I promised, not so very long ago, that we’d make a return to Muse’s back catalogue with the song that I didn’t share that day. And here I am, and it is. (Truth is, I’m writing this post immediately after I wrote that post as part of my scheduled blogging while I’m on holiday, but please don’t tell the purists.)
Mercy then, with all the electronica, rock’n’roll and soaring vocals of Bliss, but now with added piano and a flash of a Pincushion Protea at 1:07.
This video demonstrating the difficulties inherent in attempting to mentally reprogramme android women should be a slautory warning not to try this sort of potentially dangerous science.
The android protagonist in this case is played by actress Elle Evans who can also be found playing the blonde girl in Robin Thicke’s rapey song Blurred Lines, the commercial success of which, when compared to Muse’s effort above, says ever so much about the sad state of the world we live in.
Last time I was down in this part of France, Joe le Taxi and Glen Medeiros were at the tippity top of the Hit Parade.
And yes, I’m aware that only one of those is French. But it was the other one that was getting all the airplay on the French Exchange Trip to Dornes. A meeting of English city kids and French country folk. And Glen Medeiros.
Interesting dynamics. Halcyon days.
I loved it over there. My exchange was less happy in Sheffield.
I looked him up recently – the guy whose farm I stayed on back in 1987. He now does something in insurance in Strasbourg. I guess the urban lifestyle got him in the end.
But I digress. Often.
You came here for French music, and I’m glad to say that it’s moved on a bit since schoolgirl Vanessa and her Uber guy. Charlotte Gainsbourg (yes, that Gainsbourg) is where all the cool cats are at now.
Here’s her second offering from the album Rest. (This was the first.)
Limited French on this particular track, but plenty on the rest of the album.
I stream BBC 6 Music into the office and the lab. As the guy in charge around here, I get to make these sort of choices: it’s good to be king.
But 6 Music is what happens in the background: in the foreground there’s TB, lab work, specimens, spreadsheets and databases. And listen (no pun intended), that’s a perfect scenario, because the background music makes the foreground work go more smoothly.
Silence isn’t golden. Silence is anything but golden.
Silence is awkward.
But then there was this song. And even though it is supposed to be in the background, it pushes its way through right to the front of everything, amongst the TB and the spreadsheets, and this happens every time they play it, because it’s so strikingly beautiful.
I recognised the voice, but not the song. And that’s because I had somehow missed the fact that Suede have just released something new. This is it:
Orchestral, theatrical, stunning. I love it.
The scene for the video is a bit galling, mind:
It’s set in a rural landscape, on the hard shoulder of the motorway, among the B-roads and among the rubbish that’s been fly-tipped. It’s set by a chain link fence with a dead badger lying rotting in the ground.
