Comes and goes

I have a fairly strong love/hate relationship with the group The Killers. Mostly, I find myself thinking too much about other artists' songs when I listen to them; on the rare occasion I don't, then it's a safe bet I'm loving them for themselves.

This song is probably the best example of how I can't stop thinking about similarities between their songs and others; I once described it as the best derivative of all the typical 80s music gimmicks, with a little late 70s thrown in (seriously, I can hear everything from Gary Numan to ABBA to Fleetwood Mac to XTC to take your pick of any hair band from that era to...in this).

It's also a good example of how contrary I--or, really, music--can be. I don't mind this song at all, Quite the opposite.

Tranquilize - The Killers (featuring Lou Reed)



***

Talking of reminding, listening to Lou Reed's voice in the previous song always makes me think of Trent Reznor's in this. I don't why, there's no obvious link and certainly Trent's a subtle backup in his collaboration, compared to Lou's more prominent presence in his. Still, the reminder is there.

Is this where I confess I probably would have never intentionally listened to Tori Amos--or, more specifically, sought out her music--had it not been for this collaboration? Not to say I was sorry when I did--Under the Pink is not only my favorite of all her albums, it's a huge part of my life in the early 90s and still holds up after all this time. (Whether Tori Amos does, anymore, is debatable; I listened to her live concert on XPN's free Friday concert series last year, and she sounds like a bad parody of herself, now. I understand that a good number of artists stay true to their trademark sound and don't veer too much from it but...when your trademark starts sounding less authentic and more of a gimmick, I think it might be time to rethink that, no matter how rabid your fans might be about your sound).

Huh, this was supposed to be short and sweet. So much for that.

Past The Mission - Tori Amos (featuring Trent Reznor)



(And yet more reminders: the video of Past The Mission, which I hadn't seen until this post (I don't think I've ever seen any Tori Amos music videos, come to think of it; just live performances) suddenly reminded me of a book by Toni Morrison, that I listened to as an audio book--on tape!!--over ten years ago, called Paradise. Funny, I hadn't thought of it at all in a long time--although I remember thinking about it a lot when I was listening to it--but I remember quite a bit about it, especially a surprising bit about who all the different characters were--and I am now really tempted to go hunt down a hard copy of it. Er, right after I get my borrowing privileges back from library, after paying my fines for late returns. (I consider that a helpful contribution to my local library funds!)