Frank Kogan

My affinity list continues with David Cooper Moore: t.A.T.u.'s "Cosmos (Outer Space)," except I voted for "Kosmos,"* the Russian-language version – since I don't speak Russian, though, and the lyrics are a good part of the emotional wallop for me, I don't know why I didn't choose the English version. I guess once I get the basic meaning – "Another time, another place, another world"** – the wallop is in full effect no matter which language I'm hearing.

—Checking Google Translate, the idea is definitely the same – "Our home forever is outer space" vs. "We'll meet forever in space" – but there do seem to be pretty big differences, actually; the Russian version has nothing like my favorite line in the English, "Black stars and endless seas, outer space," but meanwhile the English, "Bridges burnt, fingers crossed... Same before, same again," simply can't compete with, "Tails are torn off, the legs are unscrewed, but – all the same, all the same," in the Russian.

Anyway, knowing both versions you get more meaning and better-confuted meaning!

*Тату's "Космос," if I want to go all Cyrillic.

**Pulled a fast one on you, didn't I? "Another time, another place, another world" isn't from "Cosmos," it's from Margaret Berger's "Robot Song"; like Dave, I'll sometimes put "Cosmos" back-to-back with "Robot Song" on playlists, the two songs of forbidden love.

I seem to be subconsciously looking for the closest thing I can find to the vibe of “My Teenage Dream Ended” each year (last year it was Jenny Wilson's EXORCISM).

This year it appears to be Mahawam: Is an Island, which is very brief and very good.

Dave, I just checked YouTube to find that Farrah Abraham has taken down all her vids from My Teenage Dream Ended. Still has "Blowin'," a more conventionally song-like track from a couple of years later, and she continues to put vlogs and the like on her YouTube channel (some contributed by her daughter, she says on her "About" page). Haven't explored them yet. [EDIT: It's possible that there's some other explanation for the absence of the videos than "Farrah Abraham has taken down all the vids." But I can't think of what another explanation would be, since I don't know who else would or could take them down or if someone else could claim some authority or ownership over them. Publisher? MTV?]

My guess is that, unfortunately, she must have internalized all the criticism and hatred that was thrown at her for her absolutely odd and original music. The music's still up in bits and pieces, posted by one fan here, another there, sometimes creating their own videos. In the meantime, no one's made music like it, before or since.

"On My Own - Farrah Abraham" (Watch on YouTube)

(I realize that it's hard to explain or justify that last sentence, since any description I'd give — "singing, but not melodically, the words being scraps of images, confession, events, feelings, some rhythm but no attempt at meter or rhyme" — could describe at least some, for instance, spoken word, improv, jazz poetry, hip-hop (the latter probably something of an inspiration; she may be an outsider but that doesn't mean she's from Mars*). So the conception isn't radical. She's not going rhythmically against meter and line, it's just that her rhythms and repetition don't come from there, come from speech instead, but with dancebeat music backing her she's not constrained by the coherence of normal conversation either; nor by poetry. So it's the result that's radically different.)

(Dave and I once talked about some related Farrah issues on LiveJournal ("I'm In With The Out Crowd"), and Dave and lots of others talked about her all over the place at the time, Dave even getting a piece into The Atlantic.)

*And it wouldn't hurt modern Soundcloud rappers to give her a listen. I bet you some would get ideas.

The worst of Europe's financial crisis appears to be over.

European leaders have taken steps to ease the panic that has plagued the region for three turbulent years. Financial markets are no longer in a state of emergency over Europe's high government debts and weak banks. And this gives politicians from the 17 countries that use the euro breathing room to fix their remaining problems.

We are now looking at another year of dismal growth in the Eurozone. This crisis seems to have no end in sight.

To be sure, a little relief today as the Greek parliament pushed through the latest austerity package, throwing the bailout back to the Troika. But the relief was short-lived....

I am guessing that the Troika increasingly sees no way out for the Greek economy, at least under the current policy path. Does anyone really expect this to be anything more than just another effort to kick the can down the road? Everything to date has simply intensified what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described as the "Greek death spiral."

( Spain too )

"One More Day" is composed in the key of A harmonic minor, meaning though in A minor, it has a G#, an accidental, at the end of the chorus and the end of the second verse. The vocals span around an octave and a half, from C4 to E5. It is written in verse-chorus form, with a bridge section in a rap-form, featuring Sung Hyo Ram from XCROSS as the guest rapper, before the last repeated chorus.

The scale is so named because it is a common foundation for harmonies (chords) used in a minor key. For example, in the key of A minor, the V chord (the triad built on the note E) is normally a major triad that includes the raised seventh degree of the scale: G♯, as opposed to the unraised G♮ which would make a minor triad.