Few subjects are as contentious in the world of opera as who sings the best version of a beloved aria. Music is often judged by highly specific and subjective criteria, and this is especially acute within classical music, where a musician’s ears are fine-tuned like scientific instruments and emotional investment in particular composers, works or songs often runs extremely deep. For instance: In college I used to refer to Chopin as my dead Polish composer boyfriend. I’m just sayin’. (Lutosławski and I were just friends. )

Recently an ad here has been running a slick instrumental version of Puccini’s ‘Un Bel Di’, probably the best-known piece from Madama Butterfly . I have no idea what the ad is for, because my eyes usually glaze over the instant I recognize the music. This ad may not compel me to buy whatever product it’s pushing, but it sure has compelled me to look up ‘Un Bel Di’ on YouTube and listen obsessively. Here is one of the very best versions I’ve ever heard (and that’s saying something):

This is such a joyous, soaring song, so full of hope and promise, and that makes the truth of what will eventually happen to Cio-cio san all the more devastating. I think this tension between the beauty of the song and the ugliness of the reality in the opera is partly what gives ‘Un Bel Di’ its impact. Well, that and it’s got an exquisite melody. I’ve never heard a version quite as effortless as this one. She makes it seem so easy, but trust me, this song is anything but. In fact, I’m tired just thinking about it!

If you look over at the sidebar on this page that contains my (admittedly modest) blogroll, you will notice a certain electronica musician amongst its ranks. He has a download ep coming out tomorrow and it is, if I may say so, very good. So, if you’re a fan of music that combines catchy melodies with synthesizer-goodness (and you should be if you’re reading this blog), be sure to check it out.

If you heard the sound of a heavenly host of Seraphim blaring trumpets and singing Allelujah with their flaming swords held aloft and their six wings all unfurled coming from somewhere in the North of England, don’t worry, it’s not another miraculous virgin birth. It’s just that I finally handed in my thesis! Again! Second time’s a charm, I say. Let’s just hope my theory chapter had enough theory in it!

I think I may be in a bit of shock, not having anything (academic) to do for the first time in nearly two years.

Hopefully soon I’ll have a post written up that briefly sums up the concepts of performance, performity and mis-performance within the genre of new wave music. This covers all sorts of things, from boys wearing eyeliner and girls cropping their hair, to the use of synthesizers instead of guitars, and the discussing of (often painful or taboo) private emotions in fun pop songs; all the stuff we know and love about new wave!

And now to celebrate, here’s a shot of pure pop sunshine (with added vitamin C):

Orange Juice, ‘Rip it Up’ (1982– a very good year, if I may say so!)

It’s so very 1980s!

Sorry for the radio silence. I suppose I could say I’ve been tied up with thesis edits, which is true, but considering that I’m doing a thesis on new wave and this happens to be a new wave blog, that excuse seems a little flimsy. To give you some idea of what I’ve been up to, tucked into my little desk in the newly completed guest bedroom New Waver Office, here’s an excerpt from the conclusion of my thesis:

The 1980s were by all accounts a tumultuous phase in Anglo-American history. The decade saw a sharp rightward shift from the left-centre politics of the 1970s to the conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, from stagnating state-supported industry to massive unemployment and civil unrest; it was a period of both glittering entrepreneurial optimism and grim desperation in the face of privatization and deregulation. Identity politics, too, underwent upheaval and transformation in the wake of the gay rights movement and, later, the AIDS crisis. The so-called ‘permissiveness’ of the 1970s gave way to strict governmental censure of homosexual and non-heteronormative relationships (represented most clearly in the United Kingdom by the passing of Clause 28). Feminism intersected with these issues in discourses of ‘gender performance’, a theory, most famously put forward by Judith Butler, that the apparently ‘natural’ phenomenon of binary, heteronormative gender is actually a lifelong performance, learned and carried out within a compulsory, heterosexual matrix. It is in this turbulent, rapidly changing context that we must view the new wave movement, and analyze it accordingly.

Well there you have it folks. I suppose it lacks a little something without context, but I thought roughly 100 pages of context might be a bit much for a humble blog like this one, so if you have any questions, drop me a line on my Contact Me page.

And here’s a video to make up for my (benign) neglect of this space:

Echo and the Bunnymen, ‘The Killing Moon’ (1984)

Sing it, Ian McCulloch, sing it! I love this song and video combo. It’s like everything I love about the 1980s distilled into 5 minutes.

