Thursday, August 01, 2002   Douglas Wolk's article on disco-influenced rock explains to me why I like about half of The Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Bang". It's in the way that the rawk dynamics ever-so-subtly allude to disco moves rippling under the surface, not quite explicitly but in so many little touches. There's the opening - that impossibly clapped-out rauch guitar riff; the taut, twisting anti-funk rhythm pushed till it's brittle enough to snap - and the menacing hand-clap assisted tango-strut outro, and the unhinged singer murmuring "the bigger, the better" in a way that's just the right side of Peaches. The more anthemic full-throttle chorus is still fine, but in a matter of seconds I can feel the band moving away from what I want them to be (which is what? A groovier Boss Hog?) and back towards a perfectly pleasant pop-punk sense of 'dangerous' simplicity which I can appreciate but never treasure in my heart. Maybe it's a gender fantasy thing: the straightahead surge of rock is so committed and unequivocal, even inevitable, and inevitability often just invites a mental jump to the dying moments of the song - let's be there already for god's sake, if where we're going is so important. In contrast, it's women who gots the funk that strike a chord with me, because their funk is one of pacing back and forth impatiently, an unclosed sense of uncertainty that makes the never-completed journey the point. The urgent insistent instability of their (who? ESG? The Slits?) grooves incites images of minds, hormones and hips swirling around with restless, rapacious discontent. - 2:27 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: Post a Comment   everything here is by tim finney     mail me... here   songs Jamesy P Nookie Patrick Cowley Mindwarp Isolee It's About (Lopazz & Casio Casino's Maxi Mix) Glass Candy Sugar & Whitebread Beats International Dub Be Good To Me (Smith & Mighty Remix) Depeche Mode A Pain That I'm Used To (Jacques Lu Cont Remix) Girls Aloud Wild Horses Tweet Steer Bobby Valentino Gimmie A Chance Freeform Five No More Conversation (Richard X Remix) links House Is A Feeling 1471 A Wild Young Under Whimsy And So This Is Christmas Anthony Is Right Bitchcakes Blackdown Blissblog Bowling Ball Breaking Ranks Chantelle Fiddy's World of Grime The Church Of Me Cis Don't Like It Easy Clap Clap Blog Country Glamour Cucina Povera DJ Martian Doubt Beat Dubplate.net Epicharmus.com Everything's Usable Fluxblog Fop Freaky Trigger Freelance Mentalists Freezing to Death in the Nuclear Bunker Gel & Weave Gutterbreakz Haibun Heronbone The House at World's End Hyperdub I'm So Sinsurr ILXOR Josh Blog Kin ">Lex Scripta Maura.com Home of Matos Must Try Harder New York London Paris Munich Orbis Quintus The Original Soundtrack Pearls that are his Eyes Pearsall's Tunes Philip Sherburne Pop Life Popshots Poptext Prancehall Quicksilver Shapeshifter Radio Free Narnia Sasha Frere-Jones Shards, Fragments & Totems Silver Dollar Circle Sink Somedisco Somnolence Spizzazzz Spliiiish (Atommick Brane) Symposiasts Tufluv Vain Selfish and Lazy Why I Stopped Smoking Woebot Words, Words (??????): A Catalogue of Errors Worlds of Possibility   archive February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 October 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 May 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 January 2001 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000   articles Daft Punk Ludacris Ian Pooley Outkast Artful Dodger The Loft