why can't the french rock?

we were listening to melody nelson (well, actually, to this compilation, which includes that whole album plus lots more good stuff) and my roommate commented on its similarity to sea change, and "paper tiger" in particular (the opening track "melody" in particulier.) also worth noting that beck followed in the folk implosion's footsteps by sampling "requiem pour un con" (along with pretty much everything else?) on the information. gabe asked about the french and their failure to rock, like ever, and we listened to a little bit of johnny halliday and cuisine non-stop before i confessed that the closest they've ever come to rocking is pretty much "rolling and scratching" or no scratch that "da funk." (sorry, phoenix do not rock.) it really is pretty striking.

anyway, since then it's been 10000hz legend and moon safari while i read pynchon. except i just changed it to something else. i'll put on ys when that ends (like now.)

last night dave jonas and i had a lengthy and slightly intense convo about bob dylan, vís-a-vís the writing credit on the new record (which, hm, apparently don't appear the same way in all versions), and also about stephin merritt and michael richards. although i agree it's probably somewhat legally questionable, i generally don't have a problem with the rather glib truth-stretchin' of that attribution, cheeky and arrogant as it may well be; indeed, as suggested below, i encounter it both quite amusing and a rather potent political statement. i also happen to find the evidently obligatory crediting of sample-based tracks in already bloated hip-hop liner notes to all the writers of the sampled tune as well as the producer, lyricist, et al. to be somewhat obnoxiously overprecise (surely the acknowledgement of the source material and original performer should suffice?) - and i see this as an analogous case. it would have been decent of dylan to make some mention of his sources, though most of the blatant ones are fairly well-known...on the other hand i had not been aware of the controversy surrounding "love and theft"'s lyrical borrowings, and it does seem like the bad-taste(-in-mouth) fallout from that ought to have inspired bd to be a bit more circumspect this time out. eh, anywhooo. don't really feel like arguing this out, it all feels pretty academic to me. (that is, it seems pretty obvious what's going on here, questions of whether it should have been handled differently are of relatively minor interest.)

on the car ride here to pa from rochester, my dad and i listened to nellie mckay, paris hilton, mu, ashlee simpson, neko case, and the knife. (oh yeah, and half the strokes album too, at the beginning.) if you can believe it, the paris and ashlee were his choices, sort of. as well as scandinavians (about which more sometime), i've noticed myself listening lots of music made by young women around my own age. which is a very appealing thing.

yeah, so joanna (who was born the same year as me, though i can't find her birthday anywhere) writes her songs and sings and plays the harp. well, nellie (exactly six months older than me) not only wrote but also arranged and produced all of her new album, plus it has 17 more songs than jo's. so there. (she did have to get cindy lauper to help out by playing trombone, ukelele, and dulcimer, however.) meanwhile, as we all know, paris (older than me by over a year and a half) only helped to write less than half of the songs on her album, and she didn't arrange or produce it at all, or even play any instruments, so she's clearly a slacker. on the other hand, she's rich.