less straight in with Paul Young. No fuss, please; I just happened to draw the first straw. I'll do my bit, then move swiftly along. Whereas the solemnly strummed opening moments of 2004 are essentially one long build-up to The Entrance Of The Saintly Chris Martin (For It Is He) - who, being far too important to grace us mere mortals with His physical presence, phones in His part down the holy ISDN hot-line from Hollywood. (Chris Martin breathing the same air as Rachel Stevens and The Sugababes? Unthinkable!)
On the video it's even worse, as Saint Chris (peace be upon him) fixes us with His angelic, oh-so-meaningful blue eyes, looking for all the world like the head chorister who always bags the unaccompanied solo on the first verse of Once In Royal David's City.
By the time that Chris Martin's piece is over, we're already 30 seconds into the song. Get off the stage already!
One point to 1984 for unassuming democracy, and for not being burdened with the sheer weight of The Blessed Chris.
3 3
And it wasn't just Chris Martin; all of the first three 2004 performers of 2004 phoned their parts in. At least everybody involved in 1984 actually made it to the studio in person. Call me old-fashioned, but I think this does make a material difference to the way we perceive the output. 1984 felt organic and live. 2004 feels stitched together like Frankenstein's monster.
One point to 1984 for Keeping It Real.
4 3
"And in our world of plenty..." Boy George's time at the top of the tree may have been drawing to an end (sandwiched in between the embarrassing disaster of The War Song and the total flop of The Medal Song, mere days before everyone unwrapped their copies of Waking Up With The House On Fire and realised what a big fat dud it was), but here, for what was to be the last time, he delivers the assured performance of a huge global star.
Compare and contrast with the godawful Dido, diffidently swallowing her words before she has even finished singing them properly. No-one's forcing you to do this, love! If you didn't want to, you should have said so!
In the George/Dido play-off, 1984 grabs the point.
5 3
Oh, just look at that sulky old misfit Paul Weller, trying his best to distance himself from his surroundings even as he performs. No such tainted-by-association qualms for Thom Yorke, merrily mucking in and mugging to camera as he tinkles the ivories.
(Note: in 2004, Paul Weller is knocking out easy-listening cover versions for the Radio 2 crowd. You are free to ponder this irony at your leisure.)
One point to 2004, for dropping the attitude and getting properly stuck in.
5 4
Oh look, that's really clever! They've got Sting to sing "bitter STING of tears"!
One point to 2004, for its lack of buttock-clenchingly inappropriate Sting-related word-play.
5 5
Bono in 1984: an insufferably earnest, self-important, grandstanding, big-flag-waving bellow. (Ooh, and he's a Christian too! Isn't it clever how they've given the best lines to the best people!)
Bono in 2004: imbues That Line with an unexpected power, pathos and dignity.
One point to 2004, as an older and wiser Bono swings Band Aid 20 into the lead.
5 6
A minority view this might be, but dammit, I like Dizzee Rascal's rap. I like its spikiness, its awkwardness, the way it suspends and disrupts the flow, stopping you short, forcing you to tune in. Anyway, he's "grime", and therefore unimpeachable. So there.
One more to 2004, for Contemporary Urban Relevance. Oh yes.
5 7
Then, there's that sombre pause - that wee lacuna, as some would have it - whose poignant eloquence stems from what it implies, rather than states. (Which, in a song as baldly literal as this one, comes as a welcome raising of the artistic tone.) As such, it's the fulcrum of the whole record. You know, as Darkness yields to Light, and all that.
Another to 2004. They didn't have fulcrums twenty years ago.
5 8
And, lo! Hark! Whose cherubic tones are these? Why, it's rosy-cheeked Tiny Tom Chaplin out of Keane, all wrapped up snugly in his little winter muffler! Gawd bless us one and all!
The 2004 points are falling like snowflakes.
5 9
As the cameras pan round the room in readiness for the big choral coda, let's examine the state of our stars. 1984's lot look like they've just crawled out of bed, presumably roused from their slumbers by a hectoring Geldof on the other end of the line. Bad hair days all round: just look at the state of Sting! And Boy George! If Rossi and Parfitt from Status Quo hadn't been public-spiritedly doling out the charlie in the bogs, Lord knows how they would all have managed.
