Randomiser #16: 16 January 2007
Today's song: Momus, "The Sensation of Orgasm."
Momus is practically the definitive example of an uncommercial singer-songwriter. He writes highly intellectual, esoterically jokey songs which tend to be a bit on the dispassionate and arch side. He once did an album where all the songs were set in the Roman Empire. This is from "Ping Pong", and it's the sort of album that, shall we say, you really have to be in the mood for. This is a song about the effect of the sex drive on human history (no, really, it is) and to be honest, it's heavy going. It's music to stroke your chin to, and admire the epigrams. There are some rather good songs on this album - "I Want You But I Don't Need You" is a classic - but I suspect most people will find it terribly twee and self-consciously clever. Depends how much you like cleverness for its own sake, really.
Also:
- The comics sales charts for December are out. Does anyone know what's up with Exiles, which seems to have shed 10,000 sales overnight? It was solicited for the last week of the month, so I assume it's a distribution screw-up where a third of stores didn't get it until the start of January, but it'd be nice to have that confirmed.
- Thanks to organised online petitions, Celebrity Big Brother is now the second most complained about show in UK television history, with almost 10,000 complaints about alleged racism. I haven't been watching, to be honest. Technically the most complained about show in history is BBC2's airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera, but only 8,860 of those complaints came in after the show had aired, and the rest were sparked by a pre-airing campaign that completely misrepresented the nature of the show, so they don't really count.
Momus is practically the definitive example of an uncommercial singer-songwriter. He writes highly intellectual, esoterically jokey songs which tend to be a bit on the dispassionate and arch side. He once did an album where all the songs were set in the Roman Empire. This is from "Ping Pong", and it's the sort of album that, shall we say, you really have to be in the mood for. This is a song about the effect of the sex drive on human history (no, really, it is) and to be honest, it's heavy going. It's music to stroke your chin to, and admire the epigrams. There are some rather good songs on this album - "I Want You But I Don't Need You" is a classic - but I suspect most people will find it terribly twee and self-consciously clever. Depends how much you like cleverness for its own sake, really.
Also:
- The comics sales charts for December are out. Does anyone know what's up with Exiles, which seems to have shed 10,000 sales overnight? It was solicited for the last week of the month, so I assume it's a distribution screw-up where a third of stores didn't get it until the start of January, but it'd be nice to have that confirmed.
- Thanks to organised online petitions, Celebrity Big Brother is now the second most complained about show in UK television history, with almost 10,000 complaints about alleged racism. I haven't been watching, to be honest. Technically the most complained about show in history is BBC2's airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera, but only 8,860 of those complaints came in after the show had aired, and the rest were sparked by a pre-airing campaign that completely misrepresented the nature of the show, so they don't really count.
posted by Paul O'Brien at 6:52 pm
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