Scoop Review: Bananarama - I Heard A Rumour
Saturday, April 18, 2009
For the Fijian media: If you're suffering from a sudden lack of material, perhaps you might fill the space with retro music reviews…
Friends! Fijians! Countrymen! Lend Bananarama your ears!
If you thought Rough Justice was a coup, Bananarama's latest will really get your attention.
Coming hard on the heels of A Cruel Summer, I Heard A Rumour is a song about someone who, unable to learn about something officially, hears about it anyway, but from a less reliable source.
So if you're a fan of people telling other people about stuff that's happened, it could be the beats for you!
Just between us, I'm not sure about this one. I admit, Bananarama's releases sound good – but I look in vain for signs of sincerity.
The people worldwide who've been following Bananarama's recent tracks may not recieve this one well. For example, don't expect any support for the sweet, sugary production. And Bananarama doesn't seem to have the constitution for anything else.
I'm aware Bananarama have built up a lot of goodwill with their previous efforts and I'm told their recent work still has some popularity. Yet if I'm any judge – obviously, I'm not – they've lost all the appeal they previously had.
Even for fans, you'd think Bananarama's latest would be one too many. The rest of the world will stay away in droves.
So let's not declare a Bananarama republic just yet.
Since their sudden rise to prominence, Bananarama have claimed to be planning great things. In the end they will be judged by their record, if and when they produce one. All I'm saying is, I've seen nothing from them to inspire confidence. All they've done so far is remaster everything, and make entirely the wrong noises.
To be frank, Bananarama have failed to deliver on their initial promise.
I could be wrong. The great thing is, the people will decide, when they vote with their wallets (and I notice it's already on sale for half price overseas). That's how we test if something is good or not, at least in the music business.
Let's be clear: I can't say anything bad about Bananarama's latest effort.
At the same time — I wouldn't buy it.
Fiji Daily Post:
Paint Dry
Man Goes Out
Clean Teeth
Breakfast As Usual
Man Gets On Bus
Labels: bananarama, Fiji, free speech, media, reviews, satire
Lyndon Hood - Pastiche artist, Lower Hutt
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
New Hood: Cautionary Tales For Pacific Leaders
The Tragic Story Of Commodore Frank,
Who Set Out To Save His Government
But Finished By Breaking His Country
Working on that I had a hazy memory of some guy's book of somewhat parodic cautionary verses. It turns out I was thinking of Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, a book which I clearly know, judging by the kind of picture I forced myself to make for it, with the original Basil Blackwood illustrations.
Combined with other evidence this week's effort suggest I favour the dactyl and the anapest over the iamb (despite the way I had to look up what dactyls and anapests are called). I think Hairy Maclary has something to answer for.
Mind you, I still expect to one day write a column in free verse, sans capitals, and attribute it to a huge determined bug on my keyboard. Come to think of it, I would likely not have come up with the 'sins of Commissioner' line in my latest effort if it weren't for Archy, vers libre poet reincarnated, for sins of omission and commission, into the body of a cockroach.
But as it happens I think the impulse to make this one a poem at all came from another book entirely.
There's an antiques place down a side alley in Masterton where, at the long weekend, I picked up (as well as an orginal black-and-red Chinese propoganda poster) a copy of Bad King Wenceslas, a small selection of newspaper light verse by Tremayne M Curnow from about 1920–45. I got to reading it at the weekend.
Careful readers will wonder if X.Y. (Tremayne) is any relation to Whim Wham (Allen), and rightly, the former being father to the latter. While Tremayne's work doesn't seem so satirical or so poetically inspired there are a number of elements they share – a occasional curmdgeonly streak, for instance, and the Tendency to capitalise any Noun that comes to Hand.
There is a certain fun to writing light verse, not least beacause rather than agonising about fitting fine phrases into the rhytmn you can just use words like 'corruptishness' to fill out the line. Or write 'Aust, NZ and EU' to read 'Ost, Enz and Ooo' - a trick I think I picked up from Tremayne. And in this case having twelve syllables in a line does give you a lot of maneuvering room.
All in all it's clear that if I meet any of my influences I should by them a drink.
The Tragic Story Of Commodore Frank,
Who Set Out To Save His Government
But Finished By Breaking His Country
Working on that I had a hazy memory of some guy's book of somewhat parodic cautionary verses. It turns out I was thinking of Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, a book which I clearly know, judging by the kind of picture I forced myself to make for it, with the original Basil Blackwood illustrations.
Combined with other evidence this week's effort suggest I favour the dactyl and the anapest over the iamb (despite the way I had to look up what dactyls and anapests are called). I think Hairy Maclary has something to answer for.
Mind you, I still expect to one day write a column in free verse, sans capitals, and attribute it to a huge determined bug on my keyboard. Come to think of it, I would likely not have come up with the 'sins of Commissioner' line in my latest effort if it weren't for Archy, vers libre poet reincarnated, for sins of omission and commission, into the body of a cockroach.
But as it happens I think the impulse to make this one a poem at all came from another book entirely.
There's an antiques place down a side alley in Masterton where, at the long weekend, I picked up (as well as an orginal black-and-red Chinese propoganda poster) a copy of Bad King Wenceslas, a small selection of newspaper light verse by Tremayne M Curnow from about 1920–45. I got to reading it at the weekend.
Careful readers will wonder if X.Y. (Tremayne) is any relation to Whim Wham (Allen), and rightly, the former being father to the latter. While Tremayne's work doesn't seem so satirical or so poetically inspired there are a number of elements they share – a occasional curmdgeonly streak, for instance, and the Tendency to capitalise any Noun that comes to Hand.
There is a certain fun to writing light verse, not least beacause rather than agonising about fitting fine phrases into the rhytmn you can just use words like 'corruptishness' to fill out the line. Or write 'Aust, NZ and EU' to read 'Ost, Enz and Ooo' - a trick I think I picked up from Tremayne. And in this case having twelve syllables in a line does give you a lot of maneuvering room.
All in all it's clear that if I meet any of my influences I should by them a drink.
Labels: coup, Fiji, Masterton, media, satire, verse
