March 2024

Today I went to the “March Danceness” web site to check out the context for Kate C’s essay. I found the essays quite interesting and, as they are all supposed to be about ‘dance music’ from the ’00’s, I also enjoyed them as a window into a musical era and genre of which I was unaware. It also attracted a certain demographic, and I find it both interesting and a little amusing to hear those in their 30’s and 40’s lamenting their ages.

The contest is modeled on the metaphor of a sports playoff, where a large set of candidates pair up, are voted on, and then the winners pair up again… I am a week late to the party, but at least today I read all the essays for March 8, and voted on entrants. What follows are my notes for each day, though I think it unlikely that I will keep this up throughout the month.

Contents

March 7

Pair 1: Banquet vs. Bad Romance => Bad Romance

MIKE INGRAM ON BLOC PARTY’S “BANQUET”X

“I never cared for the more violent aspects of a mosh pit, but if the vibe was right I loved the feeling of losing myself in the surge of bodies, letting my own body be pushed one way and then the other, like giving yourself over to an ocean current rather than fighting it.”

DANIELLE EVANS ON LADY GAGA’S “BAD ROMANCE”

Comment: Funny, personal. I liked the discussion on mis-hearing lyrics.

I am more of a karaoke enthusiast than a person who is possibly tone deaf probably should be.

Ensconced in the orange glow of the largest of the private rooms, I prepared to scream I’m a free bitch baby, with all of my heart, but the screen said I’m a freak bitch baby and I blinked and tried to determine which of us was making the mistake.

In my late 20’s I joined a Facebook group called “All of My Friends Are Getting Married, I’m Just Getting Drunk,” but then most of my friends got married and the joke wasn’t funny anymore.

Even most of those who didn’t have been paired with the same person long enough to have missed out on more recent dating joys like Tinder.

I had the kind of fame where when I met her for dinner my mother would introduce me to waiters as “My daughter, the famous writer”, and I’d have to remind her that actual famous people don’t have to be announced as famous.

Pair 2: Hallway vs. Heaven => Hallway

A Song Is a Room Off the Hallway of Your Life, Abigail Oswald on The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside

Suppose you are in a mall, wandering its brightly lit expanse in search of some material object.
Suppose…
Or, suppose you are alone.
In all of these places at all of these different times, the same song begins to play. The song varies from person to person; mine will always be a synthy three-and-half-minute anthem for the heartbroken.

The music opens a door, and in all these different moments, all these different versions of you walk through.

In this way the song is a moment suspended in time, amber for a woman immortalized.

There’s a fundamental artistic impulse buried there—your heart has been broken, and then the next thought: Can I turn this pain into something else?

It was as if the device itself contained the only sonic tunnel back to my adolescence,

A song is a room off the hallway of your life. And wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, the simple recognition of those opening riffs will always feel like coming home.

That Road Before: DJ Sammy’s “Heaven” by Michael A. Van Kerckhove

Comment: Nothing really grabbed me in this essay. It is a bit too narrative; too telling rather than showing. And then it does a sort of analysis or exegesis of the lyrics, rather than weaving that into the essay.

Pair 3: Anthem vs. Peaches => Peaches

BRIAN OLIU ON LMFAO’S “PARTY ROCK ANTHEM”

COMMENT: Didn’t really resonate with me; a bit too much about the song and lyrics, not much about personal experience.

TAP YOUR TROUBLES AWAY: LILY HERMAN ON PEACHES’S “FUCK THE PAIN AWAY”

COMMENT: Doesn’t really speak to me, but still nicely done. Raw, but also insightful.

Life is fucked and hard. Sure, but we all knew that. The dirty secret, the thing that none of us wants to admit, is that we are all subject to periods where we believe it won’t be fucked or hard anymore for us. We can suddenly listen to sad songs in these interims, appreciate them for their acumen or lyrical sinew or for a clever horn interlude, because we briefly feel exempt from their warnings.
— Tap Your Troubles Away: lily herman on peaches’s “fuck the pain away”

Pair 4: Dirty Vegas vs. Dance Music => Dance Music

AND STILL I THINK OF YOU: SCOTT DICKENSHEETS ON DIRTY VEGAS’S “DAYS GO BY”

COMMENT: Although I understand the ethos being put forward, there is enough self-deprecation that I find it off-putting. Even though much of it is well done and funny. I did think he did a good job of research and weaving in quotes about dancing, to wit:

The truth is closer to something else Noë writes: “Our dancing is at odds with planning and deliberation.”

To the degree to which we excel, we do so by letting ourselves go; we act without undue attention to what we are doing.

And when she extols the effect of dancing as “the beauty of not knowing what happens next, the beauty of messing up and just like, you’re still going,” I get it, but I can’t do it.

DANCE MUSIC FOR GROWNUPS: KATE CARMODY ON “ALL MY FRIENDS” BY LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

We dance with Corky St. Clair, our shih poo, between us.

When the needle wanders into the grooveless black space, I raise it, replace the first Sound of Silver record with the second, and carefully drop the needle on “All My Friends.”

I like watching the needle go round and round, thinking about all the instruments and voices pressed into a sleek sheet of vinyl. I like watching the needle wobble from the old, uneven floors beneath the console but not enough to make it skip a beat. Dancing too close to the console is another story. That’ll make the needle jump with us, so it’s best to keep some distance.

I tap on “All My Friends” and slide in my socks across the hardwood floor to Corky. And so it starts, a simple piano melody with two imperfect notes repeating. It’s humanity apparent. As it chugs along, I hear one key trying to catch up until it’s in sync with the other.

This time in the kitchen, when I heard: “you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan / and the next five years / trying to be with your friends again,” I felt like I had accidentally bit the side of my mouth while I chewed on nostalgia.

When my dad’s friend was dying, he took every opportunity he could get to tell his friends he loved them. “I love you,” he’d say while golfing. “I love you,” he’d say after dinner. So if I don’t say this enough, I love you, friends. All of you. Friends from home, friends from college, friends here, writer friends, I feel lucky to be your friend.
— Dance Music for Grownups: kate carmody on “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem