« Retrohump Day - Award Shows | Main | MS Pick - the Rapture »
November 09, 2006
New Long Blondes Video & B-Side
Some of you out there in TV Land might be sick of my constant micro updates about the Long Blondes, but I'm not, and that's what matters in this little dictatorship of ours. In my own defense, the kids have been awfully prolific and consistent, and that's the best recipe for devotion bordering on dementia.
the Long Blondes - "Once and Never Again"
The video for "Once and Never Again" is fairly oblique, even by the Blondes' skewed standards. The preoccupation with retro glamour and Cindy Sherman continues, although the four panel divisions make You Tube sized watching less than ideal. Also, "the drama" and "the road movie" are presented as some sort of easily understood defining headers, although they don't have very much to do with the video itself. There's a car in it, is that what you mean? Shades of drama emerge at least in the lower right frame as Kate Jackson's interest in the blonde girl seem less and less honarable as the song approaches its Sapphic twist (which should be the name of a new dance craze, like, immediately).
The NME provided text at the top claims the song was based on a fateful meeting between Ms. Jackson and Courtney Love. Um, does that mean Courtney came onto her?
the Long Blondes - "Five Ways to End it"
This b-side on the "Once and Never Again" single is (like the rest of this album's b-sides) produced by Erol Alkan, and it finally makes the dance music that he's famous for a more overt influence. As they've told us already, the Blondes "Don't dance to love songs", and this one is as romantically challenged as the fatalistic title would suggest. A pulsing club beat and rave synths start us off here, accentuated by some low in the mix bass, and barely audible, Lost jungle whispers. The whispering is key to the song's sense of conspiracy, with Kate keeping up with her life's mission to make sure her ex-boyfriend's never get laid again. It takes center stage, sort of, at the 6 minute sprawler's mid point, but in tandem with a creeping feedback that makes turning up the volume to eavesdrop a bit tricky. Once the argument for lout abandonment has been won, the guitars drop off, and the techno gets a bar or two to itself. A dance club victory lap after dumping the bastard is to be expected, after all.
Previously: Too many to list.
//the Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home Buy
Posted by Jeff Klingman at November 9, 2006 12:45 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/545