In stark contrast, the class of 2004 have all been styled to buggery. Minders, PR's, caterers - the whole circus is in town. Not very rock and roll, is it?
A much-needed point to 84, for daring to be dog-rough.
6 9
"Feed the world..." Come on, 84: look lively! Put a bit of oomph into it! And stop staring at your hymn sheets; you should know the words off by heart by now. Weller, I'm talking to YOU. Chins up, Bananarama! And Marilyn, do stop pouting like that.
"Let them know it's Christmas time..." Good, 2004: that's much better. Because you actually sound like you mean it. A spirited performance all round. Give yourselves a round of... oh, you already have.
A point to 04 for sheer enthusiasm and energy - and WITHOUT the aid of Certain Substances which I could mention. So far as we know. (No, honestly. Take a good look around. Cleaner than the average Olympic squad, this lot.)
6 10
However, we are obliged to deduct a point from 04 for the frightful ad-libbed "soulful" caterwauling of young Miss Joss Stone towards the end. Because nobody likes a show-off. And another point deducted for all that unseemly self-congratulatory clapping and whooping. Hooray for us! We fed the world!
Final score:
6 8
Time to face facts, then. Once you get over the shock of the new, and the absurdly misplaced cries of "sacrilege" (I mean, COME ON! Get a GRIP!), Band Aid 20 clearly emerges as the better record.
Oh yes it does.
No, I think you'll find it does, actually.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
My Mummy the Movie Star.
As part of his ongoing "Dirk Fest", Moviebuff (Nottingham blogger and fellow denizen of George's bar on Broad Street) writes about The Blue Lamp - that fine old crim-flick from 1950 starring Dirk Bogarde (as the baddie), Jimmy Hanley (as the goodie), Jack Warner (as PC George " Evening all" Dixon), and... well... my dear old mother actually, then aged 9.
It happened thus. The awfully pukka Young Ladies' Academy in central London which Mummy attended (a rather artsy establishment for its day) regularly lent its Gels out for photographic work, including catalogue modelling (catalogues had rather more cachet back then, one hastens to add) and children's fashion shoots. She even got to model for Vogue on one occasion, and still has the clipping to prove it.
On this occasion, a group of Gels was needed to play a bunch of East End Street Urchins who, while playing on a bomb site, would stumble across the pistol which had earlier killed Jack Warner.
(Not that this would impede his character's subsequent miraculous resurrection for the long-running TV series Dixon Of Dock Green, but no matter. Stranger things have happened on Dallas, after all.)
Since - naturally! - it Simply Wouldn't Do to go hiring genuine East End Street Urchins (presumably because this would give them Dangerous Ideas Above Their Station), my mother's troupe of Nice Gels from Good Homes were required to scruff up and act Common. Particularly the lucky Gel who would be given The Line, to be hollered across the bomb site to the other childen:
'Ere! Look what Queenie's faahnd! (click to listen)
And who was that lucky Gel to be? Well, who do you think?
The day of the shoot arrived. The Gels arrived on set: smudged, tousled and raggamuffined (*) to perfection.
(*) Traditional English, not Kingston Dancehall. Pigtails and pinafore dresses, not braids and thongs.
And... action.
Mummy (in her best "recital" voice):
'Ere! Look what Queenie's found! (click to listen)
Director:
Cut! Listen, dear: can we have you a little louder please? And do remember you're supposed to be a Cockney Street Urchin - so could we have you a little more common?
Mummy (with all her might and main):
'ERE! LOOK WHAT QUEENIE'S FOUND! (click to listen)
Director:
Cut! No, no, no. This timid little thing won't do at all. Who else can we use?
And as if it wasn't cruel enough to have it summarily snatched away at the eleventh hour, Mummy's big role was then promptly handed over to her arch-rival in class - a competitive little madam with lung power to spare - whom she never found it in herself to forgive.
Thus it was that every so often throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, mostly on mid-week afternoons in the school holidays, we would gather round the TV set, eagerly awaiting Mummy's mute two-second appearance in the right hand corner of the screen.
Any minute ... any minute ... OHLOOKTHEREYOUARETHEREYOUARE! ... oh, that's it.
