Search/Destroy: Momus

Destroy: there was a point in the mid/late-90s where he seemed to be dropping tech references into songs just that little bit behind the curve and it made me cringe - eg The Tamagotchi's Press Officer, and that one about "surfing on the Internet". But by that point I wasn't really following his work.

What I've heard of recent stuff I've not enjoyed much either. Most of his recent records - Stars Forever, Folktronic - I've read about first, and thought "That's a really interesting idea but I bet I'm not going to like it." and then haven't liked it. Maybe he's more like an artist than a pop star in that regard, which is probably part of the point. But I wouldn't destroy it because of the ideas, so ignore that.

I'm curious as to whether the great man himself will post to this thread. I reckon if I made records I would either think they were all brilliant (especially my most recent one) or else I'd think they were all complete rubbish (especially my most recent one).

Destroy: I don't know anything else! So lets leave the rest be for now.

Destroy: the lp circa '95 when he abruptly decided beck was his cup of tea & parts of ultraconformist but decidedly NOT The ladies understand.

I dimly recall through the mists of time a thread dealing with music not to play to potential paramour: in my experience momus is a prime example of this - i have yet to meet the girl who does not turn puce with indignation within seconds of those poison honeyed tones...

Call me extremely selfish (I know I am), but if somebody I liked came over and started whining about what kind of music I had on, that would be their problem.

I think Nick, as a polite British lad, might be using "please" as a euphemism.

What a Momian direction the thread has taken.

I mean to put on a track like 'Coming in a girl's mouth' in such a situation would seem overly perverse. Obviously, some women might go for that, but you've got to judge these things a bit carefully.

Anyway, search -- _Circus Maximus_ is a treat, but _Tender Pervert_ for the earlier albums' highlight, I think. For the later -- let's say the Le Grand Magistery period -- I'd go for _The Little Red Songbook_. "MC Escher" alone.

Destroy...hm. I don't listen to _Don't Stop the Night_ that often, but I don't per se hate it...

The next Momus album is called something like 'Super Madrigal Brothers'. Oh yes! It's Bergman's 'Seventh Seal' ported to the Gameboy, Pasolini's 'Canterbury Tales' rendered in Fortran. It's scratchy Baroque Blipcore. Like the oddbod cultures of those congruous islands Britain and Japan, it fuses, confusingly, medievalism and sci-fi. It's the ghost of Ray Bradbury speaking through the medium of John Shuttleworth.

It's the sound of the place I was transported to yesterday by a little van moving through Setagawa broadcasting the street cries of a sweet potato seller -- so sad, so alien, so past-future lovely! It's a platform game you play on the Sony Shakestation to avenge your father's untimely death and rebuild the lost palace of Nonesuch.

So, Destroy: All existing Momus records. Search: The future.

nice to see him prolong the threads - KERCHINGG !

If so, it sure makes a good argument for artists putting their own records out (as I do now), or using the internet. Imagine being on a label where the bossman called you an unflattering nickname and thought that, after a certain date, all your records sounded the same? In terms of press and promotion and any kind of push, you'd go straight to the back of the filing cabinet. As Momus did on Creation after 1988.

Cockney Red is now a very rich man. I haven't bought a Creation Records release since about 1990, nor have any of my tasteful friends. And I believe quite fervently that Momus records now are better than they've ever been. 'Folktronic' is a hell of a lot more coherent, lyrically and musically, than 'The Poison Boyfriend'. Listen without prejudice, Alan!

while I see the problem Momus alludes to of being shagged if you are on a record label that has lost interest in you, I can see the point of record labels, or some kind of editorial force outside the artist themselves. I think if you are producing your own work and publishing it yourself you can easily slip into having no quality control and thinking everything is brilliant.

I'm not actually basing this on Momus' work, with which I am unfamiliar, but rather on the work of popular comics writer Dave Sim, who has been publishing and writing "Cerebus" for many years. This used to be good but for the last ages has largely been up its own arse. I suspect this would have been less likely to happen if Sim had a publisher to say "Dave, this is crap. PostModernism is neither big nor clever. Go back and do it again."

anyone got any examples of artistic self-indulgence out of control from the world of music?

quick question...

if none of yer tasteful friend have bought creation records since 1990....are you saying not to buy any of yer work on that label for 1990- 1993. So, destroy those records?????

