Brian Eno and Damien Rice - Together At Last
Yes, it's been a long time. What can I say? I've been up late watching the cricket, which doesn't leave time for the important things in life like posting to blogs and sleeping. Stupid cricket.
This morning, I've become mildly obsessed by the fact that Brian Eno wrote the startup jingle to Windows 95. That's Brian Eno as in ex-Roxy Music, creator of strange pop music and a man utterly unafraid of pretentious twittering. Anyway, he wrote the start-up sound to Windows 95, which is fair enough. However, I think we've all overlooked the fact that it's possibly the worst piece of music ever written, with the exception of the Intel dur-der-duh-dah! sound that produces a Pavlovian desire in me to go out and strangle people whenver I hear it. You can reminisce about the fun of the Windows 95 start-up sound by clicking here, and remember that this noise indicated that you had a twenty-minute window in which to work before your computer would crash horifically. Ah, them was the days.Attribution alert: I'm grateful to my better half for drawing attention to the truly nosebleedingly bad lyrics of Damien Rice. It's possible to get away with bad lyrics if you bury them down in the mix with a good dose of rock and/or roll, but if you're a heart on the sleeve singer-songwriter, then frankly, you're setting yourself up for a whole heap of mockery. Take, for instance, "The Animals Were Gone":
Woke up and for the first time the animals were gone
It's left this house empty now, not sure if I belong
Yesterday you asked me to write you a pleasant song
I'll do my best now, but you've been gone for so long
The window's open now and the winter settles in
We'll call it Christmas when the adverts begin
I love your depression and I love your double chin
I love 'most everything that you bring to this offering
and it continues, much in the same vein (that is, badly).
It remains to be seen, however, if the promising inverse talent that he is can ever top "Older Chests" from the first album:
Older gents sit on the fence
With their cap in hand
Looking grand
They watch their city change
Children scream, or so it seems,
Louder than before
Out of doors, and into stores with bigger names
Mama tried to wash their faces
But these kids they lost their graces
And daddy lost at the races too many times
He is aware that you're allowed to rewrite and edit lyrics before recording them, isn't he?
Anyway, that's it from me, because I'm covered in paint. Sorry!
