Why does Europe love CocoRosie so much?

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dont care about these herbs but randy newmann is the shit

― and what, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link

no doubt. picked up the remaster of "Good Old Boys" a couple weeks ago. It comes with a bonus cd i haven't listened to yet.

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Leon Redbone's Mr. Belvedere theme song > Randy Newman's Monk theme song

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

ugh, you can have him. don't even care about his genius songwriting. only rock critics listen to that shit.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link

he was the hold steady of his day.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Agreed. With our without "Rednecks", I can't imagine listening to Randy Newman voluntarily.

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:47 (seventeen years ago) link

plus, his film scores blow.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link

alfred newman, on the other hand, was the bomb.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:54 (seventeen years ago) link

>:-O

only rock critics listen to that shit.

scott seward on Friday, March 30, 2007 11:45 AM (11 minutes ago)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=RNWE%2CRNWE%3A2005-10%2CRNWE%3Aen&q=+site%3Awww.villagevoice.com+scott+seward

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

okay, i will admit though, the image of a monkey tree IS pretty adorable. i mean, who doesn't love monkeys?

Sail Away

In America you'll get food to eat
Won't have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
You'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day
It's great to be an American

Ain't no lions or tigers
Ain't no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Ev'rybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard, little wog
Sail away with me

Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

In America every man is free
To take care of his home and his family
You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree
You're all gonna be an American

Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:58 (seventeen years ago) link

My dad used to listen to Randy Newman all the time so there's a sentimental attachment

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Not that he needs defending on those terms! I think he's great

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

just something a little to curdled and cutesy to me. the "satire" isn't enough.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

yes i know i have written rock reviews deej. and i like the hold steady!

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Newman's version of "satire" doesn't strike me as making for good music -- like no more than you'd say "this Capitol Steps CD is the best record of the year, you gotta understand it's satire."

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:01 (seventeen years ago) link

i was just joking around

I even like the weird 80s-sounding albums he did, like the one with "I Love LA"

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:02 (seventeen years ago) link

i thought short people was pretty funny when i was a kid. it was mad magazine enough for me.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link

I like when Dr. Dre sampled it to diss jermaine dupri

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link

plus, i don't even get sail away's premise. a slave trader is trying to "lure" africans into his boat by promising them the good life? didn't they just beat them over the head and throw them in the boat?

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:04 (seventeen years ago) link

one of randy's cousins wrote the score to Pay It Forward and another cousin of his wrote the score for Norbit. it's like the axis of evil.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Umm Scott I think the irony he's going for is the whole "promise of America" versus it not really going that way for lots of people!

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Its really speaking from a contemporary mindset, I think, that idea that african-americans are somehow 'better off' because they were enslaved and brought here...just speaking as a character from that time to make sure that the satire is transparent

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

and not to on-the-nose

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

*too

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Lex, I've told you before, Soma , when editor of a magazine, took adverts from a dodgy label to pay the bills, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUNN O))) , who is a band he formed AFTER. And the whole thing has NOTHING to do with Greg Anderson.

Perhaps you meant Paris got a free ride for her racism(especially by you)

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

And rockarolla magazine actually interviewed him about it.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link

why didn't he just make it about immigrants then? the land of milk & honey versus the reality.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

"I think the irony he's going for is the whole "promise of America" versus it not really going that way for lots of people!"

the irony is that he's sweet talking africans into a boat and they don't know that they are actually going to be slaves! isn't that the irony? wait, maybe that isn't ironic. maybe that's just mean. i mean, it's not about starry-eyed immigrants who choose to come here and then become enslaved by the, uh, system or whatever.

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

It's not like SOMA ever came out and said he agreed with the opinions of the label whos adverts he accepted.
Then i'd be throwing out my records.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Paris has been caught saying racist things. Soma hasn't.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:16 (seventeen years ago) link

what label was it?

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Can we call him Stephen O'Malley? And yeah, dumb decision, regretted publically. Past mistakes not forgotten but not really indicative of evil intent, either. Nothing to do with SunnO)))...

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Soma is easier to write than Stephen O'Malley though! and he is known as Soma.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:20 (seventeen years ago) link

what label was it????

