Space Age Disco Ya Don't Stop

"Meine Idee/My Idea," Daso Franke (2007): Cologne based music producer, has since this song died of cancer. Incandescent late nite New Wave electro disco; and the New Wave is in that fat bass, and maybe the vaguely melancholy washes of synths, and if you must know, the disco part is when it gets all wound up, the synths going off like heart-racing alarms, bounciness prevails, faster and faster to nowhere, grooving down the freeway to nowhere in particular, 

"Krack," Soulwax (2020): Alt-indie disco-forward EDM record; "rock music without electric guitars," says some promotional content. Has a big windup, some abstracted breathy vocal group tease, and then staggering, swaggering, jumping up and down, strutting back and forth electro tribal mashup. The squawk-box vocal, minimal, is indecipherable, and could have been one of the guys in Cabaret Voltaire. New wave noir electronic music with some hiphop bit-beats production values. A Banger. 

"Lost tape," Mutual Attraction (2001): You know sometimes how it's the singer and sometimes it's the song? Well, likewise, sometimes it's the dance music and sometimes it's the dancer or dancers. The dance music here is vaguely psychedelic ethnic fusion over a vintage Space Invaders dance music click-track; maybe a little House music in trance mode. Like something you might hear in a hip African restaurant. A little blank and generic but good enough exotic dance music vibes. The dancer in the video is one Kezza Palmer aka Mr Shapes. Kezza likes to dance and Kezza does indeed shape the music, giving it a more downbeat yet spiritually buoyant cast. As if this were the soundtrack to his daily Tai Chi workout, a skipping-in-place shuffle that does a Snoopy dance over personal demons and cranky passersby; bubbling over in playful low-key teasing enthusiasm as if a live action Energizer Bunny. 

PJ Harvey: Big Complex Female Voice in a Slight Rock Star Package

Let's begin with "Joe," a Demo from 1992's Dry recordings. The vocal performance, so uncannily assured and unselfconscious, is one thing. Then the duet setting of her effortless vocal heaviness against the abstracted slabs of industrial grunge guitar gives the song demo a post-punk conceptual feel. She's a little package but a powerhouse voice and personality. And I'm not just trying to objectify her with that contrast. It seems integral to her power. Like Iggy Pop's "Five Foot One," the power in her voice taunts those that might underestimate her diminutive frame.  

Dinosaur riff rock gets stomped on and dominated by Ms. Harvey in one of her perhaps underrated periods. It's a boss performance in England in 1998 circa her album Is This Desire? 

"The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore," from 2000's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, my running favorite Harvey album but I need to give some others more attention-Anyway, this number is an absolute rock & roll hall of fame grand salami of a rock single but, I just checked, it didn't chart and she's actually another one not in the official R&R Hall in Cleveland. (More of what's wrong with people and the authorities, I'm telling you!) Harvey doesn't have any big hits but her albums chart okay, a couple top tens. And her audience, or cult, if you prefer, is a sizable alt-rock audience and surely big enough for the Hall's consideration?! Maybe they're still trying to catch up with the '90s? I know how that goes but PJ Harvey is a historic rock star original and past due for serious consideration for recognition by Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

Also, by 2000's Stories..., note how in the song "Good Fortune" she's still doing her Smithian vocal stylings, my first critical hesitation with her music back in '92/'93, but now she's tossing this stuff off like she's dancing in the streets, like it ain't no thing. Or it's just another kind of art song style she does, no sweat. Patti gives Bruce "Because The Night." PJ gives a confident nod to Patti while maybe throwing in some Stevie Nicks for good measure. Masterful mistress of the late rock era. 

 More evidence: "When I'm On Ether," from 2007's White Chalk. If not psychedelic, a drug song masterpiece.  

Don't have time to get into it too much but I think Harvey is a tremendously rich source of evidence for the rockist argument. I.e., rock is essentially pop with an oppositional, iconoclastic, counter cultural, and/or anti-commercial streak built in. Its authenticity isn't rooted so much in class as in personality; its "wokeness" is a reflexive antagonism to straight authority. It's "alternative," by definition and in principle. Harvey's art insists on her individual identity while at the same time making use of various musical legacies and traditions. Progressive art song and heavy blues rock, for two. And she's part of a long line, if small club, of shamanistic rock stars with big vocal diva prowess. 

For heaven's sake, PJ Harvey belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame if ever there was or is such a thing?! Not that I have any idea whether or not she would appreciate the honor or even care. Hall of Fames are bs but if you're going to do bs why not show some judgement and try to make your bs count?