[on "Don't Say Goodbye":]Songs like this take in the basic throb of music, the immediate joy and beauty, the music in the music, the joy-beauty-throb that more officially subcultural dance musics (house, techno, garage) aren't so sure they want. Straight-up pop and sex music. Not that there's anything extraordinary in "Don't Say Goodbye," other than its being very good--probably the best piece of music released this decade. It's just another deliriously beautiful dance song, one of a slew that have been breaking pop recently.
So this is "the best piece of music released this decade" -- sky-high praise! -- and yet beyond that, there's not much else to say. It's good, it's great, you should listen to it, period.
Where Kogan writes "the basic throb of music, the immediate joy", I think of pop records, essentially, and this kind of gap between quality as music and quality as discussion-fodder seems most common on the charts, where much of the music works at refining and slowly exploring one formula or another. So, people who write about music (in whatever capacity), how do you talk about records like this? Do you feel you should talk about something you think is great, no matter what? And do you find yourself (as I have) listening more to music you find interesting and could talk about than to music which you just enjoy?
― corelli, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Siegbran Hetteson, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Having never suspected the existence of Paulina Rubio, I read the review and could basically hear what "Don't Say Goodbye" sounded like (or at least what FK thought the music sounded like), like "Can't Get You Out of My Head" with a decent singer. To get any better an idea of the sound, I'd have to listen to it, and I probably will.
Now, as my posts on Murray Street undoubtedly show, I can neither describe the music that well, nor convince people something's worth listening to. But I'd still rather try to get that across than write about, say, electroclash. I'm capable of blahing endlessly about Fischerwhoever's political symbolism (I did to a friend once, who quickly changed the subject back to Chomsky), but my heart isn't in it. If I had any even half-assed jokes about them, that might change things.
― B-Rad, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
Any chance of an explanation? That is to say does "joy-beauty-throb" mean something beyond what it looks like?
― Ronan, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
― Tim, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)