Ah well, my mother would always say; cheerfully dismissive, already turning back towards the kitchen to put supper on. It's bound to be on again in a couple of years' time. Which it always was.
Of course, she's got it on video now, stuffed at the back of a drawer somewhere, unplayed since the early 1990s. It's just not the same when you can watch it whenever you want, using slow-mo and freeze-frame at will. What you gain in easy availability, you lose in the thrill of expectation, and in the fond idealisations of memory.
My Mummy the Movie Star. Although she never met him in person (at the premiere? don't be silly: Nice Gels didn't go to premieres), my mother maintained a lifelong interest in Dirk Bogarde's career from that point onwards. Her leading man, if you will.
In any case, The Blue Lamp will always be her film to me.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
I have a new favourite MP3 blog.
Oh, man. This is just too fantastic.
(Junio! Over here! You'll like this!)
Coming atcha all the way from Dakar (Senegal), Benn loxo du tàccu showcases some truly outstanding African music, from the mid-1960s through to the present day.
Particular recommendations: Abdel Gadir Salim (Sudan), Francis Bebey (Cameroon), a previously unheard acoustic recording from Salif Keita (which brought tears to my eyes), and an amazing 1971 cover of The Beatles' Don't Let Me Down from Charlotte Dada which improves massively on the so-so original.
Sometimes, when I hear music which marries emotion and technique as superbly as some of these tracks, I find myself wondering why I bother listening to anything else.
Music for slathering yourself in fragranced Product to.
They could have framed our Customer Satisfaction Survey.
 
Having read through the playlist below, The Long Lost Lonely One asked, with some justification: " Am I wrong, or did you go on holiday and just listen to music?"
No, no: we didn't just listen to music, although that did form a large part of each day's schedule of activities. I also spent an inordinate amount of time staring into space, with a soppy grin on my face, thinking about very little. Or at least comparatively little, given the usual Speed Freak From Hell pace of my internal dialogue.
 
Particularly when padding around in our pool, which slowed down the mental processes no end. Which came as some surprise, given my inability to swim and general phobia of water.
(Being on it: a positive delight. Being in it: OK, so long as either my feet are touching the bottom, or my hands are gripping the sides. Any other arrangement: absolutely out of the question. Being under it: sheer terror.)
But then, this was a private pool, overlooked by no-one; why, you could even skinny-dip with impunity. Thus with no curious, amused or (worst of all) "helpful" onlookers, the customary feelings of inadequacy, humiliation and slowly simmering anger were completely lifted. What's more, this was a pool without a deep end, the water level remaining comfortably between nipple and neck throughout. Meaning no Fear Zone, no invisible Out Of Bounds markers, no Ooh Dear I Think I've Gone Far Enough. All of which induced the most deliciously unprecedented sense of freedom in the water; which in turn engendered a wholly new relationship with it.
 
So I became quite the Water Baby. You couldn't keep me away from it. First thing in the morning, I could leap out of bed, open the double doors directly in front of me, and step straight into the water; a fantastically invigorating way to wake up. To say nothing of those languid candle-lit early evening soaks in our sunken bath, gazing up at the stars.
There was also a certain amount of reading, but less than anticipated, as Michael Bywater's estimable little tome Lost Worlds served to keep me company all week. With its short, alphabetised, essays on subjects ranging from Chilbains to Chivalry, Dungeons & Dragons to Dunn & Co, Maturity to Meccano to Microsoft, it served as less of a Holiday Read, and more as a springboard to amiable extended contemplations. Usually while staring into space with a soppy grin on my face.
 
Other than that, the days were mainly taken up with: eating lovely meals; shopping for bijou objets (we did all our Christmas shopping in less than two hours, in the calm surroundings of the Banyan Tree Gallery Shop); being transported around the hotel complex in electric buggies; matching the staff's broad smiles and warm greetings pound for pound; studiously pretending to ignore the other guests (whilst weaving pleasingly, plausibly slanderous Jackie Collins-esque narratives around them, generally involving sex, power, money and betrayal); applying vast arrays of fragranced products to our sunkissed bodies; having more of the same rubbed into us by trained professionals at the spa (the first time that a female hand has had direct contact with my bare buttocks since I was in nappies); taking two hours to dress for dinner ( The Issey shirt with the Boss trousers, or the Yohji with the linen, do we think?); sipping gin; burning incense sticks; flirting with our favourite waiter (while simultaneously trying not to come on like Orton & Halliwell at the Long Yang Club); and filling in any gaps in the day with general swooning sighs and complacent purrs.
