Category: music

1 hit wonders?

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Here’s a Facebook ad for an upcoming show at the musical theatre beyond the Boerewors Gordyn.

Fullscreen capture 2016-07-26 103452 AM.bmp

Let me help you out with the (not so) small print:

Get ready to party to the ultimate 1 Hit Wonders!

Sounds good.

Enjoy songs like Do You Love Me, Play That Funky Music, Kung Fu Fighting, You Spin Me Round, Take On Me, 99 Red Balloons & more

u wot m8?

Remember those songs? Of course you do. The Contours, Wild Cherry, Carl Douglas, Dead or Alive. They gave us such memories, and then they disappeared without trace. Likewise Nena and her red balloons (if you ignore her MASSIVE success in Germany) (which they clearly have).

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich?
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von neunundneunzig Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont.

Indeed.

But “Take On Me”? No. Just no. That wasn’t a “1 Hit Wonder’.

And I’m not even annoyed because I’m an a-ha fan. I’m annoyed because it’s plainly incorrect. How can a song which wasn’t even their biggest hit be a “1 Hit Wonder”?

Let’s compare: Carl Douglas hit the top of the charts with Kung Fu Fighting back in 1974. He was NEVER heard of EVER. AGAIN. He disappeared as fast as lightning. In fact, the way he vanished was actually a little bit frightening.

But I digress. Often.

Now, I’ve nothing against Carl. His name will live on in the Hall of Fame through cheesy discos and pub quizzes forever more. And fair play to him. But…

Let’s have a look at a-ha: Take On Me was a number 2 hit for them in October 1985.
Just two months later, they released The Sun Always Shines On TV.
It went to number 1, clearly making it a bigger hit than Take On Me.
But whether it was bigger or not is actually beside the point. It was also a hit. A second hit.
This ridiculous success immediately ruined a-ha’s “1 Hit Wonder” status, a status which had only lasted for about 60 days. The further 7 Top 10 hits which they then went on to have over the next 30-odd years also kind of cemented their reputation as clearly not being 1 Hit Wonders. For me, at least. And everyone else with any sort of rudimentary intelligence.

And yet they’ve been dumped in with Wild Cherry and The Contours.

Incorrectly.

Look, I’ve been to a show there before and it was slick, professional and fun. I’m sure that this one will be as well. But underlying the whole production is the sickening inaccuracy I have described above. If you’re going along, I suggest that you try to overlook the invalid and plainly false information on which the entire show is based.

Because any other approach would surely ruin your experience.

Timelapse Number 3

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I’m ever so slightly behind the curve on this one. I blame the Sun lighting my solar eleventh house. Uranus is rising.

Whatever.

Behold the return of Brendon Wainwright with his latest offering, I Am Cape Town 3.

This following hot… well… lukewarm,m anyway on the heels of I Am Cape Town and I Am Cape Town 2. And what he lacks in imaginative titling skills, he certainly makes up for in his photographic ability.

And yes, you’ll probably already have noticed that this one is in glorious 4K. And if you’re fortunate enough to have a 4K TV *waves*, it’s going to look pretty amazing in the corner of your living room.

The music – always an important part of these things is – by Ludovico Einaudi wannabe Stefan Kruger.

Music Button gets hit again

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I have previously described the hitting of the Music Button here, but with being away from school, it’s been a while since it has been struck. But as was noted yesterday, school restarted this morning.

I was unprepared. Not for school, but rather when the voice piped up from the back:

I haven’t said this for a few weeks, but… HIT THE MUSIC BUTTON!

Still, I hit it as instructed, but when I did, it was playing dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip’s 2013 offering Repent Replenish Repeat. Look, I love it, but it’s far too dark and much too naughty for a 7:30am trip to school with an 8-year-old. Hence some quick fiddling with the iPod in order to find something more appropriate for the journey between campusses… campii… the two different school sites.

It would be rude not to share, so step forward the alphabetically-convenient Daft Punk. And their Random Access Memories was what took me on a musical odyssey through the traffic. Thus here’s Instant Crush, featuring the unlikely-monikered Julian Casablancas.

I’d forgotten just how good this album was. It was a hot contender for the 6000 miles… Album of the Year, alongside such greats as Depeche Mode, Ludovico Einaudi, The D.O.T., the Pet Shop Boys and, ironically, dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip. Regular readers will know that no-one ever wins these things, but you get some decent (IMHO) recommendations to make your musical life better.

I hope it’s done that for you. Have a great Monday, even if the traffic is FUBAR and you have to be up at 6am tomorrow.

On The Road

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Not me. VW. A couple of families travelling right across South Africa (Johannesbeagle to Buffelsbaai to be exact) in Volkswagen vehicles have a fairly implausible number of coincidental encounters whilst ‘On The Road’ before arriving at their respective holiday destinations, only to discover that they will be spending their respective holidays staying just across the road from one another.
What are the chances, hey?

Here’s all 95 seconds of the commercial in question:

Regular readers already know where this is going, and they’re right, because, while the ad is nice and all that, the music is what won it for me.

Thus, step forward Aisha Badru with Waiting Around:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/171788658″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Limited googlage tells us about this New York singer songwriter with one independently released 4-track EP. Where do Ogilvy SA find these tracks? Amazing.
Apparently, according to her Facebook, she has a new record coming out soon. And, also according to her Facebook, she has a lot of new SA fans.

I’m not surprised.

Dead Pod

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Worrying times here at Chez 6000. I took Colin to the vet yesterday evening, and when I got back into the car at the surgery, we were (Colin was) so busy chatting about how good it was to be out of the vet with everything apparently still intact that I quite forgot to restart the soothing music which had accompanied our journey there. And then when we got back to the house, we were (Colin was) so excited to be back home with all four legs and a tail that I quite forgot to take my iPod out of my car.

This morning, when I came to play some music on the way to work, I no longer had an iPod.
I had a Dead Pod. RIP SnoopyToo.

My first thought was that I had left it playing through the extensive collection of tunes and that the battery had given up. I have done that before, but it usually saves just enough battery power to tell me that it has no battery power. This time it was completely dead.

My second thought was that I was going to have to listen to 5fm.

I shed a tear, which immediately froze on my cheek. I may have mentioned that the current climatic conditions in Cape Town are somewhat chilly.
“Hmm,” I thought. “I wonder if that has something to do with it?”

Once at work, I plugged the iPod in, but there was still no sign of life. And so, while I left it plugged in, I did some extensive research (I googled), and apparently, chilly iPod problems are a thing:

When I got in my car on Saturday morning there was still ice all over my car and the iPod was dead, as if the battery was zilch. I put it near a heater vent to warm up while I drove, and still nothing when hooked up to the charger adapter.

I should point out here that my iPod was in a car, in a garage, on a night that only really got down to about 4.5ºC, so we were some distance off the “ice all over my car” scenario. But the symptoms were exactly the same.

Apple says that the operating temperature range of its iPod Classic is -20°C to 45°C. At no point is Cape Town going to trouble the lower end of that scale, although summer will easily top the high end. However, last night did neither.

The good news is that my iPod now seems to be fine. It wasn’t a battery issue (it’s come back to life with a near full battery), so I’m guessing that it was temperature related, despite Apple’s claims.

There’s some good advice on that thread I linked to:

Think back to those warnings you used to see on the back of 5.25″ floppy disks. “If it’s comfortable enough for you, then it’s good enough for your disk,” or something like that. Your iPod just needs to warm up, most likely.

And no. I wouldn’t have wanted to have spent last night in my car.

Welcome back, Snoopy Too.