Category: Music

I was never a Whitney Houston fan. There was just waaaayy to much melisma (“Sounds like a disease? It is a disease, my friend!”) in her music for it to be of any pleasure, as if Whitney were being paid by the syllable. Which kind of makes her the Charles Dickens of American pop music. But I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Check out this blog post, excerpted below:

Thus, her take on Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”. Take a moment to recite the lyric in your head. Has ever a piece of popular verse been more deserving of the epithet ‘love song’? ‘Love’ as in selfless regard for another, a heartbroken protagonist realising there’ll be more suitable partners for their beloved further down the line, and so exiting stage left to leave the way clear. It is, to say the least, a melancholic state of affairs. And like Nick Cave said in The Secret Life of the Love Song, “Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care.” Accordingly, Parton’s reading of the song is dignified, restrained, a handwritten note quietly pushed under the back door.

By contrast, Houston alerts all local news stations of her paramour’s address, lands a gold-plated helicopter on his front lawn, stops and poses for pictures, has a quick “No, don’t talk me out of it, I have to go through with this!” session with a shrink on the driveway, blinks back tears in a to-camera piece about ‘My journey’, briefly consults her full-time mascara assistant, knocks on the door, and hands over a giant factory-written Hallmark card when it opens. Meanwhile, melancholy lies bleeding somewhere in an adjacent block, having crashed to earth when its quiet floating was cut to shreds by rotor blades. Poor bastard. It never stood a chance.

Amen, my brother. Amen.

From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song chart for the week ending February 19, 2012:

1) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
2) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
3) Marsheaux – “Summer”
4) Cocteau Twins – “Lorelei”
5) Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work”
6) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
7) Katy Perry – “Hot ‘N Cold (Marsheaux remix)”
8) The Essex Green – “Lazy May”
9) Thermostatic – “Close Your Eyes”
10) Marsheaux – “Play Boy”

From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song chart for the week ending February 12, 2012:

1) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
2) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
3) Marsheaux – “Summer”
4) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
5) Marsheaux – “Destroy Me”
6) Parralox – “Supermagic”
7) Psychedelic Furs – “Into You Like a Train”
8) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
9) Cloetta Paris – “Secret Eyes”
10) Foretaste – “The Prototype of Love”

From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song chart for the week ending February 5, 2012:

1) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
2) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
3) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
4) Two Door Cinema Club – “Something Good Can Work”
5) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
6) Ambra Red – “It’s Just A Dream’
7) Rolla Scape – “Heaven is Real (feat. Marsheaux)”
8) Ladyhawke – “Black, White and Blue”
9) David Sylvian – “Waterfront”
10) The Jody Grind – “Eight-Ball”

From the home office in London, here’s the Top 10 song list for the week ending January 29, 2012:

1) Saint Etienne – “Tonight”
2) Ladyhawke – “Black, White and Blue”
3) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
4) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
5) Cloetta Paris – “Secret Eyes”
6) Ambra Red – “It’s Just a Dream”
7) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
8) Katy Perry – “The One That Got Away”
9) Marsheaux – “Eyes Without a Face”
10) The Sound of Arrows – “Into the Clouds”

From the home office in London, here’s this week’s Top 10 song list!

1) Marsheaux – “Thirteen/True”
2) Katy Perry – “The One That Got Away”
3) Ambra Red – “It’s Just A Dream”
4) Blouse – “Videotapes”
5) Teddybears – “Cobrastyle” (feat. Mad Cobra)
6) Marsheaux – “Summer”
7) The Raveonettes – “Hallucinations”
8) Marsheaux – “Breakthrough”
9) She & Him – “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”
10) Marsheaux – “Exit”

From the home office in London, here’s this week’s list of Top 10 songs!

1) Lana del Rey – “Video Games”
2) Marsheaux – “Pure”
3) Marsheaux – “The Promise”
4) Nina Gordon – “Straight Outta Compton”
5) Marsheaux – “Summer”
6) Marsheaux – “Stand By”
7) Marsheaux – “Destroy Me”
8) Joy Division – “Disorder”
9) Freezepop – “Pop Music is Not a Crime”
10) Marsheaux – “Faith”