Into the blue: a loved track

OK. So what happened in 2005 that was so important? Pope John-Paul II died. Tony Blair was returned as Prime Minister. The Live 8 concerts were held. Some wacko surgeons in France performed the first face transplant and we decided to put Saddam Hussein on trial. Strangely none of these events have left a mark on me and never enter my daily life. So if nothing of extreme importance happened to me in this year, why in the name of God did I miss the release of the Heaven 17 album “Before After”?

You may find this a curious statement; so let me explain.

I like music, more specifically I love electronic music and I adore good electronic music above almost anything else. I have ‘loved’ 123 tracks on last.fm and they are all worthy of this accolade. However, few are more admirable than the 124th and latest selection: “Into The Blue” by Heaven 17. Whilst this track was released 7 years ago, I only heard it in the last few weeks and I can't explain why this should be.

Martyn and Glenn. Nobody is sure where Ian is.

Heaven 17 were always The Human League’s weirder half brothers and nobody pretends they sold anything like the same number of records. But then they never really set out to be especially commercial. Heaven 17 seemed to record the music they liked and waited for the rest of the world to catch up. Like many others I never really did catch up and left them behind in the early 90’s – dance music exploded and I got lost in 'The White Room'.

In the new millennium I delved into the electronic music that influenced me and the dance music I had become enamoured with. Yet Heaven 17's more recent work seem to have remain at arms length and “Before After” went un-purchased. It turns out it was my loss.

A recent buying spree (yes, CD’s not mp3s) saw me purchase the missing albums from Heaven 17's back catalogue. Ironically, the album "Before After" consists largely of dance music that sounds ten years out of date for 2005 but is actually pretty damn good when I put my rose tinted spectacles on in 2012. There are many good tracks on this album but I am consistently drawn to “Into the Blue” like a moth to a flame. It's difficult to define what draws us to one song in particular. I'm sure some will listen to the track and wonder why I would become so obsessed by it. I could see why you may think it is a one trick pony and is nothing without Glenn's sampled "doo wap" refrain. But I don't care: it's my new "You Grow More Beautiful". Bliss.

A week of remixes

The last week of listening has highlighted the difference between the old ‘extended’ remixes of the eighties and their modern counterparts. The “Big Train” remix of Erasure’s single “A Little Respect” is a good illustration of these differences. Yes, the snare is different and the songs structure has been altered, but essentially the “Big Train Remix” amounts to just a different mix of the original material. The verb ‘remix’ is defined as “to change the relative prominence of each performer’s part of (a recording).” What defines these brilliant mixes of the 1980’s and early 1990’s is that they use the source material to generate a new version of a recording. 

However, in recent years, remixing seems to have become something entirely different to some people. Artists such as The Orb, Aphex Twin and Underworld have contributed remixes that bear little resemblance to the source material. The popularity of the Depeche Mode song “Barrel of a Gun” from 1997 was enhanced by one mix in particular. The “Underworld Hard Mix” began to receive considerable club play on both sides of the Atlantic much to the mystification of the man who wrote the song, Martin Gore: “The original version of “Barrel of a Gun” was about 83 beats per minute. When we receive the “Hard Mix” back from them, we were sitting there thinking: what relevance does this speed bare to ours?” Gore later telephoned members of Underworld and asked, “Is there any chance you can fly some vocals in? Just so it has some relevance. Because there is not one sound of the original version on there?” Gore summarised the remix as: “Different key, different speed, different song!” 

 Sometimes you would be hard pressed to identify the original song from many contemporary remixes. Does anyone actually enjoy this stuff? With the exception of the remix of “Barrel of a Gun” mentioned here; I don’t know of any of this type of ‘remix’ as being popular with listeners. I don’t even like the Underworld remix of “Barrel of a Gun”. One of the biggest criticism I see aimed at remixes is that they are uninteresting and do not add anything to the original. Those of us who enjoy GOOD remixes know just how much difference a remix can make and equally abhor those mixes that bare no resemblance to the original. Some remixers would be better served by noting the definition of what a remix is, and if they do not like the source material, they should turn down the job. Please save me ear drums from the likes of “Liberation (E-smoove 12” Mix)” or “Sentinel (The Orb 7” Remix)”. Please.

