1978 Revisited (my first MySpace playlist)

[koganbot]

Using the new MySpace music gizmo, I just made my first MySpace mixtape. If you want to hear it, simply go to my MySpace page and the music should load and play automatically, though you may have to have Flash Player 9 on your computer (which you can download for free from Adobe). In one instance (at the start of CSS) the player stopped, and I had restart by hitting play.

The set:
1. The-Dream "Ditch That"
2. Buraka Som Sistema f. Pongolove "Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)"
3. Cyndi Lauper "Into The Nightlife"
4. Annie "Songs Remind Me Of You"
5. Michelle Williams "We Break The Dawn"
6. Cansei De Ser Sexy "Rat Is Dead (Rage)"
7. Black-Eyed Peas "Pump It"
8. Sir Mix-A-Lot "Posse On Broadway"
9. V.I.C. "Wobble"
10. t.A.T.u. "Kosmos" (Russian version)

There were only three tracks I was looking for that MySpace didn't have: Santogold vs. Diplo mixtape mashup version of "I Need Love"/"I'm A Lady," the Santogold vs. Diplo mix of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Posse On Broadway" (so I went with the original), and 3rei Sud Est "Ma Lubeai" (Rumanian former boyband). So, that I'm only missing two boots and a Rumanian pop song is a good sign that the catalogue is as extensive as this needs to be for the labels to make a commercial go of it (the point being to get people to come to listen on MySpace rather than downloading illegally or from iTunes or streaming on YouTube or AOL Music or Launch Yahoo). I still can't guess how successful the visual ads will be at generating revenue, though I'm skeptical.

I've put "1978 Revisited" in the subject line because I realized, after I'd made the playlist - this wasn't intentional - that a lot of it (five of the first six tracks) sounds real close to what I was going for and hoping from in the music emanating that year from downtown New York's new wave/punk rock/no wave: experiment and cacophony and tension crashing into the funk and disco and pop of the time. I can't imagine the Contortions not hearing a similarity to "Ditch That" if they could have transported themselves to 2008, or Blondie in their experimental dreams (I remember Debbie Harry and Chris Stein being real supportive of such music) liking the techno harshness that rhythmically supports "Into The Nightlife" and "Songs Remind Me Of You." And James Chance and Brian Eno would have been eating out of the palm of Buraka Som Sistema's hands. The CSS track actually sounds like punk rock, though in 1978 that would have made them seem less punk (and less relevant) to me than the other tracks I just mentioned - in fact, still does, though I think it's a slamming song. Of course, other than CSS, I doubt that any of these people are thinking of punk or experiment when they make their music (though I wouldn't be surprised if the Stooges and the Clash aren't on Annie's and Baraka Som Sistema's playlists).

(And in its own way, "We Break The Dawn" draws on 1980, if not 1978 - the soul disco of the time.)

Comments

[koganbot]

But today the MySpace MY MUSIC search page is telling you there's nothing there when you put more than one word at a time into the search engine. So to look for Mylene Farmer you have to type in "Mylene" or "Farmer" but not both, which is a true nuisance since you then have to contend with all the other Mylenes and farmers. Makes searching frustrating and unwieldy and will drive people away if MySpace can't fix it. Also, they gave you a maximum of 100 hits per search, which isn't enough since you have to work your way through all sorts of nonstones to get a fraction of the Rolling Stones.