We have a blackbird family living in our back garden. They were here last year as well, and I’ve dubbed them the Birdling family, because I have an as-yet-unexplained compulsion to anthropomorphize everything. This year’s nest location, in the sturdy branches of a large shrub, seems to be a much better choice than last year when they built their nest in the ivy on our garden wall.

The boyfriend decided to step away from his synths (yea, verily, we are a synth-lovin’ household) for a moment to play David Attenborough. This was the result!

I love the puzzled, quizzical look Mr. Birdling gives the camera: ‘Wait a minute. This wasn’t here this morning! Was it? Hmmm.’ Oh look, there I go anthropomorphizing again. Ah, nature.

On a slightly more new wave-related note, my thesis chapter on the performative nature of the self (and of new wave music’s critique of the same) is done. I’m sure my overall thesis word count is somewhere in the stratosphere now, but no matter. I’ll post an excerpt from it in the near future.

My thesis edits seem to be trundling along at a slow but steady pace. One of the main issues the graders had with my work was that they wanted more in-depth theory. With that in mind I’ve been working on a strictly theoretical chapter for the last few weeks. One of the key components of this chapter is the idea of performance.

Gender performance is a pretty well-established concept in feminist theory. Hell, it goes back to the very beginning. Gender is a social construct: you act ‘like a man’ or ‘like a lady’ because you know that if you don’t, you’ll get in trouble for it—men who aren’t masculine enough are constantly questioned about their heterosexuality. Women who don’t perform femininity well enough are questioned about, well, everything that makes them up as a person. Judith Butler is one of the main proponents of gender performance theory, and I’ve been reviewing Gender Trouble for this chapter. While I find some of it very problematic, it’s been an interesting exercise and has reframed a lot of the ways I think about constructing the ’self’ (not just the masculine or feminine self, but the self as the basic construct of ‘I am’.) Since I am, of course, deeply rooted in the Cartesian dualism that dominates Western thought, this is difficult for me to get my head around. The idea that the self doesn’t exist independently from experience, that the self is an act rather than a thing. Well. It’s something I’ve questioned literally as long as I can remember—since early childhood— but even after twenty years of questioning it’s still a difficult concept to fully wrap my head around. Maybe I’ll succeed one of these days.

On a less mind-bending level, it’s also brought up ideas of other kinds of performance. The way you perform your class, for instance, or the way you perform your place of origin. I’ll explain. At home I don’t stand out because I’m just like everyone else, an American, a Floridian (well, that’s not entirely true, a lot of people in Florida aren’t Floridians). Here, one of my main defining characteristics is my American-ness. The way I talk, the things I talk about, the way I dress, they all mark me out as different and constantly remind me that I am performing my place of origin. I don’t feel particularly ‘American’ in America–I’m performing my nationality, yes, but then, so is everyone around me, so I don’t really notice. Here, I’m acutely aware of the performance aspect.

That probably sounds negative, but it isn’t, at least not most of the time. It’s just interesting, the way performance (whether it be gender, class or place of origin performance) gets reified until it seems natural, and it’s only when you’re taken out of your normal performance space that you realize no, actually, it isn’t ‘natural’ in the sense that everyone is like that. Most people aren’t. It’s a valuable lesson, and one I’m glad to be learning.

In what can only be described as a convergence of awesomeness, I managed to find this clip on YouTube last night. MST3K + Mike impersonating Morrissey = WIN. And yes, I realize they’re giving the Moz a bit of a ribbing, but it’s obviously done with affection. I also love all the little touches in the sketch, including references to ‘Sheila Take a Bow’ (Is it wrong not to always be glad?) and the fact that the song is entitled ‘Hairdresser in a Coma’. Just watch!

Sometimes people (my long-suffering family in particular) ask me why I decided to up and move to England. There are several reasons: Mostly, England had the kind of universities that would let me do the kind of self-directed research I wanted to do at the Masters level, rather than having to wait until I got into PhD research. So there’s that.

I think secretly I really just wanted to move to England to understand the Smiths better. I always enjoyed their music and videos in college, dancing with a certain charming gracelessness in my dorm room or at the club, throwing my hands up in the air and chanting during ‘Panic’ or trying to catch a cute club-goer’s eye while singing ‘Ask’. And yes, I realize the irony of using Morrissey to try and flirt with someone.

