Joy Division

The surprise for me was the new New Order record—Get Ready—listened to it at work and it’s nifty! Bit of a time warp to have a new NO record. Their best song is Turn The Heater On – a hauntingly beautiful song in a vast repetoire of haunting and beautiful work.

And I’m not even talking about the incomparable depths of beautiful despair that is – Joy Division.

My goatee is getting long. I can’t figure out whether this is good or bad, but it makes me think of ZZ Top. This is bad inasmuch as ZZ Top is kind of a joke as a band. Like a musical footnote in the latter 20th Century. They do play some mean guitar though.

What do I know from guitars though. I think my musical taste is atrophying. This is my playlist this morning: The Gourds: Gin and Juice; Dynamite Hack: Boyz N Tha Hood; and Pink / Mya / Lil’Kim / Christina Aguilera: Lady Marmalade.

I used to passionately follow Talking Heads, Joy Division / New Order, They Might Be Giants, Matthew Sweet, Tori Amos, Morrissey. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t take popular music seriously enough. When people recommend bands to me I’m usually unimpressed.

For me I think it’s got to be be either Zappa: vast Antarcticas of history and complexity in a huge body of work … or it’s Christina Aguilera: aesthetically pleasing, with an underlying vocal talent, and evidencing hard work – but ultimately the judgment of history will probably be that her work was overproduced.

Maybe I’ll get into Gilbert and Sullivan. That music has lasted a hundred years already. I did really Like Topsy-Turvy. I could definitely see myself in the depiction of Mr. Gilbert.