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:21 (seventeen years ago) link

i heard that some of sean john's clothing is actually pretty nice

deej on Wednesday, 28 March 2007 21:22 (Yesterday)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i do realize that made it sound like i think sean john is a person

deej on Wednesday, 28 March 2007 21:23 (Yesterday)

Oh I get it, deej, because Sean John Combs is black, you consider him less than a whole person? COCORACIST!

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Also SOMA is sick of being asked about it. He's had those questions for years. It's hardly a free ride. It's not his fault magazines you write for/Read are late to the party!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:24 (seventeen years ago) link

haha xp

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:26 (seventeen years ago) link

the irony is that he's sweet talking africans into a boat and they don't know that they are actually going to be slaves!

Yeah but Scott I think the part of it that resonates is that the "sweet talk" he's using is (in parts) the same kind of patriotic sweet talk Americans fervently believe / repeat about the country. (Though he maybe muddles by lapsing into other kinds of irony, like the watermelon and buckwheat cake part.) It's basically just a Pied Piper song, except it puts you in a weird position by having the Pied Piper sing for where you already are!

― nabisco, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, that's the problem. Who is this song directed to, really? What's being mocked? Again, it just reads as an attempt to say some unpleasant stuff, justified by the invulnarable armor of "satire".

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

OK Scott I gotta clear this up for you. The narrator of "Sail Away" is describing his activities as he would like to have them remembered. In truth, he (along with crews of armed sailors) is brutalizing whole villages and forcing them into a cargo hold where many of them will die on the long journey over. Newman is, as nabisco points out, observing that many of the lies about America which the slave trader likes to imagine are true are also beliefs held by Americans now. And, probably, forever.

it's sorta one of the most horribly sadistic songs ever, and by setting it in one of his most lushly realized melodies, Newman's commenting on the almost narcotic appeal of America-as-Myth; on how deep some of the lies underlying the country's history run, and how they can resonate even with people who know they're bullshit.

Coco Rosie aren't really capable of anything like "Sail Away" but I love their new album

― Hans Rott, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

haha pye poudre you are a weirdo

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link

(the entire album addresses other versions of this theme - "the past was wonderful and innoncent" (Dayton Ohio 1903, Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear), "father knows best" (Letter to My Son), "no-one understands the suffering of the impossibly rich and successful" (Lonely at the Top), etc etc)

― Hans Rott, Friday, 30 March 2007 17:53 (seventeen years ago) link

"Invulnerable". Yeah.

P.S. I'm a weirdo.

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

I think its pretty clear who it is directed to

― deej, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
CocoRosie - Japan
Life is like a rollercoaster
It does flips and throws you over
Board your ship that’s going nowhere
If you stop, you’ll end up somewhere

Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody, just hold hands

Everybody wants to go to California
To live their life on a sunny day
Dreaming of someone else’s wife and kids (kids and wife)
But they'll be bringing you the same old shit (strife)

Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody, just hold hands.

Everybody wants to go to Jamaica
Queens in drag will surely fake you
Take you home, and then they'll rape you
But you like it, so say 'thank you'

Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody, just hold hands.

Now, everybody wants to go to Iraq
But once they go, they don’t come back
Bringing peanut butter jelly and other snacks
We might have our freedom, but we're still on crack.

Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody wants to go to Japan
Everybody just hold hands

― max, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link

you wanna parse that verse for us max

― Hans Rott, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:09 (seventeen years ago) link

okay, i'll take that from hans. makes more sense that way. i'd never really thought about the song that hard. i really do have a problem with his voice. maybe if i heard other people sing his stuff i would like it more. ray charles did sail away didn't he? and hey i love mama told me not to come when three dog night does it! or the wolfgang press! (though nothing saves you can leave your hat on for me. certainly not joe cocker)

― scott seward, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

jamaica is full of sexually predatory drag queens, but dont worry 'cause most people like getting raped

― max, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Rott OTM. Helped me understand this song. I never bought it as a mockery of the promises made by slavers, 'cuz I'm not aware that slaves were seduced in that manner (perhaps I'm wrong). But it makes lots of sense as a satire on the allure of American luxury to immigrants. Still, even in that context, the monkeys and watermelons imagery seems unnecessary, deliberately ugly. Maybe it's the worm in the apple? The reveal that the promise is predicated on an acceptance that will be denied? Dunno. But I admit I may have been too quick to condemn...

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Or, "what Scott said."

― Pye Poudre, Friday, 30 March 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

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