Honestly, you wouldn't have wanted to be around us. Insufferable, we were.
Monday, December 06, 2004
That Banyan Tree playlist in full.
Just before I disappeared off to Thailand for a week, Gordon said: Have a gloriously decadent time. I ask only one thing, on your return we get details of this mythical "Banyan Tree" playlist. An easy lob for the first day back, and my first chance to make profitable use of the iTunes "export playlist" facility. What follows is a list of everything that we listened to via the iPod over the past seven days, in our consummately beautiful and luxurious slice of Phuket paradise. (For the full experience, you should also add CDs by Chungking, Youssou N'Dour and Oi Va Voi.) A Meeting by the River - Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt
Be Thankful For What You've Got - One Blood
You're My Thrill - Joni Mitchell
Del'ouna On The Return - Gilad Atzmon
Don't Interrupt The Sorrow - Joni Mitchell
Full On - Chungking
Kovin Lentaen Kotin Kaipllan - Kuusumum Profeeta
Why Do They Leave? - Ryan Adams
I T T (Part 2) - Fela Kuti
Estranha Forma De Vida (live at WOMAD) - Mariza
Overture (original version) - Flora Purim
Oh My Sweet Carolina - Ryan Adams
My Old School - Steely Dan
Misty Roses - Tim Hardin
Reuziou Ar Brezel 2e Partie - Erik Marchand & Les Balkanik
Budapestation - Gaby Kerpel
Deep Red Bells - Neko Case
Voodoo - Chungking
Fly, Fly My Sadness - Huun-Huur-Tu and the Bulgarian Women's Choir
Mississauga Goddam - The Hidden Cameras
Losalamitos - latinfunklovesong (original version) - Gene Harris
He Knows My Name - Ryan Adams (Y Theatre Leicester, May 9 2001)
The Rumproller - Lee Morgan
Superman Lover - Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Marry Me - Dolly Parton
Blackbird - Martyn Bennett
Cherry Blossom Girl - Air
La Sitiera - Omara Portuondo
Coffin For Head Of State (Part 2) - Fela Kuti
I Didn't Know - Al Green
Pic nic na salamansa - Cesaria Evora
Lady With the Braid - Dory Previn
Nar-I Ney (edit) - Mercean Dede Secret Tribe
Starfish And Coffee - Prince
The Girl From Ipanema (Live) - Lou Rawls
Raven Dove - Dolly Parton
Strawberry Letter 23 - Shuggie Otis
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye
Just To Keep You Satisfied - Marvin Gaye
Loucura (live at WOMAD) - Mariza
You Caught Me Smiling - Sly Stone
Yaay - Pape & Cheikh
Mike Mills - Air
Yala - Oumou Sangare
The Jungle Line - Joni Mitchell
Harry's House / Centerpiece - Joni Mitchell
Se Que No Vas A Volver - Gaby Kerpel
You've Been Gone Too Long - Ann Sexton
Wake Up Everybody - Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes
Please Pardon me (You Remind Me Of A Friend) - Rufus with Chaka Khan
Valley Of The Dolls - Mylo
Touched My Soul - Osunlade Presents Nadirah Shakoor
Há festa na Mouraria - Amália Rodrigues
Listen Love - Jon Lucien
Milca ti Lidia - Cesaria Evora
Baba - Salif Keita
The Big Heist - Henry Mancini
Milk and Honey - Bonnie Dobson
Rocksteady - Remy Shand
In My Hour of Darkness - Gram Parsons
Smile - Nat "King" Cole
September 13th - Deodato
Haitian Divorce - Steely Dan
Wishin' And Hopin' - Dusty Springfield
Sunshower - Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
Give it up - Curtis Mayfield
In The Land Of Make Believe - Dusty Springfield
El Rincon Caliente - Manuel Guajiro Mirabal
Mira - Andrew Hill
Songs To Aging Children Come - Joni Mitchell
Do Your Thing - Chosen Few
Going Down Slowly - The Pointer Sisters
My Love For You Is Real - Ryan Adams (Y Theatre Leicester, May 9 2001)
Maria Elena - Cesaria Evora
Rhoda - Sergio Mendes
This Masquerade - Carpenters
Comin' home baby - Mel Torme