However, it wasn’t until I’d actually gone to the UK that I started to actually get what the Moz was actually on about in all his songs. The first time I went to Manchester I felt a sort of *click*. ‘Ooohh,’ I thought,’ so this is what he’s talking about!’ It’s a level of understanding you just can’t get in the sunny, swampy swelter of central Florida, no matter how many times you dance around to The Queen is Dead in your living room. Englishness is a hard quality to define but a very easy one to recognize (I know it when I see it, if you know what I mean), and Morrissey has it— and the Smiths had it in spades. I also understand the irony of the son of Irish immigrants epitomizing this ephemeral quality of ‘Englishness’ but there we are… perhaps he’s so good at it because he’s also at a bit of a remove from it, and can look at what it means from both inside and outside, skewering the foibles and engaging in all the good traits (whatever you consider those to be—I’m guessing dry humor and a love of tailoring). I don’t know. All I know is, I love the Smiths and Morrissey. And, having lived in Northern England for close to two years, I love them even more.

I’m not sure where this video is filmed. I think that’s the point. It could be any coastal town anywhere in Britain. They all look like that, even the one near where I live (though it isn’t nearly so lively). See? That’s something I never would have understood until I actually saw it with my own eyes.

‘Everyday is Like Sunday’

‘Panic’ (One of my top 10 club tunes, I just can’t stop grinning when I hear it. Also, I dj’ed at friends’ parties from time to time, and I always liked to end with this one. Heh.)

Oh! And while I’m thinking of it, here is the song that ‘Panic’’s main riff is based on:
(T. Rex, ‘Metal Guru’)

Mmm glam!

I have been struck down by the Cold of DOOM for the past few days, so any meaningful work in the world of new wave (le monde de la nouvelle vague) has been shoved to the wayside in favor of naps, hot showers, pathetic whinging and the occasional cup of fresh ginger tea.

In a fortuitous turn of events I stumbled across this recipe for ‘Orange Ginger Spice Drink’ via trusty ol’ TasteSpotting. It’s much nicer than my usual ginger tea, which is just grated ginger in hot water.  It’s a life saver when you’re struck down by a Cold of DOOM (and trust me, at some point, we will all be struck down). Unfortunately I don’t have any agave nectar, but honey does the trick just fine—and as an added bonus, honey has antimicrobial properties, too! Hooray, honey!

Now I think I’m going to whip up a batch of this, whinge pathetically for a bit, and then go to bed and hope this cold will release me from its foul clutches. More new wave action to come, I promise!

One of the unforeseen benefits of having to do thesis edits is that I have the opportunity and motivation to watch MST3K episodes on YouTube— not that I don’t have the opportunity and motivation anyway, just that watching MST3K episodes is sort of a study ritual with me that I’m glad to revive. Normally I’m annoyed at YouTube’s policy of only allowing 10 minute clips of things, but in this case it works out pretty well. Whenever I get a bit of reading or writing done I watch a 10 minute segment or two before continuing. In the course of just one B-movie I can get a surprising amount of work accomplished.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say I’m primarily a Mike fan. That’s not a dig at Joel, it’s just due to the fact that I only started watching MST3K in season 6 or 7, when Joel had left the Satellite of Love for greener pastures, where, presumably, he wasn’t forced by mad scientists to watch low-budget horror films. Because of that, Mike’s the host I’m most familiar with. I have been getting more into the Joel-era episodes (The Pod People and Mitchell being particular favorites of mine), but I still have a lot of catching up to do.

I like MST3K because it’s a constant barrage of pop culture references, some high brow, some low, but all very cleverly done. If I’m lucky I’ll get most of the references in an episode, but usually not, which means I have to go and look a lot of things up. Obviously, that’s fine by me.

Anyway, today I finished watching that Italian B-Classico, Puma Man, starring Donald ‘So Basically He’s an Old Baby’ Pleasence as a pudgy, balding supervillian clad in castoffs from a SoHo S&M dungeon. There’s an Aztec, something about alien gods and a gold mask with a microprocessor in it, and a super hero wearing khaki slacks. Randomly, at the end of the episode in a host segment, Roger Whittaker shows up. It’s actuallly Kevin Murphy (the voice of Tom Servo) doing an impression, but I was intrigued. Since I’m not much of a mellow folkster I’m not really familiar with ‘mellow folk sensation’ Roger Whittaker’s work. So I googled it and thought I’d share with you, so you could have a fuller appreciation of the Roger Whittaker MST3K sketch. You’re welcome.

The sketch starts at around 2:30 in this clip:

And for comparison, here’s the real Roger Whittaker (who has a lovely, honeyed voice I have to say) singing ‘I Don’t Believe in ‘If’ Any More’:

Dig those trumpets! And that facial hair! All in all I can’t say this will convert me entirely over to the mellow folkster side, but I have been humming this tune all day long— so maybe it will, actually. Well played, Roger Whittaker. And well played to you, too, Mike and the ‘bots.