About Elon Musk

Twitter is now official the place where irony eats itself.

About being from

Listening — because I’m middle aged and middle class and a bit of a ponce — to Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Reith Lecture about Country, which discusses the validity of the nation state as a measure of identity in a modern, interconnected world, and he keeps returning the question, “where are you from?” It’s a complex and occasionally painful query for many people, whatever colour passport they wield. I usually say “London”. It feels right for me (Appiah also discusses how national and civic identity is often as much about emotion as reason) and usually leaves the other person satisfied. 

What do you say?

Take that, Pat Boone: Daft Punk at the Grammys as a response to American cultural hegemony

Carl Wilson at Slate makes some interesting points about the racial ramifications of the Grammy Awards a few days ago, one headline fact being that Macklemore, who is a Caucasian gentleman I believe, won three awards in various rap categories. Does this matter? Should this matter? Most worthwhile American musical forms of the past 100 years or so, bar country, have their roots in African-American culture yet we no longer see musicians such as Elvis Presley or Bill Evans to be weird freaks of nature, so I don’t really understand why Macklemore or Eminem should be any different; nor why Miley Cyrus should be accused of appropriating twerking as if no white girl has ever stuck her bum out before ever ever ever. Wilson seems relatively relaxed about all this; where I do part company with him, though, is his description of Daft Punk’s performance of song of the year ‘Get Lucky’ as “a veteran white group playing retro-styled black dance music, with African-Americans as side musicians.”

Really? What I saw was three respected and successful black performers, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers and some new kid called Stevie Wonder, acting as the acceptable, telegenic face of the music while the nerdy white boys hid in the shadows/in the control booth/under their helmets. In some ways in can be seen as an inversion of the situation in the 1950s, when tedious crackers such as Pat Boone sang neutered versions of songs written by Little Richard and Fats Domino; as if Daft Punk have internalised the notion that black performers such as Kanye West possess a certain inherent credibility to which Macklemore can never aspire. That desirable limited-edition Nike is now on the other foot.

But maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe Daft Punk really are demonstrating their control, in a deeply passive-aggressive sense, by having the three black guys dancing (literally and metaphorically) to their tune. In which case the scenario is still essentially subversive, but from a geopolitical standpoint rather than a racist one. The two full-time members of Daft Punk are French: Williams, Rodgers and Wonder are all American – unless being black suddenly gives them a free pass, which in the light of the current POTUS’s background would seem a little peculiar, to be honest. What Abba and Kraftwerk never quite managed, de Homem-Christo and Bangalter have achieved, wresting control of modern popular music from the Anglosphere. Giving a bunch of surrender monkeys the gong for a performance on which the Yanquis act as hired help is akin to awarding the Pulitzer Prize to Gérard Depardieu for a conceptual art piece that involves him force-feeding John Wayne with camembert and snails. I would have thought that Wilson, as a Canadian, might have spotted this and celebrated it.

Never mind, though. It’s still a good tune. Oh look, Mötley Crüe have split up.

We don't do God

In which I am encouraged to burn in hell, described as "toe-curlingly unfunny as always" and, oh dear, informed that I have "written a half-way good article".

Trans-Europe Excess

Exile brings a few consolations: I managed to miss last weekend's attempt to re-stage the Treaty of Versailles, and so I have yet to see or hear the Serbian lesbian torch song that managed to pluck everyone's votestrings (except Malta's). I can't even comment on whether Sir Terence's liver was under more intensive strafing this year than last. But Small Boo came up with a gem of an idea that might help to transcend all the petty factionalism and block-voting that has marred recent Eurovisions. Each country is allowed to pick one song that has previously been entered in the competition, and enter an all-time Eurovision Playoff. Since the event's been going since 1956, some of the original performers may be unable to come up with the goods, so a substitute is permitted, but it must be a passport-holder for the relevant nation. (None of this Celine-Dion-pretending-to-be-Swiss malarkey.)

For example, one presumes that the good people of Sweden would choose 'Waterloo' to be their entry, unless a massive, collective brainfart gives the honour to 'Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley'. But, as any fule kno, Abba will be unavailable, since Agnetha (the one we all fancied back in 1974, before dismissing her as being too blonde and obvious, compared to dark, mysterious Frida, but then, a few years ago, we realised, nah, it was Agnetha's bum that did it for us all the time) is a recluse who refuses to come out to play, even for all the peroxide in Gothenburg. So maybe the honour should go to The Hives, or Peter, Bjorn and Jon, or her off of the Cardigans.

But of course, this presupposes that the best songs get entered for Eurovision. Which is, of course, piffle. I can only think of three entries that might possibly represent the best of their respective nation's art: 'Volare' (Italy, 1958); 'L'amour est bleu' (Luxembourg, 1967); 'My Star' (Latvia, 2000). Significantly, none of them won.

So let's tweak the concept. Each country is allowed to enter one song that has been written since 1956, whether or not it's been a Eurovision entry. And this is where my knowledge of Euromusic starts to fall down, and where I need your help, people. If you know a heart-wrenching Cypriot ballad or a slamming slab of Hungarian techno that encapsulates all that's best in its country's musical tradition, let's hear about it. Or even something really cheesy you once heard on holiday. In the meantime, here are a few to get you thinking.

Austria: What else but 'Rock Me Amadeus'?

Belgium: Jacques Brel's 'Ne me quitte pas' (just edging out 'Ça plane pour moi').

France: 'Playground Love' by Air.

Germany: Can, Kraftwerk and Rammstein offer some choice morsels, but it's got to be 'Da Da Da'.

Iceland: 'Ammæli' (aka 'Birthday') by the Sugarcubes, the best thing Björk's ever done.

Ireland: presuming we're restricting consideration to the Republic, which raises a whole number of questions, as well as excluding Van Morrison and the Undertones, I'd plump for 'The Boys Are Back in Town'. U2 and the Corrs can do the catering.

Norway: 'The Sun Always Shines On TV'.

Spain: 'Black is Black' by Los Bravos.

Sweden: 'The Winner Takes It All'.

UK: Time for Morrissey to come up with the goods, I feel. 'Everyday Is Like Sunday', maybe?

Any suggested amendments/additions?

GUNG HAI FAT CHOI!

Happy New (Chinese) Year to the lot of you, especially the Pigs. Firecrackers are going off all over Bangkok, and subtle, usually unspoken racial jealousies become just that teeny bit more piquant, as all the people of Chinese descent don celebratory red t-shirts, just to remind us about who really owns the vast majority of Thai businesses. This weekend's celebrations should of course be distinguished from the wet t-shirt contest that is Thai New Year, or Songkran; and the Western New Year, which was most recently marked by a still unexplained bombing campaign.

Globally, however, the Chinese version is the most significant, because the Chinese will probably be running the world by about 2050. In fact, the current proprietors seem increasingly eager to end their lease at the earliest opportunity. To commemorate the dying days of the American Hegemony (b. 1989), I offer you this, the best YouTube video for a song based on the 2003 State of the Union address that I've seen all week. Thanks to Shane Richmond for pointing it out.