Tag your mp3's correctly or beware of the consequences

When I first dipped my toes into the pool of the Internet back in the late 90’s, Napster was the peer-to-peer network everyone used. Suddenly it was possible to download and hear “Music for Supermarkets” by Jean-Michel Jarre, I could find any obscure Pet Shop Boys mix and I downloaded all the ‘one hit wonders’ I had been searching for for years.

One of the pitfalls of downloading mp3’s illegally was that some people were not exactly accurate in labelling their files. Very odd tracks would appear that were clearly nothing to do with the artists they were attributed too.

For instance:
Vangelis and Jarre collaborating on a version of ‘Crocketts Theme’ anyone?
The previously unheard of Depeche Mode remix of New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’?
Kraftwerk’s recording of the synthesizer classic ‘Popcorn’ sound good to you?

By far the most annoying (to me anyway) miss tagging was the ubiquitous “One Night in Bangkok” by the Pet Shop Boys. “One Night in Bangkok” became an international hit for Murray Head in 1984 and is seemingly regarded by many as a classic of the era. However, it has absolutely no links to the Pet Shop Boys. Not only do labels such as this rob the original artist of the credit but also tarnish the unfortunate recipient.

How this, and other bizarre tags, originated is quite a mystery. Obviously, the ignorance/stupidity of one person contributed and as the file was copied, the error spread like a virus.

Yet in this age of legal downloads and consumer shrewdness this irritation is no longer a major problem. Yes, iTunes frequently miss labels tracks, but that is down to the record company submitting them and not Apple as such. Yet if you look closely at the files people are listening to on last.fm, it seems there are STILL some dumb asses listening to ‘One Night in Bangkok’ by the Pet Shop Boys or Jean-Miche Jarre’s version of the ‘Miami Vice’ Theme.

Another great Last.fm app

Yet another great last.fm application has caught my eye this week. Open Minded Radio (or OMR) is another statistic driven website that aims to indicate how diverse your music tastes are.

On inputting my own data I found no great surprises. I was pleased to see 'electronic' the top tag in every one of my charts! With an 'open minded rating' of 81 it appears I am quite diverse in my tastes. The website also promises us a statistics page which is 'coming soon'.

At present the data generated is offered in a pie chart which can be pasted onto your last.fm page. There are several similar apps to this one but OMR offers the clearest graphical illustrations by far. Geeky but fun.

LsstFM listening map

As an avid user of LastFM and its 'scrobbling' software I am always interested in statistics related to my listening habits. Recently I have been investigating various scripts and BBCode utilities that can be used to display a range of statistics in your LastFM profile.

Of all the utilities to be found on the web, I was drawn most strongly to the work of Anthony Liekens. Anthony’s website offers the opportunity to create an interactive map showing links between the artists and genre’s you listen to. Once you enter your username the website retrieves your information and begins to create a map on screen. The map shifts in response to the data by moving unrelated tags apart and creating a cluster of related genre’s and artists.

I have to say that the majority of the items on my personal map were not a great surprise: 80’s, electronic, and synth-pop are very prominent tags which link strongly to the majority of the music I listen to. The map also shows a large number of artists in the EMB/Industrial/Future Pop genre with a scattering of ‘new wave’ artists thrown in for good measure. I was pleased to note the eclectic nature of my musical taste was represented with the ‘classical’ tag in evidence. This isolated cluster linked to music by Beethoven, Wendy Carlos and Philip Glass et al.

However, what did catch my eye was the revolting tag of ‘indie’. You see ‘indie’ music is something of an anathema to me. I hate both he tag and the music. Just mention the word ‘indie’ and it brings me out in a cold sweat. Note that the rock area of my map is fairly isolated and being shoved off to the corner by the sheer volume of ‘synth-pop’ and ‘emb’ bands.

It seems I am not as prejudiced as I think. Both Coldplay and the Longpigs were represented along with artists tagged with ‘prog-rock’ and ‘brit pop’. For a dedicated enthusiast of electronic music I felt as if I had let myself down slightly.

Yet on closer examination, the majority of the bands included are in my library because they use synthesizers as part of their sound. Yes is one example of a group I began to listen to as the minimoog performances of Mr Rick Wakeman are something wonderful to behold. Coldplay used tunes written by Kraftwerk and utilise many electronic instruments. In his solo work Ian Brown has created some fantastic music utilising a mixture of synthesizers and conventional rock instruments.

I have no excuse for the Rolling Stones. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.