"It was still 10 times better than any other record that year": it's nice to see that the Beta Band are less critical of their own wonderful record now.

But music writers referring to records as "efforts" still makes me grind my teeth.

I find that I was probably just confused while half-asleep, because I was actually hearing "Complicated" by Avril, who is no doubt not at all related to Avril Incandenza, disappointingly. This is slightly disappointing to me because I don't want to give the vaguely lame lyrics a pass if they're actually by some stupid American girl instead of Shakira, the graceful one, "a blond-locked Colombian who speaks three languages and loves only in Spanish".

This also means, sadly, that I still think that Shakira sounds like a fucking harpy in her own single.

Something I've been meaning to get down for a while, but which I haven't gotten to develop at all:

When you like something enough, or in a certain way, it seems to have a special kind of undeniability. The kind that probably plays an important role in people thinking records are undeniably great.

Could this sense of undeniability be key to the feeling that music has to progress to get better? And that the big breaks are the important ones, the great ones, the ones to love, whereas the small changes show lack of genius, or complacency? That new is better?

The breaks have to be big, in order to escape that sense of undeniability, of inevitability. So that it can happen again.

(Connection to Wittgenstein here.)

I assume I've been hearing the new Shakira single on my alarm clock in the mornings, because at first I thought it was Alanis - it sounded like a shrill old harpy. But the last time I heard it it sounded casual and sweet, and Shakira actually sounded her age.

Or maybe I just didn't notice that it was scratching.

Listening to Aquemini for the first time in a while (I've been listening to less Outkast because I figured it would help me get more into other rap), I just noticed the scratching in the first part of the title track. Don't think I've ever 'heard' it before.

And yes, I know there's not much left. I blame the Beatles.

Today I started thinking about "My White Album". I really, really don't enjoy listening to The Beatles. So I thought that I could do the usual exercise that I wish people would do for multiple albums that they think are full of crap. (See here for a stalled thread about this for The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs.) So far all I have is a list of songs. I still need to get rid of the questionable ones and sequence them.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Happiness is a Warm Gun (first part) ?
Don't Pass Me By ?
I Will ?
Julia ?

Yer Blues ?
Helter Skelter
Revolution 1
Revolution 9
Good Night

Tape I made for a friend's birthday:

A:

Busta Rhymes - Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check / Le Tigre - Get off the Internet / Faust - The Sad Skinhead / Jay-Z - Can I Get A... / M. Mayer - Hush Hush Baby / The Beatles - Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / The Beta Band - Dry the Rain / Wu-Tang Clan - Rules / The Dismemberment Plan - Girl O'Clock / Gang Starr - I'm the Man / Sonic Youth - Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit

B:

Stereolab - Metronomic Underground / Eminem - When the Music Stops / The Avalanches - Electricity / Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out / Outkast - Ain't No Thang / Mystikal - Bouncin' Back / Fugazi - Waiting Room / Herbaliser feat. Latryx - 8pt Agenda / A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario (remix) / Pixies - Hey

Ha. The more tapes I make the more apparent the slow shift in what I tend to put on the tapes.