Soul Street - Tony Osborne's Three Brass Buttons
Annie Mae - Natalie Cole
Ding Dong - Nellie McKay
Breakfast In Bed - Dusty Springfield
If You Go Away - Dusty Springfield
Both Sides, Now - Joni Mitchell
El bab - Khaled
Rojo y Negro - Omar Sosa
Kiss the Children - Gram Parsons
Africa, Dream Again - Youssou N'Dour
You're The Best Thing - The Style Council
Tidal Wave - Ronnie Laws
The Look of Love - Isaac Hayes
Sometimes I'm Happy - Joni Mitchell
Dress Rehearsal Rag - Leonard Cohen
Midnight Cowboy - John Barry
My Winding Wheel - Ryan Adams
My Blue Tears - Dolly Parton
Foreign Bodies - Herbert
Diaraby - Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder
What's The Hurry? - Marianne Faithfull
Elephant Ride - State Of Bengal
Way Down in the Hole - Blind Boys of Alabama
Still Feeling Blue - Gram Parsons
Bolo Bolo - Susheela Raman
Sweet Child - Micatone
Ponta de fi - Cesaria Evora
Stars And Rockets - Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra
Nobody's Fault - Blind Boys of Alabama
I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore - Dusty Springfield
To Each His Own - Patrice Rushen
Love's Too Hot To Hide - Clifford Coulter
Soldier - Blind Boys of Alabama
Los Sitio' Asere - Afro-Cuban All Stars
Lua De Sao Jorge - Caetano Veloso
Ai Du - Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder
Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn - Ulrich Schnauss
Everyone - Van Morrison
Kôté Don - Rokia Traoré
Soul Insurance - Angie Stone
It's A Trip - The Last Poets
Stay Awhile - Dusty Springfield
Zanzibar - Duoud
Millionaire (featuring Andre 3000) - Kelis
Tropicalia - Caetano Veloso
You Don't Know My Name (Reggae Remix) - Alicia Keys
Chanchullo - Rubén González
Reelin' In The Years - Steely Dan
Goin' Back - Dusty Springfield
Give Me Your Love - Sisters Love
Creepin' - Stevie Wonder
Trouble Man - Grover Washington Jr
Twilight - Maze
It Had To Be You - Vic Damone
We have all the time in the world - Louis Armstrong
Dance Away - Roxy Music
Quizás, Quizás - Rubén González
...Passing By - Ulrich Schnauss
I Met Your Mercy - Remy Shand
Dance Dance Dance - The Crusaders
Shakara - Fela Kuti
Night Shift - Bob Marley & The Wailers
Interluth - Duoud
Tanguillo De María - Ojos De Brujo
You Sure Love To Ball - Marvin Gaye
Saddic Gladdic - Wagon Christ
Nobody's Home - Ulrich Schnauss
Let the Love In - Chungking
No Easy Way Down - Dusty Springfield
The Second One - Remy Shand
Mr. Yunioshi - Henry Mancini
Also Sprach Zarathustra - Meirelles
(The Long To Be) Close To You - Carpenters
Cape Verde Greets You - Cesaria Evora
You Goin' Miss Your Candy Man - Terry Callier
Do Your Thing - Isaac Hayes
Hip To Your Ways - Ujima
Help Me - Joni Mitchell
Poetas (live at WOMAD) - Mariza
Nubian Lady - Yusef Lateef
Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
God Made Me Funky - Headhunters
Ley De Gravedad - Ojos De Brujo
Love And Happiness - Al Green
When I See Love (ty mix) - Lizzie Fields
Habanera ven - Omara Portuondo
Smackwater Jack - Carole King
Grandma's Hands - Gil Scott-Heron
Too High - Stevie Wonder
I Like What You're Doing To Me - Young & Company
FM - Steely Dan
There She Goes - Kevin Coyne
Lady - Fela Kuti
Tièbaw - Oumou Sangare
Chelsea Morning - Joni Mitchell
Thinking About Your Love - Skipworth And Turner
Loose Caboose - Henry Mancini
Wade in the Water - Blind Boys of Alabama
Little Green - Joni Mitchell
Abdullah and Abraham - Chico Hamilton
Angie - The Rolling Stones
These Dreams of You - Van Morrison
Four Play - Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns
Cul De Sac - Van Morrison
Back Together Again - Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway
Soukora - Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder
It Looks Like I'll Never Fall In Love Again - Tom Jones
Luiza - Cesaria Evora
Carry The Sun Inside - Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Nao Enche - Caetano Veloso
I Wish I Was The Moon - Neko Case
How Can I Be Sure? - Dusty Springfield
Monday Paracetamol - Ulrich Schnauss
One Wish For Me - Miguel Migs
Yamore - Salif Keita
Mele h'bibti - Khaled
You Haven't Done Nothin' - Stevie Wonder
The more I see you - Chris Montez
Brass Buttons - Gram Parsons
Oye el consejo - Ibrahim Ferrer
Sorrow Tears & Blood - Fela Kuti
Carry On - Jean Knight
Word Love - Rhianna Geton
Keep Gettin' It On - Marvin Gaye
Mahdiyu Laye - Youssou N'Dour
Back In The Day - Ahmad Lewis
Lonely Town, Lonely Street - Bill Withers
Know-How - Kings Of Convenience
Windy - Billy Paul
Blue Bossa - Joe Henderson
Pa' Gozar - Rubén González
Shining Escalade - Hot Chip
What Is Wrong With Groovin'? - Letta Mbula
Moner Manush - State Of Bengal V Paban Das Baul
Not Available - Shuggie Otis
Looking Back On Vanity - Remy Shand
All About The Papers - The Dells
Jardim Prometido - Cesaria Evora
Tudo tem se limite - Cesaria Evora
Nem às paredes confesso - Amália Rodrigues
No Me Vayas A Engañar - Omara Portuondo
Tijaniyya - Youssou N'Dour
In Every Dream Home a Heartache (en duo avec Bryan Ferry) - Jane Birkin
Stay Out Of trouble - Kings Of Convenience
No Trophy - The Bees
Night Rider's Lament - Nanci Griffith
Refugee - Oi Va Voi
The Long Wait - Morton Stevens
Stone For Bessie Smith - Dory Previn
El Hombre Que Yo Amé (The Man I Love) - Omara Portuondo
Going Home (Mythical Kings And Iguanas) - Dory Previn
This Flight Tonight - Joni Mitchell
María Caracoles - Afro-Cuban All Stars
Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan
Ogente Da Minha Terra (live at WOMAD) - Mariza
Inside My love - Minnie Riperton
Jesus Children Of America - Stevie Wonder
Won't U Please B Nice - Nellie McKay
Keep The Customer Satisfied - Simon & Garfunkel
I Really Love You - Heaven And Earth
Revolution - Bob Marley & The Wailers
Aâlach tloumouni - Khaled
Theme from Cleopatra Jones - Joe Simon featuring The Mainstreeters
On My Own - Ulrich Schnauss
Miles - Miles Davis
Wholy Holy - Marvin Gaye
Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
16 things which piss me off about my beautiful, bouncing new iPod.
1. Come on, admit it: the sound quality on a CD is still appreciatively better. Listening to MP3s works fine on headphones, but on a decent set of hi-fi speakers, their weaknesses become cruelly exposed. OK, so you could encode at a higher bitrate, but then you'd lose storage capacity - and as someone with an abnormally high appetite for music, capacity is something I'm not too happy to lose. So I compromise on 160, and put up with the consequences. (This also means that I won't be giving up on CD purchases any time soon.)
2. Those crappy little "please mug me now" white headphones. Don't use 'em. Instead, I've plugged in the super-comfy, hi-fi quality Sennheiser headphones which K's sister gave me for my 40th birthday.
3. Damn, but these things scratch easily! After less than a week's use, my machine already looked like a beaten-up piece of ancient old kit. Hence the need to purchase a matinee jacket ( see #16 in the post below) for a whopping extra nineteen quid.
4. But then the iPod won't fit onto its cradle, or onto the docking port on the external speakers, with its matinee jacket still on. Meaning a whole lot of squeezing and shoving on a daily basis, meaning still more scratches in the process.
