Seven Songs for the Week #147 - 28th Jan 25

The return of Harry Styles. First song off his fourth album and, my oh my, people have opinions. As It Was, the first single off his last album, was such an obvious monster hit from the first time you heard it, and subsequently became annoyingly ubiquitous, I think people were expecting more of the same. Aperture is one of those songs that certainly does not scream "mainstream hit", rather it is one of those reintroduction, hope-you-like-my-new-direction songs. It sounds like, and indeed is, the opening song off an album, setting the scene for what's about to happen. It takes a few listens to weave into the memory, unlike the popdrug As It Was, however the video is excellent, and well worth a viewing. https://youtu.be/7sxVHYZ_PnA

Another reintroduction - on the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, here come the Arctic Monkees. It's nice to know they still exist. The melody remains languid, like a lot of their last two records, but the instrumentation is more straightforward. Until you get to the vocal harmonies - Alex is doing a lot of sophisticated stuff here that I didn't initially hear.

The reunion I never expected delivers a second new song. They play Dublin in May and I am so ready.

36 years ago I was watching MTV and bored. "Whatever record they play next I will buy it" I said to myself, and they played Michael Penn's No Myth. There are many records from 1990 that I don't listen to anymore, but March will always be a constant. A perfect album, with this perfect single on it.

Won't somebody think of the children?!? I have been getting into the Geese record this past month and think they're very good. This week it was their turn to be the musical guest on SNL. Again, I thought they were really good. However, in online fora they seem to be being castigated as the worst musical act ever on SNL. Cher, bless her, was the musical guest on the Christmas episode and mimed her way through some chintzy blah. I can understand why that was enjoyable. What's surprised me about the people complaining about Geese is that they seemed to have no frame of reference for what they were seeing: An old-school actual band where their instruments sound like regular instruments and a singer who sounds like his own trip (Ron Sexsmith crossed with Thom Yorke). There is no doubt that Geese were 100% live on SNL, and they are tight, and like all the best bands, have an excellent drummer.

Yeah, this isn't what I thought a solo Flea record would sound like. Modern jazz with a mantra for our times, it seems.

Harry Hill has a new show on YouTube, and on the first episode he had on the comedian Stewart Lee. At one point, SL mentions John Cage's Water Walk in relation to a comedic bit that Harry had performed. Curious to see what this was, and the link to HH's comedy, I headed to YouTube where you can see John Cage himself performing Water Walk. Then you start watching other people perform Water Walk on YouTube and before you know it, you are comparing different cover versions of Water Walk, a piece that involves, amongst its elements, putting a vibrating fish toy inside a piano, dropping ice in a glass, and pushing radios off a table. In this version, the radios are playing Is This The Way To Amarillo.