Warm Leatherette

...I'm positive your version was much better, Douglas.

A what? A small child or a moist towelette?

"disc one, track two: the normal - "warm leatherette"

if kraftwerk represent the elegant refinement which would mid-wife detroit techno into existence, feeding the bellville three's need for europhilia and class, then the normal were on some punk rock shit. wheezing and gallumphing like a contact-mic'ed iron lung, "warm leatherette" is of a piece with other proto-synth pop of the era like the human league of "being boiled" and reproduction. it sounds impossibly crude and barbarous now; when lounge-act cover bands like add n to x deliberately enfeeble their tracks with dirt, grit, noise and potholes, they're paying tribute less to a particular aesthetic than the fault-ridden static of newborn technology. chimes in perfectly with our glitch ridden times, no?, when the makers of synths like the wasp provide in-built noise functions and low-res filters to appeal to a new generation of feedback jockeys.

the cribbed ballard of the lyrics (with it's final exhortation to "join the car crash set") gave liscense to many a dark night of the black eyelinered soul. it's impossible to imagine depeche mode without the normal's prior influence. but depeche mode (like the human league, like cab volt, like the normal if he had continued to produce music we assume) went glossy when the technology caught up (or became available to them financially), never looked back, and generally released their best work after the fact (notable exception: cab volt.)) it's problematic at best to slot these bands in with the current love for digital (or analogue) distortion, because fetishizing a crippled sound wasn't their intention. they just wanted to play with their boxes and tape machines and keyboards. the mistakes they produced, the noise they brought...was incidental at best, even when it was exhillarating. pounding a juno or abusing a moog now is about as exciting as playing in a barroom sabbath cover band. when the internal metronome of cubase or protools starts to run out of time, when bootleg or sharewear crashes or freezes up, when files corrupt...are these the normal of the 21st century? if so, could we please get farmers manual some leather pants? it might make them a bit more interesting."

i luuuuuuv this stuff.

I don't need no

TV screen

I just stick the aerial

into my skin

let the signal

flow through my veins

t v o d

t v o d

Also worth checking out in a similatr vein - "Ricky's Hand" by fad gadget - awesome times.

I get the image of Monsieur G. singing this line in a mid-seventies revival of said song on a TV production, picking up a spoon with what looks like some white ash, and then snorting it up. I would pay money.

(the chicks on speed version doesn't rate compared to either IMHO.)

http://www.urthespokesperson.com/?page_id=69

Equally sexy with the same Mise-en-scène.

holy shit this is so bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16GDuWBlkQM

this one kinda makes me laugh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_-qfvMDBs

Nice shiny suits.

loved this relevant song id thread

What Is This Kraut-ish Song?!

war... and the rat

Forgot Duran Duran even did that Kraftwerky set during their last tour.

I only really came to appreciate how monumental this song was within the last few years. As said above, way way ahead of its time, I still find it fairly astonishing the way it sets this incredibly creepy yet compelling mood.

80s commercial that sounds like it was inspired by this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw1LfI5kATk&feature=share

hope daniel miller got royalties

Great version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do-aFMySFos

The music playing at my office has been set to some 80s alternative internet radio station for the last week and--among the likes of the cure, the smiths, and depeche mode--this gets played once most days, rather incongruously.

Saw Grace Jones performing it live in SF in the 1980s, she placed spotlights on the stage to blast out into the audience, it was amazing

(With Frank Tovey miming the vocals)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfrHxcDu1tM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8TJCNdyajg

cool!

incredible! i've long hoped he'd make this video. i bought a microkorg 700s about 20 years ago but never got close to figuring out how to do this.