5. That bloody AAC format. By default, iTunes encodes your CDs not as MP3s, but as AAC files with an M4U suffix. Which wouldn't bother me unduly, except that I use something called Mixmeister to make proper DJ-mixed compilations, and Mixmeister doesn't recognise the format. OK, so you can change the default setting in iTunes, and you can convert your existing AAC files into MP3s. But the file conversion process takes a fair amount of time, and I'm spending long enough mucking around with iTunes as it is.
6. That bloody "Alternative/Punk" genre. If it's got electric guitars on it, and if it's anything more leftfield than, I dunno, Bon Bloody Jovi or something, then iTunes decides that it's "Alternative/Punk". Even Keane! (Yes, OK, OK, I know what I said about them. But Somewhere Only We Know is still a good song in anyone's book. Except maybe this person's.)
7. I don't see why the backlight shouldn't stay switched on by default, whenever the iPod is connected to the mains. Because I'm rapidly tiring of wandering over to squnt at the thing. At my time of life!
Update: Aha, so there's a setting which you can change, is there? Good. Fixed it. Take it all back.
8. When a song title is too long for the display screen, the iPod will scroll it across the screen in "marquee" mode. Except that by doing so, it renders the song title almost illegible. And it doesn't even attempt to do the same thing for artist and album titles, which remain stubbornly truncated.
9. What to do about "standalone" MP3s, which don't belong with any album? If you leave the original album title on the track information, then your album list becomes cluttered up with "phantom" albums which you don't actually own. But if you go to all the trouble of replacing the album titles with something like "Misc 2004", then you lose the information entirely. (I've ended up cutting and pasting album titles into the comments.)
10. Click-wheel fatigue. Ooh, I'm just in the mood for some Yo La Tengo. Well, don't give yourself RSI of the thumb in the process. And are you quite sure you wouldn't rather listen to Air instead?
11. When selecting an album (or playlist) on Shuffle, the iPod still starts by playing Track 1. Which really is something of a fundamental design flaw, wouldn't you say?
12. When playing a mix album, the iPod inserts a short but all-too-noticeable gap between the tracks, thus fatally disrupting the flow...
13. ...whereas iTunes fades tracks into each other just before they've finished, causing similar disruption in the opposite direction.
14. The iTrip needs a strong signal, and full battery power, in order to transmit the iPod's signal to your radio. Anything less, and the background hiss becomes too great. Which means that it's a complete dud in the car after the first 10 minutes or so. Which means that I'm looking at purchasing yet another accessory to connect the iPod to the car's power supply.
15. Using the iTrip to connect with the hi-fi system in our holiday villa over the past week, we found that it worked absolutely fine for about 90% of the tracks. However, the other 10% contained some particular bass frequency which distorted the sound horribly. Which you don't want when you're trying to relax with a gin and tonic of an early evening.
16. You find yourself drawn, quite against your will, into the scary world of MP3 Player Politics. Darlings, have you seen the comments box attached to my previous, rather more enthusiastic post? There are detailed, point-by-point refutations in there, in amongst all manner of disproportionately abrupt surliness and point-scoring superiority. (Apparently, I'm a gullible dupe of the corporate capitalist conspiracy, or something. Well, aren't we all.)
Smelling something of a rat (just who were all these strange new names?), I checked my stats, only to discover something of a traffic spike in my absence. It turns out that I have been comprehensively rubbished on a message board which is hosted by the makers of a rival product - complete with personal abuse, amateur psychoanalysis, and sniggering references to my sexuality. And all this over an MP3 player which, whatever choice is made, will doubtless be considered hopelessly obsolete in a couple of years' time?
As Michael Bywater says in his admirable little tome Lost Worlds (my constant pool-side companion over the past week): Choice perplexes us. It puts the burden on us, so instead of shrugging and making the best of it, we traduce ourselves for our failure to make the right choice. A European, a Japanese or an American wanting to buy a camera faces an appalling task of discernment, in an area which he or she is probably no expert (the difference being that he thinks he is), being thrown to the mercy of salespeople who are working to an unknown agenda, and one may be sure that, whatever they eventually come out with, there will be plenty of evidence to suggest that they made the wrong choice. Well, quite.
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