: - )

the poison boyfriend is a classic, though.

i struggle with the suggestion that momus keeps making the same crap album (an accusation that could more accurately be applied to creation records from 1993 onwards) when momus' style, musically at least, has consistently changed from record to record, all the way back to the happy family.

maybe the "tender pervert" / "poison boyfriend" era is regarded as the definitive momus style because that was the only point at which he made two albums in a row that sounded much the same.

search: tender pervert, voyager, ping pong, kahimi karie collaborations

destroy: don't stop the night, hippopotamomus, jacques collaborations

Destroy: Folktronic, Stars Forever, Don't Stop the Night

Since he became more interested in concept than in execution, he's really put me off quite severely. It's like he's trying to devolve to a point where any actual songwriting skills he's picked up throughout the years are discarded like they're just cheap tricks. Almost as if he's trying to induce some sort of savantism in himself - but unlearning something really requires more drastic measures than to just plain stop trying to use the knowledge.

I could live with him moving into non-standard forms, or experimenting tonally, harmonically, rhythmically, structurally and/or melodically, but instead he's just gone to the catchy repetitiveness of folk forms (which underlie most of what is in the mainstream anyway, so it seems a pointless exercise in some imagined eclecticism).

I can't see him doing the same lyrically - entirely giving up on syntax or no longer drawing on literary sources, say.

Still, the body of quality work he leaves behind as he moves into the realm of the musically inane is a large one, so I guess one shouldn't complain all too much.

Just kidding, HB--chacun a son gout or however it is...

I'm now sorry I passed on the Momus compi I saw in America. Ah well.

http://www.geocities.com/sscwon/momusliv.html

raw power.

When I was unable to quote any of the lyrics other than 'Nickie!' he remained unconvinced.

just to make sure, y'kno;-)

His presence on these boards has led to some of the most interesting threads we've had; that's not "in spite of his always being wrong," as much as those of us who almost always disagree with him would like to think it. He has a keen mind but he uses his powers for evil. So, search: him & his BRANE, destroy: many of his uses thereof, most especially his unwillingness to allow that sexism or racism even exist, or that there might be instances in which neither quality is "interesting"/"fascinating"/"deep."

S: "St. Sebastian," "The Rape of Lucretia," "Murderers, The Hope of Women," "The Gatecrasher," "Hotel Marquis De Sade," "Sex for the Disabled," Tender Pervert, "Shaftesbury Avenue," "Marquis of Sadness," "Ventriloquists and Dolls," "Cape and Stick Gang," "The Cheque's in the Post," "Vocation," Timelord, "The Sadeness of Things," Slender Sherbet, "Vogue Bambini," "Paolo," Ping Pong, "M.C. Escher," "The Symphonies Of Beethoven," "Robert Dye," "Miles Franklin," "Steven Zeeland," "Paolo Rumi"

D: Folktronic, everything on Don't Stop the Night except "Shaftesbury Avenue," "Virtual Reality," everything on Philosophy of Momus except "The Sadeness of Things" and "The Loneliness of Lift Music."

I still haven't heard Oskar Tennis Champion.

J0hn, I love ya and we obviously have quite a bit in common, but you seem to be the inner puritan I've been trying to kill for the last twenty years and I'm your dreaded inner Heliogabalus.

I personally don't listen to enough Momus to answer the S/D question, but the next album 'Summerisle' is -- and I know this for a scientific fact -- going to be the one everyone who hates what I do will love.

now we've got a momus 'starter pack' to buy for
ignorant friends.

are the original lps coming out with extra tracks
as planned ? hope so.

what sort of a month has june been ?
felt re-issues, creation compilations, dexys gigs announcements.
all we need now is the mccarthy reformation.

and after his comments on these threads, which have made threads interesting, so loads o brownie points there but somehow I'm not really sure I'd want to ever really hear his music.

so, as jess says: destroy.

I am sort of tempted by this so what's the place and start time suzy?

In the Cafe, 7.30 Weds 19th. Nearest tube's Aldgate East.

i was about to say ping pong is the best one, but i already said it upthread. i dont like folktronic so much. its a digipak too, i dont like digipaks

in 1992 she went to waterstone's book shop in liverpool looking
for a copy of the lyrics book (lusts of a moron) to buy
me for xmas. the very scouse girl at the counter said
she couldn't believe anyone had ever heard of him,
expressing disbelief that there was a whole book of
songwords for someone she didn't know !
we found this extremely funny. my mum also looked inside
the book to check the content was suitable for my 17 year old self,
and found it 'a bit rude'.